Last week I got a bunch of CDs I’d ordered. Last night I started into the queue. First up: The Devil You Know by Rickie Lee Jones. This is  a collection of covers. She doesn’t try to mimic the original artists. She interprets them. Usually to me this is bad news because songs I’ve loved are going to be disassembled and rebuilt, kinda like Frankenstein’s monster. Being a fan I was curious. The opening song is Sympathy For The Devil. I remember harassing bar bands between beers to play it. I wanted all of Mick’s strut and sass, the boasting of The Corrupter. Not even close. It became an anguished ballad drawn out and phrased, barely audible. It was different, I liked it. Stones fans will cry “Blasphemy”, I hear you. Quiet down. She goes on to Neil Young’s Only Love Can Break Your Heart and does a nice job. She’s approaching the songs like she’s walking on questionable ice in ballet slippers. She moves to Masterpiece and The Weight and you can hear the confidence in every step on the ice. St. James Infirmary is sublime. She reinterprets Rod Stewart’s Reason To Believe. This was a song made for drunks looking to convince the girl of their dreams to hop on board the ride. Rickie tosses the rasp that made it so good for a drunk singalong and smooths it out into a woman asking her man to be a partner. She glides through Play With Fire, another Stone’s oldie. This is what it would’ve sounded like if Mick gave the song to Marianne Faithful. She ends the album with Catch The Wind. The hippie sweetness is gone and the song is a slow easy wish. I love this CD. I recommend it. Be warned Rickie Lee Jones may be an acquired taste for some but she’s worth it.

Felix Buamgartner jumped from the door of outer space. He set records for altitude, speed (no kidding) and tested a suit that can possibly be used in our attempts in space. What kills me is “under his own power”. It was gravity. Remember Isaac Newton? If you step off into open air, you’re gonna fall. There’s rules for that. My cynic brain is screaming “The man is the reincarnation of Evel Kneivel. A total jackass trying to kill himself.” The corner of my brain that retains the scientific curiosity says “Yaay another step to Mars.” The television junkie part is yelling “Why the hell are you watching a shot of the Earth taken from a balloon with a digital readout of the altitude?” I missed the jump live because I have a life to live and many times watching a potential big honking firecracker with men sitting on top for hours have ennured me to the potential tragedy. I did what any 21th century wired up person would do, I watched it on-line and on the news.

A 62 year old man was cooked to death (Is there any other way?) in a Bumblebee tuna processing plant. An OSHA spokesperson says “It’s unclear how the man wound up inside a ‘steamer cooker’ “. Maybe he wanted a quiet place to take a nap. Maybe somebody put him there. Maybe it was suicide by tuna cooker. This story was on the web. It was too small for even a mention on the local news. those people are always looking for a safety story.

Non Sequitur is my favorite comic. There is more hidden wisdom in the strips than you can get from an hour with a preacher. Click, laugh, think.

http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2012/10/14

http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequiter/2012/10/15

On the second one, check the writing on the front of Danae’s stand.

Listen.

The fourteen year old girl the Taliban tried to assassinate is in the UK.

Pussy Riot was sent to a remote prison camp.

Listen,

I just love blond hipster women.

Support your local food bank. Read to a kid. Adopt a shelter pet. Call your parents and say Thanks, if you can. Ignore politicians, they want to get elected worse that a teen on Spring Break in a TJ cathouse. Be nice to someone you don’t like.

See you on Wednesday.