If Superman is a Democrat, Is Batman a Republican?

DC Comics has just announced that it's sending its characters into the most terrifying parallel universe yet: the American political system. At a comic-con last week, the publisher's executive editor talked about its upcoming "DC Decisions" series, in which members of the DC universe will declare their partisan affiliations. "Everyone’s talking politics; it’s an elections year, and we’re going to try to see how the characters of our universe react to that," he said, which I think means that his writers have completely run out of material. So now that superheroes are going to start meddling in domestic politics, which way will they swing politically? A few guesses at some of the exciting partisan plot twists to come, after the jump.

Bureau Brews: Hook & Ladder

Welcome to the first in an occasional series called "Bureau Brews" (Too nerdy? What about "Keg Stands?") in which reporters and editors in Mother Jones' DC Bureau will do what we do best... drink beer. Really, it's our birthright as journalists, and we take the responsibility quite seriously. (Read our hero Jack Schafer's classic treatise on the subject here.) So, every once in a while, probably on Fridays after we've filed our stories for the week, we'll break out the bottle opener and let you know what we think of various imported beers and their domestic craft cousins.

Our first victim is a local craft brewery called Hook & Ladder, based in Silver Spring, Maryland. (Disclaimer: I happen to know their PR guy. He's a mensch.) The brewery was founded by two brothers—one a volunteer firefighter, the other an entrepreneur—who, in 1999, decided to combine their talents to open a craft brewery. They originally based it in the Bay Area, but the dot-com bust scared off investors, and the fledgling business fell on hard times. Since then, they've relocated to suburban Washington, DC, where, in 2005, they renewed their quest to quit the rat race and make beer for a living, this time with great success. As of October 2006, Hook & Ladder had only one distributor and was available only in the DC area; today, it's got 73 distributors in 20 states, mostly along the East Coast, although for some reason it's also available in Stockton, California, or so we've been told.

One thing to note before we proceed to reviewing the merchandise is that Hook & Ladder, true to its firefighter founders' wishes, donates one penny from every pint sold to local burn centers. In the last two years, this has amounted to no less than $30,000. Could it be that drinking beer has finally become tax deductible? We'll have to look into that...

Comedy Bands: How Far Can they Go?

The New York Times thought they were pretty funny: New Zealand's "fourth most popular folk-parody duo" Flight of the Conchords are taking their HBO show about being, well, wildly unsuccessful, on a wildly successful tour, and they just played in New York to an appreciative crowd. The TV show, while not exactly a breakout hit, ratings-wise, was pretty much the second-best thing on HBO last year, both for the hilarity of their song parodies ("Bowie's In Space," anyone?) and for the low-key quirkiness of their heavily-accented banter. So, it's a good show on TV, but isn't there something a bit awkward about parody songs plopping down into the real-life rock context of an actual concert hall?

After the jump: What happens when the highest-charting death metal band of all time is, um, a joke?

Group Demands Marriott Turn Off the Porn

From citizenlink.com:

Focus on the Family Action is calling on families to co-sign a letter urging Marriott hotels to stop offering in-room pornography. The letter, signed by 47 family groups, will be presented at a meeting May 14 between pro-family leaders and Marriott International officials. It's the first time a major hotel chain has agreed to meet to discuss the issue. Tom Minnery, senior vice president of government and public policy of Focus on the Family Action, said Marriott can’t continue to present itself as a family-friendly hotel chain while peddling pornography. “Pornography is highly addictive and extremely destructive,” he said. “In the ‘secrecy’ of a hotel room, pornography can be especially dangerous because it creates a sexualized climate that puts men, women and children at risk.”

Focus on the Family Action then demanded Marriott remove all beds, comfy cushions and plush carpets from rooms, since those soft, inviting spaces just make addictive, dangerous fornication all the more likely. And don't get us started on those oh-so-sexy coffeemakers, heating things up! Hub-ba!

After the jump: I didn't mean to press "buy," really!

Oliver Stone's W: Will It Be Better than "Lil' Bush"?

Entertainment Weekly has a "first look" at Oliver Stone's W, the upcoming feature on our most awesomest president ever, starting Josh Brolin as the smirking W himself. Of course, by "First Look," EW is stretching things a bit, since, as they say, "shooting begins in less than two weeks." However, it sounds like Stone is trying to get the movie turned around in record time, with a release possibly coming "as early as October." EW's article is six long pages; so I've collected some highlights after the jump:

Grand Theft Auto IV Makes More Money Than Anything Ever

Well, almost. Billboard magazine reports that first-week sales for the latest installment in the "Grand Theft Auto" videogame series has outperformed even the most optimistic of predictions, making more than $500 million in sales the first week. Billboard says that's 6 million copies, but it's $60 on Amazon, and that works out to $360 million, but who knows how they count these things. Either way, it's a new first-week record for a game, smashing the previous high mark set by "Halo 3" of $300 million.

For comparison's sake, let's just take a look at some other cultural products and institutions and their associated monetary figures, after the jump:

Music: Million DJ March to Unite Annoying, Headphone-Wearing Dorks

This can't be serious. Eminem associate DJ Green Lantern and mixtape empresario A. Shaw have just announced The Million DJ March, a series of activities and rallies in support of the good old disk jockey, to be held August 28-30 in Washington D.C. Wait a minute, I'm a DJ. Why do I need to rally? Well, in a press release, Shaw alleges that "DJs do not get fully recognized for the work they do… Label and major businesses who reap the rewards of default publicity need to pay attention and give more recognition and financial compensation to DJs for the promotion they provide, without which music sales would surely suffer." Well, okay, yes, we play music, people should be happy we do that. Hooray us. But why all this marching? The press release continues:

DJs… are often harassed and legally penalized for their promotional efforts even when those efforts have been solicited directly by the labels and artists themselves: an arrangement that is known about throughout the industry but kept "on the low."

Hmm, harassment and legal penalties. Are you talking about what happens when you sell thousands and thousands of unauthorized mixtape CDs out of the back of your car?

After the jump: hey, I pressed "play," that'll be $25,000.

Breaking News: Hipsters Live in Cheap, Crappy Buildings

Yes, NYT trend piece fans, it's time for yet another trenchant observation: Art kids live in squalor in Brooklyn. And since everyone knows bedbug bites are like the purple heart of hipsterdom, they're totally jazzed about their tenement, known as the McKibbin:

“The community is a microcosm of artists, musicians and D.J.’s,” said Kevin Farrell, who is 29 and works in video production. “You don’t have to leave this building, with the exception of food. I don’t really speak to the locals.”

By comparison, campaign kids, who whined in the Sunday Times about having to couch surf, look pretty square:

“It’s so nice to have your own space,” said Erin Suhr, 32, the director of press advance for the Clinton campaign. “To come in and not have to talk to anyone, because you know they’re going to want to talk about politics.”

Since mid-February, Ms. Suhr has been living in Washington, in the basement apartment of Dick and Joanne Howes. Ms. Suhr has her own entrance and said she rarely sees the couple. But on a recent Monday night, Ms. Suhr appeared at their back door and the trio fell into an easy banter.

Fraternizing with the locals? She'd never make it at the McKibbin.

Books: Shelf Help for Mother's Day

If their "Mother's Day Shopping Guide" is any indication, Barnes and Noble takes a rather dim view of maternal reading habits.

Categories that warrant 40 percent off before Sunday include: "Biographies and Memoirs," "Food and Wine," "Homes and Hobbies," "New Fiction," and "Self-Improvement, Inspiration, and Humor.'

But the pink ghetto in Borders may win this week's catfight. A quick stroll past the Mom-bait table in a Washington, D.C. store today revealed not just a cornucopia of hot pink, cherub-encrusted photo frames and a healthy portion of the "Chicken Soup for the __ Soul" (Grandma, Chocolate Lovers, etc.) empire, but such titles as:

"Don't Go To the Cosmetics Counter Without Me," (7th Edition),

"Busy Woman's Slow Cooker Recipes," (Tagline: "Make 'em happy. Come home to dinner."),

"You, Staying Young,"

and,

"God Thinks You're Wonderful, Mom!"

You know what I want for Mother's Day this year? A wireless mouse. Let me know when you catch up, big B bookstores.

Music: New Coldplay Single Downloaded Two Million Times, Kind of Sucks

British band Coldplay posted a link to a new song, "Violet Hill," on their official website starting last Tuesday, and since then the free download has been accessed over two million times, reports the UK Telegraph. To put it in perspective, the Telegraph says that all the UK top 40 singles combined sold around 500,000 copies in the same period. Lesson: People like free stuff.

Coldplay released the single in advance of their somewhat-anticipated new album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends (out June 17th), an appallingly-titled collection of songs which, as we reported here on the Riff last year, were supposed to have a "Hispanic theme." However, "Violet Hill" has about as much Latin flavor as an Eskimo pie, and lead singer Chris Martin is even singing about cold weather: "Was a long and dark December/From the rooftops I remember/There was snow/White snow." As opposed to the purple kind? The song opens with a whooshy, 40-second intro, then erupts into a turgid, stomping beat, reminiscent of nothing so much as "Bennie and the Jets." It should either be twice as fast or twice as slow. Okay, I guess I kind of like the refrain, "If you love me, won't you let me know," but let's compare and contrast: the other day I heard "Warning Sign" on the radio, a stunning ballad from 2002's Rush of Blood to the Head. An insistent, wobbling tone, alternating between two notes, gives the song a hypnotic sense of uncertainty, building in intensity until a sudden acoustic coda in a new key finds Martin hoping to "crawl back into your open arms." Structured similarly but lacking even a modicum of "Sign"'s emotional complexity, "Hill" is a pale, white-snow-colored imitation.

Download "Violet Hill" on Coldplay's web site here.

After the jump, check out a cute fan-made video for "Warning Sign."

Music: Just How Good is the New Portishead Album?

Okay, I promise that my week-long series of Coachella afterglow posts will come to an end right after this one. In fact, while my appreciation of the long-dormant Bristol combo Portishead was confirmed by their spectacular performance in the desert Saturday night, I'd been enjoying their new album, Third, for a while. While I (lovingly) mocked it a while back here on the Riff for the, er, intensity of its lyrical misery, there's something exhilarating about Third. It's that rarest of comeback albums: less a return to form than a return to function, evidence of a band's determination to explore new musical territory (and new depths of despair), just as they always have.

After the jump: what's Rob Sheffield's damage?

The Missing Pink Floyd Pig Has Landed!

Breaking news here on Riff and Friends, following up on a story we first reported here on Sunday night. The gigantic helium-filled inflatable pig thing that said "OBAMA" on its belly, released accidentally by Roger Waters during his performance at Coachella Sunday night, has been found! This reporter witnessed the pig rising near-vertically into the sky on Sunday night, and apparently winds didn't pick up too much in the interim, since the shredded pig parts were discovered Monday morning in La Quinta, the gated-community-and-retiree-filled suburb just south and west of the venue. We were actually staying in La Quinta so, jeez, how awesome would it have been to have the Pig land in our pool? Dammit, so close! Apparently the homeowners in whose driveways the tangled remains appeared didn't know what it was at first, but after seeing saturation news coverage of the clearly earth-shattering event, they figured it out. That's our nation's media, doing a fine job with the stories that matter, and now we can get back to talking about Reverend Wright, the second most important thing happening in the world.

Both families will split the cash portion of the reward, $10,000, and each will get four tickets to the festival for life, although Susan Stoltz, one of the lucky pig-finders, says they "kept souvenirs." It's all so exciting. Next year, everybody better be ready when Bono releases a giant inflatable balloon showing a complicated graph explaining debt relief.

Riff photo by Miles Anzaldo.

Frank Black Takes on The Golem

The San Francisco International Film Festival this weekend presented a screening of The Golem with live original music by Frank Black, and it reminded me of two things: Frank Black is a dynamic, talented rock musician, and The Golem is a wickedly odd piece of cinema.

The Golem is a 1920 German silent film based on a legend about a clay figure brought to life by Jews living in the late 16th Century Prague ghetto. Yup, CLAY. Similar to Frankenstein, the figure is larger and more powerful than the average human. But instead of a square, flat head, the Golem sports a Dutch boy helmet/haircut (mud-cut?!). He initially protects, and then turns on, everyone in the ghetto and then dies. I had watched scenes of The Golem years ago in a film class, but had forgotten how strange this film really is. The film seems to celebrate the triumph of Jews over adversity, but also caricatures them all as worrisome old men with long, shaggy beards and silly, elf-like hats. The most fascinating part of the film is Hans Poelzig's set design. His stylized ghetto feels like a dark, dingy version of Dr. Seuss drawings.

Frank Black, whose shrill, nasal vocals never completely wow-ed me when he was fronting the Pixies in the 90s, led the pit band like a true storyteller. Songs ebbed and flowed with the movie’s weird plot, and lyrics seemed to convey key elements of sadness, fear, joy, and love in the story. Black has said that he wrote all the music in a day, and is considering releasing his Golem music as a Black Francis (his pseudonym) record. Black’s music helped ground the film and made it more enjoyable, although not enough to keep one of my friends from leaving early and others in our group from dozing off.

Considering that Black’s music was written for a movie about a monster, it felt incredibly safe and tasteful. A more relentless, risky, and scary approach would have really made the night—and the Golem—sing.

Music: Coachella Wrapup - Sunday

Greetings from the desert and day three of the Coachella Festival. In tonight's edition: Canadians! Germans! More Canadians! And oh yeah: Flying inflatable pigs that apparently endorse Obama! While I'm doing my best to be the intrepid reporter on the scene, my coverage is devolving day-by-day: crappy photos on day one, late-night spelling errors on day two, and today, I forgot my note-taking pen, so all this is coming out of my sun-baked memory. Perhaps I imagined the whole thing?

Music: Coachella Wrapup - Saturday

Greetings from the desert, where Day Two of the Coachella Festival has just come to a close. I know I started yesterday's wrapup with the caveat of "sorry the photographs are terrible"; well, it's now 2:45am, and after spending an hour sitting in parking lot traffic (after walking for 45 minutes) your intrepid reporter is feeling a little scatterbrained. So add that to the list of caveats. For those who just want to get to the meat of the matter: Kraftwerk fantastic, Portishead flawless, Prince amazing. For the details, hit the good old "continues" button.

Music: Coachella Wrapup - Friday

Greetings from a rental house in La Quinta, California, where we've just returned after enjoying day one of the 2008 Coachella Festival in Indio. Unfortunately this year's Riff coverage will be a bit of step down from last year's, since we're not only absent intrepid photographer Kristi who got so many great shots last year, but we also couldn't get a photo pass ("why didn't you ask earlier," they said). So unfortunately, we're stuck with what I could capture myself, with my trusty Canon Powershot. Yeah, I know. Hopefully the word pictures painted within will be vivid enough to make up for it.

Geek: The Blog Room at Web 2.0 Expo

I wandered into the Blogtropol.us blogger lounge at Web 2.0 Expo today and immediately realized that this was not the media war room I'd been searching for. The bloggers had beer, for one thing. And couches. And a Wii and chair massages to go with the electrolounge music and the tasty, tasty snacks. Where were the customary lukewarm Dr. Pepper's? My hoary headed colleagues complaining about the WiFi?

A 23-year-old put a shiny blue star sticker on my press pass and confirmed that indeed, I was looking for the much less entertaining room down the hall, where actual writing might be happening. "That's cool though, you'll be back," he nodded. "We have way more fun over here."

Welcome to the future of new media, people.

American Independent Party and Independent: Wait, There's A Difference?

The American Independent Party isn't doing a very good job broadcasting their party's platform message. If they were, perhaps Gavin Newsom's aspiring actress-first-lady-of-San-Francisco girlfriend Jennifer Siebel wouldn't have registered for it by accident. Just to be clear, the American Independent Party is anti-immigration, anti-abortion, pro-"traditional marriage and family values," and all for keeping "God" in the pledge of allegiance. Which I guess also means they're pro-pledge of allegiance.

San Franciscans shouldn't get their hemp underwear in a bunch too quickly. The mayor's office assures that it's an innocent gaffe and Gav's girlfriend is actually an Independent voter. Independents, typically, have no fidelity to political parties and vote based on candidates and issues. In other words, they do whatever the hell they want. I can see where the confusion lies: There's no "Independent" box to check on California's voter registration ballot; merely "Decline To State." And without predetermined categories, how are Independents ever supposed to know to which group they belong?

—Joyce Tang

The Dust Off: Pointer Sisters

Welcome to The Dust Off, where MoJo Riffers dig deep into the crates and revisit a song, video, or film that has stood the test of time.

This week I'm shaking dust off of "12," or Pinball Number Count," that funky Sesame Street song with the amazing pinball machine animation. Recently a friend back East emailed me this clip of the full segment, and I was blown away to finally learn that The Pointer Sisters are the ones singing. It's a 1972 funk-jazz track with Hammond-sounding keyboards, hand percussion, and soprano sax, guitar, and steel drum solos.

If you're like me, when you think The Pointer Sisters, you think 80s songs like "Jump (For My Love)," and "I'm So Excited," and you almost lose control because you like it. I already thought the Oakland-based group was awesome, but I had no idea they had helped me learn how to count to 12 when I was a kid. Consider them officially dusted off:

Bacteria Artist Off the Hook?

Last week's Yale abortion senior art project stunt highlights the public outcry art can inspire. While Aliza Shvarts was ridiculed for being everything from "hopelessly bourgie" to "weird and gross," the jeers lobbed upon her in the blogosphere were nothing compared to the nightmarish federal investigation endured by SUNY-Buffalo art professor Steve Kurtz. In 2004 Kurtz was accused of bioterrorism while preparing for an educational art exhibit about genetically modified foods, an incident that showcases the absurd turns art can take in life.

The FBI and Bush administration may be ending their four-year mission to bring charges against Kurtz, who came under scrutiny after authorities discovered bacteria cultures in his house after his wife's unfortunate (and, as it turns out, unrelated) death. On Monday, a U.S. district judge dismissed the charges of mail and wire fraud, the only indictment the Feds could make stick. There's no word yet if the prosecution will appeal. But Kurtz's named "coconspirator," Dr. Robert Ferrell—who sent Kurtz the bacteria and who had also been charged with mail and wire fraud—didn't come away unscathed. He pleaded guilty last October to lesser charges after a series of health problems ensued from the stress of the investigation.

Read more about the case and the documentary it inspired here.

—Joyce Tang