We kind of have mixed feelings about Godspeed You Black Emperor here at the Baltimore Chop. They’re a band that’s always had a lot of vision and integrity and has been unique every step of the way, defying comparison to other bands in an age where you are the sum of your culture.

On the other hand we’ve been suffering reunion tour fatigue for several years now and that shows no sign of letting up any time soon (and definitely not this week, which sees yet another Dismemberment Plan show on the calendar.) At the very least, Godspeed isn’t relying on all the old ‘hits,’ having just finished a brand new album that they’re bringing along on tour but didn’t bother to tell anyone about.

So if you ponied up the $25 to buy a ticket to tonight’s sold out show with Zomes you’ll be among the first to have a chance to buy a copy of Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! which officially comes out October 16.

We did not pony up. Instead we’re going to be attending a debate watch party with a second TV tuned to the Orioles game.

We’ve been sort of questioning why we should even bother to watch the debates this year. We’re certainly not an undecided voter, and the debate formats are pretty corny and restrictive and don’t allow for much actual point-counterpoint. Everybody thinks their guy won and the cable networks pretend to care about the opinions of idiot focus groups.

But then we remember that sometimes, some golden, glorious times debates produce things like Joe the Plumber.

Four years ago nobody had heard of Joe the Plumber when John McCain threw a desperate Hail Mary in the third debate and mentioned his name like twenty odd times. They were trying to pounce upon something Barack Obama had said in a stupid and desperate way and it blew up in their faces. Apparently the Romney campaign was too busy sulking in the Fall of ’08 to take notice.

It took the national media about 2 hours to expose Joe the Plumber as a complete fraud who didn’t own a business, wasn’t about to buy a business, wasn’t named Joe and didn’t actually have a plumbing license. Where is he now? He’s running for congress on the ‘kill Mexicans’ platform, doing more out-of state fundraising than actual campaigning.

But the best part about the above clip is that Everything Barack Obama says in it came true. Four years ago we had 46 million Americans uninsured and now most of them are covered. A business of the size that Joe the Plumber worked for isn’t paying anything extra, and a business as large as say, Papa John’s is paying about $0.14 per pizza to cover its tens of thousands of workers, which most people consider to be a really good deal.

So we’re going to inevitably tune into all three debates while keeping one eye on baseball. You never know which one of Mitt’s many Zingers will end up being the next Joe the Plumber.