Attention Deficit Delirium

Oh joy, it’s back to school time. Those hallowed high school halls are heaven for some, hell for others and a chance for all to reflect on our ever-deteriorating educational system. But hey, think of it this way — the good old days of education weren’t always so good.

Don’t believe me? Check out my latest MSN Movies feature, “Be Cruel To Your School,” which examines reforms on both sides of the teachers’ desk, from the Fifties through to today. The story was inspired by the Twisted Sister song “Be Chrool to Your Scuel,” which included the lyric: “Be cruel to your school/’cause you may never get another.” The song’s controversial video, which featured a high school invaded by flesh-eating zombies, was banned from the airwaves in 1985. Luckily the movie Dance Of The Dead took the premise into feature-length territory in 2008 with hilarious results.



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GUEST REVIEWER: KATE KOTLER, Founder/Editor-in-Chief of Geek Girl On The Street.


Mondo Urbano from Oni Press is hard to quantify upon first read. The trade paperback, released this past July, takes the reader through the first four of Rafael Albuquerque, Eduardo Medeiros and Mateus Santolouco’s mini-comics: PowerTrio, Overdose, Cabaret, Encore and Bonus Track. Centered around the Kurt Cobain-esque character Van Hudson and his band De-Mo, this first trade lays out the groundwork for the storyline and characters to further develop in future issues.

The story is an age old one: nerdy, wanna be musician buys a possessed guitar and makes a deal with the Devil. The Devil then transforms aforementioned nerdy, wanna be musician into a Rock God, making him rich and famous beyond his wildest expectations. Of course, as with any “possessed by the Devil” story, there is a hefty price to pay and a life is lost in the process…but that clearly is to come in later Mondo Urbano issues.

Sex, drugs and rock n’ roll is as good a theme for a graphic novel as any, and with an endorsement from legendary horror writer Stephen King on the cover, I had nothing but the highest expectations for this book.

Thankfully, it did not disappoint.

Although the dialog is a tad disjointed — which I attribute to the process of translating the book into English — the stories are complex yet pretty easy to follow, and it’s clear to see how they are all eventually going to come together. The tales explore themes of friendship, dying love and the good fortune that comes with being in the right place at the right time. Spun together to occur on the night that Van Hudson mysteriously commits suicide, the characters developed in each chapter profoundly feel the impact of Hudson, his deal with the Devil and De-Mo’s rise to fame that alters the course of each character’s life.

The artwork is pretty cartoon-ish (which is fine with me), the black and red on green gives the book an overall sense of something being wrong, or off –- a sickly hue, if you will –- indicating an artistic theme to the book which matches its story development.

As with all good graphic novels or comic books, I was pissed when I was done reading it because each story ending left me hanging and wanting a resolution for the characters. So I’m pretty stoked to read the next installment, “Ed’s in Trouble,” which is due out in 2011.  If you haven’t checked out this latest offering from Oni — which is being touted as the “next Scott Pilgrim” – heavy words, dudes — I do recommend picking it up and giving it a read.


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Who: Jacoby Shaddix, lead singer for Papa Roach.
What: The Top 5 MP3s in his iPod right now.
Where: Northern California.
Latest Album: Time For Annihilation…On The Record & On The Road



1. THE BEATSTEAKS “Demons Galore” — The meter, the tempo and the aggression behind the track just gets me off.

2. THE PRODIGY “Spitfire” — That’s another song that gets me pumped up before the rock show. I like that band.

3. HARD-FI “Middle Eastern Holiday” — They’re kind of like a new version of the Clash. They’re from the UK, they’re badass. They’ve just got that grimy attitude with a little dance raga sound to it.

4. WEEZER “Troublemaker” — That’s me and my son’s theme song when we’re together. It’s the jam. He just jams out in the back of the car every time when I’m playing it. It’s cute.

5. SOCIAL DISTORTION “Highway 101″ — That’s just a put-the-top-down, cruising type song. I think Mike Ness is a great storyteller. If you break it down, they are one of the most influential punk rock bands.


Live versions of Jacoby’s picks: The Beatsteaks, The Prodigy, Hard-Fi, Weezer and Social Distortion.



Other Digital Playlists:

Chuck Billy




Hansi Kürsch




Floor Jansen




Clint Lowery





Thankfully Futurama has been given a second shot at weekly series life, and because it already amassed a sizable collection of episodes with its previous five seasons (if you include those four recent feature-length movies), the mirthful, animated sci-fi spectacle celebrates its 100th episode tonight. It also happens to be the sixth season finale. Having caught some of the new episodes already, it’s obvious that the writers still have fresh ideas, whether parodying the cult of Apple (if that’s how you view it) or hypothesizing how outer space cats were actually the aliens that brought advanced technology to mankind (hey, it could have happened).

Here are two sneak peeks at tonight’s episode, which airs tonight at 10 PM EST on Comedy Central and includes a great cameo by Devo. And here’s to 100 more!



Futurama	Thursdays 10pm / 9c
Preview – 100th Delivery
www.comedycentral.com
Futurama New Episodes Big Lake A New Comedy from Will Ferrell and Adam McKay




Futurama	Thursdays 10pm / 9c
Preview – The Devo-lution Revolution
www.comedycentral.com
Futurama New Episodes Big Lake A New Comedy from Will Ferrell and Adam McKay