Sheryl Crow and Laurie David Take On Karl Rove

Sheryl Crow and partner in grrrl-powered environmental activism Laurie David had a run-in with Karl Rove on Saturday at the White House Correspondents' dinner (aka, the political prom). According to an account written by David and Crow and posted on the Huffington Post on Sunday, the green-conscious girls were psyched to meet Rove because it meant they would finally be able to talk to a member of the administration about global warming. (As if this could ever go well).

After asking the pallid political leader to "consider taking a fresh look at the science of global warming," things descended into high school cafeteria-style melodrama. After bantering back and forth about U.S. environmental policy (the girls reminded Rove that America leads the world in global warming pollution yet are doing the least about it, Rove shot back like a recalcitrant teenager, saying that China's worse) Rove attempted to abandon the conversation and go back to his table. When Crow reached out to touch Rove's arm, imploring him to stay, Rove short-circuited. "Don't touch me." "You can't speak to us like that, you work for us," Crow retorted. "I don't work for you, I work for the American people," Rove spat. "We are the American people," Crow apparently reminded him.

Rove hasn't responded to requests for comment in response to the Huffington Post piece, but on Saturday night he summed up the situation this way: "She came over to insult me, and she succeeded." Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman had this to say, "We have respect for the opinions and passion that many people have for climate change. I wish the same respect was afforded to the president."

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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