Pirate Radio
All right, well I guess I'll see any movie about rock and roll with Phillip Seymour Hoffman in it [and probably Jack Black now that you mention it because I sat through School of Rock on DVD], because this was cheesy. But it was cheesy in an okay way. If you ignore plot and story and all and just concentrate on the soundtrack.
But somehow, it touched a nerve. Otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here at 245 am and listening to Dusty Springfield - yeah, I said it, Dusty In Memphis after hearing a song on the soundtrack. I must have had a stroke or something because I was singing the Rascals' Groovin' during a bathroom break. That's totally not my speed.
Anyway, it just reminded me of the days when radio ruled. I came up at the end of the golden age of AM - yes, children, my nieces and cousins children, they used to play MUSIC on AM radio way back in the 70s, when your parents were in elementary school. Top 40 am radio, catching Casey Kasem's American Top 40 every week. Times when you could hear Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder and Earth Wind and Fire right alongside Hall & Oates and E.L.O. and the Eagles and the Steve Miller Band.
I found FM radio with it's more rigid formats when we moved to Texas in 1977. If AM was a great melting pot, you didn't hear Led Zeppelin, Zebra - remember Who's Behind the Door? - Foghat, Cheap Trick or Pink Floyd on AM radio. They didn't have hits. And I don't remember AM radio personalities - jingles maybe, but not personnel - but I remember a lot of the old KZEW and Q102 crew. Because you listened to the radio when you got ready for school, on the bus if someone brought a radio, when you did [or, in my case, did NOT do] your homework and you listened right up until it was lights out time. The you got up the next day and did it again.
Sure, about my junior year we started getting the Walkman and everyone had a cassette player in the car to blast their Zeppelin / Van Halen / Sammy Hagar / Rush / Judas Priest /etc. But we still spent a lot of time listening to the radio.
I'll still never forget the day the music died for me. It was Christmas of 1989 and I was working the overnight shift at Target - overnight stocking during Christmas with Rich Schulter - where you at now Rich? Rich introduced me to Queensryche's Operation Mindcrime. Anyway, we listened to the Zoo [KZEW] overnight, until the black girls came in at 6am and changed all the radios to K104. Anyway, just before the day shift came in, the Zoo switched from rock and roll to Christmas music and no DJs. By New Years they were something else - I don't even remember the new format because it was so traumatic. Q102 hung on as the last real Album Oriented Rock [AOR] station for a couple more years, but the times had changed. By 1992, I was listening to nothing but taped in my car.
So what's the point, your thinking. Why am I wasting my time with this? Well, there was a time when radio used to be important and occasionally I miss those days. There used to be songs about radio -Queen's Radio Gaga sums up the feeling about 1990, but the Ramones asked Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio. And I still remember rock and roll radio.
Monday, March 08, 2010
A Few Well Chosen Words About A Little Of Everything...
Well, I didn't realize it'd been so long - at last the winter is going away. Now if someone wants to get about 50 pieces of sd and come lay them out in the back yard...
Olympic Hockey and the return of the NHL
Well I am over that gold medal game finally. It really was a great 3 - 2 game, though I still wish the U.S. had won. It strikes me that like Herb Brooks' 1980 team, this U.S. team was built with a plan. Is captain Jamie Langenbrunner really an Olympian? The L.A. Kings' Dustin Brown? Probably not on any other team, but if you're looking for guys who work hard in the corners, who can bring the sandpaper and not take penalties, those are two really good guys. And Langenbrunner had a good tournament. And Brian Rafalski was just awesome for the U.S. The young unrelated Johnsons [The Kings' Jack and the Blues' Eric] and Nashville's Ryan Suter really opened my eyes.
Then of course there was Ryan Miller. Playing for Buffalo, he doesn't get a lot of exposure, especially as up and down as those teams have been the last couple of years. But he's a good goaltender and now a lot of people know it. Crosby put up a great shot and beat Miller and that's that.
Of course, now that Crosby's back scoring for the Pittsburgh Penguins, it's all good. And since he put up 2 goals and an assist and won me a trophy dollar and dinner and drinks versus the Dallas Stars on Sunday, he is forgiven ...until 2014.
The trade deadline came and went and... well, it's over. Now it's time to ramp up for the playoffs. Can't wait for the Caps - Pens annual meeting.
Ovechkin's hit on Brian Campbell on Sunday was clearly a boarding penalty and he deserved the major. Game misconduct? I don't think he was intending to break Campbell's collarbone, but I can see it. He was suspended for two games today by the NHL. Since he like to play the game hard and his brain quits working - liek Sunday - he deserves that.
Matt Cooke's hit on Marc Savard last week - clearly not a penalty as the rulebook reads. And as I look at it it, shoulder to the head, no leap, no lead with the elbow - it's a legal hit. But it was ugly and that's the hit that needs to be taken out of the game. Yes, Savard should have had his head up. That doesn't excuse that Cooke did. Nor Scott Steven to Eric Lindross or Paul Kariya years ago, or Mike Richards on David Booth earlier this year. Reviewable? By the league, not at ice level, but give the linesmen a say in it.
The Health Care Debate [OR "What'll You Give My Constituents For My Vote?"]
The Prez and Speaker Pelosi are pulling out all of the stops to try and ram this through. The latest tricks are a rules procedure [the Slaughter Solution] which will allow members to pass the Senate Version of the Health Care bill in a Rules Amendment vote, which will not require the Congressmen to actually vote for the Senate version of the bill, and add it to the Budget. That this violates Artilce I Section 7 of the Constitution be damned.
Republican Whip Eric Cantor of Virgina put it this way:
"A formal ruling would make it official: the House would be required to first pass the Senate health care bill, including the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, GatorAid, the federal funding of abortion, half a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare and taxes on higher end health insurance plans mainly enjoyed by union members. House Democrats will just have to trust the Senate to make the changes they want after the bill is signed into law by the President.
The new Glossary is out - Feral Fire. It took me a couple of listens because this is so much more polished - as in recorded in a real studio sounding, not like it was done in someone's basement - but the songs finally grabbed me.
I was watching Live From Abbey Road and watching some new band - well, someone I'd never heard of - Manchester Orchestra - and Fleet Foxes. I found myself missing the old days when we'd show up at Dunnigan's and he'd have something else no one had even heard about and play it for us.
Well, I didn't realize it'd been so long - at last the winter is going away. Now if someone wants to get about 50 pieces of sd and come lay them out in the back yard...
Olympic Hockey and the return of the NHL
Well I am over that gold medal game finally. It really was a great 3 - 2 game, though I still wish the U.S. had won. It strikes me that like Herb Brooks' 1980 team, this U.S. team was built with a plan. Is captain Jamie Langenbrunner really an Olympian? The L.A. Kings' Dustin Brown? Probably not on any other team, but if you're looking for guys who work hard in the corners, who can bring the sandpaper and not take penalties, those are two really good guys. And Langenbrunner had a good tournament. And Brian Rafalski was just awesome for the U.S. The young unrelated Johnsons [The Kings' Jack and the Blues' Eric] and Nashville's Ryan Suter really opened my eyes.
Then of course there was Ryan Miller. Playing for Buffalo, he doesn't get a lot of exposure, especially as up and down as those teams have been the last couple of years. But he's a good goaltender and now a lot of people know it. Crosby put up a great shot and beat Miller and that's that.
Of course, now that Crosby's back scoring for the Pittsburgh Penguins, it's all good. And since he put up 2 goals and an assist and won me a trophy dollar and dinner and drinks versus the Dallas Stars on Sunday, he is forgiven ...until 2014.
The trade deadline came and went and... well, it's over. Now it's time to ramp up for the playoffs. Can't wait for the Caps - Pens annual meeting.
Ovechkin's hit on Brian Campbell on Sunday was clearly a boarding penalty and he deserved the major. Game misconduct? I don't think he was intending to break Campbell's collarbone, but I can see it. He was suspended for two games today by the NHL. Since he like to play the game hard and his brain quits working - liek Sunday - he deserves that.
Matt Cooke's hit on Marc Savard last week - clearly not a penalty as the rulebook reads. And as I look at it it, shoulder to the head, no leap, no lead with the elbow - it's a legal hit. But it was ugly and that's the hit that needs to be taken out of the game. Yes, Savard should have had his head up. That doesn't excuse that Cooke did. Nor Scott Steven to Eric Lindross or Paul Kariya years ago, or Mike Richards on David Booth earlier this year. Reviewable? By the league, not at ice level, but give the linesmen a say in it.
The Health Care Debate [OR "What'll You Give My Constituents For My Vote?"]
The Prez and Speaker Pelosi are pulling out all of the stops to try and ram this through. The latest tricks are a rules procedure [the Slaughter Solution] which will allow members to pass the Senate Version of the Health Care bill in a Rules Amendment vote, which will not require the Congressmen to actually vote for the Senate version of the bill, and add it to the Budget. That this violates Artilce I Section 7 of the Constitution be damned.
Republican Whip Eric Cantor of Virgina put it this way:
“The public has been outraged by a lack of transparency in this bill,” Cantor said. “If the majority and the Speaker can just deem this bill passed in the rule -- that means no one has the right to even vote on it in the House and to see their level of support. That is certainly unprecedented in a bill of this size and scope.” [3/11/10 - Human Events]
Fortunately, there are people with integrity still out there. Or common sense. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), the pro-life Democrat leading one group of 12 holdouts, says he will not vote to pass the Senate health care bill now and trust the Senate to “fix” it later. And he says he’s not alone. [Human Events - 3/12/10] He also reported that the House members were told they would get seven days to read the President's changes - very tough since they are not yet written. “There’s so much in play here and no one has a final draft of what the bill’s supposed to be [my emphasis] and supposed to vote on and yet they claim in caucus today that you’ll have seven days to look at it,” Stupak said.
In even better news, the Senate Parliamentarian, Alan Frumin has basically told the Dems that their attempt to railroad the changes to the bill through reconciliation after the un-vote by the House would not work."A formal ruling would make it official: the House would be required to first pass the Senate health care bill, including the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, GatorAid, the federal funding of abortion, half a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare and taxes on higher end health insurance plans mainly enjoyed by union members. House Democrats will just have to trust the Senate to make the changes they want after the bill is signed into law by the President.
That puts Stupak and his entire group of 12 voting in the voting “no” column -- if he keeps his word."
Don't the Democrats remember their own campaign of 1992 when they ran out Bush 41? Remember "It's the Economy, Stupid?" Well, Mr. Obama, It's the Economy, Stupid!!!!
I for one don't believe this would pass the Supreme Court anyway. The Government cannot force anyone to purchase insurance. That's not in their powers. Say this with me: Unfunded Mandate. I'm inclined to agree with those who say we need reforms at the state level with some help on portability, not another bureaucracy.
It's A Starting Point
The Repubs say they're not going to use any earmarks in this year's budget. Whew! No pork for tea cup museums or Congresswoman Kay Grainger's Trinity River Vision Flood Control and Condo deal to give her brother a job? Wowie zowie, thanks, guys! It's too little, too late, but thanks.
I saw Speaker Pelosi on Charlie Rose last week - I could only stomach about 20 minutes of her. How can the Speaker still be going on about this "huge mess President Obama inherited?" And wasn't Speaker Pelosi in Congress, as the Speaker of the Democratically controlled House when this "huge mess" was created? What were they doing about it then?
Oh, and to fuck up the Dems, I sent back a survey that came to the house [Hey, if the old man is going ot register to vote here and his mail comes here, I'm going to use that.] Surprisingly, I gave the President a FAIR rating - good on Afghansitan and Iraq, fair on everything else. Oh, and no check enclosed.
I did NOT go vote in the primaries a couple of weeks back. I don't like either of the Repubs for Governor and I knew Bill White was going to get the Dems nod. [And the Rebubs 'survey?' Hah!] I'll say it again, I'm voting for Democrat Bill White in November. Yes, the Governor is a figurehead in Texas, but after the Texas Monthly article on him, I'm impressed. Frankly, after reading that article, I wish he'd take a run for the Senate [Cornyn preferred - he's a DRIP, but Kay Bailey's if he has to]. I'd like to see SOMEONE with some common sense in the Senate.
Charles Rangel's been in Congress for 40 years. Ted Kennedy was in the Senate for 47 years. Byrd of West Virginia has been in the Senate for 51 years. 10 other Senators have been in office over 30 years. [I could not find a list of the current House seniority.] Isn't it time we put term limits on these clowns? 20 years in he Hosue, and 24 in the Senate? Don't we need new blood every so often?
The new Glossary is out - Feral Fire. It took me a couple of listens because this is so much more polished - as in recorded in a real studio sounding, not like it was done in someone's basement - but the songs finally grabbed me.
I was watching Live From Abbey Road and watching some new band - well, someone I'd never heard of - Manchester Orchestra - and Fleet Foxes. I found myself missing the old days when we'd show up at Dunnigan's and he'd have something else no one had even heard about and play it for us.
