Fess Up, People!

OK, which one of my wiseass friends had a Chick Tract sent to me? This one isn't one of the funnier ones, but it has a pretty good punchline, if you could call it that. Anne called me at work and told me that something really weird came in the mail and that she hoped it was a joke. As soon as I saw the shape of it I knew it was one of Jack Chick's famous comic tracts about people going to hell and I started laughing, but she was a bit unnerved by it. So if you're one of our friends and thought it would be funny, I get the joke. If you're one of our friends who thinks we need organized religion in our lives, no thank you. While I obviously don't agree with the message, I do enjoy Jack's style. If he found Alfred E. Newman instead of Jeebus, he could have taken Mad Magazine to a whole new level.

WWII Vet: 1 - Right Wing Blogger: 0

This is great! In an all too typically classless move, some right wing asshat gets it into his head to try to swiftboat Obama's grandpa great uncle who helped liberate a concentration camp in WWII. He takes it upon himself to try getting some dirt from a vet from the same unit. Hilarity ensues!

Seven Songs Meme

I don't usually do memes, but I saw this one on another blog and I thought it would be right up my alley and a nice break from the politics. It's pretty simple. Here are the rules: List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag other people to see what they’re listening to. I have kicked it up a notch by including a YouTube link if there's one available. Enjoy the music! Opeth - Windowpane Transatlantic - All of the Above 3 - All That Remains Opeth - Atonement Liquid Tension Experiment - Osmosis Stevie Wonder - Too High Bud Buckley - Let Me Go - Please use the link at the bottom of that page to vote for that song and help make my dad huge in England. As you can see, I'm on a big prog rock kick. I probably could have just filled the whole list with Opeth songs as they are my latest musical obsession, but I wanted to branch out a little bit. My policy for memes is voluntary tagging, so if any of my few readers decides to take this one on, please mention it in my comments. Thanks, and rock on.

Too Little Too Late

So former White House mouthpiece Scott McClellan wrote a tell-all book about working for the Bush-Cheney crime family. He tells us that the White House used deception and propaganda to sell the war in Iraq. He tells us that Karl Rove mislead him on his role in the outing of Valerie Plame. He tells us that Dick Cheney is indeed the puppet master. He tells us that the supposedly liberal media just sat back and let this administration spoonfeed them misinformation without giving it much of a critical eye. He tells us a whole bunch of stuff that many of us have suspected since the Supreme Court elected Bush in 2000. He tells us how he played a part in misleading the public for this administration and how badly he feels about it. Responding to a request for comment, McClellan wrote in an e-mail: "Like many Americans, I am concerned about the poisonous atmosphere in Washington. I wanted to take readers inside the White House and provide them an open and honest look at how things went off course and what can be learned from it. Hopefully in some small way it will contribute to changing Washington for the better and move us beyond the hyper-partisan environment that has permeated Washington over the past 15 years." [full story] While I admire his belated honesty, I don't think it matters a damn bit now. If he was so uncomfortable with what he was doing and wanted to make things right, why not just stand up and spill it all during one of his White House press conferences? Why didn't he grow a pair and tell the press that he'd been misleading them on everything and that he's been working for a bunch of lying criminals? OK, that might have been a little drastic, but if he really felt that he was misleading the public but didn't want to take such a dramatic stand, why not leak to a trusted member of the press? Or better yet, why didn't he quit his job shortly after realizing just the sort of people he was working for and write this book when it could have made a difference, like before the 2004 election perhaps? So now we have this book telling us what we already knew and it serves exactly no purpose whatsoever. Thanks, Scottie. You got to be the face of a lying administration and then cash in on it long after you could have done any good with your misgivings. The people who still continue to support this administration don't care what you have to say and just continue making their excuses for the inexcusable while making personal attacks on you for cracking their rose colored glasses. The pathetic Washington press corp will never be held accountable for their complicity in all of this. You're not really giving any new information to those of us who have known all along that you were working for a bunch of radical loonies. After your media junket, you can fade back into obscurity. I suggest you become golfing buddies with OJ Simpson. You've got a lot in common.

OMFG Prince at Coachella!

I don't go to big multi-day multi band shows anymore. I can't deal with such large crowds, extreme summer heat and overpriced bottled water. Coachella always has an amazing lineup, but it's in the freakin' desert and I just am not having that. This year there were a couple of legendary performances. One was Roger Waters doing Dark Side of the Moon and a whole lot of other Pink Floyd greats while letting loose a giant inflatable pig that took a trip around Southern California. And the other was Prince. Besides just busting out a whole bunch of his classics, besides bringing out Morris Day for Jungle Love, he rocked out a couple of amazing covers of both the Beatles and Radiohead! Sure, he's kind of kooky, but he is an amazing musician and performer and this set should not be missed. The formerly nameless one is extremely diligent about protecting his copyrights, so if you want to hear this performance, you better go here and download it ASAP while you still can. This will be on my iPod for weeks to come.

Finally Sunk?

Could this finally be the last nail on Hillary Clinton's campaign coffin? "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California," Hillary Clinton said yesterday, referencing the fact that past nomination contests have stretched into June to explain why she hasn't heeded calls to exit the Democratic race. She was in an editorial board meeting with a South Dakota newspaper, and she didn't even seem to notice she'd just uttered the unutterable. [full story] Where's Dan Aykroyd when we need somebody to turn to her and say "Hillary, you ignorant slut?" While I really hope that this was just a slip of the tongue rather than a veiled threat, at the very least it was a Freudian slip of wishful thinking on her part, so natural that she didn't even bat an eyelash as she said it. Because at this point an assassin's bullet is about the only thing that could give this power-mad woman that thing for which she would sell her very soul (and judging by the campaign she's run so far the existence of her soul is debatable). So now can this horrible woman just please go the fuck away and stay the fuck away? She is the perfect example of exactly what is wrong with this political system of ours. We don't need people in our government who crave power like a junkie craves their smack. We don't need people who are willing to put ethics aside for a while just to get what they want. And anyone who even thinks about being inspired by her slip of the tongue, You Kill Obama and we will BURN SHIT DOWN! Nobody wants their shit burned down.

God's Will?

There's nothing that the republican crowd wants more than keeping people focused on Obama's former pastor Jeremiah Wright. And who can blame them? The dude said some really offensive things that sound even worse when taken out of context. And when somebody close to a candidate does something that might be considered offensive, it's like a dream come true to the opposition. I'm sure when Obama gets the highly coveted Flavor Flav endorsement, we'll be hearing that crowd spewing out lyrics from Fear of a Black Planet. Yet in the meantime, John McCain has been sucking up to the lunatic fringe of the religious right, actively seeking their endorsements since he doesn't have the kind of fundy cred that Mike Huckabee has. As far as I know, he actually believes in the theory of evolution, and science that kind of kooky liberal nonsense will certainly not fly with that crowd. The kinds of crazy shit these people spew on a daily basis makes Wright look like Ward freakin' Cleaver, yet the press barely picks up on it and the right keep on making excuses how their wackos are more acceptable than our wackos. But the latest thing to come out of John Hagee's mouth will hopefully be the last nail on the coffin of this ridiculous guilt by association game. Because it's one thing to blame natural disasters on the gays, but it's another to say that Hitler was fulfilling God's will by exterminating millions of Jews. "Oh no he didn't," you shout. But oh yes he sure did. Going in and out of biblical verse, Hagee preached: "'And they the hunters should hunt them,' that will be the Jews. 'From every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks.' If that doesn't describe what Hitler did in the holocaust you can't see that." He goes on: "Theodore Hertzel is the father of Zionism. He was a Jew who at the turn of the 19th century said, this land is our land, God wants us to live there. So he went to the Jews of Europe and said 'I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel.' So few went that Hertzel went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the holocaust. "Then god sent a hunter. A hunter is someone with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the Bible says—Jeremiah writing—'They shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from the holes of the rocks,' meaning there's no place to hide. And that might be offensive to some people but don't let your heart be offended. I didn't write it, Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel." I'm sure it will give great comfort to people whose relatives died in those gas chambers that it was all just part of the plan to bring about an end of the world scenario where they get to go directly to hell without passing Go and collecting $200. Hagee is a Christian Zionist. He supports Israel not so much because he has any great kindness for the folks who he blames for killing Jesus, but because in order for the apocalypse to happen, the Jews need to control the holy land. And anything to hurry that scenario along, whether it be shooting at rock throwing kids, collective punishment of families, or the attempted fucking genocide of a whole race of people is all part of this wackjob's God's great plan to pick up him and his followers in a giant cross shaped UFO and bring them to the great big Stryper concert in the sky. So, let's refresh... On one hand you've got a pastor who sounds like a Public Enemy album. On the other, you've got a guy saying that the Holocaust was all part of God's great plan to end the world so only the people who believe in one particular interpretation of an ancient book of mythology get to have themselves a private party while laughing and saying "I told you so" at all the people who thought they were just a bunch of nutjobs. I challenge anyone to try making excuses for John McCain not publicly bitchslapping this raving loon and telling him not to come within a hundred feet of his campaign. Or better yet, you guys shut up about Wright and we'll shut up about this guy and perhaps we can all focus on the issues that actually effect our lives instead. UPDATE: Hagee kicked to the curb!

OUCH!

I can't quite figure out what's worse, Hillary Clinton's determination to drag Obama down with her or what I had done in my mouth today. On one hand you've got a power mad woman with no chance of getting the nomination who refuses to see the writing on the wall and step aside to let her team win the game. And on the other hand, you've got 4 hours of dental hell. Since I don't have dental insurance, the only way I can afford to do anything with my teeth is to be the test subject for a dental student to take her board exam. This involves several visits before the actual exam. Today I spent two hours getting x rays. Those things tore up the roof and sides of my mouth pretty badly and made me almost gag. I was OK with it at that point since I am getting this done for free. But then I spent the next two hours in the chair with a test cleaning. This was to make sure that I would be a good candidate for her actual exam, and it involved major scraping under the gum line and what felt like a dozen of novocaine shots. Getting the shots hurts, but once they were in, I didn't feel much else, though I could tell that she was really digging hard in there. Once the novocaine started wearing off, it felt like somebody gave me a curb job. I'm rubbing oragel on every 15 minutes. I still can't figure out which is worse, but I sure wish there was something to numb the pain of watching Hillary Clinton not knowing when to just quit. Whoever figures out how to make political anesthetic could become a gazillionaire.

Another Self Indulgent Music Post

Given that my post on bipartisanship got 23 comments and my music posts typically get zero, I'm obviously not giving the people what they want. But I'm kind of burnt on politics and pining away for the days of playing music live. Yesterday I put myself out on craigslist looking for people to play with (music you pervs, not casual encounters!). I got a couple of promising responses and hope to be dusting off the Fender electric within a few weeks. So here's another video of my musical past. This is one of the final performances of the Washington, DC incarnation of Captain Paradox. The Captain is currently rocking Pittsburgh, PA, but for a couple of years in the early 21st century, we rocked the Beltway. This gig was at the holiday celebration of the local progressive activist crowd which explains why there is the silliest looking hippie mosh pit you will ever see in front of us. One person on YouTube asked if this performance was at a loonie bin. You've just got to see for yourselves. For those familiar with my film of the same name of this blog (and for those of you who aren't familiar... upper left hand column of the blog, people. It's not going to watch itself!), you might recognize both the song and the singer.

And Now for Something Completely Different...

I'm loving how much response my last post has gotten so much that I don't know how to follow it up. I should probably talk about the West Virginia primary, but I'm so over these primaries. Somebody please just wake me up when President Obama takes office. I'm going to shift gears here and talk about music. I used to play music, specifically bass guitar. In high school I was in a hard rock cover band that played a few decent gigs, then later in a couple of punk bands that never made it past a few frustrating practices. After college I was in a pretty deep depression. I had some friendships that went bad, emotional immaturity, sexual frustration, unrequited love, a constant haze of pot smoke and a general frustration with my life that was going nowhere. So when I finally got together with a couple of local high school kids to start a band, we were dark, heavy, melodic and intricate. Our song titles were silly references to sex, booze, drugs, the X Files, the Jerky Boys and Space Ghost. I still to this day have no idea what any of the lyrics were. This last weekend my old guitarist was in the area. I had seen him briefly a couple of times since I moved away, but this was really the first time we got to spend any quality time in about 12 years. We had a great acoustic jam at the playground while Stella played with her friends. And when she went down for her nap, we shot some video of us doing one of our old songs, Zorak: King of the Mantis People. It's a bit rough as it's been 12 years and I'm all sorts of out of practice, but it really made me want to play music again. I think I need to try to put together another band sometime soon. I must be crazy to even think about it with everything I've got going on, but I am realizing that playing music is not a hobby so much as a need. With regular music in my life, every other aspect of my life will be better.

Getting Real About Bipartisanship

Today I have the honor of being a guest blogger on a conservative blog, The BoBo Files. BoBo has a feature called Liberal Blogger Friday, where he invites a liberal blogger to post. When I saw his call for this week, I jumped at the chance. While I enjoy being a sarcastic critic of the right on this blog, I wanted to use the opportunity to reach out to the other side and see if I couldn't find some common ground. While the idea of walking into potentially hostile territory and going for pure shock value appeals to the part of me that made the angry political comedy film that you can watch in the top left column of this blog, I just gave JSF a really hard time about his two posts on "bipartisanship" and wanted to show him that the spirit of bipartisanship is about seeking common ground, not making unrealistic demands of the other guys. So what are you waiting for? Go read my post already! UPDATE 5/11/08 - Well apparently, most readers of that blog liked the idea of bipartisanship, but once the rubber hit the road they weren't so crazy about actually hearing another perspective without calling it bullshit and making snide remarks and making zero attempt toward working anything out. Gee, so much for listening to each other and trying to make a compromise. Like my failed attempt at holding a summit between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian bloggers, this was a lofty idea that just didn't work and left me feeling sad for the world.

An Instant Blog Classic

My brother in law just send me a link to this... Hillary Clinton: The Psycho Ex-Girlfriend of the Democratic Party.

No End in Sight

Aaaarrrrggggghhhh this damn primary race is still going on, and it gets uglier by the day. This slash and burn campaign is going to make democratic voters, dare I say, bitter. But thankfully whoever is left after this ugly slug fest is over gets to run against John McCain who gives reasons to vote against him on a daily basis. If it's not 100 years in Iraq, it's his latest promise to stack the supreme court with even more conservative judges, you know, the kind that are against "judicial activism" except when they need to get their guy into office and all. JSF promises the republican half our our left-right coverage to be up sometime this evening. If I were him, I'd be mighty happy with how this is going, though I think he gives Rush Limbaugh far too much credit. Howard Stern had more influence in last year's American Idol voting (go Sanjaya!) than that limp dicked pill popping assclown has in the democratic primaries. Baba Booey to you all.

Free Music, a Quiz and a Meme

It's amazing how prolific Trent Reznor has become since parting ways with his record label. Just a couple of months ago he released Ghosts for $5 online, today there's another album and it's completely free as long as you're willing to give him your email address. Like Ghosts, it's released under a creative commons license. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but Trent's mission to change the face of the music business has made me more interested in his newer music than I might have otherwise been. And now, the quiz. See if you can tell the difference between Bush and McCain. And lastly, I've been tagged by JSF to the 1-2-3 meme. Here's the deal... * Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages). * Open the book to page 123. * Find the fifth sentence. * Post the next three sentences. * Tag five people OK folks, get ready for the word of "Bob" Most people will spend the first couple of weeks materializing huge feasts, piles of money, pots of gold and lakes of liquor. There will be no limitations; the many disgruntled Pinks who will envision H-bombs with which to destroy themselves and the surrounding 500 square miles will find their intentions stymied. MWOWM will be diplomatic as "gods" go. You know you want to read more of that! My policy on memes is that continuing it from here is on a voluntary basis. Please feel free to tag yourself, and if you do, please let me know in the comments.

Progressive Nation

No, I'm not talking about my vision for America. I'm talking about progressive rock, and specifically progressive metal, and even more specifically live progressive metal last night! Originally the plan was to shoot a documentary on Three. They are very good friends with my brother in law, and we'd been talking about doing a documentary about them. Part of that would have been concert footage of their Progressive Nation tour set. The guys from Dream Theater wanted to do a tour with a bunch of prog metal bands and they hand picked all of them for this tour, so it was a pretty big deal. We were going to drive down to LA with 2 other cameras and a laptop getting multitrack soundboard audio, then drive back up to the Bay Area with them, doing interviews in their van, and then shooting last night's show in Oakland. That wound up not working out due to tour logistics, but I was still able to get 2 passes to the show and went with a friend of mine. We got in, sat down, and met the guy next to us who is Joey from Three's uncle. It turns out not only does he live near me now, but I sort of knew him from NY. My old band opened a show that he headlined, so I had never actually met him, but he's still pretty tight with my old bandmates who are now in a death metal band in Las Vegas. Three's set was incredible. I had never seen them live before, though I'd been hearing about them since they were the opening band at Woodstock 94. I've also really been enjoying the hell out of their most recent 2 CDs. They play very melodic, intricate and heavy music. The rhythm section has a huge sound with a drummer and a percussionist who also plays some keys and a bass that unfortunately got a little lost in the mix. What makes them really different is their approach to guitars. Both guitarists play lead, and one of them plays classical style on an acoustic/electric with effects. The musicianship was top notch and the audience loved them. We went to hang out with them after their set as they went to their merch table and met people, many of whom who had seen them open for other bands or had heard them for the first time and really liked them. Then we hung out at their van outside and got to hear real stories of the road. We missed Between the Buried and Me while we were outside, but we hurried back in when we heard Opeth was on stage. These guys are SICK! They started out as a death metal band, but somewhere along the way they become a progressive death metal band. These guys go from barking heavy death to soft melodic interludes and back and forth, all incredibly tight and incredibly dark. I think they might be my new favorite band. Definitely the best thing to come out of Sweden since Absolut Vodka. After a little more time at the van, we decided to check out Dream Theater. I had never really gotten into them, but I knew they have a very rabid following and they are known for incredible musicianship. While i certainly don't want to dis the people responsible for putting on such an incredible tour, they proved to not really be my cup of tea. We left a few songs into their set. All in all, it was a great evening. It really helped my entire state of mind.

Shit Week Almost Over

Guess who's having the worst week ever. If you guessed me, you're right. I've had a nasty cold since last Friday and I'm still coughing and not breathing so well. My wife has it too, and Stella to a slightly lesser extent. This has made our usual busy lives of already busy and hectic day to day life with a wild child excruciating. There's also been a rash of car break-ins in the gated parking lot of my complex, the latest of which was our car, in broad daylight. They tore out our whole center console to get our stereo which hasn't had a working CD player in over 2 years. The cops have been less than helpful. They refuse to even come out to take a report of a car break in. They give us a report number that we could give to our insurance company and then send us a form to fill out if we want to create a police report. So because actually doing their own paperwork would cut too far into the valuable time these worthless donut munchers spend at the Starbucks around the corner and since most insurance plans have deductibles higher than the cost of replacing a stereo or a window, nobody is filling out these forms and the lazy donut munchers then turn around and not log the fact that there have been 9 break ins in 3 weeks and don't even acknowledge that there's a crime wave going on. So combine complete police ineptitude, that special violated feeling you get from being a victim of a theft, and being sick and overwhelmed with everything there is to do and you've got a pretty lousy state of mind. Take two overstressed parents and add one very sensitive toddler who feeds off her parents emotions and you've got extra difficulty. Add extra difficulty to 2 parents who are both sick and stressed to their limits and you've got a bad cycle. And then there's work. Take one boss with personal problems of his own who is not particularly pleasant to be around right now. Add cash flow problems which makes him look at every employee as a liability. Add extra people piling the work on me when I already am not feeling like it's a very good place to be right now. Add lack of sleep from having to stay up way too late because of a puking toddler. Add everything else going on in my life. And what do you get? A nervous breakdown, a heart attack, or weekend that can't come any sooner, whichever comes first!