1. Wealth without work
2. Pleasure without conscience
3. Knowledge without character
4. Commerce without morality
5. Science without humanity
6. Worship without sacrifice
7. Politics without principle
—Mahatma Gandhi
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
"Seven Blunders of the World"
1. Wealth without work
2. Pleasure without conscience
3. Knowledge without character
4. Commerce without morality
5. Science without humanity
6. Worship without sacrifice
7. Politics without principle
—Mahatma Gandhi
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Press One for English, Press Two for Hate-Talk
If you've got email, you've probably received the YouTube country sensation, "Press One For English," in which a burgeoning country duo, Ron and Kay Rivoli, enjoin us all to circle the wagons around our native tongue. No doubt this song is destined to rocket to the top of the YouTube charts and might even make it onto Billboard if they try hard. I'm happy for the Rivolis and the success their song has generated for them--their bookings in 2007 look solid--and wish them all the luck in the world. It's next to impossible to make it as an artist in ANY discipline and music is as unlikely a place to make a living as any other. You have to be saavy. Tough. Racist.
But "Press One" has broken out of the novelty-bin where it was resting next to Weird Al Yankovich, to become an unexpected anthem for people who are proactively stupid. These are the people who laugh when the guy at Casa d'Ice puts up the word 'wetbacks' on his store front sign.1 The same people who forward me countless emails decrying everything from Jimmy Carter's foreign policy (uh, that was 20 years ago) to the law that says congressmen and cops don't pay taxes (uh, yes they do) without expending the required thirteen seconds on Google to verify whether or not these things are true. Like those ridiculous emails, bumper stickers, and t-shirts, "Press One . . ." is popular not because these particular Americans are patriotic but because they hate Mexicans.
Although I would like to accept the argument of these particular Americans that they aren't anti-brown, they're just pro-law, I think a diplomatic description would be to call that argument disingenuous instead of a big fat fucking lie. I don't want to call these particular Americans liars because some of them are friends of mine and some of them are family and I know them to be honorable and ethical people, brave veterans, civic minded, and decent. But they've all given up their god given facility for critical reasoning in order to participate in a little acceptable racism.
I'd like to address this veiled racism and stupidity point by point but since the whole thing tipped when I got that stupid song in my email, but I want to clear up the "Press One . . ." thing first.
The habits of hospitals and retailers act as a leading indicator of where our country stands on the efficacy of the English language in administering service. Language choices on the phone systems of major retailers indicate an overwhelming recognition and acceptance of Spanish-only customers. These choices do not indicate that these patrons are illegal immigrants and they do not indicate a preference for Spanish-only customers and patients.
If you only speak Spanish, then the nice-lady-recording indicating that you can press 2 for Spanish sounds like Wookie. You won't know to press 2. In their effort to make things easier for those people needing medical aide, most health service organizations chose to add a snippet of Spanish language to the very beginning of their recorded message so that the 43.5 percent of the calling population that is Spanish speaking who are calling in because their spleen is hanging out can get the necessary Spanish speaking attendant prior to bleeding to death. In their possibly misguided assumption of the breadth of compassion of the English speaking American citizenry, these institutions felt most people would understand this and not feel threatened or maligned during the 2 seconds of Spanish they are forced to endure.
I can understand how many Americans feel overwhelmed at this point since, if they call in to a hospital, say, 5 times a year, they're wasting 10 whole seconds every year! That's about seven minutes of their entire life (assuming they call the Hospital 5 times a year every year from birth) totally wasted. I mean, think of the effect that has on our economy!
Well, let's look at the economy for a minute. The Spanish-only despleened callers and buyers we're talking about here are not necessarily illegal immigrants. While hospitals do treat illegal immigrants (or let them bleed to death)3, they're not the reason the phone system has the Spanish option. That's for Spanish-speaking citizens and immigrants of legal status which comprise a significant portion of the lower income work forces which tend to have, a) the least amount of health care, and, b) bleed more. Take sugar cane cutters in Florida, mostly Jamaican and Mexican immigrants, who use machetes in mucky fields with footing that could trip a gazelle. They often hack big glistening chunks out of their own ankles because they have to cut the cane low to get the most product. It's very likely that when one of these hardworking people hacks a chunk out of their leg they'll call the hospital. Now, let's pretend that instead of calling the hospital, they fall down in front of you while you're touring a sugarcane field. As you stumble upon a sugarcane worker with a machete stuck in his shin, he looks at you and says "¿Por favor, padre, usted quitaría este machete de mi tobillo?" Do you plant your hands on your hips and say "Sorry, pal, I don't speak spic," or do you drop on your knees, rip off your shirt, and wrap the guy's fucking leg?
Q: Yeah, well, they ought to stay in their own damn country because they're taking our jobs!
A: Fucking idiot.
Let's just get into the Mexican part of it and leave the Sengalese Taxi cab drivers and the Filipino dead turkey de-featherers off the plate for now. Most Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal, take the following jobs:
Chicago and Illinois migrant worker stats break down like this:
Q: Well why can't you see that they're a huge drain on the economy?!
A: Because they're not.
Let's just try to narrow this problem down to one 50th of it's actual size so you can maybe squeeze it in next to all the fantasy football stats, hymn lyrics, and black-on-black lesbian porn URLs rattling around in your head.
Q: I'm not anti-Mexican, I just want them to obey the law.
A: You malignant, lying, jackass.
How many anti-illegal-Canadian jokes did you forward this year? If the core of these particular Americans' argument was based exclusively on the legality of the situation of illegal immigrants, then they'd bitch about how all the illegal Pakistani's were filling up the emergency rooms. You'd wait for a cab driven by a legal citizen. You'd ask for greencards from all the people who cook your food, mow your lawn, wash your car, and deliver your paper; you'd demand that meat distributors prove their product was packed by legal citizens; you'd only buy oranges with NOT PACKED BY ILLEGAL FRENCH GUYS stickers; you'd quit eating lettuce, spinach, apples, oranges, apricots, chiles, celery, rice, bananas, asparagus, cilantro, and chard because it's ALL picked by illegal immigrants. You'd write your congressman about the instructions for your weed whacker being printed in 8 languages. You'd act.
Instead, it's stuff like this:
As much as I've tried, I can't find a non-mexican equivalent--well, except for this:
Q: These people come over here and buy champagne with their welfare checks and get free medicine and then protest our government policies--is this why my grandfather and his father fought and died?
A: You damn right.
The only way newly arrived immigrants can abuse welfare policy, protest immigration reform, and get free medical attention is because our government decided they deserve welfare, freedom of speech and the right to assemble, and healthcare. They are policies written by, legislated by, enacted by, and upheld by the United States of America and if you don't like the laws of this country, well, you can leave. Otherwise, my forefathers fought and died so anyone living in the United States, legal or illegal, won't get their balls blown off for expressing themselves, feeding their kids, or getting sick. If you want to live like that, I invite you to review the bylaws of the Taliban.
Q: Well, you're un-American if you support illegal immigrants!
A: Go fuck yourself, gringo.
The only people who are truly unAmerican are those people who try to retard my freedoms, rights, and privileges or those of my neighbor. People like these particular Americans who want all illegals to drop dead on the spot or move back to Mexico (which has GOT to piss off the illegal South Afrikans). And hell yes I support illegal immigrants--hell, I employ some I'm certain, since none of my Russian and Polish maids speak much more English than "there?", "or there?", and "we finish now." I love my maids and they're cheap as hell. It can be a little frustrating sometimes when I want to explain that if they use Johnson's Wax to clean the bathroom floor, I tend to slip and fall down. But such is the cost of cheap labor in America.
And what should I do? I know at least five people--not my maids--who go to my church who are illegal immigrants. They didn't start out that way. They came here on a work visa but when they got here, they successfully retained a decent job, got married, bought a house, had kids--then their visa expired. I know a guy, an Irish Immigrant who ran a very successful remodeling company employing a number of people making millions every year. He paid taxes, voted, was an important member in the church, was a strong mentor and kept his people employed year round. He got deported. Just out of the blue. He'd been here for years, had contributed to the tax base, had done everything except, whoops, get that citizen thing finished off. He didn't even have time to disassemble his business. He got 10 days. He just chucked his hands of it all and got on a plane. He paints houses in Dublin now.
1 I like some of these signs, like the ones that say Cheny doesn't know his job, even though it's spelled wrong, but I can't take the racism.
2 Yeah, I know the current system asks you to press one for English and that's why you're mad. I'm making a supposition here. Try to keep up.
3 Yes, I know she wasn’t an illegal immigrant. Very good, Obi Wan, here’s a cookie. Thing is, the 911 dispatcher treated the caller, her husband, who had a pronounced Mexican twang, like a dirty wetback and gave him a ton of shit for using the 911 line inappropriately. What he should’ve done was to dispatch officers ALREADY IN THE HOSPITAL to check it out. That’s the job he gets paid for. He could do that THEN argue with the guy. He let the woman die to make a point. Thanks,Mexican hating 911 guy, I can't wait to hear that one in a Budweiser commercial.
But "Press One" has broken out of the novelty-bin where it was resting next to Weird Al Yankovich, to become an unexpected anthem for people who are proactively stupid. These are the people who laugh when the guy at Casa d'Ice puts up the word 'wetbacks' on his store front sign.1 The same people who forward me countless emails decrying everything from Jimmy Carter's foreign policy (uh, that was 20 years ago) to the law that says congressmen and cops don't pay taxes (uh, yes they do) without expending the required thirteen seconds on Google to verify whether or not these things are true. Like those ridiculous emails, bumper stickers, and t-shirts, "Press One . . ." is popular not because these particular Americans are patriotic but because they hate Mexicans.
Although I would like to accept the argument of these particular Americans that they aren't anti-brown, they're just pro-law, I think a diplomatic description would be to call that argument disingenuous instead of a big fat fucking lie. I don't want to call these particular Americans liars because some of them are friends of mine and some of them are family and I know them to be honorable and ethical people, brave veterans, civic minded, and decent. But they've all given up their god given facility for critical reasoning in order to participate in a little acceptable racism.
I'd like to address this veiled racism and stupidity point by point but since the whole thing tipped when I got that stupid song in my email, but I want to clear up the "Press One . . ." thing first.
Q: Why do real Americans have to push 1 to hear English!?
A: Because they are ethical, compassionate people who already speak English.The habits of hospitals and retailers act as a leading indicator of where our country stands on the efficacy of the English language in administering service. Language choices on the phone systems of major retailers indicate an overwhelming recognition and acceptance of Spanish-only customers. These choices do not indicate that these patrons are illegal immigrants and they do not indicate a preference for Spanish-only customers and patients.
If you only speak Spanish, then the nice-lady-recording indicating that you can press 2 for Spanish sounds like Wookie. You won't know to press 2. In their effort to make things easier for those people needing medical aide, most health service organizations chose to add a snippet of Spanish language to the very beginning of their recorded message so that the 43.5 percent of the calling population that is Spanish speaking who are calling in because their spleen is hanging out can get the necessary Spanish speaking attendant prior to bleeding to death. In their possibly misguided assumption of the breadth of compassion of the English speaking American citizenry, these institutions felt most people would understand this and not feel threatened or maligned during the 2 seconds of Spanish they are forced to endure.
I can understand how many Americans feel overwhelmed at this point since, if they call in to a hospital, say, 5 times a year, they're wasting 10 whole seconds every year! That's about seven minutes of their entire life (assuming they call the Hospital 5 times a year every year from birth) totally wasted. I mean, think of the effect that has on our economy!
Well, let's look at the economy for a minute. The Spanish-only despleened callers and buyers we're talking about here are not necessarily illegal immigrants. While hospitals do treat illegal immigrants (or let them bleed to death)3, they're not the reason the phone system has the Spanish option. That's for Spanish-speaking citizens and immigrants of legal status which comprise a significant portion of the lower income work forces which tend to have, a) the least amount of health care, and, b) bleed more. Take sugar cane cutters in Florida, mostly Jamaican and Mexican immigrants, who use machetes in mucky fields with footing that could trip a gazelle. They often hack big glistening chunks out of their own ankles because they have to cut the cane low to get the most product. It's very likely that when one of these hardworking people hacks a chunk out of their leg they'll call the hospital. Now, let's pretend that instead of calling the hospital, they fall down in front of you while you're touring a sugarcane field. As you stumble upon a sugarcane worker with a machete stuck in his shin, he looks at you and says "¿Por favor, padre, usted quitaría este machete de mi tobillo?" Do you plant your hands on your hips and say "Sorry, pal, I don't speak spic," or do you drop on your knees, rip off your shirt, and wrap the guy's fucking leg?
Q: Yeah, well, they ought to stay in their own damn country because they're taking our jobs!
A: Fucking idiot.
Let's just get into the Mexican part of it and leave the Sengalese Taxi cab drivers and the Filipino dead turkey de-featherers off the plate for now. Most Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal, take the following jobs:
- turkey processing (and pork, and chicken)
- meatpacking
- dishwashing
- agricultural labor
- light manufacturing
- cooks
- general labor
Chicago and Illinois migrant worker stats break down like this:
- 30% Mexicans, most of which have a 9th grade education at best. These people join up with established, usually legal, families or friends and take the very lowest paying jobs out there. Several of them. They are usually unskilled workers.
- 10% Polish immigrants, most of which have a high school level education or some college. These people are often highly skilled workers and can be found in many of the skilled labor trades in Illinois--granite cutters, finish carpenters, painters, and tilers. Polish women more often take lower paying jobs like cleaning.
- 10% Indian, most of which have a bachelor's degree and compete for highly skilled, high paying jobs in the tech market or in retail management.
Q: Well why can't you see that they're a huge drain on the economy?!
A: Because they're not.
Let's just try to narrow this problem down to one 50th of it's actual size so you can maybe squeeze it in next to all the fantasy football stats, hymn lyrics, and black-on-black lesbian porn URLs rattling around in your head.
Q: I'm not anti-Mexican, I just want them to obey the law.
A: You malignant, lying, jackass.
How many anti-illegal-Canadian jokes did you forward this year? If the core of these particular Americans' argument was based exclusively on the legality of the situation of illegal immigrants, then they'd bitch about how all the illegal Pakistani's were filling up the emergency rooms. You'd wait for a cab driven by a legal citizen. You'd ask for greencards from all the people who cook your food, mow your lawn, wash your car, and deliver your paper; you'd demand that meat distributors prove their product was packed by legal citizens; you'd only buy oranges with NOT PACKED BY ILLEGAL FRENCH GUYS stickers; you'd quit eating lettuce, spinach, apples, oranges, apricots, chiles, celery, rice, bananas, asparagus, cilantro, and chard because it's ALL picked by illegal immigrants. You'd write your congressman about the instructions for your weed whacker being printed in 8 languages. You'd act.
Instead, it's stuff like this:
As much as I've tried, I can't find a non-mexican equivalent--well, except for this:
Q: These people come over here and buy champagne with their welfare checks and get free medicine and then protest our government policies--is this why my grandfather and his father fought and died?
A: You damn right.
The only way newly arrived immigrants can abuse welfare policy, protest immigration reform, and get free medical attention is because our government decided they deserve welfare, freedom of speech and the right to assemble, and healthcare. They are policies written by, legislated by, enacted by, and upheld by the United States of America and if you don't like the laws of this country, well, you can leave. Otherwise, my forefathers fought and died so anyone living in the United States, legal or illegal, won't get their balls blown off for expressing themselves, feeding their kids, or getting sick. If you want to live like that, I invite you to review the bylaws of the Taliban.
Q: Well, you're un-American if you support illegal immigrants!
A: Go fuck yourself, gringo.
The only people who are truly unAmerican are those people who try to retard my freedoms, rights, and privileges or those of my neighbor. People like these particular Americans who want all illegals to drop dead on the spot or move back to Mexico (which has GOT to piss off the illegal South Afrikans). And hell yes I support illegal immigrants--hell, I employ some I'm certain, since none of my Russian and Polish maids speak much more English than "there?", "or there?", and "we finish now." I love my maids and they're cheap as hell. It can be a little frustrating sometimes when I want to explain that if they use Johnson's Wax to clean the bathroom floor, I tend to slip and fall down. But such is the cost of cheap labor in America.
And what should I do? I know at least five people--not my maids--who go to my church who are illegal immigrants. They didn't start out that way. They came here on a work visa but when they got here, they successfully retained a decent job, got married, bought a house, had kids--then their visa expired. I know a guy, an Irish Immigrant who ran a very successful remodeling company employing a number of people making millions every year. He paid taxes, voted, was an important member in the church, was a strong mentor and kept his people employed year round. He got deported. Just out of the blue. He'd been here for years, had contributed to the tax base, had done everything except, whoops, get that citizen thing finished off. He didn't even have time to disassemble his business. He got 10 days. He just chucked his hands of it all and got on a plane. He paints houses in Dublin now.
1 I like some of these signs, like the ones that say Cheny doesn't know his job, even though it's spelled wrong, but I can't take the racism.
2 Yeah, I know the current system asks you to press one for English and that's why you're mad. I'm making a supposition here. Try to keep up.
3 Yes, I know she wasn’t an illegal immigrant. Very good, Obi Wan, here’s a cookie. Thing is, the 911 dispatcher treated the caller, her husband, who had a pronounced Mexican twang, like a dirty wetback and gave him a ton of shit for using the 911 line inappropriately. What he should’ve done was to dispatch officers ALREADY IN THE HOSPITAL to check it out. That’s the job he gets paid for. He could do that THEN argue with the guy. He let the woman die to make a point. Thanks,Mexican hating 911 guy, I can't wait to hear that one in a Budweiser commercial.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Letter to the Editor, El Paso Times re: Opera and Monster Truck Rallies
Dear Fledermaus;
What an endearing use of your 4th amendment rights, to roll your porcine eyes not only at public funding of the arts, but to equate voicing your own diffidence to having a monster-truck mentality—as if that’s unendurably provenciale. After reading your pedantic and poorly researched libretto vomitus, I was moved to correct you post haste:
First of all, the cacophony and inherent danger of orchestrated oversized vehicular entertainment is as magnificent as Die Zauberflote any day of the week. The sheer effort and funding required to create one of these magnificent beasts is staggering. But the capricious disregard for permanence, the fleeting quality of the art inherent in the final crash and burn that destroys the trucks is sublime. It’s mythic. How you can equate such resplendent spectacle as somehow beneath the typical patron of the arts is beyond comprehension. If you had the good sense to attend one of these performances, you would see that the people doing jello shots and setting things on fire in the cheap seats are the same people you’ll find sipping champagne in a box at Chavez.
What is opera, after all, except the grande progenitor of country music and Evil Kneivel? Every great opera ends with an insane, wild-haired half-naked woman stabbing herself on stage to loud music. It’s not much different from CMT or a halfway decent My Chemical Romance video.
Rather than reveal your distressingly art-less upbringing by defaming both the great work that is opera and the sublime spectacle that is monster truck rallying, you ought to set down your laptop and engage one or the other mano a mano. Hemingway would never have said a word about monster trucks without having first crashed one.
Secondly, the $50,000 match you mention is a misleading statement which a man of your apish past is bound to make. Just a few seconds of googling the El Paso opera indicates they have an impressive roster of patrons, and a cursory calculation of them comes up in excess of $300,000 bucks. And a further look shows a lot of people giving as little as a hundred dollars--less than a decent bottle of Moet, for the love of God, to the opera. If that doesn’t inspire the children I don’t know what will.
And finally, your impressively original homage to the ‘fat lady’ tautology is woefully behind the times. The women of opera are hotter than swimsuit models. You’re thinking of Winona Judd.
What an endearing use of your 4th amendment rights, to roll your porcine eyes not only at public funding of the arts, but to equate voicing your own diffidence to having a monster-truck mentality—as if that’s unendurably provenciale. After reading your pedantic and poorly researched libretto vomitus, I was moved to correct you post haste:
First of all, the cacophony and inherent danger of orchestrated oversized vehicular entertainment is as magnificent as Die Zauberflote any day of the week. The sheer effort and funding required to create one of these magnificent beasts is staggering. But the capricious disregard for permanence, the fleeting quality of the art inherent in the final crash and burn that destroys the trucks is sublime. It’s mythic. How you can equate such resplendent spectacle as somehow beneath the typical patron of the arts is beyond comprehension. If you had the good sense to attend one of these performances, you would see that the people doing jello shots and setting things on fire in the cheap seats are the same people you’ll find sipping champagne in a box at Chavez.
What is opera, after all, except the grande progenitor of country music and Evil Kneivel? Every great opera ends with an insane, wild-haired half-naked woman stabbing herself on stage to loud music. It’s not much different from CMT or a halfway decent My Chemical Romance video.
Rather than reveal your distressingly art-less upbringing by defaming both the great work that is opera and the sublime spectacle that is monster truck rallying, you ought to set down your laptop and engage one or the other mano a mano. Hemingway would never have said a word about monster trucks without having first crashed one.
Secondly, the $50,000 match you mention is a misleading statement which a man of your apish past is bound to make. Just a few seconds of googling the El Paso opera indicates they have an impressive roster of patrons, and a cursory calculation of them comes up in excess of $300,000 bucks. And a further look shows a lot of people giving as little as a hundred dollars--less than a decent bottle of Moet, for the love of God, to the opera. If that doesn’t inspire the children I don’t know what will.
And finally, your impressively original homage to the ‘fat lady’ tautology is woefully behind the times. The women of opera are hotter than swimsuit models. You’re thinking of Winona Judd.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Enter Bizzaro World
I'm just wracked over the new crop of congressiones. I. . .I . . .what the hell happened!? I thought Democrats were going to come in and show some decency, some respect for the hallowed ground they'll be resting their glutes on and instead I get some guy interjecting Elvis song titles into a speech with all the craftiness and seamless skill of a fourth grade Farticus; a woman with tragic, tragic hair making a speech about the Gators in which she dramatically dons some spangled glasses, and a woman who was trying way too hard to meld the subtle fashion sense of Oprah and Queen Latifah (the old QL), BEFORE CONGRESS!
Have they never seen Mr. Smith? Do they not know that's sacred ground? Jesus Haploid Christ, I didn't vote you bastards in so you could upstage the former GOP in sheer audacious stupidity. WE'RE THE SMART ONES! Or so I thought.
I was really worried for John Stewart when I saw the recent political victories scored by me and my fellow bluestaters. I thought: who's he gonna make fun of now, huh? US! HE'S MAKING FUN OF US! AND IT'S LIKE SHOOTING SHRINERS AT AN OLD FOLKS HOME!
And it gets worse! I'm actually watching The Daily Show and they promote Huckabee and I'm listening to the guy thinking: this guy really makes sense, I really like him, he's sensible and I realize HE'S AN EVANGELICAL CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN WHO REFELCTS AND ECHOS EVERYTHING I FREAKING BELIEVE IN!
I'm getting all wiggly. I need to lay down. I . . . I . . .
Have they never seen Mr. Smith? Do they not know that's sacred ground? Jesus Haploid Christ, I didn't vote you bastards in so you could upstage the former GOP in sheer audacious stupidity. WE'RE THE SMART ONES! Or so I thought.
I was really worried for John Stewart when I saw the recent political victories scored by me and my fellow bluestaters. I thought: who's he gonna make fun of now, huh? US! HE'S MAKING FUN OF US! AND IT'S LIKE SHOOTING SHRINERS AT AN OLD FOLKS HOME!
And it gets worse! I'm actually watching The Daily Show and they promote Huckabee and I'm listening to the guy thinking: this guy really makes sense, I really like him, he's sensible and I realize HE'S AN EVANGELICAL CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN WHO REFELCTS AND ECHOS EVERYTHING I FREAKING BELIEVE IN!
I'm getting all wiggly. I need to lay down. I . . . I . . .
Monday, October 16, 2006
Celebrity Debt Match
I love Oprah. I know a lot of my friends are choking right now because we're all too cool to really like such a self serving self sycophantic event like the O but come on, she gives poor people cars. She built a school in Africa and hired teachers. She built houses for Katrina victims. So what if she turned each and every one of these events into a massive glamorized photo op.
And Bono. You have to love a guy who takes being a rock star so seriously. Not only did he take a Latin name (like all members of the secret rock star fraternity do) but he comes to congress and pleads on behalf of the indebted world. And though he doesn't choreograph the whole thing like her Ladyship O, Bono manages to seem sort of surprised and humbled on an awful lot of broadcasts when he's doing his thing. A kind of low key camera hog. Bravo, Bono.
So when the two of them come together to fight AIDS, you have to wonder what kind of media frenzy will occur. I, for one, have been disappointed so far.
The problem is that the marriage of Oprah and Bono has yet to be celebrated by a media moniker, a "gate" suffix or a nominal mashup--which I propose. I think the media need to refer to Bono and Oprah's activities, to their marriage of convenience, as "Ohno".
Look what it did for Ben Afflek and Jennifer whatever her name is. They had Bennifer. As soon as a reporter said Bennifer we knew the whole story already. We need this for the Oprah Bono alignment.
We could go with a gate. Call it Ohnogate or BonOprahgate. But gate is scandal positive and even I know Bono is happily married. I'm sure Oprah's trying, though. I assume she'll try to get him to star in a movie and then their trailers will be parked together and they'll share a craft services provider and then one thing will lead to another . . .
You have to love the reversed humility of these two. Like I said, I gave in a long time ago. I love Oprah. So she's a zillionaire. Big deal. She GAVE POOR PEOPLE CARS and BUILT HOMELESS PEOPLE HOMES for Christ sake. So she's rich and self-serving. It's ok. I think.
Unless what they're really doing is assuming a God form. I mean, when you look at the supreme evolution of material desires, Ohno pretty much covers the gamut: world class rock band, congressional influence, TV show, magazine, massive yacht, books, movies, Cd's, and they've fed the poor, relieved debt, and given gifts to the needy. If you or I were to list ten things we'd do if we were Bajilionaires, we'd have one of those. I sure as hell would have a magazine--"G"--but it would mostly cover chili and big band music. Still, I could write anything I want in it because I'd be a Gablillionaire and I'd represent serious advertising cash and nobody would care about content.
Ohno might be a good thing. As alarmingly unlikely as it is, if a self serving black journalist Chachillionaire can team up with a humble, sincere, self effacing yacht piloting world class rock star, maybe there can be peace in the middle east maybe . . . maybe Ohno can save the world.
Think about it! Ohno could visit Lebanon and take the Lebanese PM and the Israeli prez on a whirlwind shopping spree for peace. They'd only buy products with a "dove" tag on them. Then, when the two heads of state were sitting stiff and speechless over Lebanese speckled coot confit with white truffle sauce and hand milled couscous with green tea and a hookah, Ohno could tell them to reach under their seats and they'd find the keys to brand new Nuclear weapon facilities and coordinate papers with each other's home addresses on them. I can see the tears running down their ruddy cheeks.
Then Ohno would lead the leaders of Hamas on a pilgrimage through the desert, ending in Iran where they would have an intervention with that crazy bastard running that place. Then, a private jet to France where Ohno will have a live broadcast from the Muslim ghettos and the local Muslim leaders will reach under their seats and find the severed heads of their infidel neighbors. Get a tissue, baby!
And finally, Washington. Ohno would interview Dick Cheney and Dubya and Dick Cheney would break down in tears, admit he's been running the show the whole time, that he's a wartime profiteer who's been engineering global violence since the Reagan administration, and that Dubya really is retarded. They just let him hang around in meetings where he mostly plays Burnout 4 and eats Doritoes.
Ohno forever.
And Bono. You have to love a guy who takes being a rock star so seriously. Not only did he take a Latin name (like all members of the secret rock star fraternity do) but he comes to congress and pleads on behalf of the indebted world. And though he doesn't choreograph the whole thing like her Ladyship O, Bono manages to seem sort of surprised and humbled on an awful lot of broadcasts when he's doing his thing. A kind of low key camera hog. Bravo, Bono.
So when the two of them come together to fight AIDS, you have to wonder what kind of media frenzy will occur. I, for one, have been disappointed so far.
The problem is that the marriage of Oprah and Bono has yet to be celebrated by a media moniker, a "gate" suffix or a nominal mashup--which I propose. I think the media need to refer to Bono and Oprah's activities, to their marriage of convenience, as "Ohno".
Look what it did for Ben Afflek and Jennifer whatever her name is. They had Bennifer. As soon as a reporter said Bennifer we knew the whole story already. We need this for the Oprah Bono alignment.
We could go with a gate. Call it Ohnogate or BonOprahgate. But gate is scandal positive and even I know Bono is happily married. I'm sure Oprah's trying, though. I assume she'll try to get him to star in a movie and then their trailers will be parked together and they'll share a craft services provider and then one thing will lead to another . . .
You have to love the reversed humility of these two. Like I said, I gave in a long time ago. I love Oprah. So she's a zillionaire. Big deal. She GAVE POOR PEOPLE CARS and BUILT HOMELESS PEOPLE HOMES for Christ sake. So she's rich and self-serving. It's ok. I think.
Unless what they're really doing is assuming a God form. I mean, when you look at the supreme evolution of material desires, Ohno pretty much covers the gamut: world class rock band, congressional influence, TV show, magazine, massive yacht, books, movies, Cd's, and they've fed the poor, relieved debt, and given gifts to the needy. If you or I were to list ten things we'd do if we were Bajilionaires, we'd have one of those. I sure as hell would have a magazine--"G"--but it would mostly cover chili and big band music. Still, I could write anything I want in it because I'd be a Gablillionaire and I'd represent serious advertising cash and nobody would care about content.
Ohno might be a good thing. As alarmingly unlikely as it is, if a self serving black journalist Chachillionaire can team up with a humble, sincere, self effacing yacht piloting world class rock star, maybe there can be peace in the middle east maybe . . . maybe Ohno can save the world.
Think about it! Ohno could visit Lebanon and take the Lebanese PM and the Israeli prez on a whirlwind shopping spree for peace. They'd only buy products with a "dove" tag on them. Then, when the two heads of state were sitting stiff and speechless over Lebanese speckled coot confit with white truffle sauce and hand milled couscous with green tea and a hookah, Ohno could tell them to reach under their seats and they'd find the keys to brand new Nuclear weapon facilities and coordinate papers with each other's home addresses on them. I can see the tears running down their ruddy cheeks.
Then Ohno would lead the leaders of Hamas on a pilgrimage through the desert, ending in Iran where they would have an intervention with that crazy bastard running that place. Then, a private jet to France where Ohno will have a live broadcast from the Muslim ghettos and the local Muslim leaders will reach under their seats and find the severed heads of their infidel neighbors. Get a tissue, baby!
And finally, Washington. Ohno would interview Dick Cheney and Dubya and Dick Cheney would break down in tears, admit he's been running the show the whole time, that he's a wartime profiteer who's been engineering global violence since the Reagan administration, and that Dubya really is retarded. They just let him hang around in meetings where he mostly plays Burnout 4 and eats Doritoes.
Ohno forever.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Crazy Train
When did the freak jobs take over?
Was I--were we high? I mean, I know I wasn't paying real close attention but I did used watch CNN every day. Ok, last summer I took a week to catch up on LOST. But a guy ought to get a little slack every once in a while, right? I ought to be able to take a few days off when I'm drinking old fashions and smoking cigars and digging some porn without THE ENTIRE FUCKING CIVILIZED WORLD BEING TAKEN OVER BY CRAZY PEOPLE!
Who the--look, I'm gonna cuss. Right here, from this point onward, it's gonnna be a ribald anathemic fulmination of unprintable gutter cant because I'm way past the point of being professional or even cautious here. I'm freaked out, alright. FA REEK KED OUT. I'm as paranoid as a prison pothead and it's not getting better. I swear, I might move to Moosejaw. I'm scared. Because all the world leaders are nutjobs.
I know ours is. He's a fucking wingnut. And it's our fault. We elected him. Sort of. We let the whole thing slip away and get took over by power hungry souless dogfuckers and we're suffering now. The evangelical hiveminders put it to us cause we let them get away with it. We treat them like pilgrims; we quit giving it to them in the media, quit kicking their asses. We need 'Church Lady' back. Plus those Columbine goths didn't help much. I wish just one fucking high school psycho would do it for the glory of Jesus instead of Mudvayne. Thank god for Aaron Sorkin--he not only puts it to them, he does it with their own guns. I love that man. Why isn't he in charge?
Cause he's not fucked up enough, that's why.
Only the truly, deeply, genetically deranged can achieve the stratospheric level of nuts required to run a 21st century nation. Apparently. Look at that weird little Elvis impersonating tranny running Korea. Holy shit! How did THAT guy get in charge? And the Iranian president, Yakov Smirnov, when did he stop telling jokes and start shaking his fucking fist? And Cesar Chavez--he didn't used to be crazy but now, now he's calling our wingnut satan and he's fucking serious.
Maybe this is the signal of the end of nation states anyway: they don't matter anymore. Only market segments matter. I mean, gas some people, hang some liberals, wipe out a village or two and yeah, eventually you get your own trial-cum-reality show but nothing bad will happen. However: convince the 18--23 year old male alpha buyers to switch to a smoother lite beer and you might find yourself at the wrong end of a UN Sanction.
Jesus Haploid Christ. Is there any leader in the world who's not evil or crazy? Is Putin really losing it and going for his tenth dead journalist? Are we going to go down in the books alongside Vlad the Impaler as evil and rapacious democracy stranglers? Can democracy even survive this shitstorm?
Maybe, I don't know. My buddy the hippy tells me that at the core of paranoia is a kernel of information straight from the heart of the world mind. He says that when you're really scared, seriously wigged, falling our of your own head terrified, it means the world is trying to tell you something. Actually, he kind of says it's a good thing.
Of course he is a hippy.
But I take heart that things really are as bad as they seem and in fact, probably worse than we know. I take heart because when democracy and peace and the souls of nations are abraded to the foundation like they are right now, something snaps and the people make it stop. They vote again. They carry signs again. They burn stuff.
Maybe this is the worse that precedes the better. It has to be because, really, look at this dark circus we're attending: it can't get any worse.
Was I--were we high? I mean, I know I wasn't paying real close attention but I did used watch CNN every day. Ok, last summer I took a week to catch up on LOST. But a guy ought to get a little slack every once in a while, right? I ought to be able to take a few days off when I'm drinking old fashions and smoking cigars and digging some porn without THE ENTIRE FUCKING CIVILIZED WORLD BEING TAKEN OVER BY CRAZY PEOPLE!
Who the--look, I'm gonna cuss. Right here, from this point onward, it's gonnna be a ribald anathemic fulmination of unprintable gutter cant because I'm way past the point of being professional or even cautious here. I'm freaked out, alright. FA REEK KED OUT. I'm as paranoid as a prison pothead and it's not getting better. I swear, I might move to Moosejaw. I'm scared. Because all the world leaders are nutjobs.
I know ours is. He's a fucking wingnut. And it's our fault. We elected him. Sort of. We let the whole thing slip away and get took over by power hungry souless dogfuckers and we're suffering now. The evangelical hiveminders put it to us cause we let them get away with it. We treat them like pilgrims; we quit giving it to them in the media, quit kicking their asses. We need 'Church Lady' back. Plus those Columbine goths didn't help much. I wish just one fucking high school psycho would do it for the glory of Jesus instead of Mudvayne. Thank god for Aaron Sorkin--he not only puts it to them, he does it with their own guns. I love that man. Why isn't he in charge?
Cause he's not fucked up enough, that's why.
Only the truly, deeply, genetically deranged can achieve the stratospheric level of nuts required to run a 21st century nation. Apparently. Look at that weird little Elvis impersonating tranny running Korea. Holy shit! How did THAT guy get in charge? And the Iranian president, Yakov Smirnov, when did he stop telling jokes and start shaking his fucking fist? And Cesar Chavez--he didn't used to be crazy but now, now he's calling our wingnut satan and he's fucking serious.
Maybe this is the signal of the end of nation states anyway: they don't matter anymore. Only market segments matter. I mean, gas some people, hang some liberals, wipe out a village or two and yeah, eventually you get your own trial-cum-reality show but nothing bad will happen. However: convince the 18--23 year old male alpha buyers to switch to a smoother lite beer and you might find yourself at the wrong end of a UN Sanction.
Jesus Haploid Christ. Is there any leader in the world who's not evil or crazy? Is Putin really losing it and going for his tenth dead journalist? Are we going to go down in the books alongside Vlad the Impaler as evil and rapacious democracy stranglers? Can democracy even survive this shitstorm?
Maybe, I don't know. My buddy the hippy tells me that at the core of paranoia is a kernel of information straight from the heart of the world mind. He says that when you're really scared, seriously wigged, falling our of your own head terrified, it means the world is trying to tell you something. Actually, he kind of says it's a good thing.
Of course he is a hippy.
But I take heart that things really are as bad as they seem and in fact, probably worse than we know. I take heart because when democracy and peace and the souls of nations are abraded to the foundation like they are right now, something snaps and the people make it stop. They vote again. They carry signs again. They burn stuff.
Maybe this is the worse that precedes the better. It has to be because, really, look at this dark circus we're attending: it can't get any worse.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Position Statement
I believe the only tool left for saving the world is the invigoration of our children's imagination.
I am told that our dreams, beliefs in Gods, visions of saints, visits by ghosts, sticky attractions, and overwhelming epiphanies, are all the result of exceedingly fine electrical transactions and microscopic chemical spills in our brains; that all this ephemeral mystic mumbo-jumbo means exactly squat; that at the most irreducible level of observation, our natures are merely mechanical to which I can only say, and not at all humbly, to those sad, expressionless, sexless, passionless souls staking this myopic claim: so what?
If the purely determnistic explanation is true, if our divergent and fractal-lineated hungers are merely the result of our gentic code, then our reaction to it–our rush to the altar, our search for truth, our deep loves and weird obsessions, our endless and difficult quest for the divine kiss–are also the results of this same embedded code and, therefore, we should rightfully abandon ourselves in these pursuits as selfishly and gleefully as wild children running into an open field for they are our birthright, our muse, our inescapable fate, our nature, our skin. They are our instructions. We should follow them.
I am told that our dreams, beliefs in Gods, visions of saints, visits by ghosts, sticky attractions, and overwhelming epiphanies, are all the result of exceedingly fine electrical transactions and microscopic chemical spills in our brains; that all this ephemeral mystic mumbo-jumbo means exactly squat; that at the most irreducible level of observation, our natures are merely mechanical to which I can only say, and not at all humbly, to those sad, expressionless, sexless, passionless souls staking this myopic claim: so what?
If the purely determnistic explanation is true, if our divergent and fractal-lineated hungers are merely the result of our gentic code, then our reaction to it–our rush to the altar, our search for truth, our deep loves and weird obsessions, our endless and difficult quest for the divine kiss–are also the results of this same embedded code and, therefore, we should rightfully abandon ourselves in these pursuits as selfishly and gleefully as wild children running into an open field for they are our birthright, our muse, our inescapable fate, our nature, our skin. They are our instructions. We should follow them.
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