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.

Bart Simpson Worships At The Temple Of L. Ron Hubbard's Fat Ass

Wow....the lady who provides the voice for Bart Simpson is a Scientologist, which is neither surprising nor disturbing to me. What does knock me for a loop is that this chick gave the Church of Scientology $10 million in 2007:

"Longtime Scientologist Nancy Cartwright — best known as the voice of Bart Simpson — last year gave the church $10 million to help spread the word of founder L. Ron Hubbard into other galaxies.

It was all part of Scientology’s Global Salvage effort, which aims to “de-aberrate” Earth — meaning to rid mankind of psychology ills and other “aberrant” behavior.

Surprisingly, Nancy, 50, forked over twice as much as the Scientology’s most prominent member, Tom Cruise, who only gave $5 million in an installment plan... "

And here I thought Tom Cruise was Scientology's global ambassador. Ms. Cartwright puts his cheap ass to shame!

It's her money and all and she's free to flush it down the toilet, if she so desires....but damn! $10 million! When we have impoverished Haitians eating dirt for sustenance, there's got to be better uses for all that filthy Simpsons lucre...

Shorter State of the Union Address

"Y'all are fucked. Goodnight and God bless"

Friday YouTube Nugget

The YouTube title says it all - "Australian Party Goes Tits Up"

This guy is my new hero. A mix of McQueen-esque cool with a definite air of detachment and, I daresay, obliviousness. My favorite part is where the over-officious interviewer keeps asking him to take his sunglasses off and he refuses, saying "They're famous"

This guy should plan Gabs' going-away party.

Friday YouTube Nugget

I've always loved the instrumental version of the Smiths' "Please, Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" that appeared in Ferris Bueller's Day Off....I believe it was a version by the Dream Academy. Anyway, I went-a huntin' on YouTube and could only find this clip of it being used as background music for the Weather Channel. Oh well....

Can't. Turn. Away. Won't. Turn. Away. Televised. Opium.

Welcome to another exciting season of American Idol!

I'm not as addicted as I used to be, but God-damn, I love me some AI Audition trainwrecks. My favorite tonight was the Star Wars nerd girrl whose gruff exterior no doubt masks some heavy, bitter pain that's been internalized way too long. And fake Leia curls? Boooo!

Anyway, the classic moment occurs right after her inevitable rejection by the panel. She storms outside, into the waiting arms of her normal-looking grandparents, who I'm sure are thrilled that their legacy dresses like a bondage slut and boasts about being the belle of the ball at a Star Wars 30th anniversary convention. Grandpappy was positively beaming.

Faux-Leia is screaming and cursing up a storm about how they won't give somebody different-looking a chance (apparently, young Leia forgot what show she's auditioning for) and Grandpappy is trying to shush her...no doubt motivated by his belief that people on TV shouldn't swear. This guy probably holds The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour as his model for how people on TV should act. Granny and Gramps are hugging their poor, misbegotten nieta to calm her down and....oops! One of Faux Leia's ear curls falls right off! Snark!

I never laughed as hard this week as I did when Grandpappy kept trying to hand her back her curl while Leia the Drama Queen was ranting about postmodern biases on television against non-mainstream people, or some such shit. Damn, this season is going to be good....

UPDATE - as per Greg's request, here's a video of the whole sad saga

Re: "Who Is Obama" - I Hate Goddamn E-Mail Sometimes

So my mother's friends think it's cute when they (rabid, reactionary conservatives) send me (bleedingist-of-hearts liberal) chain e-mails about how Hillary is conspiring with Al-Queda to take over our country and how John Kerry faked getting shot (twice, mind you) to win his Purple Hearts in Vietnam. I usually dump them in the trash without looking, but I got this one yesterday that is making the rounds again and is a particularly ugly, pernicious smear:

Who is Barack Hussein Obama?

Very interesting and something that should be considered in your choice.

If you do not ever forward anything else, please forward this to all your contacts...this is very scary to think of what lies ahead of us here in our own United States...better heed this and pray about it and share it. We checked this out on "snopes.com". It is factual. Check for yourself. Who is Barack Obama?

Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black MUSLIM from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white ATHEIST from Wichita, Kansas. Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii . When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. Hi s father returned to Kenya . His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a RADICAL Muslim from Indonesia.? When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocate to Indonesia . Obama attended a MUSLIM school in Jakarta . He also spent two years in a Catholic school.

Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim. He is quick to point out that, "He was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school."

Obama's political handlers are attempting to make it appear that that he is not a radical. Obama's introduction to Islam came via his father, and that this influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct influence over his son's education.

Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school i n Jakarta . Wahabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world. Since it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN when seeking major public office in the United States , Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background. ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran.

Barack Hussein Obama will NOT recite the Pledge of Allegiance nor will he show any reverence for our flag. While others place their hands over their hearts, Obama turns his back to the flag and slouches.

Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential candidacy.

The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from the inside out, what better way to start than at the highest level - through the President of the United States , one of their own!!!!

Please forward to everyone you know. Would you want this man leading our country?...... NOT ME!!!

Sigh....

To paraphrase Martin Sheen from Apocalypse Now, the shit is piled up so high in this e-mail, you need wings to stay above it. Here's the response I sent to all:

All:

I usually delete these e-mails, but this is a particularly ugly e-mail that's been making the rounds and I would appreciate the opportunity to set some things straight about the claims made in it. It is filled with inflammatory exaggerations of Senator Obama's background and is intended to play to our worst xenophobic, anti-Muslim fears. One can imagine a simliar type of this message distributed 80 years ago to warn voters of Al Smith's Presidental campaign and the fact that he was a CATHOLIC - religious affiliation marked in capital letters to inflame and scare. This is a shameful tactic and people of all faiths should reject its use.

The facts on Senator Obama are:

- Senator Obama has never been a Muslim (radical or otherwise) at anytime in his life. He has been a member of the United Church of Christ since 1985 and describes himself as a "Christian"
- Senator Obama barely knew his father, who left the family when Obama was 2 years old and died when he was 21. There is no evidence that the senior Obama was a "radical Muslim"
- In his 2006 book The Audacity of Hope, Obama elaborated on his early schooling, explaining that he attended both Catholic and Muslim schools in Indonesia - not out of any particular religious affiliation, but because his mother wanted him to obtain the best possible education under the circumstances. Senator Obama did not attend "radical" or "Wahabi" schools - quite the contrary, Senator Obama is a product of public schools!
- Senator Obama's Indonesian step-father, Lelo Soetoro, was an observant Muslim, but there is no evidence that he was a "radical" or that he applied "radical" teachings about his faith to his stepson
- The statement that "when he (Obama) was sworn into office, he did not use the Bible but instead the (Quran)" is completely false and is most likely a reference to the first elected Muslim to Congress, Rep. Keith Ellison from Minnesota. Also, no religious texts (including the Bible and the Quran) are used during the swearing-in ceremony for new House members. The new members simply stand in front of the speaker's podium, raise the right hands and swear to uphold the Constitution. Many members carry Bibles with them for the post-ceremony photo opportunity with the Speaker of the House (as Rep. Ellison did when he posed with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a copy of the Quran that was once owned by Thomas Jefferson)

A fuller debunking of this e-mail may be found at the real Snopes.com at the link below:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp

I would also urge you to hear Senator Obama's views on the issues that really matter, directly from him:
http://www.barackobama.com/

Yours in honest appraisals of our candidates,
Eric