Cold Apples in Dallas

Coldplay’s Twisted Logic Tour with Fiona Apple hit the American Airlines Center in Dallas February 27th 2006. The tour which kicked off several weeks ago started off like a well oiled machine right at the stroke of eight with Fiona taking the stage to an arena about one third of capacity, although the show itself was sold out.

Fiona’s voice was strong as she played her grand piano in a full length turquoise colored dress. She worked through several of her new tracks from Extraordinary Machine including a song I was looking forward to hearing, “A Better Version of Me”. She didn’t disappoint the masses by bringing back her breakthrough hit, “Criminal” and “Shadow Boxer” from her first album Tidal, as well as a small sampling from When the Pawn Drops….

One of the most difficult parts of the show was simply watching Fiona try to perform when she wasn’t sitting behind the piano. She has very little stage presence, almost going into Morrison’esque shouts during the songs she performs. She would do little more than stomp her foot or wave her hand which wasn’t holding on to the mic stand.

Though the stage presence wasn’t as strong as other performers the crowd which bothered to watch her showered her with applause and random shouts of “Fiona”, which rang through the crowd. She even giggled saying she needed to get back to that angry place so she could perform her songs. After about forty-five minutes she exited the stage to make way for Coldplay…

Their cue to hit the stage was The Beatles “Tomorrow Never Knows” from the Revolver album, and once they hit the stage the crowd erupted to “Square One” from Coldplay’s latest effort, X&Y. They looked like a band who had been on the road for a while; rough around the edges if you will appearance wise.

Chris Martin did a great job of working the crowd, playing piano, guitar, and leading sing-a-longs. The stage setup was simple, nothing extravagant or anything which blew up during the show. A simple video screen behind the band displayed images, members of the band as they played, and a count-down clock which was synched up with moments in the song “Square One”.

One of the more noteworthy props was the giant glitter filled yellow balloons which were playfully batted around by the audience members until they reached the stage again, or popped. The band covered most of the X&Y album, and received one of their loudest applause when they did their tribute song to Johnny Cash, “Til Kingdom Come”, followed by a cover of “Ring of Fire”.

Chris Martin also made a brief appearance in the back of the arena, where he briefly finished up a song and then sprinted back to the main stage to wrap up the show. Coldplay has that rare combination of rock & and pop to draw in a more diverse crowd. The band has been together performed long enough together to put on an entertaining show which will be enjoyed by event he most casual Coldplay fans.

Coldplay Setlist ~ no particular order

• Square One


• Politik


• Yellow


• What If


• White Shadows


• Fix You


• Talk


• X&Y


• Speed of Sound


• Swallowed in the Sea


• Kingdom Come


• A Message


• Trouble


• Don't Panic


• Clocks


• The Scientist


• Got Put a Smile on Your Face


• Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash)

Scary Wheeling & Dealing

When I first heard of the sale of six ports to be run by the United Arab Emirates (UAE)I shrugged it off without giving it much thought. Bush vowing to veto anything which may stop the sale of the ports, the first time he would use his veto while in office mind you. Why did he feel so passionate about it? Why did he not feel the need to explain his reasons, and when questioned about the possible security risk it would pose he counters the question with “trust us…”

The same man who said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The same man who almost refuses to recognize that some of the terrorists on the planes on September 11, 2001 were from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Then I heard some crazy stuff about the affiliation he has with a little group called the Carlyle Group, and their ties with UAE.

For lengths sake, here is a link to information on the Carlyle Group (The Guardian)

Lou Dobbs, from CNN, took this matter head on and came up with a terrific piece which aired on February 22, 2006. I am going to paste parts of the transcripts; the link to the full transcript is at the end of this post. I found it amazing, mind boggling, horrifying, and most important informative.


DOBBS: McClellan went on to say that the Committee on Foreign Investments examined 65 deals a year on average, but as we reported here last night, and we would like to remind Mr. McClellan, that the committee has turned down only one deal out of 1,500 deals that it has reviewed.

President Bush has put forth a challenge tonight that I simply can't ignore. The president yesterday said he wanted those who are critical and questioning of this port deal to "step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company."

Well, first of all, Mr. President, to equate any country to your principal partner in the coalition ignores that special relationship this country's enjoyed with the United Kingdom for decades and decades. This also is not just a British company and an Arab company, as I think you well know.

Peninsula and Oriental Steam Navigation is a British privately owned company. Dubai Ports World is a UAE government controlled and owned company. You see the difference, of course.

And furthermore, the money used to fund the 9/11 attacks, most of it, in fact, was sent to the hijackers through the UAE banking system. In fact, two of the hijackers were originally from the UAE.

The UAE stonewalled U.S. efforts to track al Qaeda bank accounts after 9/11. In addition, the Emirates does not recognize Israel as a sovereign state. And the UAE was a transfer point for shipments of nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

And if those aren't good enough reasons, I would just suggest I'm at a complete loss to offer what might be considered good reasons.

The oil-rich United Arab Emirates is a major investor in The Carlyle Group, the private equity investment firm where President Bush's father once served as senior adviser and is a who's who of former high-level government officials. Just last year, Dubai International Capital, a government-backed buyout firm, invested in an $8 billion Carlyle fund.

Another family connection, the president's brother, Neil Bush, has reportedly received funding for his educational software company from the UAE investors. A call to his company was not returned.

Then there is the cabinet connection. Treasury Secretary John Snow was chairman of railroad company CSX/. After he left the company for the White House, CSX sold its international port operations to Dubai Ports World for more than a billion dollars.

In Connecticut today, Snow told reporters he had no knowledge of that CSX sale. "I learned of this transaction probably the same way members of the Senate did, by reading about it in the newspapers."

Another administration connection, President Bush chose a Dubai Ports World executive to head the U.S. Maritime Administration. David Sanborn, the former director of Dubai Ports' European and Latin American operations, he was tapped just last month to lead the agency that oversees U.S. port operations.

CNN's Lou Dobbs Transcript

So, does this make Bu$h a terrorist?

The Music Execs who Cried Wolf

This has become somewhat of a hobby for me because I have never heard any single group enjoy the kind of success the record companies do and complain as much as they do about sagging sales.

The record companies were rolling around in money likes swine do in mud about seven years ago. Sales and profits had never been higher, let’s run down a few of the top sellers from 2000:

• ’NSyc No Strings Attached : 9.9 million copies


• Eminem The Marshall Mathers LP : 7.9 million


• Britney Spears Oops!...I Did it Again: 7.9 million


• Creed Human Clay: 6.6 million


• Santana Supernatural: 5.9 million


• The Beatles 1s: 5.1 million


• Nelly Country Grammar: 5.1 million


• Backstreet Boys Black and Blue: 4.3 million


• Dr. Dre 2001: 2.4 million


• Destiny’s Child The Writing’s on the Wall: 3.8 million

These were impressive numbers, record numbers in fact. Never had so many albums had such high sales, and this was during the “Napster” age. So let’s review this year’s sagging sales:

• Mariah Carey The Emancipation of Mimi: 5.0 million copies


• 50 Cent The Massacre: 4.9 million


• Kelly Clarkson Breakaway: 3.5 million


• Green Day American Idiot: 3.4 million


• Black Eyed Peas Monkey Business: 3.0 million


• Coldplay X&Y: 2.6 million


• Rascal Flatts Feels Like Today: 2.5 million


• Gwen Stefani Love, Angel, Music, Baby: 2.5 million


• Kanye West Late Registration: 2.4 million


• The Game The Documentary: 2.3 million

These numbers reflect CD sales not digital downloads. So let the truth be heard, with the wild popularity of Apple’s iPod and iTunes digital downloads jumped 150% in 2005 as consumers bought 352 million of them. To push the total numbers up a wee bit more, ring tone sales totaled about $600 million dollars. Think of that, these little “ditties” aren’t albums or even songs but about thirty seconds of a song to be played as a ringer.

These companies had to battle such acts as Payola schemes, copy protection (root-kits in some cases) and filed hundreds of lawsuits against alleged “music pirates”. To further contribute to sagging sales was the popularity of downloading singles from music services rather than the entire album. I am afraid the days of making “albums” are long gone with a few exceptions (Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois was somewhat of a concept album). Make the single, get it aired a billion times through payola scams, have these consumers download that single and fill the rest of the album with crap so they have enough to put a disc on the shelf.

It’s still our fault according to them, we’re (consumers) aren’t giving them enough of our money. Never mind that wages have not increased much, energy prices have sky rocketed, healthcare prices have erupted and the price of education has as well. Oh yea, they’ll sue you with no hesitation or remorse.