What a great first real full release week for new music! Gary Numan finally says "hold my beer" and puts out his best work in decades, Danny Elfman debuts a song that he was going to perform at Coachella last year, a posthumous release from David Bowie, new music from stalwarts like Matthew Sweet and Sparks, new hip-hop from Cnow, Lost Boy and more, Band-Maid's long-anticipated new album, Woody and Jeremy, Beach Bunny, Wolves at Midnight, Finneas, covers by Pomplamoose and Stories, and so much more! 2 hours of new music - Enjoy!
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I want to tell you a little story about a real estate developer named Harlan Crow. He's retired and the scion of a real estate development family based in Texas. I used to work for him. He is one of the founders of the conservative group Freedomworks. He is unbelievably rich. He is the only Billionaire I've ever shook hands with. In person, he's affable, friendly, and quick with a joke and makes fun of himself readily. When he retired he sent a video out to all of the employees showing how he was going to spend his retirement bullfighting in Spain. No bulls were hurt, he was thrown by bulls several times and the video was actually very funny.
If not for his politics I think I'd actually like the man. We actually discussed politics a bit the one time we met, and while he disagreed with everything I said he listened, and spoke with respect. He did say he agreed with me about Donald Trump. He had met him once and remarked to us all in the room that Trump is the reason that Real Estate Developers get a bad name.
I should also point out that Harlan Crow is a considerably more successful real estate developer than Trump, and worth probably 100 times as much, as I don't believe that Trump is worth more than about $50 Million. Trump is actually a pretty small fish in the real estate development world. He's just gaudy and loud. Crow, on the other hand, has built an amazing campus in Texas for his people, and treats his employees well. I actually enjoyed working for him.
The reason I bring up Harlan Crow is that like any other very rich person, he has his eccentricities. If I were rich I would have a couple as well. But one of his strange quirks is that he collects statues from fallen empires of the past century. He has built an enormous statuary garden full of statues of Stalin, Lenin, Saddam Hussein, and many others. I don't know why he collects them but I've seen them. It's an amazing, beautiful, haunting and even frightening collection.
And the reason that I bring this up is one of the seven deadly sins - envy.
This brings me to Trumps executive order yesterday, ordering a National Park to be built with about 300 statues of famous Americans (well, mostly). It's a weird mix of names. Both Christopher Columbus and Sitting Bull are in there - which I'm sure wouldn't amuse Sitting Bull. Woody Guthrie AND William F. Buckley Jr. It's a surrealistic list.
I have to wonder where they plan to put it. Nowhere in the order does it say where it is to be built. It's far too big for Washington D.C. I can tell you that he expects to find himself in there someday.
But why a statue garden? Has Trump ever shown any interest in art whatsoever? In gardens? In bestowing any sort of honor on people he has disparaged publicly and often - such as Fredrick Douglas and Coretta Scott King? Do you think he even KNOWS who Lorenzo de Zavala even was?
Or does he just want to be responsible for a "better" statue garden than Harlan Crow?
I don't know, but I would not say this is impossible. One thing I am certain of is that the first name on the list, Ansel Adams, would have hated the whole idea.
Cheap Shots (Tequila Fannybangers today):
Trying to get out of jury duty.
No Ainsley, this is the definition of a Couch Potato.
The wheels of the bus roll over the...
It's his party and he'll cry if he wants to.
Gotta wonder how this guy sleeps at night.
And because I love you, I have to share with you Randy Rainbow's goodbye to the American Orange Shit-gibbon:
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