And no, mincemeat pies don’t necessarily contain meat these days.

Eric Clapton was part of several legendary bands such as The Yardbirds, Cream and Blind Faith before starting a highly successful solo career that helped make him one of the best-selling artists of all time. He has sold an estimated 200 million records worldwide and continues to be a major inspiration for musicians. A very prolific artist, Clapton has released more than 30 albums throughout his career but he did not like every song he recorded. In fact, there is one very famous track loved by his fans that he thinks is awful. The famous song from his career Eric Clapton thinks is awful "A lot of the things that people rave about I don't get at all. I mean, the live version of 'Crossroads' (Cream), which is supposed to be the peak of my career, I think is awful. My enjoyment of that experience is in the recollection of the relationship, the events that took place and the live music we made. A lot of that was on dope, you know. So it may have felt better than it sounded and it probably did. It was probably awful to listen to, but it was great to play," Eric Clapton said in the documentary "Standing at the Crossroads" (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). It was not the first time he said he didn't like that particular version Cream recorded of the influential Robert Johnson song. In the 1980s he told Guitar Player magazine he thinks there's something wrong in the version. “I haven't heard (That version) in so long. I really don't like it, actually. (Because) I think there's something wrong with it." A couple of decades later in 2004 when he released the Robert Johnson covers album "Sessions for Robert J" Clapton did not record a new version of ‘Crossroads.’ Speaking with Music Radar at the time he said that it drove him crazy that that version was available and that people thought it was great. "I certainly put that one to bed quickly! I actually have about zero tolerance for most of my old material. Especially Crossroads, the popularity of that song with Cream has always been mystifying to me. I don’t think it’s very good." Eric Clapton continued: "Apart from that, I’m convinced that I get on the wrong beat in the middle of the song. (That) often happened with Cream. It drives me crazy that there’s this performance of me floating around where I’m supposed to be on the ‘one’ where really I’m on the ‘two.’ So, I never really revisit my old stuff. I won’t even go there,” Eric Clapton said. Although Clapton does not like that particular version it is a song he loves. According to Setlist FM Eric Clapton played it live more than 1,000 times during his solo career. That makes him the most famous artist to have performed the track the most in history. The meaning of "Crossroads" according to Eric Clapton The life of Robert Johnson, one of the pioneers of modern Blues, is surrounded by mystery. Over the years many tales have been created around it. The most famous one is that he sold his soul to the devil to learn how to play the guitar and write the groundbreaking songs he composed. The lyrics helped strengthen these myths, but to Clapton, songs like ‘Cross Road Blues,’ originally released in 1937, have a deeper meaning. "When he sang about the crossroads is about choosing which path to go down. It’s about the moral decisions you make every day,” he told Music Radar in 2004. It is quite interesting to note his connection with that song and word. Over the years he named many important projects in his life after it. In 1998, he founded the Crossroads Centre, a rehabilitation center on the Caribbean island of Antigua and Barbuda. One year later, he started the Crossroads Guitar Festival, which has supported the center with the profits ever since. Over the past decades, the festival has brought together Clapton and some of the greatest blues musicians of all time. Artists such as B.B. King, Jimmy Vaughan, ZZ Top, Eric Johnson, J.J. Cale, Robert Cray, Bo Diddley, Buddy Guy, Carlos Santana, and Joe Walsh have taken part. Why Clapton thinks a great guitar player is like a samurai https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIgX4e2Z9Qk&list=PLP7u94NwnE9xUhW1bLlpfpTppP2vsuGz1&index=10 Since the 1960s, when the term ‘guitar hero’ began to be used to describe extraordinary guitarists such as Eric Clapton, music has evolved. Many fast players have emerged, ‘shredding’ their way into stardom. Although he admires artists like the late Eddie Van Halen, he has always preferred to be more of a ‘samurai’ when it comes to guitar playing. "It's almost like a samurai thing, it's very interesting that I was always interested in samurai movies. The great ones are the ones who kind of play a defensive role. The great samurais are the ones that don't go charging in, they wait, they wait, they wait and they wait. They usually give their opponent the fist shot at it, you know what I mean?" "It's much the same way in my knowledge of our culture, the guitar players, is that the great ones never appear to go into combat. They always like give up the stage, to whoever's coming on and take a back seat. (Still) in a way, they win by default," Eric Clapton said in the documentary "Standing at the Crossroads".The post The famous song from his career Eric Clapton thinks is awful appeared first on Rock and Roll Garage.

CLAIM: Investigators announced they had discovered secret rooms and tunnels underneath Rob Reiner's house following his death in December 2025. RATING: FALSE. On Dec. 14, 2025, law enforcement officials discovered director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, fatally stabbed in their home. Their son Nick Reiner was charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the killings.

Religious institutions across the U.S. are reassessing safety measures following a wave of deadly attacks. The Family Research Council reported 415 documented incidents of violence against places of worship in 2024, a decrease from 485 in 2023 but still significantly higher than levels from 2018 to 2022.

"A very bad piece of work." The post John Lydon’s brutal takedown of Nancy Spungen: “Spiteful, spoiled, selfish” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

The harbingers of revolution... The post The artists Chuck Berry called the founding fathers of rock and roll first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Thomas Jane will star as Leonard 'Bones' McCoy and Kai Murakami as Hikaru Sulu, played in the original series by DeForest Kelley and George Takei, respectively.

When I clicked on the website of The American Spectator Saturday morning and began to read Matthew Omolesky’s lament for the end of the American empire, I thought for a moment that I mistakenly accessed the Council on Foreign Relations’ journal Foreign Affairs or The Economist, which specialize in Trump-bashing and genuflecting at the so-called “rules-based international order.” Then, a friend sent me Fareed Zakaria’s latest column in the Washington Post about Trump making America “small” again. President Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy, which prioritizes U.S. national security interests and seeks to get America out of the protectorate business, has upset the Wilsonians and neoconservatives among us who weep for the end of U.S. global hegemony. Trump has replaced the Reagan NSS’s goals of “world freedom, peace and prosperity” with the goals of American freedom, American prosperity, and American peace. Omolesky, a human rights lawyer who apparently longs for a return to the foreign policies of Jimmy Carter or Woodrow Wilson, calls the NSS a “declaration of geopolitical contraction, if not outright retreat, presaging the end of the global American empire.” He mourns the loss of America bestriding the globe as a benevolent hegemon enforcing universal “rights” and protecting the weak against the strong. For Omolesky, as for Zakaria, a U.S. foreign policy that prioritizes U.S. interests is too parochial, too selfish, too 19th century, too isolationist. They are reminiscent of British imperialists who shouted “Rule Britannia” as British soldiers died to maintain Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden.” Perhaps Omolesky and Zakaria miss being part of great crusades to save the world from this or that dictator. It’s so much more exciting to confront the evil Putin, even though Ukraine has never — never — been considered a vital interest of the United States. Perhaps they forget that toppling Saddam Hussein didn’t make the world a better or safer place. Multipolarity in international relations is the norm, yet Omolesky and Zakaria don’t want its return. They appear to want American global hegemony to last forever, but that is not how the world works. Ironically, Omolesky notes the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran — weaknesses and vulnerabilities that, he writes, should not “put an end to our global ambitions.” But what are America’s “global ambitions”? Woodrow Wilson wanted to make the world safe for democracy. Franklin Roosevelt wanted to universalize “freedom from want.” Jimmy Carter wanted to spread human rights. George W. Bush wanted to end tyranny throughout the world. All of those imperial projects failed. None made America more secure. The 2025 NSS is not isolationist and does not make America small. Instead, it seeks, in Jeane Kirkpatrick’s words, to make the U.S. once again a “normal country.” Normal countries prioritize their national interests. Normal countries don’t “go abroad in search of monsters to destroy,” in the memorable phrase of John Quincy Adams. Normal countries don’t go on crusades to fulfill their “global ambitions.” Omolesky invokes President Reagan’s 1987 NSS as a guide for U.S. foreign policy today. But what President John F. Kennedy called the “long twilight struggle” of the Cold War ended more than 30 years ago. Trump has replaced the Reagan NSS’s goals of “world freedom, peace and prosperity” with the goals of American freedom, American prosperity, and American peace — those are our “global ambitions” in the 2025 NSS. They might not be hefty enough to satisfy the imperial longings of Omolesky and Zakaria, but they’re plenty hefty for normal Americans who don’t dream of empire and who want their leaders to always put America first. READ MORE from Francis P. Sempa: Sam Tanenhaus Puts Most Liberals to Shame Please Don’t Bring Back the Neocons Trump’s Post-Globalist ‘Flexible Realism’    

When I was a little kid, The Wizard of Oz came on TV once a year, usually on a Friday night. When you explain this to youngsters today, they can’t comprehend. The broadcast was a cultural event on the kid calendar. If you missed it, you missed it. There were no DVRs, no VCRs, no streaming libraries at your fingertips. The wanting and waiting mattered; it heightened anticipation and excitement. This was genuine novelty, something that seems to have vanished from our culture. What has replaced it is a pastiche of novelty, and that, unfortunately, is never satisfying and invariably disappointing. If the conservative center can hold — it will do so by refusing to reward the worst impulses of our twisted media age. Real novelty has been replaced by a flood of pastiche novelties — among them a dumb, reality-TV version of political punditry, consumed almost entirely for entertainment, shock, and outrage. Conservatives should stop spending time debating, rebutting, or amplifying this drivel. There are plenty of public figures, politicians, and destructive ideas that deserve scrutiny. This is not a call for a conservative monoculture, nor a surrender to common sense. American conservatism is strongest when its internal disagreements are vigorous, but talking and writing about these right-wing kooks and their ridiculous bloviations and conspiracy theories is a monumental waste of time and energy. Their ideas and theories are on par with supermarket tabloids. Engagement only dignifies this nonsense. To illustrate, consider the recent sickening controversy surrounding Candace Owens and her insinuations about the death of Charlie Kirk. She is not engaging in sober investigative skepticism; she’s a wrecking ball off its chain — untethered, unhinged, and without consideration of journalistic responsibility. Owens dedicated considerable effort to spreading unfounded speculative stories, making baseless accusations and personal attacks against Turning Point USA and its CEO, Erika Kirk. She also exploited the tragedy of Kirk’s death to stoke conspiracy theories and online outrage. The consequence was real and cruel: Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow, was forced to defend her late husband’s memory publicly. This is not a heterodox inquiry; it is a fundamental failure of human decency. Why? Follow the money. Owens reportedly earns hundreds of thousands of dollars per year through podcasts, ads, subscriptions, and speaking engagements. Nick Fuentes, further out on the fringe, has built a lucrative online following through donations and subscriptions. Tucker Carlson, after leaving cable news, now presides over a direct-to-consumer operation that depends heavily on provocation and outrage. The incentives are obvious. The more extreme the “punditry” the bigger the audience, the bigger the money. It’s a cash cow that encourages the classic “if it bleeds, it leads” style of journalism. I know that this is nothing new under the sun. What is new is that we now live in a post-literate society, where attention spans are short, context is scarce, and emotional impact seems to matter more than coherence. And as the old adage goes, those who believe in nothing will believe in anything. Conspiracy and sensationalism thrive where habits of careful reading, skepticism, and proportion have rotted away. Politics as entertainment is unhealthy. Every hour conservatives spend dissecting the latest internet provocation is an hour not spent grappling with debt, the economy, education, national security, or the moral foundations of a free society. Bread and circuses may occupy the crowd, but they do nothing to strengthen the republic. The solution is not censorship, nor ideological purging. It is discipline. Conservative commentators who care about the future of the movement — and of the country — must ignore what is unserious. Don’t feed these ducks; there is plenty of big game out there. None of this is easy. The money will always be there for “journalists” who want to sell their souls and feed the beast. But if conservatives cannot distinguish between dissent and degeneracy, between skepticism and nihilism, then we are in for dark times. For the reader, it’s easy. Ignoring it is your protest vote against a political culture drowning in noise, outrage, and novelty without substance. If the conservative center is to hold, it will do so by readers and outlets refusing to reward the worst impulses of our twisted media age. And if it cannot, the next generation will inherit a yellow brick road littered with distractions and pitfalls, where every step is a detour into the poppy fields. READ MORE from Pete Connolly: Beyond the Gridiron: The Army–Navy Honor Code Walz Can’t Escape the Somali Fraud Scandal America, Please Put Some Pants On

When U.S. forces conducted a second strike on the survivors of an alleged drug smuggling boat destroyed off Venezuela last September, the resulting controversy regarding the incident caused me to rethink an incident I was involved in back in 1993. At the time, I was a temporary loan officer serving as the military advisor to the U.S. ambassador running the U.S. Liaison Office (USLNO) to the United Nations Mission in Somalia (UNISOM). The mission was headed by the ambassador who has acted as the senior senior U.S. official in that failed nation-state. I was on loan to the mission from the Marine Corps University teaching  a class on Operations Other Than War. The school was on summer break and I sought permission to do a case study on the ongoing UN humanitarian mission in Somalia. The ambassador said that he didn’t need another “colonel in sunglasses” wandering around Mogadishu, but if I was willing to do some real work, I was was welcome to come. I obviously disagree with Admiral Brady’s decision to make a second strike on the drug boat survivors, but that is a commander’s call. By the time I arrived in Mogadishu, the humanitarian operation that I set out to study had degenerated into  full-scale urban combat between UNISOM and militias that objected to the way the UN failed to rebuild that failed state. The Air Force officer I was temporarily replacing was on home leave for the summer due to a family emergency. As a colonel, I had overall supervision of a Marine Corps  platoon sized Fleet Anti-Terrorist Security Team (FAST) assigned to protect the USLNO. We were located on the grounds of the former U.S. Embassy on which UNISOM was headquartered, and we were being mortared and shot at regularly by Somali militias. One day in late August of 1993, the commander of the U.S. logistics unit supporting UNISOM approached me with a problem. His outfit was being sniped at from a former fruit factory facility overlooking the UNISOM compound. They weren’t very good shots. But the law of averages indicated that, if not dealt with, some American would eventually get hurt or killed. As a support unit, he had no effective counter-sniper capability. He knew the FAST had counter-snipers and was asking our help. I explained that the FAST was under control of the State Department and that I would have to get the ambassador’s approval, but would bring it up at the Country Team meeting that afternoon. The ambassador had been a WWII combat infantryman and there was no way that he was going to refuse help save the lives of American soldiers. He authorized the support. I gave the captain who was the FAST commander a mission order to eliminate the snipers. He had been one of my company commanders when I had commanded a battalion and I had absolute confidence in his abilities. I attended his mission brief and accompanied him on his site selection for the snipers. Then, I went to bed telling him to call if he needed me. He did not need a full bull colonel overseeing a platoon operation. The next morning there were 16 or 17 carcasses at the fruit factory, I can’t recall the exact number.  Marine snipers used to be very good, but the Scout-Sniper School has since been closed; I don’t know their current state of proficiency. Not one of the dead militiamen was probably over 17 years of age, but all were armed with rifles. To my knowledge it was the first offensive military operation directed by the Department of State since Tripoli in 1804. I have never lost a night of sleep over the incident, nor probably have any members of the FAST. It had been years since I gave any thought to the incident, but the Venezuelan double tap incident reminded me of it. What if the search and exploitation team had found several of the militiamen injured but alive? I would have been notified and asked what to do. I like to think that I would have asked for the army to send medics to to recover them and let UNISOM figure out their final disposition. I cannot think of any situation where I would have ordered them to be “double tapped.” I obviously disagree with Admiral Brady’s decision to make a second strike on the drug boat survivors, but that is a commander’s call. The bigger question is what was a four star flag officer doing directing a platoon-size operation? READ MORE from Gary Anderson: Celebrating Marines While Questioning Their Future The Marine Corps Could Not Fight Fallujah Today The Best Birthday Present for the Marine Corps Gary Anderson is a retired Marine Corps officer