Hump Day Helper: Another Apartment Story

Because it's Wednesday, and we all need a pick-me-up to make it through the rest of the week in our respective hells, WDR is providing some fun.



I'm going to begin the introduction of the video with a little story. I was still working as a DJ/Music Director back in 2007, when The National's acclaimed album Boxer came out. Since I was a guy who actually cared about music/his job, I had read up a lot in the press about how great these guys were, and so was eager to hear their stuff. I popped in their first single, the video above, and within about 45 seconds began to fall asleep, while wondering "What's the fuss?"

I must have been in a bad mood, because a couple of years later I find a used copy of Boxer in the Bargain Bin, and pick it up on a whim. This time, I'm more receptive, and begin to gradually appreciate a band which I affectionately call "Leonard Cohen fronting the Walkmen, if they were on Quaaludes." I mean this in a complimentary manner, I assure you. So The National are proof that sometimes you have to take a second chance with some things. However, I should also mention that the Arcade Fire still blows.

I think the best song to get people into the band is "Mr. November", which is about as the band comes to "rocking out"; plus it features the immortal chorus "I won't fuck us over, I'm Mr. November." However, the above video is a solid choice, showing how sometimes we just have to rock out in our apartments every once in a while.

Make up something to believe in your heart of hearts
so you have something to wear on your sleeve of sleeves...

Prepare Your Bunkers: The Saints Are In The Super Bowl

There are some things that you can count on, year in and year out. The swallows will return to Capistrano, the Saints will lose, etc. These are constants that we can rely on in an ever-evolving world [cue Steve Jobsian-style presentation].

At least that was the case until yesterday.

I am still in disbelief, and I don't think I'll truly comprehend it even on February 7th. To many, the Saints are a bunch of lovable losers, nothing out of the ordinary, like the Cubs or the pre-2004 Red Sox. What these people don't understand is just HOW the Saints would lose. It was always in the most heart-breaking fashion possible.

First, let's establish the bona fides of the Saints as losers. This is a team, that despite being in the league since 1967, had never won a playoff game until 2001. This was a team that a book about their first 25 years was entitled "Heroic Effort"--if that isn't putting a shine on a turd, I don't know what would be. And of course, Saints fans were the first to start the practice of wearing bags over their heads.

So, they've lost a lot. But not only do they lose, they do it in a way that's worse than a kick to the gut. For instance, last year in a game against the Minnesota Vikings (yes, those Vikings), the Saints wasted not one, but TWO punt return touchdowns from Reggie Bush to lose the game in the last minute after a gimme field goal was blocked. That's just one game, but guess how many games it would have taken for the Saints to make the playoffs last year? That's right, one.

Or let's put it another way. If you could pick one team to do this, who would it be: last play of the game, 75 yards to go; short pass, nearly tackled...lateral...lateral...lateral...holy fuck, TOUCHDOWN! If the Saints win, they're going to the playoffs, and holy shit, they're going to do it! Now John Carney just has to kick the extra point to tie it up and...



If there ever was a play that described a franchise, it was that play. As the Saints ran off 13 straight wins to start the year, all I could think was "the last time the Saints were 5-0, they missed the playoffs. There's only bigger heartache awaiting me." And then the team finished the regular season on a three-game losing streak, torpedoing their momentum right before the playoffs. So you can forgive me for watching the entire second half yesterday with my head in my hands, wondering how the Saints were going to blow it once again.

But I didn't count on Bret Favre's bad mojo outcrapping the Saints bad mojo. And that made all the difference in the world. Inevitable dread turned into unabashed joy. And it was glorious.

So the unthinkable has happened. The Saints are in the Super Bowl. Prepare accordingly, for the apocalypse awaits.

Was WDR on Team Coco?

You bet your sweet ass and half-a-titty.

But all the WDR support in the world wasn't enough to keep Conan on as host of the Tonight Show. Sure, Conan got the ol' Oklahoma Screwjob from Jeffrey Zucker, Dick Ebersol, and the rest of the nitwits from NBC, but we have to admit, wasn't it strange for Conan to be the host in the first place? His best humor always had a weird absurdist bent to it, and I'm not entirely sure that plays that well to Maude from Des Moines.

We have to face it, the odds weren't good for Conan to succeed. His biggest weakness has always been his monologue, and at 12:35 we could wait the 7 minutes before he got to one of his great skits. At the earlier hour though, people are tuning in specifically for that monologue, and if it isn't hitting, Letterman's just a few channels away. And then it's tough to play catch-up. It also didn't help that he had the Human Jinx Andy Richter sign on to play the Ed McMahon role (and I say this as a huge fan of both Controls the Universe and Andy Barker, P.I.).

And so it was never meant to be. And while Conan was justifiably angry about the whole situation, and while it was quite funny to see a man lash out at his incompetent bosses, part of me felt some sadness that Conan didn't take the high road. However, in his last episode, he did just that. His speech about the emptiness of cynicism will be remembered for some time, and it was good to see Conan show his class. And that segued into one of the greatest random performances of Lynyrd Skynyrd ever:

Conan Says Goodbye with Will Ferrell & Freebird - watch more funny videos

Yes, I watched the final episode the day after it aired and am aware of the irony, but it's only because I don't have a TV. But I'm but one example of many in his audience that surely did the same thing. Conan was doomed to fail, but at least he got his moment.

Hump Day Helper: Spoon Is Still Cool

Because it's Wednesday, and we all need a pick-me-up to make it through the rest of the week in our respective hells, WDR is providing some fun.


As mentioned in the previous post, Spoon's new album Transference came out this week. It's an interesting mix of their early days, abandoning the neo-Motown soul and pop hooks of their recent work. Instead, the band mixes the rough, fiery guitar of A Series of Sneaks and the icy atmosphere of arguably their best work, Girls Can Tell. The album doesn't immediately grab you, but repeated listenings show that the band is continuing on an unbelievable hot streak.

We went back a bit for the video, grabbing "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" from the last album. It's the perfect mix for the Helper--you've got your upbeat pop, all masking a message of goddammit, the fire is out in our relationship. But don't let that stop you from enjoying it.

After you're done having fun with that, take a listen to the catchiest song from the new album, "Trouble Comes Runnin'". I'm picking up what they're putting down.

Life can be so fair, let it go on and on...

List-O-Mania!

This past year saw not only your usual end-of-the-year countdowns, which we're totally cool with, but also your end-of-the-decade lists, which we're also totally cool with. RollingStone had their Best Albums and Best Singes of the Decade lists, and the AVClub had a month devoted to Decade's Best compendiums. You may ask yourself, "Where are WDR's lists?" Well, they're not here right now, but we have a great explanation: we can count. That's because decades start with the year "1", dumbasses.



HOWEVA, that doesn't mean we aren't going to do any lists; no, we're actually going to be doing three huge lists throughout the year. In addition to doing a rundown of what was worthwhile in 2009 (expect that some time in March), we're going to be doing Best Albums of the '80s, '90s, and '00s. What's the breakdown for the list? Glad you asked:

End of February, we'll give you a list of the Best 50 Albums of the '80s. Why only 50? Because the '80s blew, that's why

End of August, we'll give you the Best 100 Albums of the '90s. The toughest part will be how I justify putting six Pearl Jam albums on that list.

And at the end of December, and maybe into January we'll do the Best 100 Albums of the '00s. I've already got a number one in mind, but that list is sure to undergo several revisions before we post it.

I also want to mention that each member of WDR is going to have their own list, and each member is going to go off for as long as they want on each album. If I just want to say one sentence about License to Ill, that's fine; if I end up writing a thesis on The Decline of British Sea Power, well that's just more reading for you to skip over. No rules. In addition, random other lists will make appearances, including "Best Artists Absent from the List", etc. etc. It's going to be good times.


And since the year 2000 goes back to the '90s, we're going to have some interesting decisions to make, and our lists will look a lot different than you're used to--I mean, we're going to have Kid A competing with OK Computer. And don't think we're going to skip out on 2010 in our best of this decade list--just look at the 2000 albums that are going to make the '90s list: Relationship of Command, Moon and Antarctica, and R, among others. Plus, 2010's shaping up to be a great year--we're looking forward to new albums from The National, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, New Pornographers, and The Thermals among others. Just this week we saw the release of the latest great album from Spoon, which means we'll probably be seeing 5 albums from them on the top 100.

Get ready to waste your time.

Hump Day Helper: Douchebag Edition

Because it's Wednesday, and we all need a pick-me-up to make it through the rest of the week in our respective hells, WDR is providing some fun.


I can think of a million reasons to hate Vampire Weekend. They look like the SAE douchebags that I would encounter on a daily basis. Their music is ridiculously twee and hipster-riffic. These fuckers probably wear boat shoes.

Yet I enjoyed the hell out of their debut album. It was perfect summer music, and their new album, Contra, is probably more of the same. That said, for some reason their label thinks it's a great idea to release their record in the middle of the fucking winter, even though it's a band that I haven't listened to since August. And people wonder why the record industry is failing.

This is their latest single, "Cousins." To tell you the truth, I absolutely hated this song the first time I heard it, but I've grown to appreciate its idiosyncrasies, from the driving snare roll to the stupid tremolo picked guitar lines. It also helps that they made a nifty little video, with some great scenes, especailly one verse where they act out the lyrics.

Caught in the melody
You wait in the car
You were born with ten fingers and you're gonna use them all...

WDR Attempts To Conquer All Media

We here at WDR are at a crossroads*. If you look at our output over the course of our three year existence, you'll notice a downward trend in the number of our posts. We've provided a helpful graph so you can better understand.



Now you may assume that there has been an increase in the quality of our posts, since we have to pack all our good...shit into fewer posts. This would be an incredibly stupid assumption--the only reason our posts are limited are because we've become even fatter and lazier than we already were. Seriously, I can't even comprehend why you would even think that, even if you had the best of intentions. Any particular article that you may have liked better from our recent output is just pure dumb luck. Frankly, you make me sick**.

Now we could be like most of Corporate America and blame our decrease in productivity on the economy. This has been what our parent company, Generica, has been pushing. But that would be a damn lie, and we have never used this space to lie to you, the reader***. And actually, we had several posts that were ready for print, but our intern Rasheed lost them at some point. Our new intern, Ho Tran, will be doing some work to help recover those posts, and hopefully they'll be published at some point, but I wouldn't hold my breath (Ho Tran makes Rasheed look like a goddamn genius).

Instead, we've decided to come through with one of our trademark empty promises. We're going to post more this year. It's not like my grades are going to go down any more if I spend more time writing. So at least you'll have more stuff from the Ouzo man. Zhuang-o will do his usual work, so no big change there. And we've currently hired a bounty hunter to track down Joe Reefer, and given said bounty hunter free reign to do what he can to convince Joe to once again write.

Meanwhile, in an attempt at overcompensation, WDR is expanding into a new medium! That's right, we can't even maintain a presence in one, but fuck it, let's try something else! Generica was telling us all about "social media" and to tell you the truth, we were a little drunk at that staff meeting, but they created a Twitter account for the site! Twitter really is bullshit, but hey, if you want WDR's quick take on something, just check it out--of course, we only have one tweet up there now, but the point is WE HAVE THE CAPABILITY TO DO SO MUCH MORE. So follow us at twitter.com/thewaynediego, because some asshole took the name "WayneDiego". And hey, each of us has our own twitter page as well (@NicOuzo, @manadajigity, and @djcozmik). Do with that information what you will; if that response is to spam the hell out of us, why not.



*Though only of the metaphorical variety. As far as we know, the internet is not a literal superhighway, but only one of those informational kinds of superhighways

**But I make music.

***Except for the many times that we have lied to you. I don't know what to tell you, but you did sign those release forms, so haha, nothing you can do.