The Third Shoe

Not to get all morbid while everyone is in holiday mode but I won't be a bit surprised to hear about another famous person dying in the next week or so. The one-two punch of James Brown and Gerald Ford necessitates a third celebrity death. It's just a rule that celebrity deaths always come in threes.

March 4 - 9, 1999

I first picked up on this back in 1999 when Justice Harry Blackmun (March 4), Stanley Kubrick (March 7) and Joe DiMaggio (March 9) all died within a week of each other. That "death trio" reminded me that just one month earlier King Hussein of Jordan (February 8), John Erlichman (February 14) and Gene Siskel (February 20) all died within two weeks of each other also. WEIRD. An odd phenomenon for sure but it's definitely held up over the years.

Late June 2001: Carroll "Archie Bunker" O’Connor, Jack Lemmon and John Lee Hooker.

June 21 - 27, 2001

September 2003: Johnny Cash, Warren Zevon and John Ritter died within five days of each other.

September 7 - 12, 2003

Some people may claim Peter Boyle started this current James Brown/Gerald Ford death trio but I'm not feeling that. Peter Boyle was a delight but he's not on the James Brown/Gerald Ford level. It's gonna be somebody big. I won't even speculate on who it could be for fear of getting it right and consequently being burned at the stake.

December 25 - ???

The only time I can remember there being a truly unequal death trio was back in 1997 when Princess Diana, Mother Theresa and Lorena Bobbit all died within a week of each other. Oh yeah, you didn't hear about Lorena Bobbit dying? Yeah, yeah, it was a traffic accident, a real bad one too. Yeah, apparently SOME DICK CUT HER OFF!

BWAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

No, seriously, I hope it's Osama that goes next.

2007 Here We Come

Just a few more links to help keep you all from doing anything constructive during this short work week.

1. British soldiers participating in LSD experiments.

2. The Time Fountain.

3. Lifestyles of the Rich and Fascist

4. Short Imagined Monologues of McSweeney's. The Whole McSweeney's website/magazine is fantastic and I highly recommend frequent stoppage-by.

5. The MySpace page of Knicks rookie Renaldo Balkman. FAN-tastic!!!

6. NEW FAVORITE WEBSITE!!! Only those miserable few who grew up rooting for the Washington Bullets/Wizards through the 80s and 90s can truly appreciate the spirit behind Wizznutzz. And I need that 98 Bench t-shirt to wear everyday. For anyone who is experiencing second thoughts on having stiffed me this holiday season, this will get you back in my good graces.

DO. NOT. FALL. IN. LOVE.

IT'S TOO LATE FOR THE SSA STAFF. SAVE YOURSELF.

New Years

Diplo My Love remix

Strike Sparks Anywhere #1 - Diplo My Love remix



The Good News: After many weeks, I was finally able to get Timbaland's swell-and-contract "My Love" syntheizer noises out of my head.

The Bad News: It's been replaced by the boop-bop-beep sonic hook in this remix by Diplo.

P.S. I'm shopping around for a new service to post audio. Not sure how I feel about the style of this one - please holler if anyone knows of a better one.

Random Linx

As we continue to dust off the ol blogeroo, here are a smattering of links I've been meaning to share:

1. What's on Santa's Ipod? Lemon-Red, Tittsmas and more courtesy of Nick Catchdubs.

2. Gabe said We're Into Movements

3. Tribute album to The Band.

4. Interviews with cast members of Season Four of The Wire: Part One, Two and Three

5. You know what part of this one I wonder about the most? It's not the toilet seat around the neck. It's not the "Sexual Millionaire. Be One." scrawled on the chalkboard either. It's not even the dilated-pupil rantings. It's the cap gun and the cherry.

Keep posted for some possible intriguing news re: NYE....toodles.

Cool Grafitti/Art Exhibit

The line outside 11 Spring Street on Saturday

An inside view

Before catching the fracas at the Garden last night I checked out this, um...art happening(?) on Spring St. The abridged back story goes as follows: Old building in = longstanding, well-known worldwide grafitti/art canvass. Building to be converted into luxury condos. Art world mourns. New owners not total dicks. See blurb from NYT below for rest of story...

The group decided that the best salute would be to stage one last, thoroughly legal, art-making hurrah, inviting some of the best-known graffiti and street artists in the world, many of whose work already loomed large on the outside of the building, to take over the inside and completely cover five floors, 30,000 square feet of brick wall space, with work. The art would then stay up only for a few days before the contractors moved in with drywall to cover up the interior works and pressure hoses to erase those on the outside.

In other words, not destroying the art inside but, rather, vacuum-sealing it like a time capsule inside the drywall of luxury condos. The line to get in stretched around three corners and lasted over 2 hours but the art inside and out was really cool. Crazy to think it was all done in just a few days...

Some of the rest of my photos are below. You can also find more photos from other people here. Full New York Times story available here also.

Quato Lives

Oxy Cottontail

What the Jolly Green Giant's dreams look like

You see straight up racist that sucka was, simple and plain...

Ghost Che far away

Ghost Che near - the coolest

Always fresh

More outside(r) art

Rock out with your walk out

Pulp wall art

I got nothing on this

Totally creepier in person

Rubberband art with artist

Baaaaaaaa

MELO 4 LIFE!!!

The view from my seat at last night's Knicks - Nuggets game/brawl. All the action went down right where the people are standing in the photo above. I'm here to say that Melo did not throw a basketball punch at Mardy Collins - it was a man's punch. Fat Joe, Spike Lee and Turtle from HBO's Entourage were sitting in the front row courtside by where it all went down. Turtle wanted nothing to do with it and hid behind his bodacious girlfriend. Two security guards were required to hold down Fat Joe and Spike was so mad that his glaring at Isiah was interrupted that he bit Fat Joe in the leg and gravy poured out. The World's Most Famous Arena!

Yep Yep

Finding homes for all your East Coast families

Lookin for a real estate team of mellow fellows like DeVoe? Then get with the REMAX DeVoe team today, the only real estate team with all your backstage/underage needs..."I like to do the wild thing"

Tiki- yeeeaaahh!

L'shana Tova from DK Meth to you and yours!

No Sleep til...

Scotch, scotch, scotch...

We're going strong seven days a week here in Philly y'all. Thank you to Pee-Wee Martini for holding this spot down for so many weeks while I've been grinding away at building something here in the (suburbs of the) City of Brotherly Love. I see you Bucks County!

The summer has been flying by and I'm feeling like it's gonna be September before I know it. Then I'll blink and it's GOTV time and after that....? What?

Football and chicken wings in Steve and Jake's basement again? Tanzania with the PDX fam? Poconos skiing and Key West with the new Philly crew? The future is wiiiiiiide open, as the man (with a very good new album) says.

The only sure thing is the party I'm throwing in New York City the weekend before Thanksgiving.


More on the party details later.

I've still managed to sneak in some quality Ben time here and there. Doylestown county life with Steve and Aleta. Bruce Springsteen and the Seegar Session band at their Jersey tour closer. Phil and Phriends, Pearl Jam and My Morning Jacket in Camden. Band of Horses and Yo La Tengo.

I'm heading back to Chicago in a couple weeks for a friend's wedding. Flying in a day early to catch up with some campaign buddies from the spring. Another wedding in upstate NY Labor Day weekend. Should be a fun-college-reunion-y good time. Other than that I'm tied to hustling between the Four Counties keeping the lemmings in the air. Natty Burns taught me that analogy. I like juggling lemmings better than herding cats because while cats are certainly difficult to rustle, they don't make a break for the nearest cliff to commit suicide the moment you don't have complete control over them like lemmings do. It's much more important to keep your grip on your lemmings.

Not sure how often I'll be able to keep up with the updates. I'll try and do something at least once a week. There's some good music from some local bands I like that I'll try to pass on,. Plus some recent reminders on living well, mixing business with pleasure and the importance of taking good care of your friends. Be well y'all.

P.S. This is the picture that gets me out of bed in the morning.

Introducing....Pee Wee Martini

Philly native who came in second in nation's ugliest dog competition.

Pee Wee Ramone

Pee Wee with her mom and Kathie Lee 2.0

This crowd has gone deathly silent. Former groundskeeper a-BOUT to become the next Masters Champion...

Plenty more Pee Wee still to come.

Summer's here, and the time is right...

Wednesday kicked off summer and John Crave emerges from his lab with a fresh batch of summer madness for all his mighty children. Surrender to the Prock:

Crave Live @ Bembe
81 South 6th St (corner of Berry St.)
Billyburg
Monday, June 26th 9:30 PM
FREE!!!!

Fear the Turtle

National Journal offers up their take on the 2008 Presidential Candidates (less than 30 months away!). The sleeping Edwards giant awakens in Iowa, Mitt Romney still sitting pretty (those eyes!) and John Kerry is still wearing the Laverne sweater.



I have a feeling about one or two candidates not on these lists but whom are discussed in greater detail at National Journal.

Rather Bored, Rather Sad

Among the places he had sought solace, he said on a recent afternoon, was in "Good Night, and Good Luck," George Clooney's homage to Edward R. Murrow and the CBS News of old, a film that Mr. Rather said he had seen five times in theaters, most recently alone.

Full Times story here.

Rock n Roll and Politics: Better Together

In honor of My Morning Jacket's epic 31-song set at this past weekend's Bonnaroo (thank you jeebus for streaming internet), here is a clip of MMJ rocking Conan's socks off from a couple years ago.



1. The Devil really does wear Prada.

2. Bobby Kennedy Jr. puts his JD where his mouth is.

3. Not since we met the President's nephew, Pierce, has the staff here at SSA liked the blood relatives of an elected Republican so much. We present: the MySpace pages of Congressman Bilbray's kids.

Wil-Wear or birth of Hipster-Hop?

From Reuters:

Wal-Mart has taken numerous steps in that direction. Artists such as Ashanti, Destiny's Child and Jennifer Lopez are among those with branded perfumes available at the mass merchant. Additionally, the retailer started a major promotion last year with BET, in which DVDs carrying the black-oriented cable network's imprint are packaged with CDs from select artists. And this summer, Wal-Mart will roll out Exsto, an "urban sportswear" fashion line being overseen by Jeff Tweedy of rock band Wilco, a former partner in Sean "Diddy" Combs' Sean John clothing line.

Too funny.

Don't Want to End up Like Bonnie and Clyde...

RIP Desmond Dekker.

Sabotage:

The Israelites:

007 (Shanty Town): (Special Ed fans take note)

Almost Half of Americans are Idjits

Almost Half of Americans Believe Humans Did Not Evolve Religion is major predictor of attitudes toward human origin

by Frank Newport GALLUP NEWS SERVICE PRINCETON, NJ -- A recent Gallup Poll shows that almost half of Americans believe that human beings did not evolve, but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years or so. These conclusions are based on responses to a specific Gallup Poll question that provides respondents with three alternative explanations for the "origin and development of human beings": 1) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process. 2) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process. 3) God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.

Find a nice spot on the wall to bang your head against and continue reading here

Smart-Ass Red Button

Make the worst booing noise you can

Reason #2094 why I'm no longer an Orioles fan. And yet I still want to go Hevesi on this kid.

Too much job, not enough posts

I apologize for the lack of fresh material this last week. I have two or three items in my "To Be Blogged About" file, including a quote from Tom DeLay last Friday that reminds me of the time I almost got my ass beat my the entire Syracuse Hockey team as well as the time I ate a Baby Ruth right before I walked into my dentist's office.

Quality content coming soon...in the meantime, in turns out God doesn't want to hear about it. For real.

Randy was right.

Chocolate milk?

Click-clack goes the tile

Is that a poker hand or a Capri Sun pouch? Seriously.

1. Rahm Emannuel, the supposedly real-life Josh Lyman, gets some more deserved props for his 2006 strategy to bring the heat to Congressional Republicans. 2. You, Music Lover. Does your job, family or otherwise hectic schedule keep you from spending the necessary hours combing the internet to research bands, scenes and mp3s you think you might like? Want to know what the "kids" you hold in contempt are raving about? Feeling too much like Mr. Jones? Once again, the internets has got your back. Entertainment Weekly, constant bastion of alterna-cool culture, profiles the top 25 music sites on the web. Personal favorites mentioned include Pandora, Seattle's KEXP and NPR's All Songs Considered archive. One not mentioned and strictly for hip-hoppers: Mastermix.org. Get your rocks off.

Happy Birthday Bobby

I was thinkin bout diamonds and the world's biggest necklace!

Some videos to celebrate America's greatest living artist. I will cry when he is gone.

1. A classic from my favorite Dylan era, the Desire/Rolling Thunder/Scarlet Rivera/Is That Face Paint or Cocaine tour: Tangled Up in Blue

2. Bob and the Man in Black do Girl from the North Country

3. From Don't Look Back, the video for Subterranean Homesick Blues that inspired that other video by INXS.

4. Not Bob but one of his tunes - Pearl Jam doing Masters of War from the 1992 Dylan Tribute concert. I threw this one in so I could also mention that I'm finally catching Pearl Jam live in concert this Sunday - the last band on my list of bands I need to see before I'm able to die happy. I remember making this list for the first time immediately after I saw Dylan play the Landmark Theatre in Syracuse back in 1996 just so I could scratch his name off the list.

5. My favorite Dylan tune, Isis, with the man at the peak of his ability to perform on lots and lots of cocaine.