WmWms - Part 3

“Crunchy Granola Suite,” August 2008

Consumption, Family, Memories, Popular Culture 5 Responses »

Jul 162010

Apologies to Facebook friends for the rerun, but it’s been Neil Diamond week for me ever since I had the idea to look for a good performance of this song to post to my page. (I post YouTube music clips frequently, and sometimes one hits me so correctly that I’ll sit and watch it five or six times. That happened with this one.)

As Diamond mentions in the clip, this was the first cut on his masterpiece Hot August Night, which is one of the greatest live albums of all time. Dad was and is a fan, and this record was some of the first popular music I ever heard.

The spirit of this performance is very much like Hot August Night‘s “Crunchy Granola Suite,” but this has a lot more (probably budget-enabled) spectacle about it. The horn parts in this performance were guitar parts in 1972, and there were no backing vocalists.

Of course, I now own the DVD from which this is taken. The whole show is top-notch. I looked at the set list and wondered how in the world he was going to open with “Holly Holy,” as slowly and deliberately as it begins. So he just started with the up-tempo part, and it worked, though a hardcore purist would probably resent it.

What a showman. What a legacy of marvelous singing and songwriting.

I hope you have a good weekend.

Thursday miscellanea #96

Menagerie 10 Responses »

Jul 152010

The NAACP has issued a statement condemning the tea party movement as racist, which is a nasty lie reflecting extremely poorly on what was once a respected and principled organization. Sarah Palin has the best response I’ve seen.
For the first time in 87 days, no oil from BP’s failed well is flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. Many miles to go, obviously, but this is welcome news.
Shutter Island is well-done and worth your time, but again, folks, the length of movies is getting downright masturbatory. It was at least 20 minutes too long.
Karl Rove wrote a good piece on his “biggest mistake” in the White House, which was not playing meaningful defense when the ridiculous “Bush lied about Iraq” narrative got traction. I was on the cutting edge of that one, I suppose.
Mohammed Ayoob, editorializing on a proposed in-public veil ban in France, oh-so-helpfully states that “This act is seen throughout the Muslim world as a deliberate provocation and may bring about equally provocative responses.” Know what? I’m sick to death of offended, hypocritical Muslims. So how about you shove it up your ass, Ayoob. Get back to me when a woman can walk down a Saudi street in cut-offs and a tube top.
Hey, NBC? Jay Leno’s ratings are below the ones that you shit-canned ended your relationship with Conan O’Brien for. What are you going to do? (Stay there, Jay. I’m still awfully disappointed that you turned out to be such a boorish thug.)
Mmmm, cut-offs and tube tops.

2012 IndyCar formula fully revealed

Current Events, Leisure, Sports No Responses »

Jul 142010

The IndyCar Series had a chance to hit what I think would have been a home run today. Instead, we’ll call it a double. The IndyCar Racing League has announced that current sole chassis supplier Dallara will also be the sole supplier when the formula changes in 2012. I had hoped for multiple viable options, [...]

White House says NASA administrator misspoke about Muslim outreach

Annoyances, Current Events, Language, Liberty, Politics 6 Responses »

Jul 122010

White House says NASA administrator misspoke about Muslim outreach

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday that NASA Administrator Charles Bolden must have misspoken when he told Al Jazeera last month that one of his top priorities is to reach out to Muslim countries. “That was not his task and that’s not the task of NASA,” Gibbs said. (Bolden has made this claim [...]

When Diet Mountain Dew sent me to the emergency room

Consumption, Memories 6 Responses »

Jul 112010

PepsiCo changed Diet Mountain Dew’s formula a few years ago, and it upset me. I did a protest web site that included what was really the first blogging I ever did, though I didn’t call it that at the time. Here is a selection from March 21, 2006. Enjoy: I’ve always been punctual. I could [...]