Everyone’s favorite bass player is taking the stage in Colorado this summer with some new phriends (and old). Phil’s lineup, which has been in flux from the get go, will include Jeff Sipe on drums, Barry Sless on pedal steel and Ryan Adams on rock star. Rob Barraco on keys and Jimmy Herring on guitar will provide continuity.
I just bought Adams’ new disc, Cold Roses, on iTunes and it sounds great.
Boston Globe: During last year’s presidential campaign, John F. Kerry was the candidate often portrayed as intellectual and complex, while George W. Bush was the populist who mangled his sentences.
But newly released records show that Bush and Kerry had a virtually identical grade average at Yale University four decades ago.
The transcript shows that Kerry’s freshman-year average was 71. He scored a 61 in geology, a 63 and 68 in two history classes, and a 69 in political science. His top score was a 79, in another political science course. Another of his strongest efforts, a 77, came in French class.
In addition to Kerry’s four D’s in his freshman year, he received one D in his sophomore year. He did not fail any courses.
Daniel Gold of An Honest Tune, The Southern Journal of Jam, just reached out, having made his way to the fondue that is Leftover Cheese. He said I don’t update much. I explained that this blog is actually brand new, despite having an archive that dates back to 2001.
Gold produces a webcast, which airs live on Tuesday nights care of KXUA, college radio from University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. In our email banter, he also pointed me to this well cared for jamband blog, which happens to offer Grateful Dead Hour downloads, by permission from David Gans.
The U.S. Supreme Court took the Bush administration’s side in the drug war yesterday, declaring that people who legally grow, possess and smoke medicinal marijuana under state statutes which allow it, can be prosecuted by federal authorities. Yes, that’s right, in effort to give no ground on this failed “war,” we’re now declaring the nation’s sick a worthy enemy of justice and the American way.
USA Today, not exactly a liberal, nor liberterian, daily had this to say in today’s Op-Ed page.
Court’s ruling on marijuana reeks of ‘reefer madness’
The Court’s 6-3 decision was a stretched interpretation of the clause in the Constitution that gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce.
Under Monday’s ruling, growing marijuana at home for medicinal purposes, with no money changing hands, is somehow now a form of interstate commerce. It makes you wonder what the majority was smoking. As Justice Clarence Thomas said in his dissenting opinion, “If Congress can regulate this … under the commerce clause, then it can regulate virtually anything.”
Omaha’s angst-ridden singer songwriter cum indie rock star, Bright Eyes, in conjunction with Saddle Creek Records is offering a free song on iTunes. The song, “When the President Talks to God,” performed recently on Jay Leno, caused a stir do to its politically-charged thematics.
Holmes at Downhill Battle sees it this way:
This is the kind of thing that can happen when real people with real ideas can become rock stars without taking on crushing debt to the system.
Setting aside how we feel about Bush, do we think it’s a good thing for savants in cowboy hats to be taking apart the President on national TV? Hell yes. And would he have done it if just one pissed-off record exec could decide to let his next album rot in a vault somewhere (along with his legal ability to record new music) ’till his contract ran out when he turned 30?
Well Conor Oberst seems a more than averagely principled or stubborn guy, so maybe he would have. But maybe not.
Wired reports that nearly all of the ethanol in the United States is currently produced by fermenting the sugars in corn grain.
But the economics of ethanol could soon change, according to Robin Graham, the group leader of ecosystem and plant sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Graham said that producing ethanol from the cellulose of plants is less costly than using corn grain. The cost of raw materials for biomass-based ethanol could be much lower, since tree and plant residue from clearing lots can be obtained for free, and switchgrass (a perennial crop that grows everywhere east of the Rocky Mountains) and corn stovers (dried leaves and stalks) are inexpensive to acquire.
There’s no mention of growing hemp for fuel in the Wired piece, but the fact is we need to grow hemp and corn and utilize biomass. In other words, all solutions that wean us off oil are welcome and sorely needed.
Washington, DC-based artist, Mark Jenkins, is doing some interesting things with clear packing tape.
Thanks to Idle Type for the pointer.
We rode a 7.1 mile loop today on Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge. It’s Memorial Day weekend, yet there were only a dozen or so cars at the trailhead to this natural treasure. People come to HHI for the beach and golf. But Pinckney offers visitors and locals alike great hiking, biking and kayaking opportunities. And we saw a fox!
Established in 1975, Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge consists of Pinckney Island, Corn Island, Big and Little Harry Islands, Buzzard Island and numerous small hammocks. The 4,053-acre refuge includes a variety of land types: saltmarsh, forestland, brushland, fallow fields, and freshwater ponds.
Archeologists have determined that prehistoric inhabitants dwelled on Pinckney Island as early as 10,000 B.C. Tribes of coastal Indians continued to live in the region until the 1700’s. The interior islands west of Hilton Head Island were protected against ocean storms, and provided abundant fishing, shell fishing, hunting, and edible plants to the native islanders.
p.s. We’ve also recently encountered wild turkeys, armadillos, deer, dolphins, turtles, gators, sharks, snakes, frogs, lizards, spiders and countless bird varieties livin’ the Lowcountry life.
“Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.” -Jim Morrison
From the Museum of Media History (not a real place, as far as I can tell) comes EPIC 2014, or Evolving Personalized Information Construct, a viral that walks viewers through the history and future of media since Tim Behrens-Lee “founded” the internet in 1989.
Writers Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson make several spooky projections, but due to the mood music in the piece and the soothing narration, their thinking seems legitimate and non-threatening. Unless of course, you happen to work at the New York Times. They claim the Times will be offline by 2014, the once mightly gray lady reduced to “a newsletter for the elderly and the elite.”
Thanks to Tom Asacker for the pointer. There’s some interesting discussion of the piece in his comments area.
All architecture can be considered public art. Although, much of the slap-and-paste variety so prevalent in American communities today, falls well short of such a lofty designation.
Not so in Japan, where even the manholes receive thoughtful treatment from city planners.
In a related note, Good Graffiti showcases another form of (unsanctioned) public art.