As if some little corrupt governor,
Upon Lake Michigan's hem,
Went wandering down the corridors,
Until he lucky came
To a vacancy of Senator,
To opportunity for gain,
To willing, eager crowds of suitors,
Such a prize to be won!
I say, as if this little governor
To Eden wandered in--
What then? Why, nothing, only
Your inference therefrom!
Say you're proofreading something someone else wrote and you find something right at the top of the page that doesn't make sense. So, you make a note about how to correct it and continue on. Then you find another problem, and you make a correction. Maybe you find another. By this point, you think the person who wrote it is sloppy or incompetent. You're feeling pretty smart and smug, and soon enough, you find something else that you think is a problem. But, while trying to come up with a correction, you discover that the problem was you: you were expecting to find problems and so you jumped on something that you simply didn't understand quickly enough and blamed that on the person who wrote it.
I see this all the time in my side business (software). A person finds a bug, sends me a worried report about it, I fix it. He finds another, sends me a "Oops, looks like I found another one!" report. I fix it. Now he thinks he's the best bug-finder ever, and/or that my program is rife with problems. So he quickly sends me a list of five or six new bugs that he thinks he's discovered. But the bugs in this last batch always turn out to be problems with his understanding.
Somewhere in the process, your brain switches from analyzer to attacker, and you start finding problems where there aren't any because you've convinced yourself that you're in a target-rich environment. You start mistaking your own lack of understanding for my lack of understanding.
In the aftermath of the deadly Mumbai terror attacks, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has come out with guns blazing - with a plan to get all 1,000 rookie cops ready to use heavy artillery in time for New Year's Eve, The Post has learned.
The NYPD wants all 1,000 Police Academy recruits trained to use M4 automatic machine guns - which are now carried only by the 400 cops in its elite Emergency Service Unit - in time for the holiday celebration in Times Square.
The recruits currently at the academy will get three days of training to familiarize them with the weapon, police said.
That line in the Kings' song below ("Nothing matters but the weekend, from a Tuesday point of view"), reminds me of something I was thinking of a few days ago: do people write songs about working any more ?
Think back, dear reader, to the hard-working days of yore. There's the aforementioned Kings' "Switching To Glide", and also Huey Lewis' "Workin For A Livin", Rush's "Working Man", Styx's "Blue Collar Man", Loverboy's "Working For The Weekend", BTO's "Takin Care Of Business", Dolly Parton's "9 To 5", The Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night", Superchuck's "Slack Motherfucker", etc..
Where are today's tributes to the hard-working blue-collar men and women? Did they go offshore with the blue-collar jobs? Are there Chinese and Indian songs about the Weekend? Do they have weekends in China?
Oh man, I wanted this album so bad. But thanks to a long series of record club screw-ups, I could never manage to get it. You might be tempted to skip the intro and get right to the leopard lounge gear rock action, but then you'd miss the laser guitar blast. So don't.
The Cars, "Just What I Needed"
Benjamin Orr got no respect. Everybody assumes Ric Ocasek sang all the Cars songs, but Orr sang many of them - many of the hits, even. And Elliot Easton remains a criminally underrated guitarist.
Red Rider, "Lunatic Fringe"
Back in the day when MTV wasn't pure flaming ass, they played this one a lot. I loved it. And then he did that fucking "Life Is A Highway" song.
Split Enz, "One Step Ahead"
I always liked this one better than "I Got You". I'm not sure if I still do.
Devo, "Girl U Want"
Search the iTunes store for "Girl U Want", there are dozens of covers. For good reason. Devo's best song, IMO.
Pretenders, Tattooed Love Boys
My favorite Pretenders song, I think. The guitar break is just fucking awesome. I get chills every time I hear it. All hail J.H. Scott.
Blue Oyster Cult, "Burning For You"
Not a great song, but a sentimental favorite because it was one of the first wave of vids on MTV.
The Kings, "This Beat Goes On/Switchin' to Glide"
Not sure if there was ever a real video for this one; I don't remember seeing one. But I remember hearing this song a lot because my mother and all her friends were really into it. "Nothing matters but the weekend, from a Tuesday point of view". You said it, head King.
David Bowie, "Ashes To Ashes"
Love this video.
Depeche Mode, "Just Can't Get Enough"
I was amazed when I first saw this: it was all done with keyboards! The future was now. Then. Whatever.
