This Post Has Been Sponsored in Part by ADM, Supermarket to the World
I’m sure that saying this will put me on some http://www.pitchforkmedia.com watchlist for the hopelessly, perpetually uncool, but I like NPR’s series of live indie-rock concerts. It’s like hanging out at the thinking man’s Bait Shop. Actually, it’s EXACTLY like hanging out at the thinking man’s Bait Shop, because instead of being in a surreally small club on the ocean with lots of attractive rich people who want to fuck you or who you have already fucked, you’re by yourself, in front of your computer, listening to headphones, and wondering why you’re always so broke and lonely.
Oh, but the point is that one of the pleasures of NPR is the cultural disconnect I feel between myself and the world of the stoic, well-informed journalists who produce the majority of their programming. Maybe it’s because All Things Considered would always play in the car when my mom picked me up after school, but it has a calming effect on me to know that someone out there is smarter than I am, more culturally refined, and with an interest in getting at some small kernel of truth. So the concert series is actually a little off-putting. It moves me ever further towards the tepid center of my parents’ cultural orbit.
This didn’t help, either:
