Keeping America Stupid First State Division- "Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?" O'Donnell asked.(go to 7:03, 2:37, 3:35...

My Amazon Reviews: Weezer "Hurely"

Weezer's "Lost" Album
3 Out Of 5 Stars 

I guess it is getting too easy to be Weezer these days. Come up with an infectious guitar riff, write some seriously oddball lyrics, and let Rivers sing in his geeky lost-boy voice. While he's still one of the best at this game, he is also beginning to sound seriously old-hat about it. A song as lame as "Memories" also contains a killer hook and a great line about "when Audioslave was still Rage," all while going for the nostalgia quotient for the fans who were on-board back when the first album shocked everyone.

"Hurley" is a 50/50 Weezer album, about the same as "Maladroit" or "Make Believe" in my Weezer rankings. In fact, two of the best songs are the bonus tracks, the soccer team anthem "Represent," and (of all things) the kids' show "All My Best Friends Are Insects." Frankly, given Rivers' childlike view of the world at times, writing a song for "Yo Gabba Gabba" about bugs with a serious buzzing guitar seems like a natural. As opposed to "Smart Girls," which just sounds forced. (As a point of reference, I thought "Where's My Sex" to be amusing, too.)

At least they're still trying to reinvent their wheel. "Unspoken" sounds like they're going for maturity without the cheese, and "Time Flies" could be this year's "Good Riddance/Time of Your Life." Good for them.

PS - "Hurley" succumbs, badly, to the loudness wars. The darn thing is compressed to within an inch of its life. And coming soon, a deluxe version of Pinkerton.

   

My Amazon Reviews: "The Slave Journals" Thom Magistar

Tales and Time Capsules
5 Out of 5 Stars

There was a time when there was no Facebook, AOL or even Drummer Classified. You couldn't pop on your I-Phone and do a locater for the closest hook-up, soul mate, or buddy. Not even a hankie-code. You had to depend on your instincts. The tell-tale clues. The direct questions posed to you by men who had learned through experience what to look for in you as you prowled the bars and streets, looking for something you just couldn't quite define, but felt burning in your heart.

"Sir, why was I brought here?
"You Willed it. It was yourself who brought you here, we merely took you in."

"The Slave Journals: And Other Tales of The Old Guard" is Thom Magistar's terrific collection of stories about The Centurions, a mythical leather club that has existed since the late 40's and continues recruitment into the present day. While the stories are fiction, it is easy to feel the heat of each coal of truth that the stories themselves contain. The seventeen Masters who recount their lives and times show how The Old Guard, as it were, began as men in need of a safe place to bond and be themselves. No pretense, no sense that they were doing something that would eventually become embellished legend. Just being the men they knew they were.

Self-awareness is key in many of these stories, even if The Centurions continuously emphasize honor, trust, dignity, loyalty and discipline. The integrity never changes, even as the years roll by and the world changes. The men, the club, they all change as well, but not that set of key elements. The stories are hot in the hard-handed reading division, yet a message that kinship can be a virtue that overrides lust is the message brought home throughout Magistar's writing. Seekers will always seek, it is what they find and ultimately keep - and then give back - that makes a club, group, tribe or family worth belonging to.