Sunday Funnies & Arts

As always, click to enlarge...

Ain't I got all the fools in town on my side? And ain't that a majority in any town?...

No One Could Make This Up Dept: These two stooges -- apparently the Laurel and Hardy of journalism -- argue that President Obama can better handle the BP/Halliburton catastrophe by applying the corporate values that led to the gusher in the first place. Gentlemen: Corporate behavior is the problem, not the solution...

Big Government Sherriff of Nottingham separates liberatarian Robin Hood from family. Wife didn't know that her husband robbed banks:

In retrospect, I wish I had asked him some questions I never thought to ask.

How the other half heals:

I spent my early childhood in a trailer in Texas, so I thought I knew something about barriers to health-care access, and maybe even something about poverty. Then I became an emergency physician in Oakland...

If Senate Democrats can't stand by the administration and fight to kill to the Bush tax cut for the wealthy, they ought go ahead and elect Ben Nelson ("D"-NE) majority leader. Kent Conrad (ND) is a good man and I have no doubt that his reservations are genuine. But tax fairness has never yet hurt an economy; eliminating this odious handout for people who already have more than their share will be a step in the right direction. The implacable Republican opposition only serves to illustrate falsity of their crocodile tears about the deficit...

Chinese cock soccer and thinking off...

PUT A NICKEL IN THE JUKEBOX

Boz Scaggs had established a steady base of musically aware fans who appreciated his brand of rocking blue-eyed soul/R&B (including me). Scaggs broadened the base with the immensely successful Silk Degrees, which added disco to the mix and took advantage that genre's use of electronic drums and synthesizers. As a commercial decision, Scaggs hit a home run, and indeed Silk Degrees is an excellent album featuring some of his best material.

But the steely meticulousness of Silk Degrees sacrificed the warmth and looseness of the early albums, and his original fans missed the easy charm of Moments, And Band, My Time, and Slow Dancer. I've been listening to those old albums this week with delight at how well they hold up. The material can be a bit uneven, but at its best is irresistibly uplifting and romantic. The band cooks and it's always fun to hear an artist searching for a sound by tacking against the prevailing winds. Great stuff...

NOLA's gender-bending rap (thanks, Foxessa!)...

Blathering Fans Dept: Eight days down and 257 to go...

Peter Tibbles on Paul Kelly, one of Australia's best singer-songwriters...

PHOTO & ART GALLERY
All in all, it's just another brick in the wall...

Parking lot, fried chicken restaurant, St Claude Ave...

Holding pattern: Oil flow halted...

From February to July: Construction progress...

Asters in bloom...

Idaho grapes...

Crustacean 2000. Scroll down to see this; it's a beaut...

Tillie Gort's in 1977: "Best restaurant job ever"...

Stompin' at the Savoy in nineteen-ought-five...

Sharon Tate and Catherine Deneuve...

Who took this picture? Bob Dylan in 1966...

Jennie Wade, who died making biscuits at Gettysburg...

An epic guitar duel plus Van the Man looking like he's fresh from Irish pub. Performing a Pink Floyd classic with Levon Helm enjoying every second. It doesn't get much better than this:

Live From New Orleans, New York, and Los Angeles

Walking Through Heaven's Gate, Glen David Andrews. Incredible set of New Orleans gospel recorded live at the Zion Hill Baptist Church in the Treme neighborhood. Andrews, the Zion Hill choir, and the NOLA musicians comprising the band breath such life into chestnuts "Down By The Riverside," "Jesus On The Mainline," "Down By The Riverside," "I'll Fly Away," and "Just A Closer Walk With Thee" that you'll think you're hearing them for the first time. Andrews, a belter if there ever was one, and his followers deliver these standards with enough joy and inspiration to make Madeleine Murray O'Hair reconsider atheism: If church was always like this, I'd go all the time. Featuring a new song written by Andrews and Paul Sanchez, as well as a brilliant rendition of "Battle Hymn of the Republic" by Andrews and John Boutte. Available from the Louisiana Music Factory.

Live at the Hammerstein Ballroom, Dumpstaphunk. Sizzling live set by Ivan Neville's funk band gets you off your feet and dancing from the first notes right through their hard-driving cover of "Sympathy for the Devil" with guest guitarist Warren Haynes. Some of these cuts are so new that they don't have names yet. Keyboardist Neville (son of Aaron) leads a crack quintet that includes nephew Ian (son of Art) on guitar. These guys may be New Orleans musical royalty, but there's nothing staid or snobby about their approach to funk. At one point, Ivan introduces what he calls the Dumpstaphunk version of a ballad. Take my word for it: No one was slow dancing. Available as a download from www.mule.net.

Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl, Van Morrison. In November 1968, Van Morrison released Astral Weeks, an introspective, impressionistic recording unlike anything before it or since. Revered by critics, the enigmatic recording regularly rates high on lists of top recordings ever. But aside from "Cypress Avenue," Morrison rarely performed the material from Astral Weeks, in part because his record company at the time had been uninterested in promoting it. Last November, Morrison for the first time performed the entire suite, along with epic versions of "Listen to the Lion" and "Common One." Although the results have been well-received, critics have held back from calling this recording superior to the original release.

To these ears, the new recording offers benefits not present on the 1968 version. To be sure, an album as artistically significant as Astral Weeks can only be original once. Moreover, the '68 version benefited immensely from the contributions of jazz musicians Richard Davis and Connie Kay; they provided a lightness and etherealness rare in rock recordings. But the new version gains greatly from the directness of a live performance. Moreover, the arrangements are superb, especially the segments in which the flamenco-style guitar interacts with violin and flute. The interplay between Morrison and the band is superb: It's plain that all knew they had something special going. Moreover, Van is in top form, scatting and improvising vocals and exhorting the band onward. If you have the original release, Live at the Hollywood Bowl is a terrific companion piece. If you don't have the original, this reimagining is a perfect introduction...

Wayback Machine. In 1974, Van Morrison capped the first phase of his illustrious career with It's Too Late To Stop Now, a fine live album that combined R&B covers with highlights from his first six albums, often improving on the original versions. The string section gathered to play behind his live band enhanced the arrangements rather than making them stodgy, and Morrison reached new interpretative heights on "Listen to the Lion" (the best recorded version of this song), "Caravan," "Wild Children," and "Into the Mystic." Still arguably the best introduction to Morrison, and excellent from start to finish...

The C-Span list of presidential rankings. I'll save you the suspense: Bush is 36th, ahead of such luminaries as Millard Fillmore, Warren G. Harding, William Henry Harrison (who was in office a month before he died of pneumonia contraacted during his inauguration), Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, and James Buchanan. Bush ranks lowest among presidents who served two terms.

All things considered, I'm suspicious of the criteria. For one thing, why is John Kennedy so high? He served less than three years, was timid on Civil Rights -- the signature domestic issue of his time -- and accelerated America's drift into Vietnam. In terms of accomplishing what he set out to do, I understand Reagan's high ranking. In that light, he could be higher. But whether or not his presidency was good for the country is another matter entirely, especially as his hands-off business philosophy now stands discredited...

George Will's war on science...

Buy American? Not if the U. S. Chamber of Commerce has anything to say about...

The atheist-gospel war for my immortal New Orleans soul continues. I read this (Secular humanists establish a beachhead New Orleans) but then I see this:



You get my dilemma...

Tulips...TU-lips...

Beautiful Visions

Accelerate, R. E. M. You hear a great deal about how Accelerate is a return to their rocking form of the '80's. True enough, and also beside the point. What really matters is that they're playing like it means something, that they've found motivation in a collective response to the betrayals of the Bush Administration. Hurricane Katrina serves as both a focal point and a metaphor, never more than "Sing For The Submarine" and its chilling account of the siren song of George Bush: "The city did not collapse in a shudder/The rain it never came.../It's all in the submarine/It's all a lot less frightening/Than you would have had it be..." Don't believe your own eyes: Enter my coccoon and all will be well. Guitarist Peter Buck rarely solos, but as in the best R. E. M. material, his guitar teams with Michael Stipe's lyrics co-create each song, shaping each into a musical statement that you can rock to.

Note: You can download Accelerate on Amazon.com for $8.99. This includes five fun bonus tracks that serve as a light dessert to the serious business of the main course. Watch out for those red heads!


Rabo de Nube, Charles Lloyd Quartet. The master reed player and composer assembles a magnificent quartet and premieres a new set of compositions on this superb live outing. Amazingly, despite the powerful personalities of each member of the group, no one's ego takes over or even attempts to. Perhaps that's out of respect for their 70-year leader who performs with the muscularity of a man half his age and who has few peers of any age when it comes to originality of musical imagination. Whatever, the integration of their sound impresses as completely as their skill as soloists. (Lloyd's Seattle appearance reviewed here.)


Keep It Simple, Van Morrison. That his ground-breaking days are in past hasn't stopped Van Morrison from creating beautiful visions. Few of his 30+ albums are outright clunkers, and most of them stand up under repeated listenings. Van the Man's genre explorations have ranged from the inspired (pairing with The Chieftains for Irish Heartbeat) to the puzzling (Pay The Devil should have been brilliant instead of merely good); he's continued to write terrific songs like "Slow Train" and "Precious Time" and to breath new life into classics like "Lonely Avenue." Morrison long ago absorbed and integrated blues, gospel, country, folk, and R & B into his sound, and on Keep It Simple he wears them like a damn comfortable old suit. So, a simple blues keeps company with a simple ballad, a simple gospel tune, and a simple country weeper. Van Morrison has such command of the genres that he shows their interrelations with spare arrangements that you can pay close attention to or play in the background while you read a good book or eat a fine meal.

For Boston: One of the many joys of traveling is taking the time to check out local music. Last month in Boston led me to a couple of nice finds: Dennis Brennan's Engagment and Collective Psychosis Begone from Hallelujah The Hills. Brennan is a fine singer-songwriter who ought to be better known. His writes with wit and flair and leads an excellent roots band. Treat yourself and track down Engagement. Hallelujah The Hills create a unique indie/prog sound augmented by soaring zigzag keyboard and the judicious application of a soul horn section. These guys are going places.

R. I. P. Chuck Heston. Even though you went from being one of the first white celebrities to march with Martin Luther King to a senescent gun rights advocate who couldn't accept the homoerotic subtext of Ben-Hur, with that one and The Ten Commandments you made two movies that people enjoyed and quoted with glee every year. There are worse legacies. Plus, you were a memorable Long John Silver when you remade Treasure Island. Go in peace.







Note: That's 15-year old Christian Bale as Jim Hawkins.