apparently the band was denied access to the Ripple Effect stage (yes to Matisyahu, no Rage – that doesnt sound kosher), so they picked up a megaphone and the worlds greatest guitarist mouthed his famous riff and zach and the crowd sang Bulls on Parade:

Come wit it now!
Come wit it now!
The microphone explodes, shattering the molds
Ya either drop tha hits like de la O or get tha f off tha commode
Wit tha sure shot, sure ta make tha bodies drop
Drop an don’t copy yo, don’t call this a co-opt
Terror rains drenchin’, quenchin’ tha thirst of tha power dons
That five sided fist-a-gon
Tha rotten sore on tha face of mother earth gets bigger
Tha triggers cold now empty ya purse

they rally round tha family! With a pocket full of shells
They rally round tha family! With a pocket full of shells
They rally round tha family! With a pocket full of shells
They rally round tha family! With a pocket full of shells

Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes
Not need, just feed the war cannibal animal
I walk tha corner to tha rubble that used to be a library
Linin’ to the mind cemetery now
What we don’t know keeps tha contracts alive an movin’
They don’t gotta burn tha books they just remove ’em
While arms warehouses fill as quick as tha cells
Rally round tha family, pockets full of shells

todd has been a talented artist, cartoonist, harmonica player, and subtle comedian for as long as ive known him. he was my assistant arts editor at the daily nexus for a little while and then he became illustration editor and i got to work with the video guy.

what todd brought to the arts section and to the nexus was a truly creative mind that was rooted in possibilities. you only had to talk with him for a few minutes to have his mind juices start flowing. youd say, i want a Spike Lee thing, or i just wrote about this or that and how everythings Wack and todd would quietly get to work and have something great in a very short time. after a while i just said, todd every week i want you to have a huge image on the front cover and your drawings will be the center of arts week. of course i was fired before we could do too many of those covers but each one was terrific and weird and, now, collectors items.

todd has always been funny, always been amazingly talented, and has always drawn in a style that is equal parts tragic and dark and funny. usually all at the same time.

when i first moved to frisco after being transferred there by philips magnavox todd and i lived together in a pretty cool 2bdr apt on folsom near 23rd street. todd had a snake. somehow there was a hole in our apartment and mice made themsleves at home. for about two weeks that snake was fed lots of freshly trapped mice. meanwhile todd was (and maybe still is) a vegetarian. which was always interesting when he offered to cook dinner. believe it or not but for a long time i had never had a meal without some meat. todd taught me how silly that concept was.

for the longest mr francis has been designing skateboards and tshirts and graphics for element skateboards. the other day, fellow santa barbara mafioso joel brand posted a link to the video above on facebook and i couldnt stop laughing because todd hasnt changed one iota, not even in video. its beautiful. please enjoy.

And he lived in Silver Lake 🙁

Don LaFontaine, the voice behind thousands of Hollywood movie trailers, many beginning with his trademark phrase “in a world where,” has died. He was 68.

LaFontaine died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center from complications in the treatment of an ongoing illness, said Vanessa Gilbert, his agent.

As the originator of the movie trailer catch-phrase, “In a world where,” LaFontaine dominated the voiceover industry. He made more than 5,000 trailers in his 33-year career while working for the top studios and television networks.

when i worked at E! there was only one job i was jealous of – the VO talent. they got to read into a mic, the sound mixer would make them seem way cooler than they were, and they got paid sooooo much moolah. e! at the time was super cheap, but they had to fork over the cash for the voice over peeps. cuz most of the time, especially on a show like True Hollywood Story, it was the biggest expenditure since the music was canned and you had no stars that you had to pay.

so my hat is off to Mr. LaFontaine who got a lot of butts in seats.

a long time ago when i was roommates with tsar and mr hollow tree, we were often finding ourselves sitting around the tv or driving in a car or walking up to the video czar talking. and when we did someone would say something and someone would say, antioxidant deodorant? now that would be a good band name!

then someone would appropriate a metal falsetto and shriek “we are antioxidant deodorant and we have come to ROCK YOU Des Moines!”

if that passed the test we would then debate how it would look in the listings of the LA Weekly.

Hookers & Blow = rock band name genius fo sho

and because we havent caught up with our favorite minnesotian blogger, i sent off an email and asked for an update

and little did i know that lindsay has been writing again on her blog, but she has broken up with her bazillionaire bf, moved out of his many mansions, and is back on her own the way she was when she was first introduced to the busblog.

heres part of an email she sent yesterday:

The billionaire broke up with me, well sort of. He still insisted upon seeing me and I existed in a place where I was neither his nor anyone else’s, a sort of purgatory, constantly stumbling backwards and forwards for a few weeks. Things had changed but they also hadn’t, I suppose it’s easy to fall back into familiar habits without much resistance because its what you’ve come to know and expect. And now, he’s attending convention related events, or what is left of them after all of the announced cancellations, my tickets having been revoked and reassigned once the separation became official. As far as the convention goes there seems to be a surplus of self important, hard liquor drinking, good old boys populating all of my local haunts.

But anyway, I’ve retreated back to the suburban paradise so generously afforded by my parents, between the break-up and the multiple break-ins at my apartment, it seemed like the natural thing to do. And now I’m doing what any lost post-adolescent soul feels compelled to do, save thousands of dollars to buy a home, a life of trans-Atlantic wandering, or a very expensive handbag. The thing is, I’m not quite sure which to do. With the newfound freedom from the billionaire, which by the way was unexpected and came about rather casually, I haven’t the slightest plan for the next year let alone the next few days. I thought I’d be planning a wedding, not my own life, all of which is strangely exhilarating.

Today I said goodbye to him, well actually I stormed out of his front door, thus neatly ending the we’re seeing each other but definitely not with each other phase of the breakup. Tomorrow I am going to collect the remainder of my belongings and that will the end of it until we find ourselves oddly together beneath the roof of the shiny office towers on Tuesday, where I intend for it to be business as usual.

keep up with miss minnesota here.

from a republican friend who said that he was sure that all my liberal friends were shaking in their boots because of sarah palin

i reminded my friend that my liberal friends dont wear boots, that most of them live in california. they wear sandals or sneakers. and i told them that the last time that any of them were nervous, lets say, about a soccer mom was when one was heard climbing the stairs as they were humping their daughter.

does it frighten me that a woman like sarah palin might be a heartbeat away from being the president?

it doesnt bother me one bit. but i have noticed more blogging spittakes surrounding this woman than anyone ive ever seen at any time. from rumors that as mayor she fired her police chief and librarian because they werent gonna vote for her, to the admission that she flew from texas to seattle to alaska after her water broke she started leaking fluid (i am learning there is a difference), to how she liked ron paul over mccain, to how she loves to kill things, to how her husband and son arent registered republicans, to how she is bffs with ted stevens to … so many things, heres a crazy list if you need to catch up.

is all of this based out of sexism? or is this woman really not at all qualified and has many questionmarks in her closet?

all i know is i never got to make out with more women out of my league than during the bush administration.

so i got no probs with the vpilf as the kids are saying, infact most of my liberal friends are in comedy or screen writing or entertainment and they should pray for mccain/palin because the material would be amazing. just look at jon stewart’s comedy nipples get hard.

and how do you beat midwesterners at county fairs?

speaking of, if i was gonna make out with one girl from iowa it would be this’un

and id do it at the fair.

(next to ken layne).

its sara k smith and her sidekick “jim”!

wonkette is on fire and in the belly of the beast in st. paul for the rnc convention slash telethon(?!). they got screwed cuz the prez aint comin now, the vice prez aint comin now, the governator aint comin now. heck they’ll get lucky if the dream ticket arrives.

but theres plenty of free parking!

see, read wonkette for an hour and the snark flows right out. and mccain picking governor palin was like an early christmas gift for wonkette. seriously though the sweetest thing to happen in the blogosphere this year was nick denton selling wonkette to ken layne for a bag of magic beans.

however, as happy as i am to see that sk and jim (who “covered” gov. palin way back in may) are at the convention, where is our man dan? this picture above is clearly taken by a drunkard with a very dirty iPhone. wheres ole dan and his fancy imported long lens?

americas hottest blogger needs to be exploited photographed in a professional manner! i want some proper lighting, some Leica or Nikon love for our girl. i saw better pixel resolution off that mars lander. wtf!