If there’s one thing that Racket does more than kick ass, it’s stuffing our collective face. Thai food, sushi, Mexican food, Chinese, In N’ Fucking Out, fucking…Funyuns. Put it in our gut. If you mix kicking ass and food, you get Duff Goldman, owner and head bake-master at Charm City Cakes, know around the world (at least the parts of the world with Food Network) as the location of Ace of Cakes.
Baking is a pain in the ass. You have to be all precise with the measuring and can’t …

Top Ten worst ways to start a conversation
It happens to us all at some point- that special someone looks into your eyes, inhales deeply, leans in… And ruins your day. “Son of a bitch,” you think. “I knew that sore wasn’t from shaving.” Read on for our favorite ways to crush someone’s hopes and dreams.
1. We should talk…
2. I’m going to be completely honest with you…
3. Look, I was drunk…
4. I know I always said…
5. I was talking to my pastor the other day…
6. What is that?
7. You know how I went and got tested?
8. You know …

The Get Up Kids are from a simpler time, a better time. A time where “emo” conjured images of black rimmed glasses, argyle sweater vests and Chuck Taylors. Now, I hear “emo” and I get any number of bastard-demon-child subgenres, each more foul than the next. Between the skin tight black pants, the array of stupid looking facial piercings and splotchy hair dye jobs on even worse haircuts, I don’t know what to hate first. And don’t even get me started on the music that gets passed off for “emo” …

When I first heard .357 Lover’s debut album Diorama of the Golden Lion, I wanted to do two things- first, figure out who was doing the epic-Freddie-Mercury-style vocals and second, meet him so he could teach me how to belt. Unfortunately, Corn Mo lives in New York, so being in LA, I had to settle for a phone call.
Corn Mo is an endearing singer/songwriter, keyboardist, and accordionist. He graciously talked to me about guns, Ben Folds, German ladies with candy, and trying to get laid…oh, and his album. I got …

In retrospect, it should have been easy. My friend and I would walk in to the theater, pay our eight bucks or so, buy some pop-corn and laugh to our heart’s content.
That’s not how life works out sometimes.
Flashback two days ago. On a lark, “Margaret” and I decided to see Julie and Julia. To be more accurate, she decided to go, and I tagged along. We clambered into my Honda Accord- I dropped by her house about an hour or so before- and within a moment’s notice we …

Rachel Taylor Brown
Susan Storm’s Ugly Sister and Other Saints and Superheroes
Cutthroat Pop
8/10
Rachel Taylor Brown is a standout, to say the least. Since her debut album in 2001, Brown has cut a swath in the music world with her haunting voice and a blend of dark, avant-garde songwriting and whimsy. With the release of her sixth album Susan Storm’s Ugly Sister and Other Saints and Superheroes, she’s back at it again, exploring the strange world of comic books and Christian martyrs as only she can. The result is …

Into the Presence
Self-Titled
Razor & Tie
4/10
It is really difficult for me to NOT like records. Artists and their teams put so much time and effort into the art of making an album that it is easy to fall in love with the music. As for Tim Alexander (Primus, A Perfect Circle) and Luis Carlos Maldonado’s new project, Into the Presence- their attempt did not grab me.
Alexander F. Remington at The Washington Post called their self-titled album, “superlative progressive rock and one of the best rock albums of the year.” “Progressive”- I …

Eddy Current Suppression Ring
Self Titled
Goner Records
7/10
This sounds like ass. I love it. It’s simple, fun and not particularly good. It’s reminiscent of snotty British (Though they’re Australian. Australian, British, fucking…Belgian, I don’t know fucking accents.) punks that you can barely comprehend. I’m pretty sure there was a song about vegetables and ice cream, though. This American release of their Australia-only debut EP sounds like it was made in 1979, not 2006. At 3-4 minutes each, the songs lose their charm pretty quickly, though. I mean, honestly, a four-and-a-half minute …

Penny Flame’s Guide to Rough Sex
Vivid Ed
1/10

I am sooooo not cut out for rough sex. What I thought would be “how to bang faster for longer” was more “how to choke a bitch.” Not into it.
Penny Flame tries to lighten up the mood with her Blind Date-esque pop- up captions and hints, but I couldn’t keep a hard on if my partner was looking at me with her mascara running down her face. Unless she was a goth chick and the running makeup wasn’t caused by the tears she is …

The Flaming Lips don’t just put on a show, they have created a spectacle. This isn’t just a band playing and a singer singing, it’s a group of people with the most incredible understanding of what it is to be in the crowd. They know when things are boring, and they make them exciting again. They know what it’s like to be terrified of having fun in a crowd. They don’t just entertain you, they shake you up and loosen all your bolts so you can be entertained. They give …

I’m sitting here, pondering where to being detailing my weekend at the largest entertainment convention in the world, and I can’t seem to wrap my head around it. Forty years ago, Comic Con started out as a gathering of comic book fans (come on, the term “geek” is kind of passé now), and now it’s almost hard to pick the true diehards out. It’s a mass media advertising frenzy- books, movies, video games, and TV, and I wouldn’t really be surprised if music was on the horizon for this enormous …

Since 2004, Guerilla Union has thrown the Rock the Bells music festival every summer touring coast to coast, featuring artists like A Tribe Called Quest, Wu-Tang (with and without ODB), and Rage Against the Machine, and giving each festival go-er an experience that they’ll never forget.
This basic description would get any music lover to go, but why does this not excite me this year? I try to listen to the discography of every artist on the line up, Nas’ illmatic, Sage Francis’ spoken word, Damian Marley’s Halfway Tree, …

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they are forced to make a choice that reveals their true character, this time came to Racket during Comic-Con in the form of a decision to go see hot hot girls tearing each other’s clothes off or hang out with sweaty guys in a crowded convention hall, and the gang over at Racket did what any red blooded American would do… go to Comic-Con. So, I stepped up and fulfilled my duty by going to watch girls fight each other in skimpy …

Ed. Julia Wertz
I Saw You
Three Rivers Press
7/10
Ever wanted to know what it’s like to be one of the thousands of Craigslist posters who pine for lost opportunities in Missed Connections? Julia Wertz does. The New York-based cartoonist has had more than a few “d’oh”’ moments over the years- inspired by her own missed connections, Wertz has gathered up a modest list of them and brought them to life- with the help of a few friends, of course. The result, I Saw You, is a tender, heartwarming tribute …

Recently I had the good fortune to be able to take a month off from work, life, and school to simply travel the world as much as possible within that time frame. I somehow managed to successfully backpack all across Western Europe, and as a traveler in over 14 different countries my first fear even before I had finished planning my half baked trip was how I would be accepted as an American in this part of the world now that Bush is no longer in office.
Before I left …

Inglourious Basterds
Universal Pictures
10/10

Quentin Tarantino is a modern cinematic master. Starting from a young age, Tarantino displayed an innate grasp of the characteristics of an outstanding film, and he has carried this talent later into his career. I make this statement sparingly; his career could hardly be considered in its “late” stages.
However, his mastery of film is, in my opinion, nearly unrivaled. No American filmmaker, to my knowledge, comes even remotely close to the perfect pairing of cinematography, storytelling, acting, and score that seems second nature …