Comments, I Get Comments

So as I was saying yesterday, I love that people are able to post comments on blogs, one of the great things about the medium. Generally I haven't really responded to them, I just usually let them stand on their own. But I've collected a few choice ones over the last several months and figured I'd do a "mailbag" segment, as if this were a real column or something. So lets pull the first letter out of the bag.

This one comes from "Anonymous," in response to my Open Letter To Pastor Rick Warren from last December 7th, though this comment left some 4-1/2 months later:

So are you telling any person that has not had a history of helping with the AIDS epidemic to stay away. If thats the case, dont just tell Rick Warren to stay away from the issue- (it seems as though you may be discriminating against followers of Christ).- tell all of the politicians- conservative and liberal- and while your at it, tell the millions affected by AIDS that you are telling people to stay away from the issue. Is Rick Warren responsible for the statements of Falwell or Robertson? If so than perhaps you are responsible for the statements of Robert Singer, who is involved in the AIDS issue, and/but also a strong supporter of infanticide- OF course you are not responsible. I myself am a follower of Christ and i can say that, it is not for me to decide what is right or wrong for someone else, there is only one Holy Spirit in this world, and i am not it. LOVE-

Well, to answer your opening question, basically, yes. Evangelicals who teach that homosexuality is a sin should not only not be involved in AIDS prevention issues, they should also go fuck off. And you should go back and actually read my letter in full. I didn't tell him he was responsible for Falwell's and Robertson's statements, I pulled out mean nasty statements from those two idiots to refute Warren's wife's claim that evangelicals were somehow "absent" from the discussion in the early days of AIDS. They were very much vocal in those early days, demonizing gay people with all their might. And Warren may dress things up a little nicer and brighter with his Hawaiian shirts and all, but he still teaches a form of intolerance and hate when calling homosexuality a sin. And someone who teaches young people that it is wrong to use a condom is encouraging the spread of AIDS not helping to stop it. All Warren is doing is using AIDS for the self-serving purpose of increasing his number of followers and selling more copies of his stupid book.

And I'm not really sure who Robert Singer is, but I'm betting that what you mean by "strong supporter infanticide" is that he supports a woman's right to make her own decisions about her reproductive system. Calling abortion infanticide kind of refutes your whole "not for me to decide what is right or wrong for someone else" statement, you brain-dead zealot.


On a side note, I never did get a response from Pastor Ricky to my letter.


Here's another Anonymous comment, left on my post about the Foo Fighters' support for an organization run by Christine Maggiore, who claims that HIV doesn't cause AIDS, and AIDS doesn't kill people. I wrote it on June 7th, and this comment was left on September 1st, by someone who was googling for information about Maggiore:

Writing shitty blogs is worse than anything, way to try really hard to be "edgy". When will this blog trend end? Cause it's hack.

Hey, I'm "edgy." Who'd a thunk it?

You would think Dave Grohl would have better things to do than search blogs for things written about him, but I guess not. And Dave, aren't you getting a little old for phrases like "cause it's hack?" And "shitty blogs?" Come on now Dave, I just accused you of making some of the worst music on the planet and being so lacking in morals as to push the ideas of a deadly organization on your web site and tours. You don't have to go and make it personal.


Going back to the religion topic, this little note was left after I wrote the piece about the poor, innocent Canadian who was picked up and sent to Syria to be tortured, per George Bush's orders. It's from someone who calls himself Seven Star Hand (don't feel that you need to read all of this, you can get the gist in about the first two sentences):

Hello Deni,

All three Faiths of Abraham spawn violence and hypocrisy

Christians and Jews are able to smugly lecture and chastise Muslims about violence, because followers of Islam are poorer and more oppressed and are forced to defend themselves in cruder fashion. On the other hand, the rich and powerful nations of the west can train and equip militaries and intelligence services to do their bidding. Likewise, well-funded and smooth-talking politicians expertly equivocate about acceptable collateral damage to the homes, and lives of poor people in other lands. With so many dollars spent, why don't Muslims and others simply shut up and accept being exploited, oppressed, and massacred for such nobly expressed western ideals?

Those in representative democracies tout their governments as extensions of the citizenry. Accordingly, so are the militaries, intelligence services, corporations and other proxies used to expand and maintain the Judeo-Christian Empire. By extension, the citizens of western nations are much more responsible for the actions of criminals, killers, and torturers paid for and authorized by democratic institutions than people who live in less democratic nations who have much less control over the actions of their leaders.

It is undeniable that the Bush administration, its cohorts, and supporters are mostly Christian. Without the blind support of so many Judeo-Christians, the Bush administration would not now be embroiled in the current struggle to retroactively legalize torture, illegal domestic spying, and other crimes. By US law, hiring a proxy to murder or assault someone is still prosecuted as murder and assault. It is undeniable that the militaries and intelligence services of the west that kill and torture at the behest of democratic representatives are hired proxies of Judeo-Christian citizens.

Regardless of attempts to shift blame, history clearly records the widespread crimes of Christianity. Whether we're talking about the abominations of the Inquisition, Crusades, the greed and genocide of colonizers, slavery in the Americas, or the Bush administration's recent deeds and results, Christianity has always spawned great evil.

So, the next time any Christian, Jew, or Muslim, whether president, prime minister, religious leader or follower decides to chastise others for their failings, stop to consider that the logs in your own eyes have blinded you to the full truth about all three faiths of Abraham. Religion has utterly failed to solve humanity's problems because it is a strong delusion that spawns error and evil instead. The sheep's clothing of duplicitous ideals is an obvious deception used to hide the truth. Nonetheless, the veil is readily pierced by discerning the fruits of their deeds.

Here is Wisdom...

That's great dude. Now would you please hit that bong and pass it on? Everyone else is waiting.


This little random tidbit was left a couple of months after I wrote my Love Letter To Lynn From Lowell:

Southie dumbasses!!!, obviously you have not a clue about the history nor the people of this great neighbourhood. These people took me in when I was most in need of it. As an Irishman I hold that in the highest regard..

Well, I know they can't say the words "park" or "idea" right.

One piece of history I know about the people of that "great neighborhood" is how they pelted little black kids with eggs, rocks and rotten vegetables for trying to go to school there. And that was in the 80s.

But hey, they were nice to you, a fellow white Irishman. What fucking humanitarians.


And finally, here are a couple of responses to my bashing on Derek Jeter for his apparent lack of interest in international traveling. First, from mikrokunk:

You know I had the exact same thought when I read that about Jeter. Why hasn't he been traveling the world with all that money? But then I remembered something. Last December I met my husband in San Juan Puerto Rico where he was working an event for ESPN Deportes. Jeter was staying at the same hotel and got booted out of his suite because ESPN had reserved it. Now keep this in mind, the hotel wasn't that nice at all but was by the beach and had a casino. He was there with a bunch of guy friends for the week. I remember asking myself, "why isn't he staying at a nicer place?" But then again maybe he has to pay for all of his buddies to go with him. Can't be cheap. I read that his European trip was with Michael Jordan. I'm guessing he didn't have to pay for MJ's room on that trip... Food for thought!

Unless he was paying for about 500 friends, I don't think Jeter's wallet suffered too much.

And here's a stirring defense of Jeter from someone who calls himself Feynman and Coulter's Love Child (and without irony, if you can believe it). I'll answer this one line by line:

Seeing how for a huge chunk of the year Jeter has a job that keeps him in North America, and that his sport's popularity is in Latin America and north Asia, its not too hard to believe he's never been to Europe.

Yea, that 4 months off from after the World Series (which he hasn't been in since 2003, hee hee) until reporting to spring training is such a short amount of vacation time. And what the hell does where his sport is popular have to do with where he goes on vacation?

Believe it or not, it is possible to be a human being of some sort of value having never toured a castle or museum in some rundown Spanish villa.

No, it's not.

(As for "unlimited resources", the only "European" city on my list is London -- and if Jeter had gone to London the Brits would have told him that he had not been to Europe and kindly stop slurring them.) It's a big planet, and if your biggest slam on Jeter is that he hasn't overpaid for a tiny plate of food in Paris than ol' Derek is doing pretty well.

I'm not even sure what the first part of this sentence even means. But then, there it is. A right-wing nutjob's stereotype of what traveling in Europe is like. Yes, the entire reason to go on a European vacation is so you can buy small, expensive plates of food in France. Boy, you got me. Those damn sneaky French, putting on those interesting things all over Europe just so people will buy some expensive snails.

And how many Europeans have made it to Kalamazoo, MI anyways?

Ooh, great argument. How long did it take you to come up with the lamest place you could think of in America to compare to traveling to Europe. Lots of 16th century castles in Kalamazoo, are there?

See, the thing is, you small-minded little conservative, a lot of those little towns and villas in Europe are actually interesting. If you had actually tried to go anywhere in Europe besides London you would know that. But nice job guessing what it's like.


And that's all the time we've got on this premiere edition of mail time.

Free Speech Ain't Free....Oh Wait....Yes It Is

One of the nice things about blogging is that people can respond to what you write and can post it themselves without hoping for some editor/publisher to print their "letter to the editor." I think it's great that people can respond to something I've written without me, as the owner of this site, deciding whether or not it is a worthy comment. And I don't delete comments, for the most part. The few times I have deleted comments was during the time period when blogs were getting spammed in the comment section like crazy, before blogger instituted the word verification that has saved me from long, idiotic, automated messages showing up. My five readers have better things to do than read ads for hair-loss treatment or work from home opportunities. Besides, if someone wants to put an ad in my blog, I'm damn well going to get paid for it.

Other than spam, I think the only time I deleted a message was when someone posted a comment after a blog I wrote that mentioned David Duke in some context that now escapes me. One of his apparent followers put in a comment that was a collection of links to Duke web sites, as well as a bunch of Holocaust-denial, neo-Nazi, KKK, and other racist and Jew-hating sites. It was surprising just how many the guy linked to, it was something like over twenty.

I wondered where I would draw the line, and I guess that was it. Honestly, if the guy had just written some stupid racist bullshit, I probably would have let it stay and then just made fun of him (much like I did with that stop-immigration.org dumbass). But I wasn't comfortable with my site being used to link to some horrible racist propaganda like that.

Feel free to let me know if you think that was a reasonable thing to do. Or do you think that it went against the whole philosophy of free speech?

Give me your thoughts. But please, no linking to killakike.org.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Coming tomorrow - I'll go through the old mailbag and write some responses to comments left on my blog over the last few months. Can't you just feel the anticipation?

Grampa

I don't usually post stuff about the "hot" topics going on the media. Usually it is because they are usually things that are of very little importance that are only there to serve the purpose of distracting the populace from the actual important issues going on in the world. Rush Limbaugh acting like a jerk is one of those moments of "so what else is new" and should generally be ignored. But the media usually falls right into his trap of changing the issue to something pointless, so he can do the GOP's bidding of getting everyone to stop talking about Iraq and the crappy economy.

And he has done it again with a sad display of ripping on Michael J. Fox and dismissing his disease. What's even worse than what Rush did, is some of the media's way of framing the issue, with the exception, once again, of Keith Olbermann, who hit it on the head. A number of media outlets have headlined the story with "Michael J. Fox causes a controversy," when the lead-in should have been "Rush Limbaugh acts like a jerk...again." And the mind-numbing Matt Lauer actually said "Didn't Rush Limbaugh just say what a lot of people were privately thinking?" Umm, no Matt, nobody sane was thinking that. And you are a tool. There is no debate or conversation to be had about this. Rush Limbaugh should be denounced by all decent people for bashing disabled people.

Generally, the big fat idiot is best ignored, and I usually do just that. But I have a reason for jumping on this one: my grandfather.

My grandfather, Vernon Dietz, was the kind of guy that Limbaugh pretends to speak for. A man who came of age during the depression, but struggled and got a job to take care of his family and never asked for help from Uncle Sam, except for my grandmother's odd fondness for the government cheese. He worked in the same meat packing plant from 1934, at the age of 18, until he retired in 1977. His wife never worked at any job other than homemaker and primary caregiver to their four children. He worked hard everyday, went to church every Sunday, paid his taxes without complaint (which, I suppose is not a position Rush would support), kept his lawn in impeccable condition, flew his U.S. flag every day (and he didn't just leave it up, he raised it during the day and took it down in the evening and didn't fly it in bad weather) and loved to fish and watch baseball on TV.

He also had Parkinson's disease.

One of the things that's been missing from the whole "debate" over the "faking it or not taking his meds" comment is a perspective from people who know. Michael J. Fox has done a great job explaining it, but it would be easy for the media to go find some random everyday people living with the disease to confirm that Fox is completely telling the truth and Rush is an idiot. I suppose settling the argument doesn't make for good "infotainment" though.

My grandfather was diagnosed in 1970, the same year I was born. So to compare where Michael J. Fox is in the progression of his illness to my "grampa's" timeline, all I have to do is think about what age I was at the time. This means that the summer I was 15 Grampa was at the same place that Fox is right now. And seeing him on TV reminds me so much of my grandfather around that time period. The shaking and the head and body movements are eerily just like looking at Grampa.

And Rush is right. Like Fox, Grampa wasn't always shaking. I remember being a teenager watching him clean his electric shaver using a little screwdriver, a little brush and a toothpick with no problems. But a few hours later at dinner he spilled his water and dropped food because his arms wouldn't stay steady. And it wasn't because he skipped his meds or took too many. Even if he entertained that thought, no way would my grandmother have put up with that. And he wasn't one for "acting" either. It was what it was, and he had no control over it.

I have great memories of my grandfather. He taught me several things. How to properly fold the flag, how to fish, shuck corn and mow grass. Granted, I don't actually have a use for any of these things. I find patriotism silly. Fishing is cruel, gross and boring all at the same time. My number one rule for a place to live is that there is no lawn care involved. But I do occasionally shuck corn when we see some nice looking ears during the summer.

Still, I'm glad he took the time to try to make me appreciate these things. Showing his grandkids how to do stuff made him happy. He was a simple man. Got married, raised a family, never got a traffic ticket, took naps during baseball games.

He died about two weeks shy of his 60th wedding anniversary, after living with Parkinson's for over 24 years.

Those last few years were hard on him. Not being able to start a sentence when he wanted to say something. Taking sometimes up to 5 minutes to take his first step when he tried to walk somewhere, and muttering "goddammit" to himself in his frustration. His mind being completely sound made it all the more frustrating that he couldn't get his body to do what he wanted. Seeing him go through that made getting Parkinson's my biggest health fear. It's a horrible thing to see.

That is what Michael J. Fox has to look forward to in a few years. And he knows it and takes it in such great stride. His interview on CBS was an example of grace, dignity and class. A great interview (see the full unedited version here), despite Katie Couric being the one conducting it. (Example of Couric's stupidity: She asked him if he would ever do a commercial for a Republican who supported stem-cell research, when he already did -- two years ago. Hey Katie, how about walking down the hall and introducing yourself to the CBS research department?)

Limbaugh defended himself with the same bullshit line used by Ann Coulter when she attacked the widows of the World Trade Center, that the left uses "infallible" people for their arguments so they can't be questioned. He claims he was just questioning and "analyzing" Fox's arguments. But that's not what he did, and he knows it. Instead of engaging in a conversation of ideas on the merits of his position, Limbaugh can only make fun of a person for showing the symptoms of their disease. And, with no reason whatsoever, call him a liar and a faker.

So on behalf of my grandfather, FUCK YOU, you OxyContin addicted, fat-ass, bald, Viagra-popping, brainless, bloviating jerk.

I Just Don't Understand Rich People Sometimes

I was reading the paper yesterday and came across an article on Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter. One of the delicious things about New York failing to get to the World Series is that for months afterward, as a Yankee-hater, you get to revel in the prolonged misery of Yankees fans. They wander around in a daze like little children whose father just split town with his secretary, wondering what happened, asking why, why, why? The arrogance of Yankee fans acting like the World Series is their birthright becomes a wonderful depression that makes all other fans giggle with glee.

So that's what this AP article on Jeter was basically about, getting his comments on everything from A-Rod choking in the playoffs (again, tee-hee) to tension in the clubhouse to manager Joe Torre. And we learn during the article that Jeter apparently calls Mr. T for some odd reason. I doubt Torre says "pity the fool" a lot, so we'll probably never know. Just one of those dumb jock, everybody-must-have-a-nickname things, I guess. Rappers and jocks, I'll never understand the need to force nicknames on to everyone and everything.

But I digress. The thing that caught my eye when I was reading it, and I saw this in more than one person's article, was this line:

"Back from his first European vacation, the Yankees' captain..."

His first European vacation?!?!?! What the Fuck?!?!

For those of you who don't know, Jeter has been on the Yankees for 11 seasons. That means he's been a millionaire for a good decade. And he's never gone on a European vacation?

What the hell kind of person is that young and rich but doesn't take the opportunity to see the world? I mean, except for that dumbass who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

If my wife and I had those kind of seemingly endless resources we would be out of the country for just about every vacation and long holiday weekend. Hell, we'd probably buy a place in Rome because we would be there so often.

Just about all of the people I know have traveled somewhere in their lives, mostly Europe, and scrimped and saved to make the trip happen. The only thing that has held them back from more international trips, or any at all, is the lack of funds. My list of countries I've been to would be a lot longer if money was no object. I just can't get people like Derek Jeter.

Damn Derek (or should I call you Dr. J? Get it?), is your jock brain so tiny that the only part of the world you are interested in is the one between white chalk lines and in the VIP rooms at Manhattan's swanky nightclubs? Have you no desire to see the Pyramids of Giza, the Coliseum, the Cliffs of Mohr, the canals of Venice, or even the Louvre?

He probably only ended up taking the trip because one of his bimbo/model girlfriends made him.

This utter lack of curiosity about the world from some people just boggles my mind. When I dream of being rich, the thing I dream about is seeing the world. By train, of course.

I suppose I should be easier on him. And more understanding. I come from an extended family of Podunks whose idea of seeing the world is driving to Canada to go fishing. But I don't get them either.

The theme song for today is (with apologies to Willie and Waylon), "Mammas Don't Let your Babies Grow Up to Be Dumb Jocks."

Or my cousins.

Caesar Marches On Rome

Caesar is sacking Rome and the populace yawns. Or worse, applauds.

That is what is happening in America today. I would call it sad, except that it is more horrifying and desperate than that word suggest. Sad is how conservatives stop gays from marrying. Sad is the tax cuts for the rich. Sad is the blaming of immigrants for our problems.

No, the signing of the military tribunal bill Tuesday is not sad. It is the complete selling out of everything our so-called democracy stands for. It is the most frightening thing to happen in our country in my lifetime. And how are people reacting? Some have cheered, most have shrugged, but only a few have screamed out.

And besides Keith Olbermann, most of the mainstream media is eerily silent on the issue. What they are failing to get through to people is what has actually happened here. While the press did a bang up job of covering the so-called "revolt" by three GOP senators led by John McCain, who pretended to take on the president when what they really did was give him what he wanted.

There will be torture of suspects by our government. There will be no recognition of the Geneva Convention. And worst of all, the president can suspend the writ of Habeas Corpus, the very thing that protects innocent people from being imprisoned either by accident or for political purposes, for anyone he deems an "enemy combatant." With on stroke of the pen, the very foundation of our judicial system has been wiped away while the crowd applauded.

To my readers who voted for Bush (which is probably just my step-dad and that loony stop-immigration.org fascist): DO YOU FUCKING GET IT YET? Have you begun to understand with your tiny little jingoistic minds what is happening here? Do you see why we hate him? It is not because he's a stupid hick or a privileged rich kid who has had everything handed to him, though those were good enough reasons to vote against him. No it is because he is evil. While he was bribing you with you tax rebates and cutting taxes for the rich, and telling you it would be good for you, not just the rich, and distracting you with fake issues like gay marriage and immigration, he has been undermining the very democracy that he had been claiming to protect.

And for this, you like him?

Apparently the way he is going to bring democracy to Iraq, as he has stated he will do, is to give them ours. We don't seem to be using it anyway.

What we have is an unprecedented consolidation of powers to the office of the president, unchecked by Congress, creating, in effect, a dictator.

Just as Caesar took power by giving shallow gifts to the masses and distracting them with unnecessary wars to rally support, all while slowly dismantling the republic, our leader does the same. And like Rome, thousands cheer, bow at his feet and kiss his robe.

He claims to love us, when all he really loves is power and his self-perceived greatness.

A tragedy and a farce rolled into one.

I only hope Brutus shows up soon.

'Bee Season

A couple of Monday's ago I went to Central Park to throw the Frisbee with my buddy Joe. Oh by the way, Happy Birthday Joe.

Anyway, he had the day off work because it was Yom Kippur (he's not Jewish himself, he just teaches in the New York public school system) and it was an absolutely gorgeous day, so we went to do what is basically our favorite thing to do together. Well, besides drinking, criticizing bad movies and whining about getting old (HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOE!).

So we were in the Sheep Meadow section of the park getting some great air in perfect Frisbee-throwing weather having a great time and a tall skinny guy who looked like a younger version of Tony Kushner walked up and asked if he could join in. So we spread out and had a good three person throw going for a while. The guy who joined in at first threw pretty horribly and I was worried we made a mistake letting him in (Joe and I can be real Frisbee snobs), but once he warmed up he was fine.

A short time later a guy in a shirt and tie walking through the Sheep Meadow went up and spoke to Joe. Joe nodded and the guy took off his tie, rolled up his sleeves and joined in. And this guy could throw. Nothing like a great foursome in Frisbee to mix things up.

If that weren't enough, we had another guy jump in.

A hippy looking couple had been throwing three Frisbees to each other, real short distances trying to do some trick-type stuff, right by where I was standing. She eventually got bored or tired and went to sit down, and he turned towards us and asked in to our group. And he put another Frisbee in play. So we had five guys and two discs going. It was Frisbee Utopia.

Hippy Guy and I even started tipping the 'bees to each other, working in tandem as if we actually knew each other for more than three minutes

So here we were, Hippy Guy, Skinny Jewish Guy, Business Guy, Joe and me. For us I can't come up with anything but "Nondescript Late Thirties White Guys," which I guess is its own stereotype. Not a very interesting one, but there it is.

But what a great time. And of course the one thing I couldn't help but think to myself was just how happy I am that we don't live in fucking Boston anymore.

This kind of thing wouldn't have happened in Boston at all. Not only are people not social enough to walk up and talk to someone, but if one were to ask some people if they could join in their Frisbee, hacky-sack or other group activity, they would more than likely be told to fuck off.

So yeah, nice to be out of there.

But also thought, "Hey, for a couple of guys in their mid-thirties, Joe and I can still fucking do this. And well, dammit."

Probably helps that we both quit smoking years ago.

Welcome To The Neighborhood

When we were getting ready to move to New York, I had a conversation with my brother about it. He's your basic whacked-out Republican who, like the rest of them, became even more insane after the World Trade Center attack. He actually said at one point that we should move all the Jews from Israel to the U.S. and then nuke the entire Middle East. Yea, he voted for Dubya. Twice.

So when I spoke with him on the phone a while back after we found out we were moving here, he expressed concern about our safety living in New York.

I told him how ridiculous that was, especially for a guy who takes a much bigger chance with his life by climbing into a car every day, which is the most dangerous thing you can do in this country. I explained to him that we will be living in an Upper East Side high-rise, far away from downtown and the chances of anything that major happening up there was pretty remote.

So what happens less than three months after we move in? A guy crashes a plane into a high-rise apartment building a few blocks from ours.

And this only a few months after some nut-ball doctor blew up his Upper East Side townhouse right before we moved (about five crosstown blocks away).

Then last night there was a three-alarm fire, with explosions to boot, that destroyed another townhouse in the 'hood.

The locusts should be arriving any day now.

Just A Game

I don't really write about sports that much. Mostly it's because I disdain sports in general. And also because I hate jocks of all shapes and sizes. Probably has something to do with high school, which, at the age of 36, I should probably get over already.

But no matter how much I try to hate all sports, I can't help that I love baseball. I just love it. I've tried to not love it so much, what with my opinion that sports is for stupid people. One look at the average knuckle dragger known as the American football fan is all the evidence you need. I have struggled for years to reconcile my hatred for all things competitive-athletic with my love for baseball. I finally just reasoned that if Studs Terkel loves it, then it must be OK.

I just try not to think about the fact that a huge number of the guys that play it are right-wing, Bush supporting, gun-toting, Bambi hunting, Skoal dipping, bible loving, homophobic ass holes.

It is playoff time after all.

And what great playoffs so far. The underdog Tigers wipe the floor with the dreaded Yankees asses (hee-hee). And Alex Rodriquez, the most overpaid of the hundreds of overpaid players, had one hit in 14 at bats (double hee-hee). On the down side, baseball on TV requires that you put up with annoying announcers, especially on FOX.

The announcing business is weird. The stupid jock might be a broad stereotype, but the broadcast booth is where the ex-jocks go to prove it. And there are none stupider than Steve Lyons.

Along with his booth partner, the annoying-voiced Thom Brennaman, who, as Richard Sandomir wrote in the New York Times, sounds "like a parody of what a sportscaster is supposed to sound like," Lyons takes you right back to the days of the 10th grade gym class locker room.

The highlight of their juvenile behavior was a Dodgers-Mets game last week. The cameraman found a guy in the stands wearing a large, odd-looking contraption with a lens over his eyes. Brennaman and Lyons did the only thing sophomoric jocks (redundant phrase I know) can do when faced with the unknown.

They mocked it.

For almost a full minute these two dunderheads made fun of the guy with remarks like, "psycho-meter," saying the guy was in virtual reality and "should stay there" according to Lyons, and proclaiming that he got a digital camera stuck to his face, among other unfunny and juvenile remarks. It was a wonder that Lyons didn't just jump down in to the stands and start whipping the guy with a wet towel. They gave themselves, but I doubt anyone else, quite a chuckle. (Side note: this was during an at-bat, they basically ignored the game so they could make fun of somebody).

I remember thinking to myself during this little figurative swirly they were giving the guy that it would probably turn out to be a contraption that helps blind people see.

Guess what? It was a contraption to help blind people see. Which led to a required apology during the next game. Dumb asses.

Bob Costas would never be so stupid.

Of course the on-field reporters have their own brand of idiocy. Like over-dramatics.

In case you don't know what "hitting for the cycle" is, here is a short run-down. A player get a single, double, triple and home run all in the same game. It is the most over-hyped and meaningless stat in the game. Really, it is just a statistical anomaly. Lots of things are better. Like hitting three home runs, or three triples and a double, or three doubles and, well you get the point.

A guy on the Tigers last night hit a single, a double, and a home run. A great game to be sure, he was the star of the game, in fact. But at the the end of the interview, when sending it "back to the booth," the reporter said, "Brandon Inge, who came just a triple away from being the first player in playoff history to hit for the cycle."

Oh really? He came just the hardest hit to get in baseball away from hitting for the cycle? In other words, he didn't hit for the cycle and no history was made at all. What a stupid thing to say. Seriously, what a dumb stat. It's not even a stat, it's a non-stat. And being a triple away? That's like saying a runner came just ten miles from finishing a marathon. Or that Tiger Woods came just fifteen strokes away from par.

Hell, get away from sports even. You could say, "Hey I missed winning the lottery by just three numbers!" With that reporters way of looking at things, I'm not broke, I'm just $999,970 away from being a millionaire.

I'll have to watch an episode of Ken Burns' Baseball to see the likes of Studs Terkel, Bob Costas, Shelby Foote and the wonderful Buck O'Neill wax poetically and intelligently about the game, so as to cleanse myself of the stink of stupidity from watching the games on FOX this week.

Hey Katie Couric, This Is What A Real Journalist Looks Like

I was watching Keith Olbermann earlier tonight and, something that has become a regular feature lately, he had a special comment at the end of the show.

And what a comment it was. I'm sure a lot of you have seen his recent commentaries about Bush and 9/11, Rumsfeld's comparing people who don't agree with him to Nazi appeasers, or Bush telling us we are allowed to think. While the one from September 11th was the one that got the most notice, and was probably the most poetically written, the one from tonight might be his best one yet.

Olbermann is by and far the best journalist on TV (I know that's not necessarily saying a lot), and watching him take Bush to task tonight for his lies was more evidence to that claim. While the rest of the press sits there and lets Bush build his bullshit straw men and none of them will call him on it, there is finally someone who will call a turd a turd.

It's a shame that he stands out from the crowd in his field for doing something that they all should be doing. When Bush gets up and makes his claims about what his critics say, from his claims that we say that Arabs don't deserve democracy to saying that Democrats voted against listening to "terrorists' phone calls," no one in the White House press corps stands up and says, "who said that? Name just one person Mr. President." And back in the studio with Katie, Soledad, Miles or some other brain dead bimbo with nice hair, no one will point out that Bush is making shit up, even though they all know it and it is easy to check the facts. They usually play right in to Bush's hand and title the story something like, "Bush speaks out against his critics," when, in fact, what he is doing is speaking out against the straw men in his head.

But thank god for Keith. Someone in the media who's not afraid to call Dubya a liar, and call him out for his all out assault on the Constitution and abuse of power.

Thank you Keith.

Tie A Yellow Fuckin' Ribbon

My friend Barb sent me this link the other day to a video on You Tube by the Asylum Street Spankers. It's a song called Stick Magnetic Ribbons On Your SUV, and it is my new favorite thing.

It is a great satire of the idiocy and hypocrisy of the yellow ribbon "pro-troop" (i.e. pro-Bush) crowd. Funny as hell and a great tune to boot. But don't take my word for it, go watch/listen to it for yourself.

Evan Kremin - A Legend Of Guestian Proportions

A few Saturdays ago I went to a club here in New York called Snitch. My buddy Joe had a friend playing in a battle of the bands there as part of something called the Emergenza Festival, and we decided to go and offer some support. Now, battle of the bands type gigs are high up on the list of things I hate a lot, but I am really happy I went that night.

First of all, Joe's friends were great. Which was a relief. It would have been so uncomfortable talking to them afterwards if I had hated them. But it turned out that they played the kind of music I love (singer-songwriter/alt-country-ish stuff), and did it well.

But the highlight of the night was the side-splitting laughter caused by the group before them, The Evan Kremin Band.

You really had to see them to believe them. Or I should say him, it was all about Evan himself. Before the show I noticed that there were a line of "Evan Kremin" CDs lined up along the top of a corner booth, wrapped in a cellophane bag with a little box included. And there were lots of CDs, possibly hundreds since there was a huge bag with even more of them. But more on that later.

When they started, we noticed that there was an old couple standing in front of us close to the stage. They were obviously Evan's parents. That's another thing to hate about battle of the bands contests, too many biased family members show up.

From the opening riff it was obvious that this guy listened to waaaaaaay too many power ballads in the 80s. The dead give away was the god-awful lyrics that were nothing more than a series of strung together clichés, and the hilarious rock star posturing by a guy pushing (maybe even past) 40. Throw in the guitarist, who looked about 50, trying to do his best Jimmy Page impression, and you had just a hilarious sight. And the range of songs would go from sounding like Journey to Great White to Poison to, believe it or not, Michael Bolton.

And such deep lyrics like, "I'll sing the songs I've never sung, I'll do the things I've never done, I'll sow the seeds I've never sown."

And, "If you reach into a fire you're gonna get burned"

There was also a song, the name escapes me, where he kept singing about rats in a maze that was bringing on laughter and gag reflexes from me simultaneously. It was a song that could have competed for the title of Most Cliché-Ridden Song Ever if it weren't for the existence of Poison's Every Rose Has Its Thorn.

I had the hardest time holding in the loud laughter, what with his parents standing right in front of me.

He ended his night, thanking everyone for coming, telling everyone to give it up for the Emergenza Festival, thanking his wife for doing the CDs (aha, she's the big-haired middle aged woman shilling those out) and generally acting like the headliner, even though this is a battle of the bands. He introduced the last song, called Monsters Under My Bed, wasting no time and getting to the clichés right in the song title.

It was the performance of this song that really solidified the feeling that I had found myself in the middle of a real life Christopher Guest movie.

Evan, an aging, pudgy, almost mullet-headed, struggling front man of what could probably be a really decent wedding band (for those suburbanites who like those bland top 40 cover bands to play at their weddings) if they would stop doing his songs, fancies himself to be a major rock star. To call it delusions of grandeur would be an understatement.

He jumped off the stage during the performance of Monsters and walked into the crowd to sing straight at a girl for a little bit, and then point and scream/sing at a guy in the audience. Now I'm losing it (along with the girl he was singing at) and am just openly laughing because I can't help it. And I'm so happy at this point I got to see this, because just when you think that the characters in Christopher Guest's movies are too far over the top, you get to see living proof that they're not. It was beautiful.

Somebody really needed to tell this guy that you can't get away with rock star moves unless you actually are a rock star. Bono going out to sing to a girl is cool, a chunky middle-aged nobody from Jersey doing it is creepy.

And to top it off the song had a dramatic pause toward the end. The music stopped like the song ended, but the band kept a dramatic pose. A smattering of people were clapping like it was over, and Joe leaned over and said, "wait for it." And there it was, they started back up to finish the last chorus, and then ended the song with Mr. Kremin singing London Bridge Is Falling Down in a high voice to a fade-out. Oooooh, how dramatic.

Of course they won that night.

It was decided by audience vote, and from the looks of all the hugging Evan did after he got off stage it appeared that, along with his family, all of his old high school friends were there. He had definitely done a great job of stocking the audience. This poor guy really thinks that the path to a record contract and rock stardom is getting your friends to vote for you at a local battle of the bands contest. It would be sad if it weren't' so damn funny.

You might think I'm being a little too hard on the poor guy. After all, he is just trying to follow his dream, as unlikely as it is to ever come true. And I would agree, except for the fact that the only things more over the top than his over-wrought, clichéd lyrics, are his gigantic ego and shameless self-promotion.

The ticket I had for the night seems to have come through his allotment of tickets to sell. It had a sticker slapped on it that said, "THE EVAN KREMIN BAND LIVE AT SNITCH!!...Don't be late...your vote could be the one that made the difference." You've got to be kidding me.

And then there was his wife and the CDs. She was going around the bar after the set shoving them at anybody and everybody, "Did you get a CD? Here, I've got one for you." Oh goody, just for me?! I did take one, jut so I could get a laugh and to find out what was in the box that was wrapped with it.

I opened it, the outside of the package said, "Thanks for your support!" Inside the box was a miniature Magic 8 Ball. On the side opposite the answer window is was he Evan Kremin logo like on the CD cover, along with his myspace address (you really should check that out, it's got samples of his overwrought, cliche-riddled songs). And above the logo was the line, I kid you not, "The Answer Is In The Music..." I was laughing the whole subway ride home after seeing that.

People told me I shouldn't rip on the guy in my blog. Or at least don't use his name because it might hurt his feelings. And I thought about that, but hell, if his friends won't tell him his music sucks and he's never going to be a rock star, at least someone should write it. Now he may or may not see this, I'm just a dude with a blog, not a paid rock critic or a published writer. But something tells me he googles his name a lot.

I really decided is was OK to rip on the guy after checking out his myspace site and reading his description of himself. He truly is a legend in his own mind. Here are a few highlights:

Birthed as one of Bleecker Street's truly protected children, Evan Kremin has been mastering his craft on this legendary New York music strip since 1983. As a compellingly gifted singer, songwriter and musician, Evan was quickly adopted by club owners and industry professionals as Bleecker's own "favorite son".

As an independent, original artist Evan Kremin has matured into an "authentic rock reward".

His performances are invigorating - as he is not shy on warmth or sex appeal. It is Rock and Roll with all the quality and authenticity you would expect from a great performer. Hollywood can't make artists like Evan Kremin...they can only aspire to find them.

Remember, he wrote this about himself. And what the hell does "authentic rock reward" mean anyway?

Can you think of anybody who deserves to be made fun of more than this? I mean, besides George Bush.

The Original Swindle

So Pope Benedict has excommunicated an African priest from the church. Now, what grievous offense did he commit to deserve this ultimate punishment from the church? Well, he's one of those crazy exorcist priests, but that's not it. The church is all cool with exorcism, the main problem they had with his was that he blended in indigenous African beliefs in to his exorcism ceremonies. But there was more to it than just that.

He got married. And he started a group called Married Priests Now. And he ordained a few married men as priests.

Now people can get pretty offended when I slag on religion all the time, and I really don't care. What gets me is religious folks who seem to think that religion is the only place you can get a moral center. Which is bullshit and exactly the opposite. The whole basis of religion is based on a lie (a sin in all the major religions) or a group of lies. If you don't know what I mean by that, I'm talking about Adam and Eve, the burning bush, red sea parting, Sodom and Gomorrah, Noah's Ark, virgin birth, guy comes back to life three days after dying on cross, etc, etc, and so on as the King of Siam would say. And religion has been the main cause (or excuse) of every world conflict in human history. We atheists don't blow up clinics or do suicide bombings to get people to believe what we believe. We just roll our eyes and think what morons all the believers are.

Catholics tend to get the most offended, especially when you insult their pope. As I always say, "fuck the pope." He's an immoral ass hole. And I love it when things like this recent excommunication happen, because it just gives me more proof. If some Catholic starts talking to you about the "infallibility of the pope," this is a great opportunity to point out this little fact:

A Catholic priest who gets married, or is outspoken about changing the rules to allow priests to get married, has committed an excommunicable offense.

A Catholic priest who rapes little kids has.......not. And the bishops who protect those priests get promoted to higher posts at the Vatican, even after they are publicly exposed.

And then the pope and his minions turn around and accuse the gay people of hurting children and families.

But those believer out there will continue to defend these con artists and wastes of oxygen that call themselves "holy men." If a high school principal acted like the last couple of popes (protecting child rapists, letting them continue to work with children, advancing their careers), nobody would be defending them. But put a white collar around your neck and it's a free pass to commit whatever crime you want without consequences.

That's a great lesson all you Catholic folks are teaching your children.


The Original Sin is religion itself.

K-K-K-Katie, Stupid Katie

Did you 60 Minutes on Sunday? What the fuck was that?

With the current state of the mainstream televised media being complete shit, 60 Minutes has been the one place that I could count on for (mostly) good journalism. Not any more.

Not since Katie Couric has darkened their halls.

After that total fucking puff piece on Condoleezza Rice, the last bastion of respectable journalism on network TV has begun it's long slide into the world inhabited by Geraldo, Soledad O'Brien, Larry King and the rest of the "newstainment" hacks that have taken over the media.

I forgot I was watching 60 Minutes last night and thought someone had switched the channel to FOX News with the major ass kissing Dr. Rice was getting. At one point Condi got to get in her straw man argument, a favorite tactic of the Bush administration. She actually compared black people being denied the right to vote in the south during Jim Crow to those people that are against her illegal and immoral war in Iraq. The straw man moment came when she said this:

"Well, growing up in the South and having people underestimate you because one of the reasons for segregation, one of the reasons for the separation of the races was supposedly, the inferiority of one race to the other," she explains. "And so when I look around the world and I hear people say, 'Well, you know, they're just not ready for democracy,' it really does resonate. I hear echoes of, well, you know, blacks are kind of childlike. They really can't handle the vote. Or they really can't take care of themselves. It really does roil me. It makes me so angry because I think there are those echoes of what people once thought about black Americans."

No follow up question was asked. And , of course, that question should have been, "WHO THE FUCK IS MAKING THAT ARGUMENT YOU STUPID BITCH?! NAME ME ONE OPPONENT OF YOUR BLOODY WAR THAT HAS SAID THAT THE PEOPLE OF THE MIDDLE EAST ARE 'JUST NOT READY FOR DEMOCRACY.' JUST ONE."

Of course it should have been asked without the yelling, swearing and name calling, but you get the point. This is the way Karl Rove has taught all his evil minions to work in interviews. Instead of actually answering the questions or charges brought by their opponents, they just make up weak and dumb arguments that no one is actually making and knock those down.

And then of course, there was the dating question. Katie actually asked how one goes about asking the Secretary of State out on a date and then held her hand up to her head like a phone (you know, pinky at the mouth and thumb at the ear) and said "Hi, Madame Secretary? Listen," and giggled as she did it. Katie Couric is in her late forties, not her early teens, just in case there was any confusion.

I was reminded of a joke Tina Fey made on the SNL news when CBS was hiring Couric and said something along the lines of CBS was doing it because they wanted more uncomfortable flirting in their interviews. Well, here it was.

Really, at this point there would have been no surprise if Condi said, breathily, "Well Katie, I just haven't found anyone 'special,'" and then we heard a 70s wonkie guitar and Condi just hiked up her skirt, went spread eagle and Katie just dove right in for some porno girl on girl action. I mean, she was already doing it figuratively, why not just commit fully to the job?

Katie Couric gets $15 million a year to read a teleprompter for about 20 minutes a day and do the occasional People Magazine-like stories on 60 minutes. And in the process is destroying the road for female journalists that was paved by the likes of Helen Thomas, who has to spend her days getting ignored in presidential press conferences for asking too hard of questions.

I would wonder how Couric can sleep at night, but I'm pretty sure the 15 mil helps a lot.

But shame on her. And an even bigger shame on the shallow men who run that industry and hire non-threatening, airheaded bimbos instead of the real female journalists out there.

Poverty's A Drag

I got called for last minute temp assignment today. I went to the place, I had been there once before, and gave the receptionist the name of the contact I was given to report to. She couldn't be reached and didn't answer page. I ended up waiting around for two hours while no one was able to figure out what was going on. Eventually the HR guy came to talk to me and told me there had been a miscommunication and they didn't actually need a temp today. On the plus side I finished Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell while I was sitting there. On the other plus side, I didn't actually have to do any work and I'll get paid for four hours even though I was there for only two. Gotta love those temp agency rules.

I was down in Union square and had a whole day left. So instead of doing something productive I decided to kill it at the Virgin Megastore.

Now I don't actually have any money, so going to a record store can be a kind of torture under these circumstances. And the Virgin Megastore can be a kind of torture under any situation. But there is one good thing about Virgin that is the only reason to go there. Listening stations. When you are broke but really want to hear a new album that just came out you can go see if they have it playing at Virgin. Now since they have so many of them it's not just crap like Justin Timberlake, though that kind of mindless shit is the most prevalent. I was able to stand there and listen to a couple of good albums. Not the new Robyn Hitchcock that I had my fingers crossed for, mind you. My fingers were crossed, but I wasn't counting on it because I knew there was no way they would have that one hooked up. He's only a living legend and a god among musicians. They wouldn't want to make way for him and have to bump the new Paris Hilton off the queue.

In fact, they didn't even have the new Robyn Hitchcock on their shelves at all. It's not uncommon for these big chain monster stores to have almost no Robyn Hitchcock albums, another reason I generally don't like them. But even the worst of them will at least have his most recent. Not Virgin. The only Robyn they had was Luxor (from 2003) and Spooked (2004) and that was it. Nothing from the Egyptians era of the 80s or his newest disc which came out nine goddamn days ago. You may not have to put it out for me to listen to for free in the store, but geez, how can you call yourself a music store and not sell the newest records from one of the two best singer-songwriters of their generation?

But I got to listen to the new Indigo Girls album, which sounds like their best album in about ten years. I wouldn't have thought I'd say that about an album that has Pink as a guest on a track, but there it is. I also got to listen to the Raconteurs album. Wow. Just wow.

Of course I would have preferred to be listening to these both in my Sony Discman on the way home on the subway, but alas, I had about nine dollars in my pocket and very sketchy employment of late. So standing in the middle of a corporate music store with uncomfortable headphones is my only way right now to hear some of the new stuff I want to own.

I also walked around and looked to see if they had other stuff I wanted, because I like to torture myself.

A trip to the DVD section. Yes, they have the Criterion release of Noah Baumbach's first movie, Kicking And Screaming. I've been looking forward to this for a long time. New digital transfer, deleted scenes, interviews with the cast ten years after the film, a movie geek's dream of one of my all time favorite films. And it's $30.

Wait, the used/clearance bin! They actually have some CDs there for as little as $3.99, surely I could find something. I made a rule, only a $3.99 disc. No $6.99s, even though I had just enough money in my pocket to do that, but I couldn't spend all of my cash. So I thought if I could find a super cheap CD, that would tide over my insatiable need for new music for a little while. I looked through every single disc, and despite my opportunities to buy a Silverchair (remember those Australian teenage Pearl Jam wannabes?) disc or Pat Boone's greatest hits, I took a pass.

I walked around the corner and found the box sets. Ahhh, the Billy Bragg Volume 1. Oh baby, come to Papa. Billy's first four studio albums and a live EP, all remastered for premium sound quality, each album coming with an extra CD of unreleased material from that era, with two concert DVD's included to boot, featuring his shows in Berlin, Lithuania and Nicaragua in the 80s. A total of 7 CDs and two DVDs. I stood there staring at it salivating. I even smelled it. $84.99

I have held this set in my hands at least a half a dozen times now and have never had the money to buy it. Well, sometimes I've physically had the money in my account but knew my wife would kill me if I blew money we couldn't really afford to spend at the moment. "Sorry Honey, I don't have my half of the rent, but look, I've got the new Billy Bragg box set!"

It's been out since Spring, hell Volume 2 comes out in less than a month, and I still don't have it. It is killing me.

When I was single I would've bought it and been willing to be late with the rent, or eat Ramen noodles for a month to afford it. But my sweetheart doesn't like Ramen and I don't find our couch very comfortable, so I've resisted against all my bad judgment.

I actually looked toward the front door to try to figure out how fast the security guy might be. They always hire big guys for that, not fast ones. I figured I could zip past him and make it down the street pretty easily. The only problem would be that I would have to avoid Union Square the rest of my life. But it's Billy Bragg, so it might be an OK sacrifice.

But I'm a pussy. So I wiped away a tear and put it back on the shelf.

It was a long subway ride home. But at least I had Billy Bragg's Back To Basics to console me.

Just because you're better than me
Doesn't mean I'm lazy
Just because you're going forwards
Doesn't mean I'm going backwards

Thank You Sir, May I Have Another?

There is an astounding article in Tuesday's New York Times that should be causing an a reverberation of amazing magnitude in the rest of the press and, even more importantly, the halls of Congress.

But of course it's not.

Read the article yourself, but the gist is basically this: After a inquiry by the Canadian government, the facts of the case of the Canadian man detained and sent to Syria to be tortured are now a matter of record. A Syrian born Canadian citizen named Maher Arar was, due to faulty intelligence originating with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, suspected of being an Al Qaeda terrorist. When he was traveling through the United States (JFK airport in New York) on his way home from a vacation he was picked up by the FBI. He asked to speak to the Canadian Consulate in New York and was refused, in conflict with basic international law. He was then transported on an American government plane to Jordan and then taken by ground to Syria. He spent at least ten months in a Syrian cell and was repeatedly tortured over that time, including being beaten with a shredded electrical cable.

Let me remind you that the Syrians were doing this to him at the bidding of the US government. The Syrians. The supporters of Hezbollah, a very well know terrorist organization. The same Syrians that have illegally occupied Lebanon for years.

And their torture worked. Mr. Arar confessed to training with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. One problem, it wasn't true. In fact, he has been found to not had done a single thing wrong. This is the usual result of torturing suspects, false confessions and information.

So while George W. is out there publicly shaming Syria for all the bad things they do, he turns around and uses those bad things for his own ends. And you can bet that the Syrians didn't do it for free. I imagine they are making a pretty penny from the US for providing this service, part of which then goes to help Hezbollah try to destroy Israel.

This is the same government that puts commercials on TV telling people that if they buy a joint they are "helping terrorist" (by the theory of that money goes from the dealer to the supplier to the grower who might be connected to a terrorist organization).

Oh, and the US government refused to cooperate in the inquiry, and hasn't called their own.

And this is what isn't being talked about enough in the mainstream media, especially the television news. And it's also not being talked about by our politicians. This case should be front and center of the argument about why Bush should be stopped in his attempts to "clarify" the Geneva Convention.

Whenever some Republican hack says it's just loony partisanship to call for the impeachment of the president, this should always be the first thing brought up. If the right-wing can impeach a guy for cheating on his wife why is it so out of left field to want to do it for illegally torturing another human being?

I'd like to say just a couple things to the President:

Sir, if you don't know the basic right of human dignity then you are beyond reproach. The Geneva Convention is not "vague" you evil bastard. If you don't know what "outrages upon personal dignity" means what you can't do to people, then you have absolutely no moral center.

What is being done to these people in your name and under your authority is not a game like your fraternity's ritual hazing, despite what your little pea-sized brain might think.

God I hate you.

Into The Fray - Part 2

"This is hollowed ground! This is not the place for your political agenda. The truth is you're a fuckin' ass hole! Fuck you!"

This is what a middle-aged guy in a suit started screaming at a protester holding up an effigy of Bush with an American flag tied like a noose around his neck. Written on it was something about Bush being the world's biggest terrorist and seeking the truth about 9/11, hence the "truth is you're an ass hole" line. I watched this same guy in the suit, screaming at the anti-Bush protester that this isn't the place for political agendas, look up at another guy holding a sign that said "9/11/06 - Commemorating 5 years of the Clinton legacy," and he just smiled and nodded. Typical conservative, I remember thinking to myself. It wasn't that the day was being politicized that he was pissed about, it was that it was being politicized by people he doesn't agree with. As for the "hollowed ground" we were supposedly standing on? We were standing on the sidewalk plaza of the PATH station entrance, outside the entire 16-acre area of the WTC site. I just have a hard time buying a place as hollowed ground if it's where you catch a train to Jersey. I wanted to ask him how far away one would have to before he doesn't consider it hollowed ground anymore.

Oh, and the guy holding up the Clinton bashing sign had written on the other side "When the left says 'peace' they mean 'surrender.'"

But don't accuse the conservatives of politicizing 9/11, they're just "honoring the victims."

So what was getting a lot of people's panties in a bunch was the conspiracy theorists everywhere. And they were all over the place. They were wearing black shirts that had variations of "9/11 Truth" on the front and the backs looked like this:



Most of them were affiliated with the movie Loose Change, a documentary that puts forth alternative theories about what really happened that day, and followers of this guy names Alex Jones.

Now I'm as big a conspiracy theorist as the next guy. But I'm more of a "Oswald couldn't have acted alone" and "What was the involvement of the CIA in the El Salvadoran death squads?" kind of conspiracy theorists, not a "the moon landing was staged and the earth is flat" kind of one.

Unfortunately, a big number of the people at the event this last Monday were the second kind. I'm not saying they don't have a point to a certain extent. I do believe that there should be a much more independent investigation in to the attacks, rather than one run by old government cronies with an interest in the results and friends to protect. I also believe that there is a lot that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice and others knew and know that they are not telling us. Well, I believe that everything that comes out of that group's mouths is a lie. So I'm with them there.

But some of the things that they are purporting are a little far-fetched, and really, unnecessary to support the idea that our government had something to do with 9/11. There's a great article at Salon about this.

And the thing about conspiracies is that they require a small group to be involved, not a large one, or the secret part of a conspiracy in unsustainable. If you buy into a lot of the claims made by these guys, hundreds, if not thousands, of people would need to be in on it.

Now the Loose Change guys aren't part of the groups that believe UFOs destroyed the World Trade Center or that no planes hit them (there is actually a theory that they were holograms, seen by everyone in the area from every possible angle). But they do believe these basic things, as just a small example:

The planes that hit the WTC were remote controlled drones with no people inside.
No plane crashed in Pennsylvania.
No plane hit the Pentagon.
Flight 93, the one that crashed in Pennsylvania, actually landed in Cleveland that morning, with all of the passengers and crew from the other flights on board. This is my favorite one, because it just doesn't make sense in any way. As the Salon article asks, "...why would the government spare the lives of the people on those planes only to kill thousands more" at the World Trade Center?

Anyway, I'll leave it to others (this one is great, run by a guy who thinks there is a government involvement himself, just not done the way the Loose Change guys think) to debunk the conspiracy theories. I'm here to describe the action from the day.

Like I said at the end of the first part of this, the conspiracy theorists were a major presence. There were definitely several hundred of them and they were armed with copies of the film on DVD to give away for free to anybody who would take them. The interesting thing that happened was the spontaneous debates that broke out in the crowd. Someone would challenge one of the black shirt posse and there would be an exchange of ideas (sometimes heated and contentious, other times just someone wanting to know what makes the person believe 9/11 was an "inside job") which would attract a crowd gathering around to hear. Like this:



And this (guy making some sort of point like "why didn't that building fall if the one next to it..."):



It would get heated when people accused the conspiracy people of being "un-American" or "insulting the families" of the victims or claiming that they were "supporting the terrorists." It was always, as I saw it, the challengers that got all wound up, and for no reason. Especially this guy, with the Yankee hat:



He would follow the arguments around and get in the face of the people supporting the conspiracy theories. Unfortunately for him he didn't really have good counter-arguments. The 911 Truth crowd, while believing some really whacked out claims, were really articulate about why they believed what they believed. Some of these things were based on what people would call "junk science" but they made their side of the argument well. The angry guy with the Yankee cap (and really if you are a Yankee fan, why are you a chronically angry person?) usually only had the argument that "I was here," which really seems to be well beside the point. The guy claimed that he helped in the recovery after the attack, and that he saw body parts with his own eyes. How this made him "know that Osama did it" I never really quite got from him. He would also off to the side be saying things like, "I'll bet none of these black shirt people even got jobs" and "get these guys to a fuckin' employment office."

Super-duper arguments, Angry Guy!

And that was all he had. Really, nobody was able to counter them with anything smarter than, "if you don't like this country fuckin' leave." Ahh, nothing like a return to the good old Cold War standard of "love it or leave it" and "move to Russia."

I just watched this whole time, never really getting involved in the arguments. I did have a nice little conversation with a fireman about Wilco because he saw my shirt. Found another fan in the crowd. But I couldn't believe how little the people arguing against the conspiracy theorists could make a good point. When one would say that there's no way the fires could burn as hot as they claimed the one in the WTC did because kerosene doesn't burn that hot, no one could bring up that jet planes don't run on kerosene, but on jet fuel (hence the name).

It could have something to do with the fact that most of the people trying to argue with them were brain dead zealot Bushie types with American flags all over their clothing along with phrases like "let's roll" in silk screen. Or the woman holding the sign that said something along the lines of "People united + Support for troops = defeat of axis of evil."

The only thing in this country dumber than George W. Bush is one of his sheep using his terminology. What sucks about these people is that they say "united" but what they mean is that I should believe in their ideology or shut the hell up.

And another thing, I didn't get a picture of them (I guess I just couldn't stomach it) but the flag wearing government/Bush supporters are really crappy sign makers. Everyone who had a sign of some sort that bashed on Clinton/Democrats/liberals or used some sort of Bushism in it was holding the most pathetic piece of poster board that was scrawled on with black magic marker. Crooked and uneven. At least the paranoid people know how to go to Kinkos and get a slick banner made. I mean come on people, your hero spent good money getting his "Mission Accomplished" sign made.

Of all the wacky things I heard that day, from holograms faking the plane crash to Bush being a Trotsky-ite (seriously, some of the paranoids, calling themselves "real" conservatives, think Bush is a Commie. I wish), I didn't hear anything that made me laugh/wretch more than these two comments:

"Our government wouldn't purposely hurt its own citizens." This guy needed to go to a history class that talked about the Tuskegee experiments the Bonus Army or the Japanese American prison camps, among other things.

"Nobody benefited from 9/11." Apparently this guy never heard of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Rice, or Wolfowitz.

The black shirt crowd might be paranoid, but at least they don't blindly trust our government no matter what. Thomas Jefferson would be so disappointed.

There was also the admonition that this is the wrong day to do this and that "you can do this the other 364 days of the year. So I guess there is no-1st Amendment holiday of which I was not aware. And I wondered how it could possibly have been so easy for Dubya to convince people that the Patriot Act was a good thing. And the whole idea that they had a problem with politics being injected into the day was a weak argument at best. Bush has been propping up his presidency with the dead from that day five years ago (and would do so even more later that night to celebrate the anniversary), and Giuliani was down in the pit of Ground Zero running for president at that very moment.

Eventually the conspiracy crowd gathered for the rally to listen to Alex Jones talk, among other people, but mostly him.





And he screamed a lot through his megaphone and some of the flag waving crowd around me made statements that went along the lines of blowing him off as a misguided academic or a liberal nut. And this is where I get bothered. Alex Jones is a loud-mouth radio host, not an academic at all. He is also a religious nut who has a lot more in common with the Michigan Militia types and Pat Buchanan than he does with Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn. Don't put him on us liberals, he's not our fault.

There was also this guy:





He was your basic ranting bible-thumping loon who didn't really make any sense. He kept saying that all the "stupid, stupid people" would be going to Hell. It made me make the joke to the guy next to me, "Wow, all of Alabama is going to Hell?" He laughed.

All in all it was a trippy day. It almost made me proud to be American. Lots of ideas, albeit a lot of crazy ones, debated in a free-exchange of ideas in a public forum, and no punches thrown. Sometimes it looked like someone might take a swing, but as far as I saw it never did.

But that mild pride is easily dashed by seeing shit like this:



Apparently Captain America was hanging around somewhere but I never spotted him.

Let's See, The Answer To That Is.....Wait, What Was The Question

OK, so I know I ended yesterday's post saying that today's would be about the conspiracy theorists at yesterday's memorial/vigil/protest/gathering of weirdoes. But I haven't found myself in the mood today to do that yet. I still haven't quite digested it all and am still letting the whole experience and feelings all sink in and.....oh, OK, that's plain old bullshit. I'm just lazy. I know it will be a long post and I just don't have it in me right now. Sometimes I'm a real lazy ass. As lazy as Reagan's imaginary black welfare mother with the Cadillac.

So bear with me, I know all three of you are waiting with baited breath for more of my long-winded observations of Monday's happenings. I'll try to get to it tonight or tomorrow. But like I said, I'm feeling pretty slothy right now.

A quick story from today though. I went down to pick up my paycheck from the temp agency I've been working for. While waiting for the sole elevator in the very old building they are in I started chatting with the other guy standing there.

Another sign that I'm not living in Boston anymore. You know, people actually talking to each other and being friendly.

Anyway, turns out this guy works at the agency I use, but I had not met him before. We were chatting about what places I've been working and other things (this elevator is incredibly slow), and at some point he asked me where I was from.

And this is always the tough question in my experience. Asking me where I'm from is to invite me to recite the "Friends, Romans, countrymen..." speech from Julius Caesar, it's so damned complicated. I never have a easy quick answer to that question if I want to be honest.

I have, like a lot of people in my generation, lived in quite a few places. Counting my place of birth (where I only lived until I was six) I have lived in the states of Iowa, Georgia, Illinois, Washington, Massachusetts, and now New York.

So what do I say? I grew up in Georgia, but when I use that as my answer I always then have to go in to an explanation of why I don't have a southern accent (Midwest parents, didn't move there until I was six, explain that I used to, etc.), which just adds to the confusion. I used to say Seattle a lot, but I didn't move there until I was 23. It's probably the best answer since it is the first place I lived as a post-college adult and, let's face it, it is really cool to be able to tell people you lived in Seattle in the 90s when you were a twentysomething. How very Gen-X of me. But the whole "from" Seattle thing always falls apart when it turns out that the person you are talking to is from there and they ask you where you went to high school. Or it comes out during the conversation that I moved there in my twenties, and the person will say "No, I mean where are you 'from' from?"

This is what happens when your parents move you to a different school for your senior year. You end up graduating from a different school then where you went the rest of your childhood. I can't tell people I'm from suburban Chicago, because I lived there for only two years (senior year and the year after when I couldn't go to college for reasons I don't like to talk about, so thanks for bringing up bad memories you ass hole). And I really can't say I'm from Chicago proper because I didn't live there until after Seattle and for less time.

I know what you might be thinking. When in a new city the answer to that question is easily accomplished by just telling people the name of the last place you lived.

But I would rather jam an ice pick in my eye than tell people I'm from Boston.

And if I say I'm from "nowhere" or "everywhere" people will just think I'm weird.

Am I over-thinking this?

------------------------------------------------

Quote of the day, from Sarah Vowell's The Partly Cloudy Patriot:

A person keen on all things French is called a Francophile. One who has a thing for England is called an Anglophile. An admirer of Germany in the 1930s and '40s is called Pat Buchanan .

That's the line that got me strange looks when I burst out laughing on the subway today.

Into The Fray - Part 1

I wasn't planning on going. I woke up yesterday and was having my coffee when I turned on the TV. The World Trade Center memorial was already underway and they were reading the names of the dead aloud. I decided to check out the cnn.com video from September 11, 2001 to see what it was like to watch it from the perspective of five years later. But more on that later.

I decided to go down there.

Now just about everyone who knows me knows that I'm not patriotic. I make no apologies for it, nor do I see it as a personality flaw or a bad thing. Patriotism leads to nationalism which leads to jingoism. Which leads to needless violence in the name of something that is just a bunch of imaginary lines on a map. I'm a Humanist, because I think that is so much better for the world than patriotism. And there are no pledges or bad theme songs that you're forced to stand up for at baseball games.

So god and country were certainly not my reasons for heading down there. But I was drawn for some reason. I figured I might find some inspiration for something to write about. Because, you know, there is such a shortage of articles, blogs and commentaries being written about the anniversary of the attacks that someone needs to fill the void. So I grabbed the camera and headed to the subway.

Being a New Yorker now for less than two months this obviously isn't "my" anniversary. I was in Chicago at the time. Hell, I woke up that morning after the towers were already gone and only found out something was going on when I headed out to the White Hen Pantry for coffee and saw bumper to bumper mid-morning traffic because they were evacuating the Loop. None of my friends in New York were killed or hurt. So the events of 9/11/01 don't really belong to me in that way. And I hate people that act like it's "theirs" when it's not. Mostly it's the flag waving, Bush supporting conservative types. Shit, there are so many of these people who act like it happened to them and they don't even know anyone in New York. So I was going to just look around and soak in the experience, and try not to get too annoyed by these people. And hopefully get some pictures of people I could make fun of in my blog.

Truth be told, I was hoping to see this god-awful truck that I've heard about, painted with the twin towers and the Statue of Liberty, a cop hugging kids, the names of people, lots of American flags and the words "Have you forgotten..." (sans question mark for some reason). Oh my god, yes! I've totally forgotten about that day because there is just no one in the media or the current administration who ever brings it up.

Guys like that are exactly what I'm talking about. So I was hoping to get a look at that dumb hick, as I read somewhere that he was driving to New York to be here for the anniversary. Alas, I didn't see him anywhere. Probably because he couldn't find New York, it being above the Mason-Dixon and all.

But there was another truck:




My buddy Joe wrote about it a couple of anniversaries ago, but seeing it for yourself is a sight. It looks like a monster truck got crapped on by both an American flag and a Thomas Kinkade painting. And there lots of people getting their picture taken with it, along with a few of us that were taking pictures of it out of irony and to make fun of it on the internet.

This is just another one of those people trying to make this event theirs, even though it really didn't effect them at all. And he wants everyone to know who he is. He actually has his name on both doors of the truck. It actually says "Owner:" and his name. My favorite part is that along the bottom of the truck it says "America, like Ford...Built Tough." Man, this guy loves America so much he compares it to his beloved fossil fuel burning redneckmobile. America combined with advertising slogans. Who wouldn't get choked up by that?

What I find really annoying about these people is how they act like they have some sort of love for New York. The fact of the matter is that guys like Mr. Ford Tough, before 2001, hated New York and probably had never been here before the World Trade Center became Ground Zero and the excuse for Bush to strip us of our civil liberties. They hate everything New York stands for, from immigration to liberal politics to cultural diversity to gay people to multilingual neighborhoods. To them, New York has always represented the worst things about America. But now it is their prop to use as their excuse for their militant nationalism and "with us or against us" nonsense. If it had been a Timothy McVeigh instead of brown people that attacked New York no way would they be rallying around the city like this.

It's a disgrace and a shame for New Yorkers to have to put up with that and the hypocrisy of Republicans' choice to use the city as the backdrop to their convention. A city that some of them used to compare to Sodom and Gomorrah.

When I got down there the memorial part of the event (with the families down in the actual pit, closed to everyone else) was close to ending and I walked around the area, doing a full circle around the entire site and ending back at the PATH station plaza with a photo exhibit and that stupid truck parked close by.

There was also a row of tables set up being run by what appeared to be two groups, NYPD Officers for Jesus and Firefighters for Jesus, handing out pamphlets. That's where I saw this guy:



I just found this shirt funny. I really wanted to walk up to him and tell him that if he really was committed to that statement he would be dousing himself with gasoline and lighting a match. I just couldn't help but laugh out loud and take the picture.

I wish these people would figure out that religious fanaticism is the cause of, not the solution to, world conflict. It should be fucking obvious, but, true to religious fanatic thinking, it's always the other religions' fanatics that cause the problems, not theirs.

The other major presence there yesterday, and I mean major, was the 9/11 conspiracy theorists.



And this guy.



More on them tomorrow.

A Perfect Example Of Sportsmanlike Conduct

When I was younger I played league baseball for a total of one season. I was really bad at it. I got put in right field, where they always put the shitty players, and I didn't get a base hit all season. I just never really had the fundamentals taught to me very well. So what was my coach's reaction to this? Was it to give me good instruction, also known as coaching, on keeping my eye on the ball, a good stance, how to hold the ball, the mechanics of my swing?

No, it was to berate me in front of my teammates. In practice one day when I came up to take my swings the coach suddenly screamed out, "Everybody can sit down, Mayer's up to bat!" What is it with jock-strap coach types always using last names? Is it supposed to give them some sort of feeling of power?

Anyway, he wasn't joking. The big fat ass, ex-minor leaguer who never made "the show," with a big "chaw" in his cheek actually made the entire team sit down before he would let the pitcher throw to me. He said nobody should bother trying to field since I wasn't going to hit it anyway. So I stood in the batter's box, looking out at an entire field of my teammates sitting on the infield dirt and outfield grass as I tried to hit a ball that everyone was just told I had no chance to hit.

I was eight years old.

Why do I bring this up? I always think of it whenever there is a crazy coach or sports parent in the news. I'm sure most of you have seen the youth football coach in the news who clocked some kid on the opposing team. A thirteen year old kid. A blindsided full-on body slam. The kid's crime? A late hit on the Mr. Testosterone's son. Thankfully, and surprisingly to me, the ass hole was arrested. They say he faces up to a few years in jail, but I don't buy that as a possibility at all. What will happen is he'll be given probation and community service and barred from coaching any youth sports ever again. In other words a slap on the wrist for a 36 year old man who attacked a child. That's the way it works in America. Get caught smoking a joint and they'll throw the book at you, get caught on tape attacking a kid and you get a firm "tsk, tsk." Oh people are outraged right now, to be sure. But this will blow over and the guy won't get any real form of punishment once he finally gets his day in court.

There are those that are already trying to paint his as an aberration. Well it's not. This is just one visible symptom of the cancer that is youth sports. Kids who play in these sports leagues grow up to jackasses who think it's OK to beat up children and solve your problems with violence. Or even worse, they become John Rocker. And don't even get me started on the pathetic parents who are living their failed dreams and ambitions through their kids. That guy who ran out to tackle the kid is a prime example of one of them. My old little league coach was an even bigger one.

And what do I think should be done to him? Ten years in Attica ought to send a message to these other failed jock fathers that this shit won't be tolerated. If you think that's a harsh sentence, let me remind you he violently attacked a child. Act like a violent criminal and you get treated like one.

And he can share his cell with Coach Scarborough from the Central Dekalb (GA) Sally League Cardinals. Ass hole.

Courage In The Line Of Water

One of the great joys of having moved to New York is how much there is to do in the summer, including free stuff. Which, after all the moving expenses, is especially nice to have right now.

And probably the creme de la creme, the Cadillac, the Paris, the prom queen of free New York entertainment is the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park. An institution in New York, started by Joseph Papp 50 years ago, I've always wanted to see a production at Shakespeare in the Park. Well now that I live here I was going to finally get my chance.

We moved here right after Macbeth (starring the amazing Liev Schreiber) had finished its run, but the other show this season was Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children with a new translation by Tony Kushner, and starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline and Austin Pendleton. So we jumped at that.

My buddy Joe and I went last Friday to wait in line for tickets for us and our wives. See, this is how it works: they give out tickets at 1:00pm on the day of the show, two tickets per person, first come-first serve. People start lining up outside the Delecorte Theater in Central Park at an ungodly hour of the morning. We got there about 7:45am and the line was really long already. So we sat on the ground, with the woman next to us nice enough to share her blanket, and began our 5+ hour wait for tickets.

After a while, of course, it started raining. Not heavy, at least at first. It rained about three times during our time in line and I forgot my umbrella. At one point it came down kind of heavy. And sitting on the ground is something you couldn't do at that point so the rest of the time in line was standing. And rain makes it impossible to read or play cards. But hey, we were getting free tickets to see Meryl Streep on stage, so no biggie.

You can probably see where this is going. We didn't get tickets.

We came seven people short of getting them. Seven. Over five hours of waiting in the rain and nothing to show for it.

Well, not nothing. It was five hours of hanging out with one of my best friends and favorite people having great conversations. Conversations that included my glowing defense of my view that people who like Larry the Cable Guy, the Marmaduke comic, and Thomas Kinkade paintings are not just people who have different tastes than me, but rather brain-dead zombies who are a waste of the earth's precious oxygen. I think I won that little debate.

We blew off some energy after the annoyance of not getting tickets by playing some frisbee. Funny how the rain cleared after we didn't have to sit outside anymore.

It looked like we wouldn't be seeing the show at all, but thanks to a change in my schedule we got to try again on Tuesday. We got there at 6:30 this time and were a lot farther up in line. In fact, this time we over compensated and could have shown up several hours later and still would have been fine. This time we were prepare with blankets, trash bags to wrap them in, and umbrellas. And boy did it rain that morning. Harder and longer than the first time. So even with the extra precautions we got pretty damn wet. Six and a half hours this time. But dammit, we got the tickets.

The show was still in danger of getting canceled because the forecast did not look good for Tuesday night. But we went. And it rained. Most of the night. But it was light enough for the show to go on, so we sat and watched in the rain.

It sounds bad I know, but it was actually the opposite. Man, what a show. Watching Meryl Streep just electrify the stage all night long made the dampness completely irrelevant. Words can't begin to describe watching Streep inhabit the character of Mother Courage. And Austin Pendleton is nothing short of a comic genius. A brilliant show filled with top-notch performances.

Something Joe said to me during intermission was right on. We were talking about how lucky we were to be able to see her on stage, and he made a great analogy. Yeas from now when we tell people (be it grandchildren or some other young people we annoy with our old man stories) we saw Meryl Streep it will be a lot like those old guys who can say they got to see DiMaggio play. And really it's true. I really got the chance to see the greatest actor of the last century, perform one of the great roles right in front of my own eyes. Not on video, but right there. And for free to boot. It just cost 12 hours of waiting in line in the rain. I would have sat through a hail storm and a plague of locusts and it still would have been a good deal.

I am so glad we live here.

Oh, and something I found out after I got home. The light rain didn't keep Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Austin Pendleton and the rest of the great cast of artists from spilling their souls and guts on stage. But a few miles away the same rainfall was too much for the Yankees to play a children's game. So Meryl Streep spent about three full hours acting her ass of in the rain, which sometimes included flopping around in mud, but Jeter, A-Rod and the rest of the baseball jocks on the Yankees wouldn't even play a little game that involves them sitting in a covered dugout half the time anyway.

Fucking pussies.