blogovich

What I'm commenting on next (soon?). And hold me to it

Coming soon from Blogovich, time permitting. Hey, I'm a manager/administrator at my place of employment, you expect creativity 24/7??

Anyway...remember, I only do this to push myself....

Upcoming topics, promise:

• Todd Bertuzzi suing everyone and why they are all wimps, unlike the forgotten Paul Mulvey (I shall explain)
• Tiger Woods and other golfers' ridiculous rants about photographers, galleries, etc. Lighten up, you thin-skinned bozos and why don't you try to hit a 100 mph fastball with 50,000 fans screaming at you.
• Earth Hour, good and bad
• Dread Zeppelin vs. Led Zeppelin. (you just gotta love Dread).

back soon...hopefully tomorrow. Or maybe later tonight, if the usual insomnia kicks in.

Shine A Light: The Rolling Stones (a review...of the CD)

Got an advance copy --- from the world’s best music store, Encore Records in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada -- of the new Rolling Stones live CD Shine A Light.

It’s the soundtrack for a Martin Scorsese movie coming out Friday.

It’s good. The soundtrack, anyway. Now, this is coming from a Stones fanatic, but just look at the set list, a good mixture of tried and true “chestnuts” the Stones must play (and that drive true fans nuts because they want to hear the obscure) and other material.

Here you go, from the deluxe edition I picked up.

CD1
• Jumping Jack Flash
• Shattered
• She Was Hot (I figure this was interchangeable with She’s So Cold on the Bigger Bang tour from which this CD originates, decent tune, though)
• All Down the Line (utter classic from Exile on Main St.)
• Loving Cup (utter classic, they allowed Jack White of the White Stripes to share the stage on this one)
• As Tears Go By (affected post-80s vox by Jagger, not as good as the recorded version but interesting and, hey, they played it)
• Some Girls (black girls just wanna get...)
• Just My Imagination
• Faraway Eyes (country parody)
• Champagne and Reefer (masterful blues with Buddy Guy)
• Tumbling Dice
• You Got the Silver (classic Keef on vox)
• Connection (Keef on vox)

CD 2
• Sympathy (if you need to ask, Sympathy for who or what, you ain’t a Stones fan so get lost)
• LIve With Me (with Christina Aguilera, who acquits herself rather well with Mick)
• Start Me Up (the best overplayed and hence we’re sick of it Stones song of all)
• Satisfaction (set closer, until you hear the rest, likely from the middle of one of the two Beacon Theatre shows from which this CD/movie is drawn)
• Paint it Black
• Little T&A (Keef off Tattoo You)
• I’m Free (last time they played this was on the Voodoo Lounge tour and it wound up on the Stripped live album; before that, last time was the ‘69 Tour which involved unfortunate human sacrifice at Altamont)
• Shine A Light (the movie/CD title and, as one reviewer described it, an “obscure” track off Exile on Main St. Stones fans, however, know it as one of the band’s best-ever tracks, bar none.

All in all a good set Stones fans like yours truly will and have lapped up. The awesome power of the band live is evident, though at the same time it is the somewhat studied Stones of Steel Wheels tour and beyond vintage, a practised, coherent if somewhat repetitive act that since the 1989 Steel Wheels tour has traded the erratic but welcome ragged slop of previous drug-addled tours for stadium (or in this case small concert hall) professionalism.

Not that it’s a bad thing. Not bad at all. Very good, in fact. Can’t wait until Friday’s movie debut.

One more thought. One does have to admire -- or grow cynical of if not a fan -- the Stones marketing acumen. Rarely does a year go by without some form of Stones' product (witness last year's The Biggest Bang DVD tour retrospective) on the market.

That's who and why they are who and why they, er, are.

Earth Hour should be on a weekday during regular business hours

LIke the headline above says . . . I'm not the only person who thinks this. Far from it.

Look, we all support doing what we can to protect the environment (even though many of us resent being beaten over the head with the word "environment" all the time, in every way imaginable).

But really, isn't having Earth Hour on a Saturday night at 8 p.m. a bit silly? Why not have it at 12 noon the world over so people can do their part, and think about it (without shutting down their workplaces, i.e. computers and such) for an hour.

Many people will participate next Saturday, March 29. But I wonder. Look at sports, for instance, close to where I live in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Down the road is Toronto. On Saturday, March 29, the Toronto Maple Leafs are scheduled to play the Montreal Canadiens in an NHL game. Game time is 7 p.m. You think the Air Canada Centre arena is going to turn off the power for an hour at 8 p.m.? You think hockey fans at home are going to turn off their TVs at that time instead of watching Canada's oldest traditional rivals go at it?

Somehow, I doubt it. No doubt, some sort of ceremony will be held before the game, but that doesn't really prove the point, does it?

This should have been better thought out and not just with respect to sports events. It should have been done on a weekday.

Run for the hills! We're doomed . . . in 7.59 billion years

You can't make this stuff up.

A recent report in the New York Times quotes a couple scientists who report in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society that, well, we're in for it. The sun is getting bigger and hotter (heck, I knew that in grade school; as all stars do, it will grow, eventually go supernova, fry the solar system and then recede to a dwarf, plunging anyone who survives into darkness).

All of which (the bigger and hotter part) these scientists found "a touch depressing." They recommended we get out now and search for alternative planets to live on because, well, 7.59 billion years from now isn't a long time away.

"Over the coming eons" the report said, "life on Earth will become muggier and more uncomfortable, and finally impossible."

Amazingly, the report says nothing about humankind's harmful effects on the environment, something we get beaten over the head with on a daily, or even hourly basis, these days. Not that we're against doing what we can to preserve the environment.

But no, this report is all about the sun getting bigger as part of the natural order of things. Which makes me feel a bit better, even though I'm going to be a worry-wart for the next 7.59 billion years.

Led Zeppelin is going to tour

Jimmy Page says so. He just has to convince Robert Plant, who is tied up (not literally but who knows) at the moment with Alison Kraus as they plan a summer tour in support of their recently-released duet album.

This happens every few months or so. Page, in his ongoing mission to keep Led Zeppelin in the news, muses about a possible Zep tour -- particularly since the triumphant reunion show at the O2 in London recently.

Plant, you'll notice, never really says anything for or against. Unlike Page, Plant has long since moved on from Zeppelin. So while it may happen, here's betting the Zep tour never will. And you know what, that's a good thing. Let it be, let them go out on a high they may or may not have been able to sustain for an entire tour.

I mean why -- 28 years after they packed it in upon the death of drummer John Bonham -- bother? One-offs are one thing. But if integrity meant so much to them then in terms of touring with nobody else but Bonzo behind the drum kit, then why do it now?

Sundin's groin and journalism

This had to be an inside joke among journalists, right? Guys, it was great. We laughed here, too.

First, on Friday of ast week The Toronto Star comes out with a headline suggesting "All eyes are on (Mats) Sundin's groin".

A day later, the rival Toronto Sun uses the exact same headline over a report on the Toronto Maple Leaf captain's injury. Knowing some of the guys in the Sun sports department, they were spoofing the Star. I think.

Then the NEXT day, Star columnist Dave Perkins, in writing about the Leafs' latest loss, notes how "Mats Sundin was unable to perform due to a problem in the tropics (great description, the tropics). (As one of the bugles phrased it, "All eyes are on Sundin's groin").

One of the bugles? It was Perkins' own "bugle" that started it.

Anyway, as a journalist and a fan of journalism, you had to love it.

Anyone else already bored by the Spitzer case?

Did anyone outside of New York state even know Eliot Spitzer was the governor before last week?

Aside from that, I just don’t really care that much, you know? Man goes outside marriage. Quick. Convenient. (Expensive). No relationship needed.

Women do it, too. Not starting a battle of the sexes here (women are doing fine in that regard on their own, debating the reaction/actions of Spitzer's wife).

So, anyway, he resigns because, in large measure, he failed in terms of maintaining the image and expectations of whatever it is people see as (in reality usually dysfunctional) family values. Sure, this anti-vice crusader is and has been proven a hypocrite. But, while he spent a long time serving his real internal desires by going outside an obviously flawed (at least from his point of view) marriage, he likely felt he had to carry on with the hypocrisy because to do otherwise would make him seem what exactly what he is, human.

Not to excuse it. But there’s also no excuse for the endless analysis of this case.

Then again, I bore easily. Oh, and by the way, somehow I think had this happened in Europe, nobody would have batted an eye. Or do we all forget former French President Francois Mitterand's wife -- and mistress -- attending his funeral together?

Not saying it's right. Just saying it is what it is.

Yee-Ikes. Haven't blogged in a while

Hey, I'm busy. But you don't care about that.

Anyway. Quick entry. More later on topics including Jimmy Page continuing to pine for a Led Zeppelin reunion tour (don't do it, Robert (Plant)), whether Madonna belongs in the rock and roll hall of fame, the enduring and, frankly, boring enigma that is the Toronto Maple Leafs, whether Hillary and Barack should join forces . . .

Back soon. Maybe even tonight.