'Best of TBH Politoons'
Baron Dave Romm
Demented Music 2007 I
By Baron Dave Romm
Hell
and High Water: Global Warming--the Solution and the Politics--and
What We Should Do by Joseph Romm.
A clear, concise and
convincing book on climate change and why we need to hurry to fix the
problem.
Shockwave Radio Theater
Podcasts
for iTunes and iPods, with pictures
Shockwave Radio
broadcasts on archive.org
Bookmark my bookmark page.
Nascent Wikipedia entry for Shockwave Radio Theater
Marscon is the only sf convention that has a Dementia Music track. Other conventions make space for music, but Marscon reserves the Main Stage during most of the con for the musicians that aren't quite filk and not quite folk. These are people who, for the most part, grew up listening to Dr. Demento and wanting to be Weird Al Yankovic. Dementia is a self-defined category which, very loosely, means, "the kind of music Dr. Demento would play". A very broad category, to be sure.
At this year's Marscon, I picked up several CDs, many of which were published in time for the con; counting the CDs promised through the mail, I've acquired more music at Marscon 2007 than any other con. This week and next will cover some of my new haul.
Mental Notes
Worm Quartet has long been a favorite (and a friend), and Mental Notes stretches his musical legs.
Shoebox... excuse me, ShoEboX... um, -=ShoEboX=- (whew it's hard to keep up) specializes in rhetorical undeconstructionism. Smashing words and concepts together in the mosh-pit of dispair is an enormous amount of fun, but a little goes a long way and Shoe... er, -=ShoEboX=- properly limits examples to just as much as we can stand. The remarkable thing is that all the logorrhea are so different from each other. In this case, Adventures In Creative Nostril-Swallowing (A Tribute To Plants That Suck):
Further, I detect the semi-subtle influence of the great Luke Ski on several tracks (and he capitalizes the name properly). A few times, some of the lyrics were more than dysfunctional words playing in the same psychodrama, they were actual pop references in the tgLS mode of summing up an opus and extracting relevance to the song. Consider this snippet from I'm Not A Girl:
More than just expert vocabulary-scarring, this demonstrates an understanding of the art.
I very much enjoyed the a cappella rendition of You Will Go To The Moon, the paean to his wife's naughty bits in I've Got A Wife and Ed Meese. Even the outtakes in the hidden cut were fun.
The album artwork by -=S=- is splendid. I like the visual puns front and back, and the notepad theme inside. Many of the Dementia artists have learned a trick or two about marketing.
Mental Notes is R-rated for language, but nothing a kid in High School hasn't heard from their parents. Highly recommended, whether this is your first Worm Quartet CD and want to check out why Dr. Demento plays his stuff all the time or whether you have his other CDs and want to add to your collection.
-=ShoEboX=-'s wife -=Kim=-... er, Kim, makes nifty buttons and necklaces.
Words of Cheese and Other Parrot Trees
Art Paul
Schlosser is an acquired taste, and I may have finally
jumped the shark been bitten. At least for live
performances. Art Paul is a street musician, a fixture in Madison
Wisconsin. The very aspects that make his recorded music difficult
to take in large quantities make him so much fun to watch: His
fearlessness, the utter lack of professionalism, the well-honed "put
a quarter in my hat"-tested schtick. I didn't know what to expect
meeting him in person, but he is, as we say in the Upper Midwest, a
hoot. His concert at Marscon had people laughing out loud, singing
along and playing kazoos. With a few props and boundless energy, Art
Paul kept us all going.
His latest CD features cheese. And parodies (aka parrot trees) of songs done ala fromage. A Wisconsin specialty, but life experience for all. (A Cheese That's Real) Not Fade Away requires the costume in the picture above (or at least the chapeau). Beatles, Mamas & Papas, The Doors are all churned. I'm a Cheese Head takes on The Monkees:
Art Paul also ranges beyond dairyland to other topics, notably Christmas. I haven't actually heard the whole thing yet, so I'm going to stop here.
You can download songs and order CDs through the links on Art Paul Schlosser's MySpace Page. I can't, in good conscience, give an unsliced recommendation to any of his music, but after seeing him live I'm getting into it. If you happen to be walking down State Street in Madison, look for the guy with the cheesehead and throw a few coins his way.
Happy Ranch
Anther pleasant surprise was Carrie Dahlby. She's a frequent collaborator with the great Luke Ski. They duet the original Star Wars plot to the songs from a different movie in Grease Wars and she's the main vocalist as Vader Boy. Her first solo album is Happy Ranch, and it's a successful outing.
Many of the cuts are little snippets she sings to her cat, Buffy Kitty, including one sung into her cell phone. These are fun, and may start a rush of feline serenades. Or ringtones. You have been warned.
All good Dementia artists have an ear for parody (even when they don't want to call it filk). Carrie has an excellent ear for music, an eye for subject matter and fungible hair for live performances. Steely Dan songs are parodied with Any Watcher Dude about the Watcher on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Reelin' In The Grease (Stowin' Away The Pounds adds extra calories. Type Two Diabetes spins from Gilbert & Sullivan while What's Wrong With This Song advances a Sweetwater tune. I've never seen Hedwig and the Angry Inch, but it's a favorite among some, and Hedwig Robinson parodies a Simon and Garfunkel tune originally for a completely different movie.
D was her contribution to the Art Paul Schlosser Tribute album (to which I also kicked in). Carrie's voice is sufficiently different than Art Paul's that even those few who are familiar with the original will barely recognize it as a cover. A marvelous piece of work.
Any musician that has her father playing bass and guitar has a few licks of her own. I Really Did Go To School Naked is a bit of subversion that I like to spread around. She gets Luke Ski and many others to help her with UR about "a mysterious skin blemish". Fight Club! The Musical jabs at a number of songs along the way.
While very different, if you like the great Luke Ski you'll like Carrie Dahlby. Several songs will get airplay and I didn't have to bleep anything! Happy Ranch is highly recommended.
Pictures by Baron Dave. Marcon 2007 Gallery coming soon.
Quickshots
After I wrote last week's column and sent it off, I got more favorites from various musicians and attendees at Marscon.
Rob McClude (Marscon sales table): Metallica, Black Sabbath
Dana Wolfe: Tom Smith
Emi Briet: Throwing Toasters, Lemon Demon
Earl Luckes (Nick Atoms, etc): Queen's Flash Gordon Soundtrack;, Lalo Schifrin's Dirty Harry Anthology; Ennio Morricone's, Once Upon A Time In The West; Peter Wyngarde's, When Sex Leers Its Inquisitive Head
the great Luke Ski: Consortium of Genius, Throwing Toasters, Boogie Knights, Lemon Demon, Jonathan Coulton, Paul and Storm, Positive Attitude
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. Permanent archive. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
--////
Reader Suggestion
'No To World War3'
Hi!
I thought you might be interested in this new site: notoworldwar3.com - The Million Dollar Pixel Ads Peace Demonstration.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Interview by David Kuo: John Edwards: 'My Faith Came Roaring Back' (beliefnet.com)
In the first of a series of interviews with presidential candidates, Edwards discusses how faith affects his decisions.
JUAN CARLOS LLORCA: Priests to Purify Site After Bush Visit (Associated Press)
Mayan priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate "bad spirits" after President Bush visits next week, an official with close ties to the group said Thursday. "That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture," Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan nongovernmental organization with close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders, said Thursday.
General: Conservatives Are 'Absolutely The Worst Thing That's Happened' To The U.S. Military (thinkprogress.org)
Eaton lamented that so many service members believe that conservatives "are good for the military." "That is rarely the case. And we have got to get a message through to every soldier, every family member, every friend of soldier," that the Bush administration and its allies in Congress have "absolutely been the worst thing that's happened to the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps."
Paul Krugman: Department of Injustice (The New York Times)
For those of us living in the Garden State, the growing scandal over the firing of federal prosecutors immediately brought to mind the subpoenas that Chris Christie, the former Bush "Pioneer" who is now the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, issued two months before the 2006 election - and the way news of the subpoenas was quickly leaked to local news media.
Harry McCracken: A Web-based office suite that bests Google and Microsoft. (slate.com)
Zoho is, like Google Apps, a Web-based productivity suite. The biggest difference between them will be obvious the first time you visit the Zoho home page. Unlike Apps and most other would-be Office killers, the Zoho suite has all of the applications you expect: a word processor, a spreadsheet program, a presentation package, e-mail, and a calendar. There are also Zoho modules for databases and managing projects. And there are even tools with no counterpart in Microsoft Office, such as one for building wikis.
Steven E. Landsburg: The Theory of the Leisure Class (slate.com)
An economic mystery: Why do the poor seem to have more free time than the rich?
Cathy Lynn Grossman: Americans get an 'F' in religion (USA TODAY)
Sometimes dumb sounds cute: Sixty percent of Americans can't name five of the Ten Commandments, and 50% of high school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were married. Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University, isn't laughing. Americans' deep ignorance of world religions - their own, their neighbors' or the combatants in Iraq, Darfur or Kashmir - is dangerous, he says.
Trading Up With Gilgamesh (chronicle.com)
Who says academics "can't write"? David Damrosch argues that a clear prose style is perfectly consistent with the highest levels of academic thought and express ion ...
Ciara Curtin: Fact or Fiction?: Living People Outnumber the Dead (sciam.com)
Booming population growth among the living, according to one rumor, outpaces the dead
JD Responds
Re: Concern
DEAR AD:
THANK YOU FOR THE FEEDBACK.
AM I MORE PISSED OFF??? YOU CAN BET YOUR JESUS FREAK GOD WITH ANN COULTER SHRIVELED TITS I AM. I APPRECIATE YOUR CONCERN FOR MY MENTAL HEALTH BUT RIGHT NOW I COULD USE A GOOD DOSE OF SANDOZ AND A CIGARETTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I QUIT SMOKING 6 WEEKS AGO. WHAT I'M REALLY TRYING TO SAY IS THANKYOU FOR PAYING ATTENTION.
YOU'RE RIGHT: IF I DON'T HAVE A SMOKE THEN I REALLY HATE THE SOCK CLUCKING, FOTHER MUCKER EVIL REPUG BASTARDS EVEN MORE!!!!!!!!!!! "TIME HAS A WAY OF CHANGING EVERYTHING, TRUTH HAS A WAY OF CHANGING ALL THE TIME"
IF YOU'RE NOT PISSED OFF YOU'RE NOT BREATHING. "EVERYBODY KNOWS I AM JUST BARELY GETTING BY."
PEACE AND LOVE, AD.
JD
Reader Suggestion
Book Quiz
Marty
Newsweek has a good 'trivia' book quiz this week. I think I had read most every book named on the quiz, but scored only 88%! There were some tricky ones there!
Hubert's Poetry Corner
MacArthur Grant Rant
Debt of honesty and modesty regarding my work to Scooter, George W. and the
Dick$ter.
zEN mAN Responds
Re: Guillotine
Dear Disapointed....
I usually like my Haiku's to stand alone on their own satyrical merit.......I tried to condense my feelings...perhaps I was having a "Swiftian" moment with regard to "zEN mAN Guillotine". But fear not my unleashing of the "Literal" upon our little anti-liberal friend.
In Ann Coulters case, I have been carrying on a serious and sadistic love affair with her for many years....from the first photo I saw of her standing over Joe McCarthy's gravestone .....to viewing her next to Bill O'Reilly....to seeing her cackling like a skinny witch with Sean Hannity...I became jealous and obsessed....it is an unspoken infatuation...something that I am quite ashamed of.....but I just couldn't take it anymore......
Like so many other of her secret suitors, I often acted out surreptitiously and with shame. In my mind I knew I had to stop her from saying......those terrible things she says...she just won't stop....and nobody will do anything about it......What would the French do? I know it's unthinkable but.........
So there you have it JP.....
P.S. I've been having these thoughts about Condaleeza ............
"The Red Queen's "Off with her head"! (this was written about Ann Coulter)
Remember what the Doormouse said.....
zEN mAN
Purple Gene Suggestion
bush in brazil
Must see video...see jivin' George shake a stick....watch Laura and Condi groovi'n at the end.
This reminds me of some of the videos from Imelda Marcos's disco parties!
Purple Gene gives Condi a 0 out of 10 for having no rhythm!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Set a new high - 94° (old high was 87°).
Gigi the kitty's new mom called to let us know she's settling in nicely.
Ventures Into Comic Books
Stephen King
There are few things Stephen King hasn't tried when it comes to his work. He's already the master of horror fiction, a tour guide through disturbing and fantastical worlds, a writing coach, a nonfiction author, a screen writer and even a director.
He can now claim a new genre with the recent Marvel Entertainment comics publication "The Dark Tower," based on his books of the same name.
"I'm a big fan of the medium," King said of comic books. "A different way to tell stories is always exciting. It's like being a kid with a chemistry set."
It's not that he's a comic book buff. In fact, he hasn't really kept tabs on the medium since his "Sandman" days as a child. But when the idea came up to make his seven-book "Dark Tower" series into a comic serial, he jumped at the chance.
Stephen King
PEN American Center's New President
Francine Prose
Francine Prose can't help it. No matter how many books she has written - more than 20 to date - she also has this "parallel self" that needs to take on political and social issues in real life, in real time.
Blame it on her age, her generation.
"I graduated from college (Radcliffe) in 1968," the 58-year-old Prose explained with a laugh during a recent telephone interview with The Associated Press. "And, while many of my contemporaries seem to have become right-wing nuts, that hasn't happened to me."
Prose's parallel self should soon receive an official role. PEN, the international organization of writers and editors, is expected to name Prose the new president of its American Center when U.S. members gather March 19 for their annual meeting. She would succeed historian Ron Chernow, who declined to seek re-election, citing personal reasons.
Francine Prose
Rescued 3 Lost Actors
Aspen Ski Patrol
The Aspen Ski Patrol had to lead actors Rob Morrow, Chad Lowe and Fisher Stevens to safety after they and other skiers got lost in snow and fog and ended up out of bounds.
They ended up with another group of lost skiers, who had used a cell phone to call for help. All were in an area closed to skiing.
Ski Patrol members led the group to the bottom of the mountain, a three-hour trip through heavy snow, streams and dense forest.
Aspen Ski Patrol
Honorary Doctorate From Berklee
Loretta Lynn
Country music queen Loretta Lynn, the coal miner's daughter, is getting an honorary doctorate from Boston's Berklee College of Music.
Berklee President Roger H. Brown will make the presentation on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday for Lynn's contributions to contemporary music and tackling real-life situations faced by many women.
Lynn, 72, was one of the best-known female vocalists of the 1960s and 1970s, tackling women's issues before feminism came in vogue. Her 1969 hit the "Coal Miner's Daughter" told of growing up in a cabin while her father worked in a Kentucky coal mine.
Loretta Lynn
This Wednesday
Pi
This is a story about love. About inscrutable complexity and remarkable simplicity, about the promise of forever. It is about obsession and devotion, and grand gestures and 4,000-word love letters.
It is about a curious group of people with an almost religious zeal for a mind-numbing string of numbers. Actually one number, made up of a chain that is known - so far - to be more than one trillion digits long. They are the acolytes of the church of pi.
And once a year many of them gather to talk about pi, rhapsodize about it, eat pi-themed foods (actual pie, sure, but so much more), have pi recitation contests and, just maybe, feel a little less sheepish about their unusual passion.
That day falls on Wednesday this year: March 14. Or 3.14. Obviously.
Pi
War Profiteers Moving To Dubai
Halliburton
Oil services giant Halliburton Co. will soon shift its corporate headquarters from Houston to the Mideast financial powerhouse of Dubai, chief executive Dave Lesar announced Sunday.
"Halliburton is opening its corporate headquarters in Dubai while maintaining a corporate office in Houston," spokeswoman Cathy Mann said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "The chairman, president and CEO will office from and be based in Dubai to run the company from the UAE."
Lesar, speaking at an energy conference in nearby Bahrain, said he will relocate to Dubai from Texas to oversee Halliburton's intensified focus on business in the Mideast and energy-hungry Asia, home to some of the world's most important oil and gas markets.
Halliburton
Promotes L.A. County Sheriff Dept
Jackie Chan
Martial arts expert and actor Jackie Chan has taken on a new role promoting the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department to Asian-Americans in a public service ad.
The Chinese star and stunt man will step out of a squad car dressed in a sheriff's deputy uniform in the ad and will urge potential recruits to join the force. The department hopes the commercial, which will be shown during recruitment fairs, will help boost the low number of Asian-Americans in their ranks.
"I'm the police ambassador in Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, China, everywhere..." Chan said.
Jackie Chan
Actor Considers 2008 Run
Fred Thompson
Fred Thompson thinks there isn't enough "star" power in the GOP presidential field, so the professional actor and former Tennessee senator is considering getting into the 2008 race.
Thompson, who plays district attorney Arthur Branch on NBC's drama "Law & Order," said Sunday that he's going to "leave the door open" and make a decision in the coming months.
Thompson, the minority counsel in the Watergate investigation, was elected to the Senate in 1994 to fill the unexpired term of Vice President Al Gore. He was chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee and left the Senate in 2003 to resume his acting career.
Fred Thompson
Nepal's 'Buddha Boy'
Ram Bahadur Bomjam
A Nepalese teenager hailed as a reincarnation of the Buddha has vanished for a second time in southern Nepal, a member of his support committee said.
Ram Bahadur Bomjam, 17, who shot to fame in 2005 when his supporters said he had begun a meditation session that would go on uninterrupted for years, went missing on Thursday night, the committee member said Saturday.
Local media dubbed Bomjan "Buddha Boy" after supporters said he had been meditating for months without food, water or sleep, and tens of thousands of people flocked to see him.
He first disappeared in March 2006, telling his supporters the site had become too crowded.
Ram Bahadur Bomjam
In Memory
Richard Jeni
Richard Jeni, a standup comedian who played to sold-out crowds, was a regular on the "Tonight Show" and appeared in movies, died of a gunshot wound in an apparent suicide, police said Sunday.
Police found the 45-year-old comedian alive but gravely injured in a West Hollywood home when they responded to a call Saturday morning from Jeni's girlfriend, Los Angeles Police Officer Norma Eisenman said.
Eisenman said the caller told police: "My boyfriend shot himself in the face."
Jeni regularly toured the country with a standup act and had starred in several HBO comedy specials, most recently "A Big Steaming Pile of Me" during the 2005-06 season.
Another HBO special, "Platypus Man," won a Cable ACE award for best standup comedy special, and formed the basis for his UPN sitcom of the same name, which ran for one season.
Jeni's movie credits included "The Mask," in which he played Jim Carrey's best friend, "The Aristocrats," "National Lampoon's Dad's Week Off," and "An Alan Smithee Film: Burn, Hollywood, Burn."
He had guest appearances in the TV shows "Everybody Hates Chris," "Married: With Children," and updated versions of the game shows "Hollywood Squares" and "Match Game."
The Brooklyn-born comic first received national attention in 1990 with the Showtime special "Richard Jeni: Boy From New York City." Two years later, his "Crazy From the Heat" special attracted the highest ratings in Showtime's history.
Richard Jeni
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