Double Pump

I might go gay just to get with Robbie Williams like white on rice. Interview excerpt from Nylon:

Q: Would you be of any use in a gunfight or a car chase?

A: I don't drive, and I don't like guns. I don't mind, what are they called, shotguns? What you shoot clay pigeons with? Well, if a midget in the shape of a round disk was robbing a bank and then managed to suddenly have superhuman powers and fly, and if I had -- what they fuck am I going on about here? I'd be all right with a double-barrelled shotgun.

Blah Blah Blah

Is this not the longest sentence ever written?

"Not only is the anecdote expanded to its fullest possible bulk--there is an elaborate account of nearly everything done or thought by Mr. Bloom from morning to night of the day in question--but you have both the "psychological" method and the Flaubertian method of making the style suit the thing described carried several steps further than they have ever been before, so that, whereas in Flaubert you have merely the words and cadences carefully adapted to convey the specific mood or character without any attempt to identify the narrative with the stream of consciousness of the person described, and in Henry James merely the exploration of the stream of consciousness with only one vocabulary and cadence for the whole cast of moods and characters, in Joyce you have not only life from the outside described with Flaubertian virtuosity but also the consciousness of each of the characters and of each of the character's moods made to speak in the idiom proper to it, the language it uses to itself."

From Edmund Wilson, Jr.'s review of James Joyce's "Ulysses," published in the July 5, 1922, issue of The New Republic.

Hilton Sisters Update!!!!
THAT the Hilton sisters will vie for sexiest costume at Quest magazine's Mardi Gras party at Man Ray restaurant on Monday.

Do you think that if you're in the US Army and for some reason you get held hostage and are tortured and starved and beaten, but then somehow how saved by US forces, the US government sets you up for life? Here you are, defending your country (or, more likely, your country's overseas interests) and you get hell wacked out of you by some "enemy" and are deprived of even the most life-essentials like water and a bandage for that head wound you sustained from the business end of an AK-47. It seems that the least the government could do was give you free insurance and handsome salary (say $100K) for the rest of your sleepless days. I may have to look into this further.

I Looked Into It
VA Benefits for Former Prisoners of War: "The amount that is paid to a former POW who has qualified at the full 100% rating is $2,287.00 (tax-free) per month."

This is not exactly the same as being held hostage, I don't think. It's about POWs and MIAs.

Scroll down; from Chapter 9: "Approved 1970 . . . payments to former POWs of the Vietname era. Compansation was payable at the rate of $5.00 per day -- $2.00 per day for each day of inadequate rations and $3.00 per day for each day of inhumane treatment."

This is an interesting article on how much money a band whose record goes gold will receive. Before you even read the piece, I'm sure you guess right: that the band doesn't make much money from their album. The record company makes a lot. I understand that this is wrong, and my only beef with the article, and please don't think I'm standing up for the record companies, is that the author starts the piece by saying that only 128 out of 30,000 records go gold. (Let's assume even fewer than 128 go platinum.) So what we have here is that the record companies spend a bunch of money on a lot of bands (29,872) that don't recoup their losses.

The article should have mentioned, even briefly, that the way to solve this is to sign fewer bands. My understanding is that the record companies throw thousands of bands against the wall and see what sticks. Rather, they should get behind fewer bands but ones that are worth the time, effort, and money. Make sense? That's just one example of where further the article could have gone to explain the situation.

All I'm saying is that this article should have said something about how much money the record companies lose each time they release an album. They still suck though.

Right or Left, Journalism is Dead

Face it, folks, whether your politics are similar to Donahue's or not, media objectivity is deader than a county-fair goldfish, and market-driven messaging is the content formerly known as news. The following article refers to a study prepared for NBC News that offers a glimpse of how the gatekeepers decide which news programs see air and which don't. Of course, none of this should shock the Farm's audience of media cynics, but the implications for the Fourth Estate are still frightening.
All Your TV

Do you think that if you're in the US Army and for some reason you get held hostage and are tortured and starved and beaten, but then somehow how saved by US forces, the US government sets you up for life? Here you are, defending your country (or, more likely, your country's overseas interests) and you get hell wacked out of you by some "enemy" and are deprived of even the most life-essentials like water and a bandage for that head wound you sustained from the business end of an AK-47. It seems that the least the government could do was give you free insurance and handsome salary (say $100K) for the rest of your sleepless days. I may have to look into this further.

I Looked Into It
VA Benefits for Former Prisoners of War: "The amount that is paid to a former POW who has qualified at the full 100% rating is $2,287.00 (tax-free) per month."

This is not exactly the same as being held hostage, I don't think. It's about POWs and MIAs.

Scroll down; from Chapter 9: "Approved 1970 . . . payments to former POWs of the Vietname era. Compansation was payable at the rate of $5.00 per day -- $2.00 per day for each day of inadequate rations and $3.00 per day for each day of inhumane treatment."

Even though it's The Best Show Ever (aka "The West Wing"), sometimes the best of the best (aka Aaron Sorkin) slip up. Now, I may have insider information here, but the phrase "preaching to the choir" is not accurate. My father, a preacher, has a choir, and about 50% of them are hired guns. They're not necessarily believers. Except in money. The correct phrase is "preaching to the converted." Amaze your friends. Wow your neighbors. Impress your girlfriend. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. Now, go get 'em, tiger!

Czech this Shit Out

God, how I hated those kids. The smug trustafarians who skipped off to Prague after the USSR crumbled. Fronting like crazy, they were, those hopeful Malraux and de Beauvoirs. Dilletantes with volumes of Verlaine under their arms, yellowed fingers clutching spotless, leather-bound journals that would soon be filled with the next literary masterworks, they clogged JFK airport with the volume of their pretension. Welcome them back.

It must be nice to be the most powerful man in the world. The President gets a present (not the current prez).

There are few things left to test the meddle of the man. Rites have gone the way of pay phones. The remnants (bar mitzvah, babies first piercing) are for the parents and more obligation than anything else. What happened to the painful tribal tattooing when you get your first menstruation? You know the one, it’s where they have to have two elders hold down your body as you writhe in pain and shout obscenities at the gods. These days, even getting your car when you turn 16 is expected. Pity the poor Westchester Linkin Park wannabe who can’t roll cuz on 6 4s cuz daddy got downsized and is now working at the Park and Rec picking up litter with the inmates just to keep his kids in Fubu and Polo.

Which brings me to whaling! Them were the days. I don’t normally spout on olde New England, but imagine proving yourself when you turned 16 on a Nantucket sleigh ride. Or leaping into the cut open head of a sperm whale to get at the goods. And then imagine being torn asunder by the inspiration for “Moby Dick.” The Whaleship Essex, my friends. Courage, strength, fortitude, endurance: plentiful in these men. Or, in a different era, Shackleton, a personal hero of mine. This man should have been president, even if he was from England. Here’s a bit: There's a famous quote: “For scientific discovery give me Scott, for speed and efficiency of travel give me Amundsen, but when your back's against the wall and no hope is left, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton." Hells bells, that’s good stuff.

Which is why, folks, when I get let go, I will take to the sea. I will test myself and see what I am made off (at the moment it’s mostly TV dinners and Rolling Rock). I will come back Caliban and I will frighten you with my self-confidence. There should be more rites, moments when we test Darwin’s theory against ourselves. So, pick a day and brand your tongue! Or cut off a toe! Or wink at a bouncer! Rites, baby. Rites.

Lingua Franca

As much as I think Jacques "Le Worm" Chirac is letting an outright power-grab for top EU chien cloud his geopolitical judgement, I still refuse to call french fries "freedom fries," nor french toast "liberty cakes," Bordeaux "E Plurbus Vino" or accept any other jingoistic coinage. And, by the way, who thought the Danes were such good friends? (And that they had pizza?)

Don't read that crap!
Out of office, out of mind.
They're not shouting "Boo," they're shouting "Bruce!"
Out, damn fire.

If The Powers That Be keep pushing for gentrification, behemoth buildings, and Starbucks, how will we ever get another Joseph Mitchell, scribe of the underdog.

We need more strong but un-editorialized writing. Enough of these whining kids spouting day-old wisdom flash-wrapped and packaged for a new day. It's the same damn day! Remember Ouroboros (remember Conan?)> There's nothing new to say on the subway for God's sake.

Let's gut some buildings and build more squats. It's too easy to attack our president, corporations, wars. Instead, let's be thoughtful and erudite, but leave yourself at home. Coupla sawbucks to the first person who can find me the unalloyed sheen of an objective character-study essay.

Take a Right at the River

I know where i'm going on vacation.

Q: Don't you ever get sick of irony?
A: Naw, I really should eat more meat.
Q: Irony, not iron.
A: I knew that.

Anyone want to help me Johnny Beat Down this kid?

Bush Might Think This, but I'd Like Him Better if He Actually Said It

"Late in life [Andrew Jackson] put his strategy for dueling in a letter to a friend: keep one's teeth "firmly clenched" and do not fire first; then, even if hit shoot the antagonist "through the brain." "

New York Times

Something about Norah

I'm starting to feel a little bad for bad-mouthing the sultry Norah Jones. She does live in "gritty East Williamsburg" and her dad is Ravi Shankar. What the hell, I'll upgrade my condemnation to "mediocre with a bullet."

New York Newsday

OK, here we go. Beta testing 1,2,3. If this Blogger stuff works, i will forsake canned mashed potatoes for trilateral commission, barking sun sign, fisticuff wasted. When I awoke, there sat checkers, Nixon's dog. Take my advice, sleeze.

Starting up this Blogger thing. Stand by.