Kick Out the Jams
Only one week remains until Super Tuesday and the Presidential primary elections for 24 states including California and New York. Wear & Tear hopes you are already registered and know your polling place or are voting by mail but if you aren’t sure or haven’t received anything yet from the post office, visit the Rock the Vote website today. For those of us who live in and around Los Angeles, we know that traffic is a major problem that will only get worse unless some solutions are devised and implemented. Today Mayor Villaraigosa unveiled a short-term plan to ease congestion by synchronizing traffic lights, stationing traffic officers at specific intersections, and issuing more tickets to delinquent drivers. The only things asked in return are a half-cent increase in sales tax in Los Angeles County and using public transportation whenever possible. This measure may be on the ballot as soon as November and I fully support the program. Read about it here and decide for yourself, but there’s no denying that the traffic in Los Angeles during morning and evening rush hours is more than just an inconvenience, it’s entirely ridiculous and something must be done about it.
Trades are a vital part of sports and two interesting players made news today. This baseball off-season Johan Santana, a two-time Cy Young and ’07 Gold Glove award winning pitcher, appears to be headed to the New York Mets for four players. The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox were two other teams also publicly interested in the past few months but the Mets got lucky and grabbed him from the Minnesota Twins with either a better offer or the promise of a different league of hitters to face. ESPN The Magazine reported that nine-time All-Star Jason Kidd wants out of New Jersey and Wear & Tear hopes he comes out west to the Lakers. The rumors last year of a Jason Kidd for Andrew Bynum trade obviously never came to fruition and the Lakers made the right move by not letting the 20-year old big man go. Now that LA has a chance to get Kidd in the open market, I hope they take advantage of any opening in talks because his talent and playoff experience would be a great asset to the young Laker roster. We’ll be at Staples tonight to watch Purple and Gold face the Knicks, who won last year when they came here, aired on Fox Sports Net starting at 7:30 pm.
The eclectic college party anthem collection Odelay by Beck, first released in 1996, has been repackaged and expanded in a two disc Deluxe Edition with 13 b-side tracks, three remixes, two unreleased songs, and one only previously available on a soundtrack. Last year I noticed it at a used CD shop for $5.99, picked it up out of nostalgia, and after listening remembered why this album sold me on Beck as a lyricist and musician. Now that it’s been re-released I feel compelled to upgrade but will probably hold off for the time being out of financial prudence. If you were wondering, the peculiar cover art is of a breed of dog called the Komondor jumping over a hurdle, though in this version the picture has been altered from the original photograph with the extra doodles. It isn’t quite the same, but you can find a wig that looks similar to this dog’s hair here.
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