Dog man star
6 hours ago
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
'As Tall As Cliffs'
Margot and the Nuclear So & So's - As Tall as cliffs - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.
Shambollocks loves jam sessions, cities at night, and messy sing-a-longs. Margot and the Nuclear So & So's give us all of that in this wee in the morning performance. I especially love the maracas played against a Makers bottle.
'Stronger Than Jesus'
The band is called A Camp. The song is 'Stronger Than Jesus'. It is the first single from their next album. The album drops Feb. 2, 2009, and will be called Colonia. Very much dig the song with its mid-70s MOR feel, and a video which harkens back to the very early days of music videos.
Plus, I like hot blondes.
Found- Chromewaves.
Dumbest. Politician. Ever. (UPDATED)
2008 just keeps giving for me, politically. The Republicans were marched out of office last month. This morning at 6:15 AM, federal agents knocked on the North Side Statehouse of one Governor Rod Blagojevich (Boy Blunder to Shambollocks readers), and arrested him for going on "a political corruption crime spree" (words of U.S. Attny Patrick Fitzgerald). Huzzah!
From early reports, it appears Boy Blunder was auctioning off the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Obama to the taker whose bid best accommodated Rod and Patty financially. He was doing this up through this weekend, despite reports that he was under audio surveillance on the front page of the CHICAGO TRIBUNE! Wow, really Trib, nobody pays any attention to you. Don't think this rotten stew could get any better? He was racking his brain for a way to appoint himself to the Senate seat, thereby avoiding the threat of impeachment and prepping himself for a, sit down, run for the President in 2016!
Hahahahaha...oh yeah, I'm at the keyboard.
Illinois is an open sewer. I wonder how this will reflect on Obama, whose staff has many connections to Boy Blunder. I wonder if George Ryan will now get a new bunkmate. Is Daley next on Fitzgerald's hitlist?
Find news of this developing story here.
Illinois-Where the Governor's pension includes room and board on the Fed's dime.
- Here is fine piece from Chicago in February which gives some deep background on Boy Blunder's problems.
[Dick] Mell [Boy Blunder's father-in-law and mentor] insists that he largely kept his big ego in check during the campaign, but in the aftermath of the November election, he began to feel as if he were getting the cold shoulder from Blagojevich. His phone calls weren't returned. He was left out of meetings. His nominees for state jobs got rejected. His advice was ignored.
Tempers flared outright a couple of months into Blagojevich's term, over something seemingly trivial: office stationery. Mell's office had printed Blagojevich's name on the alderman's 33rd Ward letterhead, an inappropriate link to the governor. Blagojevich was furious, but instead of calling Mell, he ordered one of his close advisers, Christopher Kelly, to handle it. Mell says Kelly summoned him to the East Bank Club and announced: "The governor's really pissed off." Asked why, Kelly shot back: "The stationery—it's got his name on it!"
Recalling the incident today, Mell grows animated, and his voice rises: "He sends that asshole Kelly to reprimand me about stationery! He's my son-in-law—pick up the goddamn telephone and call me." Adding to Mell's sense of insult, the governor's office sent him a cease-and-desist letter. (Attempts to reach Kelly were unsuccessful.)
The first rule of a spouse is don't piss off the in-laws. I've only been married two months and I know that. And if your father-in-law happens to be one of the ten most powerful people in the state and your political base, you might want to walk on egg shells. But not our testicularly vital (his words) Boy Blunder. He took that as a cue and alientated everyone.
Better learn how to make friends now, Rod. Sure helps in the prison showers.
Does God Love SUVs?
The above picture is from yesterday's Times. What are they thinking? One of Detroit's problems is that they make cars America doesn't want. What, is God going to buy them?
Pentecostal Bishop Charles H. Ellis III, who shared the sanctuary’s wide altar with three gleaming sport utility vehicles, closed his sermon by leading the choir and congregants in a boisterous rendition of the gospel singer Myrna Summers’s “We’re Gonna Make It” as hundreds of worshipers who work in the automotive industry — union assemblers, executives, car salesmen — gathered six deep around the altar to have their foreheads anointed with consecrated oil.Oy vey! First, God doesn't care what happens with the auto industry. Second, the Big Three are not a governmental welfare agency. They are a business. And they don't want to change. Declare bankruptcy, dump your high-salaried corporate boobs, and restructure your legacy costs.
God helps those who help themselves.
'Little Dealer Boy'
Willie Nelson and Stephen Colbert provide us with the holiday hit of the season- 'Little Dealer Boy'. Enjoy.
And let mankind not bogard love, indeed!
Sesame Street Christmas 1978
With all the troubles that we're going through right now, I know we all can use a good smile. Here is 'Christmas Eve on Sesame Street' from 1978. I was for sure too young to remember this airing, being all of 11 months old. I'm sure my sister Michelle watched it. She had a Sesame Street playset that I loved when I got a couple years older. Really brings me back to plenty of wonderful Xmases on Springfield Ave. My mother would clip out the holiday listings from the Tribune's TV Guide, and my sisters and I planned our December viewing around the Grinch, Charlie Brown, Frosty the Snowman, and (maybe one year) this.
The cast we grew up with is all here- Bob, Maria, Gordon, Susan, Luis, David, Linda, and Mr. Hooper (!!). And Snuffalupagus!
You can watch the rest of the special right here.
Rhetorical questions- How does Oscar see where he's walking with no eye holes in his can? With no money, do I want to know how Bert and Ernie make rent each month? How come Big Bird was always getting himself lost?
- Want more retro Christmas treats? Get yourself over to BetaMaXmas right now! Awesome site that collects a bunch of our childhood Xmas specials.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Sign 'O The Times
The above picture comes from Sunday's New York Times. Republic Window and Doors on the North Side of Chicago closed its doors on Friday. Except the workers haven't left. Some of them occupied the factory all weekend. Good for them.
The workers, members of Local 1110 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, said they were owed vacation and severance pay and were not given the 60 days of notice generally required by federal law when companies make layoffs.And where are the jobs going? Of course, overseas. Republic owed money to Bank of America, late of the Paulson bailout, which stopped Republic from giving its employees the back pay they were owed.
“Here the banks like Bank of America get a bailout, but workers cannot be paid?” said Leah Fried, an organizer with the union workers. “The taxpayers would like to see that bailout go toward saving jobs, not saving C.E.O.’s.”We sure would, but I'm not going to start holding my breath. We know with whom the politicians go to dinner, and it isn't us. We need to celebrate the collective action of workers again. We need unions in this country, again. Someone has to speak for the needs of labor when the spoils are divied in Washington.
- Why did I pull the Republic story from the Times, and not the Tribune? Great question. Energizing redesign notwithstanding, the Trib sucks. I subscribe to it because I always have.
Today, the Tribune announced it was filing for bankruptcy. I still can't get over it. Sure, the paper will still run, and 'GN will remain on the airwaves, but the TRIBUNE CO. filed for BANKRUPTCY!!? The largest media company in Chicago, the owner of the Chicago Cubs, is BANKRUPT? Wow. I never thought there would be a time when the Trib didn't exist. But it is coming. The end of the newspaper era is upon us. The place where nearly every writer got started, the urban daily, will soon cease to exist. As both a writer and newspaper lover, I can't help but get a little misty.
And scared. What will replace newspapers? Who will speak truth to power?
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