Month: August 2005

NAME: Mike Sterling
BLOG NAME: Mike Sterling’s Progressive Ruin
NAME OF CD: The Uneasy Rest of Thomas Edison
NUMBER OF CUTS: 35
RUNNING TIME: 79:55
COVER ART: Excellent picture of Alva himself
SONG LIST:
1. Think of Me-Stark Effect
2. No More Free Will-The Bran Flakes
3. Mustache-Qypthone
4. Evolution Is Easy-Neoangin
5. Bombolero-Dan Belloc and His Orchestra
6. Spring Pants Has Come-Mummy and the Peep Show
7. Eleven Twelve-Braces Tower
8. Aggravation-Victor Banana
9. Hearing Problem-The Dead Alewife (talk)
10. Mothra Song
11. Murphy It’s You-from Robocop: The Musical
12. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang-Braces Tower
13. At the Munsters
14. Star Trek-Tenacious D
15. Stay on Target—Rebel Scum
16. The Smurfs’ All Star Show
17. Boy Wonder-Burt Ward (talk)
18. Kookie’s Mad Pad-Ed “Kookie” Byrnes
19. The Carioca-Jonathan and Darlene Edwards
20. Apes’ Shuffle-The Jeff Wayne Space Shuttle
21. Pac Man Cereal
22. Goin’ Berzerk-Buckner & Garcia
23. M.U.L.E. Theme (rehashed)-Edgemere
24. Video Computer System-Golden Shower
25. Purple Cow-Psychedelicado
26. Multi-Family Garage Sale-Land of the Loops
27. It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Syphilis-The Four Skins
28. Perversion for Profit-The Bran Flakes (talk)
29. Crybaby Duck-Evolution Control Committee (talk)
30. QuackQuackQuack-QuaQuaQua
31. Hoppity Jones-Twink
32. Uncle Mistletoe-Buddy Max
33. Poke You in the Eye-Head and Leg
34. Metamorpho
35. Mary Had a Little Lamb-Thomas Edison (talk)
ALREADY REVIEWED BY: Gordon on June 21
GENERAL THOUGHTS: This is why I don’t review CDs for a living. Sometimes, one is left…speechless. This is certainly the strangest of the discs I received. Mike’s note: “…many of you will probably rip the disc out of your player and throw it across the room…” Well, no, but probably not a regular listen either.
THINGS I PARTICULARLY LOVED: 2, 3, (danceable) 7 (if you’ve forgotten know how to count, a pleasant refresher), 27 (change syphilis to Christmas for the tune), 28 (very funny, I’m afraid), 33 (rude but effective), 35 (appropriate ending)
ON THE OTHER HAND: 15 (irritatingly repetitive), 24 (ditto). And it’s not so much a particular cut, it’s the collective effect of “how weird can you get”, particularly the middle of the disc.
OFFICE FRIENDLY: Well, the TOPICS of 27 & 28 will turn some heads.
ONLY VAGUELY RELATED: I own the single Pac Man Fever by Buckner & Garcia; ah, I see why cuts 21 & 22 are together. The second CD in a row with Smurfs; maybe use of these blue folks is somehow ironic.
I wrote music for the famous poem “Purple Cow” in college and got an A on the assignment.
***
After I posted the above, I played Mike’s first Mixed CD. I liked it a lot. Wish I were reviewing THAT.

So I’m flicking through the channels last night, and I come across a shot of two women in the talking-heads side-by-side mode. The woman on the left I don’t know. The woman on the right is vaguely familiar. And isn’t that a NewsChannel 13 logo behind her, partially obscured? Why, yes, it is. The reporter is named Alison Bleck from NBC affiliate WNYT in Albany and she’s talking to MSNBC’s Rita Cosby about the Christian Brothers Academy teacher who allegedly had sex with underage male students. Oh, WHY is this not-worthy-of-national-news-coverage story on MSNBC? Because teacher was busted for DWI, a violation of her bail, and now she’s heading for jail.

Then I see Rita interviewing David Soares, Albany County District Attorney. She asks him a question, and he responses that he’s “shocked” that the teacher would use such poor judgment and thought she might have laid low. Rita’s next question: “Weren’t you shocked…?” as though she hadn’t even listened to his previous response. And the entire three-minute (or so) interview was like that, with her asking questions that he had already answered.

I didn’t watch any more of the program, since she had moved on to Alabama-teen-missing-in-Aruba, and instead watched the last two innings of the Mets exciting 1-0 win over the Nats.

So I need to know, because I don’t watch her show, and indeed was totally unfamiliar with her until I read this story about the former FOX reporter: is Rita Cosby ALWAYS that incompetent, or was that just an aberration?

The physics of music:

NAME: Dorian Wright
BLOG NAME: Postmodern Barney
NAME OF CD: Happy Smiling Naked Man
NUMBER OF CUTS: 35
RUNNING TIME: 79:39
COVER ART: A picture of a happy smiling naked man, except for the strategically placed LP cover
SONG LIST: On Lefty Brown’s page of June 30, though there are also 10 snippets inserted throughhout
ALREADY REVIEWED BY: Gordon on June 21; Lefty
GENERAL THOUGHTS: Not all of it, but a lot of this disc is jokey. Some of it worked for me (Nigel Planer, Milton Berle’s Yellow Sub), some didn’t (Hulk Hogan), and a lot I didn’t know WHAT to think (Tony Randall, Leonard Nimoy, Brady Bunch, Smurfs). A somewhat uneven disc.
THINGS I PARTICULARLY LOVED: The run of covers: G-L-O-R-I-A (“Melvin”)/Judy Get Down/Jolene; Snip Snip; Teenage Enema Nurses; The Mystery Date commercial
ON THE OTHER HAND: The Scooby-Doo joke was WAY too long; Boots was painful
OFFICE FRIENDLY: Not the Butthole Duet, MC Chris, Justin Tranter, and at least two of the unidentified snippets.
ONLY VAGUELY RELATED: Killer Pussy was one of the biggest local New Wave bands in Phoenix back in the 80’s, I’ve read. Nancy Sinatra was on CBS Sunday Morning recently; she looked and sounded great- THOSE boots were made for walkin’! Dorian kindly sent me his previous effort, the listing for which is somewhere on June 10; though it too was kitschy, it was less weird, so I enjoyed it more.

(This was probably inspired in part by Gordon’s recent post.)

In the USA, lung cancer kills more men AND more women than any other cancer. Peter Jennings who was a smoker until about 20 years ago, then “was weak” and started up around 9/11/01, died from it. Vasssar Clements died from it. These questions are limited to tobacco (not any of the other stuff, like that “wacky tobacky”):

1. Do you smoke or chew tobacco? If so, how much? If you do, why, and if you don’t, why not?

2. If you partake, have you tried to quit, by what method and how many times? If you’re a former smoker, are you particularly obnoxious about smoking? (Be honest.) If you’ve never smoked, how tolerant are you of smokers around you?

3. What are the public smoking regulations in your area? Are they fair, too tough or too lenient? What has been the actual/anticipated economic impact of the law?

I have attended a number of Taize sevices in the past decade or so. They are wonderful, reflective times. My old church used to have a service on Saturday afternoons. The Westminster Presbyterian church in Albany currently has a regular Wednesday service.

So I was saddened to hear of the death of Brother Roger, (a good name, that), the founder of Taize. I was particularly disturbed by the manner in which he died. I’ll send a prayer in his memory.