TEAM LAST CALL

Today we are here to say that we were wrong, and we're not just saying that because Dr. Pepper stubbornly refused to mail us a free case after our article came out.

Just kidding. Of course that's why we're saying it.

The problem is that Dr. Pepper has completely failed to grasp the fundamentals of the journalism business, in which Team Last Call is clearly a frontrunner. See, we in the journalism field don't really make what people on Wall Street refer to as "money." Because of that, we are forced to live almost exclusively on free handouts from the companies we write about. Otherwise, like, why would we write about them?

Speaking of which, don't you think that Krispy Kreme doughnuts are the best doughnuts ever created in the history of all doughnuts everywhere? We sure do. If we could, we here at Team Last Call (22 East McGovern Avenue, Lancaster, PA 17602) would eat Krispy Kreme doughnuts for every meal.

That's not to say that companies should be shy about sending free handouts before an article is written. The formula works just as well in reverse: the more willing you are to give out freebies, the more willing we journalists are to write about you. Which explains why Paris Hilton gets so much press. (Nice one!)

Here's an example of journalism in action: A few years ago, Team Last Call dedicated an article to its favorite lunchtime treat, the pineapple chicken wrap. Within a few weeks, an enormous platter of pineapple chicken wraps was delivered straight to our door, free of charge, courtesy of a completely anonymous source (Sandwich Factory). Team Last Call was exceedingly grateful for the kind gesture, and would like to take this time to reiterate that our favorite lunchtime treat is still the pineapple chicken wrap. If anything, it's gotten even more delicious over the years. Just thinking about eating (a free) one right now is making us drool.

That's what we call teamwork, people.

You would think that by this point a corporation as big as Dr. Pepper would know how to play "the game." It's not like we're asking for any kind of special treatment. These are universal rules that every journalist plays by, which explains why Bill O'Reilly spends so much time doing news segments on adult diapers. Or maybe he doesn't. We don't really know. But he probably should, because it would save him a lot of money.

Anyway, this whole situation is a real shame, because Diet Dr. Pepper Berries & Cream Soda had a lot going for it, including an especially long name that really helped with our word count. But we're afraid we've been left with no choice. Dr. Pepper has violated a sacred trust, and for that reason, we are officially stripping Diet Dr. Pepper Berries & Cream of its title as the "greatest beverage ever in the history of planet earth."

Look at it cover its face in shame! That's what you get, Dr. Pooper!

But there is a silver lining to this whole situation. We are pleased to announce that, once we recovered from Dr. Pepper's disgusting show of insolence, we discovered a new "greatest beverage ever in the history of planet earth," one that not only has a great taste, but, we're assuming, is willing to send us free stuff. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you: Glacéau VitaminWater Endurance (Peach-Mango).

Like Diet Dr. Pepper Berries & Cream, Glacéau VitaminWater Endurance (Peach-Mango) has a long name that helps us reach our word count much faster, especially if we keep repeating its name, which is Glacéau VitaminWater Endurance (Peach-Mango).

It also has a delicious flavor that we can't quite put our finger on. It tastes like peach, but at the same time, it somehow tastes like mango. It's like some kind of space-age mango/peach hybrid, like something Captain Kirk would find on the planet Meach in the distant galaxy Pango.

Glacéau VitaminWater Endurance (Peach-Mango) also has six totally different vitamins, which do lots of good, vitaminy things to your body. Dr. Pepper, on the other hand, has aspartame, which has been proven to cause – among other things – diarrhea, hair loss, hives, memory loss, nausea, hearing loss, tremors and death. And stinginess.

Clearly, Diet Dr. Pepper Berries & Cream has met its match. Not only does Glacéau VitaminWater Endurance (Peach-Mango) have a long name, a futuristic taste and an abundance of vitamins, but it totally doesn't give you the runs. Or hives. Or death.

Over the course of its last three albums, New York’s Blonde Redhead has morphed from a Sonic Youth-ish garage outfit into an atmospheric art-pop band that marries My Bloody Valentine’s droning guitars with the immediacy and imagination of pre-weirdness Radiohead.
To translate that into radio lingo, imagine Björk covering Coldplay, and then imagine that you just took a fistful of Ecstasy and are being washed away in the disco lights of a smoky nightclub, and that’s what Blonde Redhead sounds like.
The band’s newest release, 23, picks up where 2004’s Misery Is A Butterfly left off – trading in some of the melancholy for a new and curious energy. It’s a real indie-rock stunner, driving but dreamy, dense but not overstuffed, and absolutely cinematic in scope.
“We love film and we love soundtracks. We listen to soundtracks when we write. There’s a beauty in being able to imagine certain things while you write music, imagine pictures, imagine scenery,” explains drummer Simone Pace. “It’s hard to explain because I feel like it’s something that we have in us. I think our music could very well be written for film.”
On 23, the band’s co-vocalists, wife and husband Kazu Makino and Amedeo Pace, trade off spooky, space-trance melodies that wade through thick curtains of guitar. It’s at once firmly melodic and loosely psychedelic. The songs are propped up by Simone’s peppy, off-kilter dance beats, which illustrate just how much influence Blonde Redhead has had on younger NYC bands like Interpol, the Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
The album is about as close to a pop record as a band like Blonde Redhead can make without totally bastardizing its sound. The songs are “get-able” on the first listen, thanks in part to a more economical approach to song structure, but on my seventh time through the album I swear I’m hearing songs I’ve never heard before in my life.
According to Simone, who checked in with Team Last Call in mid-July, the songs on 23 are mostly the result of the band members trying to concentrate as much on form as they were on creativity.
“We have a lot of talks before we start writing, actually. We talk about what it is that we want to do with the new album and how different it should be from the previous one. What’s the next stage, the next step for the band?” he explains in a soft Italian accent. “But a lot of it you think you’re deciding, but a lot of it just happens unconsciously.
“With Misery, we made ourselves free and kind of accepted as many ideas as possible that we could put into the music. This record, we kind of just stopped ourselves from going to that place again,” he adds. “We wanted the record to be more direct, but also to leave more freedom for the listener to imagine – without giving him all of the things to listen to – certain things on his own terms, with his own ears.”
Blonde Redhead’s story is almost as compelling as the music itself. The members are an interesting, if not unlikely, match, and their meeting up is nothing short of serendipity.
Kazu was an art student who immigrated to America from Japan to experience a different culture. Amedeo and Simone are twins who were born in Milan, grew up in Montreal and moved to Boston to obtain jazz degrees.
The three met each other by chance in a New York City restaurant. Shortly after that meeting, Kazu began taking guitar lessons from Amedeo. Then they all started a band. Then Kazu and Amedeo got married. And now, 14 years later, all three members still live together in a New York apartment.
“I spend most of my time with a couple, you know, which – you can imagine what that’s like,” Simone says with a laugh. “You really have to understand the situation and be respectful of some boundaries. I’m very close to Amedeo, but it’s a struggle. It’s not an easy thing. But we have lasted for many years now. I think we have a pretty good handle on it.
“Sometimes I feel like, ‘Gosh, I wish I could have my girlfriend with me when I go away,’” he laments. “But I think the trick is to try to find your own place and be happy within that place, and without thinking that somebody else is better off.”
Blonde Redhead has been a critical darling since almost day one, and that’s more than likely the way the band will go down in history. Rocking 60,000 people at Coachella is about as close as they’ll ever get to being an arena act. That being said, the band has a fiercely loyal fan base around the globe of the kind of indie rock kids and art freaks that will stick around as long as the band does.
“We’re always thinking about, ‘How do we improve? How do we get better musically? How do we help our audiences grow?’ But it’s not like we’re in control of the situation,” Simone says. “But it’s a pretty organic way of approaching the whole thing. We have had a really slow growth, but it hasn’t really stopped. It’s been kind of gradual, and hopefully it will keep growing.”

Our plan, to the best of your knowledge, was to visit lots of European libraries, cathedrals and museums in order to expand our cultural horizons, further enabling us to report on global issues with the kind of fair and balanced approach you have grown to expect from Team Last Call.

But you know what's really boring? Libraries, cathedrals and museums. So instead, we went to a pub.

While we didn't technically "see any historical sites" or "eat any exotic foods" or "stop drinking beer for more than half an hour," we did sometimes watch foreign news reports on TV. Because the bartender wouldn't change the channel.

But you know what's a real downer? Foreign news reports.

"War in Iraq," blah, blah, blah.

"Global warming," blah, blah, blah.

"Genocide in Darfur," blah, blah, blah.

Hey, foreign press. Are you doing anything later? Because we're having a party, and it would be awesome if you could stop by and make everyone want to kill themselves.

It wasn't until we got back to our hotel and turned on an American news station that we were able to find a news story of any relevance – a story of real global impact, a story that illustrated both the starkness of the human condition and the promise of the great American dream: Paris Hilton's arrest.

The story was on virtually every American news channel we could find – CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN. Meanwhile, what were the European news stations reporting on? The G8 conference. Way to go.

This, of course, speaks pretty directly about the integrity of the foreign press. We can't say for sure whether it was censorship or just plain sloppy journalism, but they didn't even pretend to know about Paris' arrest. Either way, they really dropped the ball on this one. It's just one more illustration of why communism is bad.

It's no wonder that foreigners are always fighting and yelling and setting things on fire. You'd start a riot too if all you saw on the news were stories about murder and violence and other non-celebrity-related topics. Take a lesson from America: A little Brangelina goes a long way.

"Oh, we're so sad because our widdle biddy pwanet is getting weawy, weawy hot!" It's like, wake up, people! Britney shaved her head!

"A little less tears, a little more Spears," that's what we always say.

We're not trying to make Europeans look bad. Their teeth do that. (Nice one!) We're just saying that they're really out of touch with reality – not to mention reality TV. Did you know that some countries over there don't even have their own version of "The Biggest Loser"? We don't mean to insinuate that Europeans are lazy, but, like, how hard is it to get fat? We already gave them McDonald's. All they have to do is eat there!

And McDonald's is just one example of the many, many fantastic exports we've given to Europe over the years – for free! There's also American cheese, American football and Clay Aiken. And what do we get in return? A big, steaming pile of "No, we won't help you in the war on terror!"

Like, seriously?

It's like, no matter how morbid and boring and newsy their news reports are, Europeans just can't seem to get it through their heads that we are all in constant danger, every day, all the time, of being murdered by terrorists. All of us. At any moment. Murdered. By terrorists.

American new reports don't get all mopey with footage of dead soldiers being shipped back from Iraq. If we're going to be looking at a dead person, it's going to be Anna Nicole Smith. And we still know enough to live our lives in a constant state of fear!

What Europeans don't seem to realize is that terrorists are lurking around every corner, down every alley, behind every ethnic food counter. They're everywhere, and they hate freedom! They even hate Paris Hilton!

But the Europeans are too busy floating along in a dreamland of puff pastries and hand-rolled cigarettes to realize how close they are to dying. They spend their days lounging around with their tiny cups of coffee and skinny mustaches and tight pants and low stress levels, laughing in their stupid accents about how the war on terror is "wasting money" and "human lives" and "making the situation worse."

Listen, Europeans: We're not trying to imply that you're stupid. All we're saying is, you have what? At least four or five countries over there? And not a single one of you has been able to produce a Hummer? Way to go.

OK, point proven. There's no need to add insult to injury. We've already established that Europeans are lagging behind America in the categories of "obesity," "Hummers," "reality TV" and "Clay Aiken." It probably shouldn't be a big surprise that they're are also behind when it comes to being "paralyzed with fear" and electing people who "aren't smart" to "run their countries."

A few weeks ago, Team Last Call's wife went to Connecticut for a three-week work assignment, or what we like to call "three weeks when we don't have to change our underwear."

Team Last Call is not gifted in the area of hygiene. We have our talents, but washing ourselves isn't one of them. Neither is washing our clothes, the dishes or anything else that's inside, outside or in the general vicinity of our house. Or that starts with the letter "A," or any subsequent letter of the alphabet.

Our wife has a few theories about why we are so hygienically challenged, the main one being that we're just plain lazy, which we'll address as soon as we finish our beer. Truthfully, it's got more to do with the fact that we don't know where she keeps the washing machine. We suspect it's in the basement, but there are spiders down there.

The problem with our wife leaving us alone in the house is that she expects us to be doing things like washing the dishes and dusting and whatever it is she does with that loud machine with the hose and the suction that gives our nervous little dog the runs.

We've learned from experience that what we consider to be "passable" our wife often considers to be "a reason to yell at us." While we might think it's OK to, say, let the little doggie piles on the carpet just sort of wear away naturally instead of picking them up, our wife doesn't always share our viewpoint. She enjoys cleanliness, and has never shown even the slightest admiration for the fact that we can go a solid week in the same pair of socks.

Within minutes of her departure, the entire household deteriorates into a wasteland of pizza boxes, dirty socks and dog-hair tumbleweeds. We are left wallowing in our own filth with no food, no clean clothes and virtually no ability to hit the toilet. It's just like college, except the only person puking is the cat.

The root of the problem here is that we simply have different definitions of what "clean" means. Our wife says "tomato," we say, "Oh, yeah, that's been growing fuzz in the bottom of our refrigerator since you left. Last week it was purple!"

Our theory is that we should just agree to disagree. Our wife's theory is that we should just agree that I'm gross and need to take a bath.

We know what you're thinking: "If your wife's so uptight about the house being dirty when she comes home, why doesn't she just clean it?" That makes a lot of sense to us, too. Let's just say that our wife doesn't really see it that way. I mean, she does clean it, but she's got this whole hang-up about "This marriage is a partnership!" and "I'm not your maid!" and other things that are hard to not laugh at.

We are so, so dead when this article comes out.

Anyway, for all of you men out there who, like us, are forced to live your lives under a lemony-fresh hand of oppression, we are pleased to present Team Last Call's Guide to Cleaning (For Men). Because it's important to make your wife happy, but not at the risk of your beer getting warm.

The first and most important rule in our Guide to Cleaning (For Men) is this: "If you can't see the problem, it doesn't exist." We really can't stress this point enough. How much time has man wasted over the last thousand years fighting invisible bacteria? Think of how much delicious beef jerky and football you missed out on because you were busy scrubbing supposed "germs" off the toilet. It's time to stop this silly game. It's time to recognize the fact that – like global warming and civilian casualties in Iraq – these supposed "microorganisms" are just another fabrication of the liberal media.

But what about the dirt that you can see? Well, that's a different matter altogether. For that, we need to refer to the second rule in the Guide to Cleaning (For Men): "It's just going to get dirty again."

Simple logic tells us that if something gets messy once, it is more than likely going to get messy again. This applies to all kinds of household items – bookshelves, rugs, babies. Trying to clean items like these is clearly a complete waste of time. It's like going to the beach with a bunch of towels and trying to dry the sand every time the tide goes out. Who are we to try to fight the forces of nature?

We've obviously put together a pretty airtight case here. Nobody in his right mind would want to argue the points above. Unfortunately, there is still one more rule that all responsible husbands must follow, and it goes like this: "Clean the house."

If you really value your relationship, you're going to have to clean the house. Because no matter how much time you spend trying to convince her, your wife will never think it's cool that you can throw your sock at the wall and make it stick. Likewise, she's never going to get over that whole "marriage is a partnership" thing. If that's not convincing enough, keep in mind is that she's the only person you get to have sex with.

That's what we thought. Happy scrubbing.

God's created a lot of cool stuff over the past few millennia – woolly mammoths, rock and roll, boobies – but His greatest creation to-date has got to be Diet Dr. Pepper Berries & Cream.

We here at Team Last Call are totally and completely obsessed with this soda. We buy it by the case and throw it back like Paris Hilton at an open bar – the main difference being that we always remember to wear our panties.

In addition to having a long name that helps us reach our word count much faster, Diet Dr. Pepper Berries & Cream is delicious. The experience of drinking Diet Dr. Pepper Berries & Cream is like riding a unicorn over a rainbow and around the moon and landing in a magical utopia where no one fights or steals and the roads are paved with beef jerky and gumdrops rain from the sky and Howie Mandel has been permanently banned from television. It washes away the stress of your day and takes you to a different state, like Delaware. It also apparently gives you brain cancer, but we'll get to that later.

There are plenty of people who share my obsession over Diet Dr. Pepper Berries & Cream. Since its release in April 2006, demand for the soda has far outweighed the supply. Stores haven't been able to keep it on shelves, making it harder to find than a fact in a Fox News report.

It's gotten to the point that fans have actually resorted to bidding against each other in online auctions (at one point, Dr. Pepper Berries & Cream was the second-most popular search on eBay), which is both sad and funny at the same time. Like Nickelback's music.

But once you taste it, you will understand how it's possible for people to become so infatuated with Diet Dr. Pepper Berries & Cream that they are willing to do almost anything to get it, including selling their right testicle to a guy in the back of a van parked at the McDonald's on King Street. For example.

However, we are a nation divided – not by race, religion or political party, but by those who recognize Diet Dr. Pepper Berries & Cream for the bottle of joy and redemption that it is, and those who are dumb.

In fact – and this is actually true – there are people who dislike Diet Dr. Pepper Berries & Cream so much that they started an online petition to have it pulled from store shelves (www.petitiononline.com/drpepban/petition.html), which is stupider than driving a Hummer with a "Save the Earth" bumper sticker.

In the document, the soda is referred to as a "vile" and "repugnant liquid" that "tastes like a carbonated cough syrup and probably should not be ingested by individuals with an active set of taste receptors on their tongue!" On the cleverness scale, this rates somewhere between a ham sandwich and a mesh baseball cap that reads "Kill 'em all. Let God sort 'em out." But it's still smarter than Larry the Cable Guy.

At press time the petition only had 12 signatures – again, both funny and sad. But still, the very existence of the petition is troubling. Like, who gets angry at soda?

Taking the time to coordinate an anti-soda offensive is as pointless as walking into the middle of a field and trying to swat all off the oxygen molecules out of the air. Or sending 20,000 more troops to Iraq. I mean, isn't there something more constructive you could do with your time and resources? Like – oh, I don't know – fixing up New Orleans?

If there is one justified complaint about Diet Dr. Pepper Berries & Cream, it's that it contains a high amount of aspartame, which is only a problem if you've got some kind of hang up about brain cancer, lymphoma, seizures and genotoxic effects. I'm pretty sure that genotoxic isn't even a real word.

If you want to get all technical about it, there are a few other slightly negative reactions linked to the ingestion of aspartame, including abdominal pain, arthritis, asthma, burning urination, chest pains, chronic cough, confusion, depression, diarrhea, dizziness, fatigue, hair loss, headaches, hearing loss, heart palpitations, hives, impotency, insomnia, joint pains, laryngitis, memory loss, menstrual problems, muscle spasms, nausea, numbness of extremities, panic attacks, rashes, slurring of speech, tremors, tinnitus, vertigo, vision loss and weight gain. Plus death. But, like, it tastes really good.

The way we figure it, if you try hard enough, you can link just about anything to aspartame. Like, if there is a large vat of aspartame on the floor, and you trip and hit your head on a cabinet and land face-first in the vat, there is a clear danger that aspartame could lead to suffocation. So watch out.

But isn't everything we do a calculated risk? For example, according to a severely outdated article we just found on a questionable website, one man out of every 500,000 dies during sex. Will that statistic scare men away from having sex? Of course not. A charging rhinoceros could barely scare a man away from having sex. And if you're going to die anyway, isn't having sex just about the best way to go? Well, that's how we feel about Diet Dr. Pepper Berries & Cream.

We're not saying that we'd pick Diet Dr. Pepper Berries & Cream over having sex with … say … you. We're just saying that while we're having sex, we'll also be drinking a Diet Dr. Pepper Berries & Cream soda. And if that's not a turn-on, we don't know what is.