SkankySweet
Teddy Riley's the bomb. I first heard of him when he produced "I Get the Job Done" for Big Daddy Kane. I remember he used about 50 cowbells on that track.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Queer High for the Straight Guy
*
President McCain.
Has the true ring of crusty dying about it, doesn't it?
When we die, often, our last physical act in this world is to drop a load in our pants... How is there not a name for that?... Deathicating? Departure logs? Ok, I'll stop.
I bring up that nastiness only because I think we might be about to elect another Republican President. If we can do that at this particular juncture in American political history, It'll be tough to see it as anything other than a giant national death dookie.
The California Supreme Court just validated the right of gay couples to marry, which is humane and right and overdue and has provided every gay-hating wing-nut from coast with a reason to get his ignorant ass down the polling place come November.
How are we going to contend with that, folks? We need a plan.
I am completely down with gay people and their right to do anything straight people can do. It is more than a little ironic how overrated most of them will find marriage, but there is absolutely no reason for that to be something they can't learn for themselves.
Well, actually, there might be the one reason.
The fear and hatred of gays in America is some seriously horrible and powerful stuff. There's no two ways about it, it's a practical engine driving a very big number of votes. Staying positive and believing in doing the right thing regardless of the consequences is a great way to live, but I don't want to hear about the high road right now, ok? Ralph Nader was taking the high road, wasn't he? Just trying to "open up the discourse". How'd that work out for us?
We've been through this so many times it almost doesn't bear repeating. Stupidity is additive. Mobilizing dunces, the first prerequisite to victory in American politics, is fairly easy if one has the stomach and the hate story for it. We don't, they do. Ergo, we lose.
Reactionary dimwits have trouble with arguments, no matter how rational, that contradict the platters of platitudes in their hateful little God-sopped noggins. I mean, a mind is a funny thing. You kind of have to have one that works in order for it to change, right? And for that, you have done at least some of the reading.
I'd love to be wrong about this, but from where I'm sitting, it looks like we're screwed. Redneck rage kicks the ass of the best and brightest every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
My people learned our first lesson in that dynamic in 1972 when they dropped us off at 8am to get out the vote for McGovern, and came back at 8:30 to pick us up because Tricky Dick Nixon and his band of thieves had knocked us out 2 seconds into the first round. A landslide for the greedheads at the absolute peak of national disgust with Viet Nam. We learned it again around this same issue four years ago. Of course we had good old Ralph to thank for that too, so...
Who knows? Maybe we've grown since then.
President McCain. Nice enough guy, I guess.
President McCain.
Has the true ring of crusty dying about it, doesn't it?
When we die, often, our last physical act in this world is to drop a load in our pants... How is there not a name for that?... Deathicating? Departure logs? Ok, I'll stop.
I bring up that nastiness only because I think we might be about to elect another Republican President. If we can do that at this particular juncture in American political history, It'll be tough to see it as anything other than a giant national death dookie.
The California Supreme Court just validated the right of gay couples to marry, which is humane and right and overdue and has provided every gay-hating wing-nut from coast with a reason to get his ignorant ass down the polling place come November.
How are we going to contend with that, folks? We need a plan.
I am completely down with gay people and their right to do anything straight people can do. It is more than a little ironic how overrated most of them will find marriage, but there is absolutely no reason for that to be something they can't learn for themselves.
Well, actually, there might be the one reason.
The fear and hatred of gays in America is some seriously horrible and powerful stuff. There's no two ways about it, it's a practical engine driving a very big number of votes. Staying positive and believing in doing the right thing regardless of the consequences is a great way to live, but I don't want to hear about the high road right now, ok? Ralph Nader was taking the high road, wasn't he? Just trying to "open up the discourse". How'd that work out for us?
We've been through this so many times it almost doesn't bear repeating. Stupidity is additive. Mobilizing dunces, the first prerequisite to victory in American politics, is fairly easy if one has the stomach and the hate story for it. We don't, they do. Ergo, we lose.
Reactionary dimwits have trouble with arguments, no matter how rational, that contradict the platters of platitudes in their hateful little God-sopped noggins. I mean, a mind is a funny thing. You kind of have to have one that works in order for it to change, right? And for that, you have done at least some of the reading.
I'd love to be wrong about this, but from where I'm sitting, it looks like we're screwed. Redneck rage kicks the ass of the best and brightest every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
My people learned our first lesson in that dynamic in 1972 when they dropped us off at 8am to get out the vote for McGovern, and came back at 8:30 to pick us up because Tricky Dick Nixon and his band of thieves had knocked us out 2 seconds into the first round. A landslide for the greedheads at the absolute peak of national disgust with Viet Nam. We learned it again around this same issue four years ago. Of course we had good old Ralph to thank for that too, so...
Who knows? Maybe we've grown since then.
President McCain. Nice enough guy, I guess.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Ants and Aphids
It occurred to me today as I was watching my money spin by at the gas station that perhaps America isn't so lost as it seems. Maybe we are a country functioning at an incredible level of sophistication and success. After all, success is defined by goals, isn't it?
Imagine for a moment that our primary national goal at this point in history is to position population and resources, b
oth global and domestic to be cultivated by our for-profit corporations exactly like ants cultivate aphids, and that, therefore, the only two current barometers of our success as a nation are: 1) The efficiency with which the economic nectar of the citizenry is being harvested by these large entities to benefit their shareholders and executives and finance their political agendas and 2) The sheer number of us aphids they've got wired into the system.
Seems like we're doing pretty well now, right?
Two dollars to get cash out of the bank machine, two dollars a day to watch television, ten dollars a day for health care, seventy-five cents per day for internet access, ten cents per minute to receive a call on your cell phone, these are all cases where the actual cost of the item to the corporation providing it is a minuscule percentage of what they charge the consumer for it because the price reflects what the "market" will bear.
I guess my question is, will the American middle class ever reach a point where Adam Smith's invisible hand, forearm, and elbow are wedged so far up our collective ass that we say, "That's it. Fuck you. I'm going off he grid"?
Does that sound like an aphid to you?
No, it's going to continue as long as we keep giving up the nectar and voting for more of the same. It'll continue as long as the simultaneous reporting of record prices at the pump and record profits for the oil companies fails to wrench the guts of the meek to the extent that they climb back on their bikes, reconsider public transit or start double-teaming their trips to town.
The most poignant part of this giant corporate suck-fest we call America is that it's completely a victim-complicit operation. We all choose to pay four dollars for a gallon of gas and still drive everywhere alone in our cars, and the Standard Oil shareholders say "KA-Ching". Banks show fictitious balances on their ATMs to drum up overdraft fees, we pay them, and BofA shareholders' kids spend another spring break in Cabo. Cell phone companies take "unused" minutes from us every month and keep our money, and we still re-charge our accounts. African American voters consistently no-show election days, and the neocon soldier ants smile their lipless smiles...
Just how stupid are we, people? At what price point do we actually start to organize our transportation a little better than one vehicle mile per passenger mile? Six dollars? Eight? Ten?
When do we stop paying two dollars for bank computers to move fifty electronic bits half a micron at the speed of light?
When do we make it illegal for the multi-nationals to buy votes with our hard earned cash?
Right after Idol, that's when.
Some of us daydream about jacking in to a more humane matrix. For me, it's moving to France, where there's excellent health care provided free by the government and non-profit insurance companies, and five weeks of paid vacation your first year on the job. Sounds kinda civilized, doesn't it? Also, they have an affinity for moderately talented American musicians and filmmakers such as myself. I think I might be able to pursue some serious happiness in that setup.
So what's keeping me? Three things: The sound of forty thousand people murmuring at Pac Bell Park, the trout streams of the Western Sierras, and my ex-wife. We are dear friends, and we talk about this move all the time, but we never seem to get to the point of pulling the trigger. Our daughter is in high school, and the realty considerations and blah, blah blah...
Our current plan is to do a family rock n' roll tour next summer and suss it out. I really hope we do because through all the sarcasm, my heart really is broken for America and what it's become, and I'm having difficulty imagining things changing very much any time soon.
It is an election year, and there might be an new opportunity to shift the paradigm beginning, but as the months tick by in the campaigns, and candidates who started off selling radical change start sounding more and more like Republicans (neither Democrat supports single-payer health care - are you kidding me?), my hope for transformation dims.
That's a little depressing, isn't it? Sorry.
Here's an idea. What if, when corporations reach a certain level - say billions per quarter in profits, what if they had to operate as a non-profit for one quarter every other year? Then banks, utilities and oil companies, for example, would have to let us all look up their skirts every 21 months and see what they'd charge for stuff if they were aphids like us.
Wouldn't it be nice it we were older...
Groove Invaders gig tonight - nap time.
laters,
db
Imagine for a moment that our primary national goal at this point in history is to position population and resources, b
oth global and domestic to be cultivated by our for-profit corporations exactly like ants cultivate aphids, and that, therefore, the only two current barometers of our success as a nation are: 1) The efficiency with which the economic nectar of the citizenry is being harvested by these large entities to benefit their shareholders and executives and finance their political agendas and 2) The sheer number of us aphids they've got wired into the system.Seems like we're doing pretty well now, right?
Two dollars to get cash out of the bank machine, two dollars a day to watch television, ten dollars a day for health care, seventy-five cents per day for internet access, ten cents per minute to receive a call on your cell phone, these are all cases where the actual cost of the item to the corporation providing it is a minuscule percentage of what they charge the consumer for it because the price reflects what the "market" will bear.
I guess my question is, will the American middle class ever reach a point where Adam Smith's invisible hand, forearm, and elbow are wedged so far up our collective ass that we say, "That's it. Fuck you. I'm going off he grid"?
Does that sound like an aphid to you?
No, it's going to continue as long as we keep giving up the nectar and voting for more of the same. It'll continue as long as the simultaneous reporting of record prices at the pump and record profits for the oil companies fails to wrench the guts of the meek to the extent that they climb back on their bikes, reconsider public transit or start double-teaming their trips to town.
The most poignant part of this giant corporate suck-fest we call America is that it's completely a victim-complicit operation. We all choose to pay four dollars for a gallon of gas and still drive everywhere alone in our cars, and the Standard Oil shareholders say "KA-Ching". Banks show fictitious balances on their ATMs to drum up overdraft fees, we pay them, and BofA shareholders' kids spend another spring break in Cabo. Cell phone companies take "unused" minutes from us every month and keep our money, and we still re-charge our accounts. African American voters consistently no-show election days, and the neocon soldier ants smile their lipless smiles...
Just how stupid are we, people? At what price point do we actually start to organize our transportation a little better than one vehicle mile per passenger mile? Six dollars? Eight? Ten?
When do we stop paying two dollars for bank computers to move fifty electronic bits half a micron at the speed of light?
When do we make it illegal for the multi-nationals to buy votes with our hard earned cash?
Right after Idol, that's when.
Some of us daydream about jacking in to a more humane matrix. For me, it's moving to France, where there's excellent health care provided free by the government and non-profit insurance companies, and five weeks of paid vacation your first year on the job. Sounds kinda civilized, doesn't it? Also, they have an affinity for moderately talented American musicians and filmmakers such as myself. I think I might be able to pursue some serious happiness in that setup.
So what's keeping me? Three things: The sound of forty thousand people murmuring at Pac Bell Park, the trout streams of the Western Sierras, and my ex-wife. We are dear friends, and we talk about this move all the time, but we never seem to get to the point of pulling the trigger. Our daughter is in high school, and the realty considerations and blah, blah blah...
Our current plan is to do a family rock n' roll tour next summer and suss it out. I really hope we do because through all the sarcasm, my heart really is broken for America and what it's become, and I'm having difficulty imagining things changing very much any time soon.
It is an election year, and there might be an new opportunity to shift the paradigm beginning, but as the months tick by in the campaigns, and candidates who started off selling radical change start sounding more and more like Republicans (neither Democrat supports single-payer health care - are you kidding me?), my hope for transformation dims.
That's a little depressing, isn't it? Sorry.
Here's an idea. What if, when corporations reach a certain level - say billions per quarter in profits, what if they had to operate as a non-profit for one quarter every other year? Then banks, utilities and oil companies, for example, would have to let us all look up their skirts every 21 months and see what they'd charge for stuff if they were aphids like us.
Wouldn't it be nice it we were older...
Groove Invaders gig tonight - nap time.
laters,
db
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