Cooler than 'Harum Scarum'

What's not to love? Hot chicks, Ottoman czechnopop, and costumes straight out of 'Harum Scarum.' As a certain dead Memphian might utter when the medicine wore off: "Holy moly, mama. Open sesame. Little Elvis is fixing to dance, and he wants some o' that jellyroll ..."

(Thanks to my pal Anthee for this hellacious vid from Hellas.)

How to sell Korean GM cars in Uzbekistan

The new Daewoo Matiz. Or, as they say in Tashkent, "tsivilizatsiya nastupayet."

Nasty payment for "civilization," i.e., the joke's on you?

Czambiry ob Kommerczialichesnaya!

Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Enjoy, or we boil you in oil!



Closer to home: Hrvatska, destination of my next real vacation.

Dinosaur Jr. goes to Estonia?

Here's a band from Eesti that's got that wimpy Amerindie sound down pretty pat. Not sure if the George Will glasses and bowtie are "ironic," or unintentionally sincere, but there's a gory subtext that's downright American neoconservative in its sexual frustration metastatizing into a sanguine denouement.

And, oh: The band is Ursula; that song is named "Heiki."



Here's Ursula with "Tiffer," a more straightforward effort (if post-commie ska can be called "a more straightforward effort").

All hail Serdar Saparmurat Turkmenbashi the Great! (Part 2)

Here's some choice psychedelic political propaganda, from our friends in the Central Asian democracy of Turkmenistan, whose affairs are decided by the decidership of the great and glorious unitary executive Turkmenbashi. You will enjoy, and imagine that if the Republican Party in the United States continues to foist a cult of personality based around the current American Decider In Chief, it needs to step up its game considerably. Karl Rove should watch this, as should Ken Mehlman and others in the Public Relations communitariat.

Instructive lessons can be found. Replace the post-Ottoman pop with the finest creations of Nashville, with added mind-roasting guitar from Ted Nugent, Jeff "Skunk" Baxter and other unitary executive-friendly "rock" guitarists. Also: Boost the eye-catching psychedelic components; if references are required outside of viewing this Turkmenbashi video, ingestion of Amanita muscaria in a controlled setting, such as a golf course, is recommended for Mr. Rove and Mehlman by four out of five Herr Doktor Frists.

This new Bush Our Glorious Unitary Supreme campaign can be aired on all networks as public affairs programming free of charge, but should be tested in front of an audience whose allegiance is already unquestioned, or in less opaque language, it should be rolled out on Fox News every half hour, to document how well the lemmings are edified. This will work. Trust I and I on this.

All hail Serdar Saparmurat Bushmenbashi the Great!

Hummers suck, no pun intended

This video's a few years old, but it drives home an important point: If you want to go four-wheeling, buy a real off-road vehicle instead of one of Governor Arnold's Assclownmobiles. Get a Jeep.

Conservatism = mental illness

Ah, the dangers of mixing neocon politics, alcohol consumption, insouciant stupidity and a video camera. Here we have Polyethylene Pam of the retrograde blog Atlas Buggered, yammering about the current dog's breakfast in the Middle East. Pammy's apparently chubby bait to a certain corner of the wingnutigensia, but then other bloggers, like James Wolcott and TBogg, have a good time at her expense, which is kind of like beating an amputee at hopscotch. And then, surprisingly, certain bellwether starboard-tilting bloggers like Dirk Belligerent either had the good sense to leave Pammy's blog off their hit parade, or else they haven't yet dialed into her half-in-the-bag LawnGuyland Jay-Ay-Pee charms, which might be considerable if you haven't gotten laid in six months or jacked off, and you're pretty drunk and you just did a couple of bumps of biker crank and popped a Viagra for good measure. But that, of course, would be logic-free poontang, if there is such a thing. Anyway, apparently conservatism does equal mental illness, at least in this case.

烟在水 !!!

我认为这是我的新喜爱的带。

轻的保险丝, 离开。抽烟在水在后院露台由兄弟、兄弟、兄弟、兄弟eyecatcher 和娱乐。享用象二只鸭子喧闹的该死的混蛋在油煎的米陪同用黑豆调味汁。愉快愉快。我们现在毁坏您愚笨的美国人以便宜的汽车、feng 水和凶手potsticker 用致死的辣椒烧您箱子短小三天未来。

Light fuse, get away. Smoke on Water at backyard patio by brother, brother, brother, brother eyecatcher and entertainment. Enjoy like two duck noisy fucking in fried rice accompaniment with black bean sauce. Happy happy. We destroy you stupid American now with cheap car, feng shui and killer potsticker with lethal hot pepper that burn you box short three days future.

Love, Albanian style

Sez who that the formerly Enver Hoxha-run Stalinist paradise known as Shqiperia doesn't know pop music from Shinola? As Albanian pop goddess Lori proves here, Tirana can compete with czechnopop emanating from any other former Soviet republic, client state or oblast, and Albanian skanky-chick eye makeup is second to none.



Meanwhile, fellow Shqiperians Sabian ft. Caty demonstrate the latest Albanian disco-hippie styles, circa 1978 Los Angeles. You will experience joy when viewing these videos, or you will please report to socialist re-education camp promptly.

Foxaganda shows you how to stomp them grapes

You've gotta love those perky newscasters. This looks like something our retarded Foxaganda affiliate in Sacramento (KTXL 40) might come up with, but this particular short-bus segment aired on the Foxaganda affiliate in Atlanta. Ow! Ow! Ow! Not sure if this intrepid reporter ended up in a wheelchair, but check out her room-temperature IQ compatriots on the set of "G'Mornin' Atlanta! How Would Yew Lahk Yer Pig Cooked!," especially the male co-host. What an abject moron.

(And don't be alarmed; there's more great czechno to come soon, you one or two people who read Two Wheels Good.)

If I were a rich man ...

必要な説明無し。( No explanation necessary.)

R.I.P. Erik Kleven, great bass player

Sorry this isn't about another Eastern Euro pop video.

Erik Kleven, a guy who was pretty much a local legend, a musician par excellence and a friendly, positive influence on the music scene here in Sacramento, died yesterday in a head-on collision that killed three other people. He was driving up Highway 16, what we locals call the Jackson Highway, through Rancho Murieta in his 1964 Volvo Amazon, most likely headed to a gig in Sutter Creek or Jackson. In the awful photo in our local daily, you can see his bass amp sitting on the pavement next to the trunk of his crushed car.

The last time I saw Erik play, he was providing the low end in Tony Passarell's free jazz ensemble at Old Ironsides, sitting there blowing through a wraparound Sousaphone tuba while saxophones squealed and squawked around him. He played with everybody, and was the most reliable provider of low-end sonics in the region. But I probably saw him appear the most times as the bass player in Anton Barbeau's old band, the Joy Boys.

I was at Anton's show at the Fox and Goose last night when the news hit. Former Joy Boy Creed Maggiora was playing drums, which made me remember Erik and Joy Boys guitarist Don Hawkins, who weren't there. Then Allyson and Kevin Seconds, who were playing in their band Ghetto Moments a block over at Old Ironsides, popped in to pass on what they'd heard, and because I was in the back booth next to the door, I guess I was one of the first in that club to hear about Erik's demise. Which is weird, because you're looking toward the stage and seeing people on it, and seeing people in the crowd, who are having a really good time, and you know that, in a matter of minutes, they will hear the same news you just heard, and they will feel that same wave of awfulness and sadness and incredulous sense of "What the fuck?" that you're experiencing at the moment.

Erik was the kind of quiet but ubiquitous presence who touched a lot of people in life, played a lot of great music, and is touching them now in death. I'm sorry if I'm getting all Sammy Maudlin here, but that's the way it is. R.I.P., Erik.

How's that for a kick in the face?

Too bad guests on those shout shows on Foxaganda News and MSRNC and the Conservative Nitwit Network don't respond to their interviewers the way this guy on a Serbian broadcast did to his interviewer. It would make for Sunday morning shows that are a whole lot more entertaining.

Tweety Matthews: "Well, why aren't you sucking presidential knob like the rest of us?"

Interviewee: "Hi. My name is Crispan Glover ..." [kick!]

I'd watch, just to see Tim Russert or Tucker Carlson get the business end of a Bruno Magli.