Solid State

Nahhh. Just kidding. How could anyone ever "damn" The Smittens? There just so darned . . . cute. Like, a puppy-eating-an-ice-cream-cone-in-a-sailor-suit kinda cute.  But they're also a great band that's continuing to gain notoriety beyond the currently gloomy borders of our insular little burg. (Note to Tom Messner: Seriously, dude. Snow or rain. Make up your fucking mind. If I fall on the ice one more time, I'm suing.)

Here's a link to an article published yesterday in the Boston Phoenix about our hometown twee-ty birds. It's one of the better profiles I've read on the band and I kinda I wish I'd written it first. Oh well. Still, it's a good read and succinctly captures the quintet's irrepressibly perk-tastic charm.

If chipper ain't your bag, here's a hysterical collection of celebrity obituary previews from David Thorpe's latest Burn Unit column in The Weekly Dig.  I didn't know this until I read it in Thorpe's column — and promptly cross-checked the facts, of course — but apparently the Associated Press actually prepares obits ahead of time (prehumously?) so they can semi-eloquently break the news the moment a star passes away. They were busted when an early draft of a Britney Spears obit recently leaked to the mass media. For the utterly pop-ignorant, Spears is still alive. Totally nuts. But still alive . . . for now.

How creepy is that? Could you imagine knowing that somewhere, someone is eulogizing you while you still live and breathe? It sounds like a Stephen King novel: A struggling writer gets a gig penning celebrity eulogies and a funny thing starts happening: they die exactly as he describes. He goes mad with power and becomes a celebrity in own right for his uncanny ability to predict death. But then the AP hires a new celebrity obit writer . . .

Actually, that's not bad. I smell a screenplay.

Really loading up on the Beantown rags today, for some reason. Must be a lingering subconscious reaction to the Super Bowl . . . sigh.