Send Palin Packing?

[Palin Watch] Namaste! Even in India, they are talking about whether John McCain should replace Sarah Palin with a new vice presidential pick.

Except then we might be stuck with Mitt Romney. (Holly Mullen)

In Other Doomsday News...

[Post Apocalyptic Reading] Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us will be speaking tonight at the University of Utah about his best selling book that imagines what happens when real jungles reclaim concrete jungles and what vestiges of humanity will survive long after we're gone (think Tupperware vs. Mona Lisa). You know, cheery stuff to think about while we're on the verge of an economic meltdown-- but hey, you might as well start planning ahead for the end of civilization right?

Weisman's best-seller does take an interesting, multi-faceted look at the mark we leave on the earth and vice versa, and does so by slicing the question from a variety of angles: environmental, archaeological, sociological, spiritual etc... So come hear the author himself tonight, Tuesday Sep. 30, from 7-9 pm at the Libby Gardner Hall, the event costs $10.

But if that prospect seems like too much of a bummer to you, don't worry, there's other literature out there to teach you how to make the end of times the best of times. (Eric S. Peterson)

City Weekly: Governor Approved!

[Media] Wha? Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. told KUER 90.1's RadioWest yesterday that City Weekly is "the only reliable newspaper in the state." Sarcasm? Pure, scalding truth? We'll choose the answer we like. And check the "I'm waaay liberal!" mini-rant that follows in the handy player below:



(Bill Frost)

Rockin' the Wasatch

[Earthquake Alert] Is your house right on the Wasatch Fault Line? This video from the Utah Geological Survey has answers! Sort of! Somewhere, former City Weekly editor Ben Fulton is mind-screaming "I told you so! I told you so!"



(Bill Frost)

Dead Zephyr: Week 255

(Bill Frost)

Brandon Burt's Losing Captions

[Cartoons] In my spare moments, I sometimes enter the New Yorker cartoon caption contest. None of my three or four entries has yet made the finals--yeah, boo-hoo--but I can dream, can't I? It's a fun pastime.

Trouble is, even if my entries don't make the cut, I still like them, and it seems a little sad that the poor little waifs never see the light of day. So I'd like to start sharing my losing entries. Feel free to submit your own in the comments.

From the Sept. 22 contest, now undergoing voting:

"However, before issuing your band, I am legally required to advise you that the Restaurant Clause Provision is severable."

Now, my humor mentor is Bill Frost. (He didn't sign up for the position, so I just have to take my lessons as they come along.) I'm pretty sure he'd call this one "too thinky." Should I have said "the Restaurant Claws Provision"? No, that makes it worse. ... Also, the band/bond thing is utterly opaque--but I think the "severability" of the "claw" is pretty funny. No? No? ... OK, no.

(Brandon Burt)

X96 BASH REVIEWED!

With promises of cold weather approaching, it was time for me to get in all of the last minute warm weather outdoor festivities that I could before it was too late. So I hauled my big ass out to the X96 Big Ass Show on September 27. Held at Usana Amphitheater, instead of its usual Utah State Fairpark stomping grounds, I was curious how the new set up would fly. I’ve only been to Usana one other time about six years ago.

The band roster included 12 headlining acts—including Yellowcard, Hawthorne Heights, Head Automatica, and Lostprophets—most of which I have never heard of, but that could just be my age showing. Perhaps I’m getting a little too nostalgic. If memory serves, past Big Ass Shows seemed to include an impressive lineup of bands that surpassed the amount showing for this year. Generally this included four stages with music going at all times. This year seemed to be lacking that completely.

I arrived in time to catch Local H. Once they started, I had some hope that this would be a pretty amped up show with a bevy of bands going on, but mid-set, I looked out into the crowd and thought that maybe it is time to lower the Ritalin dosage in today’s youth. During a very energetic set the band was met by a crowd of kids standing in a zombie stance, not even bobbing back and forth. You could tell that the band was not even that into it and they mentioned that they will be back in November, probably to a more welcoming crowd I hope.

Even security looked bored at this point, their eyes practically begging for just something to happen. Local H ended far too quickly and being overdressed for the seasonal the trickery of fall; I was overheating and headed out to look for a beer while waiting for the next band to show up onstage.

Ironically, the concert was sponsored by Budweiser, which meant I was able to purchase a frothy beverage for a harrowing $8 a pop (which leads me to believe that maybe it is about time that Budweiser started sponsoring me). At this point I didn’t mind though. I just needed something to take me up a couple notches for the next band that came up.

Ludo came on, and again it may just be my age showing, but it was just your average clichéd pop/punk. Some bands think if they say “fuck” enough it will get the crowd riled up and it did wake up a few audience members, but the set was too predictable. That is until they led the crowd into a confusing sing along to the Star Spangled Banner. Maybe that Bud was worth every penny?

Part of going to a concert and enjoying it however, is being able to get up close by the stage. Something about our wristbands got many a languid headshakes "no” from security, though the area in front of the stage was only 1/3 full. This kept me at a far distance from being able to witness anything but dots onstage. That feeling of being left out began to burn less when Ten Years went on, making it seem like that amount of time that they were playing. This was really beginning to feel like the Half-Assed Show to me.

I wandered off in a frenzied search for another stage in hopes that we had at least one local band playing somewhere. Lo and behold, off in the corner of the amphitheater performed our homegrown musicians The Elizabethan Report. This is where the show began to pick up for me, though I came to find out it was a little late in the game.

The band that was up went on to give a quick lecture on not smoking and dived right into their set. I realized if I didn’t watch the overzealous singer too much that this band was really good. Not only that, it was a sigh of relief to be over by these stages because you could get up close, and every single person over there was dancing and enjoying the show to the fullest extent possible. Right as I was noting to my friend that they were very reminiscent of the Talking Heads, they went into a rousing cover of Psycho Killer. It was very impressively done for a group of young kids, leading me to be suspicious that they were from Provo.

I searched high and low and could not find a roster at all for the local bands that were playing, which was disappointing because I was far more interested in this stage than I was at anything else going on around me. After speaking with the band, I found out they actually are from Provo. That place is an untapped well of amazing music that too rarely leaks down to SLC.

I was quite excited to see what other non-roster surprises that the Live & Local stage had to offer me, but when I left momentarily and came back, they were taking the stage down. At this point my interest had waned and I half-listened to the last band, Trap,t go up before sneaking my way out of the Usana Amphitheater, stepping over tired looking teens laying on the lawn. Maybe next year the ball that seemed to be dropped on this show will be picked up again, because this was one of the festival shows that I have really loved in days past, but this year it just didn’t quite cut it. I did get a sweet farmer’s tan out of the deal though.

(Dominique LaJeunesse)

The Race For Third: Ralph Nader, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr

[Politics] The Obama and McCain debate is over. The third party presidential candidates are escalating their campaigns to fight exclusion and garner mainstream attention. A common thread within these candidates is their opposition to the Wall Street bailout package.

Ralph Nader, Independent candidate, has been particularly busy. Before the debate, supporters were encouraged to “hack” the debate with online comments questioning Nader’s exclusion. Following the debate, supporters were directed to Thirdpartyticket.com. Trevor Lyman, who was behind Ron Paul’s multi-million dollar money bomb fundraisers, wants to organize a debate among all six of the major presidential candidates. The catch is that Lyman wants 10,000 donation pledges by Oct. 8. The website is just a day old and 5,578 people have already pledged.

Constitution Party Candidate, Chuck Baldwin, is picking a fight with “misleading” voters' guides. The Baldwin campaign urges supporters to contact the American Family Association questioning McCain’s conservative credentials. Included in the Baldwin Insider is a sample letter to the AFA stating, “Christians are being deceived by your blackout on a viable candidate for president. To make matters worse, you're asking them to send you money to help you deceive them.” Baldwin is also struggling to be included in Opensecrets.org voters’ guide.

Libertarian Party Candidate, Bob Barr, held a counter debate on Friday night which highlighted Barr’s opposition to the Wall Street bailout package in contrast to McCain and Obama’s position. Thousands of new supporters have joined, according to the campaign, because, “[Americans] are angry, confused and unable to understand why our government wants to give away $1 trillion dollars of our money.” Shortly before the debate, Barr was removed from the Louisiana ballot. But the campaign is fighting the decision with an appeal to the Supreme Court. (Joseph Bateman)

Sarah Palin: '80s Sports Babe

[Campaign '08] Went looking for that beauty pageant swimsuit footage, found this instead. How's the ozone layer up there?



(Bill Frost)

Rio Tinto? Barely Knew Ho!

[Real Salt Lake] It appears that mining conglomerate Rio Tinto has won the naming rights to the new Real Salt Lake soccer stadium in Sandy--has quite a ring to it, huh? Right up there with Xango (the RSL-sponsoring juice, not the dark intergalactic overlord from beyond the stars).

No doubt, it will come to be known as RT Stadium, since "Rio Tinto" won't exactly strike fear into the hearts of opponents: "You're going down in the Rio Tinto tonight, Beckham!"

Nope, not gonna happen. Sounds like a buffet-and-margaritas challenge at Chili's. (Bill Frost)

Oh, What a Tangled Web

[Men in Trees Sporting Goatees] According to The National Enquirer, "shocking allegations" of Sarah Palin's 1996 affair with burly snowmobile salesman/presumed Palmer, Alaska, Councilman Brad Hanson have elicited nothing but denials from Palin and her burly husband Ricky Gervais--er, that is, Todd Palin. Still,

Hanson family insider, Jim Burdett, has gone on the record and passed a rigorous polygraph test, revealing de­tails of the affair to The NATIONAL ENQUIRER in a world exclusive interview.

So, you see, you never know when being a Hanson family insider is going to pay off.

Are you an "insider" with some tenuous connection to a political candidate? For instance, did your poker buddy's brother-in-law once have a groovy three-way with Jason and Julie Chaffetz? Like, eww--but why not cash in on your vaguely powerful, icky connections? If you can go "on the record" and pass a "rigorous polygraph test"--the rigor of which presumably involves a $12 galvanic-response meter and a disgruntled ex-Scientologist--why not contact the Enquirer today? Or, better yet, send me blog fodder. Utah's boring campaign season could use a little sexing up.

I can't pay, but at least you'll know that the story will be better copy-edited than the Enquirer's--I promise not to use commas to set off restrictive appositives such as "Jim Burdett," and I'll remember that hyphens belong in compound modifiers like "world-exclusive." Mrrowr.

(Brandon Burt)

Friday Letters Round-Up

• No-mo homo mo-mos need to be patient when they try to pray the gay away.


• If a member of Congress co-signed your mortgage agreement, you're part of the problem.


• "Dear world: Surprise! We're nonreactionary!"


• Jesus is my HMO.


• Also, Ken Kesey's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is a more astute analysis of today's economic crisis than you might think.

(Brandon Burt)

Watch Your Language, Rolly!

[Media] I normally enjoy Paul Rolly's column, but in an item about LaVar Christensen's fund-raising efforts, either Rolly or an overeager copy editor seem to have gotten confused by politically correct Republican buzzwords:

[LaVar] Christensen sponsored legislation for a constitutional amendment promoting traditional marriage ...

Remember that amendment that promoted traditional marriage? Me neither. Rolly is referring to the 2004 amendment that made it illegal for government to recognize gay and lesbian marriages or civil unions. "Traditional" (which is the P.C. Republican term for heterosexual and monogamous) marriages were unaffected.

(Brandon Burt)

Ryan Seacrest Wants to Meet Your Mom

[Reality Hell] Just when you thought Reality TV production (excluding MTV) couldn't sink any lower, here comes Momma's Boys--from NBC and Ryan Seacrest! And they're casting in Salt Lake City! The Very Important Message from NBC casting, who are only looking for "good-looking, fun guys," so all you homely, dull dudes can just move along to The Biggest Loser:

"I was told this was THE magazine of Salt Lake City by our NBC affiliate in town. We will be in town from October 1st to October 6th. We will be hold casting events at the following locations:

Thursday, October 2nd:
9:30 am- 10:30 am - Curves - 2142 S. Highland dr. Salt Lake City

9pm - 11pm - Studio 600 - 26 E. 600 S. Salt Lake City

10pm - 12pm - Green Street - 602 E 500 South Salt Lake City

12am - 1:30pm - SkyBar - 161 W 600 S Salt Lake City

Saturday, October 4th
10pm - 12am - Huka Bar - 151 E 6100 S Salt Lake City"

In case you'd like to know exactly what you're auditioning for (an afterthought for most reality-TV hopefuls), read these:

THE magazine? KSL 5 knows we exist? (Bill Frost)

Countdown to Suspension of U.S. Constitution

[The Coming Police State] Oct. 1 will mark the first deployment of a military combat division on U.S. soil since post-Civil War restoration. This news comes to us from the tin-foil-hat bloggers and conspiracy nuts at ... oh, oops. It comes to us from ArmyTimes.com.

Yep, it's really happening. The division, to be known in milspeak as CCMRF (pronounced "sea-smurf"--again, not a joke) will be under control to "help" people in the "homeland" in case of natural disasters, terrorist attacks or, say, domestic unrest in the wake of a blatantly stolen election or federal confiscation of our money to prop up the lavish lifestyles of failed "free-market" CEOs and other short-sighted fat-cats.

Perhaps those of us who enjoy the exercise of our civil liberties have simply waited too long--I for one have been kind of pinning my hopes on a major political shift this November. However, wouldn't you know it, the nutcase Dominionists and neocons in charge of the GOP don't see any need to consult the electorate before instituting their glorious plans for the nation. Once they start deploying the military against domestic political opponents, it'll be too late for those of us in the loyal opposition.

And, now, I'm really depressed. Hey, look! A cute video: Cats are sooo weird:



(Brandon Burt)

UtahFM.org: Pinpoint SLC 4

[Media/Podcast] UtahFM.org's fourth local entertainment podcast is here--this time, it's about the Sego Art & Music Festival, and singer-songwriter Paul Jacobsen (interviewed by City Weekly's own Jamie Gadette).

Hear the Pinpoint SLC podcast now on UtahFM.org. (Bill Frost)

McCain vs. Letterman

[Campaign '08] What happens when you blow off David Letterman? For Katie Couric, no less? You get this:



Still predicting a Utah landslide for McCain, of course, with Mitt Romney running a close second. (Bill Frost)

Dungeons & Dragons & Rotten Musicians

[Local Music] Have we mentioned how much we love the Rotten Musicans lately? If "20 Broadsword" isn't the first hip-hip song about Dungeons & Dragons, it's gotta be the best--the tune's from the forthcoming CD Say You Love Her, being released Saturday Oct. 18 at Kilby Court. Till then, here's the video magic:



(Bill Frost)

Omiheck!

[Claywatch] The Clay Aiken shocker (he's gay!!! Omiheck, omiheck!!!) got picked up in the D-News.

Some of the comments are funny. I like the one who sonorously reminds us not to set store in FALSE IDOLS! (Get it?)

Frankly, I have little use for Aiken--that kind of music puts me to sleep, and, as a "sex symbol," the apparent genetic offspring of Sandy Duncan and Shelly Duvall is too much of a twinkie for my manly-man tastes, which run more toward the likes of Sam Elliott than of Sam Harris. But, now that he's actually had the guts to come out, I loathe him a little less.

(Brandon Burt)

The Sutherland Institute and Salt Lake City Skate Ramps

[Noise Pollution] The Salt Lake City miniramp controversy is gaining momentum as it's been featured in this weeks paper and also in the trib. Owners of backyard half pipes and ramps were outraged to find that unbeknownst to them, the Salt Lake Valley Health Department has classified their private ramps as noise pollution and that by merely owning one, individuals could be liable for civil charges.

Skateboarders, bikers and others have cried discrimination considering that their personal ramps have been banned outright without decisionmakers having sought their input, while other backyard recreations from barbecues to trampolines, only have curfews applied to them.

City Weekly sought out a perhaps unusual voice of support for skate ramp enthusiasts, from Paul Mero of the Sutherland Institute, the conservative thinktank known for making policy recommendations to legislators and other government agenda setters.

Mero's take on Salt Lake Valley Health's skate ramp ban:

"I think its an intrusion into the private lives of people," Mero says. "It's so funny in lawmaking how we tend to just project our own preference onto society. Not based on substantial rule of law or a sense of common decency--its just more like 'you know what, I hate those guys, so lets pass this law against them.'"

Mero imagines the skating culture has the perceived negative element of counter culture probably working against it in government matters such as this.

"That could be part of why people are treating this differently," Mero says adding "But all things being equal-- it's private property, those are private lives, let the parents deal with the children. If it’s a noise or nuisance, then this sort of regulation should mirror any other noise regulation."

Next week the county will be allowing those who agree or disagree the chance to make their voices heard as the ramp issue will be discussed publicly on Oct. 2 at 7:30 am, Room 2003 of the north building of the County Government Center, 2001 S. State. (Eric S. Peterson)

Oil Shale Extraction Coming To Utah

[Environment] Rather then breaking our oil addiction, legislators are scouring the land for any sign of oil as strung-out junkies looking for their next fix. Our state’s lone Democrat, Jim Matheson, is the dealer pushing eastern Utah’s Uinta Basin for oil shale production. Matheson managed to push through legislation lifting the previous moratorium on oil shale production.

Southern Utah Wildness Alliance is hosting information sessions exploring what oil shale production means for our western landscape. Conservation photographer Garth Lenz and energy analyst Randy Udall will share images and stories about similar extraction in Canada. The first session will be Monday September 29 at the University of Utah inside the Theater of the Student Union Building from 7-8:30 p.m. The next day the information session will be in Moab at the Grand County Public Library (257 E. Center Street) from 6-7:30 p.m. (Joseph Bateman)

Feeling Helpless About The 2008 Election?

Arguably, while there might be some truth to "As a Utah voter, my vote won't help Obama get into office," there is something you can do to effect change in key battleground states. Why not get started this weekend when a group of Obama supporters will carpool up to Colorado to talk to voters in Grand Junction or Fort Collins about our country's need for a positive new direction? Sign up and learn more about the campaign here.
Also, ask organizers what they think about using the following video to get people motivated

(Jamie Gadette)

Idle Threat

[Air Quality] Today, Salt Lake City Mayor Becker and County Mayor Corroon launched the "idle-free" campaign at Hawthorne elementary school. They want parents who wait to pick up their kids at school to kill their engines if they're idling for more than 10 seconds.

Look, I'm all for turning off my car whenever I wait for anything ... from dry cleaning to fast food to a dinner date ... when it makes sense to do so. Sorry, if it's snowing, and I want to keep the car warm and the snow from collecting on my windshield, I'll likely keep idling.

I'd like to be able to turn off my car at stoplights or if stalled in freeway traffic, where I know vehicles are pumping crap into the air by the boatload. But it's not safe and it may not be legal. Why isn't there a technology for cars that puts engines in a "sleep" mode when the car is not moving? That would be far more efficient than relying on the driver to turn the car on and off—all of which can't be that good for your car's ignition system and battery.

I don't disagree with the no-idling premise (as long as it's a suggestion and not a law). But man, do I resist "public awareness" social-engineering campaigns—all costing taxpayer bucks, that involve "toolkits" of logos, posters, window hangers, PSAs—and that are introduced at schools so kids can then bug their parents. Look, let me decide to do the right thing. (I am Andy Rooney and I approve this message.) (Jerre Wroble)

Attention, Claymates

[Media] To all the Claymates who've sent us hate mail in the past for daring to refer to Clay Aiken as "gay," suck on the next issue of People:

Sure, the "news" comes from Perez Hilton--but when has he ever been wrong?

(Bill Frost)

Spotlighting SLC Art, Music, Fashion

Dew Underground's coverage of downtown SLC during its stop two weekends ago aired on Fuel TV Sept. 21. For those who don't subscribe to the cable channel, check out Fuel.TV for brief clips that seem to be updated daily with additional content. Watch cool spots on FICE and Lake of Salt, among others. So far, no online footage of local bands' live performances. Keep your fingers crossed.
(Jamie Gadette)

Riot to End World Hunger!

[Charity] OK, OK we get it, it's ironic to hold banquets to raise money to fight hunger. But look, swallow your sarcasm and just come out to support a good cause. Tonight, Sep. 23 the University of Utah's Lowell Bennion Community Service Center is putting on its eighth annual Oxfam Hunger Banquet, themed "Riot to End World Hunger." The whole "riot" thing is just a theme and guest speaker SLC Mayor Ralph Becker will with his soothing voice be making sure things stay civil, no actual rioting, just good food and good causes. So come check it out at the Olpin Union Saltair Room at 6pm. You can get in for just $5 or five canned food items. The night will also feature speakers like Jim Pugh director of the Utah Food Bank. All proceeds will go towards the Utah Food Bank and Oxfam America. So go stuff yourself and fight hunger--your own and those who are really hungry--it's a twofer! (Eric S. Peterson)

Dead Zephyr: Week 254

(Bill Frost)

Good Cops

[Law Enforcement] Between Taser happy troopers and cop unions shutting down civilian review boards, sometimes the police are a pretty easy target for us media folks. Of course police abuse of power is one thing alot of people complain about, and is always worth shedding light on-- its just a shame it blights out the amazing and heroic things many of our friends in law enforcement do on a regular basis.

This past weekend I saw something that scared the ever-loving shit out of me! And also one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen as well. Driving down 3300 south at about 1 am last Friday me and a friend came across a motorcycle accident. It was not pretty. The man did not have a helmet was bleeding from the head and was totally unconscious. Some people gathered around and we called 911 and waited. Soon at least five police cars blocked off one end of the road and cleared us all out of the street and onto the sidewalk. Every one's adrenaline was pumping already just seeing the guy splayed out on the street in a pool of his own blood, and just when things seemed under control is when things actually got really crazy.

Out of nowhere a truck came roaring down the street and decided not to worry about the five police cars with light flashing. Not slowing down the truck decided to weave through the blockade by cutting a path down the middle lane and around all the cars. The middle lane is also where the injured motorcyclist and several police officers happened to be. In a split second this truck was a moment away from running over one officer and the injured biker, when the officer reached down and pulled the injured man and himself out of harms way.

I shit a brick! Ive never seen anything so simultaneously heroic (the cop pulling a man who could already have been half gone, out of harms way) and so insane (the driver of the truck who decided five cops was not enough to slow him down).

Luckily they caught the guy later on down the road and the ambulance took away the biker. I hadn't heard if he was OK and hadn't seen it in the news. But to the officers I saw that night and especially the one who pulled the biker out of the way of certain death, mad props to you officers. You deserve thanks from me, from everyone there, from the injured biker and even the idiot driver who thanks to your heroics will only be facing reckless driving charges instead of manslaughter. Thank you. (Eric S. Peterson)

Palin, the Carbon Queen

[Campaign 2008] Excellent environmental writer and Torrey, Utah resident Chip Ward gives us one more reason to question Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's judgment, knowledge of environmental issues and general ability. Ward is always thought-provoking and a few yards ahead of most of us on issue of social justice and the environment. In fact, this recent piece may be one of the few published items that seriously questions any of the candidates' position on sensitive environmental issues. With the drowning economy headlining all the news of the past 10 days, it seems no one cares much for how the next president and his veep will keep the Earth in balance. (Holly Mullen)

Why I love Altie Media

[Mainstream Media] After reading this on Saturday morning, I was reminded how happy I am to no longer work for The Salt Lake Tribune. I have no patience for such bat-shit silliness. (Holly Mullen)

Chile Today

[Food] For many folks, a slight chill in the autumn air means football and watching the leaves turn. For me, it all about CHILES! We’re smack dab in the middle of New Mexico’s green chile harvest.

In many southwestern states, but not Utah since it’s illegal here, chile vendors set up temporary roasting stations in parking lots and along the roadside where customers line up to buy freshly roasted Anaheim chiles hot off the grill.

To my knowledge, the only place locally to purchase freshly roasted chiles by the bushel is at La Hacienda Mexican restaurant at 1248 S. Redwood Road, since I’m told chiles are required to be roasted and sold in a licensed restaurant. Mick, a favorite chile informant of mine suggests a “peasant’s” supper of fried eggs, crumbled fresh Mexican cheese, roasted tomatoes and garlic, sprinkled salt—all wrapped up in heated tortillas with roasted green chiles and cold Coronas. Sounds like a 4-star supper to me!

La Hacienda sells their freshly roasted chiles for $27 per bushel (cash only). One bushel provides about a dozen quart bags, which works out to about $2.25 each. Cheap! If anyone else has a secret fresh-roasted green chile source, let us know. (Ted Scheffler)

Whose Fault Is it?

[Quake-Up Call] Check out this 10-minute flyover of the Wasatch Fault. After the video highlights the path of earthquake destruction and the fact that we're long overdue for the Big One, its cheery narrator optimistically concludes "We can't change the fault but we can learn to live with it." Aside from spending millions to retrofit historic buildings and U of U facilities, just how does one learn to live with it?

(Jerre Wroble)

Free Stuff! (Live Theater Edition)

If you've been waiting for just the right time to check out some terrific local theater, please save the date Thursday, October 16. Also, save a lot of money.

Local entertainment portal Now Playing Utah is serving as the Utah sponsor for Theatre Communication Group's national "Free Night of Theater" program. Around the country, theater organizations will be making free tickets available to Oct. 16 performances. And in Utah, those organizations include Salt Lake Acting Company (A Slight Discomfort), Egyptian Theatre Company (Pageant), Utah Shakespearean Festival (Moonlight and Magnolias) and Pygmalion Theatre Company (Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter). You can get a maximum of two tickets when they become available on a first-come, first-served basis at Now Playing Utah on Thursday, Oct. 2 at 9 a.m. local time. Don't miss your chance. (Scott Renshaw)

On Location Location

My love/hate relationship with MTV's reality train-wreck series, The Hills, continues tomorrow night when a song by Salt Lake City's Location Location (Marcus Bently's electronic project) will fill the long silences between Audrina and Lauren. Tune in just long enough to hear "Starpusher." The Hills airs at 10 p.m. (ET).

(Jamie Gadette)

UtahFM.org: Pinpoint SLC 3

[Media/Podcast] In this week's installment of UtahFM.org's Pinpoint SLC local entertainment podcast, SLUG's Andrew Glasset talks to Kid Theodore, and Utah Symphony & Opera's Crystal Young-Otterstrom gets all classical (music) on your ass. Not that she'd put it exactly that way ...

Hear Pinpoint SLC now at UtahFM.org. (Bill Frost)

Rock! This Just In

Eagles Of Death Metal are playing Urban Lounge November 5. Anyone who went to their last gig at The Depot knows what this means.

(Jamie Gadette)

Idol Kills News Anchor Brain Cells

[Media] And to think this happened just across Main Street from us yesterday. How did we not sense a disturbance in The Force when Darth Cowell was near?


(Bill Frost)

Utah's 15 Minutes

[TV News] ABC News and USA Today are doing a "50 States in 50 Days" report leading up to the presidential election. On Sunday, Sept. 21, Utah gets its time on World News Sunday (airing on ABC4 at 5:30 p.m.) when Brian Rooney travels to Price to report on natural gas drilling in Nine Mile Canyon.

That's all well and good, but I guess that also means Utah's quirky political cards (a Mormon in the White House?) have officially played out. No Charlie Gibson/Diane Sawyer probing interviews as to why Gov. Huntsman jumped on the McCain bandwagon before it was politically expedient to do so, or how Utahns are supporting or rallying against the upcoming California marriage amendment or even how Utah created a political opportunist and strategist like Karl Rove (old news, I know, but I never tire of it).

The Utah angle is that of us being just a plain old Western state with oil shale to exploit and what "Drill, baby, drill" is doing or will do to us. Important, yes, but not too imaginative.

Probably oughta watch it. Many of us don't know near enough about Nine Mile Canyon. (Jerre Wroble)

Band On The Run: Oh Snap!!

Day 9

Tour is a series of coincidences, luck, (good and bad), mishaps, a mess of constant confusion. It's seven weeks of never really being grounded. You're always on the go and every time you don't take the time to do a thorough "dummy check"and something gets left behind.

For example. back on Day 1 we were practicing in Denver in the basement of our friend, Corey from Hello Kavita. My bass head (in it's bright purple JC Penney suitcase) was left in a mess of laundry. Corey is shipping it to Chattanooga TN.

Then on Day 5, we were playing in Austin TX at The Mohawk, and while setting up our gear my bass stand was crooked and Thunderbird toppled over! The head snapped from it's neck. There was blood everywere. My stomach turned in knots, my eyes jumped from my head like a cartoon, and a quick loud "FUCK!!!" filled all of downtown Austin.

I'm now out a bass head, and my bass.

After my show at The Mohawk we walk down to Emo's where our friend Matt Bauer was playing. Matt gave us some more Lonestar drink tickets and I clichely (is this a word?) tell bartender Jacob how my heart was broken.

"I just snapped the headstock of my Thunderbird, it's hanging by a thread."
"Bummer man," he says, and pauses. "Man, I got this Squire you can have if you ship it back to me. I've had it forever and just trying to get rid of it." This is when my opinion of Austin changes.
"Holy shit, that'd be awesome, can I just buy it off you or like $50?"
"You know what man? You can just have it."

So he gave me his number and address and I was supposed to pick it up. We sleep at a friend's house, who has a bass head that I can buy for $100 which I quickly borrow from our drummer Charlie.

I call Jacob, and he never answers, so we drive to his house. He lives in a small house, with what it looks like a couple roommates, a bar bottle ashtray on the front porch and a beat up Passat in the driveway. I knock loudly on the door. A few seconds go by. I hear fumbling and loud hungover footsteps walking towards me. He swings open the door in a T-shirt and boxers and in his left hand hands me a very free, black, Squire, telecaster GUITAR. Not a bass. I graciously and very awkwardly take it to the van. (I just didn't have the heart to tell him it was a bass that I needed, I can still use it as leverage towards a bass I thought.)

I'm up a Squire guitar, and down a bass.

This story is getting ridiculous. Basically, I end up getting a bass from our friend in Little Rock AK, who agrees to let me borrow it if I ship it back to Little Rock from NY. I have an appointment to get my bass fixed in NY. Then I'll sell one of the bass heads to pay for all the shipping I'm doing along with my bass repairs.

The scary part is this story is only about half way through. This has been the roughest vacation yet.
(Trever Hadley, Band of Annuals. Blogging for six more weeks!)

A Fitting Tribute

[D.F. Wallace] Sure, you can go on and on about how you once interviewed him, and how he was your very favorite author--or how you became so after news of his death alerted you to his existence. But--excluding J. Gadette's succinct and well-placed outburst, which I fully support--all this literary hand-wringing doesn't add up to a hill of beans in this crazy old world.

At last, there's a powerful organization that's doing something about it.

(Brandon Burt)

Eavesdropping on KSL

[Radioactive] Sometimes I imagine if I crossed over into another time/space dimension, like in an old Star Trek episode, and became my own evil twin that I would be a proud conservative sporting a McCain/Palin bumper sticker on my SUV barreling down I-15 while listening to KSL radio on the way to work.

Well, without even having to locate a wormhole or anything, I actually did tune into KSL radio on the way to work today and was rather disoriented to hear Grant and Amanda joined in by Doug Wright all dissing President Bush for being such a pantywaist about the economy. Wright was especially vexed after listening to the president’s press conference this morning wherein the prez could only muster the weakest of bravado, saying: “My administration is focused on meeting these challenges.” Wright was, per usual, outraged: “Where is the president in all this?”

So, Doug, Grant and Amanda, I have to ask: Where was this outrage back in the day when it might have been useful, when this crisis had its start? It's a little late in the day to be pissed, isn't it?

Bush even opted out of attending a fund-raiser today, since his base from the good old days may be turning on him.

Later, while running an errand, I still had my radio tuned into 1160 AM.

Lo and behold, my ears were filled with the dulcet tones of Sean Hannity interviewing my former mayor, Sarah Palin. I noticed how many of Palin's sentences were choppy fragments as she haltingly considered ways to plug in her talking points. I'm baffled by how inarticulate she has become. Here are a few snippets:

HANNITY: Who's responsible for these failing institutions in your view?
PALIN: I think the corruption on Wall Street. That — that is to blame. And that violation of the public trust. And that contract that should be inherent in corporations who are spending, investing other people's money, the abuse of that is what's got to stop.

… The cronyism that has been allowed to be accepted and then leads us to a position like we are today with so much collapse on Wall Street. That's the reform that we have got to get in there and make sure that this happens. We have got to put government and these regulatory agencies back on the side of the people.

It's what John McCain and I — we have very consistent track records showing that we are capable and we are willing to do this, ruffling feathers along the way, but it's what we're expected to do and what we're promising to do.

And real reform is tough and you do ruffle feathers along the way. But, John McCain has that streak of independence in him that I think is very, very important in America today, in our leadership. I have that within me, also.

And that's John -- why John McCain tapped me to be a team of mavericks, of independents coming in there without the allegiances to that cronyism, to that good old boy system.

It reminds me a little bit of beauty-queen contestant babble. Sorta like …. dare I make the comparison?



(Jerre Wroble)

GOP: Thanks, Hacker!

[Politics] The much-publicized hack into Sarah Palin's quasi-personal Yahoo! mail account couldn't have worked out better for the McCain-Palin campaign.

As a result of the exploit, the account now has been deleted, meaning that Palin can spare herself the uncomfortable questions that would arise if she were to, say, erase evidence in the Troopergate investigation by deleting the account herself. Other uncomfortable questions include: Why was she using insecure Yahoo! mail accounts for official business in the first place? If it's because she was worried that her official (and presumably much more secure) .gov account was subject to open-records laws--not to mention court subpoenas--what was she hiding?

More importantly, is Palin's fetish for back-door secrecy a sign that, if elected, she would continue Dick Cheney's "I'm not part of the Executive Branch" policies of secret government?

The "hacker" also screwed up the data--it was released in screen shot form, for Pete's sake. A real hacker would have swiped a copy of the actual mail spool--creating a searchable text document complete with full mail headers, which would have been much more useful (and, likely, politically damning).

As it is, the "hacker" chose to include things like snapshots of Palin's kids--muddying the waters with a false impression that an elected official can carry out official business in secret, and that the public's access to official government records is somehow a "violation" of the government's "privacy."

So, on behalf of the neocon shadow government, thanks, hacker! You just solved a huge problem for McCain's unvetted running-mate. Couldn't have done it better if you were a GOP political operative. Psst! You can pick up your check at Karl Rove's office.

(Brandon Burt)

Body Worlds' Fiber Art

[Exhibit preview] Until today, I never thought humans were the stuff of fiber. But a tour through Body Worlds 3 and The Story of the Heart, opening Sept. 19 at The Leonardo, revealed a certain "fiberosity" of being: Nerve fiber, muscle fiber, organ fiber, lung fiber, fibrous tendons, even the vast blood vessel network surrounding organs and muscles—when isolated and highlighted like it is in this exhibit—looks like a fine mesh of fiber, or fragile red baby's breath.

And who knew the spinal column is rather drenched in blood from a dense mesh of vessels and capillaries that attach onto it? Seeing how interwoven these vessels are, how needy each organ, muscle and bone is for blood, makes one appreciate what a colossal bummer a heart attack might be.

My observations will no doubt make Dr. Angelina Whalley (above) happy. She wants me to think about my body and treat it nice. Quit my vices. Get fit. Revere it, even.

Whalley's the wife of the exhibit's creator, the mad-anatomist and Plastination patenter, Dr. Gunter von Hagens. She also serves as designer of the exhibits.

Creating this exhibit, for her, borders on a religious experience. At today's press conference, she noted that going back to the days of the Renaissance—when bodies were dissected and examined in churches—looking inside the body is a chance to examine "God's work."

As the 47th city to host Body Worlds, Salt Lake is a bit overdue to receive this exhibit. But at least, it's given Body Worlds a chance to work out all the kinks. Apparently, when they first kicked it off in Japan in '95, they displayed the bodies in straight-forward upright positions. The Japanese said it was too scary. So the von Hagens began positioning bodies into striking poses, highlighting the muscle groups needed to make such movements.

I'd show you some but Body Worlds won't allow posting their photos on blogs.

Thus, you'll just have to see for yourself, starting tomorrow at 10 a.m. at 209 E. 500 South. And/or wait for Brian Staker's upcoming review in City Weekly. And/or read this week's Five Spot.

And good on you, Leonardo. Nice to see the old library come alive again, even if it's filled with dead people. (Jerre Wroble)

Dew Underground: Salt Lake City

I did the Dew tour last weekend, and though I felt old, uncool, and slightly naseous after paying $6 for a draft beer, I earned a newfound appreciation for the sheer amount of man/woman power that goes into setting up an action sports tour. Fuel TV's busy bees worked overtime to capture the most significant facets of the hugely successful event, even stopping by a couple of Salt Lake City venues to film several local bands. Now you can do the Dew from the comfort of your own home, should you subscribe to Fuel TV, that is. Catch the premiere of Dew Underground: Salt Lake City this Sunday, Sept. 21 at 8:30 p.m. (ET). Featured acts include:
Tolchock Trio, Form of Rocket, Furs, Loom, Team Mom!, Navigator and Bad Apples. But wait! That's not all. Fuel TV also caught up with local artists Trent Call, Nick and Erin Potter, Kier Defstar, Jaleh Afshar and Brian Kubarycz. Sounds pretty cool, actually.
Or, totally extreme!!
By the way, this isn't Tolchock's first encounter with Fuel TV

(Jamie Gadette)

The Bison Brief

[Bites] According to the National Bison Association, production and sales of bison have been increasing at an average rate of nearly 20 percent for the past two years. There must be something to this bison business, maybe because it's relatively low in fat, high in protein and has a beneficial cholesterol profile. If you’re interested in trying natural, sustainable bison, a number of downtown restaurants are featuring bison dishes during the Downtown Dine O' Round: Acme Burger (bison burgers), Metropolitan (bison short ribs osso buco), Faustina's (bison sliders), The New Yorker (braised buffalo short ribs) and Squatters (BBQ buffalo burgers). In addition, this weekend Whole Foods in conducting a “Buffalo Bonanza.” Mmmmm ... bison! (Ted Scheffler)

The Most Awesome Cell Phone

[Tech] It's nearly impossible to buy a phone that doesn't also double as a camera, camcorder, iPod, PDA, GPS and personal hadron collider. Life is so complicated. Sometimes you want a phone that's just a phone.

That's why I love SparkFun Electronics' Port-O-Rotary. It's an old, black, standard rotary phone converted to a cell phone.

In case you've never seen one before, you dial a rotary phone by inserting your index finger in one of those little holes and physically rotating the dial until your finger contacts a little metal capstain at the lower right edge. When you remove your finger, a spring mechanism returns the dial to its original position, producing a number of clicks corresponding to the number dialed.

Equipment at the central office automatically interprets those clicks as numbers, routing your call accordingly. The same "click" can also be generated by briefly pressing down on the switchhook located under the handset. This is a helpful feature during those dramatic moments in life, when you can lift the handset and feverishly tap the switchhook while crying, "Operator? Operator!"

The "ringtone" is produced the way the gods intended ringtones to be produced: by an actuated mallet striking a metal bell. Imagine walking down the street talking on one of these puppies! According to the Website, it weighs two pounds, so you could also use it as a weapon to fend off an attacker. Try that with your fancy iPhone.

(Brandon Burt)

Robbery Update: My Personal Theory

[Crimesolvers!] Now, I'm no criminologist. But the idea that the bank robber is an UrRu? Kind of ridiculous. A Skeksi might rob a bank, but not a poor, old, wise UrRu. Face it, the robber is probably not any kind of a Muppet. Snuffleupagus is too slow to get away, and it's been years since Animal robbed a bank; it was the love of a good Muppet, Janice, that helped him kick his heroin addiction. (It's a touching, inspirational story told in her upcoming autobiography Do I Love You? Fer Sure.)

But then I read about another bank robber with a big nose and a wig ... from New York City! (As they say on the Pace condiment commercials, "New York City?!? Get a rope.")

This one is, apparently, a non-Muppet human named Samuel Manoharan:


The similarities are ... well, not exactly uncanny, considering you can't really see much in the security photos. But the similarities are at least plausible. Still, given that he was caught in August robbing banks in Manhattan and Brooklyn, Manoharan is probably in custody. Or is he?!? Maybe he skipped the $30,000 bail. Hell, for all I can tell from a quick Google search, and what I've learned from episodes of Law & Order, he could be on Mars by now. The Murray Police Department undoubtedly has better search tools. And better training videos.

At any rate, if the authorities do apprehend the suspect as a result of this information, it was my pleasure. No need to thank me. Part of my job, etc. On the other hand, if the bank recovers its losses, it might consider some sort of thoughtful gesture. Just sayin'. I've always thought those promotional toaster ovens looked nice.

(Brandon Burt)

Henson Is as Henson Does

[Crime] Sources seem to lean heavily toward describing this alleged robber of a Murray bank as possibly being of Muppet origin.

So far, he/she has been called Snuffleupagus, Animal from The Muppet Show, and--my own opinion--one of the UrRu from The Dark Crystal.

Note: If you want to rob a bank, it might be a good idea to make sure your disguise isn't too entertaining; next thing this hapless guy will know, his photo will be in blogs and e-mails across the world. Not to mention all over LOLRobbers.com.

(Brandon Burt)

Everlast: More Than One Song

[Live Music] Not that you've heard much about it, but former House of Pain rapper-turned-urban-bluesman Everlast plays the Bar Deluxe (666 S. State) tonight; the show was moved from the now-defunct Paladium with little fanfare.

Local radio stations would have you believe that the ONLY song Everlast ever recorded was the maudlin "What It's Like," and it's unlikely any of them are even aware the man's in town tonight while they spin that tune for the fourth time in 24 hours. Here's a far cooler one, "Black Jesus":



(Bill Frost)

Phony Excellence

[Wine Hoax] I've always been a tad suspicious of the all-too-pervasive Wine Spectator restaurant awards for wine lists since it seems like every other restaurant has one. Well, so was Robin Goldstein, author of a book called The Wine Trials. To test whether Wine Spectator's Award of Excellence was legit, Goldstein created a phony Italian restaurant—Osteria L'Intrepido—along with a phony wine list stuffed with "reserve" wines which included some of the lowest-rated in Wine Spectator history. He also created a phony Website and phone reservation line, all of which took about three hours. Next, he submitted his Wine Spectator Award of Excellence application, a copy of food and wine menus, and, most important, the $250 application fee. Seems that the latter is what Wine Spectator is most concerned with since they never investigated Goldstein’s restaurant to determine if it was even real. The nonexistent Osteria L'Intrepido won a prestigious Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator. Read about Goldstein’s shenanigans here. (Ted Scheffler)

Dead Zephyr: Week 253

(Bill Frost)

Green Desert Festival Canceled

Apparently the local music festival scheduled to take place Sept. 19-21 just outside of Eureka has been shut down due to misperceptions of it being "one giant rave." Our friend Gavin has the scoop.
(Jamie Gadette)

Snowboarders Vs. Skiers

[Snow Sports] The age-old question about which sport is better continues to burn. Rather than adding more fuel to this fire, let's have a battle between two snow movies, the Grenerds vs Tanner Hall. The victor gets bragging rights, and hopefully will silence this debate- once and for all.

In this corner are the Grenerds. Danny Kass, the two-time Olympic silver medalist as well as multiple U.S. Open and X Game winner, leds the pack with their latest "The Boned Age". The movie pays tribute to the cult classic "The Stone Age" and features the infamous Grenerds and their antics alongside world-class snowboarders like, Travis Rice, Lucas Mongoon and Benji Ritchie.“The Boned Age includes plenty of wipeouts, skits, and the freshest tricks in all aspects of the sport from Magoon creating new rail combinations to EJT--Experimental Jump Technologies,” said Danny Kass.

The Utah premier of "The Boned Age" takes place tonight (September 15) at The Hotel (155 W 200 S) Salt Lake City. The movie starts at 11 p.m. with DJ Felli Fel continuing the party until 2 a.m.

In the other corner is ten time X Games medalist or as the press release declares "the best all-around skier on the planet", Tanner Hall and his latest movie "The Massive". This might be an unfair fight as Hall resides near Park City and even includes street rail scenes filmed in Salt Lake. “From some of the scariest lines up in Alaska to slick urban rails down in Salt Lake City, we mixed it all in. It’s a really solid blend of progressive skiing backed by a soundtrack of my favorite reggae music. In a nutshell, that’s what ‘The Massive’ is all about,” said Hall.

"The Massive" premier goes down at 8 p.m. Thursday (Sept.18) on Lower Main Street (between 7th and 9th Street), Park City.

May the best planker win. (Joseph Bateman)

Palin and Experience...Again

[Campaign 2008] A tip of the Salt Blog/Values Voter hat to Feministing.com, which posted yet another reason why we need to know more about Sarah Palin. As the mother of a child with Down syndrome, she vowed in her RNC acceptance speech to back funding for special needs education programs.

Yet she's a member of a political party whose stalwart right wing for more than three decades has tried to abolish the U.S. Department of Education. (Go here and here for more.)

Step away from your handlers and tell us what you really think, Gov. Palin. (Holly Mullen)

RIP David Foster Wallace

I can't decide whether I'm sad or pissed off by this turn of events. Probably a little bit of both. You brilliant/stupid bastard.
(Jamie Gadette)-

The Magical Hand of the Free Market at Work

[Data Infrastructure] In an interesting case up north, a telecommunications company is suing a Minnesota town for issuing a bond to install a fiberoptic network--after the telco refused to bid for the job.

Municipality: We want our town to enter the 21st century. Would you mind installing a fiberoptic network here?

Telco: Sorry. Our shareholders wouldn't like it.

Municipality: Pretty please? The townsfolk all want broadband, and we'll give you a shitload of tax breaks.

Telco: No, you see ... it's all about market forces, supply/demand, insufficient corporate resources--things you government hacks wouldn't understand.

Municipality: Well, our studies show that it would make the town more competitive by attracting high-tech industry and a well-educated workforce.

Telco: Sorry ... computer says "no."

Municipality: Okey-dokey, then. Guess we'll have to build it ourselves.

Telco: Say hello to our lawyers.

Municipality: Uff da!

Lest you think this is just another example of corporate greed going against the public interest, keep in mind that the telco is only doing this for the town's own good. (Note that it was only after the bond issue was approved that the telco suddenly discovered that the wayward winds of the market had begun blowing in favor of fiberoptics.)

Now, if there's one thing the '00s have taught us, it's that neocons have an implacable fetish for privatizing governmental functions, including corrections, education and even defense in an age when private security firms like Blackwater seem to get better public funding than our boys and girls in the military.

Supposedly, this is because the private sector is able to deliver services more efficiently and economically than the public sector. This theory has turned out not to be true, but at least the privatization model provides for those desirable multimillion-dollar CEO salaries and shareholder profits that the public-sector model thoughtlessly forgot to include.

All this corporate efficiency and effectiveness was thought to stem from free-market forces. Unfortunately, private corporations like competition even less than the public sector does. So, once they get their fat government contracts, they become deaf to taxpayer demands. (Try this: As an upstanding, concerned taxpayer, try attending a board meeting for a publically funded private corporation. Enjoy getting thrown out on your ear.)

The Minnesota case seems to be the wave of the future: pre-emptive privatization. Now the privateers have stopped even pretending that they are capable of solving problems better than the public sector. They just want to use the courts to ensure that those problems stick around long enough that, in case they ever get around to solving them, some plucky town won't have beaten them to it.

We can only hope that, if successful in fending off the lawsuit, the Minnesota town will learn from past mistakes--as well as past successes.

(Brandon Burt)

Band On The Run: Right Behind Ike

Norman Oklahoma: We just woke up after playing The Opolis with Matt Bauer and Sheree Chamberlain, dehydrated and on the humid floor of a mister Tate James. He responded to our over the mic request by Jay asking for a place to crash that night. We are always surprised and grateful by the amount of people that help us out on the road.

Campus TV: Joe is 72 yrs old. He's run this small shop in the college district of Norman since starting the shop back in 1960 (also the year that Roy Orbison's "Only the Lonely" came out)

Jer was dodging the sticky rain and slid into a shop filled with a key coping machine, an outdated dust-collected array of musical accessories, plus a white-haired Joe (the saggy grand-father type, who muttered in a slow, low southern accent), and Jack, his fat black cat sprawled across the floor like a wicker welcome mat.

The prices on cables, guitar strings and harmonicas have raised in the last few years but Joe didn't bother with changing the signs. Maraca's, shakers, tambourines, blocks, triangles and other but more random percussion instruments were hung from the ceiling while pulled apart mechanical machines were scattered on the ground. The walls were wallpapered with guitar cables, slides, stands, and guitar strings.

Our receipt read as follows.

lee oscar harmonica holder $19.95
tension rods (snare drum) $4.30
2 curly chords $7.95
4 gold Hohner harmonica necklaces each $2.53
Marine band F harp $25.95
Marine Band C harp $25.95
six keys copied (3 for van, 3 for trailer) $9.75

The keys were ground out by hand on a machine that looked like it was purchased the year the shop opened.
I think we gave Campus TV a good day. Although we never saw one TV at all.

(Band of Annuals. Stay tuned. We'll be blogging for the next seven weeks)

Esprit de Corpse

[Religion] It seems some weird goings-on in Vatican City may result in the exhumation and reburial of Cardinal John Henry Newman's corpse--because the soon-to-be-canonized British cardinal was buried, in accordance with his last wishes, with a priest who was probably his boyfriend.

Now, I'm the first to admit that I don't understand the arcane workings of the Roman Catholic Church. I admire its wonderful use of ritual symbolism: That thing with the black vs. white smoke while the College of Cardinals is selecting a new Pope? Awesome!

I also understand that there are a series of steps on the road to sainthood: veneration, beatification, canonization ... and I may have left something out. The Catholics don't just make a saint out of thin air. The candidate saint is thoroughly vetted, and there has to be substantiation of at least one miracle.

What I don't get is the Vatican's determination to obliterate all evidence that Newman really, really loved a dude, especially since the dude in question was a celibate Catholic priest, so there's no question of any hot, sweaty, man-on-man action. But it was Newman's dying wish to be buried with Fr. Ambrose St. John, the man with whom he shared a house for many years.

Maybe the Holy See has simply recognized an opportunity: Anglicans are on the verge of a schism over the ordination of gay clergy. The Pope could take advantage of the situation and energize British Catholics by canonizing an ex-Anglican Englishman--possibly even making a few homophobic converts in the deal. If only the ex-Anglican Englishman in question weren't so gay! Guess it's time to dig up the bodies.

As a commie-homo-pagan, I'm happy to note that the Catholics I've met have been almost all welcoming and agreeable--hell, in Salt Lake City, Catholics are practically a counterculture--so I don't figure that Ratzinger's exploits have much to do with the body of the American church.

Still--don't homophobic exhumations seem a little--well, heathen?

(Brandon Burt)

Who Digs Beets, Really?

[Bites] So, I was having lunch downtown at The New Yorker restaurant yesterday (don't forget the Downtown Dine O Round!) and enjoying a killer heirloom tomato salad when I spotted it: a beet. There it was, cleverly hidden between layers of sliced, multi-hued tomatoes. And since I was trained as a kid to try everything on my plate, I reluctantly dove into this pinkish beet only to pleasantly discover that it was a slice of pickled red onion. Relief! The truth is: no one likes beets. Why do you think they're called beets? Beets are beat. I know they're supposed to be cool and hip. But if you say you love beets, you’re lying. If you claim to like beets, you’re fibbing. No one does. Come clean. Beets suck. It's time fancy chefs got over the whole beet thing. I don't care if they’re red, yellow, pink, or turquoise. Give us pickled onions. (Ted Scheffler)

Snow Porn

[Snowboarding] It's only September and opening day for Utah's resorts seem, well, months away . For those of us snow addicts going through withdraw, snowboarding movies keep our sanity until the first snow falls. The U's snowboard club comes through with the Utah premier of Transworld Snowboarding's debut "These Days" and Variety Pack's "Guns Out". If the movies aren't enough entertainment, stay for the product toss as twenty people fight over a snowboard. (Joseph Bateman)

Around & Around

[Out to Lunch] Today is the first day of the Fall Dine-O-Round, and we followed City Weekly's dining critic Ted Scheffler's hot tip about the $10 lunch at Metropolitan, consisting of two courses: broccoli soup and a bison burger.

The broccoli soup was not the thick creamy kind you can stand a spoon up in from our youth. It was a refined thinner broth adorned with interesting particles besides just broccoli—shaved radishes, perhaps? Très tasty and not too filling. And the juicy burger, with spicy cheese and a warm pepper on top, was truly inspired.

The only problem was that our bill came to $30 per person with the tip. How so? Well, we ordered two glasses of wine while we waited. Yes, for some reason—perhaps because today was also Metropolitan's maiden voyage into lunch service (they have other great lunch offerings besides the DOR special)—the place was hoppin' and there was a loooonnnnngggg pause between the soup and the burger. Wine seemed the perfect way to bridge the gap.

And afterwards, because we were groggy after our Metro meal, we had to buy coffee en route to the office. Another $5 there. So today's lunch wasn't quite the bargain we envisioned.

Advice for the budget-conscious: Avoid temptation; don't imbibe at lunch. I mean, does anyone have two-martini lunches anymore? I'd love to know. (Jerre Wroble)

Making His Mark

[Human behavior] It's a fun story about a guy in Nebraska who slathers Vaseline on his ass and then presses it against shop windows.

According to the story, "During one particularly brazen session, virtually all the windows at a local hotel were imprinted."

Man, he's good.

(Brandon Burt)

Fair's Fair

[Food] If you're spending time at the Utah State Fair, it's practically mandatory to fork over $50 for a corn dog and a deep-fried PB&J.

This sign, however, (taken at the Maker Faire in Austin) is enough for me. Food illustration is as exacting as food photography--very difficult to get right--and there's just something ... vile and unwholesome about that picture.

I've never eaten a funnel cake, and I'm sure now that I never will.


(Brandon Burt)

UtahFM.org: Pinpoint SLC 2

[Media/Podcast] The second weekly installment of UtahFM.org's Pinpoint SLC debuts today--this time, hosted by City Weekly's Bill Frost (yeah, me) and Plan-B Theater's Jerry Rapier.

The latest five-minute podcast, which should also be heard on UtahFM's live stream, is divided between myself interviewing local rock-scene vets SuperSoFar (right) about their new EP release at Club Vegas tomorrow night, and Jerry talking to playwright Jeff Metcalf about his A Slight Discomfort, opening at the Salt Lake Acting Company.

Hear Pinpoint SLC now at UtahFM.org. (Bill Frost)

Screw Burning Man

[India Fest 2008] Burning man pshaw! Try checking out a burning demon (in effigy of course) at this year's India Festival at the Spanish Fork, Krishna Temple. This is the 22nd annual festival of India the Utah Krishna's are putting on and will, as usual, be quite an event. On Saturday Sept. 13 from 4-9 pm you can count on great food, a sitar concert and numerous Indian dance performances all culminating in the evenings final burning of the 25 foot high, ten-headed demon named Ravana...and fireworks to boot! (Eric S. Peterson)

Make Some Noise

Last weekend, my friend conducted a decidedly informal poll outside the men's bathroom at a local bar. She asked her inebriated peers if they planned to vote and if so for whom. Most of them responded, "Why bother?"
Some well-known noise artists have the answer (at least for the Dems)

(Jamie Gadette)

Peeping Toms in Guess Where?

[Perv Watch] Dateline: Provo. Why doesn't this story surprise me? (Holly Mullen)

Real World Gaydar

[Locals on Reality TV] MTV's 235th season of The Real World is being filmed in Brooklyn, NY, and counts a Utahn among the cast! And yes, he's apparently a Mormon. Ever-reliable gossip website Gawker.com, however, has serious questions:

"His name is Chet and he is Mormon and, though he's engaged to a young lady back home in Salt Lake City (a city name that celebrates a barren nothingness of a lake whose only inhabitants are brine shrimp and brine flies), the producers want him to get laid. Because he's a virgin! Could you be the lucky girl (or guy)???

"Again, his name is Chet. He's a Mormon with 'spiky blonde hair.' On the evening that the NY Press caught up with him, he was wearing an H&M scarf and 'Elvis Costello glasses,' and was drinking a Shirley Temple. He apparently loves glam rock and was 'gushing' when some slinky male rocker put something around his neck and whispered in his ear. And, yes, he is engaged (as all Mormons are, from birth. That's just science). But, um, doesn't that above description sound a little well, um, un-fishy, if you catch my brine shrimp drift? So who's going to fuck this kid? Will youuuuu? The above photo, from NewYorkology, seems to offer the best known glimpse of the mysterious Mormon."

Oh, dear ... (Bill Frost)

An Un-Original Recipe ... for Publicity!

If you're a P.R. flack for KFC right about now, you've got to be thinking, "Damn, I'm good."

Why is this such a heady day for the Colonel's minions? Because somehow they managed to get the Associated Press -- and by extension, other news agencies by the score, including the Deseret News -- to slurp this story about moving a chicken recipe like it was the codes to our nuclear arsenal. And wouldn't you know, this crucial bit of news just happens to coincide with the introduction of a new KFC product that has now received millions of dollars worth of free publicity.

And now they've gotten me to repeat it as well. You magnificent bastards. (Scott Renshaw)

Breaking News: Dog Shit Terror!

[News-ish] So, are we glad to report that former KCPW 88.3 news director Lara Jones' first on-camera appearance as the Minister of Information for the Salt Lake Police Department was for a KUTV 2 story titled "Dog Poop Dispute Ends in Stabbing"? Uh, sure ...


(Bill Frost)

Afloat by Astrology Only

[Media] From The Onion, America's Finest News Source: How alt-weeklies stay in business ... or something:

(Bill Frost)

Web Exclusive: Artemesia Black Interview/Live

Negotiations With The Dead

Sabine’s voice starts out cold and remote, piercing like a steel pin going in. The Australian singer is dressed in black pin stripes with a red skull and crossbone printed onto her shirt, like a rotting apple, like a ruby drop of blood. Kenny, her guitarist, performs in matching pin stripes, honey-curled hair pulled back at the nape. He is playful and quick on the guitar with the dust-bowl quality of John Fahey. Together, they are Artemesia Black: a comfortable circle of two—intimate and shy to the crowd perched inside Alchemy coffeehouse in late August. Their music sounds like strange objects in the darkness, things petrified in stone and doll and spoons. Kenny’s guitar bubbles like a kettle. Sabine’s voice splashes about like a stricken bird.

Salt Lake City is the couple’s first stop on a tour from San Francisco to New York City and back in the next two months. Sabine left her lucrative career in Australia as a graphic artist for the tour.

“I started feeling, ‘What if I died tomorrow?’ I started going through that thought process, thinking what if I did, would I be happy? Would I feel like I accomplished anything? I thought there is a lot of dreams I haven’t accomplished yet so I am going to quit everything, get on a plane and come here to do music for awhile and try to organize a tour across the country and live another type of mind space going from very structured life to where I don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow,” she says.

Kenny too left his job of fourteen years in 2007 to travel to Australia after the couple met over MySpace to record their group’s eponymous debut.

“Kenny bought a makeshift recording rig and we worked on the album sporadicallywhen I wasn’t working,” says Sabina.

Kenny notes, “With this album I heard a lot of percussion but we didn’t have drums and stuff so I found things around the apartment that sounded really good like her washing machine for instance that was used as the bass drum, or stomping on the floor and all sorts of things. I tend to use lots of non-traditional, in fact non-instrumental things to make sounds."

Kenny is a classically disciplined musician from San Francisco. He recorded and released Basement 3 Under last year in Australia while also recording the couple’s album. When asked how he manages to pair his distinct sound with her lyrics he notes,

“For me what I’ve always enjoyed doing is taking people’s songs and then sculpting them, taking their raw ideas and sculpting it into a song because I play many instruments so I have a lot of textures available.”

He continues, “I also have a broad palette instrumentally and I have studied everything from Jazz to Classical so there is a lot of things I can borrow from so I have a never ending source of sounds coming to me.”

Artemesia Black is an album rich in swampy lullabies similar to PJ Harvey’s White Chalk. The soft country influence plays it part in a gothic narrative told through the haunting voice of Sabine, a voice like a huge knife dripping blood onto a nightdress. The guitar and percussion give the album the quality of The Cowboy Junkies Trinity Session. Kenny’s presence is untreated and tender, the sound of something whimpering and scratching at the door.

“Sabine is like making a painting when she writes whereas I come from a very technical background so there is a lot of technique involved which in some ways hinders me.” Kenny says. “On this album I stripped it down a lot and on the new stuff I am stripping down even more and trying to get to be more about the feeling and less about the technique."

At times the album is of soap-powder and fresh air, other times it is the clean lines of broken glass, the soothing edges of razor blades packed at the bottom of a cradle. Danger plays like strange comforters in stories told through the memories of dead girls and devil whisperings.

“Songs sometimes will come to me in visitations, from a person who is dead. Whether it is imaginary or real it feels like someone comes and says, ‘I’ve got a story for you, I had this life and now it’s forgotten because I’m dead. Maybe you could just tell the story of me so that I am not forgotten.’ It’s kind about the past,” says Sabine, “but a person presents it to me themselves in this moment,” she continues.
Songs such as “Rosie” and “Beautiful” re-tell these stories from the dead, narratives overcrowded with inimical action and death, stories about young women falling in love with men that will kill them.

“These stories, most of them about women, like girls that come to me, I call them my dead girls, that come and tell me their stories about their lives and sometimes about how they’ve died,” says Sabine. “Because their stories are such a sad thing for most people I like to juxtaposed that with pretty melodies so people won’t even know what the story is about because it is hidden under this nice melody."

The result of these negotiations with the dead is an original and haunting collection of songs. A wholly imaginative collaboration between the living, the dead, a guitarist, and an inventive singer.(Tara Jill Olson)

Dead Zephyr: Week 252

(Bill Frost)

Spam Of The Day: Double Entendre Edition

You like to play baseball you have nice balls. Good but what about your bat?
(Jamie Gadette)

SLC Band On The Run

BAND OF ANNUALS TOUR SEND OFF or NEVER CALL TOUR A VACATION!

Seven people crammed in a fifteen passenger van for 49 days. What an awesome vacation.

Tightening up loose dates and collecting quarters under couch cushions so we don't starve on tour. I'm speaking of course on behalf of Band of Annuals, the 6 piece "notorious" Salt Lake City ramblin' band. You might have heard of us a little bit this past year. If not, we are going to try and keep you entertained for the next seven weeks with a little bit of "on-the-road gossip."

We've toured extensively for the last couple years, mainly getting our boots wet in the Northwest and California. Earlier this year, we decided to make the jump and head all the way to the East Coast. New York, Athens, Nashville, Chicago, you name it! Starting Wednesday, Sept. 10, we're recreating the magical cross-country tour, kicking things off in Denver. We've done all our own booking with tons of help from bands we've played with in the past and just friends in other cities helping in any way they can.

We pack light, the least amount of things rolling around the back of the van the better. We are in and out of peoples' houses at 3 in the morning seven people can make quite a ruckus and occupy a shit-ton of floor space.

Hotel suites, swimming pools, drugs, booze, "groupies", the Benjamins ... these things don't really happen to seven smelly dudes (female member Jer included here) crammed in a van (aka Galactigone) for 8 hours at a time. We are happy with just a floor we can sleep on. Although booze is always a plus.

We're very lucky to come from such a strong community that gives us such positive support. It's always awesome when people say in that condescending tone, "So how's the scene in Salt Lake?' and we can boldly say, "Fucking awesome." They kind of get embarrassed and then explain how shitty their scene is.

Milk, Eggs, Bullets,

Trever "Don't you dare call me T-Bags" Hadley
bassist, Band of Annuals

ps. If you don't own Tolchock Trio's new ablum Abolone Skeletone, you're missing out.

[journalistic integrity disclosure: City Weekly's Jamie G.'s gentleman caller plays drums in BOA]

Super Councilman

Dude, Luke Garrott is a badass!
(Jamie Gadette)

Roller Derby Report: Bombers Beat Sisters 118-74

[Alt-Sports] The 2007 Champion Bomber Babes are headed to the final showdown for 2008 after defeating the Sisters of No Mercy 118-74 Saturday night in their final bout at the Utah Olympic Oval; the Salt City Derby Girls will be skating in a new venue for the last two games of the season, announcement to come soon.

The scrappy Sisters pulled ahead of the Bombers early in the tightly-scored bout, but the girls in green soon rolled away with it. Compounding the defeat, the Sisters' Serrated Sapphire (in action above) took a hard fall in the first period, bringing the game to a halt for nearly 30 minutes before she was removed from the track by EMTs and taken away in an ambulance.

The SCDG reports she'll be OK, and the Bomber Babes will go on to defend their title against the Leave It to Cleavers in October at that Mystery Venue.

Action shots from Saturday by Mark Alston:

(Bill Frost)

I Want My Old MTV

Did any of you catch the MTV Video Music Awards last night? Good God! If the children are really our future, then I'm going to find me a time machine and get the fuck out of here.

Seriously. I've always watched the VMAs, if only to keep up with what the majority of America is listening to. And for the most part, historically the show provided at least a few memorable antics/solid performances and a new guilty pleasure with a hit single actually worth downloading.

This year? Man, this year I didn't even recognize half of the "stars," although it was fun to watch Michael Phelps stand awkwardly next to a smirking Kid Rock while the new Dick Clark, aka John Norris, asked them innane questions about nothing. What a waste of time.

The actual "show" took place in a venue that could easily double as a Forever 21 dressing room. Is MTV running out of money? Is that why sister channel VH1 ran nothing but a rotating screen asking viewers, "Are you watching the MTV VMAs? We are!"

Remember when Nirvana played? Or even the Foo Fighters in Times Square?

Those days are long gone. Now we have Tokio Hotel, Katy Perry (guess what honey--Jill Sobule kissed a girl long before you. Try taking some singing lessons instead) and Paramore, a band that showed up in tiny cars but couldn't bring themselves to say something, like, smart about the vehicles' fuel-efficiency ratings. Good for the environment? Who cares! We just wanted to be different!

I'm all for cheesy entertainment, but the 2008 VMAs were the most half-assed celebration of mediocrity I've ever witnessed (beyond American Idol).
Now, does anyone know where I could track down a Dolorean?

Compare and contrast video action!


(Jamie Gadette)

Riding the Legacy Parkway

[Parkway Panorama] I bicycled the soon-to-open Legacy Parkway early Sunday morning with my favorite cycling partner. The 14-mile stretch between Farmington in Davis County to Redwood Road and I-215 in Salt Lake County is scheduled to open to traffic next weekend. We did a round trip of 28 miles.

As you can see here, the big plumb for recreational and commuting cyclists alike is the paved bike trail that runs parallel to the Parkway. The trail is pancake-flat, with few curves so it's easy for anyone to ride. Bike partner and I ran into about a dozen cyclists of varying ability and physical shape (including the two guys on touring bikes puffing away on a smoke break under an overpass) and not a one was struggling.

People with a memory of 10 years or so will recall the bitter division over building the Parkway. After a long legal battle between state Republican leadership and environmentalists, a compromise plan was struck, which included wetlands protection on the west side of the highway, as well as a ban on semi-trailer trucks. The speed limit on each direction of the two-lane road is 55 mph (uh, right. We'll see how long that lasts. Can you say "Bangerter Highway?"). People who want to drive faster and big rigs will have to stay on I-15.

Anyway, it's about the best mitigation we could have hoped for--knowing how Utah loves its roads at any cost. It took a legal fight to get the Legacy lovers to realize that the area needs protection. Riding the trail, I saw the power of political compromise up close and personal.

(Holly Mullen)

Cotton-Peggy '08

[Election '08] John McCain is up in the polls, presumably because of the introduction of VP nom Sarah Palin last week--oh, America, so fickle.

But, our previous assessment of the Battlestar Galactica influence maybe have been a bit overblown, as evidenced by these two ads recently sent in to us: It's all about Cotton and Peggy from King of the Hill, voters!

(Bill Frost)

Guerrillas in the Mist

How many dinner courses can you handle? What about 10? This week, through Sept. 13, Talisker Executive Chef Gavin Baker is operating one of this country’s first “guerrilla” restaurants, a place called Mist.

Guerrilla dining -- intentionally temporary restaurants open for a limited engagement and then poof! they’re gone -- is currently the rage in the U.K. Such is the case with Mist, which is located this week at Park City’s Rikka Studio, but will vanish by next. Each evening, Chef Baker will create a unique one-off 10-course dinner menu wine for an intimate evening (limited to 20 attendees nightly), priced at $250 each, including wine pairings.

When the Mist dinners end, Baker will take a leave of absence from Talisker for a stint of extensive study and the world’s second-rated restaurant: The Fat Duck in England. For tickets, call Jane Sahagian at Rikka Studio (435) 649-6445 or go to GuerrillaFoodNetwork.com. Don’t miss out on one of the coolest dining experiences ever to hit Utah. (Ted Scheffler)

BCS, Schmee-CS

More fuel for the Utah/BYU rivalry fire: ESPN.com compiled lists relating to the relative performance of BCS conference schools against their non-BCS counterparts in the 10 years of the BCS era (1998-2007). And as it turns out, Utah's victory last weekend at Michigan really shouldn't be a surprise any more. Only two schools from non-BCS conferences have an overall winning record against BCS schools: TCU (14-7), and Utah (14-10). Over the same period, BYU has played more games against BCS opponents, but has only mustered a 12-18 record. The Cougars will have an opportunity to improve that record against the Pac-10's fairly dismal Washington Huskies this weekend; Utah, meanwhile, will give the rest of the trembling BCS schools a week off as the Utes face UNLV. (Scott Renshaw)

In Touch With You!

[Media-ish] Our favorite faux-weekly, the ever-sexy In Utah This Week from local mom-and-pop print shop MediaOne, is asking what you like and dislike about their product. Actually, they're not asking their target readers--who, according to In's advertising index, are all 18-34s who make $150,000 a year while still attending college and buy BMWs on a whim.

Since those folks are far too busy with their local supermodel and/or pro snowboarder careers, In sent a survey out to "influential" people in local entertainment and business. No, City Weekly wasn't on the list, but one was forwarded to us--and now we're bringing it to you. Why should you be excluded from having an opinion about a publication read by dozens of local heiresses and Hot Topic models?

Just answer the following inquiries, copy-paste and e-mail to jshoemaker@mediaoneutah.com. We've included a few of our own answers; feel free to write over 'em:

IN is now in its third year. What are your general thoughts?
About In or the carbon footprint of three years of wasted trees?

What do you like most about IN?
It doesn't make my brain hurt from too much "thinking."

What don’t you like about IN?
Not enough articles about kitties.

Complete this sentence… I would either start advertising with IN or increase my advertising presence with IN if they…
Lowballed prices to the point that other local publications without the backing of a multi-million-dollar corporation couldn't match them. Or threw in some kitties.

In your own words how would you rate these features? Which is the best? Which do you not care for?
* Sexy in SLC: It's like jury duty for friends of the staff, right?
* Scene in SLC: Slightly better than reading a resume.
* Scene Team Photo Page: Slightly worse than going to The Hotel.
* Club Grid: Lists almost a quarter of the clubs in Salt Lake--and most are still open.
* Sarah Nielson’s “That’s What She Said”: Clever title, never heard that one before.
* Restaurant Guide: See "Club Grid."
* Bar Guide: See "Restaurant Guide."
* We Ate It: It's so edgy I have to look away.
* Coffee Break: Random questions to random people? Genius!
* Classifieds: Do the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News know you've reprinted their Classifieds?

What coverage would you like to see that you don’t currently see?

You're neglecting the 3-12 demographic; more woobie coverage, please. And more repurposed articles from the Tribune would be great, too.

Even though the comparison can sometimes be unavoidable because they are both weekly newspapers, how would you describe IN’s difference from City Weekly?

I don't feel the need to commit to In beyond 2009; it's quite freeing. Not like the separation pain of losing the Afternoon Buzz.

Where else do you use your marketing dollars?

Flush them down a solid-gold toilet, due to my immense disposable income.

As far as distribution goes, do you find IN is available to you at the places you frequent? Where do you think IN should be that we’re not?

It's usually conveniently stacked on top of City Weekly racks, with plenty of previous weeks' In issues lying around untouched.

IN has a opt-in texting program, are you familiar with this type of marketing and do you think it’s of interest?

As long as I get instant info about kitties and woobies, sign me up!

IN has thought about doing a glossy cover. Do you think you would find more value in advertising with IN if it had more of a magazine, high-end look?

Like wrapping a turd in gold foil? Sold!

Remember: Answer, copy-paste and e-mail to jshoemaker@mediaoneutah.com.

Director's Cuts

The "director's cut" has become film-industry shorthand for a version of a film that's generally longer -- and equally likely to be more violent and/or sexual. Not so for the version of the psychological drama Take, opening locally next Friday, Sept. 12. In fact, local theater audiences will be getting director Charles Oliver's own equivalent to a CleanFlicks version.

Because Take was rated R by the MPAA for "some violence with intense emotional impact," Oliver -- a BYU graduate -- was concerned that his reconciliation-themed story starring Minnie Driver might fall outside the acceptable viewing parameters of some Utah residents. So, according to a press release sent by a local publicist, Oliver made a few strategic edits to the version released elsewhere, resulting in a PG-13-ish version. Younger viewers and those who shun the R may now consider it safe to partake of the film's message. (Scott Renshaw)

Never Burned a Bra

[Feminist Chronicles] I grew up a feminist, raised by a feminist, who was raised by a feminist. I spent much of the first half of my life hearing early feminists called "women's libbers" and "bra burners."

But no one has ever been able to provide me with a shred of evidence that women marching for equal rights burned a bra in the process. Today, National Public Radio's Morning Edition featured a terrific piece that shatters the ol' bra burning myth. The feature looks back at the 1968 Miss America Pageant, and the small but vocal group that protested the beauty contest for the first time. Three of the protesters and Miss America 1968 are interviewed. Fascinating stuff.

In truth, the protesters had a a large garbage bin in which they threw "instruments of female torture"--pots and pans, copies of Playboy magazine, hair curlers, bras and girdles. As one of the protesters now recalls:

"The media picked up on the bra part. I often say that if they had called us 'girdle burners,' every woman in America would have run to join us."

And if anyone out there can prove bras got burned in the past 40 years in the name of feminism, I'd love to hear from you. (Holly Mullen)

Blast From the Past

[Nostalgia] All this talk about pit bulls made me remember a conversation I had with some friends who had recently watched a compilation of Hal Roach's Our Gang shorts. (At the time, they were into a Dutch orchestra known as The Beau Hunks, which dedicates itself to recapturing the fat, bouncy sound of those wonderful old Leroy Shield/Marvin Hatley scores from the era's comedy films like Our Gang, Laurel & Hardy, etc.)

My friends reported that Our Gang actually holds up. I'll admit I was skeptical--how could those goofy old etc., and aren't there some troublesome stereotypical etc., and so forth.

Actually, the films are funny. All the kids are weird and stereotyped--the nerd, the fat kid, the bully, the baby, the happy-go-lucky kid, the mama's boy. Check out Fishy Tales for example:

"Oh, poor Alfalfa. Oh, poor, poor Alfalfa!"



(Brandon Burt)

Web Exclusive: NIN/Deerhunter Concert Review

This just in: Nine Inch Nails and Deerhunter Play Mind Blowing Show @ the E Center!

There are few things more exhilarating than a live show that exceeds your expectations by 110%. Such was the case at last night’s Deerhunter/Nine Inch Nails show.

I invited my older brother to attend the show with me, as he was my NIN showmate at the Delta Center when I was 13 and he was 15. Prior to last night’s show, we honestly didn’t know what to expect. We hoped for the best, but one never knows how a band who potentially peaked in the ‘90s is going to fair onstage a decade later.

By the time we parked, picked up our tickets, and navigated the labyrinth that is the E Center, Deerhunter had already taken the stage. Deerhunter is one of my favorite bands in the known universe, so when I heard the first chords of their set wafting through the arena, I grabbed my brother and ran—amid a sea of beer-swilling dudes and dudettes in black fishnet shirts and pants with rivets--as fast as my legs could carry me to Portal A section 126.

It was a surreal experience watching Deerhunter play on such a giant stage, bathed in green and purple light. The E Center’s excellent sound system served them well. Their set was smooth, beautiful, and serene. Time stopped while they played a seamless mix of old and new songs, including “Hazel Street,” “Strange Lights,” and “Nothing Ever Happened.” The ferocious, chaotic energy that exuded from the stage last time I saw them play live seems have been replaced by something warm and peaceful. Their music and live show have evolved in a captivating, nuanced way that will surely extend their fanbase far and wide.

At the end of Deerhunter’s set, frontman Bradford Cox thanked the audience for watching.
“You could have been getting a beer, but instead you watched us. We really appreciate that.”
The audience reception was mixed. There was a group of hardcore Deerhunter fans (like me!) near the front of the stage, but the bulk of the audience appeared to have only Trent Reznor’s forthcoming appearance on their minds.

I asked my brother—a self-described “synth man”—what he thought of Deerhunter’s guitar-driven set. He told me he thought they played well, but he wondered why Reznor didn’t select an opening band who catered more to the traditional electronica-loving NIN fan.

“Perhaps Trent wants traditional electronica-loving NIN fan to open their minds,” I replied.

But then Trent blew it--my mind, that is.

NIN’s set was absolutely phenomenal. My brother and I—who have steadily depleted our hearing with hundreds upon hundreds of concerts over the years—agreed that it was among the best live shows we have ever seen. Ever! Anywhere! Period. Trent Reznor has gained tremendous creative momentum and over the past 5 years, and his current tour showcases each of his brilliant endeavors.

The set list was a perfectly crafted mix of old and new songs. Familiar crowd-pleasers like “Closer,” "Head Like a Hole,” and “March of the Pigs,” mixed in with newer, more ambient instrumental material.
My brother and I were blown away by the strength of Reznor’s vocals, and the energy with which he traversed the stage during NIN’s two and half hour set. Reznor’s backup band was incredibly tight and energetic as well.
My brother and I fell in love with Pretty Hate Machine and The Downward Spiral all over again.

“Trent Reznor looks really buff.” I said at one point, “Do you think he lifts weights and eats veggies with Henry Rollins? I’d like to see the two of them have an arm wrestling contest.”

The visuals during NIN’s set were mind-blowingly incredible. It is frustrating to attempt to write about the visual portion of the show, because it is one of those things that one must see to believe. Nine Inch Nails were alternately flanked by undulating strobe lights, a mesh screen with alternating images (such as a swamp, a city, and the bright blue center of a flame), and a colorful, constant barrage of stage lights which matched the matched the music perfectly.

My brother explained that many of the pictures which appeared on the screen (such as the swamp, a city, and the bright blue center of a flame) were fan-generated content. Reznor pioneered using the internet to interact with fans, and his efforts have added a whole new artistic dimension to his work.

Prior to the final encore, Reznor addressed the audience, blasted his former record (with whom he had a nasty split), and thanked his dedicated fanbase for supporting him in his current independent incarnation.

“You are the real fans. You are smarter than average concert goer,” he said in closing.

Reznor ended the show with a keyboard solo.

Last night's concert proved that Trent Reznor is a gifted, seasoned artist who has only gotten better as the years have passed. I feel so foolish for even entertaining the notion that NIN peaked in the ‘90s. Reznor cares deeply about his fanbase and his music, and if you have a chance to see him live I strongly urge you to do so.

Deerhunter

Shaky footage of NIN, July 2008 at Key Arena

(Jenny Poplar)

RNC Coverage: Drinking Liberally Style

If you're a proud Democrat like myself, you probably sat enraptured by televised coverage of last week's DNC. Michelle Obama alone destroyed whatever remaining apathy I might have possessed after the disastrous 2004 election.
Like me, you might have also turned off the boob tube and picked up a novel (in my case A Spot Of Bother by Mark Haddon) rather than suffer through subsequent RNC coverage. Why watch a Big Brother-style Bush telecast or Mike Huckabee rant when I can read about it the next day in five minutes or less?
Of course, thanks to Drinking Liberally I might be convinced otherwise. The politically active locals have organized a fun way to sit through McCain's speech tonight, Thursday, Sept. 4., with a watch party at Saints & Sinners (3040 S. State)

"Tell them you're with Drinking Liberally at the door and then follow the sounds of howling and heckling upstairs. There will be a band playing later, so while there's normally a cover for such things, they're waiving it for us political geeks - you're even encouraged to stay for the band ... Josie Valdez & Bob Springmeyer along with all the Drinking Liberally gang will be there in full force trying not to throw bar stools at the T.V. "

To give you an idea of what's in store tonight, check out Drinking Liberally Dencer's Sarah Palin Convention Speech Drinking Game which they put to the test last night:
Take a Sip When she Says: faith, Barack Obama, abortion, pregnancy, or when she claims that "the media" is attacking her family, she makes reference to being governor of Alaska, she talks about the sanctity of life, she makes a positive reference to Hillary Clinton, she mentions Cindy McCain.
Take a Gulp when: she claims that "the Democrats/Democrat party" is attacking her party, she makes reference to being a beauty queen, she uses a down-homey aphorism, she makes a positive reference to Geraldine Ferraro, she calls Obama a muslim, she references her relationship with God, she mentions the lack of a vetting process
Chug when: She claims that Joe Biden is attacking her family, she makes reference to being a tv sports anchor, she says that she "won't apologize" for something (e.g. her family, being who she is, being a christian, etc.), she makes a positive reference to Gloria Steinem
Celebratory Toast if: She forgets a line/stumbles through a line, she tries a joke about her inexperience
Finish Your Drink if: She is replaced by Phyllis Schlafly, she mentions VPILF, she claims that Barack Obama is attacking her family, she makes reference to being a secessionist and/or under investigation, she performs an abortion on live television, she makes a positive reference to Andrea Dworkin

Drinking Liberally SLC meets from 6:30-9:30 on the second and fourth Friday of each month through the summer in the back room of the Piper Down (1492 S. State Street).

See you at Saints & Sinners, tonight

(Jamie Gadette)

Pinpoint SLC on UtahFM.org

[Media/Podcast] Sure, the name sounds kinda like a condo development in Draper, but UtahFM.org's new Pinpoint SLC podcast (debuting today) is far more useful than that. The factoids from UFM:

"Pinpoint SLC picks the sweetest fruit from the blossoming Salt Lake City art and culture scene and delivers it directly to your ears in weekly delectable doses. Independent local media veterans bring SLC notables onto the show to let them tell firsthand tales from the city’s creative side. Podcasts fuse the intimacy of radio with the Net’s interactivity to promote a community that is connected, cultured and informed. Viral technology that allows any website to host the podcasts ensures they will spread like fire through all online channels frequented by Salt Lake art and culture enthusiasts, beginning with UtahFM’s already exploding listenership.

"Quick facts: Covers local bands, classical music, theater and visual arts. Airs each Thursday·. Five minutes long. Showcases best events of upcoming week. Downloadable from iTunes, UtahFM.org and Flash widget. Directs listeners to other local media for more information."

Don't worry--you won't actually explode. And those local-media veterans include SLUG's Angela Brown (up first for the Sept. 4 podcast), Jerry Rapier of Plan-B Theater, Laura Durham of the Utah Arts Council and 15 Bytes, Kate Crawford and Crystal Young-Otterstrom on classical music, as well as City Weekly's Jamie Gadette and ... me? Oh yeah--better get to work.

Pinpoint SLC will also pop up regularly during UtahFM's streaming programming--which you should be listening to already; it's all the web radio you need. (Bill Frost)

RNC: Where's the Tilt-o-Whirl?

[RNC Arena Insanity] E. Thomas Nelson, a recent City Weekly intern and a 2008 University of Utah graduate, is in St. Paul, Minn., this week covering the Republican National Convention. Tom (that's what we called him here) is one of five handpicked Hinckley Institute of Politics students working with seven students from the Cheung Kong School of Journalism at Shantou University in China, covering both national conventions.

Here's Tom's take on the scene on the floor in St. Paul last night:

Given all the cowboy hats at the Xcel arena Thursday night, one might think they were at a rodeo and not a political convention. Most abundant were the simple white Stetsons with a black ring, but there were also black, straw, and of course, red, white and blue sequins.

Second to cowboy hats were equally unnecessary short plastic top hats in the fashion of early 20th century American politicians who stood on bandstands to deliver their speeches.

Known as American election hats, these fashion accessories are appropriate in this day and age only once every four years (many would argue not at all).

The election hats at Thursday's convention were white, trimmed with red and blue and matching almost everything else in the Xcel arena. The colors could be found on ties, dresses, and the balloons that hung in a net attached to the ceiling, weighted down and ready to fall.

Most recognizable, however, was the gigantic, artificial flag that waved in computer-generated wind on a jumbo-screen behind the podium.

Also in excess were homemade posters. Every imaginable color, shape, and size danced in almost all white hands throughout the arena, as though their creators were cheering on their team--America.

There wasn’t much variation among the posters: “McCainiac, He Means What he Says,” and “Straight Talk” were among the most clever. From my vantage point a scaffold that held 15 or so cameramen blocked a large section of the arena, but in my section-by section analysis of the arena I counted nine USA posters and eight McCain-USA posters.

It seemed as though the crowd was rooting for some entity known as “USA,” as though it were a sports team whose competition was the world at large.

The marquee (and rather unimaginative) U-S-A chant could be heard no less than seven times.

Each speaker tonight played into the ideal of “U-S-A” and “Country First” in a unique way. There was loveable Huckabee, the soft-spoken church leader, there was the polished Mitt with big, white teeth and stern accusations, and there was the pit-bull Giuliani, who waged an all out assault and went for the jugular of the Democratic party.

Speaker of the night Sarah Palin was able to rouse the crowd to a fevered pitch with her attacks on Barack Obama and her appeals as one of them--a hockey mom and PTA board member. She did her best to appear as a typical American, not a Washington elitist.

Throughout the night it seemed that the Republicans were trying to out-American their Democratic counterparts. Between the chants, posters, rhetoric, and of course, live and recorded country music, the events felt like a county fair.

The height of patriotism occurred after Palin and McCain (who in their interaction and embrace had all the chemistry of two people meeting for the first time) left the stage.

It was then that a country trio began a bizarre hybrid presentation that blended The Pledge of Allegiance, The National Anthem, and The Preamble of the United States Constitution.

In an attempt to cram three highly important and hugely different bits of American history together, the presentation ultimately demeaned each. It was another example of trying to mix together as much patriotism as could be mustered in one Cliffs Notes, abridged version that came across as a pandering, chauvinistic, even xenophobic spectacle.

As I left the arena an electric guitar hung around the neck of a country-singing millionaire excited the crowd. Bumping into a man with a cowboy hat, I was tempted to ask where I might find the Tilt-o-Whirl ride. (E. Thomas Nelson)

Web Exclusive: Pleaseeasaur Interview

[Comedy] Some comedy is only known as campy, you know you have to listen to the jokes the artist is not telling; JP Hasson proudly wears a black belt in this genre. Performing tonight at Club Vegas (445 S. 400 West, private club for members), JP will be dishing out steaming spoonfuls of his camp. From quality limousines and TV news crews to abominable snowmen and pizza aficionados his songs truly know no bounds.

The first listen I had of his album and the first glimpse I had of his cartoon Pleaseeasaur (pronounced Please-ee-uh-saur), I thought, "It's just not funny." After a few days trying to grasp what I'd just witnessed and wondering why every song I've heard from JP was stuck in my head I realized, the man is a genius. Like the worm of Khan from Star Trek II, JP's lyrics crawl into your brain and take over, the weakest of minds like mine will be assimilated. What was completely unfunny to me has grown into an albatross on my shoulder I may never shake.

One can only witness it for themselves to decide if this is a masterpiece or just a piece, I had a few minutes to talk to JP during his busy tour schedule here's what I learned:

Are you comfortable with answering very personal questions from someone named Circus?
Yes indeed...considering at the very first Pleaseeasaur show in San Francisco (1997) only one person showed up for the show. He drove 50 miles. His name was Salad.

How many years have you been performing?
I have been performing as Pleaseeasaur for 11 years. Though I was in several bands before...starting in 1989 at the age of 12.

Is Pleaseeasaur a Super Hero or an Angel?
Actually several entities/characters comprise that which is Pleaseeasaur. There are 15 costumed characters in the current version of the Pleaseeasaur live show. One of them is indeed a super-hero. (When I first read the question I mis-read the word Angel...and thought it was Angle. I think thought that would be an awesome character to make...an angle. Very high concept.)

What part in Pleaseeasaur does Joe Jack Talcum [Dead Milkmen] play?
Joe plays no role in Pleaseeasaur. He engineered one of the old cassette-only albums back in the mid-90's...for which he also contributed vocals and some of his famous guitar stylings. He will be doing some guitar work on the next CD/DVD though.

I understand you have opened for many hip bands like Melvins, Pinback, Boredoms, and Black Heart Procession to name a few. Did you witness Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum sacrificing animals or Unicorns backstage?
No Unicorns. But once I did see them construct a makeshift tether-ball setup made of dirty hemp anklets, braided armpit hair and gluten-free vegan noodles. That was impressive...but also kind of disgusting.

How do the fans at these rock shows react to your show?
For the uninitiated...a major transformation takes place. Typically from confusion to glee.While most alternative rock and roll concerts are vehicles to "see" or "hear" a music band...those cool and hip events are also places to be "seen" among hipsters and posers. So when the Pleaseeasaur show starts and being that it is unlike anything most of these "hip" and "with it" kids have ever seen...they usually act as if they don't like it. Until they see other attendees around them smiling and laughing and having a great time...then they let their proverbial hair down and begin to gush and gawk and have a splendid evening. Except of course for those that hate it.

Where does your inspiration come from?
Eagles soaring past the apex of a great mountain with a dreamcatcher in one talon and a slice of pizza in the other.Who wouldn't that inspire?

Are there any people or substances that influence your work?
I am only influenced by people of substance. Such as: Ron Popeil, The Dead Milkmen, The Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra, Mike Post, Albert Brooks, Frank DeVol, Lalo Schifrin, Ennio Morricone, Don West, Don Knotts, 99 cent stores ...

Is Comedy Central currently shopping Pleaseeasaur to networks?
Yes...but the only offer they've received was from QVC for me to host an 11 minute baseball card segment.

You've signed a multi-year multi-album deal with Comedy Central Records; how many years and how many albums are we going to get from Pleaseeasaur?
The deal with Comedy Central is a 7 year term. So if all goes according to plan, that span will produce 4 CD/DVD entertainment products for folks to hopefully enjoy.

What will we see next from Pleaseeasaur?
First and foremost, for this next tour the entire live show is automated. The new incarnation features a visual presentation that is completely animated. Whether it be video or graphics or cartoons...the entire corresponding visual aid portion is constantly moving and changing. Nary a dull moment.I have been working on the 2nd CD/DVD installment for Comedy Central. As of right now it will be a CD/DVD with 99 tracks chronicling 99 basic cable channels. Either that or it will be all Gin Blossoms and Goo Goo Dolls covers. I haven't decided yet.

It seems like Comedy Central puts some pretty mediocre cartoons on their network, what's holding Pleaseeasaur back?
Oh geez...are you asking me talk shit about the multi-billion-dollar Viacom Corporation and it's subsidiaries that I am under contract with?If so...OK. Considering the context in which Pleaseeasaur fits into Comedy Central's roster...which is primarily stand-up comedians...Pleaseeasaur is by far the wildest and craziest thing under their umbrella. Pleaseeasaur has a lot of folks at Comedy Central championing it...but here still remains those that just simply don't know what to do with it. The original idea was for Pleaseeasaur to be cornerstone of a new Saturday Morning Revival. But rather than do something that would please millions of folks...they have decided to run Porky's II on Saturday mornings instead.

I've got "No Prob Limo" stuck in my head, there's nothing I can do to get it out, can you help me?
Sorry man. The only thing I can suggest is to get one of the other great Pleaseeasaur songs stuck in your head instead. Or perhaps if you drop an anvil on your foot or something you'll temporarily forget about the song.

(Circus Brown)

Palin Opened Up, So Let's Dig In

[Palin Powered] Short and sweet, here are a few thoughts about Sarah Barracuda Palin and her v.p. acceptance speech at the RNC last night:

1. Masterful speech. Delegates and more importantly, the rest of the country, finally learned something of the mystery candidate from Wasilla, Alaska. She was gritty, personable and managed to come across as EveryWoman. Thanks, McCain speechwriters!

2. Like the three who came before her, Romney, Huckabee and Giuliani, Palin was snide and shitty toward Barack Obama and woefully stuck in the '80s. (To wit: Mike Huckabee's joke about a costume change at a Madonna concert. Cutting edge Republican humor!)

3. Finally, I hope this puts to rest any questions/attacks about Palin's potential ability of serving as a vice president while being a mother. I'm sick of reporters and political adversaries even bringing that up. Start asking male candidates the same question, start measuring their time and effort with their children and then we'll talk.

4. Besides, the focus on Palin's family and her skills at balancing work and family is merely superficial crap. From now until Election Day, the national press should have more than enough challenge in tracking down her record in Alaska. Twenty months as governor--of Alaska for hell's sake--shouldn't be too tough to scrutinize. I hope the press--always the convenient whipping boy among the right-wing-- is fanning out across the 49th state, stalking Palin's record and political history like a Kodiak bear after a fat salmon. Hey--she stood up last night and laid her record out to the world. She opened a window; now the media have an open door.

Meanwhile, read this from a formerly undecided voter on the Palin effect.

Oh, and while the Republicans remember her well you might not. Above, that's Madonna, from the '80s film Desperately Seeking Susan. The horror! (Holly Mullen)

Oh No They Didn't!

[Media] With this headline: "Sarah steps out: Republican candidate a pit bull with lipstick"--did the Trib just call Sarah Palin a bitch?

Do not even flirt with bullshit misogyny, Trib. You will soon regret it.

There are abundant reasons to disparage Palin; the fact that she's guilty of the crime of Being Assertive While in Possession of a Vagina is not one of them. (Actually, if it weren't that she's against procreative choice and marriage equity, thinks that the Iraq war is a blessing from God and that creationism is "science," and belongs to a combative, scary, Dominionist religion--one which teaches, by the way, that:

Mormonism is an original, invented religion, born of the mind of Joseph Smith, who is responsible for the spiritual seduction of millions of people. To the world, Mormonism sells itself as the friendly Christian church down the street, but in reality it is no closer to biblical Christianity than Hinduism or Islam.

--well, if it weren't for all those things, plus the fact that, to her, "good parenting" involves forcing a pregnant 17-year-old into marriage with a hapless, 18-year-old hockey jock who was only out to have a good time at the Monster Truck Rally--then a lot more Utahns might be a bit more sympathetic toward this misguided soul.)

Anyway, the whole point is: Pit bulls have been undeservedly maligned in the press. Most of them are sweet. Anybody remember Petey from The Little Rascals?


Yeah, Petey. Good dog.

(Brandon Burt)

How the GOP Stifled Dissent Four Years Ago in NYC

[First Amendment] ... Pretty much the same way it's stifling dissent in Minneapolis/St. Paul today: through indiscriminate mass arrests and police intimidation.

Like these odds? One person out of every 180 who got arrested--including legitimate protesters and members of the press--was actually found guilty in a court of law.

This is not the way you prevent riots; it's the way you provoke them.

(Brandon Burt)

Call to Action

[Freedom of the Press] The two news producers who were arrested in St. Paul for having the temerity to report on the Republican National Convention may be charged with felony riot charges. Hyperparanoid security measures at the RNC have made a mockery of our political system.

Democracy Now has issued an alert including contact info. Thanks to Bryan Bale for the heads up!

(Brandon Burt)

Dew Tour Seeking Local Bands/Artists

Artists:
- We are looking to showcase artist' bios, pictures and their art.

There will be a showcasing area in the Dew Underground site in which
thousands of people will come across to read up on artists and view
their artwork.
FUEL TV will also be on site and will be looking to do
a live interview on site as well as post artwork and info on their
website.


- If you are interested in being a part of our artist showcase you
must be available between Sept.
11th - 14th and you need to respond to
me a.s.a.p. by email or phone.
Talk to you soon!



MUSICIANS

Here is the information you will need:


- We are looking to showcase bands' bios, pictures and mp3s.
There
will be a showcasing area in the Dew Underground site in which
thousands of people will come across to read up on bands and listen to
their music.
FUEL TV will also be on site and will be looking to do a
live interview on site as well as post band info on their website.



Let me know if you have any questions and please feel free to contact
me with any questions you might have.


Lupe Ramos
8054516099

(Jamie Gadette)

Qualifications? Schmalifications!

Hahahahahaha

(Jamie Gadette)

Tim Finn Of Crowded House

For those who haven't yet heard, the Paladium is closed. I know many of you are wondering, why should I care about a Los Angeles club shutting down. No, silly! That's the Palladium! And that venue is doing just fine. The Paladium (one L) was a short-lived private club near the west-side whose untimely demise has resulted in several shows getting scattershot across the valley. Tim Finn's Thursday night show has been moved to Bar Deluxe. Apparently it's an early gig, so arrive around 8, grab a drink and get to know the staff if you haven't already. Chances are good that with one less venue around Deluxe might be snagging some more quality touring acts.
In other Deluxe-related news, sister tattoo shop Big Deluxe recently got the boot from its 400 South digs (the same block City Weekly once operated before getting the same boot four years ago)and will be shacking up right next to Bar Deluxe (and right up the street from Big Deluxe, next to Burt's). Bikini Cuts is also on the move. So, is Port O' Call next? Stay tuned.

(Jamie Gadette)

You Pitch, I'll Bundt

[Desserts] According to an article in the Trib, Bundt cakes--those ring-shaped cakes you need to buy a special pan for--are in this season.

What I hadn't realized was that, as cake rankings go, Bundt occupies the lower echelons. According to Kathy Stephenson, Bundt cakes are considered "plain, simple" and "un-gourmet." I'd always thought that they seemed kind of glamorous--or at least that glamor was the effect the cakes were going for, even if they didn't always succeed.

In the old days, you had a cake that everybody claimed to admire, and may actually have eaten, but nobody really enjoyed it. They all stood around pretending not to notice its most prevalent feature: that gaping Freudian obscenity, the hole in its center.

Eventually, everybody became so jaded they stopped even pretending that sometimes a cake is just a cake--going so far as to draw attention to the cake's ... er, orifice by calling it filthy names.

Scroll down--seriously--for the award-winning "Tunnel of Fudge" recipe.

(Brandon Burt)

Battlestar Presidentia

[RNC Wackiness] Via the gaming website QuarterToThree.com, the odd similarities between the McCain/Palin ticket and Battlestar Galactica's Col. Tigh and President Roslin. Maybe they are the ones to lead us into the future! (Yes, sci-fi purists, it's never been established that BSG takes place in the future--shut up!)

(Bill Frost)

Diddy On Sarah Palin

Bad Boy Records prez sums it up so we don't have to:

(Jamie Gadette)

Dill or No Dill

[Locals on Reality TV] One week from tonight, Last Comic Standing runner-up Marcus will film a big-deal comedy concert special in Ogden; he struck the deal after his LCS exposure due to the fact that he was actually funnier and more talented than the "winner" America "voted for." My local media blackout conspiracy still stands, because ...

Last night, Sandy housewife Jessica Robinson won on NBC's Deal or No Deal, a show that requires no talent beyond pointing at a suitcase and putting up with Howie Mandel. Sure, she's the series' first million-dollar winner--but she'll also being using the money to move the hell out of Utah ASAP. For this, she gets the front page of the Salt Lake Tribune and instantaneous KSL 5 coverage.

Meanwhile, Marcus, who never got either, still claims Zion as home and insisted on filming his concert special here. Just sayin.'

Jessica's Dill or No Dill moment:



(Bill Frost)

Dead Zephyr: Week 251

(Bill "As Read in the Salt Lake Tribune" Frost)

Amy Goodman Released From Arrest

[Republican National Convention] It appears that the First and Fourth Amendments have been suspended in St. Paul, Minn., in honor of the GOP's immeasurable contributions in recent years to our free republic.

War protesters are being arrested on vague charges (you know--stuff like "suspicion of intent to violate the fire code") and warrants have been issued authorizing police to confiscate any laptop, cell phone or camera they can find in private homes lodging protesters. (These might just be a spur-of-the-moment, precautionary response to reports of big, scary, masked anarchists--if it weren't for the fact that the warrants seem to be the result of intelligence garnered from a big, scary, months-long COINTELPRO-type infiltration program.)

Press credentials, apparently, are no deterrent to the jackboots: Some AP reporters have been detained, as were Amy Goodman and two of her producers. (On a personal note: Fuck these un-American, fascist assholes; how dare they arrest journalists trying to do their goddamn, Constitutionally-sanctioned job?!?!! OK, end of outburst.)



Now, the only reason I can think of for Republicans to instigate such abuse during their convention (apart from the fact that senseless violence has a natural appeal to Neanderthals) is to infuriate lefties in hopes of provoking a violent response. In its wake, McCain's increasingly despondent handlers can, in a desperate last-ditch attempt to avoid the humiliation of a total rout in November, try to frighten voters by characterizing Obama's "base" as a bunch of domestic terrorists.

Logically, then, wouldn't the protesters be well advised to keep their cool? Certainly they would--but not for fear of providing McCain with political ammunition. Face it: If the GOP machine wants lefty violence in the Twin Cities, the GOP machine will get lefty violence in the Twin Cities, even if it means sending in some hapless squad of brightly scrubbed Young Republicans to stage the required explosion. Unfortunately, the protesters cannot, at this point, avoid being characterized in the media as violent, anti-American radicals.

However, the upside of this it that they need not waste any time considering how their actions will be perceived. Violence is still not an option but, since the mass-media has already made up its mind, the familiar post-situationist, postmodernist strategy we learned at our mother's knee is now dead. Instead of posing for the cameras, they can now aim for maximum interpersonal impact. Shake up a lobbyist's schedule. Confuse a delegate. Bewitch a power-broker. That sort of thing.

No matter what violent media circuses the GOP may have planned, supporters of peace can still achieve their goals--as long as they remain steadfast and remember their Gandhi: "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win."

The peace protesters have finally reached that third step. If they hold fast, the next stop is victory.

(Brandon Burt)

"In a World ..." of a Different Kind Now

There are individuals who impact the pop-culture landscape, even though we don't even know their names. Such was the fate of Don LaFontaine, whose deep, resounding voice became one of the most recognized in the world for film fans: For more than 30 years -- and according to his own Website, for more than 5,000 films -- the movie-trailer voiceover was his canvas. He became relatively famous in particular as "the 'in a world ...' guy," a nod to the catch-phrase he used to introduce a movie's subject as something mysterious, sensual or alien. It became such a familiar lead-in that it was memorably mocked in a trailer for the Jerry Seinfeld documentary Comedian by his colleague Hal Douglas; LaFontaine himself winked at the image in episodes of Family Guy.

LaFontaine died yesterday at the age of 68, as a result of complications from pneumothorax. Whatever world he's in now, there's another impressive voice. (Scott Renshaw)

A Different Kind Of "Chick" Lit

Over the weekend, a group of former RED staff members got together to honor our friend and colleague Craig Froehlich who passed away last month. We sat around eating pastry puffs, drinking beer/wine and reading some of Craig's best satirical columns. My friend Jeremy had a few of Craig's possessions on hand, including a box of Chick Tracts. These are new to me. Apparently when Craig was growing up in Detroit, evangelical Christians passed out "informative" propaganda designed to save souls (particularly dog-collared teens). The content runneth over with hyperbolic scare tactics and general bigotry designed to "reverse psychologize" recipients into "saving" their souls. Or driving into oncoming trains (see below).

(Jamie Gadette)

My Vagina Vote

[Hillary-Schmillary] Gotta hand it to John McCain and all of his handsomely paid GOP consultants. It's like they read my vagina's mind!

This Sarah Palin has it all--anti-abortion, pro-gun, squeaky voice, a whopping 20 months as governor of America's Last Frontier. Uh, no, she doesn't quite match Hillary Clinton's lifelong feminist credentials, and eight years as First Lady and moving along in her second term as U.S. senator from New York. But what do we know? One estrogen-propelled candidate is as good as the next to us female voters.

According to the U.S. Census, there are an estimated 116 million women over the age of 18 in this country. And we all think alike. I know the only thing I care about when I touch that voting screen is what kind of indoor plumbing the candidate has. (Holly Mullen)

Let The Daily Show's Samantha Bee tell it:

Roller Derby Report: SLC Rattles Reno 141-113

[Alt-Sports] The Salt City Derby Girls' all-star Shakers team faced off against Reno's Battle Born Derby Demons Saturday night at the Utah Olympic Oval in the tightest interleague game of the season thus far. Possibly some of the tightest uniform bootie-shorts, as well.

The BBDD took an early lead in the first half; jammers Short Fuse and Ginger Snatch catching the SCDG Shakers off-guard with pure speed and slippery strategy. But Lady Shatterly (one of SCDG's highest scorers, skating her final bout) quickly made up the difference almost single-handedly and put the Shakers in the lead for the remainder of the night. Final score: 141-113, Salt City Shakers for the win.

Next SCDG bout: Reigning champs the Bomber Babes vs. the Sisters of No Mercy, Saturday Sept. 6 at the Utah Olympic Oval. Yes, already; busy roller-derby season.

SLC vs. Reno shots by Mark Alston:

(Bill Frost)

Elitist vs. Democratic

[From the AP] "It's unusual for the spouse of a presidential candidate to go on a Sunday talk show, but Cindy McCain used her 10 minutes to defend her husband from charges of elitism.

. . .

"Georgia 'is a wonderful, young democracy,' McCain said. 'We can't let it go. We can't let a country come back in and take it back down to a Soviet-style government. This is democracy, and that's what we're all about.'

. . .

"McCain bristled at charges by Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama that her husband is out of touch with most Americans because of the eight homes their family owns.

"'My husband was a Navy boy. His father and mother were in the Navy. I mean, there's nothing elitist about that,' she said. 'I'm offended by Barack Obama saying that about my husband.'"

-- Lara Jakes Jordan, Associated Press

(Brandon Burt)