Knapp Debut With Hardyville Symphony Marred By Violence: 9 Injured in Classical Clash

by Griselda Chizterer
LBAC Music Reviewer


Sporting a retro Gilley's Club T-shirt and swilling expensive Scotch like a Jersey mafia wife, former alt-folk rocker JENNIFER KNAPP made an explosive foray into hardcore classical music in her debut with the Hardyville Symphony Orchestra last night.

Previous attendance at HSO events had peaked at 34 (counting Manny the custodian) but with Knapp's high-wattage star power, bad ass attitude, and avant garde interpretation of Claude Debussy's "Maiden with the Flaxen Hair," HSO managed to sell out the 150 seat theatre in just three weeks.

The performance was marked by tension from the very first note, however, as Knapp, slightly inebriated and bellicose, resisted the efforts of her backup musicians to take the piece down a more traditional road.

"What the fugue are you doing?" Knapp demanded angrily, brandishing her silver trumpet and threatening to smash the saxophone player's skull into "a quadrillion nutrinos."

Knapp then turned to her shocked audience and explained that just like her idol, Claude-Achille Debussy, she preferred "keeping it experimental and real".

"I am here right now to challenge the rigid teachings of the traditionalists. I want the dissonances and intervals which some of you might frown upon. I have to be true to myself and to CA's vision."

Hearing this, the crowd erupted into fistfights between classical neo conservatives, and a rowdy bunch of "Achilleheads" who took their clothes off and moshed to Knapp's blistering trumpet solos.

At least 9 people were reported injured in the melee, including 73-year-old Veronica Sterns of East Hardyville. Sterns, a columnist for the Hardyville Coupon Gazette and a leading neo-classical advocate, was thrown from her chair by Achilleheads suffering a broken collarbone.

"Knapp's butchering of Debussy's most intimate work is a travesty. She should stick to the guitar and those unwashed, bra-burning, man-haters at the Lilith Fairs," fumed Sterns.

For her part, Knapp remained undisturbed by the sounds of glass breaking and chairs being hurled onto the stage, continuing to channel the spirit of Debussy through her Callet Sima Eb/D trumpet.

Trina Flivverbottom Escapes!- Returns to LBAC

Ace investigative journalist Trina Flivverbottom (seen here in a
2003 file photo)

Special to the SOUR GRAPES GAZETTE

After nearly four years of self-imposed exile, Sour Grapes journalist and commentator Trina Flivverbottom has resurfaced, vowing to pursue excellence in journalism with a vengeance.

Flivverbottom says she spent the past few years living in Hardyville, USA working as a dog walker. She says that the O-Nation situation was just to much to resist, rife with the kind of fodder no self-respecting writer can resist.

"You can't make this stuff up!" said Flivverbottom in a cable TV interview, pointing to a newspaper headline concerning the recent ACORN scandal.

"How could I stay in Hardyville, idyllic though it was, and scoop up doggie doo when the real shit was being shoveled so copiously out of DC?"

Flivverbottom's return was enthusiastically welcomed by the majority of the Sour Grapes Gazette staff, most of whom have remained unemployed since leaving the paper.

"We can restart the paper and the blog! Sure beats running the meth lab. I was allergic to all those chemicals," said former Sour Grapes staffer Wiley Forrester.

One ex-staffer, Randall Washburn, was not as happy to see Flivverbottom's Festiva roar up to the doublewide which once served as the Sour Grapes office.

"Oh, man... Does this mean I have to return the Acorn loan I got to start my own porn film company?... Damn!" complained Randall.

After getting settled into her new trailer, Trina plans to churn out a whole lot more of her
celebrated investigative reports.

Bono Admits Faking His Own Relevance- Says
"I Really Don't Know What the Hell I'm Going on About."


Bono: "Without these bitchin'
shades I'm just another Bob
Geldofesque caricature...

(Sour Grapes Digest Special Report)

U-2 front man Bono has shocked the entire fading rock star galaxy by publicly admitting that no one gives a shit what he thinks- not even him.

Bono confessed to having desperately grabbed for the straws of relevance by sermonizing on a variety of complex topics ranging from global warming to reducing third world debt.

"Face it- U2 and I ceased to matter about fifteen years ago," He told reporters at a press conference in Sydney. "We've grown up- we know that we don't make a difference; that we are only a blip on a crowded pop star radar screen. Without these bitching shades I'm just a Bob Geldofesque caricature- a balding, middleaged former rocker with bad taste in clothes and lumbago, " he said.

Bono's admission comes on the heels of his latest foray into international politics- a protest aimed at forcing the United States to repatriate Australian terror suspect David Hicks.

"I don't know David Hicks, I don't know what he did. Maybe he was a terror suspect. Dunno.. It just seemed like a good way to make me feel as if people really cared about my opinions," he sighed.

(in the YUCK DOUBLE YUCK) category...

Naked man arrested for concealed weapon
(you really don't want to know..)

November 4, 2006

EL CERRITO, Calif. --

A man was arrested on suspicion of carrying a concealed weapon after police found him outdoors -- naked -- and he told them he had a tool in his rectum, authorities said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061104/ap_on_fe_st/armed_and_naked


.

More Stuff to Scare the Apathy Right Outta Ya!

From Edward Hasbrouck's PRACTICAL NOMAD blog:
http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/001156.html


Sunday, 15 October 2006 (this is for real- not the paranoid ramblings of some conspiracy theorist)

Permission to travel

Should you have to ask for permission from the government before you are allowed to get on a plane or cruise ship? ("Mother, may I?")

The USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proposed that airlines cruise lines, and operators of all other ships and planes -- including charter flights, air taxis, fishing vessels, etc. -- be required to get individual permission (”clearance”) from the DHS for each passenger on all flights or ocean voyages to, from, or via the USA. Unless the answer is “Yes” -- if the answer is “no” or “maybe”, or if the DHS doesn’t answer at all -- the airline wouldn’t be allowed to give you a boarding pass, or let you or your luggage on the plane.

I filed comments this week with the DHS on behalf of the Identity Project, the World Privacy Forum, and activist entrepreneur John Gilmore, objecting to this proposal as a violation of international human rights, First Amendment rights, and privacy and government accountability laws....(http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/001156.html)

NewsBitz From The Gazette

News you can abuse from the SOUR GRAPES GAZETTE.


TED KENNEDY'S STOMACH DECLARED OFF LIMITS: TOURISTS EVACUATED FROM MARTHA'S VINEYARD

(Sour Grapes Gazette)


Straining seams inevitable..


Uber elitist and perpetually puffy political pontifcator Ted "who took my KFC Big Bucket?" Kennedy broke through police barriers yesterday, traumatizing visitors to trendy Martha's Vineyard. Police immediately sealed off the beach, declaring it "unsafe" while ferries evacuated hundreds of tourists.

One visitor from Missouri, exposed to the gargantuan gut, was flown by life flight helicopter to Boston General Hospital where she is undergoing intensive therapy for acute Fat Liberal Exposure Syndrome (FLES).


Government Employee: Federal Paper Reduction Act Not One of Our Best Efforts


Federal whistleblower Macie Duvall decided to
go public with yet another government failure

(SOUR GRAPES NEWSDESK)

STONERS PETITION GOVERNMENT FOR LAND GRANT: PROPOSE NEW NATIONAL PARK

Blandsided: The Emasculation of the American Dream and Other Observations

(...TikiTam is back from the dead and bemoaning the shrinking world of the individual.)

We laugh at this stuff now but it's just a matter of time, especially since Americans seemed to have abandoned the habit of individuality. We have allowed ourselves to be bullied into blind acceptance of a transparent Statist agenda.


British Schoolgirl Arrested for Speaking English

Yet another incident of political correctness gone mad. A 14-year-old schoolgirl was arrested after asking her teacher to assign her to a different discussion group, since the five kids in her group didn't speak English. So the school isolated the girl and the police came and hauled her off to the hoosegow... (http://tammybruce.com/political_correctness/) See the full story as reported in the UK press: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=410150&in_page_id=1770

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS- THE REVENGE OF MARXISM?

An awesome and scary observation from THEODOR DALRYMPLE on the Gates of Vienna blogspot:

" Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to..." http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/06/political-correctness-revenge-of.html

SPORTSCASTER CAJONES ON THE RACK AFTER KICKING THE SACRED VACA IN THE SENO

Steve Lyons was relieved of his Fox Sports duties for making comments on air that the company found inappropriate,” network spokesman Dan Bell said.

[…]In the second inning of a playoff game between Detroit and Oakland, Piniella talked about the success light-hitting A’s infielder Marco Scutaro had in the first round of the playoffs. Piniella said that slugger Frank Thomas and Eric Chavez needed to contribute, comparing Scutaro’s production to finding a “wallet on Friday” and hoping it happened again the next week.
Later, Piniella said the A’s needed Thomas to get “en fuego” — hot in Spanish — because he was currently “frio” — or cold. After Brennaman praised Piniella for being bilingual, Lyons spoke up... (good for him!) from the excellent SIX MEAT BUFFET. http://sixmeatbuffet.com/archives/2006/10/14/pc-police-bust-psycho-sportscasters-cajones/

RADICAL FREEDOM-HATING VIOLENCE PROMOTING LAWYER GETS NADA FOR PROMOTING TERRORISTS
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/006122.htm

Left-wing radical laywer Lynne Stewart will be sentenced this morning for her role in fomenting jihad for her client, convicted jihadist and NYC bomb plotter Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. The Associated Press casts her as a compassionate grandma who just cares too much about her downtrodden clients. The New York Times sympathizes here:
There was little sympathy for Ms. Stewart among mainstream lawyers during the trial. But more than 400 letters she submitted to Judge Koeltl about her sentence include many from law professors and criminal defense lawyers who said that her actions never caused actual harm and warned of a chilling effect on lawyers who defend terrorists if she receives a long sentence. Her lawyers cite her long service as a government-appointed lawyer for rebels, mobsters and murderers.
Jo Ann Harris, a former assistant attorney general who authorized the 1994 indictment of Mr. Abdel Rahman, wrote that the terrorism counts against Ms. Stewart were “unwarranted overkill.”
Ms. Stewart’s failing, she wrote, was that she “didn’t have a clue that the stick she was poking in the government’s eye was going to have consequences beyond her imagination.”
The author Gore Vidal wrote to ask the judge to “side with our Bill of Rights” by not imprisoning Ms. Stewart.
Ms. Stewart said that while her radical leftist views have not changed, she will continue to fight within the system. “I really think that my patriotism — if you’ll excuse the expression — and my love of this profession demand that I have to stay and fight.”

Nuttin to Say- Just Photos

The ever-evolving TikiMobile...



Cee Cee and Tiki at the Red Caboose

Tiki Rides Again!

After the Tikimobile was vandalized and TikiTam was traumatized, it took a while to rekindle my desire to "get my island on." This is the top rear in full restoration mode.



The full effect. Still more to go- I envision a sort of
Winchester House of art cars. Perhaps as I add more,
good luck will follow...

Make No Miss Snake About It.. This Is Weird

(ever wonder why some countries remain in the third world..)


Charmed woman marries cobra in India
Fri Jun 2,

BHUBANESWAR, India (AFP) - A woman who fell in love with a snake has married the reptile at a traditional Hindu wedding celebrated by 2,000 guests in India's Orissa state, reports said.

Bimbala Das wore a silk saree for the ceremony Wednesday at Atala village near the Orissa state capital Bhubaneswar.

Priests chanted mantras to seal the union, but the snake failed to come out of a nearby ant hill where it lives, the Press Trust of India (PTI) said on Friday.
A brass replica snake stood in for the hesitant groom.

"Though snakes cannot speak nor understand, we communicate in a peculiar way," Das, 30, told the agency.
"Whenever I put milk near the ant hill where the cobra lives, it always comes out to drink.

"I always get to see it every time I go near the ant hill. It has never harmed me," she added.
Villagers welcomed the wedding in the belief it would bring good fortune and laid on a feast for the big day.

Snakes and particularly the King Cobra are venerated in India as religious symbols worn by Lord Shiva, the god of destruction.

Das, from a lower caste, converted to the animal-loving vegetarian Vaishnav sect whose local elders gave her permission to marry the cobra, the world's largest venomous snake that can grow up to five metres.

"I am happy," said her mother Dyuti Bhoi, who has two other daughters and two sons to marry off. (Can't wait to hear the slither pitter patter of my little grandsnakes...)

"Bimbala was ill," Bhoi told local OTV channel. "We had no money to treat her. Then she started offering milk to the snake ... she was cured. That made her fall in love."

Das has moved into a hut built close to the ant hill since the wedding. (she's registering with IKEA)

Earlier this year, a tribal girl was married off to a dog on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar. ( look for the wedding of a Bombay girl to a half-eaten scone next week..)

Who Let The Blogs Out?

On a serious note: Here are some pearls of REAL news from my favorite blogs.

FROM CLAIRE WOLFE: http://www.clairewolfe.com/blog.html

Friday, May 19, 2006

I KNOW THIS HAS ALREADY BEEN BLOGIFIED BY OTHERS. But this is scary s**t and deserves thinking about. Here's how the Seattle Public Schools' official page on racism defines "cultural racism" (emphasis mine):

Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as “other”, different, less than, or render them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying only Whites as great writers or composers.

"Having a future time orientation"??? You mean, that saving for the future, considering the long-term consequences of your actions, and planning what you want to achieve in the next 10 years is racist? Who knew? Hey, maybe if we all just lounge around, enjoying the moment, and sucking up our "entitlements" we'll be better people.

And emphasizing individualism over "collective ideology"??? Holy crap, who wrote this stuff? Karl *&^%$#ing Marx??? Whoever wrote it, this is what Our Beloved Government is teaching your kidlets. Oy veh. Get 'em outa there ...
Posted by Claire @ 01:43 PM CST [Link]

From BLOG RELOAD http://www.reload.ws/blog/2006/



Thursday, May 18, 2006

High on Propaganda
I can't figure out which of the following four snippets of this article on "drugging and driving" is more ridiculous.

In March, 16-year-old Jessica Easter of Bala Cynwyd, Pa., was killed as she tried to get out of an SUV driven by Stephen L. Meloni, 19, a Harriton High School graduate who had twice the legal amount of alcohol in his system. Meloni also tested positive for marijuana. In addition, police found nearly 80 grams of the drug in his vehicle.This was supposed to be an example of the dangers of driving while smoking marijuana, but I'm not sure I understand how this situation has anything to do with driving ability. If the girl was trying to get out of a moving car, that has nothing to do with a person's ability to drive a car while stoned. Especially when the driver has twice the legal limit of alcohol in his system.

Researchers say that marijuana, which has become more potent over the years, affects judgment, concentration, perception, coordination and reaction time - all skills needed for safe driving. The greatest risk is in the first 24 hours.24 hours? That's some good shit.....
http://www.reload.ws/blog/2006/05/high-on-propaganda.html

Perry Eidelbus weighs in on what's keeping the price of oil so high...

Friday, May 19, 2006

Congressional morons that keep the price of oil high
I've talked before about Congressional Democrats perennially successful attempts to block drilling in the barren ANWR, and Democrats' purely partisan calls for energy independence (which would only make oil more expensive), and Democrat-supporting environmentalists whose lobbying has prevented the construction of any new domestic oil refineries in the last 30 years. But don't get me wrong: some Republicans are just as much to blame...
http://eidelblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/congressional-morons-that-keep-price.html

I found this very disturbing report at http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/9229472/detail.html


Couple Arrested For Asking For Directions

BALTIMORE -- Baltimore City police arrested a Virginia couple over the weekend after they asked an officer for directions.

WBAL-TV 11 News I-Team reporter David Collins said Joshua Kelly and Llara Brook, of Chantilly, Va., got lost leaving an Orioles game on Saturday. Collins reported a city officer arrested them for trespassing on a public street while they were asking for directions .

"In jail for eight hours -- sleeping on a concrete floor next to a toilet," Kelly said.

"It was a nightmare," Brook said. "I was in there thinking I was just dreaming and waiting to wake up."