Crispin Glover is touring the country with a movie he directed called What Is It?. The film is best described as a psychedelic bad acid trip that seems to take place in a fantastical middle ages and involves blackface and swastikas. It stars some porn stars, a lot of people with Down Syndrome, and Crispin Glover. I am not kidding. This is the trailer (nsfw). God help us all...

More Crispin goodies? Sure! Here's his music video for "Clowny Clown Clown" from his 1989 album Big Problem Does Not Equal The Solution The Solution = Let It Be. Of course there's the classic Letterman appearance we linked to back in the day. And here's his follow-up appearance a couple years later. Did you know Crispin successfully sued Steven Spielberg in what became a landmark case? He also claims to be a landowner in the Czech Republic. Of course, we all remember Crispin as George McFly in Back to the Future, which can mean only one thing: Huey Lewis & The News.

Over the next couple of weeks, we are honored to have Daniella Elbahara, super cool sexyrock chick extraordinaire and proprietor of La Elbahara, as a guest 'Stamper. Miss Elbahara will be sharing some of her favorite hipster Mexican tunes. It's mucho excellente picante!

Café Tacuba is a Mexican band that to this day remains at the height of quality, originality and tradition within the scene. Their music has always been recognizable, mostly thanks to Ruben Albarran's (the eccentric and petite lead singer) bizarre shriek and the fact that they dress like Mexican hippies with their embroidered tunics and Indian sandals. Their use of typical regional and Mexican instruments also definitely makes their sound unique. This song in particular still makes me get up and dance. I used to wake up to it daily and people still always play it in weddings and birthday parties. I actually just heard it here in New York over at the weekly party by Fresa Salvaje and Nacoteque (which I heartily endorse).

Over the next couple of weeks, we are honored to have Daniella Elbahara, super cool sexyrock chick extraordinaire and proprietor of La Elbahara, as a guest 'Stamper. Miss Elbahara will be sharing some of her favorite hipster Mexican tunes. It's mucho excellente picante!

I met SkinnySlim on the job. He's truly an international man of mystery. Working next to an eclectic mix of ladies in xerox alley, the press quarters, and the infamous green room, he mingled with classic beauties from France, exuberant Italians, a chatty Australian and myself: the neighbor to the south (yes, we Mexicans are everywhere). After sharing musical moments and a couple of cocktails, he asked me about "cool Mexican music". Hmm... well, depends on what you think is cool... but if you want to listen to songs from the other side of the Rio Grande (minus the folk, ranchero, norteńo, cumbia, salsa, and reggaeton), then I'll share 10 of my fave songs, in chronological order...

I was 13 going on 14 and Fobia was one of the only Mexican rock bands that mattered. Critics constantly called them the Mexican version of The Cure. I remember going to their concert at the Monterrey baseball stadium with three girlfriends. We were all dressed in black and our eyes were red due to some extreme black eyeliner abuse. We had shitty seats and I wanted to see Leonardo (the dreamy lead singer) closer, so I opened a hole in the fence and went down to the field. My friends tried to follow, but the cops caught them and kicked them out. Fortunately, I had my dad's "charola," which was a stupid little badge they used to hand out to politicians and political attaches that somehow universally got you out of trouble. Sure it was corrupt, but I got a second row seat, so what the hell.

As Philabuster dutifully noted, there's a hella lot bands out there with exclamation points in their names. We got Panic! At The Disco, Oh No!! Oh My!!, We Are! We Are!, You Say Party! We Say Die!, The Go! Team, and !!!. Hey guys, get those goddamn exclamation points out of your band names and back where they belong: in your song names. See, a great band has range. Sometimes they play a song that punches you in the face with a big fat exclamation point and sometimes they play it soft and sweet, toying quietly with your emotions. Think of these great bands like musical Meryl Streeps. One day they're chewing scenery and hamming it gloriously up in The Devil Wears Prada (exclamation point!) and the next they're playing it subtle and affecting in Out of Africa (no exclamation point. Not even a comma). But a band with an exclamation point in their name has to be "showy" all the time, and risks being typecast. They're sort of like the Fran Drescher of music. Sure, they're funny in Spinal Tap, and their work in The Nanny is acceptable, but you'll never see them rocking some emotional Sophie's Choice accent seriousness. So drop the points from your name and take a page from classic punk band X-Ray Spex. They knew how to rock it exclamation point style better than anyone, but also had the depth to dip into pretty soft stuff. All the more impressive is that they manage this range with a chick who sings like Miss Drescher.

I'm a white man. This means I have all the power in the world and you, being not a white man, have none. We may throw you a bone now and again, but we run this shit and work hard to make sure it stays that way. Us white men have secret meetings held in cigar smoke filled rec rooms in the suburbs. Now usually I don't do this but, ahh, I'm gonna go ahead and break you off with a little recap of last week's meeting. It was the White Man Awards, and this year's big winner was VH1/Viacom for their hit show The Flavor of Love. The reality series centers around scantily clad, uneducated and conniving women fawning over an intoxicated, buffoonish black man named Flavor Flav. Fried chicken is often involved. Back in the day, this type of entertainment was referred to as a "minstrel show". It's good stuff. But what makes VH1's work such a triumph is that Mr. Flav used to be in a political rap group that called for revolution against the white power structure. We've been trying to get after this band of "Public Enemies " for years, with only moderate success (see: Professor Griff). It took the clever minds at VH1 to co-opt the man who once performed the anti-tv manifesto "She Watch Channel Zero?!" (featuring his lines, "You watchin' garbage...just back up from the TV, read a book or something. Read about yourself, learn your culture!") and turn him into television's most successful garbageman. Kudos VH1, on another White Man victory!

The Girlfriend Track is a song that SkinnySlim deems sexy for a lady to feel. We're talking about songs where, if my girl said "Yo, turn this up", I would be turned on.

Hey cutie. No, not you. Although you're not too bad yourself. I'm talking about the one in the back. Yeah, you. By the window. With the red ripped stockings, black skirt and those round doe eyes. Why you ice grilling me? I can see from the Kool Aid pink streaks in your hair, the Cure sticker on your Trapper Keeper, and Public Image patch on your monogrammed Jansport that you're all "Alternative Post Punk" on my ass. I can dig it babe. Trust me, I've been there. But that stare, it ain't Robert Smith moody brooding as much as it's simply hardasscore. I'm talking some straight MOP or Mobb Deep shit. And let me tell you sweetie, it's working. So this one's for you, my Post Punk Gangsta teen crush. Good luck on the Clock Arithmetic exam tomorrow.

In the "Great Black Music Of the Seventies Reissues" category we have Al Green's underrated, and super consistent The Belle Album.

In the same category we have Eccentric Soul's latest compilation Good God! A Gospel Funk Hymnal.

In the popular, "Why wouldn't I just listen to Bruce Springsteen instead of listening to some band that keeps getting compared to him but is pretty forgettable at best and abrasive at worst and really just sounds like the Counting Crows. I mean maybe if I was drunk I would dig it a little, but seriously, 'the album of the year' claims give me a headache and the title and cover makes the whole thing even more atrocious" category we have The Hold Steady's Boys And Girls Of America.

In the Beck category, we have Beck.

My two-plus week secret mission has finally concluded, and it was by all measures a success. I can tell you it involved a little bit of him, a fair amount of her, babysitting his daughter, and taking care of this dude while he vomited. Good stuff, but working day and night can take its toll. My rich Mediterranean skin has faded to a pale off-white and I'm already being referred to by friends and family as "SkinnierSlim". I've also missed out on some of my favorite activities, namely water polo, swimming, pool basketball, Marco Polo, water boarding, badminton, stamps, and BadmintonStamps. But perhaps the greatest (non-pool) activity I've missed is getting dressed up in funny outfits, putting on some loud music, and shaking my moneymaker in front of a mirror. Commonly referred to as "dancing with one's self", the practice dates back to the invention of the player piano, and was famously explored in Doctor Duthmound Singerfrydenschtienerblitzen's classic 19th Century work Das Dance Auf Alone Iz Goodin. The theory states that self-dancing provides an excellent source of exercise, encourages free expression and imagination, and greatly promotes self-esteem. Thankfully I've spent the entire last day partaking, and can honestly say I am refreshed and ready to resume my 'Stamps duties. Let's kick things back off with the theme song to the good doctor's theory, as well as a good track with which to practice the technique.

Over these two weeks, SkinnySlim will be occupied with a top secret mission. He will therefore be unable to provide you with his usual clever musings. To tide you over, he has put together a personal series chronicling his favorite albums from his wild teenage days growing up in New York City.

The search for the out of print album is an art form and adventure gone with the age of the internets and the ebay. More convenient, but at times unfortunate. Take, for example, This Nation's Saving Grace, The Fall's classic mid eighties album. I was curious to pick it up after I heard comparisons to Pavement and Sonic Youth. Thus began a two year search that spanned three countries and countless record stores. Finally I located the disc in a used shop in London. But this wasn't like Pavement or Sonic Youth at all. This shit was scary, hard, and mean . And it wasn't even punk. Not my cup of tea. If I had interneted it, I would have tossed it aside. But because I had searched so long and hard, there was no way I was going to give up on this album. Within a month I was a convert and a fanatic. A college tuition's worth of money spent on countless Fall releases later, and I'm beginning to wish they had ebay when I was a kid.

Over these two weeks, SkinnySlim will be occupied with a top secret mission. He will therefore be unable to provide you with his usual clever musings. To tide you over, he has put together a personal series chronicling his favorite albums from his wild teenage days growing up in New York City.

I didn't want my mom to know I was listening to this parental advisory laden hippity-hop, so after purchasing Illmatic, I threw out the cd case and liner notes and hid the disc in Belly's chick rock album Star. It lays in that case to this day. Nas later starred in a movie named Belly. I choose to believe this is not coincidental. On this song from one of the best hip-hop albums evah, Nas says, "You couldn't catch me in the streets without a ton of reefer, that's like Malcolm X catching the Jungle Fever." As a teen I could really relate to Nas on this point, since we both had a fondness for reefer and black leaders.