Thanks for the memories, Goulet.

The miracles of Annie Clark.

I’ve wanted to write about St. Vincent for a couple of months now. I still kick myself for missing her show, but having recently seen the video for “Jesus Saves, I Spend,” I figure now is as good as time as any.

Annie Clark is the lone member of St. Vincent, not including the long list of reputable rotating musicians who have helped Clark out. Clark herself has shown her musical range and penchant for grandiose noise having performed with The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens. “Marry Me” successfully functions as both Clark’s first album and evidence of her appreciation of Arrested Development. In fact, the gives us the impression that Clark is a singer/songwriter with a detectable sense of sincerity, a little bit of quirk and a level of sophistication Regina Spektor probably dreamed of having before her Adult Top 40 career.

All that and she’s dangerously cute.

Featured Song: “Jesus Saves, I Spend” by St. Vincent

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Featured Song: “Your Lips Are Red” by St. Vincent

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Featured Video: “Jesus Saves, I Spend” by St. Vincent

This starts slow, but once it gets going you’ll never want it to end. I mean that. My complements went out to whatever individual or group of individuals who have given this gift to the world.

I’m pretty sure that’s Tom Selleck’s face superimposed on the dude at the end, but don’t quote me on that.

Robert Reich readies his webcam sex show.

You may remember Robert Reich from when he was labor secretary under Bill Clinton. If not, you’ve probably seen him on the teevee or heard him on NPR, or maybe you’ve even taken one of his libtard classes at Berkeley! Has a new book out, a systematic study of some very depressing things, not including how he may have done it with Hillary in college.

The book, Supercapitalism was reviewed in the Times on Sunday, and that’s almost like reading it because that paper’s just so literary. According to reviewer Robert Frank (and we’ll take his word on this one) Reich makes this point: businesses are as greedy as they’ve ever been, politics just as corrupt. The actual problem is lax regulation has created an overly competitive marketplace, fueling a social and economic race to the bottom. Government has to mediate in the market, but it too has become too competitive an environment to do business. Hilarious!

We know it sounds like your typical Berkeley-Communo-Islamist propaganda but Frank, some kind of “professor of economics” and “Cornell,” says it’s not. He takes some issue with some of Reich’s historical references (go figure) but agrees with the thesis. We gotta say though, when you outline a grand indictment of our economic and political system, and then close with a call for campaign finance reform, that’s just seems, well, a little bit retarded and we think Congress will find it the same.

O’Reilly’s head seems larger than usual…

We haven’t covered our favorite pundit in a while, mainly because we’re still trying to catch up with Malkin, Coulter and Limbaugh. The whole Harlem fiasco seems so long ago now…

You can’t keep a conservative God-fearing man down, though. Last night, O’Reilly was brave tackled an issue that we didn’t know we should care about. In fact, we still don’t care about it. But he certainly does. During his “Culture War” segment, O’Reilly espoused his typical liberal agenda rhetoric whilst masterfully interjecting pitches for his new children’s book (SPOILER ALERT: A certain headmaster wizard is totally gay. Wait, sorry; wrong book):

We went out random. You know, just, we didn’t do any study — just pulled the kids between 13 and 17 with target audience of my book, and — you know, the kids have no clue. And a lot of them think that they don’t owe the country anything. They’re here, and they’re entitled to everything. Now, I assume this is what is being fed to them in the public school system. Am I wrong?

Sort of. And by sort of, it’s more like completely. But it isn’t a Culture War until the offical scapegoat sacrifice:

I’ve been out of the classroom now for more than 30 years, so I could be wrong. But it seems to me, and the studies indicate, that most teachers — high school and college in the United States — are left-wingers. That they bring in a anti-American viewpoint to the sense that they don’t preach about the nobility of America, they teach about the deficits.

I wish some of my teachers could have imparted some sort of opinion on anything to me. And I don’t count my debate teacher who devoted a class to discuss dreams induced by morphine after his car accident as an opinion. Kids don’t care because they’re kids, not because their teachers are supposedly liberal. Honestly, I can think of at least five more reasons as to why kids behave like kids, most of which are biological. Poppa Bear continues…

…[T]he kids who are loyal and try to be patriotic are geeks — are considered geeks because of it…But the pressure is the cool kids are the ones that don’t like their country.

Really? In my experience, the “cool kids” were upper class, privileged white offspring who listened to Toby Keith and suffered traumatic blows to the head on an athletic field of some sort. I think there was a study.

Featured Song: “Announcement” by Otis Redding


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Source:
O’Reilly: “[S]tudies indicate … most teachers … bring in a anti-American viewpoint to the sense that they don’t preach about the nobility of America” Media Matters for America

Not much to say, really. The script is so perfect and speaks for itself.

Isn’t a shotgun a bit much for a break in or what not, much less two?

(Thanks to the HUH forum.)

Brooklynites Elephant Parade get down.

Brooklyn loves its girl-boy power indie pop duos. If Matt & Kim are in the high-energy end of the spectrum, Elephant Parade is most definitely on the lo-fi end. Gracing us with soft guitar and strikingly fragile vocals, to say that Estelle, from Gainsville, FL. and Ido, from Israel, are minimalist musicians is an understatement

Not unlike artists like Jana Hunter, Elephant Parade’s arrangements and vocalization sometimes emote more than the actual lyrics or instrumental ability (and they’re obviously a talented twosome). Adding their guitar and piano, the songs left me with an incredibly earnest sense of loneliness and sadness. (I’ve recovered since.)

My favorite track is a short and pretty straightforward song. A man waxes his car while his family watched television indoors. The song ends with “Ooh, baby/When I’m with you I’m all right/Hey baby/When I’m with you, it’s all right/Yeah, baby/Let’s take the Cavalier out.” Without taking too much of a leap, the song, titled “Xanax” is a little slice of the modern, pharmaceutically inclined life.

Featured Song: “Goodbye” by Elephant Parade


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Featured Song: “Xanax” by Elephant Parade


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