Getting’ Anchory: Getting’ in shape – Monster Fit Club tie-in

As I have lost over 50 pounds since this week and am celebrating my first anniversary as a Monster in March, I deemed it time to write this post. It’s going to be ridiculously personal, possibly painful and hopefully funny at times. Plus, I promised thisismynightmare, so there is no weaseling my way out of this one.

First off, yes, this is the story of how I lost as lot of weight. But let us not forget that there were over 50 pounds to lose. How did it get to that point? I’ll try to give you the short summary. I have never been a skinny kid. Now, I wasn’t really a fat kid, but I was a chubby kid and here in Holland they are interchangeable. Also everyone is crazy tall here, but that’s besides the point. If I was living in Wisconsin I would be a running back (sorry, dairy state). Not that I got picked on – I’m frickin’ adorable- but I did get the occasional comment that would stick with me. That trend continued throughout high school, where I didn’t really was in that bad of a shape physically, but mentally already wearing down. It only got worse in college, when I got less exercise, went to more parties, doing my own shopping, etc. While I was an overly self-conscious chubby kid in high school, I became what I had always dreaded: a fat guy. The problem was I had subconsciously accepted my weight, even though I absolutely hated the way I looked. I can even recall searching for shorts and finding the large sizes section and instead of seeing it as a wake-up call, I actually thought it could come in handy “if I got any bigger”. Oh hi, the obvious staring me in the face!

Gettin' Anchory: Suffering the artists for our art

Welcome to Getting’ Anchory, a semi-regular feature where Anchor Management (see what he did there?) rants about the aspects of popular culture that get him riled up, to appease the demon monkeys that live in his head. Also, to make fart jokes.

Jonny Craig, who is blessed with the voice of a drunken angry angel, is the front man of Dance Gavin Dance, Emarosa and has a solo album out. Although you’ve never heard of him, you should. Go YouTube it, I’ll wait. Last week it came to light that Jonny Craig has been offering fans Macbooks via his Twitter account, but never delivering on the computers. Although the exact number is unknown, over twenty fans have claimed it had happened to them with proof. This fanned the flames of discussion between fans. Does Jonny’s scamming mean they should never listen to his work again? Or do they give him support, no matter what he does? Now this is nothing new for Jonny, who had been kicked out of DGD before because of his problems with drugs. But since he has the best voice this side of Michael Jackson (deal with it), they took him back in, hoping to recapture their early sound and success after much internal struggles within the band. He promised he had bettered his life and fans wanted to believe him. Just a few days ago the record company, a week away from his band’s album release, has issued a statement he would go into rehab and all the duped fans would get their money back. Instead of a glorious return to form, the band would have to settle for touring without their front man and getting all the press they didn’t want.

Gettin' Anchory: Why hip-hop gets a bad rap

Welcome to Getting’ Anchory, a semi-regular feature where Anchor Management (see what he did there?) rants about the aspects of popular culture that get him riled up, to appease the demon monkeys that live in his head. Also, to make fart jokes.


It all started on November 22, 2010. Pitchfork gave Kanye West’s latest album “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” a perfect 10. Ever since, I’ve had many discussions with hipsters friends to defend to quality of MBDTF and the fundamental appeal of hip-hop itself (the terms hip-hop and rap are commonly used interchangeably, which is fine, but to be accurate hip-hop is the entire subculture and rap is the music that comes out of that. I will use both terms to denote the music to reduce repetition. On with the show!). After the initial shock of Pitchfork giving a non-super obscure indie band a perfect score and the subsequent title spot on many year lists, there was an enormous backlash, mostly from people who either hadn’t listened to the album, hated Kanye as a person or disliked hip-hop in general. But their disliking of the album actually displayed a deeper grudge against all rap music.

Gettin' Anchory: My guilty pleasure

Hey everyone, Anchor Management here, who has been upgraded to author after two contributions no one cared about. I will give you glimpses into the complex pile of burning garbage and pop culture references that is my life.

Yesterday Chris Trash started a post about guilty pleasures, quickly followed by a review of guilty pleasure 30 Seconds To Mars. Seeing as I wanted to do a post about mine and move away from the social commentary of my last two posts, this seemed like the right time.

My guilty pleasure is bad tattoos, so much so I have a folder dedicated to them. To specify, I do not mean badly done tattoos, that is the fault of the artist, not the person getting it – unless they were high on crack while getting one from “a guy”- so not those. Although, full disclosure, misspelled tattoos are always good for a laff. I do not mean the full blown crazy people who get terrible tattoos like Zombie Boy or Internet fave Mr. Cool Ice. No, I mean the tattoos that are like Internet comments: they try to poke fun at something relevant by using pop culture references. Only they are on your body. FOREVER. Because God knows I made comments on Videogum, noticed they fell flat and wanted to take them back an hour later. These people have bad jokes on them for the rest of their lives or until very expensive, super painful laser removal.

Getting real: The social-cultural impact of The Hunt on Monsters

By Anchor Management

Another round of movies has just been chosen to be torn asunder by Gabe in the name of art. 

Have you seen some of the suggestions made? Yes, there are a lot of obvious offenders (The Happening, Jumper, Sex and the City 2), some more left-field entries which could be Hunt Material, but aren’t really the worst (Alice in Wonderland, Stranger Than Fiction, Avatar) and some movies I genuinely enjoyed, even loved (someone had the audacity to nominate Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, one of my favorites of all time).

What would make Monsters so critical of those movies? Is the enjoyment of movies that subjective? Do our definitions of what makes a terrible movie vary that much? Could it be that we have become so adept in spotting weaknesses that it has become second nature to eviscerate movies?

Okay, back up just a little. The Videogum community is a very welcoming one, but it can be scary to start out. The regular commenters are all very smart and funny and while it is true that the Women of the Twilight Fan fiction panel also think they are, Monsters really are. You want to fit in, which requires to gain a report with the regulars. Being able to make a good (bad) pun helps, as does being able to make funny comments. By repeatedly think of funny comments, you develop a certain mindset. But this mindset can interfere with your enjoyment of less-than-perfect entertainment, most clearly seen in movies.

Let me give you some examples of what I’m trying to say. Exhibit A is “Easy A”, released last year. It is

A Monster’s View: Movie Sequels

They suck, mostly.


Let me elaborate on that view: last Friday, DreamWorks animation head dude Jeffrey Katzenberg said “fuck that noise” and announced that there will be two more “How To Train Your Dragon movies, two more Madagascars and FIVE MORE Kung Fu Panda installments. That is a lot of fat guy joke. I haven’t seen Kung Fu Panda in a while, but it was mainly fat guy jokes, right? Right. Keep'em coming, Hollywood!

As the AV Club rightfully mentions, this was on the same day Disney told us that they were making “Pirates of the Caribbean” parts 5 AND 6. Star Wars did that shit by making a second trilogy and that turned out well, right? Because sequels are usually not as good as the original, except if they already have source material to base it on. Sure, there are exceptions, but for every “Terminator 2” we get a “Speed 2”. Combining the trends to sequel everything to death with unnecessary reboots (Spider-Man) and making movies about –for lack of a better term – brands (Battleship, Rubik’s Cube), Hollywood is truly jumping the shark or is just blatantly trying to fuck audiences over.

The thing is, Hollywood needs our money. Because while yes, most of it goes into the pockets of undeserving directors, producers and actors (I’m looking at you, Mark Wahlberg), some of that money goes to financing and distributing new movies. Because they make huge money on those movies, they can risk it on investing in smaller movies. Just think, without “Glitter”, we wouldn’t have “Half Nelson”. Probably not true, but you get the point. Also, you don’t have to go see every single shitty movie, because thankfully someone more naïve will do it for us.
Just remember that when your douche of a friend tells you he saw “Jackass 3D”.

Anchor Management