I love Shaquille O’Neal. Seriously. He was a great player and is a smart, very funny guy off the court. But damn, is the man delusional. Shaq got involved in a little Twitter dustup this week with another hoops luminary, former Michael Jordan sidekick Scottie Pippen. Long story short, Shaq thinks the all-time greatest Lakers five would thump the all-time
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We love symbolic victories in the culture wars. But what is Obama doing while we’re distracted? Selling us out, just like Ronnie did. I used to argue that Ronald Reagan was playing the religious right like a wore-out banjo. Sorta. The big social issue of the day, of course, was abortion, and Ronnie did a lot of talking about how
Read moreSometimes bands we love break up. Or someone dies. Or … maybe they just slide from relevance. If you’re like me, there are a lot of acts who fit this description. I miss Space Team Electra so bad it hurts, for instance. REM faded away more or less gracefully, but still I long for 1984. Here are some bands and solo
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When I was in graduate school at Iowa State in the late 1980s I hit a period, during my second year, where a little homesickness set in. So I did something to remind myself of the place and people I was missing: I bought a Confederate flag and affixed it to my desk in the office, which I shared with
Read moreColorado Railroad Museum, Golden
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For our founding fathers, “people” was a euphemism” that meant “rich white men.” Sadly, the same is true for many of our current leaders.
Read morePeople keep telling me I have to be realistic. But step one of being a realist is acknowledging reality. I have been pretty vocal in my criticism of Barack Obama over the past seven years. I have reamed the modern day Vichy Democratic party every chance I have gotten. I have stomped on Bill Clinton and Al Gore, the architects of the
Read moreOh look, Till Lindemann from Rammstein has a new side project with Peter Tägtgren of Hypocrisy and Pain. What are the critics saying? Pigs, blood, phlegm and characters right out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting alternatively play in morbid grime or on a virginal white stage. Heavy guitar sounds, dark choirs and driving drum beats surge in the background. The lyrics are
Read moreColorado Railroad Museum, Golden
Read moreAs a performer and storyteller, Virgil Runnels became a working class hero because he was a man of the people. My best friend Jesse and his family were huge pro wrestling fans. I was pretty young at the time – no more than 10, probably – and I remember the Saturday, sitting in the living room at Jesse’s watching Mid-Atlantic Championship
Read moreRecently the wizards at Facebook rolled out a new feature: See Less. It allows you, allegedly, to mark certain of your friends so that fewer of their posts show up in your feed. Intended as a polite way of dialing back your exposure to overparticipaters and people that, for whatever reason, you just aren’t as interested in as others. Great
Read moreAnybody wants to know why I can’t wait for the new Jason Isbell disc to drop, here you go. This ought to answer any questions you might have. Is there a better songwriter alive today?
Read moreI don’t normally pimp products and services, although perhaps I should. I, like most of the staff and many of our readers, am a dedicated consumer of local, hand-made, craft and independent everything and tend to avoid mass production/corporate retailers and goods when possible. Not long ago I reconnected, thanks to the magic of social media, with an old college
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