VP Gore: Nobel Laureate

Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s climate change panel won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize today for educating folks about climate change and possibly how to fix it, or at least arrest it.

The Prize is normally awarded to peacemakers. Clearly the panel feels what he has done is exceptional, even though it falls outside the traditional Nobel peace prize framework[1]. "We face a true planetary emergency," Gore said. "The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity."

The Nobel committee chairman, Ole Danbolt Mjoes, swears that the prize was not a jab at Presidents Bush and Cheney, who laughed off the Kyoto protocols, and have generally treated global warming like a hippy/fringie delusion.

The prize, of course, re-ignited the Gore-istas who still hold out hope he will run for the Presidency. Two Gore advisers told the Associated Press, on condition of anonymity, because that the award will not make it any more likely that he will seek the presidency in 2008. True. a) He doesn't want to run again; and b) the last time I checked, his numbers were low. Obviously those numbers will soar now, but I don't think that will change Al's mind...

[1] But then, Peace Prize winners Yassir Arafat, Mehachem Begin, and Anwar Sadat weren't exactly peace-freaks, were they?
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Almost There In No Time--what's with that?

click to enlarge - I'm pretty sure this is the guy I saw standing

next to Highway 99 this morning, holding a carboard sign

with his woeful tale scrawled in grease pencil...

Click to enlarge. Who are these people, and why do they

keep saying such terrible things about me?

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President Carter calls Dick Cheney a "disaster"

click death-dealing Dick to enlarge....


In an interview on Wednesday with the BBC World News America service, one time U.S. President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, denounced Vice President Dick Cheney as a "disaster" for the country and a "militant" who has had an excessive influence in setting foreign policy.



Cheney has usually been on the wrong side of the debate on many issues, including a current "internal White House discussion over Syria" in which Cheney is pushing a bellicose approach, Carter said. [ed. note: With Iraq blown up in his face, does he hope to save face by going to war with Syria or Iran?]

"He's a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military and he has been most forceful in the last 10 years or more in fulfilling some of his more ancient commitments that the United States has a right to inject its power through military means in other parts of the world," the former President told the reporter.

"You know he's been a disaster for our country," Carter said. "He's been overly persuasive on President George Bush and quite often he's prevailed."

In an interview in May, Carter called the Bush administration the "worst in history" in international relations.
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Bumbershoot 2007, a late write-up

Roky Erickson

It took me a while (e.g., nearly six weeks) to finish writing about this, but Bumbershoot--the Seattle end of summer music and art festival had a decent line-up this year. Better than some years past, but still under-serving the 40 and over crowd among which I number myself. At some point you're though being cool and just want to hear what you came up with. The hottest attractions this year were probably Wu Tang Clan, The Frames, Kulture Shock, The (local) Shins, and Crowded House.

We only attended on Monday, mainly to See Roky Erickson and Steve Earle. But we were also able to see the amazing rockers, Kulture Shock and the hugely popular, but disappointingly emo The Frames.

Kulture Shock were a blast! They are a sextet of "Balkan punk rock gypsy metal wedding-meets-riot music." The band includes players from Bosnia, Bulgaria, Japan and Seattle. I'd categorize their music as extremely energetic art-punk outfit around. The enormously entertaining lead singer--Gino Yevdjevich--conceived of the band while he was sitting in a Croatian refugee camp. They are similar to another band that played this year: Gogol Bordello.


Roky Erickson - You may have heard of this legendary Austin musician. I have wanted to see him for many years. In the 60's he led the seminal and influential 13th floor elevators. They released a tune in '66, "You're Gonna Miss Me," that has been on every compilation of psychedelic music, and was also on the soundtrack of High Fidelity. Other tunes have been covered and seveeral tribute albums have appeared. Some of his covers were by bands like REM, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and the Butthole Surfers. Peter Buck was a big supporter, and I think has been something of a lifeline for Roky in the last few years.

Roky's subsequent life is a tragedy. If you want to know more, see Kevin McAlester's documentary "You're Gonna Miss Me." In 1967, the Elevators looked like they might be the next Byrds or Doors. But that didn't happen. By 1968 Roky was hearing voices. His mother says in the film that she found him in the back yard one day in 1968, babbling and covered with sores. Cycling between periods of clarity and musical activity, over the years, Roky's voices shifted between aliens, devils, and monsters. In 1969, he was arrested for possession of a couple of joints. His lawyer pled insanity and Roky was sent to a maximum-security unit for the criminally insane where he underwent electroshock and was even possibly tortured and tormented by guards. He would never be the same again. Under the care of his family, he declined over the years. He was eventually rescued by a brother, was finally put on medication, and has come to live approaching like a normal life. I was ten feet away from him at his show, and let me tell you, his face is a testimony to all that he endured. Brian Wilson or Daniel Johnston look like the picture of health and sanity compared to Roky.

He put on a good show of psychedelic-tinged rock-blues. It was good to see him. . .not intact, but more or less back.


The Frames

The Frames - A band with a small but steady fan base. . .although they have reportedly had five double platinum albums (which means they sold at least 600,000 copies each (assuming they were certified in Ireland). Unfortunately, they were too emo for me. They were clearly accomplished players, but the songs didn't do much for me.



Steve Earle with his wife Allison Moorer

Steve Earle - Was Steve Earle, funny, gruff, and very Steve Earle, telling some good stories and spinning some yarns. I didn't enjoy his love songs nearly as much as I do his more topical songs. I think falling in love has been good for his life; maybe for his music, not so much.
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Poem: Grey U.S.A.

No one knows how this ends.

No one knows how this begins.

Sifting through it all—the "facts," misinformation,

Speeches, debunkings, skeptics, videotapes,

Photographs, confabulations, eyewitness accounts,
And the endless reams of forged and redacted documents,
Lies, hype, shuck and jive,
Government moves and countermoves—
Leaves us about where we started,
With a broken roadmap of UFO lore.

The government was spooked
By all the strange flying objects in the 1930's.
In World War II, the Foo Fighters
Appeared to be witnessing the conflict
As interested observers and historians.
The Nazis not only had alien contacts
But came to be in cahoots with the Greys,
Working together on UFOs and moon bases.

It wasn't until July 2, 1947

When the greys crashed a saucer at Roswell
That it became clear aliens were at the wheel
Of the unidentified flying objects and saucers.
MJ-12 was formed in response to some low-level flights
The greys made over the White House.
Majestic arranged a meet with the greys.

After hearing tales of the impending invasion
Of man-eating reptoid aliens. MJ-12 signed a treaty
That allowed abductions of a limited number of people
Who were returned mostly unharmed.
In exchange, Americans received a technology transfer
And Area 51 became the testing ground
For newly acquired saucers and technologies.
By the mid-1950s America was on the moon (secretly of course).
Around 1968, MJ-12 began to suspect
That the greys were not
Living up to their end of the bargain.
They took far more people than planned
And implanted them with two millimetre mind-control devices.
The throwbacks were now all Manchurian Candidates
The greys corralled three million
Greys, humans, and hybrids to live
In underground bases, like Dulce, in the South West.
And then the reptoids arrived.
On cue, the greys will release an army
Of zombies from the underground bases.
The implanted abductees will then be switched on
And instructed to blow up power stations
And create mayhem. In short time, the reptoids

And their faithful grey allies will rule the earth.
Even with captured and controlled human zombies
The reptoid-grey alliance know they can't go it alone.
They've got their own human accomplices:
In government, the UN, the banks, and the media.
MJ-12 has its own back-up plan.
If the invasion story ever gets out,

Majestic will declare martial law,
Imprison abductees and stick them in camps
Before they can even take over a kool-aid stand.
Of course, majestic also knows
They'll have to deal with the true patriots,
Who will be interred in the camps as well.
No one knows how this ends.
No one knows how this begins.

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Almost There In No Time shows its true colors/ATINT v. ATIT

Almost There In No Time takes another pot-shot at All This Is That. You may have noticed they can dish it out, but they can't take it. And now, they desperately try to engage us in a blog war to pump their ratings up. The beleagured editor-in-chief of ATINT clearly has a paranoid streak, and is attempting to suck ATIT into his morass. We're not biting. Sorry, ATINT, we just report the facts, and only the facts. No matter what accusations that deranged Captain Queeg over there flings at us, we're sticking to the high road.

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Painting: Parade

Poem: Midnight Madness

1
You can't see earth
From the dark side of the moon
But maybe that changes

With the accelerating deceleration
Of the moon and earth.
A waning Gibbous moon

Dangles overhead tonight
And The Sea of Tranquility
Looks like a menacing sinkhole.

2
Back in Seattle,
1.3 light seconds
From the moon,

A fog slithers in,
Wraps itself around houses,
Trees, shrubs, and churches,

And creeps along the ground,
Insidiously threading its way
Like a horror movie fog

Or a gauzy stage flat
Framing something terrible about to happen.
I wonder if the moon and fog

Really do cause madness and murder?
I've never bought the stories
About a full moon triggering mayhem,

But then I don't actually know
If our brains have tides
And if they do, if it matters.

3
The moon
And the fog
Are in cahoots.
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Sen. Larry Craig to be inducted into Idaho Hall of Fame

[Thanks to Jeff Clinton for passing along this news tidbit...]

Senator Larry Craig is about to be inducted into Idaho Hall of Infamy Fame. And no, this is not All This Is That pulling your leg! Check the AP story on CNN.com.

According to the Associated Press today, Sen. Larry Craig was selected for induction into the Idaho Hall of Fame in March, well before he pleaded guilty to foot shuffling and disorderly conduct charges (a/k/a cruising). Earlier this year, you will remember that the Senator was busted in a sting operation in Minneapolis aiport's men's kaybo.

"Larry Craig has made a great contribution to Idaho over the period of 20-some years. At the time it was considered, this other matter had not come up," Harry Magnuson told The Spokesman-Review newspaper Saturday.



A few Republicans think "this other matter" should put a stop to the Hall of Fame induction. "Maybe in 10 or 15 years we can think of this hall of fame stuff. Now is not the time," said one Republican leader. "It's a sad day to be a Republican."
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The picture Dean Ericksen and Almost There In No Time did not want you to see

The puppetmaster of all puppetmasters plays Dean Ericksen like his own private Mortimer Snerd, or Jerry Mahoney.

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Index of poems on All This Is That

An index of Jack's poems published here over the last three years.

Index of the 64 poems in the Changes cycle

Index of poems published from November 2004-July, 2007

Index of poems since July, 2007:

On seeing the photo of a long lost friend
Imaginary Friends
Alkyvision
There's A Civil War In His Head
[The streetlight's blue shadows...]
Jesus Walks On Water
On The Plain: just a song of Gomorrah
Why I won't run for President
The story of a long long journey
Dawdling
Landing, or, Aviophobia, Part 26
The eyes have it

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Jeremy Piven plays the drums with Metal Skool

In this YouTube clip, Entourage's Jereny Piven sits in with Metal Skool in a show at the Key Club. The band are hopelessly foul-mouthed knuckledraggers, but they grant Piven his "make a wish" moment. In this clip, Piven never actually gets through an entire song, but does seem to enjoy the band's references to his pride and joy ("bigger than Tommy Lee's"). This is on the order of some of Paul Allen's sit-ins, or that flute player who used to run Borland. His work on Entourage is great, but his drumming is pathetic. Hey, Metal Skool...next time bring in Tony Ravo!