The STD crew is busy telling dirty jokes to each other:

Wife: I dreamed they were auctioning dicks. The big ones went for $10 and the thick ones went for $20.

Husband: How about the ones like mine?

Wife: They gave those away.

Husband: I had a dream, too. I dreamed they were auctioning off cunts. The pretty ones went for a $1000 and the tight ones went for $2000.

Wife: And how much for the ones like mine?

Husband: That’s where they held the auction!

Jay-Z
American Gangster

Kids, selling drugs does pay; it will make you successful and an icon among people. Don’t listen to all the do-gooders who tell you that it’s the wrong thing to do. Listen to Jay-Z and let him describe where to buy drugs, how to sell it and the things that can be bought from all the drug money. Of course, it is plain nonsense, just totally ignore him and play this album real loud on them mobile disco speaker things normal folks call a phone.

– Ben Williams

Mum
Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy

Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy is the same Mum that breast fed high-pitch beeps with sad synthesizers to a graphic designing, Music For Robots crowd, however, Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy does not pack the Toyota car commercial punch that Mum can achieve. But extra points to Mum, after all, they’re Icelandic and possibly the closest trendsetters living near the ever-popular penguins. Only obstacles standing in Mum’s way are savage Eskimos and Sea Lions.

– Kemp Illups

The Soda Pop Kids
Teen Bop Dream

Oh my god, wow! Super-cool! A concept album by a cutesy boy band is endearing, seriously, it’s awesome to play all-age shows throughout America (read: Oregon and Washington, sometimes, California) and sleep in a van. Totally, $20 says The Soda Pop Kids get blow jobs from teenage girls (and boys?) like all the time!

– Chauncey Billups III

Little Brother
Getback

Little Brother AKA 2007’s EMPD have been through so much drama they have now decided to go back to basics and make music from the comfort of their bedrooms. And with a few friends pitching in by helping, who needs a label or a production company when you have the Internets (copyright: G.W Bush)? It’s common knowledge that people don’t even want to make money from music anymore, ah the good ol’ days.

– Ben Williams

Boys Noize
Oi Oi Oi

Holy shit! Germans, they’re good for the following:

– Kinky, kinky sex with leather and large dildos.
– Efficient automobiles made by Nazi-era companies.
– Over-priced, anti-Americana beers.
– Big ol’ titties.
– The color grey.
– Keeping horrible, horrible electronic music alive.

– Yrhovawit Ness

Cassidy
B.A.R.S.: Barry Adrian Reese Story

Wait a minute! Cassidy is possibly gayer than 50 Cent! Firstly, dude makes a song titled, “I Will Never Tell Uh Huh.” Please, please tell me he’s not trying to popularize the phrase “uh huh.” Hey Cassidy, “woops!” you’re an eyebrow plucking rapper. Secondly, this dude’s name is Barry. Fucking Barry! Barry.

– Irving de Melba

Jamel Shabazz
Seconds of My Life

Two weeks ago on the train, I sat next to a man with Tourrete’s syndrome. I knew he had Tourrete’s, because he kept violently shouting “Shitt!” and “Fuckk!” the way sufferers of the disorder often do. They yell differently than the rest of us. Have you ever noticed that? Like, whatever sharp letter within the word they shout – the letter that really clicks off the end of the tongue – gets more action. If I remember correctly, they’re called hard consonants? Yeah. This Tourette’s-man gave his hard consonants a lot of play.

Everything about him was perfectly in-focus: his shaggy, yellowed hair, his protruding round gut, his stiff and starched white collar, the bulky brown UPS package in his lap, his headphones, clipped behind his ears – perhaps he suffers from ear canals too small to house the traditional iPod plugs – even his awkwardly cocked legs cast an interesting shadow. So I scooted a little closer. And a little closer, again. When I was almost perched in the lap of Tourrete’s-man, this fucking fat masterpiece of a man, I overheard his chosen soundtrack through said clip-on headphones:

“Shout, shout, let it all out, these are the things I can do without…”

And in that moment, everything was perfect.

If your medium is film, you are expected to bring exquisite moments to your audience through portraiture. If you can’t do that then you’re not an artist. You’re just a guy with a camera slapping social and racial significance on your personal photo album. Lucky for photographer Jamel Shabazz, art is relative to each of us. So maybe one of you will find yourself strangely attracted to Shabazz’s blatantly posed portraits. I’m going to stick with falling in momentary love with overweight men suffering from Tourette’s syndrome on the CTA. Fuck it. To each her own.

– Auriane de Rudder