XDA

Just weird? Just Weird? I'll show you just weird. If ever there were a signal that American pop culture is circling the drain, although suggestive, it is not the sight of the geriatric Rolling Stones cavorting on stage @ the SB. For a priceless comment on this see the 2.7.06 TMQ column @ nfl.com. Although suggestive, nor is it Hollywood propensity to remake old movies--today we are treated to the remake of the Pink Panther starring Steve Martin originally released in 1963 starring Peter Sellers or the soon to be released Disney update of the Shaggy Dog originally released in 1959 starring Fred McMurray.

No dear readers. Proof of our popular culture's plunge into the nadir,the abyss, was the announcement yesterday, the day following the Grammys, that the #1 CD in America is Barry Manilow's The Greatest Songs of the Fifties.

Remember Barry's appearance on American Idol a few seasons ago? The contestants were compelled to sing one of Barry's songs while he sat as a guest judge. Some of those young people are scarred for life. I, myself, have only recently recovered.

Meanwhile, in the Valley of Kings near Luxor in Egypt, archaeologists have discovered an intact tomb from the 18th Dynasty (1500-1300 BC) containing 5 wooden sarcaphogi. When the first was opened, the linen clad mummy was found to be clutching a copy of Barry Manilow Live.

Dancin' at Church, Long Island jazzy perties,
Waiter bring us some more Baccardi,
We'll order now what they ordered then,
'Cause everything old is new again.

Get out your white suit, tap shoes, tails,
Let's go backward when foward fails,
And movie stars you thought were alone then,
Now are framed beside your bed.

Don't throw the past away,
You may need it some rainy day,
Dreams can come true again,
When everything old is new again.

Nightmares too can come true again. Sorry for the rant Roger and Diomedes, but flesh and blood could stand no more.
 

Good rant. We always look back fondly on the past pop culture because we have managed to forget all the incredible dreck that was at the time drowning out the good things we remember fondly. But movies now, when they are good, are so much better than the old ones it's not even funny. Despite a dry spell of talent that makes the post Buddy Holly death and late 70s disco/punk doldrums of pop music look like the creative well spring that the late 60s early 70s really was, even music is better now (Rap excluded). I'm off to oil my Hechler & Koch P7 M8, loaded with alternating black talon and federal hydroshock 9mm +p cartridges, my favorite for home defense. See ya'
 

This just in. I wandered over to the Best Buy near my office to buy my daughters some CDs for Valentine's Day. I was hoping to find a copy of King Curtis Live at the Fillmore. I inquired but no such luck. Of course the young man assisting me was not yet born when King Curtis was stabbed to death on his front stoop in 1971 so I couldn't blame him for asking whether King Curtis was a person or a group. No luck on King Curtis. This is a job for Twist & Shout. But so long as I had his ear, I asked, "Who is buying the new Barry Mainlow CD, Songs of the Fifties?" "Old people," he replied.