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Popdose lives!

A couple of weeks ago I made the announcement that I would be contributing to a new pop culture website called POPDOSE. Well, the site has been up and running since January 1 and I urge you all to take a hop skip and jump over there to check out the outstanding writing and the music being offered. Popdose came to be after the demise of one of my favorite places on the Internet, "Jefitoblog". The guy that ran that site, Jeff Giles, is an outstanding writer and a talented web designer. I discovered his old site four years ago after Entertainment Weekly wrote up his "Idiot's Guide to Hall & Oates". After reading about the Philadelphia duo, I went and read most of his old postings. At one point, her wrote a guide to the work of Billy Joel and made a brilliant observation about Springsteen. I wrote him an email, sent him two of the best Springsteen bootlegs ever (which he posted on Jefitoblog) and a friendship was born.

Last year, Jeff was the mastermind behind "Bloggers for a Cure",which was a collection of some very talented writers raising money for the CF Foundation in the name of Jacob. He did this without my input and surprised the shit out of our family last Easter when they launched the campaign. Many of those same writers are working over at Popdose. Among them are Jason Hare and Py Korry, two wonderful guys I can now call my friends. They all did this not because I asked them but because they're good human beings.

I'm rambling on because I'm very excited about Popdose. In some way this is a dream come true. I'm going to be writing for a larger audience than I had here at thunderbolt and that is a little intimidating. But I'm up to the challenge.

What will I be writing, you ask? Well, the "Basement Songs" entries will be posted at Popdose every week. Jeff has been a long time supporter of these entries and I was more than happy to take them to a new home. Additionally, I will be writing a weekly column on television and film (mostly television). The Basement Songs will begin tomorrow, 1/3/07. And the television column (entitled "The Three Strike Rule) begins this Sunday.

I'm not promising greatness, but I will try to make all of you who come to thunderbolt on a regular basis proud. That doesn't mean that I'm going to be shutting down this site. In fact, I have some other news I plan to spring on the world in the next couple of weeks that will me thunderbolt very useful.

That's all I have for tonight. Please, please, please, check out Popdose (the link is to he right, of click http://popdose.com).

Aloha

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MARATHON FOOTNOTES (for those who didn't think I would really footnote a stream of consciousness thought): Footnote #1 Academy Award Winning Best Picture Films from 1969 to the Present: Midnight Cowboy, Patton, The French Connection, The Godfather, The Sting, The Godfather II, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Rocky, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, Kramer Vs. Kramer, Ordinary People, Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, Terms of Endearment, Amadeus, Out of Africa, Platoon, The Last Emperor, Rain Man, Driving Miss Daisy, Dances With Wolves, The Silence of the Lambs, Unforgiven, Schindler’s List, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The English Patient, Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, American Beauty, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Footnote #2 Members of the band YES, from 1969 to the present: In 1969, Yes is formed with Jon Anderson on vocals Peter Banks on guitar, Bill Bruford on drums, Tony Kaye on keyboards and Chris Squire playing bass. This group records