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David Wild: "Hanukkah Rocks": My Only Slightly Guilty Playlist for This Year's Festival of Lights

2009-12-11T15:10:01Z

We Jews don't agree on many subjects, even on how to spell Chanukah. Or is that Hanukkah? Still, I think whatever our faith, we can all agree on this: Christians have much better holiday music -- like, say, "White Christmas" a beautiful song supposedly written poolside at the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix by a Jewish man named Irving Berlin.

I first realized that we Jews were somewhat holiday music-challenged when I was talking to my lifelong hero Neil Diamond some years ago, and teasing this fine looking Jew for releasing two Christmas albums without a single Chanukah tune. "Let's face the facts, David," I remember my Jewish Elvis telling me, "they have better songs."

Imagine my overwhelming Semitic pride then that Neil's fine new Christmas album A Cherry Cherry Christmas features a fantastic new version of Adam Sandler's pride and laughter-inducing seasonal classic "The Chanukah Song." In fact, do yourself a favor and go to neildiamond.com and check out the brilliant animated video for Neil's cover version as soon as you can. In the meantime, here are some songs that will go down easy for just about anybody along with a few latkes and an extra serving of holiday spirit.

HANUKKAH ROCKS - Gefilte Joe & The Fish
THE CHANUKAH SONG - Neil Diamond
LIGHTING UP THE WORLD - Peter Himmelman & David Broza
HANNUKAH DANCE - Woody Guthrie
DREIDEL SONG - Don Byron
GIVE THE JEW GIRL TOYS - Sarah Silverman
DREIDEL - Don McLean
ROCK OF AGES - MA'OZ TZUR - Marc Cohn
HANUKKAH BLESSINGS - Barenaked Ladies
FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS - They Might Be Giants
THE SOUTH PARK DREIDEL SONG - South Park
LIGHT ONE CANDLE - Peter, Paul & Mary
THE ROCKIN' DREIDEL SONG - Sha Na Na
THE CHANUKAH SONG - Adam Sandler

Okay, now please put your own spin on this whole Dreidel-palooza mishegas, and add to this playlist! It couldn't hurt!

Cartman's Best Musical Moments: 13 Songs That Prove South Park's Song Superiority (VIDEO)

2009-12-04T08:46:16Z

1) "Poker Face": Cartman does his best Lady Gaga rendition on Rock Band, with an added verse about his problem with Stan.

2) "The German Dance": Chef Aid is in danger when the boys only have one act, and it's Cartman in lederhosen doing a "German Dance."

3) "O Holy Night": Cartman tries to be sweet during the holidays by singing "O Holy Night," but he digresses into presents and pies.

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4) "The Heat Of The Moment": No one can deny the catchiness of Asia's "Heat Of The Moment." Here, Cartman gets all of Congress to sing it along with him.

5) "Kyle's Mom's A Bitch": This legendary song was put to an end too early in life by Mr. Hanky, but it lives on in all of us.

6) "Not My Water Park": Definitely Cartman's best song of this season, "Not My Water Park" is a heartfelt ballad about his favorite summer hangout being filled with minorities.

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7) "Taco Flavored Kisses": Cartman's hand becomes international superstar Jennifer Lopez when he makes a music video at the mall.

8) "Jesus Baby": Cartman takes his love for Jesus one step too far.

9) "Fingerbang": Once again, Cartman is looking for an easy way to fame and fortune. Here, he dreams of starting a boy band with the hit song "Fingerbang." it's pretty disturbing.

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10) "Third Grade": When the boys enter 4th grade, they can't help but reminisce about the good times back before they lost their innocence. Cartman sings a touching song to remember their youth.

11) "Come Sail Away": We all know the anecdote about Meredith Baxter Birney is a lie now, but Cartman's "Come Sail Away" rule is right on.

12) "Somalian Pirates We": In an episode entitled "Fatbeard," Cartman travels the high seas recruiting Somalian pirates to be more pirate-y.

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13) "What Would Brian Boitano Do?": This is more of a group effort than a Cartman special, but it's one of the greatest songs we've ever heard so we couldn't resist.

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Marty Kaplan: Lord of the Gingers

2009-11-30T14:06:32Z

Now that our nation has observed "Kick a Ginger Day" and "Kick a Jew Day," can "Kick a Liberal Day" be far behind?

In case you've been taking a tryptophan nap, a Los Angeles County sheriff's investigation has found that at least four redheaded girls and three redheaded boys at the A.E. Wright Middle School in Calabasas were assaulted on the Friday before Thanksgiving because they're "gingers."

In case you don't watch South Park, a ginger, according to the ~~Fox~~ Comedy Central cartoon show, is someone with red hair, freckles and fair skin. A 2005 episode -- a parody of the Children of the Corn horror movies based on a story by Stephen King -- substituted redheaded elementary school kids for the zombie teens in the original. Ginger kids are vile disgusting soulless monsters, and the earth should be rid of them: so says racist fat kid Eric Cartman in a presentation to his fourth-grade South Park class. If you think of Cartman as Archie Bunker on steroids, you can imagine how his hate speech could be obnoxious, instructive and funny all at once.

Eight Calabasas boys have so far been identified as having taunted, shoved, kicked, punched, bruised and bloodied their redheaded classmates. According to the father of one 12-year-old victim, 15 seventh-graders "surrounded him like a wild animal" at school and kicked him in the groin, stomach, shoulder, legs and head.

The bullies were apparently acting on the advice of a Facebook page announcing that Friday was "Kick a Ginger Day." (In case you don't know what Facebook is, I can't help you.) "Get them steel toes ready," the page said; some 5,000 people joined the online group. A 14-year-old from Vancouver who created the group apologized, explaining that -- like "South Park" -- it was just a joke. Redheaded kids in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario were also reportedly assaulted.

Across the country from Calabasas, on the day before "Kick a Ginger Day," word spread at Florida's North Naples Middle School that Thursday was "Kick a Jew Day." Said one parent whose daughter was attacked, "Many kids, all Jewish, were kicked. I was furious and attempted to call the parents of the girl who initiated this hatred." The school district determined that 10 students should be punished.

So whose fault was it?

South Park? I don't think so. Some studies say that violence in media begets violence in kids, but anyone who's watched more than ten minutes of that show knows it's no more dangerous than All in the Family.

Is it Facebook's fault? Spokesman Barry Schnitt says hate speech violates Facebook's terms of service; the network relies on users to report problems to Facebook. No one reported "Kick a Ginger Day." When you have 300 million users, like when you have 300 million Americans, stupid things inevitably get said -- some of them meant to be funny, some of them malicious and pretending to be funny. It would be easy to ban both. In a democracy, though, it's harder, but necessary, to figure out how to tell the difference between them.

Is it the fault of the kid who posted the "Kick a Ginger Day" page? I can believe it was done in the same subversive spirit as the South Park episode: outrageous, to be sure, but not remotely intended to be taken literally. You may not like the scabrous place where pop culture is today, but you can't pretend that context doesn't exist.

Is it the fault of the kids who did the kicking? Absolutely. Above the age of four or so, "I jumped off the Empire State Building because he did it first" just isn't a credible defense.

Is it the fault of the parents of the kids who did the kicking? Yes. And also the fault of any of us insufficiently freaked out by the debased discourse and corrosive politics of our times.

"These are not new issues for us here in Naples," said Rabbi James Perman of Temple Shalom in North Naples. "These 10 kids did not invent anti-Semitism. They found a sympathetic response that was already there on some level."

America's airwaves are crackling with demagogues demonizing Democrats, liberals, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and anyone else who gets on the wrong side of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the other bully boys making money off of hate speech. Beck says he's just a "rodeo clown." Limbaugh, says Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele, is just "an entertainer." That's why the ugly, incendiary stuff they're spewing isn't supposed to scare us.

Unfortunately, there are people listening to these loons whose moral development never make it north of middle school, and who don't think that Obama-hates-white-people and liberals-hate-America are jokes, unless you mean "punch line" literally. They may not hold signs saying, "Kick a Jew Day," but they do carry placards reading, "Obama takes his orders from the Rothchilds" [sic]. They also think that strapping on firearms is a fine way to dress for a protest rally.

Just as troubling, though, are the people who are economically hurting, scared by the future and bewildered by the change all around them. They would be appalled to learn that their kids had participated in "Kick a Ginger Day," but they can't be blamed for wanting to give the bankers who are getting obscene bonuses funded by debt their kids will carry a steel-toed kick in the keister.

These people are our neighbors, and ourselves. The message of Lord of the Flies is that the vaunted civilization that separates us from savagery is only a thin veneer: just below the surface, we are all ginger-kickers. The message of "Kick a Jew Day" is that we are all gingers.

This is my column from The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. You can read more of my columns here, and e-mail me there if you'd like.

'Ginger Day' ATTACKS: Boys Arrested For Bullying Redheads

2009-11-30T14:04:49Z

CALABASAS, Calif. - Three boys have been arrested for investigation of bullying red-haired students after a Facebook message promoted "Kick a Ginger Day" at a Southern California school.

Los Angeles County sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said Monday that two 12-year-olds were arrested for suspicion of misdemeanor battery, and a 13-year-old was booked for misdemeanor cyberbullying. They were released to their parents.

A total of eight boys are suspected in the Nov. 20 attacks on seven students at A.E. Wright Middle School in Calabasas.

Authorities believe the shoves and kicks were prompted by a message referring to a "South Park" episode satirizing racial prejudice.

Nobody was seriously hurt.

A message left for the school superintendent was not immediately returned.

Red Headed Boy Attacked: Police Probe Tie To 'Kick A Ginger Day' Message

2009-11-22T21:22:18Z

CALABASAS, Calif. — Authorities say a 12-year-old boy assaulted by a group of middle school classmates in Southern California may have been targeted after an Internet posting urged students to beat up redheads.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Lt. Richard Erickson says the boy, who is redheaded, was kicked and hit in two incidents Friday at A.E. Wright Middle School in Calabasas. As many as 14 students participated in the attacks.

Not My Water Park: Cartman's Anti-Minority Ballad (VIDEO)

2009-11-19T14:14:50Z

Whether it's "Poker Face" or "Kyle's Mom's A Bitch," Cartman always seems to have a song to sing. On this week's episode, Cartman performed his most heartfelt song to date: an ode to his waterpark that has been "taken over" by minorities. In the vein of a lovesick ballad, Cartman reminisces about the park before the ride instructions were also read in Spanish.

WATCH:

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Lady Gaga, Christopher Walken, And Eric Cartman "Poker Face"-Off (VIDEO)

2009-11-18T15:53:15Z

By now you may have seen Jude Law, Christopher Walken and Eric Cartman do their renditions of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" but you haven't seen the titans go head to head, battling in the ultimate Poker Face-Off. YouTubers Mastgrr and HatPerson combined forces to bring you an epic showdown. So who won? Tell us in the comments section.

Click here to see Cartmen's version of "Poker Face" in full and here to see Christopher Walken's version.

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Meredith Lopez: I'm Not A Scientist, But I Play One In My Mind

2009-11-17T13:21:56Z

I'm not a scientist or anything, but I've seen a lot of movies and shows on the Discovery Science Channel, and I'm pretty sure my apartment is some sort of vortex or wormhole or portal to another dimension or parallel universe.

Hear me out.

Things in my apartment will suddenly disappear, and if they do, in fact, ever reappear they do so in a place where a) I've already looked for said thing, or b) thing could not possibly get to on its own.

For example.

My son has this weird "cookie" toy that involves taking a wooden mallet and pounding some plastic balls over and over again. I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea to give an oversized sea monster a heavy wooden mallet, but when I saw an area mom selling hers for just $10, I had to get it.

Long story short, those little plastic balls are highly aerodynamic and we have wood floors in our apartment. Sure, we have a colorful rug in the living room, but it only covers about 2/3 of the floor area in our living room. Things that roll tend to roll forever in our apartment. Including rolling INTO A SPACE VORTEX OF BLACK HOLE INFINITY! Yes, that's an actual scientific term, look it up.

Anyway, things tend to roll around a lot here, but the other night I found not one, but two of the plastic cookie balls under our bookcase. The bottom of the bookcase is just high enough off the floor that I could see the two balls ("two balls"....heh) but was low enough to the floor that I couldn't roll them out that way. And the sides go all the way to the floor. And the back is covered by not-currently-in-use shelves.

As the kids say these days on the Facebook and whatnot: Dude, WTF?

How did those balls even GET under there?

I have no idea.

We've lost books and plastic blocks, and sometimes they reappear. Sometimes they don't. I've turned this pad upside-down and inside-out looking for my son's stupid crap, and I'm telling you: perfectly inanimate, seemingly non-sentient things just disappear. Or they reappear in impossible places. Where do they go???

I've read the first few chapters of The Elegant Universe, and I think I know what's up. According to certain episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," the mid-90s TV show "Sliders," and that one episode of "South Park," every possible outcome of every possible situation exists somewhere in a parallel universe. I'm oversimplifying, of course - it's actually much more complicated than that.

This being a given, that means there are an infinite number of Merediths out there, with an infinite number of Juban Princelings toddling around an infinite number of apartments. Since my apartment is CLEARLY a wormhole/vortex/space-time bendy portal, that means that sometimes my son's toys accidentally wind up in an alternate reality. Sometimes they return to us. Perhaps sometimes we get another reality's toys back. Perhaps I should start marking the Princeling's toys so I know whether our own stuff comes back to us or not. "Reality F.P." That stands for "Farty Party," which is something I say to the Princeling whenever he farts. He thinks it's hilarious.

Whatever the case, the real question is:

If it takes THIS Meredith an infinite amount of caffeine in order to keep up with the Princeling in THIS universe, then how much coffee would be needed to sustain all the Merediths in all the parallel universes? It blows your mind a little, doesn't it?

Long story short, I managed to get the two balls (...heh) out from under our bookcase using a complicated and highly scientific process involving a flashlight and the handle of a Swifter. I did find the missing book, but one of the plastic cookie balls IS STILL MISSING. Cue the theme from "The Twilight Zone."

(My mother is no doubt penning an angry letter to the Miami-Dade County Public School System right about now. "Twelve years plus kindergarten, and THIS is what my daughter has to show for it???")

"South Park" Takes On Glenn Beck: Cartman Leads Campaign Against "Communist" President (VIDEO)

2009-11-12T13:19:19Z

Eric Cartman is the new Glenn Beck. Last night on "South Park" the chubby youngster took over morning announcements and turned them from standard bullet points into long screeds about the student class president. Turns out Eric hates her and as a result devotes all his time to creating and promoting crazy conspiracy theories about her time in office. Sound familiar? He even wrote a book that claimed to be about how the school is suffering under her leadership, but was really just 500 pages of him calling Wendy a slut.

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Trey Parker And Matt Stone House: South Park Creators Show Off Green Home

2009-11-09T14:02:42Z

South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have built a massive retreat in Steamboat Springs. Despite the irreverence and contempt for politics and idealism the duo espouses in their show, they seemed to have had the environment in mind when they built their $5 Million mansion.

The AP reports:

The creators of "South Park" are showing off their environmentally friendly mansion in western Colorado. The $5 million Steamboat Springs home belonging to Trey Parker and Matt Stone features "green" building techniques.

Ceilings are made of Douglas fir timbers salvaged from a rail trestle that once spanned the Great Salt Lake. The home also uses recycled carpet and in-floor, radiant heating.

Steamboat Today describes the house's East-West fusion:

There are views of Steamboat Ski Area from the front porch; a curved, granite kitchen counter with a leathered finish in shades of evergreen; and a mid-19th-century Japanese tansu, or antique chest of drawers, that faces a 110-inch projection screen. A Western dining room with sweeping views across the south valley is balanced by an Eastern dining room with low chairs and windows that look onto an aspen grove. In the rear of the property, at the end of a winding stone walkway, is a Japanese tea house that appears as authentic as one found in a Tokyo garden, with sliding screens as walls and tatami mats on the floor.

Cartman Sings "Poker Face" (VIDEO)

2009-10-30T10:41:17Z

If you watched last Wednesday's South Park you probably noticed Cartman's amazing performance of "Poker Face" in between all the dolphin and whale slaughtering. Here's a clip of his "Rock Band" rendition for those who missed it.

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'South Park' Takes On Japanese Dolphin Slaughter (VIDEO)

2009-10-27T09:39:59Z

With this year's release of the stunning and horrifying documentary, "The Cove" new light has been shed on the tradition of slaughtering dolphins once a year in the National Park at Taiji, Wakayama in Japan. "South Park"'s creators, never ones to shy away from controversy, decided to take on the practice last night in an episode called "Whale Whores." In the video below we see Stan and his family swimming with dolphins at the Denver Aquarium until a huge number of Japanese men coming to kill the animals.

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'South Park' Skewers ACORN (VIDEO)

2009-10-15T11:53:01Z

Last month, two ACORN employees were caught on tape advising a couple posing as a prostitute and pimp to lie about her profession in order to qualify for housing benefits and launder her earnings. This encounter was sent-up on last night's episode of "South Park" in which the adorable Butters starts a "kissing company" and ends up pimping for a dozen prostitutes. Butters and his "ladies" go to ACORN to try to get a housing grant, which gets rebuffed at first but granted once the little pimp recognizes one of his clients in a position of power.

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'South Park' Returns, Takes On 'Summer Of Death' With DJ AM, Farrah, MJ, Billy Mays And More (VIDEO)

2009-10-08T09:37:43Z

"South Park" returned last night with an episode called "I See Dead Celebrities," in which Billy Mays, David Carradine, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, Walter Cronkite, DJ AM, Michael Jackson, Bea Arthur and more are trapped in purgatory, waiting to enter Heaven.

Though they were all present, Mays and Jackson got the most screen time, with the latter inhabiting the body of a comatose baby and the former shilling for "Chipoltaway," which removed blood stains from your underwear after you eat Chipotle.

WATCH THE CELEBS IN PURGATORY:

WATCH BILLY MAYS'S CHIPOLTAWAY AD:

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Lisa Napoli: Ticket to the Dalai Lama

2009-09-25T18:15:02Z

I should have got up this morning to drive to Long Beach to wait in line to see the Dalai Lama. A stranger gave me a ticket. He won't miss that I'm not there. And I won't miss the throngs, nor the commute. Instead, I spent 90 minutes on the phone with one of my many unemployed friends, who called from the east coast. She knows me long enough to know I wake up early, and I always welcome the chance to talk to her. Life is too busy and there's the time zone thing and it's just not the same not being able to yap in person; we're due for a visit that won't likely happen for a while.

So while I chopped onions for tonight's soup, we talked about keeping busy when you have nothing that compels you to keep busy, like a regular job. That ritual of getting up, bathing, rushing out of the house, going somewhere where you're expected to be that most of us bask in. Or is it hide behind? Most of those people aren't necessarily happier; they're just pre-occupied. The trick is to find something that occupies you meaningfully, or to find meaning in what you do have to do. No? Get out and volunteer, I told her. People need to see you; you're too much of a gem to keep locked up inside, stewing. Stewing is part of it, but after a while we all need the ritual of seeing people each day, going somewhere, even if it's just to get coffee at the same time each day at the same place, or nodding to people on the bus stop. During a long period of unemployment, I assigned myself the task of learning to swim, and then going to practice each day. I liked that the lifeguard came to expect to see me.

Going somewhere where people are less well off than you offers another perspective to this malaise of underbusyness. I spent the past three nights interviewing homeless people on Skid Row here in Los Angeles on a short-term volunteer project and it walloped away any trace of self-obsession that might have been washing over me lately for my own underbusyness. But that's a whole other story.

Since my dear old friend lost her job back in January, she's been reading a lot, she told me. The classics. Thinking a lot, too, contemplating the weird tumultuous profession of ours, news, and being a certain age while trying to redefine your life's mission. Since we all know our profession ain't necessarily ripe with opportunity. It's daunting the frightening to see the world change around us, but it's also the reality, and the reality is we have to apply our brains and our energies somehow. If it's incumbent on us to invent how, so be it.

Inevitably, we started to talk about politics, but since this blog isn't about politics, I won't go on about that here. Basically, the upshot of our conversation was, Why are people not marching in the streets? Why aren't they visibly angrier?

"TV," my wise friend said. "Religion's no longer the opiate of the masses. TV is."

Last night I went to a screening of a television documentary that was projected in a movie theater. It was a gorgeous old theater, and if you've not spent any time in Los Angeles, you'd be shocked a piece of old architecture like this exists here. Not to mention that it's a single-plex, not carved into tiny little sub-theaters. Gold flourishes on the walls, an ornate ceiling, the whole nine. Anyway, it was really lovely to sit and watch a movie in a group of people who weren't checking their iPhones throughout the two hours. A committed bunch of viewers, sharing the experience together. One of the people I was with had never been in a theater in the entire 8 years he's lived in LA, and I thought: This is the only way to have the communal viewing experience.

But we've lost so much, not watching in a group, haven't we? The "bowling alone" phenomenon. And I'm as independent as they come. After we chatted a bit post-movie, I went home and tried to watch the Daily Show. That and South Park are the two reasons to keep this cable TV on, I think. But watching it by myself just doesn't cut it for me. Even though I was dying to see how they depicted that maniacal rant by Qaddafi at the UN, I couldn't pay attention. Loneliness isn't something I typically feel, even if I spend hours and days and weeks on my own. It's a figment of the imagination, like boredom; when the mere suggestion of those things creep up, I challenge myself not to succumb to the laziness of labeling the feelings as such and do something, engage somehow. But something about staring at the tube, all alone, felt isolating and lonely. Even though I wanted to laugh at the world with Jon Stewart. Even though earlier in the week, I took momentary pleasure in eating an avocado sandwich in bed while I watched Jim Cramer do his rant thing. Maybe that was easier to take because of the food, and the memory of Cramer trying to get me axed after I wrote about him ages ago when I was writing for the NY Times.

The other day T. came over and with the TV in the background, we pulled out the all-powerful and much preferable second screen, the computer, so he could show me some TV clips online. He'd seen them but wanted to share. As the set whined and whirred, demanding attention but not getting it, i thought: Why am I spending this $40 a month to keep this boob tube up and running? To indirectly feather the Jon Stewart/Trey Parker/Jim Cramer retirement fund by supporting their networks? I believe in the power of voting with your pocketbook, absolutely, but there's got to be a better use of this cash. And yet. I'm still not ready to get the cable turned off; it has only been a few weeks, after all. We're still in the adjustment phase of this relationship.

I'm glad I didn't go see the Dalai Lama today. I'm going to give the ticket to a friend, and he can tell me about the experience. I imagine it'll be a mob scene of devotees packed into the huge convention center, with a translator interpreting his words, His Holiness projected onto a giant screen. That's fine, and there's got to be a nice energy in the room, with all those Buddhists, but it's too mediated an experience for me. Instead, right now, I'm going to finish the soup I'm making and go for a swim, my own forms of devotion.

Mike Ragogna: Metro Station and Miley & The Rockits Plays Staples Center

2009-09-23T05:04:46Z

First, oh discriminating HuffPost readers, please bring half an open mind to this review, okay? Second, did you know Billy Ray Cyrus has a musically talented son, Trace, and he's one of the two front men for the power-pop group Metro Station? It's all true. These hyper-pop-rockers played the Staples Center Tuesday night and pretty much set the tone for the act that followed... Miley somebody. Now, granted, they played in front of the largest, youngest audience probably ever, but those thousands of little eyeballs were hypnotized by tattoo-boy Trace Cyrus and his best friend and main guitarist, the headbanded and be-sunglassed Mason Musso, as they really did rock for a full 41 and change minutes.

During that time--normally reserved for rudeness to the opening act--Trace and Mason had full control of their screaming pre-pubescent minions, and they, along with synthist Blake Healy and drummist Anthony Improgo, supplied many faux-U2 and Clash hooks to the surprisingly receptive youngsters. Watching Cyrus and Musso cheerlead the sold out arena was impressive since they didn't have the following act's technologies with which to mesmerize, but there was a lot of onstage (and offstage) jumping, electric guitar flingings, nymph-y choreography (uh, dudes, these are little girls, come on), and a not so spontaneous shirt striptease (hey, remember the South Park episode on Disney and The Jonas Brothers?).

Musically, they chugged out infectious, punky anthems such as "California," "Tell Me What To Do," and "Kelsey" so expertly, it seemed to have all the challenge of texting; and the best compliment would be that, playing live, the boys are as good as or, occasionally, better than their studio recordings. On the other hand, "Seventeen Forever" seemed to miss the cool dynamics and textures of the recording; but on the other, other hand, the band's performance against a back-screened video of the track was a nice moment. Their new song "Japanese Girl" was sufficiently seventies and Cure-like (on speed), and their wacky "Shake It" was a cute aerobic closer. However, whatever song has the "Take It Off, Let's Just Touch" suggestion, well, I dare them to sing it to my six-year-old daughter. But this creepy faux pas probably occurred because Metro Station should be enjoying a slightly older, more rock-appreciative audience, not just little kids.

Now. About Ruby & The Rockits. David Cassidy, his brother Patrick, and their brother Shaun...what? Oh, right, Miley Cyrus. Mostly famous for being the sister of Trace Cyrus of Metro Station, Miley Cyrus always was bound to someday make something of herself with some hard work, a little luck, and about two hundred million Disney dollars. From the technological perspective, this was an amazing show to witness, sophisticated enough for parents as well as their rambunctious preteens. And there were moments of brilliance, like when Miley's song "Fly On The Wall"--complete with an audience flyover by the young lady--concluded with a mini-Thriller tribute that included Vincent Price's macabre laugh track. The sets and Broadway-style choreography were the absolute best that money could buy, with themes ranging from futuristic to apocalyptic, and effects covering colorful pyrotechnics and indoor fireworks. Nothing sucked here.

What did stink? Well, Disney was involved...can you guess what happened about three-fifths into the show? Out rolled a trailer for Miley's upcoming coming-of-age flick The Last Song. Then there was the song from The Last Song. Yay! But to be fair, Miley herself gets a pass for emotionally singing the environmentally-themed "Wake Up America" with scenes of turmoil associated with global warming projected on screens behind her during her vocals. The weird thing here is you've got Wal-Mart sponsoring Miley's tour and the more progressive Disney goliath endorsing this allegedly liberal message. Kind of makes you wonder if Wal-Mart is lightening up a little. Perhaps Disney should have the teen test the waters further with a song on healthcare reform.

As far as Miley's vocal chops, you couldn't hear any pitch-correcting gizmos if they were being used, so...they were...in tune! Actually, she is a good singer. Her repertoire included the hits "G.N.O." (that sounded like The Go-Go's), "Party In The U.S.A.," and "See You Again," a song on which "Sunglasses At Night"'s Corey Hart should be credited as co-writer. She did a fine job with Joan Jett's "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" (atop a flying red motorcycle), and her last song, "The Climb," ended the concert with a monster ballad gut-wrench that we all expect, nay, demand of our pop singers' finales. Her dancing and timing were impeccable, and she handled the stage gymnastics and minimal acrobatics like The Flying Graysons (shameful Batman reference for Jacques Lambert). If fame doesn't whack her out (translation: careful with those Annie Leibovitz photo sessions and pole dances, okay grownup handlers who should know better?), she eventually will attract that older demo and is going to mess up her competition in a major way. Why, she may even become more popular than Ruby & The Rockits. (Nah, never happen.)

Dicey iPhone Photo of Metro Station @ Staples Center (anyone know how to work the zoom?)

Lance Simmens: Lunatic Fringe

2009-08-17T14:42:20Z

In the early 1980's Tom Cochrane, the Canadian singer/songwriter wrote "Lunatic Fringe" in which he penned lyrics I believe to be relevant today:

Lunatic Fringe
In the twilight's last gleaming
This is open season
But you won't get too far
Cause you gotta blame someone
For your own confusion
We're on guard this time
Against your final solution

If there were ever a situation perfectly tailored for a South Park episode it would surely be the spectacle unraveling on our television sets each night in what will surely be remembered as the Summer When Old White Men Went Postal Over Their Right to Not Face End of Life Decisions. It is a fight to the death over "death panels". It is a version of you will have to pry my medical card from my cold dead hands. It is Death with Indignity. Okay, you get the idea.

Somehow, the venerable institution of town hall meetings has horrifically morphed into little more than senior extreme games, with enraged, belt-busting, bespectacled, graying, health care revolutionaries preparing to storm the barricades to reclaim capitalism from the socialists who have taken power. The participants in this geriatric version of a bar room brawl are intoxicated with rage fueled by hatred and fear, stocked with daily doses of venom dispensed by dreadful doctors of doom who pose as media pundits: Dr. Limbaugh, Dr. Beck, Dr. Coulter, an entire faculty at Fox University Hospital.

As a white male staring down the barrel of sixty, my first inclination is to chuckle and dismiss the rapid disintegration of civility led by the gray brigades as a product of senility combined with entirely too much free time. But such flippant dismissal ignores the deep underlying emotions that have been ignited here. As we have seen far too often over the past decade, fear is both an indictment and an incitement. It is an indictment of our resistance to accept change and an incitement to overreact to change.

Fear breeds hatred, hatred breeds irrationality, and irrationality breeds violence. Taken in this context what might at first appear irritatingly amusing quickly turns into sober reflection.
Put simply, this is no laughing matter, particularly if you are one of the 46 million Americans with no health insurance, one of the 14,000 who lose their health insurance each day, or one of the 670,000 children in California who are projected to lose health coverage in the next year due to state budget cuts. It is a disgrace and those fomenting and participating in the current uproar are disgraceful.

I have neither opposition to nor a problem with those who wish to rationally question or disagree with the direction of health care reforms being considered by the Administration and Congress. This is the nature and the beauty of democratic government and a free society. And to those who profess to be true patriots, town hall meetings are designed to encourage rational discourse and discussion of issues, and should be utilized as the forums upon which to make their voices heard. It appears, however, that the ostensible goal of the opposition is to disrupt not to discuss, leading one to seriously question the true intention of the health care reform countermovement.

The subtext of the drama unfolding on the town hall stage is not an argument between liberals and conservatives but rather a tug-of-war over what and who represents conservatism. Currently, it appears as though the forces espousing what most consider to be fringe ideas bordering on lunacy are holding sway in this battle. The fringe elements, carefully nurtured by fear, hatred, mistrust, and fitful bouts of fantasy are positioning the conservative opposition into a death spiral, a particularly apt metaphor given the current discussion. The conservative opposition today is now being maneuvered into a position where they can only be responsible for one of two options: either paralysis or irrelevance.

And if they are successful in paralyzing the system in a way that denies the health care reform supported by an overwhelming majority of the American people, then they will become irrelevant. Adhering to the lunatic fringe prescriptions will most certainly take them straight to irrelevance, bypassing paralysis altogether.

But what exactly is driving the fear that so prominently guides the counter-reform movement? Is it a fear of universal access, a fear of cost containment, a fear of true reform? I doubt it. My guess is what is truly motivating this movement is a combination of greed, racism, and paranoia, the three primary ingredients of the Kool-Aid they have ingested.

What is genuinely guiding this movement is a campaign designed to disrupt and derail a popularly elected and still popular President (who just happens to be an African-American) with an agenda that enjoys widespread support. These "patriots" are fearful of the reality of an ever-changing composition of our society, reject the reality that government plays a large and constructive role in both the economy and the health care system already, and have no realistic conception of the fact that there are better models of health care already in operation in many places around the globe.

Let's hope that the current lunacy that has captured this debate will streak across the sky like a comet and burn itself out quickly, and that upon sober reflection cooler heads will prevail among the conservative opposition so that meaningful progress can be made on the health care front. For those who choose irrelevancy, so be it, good riddance, and mercifully you will pay a steep price indeed. For those who wish to paralyze the system into inaction, one can only hope you will render yourselves irrelevant sooner rather than later.

The final verse of the song concludes:

Lunatic Fringe
We all know you're out there
Can you feel the resistance
Can you feel the thunder

Russian TV Cuts "South Park" Putin Scene

2009-07-10T10:58:30Z

MOSCOW — A Russian TV channel cut a segment of the ribald U.S. cartoon comedy "South Park" that appeared to mock Vladimir Putin, a spokesman said Friday.

The channel "2X2" cut material from the show that aired Tuesday portraying Putin as a greedy and desperate leader, the network's spokesman said. The decision prompted criticism and furious discussion on Russia blogs.

Dan Siegel: American Thriller

2009-07-06T16:25:00Z

Sitting here at George's Cafe on the Aegean island of Patmos, a chill spot for Athenian Greeks, mellow Europeans and a few adventurous Americans, the Great American Ghoul Show for Michael Jackson plays out a bit more oddly, if that is possible.

CNN International is on around-the-clock MJ watch, with Honduras coup news and the Iranian street protest crackdown allowed intermittent attention. Breaking News these days only emanates from gossip reporters prowling the gates of Neverland.

A British ex-pat cook here marvels at the coverage of throngs of loyal fans hoping to make a pilgrimage to view the mummified King of Pop.

Fifteen years ago I sat in the Budapest Marriot trying to explain to Hungarian friends who this footballer was driving down the 405 in his Ford Bronco, and why it seemed to matter so much to Americans, or at least to the American media machine.

Eight years ago, the country was transfixed by the Gary Condit/Chandra Levy affair, before the media circus was shattered by 9/11. Will this mid-summer sideshow be vanquished by some real world event that has more meaning than the death of the most spectacularly talented but repeatedly accused pedophile?

Perhaps not. Jackson's early passing is a perfect globalized mass media storm, as it combines Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll with a healthy dose of those two basic staples of the American story: Race & Money.

I have tried to resist getting into the details of this particularly sad story, and just enjoy my vacation here in paradise. However, even as I turned off the TV in the hotel room, I downloaded all the Vanity Fair articles about Michael Jackson over the years, to see if I could understand some bit of truth beyond the South Park version of MJ. After reading the extended reportage, it seems that Trey Parker and friends got it scarily right.

Yet...beyond the debates about whether he was done in by doctors and hangers-on, and what will happen to his money, there rest the multiple layers and endless cycles of abuse that form the rise, fall and death of this American Thriller.

A child is abused by his father. He rises to be the adoring centerpiece of America's most celebrated boy band. The brothers cross over the color line to help shift the culture. A star is born, and he grows into a once-in-a-generation megastar.

The abused boy is robbed of his childhood by the media glare and money grab that envelopes him. He cannot live in his own skin, and suffers the hideous results of a transmogrified facial makeover. The media machine feeds off the tawdry scandal behind the gates of Neverland.

The last act was a promised London concert finale (This Is It), but that was not fitting (or profitable) enough for this American story. In death, as in life, dignity is buried to make way for the hype, sensation and endless profit-taking from the King of Pop.

The American Thriller media machine, refined and well-rehearsed by the O.J. and Princess Diana dramas -- and the shorter-lived media circuses ever since -- is now in overdrive. The story will live on through the autopsy, battles over the will and kids, and never-seen-before photos and videos. Of course, all commentators will sign-off saying that all that really matters now is the interests of the children.

As we keep gazing on and on...

Etan Bednarsh: We Don't Blame Michael Jackson Because We Blame Ourselves

2009-06-26T16:59:33Z

Had I been five years older, Michael Jackson would have been important to me. I would have tried to do the thriller dance, learned the circle slide, and attempted poor approximations of approximations of the moonwalk. But that ultra-cool, guys want to be him, girls want to be with him, Michael Jackson was long gone when I started listening to music. By the time I was truly familiar with him, his Kingdom had popped. The Michael Jackson of my childhood was nothing but a joke. He was a punch line.

The first real memories I have of Michael Jackson is "black or white" and In Living Color's parody (which is an absolutely brutal take down to watch right now). I remember seeing before and after shots of his surgeries. I remember hearing his voice escalate into higher octaves. And I remember him being obsessed with Macaulay Culkin. Intellectually, I knew (because I had been told) that he was important/ significant. Viscerally, to me he felt like nothing but, I'm sorry to say.... a freak. Growing up there were staples of people to make fun of: John Bobbitt, Jeffrey Dahmer, Dan Quayle. Ruling them all, was Michael.

Michael Jackson started his entry into what Bill Simmons terms the Tyson Zone (rough definition= the point where nothing you do surprises anyone anymore) shortly after I was born. (Think that's too early? The seeds were planted. See this article from 1984.) Throughout his -and my- life, he descended into pits of weirdness and depths of inhumanity. He became a kickball of a human being -- nothing but air on the inside and plastic on the out. And yet, what shocks me more than anything, I think, is that all of those failings (and though he was acquitted of child molestation, I don't think many of us would think he was innocent) did not disqualify him from the fawning coverage of the last 24 hours.

I am not saying that people are ignoring his tragic failures. They're not. But they are also not dealing with them head on, without caveats. The focus has been on the Jackson 5, Bad, Beat It. and Thriller. And while I have seen people write, "Woah, was to his life; a lament" -- I have not seen anyone say Michael Jackson was a man who almost definitely committed child molestation and ruined the lives of many children. Simply put, pundits are speaking about his "eccentricities," but they are not blaming Michael for his strange existence or behavior.

And I think that we, the world at large, may not want to assign blame to Michael because we know that we too are guilty for what Michael Jackson became. Michael Jackson died a broken shell of a human being. He seemed to act in ways only approaching how normal human interacted, but never feeling comfortable or at home in his body.

But he wasn't born that way. He became that way. And we know that to be true because we saw it happen and we witnessed his regression. Last year, South Park had a very strange Britney Spears episode, the premise of which was that we want/need our mega-celebrities to be destroyed and torn down. We feed off of it. There's a lot of truth to that, and Michael Jackson may have been the first TV era mega-celebrity who was destroyed. (I don't even want to consider how precipitous his downfall would have been if he had risen to fame in the web 2.0 age.)

So while we speak about Michael, we tiptoe around his sins, we don't blame him because, on some level, we blame ourselves. We may not have caused it, but we were silent as it happened. Yes, it is sad that Jackson died as broken shards of a person, but it's sadder that he was once one beautiful whole who cracked under the pressure of our glare. That's why we pity his indiscretions but we are not angry at him for them. We broke him, we did it. It's stupid to blame him for the people who got cut on the sharp edges of his scattered pieces.

William Fisher: Mr. Common Law's Next Adventure

2009-05-29T10:01:38Z

I know, I know. Now that President Obama has chosen a nominee for the Supreme Court, I'm supposed to be writing about Sonia Sotomayor.

I will, I will.

But before he disappears into the flinty wilderness of the rural New Hampshire he loves so dearly, let me first say a few words about David Souter.

My few words are about his few words.

He spoke his few words at a recent seminar at Georgetown University on the independence of the judiciary, one of a series convened by retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

His few words were on a subject rarely covered in any depth by the mainstream media, but one whose importance to the future of our country cannot be over-stated.

Souter spoke of the spectacular ignorance of the American electorate about the government they select people to serve in. And the consequences of that ignorance.

The Republic "can be lost, it is being lost, it is lost, if it is not understood," Souter said, citing surveys showing that large majorities of the public cannot name the three branches of government. Or who don't even know there are three branches of government.

Souter's trepidation has been borne out by dozens of other embarrassing surveys over recent years. Virtually every one of them has concluded that our young people know virtually nothing -- and are being taught virtually nothing -- about the way the country they live in is organized and governed. And these results are as true for college grads as they are for middle school youngsters.

For example, in one survey, fifty percent of Americans famously were able to name four characters from "The Simpsons," but only two out of five were able to name all three branches of our federal government. And no more than one in seven could find Iraq on a map.

In his best-selling book, "Just How Stupid Are We?" author Rick Shenkman writes that such uninformed voters are misusing, abusing, and abdicating their political power. He argues that we must reform ourselves before we can begin to reassert that power.

The paradox here is that, over the past half century, the U.S. population has seen huge increases in their formal educational achievements. Yet their levels of political knowledge have remained static. The result is that today's college graduates know no more about politics than high school graduates knew back in 1950.

I find it unfortunate that our poor test scores relative to young people in other countries are usually lamented only in terms of our under-achievements in science, math and technology.

There is no argument that these subjects are critical to America's ability to compete in the increasingly globalized environment of the future. But education is about a lot more than competing. It is about learning. And if are young people are content with being uninformed, they will surely get the country they've asked for.

Many observers -- including me -- were mightily heartened by the record-breaking participation of young voters during the 2008 Presidential campaign. But I have a nagging feeling that many of them were excited and moved to action by the personality, rhetoric and compelling life narrative of Barack Obama.

That kind of enthusiasm won't teach them much about our country and its institutions, but it's a start. Taking the next step will involve restoring Civics 101 to our educational agenda. Even if we have to choose it over football.

Justice Souter is painfully aware of that imperative. He said we have to start with the "reeducation of a substantial part of the American population." What is needed, he added, is "the restoration of the self-identity of the American people."

At 69, Souter has little patience for talking the talk. He is more about walking the walk. And, as if to provide all of us with a real life example, he has joined a committee sponsored by the New Hampshire Supreme Court Society that is dedicated to developing a civic education curriculum for New Hampshire's public school classrooms.

When he parts with the Supremes at the end of the current term, Souter plans to return to his hometown of Weare, New Hampshire. In retirement, we should not be at all surprised to find this most down-to-earth common-sense judge teaching that new course in Civics 101.

"If I can do it, you can do it too," Souter told his audience.

Yes, we can!

Derek Beres: Global Beat Fusion: Music as Preservation and Cultural Force

2009-05-18T16:57:27Z

When I turned my journalism focus from rock and hip-hop to global music in 2001, I quickly realized that the political and media-driven clichés that I was being taught by newspapers and television accounted for but a small minority of each country's population. The way to enter and embrace a nation is through the arts, most notably music, which, despite the criticisms from a small number of record executives (who unfortunately have a big percentage of legislative pull), is in great shape as both an industry and as a creative force. Today, our ability to taste and sample the music of the world has never been greater. Here are four artists dedicated to preserving their own culture's musical form while, to a varying degree, evolving it into future possibilities.

With a growing list of accolades, Cape Verdean singer Maria De Barros has been reinterpreting her ancestral homeland since her 2003 debut Nha Mundo. Music is in this Senegalese native's blood, almost literally -- her godmother is the famed Cesaria Evora, Cape Verde's musical queen. After releasing her follow-up, Danca Ma Mi, with Narada, she moved over to the South African label Sheer to distribute her latest, Morabeza. While the global-influenced singer (now a Los Angeles resident), considers her music to borrow from elements of many cultures, at root you hear the soft acoustics and dependably groove-oriented African rhythms embedded in every note.

What carries the weight of this album, as on her last two, is her voice. It doesn't necessarily need instrumentation, and fortunately most of her latest album is musically sparse, offering De Barros more room to flex her lyrical strength. So while the upbeat songs are enjoyable, one listens to her for tracks like "Nha Vazio," which includes a simple guitar line, a few string sections, a tasteful harmonica interlude, and not much else. Beautiful.

Cultural cataloging is part of San Francisco-based producer and performer Jef Stott's latest project, Eliyahu Sill & The Qadim Ensemble. After releasing a fierce Arabic-tinged electronica record on Six Degrees, Saracen, he joins with multi-instrumentalist Sills to produce his very organic, richly textured exploration of Jewish and Arabic folk songs. The instruments Sills plays are many; ney, oud, bass, and vocals dominate. The ensemble takes care of the rhythm and some of the vocals, including a gorgeous outing by Rachel Valfer, who also doubles up on oud. Her interpretation of the classic "Im Nin'alu" is breathtaking.

Eastern Wind (Embarka) is at root a musical project devoted to healing the social and political rifts forced upon Jewish and Arabic populations for nearly a century now. (We'll leave aside the Christian roots of this occupation, which would date it back many more.) The ensemble chose the word Qadim, as it implies both history and "that which is to come" (in both Arabic and Hebrew), symbolically locking them into their mission when presenting this deeply sonorous album of songs of love and devotion. It is a gorgeous attempt at a cause which has seen too many musically clunky efforts over the years, for it does not sacrifice music for message; the darkness in rhythm and melody hints at yearning as much as fulfillment, correctly capturing the mindset of so many today.

What Valfer's voice is to Middle Eastern song, Lily Storm is to Eastern Europe. Not that the Bay Area vocalist is limited to these musics either, but that region is the focus of her latest solo album, If I Had a Key to the Dawn (Songbat). It is a stark, stunning record, unsurprising upon learning that Storm sang with vocal troupe Kitka for a half-decade, whose albums never disappoint. Here she takes on Greece, Aremenia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and more on their own terms, creating a stunning tapestry of sounds backed up by an elegant selection of instrumentalists.

Hence, you have accordions, duduks, riqqs, bouzoukis, and harps all subtly (well, as subtle as an accordion can be) laying the backdrop for Storm's powerful voice to sail over. There are very few opportunities for Americans to hear such an array of European folk songs in one place -- Kitka has been one of the few holding down the throne -- so Storm's songs of "love and lament," as the subtitle goes, is a welcome addition, enough to pique and fill anyone's curiosity.

While so far we have explored three quieter, predominantly female -- if not in person than in tone -- ways of reflecting culture, here we go off in an entirely different direction: mariachi. This over-the-top, showboating Mexican folk form is masculine in all its heart-tearing and tear-jerking glory. The father son team of Pedro and Mauricio Gonzalez, leaders of the group Mariachi Real de San Diego, went crate digging in Tijuana to pull out the holiest of the holy mariachi gems. The result is the appropriately titled Mariachi Classics (Mardi Gras).

OK, this is not subtle music at all, but if you are feeling nostalgic for the culture that you know (or want to pretend to know), this is the place to start. Cliché? Certainly: that combination of guitars and brass and violin is irrefutably Mexican. Fortunately this sextet does it well, and while it's tough to listen to an entire album without having flashbacks of mariachi bands joining ranchera icon Vicente Fernandez (or, worse, of a group of mariachis chasing my cab in Mexico City in full garb, trying to physically stop the driver so they could play for us), this band's name is true to the word: they are the real thing.

Mike Ragogna: New Tunes On Monday : Green Day, Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood, Tori Amos, Kate Voegele, and Mat Kearney

2009-05-18T01:11:48Z

Green Day -- 21st Century Breakdown

"Sing us a song of the century that's louder than bombs and eternity," sounds the first radio'd-out, bomb-sheltered strains of Green Day's new quasi-concept album, 21st Century Breakdown. Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tré Cool -- working with Producer Butch Vig, engineer Chris Dugan, and mixographer Chris Lord-Alge (plus a couple of guest musicians) -- created an extremely impressive follow-up to the Grammy-rewarded American Idiot, and this collection of tracks will help get you through your own breakdown, at least until Eminem returns with his impending Relapse.

Attention to detail went into every element of this project, and the songwriting is at its peak, possibly even a little more interesting than what's found on the latest works by long established icons such as U2. Of course, 'tude is still Billie Joe's and the gang's focus, though 21st Century Breakdown also explores miles of very credible musical territory. It flaunts all sorts of influences from both sides of the pond along the way, like in "¡Viva La Gloria!"'s fraternal pub chant where America's early sixties might as well be tearing it up with Who hooligans. And the group's version of "evolution" -- if we'd even call it that -- is clearly on display on many sophisticated arrangements and lyrics. On the title track, Billie Joe laments, "My generation is zero, I never made it as a working class hero," but it's not mere gen-something whining, it's a legitimate beef with the state of all things currently middle class. The track nicely sets up 21st Century Breakdown's Quadrophenia/Muswell Hillbilly tone, as well as the series of Pete Townsend, Ray Davies, and even Queen-like opuses that follow.

Despite all the sonic and musical upgrading, we get those mandatory, fist-pumping Green Day rallies such as their punky throwback, "Know Your Enemy," in which Billie Joe rails, "Silence is the enemy against your urgency, so rally up the demons of your soul." As if that weren't enough bile to satisfy, the recording spikes its fury with, "Violence is an energy from here to eternity...silence is the enemy, so gimme gimme revolution." Amazingly, tracks like that sit comfortably beside melodic outings such as "Before The Lobotomy" that fuses The Beatles, The Hollies, Queen, and The Who, especially in its hooky line, "Like refugees, we're lost like refugees," before heading into a second section that is a cool, direct rip of a song that's right on the tip of your tongue.

But it's not endlessly brilliant; luckily, for every throwaway like "Christian's Inferno" (and its vague suburban-apocalyptic theme reappearing spottily throughout the album), you get a helluva lot o' tracks that make you instantly forget the missteps. The mesmerizing John Lennon-esque "Last Night On Earth" stylistically ensnares his ghost, and that brings us to the end of the album's "Act I - Heroes And Cons" with two more similarly structured song cycles following.

Some of the more clever, remaining highlights are the poppy "Last Of The American Girls," the string-enriched, George Harrison-meets-Squeeze track, "Restless Heart Syndrome," the visceral "Horseshoes and Handgrenades," "The Static Age" (another sixties nod), and the best anthem of the bunch, "21 Guns," that features two loopy, stereo-panned guitar snippets, a frisky Armstrong falsetto, and a quick swipe of the Papa John Phillips-penned hit for Scott McKenzie, "San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)." Overall, Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown and its Mad Max-ish staging is good, angst-y fun right up through its catchy closer, "See The Light." Where American Idiot had us saying, "Hey, these guys have heads on their shoulders," 21st Century Breakdown shows the band still is using their brains.

Tracks:
1. Song Of The Century

(Act 1 - Heroes And Cons)
2. 21st Century Breakdown
3. Know Your Enemy
4. ¡Viva La Gloria!
5. Before The Lobatomy
6. Christian's Inferno
7. Last Night On Earth

(Act II - Charlatans And Saints)
8. East Jesus Nowhere
9. Peacemaker
10. Last Of The American Girls
11. Murder City
12. ¿Viva La Gloria? (Little Girl)
13. Restless Heart Syndrome

(Act III - Horseshoes And Handgrenades)
14. Horseshoes And Handgrenades
15. The Static Age
16. 21 Guns
17. American Eulogy:
a) Mass Hysteria
b) Modern World
18. See The Light

Clapton & Winwood -- Live From Madison Square Garden

Live From Madison Square Garden culls tracks from their 2008 performances, when Clapton & Winwood officially celebrated their Blind Faith collaborative period (of about forty years ago), adding-on material from early solo outings and Winwood's Traffic tenure. The formula for this summit is established right from the release's opening track, "Had To Cry Today," that finds Winwood boyishly straining for stratospheric high notes, and Clapton jamming alongside his partner's competing guitar licks. They are backed solidly by bassist Willie Weeks, keyboardist Chris Stainton, and drummer Ian Thomas, replacing original members Ginger Baker and the late Rich Grech. Despite the absentees, there is much magic in the expanded arrangements of Blind Faith tracks such as "Can't Find My Back Home" and "Presence Of The Lord." Winwood's Traffic numbers, "Dear Mr. Fantasy" and "Pearly Queen," get a lot of Clapton solo love, and their back-to-back tribute of "Voodoo Chile" and "Little Wing" to their former contemporary, Jimi Hendrix, honors the master's original manuscripts as they add their own signatures.

Crowd-jolters such as "After Midnight," "Low Down," and "Tell The Truth" keep the pace grooving along right up through Clapton's classic (and J.J. Cale composition), "Cocaine" -- with a seventh inning stretch of segued solo songs (Clapton on Robert Johnson's "Rambling On My Mind," Winwood on Ray Charles' "Georgia On My Mind") providing a brief reprieve from the bluesrocking. The best compliment that can be paid to this live reunion is that it comes off like a boot, with none of the performances seeming overly precious or rehearsed. With Clapton and Winwood obviously having such a good time on this project, creating another studio experiment possibly is crossing their minds. But maybe they shouldn't mess with a good thing. Live From Madison Garden perfectly reacquaints us with the kind of primal, bluesy rock that this duo's early records introduced us to four decades ago.

Tracks:

CD 1:
1. Had To Cry Today
2. Low Down
3. Them Changes
4. Forever Man
5. Sleeping In The Ground
6. Presence Of The Lord
7. Glad
8. Well Alright
9. Double Trouble
10. Pearly Queen
11. Tell The Truth
12. No Face, No Name, No Number

CD 2:
1. After Midnight
2. Split Decision
3. Rambling On My Mind
4. Georgia On My Mind
5. Little Wing
6. Voodoo Chile
7. Can't Find My Way Home
8. Dear Mr. Fantasy
9. Cocaine

DVD 1:
1. Had To Cry Today
2. Them Changes
3. Forever Man
4. Sleeping In The Ground
5. Presence Of The Lord
6. Glad
7. Well Alright
8. Double Trouble
9. Pearly Queen
10. Tell The Truth
11. No Face, No Name, No Number
12. After Midnight
13. Split Decision
14. Rambling On My Mind
15. Georgia On My Mind
16. Little Wing
17. Voodoo Chile
18. Can't Find My Way Home
19. Dear Mr. Fantasy
20. Cocaine

DVD 2:
Documentary: The Road To Madison Garden
Documentary: Rambling On My Mind (includes Eric Clapton at a sound check)
Bonus Material: "Low Down," "Kind Hearted Woman," and "Crossroads"

Tori Amos -- Abnormally Attracted To Sin

This ol' pro had us at "Crucify," "Silent All These Years," and "Cornflake Girl." Though Tori Amos' career may have suffered from being overly prolific and recording some questionable cover songs, every new album is a bouquet of interesting, intelligent songs for her loyal fans. Abnormally Attracted To Sin delivers just what the title implies, sex and religion -- make that sexy religion -- in biblical proportions. The wordy "Mary Jane" alone needs its own gospel to interpret its strange rhymes and elongated verbiage. On the other hand, "Welcome To England" sutures a concise vocabulary to an artsy, Kate Bush-style melody. Speaking of Bush, check out "Fire To Your Plain" and "That Guy" for more of that vibe, try "Maybe California" for some beautifully orchestrated heartbreak, "500 Miles" for a semi-folky anthem, and the closing track for a sultry, after hours come-hithering: "Boys play well into the night, 'Can I join you?' said the lady in blue." Tracks to forgive but respect for their ambitiousness are "Give" that trips over it own clunky, chunky synth, and the dissonant "Strong Black Vine" that musically wraps around itself like an Escher graphic. As a whole, the album will work best for those abnormally attracted to Amos, while others can cherry-pick its tempered decadence for a handful of guiltless pleasures.

Tracks:
1. Give
2. Welcome to England
3. Strong Black Vine
4. Flavor
5. Not Dying Today
6. Maybe California
7. Curtain Call
8. Fire to Your Plain
9. Police Me
10. That Guy
11. Abnormally Attracted To Sin
12. 500 Miles
13. Mary Jane
14. Starling
15. Fast Horse
16. Ophelia
17. Lady In Blue

Mat Kearney -- City Of Black & White

For a time, the singer-songwriter genre was unfairly marginalized and in real danger of being wiped out by quirk-for-quirk's sake eccentricity. Times change, and along came a cartel of artists on the pop scene such as John Mayer and Jason Mraz who, by example, educated their generation and reminded older fans about that style of music's merits. Like his contemporary Matt Nathanson, Mat Kearney has been on the verge of "breaking" for years, partly due to the path pioneered by the likes of Mayer, but mostly from his music's continued presence on über-popular television shows like Scrubs, One Tree Hill, Friday Night Lights, Grey's Anatomy, Kyle XY, Bones, and many more. Following his equally fine 2007 album Nothing Left To Lose, City Of Black & White showcases twelve more examples of TV-friendly songs that should both fit into your flat screen habits and his demo's daily lives.

Kearney's relaxed, natural style has much in common with Five For Fighting's John Ondrasik's, but his everydude persona has the potential of connecting him more effectively with a broader audience. On his new album, he ignores pretense and overkill and happily embraces his inner Hornsby, Sting, and Bono, tossing hooks and vocals about like the pros of yore. Wisely leading-off with one of the strongest tracks, "All I Have," a parade of similarly-sounding songs follows and establishes Kearney's consistency. "Fire & Rain" (as in "...my love will not fade through the fire and rain," located nowhere near James Taylorland) acts like the album's second kick-off to a procession of fine writing and pleasing aesthetic choices, though they are a bit on the safe side production-wise.

On one of the best tracks, "New York To California," Kearney performs his piano ballad with a real genuineness, something that a performer like Adam Duritz might have been tempted to over-dramatize. And one of the best moments occurs during the sublime vocal arrangement and guitar/piano noodlings at the end of the title track that weirdly evokes the mood of Joni Mitchell's "Two Grey Rooms" from her criminally ignored Night Ride Home album. That brings us to one small suggestion: In the future, it might be wise for Kearney and his production team to employ more of these colors in his palate since most of the album is so straight forward in its approach that ears may stray. However, though City Of Black & White casually portrays the world that most of us live in with few excessive frills or flowery poetry and no daredevil musical antics to speak of, that simple, natural approach does make this an honest champ.

Tracks:
1. All I Have
2. Fire & Rain
3. Closer To Love
4. Here We Go
5. Lifeline
6. New York To California
7. Runaway Car
8. Never Be Ready
9. Annie
10. Straight Away
11. On & On
12. City Of Black & White

Kate Voegele -- A Fine Mess

No, A Fine Mess is not one, thank you very much. Kate Voegele's second album (following last year's debut, Don't Look Away) doesn't suffer the sophomore jinx, and it finds the singer maturing slightly despite her role as One Tree Hill's young pop waif. Actually, with Chad Michael Murray and Hilarie Burton moving on to career adulthood and greener pastures over the Hill, now would be a great time for the show's handlers to feature the singer-songwriter-actress front and center since her material is stronger than a lot of the licensed-in emo and bad boy semi-rock the show famously locks its plots around.

The album, right. At times, A Fine Mess occasionally seems inspired by old Belinda Carlisle records like "Circle In The Sand" ("99 Ways"), and there are a handful of hints that Fiona Apple's been checked out a time or two. Other times, like when listening to "Angel," you can't help but compare her to Miley Cyrus. Everything, literally, has a fat, over-memorable, pop chorus that will haunt you at times when you'll wish it would just leave you alone. Kate's potential and talent are obvious, but she might be in danger of burning out too quickly if her records continue heading down that mandatory, cookie-cutter, Disney meets American Idol road. She's too good to be the latest variation of a purity ring--see South Park's Jonas Brothers episode for more cynicism. Sure, Kate is young enough to have done two ultra-pop albums in a row without a critical backlash, but her handlers now need to let her experiment with more durable writing and recording so that ultimately, her career does not reflect this album's title. For now, it's all good, maybe even too good. But just like One Tree Hill's four-year leap forward and Murray's and Burton's wise career moves, it's now time to move on already, for Kate's sake.

Tracks:
1. Inside Out
2. 99 Ways
3. Who Are You Without Me
4. Angel
5. Sweet Silver Lining
6. Playing With My Heart
7. Manhattan From The Sky
8. Talkin' Smooth
9. Lift Me Up
10. Say Anything
11. Unfair
12. Forever And Almost Always

Lionel: The "Comedy" Of Mocking The Teabaggers

2009-04-24T18:04:22Z

Get thee to a "punitentiary."

It was a field day for the South Parkers. Tea bag? (Snort.) Get it? Hardy-har-har. Tea bags. Every testicular-nuanced, jejune "comedy" aficionado couldn't believe her ears. In fact, not only did most of the tea bag party attendees not get the sexual references, they didn't get just what they were protesting about in the first place. Something about high taxes and inordinate spending, they reckoned. What the hell, a party's a party.

Enter Uncle Joe Scarborough, MSNBC's resident Church Lady. He made sure we knew he knew. Nothing gets past my favorite cultural gatekeeper and redneck Riviera denizen.

You look at these huge rallies, and I'm not going to mention names of people on networks that made sexual jokes, childish sexual jokes, about tens of thousands of Americans who went out and wanted to get involved in their government. I mean, it was really middle school jokes being made. I didn't hear those jokes being made when people on the left protested over the past eight years. And I would expect that from bloggers on the left. I would expect more than that from news outlets and it happened on several networks yesterday.

Every testicular reference was indeed referenced by everyone. Every innuendo (translation: an Italian suppository) was blatantly and obviously identified. You had to be "nuts" to miss the less than recondite insinuations and puns.

Paging pampiniform plexus!

Even CNN's Anderson Cooper noted that "it's hard to talk when you're tea bagging." Not to beat this proverbial equus mortuus, but that's not necessarily so, Coop. At least not for the tea-bagger versus the bagged. Ahem.

The event itself was lost to the street references to certain sexual intimacies. And this from Faux News, no less.

This portion of the Lionel blog is brought to you by Cremaster.

If there's a comedic Zeus, California Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez will soon be accused of doing something . . . wait! . . . drumroll . . . no, wait! . . . DIRTY! Get it? Dirty Sanchez! Snort, snort. I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

Better yet, maybe HBO will have a movie marathon, highlighting that 1985 Chevy Chase classic "Feltch," er "Fletch."

One more. Next week on PBS, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson showcases "Knowing Uranus."

All references to scrotal tribute completely obscured any appreciation for the cause. Which was what again? Oh, yes. Taxes and spending and something about tyranny.

Somalian Pirates We: "South Park" Takes On Piracy (VIDEO)

2009-04-23T09:39:01Z

In an episode entitled "Fatbeard," the South Park boys travel the high seas recruiting Somalian pirates to be more pirate-y. The boys start a pirate club at school, but when Cartman actually comes face to face with real life ones, he's disappointed by their lack of stereotypical piratocity. In the following clip he convinces them of the life they should be living, in song!

See the full episode here.

WATCH:

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