Jesus Never Got Married

There's never a bad time to kick back and chuckle at the genius that was Sam Kinison...

Democrats Find Hillary to Be Cold and Calculating

Don't trust me...while I can't categorically deny the impulse to vote against the GOP this time around, I'm have anything but a long track record of sympathy for Democratic candidates.

Al Hunt, in an opinion piece for Bloomberg news, pulls out more evidence that Democrats are facing just as tough a challenge as their friends across the aisle are.

Citing a recent Democratic focus group in the City of Brotherly Love, participants were worried just as much about Barack's apparent lack of experience as they were about Hillary's core.

If we're to accept their premise, that both have the intellectual stamina to make it in the office, but that Hillary's core personality is untrustworthy and Barack could use some extra experience, it seems that the choice is to go with the man who's from Illinois now, not the one who left it in her late teens.

As time goes on, I do find myself sliding more towards Barack. None of the GOP candidates, spare perhaps Ron Paul (whose views have not yet received the scrutiny needed for someone in the top tier), have excited me enough or given me a real desire to see them sitting behind the desk.

Anyway, here's the Hunt article in case you're interested.

More on Oprah

One of my favorite newly-discovered blogs, BigheadDC is all over the Oprah stuff from the weekend.

Apparently she didn't pack as many butts in the seats as planned. But conversely, her seat did have a lot of butt in it.

The Two Oprahs

I'm not exactly buying my ticket to Stockholm on my observations in this post, but it's just so funny to me that I could not pass up the opportunity to post it up.

As has been noted ad nauseum, Oprah Winfrey hit the campaign trail this weekend for fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama.

What strikes me, though, is that this Oprah speaks quite differently from the one we often see. In front of this integrated audience in South Carolina, her verbal intonations were strikingly different from the one we see on her show every day.

Now, I'll grant that the show is generally on topics of less importance than who will become the leader of the free world, so for guidance, I needed an appropriate comparison speech. In desperation, I looked back less than 24 hours when she was in front of a heavily-white crowd in Iowa giving what one would think would be identical speeches.

Whoah, Nellie. No way, no how.

She's really laying it on thick in one or both of these speeches...and her arms are strong from all the shoveling practice she's had.

Oprah In Front of an Integrated Crowd in South Carolina on Sunday


Oprah In Front of a Largely-White Crowd in Iowa 24 Hours Before

Mr. BB King...That Dynamic Gentleman of the Blues

While the audio of this performance of Never Make Your Move Too Soon, from around 1980 at Montreux, is not exactly pristine, the King shows us why he makes the big bucks.

Those Naughty Coffee Fiends in Seattle

I came across an interview on CSPAN2 with a guy who wrote a history of the Starbucks chain the other day.

While I only watched it for a few minutes, I thought his explanation of the history of the logo we see on the cup was very interesting. So I did a little research and found some more detail on this site.

I pulled out the images so you can see below where the logo originally started (and what the viewer's eyes were presumably drawn towards) to the much more sanitized version we have today.

For the record, I've never been a fan of their coffee...primarily on the grounds ;-) of taste. I'm more a Dunkin' Donuts guy.

Aaaaaaaaaaaargh! I might have to change my preferences on this. I just checked their site and DD seems to have brought in that Spawn of Satan, Rachel Ray,as a spokesperson.

Screw Oprah; Bollywood Gets Behind Obama!

This is really cool...someone put a nice amount of effort into inserting Barack into the Indian cinema scene.

After seeing his moves, how can Andrew Young argue that this cat doesn't get his share of black tail?

Old Skool Blues

Had a few spare moments here and listening to some blues music here got me thinking that I should dig back into the vaults a little bit and find some Howlin' Wolf.

So that's exactly what I did.

How appropriate to post up Dust My Broom, as I just got finished cleaning the last of the fall leaves from my sidewalk...

CYA and the CIA

I was reminded this morning of Fawn Hall, whose famous line, after finding herself in the middle of a document shredding incident in the Iran-Contra affair, said that sometimes you have to go above the law.

Shrub and the rest are continuing to go outside the law, common sense and decency with the news late this week of the "enhanced interrogation technique" videos from Gitmo that have been destroyed. This was done, according to the agency, because they posed no real value and could endanger national security were they leaked.

Of course, W and Big Time found out about it on Thursday just about the time the rest of us did.

If you believe that...

I've almost gotten to the point where I'm just getting desensitized to all of this. With every passing week, I hear more and more BS going on there in the name of a war on evildoers that I have trouble getting fired up over it anymore. Maybe I should check out the job market in Montreal...or go sign up with Oprah on the Barack campaign...more on that later.

The Grateful Dead Ain't Often Right But They've Never Been Wrong...Well, Maybe This Once

After Garcia left, the Grateful Dead organization has clearly changed its way...looking to find a way to keep the heads satisfied with the wealth of old material they have available for release and a way to keep the cash flowing in.

To think that the organization was not an actual business before is foolish, so I get it. They were giving me what I perceived to be a good deal at the time and that's why I, and countless others, continued to come back for our regular dose of crazy.

There are some good decisions they've made, most notably the Dick's Picks series. These are generally-unedited master tapes of classic shows. The sound quality on them is amazing and gimmickry is kept to a minimum...just like the old days.

Likewise, some of the videos they've put out, like the Closing of Winterland (admittedly not released by GDM, but you get my point) and Downhill from Here have kept true to the groove.

They miss the mark, however, in their latest release, RoadTrips Volume 1. Let's hope that this series goes the way of Caveman.

They've strung together the hit performances of the boys' east coast Fall Tour of 1979. While interesting in concept to the uninitiated, it struck me as akin to selling a picture book of just the punchlines from Peanuts cartoons. Sure they're very clever and you can probably piece together the setup to the joke, but the cartoons are best taken in as whole, not a series of parts.

While I can get in the mood for an isolated song (as I am kind of forced to do on this blog, for instance), you really have to take in a show in something approaching its entirety to fully appreciate what they were up to. That's what I like about their new station on Sirius. Three times a day, they play full, uninterrupted (with the exception of some David Gans commentary at halftime) shows. I tape one each night at 3AM to have something to kick off my day on the way into work.

"Where did they get it right", you ask?

On the band's official site, they've opened up the bottom-up fan commentary and this is a good thing. Fans can come on and offer up their thoughts on the product. This dood hits the nail on the head.

Good day.

>>Addendum a few minutes after posting. If you follow the comment link I had above, the poster refers a few times to the "Movie." He's talking about The Grateful Dead Movie, a really cool piece they remastered and re-released a few years back. Footage came from the marvelous 1974 run at Winterland in San Francisco. There's apparently a lot left on the cutting room floor and this guy wants it all.

Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll

Guns N' Roses...the last truly great American rock band, in my opinion. I'm shocked to this day that all of them are still alive.

This cut of Rocket Queen was filmed at The Ritz in NYC in 1988...right as these guys were starting to see the peak of their success...and excess.

I broke down and went to see Axl's current day lineup last year and left after a few songs. Being stuck with my thumb up my ass at The Q for several hours waiting for him to be ready to perform after midnight was enough to drive me nuts.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

The junkie class is starting to start jones as we head into the primary season in a few weeks.

I was so delighted to look at the RCP averages I am keeping posted on the side of the page for now...we really have a horserace going on in the GOP. And this weekend, when O unleashes the O in Iowa, New Hampshire and the football stadium in South Carolina, the other mother party could blow much more wide open than we thought it would be a month or two ago when Hillary was the presumptive nominee.

It doesn't get a whole lot better than this!

A Little More Garcia/Dylan

It's been kind of a busy week for me, so I've been lacking the time and inclination to post, but did want to throw down a little more Jerry Garcia for anyone who trips upon the site.

This is from a commercially-released video of a show Jerry did out at Shoreline in Mountain View, CA in September of 1990. The gig had originally been booked as a Grateful Dead show, but when Brent Mydland checked out that summer after overdosing, Jerry decided to step in with his band instead of disappointing the heads.

The fat man really seems to be having fun up there with what seems to me to be his classic lineup of Kahn on bass and Melvin on the ivory...

Enjoy the Dylan epic, Tangled Up in Blue...I'm sure I'll be pissed enough about something to post over the weekend.


WOW! I learned something new in the Wiki-link from above. I had misunderstood one of the lines in the song for all these years, but it seems I'm not alone!

The song contains one of the more famous mondegreens in rock and roll music: "We split up on a dark, sad night," understood by many listeners as "We split up on the docks at night."

Some Beautiful Garcia Tunage

As I lick my wounds from yesterday and head back into the salt mines, I wanted something very easygoing to listen to this morning. As usual, I found just what I was looking for out of Jerry Garcia.

This is a Jerry Band live cut from the famous Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ in 1980. He plays one of the prettiest songs he used to cover in his solo gigs...Sitting in Limbo.

Chill out and check out the cool keyboard solo offered up at the end...

To Catch a Democrat

Too bad they couldn't get Chris Hansen in on the sting took place in the Beltway the other day in which a Senate staffer was caught trying to set up a little butt bongo with a 13 year old boy.

The dude worked on the office of Washington hottie Maria Cantwell (D). He'd also worked on the Presidential campaigns of John Kerry and Dick Gephardt.

I wonder how much more play this would get had the guy worked for the GOP?

'Tis the Season to be Mary

Speaking of Christmas, I guess I now have a good excuse over the coming weeks to play clips from the classic National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

Drudge's Headline this AM

Drudge made me laugh this morning.

He leads with an AP article about Hillary getting ready to take her gloves off with Barack. I was watching some kind of journalist roundtable on CSPAN last night (this should give you some indication of what a hip cat I am) and one of the panelists was talking about candidates going negative.

He said what anyone who's ever been involved in a childish squabble knows...that one person stabbing another in the back does not necessarily produce a unidirectional effect.

Hillary personally having to resort to going on the offensive like this shows a lot about herself in doing so and can move her already-high negatives even higher.

Anyway, the headline made me chuckle because it reminded me of some tape I heard on the radio once where there was a white man learning how to speak 'street.' He would say a sentence, then it would be translated for him. The funniest one was:

Nerdy White Man: "I am very angry and plan to take out some form of revenge on you."

Big Angry-Sounding Dude: "CANCEL CHRISTMAS, MOFO!"

I Don't Own a Dog

But if I did have one, I'd get two more and let them sleep at the foot of the bed tonight.

The cold wind blowing outside means winter is coming in...but not as ferociously as elsewhere.

Anyway, Shambala has always been a favorite Three Dog Night song of mine. And these people all look like Dennis Kucinich voters, so they had best hurry back for the Iowa Caucuses in a few weeks!

Let Phil Sing!

A guaranteed crowd pleasing moment at shows was when they let the old dude playing bass pick up some vocals. Here's his cover of Dylan's Tom Thumb Blues from Spring Tour 1993 out here in Cleveland.

I saw the Chicago run at the former Rosemont Horizon that year...


When you're lost in the rain in Juarez
And it's Eastertime too
And your gravity fails
And negativity don't pull you through
Don't put on any airs
When you're down on Rue Morgue Avenue
They got some hungry women there
And they really make a mess outa you

Now if you see Saint Annie
Please tell her thanks a lot
I cannot move
My fingers are all in a knot
I don't have the strength
To get up and take another shot
And my best friend, my doctor
Won't even say what it is I've got

Sweet Melinda
The peasants call her the goddess of gloom
She speaks good English
And she invites you up into her room
And you're so kind
And careful not to go to her too soon
And she takes your voice
And leaves you howling at the moon

Up on Housing Project Hill
It's either fortune or fame
You must pick up one or the other
Though neither of them are to be what they claim
If you're lookin' to get silly
You better go back to from where you came
Because the cops don't need you
And man they expect the same

Now all the authorities
They just stand around and boast
How they blackmailed the sergeant-at-arms
Into leaving his post
And picking up Angel who
Just arrived here from the coast
Who looked so fine at first
But left looking just like a ghost

I started out on burgundy
But soon hit the harder stuff
Everybody said they'd stand behind me
When the game got rough
But the joke was on me
There was nobody even there to call my bluff
I'm going back to New York City
I do believe I've had enough

Just in Time for Celebration of the Virgin Birth

If I order this now, I should be able to get my Hillary Clinton Nut-Cracker in time for Christmas!

McCain Gets Union-Leader Nod

It's a good Sunday for John Wayne McCain. The man who won the 2000 NH GOP Primary was endorsed this morning by the influential Union Leader.

Like a child choosing between brussel sprouts, peas and spinach, I have yet to make a choice.

Brent Mydland and the Grateful Dead Perform "Far From Me"

Brent Mydland was easily my favorite of the 4 keyboard players the Grateful Dead had. He brought more soul to the seat than anyone. His Hammond organ makes me want to boogie and his vocals sometimes get so haunting that chills run up my spine.

This is one of my fave compositions of his, "Far From Me," out at the Oakland Coliseum during the summer of 1987. This was part of the great-idea-in-theory-$hitty-idea-in-practice tour the boys did with Bob Dylan.

I believe this video (like some others I've posted in the past and will continue to do when I find something I dig) were filmed by the son of drummer Billy Kreutzmann, Justin.

Anyway, check out Garcia's fashionable summer flannel look...

This Made Me Giggle

I've been accused more than once of pulling a stunt like this...but little did I know that the Irish Goodbye was a documented genetic phenomenon! Perhaps I can chalk it up to Scots-Irish heritage.

Speaking of Breathless Coverage by FNC

Lest anyone thing I was exaggerating about Carl Cameron's coverage of the hostage "crisis" in New Hampshire yesterday, I post below a highlight clip of this coverage.

Someone Looked Very Presidential Yesterday

While not blessed with omniscience (sorry to disappoint you), it seemed to be a pretty good guess to me that the hostage situation at the Clinton office in New Hampshire yesterday was probably just a random, relatively harmless nut.

This turned out to be true...despite the breathless, Achille Lauro-like coverage offered up by Fox's Carl Cameron.

The big winner for the news cycle was undoubtedly going to be the Junior Senator from New York. But it goes beyond the generic sympathy she's going to get, as well as a springboard to blame Bush budget cuts in health spending for leaving a deranged man like this on the street.

Hillary also got one hell of a photo op last night in front of her Washington DC crib. The brisk weather allowed her to cover up the pantsuit with a long jacket and scarf...leaving her looking as Presidential as I've ever seen her!

Behold the Master

Albert King was pretty much a guitar god. It's hard to argue otherwise.

He influenced many of the greats during my lifetime, but you can't get much better than going back to the original.

Here he is, from Sweden in 1980, performing probably his most popular song, "Born Under a Bad Sign."

Cheers.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

If this starts to get legs, it's not going to be good for the Giuliani campaign.

The Times comes out with a below-the-fold front page article this morning slamming the Rudy campaign for citing crime, economic and health statistics that are, at best, misleading. At worst, they've pretty much got to be called lies.

As my buddy up in the tundra and I have jabbed back and forth about, if this becomes part of the narrative of his campaign, everything he says is going to be held to a little higher truth standard than otherwise.

Think back to Gore's exaggeration (which could lead to headlines being created when he said that he was 'so hungry he could eat a cow') and Kerry's flip-flopping problem and the exaggerated coverage that brought him.

What Happened to Mike Gravel?

This is what happened, apparently...

Gail Collins Makes a Funny

Gail Collins must have been bumping right up against a deadline to get this in in time to make the national print edition of the Times, but thanks goodness she did.

The opinion piece is pretty much just a run-down of the cast of horses' asses running for the GOP nomination, but it has some really funny quips in it.

I mean, frankly, how can you not like an article that throws down a Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat reference? ;-)

Anyway, her little juxtaposition of where one might expect to see 'alleged' made me chuckle.

"Lately, Thompson has also been busying himself attacking the Fox network for bias against his alleged campaign."

Randy Newman Performs "Louisiana 1927"

I've been really tied up with work and life and just not in the mood to post much on the debate last night. It was kind of disgusting after a while.

So I will continue my little streak of appreciation for the music of the wonderful Randy Newman.

Here's his song, written pre-Katrina, about an earlier flood down in the Gulf. Obviously, the song enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in 2005.

I hope you like Randy at least half as much as I do...

Happy Birthday, Randy Newman!

Today is Randy Newman's birthday and I wore my special socks in celebration.

Anyway, I thought I'd put one of his more biting satirical songs up here.

Don't play it if you can be overheard or are sensitive to some vile language in making an observation about our southern brothers.

Deep Thought for the Day

I thought I'd read this somewhere before and was glad to find it's not a figment of my imagination...it came up on my iGoogle page this morning...

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.

Albert Einstein

I Wish That I Had Jesse's Nerve

Race-baiting bigot, The Reverend Jesse Jackson is back at it with an opinion piece in the Chicago tabloid, the Sun-Times.

John Edwards (not Dennis Kucinich) is apparently the only candidate who cares about black people.

Nothing new here at all...just the same old time religion that's worked on some people for more than a generation. Shockingly, he waits until the last paragraph to throw down a little Dr. King on us, so his restraint is admirable.

I Could Not Write a Better Headline, So I'll Let it Speak for Itself

Thanks, Ryno...

How Long Until Matt Drudge is Openly Cited as Part of the Right Wing Attack Machine?

The Times ran an article in late October about how the Hillary campaign was learning to play nice with Matt Drudge, feeding him snippets here and there. The general feeling I got from the article was, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." I mentioned it briefly here.

Judging from what our boy in Miami Beach is up to today, I suspect the good times are about to end.

He led overnight with a link to the British rags and an article about an alleged lesbian affair with a senior aide, and has now pushed that down to make room for Obama's claim that talking to hubby does not induce a kind of transubstantiation whereby the spouse becomes a driver of policy.

Hillary will find that if she can't neutralize Drudge by playing nice with him, she'll turn him into the enemy and try to profit from him.