Still Here

Apogs for the lack of posts. Busy in the offline world. But I'm happy to see that the Son's readership is rising, so I plan to post several times in the upcoming week in order to justify your visits. So come back Mon and I'll let 'er rip.

In the meantime, some visual filler from YouTube, to which I'm somewhat addicted.

I'm not terribly crazy about the mannequin show Paul McCartney's become, but I was impressed with this performance of "Helter Skelter" at the '06 Grammys. Not bad for a guy in his 60s, even though the song was his version of John Lennon's late-60s heavy-met style. The conventional wisdom is that Lennon pushed McCartney to have more of an edge, and judging from the lollipop tunes he cranked out with Wings, I'd say that was true.

But even McCartney admitted that Jimi Hendrix was better than The Beatles; and when you watch these prime performances by the late guitar wiz and his Experience (Mitch Mitchell is surely one of the most overlooked rock drummers ever), it's hard to deny McCartney's claim. And here's Hendrix on Dick Cavett's old show, from 1969. I plan to write soon about shows like Cavett's, many of which I've been watching for the first time since I was a kid, and about how, in those days, talk TV was much more intelligent, eclectic and interesting, as opposed to the shout & shill fests of our current time.

And speaking of old TV talk, if you haven't seen this intellectual dismantling of William F. Buckley by Noam Chomsky (also from 1969), then you're in for a treat -- unless, of course, you like Buckley. (Wonder why he never had Noam on again after this . . .) Noam's still bringing it, as last week's hysteria about him supposedly "hugging" Hezbollah proves.

A tech request: Does anyone know how to directly link videos to a blog page as is done at Crooks and Liars, where you simply click on the frozen image? This aging tapper would like to try it. Thanks.