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Location: LaGrange, Kentucky, United States

The opinions and interests of a husband, analyst and Iraq war veteran.



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Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Unintentionally funny, though maybe intentionally controversial

Move over Ward Churchill. I predict that in about six hours Conor "Bright Eyes" Oberst will be the new poster boy for the antiwar Left, complete with heated condemnation from all the conservative blogs.

He just finished up as the musical guest on Leno tonight. All I can say is that the sixties live on, in parody if nothing else. A kid from Omaha, younger than me, attempting to channel Dylan, Biaz, Fogerty and Johnny Cash (?) simultaneously to me came off as... well, amusing. The artist appeared deadly serious, though. Lyrics to his Tonight Show number, "When the President Talks to God," are here.

Rolling Stone yesterday mentioned his performance at the Coachella Valley Music Festival.(yeah, I had to google him):
Across the field on Sunday, Bright Eyes closed out the evening -- and the festival -- with a different kind of angst. [...] Oberst, whose music can sometimes sound precious, [I think they meant precocious - Ed.] was able to temper his emotional outbursts with a more subdued sonic palette, drawing on ambient electronica and straight-ahead rock.

A long description such as this, of course, means that Bright Eyes is so out there Rolling Stone has no way of pigeon holing him. But they still like him, so he gets a long awkward description anyway.

It seems Bright Eyes has chosen a side on the issue of the Iraqi War. Good for him. The thing is, I'd already heard of the Dixie Chicks before Natalie Maines made her controversial statements against the war. I'd heard of them because they were good at what they did and were extremely popular. Hope it works out as well for the Bright Eyed Kid. Or perhaps he's modeling his actions on Sinead O'Connor. Her late night antics sure put her on the map.

The 20 Hours Later Update: Still nothing on Google news about any kind of scandal. My usual right leaning blog reads mention nothing. Technorati search results are pretty pathetic, actually. Guess my prognosticating skills could use some honing ;=>

Here's video of the performance in question, if you're at all interested.

The Perhaps I Spoke Too Soon (again) Update: My greatest source of traffic tonight seems to be from Google searches for {"bright eyes" jay leno "when the president talks to god"}

File this under "Who knew?" and "I told ya so." Technorati searches are up, as well. The Left seems to have gabbed hold of this story first. Which, I guess, is to be expected.

Daily Kos noticed this anomaly too:
Jay Leno Leaning Left?

Mon May 2nd, 2005 at 21:57:25 PDT

It was always my belief that, as far as late night broadcast TV goes, Leno was pretty much in the right wing while Letterman undoubtedly held court in the left. My assumptions were based on general observations of blog commentary, the advertisers, the guests, and the mono/dialog in addition to corporate governance.

This evening, however, Leno had muscial guest Bright Eyes.


Ben's Drivel seems to have witnessed the same waste of talent that I did. Read his review and you be the judge:

While songs about politics are all well and good in their proper place and time, I personally couldn’t believe what I was seeing. For Connor Oburst, aka Bright Eyes, who’s former area’s of expertise include drinking, love, and heartbreak, I find this recent excursion into the realm of politics, to put it bluntly, insane.


Angel Dressed in Black notes how hard it is to nail down Jay's politics:

Leno is quite a cameleon. I wonder if he talks to God.
Many lefty blogs seem surprised that this performance made it past the government minders at NBC. I particularly like this one:
I expect to hear news that Bush is attacking Omaha any minute now.
Um, if Bush has such a stranglehold on all media, why would you "expect" news of the Omaha invasion to make it through to you? Will Bright Eyes put the news into verse and go on Letterman?

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