January 25th ought to be a damn national holiday

Today is Etta James’ birthday. Tell Mama, Etta James is 70 today.

Jerry Wexler, Atlantic Records’ legendary producer, describes Etta James as “the greatest of all modern blues singers…the undisputed Earth Mother.” Her raw, unharnessed vocals and hot-blooded eroticism has made disciples of singers ranging from Janis Joplin to Bonnie Raitt. James’ pioneering 1950s hits - “The Wallflower” and “Good Rockin’ Daddy” - assure her place in the early history of rock and roll alongside Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Ray Charles. In the Sixties, as a soulful singer of pop and blues diva compared with the likes of Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday, James truly found her musical direction and made a lasting mark.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Miss James was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, same year as Creedence, Cream, the Doors, Sly and the Family Stone, Van Morrison and Dick Clark if you still need a clue.

At Last

Alicia Keys is 27.

I was thinkin’ ’bout Alicia Keys, couldn’t keep from crying
When she was born in Hell’s Kitchen, I was living down the line
I’m wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be
I been looking for her even clear through Tennessee
— Bob Dylan, “Thunder on the Mountain”

Virginia Woolf was born on January 25th in 1882.

And, Happy Birthday to Rob, one of two official sons-in-law of NewMexiKen.

Nothing special, just a cool photo

Click for larger version and to learn more.

Tiger Woods makes everyone else play worse

Analyzing data from round-by-round scores from all PGA tournaments between 2002 and 2006 (over 20,000 player-rounds of golf), Brown finds that competitors fare less well—about an extra stroke per tournament—when Tiger is playing. How can we be sure this is because of Tiger? A few features of the findings lend them plausibility. The effect is stronger for the better, “exempt” players than for the nonexempt players, who have almost no chance of beating Tiger anyway. (Tiger’s presence doesn’t mean much to you if the best you can reasonably expect to finish is about 35th—there’s not much difference between the prize for 35th and 36th place.) The effect is also stronger during Tiger’s hot streaks, when his competitors’ prospects are more clearly dimmed. When Tiger is on, his competitors’ scores were elevated by nearly two strokes when he entered a tournament. And the converse is also true: During Tiger’s well-publicized slump of 2003 and 2004, when he went winless in major events, exempt competitors’ scores were unaffected by Tiger’s presence.

Joel Waldfogel - Slate Magazine

The argument is that the other players sense they are playing for second place and so their incentive is less. I don’t believe professional athletes play only for money, but the numbers are convincing.

Woods is 12 under, leading by four strokes after two days in his first tournament of 2008.

The adult in the room

Best line of the day, so far

[Tom] Friedman seems to be arguing here that [Chris] Matthews is simply paid to spout opinions, and that whether they are wise or stupid is not relevant to the discussion. I am now very confused. If your job is to spout opinions, isn’t the spouting of wise opinions a pretty good measure of whether or not you’re doing your job well? In our culture, the spouting of stupid opinions generally used to be left to people on barstools, just as the spouting of crazy opinions generally used to be left to the man in the park who thought he was Napoleon. One opinion is not as good as another.

Charles Pierce

Rebates

What will you do with your $600? Buy some crap made in China or Malaysia? How will that help the economy exactly?

With the understanding that it would take longer to get into the economy and that urgency is an issue, here’s what I would have done if I were the czar. I’d buy $150 billion (the cost of the stimulus package) worth of infrastructure repairs — roads, sewers, bridges, schools.

Let’s see — the work would have to be done in the U.S., much of the money would be in paychecks spent locally, we’d all benefit. Even the wealthy who won’t see any of the rebate*, would be better off with improved roads and bridges that don’t collapse.

_______

* The rebates are phased out if your adjusted-gross income is more than $75,000 ($150,000 for couples), slightly more if you have children. Those making more than $87,000 ($174,000) get nothing (again depending on children).

There Will Be Blood

First, There Will Be Blood is worth seeing simply for the performance by Daniel Day-Lewis. I’ve seen just one other of the five Oscar-nominated best actors, George Clooney in Michael Clayton, and Day-Lewis is in a whole other league from Clooney, good as Clooney was. Simply extraordinary.

I’ve seen four of the five best picture nominees now, all but Atonement. It’s hard to say, but I think I’d put There Will Be Blood last of the four. Michael Clayton was more intriguing, Juno more entertaining, No Country for Old Men more challenging.

There Will Be Blood is an episodic biography of a fictional oil man, much the way The Aviator was the biography of the real Howard Hughes, or Citizen Kane was of a mostly fictional tycoon. There’s a little bit about a silver strike, small oil finds, a large oil strike, a pipeline — beads on a string, some larger and more complete than others, but nothing in between. Why did this happen? Why did he get that way? Why did he do that? We get a glimpse, but no real answers.

I find this troublesome. The Will Smith film The Pursuit of Happyness was entertaining, but I didn’t feel I knew any more about the lead character at the end than I did going in. Good Night, and Good Luck was another good film that left more questions unasked than answered. Ken mentioned to me Michael Clayton — how did the woman attorney get to murder? That’s a big step. I’m glad that many films are trying to be more than they are, and I certainly respect the constraints of telling a story visually in 120 minutes, give or take (158 for There Will Be Blood). I just don’t think the current crop quite gets it done.

Critics have written that this year’s best picture nominees are a particularly bleak look at the world and indeed they are. They say it’s the temper of the times. A film historian might point out however, that the most successful type of films during the depths of the depression were comedies and musicals. The audience sought relief from everyday life. Perhaps now we have too many other ways to find lighter fare with television and the internets, I don’t know. But the unexpected success of Juno may be one indication. I’d watch all four of these films again for one reason or another, but Juno is the one I’d look forward to seeing.

Atonement this weekend.

Investment advice

In light of the stock market and Davenetics new retirement investment strategy mentioned here Wednesday of taking the Giants and the points, Jeanne sends along a complimentary tactic:

If you had purchased $1000.00 of Nortel stock, it would now be worth $49.00.

With Enron, you would have $16.50 left of the original $1000.00.

With WorldCom, you would have less than $5.00 left.

If you had purchased $1000 of Delta Air Lines stock you would have $49.00 left.

But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of beer one year ago, drunk all the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have $214.00.

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.

It’s called the 401-Keg Plan.

Worst art critic ever, too

The Illustrated President.

Go read, shake your head with wonder, and then think, “Yep, that’s my president.”

But only for 360 more days.

(I do kinda like the painting.)

What scenarios fill pilots with dread?

Ask the pilot thinks Alfred Hitchcock may have been right. Don’t read this if you ever fly — on an airplane I mean.

Seriously. Don’t.

World Clock

This is interesting.

Thanks to JD for the pointer.

These f***ers are crazy

Pointer via Hullabaloo.

Barack Obama’s Top Ten Campaign Promises

Number 10: “To keep the budget balanced, I’ll rent the Situation Room for sweet sixteens”

Number 9: “I will double your tax money at the craps table”

Number 8: “Appoint Mitt Romney Secretary of Lookin’ Good”

Number 7: “If you bring a gator to the White House, I’ll wrassle it”

Number 6: “I’ll put Regis on the nickel”

Number 5: “I’ll rename the tenth month of the year ‘Barack-tober’”

Number 4: “I won’t let Apple release the new and improved iPod the day after you bought the previous model”

Number 3: “I’ll find money in the budget to buy Letterman a decent hairpiece”

Number 2: “Pronounce the word nuclear, nuclear”

And the number one Barack Obama campaign promise:

“Three words: Vice President Oprah”