Poem: When the devil comes knocking

"It's for you. I think it's The Devil."

I always wondered when
And how he would come knocking—

Maybe in a two-button Armani suit
Or clad in a red unitard

With a baffle for his tail—
And ask me why I blame him

For the ills in our hearts and world.
Will he flip open a dusty,

Bartleby-scriven ledger
And call me to account

For my good deeds,
Or did he come to claim me

For the accumulation
Of a succession of transgressions?

Does he realize I have a problem
With authority figures?

When The Devil comes knocking
Will he show up half-drunk

And reeking of sulphur
Or will he come in stealth

Looking polished and rakish
Like George Clooney or George Raft?

Will he proffer a Faustian deal?
Or is he coming because I earned

My passage into the underworld
The hard way, sin by sin

And he's nearly an innocent bystander
Just collecting the bill?
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TBTL --- Too Beautiful To Live? Luke Burbank's Talk Show On Seattle's Kiro 710 AM

Luke somehow doesn't seem like a baseball hat guy.

I should be, since I grew up in Kent, Wash.

I love these people! I have been a radio fan since sometime around 1960, when I got my first seven-transistor radio. When I was young, I used to listen to the talk shows on KGO (like KIRO another 50,000 watt powerhouse) in San Francisco at night, when their signal would skip all the way up the coast. When I lived in SF, I listened to KGO too, and when I lived in NYC, I used to listen to a couple of different talk stations. I have a collection of about 600 Jean Shepherd radio shows I listen to frequently--all from WOR in NYC from about 1960-1977. Alas, Jean Shepherd signed off the air on WOR just about the time I arrived. Next to Jean Shepherd, my favorite radio show of all time is a brand new one, that has only been on the air since January in Seattle (with podcasts available for the unfortunate who live out of broadcast distance). You hear that Luke? In some perverse way, you're up there with Shep!

Jen, who grew up in my neighborhood,, Ballard.

In January, in Seattle, talk radio began to live again. Or at least someone was performing artificial recussitation in hopes of breathing life back into what had become a loud and moribund format. Unfortunately, according to its creators, it may be Too Beautiful To Live. Luke Burbank, who was working on NPR returned to Seattle for his own talk show on KIRO 710 AM Radio.

Luke Burbank's TBTL is a bit [extreme understatement] of a departure from "typical" AM radio — "I'm going to hang out with my friend and talk about things," Burbank says — and that's the whole point of these three hours a night. The show spits in the face of talk radio conventions, and they are fatalistic about it. But, I have heard people on the street, at work, and at parties mention the show. That's never happened before with a local show. People write in from around the world and all over the U.S. "There's something happening here/What it is ain't exactly clear..."

Sean, cook, engineer, and mixmaster

"Too Beautiful To Live" runs from 7-10 p.m. weeknights on 710 KIRO-AM, with a Best Of... on Saturdays. You can download the MP3s a/k/a PodCasts from KIRO's Web site Mynorthwest.com, and also from iTunes.

Luke is vain, funny, often a smart-ass, and always sharp. His partner in crime, Jen, is also funny, and extremely bright. She has a wicked sense of humor along with a heart of gold. Their engineer Sean, is an amusing knucklehead who sometimes talks about making eight bucks stretch the last four days before payday. TBTL is like sitting around with some funny friends, friendos. And the strangest and best part: they almost never take calls. Unlike most talk shows, you're glad. Unlike most talk shows, you actually want to hear the host.

"You have to treat it [the show] like it's a firefly and you've put it in a jar and it's flickering," said Luke in an interview.

Burbank and producer Jen Andrews have daily weigh-ins along with their engineer Sean. As most diet experts tell you, you shouldn't weigh yourself every day. But it's a great icebreaker and they treat it like it matters (also a recurring segment on the show: "Why ____________ [insert the name of something cool like Office Space] Matters." And then, they often delve into just what, and how much, they drank the night before (even Luke, who is now training for a marathon).

Just tune in and you'll figure it out on your own. Or you won't. You'll either detest it, or become a fan for life. Like most people (I'm too ancient to say peeps), I can't describe the show. . .I just ask is that you give them a listen. The podcast, with its high fidelity and no commercials is excellent.

I guess I am one of the 10's...a group of people who've been listening since the show's listeners numbered in the 10's. I tuned in the very first night after reading an interview with Jen and Luke before the shows began. Sure, I'm old enough to be their Dad, but I love these people. Even when they rant about pushing the graybeards out of the way (as they did this week)! Tune in M-F 7-10. They live in that dead zone...one of radio's worst possible time slots. They may be too beautiful to live, but I hope they're just homely enough to survive.

---o0o---

Charlton Heston, R.I.P.

From www.coloringbookland.com - click to enlarge

I actually liked Charlton Heston, aside from his stint with the NRA advocating firepower, self-defense, and the one useless amendment to the constitution. Most of the post-Baby boom generation remembers him from his work in the Planet of the Apes series. And Ben Hur.

In his best movie roles, he had this populist heroism going into head-to-head combat with ignorance and oppression. Yeah some of his movies were jokes. But don't forget, despite his later bad rug and ranting about guns, that he was marching with the civil rights people back in 1963.
---o0o---

FDA Orders Massive Cow Head Recall

According to the United Press: "The U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service announced the recall of approximately 406,000 pounds of frozen cattle heads due to a health hazard.The FSIS said Elkhorn Valley Packing of Harper, Kan., is voluntarily recalling the frozen cattle heads because the animals' tonsils were not completely removed, in violation of federal regulations.The products being recalled are various weight bulk boxes of the heads bearing package codes "91700" or "93700" that were sent to distributors and wholesalers nationwide.Consumers with questions can contact the company at 620-896-2300."

In case you did buy any cattle head over the weekend, take note.

---o0o---

Linked out of LinkedIn...Jack Brummet resigns from the insanity

click to enlarge

I don't know if you've been sucked in yourselves, or if you've resisted, but a year or two ago, I succumbed to LinkedIn. If you are in "business" you find people constantly pinging you to become their linked in buddies a/k/a connections. It's similar to Facebook, but about 1/20th as fun. And there seemed--to me at least--to be no point at all. All I ever did on linked in was approve new friends and connections. And occasionally, a salesman from some company would tunnel in and hound me to set up a meeting or a lunch or drinks...all over the map.

So I decided to Link Out. That wasn't easy. It's easy to link in, but not link out. Kind of like the Roach Motel. After begging the customer service department, and spamming them for a week, they finally killed my account. After all, if you want to track me down, just do a GIS, and you'll see numerous other avenues to find me.
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The Ruthless Gene

click to enlarge

Could a gene be partly responsible for the behaviour of some of the world's most savage dictators? Jump here, to Nature News, to find out. Has the ruthlessness gene been uncovered? The study suggests dictatorial behaviour is partly genetic.
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Barbara Bush (senior) on the beach...and speculations on Bikinis

click Mrs. George H.W. Bush to enlarge

I brought this up at a dinner party last night and everyone scoffed. Yes, there does indeed exist a picture of a comely Barbara Bush [Senior] in a swimsuit (I was wrong about the Bikini part...they hadn't even been invented yet[1]). There you are, Friendos.

[1] Well, they kind of had been invented, according to the wikipedia, but they didn't become popular until after 1943, when swimwear was under a restriction to use 10% less fabric. The wikipedia also has a great definition of a bikini: A bikini or two-piece is a type of women's swimsuit, characterized by two separate parts — one covering the breasts, the other the groin (and optionally the buttocks).

Here is a photo of one of the very first bikinis modeled by Micheline Bernardini.

:

In our more modern, Idiocracy, world, the bikini was finally reduced to the microkini (really, a glorified Band-aid®:


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Locked out of your car? Have a tennis ball?

This even beats a Slim Jim. A low-tech solution for unlocking your car if you get locked out...




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GraphJam

Stephen Clarke-Willson recently wrote about GraphJam - pop culture for people in cubicles. It's definitely worth checking out. Here is my favorite one so far. This graph was created by Malachi Lohman. It's like a manual for office workers (and everyone else).

click to enlarge

---o0o---

Nano-Plasm by Stephen Clarke-Willson--a very good read

Speaking of Stephen Clarke-Willson, I finished his new book tonight. As much as I love it and live it, I suck as an actual reviewer of art. That said, I give Nano-plasm two thumbs up...it's a rollicking tale of nano-technology gone seriously awry, and the colliding interests of business, insurance companies, and the public welfare. With a touch of mad science and scientists, and a dose of lust, ambition, and madness. Nano-tech, the framework for the book, is explained in some detail, but mostly just enough to completely creep you out.

Did I mention the novel is set on an island? Islands often seem to harbor mad scientists and mad science in other works of fiction like Conan Doyle's The Lost World, and The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells. Thinking of those books and the movies made from them, and their island locales, I have to conclude this book is made for the movies. The scenes at the facility on the island would be CGI sensations...

I have no idea whether what he writes about nano-machines is real or pure confection. I suppose I could look it up, but come on. . .it's a novel; a work of fiction. And in a work of fiction, all things are permitted--at least in my world.

I have been baffled by the people who demanded refunds from the publishers for the book by James Frey (remember the bogus autobiography Oprah annointed, which was exposed as fake?) or Margaret Seltzer's recent fake memoir Love and Consequences: A Memoir for Hope and Survival. How that last book even got published is beyond me--I remember Keelin Curran and I read excerpts in the New York Times before the scandal broke, and we both thought it sounded totally bogus. But what do you expect? Isn't a memoir just a work of fiction told with a patina of truth? So, I have now completely digressed.

Stephen Clarke-Willson's book is such a page turner that you don't really care about the verisimilitude of the nano machines. It's a good story! Read it free here, or buy it from Lulu.com. Your President wants you to spend more money!

---o0o---

Photos: Claire and Hailey at the Victoria Wax Museum, and Claire solo

click the photos to enlarge

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Bill Clinton Blows Up Again

Just before a speech on Sunday, Bill Clinton had another of his famous meltdowns, blasting away at Bill Richardson for having endorsed Obama, the media and the entire nomination process.

"It was one of the worst political meetings I have ever attended," one superdelegate said.

He was the Good Old Bill at first, smiling, and charming and making small talk with the 15 or so delegates gathered in a room behind the stage. But then Rachel Binah, a former Richardson delegate now supporting Hillary Clinton, told Bill how "sorry" she was to have heard former Clinton campaign manager James Carville call Richardson a "Judas" for backing Obama.

"Five times to my face (Richardson) said that he would never do that," a red-faced, finger-pointing Clinton erupted.

---o0o---