CeCe Peniston's "Finally" was inescapable on dance floors and pop/R&B radio in throughout the early nineties, for better or worse. Clearly a great singer, but the near-ubiquity of the song left me perfectly happy to never hear it again -- or so I thought. I heard this remix from Australian electro-house masters Vandalism the other night at a club in Nashville and it absolutely sizzled my face off. Way darker than the original, and with tension that was never even hinted at, Vandalism give remixers a damn good name.
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(10cc - Did an admirable job poking holes in just about everything)
It's hard to imagine 10cc came out with "Sheet Music" in 1974. Thirty-five years seems like a few lifetimes ago. Times have changed and tastes in music have changed, but there is something about 10cc that has always been timeless with me. Maybe it's because they never took themselves seriously. To be certain, "I'm Not In Love" was their biggest hit and one which seemed to be played on every radio at most hours of the day when it came out in 1975 - there was no escaping it. They have pretty much faded from memory now (even though they are rumored to have gotten back together), and no doubt there is a huge audience who have never heard of them. Too bad.
It was "Sheet Music" which came out in 1974 on Jonathan King's label UK Records, that I initially heard and became a fan of. This track, Silly Love, started side two of their lp. It poked huge gaping holes in the over-wrought and well-worn genre of the love song.
And poking holes were what they were wonderful at.
In a remark extraordinary even by the standards of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, the right-wing radio heavyweight declared on his program Wednesday that the United States needed to return to racially segregated buses.
Referring to an incident in which a white student was beaten by black students on a bus, Limbaugh said: “I think the guy’s wrong. I think not only it was racism, it was justifiable racism. I mean, that’s the lesson we’re being taught here today. Kid shouldn’t have been on the bus anyway. We need segregated buses — it was invading space and stuff. This is Obama’s America.”
A full transcript of Limbaugh’s comments on his radio show is available at MediaMatters.org.
Limbaugh’s comments came after a called complained to say that local law enforcement said the attack probably wasn’t racially motivated. The incident had been hyped by the conservative Drudge Report, which posted a video of the fracas.
“Police initially said the beating of the white student by two black students appeared to be racially motivated,” the Associated Press wrote. “But police on Tuesday backed away from that.”
That didn’t stop Limbaugh from making his comments Wednesday.
“In Obama’s America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, ‘Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on,” Limbaugh also said. “I wonder if Obama’s going to come to come to the defense of the assailants the way he did his friend Skip Gates up there at Harvard.”
“White Americans are racists who have created what they call free markets that really just enslave the rest of America and her trading partners,” Limbaugh also mocked. “I mean, it was white Americans that ran off Van Jones. No, look, let’s just follow Eric Holder’s advice and not be cowards about all this. Let’s have an open conversation, an honest conversation about all of our typical white grandmothers. You had one, I had one. Obama had one. They’re racists just like our students are. ACORN — hey, nothing but racism fueling the pursuit of ACORN.”
Limbaugh also suggested that racism itself was acceptable.
“If homosexuality being inborn is what makes it acceptable, why does racism being inborn not make racism acceptable?” the talk show host asked. “I’m sorry — I mean, this is the way my mind works. But apparently now we don’t choose racism, we just are racists. We are born that way. We don’t choose it. So shouldn’t it be acceptable, excuse — this is according to the way the left thinks about things.”
Really, isn't it time that decent people just said NO to Rush Limbaugh?
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The centerpiece of Glenn Beck's incessant attacks on "White House czars" like Van Jones, as well as his attacks on ACORN, is his claim that this is all about rooting out the deep-seated radicalism within the Obama White House -- and ultimately, the deep-seated radicalism of Obama himself. He's been quite explicit about this.
It's only intensified since he left CNN for Fox. Given the freedom to let his fetid imagination run amok, has quickly amassed a massive record of mainstreaming ideas and talking points from the genuinely radical right of American politics. (The accompanying video gives you a 17-minute compendium of Beck's extremist rhetoric.)
We noticed this back when it first surfaced amid a raft of other Beck wingnuttia. This week, Alexander Zaitchik in Salon published a devastating rundown of perhaps the foundation of Beck's radicalism: His ardent adoption of the ideology espoused by W. Cleon Skousen, one of the most radical of the old "Church-Birch Connection" gang of LDS elders who spread Bircherirsm throughout Mormon-land. (I remember seeing The Naked Communist on the bookshelf of many of the Mormon homes I grew up around in southern Idaho, including several in my family.) Salty City Sinner noticed the Skousen connection back in March too.
Skousen, as Zaitchik explains, was so far out on the fringe he even made the Birchers nervous:
I was in my then-doctor's office in Yardley, Pennsylvania, home to several of the pilots and crew members who died in the attacks. None of us knew that at the time, of course. We were just there to see the doctor.
When I walked in for my 9 a.m. appointment, they had the radio on. "A plane crashed into the World Trade Center," the receptionist told me. Weird - that's an awfully big building to miss. I assumed it was a small plane, sat down and picked up a magazine. (I think I was there for a sinus infection.)
And as we sat there half-listening, a few minutes later the weirdness replayed itself: Another plane crashed into the other building.
At this point, dread set in and we knew something really, really bad was happening.
I remember the drive home, heading south on I-95. It was completely empty, except for one state trooper I'd passed. I'd never seen that. I remember thinking it looked like the end of the world.
On the ride home, I kept trying to call the people I cared about - not to see that they were physically safe, but as an emotional touchstone. The phone lines were busy everywhere and it was hard to get through. (I remember my then-boyfriend was not all that interested in hearing from me, so something else died that day.)
My grown son was staying with me while he looked for a job and was sleeping on the couch when I came home. I flipped on the TV and it woke him up. We watched as they showed the planes crashing into the building, again and again and again.
"Turn it off," he said after an hour or so. "This is pornography, war pornography. Turn it off."
So I did.
When we have our limbic brain punched over and over again by horrific images, and those images are then used to justify more horror, there is only one solution: Turn off your TV.
My son was right: The 9/11 images were war pornography, something watched over and over as we stroked ourselves into wargasm.
In honor of the victims of the 9/11 attacks, comments are closed to this post. We offer this opportunity for our readers to take a moment of silence in deep respect to those whose lives were lost, both here and in Iraq.
Yglesias has a fairly convincing post arguing for LFO's "Summer Girls" as the worst hit song in history.
In the course of human affairs, people sometimes write bad songs. Indeed, we have no real idea how many bad songs are written and go unheard. But sometimes a really bad song becomes a widespread radio hit. And one dark summer, LFO’s “Summer Girls” was just such a song. A song that I believe to be the worst hit song ever recorded...
Matt's got a point, as these lyrics are appalling:
Fell deep in love,but now we ain't speaking
Michael J Fox was Alex P Keaton
When I met you I said my name was Rich
You look like a girl from Abercrombie and Fitch
After some careful thought, this song does make it high on the list, but does not displace my longstanding titleholder, Sammy Hagar's "I Can't Drive 55".
Why is this:
When I drive that slow, you know it's hard to steer.
And I can't get my car out of second gear.
What used to take two hours now takes all day.
Huh - It took me 16 hours to get to L.A.!
Go on & write me up for 125
Post my face, wanted dead or alive
Take my license n' all that jive
I can't drive 55!
such a worse violation than "I like the girls who wear Abercrombie and Fitch?"
I know I know, it's not as ostensibly tacky as LFO, but Hagar really is angry about the federally mandated 55 mph speed limit that was in effect in the 1980s (and in your humble DJ's opinion should still be), and probably feels like quite the rebellious protest singer taking a stand against such government tyranny.
If you take two equally awful songs, but one is angry and the other is happy, even celebratory, the angry one wins out for the stinker category - but barely.
If you live in LA then please join me and a host of bloggers to hear David Neiwert talk about his explosive new book (and a timely one I might add) The Eliminationists: How The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right.
There are rare moments in time when an author is in sync with the political surroundings that in habits our culture, but Neiwert is right on the mark.
There times when a writer publishes a book at exactly the right moment and this is one of them. With violent mainstream rhetoric hitting peaks we haven't seen in nearly 40 years, the village is struggling to comprehend where it's all coming from and what it means. They haven't been paying attention. And because of that there are many people out in the country who are shocked by it too.
Here's the info:
Date: Tuesday, September 1st
Time: There will be a reception at 6 pm. The program will begin promptly at 6:30 pm.
Note: Please be aware that they are filming this event so the studio door will be shut at 6:30 pm sharp.
Location: 10536 Culver Boulevard, Culver City, CA 90232
Please enter through the gate behind the building.
RSVP: Please RSVP by emailing ewagner-at -bravenewfoundation.org
Seating is very limited, so we will be taking a small number of RSVPs.
Parking: There is free parking on the streets on either side of our building.
Please do not park in the parking spots behind the building as they are reserved.
Well worth a half hour or so of your time if you've got it to spend.
I'll be hosting it and leading the Q&A section so be there or be square.
Heather: If you're not in LA for the BNF event---here's our own David Neiwert on I believe Jon Elliot's show talking about the theme of his new book, The Eliminationists.
Dave N.: A brief promotional plug. I'll be in California this week, putting in an invitational appearance at Brave New Films in Culver City on Tuesday. I'll also be in the Bay Area on Thursday, Sept. 3, speaking at 7:30 p.m. at Books Inc. in Mountain View. If you live in the area, hope to see you there.
Sam Seder filling in for Cenk Uygur on The Young Turks takes a call from a conservative who resents paying for health care for his fellow citizens, but doesn't mind paying for the Iraq War. Why in the hell is this man not on the radio every day of the week?
She's been doing it on her radio/press tour for some time now (see above), but A Fine Frenzy, who I refer to in the feminine third person because it's really just singer/pianist Alison Sudol, premiered the real recording of her new single "Happier" via Billboard, and I must say it's quite good.
Her new record "Bomb in a Birdcage" comes out September 8th, and this here song is now on iTunes.
It's always nice to see a journalist who gets it, and Mike Lupica understands what's really going on with the anti-healthcare reform protesters:
The woman went to an airplane hangar in Belgrade, Mont., the other day, prepared to actually listen to President Obama talk about health care reform in America.
She has watched, the way the rest of us have watched, as the debate about health care has turned into a sideshow and in some cases even more of a freak show than Glenn Beck's. Now she wanted to see for herself, along with more than 1,000 others, if it would happen this way in Montana.
This is what she said about the event when it was over:
"Yes, there were a few protesters en route. But the Montanans who were excited to hear the President far outnumbered the fringe groups."
Then she said this about Obama: "He was smart, fair, funny."
So this wasn't an occasion when people with legitimate concerns and legitimate points to make were overwhelmed by the wing nuts and screamers who take their marching orders from right-wing radio and television and the Internet.
Those idiots come to these town hall meetings more to be seen than heard, and think creating chaos makes them great Americans.
Those people have been convinced by the current culture that we are dying to hear from them, and the louder the better. People who think that all they need to star in their own reality series is a couple of TV crews. But then this is Twitter America now, where no thought is supposed to go unspoken.
We hear that all of this is democracy in action. It's not. It's boom-box democracy, people thinking that if they somehow make enough noise on this subject, they can make Obama into a one-term President.
The most violent opposition isn't directed at his ideas about health care reform. It is directed at him. It is about him. They couldn't make enough of a majority to beat the Harvard-educated black guy out of the White House, so they will beat him on an issue where they see him as being most vulnerable.
In the process, they'll come after him on health care the way Kenneth Starr went after Bill Clinton on oral sex in the Oval Office.
With that kind of zealotry, screaming about government programs as if Medicare isn't one. It is why so many of them, all these wild-eyed red faces in the crowd, look completely certifiable, screaming about how Obama wants to kill Grandma, as if he's suddenly turned into Jack Kevorkian.
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John Fund at Americans for Prosperity's Right Online Conference cites Nate Silver's predictions for 2010, and the possibility of the Democrats losing 20-50 seats in the House. Nate talked about this with Ron Reagan Jr. on his radio show the other day and wrote about it at his blog Likely Voters and Unlikely Scenarios where he qualifies his predictions with this:
Is it possible that the electorate which is voting in November 2010 will be so down on the Democrats that they trust Republicans more on issues like these? Sure, it is possible -- if the enthusiasm gap is wide enough, if Obama's approval is low enough, if the health care debate has been bungled enough, and if the economy is still hemorrhaging jobs. But I'd consider it something of a worst-case scenario. That's probably the best way to regard these Rasmussen polls for the time being.
So maybe not quite as doom and gloom as Fund is making it out to be. As for the rest of his nonsense, well that's another matter. Fund goes on to claim that the Democrats' problem is they don't know how to govern as moderates. Heh. That's rich. Yeah, here we are again as Fund says, but not because the Democrats are governing from the left, but because they're governing as triangulating corporate "centrists".
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(XTC - Taking the piss in stride)
Bouncing up to 1980 tonight. XTC and "Heaven Is Paved With Broken Glass" - B-side from the "Ball and Chain" 12". I always liked XTC and looked forward to anything new they released. It was always good because it was never predictable. But then, the late 70's through to the early 80's were like that -lots of unpredictable music was around. Not much of it on the radio (except early KROQ . . .emphasis on early!). The major labels were starting to lose their grip and small labels, sometimes self-pressed labels, came flying out of the woodwork.
There were a lot of possibilities and a lot of talent to go around.
Hope you all enjoy the clip. Let me know how I did. I'm still pretty new at this teevee stuff. (As I'm fond of saying, I have a face made for radio, and a voice made for newspapers.)
SCARBOROUGH: Congressman, do you disagree with Rush Limbaugh that Colin Powell should leave the Republican Party?
PRICE: Look, it’s not up to Rush Limbaugh to decide who ought to be in the Republican Party. There are all sorts of wonderful folks across this land who hold dear the fundamental principles that we, as Republicans — [...]
SCARBOROUGH: Congressman, do you believe that Rush Limbaugh or Dick Cheney are better, quote — I’m just using terms that we hear every day on TV and radio — that they are somehow better Republicans than Colin Powell?
PRICE: No. Goodness.
How long before Rep. Price grovels before the Flaming Gasbag? It may be tough for him to beat some of the recent records.
And while he's at it, Limbaugh is probably due to call out Scarborough, too.
Dunno about the rest of you, but I'm only a little ways through this bowl of popcorn.
