Curmudgeon-in-Training

Where we were this weekend

2011-04-25T21:33:00.003-05:00

A busy Friday, and a quiet Saturday made for a pretty well balanced weekend.

A couple of recommendations come out of Friday night:

1. Meddlesome Moth on Oak Lawn in the Design District. Pretty cool place, if a bit Uptowny. Heck of a beer selection. Food was very good. It's sorta tapas-y, so I wasn't sure how much to order. We split a "Share Plate" of hummus and a "Stick Meat" plate of a Caribbean chicken (exact name escapes me) and it was plenty. And very good.

Worth a check-out.

2. Lakewood Bar and Grill on Gaston right in the heart of Lakewood. It's sorta mind-boggling to me that I've gone this long without hitting this joint before. Nothing fancy, but a good, eclectic crowd, low on the douche-quotient. Beer's cold, there's lots of parking, and the bathrooms are on the plus side of clean. What more do you want.

3. The Mumbles, a cover band (mostly) made up of (I think) a bunch of 40-something white guys. They play a lot of punk and New Wave, stuff you haven't heard live in a while. And they are fun! Friday night was the send-off show for one of the guitarists, who is apparently moving to Michigan. It was a fond, if profane, bon voyage indeed! Loud, tons of energy, great song selections. Again, what's not to like? Not sure what the loss of Tommy the Guitarist means for these boys, but it they're around, I'd definitely go see 'em again.

Along the way, we also made a stop at Allgood Cafe in Deep Ellum for a swim through a King Bucks set. I really could have sworn the show posting said, "Kick in what you think appropriate", but there was Mike Snider collecting $10 a head in his little drum. Not that $10 is outrageous to pay for King Bucks - it's not. I was just a little surprised. I know Mike and Allgood are nearly revered in this town, and I would think running a successful business in Deep Ellum takes some doing, but I have to say I have never felt very welcome in that place. I may get tarred and feathered next time I'm down there for saying all this, but it's the truth.

In other news, all the Friday night festivities meant we missed one of our favorites, Soul Track Mind, at good ol' Lochrann's. Hated to miss those boys, but sometimes you gotta make tough decisions.

Orbans news is always welcome!

2011-04-21T20:39:00.000-05:00

Peter Black has a brief convo with UTA's student newspaper.

Highlights:

The boys plan to start recording a new record in the fall.
Justin remains more commercial than Diet Coke, touring the galaxy with Ben Harper.
"Orban" comes from a brand of digital sound compressor Blaine ran across in a NY studio - that's some deep trivia, folks.

Next Orbans show on the Dallas side is May 21 at The Kessler with El Cento and Bravo! Max. I am currently interviewing baby-sitters for that evening. Please submit a resume and urine sample via the blog!

A long time ago at The Kessler–pt 2

2011-04-19T22:57:00.001-05:00

Now, on to the show itself:

The Denton electronica four-piece Binary Sunrise kicked things off. Featuring a slightly hyperactive drummer (even by drummer standards, he was slightly hyperactive), a frenetic guitarist wearing Chuck Taylors instead of the de riguer cowboy boots, a disinterested bass player, and a somewhat doughy Robert Plant Starter Kit keyboardist/lead singer, they were not really up my alley. I thought they played well, kept it pretty tight, and did a few songs that had a little something. They might be more fun at a club or somewhere the audience is a little more participatory. I think you have to be pretty musically sound to play a venue like The Kessler, where there’s little interplay with the crowd, and not much opportunity to draw energy from the audience. I imagine it’s tough for newer, rawer bands to really crank it up there.

Next came Austin’s Happen-Ins. All I have to say about this bunch is “Holy effin’ ess”.

Wow.

Four guys from Austin, each of whom came straight from Central Casting – rough-looking, no-BS drummer, slightly awkward, hair-too-long, legs-too-skinny bassist who’s on-stage movements resembled an unfolding beach chair, an Elvis-ish guitarist/vocalist with a bit of a sneer and an awesome white guitar, a slightly androgynous other guitarist/vocalist who, in better light, turned out to have something of a beard and a deep, growly singing voice – these four guys rocked like nobody’s business. Loud, bluesy, dirty, driving, geez, choose your adjective. Thinking back now, I’m not sure why these guys blew me away like they did. They didn’t do anything really unique, nothing you hadn’t seen or heard before. They just did it, I dunno…more? Harder? Something.

Whatever it was, I loved it!

I think The Kessler was probably not the best place to see these guys. I suspect they are FAR more fun in some dingy, beer-soaked dive on Sixth Street. They’d probably kick ass at the Double Wide. The Kessler crowd is a little too laid back for this kind of energy.

Still, I was enthralled. Go see these guys. For the faint of heart, maybe bring some earplugs. They Happen-Ins will melt your face.

And then the headliners took the stage. The Orbans played about a dozen songs, maybe a few more. Almost all of When We Were Wild (do you have this record yet?). “Carolina” off the EP. The same Traveling Wilbury’s cover they’ve been playing for a while – “Handle Me With Care” – perfect, again. And something called “San Francisco Song” that was either a cover I didn’t recognize or something new. It didn’t really grab me, but that may have been because I spent the entire song trying to figure out where it came from.

I’ve run out of superlatives for The Orbans. They are so good in terms of musicianship and songwriting there’s just nothing left to say. Clearly the best, and not by a little bit, in the current local crop. I don’t know how they get past regional success – I don’t know how anyone does it now that radio is useless and media is more corporate than ever.

Next time I see those boys, I do intend to ask them about new stuff, the next record, etc. For this one, I got a chance to talk with Peter, Justin, Cliff, and Kenny (no idea where Blaine was) for a bit before the show. I am embarrassed to admit that I geeked out badly. I turned into a little schoolgirl. I couldn’t believe the crap that was coming out of my mouth. I hope they don’t go running next time I approach them. It was really bad.

Well, in penance, I will do what I can to help these guys get over the hump to the national attention and success they deserve. Go see them. The next Dallas-side (they’ve got some Super Bowl-related stuff coming up this weekend in Ft Worth) show I know about is Friday March 11 at Dada with the more honky-tonk stylings of Dan Paul Balis and more drunken stylings of The O’s, who are releasing their new CD that night. It promises to be a good ‘un.

Go buy the record. Go buy the EP. They’re cheap, and Peter has a new baby to feed. It’s all great.

And stay tuned to CIT for more Orbans news.

A long time ago at The Kessler–pt 1

2011-04-19T22:55:00.001-05:00

Back in late Feb, I ginned up this post and never did anything with it. In hopes that late is better than never, here it is, in it’s full two parts.

Back a few months ago, I made my way down to The Kessler Theater in North Oak Cliff to catch my absolute favorite local act for the past year, The Orbans. Along with, I got to see Denton electronica band Binary Sunrise and Austin’s garage-rocking Happen-Ins. And the whole experience was outstanding. Best show I’ve seen so far this year.

The Kessler, if you haven't been there, is a marvel. Tucked in behind some hair salon and immigration service storefronts along Davis, the Kessler is a 40’s-vintage movie house, lovingly restored and improved into a showpiece on it’s own. The art-deco marquee, entrance, and bar are sleek and clean in the best possible way. And the listening room is without equal amongst small-to-mid-sized venues in the region. Lots of wood, good sight lines, reasonably comfortable seating, it’s as intimate as a place that seats 300ish (guessing there) can possibly be.

Every band I have seen perform at The Kessler has gone out of their way to be complimentary of the venue, it’s staff, and its management. “This place could finally put Dallas on the map,” said Ricky Lee Jackson of the Happen-Ins – pretty representative of the comments heard from other musicians, both local and touring.

I don’t know much about the reps of other venues in town. I’ve heard Lochrann’s in Frisco mentioned as a place that treats bands reasonably well, but some go on to say the audience there is not very appreciative or knowledgeable – that’s a post on its own right there.

Other places, though, I haven’t heard one way or the other. But the obvious respect performers hold for the team at The Kessler is noteworthy.

If I have a quibble about The Kessler, it’s that it’s maybe a little too much a “listening room”. The audience is well-behaved and appreciative, sure. But they are also sorta non-participatory past the appreciation part. Dancing seems to be, well, foreign to this bunch. Which, I dunno, part of me likes and part of me is weirded out by. I got there early on Sat to stake out a good seat, front row, stage right. That no one was dancing in the small clear area in front of me ensured I had an exceptional view, which is what I wanted. But, the Happen-Ins were clearly surprised by the passiveness of the crowd. I expect those guys are far more accustomed to sweaty, beer-soaked crowds on Sixth Street. Playing a “listening room” may have been a new experience for them, and even led the band to make a Back To The Future reference – “Your kids will love it!”

It depends on the show, I guess. I’ve seen some folk acts at The Kessler, and the vibe is perfect for that genre. I’m sure jazz, and the “Storytellers at The Kessler” series are well, and completely appropriately, received. I wonder how the New Year’s Eve show, which included up-tempo, long time local heroes Slobberbone and Centromatic, went over. Same passiveness? Its hard to imagine.
I just need to see more shows at The Kessler, I guess. Which is a challenge I enthusiastically take up.

Go see a show at The Kessler. It’s totally worth the drive, however long it may be. There are a ton of really good restaurants along Davis (go to Bolsa at least once). You’ll be pleasantly surprised to see what’s happening in North Oak Cliff, I promise.

The rebirth of CIT

2011-04-19T22:52:00.001-05:00

So, obviously, a whole lot of time has gone by since I’ve paid any attention to little CIT. As I’ve struggled to screw my head back on, I’ve struggled equally with a basic sense of worth. That struggle has manifested itself in any number of ways, most pertinent here being the basic question of “What the hell do I have to say that’s worth anyone’s time?”

Here endeth the self-analysis. Except, of course, when it makes for good comedy.

A nagging little thought coursing around the back of my melon has been music, the small community around North Texas music, and the place I have sought to carve out for myself in that community.
I am not, much to my chagrin, a musician of any sort. I play no instruments, know practically nothing about music theory, and even the cats think my singing is horrible.

However, I am an appreciator of music. Thanks to some of the people I have encountered along the way, I have been exposed to a wide variety of music – classical to bluegrass to metal to jazz/big band to who knows what else. I know what I like, and I know it quickly. And I appreciate the talent, perseverance, and effort required to make music, especially good music.

I see a lot of shows, go to a lot of venues, keep up with the local news, and listen to a lot of music from musicians most people don’t know much about. While I am not an inner member of the North Texas musical community, I am on the fringes, and I am more a part of the community than many.
I have opinions. I’m semi-literate. And I have this silly little blog.

So, here is, I hope, the rebirth of CIT as a North Texas music blog, a little insight into what’s happening musically in our midst, and maybe, for me, a step closer to the community I admire and appreciate.

Big enough intro? OK, then. On to the meat!

OysterFest – a HUGE success!

2010-09-26T22:48:00.001-05:00

Still reeling from 14 hours of nearly nonstop music at OysterFest yesterday. Great day all around!

Especially great sets from Burning Hotels, Jukebox the Ghost, Via Audio, and Telegraph Canyon. And Rhett Miller, as usual, played his ASS off for a good hour, and probably lost 10 lbs in sweat alone.

A special congratulatory shout out goes to the staff at Lochrann’s, who worked late on Fri getting ready, then busted their butts for 14+ hours on Saturday. I can’t even imagine how tired they all were, but every single staff member I interacted with was friendly, glad to see the business, and hard at work.

I have no idea how many people wound up attending, and I have no idea how it turned out financially. I hope it was a huge success, enough so we can look forward to the 2nd Annual OysterFest in 2011.

Great job, everyone involved!

Frisco’s attempt to become a music destination gets Observed

2010-09-23T21:19:00.001-05:00

The Observer has a nice little article on the efforts of Lochrann’s, Wellhouse, and Spune to bring live music to Frisco. Those efforts are, I think, beginning to get some traction.

Lochrann’s Thursday night shows, featuring everyone you could ask for from the local scene (Orbans, BAcksliders, O’s, Telegraph Canyon, Seryn, etc) and a bunch of touring acts as well, started as a leap of faith. And let’s not kid ourselves. Lochrann’s is not Double-Wide, and probably never will be. Live music needs a little bit of an edge. That edge is a lot easier to get in Exposition Park than it ever will be in Frisco.

But, regardless, Frisco is on the map, musically. The leap of faith appears to have paid off.

The bands keep coming out. Lochrann’s has kept the doors open for a couple of years now (and not everyone in the neighborhood can say that). And the biggest gamble yet is coming this weekend – OysterFest, an all-day, all-night food/beer/music blowout inside and outside, which has been planned and publicized for months.

I’ve had opportunity to speak with a few folks plugged into the music scene far more than I am. Consensus seems to be that Lochrann’s is a good place to play in terms of getting paid. The bar treats bands well. The set up is good to very good. But, the audiences are still the weak link. Patrons seem to want to carry on their conversations rather than listen to the band. There isn’t much reason to hang around after your show is over, so the late-night musician-gathering still gravitates to Dallas. Or the band members just go home.

OysterFest is here, finally, and it will be very, very interesting to see how it goes over, with the musicians as well as the paying public. I have no sense of ticket sales or expectations of the crowd size. The line-up of bands is pretty impressive. I am optimistic. I think the folks at Lochrann’s are as well. Success in this effort (and I have very little idea what constitutes “success”) will pave the way for more events.

A real, thriving live music scene, a well-hit 7-iron from my front door, would be a dream come true. Pub, from the Observer, press releases, or ridiculous little blogs like this one, can only help.

OysterFest is less than one week away. So get with it!

2010-09-20T11:36:00.001-05:00

Dallas-area CIT peeps, you’ve had your TV Guides circled for weeks, and it’s almost payoff time: The Inaugural Lochrann’s OysterFest is this coming Saturday, Sept 25.

The schedule for both stages is posted, and it is awesomely awesome in it’s sheer awesomeness. The food will be legendary (and includes a lot more than just oysters). The forecast is for perfect beer-drinking weather.

So, what are you waiting for?

For those of you who have not yet take me up on it, my offer stands: Let me know and I’ll be happy to pick up $15 tickets for you in advance at the bar. Or you can order online and pay a service charge. Or you can pay $20 at the gate.

Whatever. Just be there.

Igor - strong, but no worries for land

2010-09-14T22:20:00.001-05:00

We mentioned last week that we were going to keep an eye on Igor, and so we have.

Igor has started the slow turn to the right, and the models agree it isn't going to come close to land until, maybe, the Canadian Maritime provinces. So no worries for you and me, unless we're in the trans-Atlantic shipping business.

Daily YouTube: A fun little ditty

2010-09-14T22:14:00.003-05:00

Mount Righteous, from Grapevine of all places. They will be at OysterFest in a week and a half. How about you?

A storm to watch – TS Igor

2010-09-08T22:07:00.001-05:00

While the DFW Metroplex of Love deals with the remnants of Hermine, there’s a new storm off the coast of Africa that may bear some watching.

Already a tropical storm, Igor (not sure if it’s the traditional “Eee-gor” or the far funnier “Eye-gor”) is tracking straight across the Atlantic. The curve to the north appears nowhere in the 5 day track, and the storm is projected to strengthen to Category 2 by Sunday.

Chances are it will start the big, slow turn to the right before it gets anywhere close to land, but I’m going to keep my eye on this one.

The Quran-burning idiots in Florida

2010-09-08T22:06:00.001-05:00

I whole-heartedly support the right of every American human to make an idiot out of him- or her-self. It’s our God-given right to be stupid and to let everyone know it, if we’re so inclined. Hence t-shirts that say things like “Fart Loading” (complete with Windows-inspired progress bar), Wal-Mart, and UFC.

Most idiocy harms no one and reflects poorly only on the specific idiot or group of idiots. No harm, no foul. Just a giggle.

But, from time to time, a group of idiots transcend their own idiocy and do something so asinine, so mind-bogglingly stupid, that it rubs off on others around them. Sometimes the idiocy in question is so egregious, it reflects on society in general and actually threatens lives.

No, I’m not talking about American cultural exports like Coca-Cola, KFC, and Lady Gaga. Although the description applies to all of them too.

I am talking about the True Believers at the cynically named “Dove World Outreach Center” (three lies for the price of one) in Gainesville, FL. These are the imbeciles who plan to have themselves a little Quran-burning party on Saturday, which happens to be the 9th anniversary of That Day.

I am at a complete loss to understand the upside to this action. What good could possibly come of it? Burning holy books? How many things are wrong with that little three-word question?

This impossibly stupid, intolerant, and dangerous move has at least served to introduce us to grey Kaiser Wilhelm mustache and polyester sport coats of Rev Terry Jones, for all the good that does us. I hesitate to judge anyone who is being excoriated in the media, but it’s hard not to in this case. If a man is judged by his ideas, then Rev Jones needs to be on life support. Or, actually, not.

Who supports this idea? I guess Jones’ demographic does – white, deeply religious, big Southern dummies. I further guess some part of the people who oppose the “Ground Zero Mosque” like this idea too, although I think the argument about the mosque has a lot more validity than this exercise in dip-shittery (by the way, I think the building of the Islamic center in lower Manhattan is a fantastic idea – what better way to show the tolerance and, really, the greatness of America?). Does any other human with a shred of intelligence think this is a good idea? What positives could possibly come of it?

The military, the Afghans, moderate Muslims, the Vatican, the Euros, everyone has come out against the idea in the strongest possible terms.

Does anyone think this is going to “teach radical Islam a lesson”? Muslim radicals will use this event, if it occurs, to inflame the uneducated masses in the Islamic world. There will be violence. There will be destruction, injuries, and deaths. Some of those deaths may well be Americans.

Rev Jones, are you prepared to have that blood on your hands? Because it will be.

Are radical and uneducated Muslims wrong to go on rampages because someone sets a match to some paper? Of course they are. I don’t support their rights to start violent protests. But I can’t do anything about their reaction. They are what they are. And what they are is predictable.

If we know what the reaction is going to be, why on Earth would we perform the first action? Do two wrongs make a right?

And aren’t we supposed to be the tolerant ones? Wasn’t this country founded on, among other things, the idea of freedom of religion? Hell, aren’t we better than this?

By preventing a mosque being built, or burning a stack of holy books, we are abandoning important, long-held principles. And we are playing into the hands of the radicals. We are doing their recruiting work for them. They want to portray the West in general, and the US in particular, as anti-Islam.

Say what you will about President Bush, but he did go out of his way to make it clear we were not at war with Islam, only with the radicals who perverted the religion for their own purposes. That message has been lost.

Now, with these actions, we virtually guarantee the world-wide perception that the US is, in fact, anti-Islam. Because that’s exactly what these actions are.

I’m embarrassed by these idiots. I have no wish to be lumped in with them. I have no desire for anyone to think they speak for me. I resent their hypocrisy, their attention-seeking, and their smug self-righteousness.

Hey Rev Jones, if you feel so strongly, if you REALLY want to make a statement, I’ve got a suggestion for you: Why don’t you fly your stack of Qurans over to Kandahar and set ‘em alight in the street there?

Not much really drives me nuts, but…

2010-09-08T22:05:00.001-05:00

Now that the NFL has returned (and, with it, the much-anticipated CIT weekly college and pro football picks), I have been subjected to the two words in the English language which make me the craziest:

Da. Boyz.

This artificial nickname for the Dallas Cowboys, a joint by-product of an early 90s Saturday Night Live bit the white man’s need to sound “street”, raises my blood pressure instantly. Its like a red cape to a bull. When I hear it or read it, my teeth gnash of their own volition.

Dallas is really a terrible sports town. It’s the home of the front-runner, the band-wagoner, and the knee-jerk over-reactor. Sudden expertism and sports obliviousness run rampant. Everyone from the 20 year old receptionist at your dentist to the guy changing your oil to your neighbor Bob has a theory on why the Cowboy offense grinds to a halt in the red zone, and an opinion about who should be the weak-side linebacker in the nickel.

I have, over the course of the past 15 years or so, gone from Cowboy fan to Cowboy hater, back to fan, and now find myself mostly disinterested. I enjoy Sundays as much as the next guy, but the during-the-week knee-jerking, and hot sports opinions from the great sports-unwashed absolutely drain my will to live.

What set me off on this mini-rant? I just got an invitation to a game-watching party (INSTANT red flag – do any real sports fans go to “watching parties”?) to view “Da Boyz vs the Deadskins” on Sunday.

My options after receiving the email: Slip into a six-month coma, or go rail on the Internet. So here I am. Thanks for listening!

Almost time for OysterFest!

2010-09-06T11:20:00.003-05:00

If you are in the northern half of the D/FW Metroplex of Love, you will want to circle your TV Guide for Saturday, Sept 25.

Lochrann’s (our favorite Irish pub, located about a 9-iron from Chez CIT) is throwing its inaugural OysterFest – a full, FULL, day of beer, food, local and national bands, and all around awesomeness.

Who’s there, you ask? Well, here’s a partial line-up:

Rhett Miller – the front man of local alt-country gods Old 97s – I have seen him solo and the dude is great, just him and his acoustic playing a host of Old 97s favorites and his slightly poppier solo stuff
Telegraph Canyon
Whiskey Folk Ramblers
Mount Righteous
Seryn
The O’s – cause of some controversy on the home front, but we agree you have to give John and Taylor credit for for effort!

That’s a PARTIAL list, This is one of the biggest local shows in recent memory, by far the biggest live music event at little Lochrann’s.

You can get tickets online, at Good Records, or at Lochrann’s itself. I’m willing to be ticket delivery boy – it’ll save you the service charge, but you gotta get in touch with me directly.

I can’t WAIT for this show. It promises to be great fun. Don’t miss it!

Media + Hurricanes = Stupid

2010-09-03T18:11:00.003-05:00

Reading the coverage of Hurricane Earl this week has reinforced my long-held opinion that major media outlets devolve into barely literate baboons at the mere mention of the word “hurricane”.

Earl has been tracking well east of the N. Carolina shore for days now. It would have taken a significant deviation from projected course for the storm to do anything other than drop some rain and kick up some surf on the Outer Banks. Of course, deviations from the models happen all the time, and its always worth keeping an eye on what was, at one time, a Category 3 storm. But I had problems with the story being above the fold for four days.

Today, after Earl stuck to project course and (amazingly) dropped some rain and kicked up some surf on the Outer Banks (and, to be fair, caused some minor wind damage to power lines and flimsy structures like gas-station overhead), we see the predictable “we dodged a bullet” stories in the press.

We also, predictably, get pictures of every tiny bit of damage the legion of photographers in the area can dig up. The one that made me snort coffee thru my nose this morning was the photo above, of a guy paddling a kayak thru about 4 inches of water. The SUV splashing by with no apparent effort, right next to him, and the grass on the curb which is not under water, gives you an idea of how hard the photographer had to work to set this shot up. I can nearly guarantee Ed Earl (or whatever the kayakers name is) stared incredulously at the photog and said something like, “You want me to do what? There isn’t enough water there to float my kid’s tub toys!”

Stupid media. Stupid readers, some of whom, I guarantee, put their hands to their mouths and whispered , “Those poor people. The government needs to help them!”

Local music quick hits

2010-08-26T18:33:00.002-05:00

1. Yet more bands added to Lochrann's 1st Annual OysterFest. You need to be at this show on Sat 9/25. Tickets are on sale online, or you can enlist your faithful correspondent to pick up some tix for you at the bar and save yourself the service charge. I work cheap.

2. Current CIT favorite "Like a Liar" from our friends The Orbans was NPRs Song of the Day today. It's been my song of the day for about a month.

The Orbans - Like a Liar from THE ORBANS on Vimeo.

“Entourage” – still a lot of fun

2010-08-25T20:05:00.001-05:00

I know HBO’s Entourage takes a lot of heat for its alleged douchebaggery, but I have been a fan since early on and still enjoy it immensely. Its lost its innocence – its going to be pretty much impossible to top the scene from Season 2 (I think) where James Cameron, from the pilot’s seat of his helicopter, offers “Aquaman” to Vince, poised to board down the hill in Park City, with Ari, in his office, pumping his fist silently while listening in – but its still laugh-out-loud, draw-you-in television.

What prompted this post is the recent parade of Dallas sports owners who have shown up in Ari’s office. First it was Jerruh, dangling an NFL franchise in front of Ari and setting off all sorts of over-the-top hysterics. Then, this week, Mark Cuban, all 6’3” of him, gets stuck in the waiting room with Turtle and Alex, just long enough for them to pitch some tequila investing Cuban’s way and scoring a ride on the Maverick’s 757 to Sacramento to tell the whole story.

I got the feeling Cuban may be around for a few episodes, if only via mention. And Turtle’s business may turn into something. His thing with Alex seems to be moving forward rapidly. Good for you, Turtle!

This week’s fall-off-the-couch-laughing moment was kinder, gentler Ari reaming out a studio exec (I wish I could remember her name – she’s a regular) in the most profoundly vicious manner, even after his (and his wife’s!) extreme embarrassment at the publication of some of his rants in a Hollywood tabloid. No one can ream a person out quite like Ari.

It’s fun to see these guys show up unexpectedly. And, even well into Season 6, I think Entourage has done a great job of portraying Hollywood (and America) in a realistic, and very believable, manner. I’ve always suspected it’s good to be the king. Entourage would seem to indicate its even better than I thought.

Ahmadinejad buffoonery - the gift that keeps on giving

2010-08-22T10:25:00.004-05:00

Our dear, dear friend and nonstop source of content, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, unveiled the latest in Persian high-tech today: The unmanned "Karrar" bomber. Ahmadinejad introduced the marvel of technology with the following bizarre, yet entirely in-character, statement:

"The jet, as well as being an ambassador of death for the enemies of humanity, has a main message of peace and friendship."

What?

I don't want to goof on the Iranian defense industry too much - they have managed to do a heck of a lot almost entirely on their own since 1978. But, at the same time, I suspect the IAF is not especially concerned about a bunch of 20 ft unmanned drones flying across the desert. Sounds a lot like Air-to-Air Combat 101, which IAF pilots pass whilst in middle school.

It's hard to ignore the timing on this bit of blowhardity, as the Iranians also just announced (yesterday) they were firing up their first fission reactor.

Iran is certainly doing its part to promote peace, stability, and international understanding, isn't it?

Monster weekend at Lochrann's - Sept 24 & 25

2010-08-19T19:17:00.004-05:00

Fellow Northlanders, circle your TV Guides right now! On Friday, Sept 24, our friends at Lochrann's will be hosting none other than THe BAcksliders (no typos there, btw).

If you likes you some garage rock, you will loves you some BAcksliders. Video evidence below.

That's Lochrann's on Main St in Frisco. More news when there is some. For now, block it out on your handy Outlook calendar.

Oh, and the next day, Lochrann's hosts OysterFest. Another event worth attending. You're welcome to crash at Chez CIT, but reservations are required.

CIT Music Field Trip - The Orbans

2010-08-15T22:15:00.006-05:00

We don't review every show we see around here any more, just the really exception ones. And "really exceptional" certainly describes last night's field trip down to Exposition Park to see The Orbans at Double-Wide.

Double-Wide, for those of you who haven't made the journey, is located in one heck of a dodgy neighborhood. You turn off Commerce onto First Ave, a stone's throw from I-30 and Fair Park, and there isn't any missing the place, as its the only building for blocks that doesn't look ready for the wrecking ball. The tinfoil tornado on the roof helps too. You park around back, say a little prayer asking the Gods of Rock-n-Roll to watch over your car, and walk around to the entrance.

Upon entry, you walk into an open-air courtyard with tables and a bar. The performance room is to the left, the indoor portion of the bar is to the right. Both are zero-frills, just the way a dive music joint ought to be. Double-Wide is my second favorite small venue in town, right behind Lee Harvey's, and is a lot more reliable during what has turned into a blast-furnace summer like we haven't seen in a while.

The Orbans, who we mentioned here some time ago, have an EP - Switchblade Waterpistol five bucks and change at Amazon, but I bet you can find it for free out there somewhere and a new record When We Were Wild, both of which are great from end to end. Not a bad song to be found anywhere. Personal favorites: "Like A Liar" (video embedded below), "This Is", "Were Her" (video also below), and "When We Were Wild".

The boys played a relatively short set last night, including a bunch of songs off the record and a note-perfect cover of Traveling Wilburys "Handle With Care". A little lighthearted banter between lead singer and guitarist Peter Black and keyboardist Justin Pate was engaging, but mostly the band played a tight, representative set. I enjoyed every minute of it.

Got to chat with Peter Black for a minute after the show. I was careful not to whip his ass with fanboy, but he seemed really appreciative to hear that I liked their stuff and had enjoyed the show. Really pleasant guy, seems to be handling this beginning of success very well.

I am excited about this band. I think, with a break or two, they could go a long way. Musically, they are skilled. They write great, catchy songs. Black seems at ease in the spotlight.

They've promised to return to the Northlands - coming again to Lochrann's in Frisco. Watch this space - I will be trumpeting it to the heavens when they do.

And go buy the record!

Big news from Old 97s-Land

2010-08-10T15:31:00.001-05:00

Got a nice note from my friends at old97s.com today. The new album – The Grand Theater, Vol 1 – will be out on Oct 12.

Circle your TV Guides, kids.

BTW:

The Grand Theatre Volume One Track Listing:
1. The Grand Theatre
2. Every Night Is Friday Night (Without You)
3. The Magician
4. You Were Born To Be In A Battle
5. The Dance Class
6. Let The Whiskey Take The Reins
7. Champaign, Illinois
8. A State Of Texas
9. You Smoke Too Much
10. Love Is What You Are
11. Please Hold On While The Train Is Moving
12. The Beauty Marks

I haven’t heard any of them, but I expect yet more greatness. And so should you!

Ahmadinejad brings us out of retirement

2010-08-07T11:37:00.003-05:00

Hello, fans of CIT. I really thought I had retired to the old bloggers' home, never to virtually pick up pen and rant again. But our good friend, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is back at it and I had to get off the couch to comment.

Speaking at some sort of conference in Tehran, Ahmadinejad repeated his no-longer-news hypothesis that the Holocaust is fiction. But this time, he didn't stop there. Apparently, Ahmadinejad fears his rating are down, because he threw in yet more shock-jock. The latest: the Americans "exaggerated" the Sept 11, 2001 terror attacks, and "Zionists" were warned ahead of time to avoid the WTC.

Ahmadinejad goes on to say he's not seen a list of the dead from that day, even though such lists are all over the place.

Its worth noting that Obama said, just the other day, he would welcome talks with the Iranian government. Um, maybe not so much now?

Ahmadinejad. This guys is off the charts. It's clear he doesn't give two poops about how he's perceived in the West. It sure doesn't seem like this stuff plays any better at home, although I certainly don't know that for sure. The Israelis are scared to death of him. What the heck is he trying to accomplish?

Capital punishment - maybe not such a great idea

2010-06-18T22:19:00.000-05:00

Saw a really striking graphic on MSNBC today about capital punishment in the US and the world. The part that really got me was the other countries cited as members of the Top 10 Executors.

I am appalled at the company we keep on this list. And I am equally aware we are the only "Western democracy" in the Top 10. I'm pretty sure this is a list we don't want to be on.

iPhone 4G

2010-04-20T20:38:00.000-05:00

The tech press is all a-flutter with news of an apparent iPhone 4G prototype found "in the wild" - some Apple employee left it in a bar in Redwood City CA. It wound up in Gizmodo's hands, and they tore it apart.

The speculation is Apple will announce the next iPhone at the Worldwide Developer Conference this summer. If that's the case, availability is likely in the fall, when, coincidentally, my current contract w/ AT&T runs out.

Hmmm. Stay tuned...

Another example of this blog writing itself

2010-04-20T20:19:00.000-05:00

From the Beeb today: Iranian cleric blames quakes on promiscuous women

At last, we have the answer to THAT question!

Apple to Adobe: We don't need your stinking Flash

2010-04-02T22:35:00.000-05:00

Fellow iPhone users, take heart. The legions of soon-to-be-iPad users have likely moved the Apple vs. Adobe Flash debate to the tipping point. To no ones surprise, it looks like Apple will win.

If you've tried to view Facebook video, or watch a Hulu TV show, or play an MSNBC video on your iPhone, you know that none of these things are possible without some serious (and warranty-voiding) machinations. This is because Apple has refused to support Adobe's Flash product, the leading method for delivering Web-based video and a whole bunch of other Internet content. Apple claims (rightly so) Flash is buggy, unstable, and hogs resources. Adobe, as has been their habit for about the past 10 years, has yawned and pointed to the vast amount of Flash content on the Web, implying that Flash is good enough for everyone else, so Apple should just shut up and get over it.

Millions of iPhones, and what looks to be another home run with the iPad, give Apple some clout in this fight, and it looks like content providers are going to go with the numbers. According to Daniel Lyons in Newsweek, some of the biggest syndicated content providers on the Internet are moving to support HTML5, the standard Apple is touting as a superior substitute for Flash.

All of the big tech companies are arrogant, and I personally think Apple is one of the more egregious abusers of its customers out there (FAR more so than popular whipping boy Microsoft), but on this one, I'm with Apple. Flash is a terrible product. It is exactly as Apple describes it - buggy, prone to crashes, and a far bigger consumer of device resources than it should be given its functionality. HTML5 is a more open and elegant standard, requires no licensing fees to use, is more stable, and ought to be a better solution in every way to unstable proprietary code.

Eventually, the market does make right in most cases, and especially so in technology. Those companies which adhere to proprietary code, tightly controlled IP, and closed standards are ultimately doomed to be replaced by open-source alternatives. The exception, so far, has been Apple, which has held the open-source revolution at bay by designing and mass-manufacturing elegant, simple, and functional devices and software. They have to work pretty hard to keep up the pace of innovation while maintaining their edge, but to date, they have done a pretty good job.

F1 in Melbourne: Ferrari does what they need to

2010-03-29T22:43:00.000-05:00

The Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne is in the books, with Button winning outright in the McLaren, Kubica taking second in the Renault, and Massa and Alonso coming in third and fourth in the Ferraris.

After two weeks, most everything is right in the F1 universe, as Ferrari sits atop the constructors’ list, and Alonso and Massa top the drivers’ list.

I had been under the impression McLaren was considered somewhat behind the others in terms of adapting to the new rules and restrictions. Maybe, as Hamilton ended in 6th after the only 2-stop strategy amongst those in the points. However, Button’s win seems to indicate McLaren are well on their way to catching the others, if they were ever, in fact, behind.

Vettel held the lead until a late brake failure and resulting crash, continuing the two-race trend of lots of speed from the Red Bull, but questionable reliability.

And Schumi did the square root of nothing, coming in 10th and only deserving a mention because, well, he’s Michael frickin’ Schumacher, isn’t he?

Off we go to Malaysia in two weeks for more happy fun good times.

Original music coming to Frisco - really!

2010-03-19T23:14:00.005-05:00

Buried amongst the nuggets on DC9 At Night this week was this: Lochrann's Irish Pub and Eatery (in Frisco Square right across Main St from Pizza Hut Park) will be hosting live, original music, for free, on Thursday evenings.

The first show will include The Early Republic and The Roomsounds (yeah, I know, or actually I don't know) on 3/25. Around CIT, we are circling 4/22 in our TV Guides as The Orbans make a visit.

The bands start at 8:00 and finish up at 11:00, so no guilt about being out late on a school night. And did we mention it's free?

The closest thing to original music Frisco has seen to date is Ed Earl's washboard skills down at Randy's Steak House, or perhaps the mice at Manny's. So this is big news round these parts.

Also found in the same DC9 post: Appearing for one night only, at Nokia on 5/12, will be Foreigner, Styx, and Kansas. Just in case you missed 7th grade and would like to relive it or your mom bleached out your concert T-shirts. God help all who attend.

You have got to be frickin' kidding

2010-03-19T18:11:00.003-05:00

Really? Snow at the end of March? Awesomeness!

And thus does the plan for another weekend die a cold and wet death...

Another reason to set Bing as your homepage

2010-03-19T12:03:00.006-05:00

If you haven't tried Microsoft's latest answer to Google - the Bing search page - you should. I say this not as a Microsoft shill (even though I am one), but as a user who has seen worthwhile results out of it. Bing search is every bit as good as Google's. Microsoft has been working for the better part of a decade to earn the previous sentence, and they have finally done it.

Outside of search excellence, I love Bing, and have it set as my homepage, because Bing brings you, every day, a stunning image you will see nowhere else. Some of the best, most original photography in the world is featured, for free, on Bing, with a new image appearing daily.

Today's image, of a flower farm in the Netherlands, is a particularly good example, and prompted this post. Click on the picture below for a much larger, and much more impressive, view.

Far West China Blog - utterly fascinating

2010-03-17T23:55:00.000-05:00

I have no idea how I wound up on a blog entitled Xinjiang: Far West China, but that is one of the best parts about just random surfing. You find something good/great, but couldn't retrace your steps to save your life.

Well, I don't want to lose this one, and I can think of a few CIT readers who will be interested to tune in. The author is a 20-something American named Josh, who has lived in a large town/small city in Xinjiang for three or four years. He and his American wife teach English, do some travel writing, and, it seems, spend a lot of time traveling the province on their second hand motorcycle, taking pictures, writing, and generally living as big an adventure as seems possible in the 21st Century.

I am fascinated by Xinjiang. It is, to me at least, as far off the beaten path as anywhere on the planet, yet has a history which goes back thousands of years. Josh's blog is a completely different, and very informative, view of this beautiful and remote place.

Go check it out. Drop Josh a note. Tell him CIT sent you!

Ferrari starts well

2010-03-14T10:13:00.003-05:00

The Bahrain GP is in the books, and Ferrari is off to a good start. Alonso won and Massa took second, and it doesn't get any better than that after one race.

A few things to mention:

1. Vettel in the Red Bull seemed to be the class of the field until a mechanical problem relegated him to fourth. Early in the race, no one seemed able to stay with him. Reliability has been a problem for Red Bull in the past. It seems if they can get past it, they are a team to be reckoned with.

2. Hamilton took 3rd in the McLaren, which was better than expected. You have to figure the McLaren guys are going to figure the new rules out sooner rather than later. I would have preferred they got off to a slower start, but it's silly to think they aren't going to be in the thick of the championship run.

3. Schumi did OK in his first race in 3 years (has it really been that long?), placing 7th. However, he was the slower of the Mercedes, finishing behind teammate Nico Rosberg and having his hands full holding off Button in the second (or is it first - he is the reigning champ) McLaren.

If your wardrobe contains some red, and mine has for a long time, you have to like how thing stand after one. Bring on Melbourne!

Thailand gets some unrest on

2010-03-14T09:49:00.003-05:00

Red-shirted supporters of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a military coup in 2006, have poured into Bangkok by the tens of thousands, looking to force current PM Abhisit Vejjajiva into dissolving Parliament and calling new elections.

Thailand has long been as close to democracy as there is in Southeast Asia, and has a proud tradition as the only country in the region to not be dominated by the Euros (or, at least not colonized by said Euros). However, it's certainly no peaceable kingdom. Coups, military governments, and violent protest are nothing new. At least it's easy to figure out which side is which.

I don't pretend to know the details on this one, nor do I have any insight whatsoever regarding who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. However, I do have some built-in skepticism which I feel compelled to voice:

1. Am I the only one who is suspicious of huge popular movements which can rally 100,000 or more poor, illiterate farmers from isolated, rural parts of the country? I know, I know, the US Civil Rights Movement did exactly that in a responsible and productive manner. But seriously, how often has that been repeated on the world stage? Isn't it a bit more common to see someone mobilizing this sort of crowd to benefit themselves? Or am I getting overly cynical in my dodderhood?

2. The former PM, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in 2006 on charges of corruption and graft, has been in self-imposed exile in Dubai for the past 3 or 4 years. If he were in exile in Laos, or Taiwan, or even Hoboken, I'd be a bit more sympathetic. But Dubai? Really?

3. The red-shirt movement appears to be running out of gas and money. The current wave of protest is seen as the last gasp before irrelevancy. Leaders are promising non-violence, but lets wait on the Nobel Prize for a few days. As the protest sputters to a halt, does the leadership get a bit more desperate?

I try not to be overly cynical, but sometimes, events on the World News page seem to invite it.

The return of F1

2010-03-13T15:03:00.003-06:00

This weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix represents the beginning of a new age in Formula One, and the return of the world's fastest sport to these virtual pages.

The retirement of Schmacher, the rise of Hamilton, the ascendancy of Ross Brawn, and the mediocre showing by the boys from the Scuderia have all sapped my interest over the past few years. But now, Schumi is back, even if it is in a Mercedes, enormous rule changes make the outcome of any race a study in unpredictability, at least at this point, and Massa is back in red. So, what's not to like?

I don't pretend to be any sort of expert on F1, but I have been somewhat more than a casual fan for 30 years now. I look forward to this season as I have for no other in recent memory.

Don't expect up-to-the-minute news from the circus here, but do expect a few tune-ins, some commentary, and some unabashed tifosi-like banner waving.

Let's go!

Live music alert - EdgeFest may suck less this year

2010-03-09T20:56:00.001-06:00

The annual EdgeFest show has been pretty disappointing for the past few years. And I don't think it's because I'm too old. For sure, the music isn't too loud.

Whatever. This year's second stage will include Phoenix. Which MIGHT make a trip to Pizza Hut Park on May 1 a worthwhile endeavor. Assuming the tickets aren't ridiculous, of course. And as long as I can get out before the Limp Bizkit reunion takes the stage.

OK Go's amazing latest video

2010-03-08T20:36:00.000-06:00

No doubt I am the last person on the planet to see this, but I have to post it. It took 70 takes to get this thing right. Can you imagine how frustrating take 69 must have been?

The band is OK Go, the song is "This Too Shall Pass".

Vampire humor?

2010-03-07T13:36:00.000-06:00

Three vampires walk into a bar. The first one says, "I'll have a pint of blood."

The second one says, "I'll have one, too."

The third one says, "I'll have a pint of plasma."

The bartender says, "So, that'll be two Bloods and a Blood Lite?"

Live music field trip: Dropkick Murphys

2010-03-02T23:37:00.005-06:00

CIT took a field trip on Monday night to House of Blues to see Boston-based Celtic-punkers Dropkick Murphys. The short version: A+, with a bit of AP credit putting the GPA well over 4.0.

Zowie. That’s what a rock show is supposed to be like.

As is becoming tradition around here, a few words on the venue first. I had not been to HoB prior, and was pleasantly surprised by the whole thing.

Dinner prior was good to very good – standard pub fare but better than most. Beer was cold, if not terribly cheap. The only ding on the restaurant was price. And perhaps noise. We were there to see a punk band, so noise isn’t really a problem, per se. However, there was a bit too much late 90’s Top 40 turned up to 11. Could have done without that.

The show hall is a good setup. The open floor area has a couple of bars, and enough room to get out of the way if the action in front of the stage gets to be too much. The balcony is right on top of the stage. I couldn’t see a lot of it from our vantage point on the floor, but the first few rows of the balcony are certainly top-notch seats.

But, seriously, who goes to a Dropkick show to sit?

One other thing about HoB – we got out of the place in no time. I was shocked and pleased with how quickly we were able to clear the hall, get outside, and get the car. We were on the freeway and headed home within 15 minutes of the last cymbal crash. Amazing.

We missed the first act of the evening, who must have been on stage for every bit of 15 minutes. We did catch most of the second band, a punk-bluegrass (I think) outfit who called themselves Larry and His Flask. Loved them! What they lacked in skill they made up in enthusiasm. As a group, they set new facial-hair records. All of them looked like they had spent the last six months in the Canadian Rockies hunting moose. Two of them were, I'm pretty sure, only partially human. The maniac playing the stand-up bass like it was a ukulele was distinctly chimp-like, and one of the guitarists was a dead-ringer for a Geico caveman.

I think I’d like to see Larry and His Flask in a different setting. Maybe an outdoor one, where the mayhem wouldn’t be too difficult to take. I sure wouldn’t want to see them in a small venue. I’m fairly certain the walls of a place like the Barley House would collapse from the antics inside.

They were cray-zee. But entertaining.

After a reasonable break, it was Dropkick time. They started loud and fast, and just kept going from there for the next hour and a half.

I haven’t been in GA at a rowdy show in some time, and had forgotten all about the initial surge when the band starts. What must have been 25 rather strapping lads pushed right the f*** past us at the first note. I managed to sidestep the worst of it, but one of our party wound up wearing his beer. I had a moment of old-guy “WTF!?!?!”, then remembered where I was and went with it.

The moshing (if we still call it that) was, I suspect, pretty tame by usual Dropkick standards. Some mild crowd-surfing and a bit of pushing and shoving continued through the entire show, but it was restricted to front and center. Our spot, approx 10 feet from the stage but off to the left a little, was very calm, with everyone around us just having fun jumping up and down and shouting along with the songs.

DKM played most of the hits – I missed “The Worker’s Song”, but they included pretty much everything else. Maniacal lead singer Al Barr continuously charged off the stage and into the personal space of those gathered front and center. The rest of the band put as much energy into the songs as the screaming crowd did. By the end of the show, I was drenched with sweat and flung beer and laughing my head off.

Highlights? Heck, take your pick. “State of Massachusetts” was the first real sing-along number. Nearly all of the women from the floor climbed up on stage to sing “Kiss Me, I’m @#$@-Faced” – there were a lot more women in attendance than I expected. The bring-the-house-down finale was “Shipping Up to Boston”, with the crowd bellowing the few lyrics out, drowning Barr’s gravelly roar.

It was all great.

DKM’s next album, which will be released this year, was recorded live in Boston over St Paddy’s week last year. Go get this album and the DVD. These guys work their a**es off on stage, put on a great show, and I can only imagine what a Boston, St. Patrick’s Day crowd must be like.

To sum, then: I loved everything about this show: Venue, opening act, headline act, and the entire show experience. Go to HoB, go see Larry and His Flask somewhere safe, go see DKM. And rock on!

Oi! Oi! Oi!

Chilean earthquake literally knocked Earth off axis

2010-03-02T22:53:00.000-06:00

A bit more holy-crap kind of news from this past weekend’s massive earthquake in Chile: The shake was enough to shift Earth’s axis and actually shortened the span of our days.

The numbers are, of course, very small – the axis shift was in inches and the day-shortening was in milliseconds, but still, that’s one heck of a shake. In fact, it was the seventh strongest earthquake ever measured.

The forces at work in something like this are mind-boggling. Think about how much of a shove it takes to knock over a stack of bricks or to shake a tree just a tiny bit. Now apply that same sort of thinking to the force required to flatten buildings and send huge ocean waves 7,000 miles across the Pacific. Makes me feel pretty insignificant and tiny.

Face-book

2010-03-01T12:31:00.002-06:00

Ouch, in several ways.

Comedy show field trip: Craig Ferguson

2010-03-01T06:57:00.006-06:00

CIT took another field trip this past weekend, this time up to the Winstar Casino in lovely Thackerville OK, to see CBS Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson. This served as the front end of our Celtic-themed weekend, with the back being the Dropkick Murphys at House of Blues on Mon night.

One thing to get out of the way straight off: Some of you out there, esp those of you who are more familiar with the local happenings, may be thinking to yourself, “Oi, Mudgey. I thought you was skint.” Or, you know, less Cockney words to that effect.

Well, skint I am, no doubt. But I am deeply, and far more than monetarily, indebted to a number of friends who have very generously helped me get out and do some very cool stuff lately. The list is long, you all know who you are, and I am so very grateful to you one and all. I am fortunate indeed to have friends like youse guys.

So, on with the report.

First, let’s talk about the venue: The extremely huge, extremely cheesy Winstar Casino.

What. A. Slag-heap.

I don’t even know where to start on this place. All night, I felt like I was in the remake of Walking Tall (the one with The Rock). From the moment the massive, brighter-than-10,000-suns marquee loomed out of the mist on I-35, I got the distinct impression Thackerville had sold its small-town soul to attract this low-budget Den of Iniquity.

You pull into the 40,000 acre parking lot (at least) and get a look at the massive, gaudy facade of the joint, and you can’t help but throw up in your mouth a little. Part of it is supposed to resemble the Coliseum in Rome, some of it a sort of French castle, some of it who-knows-what-but-it-sure-is-big-Ethel. Blinking LEDs embedded into the machined brick walls (magical twinkling, I guess), no windows anywhere, fire exits right off the back of the Spotsylvania Mall, it may be the ugliest building ever built.

Once you walk up to the door (I think the front door, but who the hell really knows?); past the thousands of dualie pick-up trucks, knackered mid-90s domestic compacts, and peeling minivans; you walk in and immediately get the good news from 20,000 (rough estimate) cigarettes. My eyes watered and I aged 10 years within the first fifteen feet.

While navigating the mile and a quarter (no kidding) around to the theater, you walk past rank after rank after rank of slot machines. The entire world’s supply of slot machines. I saw maybe 10 gaming tables in the entire place. The rest was slot machine after slot machine after slot machine. There was a fitting representation of the entire bottom third of the socio-economic food chain from across the Big XII present, smoking, rubbing their bulging bellies through their soiled T-shirts, pushing trucker caps back on their greasy heads, inhaling oxygen through tubes under their noses, staring, unblinking, at the rotating numbers and symbols on the screens in front of them. The sound is nonstop, droning, no doubt scientifically proven to remind the listener of winning. I didn’t see anyone win anything, but maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention.

As you walk thru the joint, you move from “Rome” to “Versailles” to “China”. The signs tell you so, and I guess the goldish-textured foam decorations and sculptures sort of change in keeping with the local theme. The fast-food stops along the wall, all with minimal cafeteria-style seating, seem to keep up with the current “country” – the pizza place was in the “Rome” area, at least.

The fast food is terrible, over-priced, and terrible. And did I mention it's terrible? And over-priced? And terrible? The sit-down restaurants - I counted two, one being the “Toby Keith America-Will-Punch-You-In-The-Nuts-You-A-Rab-Jerk-Face Bar and Grill” or somesuch, the other might have been “Shite Sandwich”, but I could be remembering that wrong - were crowded and looked and smelled at least as bad as the fast food.

The fit and finish of the entire place screamed “Centex” to me. Lots of flat mauve paint, glossy Snowflake White basic crown molding, hollow-core doors, and industrial carpet. A good, strong wind would likely blow the place to smithereens.

Throughout the evening, I couldn’t shake the mental image of, somewhere in the center of the complex, a secret door which opened onto an irregular-shaped hallway, glowingly red-lit, with moisture dripping down the rounded, pulsating walls. In my mind’s eye, the hallway led to a huge open space ringed by computers attended by geeky drones wearing dark slacks, white short-sleeved dress shirts, and skinny black ties. In the center of the space sits a huge, horned, red-skinned and slimy Creature from the lowest depths of Hell, bellowing with demonic laughter and snacking on the severed limbs of degenerate gamblers and slow waitresses.

I couldn’t tell if I was reminded of Dawn of the Dead, Idiocracy, or WALL-E more. I was literally embarrassed to be an American while I was there.

In other words, I really didn’t like the place.

Fortunately, we weren’t there to see it, nor to gamble, nor to have dinner. We were there for a comedy show.

The theater was the world’s biggest banquet room. It could probably have been subdivided into 200 small break-out rooms. The problem with banquet rooms is they have flat floors. Trying to pack 2,000 people (I’m guessing, but I’d bet I’m pretty close), sitting on lousy stackable banquet chairs, into a room the size of flight deck on a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier means the people in the back aren’t going to be able to see jack. There was a home-made-looking 2X4-and-chipboard riser for the very back, but I’m sure a lot of people only got a rumor of the visuals in the show.

There was some spare opener, some poor schlub who got to go warm up the crowd. He wasn’t terrible, did a number of homophobic jokes which clearly resonated with the audience full of Ed Earls and Darlenes, and was gone pretty quickly.

Ferguson himself was outstanding. He ran around the stage and absolutely killed for a good hour, maybe longer. Cussing, Scotland, booze, TV, celebrities, relationships, sex, and cussing (and a bit more cussing) – all got the treatment. Ferguson is a pro, has great writers, and has timing like few others. Neatly timed call-backs to earlier parts of the monologue (“Magic Baby Door” was a frequent reference) set up and joined a wide range of topics. Ferguson kept “trying” to come back to a joke he wanted to tell, and the payoff there was worthwhile. It’s a tribute to the guy’s skill that I think a good deal of his act was made up on the spot, but I just can’t be sure. It seemed spontaneous, but he had so few misfires it seems difficult to believe he was ad-libbing.

Whatever. He killed. I laughed a LOT. I was a fan before. Now, I’m ready to hero-worship. He single-handedly saved the evening and made the drive to Thackerville and the visit to the Wal-Mart of casinos worthwhile. We’ve adopted Craig Ferguson as both the Official Stand-up AND the Official Late Night Host of silly little CIT.

And that, my friends, is the highest praise I can gin up.

Does BU need football?

2010-02-23T22:12:00.002-06:00

As readers of this blog may know, my alma mater, Boston University, killed it's D1-AA football program in 1997. BU had about zero football tradition, and games at Nickerson Field were sparsely attended at best. However, I do have fond memories of fall Saturdays, the mighty Terriers taking the field against arch-rivals like UNH and Maine. Good times.

Brian Roach, in today's Freep, attempts to make the point that a dominant hockey program makes up for the absence of a mediocre football program. He reminds us of BU's multiple National Championships, 2009 being the most recent, bitter rivalry with that other school right out the B branch of the Green Line, and Beanpot triumphs. He doesn't mention, but could have, the semi-household names like Eruzione and Craig, Drury and Tkachuk, and, of course, Jack Parker.

Well, I'm not so sure. I have some great Beanpot memories, sure. One of the great sports moments of my life occurred at the Beanpot. I some really good times at Brown Arena (the Rathole On Babcock St). Scott Shaunessy was sorta fun to drink with at Father's Too on Beacon Street. I mean, it was nice being around a superior hockey program, no doubt.

But college hockey is a fringe sport. It's not even on the same map as college football or college basketball. It's lumped in with other third-tier sports like baseball, soccer, swimming, etc. All very worthwhile pursuits, don't get me wrong. But they just aren't the same as the biggies.

I have NOTHING in my experience to rival Game Day in Austin, or the atmosphere of Cameron Indoor or the Dean Dome. I've never been in an arena with the hoisted jerseys of Walton and Kareem, or where there are 100,000 people wearing maize and blue.

Now, of course, that's not to say BU could ever achieve that sort of success in the big sports. BU football was a very average 1-AA program. There was no history or tradition. The most spectacular players to ever roll thru Nickerson, guys like Jim Jensen and Bill Brooks, wound up with very solid, but unspectacular, NFL careers. A guy like Paul Lewis, who set every rushing record the school has, couldn't catch on with the Patriots as a free agent when the Patriots were terrible.

Hockey is all well and good. And it is nice to be able to say "I went to BU, home of the hockey National Champions of 2009". And it's probably better to have a dominant hockey team than it is to have a spare football team.

That was a long rant for not much payoff. I guess the moral of the story is its better to be really good at something sorta spare than it is to be really spare at something sorta good.

It probably also pays to not do too many stream-of-thought blog posts late at night!

Tiger giggle

2010-02-23T21:28:00.000-06:00

I don't remember him being presented with THIS trophy, but perhaps I wasn't looking closely enough.

Live Music Field Trip Report: The King Bucks

2010-02-15T23:18:00.002-06:00

CIT took a a field trip to Tolbert’s in Grapevine on Sat night to catch the King Bucks.

The short version: Solid A. Maybe pushing for an A+.

First, the venue: Tolbert’s is in the historic part of Grapevine, a nicely-preserved/redone small-town Texas downtown area. Lots of multi-step-up sidewalks, street parking, and one- or two-storey storefronts and offices. It’s got that “this is the only street in town that matters” feel of your average one-A Texas town. Nice to walk thru, even on a cold evening like Sat. If you haven’t been to Historic Grapevine, it shouldn’t take much of an excuse for you to go.

Tolbert’s itself is a chili-parlor also reminiscent of small-town Texas. A bar running the entire length of the left side of the single long room, stage in the back with a small clear area in front for a bit o’ dancin’, and tables throughout. You’ve been in places like this before.

Food is basic but good. The Fredericksburger (bacon and your choice of cheese) gets an enthusiastic thumbs up. The draft beer is cold, cheap, and comes in a good sized glass. It’s enough to bring a smile to your face. it did mine.

The band is way better than your average bar band. Danny, Chad, Keith, Joe, and Chris have all played in tons of area bands, often with each other. You can tell. They seemed to have a planned first set, but I am convinced the second was made up on the fly. These guys have so many classic country songs on the internal CD player they could easily be unbeatable in “Golden Age of Country Stump-the-Band”.

A ton of Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Buck Owens, Porter Waggoner, and the like was the order of the evening. Mostly rockin’, some slower, all played and sung as well as you can ask. We all know Chad and Keith can sing, as they have on countless records and bar sets over the years. Danny Balis’ voice, however, is a relatively recent, and welcome, find. His baritone, while not quite in the Johnny Cash class of resonance, reminds of, and may surpass, Waylon, Merle, and even The Man in Black Himself at times.

By my less-than-expert count, the boys played none of their own stuff, neither off the band’s album nor off Danny’s solo record. Instead, they played two+ hours of old-timey country and honky tonk. You knew some of it, you had heard others somewhere before, some of it you have never heard before. Mostly up-tempo, but enough slow numbers to allow the many 40-something white guys in the audience to grab a dance with their squeeze.

This was the first time I have seen Joe Butcher play live, and I have to comment on his musicianship. Pedal steel is a cool instrument under any circumstances, but Joe’s skill is noteworthy, as are his guitar and singing. On a stage full of talented and experienced guys, Joe stands out as slightly more equal than his co-luminaries.

Joe and Chad, and Keith to an extent, interjected a bit of entertaining banter, but it was pretty much all music all night.

There are plenty of bands rattling around the area doing far more cutting-edge stuff, who are more creative and who may interact with the audience more or better. But you are not going to find a tighter, more professional group of musicians who enjoy their craft more than the King Bucks. You’re going to be hard-pressed to find a better show, too.

Really glad we went. Tolbert’s is worth a visit, either for dinner, a show, or both. And the King Bucks are on our list of bands we plan to catch again. They should be on yours too.

Olympic time again

2010-02-15T23:05:00.002-06:00

It’s that time once again, when we stop down for a couple weeks of rapt viewing of otherwise-obscure sports, passionate debating about the relative merits of athleticism and artistry, and wistful musing regarding the debauchery going on within the Athlete’s Village even as I type this.

Yep, it’s the Olympics again, my preferred Winter version, this year taking place in a region I have known but fear I will not know, at least not the same way, again.

Is that last part cryptic? Too bad. I know what I meant.

At any rate, I do enjoy an evening of watching slightly insane humans hurtling down mountains on waxed carbon fiber, right on the very edge of catastrophe as they try to squeeze a few more meters per second out, a few less clock nano-ticks elapsed during the run. Its even more entertaining being able to say I was there, I rode that lift, skied that run, walked those streets, saw an event there, etc. Maybe even seeing a familiar face in the crowd, glimpsed in the sea of humanity in Gastown or Richmond, etc.

And the day-to-primetime handoff from the greatness of Al Michaels to the greatness of Bob Costas, Dan Patrick in a silly hat, Scott Hamilton’s emphatic “She NAILS it!”, all the hallmarks of Olympic TV.

I do so enjoy this.

Stories to watch? Heck, I don’t know. Hockey is fun, but not as much fun as when it was college boys against the roid-monsters of Red Army. Bode Miller has turned in too many disappointments in past opportunities to get excited about now. Lindsey Vonn sure is nice to look at, and seems to have a legitimate shot at a number of races. But I don’t see anything that’s truly must-see TV.

And it’s hard to keep cynicism at bay when talking about the kind of money present in modern Olympics. You need only get a snoot-full of the spin being spun about the death on the luge track to OD on fake hand-wringing and contrived tribute.

But, despite the lack of pre-packaged stories and the hypocrisy of modern sports-entertainment, I’m still glued. It’s a chance to see true greatness – how many kids in the world have the Olympics as their goal, and how many make it? And of those who make it, how many excel?

Yes, I love the Olympics, and NBC loves me.

TX Gov race: Are you freaking kidding me?

2010-02-15T22:24:00.002-06:00

Yet another candidate for TX Governor, this time Dem dark horse Farouk Shami, commits political suicide on the public airwaves over the topic of 9/11.

Just in case his 9/11 Hot Sports Opinions didn't do him in, he throws in the ever-popular "white people don't want to work" view.

What the heck is going on around here? Is everyone in this race nuts? Bill White is my last hope, but a faint one.

Time lapse - NBA All-Star Game at the Death Star

2010-02-15T21:56:00.000-06:00

Here, in two minutes of time-lapse video, is how the Mavs, Cowboys, and the NBA got the Death Star set and filled for the NBA All-Star Game last night.

Fascinating...

Debra Medina - oh my goodness

2010-02-12T16:32:00.000-06:00

We're not following the Texas governor's race all that closely here at CIT because, quite frankly, Rick Perry is going to have to pull a Clayton Williams to lose this thing. However, one Debra Medina has been slowly creeping up on Gov Good-Hair and Kay Hutchison.

Or, at least she was until she appeared on the Glen Beck radio show yesterday and gave the very clear appearance of being a 9/11 Truther.

Texas is a crazy place, but we're not crazy enough to vote for this, are we?

Listen for yourself. I am no fan of Glen Beck, but I can't fault him one bit for this interview. He asked what should have been a no-brainer question, and even tried to stop Ms. Medina strangling herself.

Zowie:

Local band worth a listen: The Orbans

2010-02-12T14:48:00.002-06:00

Formerly The Lifters, now The Orbans. Album drops in March, or that's the plan. Alt-country, country-rock, a bit of Old 97s guitar and The O's banjo. Good stuff.

Upcoming live music field trips

2010-02-04T21:58:00.000-06:00

Here at CIT, we’re making a concerted effort to take in more live music (and that was a kick-ass joke, I don’t care what anyone says). My compadre Wild Bill and I, along with anyone who’s interested, will be taking in shows in a variety of Dallas venues and passing along reviews and opinions in these pages.

We’re just getting started, and we have severe time constraints (having, like, jobs and kids and stuff), so the calendar is pretty sparse at the moment. Definites are:

King Bucks at Tolbert’s in Grapevine on Sat 2/20
Dropkick Murphys at House of Blues in Dallas on Mon 3/1

Beyond these two, there are no must-sees right now. We’ll be on the lookout for Old 97s when they roll through, and there’s interest in Calhoun, Eleven Hundred Springs, and a few other local acts. We’ll take suggestions. Please keep in mind we are 40-something white guys who are trying to get the groove back when you submit ideas.

Good stuff ahead for the Rangers?

2010-02-04T21:34:00.000-06:00

One of our favorite Dallas sports bloggers, the great Richie Whitt, keeper of the Soon-To-Be-Great Sportatorium over at the Observer (and the links list over there on the left), posits that there is a whole lot to look forward to in Rangers baseball, both in the short and longer terms.

Why, you ask?

Because, retorts RW, new Rangers’ owner Chuck Greenberg reminds him a heck of a lot of a certain other casually dressed Pittsburghian (Pittsburgher?) who took over a moribund Dallas sports franchise and turned it into a winner seemingly overnight.

Yep, Richie sees a lot of Mark Cuban in this guy.

This is, perhaps, too lofty a dream for long-suffering Ranger fans. Its too much for me to buy into sight-unseen. But, you know, what if…?

Bolivia: The next Saudi Arabia

2010-02-02T22:05:00.000-06:00

Here’s a little tidbit from the “I Did Not Know That” file: Bolivia sits on top of 70 to 80% of the world’s supply of lithium.

And this is important to know…why?

Take a look at the batteries in your mobile phone and laptop. I’ll bet dollars to your donuts they’re both lithium batteries.

Take a look at the specs of the soon-to-be-in-production Chevrolet Volt. It is powered by, you guessed it, lithium batteries.

It turns out lithium holds an electric charge longer than any metal yet discovered. It will be THE most sought-after element there is in our upcoming (and can’t come soon enough) move from fossil fuels to electricity (generated by…nuclear fission? wind? tide? fusion? all of the above?).

And here’s little, third world, basically socialist Bolivia, sitting on a whole shed load of it. Bolivia, right next door to Hugo Chavez’ Venezuela, where the nation’s most precious commodity (oil) has been nationalized.

The Bolivians are not oblivious to their impending good fortune. They are currently discussing the “To Nationalize or Not To Nationalize” question. They are distrustful of the US, mostly because of our past unwelcome interference in South American politics. Thus, the French, South Koreans, Japanese and, you better believe, the Chinese are swarming all over La Paz, President Eva Morales, and anyone with a smidge of influence in the Bolivian government.

The lithium is found primarily on the high Andean plain, in an area historically dirt poor and currently almost completely isolated from the rest of the world. Which all sounds a lot like the Arabian Peninsula in the 1930s or so, when the oil companies started to move in and build infrastructure.

The Bolivians are taking careful notes on just how the Arabs and their mates next door in Venezuela have managed to hang on to a substantial chunk of their oil revenues, and looking askance at countries like Mexico which have managed to screw themselves out of most of their own windfall. Expect the Bolivians to be pretty stiff negotiators. Further expect a lot of environmental hand-wringing and Power-To-The-People-style sentiment regarding the indigenous dirt farmers. And, since it’s the third world, expect a bit of Wild West – lots of corruption, violence, and double-crossing.

While the demise of oil spells doom for the Arabs, at least as a political force in this world, someone is going to take their place. At this point, Bolivia seems to be the odds-on favorite to be the power behind the soon-to-be-convened OLEC (Organization of Lithium Exporting Countries).

Mossad strikes again, Hamas isn’t happy about it

2010-02-02T21:31:00.000-06:00

The Israeli foreign intelligence service, the ever-secretive Mossad, zapped another senior Hamas guy, this time frying him in a Dubai hotel.

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, one of the founders of Hamas' military wing, died under rather unclear circumstances in January while staying at an unnamed Emirate hotel. Hamas leaders have expressed all sorts of official outrage over this targeted killing of a legitimate target, seemingly forgetting the hundreds of completely innocent Israeli women and children they have blown to bits over the years.

I don’t condone this sort of action, of course. But I also don’t pretend to know what the Israelis should be doing instead. Short of a better idea, I think its best for me to just pass along the news and keep my mouth shut.

The Woodall Rogers Deck Park

2010-02-02T21:23:00.000-06:00

My soon-to-be new overlords in the City of Dallas are busily building a deck over a pretty significant length of the Woodall Rogers Freeway canyon on the north edge of downtown (between the Arts District and Uptown, because it's important to use CoD's lingo when describing "neighborhoods").

An interesting idea when first floated, it gets a bit more interesting after you view this highly slicked-up "virtual fly-thru".

Enjoy!

Movie time!

2010-01-15T23:36:00.003-06:00

Kick-Ass. I am interested!

Kick-Ass - Red Band Trailer | Movies & TV | SPIKE.com

Kick-Ass - Theatrical Trailer #2 | Movies & TV | SPIKE.com

Clever or stupid?

2009-11-26T11:40:00.002-06:00

As David St. Hubbins would say, it's such a fine line between the two. You decide:

Q: What did the apple say to the orange?
A: I despise you for being different from me.

New radio in Dallas, finally

2009-11-13T19:16:00.000-06:00

Better late than never - earlier this week, new public radio station KXT (91.7 on your FM dial) signed on with Santana's "She's Not There". Interesting choice for a first song, but that's not what this post is about.

KXT is public music radio, affiliated with NPR and venerable KERA. It's billed as local, alternative, something completely different from the formula radio rampant on the FM dial in town.

If you have not checked it out yet, you ought to. Lots of local bands (a scene I am just beginning to immerse myself in), which means lots of alt-country, roots rock, Americana, whatever you want to call it. You'll hear some more recognizable stuff as well, but you'll likely get a snoot-full of King Bucks and Old 97s. Which is a good thing, by the way.

In the day of the iPod and Pandora Radio, when XM and Sirius have to join forces to barely survive, you have to ask why we need another terrestrial station at all, much less one aimed at a niche audience (at best) in a town of herd-followers.

I don't know if KXT is going to make it or not. I will tell you I have turned into a P-2 (still a Ticket P-1), and like what I hear. It doesn't sound like anything else on the dial, not even close.

I haven't been this excited about a radio station since the halcyon days of WBCN in Boston!

We're back, we're bad. I'm not black, and I'm not mad.

2009-11-03T21:36:00.004-06:00

OK, so I butchered a line from the immortal Lethal Weapon II in the headline. Sue me.

God, what a long strange trip it has been. I have been trudging the road of compulsion, desperation, and redemption for months now. I have reached, if not the end of the road, at least a decent place to stop and smell the flowers.

Thanks to my Dreamy brother, we have picked up some new readers here at little CIT. I guess Bonedome is a bigger draw than we thought. Nice surprise. AH, if it's paying off, you owe CIT a couple of beers. Since the guy who actually earned them is two time zones away, you can pay me next time I venture into the underbelly.

We've picked up at least one other new reader to whom I am very grateful for their patronage. Stand up and take a bow, RJD. Perhaps some of the group will get to know you soon.

So, it's been weird around here for some time. Let the weirdness begone! We've got all kinds of stuff to rail about in these virtual pages now:

- The Cowboys - dead one minute, heroes the next. Not buying it quite yet.
- That little git Ahmadinejad - still crazy after all these years.
- Israel is almost, sort of, nearly willing to slow down settlement building.
- Afghan women set themselves on fire rather than stay in shite marriages? No kidding? Where have you been for like the past 30 years? This isn't news. It's horrible, but it ain't new.
- The War of Terror continues wherever it can. Peshawar, Kabul, Ellis County.

So many hot topics, so little time.

I hope I'm back. I want to be back. I have new motivation to be back. As long as I can avoid an aneurysm and/or a malice-wielding perjurer, I intend to be back.

The State of Jewish Boxing Today

2009-10-29T15:56:00.000-05:00

From The Ring Magazine

http://www.ringtv.com/blog/1261/jewish_fighters_foreman_and_salita_revive_an_old_tradition/

Bonedone releases a bitch slap of an album with Thinktankubator

2009-10-18T16:05:00.003-05:00

Don’t Tell Allan Hayslip That You Love Him

“You should be glad that words were the worst things
I ever put in your mouth”
-Better by Bonedome on Thinktankubator

Steeped in the dark reality of dysfunctional and co-dependent relationships – celebrating and reveling in the more painful aspects of love, the giving of oneself to another and the violence therein – Allan Hayslip, long time Dallas, Texas sideman in bands such as Vibrolux, Sixty-Six, Prince Jellyfish, and currently performing in Rock Star Karaoke, pushes himself to the fore with his band Bonedome and their newly released album, Thinktankubator, which Hayslip describes as a “collection of relationship songs clothed in quirky, sad, introspective, and self-deprecating timbers.”

The album opens with the song Sandman, a muddied rocker thick with overdubbed harmonies, Julian Cope overtures, and a sneer, in which Hayslip openly declares his inability to keep any sort of resolve in his decisions in the face of another’s desire. This abdication of power, according to many a paisley sweater wearing prescription writing psychiatrist today, leads to feelings of inferiority and, more to the point in this case, anger, resentment, and mistrust of others. It is in this pot that most of Thinktankubator stews.

Songs like Eraser, a slower-tempoed harmonic showpiece in which Hayslip really lets slip his chorister training; Easy, a heavy, crescendo pointing arm waver; and Better, a real multi-layered stand out rocker, all play with the idea of betrayal and the hurt it begets. There is an undertone of violence in these songs, most obviously in Easy, whose chorus of “It’s easy to kill a man / It’s easy from where I stand” is almost a distraction from the strangulation fantasy in which Hayslip revels in the aftermath of his lover’s seeming affair. Hayslip himself is an imposing figure, large by any standards, which only adds to the ominous nature of these songs.

Yet Hayslip also seems to indicate that he is just as capable of betrayal as anyone else. Girl One, a song I was singing to myself while folding laundry hours after listening to it; The Other One, an obvious nod to the Pixies (actually Hayslip and Black Francis look like they could have been separated at birth) that veers off on its own to become comfortable in its authentic groove; and Red Flags R Trouble, another of the album’s songs that stuck with me long after I last listened to it, all seem to inform the listener that Hayslip can give just as good as he can get in this cage match of heartbreak and betrayal.

The nakedness of these songs is almost brutal at times. This may be a result of the fact that Hayslip has lived through some real heartache in his life and has, through true introspection, been able to channel this destruction into an act of creation – or it may be a by-product of the fact that most of the basic tracking for the album was done in an non air conditioned control room in the heat of the Dallas summer, allowing Hayslip to engineer naked, a fact he seems to take great glee in revealing.

The song I Can Lose You takes the idea of abandonment further and moves it into an interesting discussion about the nature of friendship and the sacrifices of that relationship, with Hayslip playing the convenient martyr in this complex song heavily indebted to David Bowie’s Space Oddity and Ashes to Ashes.

While the album’s core rests in these themes of betrayal, abandonment, and violence, there are a couple of notable exceptions. The first is Steven, which has one of the most honest choruses (chori??) since Lou Reed openly declared that he wanted to be black. In Steven, Hayslip shouts “I write songs to give good interviews / I do drugs to give good interviews,” underlying his understanding that nothing sells today like a good back-story and an even heavier horse or monkey on your back.

The other exception is my favorite song on the album, Fade Away, a stumpy, thuddy collision between Buddy Holly and AC/DC. Here, Hayslip turns on its head the classic poet pick-up line: “Baby, if you let me lick on you awhile, I’ll write a poem about it and make you immortal.” Fade Away seems to celebrate the transience of existence and notoriety -- that he and his lover are “just two drops in the sea” who will eventually just fade from history. “And it’s okay,” according to Hayslip. While seemingly celebratory of this sort of carpe diem, the song’s ending refrain of “I’m gonna tell you” returns the listener to the ominous tone of the rest of the album, adding another layer of complexity to the message of the song.

While the album does misfire a couple of times, most notably on Slow Jesus Xing and the cringing choral drudgery of Custody Lullaby, the great majority of it is filled with tight, well-orchestrated songs that highlight Hayslip’s song writing ability and his Peter Murphy ispired vocals. The album bodes well for Hayslip’s continued emergence as a front man and it is certainly worth a listen, especially if you’re driving away from your lover’s home for the last time ever, gripping the steering wheel white-knuckled tight, all gacked up on anger and betrayal, and looking for something to say.

PG-13 giggle

2009-09-30T23:35:00.000-05:00

Q. What do you get with a corduroy condom?

A. A groovy kind of love.

Stay sportsy, my friends

2009-09-25T15:46:00.001-05:00

Oh so much to talk about here in Sportsville. I have been neglectful. But no more. Onward!

Rangers

Our formerly-red-shoed Rangers have done the near-impossible this season. They have kept us entertained past the start of the regular NFL season. This has never, to my thinking, happened before.

So much to be excited about regarding this team! Young pitchers who throw hard as hell, and who seem to know how to pitch as well. Young position players who can play their positions, hit reasonably well, run the bases (some blazingly fast). A nice mix of veterans to provide some wisdom.

And, at the head of it all, the Old-Skool Brother, Ron Washington.

Can it be? It's late Sept and I really should be back in school. Er, no. Not what I meant. It's late Sept and and we are still waxing rhapsodic about the Texas Rangers? We are. This has been the most entertaining baseball season I have experienced since the Red Sox of 1986.

Thank you, Nolan Ryan, Jon Daniels, and the rest. If Big Dumb Tom can sell the team to someone with some dough, next year may be even better.

University of Texas football

I've got the same feeling I had at the start of the season in 2005. Remember, I didn't start to get totally on board until after the Ohio State game that year. This year's schedule holds no similar out-of-conference test, so it will be Oct 17th's annual showdown with Oklahoma before I start to mention the "C" word (not THAT "C" word, you pervert) around here. But the cards seem to be falling into the right places, don't they?

By the way, did you see McCoy complete that pass to Shipley aboard a boat going 45 mph on the telecast this past weekend? Whoever thought that little stunt up needs to be keelhauled. Have you ever tried to stand in a small boat at speed? It ain't easy, and I thought it would not have taken much to knock Shipley right over the side. Maybe he was strapped in or something, but, man, I cringed!

At any rate, this season is off to a good start. That's all I'm saying right now.

Cowboys

Um, oh dear. Uh-oh? Maybe? I dunno.

I missed the opener against Tampa Bay, but it seems like it was a good one. However, I think we're seeing Tampa Bay is one of the worst teams in the league.

The Giants are clearly one of the best, and the Cowboys did seem to have the upper hand throughout the game. But...

But what's up with this Wade Phillips defense? There has been minimal pressure, even when they bring six guys. What happened to the swarming, scary-ass defense we saw at times down the stretch last year? Were Greg Ellis and Kevin Burnett really that important? I will certainly go on record as saying Kevin Burnett is a MUCH more attractive option than Bobby Carpenter. How is that guy still on this team?

The Cowboy defense looked a lot like it did in the doldrums of the Pear-Shaped Football Genius' tenure - unable to make a stop, unable to make tackles, and unable to get off the field when it really matters.

But what's up with Romo? Did he just have a one-game brain fart? Or his inconsistency becoming a consistent? It's feast or famine with this guy - he doesn't have many so-so games. And history is beginning to suggest the bigger the stage, the more likely he's going to toss out a clunker. When do we call it a trend?

The running game looks to be, potentially, something serious. Barber is hurt already, which isn't good. But it seems mild, and I thought the Cowboys could have had 300 yards plus if they had just kept running it.

The new kickoff guy seems to have worked out. The last time a Cowboy reached the end zone off a tee, he was holding a 1-iron, so it was good to see a few kickoffs get into the neighborhood. Still, a punter and two kickers? Wouldn't you really rather have another left tackle on the roster?

And let's talk for just a moment about the colossal, shiny Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, shall we? I absolutely LOVE The Ticket's nickname for it: The Death Star. I hope it sticks. It's perfect. In a world turning more Idiocracy by the minute, the Death Star only speeds us on our way to a Costco world. Sure, its a showplace. Sure, its going to get TONS of positive press. But do we really need 100,000 people crammed into a stadium to watch a football game on the world's largest TV screen? Personally, I am embarrassed by the place. It's too much for me. And it's in Arlington.

That last bit did sound a bit good-old-days-ish, didn't it? Maybe a bit curmudgeonly? Well, too bad. Look at the title bar of this blog, you ninny.

And now that I have managed to disparage both Jerry Jones and my readership, I bid you a fond farewell.

Aloha, Spicolli.

Good times in Phoenix

2009-09-17T10:42:00.003-05:00

The extended blog hiatus is nearing an end. I'm wrapping up the Project Conference in Phoenix today and tomorrow and will be headed home for the weekend, and the foreseeable future.

There's certainly a lot to get to upon my return. College and pro football, the Rangers' improbable season (which may or may not be winding down), Afghanistan, Israel, health care reform, hurricane season.

My gosh, I can hardly wait!

A little professional blogging

2009-09-15T17:58:00.002-05:00

I'm doing some blogging regarding my professional life over at the Catapult Systems EPM Team blog.

Come check it out!

There’s dark, and then there’s this

2009-09-10T11:41:00.002-05:00

What's black and white, black and brown, and black and black?

A nun roasting on a spit.

CIA "torture" - let's tap the brakes a bit

2009-08-30T10:40:00.005-05:00

I am surprised, somewhat pleasantly so, to see a reasonable and thought-thru op/ed in the NYT this morning regarding the politically-motivated and wrong-headed recent moves by our esteemed Attorney General. As you no doubt know, AG Holder is mulling the idea of investigating, and perhaps bringing charges against, some in the CIA who conducted or sanctioned "aggressive interrogation tactics".

This is a travesty, and it frankly pisses me off.

We've reminded ourselves, in these virtual pages, of the national mindset back in late 2001 and early 2002. The US had just been attacked and was, rightly or wrongly, staggered and very angry. It sure seemed like more attacks were inevitable, and potentially much more devastating. Suicide bombers in Times Square, dirty bombs in Washington, or pneumonic plague loosed in the nation's transportation system were all seemingly viable, and each was written and talked about by very serious people as very serious threats.

Just imagine you're a CIA operative working in a musty walled compound in eastern Afghanistan in March of 2002. A couple of Delta Force guys drag in what appears to be a high-ranking member of AQ, and it's your job to get real facts, or "actionable intelligence", out of this character. Maybe the CIA's internal grapevine is starting to heat up with talk of plans for the next "spectacular", and everyone from your direct supervisor to the DCI to your Aunt Gertrude in Cleveland is counting on you to turn up the one tidbit that blows the operation open.

You've got this AQ honcho sitting in front of you, maybe with a few cuts and bruises courtesy of the Delta guys, but mostly intact. He's grinning his toothy grin at you, because he's been told that you represent a sick and decadent society which does not have the stomach to fight back. Between smug smiles, he hints about some really juicy info he's got stuck up in his melon, and boy, wouldn't you like to know what it is.

You think about your wife, your daughter, your mom and dad, your first grade teacher, the kids in that third grade class in Topeka who recently sent a pallet of Mach III razor blades and Pop-Tarts to your buddies in the 10th Mountain Division, everyone back home who may be at risk.

Do you use the non-lethal tools you have arranged beside you? The Taser, the jumper cables attached to the Delco Marine battery, the tilty wooden table (aka the "waterboard"), the noisy power drill, etc? Or do you let Toothy the Terrorist continue to smile and say nothing?

Answer that question honestly. Would you really have moral qualms? Really? If yes, perhaps you're a better human than I am. Inflicting some fear, pain, and confusion on my friend Toothy seems a lot more morally defensible than not getting the plans for "Operation Black Death" out of the guy who, for all I know, cooked up the plan from the start.

So, here we are, eight or so years down the road. Nothing of consequence has occurred here in the US. Sure, AQ and their franchisees have spun up the scoreboard a bit in places like the UK, Spain, Bali, Iraq, Saudi, etc, but those places are far, far away. It's been quiet here. Why? Maybe its because AQ isn't as tough as we thought they were. Maybe it's because the 101st and the 10th Mountain Division did their bit in Anaconda back in 2002. Maybe it's because our fictional CIA operative gave ol' Toothy the good news with the business end of the Taser, or read him his horoscope while he was strapped to the tilty table.

I don't know why things have been quiet domestically since Sept 2001, and neither do you.

My point is this: We were all scared, some more than others - sure, and we were all pretty sure we had reason to be scared, back in the early Aughts. Our elected government (please, please, please don't bring up Florida and the 2000 popular vote - that got settled by our system, like it or not) reacted to the most devastating attack ever successfully mounted against American civilians in an American city by taking the gloves all the way off. Our fictional CIA operative had official sanction from the highest levels to do whatever necessary to get his subject talking.

To go back now, from the safety and holier-than-thou high ground of 2009, and threaten to prosecute our fictional CIA operative and his real-life counterparts, is so mind-bogglingly cynical, so transparently political, and so unfair as to simply take my breath away.

Look, I am a fan of Obama. I voted for the guy and would do so again tomorrow. But that does not mean I give him and his team a free pass, especially when they try something as disingenuous as this little stunt.

Dang, I'm madder than I thought I was!

Daily YouTube: Makes My Head Hurt II

2009-08-17T19:53:00.000-05:00

Daily YouTube: Makes my head hurt

2009-08-04T21:40:00.001-05:00

Draw your own conclusions:

The Hangover: Instant classic

2009-08-02T09:58:00.004-05:00

Saw The Hangover the other day, and loved it so much that I am compelled to write the very rare, much-sought-after CIT Movie Review on it.

Hilarious. Best comedy since Superbad. Better than Knocked Up and 40 Year Old Virgin. Easily earns "instant classic" status. We'll be laughing over this one for years.

Everyone in it is great. Bradley Cooper is as instantly likable as he was instantly unlikeable in Wedding Crashers. The seemingly omni-present Ken Jeong (the outrageously uptight OB/GYN in Knocked Up) shows up again and reveals a lot more than his comedic timing. Heather Graham does well with limited screen-time. Mike Tyson completely recaptures his pop-culture cool factor with a single word: "Niiice!"

As the events from a forgotten night of debauchery are revealed to a threesome of severely hung over groomsmen, the laugh-out-loud moments come one after another. I was actually disappointed when the gang is reunited with the lost groom, not because it was poorly done, but because I was hoping the chase would last another hour or so.

The Hangover is not for everyone. There is more male nudal frontity than female, and none of it is attractive in the least. The gross-out factor is very high, with at least 3 on-screen, very realistic chunk-blowing incidents bringing groans from the full house. The language is off the charts, with more f-bombs per dialog line than anything since Pulp Fiction.

If you can fight through all that, along with a boat-load of boys-will-be-boys-especially-in-Vegas cliche, you will love this movie. I laughed throughout and am still laughing two days later. That's all I need to know.

Tom Friedman, Smartest Man on Earth, says radical Islam is losing

2009-07-30T21:04:00.000-05:00

Tom, you are my hero (well, you and Big Al). You make so much sense, suggest such brilliant solutions, and generally agree with me on almost everything. I would like to formally submit my application to join the "Tom Friedman Mentoring Society". I may also get a "Tom Freidman is My Hero" t-shirt to go along with the "Al Gore is My Hero" shirt already in my closet.

Not kidding about the t-shirt. The sentiment happens to be true; I am a supporter of We Can Solve It and Repower America, but the shirt itself is a good way to start an argument in good old suburban North Texas.

At any rate, My Other Hero Tom wrote in yesterday's NYT about the current state of the jihad. Did you notice the radical Islamists are losing the War of Terror? Well, they are.

As Tom so deftly points out, everywhere the the Beardy Boys have taken charge (Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, etc), they have brought with them total economic stagnation (if not outright retreat), lowered standards of living and education, unnecessary and unwanted violence, repression, etc etc etc. And now we're seeing militant Islamists lose elections (Lebanon, Iraq) or steal elections (Iran). The Paki middle class is tired of bombs in the streets of Peshwar and have withdrawn support for the Taliban and foreign rebels causing trouble in the Northwest.

The bad news is that the US' friends in the Arab world, those shining examples of secular, progressive, populist democracy like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, are not really "winning", despite their medieval rivals' decline. This lack of a better idea is what keeps the jihadists in business, albeit in a much more limited capacity.

Go read the op-ed, along with everything Tom Friedman has ever written. The man's a genius.

More reasons to stay the course

2009-07-29T15:19:00.002-05:00

By Golly, I found another justification to keep allowing my family to play World of Warcraft!

Even Shatner agrees..

Play on!

World of Warcraft does actually serve a valid purpose!

2009-07-29T00:12:00.002-05:00

Finally, my son and I found the excuse we were looking for to account for our hours logged....

Play on!!!

Resurrection!

2009-07-25T11:02:00.003-05:00

After a week of extreme strangeness, little CIT has been restored from death. Our prayers have been answered, and, like Christian Jesus, we are risen!

Hallelujah!

If you don't know what I'm talking about, drop me a line and I'll share the whole story.

In the meanwhile, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Daily YouTube: The Sex Pistols

2009-07-16T21:39:00.000-05:00

If we're going to have Johnny Thunders, we ought to go back to the originals. Yeah, The Ramones were first, but there's no doubt the Sex Pistols were a heck of a lot scarier.

Thirty-plus years down the road, the scare factor has pretty much worn off. They sure do rock, though.

BTW, I think this is from the BBC "Today" show from 1976, which would mean the guy on bass is Glen Matlock. Sid Vicious didn't join the band until a few months later. His presence made the band way rougher, way more edgy, and way more dangerous.

Israel: The Hasidim make the rest of us look like idiots

2009-07-16T21:13:00.000-05:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

From MSNBC today: The ultra-orthodox Jews of Jerusalem have been rioting for days, burning trash, blocking streets, and generally making royal a-holes out of themselves. Their issue? They are pissed that authorities have arrested a Hasidic woman who has been starving her 3-year-old son.

The boy is hospitalized. His weight is, according to doctors, 15 pounds. This is a three year old kid. Fifteen pounds.

The unnamed mother, apparently mentally ill, has been caught on video at the hospital, disconnecting the kid's feeding tube. She claims he's ill, and she has nothing to do with it. Her Hasidic neighbors believe her and have used the excuse to go nuts against authorities.

The Hasidim are also still pissed at the more secular mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, for planning to open a parking lot near the Old City on Saturdays.

I know, right?

With the Hasidim, if you're not exactly like them, you are against them and, more importantly, against God. They will go to almost any lengths to impose their beliefs on everyone else. Sound familiar?

The Hasidim, Haredim, Chabad-Lubavitchers (call 'em what you want - there are differences, but not significant ones in my eyes) have become the enemies of Israel. Their growing ranks, and growing political clout, are making compromise with the Palestinians increasingly difficult. They also make the rest of Israel's (and the world's) Jews look like idiots. The Hasidim are the source of most of the ugly stereotypes which exist regarding Jews. They are as intolerant, close-minded, and self-righteous as any takfiri Muslim fundamentalist, and are, in their way, just as divisive and dangerous as any jihadist organization you care to name.

I hate these guys. I wish I had a suggestion for what to do about them.

Goldman Sachs: Really smart or really crooked?

2009-07-15T19:31:00.000-05:00

Interesting timing on a couple of Internet items the other day.

Numero uno is Goldman Sachs’ quarterly financial reporting. Apparently the second quarter of calendar 2009 was a veritable bonanza for the button-down types at Goldman. The largest remaining investment bank on Wall St reported revenue of $13.8 billion and profit of $2.7 billion. This represents a staggering 65% jump in profit over the same quarter in 2008.

The MSNBC article linked above cites all sorts of nice, up-and-up reasons why Goldman continues to rack up the bucks despite the current environment of gloom and doom. Gutsy trading strategies and sharp employees are cited, along with billions in taxpayer money (all now repaid) and the death of most of the competition all contribute, according to the article.

Maybe so. But maybe there’s more to it.

Twenty-first century gadfly, and walking advertisement for the benefits of routine dental checkups, Matt Taibbi is back in the pages of Rolling Stone, administering a smack-down on Goldman specifically, and investment banks in general. He levies the charge that Goldman has been behind, or at least right in the middle of, every major market manipulation since the 1930s. More recently, Taibbi tells us, Goldman has engineered the DotCom bubble, the housing bubble, and last summer’s commodities (read: gasoline) bubble.

In the past, I have rejected Taibbi’s rants as paranoid, conspiracy-theory baloney. In retrospect, I’m not so sure I wasn’t wrong about that, at least in part. The guy does his research. Yeah, he makes some leaps that I have trouble following, but he makes it sound plausible.

I had, in fact, only been somewhat taken by The Great American Bubble Machine (the Goldman piece), right up until Goldman reported results the other day.

Co-inky-dink? I dunno. Read Taibbi’s article and you decide.

CA is where I want to be.....

2009-07-12T15:02:00.001-05:00

"California is a dead-end trailer park, full of alcoholics and junkies." -- hehehehee!

Words of Wisdom

2009-07-10T17:07:00.000-05:00

Nuff Said!

China: Xinjiang goes "boom"

2009-07-09T21:51:00.000-05:00

In case you've been living under a rock for the past 4 or so days, ethnic tensions in the far western Chinese province of Xinjiang have boiled over in the most serious of manners.

Its still down to who you listen to regarding causes and exactly who has done what to whom. However, it's safe to say the indigenous Uighurs (Muslims with ethnic and religious ties to other Central Asians like the Tajiks, Kyrgyz, and Kazakhs) and the relatively-recent immigrant Han (the majority ethnicity in the rest of China), who have been sorta grinding up against each other for years, and not in a good way, have finally blown off a lot of steam. Mob violence seemed to rule the streets of Urumqi, the capital city of the province, earlier in the week. State media reports 150+ killed, thousands arrested, and who-knows-how-much property damage.

The images coming out of Urumqi this week are some of the scariest you will ever see.

This first YouTube clip is not for the faint of heart. Lots of blood and bodies; you get some sort of sense early in the clip of the chaos of the street. I'm not sure where this comes from; the text on the screen looks to be Korean, but I am no Asian language scholar. Anyone with any more info, please chime in:

From MSNBC, a recap of sorts:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Beeb, always the best bet for international news from obscure places, has this bit of reportage from Quentin Sommerville, a good, kilt-wearing, caber-tossing Jock sent off to the far reaches of Asia. If you troll through the BBC site, you'll find a good deal more from wee Quentin and others.

We've mentioned the ethnic situation in Xinjiang here before. It's not at all clear whether ETIM or any of their fellow Muslim travelers are involved here. Certainly, they are in the neighborhood and watching closely, if nothing else. This sure looks spontaneous, but it's impossible to tell anything from 7000 miles away and no access to anything other than general media reports.

The question I've got is how did it start? Perhaps street protests are routine in Urumqi. A name being tossed about by the Chinese as a possible instigator is one Rebiyah Kadeer, a rather vociferous Uighur critic of the Chinese. Ms. Kadeer has spent some time in the Chinese clink, and is currently in exile in the US. Hard to see how she's encouraging mob violence from the other side of the planet, but they said the same thing about Khomenei in the 70s and look how that turned out.

The violence looks like it's been shut down by a massive influx of state security forces - everything from riot-shotgun-toting police to what appears to be platoons of People's Liberation Army infantry. However, the underlying tensions aren't going away any time soon. Given the People's Republic's usual ham-fisted manner with its own civilians, especially the minority groups, along with Xinjiang's importance both as an oil-producer and a buffer against the really scary Muslims in Pakistan, don't expect the Chinese to scale back the influx of Han or yuan any time soon, and don't expect this to be the last time you see violence in the streets of Urumqi.

The official party line from the Chinese government makes all the right noises as far as the domestic audience is concerned, and actually represents a signficant departure from the normal internal and external news blackout we've come to expect from Beijing. Worth a look:

What does a trillion dollars look like?

2009-07-09T20:43:00.000-05:00

No, the picture below isn't it. This is a mere $100 million.

If you want to see $1 trillion, in packets of $100 bills, go look here.

And, just for shock value, here you will see the $11 trillion US debt.

Um, holy crap?

The Burry Man Writers Center - www.burryman.com

2009-07-04T12:17:00.001-05:00

Neat site I found while job hunting....

The Burry Man Writers Center - www.burryman.com

Shared via AddThis

Ortiz takes a beating out of the ring too

2009-07-03T12:53:00.001-05:00

Personally, I would have quit after they put that freaking Clockwork Orange mouthpiece in my yap....

Ortiz takes a beating out of the ring too

Shared via AddThis

Johnny Thunders

2009-06-30T00:37:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I wish I was Johnny Thunders. Watch this and maybe you will understand why:

Other days, I am so glad I am me.....

Too true to be funny

2009-06-02T21:03:00.000-05:00

Bright Eyes

2009-05-26T23:30:00.002-05:00

This is for all you lovers out there in the blogosphere.

Love the one you're with.

Celebrate Music and Dance

2009-05-22T00:26:00.001-05:00

Aung San Suu Kyi to be charged and tried

2009-05-13T20:46:00.002-05:00

The armed thugs who claim to be the government of Burma are, apparently, about to charge Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, along with her two live-in maids, with harboring a US national secretly in Suu Kyi's lakeside home for two days.

The Golden Land is full of nutty stories, but this is one of the nuttier I can recall.

It seems a John Yettaw, which may be a vaguely Burmese name, although I could be quite wrong on that, who is from the US, swam the lake to reach Suu Kyi's home. He stayed in the home for two days, and has since been arrested, although not charged. US diplomats were able to visit him, but haven't spoken publicly about the case yet.

The 63-year-old Suu Kyi, who has been under detention of one form or another for most of the past 20 years, has been rumored to be in poor health lately. According to her doctor, she suffers from dehydration and low blood pressure. Who knows what that really means.

There's some conjecture by the Beeb that this is an effort to put Suu Kyi away until after next year's "elections", which is as good an explanation as any. Suu Kyi pretty much is the opposition, such as it is, and locking her up where no UN or Western representatives can get a look at her would certainly prevent her from making any public noise.

Still, this represents something of a departure for Than Shwe and his minions. Up until now, they've been treating Suu Kyi with white gloves. They allow her no freedom, but they have resisted the notion of tossing her in the clink or any other drastic actions. They have to know that this is going to make some headlines in the West (not to mention spark the ire of certain bloggers, which I'm sure has them quaking in their Buster Browns), but since when has that stopped them from doing anything? Locking Suu Kyi up this far ahead of the elections makes sense, in their little dinosaur brains, in that it will have faded from attention by the time it matters.

In the pantheon of near-hopeless to hopeless situations, lost causes to causes well on their way to lost, from Zimbabwe to Gaza to GM, Burma has a place of honor: The spot on this little planet of ours furthest from any sort of hope at all.

FailBlog (extremely dark) giggle

2009-05-01T20:49:00.001-05:00

No further comment necessary...

Swine flu funny

2009-05-01T20:25:00.002-05:00

Sorry, I mean "H1N1", although I have also heard "Farmageddon" or "Aporkalypse"...

Daily YouTube: Morning news show prank

2009-05-01T19:42:00.000-05:00

The local morning news show in Kirkwood MO gets pranked with every juvenile fake name you can think of in their "Birthdays and Anniversaries" segment.

The anchor realizes whats up towards the end, but his stumbling through only makes it funnier.

Such a giggle!

Keith Olbermann is my hero

2009-04-29T20:50:00.001-05:00

I have been an Olbermann fan since the days of the Big Show on ESPN. While I disagree with a lot of his politics, I really like the guy to this day.

Now, he has taken another step up in my estimation.

After Sean "Windbag" Hannity said on his TV show that he'd undergo waterboarding "for charity", Olbermann has stepped in and offered $1,000 per second that Hannity can withstand the treatment.

No response from Hannity.

Everything I have ever read from people who have been subjected to waterboarding tells me that, regardless of your training, experience, general level-headedness, or toughness, it is terrifying. Your body believes you are drowning. I believe it is torture. Whether it's effective or not, I really have no idea.

I would LOVE to see Hannity do this. Put up or shut up, you blowhard. Hell, I'm in for $10 per second (I don't make the coin Olbermann does) to the charity of Hannity's choice.

C'mon, Sean, Put your kiester where you mouth is!

Bird humor

2009-04-29T12:39:00.001-05:00

Have you heard about the man who did it with a parakeet? He contracted chirpes.

And the worst thing? It was untweetable.

Swine flu: Not sure what to make of this yet

2009-04-26T14:53:00.004-05:00

Swine flu has taken hold in Mexico, killing upwards of 70 people (and many more if you believe on-the-scene comments on BBC) and spreading to a variety of other spots around the globe. The Mexicans are in a tizzy, the CDC is on alert, but I'm not sure if the bang matches the hype.

I certainly don't mean to trivialize the deaths of 70 or more people. However, I suspect snake bites take out more than 70 people per day on this lovely little planet of ours, and I don't see hordes of slithery little bastards on the front page of MSNBC.

I am intrigued by the flu story. A few things that pique my interest:

1. The rapidity of the spread, both in the population of Mexico City and the amount of geography covered by more recent cases.

2. The reported genetic structure of the virus, which seems to combine DNA from pig flu, bird flu, and people flu. Viruses are constantly mutating, and this may be all in a day's work for a virulent gene, but it sure strikes me as odd.

3. The out-of-nowhere-ness of the whole thing. Maybe this sort of thing happens, on a smaller scale, in the world of infectious diseases, and we just never hear about it. Whatever the case, I have never heard of anything like this, or presented in this matter, before.

I certainly don't want to be alarmist, or sound paranoid, or make more of this than it is. However, my little Tom Clancy-inspired brain can't help but ping on the thought that there's maybe more to this than we know.

Just suppose the Iranians, or the NKs, or someone else who has a ton of resources and a healthy dislike for the West in general and the good ol' USandA in particular (there's a lengthy list, yeah?) wanted to f**k with us in a big way? That part is not too far-fetched, right? There's no shortage of groups who would like nothing better than to go tinkle in our breakfast cereal.

Here's where I fear I am veering off into black helicopter-dom:

How hard is it to splice together your own virus? Obviously you're not doing it with a couple of test tubes and an Easy-Bake oven - it would clearly take the resources of a nation-state or the equivalent, and it's not the sort of thing you do in a cave in South Waziristan. But it can probably be done.

Next, if you were going to try to clandestinely bio-bomb the US, wouldn't Mexico be a great place to start? Especially if you had something really virulent and really easy to spread amongst humans? I mean, it's not like the security services in Mexico are in the MI-6 league, right? And its not like the US really has a grip on the border, right?

So, a couple of things are really wrong with my little hypothesis. One - Mexico City, which seems to be the epicenter of this thing right now, isn't right on the border. Tijuana, Juarez, or Matamoros seem like better places to start. Next, this virus, at least right now, doesn't seem to spread all that effectively - the cases which have popped up in the US and Canada (and elsewhere) seem to be less serious than those down south.

I'm sure there are about 20,000 other things wrong with my thought. I'm no scientist. I'm just a guy who reads too much, has a healthy dose of historical Jewish paranoia, and some well-earned 21st century skepticism.

I'm reasonably sure I am barking at shadows here. But I have to admit it popped into my little melon right away...

Movie greatness

2009-04-26T14:06:00.004-05:00

I caught Schindler's List on HBO last night. It was certainly not the first time I've seen it, as it is required viewing for any Jew over the age of about 13 - it may have been incorporated into the Bar Mitzvah process, and if it hasn't, it should be.

This was probably the fifth or sixth time I sat thru Spielberg's masterpiece, and with this level of familiarity, I noticed some new things this time around.

Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler is pitch-perfect throughout. He has the physical presence to portray a man who will, alone and without hesitation, enter the gates of Auschwitz to pull "his people" back from the abyss. He completely sells the transformation of Schindler from womanizing snake-oil salesman to great, compassionate, righteous human - a man who starts as all flash becomes substantial enough to comfort with a gentle kiss the traumatized Jewish maid/punching bag of a concentration camp commander; a man who begins the film with no significant visible morality is, by film's end, capable of such moral clarity and strength that he is able to turn his back on everything he had professed to be interested in and care only for the victims he sees around him.

Casting Neeson was a masterstroke.

The rest of the cast is equally exceptional. The music is perfect. The little use of color in the film is perfect. Sets, continuity, staging, photography - all exactly right.

All this is to point out the perfectly obvious: Steven Spielberg is the greatest maker of movies in the history of movies.

Schindler's List is clearly his masterpiece, and, given the subject, may be the greatest movie ever made. Add to that his other spectacular success - Saving Private Ryan, ET, Close Encounters, Raiders of the Lost Ark (Indy in general), I could go on and on and on - my God, what a talent.

Sure, AI gave me a headache. Catch Me If You Can and 1941 were trifles (but entertaining trifles), and I'm still not sure what to make of Minority Report. No one hits a home run every time. Except Pixar, but that's another story - call me when they match Spielberg in longevity and production, and we'll compare notes.

I said to myself a number of times during last night's viewing, and have repeated it a number of times since: How fortunate are we to be around to see this guy's work as it happens.

The great news is he shows no signs of losing grip of his powerful gifts. Nor does he show any inclination to stop doing what he does so masterfully.

Thank you, Mr. Spielberg. Here's hoping you spend many more years embellishing your record as the greatest ever at what you do.

World's greatest business card

2009-04-21T20:14:00.003-05:00

Genius!

And, from the same secret stash - the card you get when you meet Steve Martin on the street:

Cool picture with a downer of an explanation

2009-04-17T20:54:00.004-05:00

I ran across this photo and was instantly intrigued. What the heck is it? A huge stadium in the midst of paradise? Some Bahrainian sheik's summer getaway?

Unfortunately, its nowhere near as cool as either of those things. Instead, it is a concrete dome which shields a crater and soil left over from H-bomb tests in the 50s.

Oh. My. Goodness.

2009-04-17T20:50:00.001-05:00

Another example of this blog writing itself:

Sex offender found nude, self-mutilated; bit tip of own penis off: cops

Some info you haven't seen on Somali "pirates"

2009-04-17T19:58:00.009-05:00

Much has been written about the pirates of Somalia, so I'm not going to rehash any of the recent news (other than to pass along an emphatic "well done" regarding the most-impressive marksmanship clinic put on by the SEALs last weekend). Instead, I'd like to point you at some back story that I hadn't seen before. Perhaps you have not either.

So, let's get one piece of business out of the way straight off: Some, perhaps most, of the "pirates" we are reading about lately are nothing more than thieves, hooligans, gangsters, etc. A sizable percentage of these guys are lowlifes in the truest sense of the word. The jerkoffs who are attempting to hijack ships loaded with food and supplies bound for Darfur and other African disaster areas are the worst kind of parasites. Nothing I am about to discuss applies to these cretins. These types deserve a Special Forces love-tap, and you will never hear a peep from me beyond "Bravo, boys".

However, there are some Somali "pirates" who do not fit this description.

Did you know (I did not) that, at about the same time Somalia's last true government collapsed in the early 90s, mysterious ships began dumping barrels of waste into Somali coastal waters? Turns out this "waste" was from European hospitals and power plants, and was medical and nuclear.

You read that correctly: Persons unknown were dumping nuclear waste into the water off Somali beaches.

Not surprisingly, the populace in the area started to get sick and have malformed babies. The 2005 Indian Ocean tsunami washed hundreds of barrels of this crap onshore, where more pronounced radiation sickness began to occur.

This was not the only indignity thrust upon Somali coastal dwellers.

As you might suspect, a major local industry is fishing. Coastal Somalis feed themselves from the ocean, as do coastal dwellers the world around. In the past 20 or so years, with no government to assert sovereignty over Somalia's territorial waters, Euro fishing trawlers have been illegally clearing the sea out (thanks, U2), leaving greatly reduced fish stocks for the locals. Needless to say, this threatens the livelihoods, and the lives, of said locals.

Local Somalis started going out in speedboats to dissuade the Euros who were illegally dumping or illegally fishing, or to collect a "tax". Hence, the emergence of "pirates".

Now, it's clearly devolved from there. A bunch of dirt-bag opportunists have co-opted what was a pretty legitimate activity on the part of the locals. The current situation has much less to do with real grievances, and much more to do with a bunch of thugs looking to make some quick cash.

That doesn't invalidate the original activities, though.

I had no idea. I'm thinking maybe you haven't heard this stuff either. So here it is.

Just another public service from your friends here at CIT.

A city official with a sense of humor

2009-04-16T22:59:00.001-05:00

The natives are restless in San Francisco, where efforts to expand the use of medical marijuana are causing all sorts of furor.

I have gone on record many times in my support of the legalization of marijuana, and just about everything else, so I won't go off on rant here. Instead, I will point you to a story on the San Francisco Chronicle's site, where you will find the following gem:

"The mayor will have to hash this out with public health officials," press secretary Nathan Ballard said. "It's the mayor's job to weed out bad legislation. And to be blunt, this sounds pretty bad."

This, my friends, is genius!

Boston University Terriers - 2009 NCAA Men's Hockey National Champs

2009-04-13T07:30:00.000-05:00

I should have got to this yesterday, but its still worthwhile.

I'm sure you ALL joined me on Saturday night on ESPN-HD, as my beloved Boston University Terrier hockey team hit the ice against the Miami (OH) RedHawks in the National Championship game. If you were so inclined, you saw one for the ages.

BU held a 1-0 lead for a good chunk of the game. But a series of mistakes late in the 2nd and into the 3rd allowed Miami to grab a seemingly-invincible 3-1 lead. After Miami's third goal at 15:58 in the third period, I actually said, "Well, that's it. Church."

I just needed to have a little faith.

A furious 6-on-5 which started with more than 2 minutes left resulted in two goals, both scored with less than a minute left. I almost knocked the lamp off the side table after the second.

And off we go to OT.

After half a period of overtime, which the Terriers dominated, although the RedHawks got off a few shots which nearly stopped my heart, BU's Colby Cohen launched a wrist shot at the net. It bounced off a Miami player and dropped like a dying quail over the goal-tender's shoulder without him ever seeing it.

I scattered couch cushions all over the place as the BU bench emptied, Miami players sank to the ice in tortured disbelief, and (no doubt) 400 beers and other drinks were raised inside T's Pub on Comm Ave.

What a game! What a win! We may not have football, and most of our other teams may be spare to fair, but hockey is always big-time, and very good, at Boston University.

Yahoo!