. . . with some crafts & quips. She even cut one of her fans' hair, which scares me a little. (Of course, she used to cut her brother David's hair, and he turned out okay . . . mostly.)

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Video on the "wedding snub" here. Of course, there's never any way to win with weddings; someone's feelings always get hurt. But inviting Nimoy, but not Shatner? Mmm.

Shatner: "We don't either one of us have many years left on this earth."

None of us do; I'm so happy Takei got married, and I do think it would be nice if he and Shatner could mend bridges. Especially since I rather like them both, though I agree with Shatner that carrying that resentment around hasn't done Takei any good. Maybe, now that he's married, he can start to let it all go, for his own sake.

The stress of all those years in the closet . . . it must have been horrible, horrible. And it could twist a person's perceptions, particularly with a strong personality like Bill Shatner's.

And Shatner is a good man. He really is. He and the husband did a few "pitches" together (that is, they had a animated television show they shopped around a bit some time ago—Shatner's idea, fleshed out by the husband—and I like it, goddammit). No one bought the show, but the two of 'em had a lot of fun putting it together: I think Bill's sense of humor meshes well with Attila the Hub's.

So did Ben Stein's, for that matter, but that one never got off the ground, either. (Cue Charleton Heston, "Darn the luck!")

So many near misses. So many deals that just didn't quite happen. A the H keeps pitching, and I'll have to redouble my efforts as well to bring more dough into the house. There's a lot of brainpower around here that never quite sees the light of day, due to his back luck and my indolence.

Via American Digest.

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Here's Ace on "elite" vs. "establishment." Sounds like the kind of crap people pull on Angelenos every fucking day. We just yawn.

Okay, look: there are a few different ways to determine what constitutes "class" in America.

1) E.B. "Aren't Jews outside the class system, anyway?" Um, okay. Whatevs. Yawn.

2) "Who is the most intelligent? Let's reward that." Sure. Because either you were born that way, or you were given a certain level of stimulation very early on in life. That's so to your credit.

Bite me. Yawn.

3) People who were born to a certain level—defined not so much by education or financial security, but by being able to tell who manufactured a particular piece of silver without looking at the marque.

Yawn.

4) Adhering to a code of conduct which maintains that all people are equal, no matter what the externals might indicate. (This happens to be the only type of class I really recognize, personally, and it's the reason I shop in Beverly Hills: because no one ever looked at my mother funny when we shopped there together, however frayed her sweatshirts were. Their motivations might not have been pure, but they were doing the right thing.)

5) Money as a measure of class. It ain't perfect, but it's more egalitarian than any other measurement, because in this country you can always get some, if you want it badly enough.

6) "Well. At least I don't live in the Los Angeles area; I'm from New York." Okey-doke.

Yawn.

7) "Well. At least I don't live in the Los Angeles area; I'm from San Francisco." Fine. Sounds good to me. Goodness; look at the time! Yawn.

My father is fond of telling me that he's a "elite" because he subscribes to the New Yorker. No, really: He's not quoting Freakaoid he sort of means it.

"On the other hand," I tend to counter. "I read books. And I finish some of 'em."

It's like shooting fish in a fuckin' barrel. I could use a bigger barrel.

"Class." "Elite." Please define your terms. I'm going to bed.

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When times get tough, women turn to cheap cosmetics.

And the movie business boomed during the Recession: we've all heard the theories that people wanted to see more luxury on the "silver screen" as real life became more and more difficult.

I was working at The Foodie Magazine during the beginning of the economic downturn, in the shadow of 9/11 (which, you will recall, did not help). One of the points that the editor kept making was that publishing recipes was a great thing to be doing during that time. The covers stopped highlighting celebrity chefs and high-end cuisine, though: instead, we ran more chicken pot pies and pot roasts. Food that was less expensive to make, or that might be the one luxury left as people had to cut back in other areas, became the focus.

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Gerard has the whole story of how The Atlantic got screwed by freelance photographer Jill Greenberg during and after her McCain cover shoot.

I'm sticking it out for right now with The Atlantic; I do not believe the editors and art directors who work for a publication should "vet" their independent contractors on the basis of their politics (though they do, all the time, in the other direction—I'll let that pass—one must go along to get along, and if you cannot laugh at the "we hate Bush" jokes, I guess you must get out of the kitchen—and I'm out, all right).

If the folks at The Atlantic ever use Jill Greenberg again, however, I'm cancelling my subscription, and taking their site out of my bookmark collection.

If they keep Andrew Sullivan on among their bloggers, and/or do not take on any center-right bloggers whatsoever to balance out all of their center-left-to-left-left bloggers in the next six months, I'm cancelling. (And no disrespect is intended to their stable of weblogs; other than crazy-Ivan Sullivan, I like their crew a lot: McArdle, Coates, and Fallows, especially; but taken as a whole, the ship is . . . listing).

And if I continue to go to their website only to see that two of the five revolving "top stories" are critical about Sarah Palin—and none are critical of Democrats, and the cartoon is also anti-Palin—I'm cancelling.

I can take reading contrary points of view; in fact, I want it. I want intellectual honesty. I want challenge.

What I do not want, however, it to subsidize—with money, circ numbers for the paper version, or uniques for the online edition—a publication that wants to shade information all in one direction. (Unless that is its clear editorial mission, as with National Review, Weekly Standard—or, for that matter, The New Republic—or even, let's face it— Time or Newsweek.)

McCain's people should have been suspicious when Greenberg picked the "bad" angle on McCain that exaggerated his enlarged gland to make him look ugly.

Between egregious behavior from an Atlantic freelancer to extreme bias in interviewing and downright malevolence in editing at ABC, it hasn't been a great week for the mainstream media.

Hey, Guys? The audience is listening.

And if you've just cancelled your subscription to Us because of their slimy visual hit-job on Sarah Palin last week, the folks at People want your money: Check out the McCains on the current cover, and People's visible archives, which show clearly profiles of both the Clintons and the Reagans as cover stories—the subtext being, we aren't in this to take sides; we serve the readers rather than ourselves.

I bought a copy to have and to hold, just on general principle. I'm not a big celebrity-culture girl, but one wants to reward those who are making an honest attempt to keep their politics out of the workplace.

UPDATE: Ace is outraged!

Geez: Do you have any idea how complex an operation a high-end magazine is, Buddy? Have you any notion how many different editors, circulation bigwigs, publishers, and the like get "veto power" over a magazine cover?

Sez Acey:

Vanderleun has a different take on this than I do. He seems to know more "facts," but so what? I'm more confident in my assertions. That's all that really matters.

He puts the blame on Greenberg. I say nuts to that. There was no "betrayal" of The Atlantic here. She did what her masters wanted. She only betrayed them by letting the cat out of the bag.

Sure, Excitable Ace. The photo editor probably said, "take the out-takes home with you. Play around with P-Shop. And don't forget to blog about it."

FWIW, last month's issue featured portraits of both McCain and Obama, and McCain's was for more flattering.

We don't fight flagrant, dishonest bias with flagrant, dishonest bias of our own . . . do we? But don't mind Ace; he's experiencing "Andrew Derangement System."

On the other hand, sometimes The Lord of Reasonably Priced Spirits turns his evil powers to the cause of good: here's a collaboration between him and one of his "Morons," Lee.

Little did Jill Greenberg realize what she was unleashing upon the world—nor how much the world would love it.

UPDATE 2: Michelle suggests that they should have Googled Greenberg before using her, though that might prove impractical over the long-run: as it is, it takes a lot of time to look through all those porfolios. I could see that someone might know that this woman was a staunch Democrat, but also be happy with her shots of centrist Republicans such as Schwarzenegger, and conclude that she could handle an assignment that involved another centrist Republican.

It's my hope that no respectable magazine hires her after the way she betrayed The Atlantic. Even those who share her politics, or mainstream mags (but I repeat myself).

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. . . . I'll weave my spell:

I'm sorry, but I really love Queen. Pour a cup of coffee or a drink, and lose yourself in Brighton Rock: Mr. Brian May's superb homemade guitar, which complements the singing and showmanship of Mr. Freddie Mercury, Mr. John Deacon, and the essential, the drummer, the foundation—Mr. Roger Taylor.

If you are really compulsive, shame on you. Try prayer. Or, perhaps—

>

This will do the trick.

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I'm here in San Diego, where we are temporarily staying at the Hard Rock Hotel. I love the whole concept of the Hard Rock: the art is great, the decor is wonderful. It has that mini-suite feature that I admire for business digs, wherein there is a physical separation between the bedroom and the front room, so if you do run across a long-lost half brother from near Baljennie, or if your convention is maxed out, it is still vaguely possible for 2-3 pepole to share a room. Very efficient.

The Hard Rock does not have what I consider the minimum requirements for a place to sleep: it doe not sport free wi-fi, so I don't know if I'd come here if I were on my own dime. It is obnoxious enough when they charge a girl for water. But when they charge me for an internet connection, I start to feel that civilization is crumbling around me, and I ought to watch Escape from New York for tips on how to handle the coming catastrophe.

Here is my other issue with the Hard Rock Hotel, and you are going to laugh: it's noisy. I mean, one can turn off the music in the rooms and so forth, but in the lobby, and in the restaurants and bars, there is all kinds of . . . well, . . . music playing.

Terrific photos from the rock 'n' roll greats. But, in the background, while one is tying to talk . . . all kinds of noise.

Which leads me to the conclusion that when I argue with my nieces and nephews about the music versus noise issue, and maintain that the stuff they listen to is noise, whereas my favorites constitute music, I'm skating on paper-thin ice, logically speaking.

Of course, most of what I'm worried about right now has to do with the fact that we don't have anything appropriate to wear here: I do not possess Vulcan ears, or a Klingon costume. I will be running around San Diego in shorts and a T-Shirt. This gives me pause, under the circumstances.

But, here I am. tomorrow will be consumed with an attempt to figure out and document what the worker bees are up to; over the weekend, we shall probably party a bit.

And, if we're smart, figure out how to make a bit of money.

After all, next time I stay in the Gas Lamp District of San Diego, I'd like it to be on my own dime. Just to say I did it once.

The murder mystery-graphic novel/cartoon contest continues in my household. If I'm the next person around my condo to get a film option, that's really good: after all, it means I won. Winning is excellent, because it can be exchanged for dinner out and sexual favors from my husband. This leads to happiness and shit like that.

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Are you kidding me? Does no one remember what life was like before Starbucks popularized the idea of an American Coffee House (which, until then, had been a contradiction in terms?)

The problem went far beyond the crappiness of American coffee, though that wasn't insignificant. What changed was the idea that it was okay to hang out in an establishment for a little while. One could talk, read, study, write, without having the coffee-shop waitresses giving one dirty looks and rapidly calculating how much money one was losing them because they weren't "turning their tables over" quickly enough.

When I was a young teen I got 86'd from the Tiny Naylor's on Wilshire and Westwood for hanging out with a crowd of people who just went there too much, and stayed too long. That was in Westwood Village. We staggered it out after that, hanging out alternately at The Criterion Cafe (no longer there, and long-since replaced by a shopping center); Ship's (same); and Lum's restaurant, both in Westwood and Santa Monica (same; same). Sometimes we went to the Taco Bell in Westwood Village, because it was okay for us to stay there for a while.

Point is, before Starbucks brought that cool aspect of Euro-culture to the U.S., it just wasn't okay to hang out in restaurants, and therefore if you weren't old enough to go to bars (or not rich enough, or didn't care for the idea of being around drunks) there was noplace to go.

I mean, I survived by completely changing social crowds, and starting to socialize with teenagers whose family dysfunctionalities were further beneath the surface, so we could actually exist in their homes for long periods of time without being hassled by whatever parents lurked on the premises.

But not everyone's that lucky, and Starbuck wins big points in some quarters just for de-crapifying the coffee-drinking experience, which is achievement enough.

A common meme is this idea that Starbucks is a hotbed of elitism in the bosom of no-nonsense, egalitarian America, as opposed to good ol' Dunkin Donuts. This is a lie. Maybe people who live in La Jolla or Coral Gables get sick of elitism, but for the vast majority of us who live out in the great long tail of American mediocrity, a place that has pretensions to upper-middle-class culture, however transparently self-serving and delusional, is more than welcome.

The Starbucks I go to is next to a Burger King, a muffler shop, a Chaldean hooka joint, a dirt-cheap barber shop you could clear out instantly by shouting "La Migra!" and some sort of store front holy-rolling student ministry. On a typical 102-in-the-shade summer day, with the 18-wheelers rolling by on their way to El Cajon, I can do with the AC blasting and some gal crooning about whatever is troubling her sensitive soul at that moment.

It may not be America. I live in America and I want a place I can get away from it for 45 minutes and pretend I'm in Portland or wherever. Dunkin' Donuts is just more of the same. You go into Starbucks, buy The New York Times, listen to jazz, drink your latte, and for a little while, you experience a kind of relief. If you are worried that it's not authentic, then you really do have a problem.

So lay off Starbucks. America needs a big phony retreat from reality into a smug liberal fantasyland, where everything is hip and cool and the coffee is not OMG can-you-taste-the nuttiness-in-the-finish, but not half-bad, which is a lot better than most places can manage. A place where nobody knows your name.

A least, a "third place" wherein one isn't getting molested up in the bushes near UCLA by a 17-year-old of negligible intelligence.

Save Our Starbucks, indeed—though I think I might see a market opportunity for Seattle's Best, here.

Via Insty.

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I was, BTW, twelve years old when this video was produced:

>

I felt that it had Important Life Lessons, if I could only absorb them.

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Nor sublimation.

Remember "food is the good girl's sex"? I guess shopping is the London/Park Avenue/Montana Avenue version of food.

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If the blinky screen thingie is so difficult to concentrate with, Nicholas, why not pick up a book? Oh, right: you can't. Just like you couldn't do your research in an old-fashioned liberry without getting distracted.

Gawd. Take some Ritalin, for crying out loud.

(I just read the article on-screen, though I'm two feet away from the paper version. It wasn't super-deep, if you want to know the truth.)

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And I love "California Uber Alles." I even like, G-d help me, "We've Got a Bigger Problem Now," which of course wasn't 100% flattering to Ronald Reagan.

But I'll bet Michael Savage didn't play the latter on the day Reagan's diagnosis was announced. And to play the DKs yesterday was just cold and uncalled-for.

Of course, my Michael Savage tolerance is lower even than my Bill O'Reilly tolerance. Lower than my Dr. Laura tolerance. When I'm driving north and he comes on the radio, it's a question of how quickly I can get my hand to the radio to change the station: I've become lightning-fast in that regard.

There is such a thing as human decency, and some of these radio idiots ought to look it up.

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1 That's the kind of thing we expect at the Daily Kos or Air America. Unfortunately Mr. Savage chooses the same low road. Actually, he speaks from deep inside a dank pothole on that low road. I wish these talk show hosts and pundits on both sides would back away from the strategy of rhetorical vandalism and focus instead on explaining their positions on the issues. Juan Williams is a superb example of what I mean. He's as liberal as the day is long, and I do not often agree with him, but I respect and admire his ability to clearly articulate his position and perhaps more importantly his ability to listen to the other side rather than trying to talk over them. On a completely unrelated note, that is one very special hat you are modeling in the sidebar. Trailer trash? I'm thinking more like a waitress in a diner frequented by the Ice Road Truckers .

Posted by: BobM at May 21, 2008 09:00 AM (WMlGq)

2 I love that hat. Thanks!

Posted by: Attila Girl at May 21, 2008 09:23 AM (Hgnbj)

3 Conservatives cannot run away from Michael Savage. He is their animal, kept on the air and in print by their dollars. Even here, he gets his message across via a link. I've never been to Daily Kos, but have listened Air America, and nothing I heard on their air is even remotely similar to the filth and vitriol spewed by Savage, Hannity and similar creatures. Sidebar: Why do people think Juan Williams is a liberal? Listen to him speak, read his stuff. He is right of center on most issues.

Posted by: SR at May 21, 2008 11:53 AM (yvYFN)

4 No, S.R. Really--I like you, but if you're going to hold me responsible for everything said or done by so-called "conservatives," then fuck you very much. The fact is, I'm not a conservative except on issues of Federalism, economics, personal liberty and the war. But anyone who's in favor of the war these days is generally called right-of-center, so I accept that. I don't like it, but I accept it. I didn't link to Michael Savage; I wouldn't give that man traffic. I linked to a story about him. And I hadn't been aware that he had a message, beyond "here's a bunch of saliva that is coming out of my mouth as I yell into a microphone." A lot of these cocksuckers aren't even conservatives as much as populists. O'Reilly, Huckabee--they're just populists. Lowest-common-denominator men. If you can slap a label on me based on what some asshole on the radio says, then I can do the same to you WRT any idiot lefty/mild-mannered Jew/aging film buff proclaims. Walk softly, my friend.

Posted by: Attila Girl at May 21, 2008 12:04 PM (Hgnbj)

5 Little Miss Attila - your response was great. But I'm really writing this because I don't know what "WRT" means in your post. I'm lousy with things like that.

Posted by: SR at May 21, 2008 06:54 PM (vORtC)

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SR writes:

96 Years Ago . . .
That's how long ago the Titanic sank. As always, someone has managed to come up with a news story about it. This year it's rivets. Did Harlan and Wolff, the ship builders, use cheaper rivets than specified because they were short of the better, more expensive rivets? Well, someone has written an article saying this is so, but the controversy over the rivets has been around for years, and this really adds nothing. As in most things, the Titanic sinking was due to a confluence of events. A calm sea. No binoculars for the lookouts. Ignoring ice warnings Marconied in from other ships. The failure of Third Officer Hitchens to steam ahead (instead of reversing engines and trying to turn). And, of course, an iceberg.

The "steaming ahead" thing would have been daring; I doubt anyone would have thought of that one in time.

UPDATE: Let's not forget that they were going too fast.

Now I want to re-read my Walter Lord books, but an evil person packed them and took them to storage.

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watching television at the motel near by uncle's house. The staff at this place has started to know me by name, since I go up there every month or two. I wonder if this is a good sign.

I'm beginning to make peace with my grandmother's impending death ("impending" means sometime within the next five months to five years, I think; or whenever she loses interest in the small pleasures of life).

I did drop by my uncle's place for a few more hours today to hang out with my grandma, my dad, and my stepmom. The aunt and the uncle took a day off, to photograph wildflowers along the Central Coast and play with their nice dog.

I'm very grateful that my grandmother is getting an amazing level of care from good people; what she receives is not simply love, and not merely the lap of luxury—it is a combination of those two things that nearly no one can get, for love or money or anything else. Grandma has her own room, painted in the colors of her choice. She has her own bathroom, decorated and tiled those same colors, with every possible amenity for a disabled senior. She has a walker and a motor scooter. She has an easy chair and a television with close-captioned programming on it, a reading lamp nearby and an electric throw blanket. She can eat in her recliner, or at the table; her choice.

She is taken for drives whenever she wants, and my uncle/aunt pack her scooter in the back of the van, retrieving it at any stop.

She does seem to be bored, and somewhat isolated because of her deafness; she's also very vulnerable to colds these days. She is very comfortable, however, and lives in a house filled with laughter and smiles and light from the many skylights my uncle has installed.

I've always been culturally and emotionally cut off from my aunt and uncle, but I'm developed an appreciation of them—really, a sort of awe—over the last year. They are accomplishing something extraordinary.

It's uncertain what will happen to my parents in ten or twenty or thirty years. I can handle it if one of them needs me to do this same thing, but not if both do. And, of course, I have no idea who's going to take care of me when I need Assisted Living or worse. I should probably either (1) get rich, and/or (2) start kissing up to my nieces and nephews, hard. I, after all, have decades in which to convince them that the most fun one could ever have in life is to be obtained by taking care of a dirty old lady with a fondness for rock 'n' roll and clever turns of phrase.

The biggest concern is the fact that getting older seems to require a rapprochement with TV. As I said, I watched some last night, and the choice at that point appeared to be (1) network crime fiction with unrealistic lab setups, outlandish plot contrivances, and dreadful dialogue, or (2) "true crime" case file studies written with an eye toward redundancy, idiot-level vocabulary, and assiduous subject-verb disagreement.

My grandmother seems to hang out a lot at The Hallmark Channel, where I was not impressed with the quality of the performances. Not to sound snobby . . .

I wrote her a note: "what are you watching? Is it interesting?"

"No," she replied. "It's just television. Just entertainment." But she wrinkled her nose, so I don't think she was that entertained.

If it weren't for the internet, I'd be tempted to support physician-assisted suicide. I mean, I know that sounds dreadful. But even when we were kids, my grandparents were able to gobble up tremendous amounts of television. I loved it at the time; they let us stay up later than either our parents or our other grandparents did, and they allowed us to watch more "violent" shows (think Bonanza).

But I suspect my capacity is nowhere near my grandmother's.

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Did he name that character after me?

What do you mean, "no"?

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. . . "Er, if they are, they're funny in a masculine way. Or maybe a Jewey way."

Okey-doke, Chrissy. Nothing more butch than a Jewess.

Fausta's looking for comments on the latest kerfuffle between Christopher Hitchens and the comediennes of our day. My comment at her site:

I know maybe a dozen truly funny people, and I'd say about 40% of them are women. What Hitchens is getting at is that humor is an aggressive act, and therefore comedy is a sandbox that men have preferred to play in.

But it's silly to argue as he does that most funny women are "masculine" in some way. After all, most female astronauts are "masculine" by some measure. So are most female hunters. And female race car drivers. Even female doctors. We're not made of sugar water.

Is there a "feminine" sense of humor that women have abandoned for the more "masculine" variety practiced by Sarah Silverman, Amy Sedaris, et al.? Well, maybe: Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett come to mind—there's a gentler form of humor that women engaged in in the 20th Century.

One can go back a few hundred years to Jane Austen, however, and see that chicks have been funny for a long time.

But whether one does it gently, a la Austen, sardonically, a la Virginia Woof, or brutally, a la Sarah Silverman, to make a joke is to poke someone in the ribs. It may not come from genuine "animus," in the sense of it emerging from a real grudge—but it certainly doesn't come from anima.

The answer is, so what? Hitchens is trying to be provocative. But I'd like to see him try to get me to laugh . . . It isn't that easy.

Acually, I'm not parsimonious with my laughter—I don't play it like a studio executive who's scared that if he/she laughs at the pitch, the writer or producer will think he/she made the sale. (Or, to put it in Hitchens' terms, I'm not afraid that a guy will equate a laugh with sexual availability.)

And I'm not a humorist, though I know a few of 'em.

I never read Hitchens' original article on the subject, though I suspect I will now. I wonder if it'll get a rise out of me, or if I'll just think it's darling of him—like his antagonism to religion, his sentimental attachment to Marxism, and his genuine vanity. I adore Hitch, but I can't take any of that stuff seriously.

"If you can't make 'em laugh, you don't have a chance." Hm. By that measure, I've only had sex with two or three men in my life, and no women. (The real figures are, um, a smidge north of there.)

Like I said—I'm not a funny woman, so I don't think I have a real dog in this fight. But I do know that the debate has been raging for a long time. (Read that book, if you can find it. The "How to Seduce a Feminist" essay is worth the price, all on its own.)

Ace (funny guy and secret defender of women-who-haven't-gotten-on-his-bad-side) has this to say about Hitch:

Whether you agree with his point or not (and I don't—he's just making shit up as he goes to be provocative, but there's no crime in that), it isn't the offhandedly brutal bit of antisemitism (and anti-lesbianism, and No Fat Chickery) it seems to be at first. He's just rescuing his point by setting those three categories apart and branding them a sub-type of male humor.

Anyway, more ammo for the gender war, I guess.

Man, is Kirstin Wiig cute. I would hit that like the cannonball hitting the fat guy's belly in slow motion.

By the way, I'm not really kissing up to women again in saying Hitchens is just making shit up. Of course man are more frequently funny than women, and of course men are funnier than women on average, and all the rest of it. I mean, duh.

But his original article claimed there were no funny women (except those male-ish dykes, Jews, and fatties), which is obviously just stupid.

But it is getting the boy—Hitchens—some ink—and female attention. Which is what he was after in the first place, by his own admission.

UPDATE: Someone want me to play hardball? I can do that now, without even reading Hitch's original article. (And I'm not sure I want to do that, unless he wants to read it aloud to me while sucking down some Johnny Walker Blue and telling me how fabulous my white American teeth look, while keeping his dirty Limey paws to himself.

Are you ready?

Dorothy. Freakin'. Parker.

So, deal.

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Totally sucks green monkey dicks. I mean, the way it's abused in this country.

Drew Carey asks whether Los Angeles has something to learn from [choke] Anaheim. Let me repeat: Ana-fucking-heim.

In the past, I've been against emulating what they do behind the orange curtain. Just on principle.

Yet they got this one right.

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. . . over at McSweeney's.

Don't it always seem to go . . .?

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He claims that "Crazy on You," is "without a doubt the best Cold War-inspired song about oral sex ever."

I never did try to parse the lyrics out on that particular piece, but I'll take the good professor's word for it. "Magic Man" and "Barracuda" have always been, however, crystal-clear to me.

I do believe Dreamboat Annie is the essential Heart album. As Hog Beatty once put it, "that CD is fantastic, from beginning to end."

Though I also dig Ann Wilson's version of "The Immigrant Song," from her latest release.

I don't understand Glenn's giving up rock and roll; I'd sooner try to live without oxygen. FWIW, of course, I've been living without a law degree for years, and I doubt that lifestyle would suit Insty quite as much.

Then again, I could be wrong.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 04:54 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Dressing your daughters as something other than whores.

What? You're going to point out that I used to wear tight Dittos jeans in the 1970s. Yeah, well: that would be pretty tame by today's standards.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 07:36 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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