Summer’s over. It’s 87 degrees outside as I write this, but summer is over. One of my favorite summer tracks has been an unlikely mix of Hasidic reggae and a band I love to hate. Matisyahu, the Hasid from Crown Heights who combines hip-hop elements with roots reggae, was mashed-up with some classic Rolling Stones [...]
“I trust the hand of the almighty and the infinite…”
Surely, you’ve heard of Bob Jones University, one of these places that some people think of when they discuss right-wing Christian fundamentalist nut-jobs (Read more here). Singer Mike Doughty likes to ask for locals to run an e-mail list sign-up table at his shows as he tours, and in Charleston, SC, the volunteers turned out [...]
“Yeah, she’s a triflin’ friend indeed…”
Kanye West’s offhand remark about President’s Bush’s attitude towards African Americans continues to reverberate. First, there was the marvelous moment during NBC’s hurricane relief special with a frantic, shifty-eyed Michael Meyers looking desperately like he wanted to be anywhere else in the universe as Kanye blurted out, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” Then, [...]
Language update
On Wednesday night, at a party for The Weekly Standard, I met some people who have twins out there (As one of them put it: “Google ghosts”). One of the gentlemen was Stephen Schwartz, the author of The Two Faces of Islam : Saudi Fundamentalism and Its Role in Terrorism. But if you Google him, [...]
R.I.P., Robert Wise
Director Robert Wise died yesterday of heart failure at the age of 91. I’ll guarantee you that almost every obituary you encounter today will mention The Sound of Music, but here are some other films you ought to know about. The Set-Up (1949) is a gritty boxing noir film that takes place in real-time. The [...]
Baby, one more time.
The word is out that Britney Spears has delivered her baby via C-section. Best wishes to the child, ’cause he’ll damn sure need it. Us Weekly claims that the child will be named Preston Michael Spears Federline. No comment. I continue to get hits on this old page about Britney, so I updated it today.
Who’s that girl?
Do you remember back in the Nineties when Charlize Theron was held up as the Next Big Thing? She was always in the gossip columns and on magazine covers and the American public did not give a crap and she did not become a Movie Star, despite the media constantly telling us she was one. [...]
“I seem to you to seek a new disaster every day…”
If you’re not familiar with the minor brouhaha over the upcoming Fiona Apple album, I’ll catch you up. She recorded a complete set of tracks for Extraordinary Machine in 2002 with producer Jon Brion. Then, the album was reportedly being shelved indefinitely by executives at Apple’s label, Sony Music, who didn’t hear a potential single. [...]
“Did you ever give up all of your pride?”
Here are a couple of barn-burnin’ soul tracks. From the liner notes to The Best of Loma Records: The Rise and Fall of a 1960′s Soul Label: Born in Philadelphia to Russian Jewish émigrés, [writer-producer Jerry] Ragovoy found kindred spirits in the ministers of the Southern black churches; in groups like The Pilgrim Travelers and [...]
“Darkness… Darkness is spreading…”
Screenwriter William Goldman famously said: “Nobody knows anything.” But does CBS Chairman Les Moonves know what audiences really want?