The Wit And Wisdom of Jeff Shropshire Episode 1: The Noid

So I recieved a text message from my best friend Jeff Shropshire the other day telling me to read the wikipedia page for The Noid. You remember The Noid right?



The part we were focusing was about Kenneth Lamar Noid
"On January 30, 1989, Kenneth Lamar Noid, a mentally ill customer who thought the ads were a personal attack on him, held two employees of an Atlanta, Georgia, Domino's restaurant hostage for over five hours. After forcing them to make him a pizza and making demands for $100,000, getaway transportation, and a copy of The Widow's Son, Noid surrendered to the police.[3] After the incident had ended, police Chief Reed Miller offered a memorable assessment to reporters: "He's paranoid."[4] Noid was charged with kidnapping, aggravated assault, extortion, and possession of a firearm during a crime. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity."

We laughed about this particular situation, I specifically like that he forced them to make him a pizza. But Finally Jeff started to speak.. and when Jeff speaks you listen, because it's normally something brilliant... this time was on exception:

"The Noid makes me realize that the Josie and the Pussycats movie wasn't too far off. Kids are dumb and will buy anything if you market it correctly. Seriously, how did a generation allow not one, but TWO games based on an advertising character get released. That shit's ridiculous. However the biggest injustice is that the Noid conned us into allowing him to have two games while the Kool Aid Man only got one."

Top 10 Albums From 10 Years Ago - 2000 Edition

Today Geekscape released it's Top 10 Albums of 2010 and if you read it that you saw my list (I assume I'm at the end of the article like secret after-thought). I did this Last Year and people seemed to like it (Editors Note: by People Matt means of course himself) (editor's Note on Editors Note: Matt is his own Editor this is a bizarre multiple personalities thing, Matt should be committed)

ANYWAY I know you're all waiting so here are the TOP 10 ALBUMS FROM 10 YEARS AGO (2000 Edition):

10. The Dandy Warhols: Thirteen Tales from urban Bohemia



The Dandy Warhols have always been a bit of the go-to Hipster band. Regardless on however “overrated” you may find them; their third album is their masterpiece. All the tracks flow into each so wonderfully that it almost feels like one long song. The stand-out track is their hit single “Bohemian like you” with such catchy tongue-in-cheek lyrics like “Hey, I wait tables too/No I haven’t heard your band, but you guys are pretty new”. Other tracks became TV show theme songs. One inparticular (Solid) became the them for Undeclared one of the greatest TV shows ever.

9. Soul-Junk: 1956


The first time I ever heard of Soul-Junk it was seeing them open up for Five Iron Frenzy. They were completely out of place, the show consisted of 2 pop punk bands, 2 ska bands and then soul-junk a strange hip-hop/experimental/electronica group. I picked up their double album 1955 and was frankly disappointed. The fun dancy hip-hop was almost nowhere to be seen except a few tracks here and there. However, I was obsessed with the song Ill-M-I which I found on an old 5 Minute Walk Comp. Eventually I tracked down a copy of 1956 and was blown away, here was the Soul-Junk I knew. Not as religiously explicit this album focused more on just having good catchy jams, interesting beats and sweet ass rhymes. The stand-out track is Sea Monsters & Gargoyles featuring Pigeon John possibly the most under-appreciated hip-hop rapper ever.

8. Dilated Peoples: The Platform



Dilated People’s debut album is the definition of game changer. While hip-hop was demonated with mostly violent and misogynstic gangster rap; the Dilated Peoples came from the Alternative Hip-hop/Native Tongue style of hip-hop of telling detailed stories that were emotionally driven. Did these album ever really change the face of hip-hop? Not completely, but you can’t help listen to it and start to miss the days of hip-hop where Emcee’s had DJs who were turntablists instead of just a guy who played beats from his computer.

7. Del Tha Funkee Homosapian: Both Sides of the Brain



Del is most famous for being Ice Cube’s cousin and the rap vocals on the first Gorillaz album. This is a shame since Del is tight as fuck rapper. This album is so deliciously perfect that you can easily find yourself listening to it on repeat for days at a time. Be it his cautionary tale of the dangers of drunk driving (Skull & Crossbones) or his gamer bragging rights (Proto Culture) one thing is obvious, Del is a bad-ass emcee, who’s still down to earth.

6. Marilyn Manson: Holy Wood



Manson’s fuck you to critics is possibly the best album of his career. After the terrible columbine tragedy, Manson kinda hide himself from public eye, this album shows him attacking the very media that attacked him. With his on going motto of Guns, God and Government Manson intelligently presents to the listeners ways in which the Bible and Government & News Stations promote violence in a much more dangerous way than Manson does.

5. Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP



Marshall Mathers is a man with A LOT of problems. While Slim Shady LP was a funny and witty album poking fun at celebrities, drugs, violence and Eminem himself. Marshall Mathers is a diary of a darky haunted man. Taking his own name in the albums title is just the beginning of this auto-biographical story of a boy who comes from nothing, can’t handle his fan-base or fans and thinks about murdering his wife and mother constantly. Is it dark? Yes Is it Twisted? Yes Is it Beautiful? Yes… conclusion fuck you Kanye West… THIS album should have been called My Dark Twisted Beautiful Fantasy.

4. Our Lady Peace: Spirtiual Machines



Inspired by the futuristic novel The Age of Spiritual Machines, Our Lady Peace went from being “that Canadian band that sounds like Smashin Pumpkins” to a rock group worthy of our attention. It wasn’t that the band was releasing bad records before this, but none of their albums gripped our attention quite like this one. Mixing readings from inventor Raymond Kurzweil’s book and hopeless and dark lyrics Our Lady Peace shows us a vision of Dystopia that we can only pray never actually comes.

3. Outkast: Stankonia



Stankonia came out of nowhere and left the whole world confused as to what we just heard… and it did it in a good way. Blending damn near every genre with hip-hop Outkast created the most unique and original hip-hop album of the decade and possibly of all time. From the heavy metal influenced Gasoline Dreams, to the bluesy Ms Jackson to your in your face club bass-n-drum beats of Bombs over Bagdad this album has something for everyone. On to of it all, it contains various skits that are actually funny (a rarity in rap music).

2. Eels: Daisies of the Galaxy



Mark Oliver Everett is one depressed but hopeful dude. However unlike most musicians he’s earned the right to be this depressed. After losing his sister and his mom being diagnosed with cancer he penned “Electro-Shock Blues” (one of the most beautiful albums ever recorded). His follow-up Daisies of the Galaxy continues where Electro-Shocked left off. At this point Mark (Stage Name E) was the last surviving member of his family blood line. That loneliness is the main driving force in this album and each track is sadder than the one before. “It’s a Motherfucker” is a vulgar but heartfelt song about the pains of missing a loved one (I assume it’s in reference to his mother).

1. Jurassic 5: Quality Control



Jurassic 5 took the Jazz influenced Alternative hip-hop created by groups like De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest and completely perfected it’s sound. There’s not a single track on Quality Control to NOT like. Using such creative samples as James Brown, The Barbershop-y HiLos or the funky Blowfly the whole album is practically a “how-to” guide to making incredibly catchy and perfect hip-hop. Make sure you check out the closing track the instrumental sample-heavy Swing Set.

December Mix!!!

The December Mix is Up and Ready for you to Listen to; a few stand-out tracks include:

When We First Met by Hellogoodbye I needed to put on this mix because after being disappointed by Hellogoodbye's debut album, their new CD is a complete change of direction and it works perfectly!

After reading Stephen King's The Body there was no way I couldn't put Ben E. King's Stand by Me

I already spoken heavily about how much I loved mc chris goes to hell; the song 006 is without a doubt the standout track.

December = Christmas... I didn't want to put an extremely holiday specific song so I went with the snarky and dark Yule Shoot Your Eye Out by Fall out Boy

And the mix ends with Ben Folds' song Belinda which is without a doubt the most beautiful song to appear on a Ben Folds album since Rockin' the Suburbs' The Luckiest

FULL TRACK LIST:
1. Van Halen - Nerf Herder
2. Hey Jude - The Beatles
3. When We First Met - Hellogoodbye
4. Little Lion Man - Mumford & Sons
5. Stand by Me - Ben E King
6. 006 - mc chris
7. My First, My Last, My Everything - Barry White
8. Carolina in my Mind - James Taylor
9. I Haven't Tried it - Piebald
10. Airplanes (f/Hayley Williams) - B.O.B.
11. Yule Shoot Your Eye Out - Fall out Boy
12. Now That You're Home - Manchester Orchestra
13. For Once in My Life - Stevie Wonder
14. Comfort Eagle - Cake
15. Friends of P - The Rentals
16. My Annie - Craig's Brother
17. Bat out o Hell - Meat Loaf
18. Belinda - Ben Folds

To download visit either mediafire or Rapidshare

Merry Christmas THE 25TH SONG OF CHRISTMAS

So I've officially hit 100 posts so that's exciting. Also it's Christmas! I'm not going to post every little thing that i got but as a movie and music fan I made a great collection today. The highlights though were the complete series of Freaks & Geeks as well as The Prisoner so I know how i"ll be wasting my week off from work haha

Anyway, I bet you thought I'd post something ridiculous as my #25 song like "I fucked Mrs. Claus" by Size 14, well you'd be WRONG (although that might make next years list). But no here is the song; the extremely beautiful and touching "Old City Bar" by Trans-Siberian Orchestra. It's a lovely song about the magic and miracles that can occur on christmas.

Christmas Memories (the 25 Songs of Christmas Part 24)

I decided before I post my song #24, I'd like to reflect on a few of my favorite christmas memories. I hope that you enjoy these memories and post some of your own.

1) I had a vhs tape my aunt made where she taped different christmas specials for me. The tape contained specifically The Claymation Christmas (which contained the California Raisins version of Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer), Pee-Wee's Christmas Special, Garfield's Christmas Special and the Muppet Family Christmas. I've watched this video every year (and even when it wasn't christmas time). I still need to watch these 4 specials every year; and every year... I cry. It's not christmas until I've listened to the muppets sing their christmas carol medley.

2) One year my mom signed up for this weird deal with Victoria Secrets. They were selling christmas albums and needed someone to put all the CDs together. They'd send a spool of CDs, empty jewel-cases and the front and back artwork. We'd put them together and box them up and send them to various stores. We'd spend most of my the night sitting watching christmas specials and putting these CDs together. I'm aware this sounds like we had a little sweat-shop going and in later years I'd discover that my mom didn't get paid nearly what she was promised; but I wouldn't trade the time we spent working as a family for anything.

3) The year that my grandfather died was a really rough one. I spent many nights online sulking. I was a very emo kid (some of my close friends just collectively went "WAS?!?"... fuck you guys). One of the people I complained to was a girl in my class, Stefanie. One christmas Eve while driving home I saw a car driving away from my house; I didn't know what it was or who the car belonged to at the time; but when I reached the top of the stairs I found a christmas bag with an inspirational card from Stefanie. I don't remember what the card said any longer, but I know that I have it somewhere. What was written didn't matter anyway; it was the thought that counted. It has and will always be the most touching christmas gift i ever received.

4) The Second most important gift I ever received was two years ago from my friend Sean. He bought me a book called "Jim Henson's Doodle Dreams: Inspiration for Living Life Outside the Lines". I loved the book, but it wasn't until recently the gift really made it's impact. I sat awake at night worrying about my move in July; when I saw the book on the shelf. Again, I don't remember the specific quotes; but I do know that it soothed me and I slept well at night.

5) My final memory is from my Freshmen year of High school. The TV studio had a holiday coffee-shop with christmas lights and an open mic. It was a total blast. At that show my friends Mike, Ant and Brian's band Franklin's Submarine performed a set, including the worst cover of "Christmas Day" by MxPx I've ever heard... at the time I'm sure I loved it. So here it is; Song #24 Christmas Day... by MxPx

The 25 Songs of Christmas Part 23

Number 23 is one of my all-time favorite songs (not just christmas songs) from one of my all-time favorite movies (not just christmas movies)... "Baby, It's Cold Outside" as performed by Zooey Deschannel & Leon Redbone on the Elf Soundtrack

UPDATE: so apparently youtube has literally disabled the embedding abilities :/ so HERE is where you can hear the song on youtube in the mean time here's two other versions of the song not quite as good; but still decent

1) Will Ferrell and Zooey singing in the Actual movie



2) (this maybe my second favorite version) Selma Blair and Rainn Wilson:

The 25 Songs of Christmas Part 22

Nothing says Christmas like The Ramones; they just desperately don't want to fight... see?

Insane Debate About Clowns (The 25 songs of Christmas Part 21)

Today, I received the following email from my friend Matt Voigt; the other person emailed was none other than Judge John Hodgman; the email reads:

well Hello...

My name is Matt and I humbly submit this dispute for Judge John Hodgman to consider. I feel as if there is an obvious answer, and while this is not a dispute that causes consistent friction...it is something that legitimately makes me think differently of one of my friends due to his musical preferences....

The Insane Clown Posse. By all accounts my friend (also named Matt) is a level headed, creative, and artistic individual. I go to him for music suggestions frequently and he has a finely attuned musical palate. He's a writer, musician and film-maker, not to mention one of my best friends. I usually default to him on educated opinions when it comes to entertainment. Except for this. Matt STRONGLY believes that the Insane Clown Posse are in on the joke and are awful on purpose. He thinks this is brilliant. He compares them to Andy Kaufman anti-humor. This is obviously not the case and it bothers me that an otherwise intelligent individual could think this way.

Now i'm usually tolerant of people who are wrong....but when we go on extended road trips (which happens semi-frequently) this argument begins anew and is worth at least 5 minutes of me screaming.

This is a dispute that must be settled for the legacy of ironic-semi-full-of-themselves comedians and our friendship.

Respectfully yours...

Matthew

now hopefully we'll get on the show and you'll get to actually hear my debate; but my opinion is that no one can honestly be serious when they write lyrics like "I met Milinko he gave me three wishes/That night i fucked three fat bitches" or "I'll cut your finger off and shove it up your butt... then glue it shut".

Anyway, fingers crossed that I'll have a chance to prepare songs and such in my defense (and that I win the case)

That being said (and on a completely unrelated note) song #21 on the 25 songs of Christmas is No Use For a Name's cover the Pogues christmas classic "Fairytale of New York"; enjoy the song and this video which contains a cute picture of a dog (among other things)

The 25 Songs of Christmas Part 20

I hate the Mariah Carey version; but I love this cover by Dave Melillo; go figure

The 25 Songs of Christmas Part 19

Before I post the 19th song in the 25 Songs of Christmas I gotta give a shout-out to my friend's band Those Galloping Hordes has a new song that's on Deep Elm's Emo Diaries 12: I love you but in the end I will destroy you. The group is an incredible experimental instrumental indie rock group in the same vein as Explosions in the Sky and Sigur Ros. Please check them out and if you like them buy their album. That being said song #19 has absolutely nothing to do with them.

Song 19 is a cover of an obscure song from the 1920's called Zat You Santa; this version is performed by Buster Poindexter (the ghost of christmas past in Scrooged) which i first heard on the Beavis and Butthead christmas special. Once again, I can't find the real music video so enjoy this anyway

The 25 Songs of Christmas Part 18

This is one of the saddest and most depressing songs I know, not just specifically Christmas but in general. I decided I wanted to include it because it's sincerely one of my favorite songs ever. It's constantly cited as a Relient K song (and it did appear on their christmas album) but when the song was originally released it was under the solo project of their lead singer Matthew Thessien under the name Matthew Thessien & the Earthquakes. The only recording of it I was able to find on youtube is composed of clips from the Office; but enjoy it

Jaws the Revenge: Greatest Christmas Movie Ever? (25 Songs of Christmas Part 17)

So Jaws the Revenge has long been considered one of the worst movies of all time; for starters it has one of the most action packed box covers of all time.



Beyond that it has the 2nd* shittiest looking shark in film history



That shark does it all, it roars, it eats fucking planes, and it explodes unexplainably. Jaws the Revenge is remembered for a lot of things; but few remember that the whole movie takes place around christmas time; It's actually quite genius; I mean... sure christmas time for most of us means no more fear of sharks; Specifically up north we're not thinking about swimming at all for quite some while... Jaws the Revenge has a very select audience, people that leave in the south (specifically Jamaica) who have to deal with a fear of sharks all christmas long. Perhaps we only thing its a shit movie becuase we don't know the true fear of opening christmas gifts and then FEARING FOR YOUR FUCKING LIFE!

Speaking of Christmas, Gatsby's American Dreams Nintendo-Core Christmas Metal Epic St. Nicholas is #17 on the 25 songs of Christmas



* = For the record the worst looking shark of all time is in 1980's The Last Shark (Great White)

The 25 Songs of Christmas Part 16

I'm going to get hate for this, but I think Polyphonic Spree did this John Lennon Classic better than the original "Happy Christmas (War is Over)"

The 25 Songs of Christmas Part 15

South park always has amazing Christmas songs; sadly they're not amazing at allowing people to post clips from their episodes; so enjoy this still frame while Christmastime in Hell Plays!

The 25 Songs of Christmas Part 14

Roses are Red is a band I've never heard except this cover of George Michael's Last Christmas, but it's definitely my favorite version of this song

The 25 Songs of Christmas Part 13

Okay, it's time to really have a geeky christmas song (like mc chris didn't cut it already?) here is Rush Coil's 8-bit Christmas song GLORIA

The 25 Songs of Christmas Part 12

What an excellent weekend. mc chris read and retweeted my last post and Troll 2 star George Hardy as confirmed himself as a guest on the Saint Mort Show. There's also so more news for the other Power Down Productions shows we're working on... more to come.

Now for now Song #12 for the 25 Songs of Christmas we have The Temptations cover of Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer... as performed by the California Raisins

Why mc chris goes to hell Is the Best Rap CD of 2010 (25 Songs of Christmas Part 11)

Every magazine I've opened in the last few weeks has been doing their top 10(20/50/100) Albums of the year and every single list so far has contained Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and album that plays much like a Vincent Gallo film. It's starts strong and then becomes a slow, boring and draw-out piece of pretencious bullshit. Kanye literally made the Brown Bunny of hip-hop.

"But Matt, if not Kanye... then who has the best Rap album of 2010" you may be asking (if you haven't read the title of this particular blog entry), the answer is simple... mc chris (lowercase no dots) goes to hell. mc chris is one of the most respected indie mc's in the world. He started with humble beginnings, animating brilliant cartoons and earning a nerdcore label which he's always had mixed feelings with. Sadly nerdcore is much like christian music; can't someone JUST be a rapper and sing about their religion (and/or their love of star wars & harry potter), I think so. mc chris is one of my top 5 favorite rappers, not favorite nerdcore rapper, not favorite white rapper... just favorite rapper PERIOD end of sentence.

"well matt, what makes this mc chris so great?" asks the people that don't really exist because I have no readers... it's simple. Chris loves his fans, he knows what they want to hear and he has a wicked sense of humor. The CD opens with a skit which continues (and possibly concludes) the on-going story of mc and his manager. While there's lots of references to past albums, even if this is your first mc chris experience the jokes hit. This is shocking since science has proven that 98% of all "skits" on rap albums are completely fucking retarded and unfunny.

Immediately mc gets right into rapping about a topic he knows extremely well "Star Wars Bounty Hunters" with IG-88's '57 Chevy (one of 3 songs on the subject) this song and track 4 Awesome Fucker have mc chris using auto-tune which comes of brilliantly satirical (specifically in fucker) when he screams "i'm fucking all the time".

Then you've got songs like Drinking Blunts so catchy that even a straight edge kid like myself can't help but sing along. The Harry Potter fan in me can't resist the catchiness of Neville and while I don't want to break this album down piece by piece the James-Bond inspired 006 is one of the funniest songs I've ever heard.

The album concludes with a preview for Race Wars which I assume is his next album, but deep down I really wish it was an animated movie.

In conclusion fuck Eminem and Kanye West's over-rated bullshit, Sorry Drake and B.O.B. but despite your albums being good they are intensely similar... if you want to know how to mix hip-hop, punk and complete sincerity about your nerd-dom look no further than mc chris goes to hell. In honor of this albums' brilliance I present song #11 in the 25 songs of Christmas... Evergreen by mc chris

Open Letter to B101 (25 Songs of Christmas #10)

Dear B101,

My work has had your radio station on 24/7. I've heard the song Last Christmas by Wham (George Michaels) at least five times but not a single time have you played Run-DMC "Christmas in Hollis". I get it, your target audience is middle-age white people... but mid-age white people tend to like Run-DMC. I'm sure they'd rather here this than the a capella version of "Little Drummer Boy"

The 25 Songs of Christmas (Part 9)

Song #9 comes from Nerf Herder and it's a Christmas song the only way Nerf Herder knows how to do them, vulgar and crude. I present "I've got a Boner for Christmas"

25 Songs of Christmas Part 8

My Favorite Cover of a Christmas Song that Sounds exactly the same as the original goes to one of my all time favorite bands The Format. Check out their delightful cover.

25 Songs of Christmas Part 7

Today I have two articles up on Geekscape the first one is a list of DVDs coming out this Month and the other is the Geekscape Awards (which you should join Geekscape and vote for me)

Alright Song #7 in the 25 songs of Christmas is Viva Voce's hard rock cover of God Rest ye Merry Gentleman

Come in and know me Better man! (25 Songs of Christmas Part 6)

Before I post Christmas Song #6 in the the 25 songs of the Christmas I just wanted to post my review for Tis the Season to be Gotee which is up right now at absolutepunk.net.

Okay now song #6 isn't nearly as ridiculous as the songs in the last 5 days, but if you know me it's not really that surprising that it's on my list. Song 6 comes from the Muppets film "Muppet Christams Carol" it's the delightfully catchy (and the song that was stuck in my head ALL day at work) "It Feels Like Christmas"

How Jonathan London Ruined My Social Life (The 25 Songs of Christmas Part 5)

Today Geekscape founder Jonathan London turns 32 years old. While having a long and bizarrely complicated relationship with Mr. London I only actually got to meet him in person very recently. He is without a doubt one of (if not the) biggest driving force/motivation to my move to LA in July. Geekscape has indirectly (and directly) been one of the most important things in my life but I've never really told the whole story. I think it'd make an awesome blog entry myself.

Back in December of 2006 I got my first laptop; it's currently been my ONLY laptop. It was a mac-book pro that my friend (who worked for Apple) got me using an employee discount. I now had access to iTunes and I decided I'd check out these things called podcast I've been hearing so much about. I didn't really know what I wanted and somehow (and I honestly don't remember how anymore) i noticed a title that struck my interest... Geekscape. The episode was Episode 5: Nutpunch featuring co-host Scott Culver, to this day he is still one of my top 5 favorite Geekscape guests (despite NEVER returning for a second episode). I remember laughing my ass off and feeling like I could really relate to these guys, but what really struck my attention was hearing these two guys talking about bands like Don't Look Down who I knew of, but only thought I knew them because of growing up in the Tri-State area.

Using Facebook and Myspace I decided to track down the creator and host of this show, Jonathan London. London will tell you, he's one of the easiest internet personalities to get in touch with and it's true. His facebook has his screen name on it and I immediately IMed him, I told him how I just watched an episode and how great it was and we talked about different punk bands. Everyone week I'd listen to the new episode and then IM him to tell him how much I liked it. But that was really the extent of our friendship and relationship, until December of 2007.

Geekscape was getting ready to celebrate it's one year and I contacted Jonathan with an idea. "You should do a what a difference a year makes type segment, looking back at the first episode and seeing how far we came". Jonathan's answer was simply "if you're willing to watch episode 1 and give me notes... I'll do just that." So I did.

I think this single decision of doing exactly what he asked me to do is what changed our friendship. He started asking me if I'd be interested in doing other things, Join the forums, run the youtube page, run the facebook page, even write an occasional article. Geekscape started to become a second home; I'd spend hours on the forums, sometimes refreshing the page every couple minutes to see if someone had posted a new post. I even got my girlfriend at the time to become a scapist, and when my girlfriend dumped me... Geekscape was there to support me in ways that I was never able to ask my friends here in PA for help.

I began to distance myself from Geekscape in the spring of 2009. I just stopped watching, I'd still post occasionally, but I really stayed out of the loop. I'll never completely know why I did this, but I did. By the winter of 2009 I was at my lowest. I had no girlfriend, no job and was living with a married couple (though very good friends). I never really felt at home there, while M & L were very welcoming, I couldn't help but feel like I was always in the way, invading a honeymoon if you will. During this unhappiness, I started to watch the months of old Geekscape episodes.

Then I watched their coverage of that Summer's San Diego Comic Con. As I watched I couldn't help but think to myself... why aren't I out there? Almost a day or two later it was announced that Geekscape was going to have a booth at Comic Con that year and needed someone to run the Merch table. I contacted Jonathan and asked (and begged a little) for the job. If I got my own plane ticket and willing to help put up for the Hotel room... the job was mine. I accepted.

I got more involved with the site again, writing articles, running the twitter account, I was re-energized. As the trip kept nearing, I got more and more excited. I had already decided that I was going to move to LA the following summer, but this was the first time I'd ever actually see the city. I had developed many friendships with scapists and was curious to see how we'd get along. While i predicted that I'd hang out with a bunch of the scapists alot and only really see Jonathan here and there, I couldn't be further from wrong. I didn't anticipate that London and I would get along super well, in the end he was the one of the two people I became closed with. Perhaps it was just because we were forced to spend lots of time together between driving to San Diego and manning the booth together... but I'd like to believe it was because we both respected each other as creative minded people.

Regardless, July I'll be finally moving to LA. It's something I've said I'd do for over 13 years, but it's actually happening now, because of one man and his website. Thank You Jonathan London, you're one of the biggest inspirations in my life and I hope you have the Happiest of Birthdays.

In your honor I dedicate the 5th song in the 25 songs of Christmas to you; It's the Mark Hoppus and Ben Fold's covering the Blink 182 classic "Happy Holidays, You Bastard"

November Mix and 25 Songs of Christmas Part 4

It's a little late again but here's my mix for the month of November; Some of the stand out tracks are as follows:

Make Up Your Mind - Vacations and Never Been - In All The Same Houses are songs by local bands; One is new (Vacations) and the other has since broken up (In All The Same Houses) regardless both songs are insanely catchy and well crafted; check out both these groups for their other songs!

Mansions of Los Feliz - Eels, We Are Sex Bob-omb - Sex Bob-Omb and Bullet - Steel Train are all songs released this year that are on albums that are strong competitors for Album of the year. Meanwhile Fuck You - Cee Lo Green is the best single of the year as I declared back in September

Evaporated - Ben Folds Five has been one of my top 5 favorite songs since I first heard it in high school. I've named countless unproduced scripts Evaporated after this song title

I Wish - Skee-Lo is a throw-back to a simpler times in 90's hip hop, The News From Your Bed- Bishop Allen is just a catchy as hell song and while watching Angel for the first time i discovered It's Not Easy Being Green - Andy Hallett and found it to be a wonderfully beautiful and touching cover.

Full Track List
1. Make Up Your Mind - Vacations
2. Fuck You - Cee Lo Green
3. Clumsy Shy - Weston
4. Dance With me - The Leftovers
5. Evaporated - Ben Folds Five
6. Interstate Love Song - Stone Temple Pilots
7. Skull & Crossbones - Del Tha Funkee Homosapien
8. Mansions of Los Feliz - Eels
9. I Wish - Skee-Lo
10. On* - MC Chris
11. My Dad is Rich - Draco & the Malfoys
12. Pray for Rain - The Ergs
13. A Little Respect - Wheatus
14. Perfect Day - Suicide Machines
15. We Are Sex Bob-omb - Sex Bob-Omb
16. The Weight (Take a Load off Annie) - The Band
17. The News From Your Bed- Bishop Allen
18. Right Behind you - Our Lady Peace
19. Bullet - Steel Train
20. It's Not Easy Being Green - Andy Hallett
21. Dexter - The W's
22. Never Been - In All The Same Houses
23. Stolen - Dashboard Confessional

Downloadable at Rapidshare and Mediafire

Furthermore the Christmas song of today is one that was recently requested and well it's such a great song I couldn't turn it down. "Weird Al"'s 1986 demented christmas Carol Christmas At Ground Zero

The 25 Songs of Christmas Part 3

People keep telling me what songs to put on the list; I enjoy this and ask you to continue suggesting songs! If anything it makes me feel like people are actually reading my blog which is always a great feeling!

I'm getting increasingly more and more excited about christmas, after two "punk-rock" christmas songs... (Ben Folds is Punk Rock For Sissies) I decided to post a christmas classic done by that delightful group Barenaked Ladies. This is without competition my favorite cover of this carol... Sleigh Ride

The 25 Songs of Christmas Part 1 & 2

Christmas is my favorite time of the year. While Halloween is my favorite holiday, I absolutely adore Christmas. I love have spending time with my crazy ass family, watching christmas specials, fire-places, christmas carols, the xmas movies, Santa, The insomnia of not being able to sleep Christmas Eve, opening gifts, giving gifts and for the most part people just seem cheerier. And most of all I love the christmas music!

So I will be doing the 25 songs of CHristmas this month, each day for christmas I'll be posting some of my favorite christmas songs.

Let's get this kicked off because it's December 2nd so I'm already a day behind.

Day 1's Song is No Doubt's Cover of Oi to the World. I love this cover and I love the original but something about No Doubts ska-tastic version has always stuck with me. It's definitely one of the ultimate punk rock christmas songs.




Day 2's Song is a completely different beast; it's one of the most vulgar but hilarious christmas songs I can think of; Ben Fold's Bizarre Christmas Incident

Thanksgiving

So I intended to go on here and write a ridiculous satire about the first Thanksgiving full of date raping and murder of Indians during the meal; but I decided it's time for a sentimental post/rant.

Am I about to post my list of things I'm thankful for? What's the point? I've realized that while I'll celebrate Thanksgiving for the awesome food, I refuse to say what I'm thankful for; specificially in print on a blog, twitter account or facebook. It's all the same stuff every year, friends, family, job, money, future.

Yes, while things like Geekscape or having any job, family and friend is something that I can, could, would, should be thankful, why set a day apart from the rest for giving thanks? I'm thankful for all my friends and family; but I think we should be letting these people know how thankful with them EVERY DAY!

So fuck being thankful; just eat the shit out of some Turkey

I close with my favorite movie moment from my favorite Thanksgiving movie

Impossibly Bad Movies That I Love

Every once and a while I will watch a movie and I know it's bad. Critics hate it; most sensible people hate it; these films are so bad that they don't even have "ironic" cult followings, they're just generally considered garbage by any and everyone. But I have them on DVD without shame. Not shockingly they're all Horror movies; I want to draw attention to a five of these films:

American Psycho 2 - American Psycho is a brilliant novel by Bret Easton Ellis; despite the fact that director and writer of the film adaptation completely missed the point of the novel they were able to make a really good horror/thriller. *SPOILERS GALORE HERE* The Book implies that the murders all take place inside Patrick Bateman's head. The writer/director believes that Bateman DID murder the people but still left it slightly open-ended so if you wanted to, you could decide that he made it all up in his head. However this sequel tells the story about how a 10 year old girl managed to escape and murder Patrick Bateman when he was trying to kill her and her babysitter. *SPOILERS OVER* Now we follow this girl (Mila Kunos) as she murders most of her class mates in order to be the Teaching Assistant for her professor (Wiilliam Shatner). The film is complete garbage but I've watched this pile of shit at least 10 times; Is it William Shatner's over-acting? Mila Kunos Hot body? It's possible, it's certainly not for the script-writing or cinematography.

An American Werewolf in Paris - I can defend this pseduo-remake/sequel. It was one of the first horror movies I ever saw (just behind Frightners & Scream). I love this movie despite knowing it could have been even better. Tom Stern (writer/director of Freaked, the most under-appreciated movie of all time) was originally lined up to write and direct the film as a tongue-in-cheek horror/comedy, however after Fox hated Freaked he was fired from the film. To add insult to injury they still listed him as the writer of this movie despite not a single line of his original dialogue appearing in script. The film now shamelessly tries to be OVERLY extreme with "Bungee-Jumping" off the Effiel Tower (done extremely straight). Regardless I find the film charming and the characters extremely likable and it remains in my top 100 favorite films of all time despite all it's flaws.

Black X-mas - This movie should have been the worst remake of all time; but it's not. It is a remake of Black Christmas, one of the original slasher films (John Carpenter's Halloween was originally conceived as a sequel to it). The remake does a lot more wrong than it does right, but I think people had too high expectations for this film. I'd love to sit down and talk to the writers and director. I sincerely believe the film went the Sleepaway Camp route and aimed to just make the most over-the-top and bizarre death scenes ever. This is a film were a man gets stabbed to death by a Candy cane, another person decapitated by a Ice-Skate. Our killers origin story involves killing his family and cutting them into cookies and baking them. Stupid? Dumb? Yes, maybe... but I can't remember many other times I had more fun watching a movie in a theater (yes I saw this in theaters)

Dead Silence - There's not much to say about this one. I hate the Saw movies so I expected this film to be awful. Regardless I enjoyed it, I loved the completely ridiculous and impossible twist ending and let's face it...ventriloquist dummies are terrifying. I will say that this movie doesn't come close to being as great as Magic.

Jaws 3 - This is not me defending this film because it's still better than Jaws: The Revenge. This is me sincerely defending a movie considered one of the worst of all time. When I was a kid, my cousin and I used to spend a week at my grandfather's house. We'd play outside and at night watch movies. It was here that I discovered some of my favorite movies (including Alligator and the previously mentioned Freaked) but every single summer we'd watch the entire Jaws series, I learned to love the movies crap-tacular charm (yes even in Revenge), every single time I watch this movie I desperately wish that I could see the film in 3-D as it was filmed to be seen.

So I've said my peace, I don't expect any of my readers will jump to my defense on these films and I don't blame them. Regardless I still love these movies.

Yay Griffindor Knight!

After some terrible days at work and lots of stress I finally got to cut loose, foot loose; in fact I even kicked off sunday shoes. The weekend started off with me immediately going to catch an early showing of Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part 1 which is both my favorite Harry Potter movie and the one I think followed the book the closest (which isn't really saying much really) with Ed. After the party I discovered Geekscape published my article about Harry Potter Fandom (which you should totally read).

After the movie Ed and I met up with Mark, Lauralie and TP in order to get some Applebees; afterwards we went to Lauralie's house with Shrop and played some board games. To write about anything that was funny that night would be to example a lot of inside jokes. So I'll just post this picture from the night of TP

Today I was able to cross another thing off my list of my bucket list which was going to Medieval times. We got the Red/Yellow knight whom we (that is Ed, Shrop and I) referred to as the Gryffindor Knight (yes I know the ACTUAL colors are Gold and Scarlet but close enough).

It was a great and fun exciting GeekEnd.

In more news of awesome I only have 3 days of work this week and then a 4 day weekend (thank you Pilgrims for mercilessly murdering Indians).

Matt Kelly IM Greatest Hits #1

Angela: yea i have to meet with my group for a project soon

Matt Kelly: whats the project on?

Angela: international business. Introducing a product to japan

Matt Kelly: how about the Fork?

The Return of the Saint Mort Show?

A few years ago I used to do my own podcast/call in radio show called the Saint Mort Show. We had a small but loyal fan-base and were much more vulgar than blogtalkradio was prepared for eventually having to make our show "Adults Only" which made it much harder for people to discover. Despite having up to 300 listens a week (which is admittedly nothing, but it was 298 more people than we expected) the show ended after just 11 episodes.

I'm proud to announce however is that in January when Power Down Productions is up and running I'll be bringing back the Saint Mort Show... sort of. It will have the regulars like Shrop and Graham and the same name but it won't be anything alike beyond that. If anything it'll be a little bit like the Pod F Thompkast, except more "variety-show"-ish.

Before the Saint Mort Show I used to do Below the Radar radio; the new Saint Mort Show will be a combination of both of those shows; Sketches, segments, interviews and musical guests. It'll be a monthly podcast, what I need/require are people who have things to promote/get interviewed and bands/musicians who would want to do an acoustic song/interview.

Hit me up and let me know who's interested and I can start scheduling recordings.

Mix for the Month of October (roughly 7 days late)

This is the mix for October; as noted in my last entry I haven't posted in a while: Some Stand-Out Tracks on this album include:

My Body's a Zombie for You - Dead Man Bones & Nightmare on My Street - DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince in honor of Halloween. Unlike songs like Monster Mash; both of these songs are enjoyable all year round. Specifically My Body's a Zombie for you which might be the ultimate horror love song. Fun fact if you don't know the band is actor Ryan Gosling and Flea's (of RHCP) Silverlake Conservatory Children’s Choir.

Passing Me By - Pharcyde is hip-hop at it's best. There's no bragging or boasting or gangster cliches, it's a song about failing at love that is 100% real, authentic and relatable.

Birdhouse in Your Soul - They Might Be Giants - This song is now 2 decades old and it's still one of the catchiest pop songs of all time (definitely one of the top 10 of the 90's)

Heart Songs - Weezer - People complain about Weezer post-Pinkerton but this track off the Red Album is one of their best; I love how relatable it is. The song is the ultimate love song to music lovers.

Love Hurts - Everly Brothers - While not the best known version of this song; this is the best version, hands down, if you disagree... you're wrong.

Full Track List:
1. Dear Friends - Queen
2. Ms. Jackson - Outkast
3. Sneakin' Up On You - The Fu-Schnickens
4. Waiting for the Bus - Violent Femmes
5. Revenge of the Nerds (f/Pigeon John) - KJ-52
6. My Body's a Zombie for You - Dead Man Bones
7. Passing Me By - Pharcyde
8. Louisiana 1927 - Randy Newman
9. Birdhouse in Your Soul - They Might Be Giants
10. Heart Songs - Weezer
11. A Rising Tide - Fivepie
12. Vivian - Nerf Herder
13. Carry you - All
14. I Like the Way This is Going - Eels
15. Sea Monsters & Gargoyles - Soul-Junk
16. Airplanes Part 2 (f/Haley Williams & Eminem) - B.O.B.
17. Love Hurts - Everly Brothers
18. Nightmare on My Street - DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince
19. Awake - Letters to Cleo
20. Uncontrollable Urge - Devo
21. Fireworks - Drake
22. Good Old Days - "Weird Al" Yankovic

To Download use MediaFire

Where have I been?

It's been a while since I've updated, my apologizes. There's a few things I wish to cover so this will be a pretty long blog.

PART 1: MOVING TO LA
A few months ago I posted a bucket list of 15 things I wanted to do before I left for LA in January. Well among other things, the trip has been pushed back to July. This is what I've accomplished so far:

1. Big Birthday Bash with Friends
My birthday was a few weeks ago. Friends came over, we watched movies and ate food and just hung out in general, it was a good time.

5. Risk Night with whoever wants to come
I wrote about Risk night, it was a good time despite a small amount of people attending

6. Get powerdownproductions.com looking like a website
While the site is still in the works, we currently have our logo and our "under construction" sign, take a peek for yourself!

7. Start pre-recording Celluloid Freaks
We plan to release the first episode of Celluloid Freaks Thanksgiving weekend. Chris has pre-recorded 5 episodes already and I'm sure he's going to continue the show going for months and years to come. I'm extremely happy to have him as part of the Power Down Productions family.

11. Get People from my D&D group to play Munchkin for a Night
Like Risk Night this was a small attendance but non the less was a good time. Sadly D&D is no more (for now) I'll discuss that more in a bit

12. Have an all night horror movie marathon on Halloween Night
I decided to have this the night PRIOR to Halloween. It was a good time. if you follow me on twitter then you saw my #TrickOrTweet posts.


PART 2: D&D NO MORE?
My D&D campaign has recently ended. Our Dungeon Master has given up on DMing. I understand his decision and am not the least bit angry at him, but i've decided to purchase a dungeon master guide and giving DMing a shot. I'll keep updated as this develops

PART 3: THE SITE AND THE FUTURE

As you know I haven't had any new videos or anything for quite a while. I'm working to get the power down productions site completely up and operational by January 1st. We will be producing 3 podcasts (2 weekly and one Monthly) Celluloid Freaks will be the first one, the 2nd one will be Movies and the Munchies (which I'll be a part of in the beginning but eventually phase myself out) and the 3rd will be a monthly show called the Saint Mort Show, I'll talk about this one more in my next blog entry but it will have a "variety/sketch" show type format much like the Pod F Thompkast but definitely not exactly like that particular podcast (which you should all check out).

PART 4: MATT ON THE WEB

There really hasn't been much that I've had published lately but here's a few of them:
Top 10 90's One-Hit Wonders Who Deserve More Credit
Movies You Might Not Know Are Coming: November

I am working on a Harry Potter article for hopefully next week or so though

That's all for tonight, time to take advantage of that extra hour for some extra masturbation (Joke Unintentionally Stolen from Brian Walton)

Merry Mattmas

It's been almost 10 days since my last blog entry; a lot has happened which I'll be covering throughout the next few weeks; You can look forward to the following soon:

- a report on my trip to New York Comic Con
- The final episode of Undercover Geek
- Various other videos

I'd also wish to announce here that do to various things (most i don't want to get too in depth with) I will not be moving to Los Angeles until Early July (thinking July 6th-ish) so PA gets an extra 6 months of me.

But the important thing is that this past weekend i celebrated the 25th anniversary of my daring escape from my mother's uterus. It feels awkward being a quarter of a century old. The Birthday was a nice one; spent Thursday with my immediate family at Texas Roadhouse; My mom's family came over Friday night for pizza and cake and then Saturday I had friends over (it was mostly just hanging out watching How I met Your Mother and talking).

Sorry that after 10 days it's such a small entry but I'm dogsitting with limited wireless so I can't really focus on what I want to say.

Old School Power Down - I'm Stealing my Kisses Back

This Month's Old School Power Down was a short film (50 seconds) that I made with Matt Howard of Racing Kites, My best friend Jeff Shropshire and a friend from school. It was created by Shrop and shot/edited by myself. There's a lot of funny stories behind this short and I forgot to say them all. But here's the cliff notes version:

- Idea stemmed from watching Scrubs
- We didn't tell Alyce about the second half of the video; we just shot her scenes and then shot the rest after she left
- We edited the entire video during a 15 minute drive from Penn State to our friend Ed's house
- Alyce requested we take the video down after the video was the number one thing that came up when you googled her
- That was a year or two ago and her name is nowhere around the video now
- Her and I are still friends for some reason

Human CentiTweet

Since the first second that i saw the trailer for Human Centipede: First Sequence I had been overcome with interest. I knew that chances were this movie was going to be terrible and disturbing; but the John Waters/Troma fan in me desperately wanted to see what this film could dish out. I decided to watch the movie and tweet about it; I creatively called it Human CentiTweet. Here's the results:

0:00 - #HumanCentiTweet Begins!
2 Minutes - aww he misses his doggie centipede
5 Minutes - oh man these bitches are annoying; someone sew an ass to their mouths to shut them the fuck up
7 Minutes - "There's no Signal" "There's Always a signal" "well not here in the middle of nowhere!"
8 MInutes - "You're always wet between your legs" This has "Best original Screenplay" locked easily
12 Minutes - "Is that a house? I think it's a house!"
15 Minutes - Dear Future LA roomates: I require a giant wall sized painting of Conjoined Twins in my house
20 Minutes - Oh shit! They're waking up tied to beds; shits about to go down motherfucker!
25 MInutes - DRAWING OF A BUTTHOLE! THERE WAS A DRAWING OF A BUTTHOLE!
27 Minutes - Just for the record, if given the option always choose to be the front of the human centipede... just saying
28 MInutes - Last tweet doesn't apply to those who get off on eating shit
35 Minutes - Punishment of being the middle of the Human Centipede... now that's a fucking punishment
41 Minutes - Man I hope he doesn't fuck up cutting on those blue lines could be really hazardous
42 Minutes - HE'S CUTTING INTO HER BUTT! THIS MOVIE IS AMAZING!
45 Minutes - Ladies and Gentleman we have a #HumanCentiTweet and it's glorious
48 MInutes - why is the guy in the front crying? He's just getting an eternal rimjob
50 Minutes - WW2 has taught us, a happy German is a dangerous German
51 MInutes - he's making it fetch the paper and ndow he's riding it. I mean really what do you do when you have a #HumanCentiTweet
65 Minutes - Constipation the worst thing that could happen to your human centipede
75 Minutes - They're very slowly getting away!
78 MInutes - Oh no! Not the front of the Centipede!
86 MInutes - This movie was fucking nuts! Thus ends #HumanCentiTweet

So what's the final verdict on this truly bizarre movie? Well it's not as scarring as I expected; it's not the most disgusting, or offensive or crude movie I've ever seen. The concept works but the movie doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. I think this movie probably works better with a group of friends and probably some drinks, but alone in a basement it just is awkward. The overacting mad scientist is the true star of the movie though. It's worth a watch but I don't forsee it having much rewatchability. Three Stars out of a Possible 5

Taking a Risk

Yesterday would have been (i suppose in theory it still is) Jim Henson's birthday. In honor of that I started to retweet my article I wrote back in May. I was excited to have two semi-celebrity contacts when Brian Lynch (writer of my all-time favorite comic book "Everybody's Dead") retweeted the article as well and furthermore when I got a personalized message from Zach Pearlman, star of Virginity Hit.

I had a pretty exciting day yesterday beyond Jim Henson articles. I got to spend some time with friend's I haven't seen in a while, but even more importantly was today I scratched off yet another one of the things on my bucket list. Today saw the completion of #5 Risk Night. It was extremely exciting (despite getting kicked out of the game early on). The game was a good one starting at around 330/400 but ending at 10PM. So it was 6 hours at least of dice rolling. Congrats to Chris Culp for his victory.

Finally I have a new Saint Mort Video Up where i perform my Eminem Parody "Chemistry"

Gleekonomics: A Social Bingo Game

There is a student who attends the school I work at whom I'm fairly convinced is gay. I don't know why but because of this fact I always want to talk to him. I however am straight as an arrow (*Although sometimes many people would question that statement*). It made me start to think about how we sometimes treat different people in our society. Sometimes I think that we play a game of Social Bingo. We're all collecting as much diversity in a circle of game, almost to show off how open-minded me are... but is this being open-minded? I wonder if the fact that I have multiple openly gay friends makes me want to talk to this person, but that's literally saying "I have gay friends, we should hang out".

The fact is having a diverse group of friends is something practically praised like winning a super bowl trophy. Do you have both a Gay Male, a Lesbian and 2 bi-sexual friends of different sexes? You're at a good start. Are you friends with every type of Asian possible? Doing even better. In your circle of friends are you the only straight, white male? You've won the game. BINGO!



Currently nothing showcases this type of extreme diversity like the explosion of popularity of the show Glee. The show has proven to be more than just a flash in the pan hit. It's a full on phenomenon, among the ranks of Star Trek, Harry Potter and Twilight. Fans of the show (or Gleeks) often praise the show for it's diversity. The show has literally a little bit of everything.



In that picture we have a handicapped kid, an asian girl, a jock, a gay male, an african-american female, a cheerleader and our man character (the determined feminist). If only more shows had such diversities! Something I like to call Gleekomonics.



Okay, so bringing up Extreme Ghostbusters is sort of a moot point. It's mostly just an excuse to remind people of this spin-off that I loved, but everyone else just called "Ghostbusters PC edition". My point is, packing a show full of minorities isn't always progress, it's just trying to have a massive appeal. I don't hate Glee; I don't want to send that message, but I'm not also not in love with Glee. The pilot episode sets the show up to be almost a TV version of the underrated High School film Election. Our main character Will Schuester plants marijuana in Quaterback Finn Hudson's locker in order to blackmail him into joining the Glee club. This is delightfully dark, but as far as I know (and I admit I only watched the first 13 episodes) this plot point is NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. The general tone of the pilot is brilliant and fun and slightly dark. However as the show continued it turned into a bubbly, upbeat underdog story that starts to wear thin.

The problem with the show is that it leans on the musical numbers to carry it. I sincerely think the reason I don't love the show is because I didn't watch the show as it aired. I watched all 13 episodes in one day. When you're getting slammed with 13 hours of this show, you start to really notice the extreme amounts of filler that the series has. For roughly 5 episodes nothing happens but life lessons. And while sometimes the life lessons are well-written and have great dramatic marks ("Wheels") other times it just really feels like needless filler ("Mash-Ups"). I suppose Glee just isn't for me. By the end of the show I decided all I need to enjoy the show are the soundtracks; maybe I'll give it a second chance with the full first season being on DVD now but that's for another blog on another day.

In Memory of Jack

Yesterday marked the 9 year anniversary that my grandfather died. People who know me know how incredibly important he was to me. The last 9 years have been rough ones. I remember the first year or so, I felt like I lost the only person who truly believed in me and understood me. That of course was the opinions of a 16 year old kid with self-esteem issues; at 24 (soon to be 25) I've noticed how wrong I am.

I have family that supports me as well as Friends that know me better than I know myself. I enjoy the work I do (except for the work I get paid to do haha) and I'm finally attempting to follow my dream after 6 years of just SAYING I was going to do it. Every single day I'm hit with something that makes me go "I really wish he was here right now". But I don't want to thing of the bad times when I need him most, I want to think of the great things he meant to me.

I still have the cassette tape he made for me of Spike Jones, Stan Freberg and Benny Bar songs. It was Grandpop that sparked the creative spirits in me. He gave me a sense of comedic timing in those old tapes, he gave me a love of music as a form of comedy, something I still use in Saint Mort. While it's obvious that "Weird Al" Yankovic and Flight of the Conchords are influences, I've probably listened to Spike Jones' discography more than any of those artists combined.

But it wasn't just silly songs that I connect with him. He showed me some of the most beautiful songs ever written. Be it when you're smiling, It's a sin to tell a lie, or even Babyface; the songs he knew seemed never ending. The way he'd light up a party, make people smile, sing along and clap. Watching him perform will always be some of my happiest memories. Even when I watch my uncle's band Chico's Vibe entertaining hundreds of people at Rose Tree Park. I can't help but wish I was watching my grandfather up there; just his guitar (without the bottom string of course) just playing classics songs.

I think of the song Rainbow Connection, my all time favorite song; and it's that because of him. Him play guitar and my uncle Tommy singing with his Kermit Puppet. The love of the Muppets coming directly from him as well. How do you sum up the most important person in your life, when you haven't been able to communicate with them in almost a decade? I guess the answer is staring back at you whenever you look in the mirror. I am the example of his influence. In the way I speak, act and treat people, it's always slightly influenced by Jack Gebhart. I've been told by many that I sometimes have an old soul and that's because of him. Just looking at my DVD collection is a clear tribute to the things that he showed me; be it my Marx Brothers Silver Collection, Charlie Chaplin films, Every Muppet Film or classic universal horror movies like Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Wolf Man.

Memories are what keep me smiling and keep my going every day; the problem is when you create new memories and that person isn't there anymore.

I miss you Grandpop, I love you and I think about you every single day. I was going to put a video of something deep and serious; but that's now how Jack would want it. Grandpop... this one is in memory of you.

My Awesome Rock Band Game Idea

Sometimes I try to think of something funny that I can one day turn into a stand-up bit. Sadly, I thought of something that started off as a funny idea, and turned into an awesome idea for a video game I'd actually play... what I'm pitching is Rock Band: VMA edition.

All the songs are live performances from the VMAs: Madonna's Like a Virgin, Michael Jackson Bad, Nirvana Rape me/Lithium among others.

But here's the best part; While in normal rock band, when you fail a song they unplug you and the audience boos; in this edition different shit happens, Kayne West Interrupts your performance, Vince Neil Fights you, Your bassist throws his bass in the air and it hits him on his head.

It's just a rough idea but someone needs to hook me up with the Rock Band designers and MTV; if we get on this soon, we can get this out in time for the next VMAs as a cross promotion.

ON a side note, I wrote an article about the top 10 90's one-hit wonders that deserve more credit; check it out here

September Mix

My Mix for the Month of September is now up to download at rapidshare and mediafire. It's a pretty damn good mix this month with some quality songs. It kicks off with Lanemeyer's opening track to their EP Stories of the Big Screen. Lanemeyer never received the love and praise that they deserved in 1999/2000 but their side projects "Day at the Fair" and "The Gaslight Anthem".

Track 3 contains the song I've Got the Love by Gene the Werewolf (Jon Belin of Punchline) which is an extremely catchy and fun 80's hair-metal sound. The song was shown to me by Jonathan London of Geekscape. Jonathan also played me the new Steel Train album which is where track #8 came from.

The biggest reason I think people should check out this mix is track #12 Clockwork Creep by 10cc. This 70's band has had such a huge influence on Indie rock that it's disappointing they don't get more attention. The bizarre blending of genres in this song is clearly comparable to Steel Train and fun.

Full Track List:
1. Me and You and the Big Screen - Lanemeyer
2. JAR - Green Day
3. I've Got the Love - Gene the Werewolf
4. Big Rock Candy Mountain - Harry McClintock
5. Young Forever - Jay-Z
6. Ain't That Love - Brenda Lee
7. Don't Dream it's Over - Crowded House
8. You Are Dangerous - Steel Train
9. It's Gonna Rain - Violent Femmes
10. Lonesome Kicker - Adam Sandler
11. A Man's Gotta Do - Dr. Horrible
12. CLockwork Creep - 10cc
13. Flaming Moes - The Simpsons
14. Forget and Not Slow Down - Relient K
15. Such Great Heights - Iron & Wine
16. Identity Crisis - Pigeon John
17. Maddog 20/20 - Teenage Fanclub
18. What is this? Love? - Jason LeVasseur
19. Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye - The Casinos
20. Say Shhh - Atmosphere
21. I Am the Doctor - Socratic
22. Between Now and Then - Element 101
23. High School - Nerf Herder

In other news, if you check out my Bucket List you'll know I've had 15 things I wanted to do before I move to LA in 2011. I have officially crossed off #11, playing Munchkin with my D&D friends. Next Week I'll be crossing off #5, Risk Tournament.

Undercover Geek 2: The Star Wars Edition

Episode 2 of Undercover Geek's 3-part Wizard World Philadelphia coverage, this time specifically interviewing star wars characters

Undercover Geek Episode 2: The Star Wars Edition from PowerDownProductions on Vimeo.

Harry HOOTer

I've been re-reading/re-watching the Harry Potter books/movies in order to prepare myself for Harry Potter & The Deathly Hollows part 1. I couldn't be more excited for this movie, the trailer proudly declares "The Motion Picture Event Of a Generation". I couldn't think of anything more truthful. In the world of "Super-Fandom" Harry Potter has rightfully earned it's place among Star Wars & Star Trek. Bands, Fictional Books on Tape, Fan Art, Youtube Series', College groups... the list is endless. People love Potter but there's just... one thing that doesn't stick with me, I never understood it until now.

I started re-reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (or Part 3) and early on Harry talks about getting in trouble with the Dursley's because of a phone call from his best friend Ron Weasley. Ron and the rest of the wizarding world aren't familiar with phones. Which is all well and good; they're fucking wizards you know? They can't understand a lot of things like that, who needs a car when you can use Floo Powder to get places? Who needs boring & slow Football (or Soccer to us Americans) when you've got NASCAR on brooms with violent blood-thirsty balls (Quidditch)? Every in the wizarding world is faster and better than our Muggle world. Why should Ron know how to use and outdated phone when they've got...Owls? Owls deliver their message?

AND NOT LIKE THIS!


In what world does tying a letter/note to an owl and having it fly to a location seem like a timely way to spread information? I mean we won't even factor in that PETA would be flipping a shit over this type of Animal Labor, but for example... I live in PA, I work for a website in CA. If I need to ask them a quick question, it's a phone call, 3 minutes conversation, answer. With the Harry Potter owl system it'd take like a week just to get the answer to the question "Should I put this interview up on youtube?"

I mean the Weasley's in particular should be leading the way in this new technology, Ron is constantly worrying if the family owl Errol will die while delivering letters/gifts. That is no way to live! Shit! In The Chamber of Secrets (Part 2) all attempts to contact Harry have failed because Dobby the house elf kept intercepting messages. The Weasley's thought something was wrong with Harry. A simple phone call would have let them know he was alive and would have even let them know he wasn't getting their packages! I mean understandably, Ron and the Weasley's live in the Wizarding world with a Mail-system that apparently stopped at the world war 2 carrier pigeon, but Hermione should know better!

You know what... Fuck Harry Potter & The Deathly Hollows Part 1... stupid fucking cell-phoneless Wizards!

When this Boy Meets World

With Lionsgate re-releasing the first three seasons of Boy Meets World on DVD and their announcement of season four on December 7th, 2010; I've been feeling nostalgic for this show. While most people are able to write it off as just a kid's show from the 90's, for the people who watched it those 7 seasons growing up, it holds an extremely special place in their hearts. It started off as "just a kid's show" for a few seasons; by season 3 it started to turn into a very funny kid's show with occasional touching moments and then it finally by season 7; it ended the only way it knew how to... in one giant touching moment.

Over seven years we watched these characters grow, go to college, get married, go through serious fights and arguments. I think the first time I ever had a truly emotional reaction to any TV show was watching the Series finale. While re-watching it I couldn't help but still get emotional but also think about this move coming up. My own personal fears and worries, my concerns. I'm so scared to be alone, to miss important moments in my friend's lives, to miss moments in my families lives. Some morning I wake up and think "I shouldn't do this, I should just stay here"... but I know if I do that, I'll never be happy.

I leave you with the final scene from Boy Meets World

Old School Power Down: Eco-Safe Summer

Power Down Productions presents our newest web-show "Old School Power Down" where I present embarassing and bad (but sometimes funny) videos from past years. This first one features a video I did as a last second Bi-Sci Final.

All that we have, is just stuff

When I started to take this blog seriously, I decided I wanted to use it as a way to inspire. I wanted to make people laugh, maybe pass the blog to their friends and say "read what this kid said". I also wanted to inspire the writer in myself. I wanted to give me a way to take my life and put a fun twist on it whether people got the joke or completely missed it. The one thing I never wanted to do is post "woe is me" type entries. When I first started the blog almost two years ago it was a very "personal" and sometimes whiny blog. Which is why I stopped writing it. It's very easy for what I want to talk about to come off as whiny but I promise that I'm trying my best to just look at things from the most honest and sincere perspective possible. The fact is I'm actually really upset and a little angry about what I'm about to write about and writing is my therapy.

Tonight some friends and I went to a play in Philadelphia. We had a really good time and went out for drinks afterwards with the writer/director. When we returned to the parking lot i discovered that my car window was busted open. With further inspection we discovered that my CD player, my iPod, my GPS, my wallet (no bank cards or money in it though, just a driving license) and about $100 worth of Comics were stolen. Furthermore they clearly attempted to hot-wire the car. When that was unsuccessful they throw my trash around inside the car. Upon returning home I posted this on twitter "To the dick who busted my car window and stole my CD player & My iPod. Fuck you! I had to listen to the radio driving home asshole!"

I feel like while this is an insincere expression of anger, I wanted to make light of the situation. The fact is I did and have remained calm over this. Half of me wants to cry and the other half of me is extremely angry. Luckily I was born with a 3rd half (or an inability to understand fractions and other simple math problems) which understood something. All that really happened to me was that i was inconvenienced and lost some stuff, and nothing important. My GPS sucks because I use it alot, my CD player I use alot too... but I bought it in 2004 for $30, the iPod well... it sucks since it was new... but it's just an iPod, even the months worth of comics I'd just picked up... it sucks but it's just stuff. The window sucks too, but I still HAVE a car. I'm refusing to let this put a dent in my "moving to LA" plans.

Why am I awake at 3am right now writing this blog? Is it really for anyone other then me? I don't want your sympathy or comments saying "sorry Matt to hear about this" or people telling me what to do or even compliments like "you're handling this so well"... the fact is I want to remind people that sometimes life sucks. Part of the reason I was upset/angry was because I felt like this was a personal attack. I found myself thinking "Why Me? What did I do wrong?" but the fact is... I just lost some money in life's game of poker. The plus is that this is a really long game of poker, and I'm not completely broke yet and chances are I can start winning again. I still have a car that can get me to work so I can save money for the move (and perhaps to fix the window) and more importantly the friends who love me, family that loves me even more.

Thanks to the readers of this blog, the people who love me, and to the people who helped me remember to always keep my head up. I attribute my look on life to my grandfather who died years ago. One of my first entries was about the incredible impact he had on my life. This was one of his favorite songs and it's a song that always reminds me to keep my head up. To my grandpop, I dedicate this song to you. To the person who broke into my car, fuck you... but thank you... for reminding me there's more important things in my life than just stuff