Normally I'd snooze-button right through this kind of thing, but in the interest of exposing myself to every kind of crap news currently in rotation I figured I'd at least take a look at the official announcement of the joyous arrival on Xtina's website.
Turns out she and her husband Jordan Bratman named their new son Max.
Max Bratman?
Jesus -- this kid's only 48-hours old and I guarantee he's already at Canter's Deli trying to send back the corned beef.
Since the inception of this site, I've made no attempt to hide my loathe for what NBC has become. Over the past couple of years, the once proud peacock has been reduced to a shadow of its former venerated self; this is due mostly to mind-bogglingly bad decisions by its arrogant news department head Steve Capus and, most recently, by its frat-boy douchebag of an entertainment chief, Ben Silverman.
I thought I had really beaten NBC up plenty.
Then I watched a portion of last night's "NBC Golden Globes Winners Special" -- about as much as my intestines would allow before threatening to move up through my throat and throttle my brain -- and read this morning's USA Today review of said same.
There's an interesting op-ed in this morning's New York Times, written by the paper's city editor, Clark Hoyt. It attempts to respond to the flood of criticism the Times has received since bringing Iraq war apologist and American Empire proponent Bill Kristol onboard its editorial team. So far, the paper's largely liberal readership has reacted with unrestrained fury to the appointment, regarding it as an attempt by Times Publisher Arthur Sulzburger, Jr. to endear the Times to the conservative crowd and in doing so take their money.
The paper of course calls the decision a matter of journalistic balance, which offers little consolation to those who are sick of seeing Kristol's self-satisfied, Cheshire-Cat-on-Ludes grin plastered all over another news source which regularly proclaims its devotion to "balance": Fox News Channel.
Not long after starting this website, I published a column which attempted to put into perspective the ubiquitous assertion by many on the right that not only is there a "liberal media," but that it's engaged in some kind of nefarious cabal to squash the opinion of Joe Six-Pack, while simultaneously laughing at his simple-minded ignorance.
At the time, I said that I'd seen exactly the opposite; throughout my career, I've watched manager after producer after editor overcompensate to ensure that he or she is never accused of a liberal bias -- often at the expense of any semblance of real objectivity or dedication to the truth. Stories, particularly of a political nature, have often had a right-wing perspective forced upon them, even when one wasn't necessary, simply in an attempt to preemptively quell the perceived ire of a group whose extremist element doesn't want its ire quelled in the first place -- because to lose its "liberal media" boogeyman would be to lose its authority.
In other words, CNN can give Bill Bennett all the airtime he wants -- it won't stop the right from demonizing the network.
Hoyt's op-ed attempts to justify the appointment of Kristol, the son of neo-con architect Irving Kristol, and for the most part the venerable city editor has a point -- somewhat pretentiously articulated of course -- when he insists both that the right deserves a louder voice on the editorial staff and that Kristol doesn't deserve the venom being spewed in his direction by those who pride themselves on being "open-minded" (a fundamental characteristic of the left, by the way, which conservatives have become almost laughably adept at using against it).
But the problem with giving someone like Kristol a voice at the Times -- a paper he once suggested, in classic over-the-top far-right bloviation, should be prosecuted for treason -- is twofold: First of all and once again, it will not in any way win over those who hate the Times and consider it leftist garbage (and trust me, Kristol is shifty enough to figure out a way to both write for the Times and still laugh at it behind its back like a kid on a playground). Secondly, Kristol doesn't have the honest-to-God political credentials that his de facto predecessor, William Safire, had; whereas Safire was a genuine DC heavyweight whose opinion most could respect if not necessarily agree with, Kristol is little more than a fortunate son -- a member of the new self-appointed beltway elite whose credibility stems solely from his high-profile position at a think tank and the generous amount of facetime he gets from Fox News.
In other words, why should anyone really care what he has to say?
The Charlatans could very well be the most underappreciated band to come out of England in the last two decades. Not only were they among the standard-bearers of the Manchester musical revolution at the beginning of the 90s, they've continued to crank out spectacular albums to this day -- their sound seeming to morph into unpredictable territory with each new release. Pick up 2001's Wonderland -- an album which, for me personally, provided an ironically upbeat and groove-laden soundtrack to the chaos and heartache of life in New York City following 9/11 -- then compare it to the late-night chill of 1994's Up to Our Hips, or their most recent release, Simpatico.
Or this -- the song that put the Charlatans on the map: Weirdo.
The Stone Roses
Make no mistake -- I Wanna Be Adored, released in 1989, is one of the best, most enduring songs of the last quarter-century. It's quietly snotty, the perfect precursor to the all-out "Fuck You" bombast of Oasis's breakout hit Supersonic, which would take over the airwaves just a few years later. Ian Brown continues to make excellent music even now -- his solo stuff is fantastic, particularly his work with UNKLE -- but the Roses, who managed to create such an indelible mark on the musical landscape with only two albums, were pure fucking brilliance.
From their second and final album, 1994's Second Coming, here's Love Spreads.
Black Grape
If you haven't seen Michael Winterbottom's vibrant and hysterical film about the birth of the Manchester scene 24 Hour Party People, drop what you're doing immediately, get yourself the DVD and a few hits of ecstasy and enjoy; the experience will tell you everything you need to know about Shaun Ryder. In the late 80s and early 90s, the Happy Mondays were UK rave culture. Ryder and the Mondays all but annihilated themselves and their career at one point by reducing their collective brain to an amorphous blob of Jello. Astonishingly though, they somehow managed to crawl out of their K-hole and continue to make music. The Mondays are back together these days, but for whatever reason, it was always Ryder's short-lived side-project Black Grape -- who released only two records before splitting up -- that really did it for me.
This song is one of my favorites ever. It features a brilliant re-cut of the infamous Ron & Nancy Reagan primetime "Just Say No to Drugs" address from the mid-80s. The words have been rearranged to make the Reagans' message pro-drug-use. (Incidentally, there's a video version of the re-cut speech floating around out there somewhere that's definitely worth getting your hands on if you can. For those who live in L.A., I know it can be found at Rocket Video on La Brea. Everyone else, you're on your own.)
This is Get Higher.
Lush
Call them Dream-pop, Shoegaze, whatever you'd like -- Lush made gorgeous music. Like their contemporaries My Bloody Valentine and the Cocteau Twins, Lush was all swirling guitars and delicate, ethereal vocals. Maybe the most persuasive thing that I can say about them is this: Back in the early 90s, one of my best friends was a long-haired guy who listened to pretty much nothing but Death Metal; the moment he heard Lush for the first time though, he fell completely under their spell and started replacing his ubiquitous black Cannibal Corpse and Napalm Death t-shirts with Lush-wear. This was, needless to say, funny as hell to watch. But such was the hypnotic power of Lush.
While scanning Fark.com this morning I noticed this image in one of their photoshop contests. The challenge was to create "lesser-known patron saints." A user who calls himself Yodacat came up with this.
It's a complete inside joke for Eddie Izzard fans, of whom I count myself among the most rabid.
