Bouquets and Brickbats
To David Johansen, the rock singer and actor who died in his house on Staten Island at the age of 75 in February. Johansen made rock history as the lead singer of the New York Dolls whose eponymous 1972 first album and the 1974 follow-up Too Much Too Soon helped invent punk rock before British fashionista puppets the Sex Pistols ever got into it. In his later years, Johansen delighted everyone from fans of his lounge-lizard persona Buster Poindexter (“Hot! Hot! Hot!”) to appreciators of his appearances in films like Scrouged and Let It Ride. Johansen’s career is proof that you don’t have to sing in a British accent to be a punk rocker (Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, we are looking at you).
Biggest Money-Wasting Scams Uncovered by DOGE in all 50 States
Alabama — “Roll, Tide” gift bags, luggage tags, and gold-plated tiny helmets distributed to state officeholders
Alaska — Federally-subsidized ice sculptures of whales
Arizona — Cashing social security checks for thousands of 140-year old retirees
Arkansas — Department of Bootlegging Studies at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock
California — “California Love” rap video production program featuring state landmarks being set on fire
Colorado — Five-year après-ski study of effects of high altitudes on potency of cocoa leaf by-products
Connecticut — In situ performances of Rick Moody’s The Ice Storm
Delaware — State-wide contest to find original uses for old credit cards in order to avoid negative impacts on the …
Critic's Corner
Horsegirl, Phonetics On and On
A couple years ago I went to see Pavement at Kings Theater in Brooklyn, which was fine. The real surprise of the evening was seeing Horsegirl open for them. Bob Nastanovitch, a longtime member of Pavement and a family friend, had gotten us the tickets and said that I should like Horsegirl better than Pavement, because they had a younger, cooler sound. And I was a young and cool 13-year-old, after all. At the time, their youngest member was 17, which was still really impressive to me and to Pavement themselves. After the show, we also found out that one of their members used to babysit the friend I was with, so we got to meet them and they were totally nice and everything.
I’ve been sitting on Horsegirl since that moment, because I was super shocked at how good they were. Also, they hadn’t really released anything since their first …
