JD McPherson’s music video for “Let The Good Times Roll” premiered today at Rolling Stone. “Let The Good Times Roll” is the title track from McPherson’s highly acclaimed new album, which recently debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Heatseekers Chart (Rounder Records). In celebration of the release, McPherson returned to the “Late Show with David Letterman” to perform “Let The Good Times Roll.” The performance can be viewed HERE. Additionally, NPR’s “Weekend Edition Sunday” featured McPherson on the program. Listen to the full interview HERE. On the heels of their sold-out European tour, McPherson and his longtime band—Jimmy Sutton (upright bass), Jason Smay (drums), Ray […]
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COMMENTARY: Un-American Exceptionalism
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY Dear Kyle Smith: I just finished reading your recent mocking (or was it simply racist) article detailing the President’s and your, shall we say, “competing” concepts of American “exceptionalism.” Anyway, Kyle, let’s get going and see what we can do about “leveling the playing field” a bit by way of a little mockery from the “port” side of America’s great racialism divide, if you get my drift. For openers, I feel compelled to inform you that in addition to reading your article, I also boned up on your schooling, and right off the bat I’m very concerned […]
STRANGE FRUIT: From 1877–1968 The Public Lynching Of Blacks Was American Spectator Sport
ABOVE: In Duluth, Minnesota, on June 15, 1920, three young African-American traveling circus workers were lynched after having been accused of having raped a white woman and jailed pending a grand jury hearing. This image was sold as a souvenir postcard. A physician’s subsequent examination of the woman found no evidence of rape or assault. The alleged “motive” and action by a mob were consistent with the “community policing” model. The book, The Lynchings in Duluth (2000) by Michael Fedo has documented the events.[36] NEW YORK TIMES: It is important to remember that the hangings, burnings and dismemberments of […]
UNFORGIVEN: Chris Kyle’s American Horror Story
BRADLEY COOPER ON FRESH AIR TODAY: “The fact that [the fact that American Sniper is] inciting a discussion that has nothing to do with vets — and it’s more about the Iraq war and what we did not do to indict those who decide to go to the war — every conversation in those terms is moving farther and farther away from what our soldiers go through, and the fact that 22 vets commit suicide each day,” Cooper says. “The amount of people that come home is so much greater because of medical advancement and … we need […]
The Idiot’s Guide To This American Life’s Serial
BY MOLLY KASSEL Serial, the wildly popular podcast reported and narrated by This American Life’s Sarah Koenig, re-examines the 1999 strangulation murder of a Baltimore high school student named Hae Min Lee, whose lifeless body was discovered in a nearby park six weeks after she went missing. Serial is structured like a whodunnit and the listener is invited to play detective alongside Koenig, which is a big part of its charm. Though it retells a crime that happened 15 years ago, listeners feel like they are learning the facts in real time as Koenig uncovers them. Another part of […]
WORTH REPEATING: ‘No One Wanted to Talk About Bill Cosby’s Alleged Crimes Because He Made White America Feel Good About Race’
THE NEW REPUBLIC: the possibility that this extremely rich man lambasting poor people for everything from stealing pound cake to wearing low-slung pants to how they named their children—might have drugged and raped more than a dozen women would have made our heads pop off. It would have made us question every single good, reassuring, optimistic thing that Bill Cosby ever made us think about ourselves and our country. It might have made us rethink the way he had held up wealthy people as model feminists, and about exactly how screwed up it was that that his progressive cheerful […]
Q&A: Ira Glass, Host Of This American Life
Photo by STUART MULLENBERG BY JONATHAN VALANIA A long time ago in a public radio galaxy far, far away called 1995, the median listener age was 87, nobody ever said um or like on the air, all stories ran just one way — front to back — and were narrated with the plummy-voiced elocution of the Founding Fathers, and semiotics was just one more thing Medicare refused to cover. Nineteen years, five Peabody Awards and 500-plus episodes of This American Life later, all that has changed, thanks to the post-post-modern vision, wry melancholia and casually precise broadcasting style of the […]
INCOMING: This American Guy
On Saturday November 15th, The 13th Annual First Person Arts Festival will present REINVENTING RADIO: AN EVENING WITH IRA GLASS at the Kimmel Center. Last week we got Mr. Glass on the horn for a little Q&A. DISCUSSED: The keys to good narrative; his favorite episode of This American Life; how the secret recordings of Carmen Segarra triggered a forthcoming Senate banking sub committee hearing on consumer protection; what is to be learned from the Mike Daisey fiasco; whether or not journalism, like art, can sometimes use a lie to tell a greater truth; why his parents actively dislike […]
THE GOOD SHEPHERD: A Q&A With Globe-Trotting New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Last week we got New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof on the horn to discuss his new book, A Path Appears, co-authored with his wife Sheryl WuDunn, which extols the innovative but largely un-heralded efforts of a dedicated few to leave the world a better place than they found it. Just a few days prior, Kristof had been at the center of a cultural storm that erupted in the wake of his appearance on REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER along with Ben Affleck and Sam Harris, so we gave him an opportunity to clarify some points […]
PHILLY BLUNT: Illadelphia Will Become The Largest American City To Decriminalize Marijuana
Painting by ZENON MATIAS JIMENEZ HUFFINGTON POST: Philly Mayor Michael Nutter confirmed Monday that he will sign a bill into law that will make his city the largest in America to decriminalize marijuana possession, Philly Mag reports. Essentially it softens the penalty for such an offense from possible jail time to a $25 fine.Nutter wasn’t a fan of the bill in the past, but he told KYW Newsradio that he agreed to sign the bill — with a caveat — because he’s seen too many of his citizens slapped with charges for small amounts of pot.“So I think the agreement […]
THE SHAME GAME: LA Times Disowns Ex-Inquirer Reporter After He Was Outed As A CIA Collaborator
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Recently released emails indicate that prominent national security reporter Ken Dilanian — formerly with the Los Angeles Times (2010-2014), currently with the Associated Press (and from 1997-2007 the Philadelphia Inquirer*) — shared stories prior to publication with CIA press office seeking their approval, according to a story up on The Intercept. Now, it is not uncommon for national security reporters to vet facts with government functionaries prior to publication, but the emails indicate Dilanian went much further than that, not only sharing stories prior to publication (a big no-no in almost every newsroom) but he also […]
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN: Today Is The Last Day To Stop The Merger Of Comcast & Time-Warner
Today is the deadline for final public comments to the FCC regarding the proposed merger of Comcast and Time Warner. This merger would concentrate a majority share of cable customers in the hands one company — a company that The Consumerist ranked THE WORST COMPANY IN AMERICA IN 2014, decisively beating out Monsanto. We’ve never been shy about where we stand on this merger, and you are welcome to go HERE to read previous posts condemning both Comcast’s proposed merger with Time Warner as well as the Comcast’s status as THE MOST CRUELLY EFFECTIVE CONSUMER RAPISTS IN THE FREE […]
A TALE OF TWO DELINQUENCIES: The Deadly Double Standard Of Racial Justice In America
Via Twitter/photographer unknown BY JEFF DEENEY I grew up in suburban Philadelphia in the 80s. It was a time when working class families were leaving their row homes in a city they considered increasingly black and dangerous in droves for single houses on tree lined streets in nearly all white townships not far away, maybe ten miles, but in many ways worlds apart. By 1985, when the bomb dropped on the MOVE house and it seemed like Philly was death spiraling into apocalypse my parents watched the chaos over dinner in Delaware County marveling at what good fortune we had […]