TOP 5 ALBUMS OF 2014

I wrote a little bit for SLUG Magazine again this year, which means I got to be a part of their annual Top 5 Albums issue (on news stands right now!) that they do every December. The main problem with this, as I laid out last year, is that since it's a monthly publication and they have so many freelancers, is that you have to submit your list super early. I think this was due right around the beginning of October, which means that there were a couple of albums released afterwards that I definitely would have added instead.

There were also a few that I just hadn't listened to

My Top 5 for this year (according to SLUG) were:

St. Vincent - S/T
Against Me! - Transgender Dysphoria Blues
Pallbearer - Foundations of Burden
Mobb Deep - The Infamous Mobb Deep
Patton Oswalt - Tragedy Plus Comedy Equals Time

The first two are still on there, 100%. St. Vincent is my favorite record of this year by far, and it doesn't hurt that I have a little crush on Annie Clark—especially after her performance with Nirvana.



Against Me!, even though I'm still mad at their tour manager for being a complete dick to me in 2004 when I booked a show for them, put out a great punk/rock record that I listen to regularly as well.

The other three, I could go either way on.

Since then I've been really into the new Death From Above 1979 album, "The Physical World", and seeing them live a few weeks ago only increased my love of it. Same goes for the new Run The Jewels record—who I actually saw live three days before DFA. That was a good week. I'd probably put both of those on there, and take two of the bottom three off.



Hell, I may just remove the bottom three altogether and give Run the Jewels two spots. But I'm not sure. There's still 3 weeks left in the year.

Also, holy shit, there's only three weeks left in the year.

FUCK THE POLICE

As told by...

N.W.A


Bruce Springsteen


Black Flag


KRS One


Bob Dylan

OLD NEWS RECORDS

I don't really know how this Cyber Monday thing is supposed to work, but I'm trying anyway!

Over the weekend, I went down to the Old News Records office (i.e. the closet in my apartment where I keep everything) and updated all the inventory in there.

The holidays are here already—which is crazy because this year has gone by very quickly—and it's time to start buying gifts. So here are three things you may want to try getting for someone, and they're all in stock and ready to be ordered from the my shop.

Visit the link above, or just type in trevorhale.bigcartel.com and get busy ordering!

Tulip - A great novel written by a good friend of mine. I've written and talked about this before ad nauseam, but it's still worth it.

"Bogged down by the existential angst of the American Dream, Tulip has long since given up on any search for meaning—until a voice he's never heard sneaks into his head.

The small miracles of life, paired with the new voice, sets him on a path of moral awakenings and trials by the Devil's hand. Through it all, Tulip seeks love, fights back hoards of entitled masses and finds a new hope and respect for humanity.

At the same time, Tulip must decide if the voice in his head is real or if reality is just falling apart."

HP tank top - I made this tank top last year because I thought it was a clever idea. Apparently it was clever enough that someone else stole it from me. Either that, or great minds think alike. Probably the latter. Anyway. I've got plenty in stock, in all sizes, and they're ready to ship ASAP.

Long Live Sloan t-shirt - Last but not least, my tribute to the great Jerry Sloan. The Jazz are now on their second coach since the legendary Sloan stepped down, but we'll never forget Jerry.

Everything is available and ready to go. I'm going to say that if you want it by Christmas, you need to order by December 15. I don't trust the post office anyway, but I trust them far less on a time crunch.

trevorhale.bigcartel.com

LET'S ANALYZE THAT TRAILER, SHALL WE?

How much can we get out of a 96 second movie trailer? A lot.

As I was looking at Twitter after I woke up on Friday morning, I started seeing screencaps of a newly released movie trailer. I'm still trying really hard to only watch trailers at movie theaters, but sometimes I can't resist and watch them at home. I'd already seen so many stills and GIFS, that I gave in.

I've already watched this thing like 15 times, but let's go ahead and do a hard analysis of the trailer for Carmen Electra's new movie, LAP DANCE, and just try to figure out what everything means.



Now that you've had a chance to watch it, let's get right to it.

First, there's that iconic Texas sky that we all know and love—because it played a very important part in the FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS TV series.

Next, we get our first glimpse of the person we'll be spending this journey with: Ali Cobrin. Notice that Ali Cobrin is NOT Carmen Electra who, even though we've collectively forgotten about her since she's 15 years removed from popularity, gets top billing and is the face of the movie. Nope. Cobrin doesn't have a long history of acting credits, but you may recognize her from that one time you watched AMERICAN REUNION because you were bored.

Remember, this is a trailer and not a teaser, so we have to get a few actual plot details. This is where we find out that Cobrin and her boyfriend need money because he hasn't sold his script yet, her father is dying of cancer AND there's a dreaded yellow foreclosure notice on their front door. 

What's a girl to do in this situation? Well, start stripping of course! Because it's super easy, and as MAGIC MIKE taught us, strip clubs will pretty much hire anyone that wanders in off the street looking for money.

Now we're getting somewhere! Stripping is a great way to make money, and Monica's only going to try it for a week, so it'll be no problem. But as the trailer will soon tell us, "Fast money comes... At a dangerous price." Also, we're now exactly halfway through this thing and we haven't even seen Carmen Electra yet!

Oh. There she is. Okay. We're good. By the way, this movie is also based on a true story, which basically means that nothing nearly as dramatic happened. In reality, this girl probably got a job at a strip club, made pretty great money and went on living her life almost exactly the same as she had before. But that's not exciting. You know what is exciting?

A Ron Fucking Jeremy cameo! Now we're getting somewhere, and that somewhere is "generic trailer notes." At this point, the narrator tells us that "It's the money that brings girls in. It's the attention that keeps them coming back."

The rest pretty much hits all the beats it's supposed to. There's tension in the relationship, Monica admits that she's lost control, blah, blah, blah, swelling music, montage of possible girl-on-girl action, lens flares, and BAM! The title pops up and it's all over.

That was an intense minute and a half, wasn't it? Well don't worry, because we don't even have to wait that long to actually see this masterpiece.

It'll be released this coming Friday. Whether or not it will be in actual movie theaters remains to be seen. 

But in 4 months or so when it pops up on Showtime at 3 AM, just when you've just finished binge-watching HOMELAND for 6 hours, you can watch a few minutes of it. All the best parts were probably already in the trailer though. Except for maybe the nudity.

Wait. Did you think I was going to be writing about the new STAR WARS trailer? Oh. Well. Shit. Sorry everyone.