THE GUARDIAN: A Missouri police union has condemned players from the St Louis Rams football team for making “hands-up” gestures on the field in solidarity with Michael Brown, the unarmed 18-year-old shot dead in Ferguson, and has threatened to boycott NFL advertisers in response. The St Louis Police Officers Association claimed that officers found the actions of Tavon Austin, Stedman Bailey, Kenny Britt, Jared Cook, Chris Givens and Tre Mason to be “tasteless, offensive and inflammatory”, and demanded that they be disciplined. Five of the players emerged for their game against the Oakland Raiders on Sunday with their hands aloft, […]
MAY THE FORCE BE WITH JJ ABRAMS: Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens Official Trailer
This already looks superior to any of the Lucas films. Now watch it in Legovision…
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When U Can’t
[illustration by ALEX FINE] Ray Davies will be Terry Gross’ guest on Fresh Air today, discussing the new Kinks box set marking the 50th anniversary of the release of “You Really Got Me,” one of the defining songs of rock and/or roll. Do us all a favor: Cue up “Waterloo Sunset” by the Kinks. Ah. Don’t you feel better already? Music in the left speaker, vocals in the right — back to mono. That twinkling strum of brotherly guitar and gently piddling snare, those drowsy sha-la-las drifting upward while the bassline tumbles downward, and the comforting sentiment that even the […]
PETITION: It Is Time For Temple Univ. To Sever Ties With A Man Accused Of Rape By 16 Women
CHANGE.ORG: Bill Cosby, alleged rapist of at least 15 women, including a former Temple University employee, continues to be a trustee of Temple University. He spoke at the 2014 Temple University commencement. As recently as August of this year, he was honored by Temple. It’s time for Temple to recognize that continuing its relationship with Bill Cosby is damaging to its own reputation, as well as its students, employees and alumni. It’s time for Temple University to sever its ties with this man. Temple should not be the last organization to end its relationship with Bill Cosby – it should […]
LAW & DISORDER: Ferguson Burns
RELATED: The Full Grand Jury Report NEW YORK TIMES: A St. Louis County grand jury decided on Monday not to bring criminal charges against Darren Wilson, a white police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed African-American teenager, more than three months ago in nearby Ferguson, Mo. Unraveling how the grand jury came to its decision remains something of a mystery – the jury’s deliberations were confidential – but in thousands of pages of testimony and forensic evidence, clues emerge. Officer Wilson’s testimony, in particular, stands out both for what he says, and how he describes what happened. Officer […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When U Can’t
Artwork by JACK RACKAM SOUND OPINIONS: Robert Plant is arguably one of the most famous names and faces in music history—amazing considering he started his career in the Welsh borderlands of England, or as he says, the Black Country. There he was inspired by sounds from across the pond including the Blues and singers like Little Richard and Smokey Robinson & The Miracles. Plant went on to found Band of Joy and later Led Zeppelin with his friend, drummer John Bonham, and the two ruled the rock airwaves in the 1970’s. Bonham died in 1980, and with him Led Zeppelin. […]
BEING THERE: Dylan @ The Academy Of Music
Artist’s rendering The Academy of Music opera house in Philadelphia opened in 1857, which, if memory serves, is where and when Bob Dylan first went electric — much to the consternation of the stovepipe-hatted folkies in attendance, who felt he was selling out the purity of old-timey steam-powered protest anthems. It is said that Stephen A. Douglas was so incensed he attempted to chop the cable supplying power to the Academy stage with an axe and had to be wrestled to the ground by none other than Abraham Lincoln, who “licked him,” as Huckleberry Finn used to say. Historic records […]
CINEMA: The Fox In The Madhouse
FOXCATCHER (2014, directed by Bennett Miller, 130 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK It’s hard to live in the state of Delaware and not say the name “DuPont” every day or two. Highways, hospitals, chemical plants and state parks all carry the name. In fact, the DuPonts own their home state in a way that few old money families can claim. Residents of Delaware have made peace living in the shadow of these modern day Dukes and Duchesses but there was something unnerving to discover in 1986 that the DuPont name had been affixed to homicide. The news broke that […]
BEING THERE: The New Pornographers @ UT
Photo by MARY LYNN DOMINGUEZ Ten minutes before arriving at Union Transfer to see the New Pornographers, I was dumped. Denied. Kicked to the curb. Or whatever you want to call it. Not to worry, “we can still be friends” I was told. Great. That’s just great. Having taken a crash course in the New Pornographers greatest hits and misses shortly before my arrival, I knew the show was going to feel like getting slapped upside the head with a happy stick. Great. That’s just great. But enough of me feeling sorry for myself, there were more important things to […]
How I Learned To Stop Worrying & Love Bob Dylan
Artwork by JOSHUA BUDICH BY MIKE WALSH Let me make this clear up front: I’m not a Dylan-head, Dylan-ite, Dylan-phile, Dylan-ologist, or any other kind of extreme Dylan fan. In fact, I never bought a Dylan record or CD until just a few years ago. I never saw the need. Growing up in the ’60s, Dylan was on the radio all the time —“Blowing in the Wind,“ “Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right,“ “The Times They Are a Changin’,“ “All I Really Want to Do,“ “It Ain’t Me Babe, “Mr. Tambourine Man,“ etc., etc. Plus, many other bands had hits […]
The Night Bob Dylan Got The Beatles High On
At the very moment a race riot is breaking out in North Philadelphia, the Beatles are camped at the Hotel Delmonico in New York for a two-day run at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. Something is happening in the hotel room that, had he found out, would have given Rizzo apoplexy: Bob Dylan is passing a joint to John Lennon. This act of stoner generosity will almost single-handedly light the fuse of the psychedelic ’60s. Dylan just assumed the Fab Four were all seasoned pot smokers, having mistaken the “I can’t hide” line in “I Want to Hold Your Hand” […]
BOOKS: Q&A With Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist David Kinney, Author Of The Dylanologists
EDITOR’S NOTE: This originally posted on July 17th 2014 BY JONATHAN VALANIA Sometimes I think Dylanology — the obsessive study and consumption of all things Bob — is the new (and improved) Scientology. Think about it: Both are non-denominational pop cults formed in the latter half of the 20th Century that rally around a charismatic leader and rake in boatloads of believer money. Both have celebrity acolytes and promise extraordinary insight. But there is one vast and crucial difference, as vast and crucial as the difference between The Old Testament and The New Testament: L. Ron Hubbard wrote Battlefield Earth […]
DYLANOLOGY: Ballad Of Bob’s Dylan’s Bag Man
Bob Dylan & Victor Maymudes in Philadelphia 1964. Photo by DANIEL KRAMER/STALEY-WISE GALLERY NEW YORK TIMES: The most vivid passages go back further — to 1964, the pivotal year when Mr. Dylan broke out of the East Coast folkie bubble and made a cross-country journey. Victor took the wheel of a blue Ford station wagon, also joined by the folk musician Paul Clayton and the journalist Peter Karman. “It was a group of friends, all in the know, a nucleus of hip in America,” Mr. Wilentz said of the 1964 tour. “It was something special. The civil rights movement was […]