Item:
Time magazine has done something very interesting. They have bought a house in Detroit. Intentionally.
They have moved some writers in and will have others reside temporarily, to chronicle the death and hoped-for resurrection of a city. We knew things were bad in Motown. But damn.
Just a few figures:
--Detroit was once the 4th-largest city in the nation. It is now 11th
--70% of the homicides in Detroit in the last 12 months remain unsolved
--In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, unemployment in New Orleans topped out at 11%
-Detroit's unemployment rate today is am incomprehensible 28.9%
--51% of the houses in Detroit are vacant
--There are 0 national chain grocery stores within the 138 square-mile city limits. Zero!
If figures don't convey the state of things adequately, here is a photographic essay of the city. Here is the cover story from this week's issue. (it is very long)
We find it both alarming that this can happen to a United States city and a relief that it is not the one we live in. As Time continues its journey, we'll pass along things we find interesting. We've added a link to Time's Detroit Blog in the side panel. If you tweet, you can follow the project by clicking on the cover story then the link to Twitter.
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Item:
Here's some food for thought.
Bruce Hornsby was onto something. Some things indeed will never change.
Lest we be deluded into thinking that the Jena 6 saga would actually change anything in Louisiana, we present for your perusal one Keith Bardwell, Justice of the Peace for Tangipahoa Parish. Bardwell refused to issue a marriage license to Beth Humphrey and Terence McKay. Because they were related? No. Because one of them was underage? Nope. Because one of them was legally barred from marrying? Uh-uh. No, he refused to issue the license because Humphrey is white and McKay is black.
But it's not racism. "“I do ceremonies for negr...color....um...black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children,” Riiiight. (ok, we added the negr...color...um... part)
Guess that's just the way it is.
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Fare thee well, Captain Lou, we'll see you on the Other Side. Save us a rubber band, a good seat by the ring and some of those gold coins that Mario goes for.
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Item:
All we're saying is that the Balloon Boy of Colorado had to be put up to it by the parents. Think about this -- your kid releases a balloon into the sky, gets scared he will get into trouble and hides in the attic. You can't find him. The cops get called. An ass-load of cops, helicopters, rescue workers and half the FAA start tracking the balloon, thinking the kid's in it. The story goes viral and about half the office workers -- and all of the cable news network viewers -- are riveted for like an hour. Balloon crashes, everyone freaks out. Turns out junior is safe in the attic, and all is well.
After you hug the life out of the kid, what would you do? You'd beat his ass. Then be mortified at the trouble your kid caused. This is assuming you are not an attention whore. The parents of this kid were. And our money is on them having planned it.
And just an idea to the parents of young Falcon (yes, that was really his name). Name the next kid Goldfish. He'll be easier to keep track of.
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Quote of the Week:
“Qui cantat, bis orat” or, "He who sings prays twice".
--Augustine of Hippo, c.430
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Internet Video of the Week:
Here.
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Ridiculous Story That Actually Appeared in a Publication of the Week:
Here.
Bitch, please!
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Idiot of the Week:
Rick Perry, Governor of Texas.
We brought you the story of Todd Willingham last week. Governor Goodhair broke his silence on the case on Wednesday, offering the profound nugget that he is "convinced by other factors in the case beyond the science that (Willingham) is a murderer." Because surely we don't want arson investigations being thrown off track by something as silly as this "science" nonsense.
Perhaps we should depend on the work of mystics and psychics. Like at trial.
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Vintage Album Review of the Week:
As reviewed by Guest Blogger John Waldowski
Yeah, Waldo flaked on us, so we have to sub in something we can review on the fly. Here goes:
Billy Joel
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The Bridge1986
-Running on Ice (3:15)
-This is the Time (4:59)*
-A Matter of Trust (4:09)*
-Modern Woman (3:48)*
-Baby Grand (4:02)*
-Big Man on Mulberry St. (5:26)
-Temptation (4:12)
-Code of Silence (5:15)
-Getting Closer (5:00)
* - singles
We really got into music relatively late, at around 12 or 13 years old. So The Bridge was the first "new" Billy Joel album we ever bought. Actually bought is not the right term. It was August of 1986 and we were on the Wildwood boardwalk. We passed some type of game of chance and saw the prizes were albums. Sure as hell, there was a pirate copy of the two-weeks-from-release new Billy Joel album. We proceeded to blow about twenty bucks in increments of a quarter handed to the guy working the game until dude finally took pity on us and just gave us the damned thing. We raced to the hotel room and realized -- we don't have a damned turntable!
We finally did listen to it and by way of review, we will chronicle our reaction.
Needle hits vinyl. A few seconds later -- BAM! a frenetic burst of keyboards then...Sting starts singing? What the hell? No, it's Billy. But he kind of sounds like Sting. All in all we really liked Running on Ice. It should have been a single...Song fades then This is the Time starts. Kind of reminded us of the Jeff Beck/Rod Stewart collaboration on People Get Ready. But we liked the seaside setting in the lyrics and the LP was off to a good start...1-2-ah 1234. WOW. Wow oh wow oh fuckingaye wow! We knew the first single from the album was called A Matter of Trust. But wow! It was amazing. We loved it. Billy on guitar! (ok so it was rhythm not lead, but still!) It instantly became our favorite Billy Joel song...Then came Modern Woman, which had been released on the Ruthless People soundtrack and had peaked on the Billboard chart at number 9. We dug it and were thinking this was the greatest album in the history of ever. An Innocent Who?...Then the opening notes of Baby Grand trickled through the speakers. OK, we got it -- Ray Charles was a legend. And he was like 473 years old, and blind. But we initially hated the song. Billy sang. "they say that no one's gonna play this on the radio" and we thought, "damned straight! (of course this didn't stop us from dragging our buddy Billyrob to see Charles that winter at the South Carolina State Fair, in the hopes of hearing Baby Grand -- he didn't play it but his set was amazing and we instantly became fans). All in all we were pretty pleased with the first side of the album. Then we turned it over...Four songs? What the hell is this? You've had three years and we get four freaking songs? And not like three songs and one that's like 20 minutes long. No -- four songs. Oh well, they gotta be as good as the first side, right?...The horns of Big Man on Mulberry Street fired off and we were just frozen. This had to be some type of pressing mistake at the album factory. That's why it was on the damned boardwalk early! Then the singing started. It was like Billy Joel bouncing back from laryngitis. Poorly. It sucked!...Then a ballad. Temptation was a nice, melodic piano-based love song. "OK", we thought, "now we're back on track. And the next song was a duet with Cyndi Lauper. This had to be good...Yeah, about that. Not so much. Code of Silence was a mangled mass of harmonica, acoustic guitar and Lauperesque yelping. No likey...Last chance Billy. And Getting Closer failed to save the day...We were crushed. It started out so great, then just crashed and burned. But that first side!
The Bridge was the last full-length album Billy Joel and his longtime producer Phil Ramone would work on together. Listening to it now it is east to tell why. the production is awful. The "really cool" echo on Billy's voice on Trust was unintentional. You can actually hear him call out chords during Code and the seams are clearly audible throughout. Ramone allowed Billy oversing Temptation badly and, having heard the alternate, unused version of Closer as part of Billy's 2006 My Lives box set release, clearly cose the wrong one to put on the album, wasting the best of Steve Winwood's Hammond organ work.
This was a very uneven album and the material really doesn't sound like it all belongs on the same set. Trust and Grand have held up well and, surprisingly, Big Man is now one of our favorite songs. Running should have been a single and, had it been produced right, Temptation would have probably been the better ballad single. Modern has aged badly but the rest of it really hasn't. It just wasn't done that well to start with.
Music: 3 (of 5)
Lyrics: 3 (of 5)
Authorship: 3 (of 4)
Production: 0 (of 3)
Packaging: 2 (of 2)
First Blush: 1 (of 2)
Aging: 1 (of 3)
Videos: 1 (of 1) No video for Modern or Time, but we love the chick that showed up with a rat for Trust (at 2:44 in the clip linked above) -- and the fact that Billy is playing a Gibson signed by Les Paul. We figure that's enough to salvage the point.
Total: 14
Stars: 2.8 (of 5)
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Parting shots:
It's League Championship series time in Major League Baseball and we're making the call for a Freeway Series: Phillies in 7, Yankees in 6. (I-95 goes right from Philly to NYC). What do you think? Click on the poll below and we'll publish results next week...Last week the readers got it right by picking the Phillies, Yankees and Dodgers to win their series, while the poll was split on the BoSox/Halos series...Big props to an unnamed blogger, for balling up for bikers, here...Cleveland Browns wide receiver Josh Cribbs wants a new contract. Seems his current deal only runs through 2012. And pays him a meager $1.35 Million per year. For a team that has one win. For whom he is not the leading receiver. When asked about the situation, Cribbs replied, "I'm gonna be stuck." If by stuck you mean forced to earn $25,961.54 a week for essentially doing nothing, then we suggest you ask a UAW "worker" how he copes with, essentially, the same situation. Cribbs went on to lament, "I don't know what I am going to do." How about shutting the hell up and playing? In the last year of Michael Jordan's rookie contract, he was the 27th-highest-paid player in the NBA. But he never complained. How did that work out?
And with that, we bid you adieu.
Until next time,
Keep the Faith
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