A tipster sent us this earlier:

Steve is a 40 year old man who lives in Springfield, Georgia with his mother. He spends his time making video blogs, and writing, directing, and starring in his home-made sci-fi drama “The Portal”… In my house he has become somewhat of an overnight celebrity / cult hero. You have to see it to believe it. It’s almost a holy experience.

So we checked out Steve’s World ourselves and agree. It rules. See The Portal for yourself here. And when you’re done, don’t miss Steve’s video blog.(Thanks Trisha)

Too bad evangelicals can’t organize around something worthwhile:

[From Chicago Sun Times]
There are still some religious leaders who are asking fellow Christians to boycott the film based on Dan Brown’s mega-selling novel of the same name. One such group is calling for an “other-cott,” asking “every Christian who loves Jesus” to buy tickets to any other movie besides “The Da Vinci Code” during its opening weekend, which begins this Friday.
But a much larger, more organized and better-marketed movement among major evangelical leaders has been under way for months, urging the faithful to embrace the film as an opportunity to spread the gospel, rather than a threat to its sanctity.
In a survey earlier this year, Outreach Inc., a Christian marketing firm in Southern California hired by Mel Gibson’s production company to market “The Passion of the Christ” to evangelicals, reported that 67 percent of churches planned to do something in response to the “Da Vinci” film.

Our favorite “Christian” teaching tool is a video called The Conspiracy Game. The video ridicules a “liberal” Episcopal bishop “who reduces the bible to tolerance,” a feminist who “hates men,” and of course a beret-wearing French intellectual. You can watch it here. (requires reg)

…and now the albino’s are pissed off about The Da Vinci Code:

[From The Associated Press] The notion of Christ as a family man is not the only raw nerve “The Da Vinci Code” has touched. Albinos are bothered that one of their own has yet again been depicted as a villain.
Dan Brown’s best seller begins its worldwide debut Wednesday with Tom Hanks as the cryptologist pursuing a 2,000-year-old mystery that could reveal Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and that the Vatican covered it up.
Among his co-stars is Paul Bettany, the British actor playing monk- assassin Silas, an albino with red eyes who carries out a series of bloody murders to secure the secret of the Holy Grail, a trove of lost Christian documents that could prove Jesus had wed.
Critics cite a long list of albinos cast as heavies by Hollywood: The dreadlocked twins in “The Matrix Reloaded,” a powder-haired hit man in the Chevy Chase-Goldie Hawn crime romp “Foul Play,” the pasty zombies in “The Omega Man,” a sadistic killer in “Cold Mountain,” even the wicked executioner in the fairy-tale comedy “The Princess Bride.”
Michael McGowan, an albino who heads the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation, said “The Da Vinci Code” will be the 68th movie since 1960 to feature an evil albino.
“Silas is just the latest in a long string,” McGowan said. “The problem is there has been no balance. There are no realistic, sympathetic or heroic characters with albinism that you can find in movies or popular culture.”

(more…)

Check out Wilco at Union College’s Memorial Chapel, in Schenectady, NY, April 27, 2002 here.

Music Reviews by John Rickman

Wizardzz – “Hidden City of Taurmond”
(Load)
Wizardzz is the side project of Lightning Bolt bassist Brian Gibson and Bug Sized Mind machinist Rich Porter. Using only drums and synthesizers, the two summon forth a sensational racket that is at once aesthetically ecstatic and magically delicious.
Gibson, oddly enough, sounds like his Bolt band mate and Mindflayer drummer Brian Chippendale on the skins: big, beefy, and bombastic. His fiery, rhythmic flurry gives Wizardzz’ fairy funk an edgy groove, but it plays second fiddle to Porter’s sparkling, improvised synth twiddle and melodious mantras.
The duo crafts a feel-good, instrumental electro-rock sound akin to Cluster on steroids. Indeed, Wizardzz succeed in suggesting a mystical force is at work within their music.
Somehow the instrumentation makes sense together. However, on one or two occasions, Gibson drops out of the mix all together to allow Porter the space to throw down a sequenced electronic hoe-down. These compositions are cute and cartoonish and catchy as hell.
As it turns out, Brian Gibson is also the man behind Barkley’s Barnyard Critters, an irregular animated cartoon series that also features Porter’s strange synthesizer sounds…
Barkley’s Barnyard Critters – “Mystery Tail” DVD
(Load)
“Mystery Tail” is the latest installment of the Barkley’s Barnyard Critters saga, which tells the story of rocker dog Barkley and his band of freakish animal friends. In Gibson’s animated animal world, unrealized dreams of rock stardom compel a band of crazy creatures to do the wackiest things.
The cartoon epic features hand-drawn and 3-D animation as well as live action characters, the combination of which is reminiscent of Hanna-Barbera’s Banana Splits Hour. Hand-drawn or otherwise, the characters’ voices can be downright annoying and the plot mildly confounding, but that’s part of the charm of Barkley’s barnyard world.
The DVD also features a live Wizardzz performance that’s worth the price of admission alone. And all this time I thought Brian Chippendale was the more prolific and multi-talented Lightning Bolt thrower!

Dub Syndicate – “The Rasta Far I” (Collision)
www.dub-music.de/
Reggae artist Style Scott, who first enjoyed success as the drummer for Price Far I and the Arabs and later for Creation Rebel, came to prominence in the 1980s playing for the reggae collective Dub Syndicate: one of the many musical projects spearheaded by British On-U Sound label boss and producer Adrian Sherwood.
Scott’s nimble rhythms and electronic drum style helped define the label’s futuristic Rasta sound back in the day, and today he continues to record under the Dub Syndicate moniker for his own label, Lion & Roots, which he founded in 1998.
Scott’s music is still exciting and forward thinking. His new double CD, “The Rasta Far I” (released on the German Collision label), pulls the best tracks from the Lion & Roots back catalog and presents them in both mega-mix and version fashion.
The double disc set features vocals from some of reggae music’s biggest superstars, such as Big Youth, Junior Reid, and Gregory Isaacs. The rhythm tracks were recorded at the legendary Tuff Gong studio and were mixed by both Sherwood and Scientist. Nuff said.
– John Rickman

And a five year prison stint couldn’t happen to a nicer person. From Bradblog:

Republican extremist/hate-monger, Ann Coulter may be on the verge of being tossed from the Voter Rolls in Palm Beach County, Florida.
The BRAD BLOG has also obtained exclusive official documents from the chain of events which has helped bring the GOP darling to a new place in her career: She has fallen completely silent.
Coulter, who appears to have committed a third-degree felony by knowingly giving an incorrect address on her voter registration form in Palm Beach, Florida, and then knowingly voting at the incorrect polling place last March, could face up to $5,000 in fines and five years in prison if convicted.
In April, The BRAD BLOG posted Coulter’s fraudulent Voter Registration form in full. Today, we have more official and exclusive documents from the incident.
In light of Coulter’s apparent voter fraud felony, the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections, Dr. Arthur Anderson, had sent her a letter last March (posted in full below), giving her 30 days to explain her actions, before possibly referring the matter to the state attorney for prosecution. So far, Coulter has failed to reply at all. Officials now say she may be removed from the voter rolls.
According to Michelle Pilecki at Huffington Post, Coulter has since been attacking those who question her about the incident on her speaking tour. Comment at that linked story, posted by a student who attended one of Coulter’s events reported:
Ann Coulter spoke on my campus tonight, and I asked her “I was just wondering if you would like to respond to allegations that you knowingly voted in the wrong precinct in Palm Beach.”
She responded that “No, I don’t live in Palm Beach. Maybe you shouldn’t read retarded news!”
But “retarded news” site, The BRAD BLOG linked to several documents which indicate, in no uncertain terms, that Coulter purchased a $1.8 million dollar crib in Palm Beach in March of 2005. If that is not her residence, Coulter would still be guilty of an apparent voter fraud felony, since she did register to vote in Palm Beach…even if at the wrong address.
As well, Coulter has received a $25,000 homestead tax exemption, which, according to Palm Beach law, would only be available to use as a tax deduction on the property if she “lives there permanently”.

From the American Prospect

Each of the Big Three networks, plus Fox’s broadcast network, have rejected a paid advertisement from the United Church of Christ that bears the tagline, “God doesn’t reject people. Neither do we.” Viacom’s gay-targeted cable channel, LOGO, has also rejected the ad, which conveys a message of inclusiveness, even depicting a gay couple.
The UCC’s “ejector-seat” ad speaks to the rejection of various categories of people by unnamed Christian churches — a touchy subject for a nation that deems itself to be among the most God-fearing on Earth. It shows people who represent frequent targets of discrimination being ejected — into the air — from a church pew via a mechanism involving springboards hidden in the pews, controlled by an unseen party represented by an apparently white, male hand pressing a button.
First to be ejected is an African-American woman trying to quiet her crying baby. Next are two men who appear to be a gay couple, a man who looks to be of Middle Eastern descent and an elderly woman whose walker is tossed up with her. The spot ends with the contrasting message that the UCC church, a descendent of the early Puritan churches, rejects no one…
[Meanwhile] ABC [has] accepted paid advertisements from the religious right organization, Focus on the Family, whose leader, James Dobson, has vilified gay people.

Sonic Youth’s new CD, Rather Ripped is scheduled for release on June 13th. For those of you who can’t wait that long, RBally, has a generous sample here. It’s a live show recorded on French radio featuring new material from the record. Download the mp3′s here.

Terry Zwigoff’s Art School Confidential
by Dave Thomas
The summer of 2006 is shaping up to look like the summer of 2004, where big, obnoxious sequels actually happened to be good films (Spider-Man 2, Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Bourne Supremacy). And so it is with unabashed glee that I look forward to the third installments that open and close the month, even though each are on their third director.
May 5
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Tom Cruise vs. Philip Seymour Hoffman and his own tattered reputation.
WILL IT SUCK?
Of all the directors slated to helm this sequel (David Fincher, Joe Carnahan), J.J. Abrams is probably my favorite. Why? Two words. Alias and Lost. Who better to combine character and plot into a seamless whole (except maybe Joss Whedon, but that would just be weird)? It doesn’t hurt that Phillip Seymour Hoffman is joined here by Billy Crudup, Michelle Monaghan, and Laurence Fishburne. The only sad part is that Hoffman is probably going to lose.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
This will own the first half of May. $205mil.
————————————–
HOOT
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Someone’s managed to combine the rallying cries “Save the spotted owl!” with “Will somebody please think of the children!?”
WILL IT SUCK?
On many levels. You’ve got the writer/director with a lot of Fraiser and Becker under his directing belt, but only The Wil Shriner Show for a writing credit, and he is Wil Shriner. The screenplay is based on a novel from the guy who wrote the book for Striptease, which I just find amusing. Luke Wilson and and Tim Blake Nelson are on board for what, from the trailer, looks like groan-inducing comic relief as inept cops trying to stop the kids from stopping the construction that’s going to kill the owls. Yeah, it’s that kind of movie. And Jimmy Buffett did the music and plays a science teacher in the film. Neil Flynn from Scrubs shows up, but that’s just not enough.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
M:I3 is PG:13. As a result, you have a much greater draw on the kid audience than you would otherwise. Not to mention Stick It from the week before and Lindsay Lohan drawing tweeners in Just My Luck the following week. $17mil.

(more…)

… because we’d forgotten about 9-11, Madrid, the London bombings, etc., etc.:

[From ABC] U.S. mass transit systems should remain alert against possible terror attacks, the Homeland Security Department said in a new warning…
there is no specific or credible intelligence to indicate U.S. transit systems are being targeted, and he described the notice, sent Tuesday, as a routine reminder

And don’t forget to send flowers on Mother’s Day. It’s a week from this coming Sunday. Another routine reminder, brought to you by FREEwilliamsburg.com.