Further evidence this is Tom's world and we just have profiles on it--
ACT I
So I wrote to Jenna Fischer's MS blog a few weeks ago that since she loved 24 (as do I) and was going to be on Letterman with Keifer that she should totally get him to be her voicemail message; some sort of variant on "WHAT ARE THE DIGITS?! WHAT PURPOSE ARE YOU SERVING!"
ACT II
We fast-forward to today's blog from Jenna:
I met Kiefer!!! It was only for like 1 minute backstage. He was leaving stage and I was getting ready to go on. I didn't have my cell phone with me so I couldn't ask him to record an outgoing message. Instead, I babbled on and on about how much I love 24 and how he totally deserved the Emmy win. He was very polite and humble and wished me luck with Dave.
I better not tell her I'm rooting for Karen the rest of the year and Jim/Pam for life after that, she'd be furious. Which would be kinda cute, actually...
ACT III
I was quick and decisive with my response, however--
That's so sad you didn't get Keifer to do the voicemail. I would've called myself all the time if I'd been able to get one and never picked up. I bet friends would've gotten upset if you actually, you know, answered your own phone.
Uh...DVD recommendations. I'm a little goofy and whatnot, but I recommend anything with Kevin Smith, John Cusack, and, of course, Coming To America.
I am now officially psyched up for Thursday. Here's to your good luck and improving ratings!
-
More on this story as it develops...
Fortune Faded Red Hot Chili Peppers
11/15/06
11/14/06
11/11/06
20%.
I'm sure if I hadn't gone out for 8 jobs this week and already gotten shut down for 2, if the installation fee for the internet didn't fall on my head somehow due to the move, if I had any money, if the people looking for said money stopped calling three times a day and I didn't have to stay up until 2 a.m. to get some fucking quiet in this house I would be on pace or ahead.
Then again, wouldn't be my life, would it?
A village of supporting characters is cropping up. My idea to write four times a day in 15-minute bursts is going okay. Perhaps I should've thought of it before 5 hours ago. Brittany is going to have to address her singlehood, her brother David is going to have to address whether she wants it, and she might be into either the guy who was a victim of his girlfriend beating him in the library, the officer making the arrest, the reporter who's about to launch her into the stratosphere, or the guy her best friend wants to set her up with.
I'm on my way
I don't know where I'm goin'
I'm on my way
I'm taking my time but I don't know where...
Oh, in order to write the first club scene I did put together the DJ BC Saturday Night Mix, which for all none of you who care goes like this
1 - Madison Avenue, "Don't Call Me Baby"
2 - Mobb Deep feat. 50 Cent & Nate Dogg, "Have A Party"
3 - Chris Brown feat. Juelz Santana, "Run It (remix)"
4 - Purple Ribbon All-Stars feat. Big Boi, "Kryptonite (I'm On It)"
5 - Jackson 5, "I Want You Back"
6 - Dem Franchize Boyz feat. Jermaine Dupri, Da Brat, and Bow Wow, "I Think They Like Me (remix)"
7 - Chamillionaire feat. Lil' Flip, "Turn It Up"
8 - Cassie, "Me & U" (in a perfect world it would've been the DJ Steve 1nder mash with the Cure's "Close To You" with the backbeat. ahhhhhhhhh.)
9
Tears Of A Shakeoff DJ AM's Mariah Carey/Smokey Robinson and the Miracles mash
10 - Franz Ferdinand, "Take Me Out"
11 - Three 6 Mafia feat. 8-Ball, MJG, and Young Buck, "Stay Fly"
12 - E-40 feat. Keak Da Sneak, "Tell Me When To Go"
13 - Bubba Sparxxx feat. Ying Yang Twins, "Ms. New Booty"
14 - Fall Out Boy, "Dance, Dance"
15 - Yung Joc, "It's Goin' Down"
16 - Sean Paul, "Temperature"
17 - The Outfield, "Your Love"
18 - Lighter Shade Of Brown, "Hey DJ"
19 - Kurupt feat. Snoop Dogg, Warren G, and Nate Dogg, "Ain't No Fun"
Feel free to burn it and try it on your own fun endeavors. I'm going to take a short break and hopefully can get another half hour's work in before I go out and fuel up.
I can do this.
Even now.
Just got to keep chopping.
Then again, wouldn't be my life, would it?
A village of supporting characters is cropping up. My idea to write four times a day in 15-minute bursts is going okay. Perhaps I should've thought of it before 5 hours ago. Brittany is going to have to address her singlehood, her brother David is going to have to address whether she wants it, and she might be into either the guy who was a victim of his girlfriend beating him in the library, the officer making the arrest, the reporter who's about to launch her into the stratosphere, or the guy her best friend wants to set her up with.
I'm on my way
I don't know where I'm goin'
I'm on my way
I'm taking my time but I don't know where...
Oh, in order to write the first club scene I did put together the DJ BC Saturday Night Mix, which for all none of you who care goes like this
1 - Madison Avenue, "Don't Call Me Baby"
2 - Mobb Deep feat. 50 Cent & Nate Dogg, "Have A Party"
3 - Chris Brown feat. Juelz Santana, "Run It (remix)"
4 - Purple Ribbon All-Stars feat. Big Boi, "Kryptonite (I'm On It)"
5 - Jackson 5, "I Want You Back"
6 - Dem Franchize Boyz feat. Jermaine Dupri, Da Brat, and Bow Wow, "I Think They Like Me (remix)"
7 - Chamillionaire feat. Lil' Flip, "Turn It Up"
8 - Cassie, "Me & U" (in a perfect world it would've been the DJ Steve 1nder mash with the Cure's "Close To You" with the backbeat. ahhhhhhhhh.)
9
Tears Of A Shakeoff DJ AM's Mariah Carey/Smokey Robinson and the Miracles mash
10 - Franz Ferdinand, "Take Me Out"
11 - Three 6 Mafia feat. 8-Ball, MJG, and Young Buck, "Stay Fly"
12 - E-40 feat. Keak Da Sneak, "Tell Me When To Go"
13 - Bubba Sparxxx feat. Ying Yang Twins, "Ms. New Booty"
14 - Fall Out Boy, "Dance, Dance"
15 - Yung Joc, "It's Goin' Down"
16 - Sean Paul, "Temperature"
17 - The Outfield, "Your Love"
18 - Lighter Shade Of Brown, "Hey DJ"
19 - Kurupt feat. Snoop Dogg, Warren G, and Nate Dogg, "Ain't No Fun"
Feel free to burn it and try it on your own fun endeavors. I'm going to take a short break and hopefully can get another half hour's work in before I go out and fuel up.
I can do this.
Even now.
Just got to keep chopping.
Radio Free Chula
Before you say anything...I know.
DROPS:
"U & Dat" (11)
"Here It Goes Again" (12)
15. Fergalicious ¤ Fergie (debut)
14. London Bridge (Oh, Shit) ¤ Fergie (14)
13. Gone Daddy Gone ¤ Gnarls Barkley (7)
12. Nausea ¤ Beck (15)*
11. Show Me What You Got ¤ Jay-Z (13)*
10. Anna Molly ¤ Incubus (debut)
9. Hate (I Really Don't Like You) ¤ Plain White Ts (9)*
8. Crazy ¤ Gnarls Barkley (8)
7. Waiting On The World To Change ¤ John Mayer (10)*
6. SexyLove ¤ Ne-Yo (4)
5. Steady, As She Goes ¤ the Raconteurs (5)
4. Money Maker ¤ Ludacris feat. Pharrell (6)*
3. I Will Follow You Into The Dark ¤ Death Cab For Cutie (3)*
2. Tell Me Baby ¤ Red Hot Chili Peppers (2)
1. When You Were Young ¤ the Killers (1) [1m]
So Whatcha Want Beasties
DROPS:
"U & Dat" (11)
"Here It Goes Again" (12)
15. Fergalicious ¤ Fergie (debut)
14. London Bridge (Oh, Shit) ¤ Fergie (14)
13. Gone Daddy Gone ¤ Gnarls Barkley (7)
12. Nausea ¤ Beck (15)*
11. Show Me What You Got ¤ Jay-Z (13)*
10. Anna Molly ¤ Incubus (debut)
9. Hate (I Really Don't Like You) ¤ Plain White Ts (9)*
8. Crazy ¤ Gnarls Barkley (8)
7. Waiting On The World To Change ¤ John Mayer (10)*
6. SexyLove ¤ Ne-Yo (4)
5. Steady, As She Goes ¤ the Raconteurs (5)
4. Money Maker ¤ Ludacris feat. Pharrell (6)*
3. I Will Follow You Into The Dark ¤ Death Cab For Cutie (3)*
2. Tell Me Baby ¤ Red Hot Chili Peppers (2)
1. When You Were Young ¤ the Killers (1) [1m]
So Whatcha Want Beasties
11/8/06
11/6/06
Our Freedom Of Speech Is Freedom Or Death*
*= this post won't have the gravitas necessary to both my foreign fans.
And you should know how the rest of that lyric goes. KO?
We are, as every generation, inseparable from our own time.
Thus is our perspective, inevitably that of the explorer looking into the wrong end of the telescope.
But even accounting for our myopia, it’s hard to imagine there have been many elections more important than this one, certainly not in non-presidential years.
And so we look at the verdict in the trial of Saddam Hussein yesterday, and, with the very phrase “October, or November, Surprise” now a part of our vernacular, and the chest-thumping coming from so many of the Republican campaigners today, each of us must wonder about the convenience of the timing of his conviction and sentencing.
But let us give history and coincidence the benefit of the doubt—let’s say it’s just “happened” that way—and for a moment not look into the wrong end of the telescope.
Let’s perceive instead the bigger picture:
Saddam Hussein, found guilty in an Iraqi court.
Who can argue against that?
He is officially, what the world always knew he was: a war criminal.
Mr. Bush, was this imprimatur, worth the cost of 2,832 American lives, and thousands more American lives yet to be lost?
Is the conviction of Saddam Hussein the reason you went to war in Iraq?
Or did you go to war in Iraq because of the weapons of mass destruction that did not exist?
Or did you go to war in Iraq because of the connection between Iraq and al-Qaida that did not exist?
Or did you go to war in Iraq to break the bonds of tyranny there, while installing the mechanisms of tyranny here?
Or did you go to war in Iraq because you felt the need to wreak vengeance against somebody, anybody?
Or did you go to war in Iraq to contain a rogue state which, months earlier, your own administration had declared had been fully contained by sanctions?
Or did you go to war in Iraq to keep gas prices down?
How startling it was, sir, to hear you introduce oil to your stump speeches over the weekend.
Not four years removed from the most dismissive, the most condescending, the most ridiculing denials of the very hint at, as Mr. Rumsfeld put it, this “nonsense.”
There you were, campaigning in Colorado, in Nebraska, in Florida, in Kansas -- suddenly turning this ‘unpatriotic idea’ into a platform plank.
"You can imagine a world in which these extremists and radicals got control of energy resources," you told us. "And then you can imagine them saying, 'We're going to pull a bunch of oil off the market to run your price of oil up unless you do the following.'"
Having frightened us, having bullied us, having lied to us, having ignored and rewritten the Constitution under our noses, having stayed the course, having denied you’ve stayed the course, having belittled us about "timelines" but instead extolled "benchmarks," you’ve now resorted, sir, to this?
We must stay in Iraq to save the $2 gallon of gas?
Mr. President, there is no other conclusion we can draw as we go to the polls tomorrow.
Sir, you have been making this up as you went along.
This country was founded to prevent anybody from making it up as they went along.
Those vaunted Founding Fathers of ours have been so quoted up, that they appear as marble statues: like the chiseled guards of China, or the faces on Mount Rushmore. But in fact they were practical people and the thing they obviously feared most was a government of men and not laws.
They provided the checks and balances for a reason.
No one man could run the government the way he saw fit -- unless he, at the least, took into consideration what those he governed saw.
A House of Representatives would be the people's eyes.
A Senate would be the corrective force on that House.
An executive would do the work, and hold the Constitution to his chest like his child.
A Supreme Court would oversee it all.
Checks and balances.
Where did that go, Mr. Bush?
And what price did we pay because we have let it go?
Saddam Hussein will get out of Iraq the same way 2,832 Americans have and thousands more.
He’ll get out faster than we will.
And if nothing changes tomorrow, you, sir, will be out of the White House long before the rest of us can say we are out of Iraq.
And whose fault is this?
Not truly yours. You took advantage of those of us who were afraid, and those of us who believed unity and nation took precedence over all else.
But we let you take that advantage.
And so we let you go to war in Iraq to oust Saddam or find non-existant weapons or avenge 9/11 or fight terrorists who only got there after we did or as cover to change the fabric of our Constitution or for lower prices at The Texaco or…?
There are still a few hours left before the polls open, sir. There are many rationalizations still untried.
And whatever your motives of the moment, we the people have, in true good faith and with the genuine patriotism of self-sacrifice (of which you have shown you know nothing), we have let you go on making it up as you went along.
Unchecked and unbalanced.
Vote.
And you should know how the rest of that lyric goes. KO?
We are, as every generation, inseparable from our own time.
Thus is our perspective, inevitably that of the explorer looking into the wrong end of the telescope.
But even accounting for our myopia, it’s hard to imagine there have been many elections more important than this one, certainly not in non-presidential years.
And so we look at the verdict in the trial of Saddam Hussein yesterday, and, with the very phrase “October, or November, Surprise” now a part of our vernacular, and the chest-thumping coming from so many of the Republican campaigners today, each of us must wonder about the convenience of the timing of his conviction and sentencing.
But let us give history and coincidence the benefit of the doubt—let’s say it’s just “happened” that way—and for a moment not look into the wrong end of the telescope.
Let’s perceive instead the bigger picture:
Saddam Hussein, found guilty in an Iraqi court.
Who can argue against that?
He is officially, what the world always knew he was: a war criminal.
Mr. Bush, was this imprimatur, worth the cost of 2,832 American lives, and thousands more American lives yet to be lost?
Is the conviction of Saddam Hussein the reason you went to war in Iraq?
Or did you go to war in Iraq because of the weapons of mass destruction that did not exist?
Or did you go to war in Iraq because of the connection between Iraq and al-Qaida that did not exist?
Or did you go to war in Iraq to break the bonds of tyranny there, while installing the mechanisms of tyranny here?
Or did you go to war in Iraq because you felt the need to wreak vengeance against somebody, anybody?
Or did you go to war in Iraq to contain a rogue state which, months earlier, your own administration had declared had been fully contained by sanctions?
Or did you go to war in Iraq to keep gas prices down?
How startling it was, sir, to hear you introduce oil to your stump speeches over the weekend.
Not four years removed from the most dismissive, the most condescending, the most ridiculing denials of the very hint at, as Mr. Rumsfeld put it, this “nonsense.”
There you were, campaigning in Colorado, in Nebraska, in Florida, in Kansas -- suddenly turning this ‘unpatriotic idea’ into a platform plank.
"You can imagine a world in which these extremists and radicals got control of energy resources," you told us. "And then you can imagine them saying, 'We're going to pull a bunch of oil off the market to run your price of oil up unless you do the following.'"
Having frightened us, having bullied us, having lied to us, having ignored and rewritten the Constitution under our noses, having stayed the course, having denied you’ve stayed the course, having belittled us about "timelines" but instead extolled "benchmarks," you’ve now resorted, sir, to this?
We must stay in Iraq to save the $2 gallon of gas?
Mr. President, there is no other conclusion we can draw as we go to the polls tomorrow.
Sir, you have been making this up as you went along.
This country was founded to prevent anybody from making it up as they went along.
Those vaunted Founding Fathers of ours have been so quoted up, that they appear as marble statues: like the chiseled guards of China, or the faces on Mount Rushmore. But in fact they were practical people and the thing they obviously feared most was a government of men and not laws.
They provided the checks and balances for a reason.
No one man could run the government the way he saw fit -- unless he, at the least, took into consideration what those he governed saw.
A House of Representatives would be the people's eyes.
A Senate would be the corrective force on that House.
An executive would do the work, and hold the Constitution to his chest like his child.
A Supreme Court would oversee it all.
Checks and balances.
Where did that go, Mr. Bush?
And what price did we pay because we have let it go?
Saddam Hussein will get out of Iraq the same way 2,832 Americans have and thousands more.
He’ll get out faster than we will.
And if nothing changes tomorrow, you, sir, will be out of the White House long before the rest of us can say we are out of Iraq.
And whose fault is this?
Not truly yours. You took advantage of those of us who were afraid, and those of us who believed unity and nation took precedence over all else.
But we let you take that advantage.
And so we let you go to war in Iraq to oust Saddam or find non-existant weapons or avenge 9/11 or fight terrorists who only got there after we did or as cover to change the fabric of our Constitution or for lower prices at The Texaco or…?
There are still a few hours left before the polls open, sir. There are many rationalizations still untried.
And whatever your motives of the moment, we the people have, in true good faith and with the genuine patriotism of self-sacrifice (of which you have shown you know nothing), we have let you go on making it up as you went along.
Unchecked and unbalanced.
Vote.
11/4/06
10%!
I figured this year every 5,000 words I would reward myself with a post about the novel and how it's going. One, because I figure talking about it will keep me doing it (barring horrible illness again). Two, because I know some of you are wondering how a normal person is trying to do a 50k novel in the course of a month as opposed to Crazy Aussie Man who last I heard is rocking himself to sleep muttering "semi-colon, semi-colon, semi-colon". And three, because I can't live on writing the novel alone; I need to break it up.
First of all, the decision to leave the house today and go to a community computer was awesome. No brother pouting, no mother yelling, just me and the taunting cursor. Better yet, no waiting for 2 a.m. for the quiet, or trying to steal it in 110-word bursts in the middle of the day wondering when the other shoe is going to drop and the real world unfocuses me. I unfocus myself enough, thanks--don't need help on the arms of outside services.
Second, the goal is 1,750 a day. It's a little bit better than average with the idea that that little bit better over the course of a month is to get me done a day or two early (a good idea seeing Thanksgiving is around the corner--where did the year go? OH. Right.). So far I am batting 66%, which will be up to 75% by the time I get done today.
Third, I wrote the opening stuff. I'm pretty sure how I am going to end it, and know of at least 4--maybe 6?--semi-major to major events I want to happen in the creamy middle. The rest? We leave that up to the ether and what comes out of it.
This year's novel is actually one of those fun "inspired by real life events" that I didn't know I was going to do until the day before Labor Day. It's a simple story of a DJ. Who happens to be rich. And white. And a girl. I threw in a black adopted younger brother, his girlfriend who goes from struggling actress to supernova, a best friend coming back from her dad's suicide after his Golden Boy status at a network went from Midas to DeLorean (those parts inspired by the five-star Desperate Networks, which is probably going to end up my Book of the Year by Bill Carter), and a couple of ancillary characters who are surprisingly making good cases to stick around more than I had booked them into being. Presto. This is drawing from some of last year's failed attempt, but Brittany Cattroli is her own girl and this is her own story. Matter of fact, she's beginning to come up with stuff on her own. I hope it continues.
If you guys have any questions, I'll try to answer them in the comments or send you messages. See ya when I see ya--right now I got a cute girl who's got a Rakim itch she needs to scratch.
(Scratch! DJ! I slay me.)
P.S.: This Is A Journey Into Sound. Spin Spin Sugar. Possible titles. Thumbs up or thumbs down?
Black Tambourine Beck
First of all, the decision to leave the house today and go to a community computer was awesome. No brother pouting, no mother yelling, just me and the taunting cursor. Better yet, no waiting for 2 a.m. for the quiet, or trying to steal it in 110-word bursts in the middle of the day wondering when the other shoe is going to drop and the real world unfocuses me. I unfocus myself enough, thanks--don't need help on the arms of outside services.
Second, the goal is 1,750 a day. It's a little bit better than average with the idea that that little bit better over the course of a month is to get me done a day or two early (a good idea seeing Thanksgiving is around the corner--where did the year go? OH. Right.). So far I am batting 66%, which will be up to 75% by the time I get done today.
Third, I wrote the opening stuff. I'm pretty sure how I am going to end it, and know of at least 4--maybe 6?--semi-major to major events I want to happen in the creamy middle. The rest? We leave that up to the ether and what comes out of it.
This year's novel is actually one of those fun "inspired by real life events" that I didn't know I was going to do until the day before Labor Day. It's a simple story of a DJ. Who happens to be rich. And white. And a girl. I threw in a black adopted younger brother, his girlfriend who goes from struggling actress to supernova, a best friend coming back from her dad's suicide after his Golden Boy status at a network went from Midas to DeLorean (those parts inspired by the five-star Desperate Networks, which is probably going to end up my Book of the Year by Bill Carter), and a couple of ancillary characters who are surprisingly making good cases to stick around more than I had booked them into being. Presto. This is drawing from some of last year's failed attempt, but Brittany Cattroli is her own girl and this is her own story. Matter of fact, she's beginning to come up with stuff on her own. I hope it continues.
If you guys have any questions, I'll try to answer them in the comments or send you messages. See ya when I see ya--right now I got a cute girl who's got a Rakim itch she needs to scratch.
(Scratch! DJ! I slay me.)
P.S.: This Is A Journey Into Sound. Spin Spin Sugar. Possible titles. Thumbs up or thumbs down?
Black Tambourine Beck
Throwing Muses (Out There)
AWWW:
Brooke Burke, 19 -- Mariah Carey, 26 -- Keira Knightley, 33 --
Lacey Chabert, 37 -- Carmen Electra, 39
(40) Anna Kournikova (re)
(39) Kristin Cavallari (d)
(38) Kelly Clarkson (d)
(37) Petra Nemcova (36)
(36) Elizabeth Hurley (25)
(35) Kelly Hu (40)
(34) Jessica Simpson (re)
(33) Michelle Trachtenberg (re)
(32) Jamie Pressly (32)
(31) Vanessa Minillo (31)
(30) Sofia Vergara (21)
(29) Adriana Lima (38)
(28) Esther Baxter (34)
(27) Mayra Veronica (27)
(26) Vida Guerra (23)
(25) Eva Mendes (35*)
(24) Summer Altice (30)
(23) C.J. Gibson (24*)
(22) Charisma Carpenter (18)
(21) Beyonce (17)
(20) Monica Bellucci (28*)
(19) Shakira (12)
(18) Halle Berry (20)
(17) Sarah Shahi (29*)
(16) Kim Smith (22)
(15) Raquel Gibson (14)
(14) Katherine Heigl (13)
(13) Jennifer Walcott (10)
(12) Kate Beckinsale (6)
(11) Jennifer Love Hewitt (9)
(10) Kristen Bell (8)
(9) Stacy Keibler (11)
(8) Scarlett Johannson (16*)
(7) Marisa Miller (15*)
(6) Trish Stratus (4)
(5) Salma Hayek (7)
(4) Eva Longoria (3)
(3) Angelina Jolie (5)
(2) Jessica Biel (2)
(1) Jessica Alba (1)
No Sensitivity Jimmy Eat World
Brooke Burke, 19 -- Mariah Carey, 26 -- Keira Knightley, 33 --
Lacey Chabert, 37 -- Carmen Electra, 39
(40) Anna Kournikova (re)
(39) Kristin Cavallari (d)
(38) Kelly Clarkson (d)
(37) Petra Nemcova (36)
(36) Elizabeth Hurley (25)
(35) Kelly Hu (40)
(34) Jessica Simpson (re)
(33) Michelle Trachtenberg (re)
(32) Jamie Pressly (32)
(31) Vanessa Minillo (31)
(30) Sofia Vergara (21)
(29) Adriana Lima (38)
(28) Esther Baxter (34)
(27) Mayra Veronica (27)
(26) Vida Guerra (23)
(25) Eva Mendes (35*)
(24) Summer Altice (30)
(23) C.J. Gibson (24*)
(22) Charisma Carpenter (18)
(21) Beyonce (17)
(20) Monica Bellucci (28*)
(19) Shakira (12)
(18) Halle Berry (20)
(17) Sarah Shahi (29*)
(16) Kim Smith (22)
(15) Raquel Gibson (14)
(14) Katherine Heigl (13)
(13) Jennifer Walcott (10)
(12) Kate Beckinsale (6)
(11) Jennifer Love Hewitt (9)
(10) Kristen Bell (8)
(9) Stacy Keibler (11)
(8) Scarlett Johannson (16*)
(7) Marisa Miller (15*)
(6) Trish Stratus (4)
(5) Salma Hayek (7)
(4) Eva Longoria (3)
(3) Angelina Jolie (5)
(2) Jessica Biel (2)
(1) Jessica Alba (1)
No Sensitivity Jimmy Eat World
10/30/06
Marathon Man
In one three-hour session at Full Tilt Poker, I amassed $50,075 off one $1,000 buy-in.
1) Imagine if I hadn't lost the last hand.
2) If only that was real money.
Bed. Now.
The Man Who Sold The World Nirvana unplugged covering David Bowie
1) Imagine if I hadn't lost the last hand.
2) If only that was real money.
Bed. Now.
The Man Who Sold The World Nirvana unplugged covering David Bowie
10/28/06
Radio Free Chula
DROPS:
"Promiscuous" (11)
"White Gurl" (15)
15. Nausea ¤ Beck (14)
14. London Bridge (Oh, Shit) ¤ Fergie (12)
13. Show Me What You Got ¤ Jay-Z (debut)
12. Here It Goes Again ¤ OK Go (10)
11. U & Dat ¤ E-40 feat. T-Pain (9)
10. Waiting On The World To Change ¤ John Mayer (13)*
9. Hate (I Really Don't Like You) ¤ Plain White Ts (debut)
8. Crazy ¤ Gnarls Barkley (5)
7. Gone Daddy Gone ¤ Gnarls Barkley (7)*
6. Money Maker ¤ Ludacris feat. Pharrell (8)*
5. Steady, As She Goes ¤ the Raconteurs (2)
4. SexyLove ¤ Ne-Yo (3)
3. I Will Follow You Into The Dark ¤ Death Cab For Cutie (6)*
2. Tell Me Baby ¤ Red Hot Chili Peppers (1)
1. When You Were Young ¤ the Killers (4) [2w]
"Promiscuous" (11)
"White Gurl" (15)
15. Nausea ¤ Beck (14)
14. London Bridge (Oh, Shit) ¤ Fergie (12)
13. Show Me What You Got ¤ Jay-Z (debut)
12. Here It Goes Again ¤ OK Go (10)
11. U & Dat ¤ E-40 feat. T-Pain (9)
10. Waiting On The World To Change ¤ John Mayer (13)*
9. Hate (I Really Don't Like You) ¤ Plain White Ts (debut)
8. Crazy ¤ Gnarls Barkley (5)
7. Gone Daddy Gone ¤ Gnarls Barkley (7)*
6. Money Maker ¤ Ludacris feat. Pharrell (8)*
5. Steady, As She Goes ¤ the Raconteurs (2)
4. SexyLove ¤ Ne-Yo (3)
3. I Will Follow You Into The Dark ¤ Death Cab For Cutie (6)*
2. Tell Me Baby ¤ Red Hot Chili Peppers (1)
1. When You Were Young ¤ the Killers (4) [2w]
10/23/06
Keith vs. the Terrorists (6: A Commercial Flop)
Tonight, a special comment on the advertising of terrorism – the commercial you have already seen.
It is a distillation of everything this administration and the party in power have tried to do these last five years and six weeks.
It is from the Republican National Committee;
It shows images of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri;
It offers quotes from them—all as a clock ticks ominously in the background.
It concludes with what Zawahiri may or may not have said to a Pakistani journalist as long ago as 2001: His dubious claim that he had purchased “suitcase bombs.”
The quotation is followed (by sheer coincidence no doubt) by an image of a massive explosion.
“These are the stakes,” appears on the screen, quoting exactly from Lyndon Johnson’s infamous nuclear scare commercial from 1964.
“Vote—November 7th.”
There is a cheap “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” quality to the whole thing, and it also serves to immediately call to mind the occasions when President Bush dismissed Osama bin Laden as somebody he didn’t think about—except, obviously, when elections were near.
Frankly, a lot of people seeing that commercial for the first time, have laughed out loud.
But—not everyone.
And therein lies the true threat to this country.
The dictionary definition of the word “terrorize” is simple and not open to misinterpretation:
“To fill or overpower with terror; terrify. To coerce by intimidation or fear.”
Note please, that the words “violence” and “death” are missing from that definition.
The key to terror, the key to terrorism, is not the act—but the fear of the act.
That is why bin Laden and his deputies and his imitators are forever putting together videotaped statements and releasing virtual infomercials with dire threats and heart-stopping warnings.
But why is the Republican Party imitating them?
Bin Laden puts out what amounts to a commercial of fear; The Republicans put out what is unmistakable as a commercial of fear.
The Republicans are paying to have the messages of bin Laden and the others broadcast into your home.
Only the Republicans have a bigger bank roll.
When, last week, the CNN network ran video of an insurgent in Iraq, evidently stalking and killing an American soldier, the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Mr. Hunter, Republican of California, branded that channel, quote, “the publicist for an enemy propaganda film” and that CNN used it “to sell commercials.”
Another California Republican, Rep. Brian Bilbray, called the video “nothing short of a terrorist snuff film.”
If so, Mr. Bilbray, then what in the hell is your Party’s new advertisement?
And Mr. Hunter, CNN using the video to “sell commercials”?
Commercials!
You have adopted bin Laden and Zawahiri as spokesmen for the Republican National Committee!
“To fill or overpower with terror; terrify. To coerce by intimidation or fear.”
By this definition, the people who put these videos together—first the terrorists and then the administration—whose shared goal is to scare you into panicking instead of thinking—they are the ones terrorizing you.
By this definition, the leading terrorist group in this world right now is al Qaida.
But the leading terrorist group in this country right now is the Republican Party.
Eleven Presidents ago, a chief executive reassured us that “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
His distant successor has wasted his administration insisting that there is nothing we can have but fear itself.
The vice president, as recently as this month, was caught campaigning with the phrase “mass death in the United States.”
Four years ago it was the now-Secretary of State, Dr. Rice, rationalizing Iraq with “we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
Days later Mr. Bush himself told an audience that “we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun, that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”
And now we have this cheesy commercial—complete with images of a faked mushroom cloud, and implications of “mass death in America.”
This administration has derived benefit and power from terrorizing the very people it claims to be protecting from terror.
It may be the oldest trick in the political book: scare people into believing they are in danger and that only you can save them.
Lyndon Johnson used it to bury Barry Goldwater.
Joe McCarthy leaped from obscurity on its back.
And now the legacy has come to President George Bush.
Of course, the gruel of fear is getting thinner and thinner, is it not, Mr. President?
And thus more and more of it needs to be made out of less and less actual terror.
After last week’s embarrassing Internet hoax about ‘dirty bombs’ at football stadiums, the one your Department of Homeland Security immediately disseminated to the public, a self-described “former CIA operative” named Wayne Simmons, cited the fiasco as “the, and I mean the, perfect example of the President’s Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the NSA terrorist eavesdropping program - how vital they are.”
Frank Gaffney, once a respected assistant secretary of defense and now the president of something called the Center for Security Policy, added, “one of the things that I hope Americans take away from this, is not only that they’re gunning for us not just in a place like Iraq—but truly, worldwide.”
Of course, the “they” to which Mr. Gaffney referred, turned out to be a lone 20-year-old grocery bagger from Wisconsin named Jake—a kid, trying to one-up some other loser in an Internet game of chicken.
His “threat,” referenced seven football stadiums at which dirty bombs were to be exploded yesterday. It began with the one in New York City - even though there isn’t one in New York City. And though the attacks were supposed to be simultaneous, four of the games were scheduled to start at 1 p.m. ET and the others at 4 p.m. ET.
More over, the kid said he’d posted the identical message on 40 websites since September.
We caught him in “merely” about six weeks, even though the only way he could have been less subtle, less stealthy, and less of a threat was if he’d bought an advertisement on the Super Bowl broadcast.
Mr. Bush, this is the—what? – 100th plot your people have revealed, that turned out to be some nonsensical misunderstanding, or the fabrications of somebody hoping to talk his way off a water board in Eastern Europe?
If, Mr. President, this is the kind of crack work that your new ad implies that only you and not the Democrats can do, you, sir, need to pull over and ask for directions.
The real question of course, Mr. Bush, is why did your Department of Homeland Security even release this information in the first place?
It was never a serious threat. Even the first news accounts quoted a Homeland spokesman as admitting “strong skepticism”—the kind of strong skepticism which most government agencies address before telling the public, not afterwards.
So that leaves two options, Mr. President.
The first option: you and your department of Homeland Security don’t have the slightest idea what you’re doing. Thus, contrary to your flip-flopping between saying “we’re safe” and saying “but we’re not safe enough,” and contrary to the vice president’s swaggering pronouncements about the lack of another attack since 9/11, the last five years has been just an accident.
Or there’s the second option: your political operatives leaked this nonsense for the same reason your political operatives put out that commercial—to scare the gullible.
Obviously the correct answer, Mr. Bush, is all of the above.
There are some of us who could forgive you for trying to run your candidates on the coattails of the Grim Reaper, for reducing your party’s existence to “Death and Attacks Us.”
It’s cynical and barbaric.
But, after all, it may be merely the natural extension of the gutter politics to which you have subscribed since you sidled over from baseball, and the business world of other people’s money.
But to forgive you for terrorizing us, we would have to believe you somehow competent in keeping others from doing so.
Yet, last week, construction workers repairing a subway line in New York City, were cleaning out an abandoned manhole on the edge of the World Trade Center site, when they stumbled on to the impossible: human remains from 9/11.
Bones and fragments.
Eighty of them.
Some as much as a foot long.
The victims had been lying, literally in the gutter, for five years and five weeks.
The families and friends of each of the 2,749 dead—who had been grimly told in May of 2002 that there were no more remains to be found—were struck anew as if the terrorism of that day had just happened again.
And over the weekend they’ve found still more remains.
And now this week will be spent looking in places that should have already been looked at a thousand times five years ago.
For all the victims in New York, Mr. Bush—the living and the dead—it’s a touch of 9/11 all over again.
And the mayor of this city, who called off the search four-and-a-half years ago is a Republican.
The governor of this state with whom he conferred is a Republican.
The House of Representatives, Republican.
The Senate, Republican.
The President, Republican.
And yet you can actually claim that you and you alone can protect us from terrorism?
You can’t even recover our dead from the battlefield—the battlefield in an American city—when we’ve given you five years and unlimited funds to do so!
While signing a Military Commissions Act so monstrous that it has been criticized by even the John Birch Society, you told us, Mr. Bush, “there is nothing we can do to bring back the men and women lost on September 11th, 2001. Yet we’ll always honor their memory, and we will never forget the way they were taken from us.”
Except, of course, for the ones who’ve been lying under a manhole cover for five years.
Setting aside the fact that your government has done nothing else for those five years but pat yourselves on the back about terror, while waging pointless war on the wrong enemy in Iraq, and waging war on the cherished freedoms in America;
Just on this subject of counter-terrorism, sir, yours is the least competent government, in time of crisis, in this country’s history!
“These are the stakes,” indeed, Mr. President.
You do not know what you are doing.
And the commercial—the one about which Zawahiri might say “hey, pretty good—we love your choice of font style”?
All that need further be said is to add three words to Shakespeare.
Mr. President, you, and that advertisement of terror, are full of sound and fury—signifying (and competent at) nothing.
10/19/06
Keith vs. the Washington World (5: The Blank Check)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXuQw1j6JzA
We have lived as if in a trance.
We have lived as people in fear.
And now—our rights and our freedoms in peril—we slowly awaken to learn that we have been afraid of the wrong thing.
Therefore, tonight have we truly become the inheritors of our American legacy.
For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:
A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.
We have been here before—and we have been here before, led here by men better and wiser and nobler than George W. Bush.
We have been here when President John Adams insisted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use those acts to jail newspaper editors.
American newspaper editors, in American jails, for things they wrote about America.
We have been here when President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as “Hyphenated Americans,” most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.
American public speakers, in American jails, for things they said about America.
We have been here when President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as “Hyphenated Americans,” most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.
American public speakers, in American jails, for things they said about America.
And we have been here when President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that Executive Order 9066 was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that order to imprison and pauperize 110,000 Americans while his man in charge, General DeWitt, told Congress: “It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen—he is still a Japanese.”
American citizens, in American camps, for something they neither wrote nor said nor did, but for the choices they or their ancestors had made about coming to America.
Each of these actions was undertaken for the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.
And each was a betrayal of that for which the president who advocated them claimed to be fighting.
Adams and his party were swept from office, and the Alien and Sedition Acts erased.
Many of the very people Wilson silenced survived him, and one of them even ran to succeed him, and got 900,000 votes, though his presidential campaign was conducted entirely from his jail cell.
And Roosevelt’s internment of the Japanese was not merely the worst blight on his record, but it would necessitate a formal apology from the government of the United States to the citizens of the United States whose lives it ruined.
The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.
In times of fright, we have been only human.
We have let Roosevelt’s “fear of fear itself” overtake us.
We have listened to the little voice inside that has said, “the wolf is at the door; this will be temporary; this will be precise; this too shall pass.”
We have accepted that the only way to stop the terrorists is to let the government become just a little bit like the terrorists.
Just the way we once accepted that the only way to stop the Soviets was to let the government become just a little bit like the Soviets.
Or substitute the Japanese.
Or the Germans.
Or the Socialists.
Or the Anarchists.
Or the Immigrants.
Or the British.
Or the Aliens.
The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.
And, always, always wrong.
“With the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?”
Wise words.
And ironic ones, Mr. Bush.
Your own, of course, yesterday, in signing the Military Commissions Act.
You spoke so much more than you know, Sir.
Sadly—of course—the distance of history will recognize that the threat this generation of Americans needed to take seriously was you.
We have a long and painful history of ignoring the prophecy attributed to Benjamin Franklin that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
But even within this history we have not before codified the poisoning of habeas corpus, that wellspring of protection from which all essential liberties flow.
You, sir, have now befouled that spring.
You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order.
You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom.
For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.
And — again, Mr. Bush — all of them, wrong.
We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done to anything the terrorists have ever done.
We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has insisted again that “the United States does not torture. It’s against our laws and it’s against our values” and who has said it with a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.
We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens “unlawful enemy combatants” and ship them somewhere—anywhere -- but may now, if he so decides, declare you an “unlawful enemy combatant” and ship you somewhere - anywhere.
And if you think this hyperbole or hysteria, ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was president or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was president or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was president.
And if you somehow think habeas corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an “unlawful enemy combatant”—exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this attorney general is going to help you?
This President now has his blank check.
He lied to get it.
He lied as he received it.
Is there any reason to even hope he has not lied about how he intends to use it nor who he intends to use it against?
“These military commissions will provide a fair trial,” you told us yesterday, Mr. Bush, “in which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney and can hear all the evidence against them.”
"Presumed innocent," Mr. Bush?
The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain “serious mental and physical trauma” in the hope of getting them to incriminate themselves, and may no longer even invoke The Geneva Conventions in their own defense.
"Access to an attorney," Mr. Bush?
Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and to the Supreme Court, that he was only granted access to his detainee defendant on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.
"Hearing all the evidence," Mr. Bush?
The Military Commissions Act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.
Your words are lies, Sir.
They are lies that imperil us all.
“One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks,” you told us yesterday, “said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America.”
That terrorist, sir, could only hope.
Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.
Habeas corpus? Gone.
The Geneva Conventions? Optional.
The moral force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.
These things you have done, Mr. Bush, they would be “the beginning of the end of America.”
And did it even occur to you once, sir — somewhere in amidst those eight separate, gruesome, intentional, terroristic invocations of the horrors of 9/11 -- that with only a little further shift in this world we now know—just a touch more repudiation of all of that for which our patriots died --- did it ever occur to you once that in just 27 months and two days from now when you leave office, some irresponsible future president and a “competent tribunal” of lackeys would be entitled, by the actions of your own hand, to declare the status of “unlawful enemy combatant” for -- and convene a Military Commission to try -- not John Walker Lindh, but George Walker Bush?
For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.
And doubtless, Sir, all of them—as always—wrong.
We have lived as if in a trance.
We have lived as people in fear.
And now—our rights and our freedoms in peril—we slowly awaken to learn that we have been afraid of the wrong thing.
Therefore, tonight have we truly become the inheritors of our American legacy.
For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:
A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.
We have been here before—and we have been here before, led here by men better and wiser and nobler than George W. Bush.
We have been here when President John Adams insisted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use those acts to jail newspaper editors.
American newspaper editors, in American jails, for things they wrote about America.
We have been here when President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as “Hyphenated Americans,” most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.
American public speakers, in American jails, for things they said about America.
We have been here when President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as “Hyphenated Americans,” most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.
American public speakers, in American jails, for things they said about America.
And we have been here when President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that Executive Order 9066 was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that order to imprison and pauperize 110,000 Americans while his man in charge, General DeWitt, told Congress: “It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen—he is still a Japanese.”
American citizens, in American camps, for something they neither wrote nor said nor did, but for the choices they or their ancestors had made about coming to America.
Each of these actions was undertaken for the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.
And each was a betrayal of that for which the president who advocated them claimed to be fighting.
Adams and his party were swept from office, and the Alien and Sedition Acts erased.
Many of the very people Wilson silenced survived him, and one of them even ran to succeed him, and got 900,000 votes, though his presidential campaign was conducted entirely from his jail cell.
And Roosevelt’s internment of the Japanese was not merely the worst blight on his record, but it would necessitate a formal apology from the government of the United States to the citizens of the United States whose lives it ruined.
The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.
In times of fright, we have been only human.
We have let Roosevelt’s “fear of fear itself” overtake us.
We have listened to the little voice inside that has said, “the wolf is at the door; this will be temporary; this will be precise; this too shall pass.”
We have accepted that the only way to stop the terrorists is to let the government become just a little bit like the terrorists.
Just the way we once accepted that the only way to stop the Soviets was to let the government become just a little bit like the Soviets.
Or substitute the Japanese.
Or the Germans.
Or the Socialists.
Or the Anarchists.
Or the Immigrants.
Or the British.
Or the Aliens.
The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.
And, always, always wrong.
“With the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?”
Wise words.
And ironic ones, Mr. Bush.
Your own, of course, yesterday, in signing the Military Commissions Act.
You spoke so much more than you know, Sir.
Sadly—of course—the distance of history will recognize that the threat this generation of Americans needed to take seriously was you.
We have a long and painful history of ignoring the prophecy attributed to Benjamin Franklin that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
But even within this history we have not before codified the poisoning of habeas corpus, that wellspring of protection from which all essential liberties flow.
You, sir, have now befouled that spring.
You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order.
You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom.
For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.
And — again, Mr. Bush — all of them, wrong.
We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done to anything the terrorists have ever done.
We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has insisted again that “the United States does not torture. It’s against our laws and it’s against our values” and who has said it with a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.
We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens “unlawful enemy combatants” and ship them somewhere—anywhere -- but may now, if he so decides, declare you an “unlawful enemy combatant” and ship you somewhere - anywhere.
And if you think this hyperbole or hysteria, ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was president or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was president or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was president.
And if you somehow think habeas corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an “unlawful enemy combatant”—exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this attorney general is going to help you?
This President now has his blank check.
He lied to get it.
He lied as he received it.
Is there any reason to even hope he has not lied about how he intends to use it nor who he intends to use it against?
“These military commissions will provide a fair trial,” you told us yesterday, Mr. Bush, “in which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney and can hear all the evidence against them.”
"Presumed innocent," Mr. Bush?
The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain “serious mental and physical trauma” in the hope of getting them to incriminate themselves, and may no longer even invoke The Geneva Conventions in their own defense.
"Access to an attorney," Mr. Bush?
Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and to the Supreme Court, that he was only granted access to his detainee defendant on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.
"Hearing all the evidence," Mr. Bush?
The Military Commissions Act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.
Your words are lies, Sir.
They are lies that imperil us all.
“One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks,” you told us yesterday, “said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America.”
That terrorist, sir, could only hope.
Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.
Habeas corpus? Gone.
The Geneva Conventions? Optional.
The moral force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.
These things you have done, Mr. Bush, they would be “the beginning of the end of America.”
And did it even occur to you once, sir — somewhere in amidst those eight separate, gruesome, intentional, terroristic invocations of the horrors of 9/11 -- that with only a little further shift in this world we now know—just a touch more repudiation of all of that for which our patriots died --- did it ever occur to you once that in just 27 months and two days from now when you leave office, some irresponsible future president and a “competent tribunal” of lackeys would be entitled, by the actions of your own hand, to declare the status of “unlawful enemy combatant” for -- and convene a Military Commission to try -- not John Walker Lindh, but George Walker Bush?
For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.
And doubtless, Sir, all of them—as always—wrong.
10/14/06
Radio Free Chula
Nice, huh?
DROPS:
"Idlewild Blue (Don't 'Chu Worry 'Bout Me)", 7
"Work It Out", 13
15. White Gurl ¤ E-40 feat. Juelz Santana & Bun B (14)
14. Nausea ¤ Beck (debut)
13. Waiting On The World To Change ¤ John Mayer (debut)
12. London Bridge (Oh, Shit) ¤ Fergie (15)*
11. Promiscuous ¤ Nelly Furtado f/Timbaland (8)
10. Here It Goes Again ¤ OK Go (12)
9. U & Dat ¤ E-40 & T-Pain (6)
8. Money Maker ¤ Ludacris f/Pharrell (10)*
7. Gone Daddy Gone ¤ Gnarls Barkley (11)*
6. I Will Follow You Into The Dark ¤ Death Cab For Cutie (9)*
5. Crazy ¤ Gnarls Barkley (3)
4. When You Were Young ¤ the Killers (5)*
3. SexyLove ¤ NeYo (2)
2. Steady, As She Goes ¤ the Raconteurs (1)
1. Tell Me Baby ¤ Red Hot Chili Peppers (4) [2w]
Right Place, Wrong Time John Spencer Blues Explosion
DROPS:
"Idlewild Blue (Don't 'Chu Worry 'Bout Me)", 7
"Work It Out", 13
15. White Gurl ¤ E-40 feat. Juelz Santana & Bun B (14)
14. Nausea ¤ Beck (debut)
13. Waiting On The World To Change ¤ John Mayer (debut)
12. London Bridge (Oh, Shit) ¤ Fergie (15)*
11. Promiscuous ¤ Nelly Furtado f/Timbaland (8)
10. Here It Goes Again ¤ OK Go (12)
9. U & Dat ¤ E-40 & T-Pain (6)
8. Money Maker ¤ Ludacris f/Pharrell (10)*
7. Gone Daddy Gone ¤ Gnarls Barkley (11)*
6. I Will Follow You Into The Dark ¤ Death Cab For Cutie (9)*
5. Crazy ¤ Gnarls Barkley (3)
4. When You Were Young ¤ the Killers (5)*
3. SexyLove ¤ NeYo (2)
2. Steady, As She Goes ¤ the Raconteurs (1)
1. Tell Me Baby ¤ Red Hot Chili Peppers (4) [2w]
Right Place, Wrong Time John Spencer Blues Explosion
10/12/06
10/7/06
Are You FEELING IT, Evel!? Is That A Yes?!?!?
You know what's awesome about today?
Padres win.
Dodgers lose.
Yankees die die die die die die die die die DIE.
And, of course, the Scarlett Johannsson on top of the sundae on top of Jessica Alba that is the day, the new computer tower courtesy of Mr. Daniel Womack. It's only a couple years old, but I feel firmly enconsed in the 21st century now. Like the reverse of a freakshow in the circus.
BEHOLD! The CD-rom that actually works smoothly!
FEAST YOUR EYES! On the DVD drive! Yes, computers have DVD drives!
MARVEL! At the depth of your AIM emoticons!
GAZE IF YOU DARE! At flash drives! You don't have to stare blankly, son, we'll explain how they suck the few good components from old Betsy and put them in a computer worth a damn!
DROOL IN AWE! As your computer actually runs security checks non-stop without you having to download anything and you don't have to reset the thing every 25 minutes!
WEEP WITH AMAZEMENT! There's this thing called iTunes!
Somehow actually playing mp3s again became tertiary somehow. And about 4 million things I didn't find in the first couple hours. It's Morning Again Here In America.
Go Tigers.
Go Yankees.
...to the GOLF COURSE!
Tribute Tenacious D
Padres win.
Dodgers lose.
Yankees die die die die die die die die die DIE.
And, of course, the Scarlett Johannsson on top of the sundae on top of Jessica Alba that is the day, the new computer tower courtesy of Mr. Daniel Womack. It's only a couple years old, but I feel firmly enconsed in the 21st century now. Like the reverse of a freakshow in the circus.
BEHOLD! The CD-rom that actually works smoothly!
FEAST YOUR EYES! On the DVD drive! Yes, computers have DVD drives!
MARVEL! At the depth of your AIM emoticons!
GAZE IF YOU DARE! At flash drives! You don't have to stare blankly, son, we'll explain how they suck the few good components from old Betsy and put them in a computer worth a damn!
DROOL IN AWE! As your computer actually runs security checks non-stop without you having to download anything and you don't have to reset the thing every 25 minutes!
WEEP WITH AMAZEMENT! There's this thing called iTunes!
Somehow actually playing mp3s again became tertiary somehow. And about 4 million things I didn't find in the first couple hours. It's Morning Again Here In America.
Go Tigers.
Go Yankees.
...to the GOLF COURSE!
Tribute Tenacious D
9/30/06
KWBR
- I want to name this something different; I just havent' figured out what yet.
- Hard at work compiling the top 25 of '06 list. As of this mostly completed list, long-time followers could probably guess the top 2 songs. No one is in the top 25 twice, though, as of right now.
- Industry Rule #4,080: no local terrestrial radio is playing "Idlewild Blue", John Mayer's "Waiting On the World To Change", or Regina Spektor's "Fidelity". Criminal, especially the latter. It breaks my hea ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah artttttt...but enough sidebar banter.
DROPS:
"Deja Vu", 9..."Original Fire", 14...."It's Goin' Down", 15
15. London Bridge (Oh, Shit) ¤ Fergie (debut)
14. White Gurl ¤ E-40 feat. Juelz Santana & Bun B (debut)
13. Work It Out ¤ Jurassic 5 feat. Dave Matthews (12)
12. Here It Goes Again ¤ OK Go (10)
11. Gone Daddy Gone ¤ Gnarls Barkley (11)
10. Money Maker ¤ Ludacris feat. Pharrell (debut)
9. I Will Follow You Into The Dark ¤ Death Cab For Cutie (13)*
8. Promiscuous ¤ Nelly Furtado feat. Timbaland (5)
7. Idlewild Blue (Don't 'Chu Worry 'Bout Me) ¤ Andre 3000 (4)
6. U & Dat ¤ E-40 feat. T-Pain (8)*
5. When You Were Young ¤ the Killers (7)*
4. Tell Me Baby ¤ Red Hot Chili Peppers (6)*
3. Crazy ¤ Gnarls Barkley (1)
2. SexyLove ¤ NeYo (2)*
1. Steady, As She Goes ¤ the Raconteurs (3) [2w]
Behind These Immigrant Eyes DJ Aggro's Kelly Clarkson/Led Zeppelin mash
9/27/06
This Is Keith's Olbermann's Latest Middle Finger. This Is Me Trying To Make It Viral.
The headlines about them are, of course, entirely wrong.
It is not essential that a past president, bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster, finally lashed back.
It is not important that the current President’s portable public chorus has described his predecessor’s tone as “crazed.”
Our tone should be crazed. The nation’s freedoms are under assault by an administration whose policies can do us as much damage as al Qaida; the nation’s marketplace of ideas is being poisoned by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would’ve quit.
Nonetheless. The headline is this: Bill Clinton did what almost none of us have done in five years.
He has spoken the truth about 9/11, and the current presidential administration.
"At least I tried," he said of his own efforts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. "That’s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They had eight months to try; they did not try. I tried."
Thus in his supposed emeritus years has Mr. Clinton taken forceful and triumphant action for honesty, and for us; action as vital and as courageous as any of his presidency; action as startling and as liberating, as any, by any one, in these last five long years.
The Bush Administration did not try to get Osama bin Laden before 9/11.
The Bush Administration ignored all the evidence gathered by its predecessors.
The Bush Administration did not understand the Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S."
The Bush Administration did not try.
Moreover, for the last five years one month and two weeks, the current administration, and in particular the President, has been given the greatest “pass” for incompetence and malfeasance in American history!
President Roosevelt was rightly blamed for ignoring the warning signs—some of them, 17 years old—before Pearl Harbor.
President Hoover was correctly blamed for—if not the Great Depression itself—then the disastrous economic steps he took in the immediate aftermath of the Stock Market Crash.
Even President Lincoln assumed some measure of responsibility for the Civil War—though talk of Southern secession had begun as early as 1832.
But not this president.
To hear him bleat and whine and bully at nearly every opportunity, one would think someone else had been president on September 11th, 2001 -- or the nearly eight months that preceded it.
That hardly reflects the honesty nor manliness we expect of the executive.
But if his own fitness to serve is of no true concern to him, perhaps we should simply sigh and keep our fingers crossed, until a grown-up takes the job three Januarys from now.
Except for this.
After five years of skirting even the most inarguable of facts—that he was president on 9/11 and he must bear some responsibility for his, and our, unreadiness, Mr. Bush has now moved, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards re-writing history, and attempting to make the responsibility, entirely Mr. Clinton’s.
Of course he is not honest enough to do that directly.
As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him, by proxy.
Thus, the sandbag effort by Fox News Friday afternoon.
Consider the timing: the very weekend the National Intelligence Estimate would be released and show the Iraq war to be the fraudulent failure it is—not a check on terror, but fertilizer for it.
The kind of proof of incompetence, for which the administration and its hyenas at Fox need to find a diversion, in a scapegoat.
It was the kind of cheap trick which would get a journalist fired—but a propagandist, promoted: promise to talk of charity and generosity; but instead launch into the lies and distortions with which the Authoritarians among us attack the virtuous and reward the useless.
And don’t even be professional enough to assume the responsibility for the slanders yourself; blame your audience for “e-mailing” you the question.
Mr. Clinton responded as you have seen.
He told the great truth untold about this administration’s negligence, perhaps criminal negligence, about bin Laden.
He was brave.
Then again, Chris Wallace might be braver still. Had I in one moment surrendered all my credibility as a journalist, and been irredeemably humiliated, as was he, I would have gone home and started a new career selling seeds by mail.
The smearing by proxy, of course, did not begin Friday afternoon.
Disney was first to sell-out its corporate reputation, with "The Path to 9/11." Of that company’s crimes against truth one needs to say little. Simply put: someone there enabled an Authoritarian zealot to belch out Mr. Bush’s new and improved history.
The basic plot-line was this: because he was distracted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton failed to prevent 9/11.
The most curious and in some ways the most infuriating aspect of this slapdash theory, is that the Right Wingers who have advocated it—who try to sneak it into our collective consciousness through entertainment, or who sandbag Mr. Clinton with it at news interviews—have simply skipped past its most glaring flaw.
Had it been true that Clinton had been distracted from the hunt for bin Laden in 1998 because of the Monica Lewinsky nonsense, why did these same people not applaud him for having bombed bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan and Sudan on Aug. 20, of that year? For mentioning bin Laden by name as he did so?
That day, Republican Senator Grams of Minnesota invoked the movie "Wag The Dog."
Republican Senator Coats of Indiana questioned Mr. Clinton’s judgment.
Republican Senator Ashcroft of Missouri—the future attorney general—echoed Coats.
Even Republican Senator Arlen Specter questioned the timing.
And of course, were it true Clinton had been “distracted” by the Lewinsky witch-hunt, who on earth conducted the Lewinsky witch-hunt?
Who turned the political discourse of this nation on its head for two years?
Who corrupted the political media?
Who made it impossible for us to even bring back on the air, the counter-terrorism analysts like Dr. Richard Haass, and James Dunegan, who had warned, at this very hour, on this very network, in early 1998, of cells from the Middle East who sought to attack us, here?
Who preempted them in order to strangle us with the trivia that was, “All Monica All The Time”?
Who distracted whom?
This is, of course, where—as is inevitable—Mr. Bush and his henchmen prove not quite as smart as they think they are.
The full responsibility for 9/11 is obviously shared by three administrations, possibly four.
But, Mr. Bush, if you are now trying to convince us by proxy that it’s all about the distractions of 1998 and 1999, then you will have to face a startling fact that your minions may have hidden from you.
The distractions of 1998 and 1999, Mr. Bush, were carefully manufactured, and lovingly executed, not by Bill Clinton, but by the same people who got you elected President.
Thus, instead of some commendable acknowledgment that you were even in office on 9/11 and the lost months before it, we have your sleazy and sloppy rewriting of history, designed by somebody who evidently read the Orwell playbook too quickly.
Thus, instead of some explanation for the inertia of your first eight months in office, we are told that you have kept us "safe" ever since—a statement that might range anywhere from zero, to 100 percent, true.
We have nothing but your word, and your word has long since ceased to mean anything.
And, of course, the one time you have ever given us specifics about what you have kept us safe from, Mr. Bush, you got the name of the supposedly targeted Tower in Los Angeles wrong.
Thus was it left for the previous president to say what so many of us have felt; what so many of us have given you a pass for in the months and even the years after the attack:
You did not try.
You ignored the evidence gathered by your predecessor.
You ignored the evidence gathered by your own people. Then, you blamed your predecessor.
That would be a textbook definition, Mr. Bush, of cowardice.
To enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase the truths of the past.
That was one of the great mechanical realities Eric Blair—writing as George Orwell—gave us in the book “1984.” The great philosophical reality he gave us, Mr. Bush, may sound as familiar to you, as it has lately begun to sound familiar to me.
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power... Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
"The object of persecution, is persecution. The object of torture, is torture. The object of power… is power."
Earlier last Friday afternoon, before the Fox ambush, speaking in the far different context of the closing session of his remarkable Global Initiative, Mr. Clinton quoted Abraham Lincoln’s State of the Union address from 1862.
"We must disenthrall ourselves."
Mr. Clinton did not quote the rest of Mr. Lincoln’s sentence. He might well have: "We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country."
And so has Mr. Clinton helped us to disenthrall ourselves, and perhaps enabled us, even at this late and bleak date, to save our country.
The "free pass" has been withdrawn, Mr. Bush.
You did not act to prevent 9/11.
We do not know what you have done to prevent another 9/11.
You have failed us—then leveraged that failure, to justify a purposeless war in Iraq which will have, all too soon, claimed more American lives than did 9/11.
You have failed us anew in Afghanistan.
And you have now tried to hide your failures, by blaming your predecessor.
And now you exploit your failure, to rationalize brazen torture which doesn’t work anyway; which only condemns our soldiers to water-boarding; which only humiliates our country further in the world; and which no true American would ever condone, let alone advocate.
And there it is, Mr. Bush:
Are yours the actions of a true American?
Walk This Way Aerosmith & Run-DMC
9/25/06
When Keeping It Real Sends A Message At 2 A.M.
Before the greatest e-mail ever, three simple things you need to know.
1) MySpace.
2) Don't know this guy.
3) Don't know a Roshawnda.
But here it is, verbatim:
IF YOU ARE CHOPPIN IT UP WIT ROSHAWNDA, NIGGA WATCH OUT SHE IS A STRAIGHT SLUT. SHE WAS AT MY PAD LAST NIGHT WIT MY DICK IN HER MOUTH. SHE IS ON HER PERIOD THATS WHY I DIDNT FUCK. THE BITCH IS A LIAR AND SHE BE FUCKIN HELLA NIGGAZ. SHE GOT OUT OF BED AND CAME TO MY PAD AND SUCKED ME UP. I TRIED TO HIT THE ASS BUT SHE COULDNT TAKE IT.SHE WANTED ME TO HIT WITH NO RUBBER BUT I TOLD HER HELL NAW. SHE FELL ASLEEP ON THE COUCH UNTIL LIKE 4 IN DA MORNIN. JUST GIVIN YOU A HEADZ UP. SHE AINT SHIT. AND SHE GOT A GANG OF KIDS. YEAH DAT !!!!!
Cheated Hearts Yeah Yeah Yeahs
1) MySpace.
2) Don't know this guy.
3) Don't know a Roshawnda.
But here it is, verbatim:
IF YOU ARE CHOPPIN IT UP WIT ROSHAWNDA, NIGGA WATCH OUT SHE IS A STRAIGHT SLUT. SHE WAS AT MY PAD LAST NIGHT WIT MY DICK IN HER MOUTH. SHE IS ON HER PERIOD THATS WHY I DIDNT FUCK. THE BITCH IS A LIAR AND SHE BE FUCKIN HELLA NIGGAZ. SHE GOT OUT OF BED AND CAME TO MY PAD AND SUCKED ME UP. I TRIED TO HIT THE ASS BUT SHE COULDNT TAKE IT.SHE WANTED ME TO HIT WITH NO RUBBER BUT I TOLD HER HELL NAW. SHE FELL ASLEEP ON THE COUCH UNTIL LIKE 4 IN DA MORNIN. JUST GIVIN YOU A HEADZ UP. SHE AINT SHIT. AND SHE GOT A GANG OF KIDS. YEAH DAT !!!!!
Cheated Hearts Yeah Yeah Yeahs
9/19/06
Coda.
Funeral was today. Said an impromptu eulogy. Pallbearered.
One more round of sympathy's about all I can take. And now for the rest of it...
One more round of sympathy's about all I can take. And now for the rest of it...
9/16/06
K-WBR
Rather than talk about this encompassing depression or the Last Kiss being good but not Garden State good (oh, how KS will enjoy this movie) or this being the 500th post...TCB.
DROPS:
"Me & U" (12)
"Mr. Me Too" (13)
15. It's Goin' Down ¤ Yung Joc (8)
14. Original Fire ¤ Audioslave (return)
13. I Will Follow You Into The Dark ¤ Death Cab For Cutie (15)*
12. Work It Out ¤ Jurassic 5 feat. Dave Matthews (return)
11. Gone Daddy Gone ¤ Gnarls Barkley (10)
10. Here It Goes Again ¤ OK Go (9)
9. Deja Vu ¤ Beyonce feat. Jay-Z (4)
8. U & Dat ¤ E-40 feat. T-Pain (7)
7. When You Were Young ¤ the Killers (14)*
6. Tell Me Baby ¤ Red Hot Chili Peppers (11)*
5. Promiscuous ¤ Nelly Furtado feat. Timbaland (3)
4. Idlewild Blue (Don't Chu Worry 'Bout Me) ¤ Andre 3000 (6)*
3. Steady, As She Goes ¤ the Raconteurs (4)*
2. Sexy Love ¤ NeYo (2)*
1. Crazy ¤ Gnarls Barkley (1) [3m]
DROPS:
"Me & U" (12)
"Mr. Me Too" (13)
15. It's Goin' Down ¤ Yung Joc (8)
14. Original Fire ¤ Audioslave (return)
13. I Will Follow You Into The Dark ¤ Death Cab For Cutie (15)*
12. Work It Out ¤ Jurassic 5 feat. Dave Matthews (return)
11. Gone Daddy Gone ¤ Gnarls Barkley (10)
10. Here It Goes Again ¤ OK Go (9)
9. Deja Vu ¤ Beyonce feat. Jay-Z (4)
8. U & Dat ¤ E-40 feat. T-Pain (7)
7. When You Were Young ¤ the Killers (14)*
6. Tell Me Baby ¤ Red Hot Chili Peppers (11)*
5. Promiscuous ¤ Nelly Furtado feat. Timbaland (3)
4. Idlewild Blue (Don't Chu Worry 'Bout Me) ¤ Andre 3000 (6)*
3. Steady, As She Goes ¤ the Raconteurs (4)*
2. Sexy Love ¤ NeYo (2)*
1. Crazy ¤ Gnarls Barkley (1) [3m]
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