Get Cynical

Since I posted his reaction to Lennon’s death earlier today I thought I might as well post his reaction to George dying.

I just finished his Berlin Diary so was looking for some of the old broadcasts and found this.

William L. Shirer, author of Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich and volumes of 20th Century Journey: A Memoir of a Life and the Times, speaks with Don Swaim in this 1984 interview about being a radio correspondent in the early days of radio journalism. Shirer tells a truly remarkable story about working for CBS Radio during WWII doing war coverage and trying to get interviews with people like Winston Churchill.

Their tagline says it all:

A Virtual Anal-Probe Of Police And Others In Law Enforcement

(Thanks PVC)

This is the Senator who said, when referring to Clinton’s sex scandal, “Bad boy, Bill Clinton. You’re a naughty boy.”

Last June, Larry Craig, the Senator who was publicly outed to absolutely no ensuing scandal, was arrested for “lewd conduct” in a men’s room at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. He pleaded guilty on August 8, paid $500, got out of the 10-day jail sentence, and was given a year of probation. His office referred to the incident — and this is all from Roll Call so you can’t accuse us of making this bizarre quote up — as a “he said/he said misunderstanding.” They claim they’ll explain what they mean by this later today, when they come up with a convincing lie.

It’s 48 minutes long but it’s a terrific episode that even includes a recreation of the Milgram experiment.

From TMZ:

“I will redeem myself” said Vick, “I have to.”

Vick wasn’t specific about the acts he was sorry for, but declared, “Dogfighting is a terrible thing. I reject it.”

Between apologies to everyone from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank — to all the kids who used to look up to him, Vick declared that he’s found Jesus and has turned his life over to God.

And here’s James Randi using the same technique years earlier:

Most of these are really subtle but I won’t be able to listen to Zep’s Since I’ve Been Loving You again without hearing that squeaky bass drum pedal.

Inspired by “engineering screw-ups” on Gearslutz, here’s a list of recording and mixing bloopers that made it past the mixing room onto the final release.

These aren’t performance missteps, where the band missed a cue, or the singer came in too soon. There are certainly countless examples of those but most were included intentionally, to add character or realism. Rather, the flubs below highlight mistakes in recording or mixing that could have been corrected before the track was released.

Some of the mistakes probably went unnoticed. Some, I’m sure, were noticed and begrudgingly accepted because of a deadline. But reassuringly for us amateurs, they all prove that even the pros aren’t perfect.

A terrific and long interview from the Paris Review:

INTERVIEWER

Did the study of anthropology later color your writings?

VONNEGUT

It confirmed my atheism, which was the faith of my fathers anyway. Religions were exhibited and studied as the Rube Goldberg inventions I’d always thought they were. We weren’t allowed to find one culture superior to any other. We caught hell if we mentioned races much. It was highly idealistic.

INTERVIEWER

Almost a religion?

VONNEGUT

Exactly. And the only one for me. So far.

INTERVIEWER

What was your dissertation?

VONNEGUT

Cat’s Cradle.

INTERVIEWER

But you wrote that years after you left Chicago, didn’t you?

VONNEGUT

I left Chicago without writing a dissertation—and without a degree. All my ideas for dissertations had been rejected, and I was broke, so I took a job as a PR man for General Electric in Schenectady. Twenty years later, I got a letter from a new dean at Chicago, who had been looking through my dossier. Under the rules of the university, he said, a published work of high quality could be substituted for a dissertation, so I was entitled to an M.A. He had shown Cat’s Cradle to the anthropology department, and they had said it was halfway decent anthropology, so they were mailing me my degree. I’m class of 1972 or so.

INTERVIEWER

Congratulations.

VONNEGUT

It was nothing, really. A piece of cake.

INTERVIEWER

Some of the characters in Cat’s Cradle were based on people you knew at GE, isn’t that so?

VONNEGUT

Dr. Felix Hoenikker, the absentminded scientist, was a caricature of Dr. Irving Langmuir, the star of the GE research laboratory. I knew him some. My brother worked with him. Langmuir was wonderfully absentminded. He wondered out loud one time whether, when turtles pulled in their heads, their spines buckled or contracted. I put that in the book. One time he left a tip under his plate after his wife served him breakfast at home. I put that in. His most important contribution, though, was the idea for what I called “Ice-9,” a form of frozen water that was stable at room temperature. He didn’t tell it directly to me. It was a legend around the laboratory—about the time H. G. Wells came to Schenectady. That was long before my time. I was just a little boy when it happened—listening to the radio, building model airplanes.

(via Gerry Canavan)