happy tunesday! ("get out of my stomach" by suzy saxon & the anglos)

It was only recently that, for Tunesday, I chose a song by Suzy Saxon & the Anglos. That was "Boys in Dresses." Normally, I wouldn't choose another song by the same group so soon after. But this is just too good...

One of the things I noted the last time, was that I've been in touch with Mad Dog, the group's manager from back when. On a whim, I sent him a link to the blogpost. And we exchanged some online conversation. And one thing led to another... So, today, I'm working from home, wrestling with some financial projections and getting really frustrated. The doorbell rings. It's a package from one of the former Anglos. It's got copies of each of their albums, a couple copies of their single. Some press photos and pins...A complete SS&tA care package.

Yay!

blue moon moment: i defend bernie

First, a disclaimer: I'm not exactly a fan of Bernie Sanders -- if the Democratic Party nominates him next year I will probably vote against him. And one of the things I don't like about him is his call for higher taxes.

But the criticism he's facing here is wrong.

This is an argument I've seen many times -- "If you think taxes should be higher, you're free to pay more."

Suppose you and I -- and maybe another friend -- are going to play Monopoly. I suggest that, since the game takes too long we should make it go quicker by changing the rules. Instead of starting with $1500, we should each start with $750. The reasonable responses are to agree to the lower starting amount or to argue for sticking to the $1500 prescribed in the rules. It's unreasonable to tell me to start with $750 while everyone else starts with $1500.

Looked at another way, it's not inconsistent for Sanders to advocate for higher taxes and to be willing to pay higher taxes in the context of everyone paying higher taxes, but to not be willing to pay higher taxes while no one else does. He can believe that higher taxes for everyone will provide government with the money it needs for programs that he believes in, while knowing that higher taxes for him alone will do nothing.

Of course, Sanders did himself no favors in his response. His interlocutor said that "you can volunteer," he answered "well, you can volunteer too." That wasn't wise, since her simple response is that she's not advocating for higher taxes. He should have been better-prepared to explain that his paying higher taxes only matters if he's not alone.

Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not generally in favor of raising taxes. But there are better arguments against Sanders' proposals than "why don't you pay them."

cinema history class: the blood on satan's claw

UPDATED: Quote corrected

Session: Mark of the Devil Rip-Off Month, Week 2
Movie: The Blood on Satan''s Claw (1971)
Directed by Piers Haggard

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
In the 17th century English countryside, the children of a town are falling under a satanic spell that threatens the fabric of society. Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:
The big problem with BoSC is that there was a certain incoherence to it. I could kind of follow the action and understand what was going on (or so I thought). But I didn't see it as telling a particularly strong story, and there were a lot of things that didn't make sense and questions that were unanswered. After we watched, Keith filled in a lot of the missing parts. That kind of helped us to understand the movie, but it's generally not good if, after you see a movie, you need someone to explain what you just saw.

So, I (and, actually, everyone in the class) missed one major angle of the movie -- that Satan's acolytes are putting his body back together using their own body parts. Knowing that would have made a lot of the events and dialogue make more sense.

A large part of the reason, as Keith explained it, was that the movie went through some rewrites with -- how to put it? -- quality control that was less than stellar. At one point it was going to be an anthology with three shorts. In combining them, no one took enough care to make sure that there's sufficient exposition.

Another failing in the movie is the inconsistent use of language. In some parts, everyone is talking in "thou"s  "thine"s and "thee"s, presumably because it's set in the late 17th century.* In other parts, the language is more contemporary. The inconsistency was jarring.

All that said, I enjoyed this movie a lot more than I should have. A lot of the sequences had me on the edge of my seat, despite the fact that, for a lot of the time, I didn't really understand how the scene fit with the greater whole. The acting was impressive. Most notably, Tamara Ustinov, as Rosalind Barton, is very convincing in the oart where she has freshly lost her sanity. It's just too bad that that thread of the story was dropped and never picked back up.

Ratings:

Me: 8

Dave: 9

Ethan: 7
Joe: 9.4

Sean: 1 out of 4

Former Boss' Reaction:
To let y'all know, someone who used to be my boss says he will not watch movies made before 1980 -- except for Star Wars. I try to touch base with him about the movies we saw in class, and ask if he'd be interested in seeing them.

My former boss is not interested in this, as it was made before he was born. So was I, but that's another matter. He also said that he really trust's Sean's opinion. His officemate admonished me to not be silly, noting that "there's no such thing as Satan's claws."

Bechdel:
The Blood on Satan's Claw passes the Bechdel test. At one point, when Margaret is stuck in a bear trap, she and Angel have a conversation about plans for the night's ceremony and the state of the mob that's chasing them.

*I'm no linguist, so I have no idea if this language was appropriate for the period.

farewell r-46

According to an article in Gothamist, the R-46 subway car is set to be replaced starting next year. The article, which is here, isn't really a news item about the impending retirement. It's more a reminiscence about the iconic cars.

I have mixed feelings about the news (which, I admit, is more than most people would have; most people wouldn't care at all). I took the subway to high school. For most of that time the R-46's, which were the newest cars in the fleet, were being used on the E and F lines. As an aside, they were running R-10's on the LL so my morning commute included both the oldest and newest cars in the fleet. The 46's offered a smoother, quieter ride than the other trains that were being used at the time. I guess most other passengers preferred that, but I was a bit too much of a railfan, and I wanted to feel that I was on a subway train.

The R-46 (and the R-44 which was very similar) were a big change from the cars that preceded them. Most notably, they were 75 feet long. Before them, the longest cars the system had ever used were the 67-foot AB Standards, the last of which were retired in 1969. Other cars being used at the time  on the IND and BMT lines were 60 feet long. In preparation for using longer cars, the Transit Authority had to run extended probe trains to see where curves were too tight, and excavate extra tunnel. I wouldn't be surprised if there are still some old BMT tunnels that can't accomodate these trains.

As a consequence of the cars' length, the doors at either end were kept locked for safety. It was felt that the gap was too dangerously wide when the train went around curves. Now people couldn't coross from one car to another in search of seats (or to escape the homeless and insane). Also, it was no longer possible to simply ride between cars -- which is something I used to enjoy doing when the cars were very crowded. Don't tell my mom. Because the doors were locked, these cars didn't have the protective gates that extended the sides between cars. That made them look more attractive, but advocates for the blind objected that they represented a hazzard -- blind people could mistake the space for doors and get killed. I don't know the details of how that dispute went, but the gates were never installed, so I can draw some conclusions.

Inside, the trains brought back transverse seating. Instead of the seats being simple benches along the sides of the cars, these had some seats facing forward and some facing backward. That created more seating, but reduced the total capacity. FWIW, the transverse seats on the R-46s were better than the ones n the R-44s because of the armrests. In the R-44s the arm rests were cut out of the wall but had overhangs, making them uncomfortable. On the R-46's there weren't overhangs. So they didn't look as cool but were more comfortable.

One feature that railfans hated (but that motormen probably loved) was the enlarged cab. Until then, the cabs were relatively small and cramped. That left room for doors to cross through and (more to this point) stand at and look out of. Railfans loved to stand at the front of the train and look out the front window as the world whooshed by. With the R-46's car-width cabs, you couldn't do that anymore. And that change seems to have been carried over to the newer cars -- even though other changes such as transverse haven't been reproduced in more recent models.

The bottom line? I never cared for the R-46s. But a part of me feels bad about the dissapearance of another part of my youth.

it's zmedsday!! (xxvi)

happy tunesday! "idle gossip" by the toy dolls

The Toy Dolls (or at least their lead singer, Olga) go acoustic.

Some background. The Toy Dolls are an English band from Sunderland (I think). I should look that up, but I'm gonna be lazy. They've been around for something like 40 years. They married the punk rock sound to humorous lyrics. I think I recall Olga explaining in an interview that he can only write songs about his real experiences. And he does have a way with lyrics -- and titles. Some of my favorite titles are:

• You Won't Be Merry on a North Sea Ferry
• One Night in Moscow (& We'll Be Russian Home)
• Don't Drive Yer Car Up Draycott Avenue
• Queen Alexandra Road is Where She Said She'd Be, But Was She There to Meet Me...No Chance
• The Death of Barry the Roofer with Vertigo
• If You're in a Pop Group You'll End Up Paying a Fortune Practicing at Peter Practice's Practice Place
• The Ashbrooke Launderette...(You'll Stink, Your Clothes'll Shrink, Your Whites'll Be as Black as Ink)
• I Gave My Heart to a Slag Called Sharon from Whitley Bay

Of course, laughs aside, clever song titles don't matter if the music sucks. But it doesn't. They've got really good energy and they capture the punk stylings really well, but the sense of whimsey works well with it.

Anyway, I first heard the group back when I was in college. A guy I knew had a mix tape that included their version of "Nellie the Elephant" (a children's song dating from the 1950s. Sadly, the guy had no idea what group had recorded it. I next came across the recording one late night when I was driving home from Boston. Or maybe Pawtucket. SOme progressive radio station out of Providence was playing it. But in a case of cosmic tease, they didn't ID the band, so I was still left not knowing who had recorded it. I finally got that bit of information when I found a used copy of the 12-inch single at St. Marks Sounds, which was one of the record stores I frequented at the time.

So now I knew who had recorded the song, and I was able to get my grubby hands on a couple records. Now, decades later, and with the ability to buy CDs over the interwebs, it's easy to keep up with their releases. Olga (OK...Michael Algar) is still running the show -- he has long been the only original member. It kind of reminds me of how Dr. Feelgood became Lee Brilleaux and whoever was backing him.

Anyway, all these years later, they're still a great band -- no doubt because Olga is an incredibly skilled guitarist.

So, for some reason, Olga decided to put out an acoustic album -- just him and a guitar, playing acoustic versions of some of the group's classics. I found out about it a couple days ago when I was noodling around Amazon to see what was new. I streamed it and loved it, so I'll be buying a copy.

cinema history class: cry of the banshee

Session: Mark of the Devil Rip-Off Month, Week 1
Movie: Cry of the Banshee (1970)
Directed by Gordon Hessler

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
A sadistic magistrate in Elizabethan England wages war with a pagan. But the pagan has a few tricks up her coffin. Hilarity ensues

Reaction:
I was kind of expecting this to be little else than a rehash of Witchfinder General (AKA The Conqueror Worm), which we saw in this class a few years ago, and which also starred Vincent Price. And as it began, with Lord Whitman (portrayed by Price) sentencing an accused witch to some torturous punishment, I was kind of settling in with low expectations. So from that perspective I was pleasantly surprised. A lot of the subject matter is the same as in that 1968 film, and the two are definitely of a kind. But the stories are actually quite different.

But the fact is Cry of the Banshee doesn;t seem to be quite sure what it is, and it therefore covers a lot of ground -- too much for its own good. There's the witchcraft angle which is kind of blended together with a story about pagans (who, inexplicably, practice what seems to be voodoo). And it muddles its way into a bit of werewolf plot. Or was that vampire? It's all so hazy. And we finally end up with (appropriately enough for Holy Week) a resurrection of the dead.

Actually, that resurrection was the best part of the movie, and brought it up a point in my estimation. But it couldn't save what was basically a messy assemblage of  varied themes.

Ratings:

Me: 7

Dave: 9.7

Ethan: 9
Joe: 9.9

Sean: 2 out of 4

Former Boss' Reaction:
To let y'all know, someone who used to be my boss says he will not watch movies made before 1980 -- except for Star Wars. I try to touch base with him about the movies we saw in class, and ask if he'd be interested in seeing them.

My former boss asked me what the imdb rating for this movie was. When I told him that it got a 5.6, he said he'd pass. His officemate said "If I were a clever movie critic giving a bad review I would say the only ones crying were the patrons in the theater."

and now, for los straitjackets

I probably never would have heard of Los Straitjackets, the instrumental surf band, if not for the gfact that they've been supporting Nick Lowe on tour in recent years. I'm still into Lowe's music, having become a fan during his days as a rock and roller, and following him into his self-reinvention as a crooner. Now, with Los Straitjackets, he seems to have found a kind of middle ground.

Their schtick of wearing Mexican wrestler masks -- well, it's amusing I guess. And I'm sure it makes for an interesting visual in concert. But I'm more interested in how the music sounds. As near as I can tell, they're good musicians. And I enjoy surf music, but instrumentals aren't generally a thing that I go for.

That said, they put out a Nick Lowe tribute album -- instrumental versions of Lowe's songs, cleverly titled What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Los Straitjackets, and with a cover that's a clear homage to Lowe's debut solo album, Jesus of Cool. The two album covers are reproduced here for your interest and convenience.

Given all that, I was kind of curious about what the Los Straitjackets' renditions of Nick Lowe tunes sound like. So I went and streamed it on Amazon. It's actually not bad. I do like that surf sound, and I'm a sucker for cover versions that sound materially different than the originals. I'll probably go and get a copy.

it's zmedsday!! (xxv)

happy tunesday! ("dear dad" by dave edmunds")

It's a day late, but...whatever. Yesterday was my dad's birthday. It was also Dave Edmunds' birthday. So here's Dave Edmunds doing a song about a dad.

This is actually a Chuck Berry song -- one of Chuck's lesser know numbers. The main conceit is that it's a college kid writing to his father, asking for help replacing his car because "I might as well be walking as to drive this old Ford." I just love the twist ending.

the dave edmunds 75th birthday quiz answers

So here are the answers to yesterday's Dave Edmunds lyrics quiz. In retrospect, I concentrated too heavily on the Swan Song years. I offer two facts in my defense: The Swan Song years were, IMHO, the best of Dave's career. Also, I looked through other albums, but the songs that spoke to me the most generally mentioned the title in the first line (e.g., "Closer to the Flame") or were just too well known as other people's songs (e.g., "Da Doo Ron Ron"). I should have tried harder. Maybe when Dave celebrates his 80th birthday...

Thanks for playing!

I went downtown to see my cousin.
"Bad Is Bad" (Repeat When Necessary)

They say money is the root of all evil.
"Worn Out Suits, Brand New Pockets" (Get It)

I'm too tired to stand up; I'm too drunk to sleep.
"One More Night" (DE 7th)

When I started out I thought that I would make it double quick.
"A.1. On the Jukebox" (Tracks on Wax 4)

It's time I got up and out of this fifth floor prison and went and did something else.
"I'm Gonna Start Living Again (If It Kills Me)" (Twangin...)

I'd rather work in the city in a pinstripe suit and bowler hat."
"You'll Never Get Me Up (in One of Those)" (Twangin...)

I'm in the mood to argue, girl.
"Don't You Double" (Information)

At sixteen she quit high school to make her fortune in the promised land.
"From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)" (DE 7th)

You ought to see the way my friends stare whenever we're out in a pair.
"Never Been In Love" (Tracks On Wax 4)

All he wanted was a lady that night he came up from the deep.
"Creature from the Black Lagoon" (Repeat When Necessary)

the dave edmunds 75th birthday quiz

In honor of Dave Edmunds' 75th birthday, I thought I'd present a quiz.

The following are the beginnings of ten songs that appeared on Dave's solo albums. Can you name the songs? Note that I am not saying "Dave Edmunds songs." Dave was not a prolific songwriter, and usually relied on songs written by others. I'll post the answers tomorrow.

1. I went downtown to see my cousin.
2. They say money is the root of all evil.
3. I'm too tired to stand up; I'm too drunk to sleep.
4. When I started out I thought that I would make it double quick.
5. It's time I got up and out of this fifth floor prison and went and did something else.
6. I'd rather work in the city in a pinstripe suit and bowler hat.
7. I'm in the mood to argue, girl.
8. At sixteen she quit high school to make her fortune in the promised land.
9. You ought to see the way my friends stare whenever we're out in a pair.
10. All he wanted was a lady that night he came up from the deep.

cinema history class: the mutations

Session: Get Your Freak On, Week 4
Movie: The Mutations (1973)
Directed by Jack Cardiff

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
An unethical geneticist is trying to create a hybrid of human and plant. His assistant, a horribly deformed man (reminiscent of The Elephant Man) is helping in the hopes that the scientist will cure his abnormality.  Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:
The Mutations (alternate title: The Freakmaker) is a weird, and at times uneasy, pastiche. There's the main plotline of a mad scientist trying to create a new life form. That's been done many times -- most notably in Frankenstein, which is clearly an influence. But there's also the story of the circus freaks, which is clearly inspired by Tod Browning's 1972 classic. It even features the freaks saying (or their tormentor) "He's one of us." The parallels are clear and deliberate. The connection between these plots is the fact that Lynch (himself a human oddity) is helping the mad scientist in the hopes of getting cured.

It starts out slow and talky. The introductory lecture about mutation can be sleep-inducing. But it does gain steam, and by the time you see the human/plant hybrid in full green costume, consuming people...well, let's just say that it's got the action it needs.

It's actually kind of interesting to see just how clearly this film paid homage (read: "ripped off") Freaks, 40 years after that influential film. You can see some of it in the trailer above. I suppose the one twist is that the freaks' tormentor turned victim was already one of them.

I also got a kick out of recognizing Michael Dunn as the actor who played Alexander in the "Plato's Stepchildren" episode of Star Trek. You can see him in the trailer as well.

Ratings:

Me: 8

Dave: 9.7

Ethan: 9

Sean: 3 out of 4

We all agreed that this was clearly the best film Keith showed us in this Freaks-inspired month. And it was a good one to close with.

Former Boss' Reaction:
To let y'all know, someone who used to be my boss says he will not watch movies made before 1980 -- except for Star Wars. I try to touch base with him about the movies we saw in class, and ask if he'd be interested in seeing them.

My former boss has not given me his reaction. Something about wanting me to change the wording about how our projection model is handling ModCo reinsurance treaties in its calculation of C-3 exposure for RBC purposes. 

it's zmedsday!! (xxiv)

two-fer tunesday! (two song poems)

It's easy to make fun of song-poems. Lyrics written by amateurs set to music by scammers. But sometimes such fun-making isn't really justified -- and this is a good example.

By way of background, the song-poem industry was one that preyed on the gullible. Wikipedia explains it better than I can:

The business of recording song poems was promoted through small display ads in popular magazines, comic books, tabloids, men's adventure journals and similar publications with a headline reading (essentially) Send in Your Poems - Songwriters Make Thousands of Dollars - Free Evaluation. The term lyrics was avoided because it was assumed potential customers would not understand what the term meant. Those who sent their poetry to one of the production companies usually received notice by mail that their work was worthy of recording by professional musicians, along with a proposal to do so in exchange for a fee. The early 20th century versions of this business involved setting the words to music and printing up sheet music from inexpensively engraved plates.

In producing the recordings, musicians often recorded dozens of songs per recording session using minimal resources often in one take. Some of the companies recorded new vocals over pre-recorded music backing tracks, using the same music tracks hundreds of times. The recordings were then duplicated on 45 RPM vinyl singles or on individual cassette tapes, or they were released on compilation LPs with dozens of other songs by amateur lyric writers. Copies were sent to the customer. Promises that they would also be sent to radio stations or music industry executives were rarely if ever kept, partly because the recordings would not have been taken seriously by professionals.

There are several compilations -- I have three -- of these song-poems, and there's a certain cultish interest in these -- often of the "hey isn't this crazy song a trip!" variety. And in many cases, the songs are pretty awful. With some exceptions, the authors sent in their money thinking that they had a hit on their hands, but such fare as "All You Need is a Fertile Mind" (a song arguing that one shouldn't need pornography to masturbate) and "Jimmy Carter Says Yes!" did not really have top-40 potential.

And yet, some of these songs aren't really bad.I present two examples here. Neither of them can be considered great by any stretch, but they're both better than one might expect, given the ridicule given to song-poems.

"I Like Yellow Things" is pleasant fluff. It's reasonably well constructed to be a pop song. "I Can't Decide if It's the Beatles, Elvis or Rick" is similarly well-constructed. And it has the added advantage of having a niche that was at one time marketable. There was once a market for semi-novelty songs about the male hearththrobs. I note here that, in both cases, I am trying to judge these song poems by their lyrics alone.

I couldn't decide which of these to share today, since each has its strengths over the other. If I had to choose one, I like the recording of "I Like Yellow Things" better, but that's partly a function of the production value and the melody. On the other hand, I think "I Can't Decide..." was more along the lines of something that could have been a hit -- specifically because of that niche I mentioned above.

cinema history class: she freak

Session: Get Your Freak On, Week 3
Movie: She Freak (1967)
Directed by Byron Mabe

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
Bored with her dead-end life as a waitress in a greasy spoon in the middle of nowhere, Jade joins a travelling carnival. Ambitious and cunning, she sees a path to the top. Maybe she'll even be a star? Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:
This was the third movie Keith showed us in this series, which he said would be films that build on or try to emulate the Tod Browning classic, Freaks. In the first week, we saw a pair of conjoined twins (who, by the way, had been in Browning's cast) working in a Vaudeville-type show. The second week featured an apparently haunted house that had former circus freaks living in its basement.

This is the first one which can really be said to be a rip-off of that 1932 film. The ending, and the way that ending and the beginning serve as bookends are all-too-obvious as ripoffs of that 1932 classic. And the main plot, centering on an ambitiously conniving woman who wants to marry for wealth, bears more than a passing similarity.

But the similarities end there. Freaks focused on, well, the Freaks. We see them going through their joined life, and the movie is designed, in part, to make the viewer feel for them. She Freak has no such ambition. To the extent that the freaks are there, they're little more than props. Their purpose is to serve justice to the main character. In fact, with the exception of Shorty (who, arguably, is not actually a freak), we don't even see the freaks until near the end, when they mete out justice. And that's one of the odd things about this movie that makes it seem very poorly done. With all the footage of the travelling carnival -- and there was a lot of it -- you'd think they would have included some shots of the freaks who would eventually be so important to the plot.

Of course, if you like footage of travelling carnivals, well this is the movie for you. The seemingly-endless filler montages of tents being set up, tents being pulled down, people enjoying rides... They're kind of interesting at first, and do a good job of orienting the viewer. But they become mind-numbing. And it seems that these sequences serve as a band-aid for a plot that wasn't fully developed.I kind of wish they had done more with the stories and characters, as this could have been a much better movie than it was.

Ratings:

Me: 6.5

Christina: 6.5

Dave: 9

Ethan: 6

Sean: 1 out of 4

Former Boss' Reaction:
To let y'all know, someone who used to be my boss says he will not watch movies made before 1980 -- except for Star Wars. I try to touch base with him about the movies we saw in class, and ask if he'd be interested in seeing them.

His reaction to She Freak: "As great as the title sounds, I'm going to have to stick with my 1980 & later rule." 

it's zmedsday!! (xxiii)

orange-infused dark chocolate: a taste test

One of the things that sucks about trying to lose weight is that I can't have candy. Well, I mean, I can have candy. But it prevents me from losing the weight. Also, I'm not good at moderation, so it's hard for me to have just a little bit of candy and stop. Generally, I can eat no candy or all the candy.

But dark chocolate is something I can have. First of all -- and I don't claim to know the biochemistry behind this -- it's somehow better for you than milk chocolate. My trainer has said that it's OK to have some if I stick to small quantities. Second, I just don't like it as much as milk chocolate, so I don't feel compelled to scarf it all down. That thing I said about being able to eat no candy or all the candy? That doesn't apply to dark chocolate. So I can keep a bar of dark chocolate in my desk and occasionally have a small piece -- once every day or every other day.

I have found that, when having dark chocolate I prefer to have it infused with orange or ginger. There's some brand that I like -- I forget the name, but I'd recognize it if I see it -- that makes a really good dark chocolate with orange and ginger in it. That's the best. And they sell it at the fake health food store near me.

Recently, Blair and I were shopping at Fairway, and I wanted to get a bar. But, tragically, they didn;t have it. They did, however, have five different kinds of dark chocolate with orange. I couldn't decide which one to get. Blair solved my dilemma, suggesting I get all five and do a taste test. So here are my results, in the order of my preference.

Lindt Excellence Intense Orange Dark (47%)
First question: Does 47% even qualify as dark chocolate? Maybe that's why I liked it best. It definitely tasted the most like milk chocolate. Not quite, but almost. It had a nice oranginess to it, and a good texture.

Cote D'Or Fin Noir Orange (54%)
A bit darker, and therefore bitterer than the Lindt, but still, does this count as dark? It had the strongest orange flavor of the five, and that won it big points. But it wasn't as sweet or smooth as Lindt. For what it's worth, Cote D'Or makes really good milk chocolate.

Chocolove Orange Peel in Dark Chocolate (55%)
I went in figuring that this would be my favorite, since Chocolove makes really good milk chocolate. But it was just at the median. I liked the slight crunch of the orange bits, and it had a good texture. But the orange wasn't strong enough, and the overall taste was kind of meh.

Dolfin Dark Chocolate with Candied Orange Peels (percentage not indicated on package)
I couldn't really taste much orange, and this was kind of chalky. I definitely don't feel the need to scarf it.

Equal Exchange Chocolates Organic & Fairly Traded Dark Chocolate Orange Infused (65%)
Yuck. Way too chalky, and bad-tasting. And I couldn't taste any orange. I repeat: Yuck.

happy tunesday! ("bigger stones" by the beat farmers)

Another trip back to my days as a music editor at a college newspaper. I loved Rhino Records, which was known for novelty songs and reissues. So I was a little surprised when we got a review copy of Tales of the New West, the debut album by the Beat Farmers. It looked surprisingly serious.

Well, I claimed it and took it. And, wow...

The first song, "Bigger Stones" blew me away. Kind of country, but with a rock and roll feel. Or maybe rock and roll with a bit of a country feel. And the album just got better and better as it went on. To this day, Tales is one of my favorite records.

This was my introduction to cowpunk. I don't know who invented that label, but it's what I use. Buddy Blue, who was a Beat Farmer at the time told me in an interview that he prefers the term Americana music. But whatever you call it, it's a subgenre that I still love.

It also was the subject of an article I wrote for Pulse!, which was Tower Records' freely distributed magazine. The last page of each issue was always a one-pager under the heading "Building" (as in building a record collection -- since it was being published by a record retailer). Each "Building" article featured one type of music and included recommended albums in genre. I wrote one on cowpunk, and then another on modern folk.