Rant: Vote. Now.

We’ve reached that time of an election year when certain people, so weary of our hyper-dysfunctional electoral process, begin making reasoned arguments against voting. These usually invoke some or all of the following: That your tiny little vote won’t make any difference in a nation with tens of millions of eligible voters; that by voting for someone you’re actually tacitly endorsing this equally hyper-dysfunctional democracy, and you should instead do something more tangible like donate money or help old ladies cross the street.

To quote Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society: Excrement.

It’s as simple as this: Americans should vote because they can vote. Although it often gets lost amid our culture’s navel-gazing self-importance, we too often forget that millions of people who aren’t (or weren’t) lucky enough to call themselves American have fought and died for the most basic citizen’s right of going to a polling place and putting an X next to a name. The more we take that right for granted, the less it will mean. But the more we take it seriously—by educating ourselves on the issues and the people behind them, by insisting that our elected officials behave as the role models we have every right to expect them to be, and by punishing those who don’t by picking someone else next time—the more meaningful each individual vote will become.

Rave: Check out The Fine Gentleman’s Club

One group of lads that definitely has 5280‘s vote is the Fine Gentleman’s Club, a motley crew of local standup comics Chris Charpentier, Sam Tallent, Bobby Crane, and Nathan Lund. On Halloween night, the four recorded their first live album in front of a roomful of mostly costumed (and completely rowdy) fans at Larimer Square’s Comedy Works. With routines ranging from raps about dairy products to the futility of coaching little league baseball to self-deprecation in all forms—this group shows that standup comedy in Denver is scraggly and flat-out hilarious.