Music Review – Black Sabbath: 13

                It’s actually fairly appropriate that Black Sabbath’s new album is titled 13, as 2013 is officially their year after this album’s release.  What could have been a colossal failure, one where expectations were placed way too high for a group of musicians in the twilight of their careers, turned into one of the best albums in Sabbath’s catalog and my current frontrunner for album of the year.   

                From the start, this album grabs you and doesn’t let you go.  It is one of the most complete albums of Sabbath’s career as well as one of the most complete albums I have heard in a long time from any artist.  The best part is that you can tell that the band mined their entire history to come up with the music for the album.  You can hear snippets of old Sabbath, Dio Sabbath and even Ozzy’s solo stuff within the music itself.  The band has done such a phenomenal job layering the music as well as the vocals that it’s hard to tell that Bill Ward isn’t present.  Yes, Sabbath didn’t need anything but a serviceable drummer because the rest of the band is the best at what they do, but Brad Wilk actually does a great job of filling the gargantuan shoes left by Bill Ward’s departure. 

                A quick word about Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler.  These two musicians are up at the top of the list of greatness in their respective instruments.  The fact that they are still doing it this well at their age (and Tony had cancer while they were recording the album no less) is a testament to their ability and their resilience.  Seriously, if you haven’t, go listen to the album.  Does this sound like a band that is anything but firing on all cylinders?  Now realize that all of these guys are in their mid to late sixties.  I have no idea how that’s even possible. 

                I kind of expected the music to be great.  I saw Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath with Dio at the helm) a few years ago and Tony and Geezer were incredible then.  What took me by complete surprise was Ozzy.  This sounds like, for the first time in years, Ozzy is having fun while making an album.  Could that be a substance-induced fun?  Maybe.  I like to think that it has something to do with reuniting with his former bandmates though.  I haven’t heard Ozzy sound this good, and this invested in the album since No More Tears waaaaay back in 1994.  It sounds like a second life in terms of creativity was given to the band as a whole, but especially to Ozzy.  Almost like he created this record more for himself and not because Sharon said “Ozzy, it’s time to do another solo record” (which I have a feeling was the driving force behind the last two). 

                I really want to give you some kind of criticism of this record, to even out the review, but whether I’m just being swept off my feet by a band that I never thought I would hear new music from, or I just refuse to think anything bad about a band that I grew up playing way too loud on my parents’ stereo, I just can’t find anything wrong.  The album balances the bluesiness of the first album, with the slow plodding doom of songs like “War Pigs” or “Hand of Doom”.  This is an incredible album all around.  If you can get to a Best Buy, I would also suggest dropping a couple extra bucks to get the album with the exclusive second disc that contains four more tracks that don’t appear on the album proper.  The songs are shorter than those that made it on to the main album, but they are no less incredible.  This is by far my favorite album of the year, and one that will stay within my car stereo rotation for a long time to come.  If this is Sabbath’s swan song, which is probably the case, they are going out at the top of their game.

Hell’s Kitchen Episode Fifteen: Fooled Again

                First, let’s address the title which is in direct reference to the wild goose chase of information that the producers of Hell’s Kitchen lead us on every single week.  Last week, we were led to believe that the blue team would be sabotaged by skinny black girl and that Ramsay would be losing an eyebrow or something along those lines in this episode.  Neither of these scenarios came true this week.  There wasn’t even a hint of sabotage by skinny black girl and Ramsay, while he did get splashed by a little hot oil when he was putting out a grease fire didn’t even come close to the injury that was anticipated coming out of last week’s promo.  In fact when we hear someone say “medic” in the promo it is not in relation to Ramsay at all (we’ll get to that).  I don’t like the deception, especially at this stage of the game.  If someone is going to watch episode fourteen of Hell’s Kitchen all the way through to the promo at the end, I have a feeling you don’t have to lie to them to get them to come back the following week.  They’ll probably be there anyway. 

Aside from the deception, this was a pretty standard Hell’s Kitchen episode.  We were treated to the return of the cooking relay challenge where the teams had to cook three dishes in 30 minutes.  Sounds easy enough, right?  Well only one chef from each team was allowed in the kitchen at any one time and they only had five minutes to work before they had to “pass the baton” to the next chef.  The chefs had to cook standard Hell’s Kitchen dishes including rack of lamb, roast chicken and halibut. This is not an easy challenge at all, and it’s not supposed to be, but these chefs make it worse because the two big driving forces behind this challenge, communication and teamwork, have not been the forte of these chefs all season long.  Because of that, we get disastrous results from both kitchens.  The red kitchen provides a good piece of lamb with raw and gross garnish, burnt halibut, and no chicken dish.  They don’t have enough time to plate it, so when Ramsay calls for the chicken dishes he receives an empty plate from the red kitchen.  The blue team is able to plate all of their dishes but the lamb is completely raw (however the garnish is good).  The halibut is nicely cooked, and surprisingly so is the chicken.  The blue team wins the challenge.

Let me say that again because you haven’t heard it but one other time this season…the blue team wins the challenge!

The blue team gets a ride in a helicopter over Los Angeles as well as sample some expensive cuisine, while the red team gets to move potatoes off the truck and then peel them, while also setting up both kitchens for that evening’s dinner service.  This is where the “medic” came in.  Mixed up Cyndi, who is not a little girl by any stretch of the imagination, can’t catch her breath after moving boxes upon boxes of potatoes.  She is administered oxygen and seems to be fine after a few minutes of the treatment.  Unfortunately this messes with her a little bit as she can’t get out of her own way once dinner service starts.  The usually sure-handed chef keeps making silly mistakes and service for the red kitchen begins to get bogged down.  Meanwhile, appetizers are flying out of the blue kitchen.  Of course, all that momentum comes to a screeching halt when loud guy fires up the meat station (didn’t they learn anything last week?) and he promptly stops communicating.  And by that, I don’t mean he just gets quieter, or misses a ticket every now and then in terms of acknowledgement.  He shuts down completely, not saying a word.  I can understand getting in a zone when you have a task to complete, but working in this environment requires a little more communication than what he is producing.  His level of failure in this episode is nowhere near what it was in the last episode, but it is still apparent that he is the weakest link left in the competition, regardless of what he thinks.

Despite the issues in the kitchens, both teams completed their dinner services and are declared winners.  Of course that doesn’t mean jack because they still have to put someone up for elimination.  From the blue team, the choice is simple, loud guy has distinguished himself as terrible and the only reason he has made it this far is that he was a little less terrible than everyone else.  The red team has a harder time.  They eventually pick mixed up Cyndi, but Ramsay asks them to clarify their choice.  At this point they each get an individual vote to see where loyalties lie.  Mixed up Cyndi picks squeaky voice, squeaky voice picks blonde girl and blonde girl picks mixed up Cyndi as elimination fodder.  Because no one can agree, Ramsay asks skinny black girl to weigh in, as she worked with all three members of the red team for the majority of the competition.  She picks blonde girl (good choice) and Ramsay calls both blonde girl and loud guy up.  He states that he will only be giving out four of the coveted black jackets this year before he sends loud guy off into the night.  Loud guy, upon his exit, states that if Ramsay ever needs him, all he has to do is call.  Yup, keep waiting by your phone.

Ramsay doesn’t send blonde girl home (though I expected it, it would be a shock to see a double elimination after a successful dinner service) but does hold on to the black jackets saying that there was something else the chefs needed to do before they earned them.  Of course, blonde girl takes the fact that she is not sent home as confirmation that not only does Ramsay want her in the competition, but probably (in her deluded mind at least) that he wants to impregnate her with his angry little Ramsay-spawn (which, coincidentally, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that they claw their way out of the womb all Alien-esque).  She refuses to see the fact that Ramsay kept asking people for nominations instead of putting mixed up Cyndi on the chopping block, only stopping when blonde girl was standing in front of him.  Delusion is a funny thing.

Next week something happens, I won’t say because I don’t even pay attention to the previews anymore so I have no idea, but whatever the preview said was probably blown way out of proportion.

See you next week!

The Origin of Saint Shanequa

This was actually something we had to learn at orientation, believe it or not (not Saint Shanequa).

I feel like I should probably pray to the patron saint of backgrounds though, as mine seem to be missing in this strip.  

Orientation

Orientation for any job is usually full of a good amount of bullshit.  Work at a Catholic hospital as I did in NJ and you get a huge helping of stuff that doesn't pertain to your job at all.  One of those nuggets of trivia had to do with the saint which the hospital was named for.  We learned all about her, and like Calculus, I have yet to use that information either.  I was a chef at the hospital, yet I was lumped in with nurses, secretaries, janitors, you name it, we all went through the same orientation provided by a very enthusiastic little guy who apparently loved his job.  It was not one of the highlights of my life, we'll put it that way.

Comic Review: Masters of the Universe The Origin of Hordak #1

                It was a light week this week, so I’ve decided to review the newest spinoff from the Masters of the Universe franchise at DC.  This latest attempt to cash in on the successful relaunch of the licensed property brought to you by Keith Giffen on story (with Brian Keene) and pencils.  This is a one shot issue that explores the origin of Hordak, the leader of the evil horde and the current agitator over in the Masters of the Universe regular series.  Now is this a legitimate comic or just a cash grab?  That’s the $2.99 question.

Cover:

                The cover by Keith Giffen actually has something to do with the story and is not just a stock image of Hordak, though it would have been well within the right of Giffen to do it on a number one issue.  For that I give him extra credit.  The artwork is akin to a very rough Jack Kirby, similar to Erik Larsen but not quite as good in my opinion.  The coloring by Hi-Fi is decent, but I would think that Hordak’s “powers” would cast a little more light onto everything around it.  The coloring does follow a bit more of an “old school” type pattern (very flat with little to no definition added) so it actually coincides with the line art nicely in that respect.

                The main problem with the coloring is that everything starts to blend together, especially since they decided to color the sky an orange-yellow color and that just happens to be right behind a bunch of warm colors.  Nothing really pops.  Even Hordak’s “powers” tend to blend a little because everything has a very washed-out feeling to it.

5/10 – A serviceable cover, but not great.  It does the job, and shows a bit of narrative but could be better.  It looks rushed.

Story:

                The story is touted as the origin of Hordak, but when we see him, he is already Hordak.  Has he always looked like this?  Part of me thinks not because the big reveal in the story is that Hordak and Zodac are brothers.  Zodac looks human, at least as far as Masters of the Universe standards are concerned and yet Hordak is some kind of bat/vampire creature.  Something must have happened at some point and yet what we get in terms of an origin is that Hordak is Zodac’s brother.  How did Hordak come to join the horde?  Is Horde Prime still around?  What caused the transformation and how does he consume souls?  That’s the kind of stuff you would assume that an origin story would answer, not prattle on for twenty pages about nothing.  The biggest kick in the crotch comes from  the end, where Hordak looks like he’s all powerful and ready to take over the universe and it says to check out the regular comic for more involving Hordak.  I just spent $2.99 on an ad for the regular comic book.  Awesome.  There isn’t much more to say, this was a blatant cash-grab.

0/10 – You can’t expect me to give you a high mark when there was no real origin story within the pages, just a build up to try and get me to buy the regular series.  I’d say “for shame DC Comics” but you obviously don’t care about comic fans, so I won’t waste my breath.

Art:

                Giffen’s art is not terrible.  I do kind of enjoy how Kirby-esque it is, especially for a story that is supposedly an origin (and even tells you it takes place one million years before the birth of He-Man).  Having the art feel old-school just makes it feel almost like the comic should have come out in the 70’s. 

                That being said, the art is very inconsistent.  The characters looked markedly different from one panel to the next and it can get jarring at times, pulling you completely out of what little story there is to be pulled into. 

2/10 – I wasn’t impressed.  The little Batman silhouette on the second to last page may have been an inside joke by Giffen, but it just illuminates the point that this is a corporate comic released for no other reason than to make more money.

Overall:  1/10 - This may be the shortest review I’ve ever written but I can’t think of a more appropriate comic to throw the towel in on.

Mail Call

Nope, no midgets this time.  I know, you got your hopes up for nothing.

Hell’s Kitchen Episode Fourteen: The Crying Game

                This episode picked up right where the last one left off, at the tail end of the “cook me anything” challenge.  Mr. Mohawk winds up winning by the narrowest of margins over mixed up Cyndi, which means that he has immunity during the next dinner service and cannot be sent home.  There was probably a 95% chance that he wasn’t going home anyway considering the fact that he is teamed up with loud guy and guy with no nickname.

 Hell’s Kitchen is open for dinner service that night, and the teams get right to prepping their stations.   Of course it wouldn’t be Hell’s Kitchen if the blue team didn’t have some kind of an issue.  This one revolves around loud guy, who can’t let go of the fact that Ramsay hated his surf and turf dish (one in which he cut a filet into little medallions, effectively wasting the majority of an expensive piece of meat).  When the shrimp is bigger than the beef in your surf and turf dish, you’re doing it wrong.  However, loud guy just can’t get over it.  This makes him visibly upset, as in crying (in the confessional area and, more importantly, in front of his teammates) and he has to excuse himself from dinner prep to cool down.  Obviously this is an extreme burden on the blue team as they only have two people doing the work that was once done by upwards of a dozen.  Mr. Mohawk knocks some garnish on the floor and they damn near set the place on fire as something got spilled on the stove and neither of the two remaining blue chefs notice smoke billowing from the cook-top as whatever is on it starts to burn.  At this point loud guy has the audacity to come back in and say something to the effect of “I left you guys alone for five minutes and you try to burn the place down”. 

Fuck you loud guy. 

This is no ordinary dinner service tonight as the chef’s tables will be occupied by Maria Menounos  and Jeremy Sisto in the blue and red kitchens, respectively.  So not only will the chefs have to complete their dinner service as usual, but they will also have the added pressure of doing so under the watchful eyes of “celebrities” (and I use that term in the loosest way possible).  The dinner service actually starts out fairly well, the appetizers in the blue kitchen don’t run too smooth but all of the issues are things that can be quickly corrected (under seasoned risotto for example) except for the fact that Mr. Mohawk, who is running apps explicitly calls out to guy with no nickname for two lobster tails to garnish his two risottos.  Guy with no nickname gives him one and then, when caught in the screw up, blames Mr. Mohawk for not telling him he needed two.  Other than that, appetizers in the blue kitchen go flying out (most likely because Mr. Mohawk is managing the station).  The appetizers for the red team run into a little trouble when mixed up Cyndi starts to lag (which is unconventional for her) but she turns it around by the end.  One of the most interesting exchanges happens between Ramsay and squeaky voice as she apparently can’t keep her tongue in her mouth while cooking.  It looks like Michael Jordan dunking a basketball, except it’s a sweaty white girl that has her tongue hanging out while she’s cooking other people’s food, so maybe not like Jordan.  Ramsay calls her a cat because of this and of course the producers insert a typical cat-noise here.  Man, this show isn’t subtle at all is it?

Entrees, oh entrees.  You are often the bane of the chef’s existence in Hell’s Kitchen, and this time was no different.  Not for the red team, mind you, they do a decent job of finishing their dinner service.  Of course when it comes time to make desserts for the diners, blonde girl can’t be bothered, instead sauntering over to Jeremy Sisto to flirt.  She even has the balls to announce to the camera during a confessional that she wanted Sisto to notice her and maybe give her a call.  Yeah, sure.  You just came off a dinner service so you are sweaty and smell like a mixture of different foods, plus you’re not that good looking to begin with (not to mention that trash heap you call your personality) and yet you want this guy that could probably walk out onto the street and have “10’s” throw their underwear at him to give you a call?  That’s cute.  Lady, you’re a Syracuse “5” at best, so in California that knocks you down to at most a “2”.  Get a grip.

While the blue team doesn’t have to deal with a member of their team that is delusional in terms of their chances with a celebrity, they do have two individuals that are delusional in terms of their ability to successfully cook.  Guy with no nickname kept sending up raw fish while loud guy royally screwed up the meat station.  Not only did he send up two beef Wellingtons (at the same time) one being raw and the other dry and overdone, he also didn’t prep enough extras to cover that.  Instead, he avoided telling Ramsay that he needed more time for the Wellingtons as he made brand new ones (a twenty minute wait as they had to be cooked from scratch).  This caused Ramsay to do something I have never seen him do; he actually went to the red kitchen and borrowed two Wellingtons from them so that he could send the table.  It got even worse (I know, you thought that was the worst it could get, don’t feel bad, so did I) as loud guy, on one of the final tables, was asked to prepare one order of lamb.  That’s all well and good, except the lamb that he cooked was burnt all to hell.  It literally looked like shit.  Instead of taking the criticism like a man and just dropping another lamb, he waffled around, trying to deflect the criticism, or soften the blow to his ego.  Ramsay eventually said “fuck it” and went to cook the lamb himself.  Ramsay just muscled his way onto loud guy’s station and finished the ticket.  Of course loud guy couldn’t let it just happen, he tried to help (he was quickly rebuffed by Ramsay) and even had the gall to ask how to cook the lamb, as if he shouldn’t have known that already considering the fact that we are down to the final seven people.  Ramsay turned this around on him (of course) by making fun of him.  “Should I tell you how to wipe your ass” and other such insults flew from his mouth as he finished the ticket, much to the delight of the chef’s table. 

Needless to say that the blue team lost.  Because Mr. Mohawk was safe, guy with no nickname and loud guy were both up for elimination, with Mr. Mohawk providing the recommendation to eliminate guy with no nickname.  Ramsay agrees with this recommendation (though I would have sent loud guy home, if not both of them).  The red team was tasked with coming up with one chef to send over to the blue kitchen (again) and they chose skinny black girl.  While I don’t quite get exiling one of the stronger chefs to the land of misfit toys, I kind of understand the logic in terms of a long-reaching strategy.

This week we witness intrigue, sabotage and Ramsay loses and eyebrow?  What. The. Hell?

                See you next week!