God, that long ago.
Leader Of The Band
I’ve never been a Dan Fogelberg fan, generally speaking. However, my mother is the world’s biggest Dan Fogelberg fan. His music was the reason she became a singer-songwriter, and in fact she reviewed his album High Country Snows for Rolling Stone. I grew up listening to Fogelberg albums (that’s vinyl, folks).
So I was really not happy to tell her, a few minutes ago, that Fogelberg had died of cancer at the age of 56. She started crying. Hard. (This despite the fact that, the one time she ever actually managed to speak to Fogelberg, he was a complete asshole to her.) I felt awful, and weirdly shaken up; my entire life, this guy and his work had such an effect on my mom. It’s almost like someone I know dying.
Once I grew up, I decided that I didn’t really like Fogelberg’s songwriting, though there’s no denying his ability as a musician and singer. His songs were too obvious for me — the sentiments were pretty, but there wasn’t a lot of subtlety to his metaphors.
But there was one of his songs I always kinda liked when I was a kid, though: “Leader Of The Band”, about his father, who was a high school band director. I’ll leave him with that.
The leader of the band is tired And his eyes are growing old But his blood runs through My instrument And his song is in my soul My life has been a poor attempt To imitate the man I’m just a living legacy To the leader of the band
My Cassandra Complex Turns Out To Be Quite Real, Thank You
Remember when the Iraq War started, a few years ago, and Turkey didn’t want to allow us to stage the invasion from our bases in Adana and Inçirlik? And when they suddenly changed their mind, I said — very explicitly — that I believed we’d made a deal with the Turkish government. Specifically, I figured we’d told them once we’d gotten control of Iraq and the heat had died down a bit, we’d allow them to come in and take out the separatist Kurds in northern Iraq — who had our back in both wars, incidentally. (I tried to find the blog post in question on archive.org, but I couldn’t track it down. Damn those database failures.)
Ahem.
Turkish planes bomb northern Iraq in hunt for PKK – Yahoo! News
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq (AFP) – Turkish planes bombed suspected rebel bases in northern Iraq on Sunday, killing one woman, damaging infrastructure and forcing villagers to flee, local officials said. Turkey’s general staff said its warplanes had hit the “regions of Zap, Hakurk and Avasin as well as the Qandil mountains” — known to harbour rear bases of the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The Turkish military said the bombardment began at 1:00 am (2300 GMT Saturday) and all its aircraft had returned safely to base by 4:15 am (0215 GMT Sunday). Artillery continued to pound the targets once the planes left. The raids, which Turkey’s armed forces’ chief said were carried out with US approval and intelligence, were condemned by the Iraqi government, which called in the Turkish ambassador to explain his country’s actions.
Italics mine.
I found out some really interesting shit about US involvement in the whole PKK thing when I was in Turkey. I’m going to do some research and see if I can verify any of it.
But it’s nice to know I was totally right about this, even if nobody believed me or nobody really cares.
links for 2007-12-16
-
“Anyhow, there I was mindin’ my own business, shootin’ the breeze with a couple of buddies of mine from back home, when these five broads come in. ‘Who the fuck are they?’ I ask my pal, Sil. He turns to me and says ‘that’s the Spice Girls – th
-
Awesome burnt-out trashed toy cars.
-
“The solution to protecting the London Underground from terrorist suicide bombers can be summed up in one word: Daleks. One Dalek per tube platform, behind a door at the end. Fit them with cameras and remote controls and run them from Ken Livingstone’s of
-
Nice.
-
Werd.
-
Always worth a read.
CBC.ca Arts – Dances with Wolves actor-musician Floyd Red Crow Westerman dies
CBC.ca Arts – Dances with Wolves actor-musician Floyd Red Crow Westerman dies
Floyd Red Crow Westerman, a U.S. aboriginal activist, actor and folksinger who appeared in the movie Dances with Wolves and performed with Willie Nelson and other musicians, has died. He was 71. Westerman died Thursday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications from leukemia, his son, Richard Tall Bear Westerman, said late Friday. The entertainer appeared in dozens of movies and television shows, including in recurring roles as Uncle Ray Firewalker on Walker, Texas Ranger and George Littlefox on Dharma & Greg. His most memorable movie role was in Kevin Costner’s 1990 Oscar-winning Western epic, Dances with Wolves. He played the Sioux leader Ten Bears, who befriends Costner’s character. A respected musician, Westerman worked with Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, Harry Belafonte, Jackson Browne and others. His debut album, released in 1970, was titled Custer Died For Your Sins. Last year he released A Tribute to Johnny Cash to positive reviews.
Always liked that dude.
New Red State Soundsystem Track — "Clive Owen"
New Red State Soundsystem track, “Clive Owen” (direct link, MP3, 192kbps stereo).
This is an instrumental minimal techno track. It’s a lot of manipulated acoustic and electric Rhodes piano. It sounded like the soundtrack to a scene where Clive Owen is moodily contemplating the future from his future car, so that’s where the title comes from. No Clive Owens were harmed in the making of this track.
(If you like stuff like Trentemoller and The Knife, you’ll probably like this.)
links for 2007-12-14
-
“Students at a middle school in Orange County have been experimenting with what is believed to be a new variation of the choking game, where teens hold their breath and get punched in the chest until they blackout.” Wow. The youth is retarded.
-
Anti-religious stand-up comedy from a middle-aged English dude. Made me grin.
-
Nice to see Cohen, but where the hell is Tom Waits?
RIP, You Pistol-Whippin' Muthafucka
Ike may have been a mean-ass sonofabitch, but — separate from his own personal life — he was a goddamn musical genius.
In his memory, here’s some wallpaper I made a while back:
And whether he’s in Heaven or Hell, I have no doubt that Ike’s keepin’ his pimp hand strong. 😉
Istanbul: City Of Cats Now Available On Volette
Some of you know this, but I’m formally announcing it as of now: I’m serving as the editor-in-chief of Volette, a new and badass travel blog created by my friend and colleague Joe Tangredi. Volette is going to be my kind of travel blog, which means it’s going to be weird and cool and will have, under no circumstances, anything written by earnest Australian backpacker types who haven’t worn pants that reach their knees since the mid-90s. Screw those guys.
We’ve already got some great work up by writers such as NME regular Paolo Hewitt (on the seductive streets of London’s SoHo) and Stine Bauer Dahlberg, our managing editor (who weighs in on Stockholm Oslo, Scandanavia’s new “capitol of cool”).
And today, you can read Volette’s first feature article: “Istanbul: City Of Cats”, by yours truly. It’s an account of my time in Istanbul a few weeks ago, a long piece, and — I think — one of the best pieces I’ve ever written.
We’ll be adding video and pics to the piece in the upcoming days, and there’s a sequel coming very soon, about my trip to Cappadocia. This is a standalone piece, and I hope you really like it.
If you do, please please please link to it. We’d like to appear somewhere in Google, so any linkage you can do from your site or blog will be much appreciated. We’re a small outfit, and we need grassroots support.
So go check it out, and let us know what you think!
It's Been A Long Time Coming
It was this day in 1964 that Sam Cooke was shot and killed in Los Angeles.
He’s most known to people for songs like “Cupid” and “Twistin’ The Night Away”, but I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to suggest that the most important song Cooke ever wrote or recorded was one of the last, “A Change Is Gonna Come”. It remains one of the keystone anthems of the American civil rights movement, and a deeply moving and beautiful song in its own right. This article by Greil Marcus pretty much sums it up.
[Edit: for some reason, my YouTube embed doesn’t seem to be working. Go watch a video of the song here.]
I wonder what Cooke would think if he were alive today — how much of his change he would have actually seen in America.
I was born by the river in a little old tent Oh, and just like that river, I’ve been runnin’ ever since It’s been a long, a long time coming, but I know A change is gonna come Oh, yes it is
It’s been too hard living, but I’m afraid to die ‘Cause I don’t know what’s up there beyond the sky It’s been a long, a long time coming, but I know A change is gonna come
I go to the movies and I go downtown Somebody keeps telling me “Don’t hang around” It’s been a long, a long time coming, but I know A change is gonna come
Then I go to see my brother And I say “Brother, help me please” But he winds up knocking me Back down on my knees
There been times that I thought I couldn’t last for long But somehow I’m able to carry on It’s been a long time, a long time coming But I know a change is gonna come
RIP, brother.