The Scanner

Oh Yeah, About That One Song ...

David Sessions — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 04:00:00 GMT

The one we kind of went on and on about last month? Just to wrap that business up, here it is. Or you can pre-order the album and hear the whole thing today.

There's a New Beer Garden in Town

Jonathan Fitzgerald — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:50:49 GMT

I write this tonight at great risk. I am in serious danger of becoming typecast as a one trick pony; being pigeonholed as that guy that writes excessively about Jersey City. But that is only half of the danger. I have also come to realize, mostly by close association with those that holds to this idea, that many people don’t want the secret of Jersey City to be out, for fear all kinds of riff raff will come join us in our haven on the other side of the Hudson.

This very writing has the potential to anger not only good friends, but thousands of my fellow citizens who, should they someday recognize me getting off the PATH or at a concert in one of our burgeoning rock venues or at one of our many excellent restaurants, would certainly not hesitate to, at the very least, shoot me a stern glance.

In the face of all of this I write to share a secret that I believe must be shared.This particular bit of knowledge is not merely that Jersey City exists as a wonderfully cozy place to live, though it is. No, this secret is much more specific, much more…intriguing.

Spoon's "Got Nuffin" Has Got Somethin'

David Sessions — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:09:15 GMT

Spoon has a new EP hitting tomorrow entitled Got Nuffin' (don't you love that?), and here, to warm us up, and to make Monday a little happier, is the single of the same name. Download it here.

Gay Pride: A Parade of Questions

Jonathan Fitzgerald — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 02:46:48 GMT

Today the streets of Manhattan’s West Village were packed with revelers celebrating the New York Pride March that happens every year on June 28 to commemorate what was essentially the beginning of a global gay rights campaign, the so-called Stonewall Riots (more on that in a moment).

My wife and I attended our first Pride March, or as it’s more commonly referred to, the Gay Pride Parade, last year, entirely on accident. We had only lived in the city for a few weeks when we decided to spend a Sunday after church wandering around the West Village. We heard the music first as we made our way down Sixth Avenue and we followed the sound until we found the crowds, loosely packed initially, crowding outside of the many bars and restaurants in the Village, and then, suddenly, the sidewalks were so full of people that it became nearly impossible to get around.

As we had only intended to take a leisurely stroll, our goal once we found ourselves surrounded by partially undressed men, barely dressed women, drag queens and the like (there were, of course, a majority of not-so-eccentric people around, but somehow that detail is less memorable) was to find our way out of the crowds and back onto more lightly populated streets. But in that time we saw and experienced a lot of what went on at the parade and, again, being new to the city, we needed several more hours of walking just to debrief.

I’m going to avoid passing judgment on what we saw in the streets last year, or again this year as we tried to make our way through the West Village to the East to find a bar to watch the final game of the Confederation Cup tournament. I will say that I am and always have been of a more reserved temperament, embarrassed, even as a child, when my sister would do something eccentric like dance in the aisles at a family restaurant. So for that reason the kind of partying that happens as the Pride Parade makes its way through the city causes apprehension and embarrassment in me and, generally, an urge to flee.

But more than that it always causes me to question. How should I feel? Is what is happening here something that I should react to on moral grounds? What would a family member or church friend do or think in this situation? What do gay people who are more reserved think of the parade?

Where's the Emerging Church Now?

Jonathan Fitzgerald — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 05:15:24 GMT

Last night my mom called for what I thought was going to be one of those regular, “How’s life in the big city” conversations that we’ve both grown so fond of, and for a minute there it seemed that is where we were heading. Her line of questioning was pretty standard:

“How’s Steph? How’s work? What are you writing? When are you coming home next?” All quite normal, and then this, “Are you a part of the Emerging Church?” I nearly spit out the beer I was quietly drinking in an old habit of hiding the fact that I would dare drink a beer whilst talking to her on the phone.

“Emerging Church? Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long, long time,” I say doing my best impression of Sir Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: A New Hope.

The thing is, a few years ago I was all about the emerging church. As a principle I’m generally for all things emerging and the idea that we could do church in a whole new way, in a way that, frankly and controversially, seemed in many aspects more biblical than the kind of churches I grew up in was actually quite appealing.

The Best "Transformers 2" Insults

David Sessions — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:57:46 GMT

It looks like Michael Bay's Transformers 2 is, as feared, the worst movie of the year. So naturally, critics are lining up to get in their best shots, and to one-up each other with their jokes, insults, and metaphors for indescribable awfulness. A lot of them are fantastic, so we've collected the best of the best here.

Oh, and if you still want to see this movie after reading these? I'm not sure there's a word for what you are.

“I swear to you that I have never had a film experience that felt longer than the whopping 149 minutes of Revenge of the Fallen, every single one of which I wish I had spent doing something else.” – Brian Tallerico, Movie Retriever

“John Yoo would not be able to draft a memo excusing the torment this movie inflicts on its audience, yet tens of millions of us will line up to shovel money at it this weekend. God bless America.” – Dana Stevens, Slate

More after the jump.

Did Patrol kill Godwitter?

David Sessions — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:34:24 GMT

You all recall the ridiculous "Christian Twitter" we mocked a few weeks ago? Yes, the one with the unbelievable name and even more unbelievable "witters" about divine judgment? Well, if any of you needed proof that Patrol wants to do good for this planet, perhaps you've got some: Godwitter is gone, and it looks like we might have killed it:

P.S. More details have come out about the founding of this short-lived website, which point to us the overzealous steamroller of some Canadian guy's little offhand idea. But then again he says he was inspired to create Godwitter after receiving a "questionable link" on Twitter, and just, dear god.

Summer break

David Sessions — Fri, 29 May 2009 17:30:26 GMT

Patrol will be taking a brief break to kick off the summer and prepare for a few changes coming our way in the next few months. For the next couple of weeks, I will be traveling to England and Syria for a much-needed break from everything American. (Watch my blog for occasional updates.) In the meantime, we hope you’ll get out and enjoy the sun, and we’ll be back on the air in late June. Thanks for reading—have a great summer!

Desperate Dispatch from Derek Webb

David Sessions — Tue, 19 May 2009 11:40:58 GMT

More weirdly cryptic emails from Derek Webb, this time informing that the conflict with INO is "very real" and "not just about one word" (so we discovered) and that he's "backed into a corner." There's nothing really to say about this other than WTF, so here you go:

friends-
this is turning into a bigger deal than we expected. as a result, we're having to temporarily _pull everything online down (can't explain now). and to be on the s_afe side, i'm going to pe_rsonally go offline while we sort this out. i re_ally shouldn't use my twitter account for now either so _don't expect any updates there.

make no m_istake, our trouble with the label over content i_s very real, and not as simple as one word; we're back_ed into a corner. but we have applied all of our creative resources to th_is, working furiou_sly to create something that we believe not only subverts any leg_al issues but should also be a _pretty wild ride.

so this will be the l_ast email for a while. we'll t_ry to lea_k information via a new tw_itter account, @ssyndrome. you're o_n your own so start payin_g attention. i'l_l see you _on the o_ther side-
derek

The Maureen Dowd Karma Edition

The Editors — Mon, 18 May 2009 07:11:49 GMT

Good morning and happy TV finale week! As the shows head off to their summer homes and the graduates to their parents’ basements to wait out the recession, our thoughts of nice spring things and vacations can officially begin. It’s a media-heavy Monday update this week because New York Times columnists have been being naughty, and icy, famous editors have come out in public to thaw. But stick around for the happy video at the end!

Maureen Dowd’s Sunday column plagiarized a paragraph from a post on Talking Points Memo about the timeline of torture and Iraq. The Times has issued a correction online, and, in an email to the Huffington Post, Dowd admitted that the “line” came from a conversation with a friend, who she didn’t know had taken it from TPM. But that hardly explains how the TPM writer’s entire paragraph appeared word-for-word in her column without attribution. Whatever happened here, MoDo definitely has it coming.

Also in acidic female journalist news, Vogue editrix Anna Wintour posed for 60 Minutes last night and explained, in her rarely-heard half-British, half-American accent, why she wears her sunglasses (“they’re armor”) and why she might, in fact, be a bitch (“if requiring excellence makes me a bitch, perhaps I am.”)

Pakistan is loading up on nuclear weapons faster than we can blink (shite!), and yet, incredibly, someone in the government—or a lot of someones—were considering giving them “billions” in military aid. What on earth is going on here?

The country survived graduation weekend without any major incidents: the President spoke at Notre Dame, where he talked about abortion and kind of admitted the divisions over it are irreconcilable. And wearing a metallic red cap and gown, Bristol Palin walked across the stage at Wasilla High School and collected her diploma. She finished with a 3.497 grade-point average. No word on Levi.

Speaking of abortion, the weekend news was filled with disclosures of conservatives’ no-longer-so-secret plans to block the President’s potential Supreme Court nominees. Gay marriage, several Republican senators said, has replaced abortion as the “flash point” of the confirmation hearings, and they plan to use the spectacle to encourage donations and unite the party.

23-year-old Alexander Rybak, universally and awkwardly described as a “boyish, fiddle-wielding Norwegian singer,” won Eurovision, the world’s biggest song competition held in Moscow on Saturday. A colossal event famous for its dramatic performances, stunts and pyrotechnics, was Eurovision was briefly visited by gay-rights protesters before Moscow police rounded them up. Rybak’s song “Fairytale,” which he performed while fiddling and dancing, took the top honor.

The Orlando Magic and Los Angeles Lakers both won their NBA playoff series last night and advanced to the Final Four.

A first look at this week’s magazines: New York’s cover story, by the always-amazing Sam Anderson, is a defense of distraction; The New Yorker has looks into Justice John Roberts’ stealthy judicial activism and an item on Todd Palin’s awkwardness; Newsweek debuts its new format with an exclusive interview with President Obama; the Weekly Standard profiles former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, who’s now running to be the next Republican governor of California.

Finally, we’re to the good part: this morning’s start-your-day video, a collaboration of Andrew Bird, comic book artist Chris Ware, and This American Life: the animated musical adventure of Quimby the Mouse and his strange pet … head.