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I saw X at The Showbox on Monday night, and they sounded freaking fantastic. If you’d closed your eyes so as not to see how the band members have aged since they started out, you’d swear you had been transported to Los Angeles circa 1981 – complete with mosh pit. Not quite as crazy as the pits of the eighties that were well documented in The Unheard Music, but that’s understandable – their fan base has aged along with the band.

John and Exene sounded as great as they ever have – Like broken glass and gasoline.

Billy Zoom is sixty but he doesn’t look a day over 45.

DJ Bonebrake still makes crazy faces while he hits the drums really hard.

John looks his age, but he sings great. His voice is one of the greatest rock ‘n roll voices ever. At Monday’s show he must have sweat out about 2 gallons of water. I’ve never seen a guy sweat so much. It was pouring off him. When he shook his head, sweat went flying in all directions.

Billy never broke a sweat. Exene was cool… D.J. was lookin’ a little heated, but not like John.

They played most all of the greats, “Los Angeles, “Johnny Hit and Run Paulene,” “We’re Desperate,” “Adult Books,” “Soul Kitchen,” “In this House that I Call Home,” and “White Girl.”

For the second encore, John and Exene came out and did an acoustic version “See How We Are” that was very refreshing after getting bombarded for two hours of electric X turned up to eleven.

For those of you who missed this 31-year anniversary tour, the next best thing is to watch the videos on their website from their SXSW performance.

The videos are not of the everyday low-res YouTube variety. CRACKLE is more like YouTube on steroids. Check it out. You can switch to HD, and if you click on the rectangular box by the volume control, the video goes full screen.

X represents punk rock’s sensational past, and CRACKLE represents the future of internet video.

Michael Moore goes on CNN to discuss his new movie Sicko. In the video below, CNN attempts to marginalize him with a lead in story by Sanjay Gupta.

Michael Moore takes the bait, but quickly changes tactics and instead uses his time to corner Wolf on Wolf & CNN’s ongoing support of the war in Iraq and demands a public apology for the lies leading up to the war.

I love it.
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Michael Moore sets the CNN record straight by backing up his facts on his website:

CNN: “Moore asserts that the American health care system spends $7,000 per person on health. Cuba spends $25 dollars per person. Not true. But not too far off. The United States spends $6,096 per person, versus $229 per person in Cuba.”

THE TRUTH:

According to our own government – the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Health Expenditures Projections – the United States will spend $7,092 per capita on health in 2006 and $7,498 in 2007. (Department of Health and Human Services Center for Medicare and Medicaid Expenditures, National Health Expenditures Projections 2006-2016. http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/downloads/proj2006.pdf)
As for Cuba – Dr. Gupta and CNN need to watch ‘SiCKO’ first before commenting on it. ‘SiCKO’ says Cuba spends $251 per person on health care, not $25, as Gupta reports. And the BBC reports that Cuba’s per capita health expenditure is… $251! (Keeping Cuba Healthy, BBC, Aug. 1 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/5232628.stm )
As Gupta points out, the World Health Organization does calculate Cuba’s per capita health expenditure at $229 per person – a lot closer to $251 than $25.

The interview ends with Wolf talking to Lou Dobbs who says Michael Moore “is more of a left wing promoter than Hugo Chavez”.

I’d take that as a HUGE compliment. Thanks Lou. You dick.

UPDATE 07/10/07:

Set your Tivo.

This just in from michaelmoore.com:

Tuesday, July 10th, 2007

Today, Michael Moore will be on CNN again for Part Two with Wolf Blitzer, (Did you see Part One? And our response?), a new appearance on Larry King Live with Dr. Sanjay Gupta (appearing, we assume, to apologize for his factual errors), and a rerun of Mike’s appearance on Jon Stewart from 13 days ago.

Those of us who maintain Michael’s website have started a truth squad. Watch for our daily reports on how the media lies, distorts and carries the water for Big Pharma and Big Insurance.

We’ll leave you with this analysis of how the mainstream media deals with Michael Moore.

I just finished watching this video on Crooks and Liars of Paul Krugman’s appearance on the Fox News show, Your World with Neil Cavuto.  During the segment, Krugman discusses his article in Rolling Stone titled “The Great Wealth Transfer.”

I haven’t read the article yet, but I will.  I am, however, quite familiar with Krugman’s writings on this topic for The New York Times, so I was pretty sure of what he was trying to tell Cavuto on his show.  Only problem was that Cavuto constantly interrupted him and barely let him speak for more that twenty seconds at a time.  I didn’t have a stop watch handy to measure how many minutes of the six-minute video segment were of just Krugman talking, but I would estimate total Krugman time to be just slightly over one minute.  The rest of the time was all Cavuto.  It seemed to me that the whole point of Cavuto having Krugman on his show was to belittle him and ultimately call him a liar.

After watching the segment, I went to Cavuto’s site on Fox News, and there next to Cavuto’s photo was a link to a very short Cavuto opinion piece titled Common Sense, with the subtitle, and I kid you not, “Has our entire culture forgotten what it means to listen?”

Answer:  Not most people, just those who host “fair and balanced” shows on Fox News.

Tom Waits a 3-disc album titled Orphans – Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards.  I’ve been listening to it every day since it came out, and I must say it’s an incredibly great collection of songs.  The “Brawlers” disc is made up primarily of noisy, stomping rock songs, the “Bawlers” disc holds the quieter ballads, and the “Bastards” disc is a mish mash new stuff, songs he’s done in the past including his rendition of “Heigh Ho” from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in which he “takes the spring out of their step.”  (Go listen to this NPR interview for more about that.) and some stories that only Tom can tell.

Tom was on David Letterman Monday night.  Watch Part I of the interview here and watch his performance of “Lie to Me” below.

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Tom was on The Daily Show Tuesday night, and you can watch the interview in two parts here and here.  During the interview Tom and Jon discuss how the problems in Iraq might be solved with a 2X4 guitar.   The show closes with a truncated performance of “Day After Tomorrow” from the 2004 album Real Gone.  Watch it here.

If you haven’t bought Orphans yet, well go get it already.

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Thanks to Greg Palast and TFYQA / White Noise (the musical & visual alter ego of J.F.William & Serge Laporte).

When things fall apart as they have over the last few weeks, it’s good to get away from it all for a while.

How?

Watch a Throw Rag video.

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That’s a song from their latest album, 13 Ft. and Rising.  It’s all good! 

Jello Biafra is featured on the last track, “Children of the Secret State.” 

Go buy it.