• by January 28, 2004

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GOODBYE, MANCHESTER -- With the New Hampshire primary now history, strike these words from your vocabulary: Retail campaigning; Dixville Notch; the Manchester Union Leader. Hey, go all the way, and just forget about New Hampshire for the next four years too.

WHY IS THIS MAN SMILING? -- Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich didn't give up any ground in his speech to supporters last night in New Hampshire, even though he pulled in only 2 percent of the vote. Kucinich raised some eyebrows last night when he told Fox News Channel's Hannity and Colmes that he was in the presidential camapign for the duration. "I don't think anyone's going into the convention with 50 percent of the delegates," he said. "And because of that, anyone who is in the convention with a block of delegates is going to have a shot at the nomination." Gotta win some delegates first, Dennis.

JOE-MENTUM IS DIFFERENT -- Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman told Wolf Blitzer on Sunday that he had "Joe-mentum" and would surprise on Tuesday. Well, now we know what that means: Finishing fifth in a six-man race. And speaking to supporters last night, he said that the three-way tie for third place made people take him seriously. Most pundits didn't give Lieberman much thought, although former presidential candidate and senator Bob Dole didn't mince words on CNN's "Larry King Live": Joe was cooked, Dole said.

HOWARD'S END? -- We knows that Alan Greenspan can't have many warm feelings about former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who said last week that he wouldn't keep the Federal Reserve chairman after his current term ran out. But Greenspan might have a way to describe Dean's speech to supporters last night. "We really are going to win this nomination, aren't we," Dean asked in a subdued speech. After losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, Riff can't help but wonder whether Greenpan's "irrational exuberence" might apply.

SHOW EXIT POLLS THE DOOR -- CNN didn't wait a minute past the 8 p.m. closing of polls in the Granite State to release the findings of its exit polling: Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry had a small lead over Dean. "It's closer than most people thought," Blitzer told the audience at about 8:03 p.m. "We're not predicting anything." Maybe they shouldn't have bothered with the exit poll, which went astray again. Kerry ran away with the lead.

LIGHTS, CAMERA, NO ACTION -- CNBC could have had the most engaging campaign program (beyond Comedy Central's "The Daily Show"), if "The Dennis Miller Show" hadn't been plagued by the proverbial technical difficulties. Miller wasn't able to talk to political writer Gloria Borger, who in turn couldn't hear Miller from her post in New Hampshire. Miller wasn't happy about the problems in this, his second show. In a segment on the next program, Miller asked the CNBC host to send his technical people.

IF SIX WERE NINE, THE MUSIC INDUSTRY MIGHT NOT DROP A DIME -- Finally, the Riff has a reason to watch - make that listen to -- Sunday's Super Bowl. And it's not because of the athletic competition between the Panthers and the Patriots. It's because the Riff will finally get to see the inspiration behind our favorite rock legend, Jimi Hendrix. Okay, so it'll be a tongue-in-cheek, Madison Avenue take on Jimi, but the spot, one of five promoting Pepsi's iTunes song giveaway promotion, is still piquing our interest. The Hendrix spot, which takes place in 1953, features a young Jimi who must choose between buying a soda from a Pepsi and Coke machine. The spot is set to and promotes Hendrix's "Crossroads." Naturally, he buys the Pepsi and becomes the sound of a new generation. But it is another spot promoting Green Day's cover of "I Fought The Law" that seems to sum up the overall promotion. The ad features 16 real-life teenagers who were sued by the recording industry for illegally downloading music from the Internet. It also illustrates how music fans can use Apples iTunes to legally download music, though Pepsi is giving 100 million of the downloads away for free. Aside from preferring Buddy Holly's and Lou Reed's renditions, the Riff senses a genuine irony in the use of this song. As we recall, the lyrics end up saying that "the law won," certainly not the downloaders.

IT SEEMS IT MAY BE BETTER TO RUST, AFTER ALL - My my, hey hey, the Riff has always prayed that rock and roll was here to stay, but we don't know what to make of a British TV company's plans to feature John Lydon in a new reality TV series, "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!" Lydon, better known as Johnny Rotten, was one of the founders of the Sex Pistols, the British band that helped inspire the 1970s punk rock revolution - or is that revolting rock. But a quarter century later, it seems that much of Lydon's anarchistic, Nihilistic rhetoric has gone, well, rotten. It's one thing for Ozzy Osborne and his clan to become the subject of an MTV reality series (heck, Ozzy was always a virtual parody of himself anyway), but Johnny Rotten always seemed to represent a certain integrity and spirit that was a step above the crass commercialism of the entertainment business. Or, as his new gig suggests, maybe it was all just an act and that it was only the Pistol's deceased bass player, Sid Vicious, who was doing it "his way." In any case, the riff considers this a development from way out of the blue and most definitely into the black, and if we haven't already drawn too much from our favorite Neil Young song, we'd just like to conclude with this stanza:

The king is gone but he's not forgotten

This is the story of a Johnny Rotten

It's better to burn out than it is to rust

The king is gone but he's not forgotten

And if the Riff might suggest an updated lyric, it would have to be, "God save the king, he ain't no human being."