What? You mean a decision was made based on actual merits and results? Race was not a factor? It's really most qualified man for the job?
This is America in the 21st century, right?
But what of the special interest groups and the bleeding heart liberals? How will they spin this?
Hey Reverend Al....go fuck yourself!
I Will Never Wash My Ears Again (Sorry, Mom) Listening to tunes in NYC is furlough fun Published on 6/23/2009
Rick Koster
Arts reporter/columnist
E-Mail: Rick Koster
Phone No.: (860) 701 - 4325Interactive Profile Rick Koster has covered music, books and dining for The Day, and is a regular columnist. He also host’s the paper’s online Behind the Scenes feature. A native Southerner, Koster is the author of two books, Louisiana Music and Texas Music. He thinks, for the most part, dogs are better than people.
Rick’s Playlist - June 23, 2009
1. Hands -- Strangelet
2. Harry Nilsson -- Sings Randy Newman
3. Riverside -- Voices in My Head
4. Isis -- Wavering Radiant
5. Peter Chilvers -- Stormwatcher
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I Will Never Wash My Ears Again (Sorry, Mom) 6/23/2009
These furlough things are sorta fun.
I’ve had two of them, now, and while I can’t really afford any more — at least until the ol’ blood-alcohol level recedes sufficiently that I can sell a few more pints of plasma and recompense a bit of the income loss.
One very cool thing that happened, though, is that the Bride Unit and I were invited down to Avatar Studios in Manhattan for a listening party to premiere The Incident, the newest Porcupine Tree CD, which will be officially available in September.
You may or may not be weary of my frequent pontificating on the Greatness of The Porkers — archival records here at the Mighty Day indicate I haven’t mentioned them in weeks — but forget that for a minute. Pretend you were sitting in a world class recording studio with a chance to hear, well, any new recording. In an acoustically perfect room with equipment of this calibre, the pure sound quality alone is worth the trip and the experience.
In this case, it so happened that the album is by one of our favorite bands — plus you can throw into the equation the fact that Porcupine Tree’s last CD, the still-immortal Fear of a Blank Planet, was nominated for a Grammy for sound quality. Whether you like their music or not, the Porkers make records that sound breathtakingly beautiful.
This wasn’t ZZ Top, in other words.
Perhaps the only trouble with such an event is that, as noted above, the CD won’t hit the streets for several weeks. And given that The Incident is a 55-minute song cycle with a variety of connected snippets interjected within longer works, it was just a huge batch of musical creativity to wrap one’s head around in only one listen. Segments hang inside my brain like cave-bats, but a lot more is only a blur in memory. It'd be nice to be able to hear it all again and start to digest it. Soon ...
Head Pork Man Steven Wilson was on hand at the soiree although, perhaps undestandably, he stayed in a separate reception room nursing, it appeared, a glass of red wine. I can imagine it would be fairly odd for him to sit in the same room with a group of strangers staring at him, particularly since he’s heard the damned thing already about 63,000 times.
In any case, it was a pleasure to meet him, at which time I offered typical and bumblingly moronic adulatory comments that he fielded graciously by not falling into a full-bore sleep. I was so lame that I almost wish he’d commented on my thunderous lack of anything new or clever to say, but he’s too nice for such things.
So I offered him a free horse in gratitude for all his work.
Not really.
If you could attend a listening party to an as-yet-unrleased album by an artist, who would it be?
Porcupine Tree has issued the following announcement about the recording of their new album:
"Roadrunner have posted some clips of Porcupine Tree working in the studio on their forthcoming album The Incident here.
"Also the cover image and subtitles to the various parts of the long song cycle that takes up the whole of the first CD were revealed at a playback in New York earlier this week. The cover was photographed by Lasse Hoile and designed by Carl Glover."
The track listing for "The Incident" will be as follows:
1. occam’s razor (1.55)
2. the blind house (5.47)
3. great expectations (1.26)
4. kneel and disconnect (2.03)
5. drawing the line (4.43)
6. the incident (5.20)
7. your unpleasant family (1.48)
8. the yellow windows of the evening train (2.00)
9. time flies (11.40)
10. degree zero of liberty (1.45)
11. octane twisted (5.03)
12. the séance (2.39)
13. circle of manias (2.18)
14. i drive the hearse (6.41)
Grammy-nominated UK recording artist PORCUPINE TREE recently confirmed the title of their tenth studio album: The Incident. The new record is set to be released on Roadrunner Records on September 22nd, as a double CD. 
The Incident
Porcupine Tree are happy to announce the forthcoming release of their tenth studio album "The Incident". The record is set to be released via Roadrunner Records worldwide on 21st September, as a double CD.
The centre-piece is the title track, which takes up the whole of the first disc. The 55-minute work is described as “a slightly surreal song cycle about beginnings and endings and the sense that ‘after this, things will never be the same again’.”
The self-produced album is completed by four standalone compositions that developed out of band writing sessions last December - Flicker, Bonnie The Cat, Black Dahlia, and Remember Me Lover feature on a separate EP length disc to stress their independence from the song cycle.
Video footage of the band in the studio working on The Incident, as well as audio previews, will be available online soon. The band will tour extensively to promote the album from mid September onwards.
Considering that I have to park in supermarket parking lots every day, I am no longer concerned about dings and scratches. So it gives me great joy to inconvenience assholes like this on a rainy day.
Yes, my car is the one on the right, perfectly parked between the white lines.
I only wish they weren't crooked so I could have parked closer to their door.
