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Low Water Opportunities.

Headline:

“Drought Sends Mississippi Into “Uncharted Territory”

Um…. Since the water level is so low, this would be a GREAT time to fix some of those old dilapidated levees we’re rightly concerned about.

I’m just saying.

YouTube Banter – The Hazards Of Listening To Tommy Emmanuel.

the only thing i learned from this masterclass is how bad i suck? at guitar.

Everyone who saw this threw their guitars out? the window.

and someone else? got hit buy a guitar flying out a window.

And finally…

A bunch of guitars saw this and threw their players out the window….

Which is why I hide my guitar when watching Tommy Emmanuel videos!

Coming Soon

Guest blogger / movie reviewer Cinesnacth.

The Persistence Of Fame (and a smattering of YouTube Banter)

Ever heard of Sixto Rodriguez? Neither had I. But his album 1970 debut album “Cold Fact” apparently did not ever completely go away. Oh, it never took hold as a music masterpiece here in the United States, but apparently it was HUGE in apartheid South Africa, where the themes of political and racial injustice struck a nerve with the populace. Sold more copies there than Abbey Road! He was more popular than Elvis! And he never knew it! Unfortunately, he died on stage… Or committed suicide….

Well, that is what his South African audience thought. There were tons of rumors about Rodriguez dying in some rock-n-roll fashion. But it wasn’t the case. After a couple of years, he simply dropped away from the music business. Swedish filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul, searching for a captivating topic for a documentary project, stumbled upon this story, stumbled across this story and knew he struck pay-dirt. The documentary “Searching For Sugarman” is being released this month, and it sounds like a wonderful film.

The movie presents Rodriguez as a figure of mystery who is assumed to have died, perhaps onstage, in a dramatic fashion. Only thanks to the persistence of South African fans and the burgeoning Internet was he finally located in the 1990s alive and well in Detroit, living humbly as a father of three daughters who had earned a living through non-music work like construction. His lifestyle was so spartan and simplified, the film reveals, that he didn’t even have a phone.

That’s the story that Swedish director Malik Bendjelloul stumbled onto when he quit his TV job and traveled the globe for six months in search of potential movie topics. Once he heard about Rodriguez, his late introduction to his own fame and his eventual triumphant visit to South Africa, he was off on a four-year mission to make “Searching for Sugar Man.” (The title references a song called “Sugar Man” on Rodriguez’s 1970 “Cold Fact” album.)

“I was like, this is the best story I’ve ever heard in my life or that I’m ever, ever, going to hear. I was like, no way. It was a beautiful, beautiful story,” says Bendjelloul.

The director was able to convince a hesitant Rodriguez to participate in the film, meeting him for the first time in 2008 and eventually coming to Detroit about a half-dozen times.

“He (said), ‘Malik, you already have interviews with all the other people. You don’t need me. I’m not important,’ ” says Bendjelloul. “I was like, ‘It’s your film, it’s your story.’ ‘Yeah, but you already have so much from the others.’ He’s a guy who used to perform with his back to the audience. He’s a private man.”

For all these years Rodriguez live in obscurity, but none-the-less doing what he considered important work for his Detroit community and beyond as a construction worker and a political activist. While he did play a number of gigs in 1981 with Australia’s up and coming band Midnight Oil, he didn’t play outside his beloved Detroit until the late 2000’s. He chose to live his obscure life, and he like it that way. Well, that is going to be more difficult now. Fame has finally caught up to him. He will appear on Letterman this month.

Here is one of his songs from Cold Fact, Sugarman.

And there is some good YouTube banter too!

“The BBC brought me here actually.
This sounds? like a Bond opening. I love it.”

On those who registered “dislikes” on the YouTube post:

14 people have never smoked? weed

I thing this is an even better song:

So, I end this post with a question: When I finally get my solo album finished and released, I wonder which country I’ll become world famous in????

Hat Tip: NBCNEWS

PS. My older brother has gone on tour with several pretty well known recording artists, such as the Church and Tripping Daisy. He went on tour a couple of times with Gilby Clark, the guy who had replaced Izzy Straton in Guns and Roses for a short time. “Gibly” as he is lovingly referred to, was at one point on tour with the revived Aerosmith in Brazil. Apparently Gilby is bigger there than the much better known American juggernaut. So yeah, even though American and Europe are the sweet spots as far as the record industry is concerned, there is world out there full of music, and ready to embrace those artists the west would so quickly throw away.

Romney / Ryan – First Thoughts……… And “Shirtless” UPDATES X 3.

I just got back from a weekend camping in the high Sierras. Haven’t had a chance to digest the news that Paul Ryan was tapped as Mitt Romney’s running mate. My initial reaction is positive. I think Ryan is a strong Conservative politician. He’s smart, likable, and, so important this time around, has shown no propensity to be a loose cannon. I’m grateful Romney did not pick an uber-social conservative. Ryan’s a good Tea Party-ish candidate – focused on fiscal policy, not so much on social. Interestingly enough, that adds to my observation that the defining issues that divide Romney and Obama will be clearer than one could have predicted a year ago, as the Republican camp has ties itself to financial matters, and the Democrat ticket is reaching for a social agenda to try and eek out a victory. It will be interesting to see if the addition of Ryan can finally give Romney a sustained lead in the next few months.

UPDATE: There are some that are saying that, with the choice of Paul Ryan, the Culture War is far from a dead issue on that side of the political fence. Michelle Goldberg says this:

Less attention has been paid, though, to Ryan’s hard-right positions on social issues. Indeed, on abortion and women’s health care, there isn’t much daylight between Ryan and, say, Michele Bachmann. Any Republican vice-presidential candidate is going to be broadly anti-abortion, but Ryan goes much further. He believes ending a pregnancy should be illegal even when it results from rape or incest, or endangers a woman’s health. He was a cosponsor of the Sanctity of Human Life Act, a federal bill defining fertilized eggs as human beings, which, if passed, would criminalize some forms of birth control and in vitro fertilization. The National Right to Life Committee has scored his voting record 100 percent every year since he entered the House in 1999. “I’m as pro-life as a person gets,” he told The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack in 2010. “You’re not going to have a truce.”

I admit I also have not paid much attention to Ryan regarding the social agenda. If the Romney / Ryan team don’t get the sustained bounce they hope for, will they be forced to fall back on the social agenda? Given that no one can sway with certainty exactly what the views are of the ever malleable Romney, does Ryan solidify that aspect of the campaign?

UPDATE 2: There are a few Democrats who are not demogoging and vilifying Ryan’s budget plan.

Yes, that would be Erksine Bowles, of the Bowles / Simpson debt reduction plan. He still thinks his plan is better, as do I, but he’s not out there claiming Ryan ants to kill seniors and starve babies. That just gets so old after a while.

UPDATE # 3: Ann Althouse notes that the one thing people want to know about Paul Ryan more than anything is….

What he looks like shirtless!

Here You Go!!!!!!

OK. OK. Yes, it’s a fake! But hey. It’s closer than the other picture I was going to post!

Good News Everyone! SCO Is Dead!!!!!

Yep! PJ over at Groklaw posted the news this morning! They’re filing for Chapter 7!

Of course, they STILL want to go to court to fight a losing battle with IBM, a company that will crush it legally if that ever happened! I’m thinking the judge will say “no” to this one…. But then, there have been so many times in the last nine years where you thought this case was D. E. D. dead, and it kept coming back. So I’m not going to place any bets.

But…. But… It’s Not Torture!

It’s enhanced discipline!

It’s not torture, it’s a survival skill… Dad was simply training his daughter to survive in case she was captured by the Delaware Terrorists!

YouTube Banter…. I’m Not Lion!

“my lion style is stronger then your lion? style”

“let’s see here. your? wearing BLACK&WHITE hmmmmm…ZEBRA!!!!!!”

And finally:

“The lion did not see any lion form in your martial arts, so it decided? to attack you.
Lion: “I see a pig, die mother F&*%#4”

Romney v Obama – A Potential Crisis In The Making!

I know the election is still a few month off, but there is something on the horizon that no one is talking about, a gigantic California sized fly in the ointment, as it were – it’s the push for electoral college reform, and what this election might mean for that movement.

Before I go on, let me state the blindingly obvious – President Obama is going to CRUSH Mitt Romney out here in California. There is absolutely no question about it. It’s as sure a bet as any in politics.

Now that that is out of the way….

The election is a mere four months away. Seeing that the poll numbers for both candidates have been fairly static, and neither has yet to pull out a big lead, either Mitt Romney or Barrack Obama could win the popular vote, more than likely on a small margin. At this point at last, I’ve seen most of the analysis of the electoral vote favoring the incumbent. This means, if everything stays the same – ceteris paribus – there is a decent chance that election could mirror the 2000 election, where the winner of the electoral vote did not get the majority of the popular vote.

Meanwhile, there has been a movement afoot in the form of the National Popular Vote bill, which would in certain instances nullify the electoral college nullify the popular vote within each state. The idea is that, if one candidate wins the national popular vote but loses the electoral vote in any state that has signed on to the agreement, that state would nullify the will of the voters in that state and cast its electoral votes for the winner of the popular vote en toto.

Yes, Rachel. It IS a horrible idea. And, of course, just about a year ago California signed on to this folly. It was appealing to many in this liberal state because of the Bush / Gore debacle of 2000, where the favored liberal won the popular vote but lost the electoral college (and please, lets not get into the stolen election fallacy, as Gore would have lost the electoral vote had the count continued in the way he wanted). But, what the Democrat politicians of this state didn’t think about, it appears, is what would happen if if the party affiliation were reversed! And the election of 2012 might just bring that result, with Obama winning the electoral vote but Romney winning the national popular vote!

Can you imagine the uproar in this strange state if the Democrat Obama had his overwhelming electoral victory in California nullified by this law and instead the state handed over to the despised EVIL gay hating Romney????

If the Topsy-Turvy election result do come to pass in this election, and Romney wins the popular vote but loses the electoral count, expect California to divert all money from the high speed rail project in order to build a time machine and undo this bit of foolishness on their part.

You know, in the sonogram….

….When it looks like your male baby is really well hung???

Hat Tip: The Atlantic.

PS. Yes, it is an optical illusion…. Or at least I hope so!!!