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Posts published in April 2010

The Insane Clown Posse interviewed by The New York Times.

It’s the interview you’ve been waiting your entire life to read. A few days ago, David Itzkoff interviewed the infamous Insane Clown Posse about all this attention they’ve been receiving lately. He delves right into all the fun that’s being made of them by basically the entire internet.

And you know what? They’re surprisingly good natured about the whole thing. When asked about Saturday Night Live’s lampooning of the Gathering of the Juggalos, they responded:

Shaggy 2 Dope, Insane Clown Posse: How can you be mad at “Saturday Night Live”? That’s what they do. They make parodies. They’re funny. That’s flattering, that you’re a large enough player in the game that “Saturday Night Live” even recognizes you.

Violent J: It felt incredible – like, wow, man, we’re on the radar.

You kind of expect them to be all pissed and up in arms about being made fun of so directly. But again, when asked about SNL’s Thrilla Killa Klownz parody of “Miracles”, they come right back and play the high hand.

Shaggy 2 Dope: I remember back in the day when Weird Al Yankovic did “Amish Paradise,” off Coolio’s “Gangsta Paradise.” Somehow Coolio got mad. If Weird Al wanted to do one of our songs, I’d be like, “Hell yeah.” To me, it’s the same thing with “Saturday Night Live.”

Violent J: When they did it again, I called my mom about that. It’s awesome.

And then again, when asked about my favorite question of theirs, “Fucking magnets, how do they work?!” they come back with an entirely reasonable, if not exactly enlightened, response.

Violent J: I know the stuff isn’t really miracles. I think we might have misused the word miracle. I think that might mean something that has happened with no explanation. These things we mentioned in the song, they can all be explained. But what we’re doing is appreciating them. Even the infamous line, “Magnets, how do they work?” I mean, yeah, we know how magnets work. But they’re still incredible. You can push something across the table without touching it. And as a kid, I found that fascinating. I still find that fascinating. [laughs]

Shaggy 2 Dope: Come on, a rock that pulls metal towards it or pushes it away? Yeah, it has to do with the magnetic polar caps and [stuff]. But for real? Come on, man. You’re just holding a U-shaped thing that pushes metal away or attracts metal or something. The North and South Pole makes a rock magnetic, and if you touch a piece of metal with it, that becomes magnetic? That’s crazy.

Amazing. Fucking amazing. Giraffes?

Of course, then there’s this gem.

Violent J: Songs like “Miracles,” they’re not new to ICP. We don’t restrict ourselves to just making murder songs. When we’re talking to the Juggalos, it’s not always about chop-chop, kill-‘em-up, you know? We’ve always done songs that we attempt to be meaningful and deep over our career.

You owe it to yourself to read the whole article here: Fools’ Gold: An Oral History of the Insane Clown Posse Parodies

The Extraordinary Book Binding of Philip Smith

Speaking of books, I recently stumbled upon (without the help of StumbleUpon) the work of a British artist named Philip Smith who works exclusively in the bindings of books. As you know, a book is really just a stack of loosely connected papers until someone or some machine comes along and binds them all together. Usually a books binding is utilitarian at best, and shoddy at worst. Hard bound books are nice, if expensive, and then you have your mass market paperbacks which fall apart after 5 years because of cheap paper and cheaper glue.

Then you have artists like Mr. Smith here who not only return the craft of bookbinding to the highly-skilled artisanal place it held for centuries but add a surprising new dimension to it.

Here are a few favorites of mine from his site. See if you can guess which book each of these is. I promise there’s nothing esoteric here; these books can be found anywhere. Except maybe on Mars. For now.

Cool, right? I would LOVE to have one of these in my house on display. Talk about amazing art that would fit right in with my weirdo collection of things I like.

Head on over to the site to see if your guesses were correct. They’re all in the galleries.

Looking for something to read?

If you’re anything like me, and chances are you aren’t, then you have a huge stack of books on your shelves waiting for you to stay home more often and actually read them. I feel a little like a bad parent, but what are you going to do? However, having a back log of books doesn’t prevent me from wanting to acquire more books that I might eventually at some point in the future get around to reading. I mean, books are beautiful objects in their own right, and what’s the harm? It’s better to spend the 12.95 or whatever on a book than to spend it on cocaine. It wouldn’t be very MUCH cocaine, but the point still holds.

Once you’ve finished reading my pile of free, wildly captivating fiction, you might find yourself in need of something else to read while patiently waiting for me to update this site. Where might you find suggestions?

How about a surprisingly poorly written list of famous author’s favorite books?

Did you know that JCO’s favorite book is Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky? Or that David Foster Wallace picked C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters? Or that Michael Chabon, who I adore, picked Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges? Lots of surprises! Lots of new, fun books to read. The list even features Peter Cary of not-letting-me-into-Hunter fame. What was his favorite book? Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.

My only disappointment in this list—besides its ham-fisted writing style—is that my favorite author of all time, Cormac McCarthy, was not represented. I wonder what his favorite book is? Mr. McCarthy, if you read this, leave us a comment. Thanks!

The Mysterious Phenomenon of “Yeah, Du’!” and its Ramifications in the Real World.

Recently, I’ve been spending quite a lot of social time with Mike Fiduk and Charles Vestal, two worldly, handsome men. And, as conspiring gentlemen do, we egg each other on in all sorts of situations. It’s a good time. Somewhere along the way we started saying “Yeah, Du’!” as a way to express our approval of a situation. Like this:

Mike – Man, I think I’m going to go home and nap.
Charles – I think you’re going to come with us and drink.
Mike – Ok!
Joe – Yeah, Du’!

Charles – Let’s eat Polish food!
Mike – Yeah, Du’!

Joe – I drank too much and spent the night hitting on a lesbian.
Mike – Awesome! Yeah, Du’!
Charles – Yeah, Du’!

And so on and so on. It has become a celebratory cry used for basically anything. It’s a verbal high five. And, it has a very specific pronunciation. Listen.

[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/yeah-du.mp3|artists=Joe|titles=Yeah, Du’!]

Now listen again. One more time. Got it? Good.

Yesterday morning I was having my customary Monday morning chat with Mike where we bitch about the coming week and catch up on things we might have missed. I worked all weekend, so I only had a couple of fun stories, but he spent the weekend in New Jersey for some reason that I’m not sure I want to know. Either way he told me about how he went dancing and spent some time dancing with an old lady who was ripping it up on the dance floor. Then he send me this GEM.

Lovely, right? Right.

I immediately thought, “Yeah, Du’!” and then inspiration hit me and I told Mike I had to do something that I would be back later. This is what I had to do.

Beautiful, right? Mike loved it. I love it too. I was thinking of saving it for my 500th post which is rapidly approaching, but then even more inspiration hit me. I’ve got the layered Photoshop document, why not apply it to more photos of my friends and see what sort of hilarious magic I could create? Right? Right. So that’s what I did.

Click the damn link and enjoy The Black Laser’s more specific sister site! I only intend to use photos of friends and friends of friends, so if you have any really great party photos, send them to me at joe at yeahdu dot com and I will make them famous! Well, internet semi-famous. YEAH!

“Ode To Spot”, the finest piece of poetry I have ever experienced.

Here it is. For you to enjoy.

Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature;
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.

I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.

A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents;
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.

O Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array.
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.

Bonus points if you can name the source without Google. Mikey, I’m looking at you.

Taco truck review for 4/24/2010 – El Carrito Rojo

Here’s something new for The Black Laser: taco reviews. I eat a lot of tacos and tortas. They are easily my preferred fast food. And I don’t mean goddamned Taco Bell or some vile, hellish misinterpretation of the humble, noble taco. Instead I like to eat from trucks and carts and stands and restaurants. At one point I was going to do a spate of taco reviews for the recent insurgence of delicious taco joints in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for Steve’s Word. Alas, Steve’s Word is no more, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still plenty of delicious taco places out there that you, my lovely readers, need to know about.

I’ve been working at No6 Editorial for the last few weeks. When I lived on the South Side of the ‘Burg, I would take the J train to the F at Delancey and then get off at 23rd street and 6th Ave, just two blocks from the office. Since my move, however, I no longer have easy access to the J train, so I’ve been taking the G to the L at Lorimer and then just getting off at 14th St and 6th Ave instead of waiting for the F to take me one stop. I walk up 6th Ave now, an 11 block walk, and it’s totally fine. Nice even.

One day I noticed that there was a taco truck, El Carrito Rojo, parked on 19th Street at 6th Ave, just after the Bed, Bath & Beyond. A bell went off in my head. A taco truck! I must try it! Weeks passed and I walked past the truck every day, but I never actually ate there. Then, today, on my way in to the office, I figured I’d stop and buy a carnitas torta there. For 5 bucks I got what might have been the single best torta I’ve ever eaten. It’s not just that I was hungry or that it was beautiful outside or that I had a sandwich loaded with pork and beans. No, it was something else. It was the magical mezcla of salt and jalapeño and guac and beans and wonderfulness.

If you work or live or find yourself in the neighborhood here, I cannot recommend El Carrito Rojo highly enough. The torta was the perfect thing for a beautiful Saturday in the office. Go.

Photo taken from Taco NYC.

A voice from outer space.

This video shows a high speed train concept developed by some Chinese engineers which is all fine and good, but, really, who cares? The real point of this video is the amazing outer space voice of the female announcer. What the hell is this shit about? I’ve heard Chinese spoken plenty of times in my life, but this is wild. And the reverb? Why?! WHY?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

KHAAANNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!