Spiralling

Somehow, I missed Keane’s upcoming album in my fall music preview, but based on this, it sounds like the boys heart the 80’s big-time on this effort, and I heart the result.

And I'm All Like, "WTF, Becks?"

Sometimes, things can be awesome even when they make absolutely no sense.

And Australia's All Like, "WTF, Mate?"

I know you’ve all seen this before. But it’s still funny.

Thinking Clearly

I promise to keep the political posts to a minimum this year (unless McCain wins and that flip-flopping nutjob Palin ends up a heartbeat away from the presidency — then I’ll probably be firing off political posts left and right from Barcelona or Berlin), but I finally got a forwarded email that was worth repeating. It does such a great job of showing how ridiculous the Republican hype machine really is when you break their arguments down. Here it is:

I’m a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight....

If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you’re “exotic, different.” Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

If your name is Barack, you’re a radical, unpatriotic Muslim. Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

Graduate from Harvard Law School and you are unstable. Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

If you spend 3 years as a community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience. If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you’re qualified to become the country’s second highest ranking executive.

If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian. If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you’re a Christian.

If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society. If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state’s school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you’re very responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values don't represent America’s. If your husband is nicknamed “First Dude”, with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn’t register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.

Sadly, half of America would read this and completely miss the sarcasm. And that’s why the pessimist in me has this sinking feeling that Obama is going to lose.

McCain image by Steve Sedam/XL Industries.

Culinary Delights

And now for something completely different...

By no means would I ever consider myself resembling anything close to a chef. My kitchen is pretty much just a storage area that’s seldom used for anything more difficult than opening a new box of cereal. But every once in a while, I get the urge to eat something that hasn’t been handed to me through the window of my car, and that usually means it’s time to throw down on the grill.

Tonight was one of those nights. I had a good cut of boneless sirloin (Laura’s Lean Beef from Super Target—don’t knock it) that I marinated overnight in a mixture of Worcestershire sauce, cracked black pepper, and Simply Organic Spicy Steak Seasoning. Once I fired up the grill, I started sauteing some chopped onion and baby bella mushrooms in olive oil and a touch of the Worcestershire, just enough to give everything a hint of flavor. I threw the steak on the grill at medium heat, flipped it a couple times, covered it with the onion and mushrooms, added a glass of red wine (I prefer something more flavorful with steak—tonight was a 2004 Tinto da Anfora, a surprisingly well-rounded, full-bodied Portuguese red*, considering the price I paid for it), and voila! I’m stuffed and happy.

Thus ends what will probably be my first and last post about food, at least until the day Taco Bell and Pizza Hut join forces to create the Ultimate Deep Dish Spicy Chicken Supreme Burrizza. What a glorious day that will be...

*OK, full disclosure: I totally cheated and looked up reviews of this wine online. I buy all my wine on an aesthetic basis, meaning my design snobbery will not allow me to buy anything with an ugly label.

Damn, hippies!

CSNY, just hangin’ out by the pool with a few thousand friends. The word “incendiary” comes to mind...



Thanks to Aquarium Drunkard for digging this one up.

The only way this might have been OK is if it was the Gallagher who smashes watermelons...

A big “Get well soon” to Noel Gallagher, who has a possible broken rib and ligament damage after some jackass ran out of the crowd and shoved him onto his monitors during a show in Toronto on Sunday. To Noel’s great credit, he came back out with the rest of the band and finished the show after a brief delay before seeking medical attention, but what the fuck? There's a big difference between jumping onstage to promote your political views (anybody remember the “Soy Bomb” guy?) and jumping onstage to try to hurt somebody because you’re drunk and sad that you have a tiny penis. And Canadians call us the belligerent ones...

As fair punishment, security should have just thrown the guy in an interrogation room and let Liam go all Dark Knight on him.

I Predict A Riot

On a Saturday evening few months ago, I saw Ra Ra Riot at the Westword Music Showcase, and I don’t remember being all that impressed. Granted, it had been a long day of standing outside in the sun, and the crowds had been full of annoying douchebags who apparently only came to hold shouted conversations over the music, so my tolerance level was pretty low. I remember thinking RRR might have some promise, but I wasn’t really in much of a mood to give a new band a chance that day. Well, after listening to The Rhumb Line for the first time this weekend, I won’t make that mistake twice. This album has pretty much been on repeat since I downloaded it—at home, at work, on my iPod while I work out—and while I can’t exactly pin down what it is I enjoy about it so much, it really struck a chord with me. The closest I can come to describing their sound is like a darker Vampire Weekend without the Afro-Pop influence. The strings (in this case, violin and cello) are central to RRR’s sound, and I think that’s part of it for me. I’ve gotten into larger bands that use strings (like Arcade Fire and Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s) in recent years, and I’ve always loved Mark Mothersbaugh’s chamber-pop-ish scores to Wes Anderson’s films, so it makes sense that a large part of why I love Ra Ra Riot is that they seem to be influenced by all of that music, but have taken that influence to its next logical step.

I could go on, but I feel like I’m not coming close to doing the music justice with my description, so just have a listen for yourself.

“Dying Is Fine” (mp3)

“Ghost Under Rocks” (video)

Long Past Fashionably, Just Plain Late

OK, I’ve ignored this song for as long as I can, but every since Z-Trip brought down the house at Unconventional ’08 with MIA’s “Paper Planes,” I cannot get it out of my head. Who knew gunshots and cash register noises could make for such an unforgettably infectious chorus? Every time I hear it, I just want to dance around the room making pistols with my fingers (and except for rare occasions like VIP parties during Democratic National Conventions, I’m not much of a dancer). Also, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that I didn’t pick up on the biggest summer jam until fall arrived. Alanis might call that ironic.

And just for fun, here’s the extremely NSFW Pineapple Express trailer that made “Paper Planes” the hit it deserves to be.

Work and Play

Last week, due to a last-minute illness of one of our regular writers, I blogged for work. It was an interesting experience. Not because it was new, but because in the four five years that I’ve been posting here, I’ve created a voice for this blog that I’m totally comfortable with—if I had to give it a name, I’d go with “geek snark” (or maybe gnark? sneek?). Even though I got the opportunity to write about a really amazing night of music, comedy, and dancing (2 of the 3 will seem quite familiar to regular readers of this blog), the assignment for work presented a challenge for me, because it didn’t feel like the blogging voice I’m used to would exactly cut it in the world of real reporting. (On the other hand, if you look at some of the other posts on Elevated Voices around the same time as mine, you’ll find several videos of a drag queen and a guy pretending to be French hunting “celebrities” around Denver, so “real reporting” is a term I use loosely.) I can’t say I’m 100% happy with the end result, and unlike this blog, I can’t go back and make unlimited edits, but I guess it turned out all right for a first effort. If there’s one thing I’ve figured out in the extremely limited writing I’ve done, it’s that I can at least do a decent job of mimicking other writing styles, so hopefully, I’ll get more chances to practice other voices beyond this one.

(And because I know she’s going to post a comment to this effect anyway, my friend Jenny has been telling me to try writing for other outlets for years now. It’s just taken me a while to figure out that she might actually be on to something.)

Recently

Another mix of stuff I've been listening to lately:

1. That’s All Right (Mama)… The Beatles
2. If Time Permits… Matthew Sweet
3. Soda Jerk… Buffalo Tom
4. Life On Mars?… David Bowie
5. Something In You… The Orange Peels
6. Just Blue… The Weepies
7. No Sunlight… Death Cab for Cutie
8. Constructive Summer… The Hold Steady
9. The Beauty of Gray… Live
10. 4:35 A.M… Gemma Hayes
11. Sit and Wonder… The Verve
12. Starman… David Bowie
13. Spreadin’ Rhythm Around [Lady Bug vs. Lady Day RR Remix]… Billie Holiday
14. My Revenge… Julie Ocean
15. Sequestered In Memphis… The Hold Steady
16. Remnants… My Morning Jacket
17. Took My Lady To Dinner… King Khan And The Shrines
18. Spiral Staircase… Kings Of Leon