Bad Idea Show Review: Colin Meloy at Park West

photo via Spin

I've yet to see The Decemberists in person, but if I were to choose any band's fan base as "most likely to be reading before the concert," I can't think of any other followers who would even compete. So perhaps it should not have come as a surprise Monday night when I noticed four different people literally reading books while waiting for the opening act. When Colin Meloy took to the stage for a solo acoustic set, the books went away but storytime continued, with plenty of light-hearted stage banter to spare. Meloy introduced a new song as "based on star-crossed lovers, as is 90% of The Decemberists' catalog. But if it's good enough for Shakespeare..." He also repeatedly referred to Chicago as "Chi-town," but pronounced it similar to "Sh*t-town," delighting his inner 12-year-old repeatedly.

It's an interesting concept to take the bombast of Decemberists songs and strip them down to simply a singer and guitar. On "O Valencia," the acoustic version feels a bit lacking without any accents or harmonies. But on the flipside, the stark bare version of "Shankill Butchers" is chilling. It becomes the kind of thing that would keep kids up all night, repeatedly checking window locks.

But for the most part, the missing accompaniments throughout the songs simply allowed for audience participation, as when they delivered a vocal impression of the guitar solo during "The Perfect Crime #2," or gave a ghostly defiant background plea during "The Engine Driver" ["And if you don't love me let me go!"] By the time the show closed with the overly ambitious "The Mariners Revenge Song" all bets were off. It became a free for all consisting of high-pitched pleads from a scorned mother (mostly delivered by females in the crowd,) audience-wide swaying back and forth while mimicking a whale, and at one point, Meloy ordering everyone to the ground to symbolize the mother's death. It was like a wedding reception gone awry during "Shout," if "Shout" ended with a sea-faring womanizer being murdered. It was a beautiful mess.

Setlist (more or less):
Leslie Ann Levine
We Both Go Down Together
Come Hell [New Song]
The Perfect Crime #2
O Valencia + Dracula's Daughter
Apology Song
Kingdom of Spain
Cupid (with Laura Gibson) [Sam Cooke cover]
Shankill Butchers
Night/Rake [New Song]
Oceanside
A Cautionary Song

Encore:
The Engine Driver
The Mariner's Revenge Song

Bad Idea Show Review: Spoon at the Vogue

This past Saturday, I was able to check yet another band off my list of "Favorite Bands I've yet to see live" list (Rilo Kiley and The Shins, you're next). Spoon came to Indy to rock and/or roll the house, and for once, Indy lived up to the honor. Oftentimes, musicians skip Indianapolis despite our "crossroads of America"convenience. We don't have the musical heritage of Nashville, or Chicago, or Cleveland, so they skip us. We also don't sell out shows that should. Mick Jagger refuses to bring the Rolling Stones to Indy because the last time they did, their show didn't sell out the RCA Dome (Hoosiers hate peacock impressions). Anyway, in the last few years, things have picked up a bit. I snagged two tickets to this show just days before it sold out, so my friend (we'll protect their anonymity and just call them Foy) headed to the show.

Here is a list of things that Foy and I learned while at the Spoon show:

#1: Maracas make every song 30% better. If the maracas are yellow, bump that up to 40%. If the yellow maracas are thrown offstage at the crescendo of the song? 50% better, guaranteed!

#2: People-watching is half the fun of concert-going (Foy has a God-given talent for this). Sure, it's all about the music. Only it's not. It's also about watching people try to dance. It's about the 60-year-old gent standing in the back, bopping along to "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb." It's about the growingly drunk, balding, 36-year-old who knows every word and acts out the lyrics as if he's leading the hand motions at a grade school liturgy. It's about the boyfriends who were forced to come and appear to be in a slight coma, while their girlfriends get all hot and bothered (though, in the end, this probably works to the boyfriend's advantage).

#3: Spoon seems cater-made to my concert tastes. They played the songs relatively true to form. There was minimal banter in between. They weren't alienating the crowd by telling inside jokes on stage or talking to each other during songs. They weren't wasted. They played their songs, nice and tight, and moved on. Here's their set-list:

1. Don't You Evah
2. Chicago At Night (Though Spoon was a relatively new band for her, Foy recognized this one before I did. I then buried my head in shame)
3. Someone Something
4. My Mathematical Mind
5. Stay Don't Go
6. The Ghost of You Lingers
7. Eddie's Ragga
8. Jonathon Fisk
9. Everything Hit's At Once
10. You Got Your Cherry Bomb (this is when the maracas went flying)
11. Black Like Me
12. Don't Make Me A Target
13. They Never Got You
14. I Summon You
15. The Underdog (my favorite song of 2007, and even without a horn section, it still delivered)
16. Finer Feelings

Encore
1. Don't You Evah (yes, they opened the encore with the same song they opened the show with. I don't think I've ever seen this done before. They played it in a more subdued manner, and then credited Ted Leo, saying they learned it from him. I'm not hip enough to know what that means)
2. I Turn My Camera On (again, Foy kept beating me in the "name that tune in 'however many' notes" game)
3. Rhythm & Soul
4. Small Stakes
5. Panic (Smiths Cover)

• I was expecting them to end with "Sister Jack," but this cover was an appropriate end to the night. On weekends, the Vogue schedules concerts early, opening the doors at 6:30 pm, so that they can have the rock show, then sweep everyone out by 10:00 pm, give the club a quick once-over, and then re-open at 11:00 pm as a dance club. This is usually awkward for both the audience (who find themselves out on the street with the whole night ahead of them) and the band (who, as Spoon said, had 4 hours to kill until they had to be back at the bus). So it wasn't a surprise when the crowd went berserk as Britt Daniel sang "Burn down the disco/Hang the blessed DJ/Because the music that they constantly play/IT SAYS NOTHING TO ME ABOUT MY LIFE"

Finally, to soothe my "Sister Jack" fix:

Do you accept cash? Cha-ching!

As a 13-year-old, the viewing of "Wayne's World" had my mind reeling. When could I make a pilgrimage to Stan Mikita's Donut Shop? (Answer: Sadly, never, as it's not a real location, and the Stan Mikita statue now resides with MacGyver.) Should I know who Dick York and Dick Sargeant are? (No.) How great of a city must Aurora, Illinois be? (Not great at all. And it's not a city.) But my biggest question came upon seeing the oddest and perhaps most artistic image of the film came during the "Bohemian Rhapsody" segment (seen 3 minutes, 20 seconds into the clip below.) I wondered, "What the hell is that thing?"



The famous Berwyn car spindle now can be yours for the taking on Ebay. For the starting bid of $50K, you can have this 50-foot sculpture to do with as you please. Of course you'll also have to pay for removal and relocation, as the base of the structure apparently cannot be salvaged. But if you don't want your dirty your hands with those particulars, why not just pay $100K and have it shipped. Imagine the conversation piece that the Berwyn car spindle will bring to your next cookout/open house/Eyes Wide Shut party. You can offer up your small dog in sacrifice to the 1981 Ford Escort as seen below, or just relive the nostalgia of a simpler time in America; a time when the thought of Mike Myers becoming a bigger star than Dana Carvey would seem about as likely as...well, monkeys flying out of one's butt, as it were.

Mirthmoble not included.

NBC wants you to steal this show

The story beyond the screen of "Friday Night Lights" is a common one. People who watch it love it (as do the majority of TV critics,) but that group of people is few and far between, as the landscape of television watchers goes. After two seasons of below-average ratings (and reading NBC head/party boy Ben Silverman's "30 Rock-themed" non-endorsement), it looked as if time had run out on the Dillon Panthers. But surprisingly the show was renewed for a 13-episode season in an agreement between NBC and DirecTV that seems puzzling in its logic.

In exchange for DirecTV ponying up a hefty percentage of the production budget, season three of FNL will debut in October only on homes currently subscribing to DirecTV (about 15% of homes with televisions.) Then in February or March of 2009, the season will be re-run on NBC as a midseason replacement. Hulu.com, which houses many NBC shows for online viewing, will not make FNL episodes available until they air on NBC.

For viewers of the show who don't have DirecTV, the message seems simple. If you want to watch this show without waiting a year, you'll have to download it illegally. Granted, NBC has tried this type of move before, previously allowing "Law and Order: Criminal Intent" to air on the USA Network before airing on NBC, but shows like "Law and Order," "CSI," "Without a Trace," or "NCIS" have fan-bases that, while large, are not nearly as passionate about the shows that they watch. (Translation: The people who watch those shows in primetime are old.) On the flip side, people who watch "Lost," "24," or "Friday Night Lights" are rabid in their fandom. Consider the pattern set this past season by viewers of "The Wire," which HBO posted OnDemand a week before each episode's air date. The show had dismal ratings because most fans had already watched each episode on demand by the scheduled "over the air" debut each week. This didn't matter on HBO, which doesn't rely on advertising dollars or the ratings that dictate said ad cash, but the experiment is surely something that would never be tried by a network program.

So who does the "FNL" deal benefit in the end? You could make a reasonable argument that it benefits DirecTV by giving them an early jump on air dates, although a smarter move for DirecTV would have probably been to try and buy out NBC's rights completely and make "FNL" an exclusive property, similar to their NFL rights. From a cost standpoint, it benefits NBC on the front end, but makes no sense on the back end. Ratings (and subsequent ad dollars) should nosedive even further from their mediocre averages last season. Had NBC allowed DirecTV to broadcast each episode a week in advance of the network broadcast dates, the show would likely garner much more respectable ratings.

The big winner in the end will be BitTorrent sites hosting illegal copies of the show for downloading, as they will be the primary source of product for over 85% of the population. Those who already use torrent sites will continue, and likely many people who have never used those sites will start doing so shortly after the DirecTV premiere. It also represents a victory for fans of the show, a rarity when it comes to underwatched programming. They get what they wanted - more episodes. They'll just have to a bit more creative in how they find what they're looking for.

Dennis Quaid: Ill-informed Lover of Trivia

I know this is a few days old, but I was falling asleep as it happened so throw me some leeway.

Dennis Quaid was pitching his new movie Smart People this past Tuesday on NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Quaid was also quick to point out that the next day, April 9, was his birthday. Follow this link to see the video (which for some same reason won't embed itself).

Dennis seems to have been reading the "Celebrity Birthday" column of his local newspaper - probably checking to see if he's still a celebrity - and interjects that he shares his birthday with W.C. Fields and Adolph Hitler.

The trouble is, he's wrong. I caught this right away because I happen to know W.C. Fields's birthday is in fact January 29, and one need only ask any pothead to find out that Hitler's birthday is April 20. Neither of them died on April 9th either. Does Dennis Quaid have any idea what he's talking about?

The only face-saving way out of this is to assume DQ was making a joke, and that makes it all the odder. Does he want us to believe

• W.C. Fields and Adolph Hitler are polar opposites?
• W.C. Fields and Adolph Hitler are commonly confused for Dennis Quaid?
• When in doubt, or when stuck in a morosely dull joke just toss in Hitler to bail yourself out?

Dennis Quaid, [insert joke involving latest project Smart People not using Hitler as a punchline here.]

The Keys to a Good Conspiracy

Well, that explains the 90's.

Alicia Keys - magnet for militarism and controversy (just look at that eye shadow!) - has taken it upon herself to expose the latest vast conspiracy to befall society. Gangsta rap was created in a government lab, and in her words "was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other."

Oh, really?

Keys notes that "Gangsta rap didn't exist." She has a point there. I checked with Genesis, Stephen Hawking, and the Mayan calendar and it is true that gangsta rap is not evident until the Reagan administration (although there were near misses with Descartes' "I think, therefore I floss" and Plato's "The Durty Republic"). Score one for Keys and chronology.

However, the argument is hollow at best. Haven't poverty, ignorance, gangs, and crime in general done enough to get "black people to kill each other"? I guess even societal scourges have the government nosing in on the fun from time to time. Whod'a thought of the ghetto as the next great bastion of libertarianism? Of course I can join Alicia - I mean Miss Keys, cause I'm nasty - and go all post hoc on yo' ass. Revisionism all up in dis!

Why do black people have to do all of the killing? Where's the collateral damage to those folks not the initial target of this conspiracy: white people? I haven't heard of any ripple increases of suburbanite on suburbanite crime lately. I myself must have seen the "Ain't Nuthin but a G Thang" video 100 times in my white adolescence but have yet to join in the Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush endorsed assault on the black man. Maybe that's just because the gang signs were all blurred out. Thank you, thank you yet again, MTV for saving me from myself. Who knows what this conspiracy could do once it reaches the Latino and Asian/non-Pacific Islander demographics!

Let's wait and watch. If Ice-T and Public Enemy were just government pawns we should see some escalation of the evidence now that Keys has exposed the plan. These artists have already shown their Americanism by making millions off of the situation. Of course they're in bed with Bush and Cheney. Those guys just drip success.

I think it's already too late and all of this AK-47 jewelry proves Keys is a mere stooge for the gun lobby. Now that Charlton Heston's gone, who's gonna carry the torch? Alicia Keys, that's who, whether she likes it or not.

Let's hurry up and move to Canada before Ben Gibbard exposes indie rock for what it really is: a government ploy to convince white people to buy more iPods.

Potpourri

Today, I've three little nuggets of interweb music video goodness for you.

Justice- DVNO

I've already sung the praises of Justice in last year's best of '07 blog, and this video is already on my best of '08 list. Their video illustrator, So Me, incorporates all of those futuristic 80's television tags. You'll have flashbacks to HBO, MacGyver, and Reading Rainbow intros. What could be better?!



Rivers Cuomo - Lover In the Snow

Cuomo released a solo album of demos this summer, sort of a warm-up to the inevitably disappointing album Weezer is gonna put out in June. The video starts out with Rivers narrating his journey to becoming obsessed with soccer, then the song kicks in (the best song on the album) with a soccer workout montage (not unlike this), ultimately leading to him lengthening his leg in a drastic surgery, traveling the globe attending the past decade of World Cups, and scoring the first goal in a charity celebrity soccer game. He jumps on trampolines. He does Japanese stretches. He dribbles in the rain. Oh, and he's going through a mustache phase. Also, if interested, Cuomo is using youtube to write a song, with the help of anyone willing. I believe they're at step #6, lyrics, so join the fun/weirdness here.



Young at Heart - Fix You

You might want to grab the tissues for this one. I recently heard about this documentary, just released in New York, that follows a 25 member singing troupe as they rehearse for a new show. They're from New England, and have played all over over the world. Oh, and their average age is 80. Oh, and the songs they sing come from the catalogs of the Ramones, James Brown, the Clash, and Outkast. Here's the trailer. The film is being praised as heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once.

The trailer shows the heartwarming part, but this clip is heartbreaking side of the film. It features Fred Knittle, a survivor of congestive heart failure (you can hear his oxygen tank breathing for him as he sings) covering Coldplay's Fix You. The killer - it was supposed to be a duet. His singing partner, Bob Salvini, died of a heart attack days before the performance. Chris Martin has nothing on Fred Knittle.

Bad Idea Show Review: Bon Iver at Lakeshore Theater

photo via Flickr

On Thursday evening in Chicago, you could pay $10.50 to see a first run movie (Superhero Movie, anyone?) or, for 50 cents less, see Bon Iver perform at the Lakeshore Theater. While I cannot weigh in one way or another on the quality of Leatherheads, I can tell you that option 2 was clearly the winner.

Bon Iver is the end result of Justin Vernon spending three months alone in a Wisconsin cabin. When he emerged, he had created "For Emma, Forever Ago," an album that draws influences from the melancholy subdued pop of Elliott Smith or Nick Drake, combined with the falsetto vocals of Jeff Buckley or TV on the Radio. Thursday evening, Bon Iver played the album in sequential order (impressively armed with a different guitar for each song.) The vocal harmonies soared throughout a theater otherwise rendered completely silent. The silence magnified the spaces inbetween the vocal phrasings or strumming patterns. It created an atmosphere where you didn't want to move a muscle - you were simply locked in the moment. Powerful stuff indeed.

The entire album is streaming free online and is thus far my favorite album I've heard this year. And it's well worth the price of whatever other movie is playing this weekend

Ladies and Gentleman, Your First Shoe...

Purdue fresman forward Scott Martin made it public today that he intends to transfer to a different school. Damn.

Martin, who averaged 8.5 points and 3.8 rebounds for the Boilermakers, was the Frick to Robbie Hummel's Frack having played with said phenom since they were embryos. Needless to say, Martin's willingness to eschew a future with Hummel points to larger issues contributing to his decision to cut bait.

Obviously Martin was no slouch, but he wasn't consistent, battling an ankle injury and spotty shooting, not to mention dwelling somewhat in the pleasantly surprising shadow of Hummel.

Then came the inescapable coincidence; the latest issue of Gold and Black Illustrated featured the headline "The Future's So Bright" along with the face of coach Matt Painter and the prospective starting five for next season...which doesn't include Martin. Evidently Scott has wanted to be locked into a starting five since about December and he thinks he'll find that opportunity near home at Bryce Drew U. That has me thinking.

If Martin isn't homesick, as has been bandied about all season (oddly enough, especially considering Valparaiso's proximity to Purdue) and is in fact searching for playing time I have two observations. First: Morris Peterson. MoPete was a sixth-man with a surprising amount of effectiveness. There's no reason to expect Martin to be anything beyond first man off of the bench next year given his outside shooting and rebounding ability. Hell, Gene Keady always reminded players that you're only one injury away from the starting lineup. Plus, given enough time to throw on 15 pounds or so, who's to say Martin stays on the bench for the tip?

Secondly, and this one is the real kicker for me, with Martin's presumed transfer to another D-1 school (look out Marian College) comes the requisite year sat out. In that same intermission senior Nemanja Calasan will have graduated leaving a gaping hole in Purdue's starting five. Gee, who might step into that gap? So if all signs point to a Valpo transfer, Martin is giving up a year on a preseason top 10 squad laden with talent for....for....for what exactly? Sit out a year so that you can start in the same season you would have already been a starter? Huh?

What next? Calasan gets deported. Keaton Grant's knee is inoperable. Kramer gets caught selling crystal meth and E'Twaun Moor flunks out. Woe is us.

I truly hope Martin is homesick, because otherwise, I just don't get it.

Let's Engrave Two

Monday was a rainy opening day at Wrigley Field, but spirits were high. Not only was all of Wrigleyville worshiping at the altar of Fukudome (while watching the remaining 8 spots in the lineup bat 2 - 31 on the day) but Ernie Banks had his statue unveiled at the corner of Clark and Addison. I watched the game at a friend's place a block from the stadium, with several die hard Cub fans, most of whom took notice of Jesse Jackson (in attendance for reasons unknown) wedging himself between Banks and Hank Aaron in every camera shot.

The game itself was a standard Cubs outing, tying the game in the bottom of the 9th on an electrifying Fukudome home run, only to lose in 10. A couple hours after the game ended, I decided to head home. I walked past the statue while heading for the El and stopped to take a quick glance. It looked nice, and there were still occasional fans posing for photos next to Mr. Cub.

I turned to keep walking. Then something caught my eye at the base of the statue. The quote that Ernie Banks is known for.Can you see (or rather, not see) what I didn't see?




If you're looking for an apostrophe in that first word, keep looking. It's not there.

Was Fukudome in charge of proofreading this thing as well? "Let's" is a contraction of "let us."

Leave it to the Cubs to put up a statue that they'll now be forced to correct at some pre-dawn hour this week. In the team's defense, it could have happened to anyone. Contractions kicked my ass in the 5th grade too.

There She Goes

While Dirk is tripping fondly down the chronological REM path and Costello is reliving bygone moments of Dave Coulier, the time seems high for me to come clean with at least one glimpse into my past.

If you could travel back in time to meet 19-year-old Ross McLochness and got the opportunity to ask him what the ideal girl would look like he might have said something like this: "I don't think I could pick her out of a lineup, but I definitely know how I'll meet her. It'll be at a show."

Shows - now called concerts by grownup Ross - were the be all and end all of the mid 90's. You were who you were based on the shows you attended. You proved your mettle by going to shows. Big shows, little shows. Shows where you knew someone in the band and shows where you only wished you were in the band. Shows at the Emerson. Shows at Deer Creek. Shows at Door #3 and the second floor auditorium of some Methodist church. These shows were your life, and thus what better place to meet someone with which to spend the rest of your life...of course, going to shows.

This mythical archetype of a girl came from various sources. She was a sketch more than a masterpiece, but 19-year-old Ross did have a few concrete ideas to work with, and they came from the only stalwart bastion of unceasing feminine paradigms available before DSL: MTV.

First girl first, Ross and all inhabitants of NW 2 at Wiley Hall were big fans of the femme fatale featured in Nada Surf's video for "Popular."


This sassy, big-eyed Jersey girl is a straight-forward 1996 hottie. Don't think that Ross falls for the prototypical American obsession with cheerleaders or has some Ed Woodian angora sweater fetish, but he did know pretty when it came into his dormroom nightly via Alternative Nation and 120 Minutes.

Then came Dorothy Gale from the Blues Traveler video for "Run-Around."



Again, all gingham fetishes aside, Ross knew nice when he saw it. Dorothy is a bit older than the "Popular" girl - but not too much older (read: inaccessible) because she still needs a fake ID. Dorothy is now moving closer to the Ross fantasy of meeting attractive, like-minded girls at shows, even if she's got a lion, tin man and scarecrow running wingman and falls for the tomfoolery of one Ken Ober. (Ken, by the way, calls to mind the younger Ross's fancy for Remote Control's own Kari Wuhrer. That's a post for another blog entirely.) Dorothy here is not only beautiful but resourceful, and 19-year-old Ross is willing to forgive her youthful indiscretions with jam bands.

Then came the piece-de-resistance courtesy of MTV2. She's no bombshell. She's not ending up on any posters in a trucker's bedroom. On the contrary, she is the Volkswagen driving, ice skating girl-next-door from Orbit's "Medicine."



Dedicated, sweater-wearing athlete, not distracted by guys in penguin suits, bands on the ice, or random Zambonis; this is a girl you can take home to Ma McLochness.

Ross had a penchant for pale girls with dark hair. So what. The moral of the story is this. Ross met his wife on the porch of his house, not at a show. His first words to her weren't, "Have you seen these guys before?" but were in fact, "Who are you?"

Ain't life funny?

Back in Gear

Album release day is a holiday of sorts. For music fans it's a culmination of a journey, beginning when you first hear that one of your favorite bands are back in the studio. The waiting game begins... New songs are being written! They're moving to another studio! The demos are adventurous and edgy! The song list has been finalized! Sequencing and mixing are complete! Artwork! We have artwork! When release day finally comes (and you've gone through the self-discipline of refusing to listen to leaked versions on torrent sites) it can be like getting an extra birthday - and one that sometimes can even come several times a year. The quality of that gift can vary of course. Sometimes the gift takes a band that you had a middling interest in, and launches them into the stratosphere of musical giants (see: Z.) Sometimes it treats you like an out of touch aunt, taking something you once held sacred and making you now feel like a fool (see: Make Believe.)

Or sometimes, like today, the gift simply offers a reminder about how we are drawn to bands in the first place.

For the past decade or so, R.E.M. fans have watched the band ceremoniously fall from grace. The commercial failures haven't been that important, although it never went without notice that suddenly their 1980's counterpart U2 was suddenly once again the "biggest band in the world," after two inexplicably sub par albums. But U2 could get away with that. When you're as desperate to remain famous as Bono, you can convince people that you're still relevant, whether the music backs your point or not. R.E.M. did not have that luxury. They never wanted to be rock stars, they just wanted to be a band. The flaw with this mindset, however, is that when the music is uneven (as Reveal was) or just adult-contemporary swill (Around the Sun), you have nothing to fall back on. They couldn't keep shoving a horrible single down people's throats via iPod ads because they had always been a band selling music above image, so when the music doesn't hold up, you just have four normal looking guys from Athens, not..well...this guy.

But the R.E.M. resurgence begins with Accelerate, and thus far reviews seem to be solid. It's not an earth-shattering sonic overhaul, but neither is following the lead of resting on past laurels. It's simply a welcome reminder that the band actually can make a great album without Bill Berry (something that since 1999, I've thought would probably never happen again.)

My all-time favorite R.E.M. clip is from 25 years ago, and it's my favorite for several reasons.

• It shows how different late night shows are today when compared to 1983. This was their 2nd song of the broadcast, which you would never see today, especially with the host interviewing the band in between songs.
• On that same thread, what band plays an untitled, not yet recorded song on their national TV debut? This is what happens when bands decide what they should play, as opposed to record execs.
• It's a reminder that Michael Stipe was once actually camera shy, as he hides behind Peter Buck, piping up only to name drop Herschel Walker.
• The awkward banter is nothing less than compelling. Letterman really wants to get to the bottom of what's going on in Athens, and will not accept "Nothing" as an answer.
• A young Mike Mills still has "rock star" written all over him, doesn't he?