Paste Magazine ranks its 50 best albums of 1994. The music of our youth is truly the best music; there are some bands on here I’ve never heard of, which is why these stupid lists are sometimes valuable.
Richard Benjamin, who now lives in a memory care unit at an assisted living facility, would look forward to the emails and texts, and especially to the ones thanking him for being a true American and patriot when he donated his money. This eventually led him to give about $80,000, leaving him tens of thousands of dollars in debt and his children angry at the campaigns who they say tricked their dad and took advantage of his compromised state of mind.
From CNN: Elderly dementia patients are unwittingly fueling political campaigns. I can confirm this practice firsthand. The day after Election Day, Jen and I are going to work the phones and shut the spigot off for her father.
By all accounts, the recent Jane’s Addiction tour has been canceled after Perry Farrell attacked Dave Navarro in the middle of a song, and had to be dragged off the stage. Reading some first-hand accounts from fans who posted video of that show, the consensus is that the band sounded fantastic but he sounded like shit, was drinking heavily through the whole show, and was dropping verses in the middle of songs. His wife immediately went on social media to attack the band, and today they announced the tour was dead.
Having read about him and his treatment of the rest of the band I can’t say I’m surprised, but I’m bummed out for them. I would love nothing more than (and would, frankly, be more interested in) the three musicians touring together with a guest vocalist, just to hear them play live together.
Wow, I didn’t see this one coming. Oasis are reuniting for a tour after splitting up and throwing chainsaws at each other for fifteen years. I think I’ve always been Team Noel but I haven’t followed all of the drama that closely. This would be a great show to see live, I think; I just can’t rationalize $200 in Ticketmaster surcharges and battling for a 5% chance to actually be able to buy a ticket.
President Biden offers three simple ways to reform the Supreme Court: a Constitutional amendment to clearly state that no person is above the law; an 18-year term limit for sitting justices, and a binding code of conduct. Simple, commonsense, and desperately needed.
In America, no one is above the law. In America, the people rule.
Super. Apparently AT&T left all of their customer phone numbers, calling and text records, and location data out on a cloud server somewhere, and “criminals” downloaded it. The timespan is from May—October 2022. Guess whose network is AT&T? I submit: the true criminals are the fuckheads at AT&T who continually leave this shit out on cloud servers for anyone to stumble across and download.
Countdown to useless, lawyer-enriching class action lawsuit: 10, 9, 8…
File this under It’s About Fucking Time: the Baltimore County School system will allow cellphone bans in their classrooms starting this coming year. Our daughter wasn’t allowed to bring her phone to school last year for various reasons, but I’ll be glad to have the rest of the students hang theirs up too. I’d link to some of the appropriate local news channels here, but they’re all behind paywalls or not even reporting on this.
This has been making the rounds, but not as loudly as the press’ continual hand-wringing over whether or not Biden is too old to serve: Robert Reich lays out the facts behind Project 2025, Trump’s plan to destroy the US Government and turn it—blatantly, nakedly—into an autocracy. It’s written by his people, for his people.
About five years ago I went to our local library and checked out a thick graphic novel that spun a hallucinogenic tale of a guy called a “cat master” navigating the underworld of a futuristic city with a ninja cat powered by syringes of super-powered juice. Part noir mystery, part samurai B-movie, part graffiti showcase, it defied all description and I burned through it in one sitting. I returned it and promptly forgot the name. Doing a search for another graphic novel (Tokyo Ghost, another futuristic dystopian romance story I enjoyed immensely) I found this one again: King City. Highly recommended.
Hey! It’s not often I get to write about our little state being on the front lines of solid legislation, but here’s an example: Two bills were passed by the state over the weekend that limit companies’ ability to collect data on our kids, and the other limits their ability to get kids to spend more time online through dark patterns (autoplay, time-based awards, or spam). Lobbyists for big tech, of course, are unhappy:
“The bill’s goal is laudable…but its chosen means are unconstitutional by imposing prior restraints on online speech, erecting barriers to sharing and receiving constitutionally-protected speech…”
Big tech always trots out the First Amendment to paper over their predatory behavior; it always pegs the bullshit meter.