Not quite my generation, but liking the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, I was point-5-to-1 generations too young. That is, when I was young.

I didn't even feel sad for these guys; without Moon and Entwistle they positively blow. If you saw anyone else play that way in some club by a cover band (or even themselves) somewhere, they would at least be ignored if not booed and chased out of the venue. What a pile. Please retire and have some personal dignity. I'm sure their "farewell" tour was in the 80s. If you just have to play, tour in Vegas with Cher like a proper waste case, guys.

Speaking of piles, I heard one person say The Who's appearance was to avoid the "wardrobe malfunction" problems that was unfairly placed on a couple of other younger musicians on a television network, then in a series of legal battles, a few years ago. I think that's a strong possibility. Not that I care about television networks or have ever probably heard Ms. Jackson's or Mr. Timberlake's music, but it brings up two points for me:

1. Get old English-scooter-rocker dudes to play so that even if all the possible wardrobe malfunctions occur, the lawsuit would be drawn up by completely different motives. That is, all of us would sue, not just fake pious religious freakouts.

By the way, for those of us who happen to live in southern (you know the ones) or otherwise religious (I'm looking at you, Utah) states, you sure consume a lot of porn and commit a lot of violent rapes compared to the rest of our already scared-to-mention-sex country. You were born from sex. A specific kind of sex act. All of you. That's right. I know that fact is not allowed to be taught in our schools lest a teacher be fired and never work again.

2. Appeal to the classic-rock types who listen to the same exact tracks from the exact same artists, over and over, by those who listen to the radio loud (think my age and older American working-class) on the way to work, and especially on the way home from work on Fridays. I'm pretty sure many of these same people I am admitedly stereotyping have no idea the British invasion bands did not come from the States, except for maybe the Beatles. I've been in more than one discussion over the years with Ah-mir-ikuns that swear 'Zep and The Stones are midwest prairie people.

In any case, these folks who appeared at the Superbowl halftime show were pathetic, as even any mediocre musician would have a right to say. And not just because they were missing two of their best, Entwistle and Moon, but because it was just a bad excuse for a classic rock music performance.

Great game, though.

Geeks and non-geeks alike watched this game, and many who did may regret Indianapolis' "inevitable" win-turned-loss; it was surely a comeback from quarter one.

I have a certain bias for New Orleans, since in most American cities musicians are treated like junk, especially in "music" cities like Los Angeles and Nashville. In places like Austin and New Orleans, we are treated as professionals. Even by the local artists who've been playing much hotter and longer than our young dumbbutts have. When they could easily be dismissing brats like us or sending us to the wolves, they teach us instead of talking down. Then they feed us a square meal and make sure we get some peace, practice and rest for our next show. If we're especially young or just thoughtful back to them, they protect us from hard drugs and the rougher sides of the city.

Regarding the Louisiana city and their people more recently, they have been struggling to survive after nearly every facet of our own government all but ignored them since New Orleans took a major hit from Katrina (and old engineering) less than five years ago.

It was a good sports championship comeback from any point of view and a victory for underdogs everywhere. My congratulations to New Orleans and the Saints of all types who are from there.

From The Onion :

"MIAMI—Members of both Super Bowl teams, who played the majority of their regular season and playoff games in domed stadiums, squinted in pain and sought refuge from the sun Thursday after walking onto the field at Miami's Sun Life Stadium.

"What is that thing? It's not gonna be on during the game, is it?" said Saints running back Pierre Thomas, who experienced lingering spots in his vision after his attempts to look directly at the unfamiliar object.

"Usually, stadiums have, like, a lot of little lights on the ceiling. I really hope that burning spot thing just goes away before kickoff."

During the team's afternoon walk-through, frightened players reportedly retreated into the stadiums' interior when, according to Thomas, "the air started doing this freaky-ass swirling around stuff for no reason."

Johnny Carson with the Rat Pack:
I don't even like the Rat Pack that much (below); Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. can be ok, but Sinatra is especially overrated. My opinion is outnumbered by a huge margin on this and many other topics I know. Take the paragraph below:

The TV series "Lost":
I couldn't get through even a simple pilot episode of the television show "Lost", which is wildly successful in these modern times. Never mind all the other shows producers sell like crazy to the same public; a public that can't have an original thought in their own schools without getting overworked cops and mysterious black helicopters involved. But that was an earlier post (what's that picture above for? Click here).

Let's continue with "Lost" for a moment: The dialogue is way too slow for being so inane. The beginning of the show starts off with a shiny dude going on and on with a cute girl about whether she knows how to sew quilts and darn socks for several minutes so that he can finally ask her to stitch his plane crash gash-wounds. Their dialogue is slower than relaxed: as if his and her main priority is to be polite and sexy for each other. Never mind the drama back music and green-screen shots. C'mon.

I feel bad because an actual professional tech journalist asked me directly to watch it and I promised to get back to him. Another future friend I might've "lost". (Hah!)

This post is not about a TV show. It's just time I write before I rest a few hours. You readers keep in mind this is just so I get myself to type. Not that any of my earlier essays are that good or bad, and this could be especially poor. Or great. Let's see.

The other day was my birthday and like many of us who are not kids anymore, I woke up in another battle of introspection and decided to remember how bad things might really be, and are for many many of us. I was starting a new job so I had almost zero to gripe at myself (or life) about.

BB Gun News:
Here's something. I didn't just turn 9, but I could have because one of my most memorable birthday presents arrived the other day in the form of a BB gun. And that's right, it's a Daisy Red Ryder (70th anniversary model), compliments of my stepdad. Tonight I read the whole user booklet, filled with the "caution" and "danger" symbols covering nearly every paragraph while I set up a stuffed cardboard target box against the fireplace. I'll have to wait to put a folded blanket up as a backstop until tomorrow when it isn't too late to hammer a couple nails in the wall to hold it up. I live in a half-decent place, but it is an apartment and my neighbors are working people, some with young kids. Funny I'm more worried about making hammer-and-nail noises late at night than I am BB gun noises with ricochets, accompanied by my screams as I "put an eye out".

Anyway the sparkling-new Red Ryder is against the wall, still yet unloaded. I think I got it because it was featured in the first Christmas movie I openly liked, which was last December with my mom and her husband. It was a thoughtful gift, and a couple days ago the stepdad presented it to me just like in the film, hidden behind something near their fireplace. I can respect his gesture

Just trying to wrap it up, whatever it is I'm wrap-writing.

I didn't get a .38 for my birthday, which would have been cool too. Or a shotgun. Or a number of rifles. I might be good as a sniper, but I'm not even a gamer. I've never owned a gun just because (no real reason), but I did want this one .228 I saw at about 12 or 13 when my dad went to buy more molds for his bullet-maker thing. Then later I liked a short .38. My dad didn't shoot often but he owned several basic firearms. When my brother and I inherited them we donated the lot to our brother in law, who didn't quite live in the big city and knew more about guns anyway. Sinatra's friends knew about guns too I hear.

See? I just thought of a way to wrap this up: I said bad stuff about Sinatra and that's good for them. They can use more than a BB gun on me, right? Never mind what the fans of certain TV shows might do. Or technical middle school administrators whose students attempt to become the next Nikola Tesla.

Nice photo op.

I've been trying to tell ya. I do not personally follow Limbaugh or Olbermann or anyone in between - nor care all that much for anyone bringing attention to themselves while asserting they speak absolute truth. Celebrity talk show host or not.

Maybe we need to take care of our tiny sections of Earth more than it gives a crap about us. Earth has been through Mars-sized sideswipes and earthquakes and is orbiting the Sun fine. Earth is 70% water and so are we. We are like fleas to our planet; it doesn't need us giving Gore or anyone else heed for their business plans. Earth just doesn't care.

All life as we now know it is carbon-based; to tax us for that, well, isn't that convenient for Gore?

Here's the article. Plenty more where it came from. If Mr. Gore were sincere about environmental sustainability, there would be no data withheld, no quick name-changes from "global warming" to "climate change" and no "trade" in his "cap and trade" market plans. It took me a couple of years to about-face on this topic, but I grow weary of inconsistencies.

Clean up your messes, stop wasting and consuming just a relative amount and de-elect our fearful leaders that give a business entity more liberties than any living thing. Now go and enjoy your Sunday like a pre- 9/11 human being might.

A couple days ago I posted some music and pictures from my years (1988-1993) based out of Long Beach, and much of the southern US, in a few snapshots, at the end. During the last several months in LB, CA there was one person there who did more for me on both personal and musical levels than anyone else.

I like to think that I'm this demanding of my friendships because of people like Stuart Richardson. It's a level of generousity and intellectual honesty that is truly rare. I hope each of you know someone like Stu.

Anyway, here I would like to promote a couple of his recent projects. He is a gifted multi-instrument musician in the strict sense (as opposed to my music, in which I get away with utterly incorrect handling of a guitar, for example). He is also an author of both fiction and nonfiction books.

True to his nature, he has given permission to post samples of both his music and text for you. To be sure, these are mid-quality audio files and just a portion of one his books (and two complete books) so that you'll consider ordering the full content and a couple bucks will get back to him.

Click here to go to my revised version of Stuart Brooke Richardson's books and music page.

In an earlier posting I mentioned my own old music, so here we go:

Old-time history, kids:
From the early 1980s into the 90s I would take off from the confines of the studios and pubs (and my dad's house even earlier) to recharge by traveling somewhere around the country without the band. Sometimes I would go by car, truck or motorcycle, and often as not I would hitchhike. Either way I went, it got me in touch with new people and new landscapes; certainly the travels helped seed new songs.

My longest single hitchhiking trip was during the summer/early fall of 1993; it started out in Long Beach, California and went into central Florida and back. I was gone for four months and had walked and hitched rides for just over 6400 miles by the time I saw Long Beach again.

Wake up, there's pictures and music:
Look to the right of the one cent symbol above and see an old photo of one of the miles. It shows a picture I took of myself before I sleep by the road. The little stuffed orange elephant tied to my backpack/pillow I was given, along with a couple dollars, from a mom and her kid who watched me play in St. Augustine, hundreds of miles before. All the shots are a little clearer in the web gallery, or you can download a PDF of the whole picture book here (8.4MB). Never mind that now; you can get them whenever.

Now, some old music: just before that trip I recorded a solo album of acoustic slide guitar and vocals. The title is "Texas Mess" and was recorded in 1992. I'm sharing 12 of those songs; I don't like the other two that much anymore and I doubt you would either.

The takeaway:
Sometime after my long walk we started post-production on the mostly electric album "Broken Baroque" (caution it's a mosque; no I'm not muslim). It was completed in 1994 (copyrighted in 1999; includes archive recordings from 1984 on) with the help of a good sample of the musicians I had worked with during the previous decade. I'll post those later as well.

That was about as close (and far) as I would get to technology back then. I refused to record on anything but tape and insisted that actual people played actual intruments, especially old instruments. Back then some of the digital audio guys liked to rip on me and call me terrible terrible names like "analog". Clever. But we worked together anyway.

Later I finally started catching up and bought my first Denon portable DAT recorder in the mid-90s. But by that time I was headed out of music and starting to mess with PCs, Macs and the Internet.

Here's the music in case you missed it up there.

Enjoy an evening in front of a large screen, after dinner on a comfortable couch with popcorn and a box of candy, maybe beer and homemade nachos if that's what you like*. Your favorite weekly drama is about to air, or perhaps you found a good movie on HBO. There is nothing like it for most people, and certainly no desk chair in front of a computer watching a YouTube clip can compare. That's how most see it anyway.

Then there's me. I rarely watch broadcast television at all, though I do end up catching up with SNL, 1am reruns of South Park or a football game from time to time (over-the-air digital broadcast - free HD!), mute button in hand for the numerous commercial breaks. I prefer to use my TV as a second monitor and stream my shows from media storage or the Internet.

In the 30-something years since the advent of cable and satellite offerings, not once have I had a subscription. Comcast and the like haven't received even a penny from me.

Why is this? Well, in the beginning there was just no reason to subscribe: I was on the road too much, and I was usually broke. Hotels had cable and that was convincing enough. Now it's just habit not to subscribe.

Shoot, the number and length of the commercial breaks is enough to drive me crazy because I'm just not used to them. For every hour of programming, 20 minutes or so is some drug company going on about skin conditions and thoughts of suicide or some such thing. Not only does it destroy the continuity of a movie, the 3rd-grade propaganda is irritating as all get out.

Now when I want to see an episode of The Daily Show I go to their website. When I want to monitor C-SPAN I go to their website. For every 30 minutes of programming I get about 3 minutes of commercials in most cases. Compare that to 10 minutes. I get the content I want without being reminded that the show is just there to make me watch the advertisements. I know it is, but at least for now the website content makes me feel like the commercial breaks are comparative tokens within the show instead of the other way around.

I'll set the sofa up for you in front of the television next to the popcorn and we won't be watching from Comcast.

*text 86ueat2much

With the upcoming Apple announcement due in about a week, tech fans look forward to Steve Jobs and Co.'s latest beauty. Since there are already dozens of professional writers who have posted their expectations, my intention here is to go back over a gadget policy I've had since before I owned a Teac multitrack reel-to-reel tape recorder.

Even a decently maintained and upgraded Pentium 4 (wow!) or PowerBook G4 (whoa!) still works fine, with similarly aged software, for most of today's tasks. I'm writing this on an XP Dell desktop with Dreamweaver 4 (no way!) and Photoshop 5/7 (egads!), because I've already spent the money and as most of you can see my site is just text and images anyway. My latest machine, an IBM-branded X60 convertible tablet, which is nearly three years old, is the love of my device collection. Its baby "brother", a touchscreen Nintendo DS lite, looks like a cute mini-version next to it. When I received the DS as a gift a few years ago from a dear friend, it prompted me to save even faster for the the laptop I really wanted, which x60 I finally owned several months later. Yep, boring.

Who would've thought that a tablet computer would be so anticipated a week from now? For well over 10 years only people like warehouse inventory and medical personnel (and myself) used them. So, when you do buy a new gadget, buy one you'll like for years to come. That goes for anything from a television to a cell phone.

The flip side of this policy is to wait for at least the second-generation of a device before you buy. Chances are you'd get about twice the power and features for less money and the bugs will be worked out. Both my 12" PowerBook and my IBM touchscreen tablet are the very last generation of their respective lines. And though the new MacBook Pros are much more powerful than my Mac, they are certainly not more beautiful. No tablet out there as of this week can touch my 3 year-old X60, though I assume Apple's will.

(Update Jan 27 2010: Um...no. The new iPad is pretty, but I'm even more sure of what I wrote below. Unlike what I wrote above, The new Apple product cannot touch my Thinkpad for a variety of reasons.)

I'll happily wait until the second or third version of the iTablet, or whatever it will be called...

Enjoy the show.

In high school and college I considered a career in radio, and when company is just right I have a lot to say and attempt to make people laugh, if not think. By choice I spend a lot of time alone and therefore not saying a word - which might especially surprise those who know me best. Sure, I talk to myself from time to time. I don't even mind writing that I answer my own questions aloud once in a while. Some say that's a sign of neurosis. I say watching "reality" television, or "unscripted" drama, is at least as bad.

For about 14 years I was one of legions of musicians struggling and traveling, and felt radio was a "conflict of interest" to a musician, though I know several who have been able to have both occupations. I've lost or given away copies of most of my recordings and other artistic efforts, but I still have about 30 recordings that both make me cringe and bring me pride. I'm sure I'll post a link to them here before too long.

As my namesake might imply, I have more experience writing lyrics and other blurbs versus real essays, articles and books but I do enjoy a variety of columnists and 'casters that post to the web. The Internet as we know it did not exist for non-scientists (and many scientists) before the early 1990s, but I am sure glad we have it now.

Below I have decided to give some link-love to a couple of bloggers and podcasters whose postings I've enjoyed. I realize some of my regular favorites are guilty pleasures; I guess I consume them instead of the garbage on cable and broadcast television. My search for contributors and material new to me is still evolving; I'll share those in the future as well. If you are trying to get out of the current news cycle trash, this is good for beginners:

Podcasts:

This Week in Tech
Leo Laporte is probably the biggest name in tech news broadcasting. His multiple cable shows on the extinct Tech TV have evolved into over 30 hours a week of various podcasts (audio and video) streamed from a homestyle-yet-professionally-equipped dining room style studio in northern California. My favorite is the weekly Sunday TWiT show, but his offerings also include TWiG (This Week in Google), TWiL (This Week in Law - the legal kind, not the spouse's parents kind) as well as MacBreak Weekly and many others. Leo is the tech broadcast world's "nice guy" as much as John C. Dvorak is its grump.

No Agenda
John C. Dvorak, a longtime columnist for PC Magazine and MarketWatch was talked into doing a mostly political-news audio op/ed by, and with, an original MTV video jock, Adam Curry. Adam plays as a Crackpot (paranoid "ex-" pothead) and John is The Buzzkill (under-emotional pragmatist). I've been enthusiastically listening in since their first 'cast in October 2007, though the last couple of shows were more irritating than entertaining to me. If this is your first listen, try a show from a couple weeks or months back.

Note: The link above sends you to their show notes page, since Adam Curry still insists on having the main pages load with dozens of cookies and worse, blaring audio. Mute your speakers and peruse the listings, then select a show. Most are very entertaining. I choose to subscribe with iTunes on a Mac instead of visiting the site pages.

The Steve Dahl Show
Steve goes far back enough to be one of the "Disco Sucks" originators of the 1970s and has been a radio personality in cities such as Chicago though he originally hails from the Pasadena, California area. Dahl currently broadcasts from Florida. Good thing, because his mood was not good from Chicago on the show Jan 12. Radio giant Howard Stern regards Dahl as a major influence, which Dahl seems to have mixed feelings about. Dahl's daily show runs about an hour and can also be subscribed to in a variety of ways.

Blogs:

Joe Bageant
I've just recently become aware of Mr. Bageant's work, and his essays have already become some of my favorites. Bageant is from Virginia working class stock and he is a decently talented thinker and writer. He's reasonably concerned for the future of our country and society as a whole, and is currently writing from Jalisco, Mexico. I don't know why just yet, but I'm a little envious though it might just be an extended vacation.

Charlie Ehlen
Another new one to me. Actually learned about Charlie from Joe. Ehlen is a retired Vietnam-era Marine and machinist living in Louisiana. I learn plenty as a somewhat younger brother to guys like this.

Guilty pleasure links:

Dvorak Uncensored
John C. Dvorak and company post general interest stuff.

Failblog
Fun and sometimes funny pictures with captions. The top of the page gives you links to even more from the same family of picture-blogs.

Consumerist
Like Consumer Reports for the web, except sometimes the OPs and commenters can get a little gripey for some tastes. The site has helped turned some bad company/consumer situations around, though.

OK, that's more than enough for now. Hope you're enjoying the end of a long weekend if you're an American worker. I'd write something about MLK or the Haiti earthquake disaster, but there are plenty of better (and worse) writers out there.