mom and dad, i know you tried real hard, and you raised me real good, but there ain't no denying - your firstborn child is a huge fucking lush.

I'm getting worried about this summer. Kriston, Jeff and I have all expressed the same concern: there's no clear candidate for Album of the Summer.

I'm sure you know what I mean. It's the CD that ends up being played at the most cookouts, the most road trips. It's great to have in the background on a sunny day, but still works as the evening descends and you decide to put on some shoes. It's probably breezy pop, but not something so sugary sweet that you'll be sick of it by mid-July.

These things usually happen by accident, but I still think it's worth worrying about. We've got some candidates, but they're of dubious strength: the new Malkmus, Weezer and the Fountains of Wayne B-sides collection all have some promise, but I'll be surprised if any one of them turns out to be a home run.

So, two things. First: suggestions? What have been good summer albums for you, and what are you looking forward to?

And second: why don't we put together a playlist here, in comments. If you've got 1-3 songs you think would go well on a mix CD for the uses described above, list them briefly. It doesn't have to be new stuff. It doesn't have to impress the world with your astounding indie cred. It just has to be something that you can drink beer to. I'll get the ball rolling:

1. Stephen Malkmus - Jo Jo's Jacket


2. Rilo Kiley - Portions For Foxes


3. Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

You might remember the flash drive to the right from such keychains as: my keychain. Well, treasure that memory, 'cause Iomega's keychain connector is a piece of junk. It broke once; I reattached it to a link higher up the chain. Now it's broken a second time, and my poor little flash drive is lost out in a big, uncaring world. Nothing too desperately important was on it, although there *is* an openVPN configuration file on there that would make it very easy for malevolent people to do bad things to my mom's PC.

Anyway, my point: these things are pleasantly tiny, but if you buy one don't use the hardware that comes with it.

What do you do when you like money and elitism, but don't have enough money to be really elitist? Do the indie self-identification shuffle: cyclical self-loathing and self-deprecation. Alternately, if your monetary or indie cred prospects aren't looking good, take a preemptive turn to vitriol (joke's on their subtitle: my blogging sucks and they don't seem to know about it).

It's all pretty predictable and tiresome -- but why wait for affluence and middle age to wipe it from your troubled mind? Oddly enough, Pitchfork offers the wisest solution to the unsustainability of the scenester psyche.

I've been jealous of my friends' brushes with DC fame -- Kriston got to tell off Bob Novak! Yglesias knows Wonkette! Catherine's spotted Stephanopolous! The best I've managed so far is peering at Condi Rice's birthday party on my way to the bathroom at Galileo. That's okay... I guess.

Last night I came a little closer to evening the score. On my way home from the Y, stopping at Whole Foods to buy some organic cruelty-free skim milk (lactated in the presence of soothing quartz crystals, no doubt) I saw Dennis Kucinich. Well, okay, I didn't see him. The guy ahead of me in line saw him as I stupidly fiddled with my phone. The exchange went something like this:

Guy (sarcastically): Looks like it'd be a blast to work for him (points).
Me: Huh?
Guy: Over there. Kucinich.
Me: (thinking: what is he trying to say? "goose and finch"? "kaja goo goo"?)
Guy: Dennis Kucinich. He ran for president.
Me: That's like, uh, king, right?

At last I gathered my wits and snapped a cameraphone picture, which I seem to have immediately deleted on my way out of the store. But trust me: the three or four pixels you're missing out on would have been indisputably Kucinichesque. Other fascinating bits of Kucinichiania:

• even shorter than you'd think


• hair is made of plastic


• was giving the people at the bread counter a hard time vis a vis loaf selection, apparently