Last night I saw Autolux / Deerhoof at the Natural History Museum. Despite the surreal atmosphere (they performed inside the North American Mammal room, which probably provided for some really fucked up pictures, but I didn’t take any), it was actually pretty sub-par. Perhaps this had something to do with the event being all-ages, or the cramped confines of the room. I saw a couple girls pass out and get dragged out of the crowd. Autolux played a 45-minute set, which consisted mostly of ambient sounds and then two quick tunes I did not recognize.

Deerhoof played slightly longer (an hour?), but I was gone before they finished. The best part of the night was seeing Vincent Gallo hanging out with under-aged girls and having Dennis Hopper sit on the railing two feet away from me for the entirety of Autolux’s set. After the show everyone went to Steve and John’s apartment and drank and talked. Then Ilya and I sang a few bars from “Wonderwall” while a girl vomited outside the apartment complex. Good times!

- Have you ever wondered which asshole politicians are in bed with the RIAA, and have received money from the trade group in exchange for supporting the worst company in America and their cause? Well, thanks to The Consumerist, you can see exactly which representatives have received contributions, how much they got, and contact them. Interesting names that show up on this list of 50 congresspersons include both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Let ‘em know how you feel. [story]

- Ray Bradbury apparently hates anybody who thinks Fahrenheit 451 is about government censorship or McCarthyism. He wants everyone to know it’s about television destroying books. So…now you know! [story]

- The news in Denver reported this week that truck driver fell into a pile of malted barley and suffocated. When he was pulled through the chute of his truck, he was not breathing, so emergency workers performed CPR and transported him to an area hospital. It’s worth noting is that the location of this event was at the New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins. The condition of the victim is currently unknown, but hopefully the tragedy will not effect the production of any Fat Tire. [story]

- Remember all that crap about the bees dying? Now an entomologist from California has published a response to the original news stories that caused panic to strike a number of people. To sum up his letter, there’s no reason to think that the bees (one species of bee in a world population of 20,000 species) are going to be wiped out, and similar phenomena have been witnessed before. This is nothing new. Also, the alleged Einstein quote about dying bees signaling four years left of human life are dubious at best. No one has any proof Einstein ever suggested such a scenario, and the earliest appearance of the quote was printed after his death. Do not fear. [story]

- There’s no cure for AIDS, we haven’t solved world hunger, but neuroscientists at the National Institutes of Health have found that “unselfishness can feel good.” Oh my God. Are you serious? I would have never guessed that theory could be proved or disproved through any amount of scientific investigation. [story]

photos courtesy of Kyllum

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