Dig the choreography on "Higher Ground."

I love the way they honor our armed services by saluting when they sing the word "soldiers".

I love the way they honor our armed services by saluting when they sing the word "soldiers".

It made me kind of sorry that the air force didn't go to purple and orange jumpsuits for uniforms.

Excellent piece by Bob Geldof about the Pogues.

Excellent piece by Bob Geldof about the Pogues.

For the love of humanity, Bob Geldof is harder to take than a hydrochloric acid suppository. When I grow up I hope I can see through the transparent vicious practices of the hoi polloi with the same ease as Geldof, which, and I'm sure this is totally by accident, is identical to contemporary Ireland's trendy, elitist post-colonialism.

So, yeah, I didn't make it past the second section; my eyes had firmly rolled up into my head. Though I think that it may be an improvement over Geldof's, whose eyes seem to rolled the other way; all the better for looking down his nose.

If you had 15 downloads left on emusic (after having cleaned them out of Johnny Cash), what would you download?

The TMBG album that is exclusively an emusic download (Long Tall Weekend, I believe it's called).

hmm, it ate my post. I said, some old Merle Haggard (or his most recent), maybe some Charlie Rich or Dottie West if they have any. Or the new Rhett Miller and some more of The Be Good Tanyas.

All of those sound good, and I will mark them for when I have more downloads as well.

Thanks!

Mmm. Rhett Miller, yes. Also Neko Case's new album if you don't have it already.

A Kim Cooper story.

[link]

"Gas Station Icons Being 86ed After 45 years of guiding drivers to their next fill-up, 'meatball' 76 signs are becoming casualties of corporate consistency. By Scott Gold, Times Staff Writer May 14, 2006

In January, an earnest woman named Kim Cooper was driving through Lincoln Heights when her neighborhood gas station caught her eye. The station's familiar 76 insignia, its stocky blue numbers splashed against a sea of orange, had been supplanted with a sign that looked like, well, everywhere else. The new 76 was set against a backdrop of red, and a boring red at that — "a queasy color," she recalled with a grimace, "like liver."

Cooper, the publisher of a magazine called Scram — a "journal of unpopular culture" — does not typically concern herself with the goings-on of megacorporations like ConocoPhillips, owner of the 76 brand.

But the 76 logo, she decided, isn't just an ad. Not anymore. The orange balls that have rotated above gas stations for 45 years are a piece of roadside Americana, and in Southern California they are an iconic part of the sightline, not much different than palm trees or the Hollywood sign. They no longer belong to a boardroom, Cooper decided, but to the public.

"I felt," she said, "that this shouldn't pass unnoticed."

Later that day, Cooper launched an Internet blog — www.savethe76ball.com — dedicated to the balls' preservation.

At first glance, it seemed a little frivolous. In a city of transit and transients, is this what preservationists are left with — fighting to save relics of urban design known in the subculture of petroliana as "meatballs"?

It hasn't taken long, however, for the campaign to catch on. Heartfelt response has poured in, not just from random drivers, but from prominent voices in architecture and design, a board member of the Los Angeles Conservancy, even the 79-year-old man who designed the balls in the first place to mark the 1962 World's Fair in Seattle.

Houston-based ConocoPhillips, which has been quietly replacing the balls with more modern-looking signs for at least six months, declined to respond to detailed questions about its decision. In a written statement, a spokeswoman said the balls were being replaced — and the logo's color changed to red — to give a "common image" to the company's 76, Phillips 66 and Conoco gas stations.

"We appreciate motorists' loyalty," the statement said. "Though our look is a little different, the quality of our products and our commitment to our customers remains the same."

To Cooper, 39, who has also worked on an online crime diary of the year 1947 in Los Angeles and provides guided tours based in part on that work, it sounds like a bunch of corporate hooey, "the complete rejection of the goodwill that this brand has built."

"You can look at them as some ugly thing that should be thrown away," she said. "Or you can see them as the best expression of America — a gleeful, bright California image, a masterpiece of salesmanship and graphic design."

Many of the 1,600 postings to Cooper's online petition suggest that she is not alone. "Please don't destroy my childhood memories," one reads. Another asks: "Why does everything we love in life go away?"

While the testimonials trickle in, the balls continue to fall each week. In Echo Park, at Alvarado and Sunset. Below Griffith Park, at Franklin and Beechwood. And at Dodger Stadium, where Union Oil had a fruitful sponsorship from the start of construction, where Vin Scully once responded to home runs by announcing that Union 76 would be making a donation in a player's name, and where, during some evening games, the orange ball beyond centerfield sometimes made it seem as if there were two suns setting over the city.

In 1961, Ray Pedersen was a hard-charging, 34-year-old art director for the advertising firm of Young & Rubicam, working out of its downtown Los Angeles office. Union (continued...)