Thoughts on Saturday

After BC got my hopes up before crushing me in the last two minutes, the weekend would only get more frustrating. The Texas Longhorns have to be the single most infuriating team in the country. This was true two years ago, but this year they're pissing off their own fans. For all the talent and support that this program has, they continually disappoint and underachieve. Now, reading the previous sentences, you would think that the Horns had lost yesterday; after the game I had to be reminded that we had won. Aside from the Baylor game, the fourth quarter of the TCU game, and the OU game minus the fumble, comfortable moments during football games have come few and far between. Here are reasons:

• The Longhorns have become the "cool team". While it's nice to see people from coast to coast in beautiful burnt orange, it seems to have a negative effect on the players. The level of cockiness on this team is ridiculous, with the players prancing around like they're the 90's U. It's this attitude of invincibility that led to all those pre-season arrests.
  
• We're massively overrated, every year. Pre-season rankings have a lingering stench on all college football seasons, and all they seem to do is cause disappointment. It's pretty obvious now that we never had any business being ranked in the top ten at any point. We have top ten talent, but we are by no means a top ten team.
• Greg Davis eats puppies

• For real.

• We don't have any kind of power back. Charles can't run tackle to tackle, yet we keep trying to jam his skinny ass through there. All he needs to do is watch footage of how well that dancing in the backfield stuff has worked for Reggie Bush so far in the NFL. However, it should be noted that Charles' game on Sunday was an absolute classic. About midway through the fourth quarter, I turned to my friend at the game and said, "Wow, I bet Charles ends up with over 150 yards." Well, he ended up with 290 and I'm an idiot.

In other college football news, check out this play from Trinity College yesterday. You probably saw it on ESPN all day, but watch it again and check out the play-by-play, masterfully done by Jonny Wiener. Jonny was a guy who I grew up with and now does the Trinity football broadcasts. It's pretty neat.

Boston leads 1-0 in the fifth. Looks like I'll have a clean face tomorrow.

Wednesday Shuffle Shakedown

If you live in Austin and get The Onion print edition every week or if you keep up with the publication regularly, then you're likely familiar with the A.V. Club's "Random Rules" feature. If not, it consists of a celebrity putting his or her iPod on shuffle and justifying or explaining the first few songs that come up. No skipping is allowed, period. Because this is a slow week in music and because I will likely never be asked by the A.V. Club to do this, I'm going to take on this challenge personally, and I'm going to try to do this every Wednesday. First five songs, here we go.

1. Ghostface Killah featuring Raekwon - "R.A.G.U."
This is one of the more laid back tracks off of last year's EXCELLENT FishScale LP. I think I've come to the realization that Ghostface is one of maybe five rappers that I legitimately enjoy. I know it's the cool thing now to pretend that you're as into rap and electronic music as you're into old-fashioned rock and roll, but I find that someone as emotional and varied as Ghost comes along very rarely in hip hop.

2. Destroyer - "From Oakland to Warsaw"
From Your Blues, this song features chimes and lush string arrangements, making it huge and gaudy even by Dan Bejar's standards. Even though I do love it when he gets big and Bowie, I think that I prefer Bejar in more stripped-down settings, like most of Streethawk: A Desire. In songs like "From Oakland to Warsaw," the arrangements can get in the way of Bejar's uniquely emotive voice. After seeing Sunset Rubdown, I would absolutely love to see how Spencer Krug and Dan Bejar would sound together onstage in there side project Swan Lake.

3. Decemberists - "16 Military Wives"
Yeah, the one with the video that rips off Rushmore. This song is actually one of my least favorite off of Picaresque, but that by no means makes it a weak song. However, I prefer my Decemberists songs to focus on sea wenches and barrow boys, not heavy-handed political themes. When they played this at ACL this year, Colin Meloy had the audience chanting along with the "la-di-da" part, which was obviously fun. However, he then had everyone chanting along with something to the effect of "the Bush administration is killing American kids," which was not catchy at all. It was almost as awkward as when Common had everyone in the mostly white audience raise their fists Black Panther-style. It seems like in today's musical/political climate, it's impossible to like a band without agreeing with them politically, which can be frustrating; after all, most musicians are d-bags anyways. Regardless, a very catchy tune.

4. King Elementary - "Rebecca"
Awwwwww...

To those poor souls unfamiliar with the Jackson, Mississippi music scene, these guys were the best thing since sliced bread. In one of my classes I'm writing a paper on W.C. Don's, the dive bar where most concerts in Jackson went down, so I've been listening to these guys a lot lately as well as other Jackson mainstays like Champagne Heights and Living Better Electrically. I remember when these guys did an impromptu performance of this song at a house party, and people were going so apeshit that the house literally shook. It was Rock City.

5. The Good Life - "Under A Honeymoom"
This is Tim Kasher from Cursive's acoustic project, which is kinda like Bright Eyes but with a far less warbly and annoying voice. I've only listened to this album a few times before, but I bought it after being briefly obsessed with The Ugly Organ, which remains the only Cursive album I own. This song ends with a beautiful coda of organs and glockenspiel, making it much more epic than most of the rest of the album. I'd recommend this album -- Album of the Year -- to someone looking for a less grizzly M. Ward or a more assertive (smog).

The 6th song was "Explode" by The Cardigans. Damn the fates.

Now, I think that that was fun, and I open the message boards up to anyone who wants to shuffle it up and tell everyone what their first song is. Funniest answer wins. Nothing. Also, boards are available for costume suggestions, as I am still without.

Speaking of Halloween, AMC is doing Monsterfest every night up to the 31st, so last night I stayed up until 2 watching Hellraiser. I think that between that and Nightmare on Elm Street you have two examples of potentially great movies completely marred by obsolete special effects. Clive Barker and Wes Craven owe it to all of us to go George Lucas on those movies so that we can send the Cenobites back to hell with some dignity.

Jocksville:

• Game 1: Red Sox 5-Rockies 2. The only things in this world that might be hotter than the Rockies right now are San Diego and Josh Beckett. Too soon?
• Kevin Durant has sprained his ankle. Al Horford: consider yourself Ringo because you're next.
• NFL Draft will be quicker next year. Fine by me as long as we got the extra time to laugh at Brady Quinn last year.
• Tony La Russa returns to St. Louis, thus crushing my hopes of the world's first manager trade with the Yankees.

ybb (Your blogging buddy),
Benji

Monday Night Failure

So, I had planned to do a Simmons (Gershon?)-style running diary of tonight's Monday Night Football game. It's not that I have a vested interest in the Colts or the Jaguars; it's that Monday Night Football is as hyperbolically self-indulgent as Real Time with Bill Maher, and I felt that it needed to be knocked down a few pegs by the B-man (myself, to the uninitiated). However, right after I wrote out a (hilarious) comment on the motley crew of has-beens that ESPN assembled to join Hank Williams Jr. for the theme song (Brian Setzer AND Richie Sambora??? OMGZ!), my computer decided that it would be turning off abruptly, denying you the general public of my delectable commentary. However, I have a few notes regarding tonight's game.

• For the first time ever, you can say this: "You know, I think that the only reason that Tom Brady puts up gaudier numbers than Payton Manning is that he's got a stronger batch of receivers."
• I improved to 7-0 in my fantasy league tonight, as Dallas Clark failed to catch 4 touchdowns.
• As much as I love him, Tony Kornheiser still feels uncomfortable in the booth. Granted, it could be a little emasculating to know that there's someone in the booth named Jaws and it isn't you, but man up, Tony.
• With Marvin Harrison banged up, it is henceforth Kimpossible for Reggie Wayne to retain his title as the "Silent Assassin"
• If the Rockies don't win the World Series, then I will continue to grow out my beard until November 4th, when either the Pats or the Colts will pick up their first loss. Worlds will collide.

Also, during the game I noticed this interview on Pitchfork with Devendra Banhart. Usually Pitchfork interviews are too focused on the interviewers "clever" musings, but Joshua Klein does a really good job of focusing the conversation with a notedly unfocused subject. That said, Banhart is a much more well-thought and level-headed guy than one would imagine from his records or his physical appearance. Favorite quote: "The best New York in the world is driving down the [Pacific Coast Highway] listening to the Velvet Underground. That's the best time I've ever been to New York."

Take it sleazy,
Benji

PS: Andrew Bird will be on Conan tonight. Czech it out.
PPS: I was wrong about Dice-K. Get over it.

Blogging Bandwagon Gains New Member

So this is the inaugural post of the Indie League blog. It seems now that everyone and their computer-literate mama are blogging, and I thought I would join in on all the fun. I wasn't quite sure what I would use this blog for until this afternoon when I was listening to the new Radiohead while monitoring my fantasy football team (5 Tom Brady TDs in the first half...money), and I realized that I could post musings on both music and sports, as well as college life in Austin. If I do this right, then this could be the greatest convergence of the two since Garth Brooks donned a Padres uni. I'll also be talking about random things as they come, and possibly posting lit submitted by myself and readers if anyone's interested.

Let's talk sports and why I hate being in college.

In this the craziest college football season in recent memory, the level of couch-sitting necessity is at an all-time high. From when I rise at the crack of noon to when I finally get dressed around 10 PM, Saturdays are reserved for football. Things were going great yesterday, with my beloved Texas Fightin' Longhorns looking at least better than decent and South Florida making way for my also beloved LSU Fightin' Tigers to slip back into the top three after two straight brutal weeks of SEC footballing. If you follow the SEC, you'll know that the LSU-Auburn game is always a nail-biting slugfest which often determines the fate of the SEC West. For the past three years, these matchups have each been in the top-ten games of their respective college football seasons.

I have seen none of them.

2004: The Extra Point Game -- Austin City Limits Festival. Pixies played. Forgiven
2005: The Thank God For John Vaughn Game -- ACL again. Oasis headlines. For shame.
2006: The Pass Interference Game -- Conflicted with Longhorn home football game. Yay Colt.

2007 looked to be a battle between an underrated Auburn team and an exhausted LSU team. Needless to say, I was nervous. However, having been invited to escort a friend to a cocktail party, I was at an obligatory pre-party dinner for the entire first half. From here I had to go to three other locations for various "pre-parties," the first two of which did not have a television. Once I finally reached our last party, I bypassed the keg and sprinted upstairs, only to find that there was one second left in the game and LSU had already secured the victory seconds earlier. Highlight after highlight of the Demetrius Byrd catch revealed that I had missed a pretty decent football game.

Saturdays are for football, not Benihana and cocktail dresses.

A brief word on music:

Haven't been to too many shows recently, though last week's Sunset Rubdown show at Emo's was incredible; I officially like them better than Wolf Parade. Sure, their songs are a bit long and nobody knows what the hell Spencer Krug is talking about, but I'll be damned if they can't write a bombastic and exciting rock song. You don't realize exactly how talented the guy is on piano until you see him in person, awkwardly flailing his arms in between notes and doing his best Win Butler impression along the way. Seeing them finally made me want to listen to something other than In Rainbows or Strawberry Jam. Check out the dope jam from their new album at the end of the post

Also, saw Caribou at the (fairly) new Club DeVille. It's on 9th and Red River, so it's removed from the 6th Street scene, and it's truly different than every other club in Austin. First of all, the bar is in a big circus tent, with the lights providing a pretty laid-back environment. The stage, however, is the really cool part, as the band performs in front of a stone wall decorated with various foliage. Even though it's in the middle of Austin, the venue has the feel of a remote mountain concert. The band, in spite of their gimmicky all-white uniform, put on a much more exciting show than you would expect from listening to their records. The drummer, whose kit was at the front of the stage, was pretty phenomenal, and the vocals and harmonies were woozy and beautiful.

Quick Notes:

• My Rockies playoff beard is looking manlier than Dante Bichette could have ever dreamed of.
• Tom Brady ended up with 6 touchdowns and over 350 yards passing. I love him more than his illegitimate child ever will.
• Go see The Darjeeling Limited. Right meow.
  
• The prospect of an LSU-Kansas national championship is developing from a funny joke into a hilarious possibility.
• Dice-K will choke tonight and Boston fans will struggle to find ways to claim that they aren't the Yankees.
• Get the new Jens Lekman; it's as adorable as it is Swedish.

Sunset Rubdown: The Taming of the Hands that Came Back to Life
Caribou: She's the One
Jens Lekman: It Was a Strange Time in My Life