Hey, did you know K-tel Records is still around? The label sent me an alt.country compilation called "Exposed Roots" and while it's well-assembled and complete - you got your Meat Puppets, your Gillian Welch, your Whiskeytown, and the editors of No Depression have blessed it - I haven't actually listened to it yet, because I'm so thoroughly cowed by the K-tel label. Maybe now, the Minneapolis uber-label is ready for their greatest challenge: conquering the multi-headed Hydra that is Modern Progressive Rock by cutting those 25-minute Flaming Lips, Dinosaur Jr. and Ween numbers down to sprightly, three-minute waffle stomps suitable for beach listening. Which brings us to The Passenger! Four incredible websites! One great collection! If you act now, you can get the Postcards from Paradise e-mail newsletter, featuring non-column bone-us stuff written by the same guy who writes the very same crap that you're reading! Call now! Department Lemur operators are standing by!

You wanna know why I'm smiling? Because a van full o' girl poets is coming to your town and you're powerless to stop them. Since 1997, Sisters Spit's Ramblin' Spoken Word Roadshow has taken a group of celebrated spoken word artists through the great bulge of America - a motley crew of word pirates including but not limited to Marci Blackman, Eileen Myles, Harriet Dodge, Beth Lisick, Shar Rednour and a bunch of other names you might encounter if you could be bothered to pick up a damn chapbook every now and again. Captained by Bay Area poetry impresarios Sini Anderson and Michelle Tea, this ain't the literary equivalent of Lilith Fair, and these women ain't Jewels - unless you mean the rough-cut variety. Sister Spit shows are lewd, off-color, angry, sexy, hilarious, uplifting, honest, and even a little brutal. (Tea got "very drunk" after a 1998 Cleaveland performance, started "lip-synching to Indigo Girls" and tried to seduce "two big-haired girls with fake tans, press-on nails and tube tops." Tube tops. Oh mai oui!) The Spit schooner drops anchors at Las Vegas' most celebrated goddamn dive, the Double Down Saloon, on July 3; beyond that, you'll need to consult the official site for news and propaganda. There be squalls ahead, matey.
 

Yes, Harry Knowles, I hate you and everything you stand for. But why? Is it because your "Ain't It Cool News" movie fansite touches me on a tender spot - the part of me that actually cares how much a movie grosses in its opening weekend and what Keanu Reeves' salary demands are? I mean, I grew up in Southern California, at the glistening teat of the movie industry - what's your excuse, America? And you, Harry - why can't your site be more like Cinescape Online, a movie insider page based on a popular fanzine, that has all the same behind-the-scenes daily factoids, photos and conjecture your site offers, yet is somehow much more enjoyable to read? And furthermore - what's with the SHOUTING and the RANDOM EXCLAMATION POINTS?!!!!?! And your fans ... sheesh, whatta bunch of knuckle-dragging shut-ins and studio executives (same difference)! At any rate, while I'm embarrassed by my interest in the creation and business of Hollywood blockbusters I am nonetheless susceptible to it, and Cinescape allows me to pursue that interest without feeling like a complete idiot. The devil's in the details, as Jerry Bruckheimer no doubt said on the set of "Armageddon."
 

"Someone Talked!" the sailor cries, pointing an accusing finger at you as he sinks to his watery grave. This haunting artwork - most recently seen in David Mamet's "The Spanish Prisoner" - was just one of hundreds of American propaganda posters designed to bolster morale and prevent homefront apathy and blundering during World War II. This collection - part of the National Archives and Records Administration's official site - paints a compelling picture of an era many of us will only know through films made during or based upon that fading era. And frankly speaking, looking at the anti-Nazi and production-for-use statements archived here, I still can't begin to imagine the fear, pride, anger and loss that generation must have felt. The NARA site provides historical background for each poster, and the psychology that drove them, but without real context, what do we know? All these posters can do is push us that much closer to the time when loose lips could literally sink ships. A thought-provoking must-see.
 

Disneyland's Haunted Mansion attraction - the coolest in the entire park next to Pirates of the Caribbean - celebrated its 30th anniversary last week. For three decades, the haunted room has been "actually" stretching, Madame Leota's disembodied head has delivered grim supplications from her crystal ball, the ghosts in the grand ballroom have kept twirling and the hitchhiking ghosts have followed you home. Thirty years - and this old house still kicks Bob Vila's pasty white butt. Doom Buggies.com not only tells you everything you ever wanted to know about the Mansion - from the first design sketch to opening day - but offers a wealth of multimedia extras few sites can match. Appoint your desktop in gloomy visage with the HM desktop theme; watch RealVideo of Drew Barrymore, Kurt Russell and Woody Harrelson exploring the manse in their younger, more corruptible states; shiver to the laugh of the mighty Paul Frees. Loop the latter indefinitely for maximum effect. Chef Mayhem's (nee Jeff Baham's) site deserves more praise than I can give it; it is one of the best fan-created sites I've ever had the pleasure of spending a sleepless night in.

Yes, my friends, K-tel will save us all from waste and want. K-tel will stop David Foster Wallace. If K-tel had released "Infinite Jest," it would have been 50 pages long. And it would have come with a free Veg-O-Matic. See you next week!