jff
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Posts posted by jff
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If any of you know any 17 year olds (or, more likely, their parents...who am I kidding, we're all pushing 50 here) in Georgia who are turning 18 very soon, please ask them to register to vote. You can register to vote for this election until December 7, as long as you are 17.5 years old. And you can vote on January 5 if you have turned 18 by then. Anyone in Georgia can vote in this runoff. Unlike some runoffs, you do not have to have voted in the general election to be eligible to vote.
I tend to agree that Warnock has a better shot than Ossoff. Being the pastor at MLK's church goes a long way in this city. And, unlike Ossoff, he's running against a rookie who has never been elected (Loeffler was handed her seat by the governor after Johnny Isakson stepped down for health reasons mid-term).
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3 hours ago, kidsmoke said:
And I would agree!
When my son Brennan was 13, we had gone to see 3 Wilco shows on the east coast together. The last was in D.C. so we were flying home from "Ronald Reagan National Airport". This was 2004 and Reagan had just died, so many dignitaries were flying in for the memorial ceremonies. We had decided to visit the World War Two Memorial in order to take some photos for my dad, a WWII vet. As we walked around under an intense summer sun, there was a commotion, and there was Rudy Guiliani with his entourage. A woman nearby had a young son in a wheelchair, and she asked Rudy if he'd take a photo with her boy. Well, MY boy wasn't paying attention and had wandered off, but I saw my opportunity, and as Rudy wrapped up with the handicapped child, I asked meekly if we could get a photo as well. He was all giant teeth and smiles, and I grabbed Brennan and hissed in his ear that we were going to take a picture, JUST DO IT. So with Rudy instructing me on the use of my own camera ("You need to open the lens more") (No Rudy this is as far as it opens), we captured our historically bizarre photograph. Here you go.
EW!!! Ew, ew, ew, I let him touch my boy! He didn't seem quite as dodgey and strange back then!Brennan doesn't seem too scarred by the incident. After the photo, after Rudy's group had wandered away, Brennan turned to me, squinting in the sun, and said, "Who WAS that?!?"
Just a twisted little piece of history, son.
I can't help it...all I can think about right now is your son making a fist with his left hand and giving Rudy a quick punch to the nuts.
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8 hours ago, kidsmoke said:
So Biden has just pulled ahead in GA and is steadily expanding his lead. Also Jon Ossoff's GA senatorial race will now go to a runoff on January 5th, along with Raphael Warnock's. Those 2 senate runoff races could determine control of the Senate!
Thought y'all could use some happy news. It's not over yet but I can't stop smiling.
GA still has provisional and military ballots to count, which probably outnumber Biden's lead. That could tip it back to Trump, but with PA all but locked down GA won't matter. But as a Georgia citizen, I really hope the lead holds for Biden here. The farther over 270 we can get the better.
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1 hour ago, Boss_Tweedy said:
If Biden wins Georgia it would pretty much make up for my Braves collapsing again in the playoffs.
I mean, I'm not really a sports guy, but our whole city is still bruised and embarrassed from the Falcons totally collapsing during the Super Bowl a few years ago, so we need this real bad.
Plus, the uncounted ballots have a very good chance of putting Senator Purdue under 50%, giving us a runoff (against Jon Ossoff). Generally runoffs are bad news for Dems, but with two runoffs in one state (Warnock vs Loeffler is the other), and the senate in the balance, there might be enough enthusiasm here to flip one or both of those seats.
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C'mon GEORGIA! It could happen. The numbers are there.
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10 hours ago, Neuroglue said:
I'm following the reddit live thread and hoping for some good news. Intentionally avoiding news sites and FiveThirtyEight because I'm terrified of what the updated projections might show. Trying to brace for the worst but I have to admit, I'm not ready for it. Not again.
I was following that, too. Terrible decision. Total cesspool of conflicting information (from anonymous randos who never reveal the source of their info, even when directly asked), ultimately all of it boiling down to doom.
The 538 live scroll was reporting real info in real time, and was less anxiety inducing, though not particularly comforting. It's still live and is giving me some degree of hopefulness. It's here if anyone is interested. https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/2020-election-results-coverage/
EDIT: Of course, as is to be expected, today much of their live scroll is "SHUT UP...WE WEREN'T WRONG, YOU JUST DON'T KNOW HOW POLLS WORK!"
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I don't really buy that. Our form of government is designed and intended to be adjusted when necessary. It's baked in by the founders for the express purpose of maintaining as fair a representation as possible. We don't have that now (we haven't in a long time, but it has gone to an extreme under Trump and McConnell), therefore adjustments are necessary.
I don't like the idea of expanding the court, either. I doubt anybody does. But the only options are to do it, or to suffer tyranny by a court (y then entire federal judiciary, really) that does not resemble the values of the country for the next few decades, or perhaps forever depending on how strategically the GOP games the system.
I do agree that the refusal to vote for HRC was an inexcusable bit or ideological purist arrogance, and also sexism, but I'd take it back to Al Gore, or farther. Similar ignorance was going on back then, too. "He's SO boring." "Lockbox, har-de-har." "Replace my lightbulbs over my dead body." Bending over backwards to find a reason to deny support to the better candidate.
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On 9/29/2020 at 10:29 AM, TCP said:
What's to stop a future Republican president from adding more when they inevitably take office at some point in the future??
Maybe nothing, but a watertight argument is worth preparing, and the talking points on this subject seem pretty obvious to me and would be easy to convey to the public in an effective way.
A representative form of government, by definition, is supposed to be similar in its makeup to the viewpoints of the citizenry.
There are not twice as many conservatives as liberals in this country. Therefore, the court, with its (soon to be) 6/3 conservative majority is not even close to representative of the citizenry and should be adjusted in number to make it representative.
That's the argument IN DEFENSE OF expanding the court.
The argument AGAINST a future republican president expanding it further is that, having now achieved a more accurate representation by expanding the court, the only point of expanding it further would be to create an unrepresentative advantage.
Force republicans to argue in favor of a less representative court and you have the winning argument.
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On 10/7/2020 at 12:51 PM, chuckrh said:
I have a good Eddie Van Halen story that I was too upset & ill to share yesterday. I had chemo yesterday morning & got home to hear the news of Eddie's passing. Not a good day. So let's hop in the time machine & head back to 1978. I was 17 & a junior in high school. At this point I am seriously getting into music which affected my life (good & bad) for decades to come. The first record came out in February of 1978. I was hanging out at my favorite record store & they said listen to this & put the record on as there was no radio play yet. Eruption comes on & it was like a bolt of lightning. My friends & I freaked out because there wasn't anything else out there that sounded like that. Bought the album immediately. A few months later they came to town as an opener for Black Sabbath on the Never Say Die tour. Van Halen absolutely destroyed them. Sabbath were not at their best & it turned out they fired Ozzy after the tour. They were so bad that we left the show early. Went to a party at a friend's place & I came up with the bright idea of heading down to the Edgewater to try & meet the band. The hotel was the stay of choice for bands. You could fish from the rooms & it was made famous by Frank Zappa song about mudsharks. So, we got there & bluffed our way into the cocktail lounge being underage & all. Turns out both bands were there & it was party time in the bar. We noticed Eddie was sitting at a table by himself in the corner so we wandered over to say hi. I think Eddie figured out we were there on the sly & told us to have seat saying he'd rather hang with fans than anyone else. We ended up getting quite a buzz on with him & he was very cool & nice to us. We met Ozzy, too. He was nice to us, too. On the other hand, David Lee already was really arrogant & aloof. 1 friend ended up spilling a really sloppy drink like a tequila sunrise on him by accident. He was not pleased! To cap it off, on the way back to the car I see a flash of green & dove on it. Turned out it was $40 which was a healthy amount of money in those days. What a night! I saw VH a bunch in the early days. I think they would've been an even bigger deal if Sammy Hagar was the singer from the beginning. DLR was entertaining but irritating & finally he was just insufferable. I saw them with Sammy a few times including a memorable show with Alice in Chains opening. Didn't catch any of the reunion shows. Now I kind of wish I had but I don't think it would've topped the early shows. RIP Eddie, you were 1 of a kind for sure!
That's an amazing story. What a great experience! It serves DLR right to have a drink spilled on him if he's gonna be an arrogant bastard.
Best of luck with your chemo and recovery. I'm pulling for you, as is everyone here.
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3 hours ago, Winston Legthigh said:
My picks are not too far from that. I would also say Duran Duran, David Bowie, Hot for Teacher, and I'm Just a Gigolo - which is probably my #1 video of all time.
I remember watching USA network's "Night Flight" on Friday night sleepovers - waiting for the "unedited" Girls on Film, or another one by Berlin (forget the song) that were too risque to show during daylight hours...
On further thought, Ratt's Round and Round and The Cars Magic were probably bigger players in my limited MTV experience than Duran Duran. Quite possibly also true for some Phil Collins songs. I remember seeing You Can't Hurry Love many, many times. I can remember more specific details about all of those videos than any Duran Duran video, which is just remember as them poncing around on a yacht.
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3 hours ago, Winston Legthigh said:
Who else would be on your MTV Mount Rushmore?
We didn't have cable in my house, so I only got to see MTV when I'd visit my grandparents each summer, so my MTV experience might be different than others, but:
Michael Jackson, obviously. The David Bowie China Girl video is a pretty massive one in my memory. Maybe Duran Duran.
But Van Halen Hot for Teacher was a huge smash. Probably a bigger deal than Thriller for me, which I only saw after it had been out a while.
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I grew up in the '80s, and I think Van Halen probably makes up more of my musical DNA than any other music. I haven't listened to them all that much in the last 20 years or more but it is undeniable that they are a massive presence in my life and in so many vivid memories of my past. I cant separate them from memories I have of so many childhood friends (and enemies). I know exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard as a 12 year old that they were becoming Van Hagar. They were my first music purchase I made with my own money. They are on the MTV Mount Rushmore. They are my grade school graduation swim party. They are my high school cover band. They are what the boys AND girls I knew thought was fun and awesome...which is a fucking revelation when you're 11 years old.
EVH is maybe the most influential person who ever lived. At least when it comes to what matters.
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What if a few Republican senators dying or going into comas from Covid is how RBG's seat goes unfilled?
That'd sure be a twist.
I can envision Mitch McConnell right now getting the every Republican in the senate to write notes saying their dying wish is to vote for Amy Coney Barrett, and then if enough of them die, McConnell arguing that those are valid votes.
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I've noticed something about Biden that I wish he would work on, or that his team would have trained out of him by now. He'll start to make what is obviously going to be a direct, plain spoken and clear statement from his heart, then before getting to the meat of the statement he stops, says "Look...", then veers off into a related but much less clear statement.
He does this a LOT, and if he would overcome this habit it would greatly increase the effectiveness of his message, and probably score him a lot of powerful sound bites.
That's my primary criticism of Biden's performance, and of him in general as a debater.
My criticism of Trump is that he's was and is a miserable, abusive sack of shit from the word go and stayed that way through the entire debate.
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1 hour ago, uncool2pillow said:
If Biden wins and turns Congress blue, I'd love to see them add two more justices. Hell, add 20.
Adding two still puts the liberal justices on the losing side of 6-5 (or 7-4 if Breyer drops dead in the next couple of weeks). There's no point in increasing the number unless you end up with an even balance or the winning hand.
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6 minutes ago, Chez said:
That's fair, though if not having experience as a trial judge is a deal-breaker for you, consider that only one of the current justices (Sotomayor) ever was as a trial judge before being elevated to the U.S. Court of Appeals. The Hon. Ruth Bader Ginsburg never was a trial judge.
Lack of trial judge experience is not a deal breaker. I mention that because it would count for lot if it were in addition to her 2.5 years of experience as an appellate judge. And frankly, the first half year (or more) as a judge is spent moving into and setting up your chambers, hiring law clerks, etc., so 2.5 years is a pretty flimsy amount of actual case work.
I think the standards should be quite a bit higher for anyone holding the highest possible position in a profession.
I'll bet the standards to be the president's limo driver are more stringent. Certainly the pilot of Air Force One has more than 2.5 years experience piloting an actual aircraft.
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1 hour ago, Chez said:
she s unquestionably qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice
I'd say she's only barely qualified.
She has 2.5 years total experience as a judge. While there is no requirement for a SCOTUS justice to have any experience as a judge whatsoever, or to even hold a law degree, I would hope that all Americans would prefer for our Supreme Court Justices to have served more time on the bench than that. Her experience as a judge only includes federal appellate court, and she has zero experience as trial judge. Her on the bench experience is slim enough that anyone would be perfectly justified in questioning her qualifications.
I would hold the same opinion if this were Barack Obama being nominated by Joe Biden.
I want to see the Supreme Court bench stocked with justices who have lengthy experience deciding cases. She does not rise to that level.
For those reasons, I don't think she is "unquestionably qualified."
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I saw on Nels' Instagram page that he was playing on the new Joan Osborne album Trouble and Strife. I had never heard her music, aside from What If God Was One of Us?, so I didn't know what to expect.
Anyway, Nels does some fine playing on this record, and has a few solo spots that are very satisfying to hear. My opinion is that Wilco has underutilized him in recent years, using him on the records mainly as a background/ambient sounds, with only the occasional moments where he gets to come up to the surface, so to speak, so it's nice to hear him play some traditional lead and rhythm guitar in a pop/rock format.
When listening. I was convinced Glenn was also on some of these songs, but that is apparently not the case. The drummer is Aaron Comess from Spin Doctors, playing in a very Kotche-esque style, at least on some of the songs.
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I can't get the Ashes episode to play, but i'm enjoying the At Least... episode.
Regarding your discussion of Sunset Magazine in the At Least... episode, and magazines specific to states or cities, which seems to be a novel concept to the Canadian host of this podcast, that is very common in the states. Most cities and states in the US have their own magazines. Here in Atlanta, we have Atlanta Magazine. We also have magazines specific to various statewide industries or interests. Georgia Music Magazine (now defunct) was one that comes to mind.
Even Little Rock has it's own magazine, Little Rock Family. You could probably google any city + magazine and you'd find results. I'm kind of surprised this isn't a thing in Canada.
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That's a fair point, I typically will look at the rundown for who played what (if available... newer Wilco albums don't have as much info for song-by-song, unfortunately) and will look up any weird instruments I'm not familiar with, for instance on At My Window Sad and Lonely I noticed Billy plays a "bouzouki" and off the top of my head I wouldn't have been able to tell you what that is. But in that situation I caught that before we recorded and was able to quickly do some research. Clearly for Art of Almost I didn't do that, which is too bad because explaining what a cimbalom is, is exactly the kind of in depth, slightly nerdy stuff I want to share. So I probably should have just done my due diligence instead of guessing! Seems like I was caught off guard with that one. I want the show to find a good balance between being informative and feeling like a fun conversation between friends. So I don't want it to feel too structured or rehearsed, but there's probably a good balance we can find. I do try to research each song before hand but I also like going into these not knowing exactly where the conversation will flow or what Jason thinks and feels about individual songs.
But thanks for the clarification, I think doing a "corrections" segment every once in awhile will be fun, so I'll mention it there (unfortunately we're trying to record ahead so we have a large bank of episodes before Jason's child is born this winter, so it won't be able to set the record straight till we're into the Cs). Fair point about the percussion instruments too, I tend to think when there's a blanketed "percussion" credit that it's just shakers/tambourines but you're right in that isn't fair for all percussion instruments.
The other piece of feedback we've gotten is we don't always delve too deeply into what a song means. Sometimes, that's fine, like for Christ For President, it's right there in the title. Other times, like At Least That's What You Said, there was probably opportunity to talk about the lyrics a little more in-depth. Though I also don't want to get too into the weeds of dissecting each lyric Jeff writes, again, there's a balance in there somewhere to find. I tend to think much more about the songs sonically or the story behind the songs, lyrics can become an after thought for me at times, so I'm working on that.
Another change you'll notice after these initial batch of episodes is we lock down the format for the show a little more which I think has a big payoff for just keeping things organized and focused.
Again, thanks for listening and caring enough to offer your thoughts!
Hey, Looking forward to listening to the Ashes episode later today. Just as soon as I finish listening to the George Clinton interview on Questlove Supreme.
BTW, I agree with your take on Art of Almost feeling like an experimental track shoehorned into a fairly straightforward batch of tunes. That, and like you guys, The Whole Love is my lost Wilco era. It's my least listened to of their albums, and one of the few tours I skipped (I think I skipped the Schmilco tour, too). I was hoping what they were doing on Art of Almost would be representative the whole album, but instead it's mostly breezy pop, straightforward rock, and a couple silly moments. And a way too long folk song that I don't really like at all. Come to think of it, that song may be the main reason why I skipped the tour.
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I've listened to a number of episodes now, and have enjoyed it, but if I may I'd like to offer a bit of constructive criticism based on a couple things I noticed in the Art of Almost episode.
When talking about Glenn's contribution to the song they make a couple of unforced errors. They say he plays a cimbalom. They don't know what this is, and guess that it is some sort of cymbal. That's not a bad guess based on its name, and I'm sure 99.9% of people in the world don't know what a cimbalom is (I didn't know for sure, and I'm a musician who has played in numerous school orchestras with well outfitted percussion departments) but it's actually a stringed instrument played with mallets, very similar to a hammer dulcimer. A quick Google search would have allowed them to explain what this instrument is, maybe narrowed in on the sound it's contributing to the song, etc. This would have added some interesting content to the episode, which is better than guessing and being wrong.
Example of a cimbalom being played:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NhCJMoDd5E
Another thing was their discussion of percussion in general. They're right that listing "percussion" in album credits is ambiguous, and they describe it as anything having to do with rhythm. This description is not correct. In addition to rhythmic instruments, the percussion family includes many instruments used for melody and harmony, and others for sound effects (vibraslaps, for example). One of the melodic percussion instruments Glenn uses is crotales, which are tuned metal discs and are used in a similar way as a xylophone or glockenspiel. One example of his use of crotales is I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, which you can see below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3paspn2oYw
I enjoy the podcast and I'm glad it exists. I hope this criticism won't be taken as anything other than suggestions.
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I'm almost done watching Teenage Bounty Hunters. It's been a fun show so far.
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So now I found another link of the above link that I posted and it lists the show as "Lou Reed performing live at the Théâtre St-Denis in Montreal, Canada on the 13th of August 1989."
You didn't happen to keep a 'sonic journal' (a la Bear) and jot down the date of the Lou Reed show that you saw on on your 1st trip? It would be a bit funny if you watched it a black and white TV, all along. My TV in the 1st half of the 90's was an old black and white, which I got poked fun at for. Even had tin-foiled rabbit ears.
I guess anything's possible, but I know the person whose TV I was watching it on had a 4 head VCR, which was high end at the time (I remember that because he advised me to insist on 4-head when I was in the market for a VCR), so it'd be weird if it were a B&W TV.
I suppose that could be the same video I saw, but I remember it way differently.
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I think you are thinking Chris Slade who played with AC/DC -- I don't think Slade ever played with Reed, though.
From what read, Robert Medici played drums on the New York tour. The only picture I can find is not very good.
I wonder if the below is what will be released on the DVD -
Lou Reed - New York Album - live on TV 1990
Well, that's interesting to know. He looks just like Chris Slade when you're six hours into an acid trip.
That's definitely not the New York promo video I saw. The one I saw was more sparse. Filmed on what looked like a soundstage. No concert production or lighting. So no frills it was almost black and white.
But again, the acid, so who knows.
Politics 2020
in Tongue-Tied Lightning
Posted
Thank you for that!