Standing By the By And By

Way to jinx myself. Pretty soon after that last post my Rhapsody life went certified platinum FUBAR. Unable to log in using the application. Able to log in to Rhapsody Online, but with 64, then 128 copies of each of My Playlists. I'm not sure what power of 2 we're up to right now because the My Playlists page times out before telling me.

But you can't just pick up the phone, state those facts, and have things resolve directly and rationally. Somehow I've held on through several hours of interminable scripted technical support insanity, and four days later remain suspended between escalating layers of "help".

Good Times.

Here's a little Rhapsody Online link to mark the occasion.

Flat Out Fucked - Mudhoney

P.S. In directly related news, this month marks the fifth anniversary for Dimeadozen.org, and people are posting some particularly choice shows to mark the occasion. That and archive.org's Robyn Hitchcock holdings are the only things getting me through this week.

A Word

We're taking on a strange schedule here at Ribaldry and Schmaltz to accommodate the new baby, and the fact I was too tired and honest to fake my way out of four weeks of jury duty on a [facts scrubbed] trial.

In the meantime, here are the three greatest regional segments I have encountered on Youtube, ever. More or less all you need to know about Boston television in the late 20th century: Creature Double Feature, Dana Hersey (at the now-erased Rathskeller, no less), and V66.

There was also a local show in the early days of cable access in Brockton that my brother and I would just call and basically yell the word "Spaghettios" into the phone until they put us on the air. That was a pretty good show, too.

Best of Ribaldry & Schmaltz 2008

I'm a wee bit discombobulated these days. Luckily, before my life started over again last month I had the foresight to sift through every post from 2008 and gradually distill the twenty greatest songs proferred here at Ribaldry and Schmaltz in that year. So today, we can continue that annual tradition in a timely manner.

Right now I can't offer any coherent or thorough reflections on developments in the Rhapsody database or platforms last year, though I'd say there was more good than bad (If you told me I'd have to give up the Doors to get the Husker Du catalog, I don't think you'd see much hesitation. And look! As of this typing Morrison Hotel is mostly back. I think Land Ho! itself would get me through 2009.)

The biggest happening here at R&S Labs was undoubtedly our summer-long feature of Major League Baseball Walk Out Song playlists. I've expanded the introductory post from that series to include organized links to all the entries. By a happy coincidence, that post also includes links to the rest of the top five posts that drive "traffic" to Ribaldry and Schmaltz.

Wow. And as of today, sitemeter tells me we are officially the place the Intertubes turn to settle the question "Are Steve Zahn and Gregg Zaun brothers?" Just another service we offer here at R&S.

Happy New Year, children.

Best of Ribaldry & Schmaltz 2008 Playlist [Rhapsody Online Version]

Best of Ribaldry & Schmaltz 2008 Playlist [Rhapsody Player Software Version]

01 All My Life - Harry Nilsson
02 I'd Be Ahead If I Could Quit While I'm Behind - Bobby Womack
03 Ten Minutes To Four - Eddie Harris
04 Bad Boy - Doug Sahm
05 Halloween - Kirsty MacColl
06 Derelict - Phil Grenadier
07 Dou Wakadou - Hugues Aufray
08 Neigbours - The Rolling Stones
09 Lord Of The Dance - Ian Campbell Folk Group
10 Of Cursed Womb - Behold... The Arctopus
11 Pack Jam - Jonzun Crew
12 Fire/Sign - Gossip
13 Fado Dos Fados - Amalia Rodrigues
14 Moron - The Dead Milkmen
15 Speedplay (For Max Roach) - The Vandermark 5
16 The Endless Sea - Iggy Pop
17 Jesus In The Temple - Marah
18 I'm Blue - The Shangri-Las
19 Crawl Back (Under My Stone) - Richard Thompson
20 Faith - Violent Femmes

For historical reference, here are links to our previous annual best-of posts:
2005
2006
2007