Obama hails 60th Senate vote for health care

While I hold my nose with the passage of the Senate's version of health care reform, I'm just trying to repeat the mantra "Social Security started out shaky, too":



http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=767
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

On the boulevard today

Starting, I'm sure, before dawn today and continuing up to and through the time I post this, Hollywood Boulevard was shut down between Highland Ave and Orange Ave for a premiere screening of a much anticipated new movie being released everywhere on Friday. Perhaps you can see what the movie is from my pics?

Late this morning, a new star was officially unveiled on the Boulevard as well, timed to match with the release this Friday of a new movie in which this actress stars. Glitz, glamor and business meet and swirl like soft-serve ice cream around here.

Meanwhile today, tempers flared a bit with the health care/insurance reform bill process. As someone who isn't a politician, I am well past the temper and am content to just grumble to myself over all of the . . well, politicking . . over something which directly affects people's lives -- no hyperbole here.

So much in political news these days, and yet

I just don't have a unique perspective on any of it. Not the mixed message of the President accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo and giving a speech justifying the continuation of war in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.

It was just odd. Perhaps the Nobel folks, going forward, will offer an "opt out" to their winners, should the winner not feel deserving of the medal, prize money, honor, etc.? I can't even find a matching set of circumstances in my own life so that I can at least say something like "I understand, to some degree, why things happened the way they did".

I cannot even find words to talk about the legislative situation in Uganda. Besides, Rachel Maddow tied it all up nicely earlier this week by having on her show a man who, indirectly, led to what looks like legislation through proselytising. And, this guy looks like he's getting all the validation he was seeking through all of this.

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Laws written to jail people who don't tell the Ugandan government that someone they know may or may not be gay. Never mind what the law proposes to do with the alleged "gays" themselves.

I can't find the words. But, if it comes to it, I'll do what I can to find room to harbor as many refugees as this law will create. And, barring something miraculous happening, the law is all but assured to pass. If I am able to do what I've just written, then I couldn't say a word to anyone about what I'm doing. I wish I was being hyperbolic.

Then, there's the whole Sarah Palin, Al Gore, iceberg headed for Australia, global warming scientist e-mail disaster. The best I can come up with?

Palin in 2012!

Perhaps then I'll have something to say. Daily.

Favorites/decade - Hip-Hop 'hood

I've occasionally dipped my toe into hip-hop. Like rock, there are a few original voices and a lot of interchangeable imitators. These are some of the original voices from this genre this decade:

"I'm Like a Bird" by Nelly Furtado. Her first hit and the only one with which I've connected. Her voice still stands out, even when the music she made the rest of the decade started to sound like everything else. She definitely has the talent to try moving in another direction.

"In da club" by 50 Cent. Can't imagine me liking something like this? It's more of a soft-spot for most anything Dr. Dre produced/written/backed, etc. Like a few others in the genre, he's starting to parlay his rapping into other forays. It gets pretty tough to do just one thing in the entertainment business, so good for 50!

"Who's gonna save my soul" by Gnarls Barkley (though the video is not the "official" video). Yeah, everyone and their brothers knows their more popular song, "Crazy". But this is where you get the full blast of vocal talent and everything else about this duo that really makes them great. Check out this song, add it to "Crazy" and the other act this decade that Danger Mouse had a hand in producing and it's easy to understand why a lot of music lovers really like them.

"Naughty Girl" by Beyoncé. She's had a ton of hits this decade and this one just rattles around my brain and hasn't left my iPod since the song was released.

"Feel Good, Inc." by Gorillaz. Only two albums released in their career and the two men behind this cartoon band are in no particular hurry to get album #3 out the door. Like Linkin Park, I'm happy that they are taking their time to put something new out.

The video is just cool looking and the song is simply infectious. The album, "Demon Days", has a few other equally infections dance/hip-hop style tunes, but largely goes where it wants. As weird as it sounds, I'm not a big fan of the band from which Gorillaz originates, but if it takes many years of Blur-music to get one Gorillaz album together, it's a small price to pay to get this kind of interesting, genre-blurring music out.

Favorites/decade - "Contest"ed music

It's been the decade of the reality/contest genre on TV. I will admit to only watching two reality/contest shows: Rock Star: Supernova (I didn't catch the only other season of "Rock Star" when a new lead singer for INXS was chosen. That season found a Michael Hutchence sound-a-like, a new record, a tour and the new singer winding up back where he started) and The Amazing Race.

I am now admitting to enjoying music from a select few "contestants" (it's the best word I know to describe the people who participate in these sorts of shows). There it is. I can no longer claim to be any sort of music snob, I suppose.

"Since U Been Gone" by Kelly Clarkson. The first American Idol winner has had, in my opinion, the most interesting career since winning. I can't help but loving that she has a look that defies the standard mindset of a pop diva and has let her sound change throughout this decade. This song found her a rock-n-roll following to match her AI following.

Plus, I can't help singing along, banging my head a bit and stomping my feet. Bet you can't help it, either!

"Razorblade". The original version by Blue October (the video has some brief disturbing images a curse word or two) is a great, let the blood boil angry rant with some pretty disturbing lyrics. Since this is the reality/contest favorites post, it was this performance of the song by Zayra Alvarez on Rock Star: Supernova that made my jaw drop and immediate search the original out. I continue to encourage rock's youngest fans that love new covers to seek out the original version of the cover and to check out the new artist's influences to start broadening their musical palette. Zayra's performance, in a way, foreshadows the last half of this decade's growing love of outrageous looking performances with talent to match. Feels like a return to early 70's glam-rock, at least style-wise, is well underway.

. . . and, from this past year:

It only took me until this past season of American Idol to find a 2nd singer from this show that I can't stop watching: Adam Lambert. This guy has an amazing set of pipes and has the chops to sing bubble-gum pop in one moment, then roar out glam/theatrical rock-n-roll the next. His debut CD takes a stab at capturing his range and, from the few listens I've given it, is kind of hit and miss. I'm not much of a fan of what tops the pop music charts in the last few years because a lot of it sounds mass-produced with interchangeable voices, so I cannot fault Adam for covering the ground into which a typical AI teen fan would hook. My favorite track on the album is one written by Justin Hawkins from The Darkness called "Music Again". It's great to hear him easily soar in and out of falsetto and rock the bejesus out of this one.

Finally, I now self-identify as a fan of Susan Boyle.

Like a few million others in the past 6 months or so, I watched the viral video of her first performance on Britain's Got Talent and was very moved. The months since that first performance have been worthy of conversation as to how she handled the knockout punch of fame she received. The album she released a few weeks ago has, hopefully, silenced those who may have thought her fame would overwhelm her.

I rolled my eyes a bit at on-line chatter about the huge number of albums sold versus the level of promotion over the release of a much-anticipated album from a much beloved artist. Selling over 700,000 albums in the first week these days is quite an accomplishment. If most of the folks who bought the album wind up giving the CDs to relatives, it doesn't decrease album sales nor is it any sort of bellwether of the type of fans she will have in the years to come.

The original versions of "Wild Horses" from the early 70's by both Gram Parsons and the Rolling Stones pretty much stand untouched. Ms. Boyle's version works for me because it's her choice of song and, compared to many of the other songs on the album, her voice is most expressive here.