Buckcherry - Rock 'N' Roll

The last down n' dirty rock n' roll band in town is back for another round.

I've been a Buckcherry fan since they showed up on the scene with "Lit Up", so I'm always a little excited when they come out with a new album.  Hearing something new from them brings me back to the summer of '99, driving around with the D.W.O. doing loser laps, and trying to get into bars without any real form of ID.

The new album from Buckcherry, Rock 'N' Roll, is really good.  If you're looking for a departure from the usual Buckcherry flair, it's not here.  There's nothing overly new here, unless you count the funky horns section in Tight Pants, and that's a good thing.  Buckcherry is really the last of the old school rock bands.  And even though they weren't around during the heyday of Aerosmith, AC/DC, Motley Crue, or Guns N' Fuckin' Roses, you can feel like they belong in that club.

Last summer, Buckcherry released an EP simply called Fuck.  It was decent, but mostly a novelty when you think that it was pretty much recorded to set a record for the most times the word "Fuck" was used on an album.  Take that, hip hop!  But seriously, it worried me when the best song on the EP was the cover of Icona Pop's "I Love It", retitled brilliantly as "Say Fuck It".

What we have on Rock 'N' Roll is a return to Buckcherry basics - strong guitars, catchy hooks, and just enough swearing to make it cool but not completely unable to get on radio.  After the band had a huge hit with Crazy Bitch in '06, I think they tried relying too much on the blatant in-your-face swearing to keep themselves noticed.  Hence, the Fuck EP and a few other songs that had a good idea but lacked the hook of Crazy Bitch's pre-chorus.

I already mentioned Tight Pants, which has such a strong groove that it could have been an Aerosmith song from the Get A Grip era.  It rocks, it funks, it swears a little... it's Buckcherry at their finest.  Then there's The Madness and Sex Appeal, which follow the tried n' true Buckcherry verse-chorus-hook formula that worked on Lit Up, Everything, and Next 2 You in the past.

Wood continues Josh Todd's lyrical exploration of hooking up with chicks, while rockers like Cradle and Get With It are great to listen to while enjoying a beer.

The only throwaway for me was The Feeling Never Dies, which I seem to find myself skipping on each listen.

Overall, this is one of Buckcherry's strongest releases, and probably their most complete offering since 2006's 15.  It's tight, fast-paced, and leaves you wanting more.  Definitely worth the $9.99 I dropped on iTunes for it.

- ryan

I'm Spreading This Reese's on Everything

There are really no words to describe the joy that is now filling up inside me, as I attempt to spread this new Reese Spread on... well, just about anything.

It was recommended to me by good friends Wessy-Poo and Monica, and I ran out the next morning to buy it.

The first taste had to simply be off a spoon.  Just on it's own.  Just to see what we were really dealing with here.  Then, I did what the label illustrated - I put it on toast and apple slices.  I gotta admit, if it weren't for those sly instructions I may never have put it on apple slices. Some folks might not like the idea of spreading this glory on something healthy like a piece of fruit, but I figure if it's on the label then it's one of the primary uses.

Next came a celery stick, because when I was a kid I used to put peanut butter and cheese whiz on celery sticks.  This seemed like a natural progression to me.  And it fell in line with the "healthy" exploration that began with the apple slices.   The juncture between healthy and fun came with spreading it on a Sweet N' Salty almond granola bar.  That was damn good.

Then it seemed like a good idea to just spread it on my lips so I would be extra kissable.  Not that I'm not already kissable - I'd like to think that I'm pretty kissable.  I mean, if I weren't me, I'd probably kiss me.  So anyway, I put some on my lips and made the kissy-face at The Lovely Wife.  She didn't make the kissy-face back.  In fact, she made the ever-so-popular what-the-fuck-are-you-doing face, followed by the equally arousing why-am-I-still-married-to-you face.

All plans to spread this Reese on my junk in hopes of some sweet mouth lovin' went out the window.

Back to the food, I decided, and I spread it on a Reese Chocolate Bar.  I should mention that this was my first time ever trying the Reese chocolate bar.  I was very excited for it, but found it lacked the chocolate to peanut butter ratio that the regular peanut butter cups have.  My favorite Reese is the larger sized, two-pack of peanut butter cups. They have more peanut butter in them.  I once tried that 1-pound peanut butter cup and, while it was magical in its own right, I found it was heavy on the chocolate side.

At my recent No Vegans Allowed BBQ, I bought an eight-pack of peanut butter cups and a bunch of us spread this Reese on those.  A couple of us had orgasms.  One of us had two (I'm looking at you Wessy-Poo). 

There are a few other tests I'd like to do, but just haven't gotten around to it yet.  I'd like to use this Reese on baked potatoes, pretzels, and as a marinade for steak.  Ultimately I see myself using this spread for making peanut butter cookies. 

And let's be real, I'll get around to spreading it on my junk at some point.

- ryan

PS - I think I should go on record by saying that spreading any kind of food on your private areas isn't a really good idea.  I'm not talking from personal experience here (unless you count that time an old girlfriend and I decided to experiment with honey, which was a stupid idea for a man with a hairy chest) but more from cautionary common sense.  You don't want your penis or vagina to start attracting ants - especially RED ANTS! - or flies or homeless people looking for any table scraps they can find.  I'm about 95% sure that when the good people at the Reese company developed this tasty spread they had no intention of anyone spreading it on their bodies to make oral sex taste better for their partner.  And if they did think of developing it for sexual reasons, then wow, someone's got a wicked sense of creative imagination, and I'd be half-scared to see their internet browsing history.  So, be safe folks!  Don't attract those red ants!

Newzinetter #8

My 13th Birthday Was a Friday the 13th

Ah, August 13, 1993... the year I turned thirteen on a Friday the 13th.
What a glorious day it was, indeed.  At least in my mind I seem to think it was.  As I sifted thru photos looking for some to accompany this blog all about my thirteenth birthday, I realized I don't have any.  The early 90's weren't like today.  Not everyone had a camera in their phone to take photos of every little detail of their mundane lives.  And the phone was attached to the kitchen wall anyway.

Also, it occurred to me as I did some fact-checking that I kinda lump my 11th and 13th birthdays together in my mind.  I often reminisce about how on my thirteenth birthday I was given my first little boom box cassette player and the new Spin Doctors tape, "Pocket Full of Kryptonite."  I'm also warmed by fond memories of being given a cassette single for Bryan Adams' "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You", and how my friends and I all played a WWF Wrestling Challenge board game with the Ultimate Warrior featured on the box.  But all of that stuff really occurred in 1991, not '93.

Where the hell did my memories go?

So when I think a bit harder about all of it, I vaguely remember having a couple friends over for a sleepover, watching "Cool World" and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" on VHS, drinking an entire case of Loeb Cola, and having pizza.

My friend Brian sneaked in some dirty porno magazines that he stole from his older brother's room and we gazed over them in the basement after my parents went to sleep.

My twelfth birthday gets lost in the mix of it all, because my sister's wedding was two days after so there wasn't time to have a party or anything like that.  Luckily, the WWF was in town on my birthday and I saw the Ultimate Warrior fight Papa Shango.  However, after trying to Google anything about it, I can't find a single thing about the WWF coming to my town on my birthday.

I'm actually starting to think this never existed and it was all made up in my mind.

Being thirteen was pretty good, and it lasted about a year until I turned fourteen.

And hey, here's a photo that isn't at all from my thirteenth birthday.

The end!

Happy 16th Birthday Ryan!

Top 11 Doctors

Need a prescription?  How about someone to take a look at that mole? What about someone to fight Nazis or jam with the Electric Mayhem?

Here's 11 of the best doctors.

11. Dr. Who - I'm not a fan, but he's always around attractive British girls so he's got that going for him.
10. Dr. J. Jones - in the 70's, Aerosmith toured a few small venues under the pseudonym "Dr. J. Jones and the Interns." That would've been cool to see.
9. Doogie Howser M.D. - yo Vinny!
8. Dr. Dolittle - any excuse to have Eddie Murphy on a list is a good excuse.
7. Dr. Kahn, my dentist - he does good work.
6. Doctor Zaius - he's not just a damn, dirty ape!
5. Dr. Schlotkin - he went back to the course to work on his putts.
4. Dr. Henry Jones Jr. - they named the dog Indiana.
3. Doctor Teeth - hmmmm, usually the doc puts his fingers up your bum but I guess it's the opposite when the doc is a Muppet.
2. Dr. Mario - level twenty is the only real starting level.
1. Doc Emmet Brown - great Scott! One point twenty-one gigawatts!

The end!
(I wanted to include Dr. Huxtable, but he's not very popular on the internet right now)

So Long, Hot Rod

I was very sad yesterday to learn that "Rowdy" Roddy Piper had passed away at the age of 61.

Piper, one of my very favorite WWF wrestlers of all-time, made a huge impact on impressionable wrestling fans like myself when we were growing up and following Hulkamania right through to the nWo and into today's still stupidly named "WWE".

My earliest memories of Hot Rod were that he was the bad guy. 

I first discovered wrestling in the mid-80s on the Hulk Hogan's Rock N' Wrestling cartoon.  Week after week, the Hulkster would have to foil the dastardly plans of "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and The Iron Sheik.  I knew Hogan was the champ, and that he bodyslammed Andre The Giant.  I also knew that Piper was the bad guy, because he was on the cartoon.  Little did I know that at this point Roddy had already begun his transformation from wrestling heel to crowd favorite. 

I just can't bring myself to type that Piper was a babyface.  I imagine he wouldn't have wanted to be called one either.

I was a wrestling mega-fan from 1989 to about 1994.  I ate, slept, and breathed wrestling.  It was in the Spring of '89 that Piper returned to the WWF to begin his second career there.  At first I still thought he was one of the bad guys, because I had such fond memories of the old cartoon and the sticker album that went along with it.  But then he started feuding with guys like Ravishing Rick Rude and The Mountie and he was clearly over with the crowd.

But he wasn't a babyface.  After all, color-commentator Jesse "The Body" Ventura would praise Piper's wrestling from the booth while he was quick to denounce Hulkamania.  And the real wrestling fans loved The Body because he told the truth.

I only got to see Piper fight live once in my life.  I was at Wrestlemania VI when he fought Bad News Brown, and had painted himself half-black.  That was something.

But looking back on Piper's career, what's interesting is what he taught us - that sometimes the 'bad guy' isn't really all that bad.  Sometimes he's just misunderstood in a world where he doesn't really fit in anyway.  And as time goes on, that misunderstood character can break through and get past other peoples' perceptions while not deterring from what he ever was in the first place.  In time, he isn't just accepted but actually revered and beloved by many, simply for being himself and telling it like it is.

In today's wrestling world I find something similar with Dean Ambrose.  Only time will tell if he's the real deal like Piper was or if he's trying to do a really solid Hot Rod impression for a new generation.

Piper taught us many things over the years.  That it's not just okay to wear a kilt but highly respectable, and that you can stop an alien invasion with a cheap pair of sunglasses, and most importantly that you never throw rocks at a guy who has a machine gun.

So long, Hot Rod.

- ryan