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This chapter of The Fleetwood Mac Story properly begins on New Year's Eve, 1974. A few months earlier, as it looked likely Bob Welch would leave the band, Mick Fleetwood had seen a young duo called Buckingham Nicks recording in a Los Angeles studio. It was Lindsey Buckingham who insisted he could not join Fleetwood without his partner, Stevie Nicks, and the deal opened one of the most exciting periods in the history of any band. This is the story of what happened next, and it is a story that continues to unfold. Buckingham has just released his new album, Gift of Screws, and Nicks is due a DVD by the end of 2008. Who knows, 2009 could even see another Fleetwood Mac tour and album.

Via pop.vox.com

No!  My friend (and superstar intern) Dagmar taught me, just a few weeks ago, that a pony is an entirely different animal from a horse!  She should know, as she has a beautiful pony named Sir Valentine (not pictured at right).  All this time I thought ponies were just the smaller, cuter, younger versions of a plain ol' horse!  How did I never know the difference before now?  As a Texan, I probably had an extra responsibility to understand the difference, even though I didn't grow up around horses.  Thank you, Dagmar, for the education.

DEAR JOHN Dear Senator McCain: Hey, it's me. You may remember when we spoke in 1990 in Washington, D.C. during the big protest march against the first Gulf War. My hair was a lot longer then than now -- blame in on grunge* (an era named after a genre of particularly dynamic pop music.) You and I...

Yesterday, the celestial pinpoint was a residence along a Kailua beach where the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and his family are kicking back before the National Democratic Convention later this month.

A few months ago, .tiff hipped me to a little series on YouTube called "Drunk History". The concept is simple: Someone gets shit-faced drunk, and then tells the story of some historical event while being filmed. The film of the storyteller is spliced with footage of the event being re-enacted,...

"With a wedding and honeymoon to pay for, its hard to specify exactly where the money went. You could say it went to the photographer, or the caterer, or the bar bill. Or to spending money for our honeymoon in Cancun. All I know is, the money is gone, and it helped to contribute to the best week and a half of my life so that we didn't have to tap into savings or go into debt."

I hadn't seen a tape in ages. And then, Mark showed me that it still exists. You gotta love it!

From Steve (pop.vox.com)

Ah, but dear members of Camp 2, you do know Bill Withers. You have undoubtedly heard Club Nouveau's rendition of Withers' "Lean On Me" far too many times to count. If you're like me, you may even have a vaguely sad or embarrassing memory attached to the song. Mine involves a gradeschool birthday party in Brooke Blass' garage where we stood around singing along to the radio, eating cake and dreaming up reasons to mix and mingle with the boys in attendance. When "Lean On Me" was blasted over the boom box speakers, someone had the bright idea to stand in a huge circle and put our arms around each others' shoulders. Yes, Withers' songwriting gave us that exciting and elusive reason to touch each other, which is kind of a big deal when you're twelve. A much better anecdote about this song is that Withers wrote it before he became a recording star, penning it as an ode to the camaraderie he experienced growing up in a West Virginia coal mining town (source). The sentiment in the song is real, and Withers' version is obviously way better than anything Club Nouveau could ever imagine. (Henceforth, I will never mention Club Nouveau again.)

But Fergie's voice has a chainsaw or dentist drill quality to it, especially when she's belting out a song. It is a truly disturbing sound. If this sound were to awaken you out of a peaceful slumber, you would instinctively hurl a heavy object at t...

This is where I go when I really want to stress myself out.

M-----l wrote me a letter! With underwear drawings!

This one goes out to my homie Krissy:

Fearing that the drinking game as written might leave all of us a bit too drunk for a work night, Mena thought of a nice twist: after eliminating all of the no-longer-relevant prompts, we printed out the remaining ones in enlarged type, cut them up, and put them into a bag (a Jay McCarroll bag, no less!), then selected one by one our individual prompts, thus dividing up about 40 prompts between the three of us.

When I was thinking of reviving this here blog, I decided I needed original artwork for my banner and Marc was the first and only artist I considered. Things just keep getting busier over at Marc Johns HQ, as they rightly should, so I feel extraordinarily fortunate that he was available and willing to let me commission a custom art piece (If you're reading this post in a feed reader, please click through to check out the full-size banner.)

I'm buying local, from my Vox neighbor!

A report released Wednesday by Scarborough Research reveals that Austin, Texas has the highest percentage of residents who read or write blogs. In Austin, 15% of adults had read or contributed to a blog in the past 30 days, while #2 Portland followed with 14% and tied for third was San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose (an odd clumping, we must say) and Seattle/Tacoma, both with 13%. Other top cities: Honolulu, San Diego, Dallas, Columbus, Nashville, Colorado Springs, and Washington D.C.