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So I've been Memed by my wife's friend Alala in Germany - how's it goin' woman? - and am supposed to do the following;
List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they are any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

I will list my seven songs, but there really aren't any bloggers that I look at that haven't already been nailed with this one, so I guess the Meme stops here for the time being...

Unfortunately for me, the song that I could really be into one day might be different the next depending on my mood, so, please bear with me...

1. Ain't Nobody's Business - either the Ruth Brown or the Saphire; The Uppity Blues Women versions. Just a great piece o' blues belted out by women with great voices. Good song to just sit and chill to.

2. Bobby Sands, MP - Black 47. Some definite Northern Irish angst that's palpable in this song. They have a couple that are like this that alternate into place of this song - not necessarily the Northern Irish thing in all of it, but the angst ties it all together - Hey Big Fella, Susan Falls Apart, The Edge of America. One of the few truly indie bands left in America making great music.

3. Little Plastic Castle - Ani DiFranco. She does some pretty good music, but my favorite is the title track to the album. The line about being like a goldfish always reminds me of a favorite movie of mine called "Hear My Song." Won't bother telling you about it here because it's not available on DVD in the US.

4. Trouble - Cat "Peacetrain/Kill in the name of Allah" Stevens. Okay, I know the moniker is not really accurate, but it amuses me...those who are Muslim; DON'T take this as a reason to riot and perpetuate the stereotype portrayed in the European editorial cartoons that hacked you off so.
Incidently - while on this subject - I recall some in Iran calling for a contest to portray Jesus in unflattering situations just to see how Western culture liked it - got news for you - we've had people doing that for years....most often they're called the Moral Majority in the United States. Trust me, you can't get any worse than them, so you might as well forget about it. For more information on that, contact Billy Graham.
As for the song...brilliant, simple, and used to beautiful and heart-wrenching effect in "Harold and Maude"

5. School Days - The Kinks. Recently uncovered all my old vynil from high school. For the younger of the crowd that might read this...like cd's, but larger, with worse sound quality, and a need to turn the disk over halfway through the LP. Have a Kinks album with School Days on it - just a nice piece of nostalgia from HS...loved the song then, love it now.

6. Washing of the Water - Peter Gabriel. There are plenty of Peter Gabriel songs I could put on this list; Shaking the Tree, Here Comes the Flood; Blood of Eden; and Wallflower all come to mind pretty quickly. Just really like Gabriel and this song in particular.

7. Fisherman's Blues - The Waterboys. The best of a pretty good lot. The Waterboys had some other songs that could be here depending on my mood; A Bang on the Ear, A Girl Called Johnnie. But the only one that they did that transcends my moods is Fisherman's Blues.

Others that got consideration -
Dirty Water - The Standells
Summertime - Sublime
Fairytale of New York - The Pogues
Lorca's Novena - The Pogues
My Blue Heaven - The Pogues
Family Snapshot - Peter Gabriel
Just Like a Pill - Pink
Silent All These Years - Tori Amos
Sweet Marie - The Hothouse Flowers
The Atom Heart Mother Suite - Pink Floyd

New York Daily News - Sports - 'Roid probe is ready

New York Daily News - Sports - 'Roid probe is ready: "But MLB sources have admitted in recent weeks that information gleaned from that effort and the new formal investigation probably would not be enough to suspend Bonds. While steroids were illegal, baseball did not specifically ban the performance-enhancing drugs until 2003. Lawyers have told Selig the union would certainly fight a suspension and would probably win before an arbitrator."

So this just pisses me off. An arbitrator - typically a law professional - will side with the player because the league had no policy against steroids. Somehow it doesn't matter that what the player is doing is ILLEGAL and pretty much all sports contracts have ETHICS clauses which are supposed to protect teams and leagues against players, who often considered team embassadors, from creating negative images of the team or sport. Evidently with Barry Bonds engaging in highly illegal acts which allowed him to cheat in his chosen profession, well, I guess that these ethic clauses mean precisely diddly-squat.

The bottom line - Pete Rose, baseball's all-time hits leader and a man that ran out, not jogged or show-boated, but ran out every homerun he hit - because he knew how to play the game in only one way, full speed - is banned for life from baseball and the Hall-of-Fame for gambling. Sure he gambled and that's baseball's unforgivable sin, but there isn't anyone out there that can look at the way Rose played the game and tell me he ever cheated. He ended a catcher's career in the all-star game in a clean play at the plate, because he knew only one way to play - and that was to never take a play off.
Baseball writers talk about punishing Bonds by not voting him in his first year of elligibility, in spite of the fact that he was only the best player in baseball for a six year period only because he cheated. Sure, there are players that are in the Hall that cheated - pitchers that doctored balls, most notably, but they didn't break state and federal statutes in order to win. Therein lies the difference.
When those other players cheated - scuffing balls, using KY to get more movement on the pitch, even corking a bat - they were doing things, that, were they caught, would have resulted in a suspension because baseball knew it had to create rules to address cheating that wasn't against the laws of the country. Often times it was about getting the winning edge - sure its dispicable, but for many of these guys it was about giving the team the best chance to win.
For Bonds - well, it should be understood - even by an arbitrator - that if its illegal in the rest of the country, then it is a punishable offense in the sport.
If the baseball writers really want to do the right thing, they won't vote Bonds into the Hall...EVER, baseball will refuse to acknowledge his records - rather than having Bonds at the top of the homerun roll with an asterisk in the record books, which has been bandied about, he will be nothing more than a footnote. If he gets in, I will make it my own personal crusade to see that Shoeless Joe and Pete Rose are enshrined as well.