Welcome Back, Dannon's Boysenberry Yogurt

For the first time in six months, today I had a cup of Dannon's boysenberry yogurt, which is by far my favorite flavor. I had the pleasure because my fiancee went grocery shopping last weekend at Market Basket, not the Shaw's we've been patronizing recently. For all of Shaw's strengths, it's greatest weakness might be its thin yogurt selection. Beyond the Greek yogurts it has, which I don't like, there are usually no more than two flavors of Dannon. Has it really fallen so far out of favor?

The promise of "Fruit on the Bottom" of the boysenberry flavor is misleading because it's more like fruity liquid than actual fruit (that comes with the other flavors. As unappetizing as the liquid sounds, I like it. Perhaps it's because the actual "Fruit on the Bottom" of the other flavors isn't exactly fresh fruit either. When I'm having amalgamated fruit, I want to go all the way and embrace the artificiality. There's no need to pretend what's happening here.

Luckily, I've had a fun day, so as nice as the yogurt was, it wasn't the highlight. Above is a photo of the container on my desk, after I ate it.

Punk-Rock Calendars

So R5 Productions, Philadelphia's premier indie-rock concert organizer, promoter and booker, has a new, more professional-looking Web site. Disappointingly, it now takes at least one extra click through the concert calendar to find the site's endearingly fanatical, stream-of-consciousness, gramatically indifferent descriptions of bands that are coming to town. The March 5 bill with Cymbals Eat Guitars, Bear in Heaven and Freelance Whales is a great example. On Freelance Whales, R5 begins: "Oh shit - Internet hype alert! Freelance Whales found one another in late 2008, amidst a strange amalgam of unfamiliar instruments, and precariously composed pop songs." All of the show's other blurbs are equally visceral, though my favorites are the ones for hardcore metal quadruple bills where each band has a name like "EyeInjuryBlood," and R5 raves about them as though it were normal to be a giggly teenager about this.

The Web site's redesign matters because R5 is very sensitive about staying true to its scrappy, independent roots. On the site's "Frequently Asked Questions" section, much of the space is devoted to defending the company against charges that it doesn't book enough local bands, charges too much for tickets and uses too many 21-plus venues, blocking kids from the fun. Unfortunately, any time something is "By the kids, for the kids," as R5 says it is, there's an ever-present, constant tension between sincerity and dilution once the phenomenon grows beyond its original crowds. R5 seems to genuinely struggle with this.

Really though, R5 and Sean Agnew, its founding CEO (if such a term were appropriate for the company), deserve every bit of credit and money they earn. About 10 years ago, Agnew noticed a gaping hole in Philly's music scene and filled it so well that while the shows only used to happen in a Unitarian church's basement, R5 now occupies nearly every important venue in the city. The shows catch great bands before they explode, present them in interesting, smaller spaces, have good and respectful security, and care about the fans. Everyone goes and everyone cares in return.

Two personal R5 memories:

1. The summer before my senior year, my friend and I, who ran WSRN's rock department together, cleaned out all of the thousands of excess CDs in our office and bought a booth at R5's annual flea market to sell them. With 30 minutes and hundreds of CDs left, one of Agnew's friends, a wholesale record collector of sorts, came and offered us $100 for everything left. We took it, smiling. Two months later, on a Sunday morning, we saw him eating breakfast in Swarthmore's cafeteria with one of the super-indie girls.

2. The last R5 show I saw was M.I.A., on her first U.S. tour, in the spring of 2005, in the basement of a Ukrainian social hall. If ever I start to doubt that I lead a life that should only be cherished, I remember that concert: Me, a Ukrainian social hall, a Sri Lankan rapper who was the world's hottest at the time, my Lebanese Jewish friend, his Korean girlfriend, their Chinese friend, their Indian friend, a Sunday night, escaping from Swarthmore's campus and dancing past midnight.

Anyway, to the good times, here's an example of the kind of shows R5 hosts -- Mum, a strangely delicate Icelandic group, last fall:

My Hometown

My favorite part of the Winter Olympics is how so many American competitors come from these small New England towns. In the first few days, natives of Norwich, Vt., Franconia, N.H., and Sugarloaf, Me., all won medals! As a friend noted, some of them are skiiers from wealthy families who moved to nice ski towns to train full time, so it's not as though they all hail from a quaint hamlet where their neighbors cheer them on from the town common. Nonetheless, it's still pretty neat to think of how Norwich, along the Connecticut River, can count moguls gold medalist Hannah Kearney among its 3,800 residents. Maybe the Board of Selectmen will give her a shout-out at their meeting Wednesday. And the downhill skiier Bode Miller is definitely from Franconia, as best evidenced by his infamous comment four years ago that he once skiied drunk.

The Winter Olympics aren't as thrillingly elemental as the Summer ones are. Especially with the addition of the snowboard, the games are less about the fundamental awe, power and agility of the body, and more about high-risk maneuvers, but they're still always neat to watch.

Thanks to Whiskeytown for providing the post's title.

This Is Too Much, Part II

All that's bipartisan about politics these days are the embarrassments. For further proof, see Wednesday's Metro section in the Times, which was dominated by stories about the New York State Senate expelling one of its members after he was convicted of abusing his girlfriend and the indictment of a New York city councilor for extortion, fraud and money laundering. Both politicians are Democrats. Among all the alleged misdeeds of that councilor, Larry Seabrook, he forged a receipt so he could be reimbursed $177 for the bagel and soda he had for lunch one day!

As noted before in these pages, politicians' hubris is phenomenal: The story almost always comes out, yet they forever push the rules, assuming they won't be caught. The unblemished pols always say their nefarious counterparts are the few rotten apples spoiling the orchard and the public only focuses on the exceptions, but the frequency with which exceptions happen makes me think there are plenty more out there waiting to be discovered that are the rule.

As bad as that is, the Queens state senator guilty of abuse, Hiram Monserrate, wasn't unanimously expelled because his Democratic colleagues were reluctant to narrow their 32-30 margin in the Senate. Fortunately, they did the right thing. Monserrate is now claiming he's the (racial) victim, suing the Senate to overturn its vote and planning to run in the special election called to fill his seat. And on it goes.

This Is Too Much, Part I

The Times reports that Sarah Palin used a cheat sheet during her speech and interview at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville last weekend, writing "energy," "tax cuts" (with "budget" scratched out before "cuts"), and "lift American spirits" on her left hand, and routinely glancing at it as she answered questions. This is reminiscent of the "Seinfeld" episode when George can't remember the steps of Jerry's famous "move" so he writes them in Sharpie on his hand, except Palin's maneuver covers affairs of state, rather than sex, and happened in real life, not on a sitcom.

Apparently, absurdity and Palin's dimwitted personality know no bounds. The only time she'll ever be in front of a friendlier audience is her kitchen, yet she was so nervous, forgetful or unintelligent that she required crib notes. Wow. Perhaps this was a cheeky, sarcastic in-joke about the public's fascination with Palin's ignorance or a play on when artists write provocative hand-written messages on their clothes or themselves onstage (see Eddie Vedder at the end of Pearl Jam's "Unplugged" performance), but I don't think she and her advisers are witty enough to think of that and pull it off.

Much is written about how Democrats froth at the mouth just at the utterance of Palin's name, and not surprisingly, every liberal blog has jumped on this one. But there's a rational, valid explanation for why Palin provokes such disgust: Her mounting record suggests nothing except that she's wholly unqualified to hold a job that requires serious thought -- apparently the governor's seat of Alaska doesn't make that cut -- and her ascendancy the past 18 months confirms we've become a public more taken with contrived appearance than intelligence.

Thanks to every photographer who caught the notes on Palin's hand. (The above photo of her looking at her hand is by the Times' Stephen Crowley.) Like George's bedside cheat sheet, which quickly sent him from hero to goat when his girlfriend discovered them in a sweaty Sharpie mess on his hand, her speech initially produced speculation about her presidential prospects in 2012, but now makes her look very foolish.

We Knew It All Along, Mark

Confirming what many already suspected, Mark McGwire said recently he took steroids through much of his baseball career, including in 1998 when he broke Roger Maris' single-season record for home runs, with 70. He had to do it at some point because he became the St. Louis Cardinals' hitting coach during the offseason. If he hadn't, steroids would've been the first question any reporter asked him in each city. And how could he have kept living so anonymously, as he had since his embarrassing testimony before Congress in 2005 (which essentially convinced everyone McGwire was a steroids user even as he didn't acknowledge it)?

Baseball, though, still has a serious problem on its

hands, even if commissioner Bud Selig wants to declare the steroid era over. Criticizing McGwire and other steroid users on purely ethical grounds is difficult. Almost anyone in any job would take a substance if it would improve one's performance, salary and fame. But the sport is only slowly emerging from its biggest constitutional crisis since teams refused to have black players on their rosters, which only ended in 1947. (Steroids might be an even greater problem if

you want to view sport as purely sport, divested from politics.) The past 15 years, most of my cheering life, are largely a historical distortion, too difficult to compare to what happened earlier or what will happen later.

McGwire's admission also notably came a few days after he again missed admission to the Hall of Fame. In the three years he's been eligible, he's never earned more than 25 percent of the possible votes, well short of what's needed for induction. I doubt many voters will change their minds now -- which this story suggests too -- and why should they? Again, McGwire made a tough choice. With millions of dollars at stake, few would've done otherwise. But the Hall of Fame should be reserved for those who've proven they're at the peak of the game, now and forever, while respecting the game's integrity. McGwire didn't hit home runs only because of steroids, but it's impossible to know how many he was naturally capable of hitting without their aid. Maybe it would've been the same number, maybe it would've only been half. In his case, it would've probably been closer to half because his career was nearly derailed by injuries eight years before he retired, about when he started taking steroids.

There will be many more players tied to steroid use who will become Hall of Fame-eligible in the next 10 years and whose surefire candidacy now misses the target. Should players who publicly addressed the situation be given more leeway than those who hid from it? Probably not -- they all embarrassed the sport and they all have tainted statistics. Furthermore, there are players who have never been linked to drugs but whose careers were defined by great offense and many home runs in the high-flying 1990s and early 2000s -- Jeff Bagwell and Jim Thome come to mind the quickest -- a time now proven to be a glitch. Maybe they were products of their era and not as good as we thought. It's funny and sad how baseball has come to resemble postwar countries such as Guatemala, South Africa and Germany that need truth and reconciliation committees to be able to continue with the future.

Listen, The Snow Is Falling

Somewhere in the middle of learning about San Diego the past two weeks for this competition, I found myself thinking how nice a place it would be to live: The weather is almost always beautiful and sunny, beaches abound, the regional economy seems solid, the Mexican food is probably very good, Padres tickets are cheap. The past weekend here, when the temperature never made it above 25 degrees, prompting me to drive everywhere, mildly grumpy and still cold, certainly exacerbated the situation.

Walking home tonight, with the contest finished, I realized I don't think I could bear to live in San Diego. David Shields, an English professor at the University of Washington, writes in one of my favorite books the idea that East Coast residents are somehow heartier or tougher than their West Coast counterparts because of their weather is ridiculous -- just another tool for furthering the us-versus-them divide that tears constantly at society. Though I love that book's insights dearly, I disagree. There is something about cold weather and shoveling -- and the resolve to get through both while still smiling -- that builds true character. More importantly, true appreciation only comes from not having something around all of the time. When it's always sunny, isn't the sun boring? The anticipation of seasons, the excitement that comes with their changing, is too wonderful to quantify. Among many other reasons, that's what keeps me living in the Northeast, even as so many feet here vote otherwise.

Thanks to Galaxie 500 for inspiring the post's title, via their cover of the Yoko Ono song of the same name.