Monthly Archive for December, 2006

Gerald Ford Has Fallen And He Can’t Get Up

Published on December 31, 2006 in ..The Dude, Life and The Ill-Literates. 2 Comments

[image:207:l]The pratfall President is down. And he’s not getting up. Meanwhile James Brown can’t do no more, Sadaam gets the angry villager treatment, and more in death 2006.

Well it looked like a slow year for famous deaths. But it really got a boost at the end as 3 notables all stretched their limp necks across the finish line just in time to qualify for most important famous deaths of the year.

I’ll just assume all the flags at half mast the past couple of days are not for Sadaam though the timing is a bit strange.

But then so is hanging.

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My own choice of most notable and important death of the year goes to Edgar from 24.

Edgar took it like a man. He didn’t whine or pound on the glass begging to be let in. Hell he didn’t even make a hamfisted Shatner/Spock speech about the needs of the many. He just said Chloe’s name and keeled over by his desk like the trooper he was. And he got a silent countdown. Nobody gets a silent countdown.

And the actor is from the Bronx.

But “Dude,” you might say. “He’s not real. The other guys are real flesh and blood people. What gives?”

Well I’ll tell you what gives. You’re taking this too seriously and 2006 was a slow year for celebrity deaths.

Let’s take a closer look shall we?

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I was always ambivalent about James Brown. Never thought much of his music because it lacked harmony and melody. At least to my ear. But after seeing clips of his funeral or some such service today where the front and center focus throughout was Jesse Jackson and Michael Jackson I had to come to the conlusion that Brown had something seriously wrong with him. That dropped him down the list.

Hussein? Sure we all watched his relationship with Satan grow on South Park with a sense of wonder and anticipation not felt since Luke and Laura. But the guy was a miserable fucker who mass murdered alot of people. Sure it sucks that he’s brought to justice by a country who did it for all the wrong reasons and who enabled his mass murdering back in the salad days. But I can’t give him props for only being a bit more evil that our own government. [thumb:204:l]

Ford? Besides making us think Chevy Chase was funny for awhile he didn’t really accomplish much. Plus he employed some of todays motley crew. All props for getting Chase addicted to painkillers and all. But I need more than that from a President.

Darren McGavin? Sure I dug the Night Stalker as a kid. It was the inspiration for The X Files after all. And he was the dad in A Christmas Story which was a holiday staple for me for a long time. My It’s A Wonderful Life. But even X mas Story has gotten old and been replaced by my new holiday staple, South Park’s A Woodland Critter’s Christmas. It says Christmas in a way that’s very dear to my heart.

Jeanne Kirkpatrick. First U.S. female ambassador or envoy to U.N. or something. She was a big deal Democrat a while back. But she was also big on spouting neo-com bullshit and setting the tone for what we have now. Stuff like approving of a policy of enabling murderers in C and S America in order to combat WMD’s and Al Queada….Oh I mean that other political Maguffin of our time, Communism. She was dead to me before she died.

Robert Boyle. Nice actor. I liked him. Was good friends with John Lennon. But one of his final roles was on Everybody Loves Raymond. And as all my fans know I hate Raymond and being lumped in with the rest of you.

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Syd Barret? Pink Floyd is cool. But Syd’s no Roger Waters.

Stanislaw Lem? Noted Sci Fi author. But he provided the source material for Solaris. May the afterlife move as slowly as that movie did.

Joseph Barbera? Let me know when Hanna goes.

Robert Altman? Great Director. He’s become a reference point as filmkakers do Altman-esque films. But he didn’t feel for Chloe the way Edgar and I did.

Chris Penn? The sins of the brother. Sorry Chris.

Bruno Kirby? The young Clamenza. The limo guy in Spinal Tap. So much more. But no one seemed to even notice his passing. And again as far as I know he had no feelings for Chloe.

Ann Richards? Cool governor as far as Texas goes. She was funny. Made fun of Bush alot. But she was never President and she was still a Republican. I think.

Oleg Cassini? A designer for chissakes. Why is he famous?

Michael Douglas? Alot of eclectic guests that never included Chloe, though he did have John and Yoko week.

Jack Warden? So many movies I can’t remember one.

Mickey Spillane? Never read him. I think he’d like Chloe though.

Red Buttons? Comedians sucked back in the 50′s. I thought he died with his career back then.

Aaron Spelling? Brought as such trash as Dynasty, Charlies Angels, and Tori. Don’t get me wrong I’d date Tori. I just don’t want to look at her on tv. Aaron has to take his share of the blame for this.

And I’d rather date Chloe.

Paul Gleason? Among other roles he was the Principal in The Breakfast Club. What an asshole that guy was.

Sen Loyd Bentsen? Ran with Doukakis. I just wanted to say Doukakis while I was thinking of Chloe.

Caspar Weinberger? Iran-Contra. Nuff said. Be a friendly ghost now Caspar.

Kirby Puckett? Good player. Real shame going that young and so soon after leaving the game. But he was no Jackie Robinson nor, more importantly, a N.Y. Met.

Don Knotts? Ralph Furley was genius. But Barney Fife was part of that ole boy down south homespun tacit racist The Andy Griffith Show. Let’s face it if a black guy came through Mayberry Goober, Andy, Floyd, Barney and the rest would have had him strung up in 22 minutes.

Octavia Butler? Never read her. But I felt she deserved mentioning.

Curt Gowdy?Legendary sportscaster. Just saw some of his work during the hostage seige in 72 at the Olympics in the Spielberg film Munich. BUt I associate him with Wide World Of Sports and the only guy in that area I can give total props to is that skier who took that awesome fall while they play that Tchaikovsky or some Russian-European composers music.

Wilson Pickett? Some great tunes. Like him better than Brown. But he’s not a legend and I thought he was dead already.

Al Lewis? Grandpa owned a comedy club not far from where I was raised in Yonkers. If I had gone there and gotten laid in my youth he’d have had a chance.

Shelly Winters? She’s no Chloe [image:210:l]

Lou Rawls? His name makes me think of some smarmy cloying combo of Billy Dee Williams pimping Malt Liquor and Sydney poitier coming to dinner to take the remaining white women.

That brings me to my top two real deaths. If you want to eliminate fiction these two are my co winners for biggest deaths of 2006.

Rosa Parks/Coretta Scott King and Dana Reeves.

I’m cheating a little here because I’m not sure Parks was 06 or 05 and I don’t feel like doing a search and finding out. She’s my top choice so I don’t want to ruin it for myself. If someone remembers that it was 05 screw you, keep it to yourself, and just substitute King. Parks gets an extra bit of support by having the administration try and overshadow her funeral and ceremony in D.C. That didn’t happen with King. But she was a big part of MLK’s mission and even though he isn’t my favorite person due to his religious and philandering ways, he was speaking in the idiom available to him and at least turned religion into a force for good. For a little while anyway. And I’m quite sure he’d appreciate Chloe.

As for Dana Reeve. She stuck by Chris for the decade or so after his paralysis and was a big part of everything he fought for and tried to accomplish. And she did it battling her own disease no one seemed to know about. Lung cancer. I wish there was an idealized heaven so she and Chris can have everything they deserve there.

Time Magazine Acknowledges My Contributions: Finally!

Published on December 18, 2006 in ..The Dude, Literature, Technology and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

[image:203:l] That’s right Time has announced their man of the year and it’s me. Well technically it’s You But when read from my 1st person perspective it’s me again. And it’s about time.

Time has acknowledged that I am at the forefront of the media revolution and properly credited me for “seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME’s Person of the Year for 2006 is you.”

Granted they attribute some stuff to me that I have no memory of doing. Stuff like making YouTube movies, developing Linux, and doing podcasts. But I certainly did alot of the blogging, commenting, My Spacing, and reviewing they gave me credit for so it’s quite possible that in all that “digital democratizing,” I was apparently up to I forgot some of the other cool stuff I did. Hell this very website that exists in my name goes on changing with me having no memory of any of the technical innovating or codewriting I must apparently do. It’s just that easy for me I guess. But the site works, is interactive, and ever changing so i must be doing something right.

Like my namesake pictured above now I too am immortalized as an icon of my time. But where’s my picture? Where are my quotes? How about a check for changing the world?

Now I realize that if I turn that Time article to you and you read it, or I use my revolutionizing internet media skills to e mail you the article or link, it’s like you’re looking in the other Jeff Lebowski’s mirror. Or am I the other Lebowski? The Duderino (I’m not into the whole brevity thing), doesn’t own the mirror. He’s just passing through. And sometimes I feel that way about this whole internet thing that I’ve seized the reigns of. I mean I’ve actually considered severing my ties with the net for awhile due to ISP issues I’m having with the people at peoplepc who won’t send me my software for security upgrades I was supposed to get a month ago, even though they’ve started charging me the higher monthly rate. And whn I e mail them they want me to call their service hotline which is 2 bucks a minute. my guess is the call will take more than a minute. Despite my grasp of this bold new global media thing I’m guessing it would take alot longer than that just to navigate their menu.

And I don’t want to spend alot on broadband. I have bills to pay and have been hemmorhaging money lately.

But I’m not making that phone call.

So this could potentially strike a bit of a blow to this “massive social experiment” thing I’ve been recognized for being such a huge part of by the good folks of Corporate Enemy Mag…I uh, mean Time Magazine.

But I want to thank Time for putting me in the same class as Bono who was last years Man of the year along with the Gates’s. I bet Bono got laid though. So far I’ve yet to be approached. Perhaps I can use my newfound, I mean newly recognized, web status to hook up with a nice professional girl.

Oh and feed starving kids too.

That’s cool when Bono does that.

I’m digressing from my point about how others fit into this whole revolution. Frankly I’m a bit worried you’ll let this go to your heads. Our culture is already pretty myopic and self centered.
Do you really need magazines telling you you’re more powerful than the mainstream media? Or than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Or Dick Cheney? Are you all going to start shooting me in the face or starting your own nuclear weapon program? Most of you are tough to deal with as it is. I don’t need you running around drinking and waving guns at me or scheming for weapons grade plutonium.

I guess what I’m saying is I’m worried about the further egoifying of the American. I made that word up. Egoifying I mean. American was made up by someone else. I think it was Rush Limbaugh. But with all the reality shows aggrandizing your stupidity and venality, with therapy books telling you all how great you are, with parental upbringings that lavished every poop you took and every B- with the ceremony reserved in different times for guys who walked on the moon, ended Fascism, or won the 69 Series, and with so many of you getting lost in your Ipods and blogs, it worries me that you’re all becoming just a bit too hard to live with.

The first one of you to get linked to Jack Abramoff, cry on American Idol, become a Scientologist, or mess with your page, nay the first one of you to get a page, goes on my list. And you know what list I’m talking about.

You’re all a troublesome lot as it is. You don’t spend nearly enough time worrying about the things that really matter like me, death, starvation, me, global warming, eroding democracy, me, genocide, overpopulation, and me, Al Franken. Seriously you never listen to reason. So sure are you that you all know it all. And whose always right? Who said there were no WMD’s years ago? Who said there was no connection to Al-Queda and Iraq before we invaded them? Who predicted civil war and quagmire? Who said Republicans used religion and were social Darwinists who wallow in immorality and lies? Well alot of sources on all the above actually. I just know facts and lies when I hear them, and can tell credible information from bullshit. I’m not sure about the rest of you. You trouble me. You had no idea the Mets would come up short and not even get to the Series or that Pedro was shot? I did. You tried to get me to believe Chris Doughtry would win on Idol. I knew he wouldn’t. You thought Lost would progress storyline. You thought that guy killed Jean Bonnet Ramsey when it was obvious from the get go he was just a weird ass pedophile looking for attention. Hell some of you even thought O.J. was innocent way back when. And I know you were going to watch that Fox “If I Did It” show. Weren’t you?

Weren’t you?

What am I to make of you all? Can I trust you now that you all think you’re being glorified on the cover of Time? Can I trust you to not be un-Dude? I think we’d all be better off just making like the article is about me. I can handle it. I know things the rest of you don’t. And I need the attention more. Come on people! I don’t ask you for much. I’m renouncing the creature comforts except for my TV and it’s accesories. I might be getting rid of the very internet I helped create after Al Gore got it off the ground when he uploaded it from his lock-box using his patented fiber optic technology (I love you Al). I have let go of desires for companionship, kids, success, or ideal health and fitness. But I can handle the burden of being your man of the year. Alone I can carry us into the year ahead with purity of heart, conviction in truth, and openness in mind. I’ll protect you all from Intelligent Design, the wrath of Tom Delay who now runs loose amongst us, global warming, Evil Jesus, Rocky Balboa, Bill O’Reilly, steroids, Hillary’s folly, the Others, Michael Jackson’s next album, and Tom Cruise.

For a country so good at pretending can’t we make this happen? I promise I’ll be the best pretend man of your year ever. Let me be your Dude. I know the right rug can tie a room together and I know what you want from your global media vanguard. You want truth even if you can’t tell the difference anymore. You want to be reminded that the brain is the biggest sexual organ because you want to be mindfucked. And waht better mindfuck in the era of George Bush than truth. And that’s what this internet thing is ultimately about. Making information more accesible. Letting people weed out the lies and progress at the exponential pace technology allows for. So let’s have a Caucasian together and toast me and my accomplishments of the past year even as we look forward to the next year. Together we can also remember how the great Jeff Lebowski responded to being told the brain was the largest sex organ. Because deep down we’re all doing this media revolution for the smae reason mankind has done everything else. To show chicks our other large sex organ.

Time Magazine want me to show you mine.

I promise I’ll be gentle.

Left Behind The Right

Published on December 12, 2006 in ..The Dude, Religion, Technology and The Ill-Literates. 2 Comments

There’s a video game out there based on the Christian Left Behind series. You know the series so stupid it took 2 guys to write? The one that’s sold 60 million copies. This game is reportedly a pretty big seller too. And there’s some seriously twisted shit going on in it. Of course it’s been endorsed by many Christian groups like Focus On The Family. But these same groups who would probably lament the decline of civilization on view in games like Grand Theft Auto are pushing this Left Behind: Eternal Forces game, whose basic lessons to kids is convert infidels or kill them.

Like the books the game takes place after Evil Jesus returns under the guise of a Messiah and takes all the compliant drones with him to heaven leaving behind all others to work their shit out or get with the antichrist who Jesus apparently didn’t have the balls to take on head to head himself.

The game is a perfect example of how the right wing and fundamentalists have combined forces to brainwash kids into becoming tools for in a culture war that uses morality as it’s operating premise, or cassus belli, in the way they used WMD’s and false connections to 9-11 for another war. It’s also a nice summation of the Christian right mentality and how they feel about themselves and all the rest of us.

In the game players have to either convert or kill non-believers. Left Behind Games’ president, Jeffrey Frichner, says this is actually teaching pacifism “because players lose ‘spirit points,’ every time they gun down nonbelievers rather than convert them.”

Of course in true born again tradition those sinners who have murdered can earn spirit points back, or get right with god, by simply having their character take time in the game and pray.

Man if that doesn’t summarize alot of the allure and mentality of this whole Jesus fetish then Priests just don’t like little boys.

Of course there are other elements like the false sense of entitlement and superiority that otherwise disenfranshised and inferior people get from adopting the consecrated and sanctified veneer of the holy. But I can’t remember how many times I’ve seen this easy forgiveness thing played out. Committ a sin, do something wrong, act selfishly, whatever. It’s all ok if you accept Jesus as your personal savior and go through some of the easier motions of faith and devotion.

And just to illustrate the ties to the culutre war and politics the game is set in post apocalyptic NY City and the Antichrist is secretary-general of the United Nations and a People magazine “Sexiest Man Alive.”

The game is also as fixed as their elections. Players can choose to join either side. But of course only one side can win. And the kinds of people fighting on the antichrist’s side are rock stars and guys with Muslim names. “The righteous include gospel singers, missionaries, healers and medics.”

When asked about the Arab and Muslim-sounding names, Frichner said the game does not endorse prejudice. But “Muslims are not believers in Jesus Christ” — and thus can’t be on Christ’s side in the game.

“That is so obvious,” he said.

Do you mean childishly simplistic and propagandizing obvious Captain Prejudice?

You can actually lose spirit points in this game just by being too near rock musicians. Not too subtle there as far as what message they’re trying to convey to kids. Resist all things blue states like and breed or you will go to hell.

Plugged In, a publication of Focus on the Family, said this about the game: It’s “the kind of game that Mom and Dad can actually play with Junior — and use to raise some interesting questions along the way.”

More like get them to stop asking questions. And who but someone in the anachronistic religious communitty longing for the safe Leave It To Beaver facade America safely hid behind at one time, would refer to the family unit as mom, dad, and junior?

Some of the cooler, or at least saner, Christian groups such as The Campaign to Defend the Constitution and the Christian Alliance for Progress, are protesting the game and trying to get retailers, particularly Wal-Mart for some reason, to take the game off the shelves. I’m not so sure I can support this though I appreciate their motives. I have no love for the Grand Theft Auto type games either. But I’d feel like a hypocrite trying to get them banned. Any kind of censorship or forced limiting of distribution is hard to support even in a good cause. It’s just lamentable that we live in such a country where both kinds of games are popular and appealing to some kind of sickness in our culture and weakness in our minds.

I have changed my opinion over the years about the negative effects of movies and games on kids. I never thought they had much effect. I still don’t think they have a huge one. Stupid kids will drift to stupid games or movies. Suicidal kids will drift to dark music or movies. Unpopular kids will drift to Star Trek. It’s not James T Kirk making them unpopular. Ozzy didn’t make any kids kill themselves. He just provided a soundtrack to those who would have gone without one. And nobody should die without a musical score in this day and age. i think I’d like to go to that Wagner piece they used in Platoon. Or maybe Rocky for the irony.

But there is more and more evidence that this stuff does have some influence. I think it does perpetuate itself. You don’t have riots at Pixar movies but you do get tham at some hip-hop films. All the clean easy killing in the Tours Of Duty of the world can’t be helping the cause of humanitarianism. For most it probably has little effect good or bad. But for some it’s going to make them want more. Escalation could be inevitable for these people. If nothing else maybe they’ll join the Marines and die for nothing but some rich white guy who doesn’t want his name read out loud or funeral seen on TV.

I don’t think either kind of game is good for kids. But I can’t start up that slippery slope of choosing what’s right and wrong and should or should not be allowed to be seen, read, heard, or played. In the end it’s a parents job to raise their kids in a way that keeps them from forming an interest in that stuff or that make them healthy enough to not take a Grand Theft Auto seriously. Which is why the Left Behind thing is probably worse and far more dangerous. Parents are actually participating and encouraging their kids to not only play but to see the games viewpoint as a viable reality. One that is part of a wholesome biblical upbringing.

These kids are going to be alot more dangerous than the chop shop pimps being bred by GTA. Left Behind is a game full of hate and intolerance for all kinds of lifestyles and differences. It’s a game that want’s kids to be ignorant of facts and pledged to the narrow ideas and viewpoint that has been a stagnating force for thousands of years. It’s a game the people who got Bush elected like James Dobson suppport. Like it’s founding religion it’s a game that teaches vice and sin as long as you say a prayer to a made up Jew who died 2000 years ago.

And like I said it’s just annoying to see that mentality so clearly brandished and trumpeted in a game. It’s not enough they infect the rest of us with thier hypocrisy and wretched psuedo morals, but to advertise them so blatantly in a video game is both revealing and scary. like overweight trailer trash wearing form fitting pants, revealing and scary.

SF Chronicle

Toto, It’s A Twister!

Published on December 2, 2006 in ..The Dude, Life and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

I was out with one of the guys I work with last night when a Tornado hit. Suddenly we weren’t in Kansas anymore.

Now the evening had tarted with the good news that I was going back to my normal schedule starting this Sunday. Back to days on weekends. I was temporarily off due to other peoples issues. I do have to do some overnights for a couple of weeks but they’re with Alan and it gets me even more evening time off including all day and evening xmas eve. So I was feeling good and itching to get one of my guys out.

I knew there was some storm action going on with high winds and all that. But it wasn’t until climbing into the van in our temporary locale in the woods of Rhinebeck at about 6 last night that I shortly learned that a Tornado was hitting the area. I learned this because the radio guy came on and said it. “Tornado?” I said. “But this isn’t a red state. We’re not in the bible belt. People who think Jesus is coming shortly and who vote the 3 g’s have to worry about twisters. Not us,” I says to Jimmy.

Due to HIPPA laws I can’t say just what Jimmy’s issues are and where he works, but let me just say he didn’t appreciate my reference.

But he was far calmer than I was.

In upstate NY we have to contend with cold and snowstorms. Occasionally a little hurrican action. We get a pass on twisters and earthquakes.

Or so I thought.

So we’re heading back and this thing starts getting nasty. A tree was down on rt 9. Cars were getting around it but I wasn’t sure our van would make it with a slight ditch on the other side of the downed tree. We could have stayed still until things blew over, so to speak. But i was worried about just that. Us blowing over. Or getting hit by one of the many strips of lightning tearing a hole in the fabric of reality all around us. I wanted to beat this thing back to the house. At least the worst of it. For all I could tell and hear on the radio the eye was heading towards us and I didn’t want to be sitting in a van with Jimmy.

So I went for it and got around the tree. May have scratched up the side of the van bit I didn’t care. I wasn’t backing out of there even if I could and try to get back through Red Hook and 199 or whatever that road is which woud have added alot of driving time. But we still had another 10 minutes of driving in torrential rain making visibility hard. Throw that into the road at that point becoming an obstacle course of downed branches and part of trees. Keep in mind I couldn’t see alot of this stuff until I was almost right up on it. It was like a video game accept my heart was beating alot faster than Nintendo ever made it beat and the sky was strobing light and dark which added a discotechque dimension to the whole visibility thing.

The sky was also turning a color of blue I don’t remember ever seeing before. It was both beautiful and frightening.

Jimmy seemed unphased by it all.

I really wasn’t sure we’d make it and I probably should have stayed back at the store we originally stopped in on 9G before things got bad. But anybody who knows me knows I also dig this kind of thing on some level. I’ve always liked driving home from work in fog. Snow too. Especially when I had my old Saab. It makes the routine and forgetful transit alot more interesting.

I get bored alot is what I’m saying.

Anyway this was a bit more scary. Especially on work time endangering Jimmy as well as myself.

But we made it and got back to a darkened house. In fact the whole area was dark. Fortunately we had a generator which I’m sure the lightless neighbors enjoyed listening to all night long.

But on the way home I was going over the Kingston-Rhinebeck bridge and looking for lights. I was nothing on the other side. It appeared Kingston was blacked out. I said “Oh shit.” This was somewhere about 11:20. I then said something along the lines of, “Let there be light,” as I looked over to the other side of the bridge, to my right. When I looked back Kingston was all alight.

And I felt the godrush!

I love the whole bridge thing anyway. Always excites me no matter how many times I do it. Now throw in making light for a city from above it and we have something very special.

I wondered if I had maybe just had a bad vantage point the first time. I don’t think so. There were suddenly alot of lights. Maybe someone confirm for me that power was indeed lost and then went back on in kingston at around 11:20.

If you can I will also accept your thanks.