Rather than blogging I’ve been working on my facet joint problem, which I’m told is what’s been wrong with my back. Can’t believe how weak my right leg is from just one month of favoring it. I’ll keep working out and going to PT.
Anyway, ignoring for the moment the catastrophe in Haiti, something that’s bugging me is how there’s so much babbling about Jay Leno crawling back to the 11:30 PM ET slot, and what it means for Conan O’Brien, but almost nobody — Mark Evanier is an exception — has pointed out the significance of Stephen Colbert being on at 11:30. I refuse to believe that cable TV is not yet counted in the ratings equation, and I for one won’t even flip channels during commercials on “The Colbert Report.”
Coming up (I think), will be Milli. No, not Vanilli!
My friend tastewar’s favorite band is The Decemberists. Their site is very intelligently organized and presented, except it could use a favicon. Give it a try.
Stephen Colbert is also a Decemberists fan, although for him it’s perhaps more of a mutual admiration society. The connection started three years ago…
In an era where playlists and homemade compilations rule, I applaud The Decemberists for doing what Green Day did five years ago with “American Idiot” — they’ve put together an album that needs to be heard in its entirety, as a complete work.
At this moment it says the last video is no longer available. Don’t know if this is one of Comedy Central’s usual glitches, or if it’s really been pulled. So let’s go with a substitute…
I love the solo bit that sounds like Grace Slick in The Jefferson Airplane. I’ll use that as a springboard for this delightfully trippy live take of Donovan’s “Fat Angel” by the Airplane.
As Donovan says on his “Sunshine Superman” DVD, that I excerpted here, he was interested in the development of what he called Celtic Rock. Another musical group that comes to mind when listening to The Decemberists, that can be categorized as Celtic Rock, was The Incredible String Band. They did a sort of mini-Rock Opera, like the Who’s “A Quick One,” with their evocative “Darling Belle.” Listening to this, I’m reminded of how much I enjoyed Jethro Tull’s “Thick As A Brick” when I was in high school.
What a shame that “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was preempted this week by President Obama’s speech at West Point, announcing the deployment of 30,000 additional troops in Afghanistan.
Russell Wiseman, the mayor of Arlington, Tennessee, was apoplectic about “A Charlie Brown Christmas” not being shown Tuesday night.
“Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch ‘The Charlie Brown Christmas Special’ and our muslim president is there, what a load…..try to convince me that wasn’t done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it….w…hen the answer should simply be ‘yes’….”
But if Russell were a wise man, he would have checked the TV listings and seen that “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was already scheduled to be repeated this coming Tuesday night. Not only that, a second showing has been added for December 15th to make up for the one missed this past week.
The ABC Television Network will celebrate the joy of the holidays with the classic animated Christmas-themed PEANUTS special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, created by late cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, airing TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8 (8:00-8:30 p.m., ET) and TUESDAY, DECEMBER 15 (8:00-9:00 p.m., ET).
“It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” was aired twice in October by ABC. I wonder what Mayor Wiseman thinks of Linus’ singular belief in the Great Pumpkin?
Two of my all-time favorite entertainers, Elvis Costello and Stephen Colbert, together again (extra credit if you know the lyric in this song that Costello first used on his second album)…
