My InterSluts, Let Me Show You Them ...

As we look toward another round of a bunch of candidates headed to Iowa including Pete Buttigieg, I thought it was worth mentioning some Beto O’Rourke stuff.  O’Rourke announced his candidacy and made a trip to the Hawkeye State. A lot of the national media about O’Rourke is that his star has burned out. A friend who knows says he still sees Beto as a Top 5 candidate. Indeed, if they’re talking about you, then you are still in the conversation. It’s when they stop talking about you.

The excellent Iowa Starting Line has come to the same conclusion and seemed impressed with the young Texan. They shared a story of Beto addressing a crowd of 300 in Waterloo standing on the back of a red pickup truck.  This comes off a Politico article that seemed to want to bury Beto, but contains the particular observation of the mayor of Dennison (a town of 8000 in the reddest part of the country).  Mayor Beymar saying 80 people showing up in his town a workday is like attratcing a crowd of a thousand.

The Waterloo-Cedar Falls paper covered his Eastern Iowa visit which started with a 60 person meeting where half were media, but hitting Iowa City with Hawkeye gear and sharing anecdotes like his locker being next to local Dave Loebsack in the House Gym. The Iowa City Press Citizen, local Democrat volunteer Karen Cooney has the best insight, comparing Beto to Obama for intelligence and likeability, as opposed tothe party favorites like Gore, Kerry and Hillary.  It has also been noted that the red state politics that Beto navigated in Texas are appropriate to conservative-purplish Iowa

The Des Moines Register covered his 12 hour day in the Capital city area with impressed voters who compared him to JFK, 45 minute media-caused delays, references to local baseball and local bars, and at least 100 requests for pictures. Another Register story mentioned the fact he stopped to try Caseys Pizza (a Iowa stand by).  As an observer and blogger, I love this stuff, but I realize that I am falling into the trap that I am accusing Politico of.  Politico in their piece seemingly ridicule O'Rourke for always wearing the local ball cap or of namedropping the local Democrats.  That's nothing to be ashamed of.  It is the candidate that thinks those niceties are beow them that are the ones who fall flat.

A few other statements of note that came out of his visits.  In Dubuque, he was asked if he would pick a female running mate and he said yes. A Spokane newspaper with some solid 2020 coverage reported, as well as the fact he was dropping a flippant joke about his wife doing all the parenting.

In short, to declare Betomania dead or that he has been a bust seems short-sighted.  Does he have the ability to compete with the well-stocked and well-organized Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris?  Has his millenial energetic thunder shifted over to Mayor Pete?

Wait... wait.. wait.  What am I doing?  Analsysis?  Insight?  This is not what I intend for my blog at all.  Let's fix this immediately.

Per the Iowa City Press-Citizen.

"I was in the bathroom, minding my own business and I was washing my hands," said Matthew Rowland, a University of Iowa student. "And this guy asked me how it was going, and I said good, 'How's it going,' going for some small talk.

Rowland asked, "Are you here to see Beto?"

He said Beto O'Rourke looked up at him with a grin and said, "That's me."

(Photo via New York Times)

My first introduction to Bill Pritchard was an IRS release in 1989 called “Three months, three weeks and two days.

” Spin Magazine called him a “French Morrissey” which was more than enough than send me off on a search.

I am not sure what happened next, but I worked at a college radio station and probably went there (It is also possible that I heard Bill on MuchMusic as some songs like “Tommy and Co” did get play). In any case, I found a copy of the disc at a small town pawn shop which was nowhere near anything but I would discover the most obscure finds like The Associates

Pritchard was probably more Cohen than Moz and these days, I see him compared to the lighter side of British and British sounding Pop (Go-Betweens, Aztec Camera, Prefab Sprout, Lloyd Cole)

The record remains a favorite “lost classic” of mine. Two sides of wistful pop that Lloyd Cole would be proud off peaking at the end with a slightly over two minute shrug that Morrissey probably wished he wrote called “ Better to be Bitter”.

There seem to be a couple of sizable gaps in his career. While he has not made any impact in the US, it sounds like he has done well in countries like France, Belgium, Canada and Japan.

There are a good dozen or more songwriters who made a good impact on me and I wonder what happened to them. Pritchard, I discovered has a new record out. In often cases, revisiting one of these major memories reveals a songwriter with diminished talent.

In this case, Midland Lullabies is a hit. It sounds like he has picked up right where he did 30 years ago. Quite possibly, the new record might be an even better collection of songs, though nostalgia is always the strongest contender. In any case, check out both the old and the new.