New Andrew Bird. Yea.

Rules are meant to be broken. Musically, one of my guiding principles has always been a simple one: No whistling (I'm looking at you, Andy Griffith).

Okay, one exception.

yeah, sure, right, of course

Remember when I mentioned that the spec script market in Hollywood has essentially evaporated in the last year due to all the uncertainty between the Writers Guild strike (which settled almost a year ago) and the Screen Actors Guild contract lapse, which is still unsettled after eight months.

And I said what we really need is for SAG to get their act together and either accept a contract they don't like or go out with a strike authorization vote to their membership (or any vote to their membership, actually). Well, since then, SAG has...

Staged an internal coup, tossing out their leadership and negotiating committee.

Enjoyed an attempted injunction filed by the old leadership against the new leadership.

Watched the judge throw that out.

Just so the new leadership could do almost exactly what the old leadership was going to do, short of actually sending anything to their membership for a vote.

If anyone needs my head it will be in the oven.

the obligatory oscar post

Dave's picks.

Best Supporting Actress: who cares

Best Supporting Actor: dust mites on mars know Ledger wins

Best Actress: who cares

Best Actor: the only one I care about. Sean Penn. Mickey Rourke was great, at being Mickey Rourke. Aronofsky made an fantastic movie, and Rourke benefited from Aronofsky letting him simply live in that meat sack of a face and body he's accumulated. But the movie is a Johnny Cash song because of Aronofsky (and the thoroughly underappreciated set designers and costumers -- flashy sets get the love, but man those guys created a world.)

Adapted Screenplay: personally, I'd go Frost/Nixon.

Original Screenplay: Wall-E. Although, I haven't seen Frozen River and do want to.

Best Director: Darren Aronofsky. What? Not nominated. Oh. Who cares.

Best Picture: Eh. Whatever. Frost/Nixon, Slumdog, Milk. All really good. But stellar?

Singing Your Own Name

Meta awesome. Peter Gabriel covering Vampire Weekend.

look, kids, god's country

February in Michigan. It's okay to be jealous.

Battle Lost

Matt and Kim's Good Ol Fashion Nightmare has officially taken possession of the space between my ear holes. At this point, I'm just hoping to get custody back for the weekends.

Matt and Kim

The d.j. in my head has Matt and Kim in heavy rotation. I suspect payola.