Random Music Video: Louis Armstrong and Johnny Cash "Blue Yodel #9"

I don't know that any one person invented jazz. I suppose as a musical form it evolved, evolved on the streets on New Orleans, evolved amongst the brass bands that played in parades in the Crescent City and elsewhere in southern Louisiana in the late 1800s and early 1900s, evolved in sweaty honky tonks and steamy bordellos. Now, sometimes evolution in an art form is aided by one person without whom the evolution would not be as successful. In painting, there was Picasso. In jazz, there was Louis Armstrong. To borrow from Dizzy Gillespie, who said, "No Louis Armstrong, no me," I say no Louis Armstrong, no jazz as we know it. Armstrong virtually invented modern jazz in the 1920s.

Fast forward to 1970 and we can feast our eyes and ears upon another cool cat, Johnny Cash, who'd been rocking the world since the '50s. The evolution of Johnny Cash was the evolution of a white man in Arkansas growing up in the '30s and '40s, listening to country and folk and gospel. Later on he put all that together, mushed up with a pinch of rock and roll, and came up with songs like "Ring of Fire" and "Folsom Prison Blues." Cash loved music and he loved people, all people, and you can see that in this video.

Johnny Cash and Louis Armstrong might seem like a strange pairing, but really, it isn't. It's just two cool cats layin' it down.

I Feel Off Today

Enough!

The Last Word on...

...the Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer "battle." Watch the extended, full length version of their conversation, if you can call it that, here. You can decide if Stewart was being too heavy handed in making Jim Cramer the face of all that is wrong with Wall Street, or if Cramer is indeed someone who has been helping steer Americans down the wrong financial path.

The biggest thing I took away from all this is the fact that it took a comedian, albeit an angry man-of-the-people comedian, to point out that "news" outlets like CNBC aren't really in the news business, but rather in the business of promoting Wall Street and the financial markets in general without asking any questions. With the aid of hindsight, we know all this cheerleading with blind faith was done at the peril of stock holders and the American tax payers.

What has happened to the concept of investigative journalism in this country when we have to rely on a fake news show to expose the wrong doings of companies that are helping to ruin our economy?

Happy St. Patrick's Day

It's a St. Patrick's Day Battle of the Bands! First up is a band called The Dubliners performing a traditional Irish drinking song (wait, aren't all Irish songs drinking songs?) called "Whiskey in the Jar." Next up is Metallica performing in a city called Dublin a not so traditional version of "Whiskey in the Jar." I think both renderings are excellent in their own way. Vote for your favorite!

Becks

What a wonderful world we are living in when the good folks over at the Fox News Network are turning on their own. Shepard Smith seems to be the only one over there with any testicles and common sense. And just how is it that the son of Mike Wallace is so craven and weak minded that he seems to love working for Fox while not seeming to mind kissing Glenn Beck's ass?



So what is up with Glenn Beck? Why is the Fox News commentator pretending to cry in this video clip? Why is he wearing Converse gym shoes with his suit? What was so great about 9-12-01? Is that the day George W. Bush let a nation down by telling them to go shopping rather than asking them to sacrifice a little in order to permanently defeat terrorism? Or did that happen a couple days later? Maybe on 9-12 we were still hopeful that Bush would have what it took to Fight the Good Fight, which, it turns out, he did not. But I digress. Let's watch Beck cry crocodile tears.



Glenn Beck's methods have become...unsound. I much prefer this Beck:



But really, for better or worse, when you hear the name "Beck," don't you first think of Jeff? I mean, give the man credit for sticking with the same hairstyle for 40 years.



A brief conversation about ampage with "Jeff Beck":

What You Talkin' About, Willis Tower?

Chicago's Sears Tower will be renamed this summer for a soon to be major tenant, Willis Group Holdings (catchy name). They are a British insurance broker. I understand the concept of change. Things change. It's life, it's evolution. But wouldn't it be nice if an American architectural icon were renamed after, oh, I don't know, an American company? Just asking. Of course, maybe there aren't any American companies still in business.