We've been cleaning the house, so I flipped on WERU out of Blue Hill, Maine for the tailend of their world music show and their Sunday afternoon, music and commentary program called "Women's Voices.

One of the songs jumped out at me, so I moved over to the computer, when the DJ was going through the playlist of songs that we had just heard. Unfortunately, I can't find a full-length copy of Christine Lavin's "Happydance", the title track from her new album "Happy Dance of the Xenophobe", but I did find that it may have been previously called "Quit Your Sobbing - She's an Idiot".

Nonetheless, if you've got a couple of minutes and would like a taste of this song and the other fun, bouncy tunes on her new album, I suggest playing through its Amazon Sampler and perhaps viewing a live, festival performance of what may be an older song, "Sensitive New Age Guys".

I'm sure that I've hinted about it before, but there was a time that I'd tell receptionists or someone whom I didn't think really needed my name that I was either Peter Fonda, Phillip Michael Thomas or Anwar Sadat depending on my mood. Now as I've gotten older, my son's favorite movie for the past couple of months has been Thomas and the Magic Railroad with Alec Baldwin and Peter Fonda.

Of course there's nothing wrong with the flick, but we have so much Thomas and part of me wishes that he'd occasionally want to see something from one of the disks narrated by George Carlin or Ringo Starr. Carlin's work is pretty straight, so I just long for it to have something different in the background, while Ringo apparently did the first season, when "Mr. Conductor" was called "The Fat Conductor" and according to my daughter, there's a storyline in which one of the engines narrowly escapes "sudden death".

IOW: It's after 1AM and my boy is showing no sign of going to sleep. Right now, he's got a couple of chairs lined-up and he's climbing back and forth from me to the other end, while Mr. Fonda is letting "Lady" loose in the other room.

Oh, and "Baby Elmo" is getting carried along, so he keeps whining and asking for a bottle.

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I'm not going to name him up-top because he would find it via a Google Blogsearch and then I'd be outed, but lately I've taken an inordinate amount of pleasure in teasing a Bubble 2.0 figure on his own blog. I don't know why. I've never met the guy and have nothing against him. In fact there's nothing really wrong with him making a living through writing and webcasting, it's just that something inside of me takes pleasure in publicly questioning the validity of his messages.

Though, now that others have joined-in and the chorus is getting louder, the exercise is beginning to lose some of its appeal.

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Earlier this evening, I flashed over to the website for Craig Ferguson's show because I couldn't remember the name of the musical act and her voice was still in my head. If you haven't heard Nellie McKay, I can certainly suggest that you watch somebody's copyright infringement of her Friday night appearance before it's jerked from YouTube.

Of course, she's that whole jazzy piano, retro sound that has been among my faves for a while and I'd say from this one performance, I'd compare her to Rickie Lee Jones. Though after I submit this post, I'm going to flip through some of her other YouTubes, so I'll have a better idea and I might possibly try to find a legal copy to burn for our car ride tomorrow.

BTW: While you're there, you may notice that CBS uploads portions of Craig's monologue-type things. If you go to his main website, you'll find that they produced a montage of Tom Snyder clips from when he hosted the show and because I missed it the first time, I'll also recommend that you watch Craig's "Show & Tell" from July 30th because as usual, he was hilarious.

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Because a lot of this post has been me repeating myself, I thought I'd point-out that American Express has now uploaded their "Members Project" commercial and another video featuring "Tim from the office next door". Now that I've seen both and have done some side-by-side comparisons, I'm pretty sure that my initial instinct was right and as I posted the other day, he's being played by David Alan Basche, whom I recognized from a crappy sitcom which I mostly watched due to Peter Bonerz's involvement.

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And finally; About once a month, I turn on the local country station and for some reason, the last couple of times, a novelty ballad has played during my short drive and though you may want to go back and wash your mind out with the Nellie McKay video or her newest Amazon Sampler afterward, the Good-Ole-Boy in me still gets a kick from the words to Billy Currington's song.

The AP is reporting that Tom Snyder lost his battle with cancer yesterday.

Mr. Snyder's Tomorrow Show was an important connection between myself and the avant garde during my formative years and after Tomorrow was cancelled, I followed him onto the radio, CNBC and CBS. I've mentioned him before on this blog and though I don't think all my links are coming-up via my misspelling, I remain a fan. Unfortunately, he hasn't been on television for a number of years and he deleted his blog in 2005, so there are those who may not know the man and that may be their loss.

I'm sure sometime over the next few days, MSNBC will put together a package of highlights, but in the meantime, I culled the following from YouTube and am offering it in one of their new-fangled players* because I've been looking for an excuse to use one.


Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air.

*There are 12 videos (77 mins) in this collection. Once you click to activate, you can play them in the order listed, scroll through using the handles or run your mouse over the bottom of the screen to pick and choose.

Now that I've reared my ugly head up, I've been reading back to catch-up on everyone's life and because I've been gone a while, it's going to take me a week or so until I feel that I'm totally up to speed. So, if you get a random comment from me to a wicked old post, please know that it's only part of my exercise and if I don't post a comment, please feel assured that I've read back, anyhow.

In my readings from earlier this evening, I ran across an old post from soopageek which made mention of one of the great story-songs of all time, one which I haven't heard or have thought about in perhaps a decade. In his post, soopageek lists one of life's great mysteries as being: What'd she and Billy Joe McAllister throw off the Tallahatchee Bridge?

This prompted me to first wash in my memories of hearing the song over my transistor, AM radio that I remember buying from Radio Shack with my saved allowance. Then, I did a quick Google for the lyrics and in my search, I found the Wikipedia entry about the song which has a couple of links, beneath. One of the external links, entitled "The Mystery of Ode to Billy Joe", includes the lyrics and it says that the singer-songwriter didn't know why Billy Joe had committed suicide. In fact, she had meant the song to be about the matter-of-fact manner, the narrator's family was discussing the tragedy.

Another of the linked pages is a discussion of the song and what's remarkable about the posts on this site is the number of people who have made-up a story to flesh-out the lyrics, or who have accepted the movie version of the song as gospel. Though, as you can see from the following YouTube of Bobbie Gentry performing the song on the old Smothers Brothers Show, the staging of her original television interpretation appears to support the idea that the song was mostly about the family.

There will be a follow-up to this post, but because I'd like to frame it around current events and expand upon some of the things that I've said in comments, I'm going to make it a stand-alone entry and I just don't have time to write it now.

With that said, I'm sure everyone is aware that the political season has begun and though this will never become a purely political blog, it is one of my passions, so I thought a word about my approach to the subject may be in order. Toward that end, I could write a bunch of stuff, but that wouldn't be nearly as entertaining as letting Freddy Mercury explain it. Of course, you'll have to do some word substitution, but with the chorus, he pretty much hammers home, the way I think about politics and the upcoming season.


You know, someday they're going to catch-on that Queen's whole catalog is on YouTube and then I'll be SOL.
After all, I still haven't rode my bicycle

I have a bad habit of not retrieving my mail, except maybe once or twice a week, so I don't know exactly which day the newest Rolling Stone arrived, but I got it from the mailbox around dawn on Thursday and started reading it during CSI. As always, I started at the beginning of the magazine and read through the newsblip parts, first. And, it's there where I saw it, way down at the bottom of page fourteen, under the heading of "Downloading"; "Doors, Zep Sue Over Streaming Shows".

It seems that a memorabilia company has acquired a bunch of rights from Bill Graham's estate, among them are old old t-shirts and handbill designs, but that's not the best part and the reason for this post. To draw potential customers and to help sell their merchandise, they're streaming Mr Graham's vast archive of concerts for free.

There's no way that I could list all of the artists: The Dead, Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, Duran Duran, The Cure, The Doors, The Who, Bowie, Bruce, Zappa, Tracy Chapman, B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Muddy Waters; Oh god, I could just go on and on. I mean there's just that many and there are multiple concerts from some of the greats.

In fact, right this very minute, I'm listening to a 1975 Neil Young concert which features two members of his band, plus Levon Helm and two others from The Band, along with Bob Dylan on vocals, piano and a couple of guitars.

Best of all, it only cost a free registration and I could be in heaven for weeks.

• http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com

ETA) Yikes! I don't have the two hours right now, but a 1970 Pink Floyd concert features a 22-minute encore of "Saucerful of Secrets".

Okay - I swear this isn't a video blog, but...

I just saw a young lady's response to SNL's "My Dick in a Box" and though it isn't as funny, probably because she doesn't have a stable of comedy writers, I thought that I would go ahead and embed it. Especially, considering that I was on a reading kick about the plight of third world women yesterday and the subject is still very much on my mind.

As she notes on her website, the video contains a lot of cleavage shots and I'll add that she's a cute hottie with a real nice voice, which probably explains why the song is getting some radio and television play. And from the sound of it, her viral is sweeping the nation, but a quick search of LJ shows that it hasn't been linked from this site very much, thus far.

Therefore, as a public service - "My Box in a Box";


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Related only by virtue of being video content: I crossposted a fascinating film promoting Children of Men and a link to a Charlie Rose to a couple of LJ movie groups and in case anyone is interested, I thought I'd take this opportunity to provide a pointer.

As everyone undoubtedly knows, James Brown died this morning.

The AP quotes Jesse Jackson as saying; "He was dramatic to the end — dying on Christmas Day. Almost a dramatic, poetic moment. He'll be all over the news all over the world today. He would have it no other way." And as the coverage continues, we'll probably all be treated to a more and more retellings of the highs and lows from his career, it would only be fitting. He led such a life.

What I have't heard, as of this writing is anything about the funeral or a memorial service. James Brown was not a shy, humble, retiring person and without making any value judgements, I'd have to say that those he leaves behind probably could use the money from the certain reissues, skyrocketing sales and memorabilia auctions. Perhaps James planned his own funeral, something I'd think he probably would've done and because he was James Brown, I wouldn't be expecting a small, private affair.

So let me be among the first to suggest, a massive memorial, dotted with every luminary he inspired or whom counted him among their friends. He was James Brown. His rags-to-riches story is an inspiration and the way he rose from the circumstances of his birth to become known to several generations, the world over should be celebrated. His life certainly warrants the coverage from a star-studded funeral and though they may have only been acquainted in passing, Bill Clinton should attend on behalf of the people.

The man deserves nothing less.
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ETA: Attached is a two-song medley from the T.A.M.I. show that has so often been mentioned in the obituaries. It's the performance that the Rolling Stones were reluctant to follow and what's also fun about this video, it includes the signature cape trick that Paul Shaffer and the Late Show honored through imitation, forty years later.*

Note: I'm including the YouTube as a link because if you click on the contributor's name, you'll find other segments from the show.

I don't know if it's a sign of future problems, but no matter how many times I show my son how to float a boat in the tub, he insists on sinking it and driving around the bottom.

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In all likelihood, I'm going to have to take my kids and a couple of their friends to see Happy Feet at the local theater sometime this weekend. In preparation, I decided to look to see if there's a story or if it's just an extended music video starring dancing penguins.

I started my research by clickng the big ad on the Yahoo! homepage and I found that there is a story, but what was somewhat surprising is that it lists the following as providing additional music; Prince, Yolanda Adams, Fantasia Barrino, Gia Farrell, Chrissie Hynde, Patti LaBelle, k.d. lang, Jason Mraz and Pink.

Both, the video and ads clearly feature songs from Stevie Wonder and Queen, but it's not until the bottom of the cast list that you find them listed along with Elvis, Lennon and McCartney and quite a few others.

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Perhaps as something of a follow-up to last night's post; This morning I got a slight kick from a wire service "correction" that said it was a placenta which was found in a college toilet on the Navajo Nation and not a fetus, as it was first reported.

Try as I might, I can't find a free electronic copy of the complete little brief that I read, so to footnote this post, I've got to link to the full source which has loads more information. But, what tickled me and kinda-sorta relates to my previous post, one of the responding cops is quoted after being asked about the correction; "It does look like a sack with a child. We're not doctors."

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There was a big guy who walked around town pretending to play drums with his hands, while listening to his iPod. Then, he got some drumsticks and I've seen him all over town miming Metallica or something. Yesterday, I saw him sitting behind a drumset in the back of a pickup and he was serenading the grocery store parking lot, all by playing along with his iPod which we couldn't hear.

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And finally, it's kind of nice that the President has mellowed a bit, he's saying things that implies a willingness to listen to the point of view of others and some of the stuff I've seen, you could almost call him contrite.

Of course the Newsweek cover might have something to do with it, but in celebration of the voter's part and to wrap things up in a neat little bow, here's a YouTube of Freddy Mercury doing "We are the Champions" and another of him singing "Somebody to Love".

For reasons which aren't that important, I've spent a couple of minutes looking for an example interview clip of Judy Garland from her hazy days. Though, she isn't all that stoned and the story isn't rip-roarously funny, it's only amusing, I thought I'd throw out this YouTube of Ms Garland making an appearance on a Jack Paar (2:35);


And, because there's not much which could be finer; You'll probably have to increase the volume, but here's Judy singing her song in a clip from the movie, along with a normal volume cut from a Mike Douglas, where the adult Judy sings the same signature tune.

ER was a rerun and youtubegold appears to be gone, but I needed a fix, so I thought I'd gank something from a couple of weeks ago. Toward that end, here's a YouTube of Tony Blair edited into doing The Clash.


And in case anyone missed it or in the interest of equal time, here's the old standby of GWB doing U2.

That dang-blasted meme where you take song lyrics, run it through Google:Translate and make them German, then take the German and make it French before bringing the whole thing back into English is making the rounds, once again.

As a bit of fun, I halfway wanted to make a point by quoting from an old practitioner of Piedmont Blues, but I don't own the only album which might still be in print and it really wouldn't be fair, if I just typed in the lyrics from the insert of one of my old cassettes which I bought at one of his many club dates, I attended in the mid to late 80s.

This led me to considering doing a one of the more famous story songs from the early 70s, but unfortunately it contains enough place names that anyone could stick them into a search box and out it'd pop. So, I finally decided to call an end to the exercise and do what is easily one of the most famous, most infectious songs from the latter half of the last century. Once again, I don't think it'd be at all difficult, so a lot of the fun is gone, but if anyone would like to play, I've put the thing under a cut.

( This should be way too easy, but it was either this or nothing at all because I got bored )
ETA: I've decided that to save myself from posting guesses to everyone's future memes, I'm just going to say that all songs (except mine) are "Please Don't Talk About Murder While I'm Eating" from Ben Harper's Both Sides of the Gun.

Eventually, you know, I might be right.

As part of my continuing experimentation with embedding a YouTube into a LiveJournal post, I just learned that though you have to code it by hand, you can also post them and the player into a comment. I did this by typing <span class="ljvideo">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKu_QA8Bn9o</span> into the regular interface and it inserted the David Hasselhoff video that I consider a classic and so absurdly amusing, it is great.

And while I'm at it, I recently ran across another Hasselhoff and though the video is nowhere nearly as abstract, the song is funny cute and since I was in my YouTube Favorites anyway, I thought I'd pass along a copy for a Friday night amusement.



I promise that a more substantial post will follow soon.