You don’t like Fox, but sometimes Fox has gotta do the right thing, so you’re gonna watch Fox. About quarter till 12 on election night, it’s gonna be Bill O’Reilly sitting there with Sean Hannity. No, no wait a sec, this is gonna be too much fun. You’re not gonna be booing ‘cause you know what’s coming next. So Hannity – they’re going through all these numbers and Barack’s won California, New York and Illinois and Michigan and Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and all these others. And, you know McCain wins Utah or something. Then Hannity’s sitting there next to O’Reilly, and they’re looking at each other, and O’Reilly says, ‘You gonna do it?’ And Hannity says, ‘No.’ So O’Reilly – sweat’s coming, tears are coming down his cheeks – you can see ‘em on your flat screen. And O’Reilly says, ‘Well, Ohio went for Barack Obama. He’s gonna be president of the United States!

I can’t say enough Fraser’s revelatory performance as a Henry Kissinger-like statesman in President Baseball. Fraser was spellbinding, and not just because he was unrecognizable after taking an aging drug specifically for the role. The scene where he negotiated an oil treaty with the King of Salty Arabia was spellbinding. Frightmaster Trent L. Strauss really outdid himself with that one.

The first show that immediately comes to mind is Built To Spill at Metro in Chicago 2001. Specifically, the fall of 2001, a period where every headline read like a further descent into misery. The show came not long after George Harrison’s death and in the middle of an already excellent late night set, the band launched into a cover of Harrison’s “What Is Life,” turning it into a blistering affirmation that the world still had the potential for good in it. “Tell me, what is my life without your love?” goes one line. My soon-to-be wife was with me that night. So was some random guy I went to high school with I bumped into after not seeing him in years. For a few minutes there everything felt okay again. They played “Freebird” that night too.