nah pop, no style

Last night I watched MY FAVORITE SUMMER TV SHOW, America’s Got Talent, and wrote some remarks on it then left them on my computer at home. Perhaps I’ll edit them and update you at some later point. I’ll give you this much: I was not very entertained by The Hoff this time around. He better get back to being totally bonkers or this is gonna be a boring season.

Also, two hours for each episode seems a bit much — is that how last season started out too? Oh well. I’ve got nothing better to do, right?

Friday is a planned trip to Laurel Caverns for some spelunking. I hope to test my mild claustrophobia. I think I’ll be fine. And if not, it’ll be funny. In a scary sort of way. I’ll report back on that.

I have a new review (of the new Aydin album) in today’s paper, check it out, I’ll post it on here when it goes online tomorrow. I’m kind of tired of writing about music. Oh well. It’s my job.

If I keep up at this pace, I’ll have to create an “idiot letters to the editor” category and do some retroactive tagging. Today’s entry is actually from Saturday’s P-G. Maybe I find this one more obnoxious than most others because I have to deal with people like this as part of my job.

Our efforts omitted

As a long-time reader, I was greatly disappointed by your paper’s complete lack of mention of the annual fund-raising ride from Pittsburgh to Lake Erie for multiple sclerosis. Instead, your front-page photograph on June 9 was of a YMCA fund-raiser that involved a mere 100 participants.

While I know that the YMCA is a worthy organization, the fact that more than 1,600 riders from all over Western Pennsylvania endured the heat of that weekend over two days to raise money for multiple sclerosis research certainly also deserved your coverage. Are you even aware that there was at least one very serious accident or that there were many heat-related medical incidents?

The number of volunteers, which was huge, and the sponsorship by such companies as Traco, FedEx, Dicks Sporting Goods and UPMC among many others makes this event a very large and important one, and I fail to understand why you did not even mention it.

TODD HENKELMANN
West Deer

This one’s sort of along the lines of “Pizza Outrage” (which I apparently never blogged about, though it’s been on my refrigerator for well over a year). “OUR fund-raiser gets lots of volunteers and CORPORATE SPONSORS and IN FACT PEOPLE GET HURT DOING IT! HOW COULD YOU NOT COVER IT?!?!?!”

If your fund-raiser was that successful, chill down and appreciate that. Maybe next year there’ll be a human interest pic in the paper or something.

* It’s worth noting that I have in the past supported this very fund-raiser and find it to be totally worthwhile. And one whiner’s sour grapes about press coverage won’t change that.

It’s been a week and a half since I last updated you on my mundane life. Where do I even start? Does it matter?

Things of late:

• Dreams about fish in a fish bowl, and about playing baseball in gym class, and one somehow involving my nephews.
• Speaking of baseball — took my dad to the Pirates game yesterday and of course they lost. But at least I got a sunburn!
• America’s Got Talent is back! First episode was worthwhile — I had begun to fear that Hasselhoff would be a little more under control this year since he went through rehab, but he’s still a total nut.  Tomorrow night is epi 2 if you’re interested.
• I think tonight maybe I’ll make BBQ tofu sandwiches. I’ve been on a BBQ-things kick lately. And I have some tofu to spend.
• I don’t even remember what all happened the weekend prior to this, since it’s been a long time. I’m sure I did fun things. Then last week I had a lot of work and hangout to do, none of which makes for a really exciting narrative, so I’ll spare you the details.
• Read Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics; it was okay but nothing significantly special in my mind. Some of the stories were really enjoyable, and others dragged. Then again, I’m not a very good reader.
• On that note, I’m ripping into Critical Art Ensemble’s Electronic Civil Disobedience next. It’s more my speed, I think, in that I’m more in the mood to read stuff like that than to read something relaxing right now.

Yesterday there was a standoff in Greentree as a suspected rapist refused to surrender to police and wielded a gun when they attempted to arrest him. This morning’s P-G holds a photo of the suspect being taken into custody, and while you can’t tell very well from this shot that’s online:

YES that is a 2008 STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS DETROIT RED WINGS SHIRT and a red pair of shorts.

In fact, with that scruffy beard and receding hairline, dudeman kinda looks like a Red Wings player himself.

Anyway, just further confirmation of our suspicion that Wings fans are crazed violent criminals.

Also, I’ve been meaning to call your attention to this hilarious (albeit depressing) letter from the P-G from a couple weeks ago:

Our sinking society

When opposition to a man marrying a man and a woman marrying a woman is called (by a representative of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania) “disgraceful, morally wrong,” you see morality standing on its head (“Same-Sex Marriage Ban Likely Dead in Pa. Senate,” May 7). That such a revolting arrangement can be regarded as a good thing, one has to realize how decadent we have become. When something so vile is praised as something commendable, you know we have entered the last stages of a corrupted society.

Only a perverted mind could regard the defending of man-woman marriage as “an attempt to enshrine bigotry.” When, in the history of the human race, or of any nation or tribe, has it been “the basic right” of men to marry men or women to marry women? Also, sexual relations are a privilege, not a right. And, furthermore, no one has either privilege or right to incest or sex with a minor or an animal, regardless of one’s so-called “sexual orientation.” (There are all kinds of “sexual orientation.” Does that allow anyone to do any kind of sex as one chooses?)

While sinking more and more into the muck on immorality, we dupe ourselves into thinking we have, in this phony “new age,” become more enlightened and “caring” while, in fact, we have become gulls and unwary fools in a fadist and jaded culture.

DAVID DAVIS
Ellwood City

Is this for real? I almost feel like a person named David Davis, who insists that sexual relations are a privilege (should I be getting my sex license from the Department of Sexual Relations?) and uses phrases like “do any kind of sex” must be made up. Certainly all people must have some grasp on the idea of consent, right? I guess maybe not.

Also, bets on how long it takes this tool to Google himself and find this post and leave either an incensed morally righteous email or comment (search terms: “David Davis” + do sex + privilege). I’m saying 36 hours.

I don’t think I ever posted details on this show, did I? Here you go:

Emperor X
(Swell lo-fi pop music from FLA via NYC)
Blake/e/e/e
(Experimental-ish weird pop from Italy, ex-Franklin Delano)
Branches!
(Cute pop two-piece from here)

ModernFormations // 4919 Penn Ave. // Saturday June 14 // 8pm // byob // $7

Email me with any questions. It’ll be fun, I swear!

These are a real thing — this is kind of like a follow-up post to the “Cosmic Brownies” of a few weeks ago.

I guess they’re nothing new — there’s apparently a YTMND devoted to them — but I saw them for the first time the other day at the grocery store and I was startled and confused.

Weekend was good and relaxin’ — a lot of sitting around, a bit of reading, a little of giving birthday presents to little kids. This 90s stuff is a bit much though — it would be more acceptable in August, but it’s setting a pretty hot precedent for the summer, seeing as how it’s still late spring and I’m coming home to an 85-degree apartment that I can’t cool down too far.

Hey!

For those of you who like boring stuff, and/or are interested in what made me so busy and irritable for the past couple weeks, click here and read about PBS pledge drives. For those of you who like rock n roll, click here and read what I had to say about the new Modey Lemon record.

For those of you who like the Penguins, it was a good series, well-fought against a bunch of big, old, mean guys. If we can keep the team together to some extent over the off-season, next year will be good. Perhaps I’ll watch more than 2 regular season games per month.

If you have yet to find anything interesting in this post, too bad. I’m tired and have work to do. And maybe lunch to eat.

Okay so I was really busy last week. Really really busy. Watch out for my cover story in this week’s paper. It won’t actually be on the cover, I don’t think, because it’s not very appealing art-wise. But it’ll be the main feature.

What else has happened lately?

Went to Phipps Friday night with the lady; the Chocolate! exhibit is, er, kinda lacking. It basically involves a weird outdoor exhibit with machines where you “experience” the steps involved in making chocolate (only not really), and a bunch of pink flamingo displays, and some cell phone tour things where you have to call numbers with different area codes in order to find out interesting chocolate facts. But whatever — Phipps is nice, even when the exhibit is a little bit lame.

Saturday night was the Penguins game — boy, did they lose. Tonight’s our last chance. We’ll see how this goes. I hope they can pull it off.

Yesterday I ran my first 5K of the year, in Schenley Park. Shaved about three minutes off my time from last year; I forget exactly what my time was but it was somewhere around 25:something.

In music news, I have a Modey Lemon review coming in this week’s paper, and by way of a quick heads-up, Oxford Collapse play Tuesday the 10th at Gooski’s. I hope to make it, though bar shows on weeknights are not my forte.