When it comes to digesting the endless torrents of campaign bravura coming down the culture tubes these days, I’ll take Obama’s achey smoothitude over Hillary’s obsessive triangulation any ol’ day, though … sometimes I feel like I’m being drafted into some army of unholy uplift. This old-fogey conservative Daniel Larison quite nicely nailed it.

Our top pick for tonight is the one and only king of “soul power,” Maceo Parker, the funk saxophonist who’s played with James Brown as well as Funkadelic-Parliament.

Maceo Parker, Leo Tardin, Grand Planoramax (featuring Celina Glenn)\
House of Blues
7p. 21+
$25-$35

Other picks:

Mariann (The Real Shames) reunites with former Luv-Taps partner, Martine, to form Killer 45s with Brittany Nicolle (The Vibemerchants). Sharing the bill is Monster Zero.
10p. 21+. Free. Double Down Saloon

Unplugged: One Pin Short, Palmerston
8:30p. All ages. Free. House of Blues Courtyard

Say When, Alta Revere
10p. 21+. $5. Beauty Bar

Blaze, Potluck, Jesus and Killa C, Cornerstone
6p. All ages. $15-$17. Jillian’s

Fighting Life
10p. 21+. Free. Divebar

Little by way of updates has emerged following the Internal Revenue Service presence yesterday afternoon at Pure Management Group’s office. However, Norm Clarke over at the Review-Journal — which shares an owner, Stephens Media, with CityLife – suggests through sources that federal agents raided PMG because of the money flowing not at the cash registers, but into the hands of doormen of Pure, PMG’s flagship and largest club.

That the IRS would have chosen to nose around Pure’s books and records, instead of those from any other nightclub in town, might merely be chalked up to the fact Pure is arguably the most popular nightspot in town, with the ability to shoehorn 2,500 people into its many rooms and two levels. In fact, one anonymous source familiar with PMG’s business practices was surprised the company was targeted, given its cautionary, by-the-books reputation within the nightlife industry.

It’s no secret would-be club attendees who grow weary of standing in line — and those Pure lines roping through Caesars Palace’s casino are infamously aggravating — often slip cash to a discriminating staffer in order to insure a speedier entrance. I’ve seen it happen at countless clubs; and the bigger the event, the thicker the wad of cash it takes for the doorman to unlatch that velvet rope — and this is often before the patron even gets to the cash register, where covers can range from the average $20 up to $100 on a holiday weekend.

Worse, it can happen after you’ve entered and paid, too. During a New Year’s Eve event in 2001 at Jack’s Velvet Lounge — the former Venetian nightspot where Tao now holds court — security queued up attendees on the upstairs’ disabled-person’s ramp in an attempt to stave off dance floor overcrowding at midnight. The man dressed in black at the front wouldn’t let anyone through unless he was offered $100 – I watched one man gladly fork over a few bills for his party and be allowed through — which infuriated many of the patrons stuck on the ramp during the midnight countdown, some who already dropped a Benjamin or two just to get in. In this instance, promoters said the venue fired the offending guard-cum-entrepreneur two days later, but such discipline in Vegas nightlife is uncommon.

It’s hard to imagine revelers sympathizing with Pure, should it be penalized on this basis; palm-greasing has long been a sore spot among partiers both local and visiting, though it’s also one of the few remaining old-school customs still practiced in hyper-corporate Vegas. Ultimately, it’s too early to speculate whether the IRS will make an example of Pure. That said, if I was a partner or manager at any other popular nightspot in town, right now I’d be a little nervous.

If you haven’t seen Cloverfield, don’t bother – because our nascent downtown is living the hit movie with The Monstrously Ill-Conceived Downtown Arena Project That Wouldn’t Die! After dangling along for months, cringing at threats from city officials to either put up or shut up on its downtown arena project, REI Neon/Warburg Pincus shuffled back in front of the City Council yesterday – and this time, the crew’s got backup from new bros — in the form of The Baltimore-based Cordish Co.

Cordish is, like, a supposed expert in reviving downtowns with sports, arenas and other jocktacular pursuits of people who like holding, gripping, throwing and generally touching balls. City officials, in awe of this new ball-touching would-be power couple, gave REI yet another extension to get its project under way.

Could the Cordish Co.’s muscle make the Arts District-crushing downtown arena a reality? Wellllll … Cordish does have a good record of vacuuming up taxpayer loot for downtown revival projects. But, like possible partner REI, it’s also quite adept and making grandiose promises and then flaking on them.

Just came across this ominous essay in Seattle’s already formidable alt-weekly The Stranger. Author and monologuist Mike Daisey runs the voodoo down on why American theater has gone so far downhill in recent years.

The culprits? Not so much TV, iPods, the NEA or short attention spans, according to Daisey, but rather the unsavory swelling of marketing and fundraising departments at regional, “non-profit” theaters. He’s talking about a new wave of Philistine administrator sell-outs — the ones who’ve now realized they can pull in millions in donations from a progressively smaller, older and wealthier target audience by consistently mounting older, safer, snoozier productions their donors can actually swallow. Meanwhile, edgier productions that might actually resonate with someone under 65 — at least those with any kind of budget — are going extinct.

Here’s something I found extra scary: ex-New Yorker Daisey presents an image in this essay of himself taking the stage before a sea of empty seats where he “can hear the oxygen tanks hissing.” Sounded a bit hyperbolic, until I went to a community production that very night and experienced, yes, the hissing of an oxygen tank 15 feet away that went on right up until the middle of a fairly climactic scene. That’s when the tank’s owner mumbled rudely and shuffled out of the theater, tank in tow …