Brains slightly smaller than grapefruit

Origins of rarely seen Times-Dispatch editorial board writers explained at last. At least how they can stoop as low as today's lead editorial. Sigh.

Queer as a five dollar bill?

I always thought Mary Todd was a beard.

Empty garden

My far too hastily written appreciation of John Peel is in today's Washington Post.

My buddy Justine emailed today to point out that Peel was instrumental in a good number of our mutual relationships, not least of which is the one I share with my wife and child. But his influence was always indirect--that was the man's genius. He was like the secret DNA of indie rock, facilitating connections between musicians, fans and friends. (The whole story's too long and too boring unless you really, really care about the tiny point where the Dust Devils, the Wedding Present, and the Arlington, Va., and Leeds, England, indie scenes meet.)

One last story, then I think I'll let the subject rest. Every year in the U.K., there is (or used to be?) a CMJ-like festival called Sound City. One year Leeds hosted the event, so Justine, who ran the Hemiola label, along with my friends Nicola and Stewart, who used to run 555 Records together, put on a series of indie shows that weren't a part of the fest. One of the acts, Groop Dogdrill, were something of a buzz band and a lot of industry people showed up to see them, including former Undertones singer Feargal Sharkey, then an A&R rep for EastWest/Atlantic. He got into an argument with Justine at the door because he didn't want to pay the £2 cover charge (apparently he was too important to do so). I think I may have offered to pay it for him.

Peel came every night, paid his cover, stood in the back and watched every band. Punk freaking rock, man.

The last DJ

The Undertones, "Teenage Kicks"

Whatever small success I had as a musician was due less to talent or determination than it was to the intervention of a few key people, who, for whatever reason, decided to help my old band out. One of them just died. I'm personalizing this because John Peel made me, and millions of other young dopes, feel connected to the imposing world of pop music. If you wrote John Peel, he wrote you back, even if you were a nerd from Virginia who wanted to know where he could find some of the records you heard the man play on the apartment-fridge-sized shortwave radio you'd dragged out of your grandparents' garage. Later on when I was in a band myself, John Peel played our first British single on his short-lived daytime show, sandwiching us between Whitney Houston and Leftfield and Lydon singles. He even included us in one of his "Festive Fifty" broadcasts, a year-end roundup of his favorite singles. He arranged for a couple of Radio One sessions for us and for me when I quixotically went solo.

The first time we showed up for a "Peel session" we were surprised to find out that we weren't just going on his radio show and playing in the next room. Those were real recording sessions, in a spaceship-like studio with TWO engineers who would present you with an intentionally crappy cassette of the results as you left. If you wanted to hear the songs with decent quality, you had to record them off the radio or talk your record company into licensing the recordings, which as I recall was not an inexpensive proposition.

So when I first met John Peel (in I think 1995) I was wondering how connected he actually was to music. By god, he was like a robot. He asked me about every band I was ever in; he remembered a bunch of records I'd forgotten about, and he even managed to cough out a few unearned compliments about my solo stuff. Then he did the exact thing with the person next to me. We were both giddy afterwards.

Anyway, as stupid and rambling as my stories are, SO many people in music have better ones. Whether you were a fan or a musician or for some lucky folks (not me) a friend, John Peel could well have changed your life. I remember reading a few years ago that Peel wanted a couple of Undertones lyrics--"Teenage kicks / So hard to beat"--as his epitaph. So download the song if you don't have it already, and give 'em to him.

Freaks on leashes

Well, there go my weekend plans.

Someone get a Loincloth CD to this man pronto

Andrew Sullivan blogged Pen Rollings yesterday. If you follow politics, you know this is kind of a big deal.

Pen, the address is:
180 West 20th Street #12T
New York NY 10011-3656

I'd send mine but it seems to have disappeared into the gaping maw of my CD shelves. How about a jewel box next time, dudes?

Just asking

But I gotta give today's "what the fuck" prize to the T-D's editorial page, the contents of which, the website informs us, "express the views of the Times-Dispatch." Today the editorial page board laments that "The days of Clay, Webster, and Calhoun - La Follette, Taft, and Humphrey - are not, alas, ours" in a boozy reverie about the fact that Paula Zahn and Cherie Blair are holding a public conversation in "DeeCee."

1) The men they mentioned (I have no doubt that there are people on staff at the T-D who've heard all six speak) are dead and can't give speeches.

2) For a newspaper that endorsed the hyperarticulate George W. Bush, this pining for the "buggy and horse" days seems a bit misplaced.

Esophagus, tear ducts linked by man in way over his head

Sometimes I wonder why Richmond's entertainment scene is so stagnant. Then I read the city's newspaper! Yes, Bette Midler is coming to town, and yes--you can't tell this from reading, but I'm sobbing--I suppose that's kind of a big deal for a town this size, but was Melissa Ruggieri even paying attention while interviewing La Bette?

As even the upstarts know, tours are grueling, and with 21 shows to go after Richmond, Midler is trying to remain healthy. She still avidly follows the South Beach diet ("Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah," she says when asked if she's still a fan of the diet that has trimmed her to tiny proportions).

Fascinating.

I know for damn sure Ruggieri wasn't paying attention when this sentence slipped by her crack editors, in a review of the new R.E.M. album that inadvertantly proves her point:

There's nothing wrong with somber and quiet Coldplay managed an extraordinary feat with its one-mood "A Rush of Blood to the Head" but instead of provoking thought or repeated listenings of lyrics and structure, these 13 songs more often than not project a melancholy aimlessness.

Yeah, aimlessness is to be avoided.

Well, at least she's not clinically insane, like movie "critic" Dan Neman, who can barely contain himself when reviewing the J.Lo vehicle Shall We Dance? "Is there any man alive who looks better in a tux, or white tie and tails, than Richard Gere?" he gushes, before studiously informing us that "in Japan social dancing carries with it a social stigma." Shit, Dan, in RICHMOND social dancing carries a stigma. If it didn't club patrons would stop shooting one another!

Still, Neman's best line of the week comes from his Team America: World Police "review," which includes a total Neman gem: "But the copious puppet vomit scene literally brought tears of laughter to my eyes."

Nothing but the best for the Times-Dispatch.

Kudos

To Style for finally landing the Carrot Top phoner!

The "no"s nose

I spent all day driving in the D.C. area, listening to WAMU, so I've heard a lot about the flu vaccine kerfuffle. (If I'd been driving in Richmond, listening to public radio, I would have heard a lot about Brahms.) Last week our pediatrician told Ewa and I we should get the shot because we have an infant son, but I could swear our regular doctor's secretary laughed when I called to ask about it. They're not getting the vaccine, she said.

I get vaccinated every year, because not getting sick is sort of a matter of pride with me. I'm terrified of not being able to work. Ewa worked on a story for Redbook a few years ago that said each inoculation can last up to 18 months, so we're probably okay. I heard the tail end of a discussion about taking a nasal spray instead--are those not in short supply? If so, wouldn't flu mist manufacturers be crowing about it? Please advise. Also: How do I get one?

Finally, I heard the first half of an interesting discussion on the Diane Rehm Show rebroadcast tonight. Fuzzed out around Fredericksburg, but she had two guys on whose series on corporate welfare in Time I really enjoyed, Donald Barlett and James Steele.

They've been investigating the health care system in the U.S. and have written a book about it. As I said, I didn't hear the whole discussion, but one interesting point they brought up was a criticism of market-based health care. (There was in fact a pretty good article in the Washington Post yesterday on why exactly so few companies are making the flu vaccine.) Barlett pointed out that there is no shortage of erectile-dysfunction drugs on the market right now, and that no one's dying from that particular condition.

I also heard Kerry on the radio offering an actual plan to make sure this flu vaccine shortage doesn't happen again. I have to say it doesn't sound too far out. Finally, Andrew Sullivan has an interesting post on the flu vaccine shortage noting that the Health and Human Services Administration spokesman, Bill Pierce, blames Congress for not funding an effort to improve the vaccination process.

"Hmmm. And which party controls Congress?" says Sullivan.

Gadarene class

From an editorial in today's Times-Dispatch endorsing Doug Wilder:

He lamented his city's drift—some would say its gadarene plunge—toward (in his words) "cronyism, inefficiency, and downright corruption."

Oh yes, some would say that. I hear that shit ALL the time.

The new honesty

I won't admit when I'm drunk. Come on, you won't either, will you? You never say, "Yes, thank you for asking. I'm off my ass." You might admit you're "a little tipsy," or you might go so far as to describe yourself--as someone in my family does--as "a wee bit merry," but that's it.

I understand why Americans do this--we still retain a hard-wired conflict between pleasure and truth--but I don't think it's unique to us. I know a lot of British people, and they never admit being drunk either. My friend Mark said only frat boys admit to being wasted, and I think that's probably true. Well, you know what? I like frat guys. You always know where you stand with them, and that's partly because they're so honest about things such as drunkeness. From now on, whenever I'm drunk, I'm going to admit it. Please join me in my Truthful Tipler campaign (exceptions should obviously be made if your partner's asking you why in the hell you drove home in this condition--then you get to default to "I only had TWO"), and let us sleep off the shame! There's nothing wrong with being drunk if you've had a bunch of drinks!

I'm sorry but...

did the president of the United States say "need some wood?" on TV tonight?

No respect

Oh, you mean everyone doesn't believe in Saint Peter? The country's best tertiary-market political cartoonist Christianizes the former Jacob Cohen.

In with the old

Today the Times-Dispatch takes a shot at rock music, that savage racket out to enslave our young with its primal beat. Across town, Jim Ukrop lifts his cup of Posten and guffaws, "Hear, hear!" It only took the paper's coffin-dodging editorial board three days to dodder out a comment on the first presidential debate. Today the braintrust takes a characteristic second swipe at the topic, adding a frisson of old-man weirdness. I've been enjoying the paper's take on Kerry--apparently he's inconsistent in his beliefs, except when it comes to stuff he said 34 years ago. I haven't had time, but I'd really like to go dig up some T-D editorials from 1970 and see how consistent the board's been on, say, desegregation. I look forward to two or more flailing takes on last night's debate--one on Friday, perhaps (when is the deadline over there?), and another on Sunday, by which point there'll be a whole new debate that requires tardy bloviation.

Where at least I know I'm free

I can't decide which part of this story makes me prouder to be American: The fact that Royals fans are now shooting at opposing teams, or that one of these bullets was blocked by the thigh-high go-go boots Indians pitcher Kyle Denney was wearing when struck.

Snooze-button issues

You've got to give it up for Dan Roberts. The affable UR professor really does try his best to use his "A Moment in Time" radio spots to make history come alive, despite the undeniable fact that not a single person listening gives a flying crap about what he's talking about.

What's even more amazing about "AMIT" is that it's not even the least interesting facet of WCVE's non-music programming. That honor goes to the Virginia stock report, which I convinced has never held a listener all the way through. (I mean, are there still that many people who don't check their stocks on the Internet?) Still, for sheer what-the-fug-ness, I gotta hand the crown for Dan's three-part reports on the seeds of the Protestant reformation, the grisly end of Henry VIII's fifth wife or the behind the scenes machinations at the Concordat of Worms. (I made my own "Moment in Time" lede, which you can listen to here.)

Both programs would be kind of charming in their cluelessness if they weren't so indicative of the contempt with which CVE regards its audience. After "All Things Considered" in the morning, the station blares old-lady classical warhorses for five hours. No "Talk of the Nation" or "Diane Rehm Show"--not even that half-assed Slate/NPR program!

Every time anyone I know has approached WCVE with an idea of creating a less fusty music program or encouraging them to buy a call-in program other than "Car Talk," they've been essentially told that CVE likes things the way they are, and if you'd like to change it, you're welcome to contribute $100,000. Bottom line.

Well, I have an idea about this. You know those XM and Sirius satellite radios? Between them, they carry a lot of public-radio programming, except "All Things Considered" and "Weekend Edition," which public radio stations are pressuring NPR to reserve for them. What's to prevent someone with satellite radio, though, from "going terrestrial" for an hour or so a day? Nothing, and if nimble enough, that person will never have to listen to the Virginia stock report ever again. In its own small way, that's historic.