Brent & Kent’s Best Songs of 2011

Jan 032012
 

The Annual Combo List of our favorite songs, ranked and averaged.

Top 20:

 

1. Sadness Is a Blessing – Lykke Li
2. Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out – The Antlers
3. Rolling In The Deep – Adele
4. Hanging From a Hit – Okkervil River
5. The Words That Maketh Murder – PJ Harvey
6. California – EMA
6. Two Cousins – Slow Club
8. Carrying the Torch – Generationals
9. Shangri-La – YACHT
10. Walking Far From Home – Iron & Wine
11. Go Outside – Cults
12. My Mistakes – Eleanor Friedberger
13. Runner Ups – Kurt Vile
14. Wicked Games – The Weeknd
14. Dust Bowl III – Other Lives
16. The Last Goodbye – The Kills
16. Hate Me Soon – Yellow Ostrich
18. Sleep – The Dodos
19. Lovers Lane – Hunx & His Punx
20. Serve the People – Handsome Furs
20. Meantime – Givers
22. Would You Say Stop? – Acid House Kings
22. Deep Oblivion – David Lowery
24. I Miss My Friend – Madeline
24. Civilian – Wye Oak
26. I Was There – The War on Drugs
27. Spitting Blood – Wu Lyf
28. Drover – Bill Callahan
29. Tina Said – Those Darlins
29. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea – Byé Lai Mar – This one isn’t in the playlist above, because it is cooler than you.
31. Mr. Know It All – Kelly Clarkson
31. The Hunt – Youth Lagoon

A great start

Jan 022011
 

So Leslie and I spent New Year’s Day in the Touro ER after I sliced my thumb open with a box cutter.

Click more for the gory results.

Continue reading »

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!

Dec 242010
 

From your mostly absent friends at elbuzzard.com

The Lovely Bones

Sep 082010
 

My apologies for not updating this in awhile.  In order to try and make myself update more regularly, I’m going to try to put reviews of movies/music that I have recently seen up here.  Since I usually see movies about a year after they come out, I will not feel bad about posting spoilers.

The Lovely Bones.

I never read the book, but I’ve heard many people have.  It seemed like there was a lot in this movie that would be better with a deeper exploration, the kind you can do with a book that is harder to do with a movie.  I don’t feel I am the kind of person who needs a happy/satisfying ending every time, but it really seemed to me that the ending of the film said that it didn’t really matter that these children had died in terror at the hands of a brutal killer, so long as they had each other in heaven.  It was pretty unsatisfying.  Because I wanted a little justice in my ending, it made me feel like a movie watcher with totally unrefined and pedestrian tastes.

Failed again

May 242010
 

So the Corps of Engineers has fucked us again, this time denying the permit to build protective barrier islands off the Louisiana coast:

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will not allow land barriers to be built to protect the state’s coastline, Plaquemines Parish Billy Nungesser told The Lens today.

“They turned it down,” Nungesser said. “They denied the plan to do the barrier islands, so I don’t know, so we’ll have to come up with something else. We’re going to plan B, but I don’t know what plan B is.”

This is the same type of project that folks have said would help rebuild the wetlands and protect the people living in southern Louisiana from flood surges and hurricanes.

I suspect the real reason it was denied was money.  BP won’t pay for it.  The federal government doesn’t want to pay for it.  So it doesn’t happen.

I got in a nice drunken argument with Dave over the weekend about this.  I don’t know how anyone who has paid a speck of attention to the Gulf Coast in the past five years can say that the federal government has any attention of helping.  They have repeatedly hung us out to dry (or drown).   Dave insisted that surely they are doing the best they that they can, that they have the best minds around working on the problem.

I agree that they have the best minds working on the problem.  Unfortunately for us, the problem as the government sees it is saving money and maintaining their cozy relationship with the oil companies.  They will do everything they can to make sure that they fix the problem.

Strange things are happening

May 142010
 

P1010040.JPGI’m in the process of testing out redesigns for elbuzzard.com.

Please excuse the dust while I re-arrange and break things.

Until then, here’s a cat in a box.

Awesome

May 132010
 

Boston.com has great photos of the oil disaster.

Heather Neville of Tristate Bird Rescue and Research rinses off an oiled brown pelican which was captured on a barrier island off the fragile Louisiana coast on Tuesday, May 4, 2010 at a triage center in Fort Jackson, Louisiana. (MIRA OBERMAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Heather Neville of Tristate Bird Rescue and Research rinses off an oiled brown pelican which was captured on a barrier island off the fragile Louisiana coast on Tuesday, May 4, 2010 at a triage center in Fort Jackson, Louisiana. (MIRA OBERMAN/AFP/Getty Images)

This is a bad situation.

Goodbye Mr. Nagin

Apr 232010
 

You are a turd.  You couldn’t just go quietly, you had to sully one more thing before you leave office:

C. Ray is a turd

Yes, that is the Lombardi Trophy in C. Ray’s official portrait.  Because of, you know, all the stuff C. Ray did in bringing that thing to New Orleans.

From the City of New Orleans website:

Inside the portrait, painted by Mr. Newt Reynolds, two symbols emerge from a shadowy background. A hurricane graphic, representing Hurricane Katrina, and an image of the Lombardi trophy, symbolizing the Saints first-ever Super Bowl victory, signify the challenges and difficult times as well as the unity and resiliency of New Orleanians. Mayor Nagin’s one-of-a-kind portrait reflects the distinct legacy he will leave in history.

I think that blue thing above his shoulder is the hurricane graphic.

Yay cops

Apr 082010
 

Two years ago at Mardi Gras, Leslie tackled my Mom on the neutral ground of St. Charles as shots were fired into the crowd.  Seven people got shot.

Today, charges were dropped against the shooters, because the cop that confiscated the gun found on the suspects is one of the cops that recently pled guilty to planting a gun in the Danzinger bridge case.

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2010/04/orleans_da_drops_all_charges_a.html

Cursing under his breath as he left a courtroom Thursday, Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro had his office dismiss all charges against three young men accused in connection with the 2009 Mardi Gras parade shooting that sent seven parade-goers, including a toddler, to the hospital with gunshot wounds.

“I want them back in f—ing court,” Cannizzaro muttered repeatedly to an assistant as he walked away from Judge Frank Marullo at Criminal District Court.

The state’s case became troubled recently, when New Orleans police Lt. Michael Lohman admitted in federal court that he planted a gun in an effort to cover up a deadly police shooting days after Hurricane Katrina.

Lohman is the cop who also confiscated the guns allegedly used in the Mardi Gras shooting.

According to prior courtroom testimony by Detective Jeff Walls, Brooks was a gunman that day and was tackled by a citizen and Lohman as he tried to run away.

When Brooks hit the ground, a fully loaded 9-mm gun fell from his waistband, police said.

What a proud moment for the NOPD.  A shooting on St. Charles Avenue on Mardi Gras, and your corruption lets the gunmen go free.  Thanks.

UPDATE:

The DA has re-opened the cast.  Apparently, charges were dropped mistakenly by an Assistant DA:

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2010/04/orleans_da_said_parade_dismiss.html

Cannizzaro said the dismissal took place only because of a “breakdown in communication” between him and Pipes, and that his office will bring  Brooks,  21, Lewis, 19, and Gray, 19, to trial for discharging a firearm along the parade route.

What kind of idiot is that Assistant DA?  ”Yeah, sure let them go, we don’t care.”

Claude Mauberret is a total ass

Feb 182010
 

I hate to move Baylen Brees down, but this really pisses me off.

Claude Mauberret, who made it to the runoff for the city assessor’s office, dropped out:

Claude Mauberret, a district assessor since 1994, will abandon his bid to become New Orleans’ first citywide assessor today, according to a source close to Mauberret.Mauberret’s exit, expected to be announced before noon, will mean that Erroll Williams — like Mauberret a longtime district assessor — will claim the new post, expected to be one of the city’s most powerful political jobs.

Mauberret spent his entire campaign attacking the reform candidate, Janis Lemle, with flyers  unfairly associating her (via a campaign aide) to Dollar Bill Jefferson.   He also used the “scary for white people” picture of her with dreadlocks as opposed to her official portrait.   At first he denied association with these shitty flyers, but the second round that came had his name on them.  He just barely edged her out of the race to get into the primary.

And then he dropped out, handing the race to his buddy Errol Williams.  Thanks a lot, dickhead.  Thanks for ensuring more of the same in New Orleans.

I suppose that we were given our chance to make a change in the assessor’s office during the race and we squandered it.  But Mauberret’s dropping out just makes it feel like the fix was in.

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