Karl WE HAVE A NEW SERVER, thanks to our trusty administrator, Lance. So we hope that the site will not be as slow as it was the past couple of weeks. We do ask that you pardon our dust while we (Who am I kidding? By “we” I mean Lance) work out any bugs in the system. And I will presume to thank Lance on behalf of our growing community of visitors for going above and beyond the call of duty.
THE TEN BEST ROCK MOVIES: A conversation starter, courtesy of The Daily Breeze. All good choices, but one can argue for certain omissions. For example, what about This Is Elvis, a warts-and-all bio with Presley melting down midway through “Are you Lonesome Tonight?” Or possibly High Fidelity, using the writer's own broad criteria. RELATED: This Is Spinal Tap co-creator Christopher Guest says he's done making mockumentaries: “I had always intended to do just three movies in that format, and then do something else. I don't think I'll go back to the documentary-style genre.” Actually, Guest has done four mockumentaries: Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best In Show and A Mighty Wind. That's… one more than three, Nigel.
THE POSIES are reuniting for a new album and wordwide tour this summer.
THE DELGADOS, in contrast, are disbanding. In tribute, Chromewaves posts a Peel Seesion cover of ELO's “Mr. Blue Sky” for download. Not quite as trancendent as the Fountains of Wayne's even more'Lennonesque-than-Lynne version of “Can't Get It Out of My Head,” but still fun.
SPEAKING OF FUN DOWNLOADS, Kyla at Information Leafblower has a bunch from his April iPod playlist online. I would recommend checking out the MP3s from Bloc Party, which just released its disc and got a boffo writeup on the Pitchfork for its live show in Chicago. I would also give a listen to the cut from Feist. Leslie Feist's solo disc comes out in the U.S. on the 26th, but the import got a rave on the Pitchfork also. Her solo stuff seems to have much more of a classic Sade-Steely Dan-Everything But the Girl sort of vibe. She has a lovely voice. However, Feist's regular band, Broken Social Scene, must still be together also, as it's scheduled for the Pitchfork's Intonation Festival in Chicago this July.
JEFF TWEEDY talks filesharing with the BBC, noting that he still likes “putting out artefacts.” You can stream audio of the show — which also has a bit about Queen — from the Beeb's Music Biz page.
THE BRAVERY frontman Sam Endicott responds to The Killers lead singer Brandon Flowers' slam of the Bravery as poseurs.
THE COOKIE MONSTER is being forced to moderate his appetite and learn that a cookie is a “sometimes” food. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is all for it. The Schiavo case was one thing, but taking away cookies from the Cookie Monster? BTW, one of the benefits of the wall-to-wall coverage of the Pope's death and the royal wedding was that we missed out on wall-to-wall coverage of the case of Ora Mae Magouirk, who was awake and not in a persistent vegetative state or terminally ill, but apparently had relatives and a doctor trying to deny her nourishment, despite a living will with contrary directions.
ROYAL WEDDING: I didn't post anything about it beforehand, but I can't help noting that Charles and Camilla have to do pentinence to get their marriage blessed by the Church of England. The Prince and the new Duchess of Cornwall joined the congregation in reading the strongest act of penitence from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer: “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, Which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, by thought, word and deed, Against thy Divine Majesty, Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.”
THE BEAUTIFUL tend to make more money and get promoted more often, according to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Even so, spending up to $1,700 monthly on beauty products seems a bit much. on the other hand, if your employer is stupid enough to discriminate against you and call you too ugly for the job, a jury might award you $29 million.
I MAY BE A GEEK, but I'm nowhere near this guy's league.
PROFESSOR HAL 2000: A University of Missouri sociology professor has developed a computer program that grades papers and offers students writing advice.
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH: Scientists said this week they had drilled into the lower section of Earth's crust for the first time and were poised to break through to the mantle in coming years.
SUFJAN STEVENS has announced a tracklist for his forthcoming concept disc about Illinois. Many of the titles are a hoot, like “Riffs And Variations on A Single Note For Jelly Roll, Earl Hines, Louis Armstrong, Baby Dodds, And The King Of Swing, To Name A Few,” but my fave may be “Come on! Feel The Illinoise!”
AIMEE MANN talks to the Guardian about her obsessions and about starting her own label: “Now my fame level is low, but my income is higher than it would be if I were on a major label. It's the best of both worlds.”
VIBE MAGAZINE is caught sampling Esquire.
ELTON JOHN still has problems balancing the ol' checkbook, with an overdraft of nearly £27million.
GENE SIMMONS of KISS has signed on to star in six episodes of VH1's Rock School, a reality series inspired by the hit movie, School of Rock, according to Daily Variety.
PETE DOHERTY UPDATE: The troubled Babyshambles singer may be engaged to superwaif Kate Moss, but an ex-galpal calls him a a one-minute wonder in bed with a less-than-impressive endowment, though she attributes the former to his drug habit at the time.
TATUM O'NEAL went on a liquor-fueled lesbian rampage last week at a trendy NYC hipster lounge.
THE TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION is slated for dismantling.
CANADA: Justice Gomery has partially removed a ban on reporting testimony in the Adscam investigation that threatens to topple the Canadian government. The Globe and Mail published a detailed overview of the claims made in the controversial testimony. The House of Commons erupted in partisan debate shortly after the ban was lifted. Prime Minister Martin refused to answer questions about the scandal en route to the Pope's funeral.
NANOTECH: An article in Forbes magazine frets about a possible rush to regulate nanotech research: “How can you intelligently discuss and regulate something that is still in the discovery and development stage, before it really exists in a practical manufacturing sense?”
DEMOCRATIC DIAGNOSIS: Michael Walzer, a co-editor of Dissent magazine, writes about the importance of values, among other things, in the post-9/11 world: “If we want to protect the American people against environmental degradation, or nuclear accidents, or pandemic disease, or the vagaries of the market, or long-term unemployment, or destitution in old age, then we need to make the case that we can also protect them against terrorist attack.”
NORTH KOREAN NUKE MATERIAL ended up in Libya, according to Christopher Hill, the main U.S. envoy on the North Korea nuclear standoff. Hill said said there is “physical evidence that the material that arrived in Libya had started its journey” in North Korea. He said the evidence was “beyond my reasonable doubt.” Of course, the U.S. has been plagued by bad intelligence on such matters, but Libya's cooperation with the U.S. on these issues may have produced some good intell for a change.
SOUTH KOREA plans to deploy a droid army along the DMZ, hoping that Kim Jong Il is not working on a clone army.
GREEN HERESIES: Stewart Brand, founder of The Whole Earth Catalog and co-founder of the Well, predicts that over the next ten years, “the mainstream of the environmental movement will reverse its opinion and activism in four major areas: population growth, urbanization, genetically engineered organisms, and nuclear power.”
IRAQ: Saddam Hussein could escape the noose under a secret proposal by insurgent leaders that Iraq’s new administration is “seriously considering”, a senior government source said yesterday.
IRAQ AND JOURNOS: An Iraqi freelance cameraman for CBS shot during a battle between U.S. soldiers and suspected insurgents has been detained on suspicion of insurgent activity. CNN reports that a U.S. military official said at least four videos in the man's camera show roadside bomb attacks on U.S. troops. All had been shot in a manner that suggested the cameraman had prior knowledge of the attacks and had scouted a shooting location in sight of the target. CBS says the man was referred to the network by a “fixer” in Tikrit “who has had a trusted relationship with CBS News for two years. It is common practice in Iraq for Western news organizations to hire local cameramen in places considered too dangerous for Westerners to work effectively.”
CBS is right about that last part — the Associated Press gave an almost identical explanation when people noticed that an Iraqi AP stringer seemed to be in just the right place at just the right time to to photograph the assassination of Iraqi election workers. The media seems to have little problem with its reliance on Iraqi stringers whose agendas or relationships with insurgents are unknown or undisclosed. Indeed, one of those assassination photos just won a Pulitzer. And a former New York Times photographer thinks that photo had “all the earmarks of a planned image.” CBS News may trust a “fixer” from Saddam Hussein's hometown, but the investigation of this cameraman may tell a diffferent story.
IRAQ AND JOURNOS — THE LIGHTER SIDE: The New York Times has fired Baghdad Bureau Chief Susan Sachs over allegations that she sent anonymous letters and an e-mail to the wives of her ex-colleagues, Baghdad correspondents Dexter Filkins and John Burns, alleging bad behavior with women in the war zone. Sachs has denied the charges, with arbitration proceedings to determine whether what goes on in Baghdad stays in Baghdad.
YOUR TAX DOLLARS: The Secret Service is protecting a mother duck and her nine eggs, nesting on a mulch pile right at the main entrance to the Treasury Department on Pennsylvania Avenue. Awwww…
WAR ON TERROR: The Atlanta Joint Terrorism Task Force has issued a special alert bulletin concerning a man who allegedly took flight lessons while in the United States illegally. Zayed Christopher Hajaig had no means of income, used calling cards to communicate with associates and fled to Britain possibly when he was alerted to the task force's interest in him. Two of the hijackers involved in the 9/11 attacks trained for a time at the same airport where Hajaig took lessons. ALSO: Two Failed Terrorism Trials Raise Worry in Europe.
GLOBAL DANDRUFF: Millions of tons of dandruff are circling the Earth, blocking out sunlight, causing rain and spreading disease, startling new research shows. We must get the U.N. on this right away. I don’t think this one can be pinned on the U.S. After all, when it comes to dandruff, isn’t the U.S. head and shoulders above the rest of the world? Thank you very much, ladies and germs; I’ll be here all week.
ROGER AILES of the Fox News Channel has been out promoting plan to launch a financial news offshoot network and knows the value of being quotable, Asked about his education, Ailes replies, “I went to a state school because they told me I could drink.” About the competition in cable news, Ailes might say, “MSNBC has hired every blonde who doesn’t work for us.” And that's mild compared to what he said about CNN.
MICROSOFT AND THE MOUNTIES hunt kiddie pornographers: Microsoft Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Toronto police, the Department of Homeland Security, Scotland Yard and Interpol have come up with the Child Exploitation Tracking System, which will allow police worldwide to link information such as credit card purchases, Internet chat room messages and arrest records.
MONTANA outlaws drinking while driving. So much for my vacation plans…
