. . . with full reports from New Orleans. I’ve opted to enjoy the experience and leave the ol’ laptop at home. So, no blogging from the Crescent City. But I tell ya what. I’ll have a soft shell crab po’ boy for ya, some rosemint ice tea and perhaps a spoonful or two of gumbo.
And I’ll be back next week to tell ya how good it tasted. And how delicious all the music was.
– c d k
My buddy Abe Levitan is marrying his sweetie Lara in June.
Though young, these kids love music and have a sense of all of rock & roll. It’s a good thing.
Anyway, on their RSVP card, I had to declare my “favorite dance song” for their reception playlist. Which brought me to this Shirley & Lee disco classic, Shame, Shame, Shame. (And, yes, this Shirley is the same Shirley from Shirley & Lee, who did the soul classic, Let The Good Times Roll.)
– c d k
A thirty year old named Bradford Campeau-Laurion went to a game at the old Yankee Stadium last August.
During the seventh-inning stretch, he had to relieve himself. So, he slid down his aisle until he was forcibly stopped by one of New York’s finest. Seems the song “God Bless America” was being played at the moment. And, the Yankees, bless their our-way-or-the-highway patriotic hearts, have a rule which prohibits fan movements during the song.
After first being stopped by the officer, Mr. Campeau-Laurion, needing to heed the call of nature, tried to move past the policeman. The officer then grabbed one arm, twisting it behind Bradford’s back. While another officer proceeded to do the same with the other arm. Read the rest of this entry »
Would you want to bid on this painting?
Didn’t think so.
You sure?
It might look stunning over the fireplace. You could move that new 42″ HDTV currently there into a corner of the room.
Okay, you’re sure.
Don’t care about bidding on one His Excellency’s famous sparkly gloves either?
Okay. I understand. Then I shan’t bore you with any details about the upcoming auction of Michael Jackson and Neverland parapernalia, chotchkes, bric-brac, furniture and haberdashery.
– c d k
Finally after several years and a retrial, Phil Spector, the ultimate combo of musical genius and maniacal murderer, is in jail. A jury of his peers — if such a gathering is possible for a cockamamie like Spector — found him Guilty of Murder 2d.
Back when he was charged, I wrote a column which is posted here at my site. I thought I’d reprint it here, since the news is timely again. Here ’tis again in its entirety:
It is the evening of the day.
Half the Beatles are gone. Elvis is oil on velvet. The Stones are flummoxed. Deluded by dotage, they think mugging their way through “Sympathy For The Devil” is rock ’n’ roll. Mick is more than a kiss away as an over-the-hill gigolo, “The Man From Elysian Fields.”
And cute little Michael Jackson has been freakin’ in Neverland so long he’s morphed into a new species. His TV interview was a trip to the Shelby County Fair, a front row view of the Bearded Lady with three legs and the feats of legerdemain she performs with a ping pong ball.
Yet another boomer icon has turned left on red. Somebody asked me the other day if I’m surprised that Phil Spector’s been charged with murder? Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes I feel the need to herald a film that, in the end, simply doesn’t work. If only to gain some perspective.
Tom Wolfe is important in the pantheon of the 20th Century literature. He’s a Patrician, having attended the nation’s most antebellum university, Washington and Lee. And he certainly has developed his affectations, having worn nothing but the white suits of what we’d call a dandy in public for decades. Even during the winter months.
But, at his best, he’s displayed one of the keenest eyes of any cultural observer in the last century. I’m talking Mark Twain perceptive. He captured the 60s in articles gathered in The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby and The Pump House Gang. His take — The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test — on the Merry Pranksters and Ken Kesey’s band of hippie gypsies was so precise, there are people to this day who think Wolfe was actually a part of that scene. Read the rest of this entry »
Before you get too excited, I don’t mean he was arrested or anything like that.
I’m talking about this fellow Eric Bendl, who is hard not to notice when he’s walking the streets. He’s always out and about with this big rubber globe, which he calls, not without justification, “the World.” As in “Today after work I got out the World . . . ”
Anyway, Bendl’s main goal, other than laughs and attention, is to increase awareness of Diabetes, a disease suffered by his mother, former politician of note, Gerta Bendl.
When World Guy sets out, besides “the World” he takes along his faithful canine, Nice.
So today, while out for a jog, I happened upon World Guy, “the World” and Nice in the Cherokee Triangle. They were dazzling a couple of sub teen girls who were mesmerized. Meanwhile Nice decided to relieve himself on a lawn.
Sadly Wold Guy started to walk away without cleaning up after his dog. That’s a no-no in my book. So he allegedly cares enough about world awareness to walk around with a five foot diameter globe, but doesn’t clean up after his dog. Hmmm. Is there some sort of contradiction there?
He seemed pissed when I asked, “Mr. Globe Man, you’re going to clean up after your dog, aren’t you?”
Let’s hope this was a one time omission. That’s he’s as earth concious as he would portray himself, and usually cleans up after Nice. Hey, maybe he can even start carrying around a litter bag, and really set an example by picking up cans and discarded food wrappers and cigarette packages as he walks “the World.”
It would be a good thing.
– c d k
Kerthunk! Splat! Thud!
This is the way the season ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.
Thirty one Ws. Six losses. That’s a campaign to savor.
But this last stunner of a defeat feels like a karate kick to the solar plexus.
The question is whether we should have seen this coming? A loss to a team the Cardinal Nation considered inferior, preventing U of L from advancing to the Final Four as the NCAA’s top seeded squad. A numbing defeat to a lower seeded team that was plundered in its conference tourney, was nip and tuck to beat woeful IU late in the season and lost at home to perennial nonentity Northwestern for heavens’ sakes.
Know this. Tom Izzo wins these games. His street-bully tough Michigan State Spartans had Louisville reeling and measured the entire tilt. Louisville flinched, didn’t fight back and lost going away 64-52. Read the rest of this entry »
