Alby's Latest Posts
Song of the Day 9/25: The Association, “Everything That Touches You”
No group suffered a sharper drop in popularity when rock music turned from psychedelic pop to blues-based hard rock than the Association. Terry Kirkman, one of the group’s founders and composer of its biggest hit, died Saturday at age 83. Retroactively lumped under the label of sunshine pop, the Association had its roots in the […]
DL Open Thread Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023
More evidence that once the fetus is out he’s on his own: Texas’ razor-wired Rio Grande has claimed three more victims, one of them a 3-year-old. The Rude Pundit nails it, as usual: Republicans don’t stand up to Trump because, tough guys that they are, they’re a-skeered of his violent followers. Still won’t lock them […]
Song of the Day 9/23: The Band, “Ophelia”
It’s rare that the Atlantic has 15 named storms in a hurricane season, so the odds were slim that we’d get a storm named Ophelia dumping all this rain on Delaware over the weekend. Robbie Robertson wrote it, Levon Helm sings it, but this track is a shining moment for Garth Hudson, the sole surviving […]
DL Open Thread Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023
If you ever decide to hide ill-gotten gains, be smarter than “Gold Bar Bob” Menendez. When stashing cash in the pockets of your jackets, don’t choose one with your name embroidered on it. Also, when googling the price of gold, use “per ounce” in the search field rather than “per kilo.” For his part, Menendez […]
Song of the Day 9/22: Tower of Power, “Don’t Change Horses (In the Middle of a Stream)”
Kevin McCarthy’s inability to control the Cuckoo Caucus has pundits speculating that he’s not long for his gavel, because the cuckoos are all for 86ing him. I don’t expect they’d take Tower of Power’s advice, because they don’t take anyone’s advice. Advice is for cucks. But I would remind them that the only difference between […]
DL Open Thread Friday, Sept. 22, 2023
Republicans are in disarray amid another poo-flinging fight between Team Dumb and Team Dumber. A government shutdown looks all but inevitable. I’m sure it will go as well as it usually does for the party whose mascot is Dumbo. On the other hand, people keep voting for them, proving that the real dumbos number about […]
Song of the Day 9/21: Stevie Wonder, “He’s Misstra Know-It-All”
Jann Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone magazine and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, embroiled himself in controversy this week – not for the first time – when he botched a New York Times interview for his just-published book of interviews, “The Masters.” When David Marchese pointed out that the seven “masters” he […]
DL Open Thread Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023
Democrats who base their political decisions on what they think independents and Republicans might do still want to dump Joe Biden, so it probably won’t change their minds that Biden continues to enact more progressive policies than anyone predicted. His latest move: creation of an American Climate Corps by executive order, after Republicans in Congress […]
Song of the Day 9/20: Jim Croce, “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels)”
Nobody called it the Day the Music Died, but 50 years ago today Philadelphia-born singer-songwriter Jim Croce was killed in a plane crash in Natchitoches, La., cutting short his career just as it was peaking. He was 30 years old. Croce started out in the mid-’60s, performing with his wife as a folk duo, but […]
Song of the Day 9/19: Maren Morris, “Get the Hell Out of Here”
Country music’s instincts have always been reactionary. Back in 1969, when people were realizing Richard Nixon’s promise to end the war in Viet Nam was bullshit, Merle Haggard wrote “Okie From Muskogee” because he thought the protesters were wrong. “America was at its peak, and what the hell did these kids have to complain about?” […]
Song of the Day 9/18: Joe South, “Games People Play”
It’s hard to tell nowadays, but pop psychology wasn’t always with us. The book that brought it to the masses was published in 1964 by psychiatrist Eric Berne, who noticed that a lot of the interpersonal problems his patients described fit certain patterns. From that, he developed what he called transactional analysis. Berne trained as […]
Song of the Day 9/17: Jewel Akens, “The Birds and the Bees”
A little heavy petting music for Lauren Boebert, along with a suggestion that next time she get a room. Jewel Akens sang with a number of doo-wop groups in the ’50s and early ’60s, but he had his only Top 40 hit with his 1964 release “The Birds and the Bees,” which reached No. 3 […]
DL Open Thread Sunday, Sept. 17, 2023
Josh Marshall makes the hard-to-argue-with case that the Republican reaction to their politically disastrous SCOTUS victory on abortion proves they don’t give a flying fuck about babies. Like that was ever in doubt. Lauren “36-Year-Old Grandma” Boebert giving a handjob in a theater isn’t the only sign that Republicans are lying about their belief in […]
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