Katze mit Wut

Way back in the seventies, before I was born, when the world was young and dinosaurs walked the earth, a Steely Dan promo for radio DJs came with a tacky t-shirt. It was pink. Which was useless given most DJs were men. And it only had the words "Steely Dan t-shirt" printed on it. It was, however, incredibly, -credibly rare, so it became a sought-after collector's item.

Steely Dan themselves commented on that in another song, Show Business Kids: "They got the house on the corner, with rug inside; they got the booze they need, all that money can buy; they got the shapely body, they got the Steely Dan t-shirt" — casting the shirt as the ultimate empty status symbol.

This is how I remember the story. I'm making a special point out of not looking it up to check, because it's a legend, guys, drift is practically a requirement! That said, the Steely Dan site usually makes for a good read. And so do the Steely Dan dictionary and possibly the interpretations site.

Anyway, I always wanted one, because it was so … HHOS or something. Not taking itself seriously to just the right degree.

They reprinted for the current tour.

… the hands that threaten doom

I recently picked up some of the classics from Amazon's Used & New, like the CD reissues of Stranger in a strange land/Wasted Years and Aces High/Two minutes to midnight (that's right, boys and girls, each CD contains the material from two 12"s, plus commentary, and if you get those two, that's arguably all the Iron Maiden you'll ever need — in fact, I got A matter of life and death too, and the crystal case has a transparent tray: not to give you extra artwork, but so they could slink in some asinine plea not to steal the music, which for some reason pissed me off no end, so it's the last Maiden album I'll buy.)

Anyway, long story short, it had me wondering idly why we don't have some sort of Doomsday Clock (as opposed to calendar machine) for civil liberties, all things considered. Should be relatively easy to do, each "guaranteed" freedom that we lose advancing the clock by one minute. Well, if it ends up being another clock, anyway.

I don't normally care much for AMV, but this is so absurd it's almost good again. Mind the lip-sync!
via Schweinwerfer (like the name, was entirely too fond of the word as a kid)