I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: LONELY ISLAND-Turtleneck & Chain (2011).

I liked “Lazy Sunday” quite a lot, but I didn’t feel compelled to get the album.  Then, when I heard Samberg on NPR, it made quite a compelling case for this second album.  So I decided to check it out.

Most comedy albums are juvenile, so let’s get that out of the way.  This is juvenile.  And, as with most SNL-derived humor, it’s a one note joke that gets stretched out.  The good news is that very few of the songs stretch too long (only one is more than three minutes) and the music itself is quite good–which allows for repeatedly listens.

The opening, “We’re Back!” is really quite funny.  It’s all about how the three guys have really tiny penises.  Ha ha, but it’s delivered with such great gangsta rap style that it is very, very funny.  “Mama” is a wonderful tribute to the singers’ Moms.  The song is interrupted by said mother over and over.  On this one, the joke might go on too much, but overall, it’s very funny.

The longest song is “Jack Sparrow” and it is one of the best ones on the disc.  It features Michael Bolton (!) singing his heart out about his love for the Pirates of the Caribbean movies–which is funny enough, but the guys are rapping behind him about something else entirely.  They keep trying to stop Bolton from hijacking the song.  It’s very well done (and man, say what you will, Bolton can belt out a song).

“Attracted to Us” goes on a bit too long (and at less than 2 minutes that’s a bad sign) and “Rocky” in which one of the dorky guys talks about fighting Rocky (ala The Fresh Prince) is a super long SNL skit (which is not a compliment).

“Turtleneck & Chain” features Snoop Dog and is just fantastic–I love hearing Snoop Dog rap this geek shit.  “Shy Ronnie 2: Ronnie & Clyde” also works very well with Rihanna on vocals.  The song itself is catchy and the joke, when it finally comes, is really good.

“Motherlover” is a sequel to “Dick in a Box” (“this is the second best idea we ever had”) and Justin Timberlake continues to impress me in his new role as a funny guy.  This is a gross song but it’s really crazy catchy (Timberlake must have written the chorus).

One of my favorite songs on the disc is “Threw It on the Ground.”  Musically, I think it’s fantastic and lyrically it is pretty funny.  I wish that they had had some better examples of things to throw on the ground (the cell phone joke is lame and they get kind of lazy by the end), but I get this song stuck in my head a lot.  Another song guaranteed to stay in your head forever is “I Just Had Sex,” a childish and silly song that is outrageously catchy.  And if it’s in your head it won’t leave.  (And yes it’s funny).

“Japan” is a crazy and funny look at Japanese culture while “After Party” is a bit one note.  “No Homo” on the other hand brings in a full circle hardcore joke that is at once offensive and hilarious. 

“The Creep” is pretty unsuccessful even with the help of Nicki Minaj–the video helps a little, but not enough.  As with most rap albums, the skits are the weakest link.  Without a song behind them the skits are good for one or two listens and some not even that (“Falcor vs Atreyu”?  “My Mic”? these wouldn’t even be funny if they were improvised, and yet they seem very deliberately planned–boy I hope there wasn’t more than one take).

Overall, this is a funny rap parody/tribute album.  It’s obvious that the guys love rap and they are quite successful in their stylings.  None of it works as well as “Weird Al”‘s “White and Nerdy” but honestly whatever could?  But “Weird Al” is PG, and Lonely Island fills in as the adult pranksters.

[READ: October 28, 2011] Chew: Volume One

Sarah gave me this book after reading the recommendation on The Hub.  She said it was really good but it was really gross.  And that’s quite an accurate assessment.

One thing that I liked about this book was that it had not one but two really cool ideas that run through the series.  Either one would be a compelling-enough premise, but putting them together makes for an excellent story with lots of possibilities.

The story is about Tony Chu, who is a policeman.  He is also cibopathic, which means that when he eats anything (except beets for some reason), he instantly knows the history of that food: eating fruits and vegetables shows him the tree it grew on and how it was harvested;  eating meat, well, just let your imagination go on that one.  That’s a pretty great premise.  But when he gets a murderer’s blood on his lips and he instantly knows the names and locations of all of his victims, well, that ups the intensity (and the grossness).

The second great premise is that the government has outlawed chicken because of the avian flu.  Millions of people died from the flu and now only chicken-substitutes are used.  There is now a black market for real chicken, including speakeasys, and the FDA is hot on the heels of all traffickers.  And yet, there is a small group of rebels who believe that the whole avian flu thing is a sham (including Tony’s brother Chow).  They don’t postulate why the sham was created, but they are out to set the record straight. 

Put these two ideas together and you get a hell of a story.

Another thing that I like about this series is that it plays fast and loose with conventional storytelling–it doesn’t break its own logic or anything (I don’t care for that sort of thing), but it does very unexpected twists. 

Taster’s Choice gathers the first five issues of the comic.   In the first issue, Chu is paired with John Colby a hotheaded, meat-eating “bad cop.”  They have been staking out the chicken speakeasy for months.  By the end of the issue, Colby has a butcher knife in his head and a new character–Mason Savoy, FDA officer and fellow cibopath–is introduced and gives Chu a new job.

Issue two introduces us to a victim whose story will run through several issues: Evan Pepper.  Savoy proves to be a formidable ally (he looks like a Viking Orson Wells) and there is much bloodshed. 

But more interesting than Pepper is Amelia Mintz.  She is a food critic for a newspaper and she is a saboscrivner: she can write about food so accurately and vividly that people can get the sensation of the taste while reading (for good or bad).  Mintz has been intentionally making people sick for the last few days and is about to get fired when a creepy man with  a strange food changes her destiny (which is a shame for Chu as he has fallen head over heels for her and wanted to be the one to change her destiny). 

Issue 4 utterly perplexed me.  Chu and Savoy fly to the antarctic where they go to a Russian/US cooperative international telescope (called Gardner-Kvashennaya).  When they get there all mayhem has broken loose and there’s talk of vampires.  It’s pretty bizarre and seems so inexplicable compared to the main story that I’m not even sure what happened.

By Issue #5 everything changes (it says so as the issue starts).  Chu learns something about Savoy and they have a battle.  Suddenly everything that Chu knew about his job is changed. 

Not bad for five issues.

The artwork is quite disgusting (there’s lot of eating of things that you wouldn’t want to see being eaten and there’s a lot of violence).  But the story is compelling enough to get beyond that (if you wish to get beyond that).  

Guillory’s style is also kind of grotesque.  While Chu and Savoy look pretty normal, occasional close-ups reveal some disturbing line drawings.  But it’s really in the other characters that Guillory goes to town.  Amanda Mintz is a very strangely drawn character indeed.  She has a smoking body but a rather peculiar face and most of the scenes are not terribly flattering of her.  And I think it’s a really cool decision.  Chu falls for her after one look and the audience has to wonder what it is about her.  But by the fifth issue you just accept that she’s a looker. 

Book Number 4 of the series just came out, so it’s not too late to get caught up on this awesome series.

Here’s Sarah’s take on the book.