If you ever get the chance, check out a band (now defunct) by the name of that dog. Back in the heady days of the early 90's, when I used to be obsessed by girl bands, that dog was among the coolest, with Los Angeles artiness and ethereal harmonies (did I really just say ethereal?). They had great pop inspired hooks and...a violin! Pretty much any non traditional use of a violin piques my interest, and this was some cool stuff. Here's a picture of them. The two women on the left and the right are twin sisters. The one on the right plays the wicked fiddle I spoke of. You can check them out at this site, which has a few tunes. The best, or at least the most characteristic of the tunes are actually under the "videos" section. One of their great tunes is "He's Kissing Christian" from their strongest album, "Totally Crushed Out." The other videos are pretty good too. The first, "Old Timer," was directed by the auteur of music videos, Spike Jonze. I don't really watch music videos anymore, so I don't know if he's still working or what, but the video is very clever. The group is dressed in "Hotdog On a Stick" uniforms. HOS was this freaky mall based chain that served gross food delivered by depressed employees in really degrading uniforms. I rarely go to malls these days, and when I do, I generally leave in a panic, so I'm not sure if Hotdog on A Stick is still in business either.
"The final jet-booster of this trend is the airlines' extraordinarily
successful frequent-flier programs, which have provided the burgeoning
hyperflier culture with its own currency, lexicon, and class structure. ...
The hyperfliers may think they're getting something for nothing, but they're
actually playing the airlines' game. By tightly restricting free flights,
airlines have rigged it so that a passenger flying for free almost never
displaces a paying customer, and typically costs the airline only about $20
per flight. But to earn that $20 flight, hyperfliers will go out of their
way to book all their tickets on one airline, and may waste hundreds or
thousands of dollars building their status."
--Warren Berger, "Life Sucks and Then You Fly," Wired, August, 1999
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