Category: Uncategorized

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Jon Stewart again does what the others in the “media” can’t do. At the end, I don’t think Stewart is really laughing. Fuck you too, billionaires. In fact, the use of footage coupled with intertitles afterwards showing the fate of those banks and insurance companies is straight out of a serious doc, not a comedy show.

I was trying to explain to a friend the other day how important British DJ John Peel was to several generations of music fans, and how gutting it was when he died in 2004 of a heart attack. I recently discovered that there’s a still-growing, very rough John Peel Wiki that is eventually going to, I assume, list all his shows with track lists and corresponding mp3s. That’s sounds exactly like something the Internet is good for. I know I have a few cassettes myself that I could transfer and upload. But nothing like the 500 Box that the wiki talks about.
I was trying to explain to said friend that it was Peel’s in between song banter that made the show. You knew that no matter how out there the music got, Peel would come back in with a friendly chat. I can’t think of any other DJ who maintained such a conversational, humane tone behind the mic. I went looking on YouTube and found this audio (with user graphics) that gives one a good idea of the style.

And this is also funny, a compilation of John Peel’s appearances on BBC pop music shows. You can tell he loathed most of this music.

Is that Claire Grogan at the end of the clip?

Al-Jazeera had a segment on the fervent, intolerant racist followers of a popular poltical leader. You will be shocked how religious fundamentalism combined with poverty and ignorance have lead to this hate speech!!
Oh, and it takes place in Ohio. Psyche!!!

Has there ever been a pop song like “Our Lips Are Sealed”? Check the facts: Terry Hall (Specials, Fun Boy Three) was in a relationship with Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Gos. They co-write this song about their love affair. Weidlin takes it back to her group and the Go-Gos have a huge hit with it. Wiedlin sings the bridge. Terry Hall then brings out his own version with Fun Boy Three and he also has a hit with it, just on the other side of the Atlantic. Compare and contrast the sunny California pop of the Go-Gos version with the pop-Goth Fun Boy Three version and you hear the two personalities behind the songwriting talking about the other.

So, in the annals of pop, is there a song that is written by two lovers about their own relationship that then goes on to be a hit for both parties in their respective groups? I doubt it. But if there is, let me know.
P.S. Whoever shot the bridge section of the GoGos video has complete FAIL in showing the person singing it. Jane, what happened??

WFMU’s Beware of the Blog and contributor DJ Trouble have a few suggestions for living under new economic conditions in these depressed times.

Start up a local food or drink club and take turns meeting at friends homes for an evening of fine eats and/or libations. The host offers up her house as part of the circle and everyone else brings a dish or bottle. Figure it out ahead of time for a thematic twist or let the randomness carry you away in DADA-ist revelry. For party favors that double as wall art play Exquisite Corpse and build an art collection as you tour this monthly soiree around the nabe.

Or

Why go out to a club when you know so many musicians? Start a local Hootenanny. Provided you live in a space that can handle the extra noise, do a regular jam session. Invite musicians of varying taste and ability and tackle songs by pulling titles from a jar; the novelty of the surprise works for Yo La Tengo when they play Gaylord’s show for the WFMU fund raising marathon!

I would like to think this all would lead to some great community building exercises instead of the inevitable ultra-violence and cannibalism.

Apparently, Oprah, ready to believe anything she reads on TEH INTERNETZ, read this shocking bit o’ news the other day on her program:

… if you still don’t understand what our children are up against, let me read you something that was posted on our message board, from someone who claims to be a member of a known pedophile network, it said this, ‘he does not forgive, he does not forget, his group has over 9000 penises, and they’re all raping children.’

If her researchers had done any work beyond shooting coffee out of their nose after reading that Cthulu-style quote, they would have found it was some sort of 4-Chan/Dragonball-Z/Intertubes humor meme. The rest, they say, is an Internet Remix (see above). The spirit of Chris Morris lives on!

Parry Gripp has been writing one-to-two-minute pop songs, two a week, since the beginning of the year, all available at his website. As he told me the other day, they’re really starting to find a groove. (Not that the early ones aren’t good, but a track like “Old Navy” rocks beyond its novelty lyrics.)
His latest is a sad song called “Soccer Ball (In the Face).” I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. So I did both.

“Diddy” here is yet another example of everything that’s wrong with America. To wit:

Gas prices are too motherfucking high. As you know, I do own my own jet but I have been havin to fly back and forth to LA to pursue my acting career. Ok, now, if I’m flying back and forth, like, twice in a month that’s like 200,000, 250,000 round trip. Fuck that. I’m back on American Airlines right now. Ok? Check this out. Your boy Diddy right now is on American Airlines….I am actually, can you believe it, I am actually flying commercial. That’s how high gas prices are ok, so I feel you.

Cry me a freakin’ river. By the way, he goes on to say that he’s even flying coach–you know, where all the poor people sit! Eek!!–and then goes on to sit in business class.

By way of the always funny What Would Tyler Durden Do.
UPDATE!9/9/08: According to TMZ, Diddly[sic] is only a “Fraction of a Baller,” because:

Turns out P. doesn’t even have his “own” private jet at all. An extensive look through federal aviation records by the Palm Beach Post turned up no Seans, Diddys, Combs, or Puffys as the registered owner. One source said, “I have a list of every plane with the name of the owner, and he’s not on it.”
For the record, says his rep, he’s got a “fractional” ownership in a plane on NetJets, where you buy flight hours. Also for the record, Joe Francis does have his own plane.

Lamerz.