Entertainment

It's really goin' down. After that Chromeo/Telephoned show, you gotsta head down 7th street to check ?uestlove doing a 3 hour set from what I hear. Then Friday it's Dead Prez, at Red 7. Wow. What a week. Click the flyers below to see them full size.

Today is the last day to vote in the Austin Chronicle's SOUND WARS Competition, and one of our favorite hip hop duo's Riders Against the Storm (RAS) is pretty close to winning but they need YOUR VOTES TODAY before midnight!

If you vote by midnight Texas time tonight you will win a FREE DOWNLOAD of the RAS album Speak the Truth by following these steps:

1. Create an account(s) and register to VOTE in the SOUNDWARS contest HERE, then vote for RAS.

2. Click this link to send an email to RAS with your new username and password so they can make sure you're registered.

3. Wait for a confirmation email from RAS with the album download link/code.

Please CLICK THIS LINK to register and submit one vote per as many email accounts as you want to enter. And you don't have to live in Austin to vote so spread the word!

SOUND WARS is a digital song competition between local Austin bands competing for notoriety, exposure, and a chance to play the 20th annual Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival on Sunday, August 29 at Waterloo Park.

So please register and PLACE YOUR VOTES for Riders Against the Storm, one of the freshest new hip-hop groups in Austin!!!

People die every day, and honestly, I generally handle it pretty well. When it comes to celebrity deaths, I rarely care all that much. I feel for them the same way I feel for everyone else. And we all have our things that we go through.

Click here to hear NPR's All Things Considered Pekar Obit

But this one ranks right up there with John Peel. What John Peel was to presenting music to the masses, Harvey Pekar was to the literary world. In my eyes at least.

If that doesn't make sense to you, consider this. There was no man in the history of DJing music, that took a more pure approach than John Peel. No one. In that same regard, there was no man in the history of comic books that took a more pure and real approach to writing comic books.

My boyfriend and I recently watched the movie “Away We Go.”  Toward the end of the movie, main characters Burt Farlander and Verona De Tassant, who are expecting their first child any second, exchange some impromptu vows.  One of the vows Burt pitched to Verona was this:

“Do you promise to let our daughter be fat or skinny or any weight at all? Because we want her to be happy, no matter what. Being obsessed with weight is just too cliché for our daughter.”

“Say no!” I wanted to yell.  But instead I hit the pause button and editorialized for a while.  (Just a little service I provide for free to my family.  They love this about me.)

On its face, these two sentences sound innocent enough.  I mean, who wouldn’t want their daughter to be happy no matter what?  And only the most shallow, pageant-pushing mom would want her daughter to be obsessed with her weight, right?