Why My World Is Filled With Joy And Laughter. Or At Least A Snarky Chuckle.

Seen in the CD rack at a public library: "The Essential Michael Bolton".

I'm more interested in knowing what songs didn't make it to the album.

If Only More Bad Guys Wore Black Hats...

"I stand before you today, deeply, deeply ashamed and terribly sorry that Americans have killed and wounded innocent Afghan people," US army spokesman Col John Nicholson told reporters in Washington by video conference from Afghanistan.

There is something very Helleresque/Kubrickesque (stopitesque!) about this apology. Especially the caption under one of the pictures: "US-led forces say they kill fewer civilians than the Taleban".

Plenty Of Moss

As if the Nineteen-sixties have not already been celebrated and analyzed to death in the media, here comes Rolling Stone's fortieth anniversary special. Well, some of the interviews are fun to read, despite leading, self-congratulatory questions like "What did Rolling Stone mean to you in 1967?" The most entertaining interviews are:

Jack Nicholson comparing Bob Dylan and Jiddu Krishnamurti - not their philosophy but their stage entrance. (He also reveals an interesting fact: that he appears in a Beatles' home video, circa 1968, totally stoned. Somehow, I can't imagine John Lennon and Jack Nicholson in the same room.)

Dylan making some funny Boblike comments about global warming and politics and showing some major love to John and Paul (calling the latter "the only person I am in awe of" and the former "one of the greatest singers ever".)

Bob Weir going all cosmic and shit (something about how he is happy just to sit and watch a bug and its bugness) and talks about something totally crazy: how he invited Ann Coulter backstage. Now there's a musician with an open mind.

Neil Young, talking about his politics and leaving Buffalo Springfield.

Ringo getting all blunt (he calls the Police reunion "boring") and anarchic in his interview (exhorting the bands of today to "oppose everything that we stood for".) He also declares "Revolver" to be his favorite album. (And why do all interviewers insist on asking the same goddamn stupid questions about "Sgt. Pepper"?)

Yes, and this issue has those scratch-and-sniff perfume ads too. This is a rock magazine.

Upgrade Or Die

Nice work, Intuit, killing Quicken 2004 with just a "as you have been notified...".

I now have piles of bills sitting on my desk and, for the first time in nearly 142 years, I have to write checks and lick those stamps.
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On the off-chance that your Sunday afternoon does not involve writing checks and licking stamps, you should be watching Ahmet Ertegun's bio on PBS. This great man (who gave the world Ray Charles, Led Zeppelin, Cream and Aretha Franklin) was the one who suggested Phil Collins add "more drums" to "In the air tonight".

Come on, he gave us Ray Charles, Led Zeppelin, Cream and Aretha Franklin! That's not good enough for you?

It's Superman! It's A Bird!! It's A WTF??!!

It's a Boeing 737 sitting in the middle of a road in Bombay.

Do not panic.

Thanks to the Cartoonist Formerly Known as Mock Turtle for this most entertaining link.

I just hope they don’t get away with serving hot towels and mini-pretzels as compensation to the affected residents.
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Look, mama, the Pakistani government put out an ad to find missing radioactive material!
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Hey, Sri Lanka and Nepal, let's see you guys get your own funny-scary news stories on the BBC next week.

Sadashivam's Blues

I am in deep despair.

The Kinks could easily have written an funny, wistful minor-key song based on this lovely poem by Neha.

Not to belittle anyone's opinion, and that's exactly what I am going to do now, but I read a very funny comment on her blog: "I don't see the crux of this poem here".

The "crux" of the poem? How about a 10-point executive summary of the Key Feelings Evoked By The Poet and a 45-slide Powerpoint presentation on Impacts of The Poem On the Enterprise?

OK, but I would still like to know the crux of Bunuel's "The Discrete Charms of the Bourgeoisie". Actually, not. The crux of that film was "always plan your meals carefully".

The Bees

Most unusual: Bees are disappearing.

Why is this important?

Of the 17,000 species of bees that scientists know about, “honeybees are, for many reasons, the pollinator of choice for most North American crops,” a National Academy of Sciences study said last year. They pollinate many types of plants, repeatedly visit the same plant, and recruit other honeybees to visit, too.

Many theories have been proposed to explain the "colony collapse disorder" phenomenon (previously known as the Fall Dwindle Disease), but the one involving cellphones obviously got the most attention.

If only bogus theories disappeared first.
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And here's the Dead, circa 1970, covering Muddy Waters' classic "I'm a King Bee" (Track 4, streaming audio, link to archive.org)