July 28, 2009
PALIN AS POETRY AS PER SHATNER
so NBC pulled the Shatner video off of youtube so it could sell a 30-second fragrance ad in front of it. ever notice how the ad runs flawlessly but that the video itself often gets stalled? this forces one to try again and have to sit through the same ad all over again. funny thing is, the machines that tabulate ad views don't account for this. and NBC is happy enough to get the extra number. so I encourage you, if you haven't seen this already, to at least mute the sound on the ad before you view the Shatner clip on the NBC site. if you must. I'm not in the business of forcing this site's visitors to watch ads, so I won't re-post the NBC link.
as funny as the Shatner reading is, I think it also reveals the true technique of Palin. Her mention of obviously indigenous wildlife and flora is clearly a direct message to the locals, using verbiage that we non-Alaskans will not recognize. so, we big city folk, we elite east coasters or whatever, we don't "get" the colloquialisms and so what do we do? we mock it. well I suppose that's true. but what the ex-governor fails to grasp, what so many outside of our particular indigenous area fails to grasp, is that we mock everybody! (even each other. not just inarticulate northerly demagogues.)
CAN YOU HEAR ME MAJOR THOM?
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July 23, 2009
THE EAGLE HAS LANDED
one-piece swamp ash body, with dual humbucker rout, two controls & switch. super simple, tone-tastic! delivery tomorrow...
production diary will be pictorially posted and profiled presently here on pclef...
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July 21, 2009
SMELLS LIKE RICKROLL
cleverest mash-up I've seen in a while...
(and yeah I do find it slightly disturbing)
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FILE UNDER: LOWEST FORM OF HUMAN
apparently this man has been identified and confirmed, by one of the eyewitnesses who tried to resuscitate her, as the murderer of Neda Soltani, the innocent bystander who was killed in the streets of Tehran on June 20.
what can you say about a person who would shoot an unarmed 16-year old girl in cold blood?
just this: for the rest of his miserable life, he will have a target on his back. cowards cannot handle scrutiny.
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July 20, 2009
JESUS H. CHRIST IN A CHICKEN BASKET
I was five years old when I saw the real thing. not even as old as my daughter is now. grandparents' house, dodgy reception with tin foil on the antennae. I fell on my ass, cried, the reception came back on, in focus, everyone cheered, and neil armstrong touched down. truly one of the most memorable moments of my childhood.
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July 17, 2009
HAPPY FRIDAY
THEY ARE DEAD NOW
A EULOGY FOR SACCO AND VANZETTI in the NEW MASSES, October 1927
This isn’t a poem
This is two men in grey prison clothes.
One man sits looking at the sick flesh of his hands—hands that haven’t worked for seven years
Do you know how long a year is?
Do you know how many hours there are in a day
when a day is twenty-three hours on a cot in a cell,
in a cell in a row of cells in a tier of rows of cells
all empty with the choked emptiness of dreams?
Do you know the dreams of men in jail?
They are dead now
The black automatons have won.
They are burned up utterly
their flesh has passed into the air of Massachusetts their dreams have passed into the wind.
“They are dead now,” the Governor’s secretary nudges the Governor,
“They are dead now,” the Superior Court Judge nudges
the Supreme Court Judge,
“They are dead now,” the College President nudges
the College President
A dry chuckling comes up from all the dead:
The white collar dead; the silkhatted dead;
the frockcoated dead
They hop in and out of automobiles
breathe deep in relief
as they walk up and down the Boston streets.
they are free of dreams now
free of greasy prison denim
their voices blow back in a thousand lingoes
singing one song
to burst the eardrums of Massachusetts
Make a poem of that if you dare!
-- John Dos Passos
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July 14, 2009
BURMA
...imprisoned Prime Minister-elect Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma...
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July 10, 2009
DURING 9,000+ HOURS OF MICHAEL JACKSON COVERAGE, NOBODY CALLED HIM A HERO
...missing from this photo are the immense balls...
You’re a 19-year-old kid. You’re critically wounded and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley , 11-14-1965, LZ X-ray, Viet Nam . Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8–1 and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own infantry commander has ordered the Medi-Vac helicopters to stop coming in. You’re lying there listening to the enemy machine guns and you know you’re not getting out. Your family is half way around the world—12,000 miles away—and you’ll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.
Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear that sound of helicopter and you look up to see an un-armed Huey. But it doesn't seem real because no Medi-Vac markings are on it.
Ed Freeman is coming for you. He’s not Medi-Vac, so it’s not his job, but he’s flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come. He’s coming anyway.
He drops it in and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 2 or 3 of you on board. Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire to the doctors and nurses.
And, he keeps coming back -- 13 more times -- and takes about 30 of you and your buddies out. None of whom would never have gotten out otherwise.
Medal of Honor Recipient, Ed Freeman, died Wednesday, March 25th, 2009, at the age of 80, in Boise, ID.
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July 07, 2009
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs. Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers eyes. Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, a choking gall and a preserving sweet.
William Shakespeare
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July 01, 2009
AMERICA
given a slightly different parcel of luck and circumstance, this might very well have served as our national anthem, the lovely and haunting "shenandoah" -- a song about a river. a song sung by those who came across an ocean, the longing thereof a shared longing, a defining aspect of multiple orphaned peoples. a song about death. a song about being born. and in this particular presentation, it is used as a vehicle for improvisation, another great American practice (though by no means uniquely--it arrived simultaneously via the slave ships as well as from the European salons, colliding in New Orleans and in the Mississippi Delta), here performed by the great Bill Frisell. and in another twist of Americana, he is performing it not on a jazz guitar (he is one of the world's most accomplished "jazz" musicians) but on a solidbody electric guitar, the fender telecaster, another of this country's great gifts to the world. our folk music, our invention of jazz, our improvised invention of a republic in a turbulent, dangerous world: all worth celebrating as this country perseveres into a future fraught with questions and worries. and so too let's keep in mind our brothers and sisters in Iran, with their own folk musics and their own unique gifts--all those who seek the blessings of freedom and self-actuality, and who will put their own lives on the line, deserve a place in the celebration of this great day. July 4th was a great day because some of us stood up and said "enough," and it is heartening to see that the spirit of 1776 is still alive, even beyond our own shores.
"...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
--Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1776
Happy Independence Day. Be beautiful.
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