30 Under 30

The Moss Problem's annual list of The Best and Brightest:

Levitica Brant - Video
Barry Greenorth - Painting
Georgia Labourt - Philosophy/Sociology
Lava Louaurt - Digital Media
Trooper Ravanto - Culinary Arts
Kobe Kramer - Virtual Architecture
Denny Livinthrak - Environmental Media
Nico Ramdt - Experimental Audio
Kotar Tisterkorn - Fabric
Dan Brahman - Poetry (short form)
Strassa Leveric - New Media
Leper Pearlam - Digital Media
Grass Davis - Multimedia
Totom Billings - Theatre
Bree Odkiary - Sculpture
Chill Villenforth - Creative Non-Fiction
Nipe Strassberg - Short Story (Flash Fiction)
Pito DiMartini - Film
Jason Easter - Photography
Tekka Drassler - Hard Science
Mia Albers - Architecture
Trish Emanual - Philosophy
Eleanor Dinshavac - Plastic Arts
Astro Trask - Novel
Brasler Lenentoja - Music (Popular)
Dillo Maveroni - Printmaking
Rabbi Johnson - Poetry (long form)
Vester Martinez - Short Story
China Maplewood - Conceptual Multimedia
Shaura Orton - New Economics

Best Country & Western Songs of 2010

(Let’s Drink to) This, That, and the Other Thing
You Gotch A’nother Think Comin’
(When I Lost My Cellphone) I Lost My Mind
“Your Honor, She SAID She Was Fourteen!”
They Asked Me Not To Return (To Nashville)
(My Car Alarm is Louder than) Your Husband
It Is What It Is (Except When It Ain’t)
(Will My Illegitimate Children Take Care of Me) When I’m Older?
(There’s No Kind of Pork) I’m Not In Love (With)
Love Ur Country (or I’ll Back Over Your Head with My Dodge Ram)
(My Cowboy Boots Smelled So Bad) They Walked to the Store All By Themselves (and Bought Themselves Some Odor-Eaters)

Best Books I Read Last Year

The Girl with Hair – Steve Kelly
Ranch Dressing – Donna Miller
Athletic Shoes – John Burns
Coffee Cup – Howard Jones
Autumn – Patricia Norman
A Very Large Drink – Tom Wall
Pencil-In – Deborah Davis
American Eggs – Charlie Walsh
Clean Floor – Chris Albert
Cars and Automobiles – Barry Cartwright
It Was What It Was – F. Winston Cox

Best Doughnuts (Baker's Dozen)

Ol’ Fashion Cake
French
Apple Frittos
Butterflies
Freedom
Prather
Poinsettia
Chaw, The
Rocky Top
Ranch
Soggy
Tufted
Numeir
Novel, The

Eleven Best Movies of 2010

The Apartment

The Fugitive Kind

Breathless

Peeping Tom

Purple Noon

Psycho

La Dolce Vita

L’Avventura

Elmer Gantry

The Bad Sleep Well

The Testament of Orpheus

Best College Football Team Names

Idaho Vandals

St. Louis Billikens

Whittier College Poets

Webster Gorlocks

UC-Santa Cruz Banana Slugs

Evergreen State Geoducks

Southeastern Oklahoma Savage Storm

Presbyterian Blue Hose

Tufts Jumbos

Amherst College Lord Jeffs

Trinity Christian College Trolls

Bethany College Terrible Swedes

Worst College Football Team Names

LSU Tigers

Princeton Tigers

Memphis Tigers

Clemson Tigers

Texas Southern Tigers

West Alabama Tigers

Tennessee State Tigers

Missouri Tigers

Jackson State Tigers

Pacific Tigers

Auburn Tigers

Top Eleven Songs of 2010

Fountainhead – “Robot Voice ‘R’ Us”
Piker – “Letz Auto-Tune”
PX – “Love That Mechanical Voice”
Liberal Arts – “Mechanical Voice - Works – Volume I”
Rantum-Scootum – “Fully Loaded Auto-Tune”
Silent Rhubarb – “All Hail Soulless Mechanical Voice”
Sal G. – “Mechanical Voice This!”
The Hoodie String Pullers – “Experiments with the Harmony Vocoder: #1, #3, #8 & #5.3”
Ass Onions – “Up Your Auto-Tune”
Bacty – “Enuf! Mechanical Voice”
Drug Store Schlemihl – “It is Mechanical Voice Is What It Is”

Plus, hounorable mention:
Various Artists – “Music for Twiddling Knobs”

Best of 2010 Lists Go To Eleven

It's that time of year, when we look at the previous year and turn everything into lists.

Actually, a lot of people make these "Year End" lists much earlier, which I think is ludicrous. How about all the movies, books, products, etc. that come out right around Christmas? Some of the best stuff of the year comes out after the 15th of December.

So I have insisted we wait until January.

Also, since it's 2011, these lists are all going to have ELEVEN items, rather than the traditional ten.

This is only one reason you'll have to look no further than The Moss Problem for your year end LISTS!

Best Restaurants 2007

The best Mexican restaurant in Milwaukee whose name I can't remember someone please help me out and I'll edit this I can't even search for it because all you get is those bullshit melted orange cheese and Koolade margarita places!

Fili's Family Restaurant - Cudahy, WI - best breakfast buffet EVER.

Ikea Cafe - multiple locations, for when nothing but lingonberries will satisfy you.

Paul's Omega, S. 27th, Milwaukee - best low impact art experience south of Alpine Village.

Alpine Village, Mequon, WI - best art experience anywhere if you include the schaum torte.

Chet Morton's Steakhouse, Bayport - it's no "mystery" why this is on the list.

Plaza Cafe, Milwaukee - just because if it wasn't there, there would be nowhere to eat breakfast in the entire 53202 zipcode.

No Room 4 Dessert, no locations - who needs dessert anyway.

Bayview Family Restaurant, Milwaukee - cheapest and best homefries (with onions) in the "american fries" region.

Roundy's Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, everywhere - the expected dip in quality did not happen, though the possible merger with WA Mutual Bank has us worried.

Beans and Barley, Milwaukee - first place in my experience that's been able to make sandwiches with gluten-free bread. Also, Frank S.

Plop, New Haven - who would have thought that formless comfort food could come in so many shades of brown?

Bombay Sweets, Milwaukee - the only place in Milwaukee to get Indian food under $100.

The Train Bar, Milwaukee - because I love a good myth (I still don't believe it ever existed) and have heard of no Haunchyville eatery as of yet.

Pretend, New York City - saw Chan Marshall there last week!

Conejito's, Milwaukee - eat there now before it gets moved to the Smithsonian!

Les is More, Brooklyn - just goes to show how wrong you can be. (That's a Lou Reed quote, and Les is More is closed.)

Reben Luncheonette, Brooklyn - my new hangout.

Best Music of 2007

"K —12" album, vinyl only, by April 15
"That Makes Me Puke, This Makes Me Pee" song by Vanessa Di Ambrose
"You Can Learn English!" MP3 by Feji
"Allergic to Houndstooth" CD by Trisdam White, Jr.
"Whet Dreamz" box set by MegaMillionz
"Fiasco Fiasco" CD by The Molotov Martinis
"Every Time I Make You Cry" song by the Hoodie String Pullers
"Wet Fartz Theme" download by the Wet Fartz
"My Head Almost Came Off" video by Portable Sound Laboratories
"Hedging (Dance Mix)" extended 12" vinyl 45 by DjHi
"Dotting My T's" CD by Cross-eyed Charles


S. Katona

Best Television of 2007

Note: I find nothing so addictive and depressing as sitting with a TV remote and hundreds of stations on cable and going through them one by one. It makes me terribly afraid of the end of civilization and also long for it.

I decided, finally, what I needed to do is go on a marathon TV binge, see what is out there, and then never watch TV again. Here is a list, in no particular order, of the best, the worst, and since I don't have to decide, I won't.

Scratching Post
City Desk
American Meltdown
Pack Rats!
your dumber then a stump
A Roll In My Wool
Agony of Defeat
19 Century Viceroys
Uma Makeovers
Hangin' Judge
Eat Bugs 4 Buck$
Youtube Theatre
Fuzz Busterz
Nancy Drew (hearts) Scooby-Doo
Marlin Perkins Smackdown
American Mess
Crotch Busters (Caught On Video)
From The Jaws of Victory
Tale of Two Dorms
This Old Box
Angela Lansbury Always
Judge Reinhold
Lottery Follies
Fashion No-No's
Crack Neighbors
Busted Again! (On Tape)
Anal Nightingale
Married 4-Ever


--Randy Russell

Top Movies of 2007

Top Ten and then some. In order of good to awesome.

Michael Picasso
Royal Person Inside
Pretty Girl Costumes
Make
Quotitdian Now!
Revising Emily
True Red
The Emulsifiers
Gravelly Witherspoon
Irish Recovery
Twisting Alabama
American Hottie
The Desk and the Microscope
The Last Great Mid-October
Reuniting Charlie Goodspeed
1000 Dull Moments

Year End Best Of Lists

We would like to include some year end "best of" lists for 2007. I realize that most publications release those lists sometime in December, and the reason for that is no secret: it's all about selling products at Christmastime. If you, as an artist, happen to come out with something between, say, December 15 and the end of the year, however, you're kind of screwed in the "best of" department. Also, a lot of "best of" lists, naturally, are weighed toward the end of the year. It's not really fair to make those lists, say, on the same day you have just seen a new movie or heard a new record-- of course that's going to be more prominent in your mind. And as far as books go, obviously, one needs a few days to read it.

That's why I argue that January is the month for "best of" lists for the previous year. Some of our writers will (hopefully) be presenting such lists in the coming weeks. Hopefully our readers will weigh in as well.

Oh, and a fifteen day late HAPPY NEW YEAR from Kate, Randy, myself, and everyone else here at THE MOSS PROBLEM.

AF