Separated at Birth

Maybe obvious, but what the hey:



Paula Abdul

and



Michael Jackson

Moqtada Al-Sadr

What a wonderful name!
Moqtada Al-Sadr!
Ain't no passing flame,
He brings religion
For the rest of your days,
It's a problem-free
Theocracy,
Moqtada Al-Sadr!

12 Foot Blood Drinking Lizards

I kid you not, there is actually a guy who believes that we are secretly ruled by a cabal of 12 foot lizards... Not sure if this is the "white tee shirt/black tee shirt" guy from the early, Kilborn Daily Show, but in any event, check this guy out. His "theories" are quite accurate...

Precursors: Death/Media Forerunner

Seems there are some other people fascinated by the media's fascination with death. Or just fascinated with death, it's not important right now.

This amazing site is a tribute to murdered actress Rebecca Schaeffer, a woman whose career was sadly cut short by a murderous obsessive fan... That site is unbelievably weird, I hope you guys appreciate its lo-fi intensity.

I've been thinking about the whole "obsessive fan" thing as a corollary to the "grieving parents" focus of D/M... More to come.

Joran Kalpoe Paradise

New Witnesses in the Holloway case!!!!

Retrospective: Deliverance

Deliverance, subtle forerunner to Brokeback Mountain, is an amazing movie. Yes, most of you probably only know of it because, as a kid, you heard that it featured "gayness"... Hill-billy gayness at that! And while this is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, true, to a fault some might say, it is a really great movie otherwise. It features a classic conflict of "wilderness" vs. "society", "country" vs. "city", etc. John Voigt is the thoughtful city man who by movie's end has been transformed to a rugged, animalistic warrior of natural fury, while Burt Reynolds is the powerful outdoorsman who during the course of the movie is forced to rely upon the emergent natural supernaturalism of Voigt for survival. It's a daemonic tour-de-force, an illustration of all that is good, and alas, all that is evil in human conflict. Plus, it features hillbilly gayness, or did I forget to mention that?

Beyond this, the film was also written by the noted American Poet and longtime South Carolina resident James Dickey. Dickey is a good poet, no Wallace Stevens certainly (Stevens despised Dickey the one time the two met), but definitely a sort of lesser Robert Penn Warren. Dickey appears in the film playing the sherriff who investigates the fellas after the horrific raft expedition is finally over. Dickey was an avid bowman, and while a raging drunk, was reported by all who knew him to be stolid, worthwhile, and wistful. Three cheers for Dickey, and three cheers for Deliverance!

UPDATE!!! Riemann is right, the banjo scenes are also extremely noteworthy and delightful!

Back!

What is different about the Natalee Holloway case? I have already pointed out its similarity (parents speaking for children) with the Schiavo and Sheehan cases, but the Holloway case is critically different. It is a crime.

And now, right on cue, the Twitty-Holloways are taking Joran Van Der Sloot to court alleging he is a serial date-rapist who picked up and then disposed of Natalee on the night of May 30, 2005. Fans of "Aruba (Dutch Paradise)" will realize that these new charges mean big-time bad news for Aruba's once vibrant tourism industry, and just before prime spring-break season!

All I know is that Lucy and I are planning on making a trip to Aruba this May. Though we are told Joran no longer lives there, I am hoping to at least interview one of the Kalpoe brothers. Preferably Satish, but Depak would also do thet trick.

The case is being tried in (where else?) New York, so perhaps those blogging sleuths the Bergers with their insider connections can provide us with the inner workings of the Holloway/Van Der Sloot civil trial when the time comes.

Separated at Birth

Tyrone Power


and

Lord Byron

Best Wedding Photo Ever

God I wish I could have been there! Liza and David Gest were such a delightful pair. Judy would be proud of you, darlin'! And Liz, you look ravishing, as ever. And Michael, well, what can we really say! We love you!

Is it me...

...or is this completely despicable?

More Evidence

Other people to enter into the catalogue.

Tonight there was a mock revelation by a certain someone that that someone was having an "online affair with Scott Peterson." This reminded me first of my inner sadness, but then of the recent book by Sharon Rocha, For Laci. This book almost perfectly follows the paradigm mentioned in the below post.

More on Jon Benet Ramsey soon. That case is too important, if overexposed (in fact because overexposed) to ignore...

Remember When...

Not Since...

...the grand old days of Aaron Burr has a Vice-President behaved in such an ignominous manner. Especially disgusting is the good old boys excuse (blame the victim style) offered here. But no doubt Cheney will be let off the hook for this also. Ha! Burr had the gall not only to shoot a man, he actually killed him! And the man he killed was/is a beloved founding father, not merely a crony in Texas!

Speaking of Burr, he would be a good subject for a five act verse drama... I don't know anyone who might write such a thing... His attempt to start a new country in North America was very prescient. Alas the south tried the same thing later and also failed! Good old Burr. He and Cheney are about equal scalliwags if you ask me, and now, thanks to this dubious distinction, they belong together in history.

The Connection

It occured to me for the first time today. What we have with all three cases is not a mere extension of Missing White Woman Syndrome. No, it is something much bigger.

I said in my improvised blog party performance that Cindy Sheehan's disappearance made us "not as tight with our parents." At the time it made me laugh, stumble embarrassingly in my performance. Upon further reflection I realized it is "The Connection."

Sheehan, the Schindlers, the Twitty's, all got the majority of the spotlight while Casey, Terri, and Natalee were missing, unable to speak for themselves. These sick surrogates have sucked the spotlight onto themselves in the name of others, and the media can't get enough of it.


American Idol crushed the Grammy Awards the other night in the ratings. People only care about "families" or "individuals" who are like them. They want plausible, potentially average surrogates for themselves, not vain and largely impossible idealizations of beauty... We are all Terris, prone, waiting for our Schindlers to sing our song of defense, wary of our Michaels, yearning for the end... We are Natalees, lost in paradise, with only our parents on cable television keeping our name, our face alive. And we are Caseys, unwitting victims of an immoral and disgraceful war, desperate for our Cindy to carry forth our torch...

This also points to the main reason that Harriet Miers was an unacceptable nominee for the SCOTUS. She had no family, no life, no joie du vive, no esprit d'couer, if you get my drift. There was not a feeling, human bone in her childless body. So of course we couldn't get behind her, who could? The awful paradigm rules, until the true revaluation of media values occurs, and on is off, off is on...

A Larger View

It's been some time since we've had a truly worthy media obsession... Too much actually significant stuff has happened, and I guess since Katrina there's been a general sense amongst media types that maybe they should pay attention to more, well, significant stuff.

That said, let's take a closer look at those past media crazes so near and dear to our hearts.

That's right. I mean it this time. I'm going to seriously reconsider

Terri Schiavo

Cindy Sheehan

and of course

Natalee Holloway!

All in a forthcoming post!

Alive

Came across this quote today:

New Haven's grid system plays a role in isolating business districts from potential customers, Bulldog Burrito owner Jason Congdon said.

"For a small restaurant like mine, you rely on your neighborhood," Congdon said. "In a quadrant-setup city, people stay within their block. A lot of the areas in New Haven are self-sufficient, and because of that, I'm definitely relying on the dorms around me."

Thanks YDN, I needed that...

Dead?

Things have been really slow of late... What's the dilly? Somehow Lester's vanishing act, Salam's abdication, I Am Justice's withering, etc. have left things greatly diminished... It makes me sad.

Scandal Names

This wire-tapping scandal is already more than a month old, and it still does not have a "currency" nickname. This sad absence was pointed to by the NYTimes Blog, and I think it's time we all put our heads together and hammered out an appropriate, "media-catch-fire-like-gasoline" name. Here are my nominations:

Tappaquiddick

Wire-Tap dome scandal

Wirewater

E-mailhook

The Prying Prigs Invasion

Okay, that's all I can think of... Surely there are better ones to be discovered by you, loyal readers!

Misunderstanding

“What’s this?”
“Oh, it’s a thread left by my other lover, who’s a ragdoll.”
“What?! Who is this Jose Ragdoll?”
“I was joking!”
“I’ve long suspected something like this was going on.”
“Really?”
“There’s a certain scent, a scent I must now identify as that of this Ragdoll character, I smell on you sometimes. This has long led me to suspect.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The facts are beyond all doubt, and this thread is just further confirmation.”
“Of what?”
“Why your harlotry of course! I could tell also by your shifting eyes.”
“Are you serious?”
“As serious as the tomb, my little coquette!”
“I can’t believe this. You’re serious?”
“How can I further emphasize the facts. And what about those mysterious phone calls?”
“Those are from my hair dresser. You know Clay. He’s gay. We only talk about you! I hardly ever use the phone. What phone calls?”
“Your denial only enriches your guilt. And your “weekend getaways,” ha!”
“Those were for treatments. You came with me the first three times until it became too boring for you, you insensitive jerk.”
“We both know that’s far from the truth.”
“Do we? I can’t believe I live with you. I can’t take this.”
“Flee to the arms of your beloved Jose Ragdoll! I’m sure his doors are always open to his mistress.”
“How? Why?”
“Get out of my house you filthy whore!”

She runs out of the room crying. He falls immediately to sleep.

Strange News...

Oddly enough I've been asked to participate in an Academic Conference this March at UC Irvine. The subject of the conference is "Failure", the topic of the grad student with whom I am collaborating is "Terri Schiavo".

I'm going to be singing the three extant Schiavo songs (Terri Schiavo, Heaven and Cheap Cigars, Let It Go) along with two specially commisioned new Schiavo songs (maybe three... Or more)... The best part is I am going to play a show in Irvine that night, for all the D/M So-Cal fans! I may play a few serious songs as well during the set from the Movie catalog... Should be a good time... More info as things develop...

Retrospective: Woodstock '99

This wasn't the fun Woodstock Sequel. No, that was Woodstock II, or as some prefer, Woodstock '94. You remember, Green Day playing material from Dookie, people throwing mud, a bunch of sad hippies who are now totally corporate.

No, we're talking about Woodstock '99. First of all, it was held in Rome, New York (link is to a live Webcam I found of a parking lot in Rome). Besides dooming its residence to perpetually saying, "Nah, the atha Rome! I ain't eye-tal-yun" Rome also has the distinction of being completely fucking dead. In short, no real law-enforcement, etc.

Perfect place for a gaggle of America's late '90's "no-terror=no-piety" youth: Aye caramba, eat my shorts! Hubba hubba while we're at it, what a time it was to be alive! Woodstock '99 was like totally awesome. I swear to God, someone who will now totally play the J-card on you ("I mean, Jesus says...") was wasted and setting fires during the Dot-com boom, pre-9/11 sex inferno that was Woodstock '99!!

Rome hadn't burned like this since Nero.
And what about the Music, you ask. What about the music indeed?

As I recall it, the fires started during a Chili Peppers no doubt well intentioned cover of Woodstock almnus Jimi Hendrix's song "Fire". Prior to that, by all reports, there were complaints of inadequate rest-room facilities, water price gouging, as well as several alleged rapes and (I think) murders... Oh right, this is about the music. Eternally shitty Dave Matthews Band played. So did Alanis, Metallica, all the faves... I bet Jewel's set rocked... Anyway, clearly the music totally sucked. For Pete's sake, Bush was on the bill. That band reall took a hit after the '00 elections I bet...

Anyway, Woodstock '99 was obviously an amazing example of what happens when you get a bunch of fucking media saturated morons together for a totally self serving exchange of vacuous culture: it turns into a riot and people die. Fuck Woodstock '99. Fuck Clueless.

In Honor of Your Arrest...

...I post a link to my performance (peace t-shirt wave to Rich) of The Cindy Sheehan Song (Live).

The Cindy Sheehan Song Live

Back at It

Way to go Cindy. I must admit when Jim Lehrer broke the news I assumed Cindy had totally lost it.

And now, a preview of things to come: