Alby's Latest Posts
DL Open Thread Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023
The media news-scape is cluttered with war porn, but not so much that it pushed the Trump porn out of the picture. Horse-race stories about the House speakership round out the only news that fits. The big Middle East news is that Joe Biden will travel to Israel and Jordan on Wednesday. He’ll probably find […]
Song of the Day 10/16: Mickey Dolenz, “Shiny Happy People”
Rock is deep into its post-modern phase. How else to explain 78-year-old Mickey Dolenz, the last surviving Monkee, releasing an EP of R.E.M. covers? Well, maybe as time being a flat circle – R.E.M. was one of the first bands to cite the Monkees as an influence. “Shiny Happy People” might be the song that […]
DL Open Thread Monday, Oct. 16, 2023
Whatever you think about the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict, you have to admit that U.S. media picks and chooses its obsessions, and that dwelling on those stories stirs the deranged to action. Which is how you end up with a landlord stabbing a Palestinian woman’s 6-year-old child to death in that hotbed of ethnic strife that […]
Song of the Day 10/15: Madness, “Michael Caine”
Iconic British actor Michael Caine announced yesterday on BBC Radio that, at 90 years old, he’s retiring. “I keep saying I’m going to retire. Well, I am now. I’ve figured, I’ve had a picture where I’ve played the lead and it’s got incredible reviews. The only parts I’m likely to get now are old men.” […]
Song of the Day 10/14: Joni Mitchell, “Banquet”
For Paul and El Som, by request. The original arrangement on “For the Roses” features Joni on piano, but this full band concert performance from her film 1983 film “Refuge of the Roads” brings the song to greater life. The music starts at 1:46, but the old film footage preceding and punctuating it puts the […]
Song of the Day 10/13: Cyndi Lauper, “Money Changes Everything”
What makes so many politicians succumb to the lure of lucre? I think Cyndi Lauper summed it up. Actually, a guy named Tom Gray, who led an Atlanta new wave band in the late ’70s, summed it up first on an indie label in 1978, and did it so well that it got the Brains […]
Song of the Day 10/12: Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
I saw a story last week by a mom whose tweenage daughter told her the term “preppy” equates to “people who wear Nirvana shirts.” It seems that what the youngster called “old band shirts” have replaced sweatshirts emblazoned with merchandiser names (remember Hollister?) as the uni du jour among a certain set. It’s a humorous […]
Song of the Day 10/11: Talking Heads, “Life During Wartime”
The Talking Heads concert film “Stop Making Sense” is getting as much critical acclaim in its recent rerelease as it did when it opened in theaters back in 1984, maybe because the band’s sense of apocalyptic absurdity fits our present reality so well. Enjoy it while you can. As this New Yorker piece makes clear, […]
DL Open Thread Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023
Whether you’re rooting for Israel or Hamas, the media has plenty of atrocity stories to stoke your righteous ire. I’m not linking to any of them because I don’t think war porn serves any useful purpose. For an overview of what the fighting is about, refer to this editorial cartoon. Saddest part of the Israel-Hamas […]
Song of the Day 10/10: U2, “Pride (In the Name of Love)”
Did Hamas deliberately single out the Tribe of Nova trance music festival, where they massacred at least 260 people and took an unknown number hostage? It wouldn’t be the first time terrorists have struck a music audience – the attack on an Eagles of Death Metal concert in Paris’ Bataclan killed 90 people and wounded […]
DL Open Thread Tuesday, October 10, 2023
I’m not following the Hamas-Israeli conflict, but as sportswriter Hugh Keough (not Damon Runyan) observed, “The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that is the way to bet.” An even safer bet: Palestinians in Gaza will bear the brunt of the human cost. Another sure winner: The […]
DL Open Thread Monday, October 9, 2023
Do House Republicans hand out Speaker of the House bonus points for being a kiddie diddler? Dennis Hastert, former high school wrestling coach, served in the office. Now America’s drooling class wants to put Jim Jordan in the job, and while nobody has implicated him in the actual molestation that took place while he was […]
Song of the Day 10/7: Fred Neil, “Dolphins”
Guest post by Nathan Arizona Fred Neil wrote a sad, beautiful and enduring song called “The Dolphins” as a Greenwich Village folk singer in the mid-1960s. “I’ve been searching for the dolphins in the sea,” he sang plaintively. He doesn’t find them. Neil, who suffered from stage fright, soon dropped out of the music business […]
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