Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

T R E 4 5 O N

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

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Reader Interactions

58Comments

  3. 3.

    freelancer

    @Yutsano:

    Here’s a fun fact, Yuts:

    I live two blocks from the aforementioned Saddlecreek Rd. and went to HS with Conor Oberst (I was a freshman when he was a senior, but still).

    I was livin’ in a Devil Town,
    Didn’t know it was a Devil Town
    Oh Lord it really brings me down,
    about the Devil Town.

    I was in an old record shop downtown two days ago, and I saw a shirt with the outline of the State of Nebraska on it and on the Eastern edge it said “emOmaha”. That made me laugh.

  5. 5.

    LM

    There’s a good documentary about Saddle Creek Records, mostly about him.

    I don’t love his stuff, though I’ve been to his concerts (almost got crushed by his super-fanatical fans). I do like his new band, Monsters of Folk’s, Say Please, a lot though. Skip to the 1:10 mark, that’s when the song actually starts.

  7. 7.

    Misha

    My wife, who grew up in Lincoln, Neb., loves these guys. I finally saw them live at the Concert for Equality in Omaha last month. They put on a good show, though I favor some of the other Saddle Creek bands over the Conor core. (Super-jazzed about the upcoming Azure Ray album, for example.)

  13. 13.

    MikeJ

    @Bhall35: Even funnier that he hates Lily Allen’s song of the same title. She’s not pissed at a former lover, she hates Bozell and his ilk:

    Look inside, look inside your tiny mind
    Then look a bit harder
    ‘Cause we’re so uninspired, so sick and tired
    Of all the hatred you harbor

    So you say it’s not okay to be gay
    Well, I think you’re just evil
    You’re just some racist who can’t tie my laces
    Your point of view is medieval

  20. 20.

    MattR

    @morzer:

    I could have picked House of the Rising Sun.

    Forgot who mentioned it recently, but here’s the Blind Boys of Alabama doing Amazing Grace to that tune. (and a performance from the UNited Nations taboot)

  22. 22.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: You’re so cute when you’re mock-huffy. I think this calls for Pedro tongue and a large jar of Vegemite. And yes I will go there. :)

  24. 24.

    morzer

    @asiangrrlMN:

    It’s also one that has a long history, and probably goes back to a genuine folksong. The Animals have the most famous version, but theirs is an adaptation of what I think was a superior original. The original is in the voice of a woman, (probably) lamenting how she came to be in a brothel, whereas the young man in the Animals’ version seems to have followed daddy into gambling away all he owned.

    There’s a small scholarly cottage industry in identifying what and where the “House of the Rising Sun” was.

  27. 27.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Yutsano: With Margaret Cho as the Elvis lookalike! I really dig this group. I have a crush on Doris–she of the lovely long black locks. She’s lead singer on this–my favorite song by them.

    @morzer: I had to Google that acronym! Sheesh.

  28. 28.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: You should have a crush on Doris. She has the more sonorous voice of the two. YMMV of course, but I think she has better vocal stylization meself.

  31. 31.

    morzer

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Well, everyone else says New Orleans, and some say the house was owned by a Madame LeSoleil Levant. I think that’s unlikely in the extreme. To me, it’s just where the girl wakes up with regrets every day.

  33. 33.

    Yutsano

    @morzer: At this point, I want to inform you that even though I am her fake husband, I can no longer offer you any protection. You are gonna have to deal with the full force of her wrath from here on out. May Allah be merciful upon you.

  35. 35.

    asiangrrlMN

    @morzer: You, Sir, shall fry with the intensity of a thousand burning suns! Yes, you shall! You have impugned the honor of my team (even though I’ve been told again and again that I am not a real fan because I do not fluff Favre), and for that, you must pay! #Slaps face with glove#

    @morzer: No wonder I resonate with the song so much.

    @Yutsano: Only you can restrain me! And yet, you have unleashed the hounds within!

  39. 39.

    asiangrrlMN

    @morzer: You better get used to it, buster. When you least expect it, I’ll be there.

    @Yutsano: Ooooh! Shiny thing! Sooo pretty! And, where the fuck is FH#1? Damn him, I oughta…sigh. Kylie.

    Sorry. Had to go back to this. Nude boys in pink peacock feathers! And, sigh, Kylie. My guilty pleasure.

  46. 46.

    morzer

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Rest well, venerable lady! I am overcome with delight that my humble bagatelle could have titillated senses jaded by so many years.

  51. 51.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: I technically stayed in the Commonwealth, so there’s that. I also just realized he might be tied up in the whole election mishegas they have down there as well. I’m not entirely certain how he’d get tied into all that, but if his work can wring billable hours out of him they’ll do it. Bastas.

  55. 55.

    Egypt Steve

    I pray to the Four Winds — my god is the Everlasting Sky. Your god lives beneath him.

  56. 56.

    tomvox1

    Conor Oberst is a prodigy and musical genius. Period.

    He’s been unfairly tagged with the “New Dylan” and “Poor Man’s Gram Parsons” monikers (opposite sides of the laziest form of rock criticism) but to have written the songs he has by 30 in terms of both quantity and quality is genuinely astonishing. Along with Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, he is arguably the most talented and compassionate singer-songwriter of the decade, only more overtly political. And I have even higher hopes for him going forward, as Oberst’s occasional penchant for self-indulgent displays of petulance and drunkenness become tempered by maturity (one hopes). The songs might not all be great…but most of them are. I’d follow Oberst down many more musical roads without hesitation before I gave up on him. He’s that damn good.

    Just listen to “Danny Callahan” all the way through (as well as Bright Eyes greats like “Four Winds,” No One Would Riot for Less,” “Poison Oak,” “Nothing Gets Crossed Out,” etc) and tell me if you don’t think I’m right:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWRhwJ6p1yg
    (audio only)

  57. 57.

    Gus

    @tomvox1: Yeah, the “new Bob Dylan” tag is unfair both to Oberst and Dylan. I’m not a big fan of Oberst’s but I see the talent, and I have enjoyed the shows I’ve seen him play both with Bright Eyes and Monsters of Folk. Political music has to be done very well to work, and I think his work is often successful but not always. When it isn’t I don’t care for it. There’s a reason Dylan left the overtly political work of his earliest work behind and got more surreal and poetic (while maintaining a political edge). When he did his music got better.

  58. 58.

    ThresherK

    @MattR: I didn’t know they did that until it was played at last Saturday’s Providence Waterfire extravaganza.

    Whoo-hoo! Great stuff, especially seeing as how my nearby city has walled off its waterway with eleventy bajillion metric tonnes of concrete autospace.

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