Wrap-up: We've got a new Think Again column called "Sotomayor and SCOTUS, Captured on a Carousel of Time" about the punditocracy confirmation hearings here. And I did a post for The Daily Beast on the recent metzora-making of Joe "The Volcano" Lieberman here.

Alter-reviews:

Sal on Keep Your Soul: A Tribute to Doug Sahm

Tribute records more times than not, end up being ill-advised failures, like the musical equivalent of a Cannonball Run movie; lots of easy to hire people phoning in uninspired performances. The worst, in my opinion, being This Bird Has Flown: The 40th Anniversary Tribute To Rubber Soul. Here were 14 mostly unrelated artists, who by the sound of their performances, seem as if they never heard a note of The Beatles, let alone Rubber Soul. No need to name names. The damage is done.

Occasionally though, a tribute record makes some sense. There have been some winners; 1994's A Tribute To Curtis Mayfield and 2003's We're A Happy Family: A Tribute To The Ramones both come to mind. These records had artists who were clearly inspired by the guests of honor and featured some truly winning performances. Another such winner is the just released Keep Your Soul: A Tribute To Doug Sahm.

The late Doug Sahm was a giant of all things Texan and his records both solo and with the seminal Sir Douglas Quintet, encompassed every genre of music from rock to country to mariachi and blues so naturally, it's as if those sounds never existed prior to his work. On Keep Your Soul, almost every participant has a connection to Sahm, either has a co-conspirator or messenger. Los Lobos, Alejandro Escovedo, Little Willie G., Flaco Jimenez, Dave Alvin, and Marcia Ball with a reuntitled Freda & The Firedogs all turn in truly killer performances. The highlight for me is Charlie Sexton's version of "You're Doin It Too Hard." It is 4 minutes of relentless rock and roll. Keep Your Soul plays less like a packaged tribute and more like a fully realized musical document of Sahm's work thanks to the love of his friends and family. Buy this one.

Here's Pierce:

Charles Pierce
Newton, MA.

Hey Doc:

"I'd rather eat my chili beans/At Jim's or Jack's or John's or Gene's/Then take my chances eating down at Smokey Joe's Cafe."

Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: "Free Yo Mind" (The Flow Tribe) -- Once again, it declined to fashion a public option whereby I get paid to go to everybody's house and tell them about how much I love New Orleans.

Short Takes:

Part The First: For the life of me, I don't know why we keep scheduling these guys, if they're not going to put up more of a fight. I mean, really, if George were still alive, this would kill him. Please cooperate this weekend, Mets, and we'll see what we can do about those awful Phillies.

Part The Second: Dear John Boehner . You have been warned. Sincerely, The Metaphor Police.

Part The Third: If there's a reason why Dave Neiwert hasn't been on my TV screen in heavy rotation over the past month, I'd like to know what it is, particularly since the scrambling and ass-covering on the right seems to have at its center a certain large and worthless pile of papier-maché erudition. And, in the light of the events of the past few weeks, I think it's helpful to remind us all about what the Great Compiler Of Footnotes once said when Dave called him for not seeing the fascists for the trees:

"Here's my grand theory about this guy (Neiwert). He's made his career hyping the terrible threat from the Posse Comitatus, Aryan Nations and American Nazi Party and so like the bureaucrats in Office Space who think TPS reports are the most important thing in the world, he can't seem to grasp that they're pretty trivial. In other words, he came to his understanding of fascism by following bands of racist white losers in the Idaho woods while using some Marxist tract or other as a field guide to identify the various species he encountered. In other words, he's internalized every cliche and propagandandistic talking point I set out to demolish in my book. Moreover, his career depends on maintaining his version of the fascist peril. So, he's banging his spoon on his highchair a lot because my book undercuts his whole reason for being."

Pretty trivial, indeed.

I swear, if he were more of a tool, you could use him to spread mulch.

Part The Fourth: I just spent a couple of days in Chicago and the city is awash in Olympic fever; Chicago's the US finalist for the 2016 Games. I would not wish the Olympics on a city full of my worst enemies but, if Chicago insists on throwing the civic treasury into the lake, I sincerely hope that Rod Blagojevich is out of the slam in time to get in on the deal. F**king golden, I tell you.

Part The Last: Oh, for Gawd's sake. And the Bills still suck.

So I get up early to fly home from Chicago, and I flip on MSNBC. (Why, you ask. Shut up, I reply.) And there's Willie Geist talking about how "both sides" are politicizing the shooter from the Holocaust Museum and, in addition to wondering whether or not it's too late to file charges at The Hague against whoever it was that invented Morning Joe, I also wonder quite seriously what purpose this kind of transparent nonsense is supposed to serve. The shooter was a critter of the modern American rightist fringe. It does nobody any good to try to construct a "centrist" narrative by which he belongs nowhere on the political spectrum. (Chris Cilizza tried this on Hardball and Chris Matthews, who seems to have the bit in his teeth over this, shut him down.) This is bipartisan fetishism taken to its lunatic extreme.

Ronald Steinberg
San Francisco, CA

Eric,

Quit complaining about how much things cost. You're giving a bad name to other Jews unlike you who aren't cheap.

Timothy Barrett
Louisville, Ky

I am closing on a new house today. I'm told that in my area, the home market for houses over $400,000 is dead. It's not that people can't get credit, it's that they already carry significant mortgages and are scared to death that after borrowing thousands more to buy the new house, they won't be able to sell the current one.

Professionals, medical students, business owners and well-salaried workers who want to live close to downtown in this quite lovely park district, populate my neighborhood. The houses date back to the 1920's with pockets of postwar subdivision of elder estates and no longer needed pastureland. One realtor told me that St. Matthews is "still gold". But today I see many more "for rent" signs than "for sale" signs.

Unemployment here is still under 9% and although growing, the pace has slowed. My unemployed friends have passed the nine-month mark and are fast upon the dreaded one-year anniversary. You can fudge a resume by listing jobs from year to year, i.e., worked from 2000 to 2008. But a year long blank can cost you even that preliminary phone call.

They have also dumbed down the resume as much as they can. Last year's resume listed all the management positions, graduate degrees and publications. This year's resume stops at the liberal arts school and employment at Target or Morton's Steakhouse. A recent Association of College and Employers survey says that just 19.7% of college graduates have jobs this year as compared to 26% last year and 51% in 2007.

That's a lot of newbies to compete with for the remaining opportunities. Employers who are adding people are certainly justified in hiring pliable young single people with low salary expectations and much smaller, and less bruised, egos. Maybe, if I'm lucky, one of these kids will want to buy a house. After all, mortgage interest rates are at an all time low.

John McElroy
Pittsburgh

Dr. A,

If you are me, and live in Pittsburgh, the most livable city in America, and 29th most livable in the world, (see this week's issue of The Economist) then last night you had the opportunity to see Booker T at the annual Three Rivers Arts Festival for FREE. Granted, Elvis wasn't in town and the Clapton/Winwood tour is not stopping here. That being said, residing in the most livable city (home of the Super Bowl Champions and soon-to-be Stanley Cup Champions) and having the opportunity to see a towering figure such as Booker T for free, is awesome.

Keep up the great work Doc!

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