Baron Dave Romm
Reader's Choice
By Baron Dave Romm
Watch short and idiosyncratic videos on Baron Dave's You Tube Channel
Reader's Choice
After writing these columns for Bartcop Entertainment for nearly eight years, I think it's time for some feedback from my readers.
I started off writing (well, bragging) about my weird CD collection, which slipped into reviews of materials as I picked them up which morphed into other reviews. This was a natural extension of my work as radio producer.
Shockwave Radio Theater is a radio show primarily dealing in science fiction and science fiction humor. While I've always commented on current events since the show's founding in 1979, once Jesse Ventura became governor of Minnesota, I decided that politics is a subset of science fiction humor.
At which point my natural curmudgeon took over. Bartcop-E started getting some of my political thoughts, outrage and jabs.
But now the political season is over, at least for a few minutes, and I won't be getting much new music until the next sf convention.
So... what do you want me to write about? If anything. Your chance to request or vent.
What were your favorite columns/essays? What catches your eye? Do you miss Michael Dare?
Anyone want to be a Guest Columnist, and talk about their favorite group or CDs?
Send requests, comments and/or brickbats to Baron Dave Romm or Marty.
And remember my motto: I can be bribed.
Bonus question: Who was the worst boss you ever worked for? Discuss.
Vikings 2010 Season: RIP
I was going to use the Vikings game as a further excuse, but lo, the storms in Philadelphia caused yet another Vikings game to be postponed.
To recap: The Vikes were forced out of their cozy indoor stadium because the 5th worst snowstorm in Mpls history collapsed the roof. They played Monday night in Detroit, and lost. Last week, another "home" game was played in the smaller outdoor University of Minnesota football stadium. They lost. This week, a game against a very good Philadelphia was turned from a near-certain loss into another joke.
The person I feel least bad for: Brett Favre. A great player in his prime who had a great season last year for the Vikes. He was "coaxed" out of retirement for a lot of money and for one more year (?) of glory. At which point he screwed up the Vikings by being unprepared and out of shape, and finally succumbed to injuries. Favre's amazing consecutive start streak comes to an end at 297 and the Vikings hope for repeating last years success crashed with it.
Bye Brett. It was fun while it lasted, and I don't blame you for one last victory lap, but I won't be sorry to see you go.
The person I feel sorry for: Sage Rosenfeld.
Bring on Joe Webb!
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog maintains a Facebook Page, 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. A nascent collection of videos are on Baron Dave's YouTube channel. 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.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman and Robin Wells: Where Do We Go from Here? (New York Review of Books)
President Obama, a master of understatement, did it again when he described the Democratic midterm losses as a "shellacking." No, it was a massacre. The party lost support from virtually every demographic group. Even Michigan auto workers whose jobs were saved by the bailout of GM voted Republican.
Annie Lowrey: Have Yourself a Frugal Little Christmas (Slate)
Has the recession permanently changed Americans' holiday shopping habits?
Larry Strauss: Waiting for Santa Claus (Huffington Post)
As Santa, I wondered what to say to these inner-city children who needed so much. A few of them asked for things so simple, so basic, that I had to hold back tears.
DICK CAVETT: A Bittersweet Christmas Story (New York Times)
A cozy family Christmas brings a Nebraska boy jarringly into the world of adults.
Tom Matlack: Memories of Dad at Christmas (Huffington Post)
Tom Matlack and others share their most indelible Christmas memories of their fathers and grandfathers.
Jim Hightower: SPECIAL GIFTS FOR IMPORTANT PEOPLE
Ho-ho-ho - it's gift-giving season again! I always like to present special gifts at the end of the year to some of America's power elites, just to show that I'm always thinking about them.
TÉA OBREHT: Good Neighbors (New York Times)
A Christmas story about an unexpected gift.
roger ebert's journal: "Grandpa Joe and Secretariat: A Christmas story"
This is a story from Rachel Estrada Ryan. It tells of the love over many years that her grandfather, Joseph Triano, has held for Secretariat. And how before he died he hoped to see the movie about the great horse. I haven't changed a word of her writing.
Marc Dion: Boldly Battling Christianity (Creators Syndicate)
Onward, anti-Christian soldiers! You are giving me the culture war chills! The movie is called "Fire in My Belly," a startlingly original title, and it's a video reflecting maker David Wojnarowicz's reaction to the AIDS-related death of a close friend. Wojnarowicz has been dead for a while, but his two-bit bid at controversy marches on.
Mark Shields: Which Event Of The Past Decade Has Most Changed Your Life? (Creators Syndicate)
How glum are we Americans? When asked by the NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll how we compared the past 10 years to other decades, 55 percent of respondents answered either "a very bad decade" or "one of the worst decades in American history."
LAURA LANDRO: Top Five Health, Wellness Books of 2010 (Wall Street Journal)
Physicians and others, writing about their own experiences, offer advice and insights into maintaining health in these books.
LARRY BLUMENFELD: Old School, Cutting Edge (Wall Street Journal)
A fierce defender of New Orleans and its jazz traditions, saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr. embraces the past and future without contradiction.
David Bruce has 39 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $39 you can buy 9,750 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," and "Maximum Cool."
Hubert's Poetry Corner
"Last Christmas Ham"
ONLY for those who have had more than enough Christmas music!
The Weekly Poll
The Weekly Poll returns December 28th with a 'Year in Review' sorta Poll. Until then, I wish you all a Merry Christmas
(Can I say that? Is it OK?... Sure, why not...)
BadToTheBoneBob
wrote:
answered:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestions
Michelle in AZ
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mostly overcast and cold.
Centenary Park
Dylan Thomas
The park where Welsh poet Dylan Thomas spent much of his childhood is being given a 820,000-pound (965,000 euros, 1.27 million dollars) revamp, the local council said on Sunday.
Authorities in Swansea, the town in south Wales where Thomas grew up, hope to have the redevelopment of Cwmdonkin Park ready for celebrations marking the centenary of his birth in October 2014.
Thomas was born at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, a stone's throw from the park which would become a favourite schoolboy haunt and would inspire much of his work, including the poem "The Hunchback in the Park".
Opened in 1874, Cwmdonkin Park is one of the oldest in Wales and attracts thousands of tourists every year. The redevelopment will include work on the bowls pavilion, the cockleshell path and other historic features.
Dylan Thomas
Book Deal
Julian Assange
WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange said in an interview published Sunday he had signed deals for his autobiography worth more than one million pounds (1.2 million euros, 1.5 million dollars).
Assange told Britain's Sunday Times newspaper that the money would help him defend himself against allegations of sexual assault made by two women in Sweden.
"I don't want to write this book, but I have to," he said. "I have already spent 200,000 pounds for legal costs and I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat."
The Australian said he would receive 800,000 dollars (600,000 euros) from Alfred A. Knopf, his American publisher, and a British deal with Canongate is worth 325,000 pounds (380,000 euros, 500,000 dollars).
Julian Assange
Engagement News
Harris - Hefner
Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner says he's gotten engaged again.
Hefner said in a Twitter message early Sunday that he'd given a ring to girlfriend and Playmate Crystal Harris, saying she burst into tears.
To clear up confusion over whether the ring was simply a Christmas gift, Hefner later tweeted: "Yes, the ring I gave Crystal is an engagement ring. I didn't mean to make a mystery out of it. A very merry Christmas to all."
Harris is 23, according to her online biography by E!
Harris - Hefner
Sues Spammers
Daniel Balsam
Daniel Balsam hates spam. Most everybody does, of course. But he has acted on his hate as few have, going far beyond simply hitting the delete button. He sues them.
Eight years ago, Balsam was working as a marketer when he received one too many e-mail pitches to enlarge his breasts.
Enraged, he launched a Web site called Danhatesspam.com, quit a career in marketing to go to law school and is making a decent living suing companies who flood his e-mail inboxes with offers of cheap drugs, free sex and unbelievable vacations.
From San Francisco Superior Court small claims court to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Balsam, based in San Francisco, has filed many lawsuits, including dozens before he graduated law school in 2008, against e-mail marketers he says violate anti-spamming laws.
Balsam settles enough lawsuits and collects enough from judgments to make a living. He has racked up well in excess of $1 million in court judgments and lawsuit settlements with companies accused of sending illegal spam.
Daniel Balsam
States Scrimp On Anniversary
Civil War
New York state contributed 448,000 troops and $150 million to the Union cause during the Civil War, not to mention untold tons of supplies, food, guns and munitions.
But with the 150th anniversary of the war's start just months away, New York state government has so far failed to scrounge up a single Yankee dollar to commemorate a conflict it played such a major role in winning.
New York isn't alone. Other states saddled with similar budget woes are unable or unwilling to set aside taxpayer funds for historic re-enactments and museum exhibits when public employees are being laid off and services slashed.
Even South Carolina, where the war's first shots were fired upon Fort Sumter in April 1861, has declined to provide government funding for organizations planning events in the Palmetto State.
Civil War
Police Target Teenage Rock Cult
Armenia
When police officers arrived at 13-year-old Masha's home, searched her room and inspected her computer, it was not because they suspected her of any crime.
Her offence was simply to be a devoted follower of the angst-ridden punk-rock subculture known as 'emo', in an ex-Soviet state where pressures to conform remain strong.
"It was offensive and frightening at the same time," said Masha, a schoolgirl in the Armenian capital, clearly upset by the experience.
Police in Yerevan have been conducting a campaign against the capital's small but controversial emo community since the recent suicides of two teenagers who were rumoured to have been emo fans.
Armenia
Exhibit Opens
Curious George
Long before he pedaled himself into all sorts of mischief in "Curious George Rides a Bike," the famous monkey took a much more harrowing ride when his creators escaped the Nazi invasion of France.
The manuscript that would later launch their beloved series of children's books was among the few belongings that Margret and H.A. Rey took with them when they fled Paris in June 1940, just days before German troops marched into the city.
Both German Jews, the husband-and-wife team cobbled together two bikes out of spare parts and peddled south to Orleans. Trains carried them through Spain and Portugal, where they boarded a ship to the United States.
Eighteen years later, the Reys built a summer cottage in New Hampshire, where an exhibit about their wartime escape now is on display at a nonprofit center dedicated to the couple's legacy. To complement the exhibit, which was created by the Institute for Holocaust Education in Nebraska and features illustrations from a 2005 children's book about the Reys' trip, the Margret and H.A. Rey Center plans a series of lectures about the Reys and immigration during World War II.
Curious George
Weekend Box Office
`Little Fockers'
On a weekend when Hollywood competed with Christmas gatherings and fierce snow storms in the Northeast and Southeast, "Little Fockers" was no. 1 at the box office.
The third installment of the Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro series of in-law comedy was to earn $34 million over the three-day weekend, and $48.3 million since opening on Wednesday, according to studio estimates Sunday. That was less than the debut of the 2004 sequel, "Meet the Fockers," which opened to $46.1 million, but more than the original, "Meet the Parents," which made $28.6 million in its opening weekend.
It was an over-all down weekend for Hollywood, which saw the blockbuster "Gulliver's Travels" open Saturday to a weak two-day gross of $7.2 million, and last week's top film, the 3-D sci-fi sequel "Tron: Legacy," fall more than 54 percent to $20.1 million on the weekend, and a total of $88.3 million.
The big success was the Coen Brothers' "True Grit," which was the no. 2 film of the weekend with a better-than-expected $25.6 million, and a five-day gross of $36.8 million. The movie gave Joel and Ethan Coen their best opening weekend ever. The filmmakers' previous top debut was "Burn After Reading," which earned $19 million in its first weekend in 2008.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Little Fockers," $34 million.
2. "True Grit," $25.6 million.
3. "Tron: Legacy," $20.1 million.
4. "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader," $10.8 million.
5. "Yogi Bear," $8.8 million.
6. "The Fighter," $8.5 million.
7. "Gulliver's Travels," $7.2 million.
8. "Black Swan," $6.6 million.
9. "Tangled," $6.5 million.
10. "The Tourist," $5.7 million.
`Little Fockers'
In Memory
Teena Marie
Teena Marie, who made history as Motown's first white act but developed a lasting legacy with her silky soul pipes and with hits like "Lovergirl," "Square Biz," and "Fire and Desire" with mentor Rick James, has died. She was 54.
The confirmation came from a publicist, Jasmine Vega, who worked with Teena Marie on her last album. Her manager, Mike Gardner, also confirmed her death to CNN.
Teena Marie, known as the "Ivory Queen of Soul," was certainly not the first white act to sing soul music, but she was arguably among the most gifted and respected, and was thoroughly embraced by the black audience.
She was first signed to the legendary Motown label back in 1979 at age 19, working with James, with whom she would have long, turbulent but musically magical relationship.
The cover of her album, "Wild and Peaceful," did not feature her image, with Motown apparently fearing backlash by audiences if they found out the songstress with the dynamic voice was white.
But Marie notched her first hit, "I'm A Sucker for Your Love," and was on her way to becoming one of R&B's most revered queens. During her tenure with Motown, the singer-songwriter and musician produced passionate love songs and funk jam songs like "Need Your Lovin'," "Behind the Groove" and "Ooh La La La."
Marie had a daughter and had toured in recent years after overcoming an addiction to prescription drugs.
Teena Marie
In Memory
Bud Greenspan
Bud Greenspan, the filmmaker whose documentaries often soared as triumphantly as the Olympic athletes he chronicled for more than six decades, died at his home in New York City. He was 84.
He died Saturday from complications of Parkinson's disease, companion Nancy Beffa said.
Even as controversies over politics, performance-enhancing drugs and commercialism increasingly vied for attention on the planet's grandest sporting stage, Greenspan remained uncompromising about his focus on the most inspirational stories.
"I spend my time on about the 99 percent of what's good about the Olympics and most people spend 100 percent of their time on the one percent that's negative. I've been criticized for seeing things through rose-colored glasses, but the percentages are with me," he said in an interview with ESPN.com nearly a decade ago.
As a 21-year-old radio reporter, Greenspan filed his first Olympic story from a phone booth at Wembley stadium at the 1948 London Games. He cut a distinct figure at nearly every Summer and Winter Games afterward, his eyeglasses familiarly perched atop a bald dome, even in a swirling blizzard. His most recent work, about the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games - which Greenspan attended - will be ready for release in the coming weeks.
Greenspan was an opera and history buff, and got his first break while working as an extra at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. There, he met an aspiring baritone named John Davis, who was not only a singer but the U.S. Olympic weightlifting gold medalist from the London Games.
Greenspan wrote a story about Davis, then followed him to Helsinki, where Davis won a second gold and subsequently became the subject of Greenspan's first film, "The Strongest Man in the World." He made the short feature with a loan from his father, and used his brother, David Greenspan, as narrator. Their partnership continued for more than four decades.
Greenspan's career took off with a film he made in 1964 about Olympian Jesse Owens returning to the scene of his gold-medal achievements in Berlin some 30 years earlier. But he never lost his love for the smallest victories as well, citing a last-place finish by Tanzanian marathoner John Stephen Ahkwari at Mexico City in 1968 as his favorite Olympic moment.
Born Joseph Greenspan, the native New Yorker also wrote books, produced nearly 20 spoken-word albums and was an avid tennis players into his 70s. He struggled with Parkinson's the last few years, but refused to let it curtail his work and traveling.
Greenspan is survived by a sister, Sarah Rosenberg.
Bud Greenspan
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