The International House of Bacon

An ongoing series.

Coconut Records - “West Coast”: A song I heard on Sirius that had to take some time to grow on me. By the time I loved it, I learned that it’s actually Jason Schwartzman’s post-Phantom Planet project, where he plays and sings everything. It’s…interesting. I’m always a little shady about famous people doing music (even if I guess you could say Shwartzman was doing the Phantom Planet thing before he hit it “big”), but this really does it for me. This song in particular is great - fun melody, goofy lyrics, great chorus. Definitely worth looking up.

Weezer - “Pork and Beans”: Ken made the observation that they need a support group to help people break up with Weezer. I haven’t heard more than 3 songs of the new album yet, but even while I think “Pork and Beans” is a fun, goofy rock song, this is all too true. Accepting that a band is a shell of its former self is hard - I still can’t quite believe it with R.E.M., the awesomeness of Accelerate aside - but when you figure that Rivers Cuomo knows how to write a great pop/rock song better than most in the business, how is the mediocrity that we’ve largely seen from Weezer recently forgivable? It’s not like Deep Blue Something, who somehow made one - and only one - good song, after all.

The Watson Twins - “Just Like Heaven”: I fear that the Watson Twins will never gain any significant traction as a music act, because they a) sound like everything that has come before them, and b) don’t especially do anything new with it. Yet, even with those two truisms, everything they produce seems to have a quality to it that feels significant and weighty. Even when they’re doing a cover song in their style like this, it just sounds right coming from them. As does everything, I think. Really crazy.

Paramore - “crushcrushcrush”: Shut. Up. Yes, I’m a teen girl right now, but there’s something strangely addicting about this song. I know it’s not evidence of a trend - I’ve heard three other songs from them and they’re quite bad - but this song, even when it’s so shiny and polished and soulless, I dunno. I’m an addict.

Gotta be fast:

* Hamas might not like Obama anymore following his AIPAC speech (and then possibly shifted again). What’s stunning to me is Obama’s complete incoherence on Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East. At this stage of the game, I don’t think he has a clear policy to it - from having people like Samantha Power and Zbignew Brzezinski on his campaign staff to this most recent speech, I feel as if he’s taken every position possible on the area. Any explanation for this?

* The Washington, DC violence plan is to block off entire neighborhoods, do card checks, and send people away if they don’t have “legitimate business” in some areas. Say WHAT? Orin Kerr at Volokh discusses its legality.

* One of the Marines from the so-called Hathida Massacre in Iraq was acquitted on all charges yesterday. Of the eight marines originally put in the crosshairs for this, five of the cases were dropped and this one failed. There are two remaining, and the most serious one has been postponed indefinitely. Puts a bit of something against John Murtha’s allegation that the marines “killed innocent civilians in cold blood.” Interesting campaign note: Obama was questioned regarding Murtha’s statement back when he made it, and Obama’s response was that he “would never second guess John Murtha… I think he’s somebody who knows of which he speaks.” I wonder if he’ll be backtracking on that at all.

* The Next Right on demographic realities regarding Ohio for November.

* I don’t doubt that this has the best intentions for Alzheimer’s patients, but this still makes me very, very uncomfortable. I fully realize I’m way too close to this issue to even be remotely objective on it, though.

* Finally, a Facebook app to act as a clearinghouse for Wii friend codes. Yikes, did Nintendo screw the pooch on that one.