Keith Richards plays Connection with The Rolling Stones in Scorcese's "Shine A Light"

By Jack Brummet
Rock and Roll Correspondent








Connection has always been one of my favorite Rolling Stones songs.  Keith Richards often played the tune with his band the X-Pensive Winos in the last 1980's, when it looked like the Stones were defunct.  As it turns out, they weren't--Richards and Jagger patched it up and they've toured and released some middling to weak records since then. 

This rendition of Connection, a YouTube "slideo" is from the Scorcese documentary that came out a few years ago.  Yeah, his voice isn't much, but I kind of like the spirit of the performance. 


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Middle finger of the day No. 4 - Ten upstart youth

By Mona Goldwater & Pablo Fanque

More middle fingers, this time by the newborn to ten year old set.

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Sarah Palin running in 2011, or "replenishing the coffers?"

By Pablo Fanque

All This Is That National Affairs Editor

When the calendar turns to 2011 in a couple of weeks, we will nearly officially be in the midst of Campaign 2012.  We may, or may not, discover Ex-Governor Sarah Palin's real intentions.  Is she running?  Is she just appearing to run to jack up the sales of her second book, drive viewers to her Discovery Channel reality show, increase her fees for personal appearances, and boost her ratings on the Fox News Channel?  Or is she really in it to win it, fully intending to sweep through the primaries and caucuses, win the Presidential nomination at the 2012 convention in Tampa, and make "One and Done," a reality by taking out a sitting President? 

The stream of polymedia appearances, and never-ending barrage of commentaries, policy statements, and endorsements issuing from SarahPac, Facebook, and Twitter show that she wants to remain in the spotlight center-stage. . .whether for political or pecuniary reasons.  We will learn her true intentions sometime in the coming year, for better or for worse.

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Mission Statements - Two poems by Jack Brummet

Mission Statement
The army
Has two duties--

To break things, and kill people;
The rest is fluff and overhead.
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Mission Statement, 2


To launch your nefarious enterprise,
You don't need to see
A discounted cash flow analysis.

You only need to know
If the right people
Are in your pocket,

And, if not, then whom
Should be bought off,
Scared off, or bumped off?
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- Poems by Jack Brummet

Middle finger of the day No. 3 - Seven senior fingers

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor
& Mona Goldwater, Arts and Style Editor

Today's selection are what we shall loosely call senior fingers.   As far as we can tell (and, as you know, many images found on the internet are either unattributed or misattributed), none of the subjects of this set of photos are famous, or even identified. [click images to enlarge]

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Sean Combs live video of his party goes up in smoke when a model's hair catches fire (she's fine)

P Diddy/Puff Daddy/Sean Combs apparently video streams all his parties. Things didn't go so well on this one...





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Finger of the day No. 2: four political fingers - President Obama, Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller, President George W. Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

By Pablo Fanque & Mona Goldwater


The photo of Nelson Rockefeller is one of our favorite political photos ever.  It was 1976, and  by then he knew he would not be the nominee for president in 1976.  So, Nelson kicked back and lived the good life as the Vice President.

At a rally, a heckler was hucking verbal garbage at him, and Rocky leaned across the podium and gave him a righteous finger. The photo appeared in newspapers everywhere the next day.  People were offended  a man of such high office and supposed dignity could resort to a crude gesture like the finger.  The rest of us mostly thought it was just awesome a politician could show exactly what he was feeling. 

click images to enlarge

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The Odds: Poem by Jack Brummet

The Odds


Simple probability
And distributed statistics

Tell us ineluctably
That the more times

You stick your head
In the lion's mouth,

The more likely it is
that one day, he will close it.
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- Jack Brummet

Middle finger of the day: four musical fingers - Kurt Cobain, Willie Nelson, Tommy Lee, Madonna

 Kurt Cobain, Willie Nelson, Tommy Lee, and Madonna giving the finger to the camera (or camera-person)...

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Quote of the day, from Anthony Bourdain

"A good laugh, a little context, they go a long ways to bringing one back from the urge to shave one's head, climb a tower, and start shooting pedestrians." - Anthony Bourdain ("The Nasty Bits")
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The Old Ways - Ed McGroaraty's $150 per game 1944 football contract with the Packers

My brother Guy sent me Ed McGroaraty's pro football contract from 1944.  Hey, we'll pay you $150 a game; if you play better, we'll pay you more.  The contract is one page long.  What a different world that was.

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

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Santa gets some wide exposure

Santa Claus definitely gets some wide exposure this time of the year, from lifeisajoke.com. 

click to enlarge

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