The Beatles' Rarity, CARNIVAL OF LIGHT, Might Be Released

One of the rarest tracks ever recorded by The Beatles was a 1967 14 minute psychedelic experimental piece called CARNIVAL OF LIGHT, and now Paul McCartney is considering the release of this very rare track which was originally slated for release on the ANTHOLOGY 2, but McCartney considered it to be a waste of space because of the length of the song.

A 4 minute sound sample floating around on YouTube of the song seems to put it in a similar nature to some of the stranger moments of THE WHITE ALBUM in some ways such as REVOLUTION #9, however since the track appears to be largely just experimental instrumentation rather than a vocal track, it lacks the commercial appeal to be launched as a single and will probably find it's way onto a larger Cd of other rarity material as well since there are still a large number of Beatles' recordings that have not been used in the ANTHOLOGY series or on bootleg recordings of the legendary band.

The 14 minute avant garde Beatles piece seems to remind some music critics of THE RETURN OF MONSTER MAGNET from the Frank Zappa album FREAK OUT in many ways. And while this interesting Beatles' musical experiment really lacks both rhythm as well as melody, it still seems to be an early bridge to the later more advanced experiments in breaking new ground musically that were so highly successful on THE WHITE ALBUM. The track is so rare that it is like the Holy Grail of lost Beatles songs, despite it's lack of a more commercial nature.

There is still a wealth of Beatles' material that hasn't been issued either on the ANTHOLOGY series or on bootleg recordings of the band, so there is certainly enough great material out there still for the surviving Beatles to issue another pretty good album of rarities and outtakes.

Another lengthy rarity is the 1967, ANYTHING, which is a 22 minute long experimental piece recorded during the 1967 SGT PEPPER sessions, and features a drum beat with conga and tambourine accents. And while ANTHOLOGY 3 featured a greatly shortened version of HELTER SKELTER 3, which is a bluesy and far different sounding version of the song than the more popularly released frantic classic, this rarity actually goes on for 27 minutes in unedited form and is unavailable on any bootleg recording to date.

Fans of THE BEATLES who thirst for more of their music have also taken some satisfaction in some bootlegs that purport themselves to be remasters of the band's original complete catalog of albums. And some 24bit mono and stereo remasters issued by shadowy bootleggers such as Mirror Spock and Dr. Ebbetts are known to exist in the collector's market. These "remasters" have typically been from vinyl sources and digitised with pretty awesome sound quality in many cases, but with results still below what would be expected if the original master tapes owned by The Beatles were used in a true remastering process.

The fact of the matter is that The Beatles have not released the last of their rarities or possible albums to the public. There is enough more material of recorded rarities or possible remasters out there that new releases should surface for quite some time. And since The Beatles and their record companies own the original master tapes to any of these rarities, then they are in the driver's seat to issue some stunning official releases that bootleggers and rarity collector's would not be able to match. It's only a matter of time when more of such rarities such as CARNIVAL OF LIGHT will officially surface as a release.

Proposition 8 Aftermath: Does The Mormon Faith Court Controversy?

On one hand, the Mormon faith is known for a deep sense of family values, with a great sense of members helping each other when in need. And many Mormon members are known for their kindness as well as good works. Outgoing Oregon Senator Gordon Smith was known for his support for Food Stamps for the poor and other compassion in the U.s. Senate. And Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, is known for his support for many compassionate programs. And likely the two Udalls, both Democrats who have been elected to the Senate will continue in the same sense of compassion.

But the controversy over many Mormon conservatives supporting California's Proposition 8 with $22 million dollars in donations has shined an unwelcome spotlight on the right wing extremism of many members of the Mormon faith, as well as their controversial church teachings.


The fact of the matter is that during the early 1970's there were some experiments at Brigham Young University that sought homosexual volunteers to see if electroshock therapy could "cure" homosexuals of their sexual orientation, while others such as Kinsey and others had long accepted homosexuality as a common human sexual variation and most in the psychiatric community had abandoned beliefs that such behavior was a sign of mental illness.

There is also some criticism that the LDS faith seems to have a very repressed view of sexuality in general, that teaches among other things that normal adolescent behavior such as masturbation is sinful, and thereby may even encourage excessive guilt or even suicide among some members. Even in marriage, some LDS teachings believe that even oral sex among married persons is morally wrong, although there is no evidence from the Bible itself that married persons can sin by varied activity in their marriage bed. However there some others that will point out that the Roman Catholic faith as well as Islam, and a few other faiths often have embraced similar views on sexuality issues as well. What no doubt angered many in the Gay community was the efforts by some conservative Mormons to impose their own views on sexuality that are shaped by their religion on the general public by their support for opposition to Gay marriage, as officially the LDS church condemns all homosexual acts as sinful.

But while the Mormon faith has managed to anger those in the Gay community as well as their supporters for civil rights and civil liberties, it has most often been the strange teachings of the Mormon faith that have inspired attacks by others within the mainstream of the Christian faith.

Not everyone in the public understands that some strange and controversial teachings separate the Mormon faith from the mainstream of other Christian churches who generally share far more aspects in common. Most churches in Christendom share beliefs in a Trinity of God, or Baptism, or other aspects. However even in these areas the Mormon faiths takes on some strange departures from the mainstream of Christian beliefs.

While most Christians believe in the Bible only as the main authority for their faith, the Mormon faith believes in something known as THE BOOK OF MORMON, which it claims to be another testament of Jesus Christ. And it is here that some strange departures from mainstream Christian thought seem to develop.

The book of Mormon claims to be a history of some people from the Middle East that were of Hebrew background that emigrated to the United States region during a period of 2500BC until 600BC, despite a lack of archaeological evidence that Native American Indian tribes showed any evidence of such a Hebrew background or influence. If anything Native American religion had little in common with religion that developed in either the Mideast or Europe that believed in a God that resided from Heaven and acted as a creator. Native American religion tended to view the Earth as a creator of life, where there was a cycle of life, where even the dead complete the cycle of life because either their remains or ashes will eventually grow new life from the Earth. And there is not good evidence that Jesus Christ ever visited the Native Americans in the pre United States either as the Mormon faith also teaches.

Mormon teachings that Native american Indians were descendants of Hebrews from Jerusalem is also another unfounded Mormon belief. The fact of the matter is that the genetics of Native American Indians proves they are of an Asian background, and not Mideastern. Genetics is a definite science, and clearly disproves Mormon teachings such as this, while the Bible hasn't been proven to have scientific or archaeological mistakes by comparison. In fact the Bible gave a history of certain tribes from the Mideast that some in archaeology at one time doubted the existence of, however during Mid East excavations since the 1900's some of the most controversial histories of Mid Eastern tribes existence has been proven in the Mideast by archaeologists, while more and more evidence disproves more and more of the Mormon teachings by comparison.

Even those from the science of linguistics have discounted THE BOOK OF MORMON as merely a spiritual counterfeit document written by church founder Joseph Smith rather than being divinely inspired due to hundreds of grammatical errors that had to be corrected by later church scholars. Compared to the far better authority of the Bible which has held up to centuries of Jewish and Christian scholars scrutiny, THE BOOK OF MORMON, is a faulty document that seems to borrow heavily from two other books written by other authors in 1823 and 1925, before the 1830 publication of THE BOOK OF MORMON by Joseph Smith. Rather than being divinely inspired and copied from the Golden Plates as Joseph Smith claims, real proof is that THE BOOK OF MORMON was heavily plagiarized from the 1823 book, VIEW OF THE HEBREWS, by author Ethan Smith, and the 1825 book, THE WONDERS OF NATURE, by Josiah Priest.

There is also heavily criticism that the founder of the Mormon faith, Joesph Smith, merely invented the faith for reasons of personal enrichment or to get women. His teachings that supported polygamy are good examples of this. Further Smith was known for using his church publications to attack the character of women who refused to become one of his wives, as well allowing abortions among his multiple wives.

And unlike books of the Bible such as the Old testament prophet Ezekiel, who wrote what would become the complete and so far fully accurate history of the Jewish people of the Mideast, accurately predicting the destruction and loss of a Jewish state in the MidEast such as Judea and Samaria, and then the 1948 reestablishment of a Jewish Mideast state, the claimed prophecies of Joseph Smith simply have not turned out in most cases.

Mormonism even departs from the established mysterious Trinity of God concept that most Christians share in that Mormonism views God, the Son, and Holy Spirit as three separate persons, while mainstream Christian thought views the Trinity of God being in one personage. God is even viewed as being a former man who became God according to Mormonism, and at one time later Mormon church leader Brigham Young even taught that Adam and God were the same, however the church did not adopt this strange teaching officially.

In recent years the Jewish community has become angered at a strange Mormon ritual in which thousands of Holocaust victims were baptised in a strange ritual known as Baptism Of The Dead. As late as just this year, Jewish faith leaders were still having conflict with the LDS church for continued Baptisms Of The Dead of more Jews, despite a 1995 agreement with Jewish leaders to stop this practice. There is no sign that thousands of Jewish victims of the Holocaust wanted to convert to either Mormonism or Christian religion, yet strangely the LDS has done this against the will of the Jewish community.

There are also some strange Mormon rituals that seem to be founded in Freemasonry such as secret handshakes that must be known so that members can get into heaven. And strangely there is a belief practiced by some Mormons that wearing a "sacred garment" that has been called Mormon underwear by critics must be worn to a temple rituals known as the Endowment Ceremony. While the Mormon faith is known to actively seek out new members, there is a high level of secrecy held by most members of the faith of their strange beliefs and rituals, as when members become fully part of the faith, then more is revealed to them.

Other strange Mormon teachings of multiple Heavens, that one will not see their Earthly parents in Heaven, or that forgiveness of sin has limits, also do not follow mainstream Christian thinking either. And some LDS legislators such as Orrin Hatch of Utah is known for writing some extreme political views on topics in the Moonie cult owned right wing WASHINGTON TIMES newspaper. Hatch has been disappointed not to be named to the U.S. Supreme Court as a justice by Republican administrations going back to Ronald Reagan.

While most Mormons are indeed very nice people and good neighbors by all means, it is the new controversy by many of them getting so actively involved in the effort to bankroll Proposition 8 in California that has only helped to focus some new attention on this church as being cultist in nature and holding some strange beliefs and rituals that are far from mainstream Christian thinking. In fact, Catholics and Protestants can find far more common ground on many issues of faith than either can with Mormons. And the very weird conduct of some breakaway Mormons such as the cult of Warren Jeffs has only recently given the public a bad taste of some religious extremism and cultist behavior among some of this controversial religious community as well.

If anything, it seems that when members of a religion that is held suspect by many in the public gets involved in controversial political matters, then it only opens up a new public critique of that faith. If anything, this might prove to be another valuable lesson why politics and religion should never meet in the public arena. The Roman Catholic church also suffered some backlash over the years for their teachings and beliefs when they entered the public arena in some attempts to force non-Catholics to abide by some of their beliefs. And likewise when some Mormons seek to impose their views on the general public, then their church teachings come into public examination as well.

GOP Should Prepare For A Long Wander In The Wilderness

In the wreckage of the second failed Bush presidency as well another clear electoral loss after a Bush presidency, the GOP is scrambling to figure what went wrong and how to revive themselves for 2012. But the reality is that they are not so much in the driver's seat of their own destiny as are the Democrats whose success or failure is more likely than anything the GOP can do at this point to revive their political fortunes.

It will be up to President Obama and the Democratic majority in congress to deliver on a revival of the American economy and a big improvement in society and other important issues. More than anything, this alone will determine whether the voting public will turn out some Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections or not. But I think it is highly unlikely that President Obama will make the same mistakes like a Jimmy Carter, or appoint ineffective persons to deal with the economy and other important issues. If anything, Obama will carefully choose the best minds to deal with important issues, so the GOP can't really count on failure here. The biggest question is will the new solutions will work and whether they will they work before the 2010 midterm elections take place. The economy will be a stubborn problem to deal with for sure, and there certainly will be more major failures of major segments of the American economy before things begin to improve. That can't be avoided. Major economic cycles cannot be reversed overnight. But the GOP can't count on much help from Democratic failures here because the Obama Administration will make every effort to succeed.

During the 2008 election while Barack Obama talked about the economy, John McCain wanted to talk about Bill Ayers and other fringe issues that the public wasn't really interested in. And now the GOP finds their political base largely reduced down to just parts of the old Confederacy and some parts of the West. The GOP has to prove that they are a party that can manage a government again in the future, and move beyond a fringe issue party. And no, political lightweight Sarah Palin is not the future of their party either.

Part of the problem is also that the GOP has substantially reduced it's base of support by the divisive issue of illegal immigration which managed to turn out big Hispanic margins of around 70% for the Democrats in 2008, and helped to cost the Republicans Florida, Nevada and New Mexico, as well as the election. The GOP is now faced with proving that there is not substantial racism against the Hispanic community within their party if they want to have any real hopes in the future of winning national elections, otherwise they start out at an electoral disadvantage. And the GOP cannot win elections by only being the party of White people. It needs to win substantial numbers of persons of color and ethnic groups in the future, as White voters are declining numbers of all voters.

And another big problem is that the GOP seems to find the wrong issues to focus on, like for example right now. They are more interested in running more candidates for public office, when the public really wants to hear solutions to the current economic mess, not more about elections or running more candidates. If anything points to a GOP that doesn't get, it is issues such as this. The GOP had eight years under Bush to produce results, but instead left the country with nothing but problems, and now only wants to talk about running more candidates for office. It is absurd.

But the biggest problem for the GOP is that President Obama is unlikely to tank or disappoint the public. He is a highly competent politician who is willing to do whatever it takes to get results. This virtually ensures that he will win re-election in 2012, and probably by a bigger margin than in 2008. Likely the voters will give him at least eight years to try to change the country. And if he is highly successful, then another strong Democrat could even succeed him in 2016. Likely in 2012, the strongest GOP candidates will avoid this year, leaving a weaker tier of candidates to go through the motions of a losing effort to a big re-election win by Obama.

The fact of the matter is that the GOP needed to have more success in governing during the Bush years, but instead allowed huge problems such as Iraq, the economy, Katrina, and a drip-drip of other problems to only build. Now it will be difficult for this party to regain substantial power for quite some time. When you lose power, it's hard to come back again.

The GOP needs to brace themselves for a long period of wandering in the wilderness.

About the only real hope that the GOP can have is that some voters might become complacent or ungrateful if the Democrats restore wealth and prosperity to the nation. And indeed sometimes the voters do have short memories. In 2000, voters let some anger over Bill Clinton's Oval Office antics harm Al Gore, forgetting about the larger issue of the stronger economy under much of the Clinton years. Sometimes in anger a person does stupid things, including voters.

Voters with a short memory remind me of the joke about the little boy who was playing in the sand down at the beach, but then suddenly a big tide swept him out to sea, and his mother cried out, "God, God. If you bring back my son, I'll never ask for anything ever again. I'd be so grateful". Suddenly a miracle tide emerged and swept the little boy back to safety on the beach. At first the mother hugged the boy, but then looked to Heaven and proclaimed, "Yeah, but he had a hat!". Voters are unfortunately the very same way. They go in and out like tides, and often forget who brought them prosperity. About the best future hope of the GOP after 2012 might be that voters will remain this same way if the Democrats succeed in making the economy strong again. Otherwise the problems for the GOP might be generational.

Gay Community Hopes To Rock The Nation With Massive Saturday Protests

As an angry response to the narrow victory by the antiGay marriage forces in California with Proposition 8, the nation's Gay community is planning to rock the nation with massive Saturday protests. Progressive organizations such as MoveOn.Org which contributed $300,000 towards defeating the measure are urging their 4.2 million contributing members to support efforts to reverse the measure in California, most likely by the state Supreme Court. A number of citizens are complaining that the wording of the measure was confusing, and when some voted "yes" they thought they were voting in favor of Gay marriage and not against it. But it is unclear whether this will be enough to rule the vote invalid or not. Many ballot measures often use confusing language, but have been ruled as valid or constitutional in the past.

The Mormon Church which was actively involved in the "yes" on Proposition 8 campaign, putting around $22 million dollars into the effort is likely to face many of the Saturday protests both in California and nationally. Interestingly, while the Mormon Church did very little to denounce breakaway cult member Warren Jeffs and his illegal polygamy or child marriage, the Mormon Church instead put a huge effort into the antiGay measure claiming that it was important to the defense of traditional marriage, even though polygamy was once an official church teaching. All of this serious hypocrisy as well as so much Mormon money going into funding the antiGay measure has only galvanised support to hurt the Mormon Church with protests or financially to punish their hypocrisy on the marriage issue.

But a major problem for the Gay community in California was that despite a huge 61% vote win by Barack Obama recently, perhaps as much as 70% of both African American and Hispanic voters might have voted for the antiGay measure. The problem is that these ethic communities simply do not view their own civil rights struggles as comparable to the civil rights struggle of the Gay community. So far, the level of acceptance for the Gay community has been far stronger among the White community, where even many Republicans voted against Proposition 8 in California.

The real problem for America's Gay community is that they haven't really sold their case to many Americans yet. With weak support in ethnic communities such as among the African American as well as Hispanic communities, it is really up to the Gay community to better sell their struggle issues to these communities as well as the larger population. And any protests planned for Saturday need to be absolutely peaceful and legal, as any illegal or violent activity will only hurt the cause of the Gay community to sell their case to America as well.

The fact of the matter is that the nation's Gay community really need more time to sell their case to America. Younger voters tend to be far more supportive than older voters as a rule. However. the real hopeful sign is that most antiGay elections tend to trending more closely divided and less lopsided than only a few years ago. If anything that is sign that at least some progress is being made in the efforts of America's Gay community to make their case for equality to mainstream America. But whether Saturday's planned protests will really help to advance the Gay community cause is still a question to be asked.

Can Detroit Really Be Saved? History Isn't Good

As Detroit continues to beg Washington for immediate financial aid to avoid financial collapse, and both Nancy Pelosi and President-Elect Barack Obama seem very willing to offer this aid, the fact of the matter is that the history of rescuing ailing American automakers has never been very good.

At one time many American states produced an automobile brand by at least 1930, but with the huge 1929 crash on Wall Street, many american automobile brands faced their biggest financial survival challenges since their upstart history during the boom years of the American automobile industry of the early 1900's.

When Henry Ford was able to mass produce the Model T, he was able to drop the price to a mere $300 for these simple one door automobiles by 1920, while other car brands might have sold for an average near $3,000 only a few years earlier. Ford was even able to make additional profits by recycling the wood shipping crates that suppliers shipped the parts to his assembly factory in, creating the Kingsford charcoal brand. Henry Ford was a real master at low cost production and profit maximization. But since this time few ailing automobile brands have been nearly as fortunate.

During the Great Depression, the excellent car brand company of Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg was only able to survive for a while financed by a rescue plan from the Roosevelt Administration that had the company building kitchen cabinets for homes that the Roosevelt Administration was helping to be built under part of their NRA programs and other programs to build homes and get Americans home ownership. Despite building some very fine automobiles, this company just could financially survive the economic tailspin that it ran into after the start of the Great Depression, where celebrities such as Clark Gable and other customers simply did not purchase enough of their fine cars to keep them in business.

American steel tycoon, Henry J Kaiser, had failed in his bid to build small inexpensive automobiles known as the Henry J in the early 1950's despite a sales agreement with Sears to also market the cars under the Sears brand name, Allstate, that were sold in Sears stores. But in 1950, few American car buyers were all that interested in a $1,300 car with no glovebox, spartan interior, and just a 68hp 4 cylinder engine. The competing Chevrolet model 150 was unfortunately available for not much more money, which made it even more difficult for the ultracheap, but durable little Henry J cars to compete as well. By 1954, the little cars were gone, when Henry Kaiser had formed a merger with the Wills-Overland Company to build the Jeep models, and created the Kaiser Jeep Corporation. It was one of the first of several desperate modern attempts for American brands to survive by merger. But by 1970, little American Motors Corporation had purchased the Jeep brand. Eventually, Chrysler purchased AMC by 1987. Jeep is the only example of an American automobile brand that has outlived several owners and manufacturers in American history that still survives today. The Jeep product turned out to be a product so good that it remains around today while the manufacturers of the brand have struggled since the 1950's to actually make enough money with the product to survive in business. It is an amazing story of the difficulties of the American automobile brands to survive in business, even with a great product.

American Motors, which purchased Jeep, is also another important story of the sheer struggle of some American automobile brands to remain in business. During the early 1950's despite postwar auto sales where Americans were buying cars, smaller American car brands struggled to compete with larger companies such as General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, and the four remaining smaller car companies, Hudson, Nash, Studebaker and Packard entered into negotiations to merge to not only survive financially, but also have the capital available in order to keep developing new brands in order to keep up with the rapid product development over at Chevrolet and Ford for example. However, the very sick financial state of Packard, as well as the financial weakness of Studebaker, it really was a real concern of Hudson and Nash, and instead only these companies formed what was at the time the largest corporate merger in American history, although it only involved just $188 million in capital in January 1954.

Sadly, Packard and Studebaker were forced to create their own troubled merger for survival sake in 1954. While Studebaker was financially the stronger of the two companies, it was the real financial problems of the very troubled Packard company that would help to doom this company in the long run. These two companies were even compared to two drunks attempting to hold each other up, because of the sheer weakness of both companies. Although the beautiful 1953 Studebaker models were greatly admired, by 1958, the large luxury Packard brand was simply doomed by poor sales. The 1958 Packard models were no longer a large car body of their own, but merely a dressed up version of the 1953-era Studebaker models. It was the last of the Packard brand ever. And Studebaker struggled along to survive into the 1960's with declining car sales with attractive car models still based off the 1953 design, along with the compact Lark models, and the beautiful Avanti sportscar brand. The problem with the Avanti was that it was another beautiful Studebaker design that was greatly admired, but once again sold poorly. Ironically, Studebaker purchased the Chemical Compounds Company in 1960, and the STP brand engine additive was to become what was left of the Studebaker company after the company ceased automobile production in 1966. Studebaker went from a blacksmith business formed in 1952 to becoming an automobile manufacturing company, to becoming merely a company that produced an additive for automobiles. It was a classic nearly Shakespearean tale of the tragic rise and fall of an great American automobile company.

Meanwhile, American Motors Corporation struggled on to survive years after Studebaker despite tightening finances as well. The early 1960's Rambler models were a huge success, but the desire of little AMC to compete model for model with larger American companies such as GM really strained the finances of little AMC. And although they built some durable cars that sold for lower prices than most comparable models from the larger brands, the sales at AMC continued to weaken after the early 60's sales success of the small Rambler models. AMC hoped to recapture some of it's early success with the introduction of the 1970 Hornet models which were tooled for just $40 million in production costs, and for only a mere $6 million more, the little subcompact Gremlin models were introduced in April 1970. But little AMC never realized that the 1970 Hornet, which was based off a 1966 design prototype car called the Cavalier, would become it's longest running car platform ever. From the 1970 model year until 1987, American Motors produced some sort of car based off the 1970 Hornet in some way, including four wheel drive models. This long model run for a platform ever exceeded the long run of the failed Checker Motors which produced cars from 1958 until 1974. Checker also proved that even though an American car company could build cars capable of running up to a million miles, it simply wasn't enough to stay in business.

Little AMC was acquired by Chrysler in 1987, but only because Chrysler really wanted to own the Jeep brand, and certainly wasn't interested in owning the AMC cars. The last AMC cars were part of a failed attempt by French automaker Renault to have a 49% ownership in AMC in order for the company to survive. However, few of the Renault designed cars ever sold, and most of the Renault designed Eagle models were actually produced by Chrysler as their own products before very poor sales forced Chrysler to drop the Eagle brand cars from the Jeep dealers they owned.

But Chrysler has had it's own difficult history. By the late 70's, Chrysler's sales were terrible due to Chrysler's failure to offer smaller cars to deal with the gas crisis of the 70's, and the company needed it's own federal government bailout by 1979 in the form of $1.5 billion loan guarantee to avoid bankruptcy. Chrysler's easrly history as an industry innovator that once created new ideas such as the automatic transmission, power steering and brakes, was so challenged that French carmaker Peugeot helped to design the subcompact Plymouth Horizon and Dodge Omni models, and numerous models based of the K-car design that was produced after the loan guarantee, helped Chrysler to limp along until German auto brand Daimler purchased Chrysler, but even with the introduction of numerous new innovative models, Daimler sold to American investors only in recent years.

The fact of the matter is that no matter how important it may be to make the American automobile industry survive, the real history is that nothing has really worked to ensure their long-term survival. Most every attempt at mergers, foreign investors or government loans has only bought American car brands a little more time, and only delayed the inevitable collapse of these American brands.

The American television industry ran into similar problems as well with better and stronger and more innovative foreign competition from Japan, where American brands like Magnavox, Emerson, General Electric, RCA, Quasar and Zenith all failed. While RCA was purchased by an European company, Zenith continued as the final holdout in the American television industry until they owed so much money to a South Korean bank to finance their losses in business that they were taken over by the bank and became a South Korean brand, and no American television brands exist today.

Detroit may also be on the same bad side of history as well. It is highly likely that nothing, not even a large multibillion dollar bailout of the American automobile industry will guarantee the survival of General Motors, Ford or Chrysler for too many more years. The financial stresses of this huge recession, a lack of technology as modern as Toyota or Honda, and huge financial losses might mean the eventual loss of at least American car maker, where only Ford might be the most likely to survive of the three remaining American auto brands. The reality here is certainly frightening.

Sarah Palin Doesn't Know When To Leave The Stage

During her failed campaign to become the first female vice president in American history, you couldn't hardly get Sarah Palin to do an interview. Now that she should be an irrelevant newsstory and should simply go home to Alaska and leave the spotlight and let the Obama Administration jell together and figure ways to solve the nation's serious problems with the economy and other matters, you can't keep Palin off the stage. She's doing interviews all over the place. She was on THE TODAY SHOW yesterday, more of her was on CNN with Wolf Blitzer today, and she's doing LARRY KING tonight. Like the bad act that refuses to leave the stage where the guy with a hook has to pull them off the stage, Sarah Palin just doesn't know when to get off the stage.

Andy Warhol once surmissed that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. Well, Sarah Palin's "15 minutes" have long since come and gone. Yet, now she's doing more interviews than ever, and hogging as much of the post-election spotlight as she possiby can. She's certainly not a "pitbull in lipstick", as much as she's just a pure "publicity hound". It's nearly as pathetic as when Britney Spears would do absolutely anything just in order to get her daily publicity in the last couple of years before she hit the skids.

Palin is like an ongoing train wreck. One that just keeps on happening. It's no concern of hers that she lost the election and badly so. Palin is in the business of giving advice on Wednesday on CNN. Advice to President Bush, advice to President-Elect Obama, advice to anyone who will waste time listening to her. It's simply pathetic that she just doesn't know when to go away and go back to Alaska.

Please, please, please, someone find that stage hook guy now. Right now.

Great TEN YEARS AFTER Rarities Emerge Again

One of the greatest live blues rock acts of the late 1960's through mid70's was of course TEN YEARS AFTER. Led by guitar superman, Alvin Lee, this great band managed 11 original albums between 1967's TEN YEARS AFTER debut album and their 1974 POSITIVE VIBRATIONS album recorded shortly before their breakup as a group. But in 1989, the group recorded a little less than great attempt to bring the legendary sound back, but that certainly missed the real magic of past efforts. In 2001, a far better live album recorded at Fillmore East in 1970 was released that really was very satisfying to fans. And in 2004 and 2005, the band released two reasonably good albums without guitar front-man Alvin Lee, that were reasonable enough efforts. But it has always been the great live performances of this band that has made them great, and their Woodstock performance always quickly comes to mind here.

Fortunately, with only three original live albums featuring Alvin Lee, the group's second album, UNDEAD, from 1968, RECORDED LIVE, from 1973, and the great 2001, LIVE AT THE FILLMORE EAST 1970, to satisfy TEN YEARS AFTER fans, some great unauthorized bootleg Cd's including two titles with DVD material are now emerging on Ebay and elsewhere for fans of this group to enjoy. And although the sound quality can be at times not nearly as good as the better authorized recordings, still these great bootlegs are very satisfying to fans of this great blues rock supergroup and well sought after collector's items. Perhaps only the rare Mobile Fidelity Labs gold CD of the remastered versions of SSSSH and CRICKLEWOOD GREEN is a more sought out Holy Grail of this great band.

LIVE AT THE FILLMORE WEST from June 28, 1968 is perhaps one of their finest bootleg Cds, and includes favorites like Help Me, Spoonful, Woodchopper's Ball and other early classics, all played very well.

TEXAS INTERNATIONAL POP FESTIVAL 1969, is another excellent TYA bootleg recently re-emerging on EBay and elsewhere with a great live version of Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, I Can't Keep From Cryin' Sometimes that goes into an 18 minute intense jam piece, with Hobbitt and more classics.

TOP GEAR is a great 16 track collection of early TYA classics performed on European television and even includes The Sounds, Portable People and Rock Your Mama which were included in the Chrysalis Records compilation album ALVIN LEE & Co. comprised of tracks not found on other early albums and the few singles TEN YEARS AFTER ever issued. TEN YEARS AFTER never was much of a singles band, instead their sound was best characterized by their album sound as well as live performances.

IN THE STUDIO 1969 and WINTERLAND 1975, are very similar items in that both include both a live performance Cd as well as a great DVD capturing Alvin Lee's frantic guitarsmanship energy. But it also become quickly apparent that all the other members of the band, including bass player, Leo Lyons, keyboardist, Chick Churchill and drummer, Ric Lee, are all top flight musicians in their own right. And even their efforts to carry on after the departure of Alvin Lee on the Cd's NOW and ROADWORKS are both very good efforts.

Besides the awesome TYA performance in the movie WOODSTOCK, it is sure nice to find more video footage of this band now available on DVD form, even if it's on second rate bootlegs. But TYA fans could care less, and are just grateful that someone caught the performances on film that will live on forever. Rock on.