At first hearing I felt like I was eavesdropping on Shrub's unconscious, the kind of fearful bullying that renounces both Baker's bi-partisan Iraq "Study" Group recommendations and Gates's pleading to close Gitmo -- why get rid of Rumsfeld when his hotel managers keep raping the Geneva conventions? Then I read the lyric sheet. And that, my friends, is why mishearing certain songs amounts to poetry. Maybe now Thompson won't have to resort to "Ding-A-Ling" for his hit. … [Read more...]

TWO NEW PODCASTS POSTED The first is old already (12/01/06), holiday box set recommentations including Fats Waller, Bob Wills, Buddy Guy and Gram Parsons. The second is from yesterday, Guilty Pleasures, alongside Renee Graham. Prescott gave it up privately that hers includes Madonna's "Borderline," which is weird since it's irrefutably solid. The ABBEY ROAD report is coming along, will post by end of week... … [Read more...]

OR WHY WE LOVE THE TIMES Houdini's grave to be opened - but what will they find there? Which begs the response: "Geraldo Rivera" -- Harry Shearer … [Read more...]

A Story That Could Be True If you were exchanged in the cradle and your real mother died without ever telling the story then no one knows your name, and somewhere in the world your father is lost and needs you but you are far away. He can never find how true you are, how ready. When the great wind comes and the robberies of the rain you stand on the corner shivering. The people who go by-- you wonder at their calm. They miss the whisper that runs any day in your mind, "Who are you really, wanderer?"-- and the answer you have to give no matter … [Read more...]

You could feel TV's ground shift the other night as Eddie Izzard launched The Riches on FX, his coolly ambitious satire. The humor was jagged, lit by violence, the characters hungry and gulping down plot, the tone steely-eyed anarchic. There was Minnie Driver, a con on parole, sobbing, throwing her syringe out the window of her new McMansion, unable to tap a vein. There was the younger son, Sam, who draws wall murals and liked to dress like a girl. It tapped the waried intrigue of Blue Velvet or Something Wild or Sam and the Pharoahs "Wooly … [Read more...]

Brooks keeps showing up: on the latest NYRB subscription dropout card, and you have to wonder: what demo does this caricature appeal to? The 75-and-over crowd? Those lecherous old poets? Does this ancient ingenue actually sell magazines? Does anybody write in saying "OMIGawd, I never realized this august book review actually covered my teenage hand-job fantasy Louise! Sign me up for life!" Does anybody remember the major story this publication ran on Ms. Brooks? Or the byline? Can anybody name a single film Brooks acted in? … [Read more...]

THE REVOLUTION WILL BE BLOGGED We be thumping now anyway: Riley Rock Index now features a weekly rss feed, which works on your mobile. And next week: Abbey Road podcast. … [Read more...]