Lost: Season 5 Preview

Hey, Lost fans — there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

John Locke says you can get your first
look at the new season of lost at
Hardcore Nerdity. Go see it now.

Note: Dominic Monaghan, rock star Charlie on Lost,
has been cast as, um, rock star Tyler on Chuck.
He used to be a hobbit, though, so this isn’t typecasting.

Today’s Moron: A Black Man Attacked Me Because of My McCain Sticker

Today’s Moron is Ashley T., a John McCain campaign worker who told police Wednesday she had been attacked by a man who was angry about her McCain bumper sticker.

Ashley, who works as a campus recruiter (on a volunteer basis) for the McCain campaign, said she had stopped to use an ATM in Pittsburgh when a stranger, a black man, accosted her.

She told police he held a knife to her throat, robbed her of 60 dollars and walked away — but when he spotted the McCain sticker, he returned, knocked her to the ground and carved a ‘B’ into her face. “You are going to be a Barack supporter,” she says he told her.

Police didn’t buy it from the start, and let me tell you why:

1. She didn’t call police right away. She went to see a friend instead.
2. Her story sounded sketchy.
3. She took a polygraph. Police aren’t releasing the results, but you can guess what they were.
4. The ‘B’ was backwards. You know, like someone did it while looking in a mirror.
5. Oh, and the surveillance system on the ATM proved it didn’t happen.

Yes, Ashley, ATMs have cameras. I’m surprised you didn’t know that. But then again, you think Sarah Palin could lead your country, so that’s a good sign of where you’re at.

The worst part of all this is she actually cut a ‘B’ into her face. And to make it worse, some McCain staffers used this to fire up public opinion, somehow linking Obama to street violence

Anyway, police say Ashley has admitted to making the whole thing up, so she’s being charged with making a false report. If Weather Station 1 had law enforcement powers — and let me assure you I’m working on that — I would throw in a charge of being a stupid racist, too.

If things are like this now, can you imagine what it’s going to be like when Obama is president?

Music Review: Robert Johnson and Some Other Guys

Vanity Fair has a new article about a photograph purported to be of Robert Johnson, the mythical, lyrical blues legend whose music inspired generations of performers. See, there are only three known photos of Johnson, one of which has never been displayed. The new photo, bought on eBay by a guitar expert from New York, shows two young men in spiffy outfits, one of whom is holding a guitar with noticably long, sleek fingers. Fingers like Robert Johnson’s.

But that’s about the end of that as far as resemblance goes. And the second man, whom the guitar expert says is Johnny Shines … well, no how, no way. Not even close. You can see that for yourself; go look at the photo on the Vanity Fair site, then come back and look at this shot of Johnny Shines. See? Not him. This is, like all the other “Robert Johnson” photos and films that have popped up, just a random photo of two young men, long forgotten, long silent.

I won’t be putting any Robert Johnson photos here, because they are very fiercely protected by copyright. You can find them with a Google image search. But I’m really not here to talk about the photo. It’s just interesting that all these decades after his death, Robert Johnson can still inspire and provoke mystery.

That, though, is the nature of the delta blues. It’s about the pain, the darkness, the mystery. The Ralph Macchio movie Crossroads does a good job of capturing that; I watch it about once a year and am always struck by the spirit of the blues caught in that film.

But while Robert Johnson gets a lot of attention from mainstream music fans, delta blues purists tend to hold him in slightly lesser regard. I’m in the middle. I love, love the music of Robert Johnson. But there are others, his equals or better musically, but who never sparked the legend and mystique he did, and are therefore not as well-known to Joe the Plumber and the rest of you.

Here are some of my favourites:

Son House, doing Death Letter. This is one of the most haunting, chilling things I have ever heard, and the man’s ability on that old guitar makes my fingers hurt. Decades later, the White Stripes would do a really solid cover of this song.

Skip James, Devil Got My Woman. The movie Ghost World brought Skip James back into the public eye, but he’s still never gotten the acclaim he deserves. Listen to that voice! And his playing was sweet, simple and perfect. While My Guitar Gently Weeps could have been about Skip James. I like to think it was.

Blind Willie Johnson, Nobody’s Fault But Mine. A powerhouse of a singer, who performed with his little wife doing angelic harmonies, Blind Willie kicked the crap out of his guitars and rocked every house he played. His stuff is too early to be on film, but there is this:

Blind Willie McTell. I always like this guy’s snotty voice and talk/singing style. He was another dazzling blind guitar player whose music was a little more storytelling-oriented. Again, no film of him, but there is this oddity, set to his Your Southern Can Is Mine:

Some other names to look for: Lonnie Johnson, Tommy Johnson, Bukka White, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton, Elmore James, Howlin’ Wolf, Big Bill Broonzy, Bessie Smith … you know, I’m going to stop.

I listen to a lot of this kind of blues. It’s in my blood — my grandfather and his siblings, children of slaves whose roots lay in Mississippi, Oklahoma and the Carolinas, were a touring blues “orchestra” in the 1920s, making very much this kind of music. It’s the only thing I can play on guitar (except for maybe a few old metal songs). When I hear the music of the south, of my ancestors, I feel it too, in my heart, in my blood. It speaks to me. I hope it speaks to you, too.