If you don’t know who Jackie Greene is, there’s no better time than now. Get on it. I first heard of him when he was opening for B.B. King back in the day (in his teens I believe) and now he just happens to be one of the best singer/songwriters alive. Gorgeous music. Ease into it with these vids and then go buy “Giving Up the Ghost” “American Myth” and “Sweet Somewhere Bound.” If it’s good enough for Phil Lesh, BB, Elvis Costello, Buddy Guy and Derek Trucks, it’s good enough for you.
You’ll love Jackie Greene if you like: Wilco, Conor Oberst, Ryan Adams, Bob (or Jakob) Dylan, Jonny Lang, etc…
Jackie Greene is ace. Go buy his albums. He runs a proper blog too.
One time, when I was 12, I was in a McDonalds in Gaithersburg, MD for brunch. Out of nowhere a verbal fight broke out between a large, well-built black man and a middle-aged white woman with a Southern drawl. I don’t know how the fight started and I don’t remember everything that was said, but I do remember it escalated quite quickly.
After cursing one another repeatedly, the black man began aggressively pointing his finger down near the white lady’s face and said “B***ch, I’ll KILL you!” The white woman was clearly taken aback and wanted to say something, anything, equally threatening. There was an awkward pause in the yelling and she was obviously losing the proper timing for a harsh comeback. At the last minute she blurted what must have been the only clever response she could muster: “I’ll kill you back!“
I started laughing out loud and giggled uncontrollably because that was singlehandedly the worst and best comeback I had ever heard in my life. “I’ll kill you back!”
No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God
When they’re starving or freezing or so very poor
No one laughs at God when the doctor calls
After some routine tests
No one’s laughing at God
when it’s gotten real late
And their kid’s not back from that party yet
No one laughs at God when their airplane
Starts to uncontrollably shake
No one’s laughing at God
When they see the one they love hand in hand
with someone else and they hope that they’re mistaken
No one laughs at God when the cops knock on their door
And they say “We’ve got some bad new, sir,”
No one’s laughing at God
When there’s a famine, fire or flood
But God can be funny
At a cocktail party while listening to a good God-themed joke or
When the crazies say he hates us
and they get so red in the head
You think that they’re about to choke
God can be funny
When told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie
Who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus
God can be so hilarious
Ha ha, ha ha
No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God
when they’ve lost all they got
And they don’t know what for
No one laughs at God on the day they realize
that the last sight they’ll ever see is a pair of hateful eyes
No one’s laughing at God
When they’re saying their goodbyes
My take? Suburban evangelicals across the country don’t know what to make of the song. God can be funny.
If you haven’t bought into Street Sweeper Social Club (SSSC) yet, you need to. I’ve been waiting for the album release for a few months now – I hurried into the record store on Tuesday and felt like a cheeseball buying a CD. I’ve been listening to it nonstop for two days and I love it. It sounds like Rage Against the Machine grew up and embraced the irony of it. Boots Riley kills and Tom Morello sounds like he’s been recording riffs into his tape recorder, for oh, I dunno about 8 years?
I hate rap-rock as much as the next guy, but Tom Morello is no mere rock musician and Boots Riley is not your typical MC. Who else can rhyme a hardcore leftist verse over a sick squaredance do-si-do track? SSSC makes it work – wait for the wah pedal in “Promenade.”
Wow, 2009 Dummy of the Year? Definitely takes the first half prize.
18-yr old Romanian girl alleges she requested 3 stars tattooed on her face. She ended up with 56 and looks like this now:
Tattoo parlor says client was looking at a mirror the entire time and claims no wrongdoing. Someone is seriously lying here. I think I blame the girl with 56 stars on her face. Read the full story.
Today could end up being one of those pivotal moments in interwebs history with the unveiling of wordnik.com. It’s basically an online, living dictionary with little discrimination of what makes a word “real.” Wordnik pulls definitions from existing sources (o.g. dictionaries) and also scours publications for real-life examples for word usage. Not only does it show definitions and examples, but also brings up a gallery of flikr images containing the word, realtime twitter entries using the word, and statistics on word usage. The coolest function of wordnik may end up being the tags that can be associated with any given word – it might end up being the new thesaurus while changing the dictionary game forever. Some might call it a wikipedia model for dictionaries, but I think it’s deeper than that.
Wordnik is the brainchild of “lexicography genius” Erin McKean who totally had me sold on the need for a living dictionary at her TEDtalk a few months ago. As it is with most things TED, it’s pretty ace. Enjoy.
Brilliant article in the New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell on Power-Law distribution and homelessness. Thought-provoking at it’s worst, life-changing at best. Must read: “Million-Dollar Murray”
