Dispatches from the Fifth Circle

It happens to every generation in the rock ‘n’ roll era – conjured back to life by the nostalgic yearnings of the living, the dead rise from the grave. And now it has happened to the luckless men and women of Generation X. The songs of their youth have become the oldies of the modern age. Loverboy’s “Working for the Weekend.” Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over.” Hall and Oats’ “Maneater.” The Fixx’s “Saved by Zero.” Spandau Ballet’s “True.” Taco’s “Putting on the Ritz.” All are back from the dead and inhabiting the airwaves. A remake of The Big Chill, starring Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson can’t be fair behind.

Some call it reflection. Some call it necrophilia. Others call it Jack. Bob. Mike, the nicknames for mega-variety/new generation oldies format that are popping up across the country. Of course, the new Jack format doesn’t rely solely on music from the ‘80s. Yes, you might hear anything from Barry White to Usher, Grand Funk Railroad to Guns ‘n’ Roses, but the rancid heart of this new undead brute is clearly the music of the first MTV generation, the ones who remember when the channel was more than reality TV. And if the success of the new format is any indication, the Jack format is bound to be bigger than parachute pants and pastel-flavored Izods.

According to Arbitron, among 25-54 year old listeners, the stations are producing results faster than a water-soaked mogwai produces gremlins. For Austin’s WBPA-FM (Bob) and Phoenix’s KKLT (The Peak), the Jack format has transformed these once struggling stations into number one leaders in average quarterly hour rankings among 25-54-year-old listeners. In Oklahoma City, among the 25-54 crowd, KQOB, Bob-FM, is ranked second, while the Jack format stations in Kansas City and Dallas both come in sixth place among the same demo. After the switch to a Jack format, KPBA in Austin jumped from a 4.7 share to a 7.7. Phoenix’s KKLT made the leap from a 4.0 share to a 6.7. With numbers like these, the contagion is sure to spread.

Steve Jones is the new program manager for 93.7 MIKE-FM in Boston, a mega-variety/new gen oldies station which launched in April. He previously worked for Newcap Radio in Canada where the Jack-FM format got its start, and he readily admits that the bean counters have carefully crafted playlists to appeal to Gen Xers. “If you were to break it down simply by era, the ‘80s definitely represents the core of the music on [93.7 MIKE-FM],” Jones says. “It has everything to do with demo appeal. If you’re looking to reach someone who is between 30 and 40, you can pretty quickly mathematically see that the high school music of their youth – the songs they were listening to when they got their first car or first kiss or failed their first high school exam – are songs that came up between ‘83 and ‘93.”

For Generation Xers, the Jack format is the first time that all of the hits from their glory days are on one station, something fans of traditional oldies have experienced for years. In many ways, the success of Jack is simply a matter of convenience. “They are still, at their core, oldies stations for 35-year-olds, who’ve never had one-stop shopping for all the music of their high-school years. A 50-year-old didn’t have to punch around to hear the Beatles and Supremes on two different radio stations,” says Sean Ross, vice president of music and programming at Edison Media Research. “These stations also rely heavily, in many cases, on hair band rock and early ’80s corporate rock, two genres that were falling between the cracks in many markets: too new and hard for the classic rocker, too old and stodgy for the current rock stations.” (more…)

Chances are the Willowz wouldn’t be where they are today if it wasn’t for two men. There would be no national tour. There would be no 3-and-a-half-star review in Rolling Stone. There would be no words before you right now detailing anything about this up-and-coming band out of Anaheim, California.

One is acclaimed director Michael Gondry, the helmsman behind the Charlie Kaufman-penned mindbender Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The other is Walt Disney.

As fate would have it, the filmmaking Frenchman Gondry, who had previously directed videos for Bjork and the White Stripes, stumbled upon the Willowz. He loved what he heard and put two of the band’s songs (“I Wonder” and “Something”) on the soundtrack for Eternal Sunshine. It was just the break the band needed. “It was amazing,” says Richie James Follin, singer-guitarist for the Willowz, adding that the band also attended to the movie’s premiere. “He had a dream about one of our songs [“I Wonder”], and he actually paid to make the video.”

Follin adds, “He’s a big factor in helping us get our music through.”

Gondry’s love affair with this little band of early twentysomething garage enthusiasts continues to this date. He has already selected a Willowz track for his next film, The Science of Sleep.

And what’s not to love about the Willowz. Maybe it’s their youth – no band member is over 24 years old - but there’s a refreshingly earnest energy and wild-eyed innocence to their music that few bands have. On the band’s latest, Talk in Circles, the Willowz embraces classic noise pop like a club kid on Ecstasy hugs anybody and everything around him. Yes, the band’s brand of catchy hook-happy cacophony is sloppy and jarring – as it should be - but it’s so enthusiastically heartfelt and endearing it bleeds. They’re like Iggy and the Stooges circa Raw Power, but instead of David Bowie at the helm, it’s Jim Henson and Frank Oz. Just picture a shirtless Kermit the Frog singing a rapid-fire version of “It’s not Easy Being Green” while rubbing peanut butter on his chest and you’ll have an idea of the Willowz are about. The end result is an album packed with an accomplished 20 tracks that is one part sugar-high and one part epileptic fit.

One of the album’s standout songs “Toy” starts off as a deliciously low-fi blues number before the band kicks into a blitzkrieg salvo of sound that conjures up both Sonic Youth and the Pixies at their funhouse finest. Another stellar track, “Dead Ears,” begins with a delirious Detroit Rock City fury and never lets up. In it, Follin rattles off words in such a breathless rapid-fire succession that listeners will be gasping for air before the track is over with. Call it garage rock asphyxiation. (more…)

Teen access to dryer lint greater than alcohol and marijuana

(Knight-Rider) Atlanta, Ga.– Claudine Galviston always tried to protect her son Jack from the evils of the world. She only bought organic foods. No sodas. No sweetened breakfast cereal. No potato chips. She only rented edited copies of blockbuster movies from her local church. No nudity. No cursing. No lewd or crude behavior. And she tried to protect her children from the influence of secular ideas. No Darwin. No Freud. No Kinsey.

However, while washing her son’s school clothes, Claudine came face-to-face with her biggest fear. She had failed to steer her son Jack away from danger. Inside of the pocket of his blue jeans, Claudine found a thumbtack-size ball of lint.

Frantically, she began to search the pockets of all of Jack’s clothes – his pants, his shorts, his jackets. She went from the washroom to the bedroom to the hallway closet. Each investigation only confirmed her deepest fears. Her son was a dryer lint user. “First I catch my daughter using Instant Messenger, chatting with complete strangers, and now I find out my son is hoarding dryer lint. What’s a parent to do?” Claudine asks.

The Alpharetta mother of two didn’t hear about the dangers lurking in her laundry room until a July 22 Dateline report entitled The Lint Trap hit the airwaves. At first, she dismissed the warning. She thought knew her children. She thought knew her son. She didn’t. The truth was earth shattering. “I couldn’t believe it. My heart started racing, and I started shaking uncontrollably,” Claudine says. “Then I realized that I was leaning against the washing machine. It was on a spin cycle.” (more…)

Will sent this little salvo out today to all of us on his mailing list. For those of you who keep a close watch on the president’s extracurricular activities, the facts below shouldn’t come as a surprise. You already know that George W. Bush, like Spanky McFarland, has a taste for playing hookie. But for folks who pay as much atttention to news reports as Rafael Palmeiro pays to the pills that he ingests, then this is for you.

• 49 - the number of vacations that Bush has taken since he was inaugurated in 2001
• 5 - the number of weeks that Bush will spend on vacation, starting yesterday. It is the longest presidential vacation in at least 36 years.
• 319 - August 3, 2005 was the 319th day Bush has spent on vacation since his 2001 inauguration.
• 20% - the fraction of Bush’s presidency that he has spent on vacation
• 23 - the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq in August alone. That’s right. In three days, 23 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq.
• 1,822 - the total number of U.S. troops who have died in Bush’s illegal Iraq war, as of August 3, 2005.

Surprising, huh? What’s even more shocking is that the email was nearly identical to one I received moments later. Compare. Contrast.

• 49 - The number of times that Bob Jones IV threatened his anti-papist father Bob Jones III that he’d apply to Notre Dame University.
• 5 - The number of encounters Sen. Lindsey Graham has had with a woman. Unfortunately, they were all with his sister.
• 319 - The number of days until Strom Thurmond rises from the grave to eat the brains of activist judges.
• 20% - The percentage of hours awake that former S.C. governor and Alzheimer sufferer Carroll can be found sitting in his own urine mumbling the cryptic remark, “But who will throw a block for Nancy Thurmond. George Rogers is on cocaine.”
• 23 - The average number of letters to the editor the Greenville News receives a day advocating teaching intelligent design in South Carolina schools.
• 1,822 - The number of times that Bob Jones III threatened to sent his son Bob Jones IV to Notre Dame upon finding copies of “International Male” tucked under his mattress.

During Rich Merritt’s 12 years in the Marines, he mastered the art of keeping a secret — he was gay. But long before Merritt joined the Marines and became a poster boy for opponents of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, he learned how to keep secrets from himself during his years on the campus of Bob Jones University in Greenville.

“It was pretty easy to convince myself that I was straight,” says Merritt, who attended BJU for grade school through one year of college. “I went through them pretty quickly: Gays are evil. I’m not evil. I’m a born-again Christian, therefore I cannot be gay, but I’m having these feelings for my friends, but these can’t be gay feelings because of the previous logical syllogism I’ve just gone through. So, since I’m like everyone else, they must also be having these feelings for each other, so there’s nothing wrong for me to be acting on these feelings. I think a lot of guys who live closeted lives go through that process.”

He adds, “It wasn’t until later when I looked back and thought, ‘How could I have thought I was straight?’ I mean, as gay as I am, as much as I like men, how did I do this?’”

For most of his life, Merritt has been in hiding, keeping the truth about himself concealed from those around him.

As a member of the U.S. Marine Corps, it was a necessity. Because he kept his sexuality secret, he was able to succeed, rising to the rank of captain. However, frustrated with the military’s policy on homosexuality and with living a life undercover, Merritt decided to come forward. At first, it was anonymously.

In June 1998, an article in the New York Times Magazine introduced the real Rich Merritt to the world, although at the time he was known to the public only as “R.” In the report, he spoke openly about the trials and tribulations facing homosexuals serving in the armed forces — the fears, the camaraderie, the compromises.

Merritt was candid in the Times article and a subsequent story in The Advocate, but he held back on at least one subject. Not once did he mention that he had starred in gay porn movies — eight of them, including Bad Moon Rising, Bullseye, and Boxer Shorts 2. Seven months later, the truth came out, and it was only a matter of time before the story was everywhere. The media and public opinion quickly turned against Merritt. Even The Advocate, a gay magazine which had virtually hailed Merritt as a hero, now recast him as a victim. He turned to drugs and the club circuit to ease his mind. (more…)

Walking down Comm. Ave. in Allston, you’re sure to stumble across a stencil or two—“Rethink Patriotism,” “Every Animal You Ate Ran For Her Life” and “Dude, Trucker Hats Fucking Suck, Dude.” A new stencil, with an out-of-this-world origin, has joined them. It can be found across the road from the Massachusetts Arts and Technology Charter High School.

On the sidewalk, there is some unknown script. Underneath it, a message in light blue letters. It reads, “www.alienglyph.com.” Another one was found on Beacon Street in direct sight of Fenway Park. Further investigation reveals other alien glyph stencils at Downtown Crossing, the Middle East in Cambridge, and the Virgin Megastore on the Newb. Make no doubt about it, Boston is being invaded.

Is this the work of a meme-maker trying to create the next “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” craze? Is this a message from the messianic madman behind the “Toynbee” tiles? Nope. In reality, it’s simply nothing more than a contest to promote Steven Spielberg’s latest stinker, War of the Worlds. It works like this: Cletus finds a glyph on the sidewalk, he takes his picture beside the glyph and he sends it in to Paramount Pictures. If Cletus is lucky, he’ll be among the handful of winners chosen from this batch to catch the movie premiere of War of the Worlds. Unfortunately, that day has come and gone. All that is left is a spray-painted stencil on the sidewalk. In other words, all that is left is graffiti.

Being quality-of-life-minded citizens, we contacted the city of Boston’s Graffiti Busters crew via an online form on the city’s website to take care of the mess. Three days later the city responded via e-mail, acknowledging that the crime had been reported. Crews were dispatched to help stanch the creep of advertising into every square inch of city life.

The Reagan-and-Thatcher era is well behind us. But for UK anarcho-punk icons, the Subhumans, it’s as if those dark days never passed.

Formed in 1979, the Subhumans released a flurry of EPs and LPs, including the classic The Day the Country Died, before calling it quits in the mid-‘80s, leaving behind a impressively catchy collection of some of the most politically charged and socially critical tunes of the decade—songs like “Subvert City,” “Businessmen,” and “Waste of Breath.”

They kept everyone in their sights—the government, religious leaders, the fatcats in big business, the working man and, of course, their fellow punks. They spared no one; but there remained a sense of hope at the heart of all the rhetorical rage and sonic fury. The Subhumans weren’t nihilists. They were idealists. They wanted revolution against the system, but even more than that, they wanted their fans to shed the shackles of apathy and fight for a better tomorrow.

However, for the boys in the band, including lead singer/political instigator Dick Lucas, breaking up was hard to do. Most of the band joined forces in the ‘90s as the ska-flavored Citizen Fish, but this summer, the Subhumans are once again on the road and back on the attack. As you might imagine, their songs are as relevant as ever. (more…)

Before the rise of anime in all of its tentacle-sex obsessed glory, there were only a handful of cartoons being made with adults in mind. Taken as a whole, these toons were generally so bad that giving the filmmakers a donkey punch and double-dirty Sanchez would be consider a compliment. However, there were some stand-outs. Rock & Rule is one of them. Featuring songs from some of the biggest musical acts of the day- Blondie, Cheap Trick, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed - Rock & Rule is the story of a guitarist with a chip on his shoulder, his strong-willed girlfriend and a rock superstar who wants to open the gates of hell in order to pull off the show of a lifetime. Of course, it all takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where mutant mice, rats, cats and dogs dominate the planet. You either buy into it or you don’t. If you do, you’ll discover a film that has a far more cohesive story than Heavy Metal and better animation than anything Ralph Bashki put out. The flick comes in two editions – a single-disc set with commentary, a making of documentary and some character sketches while the double-disc set tacks on an alternate version of the film, the 27 minute short which inspired the film and a work print of the original ending.

Sometimes it feels like South Carolina comes in last place in just about everything. High school graduation rates. Life expectancy. Babies born with all twenty digits. In one list after another, when it comes to comparing the Palmetto State to all the other states, more often than not we’re pulling up the rear.

But that has changed. The Palmetto State has finally landed in first place. Unfortunately, it’s a top spot on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s most recent state-by-state list of active hate groups, boasting an impressive 47 organizations dedicated to xenophobia, anti-Semitism and racism. And, boy oh boy, was the competition tough. South Carolina not only managed to beat Florida (43) and California (42), but regional rivals Georgia (41) and North Carolina (37), to secure the position as KKK-king of the mountain.

For South Carolina, it’s been a long fight to the top. According to the SPLC, back in 1999 the Palmetto State only had three active hate groups. In 2000 the figure was only 12. But in 2001 when the SPLC listed 35 groups in South Carolina , it was clear the state had turned it around. The spit bucket boy was now a contender. In 2004, the year of the latest survey, the state finally took the top spot.

Just exactly who does the credit go to? Why, the League of the South (LoS), an organization which believes the southern states should break away from the evil American empire and form a united group of self-determined nations where “Anglo-Celtic” culture reigns supreme and Biblical teachings are the basis for the laws of the land. Of the 47 active hate groups the SPLC lists in South Carolina, 33 are League of the South Chapters. On the map, a Confederate flag indicates a League chapter.

Although the group takes issue with the SPLC’s claim that they are a hate group, they couldn’t be happier for helping the Palmetto State secure the top spot. Speaking of the SPLC’s hate group map, Dr. Michael Hill, president of the Alabama-based League of the South, says, “They have these little maps were they have these little symbols of the Confederate flag. South Carolina, I’m proud to say, is just loaded down with us. We’ve got a lot of local chapters in South Carolina. When we first started South Carolina lagged behind all the other states.” (more…)

The end is nigh.

The ivory-billed woodpecker. The Arakan forest turtle. The mom and pop Five and Dime store. For each one, extinction is very near indeed. It is right around the bend. But there’s still time to save them. But for Toby, the rabbit at the center of SaveToby.com, time has run out. Tomorrow is June 30, 2005, and no amount of celebrity will save him. In less than 24 hours, Toby will die.

Since the anonymous webmaster for SaveToby first discovered the tiny rabbit wet and badly injured underneath his porch, Toby’s life has been one of prosperity -a cedar-chipped lined cage, the loving care of loving owner, regular meals.

Shortly after Toby’s Internet debut this winter, he quickly became perhaps the Web’s first bonafide animal star thanks to the scores of fad-happy online Americans who spread memes via email the way that rats spread the Black Plague. Fame followed – parody sites, a book deal, a segment on the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.

But there was something different about Toby that set him apart from Mahir “I Kiss You” Cagri and would-be Jedi master Ghyslain Raza – yes, SaveToby was essentially just another in a long line of Internet memes, but unlike most, it was designed to self-destruct. And on June 30, it would. Either the SaveToby webmaster would receive $50,000 in donations or it was time to take Toby to meet Sam the Butcher.

Judging by the amount of money that has been raised so far – an impressive $28,372.15 - Toby’s chance of surviving are about as good as stray tablet of Oxycontin in Rush Limbaugh’s medicine cabinet. Hasenpfeffer anyone?

However, they may yet be hope for Toby. Many believe that the anonymous webmaster isn’t on the up and up. “I definitely feel that it is a fraud,” says Diana Heideman of Reallysavetoby.com, a site which attempts to discredit the anonymous operator of SaveToby.com. “Most of his information is totally falsified, from the images of ‘Toby’ to his Paypal ‘earnings’- the latter, I believe, to encourage people to jump on the bandwagon since ‘all these other people’ had already given him money too.”

According to Heideman, SaveToby originally featured images of Toby just after the website’s owner found him. “Toby’s photo looks for all the world like a Photoshopped image to me, like someone took a picture of a cottontail rabbit and tried to put it on the body of some kind of stuffed animal,” Heideman says.

Even more damaging, Heideman claims that the “animal” featured in these early photos cannot possibly be Toby because the fur is drastically different from the original picture of Toby and the other pictures on the site. “There were major differences in the ‘young’ and ‘grown’ Toby photos that could not be explained just by aging,” Heideman says. “While rabbits will have fur lighten or darken, or patterns shift a little bit over time, it’s genetically impossible for a rabbit to go from an agouti coat - where the hairs are ‘tipped’ with a different color - to a solid coat. The pattern on each single hair itself will always be solid, or have agouti bands, for the animal’s entire life.”

The young photos of Toby have since been taken down from the site, but Heideman has them posted on her site.

Those photos aren’t the only hoax-proving signs that have been removed from SaveToby. According to David Embry, the Urban Legends and Folklore expert at About.com, the site may have once had a disclaimer. “I have heard from more than one source that wording to the effect of, ‘It’s just a joke,’ appeared at the bottom of the SaveToby home page early on, so - though I admit I never saw it myself - I think it’s likely true that it did,” Embry says. “In any case, I did see, with my own eyes, these revealing keywords embedded in the HTML code of one version of the page: ‘humor, college, funny, pictures, recipes, videos, jokes.’ It suggests that the author’s intent was somewhat less than serious.” (more…)

Contact: Media Relations
Chris Haire
Diversified Solutions Inc.
chris@freetheseed.com

HEY KIDS. HELP SAVE BIG TOBACCO

Big Tobacco is in trouble. Not only has the federal government placed unconstitutional restrictions on tobacco advertising, but recent court-ordered fines are robbing companies of their justly earned revenues. It gets worse – the federal government even has the gall to force Big Tobacco to fund public service announcements discouraging Americans from enjoying tobacco in all of its forms and flavors.

As a result of these efforts by Uncle Sam to cripple the tobacco industry, Big Tobacco may soon turn to a drastic series of employee layoffs to remain in business. If this happens, millions of mothers and fathers will find themselves penniless and on the streets. They won’t be alone. Their children will be right there with them.

That’s right, America. Once on the streets, millions of innocent American children - the sons and daughters of the employees of Big Tobacco - will find themselves without proper clothing, nutritional meals, adequate shelter, and health care coverage. They will be prey to pimps, drug dealers and child molesters. Their lives will be in danger, all because the federal government continues to wage a campaign of industrial genocide. Sadly enough, it looks as if Uncle Sam can’t be stopped.

There is a Solution. And it’s in the hands of the very people who are most in danger – the sons and daughters of Big Tobacco.

In order to save their parents’ jobs, it’s time for the children of the tobacco industry - and their school yard friends - to break the twin habits of apathy and abstinence and do something to save their fathers, their mothers and themselves. It’s time for them to take up smoking. It’s time for them to light up and lessen the load placed on Big Tobacco. With their help, the tobacco industry can still be saved.

But big government doesn’t want America’s youth to know about the benefits of cigarette smoking. They want to keep the truths hidden behind a veil of smoke. They want to mislead. They want to lie.

We here at Diversified Solutions Inc. believe that more can be done to inform America’s youth about the benefits of cigarette smoking - as well as the impact that a smoking recession would have on the economy and, more importantly, their own lives. To spread the word to the young people of America, we are launching an nationwide ad campaign highlighting many of the positive aspects of cigarette smoking.

The series of 30-second television commercials and print and Internet advertisements will address the following benefits of smoking: (more…)

In Your Honor

Forget drugs. Forget personality clashes. The double-album destroys more bands than those things combined. For rock groups, it’s the money shot – after that, a band just can’t get it up again. So why attempt it? Ego. Greed. Hari-kari. Maybe it’s a little bit of all three. Which is why fans of the Foo Fighters should view the latest album – the double-disc In Your Honor – with equal measures excitement and sadness. And there’s plenty for fans to be excited about. The first disc – consisting of electric numbers – is exactly the sort of polished power-pop you’ve come to expect from the Foos. The album adheres to the Foos’ formula for making radio-friendly, unit shifting rock – the lyrics are she-loves-me-she-loves-me-not diary entries, the choruses are catchy confectionaries and the music is as dangerous as a shi tzu with rabies. There are some rough and ready gems (the slow-burning opener “In Your Honor,” the Queens of the Stone Age-inspired “DOA”, the hard-hitting “Free Me,” the Neil Young country-rocker “End Over End”), but all in all, it’s pretty much the sort of respectable rock we expect from the Foos, never one of the music world’s more experimental bands. Which, of course, brings us to the experiment – the all-acoustic second disc. The vast majority of the tracks sound like low-watt renditions of what has become the Foos signature sound. For fans, this is a good thing. “What If I Do” is the summer-breeze ballad Seals and Croft never recorded. Meanwhile, “Over and Out” is the sort of haunting song that used to come at the end of heavy metal records where our hero reveals that every night he cries himself to sleep on the tour bus; it’s a poignant and powerful track that will have you seeing visions of Johnny Cash pouring a glass of wine over his last supper. The disc’s real standout track is “Virginia Moon,” a classy little “Girl from Ipanema” number that would feel at home on the newest Sondre Lerche album. It’s a bold move from a band that doesn’t make enough of them.

When it comes to live performances, the Rev. Fred Phelps stands turds and toilets above his colleagues. After all, this is the man who, along with his Topeka, KS, band of bigots, rocked Laramie, WY, in 1999 with a show that not only included plenty of fire and brimstone hits, but a set that was decorated with signs reading, “God Hates Fags” and “Save the Gerbils.”

A 2001 show in New York City was equally as good, though not nearly as earth-shattering. Get this: While workers were pulling bodies out of the wreckage of the Twin Towers, Phelps and company hoisted placards which proclaimed “Thank God for Sept. 11” and “Towers Crash, God Laughs.”

What is it about Phelps that inspires the masses to flock to his shows? Maybe it’s because Phelps hates homosexuals. Maybe it’s because he blames them for all of mankind’s woes. Maybe it’s because he believes that the end is right around the corner with hair care product in one hand and lube in the other, ready to tszuj our mangy manes and bugger our backsides. Or maybe it’s because he’s utterly batshit crazy.

On Sunday, June 5, Phelps and company were scheduled to pay a visit to Brookline as part of a barnstorming 11-stop tour of Massachusetts. The visit coincided with the school’s graduation day ceremonies. Expectations were high for the show. After all, Phelps had recently called Brookline High a “sodomite whorehouse” and “teenage fag dating service.”

Like usual, the gang showed up right on time, but right off you could tell something was amiss. Phelps wasn’t there. He pulled an Axl Rose. Still, enough of his followers were there for a performance. The leaderless band stepped into an aluminum pen that had been erected for them across from the school and started in. The absence of Phelps didn’t deter those who came out for the show. They rushed the barricades and began shouting “Bigots Go Home” and “Fred Phelps, Go Away. You’re Racist, Sexist, Anti-Gay.”

All in all, the bigots did their best to entertain, although Phelps’ presence was sorely missed. The bulk of the group was reliably offensive, if a little stale, hoisting signs that read “Matt, 6 Years in Hell,” “Fags Eat Scat” and “America Is Doomed.” But amid this mediocrity, it was a 5-year-old kid who really stood out. His “Pope in Hell” poster was so sick, I think I need to get an HIV test. It featured a picture of John Paul II with horns sticking out of his head. It was the kind of image that would make Jello Biafra consider reforming the Dead Kennedys just to use the image as an album cover. I wanted to ask the kid whether the Pope was being punished in Hell, or if he was appointed a high-ranking official for his supposed adherence to the party line, but the child was too busy repeatedly dropping his sign and wandering off to tug on the shorts of an adult presumed to be a relative. I think he had to pee. I kept expecting the adult to hand him a Mason jar back and tell him to get on with it.

While the aforementioned kid functioned serviceably in the absence of Phelps, others seemed totally lost, like the 7-year-old girl who wore her trademark pink pants, shirt and visor. Evidently unable or uninterested in connecting with the audience in any meaningful way, Pinky did little more than stare out at the crowd through her Coke bottle glasses. I don’t know if it was the ‘ludes or not, but her mouth never shut. It was as open as a memoirist at an AA meeting. And let me tell you, it would’ve been nice if Pinky had shut her mouth just once. Seriously, that girl needs an orthodontist. Later on in life when she’s filming barnyard porn with Seabiscuit 2, she’s surely going to get a kick to the head for her snagglies, and then she’ll be out of work for weeks.

One woman, however, let’s call her Calamity Jane, was the bee’s knees. Wearing a revealing tank top and a pair of short shorts, Jane stood above the crowd shouting, “Blah, blah, blah,” and “waah, waah, waah” over and over again. A cell phone and a set of keys were attached to her shorts, and the weight from the phone and keys pulled the shorts down ever so slightly, exposing Jane’s belly which spilled over the waistband of the shorts like George Lucas’ neck fat spills over the collars of his flannel shirts. I don’t know about you, but I know I’m not the only deviant in the crowd that day who popped a chubby when I saw those stretch marks across her belly.

Blah, blah, blah? Ooh la la!

Calamity Jane and the piss kid aside, though, the show was disappointing. The act has become mostly pedestrian and predictable, and the players seem barely able to summon the manic energy to replicate the effectiveness of some of their older performances, which is hardly surprising. One can only hoist a “God Hates America” sign so many times before burning out. The transience of fame may seem cruel, but it’s simply a reality of the business.

So the Council for American Islamic Relations is reporting record sales of the Koran. No wait… they weren’t selling it it all! They were giving it away…

No word yet on how those copies are being put use…

Following the controversy, CAIR - a Muslim organisation focused on increasing awareness of the Muslim faith in the US - had started a campaign titled “Explore the Koran”.

Get Behind Me Satan

White Stripes fans: Do not be fooled by “Blue Orchid,” the opening track on the band’s latest release, Get Behind Me Satan. The Deep Purple-inspired bottom-heavy rocker, which features Jack White adopting a sexy motherfucker falsetto, is not a sign of things to come. It’s the single most seductive track White has ever written, hands down. Unfortunately, after “Orchid” the album transforms into a piano-powered, xylophone-driven, acoustic confessional about a love affair which didn’t just go sour but apparently didn’t involve any lovemaking at all. That’s right, if Get Behind Me Satan says anything about White’s love life, it’s that a certain Hollywood you-know-who just didn’t put out. Still, there are some stand-out tracks on the album, enough to temporarily satisfy the appetite of any Stripes fan, this reviewer included. “The Nurse” is a pleasant enough Bahamas-bound number that is oh-so rudely, and delightfully, interrupted by various and sundry drum crashes, guitar crunches and piano flourishes. The following track, “My Doorwell” is a pleasant reminder of White Blood Cells’ “Hotel Yorba.” With it’s Jay Z-tongue-twister chorus, “Doorbell” is sure to have you stompin’ the floors. The same can be said of the album’s only other song seriously deserving a mention -the Appalachian Mountain sing-a-long “Little Ghost,” a raw, acoustic number that reminds listeners there’s more to the Jack White than tabloid news reports. Or at least there used to be.

Let’s talk great band names for a second. Brian Jonestown Massacre. Kathleen Turner Overdrive. Those are great band names. So-so bands, but great band names. Then there are bands like Spoon. Horrible name, great band. Spoon’s main men, guitarist/vocalist Britt Daniel and drummer Jim Eno, might not know how to pick a musical moniker, but when it comes to making records, these Austin songsmiths balance a full-speed charge up Bunker Hill with a gentle stroll down Penny Lane in order to create some of the most infectious songs any band, indie or mainstream, currently puts out. Case in point: their latest release, Gimme Fiction.
Like its verse-chorus-verse averse predecessors Kill the Moonlight and Girls Can Tell, the new disc is another solid collection of masterfully produced songs where catchy fragments and subtle sounds intertwine to create tracks that are one part whiskey-fueled barroom rock and one part gaze-at-the-glow-in-the-dark-stars-on-the-ceiling ambient music.

The highlight of Gimme Fiction is the take-me-to-funky-town, steady groover, “I Turn My Camera On.” On the track, Daniel adopts a Mick Jagger-“Miss You” falsetto while drummer Eno manhandles a high-hat-heavy beat. According to Eno, the song wasn’t inspired by KC and the Sunshine Band. The inspiration belonged to Prince and the Revolution. “When I first heard the demo, it didn’t have any rhythm on it at all. I instantly heard this Prince sound, and I think I remember talking to Britt about it and he said, ‘I think we should approach it as a rock song’ and I said, ‘Well, let’s think about it for a moment from a Prince standpoint.’ So I worked on it, and I came up with a beat similar to what’s on the record,” Eno says. (more…)

Pro-nap group wants company to realize ‘sleep’ is not a four-letter word

(Knight-Rider) Charlotte, N.C. — It’s 1:30 in the afternoon at the North American headquarters of Cobalt Precision Instruments. The computerized assembly lines are running. The computers are humming. The phones are ringing. In many ways, it’s a typical day at the factory. Except for one thing: the hallways and offices are filled with people, but not a single one of them is copying an expense report, dawdling around the water cooler or waiting for a fax to go through. They are all asleep.

Some are nestling snuggly inside of sleeping bags. Others are lying on exercise mats. A few are sprawled out on the worn carpet. Snores echo off the thin office walls and the smell of sweaty bodies fills the air. The bodies are so numerous that walking through the hallways is only slightly less difficult than navigating a minefield without an African pouched rat leading the way.

As for why Cobalt now bears more of resemblance to a day care center at nap time than to a hustling and bustling work place, it comes to this: if the workers at Cobalt aren’t allowed to cut a few hours out of the workday to take a nap at home, then they are going to sleep on the job.

Some say it’s a biological necessity. Some say it’s a psychological need. Others say it’s a political statement. For Marshall Field, the chairman of the Siesta Party, it’s a little bit of all three. “The American worker is just plain tired,” Field says. “They are overworked, and they need to sleep. And a two-hour break during the day is a good place to start. That’s all that we’re asking for. And until we get our rest we’re going to stay here and sleep.”

And for the past three weeks, the middle-managers and assembly workers at Cobalt have been doing just that, at 12 o’clock sharp each and every day. At 2 p.m., Field awakes them, and they return to their duties.

According to a recent study by the Somnambulist Institute, the average American gets only 6.9 hours of sleep a night, significantly less than the recommended eight to nine hours currently recommended by doctors. “Why are Americans sleeping less? The answer is simple: We live in an accelerated age with too many tasks and too many challenges,” says Dr. Jay Hamilton, head researcher at SI, a division of Diversified Solutions Inc. (This website is also a subsidiary of DSI.) “Companies expect their employees to work longer days. Commutes are getting longer and longer. The kids have their soccer games and dance recitals and Cub Scouts. And then when it’s time to go to sleep, a person needs that downtime, so they end up watching TV until they fall asleep. It’s not healthy.”

Field also blames the jet-propulsion, 24/7 lifestyle demanded of most Americans. “You know that saying, early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealth and wise? With your average American today, they’ve completely forgotten the first part. In fact, many of them don’t even go to bed at all,” he says. “It’s rise, rise, rise, all the time. It’s like someone slipped a Viagra into collective unconscious.”

Contrary to the opinions of most business leaders, Field believes it’s in a business’ best interest to offer daily siestas. “A well rested worker is a happier worker. They are more efficient. They make fewer mistakes,” Field says. “And when you’re dealing with a factory like the one here at Cobalt, with dozens of industrial presses, precision saws and the like, if your employees are chronically sleep-deprived, the workplace can be as dangerous as parading through the streets of Laramie, Wyoming, high on crystal meth with a Superman ‘S’ on your chest and a wooden fence lashed to your back, singing a medley of the Allman Brothers’ “Whipping Post,’ R. Kelly’s ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ and “The Rainbow Connection’ by Kermit the Frog. You better hope that Lady Luck is bathing your balls in champagne and sucking you off with two cough drops and a packet of Pop Rocks in her mouth if you hope to make it out alive.” (more…)

You know things are weird when the guy who gave the world “Freedom Fries” and “Freedom Toast” has done a 180 on Bush’s stupid and fraudulent war.

It was a culinary rebuke that echoed around the world, heightening the sense of tension between Washington and Paris in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. But now the US politician who led the campaign to change the name of french fries to “freedom fries” has turned against the war.

The Southern Baptist: always on the cutting edge of religious intolerance.

A sign in front of Danieltown Baptist Church, located at 2361 U.S. 221 south reads “The Koran needs to be flushed,” and the Rev. Creighton Lovelace, pastor of the church, is not apologizing for the display.“I believe that it is a statement supporting the word of God and that it (the Bible) is above all and that any other religious book that does not teach Christ as savior and lord as the 66 books of the Bible teaches it, is wrong,” said Lovelace. “I knew that whenever we decided to put that sign up that there would be people who wouldn’t agree with it, and there would be some that would, and so we just have to stand up for what’s right.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was quick to react to the sign:

“Christians often ask themselves, ‘What would Jesus do?’” said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper. “I don’t think Jesus, who is loved by Muslims and mentioned frequently in the Quran, would use such hate-filled and divisive rhetoric.” He called on Americans of all faiths to take advantage of CAIR’s recent offer of a free Quran for anyone interested in learning the truth about Islam and Muslims.

That’s right, you can get a free Quran here.

The weapons in a modern rock band’s arsenal are pretty conventional. A guitar, a bass, a drum set, maybe a keyboard. If a band is really radical, by contemporary standards, they just might add two turntables to the mix. But what about the other instruments that over the years have more than lent a hand to the cause of rock. What about the harmonica? The tambourine? The, uh, flute? Ignored. Shafted. All but forgotten. And rock n’ roll is worse off because of it.

But thanks to Motown’s the Sights, the megaton bomb of the rock arsenal just might make a comeback – the Hammond Organ. It’s a weapon the boys in band aren’t afraid to use. “If you are going to stand any chance in any of this shit, you have to set yourself apart from all the other morons,” says Eddie Baranek, the band’s singer and guitarist; the Sights also features Mike Trombley on drums and Bobby Emmett on keys. “Carrying a big piece of furniture into a club which we did twenty minutes ago definitely sets us apart from all the Rolland XKB 2000 keyboards.”

Unlike the current crop of bands currently dominating the rock charts, the Sights take their inspiration from a wide swath of influences - Holland-Dozier-Holland, Lennon and McCartney, Ike and Tina, and Deep Purple- instead of the cold sounds of Spandau Ballet and Flock of Seagulls. “It goes along with the timeless, classic feel of this band. We’re not looking to the ‘80s. We’re looking to the ‘50s and ‘60s, so why not lug a 1948 piece of furniture,” Baranek says. “When you hear drum machines, that is like the most soulless music out there.”

He adds, “Having a live drummer, having a group behind you, slugging it out in a small club, to me that’s R&B. It’s not this ‘80s, oomph-oomph, drum-machine bullshit that’s so hot now. You could call us the fighting force against the drum machine movement that’s going on right now that’s trying to kill off our ‘60s movement.”

The band’s self-titled third release, and their first major, is chock full of revivalist rock n’ roll and rhythm and blues. The album begins with a hellfire and brimstone cover of the gospel power of “I’m Going to Live the Life I Sing about in My Song,” and immediately follows it up with “Circus,” a furious number that combines the organ-driven fuzz rock of “Smoke on the Water” with the delicacy of Sgt. Pepper’s fine-tuned gems. From that point on, the Sights careen from the merry prankster melodies of classic Brit-Pop (“Baby’s Knocking Me Down”) to the shake-the-bedpost salaciousness of soul to the dancehall frenzy of rock-around-the-clock R&B (“Just Got Robbed”), often in the same air-tight song. The album ends with the one-two punch of the Jack-White-meets-Ray-Charles blues dirge “Good Way to Die” and a cover of the Faces’ classic “Stay with Me.” (more…)