Fear Me Pity Them

You now have the honor of reading the blog of the Vice President of my homeowners association.

The annual HOA meeting was tonight and a new board was elected for the year. I've NO idea how I'll pull it off.

And Now For a 70's Disco Flashback!

Gawd! I can't believe there's a video out there for this song! (I do loves me some YouTube!) and I can't believe this song is now 32 years old! I remember hearing it way back in 74 and loving it ever since. It's SO fuckin' quintissential 70's disco! I present Barry White and the Love Unlimited Orchestra with "Love's Theme":

I DO So Love French and Saunders!

And YouTube! Here, for your entertainment is French and Saunders' parody of the making of "The Titanic":

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4

Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody!

Feeling Bookish

A friend passed along the link this site belonging to a Brit artist named Su Blackwell about a project she's done.

As you can see from the photo, she cut out shapes from books and created 3-D works of art. I've never seen something like this done and thought she did a great job.

Ruth Brown - R.I.P.

Ruth Brown, veteran R&B singer, dies
POSTED: 10:08 p.m. EST, November 17, 2006

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Singer Ruth Brown, whose recordings of "Teardrops in My Eyes," "5-10-15 Hours" and "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean" made her a rhythm-and-blues star in the 1950s, has died. She was 78.

Brown, who later in life won a Grammy and a Tony, died Friday of complications from a stroke and heart attack at a Las Vegas-area hospital, said Lindajo Loftus, a publicist for the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, which Brown helped establish.

"Ruth was one of the most important and beloved figures in modern music," singer Bonnie Raitt said in a statement. "You can hear her influence in everyone from Little Richard to Etta (James), Aretha (Franklin), Janis (Joplin) and divas like Christina Aguilera today."

"She was my dear friend, and I will miss her terribly," Raitt said.

Brown's soulful voice produced dozens of hits for Atlantic Records, cementing the fledgling record label's reputation as an R&B powerhouse. Trained in a church choir in her hometown of Portsmouth, Virginia, Brown sang a range of style from jazz to gospel-blues in such hits as "So Long" and "Teardrops in My Eyes."

She later crossed over into rock 'n' roll with some success with "Lucky Lips" and "This Little Girl's Gone Rockin'," a song she co-wrote with Bobby Darin.

But as R&B and rock 'n' roll fell out of style in the late 1950s, Brown and her musical contemporaries were forced into retirement. She spent most of the 1960s raising her two sons alone and earning a living as a maid, school bus driver and teacher.

Brown enjoyed a career renaissance in the mid-70s when she began recording blues and jazz tunes for a variety of labels and found success on the stage and in movies.

She won acclaim in the R&B musical "Staggerlee" and won a Tony Award for best actress in the Broadway revue "Black and Blue."

She also played a feisty deejay in the 1988 cult movie "Hairspray." A year later, she won a Grammy for best jazz vocal performance for the album "Blues on Broadway."

Brown continued to perform and record in her later years, becoming a popular host of National Public Radio's "Harlem Hit Parade."

She also became a prominent advocate for the rights of aging R&B musicians during her long struggle to recoup her share of royalties from Atlantic. Her effort led to the formation of the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit dedicated to providing financial and medical assistance, as well as historical and cultural preservation of the musical genre.

Yes, She Was Bored

Found this video just now while trolling through YouTube and had to pass it along for your pleasure.

I present Bugs Bunny clips to Rednex's cover of "Cotton-Eyed Joe":

Maxine's Living Will

Passed along by a friend (thanx, Ceece!) and just had to post it (since I basically agree with it!)!




I, MAXINE, being of sound mind and body, do not wish to be kept alive indefinitely by artificial means. Under no circumstances should my fate be put in the hands of pinhead politicians who couldn't pass ninth-grade biology if their lives depended on it, or lawyers/doctors interested in simply running up the bills. If a reasonable amount of time passes and I fail to ask for at least one of the following:

Glass of wine
chocolate
Margarita
chocolate
Martini
cold Beer
chocolate
Chicken fried steak
cream gravy
chocolate
Mexican food
chocolate
French fries
chocolate
Pizza
chocolate
ice cream
cup of tea
chocolate
chocolate
chocolate

It should be presumed that I won't ever get better. When such a determination is reached, I hereby instruct my appointed person and attending physicians to pull the plug, reel in the tubes and call it a day.

I'm SO Not Sad About This News

Attention Prompts 'Jesus Camp' to Leave Devil's Lake

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - A woman whose summer camp for children near Devil's Lake, N.D., was featured in a documentary called "Jesus Camp," says all the attention led to her decision not to continue camp

By The Associated Press
Sat, Nov. 04 2006 07:05 PM ET

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - A woman whose summer camp for children near Devil's Lake, N.D., was featured in a documentary called "Jesus Camp," says all the attention led to her decision not to continue camps there.

"I have a responsibility to keep the children safe," the Rev. Becky Fischer said.

Fischer said the camp, which is owned by the Assemblies of God and rents to a number of groups, was vandalized after the release of the movie about her Kids on Fire camp. The Assemblies of God church also was vandalized, she said.

The camp's windows were broken and it had about $1,500 worth of damage. Police figure the church was vandalized the same night, said the Rev. Winston Titus, the camp administrator.

Critics have accused Fischer of brainwashing. She has said she wants to encourage young people to be committed Christians.

Titus said his staff has had calls from both sides - some threatening a boycott if the camp continues renting to Fischer's group, and others threatening a boycott if it does not.

"Right now, we just want it to be over," Titus said. "Any publicity just stirs things up."

Fischer has asked that Magnolia Pictures not release the Jesus Camp movie in the Bismarck area because she worries about the risk of other incidents there.

She said the movie is scheduled at the Fargo Theater on Nov. 17, and will be out on DVD in a couple of months.

Link courtesy of Red7Eric.

The REAL Democratic Manifesto!

It can finally be revealed! ;-)

via The Right Was Right

"Now that the election is behind us, and the Democrats control both houses of Congress, there's no reason not to admit it: the Right was right about us all along. Here is our 25-point manifesto for the new Congress:

1. Mandatory homosexuality

2. Drug-filled condoms in schools

3. Introduce the new Destruction of Marriage Act

4. Border fence replaced with free shuttle buses

5. Osama Bin Laden to be Secretary of State

6. Withdraw from Iraq, apologize, reinstate Hussein

7. English language banned from all Federal buildings

8. Math classes replaced by encounter groups

9. All taxes to be tripled

10. All fortunes over $250,000 to be confiscated

11. On-demand welfare

12. Tofurkey to be named official Thanksgiving dish

13. Freeways to be removed, replaced with light rail systems

14. Pledge of Allegiance in schools replaced with morning flag-burning

15. Stem cells allowed to be harvested from any child under the age of 8

16. Comatose people to be ground up and fed to poor

17. Quarterly mandatory abortion lottery

18. God to be mocked roundly

19. Dissolve Executive Branch: reassign responsibilities to UN

20. Jane Fonda to be appointed Secretary of Appeasement

21. Outlaw all firearms: previous owners assigned to anger management therapy

22. Texas returned to Mexico

23. Ban Christmas: replace with Celebrate our Monkey Ancestors Day

24. Carter added to Mount Rushmore

25. Modify USA's motto to 'Land of the French and the home of the brave'"

Rrrroll, Rrrroll, Rrrroll In the Hay!

MONSTER OF A READING: 'FRANKENSTEIN' HAS LIFE

November 8, 2006 -- SUPER duper!
Or, as the Monster would say, "Soooper doooper!"
That's what I'm hearing about the reading of "Young Frankenstein," the new
musical from Mel Brooks and his longtime writing partner, Tom Meehan.
They unveiled their new show to 20 carefully chosen Broadway insiders Monday
afternoon. A large woman with a clipboard stood in the middle of the doorway
to make sure that no one slipped by who hadn't personally been invited by
Brooks, his director Susan Stroman or his producer, Bob Sillerman, founder of the
entertainment company SFX.
Brooks has been very secretive about "Young Frankenstein." The actors were
given the script just a few days before the reading with instructions not to
let it out of their sight. But several people who attended the reading said
Brooks and Meehan may well have another "Producers" on their hands.
"Absolutely hilarious," one said.
"A total winner," another said.
"Mindless but really funny and, for Mel, surprisingly tasteful," said a
third.
The musical tracks Brooks' classic 1974 comedy pretty closely. Dr.
Frankenstein, played in the reading by Brian D'Arcy James, is summoned to Transylvania,
where he meets all the great characters from the movie - Frau Blucher (Cloris
Leachman), Igor (Roger Bart), Inga (Sutton Foster) and a Chief Inspector with
a wooden arm (Marc Kudisch). Unable to resist the call of the family trade,
Frankenstein creates a monster (Shuler Hensley) whose every body part - every
last one - is very, very big.
All the classic comic scenes from the movie are in the show, many of them
set to songs by Brooks. His lyrics, one source says, "are very funny," and his
music is a "toe-tapping" pastiche of Sigmund Romberg, Cole Porter and Kurt
Weill.
Among the songs are:
* "My Boyfriend!" - a Weill sendup sung by Frau Blucher.
* "Roll, Roll, Roll in the Hay!" - Inga's romp.
* "Deep Love," sung by the doctor's frigid fiancée Elizabeth (Kristin
Chenoweth) right after she has come in contact with one of the monster's really big
body parts.
There are several big production numbers, including the 11 o'clock show-
stopper from the film, Irving Berlin's "Puttin' on the Ritz."
Everybody loved the cast, saying Chenoweth was in great form trilling her
operetta-like songs, Hensley was both funny and moving as the monster, and
Bart's comic instincts "are so smart, they're intimidating."
Leachman, while much older than the youthful cast, "ran off with every scene
she was in."
D'Arcy James ("Sweet Smell of Success") was a surprise because he's rarely
associated with comic roles. He was so good, in fact, that he's likely to land
the role for Broadway. This could cause some tension between Brooks and his
friend Matthew Broderick, who at one point thought the part was his.
But Broderick has yet to live down his poorly received performance in "The
Odd Couple" last season, and sources say some of the money people behind "Young
Frankenstein" are afraid to take a chance on him.
Stroman and Brooks hope to keep the cast for the reading together for the
Broadway production. Yesterday, agents were frantically trying to rearrange
their clients' schedules, since "Young Frankenstein" is now on the fast track to
Broadway. It will play an out-of-town tryout in the summer and will open in New
York, probably at the St. James (where "The Producers" is expected to close
in the spring), on Halloween 2007.
Yesterday in an e-mail, Stroman, who directed "The Producers," said: "We
were delighted with yesterday's reading. . . . The company had a mere 29 hours to
prepare an entire show, and they did it brilliantly."

I'm Probably Going to Hell for It...

...but this photo of Santorum and his family at last night's "I lost" party gives me a good case of the giggles:




The son looks like a zombie, the oldest daughter looks like an angry Rikki Lake, and the youngest daughter looks like she's going to be in for years of therapy. Love her doll-that-has-Mommy Santorum's-hair with the matching dress.

And according to the AP right now, it looks like the Democrats will be taking over the Senate as well!

Stick a Fork in It, It's Done!

Finally, election day as officially come to an end. No more fracking politcal phone calls and Zod knows how many pieces of mail!

Some good news:
- Prop. 107 out here got defeated (That was the one changing the state constitution about marriage being only between a man and a woman)
- Gabrielle Giffords beat out Randy Graff for District 8 Representative and Raul Grijalva won another term for District 7 Representative.
- Lena Saradnik won one of the two seats for District 26 (my district) State Representative. The other one was the better choice of the two Republicans who were running for the second seat.
- Steve Farley won for District 28 State Representative.

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For your amusement. Passed along by a friend: