(no subject)

Jacob Slichter, the drummer for the Minneapolis band Semisonic, has written a book about his experiences with the music business. Judging from this review, it sounds sort of like a memoir-length version of "The Problem With Music". E.g., "the lunch tabs ostensibly picked up by the local reps."

I always thanked the locals for lunch, and then one day it occurred to me. . . .

'Dwayne, that's a corporate Amex, right?'

'Yeah.'

'And you write ''Semisonic'' on the credit card slip, and that gets billed to our recoupable account, right?'

'Yeah.'

'So really, shouldn't you be thanking us for lunch?'

(no subject)

Today's guests on Forum were two pollsters and a political consultant, talking about the latest national tracking poll from the Los Angeles Times. The best moment was around the 25-minute mark, when the consultant asserted that national tracking polls at this point really don't mean anything... and both pollsters (one of them from the Times) agreed with him. Somewhat surprisingly, the rest of the show did not consist of 35 minutes of throat-clearing and tuneless humming.