Madness and Beauty

Another Friday, another week for the ages, huh? Trump manages to top himself, threatening North Korea with "fire and fury" bringing back happy memories of the Reagan era, and the real possibility of nuclear holocaust. Granted, North Korea may or may not be able to do the United States a lot of harm in such an exchange - but that is no comfort to South Korea and Japan, and if we did launch an unprovoked attack, successful or not, that is the ruin of the United States. Should be. It is a minor comfort that Trump is such a blowhard and habitual liar that nothing is likely to come of it - but he is fool enough to try it.... Anyway, for desert, he thanks Russia for expelling American diplomats, so he can save payroll. Quality guy, Trump!

In the real world, more bad news for entertainers. Last week, Sam Shepherd, Jeanne Moreau and June Foray died - this week, Glen Campbell. One of those figures who rested in the back of the culture back when I was young, always there, popping up on TV, on the radio, always there, but never quite in the foreground. You get too used to them, start to lump them in with the real fly by night types.... Though I don't know, I remember always liking Campbell, always happy to hear his songs come on the radio, willing to sing along. I still know most of the words to Rhinestone Cowboy. Going back and listening now, yeah - he was the real deal. And so: here's Rhinestone Cowboy, live on Midnight Special:



Wichita Lineman:



Gentle on My Mind, with a neat guitar solo; he has a way of shifting from country to jazz and back in these guitar breaks - very nice:



And for purer instrumental glory, here's a duet with Roy Clark:

Summertime Wandering

Friday, so I should post something. Spent a busy week, traveling to Vermont, up to Ft Knox and Ellsworth, rummaging around. HAven't gotten into a fight on the internet in a week or so - that has to be worth something. There is nothing really encouraging going on in the world - Trump continues to self-destruct and he and his allies continue to double down on the fascism, riling up the base and all - ugly and depressing. Things look a bit less like the end of the world is at hand this week than last - but it still is going to be a long hard slog to November 2018, or 2020. (Trump's enemies aren't helping - the "left" has to slag the "liberals" and vice versa - god help us all. As long as you vote for the Democrat, I will be happy.)

All right, no more of that today. Instead, here are a couple bridges, crossing the Winooski and the Penobscot rivers.





And here is some music in honor of all this wandering - Hank Snow!



And Ricky Nelson:



And, speaking of bridges - and, well - we're a couple weeks from a dismaying anniversary, aren't we? Take it, Elvis....

Happy Friday!

Well - there are consequences for posting early - after all those mean things I said about John McCain yesterday, he goes out and does the right thing - the Obamacare repeal bill fails, thanks to his vote. I don't quite know why he didn't just vote no a couple days ago, and spare us al this farce - I can't imagine he thought the bill would get better in that time; it's a puzzler. Though I suspect the chance to spend another day in front of the cameras might have had something to do with it. Still - he can grandstand all he wants (he's a politician; that's that they do) as long as he votes right, and he did do that. This is a big one - a bill that would consign tens of thousands of people to death, many more to suffering and bankruptcy and anxiety and even more dependence on their employers than ever - for a tax cut for the rich. There are differences of opinion about how to run the country, and there are laws that are obviously evil and self-destructuve. we've been in the era when almost everything the Republicans actually do is the latter - it will get worse, until Republicans start breaking with their leadership. If they do, the worst aspects of the GOP might quickly crumble - we could go back to arguing about defense budgets and marginal tax rates and Obamacare vs Medicare for all - battles we can afford to lose.

And - a couple words on the Democrats, who for once, never wavered in their commitment to killing this bill; and to Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who have also been against it for a while, and voted against it consistently. Amusing to watch Trump try to bully Murkowski yesterday, and have her remind him where the money comes from - having congressmen and senators trying to govern again might be an unexpected compensation for having Trump as president. Still - good to see.

And now? Maybe some music to usher in this weekend? I am off to Vermont for a day or so, off to Bernie country, bearing gifts from the land of Susan Collins (lobstahs!) Playing around with soccer drafts - which probably confused me about times and dates, since I was looking at it a couple days ago and seeing GMT time and dates. Those crazy English and their crazy time schemes! Anyway - song, a song?

Gloria Gaynor seems relevant this morning:

Expression of Concern

Hello, Thursday! [Edit: Oops - today's not Friday; I jumped the gun posting this; I've gotten too used to only posting on Fridays... But it is only Thursday now.] It is cooler outside, rained earlier - if anyone cares about the weather.

Some weeks I try to avoid saying much about politics, but today, I see a rant coming on. It's been a bad week in the Republic. Last week, this time, it looked like the ACA repeal effort had hit enough of a snag that we might get a breather - no! More procedural shenanigans! more tricks to sneak it through in the dead of night! Requiring a vote, which brought Honorable Republican John McCain from his sickbed to vote - where, in perfectly typical "Honorable" Republican John McCain fashion, he voted to advance the bill, while making a speech complaining about the irregular procedures used to bring it to a vote. It is almost a caricature of what we lefties have been saying about McCain for years - he will Express Concern, but god forbid he ever vote against the fascists. As a politician, he is a coward - he will never go against his party leadership (the people who control his committee assignments and power), but he also can't just embrace their villainy like he meant it, he has to wring his hands and click his tongue and let everyone know that he has Grave Concerns. All it does is convince you that he has no convictions, or at least, lacks the guts to ever vote them, whatever they are. Though more likely, he's as vicious as any Republican, but is smarter than the rest and knows how ugly and unpopular their policies are, so he votes his interests (steal from the poor, give to the rich) but pretends - something....

He's still got some chances not to leave the world on this note. we have Trump banning transgender people from military service (stir up the base Donny!), a policy even Honorable Republican John McCain can see is ignorant and evil. He has Expressed Concern. Will he do anything substantive to stop it? And of course the ACA repeal process is still grinding along, there are votes to come - will HRJM in the end decide he'd rather not help kill an extra 20,000 odd people a year? Or will, in the end, he make some speeches about it, but vote to go along, since he wouldn't want to be the one to cost the Koch brothers a few dollars. I am not optimistic, but having half-praised him last week, and trashed him this week, I would be very happy to get a chance to half-praise him again...

All this, I should say, makes me wonder what my own senator, Susan "if she were a guy I'd settle this Aaron Burr style" Collins is doing right. She loves to Express Concern over things as well, but she also manages to cast a lot of votes against the GOP. I know, these are probably meaningless votes - she probably gets permission to vote no, as long as the bill is going to pass - but she seems to be the one who gets that permission most of the time. She must have some juice to be able to do that all the time. That has to help. Though again - we'll see if she ever votes against the GOP when it counts - but she certainly shows more guts than McCain.

All right. I have a lot of rants stored up. I'll end with this one - got into a bit of an argument yesterday about health care - someone quoted a Canadian wondering why American's couldn't do what every other rich country on earth does,and provide reasonable health care to its citizens. Someone started arguing, the usual mash up of Canadian wait times and Obamacare premium hikes and Obamacare wait times and NHS cost triage and the like. It was all generic enough, and the others started congratulating each other on the value of intelligent discussion and being able to disagree and still be civil - so I became somewhat less civil - what's tens of thousands of deaths and bankruptcies among friends?

That brought a response, telling me to check my facts because bankruptcies went up under Obama. Now - I knew that was false, having seen a couple stories on the subject over the last week or so - but it's worth seeing what you could find. 5 or 10 minutes later and I went back, pointing out that a bit of google work told me How Obamacare Helped Slash Personal Bankruptcy by 50%. I added that though that was a news story, I found the same info on the court sites. To which he replied, where did you read that? probably some site that fits your ideology! well, gentle reader - did not react civilly. I posted the link to the federal courts: US Courts bankruptcy data, and the word "imbecile" might have come up. I mean, if someone says they looked it up on the court sites - maybe they did!

Anyway. I don't post that just to brag about winning an easy fight on the internet - I post it because sometimes it's people like this guy who drive me crazy more than the straight up Confederates you run into online. Libertarians - both sides do it types. He writes complete sentences; he doesn't call names or lost his temper; he doesn't straight up defend the Republicans in their latest assaults on the Republic, but he weasels around them. He argues with people advocating for single payer; he cites horror stories about Obamacare (and Canada and the UK; if he'd heard of France or Germany,and could find horror stories out of France or Germany, he might have cited them too, though I know that's harder work). He tells you as if it were true that government never works, he says he doesn't want government or an insurance company telling you what health care you should have. He is very proud that he thinks for himself. And all of it adds up to support for repealing Obamacare and killing 20,000 people a year.

That stuff gets under my skin, more than the unpaid Fox News propagandists do. The Confederates have the courage of their convictions, at least - they defend what they stand for. Maybe they have to defend it by lying about it, but at east they are willing to lie about it. The other guys - the McCain types - give cover to the open fascists. They fill the discourse with bullshit, but presented in complete sentences and in the shape of a real argument, and with a veneer of politeness, that is meant to neutralize opposition to whatever the GOP is up to. They are civil - you call one of them an imbecile, and you're the uncivil one. But it's all maddening. There is no reason to be civil to someone who says government run health care doesn't work - it works. It's been tried and proven. Europe has had it 60 years or so, and it works. It's a settled debate. Why do I have to be nice to people who claim otherwise? Why do I have to be nice to someone who complains about their premiums going up, and then complains because someone in England was denied coverage for something? Why do I have to pretend to take someone seriously when they say they don't want anyone, government or insurance company, deciding what medical care they should have? Why do people say things like that? What on earth could something like that actually mean?

If someone is paying for your health care, that entity is going to have some say in what you can buy. That, in itself, is an argument for government health care, because the government is answerable to its citizens. Now - in the USA, which is barely crawling along as a democratic state, government is a dubious force... But we are not alone in this world. There are many places in this world where the government works reasonably well - where people vote, where they have rights, where they participate, where they hold governments accountable. Even here, I would have more control over my health care if the government ran it than if Blue Cross Blue Shield runs it. If we had a functional government, this would be indisputable.



Enough. Whether we have a functional government is a rant for a different day.

Stars, No Stars

Happy Friday, if happy is what it is. It has turned hot, even here in the vacation state - making it a challenge to find ways of getting around the heat. I stick to my chair - it is warm. There is respite here, though, it ids always cool by the river...



I should, coming in here once a week, manage to find something to say about the world. Donald Trump is still president, though still a fool; Republican health care savagery is on hold, though it's hard to get rid of it; John McCain is gravely ill, leading to a certain amount of hand wringing, at least on left - he voted against us, he got a free pass sometimes for talking like he might vote differently, but he never did - but you still had to respect the man. I certainly suspect that if he'd managed to win the residency in 2000, we'd be a lot better off... I hope he recovers, as a person, and really - if all Republicans were John McCain, we'd be a lot better off. It is a luxury to have opponents you can respect - who can respect Donald Trump? What kind of monster would respect Donald Trump?

On the other hand, McCain did elevate Sarah Palin to prominence, and that is part of why we have the scum we have now in Washington, so... I've never quite been able to shake the conviction McCain did that to make sure he'd lose in 08 - that's a mighty price to pay for getting Obama elected though.

Enough politics. I could note the passing of another rock star, Chester Bennington or Linkin Park - however, the less said the better, lest I bring up my opinion of Linkin Park. Its too bad about him, though. All musicians are, in fact, heroes, as musicians - I don't have to be a fan to respect them, and mourn their passing. Though I'm not posting any Linkin Park at this blog...

What else? TV countdown at WITD, but I hope you know that my now. My parts of that are still a ways off, though I hope to do some writing on the subject here, too... On that score - TV? I am, for the first time in a long while, watching a TV series in (nearly) real time - Twin Peaks Return, of course. I could be watching Game of Thrones in real time - I have HBO these days, first time in ages (I had it in 2010 just long enough to watch the first season of Treme in real time - that was a promotional offer, so that was all of that.) I did watch 4 seasons of Game of Thrones in a bunch a couple years ago, then read the books - so it might be tempting. But it is on opposite Twin Peaks: it is incomprehensible to me why someone would watch GOT over Twin Peaks. (Obviously, in this day and age, you DVR both - it comes down to which you watch first.) Maybe it isn't incomprehensible - GOT is a fine show (well - the first 4 seasons were - the 5th sounded like it jumped the shark pretty badly; even though I hadn't read the books when it came out, it sounded as though the show went completely off the rails that season. It sounded like a violation of the books - and of the show that I had seen to that point, since the show still felt like it matched the books, more or less. Maybe - through 3 seasons anyway. That is a topic for another day.) But even at its best, compared to Twin Peaks - it feels like, I don't know - comparing Lord of the Rings to Ulysses. For all of Tolkien's powers, it shrivels to nothing beside Joyce.

I know that's a minority opinion, all of it - that Twin Peaks is that much better than Game of Thrones - that Joyce is that much better (and worthy of your time) than Tolkien - and, probably most of all, that Joyce is that much more enjoyable than Tolkien (though that is true: Ulysses is a joy to read; LOTR is a chore. The Hobbit or the Silmarillion, I can make a case for - but reading the Lord of the Rings would be work, and I'm not going to do it. This is as a source of pleasure alone - never mind quality...) A minority opinion, though getting back to the TV shows - one that might mark certain boundaries. Twin Peaks is probably the cinephiles' choice - it certainly seems that way on Twitter. It's a show for movie lovers - though probably a minority form of movie lover - cinephiles - taken in all its connotations... The difference tends to bring out the way TV and films are different - GOT is TV, all the way - and TV is far more literary than film. That is one of its strengths - it can tel different kinds of stories, differently - long, complex stories, with complicated relationships among characters, with the stories, relationships and everything else made explicit, explored - words are powerful, and TV allows for words to be used differently than film, as such... This version of Twin Peaks puts it all in the images and sounds, the editing, the flow of information - a film; if you were making literary comparisons, more like a poem than prose....

That's part of it, though not all. It is also simply true that Twin Peaks is better than Game of Thrones - the way Ulysses is better than Lord of the Rings. (Or A Song of Ice and Fire, for that matter.) It's art - or better art; it beats it at its own game. And to be honest, some of that is due to the fact that TwinPeaks - at least this version of Twin Peaks - is completely in the care of David Lynch. I am very fond of David Lynch - in ways I can sometimes articulate and sometimes not. I'm not quite sure I can articulate why Twin Peaks The Return is so good, yet - but it is, and it is something I can't miss.

Bastille Day

Happy Bastille day, France, and Francophiles everywhere. Try not to dwell too much on the appeal of the tumbrel in these troubled times, as our (sort of) elected leaders demonstrate how Louis XVI ad co weren't the worst you could do....

I know this is another placeholder type of post - I don't know when that will change. As always, for the next few months, don't miss the TV countdown at Wonders in the Dark; don't miss the new Twin Peaks. Baseball starts back up after its all star break. And the Tour de France rolls along, with a twist - Chris Froome and the invincible Sky Team have lost the lead! Though no one seems to npticethe obvious: the current leader, Fabio Aru, got it yesterday by winning a sprint up the side of a wall after rding the entire race on Chris Froome's wheel. If Sky is so invincible, don't beat em - join em! Make them pull you through the mountains!

Good enough. Music? Kraftwerk can bring you the sport:



And as usual - a bit of French pop is in order - here's Johnny Hallyday:



et encore - live, 1960!

A Berry Nice Friday

Happy Friday again. A busy kind of week, with the holiday and all, at least the beginning of it. Lots of summery stuff! parades and fireworks, fried dough, barbecues, strawberry picking, jam making, lots of shortcake eating, you name it. Along with watching bicycle racing, complete with Controversy! - involving stray elbows, not doping this time... Major star #1, Peter Sagan, collides with major star #2, Mark Cavendish, and Cavendish crashes and breaks a shoulder. Sagan gets kicked out of the tour for it. Everyone who cares has an opinion, and most of them think Sagan was badly done by - there area couple angles on the crash, one of them looking like Sagan whacked Cavendish with an elbow as he went by, the other looking like Cavendish ran into him first, and Sagan's elbow came up after Cavendish was already down. The more you lookat the picture, the less Sagan seems to be to blame - but the tour kicked him out.

Anyway - there's plenty of bike racing to come, for those of us who care about that sort of thing. No Sagan, which drains a lot of the fun out of it, but plenty of Chris Froome and the invincible Sky Team, for those who love the Yankees.

I could say something about politics, though as usual, it is nothing but depressing. Trump feuding with CNN, some dipshit making a dim witted wrestling meme of Trump tacking CNN - which Trump, being more dimwitted and classless even than his fans, retweeted. Followed by controversy over whether CNN should name the dipshit who made the meme. All of this creating noise while Trump and company continue to work on dismantling the country. Trump abroad, where he's soiling himself among other world leaders and getting ready to meet the boss. God.

So maybe I won't write about politics. Do't forget to look in on Wonders in the Dark's TV Countdown. Don't forget to watch Twin Peaks when it comes back this Sunday. (I actually have pay cable these days - I can watch these things when they air!) Don't forget to enjoy the summer as much as you can.... And eat all the strawberries you can. To which end - some music:

Brother's Johnson!



Strawberry Alarm Clock!



An obscure group from a northwestern English seaport!

Television Countdown

This is a busy week, but I want to get this out there - a new countdown has stared at Wonders in the Dark, devoted to the 80 Greatest TV shows of all time (as voted by participants and friends of the blog.) That will be going all summer. As aways, expect plenty of fine writing and a few arguments along the way. Check it out!

We Are Only Strangers

Another week gone - easy to despair, with our Senate bravely shoving a bill through to get rid of Obamacare, to finance tax cuts for the rich from the blood and treasure of everyone else... Transparent theft, open repudiation of campaign promises even Donald Trump made (though who didn't know he was lying through his teeth?) I despair. The Republicans seem determined to extract every penny from the country before it burns down that they can get - the Democrats - somehow manage to end up seeming to be more concerned with sup[pressing the wrongthink on their side than in stopping the GOP. Maybe that's a symptom of reading Twitter, where people seem to spend all their time mocking their enemies, and shivving whoever is standing just to your right or left.... I suppose conservatives do that as well, but they still seem to somehow keep the votes in line.

There is only so much of that we need. Instead, let's talk music. First, June 22 marked the 40th anniversary of Peter Laughner's death (19771) - my opinions of Pere Ubu are no secret, and though their legacy came mostly after Laughner left, he was certainly instrumental in their sound. And I like Rocket From the Tombs almost as much - and in fact, like Laughner's work, separate from Thomas and company, almost as much. He was different from Thomas - and different from Cheetah Chrome and Stiv Bators, as well, though he overlapped with them all. RFFT mixed up the Velvets, the Stooges, Captain Beefheart and Cleveland - Pere Ubu dialed up the Beefheart (so to speak), Dead Boys the Stooges - Laughner doubled down on Lou Reed, and used that as a departing point to bring in more folk, more mainstream rock - blues, Richard Thompson, The Stones. If he'd lived (if he hadn't killed himself on booze and speed at 25), he might have been really big - maybe not record selling big, but reputation big. He wrote great songs, he was a very good guitar player, he was a passable singer with a distinctive voice... He should have been somebody. Here, in any cae, is a Stones cover recorded, I believe, the day he died...



And a Peter Laughner tribute, from Wilco:



Meanwhile, on a less depressing front - I was doing some cleaning, trying to get some of my junk in order, looking at my boxes of cassettes and trying to get them down to something manageable, and I found this: Translator's second record, No Time Like Now, with the son Un-Alone on it. I had forgotten about Translator - forgot they they existed. Usually that happens rooting around YouTube - stumble on some band that sounded really cool 35 odd years ago... but sometimes, it happen in the atom world too. I wish I hadn't forgotten them - they were pretty damned good. They sound like a nice bridge between new wave and the kind of psychedelic jangle pop that filled certain radio stations in the 80s - that is to say, they sounded like a west coast version of REM, more or less contemporary... Some win, some lose, I guess... but they were good.

Here is the video for Unalone, good sound, and what looks like scenes from Twin Peaks, of all things...



And a very energetic live performance, on old videotape...



And also live, their first single, Everywhere That I'm Not. That's impossible, that's imposs...

Bloomsday and Politics and GWAR

Happy Bloomsday! if you fry up some kidney, be sure to share with the cat....

I get hungry just reading it:

On the boil sure enough: a plume of steam from the spout. He scalded and rinsed out the teapot and put in four ful spoons of tea, tilting the kettle to let the water flow in. Having set it to draw he took offthe kettle, crushed the pan flat on the live coals and watched the lump of butter slide and melt. While he unwrapped the kidney the cat mewed hungrily against him. Give her too much meat she won't mouse. Say they won't eat pork. Kosher. Here. He let the bloodsmeared paper fall to her and dropped the kidney amid the zsizling butter sauce. Pepper. He sprinkled it through his fingers ringwise from the chipped eggcup.

Meanwhile, in the world - my god who wants to live in this world? Gunmen preying on congressmen, gunmen preying on citizens; terrible fires in London. Nonsense in the hals of government - Trump lying and looking for new ways to defy the constitution and law and order; congress itself trying to sneak a new health care law through the senate, a law that will cause massive suffering and undoubtedly cost citizens a lot of money, all in the name of an upper class tax cut. They are sneaking it through because they know that not even habitual Republican voters are going to support it - they don't want to talk about it, they don't want anyone talking about it - so I suppose I must talk about it.

Ugh. I suppose I will have plenty of time to give in to despair in the coming years, so I will leave it off now.

Leave you with GWAR, doing terrible things to a Billy Ocean song:

Adam West

Bad news - Adam West has died, 88 years old. He is still the best Batman of them all - the show was fun, exciting, and hilarious, holds up as well as ever, better than the mopey Bats. He anchored it, of course, deadpan and unflappable, with impeccable timing - just great.

I send you off with a compilation of all the wall climbing cameos - two ordinary crime fighters, going about their business...

25 Films for the 21st Century

Well, I know today is a Friday, and I try to post musical things onFriday, but it is more important that I post anything on a Friday, and this has been going around, so why not? The New York Times posted their 25 best films of the 21st century - I have seen others getting on on the act - so here you go. we're almost through two whole decades of this century - shocking... all right.

1. Inland Empire
2. Yi Yi
3. Vanda's Room
4. Kingsand Queen
5. Colossal Youth
6. Los Angeles Plays Itself
7. O Brother Where Art Thou
8. Secret Sunshine
9. Moonrise Kingdom
11. The Master
12. There Will Be Blood
13. The Royal Tenenbaums
14. The Death of Mr Lazarescu
15. Toni Erdmann
16. L'Intrus
17. Mulholland Drive
18. Inside Llewyn Davis
19. Sympathy for Mr Vengeance
20. The Headless Woman
21. Memories of Murder
22. Syndromes and a Century
23. Carlos
24. The Act of Killing
25. Mysteries of Lisbon

We Could Stay at Home and Play Games, I Don't Know

Lately I have had Steely Dan on the mind. I don't own enough of their music to do a decent Band of the Month, or they might have made it - if I started doing scaled down versions of that series, I might put them in there. But for now, just getting something on this blog will count as a Win. So - I've gotten them in my head and they aren't coming out, so I am putting them up here for your enjoyment. Go get em, boys!

Here's an early bit, Doin' it Again live on Midnight Special, back when David Palmer did a lot of the live vocals... I've posted their Reelin' in the Years too many times to post it again - this will do. Jef Baxter on congas, Denny Dias on that great solo...



This is the one I can't get out of my head lately - Rikki Don't Lose That Number... I remember hearing this back in the 70s sitting in a pizza joint in Brunswick Maine, this on the jukebox, and some guy at the next table telling two girls he was with that he had done something while he was under the influence of barbiturates... ah, decadence!



And for good measure - here are some Brooklyn hipsters (Hospitality) I had never heard of covering the Dan, and doing a fine job of it...



And from after they got back together and went on tour in the 90s - Deacon Blues, which is the first Steely Dan song I remember hearing on the radio - very cool song, I thought:



And finally, some I can't find the Minutemen doing it - here are the Mountain Goats covering Dr. Wu:

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday! It is time to find ways to get this blog going again. Not just this blog everything. I moved recently, a new state, new everything - that has been a huge disruption of my life (though one I chose) - though the build up to it was just about as disruptive. That may be a topic for another day... Right now, I have moved, I am getting settled, and I have to start resuming the things I like to do. Writing - writing for this blog. Yes.

I can't promise anything too fancy yet - start with the simplest posts. Nothing makes for quick content better than music - so here you go. Friday music: rebuild my writing habits from the bottom up! So without further ao - the last few days I have been listening to a lot of Janelle Monae - enjoy:

Here she is singing Smile, with guitar accompaniment:



And Sincerely, Jane, live in 2012:



Finally - both those songs feature Kellindo Parker, her guitar player - here he is, shredding on his own:

Friday Music and another Obituary

This year has not been as devastating as last year, but we still seem to be losing people - this week, Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Audioslave, died, apparently hanging himself in his hotel room. It is very strange, given the circumstances, in the middle of a successful tour, when he seemed fairly content - his family wonders if too much medicine was involved.Whatever the reasons, it is sad. I don't feel the same connection to most of the big 90s bands I had to earlier groups (and some later groups, or smaller 90s acts), but Cornell was noticeable - a spectacular voice, a strong front man for good bands. It is a shame.

Here, then, to start, is Soundgarden playing Black Hole Sun, his last concert:



And Rusty Cage, from 1992:



And Audioslave, Shadow on the SUn, live in Germany:

Allan Fish Online Film Festival

I have been very absent from this blog for quite a while now. At least in the last few weeks I have had a viable excuse - I've just moved, to a different state, a very irksome process. The last week or so particularly have been very busy, lots of work, disruption, and, since I am an old man and did the move myself (with various friends and relations), lingering aches and pains. And a cold. And a lovely stretch of weather more suitable to March than May....

All this, particularly the timing of the move, meant I am not contributing directly to the latest project at Wonders in the Dark - but it is a good one, and I am certainly taking advantage of it.

The first annual Allan Fish Online Film Festival is being held, starting yesterday, May 11, Allan's birthday, and running - quite some time. The concept is that each day, someone wil host and post a link to a film that can be found online, and host a discussion. Details here, in Sam's introduction. This festival is being held in memory of Allan Fish, the fine writer who co-ran Wonders in the Dark with Sam Juliano all those years, who died absurdly young last fall. He was an insatiably curious cinephile, who used the internet to track down obscure and undistributed films - this is a fine tribute to his passion.

So click on over, take a peek, watch some films, and talk about them.

Lafayette! Here We Come!

I've been bad about keeping up with historical posts, but this is worth noting: 100 years ago today the US declared war on Germany in World War I. (The Great War, back in the day.) It was an important act - the US pretty clearly tipped the balance in favor of the Allies, at a time that the Russian Revolution was starting to look like it would tip the balance in favor of Germany. The effects took another year to show up on the battlefield - 1917 would be another miserable year for all concerned, and leave France pretty well neutralized as a force, and the UK not far behind - American troops turning up in 1918 would turn it back. Though just the presence of the Americans in the war, fully committed to the cause of the Allies, and thus to their economic and naval warfare against Germany would have almost as much impact as those fresh soldiers would.

The Germans - well, they were in a hard place in the first world war - submarine warfare brought the US in - but without it, they were going to be slowly starved into submission (while their enemies were not.) Submarines were their best chance to win the war - but they turned the world against them, so they had no chance. One of those things. Wars are never entirely military. Politics and diplomacy never go away - economics never goes away.

As for the US - we didn't get much out of our involvement. Woodrow Wilson dreamed of using the war to bring about a peace that would stabilize the world - that didn't work out (to put it mildly.) There were widespread crack downs on civil liberties in the US - it led to prohibition - it probably helped spread the influenza epidemic that killed more people than the war - and killed 100,000 odd Americans outright. Whether this saved anyone, improved the situation in Europe in any way, is anyone's guess. But off we went,a nd took our place in one of the worst disaster ever to befall humanity.

Baseball 2017

I know I have been scarce lately, but i have not given up completely on this blog. (Indeed, once things are settled, I hope i can get back into this for real. I should: I have been thinking about films - the idea that 2016 might be the year of the decade. There might be something there - if I get around to writing it.) Right now, though, it is time to welcome the baseball season - coming this evening - not a minute too soon. Spring in New England is the usual mess - the morning I thought I'd overslept by two months: yesterday it was snowing; today it's past 50, sunny and perfect. Just in time! It's been a nice spring for baseball - I finally watched a World Baseball Classic, very gratifying - but I am glad for the arrival of the real thing.

Here goes.

Americal League:
East
1 Boston - they look like the clear favorites, though there are reasons to worry. They are already having issues with the health of their pitching, which might be worrisome, though they are deep enough to survive. Take Price and Pomeranz away, and they still can run Sale, Porcello, Rodriguez and Wright out there. They have a great core of young position players, but they also have some holes: do we really trust Sandoval? Mitch Moreland? their catching? do you? Still - they have to be the team to beat here.

2 Toronto - easy to see decline, without Encarnacion, with Bautista and Tulo getting older, but I don't think they are going to fall too far, not with the pitchers they have. i expect them to hang around,a nd be the most obvious candidate to pounce if the Sox run into trouble.

3 NY - lots of question marks here, too, but they seem to be reloading nicely. Can Tanaka and Pineda stay healthy enough to carry them? will their young hitters continue to hit? somewhere in the middle I suspect, low 80s.

4 Baltimore - they should be able to mash; they might have some serious pitching weaknesses. If they find arms, they could be dangerous - no reason to dismiss them, really. Yanks and Jays seem better balanced, though.

5 Tampa - I suppose they can put things together, but they have no margin for error at all, and lots of room for errors. BUt they do have some arms and bats - they could get in the race, though it's a long shot.

Central
1 Cleveland - they come off a very close run for the championship, bringing back a strong lineup, extraordinary pitching (at least if they are all healthy), high ed bullpen - they should take the division and be in the running for the world championship once again.

2 Detroit - getting old, but they have talent - things would have to go perfectly, and they would have to find some relief pitching, but they have the core of team that can win some games.

3 KC - can they come back? Yordano Ventura's death leaves their rotation, already a bit thin, even weaker - the offense disappeared last year, but they have talent out there,that should rebound. Still - hard to see them being good enough to take down both the Indians and Tigers.

4 Minnesota - they wildly over-performed 2 years ago, collapsed completely last year - will they land in the middle? Seems likely to me. Sano and some of the other kids are promising - can they develop? if they do, they might be okay, sooner rather than later.

5 Chicago - they sem to have decided to blow it up, start it over - Dave Dombrowski was more than willing to help them. Moncado couldbe the real deal - maybe not immediately, but stranger things have happened. But I suspect it won't matter - they will find ways to move Quintana, maybe Robertson, Frazier if they can,and put themselves in a place to be relevant by 2020 or so.

West:
1 Seattle - this is brave, but they have to win it someday. This is actually the hardest division to call, I think - any of the three contenders are very capable of inning the division. Still - Seattle added Segura and Smyly - that's not bad. They had talent - Cano and Cruz and Seager, etc - they should be good, and this could be the year they break through.

2 Houston - or Houston could. McCanna and Beltran are old, but they are reliable professionals, and not required to be the best players onthe team:that's Altuve and Correa, maybe Springer.They could use more pitching, I think - Keuchel needs to bounce back, they need to keep McCullers on the hill - but they are in a good spot to contend.

3 Texas - or why not Texas? Maybe lack of pitching depth; maybe aging hitters; maybe the usual swings of fortune. They have certainly swung, from playoffs to dreadful to best record in the AL - thy seem far more volatile, even now, than their competition, who should get their 85 and depend on how many more they can win - Texas doesn't feel like a guarantee to win 80.

4 Anaheim - poor Mike Trout. Of course when you have Mike Trout, you don't need a lot of things to go right to be in the thick of things. Some pitching here, a couple good years from people like Calhoun, they could be - well, a .500 team. Poor Mike Trout.

5 Oakland - unfortunately, they are the type of team that desperately prays their best player is healthy and pitches well, not so they can contend, but so they can trade hi for something. Though usually when I make cracks like that, the team ends up winning the division. Unlikely.


National League:
East:
1 Washington - they won last year which is a reason to pick someone else; but they should be pretty good - Harper is more likely to bounce back than not; they have a fine rotation - they should be there when all is said and done.

2 NY - They could be very good, of course, especially if they get all those pitchers healthy for most of the year. Even without that, they have a decent team - they should be in contention, in position to win. Not the best bet.

3 Philadelphia - I have to have some fun. Why the Phillies? no good reason, but they have some interesting players around, so why not? I don't expect much of the bottom of this division so let's back the long shot!

4 Florida - probably should let them have third, the outfield is too good, they should score some runs - but they are dull and going nowhere.

5 Atlanta - they are going to the suburbs, but nowhere else that I can see. Though Bartolo Colon seems to be able to carry a team, so, hey, who can say?

Central:
1 Chicago - there's no reason to pick against them. Unless a couple pitchers get hurt, they are going to be in the thick of the hunt to win it all again. If anything , with Schwarber healthy, maybe Hayward coming back - they could be better.

2 Pittsburgh - I expect them to come back nicely. Cole is healthy - McCutcheon had a bad year, and those guys tend to come back to the norm - they have a good enough team, they should be around.

3 SL - As should the Cards. I don't see anything about them different than the usual run of Cardinals teams - a bit of luck, they win 98 and the division; a bit of bad luck, 86 miss the wild card. Most likely? 91 and the wild card?

4 Milwaukee - they can hit; any pitching to speak of? not much. I imagie they will be interesting to watch, with Braun and Vllar - the rest, though? I'm not convinced.

5 Cincinnati - another team with some talent around the diamond - Votto, Duvall, Suarez are all decent - but there isn't much else here.

West:
1 Arizona - all right. You have to say one crazy thing a year, and this is mine. Last year, the were the fun pick - but I stayed away and they went straight into the toilet. This year, no one is picking them to do much - but why not? reversion tot he norm, for guys like Greinke? a healthy AJ Pollack? Maybe Shelby Miler comes back - maybe Tajuan Walker steps forward? Lots of ifs, but a lot went wrong last year that shouldn't have - so maybe this year it goes right... More fun than picking the Dodgers to lose in the division series again...

2 LA - I know, they are the best team out here. They should win. The won last year even without Kershaw for a long stretch of time - unlikely to see that again, but they should be fine. Just boring.

3 SF - same story as always with the Giants - great pitching - good players, but thin in the field - not likely to fail, but a lot has to go right to win the division.

4 Colorado - offense! poor pitchers. They shouldn't be awful, but it is going to be hard to get past the teams ahead of them.

5 SD - Another team not really in a position to do much this year.

All Right - Post-seson?
AL: Boston - Cleveland - Seattle & Toronto/Houston - Red Sox of Indians in the series, probably depends on whose pitching is healthy, and who gets hot.
NL: Washington - Chicago - Arizona & - actually, this is tough (since I'm being weird with the D-Backs) - at least 5 more teamsthat are very solid contenders. I'll guess it's the Dodgers and Mets. who comes out? Cubbies, obviously.
MVPs: Al - Trout of course. The usual suspects as runners up - Betts and Altuve and Machado... NL - Harper likeliest, Bryant and Seager and Golschmidt are real contenders.
Rookies: Should have been paying attention - Andrew Benintendi!

And will the Cubs repeat? or will the Sox take their 4th of the millenia? Or is this the Indian's year? or something weird - something really cool? Seattle and Washington? I suspect - Cubs beat Indians, second year in a row.

Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry is pretty much the point where rock and roll becomes tock and roll, instead of whatever else it was before. I've never loved him the way I loved some of his contemporaries (Elvis, Bo Diddly, Buddy Holly, Johnny Cash), but it doesn't matter - he was still the root and cause of all of it. And he put in one hell of a shift - 90 years on the planet, most of it rockin' and a reelin', reelin' and a rockin...



I can't argue with the songs....

Well - maybe I can argue a bit with Rock and roll music - I like modern jazz, even if they play it too darn fast... and - maybe those songs get diluted the more often they're played, with special guests and a horn section and the duck walking and splits and... Though I can't say he didn't act like he meant it,a nd doing a good thing well for 70 years is a thing to be honored ...



So take me back to the 50s, up through the 70s, and let Mr. Berry do his thing - it was a thing to be proud of: Johnny B Goode:



Roll Over Beethoven:



Memphis Tennessee:



And a full concert from 1969:

St. Patrick's Day With Thin Lizzy

Haven't posted in ages - here's a reminder that I am still alive... A bit of something from the old country in honor of Evacuation Day...