<$BlogRSDUrl$>

Drooling on the Pillow

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown 


I read last week that Gatemouth Brown had died, but reading The Prop's post about him over at Coffeegrounds made me realize it was time to put one of his recordings up.

Here's Underhand Boogie:


Powered by Castpost
Posted by: Sluggo / 11:39 PM
|

Friday, September 23, 2005

Bastard People! 

Mick Hartley quotes a horrified reaction to the film Team America, World Police from a [North] Korean Friendship Association forum.
Comrades! I am terrored! A film has just arrived on
the markets of Cameroon, this film the American Police
Team or some name that is similar. My nephew,
purchased this and asked me to watch because he said
is had something to do with DPRK. The shock I see!
The general, beloved general, Kim Jong Il is a puppet
character in this film and speaking the most offending
things! He swears in English, kills his interpreter, and
turns into a small insect at the end. They make the
Dear Leader to be evil man, and lonely man. They find
risible the undying love of the Korean people? They
think the leadership of DPRK and the revolution is a
joke? Forgive me for saying but makers of this film are
bastard people! I denounce them and curse them!
Bastard people! Can we not complain to someone about
such slander? Why has not the KCNA denounced this
piece of capitalist propaganda? To think that they make
light of the general and debase his greatness!
The Goddess' opinion was similar, for different reasons. Me, I laughed a lot.

Mick goes on to reminisce of similar encounters with deluded souls.
Posted by: Sluggo / 1:29 PM
|

Once More, Into The Abyss 

God help me, I did watch the season premier of The Apprentice last night. This group is by far the most rancid, corporate, yup-o-licious group of creepy suck-ups yet assembled by the Donald. Once again I am powerless before the horrifying/fascinating spectacle.

They gave the heave-ho to the young 'chicana' who's real sin seemed to be a gross miscalculation of what phoney personna was going to fly. But, really, in the perfect taste-, ethics-, and self awareness-free world of TrumpLand, what greater sin is there?
Posted by: Sluggo / 12:57 PM
|

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Thursday Nite Jukebox 

Here are two other tunes which I tried last year to Audioblog, but lacked the bandwidth, resulting in computers locked up tighter than a cheese junkie's back yard.

The first represents the history of my relationship with cars until I found my honey, my darlin', my Miss Tubishi. I give you The Bottle Rockets with 1000 Dollar Car.


Powered by Castpost

The next is my favorite male duet in all of opera. I became familiar with it when I had a girlfriend about 20 years ago who was trying to bring up my tone and used to haul me to little free concerts that were broadcast live over WNYC from a recording studio. Jerry Hadley and some big dude warbled this little ditty and it knocked my socks off. It's Au Fond du Temple Saint from Bizet's The Pearl Fishers. Imagine being twenty feet away when a couple sets of monster pipes let loose on this one.


Powered by Castpost

NOTE: One problem I haven't figured out yet with Castpost is that once you open one of the Flashplayers and play a tune, every time you refresh or follow a link and return, it begins playing again. I bet there's a way to fix it, but until I do, when you've heard enough, just turn the speaker off. Either that or listen to the Bottle Rockets give Bizet a back-beat.
Posted by: Sluggo / 10:53 PM
|

Pick One 

"Any one of the strange laws we suffer is a compromise between a fad and a vested interest"
G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

From The New York Sun
Posted by: Sluggo / 12:15 PM
|

The Art of Moral Preening 

I read this morning that the poet Sharon Olds has decided to decline an invitation by Laura Bush to read from her works at the National Book Festival in Washington. Her RSVP was printed, inevitably, in The Nation.

She first enumerates the prestige and readership she is sacrificing for her ideals, then gives herself a pat on the back for working with Handicapped-American poets and finally explains why she cannot break bread with the Administration:
What kept coming to the fore of my mind was that I
would be taking food from the hand of the First Lady
who represents the Administration that unleashed this war
and that wills its continuation, even to the extent of
permitting "extraordinary rendition": flying people to
other countries where they will be tortured for us.

So many Americans who had felt pride in our country
now feel anguish and shame, for the current regime of
blood, wounds and fire. I thought of the clean linens at
your table, the shining knives and the flames of the
candles, and I could not stomach it.
Okay. You're against the war. The administration offers you an extraordinary public platform to make your case. But you can't make use of it because you are on a higher moral leval than the barbarians in Washington. To participate, to break bread with Laura Bush, is something your delicate stomach rejects. This isn't the act of a poet, but of a spinster poetaster. Throwing a little sermon to the choir at The Nation isn't really engaging your foes. Her piece doesn't really make any sort of a case, either. It doesn't have to. The war is presumed to be a bad thing and those who support and perpetrate it morally deficient.

Obviously, I disagree with her concerning the moral presence of the war and the motives of it's prosecutors. Honest people can disagree on this, but if you are placing yourself on a higher moral level than the First Lady, I think you've got to make more of an effort to show us why this is so. Ms. Olds is either lazy in this regard or underexposed to conflicting views.

Personally, I never heard of Sharon Olds. Here's a sample:
The Pope's Penis

It hangs deep in his robes, a delicate
clapper at the center of a bell.
It moves when he moves, a ghostly fish in a
halo of silver seaweed, the hairs
swaying in the dark and the heat -- and at night
while his eyes sleep, it stands up
in praise of God.
I took a look at some of her work here. Turns out she's pretty good.

For a prig.
Posted by: Sluggo / 11:04 AM
|

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

In Like Flynn 

I'm breathing easier knowing that John Kerry has decided to vote against the nomination of John Roberts, but I won't rest easy until I hear that Al Gore has come out against him.

Come to think of it, maybe he has and no one has noticed.
Posted by: Sluggo / 1:07 PM
|

Times: Pass The Fish Sauce 

The New York Sun reported on the front page today:

With the ink still drying on an agreement to dismantle
its nuclear program, North Korean officials yesterday
indicated that they were already backing away from its
terms, threatening to leave intact its "nuclear deterrent"
until and unless America delivers a light-water nuclear
power reactor.
Which makes yesterdays editorial in the New York Times look particularly foolish. In it the skeleton staff at the Times attempted to praise the 'agreement' while simultaneously taking shots at the Administration for abandoning international diplomacy.

I tried to link to the Time's editorial, but it's gone. The other editorials from yesterday are there, but the North Korea piece is just gone. Well, you know how things go when you start cutting staff. Stuff just walks away.

The Sun article also reveals that "Iranian negotiators threatened to take a page from the North Korean playbook and withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if America, Britain, France and Germany referred its prior violations of the treaty to the U.N. Security Council." It's hard to imagine why anyone cares if neither Iran nor North Korea intend to abide by any of their agreements anyway.

The Norks appear to be perfecting a variation on a Palestinian classic: selling us the same bowl of kimchee over and over.
Posted by: Sluggo / 10:23 AM
|

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Maybe I Dropped Out Too Early 

I was looking at the latest Rasmussen Poll numbers for the governor's race over at DynamoBuzz and, while they're not pretty for us starry-eyed Republican types (Corzine 47% and Forrester 36%) the most remarkable number I saw was Corzine's favorability rating of 41%, one point under what New Jersey responders gave to President Bush. As far as I know, Corzine has not been accused of murdering thousands of African-Americans or lining the pockets of anyone but his ex-girlfriend and various county bosses. If New Jersey Republicans can't mount a candidate capable of beating someone viewed less favorably in-state than George W. Bush, then we have many more years in the wilderness to look forward to.

Roberto is going with the hockey tonight, while Sharon is doing the responsible thing and tuning in to the debates. Me? I've been fascinated with the stories on the My Name Is Earl premier and that's probably where I'll be.
Posted by: Sluggo / 2:45 PM
|

Monday, September 19, 2005

Lockbox Mentality 

The New York Times still thinks Judge Roberts is a risky scheme.

Via Orin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy.
Posted by: Sluggo / 2:24 PM
|

Coming Home 

Kudos to The Nightfly for letting loose Castpost.com upon the community. It's not just a cool tool. I've had a couple of problems (due to cranial malfunctions) getting it going and the staff at the help forum have been extremely responsive. Enlighten-NJ and others have been having fun with it so I use it to make my offering today.

Soon after the fall of Communism, the cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich marked his return to Russia after a long exile with a concert. At the end he offered his thanks to his adoptive country by leading the National Symphony of Washington, D.C. in The Stars and Stripes Forever. It's the best recording of it I ever heard. Listen to the Russkies stomp and cheer. This was when we loved them, they loved us and everything was going to be all right. I tried to post this a few months ago, but it didn't really work. Like everything on the web, you don't have to wait too long for the right tool to come along.


Powered by Castpost
Posted by: Sluggo / 1:41 PM
|

I'm Spinning, Spinning, Spinning And The Lights Are So Pretty 

We're informed by Tim Blair that Greg Palast, who is appearing on the bill with travelling medicine show fantacist Cindy Sheehan, believes that George Galloway is an agent, or, at the very least, a cat's paw of Karl Rove.

The good news is that someone on the left may be beginning to recognize Galloway for what he is. The bad news is that they are locked into a single, lunatic response to any complicated event.
Posted by: Sluggo / 11:39 AM
|

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Reports of My Demise Were Only Slightly Exaggerated 

Goodness! Six days I was in the thrall of the evil bug. Alternating symptoms of chills/fever, body aches and headaches, never two at once. Sometimes cruel hours of not wanting to die in between.

I think I'm good starting today, but I come out of the fever swamp and, at first, think I merely dreamed it all. The Nightfly just published the Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers, which is where I came in. It turns out there were good and sufficient reasons for his return performance and he does another outstanding job. I didn't even submit any of my fevered jabberings from the past week, but I'm looking forward to getting back in the swing.
Posted by: Sluggo / 11:44 AM
|
Weblog Commenting and Trackback by HaloScan.com Listed on BlogShares