The Rolling Stones are, hands down, my favorite band. I often surf around the Web in search of new tour rumors, and I'm proud to say I own merchandise like What Would Keith Richards Do? (a birthday gift from Anemone). One of my favorite Keefism's from the book is his explanation of why he takes a turn as front-man: "The only joy I got out of being a front-man was I didn't have to look at [Mick Jagger's] *ss."
My love for the Stones makes it all the more satisfying (no pun intended!) to report to you all that I worked in a Stones reference on the radio this morning. When talking about America's current growth path with Kenny & Charles, I referenced an old comment by Pete and described the US economy as "the Keith Richards economy."
The real GDP growth of 3.5% for the US, which was reported on Friday, is "totally fake." More injections are ahead, and I just hope the US can make it as long as Keith has in our experiment of "better living through chemistry."
Anemone and I had a blast last night rocking out to U2 in the Georgia Dome. Their play list offered a nice combination of new tunes and classics like "Beautiful Day" and "With or Without You," and their light show was spectacular. The 71,000+ seat stadium was packed, which is a feat only a few bands could pull off.
Seeing U2 perform is something we've wanted to do for years because we both love listening to Bono when he has a microphone in hand and Edge behind him. However, I tend to push the "Mute" button on my remote whenever U2's front-man is on Oprah or without Edge. While I'm sure Bono's heart is in the right place, good intentions, ill-informed economic reasoning, and tremendous international appeal make for a dangerous combination when it comes to some of his activist efforts. In other words, unless he's singing, I try to tune out his words as much as possible.
His actions, on the other hand, are sometimes worth paying attention to because they demonstrate that even the great humanitarian, Bono, responds to economic incentives (additional stories here and here). The Rolling Stones also appear unable to get no satisfaction, and, as a result, they have followed Bono's move to The Netherlands.
Along with Little Richard Penniman and The Allman Brothers, Otis Redding is one of Macon's sons. A few years back, the following statue of Otis was built along the Ocmulgee River at Gateway Park:
Otis's problems, of course, pale in comparison to the problems real people in the floodplain around Georgia are actually experiencing. Here are a few folks who it looks like it'd be fun to meet:
Most of my memories of Michael Jackson are a combination of befuddlement about how a star can fall so far and a general feeling of being creeped out. I must not be alone in having the creepy reaction: try Googling "creepy" and look at the third image result from the left.
His Thriller album cover is the first record cover I can remember from my childhood (that's right, young readers, I grew up in the record/cassette tape era). The Thriller video gave me nightmares as a kid. Seriously. "Smooth Criminal" and "Billie Jean" were, by far, his best songs, and the Alien Ant Farm remake of the former wasn't bad.
It was many years later in my life, particularly the summers of 2002 and 2003, when I came to really appreciate Michael Jackson. I was in Prague and learned about the world's largest Stalin statue. The statue stood until 1962, but it was then destroyed during deStalinization. From then until the collapse of communism, the rock pile of the former Stalin statue was all that remained. In the late 1980s and early in the 1990s, however, the site became a focal point for a Rolling Stones banner and then, in 1996, the 35 foot Michael Jackson statue you all saw at the beginning of this post was erected in advance of his concert in Prague Here's more about the statue's history. Here's a picture of the Stalin statue:
While I'll forever remain baffled by Jackson's personal and financial decisions, I'll tip my cap to the fact that a Stones banner and a large Jackson statue have stood on the spot where Stalin once stood.
