D. R. Aldridge
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Displaying Results 1 - 44 (of 44) for All Content
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The Movable Feast: Thanksgiving with Captain BeefheartWriter Grant O'Neill discusses holiday festivities with legendary avant garde rocker Don Van Vliet.
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Hollywood, Stop Helping Charlie Sheen, You're Killing HimLike all addicts Charlie prearranged the mise en scène for this act, as he has all of the others. It would be banal to suggest that someone should have recognized the signs, because someone obviously did.
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Captain Beefheart, Legend and Friend DiesFor me, perhaps Van Vliet's greatest legacy is that he was the first truly out-of-the-box thinker of the rock era; his work has no pre-ancestry in the annals of the genre and a multitude of imitators, tributaries and out right rip-offs.
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Please Pass the Salt Substitute: How Government is Deciding What We EatWith increasing regularity, it seems, government is veering from its constitutional mandate to promote the general welfare, onto a disturbing course of specific restrictive regulation.
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DeMint Demands Congress to Learn to ReadNow this is creative GOP leadership. South Carolina Republican Jim DeMint is demanding that the Senate actually read two bills before they are brought to a vote.
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Obama's Regulatory Voodoo and the Cost of Doing BusinessWhile the American people have been coping with the mind-bending shock of bailouts, massive spending bills and the healthcare takeover, the Obama Administration has been quietly regulating the nation out of hearth and home.
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Wikileaks: Are Holder's Delays 1960 Liberalism, or Modern-day Radicalism?This is not infinitesimal calculus; Wikileaks has enormously hampered vital U.S. security for years to come, and people will die as a result. Eric Holder has dragged his feet every step of the way
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People's Republic of New Jersey? Chris Christie Eyes Handgun PardonSeven years for transporting two unloaded handguns in his trunk. That's what 27-year-old Brian Aitken was facing when the judge dropped the gavel.
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Captain Beefheart: Don't Drink the TeaThe writer discusses his nearly two-decade-long friendship with avant-garde rock icon Captain Beefheart. In "Don't Drink the Tea" he discusses his visit to Don Van Vliet's home during the rehearsals for the critically acclaimed Trout Mask Replica album.
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TSA: An $8 Government Billion SnafuIn the government's insane campaign to assure U.S. Muslims that they are not being singled out, the Bush and Obama administrations have put in place an $8-billion, one-size-fits-all snafu to rival the likes of the worst bloated bureaucracy.
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Captain Beefheart: Strange FireIn 1965, I walked into the world of Don van Vliet, the rock artist Captain Beefheart. What I did not realize at the time was that I would be a witness to the complete evolutionary process of both the man and the artist.
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Captain Beefheart: My Human Gets Me BluesStepping into the world of Captain Beefheart in 1965, was like walking through a portal into the Twilight Zone'"everything was normal, to the extent anything is ever normal, and everything was strangely disjointed.
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Hillary Clinton and Our Human Rights DemeritsIt seems the only people in the United States who are not tolerated and included are Christians, Jews and conservative Republicans. The only diversities not recognized universally by this government are traditional American values.
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Lisa Murkowski and the Palin FactorA ghost from the past tapped a cold finger on Lisa Murkowski's shoulder several months ago, and it must have sent a clammy chill up the one-term Senator's spine. Just when she thought former Alaska governor Sarah Palin was a bad memory.
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Obama Will Not Seek Second TermIn the entirety of the 20th century only three presidents decided not to seek a second term ... but is a bit of an odd bird when stood along side his 43 predecessors.
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Paris Hilton's Mysterious Vapor Trail Smells to High HeavenSomething smells about Paris Hilton's arrest for cocaine possession by Las Vegas police this weekend. If I didn't know better I would think someone had resurrected the Mod Squad, complete with bad actors and dumb scripts.
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Is Glenn Beck Hijacking Martin Luther King's Dream?Beck is an American firebrand. He is also one of those uniquely American enigmas: a rightwing pundit who has crossed party, racial and social boundaries to become a movement within himself.
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Palin Juggernaut Still Building SteamWhether one agrees with Palin's political views or not, the former governor has in the less than two short years since she took to the national stage, had astounding success.
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Captain Beefheart: Beatle Bones 'n' Smokin' StonesDon Van Vliet was all too aware of the culture's affaire de coeur with Top 40 rock and roll. In the beginning, there was not a question in my mind that the entire Magic Band, Don included, wanted commercial Top 40 success.
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NASA Struggles for Relevancy Upon Final Shuttle LaunchesWith the last two shuttle launches only months away and no economically feasible space orbiter replacement in sight, the space agency is now reduced to thumbing a ride with America's stiffest competitor, in the race to conquer worlds unknown.
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Payday Loan Scams: The New Loan SharksThe Internet is full of them. Loan companies offering quick cash advances to meet life's unexpected expenses. Bad credit? No problem. Sign here. Millions of Americans are in debt to modern day loan sharks and getting deeper in the rut by the day.
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Captain Beefheart: Brave New TwirlI believe I noticed a distinct transformation in Captain Beefheart after Zappa's initial success with "Freak Out!" When it became clear that Frank had broken a wall, from my point of view, Van Vliet began to ascend to another plain.
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The Stranger Beside You: Michigan Serial Killer CapturedThe release of a video of a suspected race-motivated serial killer who has been working Flint, Michigan and may have extended his reach as far as Virginia, brings to light a disturbing truth.
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Zappa Nailed: Are We Only in it for the Money?Why file a lawsuit against the promoters of Zappanale for pennies on the dollar, when the Zappa Family Trust could make a cool million marketing to them?
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Captain Beefheart: Live from CarolsideThe author discusses his 20 year friendship with one of the most unique artists in rock history, Captain Beefheart.
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Fast Food Flops: How Big Business Ruined a Great IdeaToday Wendy's, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and the others are more a fact of life in a world that is perhaps moving a little too fast, but in the 1950s a few men were revolutionizing the way convenience food is marketed and served in America.
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Have a Taste! Fast Food Marketing in AmericaSo why do we like one product brand over another? Do all of the marketing campaigns and endless promotions influence what we buy? Well, yes, and no ...
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Captain Beefheart: Here I Am I Always Am -- or Maybe NotThe author and longtime friend of the former avant-garde Rocker known as Captain Beefheart discusses the artist's reclusive nature.
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Of Perseverance and the Desire to ServeGarrett A. Morgan contributed many things to society over the course of his 86 years; he invented hair products and the friction drive clutch for automobiles, and he was a founding member of what would later become the Cleveland chapter of the NAACP.
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The Spotlight Kid Revisted: Two Decades with Captain BeefheartLongtime Beefheart friend discusses his two-decade-long relationship with the artist.
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Doctor Has Secret to Life After Death: and You Can Buy it for --Dr. Raymond Moody, who is said to have coined the term, "Near Death Experience" and includes the Dalai Lama among his readers is returning to the national stage after a 10-year absence
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Laptops and the New Homeless: "Techno Coping"When the aberration of middle class homelessness began to emerge midway through the first decade of the new century, more and more, after everything else was gone, people began to take technology to the street with them.
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Ahmadinejad's Clever Gambit: Shift Focus to IsraelisIran, as it sees its oil imports choked off, is feeling the pinch. This week Ahmadinejad made what in the minds of those unfamiliar of Iran's history in the Middle East seemed a bizarre announcement.
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Two Separate Blazes Threaten Southern California Desert CommunityAntelope Valley is ablaze. In the last 24 hours, two fires have broken out only miles apart around the small Southern California city of Palmdale in the high desert of northeastern Los Angeles County.
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If I Had a BroomAre we at all tired of Washington yet? I mean how do we get rid of these guys? Remember Randall "Duke" Cunningham, Vietnam ace and bastion of conservative values? Now we have Charlie Rangel.Also published on:
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Can America Stay Out of Mexico's Drug War?It has been the war no one wants to talk about. It has been raging on the U.S.-Mexican border for three and a half years and until recently neither the media nor Washington has given it the attention its alarming casualty numbers demand.Also published on:
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McCartney: Yesterday and TodayPaul McCartney got a little help from his friends tonight, most of whom he didn't need, in the PBS airing of last month's award ceremony at the White House, in which the former Beatle received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.
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Slippery when Wet Redux: Bon Jovi Tell-AllBon Jovi's spin doctors are hard at work this mornig playing down a disgruntled roadie's tell-all tome about the legendary rock band's early years. The unauthorized biography reportedly has dumped the goods on the band's squeaky-clean image --
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The New Homeless: a Middle-Class NightmareThe New Homeless are the silent disgrace of our modern society ... they are Us in two years if an unexpected illness strikes or we lose our job'"the Us we don't dare think about.
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Baltimore Schedules Concert for Zappa Bust UnveilingThe City of Baltimore has scheduled a concert in honor of legendary rock musician, Frank Zappa, on the anniversary of the artist's appearance before the U.S. Senate Commerce, Technology, and Transportation committee in Washington.
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The GOP Disconnect: How Obama Can Win in 2010Barack Hussein Obama has been outstandingly successful in his primary mission as president. Even Fox News and Limbaugh and the 100-or-so other conservative Talk brands out there are not enough derail his success. ...
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Maryland Suspect May Shed Light on Why Serial Killers Are Hard to CaptureAccording to the Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico, Virginia, between 20 and 100 serial killers are roaming the country. The truth is, no one really knows. ...
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Andrew Breitbart Should ApologizeAndrew Brietbart's attack on Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod was the result of incomplete reportage, and he should retract the story and apologize to both Ms. Sherrod and the NAACP.
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The Amazing Vanishing Spotlight KidWhere is Don Van Vliet? Exhaustive e-zine articles have been penned on the icon's whereabouts since he walked away from spotlight in the mid 1980s. The truth, as with most things Beefheart, is simpler than many of his fans can seemingly accept.