24 August 2009

...while wondering what ever happened to Susie Verrico

OK, so we've pretty much always believed that Rick Pitino was a douche. Now it's been confirmed. When the story of Pitino being extorted first broke, we were on Hairboy's side. After all, a woman tried to get him to pay money to keep their affair private and he responded, in essence, "screw you -- I'll go public. AND press charges on your ass. Atta boy. Now the other shoe falls, though. Turns out Pitino met this waitress, had sex with her in the restaurant, then another time at her place. Knocked her up. Paid for an abortion. Then went home to his wife and five kids. So whereas we were giving him credit for standing up for what was right, turns out Rick was just trying to save some jing. Nice to know your wallet is more worth protecting than your family. Class...At the opposite end of the spectrum, Man of the Week this go 'round goes Walt Staton, of Arizona. Staton was recently convicted of "knowingly littering". This enhanced charge was filed after he refused to pay a fine for simply littering. The litter? Water bottles to keep immigrants from dying in the dessert. Staton is a member of No More Deaths, a group dedicated to providing humanitarian aid to those traversing the US/Mexico border, where would-be immigrants routinely die of dehydration. While the government said humanitarian efforts are fine, they feel Staton was not providing aid, but instead, "protesting the immigration policies of the United States, and aiding those that enter illegally into the United States." How did they deduce this, you may ask? The proof, prosecutors said was right there on the bottles, where Staton had scrawled, "buena suerte", or good luck, in Spanish. Really? C'mon, Arizona. The guy was not providing maps and vehicles, he wasn't smuggling folks in his gas tank. Yes, by definition, the people who drink the water are illegal aliens. But have we really devolved to the point where we would rather let a human being die in the dessert, as opposed to just picking them up and sending them back or -- God forbid -- them getting away with it and getting the honor of washing our dishes, sweeping our floors and taking the jobs we don't want -- for shit pay? Illegal or not, no one deserves to die like that. And no one should be convicted of a crime for trying to save lives...We smell a backroom deal here. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was convicted in 2001 of being involved in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland on 21 December 1988, killing all 259 aboard and another 11 on the ground. He was sentenced to life imprisonment which, in this particular case, made him eligible for parole after 27 years. Megrah served only 8 1/2 years of that sentence, before being released last week, on compassionate grounds. Seems the poor 'lil terrorist has a case of terminal prostate cancer and is expected to die within 90 days. And? Why not let his ass die in prison? He showed no compassion to the 270 people he killed. And it's not like the guy didn't roam free for another 13 years before being arrested in the first place. But still, we're not advocating torturing the guy or withholding medical care. Not at all. Give him a Koran, some morphine and let him sit in his cell and get right with Allah, so he can score his 70 virgins. But no way in hell do you let that fucker out until he is as dead as his victims. But yet the Scottish government did just that. And to add insult to injury, Christine Graham SNP, MSP (Scottish Nationalist Party, Member of Scottish Parliament) had this to say: "compassionate release is just not only for Mr Megrahi but the victims' families." Wow. And you thought Palin was an idiot. Did she actually ask the victims' families how they felt or was she just really, really high that day? Either way, hopefully the electorate will be sending Ms. Graham packing come next election day. Now, to be fair, Scottish law does allow a prisoner to apply for compassionate release if he or she has less than three months to live. There is nothing that decrees the request be granted. But surely, if a convicted terrorist was freed on this basis, it must be common occurrance, right? Nope. According to Times of London research, between 60 and 100 criminals die of natural causes in Scottish prisons each year. So, taking the low number, that means that in the last five years, at least 300 prisoners have died. 23 have been released. Seven others have applied but been rejected. So either there are six dudes who did something worse than killing 270 people and miraculously failed to make the news for it, or there is another factor at play. Couldn't be that Libya is the UK's largest supplier of oil, could it? And surely the fact that BP (that's British Petroleum) and Shell (also owned by -- guess who) are invested up to their arses in Lybia, which owns the larges oil and gas reserves in Africa, has absolutely nothing to do with it. Right? Don't be fooled by England's Pontius Pilate act. Although Scotland does indeed have an autonomous parliament and court system, when the deed got done and Megrah was released, it was Queen Elizabeth II, not Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond to whom a letter of gratitude was addressed. A letter penned by none other than Muammar Gaddafi. Mel Gibson would be appalled...So Mike Vick is back in the NFL, with the Philadelphia Eagles. We can see people are not happy. But we wonder how many protesters will be at the Cleveland Browns' first game in 2011, when Donte Stallworth returns from his one-year suspension for killing a guy. Yes -- KILLING a guy. While driving drunk. Look, we love Rover as much as the next guy, but let's get some perspective here, folks. And let's either get rid of everyone who beats their wife, drives drunk, fights dogs or commits any other offense of moral terpitude, or in the alternative make sure that our punishments for crimes against people are at the very least as harsh as those against animals. And our treatment of offenders is equal. Bottom line is, Vick did his time, paid his debt to society and is free to resume his chosen career. There is a very easy way to protest -- turn the TV off whenever the Birds play -- even when they play your favorite team. If you do not, and you rant about Michael Vick's signing being a travesty -- you are a hypocrite...Don't look now, but there have been no celebrity deaths this week...Danny Granger, of the Indiana Pacers, wins our Athlete Crib award for 2009. No further entries required. Dude is building a Batcave. How could anyone beat that? Unfortunately, New Mexico state building code forbids the addition of an underground entrance. Granger has files for a variance. We don't make this stuff up...Looks like the You're Going to Hell and Will Not Have to Wait in Line Award also has an early no-way-to-lose-the-lead winner as well. We give you Aurelio Vallerillo-Sanchez, 39, of Omaha, Nebraska. Aurelio stole a painting of the Virgin Mary. From a church. To pay for an abortion. For a 14 year old. He was accused of raping. Welcome to Hell, Aurelio. Step right in...We're still a little ways away from our annual NBA Preseason Spectacular, but we can't help but think Orlando Magic forward Marcin Gortat has a lock on Worst Offseason, Player (Danny Granger's inability to get an underground entrance to his Batcave notwithstanding). Gortat, entering the offseason as a restricted free agent, signed an offer sheet with the Dallas Mavericks. By all accounts, Orlando would not match the offer. Which of course means they did. And Gortat had to remain with the Magic. Playing behind Dwight Howard. And recently-acquired Brandon Bass. But at least he scored a huge endorsement deal with Reebok. Yeah, about that. Seems that tattoo he just got -- yeah, that image is used by a competitor you just may have heard of. I'm Marcin Gortat. FML...We've been fairly silent on the raging healthcare debate. And while we don't pretend to know the answer, we do know people are being idiots on both sides. We guarantee you, you will not wait six months to see a doctor. We also guarantee you the other side is also lying when they promise you will be seeing a drastic reduction in costs, paired with exponential increases in service. The bottom line is that we already have socialized medicine -- we are already paying for people with no insurance. If the government can find a way to fund and manage it properly, we're ok with that. Because neither of the extremes needs to win this argument. For some interesting statistics regarding nationalized medicine, check out Friend of the Blog Waldo's Fisty Fisty Monkey Chan, here...and finally, while we've dabbled in movie reviewing, book reviewing and music reviewing here, we've never really followed through. We've post a couple of reviews then kind of fizzled out. This is primarily because there are lots of other people, on lots of other blogs, who do these things much better than we do. So we stop doing it. And invariably, the one or two people who actually liked the feature gives us grief over it. So we have a solution. We are in the process of converting our vinyl music library over to digital. Being vinyl, the overwhelming majority of these albums are from the 1980's. Not too many guys out there reviewing 20 year-old albums. So, starting with this post, and continuing until we either run out of material or you beg us to stop, we'll review an album we actually at one time owned. Now, to save ourselves the embarrassment sure to come when we reveal some of those selections (and the fact that we actually bought it again, 20 years later on iTunes), we'll start with something palatable, that we do not think will incur your scorn.

Robert Palmer
Riptide
1985

Track Listing:
-Riptide (2:27)
-Hyperactive (5:10)(single)
-Addicted to Love (6:04)(single)
-Trick Bag (3:03)
-Get it Through to Your Heart (2:51)
-I Didn't Mean to Turn You On (3:45)(single)
-Flesh Wound (3:46)
-Discipline of Love (6:09)(single)
-Riptide (Reprise) (2:06)

This is the album that introduced the world to these ladies. For that reason alone, Riptide was a smashing success. But what gives this album its appeal is that, where your typical 80's album would contain three hits, two passable tunes and a side of filler, Palmer dispensed with all that and turned in a lean, 35-minute, eight-song set that is devoid of "what the hell is THIS doing on here" tracks. Opening with the title cut, a mellow number that contrasts beautifully with most of the rest of the LP, he dives right into the two biggest hits of the album, Hyperactive and Addicted to Love. He shows his supressed crooner side, tossing in a decent ballad, in Get it Through Your Heart and does a terrific remake of Cherelle's I Didn't Mean to Turn You On. As this album came on the tail of his Power Station diversion, its influences are heard thorughout, (on Flesh Wound and Discipline of Love, in particular). The album concludes with a reprise of the title cut. It is probably the lack of needless filler that makes this album so enjoyable today. Other than the occasional slip into oversynthasization, most notably on Trick Bag, the album sounds remarkably non-dated, 24 years later. Overall, Riptide is an excellent example of many of the things that were right with music at the time of its recording -- and every bit the contrast to so much that was wrong.

Until next time,
Paz

ps: Who is Susie Verrico? If you were a heterosexual male or lesbian female in the late 1980's, you may want to stop reading here. Still with us? Cool. She was the keyboard player in the Robert Palmer videos. Click on her name above and see what she looks like now. ... Yeah, we kinda killed that for ya, didn't we?

2 Comments:

Anonymous Jill S. said...

You just killed my latent lesbian fantasies with that pic! Gee, thanks!

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