The Great Leap Forward

Who's who in the Jack Abramoff scandal?

Find out which of your elected Republican representatives (you know, the "adults") were bought and paid for at the comprehensive Abramoff scandal site Jack In The House.

Come on down, Tom DeLay (R-TX)!

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay once referred to Abramoff as "one of his closest and dearest friends." This is no surprise given the $40,000 Abramoff and his wife have personally donated to DeLay and his PAC, not to mention the multiple overseas expense paid trips that Abramoff set up for DeLay and his top staffers to Russia, Saipan and Britain over the years. Funding for these trips has been closely tied to Indian gaming tribes, Russian business tycoons and overseas sweatshop operators.

Step up to the plate, Bob Ney (R-OH)!

United States Representative Bob Ney's (R-OH) relationship with Jack Abramoff began in 2002 when Abramoff lobbied to have Ney insert the provision into an unrelated bill that would help the Tigua tribe, one of his clients, re-open their casino. Soon after Ney agreed to move the Tigua legislation, Abramoff directed the Tiguas to contribute $32,000 to Ney. Later that year Abramoff held several fundraisers for Ney at his posh MCI center skybox and took Ney on a golfing junket to Scotland.

Don't be shy, John "Box turtle" Cornyn (R-TX)!

U.S. Senator John Cornyn played an integral role as then-Texas Attorney General in closing the Tigua Indian tribe's Speaking Rock Casino near El Paso, Texas in February 2002. Cornyn's effort to close down the casino was supported by a grassroots campaign led by conservative Christian lobbyist Ralph Reed. Reed was paid over $4 million to lead the campaign by the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana - funneled through Jack Abramoff -- which wanted to put the Tigua's rival casino out of business. After the Tigua's casino was successfully shut down, Abramoff convinced the Tigua to hire him and Mike Scanlon to lobby Congress to re-open it.

On April 18, 2005, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed Texas Public Information Act requests with both the Texas Office of the Attorney General and with the Texas Governor's Office to obtain information regarding contacts between former Attorney General Cornyn or Texas Governor Rick Perry and Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon and Ralph Reed, as well as for all documents related to the Tigua Tribe of El Paso, Texas. (FOIA to the Texas Attorney General's Office; FOIA to Texas Governor's Office)

And don't give me that "everybody does it" shit. This scandal is 100% Republican - will your whore media report it?

(Found through this Daily Kos diary.)

ah, another music blog...

If you like old new wave (and you know you do), then try Lost Bands of the New Wave Era. The Payola$, APB, Any Trouble and Josef K are among the bands featured there currently.

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born at the crest of the empire.

Long name, good blog. Mike linked to me for the prank post, so here's one for Mike.

New flickr photos.

Added a few - check the flickr badge somewhere down the left side of this page...

With friends like these...

The sad part is this is the second year in a row they got him (but not with the same prank)...

The idea was to pre-record a Texas Lotto drawing and a save it on the TIVO. We bought a lottery ticket with the numbers to match that pre-recorded lottery drawing. The day of Haasfest, we asked Thad stop on his way over and buy a couple Lotto tickets. At some point in the night, we swapped the tickets he had bought with the fake tickets. If you ever wanted to know what it felt like to win the lottery, just watch Thad check his numbers...

Christmas at 30 Rock, 28 Dec 2005.

Photos from the Top of the Rock. The Empire State Building is in the background.
Photo #1  is Kim. (It was windy.) Photo #2 is NYC, starring the Empire State Building. Photo #3 is the Rock's Christmas tree. Photo #4 is me.

Why Jack Abramoff will bring the Republicans down.

Haven't looked through this one myself yet, but if you want to know about the depth of Republican corruption these days, you should probably start here.

The fast rise and steep fall of Jack Abramoff (from The Washington Post)

He may be ready to make a deal.

More end-of-year stuff.

This time from the Boston Phoenix:

Who to watch out for in '06 - looks like the Subways are the new Death Cab for Cutie.

Boston will rock in '06 - new ones from Mission of Burma and Dresden Dolls, among others.

Go to a live show if you're in the area.

The best 10 local releases - I didn't know Tony Goddess (from Papas Fritas) had a new band! Juliana Hatfield gets a mention as well.

20 years ago today #13 - 28 Dec 1985

TT The Bears Place, Cambridge, MA - Beginners Only, Christmas, The Flies

It was Christmas week, so no touring bands - locals only. Ad's old band Beginners Only were up first. I was probably more into them by now, having started to warm up to the Boston guitar-based indie scene. I assume that I went to this show with Mark Lo.

Christmas were next. I didn't know much about 'em at the time, except that they seemed to be pretty good. Certainly good enough for me to buy a copy of In excelsior dayglo the following year (on the Big Time label, still have it). And Ultraprophets of thee psykick revolution in 1989 (their lone major label appearance - I.R.S. and I have this one too! On CD, no less!). (There was a third, not-so-good CD in 1993, Vortex.) Dan Salzman was the bass player and was one of two people that I ran into in public who, when I approached them asking if they were in [insert band name here], denied it! (The other was Christopher Ewen of Figures On A Beach.) So Dan, if you're reading this 20 years later, fuck you! (But I'm over it, really - why would you do that? These people were not rock stars.)

As you probably know, Liz Cox and Michael Cudahy went on to form Combustible Edison, the faux-hip lounge act of the early '90s. (Old Sub Pop page here. And a fan page circa 2000 here.) They seem to have petered out around 1998 or so.

Here's a (very old) page dedicated to the band with a link to a review of an April 1986 show.

Finally, The Flies - not to be confused with the 1960s version. They had an LP, Get wise. (Follow-up EP was Get burned.) They were into the garage rock. Nat Freedberg went on to form The Titanics (Joe Harvard reminisces here) and The Upper Crust, who rock the powdered wigs. Seriously. Nat is now known as Lord Bendover.

Jesus, they're still around. And they have fans. Here's a 1997 article from the Boston Phoenix. And a Titanics mention from 1999.

So far:
Number of shows seen, December 1985: 2
Number of bands seen, December 1985: 5
Total number of shows: 13
Total number of bands seen: 32