The Incredible String Band out of Scotland were one of the quirkiest bands in music history. Naturally, I like them. ISB is usually described as folk-rock but I’d add psychedelic and gypsy to the description as well. ISB has a lot to do with the fact that British hippiedom developed its own unique oddball style distinct from the American variety.
Their album covers were as quirky as the music. Here’s a sampler:
The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion, 1967.
The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter, 1968.
I Looked Up, 1970.
U, 1970.
Music time. Here’s The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter in its entirety:
U was my introduction to the ISB. It’s a concept album that’s weird even by their standards:
“There’s a basic agreement in America: When you put in a day’s work, you’ll receive a day’s pay. DPS is breaking that deal,” Ivy Bailey, the union’s interim president, said in a statement. “Teachers want to be in the classroom giving children a chance to learn and reach their potential. Unfortunately, by refusing to guarantee that we will be paid for our work, DPS is effectively locking our members out of the classrooms.”
Teachers rallied at the school system’s headquarters Detroit on Monday morning to “protest the news that Detroit educators will not be paid for their work,” according to a news release.
On Monday evening, the union indicated that the sickout would extend for a second day on Tuesday. “We do not work for free and therefore we do not expect you to report to school tomorrow,” Bailey wrote to members.
The school system has a $515 million operating debt and a total debt that exceeds $3 billion.
I do not know what to do with a country where this is acceptable. Where we can have schools that are quite literally moldy, and everybody involved should have just made different choices. From the entirely predictable garbage comments:
They need to eliminate paying teachers yearly and just pay them for the school year. If someone can’t manage to budget for the summer months, that’s their problem.
Look, the majority of my offline work is contract freelance. I don’t love paying taxes. In fact, I frickin’ hate it. But I like having good schools and lots of cops around and mostly clean streets and a park district with a zillion programs and OH YEAH IT’S NICE TO HAVE ROADS AND SHIT TOO. And a library. I really dig the library.
So I grit my teeth and close my eyes and write the checks, and the return I get is what I’ve paid for because that’s how this country is supposed to work. Not TOO BAD SO SAD DUMB TEACHERS HURR DURR and acting like determining who took six cents from the till fixes the structure of the American economy.
They elected the politicians and school board that ran off with the money. NOW they complain? Kick ’em all to the curb – spend their pension money on new gym equipment and hope for better next time.
“It depends on how aggressive you want to be. I’d rather not be so aggressive. Don’t forget: We have to rebuild the infrastructure of our country. We have to rebuild our military, which is being decimated by bad decisions. We have to do a lot of things. We have to reduce our debt, and the best thing we have going now is that interest rates are so low that lots of good things can be done that aren’t being done, amazingly.” In other words, Trump wants to spend on infrastructure. He doesn’t really care about eliminating the debt. That’s Republican campaign talk.
He doesn’t actually have any idea what he’s doing. I am far, far more nervous about the economic consequences of somebody like Cruz, who has fully bought into an ideology and owns every ALEC-themed item possible including the hat and giveaway keychain, or Kasich, who would have done to Ohio what Walker did to Wisconsin if the voters hadn’t been able to stop him.
Trump has a vague idea of what motivates his pissed off voters, the ones who aren’t just racist and dumb. They want to get back to work and they want to feel like they’re contributing, and they want to feel like they have the capacity to address the misery they see around them. They’re sick of being told they’re powerless, so here’s Trump saying let’s fix some shit already.
By building a wall and telling China to fuck off and smacking Putin with our national dick, is the problem, but I have a lot more faith in that working than in Reaganomics at this point.
One of the most famous Oval Office pictures of all-time has inspired a new movie, Elvis & Nixon. I have not seen it yet but how can I resist Kevin Spacey as Tricky Dick and Michael Shannon (best known to me at least as Agent Van Weirdo in Boardwalk Empire) as Elvis?
The movie, in turn, inspired me to look for pictures of rock stars with Presidents *before* it became commonplace. Rock music was still for the kids in 1974, which was why it was fun to stumble into the Harrison-Ford pictures. No, not the actor; he was still a carpenter and part-time actor at that point. I’m talking about the Beatle, not one of the Oval Ones named Harrison: George Harrison.
In 1974, George became the first former Beatle to launch a full-blown North American tour. It was something of a disaster: George struggled with laryngitis during the Dark Horse tour. It was more like the dark hoarse tour now that I think of it.
One of the few highlights of that bad Georgian experience was being received at the White House by His Accidency, Gerald Ford. Ford remains the only Oval One to be elected neither President nor Veep. It was one reason he was glad to counter the looming Reaganite challenge with some star power of his own. Reflected glory is still glory, y’all.
The brief Beatle encounter was the idea of Ford’s then long-haired son, Jack. There’s even video of the occasion:
It’s picture time. I’ve selected two photos, one in glorious black and white; the other in color with Ravi Shankar in the foreground:
Billy Preston, George Harrison, and President Ford.
George, Jerry, Jack, and Ravi with the boys in the band.
All this dark horsing around has given me an earworm. It is not, however, from that tour. I’d rather hear George in good voice than croaking like a Beatley frog. This comes from 1971’s Concert for Bangladesh:
Donald Trump’s damage to the Republican Party, although already extensive, has barely begun. Republican quislings will multiply, slinking into support of the most anti-conservative presidential aspirant in their party’s history. These collaborationists will render themselves ineligible to participate in the party’s reconstruction.
Ted Cruz’s announcement of his preferred running mate has enhanced the nomination process by giving voters pertinent information. They already know the only important thing about Trump’s choice: His running mate will be unqualified for high office because he or she will think Trump is qualified.
Hillary Clinton’s optimal running mate might be Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a pro-labor populist whose selection would be balm for the bruised feelings of Bernie Sanders’s legions. Running mates rarely matter as electoral factors: In 2000, Al Gore got 43.2 percent of the North Carolina vote. In 2004, John Kerry, trying to improve upon Gore’s total there, ran with North Carolina Sen. John Edwards but received 43.6 percent. If, however, Brown were to help deliver Ohio for Clinton, the Republican path to 270 electoral votes would be narrower than a needle’s eye. [SNIP]
Trump would be the most unpopular nominee ever, unable to even come close to Mitt Romney’s insufficient support among women, minorities and young people. In losing disastrously, Trump probably would create down-ballot carnage sufficient to end even Republican control of the House. Ticket splitting is becoming rare in polarized America: In 2012, only 5.7 percent of voters supported a presidential candidate and a congressional candidate of opposite parties.
6 posted on 4/29/2016, 10:44:45 PM by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?.)
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To: Fractal Trader
Poor George Will.
To the Left of Juan Williams, George Will
is married to a RINO’s flack and WIllard Romney. What a threesome they must have; perhaps foursome with Juan.
7 posted on 4/29/2016, 10:45:31 PM by Diogenesis (“When a crime is unpunished, the world is unbalanced.”)
.
.
What a #ing scumbag.
18 posted on 4/29/2016, 10:49:59 PM by Gene Eric (Don’t be a statist!)
I do notice that the Cruz Loosers are nowhere to be found on this thread.
Smith, who grew up in Bronzeville, sets up in the backyard of a two-flat apartment building in the 7000 block of South Aberdeen Avenue. Smith says that he had gotten many customers who happen to drive by and see him making benches and dog houses. He says he make doghouses for all types of dogs.
“It started out as a hobby for me. I would bring out my tools, start to make them, and people would ask if they could buy them,” Smith said. “A lot people are amazed. They have never seen houses in such colors.”
Kerry’s past and present will merge again Wednesday at a Vietnam symposium at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. He will preview the Obama trip, and chat onstage with filmmaker Ken Burns about Burns’s upcoming documentary on the Vietnam War.
[snip]
Kerry is not the only participant under criticism. Some students at the University of Texas are calling for pickets to protest Henry Kissinger, who was secretary of state during a particularly bloody stretch in the long war.
John Kerry: Served honorably, came home at the age of 27 and said nobody else should have to do what I did. Walked up to Congress, again, at 27 damn years old, and told them the veterans of Vietnam say shove your war.
Henry Kissinger: Fucked over Cambodia at the request of Pol Pot basically, killing tens of thousands of people.
SAMESIES!
Both attracted “controversy!” Both are “under criticism!” Does that criticism have any merit? WHO CAN TELL? Should we “take sides” by acknowledging the creation of dead people versus saying words at a public protest? OF COURSE NOT! That would be liberal media bias argle blargle blargle flap flap flap! We need to make sure we equate the Secretary of State with commenters on an event’s Facebook page so nobody calls us unfair!
It’s guilty pleasure time here at First Draft. I’ve always had a soft spot for Bad Company who are technically adept musicians playing stripped-down blues rock. Besides, nobody tosses a mic stand as well as Paul Rodgers. And the man can sing a little.
This is a 2008 show from the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida. That tour marked the return of lead guitarist Mick Ralphs. There’s no word as to whether the band had any dealings with Florida Man:
I’m going to do something a bit different this week and focus on story telling as opposed to linkage. Mmm, sausage. I’m going to dispense with the introduction and move on to this week’s theme song. Louisiana Blues, was written by the King of the Great Migration to Chicago blues, McKinley Morganfield aka Muddy Waters. His stage name is relevant to this week’s extravaganza as you’ll soon see.
Here are two versions of this blooze classic starting with the original recorded in 1950:
It’s high time for a 1993 cover of Louisiana Blues by Paul Rodgers with Yesman Trevor Rabin on lead guitar:
Finally, I saw Zydeco great Clifton Chenier at Winterland on a bill with Muddy and headlined by Hot Tuna back in the 20th Century. It remains one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen. This is a different song of the same title that was written by the great man with lyrics in Cajun French. Mais oui:
As I continue to turn the Odds & Sods format on its head, there will be no break. Why? Because a brother can’t catch one or some such shit.
Adrastos-Zelig Encounter Time: I’ve been going to the same barber in the Quarter since Katrina. I was badly in need of a haircut on Wednesday. I might not be able to grow much on the top but it gets scraggly and even shaggy in the back. You’re probably wondering where this story is going. Here’s the pay-off such as it is. My barber worked on Oliver Stone’s JFK when it was filmed in New Orleans. His primary job was doing Tommy Lee Jones’ hair. They two have stayed in touch over the years and I’ve heard that Tommy Lee stops by for a trim, shave, and chat when he’s in town. But I was never there when TLJ visited until this week. He was the head after me so I hung out awhile and bantered whilst his face was lathered. Bantered and lathered is the name of my next band.
The barber knows I’m a film buff-even if I loathed JFK (the film, not the President)-and that I’d get a kick out of chatting with TLJ. I did. I asked him why he was in town and he replied in his clipped delivery: “Location hunting, eating, maybe some Jazz Festing.” I was surprised about the location hunting and said: “What? No horses in this one?”
“I’m glad someone saw the pictures I’ve directed,” he looked at the barber and said, “This guy’s okay.”
The most amusing moment of my brief encounter with Tommy Lee Jones was when he asked the barber, “You’re not voting for that asshole Trump, are you?”
“No, I think I’ll vote for the lady,” he replied in his silky Cajun accent. The barber has an announcer’s voice, he should do voice overs instead of sweeping shorn locks off the floor. Btw, he told me it was okay to write about this but to keep his name out of it. I honored his request. Besides, the barber sounds better than his name anyway. It has a slight hair of mystery…
My only regret is that I didn’t get a picture or do my TLJ impression. Actually, I’m glad that I skipped the latter. As to the former, it would have been deeply uncool and make me feel like a paparazzo or stalker. I don’t like feeling like a stalker: I hate celery…
Local’s Day, Mud Day: Dr. A and I went to Jazz Fest yesterday. It’s called local’s day because many of the tourons haven’t arrived yet for the second weekend. For those of you who have never attended, it’s held at a race track: the Fairgrounds. Most of the festival takes place on the grassy infield surrounded by the track. It’s gotten overcrowded and more expensive in recent years so I don’t go as frequently as I once did. Of the seven days, I used to attend three to five times. Of course, my legs couldn’t take it at my advanced age. As it is I feel like saying “cut off my legs and call me Shorty” after yesterday’s mudwalking.
In recent years, I’ve been grouchy about Jazz Fest. They’ve brought in some acts who didn’t fit the original spirit and theme of the festival, and it has gradually morphed into a less distinctive but still good music festival. What’s Jazzy and Heritagey about Bon Jovi or Billy Joel? Now if this was Jersey or Guyland it would be a different story.
The main reason for my Fest grumpiness has been the overcrowding. Festival attendance has been stable but the Fairgrounds has been jam-packed in recent years. I blame creeping tailgate-ism for the problem. People are bringing camp chairs and tarps and have become increasingly territorial. Not a great approach to a multi-stage event. I prefer to roam about and graze on both music and food. The good news is that Jazz Fest honcho Quint Davis initiated some positive changes to relieve overcrowding this year. The most important one is the addition of bleachers to the biggest stage. Yesterday was the first time I haven’t felt crowded at that stage in many moons. Thanks, Quint.
Enough cranky exposition, I promised storytelling and it’s time to stand and deliver. Sit and deliver would be more appropriate. I don’t have one of them new fangled standing desks. I’ll take my mighty early 20th Century arts and crafts behemoth any day. This seems to have deteriorated into a discussion of furniture. It cannot stand. I must sit down but first a musical interlude:
We began the day at our friends and Spank krewemates Addie and Jeremy’s digs near the Fairgrounds. They have an open house every day during Jazz Fest and call it Porch Fest. They rarely go to the Fest any more because they have more fun Porch Festing. It’s always an excellent first stop. We ran into our good friends Will and Jennifer there. She’s better known as my Spank protegé and her hubby is this week’s Being NOLAon Twitter:
Dr. A took that picture on Will’s camera. He emailed me one of us with our hostess but my eyes are closed and I look like I have indigestion so it has been suppressed. That’s one advantage of being a blogger: I can play photo god.
Once inside the Fairgrounds, we made a bee-line for some food and wandered off to the Louisiana crafts area. We said hello to our friend Roberta who was decorating Muses shoes for the punters to admire. It started pouring whilst we were there so we settled in for a visit. When it let up, we began our muddy trek about the Fairgrounds. In the immortal words of Lyle Lovett that was…
Lyle didn’t play Jazz Fest this year but our mistake was being outside during a torrential downpour. I had my big-ass umbrella so only my pants legs were soaked but my shoes became intimately acquainted with the mud. Squish. I have the feeling that Jennifer and Will didn’t look so lineny fresh after going a few rounds with Mother Nature either.
After drying out in the Grandstand, we made our way to the Gospel Tent to hang out with our friend Chef James aka the Accidental Cajun. It was no accident: we’d been trading texts. He had the sagacity to park his ass in the Gospel Tent whilst I was transformed into a drowned rat.
The minute it stopped raining, Dr. A, James, and I exited the tent but the rain resumed so we traipsed over to the Blues Tent where Geno Delafose was cranking out some spirited Zydeco. Dr. A took this picture of James and me:
I am deeply un-photogenic but I quite like this picture. It must be the shirts or the Kangol hats. We even look like we, uh, like one another. We are fine photo liars. End of this brief photo skull session; make that sugar skull session.
The highlight of the day was seeing the Tedeschi-Trucks Band at the big stage. I refuse to use the sponsor’s name since it’s an auto company. Besides, this local uses its original name, the Fess stage, after the late, great Henry Byrd aka Professor Longhair. There’s a lot of aka-ing in this post; at least no aka-47’s are involved…
Anyway, we sat in the newly added bleachers and had a grand and non-muddy view of the stage. The music was so good and the seat so dry that we stayed for the entire set. One highlight was Jimmie Vaughan and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons sitting in with Tedeschi-Trucks. It was a fabulous show from the married blues rockers and their big band. Here’s one of the numbahs they performed from another festival. I hope it was drier there:
As great as the music was, the highlight of the end of our muddy day at Jazz Fest was two little boys having the time of their lives. Presenting the Mud Brothers:
They carried on like this for most of the two-hour set. When they got good and dirty, Dr. A left the bleachers and took those marvelous pictures. It was an appropriate ending to a fun and muddy day. If it doesn’t rain today we’re going to Porch Fest and then our top-secret location behind the big stage to hear Stevie Wonder. I hope he plays this classic, which was inspired by Tricky Dick:
That’s it for this week. I’ll be back with the usual array of links and puns next week. I hate to be two-faced and change things up on you. Actually, I don’t. It’s down to meeting Tommy Lee Jones who played Two-Face in Batman Forever. Pretty damn good segue if I say so myself.
Ted Cruz launched what Adrastos called the human Hail Mary pass…sorry, Carly. That’ll fly about as well as calling a basketball, um, basket, a “ring.” To paraphrase a comment at the link, maybe he should stick to frying bacon on a machine gun barrel.
All in all, quite the day for the GOP…obviously not in a good way…but watch for this to mostly if not totally be forgotten in a few news cycles. On the other hand, if ANY of this had involved a Democrat…
After listening to Donald Trump put the lewd in collude, I considered doing something more highfalutin in this space today. I came to my senses and decided to wallow in the gutter.
Every time I’m off the internet for a few minutes, all hell breaks loose. I’m glad I missed the Dudebro Nation tantrum about their candidate losing, and how voter suppression and closed primaries are the same thing. All you gotta do is register by a certain day and, abra cadabra, you’re a Democrat. It’s almost as magical as Ric Ocasek walking across the poolin that video. I guess I caught some of that, but I *almost* missed the funniest political development of the year and that’s saying a lot in 2016. You know what I’m talkin’ about.
If you don’t know what I’m talkin’ about, it’s the hilarious news that Ted Cruz has picked someone who is almost as nasty as him, the dread Carly Fiorina, as his losing mate. That’s right, it wouldn’t even have worked if Trump hadn’t blown his shit away last night. It’s a way for Cruz to briefly steal the limelight from the Insult Comedian. Briefly.
As he’s fond of telling us, Tailgunner Ted’s hero is Ronald Reagan. I guess that’s why he’s trying the same gambit the Gipper used in his tussle with Gerald Ford in 1976. Here’s what some internet smart asses had to say about it:
@Litzz11 Following in the footsteps of his hero. Who among us has forgotten the Reagan-Schweiker ticket? Everyone, because it flopped.
In 1976, Reagan picked Dewey-Eisenhower-Rockefeller Republican Senator Richard Schweiker from Pennsylvania as his running mate before the convention. The reaction from Reganite true believers was scornful disbelief; sounds like a band name. It also didn’t work. Team Reagan’s attempt to force Team Ford to reveal their own Veep pick was dubbed the “misery loves company” gambit. Repeat after me: it did not work. They did make this nice button that nobody wanted to wear at the GOP convention in Kansas City:
The Cruz move is weird. At least Reagan was reaching out to liberal to moderate Republicans who still existed back then. Instead, Cruz-Fiorina doubles down on malakatude, wingnuttery, and assholishness. As a satirist, I want to thank Tailgunner Ted for bringing a few rays of sunshine to a rainy day in New Orleans.
I watched part of Cruz’s speech but there’s only so much of his brand of horse shit that I can take. Btw, Tailgunner Ted never mentioned Reagan in his speech. There’s a first time for everything. I did have fun live tweeting it. Here’s a wee sampler:
I'd like to thank Tailgunner Ted for making it so easy to write my next post. Carly Fiorina, the human Hail Mary pass.
A final note about this morning’s post: John & Ted’s Excellent Misadventure. One of our long-time readers, Ditty N, took pity on your photoshop impaired blogger and gave me this:
I spent a fair amount of time last Saturday telling an Adrastos-Zelig story about meeting Jazz great Stan Kenton. It only seemed right to feature a Kentonian (Stannish?) cover in this space.
I usually don’t do compilations for ACAW, but this cover is so striking that I made an exception. It’s my rule book, after all, so I can throw it out at will. I’m not sure why I’m mad at will but…
This version of Encoreswas released in 1955. One could describe the cover as all hands on deck.
This LP was re-released several times thereby making it impossible to nail down a proper version of it. Instead, here’s a 1951 featurette:
My photoshop skills are rather limited or I would have posted a certain movie posterwith the also-ran’s pinheads on Bill and Ted’s bodies. I should apologize to Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves, dude for even contemplating such a thing. Sorry, dudes. All I can do is to post a meme picture; that reminds me of the musical Auntie Meme. Rumor has it that she could charm the husk right off the corn. A useful skill, y’all, I mean, dudes.
The Kasich-Cruz pact got off to a rocky start on Monday and looks shakier by the day. It’s not exactly a pact of steel, more like an axis of malakatude, dude.The candidates don’t seem to be on the same page as to what it means. I think Bill and Ted, not to mention Harold and Kumar or Cheech and Chong, would be more coherent, dude. I just want to look at John and Ted and say: DUUUUDE, IT’S TOO FUCKING LATE, especially after Tuesday’s results. Additionally, the pact is too limited in scope to make any impact. Perhaps we should call it the soft landing pact or is that soft opening? Beats the hell outta me. All I know for sure is that they’re not ready for Broadway. I suspect the Donald calls it the Great White Way. It’s the Republican way.
Every time GOPers mount a stop Trump movement it flops, fizzles, and other F words. Fuckin’ A. The biggest problem with the so-called #NeverTrump movement is how weak the messengers are. Tailgunner Ted is one of the most hated people in public life and, as much as I hate to agree with the Insult Comedian, John Kasich should stop eating in public. I hereby dub him Sloppy John…
In 1972, the Anybody But McGovern movement was led by an obscure Southern governor named Jimmy Carter, but the best they could come up with for a candidate was Senator Henry (Scoop) Jackson, who’d been an electoral cipher. Four years later, when Carter himself was the target, the movement against him was as inchoate as the anti-Trump forces have been this year. Some people propped up Jackson again, and there even was talk of hauling Hubert Humphrey out of cold storage for one more stagger around the far turn. Senator Frank Church and Governor Jerry Brown jumped in late and won some primaries, thereby screwing the guy who actually was running second, Arizona Congressman Mo Udall, who was the real casualty of the anti-Carter movement. And, no, I still don’t want to talk about it.
Charlie may not want to talk about it but I don’t want to discuss it:
Guess it’s the same thing except for the whole Little Richard thing:
It looks as if the Insult Comedian will be at or near the magic number when the GOP convenes in Cleveland. I don’t think the axis of malakatude will be enough to take the Donald out. Once again, it’s too little too late.
Since I have kooky comedic characters on my mind, it just occurred to me that there are too many Moes in the Republican race right now. I’m talking about Moe Howards. All three Republican survivors fancy themselves Moes although Kasich seems to be in touch with his Inner Larry. The problem for the axis of malakatude is that the Insult Comedian is the Alpha-Moe and they just can’t keep up with his eye-poking ability. Now that I think of it, Trump is in touch with his Inner Curly as well. It’s bloody hard to beat the Insult Comedian when it comes to Three Stooges metaphors.
It looks like it’s going to be a Trump-Clinton smackdown in the general election. I wonder how long he can go without mocking HIllary’s appearance and questioning Bill’s choice to not dump her for a trophy wife or two or three. Here’s one possible attack line for Team Clinton: Don’t elect a man who will call Angela Merkel ugly.
I still hope there will a second ballot at the Republican convention but I’m not underrating the Insult Comedian this time around. The fucker has staying power. It could be the result of dealing with Gary Busey on the Celebrity Apprentice. The dude is cray-cray, dude.
As for John & Ted’s Excellent Misadventure it’s doomed, dude. Why? Carole King has the answer as well as the last word:
I can tell you from personal experience over the last several months, having met with countless investors and leaders of media companies and editors and writers and technologists in the media world that there is a desperate belief that The Problem can be solved with the New Thing. And goddammit someone must have it in their pitch deck. A new kind of video app. The best news stories of the day, except all on video. Video, but with subtitles. Only 30 second videos, designed for vertical screens. A personalized Facebook bot that delivers only the video you want. Video on-demand, over-the-top, linear, succulent, meaningful, plentiful, attention-grabbing video!
Or maybe a newsletter of some type. A video newsletter.
Succulent Video is the name of my Prince & The Revolution Tribute Band. Let’s get that out of the way first.
I am down with the idea that nobody is coming to save you, and that journalism is not and NEVER HAS BEEN about the medium. Journalism is about getting the news out any way you can to as many people as you can. If that is SCRAWLING IT ON THE GODDAMN SIDEWALK with pink Hello Kitty chalk, if that is the fastest way or the most efficient way or the only way you have, if that is the best way to tell as much as you can to as many people as you can, then that’s what you do.
My beef with digital paradigm talk is that in many cases heads of major corporations blame “tectonic shifts in technology and audience demands” for laziness and stupidity and short-sighted profit-chasing. I have zero issue with you exploring your internet horizons or whatever the hell you want to call it (you could just call it doing the news, but …). Podcast. Do video. Jerk yourself off about your longform longreads. Make an app if that’s what works for you, if you can do something with it that nobody else is doing or if it will just make you a crapload of money. Go crazy. Three weeks ago I pitched somebody we should tell a story by projecting it piece by piece onto the side of a building each day, no shit. I am not going to judge you for working.
I am going to judge you for screwing over your current customers or your employees or the only thing you are good at in order to do something that ten other papers have tried and sucked at, or from which they gained zero advantage. Why? Because if you have people, who are paying you for a thing, and the money they give you is enough to do your job, why would you ever stop just CASHING THEIR CHECKS AND SAYING THANK YOU? Particularly when you are good at that? Why would you stop making money until you have to?
Why would your strategy be to insult those people, declare publicly that you are abandoning them, cut the people and resources making the product they like which you are good at making, and tell them it is their fault anyway.
Gannett Co., publisher of USA Today, made an $815 million unsolicited bid for Tribune Publishing Co., setting up a potential takeover fight in a quest to gain bigger regional newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.
Gannett offered $12.25 in cash per Tribune share, a 63 percent premium to Tribune’s closing price on April 22, according to a statement Monday. The company publicly announced its proposal two weeks after unsuccessfully making a private offer, putting pressure on top Tribune shareholder Michael Ferro to make a deal just three months after he became chairman.
Time and energy are not finite either. You would have to stop doing stupid shit like spending 20 minutes of every 30 minute newscast on traffic and the weather, especially if neither one has killed anybody today. You would have to be very, very organized to do new things and old things at once. It would not be easy money like in the old days. But it would be money, and as long as money is there, why would you stop wanting to get it?
“A lot of folks said that millennials would go off and just rent,” said Jonathan Corr, chief executive of Ellie Mae in Pleasanton, Calif. “But as they hit those life-event years in terms of getting married, having children, they’re starting to make that transition.”
That doesn’t mean they’re ready to sign a check. Millennials in about half of large metropolitan areas are underestimating how much they’ll need for a down payment on their first home and are not saving at a fast enough pace.
I see “incredibly screwed by the service/gig/contract economy and paying too much for every aspect of their health care and saddled by student loans from STATE SCHOOL and until recently nobody was working at all” is the new “not saving enough to buy a house.”
When the median damn home price in any neighborhood that is not a demilitarized zone is $300,000, you tell me where to get 20 percent.
Look at this:
Surveyed millennials reported current savings at $14,469, monthly savings of $360 and help from outside sources of $8,264, on average. At that pace, it’ll take them nearly 28 years to save enough money for a down payment, even though 37 percent of millennials said they’re planning to buy between three and five years from now.
So they have that much in savings and WHOOPS STILL CAN’T LIVE IN SAN FRAN because they are not the Rich Kids of Instagram:
In the San Francisco region, a 20 percent down payment on a median starter home (based on price data from Trulia) runs at about $142,800, more than double what respondents to Apartment List’s poll estimated.
That is insane. Even if you are making, let’s say 60K, in your twenties which is a dubious proposition in the “work for the ‘exposure’ and the ‘opportunity'” economy, the DOWN PAYMENT is more than twice your annual income. “Well, just move somewhere cheaper!” Okay, and the jobs there are … just as good? At least acknowledge that some places deliberately — through government policy — price out the people who work there, mandating those people have long commutes in from affordable locations, creating wear and tear on both the roads and their lives.
Mr. A and I, in our early 40s, have no problems anyone should care about, and we still look around where we live and say, well, if we moved someplace where our jobs wouldn’t be as good, we could afford a much bigger place … if only we were making as much money as we are with the jobs we have here which we couldn’t necessarily. Which makes no fucking sense, and we attended college in the glory days when you could either self-fund most of your tuition or your parents could pay for it without mortgaging THEIR house. Like I said, we ain’t poor and this is still a whackadoodle equation, so what if you’re just starting out and have 100K in debt on your back?
I would not be a 19-year-old again if you put a gun to my head.
There are relatively few dedicated Muslim cemeteries around the country, so many Muslim communities use sections of other cemeteries to bury their dead.
In Dudley, the proposal from the Islamic Society of Greater Worcester has been met with angry comments at local meetings.
“You want a Muslim cemetery? Fine. Put it in your backyard, not mine,” Daniel Grazulis said during a zoning meeting in February, drawing a round of applause.
Jason Talerman, a lawyer for the Islamic Society, said he believes the opposition is rooted in Islamophobia.
“They like to say it under the guise of, ‘Oh, we’re just trying to protect our water supply,’ but it’s thinly veiled,” he said.
Desiree Moninski, who lives across the street from the site, once farmed by her grandparents, said she and other opponents have legitimate concerns that have nothing to do with Islam.
“I grew up here. It’s farmland, and I’d like to see it stay that way,” she said.
How do you get so broken that y0u would deny the dead a resting place because … seriously, what do you think, that when the vampires all rise up the Muslim ones will be more dangerous than WASP Nosferatu? Like they’ll be terrorist dead bodies? FFS. What do you get out of yelling at a town meeting about something like this?
