John D. Baumgartner

Eccentric billionaire

[John D. Baumgartner @JDBHouston]

@RiverOaksPrblms If Tech fans cared or showed up, we might have a replay of when the Aggie Corps got their feelings hurt. Which would be fantastic.
The MOB do not care.

[John D. Baumgartner @JDBHouston]

@RiverOaksPrblms We have both kinds of music: country and western

[John D. Baumgartner @JDBHouston]

@mattlanza LGA terminal B is so much better than any of the EWR terminals United uses.

[derek guy @dieworkwear]

Happy Pride Month. If you're a gay man, please remember your power. People often think that gay men are innately fashionable, which means if you wear some stupid shit for long enough, straight people, including homophobes, will copy you and then you can laugh at them.

[ProPublica @propublica]

New: Texas AG Ken Paxton has filed at least 30 cases over the past nine years that have a tenuous connection to the counties in which they were filed, a practice that legal experts say pushes the boundaries of the law. https://t.co/NLdVeVeTbf

[ProPublica @propublica]

Blue Cross had refused to pay thousands of claims for the center’s patients, but on several occasions execs at the insurance company had signed special one-time deals with the center to pay for their wives’ cancer treatment.
https://t.co/DNK3KAju68

[John D. Baumgartner @JDBHouston]

@RiverOaksPrblms Astros season is most like being in seat 6 with the guy beside overlapping like on a SWA flight to Lubbock from San Antonio

[Eric Berger @SpaceCityWX]

Pre-summer arrives in Houston this weekend with a shot at our first 90° days tomorrow into next week. Storm chances are low but not zero. For those not ready for summer, Matt says a cold front later next week may offer up some refreshing weather then. https://t.co/ZBECBXpeut

[John D. Baumgartner @JDBHouston]

@RiverOaksPrblms

[John D. Baumgartner @JDBHouston]

@RiverOaksPrblms You know the fire will be lit

[ProPublica @propublica]

When I first met Jamie Hayes, the car dealer who bought the 3D printer for the housing project, I didn’t know his company had abandoned a $590K deposit — or that there was no real housing plan.

I didn’t know Hayes’ firm had drawn the FBI’s attention.

https://t.co/YLHLqXACOv

[Shooter McGavin @ShooterMcGavin]

Happy Tax Day everyone. Reminder on this day 30 years ago Grandma Gilmore refused to pay her taxes and had her home seized by the IRS. Starting the domino effect that eventually lead to Gilmore joining the tour and me losing another gold jacket. Thanks a lot Grandma.

[John D. Baumgartner @JDBHouston]

@RiverOaksPrblms Fair.
I heard the radio broadcast. Brutal day for the home team.

[Raoul Duke @batcountry1980]

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has always been a strange proposition. The idea of a committee deciding what qualifies as “rock and roll” feels fundamentally at odds with the spirit of the thing itself. And yet, every year, it’s hard not to get pulled in, if only to have a wee moan when The Replacements are overlooked once again. Getting upset about who is in and out is all part of the game. The HoF thrives on it.

But every so often, a decision stands out not as provocative, but as baffling. This year, it’s the decision to induct Joy Division and New Order as a single entity, a move that suggests not just contrarianism, but a fundamental misunderstanding of the music itself.

Joy Division are one of the most singular bands in modern music. They are one of those “music as a complete world”bands. You know the ones? You put an album on, it pulls you under, and when it finishes you think “right, where do I go from here? What else is there to listen to but stark soundscapes as backdrop to an enigmatic punk poet’s visions of urban decay?” So you listen to them again, and again, till sleep takes you and you’ve escaped their world. Until next time.

Not all bands do that, construct something so self-contained it resists anything that comes after it. And it’s a big part of why this decision feels so wrong. If you’re looking for a trapdoor to escape the world of Joy Division, New Order is not it. One does not lead to the other.

Their debut album, Movement, serves as a mournful bridge between two worlds, but it is a New Order album. And very quickly, even that connection fades. What follows is something entirely different: a sound that fuses dance, indie and pop into a language of its own, a schizophrenic hybrid of euphoria and melancholy, like coming up and down simultaneously.

To fold these two bands into a single induction is to miss what makes them so special. Joy Division represent one of rock’s most complete and self-contained statements; New Order, one of its most extraordinary acts of rebirth. Joy Division’s story ended, abruptly and tragically, but it did end. There is no mistaking that. What followed was a reset not a continuation. Where most bands absorb loss and carry on, New Order did something far rarer: they started again. A new identity. A new sound. The past set aside rather than built upon. A shy guitarist stepping forward to become a singular frontman.

They share a history, but they are not the same band. To treat them as one is not to honour each group, but to overlook what makes them so remarkable.

[John D. Baumgartner @JDBHouston]

@RiverOaksPrblms Might be explain Sid Miller’s Jesus shots

[John D. Baumgartner @JDBHouston]

@RiverOaksPrblms What’s the payoff for closing the deal relative to clipping annual bonuses? That tells you if this happens

[Houstorian @Houstorian]

Today in 2004, Mike Jones releases "Still Tippin" featuring Slim Thug and Paul Wall.

[John D. Baumgartner @JDBHouston]

@Swestfall

[John D. Baumgartner @JDBHouston]

@RiverOaksPrblms Kinda disappointed we didn’t get something like this