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October 31, 2006
Words Worth Remembering
My cousin Jose requested this quote a few days ago... rather than send it to him privately, I thought these words important enough a reminder to us all about what's at stake in this election that I thought I'd respond publicly in a separate post. Cuzin Jose, here's your requested quote from famed Nazi Hermann Goering.
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
Remind you of anyone, kids? (To conservatives reading this who want to get all up in arms because of the Nazi comparison, don't get pissed at me; it's not my fault your leaders behave in ways that invite direct parallels to the greatest criminals of the 20th century.)
The longer part of the story is discussed here and excerpted below.
Later in the conversation, Gilbert recorded Goering's observations that the common people can always be manipulated into supporting and fighting wars by their political leaders:
We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."
"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."
"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
Posted by Christopher at 11:24 PM | Comments (1)October 30, 2006
The 25 Worst Solo Artists Ever: #8 - #4
Man, when even the people who asked you to do a list start commenting that they're bored with your list, perhaps it's time to admit defeat. (Well that, and it's time to call out Tim as a butthead for specifically asking me to do this list and then hitting me for it. ;-) ) So I'll wrap up this lame list in the next two days... and then start on one I had more fun compiling: The 50 Worst One Hit Wonders Ever. Anyway, here's #8 through #4.
8. Nick Lachey. Not only does his music suck... but if you listen to his lyrics, you want to give him a spine and testicles transplant. Okay, dude... you got dumped by your dream girl. It happens to all of us. For hell's sake, grab your manhood back out from under her heel and stop freaking whining! "What's Left Of Me?" "I Can't Hate You Anymore?" Grow 'em back, pretty boy, and be a freaking man again.
7. (tie) Whitney Houston/Mariah Carey They make the top ten for one unpardonable sin: introducing the abuse of melisma into modern pop music. And not just the overuse of it, either: full-on, get-a-restraining-order-out physical abuse of the concept of vocal runs. We get it: you can each fit 23 notes into a single syllable. Please stop doing it just because you can; it's damned annoying and makes us want to punch you. Oh, and Mariah? Being able to squeak like a freaking dolphin does not make you a singer.
6. Lionel Richie Say You, Say Suck. Oooh yeah! We're gonna have crap music... all night long! The 80s worst schlock came from this joker -- including the giant exercise in self-congratulation that was "We Are The World." Hello... is it he we're looking for? HELL no.
5. Richard Marx As many commenters suggested, Richard Marx has to appear in the top 5 of any list of crappy artists. It's the law in 37 states plus the District of Columbia, and several countries are considering making it national law as well. From "Right Here Waiting" to "Hold On To The Nights," Marx showed remarkable ability to put people to sleep. And don't even get me started on his little murder mystery "Hazard" song. That boy ain't right indeed.
4. Vanilla Ice Too easy -- like fish in a barrel -- but just because it's easy doesn't mean that we shouldn't hold this joker idiot up for ridicule. Not only was he a total poseur who ripped off Queen and then famously tried to claim that he hadn't done so, but he invented most of his biography... and the best he could invent for himself was that he was a motocross champion. I mean, if you're so freaking lame that the best lie you can think of to tell about yourself is that you were good at motocross, you deserve all the beatings and ridicule that will come your way. And his "rap" makes even Judge Smails seem soulful by comparison. This guy's career couldn't die fast enough.
Posted by Christopher at 08:05 PM | Comments (10)The 25 Worst Solo Artists Ever: #10 & #9
10. Barry Manilow I am waiting for the Visigoths on this one... seeing as how they're fans of Big Barry's. But the problem with Manilow isn't his voice -- the man has pipes. And he gets a little bit of a flyer for being able to do a few different styles of music adequately (swing/big band, whatever the hell else he does). But a list of Barry's biggest hits reads like the playlist at Wuss Camp. Mandy, I Write The Songs, Can't Smile Without You, Weekend In New England, I Made It Through The Rain...not a song in the catalog with a single ounce of testosterone.
Now don't get me wrong; I'm actually not opposed to the occasional piano ballad or over-the-top vocal styling. My iTunes collection contains just enough of that kind of song to where I ought not be overly harsh in my criticism. It's just that I oppose building one's entire career on nothing but wimp music. Having one or two wimpy piano ballads in your repertoire is good. Having your set list be nothing but wimpy piano ballads is not.
9. Dan Fogelberg The king of testicle-challenged folk-pop, Fogelberg is the kind of guy you'd expect to see in a cable knit sweater strumming an acoustic guitar at a ski lodge; he was the guy sitting on the stairs singing "I gave my love a cherry" in Animal House. He was the kid who always wanted the football game to be touch and not tackle when you were 10. As an adult, he probably always asks his date to take the top off the ketchup bottle for him. You half expected that the first single off his next album was going to be "Kumbaya."
Worse still, there was a stretch there of about 10 years where you couldn't go to a wedding (not that I much like going to weddings anyway, but this made it worse) without hearing "Longer." The guy might as well have been singing, "Longer than there've been stars up in the heavens, you've had my stones in your fists." There are unconfirmed reports that Fogelberg's real name -- the one he checks into hotels with -- is Adrian McNotestosterone. Oh - and yet again this holiday season, we'll have to listen to his insipid song about running into an old lover in a grocery store. Hey Dan? Here's a hint: she left you for a man with actual cajones. The snow turned into rain, my ass... grow a pair and go get her.
Stupid 70s ski lodge folkies.
Posted by Christopher at 07:11 AM | Comments (16)What To Expect
So the conservative corporate media machine has begun dutifully positioning the upcoming elections as the arbiter of Karl Rove's legacy. In the article, the reporter asks a chilling but "duh!" question whose answer is obvious to anyone who's been paying attention since 2000.
There are two questions. Is Rove just acting cocky as a way of lifting GOP morale, or does he really believe it? And, if the latter, is he deluding himself, or does once again he know something that Democrats do not?
The duh! part is simple: Of course he knows something he thinks the rest of us do not. He knows that the Republican/conservative machine still controls the voting apparatus in this country.
Rove and the Republicans got away with massive vote fraud in 2000 (Florida). And in 2004 (Ohio). There wasn't a single consequence, not one person was made to pay for the crimes against democracy committed in order to keep conservatives in power. So why should Rove believe that he can't get away with it again? Exit polls in 2004 showed much the same as what the polls are saying today... and yet we got "treated" to a whole month of articles about "why the exit polls were wrong" the last time. Expect more. Because it's highly unlikely that Rove's going to go down without a fight.
Posted by Christopher at 06:23 AM | Comments (4)October 29, 2006
The 25 Worst Solo Artists Ever: #13-#11
13. Justin Timberlake So useless, he makes the list both in his band and as a solo act. Don'tcha just hate when boy band poseurs try to prove that they really are singers and really should be taken seriously by trying to do blue-eyed soul or adopting to whatever style of music is popular with teenage wasteland at the moment? I mean, Timberlake trying to do "serious" hip-pop is like David Cassidy trying to cover Black Sabbath back in the day. The kid can't sing; he can barely dance; he is a textbook example of trying to be something you're not. Plus, he shtupped both Britney and Cameron Diaz. Something ain't right here.
12. Rick Astley Yeah, it's cliche to say that he sounded like a big black man and looked like Howdy Doody. But I'm not slamming the man for his looks not matching his voice (though I could bust on him for his looks in general). I'm hating on him for trying to bring back disco. "Never Gonna Give You Up" and "Together Forever" might has well have been sung by Andy Gibb. Howdy-Doody dorks singing is bad. Howdy-Doody dorks singing disco is worse. And -- if you watch the video -- Astley danced just like how you'd expect someone who looks like him to dance.
11. Rod Stewart I couldn't stand this guy even before his 2000s descent into Michael Buble/Holiday Inn Lounge territory. But even back in his alleged "rocker" days, Stewart was unoriginal, boring, and talentless. From a recent Newsweek article:
Why did you do an album of '70s songs? Is it a little bit because you're lazy and you can't be bothered writing songs?
I am lazy. I've admitted that since 1971. I made my name as an interpreter of songs and I get great pleasure from it.
"I made my name as an interpreter of songs." That's one way of putting it. Another might be that you're a glorified cover singer who's relied on other people for your success since day one. Ever since singing about Maggie May -- the original MILF -- in 1971, Stewart's been a hack at best who's forced sludge like this -- and this -- and THIS on us all. Please, in the name of Rod... just go away. Far, far away.
Posted by Christopher at 02:09 PM | Comments (4)Wait Till Next Year
Baseball season officially ended Friday night, with the worst team in history ever to win a World Series -- the 83-win 2006 St. Louis Cardinals -- defeating the Detroit Tigers 4 games to 1. While I think the Cardinals were about the 8th best of the 8 teams to make the playoffs this year, they did catch fire at the right time, and they were the best team in October -- so congratulations to the Cardinals and their fans.
Now that the season is over, and there's only 108 days until pitchers and catchers report for 2007 spring training, it's time to cast my votes for the major 2006 awards -- MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year, and Manager of the Year.
We'll start with the Most Valuable Player award.
In my mind, the MVP is not the "best" player in the league, but the most valuable -- in other words, if you took one man off of his team, which team would have done the most obviously worse without that guy? If a guy hits 45 HR and knocks in 130, but is in a lineup with two other guys with 35+ homers and 110+ RBI, then he had a great year, but wasn't the most valuable to his team. The award should go to the one guy who made the biggest impact. With that in mind...
AMERICAN LEAGUE: 1. Johan Santana, Minnesota. 2. Jermaine Dye, Chicago. 3. David Ortiz, Boston. 4. Ivan Rodriguez, Detroit. 5. Derek Jeter, New York. I'd love to vote for Big Papi, but the Sox didn't make the playoffs. Derek Jeter had his best statistical season, and did carry the Yankees while Matsui and Sheffield were hurt -- but let's face it, no Yankee should ever be the MVP because their monster payroll and fantasy baseball lineup mean that if they have even a teeny hole, Steinbrenner will just go buy whatever he needs; take one guy off the Yankees, and another team's purchased star will merely take his place. To be an MVP, you have to be irreplaceable for your team's success -- and no Yankee is ever irreplaceable. Denied. Pudge Rodriguez desevres consideration despite having average numbers, in my mind -- because he guided the Tigers' cadre of talented but very young pitchers through their AL pennant-winning season as their catcher and anchor.
That leaves Dye and Santana. Dye plays every day, it's true... but the White Sox didn't make the playoffs. Meanwhile, while the Twins admittedly had both Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer, there is a simple fact of record that cinches Santana's MVP year for me. The Twins had an .813 winning percentage in games Santana pitched, and had a .538 winning percentage in games anyone else pitched. The Twins went to the playoffs in large part because they had a stone cold lead pipe lock to win every fifth day. Morneau and Mauer emerged as superstars this year, and I take nothing away from them, but Johan Santana made the biggest difference between success and mediocrity for the Minnesota Twins. Santana pitched 34 games this year; apply that .538 winning percentage to those 34 games instead of .813, and the Twins win 10 fewer games this season -- which would have taken them out of the playoffs. Don't give me this crap about pitchers having their own award and how guys who play every five days can't be most valuable; Santana's your MVP.
NATIONAL LEAGUE MVP: 1. Ryan Howard, Philadelphia. 2. Albert Pujols, St. Louis. 3. Carlos Beltran, New York. 4. Miguel Cabrera, Florida. 5. vacant (statement vote). The fifth spot is vacant because -- World Series outcome as the exception -- the National League was baseball's equivalent of a kid in a bow tie, horn rim glasses, and a pocket protector in an elementary school lunchroom. Has there ever been a season in which worse baseball was played across the board by an entire league? The NL Central winners were two games away from being a .500 ball club. In a sixteen team league, there were only six winning teams; only three finished more than ten games over .500, and only one won more than 90 games (as opposed to six 90 game winners in the AL). The National League barely counted as baseball this year, and its players and organizations ought to be ashamed of their performance.
It speaks volumes about the NL that Miguel Cabrera can warrant consideration this year despite playing for a sub-.500 team. That said, Cabrera was the elder stateman -- at 24 -- in the Florida clubhouse this year, leading a team that was in playoff contention until September despite a $15 million payroll (the Yankees spent 14x more -- $208 million -- on their team for 19 more wins... approximately $10 million per win) and an average age of about 12 (actually, it was about 22). If Cabrera were any more mature a human being, imagine what he could do! Carlos Beltran had great numbers for the Mets, but he faded badly in September -- and taking any single player off the Mets in this year's NL would have had the equivalent effect of taking Colin Powell out of the Bush Administration.
That leaves Howard and Pujols. I am loathe to deny Pujols; he's my favorite player in the NL (and third overall behind Jason Varitek and Big Papi), I was thrilled to see him win a World Series title, and it's virtually impossible to not give the MVP to a guy who hit .331 with 49 HR and 137 RBI while leading his team to the playoffs. But Ryan Howard was nothing short of astounding this season. Philadelphia's management threw in the towel in July, trading Bobby Abreu to the Yankees for a used candy wrapper and a Pokemon Pog and acknowledging that the team was hopelessly mired below .500; Howard promptly put the team on his back and carried them into playoff contention until the season's final week. And honestly, he would have had 60 legitimate home runs had teams not stopped pitching to him somewhere around September 16. The man hit .313 with 58 HR and 149 RBI, and Philadelphia wouldn't have sniffed the undergarments of the playoffs without his monster season. He's your MVP.
AMERICAN LEAGUE CY YOUNG: 1. Johan Santana, Minnesota. 2. Johan Santana, Minnesota. 3. Johan Santana, Minnesota. 4. Chien Ming Wang, New York. 5. Roy Halladay, Toronto. Living in New York, I have heard the geniuses of local sports radio making their pitch for Wang. He had a good season, really he did; I'll give him that. But Santana won the pitching Triple Crown -- leading the league in wins (19), ERA (2.77), and strikeouts (245). He dominated this season and will deservedly win his second Cy Young in three years.
NATIONAL LEAGUE CY YOUNG: 1. Chris Carpenter, St. Louis. 2. Roy Oswalt, Houston. 3. Brandon Webb, Arizona. 4. Trevor Hoffman, San Diego. 5. Bronson Arroyo, Cincinnati. Arroyo gets consideration for having pitched well in the offensive paradise that is Great American Ballpark, going 14-11 with a 3.29 ERA and 184 Ks. Nice trade, Theo ButtMunch.
Hoffman was his usual intense, stellar self, but he is a closer and it's tough to see a closer winning the Cy. It comes down to Webb, Oswalt and Carpenter. Webb tied for the league lead in wins with 16 and was 3rd in ERA, but he faded down the stretch. That leaves Carpenter and Oswalt, who had identical 15-8 records; Oswalt had a better ERA (2.98 vs. 3.09), and Carpenter had more strikeouts (184 to 166). It's really a toss-up/flip-a-coin kind of thing; given that the Cardinals made the playoffs and the Astros did not, I'll give it to Carpenter for his second straight Cy.
AL ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: 1. Justin Verlander, Detroit. 2. Francisco Liriano, Minnesota. 3. Jonathan Papelbon, Boston. 4. Jered Weaver, Anaheim. 5. Joel Zumaya, Detroit. Liriano was dominant, but was hurt for the last third of the season; otherwise, this wouldn't even be a close race. But Verlander pitched 186 innings for a pennant-winning team -- a tough feat for a rookie. As much as I'd love to vote for Jonny Paps, he was a closer for a non-playoff team; I have to go with starters who helped their teams win. Verlander by a nose.
NL ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: 1. Hanley Ramirez, Florida. 2. Ryan Zimmerman, Washington. 3. Josh Johnson, Florida. 4. Cole Hamels, Philadelphia. 5. Dan Uggla, Florida. Uggla was a great story -- a nobody-turned-all-star... but this was an incredible year for rookies in MLB, and as good as he was he wasn't even in the top three. Hamels also pitched well and became a go-to guy for Philadelphia down the stretch... but Josh Johnson pitched better for more of the season. Zimmerman is everyone's fashionable pick; he plays highlight-reel defense at a tough position and is already becoming one of the top ten 3Bs in baseball. But I'm going to go with Hanley Ramirez, Florida's shortstop. He hit .292 (with a .353 OBP) as a shortstop, picking up 51 steals, and some decent pop with 17 HR. His defense needs to improve, but a shortstop who provides you speed, some decent power, and a pretty decent eye and pitch selection deserves the ROY award. Plus, voting for Ramirez gives me one more chance to snark at the idiotic Red Sox front office for their insipid moves since the 2004 championship.
MANAGERS OF THE YEAR: No breakdowns or 1-5 here, because in each league it is cut-and-dried obvious who the managers of the year are. American League: Jim Leyland. National League: Joe Girardi.
Posted by Christopher at 11:15 AM | Comments (1)October 27, 2006
The 25 Worst Solo Artists Ever: #17-#14
17. Tiffany There's always going to be teen pop. But at least Debbie Gibson had a little bit of pop sensibility and eventually the talent to land on Broadway. Tiffany played malls, horribly and unforgivably botched both Tommy James & the Shondelles and the Beatles, and gave us perhaps the most teenage-girl-diary song of all time, "Could've Been." I'll 'fess up to having had a minor attraction to Debbie Gibson (the girl, not her music) back in the day, but even at the height of her popularity I thought Tiffany sucked. Ordinarily a comeback special Playboy pictorial makes me cut almost any has-been female star some slack (Britney, your comeback pictorial awaits!), but I had no interest in seeing Tiffany's a few years back, and it did nothing to make me more forgiving toward her "music." The only saving grace is that no one else born before 1973 ever took her seriously either.
16. Kenny Loggins The man who would have had no career if it weren't for 80s movie soundtracks. (Yes, I know about Loggins & Messina, I'm just trying to forget.) Loggins started out the decade in not-bad fashion, penning and singing I'm Alright, the theme from Caddyshack. But from that point forward, Loggins basically got lazy, waiting for some movie producer to come out with a film too thinly-plotted or lamely written to stand on its own, and then would cough up a song or two for the soundtrack to save the movie. Whatsa matter, Kenny -- couldn't ever write enough for a whole album? Look at Loggins' list of singles from the 1980s: eight of his 14 top 40 singles from the decade were from a soundtrack. That kind of laziness alone warrants his inclusion on this list. And when you take into account that most of those songs sucked too, he definitely gets in.
15. Bobby Brown The guy who got Whitney Houston into drugs. The guy who never met a law he couldn't get in trouble with. The guy who subjected us to that 80s fade haircut. The guy who subjected us to all that schlocky, crappy 80s pre-cursor of hip hop songs. Brown literally never had a single that didn't make me want to turn the radio off while rushing to the bathroom to vomit. "My Prerogative," "Every Little Step," "On Our Own," "Don't Be Cruel" -- ugh. I mean, ugh, ugh, ugly. Plus, did I mention that he beat up Whitney Houston? Jerks are bad enough. Jerks who make crappy music are worse.
14. Billy Ocean Another of the 80s warblers whose entire catalog makes me ill. Literally, the man never did a single song that I could leave on the radio for more than 12 seconds before changing the station so fast that I nearly ripped the knobs off. From "Caribbean Queen" through "Suddenly" to "When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going," to "Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car," Ocean was responsible for some of the worst the 80s had to offer. For these crimes against humanity, he was sentenced to obscurity for the remainder of his earth-bound life.
Posted by Christopher at 07:29 AM | Comments (6)Desperate HouseRepublicans
If you have the stomach for it, if you think you can read about the most disgusting human beings on the planet, check out this Washington Post article on the despicable, cowardly and disgusting tactics and dirty tricks being used by the Republican Party in a desperate attempt to retain their choke-hold on power.
Rep. Ron Kind pays for sex! Well, that's what the Republican challenger for his Wisconsin congressional seat, Paul R. Nelson, claims in new ads, the ones with "XXX" stamped across Kind's face. It turns out that Kind -- along with more than 200 of his fellow hedonists in the House -- opposed an unsuccessful effort to stop the National Institutes of Health from pursuing peer-reviewed sex studies. According to Nelson's ads, the Democrat also wants to "let illegal aliens burn the American flag" and "allow convicted child molesters to enter this country."
To Nelson, that doesn't even qualify as negative campaigning. "Negative campaigning is vicious personal attacks," he said in an interview. "This isn't personal at all."
That's not the only shameful Republican distortion.
In New York, the NRCC ran an ad accusing Democratic House candidate Michael A. Arcuri, a district attorney, of using taxpayer dollars for phone sex. "Hi, sexy," a dancing woman purrs. "You've reached the live, one-on-one fantasy line." It turns out that one of Arcuri's aides had tried to call the state Division of Criminal Justice, which had a number that was almost identical to that of a p0rn line. The misdial cost taxpayers $1.25.
In Ohio, GOP gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell, trailing by more than 20 points in polls, has accused front-running Democratic Rep. Ted Strickland of protecting a former aide who was convicted in 1994 on a misdemeanor indecency charge. Blackwell's campaign is also warning voters through suggestive "push polls" that Strickland failed to support a resolution condemning sex between adults and children. Strickland, a psychiatrist, objected to a line suggesting that sexually abused children cannot have healthy relationships when they grow up.
The Republican Party of Wisconsin distributed a mailing linking Democratic House candidate Steve Kagen to a convicted serial killer and child rapist. The supposed connection: The "bloodthirsty" attorney for the killer had also done legal work for Kagen.
In two dozen congressional districts, a political action committee supported by a white Indianapolis businessman, J. Patrick Rooney, is running ads saying Democrats want to abort black babies. A voice says, "If you make a little mistake with one of your hos, you'll want to dispose of that problem tout de suite, no questions asked."
The current set of people in charge of the Republican Party are truly the most vile human beings ever produced by our country (and we've seen Joseph McCarthy, Charles Coughlin, and Bull Connor, just to name a few). This is all happening while Ken Mehlman is in charge of the RNC... this is the kind of person Mehlman is.
I cannot believe that they are relfective of Republicans and conservatives in this country. Or maybe I just don't want to believe it. Because that would mean that many of our fellow Americans would endorse this kind of sludge, this kind of distortion and outright lying, this kind of sleaze -- and I want to believe that most of us are better than that.
But if you are a conservative or a Republican, and you've not defected from that party, not chosen to either vote for change or not vote at all this year, then you are endorsing this gutless, cowardly distortion. A vote for a single Republican anywhere in America is an endorsement and an embrace of everything that the Ken Mehlman/Dick Cheney/Karl Rove party stands for. You have a choice to make, conservatives.
Posted by Christopher at 07:12 AM | Comments (1)October 26, 2006
The 25 Worst Solo Artists Ever
22. Bruce Hornsby All his songs sound exactly the same. That's just the way it is; some things will never change. And has there ever been a more heavy-handed, unsubtle message song ever? Racism bad. Me sing. Hornsby is revered by some as a piano virtuoso, but it would seem to me that a virtuoso could find a way to not make every song sound alike. (Or return to the same themes again and again, Mr. Way It Is/Valley Road.)
21. Elton John (after 1983) Elton John had a great career from 1970-1983 or so, making some of the 70s best "doesn't suck" music and penning classic after classic. But somewhere around the beginning of Reagan's campaign for re-election, Elton got old or something. All of a sudden, he stopped doing relevant, good music, and started doing fawning ballads, forgettable pop, and Broadway showtunes -- and thus began to dismantle the legacy he'd spent a decade and a half building. Gonna call me out on including Elton John on this list? Fine -- then I dare you to name me anything he did after "I'm Still Standing" that's worth listening to or even remembering. Can't do it, can you? (No, the sludge from the Lion King does not count -- in fact, it's specifically the kind of stuff I am talking about.)
20. Jennifer Lopez Okay, we get it. She has a big ass. And some guys like that. But since when does a big ass mean musical talent? And since when did such a talentless hack get entitled to behave like such a diva? She's moderately okay as dancer... but Lopez' voice is thinner than Nicole Richie after a binge and purge. Forgettable dance pop from a woman for whom the phrase "I'm high maintenance" was invented. Note to J-Lo: to cop an attitude, you have to be worthy of the attitude. You're not.
19. Peter Frampton One trick pony from the mid-70s... how, exactly, do you get to record a "Comes Alive" album when to that point no one was going to see your concerts? A pioneer of using the cheap techno effect to make an otherwise forgettable song catchy (are you listening, Cher? "Believe" sucked too), Frampton's little mouth synth thing made "Do You Feel Like I Do" a hit. "Show Me The Way" is also forgettable slop, and "Baby I Love Your Way" is paint-by-numbers 8th grade cop-a-feel poetry. If this guy was such a monster, how come he never had another hit after that one huge album? Sometimes I think like maybe in the 70s music scene, there were ways to manipulate the charts, y'know? I mean, I know that's cynical and all, and I hate to be a hater, but... oh, who'm I kidding? I think that maybe a lot of DJs got a lot of blow to play this stuff.
18. Yngwie Malmsteen Remember that scene at the end of "Back To The Future" when Michael J. Fox's Marty McFly just starts shredding into an over the top solo that doesn't fit the song, and leaves the audience staring gape-mouthed and unmoved? That's Malmsteen's whole career. Guitar isn't just about the ability to shred and wail out some kick-ass solos; it's about feeling the song and knowing when to wail and when to hold back. Malmsteen has no clue of this; his entire catalogue is an extended guitar solo. Lyrics, melody and restraint need not apply.
Posted by Christopher at 09:19 AM | Comments (12)Thursday Ten
1. The conference last week in California went great -- my talk seems to have gone over very well, and it was a really good slate of other speakers. I don't always enjoy the conferences I get invited to, but this one was good. It's always nice when your session is a hit.
2. The wedding in San Jose over the weekend was even better. Both the bride and groom -- both long-time friends of mine -- are by their own admission a little "out there" and non-traditional... and this ceremony fit the couple getting married better than perhaps any wedding I have ever gone to. Non-traditional is an understatement: eschewing convention entirely, this was a non-religious ceremony -- and the theme of both the wedding and the reception was: tiki party! I haven't ever attended a wedding in a camp shirt and sandals before... nor have I ever seen a bride and groom marry in flip-flops. It was wonderfully festive and reflective of the couple's personality and beliefs, and I don't know if I have ever had so much fun at a wedding.
3. I'm on a panel this afternoon in Manhattan with some other pretty big players in the business blogging world... I always get a little more nervous when there's "big hitters" on the docket with me, hoping I can hold my own with them -- so wish me luck.
4. I must have been linked to yesterday from somewhere; my daily traffic doubled from its average. Unexpected spikes are fun.
5. It might well have been a Black Eyed Peas fan site that linked to me; I got more than a couple of flame comments for my having dissed the band and for my apparently errant belief that "Where Is The Love?" was their first single (it most definitely apparently was not).
6. I have a lot of thinking to do in the coming few weeks – about what matters to me, about geography, about what I want. Having the world as your oyster can be overwhelming at times. Good problem to have, but still overwhelming.
7. It isn’t helping that everyone else who’s affected by my decisions is taking the high road, telling me to put myself first and do what’s best for me and what I feel is right. The big dummies were supposed to make it easier for me.
8. So we're going to put up a fence to keep people out (but only on our southern border). Wonder how many of the chuckleheads calling for that move would be here in America if immigration standards had always been as strict as the ones they want today. Don't get me wrong; illegal immigration is a problem. But putting up a wall to keep people out just feels un-American to me. (My family emigrated to the US around 1906 or so... wonder what was being said about Eastern European immigrants 100 years ago?)
9. Please vote on November 7. A bipartisan group of celebrities at One.org requests it too.
10. Trigonometry continues to kick my ass.
Posted by Christopher at 08:30 AM | Comments (6)Pot, Meet Kettle
After having been roundly condemned for having accused Michael J. Fox of faking his Parkinson's disease, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the conservative attack dog cowards changed their tune. (Limbaugh didn't apologize, by the way, no matter what the conservative media tell you. The media has been dutifully toeing the conservative line over the incident, carrying the message of Limbaugh's alleged contrition when no such act occurred.) After the public reacted with revulsion to the viciousness of the gutless conservative attack on Fox, Limbaugh shifted and accused Fox of "allowing his illness to be exploited."
First of all, this is such an asinine failure of logic that it barely bears repeating; I'm only reporting it here for the sake of making a point. Let's assume that we live in enough of a la-la world that this inspid argument were accurate. The question we'd then have is, what's worse -- allowing one's illness to be exploited in hopes of electing politicians who will actually workfor cures instead of imposing religious dogma? Or everything else the increasingly desperate Republican/conservative regime is doing in a fanatic attempt to maintain their vise-grip on power?
-- Blatant and repeated race-baiting in the Tennessee Senate contest. No, I'm not just talking about the vulgar "Playb0y" ad in which the Republicans try to play to southereners' traditional "fears" of black men "threatening" the "innocence" of white women. (Remember, RNC head Ken Mehlman defended the ad -- even though the ad's been pulled after public revulsion, Mehlman defended it. He said that having a blonde white woman wink at the camera and telling a black congressman to "call me" wasn't race baiting. Uh huh. And pro wrestling's real.) Conservatives were forced to pull the ad after the public rejected it, it was not the first time the conservative machine has deliberately and blatantly used race in Tennessee.
In the first 24 seconds, the one-minute ad attacking Ford and his father, and paid for by Tennesseans for Truth, uses the word "black" six times and accuses Ford of favoring African-American issues above others. "His daddy handed him his seat in Congress and his seat in the Congressional Black Caucus, an all-black group of congressmen who represent the interests of black people above all others," the narrator says... While the ad was not sanctioned by the Republican Party, it came on the heels of two that were: an RNC television commercial that concludes with a backlit figure of Ford striding into a dark hallway and towards the screen in a manner reminiscent of Willie Horton, and a fund-raising mailer designed by the state Republican Party bearing black-and-white photos of Ford that make him look much darker-skinned than he is and uses phrases including "purports," "pretends," and "passes himself off as" — all terms once used for light-skinned blacks who pretended to be white.
This is the kind of people conservatives are, kids. This is what they stand for: they'll be as divisive as possible and tear our country apart if they have to, just as long as they stay in power. Of course, it's not the only example of conservatives using divisive tactics in campaign ads:
-- In Indiana, Christian Republican John Hostettler is running ads saying that a vote for his opponent will make Nancy Pelosi the Speaker -- and that Pelosi's aim is to push "the homosexual agenda" through Congress. The fact that Hostettler's opponent reflects the socially conservative views of his southern Indiana district doesn't ever seem to enter into Hostettler's ads. It's those darn gays again, Indiana!
-- In Tennessee, after being forced to pull the infamous "Playb0y" ad, the RNC is now running new ads in its place... "In its place is a new spot called “Shaky,” which started airing Sunday in Knoxville but has expanded statewide. It alleges that Ford “took cash from Hollywood's top X-rated p0rn moguls” and that he “wants to give the abortion pill to our schoolchildren.” Wants to give the abortion pill to our schoolchildren? Why not just accuse him of eating babies and performing Black Masses on the Capitol lawn? Disgusting.
-- Of course, we've all grown used to the pathetic and tired "we're better on terrorism, the Democrats will weaken our country" crap we've been hearing from the despicable right wing since September 12, 2001. The thing is... in its zeal to mimic the interrogative tactics of the despotic dictatorships that apparently inspire them (hell, they took power by mimicking dictatorships, so why not exercise power that way?), the Bush Administration has pretty much guaranteed that the 20th hijacker will never be able to stand trial -- all of the evidence against him will be thrown out as having been obtained illegally.
So... the Bush Adminstration has allowed the other "Axis of Evil" countries to obtain nuclear weapons and mock the world community; it has engaged in an ill-advised invasion that was based on deliberate lies and manipulation of intelligence and has now turned Iraq into a breeding ground for terrorists and al Qaeda's home base; and it has utterly botched prosecuting an al Qaeda member who actually was plotting to attack the United States -- he will never be prosecuted for his intended crimes. And yet these chuckleheads want you to believe that they're best equipped to protect America?
The conservative Republican machine, ladies and gentlemen. They'll be here all week; try the veal. What's that you say? They aren't funny?
You're right.
Posted by Christopher at 07:36 AM | Comments (3)October 25, 2006
The 25 Worst Solo Artists Ever - Intro and #25-#23
Okay, so now that we've established 25 crappy bands, let's switch to singers. As with the bands, you'll notice a theme. With bands, I hate prog rock like I hate Dick Cheney, the Yankees or comment spammers -- so the list was chock full of crappy prog rock bands with no reason to continue sucking up our oxygen. If you inexplicably like prog rock, you were going to be unhappy with my band list. Similarly, I hate adult contemporary and I hate warblers... so if you're a fan of LITE-FM or of "singers" who merely squeak like dolphins or over-emote and try to hit nine notes in the same syllable, you're going to hate my singers list. As with the bands... don't like my list, make your own. Feel free to put my faves on it. One last thing: one hit wonders will have their own separate lists -- both good and bad. It was too easy to fill these lists with them. And away we go -- the 25 Worst Solo Artists Ever.
25. Michael Buble He's young. He's Canadian. He sucks. It seems like every generation comes up with its very own singer who thinks he's the first to ever discover pre-rock and roll. And I admit, back in the late 80s and early 90s, I fell for the gimmick with Harry Connick Jr. But I grew out of it. So will all of Buble's "fans." Buble is the hall monitor of modern music, the apple-polisher -- the kid sucking up to the adults and constantly plying for their attention and praise. He's the kind of guy who would have sold you out for smoking in the boys room, would have told your mom that you weren't really at the mall, who would have told the cops about your party while your parents were away. If you want the standards, big band classics and swing, then listen to the originals. Buble is pre-arranged and pre-packaged nostalgia -- a contrived gimmick as bad as a boy band.
24. Paula Abdul American Idol has only served to remind us of just how sucky she was. This is why cheerleaders and dance line girls have a bad reputation. The fact that Paula Abdul is considered a worthy judge of singing talent is an indictment of just how silly American Idol really is. Forgettable dance pop from a pseudo-talent, Abdul's entire catalog has the depth of a Pauly Shore character and the soul of Don Simmons.
23. Bryan Adams The male Stevie Nicks, Adams churned out a dozen or so forgettable pieces of crap in the 1980s before accepting his scarlet letter -- the schmalzty piece of flotsam from the Kevin Costner Robin Hood debacle. I have special reason to hate this song -- and I do, with a passion. Had he done nothing else hideous but this song, it would still warrant his inclusion on this list. But then he decided that greasy dudes in bathrooms with cheesy pickup lines were sexy... he might as well have written a song called "Are Your Legs Tired? Because You've Been Running Through My Mind All Night." Adams was Canada's biggest export from 1984 through 1993 -- a devastating scourge on the Canadian economy that is directly responsible for the Canadian dollar being worth approximately 4 cents American.
Coming tomorrow, solo artists #22 through #18.
Posted by Christopher at 07:38 AM | Comments (8)No Shame
Want to know what kind of people conservatives are? Here's all you need to know.
Possibly worse than making fun of someone's disability is saying that it's imaginary. That is not to mock someone's body, but to challenge a person's guts, integrity, sanity.
To Rush Limbaugh on Monday, Michael J. Fox looked like a faker. The actor, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, has done a series of political ads supporting candidates who favor stem cell research, including Maryland Democrat Ben Cardin, who is running against Republican Michael Steele for the Senate seat being vacated by Paul Sarbanes.
"He is exaggerating the effects of the disease," Limbaugh told listeners. "He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act. . . . This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting."
Given Limbaugh's personal medical history, he's the last person in the world who should be mocking anyone else's conditions. Then again, integrity is something rarely associated with a conservative. Nor is shame.
Posted by Christopher at 07:23 AM | Comments (0)October 23, 2006
The 5 Worst Bands Ever
I'm going to finish up the first of my list series with the five worst bands ever. In hindsight, I wish I'd put Boston, the Fifth Dimension, and the Dead up higher just because it would have cheesed Brent and PeMagnet and Jews4Damon off some more. (Heh heh. I'm tired, which means I am in a snitty mood. So there.)
5. Soul II Soul Could have been included on the worst one hit wonder list instead, but they make my list of worst bands of all time for on very simple reason: it is this band that inflicted upon the world my single least favorite song EVER. EVER. As in, given the choice between being handed one million dollars and having to listen to this song from beginning to end, I would seriously have to think about it. "Back To Life," released in 1989, has not been touched by anything in the 16 years hence -- it remains the four most henious minutes ever committed to an audio recording. When this song is played, dogs cock their heads, tuck their tails, and run for cover; whales beach themselves; and several aboriginal cultures in South America begin preparing ritual sacrifices to appease the gods which have so clearly been so displeased as to unleash that wretched, ear drum-abrading cacapohony. Archaelogists now believe that it was the playing of "Back To Life" that doomed the people of Easter Island, and perhaps forced the decline of Mayan civilzation. And unconfirmed reports suggest that it is in fact Dick Cheney's favorite song. It's quite an accomplishment to become one of the five worst bands of all time on the strength of only one henious song. "Back To Life" is such an abomination, and Soul II Soul have pulled off the feat.
4. 98 Sync Boys Yes, the name is an amalgamation. But then, could anyone ever really tell the cookie cutter bubble gum schlock boy bands of the late 90s apart? Did anyone over the age of 14 even care? From 98 Degrees -- featuring Wuss Hall of Famer Nick Lachey -- to the Backstreet Boys (whose lame chair-dancing act became even lamer when performed to the sound of crickets chirping on a classic 1998 episode of Saturday Night Live) to N*Sync -- which foisted Justin Wiggalake and Lance "We Should Have Known From The Name Alone" Bass upon the world... and the countless others that sprung like a cockroach infestation from Orlando, the late 90s boy bands get a combined entry as the fourth worst band ever. It's always disturbed me that one of the more overlooked portions of Bill Clinton's anti-crime initiative was the establishment of after school boy band programs designed to give talentless affluent suburbanite wannabe hip-hoppers something to do after school and keep them off the streets.
3. Emerson Lake & Palmer Welcome back my friends, to the pretensious crap that never ends. This band is the avatar, the representation of all that sucks about prog rock. Pretentious, arrogant solos that last for 15 minutes so that the band members can show off their knowledge of Beethoven, Handel, and some obscure 15th century harpsichordist that you're too uncultured to know about, but these virtuosos will indulge their trite man's burden and expose your primitive souls to. Lyrics straight from a Dungeons and Dragons game (I think ELP were the official troubadors or minstrels of Dungeons and Dragons). And of course, pitch modulations galore from that wacky Moog synthesizer. Isn't it neato what these newfangled thigamajigs can do, kids? For his next trick, Keith Emerson might just use that funky Peter Frampton mouth synthesizer thing. It was once written about the keyboardist from Yes, but it's such an appropriate dig that it bears repeating here: being able to play two keyboards at once is no accomplishment if you're playing utter crap on both of them that no one wants to hear.
This, above all others, was the band favored by socially inept loners who wanted to believe that deep down they were really better than everyone else was. A strong candidate for worst ever, Emerson Lake and Palmer have been making the world safe for pretension since 1970.
2. Air Supply Rejected from the soundtrack in Hell, because Satan wants you awake while you're there to actually feel your eternal torment. In poor countries with underdeveloped medical systems, Air Supply's Greatest Hits is used in place of modern anesthesia. The album comes with the warning labels: "May Cause Drowsiness" and "Do Not Operate Heavy Machinery While Listening To This Tripe." The Aussies exude this rough and tumble, Russell Crowe/Steve Irwin/Keith Urban image, but it's Air Supply that is the lasting impression of the Land Down Under. Apparently, down under, these boys had pink thongs or something. The musical equivalent of the 98 pound weakling, Air Supply is better insulated than any band in history from having a dance remix made of one of their "classics;" no one could possibly make an Air Supply song hip or in any way cool. Richard Simmons looks butch compared to Air Supply. Maybe he looks butch to Air Supply, I don't know. All I know is this: it's okay to have one embarrassing, overly sappy, overly orchestrated song in your catalog; Kiss had Beth, after all. But making your entire career out of them? Inexcusable -- as is having a single Air Supply album on CD or anywhere in your possession.
And the worst band ever is....
1. Starship They get the nod over ELP and Air Supply primarily for one reason: they shoulda damn well known better. ELP always sucked pretentious wind; Air Supply always was the band that would scratch your eyes out if you punched them. But Starship? They cheapened the legacy of one once-great band (Jefferson Airplane) and one once-good band (Jefferson Starship). Starship's existence was like Sir Laurence Olivier had done "Police Academy 9: Flatulence On Patrol" as his final movie; like Joe Montana finishing his career backing up Billy Joe Tolliver for the New Orleans Saints; like Britney Spears marrying Kevin Federline. All the greatness achieved by the band to that point was dissipated in three short years.
Starship is possessive of the worst beginning-to-end catalog of singles in history. Starting with the Bernie Taupin-penned "We Built This City," (which he must have written shortly before entering rehab), followed by the mid-80s tripe ballad "Sara," and ending with the Diane Warren piece of schlock "Nothin's Gonna Stop Us Now," Starship managed to churn out three of the worst number one songs in rock history. I don't want to live in any city that this crappy band built; and -- as a word of advice to anyone wishing to listen -- if in the future you find yourself with someone sharing a name a sewerous song, your relationship is doomed to failure, and you should save yourselves the trouble. As for the last of the trilogy, let me just remind you that the song was the love theme from a movie about a dude in love with a mannequin. I mean, when your love song is dedicated to having relations with plastic, you've got serious issues.
Starship's existence in the 1980s should serve as a warning for all time to all bands: stay off of drugs. Forget the eggs crackling in the skillet, or hottie Rachel Leigh Cook smashing up a kitchen; all you ever need to tell young musicians is this: Guys, if you get messed up in drugs, someday your band will split up while you're in rehab, and Mickey Thomas will take over as lead singer and musical direction setter. He'll even get your name, too.
(Sound of thousands of band members tossing away their crack pipes, needles and bongs)
There you have it... the 25 worst bands ever. But I wouldn't leave you without something henious. So below, find the two videos/songs that cinched Starship's place atop this list. You can thank me later for the evil songs running through your head all day.
Posted by Christopher at 10:19 PM | Comments (7)October 21, 2006
The 25 Worst Bands Ever: #10-#6
Boy, do I have a lot to say today about Republicans, their ads, and their character (or lack thereof). However, my friend is getting married today, and it's a happy day, and it's time to focus on happy things... like sucky bands! Woohoo!
10. The Black Eyed Peas They started out okay; their first single "Where Is The Love?" was actually not objectionable. Since then, it's all been downhill faster than Mark Foley's congressional career. The group has degenerated to inanity -- the primary purpose of their videos now seems to be trying to convince the world that "Fergie" is attractive (sooo not the case). The zenith of their inanity and offensiveness was the 2006 single "My Humps," a patently offensive diminishing of the female body that left 10 year old girls around the country singing about their "lovely lady lumps." I mean, come on... I appreciate the body and euphemisms as much as the next guy, but "lovely lady lumps?" Demeaning and insipid at the same time is a very bad combination. With another album, the BEP could easily climb into the top five.
9. Styx There is a rule in music that states that anything involving Dennis DeYoung automatically sucks. (Don't hate on me, I don't make the rules, I just report them.) It's hard to believe that anyone was ever into these guys; at best, when DeYoung was reined in, they were cookie cutter arena rock interchangeable with Foghat. At worst, when DeYoung's more theatrical tendencies were indulged, they aspired to high art -- concept albums with stupid concepts, prog rock wannabes in AOR clothing. The "Kilroy Was Here" concept album inflicted "Mr. Roboto" on the world, and even their arguably most famous hit, "Come Sail Away," was about being kidnapped by aliens -- making this band the musical equivalent of the Randy Quaid character in "Independence Day." The only good thing that ever came from Styx was that millions of American kids can now say "thank you" in Japanese.
8. New Kids On The Block Just get on the floor and do the New Kids' dance, indeed. I hold special animosity toward this "band;" one of the jobs I had while working my way through undergrad was as a photographer at Sears Portrait Studio... and I had that job during New Kids Mania. For about a year and a half, I spent my afternoons and evenings getting 8-15 year old girls to smile for the camera by asking them who their favorite New Kid was (the answer was almost inevitably "Jordan"). But beyond hating them for that association, the New Kids must be hated for a) the fact that their music was some of the most henious and brutal ever put on tape; and b) they more than any others inflicted the late 90s boy band craze on us (more on that a little later in the countdown). Yes, I know that New Edition was first, but it was NKOTB that really ended up as the progenitors of that demon seed. Donnie Wahlberg grew up to be the heroin-addict suicidal former patient who shoots Bruce Willis at the beginning of The Sixth Sense. "Do you know why you're afraid when you're alone?" he asked. The answer is yes: because we had to listen to your spitty-ass music, Donnie.
7. Creed The nicest thing anyone could say about these poseurs was that they were a blatant attempt to rip off Pearl Jam's sound, without having any of Pearl Jam's talent. Add in the religious-themed lyrics and the pomposity and piousness of Scott Stapp (easily my least favorite music figure of the past ten years), and Creed went from being a bunch of ripoff hacks deserving of mere scorn to being a bunch of sanctimonious phonies deserving of utter contempt. Not a single song worth mention or listening all the way through to the end ever came from this vortex of pretension.
6. Boston Another of the Laws of Physics-type iron clad rules of music is that any band named after a geographic location is going to absolutely suck wind. Kansas... Berlin... Miami Sound Machine... Asia... Europe... Chicago... generally, if you name the band after a place, the band is a guaranteed loser. In no case was this more accurate than with Boston, the band that defines to this day the bland, boring, cookie cutter sound that was 70s classic rock and AOR. Sure, they did do wonders in the studio to give themselves a different physical sound than anyone else (you know as soon as you hear a Boston song that it's a Boston song), but their songwriting and style was very much the 70s rubber stamp. Might as well listen to Foghat. Worse yet, all the "classic rock" stations still insist on foisting this band on us -- forcing them down our throats, more accurately -- and they still get played every day. This baffles me. No, it infuriates me. Boston represents everything I hate most about 70s AOR. They have a corner of hell reserved for them for defiling the name of one of my favorite cities, too. Ugh, ugh, flunkin' ugh.
Posted by Christopher at 11:14 AM | Comments (21)October 20, 2006
The 25 Worst Bands Ever: #15-11
Moving on to the next five... live from The City By The Bay.
15. The Fifth Dimension Much like the Captain & Tenille, I am not holding the 5th Dimension's biggeest hit against them; while "Aquarius" is a henious song, it was the late 60s, and both bands and the music buying public weren't in any state to comprehend what they were inflicting upon the world. No, it's the rest of this group's catalog that earn them my scorn. "Up, up and away in my beautiful, my beautiful ballooooooon?" Easily on the soundtrack to Hell. Look... when bizarro peacenik Germans sing about balloons, it's okay... but in no other circumstances are bands to sing about balloons. "Won'tcha marry me Biii-iiilllllll?" Not if you keep screech-singing that song, I won't; ugh. "One Less Bell To Answer" and "(Last Night) I Didn't Get To Sleep At All" are also on my hit list as among the worst pop songs ever.
14. The Spin Doctors "Two Princes" might be the most annoying song of the 90s -- and that's saying something considering that the same decade also gave us "Rico Suave" and the Macarena. Plus, they just looked like those annoying forks who travel the country in a VW bus going to Phish concerts. They looked like they hadn't bathed since about 1984 and probably smelled of bongwater. They made the Blender list, and they make mine too.
13. The Grateful Dead What did the DeadHead say when he ran out of drugs? "Man, this music really sucks!" Extended ham-handed jams by stoned-out hippies playng to even further tripped-out crowds. Yee haw. Nothing redeeming ever came from this band; even "Touch of Grey" was a hit due more to nostalgia and seeing the Dead do a video than anything else. I love Jerry's ties. I hate his music. (And to all you Dead-lovers out there who are going to flame me for "not getting it," I say: write your own list. This one's mine -- and I can't stand The Dead.)
12. Warrant They're up here half representing themselves, and half representing every other cheesy, inferior-talented ripoff wannabe hair band that sprung up like AquaNetted dandelions in the late 80s and early 90s. So half of this number 12 ranking is for Trixter, Kix, Winger, Britny Fox, Faster Pussycat, Cinderella, and Europe (along with a zillion others). Half of it goes to Warrant for the incredibly juvenile lyrics to Cherry Pie -- which, while I admit that I once kind of liked, is easily the most immature song to come from a massively immature genre. I'm certainly no prude... but "cherry pie?" Come the hell on. Salaciousness done smartly is hot; salaciousness done with the imagination of a gaggle of 14 year old boys is just insipid. So Warrant is here representing all bad hair bands except for one.
11. Nelson The Pat Boones of hair metal. Seriously, to be a hair metal guy you had to either be a bad-ass, or be able to convincingly pretend you were a bad-ass. Rick Nelson's twin sons, with their early-70s-Elle-model straight-ironed bleach-blonded hair, couldn't have looked wussier if they'd have played their shows in pink diapers -- although they did manage to bad-ass up pretty well for their role in The Matrix Reloaded, admittedly.
I'm sure the Nelson boys are nice young men, and I congratulate them for jumping on the hair metal bandwagon at the peak of its powers. But they're an example of why hair music had to die -- and of your brain on drugs. And just because I am a mean-spirited SOB who wants to torture all of you, here is a song to get stuck in your head for the rest of the day.
Posted by Christopher at 09:43 AM | Comments (9)October 18, 2006
An Exercise In Narcissism: The 100 Things Meme
Between the fact that I am extremely narcissistic, and the fact that I could sooner chop my right arm off at the elbow than resist a meme, it's a miracle that I haven't done the "100 Things About Me" meme yet. But seeing as how I am traveling this week and need to give you something to bide the time between my Worst Bands posts, I thought I'd indulge the narcissism and finally give in to the 2002-era 100 things meme. If you're really that interested (and I can't imagine that you would be), my 100 Things are beneath the jump.
Am flying to California this afternoon. I'll have time to drop the Worst Bands posts up on Thursday and Friday, then will probably go dark for the weekend. Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars, kids. And don't forget the 100 things below the jump.
1. I was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1968. We left when I was 6 months old. I have been back precisely once since moving to the tri-state area in 1999.
2. I have no hometown. I grew up in Minnesota, but have now lived in four states plus the District of Columbia since leaving there. If asked, I still consider D.C. “home.”
3. My younger brother lives in Africa. I’m proud as hell of him and will be visiting him for two weeks in 2007.
4. When I was a kid, we had a black cockapoo named "Smokie."
5. I didn’t have my growth spurt until the summer between 9th and 10th grade; in junior high I was a little guy, maybe 5’5” and 125 pounds at the end of the 9th grade. When I showed up three months later for high school at 5’10” and
155, people couldn’t believe it was me.
6. I could read at 3, and could read most of the front page of a newspaper by the time I started kindergarten.
7. I think The Electric Company was the apex of children’s television programming, and everything since then has been increasingly crap.
8. I watched Land of the Lost religiously as a kid. But if they make a movie out of it I will hurt somebody; some things are best left to memory.
9. When I was 2, I was jumping on the sofa, fell off, and hit my head on the corner of the coffee table below. To this day, there is a noticeable and kind of gross dent in the back of my skull.
10. For this reason, I cannot ever shave my head despite my encroaching male pattern baldness.
11. My thinning hair bothers me less than my expanding waistline.
12. At one point, I was a very fit athlete; later in life, I was in the Naval Reserves and was “military fit.”
13. Remembering how I used to look has made me exceedingly sensitive to my late-30s paunch, and I believe myself to be fatter than I probably really am.
14. I’ve ripped up the ACL in my left knee twice. I’ve now torn the menisci in my right knee twice.
15. I believe that I am much too young to have decimated knees, and have considered looking into knee replacement surgery.
16. I love baseball more than life itself.
17. While I am a die-hard Red Sox fan, I love baseball so much that I’d watch a Royals-Devil Rays game over anything else on TV.
18. I live a very unscheduled, go-with-the-flow, unstructured kind of life. Structure bothers me, and overly structuring me is a good way to get me to go bat-spit crazy on you in a hurry.
19. I am an ENFP. Bet you’d never guess that I was an extrovert or could at times seem directionless, huh?
20. I scored 800/800/740 on my GRE exams. The 740 was in math. True to my perfectionist nature, I was pissed about the 740.
21. I can find the sick humor in almost any situation.
22. I laugh at other people’s misfortune probably a little too much.
23. I have a cat whom I rescued from the street at the pleas of my then-girlfriend. Three months later she was gone; six years later I still have the cat.
24. I haven’t read an actual, physical newspaper in at least a couple of years; I read online sites (CNN.com, WashingtonPost.com, etc.)
25. I sort my M&M’s by color when I eat them; I alphabetize my CDs and DVDs on the shelf, and my spices have to go in their prescribed places in the spice rack (i.e., the jar of oregano must be in the slot labeled “oregano”). Despite this, I do not consider myself OCD.
26. I do, however, think and converse in lists. The tendency I have on this blog to come up with lists of things is reflective of my larger tendency, when comparing options or making arguments, to organize my thoughts in lists.
27. I get this idiosyncrasy from my father.
28. I still love cartoons; everything I know about opera, I learned from Bugs Bunny.
29. I hate myself in photos and can count on the fingers of one hand the number of good photos of me that have ever been taken.
30. If I were to have a tragic band saw accident and mangle my hand, losing three fingers in the process, I would still be able to count of the fingers of that hand the number of good photos ever taken of me.
31. My first job was at a Spencer’s Gifts when I was 16.
32. The first thing I ever did as a paid, working adult was unpack and put price tags on a box of vibrators.
33. For a long while, I had a major thing for Britney Spears, until she went all trailer park.
34. Despite her trailer-park status, I would still leap at the chance for one night with her. I’m sick that way.
35. I am an unabashed and unapologetic liberal.
36. I have become so polarized by the Bush Administration that I genuinely find it difficult to talk to or remain friendly with anyone that I know still supports this administration and its policies.
37. I have become so polarized by 20+ years of the conservative right demonizing anyone who doesn’t agree with them that I genuinely find it difficult to talk to or remain friendly with anyone who self-identifies as a conservative. As far as I am aware, there are only two conservatives who I still consider real friends (yes, David, you are one of them).
38. I genuinely, honestly believe that Christian social conservatives pose a greater threat to our democracy and its traditions than do Osama bin Laden and al Qaida.
39. In the 1990s, I worked for a government organization that focused on the assassination of President Kennedy.
40. After having spent three years on that job and reviewing all the classified files and evidence, I still have nothing more than a slightly educated guess as to what really happened that day.
41. I do think, however, that the Warren Commission got it wrong; I think there were five shots. Just don’t ask me where the other two came from or who fired them; I don’t know.
42. I am obsessed with disasters and assassinations. The History Channel is the greatest invention in history.
43. I watch Star Trek: The Next Generation in reruns. I watched it weekly in first-runs. I do not watch any of the other Star Trek series.
44. I find watching golf on TV roughly as interesting as watching paint dry.
45. I don’t much care for the New York area. No place is for everyone, and this is just one of the ones that’s not for me.
46. If I had the opportunity to leave this area due to a job – either one for my current company or from another employer – I would take it.
47. I have been saying this for more than five years and haven’t gone anywhere yet, so the odds of my actually leaving New York are slim and decreasing with every passing year.
48. If I won the lottery, I would quit my job the next day, move to the islands, and open a tiki bar. Or captain a charter fishing boat. Whatever I did, it would involve Caribbean islands, lots of Tommy Bahama tiki shirts, and many coconuts.
49. My favorite countries I have visited are Spain, England and Italy.
50. I was not smitten with Paris. I was and remain smitten with Madrid.
51. Or all of Spain, really.
52. I failed my first driver’s exam. Twice.
53. I love to cook and am damn good at it.
54. My favorite kind of cuisines are Middle Eastern/Mediterranean: Lebanese, Turkish, Greek, Afgahni. I also like Vietnamese, Thai, and Malaysian.
55. I am not all that hot for Japanese, Chinese, or Mexican food. And Indian food usually gives me nasty indigestion.
56. My favorite vice food is hot dogs; I am physically incapable of declining or walking away from them.
57. No, I don’t care what they’re made of.
58. I will only eat mushrooms cooked, not raw.
59. I will only eat carrots raw, not cooked.
60. This inconsistency in my produce section eating habits does not bother me.
61. I love breakfast foods: bacon, eggs, pancakes, omelettes, home fries, sausage.
62. Despite this, I almost never eat breakfast. There’s never time.
63. I like fruity alcoholic drinks. This does not make me girly, fluffy, or any other euphemism.
64. I also like scotch and vodka. Happy now?
65. I am deathly allergic – as in, take my ass to the hospital right this second or I might not make it – to tequila.
66. I hate cigarettes. Hate them. Hate their smell, hate the way they look, hate their effects.
67. Despite this, I don’t mind cigars; in fact, I enjoy them.
68. While I am greatly annoyed by hypocrisy in others, I can rationalize or at least tolerate it in myself.
69. I cannot tie a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue. I have always aspired to date a woman who could.
70. I have a thing about feet, as in I don’t like them.
71. I once spent two hours sitting naked in a girl’s shower stall with my clothes at my feet, because her parents came home early on a Saturday night from what was supposed to be their long weekend away. I needed an emergency place to hide, and I was afraid that even the noise of putting on my underwear would give my location away to her father, who was sitting and talking with his daughter in the nearby living room. When the parents finally went to their rooms and to sleep, I dressed and snuck out the front door.
72. I have an overly flirtatious personality and flirt with almost everyone – when it doesn’t matter and I am just having fun. When it matters and I actually really hope the woman is interested in me, the flirty part of me completely shuts off and I become stupid shy.
73. I got my heart shattered when I was 26, and was never the same after it. I have never really completely trusted anyone ever again.
74. This woman-inflicted quirk has negatively impacted most of my relationships since.
75. It also proved to be a wise approach to life, as most of the women I have been in long-term relationships with have cheated on me.
76. I do not believe in astrology, though I do concede that some of the descriptions of my sign (Cancer) are accurate.
77. I do choose to hold forth the presumption that numerology is real, mostly because when you do the numbers out, my name indicates uncommon greatness and leadership. Any belief system that suggests I am to be a great leader of humanity is allowed to be real.
78. I am fascinated by weather and natural phenomena; I have seen a tornado at a quarter mile and, despite the Katrina tragedy, I find the idea of personally witnessing a hurricane coming ashore.
79. One of my ideal vacations would be spending a week storm-chasing in Tornado Alley.
80. I have a paralyzing phobia about high bridges. I avoid them whenever possible, and when it’s not and I have to go over one, I break into a drenching, cold sweat and hyperventilate.
81. I do not have even a minor shred of morning person in me. I hate waking up in the morning, and I am always groggy and half-functioning for the first couple hours after I’m awake.
82. I have the uncanny ability to not just hit snooze, but physically reset the alarm for later, without actually realizing that I’ve ever been awake, and sleeping much longer.
83. Because of this, I have to set my alarm clock for about 90 minutes before I actually have to get up, so that I do not oversleep.
84. This tactic is not always successful.
85. My favorite candy is jelly beans. The black ones are excluded; I hate licorice or anything that tastes of it.
86. Of all the home chores, the one I hate most is laundry.
87. I do not have a Home Depot card and can count on my fingers the number of times I have ever shopped there.
88. I have so far been to 36 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia.
89. The only east-of-Mississippi states I have not yet been to are Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee.
90. I have no raging desire to visit three of those four.
91. The professional success I’ve found in the past 18 months has inflated my ego to levels barely tolerable by me, and so I find myself going out of my way to be self-deprecating or otherwise act like I don’t have one.
92. This strikes some as obsequious false modesty, and others as low self-esteem.
93. They’re both right, as odd as that may sound.
94. It does not speak well of me, but in general I tend to look down on most of humanity, and consider most people to be merely users of my oxygen.
95. Despite knowing that I am a snob, I doubt I could change it. Besides, it is my smug superiority complex that allows me to have the snark that makes this blog fun to read.
96. I think that along with IQ tests, intelligence can be measured by whether one is a fan of NASCAR or not.
97. It’s almost impossible to offend me or tick me off at you. But once you have, I hold grudges for roughly 7,971 years.
98. I think comment spammers are the lowest form of pond sludge life on this planet, and I don’t believe that a sufficiently cruel and inhuman torturous method of death has been devised for them. The “Zed from Pulp Fiction” treatment would be a good first step.
99. I hate people who forward e-mail chain letters and wish them bodily harm.
100. The world really does revolve around me. The sooner you accept this, the better we’ll get along.
The 25 Worst Bands Ever: #20-#16
20. Hootie and the Blowfish Bar bands can sometimes be pretty entertaining. Hell, if you play your set of your own 14 originals for long enough, they start to sound pretty good. That doesn't mean, however, that bar bands should be given recording contracts. Hootie and the Blowfish were the James "Buster" Douglas of rock -- they had one punch, one big fight in 'em, one moment where they exceeded their natural ability and seized a moment... but both before and after that moment, they were just punch-drunk journeymen. Some bands are born to greatness, while others have it thrust upon them; still others happen to stumble unworthily into a couple of chart hits and a multiplatinum record. The thing was, with the exception of "Hold My Hand," there wasn't even a good song on "Cracked Rear View." Darius Rucker is now doing cheesy commercials for Burger King while wearing a glam lavendar cowboy outfit. It's more befitting his talent level. As for the Blowfish, they might have been working at Burger King the last time anyone heard from them. You've heard of one hit wonders; Hootie & the Blowfish were one year wonders.
19. Color Me Badd This is your brain. This is your brain when white kids from Oklahoma try to do R&B. Any questions? They couldn't sing, they couldn't dance, and they had the come-on lines of Beavis and Butthead. "I Wanna Sex You Up?" Is there actually a woman alive who would hear that and go, "Okay! Let's go!" Read the lyrics; they read like what Jerry Seinfeld would say when trying to talk dirty. I swear, I expected to see the line "are these the panties your mother laid out for you?" in the lyrics for this song.
18. Yes The hate affair with prog rock continues. This band is famous for having written a song comparing a relationship to a game of chess. You heard me. Freakin' chess. There is a reason that the phrase is not "chess, drugs, and rock and roll." It might be an apt literary analogy, but rock and roll is not literature. But then that was the problem with prog rockers in general; they were all pretentious forks who wanted to provide an education in the classics with their rock. Remember in Good Will Hunting? The "Barney" with the sweater and the blond ponytail who tries to embarrass Ben Affleck in front of Minnie Driver, only to get shown up by Matt Damon? That ponytail guy is the kind of guy who was into prog rock. He's the kind of guy who was in Yes. A bunch of Barneys, they were. Freakin' chess... how do you like those apples?
17. The Pointer Sisters First big hit was covering a Springsteen song; it only went downhill from there. The Pointer Sisters spent the 80s making the charts safe for mediocrity. Usually when an act does crossover, it's combining the best of two genres -- rock and R&B, in this case -- and not the worst. The Pointer Sisters have the dubious distinction of having placed three songs onto what would be my list of the worst songs of the 80s (Jump! For My Love, The Neutron Dance, and Automatic). And they forgot the cardinal rule of pop music: family acts can succeed, but only if they don't reference their relationship in their band name. I mean, Oasis succeeded; so did INXS; but The Gallagher Brothers would have flopped, as would the Farriss Brothers. Even the Jackson Five and Van Halen had the sense not to use "Brothers" in their names. "The Wilson Sisters" would have been playing Holiday Inn lounges for a couple of years before they turned to exotic dancing to make ends meet; "Heart" had a multi-decade career. Never name your band "the (something) Sisters/Brothers." It makes people think of Lawrence Welk.
16. Dr. Hook I went through this band's entire catalog trying to find a single song that was unworthy of ridicule. I could not. "Sylvia's Mother" sounds like teenage poetry; "The Cover Of The Rolling Stone" was Shel Silverstein's lowest moment; most of the rest of their stuff was Muzak with words. Besides, look at 'em. Just look at 'em. Does this look like a rock band to you? They look like they're on one of those 70s Iron Men retreats where they gather on the beach around a fire, beat drums, and talk about their feelings. No band that wears flannel because they like it -- and not as an ironic statement or affectation of identification with working class -- is a good band.
Things That Make You Go Hmmm
So if George W. Bush invaded Iraq (in defiance of the international community) on the premise that Saddam Hussein was a brutal, ruthless dictator who had tried to acquire Weapons of Mass Destruction, and despite his denials was believed to have a stockpile of WMD at his disposal...
... then how come Zippy the Wonder Chimp has not invaded North Korea yet? I mean, Kim Jong Il is a brutal and ruthless dictator. He's not only rumored to have pursured WMD, but he's officially conducted a test of a nuclear bomb, and is defiantly threatening to detonate a second one. If there's ever been a slam-dunk case in which to invoke the Bush doctrine, this would appear to be it. Yet Bush sits meekly in the White House, only making vague pronouncements about what is unacceptable. I wonder why?
It wouldn't have anything to do with North Korea having no oil for Dick Cheney and his war profiteering Halliburton' to go into the country and plunder, would it?
I report. You decide.
Posted by Christopher at 06:40 AM | Comments (1)Scenes From A Life: Homework
The scene: a living room in exurban New York City. Having in the past casually mentioned being willing to help with homework, I've been taken up on the offer, the young man now sits opposite me on the sectional with notebooks and textbooks stacked next to him. This will be good, I tell myself; you've always been a good student, and working with him on homework will be a good way to continue connecting with the young man whose mother you're smitten with. Yes, this will be a good thing.
"All right," he says, "the one I have the most to do is math."
There is a brief moment of silence while I soil myself. While I always excelled at school at every level and in almost every subject, I have a kryptonite-like weakness; when confronted with any math that involves higher function than long division, I become Special Ed. But this is a big moment; he's trusted me and asked for my help, and by God I am going to rise to the occasion. Never let them see you sweat, right?
"Okay. Whaddaya got?"
He pulls out a textbook roughly the size of an unabridged dictionary. "We have to do 20 problems from this book." I look at the cover. I cough. Intro to Trigonometry. I become aware that suddenly my IQ has dropped 54 points. I look out the front door to see if the short yellow bus has arrived to take me home yet. He opens his notebook and begins copying the first diagram from the book to his pages. I decide honesty is the best policy.
"Okay, I'll give this a shot. But I'll tell you the truth: I suck at math. My grades were good in high school because we only needed one year of it and I quit math after geometry."
He smiles. Teenagers can smell fear, after all -- and he knows he has me. It's Round One, and he's weakened me with two stiff jabs; my guard is dropped, and he moves in for the knockout punch.
"So for this one, we need to find the sine and cosine for A, B and C."
I'm on my back, looking up at the lights and smiling at all the pretty birdies. The referee is surely counting ten by now, but I don't hear it. I am Apollo Creed in the ring with Ivan Drago. I'm dead. For me, sine means autograph, and cosine is something your parents do for your first car loan. "Trig" might as well be some random Norweigian guy, for all I know of it.
There are a few seconds of silence while I stare at the diagram he's written on his page. I flip through files in my head that are more than 20 years old at this point, trying to remember formulas. Suddenly, the right answer comes to me.
"I think the Mets game just started. You wanna watch it?"
He grins, and proceeds to give me a 15 minute lesson in introductory trigonometry. But while he's having an amusing time explaining the formulas to his mother's exapserated and confused boyfriend, he's getting his homework done. He's got to understand this stuff to explain it to me. By the 3rd inning, he has most of it done.
Ain't gonna be no rematch. Don't want one.
Posted by Christopher at 06:30 AM | Comments (3)October 17, 2006
The 25 Worst Bands Ever: #25-21
Here we go.... and if I snark on a band you happen to like... too bad. It's my list. If you don't like it, make your own list and put bands that I like on it.
#25. Journey Making the world safe for god-awful videos and cheesy arena ballads, Journey emerged in the late 70s and then took the music world by storm with 1982's "Frontiers" album. By the middle of the decade, they even had a free-standing video game in arcades named for and themed around them. But all the laser shooters in the world couldn't change the basic fact that they sucked. Open Arms might have gotten you a slow dance, a french kiss, or maybe even a short session of above-the-waist/above-the-clothes petting after the junior high dance, but it was pure cheese. As for Don't Stop Believin', it lost all credibility when its hero was "born and raised in south Detroit." Look at a map: south Detroit is Windsor, Ontario. As in Canada. There is no south Detroit. But I guess "born and raised in Ca-na-daaa" didn't have the same ring. (You know those shifty Canadians... always coming over the border to steal our women. Michael J. Fox? Married American Tracy Pollard. See?) Journey was cookie cutter, forgettable arena pop -- and they unleashed the power ballad on us all. For that alone, they make this list. That, and failing to warn us about the Canadian woman-stealing menace.
24. Kool & The Gang Okay, during the 70s they did some pretty kick-ass funk ("Jungle Boogie," anyone?), so what they became in the 80s is mitigated a little. But by the 80s, the bad-ass funksters had become eunuchs. Cherish? Joanna? Somewhere around 1980, someone slipped these guys a mickey and then cut off all of their testicles. But even if they hadn't made the list for the insipid wussyness that was their 80s catalog, they would be here for inflicting "Celebration" on every wedding, bar mitzvah, anniversary party, and new year's eve party hosted by a nerd for generations to come. I'll bring my laughter too, guys. It's right over here... wanna see it? POW.
23. The Captain & Tenille Not here because of Love Will Keep Us Together. I mean, it was the 70s, they couldn't help it. No, they're here for two reasons... first, for the Captain's pre-Villiage People sailor get-up (he looked like Judge Smails as a younger man at the yacht club)... and second, because they sang a song about muskrats screwing. Gay sailor types playing bad synth while their beard sings about rodent love... thank you, but I'll pass.
22. Kansas I really could have done an entire list full of bad prog rock acts. Or, I could have just written a single sentence that said "prog rock sucks." But then I would have missed out on being able to belittle violinists in overalls playing songs about wayward sons and how nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky. When your only lasting contribution to pop culture was giving Ted "Theodore" Logan something with which to relate to Socrates, your band pretty much sucked.
21. Earth Wind and Fire Okay, the band is named after astrological elements. That should be a clue. A dead giveaway, in fact. Look, I know that chicks at weddings seem to dig this band... but come on. Earth Wind and Fire? What kind of 70s hippie earth-commune relic is that? How 'bout just naming your band the Granola Clog Mood Rings? On this list because of their stupid name, and because "September" is the most annoying song named after a month ever.
Coming up tomorrow... #20-#16.
Posted by Christopher at 07:46 AM | Comments (9)The Next Curmudgeon's Lists: Worst Bands Ever
Tim has been goading me over IM to offer my take on this list from Blender magazine. It's not really a fair challenge; between knowing my propensity for lists, and knowing how much I like to snark at other people's tastes in music, this is a natural effort for me.
As I started working out a list, however, it became clear to me that a single "worst artists ever" list would be impossible. Bands and singers should have their own lists, it seems to me. And as I really began thinking about who made each list, I realized that there was a third list that is necessary, as a related but separate entity: The Worst One Hit Wonders Ever. Otherwise, it would be too easy to fill each of these lists with cheesy one hit wonder songs.
I'm going to tackle the 25 Worst Bands Ever first. Then, I'll do the 25 Worst Artists Ever. And I'll finish with the 50 Worst One Hit Wonders Ever.
For those of you who are rolling your eyes and saying "Not more lists!", I say... chill. It's what I do. Tom Cruise jumps on couches. George W. Bush shreds the Constitution. I make lists. If you don't like them, this is probably not the blog for you. That is all.
Coming up next... #25-21.
Posted by Christopher at 07:32 AM | Comments (2)Life In George W. Bush's America
The Navy lawyer who successfully challenged Bush's military tribunals at Guantanamo in front of the Supreme Court has been denied a promotion and forced out of the military. This despite an exemplary service record. As one military official put it:
“Charlie has obviously done an exceptional job, a really extraordinary job,” said Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan, the Pentagon’s chief defense counsel for Military Commissions. He added it was “quite a coincidence” that Swift was passed over for a promotion “within two weeks of the Supreme Court opinion.”
Quite a coincidence? Somehow, I doubt that. Just how good can the traitorous Bush Administration be at protecting our national security when, instead of providing us with the best and most competent military we could have, it is purging the military of anyone who disagrees with its views. Or kicking out Arabic translators because they're gay? Or trying to discredit former generals and admirals who argue that the administraion's military policies are ill-advised? Far from protecting the United States of America, the Bush Adminstration has weakened America by trying to shape the military into unthinking clones of itself who will merely do the bidding of Herr Rumsfeld without questioning it or bringing their professional experience and opinion to bear.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, people are being issued tickets for having anti-Bush bumper stickers.
Denise Grier, 47, of Athens, Georgia, got a $100 ticket in March after a DeKalb County police officer spotted the bumper sticker, which read "I'm Tired Of All The BUSH**." A DeKalb judge threw out the ticket in April because the state's lewd decal law that formed the basis for the ticket was ruled unconstitutional in 1990.
A law declared unconstitutional 16 years ago is used as the basis for prosecuting someone for not supporting this criminal administration. Yeah, but that wasn't meant to intimidate or send a message or anything. It was just an accident.
This is what conservatives do, kids. Stray from the thoughts, expressions, or actions that they want you to have... face consequences. Whatever it is that you think "could never happen here," you're wrong. It could. It is. And the people currently in power are the ones who do it.
Posted by Christopher at 07:20 AM | Comments (0)October 15, 2006
The Monday Ten
Here's the ten things on my mind heading into this Monday.
1. Sometime on Tuesday morning, there will officially be 300,000,000 people in the United States. I believe this is too many. I believe that humankind is overpopulating itself, and I believe that excessive breeding/multiplying/child-bearing by any individual or couple is irresponsible. I don't believe that God issued orders in the Bible for us to be fruitful and multiply until we exhaust the earth's resources like a virus. I believe that the planet isn't meant to sustain 6 billion people and that we are in line for a combination of famine and disease that will, while considered a massive tragedy, merely re-set the natural sustainable levels of human population.
2. I am extremely disturbed that CBGB’s was forced to close forever this past weekend by a bunch of smug, self-righteous, holier-than-thou homeless advocates… and I will never again give to a homeless charity due to their behavior.
3. Adrian Peterson showed this weekend why I now hate football. Alone after breaking a spectacular touchdown run, he decided he felt the need to show off and make sure he got his moment on SportsCenter; he took a completely unnecessary dive across the goal line designed simply to show off -- and promptly broke his collarbone. He's out for the year, hurting his team's chances for a successful year, all because he selfishly placed his own personal spotlight over the best interests of the team. As far as I am concerned, Peterson had a Lindsey Jacobellis moment -- where showing off came back to bite him in the ass -- and he got exactly what he deserved. It's telling that his all-about-me-and-my-bling attiutude is so prevalent in football these days that no one -- not coaches, not columnists, not anyone -- is even bothering to rip him for this wholly unneccesary injury. Guess they've given up expecting football players to respect the game.
4. My brother managed to get access to a satellite telephone today, and called me all the way from Africa. Of course, I did not recognize the number on the caller ID, assumed it was a telemarketer, and didn't bother to pick it up. When I listened to his voice mail, I felt sick. How ticked am I at missing his call?
5. I think the Detroit Tigers are a great story, and I was smiling and laughing along with them as they clinched a World Series berth on Saturday night.
6. The Girl and I watched "Office Space" Saturday night. The previous week, we watched a heavily edited version of "Pulp Fiction." She's now seen two of the 50 on the previous list I did.
7. I have never watched her show, but after Fox's heavy-duty promotional push for "Bones" during the baseball playoffs, I might start checking out just because Emily Deschanel is pretty hot.
8. After this past weekend's furniture delivery, I am wondering what the protocol is when the delivery guys are majorly late. Their window was somewhere between 3:30 to 6:30; they called me at 5:00 to tell me that the guys might be 15 minutes late, then called at 7:10 to ask me if the delivery had occurred yet, then I called at 7:30 to see where they were... at 8:00 I called the store back and told them I was going to go on with my evening and that they might as well call the delivery guys off, and got ready to hit the shower before going out. At 8:20, while I was dripping wet and wrapped in a towel, they called to say that the guys were 5 minutes away. It crossed my mind to tell them where to stuff their delivery, but figured that if I made them come back another day I might never get my bookcase. So I let them deliver it. Then, despite my better judgement, I still tipped them $30. It wasn't much, admittedly... but the weasels were late, by more than two hours, and I figure they're lucky I gave them anything. What do you think -- what is the tipping protocol for delivery guys who are late? (Theoretically it might not have been their fault, and they did still haul a heavy bookcase up a flight of stairs and into my apartment.
9. Saw this on YouTube - quite sad actually; an 86 year old veteran of World War II who'd been doing video diaries or vlogs about his life and experiences on YouTube died over the weekend. Amazingly, users have been making some heartless and cruel comments on the last video from his wife announcing his death. An old man - a veteran of World War II at that -- dies, and there's punks making heartless comments. Asshats like that just remind me that I really, honestly don't like people very much.
10. I leave for the San Francisco Bay area on Wednesday. I'm speaking at a conference in San Francisco on Thursday morning, attending that conference through Friday, then heading to San Jose for a good friend's wedding on Saturday. To avoid having to wake up too early on Sunday morning after being at the reception on Saturday night, I am taking the red-eye back to New York on Sunday night/Monday morning. The over-under on my being sentient or coherent enough to achieve anything at work on Monday is ... well, there is none, because I won't be.
Posted by Christopher at 10:09 PM | Comments (9)Hawaii Earthquake
In case you haven't heard, there was a major earthquake in Hawaii this afternoon (morning their time). While there is no tsunami and no reports of injuries or deaths, there are power outages all over the state and some reports of damage.
Our blogging friend Linkmeister is based in Hawaii. Obviously, he's going to be busy with many other priorities for the next few hours or days... but LM, we're thinking of you and hoping that everything is all right at your home. Good luck... thoughts and prayers and all.
Posted by Christopher at 05:35 PM | Comments (2)October 14, 2006
By Request Blogging: Mudge's Top 10 Songs A Woman Should Karaoke
In response to my call for suggestions, here's what our good friend Jill came up with: "I've been kicking around a list of songs that get me all excited. I think you should make "Mudge's Top 10 Songs That a Woman Should Karaoke"."
I'll assume, Jill, that you don't mean "love songs;" beyond the fact that men just don't get all weak in the knees over "The Lady In Red" (unless we're thinking of what we know will come after it if we sing it to her), you also said "songs that get me all excited." So I'm guessing the idea here is seduction and pure "you're gonna get some tonight" vibe, and not "romantic," or not the kind of song that a woman with a great voice would do to show off her chops. I guessed that you were aiming for songs that would make the targeted man's hands begin to shake and make beads of sweat break out on his upper lip. Did I capture your aim correctly? :-)
I also had to pick songs likely to be on a karaoke song list (for example, "The Sensual World" by Kate Bush would almost certainly do it, but given that it was a minor hit only in the States I doubt many karaoke places would have it). With that in mind, here's 10 songs that would likely have the desired effect if a woman performed them at karaoke:
10. I Want To Come Over, Melissa Etheridge I don't care if you have someone else. I don't care what kind of trouble we get into. I just want to come over and blow your mind. Ummm... okay. Twist my arm.
9. Underneath Your Clothes, Shakira Despite its title, this song's really not salacious, it's actually kind of romantic. (Don't believe me? Check out the lyrics.) In that sense, this one's unlike the rest of them on my list. But if someone I'd been seeing for a while sang this, I'd probably feel like the first couple of months all over again.
8. You Can Sleep While I Drive, Melissa Etheridge There's nothing seductive about this song at all; it's more about the desperation of wanting to get away from everything in her life... but the sexy part of it is that the only thing she wants to take with her is you. She wants you with her so badly that she's going to just let you relax and take comfort in being with her, just let you sleep while she takes care of things and of you. Somebody who's that into you is probably going to be quite passionate with you, don't you think?
7. I'm A Slave 4 U, Britney Spears Hey, look at it this way: there's no way that you won't sing it better than the original artist! But... all trailer trash jokes aside, between the sweaty beat and the lyrics in the chorus, it'd work for me.
6. I Drove All Night, Cyndi Lauper She drove all night, just so she could hop in bed with you? "I was dreaming while I drove the long straight road ahead... could taste your sweet kisses, your arms open wide, this fever for you is just burning me up inside." Okay, so she's been thinking about this for a few hours, and she's still talking fever and burning... I think it's gonna be a good night.
5. Damn! I Wish I Was Your Lover, Sophie B. Hawkins Well geez... if you feel so strongly about it, who'm I to stop you? "If I was your girl believe me...I'd turn on the Rolling Stones, we could groove along and feel much better. Let me in... I could do it forever and ever, ever n' ever." Sold. Check, please!
4. Flower or H.W.C., Liz Phair Let's face it: men are simple. We don't really need the long buildup or anything like that... just come right out and say it, and don't use polite words. We don't necessarily want women who have trucker mouths all the time, but if a woman who doesn't usually get blunt like this all of a sudden does? Scorching. (Must be part of that whole virgin/whore dynamic that most civilized men disdain on an academic level and yet still subconsciously dig whether we want to or not... not that we judge the non-virgins, but rather that we dig the idea that we're the one guy who can turn a proper and polite librarian into a raging adult film star when we work our charms on her.)
3. Good Times, Edie Brickell This one was never a big hit, so the odds of it being on a karaoke list are kinda slim. Otherwise, it might have made #1. This might be the most sultry, sensual performance of a song ever recorded. And the lyrics aren't even blatantly sexual; but listen to her sing it and tell me you don't hear exactly what she has on her mind in this soul-inspired seduction.
2. I Touch Myself, The Divinyls Do you even need an explanation? We boys are visual creatures, and this song indulges that thought. Add in a couple of lyric-appropriate gestures, and forgeddabouddit -- you're getting breakfast the next morning.
1. Justify My Love, Madonna Um.... great song, baby. You were great. I'd like for you to come home with me. But... er, not right this second. Just give me a second before we walk out of here, okay?
There you go, Jill... Mudge's 10 songs a woman should karaoke. If you weren't aiming for the "get me excited" vibe, lemme know and I'll do another list of songs that I think are the best vocal songs for women.
Posted by Christopher at 09:59 AM | Comments (4)By Request Blogging: NaNoWriMo
Thanks to everyone who submitted an idea or two as to what I should blog about today. Linkmeister, I'll get to the books-on-the-shelf discussion as soon as I get them unpacked and on the shelf... that's a good (if potentially embarrassing) topic and I will be hitting it shortly. Tim & Attila, I'll be hitting the Worst Bands/Artists lists (separately, at Tim's request) in the coming month as well.
Eden, regarding NaNoWriMo, I'd actually never heard of it until you mentioned it. But now that I know what it is ("a creative writing project in which each participant attempts to write a fifty-thousand-word novel in a single month"), I am skeptical.
Oh, I'll admit that a deadline and intense pressure does fuel the creative process; back in my days as a speechwriter, the best work I ever did came in the last 24 hours before a deadline... I was infamous among my bosses for my habit of having nothing to show on say, a Thursday afternoon, for an exec who was expecting to see a finished speech by, say, 2:00 pm on Friday... and then at 9:30 pm on Thursday night the words would just come and I'd be up until 3:00 crafting this speech... my managers would be all concerned about the meeting with the exec and would fear being empty handed, and then I'd just show up with a first draft that needed but five words of revision. Doc used to be my boss at one time; he'll vouch. I just could never be sure whether he hated, respected, feared, or was amused by that little proclivity of mine. Heh, heh.
But a novel? I think that's different than a speech or work of non-fiction. A 50,000 word story requires the fleshing out of characters and back stories, the development/scrapping/redevelopment of plot lines and plot points. It requires visions and revisions before the taking of a toast and tea. And frankly, a 50,000 word "novel" is pretty short... you've got more like a novella at that point. And I am not sure I see the utility in rushing a novella together just for the sake of completing it in 30 days.... when it comes to fiction, I'm of the "you can do it fast or you can do it right" school. I mean, people could have sex in 60 seconds if they really want to -- but I think we'd all agree that it's a bit more pleasureable when we focus on the journey and not the destination. (The comparison is intended to be more than salacious... creativity and sexuality are quite similar -- at least to me -- and I think the process and rewards tap the same parts of the brain and same chemicals in the bloodstream.)
I salute the idea, for the purpose of driving people to get off their asses (or their fingers' asses) and start writing the stories that haunt their minds and want so desperately to get out. And since every writer has their own style and knows what works for them, I certainly will neither begrudge nor judge a writer who can use NaNoWriMo to fuel themselves into a complete novella or the base of a novel. Good for them. It's just that for me, if I ever did finish any of the stories that are echoing inside my head, I'd want to take the right amount of time to do them justice, rather than just rushing them through for the sake of an exercise. It might work for others; it just won't work for me, I don't think.
Jill, I'll get to your request separately and in one moment.
Posted by Christopher at 09:28 AM | Comments (3)October 13, 2006
Update
I meant to write a lot of things last night; instead I watched baseball and then fell asleep. Tonight is p0ker night, so no new posts until Saturday morning. What will I write about? Well, there's a commenter who asked -- nay, demanded -- to be published, and I'll be ever-so-happy to comply. Beyond that, there's a few possiblilities:
-- Through Eden, I found the IMing with God-bot. If I can get it to have anything resembling an amusing interaction, I might have fun with that.
-- The world is still full of idiots -- Chris Shays highest among them right now -- and I may feel the need to poke holes in some of them.
-- I need to release my votes (as if I had any) for the major baseball awards.
-- Tim has been after me to issue my own take on this list from Blender magazine. I might just have to.
Anyone with suggestions as to what I should blog about on Saturday while waiting for my bookcases to finally be delivered, please issue them in the comments below.
Posted by Christopher at 07:16 AM | Comments (7)October 12, 2006
It's Only Rock And Roll, But I Like It
So the "big" gig was last night... in some ways it was a lot of fun, and in others it reminded me of the few things I didn't like about being in a band. I will leave it to friends of the blog who attended to give actual reviews of the gig if they choose (and be honest if you do!)... but here's a recap from the singer's perspective:
The Good: We got compliments from everyone at the end, though I wasn't really sure if people really liked us or were just respectful of the effort and the cojones it takes to get up in front of professional colleagues. But people did say nice things. And the big boss, the one who'd requested this command performance in the first place, shook our hands afterward and said he was impressed and that we'd done well. We had a number of people, the ones who didn't really know us or the story of how we formed one month ago, asking us where we play our "real" gigs in the area; they thought we were a legit band who played non-work shows. We even had someone ask, in all seriousness, if we'd consider playing her Christmas party in December.
My favorite 'rock and roll' moment of the "show" was almost a disaster, but was fun for me, if nothing else. We segue directly from Sweet Child O'Mine into Baba O'Riley -- we play the songs in the same key, and the last note of Sweet Child is the same as the first of Baba -- and as the drummer let loose and really kicked into the song, I had the bright idea of really playing it up to the audience... there is a huge "hole" in the center of the atrium where a stairwell leads down to the sub-ground floor below; the drop from the floor we were on to the floor below is about 20 feet. Surrounding this open stairwell on the top floor, padded benches ring the open area. I decided that this would be a good perch from which to play lead singer. As the power chords were driving and our drummer was doing his best Keith Moon, I took a running hop up to the bench, figuring that standing on it and leading the crowd from there in the intro would be fun.
Unfortunately, I am only a rock star in my own head; in reality, my knees are my knees -- especially the one that's currently bunged up due to that face-plant incident while hiking two weekends ago -- and I didn't quite complete the jump. Caught the foot of my bum leg on the edge of the bench and pitched forward... and for one precarious moment, I thought I might be going over the short wall and to the floor down below. (It turns out I wasn't exaggerating; our guitarist and bass player both told me afterwards that they thought I was going over too, and were legitimately worried for a moment.) But, I recovered, didn't fall (obviously), and was able to keep doing the old rock and roll fist thrust thing. Good times, good times.
Oh -- and The Girl managed to make other arrangements for picking her son up from daycare, and was able to be there to see the whole show. Showing off for friends is good. Showing off for a significant other is better.
The Bad: I was reminded of how hard it is as the lead singer to keep things going in a room where there are a lot of people not paying attention to the band. This was, after all, a reception for a work event, and though the crowd did reach upwards of 175 or so scattered across a large atrium area, there were a number of people who were there to socialize and be at a reception, not to hear an impromptu band made up of a few of their colleagues. That number increased as the afternoon progressed... and while there were quite a few who, god bless 'em, hung in there with us through the whole set, there were an equal number not paying us any attention by the end. Which is fine, it's what you do at a professional reception. But for the band, well, it's a little challenging. And while the musicians can focus on their instruments and playing the songs, as the singer you're out there trying to connect with people, and when they don't want to be connected with you're kind of left hanging a little.
We also had to deal with acoustics from hell; it poured rain in our area yesterday so the idea of playing outside was quickly scrapped... which left us indoors in a huge glass-paned atrium with about a 50 foot ceiling and a couple hundred feet of empty, cavernous space for the sound to bounce off of. In the end I'm not sure people could really clearly hear a whole lot; we were playing in an echo chamber. Stage banter was useless and indiscernable... just wasn't ideal.
The worst of it for me, though, was that I came off really, really flat on the first song, Rockin' In The Free World, and I knew it. My voice cracked on the first line of the first verse, and I was flat on the notes of the first chorus... and even though I recovered later in the song, it still set the tone in my head: 'you don't have it tonight.' And there's nothing worse than being up at the beginning of the set and realizing that you still have all your songs to go, and that your voice isn't up to the challenge that night. You've got no place to go, and no other choice than to give it your all anyway... but you know you're not on, that you don't sound as strong as you want... it's a little like being naked in public. (Then on "Creep" I totally missed the note on the first part of the bridge, when he's wailing "Ruuuuuuuunnnn!" I was flatter than an A cup on that line, and I could hear how off it was. Ugh.)
The Ugly: First song. Coming out of the guitar solo. Ready to kick into the third verse. All eyes on me. And I can't for the life of me remember the next line. Awkward moments ensue as the band keeps playing the three chord intro over and over, looking at me expectantly... the audience looking at me expectingly... and me sitting there like a deer in headlights realizing that I have once again forgotten the words to a song I've practiced for ten hours in the last four days. And it doesn't come back to me. Ten, then twenty seconds go by. I'm forced to actually say into the mic, "Would you believe that I forgot the words?" Everyone laughs... but the words stilldon't come. Now it's been thirty seconds. The lead guitar plays a small two bar solo to buy me time. The rhythm guitarist comes up to me and shouts the intro to the second verse -- and when he does, I remember that he's on the second verse, and that the third verse begins with "We got a thousand points of light." I launch into it as best I can from there. Ugh. Lee. Ug-ly. Thankfully, the audience cut me some slack.
Anyway, rock and roll, party on Wayne and party on Garth, and all that stuff. With that, my adult-onset front man syndrome is over, we've played our last show, and I can go back to being a mild-mannered cube farm denizen.
Posted by Christopher at 06:05 AM | Comments (8)October 11, 2006
R.I.P. Corey Lidle
Baseball is just about the most important thing in my world, but there are times when even baseball takes a back seat. Yankee pitcher Corey Lidle died today when his small plane crashed into an apartment building in Manhattan.
Like everyone else who heard the news, my thoughts go out to his wife, his six year old son, his parents and the rest of his family and friends. Rest in peace, Corey.
Posted by Christopher at 11:30 PM |