pop-culture for the people

The myth, the magic, the majesty… awww who the hell am I kidding, get your lighters out, your hair teased, and that leather fringed jacket out of the closet, it’s time for my uber-cool review of Bon Jovi LIVE!!!! 

This past November I had the chance to see Bon Jovi in Wilkes-Barre, PA.  My reason for going was two-fold (always wanted to use that in an essay, well that and the words deviate and fecal, but anyway I digress.).  I have been a fan since the 80’s when I attempted to get my hair the height of a small skyscraper, only to ruin it with my feeble attempt at head-banging.  Four days before… I… oh the shame… went to see Fat Tony and NSYNC in concert.  Yes, I spent my hard-earned cash, of which I rarely have any, to see a band that seemed content to snatch said funds out of my fists with a resounding, “YOINK!”.  This “concert” was identical to one that aired on HBO the previous July. 

When I say identical, it’s no lie, (Bye Bye Bye).  The order of the songs and the “banter” with the audience (of whom I was definitely the most adorable) were all the same as the concert that aired on HBO.  My 10-year-old cousin (I used her as my cover) and I could’ve simply watched a rerun of the aforementioned show and saved $250.40 (Hey kids, here’s the math!  Grab your calculator and follow along! $65.20 per ticket, $35.00 per t-shirt, $20.00 per tour program, and $10.00 for the long sleeved t-shirt that I bargained for in the parking lot…. “YOINK”).  In addition to my already vacant wallet, our seats were not nosebleed; they were massive-hemorrhage-with blood-and-sinew-oozing-from-every-orifice seats.  Lest we forget, I drove 4.5 hours to attend this concert on Lon Gisland (heaven forbid this boyband might have to play somewhere without a Banana Republic or a Gap in near eyeshot). 

Upon leaving the venue my sweet, brilliant, cousin Shauna turns to me and calmly says, ”Well that wasn’t very good.”  We trudged through Nassau Coliseum’s parking lot, with her reconsidering her future as a boy band devotee, and me financially raped and pillaged. 

The whole experience made me long for the kinder, gentler, cheaper time of the 80’s and my beloved Bon Jovi.  I recently had discovered they were playing in Pennsylvania, and forked out $54.20 for a ticket, and found myself 6 rows from the stage.  I’ve never seen so many abuses of Aqua Net and Spandex in my entire life.  After the opening band Less Than Jake, who were worse than bad, my man… oops… hehe I mean the band took the stage.  Any sense of decorum I had was suddenly sucked out of me, and I was once again a teenybopper.  I screamed and jumped and let Mr. Bon Jovi, this 30 year-old father of two, take full control over me.  Then, before I knew it the lights came up.  I stood there dazed, looking like a reject from an Alice Cooper convention.  Hair a wreck, voice non-existent, brain turned to some sort of sodden mush.  We slowly exited the arena, like the workers in Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis.”

It was only after the night air hit my friend Jen and I, that any semblance of cognitive rational thought returned.  I started hearing stories that could never be attributed to me: Jolie screaming for Jon as if he could hear her lone voice above the din of the crowd; Jolie careening over barricades, and Jolie certain that Jon was pointing at her… and only her. 

I figure there had to be some temporary loss of sanity, much akin to people that go into convulsions at the sound of Mary Hart’s voice.  So I have decided that I must… err… umm… analyze this, so that others won’t have to “suffer” as I have.  I am going to make the ultimate sacrifice (for the sake of science), I’m going to see them again on May 20th.  What can I say; science must be served, now if I could only find where I put that can of Aqua Net. YOINK!

-BonJolie

Hollywood Denney may be God when it comes to Monkeys vs. Robots, but I’m the Christ figure of this web site. And what have I endured for the sins of the world this week? Today, the dreaded cross I’ve nailed myself to has 24 inch pythons, supposedly plays a musical instrument, and shouts “brother” all the time. For you ungrateful people, I’ve forced myself to listen to Hulk Hogan and the Wrestling Boot Band’s first and only LP, “Hulk Rules”.

    It may be a bit much to equate a listen to Hulk Hogan with the donning of a crown of thorns. But only a tiny bit much. This CD hurts the human soul. It is such a dreaded abomination to the human creative process that it has further discouraged me from any desire to spawn children so I might ensure that no progeny of mine can ever attempt something this bad in the distant future. If I thought it at all possible that I could make a CD this bad, myself, I would make a serious effort to swallow my own tongue.

    With that said, let’s get to some of the specifics. It won’t matter much, though. If you dissect poop, you’re not going to find anything that isn’t technically poop. Still, we can find out what the muse had for breakfast before he dumped this log of music in the crapper.

Hulk Hogan, for those who don’t reside in this timeline, is a pro-wrestler/ego-maniac who made several ill-fated attempts to cash in on his fame. Hulk (Terry Bollea) has more movies in the running for Worst Flick of All-Time than Ed Wood (ed.: Hollywood’s favorite writer/director) and Eric Roberts combined. His pasta restaurant could only serve up a heaping, helping of Hogan-inspired hurl. Hulk Hogan’s CD features 10 boring songs employing the styles of power rock, power ballads, power rap, and power suck.

    Hulk’s band features Jimmy “Mouth of the South” Hart who sings lead vocals on a track called “Wrestling Boot Traveling Band” where he explains the rigors of being on the road with a musical act. As far as I know, this band isn’t on tour anywhere, so Jimmy can rest easy; one less topic for him to annoy us with in a boring song that sounds like it didn’t make the cut for an REO Speedwagon B-sides compilation.

    Hulk’s wife is in the band. And they got some guy who could actually play worth a crap to fill in a lot of the musical parts. It’s all very boring, power rock stuff with one consistent thread. The songs are either sung by Hogan or about Hogan in a very obvious way. The standout atrocities on this album include “Beach Patrol” where Hulk raps using the longest consecutive set of rap cliché phrases ever featured in a single song. Hogan raps again on “I want to be a Hulkamaniac” where he tries to teach kids important moral lessens through enlistment in his fan club. Hey, whatever works. I’ve never had a problem with kids training, saying their prayers, and eating their vitamins. Yet, it all sounds a little silly when Hogan advises:

“...Always go swimming with a buddy
Work real hard and always study…”

The worst thing on this CD is a Hogan ballad called, “Hulkster in Heaven”. This is the only ballad I’ve ever heard featuring the word “Hulkamaniac”. According to the liner notes, this song is about a fan who died. Hulk croons, “I used to tear my shirt, but now you’ve torn my heart” and “I’ve heard it in the papers, I’ve saw it on TV. I guess they’ll be one empty seat when I wrestle at Wimbelly.” I’m sorry little guy. I really am.

    Granted, this CD is extremely funny, but I wouldn’t buy it. I mean, I did buy it, but it was half-price at the all for a dollar store. For those of you who don’t know, Monkeys vs. Robots gets money every time you buy something through the site. The only reason to buy this CD for a higher price is to show the same spirit of self-sacrifice I showed in writing this article by buying the CD through a link from this site. Do your part.
-Hazzard

Buy This Album From:
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Ah… good old fighting games. Why do we love them so? When I say “we” of course I mean me and video game dorks like me. There’s something basic and primal about squarin’ off with your opponent TO THE DEATH (with video game characters naturally, I don’t fight ‘cuz I’m a fragile genius). It returns us to our roots when our ancestors poked each other with forks or something. All fighting games are basically the same, some better than others, so today let’s look at one of the better ones.

Soul Blade does have a “story” to speak of. Note my use of quotations. Cervantes, an evil pirate has some ultimate weapon called the Soul Blade. He is mighty evil and apparently does bad stuff, as pirates do. The whole cast of Soul Blade is after the weapon; each person has their own motivations and story. Some want the power, some want to stop evil, some want a change from the humdrum futility that we call existence. It’s called CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, daddy!!! Pick your character and travel the globe, gaining experience and nifty weapons along the way. You can read all about the exciting travels of your fighter as it progresses, but I skipped over this crap. This is WAR, not War & Peace!!!!

The storyline doesn’t exactly make sense; it just gives the game excuses to set up unfair matches. F’instance, you get mortally wounded and immediately have to fight 6 people. Crap like that. Jesus, smart people usually run away from fights when they’re on their deathbed. On the plus side, I’ve always wanted to travel, but now I don’t have to, because the backdrops of Germany (old burning castle) Spain (sea with lots of pirate ships) Rome (lots of dust, audience in background appreciating the dust) etc. all perfectly convey the mood and ambiance of each place. It’s a vacation and it’s a video game! I love it!!!

Soul Blade is one of those wonderful games where randomly jamming on buttons lead to success. Hand eye coordination? Memorizing move sets? Nah, that junk’s for people with even more free time than me. Give me a game that lets me win just by twiddling my fingers lots. The other big benefit in this is that if you have a semi well-trained pet (like a spider monkey) you can play against them. Haven’t you always wanted to play a video game against a monkey? Well, now you can. Huzzah. One nice little touch is that every single one of the characters’ moves posses an overly theatric name. Little jab with sword…that’s a Sky Splitter! Kick…that’s an Earth-Shaker! The designers actually took the time to give overblown names to every single move, and I appreciate that kind of thoroughness (insanity).

Now let’s look at some members of our excellent cast, shall we?

Voldo: He looks like Edward Scissorhands. Anything vaguely related to Tim Burton stuff is good by me. Voldo attaches all sorts of nifty things to his wrist stubs: swords, pizza cutters, sporks. He also sort of reminds me of the Gimp from Pulp Fiction. I guess he’s my favorite cuz he brings back the memories of good movies. That, and he dances like a little ballerina.

Sophitia: Token female created by lonely, lonely game designer TM. She’s got attacks that look dirty (they involve her crotch as a weapon). Icky girl. On a positive note, she knees people in the balls…then says she’s sorry. In fact, she repeatedly apologizes after beating someone. Humility is funny. In her ending, God appears to her and yammers about how she’s a pure soul. God looks like a big cardboard cutout in the sky. I always thought that would be the case.

Cervantes: For the ultimate personification of evil (never seen one of those before) he sure looks flamboyant. “Argh maties, I’m a pirate, and I come for your booty!” I think that’s all I have to say about that.

Li Long & Hwang: Tee-hee.

Sigfried: He’s a knight, he’s got a gigantic phallic sword, and he’s 16. Siggy’s got an annoying high-pitched voice, and his victory taunts make me angry. “I’ve never had such an easy fight” Hey, boy-o, you are by far the most annoying video game character ever. Get a job as a paperboy or something. I dunno, punk teenagers irk me.

Sooooo, endure all the trials, beat Cervantes, and your character decides what to do with the Soul Blade. “With great power comes great responsibility (Amazing Spider-Man #1)” Will this power corrupt you, will it fulfill your hopes and dreams? Well, it all depends on which character you choose. As a rule, expect to die in the ending or turn evil. It’s quite horribly depressing.

Bottom line: The graphics are good, the game is fun to play, and it doesn’t get boring too quickly. If you like fighting games, this is a pretty good choice. I guess I didn’t make it too clear in the review, but I like this game. I like it more than getting my hair cut. I like it more than eating potted meat…. but I don’t like it as much as BonJolie likes Bon Jovi.

What other staff members think:
Tobita: What, every game violence you ask Tobita review? Can Tobita no sensitive side have? Hmph. No comment say Tobita. He too much honor has for site anymore. Tobita review Titanic come super fun soon. Yeah!!

Bowie: Listen, I don’t care unless they make a fighting game where I, David Bowie beat the shit out of ex-agents and record companies. Yes, that sounds quite fun. Bugger off.

Hazzard: I wish I peed on this game.

Shameless Promotion:
Buy This Game at Amazon.com

Other Soul Blade Resources:
Soul Blade / Soul Edge On the Playstation (PSX)
Playstation Ratings: Soul Blade
Soul Blade cheats, codes, hints, FAQs: Sony PlayStation