I've been watching more movies now than ever since all the strip clubs and dim sum joints in Los Angeles are closed. I caught wind of the Tax Collector like most people a couple months ago when photos of Shia LaBeouf's heavily east-LA-style single-needle tattooed torso started circulating on the internet with claims that he actually got tattooed for his role as Creeper, a debt-collecting gangster in the movie. He even got the name "CREEPER" rocker-style across his abdomen. Well, you barely see the tattoos in the movie, so that was a waste. What made the movie so frustrating was the fact that all of the characters were incredibly interesting and engaging, but the movie rarely dips into any of their pasts and if they do, they only touch upon it at surface level. And nobody really does anything remarkably entertaining or interesting in the first 2 acts. I really wish the script went the way of Goodfellas and got into the origin stories of the families and gangs. Do I recommend watching it? Nah.
I finished these towels and put them up in the store and they IMMEDIATELY sold out. Fuck. I'm currently making more right now and they'll be in the webstore ASAP. If any of y'all got a secret magic Kaczynski buck with your last order, I recommend using it for these towels. They're kind of a pain to make so I don't think they'll be in the webstore for too long. But I'm not gonna lie, they really do class up the bathroom.
I've been revisiting a lot of old music here at the Saigon Drugs office that I used to listen to in my teens. The distro/YouTube-bots have been uploading some real deep cuts and SO MUCH OF IT have OFFENSIVELY LOW views/listens/hits. I'm trying to dedicate each post from now on to uncovering one of these gems that might be lost to history.
Today's song is "Commencement" by Charlie Brown Gets a Valentine.
This punk band was a little too ahead of their time with this 2003 album called "Dismissed." An early release by legendary pop-punk label Whoa Oh Records (who release records by the Ergs!, Lemuria, and the Sidekicks), it's a perfect mix of pop-punk, clean vocals, screams, and incredibly depressing lyrics. The song above, "Commencement", is my absolute favorite song by them. "He wakes up the same time, depressed nobody wants his job. He wonders how and when he'll move on. One good day doesn't make a year when too many draining weeks find you still here. And it's easy to be down on me, lack of confidence and energy. There's got to be more to life than this. The compounding difficulty keeping morale up. The end of the week you know what you're worth. Face-value doesn't yield the things it should." Goddamn, these lyrics are fucking heartbreakers. And this song has an offensively low 20 views! Society should be ashamed of themselves for not loving this band.
