Softball Defeat

Another Tuesday, another defeat for the Attractive Nuisnace. My favorite partof the game was that Dan showed up in barefeet and his pajama pants* and played in the outfield. I immediately called him "Shoeless Joe" leading to this exchange:

"Uh oh, Shoeless Joe Jackson is at the plate."
"He's like a Negro League Hall of Famer up there."
"Um, Joe Jackson was white."

I also found out that I am a selfish stat hog who puts himself before the team. I batted in the bottom of the last inning with runners on and the team down by a few runs. But more importantly, I was a single away from hitting for the cycle. so you bet your sweet ass I shortened my swing and hit single. It didn't matter that we lost, I hit for the cycle, baby!

I'm thinking of ways next week to continue to throw my teammates under the bus.

*Ed Note - I am somewhat disappointed that Dan does not wear pajamas with cartoon characters on them. Had he showed up wearing pants with, say, the Smurfs on them, that would have raised the comedy scale. Plaid is not nearly as funny.

Play Me A Song

Well, the law buddy social came and went, always the social event event of the new quarter. I didn't sign up for a law buddy for the obvious reason that I would make an absolutely terrible law buddy. Not because I have no advice to give (ok, no good advice), but because I have no outlines to give after the Great Computer Crash of 2006. And that would be a great disappointment to whover got stuck with me.

So instead it was an evening of drinks and signing along to the Piano Man. Who, of course, played Piano Man.

I have no practical advice to give that we have almost entirely different professors than the incoming 1Q's. But I hear the WJC likes candy and teddy bears. And I know Simpson plays some mean ping pong, here's us dominating all comers. Even if her name is misspelled on her apron.



So instead of, you know, studying, work on that backhand.

Watching Hollywood Pat Itself On the Back

I'm fairly disturbed that I won my Oscar pool. I'm also fairly disturbed I was in an Oscar pool. My manhood is now open to question. So here's a gratuitous picture of Isla Fisher



While, I'm at it. Is there a more classically beautiful woman on the planet than Cate Blanchett? She just looks like a movie star. It's kind of disturbing.



Some other notes on what was a dreadfully boring Oscar telecast:

- I usually like Ellen Degeneres, but she was not good. Let's put it like this, Al Gore got more laughs. Let's say that again: Al Gore got more laughs. That's pretty much the standard of comedy death.

- Marty Scorcese has now won an Oscar. Susan Lucci has a daytime Emmy. Peyton Manning has a Super Bowl. The Red Sox won a World Series. Any other perennial losers out there? Who's the new Best Living Director to Have Never Won an Oscar? David Lynch?

- Those behind-the-screen dancers reminded me of the doctor's office in Doc Hollywood. It was one of those brilliantly goofy things I like about the Oscars.

- The sound effect chorus is another entry into things you should never be good at

- I've always liked Forest Whitaker, ever since Platoon. This was his first nomination and he wins. Peter O'Toole couldn't win for Lawrence of Arabia. I'm just saying.

- I've been making snarky comments about people's outfits with my cousin via IM. Apparently, I'm a girl. Or a gay man.

- My favorite part is always the In Memoriam video. Just thought I'd mention that.

- The Departed was really good. I'm glad it won. And its win was what put me over the top in my Oscar pool.

Oscar Night!

I like awards shows. I can't help it. I like all the red carpet stuff and I like the orchestra cutting off long acceptance speakers. I like the fact you can bet on the Oscars in Vegas (I want odds on Pan's Labyrinth taking Best Make-Up, and I'm only halfway kidding). I even like Joan Rivers and movie stars pretending not to loathe her with every fiber of their being.

So I'm excited about the Oscars, during which I'll be passionately rooting against Babel. And in case you missed it, the Razzie Awards were last night, honoring the worst movies of the year, and Little Man and Basic Instinct 2 cleaned up. I'm still stunned anyone thought Little Man was a good idea.

Then again, I still think Hudson Hawk was a good movie, so what do I know?

Goalie Fights!

And now, for some hockey stats:

5:07 Chris Neil: 5 Minutes for Fighting Drew Stafford
5:07 Drew Stafford: 5 Minutes for Fighting Chris Neil
5:13 Anton Volchenkov: 5 Minutes for Fighting
5:13 Ray Emery: 5 Minutes for Fighting
5:13 Ray Emery: 5 Minutes for Fighting
5:13 Ray Emery: 2 Minutes for Goalie Leaving the Crease
5:13 Ray Emery: 10-Minute Game Misconduct
5:13 Andrew Peters: 2 Minutes for Roughing
5:13 Andrew Peters: 2-Minute Bench Penalty for Instigating
5:13 Andrew Peters: 5 Minutes for Fighting
5:13 Andrew Peters: 10-Minute Game Misconduct
5:13 Adam Mair: 2-Minute Bench Penalty for Instigating
5:13 Adam Mair: 5 Minutes for Fighting
5:13 Adam Mair: 10 Minutes for Misconduct
5:13 Martin Biron: 2 Minutes for Goalie Leaving the Crease
5:13 Martin Biron: 5 Minutes for Fighting
5:13 Martin Biron: 10-Minute Game Misconduct
5:13 Chris Phillips: 10 Minutes for Misconduct

One of the most entertaining boxscores I’ve read in awhile. That’s 100 minutes of penalties doled out in six seconds of game time (which took about 20 minutes in real life).

I also love the fact Emery received a minor for leaving his crease to go along with his game misconduct and two fighting majors, the equivalent to getting a speeding ticket to go along with a charge of vehicular homicide. Which means not only did he get into a goalie fight (one of the most entertaining things in all of sports), but he got in a fight with a regular player. How does a goalie get that angry?

M&M's

Courtesy of Osodelsol, I'm enjoying the M&M character creator. I like the backgrounds as well. Here's my best shot at creating me as an M&M



The dog is gratuitous, but fun. And that is a cast on the right arm. So I get to be a wounded M&M.

Ashes to Ashes

Memento homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.

Just kicking it old school for the Catholics in the hiz-ouse. For those of you not up on your Latin mass, it means "Remember, man, that you are dust, And unto dust you shall return." We Catholics are a real party people. A fairly unheathly number of our holidays and rituals revolve around death.

There's something about Lent that I really like. I like the idea of making small sacrifices, and I like the idea of spending 40 days getting your soul ready for the resurrection of Christ. Maybe I missed my calling as a Medieval Flagellant.

Or maybe not. I just like the opportunity for private reflection. Lent is a good time to do that.

Laissez Les Bon Temps Roullez!

It’s Mardi Gras!

What a great holiday. I miss being in Louisiana this time of year, as the entire state shut down as we all partied for about a week solid. To give you an idea of priorities, LSU gave us two days off for Thanksgiving and three days for Mardi Gras. And most professors gave us off the previous Friday as well. Good times all the way around.

We’re talking about a holiday in which the whole point of it is to sin as much as possible before Lent starts. It’s a holiday which inspired the Girls Gone Wild videos. It’s like the polar opposite of the upcoming solemnity of Good Friday. Get all of it out of your system. Because the early Catholics were apparently moral bulimics. Binge and purge!

Then again, sinning in Waco is rather difficult. I’m sure some of you will give it the old college try, though. I, of course, am going to play softball and then study. I am a good Catholic boy.

Mummies and the Nielsen Family

Next time you're feeling alone in life, consider the case of Vincenzo Ricardo:

The partially mummified body of a man dead for more than a year has been found in a chair in front of his television, which was still on, authorities said.

Which begs the question, who is this guy's electrical provider? I mean, the TV was on for over a year? Didn't they get suspicious when he stopped paying the bill, I don't know, after four months? Exactly what does a guy have to do in Hampton Bays, NY to get his power cut off anyway?

And exactly how mean do you have to be to the neighbors for them not to notice they haven't seen you for over a year? Some people make a pact to get married with a friend if neither has found anyone at a certain age. I'm making a pact with my friends to call me at 3-month intervals to make sure I don't end up being a mummified corpse in front of the TV. I do, however, see the potential downside of my lifetime goal of becoming a crotchety old man.

How To Tell When The Case Is Not Going Your Way

We read one of the more entertaining cases of my law school career this week, Pederson v. Louisiana State University, 213 F.3d 858 (5th Cir. 2000). Now, I went to LSU and I'm what you could call a pretty big fan. OK, I'm unreasonably fanatical. So reading about my alma mater's Title IX violations when I was in school was pretty fun. Because if you're gonna violate a law, you might as well go all out.

You can tell things are going poorly when the opinion uses phrases like "Appellees argue brazenly..." they did not intentionally discriminate against women but discrimination resulted from "arrogant ignorance, confusion regarding the practical requirements of the law, and a remarkably outdated view of women and athletics which created the by-product of resistance to change."

Not only did LSU fail to even come remotely near equal participation, they offered little opportunities to women, and made no effort to even pretend they were trying to comply with Title IX. But things really got bad when the Athletic Director opened up his mouth.

He referred to the woman suing him and his school for discrimination as "honey," "sweetie," and "cutie." He even offered to help her by saying, "I'd love to help a cute little girl like you" but that's only because women's soccer deserved varsity status because, and I quote, "they would look cute running around in their soccer shorts."

Not suprisingly, the cute little girl won her suit. And the AD got canned. And LSU would add women's soccer and softball. And I'd like to point out that LSU women's softball is now frickin' awesome.

Poseur's Way Too Pretentious Top Ten Albums of 2006: #1 ARCTIC MONKEYS – Whatever It Is You Say I Am, That’s What I Am Not

File Under: Oasis meets the internet generation
If You Like: Franz Ferdinand, Libertines
Label: Domino

You can tell whether the listmaker is British or American by looking for the presence of the Arctic Monkeys on their Best Of list, but I’m bucking the trend. I think its pretty neat (yes, neat), that there is the massive cultural phenomenon in England which hasn’t even made a blip on the US radar. The Arctic Monkeys had a #1 single in England before their album was released, almost completely without any sort of advance marketing. They are the first “internet” band to be really successful. They were being downloaded en masse before they even recorded an album.

Their debut was then the fastest-selling debut week in music history. They sold more copies in the first week than every other album in the top 20 combined. I mean, they are friggin’ huge. Except here. The great saviors of rock n roll haven’t even made a dent on our collective consciousness in the States. How cool is that? And the album is great, a mix of sing along choruses and danceable riffs.

The only album released this year that can accurately claim to mark a real shift in the music industry. It’s #1 because the songs are great, but also because it’s the first album of its kind. But when you’re listening to it, who cares? What matters is that the songs are great. That’s why it was such an internet smash without any record label support: people really liked it.

THE VIDEO: "Fake Tales of San Francisco". They even look like Oasis. And Oasis wishes they had penned the line "Proof that love is not only blind but deaf."



NOTE FROM MANAGEMENT: Hey, thanks for bearing with me. I know you didn't care and this was only really fun for me. But sometimes I like to use this space for my own personal amusement. I needed to cheer myself up. And playing music critic does that sometimes.

Poseur's Way Too Pretentious Top Ten Albums of 2006: #2 HOLD STEADY – Boys And Girls In America

File Under: Bruce Springsteen meets the Replacement and a drinking habit
If You Like: Spoon, Guided By Voices
Label: Vagrant

After “Separation Sunday”, the band decided to ditch the convoluted story arcs on the new album, and explore more universal themes. Neil Finn still struggles to reconcile his Catholicism with a pretty hefty drinking habit and a lifetime on the fringes of the counterculture. When he sings, “Gonna walk around a drink some more,” it sounds like a threat. Or a lament.

Any album which starts with a Jack Kerouac quote, “boys and girls in America have such a sad time together,” sounds like it will be a complete downer. It’s not. It careens back and forth from melancholy to a rip roaring good time. It really is an album for the bipolar. The whole album can be summed up by the two strangers who wake in the same medical tent after their overdoses and kiss each other with the IV’s still in their arms: “It was sexy but it was sort of creepy.” The characters throw themselves into life without regard to the consequences. The Hold Steady show the joy of the life, as well as that vicious hangover in the morning. Or ten years later.

You can see why I like it so much.

THE VIDEO: "Chips Ahoy!" See the nerdiest-looking band in the world.

Poseur's Way Too Pretentious Top Ten Albums of 2006: #3 NEKO CASE – Fox Confessor Brings The Flood

File Under: Loretta Lynn meets Ani DiFranco
If You Like: Cowboy Junkies, Uncle Tupelo
Label: Anti

There’s not many people in pop music with a more beautiful voice than Neko Case. She’s been unfortunately cast aside in the alt-country ghetto, which is rather unfair. Her songs are universal enough that they shouldn’t be pigeon-holed in a subgenre that approximately 10 people honestly enjoy.

It’s hard not to compare this album to her New Pornographer bandmate Dan Bejar’s side project: Destroyer. Destroyer’s Rubies is a good album, but it sometimes collapses under its own weight (is an eight and half minute folk song ever a good idea? No. Never. And this goes for the Decemberists’ Crane Wife as well. Seriously, Bohemian Rhapsody is interminable and its only six minutes long). Case avoids such hubris and just crafts beautiful songs. She doesn’t get cute and try and make it a metaphor for, well, anything. It’s just a collection of great songs. That should be enough.

THE VIDEO: She doesn't release videos, so this is a remarkably clean version of "Hold On Hold On" from A&E. Yes, she performed on A&E.

Poseur's Way Too Pretentious Top Ten Albums of 2006: #4 CURSIVE – Happy Hollow

File Under: Post-modernist punk rock
If You Like: Fugazi, Sparta
Label: Saddle Creek

When rock bands, particularly punk rockers, take on small towns and religion, the results are predictable and frankly, boring as hell. I can’t say I was thrilled that one of the most interesting punk bands was going to tackle these two topics. I expected banality, even from a usually creative band. (Wow, you don’t like small towns and religion… what an interesting and surprising take on things). But the band ditched their cello and string section and replaced it with a horn section (don’t think for a second this is a ska album, its not), giving it a sound that can’t really be described.

The band doesn’t pretend they have answers, and they also show genuine sympathy for their small town characters, particularly their continual exploration of what happens to Dorothy when she goes back to Kansas. There might be no place like home, but Oz was exciting and now Dorothy is staring the same thing every day for the rest of her life, and she’s chasing tornados to get back to Oz. She eventually has to give up, wake up, and go to work like the rest of us. It’s a little sad, but it’s also comforting. The fictional titular town still loves her.

Which isn’t to say the album pulls punches. There’s a song about a gay priest who can’t be with the love his life, and then there’s the confrontational “Big Bang”: “There was this big bang once, but it doesn’t jive with Adam and Eve.” It’s clear their sympathies lie with science, but they never mock the religious. And the band ends up just confused on how to make the two jive, which is an interesting display of honesty: they admit they don’t know. Which makes this the album for agnostics. David Hume would love it.

THE VIDEO: “Dorothy At 40”. What happens when Dorothy leaves Oz? This song is actually pretty representative of the album. Sometimes the single is not a dirty trick.

Placing a Phonecall

When you need advice, it’s good to have a best friend. But when you finally get a hold of him, you don’t want to hear that you he’s having problems with reception because he’s in Puerto Rico*. I’m not sure why he’s in Puerto Rico, but he sounded busy. And the reception really did suck.

Don’t they have cell towers in Puerto Rico? Really, it’s closer to Texas than Maryland is. So logically, I should have better reception talking to him when he’s in Puerto Rico than when he’s at home in Baltimore. I’m just saying. These are the sorts of things which keep me up at night. It’s not like I was calling Bolivia or anything.

*Ed. Note - Interesting factoid. Puerto Rico is misnamed due to a cartographer's mistake. The island was supposed to be named San Juan and the city was named Puerto Rico, the "Good Port". But someone screwed up the map, and we've been stuck with this mistake, and now its become correct. So, if you're gonna make a mistake, wait a few hundred years and maybe it'll correct itself. OK, maybe that wasn't that interesting. But I thought it was.

Poseur's Way Too Pretentious Top Ten Albums of 2006: #5 RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS – Stadium Arcadium

File Under: 90s alt-rock survivors
If You Like: Like you don’t know them
Label: Warner Brothers

While Pearl Jam got the cover of Rolling Stone for putting out an album that didn’t suck, RHCP actually made it for putting out one of the best works of their career. It’s hard to stay relevant in a band’s third decade, and most bands fail miserably (look at Pearl Jam). We still hold RHCP to actual standards instead of giving them the back-handed compliment of saying the album is their best since BloodSugarSexMagik. While that’s true, it gets rightly praised for being great in its own right, not because everything they’ve put out since 1995 was a waste of time (once again, see Pearl Jam).

The Peppers have never been good at cohesive albums. Their minds wander and they put out an inordinate amount of filler. And since this is a double album, Stadium Arcadium is no exception. But it really is remarkable how few missteps there are. And they haven’t lost their ear for really catchy singles. They release catchy songs to suck you in, and then you get exposed to the rest of the work. And while its nice John Fruscante isn’t dead, and he gets his time in the spotlight, this is really Flea’s album. You can hear him everywhere, dragging the rest of the band with him. He’s always been the most conscious of the band’s place in history, and this is his magnum opus. It’s a sprawling thank you to all of their influences, from jazz to funk to punk. It’s a tour de force, really.

They left their contemporaries in the dust a long time ago. Now, they are focusing on not letting anyone catch up. They are truly in their own league: an artistically ambitious band who are also fabulously commercially successful. Good for them.

VIDEO: Yeah, you know what they sound like. So this is gratuitous. The song is "Hey (Oh)"

Poseur's Way Too Pretentious Top Ten Albums of 2006: #6 TV ON THE RADIO – Return To Cookie Mountain

File Under: Artsy fartsy rock meets jazz meets doo wop
If You Like: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Pere Ubu
Label: 4AD

Is there a less likely success story right now? TV On the Radio put out a great, if completely unnoticed, album two years ago: Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes. And it was unlike anything you had ever heard. It really was a mind-blowing album, even if only a few thousand people bought it. Heck, the real mind-blower was the initial EP, Young Liars.

Somehow, they parlayed this into a major label deal. It’s rare a major label, or any business, says “hey, there’s this really interesting band who is dong some truly unique work but it’s so bizarre there’s no way we’ll ever be able to issue a single. Let’s give them a three record deal.” The majors tend to like this thing called profit. Critical hosannas don’t pay the bills. They do get you on the cover of Spin magazine for “Record of the Year”

I do feel some of this praise is jumping on the bandwagon a bit too late. It was the previous album which was the real leap forward, this new disc is just consolidating those gains. But I’m just pleased they are getting the attention, however late or unlikely that praise is. So what the hell.

THE VIDEO: “Wolf Like Me”. Actually, a pretty catchy song. Once again, singles are a dirty trick, as this is a straight ahead rock song.

The Holidays

Today is one of the greatest days on the calendar. It always puts a spring in my step and a smile on my face. It's the kind of day where the birds sing a little bit louder and the sun shines a little brighter. Every day should be as beautiful as this one.

Some people don't like today, complaining that it is really no big deal. Or that it is a manufactured event, and that this day really isn't that important. It's just another day. These people are cynics, and we should ignore these naysayers while we appreciate the inherent goodness and poetry of this day.

I, of course, am referring to the fact that pitchers and catchers report today. Unfortunately, it is also Valentine's Day, but that won't break my feeling of optimism on this fine day.

Poseur's Way Too Pretentious Top Ten Albums of 2006: #7 WOLFMOTHER - Wolfmother

File Under: 1970s riff rock
If You Like: Soundgarden, Queens of the Stone Age
Label: Interscope

Admit it. You like 70s hard rock. The overdone solos, the big vocals, the riffs. And some indie rock bands have dipped into that grab bag and given some love to the Deep Purple fan in all of us, but always with a nod and a wink. Hey, we know this is cheesy, but it’s fun.

Wolfmother dispenses with the irony and just throws themselves into the sound. They wouldn’t sound out of place, say, opening up for Thin Lizzy. Besides, has irony made it to Australia yet? This band simply rocks.

Reader Mail

One of the things I have to do for the district court is go through the stacks of pro se orders. Apparently, people in jail don't like to be there and they have plenty of free time. Which is a combination which leads them to write letters to the court trying to get out of jail. And this stack of letters ends up on my desk.

Aside from the fact some of these guys really can write motion, its not the most exciting thing on the planet. So when going through the seemingly endless stack, it was nice running into a letter that instead of being addressed to the judge or just the court, it was addressed to me. "Dear Law Clerk..."

Hey, it's nice to be appreciated. Even if I told the guy no, he had to stay in jail.