Death-Media

Top 10 Albums of 2011

2011-12-30T17:09:00.003-05:00

Because, why not?

#10. Girls, "Father, Son, Holy Ghost" Something about the pastiche-nature of Girls' songwriting approach lets me down a bit, but this is a still a very enjoyable pop excursion.

#9 Grooms, "Prom" An album that works so well as an album it's sometimes hard for me to differentiate individual tracks--that said, "Expression Of" is an excellent distillation of what is powerful about Grooms, namely the dynamic tension between the pent vocals and the taut, interlocking guitar lines.

#8 Extra Life, "Ripped Heart EP" Another engagingly ill outing for Extra Life, one of the most sonically masterful yet strangely unacknowledged acts going in music today. "Strong Brother, Weak Brother" is a forceful yet recondite endeavor, dialoguing with pop music while at the same time not setting aside the group's consistent insistence towards vital self-exploration.

#7 Parenthetical Girls, "Privilege IV" The entire Privilege sequence of EPs has been among my favorite as they have rolled out, but this entry, in particular the "title track" "The Privilege," strikes me as a true leap forward for P Girls. It's one of those songs that is so good upon hearing it once you feel as if you've been preparing to hum it to yourself your whole life.

#6 Nat Baldwin, "People Changes" Baldwin's songs on this record, both his originals and the two excellent covers of Arthur Russell and Kurt Weisman, testify to the power that is earned through solitary devotion to one's craft--charting Nat Baldwin's development is not a matter of the linear--it is a matter of sounding ever deepening reaches.

#5 PJ Harvey, "Let England Shake" Strangely, I've never previously been a fan of PJ Harvey. This album changed that. The recording is a masterpiece--the dynamics here are astonishing--and the songwriting and singing is incomparably strong. This is truly a dimensional record--it gives one a full feeling of space.

#4 Wye Oak, "Civilian" Not even really sure what to say about this record aside from that a) it's awesome and b) I wish I could write songs like these. It took me a while to get fully inside these songs but then I found, to my delight, they were fully inside me and I've been vibing deep ever since.

#3 Delicate Steve, "Wondervisions" Few records I've ever heard have brought me so much manifest joy. Feeling down? Put on Wondervisions. Feeling confused? Put on Wondervisions. It works. This is music that lifts the soul.

#2 Fleet Foxes, "Helplessness Blues" I saw them live not long after the record came out and it was astonishing. I've turned to this record a lot this year--the mood, the music, the lyrics--they all kind of suit me.

#1 Sam Mickens, "Slay & Slake" What, you expected an "objective" list? Sure, I'm biased, but I really find Sam's to be amongst the most iconoclastic voices presently going--who cares less for sacred cows, for the dogmas of the desperate, for the faith in selling-out that is so many artists' creed? Also: the music is genius, challenging, and extremely gratifying in a life affirming way.

Okay! Happy New Year!

To John Bolton

2010-08-20T04:12:00.002-04:00

Thank you so very very much.

I have no words. You have made my life better by just arguing for what was obviously correct in terms of our constitution, but because of who you are and what you are associated with, your support has meant so much more.

Thank you.

You give me hope that Kant was not completely wrong.

Record Review: Marilyn Roxie, New Limerent Object

2009-09-21T00:45:00.007-04:00

Record Review: New Limerent Object by Marilyn Roxie

Here we have a fascinating acoustic/electronic instrumental offering from Marilyn Roxie, a young California recording artist with an impressive array of influences and sounds. Her work recalls at moments the minimalism of Philip Glass as well as the diverse, sample-based textures of Grouper and Animal Collective.

The opening song 'Idea Leuconoe" is a solo piano piece built around a sequence of cascading arpeggios; though brief, it manages to evoke the solemnity of such contemporary composers as Steve Reich.

The second number is an impressive grower dubbed "Drift Along/Distortion"; as the title hints, it is a segmented piece, with the first half building in intensity as a sequenced figure is colored by string-synth sounds. At points the first half is reminiscent of the ambient work of Brian Eno, but the energetic synths that mark the beginning of the "Distortion" portion of the song point more in the direction of late 80's shoegaze and noise pop. Despite its title, what marks this section is not so much distortion as an ethereal haziness shot through with a grinding intensity.

"Snowtape" is an exquisite enterprise in layering, a disconcerting rubric of false resolutions with a guileful melody vainly attempting to assert itself amidst the din--albeit a melody composed almost entirely of harmonics and other 'incidental' sounds. This layering recalls, at points, some of the early tape experiments done by pre-Sung Tongs Animal Collective.

"And There I Was" opens with a ringing, echoed-out tone which is then swallowed by the swell of what sounds like a distorted piano. With this record each song is like a separate room in a varied but coherent mansion; each has its distinctive shape and evokes a particular environment. This music is a kind of imaginary architecture--it marks out space.

"Indigo" returns us to the solo piano of the opening track. The minimalism of Erik Satie is an influence, and the passage that comes in around 2:30 is particularly affecting.

"Nearer" contains hints of the synth structures of Gary Numan in its tone. Marked as an "interlude" the song offers a slightly different mood than the preceding; the elastic rhythm lends the tune a post-punk edge.

"The Shores" is reminiscent of Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II. The song feels almost like a description of water.

"HMS" is again built on layered arpeggios, here awash in a sea of fuzz. The tempo of the song slows down as it progresses, which lends an extremely disconcerting feeling to the piece, as if one is being somehow pulled back as the music moves forward. There is an almost 8-bit quality to the starts and stops, as if they were in concert with some unseen video game.

"Seagull Room" has frantic, 2001-esque noisiness to it that is accented by a repeated, muffled drum part pounding against the oscillations of the surface. This is a particular favorite, again recalling the ambient Aphex Twin.

"Take It" (the second announced "interlude") continues in the vein of the previous piece, only this timing employing a more acoustic instrumental palette, mixing piano with drones. The percussive effect of the piano in the early half of the piece propels the song forward.

"Den of Stars" may be the standout track of the album. Its brief excursion through Asian pentatonicity is a beautiful break in the sea of noise and space that dominates the rest of the disc. The following track continues in a similar, if less effective, mode.

'Electronic Angel" is another noteworthy piece, combining a dynamically evolving synthesized lead with staccato rhythmic elements. At this point in the record, however, one begins to wonder about length. At 47 minutes, it is a dense affair, certainly worthwhile to the keen appreciator, but perhaps too much for the casual listener to absorb all at once.

That said, the record is oceanic in nature, as varied as a fluctuating sea surface, and so "The Cove" is aptly named. The melodic lead piano segments here are some of the strongest on the record.

Orderly to end where it begun, the solo piano, again reminiscent of Satie, Reich, and Philip Glass, returns for the album's closing number, "Complete Thought." The piano pieces have a delicacy that is at odds with some of the rough edges to be heard in the electronic oriented pieces. One wonders if they were separated from each other on different releases if they might not sound differently.

Overall the record is impressive in its diversity of sonic elements and architectural rumination, but one feels it is still the work of an artist testing her limits. It has the verve of promise still tethered, however, to the experimentalism of development. And this is no criticism, merely an observation made after having absorbed this record over several listenings.

New Limerent Object is a promising release from a young artist who is obviously developing her particular aesthetic as she goes. If these diverse soundscapes could coalesce into a magnetic whole, perhaps augmented by a few of the trappings of traditional songwriting and vocals (think of Grouper's latest album, Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill), Marilyn Roxie could truly surprise people. She is a serious artist well worth keeping an eye on.

Reader

2009-08-27T18:21:00.001-04:00

Radiohead--Hail to the Thief: A Reconsideration

2009-08-18T04:42:00.007-04:00

With new Radiohead songs popping up seemingly by the day, and a new EP maybe on the horizon, it seems an appropriate time to take a look back at the band's least-well-regarded album since Pablo Honey, namely 2003's Hail to the Thief.

What follows is a track by track, live-blog style listen through of the record. Hopefully at the end we will be closer to understanding where this record fits in with the general movements of pop in the last decade or so...

1. Appropriately subtitled, "The Lukewarm," one can understand how this opener would leave die-hards dry. It has an almost punk frenzy to it that was perhaps only present on much earlier songs like "Just" and the one misfire on OK Computer, "Electioneering." People had hoped for a return to the band's earlier, 'Alternative' sound, but I don't feel like this kind of ranting intensity was what anyone had in mind. Despite that, the guitar tone, particularly on the interlude that comes in around 2:30 is great, as is the Beatlesy bridge Thom sings over that figure that actually leads directly to the song's resolution.

2. "Sit Down Stand Up" opens with the sequenced beat familiar from Amnesiac and in some ways it has similarities with that album's version of "Morning Bell"... However, the driving, dark central section, along with Thom's lyrics about "the jaws of hell" lend the track an eerie, dark core absent from even the most despairing moments on Amnesiac. The more punishing beat that comes in around 3:10 combined with Thom's repetitive vocals confirm us in our belief in the song's dark progress--there is something bleak, hopeless about this frantic repetition.

3. "Sail to the Moon" Here we are back in 'Pyramid Song' territory, the slow melancholic piano ballad; here Thom's keys are augmented by some lovely guitar work, but despite the set-up and dynamic integration of the band as the song evolves, we are still hovering in a universe of irresolution. The tension continues to mount.

4. "Backdrifts" begins with samples almost reminiscent of the noisy "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" from Amnesiac, but Thom's hooky vocals make it clear this track is moving more in the direction of dub music, in an extremely oblique, British way prefiguring some of Animal Collective's material.

5. "Go to Sleep" has a guitar centric opening, with a characteristically progressive, moving bass line provided by Colin Greenwood (along with U2's Adam Clayton one of the most underrated bass players in rock). There is something of the guitar centric movement one associates with The Bends on the middle section of the tune, and one is almost ready for an explosion in the mold of "Just," but the lead figures Johnny eventually overlays are not nearly so discordant nor lead-like as those on the earlier song, and surprisingly, as we are expecting some kind of climax, the track fades out... It's almost like the band is toying with us...

6. "Where I End and You Begin" Bass-heavy intro with ethereal analog synth waves cloaking us, we enter into a driving fog, a movement towards we know not what. Thom's vocals again provide the illusion of direction, but the overall mood is still one of profound discontent. I'm beating a dead horse, I know, but the reason people are down on this record is because it's, well, dark as hell!

7. "We Suck Young Blood" Predictably no break from the unrelenting misery here. The interlude vocals are beautifully interwoven, and the hand-claps are an unexpected touch for Radiohead, but overall this track is Thom at his most discordant. This track is why people hate Thom Yorke. The piano drone riff that kicks off around 3:00 briefly gives us a hint of progress, but in a matter of seconds we are back to dreary dissolution. Hints of Thom's future Twilight involvement in the theme here?

8. "The Gloaming" is eltronica central, for this record, and it may as well be called the "glooming" because it is about as dank and fog-ridden as you can get with a staticy electronic beat backing you. The interplay of beats is an advance on the brilliant "Idioteque" in some senses, but here there is something missing... Perhaps it is a melody that resolves in a satisfying way?

9. With "There There" we finally reach a moment of release. And what release. This is among my favorite songs by the band. The booming tom toms combined with the electric introductory guitar riff set the stage perfectly. Thom then comes in singing a resolution-laden melody! When he gets to the 'chorus' the crunch of Ed and Johnny's guitars is positively divine, and the second chorus, where Thom resolves up instead of down on the second "just cause you feel it/doesn't mean it's there" is simply sublime. The transition that follows, while looking back to other segmented compositions such as "Paranoid Android" also looks forward to the progressive structures to be found on such In Rainbows gems as "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi." The second half of the song returns us to the loud, clangy noise (influenced by Sonic Youth as much as Zeppelin) we associate with a younger version of the band ("My Iron Lung," "Paranoid Android," etc.). This song ultimately plays a role similar to that played by "Optimistic" on Kid A; it is in keeping with the tone of the rest of the album, but it also hearkens back to an older, more familiar sound. I consider this to be the album's peak.

10. "I Will" (the same title as a brief The Beatles cut by Paul McCartney) brings us back to the limited pallet introduced earlier. The harmony singing here is both impressive and effective, and there is something simply appealing about the composition of the song, something almost Spanish or Classical in its structure...

11. "A Punchup at a Wedding" More hints of direction here, with an almost Madman Across the Water-era Elton John opening over a funky electronic beat. Thom's vocals immediately dispel any further comparisons to Mr. Dwight, and the progressive guitar riff that comes in suggests we are again in the land of resolution... The chorus, which comes in around the 1:50 mark, is heartbreaking, if possibly cloying to some ears (not these, I'm just guessing...)... This, like "There There" has the feeling and structure we more commonly associate with a 'song'... The rest of the album seems interested in testing this boundary, seeing how completely feigned structures can stand in for the real thing... Or something. I like this one. The sample that comes in around 4:00 is great and adds a layer of continuity with some of the earlier songs, in that it offers a cold counterpoint.

12. "Myxomatosis" heavy, odd time-signature guitar figure opens here with a crushing synth bass doubling. Despite this daunting opening, the interplay between the synth and Thom's voice works well, particularly given the contrast created when the synths drop out. Synths that drop in around 1:40 are amazing texturally. No chorus in sight. This is an impressive track, despite its bending back to the mean in some senses, definitely worth re-hearing if it's been a while.

13. "Scatterbrain" Perhaps the first overt jabs at pure beauty, 54 minutes into the album? Okay. Live, touchable guitar figure opens this piece. Can the delicate warmth last? Yes! We have a very melodic Thom here, singing over some well modulated changes. Dissonance undergirds, as ever, but the separation of the melodic and the discordant is finally at peace, the two halves having reached some accord over the song's first minute. The promise is fulfilled, a great number.

14. "A Wolf at the Door" Back to the dissonance, punky delivery of the first song, mixed with the processional grandeur of "Life in a Glass House"... We're getting close to the end. What's that? A great chorus? Awesome! Didn't see that one coming guys, nice work. Great song. Great way to end an extremely challenging album.

Final verdict? As I say just above, a challenging record, and one in its way as dark as Closer or In Utero. Happily this album did not precede a suicide but was instead a stop along the way to the glorious In Rainbows and the interesting new tracks emerging now... Were this produced by any other band it would be hailed as a masterpiece. It has a bleakness of its own. It makes me understand new aspects of depression, of obsession, of the desperation inherent in trying to be. I think it's a great album.

Animal Collective Grateful Dead Reconsidered

2009-08-17T01:05:00.013-04:00

In January I saw Animal Collective and wrote a few posts about what I perceived to be the merging of the 'jam band' and the 'indie rock' scenes.

On Saturday I saw the second of the group's Prospect Park Shows. It was a large, very young crowd, and by the time the band went on around nine there was a palpable sense of anticipation in the air. The set was a mixture of material from across the band's catalog, with a focus on standouts from Merriweather Post Pavilion:

(via the above linked Brooklyn Vegan post's comments, original album in parentheses)

Grace
Summertime Clothes (MPP)
Leaf House (Sung Tongs)
Guys Eyes (MPP)
Slippi (Here Comes the Indian)
#1 (Strawberry Jam)
Also Frightened (MPP)
What Would I Want Sky (new song)
My Girls (MPP)
Fireworks (Strawberry Jam)
Brother Sport (MPP)

Encore:

In The Flowers (MPP)
Comfy In Nautica/Bleed (rework from Panda's Person Pitch)
Lion in a Coma (MPP)

The crowd seemed excited for the older songs ('Leaf House' is a favorite with old-timers) but predictably went most nuts for 'My Girls' and 'Brothersport.' As has now become traditional, the band used long segues between songs, occasionally dropping teasing hints of other material before switching into something else entirely. 'Fireworks' was almost 20 minutes long, by my reckoning, and featured an extremely extended jam sequence.

As I have pointed out before, these 'jams' are not what one would experience at a Dead show. There is none of the noodling, none of the epic crest and wave. Instead there is the sample-based repetition that is the staple of all of their recent material. The closest thing you get to a solo is Geologist playing a series of arpeggios over a simple, two chord harmonic backdrop. And that harmonic simplicity is another link between the two groups, though again the improvised elements in AnCo's sets are about interlocking layers of essentially rhythmic musical expressions, whereas the Dead achieve, at least at their peak, an oceanic blending of rhodes/bass/guitar/two drums that is closer to the blues than anything in Animal Collective's oeuvre. The pulse of Lesh is essentially different from the riveting crunch of Geologist's samples.

It was an uplifting concert for me personally, but as I was walking away from the show I found myself reconsidering everything. Is the Grateful Dead/AnCo question primarily sociological or musical? AnCo claim the Dead as a musical influence and recently licensed the first official Dead sample for their song 'What Would I want Sky.' The crowd was young, and many a spliff was ignited throughout the night (though Frank Rich helpfully reminds us "Only pot remains eternal" and thus is no longer an effective dividing line between hippies and anybody else), but it was a Brooklyn crowd, and there was almost no overlap to my eyes with the Phishy-elements I detected at the show in January.

That show was in Manhattan, this one in Brooklyn, which perhaps is some factor, but I don't think so. I now think at the first show I was something of a hammer seeing only nails. More soon.

Johnny Messina interviews reclusive author JD Salinger

2009-08-03T20:22:00.001-04:00

Johnny Interviews JD Salinger - Johnny Messina

Thought from a Reader Comment Re: The Sopranos vs. The Wire

2009-07-23T23:07:00.002-04:00

I am in the minority on this meme, but I still find The Sopranos (in its entirety but particularly seasons 1-4) to be more thoroughly enjoyable than The Wire, which I also love.

Here was my reasoning, via, as my title indicates, a sequence of Google Reader comments:

Here is my precise problem with The Wire. I love it's level of intricacy (especially in Season 4 which is timelessly great), but excepting certain instances, there is no one who draws me in, Hamlet-like, in the way Tony Soprano does... He has a certain gruff vastness, and despite his many categorizable qualities, his whole character remains unfathomable, like a mirror looking into us.

The Dead Weather 7-17-2009

2009-07-18T04:33:00.001-04:00

(cross-posted at Wave on Wave on Wave)

James generously invited me to join him at The Dead Weather's Terminal 5 show last night. I went mainly out of curiosity, having not been to a show at such a large venue (3000) since seeing Prince at the then Fleet Center in 2004.

I grew up a huge Zeppelin and Hendrix fan, and though I haven't followed Jack White's various incarnations and reincarnations all that closely, I've always had a generally favorable assessment of his treatment of a classic aesthetic.

In this regard the show did not disappoint. The female vocalist and sometime-guitarist Allison Mosshart was a more than able front-person for a group whose most famous member was, curiously, the drummer...

Phil Collins comparisons aside, the vibe Jack's drumming most consistently brought to mind was that of the late Buddy Miles, particularly Miles's work on "Machine Gun" on the Band of Gypsies record and also on his seminal classic "Them Changes." That is to say, he was pretty great.

The band was as expected blues oriented, each track conjuring different memories of "Physical Graffiti" and "Led Zeppelin II" for this Page saturated soul. The tones were raw, vintage sounding, the whole band really got into it in the way most of the Brooklyn geniuses I follow don't, but hey, to each his own!

I can't say that song writing is a strength of this group, but certainly what they lack in that area they make up in pure virtuosity of presence. And if there is ever any doubt, any moment of uncertainty, Jack can simply emerge from behind the kit, grab a Les Paul, and fucking kill it like Jimmy Page only wishes he still could. (He did this for the last song pre-encore)

It's a meme, but Jack White is a legit rock star in a way that Dave Portner and Ed Droste aren't, and I say this admiring no two rock artists more than Droste and Portner... It's just for the pure classic rock fueled Zep addict, Jack White brings that blues based, alcohol oriented musical brutality in a way that hits the sweet spot.

Was 'Rise Above' way heavier than 'Icky Thump'? Of course. Are Dirty Projectors avant niched to death turned blooming life? Yes.

Is Modest Mouse better than the White Stripes. Way better.

Is this post over?

Seinfeld on HBO

2009-06-30T20:50:00.003-04:00

Over the weekend Dan and I were talking per the usual about the history of American situation comedy. We both agree this rather stilted and (let's be honest) horrific form reached its zenith with Seinfeld. Dan ingeniously pointed out that what makes Seinfeld so great is the way it addresses risque topics without directly mentioning them.

This lead us into an odd reverie: what if Seinfeld had been on HBO? Here are a few screenplay excerpts we 'unearthed'...

Episode 411, "The Contest"

Jerry's apartment, enter George.

GEORGE

Well, I'm out.

JERRY

You're no longer "Master of your domain?"

GEORGE

Nope! Not even slightly!

Cut to George's apartment. Ultra-graphic porn mags are strewn about the room. George, naked except for a pair of knee-high socks and his glasses, sits on a soiled brown couch vigorously masturbating to a magazine open on a music stand in front of him.

GEORGE

Oh baby. Don't fail me now!

George explodes, ejaculating all over the magazine.

GEORGE

FUCK!!! I'm out of the fucking contest. Son of a fuck!

George kicks over the music stand and begins violently turning over furniture. Cut back to Jerry's apartment.

JERRY

Couldn't resist the urge to throttle the hell out of your penis for a full day. What kind of animal are you?

End Scene

Episode 606 "The Gymnast"

Jerry and George are talking in Jerry's apartment.

JERRY

Well, George, can you believe it, she broke up with me.

GEORGE

Why?

JERRY

Well...

Cut to Jerry's bedroom. Katya is on top of Jerry, entwining her legs with his as she violently thrusts her pelvis into Jerry's crotch.

KATYA

Fucking fraud!

JERRY

What?

KATYA

Comedian? I don't think so. Your endurance is barely beyond that of an eight year old in my country, and believe me, I would know.

JERRY

Really?

Katya rolls out of bed in a derisively athletic manner.

KATYA

You are no fucking comedian.

She spits on Jerry's penis.

End Scene

Episode 724 "The Invitations"

St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, the ER. Susan is wheeled in on a stretcher by a group of medics who are simultaneously giving her chest compressions and using a plastic respiration device to stimulate her breathing. They are in a great hurry. George trails, a little way behind, jogging but not looking overly distressed.

MEDIC

We need a crash cart here, stat! She's coding!

They wheel her into an open room and flop her onto an operating table. A doctor tears off her shirt as a crash cart is wheeled over.

GEORGE

Bye, honey!

DOCTOR

Clear!

He applies the paddles to Susan's chest whose lifeless body jumps a little from the shock.

NURSE

Nothing.

The door to the room closes and we follow George as he wanders out into the waiting room. Jerry arrives just as George sits down.

JERRY

I just got your message, what's up?

GEORGE

I don't know. She'll be fine.

JERRY

So the wedding may be off, eh?

GEORGE

You know the sex wasn't that good.

Elaine enters, with Kramer following.

ELAINE

What's up? Is Susan okay?

GEORGE

She's fine.

The doctor we saw previously enters. He puts his hand on George's shoulder.

DOCTOR

We did everything we could, but, I'm sorry, your fiance has passed.

GEORGE (semi-ecstatically)

She's dead?

The doctor nods solemnly, with a look of shock creeping over his face.

GEORGE (shouting)

I'm free, baby! Free!

ELAINE

She was kind of a bore.

Kramer and Jerry both nod.

End Scene

RIP Michael

2009-06-25T18:53:00.000-04:00

I will miss you.

love
Nostradamus

5 Least Favorite Simpsons Characters

2009-06-23T00:04:00.009-04:00

Okay, after several days' intermission, I am back to watching a few episodes an evening as a way of winding down before not going to bed.

Per a request made over reader by The ACTUAL God, I am now going to list my five least favorite Simpson's supporting players. This is bound to anger some people, but I live to court controversy! So, without further prologue, to the list!

5. Sideshow Mel: With the ouster of Sideshow Bob as Krusty's sidekick in Season 1, there was an opportunity to introduce a novel and original character, but instead we got Sideshow Mel, who hardly develops at all throughout the first six seasons or so. When he does develop, we learn he is little more than Sideshow Bob redux: over qualified as an actor, highly intelligent, and righteously indignant at Krusty's assaults.

4. Patty Bouvier: My choice of Selma for top five was probably my most controversial call, but the only surprise here is that Patty isn't lower on the food-chain... Aside from her ill-fated relationship with Skinner in Season 2, she isn't developed all that much in early on except as the satisfied half of the Patty/Selma codependent pair. Later, in Season 16, she comes out as gay, a gesture I took and take as a complete publicity stunt. As such, it did little to redeem her in these judgmental eyes.

3. Reverend Lovejoy: He's boring and pointless for the most part. Sure he has a good line here or there but in the episodes he is featured in he's awful. And his back-story of being brought to apathy by Flanders' constant complaining is weak, in my book. Also whatever happened to that daughter of his...? (More on guest stars later)

2. Gil Gunderson: Gil is only introduced in the 9th season. There really weren't that many bad supporting characters in the early days. But Gil, clearly premised on a character played by Jack Lemmon in Season 8, which character was in turn based off of Lemmon's role in Glengarry Glen Ross. I just don't like Gil's sad sack routine. I don't believe it in the way I believe Herb Powell as a hobo. Does that make sense?

1. Ned Flanders: Sure, he's funny, but mostly he pisses me off. He totally ruined The Simpson's Movie, and most of the episodes he features in are sub-par. Is he necessary? Of course. But do I have to like him? Absotively posolutely not!

Arianna Green Energy Interview

2009-06-22T23:13:00.001-04:00

Arianna Green Energy Interview - Huffington Post Radio

NBA Draft

2009-06-20T23:13:00.002-04:00

It's coming up! I love the draft. Thought I'd throw together a quick look at who should take whom where. Explanations and analyses to come... In the meantime enjoy some great Tyreke Evans highlights

1. LAC-Blake Griffin
2. MEM-Ricky Rubio
3. OKC-Tyreke Evans
4. SAC-James Harden
5. WAS-Hasheem Thabeet
6. MIN-Johnny Flynn
7. GSW-Stephen Curry
8. NYK-Jordan Hill
9. TOR-DeMar DeRozan
10. MIL-Jrue Holliday
11. NJN-Earl Clark
12. CHB-Gerald Henderson
13. IND-Austin Daye
14. PHX-Brandon Jennings

Jennings may go higher, but word on the street is he is slipping...

Wolfgang Amadeus Awesome--Phoenix in Williamsburg

2009-06-19T05:35:00.010-04:00

(Cross-posted at Wave on Wave on Wave)

I have been incognito for a while now, but I'm happy to report that The ACTUAL Rich and I were able to attend one of the musical highlights of the season last night. I could dive right into the concert, but the whole night deserves cataloging.

On the corner of Bedford and North 7th in Williamsburg I waited for a full five minutes for Rich to appear; I knew he would be late because I had caught an unprecedented sequence of transfers in journeying from my SpaHa Palacio. Entering the subway the 6 met me and and at 86th street the 4 was waiting--a minute on the platform at 14th street brought the L into my view, and there I was, at Bedford Avenue waiting under scaffolding, shielding myself from the droplets that had previously stained my iPhone's face and rendered texting temporarily impossible.

Gott sei dank, Rich appeared: 'There are several good options, Mexican, Mexican, Burger...' 'Burger.' And so it was.

After dinner we headed a bit north of Williamsburg to a spot preselected by our resident gormand, The Black Rabbit, notable for its variety of absinthe cocktails... Rich and I each had an absinthe/sugar/water cocktail in the true Hemingway style... The bar tender really did right, also, it was an absolutely wonderful drinking experience...

Having downed our magnificent Van Goghian cocktails, we wisely headed south again, back towards North 6th Street and our inevitable collision with destiny!

The show was unbelievable. The crowd was moving and, unlike any Williamsburg crowd in memory, all were instantly gyrating as if to subliminal tones, to triggers--and what was most special is that the band, during moments of pause or hypostasis (ie when a pause called for the lights to Vogue-like freeze-frame) were so beyond game, so full of love for the crowd that they mugged insatiably and gorgeously... There were moments when I thought I could detect the insatiable flare of The Revolution in Thomas Mars's loving mutuality with the crowd, but this is probably another of my base projections... After all, this latter-day Lafayette, in Obamerica, surely has no place...

That aside, the second encore track, single '1901' drove the crowd to a Segovia bull-fight level of madness! When Mars leaped into the crowd the full body of the audience accordingly surged forward, each 'hey hey hey hey" sequence thereby successfully embodied...

Best show of 2009 so far (slightly displacing "Little Winngs" Todd P show...)...

Dig the revolution in this Letterman video:

Dan/Tom: A Sonnet on Shared Authorship

2009-06-18T05:26:00.002-04:00

Dan/Tom

Sometimes a pairing means more than it seems,
Sometimes it is a simple meld of minds
Collaborating on discourse of memes
And other times it is a love that binds:

With you two and the memes you have traversed
We can discount the latter option now
And thus experience stereotypes reversed--
Traditional partnership, no more, and how!!!

We work together when we all work best--
Whether together in life or in the mind
Whether the other is present or the test
We work at hovers patiently behind--

One entity we are, but not so fat--
Uh, not that there is anything wrong with that!

Five Favorite Simpsons Supporting Players

2009-06-18T02:46:00.013-04:00

I was telling Dan/Tom that in place of doing anything productive (aside from writing a few pages of the novel here and there), I have been dealing with a rampant bout of insomnia by re-watching the first six seasons of The Simpsons (mostly via these somewhat-low-bit-rate streams). Season One is fun but uneven, and Season Two (while generally great) is still working a few things out.

By Season Three we are in the Golden Age, which, in my most honest estimation lasts from Season Three through Season Five. This is very strict, I realize. Much of Season Six is excellent, and some of my favorite episodes are in Season Seven, but by Six we have real signs of decline (The Critic cameo being foremost among them, but also the repetitive Marge storylines that start to bleed into each other)...

In any event, anywhere in Three to Five you are guaranteed a good show. Virtually every episode (except for the clip show) is worthwhile and probably has some number of memorable, definitively original Simpsons' moments...

With this as backdrop, I thought I'd give a brief run down of my five favorite supporting characters from the show:

#5 Selma Bouvier: While she often appears to simply blankly repeat the pronouncements of her more dominant twin Patty, in the episodes in which she is showcased (her ill-fated marriages to Sideshow Bob and Troy McClure, and her musings on lonesomeness in the brilliant "Selma's Choice") she is shown to be one of the most sympathetic figures in the show. The dialectic of her dependence on her sister with her desire to marry and escape her identical twindom is rather deftly handled in these particular episodes.

#4 Moe Szyslak: Moe, with his relentless threats of suicide, with his sometimes manifested homicidal rage, with his utter lack of social intelligence (most obviously in his relationships with women and his prank call demeanor)--Moe, along with Groundskeeper Willie, is the most obvious example in the show of a total social pariah who nonetheless is integrally involved in the affairs of life--it is a 'meme' going back to Dickens--but this manifestation in this medium is momentous.

#3 Principal Skinner: I refer to the pre-Tanzarian Skinner, of course, but remember the early Skinner was a really dark figure. He had horrifying flashbacks to The Nam during announcements on the regular, he was a pathetic underling to Chalmers (later they seemed to become friends)... Oh yeah, and he had a relationship with Patty Bouvier... Whoops! When we got to see Skinner all Mike Bradyed out after he lost his job, that was the bomb. God I love that cat... Oh yeah, and his mother! Hilarious!

#2 Lionel Hutz: This was a really tough call. Ideally, I would present some kind of McClure/Hutz hybrid, because really, Phil Hartman was simply wonderful in both roles. But Hutz wins out because he appears in more episodes (I think) and is generally more despicable/absurd/insane ('Say hello to Miguel Sanchez!') than even fish-fetishist Troy.

#1 Charles Montgomery Burns I don't think there is a better boss figure in all of literature; sure there are the Critch family in Lawrence's Women in Love and of course the despicable Scrooge of Dickensiana... But really, Mr. Burns contains all of these traits, and so much more, from his ambiguously gay relationship with Smithers to his inability to remember his employees, to his talent for Seussian meter and lyricism, to his Yalie status, to his various incarnations as a youthful freeloader, to his Charles Foster Kane moment... Many people complained of the Simpsons Movie (which was worthless) that it featured too much Flanders and too little Burns... I could not agree more. Bravo, Monty! 'To friends he's known as Monty but to you he's Mr. Burns!'

Arianna at the White House

2009-06-16T06:36:00.001-04:00

Arianna at the White House - Huffington post Radio

Precision

2009-06-03T16:50:00.005-04:00

A friend of mine who's been around for a while (50+) walked out of his office the other day to an astonishing sight. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was standing on the corner, apparently minding his own business. My friend, a huge basketball fan, felt compelled to say hello.

Friend: Hello, Kareem.

(Kareem does not move)

Friend: We actually met once before... It was back during my freshman year at Harvard, up in Cambridge. You were there for the summer taking a class in Arabic. Summer of 1974.

Kareem: That was 1973.

(Kareem walks away).

In Sparpe We Trust--A Sonnet for Tom Lehman

2009-06-02T03:00:00.001-04:00

In Sparpe We Trust

If programming confuses me (it does),
And html has left me in a tizzy,
And blog templates have almost made me dizzy—
Then I must turn to him simply because
He does it all, a wiz, in fact, he was
When he was born, or so it seems, busy
At every moment—calm and not a sissy,
Nor ornery—his coding can’t but buzz!

And randomly he realigns our lives,
Takes our years out of sequence, redisplays—
Our past in his new vision cleanly thrives
Unfettered from the previous waylays
Of fate and sequence—pure genius that dives
Deep underneath vicissitudes of days.

The Start of June--A Sonnet on Summer Vacation

2009-06-01T18:03:00.007-04:00

It's six o'clock and yet it feels like four
The sun is shining, cats are on my lap--
Two times already today I've taken a nap--
I have no urge to do anything more
Than lie here, arms akimbo on the floor
As air conditioning blasts fall on my back--
I think about playing "Rush 'n Attack"--
Decide that level one will make me snore--

In summer there is never any need
To do more than you want--Thus every day
Is just a lazy, sunny meme, a splay
For splayas as they jaunt. Yes splay indeed,
The wise man says, let go without delay--
For summer loafing is the splayas' creed.

The End of May

2009-05-31T04:13:00.006-04:00

The End of May--A Sonnet on Unemployment

Without a job I might sit all day long
And never stir, and never forward e-
Mails on, or conference call--just pass the bong
Back to my workless cohort in the t...
That is perhaps how things were meant to be,
I tell myself as I skim YouTube all
And all, not answering a single call
But lounging, naked, memeing a symphony.

This cannot last I know. I stare it down
Each day, the deadline when insolvency begins--
But still not working, living like a clown
On constant holiday from the circus, wins
Most games of guilt my parents play--They frown,
I smile. Soon even they won't know the ins.

TIWIDAD

2009-05-29T07:58:00.002-04:00

A Broken Sonnet--

TIWIDAD

Refresh. No news. What have I haven’t searched?
Refresh again. Who cares? Huffington Post.
Perhaps an H-Bomb graphic? Perhaps share?
The first one to succumb is no doubt toast
If snipers are allowed--they are in most—
Refresh. No news. Refresh. Whence comes the boast
About resistance to the internet?
No boast. Refresh. Refresh. The western host
Is free to be renamed in this market--
The beam of the right wing is not the most
Persuasive iteration on this coast--
There yet are better bets, but still, and yet
If we act now all will be seen as lost.
Self-abnegating being is no doubt our greatest cost--

Google Reader Shares--A Sonnet

2009-05-21T23:52:00.007-04:00

There is a certain time of day
When Reader shares run dry
When commenters all go away
And I curl up and cry—
Alone, alone, I sigh,
Dreaming of the needle’s eye
And flocks of camels trouping by
Watching rich men slowly fry—
But before long I kneel and pray—
I click refresh—again—oh please—

No shares! I weep, I fall apart,
I cannot hold myself at peace—
Shared items bolster up my heart,
Without them I would surely cease—

Deep Dark Heart

2009-05-20T12:46:00.002-04:00

Classic photo of my kitties from the archive.

Tribute to The ACTUAL God

2009-05-18T22:28:00.007-04:00

A blogger called The ACTUAL God did live.
He produced posts prodigiously and proudly,
He was a blogger all proclaimed quite loudly,
His comedy was not derivative—

A wit with a perspective for the ages
A master of perception and of farce
His posts were clean but never over sparse
A trove of insight richer than most sages’.

Alas, he’s gone away, he is long drowned.
We’ve lost him like an eaglet fallen down
From his lorn nest onto the harshest ground.

He’s frozen somewhere—we are left to frown
And wish his voice would once again expound
The vital words of which he wreathed his crown.

Only in New York

2009-05-14T17:15:00.020-04:00

Today had all the makings of a glorious day. As I trudged up to work at 7:25, leaning hard into the hill on top of which sits my college, I noticed the sky turning an ominous shade of gray as drops of precipitant began to fleck my hair and glasses.

"I love this weather," I said softly to myself, and I meant it; I love mixed weather. It may be an attribute of my fiery Scots-Irish blood, I don't know, but mornings like today's, where bright sun shines brutally from behind rainclouds, leave me feeling full and powerful.

That it was the last day of classes for this semester probably informed my positive attitude, but as with my favorite kind of weather, the rain cloud of having to get my car out of the pound in Brooklyn loomed against the sunlight of the term's completion... I've been a bit delinquent in paying the tickets I accumulated prior to my car's last impoundment... Right, I'm terribly irresponsible, I know, I know. It's all my family talks to me about.

I digress.

Classes were fine. All were ready for summer. I tried to entertain the kids by playing a video I thought they might enjoy about a long forgotten historical epoch, but the computers at school are so paucitous YouTube barely even loads. No matter, after a few hours classes were over and I was placidly riding the 7 train out to Queens.

After switching to the G, I got off at Greenpoint, walked the several blocks to the impound lot while continuing to enjoy the turgid weather. I redeemed my car (which was *criminally* expensive)... I felt the flare of reunion.

Listening to some leftist anti-nuclear chatter on NPR as I crossed the Queensboro Bridge my car's engine stalled out.

Fuck.

The car went into neutral, the accelerator flapped like a loose spinnaker powerlessly to the deck--I panicked.

Happily my version of panic is to become more calm.

I was already on the down slope of the bridge, but in case you didn't know it is incredibly hard to steer a car in neutral... Somehow I managed to guide the car down the ramp through raw strength and onto the side of the road below, off the bridge (at that really awkward place where if you go right you can get on the FDR but otherwise you have to go straight across 2nd ave or go left and south).

I paused for a second, then started the car again. Whirrrrrr..... No problem. Great, on my way...

I pulled onto 3rd avenue when I was cut off by a predictably priggish cabby. As I pressed on the brake the car stalled again, only this time I was ready and glided safely onto the shoulder.

Some time later, after trying to explain to 4 meter maids (truly the most meretricious and mendacious provocateurs in all of society) that I wasn't parking but my car was broken down and that I was waiting for a tow (I wasn't in an actual spot so this drew constant attention) I began to lose my patience.

The first approached and was mildly sympathetic, saying "What can I do buddy?" as if I had asked him for something.

Sometime later (after several cops had stopped beside me to ask why I was illegally parked and not whether I was broken down) another man on foot stalked up and said, after my initial explanation, "You're not broken down, you're playin' on your phone." I thought, "What is this, a Chappelle Show skit?" but what I said was, "Oh, I didn't realize I wasn't allowed to use my phone while waiting on the side of the road for a tow truck."

He responded:"You could at least have your light on."

To which I without hesitation:"And kill my battery also? I've been waiting here for almost forty minutes." It had been at most twenty five.

"Forty minutes for a tow?"

"Imagine it." He wanted to give me a ticket. I could see it in his vulgar, non-comprehending eyes.

I admit I was not perfectly decorous; though regrettable it was also merited. I simply mirrored him after he approached with so much inborn hate, so ready to immediately judge (and after his despicable breed had put me in the absurd situation of driving back from Brooklyn in the first place).

Anyway, much to his chagrin, a huge tow-truck immediately arrived beside us and he walked off scowling. I won't be surprised if he tries to give me a ticket anyway, but if he does I will fight him and extend his shame to the law courts!

In any event with the arrival of the truck the mood of things shifted utterly if not at once.

Eddy, the tow man had some trouble loading my car, and I was of no assistance, being generally of the effete set of males whose skills do not extend far into the physical realms. He also went to great pains to point out to me some tow-truck-caused damage he detected on my car (in order to exonerate himself) that for all I know was done years ago.

But once we were riding it was all good. Eddy is in an extremely good natured, Guatemalan gentleman in his mid thirties.

"So, you're a musician, eh?"

"Yeah. How'd you guess?"

"Oh, the long hair, the pins on your jacket. A real rocker, huh?"

"Not anymore. Actually, I used to play some Latin music."

This was my first 'mistake,' if you can call it that, for without it what proceeded surely would not have.

"Oh yeah? Vincente Uribe. Juan Calonas. My favorites. I play. I am a musician. I tell you what man, nothing is better for the two things I love in life than being a musician. I go to Queens, you know Queens Boulevard, all the Mexican restaurants? I go there (this was when I was single, remember. I'm married now and boy is my wife a jackhammer, God she keeps me in line! It's cause she knows, she remembers how I swept her off her feet with my music.) Anyway, like I say, my wife was just one of the girls then, and I go from restaurant to restaurant on Queens Boulevard and man, I get the two things I love for free: girls and drinks, man. That's where it's at. Though, lot's of people, you know what? They offer me drugs, and I say: no thank you man. My company, they call you up at three in the morning, they give you a drug test every month, no doubt. You do drugs, you flunk the test, bye-bye job, bye-bye drinks, bye-bye girls. But the music it can maybe win them back. I haven't tried it, because you know what, I never try them. Never."

"That's good."

"Hey, if you don't mind... Can I sing for you one of my songs?"

"Definitely."

"Okay. Now it's in Spanish, it's a famous song I've just adapted, kind of my own version..."

Twenty minutes later we arrive at the shop. He's a good enough singer, I suppose. But as he kept insisting, "I only do this around my family and friends. It entertains them." After twenty minutes I have a new brother.

But it was all good and thoroughly amusing considering the ridiculous circumstances. As we rode across the park to the west side I hadn't really been paying attention to where we were. After giving the mechanics my info I wandered out.

Shaking Eddy's hand as I passed him on the sidewalk I headed east.

Taking a turn, I unexpectedly found myself facing a steep hill, right next to a subway station. I was back, two blocks from school. So much roundabout and costly movement had brought me back to the bottom of the hill where I began.

Bemused by the serendipity, I took the 1 to the 2 and walked home.

This Week in Movies with DB Shane

2009-05-11T00:03:00.003-04:00

Arlo Harshenstein has expanded from the blogosphere into feature films. His debut directorial effort, "Going Steady," was reviewed this weekend on This Week in Movies with DB Shane. Check it out (including a clip from the film!):

The Future of Literature

2009-05-06T22:05:00.005-04:00

As some of you know my day gig is as a college adjunct English teacher. It's a lot of fun, and I really enjoy the students, but I am often confronted with interesting quandries just the same. For instance, due to the rampant proliferation of what used to be called PDAs but are now ingloriously (and not at all forward-lookingly) called "smart phones" in-class texting has become an epidemic. Cell-phones going off--that was bad enough. But having them constantly chatting with friends on IM as I'm trying to explain to them the glorious metaphorical expanses of Dante? Insufferable.

I've recently told them that I plan on composing an opera (a short opera) about texting in class. Some sample stanzas (imagine the teacher sung in a rousing Basso):

Students:

We cannot keep from wondering
Just what the next message will bring
We'll hide the cellphone underneath
This flimsy desk, he'll never see!

Teacher:

I seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Your minor subterfuge does not impeeeeeeeeeede
My eyes, indeeeeeeeeeeeeed
I see, and you will bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed
Or at leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeast
Your grade will.

Students:

No! It was an emergency!
A text that we just had to see!
Believe us please!
Professor no, it can't be so!
We neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed
An "A" in this class, it would be so cool
Then we could transfer to a better school!

etc.

You get the flavor even without the music. It will be amazing.

But this is just one example of future literature; imagine, for instance, a novel about a narrator falling in love over Google Reader comments!

It would be hilarious. The only thing, at first, our protagonist would learn about the beloved would be (after all) the most important thing: THE QUALITY OF HIS/HER GOOGLE READER SHARES.

But aside from that, he would have to surmise the person's appearance/values/etc just from comments. For instance, to take a recent example:

Eric:
I find J. Edwards (the senator (not the college!)) to be a repulsive human being for any number of reasons. But not for cheating on that fat sow. He deserves credit for even staying married to her for that long. (Pro-active apology to any fat sows that may read Nostra's shared items. I am sorry.)

Kelly: Eric, I will have you know, that though I have a blazin' body myself, I respect Elizabeth Edwards and her determined fight against both adultery and cancer. And I find your comment misogynistic.

So, with this, (imagine "Kelly" is the love interest (grayed out/not yet a mutual sharer but someone whose comments have been amazing so far)) our protagonist (we'll call him "Tom") would know that, at least hypothetically, his potential partner Kelly has a "blazin' body." Imagine the comic possibilities in his attempts to verify this! So multitudinous! Also he would sense her feminist streak. A turn on? Or not? More room for comedy!

It could also be dark. A guy could reveal, over months of comments and Google Reader shares that he is actually a murderer who is best friends with the detective trying to find him him... Not that this has happened our would ever happen... Paging Mr. Markoff....

All I'm saying is that technologically informed innovations in form need not end with "The Net." There is so much more we all could enjoy!

Seinfeld Studio Apartment Controversy

2009-04-22T12:51:00.004-04:00

Okay, I took a screen cap to demonstrate my thesis. Here it is:

This is from about ten minutes into episode 2. Jerry's parents are sleeping on the futon couch, which has been pulled out. As he enters, Jerry says "This is what I like see, you come home, your parents are in your bed."

They then proceed to have a conversation about how Jerry will be staying at Kramer's apartment while his parents are in town...because the futon couch is Jerry's bed because THERE IS NO BEDROOM.

I rest my case.

Seinfeld Inconsistencies

2009-04-20T22:18:00.002-04:00

As some know, my computer broke, big time.

Depressing as Hell, of course, especially for an Internet addict such as I am.

Worse yet, I had to read a 400 page novel on my iPhone.... It is only available as a PDF. On top of that my professor even admitted it ("Lindor & Adelaide" by Edward Sayer) might be the worst novel he has ever read, and he has read everything.

Anyway, all of this is a roundabout way of saying that I would have posted this as a note in reader if that were possible on an iPhone, but here goes: has anyone noticed that in the first mini-season of Seinfeld, Jerry's apartment, while it generally has the same layout familiar from later seasons, is a studio and not a one bedroom?

Crazy, no?

Sarah Palin Reconsidered Again

2009-04-17T03:19:00.004-04:00

I've been a fan of the blog Palin's Deceptions for some time. Actually since Audrey first commented on my coverage (look at the comments also for a classic Rich qualification) of the Palin pregnancy fraud story back in the early days after her selection.

That said, after many months of dogged and persistent exploration on their part, I've begun to lose the thread a little bit. And this is not because I've become convinced IN ANY WAY that Trig Palin is the biological son of Sarah Palin. No, the reason has more to do with some formal choices on the part of the blog. The ACTUAL God alluded to part of this in a Google reader share recently--the pace of the prose in the posts is too belabored to bear.

On top of that the recent trend of segmenting "newly acquired information" into numerous, equally non-damning, posts has really reduced my enjoyment of the updates. Like the Myspace stuff, as Gawker-worthy as it all was, what did it tell us about Bristol's potential Trig pregnancy? Almost nothing, beyond the fact that Sarah had accused Bristol of being sexually active sometime in June 2007.

I was talking on the phone with a friend tonight and I admitted that I feared the Sarah Palin Fake Pregnancy story had become my 9-11. And by that I meant it was the event I irrationally allowed myself to imbue with all sorts of Republican conspiracy theories... After yesterday's absurd tea-bagging farce, I feel like there is yet more evidence that these people are incapable of pulling off such deceptions.

Old People on Twitter (Third Try)

2009-04-11T17:49:00.001-04:00

Old People on Twitter - The Chance McKenna Show

Old People on Twitter

2009-04-08T13:15:00.001-04:00

Old People on Twitter - The Chance McKenna Show

Logic

2009-04-04T22:58:00.003-04:00

I love this kind of thing:

PITTSBURGH – A gunman wearing a bulletproof vest and "lying in wait" opened fire on officers responding to a domestic disturbance call Saturday, killing three of them and turning a quiet Pittsburgh street into a battlefield, police said.

Police Chief Nate Harper said the motive for the shooting isn't clear, but friends said the gunman recently had been upset about losing his job and feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns.

Okay, so he was worried that Obama was going to ban guns (a totally irrational fear), and in order to prevent this from happening he murders a bunch of cops with guns.

What am I not understanding?

Waldo Meme

2009-04-01T20:17:00.005-04:00

Osbourne's Reloaded:Live Blog

2009-03-31T21:28:00.021-04:00

Okay, live blogging the new Osbourne's Variety Show. I hope it is bad enough to merit this insane honor. BTW, apparently a chimp lady (the victim) update is coming up at 10:00. Fox, sinking their hooks in ever deeper! To the liveblog!

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

9:29--Okay, the introductions are really awkward, the bleeping out is obnoxious. Apparently their only shtick is swearing. I guess HBO didn't bite.

9:31--Jack, the drug addict, makes a drug joke in like the first 2 minutes. Roofie reference... great.

9:32--Okay, doing some idiotic kissing contest. First the guy has kissed a seemingly hot girl (who I am hoping is a tranny)...

9:33--No, they just replaced her with a Granny. Hilarious. Not. Playing "Let's Get It on." Nice call. Who wrote this skit? This is the stupidest thing I've seen on Network TV. Possibly ever. Worst stars, worst writing, worst premise. In short, it's totally living up to expectations so far!

Commercial Break

9:35--Ozzy as a farting Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing... Awful.

9:37--Some idiotic raffle with Ozzy acting as a prop, yet again. So dumb. BTW, "Nick." "Did you know that rhymes with "bleep"?" Classy!

9:38--A weird ID game. Then his girlfriend comes on screen (Hawaii, Italy, Catalina Island, The Mediterranean, which one doesn't belong?)

9:39--Nice, they are trying to force a guy to marry his girlfriend on TV. She's in a dress and everything. "It's over unless you marry me tonight."

9:40--Fear factor merged with The Bachelor, with a totally superfluous dose of The Osbournes. Who wrote this? The bastard child of Julio Lugo and Cindy Sheehan?

9:43--Would the Osbourne's be good at real jobs? Okay, so now it's The Simple Life, also. Got it. Totally logical.

9:44--Ozzy is really obnoxious. Kelly is utterly worthless. "Shut Up" is probably the worst album ever produced. Skit is too bad to comment on.

9:49--So they are really sticking it to this guy Nick. Awful theme music also. Sharon and Ozzy got married in 1982? So she's been a fame whore all along, what a shock.

9:50--Blatant "Lil' O'Reilly" rip-off.

9:53--The show is awful, but it's also just really stupidly conceived, garish, and poorly written. It is an abomination, but maybe not the abomination.

9:56--Resolution of the ridiculous Bachelor subplot... Ozzy is apparently giving the bride away. Whatever.

9:57--Damn, the girl is really crying. Whatever.

9:58--Okay... He says yes. Whatever.

10:00--Final grade: D+. Which as everyone knows, is way worse than an F. I totally wasted the last thirty minutes of my life, and it wasn't even a total waste... Can't I do anything right?

Economic Meltdown Meme: VACACIONES PARA ARGENTINA!!!

2009-03-24T18:43:00.006-04:00

At least four people I know in the last few months have done the following:

1. Lost their job, got out of their lease, and gone on a luxurious month long "Fantastic Voyage" to Argentina, enjoying the legendarily "good airs" of Buenos Aires...

2. Decided to take a trip to Argentina for a "school project" on "jaywalking" or "pedestrians" or something... Right... Definitely not a blog motivated journey there.

3. Gone to Argentina "for no reason, out of caprice, on account of lassitude" to quote Baudelaire.

What is it about the Southern Hemisphere that is drawing in the morose, spiritually-deprived, financial-crisis-suffering-through, losing-their-hair-because-of-the-massive-stress-of-it-all, mid-twenties set?

The irresistible love of Tango? The desire to touch the "hand of God"? I don't know, but damn do I wish I didn't still have a job.

A Celebration in Music IV: Let It Go

2009-03-23T22:22:00.002-04:00

This was the final piece in my original Schiavo trilogy. This one focuses on Michael Schiavo, the forgotten hero of the whole mess.

Let It Go - Nostradamus Marquis

Natasha Richardson Brain-Death: Oh the Memories!

2009-03-18T19:44:00.004-04:00

My theory is that the ski accident was caused by an aneurysm or some other about-to-blossom-brain-destroying crisis that would have happened anyway. Like, her balance center was the first area to be affected, hence she didn't immediately lose consciousness, etc.

Thus, though she did fall, it only appeared that this was a cause and effect situation (meme?).

But all of this is beside the point, as I have a Schiavo-like media frenzy taking place not thirty five blocks from my door... Appropriately timed, I might add, given the ongoing Celebration of Music and recent Schiavo reference...

Reached for comment, Ariel Sharon had the following to say:

...

...

...

Amazingly as I wrote those last lines I learned this sad news. It's sad because, now that she's dead, we have no chance of the above picture transforming into this one:

A Celebration in Music III: Cindy Sheehan

2009-03-17T21:14:00.004-04:00

Cindy Sheehan didn't really fit in so well with the original D-M trio of Terri Schiavo, Natalee Holloway, and Michael Jackson in that she wasn't a dead white female.

Yet nevertheless, over the years I think I have done more versions of this song, which again started that fateful night in the apartment of the Actual God.

Cindy Sheehan - Nostradamus Marquis

A Celebration of Music Part II: Picture (Terri Schiavo Died)

2009-03-16T22:01:00.007-04:00

The song that started it all, back in the fall of 2005 (appropriately a full five months post-Schiavo; this blog has always been mostly about the post-Schiavo...).

I stole the music from a piece I wrote back in February 2005, as Terri was nearing completion, a fact I have hidden until now but which I find revealing for trivial reasons I will continue to conceal.

I fondly remember a night over at the then-apartment of The ACTUAL God, in which rudimentary versions of this song and the second song in our sequence (to be revisited soon) were performed to the delight of the audience of Actual Rod, Ariel, Tom, Jesse and others who have faded into the ether...

Without further delay, the gem in the tiara:

Picture (Terri Schiavo Died) - Nostradamus Marquis

Awkward Phone Interaction #2,565

2009-03-16T21:21:00.007-04:00

I have terrible phone phobia. I hate calling people, especially people I don't know.

I fear faceless functionaries most of all. For reasons unknown, I dread their prompted responses and endless checklists.

Last year, in an effort to cure myself, I signed up as a volunteer at a phone-a-thon for a very worthy cause (my graduate program). I cold-called people for several hours. It was terrifying, horrifying, horrible. But I did it, and it was mostly fine.

For a while after this I felt better. But then conversations like this happen:

Operator (American male, sounds earnest): Thanks for calling ESPN, how can I help you?

Me: Uh, yeah. I was trying to update my Insider account, and there was this message saying that you, uh, "lost my account info" and that I should call this number.

Op: Ah yes, the website has been acting up lately, I do apologize for that...

Me (too quickly): It's fine.

Op: What's that?

Me: No, I mean, I just imagine you have these glitches and such...

Op: And we do apologize for that.

Me: Okay. So my member name is...

Op: Could you tell me your member name?

Me: Right, it's NostradamusMarquis666.

Op: NostradamusMarkey6666?

Me: No, "Marquis," like the French noble rank... And three sixes.

Op: I'm sorry sir, I don't know French.

Me: Of course not. M-A-R-Q-U-I-S.

Op: I know how to spell Marquis, but I don't know French.

Me: Right, sorry.

Op: So what was your e-mail, for security purposes?

Me: Oh, I don't know which one...

Op: School.

Me (sheepishly): Oh yeah, undergrad...

Op: No, your post-doc fellowship appointment.

Me: What?

Op: Yes, sir, it is probably your undergraduate university based on your birthday which I have here on the screen.

Me: Oh. Uh, is it, Nostradamus.Marquis@yale.edu?

Op: Bingo. So, wanna update that mailing address too?

Me: Uh yeah, so it's 103045 Lexington Avenue.

Op: Spell that for me.

Me: L-E-X-I-N-G-T-O-N A-V-E---

Op: I work as an operator, I know how to spell "avenue."

Me: Right. Sorry. (softly, and off to the side) But not Lexington?

Op: So, I take it that's New York, NY, Mr. Ivy League?

Me: What?

Op: New York, NY, Mr. Marquis?

Me: That's right. What was that supposed to mean?

Op: So do you want to put that on the Double Platinum AmEx card, or the Visa Gold Caviar Club--

Me: Uh. Yeah, AmEx is fine. And while we're at it, how much is this gonna cost?

Op: Not much, high roller. Just $39.95.

Me: A month?

Op: Yep.

Me: That's a lot steeper than I remember, but, well, ahhh...

Op: Okay, you're all set, Mr. Privileged Rich Dick, hope you have a fucked day.

Me: Excuse me?

(dial tone)

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

Much of this is true. The guy did tell me Insider was $39.95/month (instead of /year), which had me in a panic for about four minutes as I searched down the real info on ESPN's site.

The worst part of all of this is, despite the incredible awkwardness of the call, this was one of my better interactions.

Nostradamus Marquis: A Celebration in Music

2009-03-11T21:08:00.002-04:00

Over the next few weeks, I will be posting links to the entire Nostradamus Marquis back catalog of satirical songs from over the years. Many of them have dated (of course, many were dated even when they were written), but they are still fun.

Here's the first, my tribute to a little man called John Mark Karr:

John Mark Karr (II) - Nostradamus Marquis

Yacht Aid 2009

2009-03-06T19:46:00.002-05:00

Yacht Aid 2009 - Kent Bartleby

The second song features the recorded debut of Dan "The Guitarist" Berger, doing a masterful job on second lead guitar.

New Haven Alderman "Fast Bobby" Jenkins Corruption Tapes

2009-02-27T17:52:00.002-05:00

Robert "Fast Bobby" Jenkins Corruption Trial - New Haven News

Aruba: 90,000 Friends You Haven't Met Yet

2009-02-26T18:34:00.010-05:00

I'm sure some of my fellow subway riders out there will have seen these preposterous ads advocating for Aruba. I find it impossible to escape them.

They are all ever so carefully crafted with non-threatening islanders who describe their careers and some of the amazing experiences they have had on their island paradise.

Today as I dragged myself to work I noticed one with a woman talking about the many people she had seen "renew their vows" in Aruba over the years (she's a wedding planner)... Horrible, and patently false.

Luckily, with a little effort, I managed to obtain a few ads that will be appearing in the next round of the campaign. I have faithfully reproduced them below:

Satish
Musician

I live to entertain, and Aruba is the perfect venue for my distinctive brand of Gamelan-Ska. I draw inspiration from all of the beautiful people who come to Aruba, particularly those looking for adventure, because, with Gamelan-Ska, life is always an adventure. You can find me on the weekends performing as an opener for touring acts at local hot-spot Carlos'n Charlie's. Hey, if you're lucky, maybe we can take a late night drive to look for sharks?

Deepak
Mixologist

Everything in Aruba is so beautiful. Especially the ocean, the sun, the sky, and the people; and by people, I mean the guests, the visitors, Americans, Dutch, whoever--we love everyone in Aruba, especially you! My specialty is blending liqueurs and spirits, both literally and figuratively! Come see me at Carlos'n Charlie's where I tend bar most nights; think of me as your magic sandman, the one who will send you into the land of dreams with a sweet and original plethora of cocktails. Remember: in Aruba, we make dreams come true!

Joran
Golf Pro/Romance Consultant

My life in Aruba is charmed; charmed by my job instructing guests in golf, charmed by the pleasure I see in the faces of the happy couples lounging on the beach as I take my morning jog, and charmed most of all by you, beautiful blond woman I see by the bar at Carlos'n Charlie's, slowly letting a fourth jell-o shot slither down your slender gullet, yes you. My father has an amazing house inland we could go to; we have jell-o shots waiting in the fridge. And if you like, in the morning we can go out to the golf course and I could show you a new meaning of the term "sand-wedge." Only in Aruba: we're waiting for you!

Update! Apparently the song found below will serve as the official jingle of the Aruba Campaign:

Aruba (Dutch Paradise) - Nostradamus Marquis

Baller Album Cover

2009-02-20T03:00:00.003-05:00

Harlem Shakes Technicolor Health

Another reason Mo Williams was a terrible pick...

2009-02-16T00:56:00.005-05:00

This Kevin Arnovitz post from TrueHoop nicely recapitulates why the East would have been better off with say, Okafor or even David Lee:

The choice of Williams meant the East entered the game with only two legitimate bigs -- Dwight Howard and Kevin Garnett, both of whom were starters. As a result, Rashard Lewis was forced to assume the center spot for long stretches of the game. Lewis has always been a bit challenged defending the post at the PF position, and he certainly doesn't have the strength or the ability to absorb a beating against opposing 5s. But that's exactly what he was charged with doing as the backup center on the Eastern squad, and the results were disastrous for the East.

So even the East team suffered from Williams' selection, which I take as a seedpod of poetic justice in this travesty.

1,000th Post

2009-02-15T23:46:00.004-05:00

This is officially the 1,000th post in the nearly 4 year history of this blog. Hurray.

Now that that is out of the way, I want to address an issue I have broached before, namely the internet and the weekend.

I appreciate that many people read blogs mostly as a distraction during work. If I were an employer, I would make this totally impossible, but this is why I am not an employer.

I do not work in a place where I am in front of a computer most of the time.

As a consequence of this work environment, I do most of my Google Reader using/sharing when I am NOT at work. A lot of this time is, naturally, on the weekend.

I am a true rebel, for the rest of the internet virtually shuts down Sat-Sun and one is reduced to reading the new Frank Rich column Sunday morning, supplemented by only a smattering of blogtastic rejoindering.

And it's too bad, because it helps the MSM maintain its stranglehold on information; if Meet the Press, This Week, Face the Nation, plus the major papers' editorial pages dominate the Sunday airwaves/blogosphere (and even if they just cling to that) they will still have their fingers on at least one (and really two) days of the media-news-cycle.

My solution? The blogosphere needs to stop taking weekends off. Instead, take Tuesday off one week, then Thursday the next. Mix it up! We need to stay on top of this!

Bad All-Stars Part II

2009-02-15T00:03:00.003-05:00

Just a brief supporting statement I came across today that says what I was saying more concisely:

So we see, how you are perceived - and probably how much money you make - is influenced by the quality of your teammates. With the data the NBA collects -which does a wonderful job of separating a player from his teammates - this shouldn’t be the case. Unfortunately, often it’s true. Good players on bad teams are often discounted (while bad players on good teams are often over-estimated).

Thus we have All-Stars Mo Williams, BJ Armstrong, Antoine Walker, and Jamaal Magloire.

Kareem dunks on Wilt

2009-02-14T00:13:00.006-05:00

Check out this video. It contains footage of a young Lew Alcindor dunking on a seasoned Wilton Norman Chamberlain (fast forward to about 1:30 for the clip in question).

The video is an old NBA video summary of each man's respective scoring record. I would have embedded the video here, but apparently that has been disabled. Alas.

Number to Devour

2009-02-13T23:00:00.004-05:00

That number? 21,541. That is the number of points Michael Jordan scored in his first 9 seasons (which is really only 8.22 seasons because he missed almost 80% of his second year with a foot injury (before returning to set the playoff scoring record against Boston)).

This is his point total before his first totally insane/forced-by-David-Stern retirement.

That video is pretty awesome. This is ridiculous too, from a few years later:

But to put our number in perspective, Tim Duncan, Paul Pierce, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and (one-time-next-Jordan) Vince Carter are all well below that number after 11+ years in the league. That he came back was great, that he retired prematurely again was not.

For the love of goodness, the man could have won more championships! The team could have made more money!

As ill as this last clip I am including is, my Kobe-loving friends are wrong: I knew Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan was a friend of mine. You're no Michael Jordan, Kobe.

But you are pretty sick.

All-Star Thoughts and Memories/Sounds and Visions

2009-02-13T19:55:00.015-05:00

The All-Star game is always a cosmic letdown in the NBA, if you ask me. The games are never any fun to watch, and one's disappointment is only amplified by the anti-climax of the 'main event' after the Dunk Contest on Saturday night (though some years the dunk contest is awful).

Part of the reason for this is the coaches who select the reserves do a unusually bad job. The fans, while occasionally totally crazy (see Steve Francis), are generally slightly better than the coaches as a voting group in my mind.

Nowhere in the All-Star criteria does it mention a team's number of wins, and yet every year winning teams are wildly overrepresented on the bench.

This year we have Mo Williams, as I noted in commentary to a share earlier. Take a look at those numbers. Not bad. His per game line is something like 17/4/3 (P/A/R), and his PER is a respectable 17.0 (the league average is 15.0). Good numbers, for sure, but let's investigate a little further in a couple of directions before drawing conclusions.

Initially, when Jameer Nelson got hurt and Ray Allen was named, Cleveland fans were outraged. Nelson is unquestionably having the best year of the three, averaging 17/5/4 per game while shooting above 50% from the field, which (other arcane stats included) is good for an impressive PER of 20.9.

Allen, meanwhile is having a better year than last year (which was a REALLY bad year for him), though he is clearly no longer close to the dominant offensive force he was in Seattle and Milwaukee. He is putting up around 18/3/3 while shooting a career best 49% from the field. His PER is nevertheless well below Nelson's (and Ray's own career average) at 17.6, a meager .6 ahead of Mo Williams.

So, truth be told, neither Allen nor Williams has much of a statistical case for being an All-Star. Rajon Rondo, Allen's teammate, has a PER of 18.8, and is clearly more important to Boston than anybody outside of Pierce and KG. His per game numbers (11/8.5/5) are underwhelming in the scoring department, which probably tipped David Stern's hand against him (also, Stern clearly loves Allen, Mr. Good Citizenship, and wants to reward the 'good guys,').

But Rondo is far from the worst snub. That would be the much maligned (though still sick) Vince Carter, who is having a solid bounce-back year. At one point Vince's highlight reel dunks all but guaranteed his being voted in by the fans, but he has been eclipsed by younger lights (Lebron, Wade, etc) in recent years. Plus New Jersey is in a rebuilding zone. But Carter is playing really well, dropping 21/5/5 while allowing young PG (and first-time All-Star) Devin Harris to blow up along side him in NJ's backcourt. His PER? 20.4, almost three ahead of Allen, and three and a half ahead of Williams.

So Vince should have been the replacement for Jameer, and barring that at the very least he should have replaced Bosh.

But Williams is on a team with a great record (40-11 at the break, pretty sick), as is Allen (44-11), and LeBron has a huge media presence (ie he creates an amplifying effect simply because so many people cover what he thinks/says). So Vince can sit, and it's fine.

In fact, the real reason I wanted to write this post was to bring up some of the worst ever All-Star selections (or at least of the last 20 years or so that I have been watching). There have been some terrible picks. Terrible. Let's highlight a few:

1994 (exactly 15 years ago as I write): BJ Armstrong, Chicago Bulls. This was the year after MJ's first retirment, and the Bulls were doing surprisingly well without him (34-13 at the break), so, surprise surprise, they got three All-Stars. Pippen was great (22/6/9, 23.2), Horace Grant, well, okay, sure (15/3/11, 19.8 PER). But Armstrong? Dig these numbers: 15/4/2, PER of 14.5. That's right, below the league average in PER. No way was this cat an All-Star, that year or any other.

Curiously, 1994 was overall one of the worst years for this "good teams get overrepresented in All-Star Games meme." And especially in the East. Check out this roster: 3 Knicks, 3 Bulls, 2 Hawks, 2 Nets, Shaq and Mark Price. The division leaders at that point? Atlanta, New York, Chicago. While we're at it John Starks, Charles Oakley, much as I love you both, you in no way deserved your All-Star nods this season. I would have replaced these three (Starks, Oakley, Armstrong) with Rik Smits, Reggie Miller, and Zo Mourning, but that's just me...

2004 Jamaal Magloire, New Orleans Hornets. This is the case most frequently raised when people are complaining about the position rules, which say (as a coach selecting reserves) you must have 1 Center, 2 forwards, 2 guards and 2 wild cards in your list. Thus a totally mediocre player like Magloire gets on the team because of his position, not his overall "star" qualities. Nevertheless, Magloire was only slightly less statistically aberrant than Mo Williams. Magloire's numbers, (14/1/10, 16.5 PER), are okay. Definitely not star worthy, but also not horrible for a center in a weak era for centers. Still a terrible All-Star, but not Armstrong level bad.

Can anyone think of any egregious All-Star selections? I'm going to keep researching this, so expect some Greenwald-style updates soon.

Update

Just found this:

2003 Antoine Walker, Boston Celtics: 20/5/7, 38% on FGs, 32% on 3s (only 586 attempted)... All good for a PER of 14.6. Horrible. Not an All-Star.

College vs. Pros--A Dissipation of Hatred

2009-02-12T21:48:00.005-05:00

Back when I was an avid College Hoop fan there were always certain players I despised, and these were generally obvious. Think JJ Redick, Mike Dunleavy Jr, Adam Morrison, Steve Wojciechowski, Kirk Hinrich--you get the idea.

Why is it that once some of these guys turned pro my hatred continued unabated (Morrison, Redick, Wojo (as a Duke assistant coach)), while with others the hatred dissipated totally, and I am now able to regard the player as just another numerical cog in the wheel of my life?

Honestly, I no longer hate Mike Dunleavy or Kirk Hinrich. First, what is wrong with me? And second, how is this even possible? Both are totally mediocre in the pros, so it's not like they have won me over through success or anything.

I hated Dunleavy as recently as last year, but now? Nothing. Not even a glimmer of ill-will, which is sadder than anything else.

What is it that has liberated them? Why them and not the others?

Another of life's great mysteries.

Amazing Numbers

2009-02-12T21:05:00.010-05:00

I think about NBA statistics a lot. I love to think about them, and have since I was about 12.

The stock market? Forget it. My taxes? I'm hopeless. But NBA statistics? It's on.

Why this particular set of numbers should be the only one that appeals to me I do not know (aside from a love of basketball). Nonetheless, the number five search engine in my Firefox search window (after Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, and Amazon (which is also useful for identifying editions, etc, and not just buying books, though I do that too) is Basketball-Reference.com, which along with its sister sites, is wonderfully comprehensive (for recent stats. Many of their records only go back to the 80's, so for the truly insane stuff (see Wilt's 55 rebound game) you have to look elsewhere).

Take for instance, the career of Michael Jordan. Yes, his scoring was amazing; he was a well above-average passer and rebounder; he also developed new skills, like three-point shooting, later in his career. All of this is de rigeur for even the casual NBA fan, as is the fact that his most remarkable season might have been in 1987-88, when he won not only MVP but Defensive Player of the Year as well.

But one number from that year totally hypes me up, and that is 131. Not 35.0 (Jordan's PPG), nor .535 (his unreal field-goal percentage), nor even 259 (his league leading steals total).

No, 131 is the number of BLOCKS a 6'6" Michael Jordan had that year, working out to an average of about 1.6 per game. Close to two blocks a game from your shooting guard (who also happens to be the best scorer/player in the league otherwise).

Unreal.

That is a revealing number, and those blocks are a big part of why Jordan has the Modern-PER record for that particular season at 31.7 (a number Lebron James is equaling through 51 games this year).

Huffington Post Radio: Pre-Interview

2009-02-06T18:53:00.001-05:00

We have obtained some crucial audio from Arianna's recent pre-interview with Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic:

Arianna Pre-Interview with Krist Novoselic - Huffington Post Radio Hour

Karl Malone on TNT

2009-02-05T20:06:00.005-05:00

Karl Malone has signed on as a studio host for TNT. I am thrilled. While Barkley is out we need the anti-Barkley, Malone. NRA, Utah, Louisiana, all of it. I love it.

And after the first segment, I am no less thrilled. This is a potentially great development. As much as I hated Malone as a person and player during his career, I am somehow touched by his reemergence. I wish him well.

PS Thanks to Nosferatu for so many incisive and interesting music posts lately. I hope he continues to examine "The Problem of Animal Collective."

Scarlett Johansson

2009-01-29T22:56:00.005-05:00

Okay, everybody see the picture? Yes. She is a movie star. She is gorgeous, and is very well endowed in certain ways.

Judge her accordingly for launching a music career. Yes. Judge her.

Finished? Good.

Scarlett Johansson, stripped bare of her movie star identity, is an awesome singer and a great artist. I loved her Tom Waits covers record, and this cover of the (wildly overrated) Jeff Buckley strikes me as a more intimate picture of her as interpreter. A certain set of tastemakers are driving up the hateometer... And for obvious reasons, but bad reasons.

Scarlett Johansson is totally legit as a singer and as an artist, and if she had any other name, people would dig her work, because it's solid.

End of discussion.

I go back to sucking blood next week.

Animal Collective III: The Microphones Angle

2009-01-28T00:59:00.009-05:00

Okay, this is getting a little old for those of you who don't care about such matters, but I have to go there.

I just started listening to "Campfire Songs" again after a few years, and it helped me understand the strangeness in a new way.

What those songs reminded me of most were the lo-fi architectural masterpieces of Phil Elverum of The Microphones and his numerous other production gigs for those in the K-Records crew (Calvin, Mirah, Adrian Orange, etc.)...

Back in around 2000-2001, Phil was pioneering a new height of mainstreamness, even garnering album of the year status from contemporary tastemaker Pitchfork. Lo-fi was on a high, and all was primed for Phil to make a big jump with his group into some form of 'pop' incarnation.

But that was not what Phil was vibing on. Instead, Phil decided to end his (relatively famous) 'The Microphones' project and start a new one, "Mount Eerie", named after a mountain on his native Fidalgo Island. That is what one would call a PR agent's worst nightmare.

But Phil has continued to make really great lo-fi music as Mount Eerie, and has continued to make awesome analog recordings of other artists. He has fans, he tours, I'm sure he does relatively okay.

But Animal Collective, now that is another story. Somehow, those cats have taken what was essentially an avant-garde/lo-fi experimental art project and made it into the most vital pop act in the world.

Where Phil turned his back on such accolades, Avey Tare, Panda, and Geologist have capitalized, and in a major way, which I find interesting, given the relative similarity in each "group's" initial style...

"Indie Rock" vs. Jam Bands: The Animal Collective Dilemma

2009-01-23T20:56:00.019-05:00

This is a follow up on my last post, where, having just seen them live, I pointed out what I considered a crucial flaw in the recent Grateful Dead/Animal Collective analogy that the members of the group themselves have alluded to several times in interviews recently.

First of all, this brings to mind an hilarious incident from several years ago. I was at a large outdoor Todd P event, which was held down on the tip of Roosevelt Island (which remains my favorite place in the universe. The whole of Roosevelt Island, really, but especially the tip). Many bands were performing acoustically, including a number of people who are now quite famous (Ezra, the singer from Vampire Weekend, for instance, was there, with really long hair, playing saxophone with Aa. Matt & Kim played that addictive hit of theirs before it had really blown up).

But this is beside the point.

I overheard a person who has become something of an Avant/Indie icon in years since talking with Todd P. This person was like: "Dude, why is that guy wearing a Grateful Dead t-shirt? We (meaning the Todd P movement, or whatever) are so not about that. That is so not about this." At this point, it was my distinct misforture to chime in with something like "Well, actually, he's probably wearing it because one of their keyboard players committed suicide the other day; I wouldn't take it too ideologically, in light of recent events."

Todd P and this person met this suggestion with indifference (or so I thought) because, while it was correct, it in no way altered the true sentiment that had been expressed: this movement, this barbecue, this "type of DiY Brooklyn thing" was philosophically opposed to all things Jam Band, all things hedonistic; this thing wasn't like the failed utopianisms of the 1960s, this thing was different, an extension of punk that was utterly horrified by the banal "trustafarian" jam band/Phish culture of the late 90s. This was way more serious, way less commercial, way closer to the world of Art than the world of the stoned rich kids. This was about doing it yourself and not selling out.

But of course it wasn't then, and isn't now, simply because it can't be; that very rejection of utopianism in the name of an allegedly more refined, purer dedication to art is itself a utopian gesture. Of course the Brooklyn scene had (has?) in it elements that would never fly in a jam band context, namely dissonance and disruptive, analytical song structures, etc, but that is quite academic. Differences aside, a potentially monstrous child, a "terrible beauty," is born...

Let's examine why this is potentially problematic.

Brooklyn is high on organization, not at all into spontaneous jamming unless it is REALLY out jamming (which is actually composed), or is done in a knowing and/or correctly positioned way.

Brooklyn is about songs, not about improvisation. Brooklyn is about Mahler, not Miles Davis (I disown this statement--ed.). Jamming is out, and concise, exact, infinitely repeatable songs are in. (Woods, who I didn't know in January, wildly disprove this. They are incredible...--ed.)

But this is breaking down. The biggest bands these days, groups like Deerhunter (who I linked to above), for instance, have embraced an element of 'seemingly improvised' guitar fuzz soloing into their songs. This, a few years ago, would have been frowned upon, but as the Indie---->Mainstream transformation continues (this thesis is flawed for many reasons. No more disclaiming edits.--ed.), such gestures towards "classic rock" are more accepted by audiences and 'tastemakers' alike.

This brings us back to Animal Collective. Their shows do share things with those of the Grateful Dead. They also share certain audience members with the (about to return to save us all) Phish scene. For instance, the other night there was a kid dancing frantically in front of me the whole night. He was a small, weaselly looking guy with two earrings who clearly had been to his share of Phish shows (as have I, full disclosure). All he lacked was that glazed over look of stoned/mushroomed insanity and a pair of glow-sticks.

And this was "not what this was about" a few years ago. I saw Animal Collective in a small space back in 2005, and it wasn't like this, it was much more the "stand perfectly still, don't move, that's not what WE do" crowd one is accustomed to encountering at Brooklyn shows.

No more. The move to the mainstream, the jamminess/raviness of the music, draws in the crowds, and the Brooklyn Fascists can't do anything to stop it. And, ironically, they need those people, now more than ever.

These artists, in the fat economic times of 2006, must have believed that if things ever really got tight, they could always bail out, get a corporate job based on their degree from Vassar or whatever, and everything would be okay.

But that ship has sailed. No one is hiring. If you are an avant musician/home depot employee, that is your lot for the foreseeable future, and you are glad for it.

But there are still plenty of people paying to see music. Especially hypnotic music with a physical element. Music you can wig out to, if you catch my drift, music you can use to "get away from it all."

And thus here we are. Animal Collective are more Brooklyn than Brooklyn, yet they flirt with the jam band scene. The circle is closed.

I remember a few years ago (07 I think), my parents asked me to take my younger brother to a Dave Matthews concert at Fenway Park in Boston. I grudgingly accepted, knowing it would be awful, but hoping to find it at least socialogically worthwhile. I could not have been more wrong. The audience was, without a doubt, the preppiest, whitest, absolutely most bourgeois middle-class America of any crowd I have ever seen. It was mind boggling (if not exactly surprising).

And yet, there they were, 25,000 or more of them, filling this stadium, filling the pockets of the band and all associated with it.

I hate to say it, but are we headed in that direction? Has the avant garde truly died at last?

Of course not. But this merging of scenes bears watching.

Armchair sociological speculation aside, Merriweather Post Pavilion is absolutely incredible. Such great bass samples.

Dershowitz debates the Palestinians

2009-01-21T18:50:00.002-05:00

Haaretz radio has an exclusive debate between "noted American legal scholar" Alan Dershowitz and a group of Palestinians.

Alan Dershowitz Debates the Palestinians - Haaretz Radio

The Problem With the Animal Collective/Grateful Dead Analogy

2009-01-21T01:37:00.008-05:00

Lately, this has been all over the news: growing up, Animal Collective were like big into the Dead, and now we are supposed to understand the progressive/non-perforated song structures of their (AC's) contemporary live shows as being somehow another generation's answer to the spontaneously epic jamming of The Dead.

All well and good on the surface. Having seen them tonight at the Grand Ballroom, I can testify that the songs did indeed blend together.

However, at no point was there a Scarlet/Fire moment even remotely analogous to the transition from the 5/8/77 Cornell show. No, there was no spontaneous discourse between Dave Portner and Noah Lennox that created a new sense of gravity, a new sense of dynamical interplay within the existing idea of the band. No. For that, you would have to look to The Dead, circa 77-78.

But what you do have with AC, in place of the at times fruitless jamming and "musicianship" of the GD, is amazing melodies, incredible song structures that lie waiting to explode onto the scene.

With the Grateful Dead, one waits for the explosive moments of interplay, the accidental, "wild" combinations that occur within the freedom of the jam. With Animal Collective, it is just the opposite; the usually very repetitive sample-based structures that predominate between "songs" serve as a plateau, a base upon which one builds up an expectation of the melodic release to come.

This is particularly true of the Panda dominated songs, but also, I'm noticing more and more, of the Avey Tare pieces.

So what we have, roughly, is this:

Grateful Dead=Best Moments in the Jamming.

Animal Collective=Best Moments in the Songs.

The Autobiography of Arlo Harshenstein: Chapter III

2009-01-17T05:57:00.004-05:00

My Autobiography has elicited little praise or acclaim. This is no doubt because thus far it has focused entirely on my besotted parents, those paragons of horror. But by now you have the background you need, and I will never mention them again.

My childhood was unhappy.

Upon reaching adulthood, I found myself in college at Davidson. Needless to say, that was not good enough for my exacting... ambition. Yes, ambition.

The trees and buildings in North Carolina agreed with me, but my classmates did not. Their uninformed, inadequate (because not sufficiently austere) conservatism, not to mention their thinly veiled antisemitism (despite my own wanton antisemitism), got over my skin immediately.

And I do mean got over; I felt covered by a filthy meniscus of Jewishness in the eyes of the patrician, southern lacrosse players, the blond Scots-Irish masters of the blood of the plantations. They hated me without even knowing why they did, despite my being superior to them in every discernible way (outside of lacrosse). It was obvious. My professors valued my insights, almost over their own, it seemed at times. I was the glistening star in that clouded nebula of dimwits.

But no matter, my time at Davidson was relatively brief. I applied to transfer to several schools (and failed to get in to any) and then decided to take a semester off, returning briefly to New York before accepting an internship in Boston at a Sports Management company.

That was what they called themselves, at least, but aside from a few minor league Hockey Players and a couple of faded Red Sox players who still had endorsement deals with incredibly obscure local prodcuts, it was basically just a law firm. It was there that I began my transformation.

You see, readers, you only know me through these words. You have seen me open, my heart on display, my viciousness and aplomb both unhinged. In person, except for rare moments of valor, I am a perfect gentleman, someone you would never suspect capable of the purest social sadism and spiritual vagrancy.

But it is so.

My mask of sanity is a lie. Nostradamus knows this all too well, having long ago discerned my true nature.

I seethe with hate, and others notice it at times. They try not to notice it, but they can't help but be dimly aware. It's something about the way I smile and laugh; I can never make it believable.

And this is not just with disgusting Aryan jocks either, it happens with women, Jewish or otherwise, and it especially happens around my parents and their friends (which makes sense: I really hate them).

But hate can cause one to be ostracized, and to lose important elections, such as the one for editor of The Davidsonian (the hated Media Board had no regard or me at all). But no matter.

At the law-firm I managed to conceal this hatred adequately, perhaps for the first time successfully. I made friends with the lawyers; they valued me. I learned. Future disappointments at Davidson aside, I was changing.

My time in college cemented my doomed course down the path of hate, but I embraced it, just as I now embrace wickedness and the scorn of my fellow man.

By the time I left college my Semitic skin had turned a lovely shade of olive, freed of the morose, vampiric pallor of my New York roots.

I next moved North, but that tale will have to be told on another day.

Best of All Time

2009-01-16T21:49:00.011-05:00

B Riemann can attest to this. Since the moment he entered the NBA, I have declared Lebron James to be the greatest player in the history of basketball. I declared this unilaterally, literally after one game. Ask B Riemann. It's true.

That said, some five or six years later my view is finally starting to creep into reality. Truth be told, Lebron should already have won at least one MVP award (last year), but due to the absolute ignorance of the NBA (and Washington) press corp, Steve Nash has two, Shaq has one, Kobe and Dirk have one, and the rest is history...

In any event, Lebron James is the Best of All-Time. The cat is a monster, and if he wants to he will play until he is 40, in the later years reincarnating Karl Malone with a better handle...

In closing, LBJ, best that ever played. Believe it.

#2/#1

2009-01-14T01:28:00.007-05:00

The Countdown of most significant media figures or whatever it was never really ended.

Now it will.

#2 is Natalee Holloway, the person whose disappearance gave new meaning to the words "filler story"; the amount of coverage devoted to her fate is infinitely greater than that given to contemporaneous events such as the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, or the NSA wiretapping scandal... Or the mounting, totally frivolous, deaths in Iraq of civilians and US Military Personnel.

Never mind. This is the story that got the blood flowing, and it explicitly demonstrates the duplicitous relationship that persists between advertisers and sponsored television news broadcasts, cable or otherwise...

And #1 is the year 2005 itself. Sheehan, Schiavo, Holloway, Harriet Miers, Katrina, Michael Jackson, the Michael Jackson accuser... 2005 was a year for the ages. It brought us to such a new low of media coverage and Congressional behavior.

Antoine's Restaurant Times Gazette Exclusive

2009-01-12T20:45:00.002-05:00

Johnny from Antoine's Restaurant interviews current Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson in, where else, Antoine's Restaurant.

Hank Paulson Visits Antoines Restaurant - Johnny Messina

Spread the Hate

2009-01-12T20:34:00.001-05:00

I'm back, and I'm pissed.

What the fuck is going on with Obama? Is it me or is he fulfilling all of our worst fears?

Whatever, only a moron wouldn't have seen this coming. Time to spread the hate. Fuck the Rick Warren thing, this is the real affront to our votes.

Until I see fucking Donald Rumsfeld in jail, Dick Cheney in jail, no amount of Gitmo closing is going to fucking appease me.

Love
Nostradamus

2008--Year of the Sports Douche

2009-01-12T00:33:00.006-05:00

We have two reasons for this, both of whom are enormously obvious candidates for such infamy. I'm not going to go into it too deeply, but douche number one is Tim Tebow, Christian-Honky-with-no-brain-and-no-NFL-future-number-41245. I fucking hate Tim Tebow like the guy who assassinated Rabin hated Rabin.

And I think that is a "just" analogy, given Tebow's repeated references to Jesus and his utterly banal choice of verses to inscribe on his eye blacks (John 3:16? Really? Can you get a little less orginal?). Never mind that he is an arrogant bitch, with his fucking useless Gator chomp.

But my main beef? That haircut is fucking beyond lame.

On to obvious douche #2 Michael Phelps. That cat is fucking despicable.

What more can you say?

Douche bag of a lower order (because not as successful) but still massively douchey: Tyler Hansbrough.

Makes me want to fucking drown myself.

Blagojevich!

2008-12-09T21:16:00.009-05:00

Just when we thought we were out, they pull us back in; the "they" here being those zany and corrupt politicians, of course.

I have been depressed lately. The Obama cabinet picks have been predictably drab, and the lack of new Sarah Palin content has left me feeling like a junkie without a fix. The Turkey Massacre was fun and all, but I need more. So much more.

That said, if there is one thing that always cheers me up, it's a politician caught on a wiretap acting like a svelte hybrid between The Old Testament God, Quentin Tarantino, and Steven Segal. This Blagojevich thing is f'ing priceless in this regard, as has been well-noted.

When a crisis like this breaks, the predictable flood tide of moralizing (led by moralizer in chief Patrick Fitzgerald, how I have missed him) comes out immediately, but it is soon followed by "subtler," more "developed" lines of analysis.

Thus I open up Google Reader to find this story on HP: Blagojevich Described as "Sociopath" in February Magazine Profile. First of all, thank God for LexisNexis, without ye (and Google) what would modern reporting be?

But second of all, a politician a sociopath? No way! Totally unthinkable.

My favorite thing people say about Ted Bundy is when they claim he was a "successful up-and-coming Republican Operative" and then act as if this somehow separates him from the mass of other sociopaths!

I mean seriously, a sociopath is an opportunistic individual, sometimes with obsessive fantasies of domination and control, who exploits others without moral compunction in order to satisfy his whims... And it is a surprise when a politician is profiled as a sociopath?

Hilarious!

Salon Radio

2008-12-07T16:34:00.004-05:00

I hate how the internet goes to sleep on the weekends, as if such structures as the traditional Judeo-Christian "work week" should have any effect on our 24-7 Multimedia Pundicratic Apparatus!

In that Spirit, I have unearthed a recent interview conducted by our hero, Glenn Greenwald, of noted establishment figure, Bob Woodward.

Check it out:

Glenn Interviews Bob Woodward - Salon Radio with Glenn Greenwald

Just found this

2008-12-03T22:51:00.003-05:00

Can't decide if the guy riding is supposed to be Jesus or Jim Caviezel.

Death-Meme

2008-11-25T22:56:00.024-05:00

I found myself, in a moment of desperation, writing the word MEME in all caps on the board today. I was at a loss to explain to my students why I knew so much about "Sarah Palin's Children," "Ted Bundy," "Natalee Holloway," "Tblisi, Georgia," and "Radical Neo-Con Pundit Arlo Harshenstein," and to be honest, the months of trying to express myself openly with them about the interlocking truth behind all media had driven me to a state of caffeine addled madness anyway. I intentionally left out that hyphen.

See. I've lost it, my work is inexplicably spilling across all boundaries, flooding me as though the proverbial Noah's Ark of my consciousness has been cracked open upon the stalwart rocks of indignant, persistent, cold reality, spilling the many paired animals of my better nature into an utterly unfit aquatic evolutionary ecology.

But I wrote MEME on the board and this act seemed to recenter us. And I realized that old truth, that bits of absurdity amplified by redundancy have always defined us as a species, however one configures the gaze--that for every cliched expression there was some idiot who got wasted and died in Aruba who "broke the mold" in the setting of "the mold" as it were.

After classes today, as I was having dinner with a few of my colleagues, I actually found myself saying, in all sober seriousness, "I think, in thirty years, people will look back on 2005 as the most significant year for the transformation of human culture ever." I went on to elaborate, for reasons long since tired (but nevertheless somehow still refreshing), why the year was so special, how the bizarre amplification of insignificance on the part of the 24-7 Blogomedia in an unanticipated way re-humanized us, let us experience the Natalee Holloway directly instead of through the intercession of a reporter. What was it they said, "Everyman his own columnist"? Oh those halcyon days. And remind me, what did this pave the way for, in terms of internet-based something, something laughed off after 2004, perhaps?

Yes it turned, and it turned most of all with Schiavo, with the conservative movement's un-ironic reductio ad absurdum of its "principled" valuation of "any life" over the needs of all the desperately living. Terri Marie Schiavo was not someone about whom any of us should have ever heard. Her pseudo-tragic story should have ended privately. This is obvious. But we did hear about her and of little beyond her for many months back in those early mements of 2005, with Bush just re-sworn-in and a conservative hegemony in Congress sustained. We heard, and they took proto-McCain-Campaign-Suspensionary action, opening an emergency session on Palm Sunday in order to pass some absurdly invasive law in order to reroute the jurisdiction governing the case... I mean, really, they did more then in terms of theater and unified action than we have seen during this whole ridiculous economic crisis... But anyway.

That was the moment we should have known the jig was up, that we had seen one too many Video Professor ads and we had finally decided to "try his product", to speak euphemistically. I have been cynical about politics for a long time, but in my recent reflections on 2005 and what has happened since then, it has become all too clear what has swallowed all of us. We are like Schiavo, permanently vegetative, caught in the vice-like tug of an indifferent whirlpool, unaware we should be screaming for our lives.

Short Dream

2008-11-25T15:59:00.002-05:00

I dreamed I read on TrueHoop that Brian Windhorst of The Cleveland Plain Dealer was dying of a terminal illness.

I may have actually read this, but as far as I've been able to tell with the help of Google, it isn't true. Yet.

Loss of Web Innocence: Addendum

2008-11-24T19:05:00.003-05:00

I just wanted to add one final point about this whole topic, and that is about Cable News. When one watches Cable News, one is amazed at how beautiful everyone on the screen is and how smoothly they carry themselves. They may be blathering idiots, but they present themselves well. This is why most of the pundits I read online can never be on TV. If I, a New York Jew, am horrified by their Jewiness, over-educatedness, wormsiness and whininess, a grandmother in Omaha would have a heart attack if she saw any of them on her television screen! "Charles, make it stop! MAKE IT STOP!"

The only two online pundits who have managed to cut it in TV are fivethirtyeight.com's Nate Silver and The American Prospect's Ezra Klein, probably because Silver is smarter and more self-aware than most of the other pundits, and Klein is from California. It's like these guys managed to take a nail file and file down the overgrown Jewiness, the out-of-control wormsiness, and the ingrown wormsiness. As for the others, fortunately for us, their TV careers are a pipe dream.

Loss of Web Innocence

2008-11-24T17:57:00.004-05:00

As any good web addict is wont to do, I check my core sites every morning. I know that the traditional understanding of the web is as a place where individuals from around the globe sitting down at their computers spread information and ideas.

But from my perspective, it has always seemed that the web is actually one big Computer Oracle. Matthew Yglesias does not exist as a person. Tyler Cowen does not exist as a person. Emily Bazelon does not exist as a person. There is only the YglesiasBot, the Cowen algorithm and the Bazelon program. Every morning these marvels of high technology send out some new content for me to read.

So imagine my horror when some of my core sites started putting PICTURES of their writers on the sites! I'm reading an article on Slate about Treasury Secretary appointee Timothy Geithner, just minding my own business, enjoying myself, when all of a sudden the article ends and WHAM! A picture of Daniel Gross's fucking vile face right there on my screen! I shuddered and quickly closed the window. I thought maybe it was an exception. I could maintain my belief in the GrossBot, I thought. But I kept reading Slate and it wouldn't stop. Jacob Weisberg's smarmy grin was staring right at me. I practically had a breakdown. You mean these articles and posts are actually written be living, breathing, sweating, asthma-having human beings?

I was just getting myself comfortable with that idea, but I figured I should go back to my comfort zone of pictureless sites with just those bylines. I pulled up The New Republic. I read an article about Obama's press operation, and I peeked at the bottom of the page... No picture! Whew. Confident that I was back in the bubble of the Oracle, I figured I'd check TNR's blog The Stump Ahh, the ZengerleBot is speculating about the Secretary of the Interior appointment, the PlumerBot is on about the environment- ha! my old faves. And then I saw it. An embedded link to a VIDEO of a BloggingHeads.tv debate between TNR's Noam Scheiber and Politico's Ben Smith. I didn't want to look. But I couldn't stop myself. I pressed play. What I was treated to was the most horrifying ten minutes of my life. My Computer Oracle vision of the Web was once and for all completely shattered. Now let me preface this by saying that I roll with a pretty over-educated, Jewy, wormsy, whiny group for sure. But I came to realize that every morning I was reading the writing of a group of people whose over-educatedness, Jewiness, wormsiness and whininess were OFF THE FUCKING CHARTS. My friends and I are just not even in the same league in any category. It's been a pretty awful realization.

So I am just adjusting to this new reality. I am making sure I don't see the worst of it. For instance, as you value your sanity, do not watch TNR.tv, TNR's web video series. For those of you with a strong stomach, I'm linking to a particularly gruesome example. Good god I can't even look at Jonathan Chait's whiny Jewy face in the screenshot behind the logo! I need to sit down....

"Team of Rivals"

2008-11-20T19:04:00.003-05:00

We have a Death-Media exclusive. Doris Kearns-Goodwin drops by the Huffington Post studio to discuss her oft-mentioned masterpiece, "Team of Rivals" with Arianna, and boy do the sparks fly! Check it out:Team of Rivals - Huffington Post Radio

Special thanks to Dan for audio engineering this broadcast. Share, repost, but most of all, enjoy!

Worst Possible Guest Host

2008-11-17T22:00:00.003-05:00

So I was watching some senseless pop culture program on TruTV (how I miss thee, CourtTV), when I realized it was almost 9:30 and that I was missing my favorite show (according to Facebook), Rachel Maddow.

You can imagine my chagrin when on tuning to MSNBC I found Arianna Huffington ensconced in Rachel's normal throne. Don't get me wrong, I "respect" what a liberal media juggernaut she has crafted, and I love the in-your-face headlines her site employs. That said, the woman is a complete flake, utterly prone to shifting with the political winds. Think of her as a less substantive, Greek-accent-having female Mitt Romney. Yes, I said less substantive.

On top of the accent, the woman absolutely cannot read a teleprompter to save her life. Where Rachel is quick, vivacious, wonderful, Arianna is slow, dead, dull as tears. But I guess she is still a pretty big player, as she's had on not only mega-baller Nate Silver but Google CEO Eric Schmidt in the torturous half hour that I've been watching. But this figures. Each is a power in his respective field, and if there is one thing Arianna knows, and craves, it's power.

And I have proof of this. Years ago my parents were conned into hosting some kind of book release party for Arianna by one of their artist friends. It ended up costing them a lot of money, and they are still pissed about the whole thing, but I'm not. You see, prior to hosting the event, my parents went to a dinner at some fancy Boston restaurant to meet Huffington and her then husband Michael.

As I prodded my dad recently for more details about this meeting he was like, "Karen, remember how they hadn't made a large enough reservation for us, and they had to put two tables together? That was really classless." Alas, lack of proper etiquette aside, other memories of this meeting are more hazy. Except for the best part of course.

You see at the time my parents were getting ready to move to Maryland. Arianna found this very interesting, and, seated next to my father, broached the subject in the following memorable way:

"Oh, Stuart, so you are moving to Washington?"

"Yes, Arianna."

"I see. Do you like to be near POWER, Stuart?"

My father, a bit taken aback, hesitates for a second before answering.

"Why yes. Yes I do!"

"Good. I love to be near POWER. And Washington is the center of POWER. You will love it. Michael is going to be President someday, you know..."

Just imagine Arianna saying that in her thick Greek accent and you will know my image of what it is to be alive.

Needless to say, Arianna is one of the worst guest hosts in history, infinitely worse than the totally bland David Shuster (whose right eye is more open than his left). Video complete with blistering ridicule when MSNBC posts it. Let's all hope Rachel is back soon.

Another Strange Dream

2008-11-16T14:02:00.008-05:00

This one is more fragmentary than usual, while also being more coherent. I am on a tour of a Hollywood studio museum of some sort, a place where sets from old shows are set up and tourists can wander through. I don't know if such a place exists or not, but surely it must.

In any event, the people I am doing this with are quite interesting: post-racial comic Michael Richards, Leonard Nimoy, and William Shatner. Shatner and Nimoy are dressed in immaculate 1970s suits, Shatner's brown, Nimoy's black. Shatner has on a yellow mock turtleneck, and he seems to be about 45. Nimoy is closer to his present age, and is wearing a white shirt with a striking yellow tie that almost glows, magnetically enticing my eye.

Michael Richards on the other hand is dressed as Kramer, and his hair has the perky vivacity of his erstwhile glory. Otherwise he seems a sad, lonely man, perhaps depressed about the Obama victory (or my Obama dream).

The first set we wander through is an amalgam of the living room from Charles in Charge and the front room of the apartment from Laverne and Shirley. Nimoy and Shatner are snapping Polaroids and everything, pointing to favorite features of each familiar imaginary home. Kramer stands as if dumbfounded, with a look of quiet complexity and gall lingering in the corners of his eyes.

The next set we come to (these sets aren't really in a building, rather they form a sort of linked island amidst a desert of blankness) is the apartment from Webster, with that awful blue carpeting. Shatner motions back to us and we follow him into what should lead into the bedroom of Alex Karras and his wife.

Of course it leads directly onto the bridge set from the original Star Trek, and Nimoy and Shatner are both like "Oh man, I can't believe we're back. This is so great." Even Kramer seems to cheer up a bit, sort of smiling and nodding as the emptiness behind his eyes is momentarily replaced by a dollar sign, or a piggy bank on fire.

Suddenly a voice comes across the speaker and some trouble is afoot. A maniac has taken over the museum and is demanding Shatner and Nimoy put on their costumes from Star Trek and act out some bizarre scenario. Shatner removes his jacket to reveal he is already wearing one of those ridiculous shirts with the insignia and everything... He sits on the bridge, and before I can get out of the way the late Deforest Kelly, suspiciously reanimated, is wheeled out inside of a bizarre cat-scan-like healing tube where only his head is sticking out the end and his body is swallowed by the electronics laden tube.

Nimoy refuses to change, but all eyes are now on Kelly, who is like "Jim, my lifeforce really shouldn't be used in this way." And Kirk is like "I know, Bones. You have to go first. It's the only way the rest of us will make it."

Kramer nods, his mind a sea of melting plastics.

Do me a favor...

2008-11-14T18:37:00.005-05:00

...if you become a famous and wealthy celebrity, don't ever open a restaurant. 9 times out of 10 it's a complete disaster and it's never worth it, by any measure.

Thank you. That is all for now.

Out of Context Finnegan Quote Redux

2008-11-10T01:10:00.002-05:00

That's right it's that time again America. Gather round, Grandma, Daddy, and little Jenny. It's another exciting installment of Out of Context Finnegan Quote. Ready? Here... we... go!

"if that's what you're conditioning your input on, what your credence function will give you back is Black Pericles"

Obama Dream

2008-11-09T10:23:00.003-05:00

Shockingly Obama was in my dream last night. I have no idea why.

Basically, I was up at my grandmother's home in Maine for a classic family gathering (all of my dreams of late have taken place at odd family gatherings in either the Vineyard or Maine. My background is sickening.)

I say hello to my grandmother, who thinks I am my brother and that my younger brother is me, but this isn't a sign of senility but rather of a kind of twisted and powerful new logic that is beyond me. I am led to understand this gradually.

Then I am off on a boat, sailing through the harbor of the town. Obama is along for the ride, and we are debating whether he should stick around Maine for a while, you know, relax after the long campaign. I'm all for this option.

But he's like "Maybe I should go to New York, you know, and start working on things." I'm like: "I just came from New York. Trust me, you don't want to visit that teeming cess-pit. It's hot, it's awful. Don't even get me started." He's like "Got it."

We sail the harbor with a remarkable, Flight of the Navigator like speed, seemingly gliding across the water without touching it. It is glorious, and Maine's rocky, glacier carved coast is resplendent in the autumn afternoon.

Suddenly we are in a classroom. Apparently Obama has a teaching gig at the University of Maine Orono. He seems to be teaching some variety of civics, and I am in the class, desperate to seem smart. So very desperate!

In the back corner of the room there is a very intense Arab-looking student, who has some very pointed opinions about American government. Not very favorable opinions, in the nature of things, and he seems especially eager to slam Obama's pro-America rhetoric. Obama is all like "Look. That's fine. But it's dead wrong. Could not be more wrong."

Nevertheless, I am struck by how intelligent and ardent the student is. He is clearly much smarter than I am, and however radical his ideas are, it seems that Obama knows this also.

Strangely, we are then back in the cabin of the boat for Obama's office hours, where I say something to the effect of "Oh, isn't the Arab so smart? Much smarter than me." And Obama says: "Smarter than you? Perish the thought! That crazed egomaniac is another Hitler in training, don't worry about it. He's being taken care of..."

I see the Arab in the hall, and I'm like, "You aren't going to ruin this for me. I've passed on taking this class three years in a row, and no way is your radical ideology going to wreck my enjoyment of it."

And the Arab is like "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Obama Wins

2008-11-05T01:52:00.007-05:00

Still in shock, kind of, but the inevitability of "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" gaffe sinking McCain has finally sunk into its obviousness.

After watching results with dear friends ACTUAL God, Tom, Rich, and That Girl (and many others), Death-Media correspondents Dan and I headed out to a spontaneous celebration that broke out in Union Square. Horns were honked by many a cab as small groups melded together to briefly hold a chant and share in a moment of celestial gratification, freed at last from the abominable slumber of thought that has wracked the nation's psyche for too long.

Here are your faithful correspondents amidst the frenzied ebullience:

Nostradamus
Dan

#3 The ACTUAL Nostradamus

2008-10-28T23:08:00.004-04:00

Yes, you know who I mean. The man who has spawned more History Channel specials than any other, the great sage who predicted World War II, JFK's assassination, as well as the meteoric rise of the comedic genius of Seth Rogen (though nobody noticed any of this until after the fact, naturally, because that is how prophecies "work"), Michel de Nostredame.

I mean seriously, the guy essentially wrote nonsense poems (that are probably better in the original middle French, but who has the time for middle French these days, what with the economic crisis and all?) that have somehow stayed in print for almost 500 years, despite their having only proved accurate retroactively...

Yet for every event that happens, be it 9/11, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the inevitable cancellation of Pushing Daisies, someone has to chime in that "Nostradamus predicted it all!" and then proceed to interpret some badly translated verse that has only the most tenuous relation to anything resembling an accurate prophecy.

This is all obvious, and yet Nostra continues to outsell (and outlast) many greater artists and writers. For this reason, long ago, I chose to write under his name. He seemed the perfect guise to adopt for this sad chronicle of our diseased and all consumingly mediated existence.

We salute you, and will check back with you next time something calamitous happens!

#4 Chuck Todd

2008-10-27T09:23:00.006-04:00

I've let this list go a little long. Probably, most have forgotten about it already, which is of course in the nature of things. But over the weekend I had another dream that really helped me come up with all the answers. Here is what happened:

I walked into a therapist's office, not my therapist's office, and sat down in the waiting room. There was a copy of New Yorker with an oddly maudlin drawing of a dead-in-a-pool-of-her-own-vomit Anna Nicole on the cover. Sadly there was no reference to Larry Birkhead, but I opened the magazine, only to find a story devoted not to ANS but instead to online food ordering. People quoted are really up in arms about it, but I'm not really reading: the story is kind of coming to life out of the magazine.

The therapist opens his office and invites me in. At first I am struck by how devilishly handsome and familiar he seems, before it hits me: he's MSNBC Political Director, Chuck Todd.

Todd nods, clearly in a somber mood, and asks what has been happening in my life. I start to complain about the unfairness of Tim Russert's death and how meaningless my Sunday mornings have become, even with the somewhat able stewardship of Brokaw on MTP. Todd shakes his head knowingly, obviously still scarred by the loss himself. He mutters something, some kind of empty palliative that does little to staunch either of our inner bleeding. I shake my head in dismay and leave the office.

From there I walk out into Central Park. A large bat (with a ten foot wingspan) is flapping about chaotically over a pond as onlookers with kids watch, apparently delighted. It is not to my liking, so I head into the forest, which opens into a real forest, filled with what seem the choked screams of a hundred drowning Holloways. Nonplussed, I continue deeper, heading towards the source of the wailing.

At this point everything becomes opaque.

Needless to say, Chuck Todd is one of our handsomest and most important thinkers, and without a doubt, the fourth best person ever.

Dream

2008-10-24T18:33:00.006-04:00

I am outside my family's old summer house on Martha's Vineyard. Some kind of cocktail party is happening in the back yard, and my parents have invited many of my friends from different phases of my life.

The doorbell rings and I am told to answer it by Rikki (Don't Lose That Number), the long dead family parrot who we had for many summers at that same house, and who used to call my name obsessively.

I answer the door. It is LeBron James and his mother. Strangely, I recognize his mother but act as though it's LeBron's real mother with a LeBron impersonator, like I'm trying to take him down a notch while giving real respect to his mother.

LeBron takes it good naturedly but is like "I'm a six foot eight small forward able to dominate like no other. True or false?"

And I'm like, "Totally true, but I'm not impressed, you see Yao was at our party last summer."

LeBron nods as if he understands completely and we all move into the party which is taking place throughout the house and the garden in the back yard. The wildflowers in the distance glisten with a kind of sublunary pulse.

I wander around, running into random characters from my past, notably Tom S. who is getting quite wrecked, laughing volubly, and palling around with people (Actual God, Jesse and a few others are all present, along with countless folks I don't like, or just never really knew all that well, which feels awkward now but didn't in the dream.).

I then walk out of the stone-wall-enclosed garden where this has all taken place and head for the barn, which is strangely filled with small cats of all colors who are trying to glide between the different levels of the barn, and who move as though they are in a video game.

While this is obviously fascinating I move to the back of the property, by Chilmark Pond, where I contemplate subdividing this lot and selling the guesthouse and the dock to a pair of 1970's appearing gentlemen who are out of a late film noir.

I tell them the only thing they have to worry about is that there are mushrooms growing inside the house.

Buchanan knows how to pick 'em

2008-10-24T03:54:00.003-04:00

Wow just when I couldn't get over Patrick Buchanan's wisdom in latching himself to rising politico of the moment Rachel Maddow, I find that Buchanan and Rugby Dan are writing on the same blog! I'm starting to think Buchanan has a fetish for hyper-intellectual Jews who go to Oxford...

Homage

2008-10-21T20:34:00.010-04:00

So I was walking out of school today when a desperate pamphleteer stopped me. Getting in the spirit of the season, I stopped and listened to his "revolution can happen here, if only you will donate a few dollars to Revolution" spiel, when this really desperate seeming Latino guy came up and began taking the guy on (or so it seemed). Here's what transpired.

Communist: So you see, China, man, China has lost its way. Thirty years ago they were the highest we have ever been, but now they've become capitalists. But the times are right, right here, right now.

Nos: Because of the economic crisis?

Com: No. That helps. But the system is more corrupt even than we know, and people in the projects, here, in Harlem, in the community, man, they are ready for this, man.

Latino: You don't even know my problems, man.

Moves uncomfortably close to the communist

I got to scope my shot first, man, because, you see, I'm a film-maker.

Holds his hands together creating a rectangle through which he looks and speaks.

Scoping the shot, getting there. But man, that American thing drives people, especially artists, especially those kids here at college, all of them are doing that because of that ineffable urgency provided by the American energy, that moment of greatness, over the horizon, that solid promise of future security we see embodied all around us ever day by successful immigrants and entrepreneurs and their potent, native-born brethren. America drives that, and everyone around the world sees that, despite the present difficulties. Now is certainly not the time for communism, especially with my problems.

Com: My brother! My brother! You get it! You see where old movements have failed, you get it! That spirit is important...

Nos: Wait... What energy?

Lat: The American energy!

Nos: As best embodied by whom?

Lat: My life is so hard man! But, oh, let's say New York Times film critic A.O. Scott. He's a hero of mine.

Nos: Wrong! Think historically. I'm looking for a 19th century example of a certain kind of... Oh fuck it.

Nostradamus draws a knife and stabs the Latino man above the kidney

Com: My brother? Why did you stab our brother?

Nostradamus sweep kicks the communist and then kicks him in the neck--The Latino filmmaker drops to the ground, bleeding

Nos: I was going to go through a long series of historical questions in an attempt to eventually lead you to the name, John Wilkes "BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTH," but I have a class to get to, so instead, I figured I'd just kill you both. Have a nice day.

The two men die--Nostradamus heads home--He has no class to which to get

The Etiquitte of Sharing

2008-10-18T20:33:00.005-04:00

Recently a friend e-mailed me, letting me know that I had a problem.

Apparently my sharing on Google Reader was out of control. My list was like eight times longer than any of our friends. No one was reading my shared items as a result, intimidated by the scale of my generosity.

I am of two minds about this.

Is this like e-mailing someone to tell him he looks like a douche-bag on his facebook page? Or that his website makes him look "like a dick" (I've done the first one, endured the second, mostly because I am, you know, a dick)?

Perhaps it is just a matter of taste. Or neurosis.

I for one have hundreds of feeds on my Google Reader, and I can't possibly keep up with every single post on each of them, so as a result many of my folders contain unread items. I am fine with this. Of course, this is the first thing a person sees upon entering my apartment:

Others, apparently, prefer to live in "clean" places, and similarly, they like their Google Reader lists "clean" as well, which is to say free of niggling, dirty unread items.

Since the "intervention" I have been loathe to share for fear of embarrassing myself, like that jack ass with the Oakleys and a Hawaiian shirt on his Facebook page whose favorite Movie is "Miami Vice." Don't want to be that guy.

Debate LiveBlog 3

2008-10-15T21:04:00.002-04:00

9:00- B.A. gives A.G. a beer which then explodes- GAFFE!

9:02- Both candidates are pimpin'- McCain with his pinstripes and Obama with his diagonal tie

9:04- GAFFE! McCain says "Fannie and Freddie Mae"

9:05- AG kills the CNN HD Ohio uncommitted voters trend graph and CNN pundit scorecard- JESUS I am going to actually have to pay attention to these idiots! We're on PBS now! Ahhh not the issues!!!

9:06- McCain's blinking algorithm is malfunctioning

9:08- That drinking game where you take a shot when McCain raises his right arm above his head stands- it's going to be a sober night...

9:09 - Love the Joe the Plumber content. Get that guy his own reality show.

9:10- We HAVE to change the channel. Watching on PBS makes me feel like I'm in civics class. Boooring

9:11- YES we changed to NBC- distracting graphics again; soothing, ahhh...

9:12- Schieffer talking about deficit- snooooze; not even flashy graphics will save this

9:14- Obama says "Pay as you go" - ahhh the Washington Post editorial board is having a circle jerk

9:15- McCain is writing his notes with a SHARPIE in all caps like a Kindergartener- MAVERICK

9:16- Tom scared everyone off with his sarcastic email

9:17- McCain is talking about cutting the budget using a "hatchet AND a scalpel" - BA suggests using a dildo

9:18- more hatchet and SCALPEL content- MEME!

9:20- McCain is obsessed with this projector thing- Marty Beckerman says, "I think John McCain is thinking about movie night at the old folks' home"

9:21- Pretty sure Obama's drawing penises with that Uniball

9:23- McCain brought his hand HALF-WAY up to his head- you guys and gals out there get HALF A SHOT!

9:25- McCain is obsessed with the Town Halls. We saw how last week's town hall worked out for the McCainBot- i don't understand why he wanted more????

9:30 - Obama is joking around, he knows he has this thing in the bag...

9:32- Obama brings up "Terrorist!" and "Kill him!" "Pallin' around with terrorists" - siiiiick; he is going for the jugular. Smart of him to bring it up first and set up the frame of negative attacks on him as crazy.

9:34- What are those t-shirts at the Obama rallies that McCain is talking about???? I want to see those!

9:37-McCain drops the AYERS and ACORN BOMBS!!!! Siiick! Finally some fireworks!

9:38- Obama has a sick response where he makes himself seem bipartisan at the same time! Amazing response- Washington Post editorial board is nutting again!

9:40- Major hat tip to Tom-- "A real-time poll of decided New Yorkers is giving the debate to Obama"

9:41- Joe Biden Scranton content! MEME!

9:44- McCain's dropping the special needs TRIG BOMB!

9:47- Schieffer says "Climate Control" instead of climate change- are we talking about my thermostat here? OHHH!! What's that animal with a long neck? I can't quite remember... oh yeah the Gir-GAFFE!

9:54- Obama's never been to Mexico? Huh, I figured him for a Senor Frog's kind of guy

9:57- Schieffer is so old- can we get that sprightly fairy Anderson Cooper to moderate the second half of this thing?

10:02- Obama is showing off how much he can move his hands- good call, rub it in McCain's face.

10:06- back to CNN - JESUS is Gergen even paying attention? He and Bennett have maddd low numbers for both candidates- a total of 10. Castellanos is going nuts but this Martin person is GOING INSANNNNNNE- he's put up 100 points!!!

10:09- Obama says "one of us may make more than one appointment to the Supreme Court..." - is this a hex on Rutebega Ginsburg?

10:11- the trendlines are flatlining; the Ohio undecideds are asleeeeep...

10:12- McCain calls Obama "pro-abortion"- them's fightin' words- and... women's trendlines are dippin' - Dipset!

10:15- these Ohio undecided rabble love Obama's "sexuality is sacred" content

10:19 - (Triumph the Insult Comic Voice): "Theece computer is like John McCain's campaign- eet's on life support!"

10:20 - computer's back- whew!

10:21- good idea McCain- send those PTSD soldiers into the classrooms!

10:27- McCain with the creepy Joker laugh again- MAVERICK! McCain can barely speak a sentence without flubbing it- MAVERICK!

10:28- via BA- McCain concludes, "I hope you give me an opportunity to serve again... before I die"

10:30- we hear the mics of the candidates; sick- McCain robotically says "Good job, good job!" and then does a cute little old man shuffle that almost makes me want to vote for... but not

10:31- Cindy McCain just defined the word PERFUNCTORY with that handshake with Michelle! Ouch! So perfunctory! And finally one last... GAFFE!

GOP Idiocy/THE REAL ISSUES

2008-10-14T14:21:00.000-04:00

Take a look at the picture of Elizabeth Hasselbeck to the left and you will see the face of the modern Republican Party. Shrill, overconfident idiots who will scream at you about WILLIAM AYERS! ACORN! REVEREND WRIGHT! WHY WON'T THE LIBERAL MEDIA COVER THESE THINGS! Can you even imagine how little brain activity is going on in her head at this moment?

Which brings me to THE REAL ISSUES. Lost amid some financial thing going on that, really, who can understand anyway(!), is a major shift in the campaign that's gone unnoticed by the mainstream media. That's right, Hasselbeck clone and VP nominee Sarah Palin has LET HER HAIR DOWN!

Let's see the change- First, her usual librarian porn look:

But now Sarah has let her hair down...

Talk about an OCTOBER SUPRISE! This can't be topped unless Osama rocks a handlebar moustache! But whoever is advising Palin is seriously going astray with this Tammy Wynette deal. She is alienating her core librarian/elementary school teacher fetishists, and for what? A few thousand Sally Jesse Raphael viewers. This is a serious GAFFE and suggests a campaign that can't quite figure out what it's about. In any case, HOW IS THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA NOT COVERING THIS FLIP-FLOP! Jeez, I feel like Elizabeth Hasselbeck with this shrill idiocy -- sorry....

Raisin' McCain Reprise

2008-10-13T23:56:00.002-04:00

For those who didn't see it back in August, I still find this video to be perfect distillation of the McCain campaign. Look at the diversity at evidence in the crowd, where literally the only minority I noticed was a dwarf at :52 seconds... Amazing:
Way to unintentionally satirize your candidate, John Rich... Nice.

Krugman--Nobel???

2008-10-13T11:54:00.005-04:00

Damn, our first pro-Krugman post ever (remember what an unrepentant, bought shill he was for Hillary Clinton), has brought about quite the response, eh?

This Nobel is certainly well-deserved (don't get me started about what a PC joke the literature prize has become), especially since Krugman has had absolutely no shady dealings with major doomed firms in our era... Guess who else was on the board?

The only person there I thought of as a journalist was William Kristol - I thought he was there to regale us with Washington gossip.

There you go, it must have been a totally serious and legit operation if Kristol was involved...Congrats PK, I suppose this will make you all the more omnipresent on MSNBC. Yay.

A Palin Dream

2008-10-09T10:29:00.005-04:00

At my Grandmother’s house in Maine/New Canaan (composite dream locale). Sarah Palin and her husband are there, along with an assorted group of others. We are preparing for a dinner. I spy Sarah and Todd Palin crossing through the dining room (which is much larger than it once was) and I approach them to talk.

Someone dies (Non-existent Uncle Auggie? I am devestated, though I feel like I'm pretending. I am told to call an eye surgeon, which I do).

His death somehow involves a collapse in the old New Canaan TV room, resulting in a pierced iris from a sharp point atop a large globe. John McCain, on the announcement of the death, slinks off to the quarters where the help live, for whatever reason, though there is no help and never has been. Apparently this is McCain's standing in the house, whereas the Palin's have a proper guest room.

I speak at length with Palin as people crowd around her and Todd on a staircase. I tell her how much I admired and loved Tim Russert, because he had the same folksy, homespun style as Palin herself. I find myself overwhelmed by her charisma, and I increasingly become a total shill for her. It's loathsome. We all pause for a photo, and I am pressed away from Palin (who was only humoring me anyway) down the staircase, which is suddenly in a strange mountainous catacomb.

Palin's rejection stings, but I move out through the back of the house, through the mountain path that leads out onto a concealed golf fairway.

I go outside and see a ramp and an ambulance speeding away with the dead uncle. I am awoken by a cat biting me on the face.

Paul Krugman

2008-10-08T01:41:00.007-04:00

Why has Paul Krugman suddenly appeared everywhere? Oh right, the economic meltdown...

But beyond that, surely there are better looking, more spontaneously articulate economists than Krugman, and certainly more prescient visonaries...

Or maybe I'm not so sure anymore, given this latest bit of news.

Celebrities + Politics = Pure Joy

2008-10-06T18:16:00.007-04:00

The thing I will miss most about this election season when it's over will not be the post-debate spin, though I will miss that. And it won't be Chuck Todd's and John King's electoral maps, though I'll miss those too. No, what I will most miss is celebrities' attempts to insert themselves into the political discourse.

The newest example comes in the form of the movie An American Carol. This trash is the brainchild of David Zucker, who was formerly part of the braintrust responsible for The Naked Gun and Airplane! movies but has since stooped to directing late-period Scary Movies and this dreck. The movie is some sort of spoof of Michael Moore and A Christmas Carol. What is it about conservative satire that makes it bad- maybe it's the anti-intellectualism or maybe the witless xenophobia and racism. I mean i enjoy xenophobia and racism as much as the next guy, but make it smart xenophobia and racism! In any case, what interests me about the film is the presence of some major Hollywood stars. Jon Voight- OK I already knew he was insane. James Woods- he is a dick anyway and I knew that from poker chatter. Kelsey Grammer- FRASIER is a conservative?! Jesus christ, how can I ever trust a latte-sipper again? Dennis Hopper- What the fuck? This guy was in Easy Rider, and now he's siding with the party of anti-abortion, gay-hating, race baiters? Fortunately, we have been spared any Drew Carey content.

But it's not just conservatives that interest me. It's liberals too. Take, for example, this Huffington Post item I just read in which George Wendt discusses the current financial crisis:

George Wendt is a Los Angeles-based actor and amateur ornothologist. His autobiography, "From Bar Stools to Birds' Stools: 30 years of Giving Crap and Cleaning it Up" has sold tens of copies since it was self-published in January. He is also known for his acclaimed role as "Norm" on Cheers.

OK I am tired of hearing from these damned economists about how "the causes of the financial crisis are very complicated and interconnected." Who has been President during this crisis and the lead-up to it? Let's see, was it Bill Clinton? No, no, Bill Clinton presided over 8 years of unprecedented prosperity. Was it JFK? No, as I recall he presided over the biggest expansion of the middle class in this country's history. Oh, right, it was GEORGE W. BUSH!

This boy-king hick, his Machiavelli Karl Rove, and his Rasputin Dick Cheney have messed up everything they've put their grubby hands on- Iraq! Katrina! Justice Department!- and the economy is no different! Where did all of us ordinary Americans' money go? To public schools, public transportation and alternative energy infrastructure? Nope. Hmm, where did it go again? Ah yes, TO KBR AND HALLIBURTON AND THE OIL COMPANIES! I'm pretty sure those poor folks wouldn't have defaulted on their mortgages if they weren't paying 200 billion dollars in no-bid contracts to these criminal companies!

So the next time some egghead on TV tries to tell you otherwise, remind him who's really to blame. "Well the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act has actually made banks less likely to fail because they're better capitalized and..." YOU MEAN GEORGE W. BUSH! "Both Democrats and Republicans encouraged the reckless behavior of Fannie and Freddie during the..." RECKLESS BEHAVIOR BY GEORGE W. BUSH! "The housing bubble-" AND BY THAT YOU MEAN THE GEORGE W BUSH BUBBLE! That's a pretty apt metaphor actually. Let's burst this George W. Bush Bubble by rejecting John McSame and electing Barack Obama! Yes, We Can!

Death-Media

2008-10-02T15:14:00.012-04:00

This blog once had a topic.

Here is a good instance of the Death-Media-Effect playing itself out:

The body of the [South Korean] actress, Choi Jin-sil, 39, was found in the bathroom of her apartment with a rope made out of bandages around her neck, Yang Jae-ho, a senior police investigator, said at a news conference.

Already struggling with a messy divorce, she had been deeply troubled by online accusations that she had driven another actor to gas himself in his car a month earlier, Mr. Yang said. The actor, Ahn Jae-hwan, was struggling with debt, and the rumors said she had pressed him relentlessly to repay money she had loaned. She complained to the police about the rumors, which she called baseless, and they were investigating when she died.

Gas-tly rumors, dare we say? (Homage to Dan, 2006/2007) But seriously, rumors that she was a shrewish lender whose shrill and prating demands for the repayment of a loan caused another actor's suicide drove her to suicide? Talk about a media obsessed culture. The Times chimes in with this gem of a detail:

Then, in a sort of high-tech suicide note, Ms. Choi sent cellphone text messages to her makeup assistant, asking her to look after her two children, Mr. Yang said.

Text-messaging is "high-tech?" I would have accepted "post-modern" (though it would have been inaccurate) or "contemporary" or even just "unusual," or I would have taken no mention of it all, but this dimwitted use of a non-current neologism really irks me. And what's with the "sort of?" Is it "high-tech" or not? Make up your mind, don't make me do it for you!

Moving on, a related story of possibly media-induced suicide (though more likely suicide induced by depression, alcohol, and guilt):

A New York City police lieutenant who gave the order to fire a Taser stun gun at an emotionally disturbed man who then fell to his death in Brooklyn committed suicide early on Thursday, law enforcement officials said.

Lt. Michael W. Pigott, a 21-year veteran of the force, was found in a police locker room at a former airfield in Brooklyn, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, said Paul Browne, the police department’s deputy commissioner for public information.

Pretty dark. But in brighter news, it turns out all of those stories about massive numbers of suicides-by-defenestration following the 1929 stock market crash are greatly exaggerated:

Between Black Thursday and the end of 1929, only four of the 100 suicides and suicide attempts reported in the New York Times were plunges linked to the crash, and only two took place on Wall Street.

But fear not, there is some good news:

(There were some crash-related suicides that didn't involve fatal jumps: The president of County Trust Co. and the head of Rochester Gas and Electric both killed themselves, but they used a gun and gas, respectively.)

Have a wonderful day!

Notification of Thanks

2008-10-01T21:59:00.004-04:00

September was the busiest month in D-M since the golden age (2005). Special thanks goes to returned correspondents Arlo Harsenstein and Nosferatu, as well as to brilliant new assistant (to the) editor, Dan.

Also, a very special thanks to Sarah Palin, for obvious reasons. And to Rich, for being the only one to share my blog's posts on Google Reader consistently. Not that I pay attention to these things. Not that anyone does!

Anyway, I am determined to make this year the second most prolific in D-M history, which means much more activity is needed in OCT-NOV-DEC... It will come, and I will build it. This I promise.

You Be The Judge

2008-10-01T20:04:00.006-04:00

First off, thanks to Nosferatu for a tremendous first installment of his Music Notebook (or whatever he called it). I want you to plumb that Bob Marley line of thinking like a Jamaican fisherman!

But back to business... Things have been getting pretty ugly for Sarah Palin. Bloodbath potential is high for tomorrow night (shout out, Nosf). I have confidence that Biden will seem knowledgeable, well-versed, and (by his standards) subdued. I hope he slams her, big time, but in a Godfather kind of way, not with a 300 vibe, if you know what I mean. All of this is probably irrelevant, as the past demonstrates, but I'm sort of heartened that the MSM seems to have fully turned on her. Maybe this is a turning point, but I doubt it, given the ragged shape of congressional leadership these days. Non Sequitur you say? No. As long as the congress has a low approval rating, the press will have an excuse to bring up the small town questions that, as a mayor, I have... Okay. You get it.

This is the clip we heard about yesterday from the Washington Post:

Like the whole newspaper gaffe, I count this as a meaningful error only because Sarah Palin has not demonstrated even a modicum of worldliness. I would be hard pressed to name a case I specifically oppose myself (Bush v Gore)... Oh forget it. I can't possibly pretend to be that ignorant, and if I were ever even remotely considering a run for political office one of the first things I would do would be to ground myself in a few of the cases of the day (Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Stenberg v. Carhart anyone? (And those are just cases related to abortion. -ed.)).

But clearly I am "out of step" with the GOP's strategy, which to the chagrin of the Ghost of Bill Buckley, has been heading in the direction of anti-intellectualism for some time...

Musical Notebook

2008-09-30T17:49:00.009-04:00

Nostradamus has granted me, Nosferatu, permission to sound off on more than just my vampiric longings for blood. He has in fact mandated that I blog about music, particularly that under-respected sequence of years 1971-78. He even went into more detail than I would normally expect from such a recalcitrant head blogger, saying:

I want you specifically to explore the connection between the success of Elton John with that of the early Bruce Springsteen. Add in some Billy Joel references to fill out the comparisons if you must, but you have to do this. You understand I would simply blog it myself, but then I care about hipster credibility and would never openly acknowledge having ever thought about any of those artists unironically. You, on the other hand, are totally free from such concerns, thanks to the whole "Creature of the night" shtick. Get too (sic) it!

I resent the implication that my deviant lifestyle is mere "shtick," but aside from that it struck me as an exceedingly good idea.

As I was riding on a stationary bike, listening to my "Nils Lofgren Station" on Pandora, the fortuitous pairing of "Madman Across the Water" followed by the Boss' version of "Blinded by the Light" came on, and I couldn't help but notice the resounding mutual influence of "The Band" on each song. Serious Band influence there, both in the instrumentation and the song structure. The Band's most famous style is a rootsy brand of Americana (or Canadiana), with songs about the marginalized and defeated ("Rag Mama Rag," "The Weight," "When You Awake," and most of all the masterful "Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"), songs that are also marked especially by the piano and a certain semi martial snare drum style.

Now naturally, The Boss is a poor Irish/Italian boy from Jersey, while Reginald Kenneth Dwight emerged out of the Middlesex diaspora in England. Springsteen's music is drenched in a working-class Dylanesque quality, while Bernie Taupin's lyrics are often somewhat disposable and sentimental. But the real comparison here lies in the music, and this brings up the issue of Billy Joel. The parallels with both John and Springsteen are evident: for Bruce's Jersey, we get Billy's Long Island, whereas for all the sentimentality of "Daniel" and "Your Song" Billy counters with the devastating schmaltz of "Piano Man" and "She's Got a Way" (the last of which is truly one of my favorite songs ever).

If we were to chart some kind of trajectory for these three, obviously Springsteen would have the greatest amount of credibility, followed by Joel and then John. His recent "Seeger Sessions" and the 2001 album "The Rising" were both great. Elton has not been that much of a presence since the 90's and his crowning moment, namely, the death of Princess Diana. On the pure volume of money earned, I suspect Elton comes out on top, with Billy and Springsteen vying for second, though this is just pure speculation.

Somehow I wanted to tie in the meteoric rise of Bob Marley throughout the 70s, but the connection is evading me at the moment. In a future Notebook I will have to get back to you all on that one.