Hating another friday

1) As bad as the Mucking Fets are playing it could be worse. No. Wait a minute – it can’t get worse that this. Except if they finish tied and then go to Philly and lose the game off a 9th inning 3 run homer by the weak hitting short stop that Wagner had an 0-2 count on with 2 outs. Followed by a meteor strike and a plague of frogs.

So it could get worse.

But not much.

2) Spent far too long trying to get what has oddly become a rarity in New York, hot Corned Beef on rye with mustard. First deli had run out of rye bread – (what deli runs out of rye bread) then the second one I went into one of the guys behind the counter kept talking to me as I was looking on their sandwich menu board for the words “corned beef”

As I’m looking he’s going on like this:

“what you want ham? Turkey? We have a panni (which I’m not fond of but that’s for later) and Italian hero right here.”

Now I wasn’t standing at the counter mind you – I was a few feet back looking at the sign and this guy was chattering away. It wasn’t even that crowded. But he kept up until finally I stopped reading and made eye contract.

“Shut up” I told him and went back to looking at the sandwich list – which since they did not mention hot corn beef sandwiches I left for a third deli.

3) Our fax machine – which some branches still send in paper work by has been broken for two days – we just got it fixed and now the printer is out. Which since we’re the legal department we kinda need. Not that we can get a service call today.

I hate Fridays.

Peace love death to disco!

Open Mikes, Sex Pistols and DNA

Band stuff on me mind these days – more cat herding than anything thing else.

And it’s busy at the job too – well they do pay me so I really should be doing the work yes? Yes.

Off to the Waltz tonight after a long absence – we’ll see what’s up with the scene there. The reason we haven’t been playing there is that we didn’t have any new songs – that has changed. Rapidly I must say.

So we’ll see what kind of shock we can generate with these two – who knows they may have become so blasé about our style that we will get polite grins and the like.

Not likely but you never know

The Mets have to thank their stars that the team trailing them are the Phillies – anybody else would have passed them. I expect three and out if they do (finally) make the playoffs. I did expect them to fall off a bit from last years team but this has been god-awful.

The Senate has passed by some absurd 76-22 resolution threatening Iran with the big boom boom if they don’t stop doing stuff that scares us. Clinton and Reid voted yes – (as one would expect from establishment democratic party members – and Obama wasn’t there – which strikes me as a bit odd).

Meantime in the world of music it is of all things the 30th anniversary of Never Mind the Bullocks – Here’s the Sex Pistols. Listening to it again after a long time – I’m struck by how edgy it still sounds – time has not diminished its razor wire and cut glass sound at all – it’s one of those mixes that sounds loud – even when it isn’t loud. The sound is still one of sheer nihilistic pleasure. It’s not working tear it down, tear it all down.

I’m not quite as anarchist as all that (but if the democratic congress keeps rolling over for W I may change my mind) but lord when it hit back then it hit.

Back to Bud Hopkins – his current book is advancing the same idea that he advanced (a little more tentatively) with his earlier works that Aliens are, via abductions, interbreeding with us.

I really don’t have the time right now to go through all the problems here – but the one that stands out is not the one that Budd and his co writer are talking about. As Gene splicing has advanced we’ve found all sorts of ways to crash the inter-species barriers – however the real sticker here is this – everything that lives on earth each and every organism from the creatures sucking in nutrients at the bottom of the sea to the birds that fly as high as a jet plane – use the same basic building block – DNA. It’s that all life uses DNA that makes our gene splicing between species even possible. So if aliens (and oh what a big if that is) are as it were making hybrid human/aliens it means their genetic code also uses DNA. How is that?

There seem to be three possiblites:

1) All life in the galaxy uses DNA – I don’t know how likely this is and until we do find an example of an alien life form we won’t really know. Until we started looking for planets around other suns we didn’t think a gas giant could exist close to a sun – we’ve found several since then.

2) The aliens we see are artificial life forms in some way modified to use DNA as the basis of their genetic code – which postulates aliens with the ability that we have given gods – which could be true but then why go skulking about on earth snatching people for their genes? That’s like being able to fly but not allowed to cross the street – it makes no real sense.

3) The aliens are not quite as alien as they make out – one of the reasons that a human/alien hybrid as described by Hopkins is viable could be because – the aliens are human – or very closely related to homo sapiens. Which opens up a whole other kettle of fish like who the hell are they? Why do they look like that? What is their deal? And so on.

Well before I start to think like I’m living in an x-file episode I’ll stop.

Peace Love DNA

Super colossal band news and other deals

We have a café press page – whoop! Whoop! And all that! Its address is:

http://www.cafepress.com/theenemybelow - and it currently offers all sorts of shirts, a couple of bags and other junk all with our logo on it – Yeah! Now you can parade your love for this band anywhere you wear clothes. And check out the teddy bear!

It looks like we might have a new drummer – The Enemy below has gotten a reply from the ad he put out – the drummer David will be coming on the 5th (our next rehearsal) – and we’ll see if he fits in.

He might have a bit of a problem because at this point The Enemy Below and I have been playing together long enough for us to get this good feel about what the other guy is going to do – and as a result we communicate more like our brains have been replaced with random phrase generators.

“So with the”
“yes”
“But not so much like an Elephant, more like a rhino”
“yeah”
“and after that you’ll slow down.”

Trust us it makes sense in context.

Speaking of drummers I see Ritchie Ramone is suing everybody over the playing and on-line sale of the ramones songs that he wrote – I don’t know about this – it all depends on what he signed when he joined the band. I suspect he may be due royalties but I don’t think he actually has the right to determine if the songs can be sold in one medium or other – always read the damn thing before you sign it kids. Trust us on this one.

Brief kafuffle at the UN where a copy of W’s speech was posted on the web that included phonetic spellings of proper names and places.

Per USA Today blogs – some of the words were:
“Kyrgyzstan (KEYR-geez-stan)
Mauritania (moor-EH-tain-ee-a)
Harare (hah-RAR-ray)
Mugabe (moo-GAH-bee
Sarkozy (sar-KO-zee)
“Caracas (kah-RAH-kus)”

Now some of these make some sense – but Caracas (that’s in Venezuela for god’s sake) and Mugabe’s been in the news for YEARS now – and this also explains the presidents coma-inducing tendency to over-enun-ci-ate certain words while he’s giving a speech.

Idiot (ID-e-ot)

Sorry for the Short Post – it’s busy – end of quarter. And all that.

Peace love, T-shirts.

Hot air nonsense, power kegs, band stuff and ugly uniforms

I guess we are now supposed to be all upset about the president of Iran coming to New York and talking.

I have other things to worry about. The media and the White House are making a big deal about this but frankly people around me aren’t talking much about it, and I don’t get much of a vibe of anything in the streets about it either. Hell even the blog world is a bit muted about it.

And it’s worrying that in a news interview, the Iranian comes across as more reasonable than the reporter.

It’s just another distraction, like the Move-on ad (I shot some cash to Move-on as soon as I heard about the Senate resolution – shame upon you sirs) to keep us from concentrating on just how horribly bad it is in Iraq.

Here’s something that they never had to deal with while Saddam was running the country – Cholera – which is spread by drinking water contaminated by cholera victims – seems the US is restricting shipments of chlorine because some guerilla used chlorine gas bombs and therefore water isn’t’ getting treated before it gets back into the rivers and when it’s drunk by people down stream – the disease spreads.

The restrictions on motor traffic are disrupting food shipments to some of the most volatile areas in Iraq. You combine that with the continuing uproar over the shooting of civilians by Blackwater Mercenaries with a nice little dose of disease and you are looking a dam powder keg not some country on the road to pacification.

I worry about the fallout from the Blackwell shooting. Up until now, the sides in the Iraqi civil war have hated each other more than the U.S. Something like this – could during the funerals which are going to emotional affairs - spark a riot that leads to further oppressive measures and shooting which in turn could lead to the US dealing with not a few guerillas s here and there but a popular insurrection.

On to other news:

We look to be needing a drummer in the future – our current drummer (who sings) has found a couple of folks to play with him and well it’s the way of these things. He a good guy and there’s no problem with this, just maybe a little sad. And there is the pain of getting a new drummer. But we do have him until the end of the year/January.

Need to hit the Waltz open mike again – if for no other reason to let them know we are alive and for the faces of shock as we trot out our new songs for them. For the record Scottish love song is the least offensive of them.

Papers are full of the giant’s win in football yesterday – side note – you know football is really a funny name for this game when you think about it – they don’t kick the ball much compared to the time it’s being carried by some one.

The Jets also won – but I wouldn’t be putting aside money for Jets playoff tickets just yet. The Dolphins are very very bad team and yet – came within one score of tying it up. That’s not what you want to be in the habit of doing because some team is bound to actually score the points that tie the game up. Knowing the jets it will happen. It’s happened before and will happen again.

Also the Giants win means their totally outclassed and useless coach is safe for another week. They are going nowhere with him.

I also have to say – to the owners of the Chargers, if you are going to replace a coach that has taken the team to a 14-2 record – you should try and get a good coach not just someone that is willing to kiss up to you to get the job. Turner’s overmatched by a box of matches.

The Mets may have, and I say may have, weathered the storm. They still have a potential to fall completely on their face but even with facing the Nationals – they are looking better than they did last week. But that isn’t that hard – zombies show more life.

And yes the Eagles Thowback uniforms are just hedious.

Peace love, My Eyes! My Eyes!

Panic, Disgust, THe Mucking Fets, and UFO's

No time to post yesterday – we are coming to the end of the 3rd quarter and that is always a fine madness as projects that have been dozing comfortably in a corner somewhere gathering dust suddenly come to life and start darting up and down the halls shrieking and waving their hands in the air.

It is times like this that I remember what someone said to me about such times:

“When in trouble when in doubt, run in circles scream and shout!”

And while you are not solving anything at least you feel like you are doing something. That way you can be like congress.

I don’t and will never understand beltway democrats – they cravenly climb on board with a despicable sense of the senate resolution that the Move on ad (Move on is taking the place of the ACLU as being THE leftist boogie man) was nasty to a general – the finest general ever to serve in the history of the world – (at least to hear the senate talk). Then later when W had a news conference, he still slammed them.

I mean when are you going to fucking get it. They don’t care, they will never ‘like’ you (and WTF is this anyway high school?) come on grow the hell up – Jesus. These are bad evil little shits – not your fellows, your bestest friends not at all.

Alas I feel that the democratic party in side DC has been taken over by people who were not outraged at the way the gop congress was acting, it was just they wanted their place at the feed trough.

Bleh.

Well the Mets plum new depths – my boss came in singing “beat the Mets, beat the Mets, step right up and beat the Mets” Which while I’ll give him props for knowing the song – he should be thankful I’ve given up violence for this incarnation. In the next life however, I figure I’ll pop him one just for that.

W has had another gathering of press people who compete to say how great he is and how much his farts smell like flowers.

Rehearsal tonight for the first time in a while – huge flakes of ring rust will be taken off.

Last day of summer is a beautiful one – tomorrow looks nice too. Enjoy it; it’s going to be cold soon enough.

Reading a strange little book by Budd Hopkins and Carol Rainey called “Sight Unseen” which is about UFO abductions – but there’s a kick here. One of the problems with Alien Adduction stories is that with a few and highly controversial exceptions – nobody sees this happen except for the people it happens to – even if the event takes place in a crowded city or town – they are trying to reason out if it is feasible that the aliens (and the authors come down very squarely in the aliens among us camp) have a technology that can render things invisible and ways to literally turn people off so they don’t remember when they lift whoever they want out a room for instance. I mean other than saying “it didn’t happen the way the subject remembers it”

Hopkins has drawn a lot of fire over the years for using hypnosis and leading questions but the folks that have done that have almost as passionate a desire to prove there is nothing there as Hopkins has to prove something is up. It’s not an environment designed to allow the free exchange of ideas.

Haven’t finished the book so it’s hard to say exactly how I feel about it – it’s pretty weird even for me and I have the feeling I’m reading a book set in the world in the X-files.

More as I finish.

Peace Love Mucking Fets.

Words, Talk Like A Pirate Day, Zappa, and bad Bigfoot

Things, Things Things

Just paraphrase of hamlet there

“What does he write my lord “
“Words words words.”

This is why I don’t believe W reads all the damn books people say he reads. He never makes reference to them, never plays with the ideas they contain, never quotes anybody, and never even mentions the books in conversation. This is what people do when they read stuff. Or even watch movies. I think that 1/3 – ¼ of what I say is somehow linked to something I saw or something I read – hell I can still quote the opening paragraphs from Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas from memory.

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold”

I could go on from there but it’s not as impressive if I’m not saying it out loud.

Following up with my ‘why isn’t this on DVD’ comment from yesterday – I give you 200 Motels starring Frank Zappa (in a non speaking role) the Flow and Eddie era Mothers of Invention, Ringo Starr, Keith Moon and Theodore Bikle (who a friend of mine knew and who told him the shoot was ‘rather confused, nobody knew what was going on’) and some former members of the Mothers – most visibly Jimmy Carl Black (“I’m the Indian of the group.”)

It was Franks one shot at a studio film it was shot in 7 days under lousy conditions and makes no real sense except on some meta-dad level which isn’t about making sense anyway – and it isn’t on DVD. Apparently nobody has the slightest idea who has the 35 mm master (if it still exists) or who has the rights to it. Before he did Zappa managed to get the rights to a lot of his works back but not this one.

I honestly expect this will never show up. Too many folks who are greed heads want a beak full before the project could see the light of day.

Ah well.

On a brighter side – it’s talk like a pirate day ‘Arh Jim lad, avst ye blind pew tis me yer scurvy dog” and what not – it’s going to make that 2 pm meeting interesting.

Also I notice that almost everything has a skull and crossbones or at least a skull on it. I don’t think too much about such things but if designers are all coming up with this motif and people are buying it, the cultural zeitgeist has to be pretty damn gloomy yes?

Finished Loren Coleman’s Bigfoot Apes in America and now I’m eh. He postulates two kinds of hominids/apes running around America, One the Classic Bigfoot (with a smaller eastern cousin ) and a North American Ape, a smaller far more ape like creature – Loren thinks these (Boggy Creek Monster, Florida’s Skunk Ape) are actually real Ape Apes not possible hominids like Bigfoot/Yeti types – and indeed may be feral escaped apes.

I’m not all that convinced – again it’s the food supply thing – a 7 foot 500 plus pound animal would have to eat a hell of a lot and there isn’t enough easy to digest fruit and vegetable matter about – the huge herds of elk and caribou live on the plains and deer and such have special stomachs to break plants down – a bear is an omnivore and will eat anything sometimes just on the off chance that it’s food. I just don’t see how Sasquatch works as a live animal.

But there seem to be valid prints and the sightings mount and nobody’s really taken down the Patterson film – so I’m going with maybe. Not likely but maybe. Worth looking for by all means but don’t expect much.

Still there is one thing – on eye witness account in the book that I’d rather not have heard about. It covers a long series of contracts between one Bigfoot and a farm family – they came to just adjust to his comings and goings and left out apples for the Bigfoot to eat and the like.

On day the Bigfoot – I think they called him Kong was strolling around the farm. There was something different about him that day – per the witness he was, well, sporting a boner. Yes his Mister Happy was ready for action. The witness shooed him away from the house – well wouldn’t you? But he was still on the grounds. Then a while later she (I think the witness was a she) and her kids got in the car to get away for a while – she looked and saw that Kong was humping one of the cows.

You know I could have lived a long and happy life without the image of an aroused big foot boinking a cow banging around in my brain. Really. Didn’t need to have that image in my mind at all. Thanks Loren thanks ever so much. I’m never going to be able to get that out of my mind and now I know it will pop into my mind at the worst moment possible. I’ll be trying to make a point and the image of some hairy man beast banging away on a cow like there’s no tomorrow will be the only thing my brain will show me. It’s the way of these things.

Again Thanks a lot Loren.

Peace Love Arrrrr matey! Pass the rum!

I hate my head pt 38 and King Kong Escapes & bootlegs.

More hating my head.

Yesterday was a nice piece of madness – heavy tension in the air and I was going around, blaming myself for things that weren’t my fault because it happened before I climbed on board. Not that that stopped my inner fault finder from well finding fault.

It’s not like this is really a good reaction to stress and pressure. It comes alas from long ago where I learned that it was more important that someone I get blamed than things actually get fixed and it was important that I be really sorry about it too.

Like I say I never ever have to wonder where my low self esteem comes from.

Bought a bootleg copy of King Kong Escapes – normally I don’t but in this case I was able to justify this by saying to myself mostly cause there is no way in heaven that this, the Japanese language version of this lame little minor Japanese Monster film is ever going to see the light of day – hell I’m still waiting for the Japanese language version of the original Mothra to show its face and that film is over 40 years old (might pop that one in tonight) just checked still not plan to issue the DVD of that one. Hey let’s not wait 50 years guys okay?

Anyway figuring that it will never show up in the U.S. – I bought the DVD and found, when I got home it was unplayable – well that’s another reason not to buy bootlegs yes?

I’ve noticed the bootlegs of current films are not as plentiful as they used to be. It used to be every block in the city had someone with a blanket spread out with copies of whatever the current box office hits were. I never bought them – not having the flimsy justification that I have with rare stuff like King Kong Escapes and also convinced I would have been ripped off (actually in my case I don’t think I was ripped so much that whoever did the video was a blithering incompetent) . I guess there was a crack down or people wised up on this.

I’m old enough (oh god am I old enough – well enough of that) to remember when bootleg records were of live performances or of stuff the artist or record company didn’t want to release (these are now known a bonus tracks but with the death of the CD as primary music provider they may fade away again).

I don’t understand – actually I really do – why these old films aren’t out on disk already – it’s money somebody has the rights and they want more money than a DVD company thinks it’s worth to issue – like well Mothra or King Kong Escapes (another reason I wanted the Japanese version was that there was no way the female lead’s voice in the original could be as annoying as the dubbed in voice that says ‘Kong!’ over and over in voice that makes you want to shove pointy steel things in your ears to make the hurting stop).

So many a film sits in limbo – there is a failure of basic capitalism here I think. There is a demand and a supply but since the demand (in dollars) isn’t high enough there is no supply – but perversely (per theory) there is no lowering of price.

And I’m I stuck with buying bootlegs that don't work.

Peace, Love, Kong!

Just keep dying until we think of something and Giant Claws

Well that’s the end all and be all of the surge, congressmen, wearing helmets and body armor, shopping in markets surrounded by armed guards and flights of Helicopters, the useless bubble brain newsreader for CBS New’s field trip, the congressional testimony of the greatest general America has ever produced except for those others in the history books, the kissing of the ring of the general by congress, the power point slides, the talking by the talking heads and the speech by the leader of the free world, it all came down to this:

“Just you guys keep dying out there, who knows, things might get better. At least as long as you keep dying we won’t have to face the fact we made a god awful mistake and this horrible mess is our fault. I mean god forbid, we, you betters, suffer any consequences of our actions. And maybe we will attack Iran while we wait.”

And they will continue to lead good and happy lives and really really think they are something special and are doing important work and having nice lunches while for the next months families will continue to receive the worst news that they can imagine and young people will wake up in hospitals with limbs gone and lives shattered and have to navigate a system that assumes they are trying to cheat the system.

Somebody used the term kabuki to describe this useless whirling in Washington – I think that is unfair to a respected Japanese art form but it does sum up what happened very well.

At this point I don’t think this silly and wasteful exercise was meant to actually convince us, the peasants, that they have anyone’s interests in mind but their own. I suspect the reason here is that they were trying to convince themselves that they have examined all the possibilities and came to the conclusion – leave things as they are – which is what they wanted it to be in the first place.

Disgraceful.

Yes plan to finish Manos the next weekend – unless sanity occurs.

Still some exciting news in the world of rotten films – the Giant Claw will be coming out on DVD! Yeah it’ll be part of a set with 3 other films but damn the Claw is coming.

The giant claw has the honor of being listed in the short list of “the stupidest Monster Design” in film history.

The basic plot is that a giant bird of extraterrestrial origin (it flies though space – on wings? Like how? Wings need air yes? Well never mind they don’t care I don’t care) and beings a flying swath of destruction. It has all the necessary parts for a b-movie Monster Movie – the scientist (Mitch MacAfee flying electronics engineer– played by Jeff Morrow who must have done hundreds of these roles) a lady math wiz (played by one Mara Corday who actually doesn’t’ dissolve into panic or spend the entire time making food and manages to actually sound intelligent and a bit sarcastic at the same time). Along with Morris Ankrum who plays the Air Force General (he played generals so many times I suspect that he had his own uniforms “Army General? Fine. What Rank? Fine, I’ll be at the studio at 9 am”) and some other bit parts – all done by professionals who can at least read lines.

What lifts this film above others is the sheer goofiness of the monster – it looks like a buzzard with teeth, a weird Mohawk, and bad nose hair – you haven’t lived until you see a buzzard with bad nose hair (and the nostrils move ahhhhhhh! Make it stop! Make it stop!) And the wings are stiff and it’s so obviously a puppet you have to laugh as it swoops down on airplanes, heedless teenagers and toy trains. (it doesn’t help that that birds apparent size keep changing – they didn’t think too careful about scale but hell they were doing the special effects work in Mexico and for about 11 bucks so I don’t get as mad at that kind of thing here as I did with a film like the American Godzilla)

Eventually they destroy the bird which has a anti-matter shield (don’t ask) by using what are now called Muonic atoms – which because the muons which take the place of the Electrons in this exotic atom, are much more massive, the atom has a smaller radius (which per the film allows them to bond with the anti-matter atoms of the shield in some way – that’s absolute nonsense but the bit about it being smaller is right – which in a 1950’s science fiction film is worth noting pointing out).

I’m very happy aobut this – the dvd comes out 10/16.

It takes so little really.

Peace Love Giant Claws

Todd Speaks and Reads and Sasquatch

Well the emperor Todd is going to speak tonight. He will urge America to ‘understand’ (as he is urged more than once to understand things by his aides) that things are, despite what looks like a wrecked country torn asunder by sectarian strife with no end in sight – Iraq is just fabulous – especially in Anbar province.

The only trouble with this glowing review is that pesky reality keeps getting in the dam way. News has come in that one of our biggest allies in Anbar has just been blown to bits.

While the us is blaming Al-Queida for this (it must be noted that the US currently blames Al-Queida for everything that goes wrong in Iraq including sandstorms) there are more than a few Sunni Groups which could have done the deal. The Sheik Abu Risha was more of a thug than a real nationalist leader and used us support to try to become the capo of Anbar – hence in some ways the mob style hit.

Still it has to be embarrassing for Todd to go and cite Anbar and days later a very bad thing happens to the guy you had the photo op with while you were hiding from the bad part of Iraq inside a massive US military base.

But he’s never really embarrassed – about anything.

I notice the book Dead Certain a book about W by someone who got to listen to him jabber during several interviews (god what a toll that must have taken) Draper, the author comes away saying he likes the man. But the interesting part is that in his liking he misses points that leap out at others – and have.

In an interview Draper again supported the surprising intelligence of W – a) citing a withering take down of some tax policy support and anybody that reads Comac McCarthy isn’t dumb.

Okay – the first point. W does have an MBA – which is mostly accounting and math so presuming he’s at least familiar with that sort of thing – also one must never count out the fact that he got the withering questions from someone else.

Two as far as reading – well I can only point out this exchange in A Fish Called Wanda.

“Wanda :To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people. I've known sheep who could outwit you. I've worn dresses with higher IQs, but you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?
Otto: Apes don't read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto, they just don't understand it.”

So let’s not automatically presume anything deep is going on here. Like when was the last time W quoted a book – ever?

There was also an interesting WTF moment about the famous video meeting between Heck of a job Brownie and W where Brown listed the facts of the situation and W just sat there, grunted something and let New Orleans drown – Draper says that W had been on a pretty hard bike ride the day before so he was lethargic and unresponsive.

WTF? I mean WTF to end all WTFs. How about a cup of coffee or two to get W’s mental processes kick started a bit – and I thought all that workout stuff made your brain better. And shit if you can't shake off your physical problems to deal with the possible total destruction of a major city, just what the hell does get your attention? And if riding your damn bike makes you incapable of exercising your office the next day – don’t ride the damn bike meathead.

Jesus.

Reading Bigfoot Apes in America by Loren Coleman – which has some interesting stuff – including alas a bit that confirmed that Ivan T. Sanderson was a bit too credulous when reading what was printed in the papers – there is a pretty famous story from 1884 or thereabouts about Jacko supposedly an ape like creature that was captured in the area where Bigfoot is said to stomp about. Turns out, if you follow the trail it just peters out and the paper published in the town were the capture was supposed to have taken place only reported the sheriff’s irritation with the mobs of curious trying to break into his jail for a glimpse of the creature – which wasn’t there.

Also there is a long part about the Patterson film. I remember as a kid waiting for my clarinet lesson to start reading in a magazine about this film –this was my jr high school years or earlier I’d quit by high school – I could never a) make any interesting noise with the damn thing and b) the actual musical repertory for the clarinet wasn’t that interesting to me anyway –

As a side note I remember that it was in Jr High School band that I discovered that I wasn’t much into institutional mandated competition – when I joined the band I was told about first and second and third clarinet, then first chair and what not – the band director told us you had to challenge the guy above you to advance. I remember thinking at the exact moment I heard that “well screw that” and for the 2 or so years I was in the band didn’t do a single challenge. Thought it was a stupid waste of time and designed to make folks miserable as well.

I’ve never done a battle of the bands either. Although I think we may well be on our way to the being the best band in New York.

End side note.

Amway back to the Patterson Bigfoot film – it’s either one of the most amazing pieces of film in human history or a brilliant fake. There real are no other choices here. There have been a lot of attempts to prove it’s a fake but the one I saw was a shoddy and quick fox deal - guys saying over and over again ‘it’s a fake’ doesn’t make it a fake. But they’ve never quite gotten the recreations right – Fox did a recreation where the film makers where right on top of the guy in the suit – but that only recreated the close up which are enlargement of the original film. Like I said they didn’t try too hard there.

Me? I’m torn – I just can’t really accept huge apes wandering around the pacific northwest – as much as I would like to. There just isn’t enough damn food for one thing – Gorillas live in rain forests for a reason – they pretty much have to be eating all the damn time all the damn day – and the northwest just doesn’t have enough greenery – where an ape can get to it – and there is the added problem of winters – we, hypothetical snowman aside, are the only member of the ape family that lives in temperate or artic climes. The rest are creatures of the tropics – hell primates in general don’t stray much from the tropical zones.

Well more as I finish the book – again while I’d personally like there to be a Bigfoot, I’m leading towards there isn’t one unless better data shows up.

Peace, Love, Sasquatch

Beautiful Day - and how to spoil my own mood

It’s a day to play hooky – the first real fall day – it’s not really fall but there is no humidity – It’s about 10 degrees cooler than yesterday and just feels like fall.

Not a day to spend typing or filing or doing what we all do – this is a damn it’s good to be alive day – to spend walking central park and having a good meal somewhere.

Now to depress myself.

The president is going to go on national television tomorrow night and say – that he will order the withdrawal of 30,000 troops from Iraq – and hint at further withdrawals dependent upon improved security in Iraq. Sounds good – only thing it’s an absolute crock of shit.

The troops first will not be withdrawn until the summer. The other point is that these troops would be withdrawn anyway no matter what the situation in Iraq was – the army is dangerously overstretched by the surge and they can not sustain troop levels in Iraq as they are without compromising other missions. That was true the day W decided to increase troop levels. To suggest the coming withdrawal is a result of improved conditions in Iraq is a lie. An utter self serving blatant lie.

The other thing that leaps out at me is that he’s taking about doing this in the summer of 08. June of 08 and all that. That’s a damn long time and there are so many things that can happen between now and then.

The only marginally good thing about this is that he’s going on Television to announce this – which mean’s support for him and the war will dip even more. His speeches on Iraq have been empty rhetoric delivered in a faux Texas accent that makes one long for deafness combined with a hectoring tone “what the American people must understand” that is very off putting – at least for those who bother to listen to him.

Every time I hear him speak (and I do this as little as possible) I am reminded of the crack that W talks about things like he’s talking to an idiot because that’s the way they are explained to him.

Meantime Lieberman proving that he is a vile little man down to the depths of his prissy little soul is upset we’re not bombing Iran. That’s just fucking sick.

And meantime in Iraq itself – Cholera has returned – people are short of food because supplies can’t get to dangerous areas and The US HQ was hit by a rocket or motor attack – not a lot of damage but enough to send the message – you are not safe.

I expect food riots in the near future. Let’s see the mothers try and spin that one.

Meantime the General said like out loud that he didn’t know if winning in Iraq would make us more secure.

Jesus – makes you long for a big bottle of gin – not to drink it but to bash it against you head in utter frustration.

Busy again.

But the fall is coming we need to organize - the play and the next set – and rehearsal – if ottos taught us anything it taught us we need to be like really really tight – well they did say comedy is hard.

And get the performance for the musical set up – in a couple of weeks we look to have a run through again – close up some holes in the book see what happens with we hope 6 actors doing the acting and singing.

Gotta Dance!

Sorry just came out.

I know I said more Manos but that’s not gonna happen today either. I’ll finish the damn thing this weekend or give it up as a bad idea – and move on to Plan Nine.

Peace Love Gotta Dance!

A Cloudy Rainy Day

I guess it’s just time passing – this is the first time on 9/11 that my thoughts weren’t on the day back in 2001 – time has a way of doing that. I still remember it all vividly but it’s not, right now dominating my every waking moment. Work is pretty crazed right now.

I plan to stay far from the Mainstream media outlets as I can – they have decided that the annivesry of the attack gives them the license to indulge in ever more apalling wallows in treacle and bathos like hippos in a mud bath.

It’s been six years – just let me say six years after Pearl Harbor Hitler was dead and Japan had surrended and we were rebuilding Europe and Japan even.

Now – Osama is still loose, we’re trapped in a nightmare in Iraq and we’re making noises aobut Iran.

And none dare call it madness.

I’d write more but my thoughts have a leaden heaviness that makes writing difficult.

Manos tomorrow – (something else I need to get behind me)

Peace Love tomorrows

What they on their summer vaction & Manos & Reincarnation

Well the General gives his report today (actually he’ll just give a summary of the report – the actual report – required by the legislation – is that the president reports the General is just a talking head).

This is a very odd dance that is going on here. The General (I forget his name and am too uninterested to look it up) will be giving essentially a “what I did on my summer vacation” oral report to congress. The GOP congressmen will embarrass themselves with extravagant praise of the general’s service like he’s the second coming of Patton and McArthur put together while implying that anyone that questions the general’s testimony and his figures is probably in the pay of Bin Ladden (more him in a bit). The Democratic members will also embarrass themselves in worshiping his service (You know, it’s not like he just liberated Paris boys, you don’t have kiss up to every uniform that sits down in front of you). And they will ever so gently suggest that perhaps the numbers are maybe sort of a bit overstated to make things look good. (Not that they want to imply he’s deliberately lying. No – nobody in the uniform of this county has ever uttered a false statement in their lives especially when it was to serve a policy end that they had already endorsed numerous times).

And there will be howling I tell you howling form the right wing machine that anyone dare question the word of a man in the uniform of this country’s armed forces.

Still isn’t what we are supposed to be fighting for is the right to question the word of a man in uniform, indeed the word of anyone? Especially the word of someone intimated commentated with this Administration, a group of people who have such a high regard for the truth that they won’t share it with the rest of the country.

There is a strange out of touchness about the dance going on here these days – as during the Impeachment – outside the beltway the majority of people thought and continued all during the trail to think is was a stupid idiot idea – and continue to do so. However to this day the inside the beltway crowd sees nothing absurd with the whole carnival.

And now it’s happening again – only this time – lives are being wasted and treasure is being poured into a rat hole in the desert that the insiders don’t wish to abandon because it would mean they would have to admit to a mistake. It’s as horrible as that. Young men and women are going to die or wake up in a hospital bed with arms and legs missing – because they don’t want to admit a mistake.

The stealing and the run of the mill corruption were bad enough. This. This is monstrous.

Makes you long for a Bastille to storm.

Anyway – I understand there is going to be a musical or rock opera based on Manos the Hands of fate – (which does give us hope for the killer sheep musical)

Gig went okay – we had sound problems and as a group we were under rehearsed. I lost part of my voice about ½ through the set – next time make sure you damn hydrate okay? – But Scottish love song did better this time than before – and the new closing song (which I can’t sing at work) went okay. We will be much sharper for the 21st we do promise that.

Anyway – while things are a bit quiet – Mamos – Part IV

Anyway while Mike is trying to fix the car – and moths, attracted by the light are flittering in front of the camera – Torgo is making a move on Maggie – mostly by saying that The Master wants her for his wife and then he says that he wants her – and then slowly like oh so slowly – like taking forever slowly, paint drying watched pot will never fucking boil slowly, reaches out and touches her hair. Maggie – proving herself the kind of passive personality that a jerk like Mike would marry because he can’t stand any challenges to his authority – doesn’t slap the living shit out of Torgo (who due to his bad balance would go down like a felled tree at the first touch) but starts saying “Mike Mike where are you Mike”

We flash to Mike unable to get the car going. Like that’s a surprise.

Torgo apologizes a bit and then Mike comes in saying the car won’t start. Then he barks at Torgo to put the bags back in the house. Again to over compensate about the inability to fix the car.

Then because something has to happen – they both look at the painting again. I’m not sure why – but they do. And as they do their little girl Debbie Gets up off the couch and wanders out the door while they aren’t looking. Then there is panic by Mike and Maggie and they search for Debbie – without actually opening the door that Debbie went through – smart real smart.

They go out side and then find Debbie with – Ta – DA the evil dog from the painting!
Ahhhhh! Debbie takes them to where she found the dog – and there lying on a slab of marble is the Master – standing on pillars near him are women in what looks like Gauze or flimsy gowns (the master’s wives).

Sorry I was going finish this today but work you know – tomorrow I hope to end this nonsense – featuring the longest cat fight in the history of film and a very bad ending indeed. But until then – this item came across the wires (via Newsweek)

“In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation."

Uh –huh – it’s aimed at the Dalai Lama of course but it’s still stupid.

I mean is there a form to fill out?

Peace Love which way to the Bastille?

Sleepless, Probes, Goats and Adieu Maestro

No time to do anything busy busy busy

Need some sleep – not sure why but that is hard to come by these days. The worst part was last night I was having a dream where I couldn’t sleep. Now that tells you something about how tired I’ve gotten.

And the worst thing about the dream was in the dream I got out of bed to see what time it was. And the clock said it was about 2 minutes until I had to get up.

And then I woke up – it was about 3 am. Pretty damn disoriented I can tell you

Random Neural Firings:

The Senator Larry Craig saga is becoming utterly absurd. People are calling for a boycott of the airport where he got busted. He is saying he’s changing his mind about leaving the Senate and the Guilty Plea (it’s not clear if he can do that and even if he can it means he might get slapped with a heavier charge) and his lawyer urged the Senate Ethics panel (which has to really have a busy damn schedule) not to invest gage Larry – which led to a rather unfortunate headline:

“Lawyer says Senate should not probe Craig”

Yes I know.

Other headline that caught my eye:

Airline sacrifices goats to appease sky god

“KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Officials at Nepal's state-run airline have sacrificed two goats to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god, following technical problems with one of its Boeing 757 aircraft, the carrier said Tuesday. “

Which reminded me that people are staring to talk about the Chupacabra (lit. goat sucker) again for some reason. I don’t know why but a woman in the southwest somewhere claims the body she found is that of the Chupacabra (the police insist it was a dog)

Well see. Still a headline that contains the words ‘X Sacrifices Goats” is going to get my attention every time. (Poor damn goats)

The World of Music is a little quieter today – Luciano Pavarotti has passed away at the age of 71 from cancer. (I don’t know why that seems that young to me – maybe because it’s only 20 years before I’m 70 – ouch. Need to get out more – enough of that).

Luciano was THE tenor for a long time and has set the bar pretty damn high. I was fortunate enough to have seen him several times when he was in his prime.

I will always remember one turn he did as the Prince (or duke, it’s not that important) Verdi’s Rigoletto. There is a famous aria in the Opera for the part (full disclosure I am something of an Opera Buff – not full fledged but I do enjoy it go once in a while as well).

So when he sang this Aria from the opera "La donna è mobile" ("Woman is fickle") and I remember that, that night (this is well over 25 years ago now) he just nailed it – absolutely and utterly nailed it, it got a 10 from all the judges – even the Bulgarian – it was so perfect it, gave you chills to hear it. I swear he could sing it again a 1,000 times and never do it better. (One of the magics of a live performance) – And the audience – well it’s hard to describe. This roar, this noise that emerged the instant he finished the aria was like nothing I’ve heard – then people were cheering, throwing flowers, people in the upper seats tearing up their programs and throwing the pieces over the side so they would float down like confetti. I’d never seen anything like it before and I’ve never quite seen it as wild since then at the Met.

He was a big man who lived a big life – with its ups and downs and lefts and rights. He’s left us too soon – but we have his recordings and those of us lucky enough to have seen and heard him, we have our memories.

Adieu Maestro

Peace, Love, Bel Canto

Tod of Spengo and Insect Masks

“It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.”

When the history of this foul era is written quotes like this (My mind absolutely refuses to remember who penned this drivel) will be a source of absolute wonder and a cause for hooting and laughing – hopefully the hooting and laughing will be done by Americans amazed at how stupid we were and how far we come rather than the rest of the world using the quote to illustrate what caused the fall of America.

I mean this is on a level with the worship of Tod the lord of Spengo from “Mon and Dad Save the Universe”

Recently our insane mushwit nimrod warmonger – sorry - the president gave an extremely weird interview to so someone who is writing a bio of him. Among other things – he said that his first order of business after leaving the white house will be to get on the speaking circuit to raise money – which shows a level of self delusion not seen in many people. Does he really think folks are going to pony up big bucks to hear him talk? Maybe but he, once he leaves the office, has no sugar to give. I suppose they might toss a few gigs his way as part of the ongoing right wing welfare system but let’s face it – he speaks English like he’s trying to read the speech phonetically off the teleprompter. It’s painful to listen to for even a few minutes.

This could be why he doesn’t get asked very many questions at press things – a question means you have listen to him answer it. And since you’re just going to get a kind of word salad with freedom and words like that tossed in like croutons there really isn’t any point.

The other thing he said, which is damn weird, is that he said he cries, and he talked about how much he cried – he didn’t quite say why he cried. I suspect it’s all about him, how his dreams have smashed by that oh so nasty real world thing.

He’s currently in Australia hiding from the demonstrators there.

Here’s one thing he should really consider if he wants to go on a speaking tour – there are a great many people in this country who can be counted on to be out on the streets holding rude signs where ever he goes – and while as an ex-president he does have Secret Service protection he isn’t going to have the power to order the streets to be swept of people before he arrives at his destination. He’ll want to but as a private citizen he won’t be able to. It’s something he should consider.

Enough.

Got new insect masks for the band – it was a fun moment to walk into a costume store and say “I need an insect mask” to the store clerk.
“An insect mask?”
“Yeah fly, grasshopper, bug something like that.”
“Let me check” picks up intercom “Ted do we have an insect mask?”
“Insect?”
“Yeah bug, grasshopper, fly whatever.”

Turns out they did have a mask – it was smaller and plastic a ½ face mask more like a kids Halloween mask not the hideous rubber nightmare we had (which insect girl could not see out of anyway) – it’ll work for the moment – I bought all three that they had (better safe that sorry) and we’ll see how they look in the pics. We might try and get a new rubber one but – for now we have a mask.

I am told that the cd is finally mixed an on its way. the problem now is that a) we don’t sound like that anymore – the album was The Enemy Below and myself only, and b) we’ve dropped some of the songs from the set list in favor of other newer ones – this is not the exact same problem Cheap Trick faced when their live album hit just as they had ditched a lot of the songs that were on that album from their live set –but it’s along the same lines

Got to go – things to do.

Peace, love, Insect Masks.

Labor day, This and that and Beowulf Movies

Well – Labor Day has come and gone – the semi official end of summer.

Congress comes back and will be lied to about how things are going in Iraq. Alas indications are they are going to accept being lied to and not do anything except let people get killed. Not even die. Get killed.

W flew in for a surprise visit to Iraq – because it’s too damn dangerous for him to be flown in when people know he’s coming – which says volumes about how safe it is in Iraq. He spent some hours in a military base that is home to some 10,000 troops tons of planes and guns and per news reports has a 13 mile wide parameter- if the President of France flew into Area 51 and then addressed the press to say how well the reconstruction of New Orleans is going it would be about what he did.

Lets face it Winston Churchill he ain’t (he never was and he will never be) – the young lad has a very very highly developed concern for his own skin.

Need to search for an Insect Mask today – the last one went missing after the Luna Lounge gig and well – Insect Girl isn’t insect girl without it yes? So This will be a short blog. (note got the mask – not as ugly as the last one but it’ll do for Otto’s I think).

It’s a god awful thing to realized that one a presidential candidate has stood up and said if he is elected there will be no more gulags and warrentless wiretaps of American citizens and two – he’s going to get hammered for it in the press as being weak on terrorism (after they mock his hair cuts).

I see in the polls that Edwards despite the endless mockery by the Mainstream is actually gaining some ground in the polls lately. I suspect the reason is that he is saying things like “No More Gulags” and “Universal health care” rather than giving out lists of Republicans he would work with or hinting that we might go and bomb Pakistan as long as the bombers aren’t doing anything in Iran that day.

The last thing this country needs is someone who promises not to rock the boat – especially of the people who got us into this mess in the first place.

I see that somebody is doing a movie version of Beowulf with Angelina Jolie as Grendel’s mother – it might be good but I suspect it will end up being more like Ator the fighting Eagle with Miles O’Keefe with a big budget and lots of CGI (some years ago (1999) Christopher Lambert made a odd steam punk/middle ages version of Beowulf - which was also awful – does the world need 2 film versions of an old English epic Poem in less than 10 years?).

Still I’m fairly sure that the reason this got made is Tolkien. Not only are folks still trying to make another Lord of the rings film – the kicker here is that JRR Tolkien’s day job was a language professor at I think Oxford and his major scholarly work was about , ta da Beowulf where in 1937 he insisted that scholars treat the poem as a work of art rather than something to mine for historical bits (Like someone using a Tale of Two Cities in 2910 to gleam details about The French Revolution – side note M. Thatcher was an insufferable ass in 1989 (the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution) and as part of that gave the French President a copy of A Tale of Two Cities and later went on to blame the French revolution for communism. She was out of power shortly afterwards – end side note).

Getting back to Beowulf I’m sure that producer sold this film like this.

Producer: Tolkien wrote about it
Studio head (starting awake): What Tolkien wrote it?
Producer’s assistant: Well not as – (drops to ground producer elbows him in stomach)
Studio head: What was that?
Producer: He can’t handle drugs
SH: Kids these days
Producer: Yes
SH: So Tolkien wrote it
Producer: Wrote about it
SH: Same difference. Tolkien go for it.

Or some such.

More paperwork.

Later

Peace Love Grendel’s Mother