altmusictv | 120 Minutes archive | Playlists | Shows from MTV (1986-1995)

I’ve written about coming of age two hours at a time on Sunday nights in the late 1980’s before. Now I have proof. I can now say with certainty that my life changed forever on the night of Jan. 29, 1989.

Sure, I’d already bought a copy of the Repo Man soundtrack before this and already owned at least one record by just about every artist on the I.R.S. label, but I’m pretty sure this was my first exposure to Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.

altmusictv | 120 Minutes archive | Playlists | Shows from MTV (1986-1995)

January 29, 1989
Source for this playlist: Laura M.
Host – Kevin SealThe Pogues – Yeah Yeah Yeah
New Order – True Faith
Julian Cope – World Shut Your Mouth
Lou Reed – Dirty Blvd.
Camper Van Beethoven – Good Guys And Bad Guys
The Replacements – I’ll Be You
The Feelies – Away
Special AKA – Free Nelson Mandela
The Saints – Grain Of Sand
X-Ray segment – Cowboy Junkies with interview of Margo Timmons
Cowboy Junkies – Sweet Jane
Violent Femmes – Nightmares
Nitzer Ebb – Control I’m Here
The Pursuit Of Happiness – Hard To Laugh
Midge Ure – Dear God
The Smiths – The Boy With A Thorn In His Side
Ciccone Youth – Addicted To Love
Sonic Youth – Teenage Riot
The Lilac Time – Return To Yesterday
They Might Be Giants – They’ll Need A Crane
Lime Spiders – The Other Side Of You
Echo & The Bunnymen – Bedbugs And Ballyhoo
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – The Mercy Seat
R.E.M. – Stand
A-House – Call Me Blue

Leave Britney Alone!

OK. I know everyone was expecting some deep or maudlin 9/11 post from me yesterday, and I failed to bring it — plain and simple.

To be completely honest, I was writing one heckuva tearjerker of an essay when I took a break and saw this on Gawker:

Yeah. It’s probably wrong on many levels for me to laugh so very hard at the above video on a day that should be set aside for serious reflection and mourning.

But it’s really, really funny.

NE Ohio working families poorer as good jobs disappeared, report says – Frank Bentayou – Cleveland.com

Nothing earth-shattering here, just a well-done rehash of the problem we’ve all known has existed since the early 80’s. The good news is that most of the manufacturing infrastructure here in NEO remains, even though many of the ‘old’ manufacturing jobs are gone. The solution, if anybody has been paying attention, will come in three parts:

1) Strengthening/enforcing trade laws. When our “free” trade partners manipulate their currency values, illegally dump subsidized products, use sweatshop labor and operate without any environmental regulations, no matter how productive American workers are (and we are still the most productive on the planet), we can’t compete because the playing field is not level.

2) Investing in renewable energy. Those windmills? In Germany, for example, the wind energy industry uses a huge portion of the country’s steel output — second only to the automotive industry. If Ohio takes the lead on renewable energy investment, the thousands of jobs created will stay here for a long time. Unfortunately, Pennsylvania is already way ahead of us.

3) Fix the healthcare system. The last industrialized nation in the world to provide universal healthcare is also the richest. If our trade partners can do it, so can we.

I’m not picking on the Plain Dealer here. It has done some reporting on the movement to create renewable energy jobs and unfair trade and the healthcare crisis. The problem is that too many people don’t believe that manufacturing in Ohio can (or even should) be saved.

NE Ohio working families poorer as good jobs disappeared, report says – cleveland.com

A new report from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that working families in Northeast Ohio got poorer between 2000 and 2006 as more than 45,000 generally higher-wage manufacturing jobs here disappeared.Among the consequences of such a loss of production employment and other job shifts are declines in the number of households that make more than $50,000 a year, according to a Cleveland State University analysis of the data.

At the same time, the number of households that make less than $50,000 a year increased.

The most dramatic increase was a gain of almost 22,000 area households whose total earnings were $10,000 to $14,999 a year.

And the most impoverished category, those making less than $10,000 a year, increased by more than 12,700 households.