As far as journalistic coups go, I’m not clearing space for the Pulitzer, but I’m pretty sure this is the first place you will read about Devo’s new hat color.

Also, watch this announcement from the band’s new COO. They’re doing this intentionally ironic ultra-corporate thing and it’s a little awesome.

Early last year, after Aaron started working nights, I decided to get back on my ass and catch up with this thing the kids call “teevee”. I used to have a pretty solid schedule of shows, but somewhere around 2004, life circumstances set me off the small screen path and I started wasting time other ways–and believe it or not, once you stop watching TV regularly, it’s actually kind of a project to figure out what the hell is worth following and fitting it into your schedule. So during those five years, I neglected pretty much all network phenomena other than the Daily Show and Colbert Report, plus a smattering of cartoons. Because cartoons.

Anyway, with this renewed spirit or whatever, I posted this question to my Facebook status last spring, the night before the Season 5 premiere of “Lost,” that cultural steamroller that defies explanation, despite having a fairly straightforward high-concept premise of plane crash survivors on a mysterious island: Can I start watching “Lost” tomorrow, even though I’ve never seen a single episode? I didn’t have time to go back and Netflix all four preceding seasons, but I knew that some of my favorite comics writers were involved, and I was sure it should make the cut of my gradual tubular reintroduction.

The responses were instant and furious–fuck no, you crazy idiot. There are so many plot twists, so many unknowns, so many red herrings, so many secrets and lies and Easter eggs and inside knowledge built over long-term viewing that you’d be less confused watching sessions of the Diet of Japan. Only one person, a coworker in L.A., gave me the answer I was looking for: she said that she’d seen every episode since the pilot, and she still didn’t know what the shit was going on, so I couldn’t possibly be any worse off. So I decided to say fuck you, tyranny of the majority, and dove in. And basically what happened is that instead of losing sleep over the whole series’ 400 loose ends, I have me like 12. And I still enjoyed the hell out of it.

This is all kind of a long way of saying that I celebrated last week’s premiere of the sixth and final season of “Lost” as any music journalist in New York would–by going to a club out past some warehouses in Brooklyn with a few hundred people to watch a weirdo-pop band recap the series in song while eating “Lost”-themed tacos before watching the show on a giant screen at maximum volume. I wrote about it for Billboard here, which includes a live video of band Previously On Lost’s performance of “The Ballad of Sayid Jarrah,” a song that was way, way more awesome than it needed to be. I highly recommend the version on their MySpace page as well. As for the show, you can go elsewhere for theories, but I thought it was insane and proggy and shitfaced and generally awesome, and the very last moment was downright priceless. I think the whole series should end with that line.

1980 presidential primary, I guess I didn’t pound the pavement hard enough.

So it’s taken, uh, some time since I announced the release of Aaron’s first full-length album, but there is finally a clever little video to go with the first single “Winterspring”. We worked with animator Maya Erdelyi to put together this claymation/puppety thingy, and I think it’s a right good time. So please to enjoy, and share, and all that good stuff (here’s the direct YouTube link). ALSO: If you have a Facebook account, please consider going to the Ampersands’ page and becoming a fan. There’s a minimum before you can get one o’ them slick usernames, and due to much promotional inactivity, we need to get on the stick. Millions of thanks!

It’s Friday evening, a little more than 24 hours after Michael Jackson was pronounced dead in Los Angeles, and I am physically and emotionally exhausted from the loss. This is not a personal loss, mind you, as tempting as it is in these moments to take that tone—my extraordinary father died when I was eight, and I divorced my first love, and to compare this to either of those would be a lie of the highest order. No, I’m exhausted because our culture is starved for shared emotional experiences, and yesterday and today we fed. And because I’m a music journalist, and I work for Billboard magazine, which literally defined the metrics against which much of Michael’s enormous success has been and will be measured, which meant that last night was a blur of monumental chaos at my workplace. And lastly, because I was born in 1976, meaning that before I could even begin to articulate the slightest understanding of pop, soul, and performance genius, Michael was a god.

For the past, oh, ten to twenty years, most of my deliberate thoughts about Michael Jackson have revolved around the grotesque joke he has become–his preposterous physical transformation; his unconscionable alleged acts towards children; his bizarre public behavior in every form. But somehow, I was able to separate this extraterrestrial from the person I emulated when singing “I Want You Back” at elated karaoke sessions; the freedom fighter from countless viewings of Captain EO. These were not the same person. They WERE NOT. We’ve been having this conversation all along, yeah, but now we really have to man up and have it, because it’s That Time.

In the past 24 hours, people I love and respect have expressed disgust that such adoring tribute has been thrust upon a man who very likely inflicted sexual abuse on children—perhaps the worst evil a person can commit. I understand where these people are coming from. How can a few pop songs stand up for even a second against that? But at the same time, how is it that last night, when “Thriller” came across the jukebox at a bar, three of us simultaneously began dancing like zombies with a giddy enthusiasm? None of us have respected Michael Jackson as a contemporary musician or a moral human for years—where do we get off getting a high from his output? What kind of hypocrites are we?

But see, that’s just the thing. If I had been in that bar with those same people last week, and “Thriller” had come on, the exact. Same. Thing. Would have happened. Of this I have zero doubt. An entire generation of music lovers, probably two, has willfully colluded to allow Michael Jackson two distinct identities—that of ridiculous monster, and that of glorious pop royalty, because we cannot accept the alternative. We won’t relinquish the joy of hearing his unmatchable voice against that unrelenting rhythm; we can’t forget the awe of seeing him express emotions in song that no human of his age should have any concept of. It’s not wrong to remember him as a gift to the world, and it’s not wrong to hate him irreversibly for what he probably did. And while the people closest to Michael Jackson have to reconcile that he was one person, I do not. And I will appreciate that luxury and give thanks for it.

…Or, you know, because I was gone all day and sort of forgot. And because let’s face it, I’ve been slipping in my attention to a number of Day Old traditions, such as the cookie swap, quarterly poetry slam, and concept of regular posting. Anyway, I literally spent 8 hours both yesterday and today talking about almost nothing but parts of speech as part of a training, so my enthusiasm for adjectives is nearly depleted to absolute zero. The truth is that while I’m the first to admit that the idea itself is pretty lame, the execution had promise, so I still have a soft spot for the original holiday and its five exciting successive celebrations, so I encourage you to reminisce (even though several of them, I now realize, involve me apologizing for dropping the ball). At the moment the only adjectives I can think of are disinterested and uninterested, the distinction between which I actually had an organized, 15-minute group discussion about today. So, you can see what that might do to a person. Anyway, happy NAD.

Every time I start to grow weary of New York City, I will encounter something like this for no goddamned reason whatsoever, and remember why I’m here.

Don’t mind me, just testing out today’s sinister theory that website traffic can be increased by titling posts with slightly wrong song lyrics. And for the record, these lyrics would be much better.

You know you’ve crossed over some invisible border between youth and something else when your whole weekend is fucking MADE by the delivery of a set of recliners. Aaron and I started having recliner lust about two years ago, and finally broke down and put them on the Christmas list as the things we wanted more than anything on Earth. They weren’t in stock when we ordered them three weeks ago, but they finally arrived yesterday morning, and we have spent all weekend either reclining or saying things like “hey, you wanna go recline?” Anyway, as a result we had to move some stuff around and will be donating a loveseat to the Salvation Army (the only org that will come pick stuff up) on Tuesday–if you or someone you know would like a very nice comfortable blue loveseat, let us know before Tuesday and we’ll give it to you instead.

At the request of no one but my mother (click to enlarge):