59th Street Bridge Song (P. Simon Cover)...

There'sNoDarknessInThis

OldFriendVille


A few years ago Mr. Simon got together with Stephen Colbert and joked around about how much he hates this tune.

It turns out that Simon really does hate it, so much so that during his recent 'farewell' tour he forced himself to play it in Portland as a self-imposed fine after he flubbed a lyric during the show the night before in Seattle.

Personally, when I was a kid I found 59th St/Feeling Groovy to be a nice pleasant break from all those other 'serious' Simon and Garfunkel songs...

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Interestingly, Simon made a whack of extra dough from the song when he successfully sued the producers of the HR Pufnstuf TeeVee show for ripping off his tune in their theme song.

Why does Simon hate the tune?...I reckon it might have something to do with the fact that it cuts a little too close to his now long-buried Brill Building and teen idol(ish) Tom and Jerry days.


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Doing That Thing You (Can't) Do (Virtually).

TheOneEeders

PlayToneVille


Well, here's is something interesting in our privatized, rush to the bottom of just about everything.

Including visits to the doctor that aren't.

People who used a virtual-only medical service — a kind of virtual walk-in clinic — during the pandemic were more likely to later go to an emergency room than patients who did appointments with their own family doctor online, a study by Toronto researchers has shown.

The study published Thursday in the Journal of Medical Internet Research explores the different outcomes between two kinds of virtual medical care during the pandemic — that given by walk-in-style clinics and that given by family doctors.

Conducted by the University Health Network, ICES, Women’s College Hospital and Unity Health Toronto, the study found that the patients who saw a physician who was not their family doctor through a virtual-only medical service were twice as likely to visit an emergency department within 30 days...

So.

What's the deal?

Well, it turns out the difference is what is NOT done virtually:

...The study showed that patients who had a virtual-only walk-in appointment often had a virtual followup and then ended up in emergency, in contrast to patients who had a virtual appointment with their family doctor and then could have an in-person followup, possibly avoiding a hospital visit because they were able to have a physical exam.

The “concern with virtual walk-in clinics is the lack of a physical exam,” says Lapointe-Shaw...

Take that Chatbot-GTP-Turbo-Deluxe-Fakes-Better-Than-Memorex or whatever the heck fire we will next be told will take the place of actual, real things...

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Header, image and somewhat lame sub-header?...This.

The story cited, above, was written by Patty Winsa and published in the Toronto Star yesterday.

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The Coalition Of The (Very) Willing

MrSaturdayNight

NotBorkVille


Robert Reich, who first served in the US'ian presidential administrations of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter before he became Bill Clinton's Labour Secretary, knows of what he speaks:

The two parts of the Republican Party — the MAGA cultural warriors and the economic oligarchs — need each other. 

The oligarchy — billionaires, top CEOs, and moguls of Wall Street — wants lower taxes (which requires less government spending) and fewer regulations. Most basically, it wants to continue to siphon off more of the economy’s total gains.

To do so, it needs the MAGA cultural warriors to keep America divided over non-economic issues (abortion, gay rights, immigration, voting rights, religious freedom) so most Americans won’t look up and see where all the money has gone.

And the MAGA warriors need the oligarchy’s money for their campaigns. 

This was the coalition and the strategy Trump relied on. The oligarchy financed Trump Republicans. In return, the oligarchs got lower taxes and regulatory rollbacks, while Trump and his MAGAs distracted the public with culture wars and warriors...

And who else needs this 'coalition'?

I would suggest it is the US'ian corpMedia outlets, especially the cable news versions, to ensure that all that oligarchy campaign money, in the form of never ending ad buys, keeps on rolling in. Not to mention all the eyeballs, hits and ratings they garner while they 'cover' the spectacle. 

And, to be absolutely clear here, we're not just talking about Fox News.

To wit, the following historical snippet from March of 2021:

• CNN had record-breaking viewership during the finals months of Trump's presidency (in late 2020).

• There has been a dramatic decline in ratings since Inauguration Day (in January 2021), according to new research.

• CNN has lost 36% of its primetime viewers since January 21 (2021), the Nielsen Media Research data said.

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Do The Ends Ever Justify These Means?

NotAGoodThing
WhatsoeverVille

I am becoming more and more convinced that one of the most corrosive aspects of social media, especially the algorithmic and/or viral aspects of the thing, is that it often helps push folks over the line into 'the ends justify any means' territory.

To wit, what happened to a CTV Edmonton reporter recently.

First, there was the initial story, which was an on-air health scare:

Canadian TV news reporter Jessica Robb says there's "no cause for concern" following her on-screen medical drama on Sunday.

In a statement posted by CTV Edmonton on Twitter, Robb addressed the live TV incident that saw her stumble over her words and say "I'm not feeling well" to CTV anchor Nahreman Issa.

Robb then appeared to faint and move toward the camera until the live feed was cut.

"We will come back to you," Issa said as the news report ended. "Right now, we will make sure that Jessica is doing okay and we will give you guys an update a little bit later."...

As the lede to the piece above makes clear, which was written up in, of all things, People magazine, Ms. Robb recovered and is fine, at least in terms of the health scare itself.

However, what is most definitely not fine was the response from folks who clearly stepped over the line as is outlined in this release from CTV Edmonton itself:

Which, of course, is awful on every level.

However, here's the thing.

No one, regardless which 'side' they're on, is immune from engaging in at least some aspects of this kind of behaviour, particularly if they feel their cause is righteous enough and when they know that the algorithm and virality are both right there to help them push said cause.

More on that in a future post...

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Set The Relics Free!

NevermindThe

MedallionsVille


Having witnessed the king tide-driven driftwood/log boom escape carnage, up close and personal, out at Iona Point over the last few weeks, I reckon Mr. Hume has a point:

So.

Imagine what would happen if the new Eby government were to re-boot the Beachcombers, for real, and set up a program whereby thousands of Relics swarmed our beaches and cleaned up all the drift for a pegged fibre price.

Imagine the jobs!

Imagine the beautiful foreshore!

Imagine the homegrown electric outboard motor industry that could be kick-started!

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Meanwhile, the good Mr. Shaw figures Mr. Eby hasn't done enough because he's done too much too fast in his first 50 days...And besides, the things Eby has already done are not the things he hasn't yet done...Or some such thing.

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What The Financial Post and Postmedia Did Not Tell Its Readers Last Friday.

WhoseOpEdIsIt

AnywayVille


On Friday January 6, 2023 the Financial Post published an OpEd in defense of Dr. Jordan Peterson that was written by Howard Levitt in the wake of a ruling against the good doctor by the Ontario College of Psychologists.

Here is Mr. Levitt's lede:

Given how hard Jordan Peterson has worked (and continues to work), it is difficult to attribute his phenomenal successes to simple good fortune. But, sometimes, even he can just get lucky.

As a result of the most boneheaded unforced error I have ever seen, the Ontario College of Psychologists is about to propel his already ascendant career into meteoric orbit.

The College has just ordered Peterson to attend a Maoist style, compulsory social media re-education program at a cost to him of $225 per hour, such sessions to continue until these paid “educators” determine that he is sufficiently penitent. His refusal to participate — and of course he has refused — will lead to a public disciplinary hearing and potential cancellation of his professional license as a psychologist...

And here is how Mr. Levitt's closes his piece:

...Peterson’s is an important fight. His failure would leave many vulnerable to attacks on their employment by third party letters to their professional bodies or even to their employers by leftists (today, tomorrow who knows what political views will be ascendant) with opposing views claiming that they have put their profession into disrepute, (which is an actual offense under Law Society rules). I had one such complaint for a previous column when I referred to a decision of a privacy commissioner as boneheaded, for which I was informally cautioned. Such weaponization of political opinions must be stopped in its tracks. Peterson is just the person to do it...

And here is what the Financial Post told its readers about Mr. Levitt in the afterward to the OpEd:

Howard Levitt is senior partner of Levitt Sheikh, employment and labour lawyers with offices in Toronto and Hamilton. He practices employment law in eight provinces. He is the author of six books including the Law of Dismissal in Canada.

Which is all fine and good as far as it goes.

Based on that, any reasonable reader could conclude that Mr. Levitt is a lawyer who is of the personally held opinion that Dr. Peterson's fight against the College of Ontario Psychologists is a righteous one*.

But...

Here is what the Financial Post did not tell its readers:

Imagine that!


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And, it would appear, a righteous fight against leftists everywhere as well based on the rhetoric used repeatedly in the piece (i.e. not just in the lede and the kicker as noted here).

Independent, Jesse Brown-free, confirmation of Mr. Levitt's having acted as Mr. Peterson's lawyer in the past can be found...Here.

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Never Trumper, Canadian Style?

According to Konrad Yakabuski in the Globe and (no longer Empire) Mail, former CPC leader Erin O'Toole wants to see red meat right-sided reactionaryionism toned down in 2023:

Former federal Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole spoke for many Canadians distressed at the increasing nastiness of our political discourse in tweeting a desire to see fewer “profanity-laden Trudeau flags” hoisted across the country in 2023. He was spot on in warning that these banners attacking Prime Minster Justin Trudeau “and the hyperaggressive rhetoric that often accompanies them are slowly normalizing rage and damaging our democracy.”...

Except.

Just like all those right-sided Never Trumpers down south, who themselves first built the myoglobin-smeared glass house that is the modern Republican party before jumping ship when the Donald pulled their meal tickets, Mr. O'Toole, too, did his part to get the reactionaries riled in the name of political expediency back when he had real, actual skin in the game:

...Mr. O’Toole ran for his party’s leadership in 2021 by promising to “take back Canada.” The slogan implied that conservatives had been dispossessed of their own country by a Liberal government that was pursuing a leftist agenda. It sought to stoke indignation and anger in just enough new and old Tories to win the leadership under rules that gave disproportionate weighting to low-membership ridings...

And then there were the stunts like the 'Trudeau's outhouse video' noted at the top of the post.

So.

When Mr. O'Toole is ready to make like Stuart Stevens and come clean about his active role in putting his party and the Canuckistanian conservative movement on the flaming highway to h-e-double-toothpicks I'll be happy to start paying attention to anything else he has to say.

Because anything less is just hypocritical, flack hackery-driven damage control and/or a state(r)gy designed to get himself a permanent seat on a Power and Politics panel.

OK?


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Stuart Stevens you may be asking?...Driftglass explains. 

And it's not just rehabilitating seats on TeeVee shows these suddenly reasonable right wingers are looking for...There is also the grift aspect of the thing...Case in point is 'The Lincoln Project' that is run by some of the dirtiest tricksters that ever ran a US Republican political campaign raised $87 million, plus, during the 2020 presidential election cycle.


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Would Kevin McCarthy Willingly Sell-Out Ukraine To Bang A Gavel?

NotTheHockey
PlayerVille

From Roxana Tiron et al. of Bloomberg News:

The emerging deal Kevin McCarthy is discussing to make him speaker of the House would propose a roughly $75 billion cut in defense spending at a time when the US is intent on backing Ukraine against the Russian invasion and grows more wary of China’s stepped up aggression toward Taiwan...

{snip}

...Some holdouts against McCarthy such as Rep. Matt Gaetz are also fierce opponents of continued military assistance for Ukraine, and have threatened to try to block additional aid...

Meanwhile, he was thinking (allegedly):

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) voted for former President Trump for Speaker of the House on Thursday, as the chamber held its seventh vote in three days in an attempt to elect a Speaker...

And how many votes did Mr. Trump ultimately receive?

You guessed it...

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Why Giving Anti-Vaxxers No Quarter Matters.

Pushback

Ville


Some of you all have likely become a little tired of me going on and on (and on) about how scurrilous and, frankly, gutless anti-vaxxers immediately began to use weasel words, sans evidence, to infer that the Covid vaccine had something to do with the sudden cardiac arrest that a professional football suffered on the field on Monday night.

After all, you are probably muttering to yourself, why not just ignore these loons until they go away?

Well, there are serious consequences for public health when their codswallop is wurlitzered around the web, not to mention the wider world, as Mike Wending and Rachel Schraer explain in their piece for the BBC:

...Research by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a non-profit campaign group based in London and Washington, found that mentions of an anti-vaccine film quadrupled after the player's collapse.

CCDH chief executive Imran Ahmed said activists were "cynically exploiting tragedy to baselessly connect any injury or death of a notable person to vaccinations".

The day after the match the documentary Died Suddenly, which was released in November last year, was mentioned nearly 17,000 times, the CCDH says. The BBC previously looked into the claims in the film and found little or no evidence behind many of them.

Caroline Orr Bueno, a researcher on misinformation who has spent a decade looking at the anti-vaccination movement, says the film gave rise to communities of people across several social media platforms primed to hunt for news events to back up their views.

"They believe the anti-vaccine rhetoric that they are seeing," she says, "and they are joining in out of genuine concern without necessarily knowing that they're being misled."...

But, still, you may be starting to shout...This, too, is just a bunch of loons and the mis-led lemmings who follow them, right?

Well, where large flocks of loons and massive slices of lemmings congregate the political hucksters and their stooges soon swoop in and, in the worst case scenario, enact truly harmful policies to capitalize on the lunacy.

Jack Stripling has that story in the Washington Post:

...Joseph A. Ladapo, a professor of medicine at the University of Florida and the state’s surgeon general (appointed by governor Ron De Santis), relied upon a flawed analysis and may have violated university research integrity rules when he issued guidance last fall discouraging young men from receiving common coronavirus vaccines, according to a report from a medical school faculty task force. But the university says it has no plans to investigate the matter.

Ladapo recommended in October that men younger than 40 not take mRNA vaccinations for Covid, pointing to an “abnormally high risk of cardiac-related death.” Doctors and public health officials swiftly pounced, dismissing the underlying research for its small sample size, lack of detail and shaky methodology.

In its new report, a task force of the University of Florida College of Medicine’s Faculty Council cites numerous deficiencies in the analysis Ladapo used to justify his vaccine recommendation. A summary said the work was “seriously flawed.” The report’s authors say Ladapo engaged in “careless, irregular, or contentious research practices.”

OK?

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Have I Mentioned Recently That...

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....John Samson Fellows is a genius.

Seriously.

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BTW, pitchers and catchers report in six weeks...Hopefully by then we'll all have followed JSF's advice and gone outside, at least once or twice, to organize something better, or beautiful, or both.

Again, if you want to learn a little more about what the Fellows/Samson artistic empire is up to these days go listen to...This.

Finally, if all this has you hankering for the Weakerthans firing on all cylinders, this show, circa 2007, from Berlin, is all killer no filler...


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Another One...

Link

My apologies for going on about this (see recent posts), but...

When you watch for them, you can see these people everywhere, doing their best to destroy the social fabric.

And for what?

Hits?

I told you so Lulz, sans evidence?

Owning the libs?

It's unfathomable to me, particularly if any of it contributes to a single person not taking precautions against infectious disease, including getting vaccinated against COVID, or the flu, or papilloma viruses, or the measles, or polio, etcetera.

By the way, the 'commotio cordis' that was mentioned by the first commenter in the tweet above (who is a physician specialist in internal medicine) in the context of a football player whose heart stopped suddenly after he received a forceful blow to the chest, is:

... a phenomenon in which a sudden blunt impact to the chest causes sudden death in the absence of cardiac damage. This condition was first described in the middle of the 18th century in the context of chest trauma among workers...

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When In Doubt Call Them Witch Doctors.

Here's the scary side of the Damar Hamlin story nobody but @Gbush91 wants to talk about. pic.twitter.com/X4Wgx0dXs4

— Ultimate Cleveland Sports Show (@ultCLEsports) January 4, 2023

Yesterday we noted that some of the world's worst people had immediately started wurlitzering the rumour, in the complete absence of any supporting evidence whatsoever, that the COVID-19 vaccine contributed to the sudden cardiac arrest that was suffered by a professional football player on the field Monday night.

So.

How did one of the wranglers of some of the worst people in the world, a very finest of the fine fellow named Mr. Tucker Carlson, respond?

Why, of course, by further pushing the baseless rumour envelope while simultaneously smearing anyone who rightfully tried to tear that envelope into tiny pieces before it becomes a talking point on the Sunday shows and legitimate OpEd pages everywhere.

As reported in the Independent (alternative link):

...On his programme that night (Tuesday January 3), Fox News personality Tucker Carlson falsely stated that (Buffalo Bills defensive back Damar) Hamlin endured a “heart attack” and said medical experts who dismissed Covid-19-related conspiracy theories are “lying” and “witch doctors”.

He (Carlson) continued: “Hamlin was lying on the field receiving CPR when self-described medical experts in the media, people with no demonstrated medical ethics at all, effectively witch doctors, decided to use his tragic life-threatening injuries [as] an opportunity to spread still more propaganda about the Covid shots. ‘It could not have been the shot,’ they told you. ‘Shut up.’ They’re lying. They don’t know anything more than we know, which is effectively nothing.”...

Shut up, indeed.

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Meanwhile, the fellow in the video at the top of the post, Garret Bush, speaks truth to the billionaires about the least they should be doing for the young kids who put their bodies at risk every time they step on the field.

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Tuesday Notes...Who Are Those Guys?

AtTheCornerOfMalibuAnd

SunsetVille


Three things up front...

First, the Duo City couple, who have been doing a fantastic job of true civic blogging covering the Lotusland development beat, mostly by covering public consultation meetings, have plans to expand their offerings in 2023. That is great news given that the CoV appears to be, knowingly or not, squelching public discussion of development plans by moving most consultation gatherings online. Personally, I'm very much looking forward to Hannah and Darren's reportage, comments and thoughts on the proposals that are starting to come through the pipeline based on the 'Secured Rental Policy'.

Second, a new (to me) podcast called Kreative Kontrol by a guy named Vish Kanna, who is based in Edmonton by way of Guelph...It's a long form interview format that is kind of like Q if Q was actually good...This morning on the ride in to work I listened to a recent episode with Christine Fellows (the two E's will like this one for all kinds of reasons, including 'Heavyweight' and the fact that the Fellows/Samson cat Virtute is imaginary!)... I've got the latest Steve Albini episode queued up for the ride home (can't wait)....Chances of supporting on Patreon...8.5/10.

Third, depending on whether or not you are sports fanatical or not, you may or may not know that professional American football player named Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field during a game between Buffalo and Cincinnati last night after suffering a sudden cardiac arrest...Mr. Hamlin's heartbeat was restored on the field but he remains in critical condition in a Cincinnati hospital....Which is a terrible and tragic story, in and of itself...But the story has been made even worse by some of the worst people in the world who immediatelystarted insinuating, in the absence of any evidence whatsoever, that it was Covid vaccination was a contributing...Meanwhile, the good Mr. Musk has signaled that he is all set to further wurlitzer the wrath of the worst people in the world with the coming release of the 'Fauci Files'.

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OK, so, to the matter at hand...

Just who are those guys pictured, above, at the top of the post?

Why that is Southern California's first Latino DIY punk band 'Plugz' who were plucked from relative 

decline of the western civilization obscurity by Bob Dylan, thanks to Dylan's then teenage kids and/or the fact that the band's drummer's girlfriend was Bob's tour manager's secretary.

This happened when Bob had the boys back him for his first appearance on Letterman.

I referenced this appearance earlier this week when I posted their raucous version of the then just released 'Jokerman' on the show in 1984.

When the time came they did the tune in super-sloppy triple time with a clearly ecstatic Dylan going berserk during the closing harmonica solo despite the fact that the instrument he had been handed was in the wrong key.

So, what became of it all?

Well...

...After the show, Dylan and the band hung out backstage, talking with (fellow Letterman guest) Liberace and having their photos taken by Rolling Stone until Dylan left, explaining he was due at a Knicks game with Keith Richards. (Guitar player J.J.) Holiday says, “Dylan told us he would call us on Monday.” The call never came. “Whenever (bass player) Tony (Marco) and I see each other,” Holiday continues, “we always joke, ‘Did you get that call yet?’”...

Hmmmm...

Despite how much fun Mr. Dylan clearly had during that Letterman appearance, clearly Plugz weren't quite Ronnie's Hawks.

Or some such thing.

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Tip 'O The Toque to longtime reader e.a.f. for putting the burr under the Plugz/Jokerman saddle...

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They're Back.

C. and I first saw John Carney's low budget Irish ode to the Busker's life, the movie 'Once', in the Park theatre on Cambie Street one warm summer evening in 2007.

I can't even remember why we went, probably something I read somewhere.

Regardless the reasoning, I was immediately flummoxed by the thing, mostly because it was a musical where the story literally was the songs, and the making and playing thereof wherever and/or whenever.

Within days I was a wannabe, something akin to the 'banker' in the movie that the protagonists, the 'Guy' and the 'Girl', bamboozle into lending them money to record their songs.

Since then the folks that played the 'Boy' and the 'Girl' in the movie, who had a really good run of their own, both on streets and on stages the world over, have gone their separate ways.

But they came back together to sing the Oscar winning tune from the movie this past holiday season, as shown above.

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Meanwhile, here is what the wannabe/banker talked his oldest kid, who was then and is even more now the real thing, into doing almost 12 years ago to the day...

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And, yes, that most certainly is the Whackdoodle I roaming around underfoot, above.

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Crapperman Dance To The Lavatory's Tune.

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Freedom just around the corner for you

But with truth so far off, what good will it do?

Bob Dylan, 'Jokerman'

Thanks to his firing of all the moderators that resulted in many fortuneish companies of the 500 variety finding their paid missives pasted into the feeds of white nationalists and racists, not to mention those paid-for-blue-check shenanigans gone bad, the freedom-loving febrile genius that now owns Twitter has apparently lost billions of dollars in advertising revenue over the past few months.

And how, you may (or may not) be asking yourself, is the genius dealing with this predicament of his own making?

Well...

It would appear that he is forcing his remaining employees pay for their own toilet paper...

Literally:

...Twitter is said to have stopped paying rent at its Seattle office, leading it to face eviction. Janitorial and security services have been cut, and in some cases employees have resorted to bringing their own toilet paper to the office...

Gosh.

How's that for a simple, if potentially smelly, twist of fate?

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Speaking of Jokermen, there is an excellent podcast about Dylan's post motorcycle crash catalogue by a couple of interesting obsessives that also have a fascination for Lou Reed and John Cale...You can get to it...Here.


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