Tuesday, June 30, 2009

you guys have gotten so blog-lazy!!


what, do you have jobs???

either way, i will try to fill the gaps by alternating asinine, self-serving, and self-servingly asinine posts. what else have you come to expect???

so. show tomorrow. please come out, it'll be fun. July 24th will bring a show at DC Mini Gallery with some people who i dearly love as people and as bands. Greenland. The Laughing Man. The Alphabet. yes please. fuck yes please.

also, i put up a new song or two on the myspace. good preview for future shows. it's unfortunate, but steve grew his moustache back after his wolverine facial hair, but it's now an adapted Ambrose Burnside, so i'm ok with it.

hugz

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

the sweet taste of victory

we won trivia tonight. convincingly. and won the best team name.

i officially feel good about life again. it must be residual good luck from that bird who shat on my white shirt yesterday while i was having lunch.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

muscle memory

i made a new song at the coffee shop. i'm sure the other patrons thought i was insane with my headphones on as i mashed my keyboard for hours, as if i were typing the world's longest gibberish email.

luckily, it sounds like the internal workings of the gmail servers, or a robot heart, or some such thing. call it an instrumental interlude.

czech it

also i redid my myspaces because the old ones were broken. ALSO, artomatic show on july 1, minigallery show july 24, galaxy hut probably mid-august.


Saturday, June 20, 2009

whale song

ok the b side from the aforementioned new modest mouse single is called "whale song."

coincidentally, it's AWESOME. like, old-school modest mouse awesome. three-minutes-of-classic-modest-mouse-guitar-noodling-before-lyrics awesome.

that's all. off to sister's grad party.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

hey! a story about twitter that doesn't make me want to claw my eyes out!

pete hoekstra: american hero

also, this is a good use for twitter. someone told me, trying to convince me that i should join (which i certainly will not), that i'd be good for it because it's good for making quips.

1. i can make quips just fine in real life, thank you.
2. i already have a BLOG. how much less interesting could i be?
3. if you were interested in what i had to say about a subject, just make up something that sounds like me. it'll probably be just as (un)funny.

i think conan has the right idea:

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Monday, June 15, 2009

things i like about spencer krug


--guaranteed to deliver a face-rocking show
--played some old songs too
--likes to start with old songs and transition into new ones, which i always think is a great idea
--very high chord-change-to-song ratio
--similar hunched-over-microphone-singing technique to another noted insane person/musician
--makes me like riffs, like, a lot more than i normally do
--named new album "dragonslayer." yeah.
--occasional wispy-moustache-haver
--nintendo love songs
--reminds me that i do like rock music sometimes

also, here's that one in a cab.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

i want some answers that ja rule might not have right now



from this awesomely titled blog post: What does Ja Rule think about COIN?

and now for something completely different

fascinating article!

about the obama administration!

from...

the new...york......TIMES!

gotcha, suckers. good article! matt bai this time! new yorker-worthy! read!

also, i've been reading a ton of good articles recently. thank god for both the age-old practice of name-dropping things i don't know about but should, and the brand-new internet practice of linking to said things.

articles about language by two of the best twentieth century writers:
vonnegut on dictionaries
orwell on sloppy english making for sloppy thinking

one of the best magazine profiles ever (don't believe me? david carr said so, in another great article, which is why i know about it at all):
gay talese: "frank sinatra has a cold"

want to know about afghanistan? read this.

want to know about the outlook for iraq's political situation? read this.

want to know about how COIN really worked during the surge? read this.

want to read my three favorite foreign policy blogs? of course you don't.

if there's anything i can take out of my long sabbatical, it's that i read a shit-ton of good stuff. there's not much to show for it, but at least i have a good idea of the high, high bar that i have to hit for any writing i produce in the future. knowing how much you don't know is wisdom indeed.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Dr. George Tiller

when i heard the news of his murder, i was mortified, as i'm sure all three people who read this blog also were. it's taken me a while to get my head around what this means, and to learn about and understand both the importance of his work and the creeping restrictions on a woman's right to make the right health decisions for her.

i worked with Dr. Tiller's PAC, ProKanDo, and a lot of folks who were involved with it or other organizations in Kansas. i've got a soft spot for the state, not only because of my old colleague who was a native, rabid Jayhawk, but because i had universally positive experiences with every single person i worked with in Kansas.

from what i understand, Dr. Tiller was not only a tremendously brave person (as is oft-reported, he endured threats his entire career and was shot in both arms in 1993), but also an extremely compassionate doctor and community member. i think the thing that moved me to write this is this piece in the New York Times which excerpts and rounds up the personal stories that have poured out in the wake of his murder. on Tell Me More on Tuesday Michelle Martin interviewed Dr. Joseph Booker, the only obsteritrician left in Mississippi to offer abortion services, who pointed out that the picketing of offices and home residences, threats, and stigma attached to providing these services to women has caused fewer doctors to provide them. most medical schools, according to Dr. Booker, don't even teach abortion procedures anymore. they're not even taught. more than the fact that he's been threatened repeatedly, more than the fact that he's been under U.S. Marshall protection off and on for fifteen years, that's what struck me most.

when we talk about making the personal political, think about that. think about what it takes to even be in a position to help women make these unbelievably tough decisions. one striking paragraph in an otherwise totally disgusting, confused, morally relativistic piece on Slate by William Saletan follows:
The people who do late-term abortions are the ones who don't flinch. They're like the veterans you sometimes see in war documentaries, quietly recounting what they faced and did. You think you're pro-choice. You think marching or phone-banking makes you an activist. You know nothing. There's you, and then there are the people who work in the clinics. And then there are the people who use the forceps. And then there are the people who use the forceps nobody else will use. At the end of the line, there's George Tiller.
we've all got our own views on choice and our own experiences with friends and loved ones who fall across the entire spectrum on the issue; we also probably have people in our lives in medical school or who practice medicine. i don't pretend to know what to do next: some of my friends have suggested making a donation to planned parenthood or another organization of its kind. i think that sounds pretty good. i think it's a good idea to raise the profile of this issue, and seriously think about where you stand and what you can do.

right now, though, i think it's important that we reflect and mourn. this was a heroic human being. he helped save the lives of a lot of people who would have otherwise had no recourse. he stood for, and acted on, and lived our best ideals.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

bah

speaking of bad lives

the new yorker this week is a double issue, AND the summer fiction issue. FML

show is canceled

elizabeth's beautiful flyer is up all over the city, though, while we're looking on the bright side.