Video Viscera: Stiletto Nights and Sapphire Dreamz.

Video Viscera is Emerald Miasma's weekly music video spotlight. Anything goes. Let's get freak nasty all up in them corners, Boo.

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Games (aka Ford and Lopatin) featuring Laurel Halo - 'Strawberry Skies'.

 



Let's start off with probably my favorite song of this short decade. An ode to the golden age of late-night sensuality, this comes from the minds behind Oneohtrix Point Never among countless other amazing projects. Lots of found footage of flirtatious 1-800 girls doing things 1-800 girls would do in 1992. It's the perfect song for a Miami coke party that's just starting to die down. Cindy, call me up.
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Gaytheist - 'Stomach Pains'.



Better than their silly name would suggest (whatever, I like it), Gaytheist is a stoner metal band from Portland, and you can tell they're from Portland because the video was directed by the awesome Portland director Whitey McConnaughy and features awesome Portland comedian Ian Karmel as the convenience store clerk. Teeth Kickin' Good Stuff.
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Skeletonwitch - 'Bringers of Death'.



Athens, Ohio's own get vicious with some furries vs. zombies action. Lots of ripped stuffing and a fuckload of METAL. Originally released on an Adult Swim compilation, this was one of their only videos for the longest time. This is why dudes like metal.
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Liam Lynch - 'On Waves Low and High'.



Liam Lynch is one of the fucking coolest dudes ever. He helped co-create Sifl and Olly. He directed the Tenacious D movie, as well as Sarah Silverman's 'Jesus is Magic'. He was one of the inaugural students at Paul McCartney's musical academy. He was one of the first people to create a video podcast (or any podcast for that matter). But he's probably best known for his music. He's played in Tenacious D, Queens of the Stone Age, and Eagles of Death Metal, as well as writing the minor hit 'United States of Whatever'. While known primarily for writing comedy songs, this is one of his 'serious' songs, and it's goddamn beautiful. One of the few truly genius creators out there.
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Thee Oh Sees - 'Toe Cutter - Thumb Buster'.



The preeminent name in garage rock today, Thee Oh Sees are just a great band. They've never made a record that was even average. Out of the park every time they step to the plate. This is a song with serial killing and scared grocery shoppers. Dope.
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Xex - 'Fun in the Sun'.



Chilly fuckin' coldwave set to an old 50's horror film? I'm down.
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Czarface - 'Air 'Em Out'.



Dope track set to an incredibly unsettling video. 7L, Esoteric & Inspectah Deck team up to make the rap track of the year and then pair it with a video about how to tie up loose ends in a high level crime syndicate. Violent, but still kind of funny.

A Browns Fan Defends the Richardson Trade.

And Cleveland wept. Trent Richardson was sent to the Colts yesterday for a first-round pick next year. Everyone is sad. How could this happen? Another cleaning of house only two weeks into the season? US BROWNS FANS DON'T DESERVE TO KEEP HAVING THIS HAPPEN! I agree, but feing about this year aside, this move shows a massive level of competence and insight from the front office. This is probably the best thing the expansion Browns ever did. Trent Richardson was a bold play from the beginning, and it took the boldest trade of the decade to reverse that decision. AND I LOVE IT. I personally never liked much of anything about Richardson's tenure as a Brown, and I'm glad Jim Irsay found that last bottle of Gentleman Jack in time to award the Browns with a chance to bail out BEFORE shit goes down for once.

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It all started when Richardson was drafted with the 3rd overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft. The Browns were faced with an issue. They had two first-round picks that year, along with several others they were willing to deal to the St. Louis Rams (who were picking second) for Robert Griffin III. They offered 5 total picks for RG3, but the Redskins still managed to out bid them. It happens. The Browns still picked fourth in the draft though, and had their eyes on Richardson. Picking ahead of them though were the Minnesota Vikings. Now, the Vikings have a running back named Adrian Peterson. Though he was coming off of season-ending knee surgery from the year prior, AP is the best running back of the last decade. So, being the smart front-office they are, the Vikes threatened to take Richardson at number three. This sent the Browns into a goddamn frenzy for some reason and gave up THREE picks to move up one spot. The Browns took Richardson, and the Vikings took who they wanted from the start, offensive tackle Ryan Kalil. Right from the start, Richardson was supposedly worth FOUR FUCKING PLAYERS.

Kalil goes on to be a Pro-Bowler in his first year, AP comes back with an unprecedented season on the ground, and the Vikes are set up with solid young talent for a while now (with the glaring exception of Christian Ponder). The Browns got a running back in a passing league where the next highest selected RB was Boise State's Doug Martin at number 31. This draft also included David Wilson (32), Bernard Pierce (84), Lamar Miller (97), Vick Ballard (170), Alfred Morris (173), and Daryl Richardson (252, which is one pick away from the final pick in the draft). All of whom have either played significant time since entering the league or are currently starting RBs for their teams. Keep that in mind as we go forward.
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So the Browns have their guy. Its at at a great, useless cost, but they still have their guy. But on August 9th, 2012, Richardson had to have surgery on his left knee to remove cartilage fragments. He misses the whole preseason. But he's on the field for Game 1 against the terrible Philadelphia Eagles. He managed 39 yards on 19 carries, but this is to be expected from someone recovering from a knee injury just a month prior that missed the whole preseason. He bounces back the next week and gains 109 rushing yards and 36 receiving yards with two touchdowns. Problem solved, right? Well, the reality is that Richardson has a very up-and-down year. He finishes with 950 rushing yards, 367 receiving yards and 11 touchdowns. However, the production is incredibly uneven. 134 yards against San Diego, 19 yards against the Colts, 124 against Baltimore, 31 and two scores against Washington. He breaks his ribs mid-season and was listed on the injury report in all but two games. Often times he looks lost in the backfield, missing lanes and generally being indecisive. He also lacked explosiveness behind what was at the time a competent offensive line. On 267 carries, he had two plays of over twenty yards or more, the same amount as Robert Turbin and Lamar Miller and less than Pierce, Ronnie Hillman, Ballard, Wilson, Martin, Daryl Richardson, Brandon Bolden, Bryce Brown, and Morris (again, all of whom were drafted after him). 950 rushing yards was 18th best in the league and was 3rd best amongst ROOKIES. But his 11 touchdowns are clearly his biggest achievement from last year, and that's what was important. This made Cleveland going 5-11 tolerable.

Everything could be blamed on Cleveland's other first round pick, QB Brandon Weeden, who looked unplayable quite often, or Pat Shurmur for poor coaching decisions and not getting Richardson the ball enough (even though he averaged about 20 touches a game), or Mike Holmgren because he didn't provide talent around him. So the Browns clean house. New Owner, GM, Head Coach, Offensive and Defensive Coordinators. Complete fucking overhaul of the entire organization. Everyone is excited because, you know, new guys, when Richardson gets fucking hurt again. Same fucking knee, same fucking story. No preseason. On top of that, now he has a hamstring issue and he injured his shin. But he again would be ready for the season opener.

So, as the season gets under way and it quickly becomes apparent that Richardson wasn't the biggest injury on the team. Not by a long shot. The biggest injury was that of starting guard Shaun Lauvao, because the Browns offensive line was shredded by the vicious Miami pass rush, led by Cameron Wake. Tackle Oneil Cousins played out of position to fill in for Lauvao, and his inexperience was obvious. Throw in a huge regression on the part of second year tackle Mitchell Schwartz, and there was little hope of any offensive success. Richardson does little in the defensive shootout, and then the complaints began. Richardson is upset in his role on offense, saying he isn't getting the ball enough. This sentiment carries over into another ugly loss to Baltimore, where suspended WR Josh Gordon became the sorely missed playmaker as no Browns receiver (especially Greg Fucking Little) could get separation from Baltimore's defensive backs, leading to multiple Weeden coverage sacks. Richardson now has 105 yards and no touchdowns through two games. This is when the Colts came calling. They offered Cleveland a chance to hit the refresh button on a guy with no noticeable burst through the line, an extensive injury history, and a discontentment for his new system.
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I'd accept in a heartbeat and send him a fruit basket full of cheap bourbon.
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The point I've been leading up to is that great running backs are relatively easy to attain. Great QBs are not, and they are the more important position in the league today. So few top tier running backs are drafted in the first round anymore. You can get great running backs in much later rounds these days. Fuck, you've got 7 picks in the first four rounds, get two if you want to hedge your bets. The priority is QB for the Browns. Seriously, LOOK AT THIS LIST OF NONSENSE. The Browns need to great an elite QB, and they need it NOW. The AFC North looks like a nuked graveyard at this point. Fuck, even if the Browns lose again on Sunday, they're still likely only one game out of the AFC North lead, with Baltimore playing the Texans and Cincy playing Green Bay. This division is going to be down for a while, and the Browns have enough around them to make that run to the top. 

People have begun to remove blame from Richardson for ONLY GAINING 105 YARDS IN TWO GAMES THIS YEAR. I say fuck that. Oh, he had a bad O-Line and no passing game? Tell it to fucking CJ Spiller, Doug Martin, Adrian Peterson, Maurice Jones-Drew, and Darren McFadden, because they all seem to find a way to move fucking forwards every once in a while, and those teams can do dick in the air. Maybe he's having trouble because he's just a moderately above-average player that is quickly realizing that the NFL isn't fucking Alabama, where the holes are as wide as a five lane highway. 

Oh, and good luck with the O-Line in Indy. Did you know that they only dressed seven linemen last Sunday, and that one got hurt and the other was Anthony Fucking Castonzo? The Colts aren't winning the Super Bowl anytime soon. That defense has been terrible for years, and there is no plan to fix it. Fuck, this team may not even make the playoffs this year. Their schedule is fucking brutal, and with the Chiefs making a resurgence this year, the division is not nearly as clear cut as it would seem. Cleveland may very well end up with a mid-first round pick when its all said and done.

Browns nation is furious right now. I've never in my life seen so many people declare that this is it. They're done being a Browns fan. This is what sealed the deal for them. On that, I obviously call bullshit. You've watched Brady Quinn bury 30 balls in the dirt in a single game, Brian Robiskie drop pass after pass, and Gerard Warren get pushed around like he's on roller skates and you're telling me THIS is what ends your fandom? Fuck you. This is nothing. You want to keep being considered some hardscrabble tough town that's loyal to it's teams despite the lack of collective championships? Then don't abandon a team because they traded away Reggie Bush 2.0. You can't have it both ways.

THIS ISN'T A DAY OF MOURNING, PEOPLE. Perk up. You are better than that. Who cares if they tank the season? They were going to win 4 games anyway. The Richardson trade mattered so little to this season that the fucking Vegas line didn't even change after he was traded. EVEN VEGAS THINKS THEY WERE GOING TO SUCK WITH RICHARDSON. So you wait another year. Who fucking cares? Your Richardson jersey's useless now? Hang it up next to your Quinn and Frye jerseys, suck it up, and stop buying jerseys you fucking weirdo. You are a Browns fan. You got your franchise back after that cunt Art Modell stole it, and now you want to abandon it? I say no, and you will too when Sunday rolls around. Waiting For Next Year actually means something for once. Keep the faith.

And anyways, the Tribe's only a half game back in the playoffs.

The Week in Yeah #5: Cutthroat Circus.

The Week in Yeah is Emerald Miasma's weekly round-up of the good, the bad, and the incomprehensible of pop culture, the world at large, and life in general, as seen by me.

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Oh cable, you are a beautiful, awful bitch. You make me put off watching 30 Rock and The Wire and countless other critically acclaimed shows in favor of disposable nonsense. Most of it is completely pointless 'Reality TV' that is meant to be forgotten seconds after consumption. Some of it isn't even fun to watch (Amish Mafia), but some of it is fascinating. Case in point, Cutthroat Kitchen. This is one of the 50 competitive cooking shows on TV today, and the 10th or so hosted by indelibly fastidious geek icon Alton Brown. I like Alton Brown. He has that assured swagger that nerds are sorely lacking more often than not, and I think he's a affable, yet occasionally biting host. The premise of this show is spite, as far as I can tell. Four chefs start with $25,000 and one minute to grab as much product as they can to make classic dishes. Then Alton auctions off sabotages to the contestants to give them a competitive edge. It can range from stealing another person's product to making someone use a camp stove to cook their entire meal to replacing pizza dough with a pre-baked pie crust. It's brutal, and I FUCKING LOVE IT. Chefs, more often than not, are bitchy perfectionists full of professional jealousy, and this show turns all of those baser instincts loose and REWARDS THEM FOR IT. The last chef standing get to walk out on whatever cash they haven't spent, which is usually like $400. The sabotage is often brilliant and absolutely dickish. One chef stole all the bread in a sandwich making challenge. Genius. That chef follows me on Twitter now I think, which is dope. If you're reading this Chef, I admire you're tactics.
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I mentioned Amish Mafia earlier, and I've watched this dumb show for two stupid fucking seasons now. It's not good. It's actually quite awful. I don't derive any enjoyment from it. Ten minutes into every episode, I immediately revert to dicking around on my phone instead of changing the channel. That said, there was some sort of marathon of the show on Discovery Channel the other day and I couldn't find the remote, so I watched like four straight episodes before giving enough of a shit to change to an Tribe game or something. The show centers around a few groups of Amish/Not Really Amish ne'er-do-wells in Pennsylvania and Southern Ohio (specifically the intensely dull Holmes County, which is a place that is only good for apple butter and crippling depression) protecting Amish interests with force. They claim that since they were not baptized into the Amish church, they can work on the fringes of Amish society and fix wrongs the church can't. So they hustle protection money, break stuff, set fires and kill people (or so its strongly implied) all to keep the precious Amish holier than everyone on Earth. First of all, it should be noted for anyone who hasn't lived around the Amish, the Amish are awful people. They hate you because you don't shackle yourself to outdated lifestyles to prove your loyalty to God. That's not a generalization, you are lesser than them in their eyes because you have a goddamn telephone. But their disgust of women, homosexuals and different races are totally cool by their standards, to say nothing about the God thing. And then there's Rumspringa. Fuck Rumspringa. For those of you that don't know, at some point before you join the Amish church for life, you have what's called Rumspringa, where you go out into the dreaded English world to see if you like it. It can last as long as you want, but once you come back you're there for life. Think about that for a second. You take a kid with no knowledge of the outside world, openly tell them to sin all you want for as long as you want, and that once you return, all of that shit will be forgiven and you'll never have to worry about it again. Needless to say, they go fucking apeshit. They do drugs by the fistful, they buy cars and get speed into telephone poles, and generally become walking powder kegs that the rest of the world has to deal with. But I digress, back to 'Amish Mafia'. The show is obviously fake, and not in a 'We all assume that all reality TV is fake' kind of way. Everything is staged and recreated to the point of absurdity. Anything illicit is met with these half-rent Mafioso telling the cameraman to stop filming, only for their Lav mikes to 'inconspicuously' pick up all the sordid backroom details. To top it all off, a cursory Google search reveals all the show's protagonists are just petty criminals with minor records, far from the major players of the rural underworld that they'd have you believe. The season finale airs next week, or maybe it already aired. I'm not sure, but I'm sure I don't care.
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One of the most fascinating figures in cult cinema today is Sion Sono. The Japanese poet/director got started directing in gay porn. The fact that he even has a semblance of a career after such a taboo beginning (which is even more taboo in sexually conservative Japan) is a testament to the caliber of work he creates. His work seems very influenced by gay culture. There's an incredible air of dignified camp to his work, not unlike drag theatre, so that even the most over-the-top, fantastical moments in his films (of which there are several) don't seem like the brazen acts that they are. There are certainly John Waters-esque elements to his work, but they're muted by his more Gothic tendencies. The style in his films are impeccable as well, and his sense of the world around him is wildly intriguing. This is the point in my Sono discussion that I demand that you all go out now and watch Suicide Club. It's one of the best films I've ever seen, and if you know anything about Japanese culture, you realize what a scathing indictment it is of life in the highly trendy nation. But I'm not here to discuss Suicide Club (but I could for hours), I want to discuss Strange Circus. Strange Circus is a psychological thriller in the absolute loosest sense of the term. It centers around a young girl that is systematically abused by her father and tortured by her mother. She's forced to watcher parents have sex while locked in a cello case, gets assaulted by her subsequently jealous mother, and is eventually driven to attempt suicide. But, not all is as it seems. This girl was actually the product of a reclusive author's imagination. But, is that also as it seems (LAYERS!)? The film, like all of Sono's work, is beautiful and upsetting. The twist ending is a bit predictable, but that doesn't make it any less disturbing to
watch. Definitely recommended.
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Podcast News! The Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction Podcast is quickly becoming one of my favorite shows. Hosted by the snide and probable sexual deviant (not really) Bryan Cook, the show consists of two rounds of prurient story-time, round one being written in advance and round two being audience suggested stories, written by comics, writers, and performers. This is a platform for the comedy world to be as fucking filthy as possible, and they rarely disappoint. The show has drawn the likes of Kyle Kinane, Matt Braunger, Jackie Kashian, Rob Delany, Dave Hill, Kurt Braunohler, and Erin Gibson. The topics vary from innocence wrecking nightmares like Clifford the Big Red Dog, Winnie the Pooh, and Rugrats to sacred nerd cows like Spider-Man, Magic the Gathering, and Star Trek to the fucking insane like Florence Nightingale, The 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, and H.P. Lovecraft. It's fucking awesome. If you're looking to start somewhere with this show, may I recommend a Round Two show with Ian Karmel (Toddlers in Tiaras), Christian Ricketts (Dumbo), Sean Jordan (Frasier), Steven Wilbur (He-Man), and Shane Torres (Saved By the Bell). So goddamn awful. So goddamn wonderful. Amen.
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Music! The Journeymen's 'Mount Us More' is the brainchild of the dudes at the Superego podcast. If you've never heard the absurdist masterpiece that is Superego, its three guys (Jeremy Carter, Matt Gourley, and Mark McConnville) doing probably the best radio sketches out there today, and The Journeymen come from their weird cast of characters. As the story goes, outlaw-country crazy person Shunt McGuppin met another outlaw-country crazy person Mutt Taylor in a bar fight, and decided to get a couple more crazies (Cubby Lauderbourne and Jimmy Blades) and make an album. Its basically the best album I've heard all year. How can you not like songs like 'If Lovin' You is Black', 'American Woman (Navajo Bitch)', and 'Red Meat and Depression'? Think an even more deranged version of Ween's '12 Golden Country Greats'. Demon Queen is the side-project of Black Moth Super Rainbow's Tobacco and Zackey Force Funk, so you probably know what that means already. It features Tobacco's hauntingly syrupy synths and creepily sexual posturing, but this may be his darkest release yet. The dude bleeds neon, but his synth work is getting icier and more confrontational with every release, and I fucking love it. If you love BMSR, you'll love this. In a year that needs some more good rap to balance out the double headed monster of Jay-Z and Yeezus, Homeboy Sandman delivers. Sandman serves as an excellent counterpoint to the bombast and self-righteousness and hypocritical self-inflicted martyrdom of the Throne Watchers. This is rap at it's most minimalist. The beats are not overpowering, and only help to feed Sandman's calm, yet speedy delivery. Its hard to make even-keeled rap that doesn't come across as backpacker nonsense, but Homeboy makes it wildly intriguing. This is what real confidence sounds like.

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