I always ad "... including Phil Donahue" to the end of fortune cookie fortunes.
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Blame Donahue
December 21 is the birthday of talk tv pioneer Phil Donahue (b.1935). How perfect that this guy with the wintery hair was born of a winter solstice.
This won’t be a celebration, per se, because the door Donahue opened is too unspeakably awful. I do think it’s unfortunate that the stampede of monsters who clambered through that door have obscured his name and place in history, though. It’s like…
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The Last Word didn’t last long: ABC canceled the news program in April of ’83, just six months after it debuted. One on One, also hosted by Gregory Jackson, replaced The Last Word in the network’s late-night lineup; it was canceled three months later.
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The Late Night with David Letterman show from March 19, 1987: featuring Dave's monologue, Top Ten list, viewer mail (with Phil Donahue and Flunky the clown), Guests Bill Murray and Jerry Seinfeld.
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River Phoenix in an episode of the Phil Donahue show from 1990.
Credits to: Lucy B, Pinterest, Rising Scorpius, Youtube.
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gay people be like he changed my life and it's just william atherton on the phil donahue show in 1981 claiming that he was once homosexual but changed due to the aesthetic realism of eli siegel
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Every Record I Own - Day 820: Nomeansno 0 + 2 = 1
Nomeansno began in 1979 as the rhythm section two-piece of Rob and John Wright. They added Andy Kerr on guitar in 1983, a year after releasing their debut album Mama. While Nomeansno always retained a heavy focus on the interplay between bass and drums, Kerr found a spot to insert his wiry, jagged guitar lines without undermining the low-end force of the Wright brothers. Kerr wound up with another crucial role: nodules on Rob's vocal cords meant that he had to step back from lead vocals, allowing Kerr's snotty timbre to outweigh Wright's booming baritone on the remainder of their '80s output.
Nomeansno closed out the '80s with the most popular album of their career, 1989's Wrong. The band's rising profile across North America and Europe allowed (or perhaps forced) them to quit their day jobs, and by the beginning of the '90s the band was touring full-time. When it came time to record the follow-up to Wrong, the band was in a very different position. They were no longer practicing several times a week and slowly stockpiling new material---they'd been on tour non-stop and were now having to quickly cobble together another studio album so they would have something new to tour on. The band had become a job.
Such realities weren't generally considered cool back in the '90s. Being a career musician in a punk band wasn't heroic to anyone. Professional musicians didn't take you seriously and the punks considered you a sell out. The irony was that Nomeansno were phenomenal musicians and staunchly committed to the underground.
If anything, Nomeansno could've benefitted from playing the industry game a little more. Their press photos were always confusing and never clearly featured all three members. They championed younger bands and even started their own label, but they also avoided opening for bigger bands, even as they watched the younger bands they'd supported eclipse them in popularity. Nevermind had come out just two months prior to 0 + 2 = 1 and Nomeansno could've easily capitalized on the global interest in the Pacific Northwest underground rock scene, but instead they were content to continue touring squats in Europe. At a time when it seemed like Nomeansno should've gotten even bigger, they instead saw the first dip in album sales.
Maybe folks just weren't as excited by 0 + 2 = 1. Maybe it was written in too much of a hurry. But I don't buy that. I'll admit that i don't love "Everyday I Start to Ooze" (some of the vocals tread a little too far into theatrics) and that I mainly get my fix on Side 1. But jeezus... can we talk about those first five songs?? "Now" is an electrifying album opener. "The Fall" is classic Nomeansno power. "0 + 2 = 1" is like a nightmarish mashup of Ginsberg and Burroughs prose sent against a lurching Man Is The Bastard riff. "Valley of the Blind" reasserts their classic punk vigor before "Mary" comes crashing down with its monolithic bass-driven weight. And Side 2 is packed with punches too. Whether it's the vitriolic attack of "The Night Nothing Became Everything" and "I Think You Know" or the blueprint for Unwound's future blend of guitar dissonance and mid tempo bass throb on "Ghosts," the songs are solid enough for the album to be held on the same pedestal as its predecessors.
But Andy Kerr would leave the band at the end of the album cycle, officially capping off the classic era of the band. Grunge was having its moment in the spotlight. Pop-punk would follow on its heel steps. And the two weird old guys from Victoria, BC that looked like Phil Donahue's long lost siblings and sounded like Dead Kennedys and Rush had a baby would continue to avoid the limelight while cranking out records and living in tour vans.
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