Spinal Tap "Unwigged and Unplugged"!

I had the good fortune to win tickets to see Spinal Tap "Unwigged and Unplugged" last night at the Paramount Theater in Denver. The three great comic actors, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, and Christopher Guest, performed songs from Spinal Tap, and some of their other films. The also told jokes, showed a variety of funny videos and read from the censor's notes when NBC considered showing "TAP" as a late night film back in the 80's.

If you have never seen the film "This Is Spinal Tap", well, you have pretty much wasted your life. And if you have, you may have laughed your ass off about 20 years later while watching "A Mighty Wind", realizing that The Folksmen in that film were the same guys as Spinal Tap. Christopher Guest made directed that film, along with "Waiting for Guffman" and "Best in Show". Shearer appeared with Guest on Saturday Night Live for one fabulous season back in the early 80's, when Martin Short and Billy Crystal were also in the cast, and is also the voice of many characters on The Simpsons (including both Mr.Burns and Smithers....talk about self love!). McKean is probably best known as Lenny on "Lavern and Shirley", but don't hold that against him.

These guys are amazingly talented. They make great films, write very witty songs, and performed them last night is a variety of witty styles you would not expect. It was 2 hours of witty, intelligent humor and music that seemed to last only 15 minutes.

So, if this tour is coming to your town, check it out. You can find the schedule at their web site here. You can also go to Spinaltap.com and download a free version of "Saucy Jack".

Oh, and Harry Shearer does a radio show every Sunday called "Le Show". It is not available in most of the country, but you can listen to the pod cast at his web site.

So stop wasting time and go "Tap Into America"! Rock 'n Roll!!!

One Really Bad Idea, and One Good Thing A-coming

The Denver post reports today that the Colorado legislature is about to hand out $50 mil per year in tax breaks to developers of a combination new home for the Great Western Stock Show and a NASCAR track, and also for "mountain development to host the Winter Olympics".

So, the suffering CO taxpayers, in danger of having higher education funding cut in half, are going to subsidize a NASCAR track, that will be used maybe 2 weeks a year, the Stock Show, which has been here forever, and the Winter Olympics, which the voters here 30 years ago said they don't want, and probably still don't. Another transfer of wealth from the general public to the already wealthy. NASCAR, by the way, said they need $150 mil, and should have been told to stick it in their tailpipe

One of the legislators said that CO needs to do this to compete with other states that are offering similar breaks. Good idea. Let's not let anyone be dumber than us. I imagine they will pass this in a way that it does not have to go before the voters, because we are far less bribeable by lobbyists and would likely give his idea the middle finger it deserves.

Since I teach Economics, I can't start one of these good news/bad news entries with the good. Sorry. The good news is that Ken Burns, producer of the great PBS series "Baseball", "Jazz" and "The War" has produced a multi-part series on our National Parks that will air this September. If it is even half as good as his other work, it will be well worth watching. Read the Daily Camera story here.

Yankees seats for only $1250......such a deal!

The Yankees seem to be the first team in sports to realize that you can't just write any number on a ticket and expect fans to pay it. The NY Times reports today that the Yankees have cut prices from the "you gotta be fucking kidding me" range down to "come on, that's ridiculous" (my terms, not the Times). The empty seats on TV were apparently enough to make the Yankees realize they overshot. So, now they will try to convince the wealthy in NYC that a $1250 seat to see a team with little league quality starting pitching is a bargain.

Considering the news this morning that GDP declined over 6% in the first quarter of the year, the Yankees might still find themselves with a problem. Maybe they should advertise the seats as "Swine Flu Free".

Swine flu, electic cars, and Gay Iowans.

The 24 hour news networks have really gotten all lathered up over the swine flu. It's hard to believe it won't just kill everyone! Clearly, un-warranted panic gathers far better ratings than reason.

Economists have done studies on this sort of thing. People tend to get all excited over events like this, where the likelihood that it effects them is remotely small. Meanwhile, far more Americans will die from gunshots, or from having insufficient health insurance that won't allow them to afford needed treatment, but we don't do anything about that. But everyone wants something done about this swine flu.

In other words, people are stupid.

The other day I was telling some folks that I would like to see, before I die, and electric car with a foldable solar panel in the trunk, so folks could recharge their car while they are at work. Well, today I saw a little electric car made by Small Planet Evehicles that was close. It had a solar panel on top, and was fully electric. Unfortunately, it is tiny and will only go 40mph, so there is not much chance that this car becomes widely used. But, it is a step in the right direction, and with each step the technology improves.

Finally, gay couples have lined up this week to get married in Iowa. While I don't know why gay couples want to suffer the same way that straight ones do, I can't see how they shouldn't have that right. And maybe as more people see that allowing gays to live their lives like anyone else does not ruin marriage or turn their kids gay, we will make progress toward this, just as we have civil rights for other minorities. Frankly, I don't see how the 14th amendment doesn't already give gays this right.

I was telling a gay student of mine the other day that I see so much progress in this area, at least as far as general acceptance goes. When I was in high school, I told him, there were no gays in my high school. At least, as far as anyone knew. Today, kids are a lot more accepted if they are gay. Just like with other races, each generation is a bit more comfy with people who are different than their parents. All we need now is for the Neanderthals and "my faith tells me your evil" morons to catch on.

More on the Was on Drugs in the WSJ.

It seems more and more people are coming to the same, sane conclusion about the war on drugs that I did over 20 years ago. Today, in the Wall Street Journal there are pro and con columns about decriminalizing drugs. Unfortunately, the Journal is not free on line, so I won't link to it, but if you can read it for free somehow check it out.

Writing on the side of sanity is Yale Law School professor Steven B. Duke. The most interesting thing he brings to the table her is this:

A most impressive experiment has been underway in Portugal since 2001, when that country decriminalized the possession and personal use of all psychotropic drugs. According to a study just published by the Cato Institute, "judged by virtually every metric," the Portuguese decriminalization "has been a resounding success." Contrary to the prognostications of prohibitionists, the numbers of Portuguese drug users has not increased since decriminalization. Indeed, the percentage of the population who has ever used these drugs is lower in Portugal than virtually anywhere else in the European Union and is far below the percentage of users in the U.S.. One explanation for this startling fact is that decriminalization has both freed up funds for drug treatment and, by lifting the threat of criminal charges, encouraged drug abusers to seek that treatment.

Writing for the side of continued immoral stupidity is, SURPRISE, Bush's drug Czar, the guy who thought busting medical marijuana sellers in California was a good use of your tax dollars (but, I'm sure, wants to see your taxes cut!). It would be silly to think you would get any intelligent thought from an 8 year member of w's administration, but look at this quote, from the middle of an otherwise idiotic babble about how we can't make drugs legal:

What are the indelible lessons? In the process of making the drug problem much smaller, we learned the importance of education -- not principally teaching the young about the health dangers of specific drugs, but teaching young and old about the disease of addiction. We know that the disease begins with the use of addictive drugs and that those drugs change the brain -- they create craving, impair judgment and lead to withdrawal or a feeling of illness in absence of the drug. Science has helped us see that we need to help those who are addicted particularly when they do not want our help -- every family of an addict or alcoholic knows that denial is a terrible part of this disease.

So, President Obama, since you are looking for ways to save the taxpayers some money, why not look at the war on drugs.

Watchers of Comedy Central also read. Who woulda thunk it?

I have recommended before, and have a link to it on the right, Barry Ritholtz's blog. Ritholtz has is about to publish a book called "Bailout Nation" about the financial mess we are in, which I can't wait to read. In fact, he had a publishing deal with a publisher associated with S&P, and they dumped him because he blasts them in the book over their ridiculous ratings of complete crap as AAA.

Today Ritholtz writes about a meeting he had with his publisher about marketing, and what whose he would appear on. Here's what he says about appearing on The Daily Show:

But the most intriguing “inside baseball” stuff we discussed was the impact of The Daily Show on book sales — in particular, two recent books that were the subject of big TDS segments. These were mentioned as prime examples of the power of Jon Stewart.

The first is House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street by William D. Cohan. After Stewart raved about the book (”Helluva book — you made finance read like a suspense novel”) when Cohan was on the show April 9th, sales of the book in stores tripled. They have been strong ever since.

The second example was the infamous James Cramer appearance on TDS on March12th. According to the people I had lunch with yesterday, the very next day, sales of Cramer’s book Jim Cramer’s Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World went into free fall. They absolutely plummeted — and they haven’t recovered since.

As a big Daily Show fan, I've often wondered about the authors who appear there to promote books. I guessing that Stewart's audience is a bit more educated and inquisitive than the audience for "Reno 911:.

Yanks, Mets in Fix over Unsold Tix

I'm guessing the above title is the headline the NY Post would run, if it was their story, and not the NY Times story about the Yankees and Mets having trouble selling their outrageously expensive premium seats. The story says about 5k tickets have gone unsold in the 2 parks for all the games since Opening Day.

From an economic standpoint, the story is interesting in that it states that fans are selling their tickets on internet sites for well below face value. This does not bode well for the NY teams, and teams around the country. I have written about this before, and I await the realization in professional sports that a ticket isn't worth $150 just because the team printed that number on it.

Here in Colorado, the Rockies have been on the road since their opening weekend, and have been busy sucking while away. That means they will again be playing in front of a sea of unused green plastic seats. Based on the way the Rockies run their franchise, we can be sure they will be the last team in the major leagues to come up with a creative approach to filling those seats.