Saturday, September 30, 2006

Maybe there's a REASON we're not more academically esteemed...

An actual, honest-to-goodness Kent State flier:

Friday, September 29, 2006

It's also who WE are.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Oh yeah baby. Now for some REAL fun.





(many, many thanks to the completely awesome Red Meat generator

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Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Slug porn.

Why did no one inform me of this?

So Ayn as in Rand actually rhymes with "mine." That blows my mind. I don't think I've ever heard anyone pronounce it that way, and one would think that if *everyone* (except you smartasses, no doubt) pronounced it the non-intuitive way, that would be because there was something to it. Apparently not. My illusions are dissed. She shoulda just stuck with her original name, although I suppose all that will-to-power stuff might seem kind of awkward from someone so blatantly Jewish.

SEGUE!

Speaking of who is and isn't a Jew: my (Jewish) girlfriend has a fascination with whether or not various famous people are. So I was doing poking around on the internets, and found this extremely helpful site: Jew Watch! In spite of the claim that "this is NOT a hate site," it's pretty clearly thinly-veiled neo-nazi stuff. Not quite on the level of stormwatch or godhatesfags, but still pretty damned unsavory. However--and maybe this is partly because I feel as though, compared to our other bigotries, anti-semitism is pretty limited in the US--I mainly just find it hilarious.

The title is hilarious, for one. Can't you just picture very serious men in black with binoculars and walkie-talkies hiding in the bushes outside UJC centers, furiously taking notes? Look! There one is! Quick! Tag it so we can study its migration patterns!

The fact that it looks like a fifteen-year-old's geocities page circa 1997 is pretty funny. Seriously, I was all set to take them seriously...but something about the design somehow plants seeds of doubt in my mind.

The compare-and-contrast pictures of Josef Stalin and Dustin Hoffman. I'm not sure what this proves, but I nonetheless find it Troubling.

The headline above the title: "Frank Weltner, M.A. English & Certified Librarian
Presents His Famous Scholarly Library of Factual Links Known Around the World" No shit? A certified librarian? Factual links known around the world? Are we sure "Frank Weltner" isn't actually John Hodgman?

I could go on, but I think I've said enough. Also, it gets sort of depressing to poke around this stuff for too long. Still, I hope this has helped you to see the Lighter Side of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (I think Dave Berg wrote about that in Mad Magazine a while ago).

UPDATE: It did occur to me that this could be an elaborate scam designed to discredit critics of Israeli policy. But I think I'm still going with the "crazy people" theory for now.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

THAT'LL show the imaginary liberals who live in your head!



Seriously, Bruce: don't pull your punches. These figments need to be shown for what they are.

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Friday, September 22, 2006

But SERIOUSLY, folks...

I wish I could have a witty, aloof, mysterious blog persona. But clearly, that ain't happening. Everyone knows too much. I just say whatever random shit comes into my head, if I say anything at all. It is rarely calculatedly amusing. Plus, goddamn, man, anyone who wants can access embarrassing amazon reviews I wrote seven years ago, and anyone who recalls my old webpage probably also recalls the peculiar mixture of cringe-inducing earnestness and belabored sarcasm that characterized my social and political so-called commentary. It's a lost cause for me, unless I want to go undercover and start something totally new. But I don't want to do that. Because here I have my momentum going. Whatever momentum I may have. Plus, if I were to do that, I would lose my massive audience, which, when I total it up, might, unbelievably, consist of as many as seven people, plus occasional irregulars who get here from my amazon page and glance around for a few minutes before running away screaming. Incredible! I should be making a living doing this! So yeah. Basically, I'm stuck with being who I am.

But hey, at least I'm not the only one. It is truly amusing to consider that, in the unlikely even that we don't revert to a stone age society, in twenty years or so people running for public office will be desperately, and futilely, trying to obliterate all traces of their embarrassing myspace pages that they created when they were seventeen. We'll know a lot more than we do today about whether our politicians think Justin Timberlake is OMG totally HAWT. So that's something to look forward to.

There are no blogs.

Sadly, fafblog appears to be defunct, meaning there are no blogs in the world. This isn't a blog; it's just a bombed-out, deserted outpost along the weed-choked, shattered highway of the desolate, post-blog landscape. A bit like Fallout, only without the retro-fifties futurism kitsch. You could walk for miles and miles in any direction without encountering a single, solitary soul, until, of course, you were overcome by radiation poisoning. I believe the chances of that happening would be extremely high. The better option would be to back away slowly from this whole so-called "internet" thing. It's blinking red, which means it's just about dead. Plus, it's probably going to unleash some sort of unpleasant special attack. All in all, not something you probably want to have to deal with. Get along now. Ted Stephens knows what's best for you.

but I can't load the bullets so I can't use a gun
I can't have no children so I won't have a son
I can't get up early so nothing will grow
I'll lay on my land 'til the Sun hangs low
'til the Sun hangs low

Thursday, September 21, 2006

CD reviews

I feel as though I need to post something, but I'm short of ideas. Even Mallard Fillmore is letting me down lately, with some deeply boring UN-bashing. So right now, I will review all of the CDs sitting on my desk, musical and otherwise. It's not very many, since, what with the ipod, I don't keep many music discs on hand.

Psalteria, Scaleria D'oro/Balabile--Two CDs by a Czech "Medieval Ladies' Band." They're very atmospheric, with some nice singing, though the language barrier does mean that a lot of it's kind of samey. Still, if you like Dead Can Dance-type stuff, you could do worse.

Miles Davis, Bitches Brew--These are CDs that I brought with me to burn, incidentally. There's no other real reason for their presence. But I'm afraid I'm too stupid to appreciate jazz. I mean, as background music, okay, but as an active listening experience...eh.

Blind Faith--The cover picture of the naked thirteen-year-old girl creeps me the fuck out, but otherwise, it's not a bad album. And there is something ineffably satisfying about having a group's entire output on one disc.

In Their Own Voices: A Century of Recorded Poetry (volumes 1-4)--This was a gift from Kate. It's pretty amazing, really. It's especially useful for a poetically-challenged guy like me to discover new stuff. And, dude: the first track of the first disc is Walt Whitman. Seriously, how amazing is that?

Adobe Creative Suite (six discs)--Indesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, and some other assorted crud that doesn't spring to mind. Yes! Indeed. Undeniably useful, although my skill is such that I can unlock maybe two percent of their potential. Awesome!

Fallout/Fallout 2--Obtained pretty dern cheaply, even though the Mac version of Fallout 2 is kind of rare. Great games. What irritates the fuck out of me? That Black Isles' best game by far, Planescape: Torment, was the only one not to be ported to the Mac. Goddamnit, you people...

Blank CDs (case of ten)--Think about all the amazing potential these have! They could be used for anything! Possibly even makeshift murder weapons! Rad to the max, dude!

And that's it. Man, that was lame.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Outstanding.

This is awesome. I count fourteen tracks here that I'm familiar with, but that's still an embarrassment of riches. I'm kicking myself for not seeing him on his recent brief tour, not that it would have been easy, or even necessarily possible. But anyway.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

This must be that famous liberal incivility I've heard so much about



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Monday, September 11, 2006

Joe the Frog sez: have a HOPPY Patridiot Day!

On a more serious note: holy shit are we ever fUx0r3d. I suppose it's rather obvious that the occasion would bring to mind David Bowie's "Five Years," but here is an effective memorial.

It just keeps GROWING!

So now, per amazon, Against the Day is eleven-hundred twenty pages. I've said it before, but it bears repeating: if we're being jerked around here, there will be death.

More Buck 65 for you!

Here is a bootleg with a bunch o' miscellaneous non-album tracks. I was familiar with a few of them that appeared as b-sides to the "Sore" and "463" singles, but most of them are new. Some of them are just random messing around, but there's some pretty good stuff too. This is particularly fulfilling for me because when I saw the man in concert he played a song with the refrain "there's a curse on highway 101" (apparently actually "hex," though the live version could've been different), and I was driven crazy by my the fact that this song seemingly did not exist anywhere else in this world. So now I have closure.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

This is for you, Jeremy



(from here)

Friday, September 08, 2006

Is Jack Chick getting mellow in his old age?

I find this new tract extremely interesting because of how mild it seems (also, because of the artwork's crudity, but that's neither here nor there). Sure, Betsy gets saved and all, but the mean kids neither get saved nor explicitly rejected savedness. Miss Johnson's "you don't have to do spells to get good grades" seems more like a mild injunction against a largely inconsequential social ill ("you don't need to use bad words to have a good time") than anything fire-and-brimstoney. And then "don't do witchcraft...do your homework!" seems like it's trying to take things out on a humorous note. There's no indication that the children's efforts at magic were actually abetted by satanic forces, or, indeed, that they were anything other than a childish prank, for which a simple rebuke is enough to absolve them. In the old days, they would have succeeded in summmoning Satan, who would have murdered the shit out of them. Betsy would only have been saved by her faith. Maybe I'm just getting soft, but I think I prefer the kinder, gentler Jack Chick. Though I imagine the old one will be back with a vengeance soon enough.

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Wednesday, September 06, 2006

A cover!



Is this the final version? Looks preliminary, but that could well be intentional. In any case: drool.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

I contain multitudes

This is kind of cool, although I got entirely non-overlapping sets of results with two different photos, so take it with a grain of salt. Regardless, you'll be interested to know that I allegedly bear a resemblance to Viggo Mortensen, Laurence Olivier, both Topher Grace AND Ashton Kutcher, Dave Navarro, Ben Affleck, Anton Dvorak, Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, and, somewhat alarmingly, Cuban despot Fulgencio Batista. On the female side, I am alleged to resemble Sophie Marceau, Laura Branigan, Joan Crawford, and Saint Therese of Lisieux. Those of you who've seen me in person can judge the accuracy of these claims.

Random ten: making up for lost time

01. Emmylou Harris, "I'll Go Stepping too"
I like this one a whole lot. Nice, mischievously feminist lyrics. And dig those fiddles! 9/10

02. Blood or Whiskey, "Shattered Dreams"
For gods' sake, why are the lyrics shoved so far back in the mix? This is pretty good, but it could have been really good with better production. 6/10

03. Nick Cave, "The Mercy Seat"
This song has a very simple melody that can be kind of numbing, but I think that's intentional, and given the subject matter, it works. For my money, it doesn't quite rank up there with Cave's best scary, driving, deranged work (e.g., "Tupelo," "Papa Won't Leave You Henry," "Do You Love me?," "Up Jumped the Devil"), but it's still quite good. 7/10

04. 16 Horsepower, "Black Soul Choir"
Every man is evil yeah every man a liar, unashamed with the wicked tongues sing in the black soul choir. One of their most fire-and-brimstoney songs. I hope DEE isn't upset that irreligious people like me enjoy his music without feeling the faintest impulse to engage in any sort of soul-searching. Then again, I guess I don't much care. Regardless, this is pretty fucking great. 9/10

05. Kimagure Orange Road, "Night of Summerside"
I have the sense that this one might have come up before, but I care not. It's a j-pop classic. Great show, too. 10/10

06. Kula Shaker, "Magic Theatre"
Definitely one of the lesser songs from K, but come right down to it, it's not that bad. It just disappoints compared to the full on neo-psychedelic rockage of classics like "Hey Dude," "Knight on the Town," and "Govinda." 5/10

07. Jethro Tull, "Inside"
Okay if unexceptional rocking from Ian and company. 6/10

08. Joni Mitchell, "Big Yellow Taxi"
They paved paradise etcetera. I feel like kind of a fraud: I'm not a real Mitchell fan; I only have this 'cause it's famous. But I like it! Goddamnit. 8/10

09. Calexico, "Losing Hand"
Some sort of obscure live thing I got somewhere. Did I mention that I saw Calexico live this past Summer? With Kate! That was great; this song is just pretty okay. 6/10

10. The Handsome Family, "Far from Any Road"
Rennie sings! And not in a jokey way like in "Down in the Ground," but dramatically, making for one of the band's best songs. 9/10

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Duck is the drug that I'm thinking of



Seriously, this comic is becoming fucking addictive. Every time I read it, I want to just walk up to random strangers and shove it in their faces, crying, look! Just look at how fucked up this shit is! I really don't have much to say about today's installment, other than, wuhgly guhgly? Hey--it's more coherent than the comic itself.

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Friday, September 01, 2006

Free music for all

New Buck 65 "mixtape." Nearly forty minutes of new music. How elegant, how choice, how gay--to think, one doesn't have to pay!

Away with words!

Be not the slave of words: is not the Distant, the Dead, while I love it, and long for it, and mourn for it, Here, in the genuine sense, as truly as the floor I stand on? But that same Where, with its brother When, are from the first the master-colours of our Dream-grotto; say rather, the Canvas (the warp and woof thereof) whereon all our Dreams and Life-visions are painted. Nevertheless, has not a deeper meditation taught certain of every climate and age, that the Where and When, so mysteriously inseparable from all our thoughts, are but superficial terrestrial adhesions to thought; that the Seer may discern them where they mount up out of the celestial Everywhere and Forever: have not all nations conceived their God as Omnipresent and Eternal; as existing in a universal Here, an everlasting Now? Think well, thou too wilt find that Space is but a mode of our human Sense, so likewise Time; there is no Space and no Time: We are--we know not what;--light-sparkles floating in the æther of Deity!
--Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus

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