On May 16, as part of Bono's planet-rescuing RED project, The Independent of London decided to allow the ultra-righteous U2 frontman to guest-edit a single day's edition of their newspaper. Good intentions notwithstanding, the results of this egomaniacal exercise were as embarrassing as they were predictable, as was comprehensively deconstructed by Harry Browne in a richly-observed post-mortem.
But Bono's messiah-complex isn't the focus of today's Daily Dirt. Rather, it was while perusing the online version of that particular edition -- and running across an article on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Top Ten List of her all time favorite pieces of music -- that yer old pal Jerky was inspired to share a bit of himself, as well, in an egotistical outburst that serves as a tribute to Bono's own temperament. So consider this MY RED edition article of sorts.
Yer Old Pal Jerky's Top 13 All-Time Favorite Songs
13. Ace of Spades, Motorhead
One of a tiny handful of perfect songs ever written. It's Motorhead making the kind of noise that might have gone through a Viking's noggin as he lapsed into a murderous berserker fury, if only Motorhead had been around back then. And who knows? Maybe they were.
12. When the Levee Breaks, Led Zeppelin
Yes, it's true… this song is the redheaded orphan bastard of a thousand ripped-off bluesmen. But I still fall into a dervish-like hypno-trance whenever I hear Page's shimmering power chords and Plant's otherworldly harmonica washing over that thunderous Jones/Bonham rhythm section like hot blood splashing across the killing floor. The DIY video presentation here is especially effective.
11. The Man Comes Around, Johnny Cash
Using the biblical Book of Revelation as a starting point, the Man in Black's final original composition is also, in yer old pal Jerky's not so humble estimation, the best he ever wrote. Again, a very effective DIY video.
10. Carpet Crawlers, Genesis
The best song off Genesis' best album -- the psychedelic progressive rock masterpiece The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway -- Carpet Crawlers features an atmospheric arrangement, haunting production, cryptic but compelling lyrics, and a catchy refrain. Caveat downloaders: Seek out the album cut. The live versions all suck. No suitable video could be found.
9. War Pigs, Black Sabbath
Taking into consideration the contemporary backdrop provided by the Vietnamese Holocaust, you might call this the greatest heavy metal protest song of all time. However, War Pigs transcends genre with its utter lack of pretense and the sincerity of its howling outrage. That it written by a barely-educated, perpetually drunken 19-year-old Ozzy Osbourne makes it all the more incredible. Bono could take a cue from this most righteous and unambiguous of all anti-war songs. It would be playing in churches around the world, if only Christianity hadn't mutated into the safe haven for thoughtless pack animals that it is today.
8. Bobepine, Plume Latraverse
A rollicking, surrealistic French Canadian rocker about a party girl who's addicted to cigarettes and wears turpentine as perfume. You've never heard it, and you probably never will. Naturally, there is no video available.
7. Paranoid Android, Radiohead
With this song, Radiohead lyricist Thom "Nostradamus" Yorke predicted the terrorist attacks of 9/11 four years before they happened. Don't believe me? Read along with the lyrics as it plays. Do they make sense in any other context? No. It's fuckin' spooky, is what it is.
6. Lakmé Flower Duet, Léo Delibes
A ridiculously beautiful operatic piece featuring alternately delicate and powerful intertwining and overlapping vocals. You may have heard a version of it on a British Airways commercial a few years back. I tried to find a video featuring the female version, but couldn't, so this one will have to suffice.
5. Miserlou, Dick Dale
Say what you will about Quentin Tarrantino's cinematic aesthetics, but his taste in music is incontrovertible. Using the King of Surf Guitar's take on this ancient Middle Eastern folk tune in Pulp Fiction remains one of his best ever decisions, and the song itself remains one of the most kick-ass pieces of guitar music ever recorded.
4. Moonlight Sonata, Ludwig von Beethoven
Another one of those perfect songs. Every time I hear it, I remember that incredible scene from Immortal Beloved where Beethoven, having long since gone deaf and unaware that he is being watched, presses his ear to the piano and begins to play those delicate, mournful opening notes. I instantly dissolve into a puddle of faggy tears every time, and furthermore, I am not ashamed to admit it.
3. Starless, King Crimson
After midwifing the sinister musical hybrid known as progressive metal with their triumphant album Larks Tongues in Aspic, Fripp, Wetton, Bruford and guests proceeded to perfect their prodigious progeny on Red, a collection of angular, high-octane, guitar-driven math-rock which, to this day, has no parallel. With Fripp's otherworldly guitar ululating over the melotronic color washes and its terrifying five-minute one-note solo, Starless is the shiniest gem in a particularly rich treasure trove. Regrettably, I could find no video.
2. Echoes, Pink Floyd
From the opening sonar ping, the listener is taken on an audio-cinematic journey to the bottom of the oceans, where Life Itself began, and left to ruminate on the meaning of the literal commonality of our origins. What other band besides early post-Syd Barrett Pink Floyd could create a piece of music about biological evolution and have it turn out so incredibly beautiful? That it syncs up perfectly with the final chapter of 2001: A Space Odyssey -- itself another monumental and majestic meditation on human evolution -- only adds to its mystique. This is the video of the live version from the legendary Live At Pompeii concert.
1. Inca Roads, Frank Zappa and the Mothers
I could have chosen any number of Zappa tunes for the Number One slot, really. King Kong, Peaches En Regalia, Black Napkins, Outside Now, Outrage at Valdez, Dio Fa… the list of amazing music created by Zappa and his countless cohorts over the years goes on and on and on. However, Inca Roads is perhaps the most fun of them all, and it's got a great video, which follows. Fair warning! Non-fans of blistering jazz-rock may suffer from whiplash, vertigo, projectile vomiting and numerous other symptoms while watching, so caveat yourself!
A Polish immigrant goes to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to apply for a driver's license and is told he has to take an eye test.
The examiner shows him a card with the letters: - C Z J W I X N O T A C Z
"Can you read this?" the examiner asks.
"Read it?" the Polish guy replies, "I know the guy!"
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Thanks to our old pal Dave on Dope for sending in today's second joke.
A scroungy dirty lookin guy goes into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender says "No chance. I don't think you can pay for it."
The guy says "You're right. I don't have any money, but if I show you something you haven't seen before, will you give me a drink?"
The bartender says "Only if what you show me ain't risque."
"Deal!" says the guy, as he reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a hamster. He puts the hamster on the bar and it runs to the end of the bar, down a barstool, across the room, up to the piano and starts playing Elton John songs. And the hamster is really good.
The bartender says, "You're right. I've never seen anything like that before. That hamster is truly great on the piano."
The guy downs the drink and asks the bartender for another.
"Money or another miracle else no drink," says the bartender.
The guy reaches into his coat again and pulls out a frog. He puts the frog on the bar, and the frog starts to sing Michael Bolton numbers. He has a superb voice and great pitch. A stranger from the other end of the bar runs over to the guy and offers him $400 for the frog.
The guy says "It's a deal." He takes the 400 bux and hands the frog to the stranger, who runs out of the bar with it.
The bartender says to the guy, "Are you nuts???! You sold a singing frog for $400? It must have been worth millions. You must be crazy!"
"Not so," says the guy. "The hamster is also a ventriloquist!"
WORST JOKE OF THE DAY
Today's groaner was sent in by Brummbaer...
Q: Why can't a bicycle stand alone? A: Because it is two-tired.
ON THIS DAY
May 23
On this day in 1430, French war hero Joan of Arc is captured by the Burgundians, who sell her to the British, who eventually burn her at the stake for "heresy".
On this day in 1785, inventor/Satanist Benjamin Franklin invents bifocal specs for people who can't figure out whether they're nearsighted or farsighted.
On this day in 1958, communist dictator Mao Zedong launches China's "Great Leap Forward". Chaos ensues.
On this day in 1961, the Ford Motor Company puts the finishing touches on a specially modified Lincoln Continental convertible sedan for use by the President of the USA. The jet-black Lincoln, with swing-back suicide doors, is dubbed the SS-100-X. Two and a half years later, John F. Kennedy is shot and killed in that very car, making it perhaps the single most widely-seen automobile in history. President Kennedy's killers remain at large.
On this day in 1969, rock band The Who release their ground-breaking rock opera Tommy, which features scenes of a deaf, dumb and blind kid being molested by his pervert uncle. Ten years later, in 1979, The Who premiere their ground-breaking rock-umentary, entitled… The Kids Are Alright. All things considered, within such a historical context, Pete Townshend's excuses for his recent online explorations seem somewhat suspect, if you ask yer old pal Jerky. Then again, yer old pal Jerky's an idiot, so it all balances out in the end.
Got a gripe? Pet peeve? Have your say in the Daily Dirt! Columns can pretty much be about anything, as long they meet the following criteria: 1) don't write shit that'll get us in trouble. 2) Keep it interesting. 3) Keep it short. 4) We don't edit your mistakes. Oh yeah! feel free to send a picture of yourself if you want.
TOPIC: GUNS AND JESUS AND OTHER FUN THINGS
care of: ACD
I enjoyed the opening line of Thomas Friedman's piece last week, which I skimmed in the Herald Tribune after lunch at the famous Einstein Café on the Junter den Linden. To paraphrase, he said: "Recent polls have found that the president’s approval ratings have sunk to a historic low of 29 percent. I frankly cannot believe that this number is correct. How is it remotely possible that 29 percent of us approve of him?"
Friedman went on to discuss the growing awareness, the dawning of a certainty among Middle America, that the preznit and his junta are not interested in what's good for America. They are arrogantly and demonstrably choosing ideology over the good of the country, frequently with disastrous consequences. They are consciously subverting effectiveness and productivity and achievement and progress, and doing it with a snarky little bully's smirk that sniggers "you can’t do anything about it".
Ronald Reagan chose the best and brightest every bit as much as JFK did. Well, Jeanne Kirkpatrick and James Watt notwithstanding. Democrats always pick tough-talking rightist generals for their Secs of Defense and Chairman of the JCOS. And never has an American government, until now, consciously chosen to suppress scientific truths and dampen technological process and teach our children patent falsehoods. But Bush has repeatedly either sacked or passed over the most talented people and abjured the most valuable strategy, instead favoring loyalist nincompoops and counterproductive policy decisions. And he has let bizarre and unpleasant Dominionist cultism override the most basic cornerstones of progress and law and civility. Oh, plus the trillion dollar pay-off to the one percent of Americans who really matter. The 99 percent didn't quite rebel at that theft of our commonweal, nor even this foolish adventurism in Turban Town. But they are increasingly appalled at the junta's smug who-cares-about-you comfort level in its own villainy.
Why do redneck illiterates get chosen to run complex national programs, where their only talent lies in sacking any expert who isn't a wingnut and replacing them with a Fervent Believer? Because they buy into the bigger picture of Guns & Jesus & Lockstep Conformity. Of course, America clearly doesn’t mind Guns & Jesus & Lockstep Conformity so much as they ought, given the 59 million or so who voted to re-crown the dictator. But they do like at least a shallow pretense of caring about the greater good, and paying lip service to progress and a better tomorrow, and at least a half-hearted apology for outright misdeeds. They do not like Fuck Off, Maggots as a slogan of governance.
The Dems could make a bit of hay with an apt comparison: Ferdinand Marcos.
Hey OP, I just want to thank you for the link to the amusing vid of the BBC interviewing the cab driver in place of the IT journalist, in May 10's Dirt. While we can't afford to be distracted long-term from the ongoing crimes against the Constitution and humanity going on here and abroad, it was refreshing to see a stupid fuckup that DIDN'T cost any lives or civil liberties, for once. I'm all for long, vastly informative (if depressing and infuriating) Dirt content, but it's good to be able to laugh in a non-ironic way now and then. Thanks again Jerky, you're the best. YOP Big Bear
[That was a funny video. - Jerky]
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Hey Jerky, thought I'd mention this to you and ask about it ... I've seen two jobs (maybe three) today listed online related to systems development for the CF-18 fighter plane. Have you run across anything new indicating that that fuck Harper and that martinet jingoistic jackass Hillier are getting ready to bomb something new, or heard anything about further plans for upgrading or maintaining the Canadian Forces airfleet? MikeD
[Any Canucks out there care to illuminate? - Jerky]
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Jerky - Yes, the March date passed for that Oil Bourse thing, but that doesn't mean the goalposts haven't been moved - especially when you consider how persuasive the threat to nuke Iran can be. The current status is they plan to open in July, along with the bourse Putin just announced Russia would open the same month. Of course, this could all be bullshit, but we'll see... Jack
[We should definitely keep our eyes on this one, despite any attempts at debunking. - Jerky]
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Hey Jerky! Did you see this? Disgraced Congressman Tom "Hot-Tub Hammer" DeLay (R-Shithead) used an interview Steven Colbert did with Robert Greenwald (about his DeLay documentary) and ran with it like it was a real interview for a fundraiser he was throwing! Fucking priceless! Jack
[Hey, when you're as far up Shit Creek as Tom DeLay is right now, you'll reach out for a paddle from whoever is offering one. Even, as in this case, from an imaginary friend. - Jerky]
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Jerkaloo; It seems americans like Blair much more than we brits do! Please keep him... pleeeeeaaase? The Paskinator
[A little eloquence goes a long way. Especially when you're lying. - Jerky]
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Dear Mr. Jerky... Do you have an office pool going as to whether the Bush Crime Family pardons Ken "Kenny Boy" Lay? After all, "a grateful Bush gave Lay a major voice in shaping energy policy and picking personnel." Here's my five bucks (the check is in the mail... honest... trust me!) that he does. Cheers, Andy S.
[The way things are going, he may not get the chance. - Jerky]
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Hey Jerky;Lay and Skilling convicted?! That's fucking awesome! Lay got nailed for everything, in two different cases apparently and faces up to 120 years (yikes!). Skilling was hysterical with attempts to maintain his innocence, especially when he shrugged and said "That's how the system works, I guess". BWA-HA! And how 'bout that whole Jefferson/Hastert thing? Why does this all seem fishy to me? Am I too cynical? It kinda looks like they set Jefferson up so they could have him investigated to show the corruption runs both ways. But beyond that his offices were raided by the FBI and now Hastert and fucking Dubya are defending his right to privacy. Are the Republicans setting precedent for legislation to cover their own asses when the morass of scandals eventually brings the FBI a-knockin'? Is it just me? J.F.
[You're not being too cynical at all. I don't think that's possible at this point. The Jefferson raids and their aftermath are fishier than a tuna-can-water douche. - Jerky]
From Janet : Excellent, love it!
From Viagra : Text
From Cialis : Text
From Gregory : Best regards from NY!
From Jerky : Thanks Sindy!
From Sindy : Jerky, you have excellent taste in music!
From F : I understand, bro. I'll put it up my website and e-mail ya the link
From Jerky : Sorry Firefox, I might have got it but I never open attachments. Is it up on a url somewhere? Gimme a link and I'll run it!
From mrtuffy : TPTB are going to install Jeb as Presnit. Don't bother running for election.
From FireFox : Somebody ripped off my "Levee" video idea....there's is better than my flash, though. Did you ever get that Flash I sent you Jerky?
