Tim Russert died today of a heart attack. I was listening to Mike and The Mad Dog while i heard it. I am watching MSNBC now which is nice because he worked for NBC and there is a never ending flow of people available reflecting on what Tim Russert meant to them. Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams have almost lost it on several occassions talking about their friend. Sunday wont be the same without him.
This gas thing is starting to freak me out a little bit. Its not that I really mind all that much paying 4.30 for gas but its the way that it has been presented us. It feels like only one in a combination of shades that have been systematically lifted off of the way we had been living for several years. Yes there was a war in Iraq but it never effected us adversely, unless you had a loved one over there, but for the most of us it never came that close to effecting us on any kind of personal level. But then the housing crisis came and the economy slowed down, and the government sent us $600 for free in the hopes that we wouldnt freak out when the gas prices hit 4 bucks and a lot of this was due to the amount of money that we have been ceaselessly pumping into the war. It seems like one thing after another after another is starting to go wrong or not wrong precisely but backwards. It isnt the end of the world but I am starting to see that at some point there will be one. Global warming and record amounts of tropical storms, hurricanes and floods. and on top of that we have to live with David Cook as our American Idol!!! Its all just starting to get to me i guess.-> The new Spiritualized album is pretty good, its a grower. The new Weezer album is very bad.-> I liked Indiana Jones 4 but Shia Lebouf was sort of a mistake and the scene where he swings on vines with a bunch of monkeys is perhaps the worst scene in the history of cinema.->Celtics in 6-> Im writing this on a Mac and for whatever reason it doesnt register when i make a new paragraph.-> I havent read a good book in a while any suggestions?-> and finally good work to the Democrats for finally getting their act together and picking a candidate however in my current state of mind I dont have very high hopes for November. I think America likes crazy people and John McCain might be the craziest. Imagine if he makes Mitt Romney his running mate? they would spend all of their time smiling insanely at each other reminiscing about what it was like when they both believed totally different things than they do now and comparing the taste of the Republican teet!
I am reading the Dark Tower again. I found the first 4 books in their audio versions at the library last week and paid whopping $7 for them all, the library’s suggested donation price. I had been wanting to read them again but i didnt want to read them again. so this is nice, i get to experience them in a new medium.
Hillary won last night. I cared so little about the outcome that I actually only watched a few minutes of coverage last night. Hurray, the democratic primary has officially moved from curiously long into the regions of the grotesque. Congratulations you two.
i havent been thinking very blog worthy thoughts. Maybe they are live journal worthy but this isnt a live journal so im not going to expose any one who actually reads this to the inner works of myself. You should be glad for that because my inner workings are boring and silly.
Keep on Chooglin’
“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothings replaced them, and they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
The only reason this is a problem for people is because he is right. If Barack Obama was not running for president and was instead a professor at Harvard releasing the findings of some sociological survey or even just an intelligent person with an idea, nobody would care about this. People would either a) dismiss it altogether which would only happen if b) anybody bothered to read it or pay attention in the first place.
He is not a professor however, he is running for president so commenting on the state of the people who inhabit the land he is hoping to govern is off limits. that makes perfect sense. I have always said that the quality that i most look for in a president is to sugar coat the truth so i dont have to think about what is wrong with my country. I want my president to only tell me good things and if there are no good things to tell i want him to make them up and when there only bad things going on in the world i want him to spin them and twist them and manipulate them in such away that they appear to be good. Just like we have now. I want a liar. i want someone to patronize me and pretend that i am stupid and i will gladly play along because it is my president who is asking. If you can relate to these thoughts then please leave this site and go back to sleep with your gun under your pillow where you’ll be safe from intelligent thought and reason.
What surprises me about this whole thing, is that what Barack said isnt even a new idea. it is widely accepted information. Arent there examples of this exact thing happening through out human history? When people get scared and frustrated and there arent easy answers they turn to things they can control and that have always been their for them. In America, as well as in every country to ever grace this planet, these things have always been religion, an intolerance for people that are different from them and eventually violence.
This isnt news, this is just how it works.
Do I wish he hadnt said it? Yes, but only because now he has to answer for it. Do i think he’s wrong? I most certainly do not. I have a bigger problem with Hillary Clinton and John McCain choosing to respond to this by pretending that people who are really struggling in Pennsylvania and in other abandoned industrial towns throughout the US feel just fine about their lot in life. they arent bitter. They’re happy.
No one is blaming them for being bitter so there is no need to get defensive John and Hill. Recognition of things like the state of the people in the nation you are hoping to govern is what the job of President is all about. Its called compassion and empathy. Maybe Barack’s biggest asset in this election is that he wasnt built in a generic politicians factory and come equiped with both of these abilities.
I bet you a million dollars that factory used to be in Pennsylvania but is now in Mexico or China.
I saw Tim Russert speak at SCSU last night. hes a good story teller and seems like a good guy. he likes Bruce Springsteen and was voted Dad of the Year by some publication. To steal a line from Seinfeld, “I dont know how official any of these rankings are.” Not his fault. hes a good speaker and i enjoyed the evening.
I am planning on suing American Idol to get the 2 hours of my life back that i wasted watching Idol Gives Back. The air was thick with self congratulations in the Kodak Theatre the night they filmed that train wreck. Let me ask you a question, on a show that is supposed to be promoting great singing, how do you let one of the worst singers in the history of pop music, Miley Cyrus, sing two songs when one of the best singers in the history of pop music, Annie Lennox only gets to sing one? Not only that but Miley Cyrus got to peel paint off walls TWICE and this years candidates for President of the United States got bumped due to time constraints. it nice to know AI’s priorities are in the right place.
Thank god for Annie Lennox, Bono and Forest Whitaker. The rest of the celebrities that lent their precious time to the cause should take lessons on how to not patronize the people they are exploiting for their own gain. And yes Alicia Keyes we should talk more about kids in Africa with Aids then we do celebrity drama but maybe, just maybe, when you are visiting these places, take off your designer clothes and your jewelry that is probably worth more than these people have ever considered earning in a lifetime. And thank you so much famous people for lending your time and your perfectly sculpted faces to the cause. Hey Reese Witherspoon, i think you make 20 million dollars per movie dont you? Well then maybe along with your time while your down there in New Orleans earning compassion points with people who might go see your next piece of s#!t movie you write that school a check for a million dollars or so. Why is it that the people that are most fortunate in the world are just content to lend their time. Kids with Aids in Africa dont want your freaking time, the need, need, NEED your cash and you have plenty of it. They need you to actually care as Bono and Annie Lennox and Forest Whitaker actually do. they dont need you flaunting your dangley 100,000 karat gold earrings in their faces while you wonder how they manage to live.
American Idol if you are going to make a spectacle of yourself in an effort to get my money youre going to have to do better than Billy Crystal and Robin Williams making fools of themselves, B list celebrities telling me to give them my money and Miley Cyrus’s unholy shriek. She is a banshee!!!
Also another tip to celebrities using poor people to try and get into heaven: all the sun glasses around the neck and tucked into the neck of your t-shirt look does for you is tell people that you dont really want to be there and you are going to run away screaming the first chance you get.
My thoughts are all over the place today…
The new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds record came out today. Its called Dig Lazarus Dig!!! Its not a concept record but several of the songs revolve around the premise of God raising Lazarus from the grave against his will, only to find himself a homeless junky tooling around the streets of New York City. It is amazing in every way.
There Will be Blood came out today on DVD. I find it highly amusing that this movie and the Nick Cave record came out on the same day. they are both superior works of art that try their hardest to be unlovable and difficult but are ultimately better for it. The whole point of the ending to There Will be Blood is that Daniel is finally satisfied and it is so perfect that it comes at the expense of leaving critics and the audience unsatisfied. Personally, I cannot wait to see it again.
Everyone called out today except for me and two other people and it feels like the end of the world. The phone will not stop ringing and nobody wants anything that i can actually give them. they all want some kind of magical special treatment that they dont deserve and are not entitled to and it is my great privilege to give them this news. I have been screamed at today, swore at, called useless and i might be mistaken but i pretty sure i was challenged to a fight. I would love to fight that guy today, its just too bad he is in another state. if he happens to read this i will be taking my break around 3, im in Connecticut, if you have the ability to get here by 3 i am going to rip your head off.
Mike and the mad Dog yesterday were debating whether or not Dick Vitale deserved to be in the Basketball Hall of Fame. They were both leaning towards answering the question No, but neither of them seemed willing to come out and say it. I will say that they are wrong. he totally deserves to be in the hall of fame soley because no one, NO ONE, loves basketball more than Dickie V and for that reason alone he should be in the hall of fame. He has been on Mike and Mike (the ESPN morning guys) every morning since Friday and he has ended every conversation in tears thanking everyone under the sun for giving him the opportunity to do what he does and for putting him in the hall of fame. Its all about the love of the game.
I think one thing the war has done for us is re-written the definition of the word ’success.’ before the word success meant ” the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors.” our new definition probably reads something like this, “The semi-favorable but ultimately the same persistence down an inevitable road to failure.” I think its clear that our government has no real interest in stopping this war, pulling our troops out , or even acknowledging that the only way their surge can be deemed a success is that it put more of our soldiers in a position to die. So according to the new definition the surge/ war in iraq is a success. Hopefully, George, John, and their minions of death wont re-write the definition of victory to mean “The death toll in Iraq has reached 140,00 today.”
Note - I have 770 AM on my radio for Imus. Occasionally i switch over during Mike and The Mad Dog commercial breaks to infuriate myself, which is my most favorite way to be.
People should have to pass some kind of standardized reasoning test before we let them vote. This is the reason that America is suffering because people like Rush Limbaugh belittle you into thinking that he doesnt like you and the only way you can get him to like you is to agree with him. But why would anyone care if a fat drug pusher like Rush Limbaugh likes them? Because of all the things that are ruining America the most contagious and dangerous is the people of this country’s over powering need for people to like them. people cant think or speak freely because they are afraid that someone might not like what they think and say, So they float through existence trying to destroy any hint of an opinion or abstract thought before it infiltrates their brains thus making them agreeable to all people and useless to me, and the rest of society that finds this quality in people repulsive, at the exact same time. to all the people who worry about people not liking them, guess what? I dont like you. Please feel free to email and attempt to win back my affection. Im sure my disgust with you will keep you up nights. Maybe you can use that time to think about your station in life and how you can improve it. The first way i would suggest: read a book. The second?
STOP LISTENING TO RUSH LIMBAUGH!!!
To answer the above question…Nope.
People, namely politicians, need to stop trying to convince me that America is the greatest nation to ever grace our rapidly disintegrating Earth. Maybe it used to be when we formed the nation and wrote the Declaration of Independence, or when we came together as a nation for all of a week after September 11th. There have been moments when we have achieved greatness as a country but please read this and tell me that this doesnt set us back as a species and specifically as a nation hundreds of years:
http://www.optimum.net/News/AP/Article?articleId=399904
I checked all the news wires to make sure women still had the right to vote and the we didnt reintroduce slavery into society. I went to the drinking fountain in my office and there is still only one and there is no designation as too which race can and can not use it. There are no crosses burning on any of the lawns surrounding me. For moment i was genuinely frightened that all of these things that we have worked so hard as a country to overcome might come back to haunt us all because of some stupid idiot parents who encourage their six year olds to beat the living s#!t out of each other.
According to the article it doesnt seem like these parents have any idea why normal people in society think that they should be thrown into the belly of an active volcano before they infect the rest of us with their mutant strain of idiocy. These are the same people who Im sure want Michael Vick to get the electric chair for participating in dog fighting while they are essentially engaged in the same kind of scenario: things that dont know any better being pitted against one another in a competition to see who is stronger which is determined by who inflicts more bodily harm on their opponent. But these people are doing it WITH THEIR KIDS!!! We call cock fighting disgusting while we fill our bellies up with chicken almost everyday of the week. So we dont mind that chickens get killed we just dont want them to be killed by other chickens for a latin american countries enjoyment. Well guess what i dont mind my six year olds getting into fights as long as its a school yard tussle instigated by two kids who are similar in age not by their parents dressing them in their gear, taping up their hands, PUTTING THEM IN A CAGE and then cheering them on as they either pummel a child or themselves get pummeled.
I just find this completely unacceptable. If you are grown up and are capable of making your own decisions then please be an Ultimate Fighter. I have no problem with Ultimate Fighting as long as its being done by adults. While this is currently banned in most states, of course not in the Midwest, after i finish this post I am writing to my congressman and asking that they sponsor a bill that makes involving children in Ultimate Fighting a felony and that any violation of this law result in capital punishment or at least having their kids taken away from them, not that they would mind because you have to really hate your kids to involve them in something like this. As county we need to remove these stains on our society by any means necessary. if that means education, if that means outrageous law enforcement, if that means putting these parents, who loath their children to the extent that they take pleasure in seeing them being beaten by other kids, in the ring with actual Ultimate Fighters so that they can see what its like to have someone kneeling on your arms rendering them immovable while you are repeatedly punched in the face and head, then lets do that. i am for that. I would pay to see that on pay per view. I would pay a thousand dollars to watch these parents be handled and broken by an adult who made their own choice to be an Ultimate Fighter.
People need to start using their brains for something other than figuring out how best to gratify their own, to steal a line from the Mighty Bill Hicks, fevered egos. This is all a part of of the grand deterioration of our collective intelligence and ability for reason. For this i say thank you to the following people: Thanks George Bush, thanks religious fundamentalists, thanks people who watch the Hills and Flavor of Love and think that anything Justin Timberlake has ever done in anyway compares to anything that Michael Jackson has done. You people are poisoning civilization, to quote the aforementioned Michael Jackson, “…for you and for me and the entire human race.”
Thats from Free Willy!
He was an invited guest of Bill Clinton’s in 1998.
Boom-shaka-laka! (thats from NBA Jam, remember that game?)
