Terry Crews may be the most underrated comedic actor of the last forty years. That's something of an arbitrary number, because I don't feel like sitting here and putting together any kind of accurate timeline where I can say, "oh, well, in 1967 there was a little known comic by the name of Sonny Jim who, despite countless years and miles logged touring the comedy circuit never got the recognition he deserved." I like the way "in the last forty years" sounds, so I'm going to go with that.

As I was saying, Terry Crews: he's never had a starring role, and beyond that he's pretty one dimensional. He's pretty much always cast as the "big scary black guy who _____" in any given movie. And to be fair, while Terry might have the range of a younger, buffer, blacker, Hoffman, the casting industry is a pretty raw job where you're constantly trying to weave between a million shitty actors and thousands of stressed out AD's who just want the role filled and don't have time to sit around watching the larval actors try to emerge from the cocoon of typecasting as a versatile butterfly of a thousand faces. Basically you need to get an actor, any actor, into the part so you can move on to the next one.

I hope everyone enjoyed that butterfly metaphor, because it took me a solid thirty seconds to remember the word "larval", and being that time is money, that shit wasn't free. Though in the interest of full disclosure, I'm writing this on a northbound train around noon and working my way through another tallboy, so my time isn't exactly priceless at the moment.

At some point I'm going to follow this blithering back to Terry Crews, but thinking about casting agents reminded me of when casting sent over a few dozen actresses to audition for the role of "Hooker #1" for a pilot that was shooting out of the production office for the other TV show I work on. Normally when we have auditions in the office it blows for me because I have to take time out of my busy schedule of trying to find punker videos on YouTube to direct a bunch of dumbass actors to the bathroom, kitchen, etc etc. But THIS day was awesome because the office was full of a ton of struggling lady actors, or "actresses" for the feminists out there, who came it dressed up like hookers. Which, to my mind, is even better than an office full of actual hookers, because this way I don't have to watch my wallet every thirty seconds, or get fired for ALLEGEDLY making time in the bathroom with said hookers.

But moving on, it's not to say that I, or anyone else for that matter, doesn't believe Terry is capable of a career turning performance as a "big scary black guy who's also a lovable retarded guy" ala Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile. He just hasn't gotten that break yet. But honestly, you know what? Good for him. In a way I find it really obnoxious when actors bitch about getting typecast into a certain role, and complain about not being able to fully explore their potential or whatever other horseshit they're lead to believe they have by softhanded agents. Yeah, you have to go to work for twenty years and play variations on the same part over and over and over again, but that beats the shit out of going to work for thirty years doing LITERALLY the same thing every day, especially when that same thing is something that you hate and get paid jack shit to do, like most of the rest of the world.

I don't mean to say I begrudge actors who are able to break out of a certain role, and who are able to land all sorts of new and exciting parts. Good for them, if that helps make them happier, that rules. But there are worse things in the world than playing "farty guy" in National Lampoon straight to DVD movies for the rest of your life.

And this is where it finally gets back to Terry Crews. He's basically the same guy in every movie, but he has absolutely PERFECTED that role. The pinnacle of his acting achievements is White Girls. The Wayans Brothers written/directed/produced film features Crews at his absolute best. Were I to put together a comedy time capsule for the ages, it would have to include two scenes from White Girls. The first being when he sings Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles" and the second being when he's on ecstasy at the dance club and is rave dancing shirtless with glowsticks and a whistle. Fuck. I defy you to watch either of those scenes without dying. And if you don't, you're a shitty asshole with a shitty asshole sense of humor.

When it comes down to it I have unending respect and admiration for Crews and the fact that he has no bullshit actor-y delusions of grandeur. When it comes down to it, he knows that he's a big scary buff black dude who has GREAT comedic timing, and if he takes his shirt off and raves out with a whistle and it makes the people laugh, that's all there is to it. It's all summed up in a bit from Raw, substituting "them", being smarmy pretentious jerkoffs everywhere, for "Bill" in the original bit.

"Do the people laugh when you [do] that shit? " "Yeah." "The tell [them] I said have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up."

And the two clips from White Chicks that I mentioned earlier are below. The second, the one at the club, is funnier in context, but it's still pretty hilarious even if you haven't seen the movie.

There was a point in my life that I'd be too embarassed to admit what I'm about to admit. Back in my youth, I was way too concerned about losing punker cred if it were to come out that I wasn't exceptionally well versed in the entire catalog of all the bands a serious punker is supposed to be aware of. Partially because when I was a little shithead and first getting into hardcore the internet was still in it's fledgling stages, and for those of us with AOL and a dialup connection, which, in the mid 90's, was most everyone except super geeks, the internet was primarily useful only for experimenting with cybersex and patiently awaiting the reveal of a nipple as you tried to download the free samples off the playboy site. Come to think of it, cybersex, or "cybering", as the kids called it at the time, is something else that I probably would have been too embarassed to admit to at one point. But you know what, if you were like 13 and talking dirty to strangers who may or may not be hot chicks was a new and exciting thing and you didn't AT LEAST check it out, there's something wrong with you.

The point is, it wasn't like it is now where you can get any record ever made in about three mintues of searching. So instead of hearing every awesome record under the sun, I heard a handful which I fell in love with and can pretty much recite word for word to this day (see: Bad Brains-s/t).

A band that I'd heard when I was younger, but only in snippets due to never owning any of their stuff, was Poison Idea. At some point I got a copy of "Feel the Darkness" on CD, and that ended up getting regular rotation for awhile. I don't think anyone is going to try and debate the merits of that record, or at least not anyone with halfway decent taste. But as great as it is, it's a very different record than "Pick Your King", which, in a typically roundabout fashion, is the reason for this post, and the admission which was alluded to earlier.

Here it is: I never REALLY go into "Pick Your King" until the last few months. Yeah, of course I'd heard the record before, and it's not like I disliked it in the slightest, but for whatever reason it never just kicked me in the stomach until recently. I'm now at the point most kids hit at 17 where I just can't stop listening to it. It's such a perfect record I'm honestly dumbfounded that I haven't tried to whittle a larger hole into it and just take it to bed with me. Not a single throwaway song, and it doesn't let up from start to finish.

I'm not going to go on and on about how great it is because a) pretty much everyone knows that already and b) that's not the point of this. The point is, it's totally sweet finally getting to the age where I give less and less of a flying fuck what anyone thinks of me, least of all a bunch of little asshole punkers who want to call me a poseur because I just got into PYK at 25. One of the few things I'm looking forward to about getting older is that the older I get the less of a fuck I give about other people, and it's going to be awesome when I'm 50 and stop bothering with hassles like "pants" just to appease other people.

Hardcore rules, ok?

Zines, Zines, always more Zines.

That's actually rarely the case. Most of the time these days, zines are few and far between. While they're inarguably becoming more and more antiquated every day, there's something to be said (and has been, ad nauseum) for the qualities of a paper zine that still make them worthwhile. Thanks to my current job I've been able to finally do Brickshitter on the regular, and I've been trading with people more frequently too. Matt Radiobeat has been banging out Beat Sheet just as quickly, if not more so, and I just got the For the Worse/Concrete Facelift tour diary issue in the mail. I also picked up Ride the Fury Fanzine #1, a new zine out of NJ that my friend Pat puts out. More on both of those in a second, but getting new zines in general is always a highlight of doing a zine, so anyone who's doing anything zine-ish these days, please send me a copy, I'll send back all my garbage and more. Lucky you. Hardcore zines rule, ok?

Beat Sheet Vol. 5: For the Worse/Concrete Facelift World Tour Diary

Matt roadied for the above four day world tour, and recounts the weekend's events in this issue. Most tour diaries are either so bland and matter of fact ("Show was cool, some kids moshed. Ate pizza after, watched movies. Van ride was long. Repeat.") or made up entirely of longwinded inside jokes ("So then Bobby Stagedive was like 'ALFALFA SPROUTS, COCKSUCKERS!' and everyone was all 'LOL' and then we all went to that one place that Stevie said was awesome, but it was only awesome becuz he got this girls digits there and then f-banged her in the van that one time.") This zine, happily, is neither. There's a good balance between the funny shit that went on and plenty of show/bands talk as well. Really entertaining, perfect length for a straight through read with no filler. And on a strictly aesthetic level, this is the best looking issue Matt has done by far. He'll have the whole thing up for a download in PDF form on his blog sometime soon, so check that out, or email him (radiobeat@gmail.com) for a copy.

Ride the Fury Fanzine #1

RTF is a Jersey based zine that, at least so far, focuses mostly on said area. RTF#1 is a short fullsize zine with a Dustheads interview, record reviews, two short columns and a list of tips on how to go about booking DIY shows. Pat and Jeff split the writing pretty much down the middle, so there's two perspectives that are different enough to stand apart but not so far divergent to give the thing a schizo tone. The interview is a little on the short side, but otherwise no complaints, and as the Dustheads are arguably the best band going right now, no such thing as too much exposure. (Side note: Tall Tales I and II are both out now on Don Giovanni records, I is almost out of print, so get both asap.) In addition to the interview there are reviews of new records from the Ergs, Mother Night Hellhole, Kill Your Idols, and Pellinore, a column about the last last Kill Your Idols show, and one about the whole "coatrack" issue.

Both columns are concise and straight to the point, the only issue I (personally) have is with the coatracks one. And you know what, as I typed the following few sentences, I started thinking about the column and remembered that what I'm arguing against isn't what the column was saying at all. The whole "not enough girls in hardcore" thing always sets me off though, so I ended up on a fairly unrelated tangent, at least as far as said column is concerned. But this is my blog, and I'm a pretty self indulgent guy, so I'm leaving it in. But for the record, the column is actually saying that there are plenty of girls in DA SCENE and that people just need to look around more, at least in jersey. Basically. So here's the aforementioned blathering: Partially because I'm a sexist, but partially because I don't believe in coddling people, I have zero desire to go out of my way to make hardcore more welcoming to girls, or to give them a pat on the back for showing up and singing along. I also don't go around looking for other "under represented" groups and say like "hey, black guy, you know what you might like? Punk rock! And we don't have too many of you folks, so you should come up the quotient. Awesome. Oh and if you have any friends who are gays or asians that would be GREAT. High five!" Hardcore is something that primarily appeals to guys, and, for whatever reasons, white guys. While I obviously have no problem with it if girls and every other race under the sun wants to come to shows, (except Italians, just don't trust em) I don't think there's any need to adjust things to cater to people. I don't expect the knitting classes at the Y to start including tailgating and fireworks just to make sure I feel welcome.

Yeah, so at one point, I was still talking about Ride the Fury. This is also the first zine Pat and Jeff have done, and while it shows with some of the layout aspects**, it's still an enjoyable read, and hopefully we'll be seeing more in the future.

(**About that layout...something it took me literally years of doing crappy zines to learn is to limit the handwritten parts to an absolute minimum. I know how it is, last minute stuff that you forgot, but try to use it very sparingly.)

Get ahold of Pat (gerity@rider.edu or http://myspace.com/xpatgerityx) or Jeff (atlf27@comcast.net or http://myspace.com/jeffguerriero) for a copy.

And, my last little plug, Brickshitter #3-5 are still available for mailorder, send your mailing address to grossnation@gmail.com, and #6 will be out in a few weeks. And all the back issues, #1-5 are up for download as PDF's on the myspace (if the links are dead, check back in a few days, I have to refresh them every so often.

dog cum.