Mika Brzezinski bikini pics?

Da Tech Guy has a sick, twisted imagination. If Rule 5 is matter, Mika Brzezinski is anti-matter.

Why is it that, no matter how often the Savonarola of the right-wing blogosphere tries to lead by example, some of you evil-minion wannabe types need to be told things like this?

If you want to see first-class evil minionship, check out Nice Deb, with her super-fine photo of Pimpin' James and Kenya the Ho.

Let's face it, James O'Keefe is the biggest Mack Daddy who ever turned a girl out. And Hannah Giles . . . Dude. If Hannah's all about the Benjamins, Mika Brzezinski is all about the nickles and dimes.

What does Da Tech Guy have in common with ACORN? They're both nuts.

Da Tech Guy disses me, so naturally Jim Treacher don't give me no respect:

I was going to say something a bit saucy about Hannah Giles, but she's a black belt and her dad is a big-game hunter. So I'll just say that fearless investigative journalism has never looked this good.

Right. Like I never looked good. But when I was Hannah's age, Jimmy Carter was president and the unemployment rate was nearly as high as the inflation rate, but neither was as high as the interest rate. The only thing I was interested in investigating was how to sneak into my girlfriend's dorm room.

Hannah is involved in an organization called Young America's Foundation. Back in 1980, I was involved in a very popular youth organization called Garage Rock Band, which had at least three different chapters on the campus of Jacksonville (Ala.) State University alone.

Al Gore hadn't invented the Internet yet. A computer was something the size of my '72 Dodge Dart and was operated with little IBM cards that said "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate." So it's not exactly my fault I wasn't an overnight celebrity when I was 20.

If I'm beginning to sound like my father explaining to me what it was like to grow up on a dirt farm in Randolph County, Alabama, during the Great Depression, OK. Used to be, conservatives believed in traditional values.

Which was why I was never a young conservative. Baby, I'm the greatest musical has-been that never was:

I come up hard, baby, but now I'm cool.
I didn't make it sugar, playin' by the rules . . .

James O'Keefe is 25. When I was 25, I was making $5.25 an hour driving a forklift in a warehouse on Fulton Industrial Boulevard in Atlanta, trying to save up to buy a P.A. system to start my own band.

Haywood's Recording Studios in the West End had the best deal on eight-track time ($25 an hour, not including reel-to-reel master or cassette duplicates). So an eight-hour session cost more than my after-tax paycheck from two 40-hour weeks, and I worked as much overtime on that forklift as I could get.

The band . . . ah, well, it never turned out to be what I'd hoped. We practiced a lot, played a few parties, a few free outdoor concerts, but the guitar player and the bass player were more into their girlfriends than they were into the music. One day at practice, it all finally blew up, and it was just me and the drummer left. But I guess I've told most of that story before.

Nowadays, my old P.A. speakers are in my 16-year-old twin sons' bedroom, part of a makeshift guitar amp setup powered by a Marshall head. because the one boy thinks he's James Hetfield one day and John Frusciante the next. Whatever. He's no Steve Gaines. The other boy prefers acoustic. But they've been playing for three years, and I never even started playing guitar until I was 16. So who knows?

This afternoon, I dialed the phone number of a guy I was sure had forgotten me, but I was wrong.

"How could I ever forget you, man?" Haywood Tucker said. "You had some good tunes."

He's living in Mableton now, and runs his pro digital studio out of his house. We talked about the old days, and he remembered meeting my wife years ago, after I'd finally given up the music and started a family.

"Wow, I guess your kids are about all grown up now?" I asked. Yes, he said, and boasted that his daughter seems to have inherited his musical talent, writing songs for top groups. I told him my oldest was 20, junior in college, planning to be a teacher.

"That's good -- we need good teachers," Haywood said. I explained that both my boys play guitar, but lot more like Metallica than the kind of funk-rock fusion I was trying to get back in the '80s.

He congratulated me when I told him I'd been working as a Washington journalist for so mnay years, and I said, "Well, it's OK, I guess . . ."

It was a "blessing" to hear from me, he said, and at one point in our conversation, he said, "Well, the Lord knows who you are. Don't worry about all that other stuff."

Really, why should I worry? Still, I asked him if, next time he and his family said grace, they'd mention my name. You can never have too much of that.

UPDATE: The O'Keefe/O'Toole error noted by the copy desk commenters has been corrected.

As long as Franz Ferdinand steers clear of the Balkans, we're OK

by Smitty

A great new band merits a post. They're listed as "alternative", because they're all over the map from simple pop, to danceable, to electronic, to thrashy. That's because they reek of raw talent, good artistic chemistry, and fun. Here is a sampling:

No You Girls, unplugged in the stairwell.

The release version forbids embedding, but has a decidedly danceable groove.

On Conan O'Brien, they do You're What She Came For which is a straightforward pop track until about the last minute when they go for some straight-ahead thrash.

Lucid Dreams is a more danceable piece, but they go for about four minutes of a synthesizer exploration that really works. Normally, electronica doesn't do much for me. Like thrash, that kind of noodling often seems an apology for other artistic shortcomings. But they've bought enough respect elsewhere to make this a nice palate cleanser.

Live, their sound's a trifle less polished, to good effect. Here they cover Blondie Call Me w/Elly (?) and their sound has just a hint of Sabbath, with foppish costuming via Bowie:

'Cause I'm the King of Rock 'n' Roll

Just a hunk, a hunk of burnin' love, baby.

UPDATE: My son Bob challenges the King.

VIDEO: HOT YOUNG SUSAN BOYLE!

Wow! The backup group is crappy, but she clearly had something back in 1984:

Hat-tip: Hot Air Headlines.

The woman who, in middle age, sprang to stardom on "Britain Got Talent," was a very polished performer at age 22 but, for whatever reason, never got a break. This kind of situation -- the undiscovered talent -- is really more common than might be imagined by people who aren't in the music business.

I used to know a bartender in Georgia who was a tremendous R&B singer. At one point, he had been under contract as singer for the group that eventually became famous as the Atlanta Rhythm Section. For whatever reason -- he told me the story, but I've forgotten now -- it just didn't work out, and he never really got another shot.

UPDATE: 'Lanches, light the corners of my mind . . .

UPDATE II: Some commenters are saying that Susan Boyle's thick eyebrows explain her lack of '80s stardom. Let me remind you of something:


That's Brooke Shields on the cover of German Vogue in 1984, when thick eyebrows on women were all the rage. Well, Susan Boyle's eyes weren't quite as startling and her mouth wasn't quite as pouty as Brooke's, and so everybody in the comments is saying that Susan didn't become a singing star 25 years ago because she needed a pair of tweezers. I think the explanation is otherwise, but I'm waiting for someone else to tell me what it is.

UPDATE III: OK, some of you guys in the comments (talking about the fact that there 5,000 musical geniuses waiting tables and driving forklifts in Nashville) are getting closer to the truth about the situation. Now check out my attempt to explain why Susan Boyle went undiscovered.

All great rock music was recorded by the time John Bonham died

That is all the "rock music criticism" anyone under 40 needs to know. Anything recorded after Sept. 25, 1980, is therefore not great rock music.

As to this silly dispute over '80s "hair bands" vs. '90s "grunge," it's like debating which was the better painter, de Kooning or Pollock. Neither one had any talent, so who cares?

UPDATE: James Joyner weighs in, prompting his commenter Bernard Finel to say of my argument: "I think this is probably the single dumbest thing ever posted anywhere in the history of the internet."

Don't be too sure of that, Bernie. I've written more 3,900 posts here. Surely you could find something dumber. If not, there's always tomorrow . . .

Instapundit does . . . show tunes?

In linking to a story about Larry Summers allegedly screwing up the Harvard endowment, we find Professor Glenn Reynolds employing the phrase, "The country's in the very best of hands."

Having starred, at age 14, as Pappy Yokum in the Douglas County (Ga.) High School production of the Broadway musical "Li'l Abner," I recognize this as the title of a song (by Johnny Mercer and Gene de Paul) from that show:

The Treasury says the national debt
Is climbing to the sky
And govermnent expenditures
Have never been so high.
It makes a feller get
A gleam of pride within his eye,
To see how our economy expands,
The country's in the very best of hands.

Now, it is a matter of fact that I majored in drama, so I've got an excuse for knowing lots of Broadway lyrics. But Professor Reynolds is a law grad. What's up with that, Dr. Helen? I mean:

• When you started dating him, did you notice any Judy Garland posters at his apartment?
• Does he download Streisand on his iPod?
• If you happen to be in a department store when the Muzak plays a Rodgers and Hammerstein tune, do you hear him muttering under his breath, ". . . and 6, 7, 8 -- kick -- 2, 3, 4"?
• When guests arrive at your house, does the professor greet them by saying, "Wilkommen, bienvenue, welcome?"

NTTAWWT. I'm so unmistakably macho that I don't mind bursting into an occasional a capella rendition of "Til There Was You." And I believe John Podhoretz has been known to cite "The Street Where You Live." But if the professor is A Guy Who Likes Show Tunes, he needs to come out of the closet about it, don't you think?

". . . our favorite American group, Sophie Tucker."

UPDATE: Welcome, Insty readers! Yes, the armchair psychologists like to accuse us Guys Who Like Show Tunes of overcompensating by swaggering displays of heterosexuality. Insty married Dr. Helen to quell those whispers in the faculty lounge, and I'm a happily married father of six kids who feels compelled to follow up his Chorus Boy camp routine by gratuitous babe-blogging. (Click that link, you sissies -- I dare you!)

UPDATE II: In the comments, the irrepressible Kathy Shaidle -- who's working her diminuitive self to exhaustion trying to get deported from Canada as a one-woman human rights violation -- informs us that Mark Steyn is all about the show tunes. Which may explain why he didn't appreciate the irony of this lame gag. Or worse yet, maybe he did appreciate it. (Foghorn Leghorn: "That's a joke, son! A joke, ah say!")

UPDATE III: Moe Lane manages to work in a sly Ghostbusters allusion. Yeah, he's thinking it's Oscar night, and Bill Murray got ripped that year -- not even nominated!

Ready for 'hip-hop Republicans'?

Michael Steele thinks you are:

Newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele plans an "off the hook" public relations offensive to attract younger voters, especially blacks and Hispanics, by applying the party's principles to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings."
The RNC's first black chairman will “surprise everyone” when updating the party's image using the Internet and advertisements on radio, on television and in print, he told The Washington Times.

Did somebody say, "off the hook"?

Now you asked me, baby,
Say, what's my name?
I said I go by the name
Of Stacy McCain
And I'm the best --
I'm the creme de la creme!
My friends are all jealous
'Cause I'm better than them.
I'm a master of the amorous arts,
A well-known breaker
Of the ladies' hearts.
I been breakin' hearts
From coast to coast.
I'm in the Guinness Book of Records
'Cause I broke the most.

Now, it's time to introduce you
To my man Mike.
He's a free-stylin' daddy
Like I know you'll like.
Gonna bring some magic action
To the GOP.
With some super satisfaction
From the RNC.
Democrats ain't that
'Cause they can't bring the funk
Like Mike excites the night
With the elephant's trunk.

Now, let me hear you cheer
The American Dream!
From Maryland, our chairman's
Gonna make you scream.
Like the Reagan Revolution
And like in '94,
Mike's got the Right solution
That you want some more.
See the fact is that your taxes
Are still way too high.
And Obama?
Mama, that Democrat
Is gonna drain you dry.

Now I could keep on syncopatin'
'Til the break of dawn,
But the time for celebratin'
Will be later on.
And just in case you missed it,
Ladies, let's be clear:
Mike's number is unlisted
But the party's right here,
With a hiphop chairman
At the RNC,
He's a mojo repairman --
And you heard it from me!
Is that fresh? Is it def?
Is my jive signified?
Baby, I just bring the beats.
I hiphop. You decide.

Overnight music video

For some unfathomable reason, Smitty posted this video on my Facebook wall:

So we might as well have a video music fest. "My Sharona":

How 'bout some Beatles?

Since we seem to be in pure power-pop mode here, how about some Nick Lowe?

From power-pop to harmolodic funk. Here's a rare cut, Bell & James, "You Never Know What You've Got," 1978:

Did somebody say "funk"? Baby, let's bring the beats -- Heatwave, "Grooveline":

Aw, now you got me in that Old School groove, gotta hit the kickspin with some Brothers Johnson,"Stomp":

Yeah, the crowd screams, "One more! One more!" Better get ready to get up and jam, 'cause this one's the last groove of the night -- Gap Band, "Early in the Morning":

An odd hatred

For some odd reason, Ron Rosenbaum unleashes a torrent of abuse at Billy Joel. I don't know why. Billy Joel was never a personal favorite of mine, but "schlock 'n' roll" seems unduly harsh.

Musically, he is versatile and clever, for example the Four Seasons send-up of "Uptown Girl" and the straight-out rock of "You May Be Right" are adequate rebuttals of the attempt of critics to pigeonhole him as a syrupy balladeer. The lyrics of "Only the Good Die Young" are extraordinarily well-crafted:

You got a nice white dress
And a party on your confirmation.
You got a brand new soul
And a cross of gold.
But Virginia they didn't give you
Quite enough information.
You didn't count on me
When you were counting on your rosary.

Perhaps it is the well-crafted quality of Joel's music -- and the high production values of the recordings -- that offends Rosenberg, who professes himself an admirer of Dylan and Springsteen.

It's the "authenticity" trip again, a marked tendency of certain intellectuals to prefer rock music that has such "street cred" trappings as hoarse vocals and a sloppy spontaneity. This is kind of like the marked preference of intellectuals in the 1950s and '60s for jazz that was bebop, rebop or otherwise avante-garde. You can go back and read ridiculously pretentious critics debating "hot" vs. "cool" jazz and so forth. The one thing they agreed on was their disdain for the smooth arrangements and pop sensibilities of classic Big Band jazz.

"Anything, so long as it's not popular" seems to be the critical theory of the intellectual class, and so Billy Joel is singled out for Rosenberg's wrath. I could think of a lot of acts from the '70s deserving more critical scorn -- REO Speedwagon, say, or Supertramp -- but those acts have not endured in popularity, with such a deep repertoire of hits, as has Billy Joel. Being the Gene Hackman of pop-rock doesn't win you any credibility with the critics.

Jimmie blogs the classics

Jimmie at The Sundries Shack tackles an unusual topic for bloggers, classical music, complaining about a WETA listener poll in which five of the top 10 selections were Beethoven. I'm with Jimmie in wishing for more variety. (Hello, Mozart? Liszt? Shubert?)

My tastes in classical music are eclectic. Jimmie wants more Wagner, but Wagner is mostly opera, and I can't stand operatic singing. (I'm convinced the demons in hell warble like operatic sopranos.) The only Wagner I like is instrumental parts like "Ride of the Valkyries." I like Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky, and Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" and "An American in Paris."

I suppose I'll be written off as a philistine for confessing that I also like John Williams, but it's kind of a sentimental thing. I used to have a girlfriend who was a huge "Indiana Jones" fan, and she liked to . . . uh, enjoy some quality time listening to the soundtrack.