Obamaisms!

Thanks to Slate, now you can collect all your handy Obamaisms in one place!




(And yes, I'm the kind of person that actually thinks something this cheesy is funny...)

The Endgame Approaches

This picture seems to make clear, more than ever before, that Clinton will stop at nothing on her way to global domination. Watch your back, America!


In contrast, doesn't this seem like the kind of laid-back hipster we want to put forward as our face to to the rest of the world:

Like it or not, elections are a popularity contest and appearances do matter (there's a reason we haven't had a bald President in almost 50 years).

Of course, in the end it may not matter who wins the Democratic nomination, as they could certainly end up losing out to this guy:

(ok, this is admittedly kind of a poor excuse for a post. Once I get over the sickness that has knocked me out this week I'll get back to the kind of "hard-hitting," "incisive," and "genius-tinged" (those are the media's words, not mine) posts that you've all come to know and love.)

Gilbert being Gilbert

I'm currently too laid out by a wicked sore throat to do much writing, but I wanted to quickly remind everyone that hasn't done so yet to check out Gilbert Arenas' blog on NBA.com. Arenas, a point guard for the Washington Wizards, is not only a fantastic player, prone to dramatic last-second shots and the kind of agressive game that has Kobe Bryant claiming"he has no conscience," he's also an insightful and sometimes shockingly candid blogger. He provides the kind of spontaneity , uniqueness, and up-close feeling that seems emblematic of what sets the NBA apart from the other sports leagues in America. Check him out, y'all.

Who Needs a Strong Armed Quarterback?

One of the really fun things about sports is the way in which you can watch a particular thread develop over the course of a season:

This football season, I was constantly going on to anyone who would listen (basically no one, though some were polite enough to pretend) that if a quarterback is any good, his top skill will never be considered "arm strength." It's a given that all good quarterbacks have strong arms, but it's the equivalent of saying that Tim Duncan's greatest asset is that he's tall. Sure, he wouldn't be anywhere without it, but that alone has extremely little to do with what sets him apart. Unfortunately, when you begin to think about what separates a good quarterback from a great one, the differences are extremely difficult to explain in ways that don't sound like they're rooted in some relativist, completely unquantifiable category.
So, over the course of this season, Bryan and I would watch football and I would ramble on about how Tony Romo has the ability to be a great quarterback if only because he always seems to be at his best when the play has fallen apart and there's nothing to do but make a decision on the fly. Brett Favre obviously has the same gift (and Michael Vick, once upon a time). Peyton Manning and Tom Brady do, too, though their gifts for experimentation and improvisation are subtler because most of their creativity is mental, e.g. deciding in their head when to abandon a certain play and throw to, say, the 5th option on a particular play.

When quaterbacks do this correctly the results are as close to artful as football gets. For example, check out Brett Farve throwing this shovel pass on the run. Even though this footage is kind of grainy, it gives in some ways an even better sense of the chaos in which a great quarterback makes some of their best decisions:



So, as the season progressed my football obsession revolved around looking for these moments where everything broke down in order to see what the quarterback would do. As my sports passions are always rooted in the players themselves, what more telling moment can there be than the times when everything falls apart and the script has to be abandoned? Romo and Farve both had great regular seasons and provided a number of moments that would make me jump out of my chair screaming, and I loved them for it. Others, such as Jon Kitna, the mistake-prone quarterback of my maddeningly bad Detroit Lions, failed to come through time and time again. Eli Manning, the quarterback I see more than any other due to my living in the New York market these days, also showed a lack of improvisational talent. At least until the Super Bowl...Down by four, third and five, fourth quarter, a minute left. Eli drops back and faces a full-out blitz. With members of the New England Patriots literally grabbing his jersey and starting to pull him down, he somehow escaped, freed himself from the crowd, and threw a pass to what had to have been the 3rd or 4th option on the play. Catch! Followed, a few seconds later, by a touchdown that would put the Giants aheaad for good. It was exactly the kind of moment I'd been watching for all year, and it happened to be the one that led directly to a team winning the super bowl! In the end, Eli Manning's ability to physically throw the ball so well in that situation wouldn't have made a relevant if he hadn't miraculously freed himself from the defenders and thrown a the kind of ball that only David Tyree was able to get his hands on (and make a spectacular catch of his own). Watching this season's theme (if in my eyes only) develop and conclude in such a satisfying way is, in the end, one of the reasons I fear I'll never be able to lighten up on my sports obsession...

It's a big fat bloated primary day...

...if you're voting today, please consider this little-known candidate from Chicago by way of Indonesia by way of Hawaii by way of 15 other places:


That's right! After months of internal debate, back room maneuvering, and perfume-scented letters from the candidates, Better Chatter has decided to officially endorse Barack Obama in the Democratic Primary! We plan on spending the next several weeks throwing our considerable political capital and wealth behind him-our only hope is that it isn't too late to make a difference...

Last Week: A Good Week to be in New York

Wednesday: Vampire Weekend at the Bowery Ballroom



Saturday: Hot Chip at the Highline Ballroom



Sunday: The New York Giants Win the Super Bowl




Not a bad seven days. It almost makes the hour and a half I spend every day on the subway worth it, doesn't it?

Vampire Weekend at the Bowery Ballroom 1/30/08

How a band like Vampire Weekend has become as big and popular as they have remains a bit of a mystery to me. When The Strokes and Interpol broke there was a certain logic to it, as their style of rook and roll was rooted in a 70's sound (Television, Joy Division, etc.) that never ceases to be uncool. Vampire Weekend, however, reminds everyone most notably of Paul Simon's Graceland, a much-loved if not exactly hipsterish album. The two biggest reasons I can think of are this:

1. The indie world is starved for accessible pop bands. Beyond, say, The New Pornographers, Sufjan Stevens, and maybe Jens Lekman, there just aren't a lot of easily accessible pop artists that have gained widespread acclaim in the indie sphere in the last couple of years. Thus, when a band comes along that can be liked by obsessives and non-obsessives alike, the press tends to get all out of proportion and a pretty good or even really good band gets touted like a great one.

2. The album is one of the great "college" albums I can remember hearing. If this doesn't become a hit album in college towns I'll be stunned. Songs like "Campus," "M79," and "Ladies of Cambridge" do a pretty good job of idealizing early twenties life and college-town life in particular. Considering that most people, including me, remember college with an extreme (similarly out of proportion) fondness, it's easy to see the way this record could connect with people. Also, as fun as it is to hear it now, I bet it's even more fun when you're still in school. I remember being obsessed with the first Modern Lovers record (another great "collge" album) for almost a year in college-it was so fun to hear young life described in a way that seemed to mirror my own experience so well.

Thanks to the generosity of my friend Dana, I was able to catch Vampire Weekend at the Bowery Ballroom on Wednesday. As I expected, the crowd skewed pretty young, though thankfully not in an extreme or annoying way. Plastic Little, the "License to Ill" style rap group, put on a sensational opening performance and almost stole the show.

After maybe a 20 minute break, Vampire Weekend set took the stage. In what was surely a self-aware gesture and acknowledgement of their "preppy" aesthetic, the band came out decked in sweaters and scarves. They proceeded to put on a friendly, fun, but somewhat unspectacular show, clocking in at just about an hour. Although it was a pretty short show, I can't really blame them for this-with one album to your name, how much can you really do? Their smart, African-flavored songs held up well on stage, and their songs are packed with lines and chorused that are a lot of fun to shout along to. Further, a was happy to hear them play an excellent new song as well as give off the same friendly, just-happy-to-be-playing vibe that I felt when I saw the Strokes play shortly after their first record came out.

They also seemed really young, even more than I assumed they would. As my friend Todd pointed out last week, going to shows becomes a little stranger the older you get. Still, it was a good, enthusiastic crowd and I was happy to be a part of it. When the popular "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" was played, everyone sang along like it was an old standard-certainly a testament to the new era in which "cd release parties" (which Tuesday and Wednesday's shows ostensibly were) commemorate records that everyone has already owned for months. Still, I was happy to spend some money to support the band and I'm optimistic that they'll survive the hype and stick around for a while.


(please note: the concert photos above were taken from the Vampire Weekend website. Eventually, I will actually have a digital camera of my own)