The News is…

The worst thing can be said about Chinese Democracy is that its not the wall to wall heavy metal onslaught suggested by the early release of the title track. On the other hand, it very well may be the best album of the year.

Once a rock band reaches a certain level of success, they just cant win. If they try to keep growing as artists by exploring different sounds, influences or whatever they’ll hear people whining about wanting things the way they used to be. A lot of purists hated it when KISS took off their makeup, but they deserved respect for doing something different and trying to forge a new artistic path. On the other hand, if a band *doesn’t* do anything new and keeps playing their old stuff in the same way ad nausium they’re branded as a nostalgia act. Think KISS now”Gene Simmons eventually made the calculated, slightly cynical decision that commerce trumped art. Hes now content with giving fans the best representation of the KISS that their nostalgic desires long for”to the extent of dressing a new guitarist and drummer up like Ace Frehley and Peter Criss. Hes not breaking new ground as an artist, but he is backing a Brinks truck up to the Simmons household every night.

Axl Rose could have taken the same route with Guns n Roses. All he needed to do was patch things up with former lead guitarist Slash and the two of them and whatever supporting players they recruited could have toured forever playing the old songs in the old way and make a ton of money along the way. To some extent, Slash has chosen this route with his band Velvet Revolver. They play similar blues based hard rock to vintage GnR, and brought in former Stone Temple Pilots vocalist Scott Weiland on vocals (who sounded almost just like Axl on a number of the early STP songs) Never mind the fact that everything Velvet Revolver has ever recorded sounds the same, or that the band members are all well in their 40s and a little old to be doing the rock n roll gypsy routine.

Axl refused to play the nostalgia game. He deserves credit for this, but he doesnt have much of a knack for self promotion or media spin. For that reason, there are plenty of people including media and critics that have predisposed to hating this album before it was released or even having heard any of it.

In many ways, its reminiscent of the Use Your Illusion releases in its depth and complexity. Many albums are fairly straightforward and are easy to figure out with a couple of listens”this song rocks, this is the power ballad, this song is filler and so forth. Others evolve and change with repeated listening”different songs become your favorites, you notice new things about ones you thought you knew well and most significantly songs that you glossed over the first time around start to grow on you.

On Chinese Democracy is definitely an album that lends itself to repeated listening. A great case in point is the song ‘Better’ It doesn’t really jump out on first listen, but may be the catchiest pop song since The Killers first album.

One of the real triumphs of Chinese Democracy is the difficulty that a listener has in pigeonholing the songs. There’s definitely a lot of the Elton John-esque piano material first heard on the ‘Use Your Illusion’ releases but overall its evident that the band is breaking entirely new musical ground and even they don’t really know where they’ll end up.

Perhaps the worst thing about ‘Chinese Democracy’ is that a number of the songs have clearly been overproduced–not really surprising for an album that took so long to make. The best example of this may be ‘Madagascar’–the band has been playing this song live for almost a decade, but the finish product doesn’t have the same ‘edge’ or emotion that has been on display during live performances.

That’s a minor beef, however, about what is overall an amazing album. If you’re one of those who’ve bought into all of the anti-Axl media hype the best suggestion I can make is to try and put aside all of your prejudices, preconceptions, and misgivings and just listen to Chinese Democracy. There’s nothing nostalgic about it, just the sound of a great band breaking new ground.

Ross Everett is a respected freelance writer who covers travel, casino gambling and sports handicapping. He is a staff handicapper for Anatta Sports where he is responsible for providing daily free sports picks. In his spare time he enjoys fine dining, fencing and deep sea diving. He lives in Las Vegas with four dogs and a pet coyote.

The video game is now a ubiquitous part of American pop culture but pinball still holds a cachet of cool. Pinball went through a few lean years during the early years of the video boom, when designers tried to cram as much stuff onto the playfield as possible, perhaps feeling the clutter was needed to replicate the video game experience. In recent years, however, designers appear to have concluded–and rightly so–that pinball cannot be a video game, nor should it want to be.

A great game of recent vintage is the 1997 Bally release “Cirqus Voltaire”. The theme is sort of a ‘Cirque du Soleil” on acid, and the iconography of the circus that they cram into the design and play of the game is amazing. The ultimate object of the game is to “join the cirqus”, which, of course, is a classical American archetype of freedom and escape. Yet this “Cirqus” is not a Norman Rockwell vision of juvenile fun–there are a lot of sinister undertones as well, including evil ringmasters and an almost palpable feeling of sleaze.

The game play offers a lot of what we’ve come to expect from Williams/Bally, with sweeping ramp shots, clever uses of time-worn features (like the disappearing pop bumper, reincarnated here as a balloon. As is very common with pinball games today, the game’s ultimate object is to work your way through a variety of ‘modes’. Sometimes this is a confusing endeavor, but here is very easy to understand–yet still very challenging to the player.

At its nadir, pinball companies were cranking out games featuring themes and subjects that offered little, if any, synergy with game play. The low point might have been some of the celebrity tie-in games of the early eighties (which gave the world debacles like a Dolly Parton and Roy Clark tie-in). “Cirqus Voltaire” may represent a high point of thematic unity between game subjects, aesthetic design and play experience. It offers an otherworldly interpretation on a circus, with subtext, nuance and detail.

The really great thing about the game is the multiple levels of contextual awareness it offers. A slack jawed yokel can play it and just think its a nice game about the circus. To a cleverer player, it alternately provides a celebration and condemnation of the circus and, deeper still, of the popular culture that spawns and embraces them.

Ross Everett is a widely published freelance writer who covers travel, casino gambling and sports handicapping. He is a staff handicapper for Anatta Sports where he is responsible for providing daily free sports picks. In his spare time he enjoys fine dining, falconry and deep sea diving. He lives in Southern Nevada with four dogs and a pet coyote.

New York Jets rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez tracked down NFL legend Joe Namath before the game looking for a pep talk and some pointers. What the NFL Hall of Famer told him had a very beneficial effect. Sanchez looked very decidedly not like a rookie as he threw for 272 yards and a touchdown against one interception. More importantly, the Jets easily beat the host Houston Texans 24-7.

NFL sports betting enthusiasts who took the Jets as +4 road underdogs cashed their tickets with the outright win. New York improved to 10-8 ATS as an underdog over the past three NFL seasons. The combined 31 points scored went UNDER the posted total of 44. The Jets have a slight UNDER bias over the past three years overall at 15-18, while they evened their total mark as an underdog at 9-9.

After the game, Sanchez recounted what Namath had told him in his ersatz pep talk:

“What a pep talk. That was Joe Namath, just taking all the credit from himself and throwing it back to me and just saying, ‘Good luck.’ To hear that from a legend like that, it just kind of gives you the chills. It was something special to be a part of, an emotional start, an emotional little pep talk.”

For his part, Namath said he wasnt surprised:

“No, I was hopeful and I’m satisfied more than I thought I’d be. His offensive line did a hell of a job, but he did a great job of finding time with his feet, just to move subtly … I don’t doubt even a little bit that he doesn’t have poise at this stage.”

The Jets defense also had a great afternoon. New York outgained Houston 462-183, and the Texans made it past midfield only once in the first three quarters. The Jets run defense was particularly stifling, holding Steve Slaton to just 17 yards on the ground. Afterwards, Slaton couldnt believe what had just happened:

“It’s just insane. You work for six months leading up to this first game. You have all offseason to prepare for this game and then to come out and play like that is upsetting.”

Texans coach Gary Kubiak took the blame for his teams poor showing:

“The offensive football team gave us no chance and that starts with me. There’s nobody that can feel anything good coming out of this football game.”

Houston will start from scratch on Sunday as they travel to Nashville to face the Tennessee Titans. The Texans will return home for games the following two weeks against the Jacksonville Jaguars and Oakland Raiders. The Jets will play their next two games at home, beginning this weekend against the New England Patriots. Theyll welcome the Tennessee Titans to the Meadowlands the following week.

Ross Everett is a freelance sports writer and highly respected authority on sports betting odds comparison. He writing has appeared on a variety of sports sites including sportsbooks and World Cup betting sites. He lives in Southern Nevada with three Jack Russell Terriers and a kangaroo. He is currently working on an autobiography of former interior secretary James Watt.