Timestamps of manooshi

RoboGeisha

2011-04-03T11:58:00.000-07:00

The Japanese "horror-comedy" flick, RoboGeisha (2009) is streaming on Instant Netflix! Woohoo! Damn. I've been wanting to see this film ever since it's trailer went viral on the interwebs TWO YEARS ago. Fuckin' A. It's totally a WTF orgy fest. Haha! Enjoy!

P.S.: One caveat I have with Instant Netflix is that their foreign films are usually streamed dubbed in English, thus denying English speakers the opportunity to hear the mechanics/music/nuances of a different/foreign tongue that's provided when viewers have the flexibility of a "watch with English subtitles" option. Bummer. Like when I first discovered their Oldboy instant-streamed dubbed in English. Not cool, man. But, my homegirl was right: RoboGeisha still totally rules - dubbed in English, or not! I think the corny English dubbing, in this case, actually added to the campy-ridiculousness factor of the film. \m/

RoboGeisha international trailer (2009):

Description via Netflix: "Director Noboru Iguchi and gore master Yoshihiro Nishimura team up for this hyper-violent and hilariously grotesque depiction of a very angry army of butt sword-wielding geisha robots with enough strength to embed tempura shrimp in villains' eyes. Special effects in Iguchi's (Machine Girl) over-the-top, feminist melodrama include chainsaw lips, blood-spouting buildings, geisha transformers, machine gun bras and some basic decapitations."

Bibio

2011-03-28T16:37:00.000-07:00

Bibio's much anticipated new album is only $3.99 today on AmazonMP3.  

Hurry.  You still have a few more hours to get it.  (Note: talking to myself.)

Slick production, bro. 

P.S.:  Marry me. 

Sexy Sax Man = RAD

2011-03-13T16:20:00.000-07:00

There's been a LOT of sad shit going on in the world lately, ie: loss of labor rights in Wisconsin, the devastating earthquake/tsunami and subsequent partial nuclear meltdown in Japan, and the bombing of protesters/rebels who want a democratic regime in Libya among many other tragedies that seem endless at times like these when the world, especially the Middle East, is in a major state of flux, reaction and transition.  

This Sexy Sax Man vid went viral on the interwebs just yesterday via the Huffington Post.  Not only does it provide a necessary comic relief to the painful tragedies that have been unfolding lately, but it also features THE exact classroom where I took biology class at Citrus College when I was only 18!  What a trip! 

The Sexy Sax Man is RAD! Thanks for reminding me of my early college memories in THAT very same classroom! Frickin' LOL!

Two Important Vids

2011-03-12T14:54:00.000-08:00

Dangerous Minds, one of my favorite blogs next to Boing Boing, recently posted a few extremely important vids regarding the frighteningly fast pace that democracy, civil liberties, and The American Dream are being trampled to death by the psychotically greedy and tyrannical ameriKKKan corporate elite. 

My Fellow American(s), IF you give a damn, then please view the two videos posted below (after the jump) as a starter for understanding the criminality and injustice behind our profoundly greedy, war-monger, two-party corporate dictatorship, where not voting Republican is sadly considered the "progressive" thing to do. If we don't take to the streets to demand our socio-economic, gender, and ecological rights, (in addition to the obvious need for propaganda machines to end all of the fictitious Orwellian double-speak and demonizing of socialistic policies, e.g.: free AND quality education/healthcare, that every other industrialized/developed nation already affords its citizens via TAXING THEIR RICH), then the age of the American Dream is truly over.  Dead. The "Land of Opportunities" briefly existed for my parents' generation.  Who knows when younger generations of Americans will be able to afford a "better life" than their elders ever again?  Certainly not mine.  Not my tax bracket.  It turns out that 3/4 of American corporations do NOT pay ANY taxes at all.  WTF??  Fuck THAT!

This age of capitalism taken the extreme is psychotically immoral and destroying the planet Earth at a record pace.  Just look at global warming, contaminated waters, and the meltdown happening right now at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan!  (Btw- Anyone who continues to deny the scientific validity of global warming is an ignorant douchebag.)  Shit, we even have tons of obsolete/dead satellite trash and 'space junk' floating around and cluttering our frickin' planet's atmosphere!  Enough is enough.  The nuclear disaster unfolding in Japan more than demonstrates that THE ENTIRE WORLD needs to fully convert to safe and eco-friendly renewable energy sources and products such as wind, solar, and geo-thermal power.

We need to preserve unions/workers' rights.  Did American union activists in Chicago and elsewhere die in vain a century ago?  We need to strengthen ALL of women's rights, including her reproductive rights, not misogynistically and pathologically erode and demonize them!  We need an equitable and moral redistribution of wealth.  "Trickle down" economics is COMPLETE BULLSHIT!  It's time to tax the rich mofos, again!  Again.  AND AGAIN.  Shit, the entire U.S. tax system needs to be reformed.  There should be minimum SIX different tax brackets - not just three.  And the highest tax brackets should be taxed 50% at the very least!  Greed is insatiable.  The wealthiest echelon of society will NEVER be rich enough.  And they will never give a damn about the middle and working classes.  That's why we have NAFTA and the FTA and everything "made in China" or speaking to you from India, because corporations PREFER un-unionized, cheap, slave labor.  Greedy shareholders only want more profit at the expense of everyone else's right to a decent living wage, a happy comfortable life, on a healthy and safe planet.

Shame on President Obama and the former Democratic-majority Congress for having extended Bush's Tax Cuts along with the belligerent and prejudiced Patriotic Act that negates the very foundation of 'liberty' we were taught to sing about in grade school.  Shame on the Koch Bros, G.E., Halliburton, Blackwater, and every other corporate douchebag, for NOT paying their fucking taxes!! And shame on the war criminals of former President Bush & Co.:  Cheney and Rumsfeld, and Ms. "oil-tanker" Rice.  Empire 101:  The question is NOT:  "Why do they hate us?"  The more relevant question is:  Why shouldn't they?

First vid:  Travesty of Justice: "This is what happened tonight, when the Senate Republicans conspired to steal rights from Wisconsin workers." - as mentioned on YouTube:  March 9, 2011

via Dangerous Minds

Second vid: The Shock Doctrine. A documentary film from 2009 based on Naomi Klein's 2007 book of the same name.

via Dangerous Minds

Japan 9.0

2011-03-11T16:01:00.000-08:00

I was doing some reading on Al Jazeera's English edition website (because American news sucks for international coverage) regarding the devastatingly powerful Japan earthquake/tsunami tragedy that happened earlier today. What struck me as odd was the inclusion of a blurb of stone-cold Wallstreet jargon emphasizing that steel stocks were sky-rocketing due to the predictions of massive rebuilding/reconstruction efforts that will be needed in Japan these coming months. I'm more accustomed to Wallstreet stock/trade quotas being separated from "regular" disaster news. I guess the inclusion of "disaster capitalism" in the reportage of how many Japanese people are dead and how many are missing was more honest than American coverage which tends to compartmentalize, if not decontextualize the various frameworks for reporting a tragic news event. We DO live in an age where capitalism is practiced to its greedy extreme, after all.

However, It's disgusting to see how Casino Wallstreet reacts to a natural disaster. It's always business as usual, for those white-caller gamblers. A snapshot into the functions of capitalism taken to the extreme is both frightening and extremely educational. Dammit. Ignorance IS bliss.

Update: Here is raw footage of a Japanese town being whisked away by the tsunami's flooding on March 11, 2011. :(

Anonymous' Message to the Egyptian People [and world]

2011-02-06T13:38:00.000-08:00

Anonymous' latest vid is required viewing for any true person of conscious that fully GIVES A DAMN:

"If your government shuts down your internet, shut down your government." - Anonymous

"There is something stronger than all laws: TRUTH." - Anonymous

Young Woman's Vid Ignites Egyptian Revolution

2011-02-06T13:30:00.000-08:00

Meet Asmaa Mahfouz and witness her powerful, impassioned, and determined video plea for her fellow Egyptians to join her on January 25th in Tahrir Square of downtown Cairo to protest the tyrannical and repressive [American militarily-backed] 30-year Mubarak "State of Emergency"/dictatorship.  Asmaa posted this vid to her FB page, and it went viral on the interwebs in Egypt a week before the 25th.  As a result, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians joined her in peaceful protests to ignite a revolution from Cairo to the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria on January 25th and every day since.  

A few days later she said, "For the first time in my life, there were hundreds of thousands of people in Tahrir Square.  And for the first time... in all of my life, it was the first time I was not sexually harassed."  I cried when I heard this because I was sexually harassed in Cairo (and other parts of Egypt) almost every day of the two years that I lived there as an exchange student about a decade ago.

A bitter and drunk dude told me a few years ago, "Feminism is SO mid-90s."  Suck it, Hollywood douchebag.  You don't even have half the balls that Asmaa has.  Feminists kick ass!  And start revolutions...

Asmaa Mahfouz, my hero.

Say it like it IS!

2011-01-30T17:04:00.000-08:00

Here's a vid with a smart, funny, and extremely accurate portrayal of the subtext behind Hillary Clinton's recent coward bullshit speech full of convoluted, imperialistic, "diplomatic" Orwellian doublespeak regarding the people's REVOLUTION that is unfolding in Egypt.  This clip serves as a hauntingly humorous reminder for how often the lines of comedy and tragedy tend to blur on both local and world stages:

Geotik

2011-01-02T13:48:00.000-08:00

Geotik has another dreamy EP available for FREE download. Geotik is a "Minimal/Ambient music project of Will Weisenfeld," a.k.a.: BATHS; an excellent member of the Low End Theory sound collective.

Enjoy.

(via @BATHSmusic on Twitter)

Slayer X-mas Lights!

2010-12-25T12:33:00.000-08:00

Merry X-mas, interwebs!  \m/

via Boing Boing

Net Neutrality

2010-12-21T20:18:00.000-08:00

Senator Al Franken needs to be our next President, IMHO.  He eloquently breaks down why a two-tiered internet is against free speech and anti-trust laws.  Fuck the FCC!

via disinformation

Internet Freedom

2010-12-08T19:22:00.000-08:00

"Information wants to be free." - Anonymous

"In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, we are in trouble." - Anonymous

"Go Anonymous!!!" - Saul Williams

"Don't blame the messenger." - Wikileaks

Fuck corporate tyranny! - me

Dreams really do come true... for Die Antwoord.

2010-12-08T18:54:00.000-08:00

NINJA and Yo-Landi Vi$$er of the South African rave-rap band, Die Antwoord, recall how they "blew up on the interwebs" literally on February 3rd, of earlier this year, due to an eclectic blog that I'm fully addicted to reading: Boing Boing.

Pity Fuck

2010-12-01T16:20:00.001-08:00

haiku(s), sort of:: 

Coward, dorky dude;

"friends" with me (and my drunk ex).

Went to same college.

Was craving hot wings. 

Old "friend" wanted to join me.

Then he was too cheap,

but not for more shots

of Hendricks from my freezer.

Almost puked my brains.

He drank all my booze.

I fought off more nausea/spins.

Watched Evil Dead 2 

He busted a move.

Never thought he had the balls.

I felt confused, sick.

Had been a few months 

since drunk ex showed "affection"...

kicked shit outta me. 

Film brought rare laughter.

Sad, vulnerable, bruised chick:

Lonely and The Blues 

Just wanted a friend

to join me for hot wings.

No.  Other.  Motive.

Sorry dude, check it: 
was just a pity fuck AND 
last nail in coffin.

Hid my tears from "friend."

Ex was right: "just wants in pants."

Takes one to know one.

"Friend" always talked shit...

thought they weren't close anymore.

Turns out:  same douchebags.

Reduced me to just 

a free bong, bar, and pussy.

At least, not his maid.

Next, "friend" kissed ex's ass.

Too coward to face actions.

Two peas of same pod

deserve each other.

Thank you both for using me.

PARTY HARD, douchebags!

No love.  No respect.

Dudes were never my real friends.

Yo!  "Bros before hos!"

Both blame "crazy bitch." 

"...all I want is a Pepsi!"*

"Sex-IST!"** Not sexy.

======================

*Suicidal Tendencies

**This is Spinal Tap

Oneohtrix Point Never

2010-11-17T20:11:00.000-08:00

The Brooklyn electronic musician, Oneohtrix Point Never (Daniel Lopatin), was recently featured on an episode of Vice's 'MotherBoard:  Electric Independence' web series.  I dug when OPN explained his sampling technique for his 'echo jams' as well as when he emphasized, "I'm not that interested in synthesizing.  I'm not interested in understanding synths inside and out.  I'm interested in messing around with them:  having fun and coming up with sweet sounds."  This series provides an intimate snapshot into OPN's creative space, process and person:  basically a down-to-earth, geeky, and super talented dude.  His trippy 'echo jams' deliver spaced-out, tranquil, psychedelic-infused soundscapes.

Trippy Kitty!

2010-10-04T20:37:00.000-07:00

You are now hypnotized!

(via Laughing Squid)

Peace out, baby.

2010-10-03T11:24:00.000-07:00

haiku(s), sort of::

Put up with abuse...
verbal (and physical, too)
for almost three years.

Self-hating drunk dude
demonizes me with lies.
Truth is on my side.

Keeps threatening me:
Bully me into silence.
No more blind love, dude.

His genius talent
was no excuse for abuse,
betrayals, and lies.

Dude never loved me.
I loved him more than myself.
He was my Dream-boy.

Dreams should not harm me.
Thank you for painful lessons.
Please leave me alone.

Lies harmed me enough.
Thank you for reminding me
to never forgive.

Baths: free dreamy mix

2010-09-10T18:46:00.000-07:00

Will Wiesenfeld is the 21-year-old electronic musician, Baths.  IMHO, he's one of the best "sound landscape engineers" coming out of Los Angeles at the moment.  A friend of mine, (sorry, can't remember who) more or less said of Baths:  "I like how he uses that over-compressed LA sound that is propagating from the Low End Theory guys to a much gentler effect."  And I totally agree.  Baths has recently put out a super dreamy mix of his songs available as a free download for only the next three weeks via FACT:  

FACT mix 183: Baths "features a batch of new, exclusive Baths productions, along with  music from his more ambient-leaning Geotic project. In his own words,  it’s a 'mix for softer summers'..." 

Tracklist:
Baths – Somerset
Geotic – Walkthrough
Geotic – Nighttime Aquatics (Baths Redub)
Geotic – Nanotech Serenade (Baths Redub)
Baths – Rain Smell
Geotic – Calliope [Unreleased / FACT mix exclusive]
Geotic – Simplehearted (Baths Redub)
Geotic – At Our Cabin In The Woods
Baths – Departure
Baths – Untitled [Unreleased / FACT mix exclusive]
Geotic – Swept Off [Unreleased / FACT mix exclusive]
Geotic – Greenery Beyond Clouds (Baths Redub)
Geotic – Palm Springs [Unreleased / FACT mix exclusive]
Geotic – Middle School Sleepaways (Baths Redub)
Geotic – Kozue
Geotic – People Watching (Baths Redub)
Geotic – Waterway
Baths – Untitled [Unreleased / FACT mix exclusive]
Baths – Turian Courtship (Reworked)
Baths – Rafting Starlit Everglades
Geotic – Riding Thermals

(Via @BATHSmusic Twitter) 

Squarepusher has a new band.

2010-09-10T13:17:00.000-07:00

Warp Records has a Q & A with Squarepusher about his new band project here:  Shobaleader One

"The basic premise at the outset was 'space pop' - a utopian pop music  hallucination. It's a stand against the affectation of knowing  indifference in urban life and its corollary in music. I've always  wanted to sabotage coolness as for me music is about laughing and  crying, not about standing around smoking cigarettes." - Squarepusher 

Dear Squarepusher:  Do me.  And please marry me.

The video for 'Megazine' is frickin' SICK, as usual: 

(via Dangerous Minds)

George & Jonathan: "The Best Music"

2010-09-06T22:10:00.000-07:00

Yes.

Download this totally rad album free or be nice and leave these chiptunes geeks a donation:  http://georgeandjonathan.com/ 

(via @anamanaguchi Twitter)

Die Antwoord & Aphex Twin live at LED Festival

2010-08-29T12:48:00.000-07:00

Here's a clip of Die Antwoord performing live with Aphex Twin at London's recent LED Festival.  Check out Yo-Landi's hook below the vid and what NINJA has to say about it.  Too funny.

Yo-landi's hook:
I'M OLD ENOUGH TO BLEED
...I'M OLD ENOUGH TO BREED
LOOK MUM I'M ON THE MICROPHONE
FLOWING ON THE BEAT

"this clip could be called HEAVY FLOW" - NINJA

Minimalist Music Video Poster(s)

2010-08-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

This minimalist music video poster by the Italian graphic design artist, Fredrico Manusco, is just too bitchen. If I wasn't broke I would be buying this frickin' rad poster ASAP! It's SABOTAGE, ya'll! (Check out his website for more minimalist music vid posters.)

(via Laughing Squid)

Joshua Tree: timelapse vid of Perseid Meteor Shower

2010-08-18T17:36:00.000-07:00

"Henry Jun Wah Lee's timelapse video of the Perseid Meteor Shower and the galactic core of the Milky Way as seen from Joshua Tree National Park.  These were taken between August 12 and August 15, 2010."

You can view more of his pics here:  Under the Milky Way in Joshua Tree National Park

Spike Jonze's short film: I'm Here

2010-08-14T17:50:00.000-07:00

Aww, man. Damn you, Spike Jonze. Your robot love story got me all misty-eyed.

And similar to Where the Wild Things Are the lighting, colors, and storytelling aesthetic are dark, painful, and beautiful. I had fun recognizing the various LA spots within the film from a bus stop in Little Armenia/Hollywood to the parking lot of the Eagle Rock Plaza.

You can watch Spike Jonze's movie I'm Here - A Love Story in an Absolute World here: http://www.imheremovie.com/

I'm Here Soundtrack: 

The Lost Trees and ASKA: "There Are Many of Us"
Gui Boratto: "Beautiful Life"
Sleigh Bells: "A/B Machines"
The Lost Trees: "The Past Is a Grotesque Animal"
Animal Collective: "Did You See the Words"
Girls: "Hellhole Ratrace"
Sam Spiegel: "There Are Many of Us" (Electric Dream Version)
Sam Spiegel: "Lonesome Robot Theme"
ASKA: "Y.O.U."

via Pitchfork 

4 - Aphex Twin

2010-07-30T00:13:00.000-07:00

Here's a classical cover of Aphex Twin's "4" peformed live by Alarm Will Sound at Le  Poisson Rouge on July 22, 2009.

Thanks DJ Eng!

Full Triple Wolf!!!

2010-07-24T23:21:00.000-07:00

WHOAH! What does it mean?

Free dubsteb remix of "The War of the Worlds"

2010-07-15T00:08:00.000-07:00

A soundcloud contributor by the name of erwentpeller made a totally delicious hour-long dubstep remix of Jeff Wayne's 1978 musical version of the H.G. Wells' classic, The War of the Worlds AND he made it available as a FREE download.  However, since erwentpeller's remix has exceeded the number of downloads permissible by soundcloud, a BoingBoing commentator by the name of nutbastard, was kind enough to provide an alternative download via a Google docs account that he created especially for us happy mutants.

Password: boingboing 

(Via BoingBoing)  

PS: An analog synth playing friend of mine has the original Jeff Wayne 1978 LP. He's going to look at the liner notes and list all of the various synths used. (Thanks Stephen!) Stay tuned!

Fracking

2010-07-12T15:51:00.000-07:00

Everyone, especially in the United States, needs to see the filmmaker, Josh Fox's HBO documentary, Gasland.  Fox exposes what a greedy and filthy farce the natural gas industry really is!  Hundreds of towns all across the U.S. have been completely destroyed and rendered unlivable due to the belligerent and insatiable greed of the natural gas industry and their extremely toxic "technology" of fracking.  This is a crime against humanity, and most importantly, the environment.  But as usual, corporate greed and tyranny subjugates social and environmental justice.  Fuck natural gas!  And fuck fracking!  Both of which need to be rendered illegal ASAP.  Corporate deregulations and/or lack of any regulations fuck over communities, habitats, and the ecosystem, as usual, in order to bring maximum profits for a handful of rich white dudes.  Fuck THAT.

http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/ 

Aphex Twin cover by a steel drumb band

2010-07-10T22:22:00.000-07:00

Members of the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati do a steel pan cover of Aphex Twin's Alberto Balsalm.

via Dangerous Minds

April Fool's

2010-07-01T23:53:00.000-07:00

haiku(s), sort of::

The very last time

"stupid cunt" saw the 'joker,'

he kicked me a lot...

...even though I was
just his free maid, bong, and 'cunt.'
No invites for me.

His birthday meet-up
was only for his boyfriends. 
Girlfriend must stay home.

I was not worthy.
"You only think of yourself,"
the B-day boy kicked. 

Used and abused me. 
NO more free maid, bong, and 'cunt.'
"Eat a bag of dicks!"

*******
                             
             Love = a verb.

"Love is not lovING." - David Bowie, verse from the song: Soul Love

"Love and abuse  cannot coexist.  Abuse and neglect are, by definition, the opposites of  nurturance and care." - bell hooks


"Life can be uncaring, unforgiving, and mean; friends shouldn't be." - Scott Holme

4 memes

2010-06-24T22:42:00.000-07:00

*Four kick-ass internet memes this week. (*updated)

1::  National Pork Board's cease and desist letter to ThinkGeek due to their failure to get ThinkGeek's April Fool's spoof re: Canned Unicorn Meat:  The Other White Meat --because, you know, "the other white meat" can only be pork and NOT sparkly unicorn meat!

2::  John Cage - 4′33″ [Vuvuzela Cover] 

3:: As Xeni Jardin rightfully noted on her Boing Boing post: Random dudes on YouTube now covering Die Antwoord, "It was inevitable." And it's frickin' RAD!

4:: Missy, the missing cat. Just click it. It's too frickin' funny to say more! (Graphic designers and cat peeps will especially enjoy.)

Dude plays his violin to Super Mario Brothers soundtrack

2010-06-19T10:45:00.000-07:00

I do have a sentimental chunk of my childhood devoted to the hours (wasted?) playing my younger brother's NES whatever-the-fuck-number.  THE game I played the most was Super Mario Brothers.  Last night, while first hearing/watching this awesome dude, Teppei Okada, play the soundtrack of this game on his violin (via Boing Boing)-- I was trippin' on how I had every note, every pause of the soundtrack permanently ingrained in my head, and the cognitive recall was fucking instantaneous.  Even the keystrokes and/or button pressings of the "joysticks are for obsolete Atari dorks" thingy were suddenly kinesthetically re-awakened.   It's been like 23 years.  Holy shit. 

He even plays the dungeon scene.   Frickin' cute.

Impeach this greedy fuKKKer!

2010-06-17T16:50:00.000-07:00

British Petroleum deserves NO apologies.  Not for fucking over Iran since the turn of the last century!  Not for belligerently fucking over the natural habitat of the Gulf of Mexico this century!  Fuck BP and fuck this greedy, racist, old, white dude for being a corporate whore and apologizing to them for Obama trying to do his job!  IMPEACH THIS TEXAS FUKKKER!!  Man, do I hate "don't mess with Texas" more than ever now.

Thank you, Dangerous Minds blog for your right-on post regarding the need to impeach this Republican son of a bitch for his outrageous and immoral apology to BP.

Eat a bag of little Dallas dicks, Mr. Barton!

BTW- a sperm whale was one of the latest casualties from the 2.5 million gallons of oil leaking per day in the Gulf of Mexico!  RIP sperm whale.

Post-Script update:  And when is the justice department going to sue the fuck out of Halliburton and jail those greedy, immoral, and reckless criminals already?  Apparently, their criminal negligence spreads far and wide from Iraq to the Gulf of Mexico.  

Do me.

2010-06-17T15:17:00.000-07:00

Kilian Martin is the ballerina of freestyle.  I fully mean that as a compliment.

via Tony Hawk's "Shred or Die" 

Mouse on Mars

2010-06-05T10:22:00.000-07:00

Holy shit!  I recently rediscovered the German electronic music duo, Mouse on Mars.  Such a rad landscape of sounds.  Once again, only confirming that Germans are fucking cool artists.  So throw some Mouse on Mars on rotation and enjoy the deliciousness of their compositions.  (They've supposedly been working on a new album since early last year.   Wonder when it will come out?)

Beware of the creepy puppet video: 

Holy Fuck

2010-05-20T19:19:00.000-07:00

Digging on the new Holy  Fuck album, Latin.  I think they're one of those bands that are better  experienced live.  Their geeky, space-funkedelic jams rocked the party at the Troubadour last year!  They're  playing there again on June 10th.  Highly recommended. 

Remember:  Stay Lit.

Post Script Update:  The show was totally awesome. 

Time to Laugh

2010-05-14T12:34:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, the comedian, Doug Benson, generously stoked me with free tix to see his show, "The Benson Interruption," where he invites other comedians to perform and then interrupts them during their schtick.  It's a fun improvised dialogue of sorts.  Aziz Ansari also performed.  It was pretty rad to see them both.

Aziz was practicing material for when he hosts The MTV Movie Awards next month.  It was interesting to see what jokes of his bombed and what worked.  He definitely acknowledged so and took note.  I didn't realize that comedians will practice their jokes around town in front of live audiences before hosting a major televised gig for the likes of MTV.  But then again, everything takes practice in order to be tight, right?

After the show, I got to thank Doug for the free tix and share with Aziz this comment someone made about me on a Boing Boing post recently:  "Are you Aziz Ansari?  If so, I love you.  If not, I still love you!"  That made them both crack up.  Coolness.  A friend of mine tried to joke with them both while waiting for me to use the facilities.  But apparently they weren't getting his jokes.  Either they both were too stoned to get him, and/or they were simply wishing he had long hair and boobs.

Doug will be performing his live stoner commentary soon at the Comedy Death Ray Movie Series to the film, "Friday the 13th, Part 3" at the Cinefamily.  Why part three?  I have no idea.  Have I seen it?  Probably not since I was 10 years old...

I highly recommend checking out Doug Benson in person sometime.   

Peace.

Sing it, Tom.

2010-05-14T12:14:00.000-07:00

To be honest, this new single is NOT one of Tom Petty's greatest sounding jams, but he sings a healthy and empowering mantra about basically being done settling for selfish, cruel, douchebag liars who just use, abuse, and betray the ones they are supposed to love, respect, and be committed to.

It's a good reminder to avoid like the plague any coward, hypocrite, bullshit-artists who can look you straight in the eye and just "tell you what they *think* you want to hear" rather than having the balls, sincerity, and integrity to communicate honestly so that friendship, trust, and true love can actually have a realistic chance to blossom.  But that's the "road less traveled" in LA, it seems.  That's OK.  I'm holding out for that special rare road that's cool with side-walk surfing and teaching me how to ollie without eating major shit.  Maybe a practice sesh on some grass first.  ;)

"I shoulda  known it.  I shoulda seen.  Leave it to you, to treat me mean.  Every  promise, was just a roll around.  I shoulda known it.  Yeah, you're  gonna let me down.  And it's over now, you see.  It's the last time  you're gonna hurt me."  - Tom Petty

Germans are cool.

2010-05-13T20:30:00.000-07:00

Trippy music vid montage from a German, '70's boobage, sci-fi dance-film! - NSFW

Marko Fürstenberg - Porn Infection (Das Kraftfuttermischwerk Softporn Edit) from Saint Sebastion on Vimeo.

(via Dangerous Minds, of course.)

R.I.P. girlfriend kitty

2010-05-02T19:36:00.000-07:00

Cats prove that True Love really does exist.

via Everywhere - but first via Tank Riot's Twitter for me, personally.

The Xx - "Islands" vid

2010-04-23T20:11:00.000-07:00

When I was a little girl and first starting to formally train in dance as an expressive form of performance art, I learned that good choreography is when the music you hear and the dancing you see are both articulated and performed fully in sync.  The choreography ideally 'hits' almost every note, every beat composed.

In the case of this Xx vid, aside from the sexy choreography being pretty repetitive and more on every off-beat, it seems to have its own sub-text complementing the  lyrics of the song. The use of lighting, costuming, and set design are pretty cool too. 

Chatroulette!

2010-02-13T13:17:00.000-08:00

I first read about this new online chatting service called Chatroulette from a post on the Dangerous Minds blog about 5 days ago or so.  (Btw- Dangerous Minds is an entertaining blog with an inventory of eclectic internet items and memes.)  Anyway, despite the warning of penis everywhere, I decided to give it a go hoping to encounter some of the random funny costumes and creative characters the article on DM had mentioned.

All I got was penis my first go.  I clicked the "next" button and clicked away.  Penis.  Penis.  Penis.  Sometimes the Penis said it was from Boston.  Sometimes it was from Jersey.  Sometimes from the South of France.  Other Penises were from LA or Pittsburgh.  Most Penises were too shy to say where they were from.  A Penis or two or three would ask for my honest opinion to rate their size.  One was incredibly small that I didn't have the heart to give him a 1 out of 10 star ratings.  So, I just said, 'sorry' and clicked the next button instead.  But the image of that incredibly small peepee with huge hairy balls is an image I wish I could forever erase.  *shudders*

And then there were the many packs of 14-year old boys screaming, "Show me your tits!"  The dudes my age were either just penis and/or creepily looking for a jack-off buddy.  So, my first time encountering this social-network experiment proved mostly to be a porn experience dominated by either prepubescent boys and/or desperate middle-aged pervs.  Well, that IS the majority of the 'net!  

One dude simply had a pic of a sad looking puppy with crappy photo-shopped text that said, "Tits for Haiti?"  It WAS a cute puppy!  But no, I 

opted not to show my tits for Haiti, despite the humanitarian plea.

So, then last night I was tired after an exhausting week and especially day of student-teaching and formal observations from my university supervisor.   I was home on a Friday night and decided to give Chatroulette another go.  Penis.  Penis.  Penis.  "Show me your tits!"  Penis.  "Rate my penis?"  Penis.  Penis.  "Show me your tits!"  Penis.  "Let's have fun together?"  Penis.  "I do as you command," earnestly insisted a 15-year old chubby boy with a Darth Vader helmet and his hand on his... guess?  Nice helmet.  Next. 

Damn.  Why couldn't I find "normal" cool people to chat with?  I did have an interesting and long conversation with a Penis from Turkey who actually was generous enough to jizz at the beginning of our conversation.  But I soon got bored chatting with his Penis as it grew limp from having jizzed at the beginning of our introduction and his English was very poor.

Then there was blond Penis from the South of France who said, "Show me yours and I'll show you mine."  Sure, go for it.   He did.  I hit the 'next' button.  Sucker.

"Show me your tits!" every prepubescent loner or pack of teenage boys would scream!  Again.  And again. Desperate pervs from ALL over the world AND country wanted to see my tits... whether their boners were from Nigeria, China, or the South Bronx.

"Where are the chicks on here?" I wondered.  Oh yeah, they're 14-years old too.  With overly applied make-up and freshly brushed tresses of silky hair.   Goodluck finding your future husbands on here, little girls!  These young girls would mostly either "next" me, or give me a nice smile and a wave prior to "nexting" me.

Occasionally, there were CLOTHED dudes with FACES (yes, I'm not kidding, they were fully covered in their clothing) from Jamaica or Chile who were smoking bowls and flashing peace signs!  Nice!!!  World Wide Tokes.  I'll join that party!  Unfortunately, their girlfriends would soon "next" me.  I guess they just wanted to chat with Penis?  

I asked a Penis from Australia if he'd had any luck meeting Tits on here.  He said, "Yes, a few times.  But they were all very young girls who were not as sexy as you.  I prefer MILFS."  I don't have kids, I said.  "Well, it's just easier for me to call a hot as hell woman who's almost twice my age, a 'MILF'."  This Penis from Down Under also said that from his observations, Chatroulette is 90% used for porn at present.  Yeah, no shit.  Goodluck with that.  I hit the "next" button after he said, "brb" because he'd been such a polite Penis that I didn't have the heart to 'next' him to his... um.... "face."

And what's up with the shadowy coward creepy dudes blanketed all in black with muted cameras who just want to see my... guess?

Then.... BOOM!!!  I finally met some "normal" awesome people!!!  Woohoo!!!  And guess what?  They were from LA too!  Turns out they were UCLA students partying it up in their dorms or apartments or whatever crappy dwelling UCLA students have to live in in shitty Westwood.   

When I saw one of the chicks wearing glasses, I knew immediately that these were "normal" people.  We all immediately hit it off.  We drank and toked together.  Laughed about all of the penis and "show me your tits!" that happen all over the place.  I was so envious: they said they'd actually encountered a few other "normal" people other than Penis or Show Me Your Tits.  They said they met a cool dude from Brazil who lived in a high-rise apartment who showed them his killer view.  They said they met a few cool grandpas on here who were super funny to talk to.  WTF, man?  How come my experience had been 85% Penis?  And 15% Show Me Your Tits?  So unfair!

Dude, I totally felt like I was back in college again!  (They were shocked that I was over a decade older than them, which was flattering.)  We chatted and partied "together" for probably a good hour.  They took me to their party... we smoked.  We drank.  We laughed.  They took my laptop head along with them to go smoke cigarettes out in the hallway.   I kinda felt like I was Max Headroom in a way, with them transporting my laptop head where ever they went.  It was awesome!!  A few of them went on a beer run.  I was totally "at" their party with them... random super nice party people coming up to my laptop head and chatting with me.  Shit, I think I was the life of their party! At least, that what they said!  Lol!!  It was so surreal.  It was THE cool Chatroulette experience I'd been hoping for!  America!  Fuck yeah!!

I had so much fun chatting with these UCLA students that I added two of the rad party gals as Facebook friends and told them to stop by for some tea anytime!  I think I actually made some genuine homegirls on this Chatroulette pron site.  Awesome.  :)

Peace.

\m/

Rainy Day

2009-12-12T22:31:00.000-08:00

haiku(s)::

Los Angeles rains.

Rain rarely comes to the desert.

Drought, water rations.

Smog is washed away.

Rainbows splash across the sky.

Mudslides from fires.

For a 'lil while,

plants are no longer thirsty.

But my heart still is.

Obama & Wallstreet

2009-12-10T16:52:00.000-08:00

Here's another Matt Taibbi article to depress the shit out of those of us who were really hoping for 'change' to come:

Obama's Big Sellout  (via Rolling Stone)

"Best of" Albums of the 00's

2009-12-01T22:06:00.000-08:00

In light of how most music blogs put out disputable "best of" lists every year, and now decade, I decided to compose my own list of suggestions for the "best of" albums of the past 10 years.  I enlisted a 'lil help from the local LA musician, wi_ngo.  We had some minor agreement with Pitchfork's "20 Greatest Albums of the 00's", but diverged a lot as well.

Best Albums - (18 suggestions by wi_ngo and Manel. Listed in no particular order yet, except that Kid A is numero uno): 

Kid A - Radiohead
The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place - Explosions in the Sky

In Rainbows -  Radiohead

Nouns - No Age
Mirrored - Battles

Source Tags and Codes - ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead...

Saturdays = Youth - M83
Friend Opportunity - Deerhoof
Chromophobia - Gui Borratto 
Kala - M.I.A.

From Here We Go Sublime - The Field

Untitled - Sigur Rós

You Forgot it in People - Broken Social Scene

Funeral - Arcade Fire
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco 
Merriweather Post Pavillion - Animal Collective
White Blood Cells - The White Stripes
Illinois - Sufjan Stevens

Albums up for debate and/or worth mentioning - (28 suggestions by Manel in no particular order):

Elephant Eyelash - Why?

LP - Holy Fuck

Life is Full of Possibilties - Dntel

Ambivalence Attitude - Bibio

Los Angeles - Flying Lotus

Primary Colors - The Horrors

Smile - Brian Wilson

Bromst - Dan Deacon

In the Future - Black Mountain

The Lemon of Pink - The Books

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots - Flaming Lips

fraud:  a collection of love songs - wi_ngo

Supreme Balloon - Matmos

Oracular Spectacular - MGMT

Ex-aquarium - Kelpe

XX - The Xx

Get Color - HEALTH

I Get Wet - Andrew W.K.

Walls - Apparat  
[   ]  - blindoldfreak
Pilfershire Lane - Tara Busch
Two Suns - Bat for Lashes 

Guerolito - Beck

The Chemistry of Common Life - Fucked Up
Drift - Nosaj Thing
Logos - Atlas Sound
Chili, This One is for You - Kufu 
The Bird of Music - Au Revoir Simone


Note: You might want to check back again, because knowing me, I might update this half a dozen more times...

I'm back!

2009-11-25T12:10:00.000-08:00

I had to take my Timestamps offline for a while, but screw it, I'm back. :)

I have a new empowering motto that is a year overdue:

"Genius talent" does not trump coward lies, selfish betrayals, and cheap slander.  Never settle for less than true love, respect, and honest friendship.

If anyone takes offense to this:  Suck it, Trebek.

Thank you.

Peace.

\m/

Self-censorship

2009-06-17T00:20:00.000-07:00

haiku(s)::

Say it like it IS.

Sucks when you censor yourself

when in my presence.

Even suckier

when buddies "tweet" about the

same story, now changed.

Song remains the same:

Still don't have the balls to share

your true self with me.

"Chuggalug, Donna!"

Picture this: a beer in hand,

bullshit out of mouth.

Iranian elections & LA Lakers

2009-06-14T19:53:00.001-07:00

Wow. A revolution might be in the making in Iran right now... maybe mostly student fomented, as the government is pursuing students at the university in Tehran.  (Twitter search = #IranElection. Also, Live-blogging Iran)

Foreign media has been banned by the Ahmadinejad regime.

Many people would have to be willing to die in order for Iran's oppressive theocracy to end.  It's violent and scary.  Is this what Malcom X meant when he said, "By any means necessary"?  (Post-script: RIP Neda.) Unfortunately, 'secular' is often a derogatory word in the Middle East... so a secular democratic people's movement is probably a pipe-dream.

Oh yeah, and the Lakers won.  Again.  Wow.  And WTF with the fans looting and setting shit on fire in downtown?  FAIL.

"Gentleman"

2009-06-08T20:53:00.000-07:00

haiku(s)::

Need Hello Kitty.

Stress and caffeine still lingers.

Hoped cat would pull through.

But no way, José.

Cat has one drinking bowl left.

Stingy with last bowl.

What a bummer, man!

Mean and psycho reaction.

Real classy, dude. Thanks.

Bad trippers are deaf.

Tomorrow's deadline still calls...

Felines are selfish.

Silverlake Stroll

2009-04-26T11:51:00.000-07:00

The Love Shack.

More pics  here

Shoot a Robot

2009-03-25T18:53:00.000-07:00

My friend, Fong, and I have started a bookclub called, Shoot a Robot.  Since we are going to 'christian' the group by first reading a short story by the brilliant science fiction writer, Philip K. Dick, we appropriately titled our new bookclub from a phrase I found from the following PKD quote:

"So we and our elaborately evolving computers may meet each other halfway. Someday a human being, named perhaps Fred White, may shoot a robot named Pete Something-or-other, which has come out of a General Electric factory, and to his surprise see it weep and bleed. And the dying robot may shoot back and, to its surprise, see a wisp of gray smoke arise from the electric pump that it supposed was Mr. White's beating heart. It would be rather a great moment of truth for both of them."

--Philip K. Dick, The Shifting Realities of Phillip K. Dick

Reading and discussion will commence next week with, "Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich".  We haven't yet decided whether it will be strictly an online discussion thing and/or whether we'll be meeting at a nearby coffee shop in Silverlake on occasion.  We're hoping to move beyond cyberspace to do this right.  (Summer BBQ's might be in order, too).  So stay tuned, if you're interested!  Actually, just email me if you're down to read the shit outta PKD and others.  Suggestions are always welcome!

Possible Shoot a Robot readings will include:  science fiction, the Beats, surrealists, Gonzo journalism and whatever else we frickin feel like!  ;)

Please let me know if you would like to be invited to join our googlegroup!

Shoot a Robot

Peace!

Wall Street Casino thugs and "OTS" should be jailed.

2009-03-21T13:12:00.000-07:00

The bonuses are a nice comic touch highlighting one of the more outrageous tangents of the bailout age, namely the fact that, even with the planet in flames, some members of the Wall Street class can't even get used to the tragedy of having to fly coach. "These people need their trips to Baja, their spa treatments, their hand jobs," says an official involved in the AIG bailout, a serious look on his face, apparently not even half-kidding. "They don't function well without them."

From Matt Taibbi in March 19th edition of Rolling Stone:

The Big Takover

No Age

2009-01-25T22:03:00.000-08:00

This has been the weekend where I got 'lost' in the No Age. The band. I got to see them perform twice for a total of 5 bones. Not bad, eh? First, I went to a kick-ass members party at Machine Project early Saturday evening. It was really cool to see the Machine community in one large collective gathering. The girl who runs super fast on the TV show, Heroes, was there as well! But everyone played it cool. No one called her out. The 'bouncers' were a pretty fucking scary brute squad, man! And the free tamales and beer kicked ass! (Pic: Ambient Force 3000: David, Jason, Amar. Betalevel in the house.)

Back to No Age, they performed Saturday night for free at the New Image art gallery over in WeHo.  The art in the 'first' gallery was disturbing:  the colors were mostly an angry red (orange-based) and the themes were rape, torture, and violence.  The art in the 'second' larger gallery, where No Age performed, was your usual eclectic LA low-brow pop surrealist affair of various artists. (Sorry, I don't know names of artists, I was admittedly  there primarily for the music, but I caught a few shots of some cool shit).  No Age kicked motherfuckin ass.  It was so fucking fun regardless of having cruised sola.  They are two really down-to-earth, talented, 'stand-up' dudes.

Then they performed a Sunday 'matinee' show at The Smell in downtown LA today where they served free pancakes. How rad is that? The Smell is located in an alley between Spring and Main and 2nd and 3rd streets.  It's 'all ages' which means:  mostly high school kids.  I even saw a few 10 year-old boys in the mosh pit.  Crazy.  AND they had some pretty healthy afros going there.  Bring it back, Panther-style, boys.   (As long as I'm not running into any high school kids I teach, I'm cool.  My weekends, ideally, are separate from work.)  The Smell is also super cheap.  These Sunday afternoon gigs are very ideal for kids.  It's daytime, it's cheap, and it's fun.

The mostly chick (except the bad-ass drummer) noise band  that went on before No Age, Mika Miko, was pretty damn good. (BTW, Wavves and Abe Vigoda kicked ass also!)   I liked how one of the mics was encapsulated within a bright red, old-school 80's retro phone.  Very geeky cool.  It was great seeing girls rock the fuck out so hard. They reminded me of my geeky and very talented college roomates from about a decade ago, who had all graduated from the LA High School of the Arts.  The thing is, I wouldn't call Mika Miko 'post-punk'-- because that's a term more befitting to early 90's acts like The Pixies, Nirvana, or Sonic Youth (a la Velvet Underground).  Their sound was more like a 'retro' punk sound.  It 'took me back' a bit, kind of thing.  Which makes sense, since kids have been into 80's retro shit since 2000.  What was tripping me out now, was how many long-haired teen dudes there were with beanies and plaid shirts.  Hello, grunge.  Seattle's back in the house.

Oh yeah, and The Smell, is very appropriately named.  It reminded me of going out back East, when I used to live in New York:  small, sweaty, hot, crowded, stinky, smelly venues.   Downtown has New York flav to it, because, well, the old section of downtown is the only part of LA that is, just that:  old.  OG.  Has some history.  I like to refer to it as my 'grandfather's downtown'.  He was a painter and commercial artist here in LA in the 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s.  He also taught painting and drawing classes in downtown LA at Chouinard in 1929, which was the predessor to Cal Arts out in Valencia.  (Why did it move out there?).  He lived in Bunker Hill when it was the cheap, bohemian, artistic, cultural enclave of downtown.  Now it's part of yuppy Little Tokyo, I think.  Don't get me wrong, Hama, is THE best sushi spot in ALL of Little Tokyo.  And I love ramen. 2nd Street Jazz is a cool spot to catch local bands...

Overall, I feel really lucky to have experienced these two shows.  And for almost nothing.   5 bones is peanuts.  Which is just what my broke ass needed.

I love cruising to live shows.  And newly discovered that it's fun documenting some of them with my new camera. Occasionally, I meet someone who fully gets my eclectic taste in music that was greatly influenced and shaped by [what used to be] a punk-rock skater older brother when we were growing up here in LA.  He had studied some piano, violin, and guitar growing up-- along with a killer knack for learning foreign languages-- so he has a good 'musical ear'.  My bro taught me to appreciate a myriad wall of sounds from all directions, cultures, time and space, since I was a little girl, playing with dolls. In no particular order, some of the bands he turned me on to were: David Bowie, Devo, Gary Numan, Brian Eno, The Clash, Led Zepplin...  and of course: The Ramones. 

I still remember the day in the late 80's when my older brother was still living here in LA, (before later becoming a New Yorker), and he put a tape in his car and said, "This is Industrial".  It was Nitzer Ebb.  It blew my fucking mind.  I saw them a few years later open up for Depeche Mode in Dodger Stadium. Anyway, my brother was responsible for also indoctrinating me with King Crimson, Rush, Roxy Music, Pink Floyd, Jimmi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, BB King, The Doors, The Kinks, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath,  Parliament, The Beach Boys, The Damned, Serge Gainsbourg, and so many other bitchen bands from the 60's, 70's and 80's. He also got me into Public Enemy's 1989 album, "Fear of a Black Planet".  That album totally kicks ass. James Brown samples all over the place.  Never can fail there. Later he turned me on to Buena Vista Social Club and the many varieties of Arabic, Indian, African, and Latin music.

Okay, okay, okay...  Enough bragging about my rad brother.  Geez.  I feel like a little girl again.  ;) 

Peace.

Check out some pics!  Here's some vids, too.

Animal Collective

2009-01-21T21:03:00.000-08:00

My Girls

(Brian Wilson taken to the next level.)

The Lyrics are extremely lovely.

Fully Flared

2009-01-20T22:28:00.000-08:00

The killer intro directed by Spike Jonze:

Song by M83 – Lower Your Eyelids to Die With the Sun

Gaza's Shattered Mirror

2009-01-15T18:56:00.000-08:00

This CounterPunch article provides a well-informed, but brief historical overview as to why we have the Palestine/Israel problem, and why it isn't going away... as long as racist ideologies and apartheid trumps over freedom and justice.

How Will Israel Save Face?

By M. SHAHID ALAM   
 
At a time when Palestinian men, women and children, corralled in the ghetto of Gaza since 1948, are daily, hourly, relentlessly, being bombed from the air, land and sea, it is instructive to turn to some of the founding fathers of Zionism, and ask what they might have thought about this obscene consequence of their messianic vision.

In the writings of these founding fathers, the Palestinians rarely merit even a passing reference. You can pore through one of the earliest statements of the Zionist credo, Moses Hess’ Rome and Jerusalem, but you will find not a single reference to ‘Muslims’ or ‘Arabs.’ Twice, the word ‘Palestinian’ enters this venerated text; the first time, it appears in connection with the training of Jewish youth for the “life of a Palestinian farmer;’ and the second refers to the ‘Jerushalmi Palestinian Talmud Sanhedrin.’ Palestine always exists, inscribed on some divine tablet, as Israeli land; but there are no Palestinians.   

If you search Theodore Herzl’s The Jewish State, you come away with the same disappointing results. It contains not a single reference to Muslims, Arabs or Palestinians: or even Bedouins. Incredibly, a search through Arthur Hertzberg’s The Zionist Idea, a classic anthology of excerpts from several generations of Zionist thinkers, produced identical results. The Muslims, Arabs or Palestinians never entered into their plans for a Jewish state. To use a term from Lawrence Davidson, this is ‘perceptual depopulation’ of Palestine, at its extreme.   

Nearly from the outset, the Zionists exuded power. Palestine was a thing to be bought; and if it was not for sale, they would take it by force. Twice, Rabbi Kalischer urged the head of the Rothschild family and Moses Montefiore to buy Palestine – or, at least, Jerusalem – from the Ottoman Sultan. More than once, Theodore Herzl too offered to buy Palestine from the Ottoman Sultan. He was told, it was not for sale.

That would not derail Zionist plans; they could persuade one or more European powers to take it for the Jews by force. In 1818, Mordecai Noah, an early American Zionist, proposed that the Jews could create their own army and do it themselves. Nearly all Zionists were more pragmatic: they decided to let the Europeans do it for them.   
 
This is how Theodore Herzl laid out his plan for creating a Jewish state. “Let the sovereignty be granted us over a portion of the globe large enough to satisfy the rightful requirements of a nation; the rest we shall manage for ourselves (italics added).” Hidden in that innocuous ‘the rest’ are the unmentionable people who inhabited Palestine. Two agencies would suffice to carry out this plan: The Society of Jews and The Jewish Company.

In the plan that Herzl worked out, The Society of Jews would “treat with the present masters of the land [the Ottomans], putting itself under the protectorate of the European powers…” Herzl adds that the “creation of our state would be beneficial to adjacent countries…;” but the people living there go unmentioned.

However, Herzl does pay careful attention to more weighty matters, such as how best to get rid of the “wild beasts” in the country they would appropriate. The methods used to colonize Palestine (or Argentina) would have to be modern, using the latest technology. “It is foolish,” he explains, “to revert to old stages of civilization, as many Zionists would like to do.”   

Here is how the Zionists should work, Herzl explained, if they “were obliged to clear a country of wild beasts…” “We should not take spear and lance,” he emphasizes, “and go out singly in pursuit of bears; we should organize a large and lively hunting party, drive the animals together, and throw a melinite bomb into their midst (italics added).”   

It is most unlikely that Herzl was speaking – even subconsciously, I will grant – of the Palestinians when he explains for the benefit of Jewish colons, how to clear their colony of “wild beasts” such as “bears.”

Nevertheless, who can escape noticing the eerie parallels between the methods that he proposes to get rid of the “wild beasts” and the strategy and tactics that Jewish colonists have adopted since 1948 to clear Palestine of its indigenous population?

Already, in the 1930s, the Yishuv had created “a large and lively hunting party” called the Haganah that would grow very quickly after 1948 into one of the most formidable militaries in the world.   

In 1948, this “large and lively hunting party” would launch its first massive drive to “clear” Palestine of the “wild” Palestinians. The “hunting party” has since worked to ensure that the “wild” Palestinian refugees would never return to their lands. Whenever the “wild” Palestinians have ventured out of their refugee pens to re-enter or reclaim their lands, the “hunting party” has deterred them by throwing “a melinite bomb in their midst.”   

A second drive to clear out the “wild” Palestinians was launched in 1967, when a much-expanded “hunting party” captured all of Palestine.    

After 1967, the Israeli “hunting party” began to implement a new plan for clearing out the West Bank and Gaza of the “wild” Palestinians. Eager to make room for new cohorts of Jewish settlers, the “hunting party” began to “drive…together” the “wild” Palestinians into ever-smaller enclaves within these newly acquired territories.      

In Gaza, the Israeli plans began to run into difficulty with the start of the Second Intifada in 2000. The Islamist Hamas had been gaining strength in the heavily overcrowded and miserable pens to which the Palestinians had been confined since 1948. In preparation for a new approach to neutralizing the besieged Palestinians, Israel adopted a new approach in 2005. It removed its “hunting party,” including Jewish settlers, out of harm’s way, as it moved to seal Gaza’s borders, the better to throw “melinite bombs into their midst.”   

It is the ghastly culmination of this new strategy we have been witnessing in Gaza over the past weeks.

Israel is the crowning achievement of modernity in our times, of the rational, efficient and ruthless pursuit of power for one tribe; its success depends now, as in the past, on the massive deployment of “melinite bombs” against virtually unarmed “wild beasts.”   

In the words of Herzl, again, Israel seeks to complete its colonial-settler enterprise “in a bolder and more stately style than was ever adopted before, for we now possess means which men never yet possessed.”   

Yet, for more than a hundred years since the launching of the Zionist project, the “wild” Palestinians have remained undefeated. For more than thirty years, they faced the “iron wall of British bayonets;” and since 1948, they have courageously stood up against the thickening “iron wall of Jewish bayonets.”     

The Palestinians have one resource the Zionists do not have: they have justice on their side.

Yet, justice has not always prevailed when it has been overmatched by brute force. America's dead natives can testify to that. That is the hope that drives Israelis; they are sustained by their conviction that they “possess means which men never yet possessed.”     

Perhaps, world conscience will wake up in time to convince the Zionists to the contrary. Perhaps, this can happen before it is too late, before the tide of history has turned decisively against Israel.        

Israel can only be sustained if it can score repeated victories against the peoples of the Middle East – clear, quick and stunning victories, like those of 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1982. That has been changing, starting with Israel's unilateral retreat from Lebanon in 2000. Then there was Israel's costly and transparent failure to attain any of its objectives with the massive onslaught against Hizbullah in 2006. Israel faces another failure against Hamas now, against a much weaker foe.     

How will Israel save face after this? Will they persist in their attempt to destroy the Palestinians, with a new generation of “melinite bombs” dispatched from the United States? Alternatively, will Israeli mothers force Israeli warmongers to make a sincere determination to make amends to the Palestinians and learn to live with them in a non-racist society?

Let us hope that Israelis – at last – will make the right choice.   

M. Shahid Alam is professor of economics at Northeastern University. He is author of Challenging the New Orientalism (2007). Send comments to alqalam02760@yahoo.com.        Visit his website at: http://aslama.org.

Via CounterPunch

blindoldfreak

2009-01-10T18:35:00.000-08:00

"I asked for water, she gave me gasoline." - Howlin Wolf

happy:

happy. from Alessandro Cortini on Vimeo.

This is seriously my favorite artist at the moment.  As such, I'm convinced that the Buchla synthesizer produces THE best sounds.  EVER.  His song, scared of everything, is even better, IMHO.  Check it out here:  blindoldfreak

Brian Eno is kicking ass and taking names.

2009-01-07T20:38:00.000-08:00

An Experiment in Provocation: Stealing Gaza

By BRIAN ENO

It’s a tragedy that the Israelis – a people who must understand better than almost anybody the horrors of oppression – are now acting as oppressors. As the great Jewish writer Primo Levi once remarked “Everybody has their Jews, and for the Israelis it’s the Palestinians”. By creating a Middle Eastern version of the Warsaw ghetto they are recapitulating their own history as though they’ve forgotten it. And by trying to paint an equivalence between the Palestinians – with their homemade rockets and stone-throwing teenagers – and themselves – with one of the most sophisticated military machines in the world – they sacrifice all credibility.

The Israelis are a gifted and resourceful people who fully deserve the right to live in peace, but who seem intent on squandering every chance to allow that to happen. It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that this conflict serves the political and economic purposes of Israel so well that they have every interest in maintaining it. While there is fighting they can continue to build illegal settlements. While there is fighting they can continue to receive huge quantities of military aid from the United States. And while there is fighting they can avoid looking candidly at themselves and the ruthlessness into which they are descending.

Gaza is now an experiment in provocation. Stuff one and a half million people into a tiny space, stifle their access to water, electricity, food and medical treatment, destroy their livelihoods, and humiliate them regularly…and, surprise, surprise – they turn hostile. Now why would you want to make that experiment?

Because the hostility you provoke is the whole point. Now ‘under attack’ you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a terrorist state, a state with which you couldn’t possibly reach an accommodation.

And then you can carry on with business as usual, quietly stealing their homeland.

Via The Daily Swarm and via Stereogum

10 Tracks*

2008-12-31T17:03:00.000-08:00

1.  sleeze - wi_ngo

2.   Teen Creeps - NO AGE

3.  Fuck The Pain Away - Peaches

4.   Angels - Black Mountain

5.   Are 'friends' electric? - Gary Numan

6.  Agoraphobia - Deerhunter

7.   Maps - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

8.   All I Need - Radiohead

9.   New Rose - The Damned

10. Kim & Jessie - M83

*The "story" goes from 10 to 1. 

Lies always surface in the end, coward douchebag.

'Silence is Complicity'

2008-12-28T10:22:00.000-08:00

I wrote this profile on Tamara Rettino a few days after Rachel Corrie's murder by the Israeli army in occupied Palestine, and a few days before the Bush regime's "shock and awe" invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq.  I'm posting it here now because Gaza is on fire.  Again.  And the world turns away.  As usual.  Happy holidays.

ISM: Peace Activists or 'Terrorist Sympathizers'?    

March 2003, LOS ANGELES — During the summer of 2002, American, Tamara Rettino was riding in ambulances far from home and scared.  Tamara, a 26-year-old, Jewish-American mother of three, from Los Angeles, California, was witnessing the horrors of occupation.  In her web-log she kept while away, she recorded:

“Hello, please, there is a woman here having a baby.  We need to get her through to the hospital. Can we move?" ...In breath.  Out breath.  Crackling noises from the loud speaker in the tank.  "WHAT DO YOU WANT?"  (Note present time: continued tank shelling outside, two Apaches now.)  I repeat my treaty.  They want us to keep all the doors to the ambulance open, and move the vehicle slowly in a circle so they can stare in at the shivering woman inside.  We are cleared to pass.  In breath.  Out breath.  Always on the verge of a scream. 

Tamara is one of several Americans — many of whom are of Jewish descent — who has volunteered for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM): a non-violent, civil disobedient group, whose members often end up risking their lives to help Palestinians living under the harsh realities of a military occupation.  Last summer, Tamara volunteered to participate in ISM’s Freedom Summer 2002 campaign.  What made Tamara and hundreds of others like her — both Jews and non-Jews — risk her life to help people on the ‘other side?’

It’s a typical, bright, sunny, gorgeous mid-March springtime day in southern California.  We are sitting in one of the only Mexican restaurants in the ‘Little Tokyo’ section of downtown Los Angeles.  The walls are all alternatively splashed with bright strokes of orange, teal, and azure.  Tamara explains how she has relatives living in Israel, and out of concern for them and for the safety of a close friend who had previously traveled there seven months before her, she began doing a lot of reading and research on the internet regarding the ‘conflict.’  She attributes Zmag.org for having provided her a lot of education on the issue, “The more I learned, the more I became outraged that my people - that Jews were carrying out these atrocities in my name.”  She also confesses feelings of both guilt and responsibility for being a Jewish-American tax payer, “And also, the fact that the United States is funding the occupation — I feel doubly responsible.”

“And what are these atrocities?” I ask her.  “The occupation: the way my people settled into Palestine so violently - aside it being against UN Resolutions - the manner of it; the face and brutality of it, the home demolitions, the checkpoints, the lack freedom of movement.  The constant military presence and curfew.”  Then with tears in her eyes, her gaze penetrates my own, and she calmly insists, “I really recommend that everyone go there.  You cannot fully understand the situation and what’s fully going on over there until you see it for yourself.  At least, I did not understand until I was actually there.”  After, the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) invasion of the West Bank in April 2002, Tamara decided to travel for six weeks the following June to the Palestinian territories and see firsthand what the face of occupation looks like.  The ISM’s call for volunteers in their Freedom Summer 2002 campaign provided ample opportunity for Tamara to try and repair what she, and many others like her believe is damage done with her American tax-dollars.

ISM's Freedom Summer 2002 campaign was a call to ‘internationals’ from all over the world to come to Palestine for as little as one week or as much as 2 months — to alleviate, witness, and document the human rights abuses Palestinians face daily from living under the brute force of the illegal Israeli occupation.  ISM volunteers essentially assist in providing humanitarian relief and aide to the local population, as well as provide encouragement of and participation in local Palestinian grass-roots acts of non-violent resistance and civil protests against the 24-hour curfews and brutal military occupation which have dramatically increased since the IDF’s April 2002 invasion, otherwise known as "Operation Defensive Shield."

The ISM was co-founded by Adam Shapiro, a Jewish-American activist from Brooklyn, New York, in December 2000.  Recently at a talk Shapiro gave at an event organized by New York University’s Students for Justice in Palestine, he explained, “Rubber bullets are considered 'crowd control' by the Israeli army.  However, in the beginning of this second intifada(uprising) against the Israeli occupation — many Palestinian deaths were kids under 18 — by IDF rubber bullets because their snipers regularly aim at the head and chest.  Headshots are the hardest and yet often most lethal shot for a sniper to hit.”  Shapiro next explained how these initial deaths served to intimidate the protesters — who at the time — at the beginning of this intifada were non-violent.  “And so ordinary people; peaceful protesters and their families, were too afraid to leave their homes, and those with guns and ‘martyr operations’ became characteristic of this second intifada.  Then came the violent Israeli responses...”

This cycle of violence made Shapiro, other internationals, and Palestinians alike, feel unhappy with the nature of this second intifada.  Knowing there were many Palestinians not happy leaving their voice — their resistance to the Israeli occupation — to groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Al Aqsa Martyr Brigades is how the first idea of the ISM was born.  “Our main intention was to bring in ‘internationals’ to assist the Palestinian population in non-violent resistance: non-violent protest to the occupation.  We were aware that with an American, British, or Japanese passport - that in reality, our ranking as a human being was higher in value in front of the eyes of the IDF than that of the local Palestinian population.  The idea was, use this unfortunate racist reality as a tool for exploitation to assist Palestinians in overcoming their fears, and leave their homes and resist the occupation in non-violent protests for Palestinian human rights.”

Shapiro takes offense to ISM volunteers being branded as “human shields," as recently noted in publications such as the LA Times or in Salon.com.  “We are not human shields.  The idea of accompaniment in ambulances, etc. — we were forced into that because of the continuous Israeli siege since April 2002.”  Shapiro insisted, “Everyday life is resistance.  We bring in internationals so that Palestinians can struggle for their everyday, basic human rights: the right to buy food, to go to school, to work, or to the hospital.”

Over 2,000 ‘internationals’ have volunteered for the ISM — half of which have been from the United States.  Other countries represented in the delegations have included Sweden, Canada, England/Scotland (UK), Ireland, Denmark, Italy, France, Japan, Germany, Australia, Spain, and Switzerland.  Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian-American and ISM co-founder, by email related, “I would say a good quarter if not slightly more of the activists that come are from Jewish backgrounds, especially the American activists.”  The ISM is not the only international solidarity group with visiting delegations concerned for Palestinian human rights, as Huwaida explained, “There are various solidarity groups that come to Palestine, but not all are ready for the direct-action that the ISM engages in.  Some ask to join us for a few things, but we require that volunteers go through orientation and training in order to be able to participate in many of the ISM actions.”

Shapiro further explained how everyone who joins ISM knows they are entering a dangerous situation, and are required to undergo an orientation and training prior to participation in any actions.  “If people feel an action is too dangerous - then they sit it out.  ISM works on consensus: one person may veto an action if they feel uncomfortable.”

Tamara spent part of her six-week visit to Palestine in places like Ramallah, Nuserat, and Rafah.  However, being that she is a certified childbirth educator and birth assistant, she spent most of her time working under the auspice of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society assisting with births in the Jenin refugee camp.  Answering an average of up to seven laboring women a day, Tamara would ride along in the Red Crescent ambulances in hopes of exploiting her international status as a tool to negotiate with Israeli soldiers at IDF checkpoints to allow them to bring the laboring women to the hospital in neighboring Jenin City, which is situated only a few miles outside of the Jenin refugee camp.  In her web-log she recorded one such incident:

“Hello.  I’m an American.  Is there someone who speaks English?"  Usually when I talk to soldiers I am dead calm, but out here alone in the blackness I am struggling to keep my voice from cracking.  No reply.  I wait, forcing myself to focus on my in breath, my out breath.  Movement from the tank, a terrifying clicking noise.  I am going to get shot.  Right here.  Right now.  They will say it was an accident.  "Hello. Please.  There is a woman here having a baby.  We need to get her through to the hospital.  Can we move?"  I am in a Greek myth, bargaining with an immense cruel god, and I wonder why I have come out here without barley cakes in my pockets.  Surely I have failed the test. 

On Tamara’s sixth day inside the occupied territories, she and her ISM comrades happened upon a military operation in the Ama’ari refugee camp, which is situated just outside of the Palestinian city, Ramallah.  They instantly were greeted with the sight and sound of explosion, as the IDF had just blown up a small fruit and vegetable store.  All Palestinian men and boys between the ages of 15-45 were being forcefully removed from their homes — which has become a customary IDF tactic to “eradicate terrorism,” as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has previously contended.  Tamara's web-log states:

Today I witnessed what creates suicide bombings, and I can assure you without a doubt it is the direct result of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine...  What we came upon was horrifying.  It was like looking at pictures of Nazi camps only this wasn’t a picture.  200 men were seated in groups behind barbed wire, hands tied...  After much persuasion, they allowed Louis, a 77 year old Canadian man [in our delegation] to enter the detainment area.  He reported back that there was little food and water, and at least while we were watching they were not being beaten. 

Tamara did not spend her entire six weeks abroad in the occupied Palestinian territories.  Overall, Jenin refugee camp proved a very intense experience for her.  The 115 degree heat coupled with how she was now often exhausted and sick from having had 22-hour shifts where she was afforded very little sleep due to the constant Israeli bombings, contributed to her randomly deciding "an impulsive trip into the green line" was in order.  However, Tamara soon discovered the tragedy of what she had just experienced in the occupied territories, was not so easily left behind:

I am riding on the bus to Nahariya, surrounded by baby faced soldiers, women in barely there tank tops, and Hassidim.  A soldier sleeps in the seat across from me, his machine gun slung across his lap.  It’s the first time in weeks I’ve been this close to a soldier without worrying about getting gassed or shot...  I’m trying to hold the very fibers of my being together.  Hours before I was watching barefoot Palestinian children playing in the sandy street, exposing their bullet scarred flesh to the sun.  Now I’m in "Israel Proper" gaping at the lush green fields, the palms and firs, the spotlessly clean streets and the unshelled houses.  An Israeli woman in my yoga class in Los Angeles told me that Israel flourishes because it’s finally under the care of "The Chosen People."  Now, I know that it’s really because the Israeli government has placed illegal settlements over the choice aquifers and stolen all of the sweet water.  They place landmines near the Palestinian wells, and the scant bit of water that’s left for them is so full of salt and pesticides that it turns their skin and hair brittle and causes their kidneys to fail. 

Upon arriving at her friend Amira’s home in Nahariya, Tamara learns that her former Greenpeace colleague is thrilled to get to finally show Tamara "her Israel."  Tamara’s web-log of this particular meeting with her Israeli friends residing within the green line, powerfully reveals both the irony and tragedy of the Zionist occupation of Palestine:

I take a deep breath and worry that I’m going to have to be very diplomatic until her mother insists I tell her everything I have been doing...  Amira seems pretty defensive, and Grandma Lucy, a German Jew who survived the Holocaust, sits down to give me her version of the story.  They tell me they all have dreams of the Nazis coming for them.  I feel awkward but we talk for hours.  I’m not sure how to tell an 85 year old woman that her facts are wrong.  When I get a chance to speak, I begin to cry as I recount what I have seen.  I have the pictures to prove it, and pass my digital camera around.  It’s the first time they’ve seen a checkpoint, or a demolished house, or bullet wounds on a child.  Amira gets quiet.  "I never knew about this until Tamara showed us," she says, and I can see her years of Israeli indoctrination start to dissolve.  Even Grandma Lucy softens, and thanks me for working with the ISM. 

Back in the occupied territories, while at an internet cafe, Tamara would often be recording her web-logs amongst the sounds of tank shellings and Apache helicopter gunships swarming overhead:

I am at the net café, writing to you all.  The sharks are still swimming in the sky.  I spoke to Garrick who is in the Gaza strip in the city of Rafah, about 30 minutes south of the Israeli attack last night.  He was cryptic, said they may be in danger.  I am nervous, but I know we will both be fine.  No one from ISM has been killed, and insha’Allah (God Willing), no one will.   I miss each and every one of you.  I am ready to come home.

Eight months later, the ISM suffered their first martyr, 22-year-old American, Rachel Corrie.

Earlier in the day on this warm, calm, and beautiful mid-March southern California afternoon, Tamara along with her comrades at the Los Angeles chapter of the Palestinian Solidarity, or LA Pal Solidarity, as they call themselves, had organized a press conference and protest outside the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles, where they presented demands to California Senator Barbara Boxer to investigate Rachel Corrie’s recent murder and insist on an end of unconditional American support and aid to Israel.  Magnificent purple mountains with white powdered covered peaks hover in the nearby distance of the city center, with tall and slender palm trees lining the streets and fuchsia flowers in full bloom in front of the Federal Building as the humble group of protesters chanted, “Israelis murder Rachel Corrie, U.S. Aid is the story!”

Later that afternoon, at the Mexican restaurant in nearby Little Tokyo, I asked Tamara how she had felt when first hearing about Rachel Corrie’s death a few days earlier.  “I cried for over four hours straight. I was devastated on a couple of different levels.  I think when I saw the pictures... it was obvious that it was a deliberate murder.  But also nine other people died that day and some of them were even children.  But because they were Palestinian — we didn’t even hear about their deaths — let alone what their names were. She got all the coverage that day for being Anglo-American and that bias is pretty outrageous.”

Tamara also expressed fears that Rachel’s death marked the beginning of a new IDF policy of systematically targeting internationals in order to eradicate future outside witnesses and deterrents to the daily horrors of the occupation, “I think Rachel’s murder was a scare tactic to keep internationals away — and that in the context of a possible war on Iraq — it’s pretty obvious to see the violence directed toward Palestinians increasing, and I also feel worried about the transfer of the Palestinians.”

“What do you mean by ‘transfer’?” I asked her.  “I’m talking about ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Historic Palestine by means of pushing them into surrounding Arab lands and demolishing their homes.  This is all part of ethnic cleansing — the transfer plan.”  Then she insisted, “They’ve already been doing this transfer strategy since Israel’s violent founding over 50 years ago!  They’ve just been stepping it up lately, under the ‘war on terrorism’ and now with the war on Iraq.”

When Tamara first returned to LA, she did ‘report backs’ which consisted of showing slides and speaking in detail about her trip and “the situation.”  She jokes, “Everyone kept referring to it as ‘the situation.’”  She spoke at the Workman’s Circle, and various other local Jewish community centers conveying what she saw and experienced.  Some friends, particularly her friend Amira, whom she visited that one day inside the green line, emailed Tamara the next day expressing "disappointment with her failure to show a balanced perspective," and that she was essentially "siding with the terrorists."

“How were you received at these events?” I asked her.

“For the most part, people were pretty receptive.  But there were always a few who would accuse me of being a self-hating Jew.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“That’s bullshit!  I love my faith.  I love my culture.  I love my people.  That just gives me reason as to why I need to be active and work for justice for Palestinians, because we should know better.”

“How so?”

“I mean, we were subject to one of the greatest genocides in history and we should know better then to turn around and then perpetuate that same violence onto another people.”

Now a few others sat down to briefly join our table at the restaurant.  They had also participated in ISM’s Freedom Summer 2002, as well as participated in organizing the Rachel Corrie protest earlier in the day.  The three of them collectively appear to share a spark of something in their eyes. Is it solidarity?  Is it sadness?  Perhaps it is both.  They all briefly exchange details for their next protest, which they predict may be tomorrow or the next day depending on whether President Bush invades Iraq.  All of them seem to be somewhat numb and feeling down from the surprise of Rachel Corrie’s death, as well as fearful of the "shock and awe" war President Bush was about to declare on Iraq.

Recently, two more ISM activists have been shot by the IDF.  Thomas Hurndall, a 21-year-old British citizen from Manchester, England was declared brain dead a few weeks ago.  Brian Avery, a 24-year-old American, from Albuquerque, New Mexico has undergone a few reconstructive surgeries after suffering gunshot wounds to his face.  Both Thomas and Brian were reportedly wearing bright orange-colored reflective vests that identified themselves as international aide workers, just as Rachel had worn prior to being crushed to death beneath an American-supplied Caterpillar D-9 bulldozer.

The American government has still failed to conduct any investigations into these incidents, and as such has failed to condemn what appears to be a developing pattern of IDF attacks toward international volunteers.  The British government however, plans to launch a formal investigation into Thomas Hurndall’s shooting.  Adam Shapiro expressed concern over the apparent American impotence to address these deaths and shootings, “The IDF knows there are no repercussions for beating and/or killing Palestinian civilians. We now see it will be the same for international civilian victims.”

The IDF along with the Israeli foreign and defense ministries have also recently drafted a new plan which bars the ISM, ordering them to leave all of the Palestinian territories and cease their activities at once.  The IDF accuses the ISM of having aided in terrorist activities, and charges the ISM volunteers as being no other than "self-proclaimed peace activists" that actually are no other than ‘provocateurs’ and ‘riot inciters’ who deliberately interfere with the IDF’s work with the "goal of blackening Israel’s image."

As my meeting with Tamara draws to a close, we suddenly notice and begin pondering upon a rather large painting hanging on one of the walls in this festively colored restaurant.  The painting features two blond boys on a playground looking down at a text which says, “See bomb drop. Drop bomb drop.”

While in Rafah, Tamara and some of her ISM comrades ironically found themselves feeling pitied by some of the Palestinian families they would stay with.  In her web-log she recorded:

We tried to relax and take the attitude of the Palestinians we have talked to who upon seeing our tears tell us, "This is our life.  We don’t get upset.  This is just the way it is."  But when we actually SAW ‘rockets red glare, bombs bursting in air,’ we decided to head inside.  It’s unbelievable they live with this nightmare all the time.  At one point many of us felt like we were falling to pieces, like we couldn’t keep it together at all. 

The day after I interviewed Tamara, President Bush declared Saddam Hussein’s “48 hours” were up and “coalition” bombs began falling on Baghdad.

Finally I ask her, “Do you think you will ever give up fighting for justice for Palestine?”

“No! Not until Palestine is free!  I want to go back.  I want to go back to Palestine. I dream of Palestine.  I have dreams of Palestine.  Sometimes they are horrible dreams, but most of the time they are not.  Everything will be beautiful and calm.  I take refuge in those dreams.”

We leave the restaurant and stand outside on the corner to share a cigarette smoke farewell.  “Have you seen the movie, ‘The Piano?’” Tamara asks me as she takes a drag of smoke.

“No I haven’t.”

“Well, when I was in the theater, recently... I closed my eyes during the scenes when they were under siege, you know, during the bombings... and it gave me chills.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s exactly how Jenin sounded like.  I thought I was in Jenin again.  Goodbye,” she says and turns around and begins walking away from me.

“Goodbye,” I say and watch as she disappears behind the corner with a Palestinian keffiyyeh (scarf) wrapped around her shoulders to shield her from the early evening chill.

While pursuing graduate studies in New York, I was a member of New   York University’s Students for Justice in Palestine, and was the coordinator of their bi-weekly Arab cultural/documentary film and discussion series.

Italicized excerpts quoted with permission from Tamara Rettino’s July 2002 Yahoo web-logs (since removed).

Check it:

Free Palestine Alliance
Electronic Intifada

Meow

2008-12-19T16:40:00.000-08:00

A week ago, I had a dream.

I was meowing affectionately into his neck.

"I missed your meow kisses," he said.

Then I woke up.

Alone.

2006: Polaroids

2008-10-30T23:00:00.000-07:00

Let the Katrina niggahs drown!
Let the sand-niggahs burn!
D.C. always gives the green light.

Let the slaves drown
and Lebanon burn.
There's still no word from my kin
in Beirut or Tripoli.

The TV says might is right.
The news says black's a slight.
D.C.'s still giving the IDF green lights.

And there's no more polaroids
of us strolling the Corniche
by the water's edge...
my brother and I smiling
under the Beirut sun.

Written after the Israeli bombings of Lebanon summer 2006 and the Hurricane Katrina tragedy.

2006: Smash It Up*

2008-10-30T22:55:00.000-07:00

1.

Pound away fuck shit up. 

It's okay I'll still stand up. 

2.

Spit on me scratch and hiss. 

I've overcome dirtier piss.

3.

Smash it up black and blue. 

Bruises and scars don't mean I'm through.

4.

Fuck with me Evil Eye. 

I'm not afraid to make you cry. 

*In homage to The Damned.

2006: Soft as Silk

2008-10-30T22:50:00.000-07:00

It was a few months after the invasion.

Summer was only a month away now. "Old Man Winter, go away!" the bluesy dude on the radio crooned a few days earlier. Weathermen (always a man) had declared that it was the harshest winter in 20 years. It was my first New York winter. With all the talk of seasons; I hadn't really noticed an arrival of Spring. I did hear about some cherry blossoms in bloom at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens... not too far away from where I lived. The powerful and freezing arctic gusts were now long gone. And that was enough for an Angelina to celebrate.

The evening had just set in.

There are no purple mountains or ocean horizon for the sun to set behind. Mountains of buildings here instead. Old buildings. Beautiful buildings built of stone. No wood-frame houses only to be ravaged by termites half a century later. My head ached from living too much in the mind. Ignoring my body, my soul. And no, there was no room for heart. The side-effects of elitist graduate school theoretical consumption of experiential life.

I was walking.

Hungry for some Cali taste. Mexican food. But I'll never find the real-deal here. So I opt for the local Tex-Mex place owned by Koreans. I love the contradiction? Irony? I love whatever the fuck it is. I'll order my usual: veggie nachos. Even gringos can't fuck up nachos.

One night, I went there late. Almost near closing. The Korean workers were all sitting together at the tables in the back. Near the register. Sitting near the front door means brisk night air will soon chill your steamy hot food. They were all congregated at two or three tables that had been pushed together. They looked like a family. They were all eating steamed rice with grilled fish and vegetables atop it. It smelled so good. It looked so healthy. Better than the Texan-Mexican grease they fry up for business.

I walked up to the register.  A petite beautiful teen-age girl got up from her rice bowl of steamy hot fish and quickly walked behind the register. I felt bad for interrupting her dinner. I should come back later and allow her to finish her dinner first. But then they will be closed. I have to order now.  Ashamed, I order my usual. She quotes me the price I used to have memorized. But, before I ordered my usual, I pressed my luck, "I'll have a bowl of what you are all eating. It smells so good. I want that."

They all stopped eating and conversing. They turned and looked at me. Their expressions blank. What? Had no-one ever asked for their Korean food instead? A middle-aged man with creases and hardship beyond his years pressed onto his face said, "It's not for sale." He turned and resumed eating. Everyone else resumed eating their delicious-smelling, healthy-looking Korean dinner also. I think he was the cook. Now I was more ashamed for having put my hungry nose in another family's dinner. I settled for my salty nachos.

I ordered my usual.

The girl behind the counter wrapped it all up to go, carefully folding the paper bag perfectly around the styrofoam edges of the box. Just like she always does. Then she placed my gift-wrapped meal into a white plastic bag with a yellow happy face stamped on the outside.

Now I will walk home.

Walk past the hospital and feel guilt for walking past the hungry homeless black people often sitting on the low brick wall at the sidewalk near the hospital emergency entrance. The homeless in L.A. are mostly black folks also. Now, we see it's the same scene in New Orleans. Descendents of slaves. Skid-row is paved black. And now I have to prepare myself to walk past the sad eyes of the local neighborhood skid-row. My Tex-Mex Korean nachos happy face steamy in my hands.

I feel a pair of sad dark-brown eyes noticing my approach. I had walked past this homeless man on many occasions, his eyes often looking lost, as if he were in some far-away land.

"Can I touch your hair?" he shyly whispers to me, his eyes now lowered to the ground.

Had he whispered his request so softly so that I may have the option to ignore him? So that I may pretend to have never heard him? He was prepared for rejection, as a gentleman should be.

I stopped right in front of him. I slowly began to lean toward my right in his direction, and angle the back of my head and neck toward him so that my long brown pony-tail would soon be dangling only a few inches above his fingers.

But then I hesitated. Fear quickly overtook me: Can I trust him? Why do I trust so easily? What if he's mad? Totally insane? What if he suddenly yanks my hair hard and rips it from my head?

Will he hurt me?

I quickly turned my face toward him and looked him straight in the eyes. "Be nice," I gently whispered to him.

Then I turned my face away and resumed allowing my hair to hang a few inches above his fingertips. He raised his right hand and began to gently caress my hair. I leaned over him for a few minutes as his hands continued to carefully caress my long brown pony-tail.

"It's so soft," he whispered, "smooth as silk."

He continued to gently stroke my hair, and I continued to be his purring cat.  Then he stopped. "Thank you," he said. His eyes still sad.

"You're welcome," I answered back as I resumed my upright position. "Goodbye!" I said, my heart breaking.  He did not answer me back. He had turned his head away, his eyes already lost on the other passersby.

I continued my walk home, listening to bits of Lou Reed's New York conversations dancing around my head. When I arrived home, I opened up my perfectly gift-wrapped Tex-Mex Korean nachos. They were now cold. As usual.

Formerly at www.BsideWHORE.com

2005: This is Saracen--aka: Sarah-Sin!!!

2008-10-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

Saracen: n. 1. an Arab or Muslim at the time of the Crusades. (Oxford American Dictionary). 2. a name invented by 'Western' Orientalist fucks approximately around the Christian 4th century A.D.

SARACEN!!!--aka: Sarah-Sin: n. 1. a punk-rock group fronted by a pissed off Saracen terrorist ninja bitch-whore all clad in smut lingerie beneath her conservative black robes and veils with spiked steel-tipped heals ready to kick up any civilized motherfucker's ass. 2. an Arab or Muslim or any Person of Conscious at the time of The Now who opposes the Iraq War, the Occupations, and the Zionist Manifest Destiny of the Middle East.

LOS ANGELES-- You've probably never heard of these motherfuckers-- but yes, geeks come in all kinds of shapes and sizes-- and shit, some of them might even be fucking cool. These freaky-geeks are SARACEN!!!--aka: Sarah-Sin, a New York band that uses the progressive medium of punk rock to shake their angry fists up in the air at belligerent American policies and fascist ideologues of the Middle East: who also cleverly function under the perverted auspices of "academic diversity" or "intellectual prowess" or just plain ol' bastard colonial master lies-- ("...bringing freedom and democracy to the ME," blah blah)-- ya know, the white-man's burden bullshit.

Most of SARACEN!!!--aka: Sarah-Sin's (SARACEN for short) songs are probably an inside joke for Middle East Studies geeks, in which the essays of established ivy league fuKKKers like Bernard Lewis's, "The Roots of Muslim Rage," or Samuel P. Huntingon's, "The Clash of Civilizations," may be of little familiarity to some SARACEN fans... But that's no matter. SARACEN's fans are not without appreciation for the critical (and often satirical) responses and challenges to authority their songs provoke.

Each song is in effect a response to the fascist attempts of elitist ideologues to control the dissemination of knowledge-- and discourse of the Middle East-- particularly within the American Middle East Studies "academy" along with the corporate media front. Laughable and often pathetic defamation campaigns combined with not so laughable slanderous witch hunts and ethnic cleansing attempts at various academic institutions have left SARACEN's lead singer/songwriter plenty to bitch about.

SARACEN's band mates mostly consist of queer folk-- except for the lead singer, Majnooneh, who aside from being a devout terrorist bitch-whore-- is also a self-proclaimed celibate spinster.  In a recent interview with SARACEN's lead singer at a Los Angeles stop of their latest tour to various shit-hole bars across The Homeland, Majnooneh explained: "The present Neo-Con occupation of the White House and the long-time Likud infiltration of Congress and Big Media allow SARACEN's songs to reverberate with more fucking bloody timeliness than motherfucking ever!!!"

A few of SARACEN's songs (well, song titles, actually) were co-authored by Majnooneh's onstage pimp side-kick, Shaykh Sham-Pain. Shaykh Sham-Pain is a hot queer Italian and Islamic Art History dude. He's also a self-proclaimed "old Arab" as he speaks classical Arabic beautifully for a white dude, aside from being fluent in 5 other tongues. He also functions as Majnooneh's protective pimp-daddy as he regularly spits effigies in various tongues, ("Eh finnochio!!!"), at the raucous audience to keep them in line.

The audience-- which incidentally mostly consist of trannies or lady-boys-- often can prove a life hazard, knocking over tables and smashing glasses from the emotional stimulations of SARACEN's powerful political messages of resistance. As such, it's been hard for SARACEN to find themselves re-invited to rock a venue.

The Shaykh's been on a temporary hiatus from the band of late, however, because "...he's too busy whoring around with his new punk-rock singer boyfriend," according to Majnooneh. She's supposed to be his ultimate primadonna "ho" apparently.

The two first met while both enduring the 'necessary torture' of the "Problems and Methods of Middle East Studies" seminar during the Fall 2002. They immediately hit it off when they discovered that they were both keen on chugging back a beer and singing David Bowie covers at an East Village dive bar after class together. Soon after, they realized that they needed to move beyond their shared passion and side-hobby of doing David Bowie anthems, and instead form their own full-fledged punk-rock band-- just like what other pseudo-hipster East Village fucks do. Only this band was going to be different... this band was going to take punk back to its original socio-political roots a la Johnny Rotten's anarchy in the [ME]. (Hum, fuck Johnny Rotten-- a la The Clash's 'London Calling' roots). This band was going to kick some motherfuKKKers' asses. And incorporating the influence of David Bowie's 70's glam theatrics to their shows was going to be just the right formula this punk-ass bitch duo needed. And the rest was punk-rock history.

SARACEN is also akin to collaborations with other artists of various musical genres. The San Francisco Bay Area hip-hop poet, Islamin-Sistah, makes frequent guest appearances at SARACEN shows. Islamin-Sistah's smooth hip-hop flows combined with the band's aggressive punk-rock cuts often prove a refreshing and convincing mix. Islamin-Sistah is NOT one of Shaykh Sham-Pain's hos, however. The band was very adamant about stressing this point.

Here's an early [Friendster] fan testimonial about SARACEN's lead singer from a few years back:

Anjali, Friday, September 12, 2003:

"[majnooneh] has an opinion, yeah! (unlike

those pomohipstertrash apologists for

colonialism). she's also in the most kick ass

punk rock band with songs about saudi

bedouin bitches (who stole her pillow),

foucalt and bernie lewis, and other assured

superhits. ahh [she] is the queen of

unbelievable adventures: crazy train

parties in syria, soft hearted pimps in amsterdam...

she's my favorite ever refugee!"

But the best way to really understand where SARACEN is coming from is through their song lyrics:

*History Repeats in the ME

We don't need your bullshit promises...

Fuck you!

We are not barbaric animals to tame

In some fucking zoo!

Keep your filthy keys of promise

To unlock democracy...

Because in the end there's only more

Colonial hypocrisy.

How about trying to democratize

My cunt?

Because your master lies

Only rape me...

Rape my promised independence.

Or is Saracen too blunt?

We've seen these empty promises before

And Saracens ended up

French and British whores!

Now we know not to trust

Outside intervention

With our lives anymore!

Chorus: 

Saracen! 

Ain't gonna take it up 

The ass again!  

Fuck your hypocrite fifteen-fifty-nine

And get your cowboy boots off my bloody spine!

Take your DU Marlboro knives

And stick em in your own coward hides!

We don't need your smart-ass bombs

To loot our bodies and museums.

Cuz Hypocrisy has never been

A smart formula to win.

Our lands and bodies are not

Football fields to sack and tackle.

Oh yes, curfews, checkpoints, demolitions and sanctions

Have proven such civilized shackles.

You'll need a stronger pesticide

For our cultural genocide

Cuz cockroaches and refugee rats

Aren't easily transferred

Or walled in with apartheid CATS.

Chorus: 

Saracen! 

Ain't gonna take it up 

The ass again! 

So go turn your little pink dicks around

Surely there's alternative energy sources to be found

Take your endless wars and occupations

And start giving a damn

About your own fucking people and nation.

Take all your bullshit empty promises

And shove em in your expert book of lies

It's time you start making big promises

To your own poor and homeless little guys.

Art, Music, Education, and Healthcare

Are surely cheaper than pre-emptive warfare.

So watch your cowboy backs

Cuz Saracens' ready

For some fucking Blowback.

Yeah, Saracens won't take it up the ass again!

No! Saracen, won't take it up the ass again!

"Never again..." 

*Lyrics provided courtesy of SARACEN!!!--aka: Sarah-Sin

Formerly at www.BsideWHORE.com

2004: January 1991

2008-10-30T21:40:00.000-07:00

January 1991...

is when I began to feel more headaches

and is when I began to enter "delinquent" status

at Claremont High's attendance office.

We were reading Macbeth in sophmore composition class

at that time.

I never showed up for the middle and the ending

maybe because the nightmare was only beginning.

And CNN had this new green "filter" for reporting news,
news in Iraq specifically.
It was called, "night vision".

I was often at my only girlfriend's house at that time.
Her name was Noel, and her parents were Betty and Bud.
They were from The South.
Bud was from Georgia.
Betty was from Alabama technically...
but she grew up a "jet-setter".
In otherwords,
she spent her childhood bouncing around
between different American military bases
around the world.
Betty's father had been a general. 
And Christopher, Noel's cousin,   was a marine.
He was stationed somewhere    in the 'Persian gulf'.

(Note: my Arab father insists it's the 'Arabian Gulf'.)

They were so proud of Christopher
defending his country.
He had trained at 29 Palms before he left.
He came to Claremont during his leaves
before he set out on his 'Journey to the East'.
Noel used to massage his sore limbs for him.
They were all so proud of him.

Mr. Vaskis, a history teacher, who later got fired,
would sit outside in the middle of the main quad at Claremont High:
which also happened to be directly in front of the staff room,
as well as, on the way to the cafeteria and school library,
I think.

He would sit there alone
for about two weeks
during the month of January
1991.
And sit there silently the whole time.
"Look at that freak!"   students would whisper.
He was sitting there carrying a large   poster sign,
and painted on his sign
in    hand-drawn letters
was the message,
"PEACE, Not War!"
And I never had him as a teacher.
But I heard that he was there everyday
as my days of attendance had started to become sparse.

And at Noel's house,
I remember feeling nervous
for my brother, Hussein.
He was up in a plane.
On his way to Beirut from Cairo
to visit relatives he hadn't seen since 1980.
Would it pass over 'Israel'?
CNN says some scuds were being fired at 'Israel'.

And CNN said that Saddam was asking for 'diplomacy'.
There's NO reason for diplomacy!" Bud shouted at the television.
He righteously stood up in frustration,
his southern face red with anger.
Then he turned and saw me standing there behind him.
And he suddenly looked embarrassed.
And I wondered why he looked embarrassed?
I suddenly felt timid and frightened 
that I was probably
now in "enemy territory".

And I began to talk to him about Palestine.
"What did you call it?" he asked me.
And Betty is standing behind him shaking her head at me
and desperately waving her finger at me, "No! No! No!"
"Palestine," I said softly.
And Bud said, "Where's that?"
And I said, "You know, the West Bank and Gaza Strip..."
And he said, "Oh, I see."
"The Jews should leave," I said.
And Betty was still flipping out behind him,
confusing me, that maybe she's 'on my side'.
Bud says, "The Jews are home".

Betty and Bud are from the South.
Southerners.
My father is from North Lebanon.
and the largest and poorest Palestinian refugee camp
is near my father's village in the North.

And my brother is flying there now.
And there are scud missles flying
and Iraqis dying.
And Mr. Vaskis is alone and "crazy"
because he says, "peace instead of war".
And I stop going to high school
in January 1991.

And Christopher eventually came back
from my father's Arabian Gulf.
Noel's family was so proud of him
and so excited to finally see him after so many months.
But then they were furious with him.
He came back and gave his mother,
Betty's sister,
a prayer rug and a copy of the Qur'an.

And he said to his family:
"We should have never been there."
And my head continued to ache.
And I kept missing the ending of stories.



First published in MIZNA: Prose, Poetry, and Art Exploring Arab America, Volume 6, Issue 2, 2004.

Stop the madness!!!

2008-09-25T15:05:00.000-07:00

First, it was Bush's tax-cut for the wealthy class during his first quarter in office.  Just let the middle-class and the 'poor pay more'.  Always.

Next, it was and continues to be an illegal invasion, occupation, and ridiculously costly and immoral war on Iraq.  A sovereign nation which had NOTHING to do with 9'11, nor the dangerous farce of WMD's.  Saddam Hussein already had contracts in the works to convert from Petrol-Dollars to Petrol-Euros.  This was common knowledge amongst the American Middle East Studies "Academy".  Fuck listening to educators who were not ideologically aligned with AIPAC nor the PNAC. No, it's just too God-damn "anti-semitic" to listen to the fucking truth.  (Nice, silencing tactics, by the way.  When will it end?)

And now the U.S. government bailouts for rich, greedy, criminal corporate fucks???  Fuck everybody!!!  So CORPORATE SOCIALISM for Wall Street is okay, but NOT universal healthcare and quality public education for "Main Street"?? This country is about to bankrupt itself with it's racist, war-monger, and greedy corporate policies.  "Rome will fall" again.  Soon.  And all of us honest, hard-working, humble citizens will continue to pay the consequences with massive poverty; more racist, sexist, and class oppressions; and vast medical and social injustices that we have passively swallowed since our corporate 2-party dictatorship began it's dependence on Big Oil, became a hypocrite "world police", and legalized the advent of the corporation as a "person".  Enough greed for these psychotic white men already!  Enough!!!  Enough Pax Americana!  Enough passively working for The Man.  Enough raping of Mother Earth.  Congress, stop this madness now, you racist, sexist, ignorant, greedy, lying pieces of shit!  Stand the fuck up and RESIST!

Please email your Congresspersons:  Grand Theft Bailout

via CounterPunch.org

September 25, 2008

Bonfire of the Securities: Who Will Show Some Backbone Against the Bailout?
By RALPH NADER

Congress needs to show some backbone before the federal government pours more money on the financial bonfire started by the arsonists on Wall Street.

1. Congress should hold a series of hearings and invite broad public comment on any proposed bailout. Congress is supposed to be a co-equal branch of our federal government. It needs to stop the stampede to give Bush a $700 billion check. Public hearings should be held to determine what alternatives might exist to the four-page proposal advanced by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson.

2. Whatever is ultimately done, the bailout plan should not be insulated from judicial review. Remember there is a third co-equal branch of government – the judiciary. The judiciary does not need to review each buy-and-sell decision by the Treasury Department, but there should be some boundaries established to the Treasury Department's discretion, and judicial review is needed to ensure that unbridled discretion is not abused.

3. Sunlight is a good disinfectant. The bailout that is ultimately approved must provide for full and timely disclosure of all bailout details. This will discourage conflicts of interest and limit the potential of sweetheart deals.

4. Firms that accept government bailout monies must agree to disclose their transactions and be more honest in their accounting. They should agree to end off-the-books accounting maneuvers, for example.

5. Taxpayers must be protected by having a stake in any recovery. The bailout plan should provide opportunities for taxpayers to recoup funds that are made available to problem financial institutions or to benefit from the financial institutions' rising stock price and increased profitability after being bailed out.

6. The current so-called “regulators” cannot be trusted. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), "the investigative arm of Congress" and "the congressional watchdog,” must regularly review the bailout. We cannot trust the financial “regulators,” who allowed the slide into financial disaster, to manage the bailout without outside monitoring.

7. It is time to put the federal cop back on the financial services beat. Strong financial regulations and independent regulators are necessary to rebuild trust in our financial institutions and to prevent further squandering of our tax dollars. The Justice Department and the SEC also need to scrutinize the expanding mess with an eye to uncovering corporate crime and misdeeds. Major news outlets are reporting that the FBI is investigating American International Group, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Lehman Brothers.

8. Cap executive compensation and stop giving the Wall Street gamblers golden parachutes. The CEOs who have created the financial disaster should not be allowed to leave with millions in hand when so many pensioners and small shareholders are seeing their investments evaporate. The taxpayers are bailing out Wall Street so that the financial system continues to function, not to further enrich the CEOs and executives who created this mess.

9. Congress should pass the Financial Consumers' Information and Representation Act, to permit citizens to form a federally-chartered nonprofit membership organization to strengthen consumer representation in government proceedings that concern the financial services industry. As the savings and loan disasters of the 1980s and the Wall Street debacles of the last few years have demonstrated, there is an overriding need for consumers and taxpayers to have the organized means to enhance their influence on financial issues.

10. The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, separating traditional banks from investment banks, helped pave the way for the current disaster. It is time to re-regulate the financial sector. The current crisis is also leading to even further conglomeration and concentration in the financial sector. We must revive and apply antitrust principles, so that banking consumers can benefit from competition and taxpayers are less vulnerable to too-big-to-fail institutions, merging with each other to further concentration.

11. Congress should impose a securities and derivatives speculation tax. A tax on financial trading would slow down the churning of stocks and financial instruments, and could raise substantial monies to pay for the bailout.

12. Regulators should impose greater margin requirements, making speculators use more of their own money and diminishing reckless casino capitalism.

Ask your representative a few questions: "What should be done to limit banking institutions from investing in high-risk activities? What should be done to ensure banks are meeting proper capital standards given the financial quicksand that has spread as a result of the former Senator Phil Gramm’s deregulation efforts? And, “What is being done to protect small investors?”

P.S. Shareholders also have some work to do. They should have listened when Warren Buffett called securities derivatives a "time bomb" and "financial weapons of mass destruction.” The Wall Street crooks and unscrupulous speculators use and draining of “other people’s money” out of pension funds and mutual funds should motivate painfully passive shareholders to organize to gain greater authority to control the companies they own. Where is the shareholder uprising?

Ralph Nader is running for president as an Independent.

I miss New York

2008-07-22T15:17:00.001-07:00

Psychedelic skater dude

2008-07-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

"Richie Jackson comes up with some new and unique tricks. Varial kickflip hippie jump? Double foot-plant down a stair well? Kickflip foot-plant to finger-flip?" DoseNation via BoingBoing.net

Broken Social Scene

2008-07-16T18:36:00.000-07:00

"Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative."
- Kurt Vonnegut

now this:

'Lovers' Spit'

Trippy Stuff

2008-06-19T22:52:00.000-07:00

Font: isometric1

       ___           ___           ___           ___           ___ 
     /\__\         /\  \         /\__\         /\  \         /\__\
    /::|  |       /::\  \       /::|  |       /::\  \       /:/  /
   /:|:|  |      /:/\:\  \     /:|:|  |      /:/\:\  \     /:/  / 
  /:/|:|__|__   /::\~\:\  \   /:/|:|  |__   /::\~\:\  \   /:/  /  
 /:/ |::::\__\ /:/\:\ \:\__\ /:/ |:| /\__\ /:/\:\ \:\__\ /:/__/   
 \/__/~~/:/  / \/__\:\/:/  / \/__|:|/:/  / \:\~\:\ \/__/ \:\  \   
       /:/  /       \::/  /      |:/:/  /   \:\ \:\__\    \:\  \  
      /:/  /        /:/  /       |::/  /     \:\ \/__/     \:\  \ 
     /:/  /        /:/  /        /:/  /       \:\__\        \:\__\
     \/__/         \/__/         \/__/         \/__/         \/__/

Font: smkeyboard

 ____ ____ ____ ____ _________ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____
||T |||i |||m |||e |||       |||S |||t |||a |||m |||p |||s ||
||__|||__|||__|||__|||_______|||__|||__|||__|||__|||__|||__||
|/__\|/__\|/__\|/__\|/_______\|/__\|/__\|/__\|/__\|/__\|/__\|
____ ____ _________ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____
||o |||f |||       |||M |||a |||n |||o |||o |||s |||h |||i ||
||__|||__|||_______|||__|||__|||__|||__|||__|||__|||__|||__||
|/__\|/__\|/_______\|/__\|/__\|/__\|/__\|/__\|/__\|/__\|/__\|

It's supposed to be a retro-looking keyboard. It works in 'preview' before 'publishing' it. Oh well.

http://www.network-science.de/ascii/

Right of Return

2008-05-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

Obama kissed AIPAC's ass today.

A man of color

wants to be president

of a country

with some of the population

consisting of

descendants of African slaves.

Remember:

the Trail of Tears,

divesting from South AfriKKKan apartheid

and 'Never Forget':

the Right of Return.

History-Repeats-in-the-Middle-East.

As usual.

***

http://al-awda.org/

***

Check out this bad-ass poem my genius friend and mentor, Ammiel Alcalay, wrote four years ago:

TO ALL YOU COASTERS OUT THERE:

coasting through the Gulf

breezing through Bosnia

rummaging about Rwanda

sailing through the sanctions

and winding up with Waco:

TO ALL YOU COASTERS OUT THERE:

upon whom it suddenly dawned

that you ought to do something

in order to make yourself feel good

cause the Neo-Cons and W got your goat:

TO ALL YOU COASTERS OUT THERE:

keep right on sailing cause I don't

even have two words for you

Ammiel Alcalay

-Brooklyn, 2004

Wary

2008-03-03T11:31:00.000-08:00

haiku(s)::

Stubborn prides, fragile

egos - both haunted by pasts.

Unfair projections.

Misunderstandings

Equality desired

Dreams not surrendered.

Patience required

Not enough time spent alone.

How long will hope wait?

Help is on the way

Neutrality approaches?

Expert empathy.

Space-time continuum

Can 'joker' go the distance?

Time will tell... always.

Boards of Canada

2008-03-02T12:27:00.000-08:00

An Eagle in Your Mind

"Love knows Beauty."

--Ibn al-Arabi

(According to this trippy vid, love knows cute, morbid-looking kitties, too?)

2nd Place

2008-03-02T11:01:00.000-08:00

haiku::

No shame for fiction

Subjugate:  esteem, heart, needs?

Old promises, lost.

Honor Lost

2008-03-01T20:54:00.000-08:00

haiku(s):: 

Chuggalug, shit-talkers!

Fraternities positioned.

Wham! Bam! Thank you, ma'am!

Creepy agendas?

Upside down and inside out

Theme is betrayal.

Post Scriptum:
Define: up from down

The yellow bricks are broken.

Beware: déjà vu...

Panda Bear

2008-02-24T21:25:00.000-08:00

Comfy in Nautica

(Note: I'm floating...)

Final Cut

2008-02-23T22:41:00.000-08:00

haiku(s)::
 
"Pyscho Harassment"

Searching for closure...

Liar/manipulator/

coward has deaf ears.

Check it:

Constant reminders

Past intimacy lingers.

Can't let his ex go?

Time to cleanse karma.

"Bullshit symbolic gestures."

Patronizes needs.

Please: deliver trust.

Lazy dude will not step up.

New love is tortured.

Please: walk what you talk.
Distance equals rate times time.
A broken record.

Motives are questioned.

"Synth in a band... will get laid."

A trophy re-bound?

Never would call her.

Lonely for conversations.

Just a weekend fuck?

["Sex, drugs, rock n' roll!"]

[Cocaine with V.I.P. strippers.]
[Adult Friend Finder.] 

Says, "boys will be boys."
Not enough woman for him? 

'Puritan bitch' cries.

"Best girlfriend ever."

Now a nameless 'chick,' 'pussy'.

Betrayals break heart.

More bullshit stories.

Pretended to be The One.

Alter-ego = sleaze.

True colors revealed.

"Best friend" is lost forever.

Was not a real man.

Petty excuses.

Rationalizations build.

Script is memorized.

"A pussy-whipped dude."

More abusive language:

'crazy bitch,' 'cunt,' 'whore.'

Slander continues...

More cruel/sexist reductions.

Believes his own lies.

Shock and pain lingers.

No more tears for cheap actors.

Horizon fills up.

I am not jaded.

True Love will never hurt me.

Magic carpet waits...

David Bowie = True Love

2008-02-21T21:59:00.000-08:00

Wild is the Wind

The first session take was IT.

Au Revoir Simone

2008-02-19T20:32:00.000-08:00

Fallen Snow = not jaded.