the blog quebecois

No, I've never even tried the stuff (though I've heard nothing but good things).

This came out of a jam session with my cousin. Later I wrote and added lyrics. It was probably late at night because I was definitely trying to keep the volume down, judging by the strangled scream at the end. Unfortuately (or fortunately as the case may be) my volume-suppression efforts succeded only too well in the rest of the song, rendering it largely inaudible. Based on what I can make out/remember of the lyrics, you aren't missing much.

Musically, however, we were improving, finally starting to break out of the 12-bar blues box that our jams were typically based on.

One of the few journalists left in Canada worth reading takes an honest look at Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement:

Just 14 months ago, Sarah Palin was washed up. By the time she quit as governor of Alaska, she seemed destined to go down in history as a Tina Fey joke. Now, she's the de facto Queen of the Tea Party, a powerful insurgency that has turned out to be bigger than anybody thought. She's probably the most powerful Republican in America at the moment. Thanks to her endorsements, obscure Tea Partiers - including a few total wing nuts - have been thumping the Republican establishment's choices in the primaries. And she's not about to let the party bigwigs forget it.

Ms. Palin doesn't need to take direction any more, not from anyone. No snotty party strategists are nagging her about what to say or what to wear or how to handle Katie Couric, the way they did when she was John McCain's vice-presidential pick. Now, she's on top, and she's free to follow her own instincts.

Busy, busy, busy tonight. But I'm still thinking of you, which is why this powerful* joke is presented for your delectation:

(*YMMV)

My friend bought a dog from a blacksmith --

...

Darn. Just the motorcycle. I had visions of the creep festooned with photovoltaic cells and pinwheels. Maybe an idea for Halloween, David?

A Purdue University student has transformed an old motorcycle into a solar-powered bike with a top speed of 70 kph.

The university says in a statement that physics major Tony Danger Coiro bought the 1978 Suzuki for $50 and spent $2,500 retrofitting it into a street-legal bike. Two solar panels mounted on either side of the bike charge its lead acid batteries, but they are also chargeable with a plug-in AC current.

Coiro's solar bike has a range of about 40 kilometers from each charge, and can go as fast as 70 kph.

The South Bend junior has received a provisional patent for his invention, and he says he hopes to improve his design to create a 160 kph, sun-driven racing machine.

My initial take on this received, shall we say, less than rapturous reviews, such as this, from "Frank":

Sometimes when you listen to something that you personally record dozens and dozens of times, it does actually start sounding pretty good to you (from presonal experience), but please take my word for it, when you listen to that again in a couple of days you will agree (sincerly no offence here) ... it's pretty bad.. No wait, it's really bad. Again, sorry to be the one to break it to you.

Now, this would seem to be somewhat negative -- but read between the lines, and see what he is actually saying. Yes, "Get psychiatric help" would be a good guess; but dig a little deeper, and it's plainly a cry for an "Encore!" Say no more!

This was the first crack at it for me and my cousin. Somewhat improved over the original, though that wasn't the greatest of accomplishments. I didn't recognize it at the time, but we were on the cusp. No longer were we a couple of losers in the basement with broken guitars and big dreams -- we would soon become a couple of losers in the basement with broken guitars and big dreams and an occasionally-recognizable song.

Big Government:

November 30th, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could potentially engage in one of the largest federal power grabs we have ever seen.

After two years of this Presidential Administration and this Congress, that is saying an awful lot about an awful lot.

And what’s worse, the FCC would be doing it without Congress weighing in. At the FCC’s November meeting -- note the coincidental date of choice, AFTER the impending election -- three unelected bureaucrats (of five) could simply vote themselves rulers of 1/6th of our entire economy - the information and technology sector.

Meaning the Internet that you currently enjoy -- that has been a marvel of economic and information innovation and success -- will be subject to vast new governmental regulations. You didn’t elect these people -- but they are on the verge of electing themselves Internet overlords.

I have a feeling that they're going to go for it. The Obamabots are going to be staring at political oblivion, and calculating that this is one of their last chances at tilting the field to their advantage.

P.J. O'Rourke:

I think Obama is losing a lot of people in the US because he’s got a know it all, lecturing sort of attitude. He’s a capable public speaker but he talks down to his audience constantly, and that’s irksome. I haven’t been a fan of the tone of any recent president. Bush could not get [his] foot out of his mouth. My wife works to get corporate execs to express themselves in public. She said you can train a chimpanzee, but Bush won’t take advice. I always felt all gooey after Clinton got done speaking, and Bush Senior was incomprehensible in his own way, a mumbly WASP.

If you're not familiar with O'Rourke's other writings, here's part of one of my favorite pieces from his Give War A Chance (1993). As Google Books won't allow me to cut and paste (for reasons of copyright, I assume ironically), here's the link to the complete essay.

Amanda Hess:

This blog post originally stated that one in three black men who have sex with me is HIV positive. In fact, the statistic applies to black men who have sex with men. Also, the photo caption incorrectly attributed Bayard Rustin's photo to "Wikipedia Commons." The correct title is "Wikimedia Commons."

No, I have no idea what "Rock Justice" means, unless it was some allusion to the ironic lack of recording contract offers. In any event, the song has the common enough folk/blues theme of the wrongly condemned man. (In fact, it's an updated "Poor Boy," which was one of the first things I recorded.) The music, too, follows traditional folk/blues patterns, except for the occasional perky (if erratically-played) excursions into . . . I dunno, elevator jazz or something.

Anyway, for a song written on the spot mainly for giggles, it had its moments, though they were still few and far-between.

Though I've been specifically warned by my probation officer to stay out of Winnipeg civic politics, I can hold my tongue no longer after seeing this shocking video of its racist brute of a mayor:

That tears it. I'm throwing my considerable influence to Judy Lays Washing Machines or whatever the hell her name is.

CBC:

The David Suzuki Foundation took aim Tuesday at a "dirty dozen" chemicals that are found in 80 per cent of the most common cosmetic products and urged better labelling laws to help consumers avoid them.

In a report on a chemical survey, the foundation said it got 6,200 volunteers to check the ingredients listed on 12,550 everyday cosmetic products, including shampoo, toothpaste, lipstick and skin cleanser.

The volunteers specifically looked for 12 chemicals the foundation says are linked to cancer, reproductive disorders, severe allergies and asthma.

And who better would know the dangers of cosmetics than David Suzuki?

Not many people know this, but David Suzuki was just five years ago a comely 23-year-old Japanese woman named Davida. Then she made the terrible mistake of trying out some concoction named "Auntie Radium's Miracle Fountain of Youth Creme," and not only did it dramatically age her (see photo), it also forced a sex change on her/him!

Government scientists have since analyzed the lotion, and have calculated its main component has a radioactive half-life of at least 10,000 years. Indeed, Suzuki is now classed as a "Level 6 Haz-Mat Threat," and there are plans to inter him in a lead-lined concrete crypt at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. Even if he has attained, as feared, immortality, there's no chance of him escaping.

Unless there's an underwater volcano with really big thunderstorms or something like that . . .

A new study released Monday by sociologists at Indiana University found that women will always answer their telephones unless mind-blowing sex with a man other than the caller prevents them from doing so.

The findings were consistent across all demographic groups in a sampling of 500 females between the ages of 18 to 35, which included women who were romantically involved with the caller but had requested some time apart to clear their heads, as well as women who had dated the caller briefly but assumed it was understood by both parties that the relationship had not worked out.

"No matter who they were, or what their perceived or actual relationship with the male caller was, women who failed to pick up the phone were statistically all but certain to be deep in the throes of coital passion with one or more virile lovers at the time of the call," researcher Patrick Berger said. "In addition, a vast majority of the female participants we observed had seemingly forgotten all about the relationship they once had with the caller, and were, in fact, completely consumed by the vaginal gratification they were currently receiving."

"A type of gratification they would hesitate to even call 'sex,' since it was so much more intense and transcendent than any kind of sex they had experienced before," Berger added.

The study revealed that 80 percent of the time, women who declined to answer their phones were, at that very moment, being sexually pleasured by a man superior to the caller in terms of looks, genital endowment, and stamina. Researchers also found that a majority of women picked up the phone, examined the caller ID, and told their male lover "It's nobody" before continuing with sexual intercourse.

In the early eighties, the computer revolution was in its infancy. Video games, previously only found in arcades and bars, started appearing in home consoles like the Colecovision and Atari game systems. Computers were still on the horizon for most -- an IBM PC without even a hard drive was still a couple of thousand dollars at this point, and the more affordable entry-level stuff (like the Commodore Vic-20 and the Texas Instruments TI49a ---- my first computer) was just starting to roll out.

At any rate, I resolved to be the voice of My Generation with an updated version of "Pinball Wizard." Unfortunately when it was put to a vote, I was strongly encouraged to "fade away AND die," so that didn't work out too well.

It didn't also help that the song kinda sucked. There's no real melody to speak of, and the lyrics were sort of haphazard.

What we did spend a lot of time on, though, was the structure (granted, a lot of that was discussing precisely on what beat we would start the boom chicka-chicka guitar thingie, but still) and the sound of the song. For example, I wanted a metallic tone to the drums, so we fed the machine's output through a guitar pedal. It wasn't exactly Dark Side of the Moon, but we were experimenting to see what we could do. (And reflecting the improvements in electronics and miniaturization, the elaborate sounds that Pink Floyd, et.al. accomplished using dedicated tape recorders and the techs to run them were now available to anyone who could hand over $30 to the clerk at the local music store.)

Reddit:

From a fabliaux by Jean de Condé, paraphrased from Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror.

Queen: Sir, have you fathered any children?

Knight: No my lady, I have not.

Queen: Indeed, you do not have the look of a man who could please his mistress when he held her in his arms, for your beard is little more than the kind of fuzz that ladies have in certain places. I do not doubt your word, for it is easy to judge from the state of the hay whether the pitchfork is any good.

Knight: Lady, answer me without deceit, is there any hair between your legs?

Why I picked this particular song to cover is pretty much a mystery. It was never (as far as I know) a hit in Canada, although I'm thinking I must have heard it somewhere because I had nothing but the sheet music to go by and that wasn't always accurate. My first songbook in fact was from the Beatles' publishing company Northern Songs and was distributed by their company, Apple Corps. It was also wildly off the mark. Whoever transcribed the music must have done so from a turntable or tape recorder running at the wrong speed with the consequence that all the songs were in weird keys like A-flat or C-sharp. Now I understand that the boys probably had better things to do than supervise every facet of their existence; but you'd think that someone would have thought to shout out "Hey, did you guys really write 'She Loves You' in G-flat?" at a concert.

So I didn't really know the song. I knew it was one of their early ones, but from when? (I'm kind of hazy on their music pre Sgt. Pepper. I thought it was by John Lennon (despite their shared writing credit, Lennon and McCartney [as well as Harrison] rarely collaborated on each others' songs. The rule of thumb is that usually the song's writer took the lead vocal.) I only found out later (tks, Internet!) that it was written by Paul very early in their career and was part of the soundtrack to A Hard Day's Night, of which I have only a dim memory of, mainly The Lads fleeing mobs of shrieking girls (to be sure, that was more or less the entire plot). Here they are performing it in 1964 at the Indiana State Fair (!).

I think we did OK. The vocal was mainly accurate, if cracking a bit on the second chorus. Their take on it was more of a pure pop song, where ours was a bit blusier -- thanks mainly to my cousin, who'd never heard it before and spent the first part trying minor pentatonic riffs before settling into a groove.