Cards for cheaters - not cheating at cards...

Love notes for that 'other' special someone:
"When the cards are in stores, they will be discreetly labeled with words like 'Love Expressions' or 'Intimacy,' so it won't be obvious what the cards are for, she said.

'There won't be a big banner that says 'infidelity,'' she said."

nothing says something like a greeting card,

"Sleeping with her, but thinking of you..."

or

"Thanks for not being a nagging bitch like my wife",

or perhaps,

"I tell him size doesn't matter,
but you fill me up..."

Warrenellis.com � America Has Finally Got To Us

Warrenellis.com � America Has Finally Got To Us:

"“I am thinking, well, America has finally got to us,” said one old woman, as she sat on the ground outside her house. "

Now, we're responsible for some heinous, ridiculous shit worldwide...
but I'm pretty sure we didn't steal a lake...
I would blame the people living inside the hollow earth...
but that's me...

By the Bayou: Our Plot to Subvert the Family

A fellow Houstonian that I don't know, but read regularly addresses the gay parenting "issue".

By the Bayou: Our Plot to Subvert the Family:
"I watch my sister and brother-in-law in action, and observe the endless energy of my nephew, and I think: I could not do this. If I had kids, that would be the end of my free time to go to the meetings where we figure out how to make heterosexual marriage illegal and seduce the daughters of the middle class into lives of lesbianism and prostitution. "

The Nation | Essay | On Sartre's God Problem | Norman Mailer

The Nation | Essay | On Sartre's God Problem | Norman Mailer:

"Sartre, however, was comfortable as an atheist even if he had no fundament on which to plant his philosophical feet. To hell with that, he didn't need it. He was ready to survive in mid-air. We are French, he was ready to say. We have minds, we can live with the absurd and ask for no reward. That is because we are noble enough to live with emptiness, and strong enough to choose a course which we are even ready to die for. And we will do this in whole defiance of the fact that, indeed, we have no footing. We do not look to a Hereafter. "

and I'm gonna have to stand with Sartre...
on thin air.

although, the God Mailer posits here is much more interesting and useful than most...
after I think about this and digest it I may post more on it...
but I might not...
either way it's a good read and something to think about.

my inner barfly

so, after the show last night I get in my car with every intention of going straight home.
I get to Elgin, and I turn left instead of right.
I figure one quick drink will do me good.
Chill me out. Allow me to sleep, etc.
So I head to Poison Girl.
I get there and I know 1 guy at the bar, and the bartender.
There were some people on the patio I know I had met,
and I had no idea who they were in my post-show raddled brain...
so I sat and had my drink,
then got in the car to head home...
I got to waugh and turned left
and decided I'd stop at rudz for one more,
and maybe run into somebody who stopped by after Troy's show.
No IBP'ers - I knew one guy at the bar, and the bartenders.
Had my one drink, invited the Brad and Myra to come see the show Monday
and then finally got in the car and actually went HOME.
Made it home by 11:45 or so, not too bad all things considered...

Tonight after the show it's Rudz to see Linus! WHOOHOO!
They bring the rock!

Speaking of, next time yr in Poison Girl, put a dollar in the jukebox,
make the bartender turn their tunes off, and play "Thorn" of the new LP4 Cd...
why? cause it rocks, and I wrote it...and it features guitar solos from John Cramer...and then you can play "Switzer" cause it's named after me and about getting high with Charlie and listening to The Mike Gunn.
PG is the only bar I know of where I can go hear a song I wrote and a song named after me...
don't you wish you were that special?

oh yeah,
and come see Needful Creatures DAMMIT!

The Onion | Yes, Sweetie, Mommy's Heard Of Gil Scott-Heron

Picked this up somewhere...Probably Tbogg:
The Onion | Yes, Sweetie, Mommy's Heard Of Gil Scott-Heron
I know everyone is reading the onion already,
but this is so funny and right on it brought tears of joy to my eyes...

Paul Anka Promo-Playa

While Chet over at the heathen apologizes,
I just have to wonder if SoundEx will special order it for me...
You can hear THE WHOLE THING at the link below:
Paul Anka Promo-Playa � 2005 Verve Music Group � 2005 Powered by ie marketing llc

C'mon...
he does "Love Cats"
you know you want it...

NEWSARAMA - KELSEY GRAMMER IS X3's BEAST

NEWSARAMA - KELSEY GRAMMER IS X3's BEAST:
"While the bulk of the cast for the third X-Men movie is already in place, Variety today announced a new addition to both the cast and the characters that will appear in the film: Kelsey (Frasier) Grammer as Hank McCoy, aka Beast."

hmm...
I'm intrigued...
we're also getting Juggernaut, Kitty Pryde, and Angel this go round...
Singer managed to do Nightcrawler right,
I just hope Vaughn doesn't screw up Beast...
and why still no Collossus?

there...
there's my inner geek post for the day...

New York Post Online Edition: gossip

New York Post Online Edition: gossip:
"JACK Kerouac fans are about to get an unexpected treat — an unpublished and long-forgotten play by the Beat legend, recently discovered languishing in a New Jersey warehouse, will be excerpted in the July issue of Best Life magazine.
'Beat Generation' details a day in the drink- and drug-hazed life of Kerouac's literary alter ego, Jack Duluoz, as he parties and gambles with thinly-veiled characters based on Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady and other Beat era legends. "

I haven't read any Kerouac since college...
but I am excited about this...
don't know if it'll be any good,
but I know I'll read it.

Seattle Weekly: Arts: What a Piece of Plastic Is Man! by Richard Morin

Via Bookslut we discover this review of "Hamlet"
Seattle Weekly: Arts: What a Piece of Plastic Is Man! by Richard Morin

and all I can say is, how do we get Tiny Ninja Theatre down to Houston?

File Under: Serendipity

REAL ART (and politics and culture)

Fellow traveller Ron does a pretty damn good job elucidating my point below that Marx got more right than he did wrong...
whoohoo!

What really turned me on, however, were the Marxist and feminist essays. It’s not that I’m particularly into Marx or feminism, although I am to some extent; it’s that the way these writers approached their subjects opened up an entirely new strain of thought to me—it is important to note that many feminist writers, especially those writing in the 1970s, were strongly influenced by Marxist critical principles. So really, it all comes down to Karl Marx.


There's some great stuff in this essay, and a link to a very nice summation of Marxist critical assumptions...

go read it...

what else ya gonna do?
work?

Labor Blog

I know even the lefties don't like to talk about it,
but Marx got more right than he got wrong...

Labor Blog:
"The New York Times , because of their obsession with individual status, ignore these structural issues of class and the economy. But if they did pay attention, it would be obvious that Marx's prediction of a flattening of class towards a division between a small handful of owners versus wage earners is more true today than in Marx's day. Many of the small capitalists of yesteryear, running small shops in towns across the country, have been replaced by Wal-Mart managers working on salary, while a much tinier group of people control the capital that decides whether other people are employed or not in those big corporations. "

Ezra Klein: Decision Time for the AFL-CIO

Ezra Klein: Decision Time for the AFL-CIO

The labor movement is on the move...
YAHOO!
as a former I.W.W. member (o.k. I paid dues for 6 months...mostly so I could say, as a Wobblie, or former Wobblie), I'm all about one big union, and organizing, so I'm down with Stern...
We can't wait for the legal system to make changes...
Labors battles have always been won on the picket lines,
and there is NO reason to think the battles of the future will be different...
When people complain about me coming to work sick,
maybe I'll start reminding them that if we were unionized there wouldn't be contract workers like me here who are getting the shaft to the degree that we HAVE to come to work sick...
grr...


There is strength in a union...
until labor is as free as capital there is no free market...
open your borders and allow/encourage union organizing and then we'll talk about your precious free market...

not much to say...

had a pay what you will performance last night...
small but receptive crowd...
I felt off but everybody said the show went great...
which I'm sure it did...
it just felt weird to me...
think it was being in a bad mood from working a 10 hour day that just carried over,
but I must've covered o.k.
and the rest of the cast kicked ass as usual...

Tonight I'm working with a couple of ex and possible future magic bullets to do some recording for the tamalalia 10 CD...
and tomorrow night it's mathletes practice...
and somehow I need to study for the CCNA and get some sleep...

yeah, the newsweek stuff is wack...
and moyers speech was great...

we're still doomed...

whattya want from me?

Off the Kuff: Postcards from the labor market

Off the Kuff: Postcards from the labor market

The staunchest advocates say whiners should find new professions. Richard Spitz, who leads the technology division of the recruiting firm Korn/Ferry International, says corporate clients want employees who embrace a 24-hour business cycle.


This crap is infuriating...
you want 24 hour coverage? hire three shifts you cheap bastards!!!
how long did we fight for the 8 hour workday?
how many people made serious sacrifices (some their lives) so that we could have some decent fucking standards in this country?


and this...

No-fault policies eliminate judgments about whether an absence could have been avoided. Instead, they draw a strict line between planned and unplanned time off. Typically, no more than six unscheduled absences are tolerated within a year, although multiday illnesses count as one "occurrence."

Those with paid days off for illness or emergencies still get paid, but these unplanned absences count against their attendance records.



This crap really just leaves me bewildered...
if you don't treat your employees with respect you should expect them to steal, lie, and take a damn day off whenever they feel like it...
treat the right, and they'll work for you...
even lazy fucks like me can be motivated by the proper treatment...
it might not be a carrot, but it sure as hell ain't the stick...

grrr...

Lance Mannion: No damn good

James Wolcott points us to:
Lance Mannion: No damn good

you should go read it.
It's one of those rare pieces that makes me wish I had written it...

"I have been asked how in the face of all that is rotten in the world I maintain my chirpy, cheery, optimistic and generally sunny outlook on life.

Seriously.

I swear.

People have asked me that.

I'm just as surprised as you. Frankly, I consider myself one grumpy, sour, mean and nasty son of a bitch, a misanthropic, malcontented, pessimistic, anti-social bastard and jerk. Cheerful? My guiding philosophy is Murphy's Law, intensified. I believe that it's not just that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. It's that anything that can go wrong already has gone wrong, way, way, way wrong, and you won't even have begun to notice just how badly it's all gone wrong until the paramedics and the police arrive.

I'm not a the glass is half-empty-er. I'm a the glass is dirty and the milk in it has curdled and came from sick cows anway-er."

he goes on to explain, why, at least to some degree, this outlook gives him hope...
it's a good read...

no business - copyright infringement is your best entertainment value

no business

new work from Negativland -

Negativland's current take on issues of file-sharing, downloading, appropriation, and the supposed collapse of the music business, circa 2005. We're looking at the ways things have changed in the last decade and the ways things have stayed the same. And yes, it's going to be funny. Really.

There's a couple of new tracks available if ya follow the link...

Dewey Dell: The Descent of Tom DeLay

Bliss reminds us that DeLay was always a worthless fuck:
Dewey Dell: The Descent of Tom DeLay

just go read it...

REAL ART (and politics and culture)

Ron over at REAL ART brings my attention to the Southern Baptist Convention:
REAL ART (and politics and culture): "The resolution says schools promote acceptance of gays through officially sanctioned gay clubs, diversity training, anti-bullying courses, safe sex and safe schools programs." (Emphasis mine)

So, now the Southern Baptists are pro-bullying? Wow! They've really studied the work of Jesus...
I remember in the gospels when Jesus and the disciples went queer-bashing...
Who can forget Paul yelling, "Turn the other cheek, faggot!"? as he delivered a well-placed kick to some pansy hiding among the pharisees?

oh, wait...
that's NOT in the bible, is it?

anyway, Ron goes on to bash the public school system (as he does, and rightfully so) and points out the result of this will not be fundamentalists fleeing the schools, but pressure on school administrators to make their schools LESS "gay-friendly"...

When I was in the public school system I really didn't think it could get much worse...
I was wrong...
I was a weird kid.
Sophomore year of high school I had my hair permed in the front, wore my beatle boots, a trench coat, polo shirts, plaid pants, and a broach...yes, a broach...
I wasn't gay, (as far as I know I'm still not), but I sure looked it...
and I took a lot of grief for it too...
never got beat up, but several of my confused new wave friends did.
Bullying in the public schools IS a problem, and it is part of what leads to events like Columbine, and it does need to be addressed. Kids should feel safe in school,
whether they are gay, straight, bad dressers, or even Southern Baptists...
sheesh...
this isn't rocket science!
Schools should be kid-friendly...all kinds of kid-friendly...
anything less cheats us all.

miscellaneous heathen / houston - mathletes footage

miscellaneous heathen / houston

See Walt lead us through the end of our piss-poor JW cover,
and then see Paul dance...
he knows your secrets...

thanks to Chet over at Misc. Heathen

so...

here it is...
3.a.m...
too wired from a great day to sleep.
Had a Cisco class this morning that left me much less intimidated by the CCNA exam I have coming up way too quickly...
then straight to midtown arts center for Needful Creatures...
I started getting sick on Wednesday and tonight was the first run we'd had that I wasn't still feeling it...and the show felt great.
I'm real happy/proud/lucky to be working with such good folks...
Everybody in the show just impresses the hell out of me.

anyway, after that headed straight over to Jenni's Noodles to play for the art car crowd. The Mathletes played a rockin' set in the parking lot. We even had to play an "encore". After we played everything we knew (including our Jay-Z/R. Kelley/The Seximals medley) folks (ok, probably mostly people we knew, but still, they count too, right?) were yelling for more...so we played "diaperland" again, and "I Fuckin Love it Man" during which Uncle Walt joined us for a verse or two. This was our first show with the our new drummer (Jeff Mathlete) and he rocked the house...
or the parking lot, as the case may be...and it was the first show we played my song, "never heard of them". It's about hanging out with the kids and having no idea who any of the bands they are talking about are or that experience as a metaphor for something really deep...or something...
anyway, now it's 3.a.m.
and I'm not drunk
(the drinking was last night,
with the karaoke - they go together)
and I'm not tired
in fact,
I'm not sure what I am...