From Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez,  Panic Attack! is a short film depicting giant robots attacking Montevideo for no reason. The film was posted on YouTube on November 3 and within 24 hours Alvarez’s Uruguayan cell was blowin’ up. Apparently made for a measly few hundred dollars, the short has netted Alvarez a six or seven figure deal with Ghost House Pictures.

This is reminiscent of  how Neill Blomkamp and District 9 were propelled to the major leagues, only Blomkamp’s short was actually as inventive as it was visually fresh. Alvarez’s has some cool visuals, but they don’t look any more impressive than RPG cut scenes from ’97. There’s also no depth – just giant robots destroying Montevideo. Yawn City.

“No retreat, baby. No surrender.” Just wanted to make note of the Springsteen lyric Hank quoted last night. Besides that, “Dog Town” is probably my least favorite episode of the season thus far, possibly of the entire series. Charlie gets fired (hopefully it’s the last we see of Kathleen Turner), the girls have a night out, and Hank and Charlie get drunk. There were some funny moments, no doubt, but the whole shebang amounted to 28 minutes of filler that concluded with a forced reaffirmation that Hank loves Karen and Karen loves making Hank breakfast. (makes finger-gun, aims at temple, pulls trigger) Even after Hank and Charlie shared a possibly profound near-death experience, all significance is sucked out of the moment with Charlie’s tramp stamp. Dumb.

There are only two episodes left in season 3 and the show could go two ways in 2010: Karen stays with Hank in Cali., Karen goes back to NYC. I don’t see Hank and the entire show relocating to NYC. They’d have to change the name of the show to New Yorkification or something and also relocate Charlie who has been consistently more interesting than Hank this season.

On the other hand, I didn’t hate Becca this episode as she spit some wisdom to the jaded women. Quit playing with my emotions, Californication.

Sports. My dad didn’t watch them, I got picked last for everything in gym and I threw like a girl until someone corrected me at thirteen. I promptly forgot the technique and instead rely on placing things delicately when I want to move an object.

Mikhail invited me to attend a hockey game between the NJ Devils and NY Islanders with him over in Newark and I said okay. My brother loves playing and watching the sport and I thought I might understand the mongo better if I took an interest in his shit.

Besides Mikhail and I, there was Mikhail’s fiance and Dennis Chow AKA Glamnation. As we walked to the hockey rink Dennis and I were usually next to each other with Mikhail and Kate in front. It kinda felt like riding in the backseat with your siblings while your parents are up front.

Dennis, Kate and I waited in line for twenty minutes to get ten dollar cheeseburgers and eight dollar Budweisers and I squirted Wicked Hot Devil Sauce all over my coat. We carried our salted food to our seats as Metallica’s “Seek & Destroy “boomed through the stadium. LCD flames spread across the digital displays that lined the edge of the seating tiers. Dennis and I were both blown away by the fun Hell we were now inhabiting. They were playing an awful lot of metal for a sporting event. They also blasted “You Could Be Mine”, “Blitzkrieg Bop”, and some Rob Zombie song. The part where the stadium appeared to be engulfed in digital flames took me aback. The name of the team is the Jersey Devils but the name references a mythical beast, not the biblical devil and I figured the team would try to avoid too many references to Hell or Satanism. I figure a lot of these sports fans are also probably Christian. There weren’t any other references to evil, devils or Hell during the course of the game but it made me wonder who makes the decisions on what’s too evil for the Devils? What kind of ideas have been offered that didn’t make it? Pentagrams? Corpse paint? Jumbotron animations of the Jersey Devils burning churches?

This is Dennis. The seating where we were was treacherously steep and these obnoxious fucking kids kept having to go back and forth so they could piss and buy more giant cokes or just run around. We had to get up for those little fucking jerks like fifty times. I was really tired and towards the end of the game Dennis almost fell when he tried to get past me. Fuck whoever designed stadiums this way. You’re probably occupying a place that looks like the Jersey Devils rink right now.

Hockey’s an amazing sport to watch. Huge dudes with sticks are gliding around the ice at high speeds with acute dexterity and grace. Then they bash each other against walls, beat the fuck out of each other in fist fights and execute complicated plays that require chess-like strategy. Meanwhile heavy metal blares and a big inflatable devil dances to Devil in A Blue Dress with some cheerleaders. I’ve mostly been to baseball games. Sweating in the hot sun, squinting to see the field, eating the shittiest food ever with the shittiest people ever. That’s baseball to me. You go to Yankees Stadium and the whole fucking shithole is an extension of the men’s room. I like it but it takes a few showers before I feel clean again. The Devils beat the Islanders six to one and it was pretty amazing. I hereby declare this sport “good.”

Here’s another thing that’s different from Yankees Stadium. These buildings directly face the stadium and they’re unoccupied. Everything around Yankees Stadium is covered in Yankees shit. Yankees clothes, Yankees bars, Yankees bowling.

Here’s me sitting on the foot of a giant silver hockey player that lives outside the stadium.

After this photo was taken I immediately beat those children to death. Get out of the hockey games, assholes. Either that or bring catheters. There should be a fucking penned in area for families.

Wrong, subway ad. My stash is sticking around. Like it or don’t. Thanks to Daddy Mikhail and Mommy Kate for taking me to the hockey game. Hooray!

I fucking love Dexter this season. Every episode has made my asshole pucker with tension. Butt cheeks clenched, I work my way through the episode wondering what the hell could happen next. There’s a multitude of things that occurred in this episode that had be thinking, “I would never ever fucking do that in a million years.” I suppose that’s why this shit is television, and not filled with mundane people like myself.

For starters, the dude Steven or whatever that was kidnapped by Trinity was the mouthiest little son of a bitch ever. I don’t know if it’s because you only learn kidnapping protocol as you get older, but I don’t suggest yelling at the dude who drugged you and stuck you in a van. That said, I would be in the corner crying and blowing snot bubbles while he sat there rocking his train set.

I have to give props to the Trinity Killer for being continually more creepy as the season has gone on. The dude has mastered the creep equation. I’m going to be pretty bummed out when Trinity is no longer on the show. The dude has stormed onto the cast bare-assed and solidified himself as a key character. Where the hell do they go from here?

Probably downhill.

The second thing that I would never do is let my father know that I’m onto him being a serial killer. I’m just saying. If my Dad was carving up ladies and bludgeoning dudes for thirty years, I’m taking that shit to the grave. Or at the most, to the authorities. But yeah, I’m not going to meet him in a dingy fucking parking garage. This was another scene where I could feel my testicles rescinding into my upper bowels from fright. I was waiting for Trinity to all choke the bitch out or something.

She may be goin’ to jail, but having Quinn and shit show up definitely saved her from shedding the ole’ mortal coil.

And finally, I wouldn’t be resentful of my detective partner if they found out that I was dating a murderer. Seriously Quinn, what’s your fucking deal, bro? I try to enjoy your presence on the show, despite your man-titties and the fact that you’re trying to bring my boy Dexter down. But now you cop an attitude with Deb? Like, really?

I think you’re ignoring the fact that Christine was just banging you to get close to the Trinity investigation. I mean, don’t get me wrong, she was a sexy lady. But you were used bro, and judging from the way you parade around those shitty night clubs, it was probably some sort of karmic uppercut.

I could accept you being bummed out, you know, finding out that you date a murderer, who also happens to be the daughter of a serial killer. That’s cool. But all cheesed off at Deborah because she cracked a case? Confounding!

Boomtown Rats – I Don’t Like Mondays (live)

When I was in LA two weeks ago, Justine Jolli and I went on the Jason Ellis show on Sirius satellite radio.  It was a lot of fun, we talked about sex, the Мишка calendar and an up and coming photo shoot that Jason was going to art direct.  He had callers give ideas on how I should shoot Justine and Heather Vandeven.  Some of the ideas tossed at us were Moto X, mud wrestling, the girls making out while Jason band played (which the caller called “Diking Mad”) along with a few too gross to even bother mentioning.  It was a funny appearance for all of us.

The photoshoot idea we ended up settling on was “Jiu-Jitsu”. Jason set up a boxing ring for us and played the part of referee.  He taught the girls all of the moves and I shot it all for StaggStreet. Jason also filmed Justine and Heather during the shoot and has the behind the scenes footage up on his site, Ellis Mania.  It was a super fun day, and I love how the pics came out. Check for the NSFW one after the break!

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Extra Butter just posted up a new shoot they did for our Holiday 09 collection. If you haven’t yet caught on, Extra Butter does little shoots like this for all of the brands they carry. For this one they went with a Thanksgiving dinner theme to show off some of the wears. <3 Extra Butter for always going that extra mile!

Check our the full shoot here!

SuperxOfficial Recently sat with Undersound’s E. Major to chat about Streetwear, working on album concepts, collaborative projects and his upcoming The Major Major Mixtape.

So, instead of doing the traditional Thanksgiving family thing this year, my wife and I decided to blow it all off and head to Vegas. As did everybody else everywhere forever.

I should—I guess—clarify that a bit: we went to Vegas with her dad to visit her sister. Who lives there. So, I guess we *sort of* did the family thing, but, well, we did it on the casino floor. So there.

We try to make it out to LV once every 18 months or so…no big deal. When we’re there, we typically just play penny or nickel slots to kill time during the day…you know, in between shopping binges and stripper orgies. We (she) have our favorites (machines, not strippers) but this year we decided to venture out and try some different games…one of which was Mr. Lucky’s Fortune Cookie.

Frankly, I can’t tell if I’m appalled or entertained. It’s an old game that’s been around for at least 5 or 6 years, and it’s in pretty much every big casino on the strip. In reading this article, I did learn, interestingly, that some of the ‘jokes’ were contributed by former longtime MAD magazine editor Nick Meglin which is kind of cool. But I still don’t know if this is ‘funny’-funny or ‘so-effing-hysterically-wrong’-funny.

Either way, I had a blast taking photos of slot machine bonus rounds. I got some awesome Star Wars: Jabba’s Palace shots as well as some cool sequence shots of our all-time fave, Risque Business, which is just about the worst slot machine ever created.

Bonus-bonus! I spent some time at the arcade as well. They had—in addition to today’s awful crap—some gems like Star Wars Trilogy and Street Fighter III. Oh, the good old days.

Just like the Pilgrims did it.

Espers – Espers III (2009) [Drag City] // Grade: C-

There’s a Wiccan bookshop located at the end of my block. It’s uncharacteristically large as far as these sorts of shops go and always seems to be bustling whenever I walk past. III, the fourth album from Philly psych folk collective Espers would be the perfect soundtrack for this shop if it was staffed by neo-Pagan girls who looked Stevie Nicks instead of the middle aged man in the tiger print sari and industrial boots.

The closing track’s title, “Trollslända”, is a good indicator of what to expect from III. Meg Baird’s airy vocals float over a landscape of strings, woodwinds and occasional guitar wails that nod to classic rock. Where Espers’ previous releases were lurking works filled with menacing dark shadows, III is the sun peeking through storm clouds.

Across the scope of notable female vocalists, Baird’s high-pitched, wavering voice is definitely unique, and would be equally at place fronting krautrock canons or 1970′s trippy, hippie carols. Unfortunately, III finds Baird’s vocals largely falling flat, warbling aimlessly across the folky “Caroline” and the slowly ambling psych guitar-filled “Sightings”. But when Baird combines her vocals with creative partner Greg Weeks on the album’s darkest selection, the eerie duet “That Which Darkly Thrives”, III comes together with harmonious results.

It’s difficult to critique an album like III, because nothing I could write would be able to sell an act like Espers to the average music fan. Despite every album Espers’ puts out sounding vastly different, they remain a niche act, circulating far off the grid of popular music trends with a sound you either love or just don’t get. From a critical standpoint, III sorely lacks the intensity and depth of Espers’ earlier releases, but if you’ve previously found their back catalog too dark, then you’ll appreciate III‘s calming, melodic direction. After four releases, I still don’t love Espers (and I probably never will), but I am starting to get them.