Blondie? More Like, Turqoise

Oh yes, it’s Friday night and I’m in the mood for some post-disco glam rock. And no one does post-disco glam rock better than Blondie. And props to Blondie drummer, Clem Burke. Burke has been participating in a 8 year study into the physiology of drumming. Physiologists have measured Burke’s oxygen intake, metabolism, and stamina levels and it turns out that during a normal concert, Burke’s body actually operates at the level of a professional athlete. Watch the below video and you’ll see why. The guy is a madman.

Also, please note how the video matches Deborah Harry’s turquoise dress with Burke’s turquoise suit and the bass player’s turquoise button down. They just don’t make em like they used to. Goddamn it, I was born a generation too late.

I Hate It When I’m Right

I guess Israel decided not to listen to me about making sure that a moderate group rebuilds Gaza, thereby drawing Palestinian support away from Hamas. Instead,as this Newsweek article notes, Hamas is the main source of aid and rebuilding in Gaza and is lacing their humanitarian aid with political messages about how evil the Israelis are and how they are the only group that can defeat the Zionist enemy. Meanwhile, Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah are sitting on the sidelines looking like the morons they are.

So now a bunch of people are dead, Israel is completely and utterly isolated internationally (even moreso than usual, if that’s possible), Hamas is still firing rockets into settlement territories, and Hamas and the radicals have a tighter grip over Gaza than every before. Great. Just fucking great. How many times do I have to be right before people start listening?

Larry Bowa: The Only Man In the Dodgers Organization With Any Balls WHATSOEVER

Larry Bowa is my type of guy. No nonsense, gonna speak his mind in the name of righteousness no matter the consequences (yes, I did just indirectly refer to myself as “righteous”, thereby making me “self-righteous”, I am aware of this).  The cheapskate Dodgers are dragging their feet on re-signing Manny Ramirez, despite the fact the guy single-handedly revitalized the entire joke of an organization. All the guy did was hit about .650 with 47 home runs and 132 RBIs in half a season with them. Ok, those numbers are a bit of an exaggeration, but what the guy did last season was nearly superhuman and brought a pathetic baseball team back to relevancy and the National League Championship Series.

Now of course, surprise of surprises, Frank McCourt’s cheap ass is spitting in Manny’s face and lowballing him on the offer. McCourt doesn’t seem to mind blowing $50 million on a house in Malibu to go cheat on his wife in, but a guess compensating the savior of his largest asset is too much of a burden. Anyone with half a brain knows the Dodgers’ offense without Manny Ramirez will be about as lively as Lennin’s corpse. They let half their pitching staff go, so I don’t exactly see how they expect to win games without putting some runs on the board.

But does anyone in the Dodgers’ organization make a fuss? Even their iconic $10 million a year manager, Joe Torre. HELL NO!  All except one man: Larry Bowa. No way is Larry Bowa gonna sit around with his mouth shut while these jerkoffs from Boston flush this team down the drain. Bowa finally spoke out in the LA Times yesterday and basically called the McCourts out on not re-signing Manny.

“Without Manny in the lineup I won’t say we can’t score runs, but we’ll be like we were at the beginning of last year [meaning, without scoring runs],”

To take it one step further, the Dodgers will be an absolute joke without Manny Ramirez. Bowa can’t exactly come out and say that for fear of backlash (and getting fired by the notoriously petty and vindictive Frank McCourt), but at least he’s got the cajones to speak up. The odds of me ever ending up in a trench are slim and none, but if I ever do end up there, I can only hope Larry Bowa is with me.

Fuck This Kid

15 year-old South Pasadena high school student, McKay Hatch, has taken up a crusade to stop people from using swear words. According to McKay, he was so golly garsh concerned once he hit middle school and his friends started to cuss, that he just needed to become a sanctimonious little shit, I mean, take up the cause to clean up his generation’s potty mouths. He has built the “No Cussing Club” up to 30,000 members worldwide, has his own website, wrote the “No Cussing Club” book, and recently appeared on Jay Leno. I’m just amazed this choir boy had enough time left over after getting molested by his priest to accomplish all this.

One wonders, where did this rough putting inspiration to us all get imbued with such wholesome values in this Age of Vulgarity? Wait, a second….it appears McKay’s parents, Brent and Phelecia Hatch, wrote the seminal work, Raising a G-Rated Family In An X-Rated World. No way! You mean, this kid is a result of parental indoctrination and not moral purity?! I’m shocked! Apparently, using swear words is taboo, but being an unrepentant media whore is just fine and dandy. One of my fellow WordPress bloggers, Shirley Buxton, is tired of society’s insolence and gives kudos to young McKay. I, on the other hand, would like to give kudos to whoever ordered $3,000 worth of pizza to McKay’s house. It looks like the kid is getting some death threats too. Can’t say I approve of those, but hey, McKay sleeps in the bed he made.

Orgasm Guy….You Get the Picture

Andy Samberg and SNL recently rocked the modern zeitgest with the genius “Jizz In My Pants” video. I take nothing away from “Jizz” (whoa that didn’t sound right), but it did in fact slightly rip off one of the greatest SNL skits of all-time: Rob Schneider’s “Orgasm Guy”. This video is so good it raises human consciousness to another level. Just watch it. Trust me.

ORGASM GUY click HERE!

The Circular Reasoning of Suckage

Ron Rosenbaum goes off on how Billy Joel sucks. I wouldn’t necessarily disagree, but Rosenbaum  approaches his thesis from a problematic angle. He considers Joel the worst pop musician of all-time because his songs hold their subjects in contempt and do nothing but accuse others of phoniness which simply reveals the accuser’s own phoniness. Ummm, but doesn’t claiming that someone else sucks because all they talk about is how everybody else sucks mean that you suck? It’s a conundrum that would make Holden Caulfield’s head spin.

FOOD + LAB Brings Some Much Needed Class To This Squalid Hellhole

When the term “old college buddy” comes to mind, one typically pictures an ex-Abercrombie meathead who can’t wean himself off backwards hats & Madden ‘04 and pretends to get excited about “getting wasted” even though it no longer brings him any tangible benefit and is just a convenient cover for the fact that the best days of his life are long gone. My “old college buddy” Nino Lindsmeir, on the other hand, is an Austrian ne’er do well who is more likely to be found sipping merlot, chain-smoking Marlboro Reds, and telling the nearest female that she is miraculously, flabbergastingly, incomprehensibly, breathtakingly beautiful than scarfing down wings at Barney’s Beanery. He’s like Billy Zane in “Titanic” meets Larry Dallas from “Three’s Company” and that clearly qualifies him to be my token not-quite-Euro-trash friend.

Nino and his lovely mother, Esther, have had a thriving catering business for years and recently opened up a cafe to bring their Austro-French inspired delights to the masses. Esther once made a fondu that was so good it left me incapacitated for 72 hours, so you can trust that this is not just your average Dean & Deluca knock-off. The FOOD + LAB is smooth and clean, specializing in marketplace fresh sandwiches, salads, sides, and produce. It is certainly a welcomed alternative to over-priced nuevo-California wannabe junk that seems to pass for cuisine in this town (ummm, Toast anyone?). When you are in the hood, definitely go check them out.

Food + Lab, 7253 Santa Monica Boulevard, between Poinsettia Drive and North Poinsettia Place, West Hollywood (323-851-7120 or foodlabcatering.com)

Israel’s Only Chance for Victory

I’ve been critical of Israel during this recent conflict not for moral reasons, but for strategic reasons. Meaning, I simply didn’t think what they were doing would accomplish their long term goals (which, I don’t care what anyone says, are far more important than stopping 20 bullshit missiles from being launched into some farm land). But I still believe there is a sliver of hope for Israel to come out of this situation stronger and safer than they were before and here it is.

As Andrew Exuh explains, Hamas always builds credibility among the Palestinian people by rebuilding Gaza after the Israelis destroy it and portraying themselves as humanitarians/freedom fighters.  They are going to try to do this once again and Israel must stop them. Right now there is a battle in Gaza over who will rebuild the land. Israel must, as secretly as possible, fund and support a moderate group (whether Fatah or otherwise) in the rebuilding of Gaza.

It might leave a bitter taste in the mouths of many Israelis that they are helping rebuilding the land of their enemies, but having a potential partner for peace do the rebuilding will elevate that group into power in Gaza, marginalize Hamas as was originally intended, and at least create a chance for a lasting peace agreement some time in the near future.  Israel MUST at all costs seize this opportunity or be stuck with Hamas or a Hamas substitute in Gaza and be right back where they started.

The Irony Is Not Lost On Me

A bunch of Al Qaeda guys training in North Africa caught a case of the Bubonic Plague. Hey, fuck em, they’re the ones who wanted to return to the 14th century. Be careful what you ask for.

Innauguration Speech Analysis

Enough people have commented on it so I’ll be brief. The speech was solid and did not aim to be more than that. The new President understands his capacity to inspire emotion and knew that it would really not behoove anyone to reach for the stars in an attempt to generate the response that he can elicit simply by telling the truth.

Furthermore, as we can see from his maturity and stoicism, he understands the challenges ahead and does not want his message of “Hope” to become a message of “Hubris” that will ultimately work against us. It’s like he’s telling his “hope and change are nice, but they don’t get the job done” critics “yes, I know that you assholes.”

The only part of the speech that saliently struck me was Obama’s invocation that this is not the end of the American era. All empires crumble, but all empires also have cycles. Is this a down cycle, or is the era of America as the greatest and most powerful nation on earth truly coming to an end? There is certainly evidence pointing to the latter, but honestly once we get past the shock value of what has transpired over the past 3 or 4 years, there is just as much evidence that we’ve got quite a ways to go. Being the history geek that I am, that is change I can believe in.