Reasons Rove Really Resigned

Lots of people still trying to figure it out. Why now? Why him?

Maybe as the ultimate insider, he knew things that we don't that would make him leave, like:

Bush is dying of colon cancer, and Rove didn't wanna work for president Cheney.

Cheney is dying of heart failure, and Rove didn't wanna work for president Bush.

Laura switched from Xanax to meth and is making everybody's life in the White House a living hell.

Jeff Guckert is writing a book on how his affair with Rove got him in and out the White House without Secret Service logs showing it.

Barney the dog is writing a book on his affair with Rove.

...or maybe he just wants to spend more time with his family. His new family at DefJam Records?

MC Karl Rove - Rapping It Up
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Thought of the day

Wouldn't it be funny if Karl Rove had left his job at the White House to work for John McCain's campaign?

What, you were expecting compassion?

Cecil Howard Sinclair spent many years in the service of his country, but there will be no service in his memory at the "High Point" mega church in Arlington, Texas because the Navy Veteran who served in Desert Storm was also gay. As MSNBC and the Houston Chronicle report, "High Point" reached a moral low point when they first agreed to do the service, then embarrassed and spat in the face of Sinclair's grieving family, all the while claiming "It's not that we didn't love the family." They just can't be seen to show compassion to a man who had a loving relationship to another man, nor to his family. The shameful pastor in question is Gary Simons, brother in law of Joel Osteen, of the enormous Lakewood Church in Houston, America's largest church.

I am no Christian, but it seems to be quite clear that you can't be much further removed from the teachings of Jesus Christ than some of those mega churches. Somebody call Prince, there're Thieves in the Temple tonight.

Patti Austin Is Still All There

Even though she literally lost half her weight after gastric bypass surgery, Patti Austin proves that she is still all there, both on her puntastically titled latest CD, Avant Gershwin, and in a truly fabulous interview she granted the Bay Area Reporter. Please go and read the whole thing, it'll do more for your brains than checking up on what Britney's been doing wrong again.

Patti discusses the lack of great song writers that I blogged about a few days ago.

Every generation gets the music it deserves. This generation is getting the music it deserves, unfortunately, because our generation did not fight for this generation to be educated musically. As a result, the music is exactly what you get when you don't know anything about music!

That's an interesting point I didn't consider - music education was already considered quite unimportant when I was in highschool in the 80s, and programs have been cut a lot more since then. And while not every songwriter had a great theoretical knowledge of music, I agree that it can't hurt.

Patti has never shied away from the odd jocular comment about other singers and their vocal abilities and affectations, and this interview is no exception:

Quite a few years later, [Rosemary Clooney] backed me into a corner and said, "I don't want you to ever stop singing the Great American Songbook. You must continue to sing it, because you are the heir apparent." I said, "Well, I'll take that. Can I get it in writing maybe?" She said, "You don't need it in writing, you are it." I said, "What about Natalie Cole?" And she used a very bad word with Natalie's name in reference to it. I said, "You're talking about genetic perfection here, Nat King Cole's daughter! She's no fricking slouch." She said, "Well, you'll be Ella and Sarah. The bottom line is, I'm calling you the heir apparent. Go get it, and don't stop singing this music."

Now go read the damn thing. Or if you need to be convinced that laying off the pork chops did not make Patti lose her vocal chops, compare these two clips from before and after the weight loss:

Before







After:



Oh, and it's Patti's 59th birthday tomorrow!

Nevada's Governor: Strong on Security. Not.

The good people of Nevada must have been fully aware they elected a moron to office when they picked Jim Gibbons. After all, he thought it was a good idea to get drunk with a cocktail waitress in public while his campaign was in full swing. And then to accompany her to her car and let her drive home drunk.

And now this boy genius proved that he is a security mastermind, posting his own Outlook password on the Internets.

Good to see that politics can still be entertaining even in the absence of Kitty Harris.

Sigh.

I miss Kitty.




So I checked her Wikipedia entry, but all I found was this:

Post-legislative career

Harris was photographed passing out business cards prior to the 2007 State of the Union Address.

And that's it! A woman who once worked so hard none of her staffers could put up, I mean, keep up with her, reduced to sitting at home torturing large rodents?

Will somebody get that woman a reality TV show already? Bravo? Spike? Anyone? It could be called "Hello Kitty!"

Lee Hazlewood passes away

The man who helped Nancy Sinatra be more than just "Frank's daughter" is gone.

Here is a wonderful ditty he and Nancy recorded together.

Is Tommy "Testes" Tester Out on Bail Already?

"Not fully clothed" man jumps White House fence

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A 22-year-old man who was "not fully clothed" jumped the north fence into the White House grounds on Sunday and was immediately apprehended, the U.S. Secret Service said.

Hmm... No wait, that guy was only 22. I guess Tommy is still safely in his cell, sharing quality time with his cell mate Bruno, the hermaphrodite hooker with a heart of gold.

Battling Fear with Tommy Tester

Turns out there was a perfectly good explanation for why Southern Baptist pastor Tommy "Testes" Tester offered sexual favors to the cop who came to arrest him for exposing his little savior to some children - he was afraid of him:

"He said they (Johnson City police) scared him--he was scared to death and didn't know what he'd said or what he'd admitted or anything else," Morris said.

According to the Johnson City Press article, Tester allegedly pulled up in a blue 2007 Toyota Camry and offered to give Johnson City police officers oral sex when they arrived at 308 S. Belmont Street to investigate a report of indecent exposure.

Now, I heard about imagining the other person naked when you're nervous in a job interview or a similar situation, but this seem to go a little far, doesn't it? I mean, I'm afraid of the dentist, but I've never offered him oral sex. Maybe it's all part of Southern hospitality?

An Update on Tommy "Testes" Tester

According to bgay.com, divine drag queen drunk driver Tommy "Testes" Tester worked for the Christian Radio station WZAP-AM. The station is obviously named after gay director John Water's trademark "Zap!" sound effect in the legendary "Homer's Phobia" episode of The Simpsons.

Who knew Christian radio in the South was this fabulous?

Their e-mail address is RAMorris@wzapradio.com .
Let's flood them with requests for a fitting soundtrack to this deliciously sordid affair, like the Weather Girls' It's Raining Men, Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive and Carl Bean's I Was Born this Way. Any song from the Priscilla, Queen of the Desert movie will do, too.

Rumors that said movie will be remade once again for American audiences, this time as Tommy Tester, Trollop of Tennessee, have not been substantiated at this time.

He Can Seek Group Therapy with Pastor Meth

Tommy Tester (does that sound like a porn name to anyone else?), a baptist minister, was arrested in Tennessee. Evidently, he drove under the influence of vodka and something called oxycodone (I am guessing that's not acne medication?), was wearing a skirt, took a leak in front of some kids at a car wash (won't somebody please think about the children?) and offered oral sex to a police officer.

This guy would be perfect for John McCain's campaign. I hear John is always hiring.

iLitigation

Talk about buyer's remorse!

A guy called Jose Trujillo is suing Apple because he can't replace the battery in his iPhone himself and it dies a little faster than one should expect in these modern times.

And he's not just trying to get his 533 Dollars and change back. He's asking for 75,000.- because, you know, Apple was mean to him.

I think this case is totally pants.

The Old Songs

Back in 1975, when the Grammys still meant something, Gladys Knight and the Pips presented the nominees for "Song of the Year" as only they could.



And what songs they were! Like them or not, Feel Like Makin' Love, The Way We Were, You and Me Against the World and Midnight at the Oasis are songs that people still remember, that still play on the radio and that have been covered or sampled by artists from D'Angelo to the Brand New Heavies or the Wu-Tang Clan.

Now name 5 songs that have been nominated for best song over the past 5 years.

That's ok, I'll wait.

Not that those are bad songs (well, some are. James Blunt, anyone?). But I don't even remember the songs by U2 and John Mayer who won in 2005 and 2004. And I like both those acts quite a bit.

Maybe it did make a difference when not everybody considered him or herself a singer/songwriter, when the Brill Building and Motorcity, USA where packed with song writers who did nothing but write songs all day.

One thing's for sure: Today's artists are getting a lot of mileage out of the songs of yesteryear. Michael McDonald recorded two CDs with material pulled from the Motown catalog, Rod Stewart turned crooner for a mind boggling four albums full of compositions that are over half a century old and the above mentioned Gladys Knight released her first Jazz album of standards after about as many years in the business, covering the songs of Ella, Billie and Dinah.

And now the young generation of singers seems to jump on the big bandwagon: The criminally underrated Amel Larrieux (formerly of Groove Theory) released Lovely Standards which does indeed live up to its title, thankfully choosing somewhat more obscure songs from the great jazz era like Wild Is the Wind and If I Were a Bell. And now Canadian R&B and Club diva Deborah Cox delivers a tribute to the incomparable Dinah Washington with Destination Moon, a truly luscious set that the gifted singer recorded live in the studio with a 40 piece orchestra - the way this kind of music is supposed to be made, dag nabbit!

Let's hope that exposure to those great songs will inspire a new generation of song writers to dig a little deeper, try a little harder and find that spark that made those old songs shine so bright. I know there are some talented kids out there (I'm looking at you, Ne-Yo!), but we need a real competition going again so that maybe in a couple of years, Deborah, or Amel or maybe even Gladys will sing, not read, the nominees for Song of the Year and the crowd will go crazy again.

Hey, I can dream, can't I?

No Disrespect Intended

No disrespect intended, but Chaka Khan's new duet with Mary J. Blige, Disrespectful (hear it for free here) is a bit of a mess.
After 2004's stylish effort Classikhan, which chaka-fied legendary songs like To Sir With Love, Gold Finger or Crazy with the able help of the London Symphony Orchestra, this is going in the opposite direction. Maybe they want to appeal to young crunk fans, but I am not feeling for this.

It's a hard, funky tune, but it's also messy and neither here nor there. Chaka, who just a few months ago proved on the tribute CD "We All Love Ella" that she is indeed capable of singing better than ever, is firmly in screaming mode, as is Mary. Speaking of Screams, if this is indeed the handiwork of überproducers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, why did they have to channel one of their worst efforts, the similarly disjointed and all-over-the-place Scream by Janet and Michael Jackson?

I am still optimistic that I will find things I like on the upcoming album, but I definitely won't purchase it without giving it a good listen first.

I hear that Chaka, one of the very few great soul divas who did not have a strong gospel background, recently found Jesus. Thankfully, that did not stop her from giving the new album the potty-mouth-pun title Funk This. Let's just hope the reviews will deserve to be better than something that almost rhymes with that tilte.

The Sobbing of Doris Troy

While browsing IMDB, I stumbled across an upcoming movie version of the musical Mama, I Want to Sing!
This, for those who don't know, is the autobiographical musical of the late, great soul singer Doris Troy, who played her own mother in the original stage version of the musical. In London, that part was played by both Chaka Khan and Micah Paris.

The movie has an interesting cast, including musicians Ciara, Ne-Yo, Bobby Valentino, Ralph Tresvant and the one and only Patti Labelle! Also starring is CSI: NY hottie, Hill Harper.

Doris Troy grew up in the Bronx as the daughter of a pentecostal preacher from Barbados. She may not have been the best versed singer technically, but few reached the sheer amount of emotions she could pack into a song. Just listen to her desperate sobbing on "How my Heart Breaks" - a record that, rumor has it, may have featured a young Dwight Reginald a.k.a. Elton John on Piano!

Doris was a talented song writer, and her big hit "Just One Look" was used in so many movies and commercials, as well as getting covered by acts like the Hollies, that it allowed her not to have to starve like so many of her peers.

Doris Troy died of emphysema on February 16, 2004. I hope this movie will be a worthy monument to her and her achievements.