This ain't no foolin' around

The Great Iraq Swindle:

How is it done? How do you screw the taxpayer for millions, get away with it and then ride off into the sunset with one middle finger extended, the other wrapped around a chilled martini? Ask Earnest O. Robbins -- he knows all about being a successful contractor in Iraq.

From Rolling Stone #1034

An interesting two hours

If you have them to spare:

Zeitgeist: The Movie

New comment on Rebuttal to a comment

The votes are coming in, and it's Pig-Pile On Peter.

I'm finding all kind of evidence that my opinion of fancy-pants englishman dancing could be misplaced. And someone else might have nailed it when they suggested it was a white boy thing.

Let's look at a few vids, then mix 'em up and see what we get.

Here we have James Brown doing The Skate (perhaps from the T.A.M.I. Show? Shindig? Can someone with a better memory help me out here?), along with a roomful of watusi dancers trying to keep up:



Here we have the Jackson 5 with Michael Jackson borrowing from James Brown and taking it up several notches with the Pop 'n' Lock:



I guess both of those put englishman dancing to shame. Well, let's try a little experiment. Let's take some englishmen and toss them into an all-American setting with plenty of dancing:



Hmm. Apparently the entire crowd dances better than the englishmen band (but they're still cool as ice). Mitigating factor, though, is Hef -- hitting on the whammy bar. Erase another point for the Americans.

OK, let's try the same setting with an American band:



Wow. Once again, the rock stars don't dance very well, but look closely at about 1:43 into the vid, just to our right of Barbie Benton. Notice the gentleman in the mauve jacket, striped pants and awesome white go-go boots. Watch for awhile...watch...

Did you see it? There! Christ on a bike! If that isn't Jesse Jackson shaking his booty like a wild man to the Devil's music, I'll eat my hat. Still, I guess the song IS about the Garden of Eden and all...

Well, that was a fun little experiment. Thanks to dissenting commenters for raising my consciousness and expanding my horizons!

Now let's flash-forward a few years. Reagan is president, and what do we get? Mere words cannot describe. Let me try anyway:

Take the rotting corpse of the young, rockin' Elvis, dress him in skin-tight black leather pants pulled down to barely cover his pubes and butt-crack, stuff a mic in his mouth like a ball-gag and give him a guitar-playing girlfriend with a perpetual sneer on her face. Germinate them in a sleazy Sacramento trailer park; soak in a beer-covered floor at CBGB, and let fester in the pale glow of a B-horror movie at 3 am; take that oozing mess and toss it in the rancid spunk of a B/D/S/M peep show booth in Los Angeles. They are as American as a moldy slice of apple pie and your stepmom coming home drunk and vomiting all over the shag carpeting and naugahyde.

Aww...let's have a look:

Does anyone know where I can get a pair of pants like that?

Rebuttal to a comment

Way down there, on my post called A Beautiful Mind, my friend Ana said in the comments:

frankly, david bowie dances like an englishman....not a compliment...

Well.

I thought Bowie's dancing in that version of "Stay" was pretty cool. (Not to mention Carlos Alomar being a guitar god...)

As one whose friends told him he once said, "Bowie could poop in a paper bag and I'd buy it*," I feel compelled to make a rebuttal. And I will back it up with proof:

Compare the Bowie englishman dancing with that of some of my other childhood heroes, Chuck Negron, Corey Wells and Danny Hutton of Three Dog Night in the video below. I guess they dance like what? Americans? And yes, their wholesomely powerful American voices could possibly blow Bowie's superior englishman dance moves out of the water. But still.

Observe:



I rest my case.

Disclaimer: I just know I am going to be burned now, when video of the 60-year old Iggy Pop or James Brown in the T.A.M.I. Show is presented to me as a more appropriate version of American dancing...

*I was baked.

More on my Bobbie Gentry fetish...errr...influence

I can't embed it here, but here's a link to a duet between Bobbie and Donovan! singing "There Is A Mountain". My head is going *boink*!

And, bonus: here's another video that gives me a point in my pants. I recommend watching this immediately after the Batman video down below. There is a section inside of my mind that looks like that Batman and this "Niki Hoeky" all the time.

Ohhhh...now I get it

The conspiracy theorist in me almost makes me wonder if this isn't the reason the bridge went down.

Four football fields wide! Wow!

I guess we can kiss those fall foliage tours to Duluth goodbye.

Of bridges

I started this blog a few years back, but didn't point it out to anyone. I didn't care who -- or if anyone -- would read it. I thought it might be fun to document the fun evenings my friends and I would have while dining and imbibing. I thought I also might teach myself a bit more than the basic html I already knew.

Then I got married, didn't write as much until my marriage was heading south, and eventually erased the whole thing. I think it's high time I wrote another post about dining, even though it was standard bar fare.

Last night I got together with some lads from my home town at The Village Tap in Roscoe Village. Petey, Skinner's Brother, and their friend J. and I decided to meet, hoist a few pints and connect after not seeing each other for quite a few years. (Actually, I'd never met J., but he was an old friend of the other two.)

So, we're sitting there, talking smart, telling lies, laughing, keeping an occasional eye on the Cubbies/Phillies game televised in the ubiquitous corner TV. We're eating pita and hummus, hot wings and drummies, and washing it all down with microbrews. At some point, I look up and notice the ballgame is no longer on. Some sort of calamity has struck -- CNN is on, and a bridge has collapsed. My eyes widen as I notice "Minneapolis" and "35W", my former and sometimes current stomping grounds. When I'm in Minneapolis, I cross that bridge every day at rush hour.

Our jaws hit the table. I don't have my cell phone with me, so I can't call any friends back home and get the skinny. Petey has his Blackberry with him, and calls his sister-in-law in Minneapolis. She gives us a little more information, and lets us know that everyone she can think of is safe.

I... I... I, I, I.

I don't know what to say, other than I hope those who were involved in the catastrophe are okay. My heart goes out to those who were smushed or have drowned, and their friends and families. I don't envy those who now have to make a daily trek to find another route across the mighty Mississippi.

The smartiepants over at The Aristocrats had something cogent to say about it, as usual. And have also put into words what many of us are thinking.

“No structural deficiencies” reported in 2006 on the bridge, according to Gov. Tim Pawlenty, however, it had been rated "structurally deficient" in 2005. Apparently still stinging from the heckuva job they did in New Orleans, the White House promises a "robust" federal response, to the tune of a whopping $5 million and some prayers. The Preznit also offered his sympathies, and used a press conference doing so to also slam the Democrats.

At least one pundit seems almost bummed out that terrorists didn't cause it, and whines about people "crawling out of their padded cells to pin the collapse on conservatives."

And 4o years ago, during the Summer of Love, Bobbie Gentry had a song about a bridge.

I was 5 years old, and perhaps I can trace my attraction to brunettes -- from youthful lusting after Raquel Welch and Agent 99, to adult lusting after my ex-wife -- to Bobbie Gentry.

I remember being excited to watch the Smothers Brothers each week. And one night -- bonus! -- they gave us this, performed live: