Its been so long since I used this thing that I missed all the good GOP V.P. jokes. I refuse to type her name, since I know that like Voldemort, it just feeds her power.
Now I won’t make any promises, since I’ve got a pretty good thing going these days in terms of keeping the promises I make to myself, but I did have the IDEA of using this here space to provide a little context for the twittering I do on a fairly regular basis. That and the FBook status updatery. I mean one way or another I have a lot of people plugged in these days, far and wide, and not nearly enough time to talk to all of them. So there. This one’s for my homies.
I caught the Sound of Young America live at Sketchfest last night. A year ago I was working there and now I’m just a punter like anyone else. The show was so-so, not really the host’s fault. Jesse Thorn is a solid interviewer… it was for that reason that I went to see the show, I’m launching a podcast initiative at my current place of employment and I wanted to see on eof the masters of the form in action.
Unfortunately for Jesse one of his guests was Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedy’s. Jello likes to talk, which is good for a radio show. Jello lkes to talk about what he wants to talk about and could give a fuck about what the host is interested. I empathize. Danny Glover did the same shit to me when I was 17 years old and pretty much put me off the path of becoming Ira Glass. Thanks Danny Glover, you crazy old leftist fuck you. Read that with an equal amount of love and scorn, since I too one day will be a crazy old leftist fuck and if the universe has any sense of irony (which we know it does) I’ll hijack some poor kid’s 4D Lifecast Talk Show with tall tales about how I was in D.C. for Obama’s inauguration… just like everyone else in my generation.
Speaking of Ira GLass, Kasper Hauser- the greatest sketch comedy group you’ve never heard of- pulled off a pitch perfect paraody of This American Life. Eerie good. I’ve loathed Ira Glass’ voice nearly my entire adult life, and the slow going structure of TAL drives me up the wall. My radio passion is the BBC News. So you can be certain I laughed my ass off at KH’s killer take-down of public radio’s #1 show.
Jesse closed the show with a live performance by Bay Area Underground Hip-Hop superstars Zion-I. They’re very big where I work, and my wingman for the show last night is both fan and friend of the duo. I hadn’t heard them yet because I am an aging white geek who only recently discovered indie rock and indie rock girls.
However I will note that my favorite way to get introduced to new music is with a live show, often too pricey to take a chance on. Jesse fixed that problem for me last year by introducing me to Rogue Wave, and raised the stakes this year with Zion-I. I woke up and bought their first album off iTunes when my friend told me there were trip-hop influences in it. I love that shit. Takes me back. Haven’t listened to it yet, but I’m lickin’ my chops.
Till then, I’m the one over there, scribblin’ away on the legal pad.
