WDR's Superbowl Celebration!

Watching it NOT for the commercials.

As you are aware (unless you've been living under a rock without TV for the last forty years) the Superbowl is this Sunday. This year features the Indianapolis Colts v. the New Orleans Saints.

So, what is WDR doing to celebrate? Well, I'm pretty sure that Nic and I are going to round up some beer and Cheez Doodles and yell at the television. Joe, I'm sure, will do something that has nothing to do with football, but may involve Cheez Doodles (or some variant) and vodka. We wish him the best of luck with that.

As you may know, Nic is a Saints fan and, as such, is actually emotionally invested in the outcome of this game. I'm sure he'll elaborate on this soon.For me, I'd like to see the Saints win just as an underdog. Most of all, though, I want it to be a good game.

Now, it seems that everyone has a prediction about who will win and why. I'm not going to do that here. Instead, I'm going to share the best predictor I have found for the Superbowl winner: Tecmo Bowl.

That's right, the regular Nintendo football game has been calibrated to play out the Superbowl with the current Colts and Saints players. Someone seems to do one of these every year and every year they have predicted the winner accurately (that I have seen). The scores usually aren't even close to right, but the outcome always is. What do we have this year? YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO WATCH TO FIND OUT!


Tecmo Super Bowl XLIV from Alex Quigley on Vimeo.

I just like this because the game itself is THE BEST FOOTBALL VIDEO GAME EVER. Some will complain that the graphics suck, but that's minor. And have you noticed that anytime someone goes for punt or field goal that it is much more exciting than watching the event in real life? They make it look like the craziest shit is about to go down. The field goals are so long that you can actually SEE THE CURVATURE OF THE EARTH. If that's not awesome, I don't know what is.

Well, enjoy your Superbowl, everyone!

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.

Nic & Jack's Infinite Playlist

This past Friday saw the opening of a new movie called Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, which is apparently about two young folks who experience one of those magical nights in New York City where the hijinks are caa-raazy!!! and there's the smell of love in the air, which seems to overpower the general stench that randomly pervades the city. By the Law Of Arrested Development, I'm pretty much forced to watch anything that has a member of that show's cast, because the rule goes that "anyone that has a connection to the show = genius". Then again, Michael Cera has had a pretty good track record so far (Superbad was great, and Juno was better than not-bad), so I'm not dreading this requirement so much.

On the other hand, as a new resident of New Yawk,I feel I need to settle this bullshit about the supposedly magical nature of this city that's been a crutch for storytellers for far too long. And what better way to show this than by telling the story of my own infinite playlist from this past Friday.

The day began promisingly enough. By general rule, any day in which you play a game of flag football is a good day (it's in the lost verse of Ice Cube's "Today Was A Good Day", if you want to check). We won by a huge margin, and it was the second week in a row that I accidentally leveled a girl half my size (this is what happens when I stop, and you don't). That, my friends, is a recipe for success. Top it off with a celebratory stop at a bar WITH SKEEBALL, and you've got yourself a good time.


Things fell apart once the sun went down, however. I've always found that the night time is the right time, so this was especially disappointing. As everybody on the team split off to follow their own evening plans, I had to reassess my options. It was then that I decided to do something I never thought I would do, and that was attempt to meet up at a college mini-reunion party. So I cleaned myself up to look somewhat presentable (well, I did what I could), and headed out for this "reunion". That's where the trouble begins.

I will forever assert that New York has one of the worst goddamn subway systems I've ever encountered. It's crowded and smelly, has a really inconsistent schedule, has no maps on the train, and has stations that have multiple names that make it ultra-confusing for the uninformed. And those are the problems that I came up with in about .2 seconds. My problem that night was that I could only find the entrance for the Downtown line and not the Uptown one. Because we absolutely have to have these things separate for some goddamn reason (to give New York credit for one thing, at least "Downtown" and "Uptown" are consistent--unlike Boston's T that has an "inbound" and "outbound" switch). The directions on the sign itself led me to ANOTHER downtown bound train, and so I was forced to look in an 8 block radius for the companion station. It was only after about half an hour of searching that I finally located the station...across the street ducked into a side street. You have to love the fact that newspaper dispensers were able to perfectly block my view.



Alright, so all this work left me with about half an hour left at this mini-reunion. That's not so bad, because I was only planning on a quick visit then stepping out later. The directions I had merely stated that the event was being held "across the street from Grand Central Station", on 50 Vanderbilt Ave. So I head out of the station (which is a mini-journey itself), and started looking for the address. I was at the 400s, so I started heading east to get to the lower numbers. After about 5 blocks, I take a look at the sign, and realize I'm not on Vanderbilt Ave., I'm on goddamn Lexington Ave. I have no idea why New York has this inexplicable hard-on for SEC locations, especially since no one around here loves college football, so don't ask. I then high-tail it back and find the correct address.

Before I go further, I should mention that the event was being held at the Yale Club. Yes, that means that a Dartmouth reunion was being held at the Yale Club, which is approximately 3267 different kinds of wrong (oh, and sorry to throw the snob-card down by mentioning my alma mater, but it's needed to make this story work). Not the least of which is that we end up looking like the lesser school, having to beg the almighty Yale for space. I thought we had our own club...and then I do the actual research now and find out that we do have our own club, and it's located in the Yale Club. Fucking perfect. So at this point in the story, I've arrived at the club with about 10 minutes left before the party is supposed to end. I inquire with the doorman as to where the party was taking place, when I heard a scoff. "Sir, you are required to wear long pants. It is the rule of the club".

Fuck you in the ear, doorman.


So in just a few seconds, Yale affirms every single stereotype ever asserted about them. You kind of have to admire that level of jackassery. And I'm sorry I was wearing shorts--I mean, it was only a Happy Hour, and it's still good weather outside. Then again, I seem to be the only not-wimp in the city since I can maintain shortsleeves and shorts in 60+ degree weather. Whatever. (For the record, they were quite nice khaki shorts, and I was wearing a freshly-laundered polo shirt, so I wasn't living up to the stereotype of the Dartmouth Hobo at all).

So what did I do? Well, I went back home at 9:30, drank enough Jack Daniel's to stun a horse, and then masturbated. I couldn't remember if I finished or passed out first, but it doesn't matter, because I end up a winner either way.



Oh yeah, the whole "playlist" motif. The soundtrack to the evening was...Spoon's Gimme Fiction. It doesn't get much more fitting than that.

Too Much of a Good Thing

The Perils of Music Licensing

It's safe to say that all the co-authors are rather big fans of the band Spoon. And what's not to like? We can all get behind well-crafted songs with spastic guitar solos, I imagine. If one of us was to throw on a record like Kill The Moonlight in the car, not one of us would raise an objection--we'd sit there and nod, congratulating the fine choice. Spoon was even one of the better concerts I saw last year, even if they didn't play "Sister Jack" (I mean, how can you not enjoy a song that starts out "Always on the outside, always looking in/I was in this drop-D metal band we called Requiem"). But dammit if Spoon hasn't begun getting on my nerves.

That's because I'm beginning to hear Spoon everywhere these days. And oversaturation kills even the greatest creativity.



It started out innocently enough. Promos for the movie Stranger Than Fiction would feature occasional instrumental snippets, which made sense since Portlander Britt Daniel did the score to the movie. Plus, it helps that in retrospect that the it was a damn good (if overlooked) film. However, marketing executives seemed to pick up on the band, and began using their music in countless ads, most notably "My Mathematical Mind". If anything was in any way tangentially related to "math" or "science", you were going to hear that song as backing music, as it was done (most obnoxiously) for that recent shitfest, 21. I thought I was done being tormented by a formerly-loved song, but alas, it is now the background music to a nationwide car commercial.


The thing is, it's not even totally Spoon's fault. At this point, there are apparently session players that are being told by Marketing Execs to "give my that 'Spoon' sound", resulting in car commercials with music that sounds suspiciously like "I Turn My Camera On". I also can't fault Spoon for looking to get a little extra money through licensing--I'm not even sure if they've had a gold record, so I'm not going to hold it against a consistently artistically brilliant band to earn some well-deserved compensation for their efforts.

So I write this in order to just ask for a moratorium on the use of Spoon in commercials for the next 18 months, so I can go back to enjoying a band I love in the manner that it was meant to--through the album. But since I'm sure my request will fall on deaf ears, I'll just put a smile on the viewer's face with this 90's nostalgia throwback:

Hump Day Helper--Completely Unoriginal 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.

Continuing our Best of 2007 theme, we present to you a choice that's sure to be on everyone's top 10 list--at least the ones that you might pay attention to. But just because people seem to agree, especially snot-nosed critics, doesn't mean that you shouldn't turn away in disgust automatically. Such is the case with Spoon.

Initially I was a bit lukewarm about Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga for reasons beyond the ridiculous title--sure it's a great album, but it felt too much like a compromise between Gimme Fiction and Kill The Moonlight, two albums that get considerable rotation attention around here. But sure enough, I've been grabbing for this one more and more, as I can't get tired of listening to the twitchy-soul that marks the Spoon sound. Plus, this song's got a nifty horn section!

Oh you cut out the middleman,
get free from the middleman!...

The Summer of Corruption

This is another name for the short story "Apt. Pupil" by Stephen King. It is in a compilation of shorts called "Different Seasons." (This also includes "The Body" which became the film "Stand By Me" and "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.")

Some may question why I've brought this up on the report, and honestly I'm not sure why either. It isn't a book that I've read recently (that would be "The Rum Diary" by Hunter S. Thompson (Kudos to anyone who knows what the "S" stands for)) nor is it my favorite story/collection of stories. For whatever reason it came into my head as I was looking over the report and I suggest it for summer reading.

As for music, I think it would be wise of reader (who haven't already done so) to throw some Spoon on the turntable and give it a spin. Also, check out Peaches. I haven't heard much of her stuff, but I must say that what I have heard is some good shit. And of course Nine Inch Nails and Pearl Jam are always good choices too.

For people looking for a slightly different musical experience, check out the Cajun band Beausoleil (you should know it isn't pronounced the way it looks, of course). It's fun and French goes well with steamed crawfish. Enjoy.

Spoon Talks (to someone else)

If you're bored this weekend (or still hungover from the Anniversary party from Friday night (frankly, we're not sure if Mr. Zhuang is still alive at this point, but Joe and I are too lazy to check)), check out this interview with Britt Daniel from Spoon. We always give love to our Portland rockstars, and we accept transplants just as much as our homegrown talent. Here's an example why you should read it:

AVC: For the longest time, the press has referred to you as "underrated" and "criminally overlooked." Do you still feel that way?

BD: No. The press has been pretty good to us ever since Girls Can Tell. I think we're one of the best bands making records today, and do I think we should be selling more records than Maroon 5? Yeah, because I think we're better. That's if it were a just world. It's not a just world. Actually, why don't we put The Bravery in there instead? No, let's not use The Bravery. Who's a good band to use?

AVC: Linkin Park?

BD: Yeah! You can't get any worse than Linkin Park. Let's use that.

See? You got to love a musician who goes right out and proclaims the crapulence of Linkin Park. In other news, Linkin Park inexplicably continues to have the number 1 song on Alternative Radio. Yaaaaaargh, to all you idiot MDs.

Oh, and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is worth listening, if you're into the whole "music" thing.

A Series of Texts

This is what happens when FOX decides that it's better to show one of the worst sequels of all time (the incredibly pointless The Lost World) instead of their Sunday Night lineup. You have me passed out on the couch randomly texting my friends about who-knows-what.

(And yes, I have railed against texting before as utterly pointless, but I have found that sometimes a random declarative statement in the right context is utterly sublime, especially if one cannot take the 5 seconds to make an actual phone call).

Nic Ouzo (to all): The Lost World?! You piss me off, Fox!
Mr. Zhuang: Hehe

Von Bookman: I need to learn swedish
Nic Ouzo: Explain?



Nic Ouzo (to all): Andy rooney is insane. Babbling about watches...
Joe Reefer: You could've just said 'andy rooney is talking'...
Nic Ouzo: I know, but specifics were funny

Von Bookman: I'm sick of being on ella youtube pages and not understanding what is being said.
Nic Ouzo: I did not know of her massive Swedish fanbase. I would have guessed Mongolians.

The "ella" in question is Ella Fitzgerald

Joe Reefer: Racism is uncalled for
Nic Ouzo: So's your face.
Joe Reefer: The arch duke is not at the table for this discussion
Nic Ouzo: Well pass it on, Cottonballs.

Joe Reefer's Face is a separate entity known as the Archduke. It has been assassinated on numerous occasions, most notably in 1914 when it started WWI. Cottonballs is just a funny name I heard on the Demetri Martin album

Von Bookman: She was clearly the david hasselhoff of nordic europe.
Nic Ouzo: Does Norm MacDonald have a theory?



Joe Reefer:...I don't know how to feel just now
Nic Ouzo: Feel like a walrus.
Joe Reefer: If you are indeed comparing me to john lennon, i approve
Nic Ouzo: I am comparing you to a sea monster. Maybe groundhog would have been better.
Joe Reefer: Every dog has its day, and every hog has its way, but every groundhog has Groundhog's Day and i guess that's alright

Nic Ouzo (to Joe and Mr. Zhuang): Chris Martin is one ugly bastard in the Yellow video.

Nic Ouzo (to Joe and Mr. Zhuang): Tesla? Damn you, Tube!

It was that damn hippie song, "Signs"--sign sign, everywhere a sign (crammit, hippie), and it was acoustic. Good God



Nic Ouzo: Alright, I dub thee CRAPWEASEL.
Nic Ouzo: or EMU
Joe Reefer: Damn. I was shooting for Holiday Armadillo
Nic Ouzo: That's Hal.
Joe Reefer: Touche.

Hal IS the Holiday Armadillo. Trust us.

Nic Ouzo: Oh yeah, apparently Sea Cow needs another year at U of O
Joe Reefer: Well, when i talked to him he said he was majoring in math, chemistry, and physics...If that's true then i can't blame him. But in the likely chance tha
Joe Reefer: t he was making things up i must laugh
Nic Ouzo: I saw that, but it's still stupid. Pick a minor. Not gonna contribute anything, anyways
Joe Reefer: Yeah, chemistry is a subset of physics anyway. Between that and math, chemistry should be implied and a degree would be redundant.
Nic Ouzo: My thoughts

I wasn't going to get into a discussion about the merits of chemistry and physics. Fuck that, I wanted a Fudgsicle.



Well that sure was enjoyable. Oh, can you imagine the lunacy of hanging out with these people 24/7? It would be a riot! Ha HA! Take that, Laugh-In!