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The Worst Thing You’ll See All Week

Mrs. Renfield and I were discussing bad 70’s TV shows, and I suddenly remembered laughing my ass off at this episode of CHiPs, where Erik Estrada et al. turn their forensic skills on solving death threats against satanic rocker, “Moloch.”  They don’t go to any trouble to hide their inspiration for Moloch, who apparently is so revered that he can get away with one-song concerts.  This is even worse than I remember, and I post with deepest apologies.

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I Respect His Fandom

Confession: I never had a Van Halen phase.

This is weird, because it seemed like every guy around me in middle school and junior high was a fan.
I definitely had a run where I thought KISS was the best thing ever, but am kind of drawing a blank from the late 70’s until I heard Murmur.
I probably listened to lots of Top 40, with a touch of Devo.
Anyway, Mr. Nicolai is one of Austin’s finest. Rock on, EVH.

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Don’t Watch After Eating

I hate the songs of Jimmy Webb.  He won a jillion Grammy’s, and he’s regularly named as a great songwriter by people who really should know better (Bruce Springteen and some others).  At his best, his songs are merely annoying, melodically vapid, and oozing with gooey sentimentality (his songs for Glen Campbell: Galveston, Wichita Lineman, By the Time I Get To Phoenix).  At his worst, they are also pretentious (McArthur Park) and stupid beyond all description (Up, Up and Away, McArthur Park again).  I once played Richard Harris’s original hit version of McArthur Park to my older son, who was certain I was playing him a comedy record.  If you’re so inclined, above you can watch him perform what could be the worst song ever written with such bone-headed earnestness that you may find yourself wanting Anton Chigurh to walk up and do his captive bolt stunner thing on him.  I didn’t even make it to the infamous “cake out in the rain” part (surely the dumbest metaphor ever devised).  In a way it’s funny, but mostly not.  My question to you bastards: am I incorrect?  If any of you are Jimmy Webb fans, can you clue me in as to what’s good about him?  Did he write some hidden gems I’ve never heard?  Because based on his biggest hits, I don’t get his reputation as one of the greats at all.

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Exhibit B

Makerbot recently posted a Terry Bozzio video.  Here is further support for what research has proven time and again: that non-sociopathic drummers use their spare time to acquire too many drums, which they then overplay.  In some ways the above video is a more disturbing example.  For where Mr. Bozzio employed instruments in a range of pitches (therefore demonstrating some higher-order thinking), this character for some reason has about 50 of the same crash cymbal,  and seems intent on hitting them all.  A drummer with only basic skills could do the same thing with two.  WTF?

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Non-Human Persons

”A 33-year-old orangutan granted legal personhood by a judge in Argentina is settling into her new surroundings at the Center for Great Apes in central Florida.” 

Story here.

“Ape King” documentary presumably to follow.