Now in it’s 17th year, The “Risky Biscuit Hayseed Hootâ€â„¢ hosted by Dondo Darue, is a mix of insurgent Americana: country, folk, bluegrass, singer-songwriter, rock, spoken word, humor, etc. The show airs Saturday mornings on 100.1 FM KTHX in Reno, Nevada; 95.3 FM KPND in Sandpoint, Idaho and on KTRT in the Methow Valley in North Central Washington state. Shows like the annual Ed Abbey Memorial are also available for download.
The “local crew” at Patagonia’s Reno distribution center writing on the company’s new blog says:
Wanna get some Ed in your head? Then sidle on up to the Hoot Hut and have a listen to this year’s Ed Abbey show, where you’ll find tasty instrumentals, a little blues, a little folk, a little outlaw country, and a generous helping of Mr. Abbey reading straight from classics such as “In Defense of the Redneck” and Desert Solitaire.
Abbey sounds clear as a bell in these recordings. And the supporting soundtrack with tunes by Shannon McNally, Robert Earl Keen, Michael Martin Murphey, John Prine, Chuck Brodsky, Marshall Tucker Band and many more is an outstanding compliment. My hat’s off to Dondo Darue.
Arnie Cooper spoke with award-winning investigative journalist Greg Palast recently for The Sun Magazine. The text is not online, but Palast makes some major assertions that I’d like to share. First he debunks the entire idea of peak oil. He says it’s a myth invented by Shell Oil in 1956 in order to keep oil prices high.
We’re not running out of crude, dude. We’ve got plenty. The question is “At what price?” At twenty dollars a barrel, we’re dead out. At a hundred dollars a barrel? We’ve got all the oil you want.
Cooper then asks him about the need to turn to alternative energy. Palast is for it, but says it’s important to get the argument right. He says the “we’re running out of oil” argument leads directly to nuclear, while sustaining artificially high oil prices.
We won’t get green technology by telling people we’re running out of oil. Oil went up to seventy-five bucks a barrel, and I did not see one solar panel go up in New York City. Not one. We have to stop pumping carbon-based fuels into the air, not because we’re running out of carbon-based fuels, but because carbon will kill us. And it makes us political hostages to bloodthirsty maniacs.
As for the mainstream environmental movement, Palast pulls no punches.
The environmentalists like to talk about “win-win” scenarios. You know: corporations can make money by going green. What a crock of shit. Forget it. If they could do that, they would’ve done it already. Environmentalist Amory Lovins, who’s made millions of dollars working for big corporations, goes around saying, “Everyone wins.” Well, if everyone wins, then how come the skies are black and people in China are dying of arsenic poisoning? It’s bullshit. The only way we can get anything done is by limiting consumption by law and through a national commitment to use less carbon-based fuel. Let’s stop goosing around and clean up the planet.
I like the challenges presented by Palast, but I’m not ready to say business won’t soon profit from green technologies. Ted Turner, for one, believes sustainable energy and other green businesses will deliver wealth akin to what we’re seeing today in communications technology. I agree with Turner, and I agree with Palast’s point that we need to create and enforce much tougher environmental laws. A problem this big needs multiple answers. No single approach will do.
For no good reason, the federal government in concert with the recording industry, is busy working to put an end to internet radio. Through a new unit at the Library of Congress known as the Copyright Royalty Board, the Recording Industry Association of America is set to unleash a new fee structure (retroactive to Jan. 1, 2006) that will put undue financial strain on webcasters, big and small, thereby cutting the legs out from under an important new media industry.
The new fees are set to go into effect on May 15, 2007, just two weeks from now. According to BetaNews, the nation’s #1 streaming music provider AOL Radio will owe $23.7 million in back fees on that date.
According to Live 365 CEO Mark Lam, the CRB’s proposed royalty rates represent a stunning 300 to 1200 percent increase. And internet radio is singled out from all other radio, burdened with fees not paid by AM or FM stations, and at rates at least 3-4 times paid by satellite and cable radio. The ruling also includes a minimum of $500 per station per year, thereby penalizing the smallest webcasters with the highest rates.
Not everyone in Washington is rolling over for this draconian silencing. Rep. Jay Inslee (D – Wash.) and Rep. Don Manzullo (R – Ill.) introduced The Internet Radio Equality Act (HR 2060) this week, which would explicitly nullify the findings of the Copyright Royalty Board.
SaveNetRadio is also fighting the good fight on behalf of tens of thousands of small webcasters, musicians (emerging and otherwise) and millions of listeners the globe over. Arbitron and Bridge Ratings estimate between 50 and 70 million Americans listen to internet radio each month, and the figures are rising steadily.
I did not realize AOL’s Weblogs, Inc. had a metroblogging site in their covey. But they do have one, and the site–BloggingNewOrleans.com–is brimming with Jazz Fest coverage today.
If you’ve never been to Jazzfest, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. I don’t care if you’ve never been to New Orleans, don’t like beer, or can’t be exposed to sun. You need to get here, and quick. (Now if you don’t have the $45 for the ticket price, that I can understand. You would not believe the whiteness of today’s crowd…)
OK, so if you haven’t been, let me describe it for you. It’s a giant playground for grown-ups with lots of cash. You can drink a Southern Comfort lime slushie, listen to some of the best music in the world at every turn, buy exquisite art, and eat like a Cajun hog.
When I first went to Jazz Fest in 1996, tickets were ten bucks and you could easily buy them at the gate. Putting socio-economic analysis aside, BloggingNewOrleans writer Mike Schleifstein says, “Bonerama is just amazing.”
So BloggingNewOrleans isn’t a music blog. For more in depth coverage of the bands one must dive deeper into The Google.
LiveBluesWorld says, “It’s great to learn that the Blues Stage will make its return in 2007 — it went on hiatus for the 2006 festival, which had to be a scaled-down affair following the Katrina catastrophe.” Urban travel guide Gridskipper gets in on the action too, but what a fester needs is a blog from Jazz Fest Grids. JFG does have a forum, but I’m not seeing any live music coverage therein.
[UPDATE 4.30.07] Ernie the Attorney says, “Last year’s festival brought a lot of wonderful people to town, but it seems like this year the good vibes are even stronger. Maybe we’re further down the road than we realize. The Army Corps of Engineers is still struggling, but apparently the “Corps of Mindlessly Joyful Dancers” seem to be doing quite well.
Khoi Vinh is the Design Director for NYTimes.com. He started working in the paper’s new building this week. This is how he describes it:
The new Times building at 40th Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan’s midtown was designed by Renzo Piano, and whether it fits your taste or not, it’s hard to deny that it’s the most notable new skyscraper to rise on the island this decade.
From top to bottom, the new building is all metal and glass, like some kind of throwback to the early optimism of modernist impulses. But it feels not all anachronistic; rather, walking its hallways and staring out its windows, it’s almost brashly futuristic.
While this new structure looks and no doubt is impressive, I’m not a huge fan of tall buildings. I don’t mind gazing at them or pondering how they’re constucted, but I don’t want to work in one. For that I require a small, naturally lit, well ventilated space just steps from nature.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich is a fearless man and a true American patriot. True patriots fight to uphold The U.S. Constitution at all costs. I admire him. By the way, Dennis is running for President again. And while he likely won’t win the Democrat nomination, the more support he gets now the more progressive the Dem’s platform will be going into the general election.
The band is presently out on tour with Mute Math and The Cinematics. Here’s the announcement they made from the stage the other night:
Boris Yeltsin was a kind man. But what kind of man was he? With sprite and in spite he tried to do away with the totalitarian ways of his country. He also loved to play tennis. In fact, he was in tennis as he was in politics; he tried to serve well but was not without faults. After his resignation on New Years 1999, he left the publics’ eye and did as he pleased. With a bottle of vodka at his side, he struggled against his health until this past Sunday, when he passed away. Boris Yeltsin may have died of heart failure, but he never failed to have heart. He will remain in our hearts and band name forever. Someone still loves you, Boris Yeltsin.
On the eve of the season’s first Presidential debate tomorrow night in Oranegburg, SC, I thought I’d take a look at what really matters—the number of MySpace friends each candidate has to his or her name.
But hey, let’s not say that numbers are everything. What kind of friends do these politicians attract? That must count for something (not at the polls, of course). With this in mind, Edwards the Handsome looks good. He has Liz for Edwards [& a better America] in his corner, for instance. Liz is 16, attractive, likes good music and isn’t afraid to express her progressive values. One of the stickers on her MySpace page reads, “I’m Straight, Not Narrow.” Another reads, “Born Okay the First Time.” Liz is too young to vote, but she’s already an influencer. Maybe there’s hope for America yet.
For the past few years I’ve been saying in private how I think the nation is sliding towards fascism. I don’t like saying it, nor do I enjoy contemplating this thesis. It’s sickening to examine; yet if we are to remain free, we must have the resolve to do just that. So, I am heartened today to find Naomi Wolfe’s treatise on the subject, published by The Guardian (outside the U.S., of course).
It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable – as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise.
Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of European and other kinds of fascism to understand the potential seriousness of the events we see unfolding in the US.
Wolfe then goes on to list 10 steps, a “blueprint” she calls it, that leads a nation into fascism.
1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
5. Harass citizens’ groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7. Target key individuals
8. Control the press
9. Dissent equals treason
10. Suspend the rule of law
She argues in detail that the Bush administration is engaged in ALL of these atrocities against our history and our people. We all need to judge for ourselves the merit of her claims. Personally, I feel that claims 4, 8, 9 and 10 are beyond reproach. And while I’m mad about all 10 points, number 8–control the press–is for me a particularly poignant issue. For instance, there is so little press coming out of Iraq. The only TV news organization with any credibility on the topic is Frontline on PBS, a program Newsday calls “Television’s last fully serious bastion of journalism.”
On Saturday night we had the opportunity to dine at Flagler Fish Company in Flagler Beach, just north of Daytona. The restaurant is a converted surf shop with an open kitchen. I noticed right off that they had organic wines and kind brews from Cali. Plus, I liked how they display their fish for retail, a move that reminds diners of the freshness factor.
If you’re having fish you simply choose your favorite type grilled, seared or steamed and then you pick a sauce—Sweet Thai Tomato Coconut, Salsa Verde, Hong Kong or Brown Butter Lemon Caper and Tartar.
The restaurant also has a cool tagline: Food To Knock Your Flops Off.
