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Quiet Riot singer Kevin DuBrow died Sunday, drummer Frankie Banali confirmed in a post on his Web site. DuBrow was 52 years old and the official cause of his death has yet to be determined... (full article)
I remember Christmas 1983 very well because it was the year that I got my first heavy metal album, Metal Health by Quiet Riot. Quiet Riot's cover of the Slade song "Cum on Feel the Noize" was still being played all over the place and even after months and months of airplay, I still loved the song. I was so excited to finally get the album and I remember tearing the wrapping paper off and holding the album in my hands as I stared at the cover art. I especially remember flipping the album over to read the song titles and seeing the song title "Love's a Bitch." I snickered and pointed it out to my sister who was sitting next to me. My dad had been watching from across the room and when he saw me giggling he said, "Yep, he found it..." He knew that my 10 year-old sense of humor was easily amused by the simplest of swear words. But Quiet Riot was much more than a one-hit wonder or a novelty to me. Like a lot of people my age, I can honestly say that it was Quiet Riot who made me a metal fan for life. To this day, Quiet Riot albums are still a huge part of my day-to-day listening. Just last weekend, I was playing QR III while baby Z. And I drove around town running errands. Back when I was a kid, I knew all the songs on Metal Health and played the record over and over again every day for months on end. When Condition Critical was due to be released in 1984, I called the Record Bar store in Lexington's Turfland Mall over and over again, checking and re-checking the release date. When the big day finally came and the album was released, my Dad took me to the mall that night after he got off work and he got the album for me. It was a great night (Thanks, Dad...). I loved that album just as much as Metal Health and it wasn't long before I had memorized the words to all the songs from Condition Critical. I even remember writing the album lyrics in my school notebooks instead of doing my school work. Good times, indeed.
The Internet was over a decade away back then and although I wanted to know everything possible about my favorite band, I was left to piece together bits of information from album jackets, newspaper clippings and articles from rock magazines like Circus and Hit Parader. Truth be told, my folks didn't by rock magazines for me that often, so I just re-read the same articles over and over again. Kevin DuBrow was one of my heroes back then. It really impressed me to read about how he had clawed his way to the top after enduring all sorts of failures and personal tragedies. Back then, the press was all good, but it didn't stay that way for long. That's all history now, though.
Better times: Kevin DuBrow with the great Randy Rhoads
Through it all – through decades of success times and periods of unfortunate failure-- Kevin DuBrow was everything that a metal front man should be: talented, boisterous, unrestrained and constantly in everyone's face. He's gone now, passing quietly away after leaving a huge mark on heavy metal and on pop culture itself. Quiet Riot songs have featured in some of the better memories of my life, including on our wedding day when Thomai and I danced to "Afterglow (of Your Love)". I still remember how we were all alone on the dance floor as everyone watched us dance to the song. Not many weddings feature Quiet Riot songs on the DJ list, but ours did.
I will always think of Kevin DuBrow fondly and I will remain thankful that there he was the driving force behind so much great music. He was a true innovator in the huge 1980s metal scene and he will surely be remembered as nothing less than an icon.
I know everyone out there doesn’t follow wrestling. No problem. I’ll gladly pick up the slack for all the non-fans out there. So last week, it finally happened: The second coming of Y2J. After reading scads and scads of reaction and analysis on wrestling sites and personal blogs over the past week, I think it’s reasonable to conclude that most wrestling fans think that the return of Chris Jericho was very well done, to say the least. There are the inevitable comparisons to Jericho's original WWE debut, which is the stuff of legend. And of course, there is a small group of wrestling snobs who have complained that the first glimpse of Y2J shouldn’t have have been on the Tron. Then there are the folks who have whined that he waited too long to talk and that the crowd got tired of cheering. And some of the “haters” have complained about Jericho’s outfit and new hairstyle. Sorry guys, but we can’t all be John Cena fans.
As for me, I spent the last 10 minutes of last week’s RAW on my knees in the middle of my living room staring at the television in awe. About 5 minutes into it, Thomai gently asked, “Are you okay, Mike?” I responded, “Yeah...It’s just...so...good.” That was the best I could do at the moment.
The return of Y2J is certainly one of the best moments within the last year or so of pro wrestling. One day, it might even rank up there as one of the best wrestling moments of all time. But for now, let’s just call it what it is: 100% Jericho!
My wrestling obsession has pretty much killed my interest in this year's football season, but because I live so close to Cincinnati, even though I'm not following day-to-day NFL news, it's pretty hard to ignore the ups and downs of the Bengals. I'm not even really that much of a Bengals fan, truth be told. But I grew up listening to Cincinnati radio and even though I think talk radio is generally a pretty evil medium, I still find myself listening to 700 WLW now and again, especially when I am tired of the CDs in my car.
Most people in southwestern Ohio know that the Bengals are in the midst of a season that is less than stellar. You really don't need talk radio or local news to have some degree of awareness about the situation. But it is always amazing to see how quickly the "die hard" Bengals fans become fickle and spiteful. And from there, it's a short trip to mob-rule insanity when the bloodlust of Cinci fans kicks in and they embark on the frenzied hunt for a scapegoat. Remember, we're talking about an area that recently contemplated filing a civil suit against their NFL team for breach of contract when the Bengals allegedly failed to produce a "competitive" sports team (If you don't live in Ohio and you find this hard to believe, trust me on this...I couldn't make it up if I tried).
So this year's scapegoat was almost Coach Marvin Lewis. Almost. But in recent weeks, it's been Chad Johnson on the bottom of the dog pile. To Johnson's credit, he has responded by totally boycotting the local Cinci media and letting Carson Palmer do the talking at post-game shows. Good for him. Really...I was listening to a WLW sports talk show a couple weekends ago and it seemed like a contest amongst the show's callers to prove which one of them hated Johnson the most. People were calling in saying stuff like, "Well, I've never been a fan of Chad...I've never liked him from the beginning..." and insisting that he was bringing the team town, begging for him to be benched, cut traded and the like. What a bunch of crap. And the talking heads don't contribute much other than to fan the flames and keep the smack-talking throngs of sports talk callers incensed and venomous.
So what happened yesterday? Johnson became the all-time receptions leader for the Bengals with 12 catches on the day for over 100 yards. Three of his receptions were touchdowns. And what are the fair-weathered Johnson-hating Bengals "faithful" saying today? Most of them are still hung over from celebrating, I'm sure...And they're thanking their lucky stars for Ocho Cinco once again. Until the next loss, that is.
A great player like Chad Johnson deserves better than anything the perpetually angry fans of Cincinnati can offer. He is – much like Randy Moss – one of the greatest football players of my generation. And one day – much like Randy Moss – he might finally pick up and move to another team where he will find the respect he deserves. Related Reading Radio drinking games
From the first time I read about Fire Pro Wrestling Returns a few months back, I have been totally psyched about it. Exploding death matches, extensive create-a-wrestler features, customized logos and venues...I mean, this game sounds like it has just about everything I have ever wanted in a wrestling video game. By the end of September, I couldn't take the anticipation any more and I started mapping out my quest to land a copy of the game. So one afternoon in late September, I called a local GameStop store just south of Dayton to try to reserve a copy and I ended up talking to the store manager. Now, I have been shopping at this particular GameStop location for years and I know from experience that the individual in question purports to know everything there is about every game for every system. Seriously. So, I really thought that I would make out okay. One might imagine my surprise when I was met with some brief silence and then the curt response, "It's not on my list." I explained a little more about how Fire Pro was supposed to ship on the same day as SD vs. Raw 2008 (an historic event in and of itself), how Fire Pro has a cult following amongst wrestling gamers in the US and Japan, and how the game was to retail for $15 – a mere fraction of the SD vs. Raw 2008 retail sticker. Still nothing. The manager said again, "It's not on my list. I have no information about it." Never mind that it was all over the Internet. GameStop had nothing for me. The same day, I called another location and I talked to a guy who was somewhat familiar with the game. He explained that GameStop did not provide shipping details on cheaper games and they did not allow customers to reserve cheap games out of concerns that people would not buy the more expensive games like SD vs. Raw. Now that was interesting.
I continued to watch trailer videos and read up on the buzz surrounding Fire Pro in the following weeks and by the time November 13 rolled around, I was pretty excited. I went into the Dayton Mall GameStop that evening and there were plenty of copies of SD vs. Raw 2008 available, but I couldn't find a single copy of Fire Pro. I asked at font counter and the guy looked at me like I was speaking another language. I told him a little more about the shipping date, the cult following, the buzz, etc. He was still clueless. He started looking through the computer as the queue of customers grew behind me. I am sure he must have gone through 20 different computer screens. I eventually told him to forget it and I was almost out the door when he yelled, "I found it!" I hurriedly returned to the counter and he looked again at the screen, saying, "Yeah, we don't have any." He then explained that since the release date was November 13, that meant I had to wait another day for the games to actually make it to the store. SD vs. Raw was an exception because it was a big seller and GameStop had those games shipped to them via some kind of overnight express shipping. But when I asked if he was sure they would have a copy of Fire Pro on November 14, he could not really guarantee it.
I went home and thought on it a bit more. I looked at the Amazon.com listing for Fire Pro Wrestling Returns and thought about just ordering a copy from there, but I wanted to try once more to find a local copy. I remembered there is an EB Games in Beavercreek, so I looked up a listing on the 'net and called. Turns out it's not an EB Games any longer...Now it's a GameStop. The guy I talked to told me the same thing about adding a day to the release date to cover shipping time and he again went through the whole story about how GameStop doesn't want people to be able to reserve cheap games. I was beyond annoyed with all this nonsense. But the guy was very nice and he told me to call him first thing the next day and he would check through all the new games for me and even hold a copy if they had one. I really thought things were going to work out. Then, the next morning I called and got the same guy. He told me that right after I had called the day before, he had gone to the official Fire Pro web site and found that they had postponed release of the game until November 23. Really. I was stunned. Stunned and pissed. Really stunned and really pissed.
As the day went on, I became really suspicious. Why change a Tuesday release date to a Friday release date? What kind of arbitrary crap is that? The Amazon listing did not indicate that the release was delayed and I was finding blog article and news items featuring excepts from Agetec press releases regarding the shipping and distribution of Fire Pro – on schedule. So, on November 15, I ordered Fire Pro through Amazon (via Hubbagames). The next day, I got my shipping confirmation. And today – November 19 – when I arrived home, there it was on my front porch. Just like that.
As irrational or paranoid as it sounds, it really feels like GameStop didn't want me to have Fire Pro. They are apparently far more interested in forcing an artificial demand for their top-tier titles than giving customers what they actually want. So much for the Randian argument that the happiness of consumers is actually important to capitalists. Since I am not a big gamer, losing my business will be a negligible loss for them. But I don't need the aggravation of shopping at GameStop – any GameStop – ever....e-eh-ehh-ever again. Besides, Fire Pro Wrestling Returns is as good as I think it will be, I won't need to buy another wrestling game for a really long time.
The only bad thing about getting Fire Pro today is that I won't have a lot of time to take it for a test run. Any wrestling fan worth his or her tights knows what's going down tonight...
After reading a short piece on the Henri Barbusse book Stalin: A New World Seen Through One Man (originally published in French under the title Staline), I decided to buy a cheap copy through AbeBooks.com. Earlier this week, I received the book in the mail. It's a 1935 copy and apparently a first printing of the English edition. Late last night, I decided to have a quick preview of the text before bed and a particular photo caught my eye. The photo is a black and white plate opposite page 62 of the text. Eight men are depicted in the image, but the caption only names seven of them:
click on the picture to view a larger image
As noted in the caption, the following men are clearly identified:
The eighth man (to the right of Molotov) is obviously Sergei Kirov, who was murdered in 1934, around one year prior to the publication of the Barbusse book. Despite the fact that Kirov's murder was a monumental event in the early history of the USSR – one with resounding consequences and enduring controversy for many years to come – Kirov's name is clearly missing from the caption, replaced with periods of ellipsis. There are no clues in the immediate text as to the basis for the omission. Kirov is mentioned (with the old spelling "Kiroff") much later in the text on pages 114 and 181, but these are merely fleeting references to his assassination with no indication as to Kirov's prominence before death nor as to the significance of his assassination relative to the political climate of the time.
I'm sure I'm not the first person to have noticed this peculiarity, but I must say for posterity that this certainly is a curious omission, indeed. Further Reading Stalin in Reality and Legendby Walter Held (1935 book review of Staline by Henri Barbusse)
A friend of mine recently sent me a link to a very funny blog called "Say What?!" The great signs on that site reminded me of one of my favorite pictures from our family trip to Clearwater Florida back in 2000. I snapped the picture below as we passed by the Marlin Motel one afternoon:
I'm guessing their "vacancy" might have something to do with all that warm "poo" they have in the motel, eh?
November 7 marks the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Under the Julian Calendar, which was in use by Russia at the time of the Revolution, the date was October 25, 1917, hence the term "October Revolution" is still used to refer to this watershed event. Vladimir Lenin To the Citizens of Russia! Source: marxists.org The Provisional Government has been deposed. State power has passed into the hands of the organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies--the Revolutionary Military Committee, which heads the Petrograd proletariat and the garrison.
The cause for which the people have fought, namely, the immediate offer of a democratic peace, the abolition of landed proprietorship, workers'control over production, and the establishment of Soviet power—this cause has been secured.
Long live the revolution of workers, soldiers and peasants!
Revolutionary Military Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies
ты мне ваньку не валяй (Don’t make yourself more stupid than you are.)
For the second time in just over a year, George W. Bush has decried the name of V.I Lenin, raising the specter of Lenin as a "boogeyman" in Bush's polymorphic "war on terror." His most recent jab at the revolutionary leader came during a November 1, 2007 speech at a so-called "conservative think tank":
"History teaches us that underestimating the words of evil, ambitious men is a terrible mistake," Mr. Bush said. "Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. And the question is, will we listen?" (source)
Prior to this, Bush made similar comments during September 2006 speech:
"Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them," he said. (source)
It's hard to say why exactly George Bush has developed this tendency to lump Lenin in with the likes of Hitler and Bin Laden. At the height of McCarthyism, it was Joe Stalin who was a preferred target of scorn for red-baiting American demagogues. Then again, I suppose that for the duration of the Cold War, it was usually the current (living) Soviet Premier who was the focus of the bulk American ire and rhetoric. I guess it's always more effective to have a living boogeyman than a dead one. Even still, these days I would think that Stalin would be an "easier sell" as some sort of ghostly bad guy. It's obvious that critique of Chairman Mao is off-limits to the Bush propaganda machine so long as China is still willing provide scads and scads of low-cost, cheaply made trinkets to the teeming hordes of America's consumer class. But there's still Pol Pot or Kim Il Sung on the left. I think they might easier for Bush to cast in his "dead rogue's gallery" than, say, Pinochet or Mobutu who both rose to dictatorial power with the assistance of the United States Government.
My guess is that one of Bush's speech writers feels like "Dubya" will come across as more of an "intellectual" by avoiding old stand-by foils like Castro and Khomeini in favor of pre-Depression, anti-Bolshevik agitprop in the form of nebulous attacks on the life and legacy of Lenin. It's either that or Bush just really, really hates the Beatles.
Some classic Cold-War shenanigans: “Uncle Joe Stalin” hatches a wild scheme in G.I. Joe #11 (April-May, 1951; Ziff Davis series)
). I loved that album just as much as Metal Health and it wasn't long before I had memorized the words to all the songs from Condition Critical. I even remember writing the album lyrics in my school notebooks instead of doing my school work. Good times, indeed.
My wrestling obsession has pretty much killed my interest in this year's football season, but because I live so close to Cincinnati, even though I'm not following day-to-day NFL news, it's pretty hard to ignore the ups and downs of the 
