Bacon Will Have Its Revenge on the World

The only problem with weekends is they are too short. Hell, even a shitty weekend tends to be too short, never mind a good one. As spring has flirted with us, it has been fantastic to get outside and start doing some clean-up around the house, planting stuff, and generally acting like an urban homesteader. A few hours outside getting hands and knees dirty is time well spent, if you ask me. Joe Bageant touches on this in an essay he wrote called "On Native Ground":

My next book is partly about the value of hard physical manual labor. Physical work that directly provides sustenance deepens the practitioner. It allows for contemplation while working. And develops the inner self in dozens of ways that simply performing a single task for a single purpose, money, does not.

I couldn't agree with that statement more. I'm not talking about hard labor like busting up rocks for the State, but clearing out a flower bed or herb bin is sure satisfying when you know you're going to be eating the fruits of that down the road.

Speaking of which, our primitive little corner 'o growing stuff is starting to get wild. We have 60+ tomato plants coming up, and the peppers are finally starting to poke their lazy shoots through the soil too.

I'm just glad I've cultivated an appreciation for yogurt. Hell, even Little D seems pretty excited about sampling all the tasty vittles we're going to harvest this year.

Put in a lot of time outside this weekend, got in some music, and even a little writing. Can't complain about that productivity! And the trusty Blackspots continue their transition from fashion statement to work shoe. That seems entirely appropriate.

Speaking of Adbusters, this cartoon is in the latest issue. I about fell off my chair when I read it. This guy Phil Selby has many great cartoons; you should check them out.

As part of spring cleaning, I culled my bookshelf and took a bunch to The Book Exchange. This place about makes my head explode because they often have a lot of great old stuff you really can't get anymore; sure, you can go out and get some new edition of Dune, but what about a battered copy from the 70s with really cheezy artwork on the cover? Yeah, I have one, and I got it there a while back. This time around, while I was waiting for them to tally my current stack (they pay cash for hardbacks and graphic novels, and give credit for paperbacks) I discovered a stack of old Conan paperbacks that I had back when I was in high school (okay, a couple of them are newer than that, but a good half of them are the vintage, Frazetta-covered ones). Shelf space be damned, I had to grab them! All this magical barbarity for a little over $40, and that wasn't even real money because I have more credit there than I will probably ever use! I told Julia, "What a great time to be alive!" and she laughed . . . but I was damn serious, people!

If You Weren't a Jewish Man Like Myself, I Would Have a Problem With You.

In case you missed it, the other night Sean Hannity told Charles Grodin he would submit to waterboarding (for charity, of course, or to help the troops' families), as he doesn't believe it's torture. Here's the video:



The next night, Keith Olbermann called his bluff, offering $1000 for every second Hannity endured. A website has even been created where you too can get it on the act of donating money for Hannity's big event (as if it will actually happen). Of course you read commentary around the blogosphere, and everyone is full of suggestions for other people who should be waterboarded as well, and while I don't really want to get into that, I think O'Reilly ought to be targeted for this kind of shit he vomits forth on a regular basis.

I'm sure the networks behind all this grandstanding are eating it up, and that makes me sick too, and pretty much all these assholes make me want to puke. Besides, this "waterboard a 'journalist'"(a word which is a stretch when any of these blowhards are involved) thing has already been done. Christopher Hitchens did it for Vanity Fair last summer; he wrote an article called "Believe Me, It's Torture" that ran in the August '08 issue. I urge you to read it; Hitchens is a fantastic writer. Here is an excerpt:

You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning—or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure. The “board” is the instrument, not the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered. This was very rapidly brought home to me when, on top of the hood, which still admitted a few flashes of random and worrying strobe light to my vision, three layers of enveloping towel were added. In this pregnant darkness, head downward, I waited for a while until I abruptly felt a slow cascade of water going up my nose. Determined to resist if only for the honor of my navy ancestors who had so often been in peril on the sea, I held my breath for a while and then had to exhale and—as you might expect—inhale in turn. The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face. Unable to determine whether I was breathing in or out, and flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal and felt the unbelievable relief of being pulled upright and having the soaking and stifling layers pulled off me. I find I don’t want to tell you how little time I lasted.

Sounds like a gas, eh? Here's the video:



I'll be curious to see a) if Hannity actually does it, b) what his excuse will be if he doesn't, and c) what he'll say about it afterward. I suspect that if we get to "c" he won't change his tune, because he has his image to protect. And he should be called on it, but I think Olbermann being involved just makes any chance that Hannity would be honest about null. Too much ego and pride involved among these haircuts.

What a lot of these "my ass it's torture!" types fail to realize is that it isn't necessarily any single one of these things that is torture in the same sense as something medievel like having your thumbs screwed or rocks piled on you, or hot pokers slipped into any part of your body. It is the combination of all the little things that cause the shock. The sensory deprivation, the isolation, the fear, all of it in combination. It works to achieve pure overload; Naomi Klein touches on it brilliantly in the first 50 pages or so of her magnificent work, Shock Doctrine, and it is friggin' harrowing. Anyone who can look at these tactics and not see torture is psychotic and should probably be put in a padded cell. Their attitude is more deeply offensive to me than just about anything I can really imagine.




Note: the music playing during the Hitchens waterboarding trial/torture segment sounds suspiciously like Enigma, a musical entity that was often played by the yoga instructor I tortured myself with a couple years ago. Coincidence? I think not. . . .

Where Did all the Weight Come From?

Earth Day Unplugged

Still doing the unplugged thing in the evenings this week. Here are last night's inane ramblings; and you probably don't need to be reminded to click the picture to see it BIG.



This is my bike helmet. Nutcase makes a bunch of awesome ones.


I like it because it looks like something a superhero might wear. Julia says I should wear a cape with it. I think I need to get some lycra instead.

Stumbling Unplugged

Seeing as how I'm spending my evenings unplugged, last night I took a foray into journaling land. The timing was perfect, having just read an inspiring little book called How to Make a Journal of Your Life by Dan Price. A book I actually won as a result of entering a journal entry contest, actually. Not that my entry won anything, I think just by entering I was automatically entered into a drawing or something. I don't know. But here are the scans of last night's exercise, plus some photos from the trip (to enhance your experience, you see); as always, clicking on an image will show you a larger version.



If you care to see all the shots from the trip with additional commentary, well knock yourself out -- you can dig them on my flickr page!

I <3 Naomi Klein

I hadn't read anything from Naomi Klein recently, but lo and behold she has two great pieces out.

HERE she makes her case, via the Washington Post, for getting rid of Larry Summers, Obama's chief economic adviser.

For all his appeals to absolute truths, he has been spectacularly wrong again and again. He was wrong about not regulating derivatives. Wrong when he helped kill Depression-era banking laws, turning banks into too-big-to-fail welfare monsters. And as he helps devise ever more complex tricks and spends ever more taxpayer dollars to keep the financial casino running, he remains wrong today.

Writing in The Nation, she addresses disappointment in Obama via various hope-related maladies.

Hopesick. Like the homesick, hopesick individuals are intensely nostalgic. They miss the rush of optimism from the campaign trail and are forever trying to recapture that warm, hopey feeling--usually by exaggerating the significance of relatively minor acts of Obama decency. Sample sentences: "I was feeling really hopesick about the escalation in Afghanistan, but then I watched a YouTube video of Michelle in her organic garden and it felt like inauguration day all over again. A few hours later, when I heard that the Obama administration was boycotting a major UN racism conference, the hopesickness came back hard. So I watched slideshows of Michelle wearing clothes made by ethnically diverse independent fashion designers, and that sort of helped."

UPDATE

HERE is a good rebuttal to Naomi's piece by Katha Pollitt.

I know a lot of people who supported Obama, and every time I see them I ask how they think he's doing. The only people I've found who've given up on him, who feel betrayed, misled, and foolish, are those leftists who didn't like him in the first place and voted for him in a weak moment as the lesser evil. They, predictably, went back to their cabins on Mt. Disdain before Obama had even been inaugurated. Obama will never satisfy the left because no president could. FDR didn't satisfy the left either.

I'm with Katha. I don't know of any Obama supporters who have given up on him; hell, I can't say I've given up on him, though I was never "for" him either; I certainly don't feel "betrayed, misled or foolish." I hope he succeeds in a way that is favorable to average people, and not just to the people who bankroll our government. I think that success requires people taking shots at his missteps outside of the kneejerk reactions we would expect from the Fox crowd.

Speaking of kickass, take-no-bullshit women journalist/writers. . . .

We have tickets to see Amy Goodman in Missoula tonight. We saw her in Tucson several years ago, and it was great. I'm looking forward to it!

If you aren't familiar with Amy's work at Democracy Now!, you should be.

420 Follow-up

NPR had a great program I listened to last night on my way to hiking the M called What If Marijuana Were Legal?

NPR came up with a hypothetical scenario and asked experts to play along, commenting on their imagined outcomes. The scenario: Marijuana has been legal for two years throughout the U.S. It is treated, in the eyes of the law, similar to alcohol. It is taxed and regulated, and users must be 21 or older. Pot smokers can buy it by the gram at licensed dispensaries. Predictably, the law change would make some people very happy — and others deeply concerned.

It is well worth checking out. I thought it was balanced and fair, and very interesting. Well worth your time (plus it kept me off that goddamn mountain an extra 15 minutes or so)!

Happy Wink-and-a-Nudge Day

Apparently April 20th is officially "Pot Day." Ryan Grim over at The Huffington Post has an interesting article about the origins of the whole "420" thing that, from its position as something of a cultural phenomenon, is worth reading. Hell, there are articles today all over the place about pot smoking, medical marijuana, the status of the legalization movement, etc. Also over at Huffington Post, former Seattle police chief Norm Stamper has a post about why members of LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) feel pot, among other drugs, should be legalized. I recently read an article from The Economist that compared statistics from prohibition countries vs. non-prohibition countries that debunked a lot of the myths about it. There is also a case to be made that a lot of the violence, particularly in Mexico, would be eliminated if we put an end to this ludicrous "War on Drugs." A statistic I heard on the radio was that 70% of the multi-billion dollar drug trade in Mexico is comprised of marijuana being shipped to the USA. So it seems to me that if you are a pot smoker in this country, unless you grow it yourself there is probably a pretty fair chance there is some drug cartel blood on your hands when you fire up.

I have mixed feelings about prohibition. On the one hand, I think it's ridiculous that alcohol is legal and pot is not; the Stamper piece elucidates why quite succinctly. I say legalize all this shit and tax the bejeezus out of it; prohibition really isn't stopping the people who want to do it from doing so. I was disappointed that President Obama was so flippant when asked about the effect that legalization might have vis-a-vis our economic woes.



Personally, I think he's dead wrong. Not only would the taxation of pot and other drugs generate tons of revenue, but eliminating the asinine ban on growing hemp for its multitude of uses would also be an avenue for generating income. It's ridiculous.

All that said, I am no fan of marijuana. I've never tried it myself (I've never taken any illicit drugs at all, for that matter). I've never had any interest, nor do I now. When I was younger, I was pretty judgemental about it, and I have to admit that, to a degree, after some years of not feeling that way it is starting to creep back into my psyche. Probably because I have a teenager facing the hurdles of growing up in what seems a cloud of it everywhere but home. There seems to be a glorification of it everywhere I look now -- on TV, in music, the "loveable stoner" archetype that dominates pop culture. It scares me the roads he could take, because I know many, many people who have turned their lives upside down with something as simple as pot smoking. If it weren't illegal, a lot of that would change . . . but I don't care what anyone says, the habitual smokers I've known have been every bit as addicted to it as anything else, and as unwilling to give it up in the face of their best interests (even if that best interest is called "probation"). I don't like being around people who are stoned. I don't dislike it as much as I dislike being around people who are utterly wasted on alcohol (and I have been there myself, once), but it still adjusts a personality such that the person I am face to face with isn't the one I probably became friends with in the first place. I don't like that. I have had, and currently have, co-workers who were/are regular stoners outside of work who are difficult to work with because they just can't seem to remember shit. Coincidence? Perhaps, and I'm willing to accept a charge that they are being judged by my own bias, but usually my exasperation in these situations has already been tweaked long before I learn of their proclivity for getting stoned. The last all ages show we did was the last simply because of the steady stream of kids coming in that reeked of weed. I hate standing in line at the video store behind some kid in a stained hoodie, baked and reeking, renting a stack of video games and a couple boxes of candy. It breaks my heart, to be honest.

It's an adult thing, and I think adults should be allowed to do what they want provided no one is getting hurt. I wouldn't partake even if it was legal. But to deny the risks of people getting hooked on pot and coming up short as productive members of a society is, to me, every bit as ludicrous as making it illegal in the first place. Some people can deal with it. A lot can't. I'm not saying people shouldn't have the choice, but to try and paint it as some beautiful, earthy thing that "connects one to nature" is a crock. Maybe that's your experience, but it ain't everyone's.

The Digital Detox Challenge

This from Adbusters:

Computer screens, iPods, TVs, phones and the dozens of other devices we’re cybernetically attached to are so pervasive that we can’t escape them. We live them, we breath them, we need them ... Or do we?

On Monday, April 20, Adbusters challenges you to do the unthinkable: unplug. Say good-bye to Twitter and Facebook. Turn off your TV, iPhone and Xbox. Reconnect with the natural world and the people around you. You’ll be amazed at how the magic creeps back into your life.

Go to www.adbusters.org for inspiration, articles, videos, posters and more. Next Monday, don't be afraid and don't find excuses ... take the plunge and see what happens.

After a weekend out of town with no email, no computer, no TV, no iPod, and very little phone (Sid called me twice), I am more convinced than ever that I am going to do this. Coming back, even after being in a city, and even though I was only gone a couple days, was a shock. So since I can't unplug during the day because my (current) job requires a lot of plug-in, I am going to practice this little exercise outside of the hours of 7:00 AM (when work starts) to 4:30 PM (when it ends). After that, no electronic bullshit. We'll see how it goes.

I think I'll journal old school, then scan what I wrote and upload it to my blog while I'm at work. Or not. We'll see.

Here's a picture of an obnoxious seagull demanding potato chips:

I'm a Socialist and I Don't Like Tea

Posting From: My Bunker (Missoula, MT)
Listening To: John Doe and the Sadies -- Country Club

Unless you live under a rock, you have probably heard about all this "tea party" stuff that led up to the big protests yesterday. Hell, I don't even watch TV and I was up to speed, though I do get a healthy dose of some radio, online commentary, etc. I'm far from a political junkie, but I follow enough to keep reasonably informed. If I get any closer I tend to just get pissed.

I have mixed feelings about it. First off, I'm happy to see Americans exercising their rights to get pissed about the state of things in this country. There is plenty to protest given the state of our relationship with the Federal Government. It goes back even before BushCo, though it reached lofty new heights under those bastards . . . but there is a lot going on in the Obama Administration to push anyone's buttons. The continuing bullshit regarding bailing out Wall Street and his horrible picks for his team of economics people. The escalation in Afghanistan. How his FISA vote has come back to bite us in the ass. His administration's Bush-esque stance on habeus corpus. Yeah, he's done some good things too, but for my money the balance is still tipped against him, regardless of how purdy he talks. Still, it's only been 3 months, so the jury is still out. It should be an interesting 4 years.

It blows my mind how many people came out in protest. The Missoulian says there were "hundreds of protesters" here, and a crowd "far larger" than the predicted 100 in Hamilton. They'll be ignored by the powers-that-be, just as were the huge worldwide crowds that protested the build-up to the Iraq war, but that's beside the point. It will be interesting to see if this rabid crowd continues to froth, or if they just kind of twindle like the anti-war movement did. The difference here being that the anti-war folks never had the support and organizational arm of a major media corporation like Fox News. I find the rhetoric comparing these protests to what happened with the original Boston Tea Party laughable, and the comparisons to Thomas Paine by the likes of that asshole Glenn Beck display an embarassing lack of knowledge of American history that could only be produced by a country that places higher value on sports superstars more than they do the education of their children. Want to see Beck taken apart point by point? Check it out here. I love this:

Yes, it's something new: Xenophobic dinner theater.

You don't have to watch the whole thing. If you're white, and have an older relative you wish was dead, you know where it's going. A bore's litany of harrumphing clichés. The greatest generation didn't defend the Alamo just so a lot of special interests could overcrowd the emergency rooms. He's going to say "We the people" a couple more times. If you're waiting for "mad as hell," it's at 1:34 and 6:04.

You should check out his other videos. You've got to admire a guy who can say "the time for talk is over," and then go on for six more minutes.

I wish I loved anything as much as this racist gasbag loves the sound of his own voice.

And now the scary part: This video has been viewed two-and-a-half million times on YouTube.

If there was any doubt about the lack of objectivity emanating from the den of morons at Fox News before all this, it should be blown away by recent events. The "news" part should be stripped from the name. It is reactionary "entertainment" for people lacking the intellectual curiosity to get their ideas from any source beyond what they already think in the first place, but amped up to 11. In particular, the outcry over "no taxation without representation" is ridiculous, because all of what is happening at the federal level is the result of the representation we all voted for. So either your candidate lost and the outcome pisses you off ("You lost," Jon Stewart quipped, "It's supposed to taste like a shit sandwich!"), or you won and your candidate is just as big an asshole as the one you were trying to kick to the curb. We pretty much have the government we deserve, folks, so getting huffy about it is kind of silly if you take a few deep breaths and really think about it. The bluster about socialism gets under my skin. Personally, I think this higgeldy piggeldy version of capitalism has proven how badly it sucks; we could use a little socialism.

Meanwhile Texas is huffing and puffing about possible secession. Yeah, that's going to happen. Morons. I'd be curious to know how much federal money they've happily accepted for hurricane relief. I say let them leave if they want to, and I hope the bulletproof door hits them square in their lilly-white, barbeque-eating, collective ass when they go. The last time I was in Texas I dealt with a guy who went out of his way many times to make sure I knew how Christian he is, only to be the biggest asshole ever since when it comes to getting billed for the project we did for him. You think those people don't want everything for free just like everyone else getting all huffy over "socialism"? Think again!

Of course, none of these people have ever let facts or the threat of hypocrisy get in the way of good TV (that goes for the Left too, the majority of whom are quite happy to turn blind eyes to Obama's rising list of transgressions). Where was all this outrage when Bush was blowing up the government, generating trillions in deficit, and killing and imprisoning people illegally (the likelihood of Obama's failure to go after any of these illegal acts pisses me off too)? The Left was certainly outraged by Bush, but they/we do a piss-poor job of organizing against it.

Long term, I don't see any of this getting resolved. I'm afraid we are on a pendulum of one side wins it all, does a bunch of stuff, and the other side stirs up a shitstorm of outrage to swing favor back their way. It's hard for me to imagine Progressives, even the small-p variety Obama represents, keeping the reins of power long, before all of this crazy rhetoric appropriates a majority of impressionable minds. Then the process will swing back again and repeat itself. It's outrageous. It's ludicrous. Meanwhile, the real pirates of the world -- the ones cashing their bailout checks -- will continue sticking it to the rest of us.

So what's going to happen? Will it really lead to revolution? People fighting in the streets? Civil war? Who knows. Our society is exemplified by the families who are one or two paychecks away from homelessness. Our culture ain't so far removed from those desperados jumping into rafts and holding up enormous cargo ships out on the lawless ocean. It reminds me of a scene from Watchmen. The Owl and the Comedian are out breaking up a riot; the Owl is distraught, the Comedian is having a blast. The Owl says, "What happened to us? What happened to the 'American Dream'?!" The Comedian laughs, shooting a protestor with what looks like a smoke bomb cannister. "This is it!" he laughs. "It happened!"

Hard to disagree these days.

I De-Tune, 'Jus For You!

I think the internet must be heaven for gearheads. I know Jimmy, the guitar player for LAZERWOLFS, spends a lot of his free time trolling for amps, pedals, and things like that. I like good gear, but I don't spend a lot of time researching it. If I want to know something, I'll usually just ask Jimmy. Anyway, what is great for this is how all of this stuff often have videos where you can hear an amp, hear a pedal, get instruction videos, see endorsees playing their signature guitars, etc. Some of these videos are helpful, and some are just comedy gold. Like this one, forwarded to me yesterday by my friend Ednor. Even if you don't give a rip about guitar tuners, you should watch it.



The Bright Side of Bad Times

This from Publishers Weekly: "Good Worlds and Bad"

While some readers look for dark fiction to reflect dark times, others just want to get away from it all. This has led to strong sales on all sides of science fiction and fantasy, from pulpy escapist romps to grim dystopian parables. “In down times, escapism is more important and necessary than ever,” says Diana Gill, executive editor of the Eos imprint at HarperCollins, “and genre sales reflect that. We saw this after 9/11, and it continues to be true now. Urban and supernatural fantasy are unquestionably the strongest sellers in the genre.”

Here is a quote a little deeper into the article:

Jim Minz, senior editor at Baen Books, says the economy/escapism extrapolation is overly simplistic. “While it's easy to make the connection between the harsh, depressing headlines and a desire to escape to another world, a place where it's obvious who're the good guys and who're the bad, the reality is never that simple,” he explains. “Whether you're talking about fantastic tales told around the campfire before recorded history or the latest embossed and foiled space opera adventure, these tales have always found their roots in our world. No matter how inventive the tale, how strange the creatures, how bizarre the alien society, their roots, reflections and inspirations are all around us, a part of the fabric of our world.”

What it boils down to for me is good stories told well, and there are great stories to be found in genre fiction. Don't be a snob about it.

As For Something I Hate

I hated, I mean hated, that book Eat, Pray, Love for a lot of reasons, even though I finished it. Obviously I wasn't the target demographic, but that is only part of why l found it loathesome (I picked it up because I was on a travel book kick and it was all over the travel section of the bookstore I was in somewhere at the time). Now they are making a friggin' movie about it. I don't think this synopsis really explains the book very well, if I recall:

Based on the international bestseller by Elizabeth Gilbert, story centers on a married woman who embarks on a journey of self-discovery after trying to get pregnant and realizing that she's not living the life she wants. Murphy adapted the screenplay.

Seems to me the book was more about a woman hopping from one "soul mate" to another, whining about everything, and being generally annoying. I'm sure the movie will be huge too since Julia Roberts has seemed to master all of those traits as well. Blah.

A Real Author and a Real Movie, Hopefully?

This could be awesome: A Princess of Mars

Andrew Stanton's adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs pulp legend John Carter of Mars just got a new screenwriter… and it's one of the writers who best understands pulp science fiction.

Michael Chabon, author of such books as The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay and The Yiddish Policemen's Union, has signed on to rewrite the script for Disney's big-screen adaption of A Princess of Mars, the first of eleven books in the John Carter saga. Chabon's previous screenwriting experience is writing a draft of Spider-Man 2, although only about a third of his material made it to the finished film.

Chabon is fantastic (they should make a movie out of Gentlemen of the Road; not his best book, but it would be fun on screen), but I worry that this is a Disney flick. I read somewhere else that it would be animated. I have high hopes, but I expect them to be dashed. I'm trusting you, Mr. Chabon!

Weather permitting, I'm going to walk out into the fountains in downtown Spokane this weekend looking just like this:

Then again, I don't know that there is enough wax in the universe to make me look like that.

It Can't Always Be About Critical Hits and Damage Rolls

When I was driving home after taking Sid to school this morning, I heard on the radio a bit about how Obama was calling some emergency meeting at the White House with his whole economic "team", which includes Bernanke, Summers, Geithner, etc. What a bunch of crooks. You think he's laying into them for being a bunch of assholes, or is this a case of figuring out how to do some damage control because of all the heat that is coming down these days? I'm thinking the latter. Or maybe they will try to continue what they're doing, only with puppies as well.

Matt Taibbi has a scathing piece today titled "Obama's Top Economic Adviser Is Greedy and Highly Compromised", where he does a great job of connecting all the dots -- dots in this case being assholes -- between their former positions and where they are now.

I remember watching Obama the presidential candidate give a speech in Mason City, Iowa, in 2007. Obama had made a big show of not having registered lobbyists working for his campaign, and he promised that lobbyists "won't work in my White House." The line was a hit and became part of Obama's stump speech. I must have heard it two dozen times.

A little over a year later, he put a registered lobbyist of a bailed-out investment bank into a job whose primary responsibility is administering bailout money.

I think Obama has made some good moves in the short time he's been in the saddle, and his rhetoric abroad is certainly easier on the ears than his predecessor's. Nonetheless, in the big issues, I think his administration is demonstrating that when it comes to money and power, they ain't that different from the jerks on the other side of the aisle. Taibbi closes his piece with this:

Most importantly, I'm sensing in these economic appointments a kind of drearily cynical parsing of the approval-ratings situation -- Obama knows he's still flying high with the "Yes We Can!" T-shirt crowd and knows that most people simply are not going to give a shit if he packs his Treasury Department with Goldman alums and lobbyists, despite the fact that he explicitly promised to do otherwise.

I don't trust these guys at all. I'm not on board with the mouth-frothing all those Fox News types are engaging in, but I also think it's important to maintain a healthy distrust between us plebes and the people in the fancy shoes that walk the halls of power. I don't care what they say, I don't think any of them know enough what the real world is like to have any grasp of what is in our best interests anyway. And that goes for our new President too. He proved it with his choice of economic advisors. He needs to get rid of those sons-a-bitches.

Happy This Sunday

Personally, I don't really give a rip . . . but at least it's the season for this genius bit of movie making:

Like a Tiger, in a Cage, We Begin to Shake with Rage

I heard this piece on NPR this morning about author photos in books, particularly works of fiction.

You've heard the quote: Don't judge a book by its cover. But what does the author's photograph say about the book? There is a distinct relationship between the author and the author's image.

The idea is that a better looking author will be better received, will get a review when others won't, etc. You know I think that is bullshit; half the reason I gave up the bigtime rock n' roll dream is I knew my ugly mug would never get a second look! I'm with this commentor:

"My, what a shallow, boring and asinine culture we have become! Reclusive writers like Harper Lee and Emily Dickinson have made invaluable contributions to the world of literature. We will be robbing ourselves by requiring this patina of celebrity in order to promote an author’s work."

People suck. It's bad enough that so much bad writing becomes so successful, but now we need to be Beautiful People too? Fuck 'em. When I decide to start writing hairless, boy-man vampire fiction, I'm totally going to use an image like this for my author photo:

That will make me a huge star in that goofy Llewellyn crowd, for sure!

The Story of "I'll Never Talk Shit About That Band Again"

I'm sure everyone who visits this blog is a huge Metallica fan, so this next bit will be of exceeding interest to you. This guy Umlaut has one of the best blogs in the world, trust me. Anyway, he is friends with Metallica going way back to the early days, ever since they moved from LA to the Bay Area, in fact, and has some great stories. Anyway, with Metallica being inducted in the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame last weekend, Umlaut has been telling some great stories. Today's conclusion is a must read, particularly if you are one of those people who think big rock stars are incapable of being anything but jerks.

On February 27th I received a voicemail from Metallica's management that left me speechless. As part of their Hall Of Fame induction the band wanted people who were with them in the beginning to be there with them, and that included me... all expenses paid. Over the next week I helped management get in touch with Old Metalheads from a list the band had given them. The list included some people who the band only remembered by nicknames ("Bulldozer Bob"..) and, in some cases, only by their first names... Incredible, right? Now, no matter what you think or want to think about Metallica (Napster lost, dude..) you cannot deny how insanely cool it was for them to basically seek out the people who they thanked in the liner notes of Kill 'Em All. In the end management was able to contact everyone on the band's list except one guy (Where is "Dave Lights"?). Unfortunately a couple of people are no longer alive, but it was cool the band remembered them (R.I.P. Bulldozer Bob...) and in the end around 150 people were invited to Cleveland on the band's dime.

Say what you want about Metallica, but it gets no cooler than this. I'm sure KISS would do something similar, but you'd probably have to pay $5-$10 grand to be in on it.

How One Gets Here from There

Posting from: My Basement (Missoula, MT)
Listening to: Mastodon -- Crack the Skye

My trip to Minnesota last week pretty much concluded with a successful visit to DreamHaven Books in Minneapolis. It was well worth the anticipation, since I had to visit it twice (when I tried on Monday, it was closed). I finished up at work on Wednesday afternoon, then drove the better part of three hours to get there. The sign out front struck me as . . . awesome.

32 years. That's quite an accomplishment for any small business, but particularly so for a little book/comic store. Kudos to owner Greg Ketter, who seemed like a very nice guy in the short interaction I had with him.

Of course, one doesn't drive close to three hours while consuming a tankard of soda and not arrive at one's destination a little . . . full. So shortly after arriving, when I was asked by a woman sorting books there (Greg's wife, I presume) if she could help me, I asked, "Yeah, do you guys have a restroom?" She looked a little worried, then said, "Well, yes, but not a very good one. Let me check." I was a little puzzled by this; she went over to where Greg was on the phone, and when he completed his conversation she whispered to him, he nodded, and I received the go-ahead. She gestured through a door and down a flight of steps that lead creepily into the basement. Who knows what creatures lurk back there in the darkness, when dark forms have languished at the bottom of these steps?

Now, the restroom itself didn't look as bad as it looks here, but thankfully my "condition" did not require me to linger. Neil Gaiman has visited this store, and I had to wonder if he has spent any time contemplating in this very chamber.

Once first things were firsted, I got to start roaming around the store; it was divine, and it isn't often I get to visit stores like this. Don't get me wrong, Missoula has a great comic shop -- Muse Comics -- and I highly recommend you devote a certain percentage of your monthly income to them. But Muse just doesn't have the customer base, or the history, to maintain an inventory that touches so many areas -- comics, books, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, even adult-oriented stuff -- and all the collectibles that go with each genre.

That last pic, of the vintage paperbacks, was one of the things that really flooded my mind with memories; back in the day, I had a lot of these paperbacks. Now they are highly collectible. Hell, this old Conan paperback is $40!

I took a bunch of pictures, mostly of stuff I hope to get in the future. A few things I photographed I meant to get that very day, but forgot to. I uploaded a few to my Flickr page, if you have any interest in seeing some of the various things that caught my eye.

So what is it about this stuff that I love so much? Being a fan of comics and pulp fiction and all that really doesn't land a guy cheerleaders during his formative years. As an adult, it's even worse; especially when you consider that for all the good stuff, a lot of it is really freakin' horrible. Yet, I persevere.

I'm really not that much of a collector. I don't have boxes and boxes of action figures on display, even though I think a lot of them are really cool. I don't even have that many graphic novels or comics anymore; just a shelf in my closet and a stack of a couple boxes (the latter of which I've been thinking of giving away because I've replaced all the single comics by getting them in collected trade editions). I try and manage them, because I know in a couple years my storage capacity will be way down.

In many ways it's nostalgia; a lot of it goes back to some of my fondest memories from my childhood. I'm not sure where my love of comics came from, I just remember them always being there. My dad would pick them up for me. I was always reading Batman, and Captain America, and used to have some vintage Spiderman stuff that is worth a lot of money now. In fact this collection of Captain America stories from the legendary Jack Kirby run was full of editions I had as a kid, and just opening it up and reading bits and pieces was a real charge down memory lane.

As a kid, I had action figures too that I played with endlessly. I started out with "Cowboys and Indians" stuff, like the old Johnny West and General Custer action figures; Geronimo, The Lone Ranger and Tonto, plus all their gear and plastic horses and stuff (not to mention the little plastic ones too). I spent a lot of time by myself honing my imagination via made-up battles and adventures these guys would undertake. And GI Joe, don't forget about him either! I remember with all three of these, I was too young and lacked the dexterity to properly make them hold their weapons and stuff, so I was endlessly appealing to my parents to put their guns in their hands and things.

From these I moved onto smaller figures, that seemed so realistic to me then but look kind of goofy now. I had this Captain America, and I had Spiderman, Hulk, Tarzan, Batman, Superman -- a bunch of them!

These figures were pretty breakable. Their limbs and stuff were linked inside their torsos by strips of elastic, and every now and then an arm or leg would pop off (or be torn off in battle, of course) and they would fall apart. Somehow, though, my dad was magically able to repair them. I remember one would break, and the pieces would go in his lunchbox when he headed for work. Then I would wait for him to get home; depending on what shift he was on, that might mean getting up in the morning and rushing to his lunchbox to find my toy magically restored (and smelling like the pulp mill). I sometimes wonder how much shit he got from his co-workers as he'd be putting these things back together!

As I got older, I started reading books, and also got into music when I discovered KISS, a band whose comic book image certainly was not lost on me. I was still young when I started reading Tarzan books and things like The Last of the Mohicans and other adventure stories. I visited The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings for the first time probably by the time I was 10 or 12, as my sister had them. They were preceded by The Chronicles of Narnia, and junior high had me following them up with the original Dune trilogy, courtesy of my English teacher.

When I was in junior high I was also introduced, courtesy of my cousin, to Dungeons and Dragons. I was into that game the way kids nowadays are into X-Box and Playstation, the only difference being we actually created the fantasies we played in. I can't overstate the impact the game had on me as a youngster. The 1st Edition Dungeon Master's Guide had an "inspirational reading list" that I dug into with fervor, reading any of the titles on the list I could get my hands on. It was also around this time that I discovered Robert E. Howard and his Conan stories, an interest that I've maintained unbroken ever since.

My friends and I played D&D through high school, and even took it to Seattle with us when we moved there to become rock stars. As many dreams do, a lot of those fell by the wayside, and I went through a period where I didn't read much, and didn't even listen to a lot of music. A lot of those friends left my life and a lot of those interests were swept under the rug for a while.

When Sid was born and started developing a lot of the same interests I had, it was like getting an opportunity to relive my own youth. I was back buying comic books, action figures, and seeing movies with impossible heroics and teflon heroes. I loved seeing so many of the images that I loved so much in my youth come to life, whether it was the Daniel Day Lewis Last of the Mohicans vehicle (still one of my favorite all-time movies), or about bursting into tears the first time I was in a theater and they teased us with an image from The Fellowship of the Ring. Back in the day my friends and me would cast a live action version of that movie, knowing full well that it would be impossible to make.

Obviously for all my love of this stuff I've evolved beyond it. I'm as likely to visit a good villain by reading a book like Blackwater, for example, and I never got sucked into Harry Potter or Twilight. I'd rather have to be deserted on a tropical isle with Naomi Klein than Galadriel (but I'm sure Sheena might be worth having around).

The beauty of age is that I don't really have to give a shit about whether or not it's "cool" to like this stuff. Hell, if Michael Chabon, a guy who not only won a Pulitzer but wrote a comic based on it, can essentially write a book in defense of genre fiction, and a verbose blowhard like Cormac McCarthy can mine the theme for his own prize just one year ago, then anyone who thinks it's immature to dig this stuff can go back to watching network TV shows and feel superior all they want -- they ain't even on my planet.

Maybe it is age that is making me think of all this, I don't know. I just turned 42 the other day. It was a great birthday, even though I have been going through a lot of angst lately about how things change, not so much with my age as Sid's. We don't do near as much together, even though we still spend a lot of time talking about cool things -- music, art, and genre stuff. He's more into horror and things than me these days, but that's cool. Still, I miss the shared enthusiasm we had when a new movie would be on the horizon and we would stand in line together to make sure and see the opening show. So, imagine my immense pleasure, when Friday afternoon we were at Hastings and I was looking at the Watchmen display; he walked up, asked if it was a cool movie ("Of course it is!" I answered), then said, "We should go see it tonight."

And we did.