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The Smoking Cupcake responds to Andrew Wells (see “Comments” section from “The Case for Bad Lieutenant”):

This notion of conventionality that Mr. Wells rehashes (I use the word rehash since, from his argument, it's clear that he didn’t read the Cupcake’s original post closely enough) is an oft heard complaint with all things New Order, no more so than in the reviews of Never Cry Another Tear – which, coincidentally, was one of his original points. It’s also a complete crock of shit, for conventionality is a simple, subjective term elitist-types like to throw around when evaluating works of art. Debating a work’s conventionality is a lot like debating something’s “quality” – what’s quality to one person isn’t necessarily for another (for more on that, see: Pirsig, Robert M. and his many discussions of the concept) (It also brings to mind Jules Winnfield’s take on sewer rat during the final scene of Pulp Fiction: “Hey, sewer rat might taste like Pumpkin Pie but I’d never know ‘cause I’d never eat the filthy mutherfucker.”).

Anyway...

The Cupcake thought it was evident that he wasn’t defending Never Cry Another Tear as a masterwork. Nor was The Cupcake vague by any stretch of the imagination that Sumner et al. have indeed become, to use Wells’ term, conventional over the years – that is if you want to use that term the way he apparently defines it. The Cupcake prefers to think of this as, say: maturing, experimenting with other directions, or, heaven forbid, getting older and simply not giving a fuck about changing the shape of modern music and settling comfortably into elderstatesmenship status. People like Mr. Wells that constantly complain about stuff like conventionality with New Order are missing the boat, especially when they make ridiculously egotistical statements like: conventional listeners “cannot (or prefer not to) identify the lack of substance in the work as many of the surface elements remain in place.” If I wanted to dumb the discussion down in this manner, I could just as easily say that elitist snobs aren’t listening hard enough (which, evidently, they aren’t) and would do well to invest in a good set of headphones, crack open a beer and spend the next 45 minutes in an uninterrupted Bad Lieutenant-induced listening session but that’s too easy.

The evidence…

I can only surmise that by the term conventional, Wells means that latter day New Order et al. have consistently mined the same song structures, pitch points and chords over and over, with repeated effect and success but, through a photocopy-like process, a noticeable disintegration of brilliance and luster has slowly emerged with each repeat of the process. I’m not really sure what to say to that. Am I supposed to, for example, hold it against the band that they’ve knocked out more tracks like “Jetstream” in the last 20 years instead of “Ultraviolence?” If Wells wants to take the time to explain why one track is more conventional than the other, I’m all ears. The Cupcake prefers to hear in a track like “Jetstream” the fundamental building blocks that “Ultraviolence” laid down, not hassle them for sounding conventional. It’s all still there, some people just choose to ignore it and bitch about things like conventionality like a little pig-tailed girl named Sally.

In case Wells hasn’t noticed, New Order have, since around the Brotherhood era, sounded, at least by his rather thin definition of the term, “conventional.” Logically, after three records on which they were trying to pin down their direction and the contain the various mutuations of the sound their Joy Division beginnings produced, by album #4 a repeatable yet unique sound had emerged. From that point forward, everything they’ve done has pretty much followed that blueprint with tweaks here and there. And, most importantly, every time any of them individually, or the band collectively, deviates from this blueprint, they’re accused of being things like conventional or boring or trying too hard to milk past success with limited results. I don’t get it. Take a track like “Crystal” for example. Not only didn’t it sound like anything any other band was doing at the time (or now for that matter), it sounded perfectly unconventionally conventional enough to have been found on any record New Order ever recorded, save for Movement. You can’t have your cake and eat it too – something the reviewers and detractors keep trying to do over and over every time some new red meat comes out to review. Never Cry Another Tear has tons of unconventionally conventional New Order moments, but that’s not the point, because Bad Lieutenant have also clearly charted their own direction and sound conventionally unconventional in their own right. If anyone knows of any other bands that are putting out tracks like “This Is Home” other than Bad Lieutenant, drop that knowledge on The Cupcake pronto.

Moving on (no pun intended)…

I’m not really sure what Wells' point is in saying “there’s nothing wrong with being a conventional pop listener.” It certainly sounds like he thinks there is. If he truly doesn’t look down his nose at conventional pop listeners, he likely wouldn’t have taken the time to introduce the conventionality angle, nor would he have taken the opportunity to make the veiled dig that The Cupcake’s original piece was produced because he felt “personally attacked” that discerning listeners (like, presumably, Mr. Wells) and reviewers pointed a bunch of shit out that The Cupcake didn’t agree with. As I flatly stated several times in “The Case for Bad Lieutenant,” my original gripes were about how, technically, the album was reviewed, not that the reviews were only saying the album was merely okay. If someone, anyone, had written a review that avoided each and every pitfall The Cupcake made note of in Part I (e.g., Barney’s less than stellar lyrical prowess, etc.), he would have been perfectly content to accept it from the “everyone’s entitled to their own opinion” school of reasoning. But they didn’t do that. They chose instead to write a series of trite, shallow and ill-formulated reviews, largely ignoring the actual record.

Never Cry Another Tear has not been given a fair shake in the music press. Its been on the receiving end of drive-by journalism from the beginning. The only personal attack The Cupcake suffered was one of multiple counts of exposure-to-shitty-journalism.

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10/24/09

OK. I won’t hide it. I’ll just come right out and say it. I love Joy Division. I love New Order. I think Electronic’s first record is one of the best records of the 1990’s. “State Of Shock” and “What Do You Want from Me” repeatedly cattle-brand my psyche. Even “Superhighways” competes hard with New Order’s better singles. So, while the pure cane sugar of Joy Division’s original blueprint has certainly been watered-down with artificial sweetener over the years, there has never been any justifiable reason to question the collective concept of New Order. This was no truer back in 1983 when Power, Corruption and Lies came out than it is now with the debut release of Barney’s new project, Bad Lieutenant. Unfortunately, music critics, being the fickle, contradictory (more on that later) and generally unhappy lot they are, have been whittling away at the New Order legacy for a while now. It started with Republic, extended through all the various side endeavors and the New Order Version 2.0 years and, not surprisingly, continues with the ridiculously trite reviews of Never Cry Another Tear.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and waste anyone’s time purporting that Never Cry Another Tear is a 5-star affair worthy of Technique-like adoration, but I am going to use all my Vincent Bugliosian powers to set some shit straight because nothing annoys me more than flimsy, clichéd arguments that are outright unjustified. Don't worry, I’m not going to “review” Never Cry Another Tear. Reviews are inherently subjective (even though they should be objective), so any critique I could offer has already been contaminated by the beginning of this article, thus providing the likes of Petridis (which sounds suspiciously like detritus...), Roffman, Ashman and Ewing a Nagasaki-like yield of explosive retort.

My aim here is purely prosecutorial against crimes of the ivory tower variety. No more, no less.

There is one assumption in what follows: If you’re reading this, I'm assuming you’re already familiar with the story. This is no Joy Division 101, etc.

Barney writes shit lyrics.

This complaint mystifies me, and if I have to see it one more time, I’m taking hostages. How many times do we have to be reminded that Bernard Sumner isn’t William Shakespeare? Is it really necessary to kick the poor guy in the nuts every time you review one of his records by repeatedly using terms like “cringe-worthy” and “riot inducing?” We’ve known this for the 30 odd years he’s been the one penning the lyrics, and it hasn’t bothered us in the least. I still don’t know what the fuck “Blue Monday” is supposed to be about, but the lyrics sound cold, foreboding and mysterious, which is, I assume, the exact feeling Barney was going for. Moreover, until recently, I don’t recall his peculiar talent with the pen bothering most in the critical world. It was almost like, all of sudden, some asshole critic zeroed in on “Slow Jam” and the microscope of redundant criticism started flowing like that spooky and unstoppable acidic blood in Alien.

Generally, we laugh the same way Barney laughs in “Every Little Counts” at his frequent, yet endearing, simplistic lyrical structures. And you know why, cuz no one really gives a shit about its simplicity because Sumner’s work has always been about the sum of its parts, not one great talent making up for a multitude of other deficiencies. Not only is pointing this shortcoming out a completely unnecessary dig at Sumner (and, in Bad Lieutenant’s case, Jake Evans as well), it tells all of us that have appreciated everything Sumner’s been involved with that the reviewer has completely missed the whole “arrangement + execution axis” of New Order’s brilliance.

Anyone who’s listened to New Order knows the lyrics are mostly a peripheral to the overall experience. In fact, Sumner’s unorthodox voice/delivery often creates an additional dimension to the music that enhances the meticulous arrangements and execution. I’ve often said – and my guess is almost everyone reading this article would agree – New Order are a feeling. Their music is existential. So what if Barney gets things jumbled and resorts to grade school rhymes on occasion? I can still tell what he’s trying to say regardless because the arrangements and execution of the actual music tell me exactly what I should be hearing.

With all apologies to Barney, who I’m sure puts genuine effort into writing lyrics (at least it looked that way in that Prozac documentary), lyrics to a New Order song are what dialogue is to a Stanley Kubrick film - most of the time merely complimentary and 90% of the time purely a function of the music. Kubrick, like any great visual artist, was a master at communicating feeling via image. Sumner and New Order at large are masters at communicating feeling via their command of the aural; an achievement that is much more abstract, and surely 10 times more impressive, than using rhythm as a backdrop to storytelling (one of the many reasons I avoid rap, spoken word, REM, etc with pandemic-like apprehension).

What’s funny is I thought this was common knowledge to anyone that knew fuck all about the band (e.g., critics) and their many incarnations. Yet rarely, if ever, does one see the critical mass acknowledge this fact. Apparently, if you believe what the critics say, Never Cry Another Tear suffers mightily from lyrical shortcomings.

Utter bullshit. The day Barney starts making anything other than opaque sense or writing like Morrissey is the day I set my record collection on fire.

Never Cry Another Tear sounds too much like, but only “sort of” like, New Order, but not enough like New Order given their preternatural gift of artistic advancement.

Confused? I am too.

I suppose you can have your cake and eat it too when you critique music for a living. See, on one hand, its perfectly acceptable to trash a band like U2 for deviating from their original recipe by recording Zooropa or taking that road to its logical conclusion by recording an album like Pop, thereby forcing them to abandon all creative experimentation and, as a result, back to recording stone-aged U2-by-numbers records like All That You Can’t Leave Behind. Yeah, U2 move a lot of product, sell a shitload of concert tickets and have legitimately established themselves as the elder statesmen, but for a band I don’t care for all that much, I was crushed when Bono and crew deep-sixed the experimentation of the 90’s in favor of safer waters. I was actually beginning to like them.

With New Order, and by extension here, Bad Lieutenant, it seems the opposite is true…but only at times. Since Technique, the critical word has revolved around New Order failing to maintain their "edge" and producing predictable album after predicatable album. During the Get Ready era, they were even accused of, ahem, poaching off of their past to fill in gaps that existed from a lack of ideas. This latter accusation (there’s no other word for it) has been routinely used when looking at Bad Lieutenant’s effort. In fact, Neil Ashman of Drowned In Sound actually writes a disclaimer at the beginning of his review telling us he’s not clever enough to objectively review Never Cry Another Tear, opting instead to measure it against New Order’s back catalogue . Five words came to my mind after reading said disclaimer: what a load of shit.

Most of the reviews (even the ones without disclaimers) predictably follow the same structure, basically: Never Cry Another Tear isn’t a bad record because it sounds like New Order, but it only sounds like New Order-without-the-bass and we really wish Barney would just “invent” another “sound” because he’s been part of a band that dependably did that a whopping two times in 30+ years of making music. And these are the same people that say Sumner’s lyrics are simple.

This is the deal – and, again, you already know this. New Order have always sounded like New Order because no other band in the history of recorded music has ever sounded like New Order. Yes, they evolved, and, yes, there are clear nuances between, say, Power, Corruption and Lies and Republic. That doesn’t change the fact that every New Order record still has the New Order “sound.” It doesn’t change the fact that every New Order record has an electronic component and an acoustic component and when the band is firing on all cylinders, they manage the unique feat of combining those two halves seamlessly and creating, undeniably, a sound all their own. Even in advanced age, that sound is still unique and driving. And feeling. And, yes, when you take one or two elements away, there is a certain hollowness, but that shouldn’t, and doesn’t, torpedo the rest of the effort.

The critics here are convinced that Never Cry Another Tear is, simultaneously, sort of okay because it sort of sounds like New Order but claim it would have sounded better if Hooky actually played bass but would have been even better, without Hooky, had Bad Lieutenant pulled an acid-house-style revolutionary rabbit out of their hat. And contradiction abounds.

As a great admirer of their unique art, whether it be as a collective or separate, I can still be objective and say some of this record does sound like a 10th generation New Order photocopy. But, it’s also been 26 years since Power, Corruption and Lies (the first New Order album where an identifiable course was charted...) and, by my count, Never Cry Another Tear is in actuality a 16th generation photocopy . So, should it surprise anyone that, absent Peter Hook, portions of this album sound vaguely (but not too vaguely!) like New Order? No. After 26 years, is anyone surprised that there’s a vaguely watered-down quality to the New Order-like elements? No. Does it surprise anyone that now, having cruised to the latter side of 50, Barney might actually prefer to merely refine the sound he helped propagate along with just a handful of other people? No. Is there a reason why no one is pointing any of this shit out? Yes. To put it simply, it's way to easier to peg something you can’t quite comprehend or accept on a band being lazy or boring or both – which is pretty much what every reviewer has done in Bad Lieutenant's case.

It should surprise no one that the reviews make little reference to the fact that Bad Lieutenant isn’t New Order. If more was made of this relatively simple (there’s that word again) concept, perhaps the album would have been evaluated objectively. Speaking of comparisons, non-comparisons and general vibes that would have been warranted…

This is home.

In all those aforementioned references to New Order, Mr. Detritus et al somehow forget to mention the most New Order-influenced track on the entire record, “This Is Home.” More than any other track, the song structure here is classic New Order. From the opening bass chords that should instantly remind you of 1978 to the near-perfect confluence of the electronic-acoustic mix New Order own the patent on, “This Is Home” is no fuzzy photocopy. It’s a pure original, Hook or no Hook. Add in the sweeping, building final third that includes a mandatory bass solo, combined with the abrupt, hollow ending, and you’ve got what I wouldn’t be surprised to learn is one of those mysterious leftovers from the Waiting for the Sirens’ Call sessions we keep hearing about.

So why the fuck is this song not mentioned in all those ill-founded comparison arguments? I can’t be completely sure, but my guess is it has something to do with Jake Evans’ vocals…

Jake.

If there’s one thing I hate more than unjustified arguments and critiques, it’s the lazy-reviewer tactic of simple (again!) comparisons. I’m not talking about saying things like “Bad Lieutenant sound like New Order” – as I’ve already said, in a roundabout way, that’s an understandable and rather complex comparison. I’m talking more about saying things like “Jake Evans sounds like INSERT NAME OF DEEP/DRONING/HE OF THE HEART-FELT DELIVERY BRITISH CROONER OF CHOICE.” This has been a most popular way of avoiding any actual substantive evaluation of Jake Evans and his contribution to the record.

Jake does sound like Jimi Goodwin. He also sounds like Noel Gallagher. So the fuck what? It’s not his fault God blessed him with a voice whose frequency is in approximate range to another British singer that, unfortunately for Jake, has sold over 100 million records in the last 15 years. Of course, the one thing that’s lost is Jake sounds more like Jake than anyone else I could compare him to. In fact, if I was Jake I’d take those comparisons as compliments…until I realized that I sound better than either of them.

Holding these comparisons over Bad Lieutenant’s head like they’re a minus instead of a plus is ridiculous. This guy can belt. I can see why Barney referred to him as a “gifted” singer in the publicity leading up to the album’s release. Why his voice is being held against him is a mystery to me. And if you’re going to evaluate him, let’s hear why he’s allegedly not a good fit or voice instead of how singing an admittedly Gallagher-esque tune like “Head Into Tomorrow” disqualifies him from being a decent vocalist. His inclusion adds yet another dimension to the music that further separates Bad Lieutenant from New Order. It’s a shame the reviews resort to nickel and dime comparisons that tarnish his contribution.

Steve’s drumming is pedestrian.

This won’t take long because the same reviewer that made this assertion also made it a point, nay; a cornerstone of his review, to say that Bad Lieutenant is clearly a “guitar rock” band. If so, logic would dictate that on Never Cry Another Tear, the human drum-machine otherwise known as Stephen Morris would be relieved of his former duties that often required him to maintain 100 bpms over and over. In this new incarnation, of course the percussion is going to sound thin – if you drop the caveat that he used to be forced to keep up with, among other things, electronic sheep, the drumming sounds perfect. Sometimes, it’s that obvious people.

Absolutely ridiculous.

Postscript.

I hope Bad Lieutenant’s future output is reviewed with greater objectivity and, more importantly, originality. If Sumner and New Order are indeed as widely respected as described in every one of these reviews I’ve taken issue with, an unbiased ear is what they deserve the most.

Maybe Hooky will fare better upon the release of his Freebass material. If it ever comes out.

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2009

Dear Mr. President,

With all the hoopla of your successor’s inauguration festivities, I thought it would be a great opportunity to write you and let you know about the many ways your exodus to Texas will affect me. See, I figure since we’ve shared the last 8 years together, largely on your terms, you might like to hear what an average American like me will ultimately think of as Marine 1 sails you away:

I will miss your giant Presidential-seal belt buckle.

I will miss your skills as an “opening day” pitcher. If Presidential success was based on skills such as these, you would be President for life.

I will miss your sneak-attack, impromptu back-rubs of female foreign heads-of-state.

I will miss Bob Woodward books about how totally ass-f***ing-backwards your administration ran the war.

I will miss your affinity for bold, yet sometimes misguided declarations. For example you knocked my socks off when you told Saddam that he had “until sundown” to leave Iraq before our invasion. Very, very Dallas of you, sir!

I will miss your eloquence when reading children’s books.

I will miss your stiff arms.

I will miss your command of folksy sayings such as the “fool me once” adage that you were able to use to such great effect.

I will miss your boss door-opening skills, especially the time when you displayed them in front of the entire Chinese press corps.

I will miss your deft piloting and landing skills (on an aircraft carrier at that!).

I will miss your physical fitness, which was no doubt responsible for your cat-like reflexes during that whole shoe-attack thing.

I will miss having you show our Olympic athletes encouragement.

I will miss your ability (or lack thereof) to enunciate.

I will miss knowing my President, the keeper of the secret codes, can use a chainsaw.

I will miss your extreme pretzel-eating.

I will miss the look on Vladimir Putin’s face that says, “What the hell is this guy talking about?!” so frequently seen whenever the two of you got together.

I will miss those killer orange-jump suits you’ve helped make so fashionable down in Guantánamo.

I will miss your truly unique vocabulary including words like evildoers, strategery and unificator.

I will miss that deer-in-the-headlights look you got every time you had to remember a foreign leader’s name.

I will miss seeing you have to endure hanging with Nancy Pelosi (I’m not singling you out here, I feel bad for President Obama on this issue as well…)

I will miss your insufficient troop-deployments to Afghanistan.

I will miss your relentless quest to reduce American’s civil liberties to that of a banana republic.

I will miss your effort to privatize the military courtesy of “respectable” American “security and logistics” companies like Blackwater and Halliburton.

I will miss starting wars with sovereign nations under suspiciously flimsy circumstances.

I will miss your undeniable ability to prepare the country’s emergency-response infrastructure for catastrophic natural and man-made disasters.

I will miss New Orleans.

I will miss your inability to explain, let alone understand, complex issues of geo-politics, economics and military strategy.

I will miss being reminded on an almost daily basis that 9/11 occurred on your watch. Thanks for making sure we all remember you were the asleep-at-the-wheel Commander-In-Chief leading up to that crisis – its taking responsibility that counts!

I will miss your VP, Darth Cheney, and his hypocritical, foul-mouthed, perverted slant on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I will miss massive abuses of power such as the U.S. Attorney firings that resulted from ideological differences and, more importantly, spite.

I will miss the systematic dismantling of our economy and the Capitalism it once represented.

I will miss Barney.

And most of all, I will miss how you located Osama bin Laden and brought him to justice just like you said you would when you were standing on that pile of 2,800+ smoldering dead Americans low those many years ago. You've outdone yourself in honoring those patriots as well as the 4,000+ American soldiers killed since we invaded Afghanistan : )

You, sir, changed our country and the world. I don’t think anyone will ever be the same again. Many, many thanks!

Sincerely,
The Smoking Cupcake

Right out of the oven:

Right out of the oven:

Hanky-panky with park bench leads to ill-timed encounter with police, emergency workers…Got a beef with City Hall? Why not send them a pair of edible goat testicles!...I wonder if it’s mandatory that you be completely hammered before taking the stage as Ted Kennedy while performing at, ahem, political karaoke?…Squirrel on “nut hunt” (Spiegel Online’s words, not mine) puts the smack down on TV broadcast…Brutus the bull mistakes owner for pin cushion…Speaking of bulls, Mr. Zantrex The Bull reacts badly to being spray-painted with blue food coloring…Don’t people like Robert Infantino always seem to A) have nicknames like “Long Island’s Favorite Magician” and B) claim things like peeping and possessing child porn are big misunderstandings?...And finally, the things they have to live with in Australia – Melbourne jogger runs afoul of AWOL kangaroo and pays for it with impromptu boxing lesson.

The “everyone is asking the wrong question” moment of the week:

Since Sen. McCain’s August 29^th announcement of Gov. Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential choice, everyone on both sides of the aisle has been going crazy over her qualifications, background and personal life. Not that this furor should be unexpected, nor is it unwarranted despite Sen. Obama having said repeatedly that Palin’s personal life should not have anything to do with being considered for President. I guess the way Obama sees it, Bush got a free ride twice on the personal background ticket so why challenge it – let’s win on merit instead. And remember, Bush’s rides came despite him being an admitted recovered alcoholic (maybe), an alleged draft dodger, an alleged cocaine abuser and, in general (no alleged here), the world’s worst businessman. If issues of this magnitude didn’t matter in 2000 and 2004, why should they matter with respect to a lowly VP nominee? In the immediate, Palin's issues - excuse the pun - pale in comparison to the one question everyone should be asking: What happened to all the other astronomically more qualified suitors for the VP slot?

Is John McCain, decorated war veteran, long time public servant, dedicated father and owner of who-knows-how-many-homes actually expecting me to believe that this was his best choice? Is he expecting me to believe that since he shored up the nomination six full months ago, this was the yield of his scouting labor? Are we to be confident in her even though he made this decision after only meeting with Palin for the first time the day before he asked her to run with him. What happened to Charlie Christ? What happened to Mitt Romney? What happened to Rudy? I’m so mystified that I’m even asking what happened to Mike Huckabee! Are we expected to believe that all of these guys got beat out by a 21^st Century version of June Cleaver that can get you a good deal on a snow-mobile? I mean, let’s face it, no one gets along great and I know McCain had his problems with Huckabee, Rudy and Romney during the primaries, but if Biden could get away with the Fuzzy Zoeller Award of the Year and still get picked, than surely fences could have been mended. How can McCain possibly reconcile the numerous ideological differences between himself and his running mate in a convincing enough fashion to win?

Life is truly stranger than fiction...which leads me to believe that one of three things is happening here:

1. The former top options all removed themselves from consideration because they don’t want to be on a ticket that gets drubbed in November.
2. George Lucas has overthrown Karl Rove for control of the Republican Party and is desperately trying to make up for those shitty Star Wars prequels by showing he can write drama.
3. McCain will yet be proven right. Gov. Palin will show that she indeed possess talents not yet visible to the naked eye and will prove everyone wrong through staunch political savvy, undeniable mastery of issues – both domestic and foreign, exemplary oratorical skills and a complete lobotomization that will make her palatable to anyone who: still believes in the Theory of Evolution; anyone not living in Alaska, Montana, Wyoming or any other locale where you pack heat waiting for the Russians to invade; anyone who thinks the government should mind its own f***ing business when it comes to what we do with our bodies, etc, etc…Naturally, none of those things came through successfully in the acceptance speech that was written for her at the RNC. Unless, of course, you consider success to be transparent jingoism, baseless attacks on the opposition (e.g., raising taxes - don't the Republicans have anything else they can use?!), a total lack of policy discussion (oh, pardon me, she did mention drilling for oil several times), yadda, yadda, yadda - don't believe me? Read the transcript for yourself here. Outside of the few zingers lobbed Obama's way, her speech was an insult.
   

So, The Cupcake is still left scratching his head. Any way you slice it, the thing that scares me the most is that the First-Son-In-Law might be this guy (nice mullet by the way) in another 4 months.

You should check out:

The soundtrack to Rumble Fish by Stewart Copeland – drummer from The Police creates an unforgettable soundscape to one of the most overlooked movies of the 1980’s. Added bonus? You get to hear Stan Ridgway from Wall of Voodoo sing something other than Mexican Radio.

Right out of the oven:

Former Creek County Oklahoma judge Donald Thompson released from prison after serving 20 months for ill-timed penis pumping...Family vacation comes to a hazy end after mom and dad pass out in hotel bar, leaving one, two and six year olds to fend for themselves…Are you a dog person or a cat person? Anthony Dill emphatically answered that question for a group of shocked onlookers (who just happened to be kids) while managing to incorporate urination along with a number of other visual aides…18-year-old out on drunken-early-morning-pedal-boat-joy-ride goes for broke in the “let’s try to get multiple rescue workers killed” sweepstakes…In other bizarre Canadian news this week, dust-up over tree branch leaves 76-year-old, literally, breathless…Florida doctor, Pasco County Fire Rescue go the extra mile to show why they got rejected for that guest appearance on Law & Order: SVU…And finally, Los Angeles drunk driver learns how not to ask fellow motorists for assistance after driving the wrong way in a carpool lane and flipping his car; what a night.

The "Mission Accomplished" moment of the week:

For those of you out there with short memories (e.g., the 30% of people that still think Bush knows what he’s doing), May 1 marked the 5th anniversary – let me repeat that, the 5th anniversary – of the President’s most memorable photo-op. No, not the one where he couldn’t remember the “shame on you” saying. No, no, not the one where he convinced the Chinese that he’s a complete f***ing idiot. I’m talking about the no-less-infamous one aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln where he declared victory and an end to all “major combat operations” in Iraq. If he had still been alive to see this debacle, Lincoln would most certainly never have stopped throwing up. In fact, I’ve felt like throwing up several times over the past few days watching the Bush team bob and weave like Sugar Ray Leonard around questions surrounding that fateful appearance.

Paring the issue down to its most simplistic fundamentals, just what would Bush call the last 5 years of the war if major combat operations ceased in May of 2003 and we indeed won the “Battle of Iraq” (his words, not mine)? And, what are we to term those soldiers killed since May 1, 2003 if they weren’t killed as a result of “combat operations?” Perhaps collateral damage? According to the Washington Post – whose statistics come straight from the Department of Defense just in case anyone wants to cry foul – over 4,000 troops have now been killed as of April 28th, 2008. And, even more infuriating, roughly 97% of those 4,000 fatalities came after the “end of major combat operations” according to http://www.antiwar.com/ – they get their statistics from the Department of Defense too. So, let’s do some quick math, shall we? These statistics mean that roughly 3,900 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the President told us that the war in Iraq was over. Hard to believe that we’ve lost almost 4,000 troops in the 5 years since the war ended when we only lost 100 or so when it was taking place, you know? That seems counterintuitive to me…if these last 5 years didn’t involve major combat operations and our mission was indeed “accomplished,” then how come so many soldiers have been sacrificed since?

Even more disturbing are the Iraqi civilian fatalities which, depending on who you believe, range anywhere from 30,000 (Bush’s number) to 650,000 + (Johns Hopkins School of Public Health’s number) (click on the tab entitled "Iraqi Security Force and Civilian Fatalities" at the top-right of the chart that comes up). Personally, I think the World Health Organization’s estimate is likely the most accurate considering that, unlike Bush (who stopped counting in 2005 – what a great way to keep the number down!), WHO actually went door to door and surveyed over 9,000 households in over 1,000 neighborhoods on things like how many family members got decapitated the last time insurgents came over for dinner. Call me crazy, but I think I’ll live dangerously and take WHO’s reputation over the Bush Administration’s in deciding who’s making a more honest stab at being accurate – especially since they’re still counting and all. Put it this way, if you can convince me with a straight face that only 30,000 Iraqi civilians have lost their lives since the 2003 invasion, you might want to try selling me a car. Or crack. Either way, you dazzle me; you’ve got a lifetime customer.

Oh, and by the way, if all of the above wasn’t convincing enough that major combat operations are indeed not over – we’ve spent half a trillion dollars since May 1st, 2003 according to the National Priorities Project (they get their statistics straight from Congressional Budget Office estimates). A half trillion! And for that price tag, we still can't fit our troops with the body armor they need.

Abraham Lincoln would be throwing up indeed. Everybody should be throwing up.

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Over the weekend I was at a Circuit City browsing around and found a copy of the 1992 Laurence Fishburne film Deep Cover for $6. Being a Cupcake that apprecaites everything and anything that is deeply discounted, especially something as badass as this film, I scooped it up like Baskin-Robbins. I was introduced to this film a long time ago by my compadre Isaac and had forgotten how well done it is. Put is this way, most of the time there's nothing better than a bunch of gangsters doing a bunch of ganster shit.

Watching this film over the course of the next couple days, it began to occur to The Cupcake that movies involving the City of Angels are never easy endeavors. Even the comedies carry with them a sense that L.A. is a less-than-forgiving place wrought with desparation and depression. So, following this epiphany, I began an internal debate over my favorite L.A. films...to properly do this, however, I first established 4 simple ground rules:

- This is not a "top x" list - I hate "Top 10s" (with maybe the exception of Letterman's) and made a 2008 resolution with myself to get away from rank-ordering things - its trite and too subjective. This rule will also absolve me of having to include every film ever made that had some connection to L.A. Instead, this is just a collection of films that I personally like.
- For a film to be included, L.A. needs to be the setting's focal point. This means that, theoretically, Die Hard could not be considered an "L.A. film" since 90% of it takes place inside Nakatomi Plaza.
- All genres count.
- Because celluloid depictions of L.A. are usually so desparate, desolate (morally, anyway) and depressing, I've assigned each film a depress-o-meter rating where 1 means its fodder for Disney audiences and 10 means "fasten-your-seatbelts-for-Requiem for a Dream-style-anxiety".

Here we go, in no particular order:

Collateral (2004): Tom Cruise with gray hair, cool suit and a very difficult job (hitman). Jamie Foxx with almost no hair, sweat suit and a very difficult job (cabbie). Way better than Heat (see below) in my opinion since it dispenses with the pleasantries and extraneous character development and instead moves at almost-real-time through a meticulous night of witness "tampering" on behalf of a Colmbian drug king pin. Cruise, despite his tendency to annoy, is flawless as Vincent. And Michael Mann uses the city of L.A. visually in a way that is superior to any other film on this list. Depress-o-meter says: 5

Deep Cover (1992): Larry Fishburne is killer as an undercover narc working for the DEA that, at the beginning of the film, has never taken a drink or done any drugs thanks to a personal tragedy that befell him as a child...by the end of the film, he approaches the threshold of self-destruction but is stone-cold (Steve Austin!) cool enough to reel himself in just in time to nail both the distributor & the king pin he was tasked with bringing down as well as unforseen-yet-alluded-to elements of corruption in the state-department and the CIA. Other stand outs include Jeff Goldblum (WTF is he doing in this film?) and some actress named Kamala Lopez-Dawson that plays the scariest crack-addicted mother ever. Depress-o-meter says: 7

Blade Runner (1982): OK, so my rules don't exclude future "interpretations" of L.A., a weakness perhaps. Nevertheless, this 40s-style noir-thriller set in 2019 is replete with flying cars, extreme pollution and the coolest picture-scanning equipment this side of reality. Not so much depressing as it is a stark indictment of how for-granted humans take living and life itself - despite, of course, Rutger Hauer killing everything that moves. The star that burns twice as bright burns half as long. Depress-o-meter says: 5

Save the Tiger (1973): Harry Stoner. Morally decayed, tax-cheater, makes an extra buck by getting clients laid...put it this way, Jack Lemmon won an Oscar. Pinned into a corner, Harry decides to burn his warehouse down to collect an insurance settlement after giving the most rapid-fire, 4-minute cinematic world history lesson in, well, history. And the final scene would make Dick Cheney weep. OK, maybe that's stretching it, but you gotto save those tigers. Depress-o-meter says: 7

Fletch (1985): "I write a column under the name Jane Doe" says Chevy Chase at the apex of his career as L.A. Times investigative reporter Irwin M. Fletcher. The one-liners roll like tumbleweeds as he tries to figure out why Otter wants to be murdered and why Norm doesn't make any money off the drugs he sells out of his burger shack on the beach. Fred "The Dorf" Dorfman. Oldsmo-buick. Matress Police. I rest my case. Depress-o-meter says: 2

Escape from L.A. (1996): Not as good as its predecessor, but 10 times campier. Escape from L.A. again visits a sort-of-post-apocalyptic world where the the nation's fate (or in this case, what's left of it) rests in the hands of Snake Plisskin. This time L.A. has been separated from the mainland thanks to the "Big One" and has been relegated to a deregulated Las Vegas. Kurt Russell reprises his role with flair, but Cliff Robertson as a Christian fundmentalist President is truly eerie. He actually reminds me a lot of George W. Bush. Good bad fun. Depress-o-meter says: 2

Heat (1996): Billed as a "Los Angeles Crime Saga", Heat is a serviceable cops & robbers film of the highest technical order. DeNiro portrays a master-theif searching for one last score before disappearing to the greener pastures of, uhm, New Zealand. Pacino is the detective who stalks him. The film is great to look at and the set-pieces are executed with cold percision. Unfortunately, too much time is wasted on useless character developement (e.g. Pacino's annoying wife, DeNiro's forced romance). Why, for example, is Natalie Portman even in the film? Mann would have been wise to adhere to the nuts & bolts approach he took with Thief, a film that touches on many of the same themes but doesn't get bogged down in them by keeping it stripped down and centered around the trade-craft of burglary. Despite these flaws, the cornerstone of this film, the bank robbery scene, is epic: Italian suits, automatic weapons, Brian Eno soundtrack and the longest, frenzied shoot-out ever recorded on film. Depress-o-meter says: 5

To Live & Die In L.A. (1985): Secret Service agents track master-counterfeiter after said counterfeiter offs fellow agent. William Petersen is awesome as agent Richard Chance; played sarcastically with a streak of Harry Callahan. Unfortunately for Dick, he takes a shotgun spread to the face about three-quarters into the film, leaving the audience with no more protagonist - the ulitmate trick that went over like a lead balloon with the studio. The DVD contains an alternate ending preferred by the studio execs that is, seriously, one of the worst things The Cupcake has ever seen - how do you survive a shotgun to the face? Why would there be a secret service station in the middle of nowhere on a mountain top in Alaska? Great use of L.A., especially the rush hour chase going the wrong way on the freeway. Depress-o-meter says: 7

Chinatown (1974): In my humble opinion, Chinatown is the best L.A. film ever made, but we're not ranking here so I'll refrain from any more comments like that. Nicholson is incredible. Dunaway is incredible. Huston is incredible. The writing is incredible. The cinematography is incredible. The score is incredible. Even the extras are incredible. No spoilers or pontification here...just see it for the first time or for another time. Its a masterpiece that says more about L.A. than any of these other films combined. Depress-o-meter says: 9

Honorable mentions:
- Pulp Fiction (1996) - Don't be tellin' me about no foot massage!
- Less Than Zero (1987) - Its better than you remember and a helluva lot more depressing...
- Colors (1988) - Sean Penn. Robert Duvall. Excellent.
- Friday (1995) - You ain't got no job and you ain't got shit to do...
- Boyz N the Hood (1991) - Depress-o-meter says: 10
- Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) - More Sean Penn. More excellence.