perfidy

In my previous post I had said that mail remained undelivered to portions of Eastern Massachusetts. That is not strictly true.

We Await Silent Tristero's Empire.

*wink*

I've seen 38 inches of snow before. I'm from the snow belt of Ohio, where the dreaded "Lake Effect" picks up measurable portions of Lake Erie and dumps it in granular form over a huge swath of countryside from Cleveland to Niagara Falls. In Ohio, 38 inches of snow is a lot, make no mistake, but there's a difference between the big snows of my childhood and the big snow that is now inhabiting my town in coastal Massachusetts.

The difference? Space.

I'm from rural Ohio, out, as my father would put it, "where the hoot owl f**s the chicken." Consequently, there's a lot of space around in the winter that nobody's using for much. It snows a ton, you just move that snow on top of other snow-- no problem. But when you live, as I do now, in a city that was in large part planned before the Battle of Concord, 38 inches of snow is a different story. When most side streets barely admit one lane of traffic under optimal conditions and are as convoluted as a David Eggers story, where the hell do you put three feet of snow?

(It turns out the state doesn't know either. Just yesterday I heard a new term, "snow farm," for the plots of land where snow is trucked in to be dumped. Apparently some of these snow farms won't be done melting until July. )

As of this writing, eastern MA is halfway to paralyzed, with many side streets impassable, public transportation operating behind schedule, schools delayed, and mail undelivered to some areas (!!). Best of all, 5 more inches are on the way tomorrow. Fun!!

Fun fact:
Eastern Massachusetts got its average snowfall for a year in twenty-four hours on Saturday and Sunday, falling continuously at a rate of between 1 and 1.2 inches per hour. My particular town by some measures got the worst, at 38 inches total. (We win!) By way of comparison, a person would have to eat 100 pounds of beef in one day to get their yearly allotment of moo-meat. Just sayin'.

For the technology minded...a few weeks ago I had a hi-def satellite system installed at my house (Voom). A few days ago Voom's satellite was sold to EchoStar and the entire service is in a state of flux. It is possible that they will stop transmitting. Good thing I didn't pay for the equipment! In any case, here are a few thoughts...getting HD TV these days is a total pain in the ass, and Voom is the best thing out there at the moment. I hope the service survives in one form or another.
EchoStar knows the limitations of their current sat with respect to HD...they want to achieve rapid leadership in HD, ahead of DirecTV.

By buying the Voom satellite and uplink center, they have a turnkey HD broadcast system, with just about all of the kinks worked out, good and cheap STBs from a well-known provider, a DVR around the corner, and a starting subscriber base of 26,000.

Marketing goes to work selling an all-new EchoStar HD+ service. Yes, if you're an existing EchoStar customer you'll need a new dish, but EchoStar is locking in that customer at higher rates (presumably) over a long term. For existing EchoStar HD customers, bite the bullet and pay for the new install, for them. They'll be eternally grateful. Give them free upgraded HD programming for 3 months, then back to their original subscription. They'll call and buy the upgraded package, and it's one year to payback on the free install.

An upgrading current EchoStar customer keeps everything they have now in terms of channel but now is receiving unbeatable HD capability. EchoStar trashes the Voom originals and condenses the content down to five or six really good HD channels (Rave, Rush, Equator), once again to provide advantage of DirecTV. They can possibly use the spot transmission support to do locals in key markets, and rely on the STB's OTA tuner everywhere else. Remove the SD/HD doubling that Voom inexplicably does and make use of the bandwidth for key locals.

What's not to like about this plan? Ink an agreement with Motorola to ramp up STB (set top box) production, advertise like crazy (starting in a few months) to your own subscriber base, upselling to the new service.

Your turnkey HD operation can include significant parts of the current Voom technical staff for even faster startup time. Get the HD DVR support off and running, fast, and find a way to make it cost half of what D*'s does...then watch the new subscriptions roll in...

Where's the flaw?

EchoStar didn't buy Voom's programming, but Voom's own programming is fairly poor, with a couple of notable exceptions. EchoStar already has contracts with many of the pay channels that it could extend to get their HD versions (it's just more money for HBO, etc). It already has contracts with all the SD channels. With the MPEG-4 compression upgrade in place they could do spot beams to a number of the larger markets with full HD locals (MPEG-4 doubles bandwidth with same PQ, so there are 80 HD channels. That's 40 new ones, plus you can recover 12-14 more by dumping a good slice of Voom content (assuming EchoStar would want to find "showcase" HD programming to put on the remaining Voom channels. That gives you 50-60 HD local channels you can broadcast...Also, I don't know if the bandwidth is limited on the way up, or on the way down...if spot beams are used more channels might be possible.

The Voom technology really does have the possibility of "doing it all" in a very short time frame, if the right deals are cut and the decisions are made...

Brad over at Pool of Thought brings us this story from the land of gloom and coffee.

Here's the short version: the "celebrate diversity" set formed themselves a good ol' fashioned mob and forced an Army recruiting team from their campus last week, a gesture they somehow linked to the president's inaugural. Brad does a great essay on it, which I can't improve upon.

At least though the filthy protestors were of all stripes, so they sort of practice what they preach. Black and white, man and woman standing together, free from the baggage of their parents' bigotries, and united in spitting in the face of someone else entirely.

Thanks to SMASH also; wouldn't have found the post without his link.

Or, for that matter, Spinal Tap, Britney, Shakira, and ABBA?

Man. That is one messed up algorithm.

You know, Blockbuster is right.

Since I dig Metallica, why WOULDN'T I also dig Britney Spears, Weird Al, and Sheyl Crow?

Ever seen a guy blow his nose on bologna and eat it? Do ya wanna?

One of the hardest things about being a latter day punk rocker are the endless tales of how great things used to be. “Man, did you ever see the Nails back at the Abbey in ’77? What… you were three years old? Sucks for you, man.” Aside from closing your eyes and wishing reeeal hard, there’s no way of knowing what it was really like, or whether the Nails were ever actually any good.

The live albums that have survived aren’t always much help. Aside from the odd gem, most live punk classics are famous for being unmitigated disasters-- they’re famous for their antics. Look at The Stooges’ Metallic K.O. I mean, jeez… part of that record is the sound of the band getting full bottles of beer thrown at them. And few people talk about whether the Sex Pistols were actually any good live; all you hear about is the LA gig where they closed with “No Fun,” walked off stage, and broke up for good. But hey-- I hear the Germs were really hot that night. To a certain extent I'm guilty of the same sin, using Dead Boys lead singer Stiv Bators' stage antics as my pull quote ("But really Johno... how did it sound?").

It did come as a bit of a surprise to me to find that some enterprising soul had taken it upon themselves to do a three-camera video shoot of a complete Dead Boys set at CBGB in the halcyon (well, the Demerol) days of 1977. Some of you might rightly ask why someone thought to record the Dead Boys at all— in a color three-camera shoot no less—rather than, say The Ramones or Talking Heads. The answer to that question is that someone at Sire Records loved the Dead Boys and hoped to make them the next big thing: proof of this is the amusing 1977 video spot helpfully included in the bonus footage, which touts the band as “the most exciting, outrageous band in the United States today.”

Whether or not they were what Sire claimed them to be, Live at CBGB/OMFUG 1977 finally gives us an opportunity to see whether “Sonic Reducer” was a fluke or the real deal. Finally, a chance to see if the music lives up to the hijinks. Finally, a chance to see whether all us punks up there on a thousand tiny stages, beating ourselves with microphones and sneering while we bash our instruments like they owe us money, perpetrating outrageous antics for larfs (the lead singer of my old band once drank a douche, got real sick) and getting publicly drunk while playing rudimentary melodies at high speeds are actually pursuing a gold standard set lo, these many years ago, or whether we are just a bunch of second-rate a-holes mimicking an older bunch of second-rate a-holes.

Well, guess what? It turns out that Live at CBGB is a must-see for any punk fan, an outstanding snapshot of a great but half-forgotten punk band in their prime. Suffice to say the Dead Boys, five pallid lumpy morons who just drove in from Cleveland, are more powerful, more friggin' awesome then any five hundred bands that lay claim to their legacy. What’s more is, everything punk kids do today out of tradition (scowling, singing the chorus off-key, being gross onstage, smashing drums), the Boys were doing when it was practically brand new (ish. Newish. Iggy did it first.)

It doesn’t hurt that they had good songs, either.

The band open the show with a blistering version of their classic “Sonic Reducer.” For a band remembered mainly for being loud and snotty, their stage show is surprisingly tight and professional. Not that the playing is perfect (this is punk rock, after all), but it’s great to see a band work well together on stage. Lead singer Stiv Bators has an undeniable stage presence and innate sense of drama and the other players are as anonymous or flamboyant as Stiv’s antics will allow them to be. Guitarist Cheetah Chrome in particular gets good mileage out of a limited repertoire of crosseyed-scowls and guitar shakes.

But the star of the show is clearly Bators, a scrawny teenager who on this night was doing his level best to claim his place in the all-time punk pantheon alongside Iggy Pop, G.G. Allin and Johnny Rotten. Five minutes into the show, during a grinding version of the singalong “All of This And More,” Bators kneels to eat a slice of the aforementioned bologna off the stage, and a minute later bloodies his nose on… well… something, and uses another slice to blow his bloody nose. As he sings a verse, he regards the ensnotted meat distractedly before popping it in his mouth. The ensuing meat-muted chorus goes “Deah’ Boah’… Know a’ ‘ahm jus’ a Deah Boa’… Ah wa-ah’ be a Deah’ Boa.’” Not that this is so very different from Bators’ usual enunciatory standards, but the effect is Iggylicious. And make no mistake; Iggy is the main influence here; Stiv even adopts the trademark full backbend and arm whirls of his idol. Bators literally throws himself into his performance with the stamina of the young and high, and the audience (which now includes us) reaps the rewards.

In between all the stage theatrics, the band manage to pull off outstanding versions of “All This And More,” “Down in Flames,” “I Need Lunch” and lesser-known songs like “Revenge.” Although the Dead Boys owe huge debts to the New York Dolls, the MC5, Alice Cooper, the Stooges and Cleveland's own Rocket From The Tombs (from whence two 'Boys came), the songwriting is strong original, and strikingly self-assured. The band closes with (naturally) a loose and scorching version of the Stooges’ “Search and Destroy.” Throughout the performance, the cameras focus mainly on the band, with only a few shots of a surprisingly normal-looking crowd (this was the days before safety pins and leather) thrown in for relief, and in general director Rod Swenson does a great job capturing a fantastic set.

The best part of the DVD experience is the extras, and Live at CBGB is no exception. The producers have thoughtfully included band interviews recorded at CBGB that range from the blissfully inarticulate (Johnny Blitz) and the amiably inarticulate (Cheetah Chrome) to the endearingly naïve (Stiv Bators, who offstage looks all of twelve years old). A 2003 interview with an all-grown-up Cheetah Chrome (“Eugene Richard O’Connor”) sets all in context. Disarmingly honest about his days as a Dead Boy (“we were a bunch of morons”), the native Clevelander reminisces at length about driving back and forth from Ohio to New York, living on $5 a day just to hang out at CBGB, and about the New York scene in 1977. According to him, the Dead Boys were “volume, speed, action, light, frustration, [and] beer,” which sounds about right. Also agreeing to an interview is CBGB founder Hilly Kristol, who argues that the Dead Boys were set to conquer the world. Interestingly, it becomes clear that Kristol was somewhat of a father figure to the band, although his guidance was not enough to keep the band from disintegrating within two years of recording their first album.

From an anthropological standpoint, nearly more interesting than even the Dead Boys themselves is the bonus footage of the opening act. We all remember the Dead Boys, the Germs, the Damned, the Clash, Television, etcetera and so on world without end. But what of the bands that didn’t make it? Who were 1977’s also-rans, and what were they thinking? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Steel Tips.

I don’t think I will ever get tired of watching an aggressively spaced-out dude with one solid dreadlock set his shirt on fire, igniting strings of firecrackers hidden underneath. I will also never get tired of watching a fah-laming baldheaded 300-lb biker who moves justlike a Supreme and a fresh-faced teenaged girl in a Catholic school outfit handle backing vocal/dance/handclap duties for a three-piece band who look free jazz and play garage. The Steel Tips’ music itself, a song called “Crazy Baby” or perhaps “Driving Me Crazy,” is fairly unremarkable by any standards, but the sheer godawful freaky-weird spectacle of their live show is not to be missed. Forget about the Zappa clone moaning “she’s driving me crazy!” into his mic and focus on the biker queen and the schoolgirl moving in careful sychnronicity, serious as a heart attack and totally in their element. It’s a doorway to a world completely forgotten and perhaps better left behind, but perfectly entertaining.

(Also posted to blogcritics.org. Blogcritics.org is clinically proven to build healthy teeth and bones.*

(*Blogcritics.org not clinically proven to build healthy teeth and bones.))

In an addendum to Geeklethal's post on Vonnegut and why Americans are not universally loved, I misquoted Gertrude Stein writing about Oakland, California. I said she wrote, "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer, when in the course of human events our fathers brought forth on this continent milk, bread, cheese-- dental floss!, in Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure dome decree, with truth and justice for all, Amen."

In fact, the correct quote is, "give us the money, Lebowski, or we cut off your chonson."

The commander of the US nuculur sub that ran aground off Guam last month has been reassigned.

Do you think his friends call him "crash"?

The TimesOnline reports that Iran has renewed its fatwa against author Salman Rushdie. Or not. After noting that the current Ayatollah guy did, in fact, call once again for Rushdie's death, the article goes on to say that

Analysts in Iran played down the remark, suspecting that Ayatollah Khamenei was referring to the fatwa against Rushdie in a historical context and was not calling for it to be implemented now. "This isn't shocking - it's nothing new," one Tehran-based analyst said.

Fascinating. Rushdie was called a "mahdour al-damm mortad," or "apostate from Islam whose blood may now be spilled with impunity," but it was a purely rhetorical construct devoid of greater meaning.

Wouldn't it kick ass if President Bush could do the same thing? In his just-past re-inauguration speech (or as he would put it, my cosmic "reset" button), Bush could have referred not to Kim Jong-Il, Michael Moore or married homosexuals, but to "Kim Jong-Il, backstabbing psychopath and future bullseye in the crosshairs of justice," "Michael Moore, self-promoting merchant of lies whose bitch-tits will surely soon be in a wringer," or "Massachusetts."

Wouldn't that be a hoot? And the best part is, since it's all rhetorical, no harm/no foul!!

Over to you, Buckethead, you maundering pile of cow dung!

Rhetorically speaking, that is!