Apropos of nothing

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I think that the most inherently funny word in the English language is "turd."

It is the perfect comic word. A person doesn't need to know what it means to find it funny; it just sounds funny independently of its meaning. And for that matter, I don't even think a person needs to speak English to find laughter in the word. Turd. It pretty much sounds like what it is.

Social science experiment: ask people of diverse linguistic heritage to repeat "turd" out loud five times and then guess what it means... and don't even tell them what language it is. I am confident that a landslide majority of the survey subjects would get it in one or two guesses.

Reluctantly acknowledging that opinions may differ from mine, tell me: what do you think is the funniest word in English? As always, thank you for your attention in this matter.

Don't mind them---they're morons

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Our correspondent in the Grampian Hills sends a riddle:

I saw [a] preview for the 3 stooges movie—I think it opens around mid April. They (whoever they are) seem to have the impersonations down OK but, why?

That is a bit of a noodle-scratcher, true. Beer-D has provided the most salient market-based analysis I've heard. (Yes, Stooge fans have been discussing this pending corporate profiteering atrocity for awhile.)

As Beer-D sees it, it's difficult to fathom what audience the movie producers are targeting. For kids who aren't familiar with the Stooges, none of the references or tributes to the original cast members will register. People of any age who did not like the original Stooges will have no interest in subjecting themselves to a impersonation of them. And, of course, it is hard to believe that any fans of the original Stooges will respond to the release with anything except contempt.

Some few charitable people might at least appreciate any craftsmanship and dedication that the actors may have applied to recreating the original characters and situations. But I don't think that will provide a sufficient basis for either a blockbuster box office or a career boost for the director. However, I may be wrong, and Beer-D may have missed something: maybe the target audiences are the Chinese and the French.

Apropos of nothing

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It's 10:30 p.m. on 20 March 2012, the first day of spring. The outdoor temperature is 70 degrees. There is a fruit fly searching for a grapefruit rind in the kitchen. I'd go hide it in my bedroom, but the possums might find it.

Why I use Firefox [updated]

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I'm a longtime user of the open-source Mozilla Firefox web browser. It has fallen out of favor with some of the high-visibility cool kids these days. Its interface is not as glamorous-looking as Apple Safari or Google Chrome; and it doesn't have the cult appeal of Opera, the Ron Paul of web browsers. But in my experience, nothing beats Firefox in terms of managing browsing privacy and security.

If you use Firefox, I strongly recommend that you look into a new-to-me add-in called Do Not Track Plus by a company called Abine. The add-in displays a simple toolbar button that shows you how many companies are tracking you at any site you visit. If you click the button an alert box appears showing what categories of companies are tracking you---social networks, ad networks, etc---and confirming that the add-in is blocking their view of you. In addition to appreciating the privacy service that the add-in provides, I also find the alert box to be very informative about how many entities are trolling for information on how and where we browse.

The other indispensable add-ins for Firefox, in my view, are NoScript, AdBlock Plus, and HTTPS Everywhere. NoScript allows you to block websites from executing scripts in your browser. In addition to protecting against browser-based malware, NoScript prevents sites from executing all kinds of Java programs that do anything from running pointless animations to harvesting cookie, browsing history, and contact information. You can selectively enable or disable scripts from various sites as you get a feel for which ones are essential for your browser to work fairly normally (such as blogger.com, which I need to enable in order to bring you the finest in web-based social commentary and dokes, delivered fresh to your computer screen every time I feel like it).

AdBlock Plus does just what it sounds like. But, like NoScript, its filters can be selectively enabled if you need to. I basically am intruded upon by zero ads wherever I browse.

Finally, HTTPS Everywhere works with a growing number of sites to encrypt your connection even if they're not running secure (https://) protocols.

This post, incidentally, hints at a bigger issue that I've been wanting to write about for a year or more, namely that the web seems destined to devolve into a corporation-controlled domain dedicated to propagating corporatist values and extracting every available morsel of value from its most valuable resource---human eyeballs.

Update: I've been referring to these little programs as "add-ins," but I am now reminded that Mozilla calls them "add-ons." And more specifically, the items I mention above are "extensions." There are also "plug-ins," which are a slightly different animal, and "skins" that change the look of the browser (most of which suck).

In the shadow of a Magical Kingdom

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It seems that the Orlando, Fla., suburbs now have their own theme parks and "cast members." This one may be called ManslaughterLand, for all I know, but I could not confirm that as of press time. This attraction would appear to be an immersive first-person shooter in which the customer (after spending 40 minutes pacing back and forth in queue) may pick a fight with a kid, shoot him to death, and avoid arrest by telling the Nice Policeman you pulled the trigger in self defense. Since the menace 2 society is deceased and cannot contradict your claim, you get to go home and exult.

From what I read, ManslaughterLand could improve the realism of this attraction by arming the bad guy with a knife or a gun instead of Skittles and iced tea.

Editor's note: I will step out of character for a moment just to make it clear how sickening this news was to me when I heard it this morning on the radio. This morning CNN said:

Incredibly, the man who admitted to killing Trayvon, 28-year-old George Zimmerman, has remained free since the shooting because he told Sanford police that it was in self-defense. After questioning him, police bought his explanation and allowed him to return home. (Police said he has not been charged because there are no grounds to disprove his story of what happened.)

"There are no grounds to disprove his story of what happened"? I suppose an investigation might begin with the shooter's reported confession to the shooting, the corpse of an unarmed child, a bag of Skittles, and an unspecified quantity of iced tea. This evidence is suggestive of certain interpretations that may cast doubt on the decision to release the shooter.

Apropos of nothing

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Recently, after reading a biography of Jolly Jack "King" Kirby, the late comic book penciling legend who co-invented Captain America, the entire genre of romance comic books, and most of the early superhero stable at Marvel Comics, I randomly remembered that Kirby's characters sometimes employed the epithet "liver lips" to insult an adversary. This thought cracked me up, now as it always did in my slap-happy youth, so I wondered what the hell it meant.

Happily, such mysteries are much easier to investigate today than they were 45 years ago. My first stop was Urban Dictionary, which revealed little that I would consider to be valid etymological information except that in some usages the term has a racist undertone. That interpretation made no sense to me since Kirby was known by all to be a dyed-in-the-wool (as his characters would sometimes say) New Deal liberal straight arrow. And the term was typically used by the good guys (mainly The Think, Sergeant Fury, and possibly The Hulk in his more lucid days), but never in reference to an African American. So I kept searching, thinking maybe it was a New York Yiddish bit of slang, since we sometimes hear the question "What am I, chopped liver?" in Jewish humor. My search didn't get too much farther, because I found everything I needed to know about the term on an old, obscure web page.

The post starts with the intrepid ronda54 describing a youthful brush with fame in the form of "Uncle Miltie" himself: Milton Berle. It seems that ronda54's family lived next to Berle's daughter, Vickie, and son in law, and somehow her parents were enlisted to pick Berle up from the airport and bring him to the daughter's house.

The report was that Milton was rather quite and polite…non descript just like his daughter, although he and my dad cracked a few dirty jokes which increased the respect factor in my dad's mind. I'm sure mom was trying to keep her eyes on the road instead of the freak show in his crotch and she must have managed because when she relayed the story to me the focus was on Milton's lips, not his schlong. His lips looked like two slabs of liver glued to his face. I'm afraid, Vickie had the same problem but hers were less pronounced. I thought this was hilarious and forever more he was known as "old liver lips" in our household. Dad would bellow that he had to give old liver lips a ride to the airport.

So Berle came from a Jewish New York family and was only about 10 years older than Kirby, so perhaps this term was simply used in the Jewish community in reference to big-lipped people in the neighborhood, and... wait a minute! "Hold the phone!" as Frazier Thomas used to exclaim. "Freak show in his crotch," she says? Well, I guess so:

[Berle's] moniker was "Mr. Television." I was more into Cheech and Chong so he was still sounding pretty boring until mom told me about his legendary humongous penis. Milton was getting less boring, now. I guess this thing was a killer…we are talking 14 inches long. We got a 12 inch ruler out of the drawer, added 2 inches and stood there aghast. How was this possible and who would ever marry a guy like this? He may have been a famous television personality but everyone knows that the penis -in a train wreck sort of way- was the real draw. Mom and the neighbor gals all agreed that they would pay money to stare at it.

Wikipedia connects a few more dots regarding "old liver lips" and his legendary unit with some celebrity anecdotes:

Phil Silvers once told a story about standing next to Berle at a urinal, glancing down, and quipping, "You'd better feed that thing, or it's liable to turn on you!" In the short story 'A Beautiful Child', Truman Capote wrote Marilyn Monroe as saying: "Christ! Everybody says Milton Berle has the biggest schlong in Hollywood." Saturday Night Live writer Alan Zweibel, who had written many Friars Club jokes about Berle's penis for other comedians, described being treated to a private showing: "He just takes out this— this anaconda. He lays it on the table and I'm looking into this thing, right? I'm looking into the head of Milton Berle's dick. It was enormous. It was like a pepperoni. And he goes, 'What do you think of the boy?' And I'm looking right at it and I go, 'Oh, it's really, really nice.'"

Oh yes, I'll just bet it was. And thanks to King Kirby and ronda54, I've solved the riddle of liver lips with extreme prejudice.

Saturday Night Fish Fry

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This is a Chicago furniture store jingle as released on a promotional 7 in. vinyl single in 1970.



My general memory from the late 1950s into the 1970s is that music for broadcast commercials and radio jingles was based either on styles that were mainstream when the ad agency guys were in school---half a generation out of date to a teenager or young adult---or else an agency's smarmy exploitation version of youth-oriented music. The good people at Ember Furniture seem to have farmed out their work to a very smooth soul operator named Sidney Barnes. I have a version of this on CD---an anthology on the Numero Group reissue label. Numero's releases cover a wide spectrum, from interesting, fully listenable minor-league recordings by regional soul (and other styles of) groups to sides that sound like they came from a 1960s and '70s parallel pop music universe. And I guess that's actually the case: there is only so much room on national charts at any one time, and it tends to be allotted according to mystical protocols involving transfers of materiel and sexual favors.

Meanwhile, here in the 21st century, I'd certainly poke into a furniture store that commissioned a commercial jingle like "The Ember Song." As if (as annoying teenage girls used to say).

The Ember Song, Sidney Barnes (1970, available on "Eccentric Soul: The Nickel & Penny Labels" [2011], Numero Group N039), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.  

The fall product rollout [update]

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A few days after I mused here about the new war for which the neocons and corporate media have formed their very own Occupy-style drum circle I had this idea, but I felt it would sound too silly to trouble you with before giving careful consideration to my choice of wording. Welp, as seen on Balloon Juice, it looks like someone has described the prospective conspiracy that corporate media would be expected to denounce as... "a conspiracy theory":

Here’s a prediction. Netanyahu, in league and concert with Romney, Santorum and Gingrich, will make his move to get rid of Obama soon. And he will be more lethal to this president than any of his domestic foes.

See, I think there are certain ideas that may be too dangerous for a nobody like me to fluff up on my crummy blog, but Andrew Sullivan evidently thinks his high profile as a celebrity blogger will protect him from right-wing opprobrium. We'll see about that.

You may remember back in January when the publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times had to "step down" for suggesting that maybe "Israel's most inner circles" might "order a hit" on Barack Obama in order to rid themselves of an unfriendly US president. So here's another approach that might amount to a fatal political hit if the "product" were rolled out as an October Surprise.

I don't think this idea is too insane to have been dreamed of, kicked around all hush-hush-like, or even to have arrived at some stage of planning. Because the marketplace of ideas is oversupplied with insanity. I'm sure the very idea quickens the pulse of many. And who knows: maybe certain people with the right connections and levers think they could get away with such a thing. But if that's the case, they are making one of the classic strategic blunders: underestimating the adversary.

As it happens, every President of the United States has his own "most inner circle," not to mention a heavy metal national security apparatus and---thanks to Richard Bruce Cheney and The Boy Who Would Be President---a carload of extra-constitutional surveillance and law-enforcement powers. And this one knows how to play 10-dimensional chess, so watch out.

Update: I forgot to state that any such conspiracy would not involve nobodies like Santorum, Gingrich, or Romney. But I do think it's fully plausible that it could involve Americans. I don't think there is any shortage of latent traitors on the far right.

Friday Evening Prayer Meeting

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I heard someone commenting on NPR earlier this evening that it would be "impossible to overstate" the impact of Billy Strange on American pop.



Well, I don't mean to pick on the late Mr. Strange, who died on Tuesday. But, no, it wouldn't be impossible at all to overstate his influence. In fact, I'll do it right now:

Billy Strange was without doubt the most influential American pop musician of the 20th and 21st centuries!

Hyperbole is the chronic halitosis of our public discussion. Being the rhetorical equivalent of typing with the CAPS LOCK ON, it's tiresome. (Funny---I just noticed that type on the key cap of the CAPS LOCK key on my MacBook Pro is set in all lowercase characters.) Being the distorter of meaning, it undermines our collective ability to communicate. And in this case, reflexive hyperbole can set up the uninformed (including myself) for disappointment upon investigation. Meaning that it does a disservice to the memory of the deceased. It's cheap.

Yes, Mr. Strange penned some hits (including the horrible "Limbo Rock" for Chubby Checker) and had some enjoyable musical input to the Frank and Nancy Sinatra repertoire of the mid-1960s. And he was a member of the fabulous Wrecking Crew, a noteworthy career milestone with an ensemble that did in fact have an outsized impact on 1960s rock and pop. But, c'mon, leave the poor guy rest in peace, stupid mass media "culture" reporters.

Here's a nice, previously-unseen-by-me video of Billy Strange performing acoustically with meteoric bilingual boner mill Nancy Sinatra (and I say that with the utmost sincerity). Mr. Strange was a competent and accomplished musician. I'll listen for his Wrecking Crew work next time I play the $#!+ out of Pet Sounds.

Bang Bang, Billy Strange with Nancy Sinatra (mid-1960s, provenance unknown [but probably not US TV considering Nancy's lingua franca intro), embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

He just finds it "a little troubling"

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John Ellis "Used To Be A Conservative" Bush (JEB), the former Florida governor whose Republican machine unethically thwarted a fair and balanced presidential vote recount in 2000, feels

it's a little troubling sometimes when people are appealing to people's fears and emotion rather than trying to get them to look over the horizon for a broader perspective and that's kind of where we are"

according to a HuffingtonPost article with an embedded Fox link. JEB is of course referring to those nattering nabobs of negativism, the 2012 Republican presidential candidates. The HuffPost report indicates that JEB's opinion is shared by his bosom old buddy Karl "Still The Queen Of The Jackbooted Neocon Admen" Rove. I'd interpret their sentiment as an unintentional admission that they are momentarily embarrassed by the monster created by Rove's mentor, the late Lee "Nigger Nigger Nigger" Atwater.

The monsters have come to Maple Street

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As seen on Atrios, here's a dispatch from the front lines of the Bedwetter Wars.

I'm sure we all understand the potential dangers that lurk. They're the same as they were 30 years ago and 50 years ago. What's so different in 2012 that a Philadelphia suburb needs to put schools on lockdown because a stranger was seen waiting for a bus?

My first wild guess is that it has something to do with how deeply immersed most people are in electronic infotainment media. A critical insight published by Jerry Mander over a quarter of a century ago in Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television is that TV is a sensory deprivation technology. He asserted, and I agree, that the pictures, motion, and sound conspire to create an illusion of reality, but that the human mind is not fooled by the illusion for long because boredom sets in rapidly (as compared with sensational, tactile reality). And I will throw computers and mobile IT devices into that pot as well.

As people are immersed in the claustrophobic surreality of corporation-mediated "experience," actual, random reality may begin to seem foreign to everyday experience. And threatening. I wonder if a plurality of the population simply doesn't know what to make of life experience that isn't responsive to a remote control or a computer touchscreen.

Back in the good old days, if we saw a stranger standing on a corner doing nothing we'd never think of calling the cops; we'd just kick his ass seven ways for Sunday. (JK---ROFL!)

Sneak preview of the fall product line

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Many of us remember reading about the July 2002 Downing Street Memo, in which we learned the the chief of Britain's MI6 had expressed the view that our very own President of the United States

wanted to remove Saddam Hussein, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

The US public learned of this interesting fact through a British press leak in 2005, well after the deadly Bush/Cheney hobby horse had galloped out of the corral with the liberal New York Times glued into the saddle like a pair of Judith Miller's panties. When President Obama schlepped the last combat troops out of Iraq (or so "they" say) late last year, it wasn't just because he's a Nice Guy: it was because that corporation-driven war of aggression had no more measurable public support and addressed no critical US security interest.

Everyone who is nostalgic for a post-911 stiffie should be happy to hear that British Foreign Secretary William Hague is blaming Iran for threatening to make the civilized nations of Terra launch a "new cold war." That's mighty thoughty of the Persians, as Bullwinkle used to say, because it seems that this is exactly what all true patriots both happen to want and want to happen. And by all true patriots, I am referring to the usual cast of neocon civilian politicians and their heralds employed by the corporate media. Have you been sensing this lately, too?

Friday Night Fish Fry

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Not in Lent yet, but we're having fish on Friday anyway, so there!



First things first: this is one that needs to be listened with earbuds jammed brainstem-deep and cranked.

One of the reviews on the YouTube page refers to Chicago Transit Authority as one of the best-engineered albums of its times, and I agree. I first borrowed this album from Larry K. as a high school sophomore and listened to it on one of those tube-driven phonographs like the gradeschool AV department had, where the left stereo speaker is built into the lid over the turntable. This cut, the first on the "CTA" album, floored me with its brassy ensemble riff, percolating bass, and swells of Hammond organ. I'd always enjoyed horn-heavy arrangements, like The Buckinghams often used, but this was the first rock band I'd ever heard built around the core voices of big band instrumentation. I listened the shit out of it until I had to give it back, but soon scrounged $4.95 (it was a double album, you know) to get my own copy at Zayre.

Within a few months I'd bartered something (probably some Playboys I had stolen from Doug Pearson's garage) for a Heathcraft phono amp, and by means now forgotten cobbled together a more powerful record player. This was the first album I played on the Heathcraft, and again I was not disappointed in the results---more presence and excellent-quality bass response; a nice improvement over the bare phonograph. CTA also was the first album I played on the old man's Kenwood rig in the family room, pushing out 100 (peak) watts! And so over the years, Chicago Transit Authority---and "Introduction" in particular---became my reference song for every new stereo component upgrade. The other night I discovered that I've had my nifty B&W speakers bi-amped improperly for 3 years or more, with right bass and left treble coming from the left side, and the converse coming from the right. So I fixed it, and tonight I cranked "Introduction" to 60 (because 11 isn't high enough).

To me there's a certain poignancy to this fantastic chart and performance because I think it's the best thing Chicago ever did. One might say I think everything after this track was downhill for Chicago, even though most of the cuts on this album are at least in the same league as "Introduction." (Actually, I think "Questions 67 and 68 is its equal.) The most impressive thing to me has always been how many changes the band walks the listener though so easily. In fact, it's brilliant, and they show off every single thing they can do, except for Terry Kath's Hendrix-type guitar neck-wringing (which comes later on the same album). The tragic flaw of Chicago, though, is that they kept coming back to the same well for years and years thereafter. Horn ensembles based on minor variations of Jim Pankow's signature trombone arpeggio; no more trumpet solos of note from Lee Loughnane as far as I can recall; and no tenor solos ever, to my knowledge, from Walt Parazaider. Maybe the fellows tried to extend themselves later, but if so I lost interest long before then. After hearing Hot Rats in 1969 and upon being disappointed by Chicago 2 in 1970, Frank Zappa soon became my jazz-rock pied piper.

There was some material I liked on Chicago 2 (the "25 or 6 to 4" album), but it didn't compare to CTA. Plus, even to my immature ears, I thought the sound was abominable. The bass had no presence and the horns sounded like they were recorded off a transistor radio somewhere in the next studio. The lyrics were even more contrived than before (lyrics were always their weak point, in my opinion), and the vocals seemed self-conscious and even awkward. By the release of Chicago 3, it sounded to me like the band was just going through the motions. Nevertheless, I was lucky enough to see that original lineup at Soldier Field in Chicago, summer 1970, and they opened their set with this song. The sound was abysmal (due to Soldier Field "acoustics," not record producer malpractice this time), but I appreciated the thought and felt the presence.

Introduction, Chicago (1969, from Chicago Transit Authority, Columbia CS-9809), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Lousy blogger

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Hi. How are you? I am fine!

In the past few days I've come to the conclusion that my experiment in civic engagement has failed and that I will abandon it in order to spend more time with my blog.

Two years ago I volunteered to serve on the board of a local organization dedicated to the preservation and conservation of historic buildings. A good cause, I thought then and still think now. But the whole episode began to disagree with me even before Day 1. And, unfortunately, my duties for this organization directly impinge on the mental resources I rely upon for my own creative output.

A week or so ago I started working toward a humane exit strategy in which I'd add a bunch of value for whomever is recruited to fill my sorry place on the board. As fate would have it, a matter of some consequence has arisen for my organization---a matter that must be handled with leadership, excellent communication, teamwork, and intelligence. Several days into handling this issue my hapless group has shown little of the four graces aforementioned in excess of what I have been able to provide... and I am the least-well-informed person among them. This is not to say that the people are bad, because they are not. But the organization is a helpless mess.

The events of this week have inspired me to tighten up my exit strategy. I'd originally planned to leave with a 50-50 blend of consideration and dickishness, but I've leaned-down the consideration blend to about 35-65 now as I waste time in nowhere email conversations. My Chinese penpal, Roflmao Zedong, warned me that my "friends" (as he referred to them) will not see my exit as merely 65% dickish, but will see it as 100% dickish. I explained to him that I was aware of that possibility, which is why I'm prepared to go 100% dickish in reality if they don't watch themselves and even if they do. I am temperamentally unsuited for working as part of a committee.

I'd much rather spend my evenings with you than worrying about how goddam far behind I am on the newsletter schedule. So it's coming. I am hoping for a significant uptick in blog activity within about 3 weeks. Thank you for your attention in this matter.

How to ratfuck your dead sister's memory

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I feel like throwing in my several cents about what the reactionaries at Susan G. Komen For The Cure did to their "brand" this week.

It doesn't surprise me to see that the mastermind behind this Komen policy coup was Ari Fleischer, the Bush administration's filthy little PR homunculus.

We all know that nobody squeals more pathetically than a bully when the intended victim punches back, and nobody becomes so undignified in fear as the bully when he feels outnumbered. So it's as inevitable as the four laws of thermodynamics that the flagship publication of right-wing bullies calls public reaction to the Komen affair "gangsterism."

One of the fun things about today's reactionary mouthpieces is that they project their own motives and tactics onto their critics. This is a psychological malfunction called "telling on yourself." Really: it's gangsterism for the public to be revolted by a raw, uncalled-for assault on Planned Parenthood by a powerful political lobby using a Disney-esque nonprofit juggernaut ("the cure" is their intellectual property if not their mission) and to take their money elsewhere. Many of us, upon learning "that anti-abortion rights activists have been pressuring Komen for years to end their relationship with Planned Parenthood," would be tempted to think of that as gangsterism... except then Ari Fleischer would refer to us as jack-booted thugs.

In addition to the obvious, I think it's worth remembering that the Komen foundation was established in honor of Susan Goodman Komen, who contracted and died of breast cancer as a young woman in the 1970s. The organization was founded by Susan's sister Nancy Goodman Brinker

who believed that Susan's outcome might have been better if patients knew more about cancer and its treatment, promised her sister that she would do everything she could to end breast cancer.

Or, perhaps, almost everything. Every little thing that's possible on the Komen CEO's (2010) salary of $459,406. Way to go, Ms Brinker.

I don't know what she is like in real life, but Ms Brinker certainly resembles a leering, plastic monster in this official State Department photo from 2007. (Oops---gangsterism!)

Multiple choice

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Here is a pop quiz, based on a fact I learned yesterday. Your three choices are:

a. Bill Clinton
b. Ron Paul
c. Gabrielle Giffords

Which one do you think said this:

I have a Glock 9 millimeter, and I’m a pretty good shot.

Yeah, me neither. I heard it last night on Fresh Air; Terry Gross was interviewing a guy who just published a book about Glock. Here's something else you hit when you google "giffords glock":

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/09/01/gop-in-giffords-district-holds-raffle-for-glock/

Not being familiar with firearms, neither had I heard of "Glock foot," a condition sometimes contracted by law enforcement officials who switch from a Colt service revolver to a Glock and find out the hard way that the Glock's easy trigger action greatly increases the probability that one will shoot oneself when de-holstering the weapon.

Appropos of what, I do not know.

Cute SOTU comment by Guardian correspondent

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Richard Adams at The Guardian said this near the SOTU:

10.02pm: So it feels like a rather non-partisan speech – although Republicans may disagree, we'll find that out later – and Obama is now moving into his healer-in-chief mode.

Non-partisan my foot! Mr. Adams does not seem to have the immersive cultural context necessary to hear the liberal dog whistles and pure Republican-punching hilarity. And, incidentally, I'm not complaining about that.

For starters, Obama's citing of GOP diety Abe Lincoln is not a healing gesture toward Republicans---it's an eye-gouging thumb cuz, see, modern Republicans hate Lincoln. Also, too, because Obama would not have been on the podium without the good offices of Republican progenitor Honest Abe. Which is why modern Republicans hate Lincoln.

Obama's invocation of Seal Team 6 as a model for partisan teamwork restates in no uncertain terms that he---not Dick Cheney and his inquisitors---bagged OBL. And also that Republicans who try to ratfuck the teamwork are unpatriotic. The President started with this and he ended with it. So, snap, you America-haters!

Then there was Obama's shout-out of the guy laid off from a furniture factory now working for a new-energy company that used to (guess what?) build yachts! And the speech was chock full of goodies like those, which people who voted for him have been waiting 3 years to hear. I'm sure a lotta GOPpers are fuming, hitting the Jack and tranks right about now (the speech just ended).

Jesus God! Someone on NPR just said this was Obama's "most Clintonian speech" so far! The radio is still on, and the NPR commentary has become so vapid, condescending, and ignorant (a winning combination!) that I'm killing it and going for a refill on the booze and pills.

Saturday Night Fish Fry

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Brother's bought new glasses/Shaped like Leon Trotsky's
They look very nice on the mantlepiece/Next to the royal family



This is the single version of the opening track from one of a small handful of discs from the '80s that I really like (i.e., Confessions Of A Pop Group by Style Council). I'm afraid if I told you how I first became aware of Style Council, other than the radio, I'd have to slit your throat from ear to ear in order to silence you about it.

I'm surprised how cheezy the video is. I would have expected a high-concept, arty treatment. But then my mind is too literal ever to be an artist. (I'm more of a craftsman.)

Inspired by this post by Our Man In London, who seems slightly disoriented by Meryl Streep's touching performance portraying a sociopathic, now-demented former prime minister. Every time I listen to this track I myself am a bit disoriented by how much rage infects the synth-y, breezy pop performance. Excellent way to get one's "message" into the dance clubs. This one deserves to be heard through headphones, cranked high.

Life At A Top People's Health Farm, The Style Council (1988, from "The Singular Adventures Of The Style Council," Polydor 837 896-2), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Santorum at The Citadel

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I awoke this morning to hear a recording of Rick Santorum campaigning at the famous South Carolina military academy, which was established as a paramilitary force to perpetuate the peculiar institution of slavery. Addressing an audience of cadets, Santorum worked his mad campaign skills with an opening volley in which he compared his "trademark sweater vest" to a flak jacket, then deploying his finely honed stump speech which included this rhetorical fusillade in which:

... he cast himself as a Goldilocks candidate: just right when compared to Gingrich's "too hot" rhetoric and Romney's "too cold" personality.

Because nothing will inspire loyalty in a soldier like comparing yourself to a naive little girl lost in the woods. Unless it's bringing your stuffed animal collection along for show and tell.

Friday Evening Prayer Meeting

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It seems that Johnny Otis departed the scene on Tuesday. Listen to this.



It was only recently that I learned Johnny Otis recorded the hit version of "Willie And The Hand Jive." It's a song I never cared for, so that never registered with me. I know of Johnny Otis mainly through some of his popular recordings on Savoy that were compiled by that label as part of a 1977 double LP called The Roots of Rock 'N Roll. And, unlike many other compilations of that same name, that one is aptly named. Roots includes the cut featured here.

This recording is from an era in American pop music that has interested me for a long time, which began right quick after World War II. For economic reasons, big swing bands were no longer affordable to maintain considering that musicians made their big money from touring; a big band, like an army, travels on its stomach. So different things began happening to jazz, most of which involved pared-down orchestras exploring different sounds. One group brought jazz instrumentation to the blues---the "jump blues," to be more precise---retaining a brass section and featuring the emerging electric guitar more prominently than it had been used in most jazz. Others went in a more vocal-oriented direction, sometimes featuring full-harmony groups that provided roots for doo-wop.

I can't find any quick reference to the personnel comprising the Johnny Otis show, but I recall that it was on the largish side---maybe 7 or 8 guys plus vocalists. This cut features "Little Ester" (barely a teenager at the time) and the Robins. It starts with the characteristic arpeggiated chord played by Otis on vibes, which opened many of his sides during the Savoy era. The structure is a simple 12-bar blues, but listen to how much is going on in the mix. In back of Esther there's classic rock-sounding fills, a hyperactive rolling piano, and a bit later lots more vibes. Then there is Robins close harmony buoying Esther's melodic taunts and accusations all the way, and in the third chorus "Daddy" ripostes with his own denunciations. Finally, they spend the fourth chorus dueling to the bitter end.

So to summarize, in this Johnny Otis production, you can hear jazz vibes, rock guitar, doo-wop backgrounds, plus blues vocalists and piano. More roots than you can stake a shick at.

Incidentally, Otis had an extremely interesting career that you can read a bit about here and here. At the latter link you can hear parts of a 1989 interview Terri Gross did with Otis. Worth a listen if you have 20 minutes.

Double Crossing Blues, The Johnny Otis Show featuring "Little Esther" Phillips (1949, 78 rpm recording Savoy 731-A), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.