Sunday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, January 17, 2021
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137 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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No one is going to listen and that is totally okay.
One of my favorite songs of all time is Time To Pretend by MGMT.
A band called OWEL does an organic “live” pandemic cover that is so super righteous it takes my breath away. It re-imagines a great song and perhaps improves it.
My life is better after hearing it.
TIL Jonsi is gay. I never knew.
@de stijl:
I am in the inside looking out, but society is not just cool with het coupling but also many factors actively encourage it.
Outside of norm coupling is not viewed from the same friendly perspective. Pop songs as a general rule are het friendly by default.
Which is stupid. Love is love.
I never knew Jonsi was gay until tonight.
It changes nothing. Yearning is yearning no matter towards who.
Jonsi yearns for a better future. It is why I love him.
I just finished watching the Hulu Catch 22 miniseries. I was not expecting it be about how if Yossarian just toed the line, things would have been better — not good, but better. Pretty much everything bad ends up being a direct consequence of Yossarian doing something wrong.
It reminded me of the movie Brotherhood of the Wolf, where the moral of the story is that if you enter town as people are attacking someone, don’t get involved, those people probably know what they’re doing.
On the other hand, it was better than this pilot of an early 70s Catch 22 sitcom, starring Richard Dreyfus. https://youtu.be/AC707hhUErs
@de stijl:
Which is why when a song is covered by someone of the opposite sex from the original singer, the lyrics are almost invariably changed to maintain heteronormative conventions. “Fell in Love with a Girl” by the White Stripes became “Fell in Love with a Boy” when Joss Stone covered it. “You know a man ain’t supposed to cry, but these tears I can’t hold inside” was part of the original lyrics to “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” but they were altered for the first recorded version of the song by Gladys Knight, then reinstated in Marvin Gaye’s version.
That’s why it’s interesting when an artist deliberately subverts this convention, as in White Town’s “Your Woman,” where the lyrics seem to be from the standpoint of a woman, but are sung by a man.
I think the Beatles were toying in that direction with their song “Polythene Pam” in lines like “She’s so good-looking that she looks like a man.”
(thread)
@de stijl: That was great. Both the original and the OWEL. I wish the latter was on Spotify, but what can you do?
@Kylopod:
At the time it came out I thought that “Lola” was The Kink’s answer to ‘Polythene Pam.’ Lines like: ‘girls will be boys and boys will be girls, it’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world, except for my Lola, L O L A Lola ….’
They’ve set the bar pretty high. I’m not sure if this is confidence in competence or hubris. These are people well acquainted with the levers of government but they have yet to ascertain the full damage the trumpsters have inflicted upon our country. There will be a thrashing if they fall short.
@al Ameda: The clincher is the song’s last line, which uses ambiguous phrasing to leave the nature of the situation open to interpretation: “I know what I am and I’m glad I’m a man, and so is Lola.” Does this mean Lola is also “glad [the narrator is] a man,” or that Lola is also, you know, a man?
@Kylopod: Ola Belle Reed, a great banjo player and folk singer, and a Good Christian Woman ™ would never change the words of a song because “that would be lying.”
So, she has many fine lesbian love songs, like this version of “Bonaparte’s Retreat”
https://youtu.be/lOn6a9frjEI
I love it. The wacky instrument featured here is an Appalachian Dulcimer, and I want one.
——
She was the type of Good Christian Woman who would take terminally ill vagrants into her home and provide hospice care — so, simultaneously very giving and pretty severe. She also looked like Fred Willard in a dress. The more I learn about her the more amazing she turns out to be.
Otherwise known as the Laptop Dulcimer. I played one for 10 years or so, until my arthritis got too bad. It’s a fairly simple instrument and if an all thumbs idiot like me can *make music* on it, anyone can.
* * i said music, i didn’t say good music
@Kylopod:
Joan Jett kept the pronouns “she” and “her” in her cover of Crimson and Clover.
And all the way back in 1983.
From the Washington post, Misinformation Went Down After Twitter Banned trump.
You may run into a paywall.
@Kathy:
Androgynous by The Replacements in 1984.
Blew my fucking mind.
—
Lola is a great song.
Walk On The Wild Side is pretty awesome too and that was 1972. Doot di doot. More aggressive in gender fluidity.
Perfect Day was the A side. I owned that 45 back when.
@Kathy:
In or around 1985 I served a beer to Joan Jett. She is so fucking insanely awesome and gorgeous. I almost dropped the tray I was so keyed up.
Perused the Mpls Star-Trombone website this morning and noted that the pro-trump rally in St. Paul yesterday, drew all of ~20 people. The organizer blamed fear of antifa (dang they’re powerful), most likely it was cold and blustery and the snowflakes weren’t up to it.
Somethings are simply just.
‘Jamal Khashoggi Way’: Washington DC may rename Saudi embassy street
@Gustopher:
Saw Ola Belle Reed play at the National Folk Festival at Wolf Trap in 74 or 75. Damn she put on a great show.
Please pass the popcorn: Major NRA donor to challenge gun group’s bankruptcy over alleged fraud
Yes, because declaring bankruptcy is what responsible financially solvent organizations do.
Hell hath no furry like that of the cheated paramour.
@OzarkHillbilly: Weird, the edit function shows for this post but when I click on it a previous comment of mine shows in the edit box.
@Gustopher:
OWEL also does some pretty cool original stuff. I like I Dread The Night a lot.
@de stijl: Lou Reed was all New Yorker, not afraid of anything.
@Gustopher:
Ola Belle Reed has a great voice. As Ozark said a dulcimer is not wacky. It’s traditional. I love her.
Reminds me of Hank Williams. I’m So Lonesone I Could Cry
Wheelchair climber hauls himself 250 metres up Hong Kong skyscraper for charity
@Sleeping Dog:
Fear of antifa.
The new R excuse.
@OzarkHillbilly:
“Hell hath no furry…”
The Plushies are envious.
Best typo ever.
@de stijl:
Antifa is for people too old to be scared by the Bogeyman.
@de stijl: I love Ola Belle’s voice. Alison Krause has a beautiful voice, very polished, very professional, but Ola Belle’s is richer with character and a hard life well lived.
@de stijl: I knew folks would get a laugh out of it, which is why it didn’t bother me so much when the edit function borked.
@de stijl:
I front as if I know the clear distinction between furry and plushie, but if asked I would likely fail to answer true and coherently.
I know there is a distinction, though. I’m not that dumb.
Attorney in Mike Lindell martial law plan denies knowing of pro-Trump plot
It’s like trump has become radioactive: “No no, I never said that! Don’t know why they would be referencing me! I’m nobody!”
@Kylopod:
It’s funny, I’ve listened to that song several times over the past week. So good.
It’s January 17, the day hordes of armed patriots were due to invade D.C. and the capitals of all 50 states. Any word on their progress?
“Well, we have to deter, blah blah bluh blah.”
-acting US defense secretary Christopher Miller
source: Acting US defense secretary Christopher Miller says he ‘can’t wait’ to leave his job
I almost feel sorry for the guy. Almost.
@CSK: Misery’s is empty because of Covid. Convenient that.
@OzarkHillbilly:
The principle parts of the reorganization plan the NRA submitted — reincorporate in Texas and transfer all the assets in New York to Texas — tells you exactly why they’re doing this.
@CSK:
Checked a couple of the local news outlets and the only mention at the Union Leader is this.
Protest at State House evaporates as local group advises against going
They aren’t blaming antifa though.
@Michael Cain: Yep. To repeat, “I think they planned this all along,” he said. “It was always an ace they were going to play.”
Wayne LaPierre is scum. I hope that between the the NY AG and Dell’Aquila they can put an end to LaPierre’s grift. The thought of seeing him on a street corner with a beggar’s cup warms the cockles of my heart.
‘I had no qualms’: The people turning in loved ones for the Capitol attack
‘Nuff said.
@OzarkHillbilly: @Sleeping Dog:
Over at Lucianne.com the posters were warning people against participating in these armed marches because they were traps set by the deep state to ensnare patriots. Many patriots may have therefore chickened out.
@Gustopher:
What else can we do? Get jobs in offices and wait for the morning commute.
We are fated to pretend.
@CSK: I propose we call this week “Fuck Around And Find Out” week. I suspect “protests” in D.C will fizzle out in the presence of so many National Guard troops, but I do have concerns about all of the protests at State Capitol buildings. These jerkwads were promised mayhem, if they’re thwarted in D.C they’ll get their riot on closer to home.
As predictable as the sunrise.
@OzarkHillbilly:
White ethno nationalist dudes concerned over losing their default position as top dog is now the top national security concern.
Has been trending that way since Oklahoma City.
Law and order. Yeah. Right.
@Kurtz:
When I first heard the song, I misheard the main lyric as “I could never be a woman.” When I later found out the actual lyrics, I was puzzled, and then I began to assume the lead singer must be a woman with a very low voice. (That’s also happened to me before–I was totally weirded out when I found out Yaz’s “Situation” is sung by a woman. I spent literally decades picturing the singer as a man.) I don’t think I learned the truth about the song until Wikipedia.
Also, like a lot of people, I initially thought the opening riff sounded like the Imperial March from Star Wars. It turns out it was based on a 1929 song called “My Woman,” by Al Bowlly. If anything, John Williams probably ripped it off. (It wouldn’t be the only time he has–anyone notice that the Harry Potter theme sounds a lot like the Swan Theme from Swan Lake?)
I’ve had a variety of weird experiences learning the origin of samples in various pop songs. For example, in the movie Shrek Forever After, there’s a scene where the Pied Piper gets recruited by the bad guys, and at first the witches are like, what can a guy with a flute do? Then the Piper cranks the flute around and starts playing–well, the flute riff from the Beastie Boys’ “Sure Shot.” And everyone is suddenly forced to dance to it against their will.
At least that’s what I thought it was. It turned out to be part of a fairly complicated in-joke that I doubt most viewers understood (least of all kids in the audience). I don’t think that up to that point, I had ever stopped to wonder where that strange flute riff in the Beastie Boys song came from. Sampling was just so ubiquitous in the ’90s that I typically did not wonder where a sample came from unless it was obvious, or sounded familiar to me.
As it turns out, the flute riff came from a 1970s jazz composition by a flutist named Jeremy Steig. Who was Jeremy Steig? Well, for one thing, he was the son of the children’s author William Steig. You know, the guy who wrote Shrek, upon which the entire movie franchise was based.
Furthermore, Jeremy Steig was actually hired for this movie to do the flute part of the Pied Piper scene, thus bringing it full circle.
While the book version of Shrek was a little after my time (it was published in 1990 when I was 13), I do remember as a kid reading or having read to me books by William Steig like Sylvester and the Magic Pebble and Doctor De Soto. All those years, and I never would have imagined there was any connection between him and the Beastie Boys.
A month ago Pfizer said it had 20M doses shipped or ready to ship, and they have continued manufacturing. Moderna also has produced many millions of doses for the US. Conservatively there should 30M doses available and maybe much more. So far there have been about 12M injections and almost all of the states are supply limited now. Where have all the doses gone?
Nobody’s Diary is a great song.
Hyperdramatic.
Why is it Yaz in the US, and Yazoo in the UK?
Is it one one of those Cher UK copyright things?
@de stijl: According to Wikipedia:
Only You by Yaz / Yazoo is pretty cool too.
Prime 80s keyboards.
Retract pretty cool. Only You is fucking awesome.
@MarkedMan: They went to Jared, just like all that PPE the Feds were stealing from the states last spring.
@Kylopod:
You might like Romeo Void.
@Kylopod: I just ran into one of the most magnificent swiping-of-the-other-guy’s-music EVAH. Was listening to Bach’s Gigue from the Partita No. 1 in B-flat and thinking to myself: “I KNOW that! I just heard it the other day, what was it? Gluck! Iphigenie en Tauride!”
So yup, turns out Gluck lifted 30 bars from the Gigue as the basis of the great dramatic aria “J’implore et je tremble”. (Don’t ever say Bach doesn’t write emotional music. Gluck’s borrowing proves it.)
This is why we have to weaken copyright law IMHO. At least for music.
Ina “The Barefoot Contessa” Garten had a Q clearance back when she worked in the Ford and Carter administrations.
I wonder if…could it be…that she’s Q??????
Just kidding. But you knew that.
@MarkedMan: The black market covered in Jared’s fingerprints?
@Gustopher:
If you like MGMT’s Time To Pretend check out Kids. Be forewarned, the video is kinda disturbing.
Politico has one of the worst long reads I’ve ever seen, an effort to rehabilitate Operation Warp Speed that seems to be based entirely on Trump administration sources. I got halfway through it, searching for some indication of what the Trumpies actually did that impacted the speed of development. Nothing. They “reviewed contracts”. And admitted they weren’t even involved with the first one for J&J. Then the reporter seems to take their word for it that they were the ones who saw the delays that were usual in the vaccine development process and eliminated them. Not legal or agency delays, but just business related ones. The Politico reporter just accepts all this and so far, thousands of words in, the only non-Trumper source is a CDC official who pushed back against the Trumpers blaming the CDC for the slow rollout.
@CSK: That made me laugh out loud.
I’ll be pleased if there’s no more violence, but this whole “antifa did it/avoid the deep state” is hilarious butt-covering.
@CSK:
Who is the American woman who over-pronounces every Italian word? She has a big awesome smile. She’s super cute.
Buc a tini!
Bucatini is the best of the long pastas. The hole in the middle makes for a good sauce sponge.
There is a bucatini shortage in the US now and likely world wide. All of the pasta makers got wiped in April when there was a run on shelf stable staples.
They are trying hard to backfill asap, but via the most purchased first so spaghetti and penne and elbow macaroni first and then the less popular forms later.
Why would one buy spaghetti or linguini when there is bucatini available? It baffles me.
@de stijl:
Believe it or not someone has written and performed a song about ANIMORPHS and the surprising thing is? It’s actually good. Tell me this doesn’t sound like a Dropkick Murphy’s song.
@de stijl:
Giada di Laurentiis?
@Jen:
Even funnier is the “Donald Trump told me to do it” excuse. I really believe they think this makes invading the Capitol okay.
@de stijl:
Just for you, for when you can find some bucatini:
http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/bucatini-all-amatriciana-2
@CSK: “I vas only followingk orders.”
@CSK: I would call them pussies—but I happen to think those are perhaps Providence’s greatest creations.
@de stijl:
But who can forget Jim Stafford’s gender-bending hit, My Girl Bill!
@Jax:..I propose we call this week “Fuck Around And Find Out” week.
Not to be confused with Fooled Around and Fell in Love.
@Michael Reynolds:
I watched an alien die
I did not know it was my dad
I fell in love with a girl
who likes to turn into bear
That was god damn fucking awesome.
—-
I thought about you the other day. You might like Great Apes. It fits into that Clash Rancid continuum. They are from SF and have fresh tunes out just this last week.
I like Paper Cages as an intro.
@Joe:
A boy named Sue?
(God bless Johnny Cash)
@CSK:
That’s her name! Thanks!
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yep.
@Jim Brown 32:
Many people are saying that pussies are Providence’s greatest creations.
In general news: Phil Spector has died in prison of Covid-19. He was 81.
Some twit @thejordanrachel
Thc comments are jam-packed with people screenshotting taco bell online menus in jurisdictions where the min wage is already $15, and the burritos are $2, $3, $4.
@CSK:
I have a half package of Da Vinci bucatini left in my cupboard.
Hoarding it for now.
In the coming apocalypse that will be worth a fortune!
@MarkedMan: In fairness to many Administratons this would be the case no matter who was President. As much as people want to credit their team with major victories….the truth is that the robust technocracy the US has actually does the thing.
Many times it occurs as a partnership with larger companies that have high end R&D capabilities and are on Govt contracts.
Because the American people believe there is so much waste and fraud in Govt spending…there are levels upon levels of oversight between the Administration and the people that do the work. Lots of Chiefs….a few Indians.
I suspect there are levels of levels of approvals and oversight on the medical side just as it to turn a screw on an F-16.
The urgency of now wiped out many of these levels of extraneous levels of oversight and so you get a vaccine in about a year down from 3 to 5 years.
This tracks with what I know about Military R&D. 3 to 5 years with the normal process but if you shave off approvals by peripheral stakeholders and reduce your testing and validation evens from 6-8 to 3-4…you can pump a widget out to the field in a year with a high degree of confidence it will work…probably 85%. The additional layers gets you an extra 5-10% of confidence. Not insignificant mind you because I’d feel more comfortable firing something at the enemy with 95% confidence rather that 85% confidence. But if I got nothing to fire…I’ll take the 85% widget in 12 months rather that than 95% widget in 36 months.
Administrations can review contracts and build focused cross function teams (like Biden should do to solve the logistics problem) but thats about it. Granted there are exceptions if an Administration official has special experience or credentials (Jimmy Carter had training as a nuclear engineer) but these people are lawyers and/or career politicians. They have limited ability to know if they are being sold a bill of goods or the actual groceries.
Great Apes new song is called Edge Of The Western World.
Susan Collins is at it again.
https://www.salon.com/2021/01/12/susan-collins-shockingly-reveals-her-first-thought-was-that-the-iranians-hit-the-capitol_partner/
Also Tim Miller has a good rant up at The Bulwark.
@OzarkHillbilly: This kind of breaks my heart, but it also makes me angry:
This is the work of a variety of people – Alex Jones, Trump, Fox News, and lesser-known people such as Jim Watkins (8chan) and Jason Gelinas (QAnon website) who create things like the Q websites, etc, etc. But also Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey.
I’m not excusing breaking into the Capitol. Prosecution is probably what is needed to break through to them. It might not be enough.
And yet, let’s also note that grifters, this time, have done far more damage than taking some money from the unsuspecting. We prosecute them just for taking money, if we can. What can we do about this one?
@Jim Brown 32:
I have noticed that Rs cannot do logistics for crap. Ds can sometimes.
Plus there should already have been indexed binders for future pandemics on shelves immediately available. Planning prevents piss-poor performance.
Making it up on the fly is a sign of failure.
Rs have to swallow their Adam’s apple to even admit that this is a pandemic and have difficulty even now supporting mask mandates.
It is as if they had a cruelly pinched version of civics education.
@Sleeping Dog: In line with all of the androgynous threads, I just realized who Susan Collins reminds me of!
@MarkedMan:
Politico’s long reads tend towards NPRish “on the other hand” inclusion when it is unnecessary. Yo, journos, it’s totally okay to call a lie a lie. You do not need to hide that. And that’s true for the folks I prefer to vote for as well as for the ones I don’t.
Usually, Politico articles are well sourced and as true as can be discerned today and not speculative agit-prop which we too often get from digital only press.
Not talking about opinion pieces.
@Kylopod:
Why was this not used in a Star Wars Dance Off? (For those unaware, there are Star Wars Dance Offs — https://youtu.be/GKSp1dVTrYk )
I used to listen to White Town a lot, many years ago, because there was an oddly enchanting boy at work who liked them. I had completely forgotten about them and had never made the Imperial March connection at the time, or had forgotten it.
So odd to hear that song again. And then spend 20 minutes stalking the boy online, as one does.
@Owen:
I can do the PeeWee dance and have done it often.
Just play “Tequila” on the jukebox.
@OzarkHillbilly:
It might not be different enough from my banjo — likely to cause repetitive stress injuries in the same spots, although the different position might help.
(My thinking is that knowing two different instruments would mean I can bounce from one to the other, to avoid RSI. This is what I do with a mouse and a trackball)
Also, it’s a beautiful instrument.
@Gustopher: In my case the arthritis comes from 35 years of swinging a 24 oz framing hammer and other forms of self flagellation.
@de stijl:
Please enjoy Lou Reed and Elvis Costello doing a duet of “Perfect Day”. It’s awful. And it brings up images of them going on a date ending with them both telling the other that they’re going to reap what they sow. They would not have made a good couple.
https://youtu.be/HcGutMM2sDE
Meanwhile, here’s someone performing a banjo cover of “Walk on the Wild Side” — it is quite good.
https://youtu.be/KOKxc0WAnVg
@de stijl:
Thanks! As always you are my rock and roll guide.
Sadly, Kevin Drum is semi-retiring. I’ve been reading his blog snce he started Calpundit 17 years ago.
@Kylopod:
It’s not quite the subversion you’re talking about, but I love what Bonnie Raitt did in adapting Chris Smither’s “Love You Like a Man”. In the original, the singer is dissing a woman’s lovers and bragging about how much better he could be. In the Raitt version, she’s dissing her own past lovers and challenging mankind to produce a male who really could love properly, and still think of that as being “like a man”.
@Jim Brown 32:
I liked that phrase “the urgency of now”.
@Gustopher:
My freshman roommate in college played the dulcimer. Thankfully, he was pretty good. There is no more soothing sound in the world.
@Gustopher:
Dude, you said it was gonna be bad.
But that was… That was the worst, first impulses of both coming to the fore simultaneously.
I swear Lou Reed was out there with a gun to his back. Dance, monkey boy. Heroin is a helluva drug.
I made it to 1:14 and I just had to bail.
I need to erase this from my brain cuz I like both. Pretty sure there are bad Iggy Pop performances out there too. I prefer not to watch those.
@de stijl:
@Gustopher:
Walk on the Wild Side cover
https://youtu.be/7Dbx5JCqVxg
@Kylopod:
Dominic was my very favoritest book when I was… 11?
This is probably already been mentioned here, but the FBI is going for Geofence warrants. So if you weren’t supposed to be at the Capitol building but your cell phone was inside the Capitol building knock knock motherfucker.
😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
@grumpy realist:
For the first movement of his third symphony — the Organ Symphony, one of the top 5 symphonies of all time IMHO — Saint-Saens lifted a melody from Schubert’s “Unfinished” and doubled every note. And pretty much every western composer ever has used various traditional plainchant melodies to evoke particular moods in a work. The most famous of these is probably the Dies Irae (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dies_irae#Musical_settings) that has been “sampled” by everyone, and is instantly recognizable by zillions of people who don’t know anything about classical music.
@Gustopher:
That was Alien Ant Farm bad.
Today my wife and I are attending one of the pandemic’s most poignant and happy occasions: a Zoom wedding. Reception at a time and place to be determined, of course. It’s still great to see love winning even in these trying times.
@Michael Reynolds: I almost always look up de stilj’s music recommendations. 8 out of 10 interesting, and half of those are good — a pretty impressive record.
@DrDaveT:
I really like cello for relaxation. Not Marin Marais style attack cello, chill cello.
I like Marin Marais in the morning when you gotta go out and do an important thing. Pumps you up.
@Gustopher:
From having plunked on both (and played many years of guitar and fiddle and mandolin) I’d say there’s almost no overlap. Between the different wrist positions (for fingering) and the different strumming angle, I think it would be fairly safe.
Weird tangent — I saw a video the other day of The Lovin’ Spoonful playing “Do You Believe in Magic” live, and was totally weirded out that the lead singer was playing an autoharp — standing and holding it to his chest — through the whole song.
@de stijl:
I have listened to the soundtrack from Tous les Matins du Mond a bazillion times.
@Sleeping Dog:
Is that Cara Delavigne in the red dress? I like her. She is an interesting person. She has amazing eyebrows.
I have not followed the stories to know if she has or not, but I hope Vanessa Paradis is fully free from Johnny Depp’s clutches soon. Dude is toxic. I do not like men who hit and bully women.
@de stijl: it’s bad. It’s the kind of bad that just stays with you.
They do a bunch of other songs together.
The whole Elvis Costello show “Spectacle” was that — bring in someone good and interesting, and then do a few god awful duets that will be among the worst renditions ever. I guess a train wreck is also a spectacle.
(Elvis Costello is often great, although I’ve outgrown a lot of the heavy handed cynicism that crops up — absolutely loved him in my 20s though)
@DrDaveT:
The movie is sorta blah except for the music. Plus now we now Depardieu is an utter dick.
But the music is so sublime. I was awestruck. It smacks you. It says I will transport you and it does.
I would be more dismissive of the movie itself, but that was the movie where a young woman I really fancied indicated she liked me too and we kissed for the first time after.
It was a blah movie, but that was a really intense day I will remember until I die.
That was a very good day.
Just finished Netflix’s “Queens Gambit” Not too shabby. Plot creeps a bit slowly in spots but the ending is worth hanging around for. Acting and casting are top-notch.
@OzarkHillbilly: I think this is the same guy that got me booted off of YouTube back in November. I was predicting that Trump would resign around January 19th but he had a predicament. Does he trust Pence to pardon him? I stated that Pence couldn’t be trusted because he wants 2024 and needs Trump out of the way. It infuriated many people. Next thing I see is a comment, with I believe this guy, stating that he was with the 380 Brigade (intelligence) and kind of an intimidating emoji like he was watching me or something. I called him out for protecting an Authoritarian and that if he indeed was part of US intelligence he was a traitor to our country. Next morning I was terminated from YouTube. I also found some bank activity under his name but not sure how it is connected. Need to dig more. If he is indeed working for our intelligence his cover is blown on his own accord. And if he is pushing this fraud garbage he knows better and needs to be rooted out.
@Gustopher:
I am a sucker for interesting word play and I was of that era and type so EC appealed to me a lot.
I know where you are coming from in walking away from EC. Glib does not equal smart. I still really like Get Happy! because the way it was rushed made it closer to truth. And it is fun.
I love, love Almost Blue.
Veronica makes me cry to this very day, but I have family history of dementia so I am biased.
@Jim Brown 32: There were no changes to regulations that I know of. The FDA no doubt fast tracked their side, but they do that for any major breakthrough. The companies that developed the vaccines are multi-nationals and didn’t need US government help to develop them. What they needed was a guarantee that if they made a successful vaccine they would get guaranteed sales. The Trump admin guaranteed a potion of that, but so did many other countries. And, in fact, Kushner et al put their thumbs on the scale for J&J’s vaccine, which is still not available.
@Gustopher:
I stand by my recco’s. I will not peddle bad shit.
Music is a gift. All cultures. Across time. It is the one thing most identifiable as man-made.
@Truth Seeker: If some anonymous online person tells you they are with “intelligence”, you know 2 things: 1st, they aren’t. 2nd, they’re a liar.
@de stijl:
I know many of us look forward to your reco’s. I just wish I retained enough hearing to truly enjoy music. Child of the counter-culture, classically trained musician with enough deefness and tinnitus that most of my life is saying, “Eh, speak up, will ya?”
@flat earth luddite:
I am so sorry. You are stronger than me. I am not sure I would cope.
@flat earth luddite:
Can you hear / feel resonance?
Try Heilung loud and let the speakers rattle your bones. Shamanic.
Or Sugar (Bob Mould). Sugar is louder than Husker Du. Drums are centric and powerful.
@de stijl:
Shouldn’t that be “cill cello”?
Hmmm, now that I have a good excuse, I spend most of my time ignoring people.
@OzarkHillbilly:
@flat earth luddite:
There is that.
I am nearly old enough to be “eccentric” and not get called on it anymore.
@OzarkHillbilly: Good point. I wonder sometimes how smart smart people are sometimes. Why do you think Ellis has been vetted today three days before a transfer. Would Ellis control the National guard command at the Capitol? I am suspicious. Very.
Seen on Twitter
@Teve:
Noem is convinced that throwing good money after bad is still a good idea.
It might just work in So Dak. It is an insular world there. Very Germanic.
I used to date a woman from Rapid City where out of state tourism is key. Badlands, Black Hills, Mount Rushmore. It is bread and butter.
Instead they hosted the Sturgis Rally and tainted the region.
Noem is actively hurting her state.
Copper Blue by Sugar is an astounding album. Whole thing. All killer. No filler.
@de stijl:
“Veronica” is earnest. I love it. “Coal Train Robberies” is earnest and angry, I love it.
“White Knuckles” is just misogynistic twattle wrapped up in a claim of being a character with a few great lines like “maybe they weren’t loved when they were young / maybe they should be hung by the their tongues” — and every album has at least a few “White Knuckles.” If he is accused of beating some woman, no one is going to say “I never saw it coming” not after “White knuckles on black and blue skin / I didn’t want to hit her but she wouldn’t stop laughing.”
And then there are things like “Shabby Doll” which are somehow worse for being so cold and detached and too-cool-too-care about people who get hurt (by him).
Even if it is all an act — and he is quite the poser, so that’s possible, and I give him the benefit of the doubt — you have to wonder why this pose?
He really needs someone who he listens to who will review his albums before he releases them and say “Accidents Will Happen, good. Heart Shaped Bruise, skip it… also what the fuck? Let’s just pretend this never happened.”
That said, I think the album he wrote for Wendy James, filled with songs like “This Is A Test,” “Puppet Girl,” “Do You Know What I’m Saying?” “Fill In The Blanks” and “We Despise You” is hysterical.
Guns-N-Roses put out “Appetite For Destruction”, an album that is nearly perfect. It has a few cringe moments, but is basically a strong album start to finish.
After a forgettable double-ep “album” that was basically a joke, they went back to the studio and came out with “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II” released simultaneously. Had they thrown away half that music, or consigned it to B-Sides, I think they would have been held in the same regard as Led Zeppelin.
Instead, songs like “Get In The Ring” and “Back Off Bitch” just sit there next to great songs and stink the place up. The latter ends with talking “what do you think he’s trying to say there anyway?” “I think it’s something we each have to take in our own special way.”
——
I’m not sure why the deluxe versions of albums are longer. Many should be shorter.
@Gustopher:
I made the mistake of listening to Veronica.
It was not quiet tears of quiet remembrance, it was huge wrenching sobs of grief and fear. Alzheimer’s is evil and is my greatest fear in this world. I am predisposed. Baked in.
@flat earth luddite: You may want to get your hearing screened. Medicare and your supplemental policy will pay for it and hearing aids are good enough now that even the low end ones that UHC pushes may help quite a bit.
ETA: (I won the pool today!!! 😛 KYWL!) They aren’t so good that they make the music sound like it did when we were young, but they will help with the “Eh?” part. (And my loss of pitch recognition may be hereditary, not related to hearing loss itself.)
@Gustopher:
90% of Sandinista was utter garbage and this from The Clash. Triple album? Are you fucking kidding me?
The had maybe four worthy songs out of that whole lot. And those were sketchy at best.
Who green-lighted that mess? To go from the only band that matters to self-indulgent fools in that small span. Wasted potential.
At least Big Audio Dynamite was fun for the first two records.
The end of The Clash is stupid and sad.
@de stijl: I’ve been old enough to be eccentric and have people give up on calling me on it since I was 21 or 22, but I don’t think that’s the kind of thing you’re talking about. 😉
@Teve: If Kristi Noem is a rising star in the GOP Prez stakes, they might as well just skip to picking random names from the phone book. WA!!!
@de stijl:
Thanks, but I largely count myself lucky. I remember an interview with the late Tony Randall, who admitted that his tinnitus was so bad that at one point he considered suicide. So far, I just refuse to give the bastards the pleasure of my checking out early.
Mostly what I hear is the dull roar of voices behind the high-pitched ringing. Tenors/alto/baritone voices work ok, but higher voices tend to muddy, although it cycles. Since I live with/around people, I make use of earbuds/earphones to listen to music, and closed captioning to catch most dialog on the idjit box. I come from the generation where they stuck the drummer in front of the amps, and told us on the firing line to put cig filters in our ears if we were wimps. Between far too much abuse and recreational drugs in the 70’s, and too many pharmaceutics last decade, it is what it is. But you’ve given me some good search ideas on my free Pandora account.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Did the hearing test a while ago, and a lot of the damage seems to not be amenable to hearing aids, especially on the left side. Apparently that eardrum is mostly scar tissue. Besides, this way I can ignore the SVU marathon in the other room, eh? But this year is a new supplement plan, so maybe I’ll get it rechecked.
@DrDaveT: I have to say that even a dulcimer played not so well sounds pretty good. Hundreds of Mexican children on lonely mountain roads thought so anyway.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: No hearing aids for me. Just one more damned thing I have to take care of. Fuck that shit. Oh yeah, “HEY, you kids! Get off my lawn!!”
@OzarkHillbilly: Diatonic scale on the fretboard — so long as it is in tune, you can’t play a note out of the key. So, you cut the possibilities of screwing up down a bit. You might not play the song you intend to, but it will be a song! Possibly a bad song with weird meter, but a song!
@de stijl:
It is Cara
Vanessa Paradis, has become a favorite, her tooth gap, won me over.
@OzarkHillbilly:..No hearing aids for me.
me: “I can’t hear ya’.”
them: “Why don’t you get a hearing aid.”
me: “You’re assuming that I want to hear what people have to say.”
@Mister Bluster: I was having hearing problems, went to the doctor, she looked in my ear for a bit, and then sent in a nurse with a syringe of warm water which was used to blast a horrific corkscrew of wax from one ear and then the other. Utterly disgusting.
Afterwards, I could hear everything. It was amazing.
And then, the amazement wore off as I realized how little I wanted to hear. Everyone’s conversations were so tedious and boring, and I couldn’t escape.
@Sleeping Dog:
Cara Delavigne was one of Bear Grills coolest “guests”.