Adventures of a Swing-state Voter- "You know what else is every four years?" edition

As both Obama and Willard have superpacs ready to dump money into Iowa, and as Obama and Willard (and Kumar) plan trips to the Hawkeye State; we know that it's heatin' up.

Not surprisingly, Willard wants to remind you that he was the Olympics guy.  If you didn't know, Romney was in charge of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics (this is an obscure fact like Rudy Guilani was mayor during 9/11).

Since we are in the midst of a buzzworthy Olympics, Willard is trying to strike a chord.  When you think of smiling Gabby Douglas or the dominant LeBron-led Basketballers, think of Mitt.  A good plan.

Willard has got some of the 2002ers to show up in a commercial and tell the World how great Mitt's Olympics were.  One of the biggest names from those games, Kristi Yamaguchi headlines.  Yamaguchi gives a bit of a non-endorsement endorsement.  "Mitt Romney brought a huge sense of hope", she says and the Romney camp says while she hasn't officially backed Romney; she did show up at a ten-year anniversary of the SLC games, and appeared next to him.

Before you think Willard has gotten all hopey and changey, his ad which prominently features Bob Scheiffer talking how this is the worst recovery ever, is still bringing the negative.

I have read about the Obama super-pac's Olympic themed ad  but have not seen it air here (and I don't know that it is supposed to).  In it, Romney is shown supporting his favorite countries- India, China, Switzerland (famous for bank accounts), the Cayman Islands...

Hey-Oh!

I suppose we should expect football themed ads next.  I can't wait.

On the Shelf 070 : The Cult

Well, my last three picks have been all by 60 year old men (Iggy Pop, Jimmy Cliff, Neil Young), so anyone I post now will look like a youth movement.

I knew The Cult had a new album out this year, but I really didn't plan on paying any attention to it. However, after I heard a couple of places referring to it as a possible 'album of the year' candidate, I figured it must be at least worth checking it out.

The story of the Cult has been written. They have one album that is a post-modern classic (Love, though others may say Electric). They peaked with the most Cult-ish of albums, the Bob Rock produced Sonic Temple, which was the band's stab at the big time (and fairly successful at doing that). The Cult bottomed out when grunge rock came along, but while 2007's reunion Born Into This wasn't groundbreaking, it at least was a return to form.

Of course, Ian Astbury grew up wanting to be Jim Morrison (and actually got the chance to live it.) Though, the best days are behind them, one could suspect that one of the Bastard Sons of Morrison, still had one great album in them. I would have put my odds that the BSoJM who would do it would probably be Glen Danzig, but he hasn't been able to reach his previous heights in some time.

So, it's Astbury who gets their first, with an album that is undeniably Doors influenced, but spends some time stretching out those blues influences. Astbury Hotel it is then. He trumps his chief competition with "Lucifer", which Glen surely wishes he had in his canon.

The other touchpoint would be the Cult's 90s hard rock hero counterparts, Guns N Roses. Axl would surely wish he had these tunes as well. There's a lot of Use Your Illusionisms here too (sure there's a Matt Sorum connection here, but he's not on this record). Guitar heroics, balls out rockers, epic drawn out arena anthems, and some should-have-been-left-on-the-cutting-room-floor missteps.

Still, overall, it works, and it works quite well. Ian isn't Elvis Costello, and there's plenty of awful lyrics on the album, but that shouldn't be a surprise (Most times, the music is enough to power it through like "For the Animals"). Once again, Bob Rock is behind the helm to make it all happen.

Utah News (condensed edition)

I like to make some notes on any town I visit on what is the local news.

Like any place, there is plenty of sad news and some bizarre stories.  I won't share the sad news, but there's stories of missing hikers and child's deaths.  If you like 48 Hours style drama, you could do worse than the trial of Brenda White.  Brenda played Poe's "Angry Johnny" over and over again to her ex-husband (Jon, natch) which features lyrics like "I want to kill you.  I want to blow you away."  Brenda's defense lawyer would like to think that it was only coincidental that later that day, she drove through (literally and drove around) his office building in her SUV trying to run him down.

On a smaller scale, the vandals who shoot marbles are still on the loose.

Even without the benefit of local news, the wildfire up in the Mountains is hard to miss.  Not usually being around such things, I find them fascinating and scary.

You may not realize it, but Utah is heavy into the movies.  There are couple of place-12s and place-15s and two theaters being built in close proximity.  It is true though, and I don't find it nearly as surprising as everyone else.  Yes, it is a bit odd that Utahans (and Mormons, specifically) are die-hard science fiction and fantasy fans.  In high school, I hung around the few kids who didn't drink, and that was how they filled their time.

Anyway, getting back to the theaters, one is coming in here with D-box motion-enhanced technology.  It is just that, seats thatmove in accordance to what is going on in film, whether that is movement or vibration or whatever.

Lastly, I wanted to know what happened to this guy.  He had obviously gambled early by plastering "Trump in '12" on the side of his rent-to-own store.  Though i could be wrong, it at least seemed like that took considerable time and expense to display.  Well, no surprise, it is still up; though he did ditch the last window, and now it merely says "Mitt Romney" at the end.