When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the post

For some reason this weekend I've thought of a whole slew of topics about which to write. I have three different drafts saved with ideas for future posts, involving science, secrets, SF, and also stupid artists.

But the one I'm going to write about today involves music, and musicians. Specifically, musicians playing other musicians music. Otherwise known as a cover song, it poses an interesting concept for the music fan.

I bought a bunch of cassette tapes, and today I'm dubbing some LPs and mp3s to tape, so that I may listen to them in my car, in which the CD player is broken, and only has a working deck. I'm using 90 minute tapes, which is perfect for one LP per side. The mp3s are much more flexible, but I'm taking the opportunity to dub collections of 7" singles, and various disparate recordings, so that I can have some ready made playlists available for my commute.

While it is perhaps to cliche to discuss the art of the mix tape after such romanticized popular culture depictions like High Fidelity, it certainly exists. You only have to listen to a poorly made tape or mix to figure it out. Although the skill necessary to punch clunky cassette deck buttons in the proper sequence is now retro-chic thanks to the ease of the CD-burn, (I remember when MiniDiscs were considered awesomely new), there are also levels to think about, the importance of track timing so that one does not record over leader strip at the beginning and end of a side, the difference between side A and side B (aesthetically), and of course, the always important placement of thematic tracks to segue the mood.

But maybe this is just an attempt for the music fan to consider him/herself half as artistic in the playing of the song as the artist that originally recorded it. A bit of idolization and repetition, perhaps. As my father and grandfather have said, the only thing they can play is the radio.

But what makes a musician attempt to play another musicians song? Of course, it is nothing new for an artist to record a song not written by him/herself; the singer/songwriter is a pretty new phenomenon in the history of recorded music. But to record a new version of a song that was already popularized by another artist... why? Maybe to gain some fame from the recording of a recognizable track. Surely hiphop and DJ remix genres have benefited from this aspect as much as anyone else, almost to the extent that it resembles the fan's mix tape. Oh, Will Smith likes Stevie Wonder? How artistic!

Not so long ago I wrote about Softcell's cover of Gloria Jones' original recording of "Tainted Love". While their version of the song has again been covered by many groups, I speculated that their cover had some historical significance because of the timeliness of their release during the outbreak of AIDS, as did the original release during a pivotal year in the fight for racial civil rights. This makes the cover very interesting, and evocative.

I think there are two main justifications for covering a song, and thereby deeming it a "good cover".

1- To try to play the song as well or better than the original recording, as an homage to the original.

An example of this is of all-cover bands. These are bands that like the original band enough to celebrate their music by forming a group solely devoted to playing that group's oeuvre. Whether or not they succeed or their attempts are even enjoyable, are up to the listener.

2- To try and artistically interpret the song, making one's own take on the song and thereby deepening the artistic value of the piece, or updating it for a new era/style.

Softcell's "Tainted Love" would fall into this category. Hiphop also scores big here, with samples from the soul era, or even covers of early rap like the numerous re-makes and re-hashings of Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick's "La Di Da Di".

While I was making some tapes, I thought about a particular manner of this song remaking, when the lyrics are changed ever so slightly. I think I noted in the post on Softcell how Gloria Jones' line, "I've given you all a girl can give," is changed by Marc Almond to "I've given you all a boy can give." Now, of course it would make more sense for Almond to say "boy" than "girl" because of his anatomy. But, as history would have it, it also gives a large amount of significance to the re-recording because of his sexuality, the sexuality depicted throughout the entire album, and the cultural links between all of these back in 1981.

When dubbing a copy of Siouxsie and the Banshee's 1978 album, The Scream, I was struck by their cover of "Helter Skelter". Of course, the sound is already quite different than the Beatles' original version, although it contains a lot of the same manic energy as the original, perhaps the sort of manic energy that would drive borderline psychotics like Charles Manson to predict the coming race-war apocalypse. (Conspiracy note: The Beatles come to America in 1964, the same year as Gloria Jones' "Tainted Love" was released.)

But anyway, the lyrics are all the same, except for the second time through the chorus, Siouxsie Sioux, rather than "You may be a lover but you ain't no dancer," sings "You may be a lover but you ain't no fucking dancer."

Now, what is the significance of this change in the song? Is it just part of the aesthetic of the punk movement, a big middle finger up in the air to the sort of people who liked the Beatles? But then why cover the song at all? Or is it that in 1978, ten years after the release of the White Album, things had not gotten better than 1968, but had gotten worse, so that this was not a whimsical reminisce of the "60s" but a rebirth of that manic energy that was somewhat, although perhaps in an un-dead sense, alive in those days?

Or maybe it's nothing but a coincidence. After all, Cake's cover of Gloria Gaynor's disco hit "I Will Survive" changes the lyric, "I would have changed that stupid lock," to "I would have changed my fucking lock." And I have no reason to find anything significant about that.

That's the thing about history and culture. Any significance is merely what you happen to find. And with that, I will go back to making significant progress in my mix tapes.

The Kind of Day

Today was totally the drink-a-beer-in-the-after-work-shower kind of day. After talking off my mud stained clothes and boots, I went to the fridge and withdrew the beer that I had been envisioning since about 11:30 this morning. It looked like this:

I twisted the cap off and flicked it into the recycle bin, and then turned and walked into the bathroom to turn on the water and draw the shower curtain. Then I took my first sip; it was a long draw, draining the neck of the bottle, and I felt my muscles begin to relax.

A lot of people place a lot of importance upon beer quality. I've tried a lot of these so-called quality beers, and they are good. But I really like the taste of certain, more economical brews. Miller High Life is one of them. Union made, and economically priced--served cold, it is a beverage a hard worker can feel good about imbibing.

This first-sip-description may sound like it came from a beer commercial, but frankly, it was that good. Idealized good. If the folks at Miller had approached me at that moment, standing naked in front of my warming shower, and asked me to write and star in a commercial for them, I would have done it. I would have done it because people deserve to know how much I was enjoying this beer at this time.

I got in the shower, and let the water run over me, through my hair, and down my back, washing off the dirt from the trench I dug today. I picked up the beer, which I had set on the small table next to the tub, and took another swing, enjoying the cold malty flavor as it washed into my stomach.

This sip was even more idyllic. The humidity from the shower caused cold lines of condensation to fog off the bottom of the bottle, wafting down through the steams of water. The foam bounced up the bottle as I tilted it back upright and away from my lips, and I could just hear the faint fizz of carbonation above the sound of the shower nozzle.

As I renewed my body through the miracle of indoor plumbing, I finished the entire beer. I'm not sure if I let the shower last as long as the beer, or whether I savored the beer until the shower was complete. After the last dregs had dripped into me, I let the water from the shower rinse the bottle so that it could be eventually recycled. I would have left the empty bottle on the table next to the tub as a milestone or shrine of my experience, but I knew my lover and housemate would not have appreciated that, so I took it back to the kitchen where it belonged.

I was relaxed, and ready for an evening.

Re-heating a Cold War

This little article details how the Russian military is souping itself back up, heating its leftovers and stirring up trouble. It continues the speculation in my little post on Iran and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, about how Asia is not laying low, as the War on Terror may have us believe.

Not that I think the Cold War is going to reheat, but I think that when Americans talk and think about Asia they only think about the Middle East, and maybe Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. The fact is Asia is huge, there are a lot of people there, and most of them are not content to let America run the world. Considering how the Project for a New American Century (the hardcore neocon crowd, look it up, it's an interesting conspiracy in itself) have dropped the ball with their "New Pearl Harbor" that was supposed to steel American ideology towards global dominance, I would say an increasing conflict with Asia will not be our finest hour either.

Basically it looks like trouble, from which no country will probably end up really doing much better. Instability is bad for most parties and peoples--not that stability is always better. But, while it happens we might as well take our historical lessons where we can, so that they tragedy of history is not a total loss. Most people probably won't take it to heart though.

But if you might, fair reader, listen: "Terrorism" is a flash in the pan. Not a harmless flash in the pan, because it can certainly cause damage, and not a simple flash either, because it is a tactic near impossible to defeat. But, what lasting conflict encompasses is always economics. Ideology is transitory: fleeting and fickle. Powerful, sure, but large groups of people with always come back to the oikos. Economy, that is. Guns, butter, rice, toasters. Will a billion Chinese people simply go without their cars? Will a nation spanning 14 time zones simply ignore their military as a economic stimulus? Will the countries holding petroleum reserves refuse to control the buying and selling of it? No, no, no. Terrorists will terrorize, but without the big armies, there will be no one for them to rebel against.

Watch, and learn. States, armies, banners will rise and fall again and again, and the stock market will love it (and hate it).

Kissies!

Hooray for Us!

Wow, you sure can't keep up a blog working the construction the way you can while working an office job!

Just a quick stop in to keep whoever is reading this blog reading it.... and therein...


CELEBRATING THE THOUSANDTH HIT TO WELCOME TO THE INTERDOME!!!!

Thanks to our analytics website, sitemeter.com, I can tell you these facts about the first quadruple digit
digital visit
to our site:

Hit number 1,000 is from Gladwyne, Pennsylvania, where s/he surfs the Interdome on a Mac via the friendly folks at Verizon Internet Services!

S/he visited the site on August 14th, at 12:22pm EDT, and viewed five different pages, for a total time on the site of at least one minute!

S/he came across us after search Google for "share 'in a roman mood' 'human sexual response' ", and was led to our post, "Human Pentameter Response," in which we oh so pointedly analyzed the meter of a song by the little known but excellent post-punk band, Human Sexual Response.

Unfortunately, I didn't actually share the album I was discussing, so our 1,000th customer probably left our site to sunnier parts of the Interdome, in a more than a little disappointed state of mind, just like many others of you probably have!

So thanks for stopping by, face/nameless Pennsylvanian! Hopefully you will randomly hit upon us via a massive and relatively arbitrary search engine again!

And many more!

A History of Violence

Just a short post today, linking to a much longer essay.

I got this link from Broshaq, who posted it on his blog, "Liquid Crack Repository." I'm just going to echo the link with a few comments of my own.

The link is to an article on Truthdig that is a quite long summation of a study conducted jointly with The Nation, entitled “The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness,” about the horrible atrocities perpetrated by American troops upon Iraqi civilians.

It's quite horrible, as one might expect. The gist of it is, there are many horrible killings, tortures, and violences that go uninvestigated or unreported, and are pretty much status quo for American troops in Iraq.

It is easy to say things regarding this report. "The war is awful, lost, and needs to be stopped now." "War is hell." "We are alienating the civilians rather than helping them, and training terrorists." "Colonialism, Colonialism, Colonialism." All of which are important things to say.

But what I want to say, because it was the particular conclusion that struck me first after the initial horror wore off is about how history will look at this. America looks like an oppressive, occupying power, and no amount of apologizing about how were were fighting for freedom or against terrorism or for democracy can balance this out. This shit looks like fucking Kristalnacht, and it is impossible to see it any other way.

After recounting one of the more benign stories about property invasion and unwarranted arrest, one of the soldiers said, “I just remember thinking to myself, I just brought terror to someone else under the American flag, and that’s just not what I joined the Army to do.” This is what we are going to see from this whenever we look back on this war. Americans flew halfway around the globe to terrorize people, purportedly for their ideals. We are the fascists now, pure and simple, no metaphor, no compare and contrast. Our soldiers, under some misconceived notion of promoting security, break into houses at night, destroy property, shoot innocent people for effect, scare children, and carry their parents away to be lost in prison. How is this a tactic of fighting terrorism? It is terrorism.

I only hope that the people who argued that this war was a good thing (which includes a large amount of people who are now so against it) have a hell to go to worse than the one that they caused. But I know they don't.

employment

::: I have this reoccurring vision in which I am a short-order cook at a diner. But, this diner serves only to houses. Regular boxy types, split level ranches, sprawling suburb mcmansions. They fill up the booths, pouring out the benches with their girthy extensions and built on garages. And boy, are they hungry; they are as hungry as houses. They order more and more food.

"More siding here!"

"Hardyplank! Another order of hardyplank!"

"Hey! I asked for extra nails! There aren't enough nails in my boards!"

"This trim is stale! Get me MORE!"

I run back and forth, prepping items to go out to the tables and fetching various ingredients and tools. I pull nails out of 2 x 4 and hammer them back in to 2 x 6. I cut a sheet of T111, blow off the sawdust, find its too short, throw it out and start again. I load stapler and cover insulation, only to have it boil over, run out of staples, and have to go back to the fridge for more. The houses are ravenous and are starting to peer into the kitchen with impatience and disgust. I try to paint a sheet of plywood only to have it begin to rain in the kitchen. The color runs to the floor, and I know it is fruitless to send it out as it will only be sent back.

There is a spreadsheet standing in the corner. He takes up no space as people and large objects are grunted back and forth. Fading and becoming more and more transparent, he winks at me before disappearing completely.:::

Non-Stop Associative Cabaret

Because it's fun for me to write, let's take a little walk down Association Lane!

So, most people are at least aware of the 80s hit, "Tainted Love" by the synth-pop group Soft Cell. It is still regularly played on the radio, and included on almost every 80s compilation one might find as a quintessential song of the era. Certainly it is, with trademark synth organs and horns, digital drum sounds, and whiny, emotional lyrics.

However, most people are not aware that it is a cover-song. The song was originally sung by Gloria Jones, a "northern soul" singer who recorded the original version in 1964. The lyrics are much the same, except the original, "I've given you all a girl can give you," is switched to the oh-so 80s appropriate "Ive given you all a boy can give you." Very emo, very goth, very hip. Look at those two hipsters. They love the 80s.

And I guess that they did. They recorded the album in the height of the New York gay clubs scene of the 80s, hence the title, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, which of course no one knows because they are mostly into the single. They, and especially the singer, Marc Almond, also loved the gay club scene. Besides "Tainted Love" being sampled by Rihanna, which many people are familiar with, the song was also covered by the 80s industrial (and also flamboyantly gay) group Coil, for use on the first AIDS benefit album ever in 1984. Coil's video from this cover is purportedly on permanent display in the MOMA in New York.

Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret had videos as well, including the famous video for "Sex Dwarf" that was banned in the UK for including, among a few other things, mutilated corpses and sex dwarves. "Sex Dwarf" is a pretty awesome song, and is representative of the fact that the rest of the album is just as good and sometimes better than the smash single. I would also recommend the opening track, "Frustration". Here are a sample of the lyrics:

"I have a life
I have a cage
I'm going bald
I want to tell the world
I've done nothing
I've acheived nothing
I work for a firm
I want to burn it down
I am so ordinary

Frustration"

Very gothic 80s. In fact, with the whole Cabaret theme, this is almost a concept album for gay/non-mainstream life in the early 80s. Except that it wasn't an intentional concept, only the aesthetic of the time, which makes the album even more remarkable as a fragment of 1980s Western culture. Much more remarkable than the oft-repeated cover single would seem.

Another interesting thing is that the B-side of the "Tainted Love" 7" single was another cover, "Where Did Our Love Go?" originally recorded by the Supremes. The 12" mix was a compilation of both these songs, and an edit of this mix is what is normally recognized as the song. This pairing of two hit soul songs from 1964 recorded by black female vocalists, now covered in 1981 by a gay synth-pop duo, could again be seen as a curious cultural indicator. In the days of the Civil Rights movement and SNCC, the music charts were being overwhelmed by black artists talents. In July 1981 Soft Cell released their versions, a month after what would be labeled the official beginning of the AIDS epidemic, and the year before the disease would be, albeit briefly, called "Gay-Related Immune Deficiency". Two minority groups were being persecuted at the times when their cultural contribution to music was at one of its highest points.

And, because there were two covers on the Soft Cell single, the duo received very little in the way of royalties for their smash hit. Normally a cover single is paired with an original to bring in money for the group, but poor business planning led to the historic cultural fact of this release.

It's funny how culture is related. Or, perhaps unfunny, depending how you look at it, or whether you like Soft Cell.

In other, more specious conspiracy related connections, Gloria Jones was the girlfriend of the lead singer of T. Rex, another groundbreaking 80s group. She was actually driving the Austin Mini that he was in when he was killed in an auto accident. Despite never learning to drive, he had prophesied his death (perhaps tongue-in-cheek, perhaps not), and often discussed his fear of cars in conversation and in song.

Sex Dwarves!

Keep Your Aliens off my Body

I haven't been posting very much recently, and it is a bit discouraging to me. Despite having internet access in my new apartment, I have been very tired at the end of each day as I get used to my new profession as Construction Laborer, or as I sometimes call it, "Constructor". Actually, I've never called it that, but you know, like, idioms and shit.

But I did have two thoughts today that warrant some posting.

Thought the first: the more contact I have with "regular" American people, like for example, people who have lived their whole lives in rural areas, the more I understand why this country is messed up.

For example (or, THE example) is bigotry converting into racism. Why is the system racist? Because people in control of the system are able to tweak and shift the system so that they can cut corners at certain demographics' expense. They can get away with this because there is a good solid percentage of the population that doesn't care if the system is racist, and therefore will not unite to hold the powers that be to any sort of systemic equality. The people don't care if lack of nationalized health insurance affects people with black or white skin (or any other color or shade for that matter), the issue isn't an issue just because they don't care about people other than white people. So bigotry allows racism to exist. It isn't that the powers design the system to be racist because they get some sick kick out of it, it is just that they have no reason to design it equally, and therefore it does what it does, along race/class lines. You could find the same sort of thing happening with class for sure; the system takes advantage of poorer people. Why? Simply because most Americans don't care about poor people. Not that they want to enslave them, they just don't give a shit, because someone who is poor must be a waste of humanity, in the same way a bigot views another race/ethnicity. This also explains why bureaucrats will endlessly defend a system against racism. Of course the system is not supposed to be racist, it is only a general sentiment of bigotry that allows a system to be racist and yet pass as "the way things are".

I thought of this after seeing an advertisement for a pro-immigration reform rally. The slogan was, "Immigrant Rights are Basic Rights". Well, all very good sounding to the liberal, reformist mind. Everyone should have basic rights, so if immigrant rights are basic rights, then we should implement immigrant rights. Perfectly logical.

The problem is, the people who are halting immigrant rights are not people who believe in basic rights for everyone. In fact, the basis of their position is that immigrants should have less that basic rights! The only thing they want for immigrants is a kick in the teeth and a ticket back to where they came from, and that is at best. Our immigration system is horribly oppressive and fascist towards certain people, only these certain people are hated by a large amount of the population, so the system can keep doing it without much fuss. How do you present the "save 'em" argument to people who have already decided a long time ago, "fuck 'em"?

It is the inverse of why the "Abortion is murder" argument, in graphic billboard form or not, will not convince anyone who is pro-choice that they are wrong. Their opinion is not based upon whether or not they think there should be a law against murder. Their opinion is that abortion is not murder, just like bigots think that immigrants are not people (at least not comparatively).

I could relate this to my funny observation that unwanted pregnancies are the ultimate interloping aliens. They even look like aliens. Abortion would then be the ultimate answer to the alien problem, and the CIA, Planned Parenthood, and the Minutemen could all finally resolve their differences and get at the root of the problem.

But really, this is a good example of how argumentation and sloganeering typically serves to just further argumentation and sloganeering, rather than reach the root of the problem or develop any positive solution. No one learns anything that they didn't already know, and no one develops a course of action different than the one they already were planning.


Now I can't remember the second thought. Oh well, I guess this was long enough for one post.

Roll On, Socialism Roll On

I picked up this free environmental magazine called Bear Deluxe published by a group called Orlo. At least, I think it was free. I picked it up at Movie Madness and walked out with it and nobody stopped me. And they don't sell magazines there either. Only movies. And they don't really sell the movies either, they just rent them.

Anyway, the magazine is fairly interesting. There was an article about the impact of the Dalles Dam on Salmon and indigenous tribes. "About" is a pretty loose term, the article wasn't extrordinarily informative. Dam = bad for fish/indians.

Which I'm sure it is, of course. But the article was largely a sentimental reflection on what anybody who cares already knows.

However, it did mention the fact that Woody Guthrie wrote the song, "Roll On Columbia" after being hired to write a song to raise support for the dam by the Bonneville Power Administration for $270.

My cousin, twice-removed, (my Grandfather's cousin) played this song on the guitar recently while I was present. I liked it alot. It has a nice roll to it; a roll apt to the content of the song. The song celebrates Americana ideas of Manifest Destiny, as well as the social improvement projects of the New Deal era.

I don't particularly like the Americana ideals (or ideas) of Manifest Destiny. Actually, I don't like them one bit. But, I do like the social-progress ethics of the Works Progress Administration and other New Deal programs.

These are programs that were critiqued as socialist in their day. They kind of were. But that was good! Hoover's hands-off approach to resolving the depression wasn't going very well, and there wasn't a big ole war yet to jump start the economy. They made a big works project initiative instead of a death project initiative. AWwesome!

An interesting example is the Tennessee Valley Authority, that was involved in building and regulating hydro-electric power, just like the Bonneville Power Administration. But the TVA was a much bigger and more interesting organization than a simple administrating organization of power, it is an Authority.

The Tennessee Valley Authority is a government-formed, federally owned corporation, kind of like Amtrak. But, it controls elements of an area as large as a state, and has government powers like eminent domain (so does the Postal Service). Originally it was designed to boost the economic state of the entire Tennessee Valley area. Now, it pretty much just handles the electricity.

In the Supreme Court case Ashwander v. TVA, the mandate of the TVA was justified. The court case said that the water in a river, the power created by damming the river, and the electricity generated from the power all belong to the United States, regardless of who owns the land bordering the river.

What!?! The potential of power created by liquid flowing due to gravity is owned by the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! If that wasn't so strange, it would be really awesome.

But anyway, the point is that this is an authority created to harness the potential natural power of a region and administer it to the benefit of the people who live there. No voting, no shareholders, no profit margins. Just wielding power for the people... biatch.

Of course, they probably did some bad to the environment, and in the case of the Pacific Northwest, the indigenous peoples. But those were things that they didn't care about back then. What they did care about was using the power of the government in order to benefit the people, at the expense of the corporations. And it was successful, for the most part.

This is what we need again, NOW. Rather than trying to find cute little combinations of government and business, we need authorities to take control of power and wield it for the people. This is dangerous thinking... RED thinking. And to tell you the truth, I don't like the idea of governments having the ultimate say in things. Governments are notoriously unreliable, and not likely to help the people more than they must. But if we are going to start progressing again past this capitalist era, we are going to have to start somewhere. Progressive projects and administrations instigated by the biggest and most powerful corporation (the US Government) might be the first step towards a transfer of economic power.

Or then again, maybe not.

Virtual Constructions

I think I found a job; in fact, a job that does not make use of a computer. I will be working for the Steiner Family Construction Company doing siding and windows installation.

But in news that does involve a computer, Google Maps now has "Street View" in select areas. This appears to be a 360 degree camera that was driven up and down the streets of the area (e.g. Manhattan) and you can either click on the map for a view of that area of the street, or "drive" along the street through the street view window.

I drove past my old apartment building at 101 W. 140th Street, and saw the guys standing on the corner in front of the Harlem Up! Market just like usual.

This is my picture of my old building, by the way, not Google Maps.

It appears that, in Manhattan anyway, they took the pictures sometime in the last two months, because the park across the street from my building that was only finished in May was completed.

Some will probably say that this is creepy, because just like when Google Earth was first released, anything that give a close image of something automatically seems like survelliance. But frankly, while it was cute to drive myself 'round the old neighborhood for a while, it seemed pretty useless. You are looking at a picture of a street taken through a convex lens, so there is very little detail. In addition, there are things obscuring the view, so if you are looking for a specific door frame, you will probably be hard pressed to find it unless you have seen it before in person; the buildings are not accurated labels by address either: only an approximation is given. The view from "108 W. 140th," which was the most direct of my building, had a school bus in the way. In the other direction, shadows and glare made it impossible to see into the park. I wouldn't have even known it was a park if I hadn't actually lived there for a year. Furthermore, you are only looking at the street. What help is that, really? If I told you to come to my address, and then send you a picture of my street that I took from my moving car, which would you rely on to get to my house? Probably not that slightly blurry picture of trash cans.

So, while it was fun to virtually drive around Manhattan, I couldn't hear any of the car horns, get cut off by any cabs, feel the sweltering humidity, or get trapped by one way streets. I ask myself, what is the point? I answer myself, a gimmick that will be about as useful as web cams. Hey, look! It the Pyramid Live Web Cam! What do you know, but the pyramids are still there... just like that have been for thousands of years. Thank goodness for the Internet, or I never would have known.

Other technology that is actually useful and totally sweet:

The Transformers Movie comes out today. Then there is a Battles show tonight. And, tomorrow is Fireworks Day, and maybe there will be a special Independence Day edition of Horror Movie Club. Everything is coming up awesome, except for Google Maps. Google Maps can now sit in the corner and think about what it has done.