08

tunes

pt.1.what actually came out this year:
•ladyhawk’s “shots” take the cake, hands down.
i know, i’m biased as fuck cause i’m a certified loser fan of the band. but hot damn, what a fantastic album. a complete step up from their self-titled.
•honourable mentions: of montreal’s “skeletal lamping”, chad vangaleen’s “soft airplane”, sigur ros’ “med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust”, and black mountain’s “in the future”.
best singles: “no ones gonna love you” by band of horses, and “for emma” by bon iver.
•worst: kings of leon’s “sex on fire”. more like “selling out is on fire”. i didn’t even bother listening to the rest of the songs on their new album. i just went back to listening to “renemo” and “taper jean girl”, back when they were pretty decent.

pt.2.stuff i listened to a lot anyways:
•otis’ redding enitre discography. i’ve fallen in love with the man all over again. he is my absolute favourite singer of all time. i’ve listened to him damn near every day this year, and have no intentions of stopping.

•honourable mentions: radiohead’s discography, the beatles’ “with the beatles”, every time i die’s “gutter phenomenon”, aretha franklin’s discography, and joy division’s discography.

flicks

pt.1.what actually came out this year:
•gus van sant’s “milk”.
if you haven’t watched this yet, i suggest you do so right fucking now. what an incredible movie. if sean penn/gus van sant don’t win the oscar for this incredibly achievement, i’ll be floored. everyone did a superb job. most of the movie runs a bit like “good, will hunting”, until the end when it has a very “elephant” feel to it. i loved it.
•honourable mentions: kevin smith’s “zack and miri make a porno”, danny boyle’s “slumdog millionaire”, and nanette burstein’s “american teen”.
•worst: tropic thunder. the only mildly entertaining thing about this was tom cruise’s knuckles… and the humour of that only lasted as long as my buzz.

pt.2.stuff i watched a lot anyways:
•this is a tie. “superbad” would’ve won, hands down… if leah hadn’t borrowed it and returned me a half empty case. so, i had to come up with a new fall-back-flick which wound up being “sideways”. both flicks are entirely hilarious, in some surprisingly similar ways. which says a lot about what kind of movies i like.

•honourable mentions: john hughes’ “sixteen candles”, cameron crowe’s “almost famous”, and even though it’s not a movie… i watched a shit ton of degrassi this year. good god.

shows
•if i were lame, i’d lump sasquatch all together and claim that as the best show. but, it was moreso a bunch of little shows. so radiohead wins, by a fucking landslide. quite possibly the best show i’ve ever seen. i owe leah my left boob for finding the tickets for us. being out side, the songs they played, the rain, the lights… i could not have thought of a better time.
•honourable mentions: tv on the radio, presidents of the usa, gwar, bob dylan, iron and wine, death cab for cutie, m.i.a., the city streets, castle grey skull
•worst: i have no idea what the name of the band was. but crash the car was supposed to play, but did not. it was little mountain studios… and everyone was just trying to outweird eachother. what a waste.

books

•only two of the books i’ve read this year actually came out this year. so fuck pt.1. the best book i read this year has definitely been charles bukowski’s “post office”. why i never got into bukowski earlier life is a mystery to me. what a synical sonofabitch. i love it! i had to stop reading the book on the bus from laughing so much.
honourable mentions: kevin smith’s “my boring ass life”, motley crue’s “the dirt”, and tucker max’s “i hope they serve beer in hell”.

•worst: chuck palahniuk’s “snuff”. boring, jumpy. the only interesting thing was the ridiculous plot line.