Blog: Culpepper Log

New CD Album Releases, 3-24-2009: Martina McBride, Hannah Montana Soundtrack, Yanni Looking thin for new releases of interest this week. Martina McBride has Shine , her 352nd album. I can't quite remember any of her songs, but she's sold something like 18 million albums, had 20+ top 10 country hits, a Grammy and a bunch of CMA awards. Hannah Montana: The Movie has a dozen new songs from Miley Cyrus, plus stuff from her Pa, Taylor Swift and Rascal Flatts. [...]

New CD Album Releases, 3-17-2009: Marianne Faithfull, Willie Nelson, Nick Lowe There's at least one worthwhile new album this week, Easy Come Easy Go by Marianne Faithfull. She presents herself her as an interpreter of songs - and quite a good one. Her singing here is about the best she's ever done, and the arrangements are unique and strong. The more I listen to this, the more I dig it. Pretty nearly all these performances range from good to excellent, but I'm most taken with the [...]

In Enthusiastic Praise of AIG Bonuses President Obama and much of the country is outraged over AIG paying some $165 million in bonuses to their executives, considering that they've just posted the greatest quarterly loss of any corporation in history (something like $65 billion) and that the US government has handed them somewhere closing in on $200 billion dollars in bailouts. Plus, there'll likely be that much again. "How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?" said President [...]

The Watchmen Movie Photo Gallery and Notes The Watchmen Movie Pictures, page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 I just saw the Watchmen movie this evening, and that was about the quickest three hours I ever spent in a movie theater. I'll have a more extensive review RIGHT HERE , but I've got photo galleries for the movie and a [...]

New CD Album Releases, 3-10-2009: Chris Cornell, Attack of the American Idols- Kelly Clarkson, Taylor Hicks Chris Cornell (born Christopher John Boyle on July 20, 1964) has been a busy beaver in his career as a leader of Soundgarden, Audioslave and Temple of the Dog - besides numerous solo albums and side projects. For all that, I remember one song, "Rusy Cage" and that is because of Johnny Cash singing it. This week, he puts out a joint called Scream . Then there is the [...]

South Park is inappropriate for young children - unless they watch it South Park is a very curious and unique artistic achievement, but totally inappropriate for a lot of people who would be naturally attracted to it - children specifically. It's a cartoon about a bunch of fourth graders - with exceedingly foul mouths which are among the least objectionable elements of the show, what with the drug and sexual and violent themes. Of course, it's labeled MA for "Mature Audiences." It's not really designed for children, who really [...]

In Praise of Evan Bayh I'm not particularly a fan of Evan Bayh. Indeed, I was the Libertarian Party candidate running against Bayh's re-election in 2004 . But in fairness, he's certainly nowhere near being the worst in the pack. I'm sure that I wouldn't be alone in saying that I'd feel a little better if this cautious and generally at least halfway sensible guy were veep instead of the idiotic Joe Biden. But particularly, I believe in praise where it is due. To that end, I wish to [...]

New CD Album Releases, 3-3-2009: U2, Neko Case, The Prodigy Sucking up all the oxygen in the room this week is Sir Bono and U2 with No Line on the Horizon . Should have called it "no memorable tunes on the horizon." I'm suffering to make myself listen to it all the way through. "Get Your Boots On" is the single, and that's just worthless. There's not a decent hook, or even a decent production or arrangement gimmick - much less [...]

New CD Album Releases, 2-24-2009: Chris Isaak, JJ Cale, Jonas Brothers Chris Isaak is back this week with Mr Lucky . It is his first proper album in seven years, and currently as high as #6 at Amazon. Note that he is also starting The Chris Isaak Hour, a weekly talk-music show on A&Es Biography channel. JJ Cale has made a bunch of albums over time, but I've never heard of him really being much of a seller. But Roll On is rated as [...]

Eric Holder's Demagoguery, Legislation Writing Chimps, the Not-So-Magic Negro and the Monkey That Became President In his official capacity as Attorney General, Eric Holder made a speech to Justice Department employees saying Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards... We,as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race... It is an issue we have never been at ease [...]

New CD Album Releases, 2-17-2009: Psapp, Morrissey, Robyn Hitchcock This week we are blessed to get the American release of the third album by Psapp, The Camel's Back . Carim Clasmann and Galia Durant are sometimes created as the creators of a new genre to be called "toytronica" based on being prone to using nominal toy instruments in their productions - though I'd say that such things are maybe a little more subtle or less obvious than previously. I'd broadly describe their sound as a light, pop [...]

Read the Damned Bill Amendment: A (Truly) Modest Proposal for Good Government The US Congress just passed President Obama's trillionish dollar "stimulus" package. The more the public heard about the bill, the less the public liked it. Thus, the Democrats rammed that puppy through as quickly as possible with as little time for the public to digest it as they could manage. They only released the text of this bill one day before the vote. But the damned thing's over 1,000 pages. It's not just that there was [...]

New CD Album Releases, 2-10-2009: India.Arie, Lily Allen, Van Morrison There's definitely at least new album worth listening to this week. India Arie Simpson has Testimony: Vol. 2, Love & Politics . She makes music that gets the benefits of r&b and also of singer-songwriters. There are some actual songs with hooks and melodies here, and pretty much the whole album is consistently good. The mostly gentle r&b swing is effective at buoying up the introspective parts, thus avoiding the kind of wistful drag of songwritery introspection. [...]

Rev Jeremiah Wright Visits the Dew Drop Inn First off, I got to send a lot of love to all my customers at Barger's Boutique . You folks are quite literally helping me keep the lights on. Beyond money, I just love designing buttons, and I get a lot of joy in seeing what designs sell and where. I wonder about the customers. What kind of person needed three Jim Jones pins ? Some goth teenagers, perhaps? The preachers collection has been my best [...]

New CD Album Releases, 2-3-2009: Steve Martin, Melinda Doolittle, Wynonna Judd I haven't heard the whole album yet, but The Crow: New Songs for the 5-String Banjo from Steve Martin sounds pretty exciting. He's been known for banjo playing in his comedy act from the beginning, but has only just put out his first actual banjo music album. Fourteen of the fifteen songs are original Steve Martin compositions, some of them written decades ago. The first song "Daddy Played the Banjo" is available [...]

The Anti-FedEx Al Qaeda Massacre Movement and Heng Tang Battles the Pinko Printer Nappers I'm afraid that Homeland Security is going to end up being involved in this issue. It appears that Federal Express has given my printer to Al Qaeda. And this is a good, brand new PC Magazine Editor's Choice Award winning laser printer. First, we do have at least one good American patriot in this dark story of international intrigue. That would be a guy named Heng Tang who does business as Amazon seller Saving Everyday . [...]

Obama as Don Quixote I recommend for your reading pleasure an article called "Cracking the Obama Code: Don Quixote vs. the Windmill Owners" by a writer named Oleg Atbashian whom I am previously unfamiliar with. This article is outstanding in several directions, and Don Quixote now seems like exactly the right and perfect literary analogy for President Obama - give or take how much you think Obama believes his own supposedly idealistic BS. The spectacle of a bombastic crackpot in medieval armor poking his lance at [...]

New CD Album Releases, 1-27-2009: Bruce Springsteen, Kylie Minogue, Paul McCartney Look, as far as the music business goes, Bruce Springsteen is one of the biggest corporate whores going. You know it, I know, and the American people know it. The Seeger album was an extraordinary and commercially hopeless piece of art - unique in his catalogue. Other than that, it's been all downhill since Darkness 30 odd years ago. The music has become horribly homogenized Springsteen industrial strength music food product, with lots of cheesy [...]

New CD Album Releases, 1-20-2007: Animal Collective, A.C. Newman, Mariah Carey So it looks like President Obama is going to close Gitmo. Speculation is that this will make the detention center there available for the underground White Stripes Nation militia to use as an Imaginationland re-education camp, reportedly to be named. Camp Mimi This will be considered a substantial upgrade to current officially unacknowledged facilities in Iraq at Abu Ghraib. Camp Mimi can address various forms of opposition to the iron-fisted rule of Jack [...]

POTUS on Christians vs Muslims Christianity is not the creed of Asia and Africa at this moment solely because the seventh century Christians of Asia and Africa had trained themselves not to fight, whereas the Moslems were trained to fight.. Christianity was saved in Europe solely because the peoples of Europe fought. If the peoples of Europe in the seventh and eighth centuries, an on up to and including the seventeenth century, had not possessed a military equality with, and gradually a growing superiority over the Mohammedans who invaded Europe, Europe would at [...]