The Dark Side of the Sun

Album: Lemonheads, Lovey, 1990

Best Track: "Stove"

Lasting Memory: George was convinced in 1992 that "Ballarat," the first song on side A of Lovey was both the most musically impressive and funniest song he had ever heard. George was mistaken on both points, but it certainly was bold of the Lemonheads to open the major-label debut with an audio vignette of cheerleaders being massacred with a chainsaw (which does not appear in this clip of the song).

But who was I to argue with George? He was the music scene in Blacksburg back then, fronting the band Not Shakespeare, providing sound for pretty much all the local bars that had live music, and operating a recording studio out of his basement. Plus, he was doing a favor for my friend Brad and me by recording our hymn "Jesus Ain't No Cocksucker." (He isn't, which is a point Brad and I made most clear.)

Lovey contains no hymns. In fact, it's hard to figure out exactly what any of the songs are about because lead singer/songwriter/guitarist Evan Dando has sloppy enunciation, plotting, and fret technique. The music is inspired by both 'mid-1970s punk and late-1960s bubble-gum rock. Which is to write that the Lemonheads sound like Richard Hell and the Voidoids on "Left for Dead" and like the Lemon Pipers on "Half the Time."

Using a not-at-all-rigorous scoring system, I've determined that the Lemonheads come down on the side of the sunny poppers, primarily because they scored 1,783,254 points in this category for their cover of "Brass Buttons." Admittedly, that is not a happy song, and I've linked to the Gram Parsons original rather than the Lemonheads version. As sad as the song is, it has the undeniably airy and free "California" sound.

The Lemonheads replicated this juxtaposition of dark lyrics with lilting melodies on all of their best songs, as I'll discuss in my next post. But to set the stage for that, here are the bluntly symbolic but still sad lyrics to "Stove" (the link is to, appropriately, a cover):

The gas man came, took out our electric stove.
I helped him carry her.
He told me he had been a prize fighter once.
Shuffled her through and out the door.
We walked back in talked 'bout his boy at U.V.M.
And we began to put the new stove in.

But I miss my stove.
She's all alone.
Call it love.
She's been replaced.
I miss my stove.
She's all alone.
She's right out front and looks a mess.
Unwanted guest.
We lied to her.
I miss my stove.
Feel sad I guess.

I know I shouldn't think about it anymore.
What's the point? you say.
But I'm reminded each time I walk out my door.
My stove is gone to stay.
He walked back in talked 'bout his boy at U.V.M.
And we began to put the new stove in.

But I miss my stove.
She's all alone.
Call it love.
She's been replaced.
I miss my stove.
She's all alone.
She's right out front and looks a mess.
Unwanted guest.
We lied to her.
I miss my stove.
Feel sad I guess.

Up Next: Lemonheads, It's a Shame About Ray, 1992

Life Is Just a

Fantasy!

Could you live that fantasy life? Do you wish you could wear that leopard-skin bodysuit half as well as he did? Would you believe that Aldo Nova called Montreal home?

I heard this song on the radio this morning for the first time in probably 20-plus years. It made my day, and since I lack the time to do a proper post today, I figured I'd share the song's classic video, dredged from the depths of YouTube. Enjoy.

Jane, Get Me Off This Crazy Thing

Eleven days ago, I had a genuine Cap Barbell Omega Elliptical machine delivered to my home. I am pleased to report that I am now $430 lighter.

Thank you. You're a beautiful audience.

I have actually managed to climb on the thing every day since its arrival and assembly. You shouldn't congratulate me for that, primarily because I have spent pretty much every waking minute during the past two weeks congratulating my own self for embarking on my latest fitness kick.

"Kick" is an apt description of what using my machine is like. Unlike higher-end ellipticals, the Omega Elliptical has no motor. The only way to make the pedals and handles move is to, you know, move them by pumping your legs and arms. This is both diabolically Newtonian and a great advantage for someone like myself who was in such bad shape two weeks ago that I got winded just unpacking the delivery box. (I still have yet to work up a sweat while using the machine that is equal to the sweat I was working by the end of the two hours of elliptical set-up.)

Since there is no coasting on the Omega Elliptical -- only go and stop -- I have been forced to either just stand perched on the thing like an idiot or pump away.

I'm averaging about 30 seconds of perching like an idiot per workout.

On the better side of that admission, I have increased my actual exercise time from 6 minutes on the first day to 20 minutes today. The lesson there is that if you really want to find out how out of shape you are, start trying to get back in shape. The further lesson is that you just need to get back on that metaphorical horse because, even though it can be hard to keep going, quitting is for . . . quitters. I guess.

My goal is to be able to do 45 minutes on the elliptical machine. I've been able to go that long in the past, and I can't see any reason why I shouldn't be able to do it again. Of course, the last time I could spend 45 minutes doing a cardio workout, I was also capable of benchpressing more than 400 pounds. I know that bench is never coming back, so I'll take what I can get now. There's no reward to be gained from lamenting the ever-dimming image of the unbelievably fit Ed anyway, especially since he wasn't at all thin either.

Wish me luck on my endless journey to nowhere. I mean "health."

Play That Funky Music

Album: Led Zeppelin, Presence, 1976

Best Track: "Hots on for Nowhere"

Lasting Memory: During my freshman year at Virginia Tech, I lived on the third floor of a dorm named Pritchard. My roommate Barry and I could not stand the guys who lived in the room to our left because those guys were dirty hippies who went to every dirty hippie Grateful Dead cover band show at the bar that was then known as South Main Cafe and made sure to cover their dorm room door with fliers for those dirty hippie cover band concerts.

Neither of those guys were in any of the dirty hippie bands, and they didn't actually listen to dirty hippie music when they were up at 3 am on Tuesday mornings smoking dope. Instead, they listened to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and the first side -- only the first side -- of Led Zeppelin's Presence over and over again.

Side one of Presence opens with the 10-minute "Achilles Last Stand," which judged only by its own merits is a pretty good song. Judged by the dirty hippie company the song kept during the fall, winter, and spring of 1988-1989, however, the song quickly became insufferable to Barry and myself.

One evening after consuming too much beer and vodka, I borrowed Barry's lighter and set fire to our neighbor's crappy band-flier door. I knew even at the time that that was not the smartest or most neighborly thing I had ever done, so I made sure to have a full cup of water with me and to put out the flames as soon as one of the fliers had burned to my satisfaction. There was no real harm done; the smoke alarms didn't even go off.

I suppose, in retrospect, that talking to the dirty hippies and asking them to turn down, or even just vary, their musical selections would have been the wise move. But fire is the cleanser, regardless of what Bart Simpson has written.

Because of my psychological torture-like association with half of Presence, I hadn't willingly listened to any songs from the album is 20 years until yesterday. I was cheating myself.

Beginning with "Royal Orleans," the last song on side one, and continuing through "Hots on for Nowhere," the second to last song on side two, Presence showcases a funky, even playful Led Zeppelin that I quite enjoyed. The "lah-di-dah-di" chorus of "Hots on for Nowhere" in particular brought a smile to my ear.

The customer reviews of Presence I skimmed on Amazon.com all state, in one way or another, "This album is considered the worst in Led Zeppelin's catalog because it doesn't sound like the other ones, especially Physical Graffiti, which immediately preceded Presence." That seems to leave me a minority of one in really appreciating the band's break from form. Heck, Led Zeppelin even got a little honky tonky and Elvisish on "Candy Store." Who can't like that?

Apparently my dirty hippie dorm neighbors couldn't. Fargin' bastages kept me from enjoying a good album for all these years.

Up Next: Lemonheads, Lovely, 1990

The Song Remains and Eventually Starts Paying Rent

Album: Led Zeppelin, The Song Remains the Same, 1976

Best Track: Dude, you know! That one where Jimmy Page just totally shreds? He's all "WHAAAHHH, WAAAWWW ..." And then Robert Plant comes in and is all, "YEEEAAHH!" while John Bonham is going "bahdow, boom, bahdow, boom, boom, boom." And I think that's John Paul Jones setting down his bass so he can play the keyboards on it. Dude, that song rocks!

Lasting Memory: Every year since 1976, the Norfolk Waterfront has played host to Harborfest. In 1984 or 1985, local classic/hard rock radio station FM99 sponsored a music documentary tent. I went into the tent to check out a song or two from the film The Song Remains the Same.

I would still be sitting there if I hadn't decided to leave after around 22 minutes of "Dazed and Confused." Literally -- to use that term in its literal sense -- the version of "Dazed and Confused' that Led Zeppelin performed during the recorded Madison Square Garden concert takes up the entire second side of the double album. The song remains, and remains, and then remains some more, eventually ending after 26 minutes and 53 seconds.

It doesn't stay the same, though. Like a hyped-up high school jazz band, Led Zeppelin pulls out every single one of its tricks during its extended "Dazed and Confused" jam. Page alternately riffs and wails on his guitar. Plant deploys his full vocal range, from falsetto to bass, and even throws in some vibrato. Bonham bashes and fills and -- sounds like to me -- hits a gong at one point. Jones even manages to get in a few bars of bass-as-lead. It's a glorious sonic mess.

A much more focused overview of Led Zeppelin's oeuvre comes in the form of the title track to The Song Remains the Same, which clocks in at just under six minutes.

I nominate "The Song Remains the Same" as the most Led Zeppelin-y song Led Zeppelin ever recorded. It aspires to epicness. It has quasimythological lyrics. It is constructed around a basic blues riff. It lets Plant do his vocal gymnastics. It has drums forward in the mix. With all of that going for it, I can't name another Led Zeppelin song that is more of and by the band.

Up Next: Led Zeppelin, Presence, 1976

You Know, Sometimes Words Do Have Two Meanings

Album: Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin IV (Zoso), 1971

Best Track: "Going to California"

Lasting Memory: Mrs. Hite, my freshman high school English teacher assigned a parody for homework one time. Everyone in the class had a week to rework a recognizable song, poem or passage from literature into a comedic send-up of the original work or something in popular culture.

I can't remember what any of my classmates parodied, but I'm sure all their attempts at humor were subpar in terms of both effort and effect.

My parody, "Escalator to Men's Wear," -- a word-for-word rewrite of "Stairway to Heaven" -- killed. Or maybe it sucked. I'm sure it was better than this, at any rate. (Want to kill a few hours and your very soul at the same time? Google "Stairway to Heaven parody" and click away.)

The point of my anecdote is that at the age of 15, I was already familiar enough with "Stairway" to reproduce every word word from memory and inured enough to its epicness that I believed I could muck around with it. Overfamiliarity and jadedness are not the appropriate responses to great works of art, and for as much as people have been trying to take it down a peg or three over the past three decades, "Stairway to Heaven" is a great work of art.

Commercial radio being what it is, though, programmers have to play the song until people get tired of hearing it. Before people get tired of hearing it, they stop actually listening. The song appears daily, like the mail, and it's just another part of what happens. That's a shame, but isn't so much of life?

Looked at another, but no more positive, way, it could be claimed that since wistfulness and regret are what "Stairway" is all about, the karmic balance has been struck.

What troubles me more than people not actually hearing "Stairway" anymore is how some people only want to hear "stairway" and nothing else. Does the song need to be played everyday? Does Classic Rock RNR 92 need to have the 5 o'clock "Get the Led Out" block every weekday? Is there anything sadder than a 60-year-old guy in the mall wearing a Zoso t-shirt?

You know it's been a long time since he rock 'n' rolled or did any hopping in the Misty Mountains. His every movement and expression betrays the fact that the black dog of depression hangs over him and that not even going to California could keep his levee of normality from breaking.

But since Led Zeppelin will be with us for as long we're here, we have to fight the battle evermore to pick up the two, three, or four sticks of our remaining original awe and enjoyment of what Led Zeppelin produced on its fourth studio album without becoming the sad caricature of the aging fan.

Good luck.

Up Next: Led Zeppelin, The Song Remains the Same, 1976

P.S. You see what I did with those last two paragraphs, working all the song titles in? Clever, that is. I probably got an "A" on Mrs. Hite's parody assignment.

What Is and What Will Always Be

Album: Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II, 1969

Best Track: "Living Loving Maid ... She's Just a Woman"

Lasting Memory: Every Led Zeppelin song I hear, regardless of that song's year or album of issue, makes me flash back to driving to high school. I blame and thank WNOR, FM-99, which is probably playing a Zeppelin song right now.


I'm a little surprised to rediscover that I own four Led Zeppelin albums. As I've noted, I've made it a point not to purchase albums whose songs I hear on the radio all the time. I obviously built my Zep cassette stockpile before I self-imposed that rule in a hard and fast manner.



And speaking of "hard and fast" ... how 'bout those Led Zeppelin boys, ladies and gentleman?


I can't tell you anything in general about the lads that you don't already know, so I won't try. I will, however, state my general preference for Led Zeppelin songs that stretch beyond the boundaries of electrified blues. Compare "Heartbreaker," which is just a loud rehash of any of a number of Buddy Guy riff-based songs, to "Ramble On," which is a loud rehash of chamber music.

My preference is for the latter, but reasonable people may differ and I'd be lying if I wrote that I disliked any of the songs on Led Zeppelin II. Certainly, each of the songs appeals to a large number of listeners. How else could the music have remained in heavy, heavy rotation for going on 40 years. It's like Led Zeppelin lways has been and always will be the quintessence of hard rock.

I tagged "Living Loving Maid" as my favorite cut from the second album solely because I find it to be the most consistently rockin' and rollin' selection. It's definitely a good song to listen to on one's way to 11th grade.

I'll have more cogent and insightful things to relate in my forthcoming Zep posts, but here are three things to get clear before we go any further:

1. The band, like a lot of bands in the 1960s and 1970s, was incredibly prolific. Led Zeppelin released four full-length albums between the beginning of 1969 and the end of 1971.
2. The band first and third (except for "Immigrant Song") albums are nowhere near as iconic as their second and fourth albums.
3. Jimmy Page was and remains one weird dude, who still gets a pass in my book for acknowledging his debt to African American bluesmen without getting all softheaded about it like Eric Clapton has.

Up Next: Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin IV (Zoso), 1971

Why Do I Want More Than Great Books?

Album: Kitchens of Distinction, The Death of Cool, 1992

Best Track: "Smiling"

Lasting Memory: I listened to this album many a late Sunday night between 2002 and 2006. Those were the years when I was working an average of 55 hours each week at my real job as a writer/editor for a D.C.-based professional association and also working 12 to 20 hours each weekend at my neighborhood dive, the Raven, as a bouncer/barback/bartender.

The Death of Cool provided the perfect lullaby for me as I embarked on the six hours of slumber that represented the extremely permeable barrier between my two lives.

I only realize that now, which is probably a good thing. If I had recognized that I was a character in "When in Heaven," I would not have been any near as pleased with how I was moving through the world.

For the record, I'd have been the "drinkin' slowly/ He's got a hangover" guy, not Marilyn Monroe.

And lest anyone get too much of the wrong idea, I was never a gay party boy. I'm not gay, and I was never much for the whole club scene. Still, being "in the industry," as bar and restaurant workers are wont to call their avocation, extracts a heavy toll. For me, that toll was a near-catatonic sleep deficit for most of the workweek and a proclivity to plow a great deal of my Raven earnings back into beer and Irish whiskey purchased at the Raven. Good times, but not 100 percent of the time.

===== Aside =====

Q: How do I know the guys in kitchen of Distinction are gay?

A: Because they enjoy having sex with other dudes.

CREDIT: I'm pretty sure I stole the framework of this joke from Norm MacDonald.

===== End Aside =====

"Smiling" describes what happens to people who completely give themselves over to the party lifestyle. The sad end for those people is precisely tragic because it is self-inflicted and easily avoided with a few personal changes. It's also undeniably romantic right up until the exact moment that is no longer romantic. Here are the lyrics to 'Smiling" so you can see what I'm getting at:

He's not falling, simply waiting,
Fading at the edges.
Sitting back, thinking that there's little point in moving.
He smiles, says his stars are friendly,
Anything can be done.
"Shall we get very drunk?"
He says "I stay alive, It's the best thing,
The only thing I know."

She's not talking, easy dreaming
All that life away.
She gets laughing, missed the light,
No regrets today.
She looks up, another sunset,
"Was it very, very good?"
"Shall we get really high?"
She says, "I stay alive, it's the best thing,
The only think I know."

She says, "Hold me, hold me hard.
Hold me, hold me, hold me harder.
Stop me thinking about myself.
Stop me hoping for more than I am."
She says, "Why do I want more than good looks?
Why do I want more than great books?
Is that all there is? Is that all there is?"
She smiles and stays alive.
It's the best thing, the only thing she knows.

They're together, simply dancing all the nights away.
There's the window, let's wait up for this precious dawn.
He smiles, tells her she looks lovely,
Anything can be done.
She looks up and laughs.
He says "I stay alive.
It's the best thing, the only thing I can give you."
I was brought up with higher expectations.
I was brought up that hell's a hipper way to go.
He says "Hold me, hold me hard ..."

Explorations of the darker side of the industry/party-person lifestyle make up the bulk of the material on The Death of Cool, which Wikipedia helpfully informed me was named in honor of Miles Davis, who passed the same year this album was released. The album title has to have a secondary meaning, though, considering its content.

The first track asks "What Happens Now?" The answer is sure to be one or more of the lines from "Smiling," even if both the person asking and the person answer know they "Can't Trust the Waves."

Up Next: Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II, 1969

And May You Stay Forever Dumb

Album: Kiss, Lick It Up, 1983

Best Track: "Gimme More"

Lasting Memory: I received Kiss' Lick It Up as a Christmas present in 1983, just after I turned 14. My sister Clair, who had just turned 18 and who was in her second year at Georgetown took one look at the cassette and said, as I recall, "You know, someday, you will be very embarrassed to own that."

Knowing, as surely as any 14 year old knows they know better, I shot back, "No way! I'll be 35 and still lovin' metal."

Guess who time proved right?

Yup, me. So there, Clair!

I still do have a soft spot in my ear for a lot of the proto hair bands. I've already given Def Leppard more than their due for Pyromania. Down the line, I'll have kind words to type about Motley Crüe's first two albums and Love at First Sting by The Scorpions. And if you're waiting for me to harsh either Rush or Triumph, then you just don't know me at all.

Kiss's Lick It Up, though, is a suckhorse of a different color. It flunks the test of time largely because it wasn't any good to begin with. I'm not embarrassed to own this album, so much as I'm regretful that it's taking up space in my cassette organizer that could be given over to say, Ratt's Out of the Cellar.

I was never a member of the Kiss Army, so I own only this one terrible album and can't say with full assurance that the only thing Kiss ever had going for it was the makeup, pyrotechnics and blood-spitting. I can definitively state that I do not look forward to hearing any the band's hits from the 1970s on the radio, and that since Lick It Up was the first album Kiss recorded after its members removed their makeup, it is extremely likely that the band was always more show than go.

The best thing that can written about Lick It Up is that is aspirational. It expresses, for instance, the then-30-something members' desire to still be "Young and Wasted," while at the same time giving the band's 12-year-old fans a way to sing loudly about their own desire to be old enough to get young and wasted.

I've forgone my usual licentious linking because I'll be writing about most of the bands that received favorable mention and because you do not want to hear too much of 1983 vintage Kiss. Everything you need to know to confirm that I have acted in your best interest can be seen here.

Try to put that out your mind and have a good weekend despite it all.

Up Next: Kitchens of Distinctions, The Death of Cool, 1992

You Kind of Have Heard This One Before

Album: Kevn Kinney, Down Outlaw, 1994

Best Track: "Shindig With the Lord"

Lasting Memory: I taped this album from the radio during the spring or summer of 1994. The rock radio station for the conjoined towns of Christiansburg and Blacksburg, Va., dedicated every Sunday night to playing complete new releases. I can't recall the station's name, call letters or frequency signature, but I do remember that I loved that station because it was truly open-format.

Unlike the current slew of "We Play Anything" radio stations that recreate yesteryears' Top 10 Billboard charts, that one station I can't now name really would play any song from any artist. It's playlist ranged from orchestral folkies such as Joan Baez to death metal auteur such as Sepultura.

When the station was sold by its private owners to a nationwide radio operations firm, it changed formats dramatically, to mostly '70s soft rock. One of the final songs that station ever aired under its old open format was Bob Dylan's "Lilly, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts."

I'm mentioning this because I want to make the point that if, as I wrote in my preceding post that it is a theory that every rock band since 1964 has wanted to be The Kinks, it has been a truism -- an undoubted or self-evident truth; one too obvious for mention (H/T: Webster's) -- of music criticism since 1962 that every folk singer has wanted to be Bob Dylan. I could argue that, as with most truism, the Dylan-wannabe shorthand critique is arguable in most cases.

For Kevn Kinney, it is true.

And to Kinney's credit, he does a fair job of channelling Dylan's early 1960s sound, worldview and lyrics. Especially on Down Outlaw's title, and opening, track, Kinney does a whole lot more than betray his principal influence, but he sounds pretty good doing it. If you like that sort of thing.

As on much of what Dylan has recorded over the years, Kinney's voice can be taste that's hard to acquire. Also like Dylan's songs, however, the general sound of the instrumentals and the lyrical content make putting up with Kinney's raw, unsweet vocals worth the effort. Give "Shindig With the Lord" a listen and dare to come back to tell me that the song isn't downright enjoyable.

Range, either in theme or style, isn't Kinney's strong suit, as Down Outlaw's third standout track, "Midwestern Blues," clearly demonstrates.

Fortunately, a lot of times, a listener just wants an album that sets and perpetuates a sound, mood and/or ambiance. Down Outlaw is one of those types of albums for anyone who's looking for a soundtrack to kind of morosely reminiscing on a drizzly day after they've received some bad news that doesn't actually affect him or her in any direct way.

Which makes Down Outlaw a perfect album for me to have listened to several times over the past two days, since I learned on Tuesday that my high school religion teacher, football coach and school's athletic director John O'Hara had passed away after a decade-long struggle with cancer. Coach O was a good guy. I never kept up with him, never even went back to my old school for any sporting events after I graduated. Still, I'll miss that guy.

Up Next: Kiss, Lick It Up, 1983 (from the nearly sublime to the ridiculously awful)

Album: The Kinks, Live at Kelvin Hall, 1983 (Spanish cassette reissue of the 1967 album)

Best Track: "Sunny Afternoon"

Lasting Memory: The first time I saw The Smithereens play live, way back in 1986 or 1987, they closed their second encore with a cover of The Kinks' "Milk Cow Blues (Batman)." That is the final track on the brief concert album Live at Kelvin Hall.

This indicated nothing more than that The Smithereens had excellent taste in semiobscure covers.But it probably planted the subliminal seed that evolved into my pet theory that all good-to-great rock bands really want to be The Kinks.

I can't prove the theory, but I can list you any number of bands that owe some or all of their approach to music to the influence of brothers Ray and Dave Davies and the other Kinksters. Early Van Halen was pretty much a Kinks cover band judging by the sound of things, if not all the content of VH's discography.

A writer for The Onion A.V. Club further noted that "Madness, of course, was just one of the many exciting new groups of the late '70s and early '80s that had strong roots in The Kinks' music. The Jam was The Kinks' clearest heir, and the young band honored its ancestor with a tightly wound version of 'David Watts,' Ray's class-conscious stomper from 1967; meanwhile, everyone from The Fall and Mission Of Burma to The Pretenders ... was also covering The Kinks in the studio and onstage." The writer failed to mention that even Def Leppard -- freakin' Def Leppard -- recorded a Kinks song, sticking a much-lamer-than-the-original version of "Waterloo Sunset" on their official greatest hits collection.

I'll take all of that as strong support for my theory about bands wanting to be The Kinks. After all, as everyone knows imitation is the sincerest form of emulation.

To miss the meaning of the song's lyrics, but to end with a line I probably should have resisted typing, The Kinks may not be the fount of all that is still good and true about rock 'n' roll, but they can certainly hang their hat on being a "Well Respected Man" of rock.

Up Next: Kevn Kinney, Down Outlaw, 1994

Secrete Ballot

Bear with me as I post one more entry about politics. For what it'll be woth to you -- you make the call -- at least this post will have a pay off.

I won't even make you wait for it: I've decided to vote for Barack Obama on November 4.

Reaching this decision has not been easy. I have no great faith in Obama's ability to affect the positive changes he preaches. I'm on blog record as a critic of the very "change" agenda, and of Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Still and all (to use a regratably anachronistic phrase), I have come to accept the hard reality that I have to vote against my generally right-center mind-set because Obama has less of a history of acting against the best interests and the foundational freedoms of the Unied States of America.

Yes, John McCain as a naval officer proved himself to be a hero of the highest order. As a politician, however, McCain has been graft-prone and a champion of the single greatest restriction on political speach ever enacted in this country, the McCain-Feingold Act. It is because he has a public record that MccCain is disqualified from receiving my vote. Who knew that lack of experience was a qualification for the presidency? But there you are.

I can't say I'll be thrilled with casting my ballot for Obama-Biden. Obama's wrongheadedness about the use of the U.S. military to squelch worldwide terrorism, his vote for the FISA reauthorization, and his reneging on his promise to use only public financing for his campaign show him to be a dunderhead and a hypocrite of the order of any national elected official. Offsetting those negatives are the man himself and his willingness to admit that he is not perfect. Who else is the American dream more than Obama? And I grok the fact that he smoked some dope and ran some streets. 'Bout time we had a baller prez.

So who is getting vote, and why?

P.S. All politics is local. Hence, I'll be voting to keep Thelma Drake from returning to Washington.

On Hiatus

This may seem like a pointless post, since I've dropped down to two or three posts per week over the summer, but I'm checking in to let frequent readers know that I will resume more-frequent posting starting Monday.

Honest.

In the meantime, enjoy this tribute to a Nashville great.

And check out The Onion's R.I.P. post to an animation giant.

Both dudes will be missed.