Recent Concert Reviews / Local Business of the Week: Bombshells

Sadly, the boys didn't make it to KC for last night's She and Him show, partly out of fear that our massive Zooey-boners would frighten the genteel listeners who discovered the band through NPR or because the albums were playing at Starbucks. So we'll have to content ourselves with Elke Mermis's Pitch's review.

Here are some excerpts:

"At times, [Zooey's] seasoned alto echoed through the Uptown with glints of the howling force of Neko Case..."

Richard: "I love her, but...doubtful."

"Even after a sound guy fiddled around with some wires behind the booth, the band still sounded as though they were underwater. (And not in an artful, emulating-The-Graduate suburban despair sort of underwater; it was as though She and Him was literally drenched in soggy waves of reverb.)"

Too bad. But it's also sort of reassuring to hear that Larryville isn't the only town with incompetent sound guys. (Also, nice Graduate reference, reviewer! we love anything relating to suburban ennui!).

"Critics' Bias: I don't love Zooey Deschanel -- her spacey on-screen charms mystify me -- but I think that M. Ward's solo work is downright transcendent."

Richard: "A classic hipster-reviewer statement there. Yes, we get it, you're incapable of being fully impressed by the hipster 'It' girl and you, deep down, believe that M. Ward has sold out by hooking up with someone in the mainstream. 'Transcendent?'"


---

Twitter continues to enlighten us regarding parts of Larryville culture we never even knew existed. This week's discovery: Bombshells.

Bombshells' takes pin-up photographs of local women. Their "mission statement": "To prove every girl of every age in every walk of life is gorgeous and to help her see it. It's a lifestyle and an attitude."

Chip: "While I can't fully agree with the mission statement--I mean, come on, we've all seen ugly women before--I love that this service exists and hope it's discovered and utilized by women such as my Quinton's waitresses."

Check out some of the pin-ups here:

http://www.bombshells.info/?page=girls

And follow Bombshells on Twitter here:

http://twitter.com/bombshell_girls

New Strip Club Laws / The Wheel is the 41st Best College Bar in America / More Coverage of Franzen's New Novel

Pitchweekly has an important piece on their website regarding the strict new laws that went into effect at Missouri strip clubs over the weekend:

"As club owners understand it -- and as they'll likely be telling their employees tonight -- dancers will have to be dressed in a manner that covers any area of the breast that dips below the areola. They'll also have to make sure that none of their butts or cracks are showing."

Readers, we're pretty sure this completely ruins the very purpose of strip clubs.

The best part of the article is a series of photographs showing what likely is or isn't acceptable in terms of stripper attire. The following photo is accompanied by this caption: "As far as her posterior goes, if she was dressed this way, again, she'd be in danger of breaking the law. You'll note the butt-cleavage at the top." (Chip: "You don't have to tell me to note the 'butt-cleavage.' I totally noted it.").




















---

We were remiss last week in not mentioning that The Wheel also received a ranking on Complex.com's list of America's 50 Best College Bars. It clocks in at #41:

"Two words: Pizza and Drunks. A must-visit if you ever find yourself in Lawerence. Want to know a secret? The pizza isn't even that good, you're just drunk."

The site also forgot to mention that Pizza Pete offers free slices to girls that show him their titties, or so we've heard. Also, the site should probably learn how to spell the name of our town.


---
If you're a serious reader of American fiction, you'll be in line tomorrow morning to pick up your copy of Jonathan Franzen's Freedom, the long-awaited follow-up to The Corrections. And if you're a pseudo-serious reader of American fiction who buys whatever gets pimped on NPR and have been hearing stories about how Obama received an advance copy of Freedom weeks ago, you'll also be in line (though you'll almost certainly end up using the book as a doorstop, perhaps to replace your current doorstop: DFW's Infinite Jest).

But is Freedom fully worthy of landing Franzen a spot on the cover of Time as THE great American novelist of our era.

Let's see what yesterday's NY-Times review says:

"Jonathan Franzen’s new novel, “Freedom,” like his previous one, “The Corrections,” is a masterpiece of American fiction."

Well, there you go. But what makes Franzen so important? His achivement, according to the Times, is that he has "cracked open the opaque shell of postmodernism, tweezed out its tangled circuitry and inserted in its place the warm, beating heart of an authentic humanism." There goes your hipster readership, Franzen! If there's one thing we dislike, it's "authentic humanism."

Chip: "I might still give it a chance, IF it has a lot of sex in it?"

As it turns out, it does:

"Assaultive sex reverberates through “Freedom,” and why not? Sex is the most insistent of the “personal liberties,” and for Franzen the most equalizing. One is at a loss to think of another male American writer so at ease with ­— that is, so genuinely curious about — the economy of female desire: the pull and tug of attraction and revulsion, the self-canceling wants."

Our feminist readers: "Male American writers can never understand the economy of our desire, and should not try."

Let's end with an excerpt. Here's a passage regarding "a materialistic tease captured by Franzen in all her narcissism":

“She gave Joey a once-over head to toe, the way a person might confirm that a product she’d ordered had arrived in acceptable condition, and then removed her hand luggage from the seat beside her and­ — a little reluctantly, it seemed — pulled the iPod wires from her ears.”

Chip: "What makes Franzen a genius is that he understands that young people wear Ipods."

Fried Beer!? / This Week in Vampire News / InkKC Chooses Their Hottest Reader

Readers, now that the first Final Friday is out of the way, and so is kickball season, we find ourselves with more time to focus on some other important stories that have caught our eye recently.

Perhaps the single most important piece of news we've heard this week regards a Texan named Mark Zable, who has invented "a concoction [that] traps beer inside a pretzel-like dough pocket shaped like a ravioli. When you bite it, beer pours out" (Pitchweekly).

Obviously, this guy is a genius. His invention is currently in competition for the Big Tex Choice Awards at the Texas State Fair. We wish him well.

Another of the week's odd stories is an important expose (reported on CBS News and the Washington Post) of an alarming new trend of teens biting each other (a trend presumed to be inspired by the Twilight novels, although we were under the impression that those books were about sparkly, sexless vampires who do not bite).

Chip: "Yeah, sorostitutes are increasingly fond of vampire roleplay as well, and I don't mind it, but I prefer when they are on Team Jacob, the werewolf team, because that gives me an excuse to howl while banging them, which I enjoy, and also to walk around shirtless a lot."

---

Although we were recently chastised by some of our Larryville townie readers for reporting too often on KC stories instead of focusing exclusively on the little bubble of Larryville, we admit to being intrigued by some of the goings-on in the big city, which we rarely visit but often study up on via Pitchweekly and InkKC. The latter just published the results of their "hottest reader" poll, and the winner is Sam Eubank, who sent in this (apparently impressive?) entry along with his photos:

“My name is Sam Eubank and I’m a 22-year-old recent college grad with a degree in Photography and International Studies. I’m hot because I stand as Creative Messiah on the Aren’t We Clever team (a business I co-own), I studied abroad in West Africa, I have Cougar Whispering down to a ‘T’, and I look really good with a camera hanging around my neck.”

Here's a picture. Ladies, is he hot or isn't he? And why can't Lawrence.com do something vaguely interesting like having a "hottest reader" contest? Oh, yeah, it's because Lawrence.com no longer has any readers!



















Not everyone is impressed with "Blasty McNasty," however. In the on-line talkback, which consists of one comment thus far, sb53 says:

"this is such an embarassment to KC. this zero is beyond words. how in the fuck could KC vote some douche tool like this as it's hottest reader or hottest anything for that matter? fuck you INK. we're done. and I'm sure you're not far behind your loser of a parent KC Star. it's exactly shit like this that disgraces KC."

Dispatches from Final Fridays

In terms of art sales, we're not sure how successful Final Fridays may have been. But in terms of getting people to show up and pretend to care about art, the first installment of Larryville's art walk could hardly have gone more swimmingly.

Here are our highlights (and lowlights):

1) Love Garden: All you managed to do was hang a few quilts? Are you trying to attract hipster grandmothers? Inside the store, half a dozen lonely hipsters rifled listlessly through the vinyl, seemingly oblivious to the evening's art festivities. Why not have a band playing, at least? Grade: zero out of four Hamm's.

2) Wonder Fair: Although Sighn's (rather mundane) street slogans haven't changed our worldview (yet), Wonder Fair fully earned its scenester stripes with a great atmosphere of live music, if we're defining music rather loosely, and plenty of PBR. BARRR exclaimed that Final Fridays was "the best thing that's ever happened to us," but we think he must have been forgetting the time Anson the Ornery played a machine that allowed us to taste the color green. Grade: Four out of four PBR's.

3) Hobbs Lofts: The vast interior of the Hobbs Lofts offered a great space for an exhibition of "found" art (look, it's a tricycle!) and odd sculptures. There was plenty of room for people to drink keg beer while roaming around and talking about what a great "space" this was. The only better use we can think of for this space would be for people to actually live in Hobbs Lofts. Grade: three out of four beers in Dixie cups.

4) Lawrence Arts Center:
--Chip: "I liked the photographs of demolition derbies and the picture of Chuck Norris accompanied by hilarious sayings about Chuck Norris.

--Richard: "I liked the fliers from Split Lip Rayfield shows."

Grade: Two out of four glasses of cheap Merlot.

5) Percolator: surprisingly dull. We remember when things used to be weirder, a little weirder, out there. But at least Boog was hanging out. Two out of four tiny cups of popcorn.

6) The Pig:
--King Tosser: "These babydollheads are too small to be interesting."
--Richard: "Once you've seen one mutilated babydollhead, you've really sort of seen them all."

Grade: two out of four cucumber-infused gin-and-tonics.

See you downtown next month.

Final Fridays! / Larryville's Missed Connections: Stripper Edition

Readers, the time is fast approaching to get your art on! Here's a quick sample of the sights you may see this evening. Yes, it's Wayne Propst holding one of his babydollheads.












Chip: "I'm 100% terrified."

Remember that venues will signal their participation in Final Fridays by posting bright yellow flags out front, signalling you to step inside and dig their art (Chip: "Or to steer clear, as the case may be."

---

It's been awhile since we checked in with the "missed connections" sections of Larryville's Craigslist. Here's one from a 27 year old fellow infatuated with a stripper from All Stars:

"you gave me some fun fun lap dances last night. Asked me if i would like to finish, but i told you it would take a while. I bet you hear that boast all the time, but for once i can back it up. Would be great to hear from you. if not, it was a fun night. also, loved how the pasties fell off."

Richard: "I've never had a stripper ask me that, but maybe it's because I treat lapdances like an all-you-can-eat buffet, moving on after each dance to sample the wares of the next dancer?"

Chip: "I've never had a stripper ask me that either, but maybe it's because I always ejaculate during the first dance?"

We hope Anna Undercover drops by to share her thoughts on this subject.

Has "Style Scout" Heard Our Pleas? / "Final Fridays" Coverage Continues (Wonder Fair Edition) / Replay Is Chosen as a "Best College Bar" in America?!

One of the (many) excellent things about Twitter is that it allows us to publicly air our grievances with various publications, restaurants, and bars when we don't approve of their work! In recent weeks, Richard (along with an angry Twitter-mob of townies and scenesters) has been bombarding the Lawrence.com Twitter account with complaints about the dullness of the last few Style Scout columns. @lcom promised to rectify the situation for us, and certainly today's subjects are far preferable to some of the unstylish dullards we've encountered there recently. Here's a quick look.

Erica Friedheim is a KJHK DJ with "a Grateful Dead dancing bear on my foot, a Gerber Daisy behind my ear, a chamsa hand on the back of my neck, and a quote on the left side of my rib cage that says, “If music be the food of love, play on.” She "secretly want[s] to fist-pump with the cast of “Jersey Shore” — for one night only." (Chip: "Who doesn't? Also, I'd totally bang Snooki.").





















Arguably even more interesting is KU Social Welfare professor Mark Holter, who claims his fashion is "influenced by the French situationalists" and "New York City Proto-punks: Tom Verlaine, Patti Smith, etc." We can't quite tell from the picture if this is true or not, but we'd love to hang with this dude and rock out to Marquee Moon while discussing Larryville's boring "homogenous architecture."



















---

According to the LJ-World, tomorrow's Final Fridays art event will almost certainly gain Larryville a reputation as "the Santa Fe of the Midwest." We've got our art and boozing trajectory pretty much planned out: free hot dog dinner at Wayne Propst's Bourgeois Pig "babydollhead" exhibit followed by a stroll through Zaguar's trickery at the Hobbs Lofts and culminating (of course) with a trip to Wonder Fair for a "text-based object installation" by Sighn.

Here's one of his works:
















Chip: "I really don't think it would take him that long to explain this. It's a sign, lying on its side, with a message meant to shame me for not 'getting' the art. But I'm not particularly shamed."

Check out a preview of the show here:

http://store.multipolarprojects.com/blog


---

Aside from the fact that it's decidedly NOT a "college bar," we're still happy that the Replay clocks in at #31 on a list from www.complex.com of the "best college bars in America":

"Live music, pinball, and a nice outdoor patio make Replay a great alternative to the Greek Jayhawk chaos that can sometimes consume you at KU."

Now let's just hope that this doesn't lead to the place filling up with "bros" who are smashed on Jagermeister and demanding that the Vigilantes play some Dave Matthews covers.

http://best.complex.com/lists/The-50-Best-College-Bars-in-America/replay-lounge

Final Fridays Preview, Part II / Hipster Show of the Week / An Impressive Literary Promotional Stunt

Details continue to emerge regarding Larryville's Final Fridays art event, including this intriguing news we spotted on the Rangelife Records website:

"...don't miss Zaguar's mirrors-and-monitor installation "Security" in the Hobbs Taylor Building, 8th and New Hampshire - one night only!"

We tend to think of Zaguar as Larryville's greatest collagist, sprawled on a floor surrounded by magazine clippings and PBR cans, meticulously pasting John Wayne heads on Lady Gaga bodies, but we'll certainly see any kind of "art" that he presents.

And don't forget to end your Final Fridays experience by heading to the Jackpot for the local CD release party for Rangelife's own Fourth of July, who fucking finally decided to give us the second album we've been awaiting for so many years (it's called "Before Our Hearts Explode"...dig the album cover below).

Richard: "For some reason I feel like I've seen Fourth of July eleven times already this year, even though it's only been twice. Even so, I wouldn't think about missing this show because Omaha hipster-rapper Conchance is opening. Please go to his Myspace and listen to the song 'Hipster Bitches.'"

http://www.myspace.com/conchanceallcity













---

We love literary promotional stunts, and this one is pretty damn ambitious:

"Using a GPS tracking device as a "pen", Newcomen took about 10 days to complete each word, turning on his GPS logger when he wanted to write and turning it off between letters, videoing himself at landmarks along the route for documentation. He drove 12,328 miles in total, across 30 American states, inputting the data once he was finished into Google Earth to create the world's largest book advertisement."

Being technologically dumb, we don't fully understand this, but here's what it looked like:















Chip: "If someone is willing to go to this much trouble, the least I can do is reread The Fountainhead."

Richard: "I was planning to perform a similar stunt to promote Franzen's new novel: "Read Freedom!" But now maybe I won't bother."

Larryville's "Final Fridays" Begin This Week! / Museum of Bad Art / TRON Gets Sexy!

If you're a Larryville art-lover, you are no doubt making plans to attend this week's "Final Fridays" downtown art event which will surely make us as hip as KC and their "First Fridays" in the Crossroads District. We hope to showcase numerous "Final Fridays" events here at the LC, starting with a can't-miss reception at the Pig: your second local opportunity to see Wayne Propt's melted and mutilated "babydollheads" on display. The flier also promises free hot dogs, assuming the dollheads don't ruin your appetites.

















And what will our buddies down at Wonder Fair be offering us on Friday? We hope to report back soon on that.

---

Not all art can be as outstanding as misshapen babydoll heads. If you enjoy looking at less successful pieces, allow us to recommend The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA), a website we discovered via a tip from the Unknown Hipster. This on-line collection contains fascinating exhibits with titles like "blue people," "here the symbols crash," and (our favorite) "in the nood," from which we'll showcase this piece called "Disappointment." Each work on the site is accompanied by a bit of analysis:

"Their sunburns, and the empty champagne bottle help explain the young man's regrettable inability to stay awake on the first night of his honeymoon. His new wife gazes blankly, wondering, "Is that all there is?"
















Chip: "To me, this piece has a wonderfully melancholy quality that's easily the equal of Edward Hopper's best work. In fact, I prefer it to 'Nighthawks.' Is my opinion indisputably wrong?"

Go here for more: http://www.museumofbadart.org/


---

We follow a number of self-identified "geek girls" on Twitter, many of whom have websites or blogs and travel around the country attending comic-cons and engaging in "cosplay" (Chip: "I believe that's some sort of sex game in which people roleplay characters from The Cosby Show.").

One of our favorites is The Nerdybird, whose website headline is "Has Boobs, Reads Comics" (www.thenerdybird.com).

Today her site focuses on a very important set of instructional sex videos/images for young geeks, in which TRONs demonstrate a number of positions ranging from the basic (the Missionary) to the more expert (the playing-the-cello; the pearly gates). Please make sure to go here and check it out:

http://www.wonderhowto.com/wonderment/score-with-tron-sutra-nsfw-0118924/

We'll leave you with this image of "the armchair":

Deranged Deer Attacks Mass Street! / Kickball Championship / Another Hipster Contest!

Readers, the professional buskers who descended on downtown Larryville this weekend have now packed their hobo trunks, leaving us with a few less dollars, sure, but mainly with lasting memories of MamaLou Strongwoman crushing some chopsticks between her asscheeks. If you see any buskers roaming the streets today, they are probably local and need your tips not to improve their touring acts but rather to purchase necessities, such as booze and meth.

But the streets of Larryville are still weird, even without the buskers. This morning a berserk deer crashed through the window of Weavers department store before being cornered in a backyard along the 800 block of Alabama: "Authorities said they are uncertain how to proceed, but are hoping the deer finds its way toward the Kansas River." (LJ-World).

The LJ-World has offered no further updates, so we are unsure if the deer remains cornered by puzzled authorities who don't realize that the obvious solution is to shoot and butcher the deer and allow Krause to grill up some delicious local venison burgers.

The talkback for this story largely concerns, of course, whether this thuggish deer is from Top City or KC.

---

Congrats to Los Luchadores on their 2010 kickball championship. We didn't attend, but luckily we were able to follow last night's proceedings via @BARRR's tweets:

"But seriously...Travis from @lovegardensound can blow me...it felt good to remind jock dick lips where they fucking live! #NeverBackDown"

"Holy shit th0...The ppl in Pita Pit fucking suck as human beings. Worst sportsmanship I've ever seen. Absolute fucking morons"

Now let's turn our attention to Townball, tomorrow at 6:00 at Water Tower Park.

---

Twitter-buddy @faintlyamused alerted us to the existence of a Paste article from last year tracing the evolution of the hipster from 2000-2009, with remarkable pictures of each year's quintessential hipster types.

2008, for instance, is designated as the year of the "Williamsburg hipster": "He thoughtfully hangs shutter shades in the deep-V of his white tee, and he’s often seen walking his fixed-gear bike around town while texting with his iPhone."





















2009's hipster is identified as the "meta-nerd": "By wearing the popular Three Wolf Moon T-shirt, today’s hipster makes a mockery of herself. She has finally completed the full-sleeve tattoo."





















So what do you think will constitute the 2010 hipster? Whoever submits our favorite answer in the comments section will be rewarded with a free beer of whatever type is hippest this year (if you spot us at the bar sometime).

Kickball Tournament / Food Website of the Week: Foodspotting

Tonight marks the second and final Sunday of the kickball tournament, which makes us very happy because it means that after tonight (followed by a few weeks of analysis and whining and boasting) townies might finally shut the fuck up about kickball for awhile.

Our PBR is on Pita Pit. Don't they always win? Is that place even still open? Or is it just a front that allows a group of kickball hooligans to assemble each year and cheat their way to sweet, sweet victory? Here's the prediction from Sunday(s) in the Park regarding tonight's Pita Pit/Red Lyon match-up:

"PP seems insulted and angry by their #3 seeding. Having lost to only 3 teams in their entire team history, can anyone give them a second loss this season PREDICTION: PP 14 RL 6"

As for us, we'll be home watching Mad Men, but please remember to send us photos if there are female streakers (particularly if they are boner-worthy).

---

Do you enjoy taking pictures of delicious meals and posting them on your food blogs? We do. In fact, Chip has an entire blog dedicated to memorable chicken-fried steaks (most delicious: Slow Ride Roadhouse).

You might want to check out a website called Foodspotting: www. foodspotting.com

The site allows readers around the world to post photos of their meals, which viewers can then appreciate by clicking on "want it" or "nom it" (by the way, we fucking hate that "nom nom nom" term for eating that people use constantly on-line).

We were planning to buy an order of truffle fries for the first person to post a Burger Stand photo to the site, but it seems that someone has already documented Krause's establishment. Here's a photo from Kristen of the Burger Stand's Chicago Dog:














So far it has received zero "noms," so make sure to go to the site and "nom" it.

Chip: "I always thought hot dogs were served on a bun and contained a wiener?"

Local Apparel / Hipster EP of the Weekend: Sufjan Stevens' "All Delighted People"

If you're like the boys, you love wearing T-shirts that showcase your favorite bars. But perhaps your Replay shirt is so covered in PBR stains that you barely wear it out anymore (except to the Replay). And perhaps that last sorostitute you banged wore your Quinton's T-shirt home. Maybe you're in need of a new shirt from the Bourgeois Pig:


















Chip: "Why not a pig with hearts for eyes?"

Richard: "Why not something even more hilarious, such as a 'breastfeeding prohibited' sign?"

Our non-townie readers: "Is that an inside joke?"

---

We're convinced that Sufjan Stevens is NEVER going to make one album about each state, as he's been promising us for years, but at least he's finally given us something new, an (hour-long?!) EP which appeared on-line yesterday to the delight of hipsters who really should have moved on to some kind of new quirky shit by now. It's called "All Delighted People" and according to the press material it's “built around two different versions of Sufjan’s long-form epic ballad ‘All Delighted People,’ a dramatic homage to the Apocalypse, existential ennui, and Paul Simon’s ‘Sounds of Silence."

If you've got an hour to fill with epic quirkiness today, stream it at the address below for free or give poor Sufjan $5 bucks and download it and hopefully he'll eventually get around to recording an album about Kansas containing an 18-minute song called "Larryville" and featuring a video he'll no doubt shoot on location at the Replay in which we all do cute dances while dressed as cheerleaders or something.

http://sufjanstevens.bandcamp.com/?utm_source=Asthmatic+Kitty+Main&utm_campaign=729e79f35a-AK_News_Aug_2010-08-09-02&utm_medium=email

The LC's Guide To This Year's Busker Fest!

Yes, readers, this is the annual weekend when downtown Larryville invites hobos and gypsies from all over the country (as if we didn't have enough already) to entertain passers-by with their shenanigans.

Here are our picks for a few acts that surely need to be seen:

1) El Gleno Grande. According to the LJ-World, he will be performing "a horse act without a horse."

Chip: "So he's just going to pretend to fuck a horse?"

2) Bruiser, the World's Biggest Dog

Chip: "Is this some sort of morbidly obese dog?"

Richard: "I think it's just a guy in a dog suit.

Chip: "Boring. Next."

3) MamaLou StrongWoman. We enjoyed her feats of strength last year and found her act oddly arousing and strangely terrifying (because we know she could snap us in two like twigs).

4) Voler, Thieves of Flight Aerial Artists: These ladies perform trapeze acts outside the Lawrence Arts Center, bending themselves into positions rarely seen outside the boys' erotic fantasies. Here's a picture of them wielding swords. Wouldn't you like to see them engage in a street brawl with a group of Larryville hobos wielding local instruments of destruction such as railroad spikes and cue-balls-in-Crown-Royal bags? We'd tip very well for that shit.
















5) Tribal Fusion Bellydancers: We believe this is a local company and according to the Busker Fest website, "The girls will bend over backwards to bring a new slant to belly dancing and get your attention."

Chip: "If you see that I have strategically placed myself behind some shrubbery during this act, it's probably because my boner is standing at full attention."

The Boys Check Out Pitchweekly's "Not Safe For Work" Slideshow Called "One Night in Westport" / Pick of the Day: Leeches of Lore at the Replay

If you're like the boys, you enjoy looking at interesting pictures on the interweb, but good local pictures are increasingly hard to find since "Style Scout" these days focuses only on people wearing jeans and T-shirts (sure, it's our own preferred look, but we never said we'd make good Scout subjects) and since A. Ruscin only offers her "Party Pics" every two months or so.

Luckily, InkKC and Pitchweekly keep us amused with interesting photo spreads such as the current "One Night in Westport" (along with a feature article about how Westport security is banning certain people from the area altogether).

Below is a picture from the series which, sadly, does not offer a much-needed caption to explain its mysteries. As near as we can tell it's a "ho" being spanked by some of her colleagues and possibly her pimp. Click to enlarge.















And you can check out the full slideshow here if you like:

http://www.pitch.com/slideshow/one-night-in-westport-nsfw-30834296/

---

Based on our research, Leeches of Lore seem to get compared to Ween a lot, and they come from New Mexico, and they mix metal and country. This review from their Myspace sounds like it was written by our vulgarian friend Dr. X:

"...let me break it down so these knucklefucks can understand it... The Leeches of Lore own your fuckin asses. This album is a schizophrenic cocktail of classic metal riffs, sinister thrash meltdowns, and some good ol' western campfire jammin', just to make it interesting."

Be sure to visit their Myspace page and rock out with songs like "Dicktacle," "I am the Raptor," and "Mountain Candy Rape."

(other song titles from the band which are not on their Myspace include: "Pig Scrapings," and "Dance Of The Fairy At The Springtime Witching").

Our feminist readers: "Any metal band that sings songs with 'rape' in the title is a menace, since metal fans are notoriously incapable of perceiving any sort of irony."

http://www.myspace.com/leechesoflore

The LC's Pop-Culture Corner: Some Violence for the Guys and Some Vampires For the Ladies (Also: A Rousing Game of "Is It Sexy, Or Isn't It?")

Readers, the American male has spoken at the box-office this past weekend, launching Sly's ultra-macho The Expendables to the top while stomping all over sensitive indie geeks (Scott Pilgrim) and even overpowering Julia Roberts' female empowerment flick about eating and falling in love in Italy (but mostly eating). The boys are finally taking the day off to catch up with Sly, and we predict that the very act of seeing such manliness and extreme violence on display will cause us to emit a powerful musk that will attract nubile young women for weeks afterward.

But how are the fanboys feeling about the long-awaited film? Let's turn to the AICN talkbacks.

First off, they LOVE the violence:

"When a certain baddy gets shot, and then has a bowie knife shoved through his chest, some guy in the audience yelled "Man-gasm!" as alot of other patrons clapped and laughed."

Chip: "I'm totally going to steal that line during today's screening, because I find it supremely witty."


But the fanboys also miss the good old days of 80's action cinema, when the films almost always contained gratuitous nudity to go along with their impalings and machine-gunnings:

gooseud explains:

"No tits policy is a plague on modern cinema. We have the interwebz to thank for this, as actresses live in fear of their tits being accessible forever on some spank off website. Now, instead, we get completely jarring and unrealistic sex scenes, the tipping point of which was the scene in Knocked Up. Now, I've banged a metric fuckton of chicks in my day, and NEVER, ever ever have they ever said "Ok, we can have sex and all, but I'm keeping my bra on. Doggy style over the couch: perfectly acceptable. Taking bra off: WHOA, calm down there, crazy man!!!" When people have sex, the bra comes off, usually within 30 seconds. Period, end of discussion, anything else is retarded."

This discussion arose, of course, from the fact that Charisma Carpenter does not bare her breasts in The Expendables.

Bouncy X argues: "Carpenter did playboy already...she didnt need to show them here although it be nice to see them in motion, despite the fakeness."

But PULL_SMASH retorts: "And yes Bouncy X...She DID need to show them. Or they shouldve hired an actress who would. Because without titties, as it stands, the whole Statham/Carpenter angle was pointless, despite an awesome fight that results bc of her. I really thought that was the only reason they were even setting up that subplot, as an excuse for nudity."

Richard: "This PULL_SMASH sounds like he's got a real command of cinema and the "rule" he points to is certainly one that's often forgotten: if a subplot doesn't result in nudity, it's almost always irrelevant."


---

HBO's True Blood is riding the culture's love of all things vampiric to new ratings-heights this season and continuing to push the envelope when it comes to TV sex and violence. The show is wildly popular among the ladies, the gays, and even a few straight guys (Chip: "Did you see Russell rip that guy's spine out last week? Holy shit!"). The Twilight lexicon has begun to be applied to the show as well, with fans increasingly falling into "Team Bill" and "Team Eric" (and even "Team Alcide") regarding Sookie Stackhouse's numerous co-stars. What we like about the True Blood vampires is that they aren't sparkly pussies like the Twilight creatures: these vampires WILL fuck and bite you.

Rolling Stone's controversial new True Blood cover was a hot topic in the blogosphere (and Twitter-sphere) yesterday, with the main question being: Is it sexy, or isn't it?

Personally, a blood-soaked Sookie doesn't do much for our boners. But apparently a lot of women are turned on by the show's bloody, bitey sex scenes. Thoughts?

The Boys Play "Townball" / Hipster Video of the Week From Motorboater

Existing quietly in the shadow of Larryville's hipster-kickball culture, with its PBR-fueled antics and occasional streakers, is a polite group of dorks who meet each Tuesday at Water Tower Park to play "townball," the 19th-century precursor of baseball. We didn't know of the local townball players until last week, when @townball began following us on Twitter, but the group receives an excellent profile piece in today's KC-Star (yet still no local press? come on Lawrence.com! we'd rather read about this than more recipes).

Here's an excerpt from the article:

"Two at-bats later, a ball skims the infield near another “stake-runner” who can’t avoid a flying “plug” from a nearby fielder, even with a “wild weasel” way off the stake-path."

And this:

"In Lawrence, regulars vary from ages 2 to 50 and every level of athletic ability. But while the players don’t take athleticism, or winning, seriously, they do sportsmanship. They emphasize “gentlemen” and “gentlewomen” conduct, which means they prohibit profanity and even face a fine of 25 cents — fitting for the town ball era — for slipping."

We don't know about you, readers, but this seems like a delightful antidote to the crudeness and competitiveness of the kickballers, who somehow believe themselves to be real athletes. See you at Water Tower Park.

Check out the full article here:

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/16/2153963/history-buffs-bring-back-town.html

---

We like to think of ourselves as tastemakers here at the LC, but why are we just now discovering Motorboater, which won raves for a mix-up of rap artist Uffie and country superstar Taylor Swift that's been described as a "hybrid of slow-oozing pop mastery" and "something of a prototype of what's certainly going to come in the next eon, as styles and language and culture smash and clash and marry together into a sludge that's either tremendously engrossing or just plain gross." (interweb).

You can check it out here:

http://www.myspace.com/drmotorboater

But what we're currently digging is their video for "Je Mange Titties," which (sadly) contains no titties (we assumed that it would feature someone "motorboating" some titties, a term most of us learned from The Wedding Crashers). What it does contain, however, is two minutes of a dude drinking a gallon of chocolate milk in a field. We love it. See it here:

http://thecultureofme.com/2010/08/video-motorboater-je-mange-titties.html

Hipster Pick of the Day: The Goondas / Ridiculous Sandwich of the Week

If you're a local hipster, you've no doubt already RSVP'd for October's Scion Garage Fest (likely to be the hippest event of the fall), but maybe you're needing a dose of sleazy garage rock to tide you over in the meantime. Perhaps you should consider Minneapolis rockers The Goondas, tonight at the Replay.

"The group make reckless, deranged cow-punk with snarling, Don Van Vliet like vocals bringing it all together." (www.reviler.org).

Richard: "This reviewer is so hip he has to use Don Van Vliet instead of Captain Beefheart."

The cover of the Goondas' album is suitably scuzzy, if not aesthetically pleasing, and we're big fans of the single "Jackalope Jesus." Watch the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_P3D8ZOIUk






















---

The boys are connoisseurs of preposterous sandwiches, and here's our pick of the week: Denny's Fried Cheese Melt, which embeds several fried mozzarrella sticks inside the American cheese of the sandwich. It's not quite as outrageous as KFC's Double-Down, to be sure, but it's damn delicious nonetheless. Too bad Larryville doesn't have a Denny's.

Kickball Tournament Coverage / The LC's Book Club Considers Jonathan Franzen's Important New Novel

Readers, hopefully you've recovered by now from your Sandbar 21st Birthday Party hangover, kicked last night's "cougar" out of your bed (goodbye, Hurricane Helen!), and begun thinking in earnest about tonight's kickball championship. We've got several cases of Hamm's riding on Los Luchadores! Remember to get your brackets in today by 5:15. Although the games tend to bore us, reports of last week's female streakers have given us high hopes (and major boners) for the tournament, as we were growing very weary of having to look at the same old hipster balls streaking past us each year. Were these lady streakers sexy? (because there are several lady kickballers we've wanted to see naked for a very long time). And can anyone send us streaker-photos?





















---

It's an exciting week for literary hipsters: Jonathan Franzen's new novel, Freedom, has landed him on the cover of Time magazine, joining an exclusive list of living authors who have graced said cover.

Here's a (rather odd) statement from Esquire on the novel:

"I hope that books like Freedom will still play a role in the culture, still engage us in a serious conversation about the anachronistic things that matter most — our families, our lovers, our country, our planet. Freedom reminds us just how much these things matter, reminds us that they matter more than Scotch and jeans and Jake Gyllenhaal."

We'll grant you that this novel is perhaps of more lasting importance than Jake Gyllenhaal (although we're pretty big Donnie Darko fans), but more important than Scotch? That's just silly.




















The novel, like Franzen's former novel, The Corrections, is about a Midwestern family. According to an Amazon review, this particular family's "stories align at times with Big Issues--among them mountaintop removal, war profiteering, and rock'n'roll" (Chip: "One can't be a Great American Novelist without tackling 'mountaintop removal'"). The release date is August 31 and the boys will be hosting a series of weekly discussions about it at the Pig. First topic: Suburban Malaise (hosted by Richard). Second topic: mountaintop removal (hosted by Chip).

What to Do in Larryville This Weekend

If you're a Larryville progressive and foodie, you no doubt began the annual "Eat Local Challenge" this morning. See you at the Merc, while making sure our tomatoes are coming from within the appropriate radius from Larryville.

If you used to be a sorostitute or a frat boy and still love waxing nostalgic about the glory days when you got well and truly blitzed on Bahama Mamas and had sex in the alley behind the Sandbar, you can relive those special moments at tonight's Sandbar 21st Anniversary Party. Sure, you have to pay five dollars to squeeze into the crowded beer garden, but you're really paying for the chance to mingle with some of the hottest MILF's in town (and numerous local "celebrities"). See you on top of the bar for the Hurricane.

Hipsters will obviously opt for an excellent triple-header at the Jackpot. Current KC buzz-band Soft Reeds are opening for Be/Non (weren't you just here a few weeks ago, Brodie?) who are opening for Kinetiks.

Here's an exceerpt from a Lawrence.com review of the Kinetik's recent Science is Magic from our English Department buddy Jason B. Fox:

"The Kinetiks new album "Science is Magic" is a bricoleur’s rock and roll manifesto... these eight tracks are a carnival-ride fusion of disco, '80s pop-punk, darker '90s themes. It's a fun, synth-filled distortion fest that channels a Pixies-esque modulation between loud and soft, invitation and rejection."

Richard: "I didn't even know that Foxy wrote album reviews! We love the word 'bricoleur' but grow weary of the Pixies loud/quiet comparison used by critics for every indie band."

Here are the Kinetiks with a keyboard and cute tiger. See you at the Jackpot.

Geek Pick of the Weekend: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World / Hipster or Hobo?

We're headed out early today to join the geeks, gamers, sensitive indie-types, and Edgar Wright fans for opening day of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

Let's check in with a few of the outrageous claims being made over at Ain't It Cool News.

AICN reviewer Mr. Beaks says:

"Wright's dazzling us with an array of punch-kick, form-and-content combinations that would send Eisenstein sprawling; like Scorsese, De Palma and Tarantino, he's borrowing from the masters and creating his own language."

And a reader-submitted review insists that the film offers "...comedy the likes of which not put to film since the death of Harpo Marx."

Consider us skeptical, but intrigued. See you at the box-office.

Chip: "I'll be one auditorium over, watching The Expendables with the real men."


---

We've spent the morning (usefully as always) debating on Twitter whether the following fellow is a hipster or hobo?
















Readers, that's Tyler Gregory, and the correct answer is actually hippie, but lately he's infiltrated Larryville's hipster society through recent shows at the Replay (we're strangely aroused by his band's barefoot lady washboard player). Tonight Gregory will be opening for singer/songwriter David Dondero at the Jackpot. NPR has called Dondero one of our "greatest living songwriters," which surely means that a fair amount of NPR-loving Larryville liberals will stay up later than usual to check out the show.

We'd totally go ourselves if Dondero were playing at a venue where hipsters would shut the fuck up and listen. As it is, we'll just stay home where it's cool and listen to his NPR Tiny Desk concert:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie1vkOlK8xc

Another "Spot That Scenester!" Contest / "Work of Art" Recap

All right, readers, here's your chance to win up to three ice-cold PBRs on a scorching hot day in Larryville. Just name one or more of the scenesters in this photo from A. Rusc.n's gallery of the recent show by The Faint at the Granada.














We don't know about you, but we'd totally watch a reality show about the adventures of Hipster Jesus and Mustache Man in which wacky things happen, such as discovering an African-American guy at a Faint concert. It would probably be somewhat like Jersey Shore, except instead of getting shitfaced and laid every night they'd get lightly buzzed on PBR and probably not get laid very much.


---

Speaking of excellent reality shows, Bravo's Work of Art ended its first season last night, leaving all of us Midwestern Peregrine-supporters a little disappointed (but hoping she decides to follow us on Twitter). We found her portrait of two unborn fawns both moving and terrifying.

But at the same time we are still disappointed that Jaclyn didn't make it to last night's finale. Her tendency to take naked photos of herself and paint naked portraits of herself kept us aroused throughout the season. Here's the piece from the "Opposites Attract" challenge, in which OCD Guy did...whatever it is that he does, while Jaclyn painted herself masturbating, leading to one of the show's greatest moments when a judge asked her if she, indeed, had ever masturbated while standing up. Sure, she admitted. Well, no shit, judge. Haven't we all?

Here's a photo of their piece from www.artfagcity.com (Chip: "Is it okay for art fags to call themselves art fags?"). Avert your eyes now if you don't think masturbation is art.

Internet Hoax of the Week / Nostalgia for a Simpler Larryville / Pitchfork Reviews Best Coast

Geeks across the web were captivated yesterday by the story of an attractive young woman who (supposedly) quit her job by e-mailing a set of photos to the entire office in which she poses with a series of messages written on dry-erase boards (which ultimately expose her boss as a sexist pig who refers to her as a HPOA--hot piece of ass--and spends most of his time playing Farmville).

Here's a look:













As it turns out, the story, which appeared first on an image-board site called The Chive, was a hoax perpetrated by the site's sibling creators Leo and John Resig to create an internet meme (good job, gents! one day we're going to create a meme of our own!). Hoax or not, however, the fact remains that we still have major boners for this HPOA, and hope that the Facebook petition to get her a Playboy spread continues to go strong: http://www.facebook.com/JennyDryErase


---

If you were driving down 23rd Street in Larryville yesterday, you may have witnessed the destruction of the city's original McDonalds location. But don't get too excited, foodies, because it's not being replaced with another gourmet burger joint where the burgers are made unrecognizable by topping them with unholy ingredients. Instead, it's merely being replaced with a newer, more modern, McDonald's, leading LJ-World talkbackers to indulge in a little nostalgia for the Larryville of yore.

Here's a lovely little bit of reminiscence from someone calling himself "puddleglum":

"just look at all the lame signage up and down 23rd now...
remember the cool spinning bucket of fried chicken with col. sanders chillin' nearby?
the Big boy dude chillin' in front of what is now mezcal on Iowa?
the Sinclair dinosaur that was on the roof @ 9th & Iowa?
The Sandy's restaurant that was well-preserved by Bucky's and still salvageable by Beimer's...
Old pizza hut buildings...The taco tico-diamond sign....chaser lights on Dillon's
now its just cheap crappy vinyl signs and NO soul."

Chip: "Shut up, Puddleglum. The new McDonald's is going to have two drive-thru lanes and stay open for breakfast until 11:30 am!"


---

Like all good hipsters, we spent last week processing Arcade Fire's The Suburbs, finally declared it a masterpiece after the 18th listen, then kicked it to the curb to make room for whatever record Pitchfork is pimping this week. Currently spinning on our turntables: Best Coast's Crazy For You.

Pitchfork says: 8.4

"...many...complain that, as a lyricist, Cosentino lacks a certain depth and overall intelligence. It's true that she's not exactly the Randy Newman of the beach-pop game-- there's a few too many "crazy/lazy" rhyme schemes, and feel free to snicker at the "I wish my cat could talk" line from "Goodbye".

Richard: "I will feel free to snicker. So she's a dumb girl who sings about her cat. Why should I listen?"

Well, here's why:

"...while most of the guitar-based indie pop that's made waves over the past few years has been characterized by scenester antagonism and attempts to fit in (Vivian Girls, Crystal Stilts, Beach Fossils), this record is carefree and instantly likable-- even if it doesn't seem to care what you think of it. Just as you don't have to be into bong rips and strains of Indo to laugh at Cosentino's 140-character riffs on Katy Perry and True Blood, even the least indie-inclined of listeners can find plenty to love here. It may be a summer album by design (I mean, for Christ's sake-- that cover), but I'll place my bet that Crazy for You will sound pretty great all damn year, and beyond."

Personally, we miss the "scenester antagonism," but we're won over by the cover (featuring the singer's beloved kitty, Snacks), and will continue to spin this record until at least...next week.

KC Out-hips Larryville With The Miss Riot Room Pageant / An Important Sandbar Contest / Vintage Lesbian Erotica

As we were browsing the web for important local/regional stories yesterday, a Pitch headline caught our eye: "May the best slut win." The story details last weekend's Miss Riot Room 2010 contest, in which contestants (all five of them) were judged in such categories as "a 'show us what you typically sleep in' installment and...a 'skank' sideshow that encouraged the contestants to be inspired by their inner skank." The article offers a useful breakdown of each contestant's best moments from the evening. Tessa's 'talent,' it seems, was "pouring a 24 oz. PBR on her chest while wearing a wifebeater," and the ultimate winner, Kat Fiasco, explained that her dream/goal is "to rid the world of pubes."

Perhaps she's explaining that goal in this photo?
















So, what are we wating on, Larryville hipster bars? Let's have ourselves a Miss Replay, and soon.

Check out the full Pitch article here: http://blogs.pitch.com/wayward/2010/08/crowned_miss_riot_room_2010.php

---

Our twitter-buddies down at the Sandbar are currently engaged in a video competition in which one of nine local submissions will be chosen for inclusion in the bar's next "Hurricane" video. So if you occasionally find yourself at the Sandbar during their legendary "Hurricanes," (we're looking at you, Cl.thier), you owe it to yourself to vote. The videos are short (around ten seconds each), and they are all spectacularly awful (can you at least not giggle for ten seconds?), and none of them feature naked or even nearly naked women, but we're voting for "Don't Pick Up Guys During a Hurricane" because we like the way the girl says "cutie."

Go here to vote:

http://thesandbar.typepad.com/sandbar/2010/08/vote-for-a-video-.html


---

If you're any kind of pop-culture geek, you know that Tuesdays are the day when new DVD's, CD's, and books are released. In this new column, we hope to spotlight a few new releases that might otherwise fly under your radar.

This week's choice: Vintage Lesbian Erotica.




















Chip: "Does anyone know the name of that technique they are performing on the cover, or if it is still a commonly used lesbian technique?"

Richard: "I'm not sure, Chip. I went to see The Kids Are All Right recently to try to familiarize myself with lesbians a bit more, but all I really learned was that lesbians love gay male porn and many of them will jump at an easy chance to sleep with a guy."

Local Crime of the Week / Art Pick: "Work of Art" Finale / The LC Plugs a New Local Website

No major stabbings or shootings seem to have occurred this weekend in Larryville (rare), but the LJ-World did report this incident from the Eastside on Saturday:

"The man was reportedly threatening another individual while carrying a knife in his mouth."

This fellow has got a lot to learn about stabbing if he wants to compete with the city's motley crew of stabby, heat-crazed hobos. Also, can one speak clearly enough to make threats while carrying a knife in one's mouth, or were the threats implied by the very presence of a knife in one's mouth? The article seems unclear.

---

If you love the regional art scene, you damn well better be supporting KC artist Peregrine Honig, who has now made it to the finale of Bravo's reality-series "Work of Art" (which airs this Wednesday). Here's a summary (from InkKC) of the piece which kept Peregrine in the competition last week:

"Her final challenge piece was a nature-inspired sculpture that was half-woman, half-tree, with painted images of people having sex in public parks strung from the branches. The judges criticized the piece, saying it wasn't cohesive enough, but were impressed by the meaning Peregrine attached to it. She explained that when she was growing up in San Francisco, she saw public parks as a place where homeless people went to have sex."

Chip: "Oh, so the people having sex in parks symbolize...people having sex in parks. Perhaps I am capable of understanding art after all."

Richard: "My top two favorite moments from Work of Art have been when the OCD artist ejaculated on his own painting (artistically) and when the OCD artist convinced the hottest of the lady artists to do a portrait of herself masturbating. The show works as both a sophisticated inquiry into artistic philosophy and technique AND as a boner-inducing piece of popular entertainment. Good luck to Peregrine this week!"


---

Our local Twitter-buddy @theRaymondMunoz has started a new website that might just appeal to some of our readership. It's called Geekbauchery, "a place where geeks of all sorts can unite and enjoy both the geeky and the sexy." The site contains a blog, a forum for sexy/geeky discussion, videos, video game info, and weekly pin-ups of a "hot geek babe or hunk" which are hidden using QR code technology so geeky that we can't even figure out how to see them!

Check out the site here: http://www.geekbauchery.com/

The Unknown Hipster Rides Again!

It may not be a well-known fact, but the LC happily publishes occasional contributions from readers (we particularly encourage contributions that make us chuckle or give us boners). Today marks the Unknown Hipster's second appearance on the LC with a piece about Friday's demolition derby at the County Fair. The boys didn't make it to the Derby this year, but after reading this we can say with certainty that we will pay ANY amount of money to see the fucking Enforcer next year. Enjoy the piece! And feel free to submit your own cultural reviews to us as well. We can't pay you in cash (believe it or not, the LC is not yet a money-making operation), but we'll happily buy you a PBR if we like your work, or maybe even a Hamm's.

"For those of you who missed it, the Demolition Derby at the Douglas County Fair was Friday night. And by "those of you," I mean "all of this blog's readership," because there is no patina of irony about the Doug Co. Fair Demo Derby behind which the hipster may hide his or her displeasure at being at the Doug Co. Fair Demo Derby. First, you must know that the derby sells out. Every year. People with unironic mullets and Tweety Bird t-shirts sit ass-to-ass on three high-school-stadium-sized bleachers or on the grass between the bleachers and the fence that forms a perimeter around the derby mud pit. Exactly 35 minutes after the derby was scheduled to begin, the bleachers will be called to their feet to listen to a recording of the national anthem. You. will. cross. your. heart. Then you will sit down and wait another 20 minutes for the first "heat" to begin... Do not ask the people who brought the Tweety Bird blanket to toss across the bleacher rows to save seats for their family members who haven't yet arrived if they're saving those seats. They are. And fuck you for asking. Now they gotta call to see where the absent family members are (they're just passing Checkers).

At this point, you'll wish you'd brought a flask or put some cans of Bud in a backpack like everyone else on the bleachers. But the $1 bottles of water will be okay, if you can step over the Tweety Bird blanket guy, who's also wearing the male version of the Fair Uniform (men: t-shirt with sleeves cut off, jeans, cowboy boots, baseball cap or no hat; women: tank top and jeans or a dress, flip flops, hair up as if you meant it to be "up" but it's actually just haphazardly up perhaps in a comb).

If you sit on the south bleachers, you'll hear the pigs in the barn behind you squealing. You'll smell them first. It's ok. They're just hungry.

The derby itself can be quite exciting. No, really. Mud flies, sometimes at the bleachers. Cars occasionally get pushed onto the concrete wall that encases the mud pit, and if too many people are sitting close to the fence that's about 8 feet away from the concrete wall, the officials will stop the derbying until no one is within arm's reach of the fence. The officials will also stop the derbying whenever a driver violates certain rules such as removing his or her helmet or when wheels come off or when cars catch fire. In many ways, it's like lifeguards blowing a whistle at the pool, except that you're in the bleachers just watching as everyone scrambles, usually to get away from a fire.

This year, the derby featured The Enforcer, an old steel police car that came out to the mud pit to make sure that everyone is scrambling enough (no driving aimlessly and not trying to hit or be hit, pussy). The Enforcer comes out with red cop lights, and it has its own soundtrack, which of course is the car-horn cover of "Dixie." During one of the 5 or so "heats," The Enforcer came out to help end a two-car battle that seemed to be going on a bit too long. The Enforcer struck the car that had the obvious advantage, which gave the other car a chance to get away and come back at a better angle. The driver of the car that The Enforcer struck turned around and made a sweeping C-curve around some incapacitated cars to t-bone The Enforcer. This breaks two rules: as in life, it's against the rules to hit cops, even if you were hit first, and it's against the rules to hit the driver's side door since that implies malicious intent to harm (etc., etc.). An official hopped into the mud pit and disqualified the driver, who then got out of his car and starting walking toward The Enforcer, whose driver had also emerged and seemed ready for a fight. Then some folks came down from the announcer's booth and also offered to start a brawl. Meanwhile, the crowd had witnessed the injustice of unwarranted police brutality and were calling for The Enforcer's head and throwing bottles and other detritus into the mud pit. Eventually, the two cars were allowed to fight it out sans Enforcer, which pleased the crowd, though the fight went on so long (roughly 45 minutes, including near-fisticuffs) that most of them left when it was done.

So, your reporter suggests that you go to next year's derby. Wear a t-shirt. Drink the $1 bottle of Hy-Vee water. Sing the national anthem. Get some mud in your face. It will be worth it to see if you can pull off the Fair Uniform, and to see if The Enforcer is back and whether the crowd will demand that it be given a Thumbs Down and an honorable death."

The Boys Consider the Pitch Music Showcase in KC

We didn't make it over on Thursday to check out the Pitch Music Showcase, in which KC and Larryville bands showcased their wares at venues across the city, but here are the main things we've gathered through the Pitch's extensive coverage:

1) The Rooftop Vigilantes played a set to about 14 people in the cavernous Beaumont Club, easily one of the worst possible venues to spotlight their up-close-and-personal antics. Why not book them in the fucking Sprint Center next time?

2) Soft Reeds taught audiences "what it sounds like when continents fuck." (Presumably this is an insider music joke from the Pitch writers, but we have no clue what it means).

3) Hipsters look even more boring in artsy black-and-white rock photography. Check out this view from the stage during the Noise FM's set. Is the hipster on the left asleep, or is he dancing? With hipsters, there's not much difference between the two.

The LC's Local Band Showcase: Colony Collapse / Weekend Reading Material

Old fans (if we still have any?) may remember a blog about Colony Collapse from way, way back in the day, perhaps even before we were broadcasting from this address. At that time, the band was a fledgling young instrumental group who were VERY concerned about bees and preferred playing most of their shows at bee colonies. Over the years, however, they've become a local club act, appearing recently on The Turnpike and opening a major show for Appleseed Cast at the Jackpot tonight. But they STILL love bees.

Let's look at their Myspace bio:

We are an instrumental band composing music based on CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder)...we are here to increase awareness to this modern tragedy, and create music resembling the wonderful insect, and what it might be like to go through the hardships that the honey bee may encounter due to CCD."

Check out the lovely "Big Bee Hive in the Sky Part 2" on their Myspace page, and let's hope that hipsters stop their usual opening-act chatter during their set tonight and quietly think about bees:

http://www.myspace.com/colonycollapsed




















---

Yes, we realize that most of you hipster readers haven't read anything longer than a Pitchfork album review in years, but we still like to showcase important books that you should be reading. This weekend's choice: Rick Moody's new novel, The Four Fingers of Death:

"Purporting to be the novelization of the remake of a 1963 B movie, “The Crawling Hand,” written by a fictional author, Montese Crandall, the novel gives voice to various characters: a lovelorn astronaut, a Korean stem-cell scientist, and a Marxism-spouting chimpanzee. Postmodern gymnastics aside, the book is entertaining and often poignant, probing the limits of technology, consciousness, and language in the face of grief."

Richard: "Nothing's more poignant than a Marxism-spouting chimpanzee. Moody often gets overlooked these days in favor of Eggers and Franzen et al but, having once taught the better portion of a class on the metaphorical significance of masturbation in The Ice Storm, I can assure you that he's still got much to offer."

Style Scout, Then and Now / The Boys Experiment with I-Dosing!

Remember the days when the goal of Larryville's "Style Scout" was to actually "scout" people who had some discernible sense of style? Our twitter-buddy, @faintlyamused, is currently recalling some of the glory days of her Scouting experiences on her Tumblr site, including the wonderfully stylish dude pictured below, from 2008, who she says was wearing "sock garters to hold his socks up." Scenesters, if you know this dude, please get in touch with us, because we want to party with him!





















Visit the site of @faintlyamused here: http://faintlyamused.tumblr.com/

Today's Style Scout, on the other hand, often treats us to photos of someone like today's Garrett McGraw, who claims the fashion blog The Sartorialist as a major influence but doesn't seem to have learned much from it. Garrett's least favorite fashion trend is "Men wearing skirts. It’s just not right!"

A chorus of outraged Larryville liberals: "Go back to Southeast Kansas, homophobe!"





















---

Just when you thought nothing was more dangerous to today's youth than synthetic-weed (K-2!), today's LJ-World reprints a piece from the Washington Post warning us of the shocking trend of I-dosing: listening to "bi-naural beats" through headphones to simulate various experiences, everything from hallucinogenic and recreational drugs to sexual enhancement.

We're currently on the I-Doser website downloading something called Excite:

"Designed to be used just prior to sexual activity, or to put you in a sexual brain-state, it takes you through several levels of brain activity to leave you fully charged, ready, and "able." Starting from your normal state, it eases you from slight euphoria into somatic responses, tingling, heat and then melts away anxiety to leave you in the Venus state of love, sexuality, sensuality, and harmony. You WILL be ready."

Chip: "I'm ready just reading about it!"

Richard: "Sounds good, but won't a few Al Green or Barry White songs work just the same way?"

Visit I-Doser here before the government takes it away from you:

http://i-doser.com/

Goodbye, Broadband Man! / Recent Concert Reviews: Lady Gaga / This Week at the Multiplex

The top news story today is the sale of Sunflower Broadband to small, Georgia-headquartered Knoxology Inc. The LJ-World hagiography kicks off with these words: "In the beginning there was the vision. Forty-five years later, it was a spectacular reality." Anyway, that reality is done, and we only hope that the new company has a mascot as awesome as Broadband Man, who never failed to swoop in and save the day when we were having trouble ordering OnDemand porn.

Here's a shot we once took of BB Man visiting the Body Boutique booth at a festival in South Park.


















---

The boys were denied tickets to last night's Lady Gaga show at the Sprint Center because they were deemed (slightly) too straight to fit in among the Lady's "little monsters," but the Pitch's review suggests that the performance, structured as a sort of quest-narrative, was quite impressive:

"As Gaga fought a gigantic undersea monster (from the depths of her subconscious, perhaps?) she called the Fame Monster, the fans cheered rabidly. When the Monster ate her (which she wanted: "Just eat me, motherfucker!") the fans cheered rabidly."

Chip: "I think the Fame Monster is a subtle metaphor for how she wrestles with fame, and sometimes feels devoured by it."

---

This summer's multiplex audiences have been so caught up in intelligent existential animated sagas (Toy Story 3) and intelligent sci-fi mindfucks (Inception) that CGI talking-animal flicks have been suffering at the box office. Last weekend's 3-D Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore struggled to find its audience, despite an intriguing premise: "members of a canine spy network recruit a disgraced police dog (James Marsden) to stop Kitty Galore (Bette Midler), a “radical felinist” who plans to unleash a sound that will cause dogs to turn on their human owners." (AV-Club).

Take a look at these images and consider checking it out this week.

Chip: "That dog is wearing glasses!! The only way films like this could be improved is if theaters bring back Smell-O-Vision to enhance the fart jokes."

The Changing Face of Downtown Larryville / Ridiculous Beer of the Week / Twitter Pick of the Day

Just when you thought the Oread Inn was the most preposterous eyesore in town along comes plans for a "seven-story, $10 million building that will house 55 apartments and a mix of retail and office space [health club, wine bar, coffee shop] at Ninth and New Hampshire streets" (LJ-World).

The project is the talk of the town today on the LJ-World site and on Twitter, with most townies upset primarily for two reasons:

1) the loud construction is likely to interrupt their important discussions on the patio at the Pig (main discussion topic: Arcade Fire's The Suburbs).

2) the building will eliminate the outdoor movie nights previously projected on the wall of the parking garage.

Chip: "Surely there are plenty of other walls in town on which to watch ancient Cary Grant films. Or, better yet, silly townies can start watching DVD's at home, under the air conditioning, like normal people."

Larryville developer and well-known local villain Doug Compt.n offers this quote in today's LJ-World:

“From what we’ve heard, it seems to be exactly what everybody who has any interest in downtown says they want to see."

Well, you didn't hear it from us, Compt.n! What we want for downtown is what we've always wanted: a fast-food fried chicken franchise; another Quinton's on the south-end of Mass. Street; and an upscale urban titty bar.

---

Like most citizens of Larryville, we like to pretend like Free State beer is the greatest beer in the universe. But occasionally we get a craving for something a little...weirder. Our new favorite is from a UK company called Brew Dog, whose mission statement is: "At BrewDog we want to push the boundaries and challenge people’s perceptions about what beer is and how it can be enjoyed."

Their new brew is called The End of History:

"This blond Belgian ale is infused with nettles from the Scottish Highlands and Fresh juniper berries. Only 12 bottles have been made and each comes with its own certificate and is presented in a stuffed stoat or grey squirrel."

Sadly, the 12 bottles sold before we had time to order. But if you know anyone who managed to obtain a bottle, please get in touch with us, because we will pay damn near any price to taste that dead-squirrel beer!

No, we're not making this shit up. Check them out at www.brewdog.com






















---

Twitter continues to delight and inform us. Our favorite new Twitter feed is a wonderfully silly parody of gourmet-burger pretentiousness called The Burger Lords. We find it absolutely essential for this era in which such gourmet burger joints keep sprouting up across the land like so many obnoxious little mushrooms of the sort one might find on a gourmet burger.

Here are a couple of their better entries:

"Highland lamb haggis burger (w/ trout chutney) grilled by resident Robert Burns scholar, served in a secluded lagoon of single malt whisky."

"Mink Burger blanketed in truffle buttered micro greens, served on a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel* (*One Hundred Years of Solitude – add $2)"

"Sunday special: Maple smoked pheasant burger with caviar chutney and vintage micro-greens, accompanied by a violin concerto (in-house only)."

Keep it up, Burger Lords. We love your work.

Follow them here: http://twitter.com/TheBurgerLords