EdDriscoll.com

Posted 6/8/2002 02:28:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
GREAT QUOTE: "people will sometimes do stupid or evil things with their freedom. But without their freedom, they will seldom do great things. So by protecting society against one, you also deprive it of the other."--ArmedLiberal, via InstaPundit, on the importance of...armed liberals--and armed citizenry in general. He also makes a great rebuttal to the "but the government has tanks and aircraft. So why should citizens be armed?" argument:

it fundamentally changes the nature of the relationship between the individual and the State. I am pretty dubious about the apocalyptic fantasies of those who believe that a cadre of deer hunters could stand up against the armed forces of the U.S. or some invading army. In reality, I think that the arms possessed by the citizens of the U.S. are primarily symbolic in value, much like the daggers carried by Sikhs. But, having lived in Europe, I think that the symbolic value carries a political and social weight.

Click on over, and read the rest of it-you'll be glad you did.

Posted 6/7/2002 02:51:18 PM by Edward Driscoll
I LEAD A RATHER COOL EXISTENCE? Christopher Cross thinks that apparently I do, based on my test-driving a Segway, and a couple of Electro-Motive Division of General Motors diesel locomotives. Well yeah, I'd like to think that my existence does have its moments of coolness. (Some of which I can actually write about!) The Segway ride was a happy coincidence, involving the synchronistic timing of my being assigned the article on it by LiteWheels almost simultaneously with an already planned visit to the East Coast, but the locomotive thing, anybody can do. The Portola Railroad museum is only one of several places that have "you too can operate this locomotive" tracks, and all it takes is driving to them and paying for the privilege (as I did). Of course, writing about it for Railfan was particularly cool, as it was a favorite publication of mine in my early teens. Equally cool has been the chance to interview some teenage idols, including Blade Runner designer Syd Mead, science fiction writer David Gerrold, and electric guitar pioneer Les Paul, as well as later heroes, such as Alvin Toffler and Virginia Postrel--but they're functions of journalism. They get additional publicity, I get to talk with them. I certainly hope it's an equitable trade for both sides. By the way, Chris was kind of enough to say that my writing does sound like it's written in "a distorted steamy mythopoetic psycho-sexual haze". I don't think so myself, but hopefully once I complete my course at the William Burroughs/Hunter S. Thompson school of journalism, it will be...

Posted 6/7/2002 02:16:13 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE MIGHTY MORPHIN' TEUTONIC RANGERS: I was scrolling through the coming attractions for the next "on dead tree" issue of National Review, and saw this blurb about an article by John O'Sullivan:

It may be comforting to argue that "the Europeans" will never develop into a major military threat because of their pacific nature. But until 1870 the Germans were mainly Ruritanians, until 1919 Prussians, until 1933 decadents, until 1945 Nazis, until 1970 Americans, until 1989 neutralists, and since then good Europeans on the Robert Kagan model. We cannot be sure that they and other Europeans will not someday undergo a personality change into a conventional superpower with its own interests and instruments to enforce them. Indeed, a "realist" analysis predicts that a united European state would have little choice but to become a military power. And as the four years of U.S. history after Pearl Harbor demonstrate, a wealthy and technically advanced power can become a military superpower in half a decade.

Talk about a blinding flash of the obvious--I had forgotten for a moment how all-over-the-board Germanic policy was in the 20th century. For a slightly different take on the issue of a militaristic Europe, check out this post by Steve Den Beste.

Posted 6/7/2002 12:23:13 PM by Edward Driscoll
AMERICANS AND SOCCER, A Unified Field Theory of World Entertainment: Found via Ken Layne's Web log, this is an excellent screed on why soccer is so popular in Europe, and why it will never be in the US. It also helps to answer a question that baffles the otherwise alarmingly astute Group Captain Mandrake: Why an event like the Super Bowl can involve only US teams, and yet still be considered The World Championship. The author, H.D. Miller, gets extra bonus points for this paragraph:

There are no worthwhile French video games ("Le Lepin Savauge: Help Pierre the Rabbit find his way to the Rive Gauche where he can become despondent in a cafe and smoke many Gauloises."), no Swiss monster movies ("Cashzilla, the creature that delayed the 7:14 to Bern"), no German Westerns ("Das Boothill"). (It should be noted that Italian westerns are solely the work of Sergio Leone, and as such are anomalous.)

Posted 6/7/2002 11:58:57 AM by Edward Driscoll
ANDY ROONEY WAS ON LARRY KING LAST NIGHT: Now, I know that's normally about as exciting as Ben Stein reading from the Greater Los Angeles Yellow Pages. But he did come clean about Bernard Goldberg, Dan Rather, and media bias in general:

"I thought he made some very good points," Rooney told CNN's Larry King on Wednesday night. Rooney admitted he has "a liberal bias" since "I'm consistently liberal in my opinions," adding that he considers Dan Rather to be "transparently liberal."

Read more highlights on this Media Research Center page.

Posted 6/7/2002 10:47:59 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE SUM OF ALL HYPE: National Review reviews The Sum of All Fears and finds that it's far from the sum of its parts. And those parts aren't very good.

Posted 6/7/2002 10:33:06 AM by Edward Driscoll
FACE TO FACE WITH A TERRORIST: Scary ABCNEWS.com story titled "Woman Recalls Encounter With 9/11 Leader", specifically the now rotting in Hell Mohamed Atta. My question is why Johnelle Bryant, the woman interviewed in the story, didn't have security escort a guy out who during his conversation with her:

"At first, he refused to speak with me," said Bryant, remembering that Atta called her "but a female." Bryant explained that she was the manager, but he still refused to conduct business with her. Ultimately, she said, "I told him that if he was interested in getting a farm-service agency loan in my servicing area, then he would need to deal with me." Throughout the interview, he continued to refer to Bryant as "but a female," and Bryant said, "He would say it with disgust."

And also:

When Bryant explained that there was an application process, Atta became "very agitated." He thought the loan would be in cash, and that he would have no trouble obtaining it to purchase an aircraft.

And then:

Before leaving Bryant's office, Atta became fixated with an aerial photo of Washington that was hanging on her office wall. "He just said that it was one of the prettiest, the best he'd ever seen of Washington," she said, remembering that he was impressed with the panoramic view that captured all the monuments and buildings in one photograph, pointing specifically to the Pentagon and the White House. "He pulled out a wad of cash," she said, "and started throwing money on my desk. He wanted that picture really bad." Bryant indicated that the picture was not for sale, and he threw more money down. "His look on his face became very bitter at that point," Bryant remembers. "I believe he said, 'How would America like it if another country destroyed that city and some of the monuments in it,' like the cities in his country had been destroyed?"

At what point does a potential loan applicant get asked to leave the Department of Agriculture?? InstaPundit, not surprisingly, has some thoughts on all of this.

Posted 6/7/2002 10:09:27 AM by Edward Driscoll
NOTE TO SELF, DON'T USE ONION AS SOURCE: Beijing paper falls for gag in American tabloid. (Found via NRO's The Corner Blog.) UPDATE: VodkaPundit also weighs in on this, including a link to the original Onion piece mentioned in the Reuters story above.

Posted 6/7/2002 10:06:36 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE BRAD PITT, DAN HAGGERTY CONNECTION REVEALED HERE.

Posted 6/7/2002 01:42:33 AM by Edward Driscoll
LILEKS ON STAR WARS EPISODE II: He really likes it. But hey--let's remember: we are talking about Star Wars here.

Posted 6/7/2002 12:35:16 AM by Edward Driscoll
GORDON GEKKO MEETS PAUL KRUGMAN MEETS JANE GALT: Reality ensues in a terrific blog post.

Posted 6/6/2002 10:32:31 PM by Edward Driscoll
ANOTHER WOODY LOSES IT: Woody Harrelson goes berserk in England. Maybe they can fly in the same meds his character in "Wag The Dog" was on.

Posted 6/6/2002 09:20:57 PM by Edward Driscoll
USS CLUELESS: Read it for the articles, but stop by for the pictures.... UPDATE: Geez, I no sooner post the above, and he posts more babelicious shots. And a fairly stern warning to with them.

Posted 6/6/2002 04:07:24 PM by Edward Driscoll
HOME THEATER: AN ARCHEOLOGY--PART TWO, by film historian Robert Harris is now online at the Digital Bits. For any movie or home theater fan, this stuff is lots of fun to learn about.

Posted 6/6/2002 02:34:04 PM by Edward Driscoll
MR. ROGERS GOES TO DARTMOUTH: Fred Rogers, of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood fame, is this weekend's commencement speaker at Dartmouth college, according to this AP article, which says, "Past Dartmouth commencement speakers have included Robert Reich, Bill Clinton, George Mitchell and Madeline Albright." Sounds like Fred should be right at home...

Posted 6/6/2002 02:13:56 PM by Edward Driscoll
SPEAKING OF TRAINS, I finally received my copies of the June issue of Railfan. If it's still on your local newsstand or hobby shop's shelves, buy a boxcar load or two. You can see me in action operating very large, very heavy, and very expensive diesel locomotives--and not breaking them! (Scroll down to the bottom of this page for a couple of out-takes from my visit.)

Posted 6/6/2002 01:41:33 PM by Edward Driscoll
SNEAK ATTACKS: Jonah Goldberg is surprised that his wife's new book is getting numerous "sneak attacks" from the left on Amazon.com. But David Horowitz wrote about this phenomenon a couple of years ago. Still, I doubt Horowitz has ever been accused of writing in "a distorted steamy mythopoetic psycho-sexual haze". Jonah's right--that does sound pretty cool. William Burroughs would have killed to have his writing described like that. Hell, I wish somebody would describe my writing like that!

Posted 6/6/2002 12:47:48 PM by Edward Driscoll
CALIFORNIA DREAMING: If you live in California, here's a chance to see your tax dollars at work.

Posted 6/6/2002 11:08:03 AM by Edward Driscoll
RAGE AGAINST REALITY: Devastating review of a recent book by Bakari Kitwana titled The Hip-Hop Generation by Mark Goldblatt on National Review Online. Particularly impressive is Goldblatt's defense of Guiliani's efforts to fight crime in Manhattan, and his refutation of Kitwana's astonishing attempt to compare the the killings of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King to the killings of gangster rappers Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls. Goldblatt writes:

The underlying irony, which Kitwana mentions but never honestly addresses, is that rap music, which he calls "arguably the single most significant achievement of [his] generation" and "the Black CNN," has, for the last decade and a half, hammered home the message that anti-social behavior is proof of black authenticity.

If rap music is "arguably the single most significant achievement of [his] generation", then that generation is in serious, serious trouble. Read Goldblatt's essay as to why--and then weep for a generation of blacks committing cultural suicide.

Posted 6/6/2002 09:40:49 AM by Edward Driscoll
FOUND ON INSTAPUNDIT, this story says that the British Foriegn Ministry has refused to allow ammunition to be shipped to Israel for an Israeli sharpshooters' club. Glenn writes:

Humph. When another small country I can think of was fighting off crazed fascistic enemies, the United States certainly didn't take that line. For which the British should be glad. Meanwhile, of course, the EU is sending money to Palestinians that winds up being spent on bombs and guns. But that's just development assistance.

Posted 6/6/2002 09:37:14 AM by Edward Driscoll
AMTRAK FACES JULY SHUTDOWN, according to this Washington Post story. Uh, other than the folks who use the heavily travelled Northeast Corridor (which could probably be a money maker if spun-off from the rest of Amtrak), who would notice? I've loved trains ever since I was a kid, but there's a reason why commercial railroads got out of the passenger business in the first place--ever since the double-barreled combination in the 1950s of jet airliners and interstate highways, passenger railroading is largely a financial sinkhole. Especially for a railroad as badly run as Amtrak.

Posted 6/5/2002 09:34:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
APOCALYPSE (NASHVILLE) NOW: Very, very funny parody of the classic Francis Ford Coppola film by "South Knox Bubba". It begins with...

Knoxville, sh*t. I'm still only in Knoxville. Every time I think I'm going to wake up back in the Capitol. When I was home after my first tour, it was worse. I'd wake up and there'd be nothing... I hardly said a word to my wife until I said yes to a new mini-van and she ran off to a Tupperware party. When I was here I wanted to be there. When I was there, all I could think of was getting back to the Capitol. I've been here a week now. Waiting for a mission, getting softer. Every minute I stay in this Motel 6 room I get weaker. And every minute Porky squats in the Capitol he gets stronger. Each time I look around the walls move in a little tighter. Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service.

...and gets even better from there.

Posted 6/5/2002 05:42:40 PM by Edward Driscoll
HERE WE GO AGAIN: Drudge's Headline du moment? "Arafat's Office Surrounded".

Posted 6/5/2002 05:20:36 PM by Edward Driscoll
FLUXBLOG: Interesting new blog by that name. Go check 'em out!

Posted 6/5/2002 05:01:07 PM by Edward Driscoll
LOSS TO AMERICA'S CULTURAL HERITAGE AS A RESULT OF 9/11: Fascinating catalog of items lost at the WTC and the Pentagon, as well as a few things miraculously salvaged, found via NRO's The Corner Web log.

Posted 6/5/2002 04:54:26 PM by Edward Driscoll
US IS PLANNING A POST-SADDAM IRAQI government, according to this UPI report. Good! Also helps to calm the ongoing wobbly watch in the interim.

Posted 6/5/2002 04:42:33 PM by Edward Driscoll
RAF AWARDS: Over the weekend, I linked to Sgt. Stryker's essay on USAF medals and awards and wondered if Group Captain Mandrake would let us know if the RAF works in a similar fashion. He did--just click on over to read it. Here's one highlight:

The first thing to understand is that even a long-serving, been in action everywhere, UK service man or woman will have far fewer decorations (informally known as gongs over here) than their US counterpart. We simply don't have as many as the US does. This, I suspect, is related to the fact that the average Brit. doesn't like to blow their own trumpet. Left to our own devices, we would prefer to hide the fact that we even have a trumpet!

Fill in your own punchline here--modesty and good taste (cough) prevents me from commenting on the state of British trumpethood....

Posted 6/5/2002 02:49:13 PM by Edward Driscoll
VODKAPUNDIT INTERVIEWED: Very strange interview of Stephen Green by Dawn Olsen. As I'm sitting here transcribing my interview with Les Paul, I never realized what a boring interviewer I am until I read her freaky and surreal questions. Still, she could do much to liven up Sunday morning chat shows!

Posted 6/5/2002 02:04:09 PM by Edward Driscoll
DASCHLE IN '04? Christopher Cross weighs the possibilities.

Posted 6/5/2002 12:46:10 PM by Edward Driscoll
"IT'S NOT THE ECONOMY, STUPID": Larry Kudlow on the recent malaise of the stock market:

The stock market is falling and, no � it's not the economy, stupid. The data show that production, factory orders, housing, consumers, and even corporate profits are recovering from the recession. Interest rates are low, the Fed is putting plenty of new cash in the pipeline, and even taxes are coming down a bit. No, it's not the economy that is driving the stock market down. There's a malaise over Wall Street because people are worried, fearful, aggravated, and downright blown away by the incongruous behavior of our leaders and elected officials. This level of indecision, fingerpointing, and suspended animation shouldn't be happening in this great country, but it is happening. What's the solution? Where are the answers? No one knows for sure. But decisive action by our nation's leaders in business, finance, accounting, law, and governance must emerge. We need a Paul Volcker at the SEC, but we're stuck with a Harvey Pitt. We need Bill Casey at CIA, but we've got George Tenet. We yearn for Rudy Giuliani to replace Robert Mueller at FBI. We need corporate builders like ITT's Harold Geneen, IBM's Thomas Watson, Citibank's Walter Wriston, or even old J.P. Morgan � but we're saddled with Kenneth Lay and the rest of "formerly of " crowd that includes Dennis Kozlowski (Tyco), John Rigas (Adelphia), and Gary Winnick (Global Crossing).

Kudlow's right: the stock market hates uncertainty. I can't help but think that just like 1990, when everyone predicted the market would tank when we launched Desert Storm, we'll see the Mother of All Rallies when we attack it again. (And like Pejman Yousefzadeh, I'm still in the when, not if category, incidentally.)

Posted 6/5/2002 12:17:40 PM by Edward Driscoll
CLINTON'S NEW DOG: He's a cutie, no doubt about it. And let the pun wars begin on mispronunciations of his name....

Posted 6/5/2002 11:42:25 AM by Edward Driscoll
LOTS OF FUN STUFF at Sgt. Stryker's (Sarge--is it still OK to call you that?) newly redesigned Beers Across America site, including his Indiana Jones-style map and graphics at the top, and a post about not only the superiority of Japanese vending machines, but of Japanese coffee in a can!

Posted 6/5/2002 11:28:21 AM by Edward Driscoll
BATTLEFIELD EARTH: You saw the movie (or skipped it if you had any sense whatsoever), now read about the grand jury investigation!

Posted 6/5/2002 11:08:53 AM by Edward Driscoll
COMPARE AND CONTRAST New York Times and Washington Post headlines on the same subject. That's what Jonah Goldberg does in this post on National Review's The Corner Weblog. UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan also weighs in on the issue.

Posted 6/5/2002 11:02:33 AM by Edward Driscoll
WHERE PRESIDENTS AND IDEAS MEET: Patrick Ruffini has an essay on the increasing role of intellectuals in the White House.

Posted 6/5/2002 10:36:47 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE TWO HISTORIES OF THE SIXTIES: Excellent essay on the 20th century's most controversial decade, found in National Review Online.

Posted 6/5/2002 10:09:07 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE RUDY DREAM TEAM: Another Drudge link, this time from the The New York Observer, which claims that if Giuliani wants it, "he'll be the Republican Party's Vice Presidential nominee in 2004". I have mixed emotions about this. I like the results that Giuliani got in cleaning up Manhattan, but I think he often went about it in a ham-handed way. (And I still remember Drexel-Burnham investment bankers being led away in handcuffs--the late 1980s Mike Milken trial made Giuliani, and it was just when I was considering becoming an investment advisor.) I think I'd prefer Bush-Condi 2004, but I got to admit, Bush-Giuliani would be a slam dunk at the voting booth.

Posted 6/5/2002 09:57:36 AM by Edward Driscoll
NOBODY'S ROCKIN': Matt Drudge links to this article from USA Today about what a sorry state the recording industry is in. I can't help but think they did it to themselves. Who wants to pay $16.99--or more--for music that's just terrible. As InstaPundit mentioned a while back, even the ratings for the Grammys are down, proving that it's not Napster's fault. When I was waiting for our flight out of JFK yesterday, I went to a music kiosk to buy a CD to listen to on the plane (in addition to the folder of about 10 or 15 CDs I had burned (from originals I bought, by the way). The "music" being played was the most awful combination of rap, infantile "singing" and silly samples and loops I had heard in a long time. "How are you?", the girl minding kiosk asked. "Just fine", I replied, "Except for having to listen to that stuff while I shop". Even the haircut and synthesizer bands that prowled MTV during its heyday made better stuff than most of what's on pop radio today. And it's typical of the record industry to blame technology, instead of themselves for their slump. Speaking of which, the CD I bought was The Cars' first album, for $9.95. It was cheap, the music was pretty good, the production was even better, and I didn't have it already on CD. Perfect. UPDATE: Happy Fun Pundit is also on the case.

Posted 6/5/2002 09:48:45 AM by Edward Driscoll
EBAY STRANGENESS: Don't click on this link. Trust me--you'll be sorry in all sorts of ways. You clicked on it? Hey, I warned you!

Posted 6/5/2002 09:42:06 AM by Edward Driscoll
A LESSON IN DALLAS: Brent Bozell says that the easiest way to fight anti-global and/or environmental zealot protestors is to simply protest them yourself. Here's a sample:

There's a lesson in Dallas for conservatives. Hitting the street and answering that leftist rant is one way even a small group of conservatives can force their message to stand next to the radicals in the so-called mainstream press. Just don�t expect much coverage from the press. Liberal activists still dominated the Star-Telegram coverage, while the conservatives only had their slogans quoted. (You could tell the reporters were shocked when they described counter-protesters who were, gasp, "questioning the validity of ecological concerns.") But any time a story about an oil company protest includes the words "Oil Employs, Anarchy Destroys," it's a good day in the newspaper for conservatives.

Read the whole thing--it's quite good.

Posted 6/5/2002 12:10:17 AM by Edward Driscoll
BACK IN CALIFORNIA: Regular blogging should resume on Wednesday, depending upon the state of my jetlag.

Posted 6/4/2002 08:00:28 AM by Edward Driscoll
HOLLYWOOD AND TECHNOLOGY: Instapundit's "Quote of the Day" comes from Jack Valenti in 1982:

I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.

And I'll bet you could find similar quotes about DVDs (remember Divx?), Napster, and any other new technology that gives consumers more choice.

Posted 6/4/2002 07:27:59 AM by Edward Driscoll
HOLLYWOOD AND 9/11: Protein Wisdom has an excellent essay on the subject.

Posted 6/3/2002 10:11:53 PM by Edward Driscoll
WHAT A MONDAY! Sorry for the lack of posting on Monday. But I spent my last full day in New York having lunch with my wife and a friend at the Four Seasons (my very favorite restaurant--there I said it--ever since I was a kid. It doesn't hurt that it was designed by Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, or that the food is pretty good, too), followed by an interview with Les Paul, who's about to celebrate his 87th birthday next week. To paraphrase Woody Allen's line to Groucho Marx, sorry I won't be able to attend your 87th birthday Les, but I expect you to be at mine! My profile of Les Paul should appear soon in Catholic Exchange, and the quotes from my interview with him will help to flesh out the article I've been assigned by Vintage Guitar magazine on Gibson's Les Paul Custom electric guitar. In the meantime, all I can say is that it's always wonderful to talk to a legend--here's a guy who's led several remarkable lives concurrently: he played guitar behind Bing Crosby in the 1940s, had numerous best selling records in the 1950s with his then wife, Mary Ford, and during the same decade, simultaneously help to design what would become (alongside the Fender Stratocaster) the greatest rock and blues electric guitar of all time (just ask Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Jeff Beck and Slash of Guns and Roses--they all played a Les Paul at one time or another), and also invented many of the music recording techniques that we take for granted today. For the past twenty years, Les has played every Monday night in New York--first at a club called Fat Tuesday's, and since the early '90s, a club called the Iridium. Backed by two rhythm guitarists--Lou Pallo on electric (a Les Paul Custom, naturally) and Frank Vignola on acoustic, and Nicki Parrott on stand up bass, Les plays a variety of tunes from the 1940s and 50s--his own hits, plus those of Gershwin, Cole Porter, and other classic composers. There's a real sense of history here. I can't help but think that the ghosts of great legendary guitarists Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian (Les's development of the electric guitar seemed to have taken off when Christian's voice on the instrument was silenced by an untimely death from tuberculous in the early 1940s), Wes Montgomery (whom Paul knew) and Jimi Hendrix (who once called Paul for advice concerning his Electric Lady studios) are watching overhead as Les plays. So many lives lived by one man--so much innovation. And so much great music! Needless to say, I'll let you know when my actual articles about Les and the guitar he designed are available! UPDATE: I tried to upload a photo of Les from the show, but Blogger's upload function is giving me fits, and I don't have the same FTP flexibility on this laptop that I do on my desktop PC at home. So stand by--I'll post a photo or two when mid-week, when I'm back at EdDriscoll.com Central.

Posted 6/2/2002 08:40:12 PM by Edward Driscoll
BUSH ON GLOBAL WARMING: I can't help but think that this recent post by Matt Drudge is another example of the Bush team trying to take another issue away from the Democrats (and if so, it's further proof that the Bush team is well aware of who their likely nominee is going to be). The problem is, how does Bush get away with this kind of stuff without alienating his base--the people who voted for him because of how much they feared Al Gore? (See Steve Den Beste's recent post on the subject of global warming. I suspect that a lot of people who voted for Bush agree with Den Beste's excellent take on this issue.) I know that Bush 43 is trying to take away as many issues as possible from the Democrats, in an effort to not be a one-termer like his dad. But by doing so, he risks alienating his base--ironically, the very thing that got Bush 41 in serious trouble in his reelection bid. Very troubling stuff, this. Jonah's right--I admire Dubya's efforts to fight terrorism, but I miss the pre-9/11 Bush. UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds has assembled a variety of views from the blogosphere on this topic--click here to read 'em.

Posted 6/2/2002 08:13:19 PM by Edward Driscoll
I AM A SITH LORD!!! All of the cool kids on the blog have been taking this week's silly pop quiz, and as usual, I know a good trend when I see one. Because....I AM A SITH LORD!!! BUHWAHAHAH!!!!!!!

click here to find out how jedi you are! (By the way, is it just me, or does Senator Palpatine look a lot like Charles Nelson Reilly in the above photo??)

Posted 6/2/2002 08:06:39 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE FUTURE OF THE ELECTRIC GUITAR: As I recently posted, I'm on the East Coast for work and pleasure until Tuesday. I have an enormous amount of books, records, tapes, and all sorts of potential Ebay fodder in storage at my parents' house in New Jersey. Just for fun, and to give me something to aim for in my own home recording efforts (the same way the Apollo moon mission gave kids something to aim for with their model rockets), I picked up an old cassette I made of Robert Fripp and Andy Summers' "I Advance Masked" and "Bewitched". It's been years since I've heard this stuff, and I had forgotten how good these two were together. In terms of sounds alone, they really seem to taken the guitar to some kind of limit--there are electric guitars with all sorts of tones, Roland guitar synths, and even the odd electric sitar. And in terms of technique, it really seems to be an attempt to merge 20th century classical and ethereal "world music" with the electric guitar--an instrument rarely associated with either genre. This isn't stuff I'd want to listen to every day (I'll take the best of Beatles/Stones/Zep/Floyd/Who/Hendrix etc., 1970s Bruce Springsteen, and late 50s to mid 60s Miles, Trane and Gil Evans, thankyouverymuch!) but in terms of sheer craftsmanship, technique and chutzpah, it's pretty nifty. It's a shame very little of their combined technique has filtered down to today's pop and rock music. Most kids have no idea what the instrument is capable of.