Rockabilly Riot

Here it is the day of the US release of Brian Setzer's new album called Rockabilly Riot and here I am without it. Bummer. Normally I would be in the record store the day it is released, but this time I let it slip by. Suddenly, I'm not in the club. I'm uncool, because some people (besides the euros and Japanese, who had this release early this month) have the thing already and are listening to it right now.

It could be just materialism but I think CS Lewis described it better as need to fit into an Inner Ring, a part of a group of people cooler than I am. He said that as we see these exclusive cliques we want to be a part of because it will somehow make us better than others, with some secret knowledge and feeling of belonging that gives us some sense of superiority over others. However we enter one ring, and soon the pleasure of being in wears off, and then we find ourselves disenchanted and looking for an even more exclusive (cooler) ring to be a part of. He said:

The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surprising result will follow. If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it. This group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know. It will not shape that professional policy or work up that professional influence which fights for the profession as a whole against the public: nor will it lead to those periodic scandals and crises which the Inner Ring produces. But it will do those things which that profession exists to do and will in the long run be responsible for all the respect which that profession in fact enjoys and which the speeches and advertisements cannot maintain. And if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside: that you are indeed snug and safe at the center of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. But the difference is that its secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a by-product, and no one was led thither by the lure of the esoteric: for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to do things that they like. This is friendship. Aristotle placed it among the virtues. It causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ring can ever have it.

This of course is something that applies to more than just buying an album or combing my hair a certain way. I find it especially at work at church, which is the last place that there should be an inner ring. In the end, we're all in the big ring of God's grace, and so one home group shouldn't be better than another, and one ministry shouldn't be more exclusive or give an air of superiority over another. Sometimes it happens inadvertently, and we should make every effort to make sure it doesn't happen.

I'll get the album because I love the music, but in the meantime it reminded me to be careful how to treat others. Funny how one little thing like a CD release can lead to these thoughts.

For now, I can read the liner notes!

Sony BMG Apologizes For Payola Involving J. Lo, Avril, Good Charlotte, Others

Sony BMG Apologizes For Payola Involving J. Lo, Avril, Good Charlotte, Others: "Sony BMG Apologizes For Payola Involving J. Lo, Avril, Good Charlotte, Others

Label gave trips, cash and electronics to stations in exchange for airplay."

Here's a story that should surprise no one.

If they played stuff people wanted to hear it'd be all Hank Williams, Jr. and KPIG would be a national channel instead of local.

Regis and Dean

I find those weird informercials with Dean Martin and Regis Philbin singing together just creepy.

Regis, here's a tip: You're not that great of a singer. If you tried out for American Idol, you wouldn't go to Hollywood, dog. I'm just keeping it real, yo.

Everybody loves (somebody) Dean Martin but thank goodness we're not all in a monkey suit trying to sing with his dead image on national television. We keep it in the car, with the windows up, like it should be.

This is the same reason the Bobby Darin movie was a flop, and that a Tom Hanks version of Dean Martin movie would go up in smoke like Joe vs. The Volcano. We have video and music of the real deal, so why would we want to watch you pretend to be him? We want to either be Dean, Bobby or Elvis ourselves, we don't want to watch you imitate them. You're already famous, so go make a movie about a martian or something. We'll watch our old movies and listen to our old records.

And for pete's sake, someone get the hook the next time Regis goes to film one of those infomercials. I don't even know the guy and I'm embarrassed for him.

Thanks and goodnight. You've been wonderful.

Family has unique viewing at funeral home

This is just plain weird.


PITTSBURGH -- James Henry Smith was a zealous Pittsburgh Steelers fan in life, and even death could not keep him from his favorite spot: in a recliner, in front of a TV showing his beloved team in action.
Smith, 55, of Pittsburgh, died of prostate cancer Thursday. Because his death wasn't unexpected, his family was able to plan for an unusual viewing Tuesday night.
The Samuel E. Coston Funeral Home erected a small stage in a viewing room, and arranged furniture on it much as it was in Smith's home on game day Sundays.
Smith's body was on the recliner, his feet crossed and a remote in his hand. He wore black and gold silk pajamas, slippers and a robe. A pack of cigarettes and a beer were at his side, while a high-definition TV played a continuous loop of Steelers highlights.
"I couldn't stop crying after looking at the Steeler blanket in his lap," said his sister, MaryAnn Nails, 58. "He loved football and nobody did [anything] until the game went off. It was just like he was at home."
Longtime friend Mary Jones called the viewing "a celebration."
"I saw it and I couldn't even cry," she said. "People will see him the way he was."
Smith's burial plans were more traditional; he'll be laid to rest in a casket.

No relation by the way.

The Africa Problem

Slaking a thirst with a fire hose - Nation/Politics - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper By Bob Pruden: "This must be Tuesday, because poverty in Africa ended Monday.
All it took were a few chords, a lot of screaming, several acres of dirty hair and a cloud cover of lethal body odor. When the last guitar strings snapped Saturday night at those Live 8 concerts across the world, promoter Bob Geldof's over-the-hill gang had the prescription: just stuff a few billion dollars down the bottomless holes on the Dark Continent.
'This is the greatest rock show in the history of the world,' cried the announcer at the London concert. Gushed a disc jockey on XM Satellite Radio: 'This is the single most important concert ever.'
No one wanted to stop there. Shouted one of the 'musicians' of a group called Coldplay: 'This is the greatest thing that's ever been in the entire history of the world.'
Since 'the entire history of the world' includes the extinction of the dinosaurs, the eruption of Krakatoa, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the construction of the pyramids, the Resurrection of Christ and man's landing on the moon, Live 8 had to be impressive mush.
But this week the grown-ups take over, as grown-ups always must, when the G-8 economic summit commences in Scotland under the baton of Tony Blair, who not only wants to eliminate African poverty but to end global warming before Christmas. "

Do not forget 9-11!

America the Beautiful - 1913

Lyrics by Katherine Lee Bates

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife.
Who more than self the country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for halcyon skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted sea!

O beautiful for pilgrims feet,
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till paths be wrought through
wilds of thought
By pilgrim foot and knee!

O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife
When once and twice,
for man's avail
Men lavished precious life !
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till nobler men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee!