Category Archives: Culture

Jul 20 2012
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Culture, Movies, Music

Unsolicited Endorsements XXX

Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness.

Movie: In Bruges

Colin Farrell has starred in some terrible and forgettable movies. We know his role. He plays the fast-talking punk who’s really not a punk because we KNOW he has a soft side. He endears himself to us because he’s Irish, and women think his body totally rocks. And there is a law, written in permanent ink on a massive steno pad somewhere in Hollywood (I’ve seen it), that posits anyone with a body deemed to totally rock cannot be a punk.

Back in 2008, Farrell actually proved why he deserves the attention and the dollar bills that follow when he starred in a movie most of us never heard about, and if we did, we probably shrugged our shoulders and then forgot. He starred in a movie called “In Bruges.” The name sounds art house. And despite featuring heavy gunfire, it kind of is. The best way to explain the movie is how I explained it in a text to a friend: “It’s a dark comedy/crime thriller set in Bruges. Somehow it worked.”

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Jun 10 2012
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Culture, Endorsements, Music

Unsolicited Endorsements XXVIII

Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness. 

Cereal: Frosted Toast Crunch

When I was younger, maybe five or six years old, my mom refused to let my brother, sister and I eat sugary cereals. She reasoned we ate so much sugar during the day, during the rest of our meals that an added significant dosage at breakfast would make us grow up to become bank robbers. This might have been a fair argument. But we were young. We didn’t know any better, and those damn commercials with cartoon rabbits and the fluorescent glow of cardboard boxes perpetrated our minds, alluring us to the sugary side. We begged nonstop.

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Jun 03 2012
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Culture, Endorsements, Music, New York

Unsolicited Endorsements XXVII

Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness. 

Album: “In My G4 Over Da Sea” — Neutral Bling Hotel

In February 1998, Neutral Milk Hotel released “In The Aeroplane Over The Sea”, a seminal concoction* of lo-fi indie rock.

*If you’ve never listened to the blown-out guitars on “Holland, 1945″, well, do so right now.

After the release of the album, Neutral Milk frontman Jeff Mangum more or less disappeared for the next decade. He stopped releasing music and only showed up to play live shows within the last few years.

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May 28 2012
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Culture, Music

Unsolicited Endorsements XXVI

Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness. 

Song: “All My Friends (London Session)” by LCD Soundsystem

You might have heard “All My Friends” by this point. It’s the seven-plus-minute centerpiece of the most highly regarded album of one of the past decade’s most respected bands. But you haven’t really heard the song until you’ve listened to the version taken from LCD Soundsystem’s London Sessions, a 2010 collection of pristine-sounding live recordings that stands as a tidy wrap-up of the band’s catalog.

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May 24 2012
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Culture, Music

One Day

Every thing about this video is effing awesome.

The concept: a fifth-grade class rocking out a badass version of Matisyahu’s “One Day”. The location: the class being from Kansas City. The uniqueness: this being perhaps the first time a grade-school class has ever belted out a song with the lyrics “Blood-drenched pavement”. And finally, the fact that fifth-grade girls are apparently still a foot taller than their boy counterparts.

If you don’t smile watching this video, there’s no hope…

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May 18 2012
4 Comments
Art, Culture, Endorsements

Unsolicited Endorsements XXV

Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness.

Movie: “Tiny Furniture”

A certain segment of the population knows Lena Dunham as the New York-bred, tattooed creator and protagonist of the HBO series “Girls”. But I, myself, must admit I’ve never seen an episode of the ultra-trendy (and maybe sort of controversial*) series. (Blame my schedule and lack of an HBO subscription.) Continue reading →

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May 11 2012
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Culture, Dallas

I Am Legend

The other night I saw The Five-Year Engagement with a friend at Dallas’ Valley View Mall. Including us, there were six people in the theater for the beginning of the movie. By the end, a seventh joined. He was presumably an employee, a teenager who decided to sneak in as part of a self-made double-feature (the best kind), or Jason Segel, who had arrived for an intimate post-film Q&A. Based on a lingering suspicion in the back of my mind that this man was wearing a trench coat and accidentally stumbled into a real movie instead of an adult movie, I determined the Segel option to be the most unlikely.

Also, this was Valley View Mall, the only building in Dallas that has actually been placed on the state list of missing persons. Continue reading →

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May 07 2012
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Culture, Endorsements, Music, Nostalgia

Unsolicited Endorsements XXIV

Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness.

Technology: The NPR App

I’m still new to the IPhone. I’m still learning about all the cool secrets, like how to operate the camera in a non-moronic way, and I don’t even use Siri all that much.* I know my apps, though.

*In fact, I only use Siri when I’m messing around and ask her something like, “Where can I score some drugs?” Pretty funny!!

I have Flixster, AroundMe, TVFoodMaps, ATP/WTA Live and, among others, the NPR app. This is probably not groundbreaking, but the best app, to me, is the NPR app. You can listen to a livestream of any NPR station in the country. You can listen to snippets of their latest stories on demand, or some of their older ones. You can listen to podcasts.

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May 03 2012
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Culture, Humor, Music, Sports

The Return of List Mania

Well, it’s been forever. The story goes that Mark and I used to sporadically update the Brew House with an edition of “List Mania” — an ode to former Kansas City Star columnist Joe Posnanski, who famously wrote lists until one day, many years ago, he wrote a column saying he would never list again…

For the past year or so, there’s been very little listing around these parts. And that changes today. The era of gimmicky lists and random thoughts is back. And the listing baton has been passed. So here goes…

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May 01 2012
5 Comments
Culture, Humor

I Swear, I’m Not a Hoopster

The summery, lamb phase of the spring has arrived. Brunch will be served at outdoor tables. Someone will actually buy a Bartles and Jaymes beverage. Tops will come off convertibles and spray-tanned meatheads. And I will begin wearing jerseys, Champion replica NBA jerseys and Starter replica NCAA jerseys, mainly those of obscure players, like Kerry Kittles, and teams, like the Nets, who I care nothing about, because I dress like a hoopster.

Deadspin began cataloguing the emergence of this cultural fashion movement two years ago when it ran pictures under the tag “Look At This Fucking Hoopster.” After Lollapalooza, they featured a photo gallery of many a hipster rocking a jersey. The New York Times then ran one of their Style-section trend stories about hoopsters, which prompted Deadspin to announce that the trend was over. 

For me, it was never over and still isn’t. I may dress like one, but I’m not a hoopster. I’m original. I didn’t just wear the jerseys, I wore them with my yellow Guatemalan shorts or nylon warmup pants, sometimes with a head band, and I have the clear-cut, non-sepia-tinged random tight pic from a 2006 night out to prove it. And yes, that is a Clippers warm-up jersey atop the St. John’s jersey.

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