bob tarantino

Under Arrest - Update 12.15.07

If you want to quickly transform yourself into an obsessive self-Googler, publish a book.  I digress.  Anyways, I'm happy to report that both Amazon and Chapters Indigo have recently sold out of Under Arrest - Canadian Laws You Won't Believe - I understand that both have more copies ordered, which should be in stock soon.  (Amazon's last five copies sold over the past few days, complete with online countdown - which means that, with my royalties, the last week will have provided me with funds enough to buy a cheeseburger.  Before taxes.  Woohoo!)  Also, the Pickering Public Library has listed Under Arrest as a recommendation for "Entertaining Non-Fiction" in their November 2007 newsletter.

The Deep Funk 12.06.07

The 1980s were a profoundly debilitating decade for the Rolling Stones: not once during those years, and never again, would they be capable of putting together a strong album - it was the decade in which they were reduced to (or returned to being) a strong singles band (it would be in the late 1990s that they would be humbled from even that reduced position).  But those ten years are entirely underappreciated - some of their strongest songs were released.  Herewith, in a unique three-fer, highlights from an otherwise lost decade:

• Waiting On a Friend (actually recorded in the 1970s, but not released until 1981 - featuring a gloriously zonked Ron Wood)

• One Hit to the Body (without debate, a hell of a song - featuring Mick with eyeliner)

• Mixed Emotions (a lost classic - featuring Mick sans eyeliner but inexplicably with that blue and yellow leotard getup (we put up with alot, us Stones fans...))

"obviously dysfunctional"

I was going to write something about the Robert Latimer parole decision, but Dawg rather nicely (and with much more restraint than I'm sure I'd be able to manage) covers everything that needs to be said.