In The Name Of Journalism

Because I am a part of the esteemed print media, the people who bring you up-to-date and important news daily, I have a responsibility to cover events. Because of this obligation, I will be participating in the World Pong Tour's event tonight in New Haven.

Yes, a tour of beer pong tournaments is coming to the Elm City at 8 tonight. As such, I must be a good entertainment reporter and participate along with noted Counting Crows enthusiast and Play magazine editor Jeff Petrin. The two of us, under Jeff's favorite team name The Lazer Beamz, will compete for a treasure chest of prizes including a free spring break vacation. Now, I'm 29, so I don't think I'll be going on a spring break any time soon, and I've already told Jeff I refuse to travel with him, but we're journalists and must do this for you, the reader.

I will report back tomorrow on how a beer pong tournament goes. Jeff has only played like once, and while I have more experience, let's just remember that I finished up undergrad some seven years ago. We will see.

So what else? I guess the Boss doesn't like Halloween this year. If I went trick or treating at Bruce Springsteen's house, he'd better give me full-size candy bars. Anything less would be very disappointing. And I don't even like candy.

Jimmy Buffett will sing for Obama Sunday. If he could convince all the Parrotheads to vote for Obama, this election may be a landslide. I wonder if John McCain will try to use Obama's connection to Buffett to hurt the Democratic candidate. I mean, Jimmy's like a terrorist. Remember when he tried to bring all those drugs into the country?

I have this feeling, that if Fox ever brought back "Melrose Place," my mother would die of excitement. I've known the woman for a long time, obviously, and I've never seen her so into a television show, and she doesn't get into anything.

Um, why would anyone stalk David Caruso? In other news, why would producers choose Caruso to star in a show set in Miami? The dude would be burnt to a crisp by now.

Oh, poor Colin Farrell is "pained" over "Alexander" failing a few years back. Well, you know what? I was pained while watching the crappy movie. So pained I had to shut it off. So pained that watching half is one of my biggest regrets in life. So pained that reading this blurb is making me upset. Heck, I don't think I've seen more than one or two Farrell movies that haven't pained me.

If this story is true, I'd sure like to meet Monica Cruz. Yep. That's on the to-do list.

I guess that's all I got for today. Wish me luck at beer pong. I'm going to need it.

I Forgot ...

... but here's Friday's video, which, for some reason, I can't embed. Enjoy ...

Politics Alert

We're going to get political for a second. I'm not going to go on here and tell people who to vote for or anything. You should vote how you feel, obviously. But this story troubles me.

So Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann went on "Hardball" and called Barack Obama "anti-American." OK, so that's a ridiculous statement and the Republican sort of beat around the bush and apologized.

But that's not even my real problem.

As the story goes on, you'll see that she claims to have never seen "Hardball." I don't care if you're a Republican, a Democrat, a Whig or a Bull Moose backer, if you're never seen "Hardball," you should not be in Congress. I mean, seriously?

Sometimes things amaze me. It's like me saying I've never heard a Rolling Stones song. I don't particularly care for the Stones, but I've heard everything the band's done. Man, no "Hardball" Michele, really?

Of course, this is a woman who blames any fault in children on public schools, and she's fought to have intelligent design given equal time as evolution in such schools. Yup. Oh, yeah, she's also spent a lot of time recently campaigning for traditional light bulbs over, you know, the ones that are better for the environment. Light bulbs?

Here are a couple of my favorite things that she believes in:

1. Favors an investigation of "anti-American" sentiment among members of Congress (um, McCarthyism?).

2. Opposes minimum wage increases (screw less fortunate folks).

3. Supports both a Federal and State constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and legal equivalent, and is a critic of any type of gay rights or civil unions for gay couples (so she basically believes that homosexuality is wrong. Even Sarah Palin believes in civil unions). Wow. A real, verifiable quote from Bachmann: the gay community was specifically targeting children and that "our children ... are the prize for this community."

These people work in Congress. Yep. I'm glad I don't live in St. Paul. She could get re-elected in a couple weeks. That's a scary thought.

Let's get on with the Hump Day now.

Friday Video!

Cha, Cha, Changes

So Rolling Stone is changing its size after a couple of decades looking a certain way. I actually think this is a pretty good idea.

I mean, the current format is a bit cumbersome and harder to read, so why not just make it uniform, allow yourself to print better-quality photos and just lengthen the book to offset any space issues? This actually seems like common sense to me.

I understand that the old format helped the magazine standout, but if something can't stand out because of design and content and needs something trivial like a bigger size, it's something not worth buying anyway. Right?

And so it goes. What else? Well, it seems Marcia Brady did some interesting things after "The Brady Bunch" ended. I guess it would have been helpful for Mike Brady to have been there and said, "You know, Marcia, the thing with being addicted to the cocaine, is that you're going to have to use it all the time, it might make you prostitute yourself or date Michael Jackson. And, Marcia, that's not good for you or anyone else. So when you make those decisions, you're only hurting yourself, and should you want to hurt yourself? Remember these things."

This piece does a nice job summing up my fears about the current ALCS. Basically, the Red Sox need to win tonight. If they don't, I don't have faith that the team can win three in a row with the pitching questions it has. So ... go Tim Wakefield.

And that's about all I've got for today. Have a good one, fine friends.

'Lost Coastlines'

Okkervil River doesn't make many real videos, so I'm super excited for this video for "Lost Coastlines," a sensational tune from "The Stand Ins." Here you go:

It's Blurry, But ...

... This is what you can see at The Space Wednesday night. Here's the Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise Tour from a couple nights ago:

Monday Missives

So here we are, Monday the 13th. It doesn't have the same ring as Friday the 13th, but what if I wrote a movie about about a batch of very bad chicken being shipped from a warehouse on Monday the 13th and a bunch of people getting the poops from eating it?

Would that make for a quality, icnonic horror film? Probably not. It'd be one of those flicks that doesn't get screened for critics and ends up with a $15 million opening weekend and nothing after.

Anyway, so today is Game Three of the ALCS. My Red Sox badly need a win. With Josh Beckett looking injured and Dice-K being a crapshoot, this is about as big of a game as possible. Thank god Jon Lester is on the mound. If the Sox lose, now that's the premise for a frightening horror film.

What else? Well, there was no video this week for two reasons. Online didn't have time, and I had to jet to Boston Thursday for festivities. The picture at the top of this entry is me at a club in Beantown celebrating my friend Jenny's 30th birthday with other friends. I mention this for a couple reasons: The first is that today is actually Jen's birthday. So, happy birthday, Jen.

The second is more interesting. Even though I write about music, I hardly ever get to hear club music. Why? Well, because I never go to clubs and very rarely receive real club-music CDs in the mail. I would like to point out though that a club with a very expensive cover charge, I heard a 10-minute-or-so song that repeated one lyric over and over: "Face down, ass up, that's the way I like (to have sex)." Um, really? People listen to this? I'm no prude, but at first I found it funny, and then it went on for another 134 minutes ... or so it seemed.

Oh, and you know else is a knock on our culture? How about "Beverly Hill Chihuahua" topping the box office for the second straight week. I know it's a slow time for films, but a film about chihuahuas? Really? Um, I'm sad for us.

I guess that's about it on this end. Hope you all had a good weekend and will be rooting for the Sox tonight.

From Mohegan Sun ...

... Here's a statement:

"Janet Jackson's anticipated return to her Rock Witchu Tour tomorrow (10/11) at Mohegan Sun Arena has been postponed due to doctors orders. Tickets will be honored for the rescheduled date. An announcement will be made soon regarding a rescheduled date for this show. For more information on Janet Jackson's Rock Witchu tour and other great events at Mohegan Sun, visit mohegansun.com. For information on this week's schedule, call the Entertainment and Special Events hotline at 1.888.226.7711, ext. 27163."

Okkervil In Northampton

Wednesday night was easily the best Okkervil River show I've seen since last year's concert at Pearl Street. The set list was thoughtful and the band seemed to be enjoying itself a lot more than the last two times I've seen it. That's mostly because, I would assume, the members are getting more accustomed to each other.

The venue was about 20 percent more crowded than Okkervil's last gig at the same place, so that's a good thing. Here's my review of the show. The set list is below.

A couple quick notes, though: Crooked Fingers opened and was really good. Oh, sure, the band may never be Archers of Loaf, but Eric Bachman's newest project gets better with each record. And the group's newest, which just hit stores, is really strong.

Providence's The What Cheer? Brigade opened. When I was talking to the Courant's Eric Danton at the show, he called them the Hipster Rebirth Brass Band. I thought that was pretty accurate. It was a bunch of indie folk who decided to make a marching band. For about 10 minutes, it was kind of cool (the group performed not on stage, but in the crowd). But after 30 minutes, I wanted to shoot myself. Yep. Anyway ...

Set List

Plus Ones; Singer Songwriter; A Hand To Take Hold Of The Scene; Black; All The Latest Toughs; On Tour With Zykos; John Allyn Smith Sails; Pop Lie; A Stone; Blue Tulip; Lost Coastlines; Black Sheep Boy; For Real; Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe; Unless It Kicks.

Encore

Girl In Port; Okkervil River Song; Westfall