This is Bad, Real Bad, Kanye West

The icons of the twentieth century are dropping like flies. A single month has seen the demises of the King of Pop, the King of Policy Analysis, and now the King of Primetime News.
The worst part is that we don't even have John Updike around anymore to tell us what it all means.

Musical Oddities III: Dream of Electric Meat

While staying at a friend's house, I dozed off in front of the TV, only to wake up to the sight of a man punching an enormous slab of raw meat in front of a microphone as a baritone voice warbled about Benito Mussolini.

If you want to learn about one of pop music's most committed weirdos, watch the documentary 30th Century Man.

Musical Oddities II: Angling in the Badlands

From a review of Bonnaroo 2009 in Blank Newspaper, a free Knoxville arts rag:

At the end of Phish's set, "Trey Anastasio paused for a moment to give a brief monologue, explaining that the first concert he ever went to was three hours of nonstop action and fun...The next moment [Anastasio said] 'I'd like to bring out my boyhood idol, Bruce Springsteen.' "


What?? How do you get from E Street to a watered-down version of Shakedown Street? Then again, if you had asked me to pick the one thing that would top off the jack-tastic "three hours of nonstop action and fun" that I imagine a Phish concert to be, it may very well have been a quickie from The Boss.