Central Scrutinizer

I would strongly recommend picking up Ry Cooder's new album "My Name is Buddy," which celebrates the dust-bowl ballads of his early days, and features Cooder's son, as well as Pete Seegar and brother Mike, Flaco Jimenez and Van Dyke Parks. In includes stories for each song, and related charcoal sketches. Green Dog is incredible.

You realize that "sucks to be" is an expression -- and one of sarcasm at that? Just as ROFL does not require a seizure-like response?

With pay. That is probably standard procedure, but I don't think there's a lot of fine hairs to slice here -- even among the comments in the story. this one says he's placed on leave pending an internal investigation. As long as he's being paid, reassign him to swabbing out the holding pens. As far as judgment, a quick tag check would have determined if it was the same guy. Let them go, you've got the car, if you want to be by the book, you can track down the driver to make him pay up, just as they do for unpaid parking tickets.

Showing off your emoticon palette?

I worked for a business journal in the late 1980s in Jacksonville, FL, with one of my beats being local media. I saw the writing on the wall with the above when I interviewed program directors and how they had automated formats to the point that live bodies were no longer even making any judgments with the formats. It came down to what software you bought, for applying algorhythms to songs and their current ranking for how they were automatically slotted to play once every four hours, what songs they would follow and precede. Widget radio.

I agree. Does speculation and early listens and glimpses (watching the Colbert Report for instance) cloud what I'm ultimately going to think when I listen to the album the first 15-20 times? I don't think so. Whatever is there is going to grab me by the woohoo. Or not. Past experience with Wilco calls for protecting my woohoo, though.

I think the record industry fatcat model still exists. It's just that it's moved on to multimedia. The same handful of companies create a star and plug them into video, movies, set them up to ape products. There is always going to be that core group that will lap up whatever's handed to them -- the proles of "1984." There won't be another Beatles (or, god forbid, another Micheal Jackson). Madonna's rise to fame and manipulation of the media I think is the last mega-star that can profoundly impact culture. You have the Britneys, Jonas Bros, Hannah Suzannah, and that ilk that will create enoug

I remember being 5 years old and playing and replaying a 45 of "I Saw Her Standing there" on a cheap little record player with a 2-inch speaker and being in heaven. The quality seeps through whatever format. That said, I've had more fun looking back at stuff like the demos and different liver incarnations in retrospect than sifting through them for clues before the release.

This quote from Rollingstone embodies how it could suck to be Jeff Tweedy about this time: "I'm sitting here trying to figure out what the record is about," he told us, sitting around their kitchen table. "This is the first time I've had to talk about it so it's a pretty uncomfortable situation. I'm more uncomfortable than I thought I would be. I really love the record and I'm really proud of it but I'm not at the point where I know how to talk about it. I'm still in the part of my mind that is, if I could tell you about it then I wouldn't have even made it. I just want you to hear it." Yo

I think to an extent you're right -- although looking at Hank in his later years, one would deduce that he was indulging in things other than steroids. There are other factors IMHO that came into play during Sammy's peak years -- there were arguments of a tighter ball which helped add to everyone's home run totals (some of it, I've read, was the movement from sourcing balls from Haiti during the embargo to Dominican Republic and elsewhere. But again, all circumstantial. If baseball had done a better job of stepping in earlier, there wouldn't be so much hanging over the heads of some player

D'oh!

Agreed.

I get what you're saying, somewhat. If it wasn't important, this thread would have gained no traction. Many of the joke suggestions play off titles that had significance in one way or another. It sort of plays on the digital vs. vinyl debate -- "experiencing" the album has been as much the connotations of the title as the actual listening.

No it goes deeper than that; police corruption has historically been a form of organized crime. It affects where the law is enforced and where it's not. It can be as simple as, in Florida the FOP have medallions that are affixed to their license plate screw. Police officers are provided extra copies that are given to family and friends, so that they won't be pulled over. Police officers are allowed to rent themselves out off duty at time and a half, wearing the uniform. It got so bad that they had to limit the amount of offduty hours because too many cops were rolling in six figures and park

I start at 20% just because it's easy to work out (double the total and move the decimale one place) and 15% is usually figured into whatever a person is paid as a base salary. A person who does a decent job and is conscientious deserves that because of all the dregs that provide bare-bones service with the expectation of that 15%. So if I start having to do the math, the service is either really great or really sucks. I have heard countless waiters and waitresses tell similar and worse stories. And they are usually always the first ones to complain about the slightest problem.

No, I don't, and the simplest answer is this: corruption. There is the abuse of power -- just as much as this guy makes a hardcase for an athlete, there are as many (if not more) cases where a cop lets off an athlete or person of notoriety on a more serious infraction, bought off by tickets, an autographed ball etc. Here's another reason:

I wish it were that simple -- then we could implement a tagging system (little UPC code stapled to the ear lobes of bad copes) -- but it's not. And yes the wearing down from witnessing bad shit, it does impact them. I have known cops who were decent people but bad cops. I have known absolute shitheads who make decent cops (provided they're put in a place where their shitheadosity can be put to use). I think it's a much more complex part of the police culture that causes the problems. Then there's the position of authority and how easily that may be corrupted for their own aims; and their exp

At the risk of inciting a riot, I would say police today are as much a problem with crime as the criminals themselves. They've created an environment and culture where the victims are merely a necessary process.

Ibid.

Conscript: I was maimed by rock and roll. I was maimed by rock and roll. I was tamed by rock and roll. I got my name from rock and roll

I saw the other day that the Coen brothers are going to make "True Grit." The comments are that it won't be a remake, but would be closer to the original book. I was impressed by True Grit, the dialog in that movie is like poetry in places, and all of the actors do a great job -- but particuarly Darby, Strother Martin daring to try to debate her, and the Duke as a self deprecating Rooster Cogburn. I think if anyone could pull this off, it would be the Coen bros. Violent and dark, sure. But there's undercurrents to the story that couldn't be touched when the original was made. Saw a few b

Happy belated!

I didn't notice this on wilcoworld.net/news yesterday ... The forthcoming and still-untitled next Wilco album is nearing completion. Jim Scott and the band spent the last few weeks mixing in Jim's studio in Valencia, California and here's a list of song titles spied on the reels -- note this is not necessarily complete and not in sequence. Deeper Down Conscript (aka I'll Fight) One Wing Solitaire Wilco (the song) Country Disappeared Everlasting Bull Black Nova Sonny Feeling You and I Rumors and blogs regarding a guest appearance on that last track are, amazingly, quite true. Feist does i

What if it's "not the type of album best listened to in your car"? Can you kill the initial vibe of an album by saying, "I'll only listen to it, thus and so." And things like traffic, stupid drivers, a rainy day can strongly impact your listening pleasure/displeasure. (Begs the question -- already answered in other threads perhaps -- where the best place to listen to the drone is?) Dr. Dog's Fate didn't catch me when I listened to it leaving the record store. But listening at home a few days later peeled a few layers off the onion. Through variety of experience during listening and setti