Alby's Latest Posts
Song of the Day 1/11: Billy Pilgrim, “Insomniac”
Folk-rock duo Billy Pilgrim formed in Atlanta in the early ’90s, when R.E.M. was breaking indie music into the mainstream. Because both Kristian Bush and Andrew Hyra wrote songs, played guitars and shared lead vocals, music critics dubbed them the Indigo Boys (it helped that Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls sang background vocals on […]
Song of the Day 1/10: Wheatus, “Teenage Dirtbag”
Wheatus is a one-hit wonder whose big hit is more than 20 years old, but it’s become a classic because it’s been revived so many times over the years. Brendan Brown formed the band in his hometown of Northport, Long Island, which became famous when he was a child for a Satanic murder by a […]
DL Open Thread Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024
The Israeli attempt to wipe out Hamas has brought widespread condemnation, but since calls on conscience are doing nothing to dissuade Netanyahu from his murderous course. So the focus of criticism seems to have shifted toward worries about the war widening to the entire region, with the new Axis of Evil shaping up as Iran, […]
DL Open Thread Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024
Some of the aides who flipped on Trumpo gave Jack Smith damning evidence about the traitor’s behavior as the attack on the Capitol unfolded on Jan. 6. True to form, the fatass was glued to the tube and refused to act to stop the violence. Motherfucker is as guilty as he is ugly. The Republican […]
Song of the Day 1/8: Fountains of Wayne, “Hey Julie”
For a while there, when the pandemic forced most people to work from home and most of the work got done anyway, Americans looked forward to a future free of commuting to offices. Problem was, without workers in an office, middle managers had nothing to do, and it showed. So over the past year those […]
DL Open Thread Monday, Jan. 8, 2024
Brace yourselves for a tsunsami of Trump-in-court news this week as the human colostomy bag faces deadlines and hearings in three of the legal cases against him. I predict those tiny thumbs will get an unprecedented workout as he spews his pixelated spittle all week long. The best thing about having a death cult as […]
Song of the Day 1/7: Insane Clown Posse, “Miracles”
I still can’t get over Trump’s bonkers statement about magnets, to wit: “Now all I know about magnets is this: Give me a glass of water, let me drop it on the magnets, that’s the end of the magnets.” So he knows even less about magnets than he thinks he does. Turns out Trump has […]
Song of the Day 1/6: Lynyrd Skynyrd, “That Smell”
Given the media’s eight-year obsession with Donald Trump, you would think the fact that he’s odiferous would have emerged before now. A person of my close acquaintance who interviewed him several times back in the ’90s, when he was having an affair with Marla Maples and doing his best to pretend he wasn’t, said at […]
Song of the Day 1/4: Coven, “One Tin Soldier”
Unless you grew up in the ’60s, it’s hard to imagine how naive the Boomers were in their youth. They actually thought singing about peace could bring it about. Nowadays music venues are frequent targets for mass violence, from the Pulse nightclub to the Las Vegas country music festival to the Nova music festival in […]
Song of the Day 1/4: T Bone Burnett, “Humans From Earth”
T Bone Burnett is well-known and widely respected as a producer, but before he embarked on that career he was a guitarist – he played in Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue in the ’70s – and started a solo career that saw him release albums in musical styles ranging from New Wave to country. This song […]
DL Open Thread Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024
Gold Bar Bob Menendez used his position as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to run quite a racket, according to his new federal indictment. It doesn’t add any new charges, but the details of how Menendez did favors for his wheeler-dealer campaign contributors and foreign governments, including Qatar as well as Egypt, illustrate […]
Song of the Day 1/2: Green Day, “The American Dream Is Killing Me”
Punk-pop veterans and Rock Hall of Famers Green Day waded into America’s politico-cultural wars on New Year’s Eve when frontman Billie Joe Armstrong altered a line of the band’s signature song, “American Idiot,” by proclaiming, “I’m not part of the MAGA agenda.” MAGAts reacted predictably, but they shouldn’t have been surprised. The song was written […]
DL Open Thread Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024
Former labor secretary Robert Reich used his year-end column to make a point I’ve long believed: The perception that America’s quality of life is declining is linked to the fact that wealth is increasingly concentrated in fewer hands. In his words, the American Dream is vanishing. Over the past 40 years, the earnings of the […]
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