Yes, this makes me feel even more fortunate that I was able to make it to London last December...
Plant slams door on Led Zep tour By Ian Youngs Music reporter, BBC News
Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant has scotched rumours that he is to tour with the band, describing speculation as "frustrating and ridiculous".
Last week, The Sun newspaper reported that he had agreed to a reunion tour.
But he has not and will not go on the road with anyone for at least two years after finishing US dates with Alison Krauss on 5 October, a statement said.
"Contrary to a spate of recent reports, Robert Plant will not be touring or recording with Led Zeppelin," it said.
"Anyone buying tickets online to any such event will be buying bogus tickets."
The rock legends got back together for a one-off concert, their first for 19 years, in London last December.
At the time, promoters said 20 million people tried to register for tickets as soon as they became available.
Speculation has since been rife that the surviving members of the band, with Jason Bonham, son of their late drummer John, would hit the road for a highly lucrative tour.
"It's both frustrating and ridiculous for this story to continue to rear its head when all the musicians that surround the story are keen to get on with their individual projects and move forward," Plant said.
"I wish Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham nothing but success with any future projects."
Plant has been reluctant to consider other projects during his fruitful collaboration with bluegrass singer Krauss.
Their album Raising Sand has earned them a Grammy Award and a Mercury Music Prize nomination, among other honours.
The other band members, meanwhile, are believed to be keen to work together again.
In August, Jason Bonham told a US radio station that he had been working on new material with Page and Jones.
The Sun has also reported that the trio have auditioned new singers to replace Plant on tour.
Meanwhile, guitarist Page was last seen performing Led Zeppelin's classic Whole Lotta Love with pop star Leona Lewis during the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.
Sitting on the couch and listening to Led Zeppelin at the Los Angeles Forum from March 27, 1970 and reading Keith Shadwick's book. In an odd coincidence, I was reading about their sixth American tour and the two gigs at Madison Square Garden (Plant comments on Jimi's death at bothshows).
The encore of Communication Breakdown ended and you hear the tapers trying to get their heads together because they are obviously wrecked out of their minds. They leave the recorder running for quite a while and you can hear someone from the venue (perhaps the promoter) get on the stage mic and announce that "Tickets for Jimi Hendrix..." [remaining crowd goes apeshit] "...will go on sale next Wednesday. That's Jimi Hendrix - he'll be here April 25, tickets go on sale next Wednesday."
Just a cool atmospheric moment in the experience of listening to a bootleg, especially late at night. You allow yourself to think about being at the show. Zeppelin has just played for two hours, and the guy comes on and says, 'oh yeah - Hendrix will be along next month...' And of course you think... well, I could really use a time machine...
A little over ten years ago when I was first getting into Zeppelin, I used to beg my friend Ben, drummer in The Sophisticated Assholes, to play along to this song. He seldom obliged......
(Achilles Last Stand)
This guy's name is Beau Ferchaud, apparently a YouTube superstar.
Here are a couple more...
(Good Times Bad Times)
and of course this one's nice... here he handles The Crunge and The Ocean. The Crunge seems like it would be even more difficult with its odd time signatures...
Now that he’s finally fired up on the soup-line economy, Barack Obama knows he can’t fade out again. He was eager to talk privately to a Democratic ex-president who could offer more fatherly wisdom — not to mention a surreptitious smoke — and less fraternal rivalry. I called the “West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin (yes, truly) to get a read-out of the meeting. This is what he wrote:
BARACK OBAMA knocks on the front door of a 300-year-old New Hampshire farmhouse while his Secret Service detail waits in the driveway. The door opens and OBAMA is standing face to face with former President JED BARTLET.
BARTLET Senator.
OBAMA Mr. President.
BARTLET You seem startled.
OBAMA I didn’t expect you to answer the door yourself.
BARTLET I didn’t expect you to be getting beat by John McCain and a Lancôme rep who thinks “The Flintstones” was based on a true story, so let’s call it even.
OBAMA Yes, sir.
BARTLET Come on in.
BARTLET leads OBAMA into his study.
BARTLET That was a hell of a convention.
OBAMA Thank you, I was proud of it.
BARTLET I meant the Republicans. The Us versus Them-a-thon. As a Democrat I was surprised to learn that I don’t like small towns, God, people with jobs or America. I’ve been a little out of touch but is there a mandate that the vice president be skilled at field dressing a moose —
OBAMA Look —
BARTLET — and selling Air Force Two on eBay?
OBAMA Joke all you want, Mr. President, but it worked.
BARTLET Imagine my surprise. What can I do for you, kid?
OBAMA I’m interested in your advice.
BARTLET I can’t give it to you.
OBAMA Why not?
BARTLET I’m supporting McCain.
OBAMA Why?
BARTLET He’s promised to eradicate evil and that was always on my “to do” list.
OBAMA O.K. —
BARTLET And he’s surrounded himself, I think, with the best possible team to get us out of an economic crisis. Why, Sarah Palin just said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had “gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers.” Can you spot the error in that statement?
OBAMA Yes, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aren’t funded by taxpayers.
BARTLET Well, at least they are now. Kind of reminds you of the time Bush said that Social Security wasn’t a government program. He was only off by a little — Social Security is the largest government program.
OBAMA I appreciate your sense of humor, sir, but I really could use your advice.
BARTLET Well, it seems to me your problem is a lot like the problem I had twice.
OBAMA Which was?
BARTLET A huge number of Americans thought I thought I was superior to them.
OBAMA And?
BARTLET I was.
OBAMA I mean, how did you overcome that?
BARTLET I won’t lie to you, being fictional was a big advantage.
OBAMA What do you mean?
BARTLET I’m a fictional president. You’re dreaming right now, Senator.
OBAMA I’m asleep?
BARTLET Yes, and you’re losing a ton of white women.
OBAMA Yes, sir.
BARTLET I mean tons.
OBAMA I understand.
BARTLET I didn’t even think there were that many white women.
OBAMA I see the numbers, sir. What do they want from me?
BARTLET I’ve been married to a white woman for 40 years and I still don’t know what she wants from me.
OBAMA How did you do it?
BARTLET Well, I say I’m sorry a lot.
OBAMA I don’t mean your marriage, sir. I mean how did you get America on your side?
BARTLET There again, I didn’t have to be president of America, I just had to be president of the people who watched “The West Wing.”
OBAMA That would make it easier.
BARTLET You’d do very well on NBC. Thursday nights in the old “ER” time slot with “30 Rock” as your lead-in, you’d get seven, seven-five in the demo with a 20, 22 share — you’d be selling $450,000 minutes.
OBAMA What the hell does that mean?
BARTLET TV talk. I thought you’d be interested.
OBAMA I’m not. They pivoted off the argument that I was inexperienced to the criticism that I’m — wait for it — the Messiah, who, by the way, was a community organizer. When I speak I try to lead with inspiration and aptitude. How is that a liability?
BARTLET Because the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.
OBAMA You’re saying race doesn’t have anything to do with it?
BARTLET I wouldn’t go that far. Brains made me look arrogant but they make you look uppity. Plus, if you had a black daughter —
OBAMA I have two.
BARTLET — who was 17 and pregnant and unmarried and the father was a teenager hoping to launch a rap career with “Thug Life” inked across his chest, you’d come in fifth behind Bob Barr, Ralph Nader and a ficus.
OBAMA You’re not cheering me up.
BARTLET Is that what you came here for?
OBAMA No, but it wouldn’t kill you.
BARTLET Have you tried doing a two-hour special or a really good Christmas show?
OBAMA Sir —
BARTLET Hang on. Home run. Right here. Is there any chance you could get Michelle pregnant before the fall sweeps?
OBAMA The problem is we can’t appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?
BARTLET Well ... let me think. ...We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family’s less safe than it was eight years ago, we’ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know ... I’m a little angry.
OBAMA What would you do?
BARTLETGET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!
OBAMA Good to get that off your chest?
BARTLET Am I keeping you from something?
OBAMA Well, it’s not as if I didn’t know all of that and it took you like 20 minutes to say.
BARTLET I know, I have a problem, but admitting it is the first step.
OBAMA What’s the second step?
BARTLET I don’t care.
OBAMA So what about hope? Chuck it for outrage and put-downs?
BARTLET No. You’re elite, you can do both. Four weeks ago you had the best week of your campaign, followed — granted, inexplicably — by the worst week of your campaign. And you’re still in a statistical dead heat. You’re a 47-year-old black man with a foreign-sounding name who went to Harvard and thinks devotion to your country and lapel pins aren’t the same thing and you’re in a statistical tie with a war hero and a Cinemax heroine. To these aged eyes, Senator, that’s what progress looks like. You guys got four debates. Get out of my house and go back to work.
OBAMA Wait, what is it you always used to say? When you hit a bump on the show and your people were down and frustrated? You’d give them a pep talk and then you’d always end it with something. What was it ...?
The show was much better than I anticipated last night. I had low expectations after hearing some samples of the new lead singer (Brett Scallions [ex-Fuel] replaced Ian Astbury [The Cult] in 2007) on YouTube and elsewhere. The crowd was very much into the show and very loud, burying Scallions's vocals a bit. I have some suspicions that his vocals were also buried a bit in the mix according to Manzarek's instructions (he definitely seems to be in charge of the venture) - but of course I can't prove that. The venue's doors opened at 7:30, so people had about an hour and forty minutes of the access to the bar before the show even started at 9:10 or so. That may have helped the general impression as well.
Ray Manzarek played up his Southside Chicago roots throughout the night, and even had members of his elementary school (Everett) in attendance at the side of the stage (they all had earplugs in, and some looked happier than others during the performance - some nodded their heads and tapped their feet, while others obviously yearned for stronger hearing protection, crossed their arms, and stared at the audience).
As for the individual songs - Love Me Two Times and Break On Through were solid, although Scallions especially seemed a little timid - perhaps cautious about the crowd's reaction to him.
When The Music's Over was excellent for the most part, until the mood was broken a bit in the "I hear a very gentle sound..." section with some humor between Ray and Brett, but I suppose that's the moment when Jim Morrison regularly chose to burp into the microphone during Doors shows - so perhaps it was by design. Peace Frog was a little shaky, but one of my favorite tracks, so I'm glad they played it. Predictably, a big cheer went up for the "Blood on the streets in the town of Chicago" lines.
I thought Waiting For The Sun was quite strong - it sounded really heavy, just like it should. Alabama Song was never one of my favorites, but the converted old German song had a lot of positive feedback from the Manzarek elementary school contingent...
Gloria (G-L-O-R-I-A) was something that a girl in the audience had apparently begged the singer to play while talking with him before the show. The Van Morrison/Them track used to be a regular in The Doors' sets.
Krieger's intro to Spanish Caravan and the song itself were done pretty well, but one of the real highlights was Soft Parade. They even repeated the ending portion ("...calling on the dogs...") after the conclusion of the song, to the delight of those in the audience. This was one of the songs that benefitted from having an actual bass player as opposed to the Fender Rhodes keyboard bass that Ray used to employ (in the classic Doors lineup, he played the Fender with his left hand and a Vox organ with his right).
Touch Me had a kind of odd "Sex Machine" (James Brown) introduction, but it was one of the better tracks on the night once it got underway.
The regular set ended with a pretty decent rendition L.A. Woman and the band left the stage, Mr. Mojo Risin' having risen again. They re-entered to the sounds of rolling thunder, and one guy in front of me was already writing 'Riders on...' when the first tinkling keyboard came in. Manzarek made a big show of being indecisive on whether to wrap things up after that, but of course they stayed. After a Morrison-like "whaddaya guys wanna hear?" - the crowd coalesced behind a chant of "Light - My - Fire, LIGHT - MY - FIRE" and that's exactly what they played. Ray did his customary right-foot-on-the-keyboard move as part of his time in the spotlight and the call-and-response keyboard-guitar battle with Robby. The only weird part came during the long instrumental middle section when bassist Phil Chen took a solo, which seemed out of place. This was very un-Doors-like, due to their never having a bass player on stage.
Manzarek brought his cheering section out into the middle of the stage after Light My Fire. It was kind of cute to see a bunch of old people (who aren't rock stars) waving to the crowd. Not sure if Ray wanted to hang out with them afterward, since many of them looked ready to get to bed.
Ray was in good spirits most of the evening, but he didn't do as much talking as I've seen/heard him do; he was very cognizant of the boisterous crowd and sensed that they just wanted to hear the hits, and he made sure they heard most of them. The setlists for the band change from night to night, but last night's crowd didn't seem to want to hear things like My Eyes Have Seen You, Love Street, The Spy, or other songs like that, so I suppose considering that, the set was fitting.
Robby moved around the stage quite a bit and really soaked up energy from the crowd. The guy's 62 (although he looks about ten years older), but he definitely seemed to be enjoying himself and moved around a lot. He came to our side of the stage (we were in front of Ray on the left side, about 3-4 rows back) quite often. Krieger is still very fluid and fluent on his Gibson SG. The classical/flamenco guitar on an acoustic/electric as an introduction to Spanish Caravan is a nice touch. (see a similar performance here, from Edmonton last year)
It was difficult for me to evaluate Brett Scallions. He has unquestionable charisma and rockstar-type moves, but as I indicated above, his vocals were hard to make out much of the time. I saw him grimace one time when his voice cracked (either WTMO or Peace Frog - can't remember now), looking upset with himself, but other than that he seemed to sing well. His voice is simply different from what I'm used to on Doors tracks (I even got used to Astbury by watching their L.A. Woman DVD from a few years ago, during which the band played that album [minus Crawling King Snake, which can be heard only during the end credits]). From what I could judge, he did fairly well. He's got a tough job, and I'm sure there will be many that are critical of him.
Of course, that assumes that any critics are really evaluating these shows. I would guess that the band has been written off, grouped by most into that cadre of bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd and Foghat that might tour extensively behind an established name but have few members from the classic core lineup. I had a great time though, and I think most of the audience did as well. In the end, I guess that's what matters.
As you can see from the picture, there was a bit of a struggle over the setlist after the show. Laura and I were actually competing with some other guy without knowing we were competing against each other. I believe they opened with Love Me Two Times and Break on Through, so the full setlist would be:
Love Me Two Times Break On Through When The Music's Over Peace Frog Waiting For The Sun Alabama Song Gloria -Robby's Flamenco Introduction- Spanish Caravan The Soft Parade Touch Me L.A. Woman
-Encore Break- Riders On The Storm Light My Fire *(Roadhouse Blues was not played, despite being on the list)
Unfortunately, there are no pictures of Ray (or anyone other than Robby, for that matter). The ticket clearly stated "No Cameras" but there were times when I believed I was the only one without one. The pictures you see were taken with my phone (a practice I normally loathe, but we were close enough to the stage for these moderately shitty images). The only one I took of Ray was very blurry and soon after that, my battery was basically dead.
Some background on the current lineup of musicians:
I had seen Manzarek and Krieger as part of 'The Doors of the 21st Century' (or D21C, as they were sometimes called) at the third show of their D21C incarnation in Fall of '02 in Barrie, Ontario at Molson Park on September 29, 2002. A few 'deeper cuts' were heard at that show (in contrast to last night's).
Apparently Manzarek was originally keen to tour simply as The Doors, but was sued by John Densmore (drummer for The Doors), as well as the estate of Jim Morrison... thus the first change of name. Back then, they had Stewart Copeland on drums (from The Police), Ian Astbury on vocals (of The Cult), and a bass player named Angelo Barbera, who played with Krieger's band. The lineup has changed quite a bit since that time. Stewart Copeland was out by early 2003 after breaking an arm. He promptly sued the band for breach of contract and the parties eventually reached a settlement. The original suit (brought by Densmore and the Morrison estate) eventually resulted in no damages awarded, but a ruling that Manzarek and Krieger cannot use The Doors logo, name, or images of Jim Morrison to promote their new band. Changes since that day in 2002: Ty Dennis (formerly of the Robby Krieger Band) assumed the drum stool immediately from Copeland and has been with the group since early 2003. Angelo Barbera is out, replaced by Phil Chen (who has worked with Rod Stewart and others) in 2005. Ian Astbury left the band in early 2007 to re-join The Cult full-time. Astbury was replaced by Brett Scallions, formerly of the band Fuel. While the British-born Astbury was definitely channeling Morrison at certain times (not to mention growing out his hair and wearing Morrison-esque shades), Scallions is decidedly not much of a Morrison clone. Astbury seemed to be chosen with the specific intent of having stoned audience members squint and see The Lizard King. When Scallions joined the band, he had blond spiky hair. He has since grown it out a bit, but his voice is certainly further away from Jim's voice than Astbury's ever was - which isn't necessarily a bad thing if these guys ever decide on trying to create new music. However, it doesn't seem like that's the objective right now.
One of my favorite songs from the Raising Sand album, this Townes Van Zandt track has a different arrangement in concert. Here is the performance I saw at Bonnaroo, June 15, 2008.
I should warn you that if you find humor in the column below, you must obviously be an elitist snob. You must be someone who sips Chablis and eats arugula after buying it at Whole Foods Market and driving home in your Prius.
Or not. But of course that's how many Obama supporters are routinely caricatured on cable news. There are so many ridiculous imagined voting blocs... Reagan Democrats, Lunch-Bucket Democrats, NASCAR dads, soccer moms, hockey moms, Wal*Mart moms, wine-drinkers, beer-drinkers. The discussions frequently tread into the the land of the absurd.
The satire below reflects the Palin interview with Charles (or Charlie, as Palin repeatedly called him during their conversations) Gibson, and her standard stump speech, which has been minimally altered since the Republican convention. Anyway, read and enjoy.
Explaining how she felt when John McCain offered her the Vice-Presidential spot, my Vice-Presidential candidate, Governor Sarah Palin, said something very profound: “I answered him ‘Yes’ because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can’t blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we’re on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can’t blink. So I didn’t blink then even when asked to run as his running mate.”
Isn’t that so true? I know that many times, in my life, while living it, someone would come up and, because of I had good readiness, in terms of how I was wired, when they asked that—whatever they asked—I would just not blink, because, knowing that, if I did blink, or even wink, that is weakness, therefore you can’t, you just don’t. You could, but no—you aren’t.
That is just how I am.
Do you know the difference between me and a Hockey Mom who has forgot her lipstick?
A dog collar.
Do you know the difference between me and a dog collar smeared with lipstick?
Not a damn thing.
We are essentially wired identical.
So, when Barack Obama says he will put some lipstick on my pig, I am, like, Are you calling me a pig? If so, thanks! Pigs are the most non-Élite of all barnyard animals. And also, if you put lipstick on my pig, do you know what the difference will be between that pig and a pit bull? I’ll tell you: a pit bull can easily kill a pig. And, as the pig dies, guess what the Hockey Mom is doing? Going to her car, putting on more lipstick, so that, upon returning, finding that pig dead, she once again looks identical to that pit bull, which, staying on mission, the two of them step over the dead pig, looking exactly like twins, except the pit bull is scratching his lower ass with one frantic leg, whereas the Hockey Mom is carrying an extra hockey stick in case Todd breaks his again. But both are going, like, Ha ha, where’s that dumb pig now? Dead, that’s who, and also: not a smidge of lipstick.
A lose-lose for the pig.
There’s a lesson in that, I think.
Who does that pig represent, and that collar, and that Hockey Mom, and that pit bull?
You figure it out. Then give me a call.
Seriously, give me a call.
Now, let us discuss the Élites. There are two kinds of folks: Élites and Regulars. Why people love Sarah Palin is, she is a Regular. That is also why they love me. She did not go to some Élite Ivy League college, which I also did not. Her and me, actually, did not go to the very same Ivy League school. Although she is younger than me, so therefore she didn’t go there slightly earlier than I didn’t go there. But, had I been younger, we possibly could have not graduated in the exact same class. That would have been fun. Sarah Palin is hot. Hot for a politician. Or someone you just see in a store. But, happily, I did not go to college at all, having not finished high school, due to I killed a man. But had I gone to college, trust me, it would not have been some Ivy League Élite-breeding factory but, rather, a community college in danger of losing its accreditation, built right on a fault zone, riddled with asbestos, and also, the crack-addicted professors are all dyslexic.
Sarah Palin was also the mayor of a very small town. To tell the truth, this is where my qualifications begin to outstrip even hers. I have never been the mayor of anything. I can’t even spell right. I had help with the above, but now— Murray, note to Murray: do not correct what follows. Lets shoe the people how I rilly spel Mooray and punshuate so thay can c how reglar I am, and ther 4 fit to leed the nashun, do to: not sum mistir fansy pans.
OK Mooray. Get corecting agin!
Thanks, Murray, you’re fabulous. Very good at what you do. Actually, Murray, come to think of it, you are so good, I suspect you are some kind of Élite. You are fired, Murray, as soon as this article is done. I’m going to hire someone Regular, who is not so excellent, and lives off the salt of the land and the fat of his brow and the sweat of his earth. Although I hope he’s not a screw-up.
I’m finding it hard to concentrate, as my eyes are killing me, due to I have not blinked since I started writing this. And, me being Regular, it takes a long time for me to write something this long.
Where was I? Ah, yes: I hate Élites. Which is why, whenever I am having brain surgery, or eye surgery, which is sometimes necessary due to all my non-blinking, I always hire some random Regular guy, with shaking hands if possible, who is also a drunk, scared of the sight of blood, and harbors a secret dislike for me.
Now, let’s talk about slogans. Ours is: Country First. Think about it. When you think of what should come first, what does? Us ourselves? No. That would be selfish. Our personal families? Selfish. God? God is good, I love Him, but, as our slogan suggests, no, sorry, God, You are not First. No, you don’t, Lord! How about: the common good of all mankind! Is that First? Don’t make me laugh with your weak blinking! No! Mercy is not First and wisdom is not First and love is super but way near the back, and ditto with patience and discernment and compassion and all that happy crap, they are all back behind Country, in the back of my S.U.V., which— Here is an example! Say I am about to run over a nun or orphan, or an orphan who grew up to become a nun—which I admire that, that is cool, good bootstrapping there, Sister—but then God or whomever goes, “It is My will that you hit that orphaned nun, do not ask Me why, don’t you dare, and I say unto thee, if you do not hit that nun, via a skillful swerve, your Country is going to suffer, and don’t ask Me how, specifically, as I have not decided that yet!” Well, I am going to do my best to get that nun in one felt swope, because, at the Convention, at which my Vice-Presidential candidate kicked mucho butt, what did the signs there say? Did they say “Orphaned Nuns First” and then there is a picture of a sad little nun with a hobo pack?
Not in my purview.
Sarah Palin knows a little something about God’s will, knowing God quite well, from their work together on that natural-gas pipeline, and what God wills is: Country First. And not just any country! There was a slight error on our signage. Other countries, such as that one they have in France, reading our slogan, if they can even read real words, might be all, like, “Hey, bonjour, they are saying we can put our country, France, first!” Non, non, non, France! What we are saying is, you’d better put our country first, you merde-heads, or soon there will be so much lipstick on your pit bulls it will make your berets spin!
In summary: Because my candidate, unlike your winking/blinking Vice-Presidential candidate, who, though, yes, he did run as the running mate when the one asking him to run did ask him to run, which that I admire, one thing he did not do, with his bare hands or otherwise, is, did he ever kill a moose? No, but ours did. And I would. Please bring a moose to me, over by me, and down that moose will go, and, if I had a kid, I would take a picture of me showing my kid that dead moose, going, like, Uh, sweetie, no, he is not resting, he is dead, due to I shot him, and now I am going to eat him, and so are you, oh yes you are, which is responsible, as God put this moose here for us to shoot and eat and take a photo of, although I did not, at that time, know why God did, but in years to come, God’s will was revealed, which is: Hey, that is a cool photo for hunters about to vote to see, plus what an honor for that moose, to be on the Internet.
How does the moose feel about it? Who knows? Probably not great. But do you know what the difference is between a dead moose with lipstick on and a dead moose without lipstick?
Lipstick.
Think about it.
Moose are, truth be told, Élites. They are big and fast and sort of rule the forest. Sarah took that one down a notch. Who’s Élite now, Bullwinkle?
Talk about a shock to the system. Has anyone bothered to notice the radical changes that John McCain and Sarah Palin are planning for the nation’s health insurance system?
These are changes that will set in motion nothing less than the dismantling of the employer-based coverage that protects most American families.
A study coming out Tuesday from scholars at Columbia, Harvard, Purdue and Michigan projects that 20 million Americans who have employment-based health insurance would lose it under the McCain plan.
There is nothing secret about Senator McCain’s far-reaching proposals, but they haven’t gotten much attention because the chatter in this campaign has mostly been about nonsense — lipstick, celebrities and “Drill, baby, drill!”
For starters, the McCain health plan would treat employer-paid health benefits as income that employees would have to pay taxes on.
“It means your employer is going to have to make an estimate on how much the employer is paying for health insurance on your behalf, and you are going to have to pay taxes on that money,” said Sherry Glied, an economist who chairs the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
Ms. Glied is one of the four scholars who have just completed an independent joint study of the plan. Their findings are being published on the Web site of the policy journal, Health Affairs.
According to the study: “The McCain plan will force millions of Americans into the weakest segment of the private insurance system — the nongroup market — where cost-sharing is high, covered services are limited and people will lose access to benefits they have now.”
The net effect of the plan, the study said, “almost certainly will be to increase family costs for medical care.”
Under the McCain plan (now the McCain-Palin plan) employees who continue to receive employer-paid health benefits would look at their pay stubs each week or each month and find that additional money had been withheld to cover the taxes on the value of their benefits.
While there might be less money in the paycheck, that would not be anything to worry about, according to Senator McCain. That’s because the government would be offering all taxpayers a refundable tax credit — $2,500 for a single worker and $5,000 per family — to be used “to help pay for your health care.”
You may think this is a good move or a bad one — but it’s a monumental change in the way health coverage would be provided to scores of millions of Americans. Why not more attention?
The whole idea of the McCain plan is to get families out of employer-paid health coverage and into the health insurance marketplace, where naked competition is supposed to take care of all ills. (We’re seeing in the Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch fiascos just how well the unfettered marketplace has been working.)
Taxing employer-paid health benefits is the first step in this transition, the equivalent of injecting poison into the system. It’s the beginning of the end.
When younger, healthier workers start seeing additional taxes taken out of their paychecks, some (perhaps many) will opt out of the employer-based plans — either to buy cheaper insurance on their own or to go without coverage.
That will leave employers with a pool of older, less healthy workers to cover. That coverage will necessarily be more expensive, which will encourage more and more employers to give up on the idea of providing coverage at all.
The upshot is that many more Americans — millions more — will find themselves on their own in the bewildering and often treacherous health insurance marketplace. As Senator McCain has said: “I believe the key to real reform is to restore control over our health care system to the patients themselves.”
Yet another radical element of McCain’s plan is his proposal to undermine state health insurance regulations by allowing consumers to buy insurance from sellers anywhere in the country. So a requirement in one state that insurers cover, for example, vaccinations, or annual physicals, or breast examinations, would essentially be meaningless.
In a refrain we’ve heard many times in recent years, Mr. McCain said he is committed to ridding the market of these “needless and costly” insurance regulations.
This entire McCain health insurance transformation is right out of the right-wing Republicans’ ideological playbook: fewer regulations; let the market decide; and send unsophisticated consumers into the crucible alone.
You would think that with some of the most venerable houses on Wall Street crumbling like sand castles right before our eyes, we’d be a little wary about spreading this toxic formula even further into the health care system.
Posting a couple videos in honor of Rick Wright's passing...
Poor Hans Keller doesn't understand 'The Pink Floyd' - "why does it all have to be so terribly loud." I love how he introduces the group; he says that he doesn't want to prejudice his viewers one way or the other, and then goes on to thrash them. It's quite amusing.
By Adam Bernstein Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, September 16, 2008; B05
Rick Wright, 65, who helped start the British rock band Pink Floyd and whose keyboard skills brought a haunting quality to its most successful albums, "The Dark Side of the Moon," "Wish You Were Here" and "The Wall," died of cancer Sept. 15 at his home in London.
Starting in the late 1960s, Pink Floyd challenged the Rolling Stones and the Beatles as dynamic English musical exports. Decades later, Pink Floyd's citation for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame said the band "carried rock and roll into a dimension that was more cerebral and conceptual than what preceded it."
Brooding, drug-fueled lyrics, "space-rock" sound effects and mesmerizing visual flourishes in concert turned Pink Floyd into a cult favorite during a peak counterculture moment. Filmmakers such as Michelangelo Antonioni ("Zabriskie Point," 1970) hired the band to create a psychedelic mood that simulated the mind-altering effects of LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs.
Subsequent albums exploring bleak messages about societal alienation -- as well as aging, money and time -- catapulted the band to the front rank of commercial success while showing that rock music could address serious adult themes. "The Dark Side of the Moon" (1973) was on Billboard magazine's list of top long-playing releases for more than 500 weeks.
Mr. Wright shared writing credit on songs including "Time" and "Us and Them" for "The Dark Side of the Moon." He also helped compose "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" for the album "Wish You Were Here" (1975), a work meant to pay tribute to former bandmate Syd Barrett.
Singer-guitarist Barrett, whose already fragile mental health was devastated by drug use, left the group in the late 1960s and was replaced by David Gilmour. Besides Mr. Wright and Gilmour, Pink Floyd's principal lineup included songwriter Roger Waters on bass and Nick Mason on drums.
With the group's popularity surging by the late 1970s, Mr. Wright attempted a solo album, "Wet Dream" (1978), that leaned heavily on Pink Floyd's slow, meditative trademark sound.
The recording sold poorly, and he was back the next year to make "The Wall." He formally left the band during production, citing artistic tensions with Waters, but in an unusual agreement came back to Pink Floyd as a contract musician.
"Roger's ego was getting bigger and bigger," he told the Boston Globe in 1997. "He said he wanted me out because I hadn't produced any material: 'If he doesn't leave, I'm going to withdraw "The Wall" and make it a solo project.' Dave and Nick Mason, the drummer, were very scared, too. It was a nightmare for all us."
Waters eventually went in his own direction and sued unsuccessfully when the others formed a post-Waters version of the rock band under the same name in the late 1980s.
Mr. Wright continued an affiliation with Pink Floyd that lasted on and off for several more years and worked on its releases "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" (1987), and "The Division Bell" (1994).
Despite the acrimony between Waters and the others, all four Pink Floyd bandmates reunited in July 2005 to perform at the Live 8 benefit concert in London's Hyde Park.
The band was inducted later that year into the UK Music Hall of Fame, but Mr. Wright was unable to attend because of cataract surgery. Waters, citing rehearsals for his opera in Rome, also was absent, but he expressed his goodwill with a joke.
"Rick actually hasn't had an eye operation," he told the audience. "He and I have eloped to Rome and we're living happily in a small apartment off the Via Veneto."
Richard George Wright, whose father was a biochemist, was born July 28, 1943, in London. A self-taught musician, he was studying at Regent Street Polytechnic when he joined a rock band that included fellow architecture students Mason and Waters.
Barrett, a childhood friend of Waters, joined the group and wrote many of the group's early songs, inspired mostly by prodigious drug use and an astronomical atlas he carried everywhere. Barrett also renamed the band, formerly the Screaming Abdabs, after two obscure American bluesmen, Pink Anderson and Floyd "Dipper Boy" Council. He died in 2006.
In the mid-1980s, Mr. Wright formed a short-lived duo called Zee with Dave Harris of the rock band Fashion, but largely worked as a solo artist. In 1996, he completed the meditative album "Broken China," which he said was inspired by his third wife's battle with clinical depression. Sinéad O'Connor sang two of the album's songs, "Reaching for the Rail" and "Breakthrough."
His marriages to Juliette Gale and Franka Wright ended in divorce.
Survivors include his third wife, Millie Hobbs Wright; two children from his first marriage; and a son from his third marriage.
Well, it seems that actual facts, presented in writing, are not enough to dissuade people from continuing to make false claims. Despite the fact that Palin was a supporter of the "Bridge to Nowhere" project in Alaska, and the fact that Palin hired lobbyists to secure just under $27 million in earmarks for her small town of Wasilla while she was a mayor, both McCain and Palin have been touting her "maverick" and "reformer" credentials (and specifically misrepresenting her stand on the bridge) in campaign advertisements and at various campaign events.
So, perhaps now that video is available to refute the false claims the Republicans are making, maybe now we'll get a little pushback. I admit, the laughter at the end is a bit much. Let's focus on what McCain and Palin are actually saying.
Maybe you heard McCain has claiming that Palin sold the state's private plane on eBay, for a profit. Palin herself was careful in her speech at the RNC to say that she "put it on eBay" and did not mention selling it. The reason for such reticence? Well, she listed the plane on eBay three times and failed to sell it. The aircraft was finally sold at a loss.
Maybe you heard McCain claim that Palin has foreign policy experience because Alaska is next to Russia (across the Bering Strait) and she has "commanded the Alaskan National Guard." Well, the thing is - Sarah Palin never issued any orders to the National Guard in her state.
I won't use this post to address Palin's belief in creationism or to talk about her church's stance on praying away homosexuality, but you may do your own research.
This is a shame, because Laura and I both tend to enjoy watching MSNBC over CNN (and obviously over FauxNewsChannel). Funny that they try to compare Olbermann and O'Reilly as anchors though. As though it makes much of a difference who sits in Fox's anchor chair. I suppose Brit Hume is supposed to be impartial? Laughable.
MSNBC tried a bold experiment this year by putting two politically incendiary hosts, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, in the anchor chair to lead the cable news channel’s coverage of the election.
That experiment appears to be over.
After months of accusations of political bias and simmering animosity between MSNBC and its parent network NBC, the channel decided over the weekend that the NBC News correspondent and MSNBC host David Gregory would anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night. Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews will remain as analysts during the coverage.
The change — which comes in the home stretch of the long election cycle — is a direct result of tensions associated with the channel’s perceived shift to the political left.
“The most disappointing shift is to see the partisan attitude move from prime time into what’s supposed to be straight news programming,” said Davidson Goldin, formerly the editorial director of MSNBC and a co-founder of the reputation management firm DolceGoldin.
Executives at the channel’s parent company, NBC Universal, had high hopes for MSNBC’s coverage of the political conventions. Instead, the coverage frequently descended into on-air squabbles between the anchors, embarrassing some workers at NBC’s news division, and quite possibly alienating viewers. Although MSNBC nearly doubled its total audience compared with the 2004 conventions, its competitive position did not improve, as it remained in last place among the broadcast and cable news networks. In prime time, the channel averaged 2.2 million viewers during the Democratic convention and 1.7 million viewers during the Republican convention.
The success of the Fox News Channel in the past decade along with the growth of political blogs have convinced many media companies that provocative commentary attracts viewers and lures Web browsers more than straight news delivered dispassionately.
“In a rapidly changing media environment, this is the great philosophical debate,” Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, said in a telephone interview Saturday. Fighting the ratings game, he added, “the bottom line is that we’re experiencing incredible success.”
But as the past two weeks have shown, that success has a downside. When the vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin lamented media bias during her speech, attendees of the Republican convention loudly chanted “NBC.”
In interviews, 10 current and former staff members said that long-simmering tensions between MSNBC and NBC reached a boiling point during the conventions. “MSNBC is behaving like a heroin addict,” one senior staff member observed. “They’re living from fix to fix and swearing they’ll go into rehab the next week.”
The employee, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity because the network does not permit it people to speak to the media without authorization. (The New York Times and NBC News have a content-sharing arrangement exclusively for political coverage.)
Mr. Olbermann, a 49-year-old former sportscaster, has become the face of the more aggressive MSNBC, and the lightning rod for much of the criticism. His program “Countdown,” now a liberal institution, was created by Mr. Olbermann in 2003 but it found its voice in his gnawing dissent regarding the Bush administration, often in the form of “special comment” segments.
As Mr. Olbermann raised his voice, his ratings rose as well, and he now reaches more than one million viewers a night, a higher television rating than any other show in the troubled 12-year history of the network. As a result, his identity largely defines MSNBC. “They have banked the entirety of the network on Keith Olbermann,” one employee said.
In January, Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews, the host of “Hardball,” began co-anchoring primary night coverage, drawing an audience that enjoyed the pair’s “SportsCenter”-style show. While some critics argued that the assignment was akin to having the Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly anchor on election night — something that has never happened — MSNBC insisted that Mr. Olbermann knew the difference between news and commentary.
But in the past two weeks, that line has been blurred. On the final night of the Republican convention, after MSNBC televised the party’s video “tribute to the victims of 9/11,” including graphic footage of the World Trade Center attacks, Mr. Olbermann abruptly took off his journalistic hat.
“I’m sorry, it’s necessary to say this,” he began. After saying that the video had exploited the memories of the dead, he directly apologized to viewers who were offended. Then, sounding like a network executive, he said it was “probably not appropriate to be shown.”
In an interview on Sunday, Mr. Olbermann said that moment — and the perception that he is “not utterly neutral” — restarted months-old conversations about his role on political nights.
“I found it ironic and instructive that I could have easily said exactly what I did say, exactly when I did say it, if I had been wearing a different hat, and nobody would have taken any issue,” he said.
“Countdown” will still be shown before the three fall debates and a second edition will be shown sometime afterwards, following the program anchored by Mr. Gregory.
The change casts new doubt on what some staff members believe is an effective programming strategy: prime-time talk of a liberal sort. A like-minded talk show will now follow “Countdown” at 9 p.m.: “The Rachel Maddow Show,” hosted by the liberal radio host, begins Monday.
Mr. Griffin, MSNBC’s president, denies that it has an ideology. “I think ideology means we think one way, and we don’t,” he said. Rather than label MSNBC’s prime time as left-leaning, he says it has passion and point of view.
But MSNBC is the cable arm of NBC News, the dispassionate news division of NBC Universal. MSNBC, “Today” and “NBC Nightly News” share some staff members, workspace and content. And some critics are claiming they also share a political affiliation.
The McCain campaign has filed letters of complaint to the news division about its coverage and openly tied MSNBC to it. Tension between the network and the campaign hit an apex the day Mr. McCain announced Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. MSNBC had reported Friday morning that Ms. Palin’s plane was enroute to the announcement and she was likely the pick. But McCain campaign officials warned the network off, with one official going so far as to say that all of the candidates on the short list were on their way — which MSNBC then reported.
“The fact that it was reported in real time was very embarrassing,” said a senior MSNBC official. “We were told, ‘No, it’s not Sarah Palin and you don’t know who it is.’ ”
Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams, the past and present anchors of “NBC Nightly News,” have told friends and colleagues that they are finding it tougher and tougher to defend the cable arm of the news division, even while they anchored daytime hours of convention coverage on MSNBC and contributed commentary each evening.
Mr. Williams did not respond to a request for comment and Mr. Brokaw declined to comment. At a panel discussion in Denver, Mr. Brokaw acknowledged that Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews had “gone too far” at times, but emphasized they were “not the only voices” on MSNBC, according to The Washington Post.
Al Hunt, the executive Washington bureau chief of Bloomberg News, said that the entire news division was being singled out by Republicans because of the work of partisans like Mr. Olbermann. “To go and tar the whole news network and Brokaw and Mitchell is grossly unfair,” he said, referring to the NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell.
Some tensions have spilled out on-screen. On the first night in Denver, as the fellow MSNBC host Joe Scarborough talked about the resurgence of the McCain campaign, Mr. Olbermann dismissed it by saying: “Jesus, Joe, why don’t you get a shovel?”
The following night, Mr. Olbermann and his co-anchor for convention coverage, Mr. Matthews, had their own squabble after Mr. Olbermann observed that Mr. Matthews had talked too long.
Some staff members said the tension led to the network’s decision to keep Mr. Olbermann in New York for the Republican convention, after he ran the desk in Denver during the Democratic convention. MSNBC said that he stayed in New York to anchor coverage of Hurricane Gustav. But some workers say there were other reasons — namely, that Mr. Olbermann was concerned about his safety in St. Paul, given the loud crowds at MSNBC’s set in Denver.
NBC Universal executives are also known to be concerned about the perception that MSNBC’s partisan tilt in prime time is bleeding into the rest of the programming day. On a recent Friday afternoon, a graphic labeled “Breaking News” asked: “How many houses does Palin add to the Republican ticket?” Mr. Griffin called the graphic “an embarrassment.”
According to three staff members, Jeff Zucker, chief executive of NBC Universal, and Steve Capus, president of NBC News, considered flying to the Republican convention in Minnesota last week to address the lingering tensions.
Up to now, the company’s public support for MSNBC’s strategy has been enthusiastic. At an anniversary party for Mr. Olbermann in April, Mr. Zucker called “Countdown” “one of the signature brands of the entire company.”
Just last year, Mr. Olbermann signed a four-year, $4-million-a-year contract with MSNBC. NBC is close to supplementing that contract with Mr. Olbermann, extending his deal through 2013 — and ensuring that he will be on MSNBC through the next election.
Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting for this article.
Finally found a picture with Laura and I in it, and it's on Ross Halfin's site. Ross is a professional photographer of great renown, and also seems to be Jimmy Page's best friend (they go everywhere together). His site can be found here.
In the image, my head is somewhat visible behind the guy with huge mutton chops holding the Thank You sign, and Laura is to the right. Although it looks like that could be her arm raised, it belongs to a guy behind her. Kind of cool. I sent it to Laura and of course am ribbed immediately... she asks, "does this validate your fandom, honey??" Ah, well...
Just had to post about this, since I did a quick Google search and failed to find anything. Larry King had a panel chock full of Republicans on every evening after the Democratic National Convention. True, some were billed as Republicans who had not officially endorsed McCain as of yet.
Quite the contrast tonight when the situation was reversed; after tonight's session of the Republican National Convention, with the on-screen tagline of "Dems' Take on GOP Convention," Larry had a full segment with a panel consisting of Jesse Ventura, DL Hughley, and Dee Dee Myers. Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota under the banner of the 'Reform Party' (Ventura was the keynote speaker at today's Ron Paul 'counter-convention' in MN, and indicated that he could not support Obama or any Democrat because they would raise his taxes). Hughley is an actor/comedian and self-professed cynic that admitted he was not impressed with either party or candidate (he said that since the choice was between one guy who is half-black and another who is half-dead, he'll be voting for Obama). Myers was press secretary for Clinton, and the only actual 'Democrat' on the panel.
This didn't stop CNN from labeling the whole segment "Dems' Take on GOP Convention" though. Why?
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