John Beck

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

-Theodore Roosevelt

The brand new official video for David Lynch’s Crazy Clown Time. Not weird at all.

Hello Newman! Ryan Newman wins at the 1/2 mile short track Martinsville Speedway. At one point during the race Newman was a lap and a half down and wasn’t looking good. However, he never gave up and slowly worked his way back onto the lead lap and at the last restart with 2 laps to go he found himself in 5th place. The 3rd place car dive bombed the leader and the second place car after they didn’t get going fast enough. They went three wide and all made contact, Newman shot down low and avoided it all and took the lead. At the last restart Newman held off the #22 car for the win. It was so exciting! GO NEWMAN!!!

The HOTTEST art exhibit on the East coast is happening THIS SATURDAY in Asbury Park. Did you see all those capital letters? That’s how HOT this is! Christopher Lucania does some great multi-media work (see the samples I included? I’m not kidding).

See what I mean? The thing is, as amazing as these look, they look even MORE amazing in person. Expect a whole lot more than this at the exhibit. Right? I don’t know what you’re waiting for, just clear the time slot already.

Ok, if you really are waiting for more then here it is. Besides the incredible artwork there will also be a special musical guest. WHAT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? No, i’m not kidding. TEEEL is performing!!! Holy SHIT! I’ve never seen this much awesomeness in one location before! I mean, seriously, look what Teeel has done:

Ok, I know what you’re thinking, “So, Teeel got lucky with one track”, I say “BOLLOCKS!” Here’s another example:

DAMN!!!!!!

So, QUESTION: Where are you going to be Saturday night? ANSWER: In Asbury Park at this art exhibit!

Here is the official invitation. If you click the link it will take you to the Facebook invitation page. Spread the word, link the Facebook page, link this blog entry. SPREAD THE WORD. I know what I’ve showed you should be enough to bring in the masses but the word needs to get out. LETS GO MINIONS, TAKE ACTION!

Happy New Year everyone! 2011 was another great year for music, movies and tv! Well, some good TV, some great movies and a whole lot of great music! Here’s a wrap up of what I liked this year.

First. Movies. My 2 favorite movies of 2011 are Midnight In Paris and 50/50. I’m a huge Woody Allen fan so I may be biased with my love for Midnight in Paris, but he has a movie out every year and they usually don’t make my list. I found Midnight In Paris to be very creative and intelligent. Maybe it’s because I’m an art major and anyone with an art history background will love all the references in it. Plus, it’s good to see a funny and entertaining film with an original idea and without all the toilet humor that’s so easy to do and so common in most comedies. My other favorite film of the year is 50/50. Based on a true story. I found it very sad and very funny. I don’t normally like Seth Rogen. I think he’s an awful leading man, in supporting roles he’s always the deadbeat stoner and it’s just kind of annoying. He’s ok in very small doses. His character in 50/50 was still a pot smoking hippie but there’s something that he has that was missing in his other films, charm. I found him charming and he was a great friend to the main character played by Joseph Gordon Levitt. It is a truly great film and I highly recommend it.

I thought Melancholia was amazing. The opening was visually and beautiful (similar to Tree of Life). The first part to the film was good. The second part was where this film really succeeds. That part was so damn interesting and has one of the most bleak and hopeless endings in any film. Very good. I also really like The Tree Of Life. I think as far as movies go, you can’t find a better made and more gorgeous looking film than this. It’s all about life and death and it’s a very powerful film. Absolutely loved A Separation. I loved all the twists and lies, great story, excellent film. I surprisingly liked the film Contagion, I found it freaky scary and creepy. Ides of March was decent. I believe Source Code was also 2011. I really liked that one too. Great pace, kept interest the whole time and left you thinking. I may update this entry again, I still really want to see The Descendants, The Skin That I Inhabit and Shame.

TV. Curb Your Enthusiasm was hilarious. A lot of hilarious moments. Especially the Buckner episode. It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia was also hilarious. I’ll never forget the imagery of what happened under the boardwalk at the Jersey Shore. It will always haunt me. Parenthood always has top notch acting. Breaking Bad had some excellent moments. Louie was very good. Falling Skies had some good moments. Games of Thrones was alright. Boardwalk Empire was ok. Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe and Oddities are always very good shows. Wasn’t crazy about the final season of Entourage. It felt forced. I liked James Spader’s character in The Office. I liked the mystery behind him but the show itself fell flat. The new season of Harry’s Law was much better than the first season. I look forward to more of that. The New Girl is starting to grow on me. Zooey Deschanel can grow on me anytime, he oh! Even though the new season of Beavis & Butthead is completely immature I found myself laughing out loud at times, I’m embarrassed. Bored to Death was good, shocked that it was cancelled. Probably the best character Ted Danson has ever played. I loved the suits he wore in it. Dexter was very good, some great imagery this season but I really think they’re stretching too much. It’s time to wrap that show up, just like I’m going to wrap up talking about my favorite shows of the year.

Onto the music. I’m going to try something differently than I’ve done in the past. I just mentioned my favorite albums (and a few EPs) of the year with usually a little talk about my top favorites. This time I think i’m going to make a list in a general order of preference. Here’s my top 50 albums of the year. There is a lot of good stuff that didn’t make the list and I feel bad but, hey, it just didn’t make the list!

1. Panda Bear – Tomboy (The track ‘Last Night at the Jetty’ might be my favorite track of the year)
2. Planningtorock – W
3. tUnE-yArDs – W H O K I L L
4. Tim Hecker – Ravedeath, 1972
5. St. Vincent – Strange Mercy
6. James Blake – James Blake
7. Youth Lagoon – The Year of Hibernation
8. M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
9. Gauntlet Hair – Gauntlet Hair
10. PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
11. The Weeknd – House of Balloons
12. Destroyer – Kaputt
13. Niki & The Dove – The Drummer
14. Gang Gang Dance – Eye Contact
15. Cold Cave – Cherish The Light Years
16. Peaking Lights – 936
17. Lykke Li – Wounded Rhymes
18. Saint Saviour – Anatomy
19. James Blake – Enough Thunder
20. Memory Tapes – Player Piano
21. Cults – Cults
22. Grouper – A I A : Alien Observer
23. Emika – Emika
24. John Maus – We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves
25. Timber Timbre – Creep On Creepin On
26. A Winged Victory For The Sullen – A Winged Victory For The Sullen
27. Nicolas Jaar – Space Is Only Noise
28. Austra – Feel It Break
29. Puro Instinct – Headbangers in Ecstasy
30. Zomby – Dedication
31. Grouper – A I A : Dream Loss
32. Holy Other – With U
33. Oneohtrix Point Never – Replica
34. Grimes/D’eon – Darkbloom
35. Kate Bush – 50 Words For Snow
36. Holy Ghost! – Holy Ghost!
37. Washed Out – Within and Without
38. Cascadeur – The Human Octopus
39. Lana DeL Rey – Video Games
40. Toro Y Moi – Underneath The Pine
41. Anna Calvi – Anna Calvi (you must hear her cover of ‘Surrender’)
42. Tom Waits – Bad As Me
43. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (soundtrack)
44. Current 93 – HoneySuckle Æons
45. Blue Sky Black Death – Noir + Violet
46. Björk – Biophilia
47. David Lynch – Crazy Clown Time
48. The Antlers – Burst Apart
49. SBTRKT – SBTRKT
50. Zola Jesus – Conatus

Santa (and family) got me some really great gifts for Christmas. Here’s the list:

Gran Turismo 5 video game, The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan book, Japanese Prints (Tashen edition) book, American Optics Original Pilot sunglasses, a light up Baltimore Ravens window decal, a nice minimal case for my iPhone 4s, a CAO Italia cigar and a bottle of sparkling wine!

All great gifts!

Here’s a picture of me with some of the Christmas cards that I received from friends and family.

Here’s a picture of my nephews with Santa Claus. I think it’s a brilliant picture. I love the looks on everyone’s faces and the letter to Santa on G’s lap. It’s a great picture deserving of attention.