INTERVIEW OUTTAKES: RYAN OTTLEY

There's a lot of stuff that gets left on the cutting room floor when you do an interview. A lot of it is for good reason, though. Most of the time it's because it just doesn't fit with the narrative.

Ryan Ottley, Utah native and artist of the comic book Invincible, and I sat outside Nobrow Coffee one evening this past summer and talked about a lot of things. The crux of the article was Salt Lake Comic Con, but we barely got into that. I was more interested in everything else he was up to - mainly since he was only going to be at SLCC for the first day.

We talked about how he got into the business, why he doesn't jump ship for Marvel or DC and about that art burning party that he had with Derek Hunter that set comic book message boards on fire.

Very little of that made it in to the actual article, but he still gave some great quotes. Figured it was high time you got to see them.

You can check out the original article that I wrote for SLUG's August issue first, then come back here for the stuff that didn't make the cut.

You can keep up with him at his own site, the art blog he does with his friend James Harren called The Bog, and of course you should be reading the fantastic Invincible published by Image Comics.

Enjoy the stuff that didn't make it!

On Becoming a Full-Time Comic Artist:

I didn’t do any school or anything. I used to work at a warehouse and I’d always had that dream of being a comic book artist since I was 14. I was working at the warehouse and I got fired from that, and I thought ‘sweet, I’ll just live off these unemployment checks and try to get in to my dream job.’

That’s what I did and it worked, I think. It took about a year and a half of just doing short stories for DigitalWebbing.com - they had an anthology back then. I was doing it for free. I would just find a writer that I liked and I would say ‘send me this and if I like it, I’ll draw it and if I don’t... sorry.’ I’m not going to draw something for free that I don’t like.

On Working for The Big Two:

Mostly at conventions people will come up and give me cards. I’ve had offers to do stories at Marvel and I’ve turned them down. Marvel was the most recent thing and I said, 'I’ll do this as long as I get to do my own covers. And they said no to that.’

I think that’s really weird. They’re really picky about that. I think if I’m going to draw the interior, I’m going to draw the cover, too. That’s just the way I roll. I don’t mind some covers here and there by other artists. Every once in a while Invincible will have guest artists, but most of the time it’s me doing the covers.

When I go into a comic shop, sure I see these beautiful Marvel covers everywhere, then you open up to the inside, and I’m not saying the inside is terrible, but it’s different. It’s like different actors and I hate that.

Sometimes it feels like the interiors are more for the story and the cover is more for the art and I don’t like that. All of it needs to be about the art and the story.

My favorite artist isn’t just the kind of artist that’s a great storyteller. It’s gotta be a good story, but it’s also got to have that really good artistic thing that's good enough to be a cover. You can do interesting things all over the place instead of just telling stories.

There’s a bunch of artists that are mainly just there to tell the story. They’re not flashy, they’re not over the top.

On Burning Old Art:

I don’t do that anymore. That was really Derek and I having a burn party. I burned 10 pages. 10 terrible pages that I just wanted to get off the planet. It’s funny, I guess I shouldn’t have shared it. It’s fine to do it, just don’t share it. I got called the worst names and people told me I should have given it to charity. Why would I give shitty art to charity? That’s kind of a dick move right there. ‘You won’t make any money off this, but here you go.’

If I wanted charity to make money, I’d send them the good things I’ve done. Which I have! Do I need to go out and shout 'here are the good things I’ve done and here are the burned things I’ve done?'

AND THE NOMINEES ARE...

Letterman is still king.

Even though I’m waaaaay behind on movies this year, let’s talk about everyone else’s favorite talking point—the Oscars!

I haven’t seen everything this year. I haven’t seen anywhere near as much as I would have liked. When all of your friends get married or move to California and you don’t have a GF to drag along to movies she probably doesn't want to see anyway, the thing that suffers the most is how many movies you actually see over the course of a year. Sunday Night Movie is pretty much dead and the Half-Assed Reviews are on life support, but we’re not here to talk about that stuff. You’re here to listen to me wax intellectual about the 2014 Oscar nominations, so let’s get to it.

The Oscars are a very flawed system - especially when it comes to the writing categories - but they're 1000 times better than the Golden Globes. That's not saying much though. Anyway...

Best Picture
AMERICAN HUSTLE – Great performances and a fun movie to watch. I completely forgot I had seen it when I woke up the next morning and I couldn’t really explain the plot if I tried. That doesn’t bode well for its longevity. But no one gives a shit about long-term, so this is going to win.
CAPTAIN PHILLIPS – My friend Casey told me it was a “steaming pile of shit” and to stay away from it. Two weeks later he asked me if I’d seen it because he thought it was really good. I don’t know, man. It’s not going to win.
*UPDATE* I saw it yesterday. I really liked it. I don't think it was "Best Picture" quality, but it was really good. Casey's first reaction was completely wrong, his second reaction was more on the nose.
DALLAS BUYERS CLUB – I want to see this win because I’m 100% on board with McConaughey’s reinvention. But I also haven't seen it, so I have no idea how good the movie itself actually is.
*UPDATE* I saw this yesterday, too. I didn't really like the movie as a whole. I don't know exactly why, but I didn't. McConaughey was great though. He'll win Best Actor, but I don't think there's any way that anyone loved this movie the way some people love AMERICAN HUSTLE or any of the others. It's on the list because it's an "important" movie, but it's not great.
GRAVITY – Somewhere, there’s an idiot watching this on his iPhone bitching about it. This is a movie that was made to be seen in a theater. It’s a fantastic experience. The movie’s not amazing, but it’s really fun to watch. In a theater. Don’t watch this on your god damn phone.
HER – Spike Jonze has never done anything wrong. I haven’t even seen this movie and I stand by that statement 100%.
NEBRASKA – I want to see this because I loved Alexander Payne’s first two movies and Bruce Dern was in THE BURBS, so in my eyes he’s good forever.
PHILOMENA – I just don’t care. Simple as that.
12 YEARS A SLAVE – I’ll see this eventually. This is the only threat to AMERICAN HUSTLE, but I’m not sure how much of a threat it is.
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET – I had a blast watching this. Every stock broker is a huge asshole and if you thought this movie in any way glorified what they were doing, you probably didn’t actually see the movie.

TOO LONG, DIDN'T READ PREDICTION: AMERICAN HUSTLE. 12 YEARS A SLAVE might sneak in if it doesn't win the Best Director award.

Best Actor – Christian Bale, Bruce Dern, Leonardo DiCaprio, Chiwitel Ejiofor, Matthew McConaughey
I’m always rooting for DiCaprio, but I think it’s going to be McConaughey. I hope it is. If I still haven’t seen DALLAS BUYERS CLUB by then, I’ll just pretend he won it for MUD which I loved. Or for Wooderson in Dazed and Confused because that’s an all-time great character.
*UPDATE* Tom Hanks should be on this list instead of Christian Bale for the last 10 minutes of CAPTAIN PHILLIPS, alone. He shouldn't win, but those 10 minutes were better than Bale's entire performance. Bale also gets knocked down a few points each time I think about his awful, awful Batman voice. No matter how good he may be in what I'm currently watching, he'll never get past that voice.
TOO LONG, DIDN'T READ PREDICTION: McConaughey

Best Actress – Amy Adams, Cate Blanchett, Sandra Bullock, Judi Dench, Meryl Streep
This is a five-way toss-up, and I say that mostly because I've only seen 2 of the 5 performances. Am I an asshole if I root for Amy Adams solely based on her amazing cleavage in AMERICAN HUSTLE? Probably! I’m doing it. No chance to actually win, but that's my vote.
TOO LONG, DIDN'T READ PREDICTION: Cate Blanchett

Best Supporting Actor – Barkhad Abdi, Bradley Cooper, Michael Fassbender, Jonah Hill, Jared Leto
You know how sometimes you’ll meet a celebrity and they’re just a colossal asshole that’s just dripping with condescension and ego and it just ruins them forever? From that point on, you just root against that person and hope they fail over and over again. But when they don’t fail and just become more famous and popular instead, you start to hate them even more. That’s how I feel about Jared Leto. I fucking hate that guy. So he’ll probably win and I’ll have to listen to every girl I know talk about his god damn hair. Fuck.
*UPDATE* I'm officially rooting for Barkhad Abdi because of his performance in CAPTAIN PHILLIPS. He was really, really good and held his own against Tom Hanks the whole way. Also, because fuck Jared Leto.
TOO LONG, DIDN'T READ PREDICTION: Jared Leto

Best Supporting Actress – Sally Hawkins, Jennifer Lawrence, Lupita Nyong’o, Julia Roberts, June Squibb
Honestly, as long as Julia Roberts doesn't win I’ll be fine with anyone else. I’ll root for Jennifer Lawrence because that will be fun and she was really good in AMERICAN HUSTLE, but she’s not allowed to win twice in a row, right? She’s not Tom Hanks, for Christ’s sake. Lawrence's movie is also the only one I've seen out of these 5, so that helps her a lot. I'm an excellent film writer.
TOO LONG, DIDN'T READ PREDICTION: Lupita Nyong'o because Wesley Morris thinks so. I like that guy

Best Director – David O. Russell – AMERICAN HUSTLE, Alfonso Cuaron – GRAVITY, Alexander Payne – NEBRASKA, Steve McQueen – 12 YEARS A SLAVE, Martin Scorsese – THE WOLF OF WALL STREET
This one comes down to Russell vs. McQueen, with Cuaron right behind them. I’m going to guess McQueen because reasons. Then again, according to the L.A Times, 94% of the Academy voters are white and most of them are over 60 years old. That means there’s a good chance that a majority of Academy voters are afraid of black people. It’s 2014 and that’s what Steve McQueen is up against.

TOO LONG, DIDN'T READ PREDICTION: Steve McQueen.

There you have it. Those are my half-assed Oscar predictions.We'll check back in a month or so to see what else I got around to watching and what actually won.

What do you think should win, what do you think will win and what are you surprised got left out?

P.S. I didn't mention the BEST SCREENPLAY and BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY awards or how INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS got shut out, because those may be posts for another day.

GREAT MOVIE TITLE SEQUENCES

If you're unaware, I'm slightly obsessed with title sequences and title cards. I talk about it kind of a lot (like here, here, here and here) and I'm not ashamed.

I can write just about anything, but I couldn't draw a straight line if I had a ruler. Drawing and design work is something I love, but I'm just not cut out for.

This link has been sitting in the "Don't Forget" bookmark of my browser since October of 2012. I totally forgot about it. Like I said before, 'timely' isn't something I pay much attention to in regards to this site.

It's an article from Creative Bloq where they get a few of their favorite designers to tell them why they love certain title sequences. A few of them are classics, like STAR WARS and VERTIGO and then there are a few new entries like SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD and ENTER THE VOID (which Kanye West used as an inspiration for his "All of the Lights" video.

It's definitely worth your time. Take a few minutes and read it now, or bookmark it and forget about it for a year or so. It's up to you.

TOP 5 ALBUMS

Occasionally I write things for SLUG Magazine. I don't do a lot of work for them, but a few times a year I'll put together a long-ish piece about something or someone that's important to Salt Lake City.

That means that I'm a contributor and my name and choices get included in the magazine's annual year-end Top 5. It's not as cool as my own Top 5 Anythings list that I do over here, but it's pretty cool. The SLUG list is mostly centered on music or comedy. Albums really.

I'm really bad at keeping up on new music (as documented many times on this site), but after Esther asked me to write up my list, I tried really hard. I spent the next few weeks listening only to records that came out this year and avoided depending too much on old stand-by's.

I had to send my list in on October 28. There were still two months of new releases to come! How dare Esther Merono try to get things in a timely fashion to have ready at the beginning of December! How dare she, I say!

But really, with over 50 contributors to corral, it's totally understandable that she'd want my list that early. It's also 100% my fault that I spent way more time perfecting my 90's punk and Ludacris guest-spot playlists than listening to new stuff.

This is what it looked like when I sent it to her.

1) Nine Inch Nails - Hesitation Marks
2) Yeah, Yeah, Yeah's - Mosquito
3) The Bronx - IV
4) Ghostface Killah - 12 Reasons to Die
5) Low - The Invisible Way

I still stand by a few of those. Nine Inch Nails and Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs are safe. I question my own judgement on the other three. I haven't listened to the Ghostface Killah record a single time since I added it to the list- the same goes for Low. I think that means they should both be taken off.

I have, however, listened to Pure Heroine by Lorde half a dozen times since then. What that says about me, I'm not entirely sure. It's a good album. Now, anyway. In three years I might think differently.

This is all a pretty roundabout way of saying that I have no idea what the best 5 albums that came out this year should be.

Do you?

What were your favorite records of 2013? Tell me what I should be listening to.

BENEVOLENCE AND EMPATHY

The Satanic Temple is kind of awesome.

I've never really been a fan of Satanism because of the (majority of) idiots that preach it. To me, preaching Satanism is just as annoying as preaching Christianity, which I don't believe in either.

But The Satanic Temple is doing things just a bit differently. A few months ago, they tried to adopt a highway in New York. Now they've got their sights set on something bigger.

Oklahoma state representative Mike Ritze (R - Broken Arrow) recently allowed a Christian group to erect a statue of the Ten Commandments on the statehouse grounds. This didn't go over well with a whole bunch of people and a slew of different groups - including PETA and The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - demanded that they be represented on the grounds of the statehouse as well. The ACLU immediately filed a lawsuit because of the Ten Commandments statue and the influx of requests, so a moratorium was placed on putting anything else up, but that didn't stop The Satanic Temple from going forward with plans.

They started an IndieGoGo fund to raise money to erect a 7-foot statue of Baphomet seated on a throne with happy children by his side. According to spokesman Lucien Greaves (that made-up name right there is one of my many annoyances with Satanism as a whole) "The statue will also have a functional purpose as a chair where people of all ages may sit on the lap of Satan for inspiration and contemplation."

They were attempting to raise $20,000 and as of this writing, they've surpassed that amount.

While The Satanic Temple is the one spearheading this project, The Church of Satan isn't nearly as enthusiastic. Magus Peter H. Gilmore, the High Priest of that organization said "The statue is crudely designed and ugly to me and seems pedophilic, since the caduceus between the goat’s legs is a phallic symbol. Having children reaching towards a being with an exposed symbolic penis seems to imply that Satanism represents the same situation which has plagued the Roman Catholic and other Christian churches for some time: child abuse. The image appears to show the goat’s left hand possibly caressing the male child. Revolting."

"It occurs to me," Gilmore says, "that the efforts by the perpetrators of this proposal may be intended as a means for making Satanism appear foolish and just as dysfunctional and irrational as we secularists view most other religions to be."

That two groups of Satanists are arguing over the merits of Satanism kind of says it all, I think.

But whatever. I think it's a great idea. I'm all for a Baphomet statue in a city that I don't live in - mostly because I want to see people in Oklahoma freak out if it happens. If this thing does get made, I'll be stopping in Oklahoma on my way to Detroit. I'm all about cool statues.

A sampling of The Satanic Temple's beliefs are below. I've gotta say, they make a pretty strong point. But like all religions, it's probably overrun with bat-shit crazy people that ruin it for everyone else and make it impossible for me to even consider.

The picture up top is what the statue will (*fingers crossed*) look like and below is a brief sample of The Satanic Temple's beliefs.

"To embrace the name “Satan” is to avow skepticism in the face of all things, even — especially — that which is held sacred. To stand forth as a “Satanist” is to rend from the persecutory, affrighted mob a convenient out-group label, demanding that individuals be judged for their concrete actions, not their fealty to arbitrary social norms and illusory categorizations.

Satanism is not mindless abandon and depravity, but a philosophy that drives us to lead fruitful and dignified, epicurean lives. Satan, the symbolic force of design that would urge humanity toward refined pleasures of the Arts and Sciences. Satan, who first brought the fruit of knowledge to Humankind that thereafter we might live not as naked brutes in the wild, but develop our cultural splendor into ever more aesthetically and technologically advanced heights. Ours is the Humanistic Satan who would sacrifice His own Heavenly residence so that Humanity might learn to understand and enjoy the physical world they inhabit.

Satanists are often natural aestheticians who revel in the grandeur of human artistic, architectural achievements while also often drawn to the idiosyncratic and bizarre that are all too typically misunderstood, feared, and discarded.

With compassion, the Satanic Temple accepts all who are just and compassionate."

SINGLED OUT

When I was growing up, my best friend lived right across the street from me.

It was as solid of a friendship as a kid could hope for. We both loved the Yankees and baseball cards. We worshipped STAR WARS, played night games like Capture the Flag and Kick the Can with other neighborhood kids, had sleepovers and re-enacted a scene from WAYNE’S WORLD for the 5th & 6th grade talent show. We built a clubhouse in the back room or his garage and turned the space behind that same garage under a huge pine tree into a little hut.

Every week during football season, we’d each put a dollar a in a little jar at my house. At the end of the season, we’d have about forty bucks and my mom would drive us to the grocery store so we could spend it all on junk food for our own private Super Bowl party. He loved Michael Jackson a bit too much for my taste, and both of his parents were habitual chain smokers so he always smelled like stale cigarettes, but we got along great.

Most importantly though, his dad had a subscription to Playboy.

I knew what Playboy was before I met him, but I’d never actually seen one. This was well before the Internet and long before girls posted nudes (with their head cropped off, of course) on Tumblr or sent sexy texts. An old, passed-around copy of Playboy was all we had.

His dad knew we looked at it. How could he not? As most houses did in the 80’s, they had a place right in the front room where all the magazines lived until it was time to throw them out. Along with Sports Illustrated, Sporting News, People and a few others that his parents subscribed to, Playboy was left right out in plain sight. We’d always sneak some peeks while the current issue was lying around, but the real trick was finding ways to keep them.

One of Jonathan’s chores was to take out the garbage and every few weeks and that would usually include a stack of magazines that his parents didn't want anymore. Everything went right into the trash cans outside because no one had figured out that recycling might be a good idea in the long run.

Jonathan and I hatched a plan.

Whenever the Playboy ended up in the stack to be thrown out, Jonathan would carefully remove it once he got outside. If his mom wasn't in the kitchen or dining room, which both had windows overlooking the driveway where the garbage was and backyard, he’d dump the magazines, take the coveted Playboy and hide it.

Sometimes it had to be hidden in the bushes just outside the back door until Jonathan could get back outside, but sometimes he’d drop the trash while his parents were watching TV in separate bedrooms. In that case, he’d be able to sneak either into the garage clubhouse or the hut and place the magazine in its intended spot. We had an old Lego carrying case about the size of a briefcase that held all of our porn. At first it was in the back of the garage, but that flooded and ruined a whole stack of them. We figured they’d be safer in the hut, but forgot that even in the summer it still rains. Another stack was ruined not long after.

Hiding physical magazines full of naked girls is really hard when you’re 10 years old.

One issue that we took the best care of was June 1994—one of Jenny McCarthy’s centerfold appearances. We were mesmerized by her in every possible way. It’s probably the issue that we held on to the longest—with one of the Pamela-Anderson-in-her-prime issues coming in at a close second.

Those magazines lived in that Lego briefcase for a long time and they become some of our most prized possessions right next to my Don Mattingly rookie, 60+ Bo Jackson card collection and still-in-the-package Princess Leia in Bounty Hunter Gear toy. Only I couldn't really show the magazines to anyone other than our friend Nick, who we let in on our secret stash when he moved up from West Valley.

To this day, that stretch of my childhood where Jenny McCarthy was all I thought about is the only time that I have ever given a single fuck about anything to do with Jenny McCarthy.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Last month I asked you guys to find me an IBM Selectric typewriter like Hunter S. Thompson used to write on. None of you came through. It's okay though. I found one on KSL last night.

Now, if I can just figure out how to adjust the 'return' key so it shifts all the way back to the left margin, I'll be set. Other than that, it works great. She had five extra ribbons still in the box and an extra font roller-ball-thing, too. Best $45 I've spent in a while.

The lady that I bought it from asked me what I was going to do with it, and I had to think about it for a second.

I've grown so used to falling back on auto correct, predictive text, spell check and all those other fancy helpers and I don't want that to be the case anymore. Typing on this will help me become a more efficient speller (I hope) and better at typing.

It's not red like Thompson's, but I think that's about the only downfall.

Who wants a letter?

CHOICES

Henry Rollins will forever be one of my idols.

I've been thinking a lot about this kind of thing, and it's nice to see it laid out like this. It's a good story. Lots of hard work (and a lot of luck) made this guy into what he is today. It's a path that I need to follow. Maybe not the 'singing for a band' part though. I already did my time on the road. It was fun, but I'm glad it's over.

Check out the video and start thinking about what you want to get out of your life this year.

FEAR AND LOATHING

I've decided my new goal is to acquire an IBM Selectric typewriter like the great Hunter S. Thompson used.

I'll write the best letters on it. I promise.

Christmas is right around the corner, you know.

NINE INCH NAILS - TENSION 2013

Hi.

Remember how I've spent the last month or so talking about how excited I was to see Nine Inch Nails, then how much fun I had at the show and how amazing it was?

Now I can prove it to you. Last week Vevo released a high-definition video of the band's show in Los Angeles last month. I've watched it a couple of times already and I love everything about it. There's a full-length DVD in the works for next year, which I'm sure I'll buy because why the hell wouldn't I?

There's also a two-part behind the scenes video (part 1 and part 2) that shows Trent Reznor, Rob Sheridan and the rest of the crew putting everything together for the festival shows they did this past summer. Right when that was finished, and before they left for tour, Reznor decided that everything they'd put together was a "cop out" and they should do something different for the U.S. tour. A month before they left, he brought in a bass player and two back-up singers and had Sheridan re-imagine the entire design.

Reznor seems kind of hard to work for, but amazing to work for at the same time. He's constantly pushing everyone to make things better, and I bet it makes things incredibly difficult at times but immensely rewarding after it's all finished.

Like I wrote in my other piece, The Joint (where I saw the show), was basically a theater so there were limits to what they could do with the stage show. They couldn't raise and lower the huge LED screens that you see in the video, which is kind of disappointing, but again, I think I'd rather have seen them in a small theater than an arena. I don't know though. I'm still working through it in my head.

Either way, the video is embedded below. You should watch it. Better yet, you should pull it up on your giant HD flat screen and watch in your living room.

Now that this is finished, I'll probably stop talking about Nine Inch Nails for a while and we'll get back to random other things that make you love me.

 

ROYALS

Many, many times on this site I've admitted to being way behind the curve when it comes to music.

I only heard about Lorde a couple of weeks ago, and I've been kind of obsessed with her ever since. It's one of the things I've been listening to a lot at work, and one of the times that I'm filled with terror whenever I remember that since Spotify is a social media-based site, other people can see what I'm listening to. I'm sure all the HC street cred I've accrued over the years flew out the window once people noticed the only music I've been listening to lately is Lorde, Queen, M.I.A., Hanni El Khatib, Nine Inch Nails and New Orleans big-band Jazz.

I'm also 100% okay with that.

Lorde's song "Royals" is by far her most popular. It's kind of a send-up of all the famous people that just want to be famous for the sake of being famous. Recently, she was giving an interview to VH1 in which she spoke about the inspiration for the song.

“I had this image from the National Geographic of this dude just signing baseballs," she said. “He was a baseball player and his shirt said, ‘Royals.’ Obviously I’ve had this fascination with aristocracy my whole life. Like, the kings and queens of 500 years ago... they’re like rock stars. If there was a TMZ 500 years ago, it would be about Henry VIII and Marie Antoinette and all those people.”

Who was she talking about? Why none other than Kansas City Royals legend (and probably the best Royals player of all time - behind Bo Jackson, of course) George Brett.

Good photo for inspiration, if I do say so myself.

VEGAS BABY!

"Timely" isn't something I'm great at - especially when it comes to this blog. I'm generally a little bit behind the times and when it comes to reviews, I'm way behind the times.
The plan was to do a review of the Nine Inch Nails show as soon as I got back last week. Then one thing led to another and before I knew it, I was waist deep in JFK conspiracy theories for a good 5 days straight. Writing a recap of the trip and the show wasn't nearly as important. Who wants to focus on writing about one of the best live shows you've ever seen when you can listen to 6 hours of podcasts about magic bullets, missing brains and LBJ ordering pants that don't feel like he's riding a wire fence?

Quick side note here: LBJ was sitting at the White House and decided that he needed to order pants, so he called Joe Haggar. When was the last time you think any acting President ordered his own custom pants, shirt and jacket?

Okay, back to the task at hand.

Casey and I left Salt Lake about 10 AM on Friday morning. We made pretty good time on the way down and, as usual, we stopped in Scipio at the petting zoo. Even ran into a friend of mine also on his way to the show. Got back on the road, pulled in to town and checked into The Plaza in old Las Vegas at about 3:30. We grabbed some lunch and wandered around the strip for a bit before meeting some friends for a late dinner.

Old Las Vegas is pretty great. It's far less crowded than the strip, but still full of weird stuff. When we got back to the hotel, we decided to walk across to Fremont Street, which is just weird. The Strip is full of tourists and mostly younger people looking for the "hottest" clubs. Fremont Street is full of older people that still want to get wild, but don't want to hang out with any of those other people.

About halfway down the street, we saw a huge crowd of people and heard a lot of shouting. We kept going and met the crowd just as there was a fight about to break out. There was an honest-to-goodness motorcycle club feuding with some street performers and drugged out hanger-ons. One the MC guys was in a shouting match with a guy in a wheelchair and the two of them kept moving in circles. Eventually, the MC guy got sick of it, got along side of the wheelchair and pushed it over. As he walked away, feeling triumphant, a guy in an Elmo costume took his head off, held it in his left hand, walked up behind the guy and threw a haymaker at the side of his head. That's when all hell broke loose. Pretty soon the place was swarming with cops and a guy in cut off sweat shorts and no shirt was screaming at everyone wearing an MC cut trying to fight all 15 of them. We stuck around hoping things would get really out of control, but the cops were able to keep it in check. We made our way back to the hotel listening to the sweet sounds of "Enter Sandman" coming from the Fremont Street house band.

The next day, we grabbed breakfast as Society Cafe in the Encore and did a little more wandering around. Casey wanted a sweatshirt, but after looking in about a half-dozen stores, he changed his mind and we hit up our usual Las Vegas snack spot, Twin Peaks. The food there is pretty terrible, but we went there as a joke last time, so we decided it was now a tradition. The best part of the whole meal was the table full of guys next to us. Twin Peaks is basically a knock-off Hooters with an outdoorsy theme. There's a climbing wall at one end of the restaurant, and for a certain price, you can challenge any of the girls that work there to a race to the top.

One guy chose the hostess and while the server went to get everything set up, they started talking about how good of a climber the guy was and how it would be a piece of cake. Casey and I watched them get geared up, then watched as the hostess climbed the entire wall before he could even get two moves finished - all while wearing Ugg boots. It was amazing. He didn't say much when he got back to the table. It was actually kind of great.

We headed over to the Hard Rock Hotel to check in, get our wristbands and wait in line. Since I signed up for the Nine Inch Nails fan club to get tickets early, we were let in before the rest of the crowd in a slightly disorganized fashion. While we were waiting in line, Casey spotted some actor that's on REVENGE and kept taking pictures and video to send to his wife. Then he spotted someone from GHOST HUNTERS. He was really excited about both of them. I had no idea who either of them were.

The Joint holds about 5,000 people and is more of a theater than the rest of the venues Nine Inch Nails were playing on tour, which was why I wanted to see the show there. The more intimate the venue, the more fun I have. When we got inside the venue, pretty much everyone rushed to the front, and camped out right in front of the stage. Casey and I stopped about 20 feet from the front, where the venue started to divide into tiers about 10 feet deep with railings and a small step separating each one. We camped out on stage left, leaned up against the railing and waited for the show to start.

Explosions in the Sky were the opening band, and while they're great musicians and I really like their stuff, I don't much care for watching them live. There was a guy standing behind Casey and I filming everything and he kept getting a little too close for comfort. Seriously, Casey and I were basically standing shoulder to shoulder with a few inches in between, and he had a camera right between our faces for the whole set. Just to piss him off, Casey and I started a conversation that lasted about 15 minutes. So if you ever find a shitty video of Explosions in the Sky in which the sound is compromised by some dudes talking about seeing Def Leppard play live, that's me.

Nine Inch Nails started just about 9 PM and it was everything I'd hoped it would be. I'd done some research to find out their set list so I knew what to expect and what they were probably leaving out, so I was ready to hear "Copy of A" and "1,000,000" right off the bat, but they tricked me. They played two shows in Las Vegas and played their regular set the night before, so they switched things up the second night. Good and bad came from that, since they cut out a couple of songs that I wanted to hear, but added a few, like "Reptile" that they hadn't really been playing.

Aside from all that, the performance itself was incredible. They had an amazing light show that was tailored to each song that was just awesome. They had to scale back on some of the bigger effects they'd been using because they wouldn't fit on the stage at The Joint, but I didn't mind. I liked seeing them in a smaller place.

Trent Reznor was interviewed about the setup and the show recently and the way he explained it made total sense.

“My goal is that — I can usually see the audience because I’m lit from behind a lot — is that I want to keep you from looking at your phone,” Reznor said. “I want to make you hold your pee because you don’t want to miss something. We’ve thought about all this stuff, and want to make this experience something that was worth your time.”

(*That link goes to a Buzzfeed article. It's there because I don't want to blatantly steal, but Buzzfeed is awful, so you don't have to click it unless you want to.*)

The whole month before I drove down, I'd wondered why I hadn't seen very many YouTube clips from Nine Inch Nails shows (granted, I hadn't been trying very hard), but the light show kind of explained it. They played for about two hours and worth every last penny I spent. One of the highlights of the show was when Reznor came back onstage for the encore and asked the crowd to help out.

He'd befriended a photojournalist named Andrew Youssef over the last year that was dying of cancer. Youssef was nearing the end of his battle and planned on making two more shows before he got too weak. He was able to hit the November 8 show in L.A. but had to cancel his trip to see the band that night in Vegas. Reznor found out he couldn't make it, so he called Youssef from the stage, chatted with him for a second then dedicated "In This Twilight" to him. It was pretty damn amazing and the perfect ending to the show.

The next day, we hit up the Mob Museum, which is in a renovated courthouse right near Fremont Street. The building itself is one of the last remaining historically significant places in the city. Everything else has been bulldozed and rebuilt, but the courthouse that held some of the Kefauver Committee hearings has been turned into a three-level archive of everything related to the mob.

There were a lot of great things, but since the mob is such a sprawling enterprise, there was almost too much going on. A lot of the exhibits were little snapshots that didn't go into too much detail. There was enough in there to spawn probably 20 great movies or TV shows (and probably 100 bad ones).

It was pretty great, but the mob is almost too expansive and has so many different aspects that it's hard to include everything. It ended up being more of a "greatest hits" type place, but it was still really, really interesting - though not as cool as the neon sign graveyard we saw last time we were in town.

By the time we were out of there, it was about 3 in the afternoon and time to head back to Salt Lake. We made pretty good time back and the soundtrack of Prince, Billy Joel, George Michael, Kenny Loggins and Ludacris. It was a short trip, but it was a lot of fun. Much like Los Angeles, every time I go to Vegas I like it a little bit more.

Oh, also on the ride down, Casey started talking about what he wants to have happen when he dies, so I recorded it for an irregular podcast-type feature that I'm calling "Riding in Cars with Dudes." Here's Episode 1 - Casey's Dying Wish.

NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

Another day, another story about how Greg Ginn just gets worse and worse.

The Black Flag saga has been going for about a year now, and I've been keeping up with it pretty much since the beginning. Go here and then here if you aren't aware of what's going on, but by now you probably know.

Quick rundown - two different versions of Black Flag have been touring this year. One, simply called Flag has Keith Morris, Dez Cadena, Chuck Dukowski, Stephen Egerton and Bill Stevenson. The other, called Black Flag, has Greg Ginn and some other people. For a while, Ron Reyes was the singer of this new version. He was the vocalist of Black Flack for a hot minute between Keith Morris and Henry Rollins, but that was it.

Flag has been playing shows and getting good reviews because they're trying to play solid music. Black Flag is just trying to make money and show up Flag. They're not doing a very good job. In this open letter (which, by the way, I hate open letters but this is necessary) to Greg Ginn and the Ring-Ins, it seems pretty clear that Ginn's version isn't very good.

Ron Reyes agreed. Then Ron Reyes was fired in the middle of a set and replaced by Mike Vallely.

Reyes ranted about the situation through his Facebook, but then promptly deleted it. But, since this is the Internet, lots of people were smart enough to grab it while it was up. Nothing ever goes away once it's been on the Internet. You should know that by now.

Here's a little snippet:

“So many things went wrong from the start. I was into things like having a good drummer, rehearsing and spending time on things like beginnings and endings of songs, being a little less distracted with tour life and a little more on the ball. You know things that would make our efforts worthy of the name Black Flag… Yes it is my opinion that we fell very short indeed and the diminishing ticket sales and crowds are a testament to that.”

Like I said, it was deleted pretty quickly, but you can read the whole thing over at Consequence of Sound.

We may never know who will win this epic battle, but...

Actually. We probably do. And it's not Greg Ginn.

DAVE GROHL IN "FRESH POT!"

Them Crooked Vultures is pretty great and I love Dave Grohl. Here's a little something to break up your Monday afternoon monotony.

Enjoy!

MONEY

The Jazz are the team just keep on giving.

They're terrible, but somehow I've figured out a way to write about them three times over the past week.

Earlier this week in New Orleans, Gordon Hayward had a terrible game. He's usually pretty good, but that night, he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. It wasn't for lack of effort though. He shot 17 times. Only one of them went in. Hayward was 1 for 17 in 39 minutes and ended up with 6 points (four came from free throws). He did have 6 rebounds and 11 assists, but still, 1 for 17 is pretty bad.

Everyone has bad games and it's bound to happen over the course of a season.

The next day, former Jazz center and 3-point guru Mehmet Okur reached out to Hayward and offered him some encouragement. It was an amazing gesture and one that I'm sure Hayward appreciated.

Okur just picked the absolute worst Tweet to respond to. The wording he used didn't help a single bit, either.

The Jazz play in Dallas tonight. Yesterday, on their day off, Corbin took the team to The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination.

Woops.