No Touch Monkey!

boomp3.com

I just heard this song on Pandora.com and immediately knew I had to post it here.

Here are more details about the artist and album from All About Jazz.com

This is soul. Not Al Green soul. Not Isaac Hayes soul (but perhaps a bit closer to that). This is the soul of the black man. It is the soul of a student of history who is sick and tired of force-feeding and ready to spit back. This is the soul of a man tired of the system and using his art to reframe and correct it.

When it first came out in 1971, Eugene McDaniels’ vitriolic statement irked and ired many, including Vice President Spiro Agnew, who personally contacted Atlantic Records to demand that the album be shelved. Despite this high praise from such a high post, the album’s music and message has survived in the hearts and minds of music lovers (including The Beastie Boys, who sampled a piece of McDaniels’ wisdom on Ill Communication ) and has now been revived in the equally aware hands of Producer Joel Dorn.

Though the abum may be a grand departure from McDaniel’s earlier hit, "Compared To What," its provocative soothe continues to reverberate. Predicting the coming of acid jazz and even gangster rap, McDaniels covers both the topics of his time — from the horoscopic groove of "Lovin’ Man" to the androgynous murder of "Jagger the Dagger" — and of times past and still present in sharp-eyed chronicles like "Headless Heroes," "Supermarket Blues," the subtly bomb-bastic "Freedom Death Dance" and "The Parasite" (which may be dedicated to Native American artiast and activist Buffy St.Marie). Wrapping his sharp words in cozy key lines and absorbent rhythms, McDaniels tells it like it is and rarely shirks the truth. Though "Susan Jane" is a jangly Dylan-esque exercise in simple rhyme, it acts as a necessary break from McDaniels’ torrential attacks of conscience.

The entire album can be downloaded here: RapidShare: 1-Click Webhosting: "http://rapidshare.com/files/79140744/Eugene_Mcdaniels.zip"

Labels: Fuck The Man, Musical Media

After hearing so much about it, we finally watched Into The Wild last night.

Wow.

I'm resonating with vibrations of joy, sorrow, memory and regret.

Chris McCandless was my contemporary and he lived a life I only dreamed of at the time back in 1990. While I was floundering around with the early stages of Alcoholism, Career Confusion and the lost of my first serious relationship, Chris had given up everything and hitting the road.

Here, have the fitting mood music of local band Blue Dixie (1992) 05-GetOnTheRoad_64kb.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)

I knew people like Chris in College and I badly wanted to be them, but I lived in fear of the unknown, imagined obligation, debt and that Alcoholism thing I was talking about. Even though I smoked a lot of weed, I was still wound too tight.

The closest I ever came was listening to my Blue Dixie- About Time (archive org) cd wanting to just keep on driving, and driving...I was sad, lonely, hated my town, broke and without prospects...but I turned around.

Now 18 years later I'm sitting on my couch feeling the ache of the echoing call for adventure. Tomorrow I get to go to my office and work for 8 hours.

Life is a mixed bag, and we are the sum of total of our choices. One shouldn't live with regret, but still. Of the two paths in the wood, I took the one more traveled. Chris is a reminder, like remembering to let Death be a passenger on your left shoulder. If you want to live, then live, because one day you die. The End.

Here is the original article that later became the book Into the Wild, now go out and watch the movie and remember.

Labels: Gosh_Wow, Multiple Media, Story Telling, The Cap'n

Yeah, that about sums it up...



Addicting

FFFFOUND! "FFFFOUND! is a web service that not only allows the users to post and share their favorite images found on the web, but also dynamically recommends each user's tastes and interests for an inspirational image-bookmarking experience!!"

Labels: cool

This is me talking abbreviated speaking in aggregates.

Whaaaa, it's too cold...where's my Spring. It's too cold...where's my Spring. Crap it's raining again? I demand my Spring.

I'm pussing out of today's Boot Camp because the mosquitoes are swarming big time!

Holy Crap, it's 80 fucking degrees in my house and I have to take another shower and turn on the AC. I gotta blog this shit. Whaaaaa!

Labels: Aww Man, The Cap'n

Instead of saying, "How Gay!" (see previous) When I see something stupidly flamboyant, cheesy, and dramatically over the top (with a dash of unintended homo eroticism). I've decided to go with How Nuge! in honor of Ted Nugent.

For some reason I woke up with this song in my head this morning and had to apply the Superstition Treatment to it.



And while there isn't that much Nuge in the video, you can get what I'm talking about.

So it's going into my own personal dictionary. "How Nuge", "Dude, you're so Nugent."

I can see it now, me walking outside to work one morning and Nuge will put an arrow in the door beside head. Thump! Boingggggggggg!" How Nugent of him.



Ted is from Detroit and was in a band called Damn Yankees, yet he's wearing a Confederate Flag Shirt, and playing an American Flag Guitar. Wotta Nuge.

Labels: Culture Wars, Musical Media, silly, waving a dead chicken

Alessandra sent me this video in the am of the beamz Musical Performance System from Sharper Image (no wonder they went bankrupt)



And my first response, after the horror, was: How Gay! Then I realized, after all these years that I was truly doing a disservice to Gay People. This this product is campy, cheesy and flat out stupid, but it is not Gay.

So I need a new, one syllable word with punch to encompass the above adjectives.

What can I do? Alessandra suggests How 80s, but I don't think that cuts it.

How..........grrrrr!

Last week, a three-minute video posted on YouTube showed veteran television actor Jason Beghe denouncing Scientology. He’d been a member of the organization for a dozen years, and told the Voice in an interview that he gave Scientology about a million dollars in donations during that time. He also offered surprising behind-the-scenes information about well-known Scientologist celebrities Tom Cruise and John Travolta, and gave Scientology dabbler Will Smith a warning that he was being secretly taped in therapy sessions.

Man, this shit is extensive, I had to stop listening after an hour. To me it's the equivalent of some guy saying that a priest had raped him when he was a boy and the church just moved the to another parish so he could do it again.

Mental rape every bit as real and invasive as a physical violation.

Really, all religions are Fairy Tales.

Science confirms 'The Colbert Bump'

Democrats who appeared on the show raised about 44 percent more money after their appearance than they did before. Republicans, on the other hand, didn't fare as well after their Colbert appearance. Their appearance either had no effect, or a slightly negative one.

The thing I find more interesting than Midwest Earthquakes is the fact that everyone around me wants to talk about it and say what it was like when it hit. By the time the local media got on the air they were flooded with phone calls and emails by people expressing a desire to tell their story.

I don't make it a habit to call the newsroom as soon as something happens, and I wonder about the mindset of the people who do. I think it all falls under the realm of Community. We are species who are bound to each other and we bind through storytelling. How else can you find your place in society without telling your story? I also think it's a way to keep the Boogie Man away. I heard some coworkers talking about it, and the way they were laughing about it made me imagine a pressure release valve blowing off steam.

We tell ourselves into being, don’t we?’ he says. ‘I think that is one of the great reasons for stories. I mean, we are the storytelling animal, there is no other creature on earth that tells itself stories in order to understand who it is. This is what we do, we’ve always done it, whether they are religious stories or personal stories, or tall stories, or lies, or useful stories, we live by telling each other and telling ourselves the stories of ourselves.

, Salman Rushdie

"Which reminds me of something I learned from The Science of Discworld, a discussion of the physics of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld by serious academics. One concept stuck with me: that we are not homo sapiens, but pans narrans, the storytelling ape." (written by Max Dunbar but exactly what I was thinking).

Me, I prefer the Metastory and weird animal behavior. I also noticed that everyone turns to the Meteorologist to ask about earthquake stuff. FYI, Geology is not Meteorology, so why ask him/her. Is it the same reason people think that if you work with Macs that you can trouble shoot a PC?

Labels: meatspace

The 48-year-old was the first celebrity to speak out against the religion, telling how his 12 years with the church damaged him and accusing Scientology of being “destructive” and a “rip-off”.

After Beghe’s criticism of the church made headlines yesterday, YouTube suspended the account of the prolific Scientology critic who posted the video, making the clip unavailable to viewers.

But the suspension has angered YouTube users who have thrown their weight behind Mark Bunker, who uses the name XenuTV1 on the site.

By this morning, 45 YouTube members had used their sign-ons to re-post Bunker’s interview with the Cane and CSI actor.

In the clip, Benghe said: “My experience personally, and what I’ve observed for myself, is that Scientology is destructive and a rip-off.”

"It’s very, very dangerous for your spiritual, psychological and mental, emotional health and evolution. I think it stunts your evolution.”

The church insists it brings its members “spiritual enlightenment” and it has helped the world progress towards “the eradication of its ills”, including drugs, crime, violence and intolerance.

One user, Vongoloid, uploaded the video with the message: “Actor Jason Beghe exposes... Scientology to Mark Bunker of Xenu TV. YouTube suspended Mark's account, XenuTV1, so I am putting this up for justice.”

Another, Skeptic12345, simply said: “Rehosting while Mark Bunker's YouTube is down".

Angry viewers posted comments below the re-hosted clips.

“Unsuspend his f***ing account, YouTube,” wrote one.

“Banning free speech is a major no no. Knock it off.”

YouTube’s policy on suspending accounts relates to copyright and inappropriate content.

“We take copyright issues very seriously. We prohibit users from uploading infringing material and we cooperate with copyright holders to identify and promptly remove infringing content,” its policy states.

“YouTube reviews the content and removes it from the system within minutes if it violates our Terms of Use. This combined with our proprietary technology helps us to enforce the rules. We also disable the accounts of repeat offenders.”

It is not the first time YouTube and Scientology critics have clashed. After a video of Hollywood actor Tom Cruise speaking about Scientology was leaked to YouTube last year, the church raised copyright issues and the site removed the clip, angering its users.

Also It’s ok to think Doctor Who is gay, says David Tennant

Labels: Bite my shiny metal ass, Fuck The Man

Paul is the Biggest Led Zeppelin Fan in the World.

I met Paul last Summer while hustling for a job. He didn't have any work for me, but I spent a couple pleasant hours shooting the shit at his house one day. He showed me a lot of his collection.

I just so happens I may need to consult an "Idea Guy" and Paul is someone I would go to. So I checked his blog out, and lo and behold, he had actually won a trip to London last Dec. to see the Led Zeppelin Reunion Show based on this video.



ROCK FUCKING ON!

Labels: video, Whoa, Zep

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush has welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to the White House with assurances that the United States is a nation of prayer and that its people are open to his message of hope.

Bush said that ``we need your message that all human life is sacred.''Unless they're brown.

Bush said that ``in a world where some no longer believe that we can distinguish between simple right and wrong, we need your message to reject this dictatorship of relativism.''signing statements and what's this bit about torture? You and your cabinet OKed torture right? Yes? Ok, I'm wondering how your own tongue won't jump out of your mouth and strangle you.

Benedict was only the second pope to visit the White House and the first in 29 years. He arrived in picture-perfect spring weather on his 81st birthday, and the crowd of thousands sang him Happy Birthday. More than 9,000 guests, including several members of Bush's Cabinet, came to the ceremony, the largest in White House history.

Labels: Fuck The Man

Speaking of Unicorns...

THE ‘MUSEO CARTACEO’, or ‘Paper Museum’, is a collection of more than 7,000 watercolours, drawings and prints, assembled during the seventeenth century by the famous Roman patron and collector, Cassiano dal Pozzo, and his brother Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo. It represents one of the most significant attempts ever made before the age of photography to embrace all human knowledge in visual form. Documenting ancient art, archaeology, botany, geology, ornithology and zoology, the collection today constitutes a visual database that provides us with a significant tool for understanding the culture and intellectual concerns of a period during which the foundations of our own scientific methods of research and classification were laid down. Moreover, the Paper Museum reflects the taste and intellectual breadth of one of the most learned and enthusiastic of all seventeenth-century Roman collectors. As secretary to Cardinal Francesco Barberini, as well as patron of such artists as Poussin, and a friend of Galileo, Cassiano dal Pozzo crossed the boundaries of artistic, scientific and political disciplines, to create his unique visual encyclopedia.

I was watching a show on youTube from the BBC called the Secret of Lines, and the host was talking to the Royal Librarian and they paged through the folio.

Host: Is that a man with penis on head?

Librarian: Indeed it is. A piece of ancient Babylonian statuary. Remember they wanted pictures of everything.

[moving on]

Labels: Interesting

Charlie the Unicorn 2

FooooooooGuuuuuuuuu!

Just this very afternoon, my coworker tried to Rickroll me by singing it. Then she tried to earworm me with Copacabana and Rubberband Man.

"You can try all you want," I told her, but I'm armed with Superstition as my Go To Earworm Eraser.




I'd seen it a few years ago. I love the wild abandon of the dancing kid.

What's your Go To?

Labels: Earworm Eraser

I'm still waiting for Spring to arrive so I can go outside and play.

Saturday I went to a Catholic Supply Store to buy my niece a gift for her first communion. I don't come from a Christian background and am currently an Atheist, so all this worship creeped me out. I'm certain that Jesus wouldn't dig on all this veneration. Who knows, maybe he would as he hasn't done much about Pedophile Priests.

Alessandra and I arrived at the church just as the service was starting, so we had to sit out in the lobby in the last row with the other latercomers. Ale snapped a photo of my niece in her dress going in, then we took off to have lunch at Dairy Queen across the street. We got back with five minutes to go on the service, and took some more photos.

For as gross as Dairy Queen food is...it was still better than 1.25 hrs in a church.

Mom..."shhhhhhhhhh"

Labels: Nothing to see here folks-move along

My having Spring Fever with no Spring is like Bruce Dickinson's fever without more cowbell.

This is bullshit. I demand a warm Spring.

Pulled from Google Video. I guess it wasn't free after all.

Check out the Best free site though, it's pretty cool.

Best Free Documentaries

• St. Radio plays wayyyyy to much Def Leppard. In fact any Def Leppard is too much Def Leppard...I've wanted to say this for months.

• Geezer Rock- Check out the bands coming through STL for Spring & Summer. Journey/Heart/Cheap Trick, Boston/Styx, Chicago/Doobie Brothers, Stevie Nicks. I'd claim Rush, Geezers yeah, but they are still cranking out new music.

Journey, on the other hand has a new lead singer from the Philippines who sounds exactly like Steve Perry.

Because while I like songs from many all of these bands, I can't imagine paying money to go see a Greatest Hits concert. I think it's sad.

• Last Sunday I ran for the first time (other than running/trotting after a frisbee) for the first time since 1985 when I was designated last place guy on my HS track team. I went to a free fitness bootcamp Meet Up at Tower Grove Park and worked my ass off in a fun way. Gyms bore me but I know I need exercise. This was pretty fun, but brutal. I'm sore all over, but in a good way. I'm also coughing up nasty goo from deep in my lungs. I look forward to the next session.

• I am of the opinion that American Idol is the worst thing to happen to television. It's too hard to escape. Even the NBC affiliate and Classic Rock station I watch and listen to in the morning talk about who got kicked off the night before. People, keep to your networks! No free advertising!

• In regards to the previous post in which I ask, "What year is this?" I remembered later in the evening, The empire never ended

• I'm bothered by the fact I've never been to New York City.

• I read the first two Culture books by Ian Banks (Iain M. Banks: Welcome to the Culture, the Galactic Civilization That Iain M. Banks Built). They rocked!

• 

Awwww, lookit the kitty!

Labels: Things and Stuff

Without "reflection over the power of the meat" the art does not have radiant emittance strength.

What am I talking about?

The Last Supper as a gay orgy? Uproar in Vienna

The sketchy black-and-white picture shows the Twelve Apostles drinking, dancing, and well, getting extremely friendly with each other. It certainly isn’t the version of Christ’s Last Supper that most people are familiar with…

Austrian artist Alfred Hrdlicka’s version of the Last Supper as a homosexual orgy was supposed to be one of the highlights of an exhibition at the Dommuseum, the museum of Vienna’s Roman Catholic cathedral. An initial favourable review by the local Catholic news agency didn’t seem to find anything wrong. But blink and it’s gone — thanks to the intervention of Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the archbishop of Vienna, after the painting sparked criticism in Austria and as far away as the United States. Here’s a protest article in German (with 61 comments and an explicit video about the exhibition) and a comically bad machine translation into English.wonderfully profound Babelfish Article with Angry Video (but you have to squint, my Lovelies)

.

Sigh...it's what year again?

Labels: All Religions are Fairytales

Man who received heart commits suicide: "HILTON HEAD ISLAND — After Terry Cottle killed himself more than 12 years ago, his heart lived on in former Hilton Head Island resident Sonny Graham.

Grateful for the transplant that saved his life, Graham wrote to thank the Cottle family. Through that correspondence, he met Cheryl Cottle, his donor’s widow. Then the unexpected happened — they fell in love and married.

Earlier this week, the unexpected happened again, when Graham’s life ended the same way Terry Cottle’s did.

On Tuesday, Graham took his own life at his home in Vidalia, Ga. He was 69."

I'm not gonna blame the wife for being a bitch or anything, it's worth looking into.

I'm Tripping Balls

I've been very busy at work lately, and really haven't found much worth posting. I've been reading about XSLT and now getting into Interface Design while I work on my projects at the office.

My boss asked me how the reading was going so as a joke I read him this from the book (which made no sense to me at all)

"The syntax for patterns is a subset of the syntax for [XPath] expressions. In particular, location paths that meet certain restrictions can be used as patterns. An expression that is also a pattern always evaluates to an object of type node-set. A node matches a pattern if the node is a member of the result of evaluating the pattern as an expression with respect to some possible context; the possible contexts are those whose context node is the node being matched or one of its ancestors."

Unfortunately he understood what this meant. So he dumbed it down for my comprehension. Oddly enough, I think he was wrong.

On Tuesday Me, Alessandra and two friends went to Half Price Night at a local Brazilian restaurant. We all gored on more meat than was possibly good for us. I felt pregnant with meat. I would say that if I were to actually eat a baby, that's what it would feel like.

It took two days to recover and me eating nothing but cereal, salad and bananas though not all at the same time.


Still drawing, and planning on having bi-weekly figure drawing sessions at my house. Today it's not raining so I hope to go for a bike ride. The Inlaws are spending the night

Battlestar Galactica is back!

My sister came away from her focus group $150 bucks richer with no embarrassment...which I suppose is a good thing.

The answers I provided turned out to be unsuitable for the Marketers because they were too intelligently written.

Marketer to my sister: I want you all to write an obituary for Fruit Loops Cereal.

Sister: You mean the toucan?

Marketer: No just the cereal. How did the cereal die?

Me (in my head to the Marketer): Look lady, you can't just bump off a cereal that isn't anthropomorphized. It needs a face, hands...something for us to identify with otherwise it's just the Monolith from 2001. Ok, ok, Fruit Loops died because it didn't contain enough nutrients to feed a Marketer.

Jeez.

Yesterday I get this email from my sister:

Hey there,

I am doing a discussion on cereals for kids tomorrow (long story, I will fill you in when I talk to you in person :-) ) I have to fill out a questionaire with really imaginative questions and needing imaginary answers for them. And you are the greatest at that my brother!! I am doing a discussion on fruit loops. I also had to pick 3 cereals from a list that my kids eat. I picked.... I have to write an obituary
for Cookie Crisp cereal!! These are the questions!

1. Died at what age and reason.
2. Most significant accomplishments or 3 highest points of their life.
3. Greatly missed for what?
4. Biggest failing or regret?
5. Broke what record at what age?

Yes, this is all related the cereal "Cookie Crisp" silly, huh?

I also have to make a collage with 4-5 items (not food related) with words or pictures. example: picture of
a sun == happiness..... for the 3 cereals I picked from the list that the kiddos eat- Cookie Crisp, Coco pebbles and cinnamon crunch toast. I also have to use non food imagery and words to symbolize the qualities that these 3 cereals have in common that I value!!

Uh, ok. I pictured my sister standing before a room full of 8 year olds. So after wracking my brains and looking up Cookie Crisp Cereal on Wiki, I realized Chip the Wolf had no redeeming qualities as does the cereal.

Chip was an unfriendly pooch (who no longer wore a mask) who would go around stealing cookie crisp from the elderly. Typically a kid would interfere on the grounds that cookies are not breakfast food and instead to alter his choice for an english muffin, but they would change their minds once Chip gave them a taste of his cereal.

Recent advertisement campaign

In 2003, Chip was radically redesigned, gaining a change in both attitude and species. He is now Chip the Wolf (originally known as Howler), a slim grey wolf in a red sweater and blue pants. Ironically, his new design seems to have come with a change back to his criminal ways-the new ads generally depict him trying to steal Cookie Crisp from children, just like Cookie crook, using various schemes but always coming up short. In this respect he is much like the Trix rabbit, or the Lucky Charms Leprechaun.

Jeeze, what can I say that she can say to a classroom of children? Kids like death and brutality in their stories of a Brother's Grimm quality. Yet I had to redeem Chip somehow.

So this is what I wrote:

1. Chip the Wolf died at age 27 from choking on his cereal. He ate too fast and didn't chew enough. You ever hear someone say, "He wolfed that down." when eating? They were referring to Chip. Unfortunately there was no one around who knew the Heimlich Maneuver.

2. 3 highest points of his life? First Little Pig, Second Little Pig, Third Little Pig.

3. All the other wolves thought Chip had a great howl. Cooooooookie Crisp! was very original, and far superior to the boring, "Aowwwwwww, Aow, Aow, Aowwwwwwww!"

4. Eating the 3 little pigs. While the greatest accomplishment was blowing down the brick house and eating the pigs, it was also the lowest when he found out that the pigs were actually quite nice. So Chip went off the meat forever and became a cereal-itarian which is like a vegetarian but eating cereal instead vegetables.

5. At age 15 Chip was the first wolf, to swim the Mississippi River while eating a pig. Since then other wolves have broken his record by eating more pigs per river crossing, but none have been any younger.

Rest in Peace Chip.

I get a phone call from my sister who has no idea what I'm talking about or who Chip even is and she knows "they" are going to ask her questions. So I explain about this thing called Wikipedia and rehash my story until she is cool with it. She tells me about the collage she's making and we discuss the importance of breakfast as the most important meal of the day and the difference between strength and endurance. Jeez, didn't she ever play D&D? Hello! Strength vs Constitution?.

Anyway, it comes out that she's NOT giving a presentation before a group of kids as I thought in her email: "I am doing a discussion on cereals for kids tomorrow", but she's going to some Market Research Company and give a presentation!

Oh man, I built this thing for 8 year olds, not marketing professionals. If she gives this pitch as I wrote it, she's going to come off looking like a total retard, ill equipped to add lib or extemporize on any of my story points in response to the simplest of questions. Think Kelly Bundy. I can hear the train wreck a commin'.

I love my sister and wish her the best, I don't want her to look like a fool and hope she just dumped my responses and came up with her own story. Ah who am I kidding, I think it's hilarious but won't be too humiliating. Really, you've got to be clear on your communication if I'm to help you out! I'm on the edge of my seat to hear how it ended. Stay tuned.

Labels: The Cap'n