Blogging is Like so Last Week

After all these years of obsessive blogging, I think that well has finally dried up for me. Not only have I neglected this blog, but my other two as well. I have a blog devoted to bass and another where I was doing a blaxploitation web comic featuring an Obama action figure over on Today.com but I haven't posted on either of those, mainly because I took issue with today.com's somewhat fascist way of dealing with a couple of bloggers who I had become friendly with over there. I also don't really have it in me to bother arguing with the outright lunacy that the morons on the right have been calling political discourse these days. Barney Frank put it the best... it's like trying to have a conversation with a coffee table. I've got a lot going on these days with a very active child now in preschool, a band learning to play very intricate songs now with an upcoming gig, trying to manage an office of a small business during very trying economic times, and discovering all sorts of very exciting stuff to watch on my iPod. It doesn't leave a whole lot of free time to crank out any kind of regular commentary, especially not of the multi-paragraph variety. So what's an opinionated guy who likes to make snarky comments about things to do? I still enjoy sharing things with complete strangers on the internet. When I was making zero budget films, one of the things that I liked was that limitations force creativity. That's what I've learned to love about Twitter. So if you've liked what you've read here over the last 7 or so years, consider following me on Twitter. It's the same sarcasm and the same links to cool (and not so cool) stuff that you came here for, only far less time consuming.

The Far Right Kills Again

So yet again, some member of the lunatic fringe of the far right has used violence to intimidate or cause for the purpose of "exerting pressure on decision making. You know, the very definition of TERRORISM. This time it was an abortion doctor, shot in his church on a Sunday, allegedly at the hands of one of these militia nutjobs. What part of killing doctors do you assholes consider to be "pro-life?" I'm sure the excuses will be flying out of the kinds of blogs I stopped reading months ago, and frankly I don't give a shit for excuses. This needs to be a wake up call to any moderates left in the republican party. These are the people you are in bed with. They are the American Taliban. They'll kill you if they don't get their way, or just to make a point. Fox News shitheads like O'Reilly stoke the flames but I'm sure he'll be on his show today making excuses for his hateful rhetoric. We need to stop tolerating this shit. We need to stop making excuses for the people pumping hours and hours of hate filled rhetoric day in and day out on talk radio and Fox News to an audience of people who are not particularly bright and prone to acts of severe wingnuttery. They're not just entertainers. They are inspiring people to do some fucked up shit and making lots of blood money for it. Right wingers, it's time to reign your people in before somebody else has to start doing it for you. Remember that Patriot Act that you were all gung ho about when your people were running the show? Your people aren't running anything these days and now all of a sudden you're concerned about reports of extremism? Well you've got good cause to be concerned since you're in bed with domestic terrorists. Your extremists have a body count that continues to grow. Purge your party of this bullshit before we tie this around your neck like a motherfucking albatross. You think you've got PR problems with Dick Cheney running around defending torture? That's nothing compared to members of your base killing doctors.

Tweeting Twits

I keep hearing that twitter is a great way to drive traffic to your blog. I've been trying for a while now without a whole lot of results. But I keep on trying to get more followers. Here's a little viral way to get more followers. It's kind of the same logic as a chain letter. You sign up and automatically follow six people, and then when people sign up under you, you're one of the people who gets added and as people sign up under them, your followers should increase exponentially. Won't you give it a try? At worst you waste a few minutes. At best you get shitloads of twits following your every tweet. Just click here to get it going. Thanks.

Cinco de Mayo's on Tuesday

In honor of a Mexican holiday which is not that big a deal in Mexico but used to sell lots of tequila and Corona in the states, here's an epic Spaghetti Western ballad by Ween. If you're not familiar, I urge you to give it a listen. It's a song about murder and revenge and betrayal by a truly great band. I shot this one myself, just days after getting my first digital video camera in the spring of 2000, from the top balcony of the 9:30 club in DC.

First 100 Days

I know, it's been forever since I've posted here. I've been super busy with life lately. I'm learning a new musical instrument and practicing an hour's worth of new music for a gig that is getting terrifyingly close. And as far as political posts go, I've been more focused on doing political cartoons than writing about it. But today I saw something that I really wanted to share. Anyone who pays any attention to the political blogosphere has noticed a disturbing uptick in the levels of vitriol coming from the right, starting right around when it became obvious that Obama was going to win, and getting scarier and scarier by the day. You've got bloggers who would once decry liberals for being traitors to our country now making threats of violence to elected officials if there are investigations in the wrongdoings of the previous administration. There's talks of states seceding. You've got these teabag parties sponsored by Fox News which in theory were supposed to be about government spending and nonpartisan in nature but in reality turned into giant right wing Obama hate circle jerks, and people are being exceedingly defensive when you dare suggest there might be some racist overtones involved. And the scariest thing is that guns and ammo are flying off the shelves. Today I found a great piece that details the first 100 days of the far right. Here are some tasty tidbits... When Sean Hannity runs a poll asking whether his viewers prefer a military coup, secession, or armed rebellion -- and armed rebellion wins -- that's evidence of this kind of shift. Right-wing talkers have built careers out of demonizing liberals; but when they start talking about what specific steps should be taken against them, that's not something we should ignore. ... Up is down. Black is white. Obama's not a citizen, he's going to take our guns, Congress is about to legalize incest....this we believe, and there's no expert and no amount of real-world evidence that can ever convince us otherwise. The right wing's retreat from consensus reality has finally left them living in an Orwellian alternative universe all their own. ... This overweening humiliation is growing every day that the Democrats and their new president stay in power. It's a pain that will not go away, and it's likely to curdle into something far more venomous in time. The result, unfortunately, is probably going to be more violent attacks on government authority like the one in Pittsburgh last month. ... At the same time, the past 100 days have seen record gun sales and nationwide ammo shortages as terrified conservatives buy up guns in anticipation of a total weapons ban. This seems like just another curious only-in-America news story -- until you realize that the far right is already sporting most of the earmarks of a group that's gearing up for violent action. Given the rest of the pattern, we should take this trend very, very seriously. You really should read the whole article. It may be a tad alarmist, but it brings up some very valid points. The scary people are getting scarier and the pieces are falling in place for the shit to really hit the fan. I don't have any solutions beyond mandatory sedation of these people, but despite the good intentions, that would be fascist. All joking aside, we've got a very serious potential threat on our hands. What do we do?

Worst. Blogger. Ever.

Wow, I haven't written here in 2 weeks. I suck! Actually I don't suck. I've just been super busy. I've got 2 other blogs that I try to update daily, one of which is a comic strip which takes a lot of work. And if that wasn't enough, I'm trying to edit together 3 cameras worth of footage for a TV pilot. And I've got a family and day job! I'd like to petition the powers that be to add a couple of hours to the day please. If you want fresh and tasty daily content from me, check out my bass blog and Obama Action Comics!

Michael Phelps' Infamous Bong

So there's all this ridiculous brouhaha over a picture of Olympic superstar Michael Phelps doing a bong hit. Oh noes, he's smoking pot!!! And of course, people are looking at this the wrong way. These puritanical culture warriors out there say disgrace this and lost endorsements that and I say bullshit. If anything, this should show that normal, everyday people who are great successes in life sometimes enjoy the effects of an intoxicating plant. This whole episode is a perfect illustration of the absolute ridiculousness of marijuana prohibition. They say this sends the wrong message and I say it sends the perfect message. It's harmless, and even some of the most accomplished and successful people (even outside of the entertainment industry) enjoy it. Competitive athlete Arnold Schwarzenegger extolled the virtues of pot smoking and how it helped him work out in the documentary Pumping Iron, and now he's a governor. But Phelps breaks an Olympic record, gets caught smoking up and goes from national hero to pariah overnight? What the hell is wrong with this country?

Another Blog? Am I Crazy?

Yep, I've gone and started yet another blog. It's more political humor. I could have done it over here, but hosting it on today.com gives me a trickle of revenue based on traffic and I think this one, if the right people know about it, can get me some good traffic. So what's this new blog all about, you ask? Ever since I made a political comedy film, I've thought about doing a comic book, kind of as supplemental material to the film. The problem is I'm not an artist, and I never got around to trying to find an artist who wanted to collaborate on something that would probably not make a dime. Plus, the film never really took off the way I thought it would, years passed and the context got a little stale. So I forgot about it for a while. When I first got my mac, I saw that it came with a program called Comic Life which has all the templates you'd need to make a comic book as long as you have artwork to drag into it. But I still didn't have an artist. Then the other day I saw a blog post with these great photos of an Obama action figure from Japan. This action figure is heavy on the action, with guns, swords, and badass looks. The light bulb went off and I had everything I needed to make a great political comic. Like any work of political satire, it's rooted in reality but treads heavily in fantasy. And my fantasy is an Obama who gets things done by any means necesarry. This Obama will take the high road first, but if people get in his way they soon realized that they're messing with the wrong guy. And like any good comic book, there's a host of evil villains. Anyone care to guess who their ringleader is? So check it out and let me know what you think. It's going to run daily for as long as I can keep up that pace. It's at obamacomics.today.com And if you want that badass graphic on a badass t-shirt, get your bad ass over here!