Desert Pearl Union

Les Fat Jones have joined a collective. I initially thought that meant we were gonna sit around and smoke pot and have sex with naked hippies, but it turns out this is much better. More rock, less patchouli. 

We have joined forces with Desert Pearl Union, a collection of musicians and groups that have banded together for promotional purposes. The union acts as as an agent to secure shows, and as a publicist, sending out promo material to clubs and media outlets. 

We're psyched as we were starting to stagnate in our basement rehearsal space despite our best efforts. Granted, our best efforts were somewhat paltry because we are, after all, musicians. Getting the five of us to show up in the same place at the same time can take Operation Overlord levels of logistics. 

The decision has already reanimated the band. We have shows lining up over the fall, both in and out of town. More recording is scheduled. Hopefully, we will finish our aborted attempt at shooting a video. (It turns out shooting a video is hard. Like you need to know how the camera works and stuff. Sounds basic, I know, but so far we have had two separate shoots and have produced a fraction of the footage we intended to.) 

In short, you can expect a flurry of activity over the next couple of months. Check out the website. Like the Facebook page to keep abreast of what we, and a bunch of other artists from Barcelona, Spain and the UK are doing.

See you soon onstage!

Red Dawn. Or is it?

Hollywood is always being accused of being secretly, or not so secretly un-American, or even anti-American by people who regard such pinko concepts as independent women or pre-marital sex as proof of the end of days. Sure, cultural critics write thought pieces about how movies reenforce societal beliefs and set the paradigms of normalcy, but those assholes went to university, something Jesus never did, so you shouldn't trust them anyway. What are you even doing reading something other than the bible or a Waffle House menu? (Why are you even reading the Waffle House menu? It's smothered, covered, chunked, diced, peppered, capped and topped. C'mon!)
Nevertheless, with the trailer for the Red Dawn remake (best remake ever until 2019's re-imagining of Battleship), I think they may be on to something.

I know, I know. The only images that don't actually have American flags have USA tattoos or football. But consider this: this movie is telling us that all it takes is a dedicated group of (very good looking) young people with some machine guns and grenade launchers to defeat a militarily superior invading power. Ahem... cough... Afghanistan? Sure, it seems pro-American, but I wouldn't be surprised if this movie was written, produced and directed by the Taliban. The call is coming from inside the house! Burn Hollywood, burn!

Robbed!

I saw Los Campesinos in concert last night. I've been a fan since Hold On Now, Youngster... and had never seen them despite multiple appearances in Barcelona. I like Gareth Campesino's songwriting, and left the show ready to pontificate discuss the performance. Then, at 1:30 in the morning, I got a call from my roommate.
"We've been robbed!"
I returned home to find this:

 

I'm not the neatest person in the world, but this is excessive even for me. This was a gift left by some visitors earlier in the evening, who also generously gifted us relief from owning computers. They made off with three of them, one belonging to each roommate. (Thanks Elise for the loan!) Considering the two Macs that got taken along with my shitty little laptop, I got off easiest. 

Two cops who looked like teenage girls were on the scene last night, filling out the first report. They concluded that the door had indeed been forced and advised us to go to the station to make a formal deposition. As it was after 2am by this point, we waited until this morning.

Bright and early we headed to the station and after a short wait, were escorted into a back room by a remarkably tall, square-jawed officer. He helpfully recorded our story and printed off a report for us to take to the insurance company.

"What usually happens in cases like these?" my roommate asked.

While maintaining an air of professional positivity, the cop explained to us that while there were different avenues of investigation, it was unlikely that anything would turn up soon, if at all.

"But you never know," he offered. "Maybe a neighbour saw something, like a Moroccan guy with a tattoo."

 Well, here's hoping that our neighbours' xenophobia matches that of the police force, and all dangerous looking foreigners (except this guy) have been duly noted and recorded. Our stuff should be back in no time!

 

Questions about Prometheus

I'd been warned, but it was a cloudy day, I was hungover and curious, so I forked over the dough to finally see Prometheus. Everybody's already seen it, right? There were only 2 other people in the cinema, so now that's everybody, right? Good, cuz I have a couple of questions.
Where was the alien in the opening scene? Which planet is that supposed to be? The one that turns up later? How come? Why did he kill himself so horribly? Even if he was going to kill himself, why drink DNA mutating kool-aid and disintegrate off a waterfall?
Why show Dr Lisbeth Salander finding her space invitation in a cave when you're going to explain it again in the blatant exposition segment of the movie a quarter of an hour later, considering I'll never get those five minutes of my life back? Why is her bf such a douche?
Why didn't Ridley Scott start the movie with Michael Fassbender alone on the ship, easily the coolest (the only cool?) part of the whole thing? (Until he starts listening to Dr Salander's dreams, thus commencing the blatant exposition part of the movie, which leads to my next question: has anybody anywhere ever actually had a dream about a real conversation they had with their father as a child? Also, what happened to Dr Salander that she had a British accent as a dream baby, but a TBD accent as a real grown-up scientist? Is that a side effect of second hand Ebola?)
Why cast Guy Pearce as a hundred year old man? You could at least cast a 70 year old as a hundred year old man - was Harrison Ford busy? If you are spending a bazillion dollars on your space movie, can't you dedicate a little more of your budget to better old man make-up? Did the waterfall disintegration eat up all your extra old man make up money?
Are we sure these people are scientists? My mother worked for the Geological Survey of Canada and nobody there had a mohawk or face tattoos. If they are scientists, shouldn't they be interested in their field of study during the expedition and not only when it's a convenient plot device? Does anyone really pussy out in the middle of a space mission and get lost in a cave?
What's up with Fassbender? How did he know stuff that humanity was encountering for the first time ever? I know he read a lot on the flight over, but did he read tarot cards? How did he know?
Even in the middle of a storm, how does a (granted seemingly omniscient) robot sneak an oozing tube of black slime past quarantine?
If you are stuck in the tunnels of an alien world because of a storm, do you stick your face next to the pulsating snake emerging from the black slime that wasn't there before but is probably nothing don't worry about it? Again, are we sure these people are scientists?
Why does Fassbender want to poison Dr Douche? (Perhaps the least pressing question. I wanted to poison Dr Douche.) Does he know it will create an alien if Dr Douche gets busy with Dr Salander before he turns into a gross goo monster himself? Again, how does he know?
If you had worms in your eyeballs, wouldn't you mention it to your scientist girlfriend? (Something like Honey, I'm not feeling so hot and there are WORMS IN MY EYEBALLS! could work.) If you do decide to end it all cuz being a gross goo monster is maybe worse than being Dr Douche, wouldn't you prefer to take your helmet off in the unbreathable atmosphere than to be burned alive by a flame thrower?
A space zombie? Really?
A DIY space abortion? Really? (Is that even legal? Do Republicans legislate in space?)
Why make Guy Pearce be Charlize Theron's father? (On a more fundamental level, why string together a bunch of irrelevant cliches and pointless characters that make your movie both eye-rollingly random and eye-rollingly predictable?) (Side question: Can you damage your eyes by rolling them too much? Should I contact a lawyer? A doctor? A space abortion machine?)
If you decide to destroy a race you've created but then were in stasis for thousands of years, wouldn't you check first that the mission is still a go? Maybe things have changed a little? Like maybe your creations have invented awesome 3D space movies that are totally worth preserving? How long would it take just to make a quick call to your boss to find out? Three minutes? You've been asleep for millenniums - what's the rush?
Why run along the exact same axis as the crashing giant circular spaceship? In space no-one can hear you basic physics?
Why drag your already excessive movie out to a third and fourth anti-climax? Why set up a sequel for this steaming pile? Why end with a reminder that you once made a simpler, far superior movie when you just made one that is even worse than Alien Resurrection? Why does anyone consider Ridley Scott a good director anymore? Have they not IMDBed him recently? Were there not responsible adults present at some point in the process of putting this mess together? Did it not occur to any of them that maybe they should get a better script or just make a completely different movie? (Like for example about a president who fights the undead or a hunted super spy who it turns out was there all along while evil government agents were so busy hunting the other super spy and never mentioned this possible superer spy?)
In summary: WTF Prometheus?