Many things on my mind this week:
By now the folks in Linn County had voted no to extending the local option sales tax for 20 years to build a big flood wall to keep the Cedar River out and supposedly road repair to which that town really needs it. It lost by 216 votes so I'm sure the CR higher ups will try to once again shoved that one cent tax down our throats another year and a half from now to which the money they did spent trying to bullshit us could have been used to repair the damn streets. While some towns did vote yes on it (my wonderful town did vote yes, I was one of the 60 no votes) the unincorporated areas, Fairfax (or was it Walford) and a block vote from CR and Marion voted no. Amazingly the ones in the flood areas did vote no. I don't know what it is with Ron Corbett but his gung ho of buying up the Five Seasons Motel and this new medical mall which will take out part of Second Avenue hasn't set very well with me. We pretty much had to endure all these Vote Yes commercials (to which the money spent on that could have improved the roads just as well) to which Corbett stressed the importance of building a flood wall on the east side (but not the west) to keep the Cedar River in its banks. One of the rules of living next to a river is that water seeks its own level, especially during the rainy season and no flood wall high enough will keep all the water out. Live in the Time Check neighborhood and they had to deal with minor flooding even on dry months. As much as I love seeing the river, I do not love the river that much to live next to it and it have it pay me a visit when Cedar Rapids gets a 5 inch rainfall overnight. And Cedar Rapids has flooded in the past (1929, 1961,1993 and of course the big 1,000 flood of 2008). If you live by the river you have to live by the rules of living on the floodplain.
Problem was they had the LOST Tax set for 20 years. And I'm sure Corbett and his cronies would still find a way to jack up property taxes had it passed anyway. And Corbett's gang like the usual Republican way of things want it their way and not compromise. Time to engage the voters and not enrage them Corbett. Whatever the penny option that we get back won't be saved but put in the tank of the car from another 4 dollar gallon gas prices.
Osama Bin Laden is finally caught and killed, almost 10 years after 9/11 the most significant day of infamy that I lived through. Funny how all the world came together that fateful day and there would be a vow to get the SOB who taught these infidels to drive airplanes into the World Trade Center and kill innocent lives. And most of the world rejoiced when OBL got his head blown off in a surprise move and ended the decade long escape from justice for the bearded moneybags whose hatred of America was shown in that day but he also killed Muslims too. In the great beyond one only hopes for the fate of taking lives and that OBL has joined Mohammed Atta in the place where evil killers will be. If their paradise is 72 virgins I'm hoping they all look like W or Dick Cheney. But the world hasn't come together, GOP thinks that W should get credit, others say OBL isn't dead. Now Pakistan is mad that it happened on their own soil, that OBL was killed in sovereign territory. Yeah, well consider this, what OBL did as well as Mohammed (fuck him) Atta was attack innocent people in a Sovereign state as well, that the passengers were killed against their will, every person killed by a suicide attacker was killed against their will as well. This world and some of the leaders have no clue of what goes on, from the Donald Trump racists birther issues (and Sarah Screech Palin too). Osama was not a religious man, but rather a killer whose time has come and it may disappoint the followers that he wasn't living in a cave but in luxury out in a Pakistan suburb in a fortified mansion. To preach the word of killing anybody isn't true Islam, they always seem to look over the passages that Thou Shalt Not Kill or Beware Of False Prophets. And how could Pakistan leaders not know that OBL was living right under their nose in plain sight? Surely they can't be that naive or dumb could they? If that's the case, then the US should ask for a refund of that 10 billion dollars that they have given Pakistan.
So for now, Obama is the hero of the people but if gas prices keep getting higher and higher and everything else his approval rating will once again go down the toilet just like Bush Sr, when he saved Kuwait from Saddam Hussein in 1991. But you have to admit when Obama said he was going to kill Osama in a 2008 debate he came through with that. Something that W failed to do. Now about getting those damn gas prices back down under three bucks........
Come Sunday it will be the 100th Anniversary of the birth of Robert Johnson perhaps the pioneer of blues as we know it and of course to celebrate that Sony Music has reissued the Robert Johnson 100th Collection. To which really adds nothing to The Complete Recordings, if you have that collection you don't need the new collection. There was state of the art recordings back in the 30's, it was done in hotel rooms or radio stations with a recorder that weighed about 50 pounds or more. It was recorded in mono, with one microphone. Johnson was a hell of a slide player for sure and some of the songs such as Preachin Blues or Dust My Broom he did sound like there was a hell-hound on his trail. I don't listen to The Complete Recordings all that much unless its for a reference or if I want to read the booklet that came with the cds. If I did, I usually pull out Crossroads by Cream or Foghat's Terra-plane Blues, or Blue Mountain If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day. But maybe on Sunday night, I pull out Johnson's version and make a comment about it in the next top ten.
Basically I know you don't care (few do) but the new Whitesnake Forevermore (Frontiers) is pretty good although I still like their Good At Being Bad much better. Once again whoever mastered the cd is GOT SO DAMN LOUD IT DISTORTS THE STEREO and the blaring mix ruins the album. David Coverdale has come a long way from the smokey blues of Deep Purple and the Ready and Willing Whitesnake era to become your standard dinosaur hard rock and good party time band. Coverdale will not win any poetry awards for his lyrics, they been the same since Trouble, that's not the point. What sells is that he's got a good guitar foil in Doug Aldrich who like the last album comes up with some nifty guitar riffs. The title track might be Whitesnake's answer to Kashmir and for me the highlight of the record although I don't think there's not a bad track on this although the 64 minute time of record might be a bit too much. I also confess that I wasn't much of a fan of the John Sykes years or the Steve Vai led Slip Of The Tongue. But not since Slide It In and the S/T album has Coverdale made two pretty good albums in a row with Good To Be Bad and now Forevermore and he can still hit the high notes. Had it been mixed right and a little less in the red Forevermore could have been the classic high water mark. Still a bit of good fun.
Stevie Nicks-In Your Dreams (Reprise)
What got me to buy this album was the reviewers said this sounded like a Fleetwood Mac album, of course if Mick Fleetwood and Lindsay Buckingham plays on some of the songs it does and the first few songs tend to be right. In fact, it sounds more Mac than Say You Will, the overblown album they did back around 2005 thereabouts. When she rocks out as on the opener Secret Love and the title track it does feel that had the songs been on Say You Will it would have made that album much more memorable. But the two glaring problems of In Your Dreams is the over hour timing on 13 songs, some of the songs needed a good fade out and that some of them are so long that they overstay their welcome. In fact the best songs are Secret Love and In Your Dreams which are under four minutes, something to consider next time Nicks does another album. Nine of the 13 songs go over 4 and a half minutes. Problem number two: Glen Ballard. This guy can suck the life out of any album that he touches (Goo Goo Dolls Let Love In anyone?), which maybe why Dave Stewart figures into co producing, but even he goes for the bombastic in the last four songs of In Your Dreams. With Stevie Nicks, she still has the voice and the imagery of her tales of love and woe and mystic pop that made her a pinup dream in the 70s. And for the first half of the album I paid attention. But after Soldier's Angel, the duet with Buckingham in tow, the last four went on for too long that I simply quit paying attention. Lesser songs and a shorter playtime would have done wonders. Much wonders.
Grade B-
Selected songs: Secret Love, In Your Dreams
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