One of the best of the year
It sounds ludicrous, but it's true. Just because she's Norah Jones doesn't mean she doesn't have it in her, and this record is a stunner. It's dark and melancholy and clever and impassioned, and the band behind her is a distinct left turn from her previous work. Crack jokes and flame…

And, Lord have mercy, it's a free show. God damn, I can't wait.

Yeah, that sort of "hey! Hey, guys, I smoke, I do!" thing really only works if your creative output is strong.. Robert Altman was on the advisory board at NORML, but he was fucking Robert Altman. Kevin Smith smoking just feeds the prevailing image of him as a lazy layabout.

Strange
Having been a huge Smith fan in my youth, I distinctly recall his assertions of minimal weed usage. I believe it was because he "didn't like to lose control of [his] faculties," or some such, despite the stonery humor evident in his films. Doing an online Q&A while baked would seem to counter that statement.

The hit streak continues
Once upon a time, catching flak was de rigeur for the Beatles' marketing department, and deservedly so. The muddled first CDs, the one-for-two Past Masters discs, the bungled Rarities collection—it was an endless series of subpar material that willfully invited charges of moneygrubbing.

ZMF, Angels & Kings itself might be tough, given the location, but there's about nine million bars in the Chicago area where you'd skate through, no questions asked. Some of them even have metal readily available on their jukeboxes.