Thursday Night Music Byte

Boston's Robert Ellis Orrall

Let’s continue our week long visit to the Boston music scene of days gone by. Robert Ellis Orrall (born May 4, 1955 in Winthrop, Massachusetts) is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. Signed to RCA Records in 1980, Orrall debuted that year with the album “Fixation”. His first Top 40 single was “I Couldn’t Say No”, a duet with Carlene Carter. By 1990, Orrall had found success as a songwriter, having penned Number One singles for Shenandoah and Clay Walker. He returned to RCA in 1991 and charted the singles “Boom! It Was Over” and “A Little Bit of Her Love”, from his first country music album, Flying Colors. Orrall then joined frequent songwriting partner Curtis Wright in the CMA-nomonated duo Orrall & Wright, recording one more album and charting two singles. They split up in 1994, however, and Orrall returned to his solo career, writing singles for Reba McEntire, Taylor Swift, and Lindsay Lohan, as well as producing records for Swift, be your own PET, and Love and Theft. He also performs and records as an indie rock musician in the band Monkey Bowl.

Please enjoy this music video of Robert Ellis Orrall and Carlene Carter performing 1980′s   “I Couldn’t Say No“.

Wednesday Night Music Byte

James Cotton

Lynnrockets will be attending a concert in Greater Boston this Friday evening titled, “Boston legends: A Tribute To James Cotton“. The show will feature  Michael Carabello of Santana, former Boston member Sib Hashian, David Hull of The Joe Perry Project, Jon Butcher of Jon Butcher Axis, Magic Dick of the J. Geils Band with the James Montgomery Band, Billy Squire (“The Stroke” and “Everybody Wants You”) and The Uptown Horns (known for performing with the Rolling Stones and the J. Geils Band). James Cotton will be in attendance and may, or may not, perform.

The Lynn Item reports, “As the youngest child in a large family, James Cotton grew up in cotton fields in Tunica, MS where he worked alongside his parents. His father Mose was a Baptist preacher.

Cotton says some of his earliest memories are of his mother playing chicken and train sounds on her harmonica and for a few years he thought those were the only sounds the harmonica could make. That idea evaporated quickly when Cotton received a 15 cent harmonica for Christmas one year. Cotton said when he heard the harmonica legend Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller) playing on the radio, his love affair with the harmonica started.

At age 9, Cotton lost both his parents and an uncle introduced him to Williamson.

Cotton said he immediately started playing Williamson’s radio show theme song.

“I walked up and played it for him,” he said. “And I played it note for note. And he looked at that. He had to pay attention.”

The two were inseparable for years following that encounter and Cotton, who was too young to go into the juke joints where Williamson performed, would stay outside and play for tips. In 1954, Cotton got a break when Muddy Waters hired him to play harp in his band. You would be hard pressed to find a blues performer Cotton has not played with over the years. This year marks Cotton’s 66th year in the entertainment business and the show at Lynn City Hall is a fitting tribute to the Grammy Award winner, who has been inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame and the Smithsonian Institution.”

Please enjoy these video clips of James Cotton. The first is vintage Cotton playing “Slow Blues” and the second is Cotton and J. Geils of the J. Geils Band performing together in 2008 at The Roxy in Boston. Please enjoy. We will report on the concert later.

Beck Being Buried By Bolting Believers?

The first fallout from Glenn Beck’s public descent into televised insanity was the massive advertiser boycott of his show when he called President Obama a “racist” with a “deep seated hatred of white people”. That remark caused at least 62 businesses to pull advertising and it cost Fox News millions of dollars. It also cost him just about every audience member that was a person of color. Next, the unhinged entertainer lost every single one of the advertisers on his United Kingdom broadcasts. That was followed by a Christian boycott of Beck as a consequence of his urging audience members to leave their churches if they promote “social justice”. Beck told them that the term “social justice” was simply a code word which indicates that their church supports socialism or communism or Nazism. Beck’s words? “Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!”

With the loss of church goers to go along with the loss of people of color and mainstream sponsors, Beck was left only with an audience of flash in the pan fanatical Tea-Baggers. He held onto those spelling challenged, violence inciting crackpots by constantly promoting their cause and by posing as their political science professor. On a nightly basis Beck would lecture to them about the dangers posed by all the socialists, communists and Nazis within the Obama administration. In an attempt to appear professorial and to make the Tea-Baggers feel at home, Beck used a chalkboard upon which he often misspelled words.

But then something strange suddenly happened on the way to the Neilsens. Now even the Tea-Baggers are abandoning Beck’s comedy show. His viewership ratings have been dropping since the beginning of 2010. By last Friday, Beck’s television show hit an all-time low with only 1.7 million viewers. That is a drop of over 50% from his peak of 3.4 million viewers back in late 2009. Beck’s average number of viewers is now only 2 million which is a solid 1 million daily viewers less than last year.

This begs the question, how long will Fox endure a show that brings in virtually zero advertising revenue while losing at least 1 million viewers per day? Will Glenn Beck’s darling free market capitalism actually be the cause of his ultimate demise? Let’s hope so.

Please click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with the tune and to have more fun singing along to the parody. Have fun, fellow Rocketeers.

Desperado song link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8vtYBbhINM

Desperado

(sung to the Eagles song “Desperado”)

Desperado, you better come to your senses
Your racist offenses, so public now
Oh, you’re a hard one
But this will be your last season
The Fox boys are teasin’ you
Your show’s all done now

After your unseemly cryin’, boy
We knew you were unstable
We have all seen you fall apart on your set

Now it seems to me, you don’t bring
One sane sentence to the table
But what could one expect from crazy Glenn Beck

Desperado, you better fetch that old plunger
You’ll soon be flushed under that porcelain throne
Your kingdom, your kingdom fell and it’s not all that shocking
You just kept on talking till you were all alone

Will your deep dark soul hibernate in slime?
Your name, Glenn Beck, constitutes a crime
As does most everything that you say
Your sponsors all fleeing your show
Ain’t it funny as we watch them go away?

Desperado, You’ve shown us all what nonsense is
The prevailing sense is, you only hate
Your tears are rainin’, cuz you know nobody loves you
The Lord in Heaven up above you
(heaven up above you)
The Lord in Heaven up above you will decide your fate

Tuesday Night Music Byte

'Til Tuesday circa 1983

It seems appropriate tonight to feature ‘Til Tuesday (often written as ’til tuesday) the American new wave band formed in Boston in 1982. Its original lineup was bassist/vocalist Aimee Mann, guitarist/vocalist Robert Holmes, keyboardist Joey Pesce, and drummer Michael Hausman.

Wikipedia tells us, ‘Til Tuesday first gained fame six months after its formation when it won Boston’s WBCN Rock & Roll Rumble in 1983. Their original composition “Love in a Vacuum” (credited to all members of the group) received a fair amount of airplay on the station, and the group was eventually signed to Epic Records.

“Love in a Vacuum” was re-recorded for the Epic debut album, 1985′s Voices Carry; however, the breakthrough song turned out to be the title track. The “Voices Carry” single peaked at number eight on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and is said to have been inspired by an argument between Mann and Hausman, who had broken off a relationship before the album’s release. According to producer Mike Thorne in his Stereo Society web site, “the title track was originally written and sung by Aimee as if to a woman…. The record company was predictably unhappy with such (quasi-lesbian) lyrics.”

The band became an early MTV staple with the “Voices Carry” video, which depicts an oppressive boyfriend trying to convert Mann to his upper-class lifestyle; she finally lashes out at him during a concert at Carnegie Hall, standing up from her seat in the audience and belting the lyrics, “He said, shut up! He said, shut up! Oh God, can’t you keep it down…?” as she removes her cap to reveal her signature spiky, rat-tailed hair. As a result, the group won that year’s MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist.

By the 1986 follow-up Welcome Home, Mann was beginning to write more of the songs herself and the band was moving away from the slick new wave sound of their debut. But while critical reaction was generally strong, the number twenty-six placing for the lead single “What About Love” was a commercial disappointment, especially after the top-ten success of “Voices Carry”. Even more problematic, the album just barely sneaked into the U.S. top fifty, also a letdown after the number nineteen placing for their first LP.

At about the same time, Mann’s two-year relationship with singer-songwriter Jules Shear, whom she had been dating since the release of the Voices Carry album, came to an end. This breakup somewhat informed the band’s final album, 1988′s Everything’s Different Now, particularly in the song “J for Jules”, though Mann insisted that not every song on the LP was about the relationship. Shear collaborated with Matthew Sweet on the album’s title track; it also featured “The Other End (of the Telescope)”, a collaboration between Mann and Elvis Costello on which Costello provides a guest vocal.

While critical praise continued to flow, Everything’s Different Now was a commercial dud. The album peaked at #124, while the lead single “(Believed You Were) Lucky” (co-written with Shear) crawled to number ninety-five.

‘Til Tuesday essentially broke up after the release of Everything’s Different Now. However, Mann toured under the ‘Til Tuesday name with various session players while legal problems with the band’s label Epic prevented her from beginning work on a solo record for several years. Hausman, meanwhile, became Mann’s manager, a position he holds to this day.

Please enjoy this video clip of ‘Til Tuesday performing their hit song “Voices Carry” in their very first New York City appearance in 1985.

Bachmann/Taitz: Tea-Party For Two and Two For Tea-Party

Michele Bachmann (R) MN and Orly Taitz, DDS, Esq.,Real Estate Agent - Two Koo-Koo Birds of a feather.

How do the crazies always seem to find each other? And why in the world do they always commemorate the occasion with a photo when they do? These are some of the unanswered questions that have plagued the political world for some time.

Remember the photos of Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber? How about those of Palin and Michele Bachmann? Palin and Glenn Beck? Bachmann and various Tea-Baggers? Palin and assorted Tea-Baggers? Bachmann and Michelle Malkin? And most recently, Palin and Arizona governor Jan Brewer? Well, just look above and see the newest crackpot photo to hit the blogosphere. Yup, once again it is Minnesota’s moonbat crazy Republican Senator and member of the “Birther” movement, Michele Bachmann and the wackiest “Birther” of them all, Orly Taitz, the dentist/lawyer/real estate agent. Taitz, you might recall is the person who has filed multiple lawsuits seeking to have President Barack Obama removed from office because she alleges he was not born in the United States. Of course all of her lawsuits have been dismissed involuntarily and Taitz has been reprimanded on at least one occasion by the Court.

It appears that the above photo was taken on May 14, 2010 at a luncheon in Irvine, California which was attended by both of the fools. It was almost immediately posted on Taitz’s personal website.

Please remember to click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with the tune and to have more fun singing along with today’s song parody.

The Flintstones television theme song link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hByFDVwiQq8

BACHMANN

(sung to the theme song for television’s “The Flintstones“)

Bachmann. Michele Bachman
A Congresswoman that is bat crazy
She and Sarah Palin
Driving voters from the G.O.P.

She can’t form a sentence that’s complete
Now she’s targeted for big defeat

When you’re Michele Bachmann
You’re just living off the state dime
Endorsing hate crimes
Exposed during prime time

Bachmann. Michele Bachman
Hates Blacks, children and those that are gay
She is clearly brain dead
Can’t seem to get out of her own way

She talks right through the rain, snow and sleet
Every single thought is incomplete

When you’re Michele Bachmann
You’re just living off the state dime
Endorsing hate crimes
Exposed during prime time

Exposed during prime time

Monday Night Music Byte

Robert Anthony Plant, CBE (a/k/a Robert Plante) (born 20 August 1948), is an English rock singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career. In 2007, Plant released Raising Sand, an album produced by T-Bone Burnett with American bluegrass soprano Alison Krauss, which won the 2009 Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

In 1968, the guitarist Jimmy Page was in search of a lead singer for his new band and met Plant after being turned down by his first choice, Terry Reid, who referred him to a show at a teacher training college in Birmingham— where Plant was singing in a band named Hobbstweedle. Page explained:

When I auditioned him and heard him sing, I immediately thought there must be something wrong with him personality-wise or that he had to be impossible to work with, because I just could not understand why, after he told me he’d been singing for a few years already, he hadn’t become a big name yet. So I had him down to my place for a little while, just to sort of check him out, and we got along great. No problems.

According to Plant:

I was appearing at this college when Peter and Jimmy turned up and asked me if I’d like to join The Yardbirds. I knew The Yardbirds had done a lot of work in America – which to me meant audiences who would want to know what I might have to offer – so naturally I was very interested.

Plant and Page immediately hit it off with a shared musical passion and after Plant joined the band they began their writing collaboration with reworkings of earlier blues songs, although Plant would receive no songwriting credits on the band’s first album, allegedly because he was still under contract to CBS Records at the time. Plant brought along John Bonham as drummer, and they were joined by John Paul Jones, who had previously worked with Jimmy Page as a studio musician. Jones called Page on the phone before they checked out Plant, and Page hired Jones immediately.

Initially dubbed the “New Yardbirds” in 1968, the band soon came to be known as Led Zeppelin. The band’s self-titled debut album hit the charts in 1969 and is widely credited as a catalyst for the heavy metal genre. Plant, however, has commented that it is unfair for people to think of Zeppelin as heavy metal, as almost a third of their music was acoustic.

In 1975, Plant and his wife Maureen (now divorced) were seriously injured in a car crash in Rhodes, Greece. This significantly affected the production of Led Zeppelin’s seventh album Presence for a few months while he recovered, and forced the band to cancel the remaining tour dates for the year.

In July 1977 his son Karac died at the age of five of a stomach infection while Plant was engaged on Led Zeppelin’s concert tour of the United States. Plant retreated to his home in the Midlands and for months afterward he questioned his future. Karac’s death later inspired him to write the song “All My Love” in tribute, featured on Led Zeppelin’s final studio LP, 1979′s In Through the Out Door.

Plant enjoyed great success with Led Zeppelin throughout the 1970s and developed a compelling image as the charismatic rock-and-roll front man, similar to his contemporary in The Who, singer Roger Daltrey (who adopted the look in the late 1960s), and his predecessor, Jim Morrison of The Doors who, while not displaying the same visual appearance, also exuded sexuality upon the stage. With his mane of long blond hair and powerful, bare-chested appearance, Plant helped to create the “god of rock and roll” or “rock god” archetype. On stage, Plant was particularly active in live performances, often dancing, jumping, snapping his fingers, clapping, making emphatic gestures to emphasise a lyric or cymbal crash, throwing back his head, or placing his hands on his hips. As the 1960s-1970s progressed he, along with the other members of Led Zeppelin, became increasingly flamboyant on-stage and wore more elaborate, colourful clothing and jewellery.

After the breakup of Led Zeppelin in 1980 (following the death of John Bonham), Plant pursued a successful solo career beginning with Pictures at Eleven in 1982, followed by 1983′s The Principle of Moments. Popular tracks from this period include “Big Log” (a Top 20 hit in 1983), “In the Mood” (1984), “Little by Little” (from 1985′s Shaken ‘n’ Stirred), “Tall Cool One” (a #25 hit off 1988′s Now and Zen) and “I Believe” (from 1993′s Fate of Nations), another song written for and dedicated to his late son, Karac. In 1984, Plant formed a short-lived all-star group with Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck called The Honeydrippers, who had a #3 hit with a remake of the Phil Phillips’ tune, “Sea of Love” and a followup hit with a cover of Roy Brown’s “Rockin’ at Midnight.” Although Plant avoided performing Led Zeppelin songs through much of this period, his tours in 1983 (with superstar drummer Phil Collins) and 1985 were very successful, often performing to sold-out arena-sized venues.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, Plant co-wrote three solo albums with keyboardist/songwriter Phil Johnstone. Now and Zen, Manic Nirvana, and Fate of Nations (featuring Máire Brennan of Clannad). It was Johnstone who talked Plant into playing Led Zeppelin songs in his live shows, something Plant had resisted, not wanting to be forever known as “the former Led Zeppelin vocalist.”

Although Led Zeppelin split in 1980, Plant and Page occasionally collaborated on various projects, including The Honeydrippers: Volume 1 album in 1984 (there has never been a Volume 2). In the spring 2 years later Robert performed at the Birmingham Heart Beat Charity Concert 1986 which was a very special event. The pair again worked together again in the studio on the 1988 Page solo effort, Outrider, and in the same year Page contributed to Plant’s album Now and Zen. Also, on 15 May 1988 Plant appeared with Page as a member of Led Zeppelin (and in his own right as a solo artist) at the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary concert.

Please enjoy this video clip of Robert Plant performing “Tall Cool One” at the Atlantic Records 4oth Anniversary Bash at Madison Square Garden in 1988.

Palin’s Daffy Doubletalk Dismays Devotees

If you're crazy and you know it, clap your hands...

As we have long surmised, all you had to do was give Sarah Palin enough rope and eventually she would hang herself. The metaphorical rope in this instance is the former ex-quitting Governor of Alaska’s own lengthy trail of words. Despite the fact much of what Palin says is an indecipherable jumble of mispronounced words and colloquial down-home catchphrases, she has now managed to contradict herself and counter conservative measures so often that she has lost support not only among the moonbat crazy Tea-Bagger crowd, but also amongst Republicans as a whole.

This news has even become apparent across the pond as they say. The UK Telegraph reports that more Alaskans than not think the presidency should not form the next chapter of Palin’s extraordinary story, while 45 per cent gave her a negative personal rating. It also points out that Tea Party supporters, her most ardent fans, showed that a majority wouldn’t vote for her if she ran for president in 2012. Further, the British paper states,

It is not just that the faithful are beginning to question her readiness for the White House. It is not just that they have doubts about a would-be president who wants all her questions pre-screened, who needs to scribble her talking points on her palm and whose favourite modes of communication are those of a 15-year-old, namely Twitter and Facebook. What is troubling Right-wingers is whether their great moose-hunting hope may not be the conservative real deal after all.

The paper goes on to say that,

Dissent is most evident among Palin’s 1.5 million Facebook friends, who have revolted against her decision to endorse Carly Fiorina, the controversial former Hewlett Packard executive, in a California Republican senate primary over the Tea Party favourite, Chuck DeVore. For some, Palin’s choice compounded her recent endorsement of McCain in his Arizona senate primary election battle against a more Right-wing candidate.

The suspicion is that Palin  didn’t do her homework on Fiorina – who favours a “cap and trade” energy reform bill and is considered insufficiently robust against abortion.

It would appear that Palin’s supporters are just now picking up on her contradictions and her penchant for opportunism that her critics have seen since she first appeared on the political scene.

The Telegraph contends for instance,

Palin decries federal government spending but as a state governor lapped it up (as almost all of them do). She attacked “big government” healthcare reform but accepts free care for her grandson, an entitlement received only because her husband Todd is one quarter native Alaskan.

Next it points out,

A supposed warrior against political correctness, she upbraided Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, for using the word “retard” as an insult, saying it was deeply offensive to her and Trig, her Down’s Syndrome son. Indeed it may have been. But when Rush Limbaugh, the talk radio supremo whom no Republican dares contradict, then committed the same offence, she remained silent.

And,

An ostensibly staunch defender of the US constitution, Palin last week said that US law should be based on “the God of the Bible and the Ten Commandments”. In doing so she completely ignored, or was ignorant of, the fact that the very aim of the founding fathers was to separate church and state, from that very British tyranny. As the first amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Those “unalienable rights” in the Declaration of Independence that Palin holds so dear were endowed by the “Creator”, not a God of a particular church or faith.

We should also point out that while pretending to be the hockey mom and/or hardworking “Sixpack Joanne” like so many of her devotees, Sarah Palin has actually been virtually unemployed yet earned more than 12 million dollars since last year. Presently, her lifestyle far more closely resembles that of the East Coast elite that she pretends to so despise than it does the down-homey, small town, Middle American that “clings to his/her guns and religion”. Finally, and most vividly, she has not yet found a way to gracefully backtrack from “drill baby, drill” even in the face of the Gulf Coast disaster. Many of the governors of those coastal Red states that so fervently advocated more offshore drilling are now taking a sober second look. Palin, on the other hand, simply digs in the heels of her Naughty Monkeys. Quite simply, Sarah Palin will soon alienate herself right out of the atmosphere of the political party to which she belongs.

In honor of the troops, please remember to click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with the tune and to have more fun singing along with today’s song parody.

Everybody’s Talkin’ song link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8HL4WRp_Qk

SARAH PALIN’S TALKIN’

(sung to the Harry Nilsson version of the song “Everybody’s Talkin’”)

Sarah Palin’s talkin’ at me
Can’t understand a word she’s saying
She has a really troubled mind

People stopping, staring
Standing in their places
Palin’s just blinking both her eyes

Her brain is where the sun ain’t shining
Thinking is a strain
Like dead fish, she’s “goin’ with the flow”
Palin is just a bag of wind
Craving attention, please
She’s hoping that her supporters throw a bone

(musical interlude)

It’s no wonder that she’s been hiding
She might be insane
As for Prozac, she could use a dose
If she gives up then we all win
She could then strip-tease
And she could use that dancing pole as her throne

Sarah Palin’s talkin’ at me
Can’t hear a word she’s saying
Only the echoes of her whines

I just hope she’ll leave in double time

Oh, I just hope she le-ee-ee-eaves

I just hope she’ll leave in double time

Sunday Mid-Morning Coffee (or Tea) – 37

Just a few noteworthy news satellites that have been careening around the blogosphere this week…

BREAKING NEWS: This week’s episode of “Why Am I Not Surprised” features Slick-Dick Cheney’s pal the Halliburton corporation. the company has become the object of several controversies involving the 2003 Iraq War and the company’s ties to Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney retired from the company during the 2000 U.S. presidential election campaign with a severance package worth $36 million. As of 2004, he had received $398,548 in deferred compensation from Halliburton while Vice President. Cheney was chairman and CEO of Halliburton Company from 1995 to 2000 and has received stock options from Halliburton. The company has a long history of shoddy workmanship and of defrauding the US Government (and consequently, US taxpayers) by means of repeated and excessive overcharges regarding government contracts. Well, now it has been revealed that Halliburton is partially responsible for the recent catastrophic Gulf Coast oil rig explosion and spill. Halliburton provided well cementing services on the rig and now it looks as if flaws in that process led to the massive failure of the well’s structural integrity. Anyone surprised?

THIS JUST IN: We all understand the nexus between the State of Alaska and the oil industry, but enough is enough already. This week Alaska’s Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski objected to a voice vote request by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) on the bill, which would have spiked the maximum liability for oil companies after an oil spill from $75 million to $10 billion. The legislation has significant support from Democrats, and the White House has indicated it backs an increase in liability caps. Republicans are on the side of the oil companies, not the American people.

BREAKING NEWS: This week’s episode of “WTF Took You So Long” features former First Stepford Wife, Laura Bush who admitted on Larry King Live that she is pro-choice and in favor of gay marriage and has been so forever. Should she perhaps have publicly defended her positions at some point while her brain-dead husband of a President was forever advocating legislation in opposition to those beliefs? Please watch the clip…

Then again, Laura Bush is now hawking a book and as we know from Sarah Palin, nothing sells like shock and controversy.

THIS JUST IN: This week’s episode of “Conservatives Caught With Their Pants Down” features Longtime Religious Right leader Rev. Dr. George Rekers. He has been embroiled in a gay sex scandal for the past two weeks, and has now resigned from the board of directors of NARTH (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality.) For those of you not in the know, it was revealed that Rekers hired a male prostitute to travel with him to Europe. As Queen would say, “another one bites the dust”.

BREAKING NEWS: This week’s episode of “Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them” features Ergun Caner, the President of Liberty University’s (yes, Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University) seminary. Talk To Action reports that “Caner has made a name for himself by highlighting his unusual life story: He says he was born into a stridently Muslim family in Turkey, where he learned to hate America and Christians. As Caner tells it, he flirted with jihad before undergoing a life-changing conversion to fundamentalist Christianity. He then persuaded most of his family to convert as well, and they now spread the gospel.” A compelling story but untrue. “Despite his claims about having lived in Turkey, it now appears that Caner was born in Sweden and moved to Ohio when he was 4 years old. His father was a Muslim, but his mother was Lutheran. The couple divorced, and Caner’s mother retained custody. He became an evangelical Christian as a teen; it’s unlike he was ever recruited by jihadists.” Ahhh, the rarefied air of Liberty University!

THIS JUST IN: This week’s episode of “Daddy, Please Make The Crazy Lady Stop Talking!” features Minnesota’s Republican US Senator, Michele Bachmann. During a Tuesday night webcast with Ensuring Liberty, a Tea Party PAC, Rep. Michele Bachmann likened the financial reform bill that is being debated in Congress to Mussolini’s Fascist Italy. She said,

Let’s remember really what this is. This has a lot in common with Italy in the 1930s and they way Italy dealt with economics,” she said. “It still continues private ownership of business but government is in control.” She continued, “So government control of the private business, while it’s private ownership, that’s still at the end of the day the federal government virtually having a say over private business. We lose freedoms; we lose economic competitiveness.

OK Michele, now take your medicine and go back to sleep for awhile.

BREAKING NEWS: This week’s episode of “Let’s Blame God” features Rick Perry, the Republican Governor of Texas. Last week the secessionist and Sarah Palin fanboy said the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico should not be lamed on the oil industry, calling such spills “acts of God that cannot be prevented.” Gee, who knew that God created that faulty rig.

THIS JUST IN: It wouldn’t be a weekly wrap-up without our favorite wingnut, now would it? So, this week’s edition of  “Tea (Party) For Two and Two For Tea (Party)” features Sarah Palin, the ex-quitting Governor of Alaska and Jan Brewer, the present Governor of Arizona. The two members of the G.O.P. “braintrust” appeared together yesterday in Phoenix to denounce President Obama’s  criticism of Arizona’s new racist immigrant law. The law requires immigrants in Arizona to carry their registration documents at all times and allows police to question individuals’ immigration status in the process of enforcing any other law or ordinance. Problem is, even legal “brown” skinned citizens and immigrants are likely to be “asked for their papers” even though they are not required to carry them. If they do not have those “papers” with them, they are subject to detainment and arrest. As president Obama said,

You can imagine if you are an Hispanic American in Arizona, your great grandparents may have been there before Arizona was even a state, but now suddenly if you don’t have your papers, and you took your kid out to get ice cream, you’re gonna be harassed. That’s something that could potentially happen. That’s not the right way to go.

Like the nativist “Know Nothings” of the 1840′s and 1850′s however, Palin and Brewer have deceived themselves into believing the “us” versus “them” scenario is the only solution to immigration problems. Indeed, in defending the concept of “presenting papers”, the snow-white Palin said, “I think for most American people the reaction to that would be, ‘Why aren’t (police) already doing that?’” What would she say if native Alaskans treated the Idaho transplant similarly? Keep up the good work on that Arizona products and travel boycott!!!

Today’s song parody takes a rapid-fire look at Republicans past, present and future. Please remember to click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with the tune and to have more fun singing along with the parody.

We Didn’t Start The Fire song link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g

WE DIDN’T START THE LYING

(sung to the Billy Joel song “We Didn’t Start The Fire”)

Ronald Reagan, Larry Craig, Mark Sanford, Tom Delay
Michelle Malkin, Michele Bachmann, “Goin’ with the flow”

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Howard Baker, lack of vision
Spreading Fear, Acting queer, and ole Sixpack Joe

No icebergs, H-Bomb, “Pay for play”, “Hockey Mom”
Landrieu, Hamid Karzai, and that Michael Savage guy

Ivy tower, Van Flein, Tea-bagger party scene
Party of “No”, Tim Pawlenty, Let’s watch Glenn Beck cry

These are G.O.P. liars
Shy away from learning
Keep our stomachs turning
Burning their cross of fire
We watched them light it
And they can’t deny it

Vitter’s fallin’, Ginny Foxx, Boehner and Inhofe
Mitch McConnell, small umbrella, Talking the talk

Spin Zone, Rent to own, Straight martini, Bank loan
Russian view and Pastor Haggard’s flock

Sex crimes, Grassley, John McCain is “Mavericky”
Lining pockets, health care plan, Giuliani, Limbaugh Land

Barrasso, Fake protest, Tom “The Hammer”, Chambliss
Senate race, Lack of grace, and Melvin Martinez

These are G.O.P. liars
Shy away from learning
Keep our stomachs turning
Burning their cross of fire
We watched them light it
And they can’t deny it

Loaded Glock, SarahPAC, Sam Alito, Johnny Mack
Jindal, Right to die, Tripp’s father is Levi

Pentagon, Border wall, We must deport them all
Bed-wetters, genocide, No assisted suicide

Bush’s folly, Torture, Dick Cheney, Blackwater
Hate groups, Castro, John Ensign and his ‘ho

First Dude, Hannity, Mann Coulter and O’Reilly
Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, Sarah Palin’s “Sixpack Joes”

These are G.O.P. liars
Shy away from learning
Keep our stomachs turning
Burning their cross of fire
We watched them light it
And they can’t deny it

Kay Bailey, Muslims, K Street is full of bums
Villains, Pearlman, Iraqi Invasion

Health reform hysteria, Sarah Palin mania
Shameless G-Men, War in Afghanistan

Ron Paul, Airport sex, They don’t want no litmus test
Kneel and pray, Always “nay”, Can’t get married if you’re gay

These are G.O.P. liars
Shy away from learning
Keep our stomachs turning
Burning their cross of fire
We watched them light it
And they can’t deny it

Birth control, Lives of sin, They like folks that have white skin
Buckshot, Dow stock, Loud mouthed chicken-hawks
Takin’ Bacon, Palestine, Palin is no friend of mine
Now they have nukes in Iran, Couldn’t stop the Taliban

Makin’ fortunes, Soldiers die, Did we mention Glenn Beck cried?
Foreign debts, Homeless vets, Exposed by three jets
We voted them out the door, Now they’re just a mouse that roars
Spider holes and unjust wars, I can’t take them anymore.

These are G.O.P. liars
Shy away from learning
Keep our stomachs turning
Burning their cross of fire
We watched them light it
And they can’t deny it
(repeat chorus to fade)

Saturday Night Music Byte

Cheap Trick is an American rock band from Rockford, Illinois, formed in 1974. The band consists of members Robin Zander (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Rick Nielsen (lead guitar, backing vocals), Tom Petersson (electric bass, backing vocals), and Bun E. Carlos (drums, percussion).

Cheap Trick created a substantial fan base through its own brand of power pop music with a hard-edged yet melodic pop sound that combines the tunefulness of The Beatles with the speed and energy of punk rock. The Los Angeles Times has remarked that “Cheap Trick gained fame by twisting the Beatlesque into something shinier, harder, more American.”Their biggest hits include “Surrender”, “I Want You to Want Me”, “Dream Police”, and “The Flame.” Cheap Trick also performed a cover version of Big Star’s “In the Street” as the theme song for That ’70s Show from the second season onward and the theme song “Baby Muggles” for The Colbert Report.

As of 2009, Cheap Trick continues to tour with their most well known lineup. They have often been referred to in the Japanese press as the “American Beatles”. The Illinois State Senate has declared April 1 to be “Cheap Trick Day” in the State. The band was also ranked #25 in VH1′s list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock.

Please enjoy Cheap Trick performing their 1978 hit “Surrender” in Budokan, Japan.

Sump Pumps And Sarah Palin Both Suck

First she appeared before the Bowling League Convention. Next it was the Liquor Wholesalers’ Convention and Wednesday Sarah Palin spoke at an event sponsored by a firm that specializes in the manufacture of battery backup sump pump systems. Really, can it get any better than this? What is next, the Toilet Scrubber Convention?

We will not even get into the content of her speech. Suffice to say it included the words, “rogue”, “hope-y change-y”, “clinging to guns and religion”, “socialism”, “Obama Care” and a completely inane diatribe having something to do with a girls’ high school basketball team and the new Arizona racist immigrant law. You know, the usual Palin word salad.

This is a beautiful Saturday here in Boston, so let’s just pull out one of our old Sarah Palin television theme parodies.

In honor of the troops, please remember to click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with the tune and to have more fun singing along with today’s song.

Gilligan’s Island theme link: http://www.televisiontunes.com/Gilligans_Island.html

SARAH’S ISLAND

(Sung to the theme of tv’s “Gilligan’s Island”)

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale
A tale of a strange kinship
That started with the First Dude, Todd
And ends with Baby Tripp

Wife Sarah was Alaska’s guv’nor
Her husband a drop-out
Five children with really strange names
Hillbillies there’s no doubt.    Hillbillies there’s no doubt.

The election started getting rough
Mack needed a V.P.
He focused his attention on the Great White North
His savior Sarah P.    His savior Sarah P.

She could not handle interviews her strategy was
Senile
Too “Mavericky”
“You Betcha’s” too
“Joes Sixpack and the Plumber”
“Hockey Moms”
“The Pitbull with Lipstick on”
and, a Beehive hairstyle.

So this is the tale of the Palin Clan
The campaign was reduced to dust
Bristol had a baby boy
Levi’s mom, a bust

Sarah and her husband, Todd
Returned to the family nest
She had some softball interviews
Tough issues weren’t addressed

No Charles, no Kate, no CNN
Sure no M-S-N-B-C
They all use “Gotcha Questions”
That’s not her cup of tea

So join them here each week good friends
Fox, you can stay awhile
Greta and Hasselback will be here too

Here on “Palins Isle”