You may remember Jim Spellman from such local bands as the High Back Chairs (late-80s Dischord) or Velocity Girl (90s indie-pop cult faves). Or maybe you've seen him recently with the local band he currently fronts, Julie Ocean (who open for oddball punk legends Half Japanese at the Rock and Roll Hotel next month). What we'll bet you didn't know is that Spellman pays his bills in a day job as a producer for CNN. We sure didn't.

What you may also find surprising is that Jim Spellman is apparently a masochist. Because not only did he willingly submit to take a hit of the "non lethal" law enforcement weapon of choice, the taser, but he also came out of it suggesting that it's something everyone should try once. Which we're guessing he only said with someone standing offscreen pointing a taser at him lest he deviate from the teleprompter. Seriously Jim, we hope that CNN pays some serious bucks for you to take 1200 volts for a full five seconds.

The shocking footage (yes, we went there), which we were clued in to by the good folks over at Pitchfork, can be seen here. CNN doesn't like us blog types embedding their video. And yeah, they went there with their headline. Sheesh.

Photo by Nestor Diaz from Julie Ocean's Myspace page.