Nurse the Hate: Three Kinds of Hate

Three quick observations from this week...

* If you are a man in his early twenties and drive a pick up truck, are you required by law to wear a backwards baseball cap while driving?

* Is it just me, or do most low budget Jesus paintings look more like Greg Allman than the Son of God?

* How is it that the current generation of 20 year olds have invented no culture of their own? The 70s was arena rock and disco. The 80s was new wave and rap. The 90s was grunge and mainstream punk. This decade is what exactly? Why is it every single band drawing more than 5000 people to a show (excluding disposable teen pop) made their mark from another time than now. How did that happen? Are you telling me that the only contribution this generation is going to make is Coldplay? Depressing...

Three Recommendations...

* Black Postcards By Dean Wareham is a good read. He's the singer from 90s indie rock bands Luna/Galaxie 500. They were on Elektra, had videos on MTV, made the charts, but never really broke all the way. If you want to know what it's like to be in a band that most people think have "made it", give this a read. I was stunned to read that the Whiskey Daredevils out drew those guys in Europe, despite them having 4 major label releases, a full time publicist, and actual resources. Who knew? I also learned it's a bad idea to have a wife, and get a super hot bass player to go on your tour. This was not new information, but it's always good to have a refresher course.

* I went to a Zinfandel tasting put on by ZAP that had about 100 different zins being poured. I'm a really big zin guy, so this was right up my alley. These are big chewy red wines that are perfect for knocking back on the back porch by the grill. If the best of these wines were a band, they'd be the Grateful Dead circa 1972 or The Byrds during "The Notorious Byrds Brothers" record. If I were you, I'd buy Ravenswood's Barricia Vineyard, Ravenswood's Tudeschi Vineyard, Hook and Ladder's Third Alarm, or Norman Vineyard's Classic Zinfandel. If you get lucky and stumble into a Turley Zinfandel or Petite Sirah, buy that instead.

* The best deal on the web right now is Paul Westerberg's "49:00". The deal is that Westerberg put out a forty nine minute track at Amazon.com for 49 cents. The track is actually about 12 songs and a bunch of fragments he recorded in his basement like that Grandpa Boy stuff he put out. It's kind of like "Hootenanny" era Replacements, and obviously worth 49 cents for the download.

Best Futures Bet in the MLB

* Take the Angels to win the AL. They've got the pitching staff with Santana, Lackey, and Saunders. They've got the best closer in Rodriguez. Now they went out and picked up another bat with Teixeira? All those media wonks will be focused on the Yankees (not enough starting pitching) and Red Sox (no protection for Big Papi). Take the Angels now before The Rubes drive the price down...