The champagne toast for 2008 has not worn out its welcome yet! Cheers! What a year it has been.

Funny Pitchfork headline: “Smashing Pumpkins’ Anniversary Tour Is a Shitshow.” Two more shows tonight and tomorrow here in Chicago! This could be a real car-crash spectacle. Weeee!

Happier news: Pitchfork’s interview with Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney. The Booze Cab loves Carrie in all that she does.

Other music news you need to know: Milk at Midnight Record Release Show set for Friday December 12 at the Empty Bottle! Have you bought some vinyl today? Or mp3s? Go here!

It’s very strange. Political movements mischaracterize the other side’s general goals all the time. But I’ve never heard of anything like the current conservative mania for blocking a particular legislative provision that nobody is trying to enact.

- Matthew Iglesias

Over the past eight years I have gotten used to the Other Side saying things that weren’t true when they actually were true, or vice versa, but now that they’re out of power it seems even more desperate. Or silly. It’s that fear thing: they always gotta be scared of something, and the ones who stoke the flames know this, so they give them something to fear. Except that, well, it’s just not anywhere near reality. Surprise, eh?

The Fairness Doctrine is not an issue. While I don’t have the pleasure of knowing anyone, at least very close, that is conservative-minded (really, I don’t) or that sends me crazy e-mails about the coming Obama Socialist Revolution, I know that there are people out there who do. I believe that this bit of information should help ease their fears:

The facts are these: Obama’s against its reimplementation, Democratic lawmakers are mystified over the concern, and given the chance as recently as last year to put the Doctrine back in place, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives shot the idea down, with Democratic members voting against it in large numbers.

So send your right-wingin’ relatives this bit of info and see if we can’t calm them down. Tell ‘em Doom says hello!

I happened to catch the Guns n’ Roses tribute band on Letterman last night–he’s having cover bands all week–and it was godawful. They did “Welcome to the Jungle”–or should I say, butchered it–and it made me appreciate Axl Rose’s singing more than I ever have. As for Chinese Democracy, I could not care one bit. If there ever was an album that was sure to suck, this one is it. Yeah, I said it.

In Axl-related news, I read this column by ex-Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic and it brought me back to better (musical) times. Or was it? Who knows, but I have that MTV show somewhere on a videotape and I’ll go out on a limb and say that there’s been nothing of that worth since on that entire station. Is it a station still? Or a reality-show like the rest?

Axl Rose had walked by and Courtney started teasing him. She yelled, “Axl, Axl—you’re the godfather!” Upon hearing this, Axl apparently got very annoyed, walked over to Kurt, and demanded that he keep his woman in line. Kurt turned to Courtney and sarcastically asked his woman to keep in line and left it at that.

I wonder what lucky woman Axl is keeping in line these days. Anyway, speaking of rock and roll buffoons, what the hell happened to Billy Corgan? I’m so glad I saw him/them in 1992-3 when they were awesome because I have almost as little interest in new Smashing Pumpkins music as I do Guns n’ Roses. I won’t lie: the Gish and Siamese Dream shows that I saw were amongst the best I have ever seen. The standout was the pre-Siamese Dream Metro show (almost all were Metro shows) in which they billed themselves as The Turnips and we waited in line in the hot August sun trying to get in. Once we got inside the place was steaming and my lasting memory will be hanging on the outskirts of the mosh pit wearing nothing but shorts and a vest (somehow I had lost my t-shirt), sweating madly and slamming against the bodies that would circle around my way.

One other lasting memory: the anticipation right before the Pumpkins came out, knowing that we were all about to watch a band get huge. “Cherub Rock” kicked in and they were off. Where did you go, Billy Corgan? What a knucklehead. These recent shows sound embarrassing to everyone, band and fans alike.

“This idea that we need to know more, like there’s some dark hidden secret, some secret link, is just a myth, and it’s a myth thrown up by people that wanted to exploit the politics of fear,” Ayers said. “And I think it’s a great credit to the American people that those politics were rejected. The idea that we should continue to be frightened and worried and barricaded is falling down, and it should.”

- Bill Ayers

The more I read about this guy, and read his own words, the more I like him and agree with him. Including his views on Vietnam, and how it applies to the Iraq War. To the left of Obama, for sure, but we knew that. No apologies, none needed.

“I’ve been quoted again and again as saying, ‘I don’t regret it,’ and saying, ‘I don’t think we did enough.’ And I don’t think we did enough,” Ayers said. “Just as today I don’t think we’ve done enough to stop these wars and I think we must all recognize the injustice of it and do more.”

I’ll admit it, I’m a little bummed at the news about Kerry Wood leaving the Cubs. I’m a traditionalist that way, in that I like it when players stay with the same team for a long time, if not their entire careers–which is pretty unusual these days. It’s different than when you pick up some guy like Nomar Garciapparra or Alfonso Soriano and they do well for a season and then they’re gone, or they get injured, or they just start sucking. Players like Wood have an arc; there’s history to it. He was a rookie sensation, became a solid starter, then the injuries, and then he came back as a closer. His career should have ended in Chicago with a World Series ring.

But it doesn’t happen that way. So it’s too bad, and I’m sure that he will get his ring like Mark Grace did, with another team, like all the ex-Cubs do. Probably with a team that’s been in the league for ten years and has no history at all whatsoever. So that bums me out, but I’ll be happy for him if he does.

Evil-doers, unite!

The priest at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in downtown Greenville has told parishioners that those who voted for Barack Obama placed themselves under divine judgment because of his stance on abortion and shouldn’t receive Holy Communion until they’ve done penance.

In a letter posted on St. Mary’s Web site, Newman wrote that “voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil.”

Who was the “plausible pro-life alternative” in this election? McCain? Ha ha! In the past this may have gotten me worked up, sure, but now I just have to laugh. Ha ha ha! It’s funny. Ho ho ho! We are coming to the end of eight years of almost exclusive Republican rule, with pro-lifers wielding the power and the glory, and what do they have to show for it? What did they do for the pro-lifers?

The dirty secret of the right-wing is this: “pro-life” is total bullshit. It is nothing but a wedge issue. These men (and they are almost exclusively men–white men) don’t care one bit about overturning Roe v. Wade, nor do they care about protecting the lives of the unborn. They just want your vote, righteous ones. And, well, it didn’t work this year. As these bishops and priests are finding out, they have no influence on politicians, anymore than they do on their own parishioners. There’s a positive sign. In fact, it is change we can believe in.

Of the many great gifts I have received this year, this is one of the best. My baby and I love to listen to records and drink Guinness in this room. Currently spinning: Miles Davis, “‘Round About Midnight“

Two of my favorite voices, Corin Tucker and Ed Vedder, cover a John Doe/Kathleen Edwards song, “The Golden State.” Very nice. I could listen to them sing all day and night.

Other Pitchfork stuff: A live Greg Dulli album!

“Any one of us here would consider it a privilege to die tomorrow–die tomorrow!–to bring about the end of abortion,” said Auxiliary Bishop Robert Hermann of St. Louis.

- Chicago Tribune: Catholic bishops plan to forcefully confront Obama

That’s a moderate way of approaching the issue, your Excellency. It sounds as if he’s ready to strap on some ammo and walk into a clinic, for Christ’s sake! Reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from Caddyshack:

Tony D’Annunzio: Another Rob Roy, Bishop?
Bishop: You never ask a navy man if he’ll have another drink, because it’s nobody’s goddamned business how much he’s had already.
Judge Smails: Wrong, you’re drinking too much your Excellency.
Bishop: Excellency, fiddlesticks, my name’s Fred and I’m a man, same as you.
Judge Smails: You’re not a man, you’re a bishop, for God’s sakes.
Bishop: There is no God…

Some nice hot peppers from Michigan, courtesy of my buddy Buck.