Math was always hard for me, so why does this make so much sense? (An equation by my friend Berit’s kid, David.)

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I wonder how many nutty pro-America anti-everything-else bigots realize that Dr. Oz is a Muslim? Maybe they give him a pass because he likes big butts and he cannot lie…

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Who can tell me what book I was reading in this doctor’s waiting room? The prize is: NOOOOOOOTHING!!!!!!

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The Top 10 of 2010 — after the break!

DEVO - Something for Everybody

1. DEVO: SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY

I love DEVO. I love Mark Mothersbaugh. I love smart music and I love subtle genius jabs at anything. This album has it all. From the completely amazing and forward thinking title track that showed Mark Mothersbaugh had a bead on flippy floppy compromising over-promiser Barack Obama from the get-go (“I’m floating Hope on an ocean of Need…“) to the closest thing that could ever be considered a love song by DEVO (Mind Games) this album has a little of everything with the sterling production values and minimalistic playing that come from anything out of the Mother studio. Put that beside the genius mockumentary “Something for Everybody” where DEVO went and crowd-sourced testing for literally everything from the color of their hats and suits to the songs and artwork for the record to give the “optimal manufacturing and revenue generating musical item.”

It’s solid from top to bottom. All killer, no filler. It hasn’t left my car CD player since it came out in the Summer. The only record on this entire list that has at least one song stuck in my head at some point every single day since I first heard it. I hope whatever the next CD they put out twenty years from now is as good as this one.

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

2. ARCADE FIRE: The Suburbs

2007′s Neon Bible left a little something to be desired. Maybe it was the sophomore slump, or maybe it just wasn’t as focused an effort as Arcade Fire’s debut album Funeral. Whatever the issue  was, they remedied it in spades on this year’s album, The Suburbs. Win Butler and crew do the timeless trick of making every song segue way into the next with auditory cues, feedback, rhythms, and tones — turning the entire record into essentially one huge piece of music, borrowing themes and chordal elements from the other. As best I can understand, The Suburbs tells the tale of life locked down, trying to make sense of the world after some force takes control of it. Whether it’s the government or some other threat, life is what it is inside the Suburb. The storyline falls second to the music, full of passion, and creative, yet simple flourishes that repeat until they become mantra, and then eventually sacrament. By the end of the record, little hints of a musical line you heard 50 minutes before bring you back to that time. It’s hard to explain, but the groundwork set in the beginning pays off big time by the end, even if you don’t know where you end up when it’s over. And you can’t wait to start it all over again.

Also, if you haven’t seen it, and you have a Google Chrome internet browser, go check out their HTML5 experiment The Wilderness Downtown. It’s incredible.

DANZIG - Deth Red Sabaoth

3. DANZIG: Deth Red Sabaoth

I’m not ashamed to admit that I am one of the biggest Danzig fans on the planet. Glenn can rarely do wrong. (Okay, he does wrong a lot, but I still dig his freakin’ records.) Deth Red Sabaoth is the new Danzig record that sounds like the old Danzig records, and what that means, for those of you who aren’t aware of the history of Danzig…means it’s a bad ass record. I hold the first four Danzig albums in high regard and they live eternally on my iPod in a place of immortality, so that I might jam “Dirty Black Summer” at will. Anyway, this new record was long in the making, and he has Tommy Victor from Prong playing guitar on it, and I love it. There’s not much more to say. If you like Danzig, you will love Deth Red Sabaoth. Short and sweet.

My Chemical Romance - Danger Days...

4. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE: Danger Days – The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys

My Chemical Romance is one of my former guilty pleasures. Why former? Because I don’t care who knows if I like them anymore. It took some time, and some thinking, but I think a lot of this group’s bad reputation, at least amongst music snobs is their fans. Admittedly, a ton of people who dig Gerard Way and Crew are chubby emo goth girls who freak out and act retarded at the drop of a hat while wearing gobs of black eyeliner and cutting themselves so they can feel again…but I’m not one of them. And the more I thought about it, neither are the people in the band. The band that makes consistently catchy, rockin’ ass tunes that stick in my brain and get me excited. Danger Days… is the follow up to The Black Parade, which came out four years ago in 2006 and was everything those chubster goth kids ate up with a big black spoon. The new record is as much of a 180 degree turn to the former as can be. It starts off with the mega-infectious Na Na Na Na Na and doesn’t let you go until 40 minutes later when you’re breathless and wondering what the hell just happened. It’s vaguely a concept record, but the storyline involved is more of a way to tie the songs together as a cohesive unit than actually move you along some linear path. They hold up out of context as well. I’d been looking forward to this for years and was very happy with the end result. A solid, brave outing from one of rock’s most misunderstood and underrated groups.

HIM - Screamworks: Love in Theory and Practice

5. HIM: Screamworks – Love in Theory and Practice

HIM, if you don’t know, is a Finnish band of dudes who are mega-huge in Europe and all over the world and marginally almost famous here. They’ve been consistently churning out some of the best, catchy-ass rock in the world for easily a decade. Their new record, which surfaced back in February went largely unnoticed and it’s a shame, because it’s magnificent. Singer Ville Valo finally has his voice back (he was a little off his game the last two records) and the band is playing harder and with more intensity than they have since the early 00′s. The title track In Venere Vertias (In Wine We Trust) grabs you immediately and you’re shuffled from song to song quickly and efficiently. That’s one thing I always liked about HIM is that they don’t keep you on a really good riff forever. They keep you moving and keep throwing good, different stuff at you.  I recommend this one highly and think it will eventually be recognized as a forgotten piece of the Good Stuff Puzzle.

Die Antwoord: $O$

6. DIE ANTWOORD: $O$

I don’t have much to say about Die Antwoord’s debut record except this South African duo is one of the most original acts I’ve ever heard and they’re crazy, insane, amazing and if you like anything out of the ordinary and you like any sort of fringe rap – GET. THIS. RECORD.

Also, the uncensored video for Evil Boy is one of the weirdest, greatest musical videos EVER.

Just get it, already.

—–

Okay, confession time…I had planned on doing a top ten list, and realized that a good chunk of the records I’d wanted to include, aren’t really eligible, because of me remembering wrongly that they’d actually come out in late 2009 instead of 2010.  So for late 2009 recommendations, I will blow through them.

1. PEARL JAM – Backspacer: Solid outing from one of rock’s greatest bands. “The Fixer” is an amazing song.

2. THEM CROOKED VULTURES – Self-titled: Dave Grohl, Josh Homme, John Paul Jones. One of the most bad ass power trios ever. Get. This. Record.

3. MORRISSEY – Years of Refusal: Okay, this record came out in early 2009, but get it anyway. Brilliant return to form for Moz.

Any recommendations for me? Suggestions? Criticisms? Comments?  Leave them here and we’ll address them! Or you can go follow me on Twitter at @MattBarnette

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But we all know better than that, don’t we?

(*It works on Google Android, Palm Pre, and any other touch phone, too, for the record.)

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Photographic proof (kind of) that I have been in the same vicinity of some of these people. Honest.

I’m part of this community. I am also not part of this community.

I live in Little Rock, and while not a native, it has been my home for the better part of a decade. For years, I lived in my little bubble of TV production and seldom, if ever, ventured out to meet anyone outside of our myopic little society of camera guys, editors, and “producers” who ran all around the country shooting things and bring them back here to cut down to what could, for lack of a better term, be referred to as entertainment. Back in 2007, I read about John Edwards (yeah, yeah) on the campaign trail using something called “Twitter” to tell people where he was on his baby-kissing (and, I guess, in hindsight, baby *making*), hand shaking Presidential campaign trail.

I was at once intrigued and kind of confused by the whole thing. As in, what would make someone put themselves out there with something like this, and also, what kind of creepy freak show of a human being would waste their time reading where someone was eating lunch or what they were doing?

Anyway, I signed up as my musical alter ego, and tested the waters, mostly following celebrities and people I would stumble across that I thought were amusing (Cobra Commander, The Hulk, etc.) in hopes that I would eventually “get” Twitter. I eventually just went ahead and set up an account using my real name as I dislike a pseudonym more than just about anyone.

All my friends and colleagues thought I was stupid for signing up to this site, and it was “just a fad”, but over time they’ve mostly signed up. I try my best to stay on the outside of the periphery. I have no intentions of injecting myself in the community for any sort of professional means, as I like to keep my opinions/jokes/thoughts/etc. and my 9-to-5 work as separate as possible.

Where it is helpful is knowing that there are people thinking and doing entertaining things in the area code you live in. I won’t say that Little Rock’s Tweetup community is great, because really, I don’t know the majority of you, and probably won’t ever meet any of you, and I haven’t been a legitimate part of it so it just isn’t my place to say it. I just don’t go out of my way to be that social. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with meeting people from the internet (hell, I met my wife there in the 90s), it’s just that I have a capacity for being social and meeting hordes of people with a moderate string of related interests based solely around our shared nature to tell people where we’re at, and what we’re eating.

Boil that down, though. At the heart of everything, isn’t everyone reaching out to tell people their story? Where you’ve been, what you like, what you dislike, the list of things that make you go on and on. This isn’t anything new. Twitter has just put it into clear and succinct, easy to follow, unbelievably simple to digest pieces. It’s Clarity-To-Go. It serves a purpose.

Therein lies my main problem with Tweetups, LJ Meetups (which, ironically, my wife and I actually founded in Central Arkansas), and any sort of meetup based on a communal want/need to find out what kind of people live in our community. It’s the same kind of people that were there long before Twitter. There are brilliant, insightful, sincere, thought-provoking, geniuses doing amazing things. There are insular, sullen, folks doing unimaginable things. There are boring people, going through the motions, trying and failing to make a mark. You just have to look around. Listen instead of broadcast.

It was all there before. Don’t blame Twitter for it showing up in your viewfinder, finally. Maybe you just woke up from the National Coma the majority of the world seems to be in. Welcome to having your eyes open. No, I haven’t been here for long, either. Enjoy your stay.

I will say that I am friends with a decent chunk of the LR Tweetup community. I like their company very much when I can be dragged out of my office or my house. Amy Bradley-Hole, for instance, was one of the first I followed, just because I thought she was funny. I didn’t care what her job was, or what she did…I just followed because she made me laugh sometimes.

With all that being said, I realize what kind of people are out there, and I, more than anyone (and this will seem strange coming from me, probably) am in love with the world. I am constantly amazed, dumbfounded, and learning about the world I live in and the people who inhabit it. Sure, when life on our planet is gone it will barely be a blip on the galaxy’s radar, but I am part of that larger community and it is beautiful and I am proud to have been a tiny speck of dust in it.

I appreciate what Tweetup is trying to do. But it’s not networking for me, and it’s not a place for me to advance my career, and really it’s not a place for me to make friends. It’s a sociology experiment, and I’m happy the people who have allowed me to peek into their lives have done so. You are a fascinating bunch and I appreciate you.

If you see me at the River Market at lunchtime, say hi.

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Smyrna Video, Smyrna, Tennessee.

My dumpy ass is passing up the Sleepaway Camps, and the Friday the 13th’s and every single other holiday themed monstrosity in my path. I linger in front of I Spit On Your Grave, because who doesn’t want to see a naked butt at the age of fifteen? I see a box with a wild eyed long hair staring back at me with a ridiculous mustache from the cover.

Horror Rises From The Tomb.

“What a stupid fucking title.” I think as my hand reaches out for it’s Styrofoam stuffed case.

I flip the VHS box over and quickly scan the description. A noble comes back to life years after his death and terrorizes the locals, essentially.

What the heck. Maybe it’ll be like those Dr. Phibes movies.

Let me clarify: It was not like those Dr. Phibes movies.

A Sorcerer and his mistress are essentially killed for being into vampirism, witchcraft, lycanthropy (more on this later), cannibalism, and every other thing that you would put on a list of shit that you don’t want to get caught doing in the time of lynch mobs and people with torches beating a bath to your castle, cave, dungeon or lair, especially in a horror movie. The Sorcerer, Alaric DeMarnac and his girl are both dealt with. He loses his head during all the hubbub. Literally. But not before cursing the future generations of their executioners. Natch.

Fast forward 500 years to the 1970’s. The kids of kids of the grandkids of the great grandkids of the great great grandkids of the you-get-the-fucking-point come back to the scene of the crime and come across the (perfectly preserved) head of our wizard buddy Alaric. He pops back to life, resurrects his beloved mistress and they go to town making the locals and the ancestors commit suicide, sacrifices, you name it in the quest to find the rest of his body.

The movie was awesome. It was ridiculous. It was hokey, and scary, and creepy as shit and everything horror could and should be.

I wanted to know more about this Paul Naschy, who most certainly didn’t look like a Paul Naschy….

I never got to meet him. King Juan Carlos of Spain did, though. He met him when he awarded the Gold Medal Award for Fine Arts to him for his lifetime of acting, writing and directing accomplishments in 2001. When he awarded him that Gold Medal in Fine Arts for playing the Wolfman (Hombre Lobo), Frankenstein, The Hunchback of the Morgue, Dracula, Fu Manchu, The Mummy, A Wizard, Jack the Ripper, – you name it – over the course of his forty year career in film.

Spain was the country of origin for Jacinto Molina, also known more fondly and publicly as Paul Naschy. Paul Naschy, the respected horror actor. The Spanish Lon Cheney. The Man of Many Faces.

Spain was the country where Paul Naschy passed away yesterday, on the last day of November 2009 of pancreatic cancer.

Most people who are aware of him know he played a lot of characters, but the one he’s most known for is Waldemar Daninsky…the Wolfman, also known as Hombre Lobo. He played that Wolfman in twelve films (although one has all but vanished off the face of the earth either from a car accident involving the director and producer that tragically included the only known print of the film ) and surpassed even the legendary Lon Cheney for appearances with the seminal lycanthropic character. (Twelve to Cheney’s seven.)

The first appearance of the legendary Daninsky was 1968’s Mark of the Wolfman and the last was in 2004, in Tomb of the Wolfman, when the descendant of Waldemar pulled the silver dagger out of his chest, letting the Hombre loose one last time in an oddly paced attempt to revive the franchise under the guise of a reality tv crew filming a werewolf on a rampage. A sort of spiritual brother to the Jason flicks, there was rarely any continuity or reasoning between the movies in the series, but they were all exactly what they were supposed to be: entertaining and most importantly…scary.

If you’ve never seen Naschy in action, here’s a clip, but not of his famous wolfman, or as the diabolical DeMarnac. It’s just him, in action and in the flesh in a short film retelling Poe’s Tell-tale Heart.

You’ll see the truth in his eyes even if you don’t understand the words that he’s saying. That perhaps he was born too late, and deserved to be right there among the names Cheney, Lugosi, Price and Lorre of the Classic horror age. It’s my opinion, but it’s the opinion of a lot of other Naschy fans as well. The guy was great.

The last I saw of Naschy was in Rojo Sangre (Red Blood) where he played an over the hill horror actor. It’s one of the only roles I saw him in that didn’t really resonate. It wasn’t his performance, or rather…it was, but not because he was bad.

He was having a hard time playing down. He was just too good to play washed up. Too alive. His eyes always screamed that he was smarter, faster, stronger, meaner than anyone else on the screen.

Years have passed, and I got away from horror, and I regret it. I had heard a rumor earlier this year that Christopher Lee, a longtime friend of Naschy, would finally be teaming up with him in a movie, but I never followed up on it. I heard from several friends, including one in Spain, that he was collecting lifetime achievement awards left and right. Had a street named after him. That he was getting the respect he deserved from more than the most cultish for horror fans. That he was hitting the convention circuit despite rumors about deteriorating health.

He was Spain’s Romero and Europe’s Cheney. An author, actor, producer right up until the end.

Gone is the legendary bad ass – and from all accounts – genuinely nice guy who loved his fans and never thought horror was beneath him. The tenuous hold we have with the days of classic horror movies that showed you what you wanted and gave you what you craved is lessening.

Enjoy who we have left from the glory days of horror while we still can.

And if you haven’t, go enjoy some Paul Naschy immediately.

Paul Naschy’s final role in La Herencia Valdemar, comes out in January 2010. For the trailer, click here

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