Category Archives: Paul McCartney

04/12/2014
2 Comments
Anat Shenker-Osorio, Birth Control, Holy Bible, Jonathan V. Last, Overpopulation, Paul McCartney, Poverty, State Book of Louisiana, Wealth & Privilege, What to Expect When No One's Expecting

Hot Air

Church & State

Time to get scared, kiddies:

NO Times-Picayune Headline

Click Image To Read Article

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Do I need to riff on this, or does the intrinsic insanity of it speak for itself?

Yeah, I’ll go with the latter.

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Too Many People….

I hate to be a buzzkill to all those proud pappies and mammies who plaster zillions of pix of their trophy babies all over the interwebs, but my deeply held opinion is that we have way, way, way too many peeps on this planet.

I’ve heard humanity described as the ultimate invasive species. I won’t go that far but I cannot deny that the lot of us need too much of the limited tonnage of natural resources Ma Earth can provide. There’s flat-out not enough raw stuff to produce all the goods needed to elevate everybody alive to our Murrican standard of living. Not everybody can expect to drink water out of a plastic bottle, keep a calendar on a handheld electronic device, wear a pair of sneakers made by slave labor in China, and have a Double Quarter-Pounder with Cheese for lunch every day. Homo Sapiens sapiens would need two or three Earth-like planets to supply all the ingredients for that universal lifestyle.

Street Crowd

Oh, The Humanity….

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Still, folks want us to go blithely and merrily along, procreating our way toward 8, 9, even ten billion cramped souls on this little rock, religious fundamentalists, primary among them. IDK why but the uber-pious loathe the notion of birth control in any form. I suppose it goes back to their codified worldview, which was formed and refined for a passel of pre-technological, pre-literate, overly-credulous, nomadic desert tribes in what we now call the Middle East. Nothing like having that forward-thinking gang set cultural and scientific policy for our 21st Century society, no?

Anyway, if you’re interested in reading both sides of the overpopulation argument, the New York Review of Books has a piece on a book by Jonathan V. Last entitled “What to Expect When No One’s Expecting: America’s Coming Demographic Disaster.” Last’s argument — one that’s pretty much advanced by all anti-birth-control-ists — is that if the pop. growth of this holy land is in any way curtailed, even slightly, why then these United States will be wiped off the face of the Earth by whatever gang is busy humping its way toward elbow-to-elbow existence.

The reviewer takes issue with Last in no uncertain terms. If you want more, here are a few other links for reviews of the tome:

Conservative news outlets, natch, are hot for Last’s book,

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Nobody’s Poor

Speaking of having not enough — or not having enough…, oh, you know what I mean — recent research has found that, in this holy land at least, even the poor don’t want to be classified as poor, so any pol trying to get votes by declaring himself a friend to the needy isn’t going to find much of a sympathetic audience.

Weird, huh?

If you’ve been following these screeds of late, you know my feeling that most Murricans harbor the fantasy that they’ll be billionaires one day, ergo the electorate’s patience with pols who do the bidding of the Kochs, the Ricketts, and Sheldon Adelson. In a sense, common folk think that whatever benefits the plutcocracy will one day benefit them.

Great Depression

Not Us!

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Talk about fairy tales.

Ironic — isn’t it? — considering the fact that the divide between the haves and have nots is growing enormous-er every second of every hour of every day.

So, back to pols erring in their siding with the poors, that’s the conclusion arrived at by Anat Shenker-Osorio, a political communications consultant. She writes in Salon that progressive candidates and sitting office-holders have to start using new terminology to show how much they love the more unfortunate among us. Or the less fortunate. Whatever, you know what I mean.

The idea being you can’t say, “Hey, guys, you ain’t rich and I’m on your side.” Our American egos are so fragile that if you think we’re poor, we don;t want you on our side.

Like I said, weird.

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Too Many People…, Redux

My least fave Beatle, sure, but Ram was a cool album. And this cut fits today’s post theme.

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07/06/2013
3 Comments
Arena Rock, Barack Obama, Don Cornelius, George Zimmerman, Kansas (band), Michael Jackson, Motown, Neil Peart, Paul McCartney, Rare Earth, Rodney King, Sex Pistols, Stevie Wonder, Ted Nugent, Trayvon Martin

Your Daily Hot Air

Times Change

And often for the better. Dig this remastered blast from the past. Rare Earth was the first all -white group to have a hit on the Motown label. This album cut goes on for nearly 22 minutes, as did many anthemic and iconic tunes did back in 1969 and ’70.

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These are blue-eyed soul brothers if there ever were any, to borrow a phrase from the late, great Don Cornelius. You can cite this tune as proof if you care to make the argument that music was better three, four, five, or six decades ago. Which seems a fool’s errand as far as I’m concerned.

This track has a drum solo that goes on for — get this — more than three minutes. Hell, plenty of rock ‘n roll era songs lasted just three minutes in toto.

Here’s a confession: I detested drum solos. In fact, when I stopped going to big, arena-rock concerts sometime around 1975, one of my main reasons was the fear that I’d climb the rafters and jump off to my certain death if I was subjected to yet another drum solo.

Peart

Neil Peart Bangs Away

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I ask you, my loyal readers who are old enough to remember big shows at the International Amphitheater or the Chicago Stadium or Market Square Arena in Indy or Freedom Hall in Louisville, what was the purpose of the drum solo? Did you enjoy hearing them? Why?

Honestly, I want to know. Because I always felt they drained the life out of any concert. I recall always starting to look around the arena in a state of sheer boredom when the drummer got going. I could never understand why the people around me went apeshit at some point during the drum solo.

Anyway, I assume there aren’t drum solos anymore, which seems a huge mark in favor of today’s concert-goers.

I await your comments.

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History

My last arena-rock concert was Paul McCartney & Wings at the Stadium in 1975. McCartney was my least favorite Beatle and by the mid-70s his music was unlistenable. By the ’80s, when he pushed treacle like “The Girl Is Mine” and “Say Say Say” with Michael Jackson and “Ebony and Ivory” with Stevie Wonder, he should have been brought before the World Court for crimes against humanity’s ears.

Still, a guy I knew was scalping tix to see McCartney and I felt compelled to buy them for the then-princely sum of $25 the pair because of the history of the thing. Within a year and a half I’d made the full transition to punk music and more intimate venues like the Aragon Ballroom and Tut’s.

Aragon Ballroom

The Aragon

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In fact, somewhere in my box of keepsakes I still have the tickets for the Sex Pistols New Year’s Eve show at the Ivanhoe Theater, one of four stops they had to cancel because they couldn’t get visas in time. They only played seven dates on their American tour, the highlights of which being Sid Vicious carving the words “Gimme a fix” in his chest and Johnny Rotten coughing up blood due to the flu.

I get the feeling that some arena-rock aficionados and drum solo lovers might call me out on this one but I’m not claiming the Sex Pistols were anything more than a sensational middle finger directed at the pretentious prog rock of the day. As long as they helped bury Kansas, the Pistols’ll be okay by me. Suffice it to say I’ve seldom, if ever, listened to them on iTunes.

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Court & Spark

Right now my money’s teetering between conviction on a much lesser charge and a complete acquittal for King Doofus George Zimmerman in Florida.

Book it: He ain’t gonna fry for a 2nd degree rap. He was getting the bejesus kicked out of him by Trayvon Martin (not that I blame the kid) and any reasonable jury has to nix the murder call.

I don’t think the jury really wants to let the pudgy Guardian of the Neighborhood walk but they may have to. And if they do, what’s the reaction on the streets going to be? Are we in for a reprise of LA 1992?

Zimmerman

The Thick Blue Line

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Back twenty years ago after the Rodney King verdict came down South Central LA residents tore up the town, leading to 53 deaths and a billion dollars-worth of damage. But that was well before the election of Barack Obama and the resultant sense among the lower primate orders of the American electorate that “outsiders” and “aliens” (read the N-word here) were taking over their holy land. If dark-skinned folks take to the streets after a potential Zimmerman pass, are the armed-to-the-teeth Ted Nugent wannabes of America going to wade into the fray?

Nugent

Role Model

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It could happen.

Then the Prez might be pressured to send in federal troops and once that happens, the militias and tinfoil-hat gangs will really take the gloves off.

I’ve got a bad feeling about this whole thing.

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07/15/2012
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Beatles, Book Corner, Bruce Springsteen, Colton Burpo, Dr. Clyde Conger, Flavorwire, Heaven Is For Real, I Dream Books, John Gregg, Julie Thomas, Karel Capek, LIBOR Scandal, London, Mark Stoops, Paul McCartney, Rage Against the Machine, Rotten Tomatoes, Time-Space Continuum, Todd Burpo, Tom Morello, Vi Simpson

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“You can have a revolution wherever you like, except in a government office; even were the world to come to an end, you’d have to destroy the universe first and then government offices.” — Karel Čapek

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DISTAFF DEMS

So, Julie Thomas is the Dems’ choice to replace Mark Stoops on the November ballot.

Julie Thomas

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Stoops, you may recall, is replacing Vi Simpson on the ballot for her state senate seat. Simpson is running for lieutenant governor on a ticket with John Gregg. Thomas aims to swap her Monroe County Council seat for Stoops’ Monroe County Board of Commissioners post. Got all that?

It’s the Democratic Shuffle.

Anyway, the Thomas move only adds to the local Democrats’ big women’s push this year. Make sure you read my piece about Dem women in this month’s Ryder magazine.

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THE RULES MUST BE FOLLOWED!

Don’t you just love petty tyrants?

Some officious little dweeb in London cut the power as Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, and Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello played and sang in Hyde Park Saturday night. Arguably the two biggest rock stars in the world, Springsteen and McCartney have been jonesing to jam together for years.

A Dream Come True

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They finally got their chance at the end of Springsteen’s big show last night. Right in the middle of “Twist and Shout,” though, the aforementioned noodge gave the order for the plugs to be pulled.

Seems the Westminster Council has a hard and fast new rule that outdoor concerts at Hyde Park must be completed by 10:30pm. It was 10:45pm when London’s Big Hall Monitor cut the boys off.

Sorta funny no? If only London’s bosses had been such sticklers when the LIBOR scandal was brewing.

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NO SIR

BTW: You’ll note I did not call the former Beatle “Sir” Paul McCartney.

I won’t do it. Not now or ever.

There’s no place in my world for phoney-baloney titles of “nobility.”

My Blood Is Quite Blue

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This holy land’s “Founding Fathers” had no use for Britain’s caste society either. After all, we had our own system of oppression and disenfranchisement to nurture.

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FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Flavorwire.com points out a new website modeled after Rotten Tomatoes called I Dream Books.

RT, as you know, is a film criticism aggregator that canvasses movie reviews from around the nation and rates each picture based on some algorithm the geeks in charge have conjured. Now IDB does the same thing, only with tomes.

So, I clicked on the first title that came up on the IDB page. It turns out to be that risible Christian fever dream, “Heaven Is for Real.”

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Do I have to explain this criminal misuse of a significant portion of our nation’s forests to you? Everybody should know by now it’s about some reverend whose three-year-old kid undergoes an emergency appendectomy and emerges from the surgery with a hair-brained tale that he’d died and gone to heaven but for some odd reason was kicked back out and his soul returned to his Earthly body.

The most gullible among the populace take this as de facto proof that their religious fantasies are the real deal.

Get this: IDB gives this aggressive insult to our intelligence an 80 percent positive rating! The review the site features reads, in part, “‘Heaven Is for Real’ will forever change the way you think of eternity, offering the chance to see, and believe, like a child.”

Honestly, people. A three-year-old explaining the nature of existence to us?

The Time-Space Continuum

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To the best of my knowledge, three-year-olds are those members of society who defecate in their pants, throw tantrums when they’re denied any more cookies, often believe monsters are hiding under their beds, and who occasionally display their penises in misguided attempts to entertain us. Because we realize three-year-olds, to put it politely, aren’t fully all there, we don’t throw them in jail for the latter infraction.

Why, then, would millions of people take as gospel some crackpot tale such a kid would tell his old man, who no doubt asked a lot of leading questions to draw said nonsense out of him?

And we let these people vote?

I can’t imagine that four of every five book reviewers in the country think this drek is hot stuff. I’ll be watching IDB closely to see if the bugs in its algorithm are worked out.

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THE GOOD DOCTOR

Well, one guy now knows whether Colton Burpo and his daddy-o made up their little story or not: Dr. Conger, a terrific guy from Lima, Ohio.

That’s all I’ve ever known him as — Dr. Conger.

Clyde Conger

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He kept a home here in Bloomington as well as his Ohio digs. He was an insatiable reader and would make the trek to the Book Corner every month or so to stock up on hardcovers.

Dr. Conger was an anesthesiologist. He wasn’t a rich man but he and his wife were comfortable. He was no fan of the greedy bastards who hold sway in these Great United States, Inc. today.

Whenever I’d see his wife pull up in front of the store in their minivan, I’d dash out to help him walk the few steps to our front door. Dr. Conger suffered from diabetes and the resultant pain in his feet tortured him.

I’d sit him in one of our Franklin chairs, and we’d talk about the issues of the day as well as new books. I’d mention a title that might interest him and he’d say, “Would you get me that? I think I’ll buy it.”

After a half hour or so, the pain in his dogs would get to be too much and he’d struggle to stand in preparation to go outside and wait for his wife, who was shopping around the square. The two of us would wait for his wife to pull back up. I’d ask him why he just didn’t call her and he’d always reply that he didn’t want to cut in on her shopping time.

Old man Dr. Conger was a swell bird. He died a few weeks ago.

No depictions of heaven ever allude to books being there. I get the feeling Dr. Conger wouldn’t care too much for that kind of heaven.

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Electron Pencil event listings: Music, art, movies, lectures, parties, receptions, games, benefits, plays, meetings, fairs, conspiracies, rituals, etc.

◗ TC Steele State Historic Site — “Sunday at Home: An Old Fashioned Celebration,” with fun, crafts, vocal and harpsichord music, hand-cranked ice cream and more; 1-4pm

◗ IU Wells-Metz Theatre — Musical, “You Can’t Take It With You”; 1pm

◗ Brown County Playhouse, Nashville — Musical, “Footloose”; 2pm

◗ IU Auer Hall — Summer Arts Festival: David Linard Trio; 4pm

◗ The Player’s Pub — The Reacharounds; 6pm

◗ Bryan Park — Outdoor concert, Bloomington Symphony Orchestra with Charles Latshaw, conductor; 6:30pm

◗ Bear’s Place — Ryder Film Series, “Gerhard Richter Painting”; 7pm

Gerhard Richter And His Piece, “Abstract Painting (911-4)”

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◗ IU Auer Hall — Summer Arts Festival: Various performances by members of the Jacobs School faculty; 8pm

Ongoing:

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

  • John D. Shearer, “I’m Too Young For This  @#!%”; through July 30th
  • Claire Swallow, ‘Memoir”; through July 28th
  • Dale Gardner, “Time Machine”; through July 28th
  • Sarah Wain, “That Takes the Cake”; through July 28th
  • Jessica Lucas & Alex Straiker, “Life Under the Lens — The Art of Microscopy”; through July 28th

◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:

  • Qiao Xiaoguang, “Urban Landscape: A Selection of Papercuts” ; through August 12th
  • “A Tribute to William Zimmerman,” wildlife artist; through September 9th
  • Willi Baumeister, “Baumeister in Print”; through September 9th
  • Annibale and Agostino Carracci, “The Bolognese School”; through September 16th
  • “Contemporary Explorations: Paintings by Contemporary Native American Artists”; through October 14th
  • David Hockney, “New Acquisitions”; through October 21st
  • Utagawa Kuniyoshi, “Paragons of Filial Piety”; through fall semester 2012
  • Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan, “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers”; through December 31st
  • “French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century”; through December 31st

◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — Exhibits:

  • Kinsey Institute Juried Art Show; through July 21st
  • Bloomington Photography Club Annual Exhibition; July 27th through August 3rd

◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery — “Ephemeral Ink: Selections of Tattoo Art from the Kinsey Institute Collection”; through September 21st

◗ IU Lilly Library — Exhibit, “Translating the Canon: Building Special Collections in the 21st Century”; through September 1st

◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Closed for semester break

◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibits:

  • “What Is Your Quilting Story?”; through July 31st
  • Photo exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

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