In a strange break with tradition, Bork will be starting this month’s edition of "Now Playing" instead of yours truly, good ol’ #716. Borkus, I bestow unto thee the mantle of Player One. Use it wisely.
Player One: Wo Ist Das Bork?
Ohoohoohoo! Sweet Seraphim, sweet, sweet Seraphim! My darlin', how I do love thee.
Ahem,.. uh, sorry. #716 made me do that because he beat me in a game of thumb-wrestling. Anyway, WARHAMMER! Play it! Now. Seriously. It's fun at the beach, man.

Okay, I give up. I thought for sure that this CD would allow me to make countless, shameless, uncouth jokes about mentally retarded special education students. Oh, don’t act like I’m so terrible. You know damn well you’ve done your “hilarious” retard impersonation at parties, and laughed that insensitive laugh when you see that McDonald’s commercial where the kid’s like, “Yer pie’s up!” You’re human, and humans are bastard people.

Sometimes you can’t explain why you like certain things, certain records. You just know that they’re beautiful. You listen to them, and get totally lost in them. Your world gets walled in by what’s coming out of your speakers, and nothing can break your concentration. Ten minutes after the record has ended, you realize it’s over. You snap out of your little coma, and start it again, because you like where it takes you.

Love hip-hop? Too poor to buy turntables and a closet full of vinyl? No problem! You got a mouth, right? (Sorry if you don’t.) That’s all you need.

If you’re looking for a feel-good, life-affirming drama, look no further than Mike Newell’s latest film, Mona Lisa Smile. Set in the post-war 1900s, Mona Lisa Smile stars Julia Roberts (Sea Biscuit, Black Beauty) as Katherine, a rather liberal art history professor hired on at an all-girls' school. A highly conservative all-girls' school, mind you. And to make challenges worse, her students are some of the most intelligent people in the country. And they’re all girls.

From The Labor Day EP press release:
“These tracks deal with the frustrations of media deception, the demons of anxiety and depression, and in ‘Punk Life’, through the structure and inspiration of Biggie Smalls’ ‘Juicy’, following your dreams and the heroes that play in them.”
Yeah, you read that right. “Biggie Smalls”. High-five on that one. I mean, how often do you read about a punk band pulling inspiration from one of the most popular MCs of the last 20 years? Exactly.

If Diverse ever loses his wallet, you’ll know how to find it. Just look for the one with “Bad Motherfucker” branded into the leather. That’s his. He’s goddamn Shaft on the mic, kids. When the beat’s aggressive, he’s aggressive. When it’s laid back and introspective, he’s laid back and introspective. And lyrically, he and Aesop Rock could be similar-styled tag team champions. It’s fast, thick, and full. Nothing sounds forced or unnecessary. It all just works, damn near perfectly.

Greeting us from the icy land of back bacon and toques are Canada’s own Despistado, a group of jangly-guitared indie-rock ass-kickers. Their six-song EP, The Emergency Response, is an energy-packed powerhouse of terrific tunes.

For movie-goers: If movies could have sex, and Tim Burton’s early work got O Brother, Where Art Thou? pregnant, this would be the baby: a little CD called Mountain Dudes.
For music-lovers: If Bad Brains grew up in the mountains of West Virginia, and sacrificed their distortion pedals for banjos and fiddles, Mountain Dudes would be their CD.

This book should be required reading in every high school and college across the country. Why? Because it would educate otherwise ignorant peoples to things they would never be exposed to. That’s the biggest reason that the vast majority of people actually enjoy (and only enjoy) things like MTV, Must-See TV, and commercial radio stations. They just don’t know any better.