atitagain's Blog

Have you checked out the latest reality show on cable's E! channel starring Lindsay Lohan's mother Dina?

No?

Smart move.

 Shameless E!xploitation crapped out this fecal matter called Living Lohan  earlier in the week.

It follows the exploits of young actress/alcoholic/ sl*t Lindsay Lohan's excuse of a mother figure Dina as she wh*res her latest offering to the world: 14-year old daughter Ali ( who undoubtedly will be flashing  her  T, A, and P for some magazine spread a few years from now), peruses the Internet and tabloid rags for gossip about Lindsay, and basically ignores the fact  her daughter is a floozy that is on the road to self-annihilation.

Nope. For Dina Lohan ~ media who*e in her own right ~ having her own moment in the spotlight is more important than adopting the role as responsible parent.

God forbid.

With the summer months ahead and warmer weather in sight you can bet your life that besides BBQs, beachballs and bikini-clad babes out comes "the boomin' system."

Remember LL Cool J's hit single from the 80s about car stereos with bass cranked to the max?

For some of you this may be a rite of summer. For others it is annoying as hell.

Call me an old fart but I fall into the latter catergory. Even as a self-proclaimed music fanatic I hate  it when someone feels the need to let everyone within a three block radius know that they love themself some gangsta rap or hip-hop tunes, yo.

First off blasting your car stereo loud enough to register on the Richter scale is dangerous.  You can't possibly hear emergency vehicles or car and train horns, but most importantly, how can you talk to your posse on your cell with music so loud?

Second it is just plain inconsiderate and rude. I know anyone reading this who engages in this behaviour (assuming you are able to read and use the Internet) will have a good laugh at my expense: "Yo, hate-a! Chill, bro! I can blast my mutha*&^%$ stereo as loud as I's want. It is my  car!"

This mentality is what makes people such as the system boomers so annoying, and oh so stupid.

By now you have probably heard of the horrific incident of domestic violence that took place over the weekend in downtown Milwaukee: 65-year old Elisabeth Witte was stabbed to death by her ex-husband after she performed with the Milwaukee Symphony .

Witte's friends called 911 after seeing the woman with her ex, but by the time police arrived, Witte was dead of multiple stab wounds.

Her 70 year old ex-husband ~ against whom Witte had a restraining order ~ is in custody and has confessed to the crime.

This tragedy comes on the heels of another domestic dispute that ended in the death of a man who tried killing his significant other a few miles from where I am writing this.

My question to the two or three of you who still bother reading my blogs is this:

• Are restraining orders effective?
• Should Wisconsin pass a concealed weapon law?

Despite a bent towards dark musical fare like Nine Inch Nails and The Cure I do like myself some mellow sounds every now and then. I'd highly recommend the following artists if you are looking for a CD to enjoy relaxing to.

Duffy: Rockferry

This Welsh singer has been riding a tsunami wave of hype the past few months; she is being billed as this year's Amy Winehouse.The comparisons are warranted, but only in vocal style: Duffy's voice is as sexy and smoky as Winehouse, but she doesn't come weighed down by the tattoos and tabloid fodder. The songs on Rockferry are impressively mature: tracks like "Serious," "Stepping Stone," and "Mercy" all sound like 60s soul standards. This album scored in Billboard's Top Ten last week, so don't be surprised if you hear more from Duffy in the near future. Her career is off to a great start.

She & Him: Volume One

Pairing up as "She & Him" is actress Zooey Deschanel (star of Elf, TV's Weeds, and this summer's The Happening) and singer/songwriter M. Ward. They have crafted a truly delighful listen that harkens back to old country tunes remincesent of Patsy Cline or Tammy Wynette, and 60s maltshop classics that wouldn't sound out of place in a stage production of Grease. If you are nostalgic for simple tunes of days gone by, this CD is for you. Deschanel displays surprising range as a vocalist, songwriter and instrumentalist; if her career as an actress falls by the wayside she certainly has a future as a recording artist. Songs like "Sentimental Heart," "Got Me," and "Change Is Hard" wouldn't sound out of place playing from a jukebox in a roadside diner, while "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?," "Sweet Darlin'," "and "I Was Made For You" are throwbacks to American Graffiti days of yore. A perfect album to listen to on a Sunday drive.

Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago

Bon Iver is actually Justin Vernon, and he recorded this quiet heartache of an album in a cabin here in Wisconsin. Using just a handful of instruments, his helium-high voice and some hefty subject matter, Vernon has cut a CD of pure melancholy. The songs are simple and sparse, but they pack a wallop. Sadness never sounded so eloquent. Tracks "Flume," "Skinny Love," and "Lump Sum" all ooze of heartbreak; even when Vernon bumps it up a notch the tunes are weighed down by a pervasive mood of loneliness and sorrow. Still, there is beauty underneath it all, and Bon Iver found it while recording here in our Dairy State.

Both Bon Iver and M. Ward are playing at the Pabst Theater this summer. Check out pabsttheater.org for the details on their shows.

This week Summerfest officials announced the final Marcus Amphitheater act for the Big Gig this year: John Mellencamp.

Needless to say I am not surprised by their choice.

Safe. Family-friendly. Nostalgic. A Fest staple.

Once again the brains behind the "world's largest music festival" have gone with a lineup of acts that cater to the assisted living crowd.

With the exception of Jonas Brothers (for the fresh out of Huggies set) and Stone Temple Pilots (for those who still wear '90s flannel ), all the artists scheduled to play at the 2008 Summerfest are p***y-headed choices.

NOTHING on this year's bill smacks of innovation or current musical trends. 

Instead we have your basic dinosaurs of "classic" rock (Tom Petty, Mellencamp, Rush, Stevie Wonder); your AC radio darlings (Alicia Keys, John Mayer); your yipee-ki-yayers (Tim McGraw, Rascal Flatts) and the beforementioned.

As for Steve Miller with Joe Cocker??!! BLEEP-Chunk Casino - NOT the Marcus at Summerfest!!!

Don Smiley and his group of bookies need to get with the times. They have succeeded in totally alienating an entire demographic: (which just so happens to be the future of Summerfest's success ) the young people of Milwaukee.

Plain White Ts and Seether doesn't cut it, guy Smiley.

We need some fresh faces at World Festival, Inc.

Since January of 2007 the Town of Brookfield Police have been called to the Bluemound Road Chuck E. Cheese more than fifty times for disorderly conduct and fights; one of which included over forty patrons.

No: it isn't the kids doing the fighting. It is their parents.

If there is such rancor and hostility in the parents who take their children to a fun-loving family -oriented pizza place like Chuck E. Cheese, then perhaps the establishment needs to hand out free tokens for Whack-A-Mole to these morons.

My god. Have we lost our minds???

You've seen the video: a brutal attack of a Milwaukee County bus driver caught on tape.

The perpetrator of this crime - a teen - has confessed to police.

The boy's mother sees things differently.

Despite her thug of a son admitting that it is he on the video beating the bus driver to a pulp Mom says it can't be him. Nope: not my kid.

I'd say someone is in denial.

Wake up lady. You raised your kid to be a gangsta; now take responsibility for it!!!!

Have you heard? There is a new Indiana Jones movie out!

It's finally here: 19 years coming, heavily hyped, eagerly anticipated.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was released this past Thursday, and the Steven Spielberg film is expected to break all-time box office records this Memorial Day weekend.

This is the fourth adventure for Indy Jones, and probably his last: actor Harrison Ford ~ who plays the daredevil archaeologist/professor~ is nearing 70.

If they do decide to make one more it would have to be called Indiana Jones and the Clostomy Bag of Doom.

At any rate, the Indy franchise is a multimillion dollar behemoth, whipping up A LOT of moola for Paramount Pictures and Lucasfilm, Ltd.

Fans will flock to see this latest installment, some three decades since Raiders of the Lost Ark.

But is Kingdom any good?

Yes. Yes it is. And that's all it is: good.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is typical summer movie fare; both Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas are masters of that kingdom.

Star Wars, E.T., Jaws: Spielberg and Lucas have crafted some of the most entertaining, exhilarating adventures in cinematic history.

Unfortunately, Skull is a BLEEP-hum addition to the mens' repertoire; it's entertaining no question, but by no means a classic.

I won't divulge the plot points, but I will say the film centers around the Soviets circa 1957 on the hunt for an ancient artifact with extraterrestrial ties. Jones joins in the search,along with a young greaser named Mutt (Shia LeBrouf), his WW II pal (Ray Winstone), and reunited girlfriend Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen, reprising her role from Raiders).

Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett steals the show as evil Russian agent Spalko, a woman hungry for power and determined to get it any way she sees fit.

Skull boasts some dramatic action sequences; the best comes mid-film as the group is chased in a jungle by truckloads of Russians, only to find themselves cornered by gazillions of army ants.

The ending of Skull is surprisingly hokey and dry, but at least you know Indy and friends live happily ever after.

Ford is surprisingly potent as Jones; he looks and acts half his age. He still has the moves down pat, and sure can crack a whip. It's too bad the film itself doesn't have that same crack.

The humour of the previous Jones film is M.I.A.; while there are a few light-hearted chuckles, most of them are reserved for the preposterous plot.

Granted an Indy film isn't supposed to be based in reality. But when you have our hero surviving a nuclear blast in a refrigerator,and plunging down not one but three Niagra Falls and living to tell about it, something is astray.

Perhaps it is the been here, done that feeling one gets from summer movies nowadays. Every summer since Indy's Last Crusade moviegoers have been deluged with F/X-filled eye candy. Skull doesn't present itself as being anything truly fresh and innovative in comparison.

Still, if it weren't for Indiana Jones, there would be none of the summer movie events that we see today.

In that regard, fedoras off to him.

This past week Milwaukee Brewer Ryan Braun signed a seven year deal with the Brew Crew organization.  Paycheck: $45 million.

Not bad for playing a game for a living.

For all you folks who slave day in and day out trying to make ends meet, for all you folks who sweat and toil on assembly lines just to earn a paycheck that disappears as soon as you earn it, for all you folks who went to years of college or tech school to earn a degree for a career that would actually impact society, for all you moms and dads who come home exhausted from your jobs only to have to run from soccer practice to kung fu to gymnastics, THIS SHOULD MAKE YOU MAD AS HELL.

Why, why, why does a guy who bats around a ball, runs bases, and catches flies deserve $45 million for seven years of playing a kids' game??!!

There is no arguement here. NO ONE who makes a living playing for a team that hasn't seen a World Series since the Jurassic period should be raking in that kind of dough. In the pathetic world of professional sports however all logic is hit into center field, back towards the wall and gone, gone, gone.

Only a few more days until the release of the highly-anticipated Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull.

The Steven Spielberg-directed, George Lucas-produced action film starring Harrison Ford as the whip-snapping archaeologist whose previous adventures found him in search of the Ark of The Covenant, a Temple of Doom and the Holy Grail, is estimated to be the biggest box office draw of the year.

Skull ~ in which Jones seeks the answer to mysteries behind alien artifacts from Roswell, New Mexico ~ opens nationwide Thursday; many theaters in town will be showing it at midnight Wednesday.

So don your fedora and gear up for a thrill ride: Indy is back!!!

A few hours before the start of the British Goth rock band The Cure's performance at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Ill, the beautiful sunny afternoon gave way to gloomy gray clouds and light sprinkles. It is as though the rain gods knew Robert Smith and his unmerry men were in town to depress the Chicagoland crowd.

The Cure did so for nearly three hours, culling from their thirty year history in a show that devotees could only dream of.

Lead singer Robert Smith, longtime bassist Simon Gallup, drummer Jason Cooper and returning guitarist Porl Thompson performed over thirty songs for the crowd, debuting some new material from a forthcoming fall release, but mostly sticking to the lengthy Cure catalog.

"Plainsong," "Prayers For Rain," "The End Of The World," "Pictures Of You," "Lovesong," "Lullaby," "Inbetween Days," "Friday I'm In Love," "Just Like Heaven," "Hot Hot Hot!!!," "Disintergration," "Primary," new tunes "The Only One," "The Perfect Boy" and "Sleep When I'm Dead," and others made themselves into the set; the encores included "If Only Tonight We Could Sleep," "The Kiss," "Close To Me," "Why Can't I Be You?," "Boys Don't Cry," "Killing an Arab," The Lovecats" and more.

The band was flanked by a dazzling array of lights and strobe effects, fog and video screen which displayed artwork and imagery form The Cure's albums. The standout was the dark "One Hundred Years," which flashed disturbing black and white photos of atrocities throughout history.

Robert Smith ~ the influential black clad, pallid-faced, eyelined and lipsticked gloom merchant responsible for legions of Hot Topic shoppers and emo bands wearing their broken, jaded hearts on their sleeves thru the years ~ looks and sounds superb. He did experience some vocal problems near show's end ("I apologize for my f**king voice being awful" he bemoaned); otherwise it was the good 'ol Goth granddad fans know and adore.

His band backed him with tight instrumentation; despite the absence of keyboards so prevalent in many Cure tunes, the new versions sounded not unlike the originals.

The Cure's show was excellent from start to "alt.end.", resulting in a rarity you'd find from a Goth crowd: smiles all around.

Amanda Palmer and Brian Vigilone ~ aka The Dresden Dolls ~ are releasing a new CD May 20th.

Well, sort of.

No, Virginia  is a set of demos, unreleased cuts and B-sides and features four new studio recordings including "Dear Jenny," "Sorry Bunch," and "The Sheep Song."

Vocalist/songwriter/keyboardist Palmer and drummer/guitarist/vocalist Vigilone create sparse but eviscerating alt-pop with lyrics that are at times scathing, vulnerable, and rageful.

Part of the Dolls' appeal are their extravagant live shows: carnival spectacles that can feature fire breathers, contortionists and people in costume.

The Dolls themselves perform decked out in cabaret -styled outfits complete with creepy Goth-like makeup.

Palmer and Vigilone will be taking to the road this summer, but no Milwaukee date is set.

In the past couple of weeks we have witnessed two devastating natural disasters: a cyclone in Myanmar and an earthquake in China. Both have killed thousands upon thousands of people and descimated entire regions.

The United States has seen its share of nature's fury raising havoc: tornadoes have already taken the lives of dozens in the Midwest, and it isn't even summer yet.

So what do you think? Do you believe that these calamities are simply the planet's natural occurences, or are they signs of something more serious? Let's keep the whole "global warming" arguement out of it, but do you believe that the earth is trying to tell us something by the way it's been "acting" up?

And more seriously: do you think that perhaps these disasters are signs of the so-called Apocalypse or end of the world as foretold in many religions and ancient texts?

I'd love to hear your opinions.

You had better be in top physical shape if you attend a M.I.A. concert. There is no sitting or standing still at one of her shows; M.I.A.'s music is designed to make you move.

That is precisely what the soldout crowd at the Turner Hall Ballroom did last night, and it was a sight to see.

M.I.A. is one Maya Arulpragasm, a British singer with ties to Sri Lanka.

She debuted on the music scene in 2005 with the album Arular; a disc that garnered across the board praise from critics and was groundbreaking in its mishmash of musical styles.

2007 found Kala released, and like her debut, it received accolades to no end. Rolling Stone and Blender magazines both christened it Album of the Year.

In concert M.I.A. is every bit the force to be reckoned with as she is on record. Although she drops political rhetoric into her songs, for the most part, M.I.A. 's music is about shakin' your BLEEP.

After an annoyingly lengthy couple of DJ sets, the show opened with an odd video of a Chinese "politician" denouncing the government.

With a shapely backup dancer/vocalist and male dancer in tow, and a DJ mixing the music behind, M.I.A. appeared in sunglasses and fluroescent headdress.

The video screen behind the four flashed a dizzying array of imagery as they sweat, danced and gyrated to a thumping, escatic set that included songs "Lo Dollar," "Bamboo Banga," "Bird Flu," XR2," "World Town," "Sunshowers," "Galang," and "Jimmy."

The audience danced themselves into a frenzy. The show's highlight came midset when women from the crowd were invited onstage for a few tunes; the men came up for a rousing version of "Boyz."

The show ended with "Paper Planes" and every one went home exhausted but happy.

This performance was more than just a concert; it was a party. The mostly college to high school-aged crowd came to dance, and boy did they do that. The Turner Hall Ballroom was one mass of energy last night.

And boyz? If you ever want to check out some of the loveliest young women Milwaukee has to offer, check out a M.I.A. show. They came in droves, dressed like Abercrombie and Fitch models and looking mighty hot.

The same could be said of M.I.A.'s amazing performance.

This week's Entertainment Weekly magazine's cover story is about the upcoming Oliver Stone biopic of George W. Bush's presidency called W. .

Former Goonie Josh Brolin ~ enjoying a career revival with appearances in the Oscar hits No Country For Old Men and Michael Clayton ~ plays Dubya, while Elizabeth Banks stars as Laura.

James (Babe) Cromwell plays Bush Sr; Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn as mom; Thandie (The Pursuit of Happyness) Newton plays Condoleezza Rice; and Miley (Hannah Montana) Cyrus plays newlywed Jenna.

Okay ~ that last one I made up.

Question is will you go see this movie? Considering Oliver Stone is in the driver's seat, you can bet your Texas dollar that the film will not be a vanity piece. Stone has always been controversial and critical of the government in his films; W. looks to be more of the same.