In baseball, a particularly gifted and multi-skilled athlete is called a "Five Tool" player. This means he can hit for average, hit for power, run, field, and do something else which I always forget. In music, they have the "Five Tool" artist. Their skills are creativity, songwriting, humor, virtuosic natural ability, and general ridiculousness. Almost no one exemplifies the five tool artist better than
R. Kelly. Sure, his music is often overblown. At times, unbearable to listen to. He can sound like a pleading loverman one second, a gifted rapper with perfect flow the next, and a grade schooler for the rest of the track. But he channels his diverse, often contradictory talents into music that deserves to be noticed. No one is as constantly entertaining, whether a particular song is "good", "bad", or "shit baby hot". Also, he pissed on an underage girl, and while this shouldn't be encouraged, it is in fact quite entertaining. Next month, after years of delays, Kells will finally face trial for charges stemming from that fateful bladder-busting night. BadmintonStamps will provide updates of the trial. Like, for example, this week's decision to
allow the sex tape as evidence. As he prepares for his day in court, Kelly has been busy launching new chapters of his faucet-scored soap opera
Trapped In The Closet. The New York Times
says you're racist for thinking
Trapped is unintentionally funny (Slate's
article is a more focused look at Kells as the ultimate comic lothario). Watch the
new Trapped chapters, featuring indie rock hero Will Oldham in a cameo, and decide for yourself. Don't forget to catch up on what you've missed/forgot with the "Oh, Shit!" Chapter 12.5. As for Kelly's music, if you don't like "Happy People" than you just don't like yourself, if you don't feel "Freaky in the Club" than you won't be feeling up on SkinnySlim, and if you don't love "Pussy" than you probably are one.
Some time ago, in an epic battle possibly involving our Founding Fathers, the good ol' U.S.A. took on some Mexican general/war lord named Montezuma. I'm not exactly clear on the details of this whole thing, but I do know that whoever this Montezuma character was, we kicked his ass. It may or may not have involved some trickery. However it was done, dude was pissed off. The victory seemed to ensure our country's dominance over our southern neighbors. Now, as a "revenge", this Montezuma character torments our aqua-drinking citizens with a torrid case of the shits whenever they venture into his land. Listen, I hate to admit this, but just like our current international conflict, our country seems to have won the battle but lost the war. So we beat some loony Mexican sword wheeling freak a thousand years ago and made him clean George Washington's wooden teeth with his tongue (again, I'm just taking an educated guess here). Big deal and who cares. Now he is able to affect millions of American lives every year. Sure, killing the dude was a triumph. But this is the equivalent of breaking someone's leg and then having them give you a paper cut every day for the rest of your life. Death and broken bones ain't fun, but nothing is as bad as a lifetime of loose stools and bleeding fingers.
One thing we can all agree upon is that firefighters are hot. And I don't mean hot like on fire literally, I mean hot like on fire figuratively. Look, I'm a red blooded American hetero SkinnySlim, and I have never participated in any homosexual activity. Unless of course you consider fantasizing about myself while staring at photos of myself in skimpy outfits to be homosexual. Personally, I just consider it irresistible. But, as I've said before, if I had to, I mean had to, it would be with Elvis, Mister Clean, or a firefighter. So who could blame the homosexual community of San Diego for cat calling firefighters as they drove their red truck along the Gay Pride Parade route? While the wheels of the red firetruck turned, the wheels of these gay priders turned to thoughts of man on helmet-and-boot-wearing man love. Against the firefighters' better judgement and objections, they were forced to drive the parade route even though they knew harassment was inevitable, albeit understandable. Thankfully, after complaints of inappropriate sexual objectification, the San Diego Fire Department has 
Last Friday night's dance olympics at Fluid (
Comin' atcha first thing every Monday morning, it's The Pony Track, a super-fantastic short distance dedication to BadmintonStamps Collective founding member and internationally renowned symbol for musical excellence Aaron "Pony"
Child. No fancy links, no clever write-ups, 'cause these awesome songs
don't need no splainin'. So c'mon, ride the pony!
Chris Difford is one half of the all-star writing team behind the legendary band Squeeze. Thanks to the undeniable power of BadmintonStamps to draw the finest talent, along with some help from The Big Diff's daughter (apparently my future bride), we were able to sit down with Chris and grill him on music, family, the band's recent sold out reunion tour, and badminton.
Somehow, while nobody was looking, the food industry managed to sell a truly horrendous lie to you, me, and the rest of the world. I'm talking, of course, about the sun-dried tomato. This shriveled red menace has become particularly ubiquitous over the last decade as a trendy topping for pasta dishes, pizzas, and sandwiches. What nobody has the guts to point out is that these things are nothing more than chewy crimson lies. "Sun-dried"? Really? And when was the last time you saw somebody laying tomato slices out in the sun? A heat lamp is not the sun, pal. Nor is an oven. Christ, I'm willing to bet even Martha Stewart pops them thangs in a dehydrator. Yet every single grocery store and restaurant you go to has the audacity to claim that these things were outside working on their tan for anywhere from 
Two things people never want to hear you talk about are what you dreamt last night and the size of an insect that you killed. Take for example the other day. I was telling my mom about this flying mutant roach creature I killed that was scaring the shit out of me in my mom's lobby. This was one of those huge water bug/cockroach things that can fly. If you don't live in a big metropolis you might not know what I'm talking about, but trust me, these suckers are freak-a-leeky. I was like, "Jeez Louise, that thing was huge." Side note: Who the hell is Louise? This poor chick is the scapegoat for everyone. It's like, anything in the world goes wrong and the next thing you know it's either Jesus' fault, Jesus' friend Louise's fault, or more often both's fault. It's unlikely Louise is responsible for even a tenth of the damage she's blamed for. Jesus however, that's another story. Kid's a troublemaker. So anyway, I was like, "Jesus Louiseous, that thing was huge." You would think my mom would care because it pertained to her living space. But instead she just nodded her head and continued molting, distracted by some shiny bright dress or a bit of honey soaked food scrap, or whatever it is that woman mutant bugs are into. Oh, did I forget to mention that my mom had grown antennae and was some sort of hybrid maternal figure/scary Kafka-esque insect demon? Well, she was. Luckily I was able to escape her fangled grasp as I leaped magically from my house, but it wasn't really my house, it was sort of like my house meets the Baltimore Hilton lobby. In sort of some weird future, but it wasn't the future exactly because no one had electricity and there were horse and buggies. But yet there was an escalator. And then I woke up. Thankfully, it was all a dream.
In the future, our homes will have two bathrooms. One will hold the toilet, a sink, a medicine cabinet, and possibly a bidet. The other will feature a bath and a shower, as well as a tasteful wicker dresser with towels, bath mats, and beauty products. In addition, this "clean room" will include such amenities as comfortable love seats, an entertainment center, phone, internet, Sharper Image-esque massage chairs, heated towel rack, etc. It will be more of a luxurious and relaxing powder room, an immaculate private lounge. Separating the toilet from the bath/shower is key, the final step in modern hygiene. Future people will look back at us with disgust, and for good reason. It is disgusting that we shit in the same room that we bathe in, and frankly, you should be ashamed. I know I am ashamed for you. Our descendants will look back and mock us in the same way we mock Abraham Lincoln and his cronies for not using toilet paper. In fact, instead of saying, "Don't shit where you eat", futureheads will exclaim, "Don't shit where you shower", a most progressive and sensible phrase if I do say so myself.
Over at Billboard, Maria T 
'Stamper Alexandra The Plake writes in from Bangkok (!), "it's been a while since i did this, but can i make a badstamps request? i really really REALLY would love it if you posted that song 'common people' by pulp. for some reason it has been my travel jam. and if you wanted to roll my birthday and christmas into one, you could also post 'heavy weather' from the jarvis cocker album..." Consider yourself rolled.
Not content with anything less than total blogosphere domination, XPN guru/
I was listening to some Bongwater last night. Specifically "Power of Pussy" (see photo essay below). You know, "Some have teeth, some have hair, some have soft sweet petals, some look like Cher." The humor, catchiness, artiness, pretty noiseiness, and outright uniqueness made me sad. Sad, I say. 'Cause while 2007 has been an excellent year for the tunes, I realized almost every band is too perfect. And as they say in my favorite movie The Perfectionables, "When everyone is perfect, no one is." Or maybe that's The Incredibles. And they say incredible, not perfect. In fact, I don't think there is a movie called The Perfectionables. But the point remains. Look don't get me wrong - LCD, Stripes, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs bring the old school rock-out weirdness cool the way they should. But I've had it with all these safe, whiny, politically correct, "perfect" bands that don't got no balls. Take for example indie rock stalwarts 
Here at BadmintonStamps, we like to think of ourselves as facilitators (also as P.I.M.P.s, but back to the matter at hand...). We grease the wheels, make the introductions, bring the booze, and then sit back and let the magic happen. So it does our inner yenta a world of good to see that, when we set up two great bands with one another, like we did 
8/10 - Philadelphia, PA @ Sal's (w/ Scary Monster)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - 
Just got back from Canada. Let me tell you, it's definitely not the States up there in the Montreal. Here's some observations about them crazy Canadians:
So much going on tonight. Get out your party-sided dice and roll up a winner.
Undoubtedly, the feel good story in sports last week was 
When I say Badminton, ya'll say Stamps. BADMINTON! (your turn). Wait, what happened? You gotta say "Stamps". I don't care if you're at work. One more time. When I say Badminton, ya'll say Stamps. BADMINTON! (your turn). Well, that was better, but too many of you don't realize this thing is interactive. Not really speaking of interactivity, I'm outta this piece, fools. Going up to "Montreal the Canada" for a couple of days. Be back next week. Enjoy my photo essay tomorrow and try to make it through without me. Okay, one more time. When I say Badminton, ya'll scream Stamps. BADMINTON!
