Paul Is Dead

I just found out that Paul Hester is dead, and that's enough to get me out of my sickbed to post.

Hester is most famous, in the States at least, as the drummer of Crowded House, one of my all-time favorite bands. I saw them live a few times and caught one of Hester's last shows before he quit the band. The news that he quit came as little surprise to me; at the end of the gig I saw, after the band came back onstage for the then-obligatory "acoustic" encore, Hester decided instead to join the audience. Emerging from backstage in a white terrycloth robe and a white towel wrapped around his head, he climbed down off the stage and watched the encore from the audience. To me, at least, that spoke volumes, not only about what a nice guy Hester was, but how some days you just aren't up to being a rock star.

One of my favorite Crowded House tracks is "Fall at Your Feet" (from the sublime Woodface), and what makes it such a great track is that the drums, though played live, never change. At all. No tom fills, no shuffles, no hi-hat chiffs, no crash cymbal. All of the tension of the song is carried through the vocal and Nick Seymour's bass guitar. And it's perfect.

For what it's worth, I'd never take my own life and leave two children without their father; in fact, I'm pretty sure my reanimated corpse would claw its way out of the grave to make sure my children were safe and cared for.

Apologies

A big apology to my legions of fans for the lack of posts lately. I've been home sick for a full week now with an infection that's taking the deluxe seven-day cruise around my system: throat, inner ear, frontal sinuses, chest, lungs, etc.

All you'll get of me now is paranoid ramblings brought on by heavy antibiotics ... so instead, treat yourself to The Mixerman Chronicles. If you're even slightly interested in learning how record companies go about burning huge piles of money, Mixerman should keep you busy for a week or so.

Cheap Glamour Shot

I am so way more glam than Joel.

Cool It, Geek

Before anyone gets too excited about the upcoming Star Wars installment, let me review, for those who've blocked it out in therapy, the script of the first of the "prequels," Episode 1: The Podrace Menace.

Act 1:
Anakin: I'm Anakin. I'm building a podracer. I race pods in podraces.

Act 2:
Anakin: Once I finish building this podracer, I'm gonna win the podrace.
Watto: Shut up, you! You and your podraces.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the galaxy...
Jar Jar Binks: Meso lost! Oh meso lost! Meso horny!

Act 3:
Queen Amidala: What's this, Anni?
Anakin: It's a podracer. I'm gonna race it in the podraces tomorrow.
Queen Amidala: Did you build it?
Anakin: Yes. I build podracers. I'm gonna race the podracer I built in the podrace.
Queen Amidala: Well, good luck with that.

Act 4: (several hours later)
Boring-ass podrace.

Act 5:
Amadala and guards climb up palace wall via grappling hooks, Batman TV show-style. Sammy Davis Jr. does not pop out of a window to make conversation, which in retrospect is too bad.

Shame on You, Mr. Jobs

So my buddy writes to let me know it's only/already been 10 years since he picked up a shiny new Apple Performa, fired up the modem, and signed up with Apple's doomed online community, "eWorld." (Yes, it was "e" before "i" at Apple Computer.)

Which gave me a great idea for a documentary. I dress up in a ballcap and flasher's overcoat and have a cameraman follow me around the abandoned ruins of eWorld, trying to secure an interview with Steve Jobs, who pulled up stakes and left the whole cybercommunity to die in the name of profit.

Actually that's a stupid idea. Just give me the Oscar now and we'll split whatever the film would have cost.

Know Your Smites

Does anyone have any suggestions out there how to look more like a Christian but not necessarily like Pat Boone? From what I've been reading lately, it seems that non-Christians face a horrible, gruesome death just showing their faces outside in Bush's second term.

First was this gem from a movie review: Early in 2005, trends are pointing to a year in which ... the constant threat of lynching or crucifixion has caused you to lose your mind.

Amelia Sabadini, writing for the esteemed Massachusetts Daily Collegian, apparently doesn't want the next rash of American stonings on her conscience, so she too sends out a dire warning:

Is doing something like forcing a 42-year-old waitress who just accidentally got pregnant and already has two teenage kids, no husband, no health care and osteo-arthritis to carry to term worth sacrificing the safety and freedom of yourself and everyone you know? Do you really have such a need to stop two consenting adults from getting married just because you don't consider their relationship to be legitimate, proper or anything other than something you watch on cable after dark, that you're willing to risk a biblical execution (stoning, burning or hanging) over it?

I did submit a comment to the paper, but it apparently hasn't been approved by the censor...I mean, moderator: "You forgot crucifixion. It's stoning, burning, hanging, and crucifixion. Know your smites."

If anyone is going to take you seriously (or hire you), you'd better follow that memo that's likely in a pile next to the Collegian's fax machine: First, don't forget the threat of crucifixion; it's symbolic, you know. Second, I don't know what they're teaching in Journalism/Activism class these days, but the fictional waitress should have been raped, not "accidentally got pregnant." Amelia, let professional writer George Gurley take you to school: you could have said, "an 11-year-old impregnated by her blind, retarded serial-killer father with AIDS." Waitress was a nice touch, but osteo-arthritis?

What's funny is this: "Wait, there's more. You can also face the death penalty for pre-marital sex if you're a woman, heresy, blasphemy (yes that means saying "God damn") and apostasy... They sound pretty scary don't they? No way people with such extreme views could ever get into power right? Wrong.

Of course she's referring to the many "Christian Reconstructionists" who are in bed with President Bush, not to Muslim honor killers, who I believe fall under the "anti-choice, homophobic" umbrella and whose executions actually take place in Germany and other places that actually exist. But with Bush in power, the next Biblical execuation is just around the corner. Me, I'm gonna start selling Pat Boone sweaters and execution stones in my Cafe Press shop and clean up.

Justice Kennedy (Skit)

The scene: The back of a 1984 white Chevy van parked near Stanton Park.

"As I said, when a juvenile offender commits a heinous crime, the state can exact forfeiture of some of the most basic liberties, but the state cannot extinguish his life and his potential to attain a mature understanding of his own humanity."

Bong SFX

"Dude ... so like, you can't execute somebody 'cause, like, they're not old enough to know what they did?"

Bong SFX

"No, no. My ruling clearly states that the offender has a Constitutional right to attain a mature understanding of his own humanity, or at a minimum must be afforded the opportunity to pursue that self-enlightenment."

Bong SFX

"Whoa ... how does he do that? Do you, like, have classes in prison or what?"

"No. I understand, though, that many prison facilities provide a good selection of basic cable channels."

Bong SFX

"So, like, if you're 18, do you just kinda get it? Your humanity, I mean? Like, I don't understand half of what you're saying right now."

"Just pass the bong, son."

I Like To Bite The Head Off First

Here's hoping they have fetus-shaped chocolates.

Creeping Fascism Watch

In line at Starbucks, behind a blonde girl, petite, 20-ish. She's telling the cashier how she's been put on probation by her supervisor -- for wearing pink socks. Regulations call for white socks, and she came to work in pink socks. "Fascists," she says.

So, just what faceless, monolithic corporation is trying to crush this young free spirit into mindless conformity?

AmeriCorps!

Goddamn fascist community service Nazis.