In the annals of rock history, along with the magnificent success stories, there have been many spectacular disasters. Altamont. The Who in Cincinnati. Sly Stone.
And in the annals of the postwar American struggle for freedom of expression, there have been many casualties. Lenny Bruce. George Carlin. Larry Flynt. Terry Southern. Paul Krassner.
But there is only one event I know of that brutally combines rock and roll mayhem with blistering, inappropriate obscenity, and that is the event – or series of events – known to savvy historians as “The Ballroom Blitz of DeKalb 1989.”
Over the course of these following days and weeks will unfold, here and elsewhere, that story.
It’s a complicated story, with many players, and events and conflicts, and to those not directly involved, it might seem a little bit “inside” at times, but the major elements are more or less universal. Fun, sex, hate, strife, money, passion, work, play, immortality, tears, laughter, music, Jesus, hope, fear, youth, violence, art, rebellion, confusion – the whole human condition.
With the exception of, perhaps, death. Nobody died. Not literally, anyway. But I can give you injuries. Oh yes, there were injuries. (Cue the mysteriously foreshadowing Foley effect of various objects shattering over skulls, at various times, in various places.)
Next time around, we’ll set the stage. Introduce some of the characters and situations, get the ball really rolling. But for now, first, we need a theme song. So here that is. Let’s go!
Friday, March 27, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
Take This, Rick Steves: Travel Blog Report: This Wheel's on Fire: From D.C. to Newark in Three Beautiful, Appalling Hours
So, last time around I promised exciting tales of foreign lands ... which I can't exactly deliver. But while I was gone from here I did spend a week in two damned strange places -- three and a half days each in Washington, D.C. and Jersey City, New Jersey.
Strange places, yes. Yet familiar, since I've made about half a dozen business trips to D.C. in the last decade, and I've visited J.C. what? a dozen or so times? in the same time span. Close to that number, anyway.
This was the first time I linked the two, though -- which was hella convenient and not at all expensive, thanks to the subsidized folks over by Amtrak, the passenger train people.
If Amtrak is short on money -- and of course it is -- I have a suggestion. Sponsor a reality TV show called "America's Most Fucking Squalid Views." All they'd have to do is stick a goddamn video camera in the window on the Amtrak route from Washington, D.C. to Newark, New Jersey. And let the shit tell the story.
Like some kind of twisted anti-Arlo Guthrie tour-de-feces, the Amtrak "Regional" leaves the truly pretty Union Station in D.C. (I'm not kidding -- it's a dazzling, cavernous, dramatic building) and winds northward through a litany of fucked-up eastern seaboard towns -- Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Trenton. The train heads all the way up to Boston, but my destination was Newark's downtown Penn Station, exactly three hours from Washington.
"All aboard!" Everyone queues up ... sort of ... if a queue can be semicircular in shape. This is travel in some kind of hybrid casual-yet-efficient mode. They glance at your I.D., but there are no metal detectors. No TSA to be seen at all. And -- by Benito's ghost -- the damn train left on time.
About five minutes outside Our Nation's Crapital, the first thing that struck me was how quickly the landscape hicked the hell up. One second it was tagged bridges and brick walls. The next second ... it was like the outskirts of Peoria, or some hamlet named after a "Crik" in the Allegheny Mountains of central Pennsylvania. Rotting shacks and rusted pick-em-up trucks ... and lots of trees and empty spaces between what passed for dwellings.
I recall it staying pretty 'billy-pastoral until Baltimore ... happened. Oh man. I don't have the powers of hyperbole to capture it. Just take the trip. It won't cost you much. Totally worth the price of admission, provided you get to watch it from the relative comfort and safety of an Amtrak train.
Baltimore is the place where, apparently, every dilapidated, burnt out, busted, rat infested row house came to die. And before dying, to reproduce like Irish rabbits and cluster together alongside the railroad tracks, perhaps on the off chance that the train might derail and take them out of their misery.
After Baltimore, it's all gravy, really ... gravy studded with cigarette butts and used condoms and slicked with the grease of a million corpses' unwashed pubic deltas ... but there's about two and a half hours to go, and there's much more shittiness to come.
Actually, from Baltimore all the way to Newark, with a few rural interruptions and river bridges, it's pretty much more of the same. Graffiti tags, sickly Suessian row houses, and empty factory buildings. Broken glass, broken bricks. Decay.
Yeah, I know -- pretty things don't get built next to the train tracks. Not in recent history, anyway. I've traveled by train enough to know that that's the score. And I imagine that most railway journeys give you a good look at the seedy side of things. This particular route, I have to believe, offers one of the more densely concentrated visual obituaries for Modern Industrialism available.
For that reason, I recommend it. Not to mention that it's a pretty cheap, easy, and fairly quick way to hoist your carcass from D.C. to the NYC area, if you're so inclined. And apparently a fair number of people are, because the goddamn train was packed.
Sorry, but I don't have a solid finish to this one. So I'll embed up a vid ... which, even though it's not really thematically related very much, it's my goddamn blog.
Strange places, yes. Yet familiar, since I've made about half a dozen business trips to D.C. in the last decade, and I've visited J.C. what? a dozen or so times? in the same time span. Close to that number, anyway.
This was the first time I linked the two, though -- which was hella convenient and not at all expensive, thanks to the subsidized folks over by Amtrak, the passenger train people.
If Amtrak is short on money -- and of course it is -- I have a suggestion. Sponsor a reality TV show called "America's Most Fucking Squalid Views." All they'd have to do is stick a goddamn video camera in the window on the Amtrak route from Washington, D.C. to Newark, New Jersey. And let the shit tell the story.
Like some kind of twisted anti-Arlo Guthrie tour-de-feces, the Amtrak "Regional" leaves the truly pretty Union Station in D.C. (I'm not kidding -- it's a dazzling, cavernous, dramatic building) and winds northward through a litany of fucked-up eastern seaboard towns -- Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Trenton. The train heads all the way up to Boston, but my destination was Newark's downtown Penn Station, exactly three hours from Washington.
"All aboard!" Everyone queues up ... sort of ... if a queue can be semicircular in shape. This is travel in some kind of hybrid casual-yet-efficient mode. They glance at your I.D., but there are no metal detectors. No TSA to be seen at all. And -- by Benito's ghost -- the damn train left on time.
About five minutes outside Our Nation's Crapital, the first thing that struck me was how quickly the landscape hicked the hell up. One second it was tagged bridges and brick walls. The next second ... it was like the outskirts of Peoria, or some hamlet named after a "Crik" in the Allegheny Mountains of central Pennsylvania. Rotting shacks and rusted pick-em-up trucks ... and lots of trees and empty spaces between what passed for dwellings.
I recall it staying pretty 'billy-pastoral until Baltimore ... happened. Oh man. I don't have the powers of hyperbole to capture it. Just take the trip. It won't cost you much. Totally worth the price of admission, provided you get to watch it from the relative comfort and safety of an Amtrak train.
Baltimore is the place where, apparently, every dilapidated, burnt out, busted, rat infested row house came to die. And before dying, to reproduce like Irish rabbits and cluster together alongside the railroad tracks, perhaps on the off chance that the train might derail and take them out of their misery.
After Baltimore, it's all gravy, really ... gravy studded with cigarette butts and used condoms and slicked with the grease of a million corpses' unwashed pubic deltas ... but there's about two and a half hours to go, and there's much more shittiness to come.
Actually, from Baltimore all the way to Newark, with a few rural interruptions and river bridges, it's pretty much more of the same. Graffiti tags, sickly Suessian row houses, and empty factory buildings. Broken glass, broken bricks. Decay.
Yeah, I know -- pretty things don't get built next to the train tracks. Not in recent history, anyway. I've traveled by train enough to know that that's the score. And I imagine that most railway journeys give you a good look at the seedy side of things. This particular route, I have to believe, offers one of the more densely concentrated visual obituaries for Modern Industrialism available.
For that reason, I recommend it. Not to mention that it's a pretty cheap, easy, and fairly quick way to hoist your carcass from D.C. to the NYC area, if you're so inclined. And apparently a fair number of people are, because the goddamn train was packed.
Sorry, but I don't have a solid finish to this one. So I'll embed up a vid ... which, even though it's not really thematically related very much, it's my goddamn blog.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Outage Report
Don't bother checking for updates for about a week. I'll be out of posting range.
After that, bob's yer uncle. Gonna be updates from hyah to ... thyah. (In pseudo-mathematical terms: from hyah to (hyah + n).) Updates and updates. Posts and posts. Tales of distant shores and strange lands. And all that kinda stuff.
Until then, if you're looking for a website to kill some time on, check out English Russia -- "just because something cool happens daily on 1/6 of the Earth surface." It's definitely Russia ... and it's sort of English. Need enticement before you click on that hyperlink? OK, how else you gonna see the photos to go with this caption?
POSTSCRIPT: No, I'm not taking a trip to Soviet Russia. I'm told, though, that where I'm going, there be socialists, arrrgh. Which I don't believe is true (I wish it were) ... but apparently most people get through whatever public and/or parochial education they endure these days, without learning what the word "socialist" means. It does not, despite common (mis)usage in this manner, mean "of, characterized by, or having cooties." The proper word for that, as you know, is "Republican."
After that, bob's yer uncle. Gonna be updates from hyah to ... thyah. (In pseudo-mathematical terms: from hyah to (hyah + n).) Updates and updates. Posts and posts. Tales of distant shores and strange lands. And all that kinda stuff.
Until then, if you're looking for a website to kill some time on, check out English Russia -- "just because something cool happens daily on 1/6 of the Earth surface." It's definitely Russia ... and it's sort of English. Need enticement before you click on that hyperlink? OK, how else you gonna see the photos to go with this caption?
This dog is going for a walk with a car. Some people were joking that they have got out of fuel in Ukraine so now use dogs as a pull force for cars.Or, even better:
Miss Russia contest, once again. Now the most fresh as of 2009.And this post description, seemingly devoid of cognizance of the Yakov Smirnoffiness of it:
In Soviet times they had parties too.OK, comrades. See you next week. Ish.
POSTSCRIPT: No, I'm not taking a trip to Soviet Russia. I'm told, though, that where I'm going, there be socialists, arrrgh. Which I don't believe is true (I wish it were) ... but apparently most people get through whatever public and/or parochial education they endure these days, without learning what the word "socialist" means. It does not, despite common (mis)usage in this manner, mean "of, characterized by, or having cooties." The proper word for that, as you know, is "Republican."
Friday, March 06, 2009
G'Dye, mate! Can o' grog! Bludger'll grab some billabong!
The White Sox are playing Team Australia later this afternoon at the Cameltoe. I think streaming will be available online for free, but I'm more likely to be playing hooky outdoors, since it's one of the 20 nice weather days we get per annum in Chicago.
Anyway, it's all I can do to keep from filling this post full of wacky Aussie slang ... takes a fair dinkum amount of matilda-waltzing willpower to resist ... a veritable baby-eating dingo's supply ... must ... resist ... stupid Aussie ... slang ... resistance ... slipping ... shrimp on barbie ... shrimp on barbie ...
Krikey, I give.
G'Dye Jermaine, where's the Sheilas? The Foster's on ice and the Vegemite's on me!
So get a good pozzy, veg out, and strap it down under. It's a ripper day for baseball!
Anyway, it's all I can do to keep from filling this post full of wacky Aussie slang ... takes a fair dinkum amount of matilda-waltzing willpower to resist ... a veritable baby-eating dingo's supply ... must ... resist ... stupid Aussie ... slang ... resistance ... slipping ... shrimp on barbie ... shrimp on barbie ...
Krikey, I give.
G'Dye Jermaine, where's the Sheilas? The Foster's on ice and the Vegemite's on me!
So get a good pozzy, veg out, and strap it down under. It's a ripper day for baseball!
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Hot Cactus Report: Space-sharing at Cameltoe: "Will you quit touching me?! Mommm!!! He keeps touching me!!!": Key-Party in the Broadcast Booth
Well, all right.
If it's on TV, then it's real. Therefore, spring training is officially in existence.
Like most pre-season contests, today's game was pretty unremarkable qua baseball, but there are several things to note. For one, it was the first scrimmage between the Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles since they started sharing the fancy-shmancy Cameltoe ... er ... Camelback Ranch spring training facility in Glendale, Arizona, and you have to imagine there was a touch of sibling rivalry, or something like that.
Who got the bottom bunk, I wonder? The Sox were the "visitors," so I guess they did. Wait ... which one is the worse bunk? Top or bottom? I forget. I guess it depends on whether your little brother wets the bed or not.
A.J.? We're lookin' at you. And don't try to say Toby Hall put your hand in a bowl of warm water. Toby's not with the club anymore.
Actually, I prefer to think of the White Sox and Dodgers as the Odd Couple ... two professional baseball clubs, sharing an apartment, driving each other crazy.
Which one's Oscar?
Come on. You shouldn't even have to ask that question.
Imagine, if you will, that some kind of crazy science fiction calamity happened -- like an asteroid collided with a wormhole and a super-string and a cosmic Slinky and caused a massive explosion that knocked Los Angeles and Chicago into outer space, and somehow glommed the cities onto the surface of a comet that barely could fit them both, and they had to share that inadequate space.
You know damn well which town would be Felix, and which would be Oscar.
It's not that L.A. isn't wild and crazy and all that. It certainly is. But it is in California -- a very, very uptight state. California has more rules, regulations, warning labels, and disclaimers than all other places on planet Earth combined, times a million.
Chicago, on the other hand, is a slob. Sure, it's repressed and touchy and Midwestern ... but mostly about the subject of being a slob. There are plenty of rules and fascistic bullshits ... all aimed at enforcing and maintaining the general slobbiness.
So ... anyway. There's that subtext. To Cameltoe Ranch, that is. Crispy-cleany, polished-teethy Dodgers versus ... the Chicago White Sox.
Nuff said?
Well, there is one other complication. They had to tell their landlord that they were gay, or else he wouldn't sign the lease. So ... that could be interesting.
Right.
Another new beginning that started to begin to take effect for the first time today was the broadcasting partner-swap between Hawk Harrelson on the TV side and Ed Farmer on the radio side. Yep, DJ Darrin Jackson has switched places with MC Steve Stone.
Here's a prediction. At some point in July, watch for the square dance caller to shout "Allemande left!," at which time DJ and Stone will do-si-do with Jimmy Piersall and the ghost of Anthony Perkins, and will promenade offstage long enough for Steve Dahl and Garry Meier to take places in either and/or both booths for 30-year-anniversary retrospectives on Disco Demolition. It's almost bankable.
But, for now, the new partnerings seemed adequate today. I don't have any worries about Stone on TV. And on radio, Farmer's already proven that he can handle working with a lummox. So ... no worries.
Really, worry more about shortstop. And third base. And center field. And leadoff.
And what about PECOTA? That Baseball Prospectus bastard fucker computer fucker bastard.
In 2008, PECOTA predicted that the Sox would finish in third. The Sox, in fact, as you recall, finished in first. This year, after much booping and beeping and flashing of lights, the slip of paper the computer spat out said, in no ambiguous terms, "Last place."
Last place. After Minnesota. After Cleveland. After Detroit. After Kansas City.
OK, so Detroit oughta rebound. Cleveland should contend. And Minnesota is always in there. But Kansas City?
Say it ain't so, robotic baseball nerd!
The good news is that I operate entirely on guesswork, and my record is about the same as PECOTA's. And my best guess is that the Sox will finish no worse than third place, and have a better chance of finishing on the very top than the very bottom.
Which could be worse. And look on the extra bright side -- every rule of probability says that the Cubs are going to have a sucktastical year this year. Lots of freak injuries, endless rounds of slapstick on the infield, controversy and acrimony in the clubhouse. Hell, this could be the year that the upper deck of Wrigley Field collapses during a nationally televised game. (Of course, I'd hope and pray that, miraculously, no deaths or serious injuries would result -- just sweet, sweet property damage.)
Yes. Much to look forward to.
Huzzah.
If it's on TV, then it's real. Therefore, spring training is officially in existence.
Like most pre-season contests, today's game was pretty unremarkable qua baseball, but there are several things to note. For one, it was the first scrimmage between the Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles since they started sharing the fancy-shmancy Cameltoe ... er ... Camelback Ranch spring training facility in Glendale, Arizona, and you have to imagine there was a touch of sibling rivalry, or something like that.
Who got the bottom bunk, I wonder? The Sox were the "visitors," so I guess they did. Wait ... which one is the worse bunk? Top or bottom? I forget. I guess it depends on whether your little brother wets the bed or not.
A.J.? We're lookin' at you. And don't try to say Toby Hall put your hand in a bowl of warm water. Toby's not with the club anymore.
Actually, I prefer to think of the White Sox and Dodgers as the Odd Couple ... two professional baseball clubs, sharing an apartment, driving each other crazy.
Which one's Oscar?
Come on. You shouldn't even have to ask that question.
Imagine, if you will, that some kind of crazy science fiction calamity happened -- like an asteroid collided with a wormhole and a super-string and a cosmic Slinky and caused a massive explosion that knocked Los Angeles and Chicago into outer space, and somehow glommed the cities onto the surface of a comet that barely could fit them both, and they had to share that inadequate space.
You know damn well which town would be Felix, and which would be Oscar.
It's not that L.A. isn't wild and crazy and all that. It certainly is. But it is in California -- a very, very uptight state. California has more rules, regulations, warning labels, and disclaimers than all other places on planet Earth combined, times a million.
Chicago, on the other hand, is a slob. Sure, it's repressed and touchy and Midwestern ... but mostly about the subject of being a slob. There are plenty of rules and fascistic bullshits ... all aimed at enforcing and maintaining the general slobbiness.
So ... anyway. There's that subtext. To Cameltoe Ranch, that is. Crispy-cleany, polished-teethy Dodgers versus ... the Chicago White Sox.
Nuff said?
Well, there is one other complication. They had to tell their landlord that they were gay, or else he wouldn't sign the lease. So ... that could be interesting.
Right.
Another new beginning that started to begin to take effect for the first time today was the broadcasting partner-swap between Hawk Harrelson on the TV side and Ed Farmer on the radio side. Yep, DJ Darrin Jackson has switched places with MC Steve Stone.
Here's a prediction. At some point in July, watch for the square dance caller to shout "Allemande left!," at which time DJ and Stone will do-si-do with Jimmy Piersall and the ghost of Anthony Perkins, and will promenade offstage long enough for Steve Dahl and Garry Meier to take places in either and/or both booths for 30-year-anniversary retrospectives on Disco Demolition. It's almost bankable.
But, for now, the new partnerings seemed adequate today. I don't have any worries about Stone on TV. And on radio, Farmer's already proven that he can handle working with a lummox. So ... no worries.
Really, worry more about shortstop. And third base. And center field. And leadoff.
And what about PECOTA? That Baseball Prospectus bastard fucker computer fucker bastard.
In 2008, PECOTA predicted that the Sox would finish in third. The Sox, in fact, as you recall, finished in first. This year, after much booping and beeping and flashing of lights, the slip of paper the computer spat out said, in no ambiguous terms, "Last place."
Last place. After Minnesota. After Cleveland. After Detroit. After Kansas City.
OK, so Detroit oughta rebound. Cleveland should contend. And Minnesota is always in there. But Kansas City?
Say it ain't so, robotic baseball nerd!
The good news is that I operate entirely on guesswork, and my record is about the same as PECOTA's. And my best guess is that the Sox will finish no worse than third place, and have a better chance of finishing on the very top than the very bottom.
Which could be worse. And look on the extra bright side -- every rule of probability says that the Cubs are going to have a sucktastical year this year. Lots of freak injuries, endless rounds of slapstick on the infield, controversy and acrimony in the clubhouse. Hell, this could be the year that the upper deck of Wrigley Field collapses during a nationally televised game. (Of course, I'd hope and pray that, miraculously, no deaths or serious injuries would result -- just sweet, sweet property damage.)
Yes. Much to look forward to.
Huzzah.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Only Saps Click on Rogue Facebook Apps
Sorry for the lack of posting, all you readers out there ... all almost none of you. Been meaning to revive the blog -- for one thing, it's a refuge from the increasingly intrusive and, frankly, disturbing Facebook (and aside from the title and this parenthetical gripe, that's the only relation this post has to The Blob That Swallowed The Internet) -- but my excuse du jour is that I'm nursing a cold or some other form of yucky virus. And, uh, laziness.
Tomorrow is the first televised White Sox spring training game, if I recall correctly. So maybe I'll throw together a pre-season post, including some thoughts on the PECOTA software's dire predictions for the '09 season.
But for now, I'm gonna keep it simple and play another game of "Books the Cats Knocked Off the Shelves Last Night." Without further ado and in no particular order, here is a list of the books that the cats knocked off the shelves last night:
I suspect the only one they were really after was the Partridge Family novel:
Tomorrow is the first televised White Sox spring training game, if I recall correctly. So maybe I'll throw together a pre-season post, including some thoughts on the PECOTA software's dire predictions for the '09 season.
But for now, I'm gonna keep it simple and play another game of "Books the Cats Knocked Off the Shelves Last Night." Without further ado and in no particular order, here is a list of the books that the cats knocked off the shelves last night:
- Ape and Essence - Aldous Huxley
- Letting Go - Philip Roth
- The Roar Devil - Kenneth Robeson
- The Partridge Family #5: Terror by Night - Vic Crume
- The Toynbee Convector - Ray Bradbury
- Island - Aldous Huxley
- The Assistant - Bernard Malamud
- Incident at Exeter: UFOs Over America Now - John G. Fuller
I suspect the only one they were really after was the Partridge Family novel:
DOWNBEAT FOR DANGER!Eff yeah ... I bet you want to read it now.
The Partridge Family is all set for a great vacation.
But fun soon turns to fear when night comes to their lonely beach house on the New England coast.
Somebody or some thing is out to get them ... and when Keith tries to find out why, the rock stars' vacation becomes a nightmare ...
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Finally, this blog has something in common with Joe Biden -- Plugs!
Well, a couple plugs for other people. Which Biden might have, too.
Pitchers and catchers have reported, which heralds a new season with the crew of the Palehose, as imagined and rendered by Carl Skanberg. There's also ordering info on the site for Carl's new book, Three Years on the Palehose. I already ordered mine,so get going! and now it is sold out. Better luck next printing, slowpokes.
Next, not to be outdone, Otis Ball has a Cafe Press store up and running. T-shirts and caps, you bet! Including new new new merch promoting YouTube phenoms Uncle Tiny Tim and Gilly. Woooooo!
Pitchers and catchers have reported, which heralds a new season with the crew of the Palehose, as imagined and rendered by Carl Skanberg. There's also ordering info on the site for Carl's new book, Three Years on the Palehose. I already ordered mine,
Next, not to be outdone, Otis Ball has a Cafe Press store up and running. T-shirts and caps, you bet! Including new new new merch promoting YouTube phenoms Uncle Tiny Tim and Gilly. Woooooo!
Blogging? Nobody blogs anymore. These days, all the cool kids are over by the Book Face
Yeah, I know it's dead here. In the meantime, here's a Chicago joke.
Man's sitting at a table in a Chicago restaurant. Calls over the waiter, sez, "Waiter, there's a fly in my soup."
Waiter bends over to look. Straightens up and sez, "I'm sorry, sir, but that fly is a real estate developer, and he's allowed to go wherever and do whatever he wants."
"But that's my dinner!"
Waiter leans over to look at the bowl again. "Well, it is a TIF district, sir."
"I'm paying good money for that soup!"
"Now, sir, you know you can't stop progress."
The argument continues for a while, until finally the waiter subpoenas all the man's friends and relatives, who convince the man to give up and go home.
All right, my friend. Now you laugh. Or my associate Rocco here maybe stops over by yer house for a little chat later on tonight. Maybe he brings his pal, Louisville Slugger.
OK, that's better.
Man's sitting at a table in a Chicago restaurant. Calls over the waiter, sez, "Waiter, there's a fly in my soup."
Waiter bends over to look. Straightens up and sez, "I'm sorry, sir, but that fly is a real estate developer, and he's allowed to go wherever and do whatever he wants."
"But that's my dinner!"
Waiter leans over to look at the bowl again. "Well, it is a TIF district, sir."
"I'm paying good money for that soup!"
"Now, sir, you know you can't stop progress."
The argument continues for a while, until finally the waiter subpoenas all the man's friends and relatives, who convince the man to give up and go home.
All right, my friend. Now you laugh. Or my associate Rocco here maybe stops over by yer house for a little chat later on tonight. Maybe he brings his pal, Louisville Slugger.
OK, that's better.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Boogie Stop Shuffle
OK, so I didn't blog for a week, got kinda perturbed by cosmic vapors, thought about kicking it in entirely, but let's do non-that, let's just blog every crazy thought that creeps toward my skull bone, such as, as follows ... a fine rendition of a Charlie Mingus classic by Chadbourne and Zu, by the title of "Boogie Stop Shuffle." It enjoys me, and it might enjoy you as well.
Hot Rock n Roll Obits Stove Report
Lux Interior of the Cramps has died.
Also passing this week, Chicago radio legend, Ed Schwartz. More to come on Ed soon.
Also passing this week, Chicago radio legend, Ed Schwartz. More to come on Ed soon.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Subterranean Governor's Mansion Blues
Apologies to Zimmerman.
Patti's in the basement
Cursin' Cubs management
Blago's on the pavement
Runnin' the government
Blago in his track suit
Woke up, no joke
Takin' Blago to the poke
Look out kid
It's somethin' you did
Fitz knows when
And you're doin' it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin' for a new friend
The man from Kankakee
In the big pen
Wants eleven packs of smokes
You only got ten
Blago comes fleet foot
Wig full of black soot
Talkin' that the heat put
Rahm into bed but
The phone's tapped anyway
Sam Adam says he can't say
Easter Bunny knocks in early May
Orders from Oba-may
Look out kid
Don't matter what you did
Jog on your tip toes
Don't go on talk shows
Better stay away from those
That wear support panty hose
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don't need the Skilling clan
To know which way the wind blows
Hair thick, clothes black
Tap Burris for your hack
Talk smack, Reid's flak
Democrats are sure to crack
Try hard, get barred
Get jailed, make bail
Quote some poets, you can't fail
Look out Trib
You're gonna get hit
But users, cheaters
Six-time losers
Hang around Springfield
Lawyers and their steno pool
Won't represent a big fool
Meanwhile the leaders
Privatized the parking meters
This thing's gold, won't fold
The fuck you say, no way, pay to play
You schmuck, get fucked
This teat is here to be sucked
Please me, please her, demand gifts
It's not stealing, not a grift
Six years in office
And they give you shitty short shrift
Look out, Quinn
You'll be the next one done in
No one'll light a candle
Good luck avoidin' scandals
Don't wanna be a bum
Pinched between the cheek and gum
Machine still works
Same old vandals turn the handles
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Dirty Politics
"Stimulus package." Think about that for a minute.
Heh heh heh.
And presidents. We've had two Bushes and two Johnsons. That's a good even number. When there are more johnsons around than bushes, trouble could erupt at any time.
Heh heh. "Erupt."
But I think the dirtiest president was Harding. Hard. Ding.
Heh. Heh heh.
Yeah, he's got a package for you. And it's already stimulused.
(This has been my throwawayiest blog post ever.)
Heh heh heh.
And presidents. We've had two Bushes and two Johnsons. That's a good even number. When there are more johnsons around than bushes, trouble could erupt at any time.
Heh heh. "Erupt."
But I think the dirtiest president was Harding. Hard. Ding.
Heh. Heh heh.
Yeah, he's got a package for you. And it's already stimulused.
(This has been my throwawayiest blog post ever.)
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Screw the hot stove -- spring's about to sproing; I can feel it
After last week, this week's weather -- with sunny days in the 20s -- has felt like, well, warmth. Which puts me in the mood for ... you know what. And also too as well -- baseball.
I'm hype-averse (plus, hey, I had actual work to do), so I did not watch any of the inauguration festivities, but I caught wind of the massive "na na hey hey goodbye" chorus with which the crowd serenaded Ex-Commandante Bush. And I do proclaim that to be excellent. It will be good to have a Sox fan in the White House.
In that connection, I have a very small suggestion for President Obama, which I think will go a long way toward cementing the success of his first year in office. That suggestion is as follows: Issue a proclamation making the following the official song of the 2009 Chicago White Sox season. Yes, it's Finnish, but we've only just begun.
Eläkeläiset - Humpatkaa (Thunderstruck)
HISTORICAL FOOTNOTE:
In re: "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye," Wikipedia sez:
My very first White Sox game attended in person by me was in 1977, versus the K.C. Royals. I don't have specific recollection as to whether that game was during the above-referenced critical series, but I do recall much joyous na-naaing and hey-heyying (not to mention good-byeing) taking place, and that commotion being one of my favorite things about the night.
I'm hype-averse (plus, hey, I had actual work to do), so I did not watch any of the inauguration festivities, but I caught wind of the massive "na na hey hey goodbye" chorus with which the crowd serenaded Ex-Commandante Bush. And I do proclaim that to be excellent. It will be good to have a Sox fan in the White House.
In that connection, I have a very small suggestion for President Obama, which I think will go a long way toward cementing the success of his first year in office. That suggestion is as follows: Issue a proclamation making the following the official song of the 2009 Chicago White Sox season. Yes, it's Finnish, but we've only just begun.
Eläkeläiset - Humpatkaa (Thunderstruck)
HISTORICAL FOOTNOTE:
In re: "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye," Wikipedia sez:
The song was transformed into a stadium anthem during the 1977 Major League Baseball season. Chicago White Sox organist Nancy Faust had played the song many times before when opposing pitchers were relieved or when the Sox had clearly won the game, but without much reaction from the Comiskey Park fans. During a critical series with the Kansas City Royals, however, the crowd began singing along with the tune, and a tradition was born.
My very first White Sox game attended in person by me was in 1977, versus the K.C. Royals. I don't have specific recollection as to whether that game was during the above-referenced critical series, but I do recall much joyous na-naaing and hey-heyying (not to mention good-byeing) taking place, and that commotion being one of my favorite things about the night.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
"I am what you call a 'controversial figure.' People either hate me or they despise me."
Quick pop quiz. Who said the above?
If you guessed Rod Blagojevich, you're wrong. But you're close.
The 40-somethings among us in the (peanut-free, allergies being what they are) gallery may remember a charming little man (probably best-known for his frequent appearances in the Retching '80s on Late Night With David Letterman) named Brother Theodore. To jump the gun just slightly, I happen to believe that Brother Theodore and Rod Blagojevich are one and the same ... or twin brothers. Well, there is a certain temporal dysplasia between them, so perhaps they are better described as dutch uncles and nephews (or nieces or cousins or shirt-tail relatives of some other taxonomic designation, I don't know what, exactly).
At any rate, they're both deranged fellows with crazy hair and a fine sense of fashion. Can you dispute the resemblance? For the sake of my thesis, here are two depictions of Brother Theodore as a young(ish) man:
To complete my argument, two recent photographs of Governor Theodore, er, Blagojevich:
I might have mixed them up. I ... I'm not sure. So ... look-alike-able. So ... indistinguishable.
Through all of Governor Blago's travails, all his Kiplingings, all his Roland Burrisings, his "I will fight, and fight, and fight and fight and fight, fight fight fight, fight fight fight, the Itchy and Scratchy show" self-defense vowingsings ... I keep seeing nothing and nobody but the ghost(s) of Brother Theodore ... the Ghost of Theodore Past, and the Ghost of Theodore Yet To Come.
Yes. Yet to come. The Governor may be down, but don't count him out. When he gets a little bit of what my old law-firm boss used to call "gray matter" on his poufy head, don't be surprised if you find Rod B. turning up on late-night talk shows and in dingy store-front theaters, acclaimed as a genius. Perhaps, even, THE genius of our time.
For a preview of that, watch these. Squint a little, and ignore the slight Germanic accent, and you may be able to imagine what low-rent TV will be like 25 or 30 years from now. (First a short one that captures the gist of my case, and then a longer one, enticingly titled "That Itchy Chick.")
BONUS BASEBALL-RELATED THEODORE:
Here's our man riffing on a little "Who's On First" action with Sammy Davis Junior (Billy Crystal) in an old HBO special (featuring Chris Guest, and with Eugene Levy doing very little.)
If you guessed Rod Blagojevich, you're wrong. But you're close.
The 40-somethings among us in the (peanut-free, allergies being what they are) gallery may remember a charming little man (probably best-known for his frequent appearances in the Retching '80s on Late Night With David Letterman) named Brother Theodore. To jump the gun just slightly, I happen to believe that Brother Theodore and Rod Blagojevich are one and the same ... or twin brothers. Well, there is a certain temporal dysplasia between them, so perhaps they are better described as dutch uncles and nephews (or nieces or cousins or shirt-tail relatives of some other taxonomic designation, I don't know what, exactly).
At any rate, they're both deranged fellows with crazy hair and a fine sense of fashion. Can you dispute the resemblance? For the sake of my thesis, here are two depictions of Brother Theodore as a young(ish) man:
To complete my argument, two recent photographs of Governor Theodore, er, Blagojevich:
I might have mixed them up. I ... I'm not sure. So ... look-alike-able. So ... indistinguishable.
Through all of Governor Blago's travails, all his Kiplingings, all his Roland Burrisings, his "I will fight, and fight, and fight and fight and fight, fight fight fight, fight fight fight, the Itchy and Scratchy show" self-defense vowingsings ... I keep seeing nothing and nobody but the ghost(s) of Brother Theodore ... the Ghost of Theodore Past, and the Ghost of Theodore Yet To Come.
Yes. Yet to come. The Governor may be down, but don't count him out. When he gets a little bit of what my old law-firm boss used to call "gray matter" on his poufy head, don't be surprised if you find Rod B. turning up on late-night talk shows and in dingy store-front theaters, acclaimed as a genius. Perhaps, even, THE genius of our time.
For a preview of that, watch these. Squint a little, and ignore the slight Germanic accent, and you may be able to imagine what low-rent TV will be like 25 or 30 years from now. (First a short one that captures the gist of my case, and then a longer one, enticingly titled "That Itchy Chick.")
BONUS BASEBALL-RELATED THEODORE:
Here's our man riffing on a little "Who's On First" action with Sammy Davis Junior (Billy Crystal) in an old HBO special (featuring Chris Guest, and with Eugene Levy doing very little.)
Friday, January 16, 2009
Mingus and Piper's Book Club
At some point during the night or morning, the cats knocked a single paperback book from the bookcase next to their food dishes. I wonder if they're trying to tell me something.
That book: Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy.
That book: Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Meanwhile, in the Aleutian Islands ...
My goodness, it's cold. It's so cold I can't even work up the gumption to swear. Let alone write -- or even think up -- a blog post. Forget it. I'm hiding under blankets until further notice.
ICONOGRAPHICAL POSTSCRIPT: I did manage to create this nifty fascistic personality-cult poster over at Paste Mag (even though they're getting crippling traffic & the site isn't working properly, so I had to make a screen capture to save it).
The moral of that story: STDPM DON'T TAKE NO GUFF FROM NO MACHINERY!!!
ICONOGRAPHICAL POSTSCRIPT: I did manage to create this nifty fascistic personality-cult poster over at Paste Mag (even though they're getting crippling traffic & the site isn't working properly, so I had to make a screen capture to save it).
The moral of that story: STDPM DON'T TAKE NO GUFF FROM NO MACHINERY!!!
Friday, January 09, 2009
Hit Steve Gnaws?
Sorry for the garbled title, but my ears are ringing from being overloaded with incessant and shrill news coverage of the Cubs' acquisition of Milton "Silly Name, Too Easy to Mock" Bradley.
I was going to say I didn't care about it, but I guess I am looking forward to the remote possibility that Bradley will get in another fight with a racist, moronic umpire. I respect the beauty and majesty of the game and all that jazz, but I do enjoy a good fight now and then. Especially if an ump is involved. We're not big fans of "The Man" here at CBRAT HQ -- where we don't care which way the flags are pointing in the outfield, daddy-o, because you don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows. Or something. Plus, since we're underground, wind is not really an available factor in our weather forecasts. But I digress.
Speaking of digressions, did you know that Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers are both brand names owned by Hasbro? And here I thought they were different companies. Huh. And Hasbro owns a Japanese subsidiary called Kosuke Fukudome, but the outlook is not particularly good for that line of toys. Market research shows that once Kosuke Fukudome board games are purchased -- at extremely high prices -- consumers tend to play with them once or twice and then put them away in a closet, toy box, cupboard, or even a dugout, where they are forgotten forever ... except when the monthly installments have to be paid. Plus, the translator takes up a seat on the plane that could be put to better use. Like, for storing Lou Piniella's booze. (That joke would work better if the Cubs were managed by Tony La Russa, but you play the ball as it lies, I guess.)
Meanwhile ... down at 35th and Shields, the sound of crickets. Which is no mean feat in January, when all the crickets are sleeping -- hibernating in their little caves, like the grizzly bears, mountain lions, and Ligues.
The top headline on the White Sox home page today is: "Sox rotation questions similar to 2008." Can you beat that for excitement? Yes, you can. Even if you are incredibly boring.
The story does contain an account of Don Cooper being questioned about a rumored possible not-gonna-happen-but-there's-nothing-else-to-talk-about trade of Gavin Floyd for Brian Roberts -- but that would be so much more entertaining on TV or radio. Because Don Cooper always cracks me up. And his thick NYC accent is a nice contrast from that of local sports radio hosts, such as, say, "jerk off" Mike North. In a written story, I have to imagine it, which is fun enough, but it usually leaves me wishing that sports writers could get away with phonetic spelling of dialogue.
Anyway, I would think that a Floyd-for-Roberts trade would raise totally different questions about the rotation from any that characterized the 2008 season. Such as -- "How exactly are the Sox going to replace Floyd in the starting rotation?" Because adding a hot leadoff hitter -- while a worthwhile thing to do, in itself -- doesn't exactly accomplish that task.
One (two-part) question about the Sox rotation from '08 that will go pleasingly unasked in '09 is, "Does anyone honestly expect me to believe that Jose Contreras was born in 1971? Don't they have the last two digits inverted?"
OK, that's enough Hut Stiff Noobs for now. Keep it warm, but keep it.
I was going to say I didn't care about it, but I guess I am looking forward to the remote possibility that Bradley will get in another fight with a racist, moronic umpire. I respect the beauty and majesty of the game and all that jazz, but I do enjoy a good fight now and then. Especially if an ump is involved. We're not big fans of "The Man" here at CBRAT HQ -- where we don't care which way the flags are pointing in the outfield, daddy-o, because you don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows. Or something. Plus, since we're underground, wind is not really an available factor in our weather forecasts. But I digress.
Speaking of digressions, did you know that Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers are both brand names owned by Hasbro? And here I thought they were different companies. Huh. And Hasbro owns a Japanese subsidiary called Kosuke Fukudome, but the outlook is not particularly good for that line of toys. Market research shows that once Kosuke Fukudome board games are purchased -- at extremely high prices -- consumers tend to play with them once or twice and then put them away in a closet, toy box, cupboard, or even a dugout, where they are forgotten forever ... except when the monthly installments have to be paid. Plus, the translator takes up a seat on the plane that could be put to better use. Like, for storing Lou Piniella's booze. (That joke would work better if the Cubs were managed by Tony La Russa, but you play the ball as it lies, I guess.)
Meanwhile ... down at 35th and Shields, the sound of crickets. Which is no mean feat in January, when all the crickets are sleeping -- hibernating in their little caves, like the grizzly bears, mountain lions, and Ligues.
The top headline on the White Sox home page today is: "Sox rotation questions similar to 2008." Can you beat that for excitement? Yes, you can. Even if you are incredibly boring.
The story does contain an account of Don Cooper being questioned about a rumored possible not-gonna-happen-but-there's-nothing-else-to-talk-about trade of Gavin Floyd for Brian Roberts -- but that would be so much more entertaining on TV or radio. Because Don Cooper always cracks me up. And his thick NYC accent is a nice contrast from that of local sports radio hosts, such as, say, "jerk off" Mike North. In a written story, I have to imagine it, which is fun enough, but it usually leaves me wishing that sports writers could get away with phonetic spelling of dialogue.
Anyway, I would think that a Floyd-for-Roberts trade would raise totally different questions about the rotation from any that characterized the 2008 season. Such as -- "How exactly are the Sox going to replace Floyd in the starting rotation?" Because adding a hot leadoff hitter -- while a worthwhile thing to do, in itself -- doesn't exactly accomplish that task.
One (two-part) question about the Sox rotation from '08 that will go pleasingly unasked in '09 is, "Does anyone honestly expect me to believe that Jose Contreras was born in 1971? Don't they have the last two digits inverted?"
OK, that's enough Hut Stiff Noobs for now. Keep it warm, but keep it.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
"Hot Stove" News: "Everybody Get Yer Hankies Cuz We Only Talk Wankees"
So ... one thing has already happened this year. The newest bastard child of Bud Selig -- the MLB Network -- a whole channel about professional United States of American baseball, in case you hadn't guessed -- or noticed it, since it's way way way up in the five-digit channel numbers, right next to such powerhouses as "The Albanian Folk Dance Channel," "The Arts and Crafts by Mutes, for Mutes, Network (TAACBMFMN)," and "C-SPAN 2" -- has finally sprung into life on the cable television, over by there. If you call that living. I guess I could wait until the season starts before I start bitching about it, but why? I'm not waiting until Inauguration Day to bitch about Obama's rocket-powered Cannonball-Run-like "drift" to the right. And I see no reason to treat pre-baseball MLB-related television programming any differently.
Of course, their current pre-actual-baseball-season flagship programme is called "Hot Stove." I haven't gotten any cease and desist letters or any other forms of threat due to my mockery of the trademark, but maybe if I try real hard, I will.
Anyway, here's my impression of MLB Network's "Hot Stove" (cable) televisual showcase:
The best thing about it is that it's re-run about six times a day, so -- in case you missed their in-depth coverage of every waking moment of every employee of the New York Fucking Yankees, and every inch traveled by every penny of every one of the uberkaboodleplex million dollars they will spend in 2009 -- you have plenty of chances to catch up.
CATCH UP ON THE HOT STOVE NEWS ABOUT THE NEW FUCKING YORK FUCKING YANKEES!!! EVERY HOUR ON THE HOUR, PLUS AGAIN EVERY FIFTEEN MINUTES, OVERLAPPING!!! FUCK YEAH!!!
In short: No sir, I don't like it.
Of course, their current pre-actual-baseball-season flagship programme is called "Hot Stove." I haven't gotten any cease and desist letters or any other forms of threat due to my mockery of the trademark, but maybe if I try real hard, I will.
Anyway, here's my impression of MLB Network's "Hot Stove" (cable) televisual showcase:
This just in! Derek Jeter had Chinese for lunch today! This just in! Hank Steinbrenner farted this morning and made his personal assistant take the blame! This just in! Joe Girardi was spotted at a Manhattan nightclub last night with a booger in his nose that he didn't seem to realize was visible, and nobody felt socially bold enough to tell him!
This just in! Yankees, Yankees, Yankees!
YankeesYankeesYankeesYankeesYankees!!!!!
YankeesYankeesYankeesYankeesYankees!!!!!
YankeesYankeesYankeesYankeesYankees!!!!!
(huff huff huff huff ... deep breath)
YankeesYankeesYankeesYankeesYankees!!!!!
Oh yeah, and something called "Red Sox" exist, too. Strange world we live in.
But, mostly ... YAANNNKEEEEEEEEES!!!
(Then the out-of-breath sports-dork host drops dead on the spot, and an old Arte Johnson looking dude in NYY pinstripes waddles onto the set and sweeps his body up. Credits. The end.)
The best thing about it is that it's re-run about six times a day, so -- in case you missed their in-depth coverage of every waking moment of every employee of the New York Fucking Yankees, and every inch traveled by every penny of every one of the uberkaboodleplex million dollars they will spend in 2009 -- you have plenty of chances to catch up.
CATCH UP ON THE HOT STOVE NEWS ABOUT THE NEW FUCKING YORK FUCKING YANKEES!!! EVERY HOUR ON THE HOUR, PLUS AGAIN EVERY FIFTEEN MINUTES, OVERLAPPING!!! FUCK YEAH!!!
In short: No sir, I don't like it.
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