Saturday, September 30, 2006

My favorite internet search of the day (what is it a sign of when you choke your boyfriend?)

The site meter I use to count visitors tells me where they were referred from, and if it is a search engine referral, it shows the text of their search. A referral to All This Is That [TM] from Ask.com, stemmed from this search: "what is it a sign of when you choke your boyfriend?"

How did she end up on all this is that? A few weeks ago, I wrote a long piece about hand signs (The finger, the wanker, the cuckoo sign, the choke sign, rock horns, the shaka sign, and many more). The choke sign was in the title, and it and somehow it became her number 2 result on ask.com.

Since you asked for an answer, the answer is a) you're sick; b) your boyfriend's sick; or c) you're both sick. Now, I'm not saying you belong in the laughing academy, but levity aside, and whether or not the answer to these questions is A, B, or C, it's probably time to get a new boyfriend, switch sides, or become celibate. Someone could get hurt like this!
---o0o---

painting: the mandelbrot set


click painting to enlarge
---o0o---

Painting: Jed's last night in Seattle


click jed to enlarge
---o0o---

This is the kind of October surprise we need: Mark Foley Hands Seat To Democrats


Click this notice from the office of the clerk of the house of representatives to enlarge


This has to kill the G.O.P.: one of their safe districts, pffffffffffffffffffttt!! Another congressional seat falls into the hands of the Godless Democrats!

Congressman Mark Foley's "innocent conversations," were anything but, and he has been revealed as just another Republican bicycle seat sniffer. Foley resigned today, to the simultaneous relief and despair of the G.O.P.. The Democratic candidate will very likely win over whatever last minute hack the G.O.P. insinuates into the race. Of course this has taken some of the wind out a stunned G.O.P., locked in a battle to save the house and Senate from slipping into the Dem colum this November.

Contrary to his claims of innocence, transcripts of Foley's I.M. converations with the youth have begun appearing. This is one of the more innocent ones (!):

Maf54: Do I make you a little horny?
Teen: A little.
Maf54: Cool.
Maf54: What ya wearing?
Teen: tshirt and shorts
Maf54: Love to slip them off of you

---o0o---

Friday, September 29, 2006

Painting: The Heater


Click the painting to enlarge
---o0o---

"What's with that?"

In response to someone's comment on the post/poem You Gather Your Friends, yeah, you're right.

It wasn't just someone, it was a long-time reader, Al Arntsen. He wrote:

"You know this poem is part of another poem (Changes 16). What's with that?

Al"

Hi Al:

Yeah. That's a good point. Actually the short poem came first, although I published it here later. When I was writing Changes 16, it seemed to fit for the last stanzas. But since I included those lines in the longer poem, Changes 16. . .does that mean I plagiarized myself? Or should I have unpublished the original poem, now that it's lines were all included in the later poem? I don't know! But thinking about it, I realized it probably doesn't matter, does it?

The answer to your question, Al, came to me just now. At a concert, Neil Young once responded to a someone who kept yelling for a tune "It's all one song." And so it is with this poetry. It's all one poem--as good and bad, as fragmented and jagged and inwardly-referential as The Cantos (OK, saying it is as good as The Cantos is a bald-faced lie). It's all one poem like we're all children of God (substitute your own deity or favorite concept for the word God).

/jack
---o0o---

Thursday, September 28, 2006

God Must Be A Boogie Man - lyrics by Joni Mitchell



God Must Be A Boogie Man

by Joni Mitchell

He is three
One's in the middle unmoved
Waiting
To show what he sees
To the other two
To the one attacking so afraid
And the one that keeps trying to love and trust
And getting himself betrayed
In the plan oh
The divine plan
God must be a boogie man!

One's so sweet
So overly loving and gentle
He lets people in
To his innermost sacred temple
Blind faith to care
Blind rage to kill
Why'd he let them talk him down
To cheap work and cheap thrills
In the plan oh
The insulting plan
God must be a boogie man!

Which would it be
Mingus one or two or three
Which one do you think he'd want the world to see
Well world opinion's not a lot of help
When a man's only trying to find out
How to feel about himself
In the plan oh
The cock-eyed plan
God must be a boogie man!

Copyright © 1978-1979; Crazy Crow Music
---o0o---

index to poems


A new index to poems on All This Is That appears below. It includes 13 new poems since the last index in June, 2006. /jb


Changes 17/Following
You Gather Your Friends
Changes 16/Enthusiasm, or, the king begins to falter
The Way We Were
Scarred for life
The White Flag
The Cover-up
The Good German
Changes 14/Possession
Changes 15/The Armies Of The Night
Dream Of The Grey
Torches & Pitchforks
The Red Flag
Don't look back
The Tenth Planet (Or An Incredible Facsimile?)
Anger management is a slippery slope
the vault
The Moon's In Tune
Changes 12/Standstill
Changes 13/Fellowship Changes twelve/standing still
Changes Ten/treading
Changes Eleven/Peace
Another politician resigns in disrace
Changes Nine/The taming power of the small
Rub-a-dub
Tendrils
The Candidate
Reds
Making Room
Changes Eight/Holding Together
Changes Seven/The Army
Changes Six/Conflict
Changes Five/The waiting
Changes Four/The Young Shoot
Changes Three/Trouble Ahead
Changes Two/The Receptive
Changes One/Action
The revolt in heaven
Found Poem: The Richmond Hill Oracle Poem (and painting): The Robot Wars
I don't believe I'm here
Ten ways of looking at lies
The Broken Chord
With our heads in the sand during the transit and eclipse
the sun plays its red song
Litany
Poem: The Developers
A raindrop's life
The mystery of the first amendment to the Ten Commandments
The Bay Of Delusion
Mad Song
Reasons To Keep On
Conspiracy Theory The Moon Race
Mr. Flue's Grave In Hillcrest Cemetary, Kent, Wash.
The World Seems Especially Calming And Verisimilitudinous Today
Kent, Washington
Rollover
[It's the Lee Harvey Oswald smile]
Zombie Breakdown
Heaven
The Variations
You Rehearse Dying
Sonnet For Hari
Defensive Daydreaming
The Dream
Dogpaddling
The Prostethic Head & The Absence Of Blood
Tetuan - "No Paranoia, My Friend"
The Grey Visitors & Painting:
The Grey Ambassador
The Bad Movie
The Bucket
The Man In The Mirror
Liftoff
Optimism
Perspective A Flight Of Swallows
Audioblog - The Prevaricator
Weather Report
Your Wooden Leg
The Revelations Sermon At The First Church Of The Mojo Apocalypse
Dosvidaniya, Ivan Ivanovitch The Late Excavation (Text And Audio)
Jack Kerouac, Meet John Barleycorn
The Gideon Bible In My Nightstand
At The Acropolis
When Aliens Land, Or, The Return Of The King
The sous-chef is a sociopath]
James Wright
Falling
[Life Is Not A Hardy Novel]
Seven
Coyote Comes Home Like A Salmon
Shorts For Jerry Melin ca. about 1988
Bird
Monism
The Golden Rule
The Countdown
When Aliens Land, Or, The Return Of The King
AT HILLCREST CEMETARY IN KENT, WASHINGTON, I WALK BY THE GRAVE OF SAM THE GRASSEATER
Notes On Flying
Daybreak
Explosions
Not Past Tense Yet
the glass is not half-full
It's Getting Crowded Here
Li Po In Disgrace
The Clock
A Love Song
Bad Timing
The Killer
The Absence of Footprints Growing Up
Gone Fishing
The M.D.s
A Poem - Acrylic
The Marriage
Driving Home To Seattle, We Watch Deer Drinking from the Skookumchuck River
---o0o---

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Bill Clinton's fabled crooked johnson about to be made public


fox news vidcap by jack brummet

Responding to "finger-pointing" by predecessor Bill Clinton, President Bush discretely ordered White House officials to locate the legendary photographs of President Clinton's penis that circulated in The White House in 2001.


Paula Jones

When contacted by an All This Is That reporter, Paula Jones, who sued Bill Clinton in 1994 for sexual harrassment, admitted a White House staffer had e-mailed her to verify the authenticity of the photos. The photographs were taken by court order as evidence in the civil suit filed by Jones. "I'd recognize that throbbing purple member anywhere. It veers to the left," said Jones. Jones later settled her suit for $850,000, of which $700,000 went to pay her legal team.


All This Is That in general does not publish photographs
of genitalia

On Tuesday, The President ordered the photographs leaked to internet news and blog sites in apparent retaliation against former President Clinton's criticism. Bill Clinton, in a heated interview on Sunday with Chris Wallace (Fox "News"), charged the administration with inaction on counter-terrorism in the months leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
---o0o---

Digital painting: Flag eight


Click painting to enlarge
---o0o---

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Don't forget about 10Eastern Found Photos!

I have written about 10Eastern before, and always have a link on my top page. This is still, after years, one of my favorite sites on the internet. These found photos are disturbing, hilarious, puzzling, and sometimes, heartbreaking. 10 Eastern. Click here to jump to their site. They now have 126 "galleries."

This found photo reminded me of my friend Aunt Sassy , knowing her love of box wine. However I'm not sure that love would encompass the anti-freeze in the box above, nor would she drink directly from the box...except under very desperate circumstances...


click photograph to enlarge
---o0o---

Monday, September 25, 2006

The Changes Poems 1-17

This series of poems is very loosely based on the Richard Wilhelm translation of the I Ching, or Book of Changes, one of the oldest Chinese classic texts. ; the I Ching is often used as an oracle of divination (e.g., it was the original "Ouija board").

The book's philosophy centers on the evolution of events as a process, and acceptance of the inevitability of change. The jagged and meandering central philosophy of the poems is another matter entirely, and for the twisting and warping of the I Ching you can only blame the author (and the editor of this s blog, who keeps printing the poems). It remains to be seen whether this series of poems extends to encompass all 64 hexagrams, or fizzles out altogether. . .

Changes One/Action
Changes Two/The Receptive
Changes Three/Trouble Ahead
Changes Four/The Young Shoot
Changes Five/The waiting
Changes Six/Conflict
Changes Seven/The Army
Changes Eight/Holding Together
Changes Nine/The taming power of the small
Changes Ten/treading
Changes Eleven/Peace
Changes twelve/standing still
Changes 13/Fellowship
Changes 14/Possession
Changes 15/The Armies Of The Night
Changes 16/Enthusiasm, or, the king begins to falter
Changes 17/Following
---o0o---

Poem: You gather your friends

You gather your friends
Around you
Like a shock of wheat,

Like a bulwark
Or a last ditch bivouac
In the cold rain and snow.
---o0o---

Poem: Changes 17/Following



1.
Thunder in the middle of the lake!
And You and I
In the pram

(Or is it a dinghy, a dory
An umiak, or skiff,
A scow, a punt, or shallop?)

2.
Following might mean
You're an individual contributor
Playing follow the leader

Or just maybe
You're holding back
To allow the leader

To receive
The first arrows
And fusillades.

3.
Following can go either way--
It all depends on whom
You elect to follow.

To go out of the door
In the company of others
Produces deeds.
---o0o---

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Reverend Fallwell calls Hillary Rodham Clinton less appealing than Lucifer


Click the photograph of Reich Marshall Falwell to enlarge...

Reverend Jerry Falwell says a White House run by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton would energize his base of religious conservatives even more than if The Great Deceiver himself were the Democratic nominee.

"I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate," Falwell told a private prayer breakfast. "Because nothing will energize my (constituency) like Hillary Clinton. "

"If Lucifer ran, he wouldn't," Falwell added, drawing a roomful of laughs and cheers.
---o0o---

Ding Dong, Osama's Dead?

There are rumors in the news, on the internet, and in the blog world that bin Laden has cashed his check. The Start the Revolution blog said: "Not only has he [President George Bush] been telling the world that he is still actively hunting Osama, even though the FBI and the CIA gave up long ago, but now it seems that his good friends the French have gone and spoiled that party too!"

Authorities and U.S. politicians are treating rumors the highly elusive al-Qaeda leader is dead with well-founded skepticism. The whereabouts of bin Laden took a new twist this weekend when a French 'paper published a French intelligence report suggesting he had died a month ago. The governments of France, the United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia tried to play down the report, but Saudi sources have previously suggested he may be very sick.

This isn't the first time rumors have circulated about bin Laden's demise. And each time, he has charged back like the Energizer bunny, with new video and audio tapes exhorting the faithful to incinerate America and our allies.

And if Osama IS dead. . .so what? Does this really change anything at all? Does it extricate us from the tragic pickle into which we have insinuated ourselves in the Middle-east? I don't think so. Since there was no Al Qaeda-Iraq connection, it doesn't affect that "operation" much. Does it--if it turns out to be true--affect the mid-term elections? Probably not. While the Dems have beaten up POTUS and G.O.P. for failing to catch Osama, it's hard to see how either side gains much political capital from bin Laden's departure from the scene. . .
---o0o---

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Calvin Coolidge: The President of Cool

By Jack Brummet, Presidents Ed.

They say he wasn't actually frosty. . .he just rarely showed emotion. In fact, when President Harding died, Coolidge was awakened after 2:00 A.M. He took the oath of office in his sitting room. He was sworn in by his father, who was a notary public. Thirteen minutes after he took the oath of office at 2:47 A.M., Calvin Coolidge went back to sleep. To sleep! His President (Warren Harding) had just died! He was The Top Banana! And he went to sleep. In that same position, I would have done something. Like:

Drink some whiskey!
Raise up a glass to the shade of Warren G. Harding.
Give orders to round up some of my enemies and have them held at The Tombs.
I would legalize something.
I would declare martial law on Detroit.
Drink more whiskey!
Declare the Roman Catholic Church a subversive organization.
Ask for the cabinet's resignations.
Order in naked dancing girls.
Throw a feast.
Make a collage.
Drive a tank through the streets of Washington.
In a radio address to the nation, quote Putney Swope: "I am not going to rock the boat; I am going to tip it over."
Watch the sunrise and the birds take to the sky on my first day as Czar  King  President.

Then maybe I'd go to bed.

Coolidge kept a poem hung on the wall in his living room, and it both illustrated how he felt and the image he wanted to project:

A wise old owl lived in an oak
The more he saw, the less he spoke
The less he spoke the more he heard
Why can’t we be like that old bird?

---o0o---

LBJ responds to White House correspondent Dan Rather (and links to other LBJ photos)


Click image to enlarge

I haven't been able to track the provenance of this LBJ photograph. Judging from the look on LBJ's face, and the smile on Dan Rather's, I'd bet the White House correspondent had just asked a probing or embarrassing question.

Below are links to some of my favorite LBJ photos appearing in All This Is That over the last couple years...

Lyndon listening in on the war
LBJ and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King meet up
LBJ howls like a dog
Another good LBJ photo
And another. . .
One of Jack's heroes and villains paintings
LBJ In A Characteristic Pose
Running Mates: Senators Lyndon Johnson And JFK
The Johnson Treatment, Part 6: The Hump and Senator Russell get the treatment
The Johnson Treatment, Part 5: Senator Richard Russell (Dem., Georgia) Undergoes The Treatment
The Johnson Treatment, Part 4: President Johnson Gives The Treatment To Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas
Congressman Johnson meets FDR
The Johnson Treatment Part 3: LBJ meets Eartha Kitt
The Johnson Treatment, Part 2: Richard M. Nixon, Republican Presidential Front-runner Gets The Treatment
The Johnson Treatment
Someone else gets the Johnson Treatment
LBJ responds to Dan Rather
---o0o---

Poem & Painting Detail: The Good German




The Good German

You could just be
Following orders
Or looking
The "other way."
---o0o---

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Senator John Grindl: stand the devil side by side with The President and the Devil comes across as a class act


Seantor John Grindl (D - East Dakota)


Reacting to President Chavez of Venezuela's United Nations denunciation of President Bush as "the devil," Democratic U.S. Senator John Grindl (D - East Dakota) concurred with Chavez's assessment. "In fact," the Senator said in a press conference, "President Bush is even more heinous than The Great Deceiver himself." A reporter asked how that was so, and he replied "Let's face it, the Devil tempts people to do evil, whereas Bush actually performs evil. Senator Pelosi and Congressman Rangel have leapt to The President's defense, and it is strictly political expediency. The Devil is known to lure people into evil ways. The President actually performs evil acts under the mantle of his office. He performs them in our name. I can't even recall the last time the Devil was blamed for the state of the world. You can't say that about President Bush."


"The bottom line: stand the Devil side by side with The President and the Devil comes off as a class act."

Asked by an Associated Press correspondent why he bucked his party, the Senator responded "Pelosi and Rangel know the score. They know Bush is evil incarnate. But being party regulars, the last thing they want to do is to offend the centrists by denouncing 'POTUS.' They know Bush is a worthless piece of s***. But as loyal partisans, they are muzzled. You may hear them speak the truth after the mid-terms, but I wouldn't hold out much hope."


click to enlarge photograph of President Hugo Chavez

Following his inflammatory remarks, the Senator's conservative East Dakota constituents reacted predictably with demands for his resignation, and talk of a recall. Reached later in the day by a reporter from All This Is That, the Senator told her that "this is all predictable. There's a reason I am the Senator and my constituents are not. Have you ever been to East Dakota? It's not exactly the Berkeley of The Plains. Sure, they're pissed today, but this will blow over and I will be vindicated. Or not. Maybe they'll elect some cracker knucklehead to curtsy to the President, but that's not me. The bottom line: stand the devil side by side with The President and the Devil comes off as a class act."

Democrats reacted predictably as well, by denouncing Grindl as a rogue and a loose canon. "He no more speaks for the Democratic Party," said Senator Patty Murray (D - Washington) "than President Chavez does." Democratic insiders on The Hill told All This Is That that Senator Grindl would be immediately and brutally taken to the woodshed.

---o0o---


Painting: The first drawer of my cabinet


click painting to enlarge
---o0o---

Painting: Del Brummet


click painting to enlarge
---o0o---

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Painting: Cyclopea


click painting to enlarge
---o0o---

Poem: Changes 16/Enthusiasm, or, the king begins to falter


click the painting to enlarge

1.
It is progress
To install spooks and minions
And set armies marching.

2.
Thunder booms from the earth:
The image of Enthusiasm.
The old kings made music

To honor triumphs and merit,
And offered it free
To the world,

Up to and including
The Scoutmaster
Of all Scoutmasters.

3.
The music rises to the troposphere
And drifts into near space
And the ancient ancestors.

4.
You gather your friends
Around you
Like a shock of wheat,

Like a bulwark
Or a last ditch bivouac
In the cold rain and snow.
---o0o---

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Lyrics to Bob Dylan's I Want You



Before I heard this song, I liked Bob Dylan. After hearing this song, I was a life-long fan. The protest songs, and the early Woody-derived tunes, were good, but in this song he took the poetry of popular music to the next level. I don't really think anyone has come close since.

I have purchased Modern Times, his highly acclaimed new album. Who would have thought that at 65 years of age, he would put out a disk that is Right Up There with his best work?

In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Dylan said "This is the best band I've ever been in, I've ever had, man for man." This is a stunning statement from a guy who was backed by Mike Bloomfield and the best session players of the sixties, not to mention the The Grateful Dead, The Heartbreakers, and The Band.


I Want You

The guilty undertaker sighs,
The lonesome organ grinder cries,
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you.
The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn,
But it's not that way,
I wasn't born to lose you.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

The drunken politician leaps
Upon the street where mothers weep
And the saviors who are fast asleep,
They wait for you.
And I wait for them to interrupt
Me drinkin' from my broken cup
And ask me to
Open up the gate for you.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

Now all my fathers, they've gone down
True love they've been without it.
But all their daughters put me down
'Cause I don't think about it.

Well, I return to the Queen of Spades
And talk with my chambermaid.
She knows that I'm not afraid
To look at her.
She is good to me
And there's nothing she doesn't see.
She knows where I'd like to be
But it doesn't matter.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

Now your dancing child with his Chinese suit,
He spoke to me, I took his flute.
No, I wasn't very cute to him,
Was I?
But I did it, though, because he lied
Because he took you for a ride
And because time was on his side
And because I . . .
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.
---o0o---

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Carson Van Osten's artist kit on Mark Kennedy's blog



Mark Kennedy has just published Carson Van Osten's (a famous Disney comic book artist) "Comic Strip Artist's Kit." Van Osten said artist "I wrote and drew those sketches around 1975 and I'm so tickled to know that people still find them helpful today."

Check out the link above to Kennedy's post and the JPGs Kennedy produced from the originals. Also, in the comments, I see that someone created an optimized PDF file of all the images...these look great.

/jack
---o0o---




Saturday, September 16, 2006

Keelin Curran Turns 50!


Click image to enlarge...

I welcome my best friend, attorney, and wife to the silverback club. . .as Neil Young wrote:

Weve been through some things together

With trunks of memories still to come

We found things to do in stormy weather

Long may you run.

---o0o---

Friday, September 15, 2006

Internet sex act lands a Florida woman in The Clink

A 39-year-old Dunedin, Florida woman has been arrested and jailed for attempting to cash counterfeit checks. Kathleen Hall says the checks were payment for her custom web cam sex performance.

Hall was arrested in Largo, Florida where, where police say, she attempted to cash two $850 checks.

Hall told police that she met someone online from Nigeria and agreed to perform a sex act on her web cam in return for a payment. The checks arrived in an envelope with a Nigerian post mark. Police say they are counterfeit and Kathleen Hall is in the Pinellas County jail on $15,000 bond.
---o0o---

Poem: The cover-up


click image to enlarge


When a story is told
Over and over,
It takes on a patina of truth.

Investigations, inquiries,
And blue-ribbon commissions
Burnish the story's verisimilitude.

Denials and refutations
Polish the tale to a fine gloss.
The more vehement the denunciation,

The more likely the story becomes
Because we want to believe.
The stronger the case

Against becomes,
The more heinous
The cover-up appears.

The logical beauty
Of cover-up theories
Is they can never

Actually be refuted,
But snowball
With every new telling.

The absence of facts
Further inflames
The conspiracy theory:

The lack of facts itself
Points to the utter and diabolical
Efficacy of the cover-up.



click image to enlarge

Thursday, September 14, 2006

The Clink

Did you ever wonder about the phrase "the clink?" It's an interesting word we sometimes use for jail, prisons, the hoosegow, the big house, the reformatory, and penitentaries. Somehow it feels a little less fraught with the dark implications of prisons. In fact, The Clink was a notoriously dark and brutal prison.

The Clink was a hellhole in Southwark, England from the 12th century until around 1780. I don't know if Shakespeare ever referred to The Clink or not. I'm too lazy to check. Ok, that's a lie. I just did. And this is a little spooky: "In this light Shakespeare emerges surely as a much more interesting and ambiguous figure, for whom concealment was not only part of his art but part, perhaps, of a deliberate pattern in his life too. It is intriguing, for example, that during 25 years of lodging in London, with as many as eight addresses indicated in our sources, he is never picked up in the church attendance lists, even in places where it was compulsory such as the Liberty of the Clink in Southwark where he lived in 1599 and maybe later. " He may not have writtten about it, but he lived there!

The name may have come from a local manor, the Clink Liberty. Or the Clink Liberty may have been named after the prison. Both manor and prison were owned by the various Bishops of Winchester and was sited right next door to the Bishop's residence.

The Clink was originally used to detain Catholic and Protestant heretics. The Clink was burned down during the Gordon Riots of 1780 and was never rebuilt.

No one is sure where the name originally came from. Or how it was handed down as a synonym for prison. More than one person has suggested that its name is an example of onomatopoeia, referring to the sound made by closing the jail cell's doors. The Clink Prison Museum stands on the original site in Clink Street, in Southwark.
---o0o---

All This Is That Endorsement


Click on the handsome fellas to enlarge (you won't regret it, girls)
---o0o---

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Jack Visits The Grey


Click the photo to enlarge
---o0o---

The Path to Mickey



The Path to Mickey is a parody of the movie/alleged documentary "The Path to 9/11." This P.O.S. propaganda film blames the 9/11 attacks on Bill Clinton. Mickey Mouse is shown to be the motive force behind the Stalinist pogroms, the Holocaust, and--of course!--the assassination of Jack Kennedy. Click here to watch the parody on YouTube.


---o0o---

Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Wash.

A church down the road from my house in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood was written up today in Salon. I don't know how many people belong to the church, but it is huge. This is a fascinating article about a fascinating phenomenon. We'd all wondered about this church where you see hundreds of people streaming in every day, carrying bibles (shades of my Baptist days), wearing jeans, beards, and granny dresses.

"Father's Day and Mark Driscoll is blessing babies. A stocky, square-headed figure in a black shirt and jeans, with a leather cord around his thick neck, Driscoll stands against a backdrop of a giant brushed steel cross and a phalanx of electric guitars, praying over the "lovely wives and godly husbands" lined up on the stage of Mars Hill Church. Located in a former warehouse in Seattle's hip Ballard neighborhood, where drive-through espresso joints out-number churches ten to one, Driscoll's megachurch is a sprawling industrial space of corrugated steel, painted charcoal and muted taupe. "

To read Lauren Sandler's story in Salon, click here.
---o0o---

Ambien awakens persistent vegetative state victims??

Ambien can reanimate people from a vegetative state. Jamais Cascio in today's Boing Boing writes: "The story, in today's Guardian, is just mind-blowing. The common sleeping pill zolpidem, sold in the US under the name Ambien, can reverse serious brain damage and wake up patients in persistent vegetative states!

"In 1999, five years after Louis's accident, she suggested to Sienie that the family's GP, Dr Wally Nel, be asked to prescribe a sedative. Nel prescribed Stilnox, the brand name in South Africa for zolpidem. "I crushed it up and gave it to him in a bottle with a soft drink," Sienie recalls. "He couldn't swallow properly then, but I helped him and sat at his bedside. After about 25 minutes, I heard him making a sound like 'mmm'. He hadn't made a sound for five years.
"Then he turned his head in my direction. I said, 'Louis, can you hear me?' And he said, 'Yes.' I said, 'Say hello, Louis', and he said, 'Hello, mummy.' I couldn't believe it. I just cried and cried."
Click here to link to the full story in The Guardian.

Zolpidem seems to work on comatose patients about 60% of the time....trials are beginning in Africa. But get this: the drug companies are not all that excited about it. Why? The patent on Zolpidem has expired (thus the $$$ opportunities are limited)!

I imagine that every person in a vegetative state around the world is about to get a dose! And why do we need clinical trials? These people are brain dead. What do you really have to lose?
---o0o---

The Band & The Last Waltz


Richard Manuel

When I wrote earlier about my 47 favorite movies, I forgot one. . .Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz (which gives Scorsese three on my list).

Robbie Robertson
I have been re-immersing myself in The Band, a band of excellent multi-instrumentalists with great roots songwriting, three outstanding vocalists (Danko, Manuel and Helm), and a great guitarist/songwriter.

The band got their real start backing up Toronto's Ronnie Hawkins (whose cover of Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love? is a highlight of the film, along with Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, and Dylan's performances). The Hawks left Hawkins, and were Bob Dylan's back up band on that tumultuous tour when he "went electric" in 1965. They backed him up again in the early 70's (where I saw them in Vancouver, British Columbia). The Band went on to sell millions of records, and received massive critical acclaim. An early hit was "The Weight," (also included on the Easy Rider soundtrack. . .one of the earliest rock soundtrack movies).

Garth Hudson


Rolling Stone magazine named them the "Band of the Decade." The Toronto Star's (in their old home town) called them "the seminal American folk-rock troupe of the late 1960s and early 1970s." One critic called them "The Smithsonian of American rock and roll." And the record producer John Simon said "It's simple: The Band changed popular music. It was never the same."

Levon Helm

The restored movie includes surround sound on the DVD releases. Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Neil Diamond, Emmylou Harris, Muddy Waters, The Staples, Ringo Starr, Ron Wood, Dr. John, Paul Butterfield and Ronnie Hawkins all came to play and pay tribute at the Band's final concert. This was a band that was indeed far greater than the sum of its (excellent) parts.

Rick Danko

Emmylou Harris said "The Band had always been my idea of a perfect band."

Buy the CDs and DVD if you love rock and roll. If you have Comcast Digital, The Last Waltz is currently appearing as a free on-demand movie.
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Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Lyrics to Joni Mitchell's Coyote



These lyrics to Coyote are from Joni's Hejira album. . .the first record on the downside of the bell curve. She had just had a megahit album, Court and Spark, and her sales were now in decline. She was, however, at the height of her power as a composer, singer, and lyricist. Buy this record. And Blue. And the Hissing Of Summer Lawns.

COYOTE

No regrets, Coyote.
We just come from such different sets of circumstance.
I'm up all night in the studios
And you're up early on your ranch.
You'll be brushing out a brood mare's tail
While the sun is ascending,
And I'll just be getting home with my reel to reel...
There's no comprehending
Just how close to the bone, and the skin, and the eyes, and the lips you can get -
And still feel so alone.
And still feel related
Like stations in some relay.
You're not a, a hit and run driver, no, no,
Racing away.
You just picked up a hitcher,
A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway.

We saw a farmhouse burning down
In the middle of the road,
Where in the middle of the night,
We rolled right past that tragedy
Till we pulled into some road house lights
Where a local band was playing.
Locals were up kicking and shaking on the floor.
The next thing I know
That Coyote's at my door.
He pins me in a corner and he won't take "No!".
He drags me out on the dance floor
And we're dancing close and slow.
Now he's got a woman at home.
He's got another woman down the hall.
He seems to want me anyway:
"Why'd you have to get so drunk and
Lead me on that way?'".
You just picked up a hitcher,
A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway.

I looked a Coyote right in the face
On the road to Baljennie near my old home town.
He went runnin' through the whisker wheat
Chasing some prize down.
And a hawk was playing with him.
Coyote was jumping straight up and making passes.
He had those same eyes just like yours -
Under your dark glasses,
Privately probing the public rooms,
Peeking through keyholes in numbered doors
Where the players lick their wounds,
And take their temporary lovers
And their pills and powders to get them through this passion play.
No regrets, Coyote,
I just get off up away.
You just picked up a hitcher,
A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway.

Coyote's in the coffee shop.
He's staring a hole in his scrambled eggs.
And he picks up my scent on his fingers
While he's watching a waitresses' legs.
He's too far from the Bay of Fundy
From appaloosas and eagles and tides.
The air conditioned cubicles and the carbon ribbon rides
Are spelling it out so clear:
Either he's going to have to stand and fight,
Or take off out of here.
I tried to run away myself,
To run away and wrestle with my ego -
And with this flame you put here in this Eskimo -
In this hitcher -
In this prisoner -
Of the fine white lines -
Of the white lines -
On the free, free way.
---o0o---

Elvis Costello interviews Joni Mitchell

If you're interested in what happens when two of the greatest minds and greatest talents in rock get together, check out Elvis Costello's article and interview with Joni in the November 2004 Vanity Fair. I know some of you are saying "dude, that's so two years ago," but, here it is, if you're a troglodyte like me, and missed it the first time around...
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Monday, September 11, 2006

Craig's List Seattle Sex Scandal, or, why your husband's penis is now appearing on hundreds of internet sites

One week ago today, Seattleite Jason Fortuny and a buddy executed a heinous prank. They copied a hot/hardcore sex ad from another site (along with the sad explicit photo) and placed an ad on the Seattle Craig's List as a "Women Seeking Men" ad. [Editor's note: While this article is "safe for work," the word penis in the title may negate any verbal gymnastics and laying between the lines performed in the story that follows. The links contained within this story are, however, most assuredly not safe for work].

Fortuny then published every single response , with their photos (in some cases, including photos of the responder's penises) and their personal data (names, email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, and worst of all, their written responses). The trollers then invited readers to help identify the responders and add additional data. . .piling ignominy on the embarrassment, all the more because it was a sick ad, requesting rough trade, bondage, and humiliation. The original ad clearly originated from someone deeply involved in S & M.

Jason received 178 responses to the bogus ad, along with 145 photos. He would have received many more, had Craig's List not taken the ad down numerous times. Fortuny has been assailed on all fronts, from threats of violence to having his own personal information published. The New York Times interviewed him last Friday, and Wired magazine called him a sociopath. Lawyers are now threatening to sue, and even criminal action has been proposed. The story has now been propogated all over the internet, to dozens, and now, hundreds of web sites and blogs.

Was what Fortuny did outrageous? Sure. Do I think it was wrong? I don't know. Here is a link to Fortuny's ad, which contains other links to emails he has received from the "victims," including wives who saw (and heard about) their husband's emails, and beg Fortuny to take them down.

This is twisted on so many levels, and like a train wreck, it is pretty interesting to watch. The link also includes the names of the responders, along with their personal information. Some morons even used their work emails to respond, including one person from Microsoft.

A quick perusal didn't turn up anyone I know. If you live in the Seattle area, you might find your co-worker, professor, friend, that weird clerk at the 7-11,or even husband's, or boyfriend's name here. If you're lucky, you might find your boss smiling, showing his pride and joy to all the world.
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Sunday, September 10, 2006

Insurance For Alien Abductions


A German attorney has decided to bolster his bottom line by filing state compensation claims for people who believe they were abducted by aliens. Jens Lorek bases his claims on a German law that compensates kidnap victims. . .Terrestrial kidnap victims.

"There's quite obviously demand for legal advice here," Lorek told Reuters by telephone. "The trouble is, people are afraid of making fools of themselves in court." Click here to read the Reuters story.
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