I Am Lame

I've been so caught up in everything lately that I have totally ignored this blog... Which of course, is counter intuitive of having a blog in the first place.

In any case its a new year and we have a new president (Obama).

The 51st Grammy Awards were last night and in case you missed them, fear not, you didn't miss anything. More people talked about what didn't happen then what did.

Been crazy busy lately with music related projects. More info soon...

How Low Can You Go

Headline: Pittsburgh Woman To Be Charged With Making False Report After Claiming "B" Was Carved Into Face By Mugger

For those of you who don;t know [From CBS News] A John McCain campaign volunteer made up a story of being robbed, pinned to the ground and having the letter "B" scratched on her face in a politically inspired attack, police said Friday.

Ashley Todd, 20-year-old college student from College Station, Texas, admitted Friday that the story was false, police said.

Maurita Bryant, the assistant chief of the police department's investigations division, said Todd is being charged with making a false police report.

Police doubted her story from the start, Bryant said.

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So my question is, how much lower can the RNC and the McCain camp go in the next week and a half to the November 4th election date? Everything they have tried has failed. Joe is NOT the plumber. Asley was NOT attacked by an Obama supporter. Obama is NOT a Muslim terrorist. Palin with her wardrobe and makeup artist is NOT the typical hockey mom. Whats next? I almost feel like I have to cringe for the next week because there seems to be no end to the shenanigans they will try. Personally, I'm taking up a collection to help Alaska secede from the United States and pay for McCains room at the home for the clinically insane.

Will Ferrel Rocks

He was just on Saturday Night Live reprising his role as George W.

Caliente

I was just listening to some good old school Salsa music on my iPod and realizing that right there is an entire genre of music that is being destroyed by the economy and the era of overproduced music. My wife is Puerto Rican and I have loved Latin music since I moved to New York in the early 90's and have seen that people don't want to pay for a full band or a brass section and real musicians, some of the finest in the business are being replaced by samples and keyboards both live and in the studio. Now that Coney Island is going to the wealthy condo buyers, who knows if even the great live Salsa we enjoyed so much in the summer on the piers will even be back in the future.

If there are no outlets for quality musicians, and music can be made simply by plotting notes on the computer using your mouse, how do we encourage the future generations to pick up an instrument and play? Being able to express yourself creatively is one of the true gifts we receive and it concerns me that as time goes by I am seeing creativity replaced by sample libraries and Apple GarageBand. Not that great compositions and tracks aren't made with the new tools, but even I, as a musician, sometimes forget the beauty or interweaving the organic with the electronic.

I am thankful that I can sit at a piano or set of drums and allow inspiration to flow through me but I have to remind myself that in this day and age talent is a very ambiguous term.

Countdown Is Progressing

As the days towards November 4th and the most important election in my lifetime looms overhead, I am most frightened by simply 2 words; President Palin.

Never mind that chances are her husband Todd won't even be able to get clearance for the White House since he was a card carrying member of AIP (Alaskan Independence Party) which sought to see Alaska secede from the United States, a party which Sarah Palin herself voiced support for. Never mind she is nothing but a tool to get the people who are most unlikely to vote for an African American anyway all riled up to serve no purpose but to bring those ignorant mobs back to the 60's mindset against the Civil Rights movement.

My only issue with Obama is that he has played too nice with this election, not speaking up during times when doing so would have been warranted. When asked during the last election if he felt Sarah Palin would make a good President should something happen to John McPain, he would be rightfully justified in saying "In my honest opinion no" without being sexist or playing dirty. It's the truth, never mind the whole issue with AIP and her recent investigation in which she was found guilty. Sarah Palin was found to not be qualified to head even one of the Fortune 500 companies, yet they put her in a place to possibly be President. He never mentioned Mcpain's involvement in the Keating Five which directly cost the taxpayers money and in which McPain narrowly escaped jail time. How about all the attempts by the RNC to discredit and ultimately deny so many people surprisingly in battleground states the right to vote by coming up with ways to tie their ballots up in legislation with ACORN or other voter fraud issues. Reminds me of Florida and Gore. There were over 20,000 votes made to be "invalid" in Florida which gee, Bush's brother was Governor and the deciding vote.

Are the Palin/McPain supporters so ignorant that they think that Obama could have been cleared to even be a Senator let alone Presidential candidate without a thorough investigation into any potential "terrorist" connections? Although how Palin got through is anyone's guess.

The Republicans have nothing real, it's all superficial nonsense and propaganda but given where this country is with everything else such as entertainment and music it doesn't surprise me that it's working.

Am I scared, hell yes. If Obama doesn't win I'm not packing up and moving to Canada but it will just go to show that this country is in such a bad place it makes the economy look like a side note.

New Music Sunday

Here's the video for my new remix of the Kevin Rudolf / Lil Wayne global hit "Let It Rock" already killing it on dance radio and dancefloors around the globe//


Kevin Rudolf feat Lil Wayne - Let It Rock (DJ Strobe Tour De Pants Clean Edit)


Kevin Rudolf feat Lil Wayne - Let It Rock (DJ Strobe Tour De Pants Dirty Mix)


Kevin Rudolf feat Lil Wayne - Let It Rock (DJ Strobe Tour De Pants Dub Edit)



Here's the video for another track, "Obscenly Delicious" by Bulgarion/Uk artist Petia//

Sarah Palin, By The Numbers

I normally don't delve into the political pool here but I would say that Sarah Palin is to politics like Paris Hilton is to music...

from Daniel Kurtzman of the Huffington Post via my boy Geoffe's blog

Sarah Palin may lie, but numbers don't. Her record speaks for itself:

2007: the year in which Sarah Palin first obtained a passport (Source)

312: the number of nights during her first 19 months in office that Palin charged taxpayers a "per diem" totaling $16,951 for staying in her own home -- an allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business (Source)

$500 to $1,200: the fee that Wasilla charged rape victims to pay for post-sexual assault medical exams, after the city cut funds during Palin's tenure that had previously covered the exams (Source)

$150: the cash payment offered by the Palin administration to hunters who turn in legs of freshly killed wolves gunned down from airplanes (Source)

3: the number of times during her first few weeks as mayor that Palin inquired with the Wasilla librarian about banning books (Source)

3: the number of months after the censorship discussion that Palin fired the librarian (Source)

100: the approximate number of Wasilla residents who rallied to support the librarian, prompting Palin to withdraw her termination letter (Source)

0: the number of foreign heads of state Palin has met (Source)

0: the number of commands Palin has issued as head of the Alaska National Guard (Source)

2: the number of times in Palin's ABC News interview that she said the word "nucular" (Source)

0: Wasilla's long-term debt when Palin took office in 1996 (Source)

$18.6 million: the long-term debt Palin racked up by the time she left office in 2002, amounting to about $3,000 per resident (Source)

$50,000: the amount of city funds Palin used without authorization to redecorate the Wasilla mayor's office, including adding flocked, red wallpaper that made it look "like a bordello," according to a former Wasilla City Council member (Source)

33: the percentage by which Palin increased the budget of Wasilla during her tenure, despite billing herself as a fiscal conservative and champion of smaller government (Source)

25: the percentage by which Palin raised the local sales tax in Wasilla to pay for a sports center, despite claims that she cut taxes (Source)

$27 million: the total amount of federal earmarks Palin secured for Wasilla's town of 6,700 people while she was mayor, thanks to the help of a Washington lobbyist with ties to indicted Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and convicted felon Jack Abramoff (Source)

3: the number of times John McCain specifically criticized earmarks requested by Sarah Palin when she was mayor of Wasilla, citing them as examples of wasteful spending (Source)

$453 million: the total amount of earmarks Palin has asked U.S. taxpayers to fund for Alaska projects over the past two years, despite McCain's insistence that she hasn't sought earmarks or special-interest spending from Congress (Source)

$506.34: the amount of federal earmarks Alaska residents will receive per capita in 2008, the highest level of any state (Source)

$223 million: the earmark secured for the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" that Palin initially supported before opposing (Source)

$223 million: the amount of money designated for the "Bridge to Nowhere" that Palin ultimately used for other projects, rather than returning it to the federal government (Source)

20: the percentage of domestic energy that Palin claims Alaska produces (Source)

3.5: the actual percentage share of domestic energy Alaska produces (Source)

0: the number of people in America who know more about energy than Sarah Palin, according to John McCain (Source)

$600,000: the loss at which Palin sold the governor's jet after making a show of placing it on eBay. It was eventually sold to a Palin campaign contributor who paid $2.1 million (more than 20% less than the original $2.7 million purchase price). (Source)

1: the number of private tanning beds Palin installed in the governor's mansion after taking office (Source)

1.5: the approximate number of hours Palin spent on a refueling layover in Ireland, which the McCain campaign cited as part of her foreign policy experience (Source)

0: the actual amount of time Palin spent in Iraq during a 2007 visit to the region, despite the McCain campaign's claim she had visited the Iraq battle zone. She never made it beyond the Khabari Alawazem Crossing in Kuwait. (Source)

2006: the year in which Palin declared she favors abstinence-only education and that "the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support" (Source)

2008: the year in which Palin's 17-year-old daughter was impregnated by a self-described "f***ing redneck," who wrote on his MySpace page "I don't want kids" and "ya f*** with me I'll kick ass" (Source)

9: the number of U.S. Geological Survey studies concluding that the habitat of Alaska's polar bears is threatened by global warming, which Palin discounted as "insufficent evidence" when she sued the Bush administration to overturn its decision to list polar bears under the Endangered Species Act (Source)

5: the number of colleges Palin attended over six years before graduating in 1987 from the University of Idaho with a major in journalism (Source)

500: the number of Fortune 500 companies Sarah Palin is not qualified to run, according to McCain adviser Carly Fiorina (Source)

50: the number of days after Palin announced she "will fully cooperate" with an ethics investigation into the "Troopergate" scandal that the McCain campaign announced she was "unlikely to cooperate" because it had been "hijacked" by Obama operatives. The probe was unanimously authorized by a bipartisan panel of eight Alaska Republicans and four Democrats. (Source)

28: the number of days prior to accepting the vice presidential offer that Palin said she couldn't entertain the idea "until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day" (Source)

15: the number of minutes McCain and Palin spent together during their only meeting prior to the interview in which McCain offered her the vice presidential slot (Source)