The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

If you were into alt-rock in the early 1980s and looking for the perfect soundtrack for your teen angst, the Violent Femmes’ first (and best) album, Violent Femmes, was your best option. Songwriter and lead vocalist Gordon Gano wrote most of the songs on this album when he was still in high school in Milwaukee, which is probably why it rang true for so many of us when we first put it on our turntables or cassette players (they’re ancient music playback devices, kids).

Violent Femmes is a near-perfect album, featuring some solid songwriting, great instrument playing, and hey, Gordon Gano’s “so off it’s on” voice suits the material perfectly. It’s also a bit of an oddity, having gone gold (500,000 sold) a whole four years after its release, followed by going platinum (1 million sold) four years after that, all while never having broken into the Billboard charts, but garnering its success through play on indie, alt-rock and college radio, as well as word-of-mouth. During my days as a DJ at Crazy Go Nuts University’s Clark Hall Pub, all the crowd has to hear was the introductory “Day…after day…” from Add It Up, and there’d be a mad rush for the dance floor. Not bad for a song with only two chords!

Here, for your listening pleasure, is the Violent Femmes’ Violent Femmes. Enjoy!

As much as I like going out and carousing, I thought I’d spend a quiet Friday night at home. First, it was time to vacate the home office…

…make a beeline for the bar…

…hop on the “hobby” computer in the living room and noodle further on some side projects…

…and maybe end the evening with another chapter of a good book. Possibly with the assistance of another run to the bar.

Jay-Z’s recent rap, Open Letter, is a response to criticism by Florida Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen over his recent visit to Cuba:

Ros-Lehtinen learned that Jay-Z and his wife Beyonce spent their wedding anniversary in Cuba, contacted the U.S. Treasury Department, asking for an investigation. U.S. citizens can’t simply visit Cuba for tourism; they require clearance from the U.S. government for a “people-to-people licence” and declare that your visit is for something such as academic research, cultural exchange or journalism. It turned out that the couple had secured clearance under the “education” exception.

The American embargo against Cuba has existed in various forms since the revolution against Batista, first as arms embargo, then expanding to trade and travel after the Cuban Missile Crisis. We Canadians aren’t under such a restriction, and while I haven’t gone to Cuba, my friend and Crazy Go Nuts University schoolmate Chris Turner has, and he’s written about his experience there in an article in The Walrus titled On Tipping in Cuba (a worthwhile read, as Chris’ stuff usually is).

Dana Perino, former White House Press Secretary during the Bush II administration turned FOX News talking head (as a number of Republican sloppy seconders are wont to do) recently showed her disapproval of Jay-Z’s Cuba trip with a painfully bad rap, much to the amusement of her decidedly funk-free co-hosts:

Perino’s criticism might carry more weight if we didn’t know this little fact about her: at a White House press conference in 2007, when she was asked if the U.S.’ missile defence strategy had an analogue to the Cuban Missile Crisis, she had to fake a reply, because she had no clue what the Cuban Missile Crisis was:

Shortly afterwards, in an appearance on NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, she told the full story:

“I was panicked a bit because I really don’t know about . . . the Cuban Missile Crisis,” she said. “It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I’m pretty sure.”

Luckily, she did the right by not worrying her pretty little head about it — she went to a man to clear things up for her. “I came home and I asked my husband,” she recalled. “I said, ‘Wasn’t that like the Bay of Pigs thing?’ And he said, ‘Oh, Dana.’ “

Oh, Dana indeed. This, Gentle Reader, is where “low-information voters” come from.

Mind you, if you have to chop down a tree and clear the leaves off your lawn, this single tool is all you need!

If I walked into a room, never mind a massage room, and saw this guy, I’d do a very quick 180 and high-tail it out of there. Here’s the story behind this guy, which includes these two mug shots:

Apparently, you can get haircuts done in installments.

Oppa Pyongyang style!

These are on display in a case at my grandmother’s house in the town of San Juan, Batangas, in the Philippines. I’ve got one of them, which I’ve been saving for just the right moment. Or the next time I end up at T.G.I. Friday’s.