'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Baron Dave Romm
Compilations 1
By Baron Dave Romm
Not too long ago, before they realized what they had, many companies mined their archives for compilations. Many of the early compilations were lots of songs crammed into CDs; after all, it didn't cost them much more to press 20 songs than 10. If more songs sold more CDs from an otherwise moribund back issue, that was great! More recently, many of these same companies have gone the other way, cheating the public with issues of "Best of" CDs with 10 cuts. Pfeh. I have a lot of compilations, mostly random CDs from a set picked up at used CD places like Cheapo and the Fresh Air Radio record sale. Some are out of print, some aren't worthwhile to begin with. But many are good introductions to music that was around before CDs; many before my time. I'll try to direct you to some of the good ones.
Music Theory time. Art forms tend (note: tend) to go through the following phases: A Folk period (where people write what they want, draw what they see, play the music they like to hear), a Classical period (where someone tries to insult folk art by saying it's bad and someone else tries to distinguish good from bad by saying "It's good when it follows these rules"; the archetypal example being Aristotle's The Poetics), a Romantic period (where others look down on Classical and say, "art has to inspire, to make you feel an emotion), a Baroque period (where the art form gets very complex, sometimes self-referential, and uses the Classical rules to invoke Romantic responses; the archetypal example being JS Bach) and then finally people get tired of having to pay attention to the technique and rediscover how good the Folk period was (either by reinterpreting the older material or by simplifying their technique). The driving dynamic of the last several thousand years is that kids want to listen to music that really pisses off their parents.
Pop is a fickle, ephemeral field, and Nirvana is turning up on Oldies compilations. Whatever. In Rock terms, 50s Music was that era between the rise of rock and roll out of the post-war black music rhythm and blues and the Beatles and spans roughly 1955-1964, with fuzzy edges. 50s Music is Folk: raw (that is, played by untrained musicians) and works because it's full of energy and skill born of playing to an audience. 60s Music was that era between the rise of The Beatles and the rise of the Sex Pistols, roughly 1964-1975, again with fuzzy edges and considerable overlap (for example, The Beach Boys are definitely 50s except for Good Vibrations which is 60s; at least for my ear. Meanwhile, The Tokens (The Lion Sleeps Tonight) and Bobby Darin and others were developing a sound more associated with later 60s music. On the other end, Billy Joel, Bob Seeger and Bruce Springsteen are some of the rockers who keep going back to their roots.) 60s Music is Classical: Horny teenagers wanted to justify the music to their parents, so professors deconstructed the Beatles to find that their compositions had much in common with classical compostions. Following strict formulas gave rise to Phil Spector, Motown and The Monkees. Professional songwriters and studio musicians did a lot of the work. The later 60s period turned Baroque, with Yes, Pink Floyd, King Crimson and Funkadelic. As much as commercials want to establish marketing categories by numbers, 70s Music didn't really hit full stride until the two reactions to the Baroque period: Punk (a return to the Folk tradition of scatalogical insults with a beat) and Disco (a return to the Romantic notion that it's better to dance than to tell a story; another example of Music To Fuck To in the traditon of Mozart or Sinatra). The brief flowering of Baroque Funk as a precursor to Disco should be noted (eg Stevie Wonder), since funk has outlasted disco (thank heaven).
But I digress. I'll stop here, for the nonce, though Youth has a short attention span and what counts as Music of the Past is continually being created by Music of the Present. The songs that are so new you can only download the mp3s from the net will be on the oldies station by the time you get to your car. Meanwhile...
Haunting used bins might turn up individual CDs for cheap, but the 15-CD set of Oldies But Goodies is a good start on a collection if you have none of these and want to suddenly play Wolfman Jack. (Bizrate.com lists comparison prices for the set, which may change.) Many of the songs -- and most of the hits -- can be found in other places, and quite a few of the songs are mainly of interest to people who heard them originally through their car stereo, but it's still one of the best and still has songs that are hard to find anywhere else. Great but obscure songs like Sally Go 'Round The Roses by the Jaynetts, Sea Cruise by Frankie Ford, and even Memories of El Monte by the Penguins and co-written by Frank Zappa. The collection tends to the late 50s era, and went for songs they could license cheap: No Beatles. But it has a dash of almost everyone else from Elvis, Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly to Betty Everett, Marvin Gaye and Gladys Knight. Lots of regional hits. You probably won't appreciate all 250 songs, and 150 bucks is a lot to shell out all at once even for 15 disks, but overall it's a solid compilation.
If you're willing to send money to AOL, the Time Life collections are really good. They have the up-front money to spend on Elvis and the Beatles. Time Life offers a LOT of different compilation CDs and I can only personally recommend the few I have, but the site is worth exploring and they tend to pack a lot of music onto a disk. They even offer Real Audio samplings. I have several of the Rock N' Roll Era Collection, and for the hours I spent scouring the used bins I could have gotten them new for not much more. If you don't want to buy all 20 at once, they have smaller sets; I have 1958 and 1960 from this Special Set, with 23 and 22 songs respectively. Great collections: 1958 contains Johnny B. Goode, Sumertime Blues, Good Golly, Miss Molly, Yakety Yak, Rebel-'Rouser, Tequila, Do You Want To Dance and more. 1960 contains Save the Last Dance for Me, Walk -- Don't Run, Alley-Oop, Chain Gang, Stay and more. Bang for the buck, these are the best collections. Maybe they don't drive you down memory lane like the Oldies But Goodies collections because they stick to the chart toppers and songs that have stood the test of time, but there are reasons why songs are popular.
Still, be wary of hits, which are often the product of marketing (payola hasn't gone away, it's just gotten indirect and, annoyingly, doesn't line the pockets of the djs), hype and a fickle public taste. The Billboard Top Rock & Roll Hits tend to be uninteresting rip-offs. You only get 10 songs for just a bit cheaper than you get 17 or 22 songs on the other collections, and they're constrained by whatever topped the charts at the time. Some good stuff, to be sure, but they're some of my least used CDs since I have most of the songs on other compilations. If you spot one for a few bucks and it has a song you don't have, might be worth it.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia with a radio show, a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. He reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E here.
Reader Contribution
from Rob C
Reader Review
'Die Another Day'
by Steve W.
Die Another Day
Who cares if we've seen it all before?
Everybody knows what to expect from a Bond flick before they go - a
dashing
James Bond, plenty of car chases and explosions, hot babes, gadgets,
and a
madman intent on ruling the world. So when the plot doesn't really
connect
from point to point, or when things go just a little too smoothly, or
when
the plot twists are seen coming from a mile away, does it matter?
We all know the first scene will involve Bond trying to infiltrate some
enemy installation, only to be discovered and have to flee for his
life,
cheating death many times. This time, he's trying to assassinate a
rogue
North Korean colonel (Will Yun Lee) who has some ties to the West that
involve diamonds. Bond quickly discovers he's been betrayed and tries
to
escape on a hovercraft through a DMZ mine field. Bond succeeds in
killing
the colonel (he thinks) but is captured and tortured for months by the
North
Koreans.
The opening credits sequence builds from Bond being tortured. Usually
erotic, the opening credits here throw in aspects of Bond's torture -
ice
water, scorpions, blood, and the like - to give a new meaning to S & M.
14
months of torture by a comely North Korean later, Bond is exchanged for
a
North Korean agent, Zao (Rick Yune), but must also escape his own
government. He's damaged goods in their eyes. That's when Bond vows
to
track down Zao and make him talk. It was a pity that Zao died. His
diamond-encrusted visage was the perfect bad guy thug look and it would
have
been great to see him in future films.
Bond meets up with Jinx (Halle Berry) in Cuba and it becomes apparent
that
they are both after the same thing, when they both break into the same
secret DNA therapy center. Here is where we also get to see Jinx
rising
from the ocean like Venus in a nicely fitted orange bikini. It's also
nice
to see that Berry's character was written as almost an equal to Bond.
Sometimes it seems like a white-cop/black-cop buddy pic although we
never
hear Bond utter the words, "I'm getting to damn old for this." It's
only a
matter of time before they team up and chase down the bad guys,
culminating
in a death-defying, belief-suspending fiery cargo plane over North
Korea.
The action scenes are just what you'd expect from a Bond film. A
heavily-armed exotic sports car chase across the top of a glacier. A
brilliantly done fencing battle between Bond and the real bad guy,
Gustav
Graves, played creepily and on the brink of madness by Toby Stephens (Jay Gatsby in the 2001 A & E version of The Great Gatsby). The fencing
sequence
also features Madonna as an instructor and introduces the other Bond
girl
(can't have just one), Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike), an MI-6 agent who
has
infiltrated Graves' organization but has failed to turn up anything.
One action sequence, though, showed that the Bond series hasn't quite
caught
up to the technology used by movies like "Lord of the Rings". When
Bond is
being chased by a giant laser down the side of a glacier, he surfs away
on a
piece of a rocket sled. This looked more than a little cartoonish and
brought to mind Gidget surfing in front of a backdrop.
Judging by the box office figures and the age groups represented at the
film
when I saw it, the Bond franchise has a long life ahead of it. Let's
just
hope the bad guys finally learn that a giant laser in earth orbit isn't
the
only way to take over the world. Also, kudos for the writers for not
turning this into a "war on terror" movie. Thankfully, North Korea was
the
only point on the axis of evil represented.
~~ Steve W.
Great job - thanks, Steve!
He's B-a-a-a-a-a-a-c-k!
The Worried Shrimp
Reader Link
from Claudia
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Kittens are doing well.
Tonight, Monday, CBS has a fresh 'King Of Queens', then a fresh 'Yes, Dear', then a fresh 'Raymond', followed by a fresh 'Still Standing', and caps the evening with a fresh 'CSI: Miami'.
Scheduled on a fresh Dave are Lisa Kudrow, Stupid Pet Tricks, and Audioslave.
Scheduled on a fresh Craiggers are Ice Cube and Nancy Travis.
NBC has the movie 'Erin Brockovich'.
Scheduled on a fresh Jay are Naomi Watts, Benny "Boom Boom" Koske, and Tim McGraw.
On a RERUN Conan, the scheduled guests are Alan Cumming, Rich Hall, and Robert Evans.
Scheduled on a fresh Carson Daly are Derek Jeter and Craig David.
ABC has 'MNF', where the Eagles visit in San Francisco. Depending on your time zone, a fresh 'Monk' airs before or after the game.
The WB offers a fresh '7th Heaven' and a fresh 'Everwood'.
Faux has a fresh 'Boston Pubic' followed by a 'special' - 'Funniest Holiday Moments'.
UPN has a fresh 'The Parkers', a fresh 'One On One', a fresh 'Girlfriends', and a fresh 'Half & Half'.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
Pasadena, CA
Doo Dah Parade
Charlie Wilken, left, and Miguel Almereyda prepare to take part in the 26th Annual Doo Dah parade Sunday, Nov. 24, 2002 in Pasadena, Calif. The parade, which began as a parody of Pasadena's famous
Rose Parade and follows much of the same route, has also become a tradition in the city.
Photo by Lee Celano
#4
Safe Til New Year
Donahue
Despite reports of its imminent demise, MSNBC says its low-rated rookie talker "Donahue" will continue -- at least until the New Year.
Donahue, whose show recently moved from the network's Secaucus, N.J., headquarters to NBC's New York location at 30 Rockefeller Center, has anchored his gabber in front of
a live audience for the past two weeks with mixed results.
At the same time, insiders say that discussions with outgoing Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura remain informal.
Donahue
File 'Hidden Revenue' Lawsuit
Blatty & Friedkin
A judge refused to throw out a lawsuit brought last year by the writer and director of "The Exorcist," who allege they were denied profits from a 2000
reissue of the 1973 blockbuster horror film.
The Oscar-nominated movie about a girl possessed by the devil was reissued in theaters with added scenes. It sold hundreds of thousands of video and DVD
copies that netted millions in profits for AOL Time Warner.
The lawsuit, filed by writer William Blatty and director William Friedkin, accuses Warner Bros., Turner Network Television, and Turner Broadcasting System,
of hiding revenue in order to avoid paying them a full share.
For details - Blatty & Friedkin
From Merritt Island, FL
Endeavour
An unidentified couple sits by a campfire, watching the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour from Merritt Island, Fla., Nov. 23, 2002. Endeavour carried a crew of seven on a crew-exchange and construction mission to
the International Space Station. The photograph was a time exposure. Diagonal lines on right are telephone lines.
Photo by Duffin Mcgee
Berlin Hotel Tale
Rod Stewart
Rod Stewart balked at staying at the same Berlin hotel with Michael Jackson last week. Stewart was in Germany promoting his new album, "It Had to Be You: The Great American Songbook."
His record company wanted to book him a room at the Adlon, where Wacko Jacko dangled his 8-month-old son from a 70-foot balcony. A staffer for J Records e-mailed Annie Challis of Stewart's
management company and asked if the rocker could tolerate the flock of fans, bodyguards and paparazzi camped out at the Adlon. "Kindly find new hotel," Challis replied. "Bodyguards and fans
fine, but cannot risk Rod being struck on the head by falling baby."
Rod Stewart
Reverses Impersonator Ban
Graceland
Elvis impersonators can continue swiveling their hips and quivering their lips, after Graceland reversed its earlier decision to sever its support of festivals featuring clones of the King.
Elvis Presley Enterprises, the business arm of the multi-million-dollar Presley estate, decided in October to no longer associate with festivals using Elvis impersonators.
But the estate gave back its backing after receiving about 30 letters from festival organizers and fans who were all shook up.
Graceland
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
A New Venture
Max Baer Jr.
Max Baer Jr., who once played the burly, doltish Jethro Bodine on "The Beverly Hillbillies," recently signed a deal with International Game Technology of Reno to produce
hundreds of penny slot machines featuring the show that once drew millions of loyal viewers.
After nine years in prime time and 30-plus years of syndicated and cable broadcasts, most everyone knows how Jethro's uncle, Jed Clampett, went shootin' for some food
and struck oil in the Ozarks. So the Clampett family — Jed, Elly May, Granny and Jethro — loaded up the truck and they moved to Beverly ... Hills, that is ... swimming pools ... movie stars.
Baer earned about $4,500 an episode by the time the cast disbanded, good money but not enough to call it a career at 33.
Typecast as dumb Jethro, Baer found little work as an actor. Finally the 6-foot-4-inch, 225-pound Baer, the son of 1934-35 heavyweight boxing champ Max Baer,
stopped fighting the hillbilly hex.
For more - Max Baer Jr.
www.jethroscasino.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Raucous 'Hardball'?
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Did loudly chanting antiwar protesters inspire Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to attack President Bush and impugn his motives in dealing with Iraq? "It is clear that a lot of people in
this administration have some old scores to settle," Clinton said Wednesday during a live broadcast of "Hardball with Chris Matthews" from the SUNY's Albany campus. Clinton may have
been influenced by protesters who took her to task for supporting the resolution giving Bush wide leeway to attack Iraq. About 10 "hippie" students were bounced from the auditorium,
but not arrested. "It was the most raucous [show] we've had," Matthews said. "Maybe the times are getting sharper. Maybe the times are getting feisty. Clearly there's a lot of passion
over this damn war." Clinton seemed unfazed by the outbursts. "It's great to see all of this energy," she said. "For a long time, people said our college campuses were dead, but they're
not. We have people willing to share their opinions."
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Sees Deja Vu In Iraq
Daniel Ellsberg
When Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg wrote a new memoir chronicling his decision to leak secret U.S. military documents exposing official lies about the Vietnam War,
he had no inkling the United States could soon be at war with Iraq.
A week after the October release of his book, "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers," Congress authorized resident Bush to wage war if necessary to disarm Baghdad.
Ellsberg is busy doing what he wishes he had done earlier during the Vietnam War -- sounding the alarm.
"The future is bleak but not hopeless. I am trying to do what I can to at least warn people. The risks are too great."
Ellsberg calls the Iraq war authorization "Tonkin Gulf II," adding: "I've studied this government's decision-making for 44 years. I don't know these specific individuals
but I know some of their advisors. I understand that thinking.
"This war will look very, very bad within months after it starts," he said. "This war is an abomination that must not happen."
For a lot more - Daniel Ellsberg
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
To Receive 'Outstanding Contribution to Music Award'
Tom Jones
Welsh singer Tom Jones is to be honored with a lifetime achievement award at next year's Brits, the UK music industry's annual Oscars.
The singer, who is to receive his award in London next February, boasts a career that spans four decades from "It's Not Unusual" to his latest collaboration with Wyclef Jean.
Tom Jones
Sicily
Mt. Etna
Columns of thick ash and smoke pour out of the crater of Mt. Etna, Sicily, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2002, at dawn, as a wide tongue of magma moves down its slopes. Etna, which springs to life every few months, burst into activity Oct. 27 with rivers of lava pouring down the mountain near Catania in eastern Sicily.
Photo by Fabrizio Villa
Woman With An Opinion
Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep is mystified as to why her one-time pal Cher just dropped her. "I was very, very close to Cher at one point," Streep told More magazine. "Then she dropped out of
my life. It was a weird thing . . . I called her a few times. She just kind of disappeared." Streep also noted that Woody Allen, with whom she worked on "Manhattan," was a stickler
for his own words. "I improvised a little. But Woody would say, 'No, don't do that . . . just say it the way I wrote it.' I later realized that Diane Keaton could say whatever she wanted."
Meryl Streep
Found In The Yukon
Emeralds
A mini staking boom has erupted for gem-quality emeralds in a most unlikely place -- the Yukon territory in Canada's far north, the home of the Klondike gold rush more than a century ago.
The find was made by geologist Bill Wengzynowski while he was following up on copper traces for a small base metals company Expatriate Resources in the Finlayson District, about 200 km (120 miles) northeast of the capital, Whitehorse.
Wengzynowski, the descendant of a Klondike prospector, in 1998 stumbled across what he thought was green malachite. On closer inspection, he recognized it as beryl, a mineral that, with
chromium, gives emeralds their renowned rich green color.
The discovery could mark the beginning of a new era for the Yukon's struggling mining industry and become a new world source of emeralds, traditionally found in Colombia, Brazil, Zambia,
Pakistan, Russia, Nigeria, and Afghanistan.
Until now, North Carolina is one of the few areas in North America to produce fine emeralds, which can fetch prices from $10,000 per carat.
For a lot more - Emeralds
World's Largest Snake (In Captivity)
Samantha The Python
Samantha the python, believed to be the world's largest snake in captivity, has died of old age in the Bronx Zoo, officials say.
Scientists at the New York zoo were unable to say exactly how old Samantha was when she died on Thursday because she was brought to the zoo in 1993 from Borneo when she was already 21 feet (6.4 metres) long and weighed 175 pounds (80 kg).
The Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the Bronx Zoo, believes she was born in Borneo about 1970.
Samantha, featured in TV nature documentaries and visited by a million people a year, grew to more than 26 feet (8 metres) long and weighed 275 pounds (125 kg).
Once a month Samantha was a star attraction at feeding time. She was given a 25-pound (11 kg) to 35-pound (16 kg) pig, which was euthanised and fed to her warm. It took her 15 minutes
to swallow the pig and a week to digest.
Samantha The Python
In Memory
Marian Carpenter
Pioneer White House Photographer Dies
Marian Carpenter, one of the first female White House photographers who traveled with President Harry Truman and covered him daily, has died. Though Carpenter broke ground in her profession, she died alone and destitute at age 82.
Her body was found late last month on her couch, bundled up tightly against the chill because the thermostat had been lowered to save money.
The body, found Oct. 29, is still with the medical examiner while friends - most of whom met Carpenter at garage sales or thrift shops - try to track down her only child, a son whom she had not seen in more than 30 years.
"She sounds like the type of woman upon whose shoulders we all stand," said Susy Shultz, president of the Journalism and Women Symposium. "It's sad that we don't know about a Marion Carpenter. The women who came along in the '30s, '40s and '50s had it the hardest. They were the women breaking paths."
In the 1940s, Carpenter was one of the first women in the White House News Photographers' Association. She was the only woman among a handful of photographers who traveled with Truman.
Carpenter studied photography in St. Paul and went to Washington when she was about 24. She won the White House job as a photographer for the International News Photos syndicate.
In her belongings when she died were photos she took of Truman, which the president inscribed to "Miss Carpenter."
One of those photos, which showed Truman striding uphill toward the Washington Monument, bears the message: "It's good exercise if you keep it up, but not for high-heeled shoes, Miss Carpenter."
How her life unraveled is a book with many missing pages.
"This is a story and a half," said a friend, Beverly Allstopp. "But we've all just got pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Marion was a very private person, and she kept a lot of things from everybody."
According to what she told her friends late in life, a love affair with a married man may have helped end her career prematurely.
Carpenter's marriage to a Navy officer who abused her ended in divorce. In Washington, she fell in love with a Capitol journalist. When the affair ended, Carpenter married again. Her new husband, a radio announcer, took her to Denver, where she had a son. By late 1951, the marriage - and her career - were over. She was 31.
Back in St. Paul, Carpenter ran a wedding photo business and worked as a nurse to support her mother and child.
Her son, Mjohn Anderson, ran afoul of juvenile authorities and left home at 19. According to friends, Carpenter never saw him again. He would be 52 now.
Carpenter's friends have found no relatives except for a cousin in Maine who authorized them to sort through her belongings.
In her later years, Carpenter passed time at thrift shops, sitting on used furniture while browsing through old copies of National Geographic.
Carpenter showed magazines to friends and explained why photographs were composed the way they were.
"She was sensitive, and kind, with an overflowing heart," Allstopp said. "But that heart covered up a lot of bitterness ... She had a heartache, and I think it caused her to be a recluse."
Marian Carpenter
National Zoo, Washington, D.C.
Shanthi & Kandula
The baby Asian elephant Kandula and his mother Shanthi eat a special treat prepared for them at the National Zoo in Washington Friday Nov. 22, prior to Kandula's first birthday on Nov. 25th. Kandula's first
year of life will be the subject of a detailed documentary film produced by the Discovery Channel and aired in 2003.
Photo by Joe Marquette
'The Osbournes'
Fairly freshly updated -- 'The Osbournes' ~ Page 3
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 2
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 1
#1
