Mark Bult Design: San Francisco, CA, Established 1988

Thursday Top 5

Frank Zappa on “Crossfire” 1986
This is an awesome segment broadcast during the height of the music censorship wars of the 1980s and ’90s. I wasn’t into Frank Zappa but I really liked the way he stood up for the rights of his fellow musicians and the public in general. I read the Wikipedia pages on the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) the other night, plus about 80 pages of the testimony from the Senate hearings on “porn rock” in 1985. Speakers included Frank Zappa, John Denver, Dee Snider, Senator Al Gore, Tipper Gore, and others. This hearing was one of the reasons why I hated Al Gore for a long time. He was a member of the committee hearing testimony from his own wife, and didn’t recuse himself in the face of an obvious conflict of interests. And he wasn’t the only one: All the founders of the PMRC were wives of influential government officials, including other Senators. This is a big part of why I didn’t vote for Bill Clinton when Gore was his running-mate (although not the only reason, for sure), and didn’t vote for Al Gore when he ran for president. I love what he’s done for environmental awareness in the world, but I detest what he did in 1985. For the record, I voted for Jerry Brown and Ralph Nader (whose platforms I actually believed in), regardless of the fact that they were unlikely to win. I followed the testimony by watching a great segment of CNN’s Crossfire from 1986, where Zappa faces off with three hopelessly out of touch old white men.



Protect yourself
Not exactly safe for work. [via Jenny]



How to bake a car



You are Dr. Tran Fan?

Shitmydadsays
You may not “like” or “do” or even “get” Twitter, but if you have any sense of humor at all, you owe it to yourself to at least read this Twitter stream once. NSFW if you read out loud. You will laugh out loud.

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The weekly Thursday Top 5 lists the five most notable, interesting, funny, outrageous, cool, or simply strange things of the week. It is intended for distractionary purposes only. Do not take orally. If ingested, seek a doctor’s advice. If you like it, share it with others, or check out the long list of previous entries.

Labels: animation, censorship, distractions, food and drink, humor, music, music videos, Thursday top 5

Posted by espd at 8:32 AM | 
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