THINGS I WISH MY KIDS WOULD ASK ME
Editor’s note: Barry Courter has a 21-year-old son who is a junior in college and a 16-year-old daughter.
Q: Dad, once I am married, should my wife and I have separate or joint checking accounts?
A: Your mom and I have had both, and separate works best for a trillion different reasons, including not having to ask for money, explain a purchase or feel beholden to someone else. Figure out the bills and split them down the middle, and keep your own account. Creating a joint savings account is good, too.
— Barry Courter
SCREEN SCENE
NOW SHOWING: “Get Him to the Greek”
British bad-boy comic Russell Brand reprises his role as British bad-boy rock and roller Aldous Snow, the character he created in the 2008 romantic comedy “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” Less of a sequel than a companion piece to that film, “Get Him to the Greek” sends Snow on a road trip from his swinging London pad to the Greek theater in Los Angeles, where he’s scheduled to give the end all comeback concerts. Accompanying him on this wild journey is his minder, low-level record label employee Aaron (Jonah Hill). Elisabeth Moss, Rose Byrne and Sean Combs (yes, that Sean Combs) co-star. — Ethan Alter
BLOG IT
WHAT: www.neatorama.com
Go to Neatorama for some of the coolest stuff in the world and online. For example, did you hear that Google’s interactive Pac-Man logo cost $120,483,800 in productivity? (But, man, was it awesome.) Check out some of the most interesting transparent animals on Earth or see some heart-wrenching images from the Gulf Coast oil spill. If that’s too depressing, watch a video instead: see a real-life tortoise vs. hare race, or watch people having fun with those new Dyson bladeless fans. There’s a section called “Viral Around the Web,” which features the most popular items on the site. It’s great for a quick look in case you don’t have time to browse such winning clips as “New Subculture: Teen Werewolves” (um, if you haven’t seen this, do not pass go, g to Neatorama to be horrified) and “How LOST Should Have Ended” (short and funny). — Kim Ossi
— McClatchy Newspapers
POP PICKS
ARTIST OF THE WEEK: Sleigh Bells, “Treats” (CD)
When you see the hipsters and geeks strutting as if they’re prizefighters this summer, you’ll have a good idea of what’s playing on their iPods. While part of Sleigh Bells’ appeal has to do with its bold inventiveness, a lot more of it has to be chalked up to the air of invincibility that comes through in the duo’s bruising, high-impact sound, which elicits a visceral reaction that gets you to really indulge in it excessess. In the midst of these gale-force dynamics, there’s an irrepressible catchiness to “Treats.” — Arnold Pan
LISTEN: “Inter-Be,” Peter Wolf Crier
The Midwestern duo of Peter Pisano and Brian Moen are really on to something with the title of their first record. That phrase, “Inter-Be,” goes a long way in describing what’s going on, here. It covers not only the sonic landscape, which echoes both back into td forward into the future, but also the emotion of the record and, perhaps most interestingly, where their sound falls in today’s musical world. They have a sound that is very much “of today,” but it also taps into sounds that have been around for ages, and the way they combine them on “Inter-Be,” the way they exist between the past and the present, is what makes these songs so arresting. — Matthew Fiander
— PopMatters.com