Flinging Pooh

I Made An iMix

2009-01-21T18:48:00.002-05:00

I made an iMix.

Yep. I did.

The Re-mains

2008-11-26T01:36:00.004-05:00

I hate the fucking Eagles. Hate. Fingernails on a chalk board, a fork being dragged across a plate hate. There's a moment in The Big Lebowski when The Dude gets thrown out of a cab for saying he hates the fucking Eagles, and its my favourite scene in all of filmdom. With their vapid, dead fish-eye Southern California stares and their ability to make James Taylor sound like the Minutemen by comparison, the fucking Eagles represent everything that makes me crazy and frustrated and angst-ridden about modern mainstream country. The crap that country radio has been pumping out for the last thirty years plus has been nothing more than one long extended version of Hotel California. As Mojo Nixon once said, "Don Henley is the anti-Elvis".

Now, picture a world where the fucking Eagles never found each other, never made music for elevators and grocery stores, never defamed country rock by taking both the country and the rock out of music. Nice, isn't it.

The Re-mains are from that alternate world. It's a world where Dead Flowers by The Rolling Stones was a mainstream hit, where Townes Van Zandt is a household name, where Uncle Tupelo never split but Son Volt and Wilco still play and record. An alternate universe where every time you turn on the radio you can hear Kris Kristofferson and Corb Lund and John Prine and The Poor Choices and Elliott Brood and Cuff The Duke and Blackie & The Rodeo Kings. Willie P. Bennett is given a state funeral and The Perpetrators are given The Order Of Canada. I will call that world Austin World and I will live there very happily, thank you very much.

The Re-Mains are the bastard children of Keith Richards and Wanda Jackson, of Jeff Tweedy and Bob Dylan. They are the war orphans left behind by Nick Cave's murder ballads, by Johnny Cash's evil seed. They are Willie Nelson's outlaw country taken home and given a cold bath and a warm beer. They are the promise fulfilled by the union of Jack White and Loretta Lynn.

And they are Australian. Of course they're from Australia. A country populated by folk who left Africa 50,000 years ago and hiked halfway around the world in only a couple of generations. A country colonized by criminals and outlaws. A country whose extremes make our extremes look like suburban fantasies provided by Sears. If kick-you-in-the-ass country rock is going to be perfected anywhere, it should be in the land of vegemite and the southern cross.

Rolling Stone Magazine, which gave The Re-Mains' Love's Last Stand four stars, describes them as "Northern NSW country rock & roll hellraisers... combining a rootsy twang with inner-city smarts and genuine affection for rollicking, tumbling hillbilly sounds." Someone else said "Think the Eels after a 10-day binge." I say The Re-Mains will kick you in the ass and leave you wanting more.

Six reasons to line-up to see The Re-Mains:

1) Ballad Of A Wrong 'un - an amazing murder song, violent and mean. With the great line "He always wanted to be a star football player/But the poor guy had a build like Leo Sayer..."

2) The Dirt Farmer's Gavotte. Its just brilliant. Fred Eaglesmith should write a song this good.

3) Othello's P76. "If everybody sang like Pavarotti then we'd all sound just the same/But everybody does their best, beats their chest, and tries and tries again..." Yeah.

4) Days In The Sun. 'cause it is a piece of heaven.

5) They once killed a man. Really. They played for some shearers in the Australian bush who had been a three-day speed and booze powered bender. When The Re-Mains finished their set, the crowd wanted more. And so they kicked into "A Whole Lot Of Rosie" and one of the shearers dropped dead of a heart attack. He was in his mid-twenties.

6) "Imagine a 70's Holden, which has been fanged, hooned, thrashed and cruised from one end of the country to the other, mainly on bad roads, never breaking down but continually having parts replaced as the long distances take their toll." ABC Radio had that to say about The Re-Mains and I don't really know what some of the words mean (it's like the Australians speak in code to keep the rest of the world guessing), but I think a Holden is a car.

And so it goes.

I hate the fucking Eagles. I love The Re-mains.

Octoberman

2008-11-26T01:08:00.007-05:00

Two of my favourite authors of ever and forever are Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson. And two of my favourite books of ever and forever are Kerouac's On The Road and Thompson's Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. Both are travelogues, both are stories of the road, the getting to and what happened when they got there. Both had their threatening and dangerous and quite possibly insane travel partners, Jack had Neal Cassaday, Hunter had Oscar Acosta. Both are tales of hurtling towards the edge and hitting the brakes just as you come to the cliff. But, where Hunter's Dr. Gonzo always seemed to know the score, to know who was holding the good cards, seemed always to be in control, Kerouac's Sal Paradise never has that omniscient gift. He travels across America with the mad ones, never quite knowing what the deal is until after, when he has learned some truth.

There's a song by Octoberman's Marc Morrissette called Run From Safety that's got me thinking of On The Road and why, even though it is the obvious template Hunter used for Vegas, it is so different. Why it stands out as The Book for everyone who stumbles and staggers over a copy. And, I think, what makes On The Road so very special, is that Sal isn't full of wisdom and knowledge, he never quite seems to know what the hell is going on. And Marc Morrissette doesn't know what the answers are, or if he does, he's still trying to figure out what the lessons mean. And, I think, that is what makes Run From Safety by Octoberman so very, very special.

Marc Morrissette has written a song that sums up the feeling, for me, of On The Road. With just a few words and only five minutes to do it in, Marc took me back to my own attempt to relive On The Road. He took me back to a Greyhound bus pulling into Cheyenne, Wyoming late at night during Rodeo Days and having lunch at a truck stop in Bliss, Idaho and having to ask the homeless guy where I was and finding out I was in Louisville, Kentucky. With the line "Won't you come back home? Why can't you come back home. I don't think so," he has captured that mad sense of freedom that comes with Kerouac's rushing frantically back and forth across the continent. That thing that Johnny Cash meant when he said once that when he is woken at night by the sound of a train he wished he could go a little crazy one more time. "As long as we run from safety, we'll find our way out here, maybe."

For me Run From Safety is Tennessee Williams' prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages.

Check out octoberman.ca for just about the best band website ever. And check out the Octoberman on MySpace and on CBC Radio 3. And listen to Run From Safety and Elbow Room and Cisco Kid and Chasing Ambulances and be very happy to be alive.

Andrea Ramolo

2008-11-16T13:36:00.004-05:00

This is Andrea Ramolo. The photo was taken by Kylah McGlade. And this is what I wrote about Ms Ramolo for Loplops...

Andrea Ramolo has a voice like Lucinda Williams, like Emmy Lou Harris, like Martha Wainwright. She has a voice that climbs deep down inside and sets up camp inside your soul. Her voice makes everything right with the world. Her voice is big, full of energy, but still warm, the kind of voice you want to snuggle with on a cold November night. She has a voice that sounds like it knows the answers to life's mysteries. Andrea Ramolo has the kind of voice Roy Orbison would have written songs about.

Her songs are powerful, so powerful they'll break your heart. Thank You For The Ride is one of those songs, like Octoberman's Run From Safety or Jason Collett's Hangover Days or Elliott Broods' The Bridge or Royal City's Bring My Father A Gift, that I can never get enough of, can never hype enough, that make me feel so freakin inspired about the state of music right now that I want to shout it from a rooftop. Recently, I read an interview with Henry Rollins and he was asked about the state of music today and Hank said that, in his opinion, it has never been better. And I have to agree with him. In my forty something years on this planet, the music has never been better. And Thank You For The Ride is one of the songs I'll hold up in front of Judge Wapner to prove it.

Go, now, to her MySpace. Listen to her version of Hank Williams' Lovesick Blues. She doesn't just sing it, she wears it, rides it, owns it. Listen to Thank You For The Ride and be very happy it exists.

Here is another photo of Andrea taken by Kylah McGlade...

Yeah...

Thank You, America

2008-11-05T02:19:00.002-05:00

Hey, Get Off Of My Lawn...

2008-10-29T19:42:00.007-04:00

Check this out - I'm going to start posting things again on this piece of real estate.

I've been writing stuff for Lopticulations, a paper-newsleter-thing for LopLops. So, what I'm going to do now is put up a few of the ones I kinda liked and a few of the ones for banks I liked even if my writing at the time sucks, sucks, sucks...

Enjoy.

First up...

The Impossible And The Implausible, The Art Of Li Wei

Li Wei is a photographer and performance artist. He likes to put himself into gravity-defying poses. He seeks to intentionally surprise and shock his viewer. Says Li Wei, "The first reaction is astonishment. Some people think they are full of sense of humour. They are curious about how I did this. Sometimes I am in real danger; I have to hang myself high with steel wires and people do get a little worried for me, but I am fine."

I discovered his photographs via The Wooster Collective, one of the best non-porn web sites ever, ever, ever. Through them I stumbled onto the series, "The Impossible Art Of Li Wei." Like many blogger and internet folk have commented, Photoshop trickery has turned pretty well all of us into cynics and disbelievers when it comes to photography. Which makes these photographs all the more exciting, they are non-digitalized. Except to erase wires and harnesses and scaffolding, they are not computer montages.

His self-portaits are part performance art, part photo essay. They are created using mirrors, wires, scaffolding and acrobatics. His body, stuck headfirst into a windshield, ramrod straight, feet to the sky, as if he has just plummeted to Earth from some great height. His head, sans body, is caressed by a woman, floats around her body, is stepped on. He is kicked off the roof a 25-storey building, a look of shock, disbelief on his face, captured at the moment he begins to fall. He falls horizontally out of an office building, outstretched hands trying to catch him. Li Wei again, "I am fascinated by the unstable and dangerous sides of art and I hope my work reflects these aspects."

He worked in oil until 1999, when he realized that "only performance art offers a chance to experience an action's message through one's own body." He has said that much of his work "involves the symbolic balancing act between personal freedom and emotional security, such as that of family." Much of his work is about change: "there is a feeling of losing grip on things, an uncertainty about tomorrow. It's a feeling in the air, of having nothing firm under the feet."

Blank Generation

2008-03-17T00:53:00.002-04:00

"Punk rock should be appalling, disgraceful, totally berserk..." Captain Sensible

Punk rock was born in a fire, in a blood and feces stained bathroom stall, in a riot, at an orgy, at a high school prom, at a knife fight, in a little girl's bedroom, at a suicide. A mutant birth brought into being when Garage Rock raped Rockabilly and left her crying and ashamed and bruised and so angry she will kill. Punk rock was the kid in the back of the classroom no-one ever talked to. Punk rock was the kid too poor to take the bus. Punk rock was the kid with broken glass in his knuckles and spit in his eye.

Punk rock is ugly and mean and dumb. It is threatening and misery and death. It is basic primal energy. It is harder, faster, louder than anything that came before it or after it.

Punk rock is a high school dropout, an art school graduate, an MBA, an acne-scarred kid, and a grey haired hipster.

Punk rock is Old School, Hardcore, New Wave, Post-Punk, Oi!, Anarcho-Punk, Pop Punk, Alternative Rock, Emo, Scremo, Queercore, and Riot Grrrl.

Punk rock is shopping at the Salvation Army Thrift Store, at Hot Topic, at West 49. Punk rock is shoplifting food and investing in mutual funds and RRSP's.

I first heard Punk rock in my parents' living room in fall of '76. It was on the CBC, a news report about an ugly, ugly, ugly trend in London. Safety pins and torn clothing and hair standing at right-angles. Violent and smeared in dripping black eyeliner, the crowd at the bar in the news piece threw themselves up and down, up and down. The disembodied voice of the reporter spoke of riots and gang attacks and anarchy. The band was frightening, amateurish, clowns with a six-string guitar and drums, the lead singer droned "No future, no future..." I was ten and this was my Saul on his way to Damascus moment. I was blinded, yet I could see clearly.

"Here's a shocker: Hilly Kristal turns out to have been a millionaire. Just weeks after the legendary former CBGB owner passed away, his heirs - who thought Kristal was broke - are finding out that the old punk impresario was worth a surprising $3.7 million." The Village Voice, September 18, 2007

"What in the name of all that is holy was that?" Me, 1993 after seeing a Subaru Impreza commercial that claimed the car was like Punk rock

Punk has always been about the underground and the underdog. Anti-commerical, anti-mainstream, anti-establishment, anti-authority, anti-anti. Punk has also always been about selling out to the highest bidder, commercial success, mainstream acceptance, radio playlists, and chart positions. The mainstream acceptance of Punk was not forced down a mohawk tattooed throat. The Sex Pistols did not have to give their pictures for Dutch bubble-gum cards. Nirvana did not have pose for the cover of Rolling Stone. The Clash did not have to sell their songs to car companies. Green Day did not have to give their videos to MTV for airplay. Punk rock looks better than ever. It scored the prom queen and an investment portfolio.

"Punk is musical freedom. It's saying, doing, and playing what you want." Kurt Cobain

Punk rock loves to define itself. Punk rock is loud, violent and three minutes long. Punk rock is Hardcore. Punk rock is shouting over a jackhammer. Punk rock is Never Mind The Bollocks. Punk rock is the first Clash record. Its Mommy's Little Monster. Its Black Flag before Hank. Its Black Flag with Hank. Punk rock is what American Hardcore, Punk's Not Dead, Punk: Attitude or any of another dozen documentaries that try to define Punk rock say it is. Punk rock is not. It is not about boundaries or fences or secret handshakes or cult meetings. Or what I just found on Dictionary.com: A type of rock-'n'-roll, reaching its peak in the late 1970s and characterized by loud, insistent music and abusive or violent protest lyrics, and whose performers and followers are distinguished by extremes of dress and socially defiant behavior. It is not. It is also Mike Ness' and Eddie Spaghetti's country records. It is also Devo, The Talking Heads, Blondie, and The Boomtown Rats. It is what Cobain said. Musical freedom. As someone much wiser than me said, if your heart is in the right place, the surface material doesn't really matter.

Punk rock is dying and is alive and well and is no-code and is having heart palpitations and just got some hair plugs and is cute and is ripped and is pretty damn hot. Punk rock is eating its young to stay alive, is cannibalizing its neighbors, is denying and is shouting proudly from the rooftops.

Punk rock is complicated.

Art Ramblings

2008-03-12T21:30:00.013-04:00

Mark Jenkins is an American artist.

Go to his website. It is here. He also has a Tape Sculpture Tutorial site. Click here. You should also check out the street art blog The Wooster Collective.

Mark Jenkins works mostly in packing tape.

His stuff and things have popped up in cities all over the world, from D.C. to Rio. It has also appeared in nature.

The nature setting seems to be a statement against the idiots who leave garbage on hiking trails. One time, I was on the side of a mountain in Alberta, keeping an eye out for grizzlies, miles from civilization, above the tree-line, when I stepped on a Coke can. Another time, I found an abandoned Yukon Jack t-shirt. I like Mr. Jenkins' art.

I like that it's playful. And fun. And a little disturbing at times. It works to knock people out of their zombie stupor.

Read an interview with Mr. Jenkins in the Washington Post

This is from YouTube. Mark Jenkins has posted several videos of people reacting to his installations. This is from New York City.

This is from Rio. It is called All You Can Eat.

There are more. Lots more. Go to YouTube and search. They are worth the hunt.

Some of my favorite art is street art. Its like guerilla war against boredom.

Strange Rumblings

2008-03-08T22:34:00.010-05:00

Fidel has retired. And Raul is the new boss.

"Beans are more important than cannon." Raul said that. "After the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba's economic benefactor, it was Raul who persuaded Fidel to permit private agricultural markets and open the island to foreign investment in sectors like tourism, now a $2 billion-a-year industry in Cuba." Tim Padgett of Time said that. And Oswaldo Paya, Cuba's leading dissident, has come to view the U.S. embargo as unhelpful.

Strange rumblings, indeed.

This is a picture of Fidel and Che playing some golf. I like it. Put that on a t-shirt, bitches. Fuck t-shirt socialism.

Sorry - listening to N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton. When I first heard N.W.A., I felt fear for my pimply white ass. The revolution had arrived and it was being broadcast on MuchMusic. Easy E and Ice Cube and Dr. Dre were coming to my home to whack me and my white-guilt. Oh, fuckshit, the threat could not be exaggerated. Chuck D and Public Enemy were Malcolm X and N.W.A. were the Panthers, very scary, very organized. They made Bobby Seale look like a pacifist. Shitdamn. And then Easy E died of AIDS. And Dr. Dre, well Dre's living a nice suburban life. He has wife and kids. And now Ice Cube stars in movies for Disney.

Fuck The Police, indeed.

Oh, my man, the world is odd and strange and confusing and bewildering and hurts the eye at times.

How, how, how, how are we to make sense of a world where in one decade a man is straight outta Compton, a crazy mutherfucker named Ice Cube... And in another decade poses with L.A.'s finest at a meet and greet at Tower Records?

Cube posing with L.A. cops. Fidel and Che playing a round of golf.

The contrast between what we assume we know, Fidel the peasant hero, against what we don't know, Fidel the son a wealthy landowner and the family maid. Fidel the proletariat, Fidel the bourgeois golf player. Che the bourgeois golf player, Che the martyr for Latin America freedom.

The contrast between what we assume we know and what we don't know. That's the stuff to ponder, to dwell on, to dig into. "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." Mark Twain said that. It's the stuff you don't see coming, like a dark Cadillac with the lights off in a deep moonless night careening towards you as you step off the curb on your way to the all night store to buy some cigarettes and some porn. It's the suicide of Hunter S. Thompson. Nixon going to China. Brian Mulroney leading the international pressure to end apartheid. Its when what you are sure you know comes into a violent conflict with what you don't know.

What we are sure we know: George W. Bush, the President of the United States, is rotten to the core. His failures, his arrogance, his bullying and his bullying and inability to master the English language. "Bush is a natural-born loser with a filthy-rich daddy who pimped his son out to rich oil-mongers. He hates music, football and sex, in no particular order, and he is no fun at all." Hunter S. Thompson said that. "Bush has rocked America's core idea of itself and most of the world's idea of America. He may not be forgiven, and he certainly won't be forgotten for this." Bob Geldof said this. What we are sure we know is Iraq, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, waterboarding.

At one point I suggest that he will never be given credit for good policies, like those here in Africa, because many people view him "as a walking crime against humanity." He looks very hurt by that. And I'm sorry I said it, because he's a very likable fellow. Bob Geldof wrote that.

And this what we don't know.

One woman tells how six months previously, she was bitten by a cobra and rushed to hospital. As she was passing out, she tells the President, "that little voice whispered to me, 'You'll be all right,' and I was." She pauses, and says meaningfully to him: "You know that little voice, I think?" "Not really," Bush says drily. "I've never been bitten by a cobra."

And this what we don't know.

"U.S. solutions should not be imposed on African leaders." George W. Bush said that.

"When we see hunger we feed them. Not to spread our influence, but because they're hungry." George W. Bush said that.

"Stop coming to Africa feeling guilty. Come with love and feeling confident for its future." George W. Bush said that.

George W. Bush initiated the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) with cross-party support led by John Kerry and Bill Frist. $15 billion over 5 years, it is the largest investment to fight a single disease in history. Bush wants to extend it for 5 more years, spending $30 billion.

In 2003, only 50,000 Africans were on HIV antiretroviral drugs and they had to pay for their own medicine. Today, 1.3 million are receiving medicines free. The Americans contribute one-third of the money to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which treats another 1.5 million. 50% of all food aid. A $350 million fund for other neglected tropical diseases that can be easily eradicated. A program to distribute 5.2 million mosquito nets to kids in Tanzania. Contracts worth @ $1.2 billion in Tanzania and Ghana from the Millennium Challenge Account. With other leading industrialized nations has granted $34 billion in debt relief for African nations in the past 18 months.

"Human suffering should preempt commercial interest." George W. Bush said that.

This what we don't know.

Bush, the "natural-born loser with a filthy-rich daddy", the incompetent, the arrogant. Bush, Cheney's puppet, the yes-man for oil, the guy with the bin Laden family connections. Bush, Michael Moore's fave-o-rite punching bag. Bush, evil incarnate. Bush is also the best friend Africa has ever had in the White House. He has done for more for Africa than any other president ever. Period.

"This is the triumph of American policy really. It was probably unexpected of the man. It was expected of the nation, but not of the man, but both rose to the occasion." Bob Geldof said that.

Read Bob Geldof's article in Time. I recommend it. Its a shot to the gut.

Strange rumblings, indeed.

John Simon Ritchie

2008-01-09T21:59:00.000-05:00

I Can Kick:The Crispin Hellion Glover Sampler

2007-08-09T16:51:00.000-04:00

As a wiser man than I once said, every film geek has his or her own favourite Crispin Glover movie moment.

Mine is the standing up to Biff scene in Back To The Future or the running around his car screaming scene in Rivers Edge. Or the Larry Flynt brings Jesus to Hustler scene in People vs Larry Flynt.

(Anyway... If anyone still drops by this lonely space on the internet-tubes, tell me - what is your fave-o-rite Crispin Glover movie scene...)

Crispin Hellion Glover was born in 1964. His father is an actor. His father's name is Bruce Glover. This is Bruce Glover as Mr. Wint in Diamonds Are Forever...

Crispin Hellion Glover is an actor.

Crispin Glover appeared in a made for tv movie titled High School USA in 1983.

Crispin Glover appeared in Happy Days also in 1983.

In 1984 Crispin Glover appeared in Friday The 13th:The Last Chapter.

On July 28, 1987 Crispin Glover appeared on David Letterman.

Crispin Glover is a singer.

This is Mr. Glover doing his version of Michael Jackson's Ben, from the film Willard.

And this, this is special. This is the video for Crispin Glover's Clowny Clown Clown.

Crispin Glover is a multi-media army on one.

Recently Crispin Glover filled in for Timothy Olyphant on Sports Update on Indie 103.1.

He has a website. You can find information about his films 'What Is It?' and 'It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine.' and his Big Slideshow and his books and his Compact Discs and how to book him for your special event. Go to his website here.

Crispin Glover is a force of nature.

Holly Hunter Is A Brave, Brave, Brave Woman Continued

2007-08-02T19:17:00.000-04:00

Previously on Flinging Pooh... I posted The Interview Seen Around The World. See below.

ABC News has now entered into the fray and has posted a story on abcnews.com about The Interview Seen Around The World. ABC tries hard (real hard, brother) "to delve deeper into exactly what happened during that "What's the Buzz" interview that went so famously off-track." You see, the whole thing was a hoot, a lark, a chuckle and a buckle. A couple of technical glitches, a novice and a fumble. Not that big of a deal, says ABC. Not that big of a deal at all.

Merry Miller (really, is that her freakin name - Merry?) is brand spanking new to the on-camera side of broadcasting. She's a businesswoman and booker for the late, great Joel Siegel. She taught at the Learning Annex in New York. She is a well-rounded, intelligent woman, I'm sure. Sure she comes off as amateurish, a bit squirrley, clumsy, stupid, unblinkingly retarded, inexperienced, sad, lost in the headlights, oblivious, dumber than a Jack Russell, incompetent, bungling, bumbling, floundering, maladroit, and balmy in the interview with Holly Hunter. But there is a very, very, very, very good reason for that.

In interviews like this one, the interviewer and interviewee are not in the same room and cannot see each other. They rely on ear pieces called IFBs to hear each other and to carry on a conversation. And, according to abcnews.com...

"Unfortunately for Miller and unknown to the crew, her IFB failed before she began speaking with Hunter. Another host might have known to alert the crew about the problem and delay the interview while the technical issues were worked out, but the inexperienced Miller gamely tried to speak with Hunter without hearing her responses."

I'm shocked and bewildered. The interviewer, Merry, could not hear the interviewee, Holly. Merry was working without a safety net and had been pushed off the tightrope by a simple technical glitch. Wow.

' "I couldn't hear her, and it's very hard to talk to somebody like that," Miller said. "I give credit to Holly Hunter. She was a pro, a class act. She saved the interview." '

Sweet baby Jesus, thank you. Everything is explained. Jeez Louise, I feel bad for chuckling and laughing and guffawing and carrying on like a chimp on E everytime I watched the video. I want to take this moment and apologize, from the bottom of my toes, to Merry Miller for ever thinking bad of her. For example, for ever thinking she is one chromosone short of being a gecko. Or a brain cell shy of being that guy in Japan who tried to cover up a nuclear spill with a bucket. I'm sorry Merry, I really, honestly am.

Truly and verily, I am merry that Merry got though this with some dignity intact. Rotten technology, making the poor woman seem sad and desparate while interviewing the woman from The Piano and Raising Arizona and Oh, Brother Where Art Thou? and The Firm and Crash.

Just a moment while I clear my throat...

Watch the clip again. At approximately 30 seconds into the clip there is this exchange...

Merry Miller: Okay, we love the show. Tell us what drew you to this character that you play Grace.
Holly Hunter: I'm sorry?
Merry Miller: What drew you to this character that you play Grace?

So. Lets quickly summarize. The interviewer could not see the interviewee. The interviewer could not hear the interviewee. But somehow, someway, Merry Miller knew that Holly Hunter could not hear her. There is one and only one explanation... Merry Miller is in league with the devil and is a witch. Only a witch could answer a question she could not hear. Everything explained. Everything tidy and clean.

For the entire article at abcnews.com go here. Enjoy.

Last words from Merry that prove she is some kind of freakin business genius...

"The power of the Internet is so [great]," she said. "I'm involved in some online ventures, and my gut had told me that [the Internet] was the future of the world [and this proves] that viral marketing has really kicked in. I'm going to take this phenomenon that I created and drive it somewhere."

Holly Hunter Is A Brave, Brave, Brave Woman

2007-08-01T00:16:00.000-04:00

I know, I know - its been a freakin long time. Now, shut up and watch...
Please, watch all the way to the end.

Social Distortion - Far Behind

2007-05-24T21:08:00.000-04:00

Okay. The new single is out. And about. Here be footage from the KROQ hoedown...

Enjoy.

Joker Revealed...

2007-05-20T16:08:00.000-04:00

Go here. And wait a few seconds...

If it doesn't work... this is the image that you're looking for.

I cannot wait for a full year. Cannot.

Yipes Freakin Yipes

2007-05-20T15:44:00.000-04:00

Somewhere in Hell someone is saying "Hey, is that snow...?"

"'Sicko' Shows Michael Moore's Maturity as a Filmmaker" says Fox News...

A Belated Letter To My Mom

2007-04-13T21:42:00.000-04:00

My mom asked me to send her a note concerning why I don't go to Church. I used to.

So. Here's the letter I sent...

Here it is. Sorry it took so long. A lot of Big Thoughts and Pondering have gone into this since you first asked me to jot down "why don't I go to Church"...

I think the issue started when I was going to Church. I was younger and had a mind like a sponge. So I started reading up on this Church thing and Jesus and the rest. What I found kind of left me with a fuller appreciation of Jesus and the rest but also with a big old nasty feeling about Christianity in all of its many, many forms.

I found that the more I read about the Man and His times, the more I started respecting the man in the Man. Strip away the supernatural trappings, and you've got a guy who combined Far Eastern philosophy and contemporary thought (for him). Those were days of Trade and Commerce, so its not suprising that anyone in the Middle East would have come into contact with the East's world-view. And its not suprising that anyone then with some religious training (remember, he was often called "Rabbi" by some of his followers) would take the time to look at other religions and philosophies and beliefs. What is suprising is that he would take these different outlooks, be they Greek or Roman or Egyptian or Chinese or Indian and find the common moral ground between them all. He took the best of the Torah and everything else thrown his way and came away with a pretty simple and unique world view.

Here's the son of a carpenter. Here's the cousin of John. One foot in the world of day to day struggle. One foot in religion.

And what does he teach? What does he leave us with? This is from Mattew 25:

"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Anyway.

And so as a much younger person, I started looking at Jesus without the supernatural, without the miracles, without the resurrection. Strip away the show-stoppers and the fireworks and you still have a pretty damn decent guy. Hell, for me a much more honest and human picture. And I went back and forth in the four gospels and couldn't find one instance of "Worship Me" anywhere. Lots of "follow my example". Lots of "this is a better way to live". Not a lot of "Worship Me". That comes later.

So. I read more and more and more. And then I started looking at the history of Christianity. Oh, boy.

The early Church had a power struggle. It was between those who knew Jesus and saw his teachings as a new form of Judaism. And Paul who saw a new religion to spread. Short story - Paul won. Emphasize the miracles and the resurrection and the supernatural stuff, don't really spend any time on the Message.

From my own experience, most of Christianity is obsessed with the Son of God aspect of Jesus' life and not with the Son of Man aspect. Where are the stories of this complex historic figure in any Church anywhere? He taught forgiveness during a time of occupation. He taught peace and then went into the Temple in Jerusalem and started wrecking the place. He taught that every person is responsible for their own actions, towards themselves and towards everyone around them.

Christianity, the Church, whatever we call it, has a pretty dismal record of actually practicing what it preaches. For Two Thousand years, we have seen Christian countries invade and plunder and kill and rape and slash and burn. The Crusades. The Inquisition. The Holocust. And now...

It just seems to me, from where I sit and watch, the Church, in all of its forms, has never, ever been about Jesus.

That's a big part of why I walked away from Church. Its the current atmosphere of hate and prejudice that keeps me away. And not worrying about my immortal soul.

Go back to Matthew 25. Now look at the Church as it portrays itself to the world. Christianity has become a two issue religion, abortion and homosexuality. Okay, at Christmas its a three issue religion. (By the by, Christmas as we know it is a pretty recent idea. It has not been a tradition for a very long time at all. However, the idea of a celebration at midwinter is almost as old as civilization. So Bill O'Reily can shut the hell up. And Happy Holidays comes from Happy Holy Days. Shut up Fox News.) (Sorry.)

One more thing... Where, oh where is the mass Christian outrage against the Rev. Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church? This is a man and his flock who the secular world see as a representative of Christianity. The Rev. Phelps is the most hate-filled piece of something I scrape off of my shoe with a stick I have ever, ever, ever seen. Look him up on Google. He's a charmer. And so is his Church.

Anyway. Why did I walk away from Church and never look back? Because the Church in all of its forms comes off as one-dimensional and home to some seriously Bad people. Because the Church has rarely ever been keen to recoginze that "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

And so I sent it.

Any thoughts?

Wiiiiiiii!

2007-03-25T11:39:00.001-04:00

The Mii Lebowski.

Poor Donny.

This Is Jackson Pollock.

2007-03-23T16:01:00.000-04:00

This is Jackson Pollock.

The picture was taken by Arnold Newman. Jackson Pollock was a painter. Fifty years after he died when he was thrown from his car and hit a tree, lots and lots and lots and lots of folks still argue and argue and argue about him and his paintings. Lots and lots and lots and lots of folks say "he was a freaking genius" or "he was freaking Jesus in blue jeans" or they say "my kid can do that" or "I can do that" or "that shit is shit".

Me? I like Jackson Pollock the bestest of all the painters who have ever, ever painted in the whole of the world. Ever. And my job here isn't to tell folks what they should think or not think about Jackson Pollock. My job is to... well, I don't know what my job here is today.

Jackson Pollock, was he a genius? I don't know. Genius has become one of those words that get thrown around way, way, way too much. I know he was a heck of a painter artist guy.

He painted some of the twenthieth century's most iconic images. And he helped bring a new dynamic to art. And he proved that folks in the Americas knew a thing or two about art. And he was complicated and driven and needed, needed, needed to tear down all the rules of art that had been set in freaking stone.

Was he Jesus come to save the artists from the rules and regulations they had grown up with? Nah. He was just a guy born in Cody, Wyoming. He wasn't sent from on-high. He grew up surronded by the mythos of the Wild West and brought that rebellion to whatever he was going to do when he grew up.

When he became famous, all The Great Art came from Europe. Only. Any pretenders in this hemisphere were only ripping on Picasso and those cats. So the guy born in Cody who liked booze and cars and women and painting kicked at the Established Way of Doing Things until the Established Way of Doing Things sat down and shut up.

And this is Jackson Pollock. Complicated, moody, friendly, generous, selfish, outlaw, sellout, artist.

This is Jackson Pollock.

This is Jackson Pollock.

This is Jackson Pollock.

This is Jackson Pollock.

This is Jackson Pollock.

This is Jackson Pollock.

This is Jackson Pollock.

This is Jackson Pollock.

This is Jackson Pollock.

This is Jackson Pollock.

This is Jackson Pollock.

This is Jackson Pollock.

And that was Jackson Pollock. Complicated, moody, friendly, generous, selfish, outlaw, sellout, artist.

For more information, please consult your local library. Or go here.

For more information on the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, go here.

And for more way too much fun... go to jacksonpollock.org. Just run your mouse over the page, click for different colours. Enjoy.

Ciao.

Oh, Boy

2007-03-02T16:29:00.000-05:00

Found online. Can't remember where. Must share. Must.

Oh, Lord. The Tree Hugging Octipi Are Here!

2007-03-01T16:15:00.000-05:00

And everyone else is pointing at this and laughing, I'll join in too.

To challenge Wikipedia some fine and well informed folks have created Conservapedia. You see, Wikipedia is biased and liberal and anti-Christian and anti-American and just plain wrong. Wikipedia uses B.C.E and C.E. instead of the more correct and proper and Christian B.C. and A.D. And there's more and more and more wrong with those Satan teat suckers at Wikipedia and Conservapedia is here to correct it.

From "Examples of Bias in Wikipedia":

#6. Wikipedia often uses foreign spelling of words, even though most English speaking users are American. Look up "Most Favored Nation" on Wikipedia and it automatically converts the spelling to the British spelling "Most Favoured Nation", even there there are far more American than British users. Look up "Division of labor" on Wikipedia and it automatically converts to the British spelling "Division of labour," then insists on the British spelling for "specialization" also. Enter "Hapsburg" (the European ruling family) and Wikipedia automatically changes the spelling to Habsburg, even though the American spelling has always been "Hapsburg". Within entries British spellings appear in the silliest of places, even when the topic is American. Conservapedia favors American spellings of words.

Why, oh, why must the rest of the English speaking world insist on spelling English words wrong? Why, oh why must we insist on ignoring the proper and correct American spellings? Oh, Jesus, help us in our collective ignorance...

From "The Conservapedia Commandments" (Shhh, don't tell anyone, but there are only six of them...)

1.Everything you post must be true and verifiable.
2. Always cite and give credit to your sources, even if in the public domain.
3. Edits/new pages must be family-friendly, clean, concise, and without gossip or foul language.
4. When referencing dates based on the approximate birth of Jesus, give appropriate credit for the basis of the date (B.C. or A.D.). "BCE" and "CE" are unacceptable substitutes because they deny the historical basis. See CE.
5. As much as is possible, American spelling of words must be used.[1]
6. Do not post personal opinion on an encyclopedia entry. Opinions can be posted on Talk:pages or on debate or discussion pages.
Notes
↑ You will only be blocked for violating command 5 if you repeatedly change words from American spelling to another spelling.

Enough of that. Lets get to what's inside of Conservapedia...(Please, be kind, these are ripped straight from the source, no changes have been made.)

Canada - Canada is the second largest country in the world for it's considerable amount of land. It was named Canada because when an explorer came to a Canadian Indian village he asked what this place was called, and they told him "Kanada", which means village in their Indian language. It borders the United States, and most of it's population is in The more southern provinces of Canada.

Kangaroo - Like all modern animals, modern kangaroos originated in the Middle East and are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood. It has not yet been determined whether kangaroos form a holobaramin with the wallaby, tree-kangaroo, wallaroo, pademelon and quokka, or if all these species are in fact apobaraminic or polybaraminic.
After the Flood, kangaroos bred from the Ark passengers migrated to Australia. There is debate whether this migration happened over land - as Australia was still for a time connected to the Middle East before the supercontinent of Pangea broke apart -- or if they rafted on mats of vegetation torn up by the receding flood waters.

Scopes Trial - History proved Bryan to be right in opposing eugenics and the textbook used in the Scopes trial. Bryan won the trial and kept Tennessee mostly free from the evolution indoctrination that has plagued the United States and Europe. To this day Tennessee is among the least intrusive states in requiring evolution. In the eyes of a liberal, pro-evolution group, Tennessee and a few similar states "fail so thoroughly to teach evolution as to render their standards totally useless."
Thanks to Bryan's victory in the Scopes trial, Tennessee voters have been educated without oppressive evolution theory for 75 years. Free from the liberal indoctrination, Tennessee voted against native son Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential election - probably the only time a candidate has lost the Presidency due to losing his home state. If Tennessee had a high level of belief in evolution comparable to that of East Germany, then you can bet Gore would have won his state and the Presidency.

Spanish-American War - The war between America and Spain for control of Cuba, the Phillipines and other Spainish colonies, which America, being a Christian nation, won, while Spain, being a Catholic country, lost.

Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus - The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus (Octopus paxarbolis) can be found in the temperate rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula on the west coast of North America. Their habitat lies on the eastern side of the Olympic mountain range, adjacent to Hood Canal. These solitary cephalopods reach an average size (measured from arm-tip to mantle-tip,) of 30-33 cm. Unlike most other cephalopods, tree octopuses are Amphibian, spending only their earliest life stages and mating seasons in their aquatic environment. Because of the moistness of the rainforests and their well designed skin adaptations, they are able to keep from becoming dried out for prolonged periods of time.

Gospels - The greatest writing in the history of the world is the Gospel of John, the Apostle whom Jesus loved the most. John likely revised and perfected this Gospel for decades before releasing it to others.

Communism - Communism is government in which the state owns everything and the wealth is divided evenly among the citizens. Communists believe that if they share everything, no one will ever have to work.

So, enjoy Conservapedia. Thank Jesus they have come to help the home schooled.

And help save the Northwest Tree Octopus.

Magic Turtles, Switched Brains, A Missing Ocean And The Harlem Globetrotters

2007-02-08T13:02:00.000-05:00

A fan of Lost? Me, too.
Wondering where the other island came from that nobody seemed to notice before? Me, too.
Wondering what ever happened to (insert any hanging plot thread here)? Me, too.

Found a couple of par-o-dies of the Lost writers room. Enjoy.

And, from Attack Of The Show...

And, for the Heroes fan... Also from Attack Of The Show...

And, once again, who has more fun than people?

Fun With Macs

2007-01-25T20:18:00.000-05:00

As a wise man once said, "Does anyone have more fun than people?"

Okay, Its Been A While

2007-01-25T18:51:00.000-05:00

Hello.
Its been a while. I apologize. I've been busy. Okay. I've been fat-butt lazy.

Sorry.

So. What have you been up to? Oh. Wow. Jeez.

Well. I've been reading this. David Plotz, a writer over at Slate, has been blogging the Bible. Its been quite a journey so far. Y'see, Mr. Plotz is Jewish, but was pretty well completely out of touch with what that meant. And so he started reading the Bible. And blogging about it. Check it out. There be weirdness aplenty in the Bible, folks. Weirdness aplenty.

And I found this. Wil Wheaton, yes, that Wil Wheaton, is reviewing episodes of Star Trek:The Next Generation. Even a hater of Star Trek and all things Star Trek will dig these reviews. He's a funny dude, that Wil Wheaton. Yes he is. Read and enjoy. And tell your friends.

And I've been thinking about the number 23...

23 is the smallest group of people in which there is more than a 50% chance that 2 people will share the same birthday (day and month, not year).

2005 December 23 - Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 217 from Baku, Azerbaijan to Aktau, Kazakhstan crashed shortly after takeoff, killing 23 people.

AirIndia Flight 182 (Toronto to New Delhi) was bombed in mid-air on June 23, 1985 killing all 329 people on board.

Hurricane Katrina formed August 23, 2005.

Kurt Cobain was born in 1967 and died in 1994. Both years add up to 23 if counted as individual digits: 1+9+6+7=23. 1+9+9+4=23.

It takes 23 seconds for blood to circulate through the body.

Human somatic cells have 23 pairs of chromosomes.

The first Morse Code transmission - "What hath God wrought?" - was from the Bible, Numbers 23:23.

William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564. and died on April 23, 1616.

River Phoenix, was born on August 23, 1970. He died at of 23.

The earth rotates on an axis of 23 and a half degrees

Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times when he was assassinated.

The first song on Side A of the Beatles first album took 23 takes to record.

Both the Waco tragedy and the Oklahoma City bombing happened on April, 19th. 4+19=23.

Twenty-three. Its like a virus or something. It all started because I read a thing about a Jim Carrey movie, and, well, now its freaking everywhere. And now, you're part of it, too. Sorry.

Anyway, that's some of what I've been up to.

And here is a picture of me and my wife. Ain't she hot?

And A Merry Little Christmas To You

2006-12-24T13:35:00.000-05:00

What Would Tyler Durden Do?

2006-12-14T18:33:00.000-05:00

Just a short post. Things you should and will go and see and read. Do it.

I love celebrity gossip. Everyone does. But I rarely find crusty gossip, gossip with snark, gossip with disturbing and troubling undercurrents. But then, I never went here before yestarday. Oh, boy. That's some good snark. By the by, don't know who Tyler Durden is? Read or watch Fight Club again. Jeez.

For anyone who has worked in the service industry or knows anyone in the service industry or feels somehow entitled when dealing with someone in the service industry, I give you this. The best blog post EVER. Maybe.

Are you, like me, a fan of the late, great Hunter Stockton Thompson? Are you, like me, slightly obsessive about the doctor? Then run, don't walk, to M + B gallery in Los Angeles. Go. Now. Or you can check out this.

That's it. For now. And, really, what would Tyler Durden do?

P.S. For some fine-ass pics of Motley Crue in the Soo (I'm a freakin poet), check out these. I know the photographer. She feeds me and keeps me in boxers.

Ciao.

Measuring The Speed Of Meme...

2006-12-02T23:47:00.000-05:00

A cool experiment... In which you will participate in or... I'll just say, think of the children, won't someone think of the children?!!??

Anyway. Over atAcephalous, there is an experiment going on and I'm going to partake. And so are You... Sorry. So, the experiment... You know how all kinds of fine folks say things about things going across, through, around the Internets Series of Tubes and Highways? Well, they do. Who? Fine folks. What fine folks? Stop asking me questions, dammit. Jeez. So, the core of the nugget is that information or stuff that isn't so informational can now travel at speeds unimaginable from one side of the Internets to the other and back again. Take Brittany Spears crotch shots, for example. How many times a day did we come face to face with yet another posting or opinion regarding Ms Spears and her commando fashion sense in the last few days? Thousands of times if you go to some of the bottom swill sites I check out (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) (sorry). But did it travel the entirety of the Internet Super Freeway? Or did it just go from crotchshotsofthefamous.com to CNN to canada.com and sputter out somewhere around mywifedoesntknowihaveawebcam.com?

Does any stuff really, truly travel the breadth and depth and width of the Internet World Wide Of Web?

Don't know, do we...

So, back to the experiment... It is here. Go. Now. What? You're still here? Jeez. Over at Acephalous they have a program thingy that is browsing the Web Roadway of Tubes every ten minutes or so looking for this link. Mapping out the travels this link has taken in its journey from one basement to the next, to the next, to the next.

And, no, this is not Chain Mail and you will not become rich and famous in 30 days and something horrible will not befall anyone you love or yourself and you will not find any guaranteed winning lottery numbers or pictures of angels or crotch shots of single mother pop tarts, but... If you do post this link on your blog-thingy, I most assuredly will not fling any pooh at your living room window. I promise.

No fingers crossed or anything.

So the way to participate in this experiment... 1) Link to the post in your blog-whatsit; 2) Try to convince others to do the same by any means necessary; 3) Ping Technorati.

Have fun. And drink plenty of water.

And keep your legs together, the world has seen enough crotch shots.

Things You Can Do When The Satellite Is Down

2006-11-18T01:17:00.000-05:00

I'm sure I could be doing something productive, something good for my heart and health, something truly creative and groundbreaking. Instead I will share my Internets Superhighway of Information Tubes findings with all of you. If anyone still comes here after being clobbered over the head with my Social Distortion obsession. So here are some things to do when you have no T.V.

You can have fun, fun, fun and more fun with Lego.

That is borrowed from Escher's "Relativity" in LEGO. Go there now, dammit.

Wait, before you go, remember to also check out Escher's "Ascending and Descending" in LEGO by the same folks.

Coolness.

And there's more fun to be had with Lego.

I don't really know how to explain The Brick Testament. A truly brilliant concept. Just check it out. Now.

For the film fan, who is also without television temporarily, there is Viking's Stationery Movies Quiz. Its a heck of a lot harder than I thought it would be. Good luck. Enjoy. Also, over at Bob and David dot com we find this piece of artistic brilliance, One Full Year Of Kick Ass Movie Pitches. Which one do You want to see in the new year?

Something else to do when you're going through Jennifer Garner withdrawalwl... Play songs on your touchtone phone. Click HERE now. Just do it. Don't be afraid. Its kinda cool, in a wow, how long did that take to figure out and how come you did it, kinda way.

More fun than looking at pictures of Next Door Nikki (not really, but my wife might read this...) is looking at pictures of cemenaccidentallyly spilt in an office. Oooo, ahhhh.

Go here to see more.

Definitely check out The Flat Earth Society's Forums for reasoned and rational discussion. Ahhhh, the Flat Earth Society, what would we be without you...

What else to do when you are being denied the comforting warmth of toothpaste and beer commercials? You could write companies with trulbizarrere questions and see if they answer. Guy Petzall did. And he got answers. So there.

And finally, when you have checked out pretty well every single picture of pretty girls kissing other pretty girls on the Internets' Tubes of Information Highway, you could always send a monkey e-mail. You could. Really. Go here to send someone you love a monkey e-mail. Say monkey, its fun. Say it. I said say it. Jeez.

Yet Even More Strange Rumblings From Orange County

2006-11-09T17:20:00.000-05:00

Okay. You're probably sick to death of my Social Distortion obsession... I can understand. Doesn't mean I'm going to stop.

Found on YouTube... Enjoy until it gets yanked.

Strange Rumblings From Orange County, Pt 2

2006-10-17T14:08:00.000-04:00

And so I sit, not in my gitch this time, but sitting. And I read over my little review-thing of Mommy's Little Monster, the first LP from Social D. And I think to myself, what is a good way to lure more folks to the light and the truth? Is there some easy way of summing up a large chunk of their career without looking at every album? Is there, somewhere in the world, a sampler, a hits package, something that covers their music from the beginning to some more recent moment, and it has to have the late Dennis Darnell on it...
Oh, yeah. Live At The Roxy.

First, some label history... Social D had put out two very stong albums on an indie label and then three very strong albums for a major label. Whatever happened with the major label, Social D wiggled their way out of the contract and signed with Time Bomb. Back to the indies, back to the basics, I guess. Their first outing with Time Bomb was Live At The Roxy, released in 1998.

Now, some line up history... I won't bore you with the revolving door of players, suffice to say there have been quite a few members of Social Distortion since 1978 (for the entire list click here). On this tour in '98, the band consisted of Mike Ness (duh) and Dennis Darnell on guitar and John Mauer on bass and Chuck Biscuits on drums. For anyone who doesn't know, Mr. Biscuits resume includes pounding the beat for D.O.A., Black Flag, Danzig, Circle Jerks, Run-DMC and The Four Horseman... Yeah, the man seems to have history. Since leaving Social Distortion, he seems to have retired.

Anyway... Social Distortion live. As good as the studio albums are, nothing, no-one, nowhere, can touch this band live. No matter the line up, no matter how old or how young or how sober or how messed up, this band plays with more passion and drive and emotion and tightness and soul than any other band ever, ever, ever. I saw Springsteen live in '84 and until I saw Social Distortion, I thought I knew how a live show was supposed to feel and sound.
Ness is a bottle of nitro just this side of going off and taking everyone with him. He's a demanding front man who's been pulling the band on his almost-out-of-control frenzied roller-coaster ride night after night after night for twenty-eight years now. No wonder his celeb fans include Pearl Jam and The Foo Fighters and Springsteen and Sum 41 and Rancid and Dropkick Murphys. And Vince Vaughn and Angelina Jolie and Kevin Bacon.

And so on.

Back to the album.

The set list. No-one can argue with song choices on this album. Every song is tight and strong and mighty and a triumph. The only problem? No Sick Boy. Not that most would have noticed. In the liner notes, Mike Ness apologizes for forgetting to include Sick Boy. He's a funny guy that Mr. Ness. Yes he is.

Anyway. The songs. They cover the entire spectrum of Social Distortion's catalogue up until that point. The early punk, the pure three-chord rock and roll, the roots, they're all there. Even a couple of covers, Under My Thumb and the second-best version of Ring Of Fire ever. Every song is a classic, every song is played like its the last time the band will ever get a chance to play them. The pacing, the choices, they are all spot-on. Before I heard this album, I used to argue that the best night ever captured on tape and released for the masses was James Brown Live At The Apollo, Volume 1. Now that takes a back seat. It was a hell of moment to be caught for eternity. And to think, they are this good every night they play. Bouncing Buddah in a waterpark.

The crowd. Non-stop excitement from beginning to end. A bit of a sing along on Ball & Chain, but it doesn't come off as cheesy. They cheer, they sing, they have a ball. Except one guy, who gets called out by Mike Ness from the stage ("You got nine more of those fingers? Take all ten of them and stick them up your ass.") (Don't piss of Mike Ness if you ever get to see them live. He's been known to drop his guitar and dive into the crowd and having security pull him off of some sorry son of a bitch.)

Live At The Roxy works both as an obsessed fan work and as an introduction to the world of Social Distortion. It Rocks, it Rolls, it'll kick you in the ass.

I give it ten Eddie Spaghettis out of ten.

America Uber Alles

2006-09-29T18:09:00.000-04:00

Good afternoon, America, how are you?

There's this little thing in Law called "habeas corpus". Here, for you, is its definition...
1. One of a variety of writs that may be issued to bring a party before a court or judge, having as its function the release of the party from unlawful restraint.
2. The right of a citizen to obtain such a writ.

[Middle English, from Medieval Latin habe?s corpus, produce the body (from the opening words of the writ) : Latin habe?s, second person sing. present subjunctive of hab?re, to have + Latin corpus, body.]

Now, I know what you're thinking, yeah, and so what...

"Technically, it is used in the criminal law context to bring the petitioner before the court to inquire into the legality of his confinement. The writ of federal habeas corpus is used to test the constitutionality of a state criminal conviction."

Basically, my neighbor, it comes down to judging the legality of your arrest, your confinement, your detention by the state. Got it? Good.

'cause you just lost it. Congratulations. Welcome to the wonderful world of Fascism. You have done Thomas Jefferson proud, I'm sure. Your Constitution. The Bill of Rights. Yeah, they are pretty much toilet paper now. Freedom, my friend is not just the ability to decide between Ugly Betty and Survivor on a Thursday evening. It's living in the knowledge that your door can't be kicked in and you can't be dragged out by the police and you can't rot in a cell without charge, without trial, without facing your accuser, and without being allowed to ask why.

From Bruce Ackerman, a professor of law and political science at Yale:

"Buried in the complex Senate compromise on detainee treatment is a real shocker, reaching far beyond the legal struggles about foreign terrorist suspects in the Guantanamo Bay fortress. The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House, authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights."

He goes on, "... if the federal courts support the president's initial detention decision, ordinary Americans would be required to defend themselves before a military tribunal without the constitutional guarantees provided in criminal trials."

The American government, the folks you voted for, have passed a bill that allows the President to declare whomever he chooses to be an "enemy combatant". And if you are tagged an enemy of the President, you have no rights. No phone call. Do not pass Go. No criminal trial. Only a Military Tribunal for you, my friend. They are legalizing the very thing that your founding fathers fought against.

From the New York Times:

"Then Vice President Dick Cheney and his willing lawmakers rewrote the rest of the measure so that it would give Mr. Bush the power to jail pretty much anyone he wants for as long as he wants without charging them, to unilaterally reinterpret the Geneva Conventions, to authorize what normal people consider torture, and to deny justice to hundreds of men captured in error."

"Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence."

"The definition of torture is unacceptably narrow, a virtual reprise of the deeply cynical memos the administration produced after 9/11. Rape and sexual assault are defined in a retrograde way that covers only forced or coerced activity, and not other forms of nonconsensual sex. The bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture."

Huey Long once said "When fascism comes to this country its going to be wrapped in the American flag."

America, you sexy thing you, don't put up with this. Please fight back. Remember who allowed this to happen and make them answer for it. Don't allow the suits to fill you with paranoia. Look behind the curtain, check out who is pulling the wizards strings. Dissent is not wrong, in fact its a must.

Now, for every one else, my fave-o-rite moments from Bill Clinton vs Fox...

WALLACE: When we announced that you were going to be on Fox News Sunday, I got a lot of e-mail from viewers. And I’ve got to say, I was surprised. Most of them wanted me to ask you this question: Why didn’t you do more to put bin Laden and Al Qaida out of business when you were president?
There’s a new book out, I suspect you’ve already read, called The Looming Tower. And it talks about how the fact that when you pulled troops out of Somalia in 1993, bin Laden said, I have seen the frailty and the weakness and the cowardice of U.S. troops. Then there was the bombing of the embassies in Africa and the attack on the Cole.

CLINTON: OK, let’s just go through that.

WALLACE: Let me — let me — may I just finish the question, sir? And after the attack, the book says that bin Laden separated his leaders, spread them around, because he expected an attack, and there was no response. I understand that hindsight is always 20/20…

CLINTON: No, let’s talk about it.

WALLACE: … but the question is, why didn’t you do more, connect the dots and put them out of business?

CLINTON: OK, let’s talk about it. Now, I will answer all those things on the merits, but first I want to talk about the context in which this arises.
I’m being asked this on the Fox network. ABC just had a right-wing conservative run in their little Pathway to 9/11, falsely claiming it was based on the 9/11 Commission report, with three things asserted against me directly contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report.
And I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans, who now say I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was too obsessed with bin Laden. All of President Bush’s neo-cons thought I was too obsessed with bin Laden. They had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months after I left office. All the right-wingers who now say I didn’t do enough said I did too much — same people.
They were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 the next day after we were involved in Black Hawk down, and I refused to do it and stayed six months and had an orderly transfer to the United Nations.
OK, now let’s look at all the criticisms: Black Hawk down, Somalia. There is not a living soul in the world who thought that Osama bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk down or was paying any attention to it or even knew Al Qaida was a growing concern in October of ‘93.

WALLACE: I understand, and I…

CLINTON: No, wait. No, wait. Don’t tell me this — you asked me why didn’t I do more to bin Laden. There was not a living soul. All the people who now criticize me wanted to leave the next day. You brought this up, so you’ll get an answer, but you can’t…

WALLACE: I’m perfectly happy to.

CLINTON: All right, secondly…

WALLACE: Bin Laden says…

CLINTON: Bin Laden may have said…

WALLACE: … bin Laden says that it showed the weakness of the United States.

CLINTON: But it would’ve shown the weakness if we’d left right away, but he wasn’t involved in that. That’s just a bunch of bull. That was about Mohammed Adid, a Muslim warlord, murdering 22 Pakistani Muslim troops. We were all there on a humanitarian mission. We had no mission, none, to establish a certain kind of Somali government or to keep anybody out. He was not a religious fanatic…

WALLACE: But, Mr. President…

CLINTON: … there was no Al Qaida…

WALLACE: … with respect, if I may, instead of going through ‘93 and…

CLINTON: No, no. You asked it. You brought it up. You brought it up.

...but, wait. There's more...

WALLACE: I want to ask a question. You don’t think that’s a legitimate question?

CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question, but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked, Why didn’t you do anything about the Cole?
I want to know how many you asked, Why did you fire Dick Clarke? I want to know how many people you asked…

WALLACE: We asked — we asked…

CLINTON: I don’t…

WALLACE: Do you ever watch Fox News Sunday, sir?

CLINTON: I don’t believe you asked them that.

WALLACE: We ask plenty of questions of…

CLINTON: You didn’t ask that, did you? Tell the truth, Chris.

WALLACE: About the USS Cole?

CLINTON: Tell the truth, Chris.

WALLACE: With Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s plenty of stuff to ask.

CLINTON: Did you ever ask that? You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch’s supporting my work on climate change.
And you came here under false pretenses and said that you’d spend half the time talking about — you said you’d spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7-billion-plus in three days from 215 different commitments. And you don’t care.

WALLACE: But, President Clinton, if you look at the questions here, you’ll see half the questions are about that. I didn’t think this was going to set you off on such a tear.

CLINTON: You launched it — it set me off on a tear because you didn’t formulate it in an honest way and because you people ask me questions you don’t ask the other side.

Go get 'em, Bill...

And a bit of coolness I found while staggering around the Information Superhighway with a cup of high-octane in my grip...

Cick here, dammit.

Ciao.

Slackhopper And Her Media Empire

2006-09-08T17:19:00.000-04:00

She's back.

Go, now.

Thank you.

Later.

Sometimes Things Can't Wait...

2006-09-07T19:14:00.000-04:00

I was going to hang onto this until Monday, Sept. 11th... But I can't wait. Must share.

America, my friend, why are you letting this happen?

Click here now.

Goodbye.

Back Home

2006-09-03T15:50:00.000-04:00

And then I went down East for a bit. My Grandma passed away. She was 89. She was much admired and loved and respected. She will be missed.
And there you are.

My family is from down East. The Brockville area.

A happening and growing and thriving little burg on the shores of the St. Lawrence River. Near the Thousand Islands.

A small city where, it seems, I just might be related to everyone who has ever lived in or near the area.

Yipes.

This is the Masonic Lodge in Lyn. Its just outside of Brockville. Its so small, its not on Mapquest. Plenty of my more direct relatives have lived or still live in Lyn. It is on Google Maps. Just not on Mapquest.

These folks are not my family, though they are Slacks. It just turns out that Google Images cannot find any images of people I am related to. So just pretend that these are Slacks I am descended from. Its more fun this way, really.

And so I have given this link out to my cousins. I haven't seen any of them in a long, long, long time. So I will now attempt to give them a quick update of my life and what is happening. For everyone who already knows all this, here is a link to some Amazon reviews by someone who has never read any of the books he reviews. Did you follow that? Good. Now get.

Where was I...? Oh, yeah.

This is my wife. She's a hottie. And the smart one in this partnership.

This is our dog Channing. She hates getting her picture taken.

This is our other dog, Milhouse. He's five 150-pound dogs trapped in the body of one wee Jack Russell.

We own a house. We both work for the devil, just in different forms. She takes photographs, helps organize Buskerfest and watches me play video games. Me, I play video games.

And so, there we are. All caught up.

And I'm back home from going back home.

Strange Rumblings From Orange County

2006-08-25T16:50:00.000-04:00

And so I've been sitting here in my gitch for hours and hours trying to think of something, anything to post on this blog-thing just in case anyone anywhere still drops by to check it out. According to the stats-thing at the bottom of the page, folks are. The stats-thing could just be trying to be polite. I don't know. Also, how the hell does a Google search for tranny nurses bring anyone here?

And so I've been thinking for months and months I'd like to try to review an album. Secret admission time... I've always admired folks who get to review things. Cool gig. And some get paid for it. Very cool gig. And sometimes they provoke other folks to wish them harm and to say rude things about them and their families and their friends and their dogs (see posting about Mel Gibson) and stuff. And things. Very, very cool gig.

And so I decided I would try my hand at reviewing an album. For the youngsters, an album is what we old fucks who should be sent out on an ice flow call a Compact Disc. Once upon a time, music came on large, thin platters of black plastic. The large, thin platters were two sided and came in large, thin pieces of cardboard that was covered with art or pictures and would have all the information printed large enough for anyone to read without a magnifying glass. The unfortunate thing about these large, thin platters of plastic was they were inclined to melt, warp and scratch. So they kind of sucked. Thank you, oh inventor of Compact Discs. Thank you. No more milk crates crowding the corners of our living rooms, just tall towers of industrial steel.

And so as not pull any muscles or anything, I thought, hey, I should try reviewing an album by my fave-o-rite band in the whole world.

And so this brings us to Social Distortion. From the official website:

"The first raw, sloppy, speeding guitar chords announcing an Orange County punk scene blared from Huntington Beach and Fullerton California in 1978. They echoed the sound forged in 1976-77 in the seminal punk undergrounds of New York City, London and Los Angeles.  In the early days, O.C. punk’s unyielding musical force slammed up against an immovable cultural object: the Orange County dream of quiet, well-oriented, economically impregnable suburban living.  Treating rowdy, often outrageous fans as a gang element, local authorities shut down a series of clubs that championed the music. But O.C. punk proved too hardy to erase.  In 1979, Mike Ness forms Social Distortion with drummer Casey Royer and brothers Rikk and Frank Agnew.   "Basically, they’re into violence," a Huntington Beach police sergeant told the LA Times in 1979. "They have a hatred virtually for everybody. There’s no motive, no rationale. They just do whatever they feel like at the time." The officer went on to plea: "We can’t do anything with out the public’s help. It’s the only way we’re going to stop it." Misjudging punk as a gang movement, police in Huntington Beach and Newport Beach detained kids on the streets snapping their mug shots for police files."

Anyway.

Short pause for a personal history... In 1976 or maybe 1977, I was watching the CBC news in my parent's living room. There was a report on a disturbing trend erupting in England called Punk Rock. My musical tastes at the time (I was ten in 1976, so fuck off) leaned towards Motown, Kiss, Nazareth. And the Jackson Five. And ELO. And whatever else was on the radio. And I had just heard Bruce Springsteen for the first time. So, for a ten or eleven year old in the Seventies, I was pretty normal. It was the Seventies, folks. Before music video channels, radio used to be pretty cool. (I'm very proud to admit, I owned no Eagles. Hate them. Probably always have. As the Dude once said, "God, I hate the fucking Eagles.") (Note - watch The Big Lebowski again.)

Anyway. So this Punk Rock-thing in England report on the CBC got me curious. And at summer camp that year, a lot of camp folks were listening and sharing tapes of this music. And so I discovered that Punk Rock was not just funny looking British people with anger issues. It was music, too. Music that wasn't four hour guitar solos. And wasn't always pretty. But it was three minutes of coolness. Three chords and the truth, as Bono Vox would one day say.

Fast forward to 1983. I was getting my hair spiked for the first time. I was buying my first pair of tapered jeans. I bought a trench coat at the Sally Am. I was listening to the Pistols and the Clash and the Ramones. The group of folks I was hanging with were turning me onto new sounds, new fashions, new art. Some would go to Toronto or out west and come back with news of changing trends, like Hardcore. By the mid-eighties, with no internet, no video channels, no cell-phones, the underground music scene was spreading into the hinterland with a vengence. (Side note - Metallica's first recordings made it to the Soo via cassette tapes passed around and copied and passed around some more. First time I heard one of these Garage Tapes was on Queen Street in front of the Sub Shop on a Sony Walkman. If it wasn't for bootlegging turning folks onto this new sound from California, their fan base would still be some drunks hanging out at the bar in San Francisco. So fuck you, Metallica, fuck you. Fuck you very much.)

Fast forward to 1999. I'm sitting in my cab on a Saturday afternoon, outside of a peeler bar, waiting for someone to fall out, listening to Lake State's college station on the radio. The DJ says, "And here's one from Mike Ness' solo album..." Two bars in, the sun is shining a little brighter. The cab smells a little bit better. What is this? Where do I find it? Mike Ness? Who the hell is he and where does he come from?

The next week I go down to the Corporate Music Store and buy a copy of Cheating At Solitare, the album by this Mike Ness fellow. The cashier jockey says to me as he's bagging it up, "Its a lot different than his stuff with Social Distortion..." I smile, nod and say, " Hey, I'm sure it is..." What the hell is Social Distortion?

And so here we are. Seven years later and I still cannot get enough. And let us now talk of Social D's (that's what us hipsters call Social Distortion, cool, huh...) first album (LP if your as old as I am, CD if your not) Mommy's Little Monster.

Violent and angry and rabid and loud and buzzsaw guitars. The album still works as a Punk Rock boot to the face. Its full of bravado and bragging...
"Run and Hide when I'm on the streets./Your fears & your tears/I'll taunt you in your sleep"

Sensitive guy posing...
"These scars in my flesh,/I'm bruised & I'm bloodied/Only she knows the pain that I've been thru."

Tough guy denial...
"No one said life would be easy,/Doesn't mean that much to me..."

There is stuff on Mommy's Little Monster, though, that would become the first stone in the path for Social D. Mike Ness, even this young, is stretching the Permissable Punk Rock lyrical subject farther than most would try for a very, very long time. While its not the best songwriting in the Punk Rock canon, the bravery cannot be denied. Mommy's Little Monster has these moments throughout it where Ness kicks away at the bravado and bragging...

"Well I love the sound when I smash the glass/If I get caught they're gonna kick my ass." Music history is full of moments of violence and destruction. Not often, especially in Punk or Rap, are you going to find the offender running away. Or this moment from the same song, Telling Them: "They say it costs $6 to get in this shack/I'll go around and sneak in the back/I hope the police won't show up here/Then we'll have to hide out of fear..."

Ness would face his own demons through songwriting for years, but here he is, at twenty-one just starting to grapple with a troublesome Heroin addiction:"An hour of darkness & an hour of love/This hour of confusion as i look above/Death & life as I've never seen before/...One more trip like that & I'm in the morgue."

Don't get me wrong, though, this is not a depressing record. Oh, no. Its fun and fluffy and... okay, not fluffy. But it is fun. Really. From the title song: "Her eyes are a deeper blue, she likes her hair that color, too." "He loves to go out & make some noise/He doesn't wanna be a doctor or a lawyer get fat & rich/He's 20 years old & he's quit his job/Unemployment pays his rent." See. Fun, fun, fun.

Lottsa fun.

Sure there's some young, junkie, high-school dropout songwriting. But there's a reason this is a Punk Rock Classic Album. Its raw and pure and nasty and violent and fun and primitive and Important. Don't let that word scare you. But it is. Really.

Some bands catalogues are a mix of trial and error, good and bad, really amazing ideas and what-the-fuck-were-you-thinking moments. Maybe the reason I really, really, really dig this band is 'cause there ain't a whole lot of bad. Every album works as a whole, each is an expression of the band and its leader when they were working on each one. From Punk to Country and Rockabilly to Pure Hard Rock and Roll, each record is a single contextual work, with a common theme (young punk in the city or junkie trying to make good or facing forty with some diginity) that moves the record. And Mommy's Little Monster was the first to use that formula, the first to step outside of the American Punk Rock rules and standards and definitions of what makes a good Punk Rock record.

Don't just listen to me, though. Give this bad boy a spin.

I give it eight Joey Ramones out of ten.

And so. Here are a couple of moments I stole, I mean borrowed, from YouTube...

First, Mommy's Little Monster... Check out the security guy.

And one of the bands finer moments... I Was Wrong.

Enjoy.

Welcome to Blogelation And Busking

2006-08-11T00:02:00.000-04:00

So, last night, my oh-so-lovely wife lets slip that my oh-so-good-friend Craig West has volunteered me to contribute to Blogelation.

What is Blogelation, you ask? Click on the damn link, you lazy bastard. Sorry. Its a collection of local blogging folks writing about an event. The first event was The Rotary Second Stage. Missed it? Sucks to be you, my friend. Be there next year. And quit complaining.

So. This time the event is Buskerfest.

What is Buskerfest, you ask? Goddamn, you are truly the world's laziest bastard, aren't you? Sorry. Buskerfest is this wonderful festival that is held in beaut-i-ful downtown Sault Ste. Marie every August for three days. Its Buskers. Its fun. Its educational. There be fire. And juggling. And stuff. And things. And its turned my marriage into a couple of ships passing by each other occasionally, sometimes at night, sometimes not.

And what are Buskers, you ask? Good question. Basically, from what I can figure, they are guys and gals who entertain by any means necessary in any situation possible for as much pocket change as they can get from the public. Seriously professional guys and gals who don't charge cover, but will ask for the cash in your pocket at the end of the show. This is how they make their living. Personally, I think its a pretty cool way of making a living. You get to laugh and to be amazed and to be awed and to be shocked and all it costs you is what you think it was worth.

Now. What are you doing still reading this? If its Friday or Saturday or Sunday, get your comfortable shoes on, get some bills and change together and get your freak on in beaut-i-ful downtown Sault Ste. Marie. If you can find the Museum or Top Hat or Loplops, you can find Buskerfest. Get off your ass and go. Now. Do it. Jesus.

And go to Blogelation and see what real writers and such have to say.

See you in beaut-i-ful downtown Sault Ste. Marie.

Strange Rumblings From Mel's Mouth

2006-08-03T16:29:00.000-04:00

Ahhh, Mel, now you really have gone and done it, haven't you...

I've always thought you were a little nuts, a wee conservative, a raging homophobe and a bit of a pooh-head, but Jumpin Jesus on a trampoline, Mel, you have really done it now.
Don't worry about your career, though. Polanski drugged and raped a thirteen-year old and still makes films and wins awards. Heck, he won an Oscar. He lives in France, now.

But let's take a look at the long road to now, Mel, with some of my fave-o-rite Mad Mel moments...

Let's start here, with your lovely wife... Febuary 10th, 2004 it was reported you said, “Put it this way. My wife is a saint. She’s a much better person than I am. Honestly. She’s, like, Episcopalian, Church of England. She prays, she believes in God, she knows Jesus, she believes in that stuff. And it’s just not fair if she doesn’t make it, she’s better than I am. But that is a pronouncement from the chair. I go with it.” Buddy, is your wife really going to hell for not believing in the same things as you do? Maybe its a joke, an inside joke between you and your kin. I don't know. Could be, I guess. Not a very funny joke, but, hey, maybe that's a thing with you crazy kids.

Okay, where to now...? How about critics... In your Playboy interview you said of an author of an unauthorized biography, "I don't think God will put him in my path. He deserves death." Or this one... After Frank Rich of The New York Times wrote of his concern that the Passion of the Christ could inflame antisemitism, you told The New Yorker, "I want to kill him. I want his intestines on a stick. I want to kill his dog." Fun stuff. Fun stuff, indeed. Wow. His dog?
Its interesting how, you make a movie about a guy who got nailed to a cross for saying things about forgivness and compassion and then you say you want to kill some other guy and his dog... Interesting, indeed.

Oh, where oh where on the Mel path shall we stop next? Hey, homophobia. One time, for the Spanish magazine El Pais you were asked what you thought of gay people and you replied, and I quote, "They take it up the ass... This is only for taking a shit." Someone's never gone ass to mouth. When the dude interviewing you brought up that you had previously had espressed fear that people would think you were gay because you're an actor, you replied, "Do I sound like a homosexual? Do I talk like them? Do I move like them? I think not." Hmmm...

Yipes.

Hey, buddy, we're at the Now point on the road. Oh, boy. Where, oh where did you get these anti-Semetic ideas from, Mel? Let us now look at the other loonie in your family. Sorry to get personal here, but, dude your dad is kinda hateful and a whole lot of crazy.

Your poppa claims that he won between $20,000 and $25,000 on Jeopardy during the Art Fleming version of the show and used that winfall to move you and your family to Australia. Now, I don't want to nit pick, but the highest winner on the Art Fleming version of Jeopardy was Burns Cameron and he won $11,110 in 1964. Was your dada on Jeopardy? We'll never really know, due their being no surviving footage from that era. Too bad. But that's neither here nor there, is it...

So Mr. Hutton Gibson thinks the Holocust is "...maybe not all fiction — but most of it is..." And he believes that the Second Vatican Council was the result of a secret anti-Catholic plot orchestrated by both Masons and Jews. And that the Jews want to take over the world and establish a one-world government and a one-world religion.

And you defend your pop. Of course you do, he's blood. He may be crazy and hateful but, he's blood, he's family, and the man that doesn't defend his family is a weak man. So, how did you defend him? Did you say, hey - look over there, its the First Freakin Amendment, free speech, bitches. Or did you say, a person can believe in anything they want, we live in a free country? Oh. You didn't? I mean, those aren't the best arguments for Hutton's kind of crazy and his hate is pretty well inexcuseable, so, Mel, what did you say in defense of your daddy? "The man never lied to me in his life..." Leapin Lizards, man. Wow. You believe this shite? Bouncin Buddah in a waterpark.

So, Mel, here we are. You go out for a shinding, a real roll off the old sober wagon, a tequila meet and greet.

The hazy memories of a Toronto night in 1984 haunting you.

Thinking to yourself, everyone loves me, why don't I like me? Maybe a ride on the Pacific Coast Highway will clear the head. Little chance of rear-ending a Canadian there.

Oops.
In your rearview mirror, Mel, what did you see? Me, I probably would have seen a big, fat, giant mistake that I am personally responsible for. Thank Jehova the police have stopped you before you could rear-end someone and ruin their day, eh, my friend.

Why the Jews, Mel? They haven't faced enough hatred and persecution in the last couple of thousand years? I mean, really, you could direct your hate to someone who really deserves it, like those perfume spraying freaks in department stores. Or those idiots that package batteries, do they have to be impossible to get into.

Or yourself.

But you have your defenders, buddy. From the Kavkaz Center: "Mel Gibson is telling the truth when he said to a Los Angeles County Sheriff July 29, 2006 that "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world" during the early morning hours of July 28 near his home in Malibu, California. God bless Mel Gibson for his courage!" And there's more..."Mr. Gibson, producer and director of the highly successful film "The Passion of the Christ", has again provided a great service to the world by utilizing his celebrity status in stating a truth that most ordinary gentiles are afraid to say. Mel Gibson is now being crucified, as was done during the production of his film on Jesus Christ, for saying a very inconvenient truth about world Jewry..."

You can read it here, Mel.

With friends like these... You know the rest, I'm sure.

And on top of everything, you made Deuce Bigelow cry. Nice going, big guy.

Take care, Mel. Get some help. Get healthy. And maybe, just maybe, lay off the nailing to the cross part of the Jesus story and work on the other bits. Those are the ones about compassion. And loving your neighbor. And the other wimpy bits. I'm just saying, that's all...

P.S.

Here be some great quotes by some athiests.

'nuff said.

The Saga Of The Turkish Star Trek

2006-07-17T02:25:00.000-04:00

And so Patti the other night, staggering around and throwing punches at old men trying to steal the tossed cigarette butts on Queen Street, mentions Turkish Star Trek and how much she would be willing to pay for it and how much love and cash she would throw my way if I was able to track down any more information about the movie and, most importantly, how she could find a copy of it.

Never underestimate the power of the Internets-Web-Thing and a middle-aged geek sitting around in his gitch.

Oh, baby. Turist Omer Uzay Yolunda is almost in your bloodless little fingers. Heh, heh, heh.

And what have I found? Go here or here...

Soon, you and your girlfriend can cozy up with some adult beverages and marvel at the complexity and wonder that is Turist Omer Uzay Yolunda.

Ta.

The Colonel Redux

2006-07-06T15:38:00.000-04:00

So.

I was going to go on and on and on and on and on about Ms Ann Coulter and her new book and her comments about some 9/11 widows and plagiarism and her latest cooky antics, but I found this instead. So have fun.

So.

And then, I thought, those goofy cats in North Korea are sure being goofy lately. Look to the left for fun and excitement in North Korea. Kim Jong Il, my fave-o-rite tinpot dictator, sure loves to stir the pot, doesn't he. Timing is Everything for Kim. RIMPAC is going on. Iran and Iraq and Ms Ann Coulter are stealing all the headlines. So how does an ego as large as Kim's grab the home page at CNN.com...? Why not a July 4th blowout sale and demo for his customers? Yay, Kim. Thanks for the sleepless nights and sweaty flashbacks of '80's nuke paranoia, buddy.

And then I found something that really got my dandruff in a huff. Jumping Jesus on a trampoline, man. The Colonel has been re-done. Updated. Re-imagined. Molested. Its the freakin Colonel. And the brain-trust at KFC has re-made him. Again. Ah, the humanity.

This is the Colonel as I like to remember him... On the bucket...

Struttin' with the ladies...

And there have been changes over the years. Oh, yes, there have been changes.

They bugged me a little, but not much. The Colonel was still the Colonel. A cool old guy in a cool suit with cool glasses.

But... Look at this thing. Look at it. Shit. Now he's some kinda hipster with a Van Dyke beard, like all the other hipsters with Van Dyke beards. After a hard day of choking chickens and brewing up the seven herbs and spices, the old Colonel would go struttin' with the ladies (see above...). This new Colonel, he looks like he's going to head over to a Starbucks, get a decaf double latte short and listen to Anderson Coopers I-tune picks on his U2 Ipod while driving his economical and environmentally friendly SUV. No struttin' with the ladies for this Colonel. No way. He's much to busy and hip for that. He's got emotions to emote. Shit.

What's next? A Ronald McDonald that doesn't make Trace Hilderley scream like a banshee and run hiding?

Where's the fun going? Where?

And now a France/Italy World Cup final? Where's the Germany/Portugal final I was counting on to make Roy and Melanie very uncomfortable?

As a very wise and humble man once said, 'nuff said.

That Bowling Ball... Pt II

2006-06-30T21:37:00.000-04:00

What are you doing here?

Go to Soo Today and read my wife's stuff.

Geez.

Leonard Nimoy Sings The Hobbit Song

2006-06-29T00:09:00.000-04:00

No. Really.

Click here, if you dare...

Jumping Jesus On A Trampoline

2006-06-27T00:53:00.000-04:00

A video from YouTube... A brief clip secretly shot of the Scientology Orientation film.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

For more fun with Scientology, check out the Home Page.

And, then, go to Operation Clambake, a truly vicious attack on those lovely Scientologists and their equally lovely lawyers...

And here's a link to truly mean-spirited and misunderstood... oh, to hell with it. This shit is funny.

That Bowling Ball... Its My Wife!!!

2006-06-23T16:31:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the J. Giels Band quote.

Okay. The lovely girl who lets me sleep each night next to her and hasn't yet pushed me down the basement stairs to collect the Life Insurance Windfall, is the newest addition to the Soo Today Empire. Friend to the stars David Helwig (so tempting to make Angry Inch jokes... must resist temptation... resist...) had this to say. And you can read or gaze at or gander or fawn over what The Wife had to write here.

Go read now.

Ciao, ciao.

Smackbook Pro...

2006-06-12T23:54:00.000-04:00

Was over at the mighty Museum of Hoaxes, when I came across this...

Are you done reading, yet? No. I'll give you another moment...

Here's the link to the YouTube video...

Cool, huh? Yep.

So old, cynical me assumed, this has Got to be a hoax, a put-on, some kind of joke. Nope.

Check this and this and this and when you're done with that... Check this and this...

Goddamn, I love Apple.

Watching Other People Get Revenge Is Sooo Sweet

2006-06-04T23:38:00.000-04:00

This is Amir. Say hello, Amir. Amir sold someone a laptop on Ebay. Bet you wish you hadn't sold that laptop now, eh, Amir.

Read the whole story here and here.

Amir, Amir, Amir. You should have erased that hard drive.

I Surf So You Don't Have To

2006-05-25T17:28:00.001-04:00

Okay, that's my excuse for sitting here all the live long day in my gitch and a dirty t-shirt. But it was worth it. And it will be for anyone who staggers across this sad little corner of the Blog-o-sphere...

First up is a review of Turkish Star Trek by a guy who does not speak Turkish or knows anyone who has ever heard Turkish... Click your mouse here now.

There is also a review of Turkish Star Wars... Really.

Cows... Dinner and entertainment. Who would've thunk? Moo Tube.
Enjoy.

Do you ever get those annoying emails that are nothing but a lame joke or the chain e-mails (send to 25 of your closest friends and fortune will come your way soon!) or religious pamphlets or links to lame blogs? Me neither. But if you know someone who does... Thanksno.com. A polite message that will pass along the point, I'm sure.

AreaFace.com is a work in progress. They are attempting to collect a face from every country. Send them yours. Go here.

Some poor bastard visited Fantasy Land in Alexandria, Egypt so you don't have to. Thank him. And check out his pics here.

In a different vein... From LennonMurderTruth.com, by Steve Lightfoot...

"Contrary to all reports about a lone drifter named Mark David Chapman who allegedly shot John Lennon in the back December 8, 1980 you'll find ample evidence in the back issues of Time, Newsweek, and US News and World Report magazines to suggest otherwise. Namely, that John Lennon was, not only politically assassinated, but that Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and, you'd better sit down, horror novelist Stephen King are the three people who can be proven guilty of the crime. King being the real murderer and Chapman but a look-alike, paid actor misleading you with an absolute hoax, the media in tow."

Oh, boy. Oh, boy, indeed.

And now to something completely different... Ever find yourself sitting around in your gitch and a dirty t-shirt and say to yourself, "Self, I need a foam food costume to promote my restaurant/bar/crayfish cookout and I need it pretty damn quick." Worry no more, Marylen Costumes is here to help.

Just make your way over to Marylen's web site for all your foam food costume needs... Be warned, though, "Lycra bodysuits not included with any of the costumes"...

And one more for good luck...

'nuff said, for now...

Ciao, ciao Mickey Mouse...

You Try Being Witty And Creative With A Jack Russell On Your Lap

2006-05-11T17:38:00.000-04:00

Staggering around on Fark, I came across this link... I'll wait until you're done reading.

Done? Good. There'll be a quiz later.

Anyway.

Like the semi-literate hairless chimp that I am, curiosity got to me after reading that article and I decided to check this thingy out. I mean, come on, Kubrick and the dead and Jupiter and 2001 and some dude named Toynbee and signs left in the ashphalt in the American northeast and South America and aliens and guerilla art... How could I not?

What did I find? Glad you asked...

Arnold J. Toynbee "was a British historian whose twelve-volume analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations, A Study of History, 1934-1961, was a synthesis of global history, a metahistory based on universal rhythms of rise, flowering and decline..." according to Wikipedia. Read more about Mr. Toynbee here.

He was also a character in a Ray Bradbury short story, The Toynbee Convector. According to Wikipedia, again, "It has been speculated that this short story may have helped inspire the anonymous creator of the Toynbee tiles found in the streets of several major cities." Yay, Wikipedia. Is it accurate? Is it the blatherings of a bunch of dudes living in their parents basements? Who cares, its free. Once more, yay, Wikipedia.

Sorry.

Stanley Kubrick was, simply, the greatest film-maker ever, bitches. Wanna argue? Bring it on.

Again, I'm sorry. But, come on, Paths Of Glory and Spartacus and Lolita and Strangelove and 2001 and Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon and The Shining and Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut and I forgot one, didn't I... The Killing.

And what links between Kubrick and Toynbee did I discover? None, zip, zero. Except the Tiles. In the movie 2001 the dead are not ressurected on Jupiter. So what is going on here, I thought to myself.

I found Toynbee.net, an amazing resource and catalogue of all the tiles found so far.

I found Resurrctdead.com, another amazing resource by a dude who made a doc about the things.

So, really, what does it all mean? I don't have the foggiest of ideas. What do I suspect? That this one of those amazing moments in guerilla street art. Where someone comes up with an idea, plants a few pieces and then others see them and figure out how it was done and continue the mission.

Like Crop Circles and the Obey poster movement and all other forms of culture jamming.

I think I'll leave this with a quote from Justin Duerr, the dude behind resurrectdead.com... “I don't believe there's a lone gunman,'' Duerr said. “I like to look at it as art that exists for a reason other than being in an art gallery.''

And, once again, yay, Wikipedia...

Oh, Boy...

2006-05-05T20:07:00.000-04:00

I have officially joined the masses, that starved for attention mob - the MySpace Extended Network. Home of the really hot 106 year old lesbians, questionable "official" pages of celebraties of all shapes, sizes and occupations. At least the porn stars post a picture or a video to prove it is really them, for the most part.

But some folks... Well... For an example, I found a page for Charles Bukowski. On his page Charles Bukowski says he is 86 years old and a swinging single guy. Pretty good for a guy who passed on at 68 in the early 1994.

So here is the link to my space on MySpace.

And if you want to know more about Mr. Bukowski, here are some handy resources...

Wikipedia and The Buk, a good introduction to the man.

And here is some picture goodness of the man...

Charles and pussy.

Charles and drink.

Charles and Linda at home.

And Charles and his great reward.

'nuff said.

Geek Time

2006-05-03T14:24:00.000-04:00

Time for me to unleash the Geek in me.

New Superman Returns Trailer.

Easter Egg Hunt... Pause the trailer for Mel Gibson's new film when you see the screaming monkey. Now, using the buttons on the bottom right, go back frame by frame... Apocalypto trailer. Enjoy.

The new Mac ads... Okay. Fine. I'm a fanboy... Mac coolness.

And, finally, for all the Bollywood fans who visit my little corner of the Internet Superhighway... Bombay TV. Add your own subtitles to the best of Bollywood.

Again, you're welcome.

Strange Rumblings...

2006-04-27T13:07:00.000-04:00

I remember when I was in university...

When you're young and in college or university and you begin to have actual ideas and actual thoughts and you begin to suspect that a lot of what you have been told in the past is bullshit and you begin to listen to the left-leaning professors and lecturers and you really start, for the first time, to flex the political muscle that rests in the reptilian part of all of our brains...

When you're young and full of hero juice and that political muscle that rests in the reptilian part of our brains begins to work and rumble and make noises that drown out the higher reasoning functions...

When you're young and invincible and full of energy and full of the conviction and self-righteousness that only comes with the absolute certainy that you are right and they are wrong...

When I was young and in university and was full of hero juice and flexing that political muscle that resides in the reptilian part of my brain and was invincible and full of energy and was listening to the old hippies who were lecturing on the exploitation of the worker and how the true value of any product is tied to the value of the labour that was used to produce it and the inherent goodness of the blue-collar and the inherent wrongness of the white-collar I was convinced and I was righteous in my beliefs...

Some of those beliefs, however, are, well, a wee-bit wrong it turns out. Ahhh, age.

The Soviet Union was an Utopian paradise, a place of bright colours and freedom and all people were equal and there was no oppression and there was no reason at all to be paranoid of them and their righteous ways. I ignored the truly obvious and glaring omissions from the Collected Works of Lenin and the Collected Works of Stalin and the Collected Works of Trotsky. I ignored the contradictions (those were due to Practical Thinking... yes, indeed). I ignored the hypocritical statements (more of that Practical Thinking...). In a society of True Equality it was okay for the Party Members to live better than everyone else. Hell, it was fine that the Politburo had its own traffic lanes to use while being driven around in the latest Mercedes. Oh, boy.
That's just a tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg... I could go on, but the mental gymnastics I was practicing in those days to keep all this straight and coherent and fine in my World View is just plain embarrassing now.
Oh, boy.

There was more... I was angry with Amnesty International for not recognizing that "Freedom Fighters" were Political Prisoners, too. Blowing up civilians was fine. Just look at what the Imperialists were doing. Being imprisoned for killing a subway full of folks was the same as being imprisoned for writing down or saying what you thought was wrong with the System, wasn't it...
I was angry about the seal hunt... The seal hunters were the problem, not the demand for seal fur. Get it? Oh, boy.

It was fine and okay and outright dandy for me to write and scream and yell about everything that was wrong and ugly about our society, but for someone in a Communist country to do this... Well, he was a traitor to the Cause, and deserved whatever came his way. Oh, boy.

I was a Marxist while I was blind to the fact that Marx himself was a Marxist for a short period and only called for the Revolution when he was young and full of hero juice. Somehow I read the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital and ignored the change in the man and his ideas. Somehow I could quote "Religion is the opiate of the masses..." while ignoring the rest of that statement (for anyone interested, Marx' statement is Not that religion is bad and wrong and horrible, it was that day to day living in the days of the Industrial Revolution was bad and wrong and horrible and at the end of the day everyone needed an opiate, be it religion and its promise of Heaven or booze or, well, opium...).

And where am I going with this, you ask... You didn't ask? Sorry.

In a time when America needs its youngest and brightest and educated to help save its soul, some American (and Canadian, we're not innocent) college and university students have set their sights on saving the campus from the evils of Coca-Cola. Really.

This generation of college and university student seems a wee bit, well, tasteless and, okay, out-right stupid in their use of imagery. Was it Coke that killed the students at Kent State? I don't remember that line from the song Ohio... Oh, boy.
We'll get to what they are angry and oh, so right about in a moment...
Let's discuss the Photoshop genius above for a moment more...

In a history of rotten moments, the killing of four students at Kent State is one America's ugliest. A tragedy. A disgrace. No-one, not even Richard Nixon, thought it was good and practical. Everyone, I mean everyone was horrified by it. The pigfuckers at the time may have given lip-service defense to the National Guard at the time, but it was not in their hearts. I may not be old enough to remember the moment, but I am old enough to remember the fallout... The helpless scream over the corpse is ingrained on my brain and in my soul, as it is for pretty well everyone over a certain age. It may be the single moment that cried out that America was insane and in trouble and needed some serious help. It may be the moment that brought about the end of the Vietnam war and the Race war and ushered in a tall drink of water for a country that was falling to pieces... To use it to push your anti-soft drink agenda, well, that is just damn stupid. Damn stupid. And wrong. If you want everyone to gather around for your cause, try to leave a previous generations iconic moments alone. Please and thank you.

Dumbasses.

So what are they upset about? What is it that has driven some young folks who are full of hero juice and are flexing that political muscle that rests in the reptilian part of the brain for the first time to a tasteless plateau?

The young'uns are angry about Coca Cola's labour practices in the third world. Okay. I can get behind that. Ever hear about Disney's policies? Or Nike's? Or any other multi-national corporation's? An end to sweat shops and child labour would be sweet and good for all of our souls.
The young'uns are really, really angry about the murder of labour leaders in Columbia. Okay. I'm angry, too. The violence in Columbia is ugly and is wrong and bad for all of our souls. The cartels and the terrorists have been using labour leaders and civic leaders and judges and civilian for target practice for way, way, way too long.
The young'uns blame Coca Cola for the murder of labour leaders in Columbia. What the fuck?

Let's repeat that, shall we... The young'uns blame Coca Cola for the murder of labour leaders in Columbia...
Shit, damn. That's fucked, that's wrong on so many levels. The shareholders of Coca Cola stock and the CEO of Coca Cola and anyone with any kind of interest in Coca Cola should be strung up by their ankles from the lamppost and it should be started yesterday. Coca Cola's killing people? Fuck Coke. Let's boycott Coke. Let's get started. The soft drink revolution will be televised...

Wait. Hold on. The labour leaders were killed by guerrillas. Not by suits? Okay. Then they ordered the hits. They paid for them and the Columbian government will come down on them like a load of bricks dropped from a very, very high place. I mean, this is the government that took out Escobar, they will investigate this and they will kick Coke's ass back to Atlanta... Wait. Hold on. Coke has been acquitted of any responsibility by two judicial inquiries...

Oh, boy.

Read this. Oh, boy.

I remember when I was in university. When I was young and full of hero juice and was flexing the political muscle that resides in the reptilian part of my brain. I had some ideas and thoughts and they were mine. And sometimes, I was Wrong.

And I wish I had spent some of that energy and hero juice on things that really and truly bother me. I hope these young'uns learn the same lesson soon. They should look in their own backyard if they want something to get really and truly and honestly angry about.

God bless America...

Oh, boy...

And Now I Feel Better

2006-04-25T23:18:00.001-04:00

Oh, so much better.

Go now.

Rodney Anonymous... He so cool.

Goddamn It

2006-04-25T23:06:00.000-04:00

A hoax.

A freakin hoax. And I fell for it. Shit. Damn.

Here's the link...

Goddamn it.

Should have known it was too good to be true...

Mark Ecko & Why He Tagged Air Force One

2006-04-20T19:25:00.000-04:00

This is Mark Ecko. He does graffiti.

This is Air Force One. It flies the President of the United States. It is quite possibly the most guarded and secure aircraft on the planet.

This is Mark Ecko tagging Air Force One.

This is StillFree.com. Mark Ecko explains why he tagged Air Force One.

Its not every day you encounter a new Hero.

Happy Death of Your Saviour Day

2006-04-13T17:59:00.001-04:00

Let us ponder the meaning of Easter, shall we...

Rabbits, chocolate eggs and bunnies and Homers, people getting nailed to wood, redemption.

And did Jesus really look lie a young Ted Nugent...

Hmmmm...

I just looked the word Easter up in the dictionary... noun... the most important and oldest festival of the Christian Church, celebrating the ressurection of Jesus Christ and held (in the Western Church) between March 21 and April 25 , on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the northern spring equinox. Orgin... Old English eastre; of Germanic orgin and related to German Ostern and East. According to Bede the word is derived from Eastre, the name of a goddess associated with spring... Nice.

What was going through His mind as he carried his cross up the hill... Was He reflecting on his short life... Was He wondering if all the souls of mankind were worth His sacrifice... Was He giving in to self-doubt or was He sure of His mission... Was He just operating on some kind of unconcious remote, putting foot after foot, His mind filled with fire and fear and pain... Or was He hoping that no matter what happened, no matter how long it took for Him to die at the hands of the Romans, no matter the pain His family was going through, that no-one in two thousand years or so would make an illustrated Walk to The Cross using Legos?

Oops...

And here, for your religious learning pleasure, is The Brick Testament, by The Reverand Brendan Powell Smith...

So, to all my Christian friends out there, reading this instead of cruising for pictures of unclothed ladies, I hope you have a somber and dignified Easter, reflecting on the courage and the sacrifice of one thirty-three old Jewish man two thousand or so years ago.

For the rest of you... Click here, you're probably going to hell anyway, if they're right...

Save Me Jebus, Pt 2

2006-04-09T18:38:00.001-04:00

Came across this link while staggering around on Fark... Click here.

Oh, boy, I said to myself, oh, boy.

Thinking to myself, I mumbled, self, this has got to be one sad and lonely and sexually frustrated guy in Winnipeg. Who in this giant land of ours would think this? No one else, I was sure.

Ha.
Double ha.

Alberta has one, but that should be of no real suprise.

And another, again, no real suprise.

But Ontario... Shocked, I am, shocked.

And here is the real kicker. What in the name of Stompin Tom Connors are these folks thinking?

Lord, give me strength, that's all I can say.

If anyone comes across any others, let me know. Thanks in advance.

Oh, boy.

Save Me, Jebus...

2006-04-09T01:20:00.000-04:00

Don't want to be an alarmist here, but... Someone is planning on using some WMD's and it isn't Iran... Get scared here...

Finished reading?

How about now? Okay.

Like I said before, I don't want to be an alarmist here, but... What in Dick Cheney's underpants are they thinking? Have things in Iraq gone so well that they think they can reproduce the experiment next door? Shit, fuck, goddamn.

The only thing that remotely makes any kind of sense to me, and, I don't know, maybe its a stretch... But, what if the Americans pulled out of Iraq right now, at this moment. They just packed up and went home. Said, "Hey, its been fun, its been real, but it hasn't been real fun." They just picked up their toys and said we're not going to play anymore.

Picturing it? Got the image in your mind? The Americans, the British, everyone just packs up and goes.

What happens next?

A civil war, for sure. Probably one that would make the Cambodian civil war look like a well-organized orgy in the Playboy grotto...

And then...what?

How long until the Iranian government starts looking at its rowdy neighbor and begins thinking, "hey, our rowdy neighbor, we should do something about him..." How long until the Iranians take a long, hard look at the Iran-Iraq war and start planning a sequel? Saddam is gone, the country is a mess, the military is in tatters.

Is the only thing holding them back right now the American presence?

Have the Americans screwed things up so badly in Iraq that they need to launch a pre-emptive strike against the Iranians just to prevent them from marching across the border and ordering a round of drinks in Baghdad by the end of the day? Is the Bush administration that void of critical thinking that this is the only possible solution to what they began, what, three years ago?

That border crossing must be a little tempting, the extra oil fields, the easy access to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and... Jesus, did I just type that? That's dangerous thinking right there. A giant pan-Arabian nation, a giant oil-producing theocracy controlling everything from the Afghan border to Mecca and beyond... Dangerous thinking.

I don't know, though. Its all very... Tom Clancy, that's what it is.

Executive Orders, by Tom Clancy.

Jack Ryan becomes the President, Saddam is assassinated by an Iranian agent, Iran invades Iraq and then moves on Saudi Arabia... and Jack Ryan saves the day, of course.

Is the Bush Administration looking to Tom Clancy novels for inspiration, for foreign policy?

Christ.

Like I said before, I don't want to be an alarmist here, but...

Another Post

2006-04-06T20:35:00.000-04:00

Was searching for the Simpsons trailer... found it. Yay. It seems quite a few were removed due to copyright infringement - I'm looking at you, YouTube...

Here's the link for the happy geek... click here. Heads up, its in Quicktime.

Ciao.

Strange Rumblings From Jupiter

2006-04-06T20:29:00.000-04:00

Too cool, must share.

Jupiter has another Big Red Spot.

Read about Red, Jr. here.

Had to share.

Strange Rumblings From New Jersey, Cont'd

2006-04-05T02:07:00.000-04:00

Now that I have successfully, and gracefully (see previous entry... heh, Ball Butter... heh), entered middle age, I look at my life and see where I have been a Champ - wife, house, two dogs and a fish, and a Cuban refugee boat full of great friends - and where I have been a Chump - look at my job, fuck, just look at it, what happened...
Anyway, like I was saying, with the receding hairline and the-not-enjoying of the first smoke of the day anymore, and the job - just fucking look at it, how did this happen...

Sorry.

Anyways...
I have come to the realization that the guy in the back of the cab in '93 was partially right - I was headed nowhere. But what he didn't know, and probably still doesn't - I mean, come on, who wears a Hugo Boss suit and has the balls to tell the guy depending on his tip that he's a loser, I mean, really - is what I know... if it pays the bills, does it matter? If you've got an amazing wife, a house, two dogs and a fish, and a Cuban refugee boat full of great friends, does the forty hours you spend at work really matter?
Know what I mean?

Clerks was, and is, just about the only movie ever made that captures the feelings of a twenty-something when he wakes up and realizes that he's headed nowhere, and the destination is quickly approaching. It could be behind the counter or it could be behind the steering wheel of a cab, but I think that Kevin Smith truly captured that moment when you realize some decisions need to be made or it might be too late and you could end up living above the New American until the sun cools. The decision to start showering on a regular basis and to grow some in order to face the world head-on was a fierce moment, and it was a scary moment. But, hey, I had help. And help came and kicked me firmly in the ass.

But, then, you have to wonder, what if some folks didn't make that decision...

Now that shit could be funny.

The Clerks 2 trailer has been unleashed upon the world... They still serve you and they still don't like you.

Go to clerks2.com now.

Spread the word. August 18, 2006. Mark it on your calendar now. Book it off or quit your job - what, you had something important to do that day at the office?

Snooch.

PS... If you share the man-crush, or are just a sucker for junkie-friend-quitting-junk stories, Kevin Smith is sharing in a multiple-chapter blog about his hetro-life mate, Jason Mewes... over at My Boring Ass Life

Just Having Fun...

2006-03-31T13:28:00.000-05:00

So we have a new computer-thing. It is an Imac. It is very powerful and fast and sleek and kinda sexy in inantimate object way...

And with this new computer I can now add pictures to my blogging fun.

And now I will attempt to add a picture to this blogging episode...

Hee, hee...

Let's try another...

Hee, hee...

Have your own fun at Cereal Freak.

Hee, hee...

You Can't Make This Shit Up...

2006-03-23T22:46:00.000-05:00

This is true.
This is so very, very, very true.
And I wish it wasn't. When I first heard about this, I thought, hey, now that is some funny-ass shit. I thought, why not? Give the kids some inspiration for the future, maybe, let us all see a naked-ass... Ahh, shitdamn, I said when I saw it. Shitdamn. Ballbutter. Lord of the dance on meth. Fuck. And ewwww...

What's the dealee-o, you're wondering? What's so upsetting, you're mumbling? Why haven't I left this to go look at the updated photos from trannynurses.com?

Okay.
A life-sized statue is being unveiled. A life-size pregnant Brittany Spears, on all-fours, on a bear-skin rug, giving birth to Sean Preston statue. From the article... '"Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston," believed Pro-Life's first monument to the 'act of giving birth,' is purportedly an idealized depiction of Britney in delivery. Natural aspects of Spears' pregnancy, like lactiferous breasts and protruding naval, compliment a posterior view that depicts widened hips for birthing and reveals the crowning of baby Sean's head.

The monument also acknowledges the pop-diva's pin-up past by showing Spears seductively posed on all fours atop a bearskin rug with back arched, pelvis thrust upward, as she clutches the bear's ears with 'water-retentive' hands.'

Indeed.

A pro-life, life-size pregnant Brittany Spears, on all-fours, on a bear-skin rug, giving birth to Sean Preston statue.

Yep.

I suspect this may be looked back on as the moment the pro-life movement jumped the shark.

Read the article here.

Read some snark about it here (with better pictures...mmmm)

Like I said, you cannot make this shit up...

Strange Rumblings In Pat Boone's Head

2006-03-20T23:30:00.000-05:00

So I'm on Fark.com tonight, and I find this link. Read it. It will make you feel warm and fuzzy. When you need the truth, always look for Pat Boone, I say. Essentially, old white-bread himself states that the Media and the Mainstream Politicians are ignoring proof that Iraq had the WMD (I hate that... WMD... let's change it to... Big Can Of Whoop Ass...yeah) ...that Iraq had the Big Can Of Whoop Ass but hid it in Syria. So your first question is, of course, what in the name of Tooti Fruiti is this guy mumbling about? Second question, this guy's still alive - shit, I've got to check my Dead Pool. So... there are tapes... here there be a link to the tale on CNN. So, the Media is ignoring it, huh, Pat. Thank the pyjamas for that bright light of the Right, CNN... Shit, this guy makes it too easy.

So the low-down is, yep, there be tapes. There be tapes of our villans chatting and plotting. But... ahh, shit, just read the CNN post. I'm losing some precious hair just stressing about the lack of common sense some folks have (I'm looking at you, Mr. Boone). Is this the best the Bush support can do? Sad, really. I remember fondly the days of Reagan when his support would just tell people to shut the fuck up. Reagan's out of touch, we would say. They would say, who ended the Cold War... shut the fuck up.

Sorry, must pause. Tearing up. Those were good days, weren't they?

I'm back. Deep breath. All better.

The Right used to be an enemy to be proud of. It was the guy in the bar that half the bar feared, but some could say "I've gone to parking lot with that lout, I'm lucky to be still standing..." Now, well... its starting to become like picking on the drunk guy in the bar who has been to the parking lot and has been beaten and has pissed himself and is trying to get back in the bar, but the bouncer is carrying him upside-down back to the parking lot where the gay kid in the wheelchair he used to pick on is waiting for him with some friends...

Jesus, where was I going with this? Oh, yeah - I remember now. The right has become C. C. Deville. The left... well, its still kind of like Brett Michaels, but here's its chance to make like Mike Ness and tear the buggers some new assholes.

So, how will I end this rambling? I think I should share another find. This is not a satire. This is freaking real and scary and sad. And if you are at work, maybe you should skip the intro... its fucking disturbed... thetruthforyouth.com can be found here. Go there and at first you will laugh, and then you will get angry. Let your blood boil, its good for the soul...

No unclothed ladies, lots of pooh flinging.

And He Giggled And Giggled For The Live Long Day

2006-03-15T00:52:00.000-05:00

First there was a rumoured video that I could not find...
Then it was found. It is a pretty little thing. Simply beautiful. Ahhh...

And then the questions mounted... where did this come from? Was Apple taking a swipe at Microsoft? Were the basement dwellers finding themselves with little to do between Next Door Nikki updates? Hmmm... we wondered, hmmmm...

And, now, the mystery has been solved, the riddle cracked... Check out this story to find out who or what was behind this evil bit of satire... Suprised? A little, I was as Yoda would say. Goddamn, I'm a geek.

Ciao.

Sweet Jumping Jesus On A Trampoline...

2006-02-12T01:38:00.000-05:00

I'm surfing the world wide web, checking out the unclothed ladies and such, listening to Pandora and I say to myself, hey, self, what's Rodney Anonymous up to? Mr. Rodney has a wonderful site and you should visit it now now now now. If for nothing else than Rodney A. was in the Dead Milkmen. (I know, I've mentioned him before, but if I can get just one person to go to his site and have their lives forever changed, than my life is complete.)

So I visit Rodney A.'s site and I come across this link. You'll find it on Rodney A.'s home page... if you go and you should and if you haven't then what the heck are you waiting for? Christ. Some people.

Anyway, the link is to Boycott Liberalism... Now, like the god-like Rodney says, no matter what you're political leanings are, this site is a freaking hoot. I said "hoot", heh-heh.

Go to Boycott Liberalism and have a chuckle or shed a tear. Look it, the dude put a lot of work and... (okay, I almost said thought... maybe he did, for him. I don't know him personally, so I don't know how smart he might be... I'm just kind of guessing here...) into his website. He seems to have a lot of anger and bitterness for a guy who's team won and I guess this is a more positive outlet for that seething hatred than stalking high school girls on My Space...

While there, check out The Matrix, where he publishes the hatemail he receives. Wow, Liberals have dirty, dirty potty mouths. Wow.

So that is your homework tonight... go to Rodney Anonymous' site Thoughtless For The Day and be sure to check out Boycott Liberalism. And go to Pandora and create yourself an account and see if the freaking computer there decides to play Joe fucking Satriani on your Social Distortion/Clash/Ramone station. Fuck.

No boobies here, no pooh being flung, sorry. Check out the new Drew Curtis site (the mastermind behind Fark), Foobies.com. There be plenty of boobies there. You have been warned.

Strange Rumblings With A January Tan

2006-02-03T18:08:00.000-05:00

Got back from the Dominican
last week.

Returned to a blizzard, with the threat of a night in Thunder Bay hanging over our heads. Could Air Canada suggest, maybe, staying in Toronto for the night? Guess not. Maybe they felt that Thunder Bay would be a righteous punishment on all the tanned chicos and chicas that had been hanging out in Pearson all day...

Returned to a minority Harper Conservative government. Can't wait to see the cabinet. Check out Rick Mercer's blog for a balanced and fair and objective view of the potentials... Click here now... Be sure to check out his latest photoshop orgy o' fun, also.

Returned to a Liberal party that nobody wants. Frank, Brian, Allan, John. They've all said no. Of course, for more fun and games, they also said no before the contest has even begun...

Returned with a complete and utter case of writer's block. Can you tell?

Returned to a birthday I didn't want to face. The wife and the friends managed to make me smile and accept this whole forty thing with some grace and a vodka smile. Nice. Love you guys, he slurs while the bar holds him vertical...

Returned with a new appreciation for what we've got here. Except for the snow. Hate the snow. Hate it. Love the sand. Love the ocean. Love the sound of palm trees in the wind. But I really hate the snow.

Returned with a bit of a tan. My skin doesen't resemble parchment anymore.

Returned with a deeper affection for my wife. We travelled abroad, and she didn't kill me in my sleep.

Did I mention I was in the freakin Domincian?

Blah Blah De Blahing Blah

2006-01-13T16:47:00.000-05:00

So its been a wee while since I wrote on this thing. I apologize for the twelve seconds of your day you wasted checking here to see if there was anything new. Thank you for your patience.

Your call is very important to us. Really. It is.

I was going to babble on about the upcoming election. I was going to compare the elections of the past (a choice between The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) and this election (a choice between The Bad, The Bad and The Ugly).

I was going to ramble (somewhat coherently) about the irony of the country's reaction to the Conservative ads stating Paul Martin allowed $330 million to be squandered in the sponsership scandal and the press' reaction to the Liberal ad referring to the Conservative idea of a military post in every city or the one about Harper's cozy relationship with the Bush family. (By the by, the military ad has inspired some spoofs.)

I was even tempted to make a plea for everyone to try their best to ensure a minority government, I mean, do you want to give either of these jackasses total power? Jumpin Jesus on a trampoline. A full majority led by either of these fools will be entertaining, but, people, c'mon...

I was thinking about writing about the sad, sad attacks on patriotism I see whenever I happen to catch any political ad this season. Folks, are you worried about us becoming nationlaistic freaks like the Americans? Its already happened. Fuck, people. Get a grip. Its a fine line between accusing someone of being unpatriotic and screaming traitor at anyone who disagrees with your opinion. Yes, Steve Harper said some truly stupid shit about us a few years ago and should be held accountable. Yes, Paul Martin's family builds its boats offshore and should be held accountable. Yes, Jack Layton walks around like a self-righteous upper class tit with an umbrella shoved firmly up his ass and makes me giggle like a little girl. However, does this make any of them or their followers "un-Canadian"? Get a life, for Christ's sakes.

I was contemplating a deep, delicious round of political discourse followed by a heaping pile of steaming scorn. I was.

And then I thought, what would Chuck Norris do?

Interesting facts about Chuck Norris can be found here. Things to wonder at, to be bewildered by, to puzzle about and share with friends. For instance, did you know if you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can't see Chuck Norris, you may be only seconds away from death. Think about it.

And then I thought about Rosario Dawson. Ahhhhh, Rosario. And I felt better.

The truly lovely Ms Dawson will be starring in Clerks 2, directed by (man-crush alert, man-crush alert) Kevin Smith. The teaser for which can be found here. Go now, and be amazed.

I will leave now, but not before sharing. By following clues and hints and arcane riddles, I found the home of Rodney Anonymous. He was in The Dead Milkmen. And his site is..., well... check it out.
Check it out here. Read his thoughts. You'll enjoy the journey, I'm sure.

P.S., if you think I'm totally off my nutter about any of the above, or you think my nutter and your nutter might be on the same page, drop a note.

It may inspire some pooh flinging.

If you came here expecting to find pictures of unclothed ladies flinging pooh, well, hey, I'm sorry, but you might want to check this out (nudity and rudeness alert, nudity and rudeness alert).

Happy Electsmas, Everyone...

2005-12-15T16:13:00.000-05:00

I was trying to comment on Craig West's blog, but the freakin blog security thing kept telling me that I was entering shit wrong. So screw it. Here are my thougts, such as they are, on the state of Canadian politics, such as they are...
To read what set me off, check out Craig's blog. These are the comments that got me going.

Right off the top, we have to recognize that, while not a perfect example of democracy, our nation has the opportunity to spank the Liberals for lies, corruption and some truly despicable back-room boy-on-money love...
The Libs lied and were caught. The Libs stole and were caught. The Libs used an opportunity to keep this country in one piece and used it to launder money and pay for lots and lots of drinks and buy golf courses and make some friends richer. And, by the way, it wasn't the last time they had a majority... The last time they had a majority was when the shit hit the fan and they were found out.
It happened. They were caught.
So who do we blame for the Libs staying in power? What sneaky bastard let them back in to rule this country? Oh, yeah. It was ALL of us. We had the opportunity to show the Libs how we felt, and we told them, hey, some love lost, but not much...

So here we are again.

And what a strange, strange thing we wake up to... Harper and Martin are promising to spend money like druken sailors at a strip club on two-for-one night... Layton says, hey, I've got a plan, but, sorry, I can't tell you about it coz we've only had a year and a half to put it together and its not ready yet. And the Greens aren't sounding so green anymore.

This one seriously important election, folks.
Unless the Conservatives win a majority, Harper will become truly familiar with what its like to be in the midst of a feeding frenzy with a group of sharks on crystal meth. Unless the Libs win a majority, Martin will get curbed like a frat boy on a Saturday night outside the River Rock and will become a footnote in Canadian history, having his name mentioned in the same breath as Turner and Campbell...
The purges are on the way, people, it ain't gonna be pretty.

It isn't an easy decision, this election.
On the one hand we have the Libs who have yet to answer for their crimes. They need to pay the band, shut out the lights, and clean up. They also need to bring back Brian Tobin, but that's a whole other wish list.
The Conservatives need to get rid of the neo-cons. The vast majority of Canadians are very, very uncomfortable with this brand of social conservativism. We dig fiscal conservatism, but this whole angry white guy shit is just dumb.
And the NDP... well, they've kinda become the sad kid in the corner at a party where they can only join the cool kids when the cool kids need them to beat up the other cool kids. I loved their whole self-righteous act in the '70's and the '80's. Now, they are just kind of sad...
And, please, please stay away from the Greens. For everyone's sake, make these fucks shut up. Their leader is a former PC member and a motiviational speaker for multi-national corporations. Fuck.

Anyway, I've rambled more than enough, I think.

Just remember, when you vote, think nationally, act locally...

Strange Rumblings From The Christmas Mad

2005-12-13T01:45:00.000-05:00

While checking out one of my favorite daily reads, The Museum Of Hoaxes(go check it out, I'll be waiting) I came across this.
Please, check it out.

Is it real, could he have really pulled it off? Its pretty cool either way.

Now, I'm going to go play with some Christmas lights. You should, too.

Strange Rumblings From The Great White North

2005-12-04T16:18:00.000-05:00

Huh?

Is this real?

Check out the story...

What have you been up to, Roy?

Only one solution I can see...nuke it from orbit...

2005-12-04T15:45:00.000-05:00

And so I worked hard, very hard, and wrote this whole thing about the kidnapping of the local fellow in Iraq and I was quite proud of it and I thought it was very nice and sensitive and then...and then Internet Explorer lost its fragile fucking mind and crashed and there went my very nice and sensitive and made-me-proud piece of writing that I have been working on for hours and hours and thinking about for days and days.

Fuck you Internet Explorer. First chance I get, I'm upgrading to OS X and waving good-bye to your sorry ass.

Fuck you Microsoft. Christ, you know it ain't easy...

Feel free to comment. I'm going to try again later, when I am not thinking evil thoughts about Bill Gates.

Strange Rumblings From...okay, this is fucked up...

2005-11-29T00:57:00.000-05:00

Very, very odd...

Oh, boy.

Strange Rumblings While Staggering Around The Information Superhighway

2005-11-27T16:54:00.000-05:00

One balding, middle-aged man's mumblings and bumblings while checking out this new-fangled thing called "The Internet"...

Having issues calling a call center? Tired of "your call is important to us" bullshit (a little known secret about working in a call center - when we call another department, a department no-one from the outside can get to, an assist line or another tier with no connection to the public at large, guess what we hear while waiting... "your call is important to us". Really.)? Tired of "press # then * then blah-blah-blah? Check this out - some dude is putting together a list of IVR cheats (that's the quasi-tech term for the fucking robot voice).
Here is the tale...
And here is the cheat sheet...
I checked - the call center I call home is not on the list, but one I did work at is.
Check it out. Now.

Other bits of coolness...

While searching for wholesome goodness for the soul, I came across this bit of high-speed photography...skynet.be. Check out the Bullet Technique. It is good when some folks have too much time on their hands.

And then there are the other folks...

Tired of having two nostrils when one would do the job? Are you? Click here and check out Human Upgrades...

Do you or does a man you know suffer from Behavioral Effeminism and Male Homosexuality Disorder? Then worry no more. Hetracil is here to save the day...

Looking for that one special Christmas gift for the cat-lover in your life? Bonsai Kitten to the rescue.

And another link for Roy...For you, my friend...

Strange Rumblings...

2005-11-20T15:38:00.000-05:00

When watching the circus that is the American political system I have become accustomed to seeing all kinds of bizzaro-world things happen. Lots of Orwellian war is peace thinking, lots of "hey, we're the home of freedom so let's erode our freedoms at home and in the workplace" kind of kink, lots of 2 + 2 = 5 logic.
But the last few weeks have really hurt my head.

Dick Cheney, the V-P of the corporation to the south of us (unless you live in Windsor, where it is to the north of you... weird, huh?) has hit his head or is swallowing Percs or munching on shrooms or something.Dick Cheney has taken it upon himself to debate the merits of torture with John McCain... Remember - Dick has never been in the military, stayed the hell away from Viet Nam and is working for a guy who avoided the military due to his family connections. McCain, on the other hand, spent five and a half years in a pow camp - this dude was tortured, beaten, starved and pissed on. For Christ's sakes, the guy can't reach above his own fucking head.

Weird.

How big does your ego have to be, how large are your balls, how stoned or insane or demented or just plain delusional does one have to be to argue the merits of torture with someone who has been fucking tortured?

For more on Dick and McCain and the sad, sad, sad debate read this and this.

Strange days, indeed.

Also, Dick and Dubya keep repeating the "we do not torture" mantra.
Maybe the Fifth Estateshould be force fed into the American mindscape... The folks at the CBC did a fine job exposing a fermenting pile of shit and vomit and put in on some fine china for all of us to wonder at.

We should thank the stars every day for what we have in the CBC, by the way. The same night they broadcast this incredibly disturbing doc, Nightline NBC was blowing the lid wide open on the John Lennon murder... using audio interviews with Mark David Chapman from about fifteen years ago. And never once questioning the official story. Nice.

Maybe that's a clue into the major difference between Us and Them... They get pablum, we get a five-course meal served up in a really nice restaurant.

Hmmm... Things to ponder.

No pictures of unclothed ladies flinging pooh, but here's a link for Roy...click here, Roy...

Strange Rumblings From Afar

2005-11-03T15:53:00.000-05:00

I saw U2 the other night.

Bono spoke of Important Things and the band played like an unstoppable freight train. The crowd was fifty thousand strong and knew most of what they heard.

I saw U2 the other night.

A new band led by Gavin of Bush opened the night. We were polite, but they bored me. Gavin - skipper and bad dancer...

I saw U2 the other night.

Before experiencing them live, I had always assumed the band belonged to Bono and The Edge. Now... I assume the band follows Adam. He is a force of nature, a professor of the funk, a professor of the punk and a champion of the groove. Someone had to behind their rapid changes of style.

I saw U2 the other night.

They played Gloria. The Detroit crowd sang the chorus. It is an odd site watching fifty thousand people sing Latin, but, hey, it happened.

I saw U2 the other night.

Larry has a portrait of himself hidden in his attic at home that is aging. Cause he ain't.

I saw U2 the other night.

And it got me thinking... When this band sings of faith and God and religion and Jesus, we don't mock. We don't duck out for a quick smoke. We don't cuss them out for bringing down the party. When Social D plays When the Angels Sing or Angel Wings or Ball and Chain the pit doesn't stop, the room doesn't empty. When Johnny Cash would release an album of gospel music, we accepted it. And it go me thinking... Is this an example of a 3-dimensional faith? Are we (meaning, well, me...) more accepting of someone else's religious views and someone else's faith and relationship with their God and their beliefs if that person has walked thru fire and stood on the edge of the cliff and wakes up every day and has to decide if today they will be Good or if today they will Bad and their demons hound them every second of their life and it is a constant struggle to look in the mirror and be proud of what they see? I swear, when I listen to Hank Williams Sr, I can almost hear the battle going on in his head... Is that why I can listen to his suicide songs and his drinking songs and his goofy songs and his faith songs? Don't know, really... I can't stand listening to white choral music, but I get a groove on for black gospel. What's up with that? Things to ponder.

I saw U2 the other night.

And just as I was feeling real good, real comfortable with pop stars speaking their minds, with people in the music industry taking a pro-acitve role in world affairs and matters of the mind and things bigger than themselves... 50 Cent opened his mouth. The destruction of the Gulf Coast was supposed to happen? The displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, the deaths, the devestation of entire communities was what... God's practical joke? Once again to prove how important Chuck D is to world of hip-hop and rap... 50 Cent speaks his mind. Shut up 50. Please. Thank you.

I saw U2 the other night.

They made me feel good about the world.

Strange Rumblings In Kubrick's Brain

2005-10-23T12:34:00.000-04:00

2001 explained?
Is it possible...?
Got 10 minutes or so?
Check this out.

What are you waiting for?

No, there are no pictures of unclothed ladies flinging pooh. Just Kubrick goodness.

Now, go on, get.

Strange Rumblings From New Jersey, Cont'd...

2005-10-19T01:51:00.000-04:00

The first day of shooting Clerks 2 has been posted, and here is the clip, in quicktime...
Hopefully, I don't get sued.
Or beaten by goons from New Jersey.

Be good. Check it out.
Snooch.
And, still, no unclothed ladies flinging pooh...yet...

Strange Rumblings From Florida

2005-10-18T22:50:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, occasionally, once in a long while we all come across something that leaves us a little bit speechless...

Free Key West Juan!!!!!

Strange Rumblings From New Jersey 2

2005-10-06T02:53:00.000-04:00

Godfather 2.
The Empire Strikes Back.
The Two Towers.
Superman 2.

Clerks 2.

Check out Kevin Smith's video diary. Check it out now now.

Kevin Smith rocks. Snooch.

Strange Rumblings From The Information Super Highway

2005-09-30T17:39:00.000-04:00

Blogs, blogs, blogs, blogs, blogs.
Gotta love 'em.
Really, we do.
Things to click on... and they are all blogs.
Kevin Smith. He is the man behind Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Jersey Girl and, eventually, Clerks II. He has a blog. It's called My Boring Ass Life.
Rick Mercer. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Rick Mercer's Monday Report, that show about Canadian television that had the Tragically Hip theme song. You know the one. He has a blog. It is called Rick Mercer's Blog.
Wil Wheaton. He was one the kids looking for the dead body in Stand By Me. He also played Wesley on Star Trek:The Next yadda yadda yadda. Don't hold that against him. Go to Wil Wheaton Dot Net and feel the love.
Bob Mould. Husker Du (if only my computer could make those cool little dots over the u's) and Sugar and solo artist and all around great guy (I'm sure he is). He has one, too. Boblog is its name.
The amazing Donna Hopper. Blossoming graffiti vandalizer, photographer, jewelery maker, wife who has yet to kill me in my sleep. She blogs twice. Stuff and Things and the Photo Blog.
Craig West. Startlefish, Chris Belsito Band, Spiderback, God only knows all the other outfits he's played with (and even then, God probably gets confused...) and solo artist. Friend and best man at my wedding. He has a blog. Make your way there, now.

There. Enjoy. That's not all the blogs I go to, but I have to get back my laundry and looking at pictures of unclothed ladies. So I will post more another time, when the dogs aren't whining to go outside so they can chase rodents.
Lord willing and the creeks don't rise, I will return.

Staggered into here, unclothed ladies, flinging pooh, apologize, yadda yadda yadda. You know the rest.

Strange Rumblings From The Big Apple, Pt 1

2005-09-30T16:13:00.000-04:00

Yestarday I finally got around to watching a classic, Panic In Needle Park with Al Pacino.
No, I didn't watch it with Al Pacino (though that would have been kind of cool. I could lie and say, yeah, I did watch it with Al Pacino and we shared adult beverages and nachos and then played Star Wars Trivia Pursuit and laughed and laughed and laughed. But I won't.)
Its an early Pacino film, as far as I can tell his first starring role. According to IMDB this is the film that Coppola showed the brass at Paramount in order to convince them to hire Pacino for The Godfather.

The film revolves around Bobby (Pacino) and Helen (Kitty Winn - she played Sharon the hottie in The Exorcist) who are young and in love and living in Manhattan. They just happen to live in Needle Park and are a couple of beautiful junkies and hustlers and theives and exist in one of the lower circles of hell.
The movie has a gritty, real look to it. A no-budget, hand-held camera kinda shaky thing going on at times. There are moments when the film has a real documentary feel to it, with in-your-face examinations of the rituals involved in shooting street-grade heroin. The fingers tapping the envelope, coaxing the powder into a bottle cap. Lighting a couple of matches and holding them just right to cook. The syringe lovingly filling up. The careful insertion into the vein (more tapping). Slowly pushing the plunger. The near-orgasmic extasy of the junkie when the poison hits the brain.
Trainspotting, this is not. No MTV-generation edits here, folks. Sometimes, its one fluid shot (no pun intended, maybe) from smack in bottle cap to orgasm. Which does tend to support the myth that the film-makers did employee some real junkies...

If you ever see this film (he says, hoping someone actually reads this blog-thing), watch the folks in the background in the street scenes. I honestly believe that this was filmed, at times, sans permits. Guys stop and watch Kitty Winn's legs as she walks by them. People passing by seemed confused when they overhear the conversations between actors. Very cool. Don't get a lot of that these days.
And pay attention to the faces in the film. There are some very familiar, but very young, ones here and there. Paul Sorvino as a john, Raul Julia as Helen's lover when she first meets Bobby.
And the camera work. Oh, boy, the camera work. Jerry Schatzberg really shines. There is one scene in a coffee shop, where Bobby runs out to grab his brother Hank (a B & E artist who dresses like a banker). The shot follows Pacino out of the coffee shop to get Hank and then back to his table without breaking or the camera leaving its spot near the counter. And on the way out, Pacino runs straight into a bus boy which sends a tray of cups and plates flying, which has the feel of a real accident. Pacino's line (an ad-lib?) sends Kitty Winn into a fit of laughter.

One thing I gotta say that I truly loved about this film is that everyone, I mean everyone, is a user. From the thieves and hustlers and junkies to the cops. No cop with a heart of gold in this movie. He wants to make a bust and he's going to use the pretty girl to do it. I loved that.
In a remake, the handsome cop would want to save the girl, take her away from this world and make her his all his. Of course, in a remake the addicts would all share some huge loft with hip posters and hip furniture and hip music. Panic In Needle Park has no wallpaper. Very little furniture. The characters share a park bench where they drool and twitch. And, praise Jesus, there is no music in this movie, anywhere. None. Not one iota. Zero. Zip. Do not go looking for the soundtrack people, there ain't one.
So, to sum up... Panic In Needle Park is an early-seventies movie that has plenty of close-ups of needles breaking skin, lots of dialogue, very little action, a lot of stuff going on off-screen (and we're expected to use our brains to figure out), and no music.
Cannot recommend it enough.

So why are you still here? Find it, rent it, love it. Panic In Needle Park. This ain't your parents junkie film (actually - it is, funny, eh?).

If you staggered into here expecting to find pictures of unclothed ladies flinging pooh, I apologize. I'm not from around here. Maybe try later...

Strange Rumblings From New Jersey

2005-09-15T14:55:00.000-04:00

Stumbling and staggering around the information superhighway, I came across something very cool. For folks that dig Kevin Smith and hate hurricanes, View Askew is hosting a charity auction. Some of the fun includes a barbeque at Kevin Smith's, a walk-on in Clerks 2, goodies from Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash.
Much coolness.
Sure, the starting bids might be high, but, if someone can afford it, look at what you get.
Check it out. What are you waiting for? Why are you still here?

Strange Rumblings From The Lunatic Fringe

2005-09-09T14:37:00.000-04:00

When a rational explanation just won't do...
Let's talk today about conspiracy theory.
I could go on and on and on about all the questions and coincidences surrounding the assisination of JFK or Lincoln or Bush 2's election in 2000 or the attacks on September 11, 2001 or the death of Alexander the Great or the Cold War or the change in Barney Rubble's voice. I mean, hey, the Carlyle Group (including Bush 1 and a Bin Laden) were meeting at the Ritz Carlton in DC on 09/11/01. And Oswald's uncle was a mob driver and Ruby was a made man and Garrison had mob connections and I won't even go into the whole thing about Woody from Cheers' dad. And we will never know the entire truth about Mel Blanc, will we...

Anyway...

So a while ago, staggering around the world wide web, I came across the death of Hunter S. Thompson conspiracy theories. Uh-huh. That's right, they are out there... Oh, boy. Something about the truth about 09/11/01 and snuff films and satanism and pedophiles. Really. Here's an example of this nonsense. And here is a beautiful thing, picking these theories apart and dropping them in the mud.

And so I thought to myself, hey, self, this is got to be the height of crazy, right? (I'm going to state right here that, sure, this is not the height of crazy, but I'm not going near the racists or the kid-diddlers. I don't like sharing dna or the planet with these scum and I'm not going to create any traffic for those fucks. Even if only one person visits this blog-thing and hits one link, that is too much attention for shit that doesn't deserve to breath. We have to fight them in our own unique ways.) So, as I was saying, this is pretty nutty. In a "hey, that guy at the end of the bar is talking to himself, hee-hee" kind of way. In a "hey, that guy on the bus told me to drink my own urine if I want to live forever, hee-hee" kind of way.

And then today I staggered across what has to be the granddaddy of crazy. I'm talking about "hey that guy at the end of the bar who talks to himself just smeared feces on his face and is wearing Daisy Dukes and singing Sugar, Sugar by the Archies" kind of crazy. Hurricane Katrina, the one that just took out New Orleans and Biloxi and Gulfport and other towns and villages and just made a few hundred thousand people homeless was caused by (deep breath) the Yakuza. Yes, the Japanese mob caused a monster storm and steered it into Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama.

I'm not kidding.

Check it out. You cannot make this shit up. And you thought it was just one freak.

Someone please explain to me why some of the people who can figure out this html-thing also tend to lean towards the insane side of life...

So good luck to all the crazies in the world topping this one. The bar has been truly raised.

If you staggered into here expecting to find pictures of unclothed ladies flinging pooh, I apologize. I'm not from around here.

Strange Rumblings From the Gulf Coast

2005-09-02T23:32:00.000-04:00

I can't really think of anything remotely clever or witty or... whatever. Check out this blog...
I've got nothing. Just check it out. Click on the title bar above (Strange Rumblings From blah-blah-blah).
What are you waiting for? Why are you still here?

Strange Rumblings From The Big Easy

2005-09-02T14:13:00.000-04:00

Chaos and death and anarchy and flooding and fires and explosions and folks shooting at the rescue helicopters and carjacking ambulances and stealing hospital generators and Homeland Security delaying Canadian relief efforts and complete incompetence from Washington and Condi Rice buying shoes in Manhattan and going to Spamalot and isn't this the same bunch of motherfuckers who snafu'd the 2001 attacks and isn't this the same jackass who sat like an inbred dog for 10 or 20 minutes after being told his country is under attack and then vanished for something like 24 hours and I wish I could say I was shocked and I wish I could say I was suprised and I wish I could say that I expected more from them but, man, the Bush administration is just about the most incompetent group of assholes that have ever run that country.
Would the federal end of the rescue be so completely and bewilderingly fucked if this had been Florida or Texas instead of Louisiana and Mississippi? Would Jeb have been left to float in the toxic waste if this had been Miami and not New Orleans? Just wondering.
I'd write more, but I just found this piece of inspiration on the (real) White House site, www.whitehouse.gov... It is truly hard to believe this fucksauce's hero is Churchill, isn't it. I get all weep-eyed whenever I re-read the bit about Trent Lott's house...

President Arrives in Alabama, Briefed on Hurricane Katrina
Mobile Regional Airport
Mobile, Alabama

10:35 A.M. CDT

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first I want to say a few things. I am incredibly proud of our Coast Guard. We have got courageous people risking their lives to save life. And I want to thank the commanders and I want to thank the troops over there for representing the best of America.

I want to congratulate the governors for being leaders. You didn't ask for this, when you swore in, but you're doing a heck of a job. And the federal government's job is big, and it's massive, and we're going to do it. Where it's not working right, we're going to make it right. Where it is working right, we're going to duplicate it elsewhere. We have a responsibility, at the federal level, to help save life, and that's the primary focus right now. Every life is precious, and so we're going to spend a lot of time saving lives, whether it be in New Orleans or on the coast of Mississippi.

We have a responsibility to help clean up this mess, and I want to thank the Congress for acting as quickly as you did. Step one is to appropriate $10.5 billion. But I've got to warn everybody, that's just the beginning. That's a small down payment for the cost of this effort. But to help the good folks here, we need to do it.

We are going to restore order in the city of New Orleans, and we're going to help supplement the efforts of the Mississippi Guard and others to restore order in parts of Mississippi. And I want to thank you for your strong statement of zero tolerance. The people of this country expect there to be law and order, and we're going to work hard to get it. In order to make sure there's less violence, we've got to get food to people. And that's a primary mission, is to get food to people. And there's a lot of food moving. And now the -- it's one thing to get it moving to a station, it's the next thing to get it in the hands of the people, and that's where we're going to spend a lot of time focusing.

We've got a lot of rebuilding to do. First, we're going to save lives and stabilize the situation. And then we're going to help these communities rebuild. The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch. (Laughter.)

GOVERNOR RILEY: He'll be glad to have you.

THE PRESIDENT: Out of New Orleans is going to come that great city again. That's what's going to happen. But now we're in the darkest days, and so we got a lot of work to do. And I'm down here to thank people. I'm down here to comfort people. I'm down here to let people know that we're going to work with the states and the local folks with a strategy to get this thing solved.

Now, I also want to say something about the compassion of the people of Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana and surrounding states. I want to thank you for your compassion. Now is the time to love a neighbor like you'd like to be loved yourselves.

Governor Riley announced the fact that they're going to open up homes in military bases for stranded folks. And that's going to be very important and helpful.

My dad and Bill Clinton are going to raise money for governors' funds. The governors of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama will have monies available to them to help deal with the long-term consequences of this storm.

The faith-based groups and the community-based groups throughout this part of the world, and the country for that matter, are responding. If you want to help, give cash money to the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. That's where the first help will come. There's going to be plenty of opportunities to help later on, but right now the immediate concern is to save lives and get food and medicine to people so we can stabilize thesituation.

Again, I want to thank you all for -- and, Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job. The FEMA Director is working 24 -- (applause) -- they're working 24 hours a day.

Again, my attitude is, if it's not going exactly right, we're going to make it go exactly right. If there's problems, we're going to address the problems. And that's what I've come down to assure people of. And again, I want to thank everybody.

And I'm not looking forward to this trip. I got a feel for it when I flew over before. It -- for those who have not -- trying to conceive what we're talking about, it's as if the entire Gulf Coast were obliterated by a -- the worst kind of weapon you can imagine. And now we're going to go try to comfort people in that part of the world.

Thank you. (Applause.)

END 10:39 A.M. CDT

Parting words to live by - "And now we're going to go try to comfort people in that part of the world."

If you staggered into here expecting to find pictures of unclothed ladies flinging pooh, I apologize. I'm not from around here.

Strange Rumblings From The Hinterland

2005-08-25T00:01:00.000-04:00

I had a dream the other night.
I was watching an infomercial for a juicer that will cut your grocery bills into tiny shreds. The host was wearing a loud sweater, with a swastika on each shoulder.
I had a dream.
In the dream the host was talking to the inventor. The inventor was wearing a golf shirt, khaki shorts and converse sneakers. He kept pushing his aviator sunglasses up on his forehead and pulling them back down.
I had a dream the other night.
The juicer was impressive, indeed it was an awe-inspiring task of engineering. Large and imposing, with hoses and wires and chrome bits and white bits. Large teeth and what looked like a chain from a chain-saw and other pointy things sticking out at weird angles. A truly awe-inspiring task of engineering, a monstrous piece of machinery. It stood twelve feet high, it lay across two executive desks and was started with a pull on a cord. Sixteen homeless men were required to carry the juicer into the room. Three Catholic virgins were needed to pull on the cord and bring the beast to life.
I had a dream the other night.
The inventor fed fruit into the juicer at first. Oranges and limes and apples and melons and berries and grapes and kiwis. And then he started adding vegetables and then he started adding office furniture and carpeting and window coverings and then he started throwing in electronic equipment without unplugging it first, sparks flying everywhere, small fires breaking out and stamped out by the production assistants and the audience.
I had a dream the other night.
The host was screaming, frothing at the mouth, dancing like bug on a hot-plate. The host would sometimes crouch down, make himself a wee ball, then leap into the air hitting heights of eight, maybe nine feet. Wailing the entire time in a strange language known only to himself and his tribe.
And then the host stopped moving, stopped jumping and leaping and dancing. The host was silent. He raised his hand. He pointed at the inventor with a gnarled finger, a finger covered in snot and blood. He pointed at the inventor, with a glaze in his eyes and a growing stain in his pants. He pointed at the inventor and mumbled in a voice from the deep south, "Where are the virgins? Bring me the virgins. Bring me them now. Where are the homeless? Bring them to me. Where are they? We must make more juice."
I had a dream the other night.
And the inventor seemed to sense the danger, the lightening in the air. The inventor paused for a fraction of a second, frozen in place, a piece of lawn furniture in his hands forgotten. And then he smiled. A grim smile. A smile of a man who has driven to the edge of the cliff. A smile of a man who has faced a gang of armed militants armed with only a bowie knife. A smile that has tasted the blood of fiends and the wrong.
I had a dream the other night.
The inventor dropped the piece of lawn furniture to the floor. The inventor continued to smile. He slowly crept towards the host. The inventor continued to smile. "Now, hoss," he purred, "why did you have to say something like that? Tell me, pig-fucker, why did you have to go and ruin The Fun and say something like that?"
I had a dream the other night.
"You want more juice, pig-fucker? You want more juice? You don't see we're making Art here? We're making Fun? I'm going to teach you about Joy, pig-fucker. I'm going to bring you to Nirvana." And with one smooth motion the inventor grabbed the host by the crotch. And he lifted the host up, up above his head and tossed him like a bag of dirty laundry. And the host flew across the infomercial stage, over the smoldering remains of a sofa, over the small bits of electronic equipment that didn't make it into the juicer, over the heads of the virgins and the homeless, he flew. A look of horror mixed with extasy crossed the host's face as he arched across the stage. And with a mighty growl, nearly orgasmic, the juicer accepted its gift.
I had a dream the other night.

If you staggered into here expecting to find pictures of unclothed ladies flinging pooh, I apologize. I'm not from around here.
HST - we miss you.

Strange Rumblings From the War Zone

2005-08-18T20:48:00.000-04:00

I saw John Hockenberry on Jon Stewart the other night. He's a writer. He writes for Wired. He is in a wheelchair.
Anyway...
He was on Jon Stewart chatting about an article he just wrote for Wired. Its about Military Blogs. Or Milblogs for short. These cats (and kittens) in the warzones, he was saying, are writing online about their day-to-day lives. These cats (and kittens) are logging on and telling their stories. They aren't giving away state secrets. They aren't giving away locations. That would be seriously dumb. No, they are writing about daily experiences. They are writing about how it feels to rise each day and go about your job and wonder if you're going to see the end of the day.
The letters home that used to take weeks and months to reach home during all the past conflicts are now published and downloaded in moments.
I guess Washington saw the internet as a way for these cats (and kittens) to keep in touch with back home, to raise morale. Washington saw that these kids would be in the desert for an uncomfortable stretch of time and thought, hey, lets give them email and photos of undressed ladies, that'll keep them occupied.
So soldiers being people, some also saw this as a chance to start-up online journals and blogs and stuff so they could post pictures of sandstorms and themselves and their fellow soldiers and let freinds and family know how they are doing. And, John Hockenberry sort of said, the Military Blog was born.
I won't get into the whole question of what the Pentagon is allowing or not allowing or censoring or blocking or channeling to the world or whatever. Go over to Wired's spot on the Internet, go to the magazine. Look for the article. John Hockenberry does a much better job of that than I ever could. A much better job.
Anyway...
I saw John Hockenberry on Jon Stewart. And I got thinking about this whole Milblog thingy. I read his article. And I continued to think about these Milblogs some more. Was Mr. Hockenberry pulling examples of the writing on these blogs from rare occurences? Or was this a regular state of affairs? Were these soldiers really writing these things about life in the Iraqi nightmare? So I decided to check it out.
I went to Google, typed in milblog, not really expecting anything to happen. Maybe a link to Wired or Jon Stewart or some crazed soldier-wanna-be Stateside. I was thinking, hey, if this is for real, the Pentagon must have made it hard to find, right? Right?
Jumping Jesus on a trampoline. These blogs and links and other stuff started filling up. Page after page. And then I started surfing and staggering and stumbling from one blog to another. Some of these cats (and kittens) can write. I mean, seriously write. I'm talking like Hemingway or Faulkner or Thompson or whatever. I found posts that made me laugh out loud. Posts that choked me up. Posts that had me scratching my balding head, searching for the answer to their existential angst.
I found one blog that...well, I haven't added it to my links. I read and I damn near wept. It was so personal and full of...I don't know, grief, at the death of the writer's humanity. He could feel himself becoming colder and harder and shutting down and was keeping a daily journal of it. And his return home to his family was coming up and seeing his children again and his wife and...shit, man. It went beyond a voyeuristic peek into his personal diary. It was a flatscreen exposure of his soul. A little too heartbreaking. Last time I checked, his only entry this week is "Taking A Break". That's all it said. I like to think that means, Hey, I'm home. I'm gonna hang with the wife and the kids and play pool at the bar with my friends and all is good in the world. Maybe I'm right. Maybe I'm wrong.
Anyway...
I have added some links (over to the right...see War Pooh...yeah, there). The one to Blackfive is a guy State-side. The link I've got there to his page is a giant list of these blogs. He's a wee right swinging, okay, and some folks I know will have some serious issues with his adds, but if you can look past his politics and just check out some of those links, you'll be pleasantly suprised.
The others are a small taste of my faves. If you do nothing else here today, check out SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM. This guy can write. Shit, can he write. As I have said before, and will say in the future, jumping Jesus on a trampoline.

We all have differing opinions on the war in Iraq and the Afghan one and we question the motives of the folks who are in charge and some of us are living in an environment that is trying its best to beat those opinions out of us and some of us are lucky to be living in an environment that asks us to question everything we are fed by the media and the govenment and the loud-mouth at the end of the bar. If you're reading this thing, you probably know exactly where I stand on these issues. You should know that I believe that any war that is run by a bunch of suits who avoided ever putting on a uniform is not recipe for success. You should know that I believe the Bush family has sold their country for a dime and is swimming in a pool of blood and ground bone. But the one thing you should know about me is I rarely question the motive of these cats (and kittens) who do what I am truly unwilling to do. I won't wear a uniform. I won't march in line. And I will (hopefully) never have to put myself in a situation where people are shooting at me.
These Milblogs are a glimpse into the minds of people who are willing to wear a uniform, march in line, put themselves in situations where bullets fly. I may not truly understand their thoughts and dreams and circumstances that have led them to this life, but their blogs are giving me a peek.
Okay, I have rambled on enough. I'll stop now. And if you have staggered into here expecting photos of unclothed ladies flinging pooh, once again I apologize. I'm not from around here...

Strange Rumblings From The Far East...

2005-08-06T19:51:00.000-04:00

And so I says to the guy...
One post, one little "hey, look at me, I'm over here" entry, and what do I get? A bunch of odd comments, some of which made me vomit a little in a my mouth... Oysters???? Huh????? Ah, life. Gotta love what a liberal education will get you these days. Keep the comment-stuff coming!

And so goes the daily battle. This html stuff is definitely the spawn of some lower demon from one of the more disturbing inner-circles of hell. I don't know if its me or this ancient Mac I'm using, but everything is showing up a little...slanted. Maybe its not looking that way on other computers, but, man, I can't figure it out on this one. The other template I was attempting to use was shrinking everything. Very odd.

New pooh... The links are coming together nicely. Slow and slanted, but still nice.
I'm starting to wonder what the links I'm choosing are saying about, well, me. Hopefully that I am well-adjusted, a benefit to society, an all-around nice fella. Probably not.
Over to the right, there are a couple of North Korean links. While he may be a complete madman who takes paranoia to a whole new level, Kim Jong Il is easily one of the funniest sociopaths in modern history. His administration takes the time and spends the energy to entertain the rest of us on this blue marble, yet most folks don't know about it. Check out the North Korean News, for example. You won't find any updates on the six-nation nuke talks there, but you will find out about every wreath-laying ceremony in the country. And while they may shy away from mentioning their multi-decade long famine that has crippled the country and is wiping out an entire generation, they wil update the world on, well, wreath-laying ceremonies. And just for shit and giggles, occasionally they will mention their "foreign visitor" whenever he returns to North Korea to pal around with Kim. One thing that is interesting about "foreign visitor" is that the first time he seems to have been mentioned in the news was around the time Bin Laden disappeared into the Afghan/Pakistan borderlands... Whoever "foreign visitor" is, he spends a lot of his time while in North Korea at wreath-laying ceremonies.
The North Korean Pooh link is a collection of Kim's fave links. Really. Check it out. And remember, Communism is not dead.

Also, over to the right, is Geological Pooh. One is a constant update of earthquakes. Yay, earthquakes. The other, I am so proud of finding this, is a webcam pointed at Mt. St. Helen's growing bulge (heh, heh, heh). Check it often, be the one who can say, "I was there when the Mt. St. Helen's webcam was whaked by a river of lava..." Oh, joy.

So, enjoy. There will be more to come. I just have to wrestle html some more, find its weaknesses and make it submit.

And once more, I have to apologize to anyone who has staggered into here expecting to find pictures of unclothed ladies flinging pooh. I'm not from around here.

Uh...Is This Thing On?

2005-08-02T02:04:00.000-04:00

Um...
Alrighty, then. This is my "blog". From what I understand, a blog is a place where some folks rant, some folks sell R.V.'s, some folks show pictures of unclothed ladies they have found while staggering around the internet. Occasionally (I have heard this from reliable sources) some folks have something that needs to be said. And there being a lack of boxes to stand on and shout from and a lack of people willing to listen to people standing on boxes shouting (except in that park in London, but that's another day and another dollar) these folks have turned to the blog as the new soapbox.
So here I am. Hopefully, as time passes, I will have interesting things to say, that, in another time and another place, I would be shouting from a soapbox, if I was able to find one.
This blog-thingy I've got going here is under construction, I gather. So please be patient while I try to figure this out.
And, if you have staggered here by accident expecting photos of unclothed ladies flinging pooh, I apologize. I'm not from around here.