bigmagic’s posterous

And, destined to become a classic of the genre...
h/t to Sharon in NYC and Jef in Seattle

John McCain "vetting" his VPOTUS... be sure to note the Freudian wedding-ring fiddle... do they teach that move in the Navy? Eyes down, cover ring

I know, I know, I haven't been blogging very much lately. I basically took Summer off. Now Eddie's off to school and work is back on the agenda I'll begin again, more often and different topics; wine, food (just went to Slow Food Nation, I'll post pics and tales), and, of course, POLITICS, my favorite sport.

And, OH! is this just a full banquet of tasty morsels and lovely low-hanging fruit from the Republican Convention!

First up, you know someone had to do it..

Family Values!

And, check out the previous post - a vid from a hot mike at ABC!

Toooooo delicious. Transcript after the vid



The Juicy Bits...
Peggy Noonan (former Reagan speechifier): It's over.

Mike Murphy (former McCain campaign): Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

Chuck Todd (ABC): I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.

PN: Saw Kay this morning.

CT: Yeah, she's never looked comfortable about this --

MM: They're all bummed out.

CT: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

PN: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this -- excuse me-- political bullshit about narratives --

CT: Yeah they went to a narrative.

MM: I totally agree.

PN: Every time the Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it.

MM: You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.

CT: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.

MM: Yeah.

The 2006 "Constance Cuvee" Zinfandel, my very first vintage, has won

SILVER MEDAL at the California State Fair.

Wooo Hooo! or W00t! as the kids say. I know you can't see it but I'm doing my Happy Dance!

Politics is definitely more fun to a Calypso Beat!
h/t to LeAnne in Charlotte for this great find.

The Mighty Sparrow, Trinidadian calypso master, shows how it's done.

Now that's a campaign theme song!

"If I can't dance to it, it's not my revolution." - Emma Goldman

John Wobbe writes - "Me thinks there is more to this than meets the eye. Could Phil Gramm really be dumb enough to say something so insensitive and so stupid, so publicly? The headlines right now say "McCain disagrees..." and "McCain refutes..." and then in the body of the article mention Obama's response. I wonder."

Da Chief responds - Could be but methinks it's another McFuddle toe-stubbing. He and his campaign have been claiming that econ problems are mostly "psychological" for a while so PGs comments are nothing really new and, when you realize that he was speaking to the choir at the MoonieTimes (Washington Times) it fits.  So, on foreign policy the McSame position is "We'll stay in Iraq for 100 years" and on the economy it's "America is a Nation of Whiners". Good times, good times.

Also, Phil Gramm is singularly responsible for the current financial crisis. The Gramm-Leach Act (has a nice ring to it, no?) led directly to the current Big Casino on Wall Street by deregulating and dropping oversight for banks and investment firms and allowing any screwball with a laptop and Excel to market any worthless paper as "investment-grade securities".

Phil Gramm is McSame's top econ advisor and campaign co-chair and, yes, Phil Gramm really is that dumb. He's one of the lowest, weaseliest, crumbiest, bumiest, most corrupt dirtballs to ever slither through the Senate. And that's remarkable itself. I would not urinate on him if he were on fire. I would beat him senseless with Jesse Helms' rigid corpse if I could. But I'm not angry. :)

Update: Gramm was up to his armpits in Enron too, him and his wife.

From D.C. watchdog Public Citizen via a Village Voice article: "In an apparent response to a 1992 plea from Enron, Dr. Wendy Gramm, then chair of the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission, moved to exempt the company's energy-swap operation from government oversight. By then, the Houston-based Enron was a major contributor to Senator Gramm's campaign.

A few days after she got the ball rolling on the exemption, Wendy Gramm resigned from the commission. Enron soon appointed her to its board of directors."

Nice. Real sweethearts, both of 'em. McSame deserves them both.

Phil Gramm, the top economic adviser to McCain, today; "You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession" ... "We have sort of become a nation of whiners," he said. "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline"

Obama responds, crams it where the sun don't shine...

Courtesy TPM

Oh, and what does McSame think of Phil Gramm?

McCain has frequently praised Gramm — who Fortune Magazine has labeled “McCain’s econ brain” — as a central beacon for his economic thinking:

Phil Gramm’s “active participation in my campaign makes a strong statement about our intention to reduce spending and make the tax cuts permanent,” said McCain in an e-mail announcing Gramm as a general co-chair of his campaign. [3/12/07]

“I love him dearly. On issues of economics and … family values, there’s nobody that I know that’s stronger,” McCain said of Gramm. [1/19/08]

“I respect no one more in America on issue of economics than I do Phil Gramm,” said McCain after Gramm “vouched” for his conservative credentials. [1/18/08]

h/t to Think Progress

Barack Obama and I (we are close buds now) are committed to changing the political process by building a campaign founded on a broad base of support from ordinary Americans. Except that you are not ordinary are you? You are a flaming individual carving an white-hot arc through life, leaving a wake that will last eons. You know it, you're just too humble to admit it.

I've set my own (yeah, right, Barry put me up to it) personal fundraising goal for the campaign, which you can see in the thermometer to the right on the donation website.

Will you make a donation to help me reach my goal? OK, Barry's goal, but it's your goal too, ya know.

C'mon, empty that coin jar and Give Your Change for Progressive Change! It's the right thing to do.

Peace & Love,
Da Chief

URL: http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/BigChief

PS If you haven't guessed yet, I've decided to take the plunge into the dirty business of campaign fundraising and get some simoleons for Barry. Yeah, I'm disappointed about FISA and a bunch of other stuff too but *H-E double toothpicks people!* this one's for all the marbles and I'll be danged before I see Dubya and Cheney high-fiving Grandpa McSame on November 5th. I just won't have it. Not if I have anything to say about it. So, give already. 

h/t to Jef in Seattle for this breaking news announcement!

If you don't know Ernie K-Doe or his music you are missing out on one of the world's greatest R&B musical experiences. He's a legend, a legend in New Orleans, a musical legend and expeshully a legend in his own mind. Or was, he passed into the Omniverse in 1995 2001. Read the following and behold the splendor of the self-proclaimed Emperor of the Universe!

Be sure to follow the links at the end of the article and, when in New Orleans you gotta visit Ernie K-Doe's Mother-in-Law Lounge. One of the funkiest places in the Omniverse. My highest recommendation.

BURN K-DOE BURN!

Ernie K-Doe CD Release Party
Saturday, July 12th
featuring the Blue Eyed Soul Revue
Ernie K-Doe Mother-in-Law Lounge
1500 N. Claiborne Avenue
(Free parking under overpass)

Rocking in his Grave
Ernie K-Doe's eponymous album is being re-released
posthumously as Here Come the Girls

by Alison Fensterstock

Ernie K-Doe ? R&B legend, nightclub proprietor, Charity Hospital baby 
and all-around bad motor scooter ? has hardly failed to keep his 
profile high since his death in 2001. His Mother-In-Law Lounge, 
refurbished after Hurricane Katrina, is still a hot spot. The Emperor 
of the Universe himself, at least in effigy form, still makes 
appearances around town.

Weirdly enough, this past year yielded him a hit song that's raised 
awareness of the singer through the roof. The track 'Here Come The 
Girls," which was used in a holiday-time commercial for the English 
drugstore chain Boots in December and released as a CD and vinyl 
single (and also in 2004, on the compilation New Orleans Funk: The 
Original Sound of Funk 1960-65) by the reissue label Soul Jazz, came 
close to being a Christmas No. 1 hit in the U.K., which would have 
been a chart coup to rival 'Mother-in-Law" topping the Billboard R&B 
charts in 1961.

Around Christmastime, the song became utterly ubiquitious in the U.K. 
and seeped back into American consciousness via the Internet. A 
YouTube clip of the commercial registered more than 100,000 views at 
press time. The number of raves about the sound in the comments 
section was rivaled by dozens of complaints from British citizens who 
were deathly sick of constantly hearing the song every time they 
walked into the drugstore.

'It's strange, but it's not too strange," Antoinette K-Doe says. 'I 
don't know why that song became a hit again after so many years, but 
that's what happens after you're dead, anything you have becomes more 
popular. A dead man's song can come back alive."

The track " a driving, anthemic slice of soul with a marching-band 
martial beat " originated as part of a comeback session K-Doe recorded 
in 1970 with Allen Toussaint. It was the first time they worked 
together since the fruitful initial period of collaboration at the 
Minit label a decade earlier, which yielded classics like 'A Certain 
Girl," 'Hello My Lover" and, of course, 'Mother-in-Law." Toussaint, 
who is credited with writing eight of the 10 cuts on the album 
(released the following year as Ernie K-Doe on the Janus Records 
label), was in the early years of his studio and label partnership 
with Marshall Sehorn. Most of the tracks on the record are way funkier 
than K-Doe and Toussaint's early '60s patented Crescent City R&B. When 
you look up the album online " maybe because it was a collector's 
rarity for so long, there's a great deal of blog theorizing going on 
among record fans on the Internet " there's a general consensus of 
suspicion that even though they're not credited, it was the Meters 
(Toussaint's studio band at the time) who supplied that funky rhythm. 
The album, however, sold poorly, and it was the last time Toussaint 
and K-Doe worked together. K-Doe declined into alcoholism and 
obscurity for two decades before he was rediscovered as a local 
treasure/character in the '90s.

Inspired by the drugstore ad-driven success of 'Here Come the Girls," 
the Great American Music Company (another reissue label) acquired the 
recording and re-released Ernie K-Doe in its entirety as Here Come the 
Girls in March 2008. Now Antoinette K-Doe and the Blue Eyed Soul 
Revue, K-Doe's most regular backing band in his later years, are 
hosting a CD-release party for the Emperor of the Universe's new 
album. A spokesman for the Great American Music Company says that, 
while its policy is not to discuss contracts, Antoinette K-Doe is 
receiving royalties from the album.

K-Doe said that because the anniversary of her husband's death (July 
5) is difficult for her, this year the CD-release party on July 12 
will serve as the annual celebration of his life, while she keeps the 
actual memorial date low-key.

'That's a hard day for me to keep the Lounge open," she says. 'But his 
fans want to come and remember him, and talk about him, and I have to 
deal with it."

to view the Boots commercial:
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2008-07-08/mus_sounds.php
or


Burn K-Doe Burn
short documentary about the late Ernie K-Doe
doing a radio show on WTUL in New Orleans.
Directed by Anne Churchill


Ernie K.Doe - Dancing Man
Very Rare Record 45 original us pressing


Ernie K-Doe - Te-Ta-Te-Ta-Ta
written by Allen Toussaint
Hear the 6-26-61 - red wax reissue copy


Ernie K-Doe - A Certain Girl
written by Allen Toussaint


Ernie K-Doe - Mother-In-Law
written by Allen Toussaint
# 1 Billboard Hit May 22, 1961


Oldies But Goodies, Part 5
a time sweep of number one Billboard hits
April 1961 - April 1962


Benny Spellman - Lipstick Traces (on a Cigarette)
written by Allen Toussaint
5-5-62 - Ernie K. Doe .. 45 rpm


Figgtacular 08 * Here Come the Figs
figs parties gourmet food Ernie K. Doe

h/t to LeAnne in Charlotte

This is quite the eye-popper:

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/07/07/who-owns-what-on-television/

"All those hundreds of TV channels may lead you that there’s a true
diversity and variety in today’s television … but you’d be wrong. A
handful of large companies control what you see, hear, and read every day.

"Let’s take a look at who owns what on television - here are the TV
channels owned by 6 of the largest companies in media, as depicted by
their logos."

Nifty graphics too.