"Laid back dude seeks votes, maybe more."

(h/t Justin Elliott at Salon)

In one of those interesting coincidences, the dude who executed a prank call on Gov. Scott Walker (R, WI) by pretending to be one of the billionaire Koch brothers (HEY, they inherited that money fair and square)--details here--lives in the Congressional district of that dude who recently resigned very quickly after getting busted cruising Craiglist for hook-ups (apparently he was looking for trannies too, details here). So dude, now called Ian Murphy (his actual name) is running for the open seat and brings such an amazing tone to the race, I've decided to hopeful for humanity, for at least the next 20 minutes.

His campaign website is MurphyCanHasCongress, and here's his first campaign video:


I was pleased to read his explanation of his qualifications.

Well, I’m an art school dropout who’s done some drifting both geographically and career-wise. I’ve worked as a landscaper, cashier, shopping cart pusher, butcher’s assistant, janitor, cow-milker, milkshake engineer, building manager, drywall installer, plumber, carpenter, painter, illustrator, door-to-door salesman, dish washer, paperboy, paperman, and some other illustrious gigs.

The narrative is bound to be that I’m not qualified to serve in Congress. Bullshit. I’m a blue-collar guy from Buffalo. I have commonsense and authenticity on my side. I’m a real guy who won’t sell you out for a quick buck. And I’ll fight like a cornered wolverine to make the voice of the people heard.

All his platforms are excellent (here), and he's officially the first candidate to declare, unequivocally, his pro-adorable puppy stance. And he's coming down hard on others:

That Annoying Guy at Work
What’s that guy’s name? You know, the one who chews with his mouth open and steals your yogurt…Chuck? Chip? Chaz? Whatever, that’s not important. I hate that guy, and when I’m elected to Congress, he will feel my wrath!

Good luck dude! Rock on!

"We sang 'Bobby McGhee' on the hood of my car"

It's Kenny Chesney's birthday and I hear Becky groaning all the way in Vancouver. "Muscles not included" she likes to shout when she sees him in his "muscle" t-shirts. It's bad enough he had to suffer through all the scandal of "the divorce," then Becky has to pile on about his shirts and coral necklace. I don't think she understands that he needs those, and the hats, to obscure his face... those have a, um, therapeutic nature. No, wait, they beautify by distracting, what's that called?

Is he gay? Who's to say? (Maybe the dudes who've had sex with him.) But I do love this song. 



Happy birthday dude! Rock on!

Song of the Day: "Heart in Your Heartbreak"

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart release their second full album next month. If you are a fan of 90s bands like Kitchens of Distinction and The Boo Radleys, you might like this stuff. If you don't know those bands, you still might like this stuff. In fact, if you disliked those bands it's still possible that you might like this stuff.

I guess what I'm saying is... um, nothing actually. Enjoy.



Song: "Heart in Your Heartbreak"
Artist: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Song of the Day: "Girl Panic"

New music from Duran Duran. It pieces together a few different sounds from their heyday, and it works.


Song: "Girl Panic"
Artist: Duran Duran

R.I.P. Robley Jones Jr.

Robley Evans Jones, Jr, 76, Hudson, FL.  Robley was born July 22nd, 1934 in Lorain, OH, died Saturday, March 19th, 2011.  He graduated from Clearview High School.  Robley was a proud veteran of the U.S. Navy, having served on the USS Worcester. 

He was active in the Sports Car Club of America and was named the Chicago Region of SCCA Rookie of the Year in 1990.

Robley was employed by U.S. Steel, and also Interventions in Chicago, IL where he would frequently play Santa Claus. He was a property owner and owned a Datsun automobile dealership among other businesses. 

Robley’s hobbies included car collecting, SCCA races and rallies, NASCAR, travel, visiting with family and friends, and a love for black labradors.

He also belonged to the Shriner’s organization.

He is survived by his wife Rose Ann Germani Jones, his sister Eleanor Hodkey of Lorain, his loving children Pamela Welton (Kenneth) of Amherst Township, Keith Jones (Christine) of Lorain, Sherri Pinkerton (Daniel) of Elyria, Douglas Jones of Dayton, Robert Jones, Boulder, CO, and Kimberly Jones of Atlanta, GA., 10 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren.

He is preceded in death by his parents Helena Schmitt and Robley Evans Jones, Sr.; sister Dorothy Moriarty; and brothers Robert, Virgil, and Franklin Jones.

Memorial Services to be announced.  Final committal services will be at Arlington National Cemetery.  Arrangements made by Veteran’s Funeral Care. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Wounded Warrior Project at woundedwarriorproject.org.

Rest in peace dude.

I misspelled her first name

D'oh

A card I created at someecards.com... the typo is all me!

"Michele Bachmann running for President completes the Mayan prophecy of 2012"

Two pictures from my night

Deep fried Twinkies at Hamburger Mary's

Midge in repose

Doctors want to reach me

Here's just one screen shot of the various TOTALLY REAL doctors that sent me email last night:

 

Of course, not a one of them can spell Viagra, so I worry about the medical community. But again, TOTALLY REAL.

Happy Birthday Sir Nick Lowe

Yes, I've knighted him, for giving the world this, one of the greatest pop songs of ever, EVER.


He also gets significant props for his relevance in the early days of punk, new wave, the career of a dude named Elvis Costello, being part of Rockpile, and, oh yeah, marrying Carlene Carter essentially putting Elvis and Johnny Cash 1 step apart.

I got an email from Nick's record label, Yep Roc, earlier this week, enthusiastically offering me some photos of Nick that were taken but not used promoting one of his releases with them. Why not? Here are a couple. (Click pictures to embiggen.)

The Basher for H&M's Men's Shop

2 parts Donald Sutherland, 1 part Hal Holbrook

It probably helps if I mention that Nick's fantastic Labour of Lust album is being re-released with additional tracks (it reconciles the US and UK versions, and has another track included)--that's 18% more songs over the 1979 release! If you wanted, you could go here and check that shit out.

Here's Nick with Rockpile from 1980 on ABC's Fridays. God I'm old...

"I need the noises of destruction"

I can't find Marti Jones's cover so here's Nick from back in the day, on Top of the Pops.

"But I remember a time when she never would have looked at him twice"

"I Knew the Bride When She Used to Rock & Roll" takes a somewhat rockabilly turn, and was the last time Nick hit the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, back in 1985.

"The one where not one single drop of blood has spilled, Is no less horrifying"

I think KERA in Dallas gets credit for my early-mid-90s revivial in Nick-o-philia.


It was a delightful convergence when Saint Nanci covered Sir Nick (I love it when people I love also love people I also love, don't you?)--her version of "I Live on a Battlefield" is on Blue Roses From the Moon (1997), and, like Marti Jones's cover, I can't find a version to embed. Here's Taylor Hicks instead.


Actually, here's a really wonderful collaboration with Daryl Hall and T-Bone Wolk from one of Daryl's web shows.


Okay, wait a minute, Diana Ross covered it? Before Nick released it himself?! This is from 1991.


I just ran across covers by Kayleigh and Paul Carrack (who may actually have cowritten the song with Lowe), and thought there was a cover by Jordin Sparks with the Jonas Brothers but OMGOMGOMG no.

"Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity"

Here's Nick's biggest composition,  "What's So Funny 'bout Peace, Love and Understanding"--first, Nick and Elvia acoustic.


Curtis Stigers's version was included on The Bodyguard soundtrack (and in the film), and thanks to the miracle of publishing rights, Lowe once talked about the surprise of finding an unexpected very very very large check in his mailbox, back in 1994. Sadly I can't find THAT to embed either, so here's Audioslave instead. Does Chris Cornell even own a shirt? No? Excellent.

"Do you remember Rick Astley?"

I leave y'all with Nick's 1990 song "All Men Are Liars--enjoy the video, it's teh aweSUM.


Happy birthday dude! Rock on!

Song of the Day: "Smile"

Smith Westerns from Dye it Blonde.


Song: "Smile"
Artist: Smith Westerns

Another on Liz

I remember this image from a t-shirt I saw in Fort Lauderdale. Sadly they didn't have it in my size...

David Gest, Liza Minelli, Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor

R.I.P. Elizabeth Taylor

She was something of a hurricane.


Rest in peace dude.

"No one should brave the underworld alone"

Birthday girl Poe had a few modern rock hits in the mid-90s, but I had no idea until this morning that "Hello" was a #1 Dance track (per Billboard). I remember being vaguely confused by the version on the album vs. the version I heard on the radio, but apparently I worked through that issue. Or forgot that I had it.


Happy birthday dude! Rock on!

Happy Chaka Khan's Birthday everyone!!!

Song of the Day: "Pretty Girl Rock"

Clark tells me this was Midge's theme song during her recent trip to the Oregon coast. Don't hate her cause she's beautiful.


Song: "Pretty Girl Rock"
Artist: Keri Hilson

R.I.P. Loleatta Holloway

She brought a gospel music voice to dance music, and she's an interesting case study in the importance of clearing all samples before you release a song (details here).

Her sampled voice made Black Box's "Ride on Time" the #1 song of 1990 in the UK.


The same song of hers was sampled for the Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch hit "Good Vibrations" and if you think I'm including this only because a young and buff Mark Wahlberg spends most of the video shirtless, then you're pretty AND smart.


And I leave y'all with one of the strangest musical convergences in my little musical world. Loleatta covering The Style Council's "Shout to the Top" with Fire Island (the band, not the actual island).

"'Cause at this moment in time there is nothing certain in these days of mine"

Rest in peace dude.

Happy Birthday Lena Olin

Another actress that's totally hot AND age appropriate to play Liam Neeson's wife... not that I'm fixated on that or anything. Wonder when Suri Cruise will be cast as Neeson's wife (surely not before 2015).

My only mention of Olin in the annals of the blog is my realization that she was on Alias which was a prompt for me to check out those DVDs from my library. Oops.

I never cared for The Unbearable Lightness of Being (or "Unbearable" for short), although its Rotten Tomatoes score is 94% so maybe it deserves a second viewing. Or maybe not, I won't dwell.

She's fantastic in her Oscar nominated performance from Enemies, a Love Story, but she has the unenviable situation of performing alongside Anjelica Houston in one of her juicier roles (Houston also picked up an Oscar nomination in the same category). I recall the movie as boring, but buoyed by those 2.


Her best role is Mona, the mob assassin in 1993's Romeo is Bleeding, a movie so violent that Bon Jovi yanked an original song from it. It's not a great movie (yikes, 24% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes), but it has its moments. I'm sure its proximity to Reservoir Dogs and Point of No Return (yes, it's a remake) made the hyperviolence seem a little more "normal" so heads up if you decide to check it out.



I think the best movie she's been in is 2007's The Reader. [UPDATE: Per comments below, apparently  I'm pretty clueless sometimes when I write, so Lena is IN The Reader, but the details of her character are, um, way wrong... thanks Anton! "Lena actually has two roles in The Readar but none of them is as Winslet's mother. She plays Rose Mather / Ilana Mather, mother / daughter, both victims of the actions of Winslet's character Hanna Schmitz.") Her role isn't large (she plays Kate Winslet's mother--Winslet, at 35, is also too young to play Liam Neeson's wife, so look for them to star together in the Father Knows Best movie this summer [kidding, but here's where the forces of irony kick in]) but the movie's great. I actually didn't recognize her when I saw the movie, but you know how I am with faces, and people, and names, and details. Wait, what am I doing now?



Happy birthday dude! Rock on!

Song of the Day: "Second Chance"

New music from Peter Bjorn & John (no comma). Happy Spring, here's the cowbell you were wishing for.


Song: "Second Chance"
Artist: Peter Bjorn & John

"It is time for you to laugh instead of crying"

The Kinks' "Stop Your Sobbing" (made famous to me by The Pretenders) is a song I like to sing to my dogs. I don't know that they internalize the lyrics, or if my singing is merely as annoying to them as their "sobs" are to me (it's more of a slight whine, but really this song is the best fit I can think of--if you know a song  with the lyric "stop your slight whine" please let me know). My morning started singing it to Gracie, so here's the original.


And a cover courtesy of Tony winner Scarlett Johansson and Pete Yorn.

Song of the Day: "Don't Hold Your Breath"

New music from Nicole Scherzinger, aka Jessica Glitter from How I Met Your Mother. I guess, technically, she has a musical career aside from that guest appearance, but I managed to avoid the Pussycat Dolls. This may or may not sound exactly like them.

The first full day of Spring calls for big dopey pop music. So there you go.



Song: "Don't Hold Your Breath"
Artist: Nicole Scherzinger

I did not need to see this before starting on my day's homework

... or did I?

Excerpt from Dilbert, March 20, 2011

"We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there"

Seems to me that it would have been way more efficient to hire someone IN Texarkana to bring the Coor's to Georgia--would save you half the fucking movie.... anyway, Smokey and the Bandit costar/birthday bay Jerry Reed (he's not a Republican, but he's sure as HELL not a Democrat) cowrote and recorded this track that went to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, and provides the title for Danny McBride's HBO show, "East Bound and Down."

Song of the Day: "Bad Gal"

There's a LOT going on here, but let's just wave our magic "explaining" wand, call it Euro-dance, and get on with our day, shall we? Okay then.



 Song: "Bad Gal"
Artist: Savage Skulls/Douster/Robyn