Category Archives: Media

It’s Duke Ellington Day in NYC!!!

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New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has declared today Duke Ellington Day, on what would have been the 110th birthday of the musical legend.  Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington died in 1974 at the age of 75, but his music will never die. According to UPI:

To commemorate the musician’s life, The Islands of the Bahamas said
they are sponsoring a special run of New York’s last surviving 1939 A
Train, made famous in Ellington’s signature tune “Take the A Train.”

“Take the A Train,” written by Billy Strayhorn while he was taking the A Train to rehearsal, I have dozens of recordings of “Take the A Train,” by Ellington because he recorded it so many times.  Some live.  Some solo.  Some with a small group.  Some with a full orchestra. Every single one holds new surprises, no matter how familiar I am with the tune. Here are three great versions of Ellington’s signature tune. The first is Duke with a rockin’ trio, followed by an early version with his orchestra, and finally, one with Ella Fitzgerald on vocals.

With thousands of compositions, and so many interpretations of Duke Ellington tunes, it was hard to pick a stand-out performance until I remembered Dr. John’s tribute CD “Duke Elegant.”  Boogie now!!!

Stephen Colbert at the Time 100’s Most Influential Dinner

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Time Magazine held its annual 100 Most Influential chicken dinner. As usual Stephen Colbert was the most influential, delivering some hard truthinesswith his bon mots.

“Of course, all of us should be honored to be listed on the TIME 100
alongside the two men who will be slugging it out in the fall: 
President Obama, and the man who would defeat him, David Koch.

Give it up everybody.  David Koch.

Little known fact — David, nice to see you again, sir.

Little known fact, David’s brother Charles Koch is actually even more
influential.  Charles pledged $40 million to defeat President Obama,
David only $20 million.  That’s kind of cheap, Dave.

Sure, he’s all for buying the elections, but when the bill for
democracy comes up, Dave’s always in the men’s room.  I’m sorry, I must
have left Wisconsin in my other coat.

I was particularly excited to meet David Koch earlier tonight because
I have a Super PAC, Colbert Super PAC, and I am — thank you, thank you
— and I am happy to announce Mr. Koch has pledged $5 million to my
Super PAC.  And the great thing is, thanks to federal election law,
there’s no way for you to ever know whether that’s a joke.

By the way, if David Koch likes his waiter tonight, he will be your next congressman.”

Jon Stewart Does It Again – The Rupert Murdoch Edition

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The writers at the Daily Show have a way of taking rather a complex story and boiling it down to its essence and humorous possibilities. This week I watched the hearings live on CSPAN2. I could have saved myself all those hours by just watching this:

“Don’t shit on my chest and say it’s Vegemite.”

UPDATE: I’m having trouble getting the video to load.

Unpacking My Detroit – Part One

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This is the first in a continuing series about Detroit, Michigan, my home town. I believe Detroit is emblematic of everything wrong with ‘Merka. At one time Detroit was the 5th largest city in these here United States. Overnight in the ’40s, Motown became the Arsenal of Democracy, building the machines that saved Truth, Justice, and the ‘Merkin way for trash such as Rush, Fox “News” and Johnny Dollar.

Click to enlarge

Yesterday, while doing some research, I came across the following map of when the various parts of Detroit were annexed.  The diagonal line starting at the upper left (and which is really on a due east-west orientation) is the infamous 8 Mile, which was the dividing line between Detroit and the suburbs in 1926…and still is. [Coincidentally, 1926 is the year of Pops’ birth, elsewhere.] The oldest parts of Detroit, are at the bottom of the map, on the river where settlement naturally started. Look further down to Canada, my adopted country. Windsor, Ontario [not labeled], Canada is the only Canadian city where one drives due north to get to ‘Merka. As a teen I often took the shuttle bus to Windsor to be able to say I spent the day in another country.

I grew up in the orange shape in the upper-left hand corner, which was annexed in 1926. The line that extends south from the eastern edge of that block is Greenfield Road. My house was 0.5 miles from that intersection, which is right where Hard Core Pawn takes place. That building used to be the bowling alley where my mother played in her Wednesday afternoon league. I spent so many hours there as a kid.

The Little House I Used To Live In

The area where I grew up was developed after the war and it had the designation “Madison Park” although that was apparently something only on a map because no one ever referred to it as such. Apparently the entire neighbourhood went up virtually overnight to help serve all those GIs coming back from the war.  This area, and many other parts of Detroit, were redlined, a practice begun by the Feds in the ’30s that continues in various forms today. Redlining, in one of its forms, restricted Blacks and Jews from purchasing in certain neighbourhoods. This was just one factor that led to Detroit’s eventually decline. This series will explore all the various ways in which Detroiters, Michiganders, and ‘Merkins systematically destroyed the city that helped save ‘Merka.

If you would like to share your stories or impressions of Detroit, please do.

Other entries in this series:

Mark Koldys-Johnny Dollar Comment of the Day

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Let’s parse, shall we?

By “this guy” Mark Koldys is referring to the President of the United States of ‘Merka. As if that’s not bad enough, he’s setting up a false equivalency between the POTUS and Steve Doocy, one of The Three Stooges on the Curvy Couch on Fox and Friends. Third, he never really made a correction.

Andy Kaufman ► Another Magical Tee Vee Moment

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It’s no exaggeration to say that Andy Kaufman changed the face of Stand Up comedy.  Apparently Andy didn’t consider himself a comedian and called himself a “song and dance man.” And dance he did. Using the audience as his partner, he waltzed us into one bizarre sitch-eee-ay-shun after another with one of the most inventive comedic acts ever.  During his lifetime he perpetrated so many media hoaxes that there are still people who believe he faked his 1984 death.  The best part of this, Andy’s first appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, is listening to Carson cackle in the background.


I once visited the Paley Center for Media in Los Angeles, part of which is a museum where one can order up any of tens of thousands of hours of radio and tee vee from all the years of broadcasting. I had a limited amount of time and would only be able to make one choice, while my kids explored another part of the center.  What did I chose?  The Andy Kaufman- Jerry Lawler bitch slap heard ’round the world, which I had missed.  Ten years later, after Andy’s death, the Lawler feud was revealed as just another one of Andy’s elaborate hoaxes.  However, even the version at the museum was censored, so I never heard it like this before. [NSFW]



One of the great thrills of Twitter, is that I can be ‘friends’ with Elayne Boosler, one degree from Andy [and a lot of my other comedy heroes].  Elayne is a comedy genius all on her own and it’s always a great thrill when Elayne Boosler Re-Tweets one of my quips. I would be remiss if I did not mention Elayne’s Tails of Joy, her rescue mission for mutts:

Tails of Joy is a not-for-profit (501c3) organization founded by comedian/writer/animal activist Elayne Boosler. Our goal, with your help, is to make the world better for animals and their people.

We raise funds for the smallest, neediest rescues all across the country.

We work for the passing and enforcing of anti-cruelty, and animal welfare laws.

W00F!!!

Rupert Murdoch Probed At Leveson Inquiry

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There were some real knee-slappers from Rupert Murdoch in the continuing reality show called the Leveson Inquiries, known colloquially as Hackergate and Murdochgate.  Rupie actually said with a straight face, that he tried “very hard to set an example of ethical behavior…” and “I’ve never asked a prime minister for anything.” Al Capone never asked for anything either.

Also, according to the LATimes: He also denied trying to advance his commercial interests through his
newspapers, which in Britain include the Times of London and the
bestselling Sun tabloid.   If not, then he’s an idiot.  If he expects anyone to believe that, he’s an even bigger idiot.

The Daily Beast well understood this was a sit down, stand up comedy routine: 

“I think we’re the only independent newspaper in the business,” he said at one point of the Sun, drawing another small round of laughter from the crowd, though this time it was clear that Murdoch wasn’t joking.

 Pass the popcorn.

See also: The James Murdoch Defense: “I was out for smokes when it happened.”