1. I got all kinds of depressed yesterday as I walked by the newly renovated shop space at 14th and 1st. (I secretly love that it's been boarded up, empty, and a place for down and out types to hangout in front of for so long.) It's going to be a fucking Hot & Crusty. I'm not even linking to them. Think Upper East Side on Madison or Lexington. Overpriced pastries and sandwiches and no atmosphere. That's the bad news. The good news?? According to a 03.17.08 Community Board 3 calendar, the Knitting Factory is applying for a liquor license on 14th btwn A and B, which is a one story building that I've feared would be razed and made into a 15 story monstronsity. Fingers crossed. A hot music spot in the East Village? Who woulda thunk! And if you're around at 4pm today, head down to the current Knitting Factory to get wristbands for tonight's MySpace secret show with Anti Flag, whose current EP The Bright Lights Of America is available in its entirety on MySpace for your listening pleasure.

2. Spring is coming, the sun is out, but it's still fucking cold. This gives me that end-of-winter edge-of-my-seat aggressive energy. I want to workout, bounce off walls, hit stuff! All this has brought me to Mika Miko, the perfect spring has not-quite-but-almost-and-better-fucking-soon-or-somebody-dies sprung music. Mika Miko is an underground all-girl punk/noise band from L.A. Dual vocalists yell out undecipherable call-and-response lyrics, and the band jumps around maniacally and punches out catchy guitar hooks. They cite bands like Bad Brains and Black Flag as influences. But despite a stiff burst of angry-sounding noise, I sense a lot of edgy humor and teens mostly just trying to have fun (while giving everyone the finger). Apparently there's an entire burgeoning L.A. scene of this punk-youth-gone-wild. Punk is back! Check out their Wikipedia entry, their MySpace and this video on YouTube and pony thrash (their term) some of that winter-fuckoff-already energy. (written by JMH)

3. In case you've been living under a rock, I wanted to make sure that you know Hillary Clintorious is a big fat liar (as if that's news) and she's finally been caught with video proof contradicting her wild assertions about landing amidst sniper fire on a trip to Bosnia. Watch it all here. Who would I want to answer the phone at 3 in the morning? Not Hillary, but I'd love to get some snipers to fire at her around that time while she sleeps.