All I can say is HOLY SHIT.

The game that would never end, finally did. In yet another epic battle between the Chicago Bulls and the defending champion Boston Celtics, the game goes down to the wire, ending 128 – 127 in triple overtime. This was a must win for the Bulls to stay in the series, and now they send it back to the do-or-die game 7 in Boston this Saturday. The time of the game is still to be determined at the time of this article.

Ray Allen had a playoff career high with 51 points. Even though 29 of them came in the first half, he still hit some clutch shots when it mattered, especially in the second over time where he put up the Celtics last 5 points including the 3-pointer to tie it with 7.6 seconds left. Glen Davis also played a big game for the Celtics with 23 points, but more importantly, he had 6 offensive rebounds. This was the first game that the Bulls decided to take the ball out of Paul Pierce’s hands when it mattered, by sending the second defender to crowd him and force him to get it to a teammate. That being said, he did have an opportunity to close out the game with 4.9 seconds left, but missed an uncontested jump shot that he makes with his eyes closed if it’s in the Boston Garden.

What can I say about the Bulls? This team is playing with some ridiculous heart, and uncanny confidence. Brad Miller, who missed the crucial free throws in the last game to tie it with time expiring, came up HUGE when the Bulls seemed out of sync at the end of the fourth. Not only did he knock down a gigantic 3 at the end of regulation, but he also hit two free throws with 16.9 seconds left in the second over time, and another two with 28.3 seconds left in the final over time. John Salmons lead the way for the Bulls with 35 points, with many of them coming in the paint against Paul Pierce. When Salmons figured out Pierce had to defend him gingerly (he had 5 fouls), he just kept taking him off the dribble.

It’s really tough to say what was the play of the game here. We have Salmons tying it up with 23.5 seconds left in regulation, and we also had Allen’s huge 3-pointer to send it to triple over time. There were then two significant plays that sealed the deal for the Bulls: a Joakim Noah steal off of Paul Pierce, which lead to a dunk and a free throw, and then a Derrick Rose block off of Rajon Rondo to close out the game.

Whatever it might be that gave this victory to the Bulls, both teams played their hearts out and have this entire series. Game 7 will be memorable in this epic playoff battle.

It’s what you’ve all been waiting for my friends, yes; it’s the first installment of my Coachella 2009 series. I had to learn a lot of things the hard way on this journey, and part of this series is for you understand what I fucked up on so it doesn’t happen to you when you go. So let’s get into the nitty. Coachella 2009, part one.

Here I am Thursday (April 16^th), driving past Los Angeles on the I-10 doing ninety on my way to Coachella. It’s about 11:45, and I feel like an asshole on the road, because as fast as I’m going, there are still plenty of cars passing me. Even a tow truck had to swerve around me because my dinky engine couldn’t handle it.

Why am I trying to hurry so much? Because on the website, it says that the campground check in ends at midnight on Friday. Little did I know that the website was referring to Friday night, not Thursday night. And apparently everyone else thought the same thing, because we were all rushing to disappointment. I made it to the campsite at midnight anyhow, with a stupid grin on my face when I realized my error of midnights.

When you arrive, you better be carrying all your shit at once, because the line to get checked in took me over an hour to make it through. But for the record, it watched how half-assed the check at the gate was, because my tent neighbors got in with a plethora of cold alcoholic goodies. Some people got really creative (rolling up their bottles in their sleeping bags and whatnot).

I made my way to my campsite, without the help of the idiotic staff holding their flashlights attempting to guide the flock of music fiends. This is where I met the aforementioned neighbors, Renee from Phoenix, and Dan from Australia. We set our camp up in the 16-by-16 space provided, complete with a shade tent, which proved to be the best idea I never had all weekend.

I must say that the energy of the campers arriving that night was amazing. Every ten minutes, you would hear a cheer starting on one side of the vast campgrounds, with a wave effect ending at the other end of the campground. I knew that the weekend was going to kick my ass, but dropping my inhibitions, I went to bed around 4am, with a new mindset.

I awoke about five hours later, to some other neighbors playing their guitars (that they must have snuck in, as musical instruments are forbidden on the campgrounds. Stupid.), and talking about the upcoming weekend.  Below is a snippet of the guys playing Big Papa by Biggie Smalls.

Tent City, as it was deemed by various denizens, was a harsh place, filled with expensive food tents, overfilled porta-potties, and not enough shower trailers. This brings me to Coachella Lesson #1: GET YOUR ASS UP EARLY IF YOU WANT TO TAKE A SHOWER! I can’t stress this enough to you all. Truth be told, the showers on the campground are actually pretty clean and decent, but you’ll be pissed waking up at 11am to see an hour long line for your five minute shower.

Hot spot number one on the campground was the internet café. It was a large makeshift tent that houses laptops for you to check your email and whatnot while at the campground. Adjacent to said laptops was the charging station, where people crowded most of the time I was there, as it was one of the few spots to charge your devices outside of the festival grounds. The charge wall was were the cool kids got together, and apparently were the thieves gathered as well. This brings me to Coachella Lesson #2:  IF YOU OWN AN IPHONE, DON’T LEAVE THAT SHIT UNATTENDED! Luckily, I have a Blackberry Storm, which is the phone everyone hates.  But literally within minutes of people plugging their phones in and walking away to sit down in the shade, their phones were stolen. I witnessed 3 phone owners yelling about their stolen phone in the span of literally about ten minutes.

Later on in the internet tent, I got footage of 3 friends from southern California, talking to me about who they wanted to see over the weekend at the festival. Bonus if you can count how many times I said ‘OK’. (sorry for the goddamn wind, but we needed the fan, due to the dumb amount of heat)

Right before I set off to the grounds for the first time, I got video of another blogger (Jermaine Joseph) who was making his rounds around the camp site.

But enough about all this. In the stark heat of the afternoon, I made my way to the festival grounds to see what this Coachella thing was all about. I must say, the sights were incredible, and better kept than I expected them to be.

Not being interested in anything before them, I went to the main stage to see The Black Keys to find out what all the fuss was about. To be honest you guys, I expected to be blown away by this band, as they took the main stage, and I had heard so many good things about them.  But at the same time, it was ok that they disappointed me, because I would rather save the best for last (or at least the over the later parts of the day).

Next on my list was Franz Ferdinand, also on the main stage. I was excited to see them because I loved their most recent album, and had never seen them play live. Now, the reason why I loved the live performance so much is because the amount of sheer power on the main stage is amazing, yet strangely perfected. You can hear it from miles away, but even when at the front of the stage, your eardrums aren’t blown out. First though, I’ll go ahead and say right away that Ulysses was one of the best songs I’ve ever heard live. It was the first time of the festival where I just let myself go.

Here was their set list:

1. The Dark of the Matinee
2. No You Girls
3. Michael
4. Turn It On
5. Walk Away
6. Do You Want To (with snippet goodness) 182
7. Take Me Out (of which I have the intro video below) 184
8. Ulysses
9. What She Came For
10. 40 Ft.
11. Outsiders
12. This Fire

After the lovely set was over, I ran into my home girl Jessica T, whilst on her way to see Santa Fe folk band, Beirut. I had never listened to the band, but let me say now Jess, that this was probably one of the few sleeper hits of Coachella. These guys may look dorky as all hell, but they can play their hearts out. Also, I’ve never see so many girls swept off their feet at once than in this tent for their set. The band has only been around since 2006, but this didn’t stop everyone in there from cheering at the first note of every song, albeit they mostly sounded alike at first listen.

Later on, I moved on over to the Sahara Tent, to see Girl Talk, the Mashup DJ from Pittsburgh. This was the main focus of a few friends of mine to see at the festival, and for good reason. It was hands down the most insane tent show of the weekend, and my arms were quite sore for waving my hands in the air whilst not caring. Still with Jess, we got shoved all the way up to the front while listening to Kelly Clarkson mashups, with an amazing end of the set with Girl Talk getting on a massive raft and riding it through the crowd. Below is a few insane seconds of a Serj Tankian/ System of a Down song, with him waving his hands to and fro. Also, watch the first video for some weird black dude with a dumb look on his face….me.

Now this last segment might make some of you upset, but here goes.  I don’t really care for Paul McCartney as much as the world does to be honest. Yes I understand his history and all that, but after standing so long all day, I had to put the camera down and sit far away on the grass to enjoy his epic performance. And I mean epic ya’ll…Paul played 35 total songs over his set and two encore performances. I don’t need to tell you that the set was great, as the band didn’t miss a note. But I will say that I salute him for playing on the anniversary of his wife’s death. Below is the intro to Jet and his set list for the evening.

1. Jet
2. Drive My Car
3. Only Mama Knows
4. Flaming Pie
5. Got to Get You Into My Life
6. Let Me Roll It
7. Honey Hush
8. Highway
9. The Long and Winding Road
10. My Love
11. Blackbird
12. Here Today
13. Dance Tonight
14. Calico Skies
15. Mrs. Vanderbilt
16. Eleanor Rigby
17. Sing the Changes
18. Band on the Run
19. Back in U.S.S.R.
20. Something
21. I’ve Got a Feeling
22. Paperback Writer
23. A Day in the Life
24. Give Peace a Chance
25. Let It Be
26. Live and Let Die
27. Hey Jude

Encore:

28. Birthday
29. Can’t Buy Me Love
30. Lady Madonna

Encore 2:

31. Yesterday
32. Helter Skelter
33. Get Back
34. Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)
35. The End

I left after Hey Jude, but could hear the rest of the set from my tent, and it was beautiful music to fall asleep to. And trust me, Coachella will drain you, but in a worthy way. Oh and that reminds me of another lesson. If you really don’t wanna see a whole set near the end; Coachella Lesson #3: LEAVE TO YOUR CAR EARLY! It was like cows being herded through a tiny gate once the show was ending, complete with people literally mooing for half an hour trying to get out of there.

It was well past midnight, but the night raged on all around me while I was trying to sleep. But Coachella was just beginning. With that, I conclude Coachella Day 1. Keep your eyes peeled later this week for more snippets, pictures, and Coachella Lessons in my upcoming segments.

Until next time my friends,

~Flak

P.S.- If you wanna jump ahead to Day 2 or Day 3 go right ahead.

It took me a little while I know, but I’m finally coming around to listen to the originally New York, but now Canadian/Los Angeles/New York based indie pop band, Metric. I’m sad that I missed out on them for so long, because they are one of those bands that get you into other bands…if that makes sense at all.

Led by the super cute blonde Emily Haines on the piano and lead vocals, she is also in the baroque pop grouping Broken Social Scene, along with other Metric band mate James Shaw. Shaw brings the lead guitar out for Metric, with Joules Scott-Key on the drums, and Josh Winstead a-slappin’ da bass. But don’t fret, Scott-Key and Winstead have their own side project, Bang Lime. Legend has it that James Shaw used to chill with members of who would later be members of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, the Liars, and TV on the Radio. I can see how all these bands relate, as they all have similar energies and creative qualities.

Scott-Key, Shaw, Haines, and Winstead

James Shaw has produced three of the four albums for Metric, and it’s actually him that got the band that name in the first place, due to his methods of production on his samplers. Today’s review is about the 4^th studio album by the band, entitled Fantasies.

James’ recent work is very good I must say. It continues with the change in play style that the band adopted after its 2007 album, Grow Up and Blow Away. GUBA was a little more processed and clean, with this new album being a bit edgier and not as metric as one would expect from James. This isn’t a bad thing at all, as it feels more like a mood change than a personality change, if that makes sense.

If some of the songs sound familiar to you, but you weren’t a Metric fan before, there’s good reason. Grey’s Anatomy has featured three songs from the band; the most recent being Front Row from this most recent album.

But I’ll give you the nitty now, and let you know what my favorite tracks from the album are, and why.

The intro track, Help I’m Alive is a great song, but I actually prefer the acoustic version better. The band released the newer acoustic version recently, so you can grab it for free and find out for yourself. I think it lent a better intro to the album, going from softer melody, to the higher energy of the rest of the album.

Moving on into the album, the second track, Sick Muse gives us a smooth but powerful (much like me) push-off point to the listener. The acoustic guitar is a nice touch in the background, and the song keeps itself even sexier after about 20 seconds when the bass guitar starts to drop in. As I think I’ve stated in other articles by me, I am more inclined to love a bass line in a song, as it was the first instrument I learned to play.

Track 5, Gold Guns Girls takes a bit more of a sampled approach with the digital beat being overlaid in the background. The acoustic guitar kicks in during the chorus as a nice compliment to the lyrics. The song talks about greed we face every day, and even if you got all the things you wanted, you probably wouldn’t be satisfied. Take a look:

All the gold
And the guns
And the girls
Couldn’t get you off

All the boys
All the choices
In the world

I remember when we were gambling to win
Everybody else said better luck next time
I don’t wanna bend like the bad girls bend
I just wanna be your friend
Is it ever gonna be enough?

But my overall favorite has to be track 9, Blindness. I’m really into the instrument-follows-the-voice thingy that bands are doing now. The song starts of simple, and for some reason reminds me of an old Nintendo game (not sure which). At about 1:45, the bass drops, with the rest of the band at the two minute mark, for a powerful second half. Personally, I think that this song would have been a great one to end the album with, but second to last isn’t bad either. It’s just that the energy is high the whole album, and could have wound down to this, but the last track, Stadium Love does a proper ending anyhow I suppose.

To break away, this is an album that quickly built a respect for this band, because their music is so similar that all of it can be considered one big album in a way, with different moods being explored along the way. I look forward to seeing the band live in June with my home girl Jessica T, and tip my hat to her for telling me about them in the first place. They have my vote already, so pick up Fantasies and enjoy it. Oh and don’t forget about that acoustic version on the bands website of Help I’m Alive. Stay tuned for their live performance review later on in the year.

Until next time my friends,

~Flak

Released in the U.K. on March 23, The Pet Shop Boys’ latest studio album, Yes, became available on U.S. iTunes and the one Virgin Megastore still left in L.A. on April 21. Based on the U.S. sales of their last album, Fundamental, which placed, at its highest, at number 150 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart, the numbers aren’t looking that stellar for Yes. Not that Billboard is really a measure of how good music can be, but still, 150 is a long way away from the number 7 slot their debut album, Please, reached in 1986. The eleven tracks on Yes are nonetheless just as formidable as The Pet Shop Boys‘ previous work.

The Pet Shop Boys

“Love, Etc.,” the first track and single from Yes, can be likened to some of their most infectious dance tracks (i.e. “West End Girls,” “It’s A Sin,” and “Heart”). The lyrics are even a bit more thought-provoking than their usual refrains (“You’ve got a problem with the reasons why/an isometric haircut and a painted eye” comes to mind). The upbeat music and message of “Love, Etc.” is almost tailor-made for the current sentiment of glumness in the fallen materialist countries of the United States and the United Kingdom.

Pet Shop Boys: West End Girls

The Pet Shop Boys, unlike many of their compatriots who rose to fame in the eighties (Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, and The Cure), are not apologetic about maintaining the same sound and lyrical content in their music. They may be the last of the old school who adhere to the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” philosophy. And why should they alter a sound that has consistently delighted their fans over the past three decades? 

At the Hollywood Bowl, circa 2006

From start to finish, Yes is a perfect blending of the talents of Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant. Chris Lowe, often considered the lesser of the two Pet Shop Boys due to his aura of stoicism, proves that he has an unlimited arsenal of beats, both for The Pet Shop Boys and other acts the band often remixes songs for. Neil Tennant’s voice, as usual, is transcendent and entirely unique from the sound one hears on the radio. Some of the standout tracks include “Love, Etc.,” “Vulnerable,” “Building A Wall,” “Pandemonium,” and “Legacy.” Though the album has a fair amount of balladry (“Beautiful People,” “King of Rome,” et. al.), it is generally the first musical gift of 2009 to clubland. This probably means it will only be heard in Europe, possibly Chelsea/Manhattan, and maybe, two years from now, West Hollywood.

Historians and pop culture commentators are fond of labeling the eighties as a decade of meaningless trifles, a time that essentially signified nothing but the carnal and base pleasures of drugs, fashion, and overindulgent music. On the surface, the film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis‘ The Informers, a collection of intertwining stories that take place in 1983, would seem a case in point regarding the eighties’ standing as an era for self-gratification. Look closer, and you will see that, much like Bret Easton Ellis himself, there is something arcane that goes unnoticed each time you consider both the former and the latter subjects.

Promotional poster for The Informers

It’s easy to say that a youth culture that was fed a steady diet of Pepsi promotions, A.D.D. inducing music videos, and Boy George could not possibly be anything other than intellectually void. This perception is immediately contradicted once post-80s life is truly considered. The nineties provided us with Color Me Badd, Quad City DJs, and Hootie and the Blowfish (which I guess can be viewed as a new-fangled Huey Lewis and the News). And worst of all, the past decade has yielded “artists” like T-Pain, Miley Cyrus, Dem Franchize Boyz, and a grab bag of other assorted badness. This isn’t to say that there hasn’t been anything decent to come out of the past two decades, but it is to say that the eighties are unjustly criticized for their flamboyance.

Bryan Metro (right), an aging Billy Idolesque character in The Informers

The Informers spotlights this penchant for superfluity in a way that no film after the eighties has been able to completely capture. Apart from Easton Ellis’ barely masked indignation over the transition from book to film (an integral, and I’m being serious when I say integral, plot about vampires was extracted from the film version of the story), The Informers is generally in keeping with the narrative of the book. Characters and plots were melded together to make things more “cohesive,” which is always code for “Let’s dumb it down to generate mass appeal.” 

The Beautiful Ones: Graham and his girlfriend Christy are two of the main characters in The Informers

The Informers, however, was never a book or a film that was going to have mass appeal, in part because few people outside of L.A. care about L.A., and in part because of the time period Easton Ellis selected for it. The eighties, except when used as a novelty dance theme, are much underappreciated. The fact is though, there is no other writer who can describe this decade as accurately and fantastically as one, Bret Easton Ellis.

P.S. There’s loads of nudity if that helps incite you to see this film.

Jedi Cops in Scotland

This is no joke. But it is pretty exciting news for Star Wars fans everywhere. According to a report by the BBC, there are eight police officers and two civilian members of the Strathclyde Police Department who claim to be Jedi.  Strathclyde is Scotland’s largest police department, serving the area in and around Glasgow, Scotland.  It turns out that a publication called Jane’s Police Review obtained the information in a Freedom of Information request. The BBC then confirmed the existence of the Jedi cops through a spokeswoman for Strathclyde Police. According to the article, the spokeswoman said, “At the time of the request, 10 (eight police officers and two police staff) had recorded their religion as Jedi.”

When I first read about this, I couldn’t help but imagine eight ass-kicking Jedi, roaming the streets of Glasgow in dark cloaks. I pictured them working alone, calmly walking down dark alleyways, or perched atop old gray buildings, hunting for crimes in progress. What might be even easier to imagine though, for fans and non-fans alike, is that a few of Scotland’s finest claimed to be Jedi for the sake of a good laugh.  But that’s where the story gets even more interesting. It turns out that these Jedi cops are not alone actually. I’m not making this stuff up people.

The BBC pointed out that, according to a 2001 census study, a total of 14,000 people in Scotland chose to voluntarily disclose their religion of choice to be Jedi. It’s one thing for a few cops, from the same department to joke around and claim to be Jedi, but it’s quite another thing for 14,000 people to be in on the same joke. The good people of Scotland shouldn’t get all the Jedi credit though. That same year, some 390,000 people in England and Wales claimed Jedi as their religion. That’s a total of 404,000 Jedi in the UK alone. For that many people to be in on a joke way back in 2001 would be definitely a stretch, to say the least. For a few Scottish cops to be claiming the same thing, nearly 8 years later though, makes me believe that being a Jedi is more than just a joke for many of these people. Call me crazy,  but my guess is that these Jedi are more than just fans of the movies; these are fans that actually connect with the concept of the Force, and the awareness of it, as a philosophy of life of sorts.

The BBC mentioned that last year, two brothers founded the UK Church of The Jedi. Barney and Daniel Jones apparently had enough interest in their religion of choice, to create a church that, according to the article, “offered sermons on the Force, light sabre training, and meditation techniques.” Maybe this a way of life for some people? That’s my take on it all, but I’d like to hear yours though. I’d also like to find out why I haven’t heard about any Jedi here in the U.S. or anywhere else for that matter.  If you  know something about this that I don’t, or have something to say about it, please, be my guest.  I’d love to hear from members of the Church of The Jedi in particular.  

One last question for all of you, if you had the chance to go check out the Church of the Jedi, would you?

Someone might have IM’d you, or emailed you today. Maybe you saw it on someone’s Facebook, Twitter, or heard about it on your favorite social bookmarking site. Today, if you went to ESPN.com, and typed in the Konami Code of:

Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A

You would have seen some shenanigans. Basically, there was some JavaScript on the page that would bring up some frew-frew image, like a unicorn or rainbow, and if you clicked on one of the images, it would continue showing you more frew-frew images. So was this ESPN hacked, or an ESPN hoax?

Here’s something your browser might have looked like:

ESPN.com Hack or Hoax? (Click to enlarge)

Technically, some script kiddie could have some up with some super technical JavaScript to get this done, but he’d have to be a pro. And if you get that far to actually get through the several layers of system & database protection that you’d certainly see from the 85th largest site in the world, why would you show people a bunch of unicorns and rainbows? Plus, let’s not forget that ESPN is owned by Walt Disney.

In my opinion, this was just some fancy viral marketing from ESPN. Why today? Why frew-frew images? Not really sure, but I’d bet this was just really creative viral marketing. I guess when you’re as big as ESPN, you can still learn new tricks; just in case they will actually comment on this, I sent them an email. But don’t worry friends, I won’t hold my breath.

***UPDATE***

After a few emails back and forth with ESPN’s support, I was provided a statement from ESPN spokesperson Paul Melvin:

This was a case of an Easter Egg, a small hidden batch of code, that was put in place by somebody internally. ESPN.com was not hacked and it had no significant impact on the performance of the site or on external computers. We do not condone it and are dealing with the matter internally.

Well, looks like someone’s stay at ESPN will be a lot shorter than they anticipated.

There are many things that are useful. Medicine has extended people’s lives. The internet has trivialized the gathering of information. Vehicles let us travel across great distances in short amounts of time. In spite of these advances in technology, we now have a ton of useless crap that we should have gotten rid of a long time ago.

Mystery Books

Mystery books are false advertising. It implies that there is a mystery, but the author already knows the answer. Even worse, you get purposely misled for 200 pages before you realize that it was the guy you met in the last chapter. This package of lies needs to go.

Cats

Disease-ridden, allergy-causing flea bags. Cats claw you, whine at you, and then expect you to feed them. And what do they do for you? At best, absolutely nothing. If you’re unlucky, they’ll pee on your floor. If you’re really unlucky, your girlfriend will talk about her cat for hours on end and expect you to care about how cute it is.

Babies

Disease-ridden…no wait. Babies are both more diseased and more useless. Unlike cats, a baby will not just pee on your floor, but also vomit on you. It will expect you to raise it for at least 18 years, and it will cost loads of money. On top of that, you can’t neuter a baby, so eventually it’ll get into trouble by having sex with something, most likely resulting in another baby. Doesn’t get much worse than that.

Rap

Rap music sucks. In fact, it is so bad that rappers feel the need to shoot each other because of it. While killings have gone down in recent years, quality of music has not improved. Rap is so useless that things that sound like rap are also useless. Like gift wrap, which just adds a step before you can open a present.

Vegetarians

Vegetarians deny the fact that hamburgers and bacon (and hamburgers with bacon) are gifts given to us directly from a higher power. Not only that, but they are actively trying to destroy the centuries of evolution that have allowed us to intake meat. Vegetarians are worse than useless, they’re detrimental to the future.

Text Messaging

Cell phones are wonderful. They allow us to communicate with people from afar, without having to pay 25 cents at a gas station. Text messaging, unfortunately, takes all the joy of being able to talk to your friends, converts it to a non-personal interaction, and charges you extra for the privilege. “We’re not going out anymore. Didn’t you get my text?!” No. The phone is already in your hand. Dial the fucking number and have a conversation. That’s what phones are for.

Non-Alcoholic Beer

This should be fairly obvious. Beer doesn’t taste good. The point of beer is the alcohol it contains. When you remove the alcohol from the beer, you have a useless drink. Need I say more?

This week on Family Guy Quagmire gets a cat and Brian fights city hall to get pot legalized in Quahog. As I mentioned in a previous review the Family Guy writing staff are clearly pot loving liberals and in 420 they aren’t afraid to show it. The episode is basically a history lesson on why pot is illegal and the reasons on why is should be legalized. Any pot lover is pretty much going to agree with what Brian has to say and any pot hater is going to disagree. ‘420’ isn’t as a profound of an episode as the writers probably thought it was and it’s probably not going to change anyone’s mind about the current marijuana situation we, as a country, are in.

The episode was actually pretty funny though. All the cat jokes in the beginning were hilarious. Maybe they‘ll only be funny to cat owners, but I can tell you that all the jokes they make are absolutely true. Anyone who has had a cat will find it very funny.  Brian eventually gets caught by the police for having a small amount of pot and this is where the episode kind of takes a dip. Brian goes on a crusade to get pot legalized in Quahog and along the way we are treated to a five minute duet from Brian and Stewie. If you enjoy Brian and Stewie songs then you’ll love this part. For me though it went on for FAR too long.  It’s literally five whole minutes of the episode. It was extremely irritating and by the end I said to myself ‘hurry the fuck up!’

Everything is better with a bag of weed

The last half of the episode is about Carter (Lois’s father) trying to get pot re-illegalized again. Carter runs a paper business out of Quahog and the legalization of pot is causing it to fail. Honestly after this point I stopped caring about the story. The jokes on the other hand were very funny. I love how easily coerced Peter was into helping Carter, and his attempts at making an anti-pot ad were hilariously pathetic. The parody of a classic anti-pot ad involving crude drawings, a dog, and the words ‘I can stop at any time’ was also quite hilarious. There are also some really great running gags involving Brian’s books ‘Faster Then the Speed of Love’, and a very funny moment where Stewie tries to tell Brian that his book is good enough to be published.
Overall this episode was pretty funny. You can tell it was supposed to be a button pusher and was trying to cause some sort of controversy, and in that respect in fails miserably. But it was a funny episode and is definitely a superior one in the large pool of post-cancellation Family Guy episodes.

Score – 7/10

This week on South Park Cartman leads himself, Ike, Butters, Craig, and a new character Chris Stoli to Somalia where they become pirates. Obviously Cartmans rendition of a pirate is vastly different from what a modern day pirate actually is. Through a series of misunderstandings Cartman shows these Somalian ‘pirates’ what a real pirate is and just how a pirate is supposed to act. Kyle on the other hand feels guilty about Ike’s sudden disappearance because he was the one who convinced Cartman to go to Somalia in the first place. But that part of the episode doesn’t really come into play until the last several minutes and for the most part is forgettable. The real focus of the episode is Cartman and just how unaware he is of everything around him. It’s funny and all, but not anything we haven’t seen hundreds of times already.
‘Fat Beard’ really gets back to basics in terms of what South Park humor is like. There is basically one actual joke throughout the whole episode, but it’s told in several different ways. The joke is, Somalian pirates aren’t the pirates people may think they are. Cartman go to Somalia dressed up in full clad pirate suits with eye patchs, peg legs, and all. When he finally comes face to face with the Somalians all he can say is “dude there are no pirates here, just a bunch of black people”.  The funny part is Cartman never really realizes that these guys aren’t the types of pirates he was looking for. Instead he just carries on as if they were old time pirates, and eventually he transforms the Somalians into just that. Oh and Cartman manages to steal a Europeon battleship, which was absolutely hilarious to see.

Eric and his Motley Crew of Pirates

The episode is classic delusional Cartman. Not classic Cartman, classic DELUSIONAL Cartman. Cartman has gone through a lot of changes since the first seasons of the show. First he was just a foul mouthed little boy, and then he was a sadistic and hateful monster, now he’s kind of just a delusional buffoon. It’s sort of weird how he went from being a diabolical genius to a self absorbed delusional idiot. It’s like a complete 180 for the character and I’m not sure if I like it all that much. I mean, it is funny watching Cartman act like a naive idiot, but I really miss his evil side. But hey, times change and people change, even if they are fictional people.
Overall ‘Fatbeard’ was an alright episode. Most of the humor rides on you already knowing and loving the characters involved. They act the way you think they would act and do the things you think they would do.  There is nothing here to take you by surprise and shock you. But it’s all in good fun and it did make me laugh several times. The problem I had is there was no real conflict in the whole thing.

Score – 6/10