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They laughed at my "no upsets" strategy for picking my NCAA bracket this year. Laughed, I tell you! Well who's laughing now, bitches?
I don't know exactly how they score the hospital pool, but I'd have to think I'm high in the running. Don't worry, I'm sure I'll find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Best sign at today's games: "DAVIDSON COLLEGE. GOOGLE IT."
Pharyngula is always an essential read for the reality-based community, but it's been especially good ever since PZ Myers ran afoul of the Expelled folks. The producers of the movie finally settled on an excuse for why they kicked Prof. Myers out of the screening--they now say that they were trying to make a point, as the scientific community routinely "expels" those who question evolution. Oh, and they planned it all in advance. Which is why it took them four days to explain why they did it.
He did manage to show up uninvited on their recent conference call with reporters, to call them on some of their bullshit. (Hey, if you want to keep people out, don't give out the "secret code" for two-way callers when people are listening.)
I'm really fond of this post, where PZ drives the nail into the idea that Darwin's ideas were behind the Nazi's eugenics. (This is one of the central points of Expelled.) It's obvious to anyone who has given more than five minutes of honest thought to the subject, but Myers lays it out very well.
Ever wonder what happened to the rest of the Jackson clan outside of Michael and Janet? The New York Post offers a roundup.
It's not pretty. The girls are doing OK as both LaToya and Rebbie seem to have hooked up with money. Tito seems to be the only one still making music, with a blues band playing "small venues" at $500-$1500 a show--not bad money for a bar band, but hard to make a living from. Even so, he's the biggest success among the guys. Marlon is stocking shelves at a supermarket in San Diego. It's sad that in these days when basic cable reality shows are like a pension fund for washed-up D-listers not one of the Jackson guys can get a gig on one.
Michael has washed his hands of the whole bunch, not that he's exactly flush with cash these days. Janet bought her mom a house in Vegas recently so she'll have a place to live when the family mansion gets foreclosed but otherwise doesn't seem to be helping out. I don't blame them. Even the money they made before Michael became the King of Pop in the 80s should have been enough for a lifetime, and I'm sure Michael and Janet have propped them up since then. You can only throw so much money down a hole, even if that hole is your family.
In case you're wondering who does that vaguely Elephant 6-sounding song in the new Volvo commercial, it's a Swedish guy who calls himself Melpo Mene.
Whoever is scoring Volvo's commercials lately deserves some props. They used "Do You Realize?" by the Flaming Lips a little while back, and Stephin Merritt's rewrite of "The Wheels on the Bus" was unavoidable there for a while. Between that, Wilco's deal with Volkswagen, and the fact that I heard Justice in a Cadillac commercial, I get the feeling someone is trying to sell me a car.
I just can't see this as a bad thing. Every time Stephin Merritt's voice appears on national television an angel gets his wings, and I'm sure he made more money on it than he will on the new Magnetic Fields album. The Flaming Lips are showing up in a commercial about once a week these days and it makes me smile every time, because I know Wayne Coyne is going to use the money to do some really crazy shit. It's only a sellout if it compromises your artistic integrity, and nobody can seriously question Coyne's or Merritt's. As for Melpo Mene, would I be blogging about him if he hadn't showed up in the commercial?
The new UPS ads have music by the Postal Service, which cracks me up.
At the other end of the spectrum, whenever I see one of those "Viva Viagra" commercials I get on my knees and pray that Elvis really is dead.
It pisses me off when there's a minute or two left in a game where one team is up by a good margin and they show the bracket with the presumptively winning team already filled in for the next round. It ain't over 'till it's over, even if it's pretty much over.
My chances in the hospital pool don't look bad, since all of my Final Four is still in, but a couple of my Elite Eight went out today.
It's a cruel thing they did to Justin Townes Earle when he was born--with a last name from his daddy and a middle name from his daddy's hero, the only person alive with more country music expectation built into his name is probably Hank Williams, Jr. But Justin doesn't sound anything like Steve Earle, and only occasionally sounds like Townes Van Zandt (particularly on "Who Am I To Say"). Most of The Good Life would sound just right coming out of the scratchy speakers of a jukebox in the corner of a godforsaken rural tavern circa 1965, full of smoke and neon and flat beer and people with nowhere else to go. Ol' Hank would have done it this-a-way.
mp3 - Justin Townes Earle - "Who Am I To Say" (YouSendIt)
mp3 - Justin Townes Earle - "What Do You Do When You're Lonesome" (YouSendIt)
The new album from the depressingly young Nashvillains of BYOP, Get Awkward, is pretty good, and will probably grow on me over time. That said, the first single kicks my ass right out of the gate. (Embedding disabled.) Cool video, too.
Just in from an incredible show, and since I actually wrote down the setlist I thought I'd get it posted.
Set 1:
Goddamn Lonely Love
The Magician
Chicago Promenade
Grown
Thank God for the TVA (unreleased)
Try
Danko/Manuel
The Assassin (Patterson Hood cover)
Jolene (Ray LaMontagne cover)
In a Razor Town
Outfit
Decoration Day
Set 2:
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (Dylan cover)
Psycho Killer (Talking Heads cover)
Dress Blues
Hurricanes and Hand Grenades
Never Gonna Change
Encore:
Sway (Rolling Stones cover)
In honor of the new Breeders album, I dug this classic up to play on the Spaceship the other night:
Definitely one of the best tracks of my high school years. Typical of the time, the video has far too much going on, but Kim Deal looks great.
It got me thinking about a great show I caught at Bogart's called the Suffragette Sessions, which included the Indigo Girls, Jane Siberry, and an assortment of other female artists. Breeders bassist Josephine Wiggs was among them, so of course they did "Cannonball". The drummer for the extravaganza was Kate Schellenbach, who backed up the early days of the Beastie Boys (as documented on the Some Old Bullshit collection) and later of Luscious Jackson.
I was wondering what became of Schellenbach, who was one of the most awesome drummers around for a long time. It's really sad: according to Wikipedia, she's now a segment producer on The Ellen Degeneres Show.
In case you missed the best story all week:
Pharyngula's PZ Myers, a grand marshal in the anti-bullshit parade, was denied entry to an advance screening of Expelled, an anti-evolution documentary in which Myers appears as a dissenting voice. They claimed that Professor Myers was not on the list for admission, which is obviously not true as his family and his guest were all let in and he had a confirmed RSVP. He was simply pulled out of the line (at the explicit request of the producers), asked to leave, and threatened with arrest if he didn't scoot double-quick.
That isn't the funniest part, either. That guest of Myers who was let in with no problem? Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and at least as fierce a defender of science as Myers. Except that he's a lot more famous. Dawkins also appears in the movie. It's like kicking Batman out for being a superhero when Superman is standing right next to him.
So not only are they too afraid and insecure to let a dissenting voice into their screening and Q&A, they're also too stupid to recognize the right people to kick out.
