THIS is a CLOSE-UP?

Weep for me, dear readers, for the Shamrock Shake has left my life for the remainder of '09. Oh, we had such good times together, didn't we? Smalls and mediums alike (no larges -- didn't want to be greedy) ordered right and left, with no regard for dinner. Joy and laughter, discolored urine and bowel movements, sweet sweet high fructose happiness... And now it's gone. I had my last shake o' the season on Friday in Traverse City. The grand total was nine shakes, but now the only shakes I'll have will be the withdrawals from Green Dye No. 36. Sure, I'll buy strawberry (never ever chocolate, which should be spelled "chalk-late") but it won't be the same, like going back to your elementary school when you're in your thirties. The memories are there, but they're already swirling and fading like so much food coloring. So long, sweetness. You will be missed.

Sometimes, people inquire as to my motivations for doing what I do (in education, that is). Naturally, I talk about the fantastic health care, the amazing salary, the flexible hours, and the spacious offices. (To say nothing of the private showers, the chilled Glenfiddich, the indoor driving range, the array of vintage ‘80s video games like Donkey Kong and Q*Bert , and what not.) Given that I teach a course in human sexuality, one of my major motivations is to change people’s attitudes about sexuality – being safer and more integrated sexual beings, understanding the internal and external factors that contribute to one’s notion of “man” and “woman” and “gay” and “straight” and “moral” and “immoral” and on and on. But I teach one section a semester to a population that probably should have gotten the information years earlier, so it can be a pretty confounding experience, especially when I have to undo some “facts” that they’ve learned in the past. And especially when the Pope gets invo...

Brad Neely is about as funny (and NSFW) as you can get. Here's a taste: Like it? Then go here for more.

This year, thanks in part to a nagging viral illness, I was able to watch every NCAA 1st and 2nd round game that CBS had to offer, spread out over four days. And while there were no big surprises, it was fun to put the brain on hold, listen to tunes on the iPod (282 songs out of a possible 27,351, to be precise), luxuriate in the HD, and root root root. Unlike years past, there were no grand upsets in the first two rounds, unless you count Michigan getting to the 2nd round as an upset. There's also no clear dominant team, which makes for interesting Sweet 16 match-ups. Of course, Michigan State (as a #2 seed) should be killin' like penicillin, but that's not the way it's gone down in their first two games. Watching State play has been painful, like someone putting chewing gum in your pubes and sloooooowly pulling each gooey chunk away from your skin. There are times when they look like the most inept collection of dopes and dupes you’ve ever seen, when you wonder if the...

Now I know it's not even April, but I can already say that Junior from Röyksopp will be one of my favorite records of 2009. Man, is this sweet. Here's how the pros at Amazon.com synopsize: Junior is Röyksopp's most accomplished release yet, an inspired and ambitious musical confection fusing pure pop hooks with "technoperatic" dancefloor slammers. Featuring a team of top female vocalists/collaborators including Swedish superstar Robyn, Lykke Li, Karin Dreijer (The Knife) as well as fellow Norwegian Annell Drecker (who appeared on Royksopp's debut Melody A.M .). And while the vocal tracks are great (especially "Tricky Tricky" featuring Karin and "The Girl And The Robot" with Robyn ripping it up), one of the cool things about Röyksopp has always been their ability to make instrumental tracks that are soaring and engaging without ever being faceless. Their leadoff track from Junior is "Happy Up Here," and while it features relat...

I never enjoy looking through used CD’s when I’m with someone, because looking through used CD’s is something I can do for a solid hour without bother. In many cases, it’s a real waste of time to leaf one’s way through the detritus of the ‘90s (that’s primarily when most of the used CD’s you find were created and manufactured, the fleeting hopes and dreams of a thousand bands translated into digital code and flash packaging that you can’t even roll a joint on, to paraphrase Shelby Lynne) but every now and again, you find what you’re looking for. As the Super Bowl approached a few weeks back, I found myself listening to my Springsteen collection – the at-the-knee storytelling of The Ghost Of Tom Joad , the epic sweep of Born In The U.S.A ., the stark realities of Nebraska – when I discovered that somewhere in my purchasing history, I had forgotten to lay down for The Rising , which was as close to a 9/11 statement album as Springsteen got. I had resigned myself to buying it on my next ...

This past weekend, I came close to laying down some long green to see Fleetwood Mac trot out modified versions of their hits at the Palace of Auburn Hills. And while I ended up not pulling the trigger, I actively considered it for one reason and one reason only – I have a larger-than-life-sized man-crush on their singer/guitarist/songwriter/arranger/wunderkind Lindsey Buckingham. This guy (he said emphatically, gesturing to no one in particular) is about as underrated as a multi-platinum-selling musical genius can get. Just on his Fleetwood Mac catalog contributions alone, “genius” is not too outlandish a label; if he wasn’t singing on hits like “Go Your Own Way” and “Big Love,” he was arranging and playing on FM tracks featuring Christine McVie (check out his guitar solo on “Say You Love Me”) and Stevie Nicks (the life he breathed into “Rhiannon” and “Dreams” wouldn’t have existed without him). Back in the day, even his outside production work was vast and rewarding, as he sprinkled ...

Tom -- Hi there. 'sup. Looooong time with no contact. This is Erick, the same Erick who used to work for you at CM Life back in the Central Michigan University days. We used to listen to primo editorio Karen Joseph blather in our ears, except she laughed at what you wrote while she simply stared at my burnt offerings. After watching Robot Chicken for years, I only recently discovered that you are one of the main brains behind the laughter. I should have known, given your time with ToyFare . How 'bout that. Now, some may call it gauche to openly beg for favor from an Emmy-nominated creative force. However, gauche isn't in my vocabulary (blame my Roscommon education), so here comes the big bad beg: For the love of Xenu, is there any chance that you need a voice actor for RC or any other show that may spring from the fertile fields of your synapses? ('Cause it's not like voice acting has been a dream of mine ever since I woke up early on Saturday mornings to watch T...

It’s hard to believe that almost 23 years has elapsed since I first started reading the DC comic book Watchmen as a callow teenager in Roscommon, not yet a senior in high school. By that time, I had plenty of comics under my mental belt, but they were of the usual Marvel ilk: Spider-Man, ROM Spaceknight, Moon Knight, The Incredible Hulk, The Fantastic Four, X-Men , anything by John Byrne (he was my first autograph!), and so on. This was not to say I was a complete Marvel Zombie, buying every single title they released. I also sampled the odd smaller press curve thrown in the mix (the late lamented Dreadstar , where I had my first fan letter published, and Comico releases like Elementals and Grendel ) but I was a mainstream kid all the way. Oddly, however, this mainstream didn’t include much from DC; I saw the Distinguished Competition as somehow inferior to the real-world-yet-larger-than-life work Marvel was kicking out in the ‘80s. (Fuck Crisis On Infinite Earths …give me Secret War...

Every now and again, I’ll get some kind of unconscious pull towards a band that I’ve never heard before, which usually causes me to check out a song, which then leads to an album, which then leads to the purchase of their entire catalog. (I’m kinda obsessive that way.) So it was with Arthur Russell a few months back, and so it has been over the past few weeks with Zombi , an East Coast duo comprised of multi-instrumentalists Steve Moore and A.E. Paterra that puts out instrumental prog-rock records on Relapse, a label known for some intense hardcore metal monstrosities. Only Zombi doesn’t quite fit that mode, except for the name. For the most part, what they sound like is actually pretty simple: early Rush without the guitars & vocals, mixed with the John Carpenter scores to The Fog and Halloween , with a little Red -era King Crimson thrown in for seasoning. In other words, awesome as shit. Over the years since their '04 proper debut Cosmos , their discography has tracked a pro...

Sure, it’s only two games, but the Detroit Pistons (playing without Allen Iverson) were able to shed their eight-game losing streak (playing with Allen Iverson) by beating the Orlando Magic in Orlando and the Boston Celtics in Boston in what amounted to pretty solid wins. (Yes, both teams are missing one of their starters, but a win’s a win, and with Carmelo out for tonight's game against the Denver Nuggets, they should scratch out another victory.) Their losing streak started somewhere around the time that the Pistons brain trust asked Richard “Rip” Hamilton to come off the bench, which allowed Iverson and his ego to start. Now, I’ve always been a fan of Iverson, all the way back to the Georgetown days, and it’s clear that he wants to be part of a winner and fit into a team concept, but that’s like asking a cobra to become a flying squirrel – just because the cobra flares its hood and slithers off a shelf doesn’t mean that it’s getting airborne any time soon. When Iverson tries...

I haven't been reviewing albums for that long -- just a couple of years, with Alternative Press and Bust -- but I've part of the delivery format progression from physical media (usually CD's) to digital downloads. And while I'm a big physical media guy (as one would expect from a guy with 5000+ CD's at home), I appreciate the rapidity and mobility that digital downloads offer, as a listen in the car might provide a different experience than a listen on a walking track. What I detest, however, is the trend of some releases to be promoted with more obstruction than is warranted. Years ago, there was a pretty famous rumor about a Pearl Jam advance cassette that was glued into a Walkman to avoid copying and further dissemination, and while those days are largely gone, there are still ultra-secretive listening parties held in NYC offices for high-profile releases (The Killers, for one) to eliminate file-sharing. Anything to disrupt the piracy of tunage, I suppose. N...