The Dullard Gazette

No one likes child abuse, including rock stars. Here are the top three songs about the topic, listed "countdown" style. Curiously, all three are sung by women.

3. "What's The Matter Here," 10,000 Maniacs. The leadoff track to "In My Tribe" finds Natalie Merchant in an uncharacteristically subtle mode. She tells the tale of abuse from the view of an observer who is apparently able to ask the titular question, yet unable to intervene. Hear it here. (Merchant solo version)

Key line: "And instead of love and the feel of warmth, you've given him these cuts and sores that don't heal with time or age."

2. "Luka," Suzanne Vega. The biggest hit of Vega's erratic career, this song is also perhaps the most famous one about child abuse. It's also sung from the first-person perspective, making it all the more wrenching. Hear it here.

Key line: "They only hit until you cry, and after that, you don't ask why."

1. "Hell Is For Children," Pat Benatar. The tight-panted songstress stepped back from her oversexed image to take on a maternal role in this track. Some took the title literally, perceiving it as an ode to Satan. But a cursory reading of the lyrics shows that Benatar was hardly sending our little ones to eternal damnation. She cares — and the song rocks. Hear it here.

Key line: "It's all so confusing, this brutal abusing. They blacken your eyes and then apologize."

Pink Floyd, like R.E.M., is a band that likes to tell listeners what to do. Perhaps that's a reflection of Roger Waters' famously imperious style. Yet he didn't write all of these songs, and one is from the band's post-Waters era.

So here are the top 10 imperatively titled Pink Floyd songs, based on the wisdom of the advice and the quality of the song:

1. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun

2. Have A Cigar

3. Breathe

4. Run Like Hell

5. Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk

6. Stay

7. Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert

8. Let There Be More Light

9. See Emily Play

10. Keep Talking

I love the fact that the Miami Dolphins have retained their core identity for their team logo. Nothing says kick-ass football like a dolphin wearing a helmet, even if the team stinks.

This list of uniform changes gone awry in pro sports gets it right. New England fumbled away a perfectly good logo when it got rid of the patriot hiking a football, and Tampa Bay should have kept the pirate with a dagger in his mouth.

What a strange little species we are.

Let's face it: Some of us Dullards aren't getting any younger. Yet there are many famous people who have been old for as long as we've been alive.

Here are some of those people. To qualify for the list, each person has to be 1) alive 2) noteworthy 3) commonly perceived as "old" for the past 30-odd years.

• Bea Arthur, actress
  
• Ed Asner, actor
  
• Ernest Borgnine, actor
  
• Helen Gurley Brown, writer
• Robert Byrd, senator
• Dick Cavett, writer and TV personality
  
• Walter Cronkite, TV anchor
  
• Richard Dawson, game show host
  
• Phyllis Diller, comedian
  
• Hugh Downs, TV anchor
  
• Betty Ford, former First Lady
  
• Billy Graham, evangelist
• Jack Klugman, actor
  
• Jack LaLanne, fitness freak
  
• Christopher Lee, actor
  
• Karl Malden, actor
  
• George McGovern, politician
• Roger Moore, actor
  
• Harry Morgan, actor
  
• John McCain, politician
  
• Ed McMahon, TV sidekick
  
• Andy Rooney, commentator
  
• Mickey Rooney, actor
  
• Daniel Schorr, journalist
  
• Margaret Thatcher, former leader of Great Britain
  
• Helen Thomas, journalist
  
• Abe Vigoda, actor
  
• Barbara Walters, TV anchor
  
• Betty White, actress
  
• John Wooden, basketball coach
  
• Bill Wyman, bass player
  

A playlist for trick or treating:

— "Boris the Spider," The Who (spooky bass and vocal by the Ox)
— "Monster Mash," Bobby Pickett (just embrace it even if it is overplayed)
— "Ghostbusters," Ray Parker Jr. (you're gonna call Bill Murray, that's who)
— "Bela Lugosi's Dead," Bauhaus (if you go goth, go here)
— "Vampire Girl," Jonathan Richman (antidote to Bauhaus)
— "One of These Days," Pink Floyd (as in "one of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces")
— "Scary Monsters," David Bowie (and super creeps)
— "Hell," Squirrel Nut Zippers (get fitted for a suit of flame)
— "I Put A Spell On You," Screamin' Jay Hawkins (stranger than paradise)
— "I Walked With A Zombie," Roky Erickson (undead before undead was cool)
— "Thriller," Michael Jackson (Jacko meets Vincent Price)
— "Werewolves of London," Warren Zevon (and his hair was perfect)

Lehrer, Ifill, Brokaw and Schieffer. The moderators for the presidential debates in the 2008 campaign have been soporific duds. Here are some moderators we'd like to see:

• Sarah Silverman
• Larry David
• Mindy Kaling (Kelly of TV’s “The Office”)
• Michael Musto
• Chris Rock
• Ali G/Borat/Bruno
• Michael Stipe
• David Byrne
• Spalding Gray (will require resurrection)
• Sandra Day O’Connor
• Samuel L. Jackson
• Richard Simmons
• Steve Jobs
• Maureen Dowd
• Meryl Streep
• Charlie Kaufman (screenwriter of “Being John Malkovich” fame)
• John Malkovich
• Tina Fey
• Pam Anderson
• Chris Berman (of ESPN fame)
• Michael Buffer (of “let’s get ready to rumble” fame)
• Stephen Hawking
• David Lee Roth
• J.K. Rowling
• Brangelina
  
• Salma Hayek
• Kevin Smith (writer/director of “Clerks” fame)
• Denzel Washington
• Padma Lakshmi
• Joe the Plumber
  

Some easy marks here, but if there's one thing Dullards like, it's snarky pop-culture lists.

A headline on CNN's site caught my eye:

Tim McGraw apologizes for album

I'm not familiar with McGraw, but based on what I do know, he could probably have a good reason to do this for every album in his catalog. Here, however, McGraw is telling his fans that he is sorry that his record company put out another "greatest hits" album.

At least McGraw has the integrity to express his regrets. What other bands have reason to apologize for dud albums? Here are some suggestions, based on the idea that these are decent artists who dropped a piece of crap on fans and never said they were sorry for doing so:

• Republic, New Order
• Presence, Led Zeppelin
• Give 'Em Enough Rope, The Clash
• Give My Regards to Broad Street, Paul McCartney
• Mighty Like A Rose, Elvis Costello
• Never Let Me Down, David Bowie
• Kill Uncle, Morrissey
• The Spaghetti Incident?, Guns N' Roses
  
• A Momentary Lapse of Reason, Pink Floyd
• Monster, R.E.M.
• It's Hard, The Who

Sarah likes lists, too!

Why not — they made "Rochelle, Rochelle" into a musical.

Here's a really interesting series of posts on Beatle sound-alikes.

Two moments from today that indicate that I am old:

1. When I overheard this in a conversation between a bagger and cashier at Trader Joe's: "I was in middle school the first time Bush ran for president."

2. When I was watching U2 perform "Sunday Bloody Sunday" in their IMAX concert movie and realized that this was almost as good as the time I saw them at the jai-alai fronton — in 1983.

I'm willing to give up my disapproval of the pronounced "e" in "forte" if my lovely wife will concede that "different than" is just plain wrong. See more Common Errors in English from a Washington State perfessor.

Of the roughly 67 visitors this blog has each day, the majority arrive via Google searches, with Google Images leading the way.

We thank our faithful readers who come here for the written words and carefully selected links accompanied by the occasional illustration. We do it all for you. For the rest of you, thanks for visiting anyway.

With those pop-in visitors in mind, we offer (in "Countdown" style) the top 5 weirdest search terms that people used to get here recently:

5. Mayberry reality

4. Tentacled sea creature

3. Woman suckles pet monkey movie

2. Survivors nude

1. Nude elves

We hope you all found what you were looking for. (Related posts here and here.)

The Dickheads of the Year, according to Bill Maher. Ron Paul escaped his wrath.

So here's a list of toys for all the children in your life. Or at least the ones you don't particularly like.

5. "Serious Hits … Live!" by Phil Collins. He may mean well at times, but Phil Collins’ attempts at social relevance ("Another Day in Paradise") come across as overly earnest. And no album with seven-minute version of "Sussudio" on it should have the adjective “serious” attached to it.

4. "Yessongs" by Yes. No!

3. "Love You Live" by the Rolling Stones. Caught between their glory years (1967-73) and the “elder stateman” years (1994-present), this album is a perfect example of a band in a holding pattern. Of the numerous (mostly failed) attempts to represent a Stones concert on film or on vinyl, "Love You Live" is the most forgettable and hardly lovable.

2. "The Song Remains the Same" by Led Zeppelin. The problem here is the songs don’t remain the same — they get worse. Not one track here improves on the original studio version, and the performances sound strained, the sound muddied. Zeppelin is better heard live on "How the West Was Won."

1. "Pulse" by Pink Floyd. The Water-less, Gilmour-led Floyd produced two humdrum studio albums and two dreadful live LPs. "Pulse" is the second of these uncomfortably numb sets, and the note-for-note renditions of Floyd classics and Gilmour-era material will not set any hearts racing.

Related post here.

Michael Stipe, an Army brat, likes to give marching orders to R.E.M. listeners (and we're not even counting "Life and How to Live It"). Here are his top 10 directives, based on the general advice and quality of the song:

1. Begin the Begin
2. Find the River
3. Why Not Smile
4. Belong
5. Drive
6. Stand
7. Try Not To Breathe
8. Get Up
9. Star Me Kitten
10. Bang and Blame

Something called Earvolution offers "The Ten Best Bands That Never Existed." The top spot may surprise you.

DULLARD TAKE: I'd add the Way-Outs, from a Beatles-inspired "Flintstones" episode. Speaking of Beatles-inspired, the Monkees could be argued to be fictional.