Right, so I pretty much abandoned this lil corner of the interwebs a long time ago. Will I boot it back up again? Perhaps, I've said I would plenty of times. Until then, you can still find me elsewhere online (if you care to do so):
Apologies for the unofficial hiatus here @ The Big Ticket. Weddings, birthdays & shows galore have come & gone, and yet Keith Olbermann has remained atop the page. Ugh. Anyway, here's a teaser for the 5th & final season of HBO's The Wire, whose way-too-good-for-the-Emmys 4th season DVD will be in stores December 4th. Season 5 premieres on HBO January 6th, 2008. The theme song, performed this year by Wire guest star Steve Earle, also appears on Earle's new album Washington Square Serenade, in stores tomorrow.
While my favorite band may be defunct for now (though offshoot Sam Champion is likely on the rise), I finally uploaded this old recording of them to YouTube...
Good Book, Remember My Address, Not So Mopso, Skin and Bone, Ghetto Queen*, My One Dear Son, Sad and Lonesome, For Some Time, Carbombed Again, I'm Not Orfeo, It's So Hard (Believe Me), Loves It Automatic, I'm Comin' Correct, Bye Bye Love**, Bought and Sold***, Tampa in the Rain***, I Wanna Rock****, Buy Sell or Break***, Eggo, Ivy***, Ring in the Sand
E: Whenever You Can, Modern Day Cowboy, Baby's Got a New Bike, This Machine
This was the record release party for RANA's debut album, Here in the USA. The first 11 songs in the set (ending with It's So Hard) were the album in its entire sequence. Todd Deatherage Band, Darediablo and Plan Z opened.
* - the rap section was "Hot in Herre" (Nelly) ** - Cars cover, first time played *** - new originals, first time played **** - dedicated to Durant's father
It's been almost three months since I began writing this post, which was to commemorate the third blogiversary here @ The Big Ticket (previous years' posts: 2005 & 2006), but the ensuing craziness that has come with moving into a new apartment this month (COUGARS!) & the delay in getting proper internets set up there has kept me from actually getting around to finishing it. But today is the day, it has to be. So let's celebrate!
From La Blogoteque's abfab Take Away Shows series comes this simple yet cinematic birthday tune from Swedish troubadour Jens Lekman (the song is off his 2004 album, When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog). The quiet, more somber tone of this song, played to an empty room, probably gives a better impression of my approach to finally returning to finish this post. I regret abandoning the blog for so long, but alas life sometimes gets in the way.
MP3Tweeds - "I Need That Record" This high energy track from some band called Tweeds leads off the solid Numero power-pop compilation Yellow Pills: Prefill, and it's a pretty decent sonic representation of that desperate, all-consuming need to hear the latest music, see the newest movies & tv etc that preoccupies media junkies like yours truly and propels us to express our excitement/emotioins about it - in my case through this now semi-fallow website that I've managed to keep running into its fourth year of existence. And honestly, I really want to get it back up & running on a regular basis more than just about anything right now.
Since I last wrote on this blog, the Channel 101 VH1 offshoot Acceptable.TV has already come and gone (though rumblings about a possible second season are encouraging). I am dumbfounded that I could have kept quiet about a project I was so excited about for so long, but alas that's what happened. It's frustrating. I often have a lot of trouble moving from 0 to 1, getting started & following through, a topic well-covered by zefrank at the start of the show's final week (the day after my blog b-day):
So while this isn't the perfect, well-thought out & thematically well-written post that I probably imagined/hoped it would be, I've decided to just put it up nonetheless. Yeah, I could have gone more in-depth on zefrank's musings on creativity, and possibly tied that to the interactive & inventive stuff going on at Channel 101 @ Acceptable.TV, and finally brought it all together to express my renewed hopes for this blog & my work on it, but then I probably would have stayed stuck on 0 like I have for nearly three months, biding my time until I finally got around to working it all out. So here it is, sloppy as hell, but at least it's something new, even if it's also kinda old.
MP3Bishop Allen - "Click Click Click Click" The nite preceding my blog b-day, I went by my lonesome to see NYC indie pop outfit Bishop Allen @ Triple Rock, which was good times indeed (hell, I bought all 12 of their 2006 monthly EP's). There are some more pix from the show @ my Flickr, but none of them are too astounding. Tonite I'm off to the Triple Rock again, this time to see the re-united original line-up of Dinosaur Jr with Anita, and I'll do my best to take some more dynamic photos this time around (assuming I can get up front without a major hassle). I don't know when I'll be able to get those pix uploaded or manage to post a re-cap of the show, as my internet situation is still in limbo, but I'll do my best not to be absent for so long again...
On an entirely different note, some of Sunday's best lefty political blogstuff from Gleen Greenwald:
Democrats have to internalize that this administration does not operate like previous ones. No rational person can doubt that they are limitless in their contempt for legal restrictions or notions of checks and balances. The last election, by itself, has not changed their approach and will do not so. They are not going to voluntarily comply with anything or disclose anything. They are going to have to be forced to do so.
And televised, highly publicized confrontations over the administration's hubris and arrogance and utter contempt for our legal institutions and political traditions is not something to be avoided. It is something we desperately need as a country. Issue subpoenas for all of this information, make them defy the subpoenas, and then demand that courts compel compliance. Create media dramas in which the administration fights to maintain full-scale secrecy around all of its legally dubious and extreme behavior. Americans hate hubris of that sort and do not trust this administration. Those are fights they cannot win.
But Ann Coulter and her vicious tongue has been a huge star on the right since her first vomitous anti-Clinton screed. That was ten years ago. She's been receiving riotous ovations at conservative meetings for years. Rush Limbaugh has been blowing his bile for even longer and he too is a highly respected member of the GOP establishment. The annual CPAC gathering has been selling items like "Happiness is Hillary's face on a milk carton" and "Muslim = Terrorist" bumper stickers like they were going out of style since they started.
This hideous face of the Republican Party has been obvious to those of us who have been paying attention for a long, long time. It is the single most important reason why our politics have devolved into a filthy grudge match.
For a long time liberals were paralyzed or indifferent as the GOP demonized liberalism as the root of every problem and pathology in American society. We were derided as unamerican, treasonous and evil. After the congressional harrassment of the 90's, the partisan impeachment, the puerile coverage of campaign 2000 and the resulting installation of a Republican president under very dubious circumstances, Democrats of all stripes heard both the Republicans and the media smirking at our outrage and telling us to "get over it."
And all of this was after Bill Clinton had moved the party to the center, had governed as a bipartisan compromiser and the Republicans impeached him anyway. Clearly, the Democratic party was blind if they didn't take the Republicans at their threatening words.
Do yourselves a favor & give both posts a full read.
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