One last non music post

Just curious of any of you have been watching the Ken Burns' doc "War" all about WW2 on PBS? I missed the first episode on sunday and I'm looking forward to watching tonight's episode. I hear that it's excellent.

Yesterday the President of Iran came to speak at Columbia University here in New York and at the UN it was a huge deal!! Forgive me but I cannot pronounce or spell his name properly, so like Bill Maher I will refer to him as Frank which is fitting cause I knew of two Franks in school both of whom were evil bullies!! My personal opinion is that he is evil and dangerous, but yet I think the Columbia University president did the right thing and let him speak at the school. The beauty of it all and what makes guys like Frank angry is that the American press is allowed to call him evil and dangerous and the President of Columbia can call him an evil dictator to his face and people can protest Frank speaking at Columbia without fear of being shot to death or taken to a secret jail some where. As I mentioned above I read that Columbia Pres. called him an evil dictator to his face and he was booed mercifully by the audience. If any of you were there yesterday I would love to hear your thoughts and feelings on the event.

Anyway at my office we have CNN on in all the reception areas. Yesterday as I was coming back down to my floor from another, I looked at the TV in reception and it was Wolf Blitzer's show and who do I see giving his opinion on Frank speaking at Columbia...none other then Donald Trump!! As many of you know I'm not a big fan of the Donald's at all!! I find him to be an obnoxious, arrogant, misogynistic asshole. I didn't hear his statement but I only could imagine what he must have said and I'm sure it went a little something like this.....

"Well Wolf I think it's so disgraceful that Columbia has asked the President of Iran a man who is clearly evil to come and speak. Columbia has never been a good school because I never attended there. And if I ran Columbia it would be one of the top schools in the country and the first thing I would do if I ran Columbia would be to fire all the female administrative and academic staff who were all over the age of 30 and weighed more then 100lbs and replace them with 20 year old supermodels".

What made me crazy and what made me loose what little respect I had for CNN was that Trump was on Wolf Blitzer's show!! Isn't Wolf supposed to be a serious journalist!? I can see Wolf asking NY politicians such as Mayor Bloomburg, Christine Quinn, Peter King, Charles Schumer, Hillary and Guliani. But Trump!? I get it if CNN's entertainment show asked famous NY personalities such as Trump, Rosie O' Donell, Regis and Howard Stern their feelings on the issue. But why anyone takes the opinion of a man who resorted to fourth grade name calling when a certain talk show hostess mentioned above dared to criticize him is beyond me!

Stay tuned for my interview with a Honey Brother...........

What really grinds my gears for today....

I'm gonna rant about something that isn't music related..... yet again! Through my work I get lots of magazines which I bring home and put in a nice little wicker basket in my bathroom. The magazines that get placed into the wicker basket first are the issues of Okay Magazine, In Touch and Us Weekly. The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek and In Style usually get placed in that little wicker basket after my roommate and I get done reading them.

Anyway yesterday I had a copy of the latest issue of In Touch that I had taken from my office in my purse, while I was waiting for my friend to join me for dinner I decided to read it. In this latest issue there was a three page spread on the first birthday party of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter Dannilynn. Talk about over the top and tacky and inappropriate!! The theme of the party was a princess party, there was a huge cake that was shaped like a castle that didn't even fit in the house where the party was taking place, there was a princess castle stage, Barney came and the worst is the baby rode in on a horse and carriage!! The kid isn't going to remember this party!! But to me the most awful and inappropriate part of the whole thing was that this Birkhead guy the baby's daddy sold the pictures to In Touch and I'm sure was paid a pretty penny to have "ET" and "The Insider" cover the party. Howard Stern was playing some of the clips from both "The Insider" and "ET" on his show and the clips were just soooooo tacky and wrong!! There was one clip Howard played where "ET" had their cameras on Birkhead and the baby as they watched Anna Nicole video clips, it was cringe worthy for sure!!

I feel really awful for this baby, with Birkhead it seemed like she had a shot at a normal life, but now Birkhead seems to be pimping the kid out to any news outlet that will have them on or take their picture!! After looking at this photo spread I felt so very dirty and like a vampire!

Upcoming interviews and other things..............

Including one with another Honey Brother it maybe Dory, it may be Honey DuContra, it maybe Hoyt.......stay tuned!

I usually try and write about what I know namely music, the story linked below was on one of the celeb blogs that I go on (a bit of a guilty pleasure for me, love Michael K. and Trent) and I was seriously disturbed by it. This 12 year old girl was chosen to be the "Official Ambassador" for Gold Coast fashion week in Australia. There is a picture of the girl in the article and while she is tall (5'7 according to the article) her face looks like that of a 12 year olds, she looks like a tall 12 year old! The Prime Minister of Australia is all up and arms over this and he wants the Australian fashion industry to follow the lead of Europe and ban all models under the age of 18 from the cat walk. The quotes from this girl and her mother are rather scary, the girl says that she should be allowed to model women's clothing cause she fits into women's clothing and the mother is demanding an apology from the Prime Minister and basically thinks all mothers should get their 12 year old daughters to act older! I was a big kid and the only time that I ever wore a ladies size two in my life was when I was 12 and I can remember wanting to dress my age and look like all the other girls who were my age!! There is something so seriously wrong with a 16 year old model walking down the cat walk modeling a dress that was designed for a much older woman, let alone a 12 year old!! If this girl's mother was smart she would wait till the girl is at least 16 and let her model for things that are age appropriate such as a spread in Seventeen or a fashion show for a store like Forever 21!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=482192&in_page_id=1879&in_page_id=1879&expand=trueStartComments

A person that I was very impressed by this week is Paul Anka. As I've been telling you I made the smartest move ever and got rid of my cable tv and I have been enjoying reading many books and my Sirius satellite radio. It's nice I get home from work and I listen to the replays of that days Howard Stern show and yesterday morning he had Paul Anka on as a guest. For all you kids who don't know Paul Anka was a very famous singer and songwriter back in the 50's, 60's and 70's. He wrote "My Way" for Frank Sinatra and had a huge hit in the early 60's with the song "Lonely Boy" and in the 70's with "Your Having My Baby". Anyway he has a new album out now where he does swing covers of songs by bands like Soundgarden and the Killers, Howard played some tracks and it actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be. Anka does a duet of "My Way" with Jon Bon Jovi (who I can't stand) which wasn't so good!! But Paul Anka was very funny and honest and had some really interesting stories to tell Howard about what it was like to work and hang out with people like Elvis and Sinatra. He's in the process of writing a book of which I will read when it comes out. His swing version of the Killer's "Mr. Brightside" was actually pretty cool and I may go and download that!

Attention all New York area music fans...

It's almost MEANY Fest madness time!! The festival starts on October 3rd and lasts ten days and is being held at all different venues across New York City. There will be many amazing and talented artists and bands performing in those ten days, among them Rachel Sage, Ethan Gold, The New York Howl and Everlea a rockin' young band out of Canada.

There is a first for this years MEANY Fest and that is "MEANY Fest rocks the movies" on October 10th a rock film which you yes you voted on will be shown at the Bowery Poetry Club.

To vote all you need to do is going to the MEANY Fest myspace page where you'll see your choices and click on the one you would like to see.

Also keep your eye on the MEANY Fest myspace page for music news and interviews with some of the festival performers done by yours truly.

Both the MEANY Fest myspace page and website are linked below.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=18516379&MyToken=f13b6273-5aff-472e-b4a6-f210ea942226

http://www.meanyfest.com/

Britney and Led Zep...

I finally watched Britney's performance at the VMA's on youtube.com.

I will say this about Britney while she's not a huge musical talent she does have some really good, guilty pleasure, catchy dance pop songs. The songs of hers that I like that are on my guilty pleasure ipod playlist are "Baby One More Time", "Toxic" and "I'm a Slave for You". The girl could dance her ass off and from all the concert clips I've seen of her it seems like she put on a very high energy fun show that her fans seemed to appreciate.

Watching her performance at this past sunday's VMA's was just really sad. She seemed to have this glassy eyed out of it look, the outfit that she wore wasn't flattering and her movements and the lipsynching was just really painful to watch! It reminded me of when Pink Floyd did their first American tour with Syd Barrett back in either '67 or '68. And I think they were on of all shows "American Bandstand" and they were lipsynching to "Apples and Oranges" and this was right in the midst of Syd's drug induced nervous break down and Syd is just staring blankly at the camera not even moving his mouth to the lyrics or not even mining playing his guitar. And half way through the song Roger Waters starts to mime to the lyrics to the song and Syd is wearing two day old dirty clothes, it's a sad clip to watch. Watching that clip of Britney from the VMA's made me think of Syd and just by looking at her made me think that maybe Brit is in the midst of her own nervous breakdown and needs to get back those people who really cared about her before it's too late. Before she winds up like Michael Jackson or even worse Elvis or Judy Garland.

But what really bothers me about this whole thing is the press coverage... calling Britney fat!! While maybe she didn't wear the most flattering outfit, the girl isn't fat at all, she looks like she wears a six!! After having two babies back to back I think she looks great, it's not like she has a huge beer gut!! All the men I know love girls that have a little thickness around the middle in and in the booty!! The press should lay off calling a woman who looks like she wears a six fat, what kinda of message does that send young girls??!!

Who knows maybe this is all one big PR stunt and Brit is planing a big tv comeback special much like Elvis in 1973 where she'll back to her former glory!!
For Britney's sake I hope it's that and she can get it together!!

In other music news I just read that Led Zeppelin is reuniting for a show in London in Nov. I LOVE LED ZEPPELIN!! Their music reminds me of happy memories from my childhood, my mom had the biggest thing for Robert Plant along with Paul McCartney and Roger Daltrey. So every time my sister, cousin and I would play house our boyfriends would be Roger Daltrey, Paul McCartney and Robert Plant!! Both Robert Plant and Paul McCartney now haven't aged so gracefully, Roger Daltrey still looks pretty good!

It's all very Spinal Tap, but I love that whole mystical element to Led Zeppelin, the whole Alistair Crowley connection and the crop circles on the album covers. One of my favorite all time rock and roll movie moments are the fantasy sequences in "The Song Remains the Same", were Robert Plant is the prince that rescues the princess from the tower and Jimmy Page is Merlin the Magican and John Bonham is in a race car and if I remember (it's been awhile since I have seen TSRTS) John Paul Jones' fantasy sequence is were he is a Napoleon type commanding an army. It's so over the top but it's so 70's rock and roll!!

And the music too is over the top but totally timeless and just so good!! I have a list of bands that I would have liked to have seen when they were in their heyday but didn't cause I was either six or not even born yet, among them The Clash, The Who with Keith Moon and Led Zeppelin with John Bonham are at the top of that list!! From what I read it should be a good show it's just one show and John Bonham's son Jason will be playing drums and I just recently saw a clip of Robert Plant singing somewhere and vocally he still sounds great.

I need to get the full report back from any of my friends in the UK who are going to this show!!

Just a few things.......

Last thursday, night I had the pleasure of seeing my latest interview subject the incredible Mr. Jesse Malin play an intimate acoustic set at the Mercury Lounge. It was wonderful!! You would never have known that Jesse was getting over an illness with the way that he played last thursday night. His energy was up and he sounded great vocally and his guitar playing was rockin' and his stage banter between each song was really very funny and charming.

The MTV VMA's were held last night and I bet you are all wondering what my thoughts are on the subject, truth be told I was too busy reading to watch! Being the history geek that I'am, I have been reading this amazing book called "Manhunt-the 12 day search for Lincoln's Killer". The book is a very intriguing character study of John Wilkes Booth (Lincoln's assassin for all you kids who don't know) and how he and the other conspirators were caught and what went into the search to find them. The manhunt and capture of John Wilkes Booth and the other Lincoln assassin conspirators held my interest and had me intrigued, more so then Britney's much anticipated drugged out comeback performance in a not so flattering outfit and two grown 40 something men dressed like two 20 year old workers at Hot Topic bitch slapping each other and the rest of what went down last evening! MTV hasn't been cool or relevant since about 1996! The last VMA's that I watched the entire show through was way back in 1999, when they were stil a semi cool awards show.

Today is my birthday and I had a very mellow pre birthday weekend. I saw two really great films Saturday night and yesterday morning. Saturday night I saw this really amazing doc called "In the Shadow of the Moon" which is all about the Apollo space missions to the moon from 1968 to 1972. The film uses footage from the all the space missions and all the astronauts who participated in these missions are interviewed with the exception of Neil Armstrong, who apparently is a recluse these days. The film footage is edited so beautifully and the astronauts interviews and recollections are so interesting! The other film I saw yesterday morning was an Irish film called "Once", the plot of the film is a Dublin street musician meets a immigrant girl from the Czech Republic and within a week they write and record music. Their music is featured promently in the film and the music tells the story of the two main characters. It's a sweet and upbeat story without being too icky sweet and the music is fantastic and the characters are very likeable! Both films get two thumbs up from me!!