DEADSPIN: As coach of the Eagles he won one NFC East title. Yet if you poll Iggles sycophants who throw half-full beer cups at the children of Cowboys fans, Buddy Ryan won Super Bowls in each of his five seasons, even though his actual playoff record was 0-3. In fact, one of the Top 10 Philadelphia sports moments was when Buddy tried to sock offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride in the jaw, even though this happened while he was a defensive coordinator of the Houston Oilers. (He missed on that punch, too, by the way.) This is actually what Buddy […]
THE BOOKS YOU SHOULD READ BEFORE YOU DIE
Have you ever said, “I hate this dam job!” Unless you are a liar I am going to assume your answer to that question is “No shit.” Now you may be saying what the hell does any of this have to do with a book I should read. The answer is: everything. The book in question is called Post Office, Charles Bukowski’s screed against the drudgery of stupid meaningless work — work that does nothing but make other people more money than they need, or should want. Through his alter ego Henry Chanaski, Bukowski gives the middle finger to […]
RIP: Scotty Moore, Bitterly Estranged Elvis Guitarist & Architect Of The Rockabilly Sound, Dead @ 84
NEW YORK TIMES: Scotty Moore, a guitarist whose terse, bluesy licks on Elvis Presley’s early hits virtually created the rockabilly guitar style and established the guitar as a lead instrument in rock ’n’ roll, died on Tuesday at his home outside Nashville. He was 84. In 1954, Mr. Moore was performing with a country group, Doug Poindexter and the Starlite Wranglers, and recording at Sun Records in Memphis when Sam Phillips, the label’s owner, asked him to audition a young singer that his secretary kept mentioning. On July 4, Presley showed up at Mr. Moore’s house. Bill Black, the bass […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR: The mosquito-borne Zika epidemic is headed for its first summer in the United States. New York Times reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr. tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross that if the virus is ever going to hit hard in the U.S., 2016 will be the year.”No one in the population has had the disease before, so nobody is immune to it, nobody has antibodies to it,” McNeil says. “After this year, a fair number of people will be immune, and each year immunity will grow.” In his new book, Zika: The Emerging Epidemic, McNeil explores the origins of […]
RIP: Buddy Ryan, Eagles Coach Who Never Let The Fact That He Didn’t Have Having Anything Nice To Say Stop Him From Saying It, Is Dead At 85
NEW YORK TIMES: Buddy Ryan, pro football’s famously combative defensive innovator who helped propel the Jets and the Chicago Bears to Super Bowl championships, died on Tuesday in Kentucky. Although listed as 82 in some accounts, he was 85 at his death, according to his son Rex in a memoir. In his seven years as a head coach, with the Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona Cardinals, Ryan never won a playoff game. But he had already solidified his legacy as an assistant coach with his shifting and blitzing defensive alignments, which confused and clobbered opposing quarterbacks. His bruising “46” defense, […]
THE BOOKS YOU SHOULD READ BEFORE YOU DIE
EDITOR’S NOTE: On the occasion of The Great Cormac McCarthy Twitter Death Hoax Of 2016, we are re-posting this 2015 appreciation. BY LUKE ROBERT HOPELY Cormac McCarthy writes spectral Western epics that both examine and embody (and, some would say, revel in) the savage beauty of man’s inhumanity to man. There are many Cormac McCarthy books you should read before you die, but if you only read one, make it Blood Meridian. This book does two things, and it does them with the same pitiless efficacy that makes his prose crackle. First, it gets its point across, and that […]
Bizarre Internet-Breaking New Kanye West Video Recreates Infamous Painting By Acclaimed American Realist & PAFA Instructor Vincent Desiderio
VANITY FAIR: I’m watching a video of 12 of the most famous people on the planet naked in bed together. The material is being guarded so closely that the people in possession of it have refused to send me a link in case it gets hacked. Instead I’m looking at it via Skype, with the person on the other end of the line pointing the camera at a laptop screen on which the footage is playing. You can understand the desire for secrecy. As the camera’s ghostly night-vision lens pans slowly, hypnotically over the mostly sleeping bodies, their identities are […]
RIP: Dr. Ralph Stanley, Man Of Constant Sorrow
NEW YORK TIMES: Though widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of bluegrass, Mr. Stanley said on numerous occasions that he did not believe his music was representative of the genre. “Old-time mountain style, that’s what I like to call it,” he explained in a 2001 interview with the online music magazine SonicNet. “When I think of bluegrass, I think of Bill Monroe.” Mr. Stanley, Charles McGrath wrote in The New York Times in 2009, “is one of the last, and surely the purest, of traditional country musicians.” “He’s such a stickler that he has no use for the […]
Win Tix To See Low Anthem @ Underground Arts
“Apothecary Love,” an old-timey charmer from The Low Anthem’s drop-dead gorgeous Smart Flesh LP, has been making me smile for since it came out in 2011. It vibes like a summery cross between The Band’s Music From Big Pink and Beck’s Mutations – all mournful, moonlit country lilt and coal mountain melody waltzing matilda across the fruited plains and purple mountain majesties of the warm, narcotic American night. Its like old time country lemonade for your ears. The singer sounds like an Appalachian Cat Stevens telling it on the mountain, the harmonica wheezes like a far-off train whistle in […]
LED ZEPPELIN: Live In Denmark 1969
DANGEROUS MINDS: Led Zeppelin’s appearance on Danish television in 1969 is one of the classic moments of rock music history. It was Zeppelin’s second time on television but their very first playing a full live set of songs in front of a studio audience—they had previously lip-synched to “Communication Breakdown” for Swedish TV. What is surprising watching this superb concert is the audience’s lack of response to Zeppelin’s fully charged performance. They sit listening intently showing little enthusiasm for what they’re hearing. For guitarist Jimmy Page this sort of apathy was part of the appeal of launching his newly formed […]
Senate Votes Down Law Prohibiting People On The Federal Terrorist Watch List From Buying A Gun
MOTHER JONES: In a special Senate session on Monday, US lawmakers once again voted down gun safety regulations introduced in the aftermath of a mass shooting. Each measure needed 60 votes to pass. The Democratic proposals were brought by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who led a nearly 15-hour filibuster last week to pressure Republican leaders to hold Monday’s vote. Feinstein’s proposal would have made it possible for the Justice Department to stop anyone from purchasing a firearm if the purchaser has been on the federal terrorist watchlist in the prior five years, a measure […]
Q&A With Guitarist Marc Ribot, American Master
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE DAILY NEWS In the course of Marc Ribot’s critically acclaimed four-decade career, the chameleonic guitarist has mapped a steady path from edgy lower Gotham upstart to Zen-like American master. Long a fixture of New York’s downtown improv scene, Ribot is probably best known as Tom Waits’ longtime side-man, having played on seven Waits albums and corresponding tours since 1985’s Rain Dogs. He has lent his six-string sorcery to recordings by Elvis Costello, Robert Plant, the Black Keys, John Zorn, Philadelphia-born soul legend Solomon Burke, and the late, great beat poet Allen Ginsberg. The 22 […]