WHADDAYAKNOW?!?! PM5K ≈ JAM143

Hello loyal reader(s). First, let me offer up a most heartfelt and sincere apology for leaving you alone and direction-less this past week. I have selfishly been attending to personal matters and callously disregarded your often cloying and needy cries for my unique and humorless brand of humor. Though, in my defense, I feel that I must state that I have written several aborted posts in these trying past few days. I write and write and then delete and delete, each time returning to one central thesis. Like a warm, comforting not-deathly-hot sun its gravity pulls me into its soft, pillow-like embrace. And with the rays from this bright, shining star my path is illuminated and I sink into a calm, unparalleled slumber. When I awake, this wordless vision is spread out before me, PM5K ≈ JAM143. That's right, Powerman 5000 is approximately equal to James Alfredo Morales.

Okay, I know what you're thinking, there's no way that Jimmy is anywhere near the unrivaled splendor of Powerman 5000. That's crazy talk, I mean, where are the unicorns (thank you Mr. Cross)? Well, perhaps I can transform this coal-like paradigm that posits a superior Powerman 5000 into a more diamond-like paradigm that levels the playing field.
So, let's draw some comparisons:

1. Powerman 5000 put themselves on the nu metal map with the release of their debut ep True Force and the subsequent LP The Blood Splat Rating System. Jimmy 143 put himself on the actual world map with his '00 Lemond Lemmy Kilmister and his '78 Peugot Rhonda.
2. Just a few years after these two releases, Powerman 5000 was signed to Dreamworks and released the mega!!-awesome Mega!! Kung Fu Radio. As for Jimmy, just a few years after moving from Chino to Berkeley, he moved to The Oakland House. [In this example, Chino ≈ True Force, Berkeley ≈ The Blood Splat Rating System, and Oakland ≈ Mega!! Kung Fu Radio]
3. Around this same time, PM5K began touring the world in support of bigger acts such as Marilyn Manson and Korn. Similarly, a few years later Jimmy would start hanging out with me.
4. With the release of Tonight the Stars Revolt! Powerman 5000 pulled off a difficult double-move: they cemented themselves as full-fledged juggernauts in the new nu-metal world while also showing the world that they weren't afraid to have only one exclamation point in their album title.
5. Here's where things get a little more complicated. With Tonight the Stars Revolt! Powerman 5000 carved their own unique niche with sci-fi themes and industrial (sorta) beats. For the next few years, they would tour the world in support of this album. Now some people might think that Powerman 5000 would ride the tsunami-force wave of success that was Tonight ...!, while others might argue that they needed to release something completely different, to show that they weren't just another flash in the pan. Well, apparently Powerman 5000 thought the former was a good idea making an album called Anyone for Doomsday? that was more or less a photocopy of Tonight ... Revolt!. Unsurprisingly, this album was never released. Faced with a daunting future, Powerman 5000 (at this point really only Spider One (aka MC Spider, aka Michael David Cummings, aka the younger brother of Rob Zombie; take a minute to think about the Christmas dinners Spider One had to endure, "So Rob, we haven't seen you in so long, tell us what you've been up to." " Well, I dissolved White Zombie to focus on my solo material, and recently I've started to direct and produce feature-length movies." "Oh, we're so proud of you Robert. And, uh, Michael, you're still doing some music things, right?" "Well, since my last album sold over a million copies I've been able to do some humanitarian work with Sudanese refu--" "Oh Robert, I forgot to tell you, your aunt Ruthie saw House of 1,000 Corpses and she said she'd never been more frightened in her life. She said she'd already seen it three times!")) -- okay, got a little off-track there. Ah!, faced with a daunting future, Powerman 5000 decided to flip the world on its ear, releasing the punk-inspired album Transform. With this release, Powerman 5000 pulled off a not-as-difficult double move: making an album that is referred to by critics not as punk, but punk-inspired and also displaying their newfound love for literalism in album titles. Okay, so how was Jimmy like in this time period in Powerman 5000-dom? Well, if his bike Lemmy is Mega!! ... and Rhonda is Tonight ...!!!, then his attempt at building a bike is Anyone for Doomsday?, that is, a failure. Now the question remains, will Jimmy make a Transform-type bike? Or will he do something even more special? I'm at the edge of my seat too.
6. Don't worry, I think this exercise in writing is already about 2,000 words too long too.
7. Yeah, I think I might just wrap things up here.

Yeah so, Powerman 5000 and Jimmy have more in common than meets the (untrained) eye.

As for Jimmy's blog, obviously I'm a little behind. I haven't yet read today's post, but last monday Jimmy took up the torch of cyclists everywhere, lamenting their day-to-day plight. Or daily plight. Yeah, their daily plight. Anyway, in the post he paints a modern-day parable of a biker (played by Jimmy himself in a surprise appearance) and an unnamed automobile driver. I'll leave it at that, though I encourage you to read the entire posting (it's all of six paragraphs, one of which is four worlds long).

And I bid you adieu with these:

We're a sci-fi inspired nu-metal band -- hey, what is that up there and to the right?
Psych!! We're totally a punk-inspired band!

Post-script: If anyone is upset with me poking fun at Powerman 5000, I counter quite simply by stating that i bought Tonight the Stars Revolt! back in '99. So there.