Folk Song of the Far Right Wing

It is a very clever and funny...turn your speakers on a click over here.

Da vinci code, anybody?

I thought I would try new kinda post. Da Vinci Code: Has anyone seen it yet? I did not want to post a review or thoughts about it until a couple people on here had seen it. I wanted to see what people thought of the book, movie, and the whole cultural phenomenon.

Times they are a-changin'...I hope

Over the past couple of weeks we have seen former generals, Republican senators and congressmen, and even some radio personalities come out against the Bush administration on certain issues. We are also seeing more mainstream reports publishing articles exposing the foibles of the administration. They are so many to list (NSA, Hookergate, etc.) but you know what I am talking about. I have been to two large medical conferences in Rochester, NY, and Albany, NY, in the past week - at both conferences multiple speakers made jokes and political innuendos regarding the administration. On most occasions the comments were well received. I hope that more people feel the need to publicly speak their minds without feeling that they will be labeled as unamerican or unpatriotic. It may not seem like a big deal to most but in a time with little hope of better things to come, I will take what I can get.

The Road to Wyoming

This spring I'm doing a lot of hiking to prepare for a summer hiking trip to the Wind River Range in Wyoming. Some friends and I are going to be spending about 2 weeks in the mountains camping, hiking, and sliding down glaciers (only if the thin air makes me delirious enough!). This past weekend we climbed Mt. Lafayette in Franconia, NH. It's a beautiful climb with terrifically unobstructed views of the valley below and the mountains beyond (unlike Monadnock or Chocoroua, where the views were only apparent closer to the peak, there were great lookout spots even halfway up the mountain, like in the photo above - click for a larger version). There's an AMC hut near the peak (which we didn't get to due to a crazy cold front and sudden foggy and rainy conditions) from which the picture below is taken - again, click for a larger version. Straight ahead in the photo is the Mt. Lafayette peak. The hut runs on solar and wind power, and was surprisingly nice, with lots of bunk beds, plenty of room to chill out, and a large kitchen.

Stone Temple Pilots, they're elegant bachelors

Something like a year ago I bought the Pavement DVD "Slow Century," but hadn't watched it until last week. I've only watched a few of the videos, but they're freaking hilarious (still have to watch the live shows). The funniest one was Stereo. You can see it below. Cut Your Hair is a lovely one, too.

The Weatherman - Pat Robertson

Hey Seattle, pack your bags there is a tsunami comeing your way.I have a good source...Pat Roberson (a real man of god)

Rebublican Jesus Archive Link Fixed

UR library

Rush Rhees Entry

Falcon's Studio

This one's for the falcon

Whatever happened to Hum? Apparently, they no longer exist - a while ago I bought an album called "Glifted" by one of their former members (a disappointment), and another band member started a new band called Centaur. Hum had a reunion concert in Champaign, IL, last fall, and it's too bad I don't live over there, because I'll bet it was an awesome show. I've only heard the album Downward is Heavenward, but it's definitely one of my fave albums of the 90s (and the singing on "If You Are To Bloom" sounds eerily similar to the vocal stylings of the falcon). Anyway, it seems that Matt Talbott, former singer/guitarist for Hum, runs his own analog recording studio near Champaign, and it looks pretty cool. Check it out...it's a ways from you in Rochester, falcon-dude, but if you ever get a chance to vacation and you have a wad of cash, it seems like a pretty sweet place to throw down a few tracks.

Gore SNL

If you have not had a chance to watch Gore, CrooksandLiars has it.

Gore on SNL

This bit with Al Gore on SNL got a chuckle out of me. Hopefully the folks at NBC won't be taking it off of YouTube anytime soon!
There was a YouTube screen here, but the NBC folks are trolling and pulling any SNL videos. Maybe one of the future postings will be watchable...

More on NSA domestic call tracking

This just came up on the ABC News Blog. It's not surprising, and I'm glad that reporters are bringing this into the open. But will anyone care? I hope that the "helps catching terrorists" and "leak prevention strategy" memes don't get very far, and people realize how serious this could get. From news reports that I've read/heard all of this domestic terrorism prevention junk has only allowed Bush to crack down on dissent in his administration, expand the powers of the military and police, and put pressure on left-leaning domestic political groups. Which I imagine were the intended results.

101st fighting logistical administrative assistants

I've been reading that Bush is going to propose sending "less than 10,000" National Guard forces to aid the border patrol in an administrative and a logistical capacity. Beef up the bureaucracy! That'll keep 'em out. According to the article there are 350 members of the border patrol on the US-Mexico border. If they send 7,000 admin assistants, that's 20 admins per trooper.

Rove indictment seems unavoidable!

According to truthout.org. I can't vouch for the reliability of their reporting, but let's all hope this is for real.

Midday Steve-o blogging

I guess this is an open thread.

To be a fly on the wall

Bush had one of these meetings before, with former Secretaries of State and Defense. Not much seemed to come of it. Yet they're doing it AGAIN. Why?!!? I'd love to know what's going on in these meetings, if anything's being accomplished or if it's just one big show. I'd hardly think that they'd all go for it again if that were the case. Any chance to get the President's ear, I suppose. Might as well take it.

Snow jobber

It's going to be fun seeing how Tony Snow deals with his former comrades in the press at his first press briefing. He's already lobbing protests at them - I've never heard of such a thing, but maybe it happens, and it's just in the spotlight this time since one of their own is doing it. At any rate, I hope the press rips him a new one.

Jesus' General

A milestone has been reached at Jesus' General. The 100th rebublican Jesus has been published. You can check out the rebublican Jesus Archives here. Here are some of my favorites.



Hate is Love
Thou Shalt
Priorites
Katrina
Frist's Embryo-americans
Rove-Dobson-Christ Lobbying
Stand up and fight for Christmas

The blog takes a little getting used to (similar humor to Colbert), but it is a fun one to drop into everyonce in a while.

The Daily Show: New CIA Nomination

(via Crooks & Liars)

Once again The Daily Show has out done the mainstream media even though it is a news show parody. The administration is really packing it in these days. They basically recycled Porter Goss's nomination speech from 2004 and the daily show caught'em red handed.

Blaine visited the AntFarm, but may now be buying the farm

Doctors are concerned about his condition. I have two questions. Are they psychiatrists? or Are they from Yale Neurology? I hope het gets the help he needs.

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Pink- Dear Mr President - Live

It's not Dylan, Guthrie, or Seeger...but it will have to do for now compared to most of the rest of the music industry

Porter Goss resignation background…

Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo and Larry Johnson at the sister blog TPM Café have some good opinion and background on the Goss resignation. I think the details are still coming out on this one, but it looks like Goss’s downfall is related to Hookergate, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, and Kyle "Dusty" Foggo.

Didn't see this one coming!

Porter Goss "resigned" today from the CIA directorship. This is really the last thing I expected. I wonder what the deal is? No doubt we'll find out more in the coming days...I'll bet he "wanted to spend more time with his family" or "found a great opportunity in the private sector."

U of R alumni watch, Part 1 of an ongoing series

John Simeon, leaving the Hynes/ICA T station at approx. 5:30 pm yesterday. Didn't say "hi," don't really know the guy. Like many of us, he's put on a little post-college weight, but he's looking as preppy as ever.

There have been a few prequels to this series, the most notable being Tanveer "Ray" Rahman in Harvard Square, and Ott's college ladyfriend at Wally's Jazz Cafe (Steve-o can corroborate on that one).

Chez Bartol

Believe the hype, and luxuriate in it.

David Blaine visits the ANT FARM!!!!

For my first post, I refer you to Rita Cosby's interview with Magical, Mystical GENIUS David Blaine

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12630616/

I really can't add anything that would top this.

But Chris is good at rants, so I'll pass the conch thataway....

--stiv

Judging a CD by its cover and band name

Every now and then I'll go nuts and buy a CD because the album cover is interesting or the band name is whacked. It happened in NYC with Hockey Night (which turned out to be a fine album, strangely enough) and it's happened here in Boston with Munly & the Lee Lewis Harlots. Although I have to admit I listened to a little of it at the Virgin Megastore's listening station, it's nothing compared to listening to the entire album, which is totally engrossing. The ghastly American Gothic themes this guy has in his lyrics are oddly compelling (more than once I thought, "Did he just sing what I think he sang?"). The storytelling combined with the bluegrassy strings and lady backup singers make this a thoroughly enjoyable album. I'd write a complete review of it...but I think this and this review pretty much nail it. Still have to watch the accompanying DVD, which has music videos for these songs. That ought to be interesting.

An old photo, but definitely still relevant

I found this photo on my hard drive. It's from a 2004 protest march in NYC. I think I found it on flickr and saved it, because I definitely was not at the event. Anyway, I thought it was a wonderful photo and worth posting for all y'all.

NYC Daytrip, 4/21/06

Click on Steve to see the photos!

(mostly documenting my walk from Chinatown to Ground Zero)

Neil Young

I have not listened to the whole album yet...but I thought I would put up the link in the mean time.

Rove Timeline

Here is a really good Karl Rove time line regarding Plamegate...it is on firedoglake

(via Crooks & Liars)

Immigrants...

I have mixed opinions about the immigrant protesting that went on the other day...Being the son of immigrants who came here by legal means I truly believe that if you want the American "dream" follow the rules. However, many of my family members from India have had multiple student and or work visas rejected and I did not recommend to them that they go to Mexico and cross the desert. I heard a commentary on Morning Edition on NPR(3;16) this morning that pretty much said what I was thinking regarding immigration. I really think that immigration services should really have more resources, including better border security...Hey who is against creating more government jobs? Maybe they have the resources to prevent another INS SNAFU like rubber stamping the visa renewal applications of two September 11th hijackers a few months after the fact.

The view from Mt. Chocorua

That's Mt. Washington covered with snow in the distance, and that's my backpack in the foreground. This is at 3,475 feet.

From Wikipedia:
"It is believed that Chocorua was a real Native American, although no authentic records of his life exist. About 1720 Chocorua was on friendly terms with settlers and, in particular, the Campbell family that had a home in the valley now called Tamworth. Chocorua was called away and left his son in the care of the Campbell family. The boy found and drank a poison that Mr. Campbell had made to eliminate troublesome foxes, and Chocorua returned to find his son had died. Chocorua, distraught with grief, pledged revenge on the family. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Campbell returned home one afternoon to find his wife and children had been slain. Campbell suspected Chocorua and pursued him up the mountain that today bears his name. Chocorua was wounded by a shot from Campbell's rifle. Before Campbell could reach him, Chocorua uttered a curse upon the white settlers and their homes, livestock, and crops, and leapt from the summit to his death."

According to my friend Peter, the white settlers did have horrible crops for several years after this curse was uttered, due to a lengthy period of mineral deficient soil.

Bruce Springsteen - a sign of things to come?

Yesterday I drove with some friends to Mt. Chocorua in New Hampshire to do some hiking, and on the way we listened to Jefferson Airplaine's Volunteers. It's a good album, but the lyrics were hilarious in most cases. Judging from their morphing in to a band that produced "We Built This City On Rock n' Roll," I can only conclude that the band is a bunch of opportuniusts, capitalizing on the whatever spirit might be pervading the times...anyway, it was a good hippie rock album.

But it got me to thinking, again, of how music and the arts in general have largely failed in responding to the political, social, and economic situation that we live in today. I don't want hippie music or flower-power art, but stuff that will in some way bring the reality of the U.S. today into the national consciousness. I think the time is right for this to happen, while from the early 90s until recently artists, actors, and musicians were widely criticized for bringing politics into their music, etc., at all.

This article about Springsteen performing in New Orleans gave me some hope. He's fantastic, and undismissable. He's upset with how things are, and uses his music to show it. Hey, if you're a celebrity musician, have something to say, and people will listen, why not? Maybe this is a good sign in the trend towards massive popular disgust with the Bush administration. Last time I checked, Dubya was at 36%...Congress at 22%.

I found this quote from Mike Stipe about music and politics-
--------------------------------------
QUESTION: Is REM a political band?

MIKE STIPE: Not at all. I consider the 3 of us to be extremely political, as citizens, and I separate our necessity, who we are is public figures, and what we do is musicians, as creative people, for who we are, we’re private citizens. However there’s overlap of course. And so I don’t sail out to write as a lyricist, and a frontman, I don’t sail out to write songs that are political natured, infact, with this last record, it was my desire not to… but I couldn’t get the events and the aftermath of September 11 out of my head. And I was trying to write songs that would be beautiful songs, and all I could think about is how f**ked up the world is. I finally collapsed under the way, just quit thinking about it, and got advise from a lot of people who do what I do, and moved forward. I don’t think politics and art mix very well. I certainly don’t think politics and music mix very well. I can understand, as a music fan, listening to a song and feeling like someone sat down with the intension of teaching me with their lyrics, that to me is really uninteresting. The songs that have moved me and motivated me are the ones where, you might have a back story a little bit later, I’m thinking of this song ‘One’ by U2, I’m thinking of ‘1959’ by Patti Smith… the music is what moves me, and I feel there’s a story behind it, and I’m interested in knowing more about the song, than just a surface… it’s good to have that there.
--------------------------------------
I don't agree with him that music and politics don't mix very well. Hello? "World Leader Pretend"? "Orange Crush"? A bunch of tracks from Document? He has it right in the last part of his answer-it's about the music, but the lyrics have a story, one which you might want to know more about. I'm not talking preach-rock a la Jefferson Airplane, but exactly the type of rock that U2 used to write, which I never considered to be heavy-handed. Foreboding, maybe, but not so much that it got in the way of the enjoyment of the music.

White House Correspondents' dinner

Stephen Colbert was the featured comedian at the White House Correspondents' dinner; his material had some zing, even with the president sitting just feet away. There were some points where I could not believe he just said that, but most of it had truthfulness.

Crooks & Liars has most of the monologue ...

Devilducky.com has it in three parts Part 1 of 3, Part 2 of 3, Part 3 of 3, it includes the whole monologue and the intro. Part 2 is the meat of the performance if time is of the essence.