Merry Christmas! Katy Perry Holiday Bikini Pictures!

Well, a nice gift for my babe blogging readers!

At TMZ, "Katy Perry: Ho, Ho, HOT!"

Politically Aware Songs Go Missing in 2000s?

So say Reed Johnson and Deborah Vankin, at the Los Angeles Times, "For politically aware songs, the '00s were all for naught":

The '60s gave us "Blowin' in the Wind," folk-poet Bob Dylan's challenge to the brutal status quo. The '70s served up Neil Young's "Ohio," an anthem of generational rage against the military-industrial machine. The '80s laid down "The Message," Grandmaster Flash's hip-hop jeremiad about the vicious cycle of race-based poverty. The '90s broke loose with Rage Against the Machine's "Bulls on Parade," a rap-rock rant targeting corporate greed and cultural imperialism.

And the '00s? It's produced some memorably sardonic screeds (Green Day's "American Idiot"), patriotic hell-yeah's out of Nashville like Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue (The Angry American)," and dirges of quiet desperation emanating from "The Suburbs," courtesy of Arcade Fire.

But much of the music that has topped the Billboard charts in the new millennium — Britney, Lil Wayne, Lady Gaga — might suggest that America has been one big party since 2001, despite the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, two major wars, a wobbly economy and a bitterly divided government. Likewise, the recent popular manifestations of that unrest, the tea party and Occupy Wall Street movements, so far seem to have been largely lost on popular music.

That has left some artists, music industry professionals and listeners pondering how well today's music is serving the restless masses and capturing the essence of times that indeed are a-changin'.

Look, not everyone can be the Bob Dylan of the age, but I'm not buying the lack of "politically aware" songs for an entire decade. And the authors are mostly shilling for #OWS, which is too bad, since it's a really lame movement. Besides, Keith Morris is still jamming. Amazing that the Los Angeles Times overlooked Off! in their own backyard:

Your high social caste
Privileged friends
You lure me in
But I can't be your friend
Hit on Miss Liberty
Under the cherry tree
Drunk on hypocrisy
I'm standing in the shadows
And I'm pissing in the punchbowl
I don't belong
Cocktail party
Pin the tail on the donkey
Icing on my face
But I don't like the taste
Right wing mentality
God and democracy
Red carpet royalty
I'm standing in the shadows
And I'm pissing in the punchbowl
I don't belong

New Air Jordans Cause Race Riots Across the United States

That's hardly exaggerating.

See the headline at Edmonton Journal, "New Air Jordan shoes cause shopping frenzy in Seattle, across U.S."

And at Small Dead Animals, "The Decline and Fall of the American Empire."

Added: At London's Daily Mail, "Arrests, pepper spray, brawls and doors pulled off hinges: Chaos at stores across U.S. as thousands of shoppers scramble for new Air Jordans."

Heading Out to 'Girl With the Dragon Tattoo'

And I'll have a response tomorrow.

And ICYMI, the reviews are here: "'Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' Out Today."

'Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' Out Today

The New York Times has an approving review, "Tattooed Heroine Metes Out Slick, Punitive Violence":

Tiny as a sparrow, fierce as an eagle, Lisbeth Salander is one of the great Scandinavian avengers of our time, an angry bird catapulting into the fortresses of power and wiping smiles off the faces of smug, predatory pigs. The animating force in Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium” trilogy — incarnated on screen first by Noomi Rapace and now, in David Fincher’s adaptation of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” by Rooney Mara — Lisbeth is an outlaw feminist fantasy-heroine, and also an avatar of digital antiauthoritarianism.

Her appeal arises from a combination of vulnerability and ruthless competence. Lisbeth can hack any machine, crack any code and, when necessary, mete out righteous punitive violence, but she is also (to an extent fully revealed in subsequent episodes) a lost and abused child. And Ms. Mara captures her volatile and fascinating essence beautifully. Hurt, fury and calculation play on her pierced and shadowed face. The black bangs across her forehead are as sharp and severe as an obsidian blade, but her eyebrows are as downy and pale as a baby’s. Lisbeth inspires fear and awe and also — on the part of Larsson and his fictional alter ego, the crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist (played in Mr. Fincher’s film by Daniel Craig) — a measure of chivalrous protectiveness.

Continue reading.

The Los Angeles Times isn't as enthusiastic, "Movie review: 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' is too frigid."

Britney Spears Engaged

Good for her.

She excited!

See MTV: "Britney Spears Is Engaged."

Also, at London's Daily Mail, "Vegas, baby! Delighted Britney Spears and Jason Trawick head to Sin City to celebrate engagement."

Michelle Obama Secret Affair?

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Michelle's Havin an Affair and Is Barack Obama Gay?"

Well, it's a tabloid report, but you never know with these things.

Previously: "Obama's Gay Nightmare: Still Waiting for Barry's Backside Boogie Pics!"

'Misty Mountain Hop'

Led Zeppelin:

Walkin' in the park just the other day, baby,
What do you, what do you think I saw?
Crowds of people sittin' on the grass with flowers in their hair said,
"Hey, Boy, do you wanna score?"
And you know how it is.
I really don't know what time it was, woh, oh,oh
so I asked them if I could stay a while.

I didn't notice but it had got very dark and I was really
Really out of my mind.
Just then a policeman stepped up to me and asked us, said, "Please,hey,
would we care to all get in line, Get in line."
Well, you know, they asked us to stay for tea and have some fun; Oh, oh,oh.
he said that his friends would all drop by, ooh.

Why don't you take a good look at yourself and describe what you see,
and baby, baby, baby, do you like it?
There you sit, sitting spare like a book on a shelf rustin',
ah, not trying to fight it.
You really don't care if they're comin'; oh, oh,
I know that it's all a state of mind.

If you go down in the streets today, baby, you better,
you better open your eyes. WOAH WOAH YEAH
Folk down there really don't care, really don't care, don't care , really don't , which, which way the pressure lies,
so I've decided what I'm gonna do now.
So I'm packing my bags for the Misty Mountains
where the spirits go now,
over the hills where the spirits fly.
I really don't know.

Conservatives Must Recapture American Universities

I was thinking about this when Pepperdine's Professor Gregory McNeal sent me the link to his essay on drone warfare. There are a lot of conservatives in American higher education, and not just professors. I've been reading my students' term papers and most of them are so full of common sense and reasonable analysis. I sometimes wonder how instead that college campuses have becomes such intellectually violent places, inhospitable to the robust exchange of ideas. I think conservatives on campus often aren't as mobilized as are partisans on the left, and of course given the radical left orientation of the unions, there's good incentive not to be.

In any case, take a look at the piece from Ed Driscoll, "Dropping the A-Bomb on History" (via Instapundit):

If conservatives ever want to recapture the high ground of culture, just creating an alternative news media is nowhere near sufficient. they have to — somehow — recapture academia, where culture is ultimately created. And destroyed as well.

RELATED: From Bruce Kessler, at Maggie's Farm, "Jews Confront The Gentlemen’s Agreement On Campuses."

Lady Gaga 'Marry the Night'

At Mirror UK, "Lady Gaga topless and eating cereal in shocking Marry The Night video set in a psychiatric ward."

The video, all 14:00 minutes of it, is at Los Angeles Times, "Lady Gaga's 'Marry the Night' video: five delicious moments."

Happy Birthday Britney!

She's 30!

At LAT, "Britney Spears turns 30: A timeline of the singer's life in video."

'Love The Way You Lie'

And, ICYMI, the interview with Eminem, at GQ's, "Survivors Music Portfolio":

The current Mathers narrative revolves around his triumph over a nasty addiction to prescription meds. It's not a touchy subject: Within minutes, he introduces the topic, explaining how he used to drink and pop pills to get through his concerts. "I'm very much a creature of habit," he says, picking up his Red Bull. "If I'm used to waking up in the morning and having one of these, I could do it every morning for the next ten years straight until I find something else to move on to. So if I'm used to taking a Vicodin when I wake up in the morning because I'm hungover from ­drinking or taking pills..." He trails off. "The bigger the crowd, the bigger my habit got."

Mathers says you can trace the arc of his addiction by listening to his albums: He was more or less sober writing the white-trash party that was The Slim Shady LP (1999); he credits experimentation with drugs for taking his music to unexpected places on The Marshall Mathers LP (2000); with The Eminem Show (2002), he struck the perfect balance—a potent mix of punch-line raps and intensely biographical material. Then the balance tipped: His fourth album, Encore, was his weakest, and it took him two years to complete because of his addiction to pills. "Five or six songs leaked from the original version of Encore," he says. "So I had to go in and make new songs to replace them. In my head I was pissed off: 'Oh well. Songs leaked. Fuck it. I'm just going to take a bunch of fucking pills and go in there and have a party with myself.' I'm sure the more pills I took, the goofier I got."

He's a little hazy about that time, when he was taking, by his own account, somewhere between sixty and ninety pills a day, including Valium, Vicodin, Ambien, and Seroquel (used to treat schizophrenia). "Ambien," he says, "ate a hole through my brain." He thinks he went to rehab in 2005, but don't hold him to that. Like I said, it's a little hazy.

Rehab was not a safe space for Eminem. "Look," he says, "every addict in rehab feels like everyone's staring at them. With me? Everyone was staring at me. I could never be comfortable. There were people there that treated me normal. Then there were a bunch of fucking idiots who aren't even concentrating on their own sobriety because they're so worried about mine. They're stealing my hats, my books—it was chaos. Everything was drama in there. And at the time, I didn't really want to get clean. Everybody else wanted me to. And anyone will tell you: If you're not ready, nothing is going to change you. Love, nothing."

He left rehab pissed off and heavily burdened with what he calls "woe is me"—and started popping pills again. It nearly killed him. "I came to in the hospital and I didn't know what the fuck happened," he says. "Tubes in me and shit, fuckin' needles in my arms. I didn't realize I had [overdosed]. I wanted my drugs—get me the fuck outta there! I think I was clean for two weeks. I was trying so hard—I was trying to do it for my kids—but I just wasn't ready."

What finally got him clean after a second relapse wasn't his kids or his coma or even hip-hop. This time he really thought he was going to die. "I had a feeling in my arm that was weird, man," he says. "Like, it really freaked me out. So I went to some people I trust and said, 'Look, I know I need help. I'm ready now.' I got a room in the same hospital where I overdosed, and I detoxed."

More here: "The Survivors: Eminem."

The Rolling Stones at 50

At LAT, "The Rolling Stones' Ageless Rock":

Los Vazquez Sounds

The conservative blogosphere is erupting over this video, featuring singer Angie, 10, of Los Vazquez Sounds. Via The Other McCain, "Incredible 10-Year-Old Mexican Singer Rocks the World With Music Video," and "Vasquez Sounds: El Talento Musical de Mexicali Lanzó a la Fama por el Video."

Also at Pop Crush, "WATCH 10-YEAR-OLD ANGIE VAZQUEZ COVER ADELE’S ‘ROLLING IN THE DEEP’."

Shoppers Scour Stores for Black Friday Bargains

At Chicago Tribune, "Shoppers hit the deck running on Thanksgiving night."

And check this monstrous post at London's Daily Mail, "Black Friday madness: Grandfather body-slammed by cops, man tasered, two shot, Wal-Mart in bomb scare and woman pepper-sprays rival shoppers on day of chaos."

'Push'

Well, since I'm on the music, here's Rob Thomas and friends. Thomas' solo outfit played at Harrah's Rincon earlier this year. Looking for an encore in 2012 and I'll check 'em out:

The Target Lady is Back!

Yeah, the commercialism's a bit much sometimes, but one of the pleasures of Black Friday is Maria Bamford, the Target Lady. I'm seeing Target ad buys during the Green Bay-Detroit game of Fox.

RELATED: From Fashion Ad Week, on Twitter: "Thanksgiving is all about The 4 F's: Family, Football, Friends & Food!"

Medical Marijuana Target of U.S. Prosecutors

At New York Times, "Medical Marijuana Industry Is Unnerved by U.S. Crackdown."

UKIAH, Calif. — An intensifying federal crackdown on growers and sellers of state-authorized medical marijuana has badly shaken the billion-dollar industry, which has sprung up in California since voters approved medical use of the drug in 1996, and has highlighted the stark contradiction between federal and state policies.

Federal law classifies the possession and sale of marijuana as a serious crime and does not grant exceptions for medical use, so the programs adopted here, in 15 other states and in the District of Columbia exist in an odd legal limbo. While federal agencies have long targeted Californians who blatantly reap illegal profits in the name of medicine, or who smuggle marijuana across state lines, the Justice Department said in 2009 that it would not normally pursue groups providing marijuana to sick patients, in accordance with state laws.

But in the last several weeks, federal prosecutors have raided or threatened to seize the property of scores of growers and dispensaries in California that, in some cases, are regarded by local officials as law-abiding models. At the same time, the Internal Revenue Service has levied large, disputed tax charges against the state’s largest dispensary, threatening its ability to continue.

In a hint of the simmering federal-state tensions, Kamala D. Harris, the attorney general of California, described in pointed terms the Oct. 7 announcement by four United States attorneys of their tough new campaign against many dispensaries, which they called commercial operations that violate the intent of California law as well as federal statutes.

“It was a unilateral federal action, and it has only increased uncertainty about how Californians can legitimately comply with state law,” Ms. Harris said in an interview. Since federal authorities do not recognize that marijuana can serve medical ends, she said, “they are ill equipped to be the decision makers as to which providers are violating the law.”

Kamala Harris is a blithering idiot. The Feds know exactly what's going on, which is that medical marijuana's a scam. Some patients may benefit, but otherwise the whole agenda is about stealth legalization.

And since I'm on this, I've been meaning to post Melanie Phillips' killer essay, "Drug legalisation? We need it like a hole in the head.

Melanie Phillips provides the essential conservative argument on the legalization debate (and she devastates the case of Portugal, which is widely cited by legalization enthusiasts as the "successful model" of decriminalization). But compare to David Swindle, "Our Deceitful Marxist President’s Cruel War on Sick Medicinal Marijuana Patients." It's a winding piece, but I'm still not convinced pot smoking's not counter-cultural. Or, let's just say that the tea party folks --- who I've been protesting with for over two years --- aren't down with it. But the Occupy folks are: "Zuccotti Utopia: Portraits of The New Revolutionaries." (Also, federalization of drug policy by itself doesn't make a conservative argument on marijuana legalization, and the federal government does indeed have authority to regulate "which of the plants God set growing on this earth" --- it's called the Commerce Clause, which kicks in when drugs and drug-related inputs are bought and sold across state lines. Besides, as I always say, drugs are for losers.)

RELATED: At Los Angeles Times, "L.A. council to debate whether to outlaw medical pot stores."

The Rise and Demise of the Zuccotti Park Commune

I'm just now getting a chance to read this phenomenal photo-essay from El Marco, "Zuccotti Utopia: Portraits of The New Revolutionaries."

Grab a cup of coffee. The dude knows what he's talking about.

Zombie comments as well, "The entire Occupy movement summarized in one sign."

'Nights in White Satin'

Check out Jonathan Sanders piece at PJ Media, "So You Think You Hate Punk Rock: The Five Bands That Will Change Your Mind." It's interesting, and a bit strange. Punk was indeed unusual at the time (1970s) but's it's mainstream now --- looked back on today as a period of innovation and rejuvenation in the history of rock and roll. I don't know if you can find folks who truly "hate" punk, since if they like The Clash or Green Day they're punked out. The other thing is that Sanders lists five bands for those new to the genre, but he doesn't mention any Los Angeles bands. I used to hang out with musicians back in the day --- like Annette Zilinskas, the original bassist with The Bangles --- who pretty much refused to accord any superiority to British punk bands, to say nothing of bands from New York.

In any case, may I suggest The Dickies, a Los Angeles mainstay, formed in 1977. They routinely opened for The Ramones and it looks like they're still going strong. Enjoy: