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CD+G Face-off: Chris Isaak vs. Lou Reed

Eric has become a collector of defunct game consoles, and he spent some of his Christmas money on a used Sega Saturn. It’s in very good condition, with excellent construction quality, and considering it was introduced in 1995, I’m impressed by the technology.

Sega Saturn control padSega Saturn console

A nifty feature of the Saturn is it supports CD+G. Today, CD graphics are found only on Karaoke discs, but originally CD+G was envisioned as a multimedia format for music. Among the very few titles that have CD graphics are Lou Reed’s New York, and Chris Isaak’s Silvertone. I own the Isaak disc, and my friend SamJay lent me his copy of Reed’s CD.

There’s no comparison. Silvertone totally blows away the graphics on the Lou Reed CD. Every song on “New York” follows the format that’s seen here in “Dirty Blvd”…

[flv:http://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Video/2012/LouReed.flv 480 360]

… while each song on Silvertone has unique and creative graphics that push the limit of what can be done within the very limited CD+G format. This song is “The Lonely Ones”.

[flv:http://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Video/2012/ChrisIsaakCDG.flv 480 360]

I’m even more impressed, considering the graphics were done by John Dennis nearly 25 years ago, in 1985. I might post a couple more of these Isaak tracks.

Beat up by The Beatles

A couple of years ago I featured comedian Morty Gunty’s lead-in to The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show from February 23, 1964. This week’s This American Life on NPR has a fascinating segment about the comedy act that preceded The Beatles, before the second set on their first Ed Sullivan Show appearance, February 9, ’64. Click here to listen to it, then watch this video, through the commercial and on to the fab boys. I’m one of those who feels what happened that evening cannot be overstated. And it wasn’t only the kids getting caught up in the excitement. Look for the grown woman in the audience.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2009/JAN/McCallBrill.flv 480 360]

There are two Star Trek connections in that video. When I tell you what they are I’ll show you Davy Jones, later of the Monkees, who was also on the bill that night.

P.S. According to WordPress this is post #1500, but I actually passed that number a while ago. Unfortunately, nearly 100 posts were lost in the great database debacle in June ’07.

High School Headphones

This will give my son a shock. Here I am when I was exactly the age he is now, about to turn seventeen.

DOuG pRATt in high school

I used rabbit ears for FM reception and, yes, I was seated to give the impression I had antennae coming out of my head. Ah, my first stereo — Pioneer SX-440 receiver, Radio Shack MC-1000 speakers, Garrard 40B turntable, Shure M91ED cartridge, and Pioneer SE-20 headphones.

When I was in high school I listened to the classics — The Who, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath. Today, with the departure of Bush and Cheney, I’m reminded of this song.

https://youtu.be/bYgpv5clf3Y

Barack back in 1990

The Boston Globe has reprinted an article it first published nineteen years ago about Barack Obama.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/1990/02/15/a_law_review_breakthrough/?page=1

This is the stand-out quote:

I thought, ‘This guy sounds like he’s president of the country already,’ ” said John Owens, a former co-worker from Chicago, during a telephone interview. “I’ve never met anyone who could leave that impression after only five minutes.

Gaza Gazing

One of the benefits of being my age is I’m not influenced very much by the opinions of pundits, and I come to my own conclusions about world events. As far as I’m concerned, nobody in the Middle East is entirely in the right, or blameless of atrocities.

Israel was pounding Gaza while Bush was still President because they knew he wouldn’t complain. The only reason it’s offering a cease fire now is because Obama is taking office and they’re not sure how he’ll react, although I assume Hillary Clinton has been talking privately with Israel. Obama has been smart to not make any public statements about Gaza before taking office.

Nobody likes Hamas, and Israel is right to defend its people from attack, but if I were Obama the first thing I would do is say, “Effective immediately, no more planes or tanks will be sold to Israel.”

The rise of radical Islam is a result mostly of two things — the creation of the state of Israel, and America putting the Shah of Iran in power. Israel can either be an all-Jewish state, or not. America can continue to try keeping friendly governments in power in the Middle East, or not.

It’s obvious that hard-line, winner-take-all policies don’t work, because the way things are there can be no winners. If I were Obama my attitude would be, “I don’t care who started it, but I’m damn sure going to do what I can to end it.” To do that means not being a nice guy. So the Republicans are right about the need to be tough, but we have to be tough on Israel too.