Still Hot

In fact, they're hotter than ever. Here's the latest from Duran Duran, All You Need Is Now:

The Week in Review

Usually I celebrate my birthday for the entire month of July. I convince every friend and family member to take me out separately. That tactic maximizes my alcohol and cake intake. But this year was different. It was a big one. One of those decade celebrations. My friends call it the "f-word," but in another ten years I'll really know what the f-word is. This year, I only turned forty.

So we had a good party with my family and my best friends. Nobody got me a male stripper, but we did have this confetti zombie:

That's what happens when you get hit by those safe "non-explosive" fireworks. Safety? Who needs it? We like to live on the edge, and despite dire warning labels, we reloaded and shot those things all night long.

And then my favorite 80's band came. Well, okay, they didn't actually come to my party. But they came three days later to the Mountain Winery which is about six miles from my house. Close enough. And they were awesome:



(YouTube video)

That's somebody else's video of the show. Wish we had that view. Our seats were about 50 feet back and way off to the side of the stage. The staff had to squeeze us in after inadvertently "upgrading" our wheelchair accessible seats to non-accessible seats. Long story, but we're getting three free tickets to a show of my choosing this season... which is the nicest possible way that the incompetent GM could say "don't sue us."

The next night was my actual birthday and I went out to dinner with my friends Diane and John. No singing or clapping or horns blaring. But I got a brownie with a candle in it. It was a trick candle of course. I swear it was a trick candle! They say it wasn't. But every candle is a trick candle to me. You think I'm long winded? Well, maybe only in this blog.

It was a good week.

Totally Swing

Forgive me, but I'm going to show you something truly awful, and if you have any respect for 80's pop music, this video is not only insufferable but also blasphemous:



The announcer asks us "Ever wondered what would happen if you blended the cool sophistication of a Big Band sound with the familiar and well-loved hit songs of that most flamboyant of decades, the 1980's?" Well no, I never did... and um... wait. Is this a joke??? Doesn't every SNL fake commercial start out with"Ever wonder what would happen if...."? Come on. This is as bad as thong baby diapers.

Oh, I know. Maybe he's being ironic?

I never thought I'd see Limahl fall to this lowly state. Actually, I haven't thought about him in years, but my brain is suddenly cranking out every odd factoid I ever read in Smash Hits. His stage name is an anagram of his real last name -- Hamill. He was the lead singer of Kajagoogoo whose hit "Too Shy" was produced by Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran and Colin Thurston. Limahl also had one solo hit called "Never Ending Story."

But right now I'm wishing he'd just follow that one famous lyric -- "hush hush."

Dirty Tricks

"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity." -- George S. Patton

Ingenuity abounds when it comes to disenfranchising voters. I'm certain that my readers won't fall for any of these tricks, but they would be wise to warn their friends, parents, and grandparents.

Pennsylvania Republicans are disavowing an e-mail sent to Jewish voters that likens a vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to events that led up to the Holocaust.

A phony flier, purporting to be from the Virginia Board of Elections, is circulating in the African-American-heavy Hampton Roads region of the state, falsely informing people that, because of expected high turnout, Democrats should vote on November 5th. The election is November 4th.

Colorado Democrats accused a Republican county clerk Wednesday of falsely informing Colorado College that students from outside the state could not register to vote if their parents claimed them as a dependent on their tax returns.

Finally, here is a trick I never heard before: Sparks [Nevada] resident Raul Murillo, 50, said he received a cell phone call Oct. 13 asking him to vote for his presidential candidate over the phone, which is not legal.

The accused political party will always disavow the dirty tricks and blame it on a lone crank, but that doesn't explain away the far more consequential crimes of voter purges, rigged voting machines, and more voter purges.

Meanwhile, Republicans will cling to the voter fraud hoax, with some rather funny results. Yes, the New Mexico White Pages really does have a listing for Duran Duran.

Friday Night

Updated 05/04/2008: Found the ball grabbing incident on YouTube.

Sorry, no posts yesterday. I spent hours in traffic getting to the Concord Pavilion (excuse me, Sleep Train Pavilion at Concord) to see Duran Duran. The show was as awesome as I expected. I have seen Duran Duran perform nine times in the last 21 years, but never before have I seen somebody jump up on stage and tackle Simon. It appeared the woman was trying to get his pants down but eventually settled on grabbing his balls before the security pulled her off. No video of the event has surfaced on YouTube yet, but here is a snippet of the show without any crotch grabbing:

Coke Classic

Here is a fascinating Flickr photo album: The Cocaine Photos. It really captures a certain 80's vibe. Though the 80's were my high school and college years, I didn't participate in the drugs, but I do remember those jackets, those hairstyles, that Duran Duran poster, and the furniture. Huh? What happened to their furniture? They must have sold it all to buy the drugs.

I had another random thought while staring at these pictures. They didn't have digital cameras back then, so they had to actually get their film developed at a convenience store or photo booth, but I bet nobody turned these guys in to the police. Maybe the guy at the Fotomat was a stoner too, or maybe people simply understood the concept of privacy back then.

Of course, by "back then" I mean before 9/11 when we suddenly became very comfortable with the government invading our privacy. There are two interesting federal laws most of us (including me) don't fully understand: the Bank Secrecy Act, and the USA Patriot Act. By these two laws, banks are required to report any transaction that they suspect is intended to violate or evade any federal law or any federal regulation. Americans took solace that these laws would certainly only be used to fight terrorists, drug traffickers, and money launderers. But no, of course not. This is how Elliot Spitzer was caught. He withdrew a few thousand dollars which required the bank to file a “Suspicious Activity Report" (SAR). The Feds followed the money, and discovered the prostitution ring.

So, this is great, right? We are catching all kinds of criminals now! But I, for one, am not enthusiastic about this. From bankrate.com, "In total, 919,230 SARs were filed in 2005. You cannot find out if one has been filed on you; anyone revealing that information is breaking the law." Many of these reports are triggered by legitimate financial transactions, and the transactions can be blocked or frozen while being investigated. I wish we valued bank secrecy as much as the Swiss.

Now I am stumped by the irony of my own blog post. That first link above goes to a photo album which somebody found at a swap meet. They scanned the pictures and posted them on Flickr without the permission of the people captured in the photos. I'm on a soap box about the government invading our privacy, and yet, by circulating that link, am I doing it too? I guess because I did not create that Flickr album, I don't feel guilty... I feel a bit voyeuristic though.

Update April 5, 2008: The owner of the Flickr photo album has now marked the photos "private" probably because there was some talk of a lawsuit over on Boing Boing. However, some creative types have been kind enough to recreate the original photos. They're just not the same without the Duran Duran poster.