Regime Change 2008

I might be inclined to suggest that March Madness was created for people either too stupid or too impatient to draw up political brackets.

I might decline to make that statement since no race has shaped up this way ever. No incumbent in a time where choices aren’t made at conventions in Smokey backrooms by political insiders, when the internet (the greatest tool of democracy thus far) allows no-name grass-root’ers to come from the foggy backwoods of every 3 electorate state you can think of, there has never been a better time to make broad political statements based on foolish logic and amateur political observation than now. At least in basketball you can choose the teams with the colors you like. I keep getting a blue suit with a red striped tie (for those out of the know, supposedly a red striped tie is the most powerful looking option there is).

So we’re just 3 days away from Iowa, and if I’m not mistaken 8 from New Hampshire. (and I guess 5 from WY if you’re a repub) and all the early leads that were inflated because only the junkies were watching have since evaporated. It’s a blood bath folks, and heres a break down on how 7 people will have the American dream crushed in their egotistical face.

Iowa – Their backwoods and they love’s them some jesus. Romeny, who dumped about 17 trillion dollars into winning that state is now losing to a man who doesn’t have enough van drives to allow the press into his motorcade. Huckabee has this place on lock down, he thinks earth is 6000 years old, he says we need to “hear the alarm clock and take this country back for Christ” and his foreign policy consists of bitching about how those countries citizens want to come here because we’re not a dictatorship. How could ya not vote for him?

Romney’s got second, and that’s mildly refreshing. Not because I hate romeny, I just like that when you pay as much as he is, you still only end up in second place (at least I’m predicting). And talk about gift horse in the mouth, I don’t have any facts in front of me but lord, The Romney Campaign must have tripled Iowa’s revenue single handedly.

On the other side, Clinton has no shot in the backwoods of a red state. Obama is the next door neighbor and Edwards has been campaigning there since 2004. This will be the only time one of those two men aren’t completely bashing the illusion of the Clinton incumbency. I predict an absolute shutdown from there on out.

Repub Dems
Huckabee Obama
Romeny Edwards
McCain. Clinton

New Hampshire – The first primary holds the most powerful pixie dust a politician could hope for. As well it should, the next time someone complains about NH being so small and determining that much do me a favor; Find a state that you’d like to determine more of the momentum and compare their voting records. New Hampshire takes pride in their position, they research their candidates and their about as objective as it gets. They vote for people they think are good, not the ones they hate the least from the headlines.

The republican race here is tricky business. McCain ought to win, but so should Romney. In 2000 NH selected McCain, and Romeny just finished up a…charming tenure in neighboring MA which, for whatever reason I can’t figure out, means he should do well. Why proximity matters is mind blowing but whatever. Hey, heres something we havn’t seen since the S.A.T.’s:

Iowa : Huckabee :: New Hampshire : Ron Paul.

For republicans, and junkies of all stripes, the greatest part of this race is seeing how well these dark horses run. The come from behind conservative forces are squaring off with the salt of the earth republicans, and we’ll see how well democracy works. You have two people who’s beliefs can truly be championed, and then you have 2 or 3 that can actually beat Hillary Clinton. Or so they think. I’m fairly certain she’ll be lucky to pull half of Super Tuesday and little more. Voting to beat an opposing party’s member works wonders by the way. Ask John Kerry.

But back to the topic at hand, Ron Paul is set to complete screw one of the leading candidates. If there was any state who was about to announce themselves a Yellow state (I picked a random color) and declare their allegiance to the Libertarian party, New Hampshire is the first, second and third on the list. It’s a long shot that he’ll win. He should, but he’s running in a year where folks are looking to beat a candidate that won’t win.

I’d like McCain to win so I’m a tad bit bias, but since he and Paul occupy they same territory; the non-religious small government republicans, well that’s only good things for Romney…shit.

Back to blue, the residents of Manch Vegas and their ilk are going to be more prone to Union backing. When one of the major papers is called The Union Leader it tends to be that way. This boads well for Edwards, it can’t not, but as Union as they are (and this is why NH will blow your mind) their anti-federalists and Edwards big government driven campaign isn’t going to fly well in the Granite fortress. As Romney picks up a win from the battling Paul and McCain, so too will Obama who stands to be the least Big Government of the traditionally federalized Dems.

Repubs Dems
Romney Obama
McCain Edwards
Paul Clinton


And finally Michigan, land of Michal Moore, The Big 3, Eminem, Kid Rock, The White Stripes, Bob Segar, The MC5 and the largest amount of unemployed factory workers on the planet…or at least it seems that way from the speeches given there. Also it has Detroit, murder capital of the United States.

Michigan has been one hot button issue this year attempting to dethrone New Hampshire as lead primary, and being the battleground on which all candidates were tested. Only Clinton choose to campaign there heavily due to a flawed mid-summer arrogant whiff of victory, leaving her heavily in the favor of the states primary voters. Those in the state felt they should more prominently represent the country over NH and because of this the state will go to all sorts of people. Theres no use trying to plug for the Dems here it looks relatively strait forward as this one was a battle of who won the temper tantrum.

On the republican side its headlines or bust. If Giuliani hasn’t been dismantled at this point, expect him to show strong. Michigan is about as North as it gets, so the religious freak jobs won’t show well here save for Romney who has political roots in the state. If its not Jeb in Florida for George, its George in Michigan for Mitt.

Repubs Dems
Romney Clinton
McCain Edwards
Giuliani Obama

South Carolina is a cess pool of human waste. Its political process is a twisting mire of political connectness [sic] and what happens here is whoever has kowtowed to the most GOP desires. Or if you’re one of the 5 democrats there, whoever bashes the GOP the most. Why didn’t we let them succeed? Giuliani takes this one because he doesn’t have any black babies. Sorry John, that’s what being a nice guy gets you.

Repubs Dems
Giuliani Clinton
Huckabee Obama
Romney Edwards


Right or wrong, those are my picks.

And I'm not even angry.

I don't think its a hard thing to figure out how the world works. You're on your own, it will kick you when you're down, let you know when you've screwed up almost immediatly and when you do something right "what do you want? a cookie?"

Learning how to survive in it might be a little harder, but operating under the principles that you're on your own, no one ultimatly cares about you unless it effects them, and you actually accept that, I think everything tends to get a lot better. At least thats how I see it.

Yes; it is about who you know.
Morals are subjective and your principled stand is my "wow he's an obnoxious twat."
Nice guys finish last. That never changes. There are exceptions to that rule, but not to Dickheads usually win.
I can spin just about anything to make it look like I did what was right. So can most people. Cover your ass.
Never pay your rent in cash.
There are much worse things than dying.

These were mostly reminders to myself, but you can have some if you'd like.

If we could just find out who's in charge, we could kill him. -George Carlin

Playing Guys

I read this in the Phoenix and thought you should all enjoy....enjoy.

Warning to parents and anybody planning to spend time with male children this holiday: the local action-figure population is about to increase significantly. With that in mind, I’d like to establish once and for all the rules of a game that adults have for too long perceived as a random activity — namely, “Playing Guys.”

Definition: A “guy” (a/k/a “action figure”) is a hand-holdable, plastic replica of a real or theoretical being derived from appearances in movies, comics, or on television. He may be augmented by either officially licensed or improvised accessories. A guy may be good or evil, but all guys are, by nature, violent.

There aren’t, in fact, many rules, but the ones encoded here are timeless, universal, and inviolable.

Rule Number 1 Take Newton’s second law and throw it out the window. The rate of acceleration of one guy is actually equal to how powerful the guy hitting him is. (Power = how mean/strong a guy looks multiplied by any accessories previously ordered or extra weapons he’s picked up at, say, CVS.)

Rule Number 2 The typical interaction between guys is initiated by taking one guy in one hand, and another guy in the other hand. Something is said, perhaps about the merits of free-trade, and the first guy bashes the other, a “ppfpgshhhh” is uttered, and the injured party is flung backwards as far as your arm can extend. That settles that.

Rule Number 3 In guy world, everyone can fly. Everyone. If your guy comes with a jet pack, he can fly even better. Or maybe not fly, per se, but rather you can choose when gravity affects your guy, and how much. Thus, many fights are like walking on the moon. (Which is convenient, because my guy has had to defend it, like, three times this morning.)

Rule Number 4 The arm of that couch is a cliff. Please take your jacket off my cliff.

Rule Number 5 Good guys vs. bad guys: I shouldn’t even have to explain this — moral ambiguity is a grown-up construct. I know he’s bad because he’s wearing darker clothes. And listen to his voice — it’s hoarse!

Rule Number 6 Don’t ever call this playing with dolls.

Rule Number 7 When hit hard enough, anything can explode. Didn’t know that pile of papers on the coffee table had explosives in it? It didn’t.

Rule Number 8 Anyone can interact with anyone. Why shouldn’t Bebop from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles be able to hold court with a G.I. Joe? Yes, this would all be a beautiful demonstration of children’s ability to overlook differences if, in the end, every play session didn’t involve these people from different backgrounds smashing each other’s skull.

Rule Number 9 Humming?! Did you just call the noise made by my turbo boosters humming? This brings us to sound effects: we have them. Lots of them. Okay, four of them. But they are an integral part of maintaining the authenticity of mid-air clashes between dinosaurs and Transformers. Punch = a quick “ppfpgshhhh.” That’s universal. Ask any little boy what a punch sounds like. That’s it. Laser = a high pitch “pshewwwwww psshewwwww.” Falling = a long “ahhhhhhhhhhh” that fades away at the end and implies everyone’s last words are “ahhhhhhhh.” On hitting the ground, a guy may or may not explode, a sound that comes from both vibrations in the back of the mouth and having heard very few actual explosions. (Incredulous? See Rule Number 7.) Dialogue is sparse. This is “guys,” not a Bergman movie.

Rule Number 10 Seriously, never call this playing with dolls. Okay, it’s ostensibly playing with scaled-down characters. But playing guys is an activity, nay, a rite of passage, through which we develop spatial skills, such as how a flame-thrower would work while you’re flying. (Answer: it can also become a jet.) And while structurally the term “playing guys” is similar to “playing house,” the latter is a game of mimicry. (“Let’s bake and vacuum like we see Mommy and Daddy doing.”) Playing guys is one of fantasy, of building a world that is not just better and cooler than our own, but one that is the actual manifestation of a set of physical laws and heroic values that, we feel deeply (even at age six), codifies the way things should be. (“Let’s do 17 flips in the air like Mommy and Daddy have never done, but, look, let’s just do it, okay?”)

In fact, this is why we like action movies: they are a life-size dramatization of playing guys. That actor jumping that house on the dirt bike and the 20-minute fight scene are not ridiculous insofar as they are merely a director playing guys, a game come true. So the “action” that precedes both “movies” and “figures” is this specific type of action, an unrealistic fulfillment of a latent schema in which physical laws bend to accommodate a massaging of the ego by way of stretching what an individual is capable of — a world enchanted by the hyper-masculine. In this sense, the term “playing guys” rings with second meaning: a paraphrasing might lead to, “amusing oneself with action figures,” but “playing guys” also suggests, in a sad way, “acting like men.” (See Rule Number 6.)

Rule Number 11 A guy’s fort is his castle. I say this because I’m wondering why you continue to move the cushions back to where they “belong.”

Rule Number 12 While most guys come with movable legs, it would be absurd to manipulate each leg individually for every step they take. So we’ve devised this sort of two-legged hop motion. I know, it’s not very realistic. Humor us . . . (See Rule Number 3.)

Rule Number 13 Number of lives every guy has: one million. Except sometimes if you’re a low-ranking bad guy I encounter on my way to being head bad guy. Then you get one. Or you are particularly susceptible to getting knocked out by one punch and placed into this ambiguous not-quite-dead state that excuses my six-year-old mind from having to contemplate the finality of death.

Steve Macone is a writer living in Boston . . . okay, Medford. He can be reached at stevemacone@gmail.com .

An Ocean of Sky

“No more waiting for fate to befall me, no. I have my dreamboat, and together we will find our destiny, choose our ladder to the sky”

Bored in the Village. I never thought I’d ever say those words because new York was such an “it” place I never thought I’d make it. But I was there With Cathy and we ducked into a small gallery which, having not been a native of the place seemed odd to me but who knows. Maybe the Village just does that. Who doesn’t want a smattering of art galleries in their city really?

And meandering through the vast and sprawling open spaces of this particular gallery I discovered Markus Pierson. I’m not the most visual artist. I write and my blood sport is traditionally music, but visual art to me was all “pretty.” I mean Ansel Adams, Van Gogh – they were pretty sure – but different? Who cared really? I could tell the difference but I never cared to take notice of what I liked better or why. Pierson was different.

This had a Waitsian aura channeling Fitzgerald. It was depression era comic hyperbole and I was speechless because their was so much to take it. His words, and characters, the plot, the colors, the cartoon element, the backgrounds; it all tied in to one larger piece like someone who’d read all of Poe’s finer points on unity of effect and went to grab a bucket of paint.

Markus Pierson, to me, is the Edward Hopper of love. He captures the wound and vast loneliness of the American Heart. To me, there’s no difference between Waits’s “hooker from Minneapolis” and Pierson’s “King of her heart” or the protagonist in “Burma Shave” and the coyote riding his ship of destiny. There is a modicum of more hope in Pierson’s work but the big eyed dreams of someone at the bottom looking at the stars is all the same.

Tonight I looked at “destiny” and it was painful. He’s out there alone in a barren sky with so many choices and no direction. But he’s hopeful and maybe his hope is what breaks a cynical old mans heart. Somewhere down deep I think he’s going to get crushed, or maybe I’m just lamenting a younger naive vision of myself.

Does heartbreak come from art work when we see its beauty, or know its folly? I’m not sure, and I don’t think either of those answers sit well with my conscious mind.

“The night falls gracefully for those who have a love to call their own. But alas, for those to whom love has turned a blind eye – love, it falls like a guillotine”

The Unbearable Whiteness of Being

I don't remember when I heard Lauren Hill had made her infamous racist statement "I'd rather let my kids starve than have white people listen to my music." I do know that I've wished she'd have been hit by a bus since then. And I had never felt more empathetically vindicated than when Eminem turned his focus on those same vicious words and rapped "Bought Lauryn Hill's tape so her kids could starve."

So you can imagine my godless chagrin when last month Sasha Frere-Jones said in (http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2007/10/22/071022crmu_music_frerejones) insinuated that indie-rock had lost its soul and had become far too "white" forgetting its origins. The article was interesting, certainly I'd never heard that the "call response" origin of the blues and country might have come just as much from african-american chruch services as it came from illiterate congregations of Scotsmen. But the wealth of knowledge aside (one should expect that from The New Yorker) the problem was that not only are we going to start prescribing race to music, and therefore attributes to race (as if all african-americans made music that swung, and white people always made music that did not) but we're also condemning that as something that needs to change.

People are entitled to their opinions, the more opinions we have the better, and I'm certainly an advocate for racial diversity, but to conclude that there was no soul in Indie rock (a genre I happen to enjoy quite a bit, although not the Arcade Fire) and therefore it suffered because of it is preposterous bordering on absurd. The golden rule with art is to make the art that you want, phonies are easily spotted and make good music by accident and happenstance only. And I can't imagine another art form where we not only prescribe art to racial identity but where we deem them soulless if they don't use say, Mexican-inspired brush strokes, or Aztec pottery methods. It sounds foolish but this is what Frere-Jones is suggesting.

And if that were my only problem I may be more lenient. Pushing for diversity isn't a bad thing, and its good to keep those thoughts at the forefront of society. But while the Stones and the Doors caught the blues quite well. While Bob Marley took folk music to new and dynamic heights, its easy to loose sight of the utter train wrecks that occur when we try and "add soul" to a soulless body. I had the great displeasure of watching, on two-separate tours, Limp Bizkit remember to add soul to their white music and while I'll leave my opinion of that one out due to time constraints, when I walked by the merchandise booth and saw their name plastered on a trendy one-strap book bag, well that about sums up what I think of not only Limp Bizkit
but adding soul forcefully to something that doesn't naturally have it. Its commercial, it looks stupid and everyone can see it for what it truly is -- a corporate shill forced together and thrown out like a fish net to grab in as much money as it possibly could.

And I know i'm not alone on this one. The other massive offender that comes to mind, Michael McDonald, or maybe Michael Bolton, saw their own forced money-grab face the ire of a weary and vengeful youth culture. In the film, The 40 year-old virgin, the following dialogue occurs between two of the films characters as a Michael McDonald DVD plays int eh background:

David: I gotta tell you something. I'm really excited about it. Uh, for the first time, today, I woke up, I came to the store, and I - I feel confident to say to you that if you don't take this Michael McDonald DVD - that you've been playing for two years straight - off, I'm going to kill everyone in the store and put a bullet in my brain!

Paula: David, what do you suggest we play?

David: I don't care. Anything! I would rather - I would rather watch "Beautician And The Beast". I would rather listen to Fran Drescher for eight hours than have to listen to Michael McDonald. Nothin' against him, but if I hear "Yah Mo B There" one more time, "Yah Mo" burn this place to the ground.

Paula: You're such a smartass. Get back on the floor!

To this same effect years earlier, the film Office Space had a similar agenda to get across:

Samir: No one in this country can ever pronounce my name right. It's not that hard: Samir Na-gheen-an-a-jar. Nagheenanajar.

Michael Bolton: Yeah, well at least your name isn't Michael Bolton.

Samir: You know there's nothing wrong with that name.

Michael Bolton: There was nothing wrong with it... until I was about 12 years old and that no-talent ass clown became famous and started winning Grammys.

Samir: Hmm... well why don't you just go by Mike instead of Michael?

Michael Bolton: No way. Why should I change? He's the one who sucks.

And while I don't think its fair to say that their the worst, their certainly high-profile, on-the-radar offenders, one highly effective and capable of carrying Pat Boone's torch for watering down, and dragging the soul out of the very thing which they intended to put it into to. And I can't fault Frere-Jones's point, I'd like a lot more groove oriented things to come from the artful mind's of the indie rock world too. But suggesting that if they opt not to sell their soul (or lack their of) or make something other than they want to make that their are forgetting their forefathers and giving up something vital is nothing short of appalling.

"I gat soul but I'm not a soldier"- The Killers

I hate you BOA

I didn't realize how crazy that last one sounded until I read it again today. Whoops.

Anyway, rather than complain about my financial troubles Ill just drop some knowledge from J-bomb:

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)

- More quotations on: [Banks]

How do the blues sound from up there?

Last night I made out with excessively with a woman in andys bathroom and with no regard to the other guests, and In received only adoration. I drink gin and I think I’m hunter but I’m the person I wanted to be and the world is praising me. I lose my thoughts in a 24 hour grocery store but I can’t live here for ever and that song is following me. The harmonizing brass drags me back to when I lived in the city. I’ve never lived there and I think Ive read to much Frank O’Hara and I can’t resist this pull.

I have a blistering admiration for a woman who loves me abck. I would assume her boyfriend doesn’t and its leading me to tremors of anxious fury. Who do I love, and am I old now, and where will I be when I’m 25? Too late, you’re nowhere and rising. Am I late, is this bad, what time is it? Jesus, I have to get up and go to work tomorrow and this progress report ios a brilliant thought and 1.5 paragraphs. I slept till 9 which was the best 5 hours of sleep I’ve had never. These fucking forigners parade into my apartment and want to rent, and I just want someone to share the battle. I’m sick of cars and the shuttle bus and the over regulation of Massachusetts. Blasphemy, go kneel and the eternal flame and profess allegiance to the American Athens. Sorry Jackie, but I never played hockey, or worked construction.

I’ve grown comfortable in my own skin unless they attack my masculinity. You can’t just fight people brennan, even if they call you a woman. Let it go, go away and cover for them when their in a pinch. Then leave them for dead…dead? Really?

I’m too tired to go on, fucking . god damn it, when are you coming home? Was I supposed to be perfect? maybe she is a good KSer, testosterone. It makes you fearful of commitment and fiercely loyal. WHO INVENTED THIS? There would be law suits or firings or frogs and locust I’ll tell ya that one. This is injustice at its best. You mean the benefits are being the CEO’s of stock companies. I call that a bargin for the other guy. The world needs ditch diggers too and theirs shiploads of peace in landscaping.

"From the depths I called you,
For your breath and breast so warm and fabled
Your hands reached inside
Grabbed my heart, enlarged, disabled

Hailed for your mercy
An ear that cares

How the blues sound from up there?" - TV on the Radio

Demos + Intel + Spine = ???

Can someone explain to me why they let Jann Wenner write anything political and/or about Hunter S. Thompson? With regard to the later it might be the most insulting, disrespectful slight on a dead man I've seen thus far in my short life. (with regard to the former, its just laughable) Anyway, the only reason I'm writing any of this is because John Kennedy is dead and no one took up his place. Martin Luther King is dead, and no one took up his place. The spine of a democratic and intellectual movement left us, and now I have to hear about Dennis Kucinich from some scraggily faced, soft spoken lark of a human, wrecking of weed and telling me all about Americas dirty laundry. I'm well aware of Americas dirty laundry. Are you aware of every other countries? Why are we always to blame.

Jesus I hate Cambridge. And you know I used to think differently about our immigration policies until I spoke to some immigrants and they told me we have the most liberal policies in the world for nations with governments anyhow.

People with a brain should start reading books on how to throw a punch. Or a bomb.

Make an example of the first hillbilly to interupt you. We need to bring the imperial savagery back to America. And no just good oil relations. We're the grand purveyors of The West. We're Britains retirement policy and we need to start exporting more values. Anyone who bitches that we're streamlining global culture with this war ought to realize that if our values were as transnational as our culture, the wars would be over. The fact of the matter is some countries will never have a democratic election, but they've had American Pop music for the past 27 years.

And by the by, if giving countries diplomacy means middle class white male erradication of diversity then shouldn't we be just like France and Russia. Its not, we're not, and jesus christ people, no one listens to anyone running around handing out flowers...and they never will.

*In that last post they imprisoned a woman for 15 days for allowing her elementry school class to name a teddy bear. Locals claimed she "got off easy." Why are we preserving this culture?