Mathematics 101: Billy Ray Cyrus 'So Sad' About Miley Bong Video

Hi,

You're not gonna believe this but, the woman sitting next to me is not using an Apple computer. What do you think I should do? One can only assume that the manager of this cafe would want to know. Maybe I should pretend I have to take a crap so I can ask the manager for the key to the crapper and then tell him that he has someone in his cafe who he should be actively discriminating against. Maybe he'll be relieved to know that not all the whistle blowers of the world have gone limp in the last week. Maybe he'll give me a free coffee in return.

Oh, and speaking of stories about people who sympathize with whistle blowers and as such better start watching their back, have you ever heard of Ron Paul? Even though I know you rely on me for pretty much everything you need explained to you, I have to admit that I don't know a lot about Ron Paul except that he is a member of The House Of Representatives, representing the State of Texas and if I know anything about congress, I know that The House Of Representatives is kinda of like being a senior in High School but still playing point guard for the Junior Varsity basketball team. You're just not getting to second base with Julie Anderson. Nope, not even if your dad let's you borrow his Corvette for that date to the mall. In fact, that might actually lessen your chances. Unless you live in a suburb of Hartford, Deerfield, St. Paul or Tampa. Anyway, sorry to have been mixing metaphors. You'll have to excuse me. It's been a long morning. For starters, it would appear that that stalwart of breakfast cuisine, Morir Sonando ...

... is closed? What? I know. I tried calling Mayor Bloomberg but his line was busy, or something. Who the hell is he talking to all the time? Doesn't he know I've got real problems. I mean, I spent about 17 seconds walking around the block to the next counter-seat-only Dominican diner in the greater Broadway and Marcy arena of Brooklyn to get my requisite high fructose corn syrup enhanced fuel for under $5.00. And then of course when I got this place to tell you all about Ron Paul, there was the girl here with the computer that wasn't an Apple. Luckily for all of us, she was duly marginalized, quietly accepted her station in life, and left.

Anyway, Ron Paul hates America and supports terrorism. To wit, feast your freedom loving eyes on his recent manifesto of submission as presented in the form of an aurally delivered questionnaire to the other members of Congress:

"Number 1: Do the America People deserve know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?

Number 2: Could a larger question be how can an army private access so much secret information?

Number 3: Why is the hostility mostly directed at Assange, the publisher, and not at our governments failure to protect classified information?

Number 4: Are we getting our moneys worth of the 80 Billion dollars per year spent on intelligence gathering?

Number 5: Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?

Number 6: If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the first amendment and the independence of the internet?

Number 7: Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on Wikileaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?

Number 8: Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in a time of declared war, which is treason, and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death and corruption?

Number 9: Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it is wrong?"

Which of course reminds me that the conspicuous silence of the "Eric Clapton Camp" regarding an invitation to perform a goodwill concert in North Korea can only be a sign of said bluesman's latent terrorist sympathies.

Oh, and speaking of people who may or not belong in the greatest country in the history of countries where 90% of caucasian television pundits need a remedial math class, I'll be performing with not one but two, count 'em, two foreigners tonight at Rockwood Music Hall. That's right kids, Emerald Isledian Andy Fitzpatrick leads his band of handsomeness tonight at 10pm with the very Italian Andrea Long on something he calls chitarra. Don't forget... Immigracion is always just a phone call away.

Finally, if you're like me, or wish you were like me, or just like hearing about things that people like me like, you'll also be happy to know that one of my secret admirer's continues to hold fast to her rightful place among the also ran's for 2010. Whew.

In the meantime, I have to go now ad do some New Year's Eve preparation busy work for slave driver Queen Mother Feather.

Mwah!

M

P.S. Don't forget to do your holiday shopping at amazon.com via the convenient link to amazon.com located in the bottom right margin of this page.

P.P.S. Don't forget to make other plans for Thursday night.

Tax Preparation 101: N.B.A. Union Chief Outlines Proposals

Hi,

In case you haven't been keeping up with mtv.com, you may not know that today is the day someone named John Lennon died. From what I understand, because he was killed under a surprise attack, he was actually something called "assassinated", by way of several gunshots. One can presume that the pedestrian understanding of "assassination" involving political motivations does not apply because as I just read on trusted news source Wikipedia, Mr. Chapman well explained that his issues with Mr. Lennon had to do with a perceived phoniness regarding material wealth on the part of Mr. Lennon and not because he probably could have gotten a bunch of people to vote for Jimmy Carter back in 1979 but instead allowed some guy named Reagan to become the best tax cutting president in the history of presidents before the one we have now. No, apparently Mr. Chapman was upset because John said he didn't believe in The Beatles ten years prior.

Anyway, since my target demographic of readers earns upwards of 7.2 million dollars per year, I know that you must be jumping for joy that your little tax break has just been extended for two more years. All the while what can only be explained away as a colossal mistake that I'm sure all of our overqualified and underpaid congressional representatives will work overtime tonight to fix, families that earn less than $40,000 per year will actually end up paying more in taxes than they did last year. Let's be clear. These poor sonsabitches did not get a tax increase. It's just the way things happened to work out on Monday night when The Big O. was busy flossing his teeth with Mitch McConnell's foreskin. Clearly The Great Appeaser was distracted. I mean, let's not forget that he's got a lot on his mind. How could he possibly be expected to remember something as simple as "All Of The Policies That People Thought They Were Voting For".

What's that? Oh, no actually it is not okay to say that a person coulda shoula woulda known to really look at all of the details in his campaign platforms and Senatorial voting record and thus have known that speeches where Barry said things like... "In reaffirming the greatness of our nation we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those that prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long rugged path towards prosperity and freedom..." was really all a bunch of something my dad would have called "bulls#!t". Because the "men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long rugged path towards prosperity and freedom..." that he was talking about in the above quoted inauguration speech don't have time to parse through all of the other stuff. Instead, they vote with an expectation that you will not be lying to them in the speech they watched after a long day at work, carrying us along that aforementioned "...long rugged path towards prosperity and freedom." To those people, it just kinda maybe seems like people that make a lot of money already have a lot of money. To those people, it just kinda maybe seems like funny man Steve Martin actually wasn't joking when he said: "If you've got a dollar and you spend twenty-nine cents on a loaf of bread, you've got seventy-nine cents left. But if you've got seventeen grand and you spend twenty-nine cents on a loaf of bread, you've still got seventeen grand." Although, maybe he kinda was? I mean, he's got a lot of money right? Anyway, could you imagine what it would be like if you were one of those people who only had 71 cents left after you bought the cheapest loaf of bread on earth and then in some act of cruel irony the guy you voted for made a deal that caused your taxes to, in effect, get raised just so he could keep his $400,000 a year job that he got in part because you donated the money you coulda spent on lottery tickets to his application process? Wow. I bet that would SUCK! Good thing you don't have to imagine that...

Oh, never mind.

Anyway, like I was saying, today is the day that mtv.com posted what they consider to be "The Five Best Covers From The Past 10 Years" of John Lennon's "Imagine". Since you're too lazy to copy and paste "mtv.com" into your browser window thing and find them yourself, I'm gonna let you imagine that you're actually not lazy and do something called "embed" them here for your annotation reading pleasure .

1. Neil Young: This one is cool because I wish that Neil Young was my uncle. Not that I don't have cool uncles. My Uncle Tony is pretty hilarious. I've been playing with his comb-over since I was adopted.

2. Eva Cassidy: This cover is from a woman who has the same name as my sister. She's pretty cool. Even though for the last oh 18 years, we hardly see each other. We still really feel like we know each other. Isn't it funny how that happens with people you knew when you were a little kid? And btw, this version of Imagine is a real snore-fest. She should get a gig opening for _____ at ________ on a Friday night on Stage #_. I bet it would sound so beautiful.

3. This version starts playing once you finish watching a commercial. Which is almost as annoying as the way the guy who wrote that one cool song sings it. Having said that, I bet it would be kinda cool to hear this version in concert. Bands like them only sound good loud. But my roommates are home and I can't bear the embarrassment of anyone knowing that I was actually listening to A Perfect Circle covering Imagine. Wow. This really sucks.

4. Up next we have the award for "The Last Thing I Ever Expected To Be Listening To Today". I got 17 seconds in. Tell me how far you get okay?

5. Finally, we are at number 5 on the list of the 5 versions of Imagine that mtv.com posted today. This version is better than yours.

Finally, thanks to my good friends over at the HuffPost, I don't have to use as much imagination today.

Mwah!

M

P.S. Tomorrow night we have a date.

P.P.S. Yes, you can bring all your friends too.

P.P.P.S. Apparently they didn't get that WikiLeaks guy after all!

Harmony 101: Foreign Students In U.S. Forced To Work In Strip Clubs, Eat On Floor

Hi,

Since I know how much you like contests, I'm offering the opportunity for a special behind the scenes glimpse at the re-writing of rock and roll history to the person who can guess on which day I had the following meal for breakfast:


Wow! What a wonderful guesser you've grown up to be!The mother you don't call often enough must be so very proud of you! Below is the reward for all your hard work... but while celebrating any good fortune is warranted, it's important to keep in mind that gloating is rude. You can never be sure why another person might not be in the mood to have a celebration.

Oh, and speaking of contests, did you know that the internet is a contest and that last week somebody won it?
And speaking of all the hard work that goes into testing the boundaries of acceptability with regards to ethno-race relations, below you will find a digital representation of an Irish man and a half Jewish woman rehearsing for the same show! You shoulda been there ... Or maybe you were. How would I know?



The Old Fashioned Ladies Club
Harmony. Hope.
For The World. For The Future.
Zidsfalehrlsfgirfakdshf;shoidfsdfah.

In related news, how am I supposed to maintain my quality of being "inspired by the presence of God" when there are no photos of Chirstine O'Donnell on the front page of HuffPost? That's it. I'm switching my news source to talkingpointsmemo.com. And now it's snowing outside. Flurries really. Don't freak out. You can't call in to work. What are you looking at?Finally, today is Gilber Gilmore's birthday. In case you didn't know, he's a guitar player who plays backwards and looks like this:


And, he's also responsible for this:

Thanks Gil!

Mwah!

M

P.S. You can thank Mr. Gilmore for his part in shaping the modern woman on friday when we play with the vacationing Casey Shea at Rockwood Music Hall.
P.P.S. We'll be playing at 7:45 am as part of Rockwod's new Breakfast-Rockfest.
P.P.P.S. Love it or leave it?

Variety 101: Inside The Bruising Dem Leadership Fight

Hi,

Having fallen behind for the last ten or so days, you'll just have to assume that my life is either pretty important or at the least more interesting than the life of a person who keeps coming here looking for points of interest to bring up at dinner parties where you play the role of ivy-league-educated upper-middle-class thirty-something-mom on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Anyway, here's a little recap of what you've been missing.

1. The movie Tempest starring a young version of everyone's favorite hot older woman is pretty lame. Except for Molly. She was great. A real natural.

2. I'm gonna update the gig section of this page when I finish typing this sentence.

3. Yes, Nick and Danny are also starring in The Old Fashioned Ladies Club this Wednesday, November 10th at 11pm.

4. Well, actually, yeah I guess you're right. Starring might be a slight exaggeration. It's important to be encouraging though. I think it brings out the best in people.

5. Speaking of The OFLC, thanks to a certain stage manager who forgot to get her voter registration changed from the great state of Illinois to the even greater state of New York, Steve Jackson and I lost the NY State gubernatorial election by one vote.

5(.5). Thanks a lot.

6. In unrelated news, you'll be relieved to know that Christine O'Donnell is still making the front page of The Huffington Post because she's appearing on a show running opposite a show hosted by a guy who used to rely on Al Roker but now can afford to run about a hundred and twenty seven ads on the front page of the Huffington Post.

7. And for those of you who have trouble sleeping at night, apparently there are also articles that don't show pictures of Christine O'Donell on the Huffington Post.

8. You too can find fashionable accessories for me to wear at the next Mother Feather show at The Dressing Room. Located on Orchard St. just south of Broome, The Dressing Room is your one stop shop for vintage bedazzlement (See accompanying photo), new designs from new designers and a fully stocked bar. Tell them I sent you and I pretty much guarantee that no one will care.

9. The movie Jackass 2.5 is pretty depressing.

10. I swear to god I saw one of the guys from Atomic Tom at a house warming party the other night. I think he plays the Sony Walkman, but I was too nervous to talk to him and find out for sure. Luckily for us, they've become too busy to perform at this week's edition of The OFLC. We totally didn't want them on the show anyway.

11. The net point I'm gonna make is something I like to call: Foreshadowing.

12. ...

13. The following point references a rejected joke for The OFLC wherein I attempted to reference the bankruptcy proceedings of a certain used to be famous mononymous person while passing a tip bucket.

14. The replacement promises to be funnier than the other rejected joke involving a boxing match between Martin Luther and Martin Luther King Jr.

15. I bet my mom saw this:

16. This guy is a jerkface.

Mwah!

M

P.S. Don't forget to mark your calendars for today.

P.P.S. Nick Afticano is playing at Rockwood Music Hall.

P.P.P.S. At 10pm.

P.P.P.P.S. His guitar player is very tall.

P.P.P.P.P.S. 32nd best song ever: