Blogama: Optimism

Saw these dudes recently here in Brooklyn, reminded me of how impressive rock n roll can be when you see it happening.

And Who Says Politics Are Boring

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Defiant, Elvis loving Governor Blago, with his lego man hair, shows up to nominate a replacement for Barack Obama's Senate seat, whacks the Dems for not taking away his authority to do so, then hands the nominee over to a wild barage of press questions, then pulls the mic back claiming "I don't want to hog the spotlight". Then it gets real interesting at 10:20 in when former Black Panther and current Illinois Representative and minister Bobby Rush shows up from out of the back of the crowd, speaking passionately thru his cancer ridden throat. There's even a lynching reference in there near the end right before Blago confidently strides out of the room as if he's the victor in some strange sideshow.

Ellington at Newport

So I was going to post this in the comments section of Seger's post on Mingus but as I started to write it became a blog post of it's on...

My first jazz record, Ellington at Newport. A fantastic record on it's own right, but the majority of the magic rests in the final song, "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue". The version Duke and his band did of "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" that night literally damn near set the crowd into a riot. Ellington told Paul Gonsalves (tenor sax) to blow as long as he wanted during the interlude, which Ellington later called "The Wailing Interval" or "Blow By Blow." In what has since become jazz folklore, Gonsalves almost created a riot as he played a tenor sax solo for 27 choruses that stirred up the normally staid crowd into a frenzy. Legend has it that the solo made a striking platinum blonde woman in a black evening dress jump from her box seat and start dancing. This helped serve as a catalyst for the crowd frenzy that grew as Gonsalves continued his solo. The crowd was racially segregated and as the black half started going wild so did the white half. The cops on guard yelled at Duke to stop fearing a riot but he yelled back basically saying that it was too late to stop now.

Unfortunately there's no video of the performance, but here's a video clip I found of Duke and his band (Gonsalves included) performing "Crescendo in Blue" just a few short weeks after the Newport performance. Before this record came out Ellington's career was on the downturn, but after this his music was suddenly reintroduced to a new generation of fans

The Armpit Collection XIII

Mingus Ah Um

"My whole conception with my present Jazz Workshop group deals with nothing written. I 'write' compositions--but only on mental score paper--then I lay out the composition part by part to the musicians. I play them the 'framework' on piano so that they are all familiar with my interpretation and feeling and with the scale and chord progressions to be used. Each man's particular style is taken into consideration, both in ensemble and in solos. For instance, they are given different rows of notes to use against each chord but they choose their own notes and play them in their own style, from scales as well as chords, except where a particular mood is indicated. In this way I can keep my own compositional flavor in the pieces and yet allow the musicians more individual freedom in the creation of their group lines and solos."

This is the first jazz record I really got into. My thinking is that it represents a well conceptualized link between the old (big band swinging type jazz) and the coming (free, improvising intellectual type jazz). There's also a lot of communal blues power in this record. Listen for Fables of Faubus...that main horn melody makes me want to crack open an ice tray, fill up my glass with ice and bourbon.

Springsteen Super Bowl Commercial

Get excited goddamnit! And kudos to Don Mischer Productions for getting it right once again. First Michael Jackson then Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Prince, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, and now The Boss. Don Mischer is on a roll, minus the 2004 DNC balloon drop "what the fuck are you guys doing up there" incident of course.

UFO-01 Detector

A friend recently pointed this UFO Detector to me on Amazon.com The product reviews are laugh out loud funny!

***** Astonishing, it works!, January 7, 2008
by E. Jackson
"At first I was a bit skeptical of this product, since my last experiments with UFO Detectors had failed. But I was amazed when the product arrived, and even before I had taken it out of the box, a giant blue Police box landed in my backyard! A scruffy man with a brown trenchcoat told me his gravitational flux capacitor had registered my UFO Detector, and that I needed to be careful with it. I said thanks and waved goodbye, then walked out into a large field. To my amazement, I found a giant spaceship belonging to a man named Han Solo. He called it the Millennium Falcon and offered me a ride, but at that moment my UFO Detector went off real bad, and I turned around to see a giant ship crashing into the ground. A blue alien came out and complained that Moya wasn't running too good. I helped this woman and her crew fix the ship and waved goodbye to all the aliens. Exhausted I went home. And THAT was just the first day! I have had this UFO Detector for over a week now, and have discovered amazing UFO's with it. A giant bug ship named Lexx, , Another strange ship with two buffoons named Lister and Rimmer, and The Star Trek Enterprise! OH MY GOSH! I highly recommend this UFO Detector to anybody who wants an amazing adventure. It's Great! "

The rest of the reviews are just as great.

"One Of The Things That Amazes Me Is That They Don't Seem To Go About This In A Show Business Way"

A wonderful thing happened to Me over Christmas. Besides getting Guitair Hero: World Tour for my Wii I also received my very first Stooges album, the fantastic Rhino reissue of Fun House. It's one of the handful of records I've ever heard that actually lives up to the hype. And whilst doing some Stooges research over the past few days I came across this concert footage from Cincinnatti 1970. Enjoy!

Quiet Reflection

If left alone for an afternoon, there's no telling what my Mac and I will do. I made another song today in Garageband, a minute long instrumental track titled, "Quiet Reflection." Seeing that one can't exactly post a .mp3 on the blog, I went ahead and videotaped the outrageous Xmas display at the gas station down the street, thus making the project "shareable." When the Xmas decorations are put in slow motion with the song, I believe it brings both the song and video more to life. I got inspired to make this after watching this video.

If you go to the YouToobs to see the video, you can click "watch in high quality," and it looks and sounds a little better than how it's posted in the blog.

Young Money (An Ode)

Over Xmas Day, while hanging out in an obscure part of Brooklyn with some good friends, I learned the ways and means of the Apple program "Garageband." I am now a full-fledged music Producer, in the same vein as Trent Reznor, Dr. Dre, and Babyface... I already know how to use iMovie. So today I produced/composed a brief work of art titled "Young Money (An Ode)". I made it for my girlfriend, who I love very much, and is vacationing in Nevis, West Indies... Love enough to dedicate my first 100% Macintosh work of art to. She has no idea how lucky she is...

Redneck Pornography

I can imagine that after a while, the barrel starts to get hot...
Am I right, guys?

IAN MACKAYE ON... COMPUTERS

“It’s fascinating to think that people are spending enormous blocks of time, even without working, in front of these light boxes, tapping on plastic things. They get up after eight hours of intensive work and nothing has moved and nothing has changed but I could just spill some tea on this table and the stain would still be here. I don’t think there’s ever been a point in history where you could spend eight hours doing something and not a speck of dust gets moved. When you cook for eight hours you’ve got a lot of food, if you’ve been sweeping the floor is clean, if you are building something it gets built. Even if you are writing on paper you have paper that’s now been written on. There’s something fascinating about this idea that everything you do it doesn’t exist, it just exists in this temporal form. The information doesn’t exist. I mean, obviously I know that you are here because you wrote to me on the computer and I wrote back so there was a net effect and now we’re here. I’m not saying it’s a bad technology, I just think it’s an interesting idea. What will it do to people mentally? What will happen to our society if they feel like they can’t get anything done? I don’t know."

(source)

Merry Xmas

A Season of Giving, a Sense of Common Purpose

Merry Fucked Up Christmas!

This is cruel cruel cruel. And as he's crying the family just laughs away.

Today My Hate For The Yankees Grows

First they buy my second favorite pitcher, CC Sabathia, for 7 years $161 million dollars (effectively taking the bat away from the best long ball hitting pitcher in the league). Then they pick up AJ Burnett for 5 years $82.5 million dollars. And now they've bought Mark Teixeira for 8 years $180 million dollars. One can only imagine whose next...

Blogama: Your Weekly Address

"The search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us."

Blog # One

"Every story is based on a premise, is the working out of a premise."

Ishmael
~ By: Daniel Quinn

I Want My MTV, Back

Amy Winehouse - New Music - More Music Videos

With all this talk of restructuring the auto industry it's got me thinking that the real industry that needs restructuring is music television, most importantly MTV. Over the last quarter they have seen a 23% drop in their core demo of 12- to 34-year-olds and conversely this is causing ad revenue to dry up. So with numbers falling what's their solution you may ask? Well according to Variety it's "16 new reality shows". Now granted some of these seem interesting (like a Matt Stone and Trey Parker produced show), and they are "going to focus less on loud and silly hooks and more on young people proving themselves" which is always a good thing. Hell, they even go so far as to say that they are trying to create shows for the "Obama generation". But "G's to Gents"? Donald Trump's "Girls of Hedsor Hall" where a dozen hard-partying young women are whisked off to an English finishing school? Sure that may be better than endless loops of Viva La Bam and Pimp My Ride, but here's an idea. How about they play actual videos.

There's less overhead as it's much cheaper to produce. It makes for more enjoyable viewing. And seeing as Music is in the title of the channel it just makes sense. They have enough archived video and new video that they could play a wide amalgamation of material. Vintage clips from the pre music television days, videos from days of MTV past, modern pop radio stuff for the casual MTV fans, indie music, and more interesting bands like Radiohead, Wilco, Springsteen, ect. Maybe do some of those MTV concerts like they used to do. And sprinkle in some musical programing such as "making of's" and documentaries.

MTV used to have a certain feel to it, a certain something that always kept you checking back to see what was the next new thing. I remember the feelings I felt the first time I saw "Smells Like Teen Spirit", or "Closer", or "Creep". I remember staying up late to watch bands perform. I remember watching for hours in hopes of catching Dr Dre. It always kept me coming back for more. But now there's hardly nothing on the channel, minus the occasional stand out performance on one of their award shows. There's an hour of videos in the morning and that's about the extent of it unless your tied up in the soap opera that is Hedi Montag's life. In fact, the best thing I've seen on MTV in the last 4 years (not including awards shows) was seeing Amy Winehouse play a late night concert from the TRL studios about a year and a half ago. So in the spirit of leaving on a good note, I'll leave you with a clip of the last good thing I saw on MTV. Enjoy, and let's hope music makes it back to Music Television.

Sex Ed Rocks

If Obama Can't Pray With Pastor Rick Then How Can He Negotiate With Castro?

Goddamn, talk about pastor problems. First outrage over Rev Wright, then over Pastor Otis Moss, and now Rick Warren. Now for some background, Rick Warren was a staunch proponent of Proposition 8 out in California, and has said some pretty nasty things about gay rights and abortion. And even though Barack Obama disagrees on these issues he has still selected Pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration, and the gay and lesbian community along with many on the left have gone into an uproar. They say "how could you give this man such a platform, legitimizing him and his views". Well if that's the case then how could the left support Obama sitting down with dictators such as Raul Castro and thus fore "legitimizing" him?

All during the campaign the view from the right has been how that negotiating with the Castro's, and the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's of the world would give them a platform and legitimize their hate filled speech and evil acts. And now the left, who supported Obama in negotiating with these kinds of people, are now using the same logic against him for having Pastor Rick Warren give a prayer at the inauguration. From day one of Obama's campaign he has spoken of "starting a dialect between differing points of view". This is nothing new for him. So I don't see why all the shock and ballyhoo. Also of note is the fact that the man giving the benediction, Rev Joseph E Lowery, is the complete opposite of Rick Warren. He's pro gay rights, pro choice, and very much a leader on civil rights. So the opening prayer goes to the anti-gay preacher and the closing prayer goes to the pro-gay preacher. Seems fair to me.

Obama has an amazing ability to take from people the issues they can find agreement on and work with them on those issues, no matter how radical some of their views may be. He found agreement with unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers on education, so they worked on education. He found agreement with Rev Wright on God and poverty, so they worked together on those issues. He found agreement with Senator Brownback (whose as far right wing as they come) on AIDS in Africa, so they worked together on that issue. And he found agreement with Senator Luger on nuclear proliferation, so they worked together on that issue.

So if the left can't be cool with Pastor Rick then how can they be cool with Obama sitting down with Ahmadinejad who has said that he doesn't believe in the Holocaust? You can talk with, work with, and deal with people who don't completely agree with you. Tolerance also means being tolerable to people who don't agree with your view of tolerance. And it's that sort of inclusive kumbaya approach that is going to get our country back on the right track. Obama and Castro aren't going to agree on whether Communism or Democracy is the path for Cuba, but they can come to an agreement that allows trade relations and for Cuban-Americans to go visit their families. And Obama and Rick Warren aren't going to agree on gay rights and abortion but they do agree on climate change, poverty, health care, and the fight against HIV-AIDS, so why not work together to tackle those issues that they do agree on.

It's time to stop letting these great divides divide us from common purposes that we do agree on. Or as Barack Obama said today "that dialogue I think is part of what my campaign's been all about, that we're not going to agree on every single issue, but what we have to do is to be able to create an atmosphere where we can disagree without being disagreeable, and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans."

CNN States the Obvious

Is this really news? I don't mean any offense to the Pasley family and their poor daughter, I just hate reading headlines like this, especially when this is CNN.com's top story. Hopefully this article will bring awareness to the issue, and a way to break cancer news to children in a "good" way will be discovered. No?

The Great Thing About Year End Lists

Sure they can be debated and pulled apart for putting crap at the top (Rolling Stone calling Beyonce's "Put a ring on it" as number one single) or for emitting stuff that shouldn't have been. But the great thing about year end lists is that you sometimes stumble across things that you never knew existed, like this video above. Fleet Foxes "White Winter Hymnal"

Cowboys to Girls/Bang Bang

My Love For The Boss

So I remember a smoke filled night several years ago at the original Swaggard house, when for some reason a debate broke out about the merits of Bruce Springsteen. Someone, whose name I can't remember, was down on the Boss and I remember Seger and several others looking at him as if he'd lost his mind. Well shortly after then Bruce released the 25th anniversary edition of Born to Run. I remember Seger picking it up and for weeks at work going on and on about how great it was. My virgin ears had never heard it, but I knew there was a road trip planned for the hills of Maryland, so I figured that'd be a good time to experience it. As we hit the highway Seger hit play and I heard what sounded like the opening score of a great American movie. The piano twinkling with the harmonica rising as I imagined the camera sweeping around in wide screen capturing this picture that Bruce was describing in intimate detail. And from that day forward I've been hooked and my love for Bruce has progressed.

A month later I found an old vinyl copy of Born to Run at an antique store in North Carolina. And that record would go on to soundtrack the next year of my life. There were cold winter nights where I made love while that record played. And then after a subsequent break up there were nights where I'd drink High Life while listening to "Backstreets" over and over. When the break up started to heal there were a many a nights where I'd drink Carlos Rossi while burning up the pitch on FIFA as Clarence's sax on "Jungleland" filled up my apartment. It was a record that could bring on feelings of love, sadness, friendship, and happiness all in the same moment.

After my love affair with Born to Run I moved to Born In The USA, The River, Greetings From Asbury Park, ect. On Saturday nights I'd stay up counting lines with Darkness On The Edge Of Town and wake up on Sunday mornings to The Seger Sessions and a cup of coffee. I once even gave my boss a copy of The Boss's greatest hits for Boss's day (he didn't seem to get it). And then when coming to North Carolina I got the pleasure of seeing Mr Obama twice as he strolled out to "The Rising" with 20,000+ singing "Na na nana nana na na" in unison.

He's scored so much of my life over the last few years. Early mornings and late nights. Love and lust. Heartaches and heartbreaks. Butterflies and long goodbyes. The forming of friendships and the unfortunate distance that happens as life rolls on and some move north and some move south. And for every circumstance that comes about Bruce always seems to have some sort of plain spoken advice laden within his songs.

So I guess this is my open love letter to the Boss. One he'll surely never read and one that I'm not sure why I'm writing. But it just seems like sometimes in life it never hurts to say thank you, even if the person whom the thanks is intended for never hears it.

So This Is Why He Never Hurts...

That's some serious reaction time there.

Blogama: Your Weekly Address

Today's focus, the housing crisis and announcing his HUD Secretary.

Freedom Concerts '09, Coming to a Town Near You (if you're in 'real america' of course)

Oh joy, it's that time of year again. Time to buy Christmas presents for all the good little boys and girls. And what better gift to give than a Sean Hannity Freedom Concert '09 gift set. For just $75 you get a Freedom Gift Box, one general admission ticket, a 2009 Freedom Alliance calender, a commemorative mug, and free shipping. And what a traveling road show they have. Mr "Some Gave All" Billy Ray Cyrus, Charlie Daniels and his band, Christian recording artist extrodinare Michael W Smith, General Oli North, and the singer of the Republican National Anthem (Proud to be an American) Lee Greenwood. Better yet Sean Hannity has agreed to duet on "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" with Charlie Daniels at every stop. And just so you know, their official website says that you should "budget 3.5 hours for the evening of entertainment, inspiration, and challenge!". If you have any questions then feel free to email them to Freedom@PremiereCollectibles.com. And order soon, because with this much freedom tickets are bound to go fast.

Momma Laws

My sister Virginia, whom I believe owned the first Family Swaggard shirt, had her first baby a few days after my brother's. It took me a while to announce this because I did not have a picture of them both. The girl's name is Avabelle Love and she is my Goddaughter.

Blogama: Blogama

A blog post from the insightful friend of mine, Danny Lanzetta:

http://dannylanzetta.blogspot.com/

This Is How You Sell Conservative America On Clean Energy

Notice the keywords, Jobs, Made in America, Pickup Truck, No to Tehran, and more Jobs.

Gay Guys, Tornado Chasers, & Lester Bangs

I have been very fond of Philip Seymour Hoffman for quite some time. My first conscious recollection of him is the creepy guy from The Talented Mr. Ripley. He seemed to blow up after that. One reason I think I have a dude crush on him is that he is featured in most films by the consistently bad ass, Paul Thomas Anderson. One role I like in particular from those films was Hoffman as the gay guy from Boogie Nights. He also pulls off the gay guy from Capote (Capote), quite extraordinarily. Conversely, he can convincingly be the bad guy like a fraudulent mattress store owner in Punch Drunk Love and the villain from Mission Impossible 3. It is always a good feeling to know when going into a movie theater or rental store that you are spending your ever dwindling money on a film that will be good, or at least Phil will...feel will...feel wheel...

If Government Is So Bad Then Why Do You Want To Run It?

This is a point that has long been made by Bill Maher (and I'm sure he made it much better than I'm about to), but if Republicans hate government so much, then why do they want to run it so bad? Ronald Reagan famously said that"Government isn't the answer, it's the problem". Mark Sanford, governor of South Carolina, has been all over the news this week saying that the government is too dumb to manage the car industry and that investments in infrastructure are unnecessary. Idiot number one, Sean Hannity, goes on and on and on every night about how dumb congressional leaders are and get's all his Republican guests to nod their heads in agreement. Well if government is so bad and spooky and evil then how come you keep asking us to put you in charge? With that kind of mindset how do you expect to get anything positive done? By being Dr No like Senator Shelby of Alabama? If it is your fundamental core belief that government is the problem, then that means it's your fundamental core belief that government has no solutions, therefore you have no solutions, therefore get the fuck out. All you ever want is less regulation, less gun laws, and lower taxes, you know that "get government out of my way" mentality. But when it comes to social issues that don't affect you, you want to stick your nose and opinions in. No gays, no civil rights, no privacy, and of course more Jesus (the angry judgemental one, not the friendly forgiving one).

And another thing that goes along with this...how come everytime someone dares question our armed forces or the mission they are on you are immediatly accused of being "unamerican" and not supporting the troops, but yet Republicans can get away with bashing the government every single day of their lives and they are "patriots" for doing so? Hell, for 6 of the last 8 years they controlled all three branches of government, ran up massive amounts of spending, while at the same time railing against government incompetency and federal spending.

They have become a party that opposes everything and stands for nothing. And like the great Republican wordsmith Aaron Tippin once said, "You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything".

How The (Mid) West Was Lost

When Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 he told an aide "We have lost the south for a generation", anticipating the backlash that would follow. Well now it's 2008 and if the Republicans continue with their opposition of the rescue plan for the big 3 auto industry, then they will loose the mid-west for a generation. The Republicans are on retreat as it is. After the last election they no longer have any House members in the north-east and are relegated to being a mainly southern party with some representation through the conservative rust belt and out west. And if they continue with their opposition to saving the auto industry, after they wholeheartedly backed the bailout of wallstreet, they'll loose the remaining few seats they have in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana. And they'll loose the precious electoral votes that come with those states as well.

And God forbid they actually succedd and block the bridge loan to the auto industry and it goes kerplunk. They'll be blammed for millions of job losses and for spurring into action the catalyst that turned our recession into a full blown depression. The ads will be so simple that they'll write themselves, "Republican Congressman X gave over a trillion dollars to wallstreet fatcats but nothing to mainstreet Americans".

And not only will they be handing over the economic arguments to the Democrats but they'll be giving up the national security argument as well. Just as we are beholden to the middle east because of our need for oil, we will become beholden to south asia for their technology and cars. The battery is the new oil, and the countries that hold the technology will hold the power. Yes the big 3 have made mistakes, and yes they have to change their ways, but now is not the time to put ideals before country.

John Lennon Died 28 Years Ago Today

Photographer Allan Tannenbaum, November 26, 1980, just a few weeks before Lennon passed away. (source)

New Banner

Nathanael made a new banner for the kiddies! Brad, you've been immortalized (until we change the banner again). Congratulations!

Tonight A Star Is Born

For anyone who dares say boxing is dead, then you have not seen this man. Manny Pacquiao, the pride of the Philippines, just made "The Golden Boy" Oscar De La Hoya quit on his stool after the 8th round in what could easily be described as a mauling. In a years time "Pac Man" has moved up 4 weight classes, destroying 3 great fighters on the way, becoming the first man to do so since the great Henry Armstrong performed the feat back in 1937-38. Oscar was the far bigger man, had a 4 inch height advantage, but it was no match for Manny's speed, power, and skill. And at the start of the 5th round Oscar had a cringe of fear on his face as his eye was swelling shut and he knew his carer was going down in one of the biggest upsets the sport has ever seen. So turn on your Sportscenter in the morning and tune into HBO next Saturday for the replay of the fight, because after tonight "Pac Man" is a legend.

Blogama: The Weekly You Tube Address

Blogama: On-Deck

"...before I arrived in President, during I arrived in President."

"And the President ends up carrying a lot of people's grief in his soul during a presidency."

"I think it was a repudiation of Republicans"

"Remember, I was the guy in 2000 who campaigned for change."

READ THE TRANSCRIPT

(you're definitely gonna watch that video on the first page, about the do-over)

Did anyone see W.? I did, real interesting feels about W. now at this point.

New York I Love You (but your bringing me down)

So I'm not sure if anyone here besides me picked up last year's fantastic LCD Soundsystem record "Sounds of Silver" but if not I'd highly recommend it (especially if you can find it on vinyl). The main brain behind the band (James Murphy) is known as having "the best record collection in all of music", and he puts it to show making tunes that range from Prince to VU to Can in sound. But at the end of it is this fantatic little piano ballad. Best song I've seen Kermit lypsing since him and Fozzie teamed up for Rainbow Connection.

Holly Relevancy Grammy's!

Call me crazy but this year's line up of Grammy nominees is quite impressive. And who leads the pack for most nominations you may ask? Lil fucking Weezy with 8 nominations for his record That Carter III! How awesome will it be watching him and his tatted up face walking up on stage all night long. Get your 7 second delay ready. Not only that but there's Radiohead, My Morning Jacket, Kings of Leon, The Boss, MIA, Gnarls Barkley, Daft Punk, Kanye West, Neil Young, The Raconteurs, Beck, Al Green, John Legend, Nas, Brooks & Dunn, George Strait, and a Louvin brother (Seger will be happy with that one). Bout time these award shows started recognizing talent. Now I'm just hoping that they'll go that next step and book some of this talent to perform on the show.

Myspace Suicide

Look on the bright side, Myspace suicide!!! I just deleted my Myspace account (though I was told it could take 48 hours to take effect). Does that mean I'm in myspace purgatory? I hadn't logged into my account in over a month, and missed it little. I started seeing it more as liability than anything else. I wonder how many people/strangers stumbled upon my page, and read what I was about? I'd much rather someone stumble upon this blog, than my retarded myspace page full of what bands I like, cool pics of me, and my astrological sign... I don't know, maybe I'm just getting older, and having my computer remind me I have 179 friends just isn't as appealing as it used to be... Or maybe I am just tired of Rupert Murdock and his evil empire, I want nothing to do with it. I'm sure you know, that old bastard owns Myspace. Rupert's biographer was recently quoted saying:

"...I think it is--if you’re on MySpace now, you’re a [expletive] cretin. And you’re not only a [expletive] cretin, but you’re poor. Nobody who has beyond an 8th grade level of education is on MySpace. It is for backwards people." (source)

Hahaha! Plus everyone knows Facebook is waaaaay better. See you there!

Presidents, Pirates, & Postcards From Hell

In America, Barack Obama comes right before Miley Cyrus but after the World Wrestling Entertainment. A new breakthough connection between President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald has been discovered...[read more] I'm sure the Warren Commission is already on it!

Apparently pirates are thriving right now, particularly around Somalia. It's easy money, easy drugs, and easy women.