R.I.P. Dave Brockie, a.k.a. Oderus Urungus (Of Gwar)

I wasn't the biggest fan of Gwar (I prefered their half-cousin band Green Jellÿ as a kid), but I did love the spectacle that accompanied them whether they were playing a show, doing interviews, or appearing on Jerry Springer...

And, to be honest, as far as heavy metal slapstick goes, Scumdogs Of The Universe (1990) and This Toilet Earth (1994) are pretty much classics, and are still listenable today - provided you know what you're getting into (which is the story of alien characters here to kill off the human race and spread sex and violence).

Their long-time lead vocalist (and one-time bassist and/or guitarist) Dave Brockie, a.k.a. Oderus Urungus was found dead in his apartment yesterday. Though he wasn't the first member to die while an active member (guitarist Cory Smoot, who had portrayed the now-retired character Flattus Maximus since 2002, was found dead by his fellow band members in the band's tour bus in 2011). But Brockie was the lone original member left, the voice of the band - both in song and in the public eye.

And Now For Something Completely Safe (For Children)

A lot drove the internets crazy this weekend, and it didn't let up when the week started.

After numerous online and regular-life talking about it, I'm too drenched to even attempt to write about the Woody Allen rape thing (did he do it? did he not?), except to say this: we don't know, and there are no facts proving nor disproving. It's more moral to believe the victim than the accused, which is why we have courtrooms and legal systems, but people's opinions on this matter are just a reflection of their own prejudices. I'm trying not to have any. So I'm taking a rain check on this one.

I will, however, go ''light'' and talk about the Super Bowl halftime show, starring Bruno Mars and featuring the Red Hot Chili Peppers, doing the opposite of lip-synching - instrument-synching:

Flea explained today that having live bands play is too much of an intangible for the NFL (unlike, say, a quarterback sack that would concuss a player and have him removed from the game, obliterating his team's chances of winning, or a half-hour power outage), so they use play-back for the instruments and only go live with the vocals - and the Chili Peppers deliberately chose not to pretend to plug in out of respect for their fans.

But playing with - and second fiddle to - Bruno Mars was ok with their fans?

The NFL should wise up and learn from this, and have bands go live. Or just go all-out theater and run scenes from Macbeth or re-enact Al Panico's speech from Any Given Sunday. Or just show more fucking ads, it's what most people are tuning in to see anyway.

Why Wrestling Sucks... Or Rules, Depending On Your Point Of View

Oh boy.

Last Sunday, I went out with a few friends to check out the NHL All Star Game in a pub, and as is customary for us, the heavy drinking led us to remain there longer than expected, which means we got to see the start of the WWE's Royal Rumble. What a piece of shit display of terrible theatre that was!

I think we left less than an hour into it and got our drink on at my corner dive bar instead. Except we ended up talking about how much it sucked for maybe two more hours before talking about anything else - longer than we'd watched! It was just that ridiculous!

Well, today, my friend Martin Itfor sent me this, and as far as ridicule goes, it fucking wins.