Politics | Obama’s selection of Rahm Emanuel as the New White House Chief of Staff
Holy Mother of Christ on a shiny pole! “Rahmbo” Emanuel is Obama’s new right-hand man! This is the man who, during a celebratory dinner after the ’96 election, famously rattled off a list of Judases, screaming “Dead!” after every name whilst striking the table with a steak knife. This is the man who single-handedly engineered the Democrat sweep in ’06, shouting afterward that “the Republicans can go fuck themselves!” This IS THE MAN that the Dems need backing up Obama—a rough-and-tumble brawler that clawed his way to the top through the Mafia-like Chicago political system. He’s like a skinnier, smarter and effusively vulgar version of Karl Rove—except he works for the good guys. It really is motherfuckin’ morning in America.

More Politics | Equal Opportunity Ass Ramming
Last Tuesday was a day of great joy and pride. No longer will Rich Old White Men mercilessly ream us like two-bit crackwhores! Now the door is wide open for men of many races, ages and income brackets to screw us over in infinitely painful ways! Give it a few more years and we might even see Clinton or (GOD FORBID) Palin, wielding the political strap-on for GREAT JUSTICE! And I, for one, can’t wait. Hello, America. I’ve missed you.

CD | Slipway Fires
Razorlight / Mercury
Dear Lead Singer-Type Person Whose Name I Refuse to Learn on General Moral Principle: please button up your shirt, or I will be forced to staple gun your scrotum to your left nipple. You are not a rock star, and your band is only slightly more entertaining than the thought of being sodomized by a large and particularly frisky horse. DIE. Love, America. PS: Also, stay the fuck out of our country.  Thanks.

CD | Xoxo Panda & the New Kid Revival
Her Space Holiday / Mush
The original sad-eyed bedroom popster is back, peddling the same old Sebadoh-tinged pseudo-electronic iMac-Rock we’ve all heard a thousand times before. I can only imagine that this is what a lobotomy would sound like, if your frontal lobe was then replaced by a steaming pile of semen-covered cowshit.

CD | Limbo, Panto
Wild Beasts / Domino
Imagine, if you will, Elton John fronting the milquetoast feel-good pop of Vampire Weekend. Now imagine me gouging out my left eyeball with a spoon, and then inviting every John, Bob and Steve to go ahead and stick their dick in the socket for ten bones. You should now have a vague idea of how I feel about this album.

DVD | Planet B-Boy
Benson Lee / Arts Alliance America
I’ve said this once, and I’ll say it again: I love documentaries. This one makes a strong case that the greatest American export of all time is hip-hop and hip-hop culture. Lee’s focus on five multi-national, multi-cultural crews as they try and grab a hold of the brass ring is both mesmerizing and heartwarming, exuding a sense of urgency and camaraderie throughout.

Book | The Romantic Dogs
Roberto Bolano / New Directions
This nice, melancholy little book collects most of Bolano’s sweetly nostalgic poetry in one single volume. But I’m mostly using it as an excuse to talk about the late great’s magnum opus 2666, which I covered last week. It very well might be the most important novel released in the new millennium, and a shoo-in for Bolano to grab some sort of post-mortem Nobel. Don’t be put off by its epic length; YOU NEED TO READ 2666.

DVD | Sukiyaki Western Django
Takashi Miike / First Look Pictures
Your enjoyment of this movie will depend entirely on how much amusement you can glean from a Western that features a nearly all-Asian cast that speaks entirely in non-native phonetic English, directed by a man gleefully butchering classics like Yojimbo and A Fist Full of Dollars. I personally loved Miike’s trademark absurdist take on a well-worn genre, but your mileage WILL definitely vary.

DVD | Christmas on Mars: A Fantastical Film Freakout Featuring the Flaming Lips
Warner Bros.
I guess I can’t fault the Lips—they’ve been pretty bulletproof ever since they released the spectacular Soft Bulletin. But we can totally call bullshit on Coyne and crew when we see it, and this stuff reeks of it—even more so than the abominable experiment known as Zaireeka. This hilariously bad DVD release is amusing for all the wrong reasons, and is a sure sign that the Lips have been given too much power. Get over yourselves, please.

Film | JCVD The Muscles from Brussels
Landmark’s E Street Cinema
555 11th St NW Washington DC
It’s like this, folks: Jean-Claude Van Damme is Jean- Claude Van Damme in JCVD. The film’s a bit like Being John Malkovich, except people get kicked in the face. In other words, this meta-pseudo-bio-mindfuck is absolutely brilliant, and well worth the drive to catch on the big screen. Who the hell knew that the Muscles from Brussels could act? And who would’ve thought that WWJCVDD would become one of the more poignant questions of our lifetime?

that is one ugly tie, who dresses him his mother.  I thought B.O. said he was for change.