Friday YouTube Nugget

This week's nugget honors Buddy Miles, who passed away this week at the age of 60. Buddy was one of the preeminent rock and funk drummers of the 60's and 70's who gained his greatest fame playing with Jimi Hendrix in his "Band of Gypsys" incarnation in 1969-1970. Here's an appearance Buddy made on "Playboy After Dark" in the early 70's...the sync on this video sucks, but the tune (Them Changes) is pretty good.

Senate Endorsements for President

I like Obama's list a whole lot better:

CLINTON:
Pryor (AR)
Lincoln (OK)
Feinstein (CA)
Nelson (FL)
Inouye (HI)
Bayh (IN)
Mikluski (MD)
Stabenow (MI)
Menendez (NJ)
Schumer (NY)
Whitehouse (RI)
Cantwell (WA)
Murray (WA)

OBAMA:
Dodd (CT)
Durbin (IL)
Kerry (MA)
Kennedy (MA)
McCaskill (MO)
Nelson (NE)
Conrad (ND)
Johnson (SD)
Leahy (VT)
Feingold (WI)

No Soup For You!

SABRES TRADE CAMPBELL TO SAN JOSE SHARKS

My Oscar® picks

Best Picture:

No Country for Old Men

Best Actor:

Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood

Best Actress:
Ellen Page, Juno

Best Supporting Actor:
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men

Best Supporting Actress:
Ruby Dee, American Gangster

Best Director:
Ethan and Joel Coen, No Country for Old Men

Best Original Screenplay: Diablo Cody, Juno

Best Adapted Screenplay: Ethan and Joel Coen, No Country for Old Men

Best Cinematography: Seamus McGarvey, Atonement

POST-MORTEM: I went 6-for-9....ecch. Not one of my better years. I was (pleasantly surprised) by Tilda Swinton's upset win in Best Supporting Actress (over Ruby Dee and Cate Blanchett) and I think Marion Cotillard single-handedly torpedoed Oscar pools around the world in the Best Actress race. A few other random observations:

• So that's how they whipped together an Oscar extravaganza in under two weeks - montage, montage, montage! Christ, was it really necessary to list all 79 previous Best Picture winners?
• In what is pretty much a thankless, no-win job, I thought Jon Stewart did a pretty decent job as host.
• I didn't see Enchanted, but based on the zillion or so nominated songs performed last night, I'd rather see Norbit. What horrible, horrible music...I wasn't too fond of the mopey song that won, but at least I didn't want to stick a screwdriver in my ear whilst listening.
• My favorite moment of the evening? Regis Philbin on the pre-show, calling Javier Bardem "Xavier". That and Gary Busey going insane and interrupting a Jennifer Garner interview on the Red Carpet. Busey is the 21st century Howard Beale.
• I'm happy for No Country for Old Men and the Coens, but I have a nagging feeling that I really should have seen There Will Be Blood.

Friday YouTube Nugget

It's a Sabbath-type day, so here's Never Say Die (1978) from an appearance on Top of The Pops.

Hello Sen. McCain: BIMBO ERUPTION!!!!!

This is so sweet: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/us/politics/21mccain.html?_r=2&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

"Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity."

Divine, sweet, sweet retribution is in the house tonight. After the GOP howled like syphilitic hyenas and led this country through a year and a half of torture because a Democratic president couldn't keep it in his pants, I am loving this story. The GOP establishment had to swallow its pride and rally behind this fraud and now it turns out that his libido is every bit as active as Bubba's. Happy, happy, joy, joy!

Of course, this whole story is alleged and may be proven not to be true. And you can be damned sure I'm going to give John "Straight Talk Express" McCain the same benefit of the doubt and deference that the criminal GOP establishment have given Democrats for the past 30 years. Which is to say, none. Fuck John McCain and all the hypocritical GOP bastards who've run our proud nation down in the past decade.

The Wire: When Bunk Met McNulty

Not to sound like I'm jumping on the cultural elite bandwagon or anything, but The Wire (HBO, Sundays at 9 pm) is about the only part of television in the last decade that has never.....NEVER disappointed me. It has some of the best writing, best acting, best directing. best everything a series could feature. That it takes place in my old stomping grounds (Baltimore aka Charm City aka Bawlmer aka D.C.'s red-headed step-sibling) is a added bonus.

HBO onDemand is such a wonderful and fulfilling tool because it allows me to see upcoming Wire episodes a week before they air. For example, the episode that will air this Sunday (2/24) was available on onDemand last night and.....wow. It contains a scene that will shock the living daylights out of even the most casual fan of the show. I won't spoil it here, but I will say - you never saw it coming.

My favorite part of the show is the obviously close, jovial relationship enjoyed by the two homicide detectives, McNulty and Bunk. Out of all the contrived, hackneyed "buddy" cop duos network TV has spit up over the years, the team of McNulty and Bunk stand apart for the brutality of their partnership - these guys are brutal in their humor, their drinking, their hatred for authority and bureaucracy and their relentlessness in pursuit of their criminal prey.

Another great feature of HBO onDemand (since this post is one big shill for it) is that extra features filmed especially for the show are available. One example was the strange but funny series of Z-list "stars" (ex-WWF wrestlers, former sitcom regulars, etc) reciting whole scenes, word-for-word, from Entourage. For The Wire, the producers present short films on the orgins of key characters....this scene examines the first meeting of Bunk and McNulty and makes me laugh everytime I see it. These are two TV characters I'd love to sit in a bar with and knock a few back one evening.

Friday YouTube Nugget

A slice of quality 80's pop cheese this week....from 1987, T'Pau's Heart & Soul

"You have a uterus...therefore, I don't have to listen to you"

There was a book published a few years back titled "What's the Matter With Kansas"...it was a fascinating exploration of the rise of conservative populism in the U.S., viewed through the transformation of the author's native state of Kansas from a center of leftist populism to a thoroughly conservative area in the 20th century. Even today, with a female Democratic governor, many parts of Kansas still exemplify all the backwards, reactionary bunk that has marked the rise of the fundamentalist conservative movement in the U.S. and how poorer it has made our society in terms of ethics, values and respect for others. After all, if the state Board of Education isn't fighting to throw teaching evolution out of their classrooms, they're banning female referees from officiating high school basketball games because boys shouldn't have to take orders from something with boobs:

"The Kansas State High School Activities Association said referees reported that Michelle Campbell was preparing to officiate at St. Mary's Academy near Topeka on Feb. 2 when a school official insisted that Campbell could not call the game.

The reason given, according to the referees: Campbell, as a woman, could not be put in a position of authority over boys because of the academy's beliefs...

The Activities Association said it is considering whether to take action against the private religious school. St. Mary's Academy, about 25 miles northwest of Topeka, is owned and operated by the Society of St. Pius X, which follows older Roman Catholic laws. The society's world leader, the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, was excommunicated by Pope John Paul II in the late 1980s..."

This would be the same nutjob Marcel Lefebvre who praised the Vichy collaboratists with the Nazis in WWII, who lavished kudos on the dictatorships of Argentina and Chile in the 1970's and who also loved what Francisco Franco was doing in Spain.

At what point do we stop being deferential to assclowns like "Archbishop" Lefebvre and their institutions that peddle their drool-flecked nonsense simply because they're wearing a pretty robe and a cross around their neck?

My hope is that St. Mary's Academy is chucked out of the athletic league and sent back to their hidey-hole in East Bumfuck, KS where it's 1870 everyday and those poor, oppressed Traditionalist Catholics don't have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, with our wild and wacky ideas like respect for all, regardless of race, creed and gender.

A tender Valentine's Day song

Dedicated to my ex with all due care and feeling

A "Surge" That's Actually Working

There Will Be Blood

Let me say first that I'm very glad and relieved that Richard Zednik of the Florida Panthers is resting comfortably following 2 hours of surgery to repair his carotid artery and should make a full recovery. In case you didn't hear, a serious injury occured during last night's Sabres-Panthers game....midway through the 3rd period, a teammate's skate came up by accident and sliced Richard Zednik's throat, causing a serious cut to his carotid artery. The game was suspended 15 minutes while Zednik was led to the medical room and then loaded on an ambulance to Buffalo General for emergency surgery.

Thanks to the speedy work of the trainers and medical personnel at HSBC arena, we the fans were spared the awkwardness and inconvenience of watching a man bleed to death in front of us. Plus, the NHL displayed its usual savvy P.R. sense by forcing the teams to finish the game. I imagine Gary Bettman's entreaty to the Panthers went something like "Nevermind you just watched your teammate skate past you in a frenzy, bleeding like a stuck pig....get out there and finish the game!"

How about suspending the game, or cancelling it altogether to be made up later in the season? The guy was in an ambulance on his way to emergency surgery and the Panthers looked like somebody had just shot them up with horse tranquilizer. The remaining 9 minutes of that game was a farce and the league should be ashamed of themselves for forcing the players back on the ice.

Friday YouTube Nugget

This week's nugget was inspired by an article I read on the plane back from Vegas on Monday night. I subscribe to MOJO magazine, which is an excellent music monthly from jolly ol' England. This month's issue had a lengthy article on the Cult and traced the band's highs and lows (plenty of each). I had forgotten what an unique position the Cult occupied in my teen years...not quite New Wave, not all the way metal. They represented a fresh exciting meld of the genres and were the obvious precursors to the bands that followed in the late 80's/early 90's - you can hear their influence in everything from Guns 'n Roses to Alice in Chains to Concrete Blonde.

Anyway, here's their first big smash, She Sells Sanctuary. Anyone up for their Toronto appearance on April 12th?

David Pwned Goliath

What a catch.....what a game. I made mucho bhat in Vegas on the wing (Eli Manning) and a prayer (that Tyree could pin a ball to his helmet while falling backwards and with Rodney Harrison all up in his bizness). A great weekend overall and such lovely, sweet schadenfreude at the Patriots' expense. Oh well...guess they'll have to go cry in their three Super Bowl trophies. Meh.