I Want My MTV (To Sell Me Airtime)

In England's Prospect Magazine, Stephan Smith-Said has penned a brief but decent take on the status of "protest" in popular music today. His mention of MTV's motives in refusing to air any anti-war video or paid commercials while simultaneously decrying the lack of protest voices in modern music on their website is especially poignant.

From the article:
"Just two days after my article came out, MTV, which has refused to play anti-war videos even by the biggest stars, published an article addressing the need for political consciousness in mainstream music. In a flourish of Bush-like hubris, one of the country's chief purveyors of military recruitment ads to youth posted the article, "Where Is the Voice of Protest in Today's Music?" The webpage boasted an Army video game in the bottom right corner. Where's the voice of protest? It's in MTV's trash can."

As someone with intimate knowledge of the numbers migrating between the two entities, I can attest to the reasons for the content blackout on MTV. Indeed, they are entirely fiscal in nature. Not that it necessarily takes my corporate clearance to verify, though. It's straight outta Business 101. And therein lies the roots of the problem. It's once again all about the corporate-federal circle jerk, the common interest, due diligence and the bottom line. The citizenry's sold out once again. The fruits of modern hyper-capitalist America grow more bitter with every bite.

Read Why Neil Young Is Wrong by Stephan Smith-Said.

"School of the Americas" For Dummies

The PicassoDreams blog has some great scans of an 80's picturebook manual for anti-government hijinks. While it aint necessarily a "School of the Americas"-grade education, the pages cover some basics for those with a desire to stick it to the man.

From their post:

"In the early 1980s, the right-wing Reagan U.S. Government was determined to undermine or overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua. As part of this campaign, the Central Intelligence Agency produced a small illustrated booklet in both Spanish and English designed to destabilise the Nicaraguan Government and economic system. It instructed dissaffected individuals on acts of sabotage they could carry out to this end."

--Read the Full Post And See the Scans Here--

The Answers, My Friend, Are Floating on the Wind

Anyone else smell that?

Quick, check the headlines ‘round the net and sniff again. Now smell anything? Thought so. That odious reek is the further decay of American democracy and it’s wafting from the very much alive carcass of one Karl Rove. The fully-restored Bush Administration and GOP hatchet man is back on his game after nearly going to prison (and temporarily losing his White House bestowed sensitive info access—thus the benching) for facilitating the undercover CIA agent name leak. The latest full-court press by the crooks in the administration, and their obedient enablers in the rank-and-file GOP, has the twisted, cynical fingerprints of evil-genius Karl Rove all over it.

It’s like the NOW – That’s What I Call Music of “conservative” hot-button political issues. All the greatest hits are out there on parade for all the dopes ‘n’ rubes who’ll still lap up anything bearing the official seal of the GOP on its cover… regardless of an expired shelf-life, debunked status or residence nowhere on planet Earth. All in an effort to whip up some support over a growing disenfranchisement within the fold.

You name it, they're in some phase of floating it. Lessee, whatta we got this week? What cockamamie bullshit’s getting floated up into the bought-and-paid-for mainstream press? What ultimately factless, flaccid “news item” is getting pumped full of hot air, bounced around in the echo chamber or repeated ad nauseum but sine causa? Hhhmmmm.

Well, there’s the freakout cause du jour, the attacking of the "Lib-ruhl Mee-dya." Specifically the stage-managed shit-fit at the New York Times for writing about a facet of intelligence gathering. The article looked into some particulars of the financial snooping done by the CIA in attempts to track “terrorist” dough. Nevermind that the broad facts of the operation were common knowledge from September 12th on. Or that the mid-level details were reported on extensively less than two years ago. Or that the fine points were, given the nature of the program’s previous disclosure, absolutely intuitive to all but the thickest, least imaginative terrorists (or Americans) out there. And for good measure, don’t pay any attention to the fact that the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal printed similar stories on the heels of the NYT non-bombshell.

33rd degree rhetorical blackbelt , Glenn Greenwald lays into the administration’s allegations with fists of fury. When he’s done and all the hot air’s been let out, the GOP hystericals are left toting around all that manufactured outrage on a set of flat, flat tires. Do yourself and those around you a favor and read The Bush Lynch Mob Against the Nation's Free Press. Also Alex Koppelman’s got a good spot on this as well over on The Huffington Report. (The HuffPo, by the way, seems to be under a troll attack today as the comment boards are swamped with contrarian PoV’s ranging from mildly cretinous to personally provocative. It’s got everyone wondering if there’s been another hiring boom in the Bush propaganda department or whether it’s a desperate new tactic from tubby, mom’s basement dwelling rightists—turning off the opposition’s readers by debasing message boards with inane, offensive and, most importantly, stoooopid blurts 'n bursts.)

Ok, ok, enough of that. What else is out there this week? Well, some selective reporting about how watching The Daily Show might make you dangerously apathetic… as long as you take the report out of context, that is. And, oh yes, there’s the perennial coal-stoking Flag Burning amendment that gets trotted out every few years by “conservatives” looking for some cheap props with their voting bloc. Once again it went nowhere. But don’t fret. All you hot-button types are in for a real treat seeing as this is an election year. In the view of which, this week's sanctimonious horseshit coming outta the White House and echoed by the GOP faithful in the government and on TV, is all pre-game warm-ups, muscle-stretching, wind-sprints, etc… The real shit will fly soon enough. And we’ll all be tits deep in it.

And then there’s… ahh funk it. I’m ‘bout outta gas for the day. The a/c broke in my modern Chicago skyscraper this morning and it’s been getting steadily muggier. Yick. I’ve had just about enough for today. You all get the drift anyway, right?

"Choking-On-Yr-Own-Fleghm Friday"

That's soon to be registered trademark, bub.

Cuz it is indeed Friday and because by this time tomorow I'll have pushed yet another year into my 30's and because I've got a bottle of tequila cold chilling in the freezer, today's post will be a handful of looks at the strangest "rock" "band" known to mankind, Caroliner.

"Caroliner, a black light augmented, go to hell and pump thunder band, was formed in 1983 in order to portray the cabin fever and ergot poisoned hallucinations of early America, namely the 1800s." (Via Cake & Polka Parade.) "Caroliner has created its own bizarre universe combining monstrous fantasy creatures with early American music and folklore -- not Uncle Remus and "Yankee Doodle Dandy," but the sick, hopeless lives chronicled in the incredible Wisconsin Death Trip book[...] In other words: cabin fever, sunstroke, poisonous grain = hallucinations. Not in a "peace, my brother!" Grateful Dead sense, but in a mentally "at the end of your rope" way[...]" (Via the mighty Mark Prindle.)
"If all of this sounds strange, imagine what it looks like. Surreal sculptural scenery of indeterminate function saturates the Caroliner stage. Often it's even difficult to determine where the scenery ends and the band members begin, as the performers' unwieldy costumes are cut from the same creative cloth as the props. Bathed in black light, the Caroliner handiwork basks in all of its Day-Glo glory. And, perhaps most amazing of all, Caroliner recreates the rickety tunesmithery of its 10 albums. It's not a noisefest, but a carefully composed collection of abstract expressionist folk songs from an alternate universe." (Via The Metro Times.)
"[...]Caroliner is not an impenetrable noise band. They are willfully DIFFICULT, and at first listen do come across as lo-fi irritants using their instruments incorrectly, but if you take each song as an individual unit and hand each one to your ears on a silver platter of respect and attention, your intelligence and quest for novelty (meaning "newness," not "Dr. Demento-style joke music") will be handsomely rewarded in actual silver coins that pop out of the record at regular intervals. In its darkest heart, the debut Caroliner album is a snazzy goodtime folk/blues/rock record by a group of people who clearly had no interest at all in being a successful folk/blues/rock band. They haven't "deconstructed" the genre[...]they've made it as sloppy as possible and buried it in varied glops of disconcerting noise, leaving you (the listener) feeling as if you're experiencing schizophrenic aural hallucinations while trying to listen to a backwoods family of half-retarded inbreds play their homemade boogie for you." (Via Mark Prindle's review of 1987's Read End Hernia Puppet Show.)
If all that whets yr whistle, here's some Caroliner magic via YouTube:

(All Photos Used Without Permission But With Oh-So-Much Love)

Sled Dog Day Afternoon

Woof. It's busy around here this week. I'm ready for an AWOL day soon. Very soon.

In the meantime, if you missed the PBS Frontline special on Dick Cheney and the Iraq War buildup that aired Tuesday night, fear not, it's available for viewing on the web. I would highly recommend making the time to view it. It's a fact-based dissection of the Bush administration and its various designs both domestic and foreign. Chocked-full of high-profile interviews and analysis, this top-notch TV documentary doesn't judge, doesn't angle... it just lays it out there.

Watch Frontline: The Dark Side.

Situation Normal, All Fucked Up

Well, it aint much of a surprise. These people are crooks and enablers of crooks. But at least it's easy to see what they stand for when things are put to a vote. Ya know, were the political landscape reversed, were progressives really in charge of the "liberal media," imagine the talking points they would be turning to headlines given the results of this vote.

Via What Really Happened:

GOP Kills Senate Bill to Police Halliburton

In an effort to stop companies like Halliburton and its subsidiaries from cheating our troops and stealing from Americans, Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), introduced S.AMDT.4230 and attached it to the Defense Authorization bill currently being debated in the Senate. The bill was intended to improve contracting "by eliminating fraud and abuse and improving competition in contracting and procurement."

Dorgan's bill -- cosponsored by 17 Democrats and called the Honest Leadership and Accountability in Contracting Act of 2006 -- was tabled by a roll call vote of 55-43, effectively rejecting the amendment. Every single Senate Republican voted against the measure to make the contracting process honest and impose penalties on those who break the law.

**UPDATE: Frist Slips 'Poison Pill' to Minimum Wage Bill (Thanks, Ed!)

Yankee Doodle Martyr's Brigade

Haven’t been too absorbed in the headlines lately. It’s a question of sanity and self-preservation more than free time or motivation. But I’ve been keeping abreast to be sure. To wit, last week’s Guantánamo suicides were tragic but not surprising—all humans are wired the same, after all. The emotional fruits of endless despair and periodic torture are the same for the terrorist (would-be or never-was) than they are for the pencil pusher. Our fearless leaders would like us to believe that the actions of the three “detainees” was calculated sabotage. That their final, desperate act was in fact another act of war against our great nation. “Asymmetrical warfare,” they call it. And apparently in all seriousness, Rear Admiral Harry B. Harris described the dead men as being “smart, creative, committed.” To which DissentVoice.org’s Anthony Alessandrini replies, “[That] is a perverse compliment being paid by the torturer to the tortured”. And to which I reply, "Rear Admiral, eh?"

So, it was warfare, it was terrorism, but in no conceivable way was it the act of desperate men who in succumbing to their hopelessness, took the only way out they’d been able to find. Sure. And as expected the administration and its enablers hide behind a variation on their running themes, Patriotism and Fear, to give us the bologna about the suicides being a creative assault on America. It’d be frickin’ funny if it wasn’t so pathetic, so sad. But at least fewer and fewer of the ol’ constituency is buying that kind of line. Hell, some higher-profile folks have even begun to wake up and see this mess for what it really is, fundamentally un-American. Just ask James Norton. The Christian Science Monitor published his op-ed piece, Roots of US War Prisoners' Rights Run Deep, this morning.

Should you find all that dry as toast wiffout butta, perhaps check in with the take over on fafblog. 6/10 Changed Everything, should sweeten the deal. And the comments page is a force of its own as user, Famousringo points out, "The obvious counterattack to this kind of assault is to pre-emptively respond in kind: To commit suicide.Only elite suicide squads, killing themselves with ruthless efficiency, can provoke the guilt and shame necessary to win this conflict."

MSNBC's Husky Tart, Owned

This is part and parcel from the great Cursor.org:

"[N]ice, but dumber than a suitcase of rocks," is how MSNBC's Keith Olbermann reportedly described colleague Rita Cosby, a charter member of 'TV's Aryan Sisterhood.'

Rod Stewart Got His Stomach Pumped

Getting edgy this afternoon as the Coulter-clone in the cube next to mine has her desktop satellite radio turned way up. It never veers from the all top-40 station. All top-40, all the time. And, really, it’s only like the top 20, cuz I swear to Jebus it’s always the same 20 over and over and over again, all goddamned miserable day long. If I go another day hearing that nasally pussywillow sing “you’re beau-ta-fa-uh, beau-ta-fa-uh” another dozen times, I’m gonna need the good insurance cuz I will have rammed my steel letter opener right into both eardrums. Which would be better than having to hear that untalented douche whine about his testicles getting torn off in a threshing accident and falling in love with his favorite goat or whateverthefuck that shitty, shitty song’s about. And don’t get me started on the half-assed dancehall “right temperature” song. Fucker’s so played out it’s deader than Abe Lincoln. White kids summer party song, my ass.

I wear these wickedly painful earbud headphones all damn day not only so I don’t have to listen to the endless top-40 song cycle, but also to avoid having to listen in to the newly-graduated, frat-sorority conversations that go on around me. These kids set new levels in vapidity every day. Any time I catch one saying anything half-way intelligent, after nearly falling out of my seat, I wanna give ‘em a pat on the back and say something like, “THERE you go, kiddo. Spoken like a college graduate. Keep at it and one day you might just walk upright.”

But I don’t. My hope is usually dashed when the next thing outta their mouth is less intelligent than what my dog says with her eyes. I go back to pounding my head against the brick wall in my mind while my fingers get back on track and type, type, type…

All this while today some fucking moron in Massachusetts calls the cops because he buys a vanity for his bathroom remodeling project only to get it home and discover a huge amount of drugs stashed away in it. The luck. I mean it’s the kind of thing stoned college kids and down and out losers everywhere dream about day in and day out. Jagoff.

Type, type, type…

On Turd Eating and Tuna Tartar

Oh man… eating my tuna fish sandwich dinner tonight (the chef’s at her graduation party) and doing the ol’ station flip-flip-flip because the White Sox have pretty much run away with the only baseball game on TV. I get to the suite of cable news stations or “The Devil’s Alley” as it’s known around this household. Except for the station that’s always showing the screaming bald stock-picking guy, every single one is in the middle of a discussion of misanthropic psychopath Ann Coulter’s recent mocking of the 9/11 widows on the Today show. Every station. At the same time.

Of course we all know the sick-souled "journalist" uses this kind of outrage to whip up controversy around herself and thus pump sales for the packets of sustained hate that are her books. And of course the unofficial GOP propaganda unit, Fox News, was the only one who actually Coulter herself on. Shocking, I know.

But there was a sublime moment in all of it. GOP agent and all around human shitstain, David Horowitz was on Larry King playing the smirking Coulter apologist. I sat through a couple minutes of his turn in the roundtable "discussion." But I was quickly overcome and turned the station just before blood rocketed from my all orifices. I wound up a few clicks up on Fox News where human feltchstain Sean Hannity was, I kid you not, in the middle of THE EXACT SAME TALKING POINTS as Horowitz had been only 5 seconds earlier. I mean it was word for word. I clicked back and forth for the next minute or so and, goddamn, it was uncanny. It was like they were reading from the same script.... which, you know, in a lot of ways they probably were.

(This post totally unlinked for your own protection. Unless of course you want the dirt on this Horowitz chap. In which case may I turn your attention to this excellent article by Kurt Nimmo on Counterpunch, “The Delusions of David Horowitz,” and Scoobie Davis’ ongoing smack-down site, HorowitzWatch.)

Photo Post

"The Devil's Son-In-Law Takes One for the Team (A Process)"
(Copyright 2006, B. Hoben)

There's a Monster In My 7-Grain Cereal

A couple of hours ago I started writing something about how with sleepy eyes and a mouth full of cereal I learned about Al-Zarqawi’s death this morning. And about how I was initially thrilled about what it meant. After I woke up a little bit I wasn’t exactly sure what the hell it meant (though I can imagine every cable news channel pundit has already gone blue in the face telling us exactly what it means). After I woke up a little more I began to remember all the varied accounts as to exactly who this guys was, what kind of power he had and exactly what he was responsible for. I remembered no one could agree on any of it. Ever. But now, apparently, he’s dead and us Americans are so bloody desperate for some good news in Iraq that even the haters and the peaceniks are high-fiving over this one.

So I was in the middle of writing a piece on all that nonsense, when a desperate and cranky financial manager from New Jersey called trying to track down a sizeable sum. In my telepathically received panic I managed to lose the draft. So, in lieu of my normal, prize-winning political commentary, I bid you, dear reader, to visit the great Counterpunch where columnist Chris Floyd lays out some of the more contentious aspects of the figure that is/was Abu Musab Saddam Osama al-Zarqawi. Read “The Timely Death of al-Zarqawi: Hubub in Hibhib.”


I’ll then direct your attention to the quote of the day, supplied by Miss Jenny Lynch of Boston, MA:

"He finally broke loose and, thank goodness for sweat pants with elastic on them, because he tried to climb up my britches' leg."
(Via Orlando’s WFTV.)

Thanks, Jenny.

Poetry Corner

Elements of the Fight (An Ongoing Work)

1. Nests built in apprehension of a surly weather report.
2. Fibrous moments seized in random contexts are allowed to filter the personality to some recognizable form.
3. A mainstay of confidence and security.
4. Something to hold back the madness, like a gently constructed dam.
5. Holes in your shoes as you step on others’ toes.
6. To walk with a dogged limp, a tired ghost ready to give it up.
7. A logjam of supports, tenuous at best, but there’s solidity to some extent, in some temporary sense.
8. The overflowed and otherwise useless receptacles of regret converge in trashheap conversations several trashdays overdue.
9. An early start at transformation sidesteps legislation from the primary vices.
10. Multi-level declarations brought about by living situation complications.
11. ‘Free and Fair Use’ is determined detrimental to the modern democracy.
12. Pave the sidewalks, pave the sidestreets.
13. Static days lead to restless nights.
14. “We left the body in the woods.”
15. To reconstruct one’s life as to bring about change sometimes backfires and recidivism trumps progress.
16. The medication must be multiplied as daily doses increase with the desperate feeling that someone, somewhere is drowning.
17. Coming to conclusions often means acting hypocritical.
18. Tossing away photographs of onetime lovers.
19. Contaminants create an inauthentic life, neither real nor unreal.
20. Comforts come form whacked-out death-trip fantasies.
21. On-line journals open for business spill our intimate guts, while family gatherings remain eerily quiet.
22. “I was just gonna hit him, but I’m gonna kill him now.”
23. All deeds seem dirty.
24. Setting up a line of defense, as in a game of chess, to protect some part of oneself from an attack, real or imagined.
25. As television disciples, our past and present are tethered only by our most extreme moments.
26. Literal interpretations log increased airtime in mind’s eye, while all figurative and critical models are heretofore designated anti-American.
27. Ever-increasing agoraphobia stalks the public psyche.
28. “You stare long enough into the void, the void stares back into you.” = “The more you shop, the more you save.”
29. A mild feeling of nausea when the air-conditioning is not on.
30. While some keep a pack of dogs made vicious by hunger, others keep people made vicious by other circumstances.
31. Metafiction of mass consumption mediated by model citizen dressed in maintenanced morals.
32. Advertising will one day corrupt every word in the lexicon.
33. Forked tongues remain untied.
34. Saving the best for last becomes the big joke in our modern era.
35. And on and on and on.
36.

(Copyright 2003, Dung Magazine, B. Hoben)

Bring It, Summertime, Bring It.

Fresh off a two-day backyard grilling extravaganza in some of the best weather to be found on the planet. Sunny and warm in the day, cool and starry at night. Day one was a party in miniature. The laughs flowed almost as freely as the gin drinks (see Friday night’s post). It was just what the doctor ordered. Day two was a solo affair that involved significantly less boozing, reading a great book and falling asleep in the loungy deck chair as the day wore on.

What better lead-in for a column on the upcoming SEC football season. The strongest conference in the nation is gearing up for several pivotal battles as former cupcakes and up-and-comers look to knock off a handful of would-be powerhouses. The talent has been spread around pretty well throughout the conference over the last few years and with so many SEC players going pro lately, the playing field has been greatly leveled. For many teams the pressure to win will fall to the younger players.

My Florida Gators are one of those teams. A very young team, but a very talented team. Their offense is set to explode under option-mad coach Urban Meyer’s second year. And the defense has surprised a lot of us with its aggressiveness. The shut-down prowess they exhibited last year when the offense failed to carry the team was nothing short of thrilling. And, you know, it’s not a stretch to say that two of the losses couldn’t be pinned on the defense. Offensive miscues and Leak’s timid movement outside the pocket lost games as much as any defensive gaffes. But with a full season of Meyer’s approach under their belts, some impressive rookies ready to start and one of the best damn QB recruits in the nation waiting in the wings, the offense is looking much improved and far more dangerous than last year.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution sports columnist, Tony Barnhart lays out the upcoming SEC season for us. Key matchups, player and coach hotseats, and assorted drama. Dig it.
(Via: Swampball.com.)

Tonight!

Just spent three hours crafting what I'm confident in calling the best pasta sauce I've ever put together. (Onions, Red, Orange, Yellow Peppers, Garlic, Tomatoes, Chicken Andoullie Sausages, Variety of Sliced Mushrooms, Red Wine, Trader Joe's Sauce Base and Several Spices.) While it stewed I worked on perfecting my new Summertime Gin and Juice drink. (Gin, sparkling lemon drink, sparking lime drink, a couple pinches sugar and a twist of lime over ice.) All the while I spun a couple of excellent albums. (The Low and Sweet Orchestra's 1996 country-punk-by-way-of-Waits godsend, "Goodbye To All That", followed by last year's much maligned, yet thoroughly top-shelf indie-rock masterpiece, "Apologies To The Queen Mary" by Wolf Parade.)

Up On My Soap Box Bar

Gonna take some time to decompress this weekend. Hopefully get back on the posting tip next week with something about how one of the most revolutionary things you can do these days is to ask someone WHY they believe what they believe—and make time to hear their answer if they actually have one.

The proliferation of cable news and AM radio opinion shouters combined with the subsequent evaporation of insight, reasoning and honest facts have done to the American mind what fast food, preservatives and high fructose corn syrup have done to the American physique. The too-busy, too-distracted public have become far too reliant on pre-packaged, pre-digested, manufactured angles and opinions. Challenging someone to explain themselves (and letting them do so) seems like a decent antidote to the modern wave of anti-thought that’s engulfed the culture. Being too busy or too lazy to take the time to understand the forces at work in the world today is little more than a prescription for oblivion. If folks would at least take the time to figure out why they think what they think, we as a people may at least proceed with some kinda conciliatory confidence that would surely trump the paranoid fatalism whispered in our ears day in and day out.

Whew.

And then there’s this: Yo Gabba Gabba! is apparently a new kids TV show. And from the sneak peek, it looks sensational. Watch the clip, listen to the tunes and just see if anyone can knock the smile off your face for the next several hours. I doubt it!

(Via Boing Boing so, of course, you know all about it already.)

Picking It Up

Back in Chicago and at work for the time being. Will try and get somthing new on here soon.

Sorry about the lull. It was a bit of an emergency, but things seem to be back on track now.

Take Five

I'm out of town for some medical BS and whatnot. Sorry about the lack of posting. I'll try and put something together in the next few days.

A few things I've learned after 24hours in Orlando:

There's new buildings EVERYWHERE. I used to complain about how they just kept building out and creating massive urban (and suburban) sprawl. Well, now they've not only built out but they're knocking down the old to put in the new. I barely recognize this town now.

I think there's a Florida law that demands that Fox News be played at senior citizen volume in the waiting room of every doctor and specialist in the state. Hey docs, "Fox, Friends and Fascism In The Afternoon" doesn't exactly make for a relaxing wait.

While eating bar-b-que and digging the piped in K-92 Country FM I was feeling a little blue. Then, The Charlie Daniels Band came on the radio. "Devil in the House of the Risin' Sun" brought me back just fine.

Ben and Jerry's now makes a Black and Tan ice cream. It's apparently made with "stout cream." Holy crap.

While it's positively gorgeous in Chicago right now (about time, eh?), it's already 24/7 air conditioning season here. No punch line. Just oppressive.

Back Scratchers Anonymous

It’s hard to escape the scum in Washington. The round-n-round, federal-corporate circle jerk is the cavity in the tooth, the turd in the punch bowl, the hitch in the giddyup. It’s at once responsible for the rise of America as an international superpower and at the same time responsible for the decay and betrayal of the very tenets of that same America.

The rise of the military-industrial complex coming out of WWII was and still is the ultimate betrayal of the hopes and dreams of this country’s founding fathers. Big Money’s corrosive effects on Democracy is painfully evident now more so than ever. There’s a million people who can lay it out better than I right now, so I’ll just point in a few directions.

The shadowy Carlyle Group is the subject of a Danish documentary shown free here. (Note: it starts in Dutch for the first couple minutes, then remains in English until the very end.)

The documentary, Why We Fight, covers similar ground, but from a more historical perspective. Watch it here.

And an interesting new take on this old sell-out is big news these days. You’ve heard the buzz about all the illegal wiretapping going on in the good ol’ land of the free these days, right? Well perhaps you didn’t know that it’s not exactly the government who’s keeping track of your aural comings and goings. Apparently, much of the dirty work has been outsourced to the private sector. Wonderful.

So, they can whip up a war and send us out to die, they can pervert the nature of our Free Enterprise economy and grow fabulously wealthy off our tax dollars, and now they can practically watch us live our daily lives. God Bless America, allright.

UPDATE: And how could I have forgotten the reacharound AT&T has been giving to peeping Uncle Sam as has recently been discovered?

Support Our Oops.

This is kinda all over the netisphere right now, but it's too funny to pass up:
The BBC tried to get tech guru Guy Kewney to comment on Apple music and the proliferation of mp3 technology. They accidentally went on the air with some poor guy who was only at the BBC to apply for an IT position. The expression on his face when he's mis-introduced is absolutely priceless. Then he decides to ride it out.

The clip on YouTube.

(Via Boing Boing.)

Photo Post

Photo By Eric Hulse

Istanbul, Turkey 1997

Looking For A Laugh

I need a laugh today. A bunch of laughs. Who couldn’t do without a laugh on a cold and rainy day like today, anyway? I mean, for fuck’s sake it’s halfway through May, you’d think Chicago came outta winter, hit March and just got stuck there. I suppose it could be worse. It could be snowing. (I’m told in all seriousness that it has indeed snowed here in May before—though no one can agree on exactly when.) But I’m ready for summer, dammit. I’m ready for bike rides and backyard bar-buh-ques. I’m ready for wearing shorts and getting a suntan. I’m ready to day goodbye to the Tamale man and hello to the Helado man. Sometimes in the midst of all the rocking out and the political teeth-gnashing on here, I forget about the funnier things ‘cross the internet. I hereby apologize.

If you’ve never checked out The Sneeze, do yourself a favor and wait no longer. The blog has had me chucklin’ for some time now. His ongoing experiment in the levels of human endurance, “Steve Don’t Eat It,” is a great place to start.

Joan Rivers is really never on my radar. Ever. But a friend sent me this clip of her on an Australian TV award show. You may notice she’s acting a little… uh, off.

The Reverend Rick Mackin publishes a zine and has released a book of his sarcastic and satirical correspondences to Corporate America. Picking up where the master, Lazlo Toth (Don Novello), left off he reverses the flow of absurd information we're bombarded with in our great consumer culture. His blog publishes some of the letters and other genuine Mackin insights.

Downstate Illinois auto mechanics rock and rollers, Cunt Puppet, make the perfect rock and roll to bring to your next NOW meeting. Well, not really... then again, maybe. Their crass, southern-fried, perpetually pubescent rock and roll may or may not be an act but it’s certainly a whole lot of fun. If only the oversexed, mullet wearing, NASCAR fans of my youth were as brilliant as these guys. And don’t forget to take some time and read the song lyrics… you just might learn a thing or two about picking up women.

And of course, Gainesvillian, Patrick Hughes continues to keep ‘em in stitches with tales about the less-than-high points of his youth over at Bad News Hughes.

Heavy Rotation Redux (2-Fer Tuesday Edition)

There's been a few albums that have grown on me lately. They're albums that I liked a bunch when I first heard them but recently I've noticed I'm digging them even more that I did a few months ago. Usually this happens to music that you don't love from the get-go. The kind that, after a while, works its way into your neural net and launches some kinda synaptic tet offensive; a guerilla warfare between the hemispheres of your brain. And without even realizing it, you've internalized some weird love for some songs that you'd previously been antagonistic to or ambivalent about. But not here. I really dug these albums right off the bat. But for whatever reason I'm now totally in love with them. Must be springtime, eh?

Porest - Tourrorists!

Side project of Mono-Pause/Neung Phak mastermind Mark Gergis. Porest's sound is a deliciously crude mix of sample-heavy, pan-Middle Eastern pop and political head-rapping. All of Gergis' projects are the work of a master meme-shifting, bomb tossing, prankster-provocateur and his Discordian tendencies fly at full mast here. Numerous perspectives compete against and alongside one another in a caustic expression of frustration with our brave new, post-9-11 world. Indeed Porest is a great example of the violent reaction that should result when art and politics meet. Often the result is watered down or childishly black and white. Tourrorists! is stinging, catchy, shocking, funny, and outrageous in turns.

Here's a decent review. Here's a funny review by someone whose head it went over. And here's a fantastic interview with Gergis and members of his wonderful Southeast Asian sideproject, Neung Phak.

Devil Music - Go!

Not exactly instrumental and not exactly "song" oriented, the juggernaut that is Devil Music thunder through their compositions with the force of a runaway locomotive. Urgent yet psychedelic; their take on rock might, on a paticularly foggy night, be compared to a more cinematic Shellac or Lightning Bolt... maaaaybe*. Go! is a wild ride from start to finish. It's full of strange arrangements and unexpectedly heavy hooks. It's their second official rock album and about their 8th release as one incarnation or another. You see, the basic lineup is as a three-piece with drums, guitar and affected violin drenched in backing keyboards (supplied by the double-duty violinist). They also perform film scores and modern classical music as the Devil Music Ensemble where the group expands to include a bigger string section (sometimes up to a 40-piece orchestra). Why Devil Music haven't made a bigger splash is a mystery. Maybe they're just another in a long line of Boston bands to be criminally ignored. Who knows.

*Defining bands by naming other bands is an odious sin in the record review world as far as I'm concerned. I'm a hack for using this tool, I know. But I'm just about out of gas for the day.

The Brian Costello Show

Today, Saturday, May 6th, if yr in Chicago get yrself to The Empty Bottle by 3pm for Chicago's best and bravest live talk show, The Brian Costello Show with Brian Costello. I'll be doing the Ed McMahon again. Guests include: Rick Kogan, Marianne Murciano and musical guests Pearly Sweets. Houseband: The Billy Carter Band.

Come on and get drunk before sundown with the rest of us jagbags.

So Not Unfunny

WaPo opinion columnist, Richard Cohen has a piece in today's paper about his take on Stephen Colbert's speech in front of/at the President and the Press this past weekend. It's title, So Not Funny should give you an idea of his opinion on the affair. The article itself comes across as less rational argument than touchy shout-down from someone who was part of Colbert's target audience... er, target-ed audience I should write. Anyway, Daily Kos' Georgia10 has a good run down of the situation here. (BTW, check out the Chicago Reader's great article on her.)

Cohen's piece left me a scratchin' my noggin trying to figure out exactly where he was coming from and why most of the press about the dinner that night has either completely ignored Colbert's torching or painted it as a rude and unfunnny gesture. I'm certain it's got plenty to do with Colbert painting the media as complicit lapdogs and little to do with humor and political blovation, or the lack thereof.

I was moved to kick out a letter to Cohen about all this. It's not exactly a work of art, but I think it conveys my sentiment just fine.

cohenr@washpost.com
RE: "So Not Funny"
Washington Post, Thursday, May 4, 2006

Well, it's nice to see someone putting the "ass" back in "assessment."
Hey, wow! Now I'm being funny. Ya know, everyone always told me I'd make a great comedian... or newspaper columnist. But alas I've grown up to be neither.

Anyhoo, how you can assign ("ass" again... damn I'm good!) some kind of sliding scale--rude, brash, brassy--to dissent is bewildering. While I agree the routine was by no means side-splitting, I fail to see how that was Colbert's goal. His aim was obvious: derision couched in various degrees of witty humor, or attempts therein. You're by no means wrong to wear the opinion that he simply wasn't funny, but to claim that his wasn't a gutsy, witty act of political courage is to buy into some illusion of prestige and royalty... the kind of treatment the press has given the Bush administration since that terrible morning in September of 2001, if not since the national clusterfuck that was his 2000 election.

Colbert's point was to dissent. Publicly. Loudly. And, sure, rudely. It perked the ears and pricked the skin of a notoriously aloof, walled-off, micro-managed President. (And really, is getting marginally vicious with a guy who's political bodyguard is the historically vicious Karl Rove really rude for its content or just cuz the attack was waged outside the normal arena?) It did the same to a press core that so many of us feel has sold its soul just to stay in the game with these guys. And perhaps that's why you come across as hurt as you do in the column. Colbert's guns were trained on you as much as they were on our dear leader. Your indignation at the speech hits none of the right buttons, attacks no particular point. You simply seem miffed at the gall of some sharp-tongued whipper-snapper; like a grandma scolding the potty-mouthed youth of today for playing on her lawn.

But you know you're right on at least one point. I do agree it's sad that this has become the state of political dissent in our great nation. It's sad that we of like mind get so wound up at something that's clearly not the call of the revolution nor the second coming. But our reaction should give you a clue as to the nature of the terrain these days. To say Colbert risked nothing is to ignore the vast corpus of evidence to the contrary over the past five years. It's to ignore The Dixie Chicks, Jeremey Glick, Cindy Sheehan, Nicole and Jeff Rank, Michael Moore, Tim Robbins, Neil Young and hundreds of others who've caught hell in one form or another because they dared emote their political opinions. And to be sure, not a ONE of them had the opportunity and/or the stones to let loose mere feet away while the objects of their un-affection were obliged to sit quiet and still.

Whether your column was steeped in outrage for an entertainer's lack of decorum and protocol, or whether it was more sour grapes at being included in said entertainer's indictment, your beef doesn't seem to be at all about someone being particularly funny or not. Your column does, however, seem to be written by someone who, to borrow the spirit of a phrase, doth protest entirely too much.

Thanks for your time,
Bryan Delano III
Chicago, IL

YouTube Wednesday

Everyone's on the YouTube bandwagon already, right? As a free, user-fed repository of all things video, it's a truly democratic version the of Video on Demand service pushed hard by every major cable TV outfit in America.

Of course there's talk about the legality of it all. For a free service, YouTube reportedly spends a great deal of time and moola cross-checking the legality of the videos posted. It's just that the combination of the sheer volume of submitted clips and the internet's somewhat murky legal terrain makes policing a distinctly inexact science. So, in many cases the management has simply opted to let "infringement-questionable" pieces stay loaded on the site until they're asked to remove them. This is part of what makes YouTube a wonderful site. It's also what could lead to future legal troubles given the contentious nature of "Free and Fair Use" in our modern world. Bottom line: enjoy YouTube while you can, cuz these days, there's blood in the water and there's always greed in the souls of men. **UPDATE: See this process in action!

I'd wanted to post links to music videos and live music from some of my favorite bands/artists, but I found a veritable treasure trove of wonderful Cocteau Twins material. So, I'll leave it at that for today. They're the kind of band I'm always finding different reasons for liking... or different things to like about. They've got this enduring greatness that, though it aint for everyone (oh, those endless arguments), inspires a swooning devotion in their fans. If you've never been able to get into them, perhaps it's time to reevaluate your opinion. Who knows, you may've just had to grow into them.

VIDEOS:

Iceblink Luck

Love's Easy Tears

Carolyn's Fingers

Evangeline

Aikea-Guinea

Crushed

Pearly Dewy-Drops' Drops

Heaven Or Las Vegas

Half-Gifts (e.p. version)

Two Rilkean Dreams / Half-Gifts

LIVE:

The Spangle Maker

Seekers Who Are Lovers (Live Remix By Seefeel)

Lorelei

Song To The Siren (as This Mortal Coil)

Eat Rocks, Shit Sand

Soul-crushingly busy day full of dull, dry number crunching. Anyone wanna make me a job offer? Maybe somewhere I can dust off that old English degree. Maybe get a little, god forbid, creative from time to time. Maybe get the hell away from credits, debits and Account Rec's. Got any leads? Anyone?

But as much as I hate this place, at least I've still got time for some linkage:

Why not check out a great article in the Austin Chronicle about the return of the great madman rock-and-roller, Roky Erickson. It's from December but hasn't been widely circulated apparently.

And speaking of rock and roll, someone's finally made a song-lyric database that's devoid of BHO's, spyware and re-directs. Meet LyricWiki.org.

Or perhaps chew on Michael Scherer's analysis of just what Stephen Colbert's little insurrection (see Sunday's post) means in the grand scheme of things.

How 'bout Rollie St. Bacon's take on "The Liberal Media" in Chicago?

And considering the great news for freedom loving people everywhere coming out Mexico today, just what are the folks at Epicurious getting at with today's Recipe of the Day?

Big Brass Balls (Updated)

The big hard drive went pushing up daisies, alright. Luckily I had copies of most of the important stuff stashed in bits and pieces on the other computers around the house. The only real headache is reloading all the programs and updates. It's gonna take a few days.

The NFL draft was fun despite the Bears' ponderous selections. My other teams did pretty well. The Pats even picked up two Gators. But in the midst of all the computer surgery and ESPN cross-analysis, I missed the other big event this weekend.

Not that you'd know anything about it if you relied on TV news, but the annual White House Correspondents dinner's host speaker was none other than the now-legendary Stephen Colbert. Talk about a ponderous choice. Whoever OK'd him to speak in front of the prestigious gathering of top media types, congressmen, representatives and the president and first lady will probably be fired before Monday morning. Colbert absolutely torched the room. It was like a politically charged roast of Bush, various politicos and the mainstream press. I mean he skewered Bush so thoroughly, the room was near silent. Jaws dropped, Bush red-faced.

My talking about it does it no modicum of justice, so try and check it out on a CSPAN rerun. Or Crooks and Liars has video of the last half of the speech. And Daily Kos has the full transscript. But, really, try and watch it. It makes a world of difference. (Also: apparently the haters are saying he bombed, which is just predictable poo-pooing from sourpusses. It was not only a brilliant speech in both content and context, but historical as far as "talking truth to power" goes.)

Indeed as is rounding the net today, Colbert does indeed win the "Big Brass Balls" award for this. Wow.

**UPDATE: New Crooks And Liars page with the entire speech in three parts. And a corny "Thank You, Stephen Colbert" guestbook.

**UPDATE: Top-notch analysis of the lack of audience chuckles over at The Whiskey Bar.

**UPDATE: The YouTube vids are now down.

Ups 'n Downs

NFL draft today (hooray!).
My main computer went belly-up this morning (uh-oh!).
C onfined to this decomposing laptop while I figure out how to save some data.
So, where are my Gators gonna go today?

Void / Faith

Heading into the weekend, I’ve still no clearer a picture of my whereabouts during the pervious weekend. Because it doesn’t seem I’ll ever get the full story, it’s become a matter of faith. I suppose I’ll have to take hearsay and rumor as fact. No matter how crazy or stupid or dangerous it sounds.

And with both faith and fact in mind, a quick word about the book I finished a few days ago, The End of Faith by Sam Harris. While there’s no doubt the need is great for the propagation of anti-religious viewpoints these days, Harris’ scattershot screed isn’t exactly a primer for the movement. It’s a fun, feel-good read for those of us in the club already, but I can’t see it changing any minds. Based around opinion pieces and thought experiments before devolving into meditations on peripheral topics, his thesis seems to be that rational thought needs to actively trump religious dogmas on a global scale. And do it soon at the peril of nothing less than the future of mankind. Fairly intuitive stuff as far as I’m concerned. But what I do find compelling is Harris’ ability to inject The Argument (to believe or not to believe) with a much-needed level-headedness and analytic panache. Nevermind that his suppositions regularly leave out various x-factors, points of view and half the world's religions, or that his stone-cold rationality leads to some uncomfortable conclusions regarding the actions of the State in the “war on terror.” It's his rhetoric which resonates, if occasionally to the detriment of his rationale. Ultimately, I finish the book feeling pulled in neither direction; not particularly enlightened, but armed with little more ammunition should I need to press my own particular POV.

And now, some quotes:

" I have examined all the known superstitions of the Word, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the world ..."---Thomas Jefferson

" Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind."--Thomas Paine

"...the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction. "--George Washington, 1789, responding to clergy complaints that the Constitution lacked mention of Jesus Christ, from The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness, Isacc Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore W.W. Norton and Company 101-102.

*See Also: The God Who Wasn't There DVD. Haven't seen it yet, but it's next up in my Netflix cue.

Extraordinary Rendition: Oh The Places You'll Go!

The Existentialist Cowboy’s got the goods on the latest in the overseas rendition scandal (the Bush régime’s cynical, twisted, Anti-American, and quite frankly, Satanic practice of sending captured combatants, suspected combatants, and innocent dudes with seriously bad luck to countries outside of the US for torture and, quite possibly, disappearing). If after all that overseas talk you find yourself bit by the travel bug, why not check out On the Trail of the Incas over at TravelBlog. A blogger has posted a great run-down on their trip to Machu Picchu in Peru complete with stunning photographs. Perhaps not as stunning as the photos that led to the investigation of our pornographic abuse of Arab prisoners in the Abu Gharib scandal (‘member that?). But really, who’s counting?

In any event, as more information comes in by phone and by email, and I’ve been able to better piece together exactly happened to me last weekend. Cell phone records are one thing, memory another. The truth has gotta lay between them somewhere. No one can confirm anything but rumors abound. I now have proof that after cracking that bottle off my foot (and thus ensuring said hero status among the partygoers), I called a cab to come get me. Now, catching a cab out in the wilds of the Orlando suburbs is an entirely different exercise in patience than in a metropolis like Chicago. So, wait I did. Exactly when it got there and when I slipped out, no one knows. But they all agree I must have caught that cab at some point. So, where did I go from there? How did I make it back to Chicago? Why did I wake up in a hospital room on the south side? What the hell happened?

Got It Good, Got It #$*&ing Good

I’ve got it on good advice that I’d screamed good and loud when that goddamned bottle bounced off my foot. I’m also told I was a hero for not letting the bottle shatter on the cement right there next to the pool. It could have been an awful mess what with glass sprayed all over and everyone all barefoot. So, it’s with a sense of belated, bloated ego-puffing heroism that I send you to Dave Hill’s column on his Tourette afflicted neighborhood hot dog cart man. A fella who I apparently, inadvertently mimicked out by the pool late, late one steamy Florida night last week.

100th Post

Things are falling into place.
I wasn't in Chicago at all. I was back in Florida. In Orlando again.
There was a party. There were friends. I was in and out of consciousness.
I opened the fridge at the party. Out shot a half-full bottle of tequila. It landed on my toes.
I know this. I remember this. My toe's broken and foot blue-black. It happened.
I think I blacked-out after that. I had dreams. Dreams of wild nonsense.
Thankfully I didn't actually dream this:

Out of the Mist

Woah. Dropped a tequila bottle on my foot and passed out cold for four days. Woke up in a South Side hospital room. I unplugged myself and wandered out, caught a cab and came home. Still putting the peices together.

Outward Bound

After Tuesday’s post, that little trip down memory lane, I need to look outward for a bit. No pronouncements. No opinions. No directives. No invectives. Gotta turn it around here. If just for a day.

Thus:

Chicago’s favorite Floridian transplant, Brian Costello Some kook called Rollie St. Bacon has just started a blog site entitled, The New England Journal Of My Ass. Expect peculiar observations, crass opinions and the occasional motivational speech. Check it out now so you can say you were digging it before the wheels even left the ground.

While I’m currently waging a battle to stay the hell away from video games (as they suck away time that could, should be better spent) there’s a couple of free internet games that I can recommend without too much guilt. The first is a java-based game called Turbo Tanks. The early 80’s, black-and-white-line construction belies the addictive fun of this tank battle shoot-‘em-up. And because it’s in java , there’s no downloads and it can be quickly killed should you be playing it at work… so I’m told. The second is Soldat, an online multiplayer, team-based fighting game. You choose the look of your little fighter dude and pick a particular firearm and off you go. It’s kida like one of today’s MMP 1st person shooters presented circa 1985 in 3rd person (if that makes any sense at all, go outdoors, get some fresh air and some friends). Soldat allows users to tweak their playing preferences and even the type of game they want to play (kill em all, capture the flag, etc.). It’s incredibly addictive and is the current bane of my “no video games” policy.

And finally, Miami’s most mackin-est, Kev Rose, turned my attention to the latest music video collaboration between mind-blowing director Chris Cunningham and mind-blowing musician/mad-scientist Richard D. James (aka – Aphex Twin). Be warned, it’s creepy. Try-not-to-wet-your-pants creepy. Watch: Rubber Johnny. (See also: Come To Daddy and Windowlicker.)

Cairo Movie Journal '97

It’s a long story. To sacrifice clarity for brevity, about nine years ago, after some time traveling around the Mediterranean and Middle East, I met up with my father and brother in Cairo, Egypt. My brother Scott was out visiting Pops who was working as contractor on a small military base about an hour east-northeast of downtown Cairo. A tiny village, out in the middle of nowhere. Before the American technicians were needed out there, the local villagers had never even laid eyes on white folk. B.F.E. for real.

Apparently not all the locals were friendly and we Yanks were discouraged from wandering outside the grounds. For reasons various and clusterfuck I wound up getting stuck on-base for nearly two weeks. Luckily they put my brother and I up in one of the vacant American villas complete with a/c, a stocked kitchen, Armed Forces Network cable TV with MTV from India (Dahler Mehndi, anyone?), and what became my saving grace, a VCR. We hit the base’s video-rental operation everyday. Sometimes twice a day. It was some kinda adjunct of the post office there. A one-man operation, but, goddamn, did they stock a lot of movies. Numerous dubbed bootlegs sat side by side with actual releases, each one carefully numbered and catalogued.

What follows was taken from my travel journals that summer. I spent plenty of time swimming in the pool and boozing at the tiny bar and reading a couple of books but nothing inspired a play-by-play quite like cathode Hollywood parading through the air-conditioned, army-issued villa. I still don’t know if these are funny, sad or somewhere in between, but keep in mind, I was basically held captive at the time.

(Forgive the gratuitous swearing and pseudo-pondering, plainly I've moved so far from that kinda sophmoric nonsense. Huff. Puff. Etc.)

------------------------------------------------------

ESCAPE FROM LA – Good and silly. Much campy effects. Packed with plenty of Carpenter’s “beware of humanity” themes and post/pre apocalyptic humor.

2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY – Good movie that ultimately unifies 10 different stories. Altman, Tarrantino inspired. Drugs, guns, blackmail. Good acting as well by Aiello, Spader.

KINDERGARDEN COP – Oh, Christ.

SLEEPERS – True story. Fucked-up story. DeNiro good but a lot of the points that could have been made and the drama that could have been exploited were left at less than their full potential in order to presumably follow the book’s direction and sideplots. A little too long.

THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY – Shit, I haven’t seen this movie in so long. I liked it much. It was perhaps a bit tedious but still brilliantly original. Fucking Benny Hill meets National Geographic and possibly tips its hat to Monty Python. Good shit.

THE PLAYER – Aint seen this since it came out in ’92. Brilliant. I remember this as the movie to turn me on to Altman. I got to notice more nuances now that I know the plot. The Lyle Lovitt shit was brilliant. Altman got to the point that he was using any excuse to put Lovitt in front of the camera. It hit most in the lineup scene. The lady calls him out again and for a second time he as forced to face forward, etc. Altman is obviously making us just look at the dude. And he is a funny looking guy… Another Lyle moment… When he’s in the police station and Whoopi asks him the name of the movie he saw the previous night. He turns and says, “Freaks,” then repeats the line “one of us, one of us,” over and over again. Kind of making fun of himself… I think. Goddamn Altman is a genius. Never does he let up on his critique and hammer-on-thumb assault on Hollywood. Maybe I’ll see this again before I leave.

STARGATE – Somebody finally capitalized on Egypt’s vast mythological resources (someone in Hollywood, anyway). Just mixed ‘em with some sci-fi and big guns. It was OK. The first half was better than the second. The second just didn’t deliver what the first promised. Oddly, this is the third movie I seen so far with James Spader in it. (Crash was the first in Istanbul) and the second movie with Kurt Russell.

MARS ATTACKS – OK. Funny little Martian guys. Best part is Sarah Jessica Parker’s head on a dog’s body… shit, that was creepy. Is Burton losing his touch or is he just getting bored?

THE ROCK – Kick ass, shoot ‘em up action movie. American action.

CADDYSHACK – Gonna hang onto this so I can watch it a few more times before I’ve gotta turn it back in.

PRET AU PORTER – Another Altman film. Very good. Guts the fashion industry in the same way he hit the music industry in “Nashville” and Hollywood in “The Player.” Was very light and silly. Showed the varying degrees of bankrupt lives led by the people in industry for the most part. The couple of side stories were great also. Tim Robbins and Julia Roberts story as two reporters thrown into a hotel room together after all their clothes went missing was great. All they did was drink and screw. Good flick.

STAR TREK : FIRST CONTACT – I heard this was supposed to be dark compared to many of the other Star Trek films. “Not silly” is more accurate. Not much interesting shit going on here.

THE DOORS – That dude is just a shit talker making it up as he goes along. Jim Morrison sucks too. What a sham. Good filmmaking in the drug scene anyway.

SERIAL MOM – Pink Flamingoes it aint. Good it aint either. Not even good in a Waters-genre sense. Not even “Hairspray” mediocre good. Not even close. I’m sure there were some good parts but I can’t remember them.

BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA – Fucking excellent as always. I just realized this was a John Carpenter film. Amazing I didn’t already know that. Or maybe I did.

LORD OF ILLUSIONS – What the fuck? A decent build-up and then it turns into a friggin’ Matlock episode with a touch of gore. This goddamn sucks.

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY – Bond. What’s the connection? I live these movies. Brain-dead, soupy-plot entertainment. I don’t really know.

SON OF THE PINK PANTHER – Benigni is a comic genius.

CASABLANCA – For the 50th time. I can’t believe my father can also quote this movie. Albeit the more trite quotes, but still. I didn’t know it was in his repertoire.

THE RELIC – OK action suspense about some fucking corn-dog monster in a museum. Penelope Ann Miller is such a nugget that I had to watch the whole movie.

REMO WILLIAMS – Not nearly as good as I remember. I enjoyed so little of it. New trivia: Star Trek series woman captain is the heroine.

DIE HARD 3 – Better than I remember. Actually well written and full of (somewhat predictable) twists. I can say I enjoyed it, but that’s as far as I’ll go.

FARGO – Better again. What a fucked-up story. All kinds of shit going on with the various strongly developed characters. What’s the deal with the guy meeting Marge at the bar trying to get with her then spilling his guts come to find out later that it was all a lie? That was very strange. It was only there as an incident separate to the main plot. There just to reinforce the weirdness of the entire project… and maybe the false true-storieness as well. The movie is of course excellent and creepy… and weird.

VISCIOUS CREATURES – “A Fish Called Wanda” cast. Not as good but it had its moments. Cleese’s supposed getting caught in sexual trysts – way hilarious. Curtis was mildly nuggety even at her age.

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING – 2nd time I’ve ever seen it and it was just as kick-ass. British Colonial machismo and bravery in northern India about a century ago. The machismo seemed well-founded in those times or at least more valid. I should like to read the Kipling story. It’s probably even better than the movie. Best scene – when the priests cut down the rope bridge and Connery is singing the fight song. It pulls together ideals of horror and dignity and all the bullshit that armies and governments and corporations today try to get you to swallow and makes them actually seem valid. Great flick.

CADDYSHACK – Again. Cannonball. Cannonball coming.

CITY HALL – Pacino and what’s his name. Beginning was rough and the end sucked but the middle was excellent. Quick and complicated plot and character development. Mucky at times but the plot usually hashed it out. Maybe worth seeing again.

HUDSUCKER PROXY – What the 5th or 6th time I’ve seen this. Still good. Still great to look at. It is a little bit long but who cares. Latest revelation: Sam Rami helped write it. Which explains why his boy “Ash” is in it.

12:01 – Pretty shitty flick. Not entirely dissimilar to “Groundhog’s Day.”

JURY DUTY – Long live Pauley Shore. Not only is he funny, but he solves crimes.

INDEPENDENCE DAY – Not as bad as I thought it would be.

MARS ATTACKS – Again. Wasn’t too good this time. But, “Maybe we could live in tee-pees, cuz they’re cooler in a way.”

BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD – Not as good as first time I saw it, but the quality laughs still come through.

THE GRADUATE – Very nice, very nice. Second time to see it. Good interviews before and after on this copy. Maybe a drifting obsessive type can actually fall in love after all. Just a nice all around picture… though it hardly scratches the surface of the “anti-establishment” ideal it touts so triumphantly. But who’s counting?

HIGH SCHOOL HIGH – For an hour and a half movie it had approximately five minutes of laughs…. That’s being VERY generous. Those laughs were good but they didn’t come very easy. Had to sift through the entire pile of shit to get them.

HAPPY GILMORE – Fucking great. Better than I remember. Maybe not all around better than “Billy Madison” but the first ½ hour is comic genius. Those two movies will become classics. I guarantee it.

REAR WINDOW – What’s to say except, “Excellent.” One point of interest however was what I noticed of the background noise. The background sounds actually played as much of a role in the movie as any of the actors. As much a role as the courtyard or surrounding buildings. From voices to horns to singing to piano – the music of the neighborhood provided the sound track… the score of the film. I’d like to watch this again bearing this idea in mind.

Bio-Week

After finishing the Nelson Algren interview book on Saturday I biked on down to Chicago’s corporate-posing-as-indie theater (our franchise of the Landmark Theater chain) and saw the documentary, The Devil and Daniel Johnston. Great if sad and troubling film about the artist’s life. Even if you’re not into his music it's worth seeing as a film that, on one hand, investigates the age-old connection of mental illness to great artistry, and on another, as a film that examines just how one devoutly religious middle-American family deals with the needs of a very troubled son. There’s so much more to the film than the hipster, name check, circle jerk it could have been in the wrong hands. Goddamn, go see this.

Sunday night the lady and I settled in to watch Oscar-bait biopic, Walk The Line. For all the hype, for all the good reviews (both professional and friendly) I’d expected to like it much more than I did. Sure, Joaquin (sp? I don’t care to look it up) Phoenix nailed the drawl and the music numbers, but his overall performance was a horrid display of posturing in place of actual acting. He didn’t for a second let us into Cash’s world, his psyche. Totally uninteresting, uninvolving and, perhaps most importantly, unrevelatory. That goes for the story as well. The story left out every ounce of politics in the guy’s life and music… an element utterly essential to understanding either. It instead revolved around little more than pill-popping Johnny's decade-long flirtation with his future wife, June—played by the singular light of the entire film, Reese Witherspoon. But even this aspect seemed crafted as a formula to yield maximum oscar-ability. Yeesh.

You All Everybody

Neil Young has apparently written and recorded a new album in a three day period last week and will have it on sale soon. That’s impressive. Perhaps even more impressive, the album appears to be entirely aimed at Bush and his administration. Titled Life In War, the titular song “Impeach the President” hints ever-so-subtly at what Young thinks about our fearless, witless leader. And, predictably, message-board trolls and “fair and balanced” media networks have already cast it as just another lefty shit-fit. They "reason" that, after all, the conservatives impeached Clinton for his lies and this is just a juvenile tit-for-tat. Always comes back to the vile Clinton with these 'tards misguided individuals when they’ve got no rational argument or talking point to fall back on. Well, just for the record (yea, I know it’s been said 10 million times and ignored over 9 million) but Clinton’s lie (the one they cite anyway) revolved around his own jism running down the dress of a fellatio-inclined employee while Despot Bush’s MANY lies (which Young and so many others cite) have revolved around and resulted in the blood of over two thousand Americans running down the gutters of a far-away land, where it mixes with the blood of countless innocents in some kinda spiritual-septic backup. All the while our coffers run dry, the rich get richer and the boot pushing down atop our heads squeezes tighter and tighter and tighter and…

(Via Cursor)

CRIBS: Nelson Alrgen Style

I’m about done with H.E.F. Donohue’s “Conversations with Nelson Algren.” It’s an alright read. While Donohue’s questioning provides several pages of fascinating insight into Algren’s background, drive and technique, too often he leads the writer off on some uninteresting, unimportant, hair-splitting tangent. And nipping the more rambling moments with tighter editing would have been nice. But if you're an Algren fan it's ultimately essential reading despite the flaws... kinda like his books.

The following is a snip that I found funny for a few reasons, not the least of which is seeing how fast Algren transforms himself to a high-society type with his imaginary windfall. Maybe it’s not particularly egregious, given the norms of the time, but still, it's amusing.

Q: What would you do with [a million dollars]?

A: …It’s not unmanageable. I could use it and not even be conspicuous, not even be dropping money at the dice or the horses. It’d all be essential… I’d buy a home. I’d buy a place, possibly in some area like Cape Cod. It would have an ocean close and I don’t think that’s a luxury… Just a roomy place with a breakwater and a view of the ocean. And then I’d want a boat out there. I don’t mean a luxury boat. Something I could go out on the ocean with. And I would want books. There’s at least ten thousand dollars worth of books I should have. There’s all kinds of books. I don’t even have a set of Dickens. Now what the hell kind of writer is that? I should have a Dickens. It shouldn’t be cheap editions. I want a set of leather Dickens. And I want Alice in Wonderland. I don’t have a copy of that. Then you should have, you’ve got to have a family. I mean if you’re living you can’t go it alone. You’re nothing, you’re nothing alone. I mean what are you going to write about if you’re not attached anywhere. There should be a family and there’s got to be room in the house for the family. You don’t want to marry a broad for her domestic things. I want to take her in the boat. I want to talk to her. So that means kitchen help. There should be a woman who likes to cook there and there should be somebody to bring it out. Neither of us should have to be making a beef stew if there’s something better to do. And there should be liquor. You shouldn’t have to share a six-pack of beer if ten people come in, you know. There should be cases. There should be cases. There should be Scotch and bourbon and somebody to mix a martini. You don’t have to have a party every night, but you got to see people. There are people you should meet. You are living in the world. I mean, the way I’m living I never see anybody… All I’m saying is I want to entertain, with my broad, somebody presentable in a dress. I don’t want some dog there, you know. I want somebody that’s real, you know, someone who reflects credit on me. Somebody sharp.

Q: So you could say, “That’s my girl.”

A: That’s it.

Rachael Ray: Phony

“Rachael Ray is the kind of woman who would fake an orgasm.” – My Fi-Ance, Wednesday, April 12, 2006, 12:27 A.M..

Pre-Dawn Revelatory Observations

I woke very early the morning of the Superbowl. I had a succession of crazy, disturbing dreams. No idea about what exactly. Vague screeds on politics, I think. Some shit about the modern terrain. So I fired up the computer and out came this mess:

1) The facts and the truth are not working. If they haven’t worked at this point, they will never work. The mechanism is in place to deflect any harm to the ruling party that the truth may do. Where there used to be a handful of men running ragged to keep the plates spinning atop the rods, there’s now an army of men for this job. The truth is now the product of the manipulation not the source of it. This manipulation can be seen in the social control of the flow of information.

2) Now that all branches of government are controlled by this faction (through sheer numbers, fear, or social control), they’ve begun to rewrite the fundamental principles and premises of American Government—whereas before they could only attempt to circumvent these fundamentals. Examples abound. From the comparatively casual augmentation of congressional redistricting, to dubious electoral mandates (unaccountable paperless voting, felon roll calls, legal pressures via party operatives, et. al.), to the installation of a judge to the Supreme Court who’s life’s work seems to be pointed toward vastly increasing the powers of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. The process of transforming the compact of the nation from “We the people…” to “We the powerful…” is becoming less encumbered by law and tradition every day. Accountability is a devalued currency. It's certainly absent in the realm of political attacks and the untethered world of the seconds-long sound byte and the story-of-the-hour news cycle--America's prefered channels of information reception. Once again we see manipulation on a vast scale. But here, it’s far less ethereal and intellectual than what we see in the social sphere. Here, it’s a manipulation of the laws and methods of the land; a re-ruddering of the very apparatus which steers this vessel, America.

3) The binary opposition to the powers that be are far too thoroughly entrenched to come to our rescue. They have far too much interest in the status quo to undo all the damage that’s been done even if they do manage to wrest back power in the coming years. To fix things, to weed the garden, would be to upset all facets of American life if only for a short time. The opposition party is so totally weakened and so totally dependent on the current apparatus for what little power they still enjoy, they shouldn’t even be considered a party in their own right. They are but a wildly useful prop for the ruling party. If the soul of this great nation is to be saved, we must look to a political party and political solutions outside of this fetid one-party system. Or perhaps to a solution outside of politics altogether.

4) I have finally realized that the fundamental nature of the current war in Iraq is racism. By that I don’t mean to say that racism is our Government’s reason for being there. (That far more nefarious explanation happens to revolve around the almighty dollar and the corruption it has spread via the corporate-federal daisy chain that’s subverted the modern Democracy). The perpetual struggle of “The War on Terror” is socially financed by stoking the fires of racism within a population. It is yet another means of manipulation by a ruling party and their affiliate conspirators. Another means of population control and psychological influence peddling. While racism within America seems to be ever so slowly on the wane, an event like 9/11 is all that America’s bigots needed to resurface after several decades of veritable fringe-dwelling. And once this portion of the population is aroused and prodded by the media and other figureheads sympathetic to the cause of the ruling party, a rift between the citizenry can be exploited for any number of reasons, the least of which might be to keep that citizenry fighting among themselves while the conspiratory forces begin their assault. From there on, a constant barrage of disinformation, baiting, showmanship and posturing is enough to prolong the exploitation presumably until the cash dries up, if ever. It is in this incarnation that we can see the public’s (if only a segment of that public) rationale being used as fuel for the war machine. All the ruling party need do is stoke those fires on occasion by exploiting an occasional barbarity of the enemy—a barbarity that, in a time of war, would otherwise remain more or less banal and certainly no more barbaric than our own transgressions.

I have concluded from this understanding that the current war in Iraq is a racist war and intend to call it that on every occasion. I urge you to do the same.

"Stalking Prey"

Getting With The Program

Not a bad first weekend back in the big city. I think I’m still readjusting after nearly three weeks of mostly rural, quiet southern-ness. Here I am back from weather that passes for the dog days of summer up here, all ready for backyard grill parties and short pants. But everyone else is in still in that winter rush, head down, bundled up in their winter gear trying to get wherever they’re going by spending the least amount of time outdoors as possible. Winter robot mode. I know it well. It's one of the preferred ways of gettin through the long, dark winters here, even comparably mild ones like this year’s. Just set yr shit to autopilot and move them feets.

Then again, maybe I’m not the only one ready for a change. After a few long looks out the window this weekend at the increasing number of bike riders weaving through the backed-up Cubs baseball traffic, there’s no doubt I aint the only one itchy for spring. They’ve all got the right idea. So that’s it. Time to end my winter hibernation. Time to dig up outta this burrow and enjoy the goings-on.

And thus, with that mindset, I kicked off my Chicago spring this weekend. Saw my pal Jill Summers perform her short story shadow puppetry at Jonathan Messinger’s Dollar Store Show readings when I popped on over to the Hideout on Friday. She was one of four authors reading, and really, there wasn’t a dud in the group. Or the tequila was just that good*. On Saturday I caught a free performance of Boston’s Devil Music Ensemble at the Chicago Cultural Center. They were in cinematic mode (as opposed to their equally excellent rock and roll configuration) as they scored a 1922 silent cowboy comedy film. And now today, the weather was so nice we ate breakfast on the porch for the first time since September. Between all that I got plenty of writing and household duties taken care of. As far as my life in Chicago goes, that makes a pretty good weekend, if a not particularly interesting blog post.

So, huzzah, springtime!!! Get yr ass a shakin. Pull a Fight 93 and, “Let’s Roll! ™”

*Some folks come back from vacation with a stash of South American produce, an ounce of Dutch hashish or a bad case of Southeast Asian clap, but thanks to hitching a ride on a good friend’s bender, I came home from Gainesville with a taste for tequila. My liquor proclivities rarely last too long (i.e. way, way into Vodka for three weeks in the month of December this year) so I’m not too panicked. But, shit, it’s tequila. Tequila’s real good at finding trouble. So, Campisi, if any subsequent Hornitos consumption leads to punitive action, I’m sending you half the bill, buddy.

J'Arrive!

Back in the windy city at long last. Came home to sunny skies and mild weather... So much better than had it been a gray, cloudy and cold "fuck you." The house is a mess and now I'm already running late for my first day back at work. But to Hell with all that, right? One more cup of coffee one more browse through these vacation pics and then, then I'm off.

Convergence

Old friends roll into town and the good times build to a fever pitch. My beach house bliss fades away more and more with every old face I see. Once again, I've got no new material so a picture will have suffice. Cheers.