Here's an update from Glenn Beck's Old-Timey Tent Revival this weekend outside Disney, Fl this weekend. The writer likens him to Elmer Gantry in the piece. While wholly appropriate of Beck's style, I'll actually give the nod to Keith Olbermann's take on Beck as being superior. KO refers to Beck as Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes who is the main character in the 1957 Elia Kazan film, A Face In The Crowd.
As some of you may recall, he was the cock o' the walk back in those salad days of Blogsylvania and I'm pleased to report that he's still got his chops.
Rebel Music -- Wyclef Jean Loss Leaders -- Spoon The Murder Weapon -- T Bone Burnett Avenue B -- Iggy Pop The Troubles -- The Roches Universally Speaking -- Red Hot Chili Peppers Troubled Times -- Fountains Of Wayne Even Flow -- Pearl Jam The Crane Wife 3 -- The Decemberists I Could Say -- Lily Allen
Bonus, (it's finally Spring even tho' it fuckin snowed last night) cut...
Kucinich, as always, is refreshingly honest, forthright and plain spoken in both his tone and rhetoric. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm proud on a daily basis that he's my Rep.
Thanks to my lovely wife's keen eye to detail, I'm reminded that today, we celebrate the 61st birthday of Mr. Nick Lowe. Arguably, one of the finest song writers of our generation.
Here's Nick with that great Rockpile lineup from 1978. Many happy returns and best wishes for many more days, Basher!
No real fan of musical theatre am I, but Sondheim is lots different. He writes great lyrics that tell age old stories with a complexity of arrangement unheard of elsewhere in the genre. He is, in no uncertain terms, the king.
Here's a clip from Sunday In The Park With George. Dig the staging, it's relationship to the tempo of the music and it's progress as Seurat "paints" the famous picture. Trust me, you gotta be smart and stuff to figure these kinds of things out.
What a tool Gene Simmons is. I am so fuckin' tired of all these self righteous, free market, determinists. Blow me, asshole.
Oh, and if you don't believe me, just ask Al Franken, (my italics)...
In a February 4, 2002 interview on the NPR radio show Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Simmons said to Gross regarding his claim to have bedded about 4,600 women: "If you want to welcome me with open arms, I'm afraid you're also going to have to welcome me with open legs" (paraphrasing The Who's hit song "You Better You Bet"). To this Gross replied, "That's a really obnoxious thing to say." Simmons refused to grant permission to NPR to make the interview available online on the network's website. However, the interview appears in print in Gross's book All I Did Was Ask (ISBN 1-4013-0010-3), and some unauthorized transcripts are also available.[8] A part of the interview was re-broadcast on Fresh Air on Aug 31, 2007.[9] It is noted that Kiss bandmate and co-founder Paul Stanley has frequently used the phrase "... welcomed us with open arms and open legs", and similar wording, in onstage patter through many years of Kiss concerts.
In a later Fresh Air interview, satirist and future United States SenatorAl Franken related to Terry Gross his own encounter with Gene Simmons. According to Franken, he was awaiting a racquetball partner at a club when Simmons, whom Franken had not recognized, challenged him to a match, stating "I'll kick your ass", only to suffer an embarrassing loss to Franken. Simmons responded by calling for another match, and when Franken indicated that since his racquetball partner had arrived, he couldn't play Simmons again, Simmons responded by making loud "boc, boc, boc" chicken sounds. Franken then offered to play Simmons with $500 at stake, at which point Simmons walked away.[10] Franken told Gross not to blame herself for her experience with Simmons, and that Simmons' behavior at the racquetball club made him "the most awful person I've ever met."
Yeah, that's right, it's Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Democrats who are "bankrupting our children's future". Nope, it has nothing to do with the 12 billion dollars a day we're burning in the Middle East.
Not to mention the loss of blood in the sand both from a military and civilian perspective.
Never forget folks, you had a front row seat for the end of the way things were.
Of course, we'll be long dead when it finally gets all Mad Max 'n shit, but I'm 50, I figure that if everything goes according to plan, I'll get to see most of the 1 Act at least.
It Just Dawned On Me -- John Doe and The Sadies Shake Appeal -- The Stooges Sgt. Rock -- XTC On The Other Side -- The Strokes Jonathon Fisk -- Spoon Send A Picture Of Mother -- Johnny Cash A-Punk -- Vampire Weekend La Ferrassie -- Tokyo Police Club Beehive -- Jihad Jerry & The Evildoers Not That Social -- The Von Bondies
Yeah, yeah, I know, he's a bit of a twink and yes, we're all aware that in 2008 when he was running for President that Jon Stewart said of Kucinich, "This is a banner election year...we have our first African American candidate, our first woman candidate and now with Dennis, we have our first candidate from Middle Earth".
Funny stuff.
That said, I am proud and honored on a daily basis that Dennis Kucinich is my Congressional Rep. Watch the video. It's not so much that he switched his vote. It's more that he speaks the truth, he speaks it from the heart and he's as honest a politician as you're going to find in America.
Mr. Kunstler was in town this past weekend giving one of his rants at the Public Library HQ. I had a Cavs vs. Celtics game to watch Sunday afternoon so I missed his chat.
Here's yesterday's post. You just knew he was going to mention the Cuyahoga catching on fire, right? Sigh.
Ari Fleischer? Really? The first of many faces of failure for the Chimperor, wrote a horrible book and was a probable link in the Plame case? The guy who botched Mark McGuires "outing" bad enough to actually match his pustule pocked face? The guy who left Jeff Gannon in the "back door" of teh WH press room?
This is the guy you want managing your triumphant return to the links?
Eldrick, dude...listen, if your goal is to dig your reputation further into a giant hole, why not just hire Roy Cohn's fetid corpse as your PR flack and do the job right?
This song appeared on the Ipod today. Tracey Ullman cut a great "girl group" record way back before anyone in the States knew who she was. It was released during the last gasp of Stiff Records and produced by none other than Nick Lowe.
It's always been a fave disc of mine and the single is instantly recognizable to those fans of her HBO show. Here's the unfortunately grainy video of the song circa 1983. If you've never seen it, stay tuned in until the end. It's worth it.
Well, despite taking a header off of the front of the stage, Ray Davies was just great last night. As reflected by NYMary's review of his show in the "the provinces", Ray is the consummate showman and his fans as Mary said, albeit fiercely loyal, really like to drink their booze.
Two other things I will add to her excellent post on the Ray Davies experience...one, the demographic on the crowd was wild. You saw everything from aging long hairs, (chatted up Daffy Dan briefly in the lobby) to a young, very earnest and very stoned couple from Youngstown I chatted up in the concessions line who were seeing Ray for the third time on this tour. Put succinctly, Ray Davies has as far reaching an influence as anyone I've ever seen.
Secondly, the final chunk of the set was truly glorious when he rocked out those tunes with The 88 made all the more special by the cover of The Jam's David Watts which many in the crowd seemed to assume was an old Kinks tune they didn't know, but for those of us with a keen ear, it was nearly the highlight of the evening.
Oh, and by the by, Ray seemed fine after his spill into the front row. Lot's of loving fans out there to cushion the blow.
Big Sky -- Ray Davies Whenever God Shines His Light -- Van Morrison I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor -- Arctic Monkeys I Can Do It Without You -- Kaiser Chiefs U Can't Touch This -- MC Hammer Everyone's At It -- Lily Allen Every Valley Is Not A Lake -- Cold War Kids Apple Tree -- Wolfmother It's Summertime -- Flaming Lips Badass Bug -- The Cramps
...I gotta say, even for me, this is one of my more eclectic lists evah.
Additionally, Blondie and I are going to be seeing Mr. (Sir) Ray Davies this evening with Mr and Ms. B.
Ray is probably my favorite songwriters of the modern era and I've never seen him. Color me excited.
A month or so ago, I started getting a good deal of Chinese characters and Viagra spam in my comments section so I enabled the "must approve comments" feature on LMS. I haven't gotten a single notification of any sort and thought that all of you had just forgotten about l'il ol' me.
Sniff.
Now, thanks to my brother and our friend, Cleveland Jeff, I realized that there were actually comments, I just needed to "moderate" them. So, sorry about all that. I think it's called "user error' in the software biz.
Anyway, I'm gonna leave the back door open for a while and leave the "approval" feature on stun. So feel free to comment away to your heart's delight.
Friction -- Televison Wake Up -- Arcade Fire My Girl -- The Mamas & The Papas You Fucking Love It -- Pretty Dirty Things Love Knows -- The John Doe Thing In Spite Of Me -- Morphine Rollercoaster -- Sleater-Kinney Slow Down -- Wyclef with T.I. Susie Q -- Creedence Clearwater Revival Town Called Malice -- The Jam
The Sex Pistols sang about it 35 years ago and they're still right in vogue.
Aside from this guy making easily twice what I did and a monster severance to boot, this is my story as well. All I can say is thank goodness for my beautiful wife who has us hanging on by a thread.
Anyway, to augment Rudie's point, I've also attached Nick Lowe's best song ever about dogs eating their owners, replete with lyrics...
Marie Provost did not look her best The day the cops bust into her lonely nest In the cheap hotel up on Hollywood West July 29 She'd been lyin' there for two or three weeks The neighbors said they never heard a squeak For hungry eyes that couid not speak Said even little doggie's have got to eat
She was winner The became the doggie's dinner She never meant that much to me Oh poor Marie
Marie Provost was a movie queen Mysterious angel of the silent screen And run like the wind the nation's young men steam When Marie crossed the silent screen Oh she came out west from New York But when the talkies came Marie just couldn't cope Her public said Marie take a walk All the way back to New York
Those twin balms didn't help her sleep As her nights grew long and her days grew bleak It's all downhill once you've passed your peak Marie got ready for that last big sleep The cops came in and they looked around Throwing up everywhere over what they found The handywork of Marie's little dachshund That hungry little dachshund Poor Marie, poor Marie, poor poor Marie
I'm hereby finished with Winter and am dropping everything to light out for the city of lights with GG to swing to Django, drink great wine and smoke Gauloises.
