If I'm not mistaken, Pitchfork began a review for I'm Wide Awake... with essentially the same defensive posture. I'm paraphrasing here, but the reviewer said something to this effect: "I'm totally gay for Bright Eyes and I don't care what any of you say!" A bit off-putting, no?

I don't know what's happening to me, Judy; we're the same age but I'm getting sensitive. This isn't the mewling, Lost Boy sensitivity Oberst's fans crave from him. No, this is something else: critical, prickly, self-examining. Two months ago I was getting lunch with my girlfriend and a friend of ours, and after gaging the flow of conversation, blurted out that I hate nostalgia. My friend was amused by this; she went home and wrote a short story about a society in which parents can genetically alter their children's features to resemble the celebrities of their adolescence.

I could have gone further, I suppose: I bristle at nostalgia, the easy way that easy references to middlebrow entertainment suddenly and shallowly bond people. I bristle at people who want to listen to "serious music," but haven't the faintest idea what that really requires. Everyone at my college wanted to listen to serious music; instead, they listened to everyone else's indie rock. They had no sense of history. Had this been the 1980s, they would have been hangers-on in some No Wave loft. Today, they haven't a clue who DNA was.

And that's OK, as long as you're not spouting this wish-fulfillment nonsense about serious music making you a seriously cool person. I couldn't give a mole off Charles Ives' ass what music you're into, as long as you're not a dabbler passing yourself off as a music traveler. But all these so-termed travelers do the same thing: they glom onto whatever builds their self-esteem and enriches their social contacts, then laugh it off during the next phase. I have dozens of friends and acquaintances just like this; they congratulate themselves for their brave and eclectic taste in music, when really they're just eating up the PR from indie music's major-label equivalents. These people need to feel validated. And when the ex-fratters up the street are playing beer pong to Plies and Pat Green, the middlebrow yuppie/hipster types are doing the same thing - only it's Dartmouth rules, and it's M. Ward on the stereo.

I'm coming off as a complete pill; I'm sorry. I'm really a peach of a guy, and in person I don't even bother whipping out anarchopunk or free jazz as a discussion topic. My interests aren't the same as others, and that's cool. Other people have legitimate theater, or art installations, or knitting, or recreational drugs. I have records, same as most people, but there's a difference between people who buy records because it's a good way to define the persona you're growing into, and those who do it because they have to, because every germ of bravery or honesty or cruelty or humor is a fucking crack rock. And maybe Bright Eyes will provide moments of any of the proceeding (I was only really taken with Digitial Ash... - I'll let other people decide what that says about me). That's not for me to judge for you. But no medals for snapping out of a dabbling stage by default.

Turns up nothing.

NBC keeps calling him the "most-decorated" Olympic athlete! Sure, he's larded with gold like no other, but as far as I know, Larissa Latynina is still tops with 18 medals. Phelps will have to wait until London to take that title.

Actually, Rick, it's what most presidents this century have said. I'm astounded to hear a relatively pragmatic evangelical still espouse simplistic ideas about what it takes to be president. Think about it, Rick: to float to the top of the Democratic or GOP barrel, you need to tender a lot of compromises. A lot. As many have noted this year alone, it takes an impressively egocentric man (or woman) to say "I'm what the United States needs." Backroom deals, targeted pandering, broken promises - a man doesn't ascend to the CEO spot in a nation of 300 million by saying his prayers and eating his Wheaties. Not anymore, Rick; I'm sorry. Trying to make this election a referendum on "character" is a joke - do you pick a stock portfolio based on character? How about a surgeon?

You want character, you're going to get the nicey-nice, meted-out version provided by every presidential candidate ever. You want a president, study policy papers and voting records like they were 1st Corinthians.

it gave Fox News something to gleefully report about.

So what... a little genital mutilation, perhaps? How about some light defenestration? Thanks for playing.

But which mid-decade?

How often do you go clubbing? Weirdly, I hear this song in two places: commercials for MTV promos and gay clubs (where the gay attendance is 85% male). Go figure.

You really want to affiliate with an organization called WASP?

Are those like Disney Dollars?

Rachael Ray. It's in the frigging title.

Anyway, if she'd left out a lovetap, the conservosphere would've had all the proof they need to brand her a Palestinian operative once and for all. No wonder she kept it breezy.

Are definitely way behind the curve. Klosterman is comfort food for those lazily scratching the epidermis of pop culture. He knows enough ephemera to be dangerous... ultimately, though, with Chuck there's nothing at stake, no larger lessons to be learned about anything save yrself. People my age read Klosterman and feel better about being an aimless ambulatory altar to someone else's cultural property. They lob the same screen-clogged perspective at each other and give themselves hugs for persevering through grey chaos. No thanks.

Where's her flag pin?

http://sarahpalinisyournewsegway.com/?

Not so brisk.

It's become the A.V. Club in here!

More cross-author posting plz

Are we talking the '08 Rays or the '19 Arnold Rothstein?