Why I Oughtta

I have no fucking clue what we were laughing at, but apparently it was a hum-dinger. Click here for a few more photos.

I also love the Shout Out Louds. They are Swedish, so they've got pop music flowing through their veins.

So, this is what you need to do. If you're at work, send this link to yourself at home so you can watch it. Or just watch it at work if you can get away with it. But here's the video for their song called “Please Please Please.” It features their mopey, mop-y lead singer with the wounded voice and their bright melodies. And also a chick in the band who doesn't appear to do anything besides shake a tambourine (sigh).

The New Pornographers show at the 9:30 was enjoyable. That's a safe word, right? Enjoyable.

Not the best or worst show I've seen in a while.

First up is a band of nerds called Immaculate Machine. Well, the guitar player was just the biggest nerd ever, so he kind of projected that image to the band. Complete with good-natured, hella-awkward banter, they delivered a pretty energetic set with lots of nice boy/girl harmonies and bouncy keyboards. The drummer sang too, and had a habit of contorting his face into truly grotesque grimaces. He kind of looked like Shaggy (from Scooby Doo) dying of arsenic poisoning.

For the second act, Dan Bejar's (a New Pornographers member) band, Destroyer, took the stage to completely and utterly suck the joy and energy from the room. I've seen opening acts that were boring and I've seen opening acts that have been incompetent, but rarely do they just sabotage the mood right before the headliners.

As for appearances, Destroyer seems to be a lot of things they actually aren't at all. First of all, with a name like Destroyer, you might expect some sort of intensity or force. Quite the contrary — they basically just had uninteresting pop melodies and lazy tempos, never really changing the mood from song to song. Also, Dan Bejar seems like he'd have a gravely, deep voice based on the way he looks. He's got a dark, scraggly beard and a halo of dark curls. I secretly think he borrows his look from a frustrated, tenure-less art professor who is at an impasse with his work and is stuck teaching introductory fundamentals of art classes to disinterested soon-to-be business majors.

The worst part was the fact that the band just looked bored. Bejar looked pissed the whole time and the band looked half-asleep.

The New Pornographers succeeded in livening up the room, due in no small part to the devoted crowd. There were seven (sometimes eight, when they called fucking Bejar up to sing) on stage with as many as five people singing at any given time.

I recognized a good portion of the songs, especially since I only have listen to one of their albums (and I've only heard one of the new ones). It was a good, energetic show… that's all I can really say about that.

One of my favorite moments of the evening came at the (second) encore and these two jackasses tried to elbow their way to the front. They got in front of me, but they didn't block my view, so I didn't fight it. Ekrobi, however, wasn't having any of it. These two fratty guys — these horse-toothed oafs, tried to get in front of Ekrobi. One of them position himself to her right, closer to the stage, but not in her way and the other was going to try to follow him. This guy had at least a good eight inches on wee Ekrobi, but she not-so-subtly blocked his path and showed him her back.

At that moment I was beaming with pride, thinking “That's muh gurl.”

Number one.

Holy fucking shit. Look at this Harriet Miers/George Bush correspondence at The Smoking Gun

Number two.

Tina Brown wrote an interesting, if scatterbrained columntoday in the Post abou the Miers nomination.

The best sentence is this, referring to Margaret Thatcher (as Lady T):

Happy Birthday, Lady T — and hail to you and all the women who've gone before! You won us the freedom to say that if opting for a Harriet Miers means we risk getting not just a sycophant but a stem-cell-banning, abortion-denying, Bible-thumping presidential sycophant, maybe we'd just as soon have a guy.

Things my Grandma has said today:

“I don't like 'Will and Grace.' I can't stand all that yelling.”

“I wore a blue wedding dress. It wasn't because I wasn't a virgin.”

(pinching my cheek) “I'm your Grandma.”

“Were there many Asians at the grocery?”

and…

“I hate Wal-Mart.” (not that funny just reading it here, but she said it, completely out of the blue and it was hysterical)

Don't know if I told you all, but I'm the drummer/multi-instrumentalist for a band called Korean Pancake Thanksgiving. Morgan plays the guitar, Ekrobi rocks the woodwind section, Katy Miller plays the synthesizer (I don't know if she knows this) and I think Ree dances in a cage.

We've got a few songs brewing (a punk rock screed called “Counties (Care for Kids)” and an a cappella number called “Buca de Boppita Ba”) and we'll soon begin our merchandising.

This is our new logo: t-shirts to come.