Fights of Fancy

I wish my imaginary friend would find someone else to talk to. I've blocked her IM and email many times, but she just creates more accounts and renews her attempts to drive me batshit crazy. Now she's got my number and she's not afraid to use it. Her ability to sense my moods is uncanny- she can tell when she's not welcome. That is when she calls.

I had a great but tiring weekend- two radio shows and a recording session with local Irish troubadours Poisoned Dwarf, who were a treat to record. They'll be the featured artist on an upcoming radio program...details to follow...anyway, I was trying to catch up on the news- which doesn't seem to have changed much since 1988- when Fancy rang.

"Hi!"
Oh shit. She's perky today. I'm not loving the perky.


"Hello. What." It's not a query.
Perky, meet Surly.

"I just wanted to tell you that I'm glad the Mormons didn't kill you."

"The Mormons?"

"Yeah. The tornado that just missed you, the truck that almost smooshed your brother. The Mormons were behind those."

"Fancy", I say with exasperation," that tornado missed me by twenty miles."

"A tornado is a lot harder to aim than a truck."

Then she drags up an incident from my past that I wish had stayed forgotten. As a very young man, I lived in Park City , Utah, which was sort of a Utah Green Zone for non-Mormons; the LDS would lob weekend missionaries into town like black-jacketed mortar rounds. If you were unlucky, a pair of these white-shirted projectiles would hit your front door on Saturday morning and ask you to donate 10% of your income -for life- to the Mormon Church.

I was very unlucky. For weeks, the Mormons attacked. I usually felt pretty rough every morning, Saturday being no exception, and I resented these intrusions. At first I was semi-polite, no...thanks...goodbye...slam...but they persisted. They'd send fresh faces- one kid looked over my shoulder and saw my guitar, asked if he could check it out. Nice try. No.

One cold Friday night I filled a large saucepan with water and carried it upstairs to my bedroom.
The next morning, I heard the knock of Mormons. I opened my bedroom window- the one above the front door- and dumped water on the missionaries.
Keep coming back!
They came back. I don't live in Utah anymore.

"How did you know about that?", I ask Fancy after she finishes telling my story.

"It's all in the Mormon archives. With pictures and audiotapes. I gotta say that long hair is not a good look for you."

"Fancy, you are full of shit."

"Really? Do you remember what happened later? The shoot-out? The brawl? The ski chase? There's a bullethole in the hood of your parka where they almost got you."

"Yeah...well, that hole is from a joint. The wind blew it out of my mouth and it burned a hole in the side of the hood. I never had a shoot-out with Mormons. I don't even ski. If you really had access to the archives, you'd know why I left. You'd also know that I can't discuss it."


"Yes, I know", she conceded, " but there are other things that you can discuss. This church, for example. It's the one in Texas where the authorities took custody of the kids. I'm sending you the pic now. Does this look like a happy place to grow up?"



"Geez, yeah...if you are Stalin. Or The Joker. Are they digging a moat around it? It looks incomplete without a moat. Is the climate in El Dorado suitable for alligators?"

"Yes. Did you know that Texas Child Services has found thirty-one underage girls who are pregnant or have already borne children? I'm guessing that DNA tests will prove that these girls
were raped by adult Fundie Mormons. It's a shitstorm for the Prairie Bhurka crowd."

"Hmmm", I mulled this over, "that's awful. Those poor kids are screwed-up no matter what happens next."

"I know", she replied.

I hate it when I agree with Fancy.

"I don't think this will end the FLDS, though. They'll just move again...perhaps to another country. Is Guyana still a country?"

"Yes", said Fancy. Then she fell silent.

I hate it when I agree with Fancy.

Paranoid Fancy

I have an imaginary friend named Fancy. Fancy is a conspiracy theorist with a Cassandra complex and I think she likes to make stuff up just to torture me- she not only has my home phone number, she uses it to press all my buttons.

I was trying to watch the 5am replay of Battlestar Galactica when Fancy called. She had an idea regarding the TV commercial that was playing...I don't know how she knew that particular commercial was on. Perhaps she was watching BG as well? I know that she has cable but I'm not sure what time zone she lives in. No one is.

"Hello?"

"Hi! Whatcha doin"?

"Watching Battlestar. Make it quick- there's a commercial on now but I missed the show last night."

"Right! See...I had this idea on how to make some money. Huge money."

"Uh huh. Go ahead."

"First, I'd need some cash. Enough to pay for saturation advertising on late night cable TV. The kinds of shows that stoners and lonely insomniacs watch...then I'd start offering Free Credit reports...for a small fee, I'd even offer to protect the viewer's I.D., credit cards, bank accounts etc...offer comprehensive protection against ID theft, ya know?"

"Fancy, there's already- you'd need- I mean-"

"No, no...all I'd need to do is hire some scrubs to work the phones and run the caller's data through Equifax or some other legitimate agency that gives free credit reports.. most of it could be done by automation...then we give the 'client' a report and offer a 30-day free trial of our "Secure ID" service."

"Well, yeah. But like I was say.."

She interrupted me again. Fancy never lets me finish my thoughts.

"They'll have to give me all of their data", she went on, "every account, every card, social...the works. I'll have complete access to all of it. During the 30-day "trial" period, I'll:

a) drain their accounts, or...

b) wait 29 days and sell their data to other hackers.

Or some combination of the two. "

"Geez, Fancy. I'm fairly certain that's illegal . Aren't you afraid of getting caught?"

"That's where the Free Credit report comes in...those folks will be giving me the data I need. I'll have millions of aliases...I could change ID several times a day for the rest of my life if I wanted to."

"Fancy?"

"Yes?"

"I am really, really glad that you don't know where I live."

"Oh, I know where you live."

Unpredictable

I just received a phone call from my Twin in Chicago.

"Killed...killed...bodies...killed...."

Whoa. Slow down. Who got killed? Are you OK?

He is OK. Physically.

The Twin was, as he is almost every evening, standing at the Cermak bus stop after work.
Unlike most days, today a runaway tractor trailer plowed into the station.
He felt the air move as the truck passed.
It was very close.

There was a deafening , exploding sound - louder than a hundred earthquakes- and suddenly bodies were flying through the air, people were screaming, blood was everywhere.
The Twin actually saw the truck coming in, but those who didn't thought it was a bomb or a derailed train.

After the shock, my brother and other bystanders tried to lift a piece of metal ( from his description, I think it may be the 'L' shaped beam directly in front of the truck's front tire) off of a pair of women who were pinned underneath. They were in a pool of spreading blood.
The women were not moving.

The rescue was not successful.

Two women died at the scene and nearly a dozen other persons are in critical care.

I'm not sure if the dead women were the ones he was trying to help or not; in any case it was a horrible scene and the Twin was very shaken, on the edge of tears...to make matters worse, someone stole the Twin's backpack, which he had dropped when he ran to help. It had his wallet, credit card, checkbook, cell phone...the works.

With any luck, the authorities picked it up while they were clearing the scene...maybe they thought it was a potential bomb and they took it somewhere and blew it up, it'll ruin your Blackberry but your ID will be safe.
I suck at comforting.

The Twin was still in a state of mild shock. He was afraid to watch the news...he didn't want to know how many people died. He started down the what if path:
-What if I hadn't stopped to tie my shoe?
-What if I hadn't seen the truck coming?

Don't think about that, I said.
Just don't take anything for granted, ever.
I don't.


There are degrees of near-death experiences. His was brief, unforeseeable and left him unharmed- dodging the proverbial bullet, as it were.

My own experience was a bit different. I didn't have a brush with Death, I had a long disagreement that went on for six days...I remember the doctor coming into my room and telling me that they had "lost me" a couple of times while I was on the operating table.

What operating table? I had surgery?

Yep. I went into alcoholic withdrawal while they were trying to repair my innards...I had a grande mal seizure while I had an endoscopic tube inside me. Everyone present was amazed that I survived. I used up four units of blood. This seemed like a pretty impressive statistic to the doc, he repeated it several times for effect.

Jesus. I'm glad I don't remember that. Doc, how long will I be in the hospital?

Not long, he said.

That's good news.

No, it's not. We expect you to die.

Die? When?

Today. Perhaps tomorrow.

That sucks. I don't feel like dying.

The doctors didn't believe me. Over and over again, I was asked the same questions in different forms...did I ever have suicidal thoughts? ...did I plan on drinking again?
I felt like screaming : of course I NEVER have any suicidal thoughts! I drank myself into a bloody pulp in a joyous, life-affirming manner!
I mean, nothing celebrates life like a 1.75 liter bottle of Bowman's Virginia Vodka... I sure could use a drink...but I didn't say that.

I lied and said : "No and no."

It's a good thing that I did.
I have since learned that if I had admitted to having "suicide ideation", I probably would have been placed into psychiatric care, which would have driven me insane...instead, I was left alone with Death, who can be a real asshole.

The smug, undying bastard was convinced that I was going to drink again.
"C'mon in, man", he said with a wink and a scythe, "the water's fine. One drink and you can swim here forever, you'll never feel any pain again."

"But", I protested, "that means I'll never feel anything good either."

"Dude", he said, using a condescending tone that only immortals can truly pull off, "your life sucks. You are a fat, used-up drunk with no job, no future and no friends. No one even knows that you are here...they won't miss you when you are gone. Loveless , hopeless, forgotten...that's you."

No. That's not me. Don't say that. No.

The Reaper grinned. "Why not? You say it every day. I'm just agreeing with you."

I had to admit that he was right.
I also had to admit that I was wrong.
Death was using my own words as a weapon against me.
That pissed me off.

It was then that I decided that I was never going to drink again.
I've been sober ever since.

Poor company, Death was, but I'm richer for having met him.

Sometimes persons, on hearing my story, will comment that I must possess remarkable strength.
Or courage.
Or willpower.
Or faith...or any number of other things that I don't have.

Those aren't the things that keep me sober.

The secret to my sobriety isn't a secret at all.
I don't want to die.

That's it.

*********************************

In 1996 I wrote a comic book mini-series titled "Destiny Angel". This is the opening page from issue #1:

In which my protagonist is asked the question:





Eerie, eh?


I thought so.

Chastity and Prudence

Flashback to a few months ago:
I'm on a dinner date with my female friend Chastity. At least I thought it was a dinner date...when we arrive at the restaurant, Chastity tells me that she had "forgotten" our date and had already eaten...oh, that's really awesome, I think, I've been looking forward to this all week and you forgot and now I have to either skip dinner or eat alone, in public, with an audience of one. I guess sex is out of the question.

Sex, Chastity informs me, is out of the question.

That's fine, I say. I mean it. It's Ok. I'm just glad for the company.

Chastity tells me that I'm not OK with that. She has brothers and she knows how men think. She knows that I'm only after sex and I'm not getting any from her.

Besides, she continues, I am dating our mutual friend, Prudence.

This is all news to me.

"Chassie", I explain, "I am not dating Prudence. Prudence gave me the "let's just be friends" speech a long time ago...that's where we stand now."

"No", she insists, " I have seen you together. Women know these things."

Waitress! Check, please!

Forward to much more recently:

It's late at night and I'm hanging out with Prudence. We're Googling weird bands and listening to snippets of music...it's in a semi-public place and there's absolutely no sex going on.

Just friends.

In walks Chastity. She sees me sitting next to Prudence and her demeanor darkens.

Liar, I can hear her think, I knew you were fucking Prudence.

Be Careful What You Wish For

We are in the middle of our bi-annual Pledge Drive at the station; for an entire week we shamelessly beg the public for the spare change and loose dollars that make our broadcasts possible...it's a busy time for us volunteers, but it comes with it's own set of rewards- one of which is food.

Glorious food.

Of course, there are hazards involved, one of which is food.

Al, a carnivorous volunteer, was lamenting the lack of meat-based foodstuffs on our station buffet (dude, it's Green Week)...his complaint did not go unheeded.
The following day, Wendy, another one of our stalwart volunteers, brought in this delicacy, made especially for Al:

Sea of Corned Beef Hash

Goldfish Crackers and sculpted frankfurters set on a bed of Corned Beef Hash!
In the culinary arts, presentation is everything and this is presentation taken to the extreme.
I sent this pic to my best penpal. She lost two pounds just looking at it.

Al S., the meat-seeking volunteer, thought it was great. Within 24 hours, it was all gone...coincidently, so was Al.

Get well soon, buddy!

Al Gets His Wish:

( food pics by Fontaine)


Al isn't the only one that's been enjoying the festivities over the last few days...I've had a couple of good bands in the studio and I had a most excellent Sunday show, receiving a $100 pledge from two of my most loyal fans...I actually have loyal listeners!
That tickles me pink, it does... feels good. In some ways, I'm a very lucky man. I get to play my record collection on the radio and other people enjoy it...that's a high school rocker's dream come true.

I think I found my true calling this weekend. I'm not exactly sure what my calling is, but it definitely involves Rock Chicks. My friend Laura's new band played at our party Saturday and I was conscripted into taking pictures of Laura and her band:

Laura Drinking a 9.0% Alcohol Energy Drink Out of a Paper Bag While Sitting on her new Bass Amp:


Rock Chicks:


Here's a bit of weird blog/rock trivia...I first met Katie, (above, left), at a 2005 gig in Brooklyn with her old band, The Strap-Ons...that band was sharing a drummer with my old band, Polite Society... I went to a NYC gig with them where I met my blogpal Lyzard- in person!
I was drunker than a roomful of priests, but it was a great time nonetheless.

After the show, the band and I found a diner that served whiskey and pancakes...then we went to a Motel 6 where I wound up comforting a weeping teenage groupie in the stairwell and later, in the ice-machine room.

It was one of those nights.

Well, two more days of Pledge Drive...then another weekend of live music. I have a jazz artist on Saturday and an Irish folk band on Sunday. I also have a paying a job, albeit a temporary one...I'll be shilling NASCAR merchandise at the Raceway on the 2nd and 3rd of next month...if I pass the background check. I can't believe that they asked me to submit a background check for a two-day temp job at a NASCAR event, but they did.

My boss didn't make me take a drug test but she did ask me if I could cope with drunken rednecks...I'd probably have to deal with some "unruly and intoxicated" customers, she said.
At a NASCAR race? , I asked in mock disbelief.
She laughed.

Assuming I clear the background check , I'll make a month's rent in two 14- hour days - the timing couldn't be much better...and yeah, I can handle drunken rednecks.

I watched a grown man eat the food pictured above. I can handle almost anything.

A Fender, a Throne and a Set of Irish Handcuffs:

WMD- The Swiss Connection

This enlightened camel racer (above, middle), realizing that using small children as camel jockeys can be bad for the kids, has purchased a robotic camel jockey from a Swiss firm for the low price of $5,500, camel not included.

Ancient tradition meets high technology and no children are enslaved in the process.

But what would happen if the 'terra-ists' were to mount RPG's , flame-throwers, machine- guns, dirty bombs or Death-Lasers on these robots?

They'd have an instant army of camel-mounted Terminator cavalry, is what.

The solution? A pre-emptive invasion of Switzerland.
It'll be a cakewalk.

Quest for Speed

Have you ever seen this maniac on TV? He's a British news anchorman for CNN.
I once saw a segment where Richard Quest was literally bouncing of the walls ( and columns and railings) of the locale where they were filming...the cameraman was obviously having to struggle just to keep up with Quest's manic skipping about...it was the sort of performance that would be impossible to satirize, it was so frenzied and intense.
It was funny and entertaining, albeit a bit disturbing to witness, having seen such behavior in real-life far too many times.

"That dude is way wired", I thought, "he's into some heavy shit."

Quest just got busted for meth in NYC. He's lucky that he's in a position to get help, but I doubt if he'll ever be as much fun to watch again.

Irony

Two dominant news stories:

1) Barack Obama is drawing heavy criticism for suggesting that during difficult times, some Americans may become frightened, disillusioned or even "bitter"and that they may "cling to religion" as a way of coping with these feelings.

2) The Pope is here! The Pope is here!

***************************************



Why I Hate The United Arab Emirates, #29,648




What is that building, above? It's Ski Dubai, an enormous indoor winter recreational park containing five ski slopes, a tobaggon course, a snowboard trail and a cross-country trail simulator.
It, of course, is located in Dubai, one of the seven theocorporate CityStates that comprise the United Arab Emirates.

The interior ( below) is kept at a constant 28 degrees Fahrenheit. Dubai is a desert nation and it's outdoor temperatures reach as high as 135 degrees F, so I don't think it's a real stretch to say that it takes an enormous amount of energy to operate this facility.


This winter playground opened in 2005. Something important happened in 2004 that made it much easier to build this enormous, frigid abomination.
From the CIA World Factbook:

In April 2004, the UAE signed a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement with Washington and in November 2004 agreed to undertake negotiations toward a Free Trade Agreement with the US. The country's Free Trade Zones - offering 100% foreign ownership and zero taxes - are helping to attract foreign investors.

Foreign investors such as Dick Cheney's good friends at Halliburton. Halliburton execs vehemently deny that they opened a new corporate HQ in Dubai in order to avoid U.S. sanctions that prevent U.S. companies from trading with Iran.

The Dubai move sparked controversy among US politicians last March. Senator Frank Lautenberg at the time accused Halliburton of going "to extraordinary lengths in the past to do business with the terrorist government in Iran".

Not only does Halliburton get to use Dubai as a middleman to establish and maintain a profitable trade relationship with our alleged enemies in Iran, they get to do so without paying any taxes!
With this in mind, it's very easy to see why the Neo-Cons and other BushCo thralls are so dead-set against opening any sort of diplomatic dialogue with Iran- an end to or modification of the current US sanctions against Iran could make the carefully constructed and hugely profitable loophole in the 2004 TIFA irrelevant.

Mind you, I'm not getting this information from a left-wing conspiracy site...I'm simply connecting information provided by our own Central Intelligence Agency.

Interesting facts from the CIA:

-The per capita GDP, U.A.E. : $55,200 (2007)

-The per capita GDP in the U.S.A. : $46,000. (2007)

- 81% of the the U.A.E. population is comprised of foreign workers

-78% of jobs in the UAE are in the service sector...this, presumably, includes the Pakistanis who operate the lifts at Ski Dubai.

What does the average UAE national do for a living?
Nothing.
They don't need jobs. The UAE 'government' gives the native-born citizens welfare checks drawn from the national oil revenue and the citizens, in turn, use the money to employ foreign-born dishwashers, valets, busboys, prostitutes and lift-operators.

An unemployed native of the UAE can afford to go skiing.
Indoors.
Downtown.

This is what an unemployed native of the USA can afford:


Did I mention prostitutes when I listed the job opportunities open to foreign labor in the UAE? I'm sorry.

I meant to say sex slaves.

From the CIA World Factbook:

current situation: the United Arab Emirates is a destination country for men, women, and children trafficked from South and East Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East for involuntary servitude and for sexual exploitation; an estimated 10,000 women from sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, South and East Asia, Iraq, Iran, and Morocco may be victims of sex trafficking in the UAE; women also migrate from Africa, and South and Southeast Asia to work as domestic servants, but may have their passports confiscated, be denied permission to leave the place of employment in the home, or face sexual or physical abuse by their employers...victims of child camel jockey trafficking may still remain in the UAE, despite a July 2005 law banning the practice...

That's just a snippet of the egregious human rights violations committed in the UAE ...certainly there must be some repercussions to such flagrant abuse.

The total number of trade sanctions imposed on the UAE by the USA?

None.

Instead of sanctions, Dubai was rewarded with the 2004 TIFA and now they have ski resorts in the middle of the desert... during the hotter portions of the coming summer there is a good chance that you will be forced with a tough decision- can you afford to turn on the air-conditioning?

While you sweat, think of our good friends in the UAE and the gigantic indoor freezers that we bought for them. Think about how the money to pay for these indoor snowparks got from here to there. It drove.


Hot enough for you?

A Sign of Pretty Things To Come

When I was a teenager I purchased a used LP by a band that I'd never heard of- The Pretty Things. The LP was a double-record reissue of the albums S.F. Sorrow (1968) and Parachute (1970) ...S.F. Sorrow is one of the most influential rock albums of all time, yet few people outside the world of musicians and rock historians have heard it; it's one of the first 'concept albums' ever recorded; it's based on a short story written by singer Phil May and it tells the sad tale of an Englishman named Sebastian F. (S.F.) Sorrow.

The story is told through a combination of songs and written words printed between the lyrics :

The Sorrows named him Sebastian F although nobody knew what the 'F' stood for , and nobody really cared...





The U.S.A. version of the album cover is bleak, cut in the shape of a tombstone...the stark logo is enclosed in a purple casket, quite a contrast from the colorful psychedelic imagery being used by other bands of the time, such as The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's or Cream's Disraeli Gears .

Musically, Sorrow was far ahead of it's time; lyrically, Sorrow's story was that of a life filled with tragedy, loss, isolation, madness, followed by a slow, indifferent death of loneliness. Sorrow never actually dies, he just fades away, unnoticed.

There's a good summary of the S.F. Sorrow story on wiki, here.
A great blog on the band's history can be found here.


In 1970, ( back when it still meant something), The Pretty Things' Parachute won Rolling Stone magazine's Album of the Year award but it wasn't a commercial success...it's my own theory that May's lyrics and themes are just too honest, too dark and too brutal for mass appeal...much of what he writes has a cruel authenticity to it that I believe unconsciously disturbs the average listener- it is this dark quality that attracted me and continues to do so...after a long, bleak period (the 80's) Phil May bottomed out-
From producer Mark St. John's liner notes to 1998's 'Rage Before Beauty':

...there are only so many times that you can turn up at the singer's flat and see the remains of the sodden mattress out in the street after the Fire Brigade have dealt with another drunk's self-induced Holocaust. Watching the sun slant through the windows of the Fulham hospital and looking at the back of Phil's head, covered in soot, shit and dust, just sitting there in front of a blank TV screen, trying to put it all back together in his head and then turning as he hears me coming, he summons up the old charming twinkle and a deprecatory little joke- Jesus, Phil, that was my old friend coming apart at the seams. It was bleak fucking year, 1989.

Phil May was able to put it back together. The Pretty Things reunited and started playing again and they are still playing today...Rage Before Beauty was released in 1999 but I didn't hear it until 2005, shortly after having my own "drunk's self-induced Holocaust"...mine didn't involve fire, it involved bleeding and I wasn't expected to survive it- but I did.

It was a bleak fucking year, 2005.

I have always found inspiration in the The Pretty's music and the story of Phil May's return from the precipice of self-destruction moves me on a deeply personal level.

I recently saw a blogpal mention the old game of " People You'd Like To Have Dinner With"...Phil May and Pretty Things guitarist Dick Taylor would be on my list but a dinner date with them seems fairly unlikely...the best I can hope for is a long-distance telephone interview.

Hmmm...what do I have to do to make that happen?

Not much, really. I wrote an email last week and got a reply from Mark St. John himself...Phil and Dick would surely love to do this, he said, details to follow...well, cool. I'm into that.
I'll soon be picking the minds of my childhood heroes, recording the interview as part of a two-hour Pretty Things radio show that I've planned for summer production.

I must say that I'm not much of a fanboy. I've met more than a few 'stars' and I generally don't care for 'famous' people; in person, they are usually far less impressive than their non-famous counterparts... but the Pretty Things have been the background music to my life...I want to tell them how important they have been to me and to say 'thanks' personally.

I'm a lucky guy in so many ways- I may not be able find a job but I can make some of my childhood dreams come true.
I'm not sure that I'd be happier if that situation were reversed.

****************************************

The New Breakfast Snob, April 13, 2008:

Clannad- Ri Na Cruinne
West Of Eden- Raising O'Malley's Barn
Cranberries- Yeat's Grave
Anousheh Khalili- Modern Genius
Fiona Joyce- Long Road To Travel
Brian Eno- Burning Airlines Gives You So Much More
Quiet Sun- Trumpets with Motherhood/Bargain Classics
Bela Fleck & Tony Trishka- Yaba Yaba
Blue Oyster Cult - Searching For Celine
Elvis Costello- Let Him Dangle
Hot Lava- Apple+Option+fire
Talking Heads- Mind

Klark Kent- Don't Care
For E. I wish you'd come back.

Altan- Mother's Delight
Can- Hallelluwah
Pretty Things- No Future
XTC- All You Pretty Girls
Grin-Boy and Girl
Bruce Cockburn- Justice
Alvin Lee- Education
10 CC- Sand in my Face
Crack the Sky- Maybe I Can Fool Everybody Tonight

Pink Floyd- Bike
For Leo, who turned me onto Bruce Cockburn and loves him some bikes.

Faces- Cindy Incidentally
For Cindy. I wish you'd put the junk down and come back to your friends.

Jimi Hendrix- House Burning Down
For Whim. This is her award for bravery. This song was posted on her blog. That takes courage.

Nina Hagen- Lucky Number
For Fontaine, because she gets it.

Make My Day

This morning I substitute-DJed on our weekly British music program, The British Breakfast.
For me, doing a 'British' show pretty much means little more than taking Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Nina Hagen out of my collection.
To demonstrate how easy it is to do a British show, I burned two hours worth of Brit tunes onto CDs, added a few choice bits to the pile and left them all at home.

For two hours I kept reminding myself how easy this show would have been had I brought those CDs with me...but it was a good show nonetheless.


The British Breakfast , April 12 2008


The Clash- I'm So Bored with the USA
Who isn't?

Marianne Faithfull- Broken English
Don't say it in German. Say it in brooookenn English.

Al Stewart- Dark and Rolling Sea
The Move-Don't Make My Baby Blue

Buzzcocks- Fiction Romance

What do you think a 'buzzcock' is? The stuff on the interweb isn't true- can you believe that?
I found the real answer in a book I read a year ago- the book (The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes) includes a short glossary of 18th century English criminal slang (or cant as Hughes refers to it) - a buzzcock is pretty much the same as a buzz-gloke or a buzzcloak. They hung out with pradnappers, fogle-hunters and bung-divers and the best of them were known as boman prigs. They were given this name because of their rum daddles.

Now give me my wallet back.

Luv Machine- Witch's Wand
From a Schlepalation.

Beatles- Taxman
I couldn't resist this cheap shot. All those IRS ads...I played this song as a public service announcement.

Jethro Tull- King and Country
Back in ye olde days, America had a mad King named George. King George used American taxes to fund foreign wars that the average American didn't particularly support; eventually a revolution was staged, a republic was established and America decided that it would never have a King again.
Funny how that all worked out.

The Open Mind - Magic Potion
It's about getting high. On life, I mean.
Don't use drugs.
This has been a public service announcement.

The Kinks- Brainwashed
"You look like a real human being but you don't have a mind of your own..."

Man, I'm starting to dig the new Battlestar Galactica TV show but I didn't know the Kinks wrote a song about it...in 1972!
Maybe it's about something else.

Alan Parsons- Breakdown
FREEDOM! FREEDOM! WE WILL ALL OBEY!

Damien Dempsey -Celtic Tiger
Where we gonna live, what we gonna do?
We'll have to move in with the Woman-in-the-Shoe

Oh man, don't remind me.

Brian Eno- Baby's On Fire
I think she is. But I'm not tellin'. Much.

Thin Lizzy- Bad Reputation
I very recently learned that two women I know (in real life) have been talking about me.
For weeks!
I didn't even know that they knew each other.
Against all odds and reason, this ongoing dialogue seems to be working in my favor.

Kate Bush -Deal With God
As if to confirm this, I get a wholly unexpected call from the president of my Pacific Northwest Fan Club. She wants some Kate Bush.
Kate Bush?
I have a total of about 75 songs with me-total- and whatta ya know? One of them is by Kate Bush.
Today has a groove.

Clannad- Suil a Ruin
Huh? This was supposed to be a different song... I musta burned the wrong track...this will have to do until my next show, which is in about 12 hours.
It's a fine song and a fine song isn't gonna spoil my groove.

Fairport Convention- The Way I Feel
Is pretty good right now.

The Pretty Things- She Says Good Morning
She did! It was a morning of Good Mornings, which makes for a good morning indeed, if you get what I'm greeting at, 'yknow?
It's the kind of April morning that leads to a June drum circle. Ya with me on this?
Any answer is correct so don't go straining yerself.

One weekend soon, my DJ buddy Buzzy and I are gonna do a two-hour show devoted entirely to the 35+ year history of the Pretty Things.
Seriously. The band deserves it.

Pink Floyd- Biding My Time
Tomorrow morning I get to do this all over again.

Pentangle- Blacksmith
When she sings she will "do her duty", what does she mean? Is this song as sexist as it sounds? It's like 200-year old gangsta rap in threes and with a melody... oh,OK.
It's not like that at all. Or is it?

Stranglers- Under The Name of Spain
What was that about leather breeches?
What is she saying during the middle?
It's in French, so it must be sexy.
Must not think bad thoughts...

Robyn Hitchcock- How Do You Work This Thing?
The record skipped on this song. Twice. It was operator error on my part.
I'm not making that up...what a great song to fuck-up on!

Damien Dempsey- Negative Vibes
This song is all about not letting petty shit ruin your day. Balm, it is and work, it does.

Snakefinger- Bless Me For I Have Sinned

Procul Harum- Long Gone Geek
Omigod, I thought I had Atomic Rooster cued up and I had Procul Harum on instead.
I got laughed at for that.
Color me a brighter shade of fail.

The Pogues- Love You Till The End
I got hit with a brick today, right upside my head. Wham!
But that was after playing this song...and I'll never, ever play Wham!, so don't bother asking.

Robert Fripp- Chicago
With Peter Hammill singing. Pete from Van Der Graff Generator. You knew that.

Damien Dempsey -Hold Me
Feed me first. I'm gonna need the calories. I'm in one of those very practical manic moods.

On the way home I noticed that my passenger side windshield wiper wasn't moving, which kinda sucked since it was pouring rain. It turned out that the threads that hold the arm to the spinning motor had worn out and I'd need a new wiper arm.
When I went to the parts store and told them what make and model I had ( 1990 Volvo 780) , the parts guy shook his head. I'd have to call Volvo- probably cost a hundred bucks or more...on the other hand, he suggested, a tube of Water Weld is only five bucks.

I bought the Weld and it worked like a charm.

On the drive home, the DJ ( who is a very close friend of mine) was playing Nina Hagen's version of the Tubes' classic song 'White Punks on Dope'- the extended mix - in German and with the great guitar hooks at the end!
I have played that same song on my own show and it was a childhood dream come true for me- I can't believe that I have a friend who understands how cool it is to play this song and appreciates Nina Hagen*- actually, I can believe it, but I just felt like sharing.

When I got home I called her.

" You are a total freak! I love you for that."

She seemed OK with hearing that. She played Motorhead.

Motorhead! That's swooning music for me!
I wish I could afford gas- I love driving around with Motorhead cranked...hey, that reminds me...
I was able to fix my car for five bucks earlier today.
Five bucks and twenty minutes.

I called the parts store and asked for the manager.

"You have an excellent employee in [ described parts guy and how he helped me]. Please pass along my thanks, his idea worked perfectly and it made my day."

That last bit was a lie. My day was already made.
I may have a shitty life but I do have some good days and today is one of them.

Oh yeah...wait until I tell you about the 'job offers' that I'm getting from my 'barter' ad on craigslist...it's a post that's writing itself.
Literally.

Till then, have fun and rock safely!

Craigslist: Skid Row or Leper Colony?

I called a faraway friend last night, hoping to have a stimulating intellectual discussion regarding some profound socioeconomic insights that occurred to me during a fit of philosophical mania.

*ring*

She didn't even say 'hello'! She just picked up the phone and immediately jumped in with:

"OK! Tell me who you are dating!"

Geez. Are all women so preoccupied with sex?
I sure hope so. My sanity depends on it.

Anyway...she was referring to an off-hand remark I made in a previous post regarding dating, but I didn't have a specific answer :

"Um, I meant I was dating in general. Asking women out, I mean... I'd given up for a while. I even got so desperate that..."

I was getting ready to tell her that I'd answered a few 'craigslist' ads recently and that from my perusal of the ads already posted, I had come to the conclusion that if you are looking for anything of importance on craigslist, it's a sign that your life has, in some significant manner, hit rock-bottom.

Craigslist, I have determined, is the modern equivalent of a medieval bazaar; teeming with pickpockets and vendors of exotic, counterfeit goods; rife with diseased courtesans and 'employers' ready to conscript the unwary into a career of indentured servitude- it's not a safe place to be naive.

Before I could impart this pearl of wisdom , my friend read me the text of her own personal ad that she had tried to post on craigslist. It appealed to me but I'm already fond of her so it's hard to be objective...anyway, she indicated that her experience with replies was not so good.

Nor was mine, I said. I recently had a brief , engaging flurry of correspondence with a clever young lady and it looked as if a meeting was inevitable- until she challenged me to a drinking contest!
I was obligated to reply that I was a recovering alcoholic and that I could drink her under the table even if it killed me, which it most certainly would.
That was the end of our correspondence.

I also answered an ad from a woman who said she just wanted to meet someone for intelligent conversation over coffee.
She just wanted someone to talk to.
I want that too, so I wrote and asked her if she'd like to have a cup of coffee with me. She didn't reply.

I must note that I'm looking in the 35-45 age group and I can't help but wonder why so many women expect to find a man in that demographic that "doesn't have baggage"...by the time you are 40, you are gonna have baggage. Period.
The best one can hope for, to paraphrase my friend Liz, is to: "find someone who has luggage that matches yours."
Additionally, why even bother to ask for 'honesty'? Is that stipulation going to deter liars? Sheesh...why not just ask Santa for a pony?

So I posted my own ad:

***************************

Three Things I Got Going For Me

1)My penis is larger than my thumb.

2)My brain is larger than a golfball.

3)I'm not married.

Anything else would be bragging.

*******************************


If this doesn't get me laid, nothing will. That is my deepest fear.
On the bright side, I'll save a small fortune in condoms...have you priced them lately? Geez.


Then there are the help-wanted ads. I scan them daily and I see an awful lot of ads that look like this one, pasted verbatim from craigslist:

$#$-Perfect positions for anyone with office and clerical experience. Will train, if needed. Earn while you learn.***Start today. Email resume and references.-

Location: FT/PT
Compensation: (*)-$22/hr.(*)

I have absolutely no idea what all the dollar signs, parenthetical asterisks and bizarre punctuation indicate, but the pay seems to be negative twenty-two dollars per hour, which makes more sense than an entry-level office job that pays positive $22/hr.

These are fake ads that are designed to extract personal information from your resume-and from your references.

If you don't believe me, create a 'fake' email account and answer one of these ads- send them a fake resume that details your criminal history; noting that, despite what your last employer and the judge said, you were innocent of the embezzling charges...include your new email account on the fake resume.
Within hours, you will start getting 'job offers' sent to that account.
Seriously.
This type of scam is so pervasive that permutations of the phrase " william morris job agency scam" have become one of my top blog traffic drivers.
Go ahead, type it into Google w/o quotes...you'll see that I'm #5 or 6 out of over a half-million.

But I'm going to be living in my car and showering at the station if I don't find a job soon, so I took a chance and posted an ad under the 'Barter' heading":

******************************************

TIME FOR MONEY

I would like to trade 40-45 hours of my personal time for a paycheck, a recurring weekly basis would be optimal but I'm not in a position to be picky.

During the agreed-upon hours, you can instruct me to do your paperwork; help your customers;set up your computers and/or home electronics; cook your meals; record your band's demo tape; wash your car; mow your lawn; ghostwrite your novel; wash your dishes; feed your pets etc...at this point there isn't much I wouldn't do. I'm educated, experienced and dependable.
Offers of room, board and a modest stipend will be considered.

****************************************************

Yesterday I got a FWD from someone who really should know better. It reads, in part ( my notes in italics):

THIS TOOK TWO PAGES OF THE TUESDAY USA TODAY - IT IS FOR REAL
(No, it didn't and no, it isn't- ed.)

I'm an attorney, And I know the law. This thing is for real.

(You aren't an attorney in America. American attorneys know English. And You don't.)

Bill Gates sharing his fortune. If you ignore this, You will repent la ter.

( Translation: This is a chain letter )

It goes on to say that Microsoft will pay you hundreds of dollars for every person you forward this to:
For every person that you forward t his e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $245.00 For every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person...yadda yadda yadda.

*********************************8

In other words, Bill Gates will buy you a pony just for FWDing email.

Uh. Huh.

In the real world, what happens is this: every single person you forward this spam to becomes a new target for spammers who grab your entire contact list as soon as you FWD it.
Thanks.


Next: Check out my engorged mailbox!

Carbomb Dating

I watched quite a bit of yesterday's Iraq hearing. It took all day for us to learn what we already knew: Iraq is an unsolvable mess.

Gen. Petreaus kept repeating that the "progress we have made is fragile and reversible"...this sounds reasonable, doesn't it?

A cautious, sober assessment from a military expert, right?

Wrong. It's complete bullshit. Anyone with a dictionary and a fifth-grade education can disprove it.

progress (noun):

#1 Movement, as toward a goal; advance.
#2 Development or growth: students who show progress.
#3 Steady improvement, as of a society or civilization.

In 2002 Iraq was a corrupt dictatorship. It was also modern nation with a modern infrastructure; most of the country had electricity, indoor plumbing and cars that didn't explode.

Today none of that is true. Goodbye dictatorship, hello foreign-led martial law. No more electricity, plumbing or infrastructure and the cars aren't nearly as safe as they used to be.
The average Iraqi is, by any measure, far worse off today than they were in 2002.
The U.S. invasion, which no longer even has a goal, hasn't produced any progress at all, only destruction, death and displacement.
The only way that we could reverse the 'progress' we have made since 2003 would be to build a time machine and travel back to 2000 and change the Presidential election results- and any fifth-grader knows that we don't have time machines.

Sometimes it feels as if I live in a deja vu machine. Listening to the conversation about what would happen should Iraq become a "failed state" was like listening to a debate on what would happen if the Ottoman Empire should collapse-I mean, when a nation measures it's monthly bombings by the hundred, it's hard to think of it as anything other than failed.
(I feel the same way when I hear the News clones speculating on whether or not we are heading into a economic recession. )

Each politician prefaced their questions with obsequious praise about the service of the General, the Ambassador, our troops ; how proud they were and what a great job they were doing etc etc...it would have been more appropriate to take 4,024 moments of silence, declare peace and go home.

One Republican suggested that our troops were following in the footsteps of George Washington and Abe Lincoln, comparisons that make no political, military or historical sense...in 1776, for example, George Washington was the leader of a rag-tag rebel militia comprised largely of ill-equipped civilians who were forced into war with an occupying force of overwhelming military superiority.
Washington's men were the insurgents, not the occupiers...during the American Revolution, the British employed quite a few mercenary contractors, the most famous of which were the Hessians, a group whose modern counterparts would be 'contractors' hired from for-profit armies such as Blackwater.

In 1776, George Washington handed the foreign mercenaries a resounding defeat at the Battle of Trenton. The mercenaries were hung-over and half-asleep when Washington's men surprised them on Christmas - imagine what today's politicos would say about armed, nationalistic rebels with the audacity to attack sleeping men during a Christian holiday.
They wouldn't call them patriots, but that's what they were.

Lincoln? He said Lincoln. How are our troops like Abe Lincoln?
In the same way that they are like JFK.
It's an unfortunate comparison to make.

The Cable Clones broke away from the Iraq Bullfest to switch over to a ceremony where Resident Evil was giving the Medal of Honor to the parents of a dead Navy SEAL. The young man had thrown himself on top of a live grenade, sacrificing his life to save the lives of two men with him.
The SEAL died in 2006; I'm sure the timing of the ceremony to coincide with the 2008 Iraq Report was purely accidental.

When the TV coverage returned, I saw General Petraeus in a new light. My anger at him had vanished. He is simply a soldier falling on a live grenade, sacrificing himself to protect others.
It's his duty.

The sad thing is, he's sacrificing himself to protect Resident Bush. That's like taking a bullet for Charles Manson.
No justice in that.

BushCo gives loud lip-service to " supporting our troops", but I'd argue that BushCo treats our military with a profound disregard and a deadly disrespect that has never been seen by any prior C-in-C. Asking our troops to die for a goal that cannot even be defined is sheer malevolence- asking them to die for someone else's profits adds a strong element of avarice and forcing our military leadership to explain the unexplainable throws a heaping spoonful of cowardice into the mix.

Evil. Greed. Cowardice.
Trifecta!

Picture this: It's 3 a.m. on an early winter morning, 1944. In Europe the Nazis are planning a counterattack against the advancing Allied forces when General Dwight D. Eisenhower's phone rings. On the other end is President Franklin Roosevelt.
"Ike", says FDR, "I need you to come home and explain to America why we are fighting."
That didn't happen. FDR made his own speeches.
BTW, we won that war and nobody had to explain why we invaded Normandy.

The military is already fighting Bush's war in Iraq and our Resident is making them fight his political battles at home too. That's a disgrace to the uniform and to the Office.

If we pull out of Iraq, Iraq might become a fractured, violent, unstable region with a population and leadership that strongly dislikes America.

Austria-Hungary might collapse.

We might lose the Alamo.

The U.S.S. Maine might sink.


Let's take that chance.

Progress Report

Tomorrow Gen. David Betraeus and American Ambassador Lyin' Crocker are scheduled to lie to the American public regarding the current state of the Iraqi occupation.

What lies will they tell? The same ones we've heard before.

They will tell us that progress is being made in Iraq.

This is true if you are a Shiite insurgent- the forces of rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr fought Puppet Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Iraqi Army to a bloody standstill last week during a poorly conceived military 'crackdown' on Sadr's private army in Basra...the operation didn't accomplish much except to prove that the Iraqi Army (and Maliki's government ) are helpless without U.S. air and ground support.
The recent battle also helped create and widen internecine divides within the Shiites themselves, thus making any future reconciliations more difficult- neighbor kills neighbor, brother kills brother...grudges were formed, to say the least.

The Iranians have also made considerable progress in Iraq, a nation which they have historically been at odds with...Maliki's Puppet Ministry is openly sympathetic to Iran's government; Saddam was not.

Gen. Betraeus and Mr. Crock will certainly point out that Mr. Maliki's government is not capable of standing on it's own and they will doubtlessly use that observation as part of their rationale for continuing the Iraqi occupation - what they won't give us is a 'timetable' as to when the civic miracle of Iraqi sovereignty will occur.

No one knows for certain when that will happen. But we do know when it won't happen. Peace won't break out while Iraq is occupied by a foreign power-Iraq will remain in a state of anarchistic violence as long as we stay there. As long as we stay, there will be war. There's no way to tell how long-or even if- a peace can be established, but it won't even start until we bring our troops home.

Imagine if you were given a project at work and you turned it in without finishing it, crying exultantly, "mission accomplished!"...five years later your boss is still asking you when you will be finished and all you can say is: "hey man, I'm workin' on it...all I need is more time. And a raise."
You'd be fired.

Five years have passed and we are still dropping bombs in the hearts of Iraqi cities.
From any perspective this is a failure and it will get worse before it gets better.

If we pull out our troops, Mr. Maliki and his Puppet ministers will probably be executed by their own people- history doesn't look kindly on wartime collaborators. Tough shit.

If force was capable of spreading 'freedom' it would have worked already- if the Persians wanted Western democracy, they could have adopted it from the Greeks two thousand years ago.
Or, more recently, from the British- we all remember how well the British occupation of the Middle East worked out, right?
Right?
Obviously not.
I mean, who could have foreseen any of the troubles that we, as the invader, have faced in the Middle East?
The Crusades went so smoothly, after all. No trouble there...man, the whole thing shoulda been a cakewalk, just like establishing Israel was...I mean, that went off without a hitch or complaint, right?

Ooops.
What I meant to say is that 60 years after establishing 'freedom' in Israel, we are still trying to stop the violence there and the best solution anyone seems to have come up with involves concentration camps, a segregated population and the copious use of armed force backed with an implied nuclear threat, three things that just scream ' freedom'...it's a wonder that the Liberty Bell doesn't shatter from the the stress of ringing out all that freedom.


Perhaps we will be told that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein in power.

I challenge anyone to provide one concrete example to support that claim- just saying "he was a bad man" isn't good enough- how exactly is the world a better place? Be specific.

There were 631 reported incidents of Iraqi violence in March, up from 239 the previous month...at the time , the 'low' number of 239 was held up as sign of progress- only 239 attacks in a month, that's less than 10 bombings per day!

How many car bombs does it take to ruin one's day?

4.5 million Iraqis have fled their homeland. I suppose an optimist could say that Saddam never would have granted 4.5 million travel visas, but those Iraqis aren't on vacation, they are wartime refugees. What sort of 'progress' creates 4.5 million refugees?

Iran's theocratic leaders were held in check by Saddam's secular regime and vice-versa- Presidents Reagan, Bush 41 and Clinton all knew and understood this- the USA has a long history of supporting both sides of the perpetual conflict between Iran and Iraq because it served our interests to do so- Saddam also kept al-Queda from establishing a presence in Iraq...when Iraq invaded Kuwait during Bush 41's term, Osama bin-Laden contacted the Kuwaiti government and offered the services of his own private army to expel the Iraqi invaders; at the time, bin-Laden's Mujahadeen warriors were basking in the glow of their recent victory over the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, (a feat they accomplished with considerable American help) and were itchin' for a fight with Saddam, who al-Queda saw as a Westernized infidel who refused to pay proper tribute to their call for Fundamentalist rule...the Kuwaiti's rejected bin-Laden's offer but there was a lot of bad blood between Saddam and bin-Laden ; the Mujahadeen were not allowed in Iraq- until we invaded and opened the door for them-
before the U.S. invasion, an al-Queada agent would have been safer in Bush's Kansas than he would have been in Saddam's Iraq.

*****************************************************
Speaking of Fundamentalist rule, I used to live in Utah, circa 1984 and this group was one of the worst-kept public secrets I've ever encountered...I mean, everyone in Utah knew what their deal was ; every once in a while they'd make the news and would be pressured to re-locate to a locale that was more inclined to ignore polygamy, rape, pedophilia and forced marriages- these areas of America are more common than I'd like to believe-first Utah, then Colorado, then Arizona...now Texas has them. They can hold 'em for all I care.

**************************************************

Speaking of progress:

-I did not and will not get a new PC anytime soon. That offer was withdrawn due to another family crisis. I can't go into that now.

-I had two job interviews last week but no job offers. I'm borrowed-out and flat broke. I need new shoes, new clothes, new food...new everything. I'm willing to work for them but no one is hiring...America just lost another 150,000 jobs over the last 45 days. In 1999 I made $25/hr...the best offer I've had this year was $8. It's a good thing that the cost of living has also dropped by 2/3 or I'd be at serious risk of losing my apartment.
I have been homeless before but it was brief and it was by my own choice...the next time promises to be neither.

- There are options to homelessness. The last time I was facing the street life here in Fallentown, I found a girlfriend with a house and moved in with her. She turned out to be a drug-dealing psychopath with shady connections to the world of professional art thieves. She also had a semi-domesticated pet wolf that was prone to killing the neighbor's pets and when we broke up she tried to 'sic' the wolf on me but I was one of the only humans it liked and I escaped unmauled.

- My ex-girlfriend once tried to kill me with a wolf. How much worse could it get?
I'm dating again, so I'm pretty sure that I'm going to find out.