Every week, we list our recommendations of new music, books, comics, movies and TV to check out. This is Recs in Effect:

Slim pickins this week, y'all...

New Book

Crazy 4 Cult: Cult Movie Art

I'm a huge fan of Gallery 1988's Crazy 4 Cult series and have bought a handful of pieces and prints from the shows. The combination of brilliant talent, unique visions and beloved films makes it an easy sell for me. Many of these pieces are being collected for this book and I would highly recommend picking it up.

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Stephen Colbert gives the 2011 Commencement Speech at his alma mater, Northwestern University

Today's word of the day is Impetuous:

Via 4GIFs

im·pet·u·ous

[im-pech-oo-uhs]

Ya just got schooled...Stewart-style!

(via Huffington Post)

Sha-na-na-na....

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The English Language is my bitch. Or I don't speak it very well. Whatever.

 - Joss Whedon

Look, I get it. He's a badass dude who made his own way by being the meaner motherfucker. A tough guy that only has two things in the world, his balls and his word, and he doesn't break either. He lives by the sword and dies by it; he goes from absolutely nothing to running most of the world. Like I said - I get it.

But even with that aforementioned stuff, there are four things that pretty much kill any reason why people should emulate Tony "Scarface" Montana. These are aspects of his character that should be "deal breakers" to his ever increasing fanbase, but for some reason people overlook them just so they can speak in a bad/borderline offensive Cuban accent.

There's an obvious appeal to Montana, a reason why Scarface is the idol of millions, but for people that watch Scarface obsessively - it seems odd that these 4 dealbreakers are ignored. Don't get me wrong - a Latin stereotype delivered by the constantly screaming Pacino who whacks Salieri and Robert Loggia is cool. Again, it's a badass thug who makes his own rules and takes nothing from nobody. But to celebrate the movie and character without acknowledging some serious character flaws seems like a pretty dumbass move.

Here's a true story to illustrate my point: a friend of my (then) girlfriend had a foreign boyfriend with a lot of money. He was an odd European fellow, let's call him "Don," who came from a lot of money, hobnobbed with the elite in society and eventually begin traveling with a bodyguard. One time we're all at a birthday party at a bar and Scarface is playing on several television screens. Don can't stop watching it, no matter how much people try to engage him in human interaction. Now I hate interacting with people and, worse yet, I'm bad at it. But I can talk movies with anyone. So I start asking him "oh you like this movie?" and he responds "oh man i love it. it's the best. it's like - live like that, right?" To which I nervously chuckled and realized I needed to escape this conversational cul de sac toot suite. A few months later, Don was indicted on a number of felonies and spent some time in the clink. Oh and that money he had wasn't there either, and he has fallen from grace in a spectacular, if a bit ignoble, fashion. My point, and the reason for my awkward reaction to his adoration of Scarface, is that if you model yourself after Scarface - your life is fucked.

So keep sampling the movie, rappers, and hanging the poster up in your dorm room, frat boys - but next time you introduce people to "your little friend," think of these 4 Reasons why Scarface is a pretty shitty role model to have.

[SPOILERS for a 28 year old movie that has been referenced and riffed on ad nausem lie AHEAD]

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Keith Doughty discusses songs, albums and artists that are unappreciated, unknown, and/or unfairly-maligned by the general public. This is Hidden Tracks.

The Zombies - "Beechwood Park"

And the breeze would touch your hair
Kiss your face and make you care
About your world
Your summer world

When people look back at the British Invasion of the 1960’s, the groups that immediately come to mind are The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who and perhaps The Kinks. Of course, many other groups were part of the British Invasion, they just tend to be forgotten because they didn’t achieve the level of success that these groups did (remember Herman’s Hermits?). The Zombies are another example of a semi-forgotten British Invasion band. In 1965 The Zombies had two top-ten singles in the US: "She’s Not There" and "Tell Her No." During the next couple years The Zombies released several singles that couldn’t replicate their earlier success. Believing that they were unlikely to make it in the music business much longer, in 1967 The Zombies got together to record what they decided would be their final album.

That album, Odessey and Oracle, was released in 1968 to little or no fanfare and the group broke up shortly thereafter. Strangely, a year after its release the album’s last song, "Time of the Season," became a big hit in the US. Although it wasn’t enough to bring the full band back together, various incarnations of The Zombies have toured over the years and "Time of the Season" is still a staple of classic rock radio stations (or are they Oldies stations now?).

Still, even though many people have heard "Time of the Season," the Odessey and Oracle album itself tends to get overlooked. That’s a shame because it’s an amazing record, easily one of the best pop albums of the 1960s. I strongly encourage everyone to listen to the entire album, however I’m going to spend the rest of this post highlighting one of my favorite songs from the record.

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Today's word of the day is Proficient:

Via 4GIFs

pro·fi·cient

[pruh-fish-uhnt]

L'chaim, Everlast! Here's a Klezmer/House of Pain mashup by DJ FAROFF:

In a world...

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[Veronica Mars] solves little puzzles because she, like all of us, cannot unravel the bigger ones.

- Joss Whedon

I logged in to Facebook and saw something from a tangential friend (we haven't spoken in years) on my wall. I responded in a nerdy, snarky fashion:

 

Then I was told "you just said she's gonna fail the bar exam" so I quickly deleted my comment and felt bad. But for one glorious moment, I was a random snarky troll...

Via Huffington Post