From left: James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Ted Haggard, Dubya
Last week we launched a new website to coincide with our upcoming book, The Sinner’s Guide to the Evangelical Right (Penguin/NAL). The book is slotted to hit the shelves September 5. Just in time for the Rapture! Here’s the publisher’s description:

“From Bibles designed to look like glossy fashion magazines to mega-churches with ATMs, rock climbing walls, and in one case, a drive-thru McDonalds, the nuances of conservative evangelical culture are no mystery to Robert Lanham, who has his roots in the Bible Belt. Now, with his anthropological eye and trademark wit, Lanham has compiled a handy guide to the evangelical right for those who can expect to be left behind in the End of Days.”

During the course of our study, we became temporary residents of Colorado Springs (the so-called evangelical Vatican), joined an End Times Studies small group, attended a Christian extreme sports event hosted by Stephen Baldwin, met some evangelical mimes, and hung out with Ted Haggard—a megachurch pastor who speaks with George Bush every Monday morning when he’s not busy speaking in tongues in his “prayer closet.” You can read the book’s introduction here.
We’re excited as well about the website, EvangelicalRight.com, which will be like a Drudge Report or a Huffington Post, only detailing the exploits of the Rapture Right.
Stop by when you can, and don’t forget to take our Evangelical Right Quiz:
— True or False: George W. Bush declared June 10 to be “Jesus Day” when he was Governor of Texas.
a) True
b) False
— Plugged In, Focus on the Family’s movie magazine criticized all but one of the following movies of promoting something they refer to as “outercourse.” Choose the supposedly outercourse-free film:
a) Kinsey
b) 40 Days and 40 Nights
c) The 40-Year-Old Virgin
d) Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Find out the answers and take the quiz here.

A tipster send us this short video, filmed in Williamsburg. It’s a must-see [thanks Noel]

We did the book, looks like someone may finally do the video series. From theburg.tv website:

The Burg: the hipster world capital where trust fund kids pretend to be starving artists, starving artists pretend to be able to live completely off of credit cards, and everybody pretends not to notice. Who says gentrification isn’t funny?

And it’s clear that they have their fingers on the pulse of the ‘hood:

[from the Queens Ledger]
Last week, representatives from Live Nation, one of the largest outdoor entertainment promoters in the world, came to Community Board 1 to discuss their upcoming project: six summer concerts that will be taking place inside the giant swimming pool at McCarren Park.
John Huff, senior vice president of Live Nation New York, and talent buyer Sam Kinken shared details regarding the McPool concert series. They also fielded questions, most of which had to do with their choice of musical acts as well as ticket prices.
Live Nation will be staging a total of six concerts – two or three per-month – from July through September. Kinken said they are expecting attendance figures of up to six thousand, a figure that the pool can accommodate. As far as ticket prices are concerned, he and Huff seemed to hedge between $20 and $35 per ticket. “The ticket price will vary depending on how much the artist wants,” said Kinken. “We hope it will be no more than $30.”
The concerts at McCarren Park will most likely feature alternative rock acts, although neither Huff nor Kinken could confirm which acts, if any, had been signed. “I would definitely say that, more than likely, you’ll see independent rock bands,” he told a small group of about ten people at CB1 headquarters. “But at the same time, we’re talking to a number of bands that skew across the 70′s, [similar to] Tom Petty.”
Kinken assured the community that the live shows would not cater specifically to edgy youth acts. “A standard rock show put on by Live Nation is going to feature people like me,” the 36-year-old corporate employee said. He also told board members that Live Nation would respect the state of the pool, which opened at McCarren Park in 1936, although it has been out of service since 1984. “There will be no moshing,” he said. “There will be no body surfing. We do these shows at the appropriate venues, and this is not the appropriate venue…”

Awesome! We’re looking forward to the Bachman Turner Overdrive reunion. Maybe Toad the Wet Sprocket will open. And do they really think Diesel-jeans and blazers wearing hipsters in Williamsburg would ever mosh? As a local tipster asks:

“What about local bands?? Why can’t Todd P book shows there?? What about the Polish or Latino communities…shows that they would come to? Or discounted seats for locals? Or how about WHAT THE FUCK IS CLEAR CHANNELDOING IN OUR PARK?”

Except when they’re played by John Kruk. This video of Kruk rocking out is as priceless as his mullet. [thanks Jud. c/o Can't Stop Bleeding ]

Gellar in Southland Tales
We’re huge fans of Richard Kelly’s first film Donnie Darko and have been eagerly awaiting his follow-up, Southland Tales. Hopefully we’ll get to see it. Evidently, it’s even more bizarre than Darko and has yet to find a distributor. The Voice has a review from Cannes. It sounds like Southland Tales will either be genius or dreadful. It’s difficult to predict since we only agree with Voice critic, J. Hoberman, about 10% of the time.

In the shadow of Da Vinci, Cannes ’06′s first great film: A visionary American comedy about the end of times…
Kelly’s second feature is as talented as—and even more ambitious than—his debut, the cult hit Donnie Darko. A high-voltage farrago of unsynopsizable plots and counterplots, Southland Tales unfolds—mid-presidential campaign—in an alternate, pre- and post-apocalyptic universe where Texas was nuked on July 5, 2005, and a German multinational has figured out how to produce energy from ocean water. The mode is high-octane sci-fi social satire; the cast is large and antic (with wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as an anxious, amnesiac action hero and Sarah Michelle Gellar biting down hard on the role of socially conscious porn queen Krysta Now).
Essentially, Southland Tales is a big-budget, widescreen underground movie. (“Star-Spangled to Death,” one colleague commented as we left the screening.) Filled with throwaway gags and trippy special effects, it’s a comedy as well. Philip K. Dick is the presiding deity—the movie is thick with drugs, paranoia, and time-travel metaphysics—although Karl Marx (and his family) keep surfacing in various guises, including the last remnant of the Democratic Party. The film is a mishmash of literary citations, interpolated music videos, and movie references‚Äîmost obviously to Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly—but it’s even more concerned with evoking the ubiquitous media texture of contemporary American life.
At two hours and 40 minutes, Southland Tales flirts with the ineffable and also the unreleasable. There’s no U.S. distributor; nor does the movie’s humor, much of it predicated on a familiarity with American television, political rhetoric, and religious cant, seem designed to travel easily. Received with a lusty round of boos and a smattering of applause, Southland Tales provoked the festival’s most negative press screening and hostile press conference since The Da Vinci Code. The first question suggested (incorrectly) that Kelly’s movie had set a Cannes record for number of walkouts and asked the director how he felt.
Why was the Kelly Code too much to take? Sensory overload is certainly a factor, but unlike Da Vinci, Southland Tales actually is a visionary film about the end of times. There hasn’t been anything comparable in American movies since Mulholland Drive.

This should be a great show. Hello Mom! is one of 2005′s nicest surprises. From Flavorpill:

Modeselektor’s Hello Mom! is one of the best releases yet on Ellen Allien’s increasingly dominant BPitch Control label ‚Äî and it’s not even proper techno. The Berlin-based duo packed its debut LP to the gills with impish synthetic mischief that does for electronic music fans what the Go! Team does for the indie massive: provide a shameless sugar-rush of dizzying, look-no-hands genre hops. Whether cutting euro-crunk anthems with Cuizinier, unleashing mind-melting ghettotech bounce, or dropping faux-dancehall burners, Modeselektor refuse to be pinned down ‚Äî much less sit still.

And here’s what Pitchfork has to say:

8.3: Hello Mom! might not be a dance-music crossover on the level of, say, Ryksopp albums; it might not even be a crossover on the level of Mylo’s or Vitalic’s, but it’s still impressive enough to entertain folks well outside its core audience– German electro-tech geekery not entirely required. “Impressive” isn’t even the word: There’s hardly a minute on this record that doesn’t keep turning out to be way more fun than the last time you heard it.

Check ‘em out tonight:
when: Tue 5.23 (9pm)
where: APT (419 W 13th St, 212.414.4245)
price: $9

From Pitchfork
Maybe it was the bombs to make you blow. Or the beats to make you bang. Or maybe it’s because her father is a Tamil Tiger and she put out a mixtape called Piracy Funds Terrorism. For whatever reason, British-Sri Lankan mash-up diva M.I.A. has been denied entry into the United States of America. She recently posted the following, um, cryptic message on her MySpace page:
“THEY TRY SHUT MY DOOR!
Roger roger do you here me over!!!!
the U.S immigration wont let me in!!!!!
i was mennu work with timber startin this week, but now im doin a Akon “im locked out they wont let me in” im locked out! they wont let me in! Now Im strictly making my album outside the borders!!!! so il see you all one day, for now ill keep reportin from the sidelines to my people who walk wiv me in the America, dont forget we got the internet! Spread the word! or come get me!!!!!! ill be in my bird flu lab in china! liming and drinkin tiger beer with my pet turtel. I love everyone for the support, now i need it more. ill stay up spread out else where.”

First, he ripped O’Reilly a new asshole. Now he’s after Mary Cheney who is currently on her new book tour. Letterman is becoming must-see TV:

David: … Maybe, I’m wondering if people would rather you had talked about it [being the gay daughter of Darth Vader] during the campaign as opposed to after the campaigns waiting to put it in a book. Would it have been more effective to talk about it then?
Mary: I honestly don’t think it would have…
David: Do they resent you taking the opportunity to make money selling books now, where as before there was something larger to have accomplished?
Mary: I am very hesitant to speak on behalf of anybody. I’m sure there are people who feel that way and I know there are other people who don’t feel that way…

Watch the video here [via Crooks & Liars]

Now that it’s common knowledge that the United States is a.) a country that tortures people and b.) our “rendition” policy and our treatment of “enemy combatants” has inflamed the insurgency in Iraq (while destroying any delusions of our own moral high ground), should we even be debating this?:

[From the Associated Press]
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said for the first time yesterday that officials are at odds over whether a new Army manual should endorse different interrogation techniques for enemy insurgents than are allowed for regular prisoners of war.
The debate hinges on whether suspected terrorists or other insurgents can be treated more severely than captured members of an enemy army. There are concerns such a distinction could fly in the face of a law enacted last year, pressed by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, that explicitly banned cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of prisoners by US troops.
”There is a debate over the difference between a prisoner of war under the Geneva Convention and an unlawful combatant in a situation that is different from the situation envisioned by the Geneva Convention,” Rumsfeld told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense. ”And those issues are being wrestled with at the present time.”…
Shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush decided that ”enemy combatants” captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan would not be considered POWs and afforded the protections of the Geneva conventions. The Pentagon has felt compelled to look for unconventional approaches to gaining timely information from detainees that might help prevent attacks.
Many of those enemy combatants were sent to the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Since then and after the prisoner abuse scandals that erupted in 2004, officials have debated whether all detainees should be treated the same or whether military interrogators should be allowed to use more severe techniques against suspected insurgents — such as those at Guantanamo.
Rumsfeld said a draft of the new manual has been circulated in recent weeks, and there have been meetings with members of Congress to discuss it…
Some military officials, however, said that disclosing details of interrogations would allow the enemy to prepare and train for them