The Pipettes are great. They get up on stage in vaguely matching outfits, doing their homemade choreography, singing these fun, cheeky songs about boys and being a girl.

They are the anti-Winehouse. I love bands like the Shirelles, the Ronettes, the Supremes. Amy Winehouse has the voice of 60′s girl group star, but everything else about her is the inversion of those groups. Her tats, her trashy talk, her used up, discarded look. Lying, canceling shows to hit the bar. And her songs—her hit is about refusing to go to rehab.

But the glamour, grace, fun, sweetness of those groups still exists one night at the Troubadour. In a better universe, in a better England, the Pipettes would be the stars, and Amy Winehouse would be getting what she deserved.

Mah, but let’s not turn everything political. I loved the Pipettes. Their clap along songs are infectious and their glow is overwhelming. They have that radiant smile of the girl from X-Ray Spex, and they put that smile on your face, too. Yay Pipettes!

“There’s only 100% pure beef in our beef?”

Shouldn’t this go without saying?

Is this a Discordian joke, like changing “No Smoking” signs to “No Smoking or Spitting” to subtly undermine public confidence? Is there some group out there that’s been accusing McDonald’s of putting poultry in its beef? Are the marketers at McDonald’s trying to imply other burger places use something besides cow between their buns?

Whatever the company’s intent, they have planted a seed of doubt in my mind where one never before existed.

A decent respect for those that pay attention to these pages demands that I address the recent failed immigration bill.

Last year I marched down Wilshire Blvd in support of a sea change regarding our immigration policy.

My opinions haven’t changed. Peaceful people should be able to move across borders in order to find work. We already allow unfettered global movement of capital in order to find workers. Why do we assign these rights to artificial entities but deny them to real human beings?

Furthermore, the core values of our Constitution—the rights enshrined in that great document, and in the Declaration of Independence—precede its existence. They are rights that belong to all mankind. Our founding fathers did not invent them; they were simply wise enough to recognize and codify them in Law. These are rights—to life, to liberty, to the pursuit of happiness—that are the inheritance of all mankind. I would not deny them to any who in good faith come to our country and try to claim them.

Nevertheless, I did not support the immigration reform bill that was rightfully killed in the Senate. And I did not march in the most recent rallies that hoped to support it.

That bill was hopelessly flawed, if for no other reason than that it would have given Citizenship to known, convicted felons. If good people should be rewarded wherever they are, then justice demands we punish the bad wherever they are as well. Peaceful people should be allowed; predators should be barred.

And that is the core issue: to allow or disallow, one must have the power to do so first. The bill, absent any real enforcement provisions, would not have been a reform of our borders (North and South), but an abdication of our responsibility for them. A wounded patient does not choose to bleed or not bleed, regardless of which is happening.

I still hope for real reform of our nation’s immigration system. One compatible with both our sovereign duties and our commitment to universal Liberty. Right now we just have a broken leg.

When your ticket to the Greek Theatre says the show starts at 7:00pm, they aren’t lying like all those jackleg indoor venues. The Greek Theatre isn’t trying to fake you out, draw you in so they can increase their bar sales. The Greek Theatre doesn’t survive apocalyptic forest fires so that you can stand around drinking overpriced imported beers and admiring each others’ hundred dollar haircuts. The Greek Theatre is here to host music.

So you walk in on Electrelane’s last song, which makes you more despondent, you feel even more alone, and use your last few dollars to purchase a Large Domestic Beer. You find your seat, between two groups of strangers. A few moments later, the lights darken. You stand up, and decide to down your beer Right Now.

Arcade Fire is exactly the kind of beautiful music that crushes your soul. The pipe organ builds and builds, and your tears build along with it, until you can’t tell the taste of salt from the sound of the guitars, and the wetness on your cheeks feels like a trumpet, and your emotions crash out in a wave, just like the music on stage. The band comes back for encore, and they play that song, and your tears flood the amphitheater. They drown the audience and sweep everyone down the hill into the city and deposit them on their beds. And you’re caught in the deluge, too, straight down Vermont, a little turn on Wilshire, and before you know it, you’re there, next to the Ambassador Hotel, on your own futon, curled up, wet, collapsed. The tears pull back into your body, the flood recedes, the city dries, and the next morning everything looks shiny and washed and new again. It’s beautiful and clear in Los Angeles, again.

Next time you won’t be late for the show.