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Kiss of Death

Okay folks, you’ve heard about #Whamageddon and #littledrummerboychallenge. Now, there’s a brand new Christmas song avoidance game: “Kiss of Death”! The object is to avoid hearing “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”. The rules: 1. Begins 12:00:01 December 15 local time, and ends 12:00:01 December 25. The start date is deliberately later so those perishing early in other games still have something to play.  2. Cover versions count. The Jackson 5 version is the most common, but if you recognize the song in any version, you are slain.  3. No malicious elimination: playing the song deliberately to elimate others negates its deadly power. #kissofdeath

Gregg Bissonette wishes Quinn Merry Christmas

 Here is the link !

Gregg Bissonette

  https://www.cameo.com/recipient/657f7301790f60c589e2b325?from_share_sheet=1&utm_campaign=video_share_to_copy

The new Threads app

  https://www.threads.net/@zdrake314 I’m on Meta’s new Twitter clone. 

Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour - Oakland, Fox Theater, June 11, 2022

 As usual I splatter my thoughts in no particular order: The whole darn show, recorded from within someone’s phone lock bag:  https://youtu.be/nwK8kAVNrrI Better recording here:  https://youtu.be/wrrPZU_-jjA  (this one appears to have been removed) A recording of the previous night:  https://youtu.be/P-yNR855s3g    I loved the show. My attention was fixed the whole time. Oh my God they ended with a cover of Grateful Dead's "Friend of the Devil" which was amazing. (Better recording:  https://youtu.be/YZj3pjskjPU  Bootleg recording, from same source as above:  https://youtu.be/TmNBhpQtqz8 ) From my post on Expecting Rain :  Oh My God, they closed with "Friend of the Devil" on the June 11th Oakland show! Crowd went berserk! The version was absolutely beautiful, one of the best sounding songs of the evening. I was stunned. I was expecting "Every Grain of Sand" (and now I want to hear that live), because I'd read the set lists and I knew...

Thoughts on "Dune" 2021 Movie

 I don't like writing proper reviews; I generally just like to put down my thoughts: Preamble stuff: I'm coming from the perspective of someone who read the books, but a long time ago. I probably read the original Dune twice, once when I was a kid and once again as a young adult. I've seen the David Lynch movie, but not the miniseries that came out in the early 2000s. I saw it at home on HBO Max. We have a 65" HD TV and a sound bar, so we can have a relatively cinematic experience at home, but it's not like a theater. This does seem to be something where you want as big a picture and as powerful a sound system as you can have. Opinions: I like it overall. It feels big. It looks beautiful. It aspires to a tradition of grand cinema in a way that a lot of things these days don't even try for. The Bene Gesserit are pretty spooky, which is good. The Guild Navigators weren't as creepy: they just looked like people in "Among Us" suits full of orange gas...

Some thoughts on Dylan's "Murder Most Foul"

 Originally posted on the Expecting Rain forum : Some thoughts on "Murder Most Foul", after over a year: It works on me. I'm in the "it's a masterpiece" camp. I can tell you a story about why I think it is, but I'm not certain that would be the real story. ("Key West" on the other hand, does not bind me with its spell--somehow that one I look at from the outside, rather than get pulled in.) I think the central conflict in the song is between overwhelming cynicism and evil, represented by the killing of Kennedy, and the power of music to heal wounds and offer solace in the face of despair. I think Dylan has music "win" the battle, but it's not obvious. But at the end, "Murder Most Foul" no longer refers to the assassination so hideously depicted earlier in the song: it now refers to the song itself, and it is the last shot fired in Dylan's barrage of DJ Wolfman Jack invocations against hopelessness. This is a great bi...