October 31st, 2007

Happy Halloween!!!
=cD

It's that time again...

Cold and Flu season!!!! Everyone, make sure you have fun in the cold and then take care of the cold that follows, 'cause lemme tell ya, it's a doo-zie this year.
Huh... it occurs to me that people pay good money for this kind of altered state.
Some people, of course, are mentally troubled and in need of serious assistance. But the rest of us... should be stocking up on the hot teas and citrus.

Wow... it's been awhile, no?

Okay... it's been a busy few months on this end. Life being life, I suppose, that's all we can hope for. =c)
My recent discoveries in that time:

Cable TV (as opposed to satellite)
I must admit, I'm NOT a fan. I miss my dish! It's better than networks tho.

The new Vanessa Carlton CD, 'Heroes & Thieves':
For the record... I LOVE VANESSA. I wholly support that she's trying not to become a conformed and plastic-coated music-label-darling. I love her sound and her songwriting and her piano. But... Heroes and Thieves was a major disappointment for me. She was not singing within her vocal range, and the reaches turned out flat, particularly in 'More than This'. That's a 4minute and 48second long song, which, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get past the first ten seconds of vocals. =c( The songwriting and music itself was still her usual strong, but she should have passed them to another artist. It was not a good showcase.

That being said... 'Nolita Fairytale', 'Hands on Me' and a few others are still on my repeated favorites list. It's still the honest sound of 'Nessa, tho, so me an' the other Nessa'holics are saited for a little while.

CBS TV:
Kudos to CBS... it's so rare that I say that... but I must say this: Moonlight is one of the shining spots on fall TV. A return to classic story-telling. It's a vampire story, but they let the story tell the story instead of relying on the flash and bang of CSI-like special effects. They gave a few familiar faces a place to play, too, and hopefully those guys will bring up the acting standards for the newbies on-cast.

Now just watch, given that I've said this out-loud, they'll yank it from the line-up...

a note to self....

I wish to play with this, later, when I have time to waste on playing 'net games. It's apparently a browser-run, multiplayer game. I thought it looked interesting... but I'm weird like that.

http://www.travian.com/

Found at Missy Higgins' MySpace

Now, for the record, I do like Kelly Clarkson. I own her first CD. But I like Missy's sound considerably more. I also own two of Missy's CD's... but I haven't gotten to listen to the newest one yet because as soon as it came in the house, it mysteriously disappeared... (Personally, I suspect my sibling of the theft.) However, that preference aside, I totally agree with Mr. Lefsetz. The reasons he sites are all reasons I don't watch TV or listen to the radio anymore and prefer to buy direct from the artist. Less commercialization to fuss with.

*** found at www.myspace.com/missyhiggins***

IF ONLY KELLY CLARKSON HAD THE TALENT OF MISSY HIGGINS...according to Bob Lefsetz

For those of you that don't know, Bob Lefsetz is a Santa-Monica based music industry legend and author of the e-newsletter. "The Lefsetz Letter", he has been commentating on the industry for several years and had this to say about Missy in his latest letter....

"If only Kelly Clarkson had the talent of Missy Higgins.

We want our artists to contain a spark. Something deep inside that we can touch and ultimately hold, bonding us to them.

We live in a land of sold-out corporations telling us who to be and how to feel. And none of it registers with us, none of it reflects what we truly feel inside.

Life isn't about being famous, partying with Paris and Lindsay. Life is oftentimes drudgery, doing what you're supposed to, seemingly ad infinitum, until you get out of school and are free and can make your own decisions and find that no one cares. We need someone to give us hope, to speak to our alienation, to guide us through as we drift along in the river of life with more questions than answers.

They call these people artists.

That's what's lacking in mainstream music in the United States, artistry. Everybody's so whored out to the man, so busy making money, that the relationship with the fan has been sacrificed. And it's only this relationship that counts. We want to be fans. We need to be fans. We need to believe in something.

And what we believe in isn't what's plastered all over the media. Because then it's not ours. It's got to feel like ours. Even if everybody else has it. And when we go to the gig and see the sea of faces we believe that we have commonality with the assembled multitude, that we're an army more powerful than any sponsored by a government, we're like the North Vietnamese, we won't be beaten, we can't be beaten. Because oppressive forces can never take over our hearts and minds. Rock and roll used to be a nation separate from the system, impenetrable by the forces of commercialism, where we and our feelings ruled. And what kept us together was the artists.

We cut our hair like theirs. We wanted to look like them. We wanted to be them. Free from the constraints, being who we truly wanted to be.

And at the core is the artist. Not the executive, whether it be Clive Davis, Michael Rapino or Judy McGrath. The suits were all subsidiary to that waif who poured out her heart.

But we've had a lack of waifs. Certainly ones with a sense of melody, who touched our hearts with their truth.

Missy Higgins fits the bill."

Check out his site www.lefsetz.com

Druggies beware

This falls under the category of "Because I am a nerd."

According to an article from Wired Magazine's online quadrant, found here, scientists in China are working to assist the local law enforcement with drug control. I'm not sure if their motives are actually for the benefit of the community or out of generic scientific, sometimes arrogant, neutrality, but I find it interesting that they're doing it in that country as opposed to this one. Ketamine is an animal tranquilizer that has become big on the club scene apparently across the globe if it's hit China. America's had it's fair share of problems with Ketamine in recent years, too, hence my surprise that the field tests were apparently reserved to China. The article was an interesting one. However, it did nothing to quell my suspicions that most of the science-majors at the universities here in America are too regularly club-hopping with medicinal assistance to want to help out with law enforcement's efforts at curbing the dangerous activity. Alas, I have a pretty sad outlook on my own generation sometimes.

Live Earth Concerts

First order of business... today is 7/7/07 ... and that is just cool.

Second, Keith Urban performed as part of the Live Earth events in New York. They set up concerts all over the world, in over 130 countries. They had artists from a wide variety of genres, from ludacris and Akon to Dave Matthews band and Kelly Clarkson. (Also, of course, Keith Urban!) In the US they had concerts in New York (actually it was in Giants Stadium over in Jersey. I don't know why they advertised New York. That was unintelligent, imho.) and Washington DC. Globally there was an Australian concert, and the UK, a couple of places in Asia and more.

Somehow or another, to celebrate this whole save the earth kick concert that he's put together, Al Gore kicked everything off in Australia (yesterday) and then flew out here to the us... where, during the time I was watching, he pinged back and forth between DC and Jersey a couple of times... hello? I think I might just weigh in on the hypocrisy camp on that one.

But I'm proud of my boy Keith. He practices what he preaches, thank you. His tour buses are all eco-friendly and proud of it.

The concerts were good though. Even the artists I'd never heard of before I turned out liking what I heard. I'm not a rap fan, but I enjoyed ludacris' set pretty well. The audio on the net-cast wasn't all that impressive though. MSN is doing the coverage online and clips and soundbites will be available starting tomorrow, 7/8/07 for those who didn't watch it live online or on TV (or in person if you were lucky).

So yeah, everybody. Save our green-momma! heehee