Lights! Camera! Blog!

Oh dear
Where do we begin? For those of you following my career, well okay, that’s nobody really, but let me tell you I have been working with Bill Allard (and others) on an online web series, whatever that means. We went through a first season, which kind of, well, sucked…. Well , it didn’t suck so much as – how shall I put this? – not encourage interest from viewers.

On the other hand, it wasn’t THAT sucky, and we got funding to pursue a second season, or (more interestingly) the chance to make a DVD of the material.

Unfortunately, one of the actors - disappointed in how the first round of episodes turned out- balked. So I am not flying to Colorado, leading to all sorts of problems, because I need to be in Philadelphia on May 17th to do a Philosophy Talk show in Delaware, and than back up to Burlington to catch my daughter’s graduation from UVM on May 18th.

For a guy who seldom leaves the house, this is pretty heady stuff.

Democrats
Though all the talk about the process of obtaining a Democratic candidate for President being too drawn out annoys me, I must confess I think the process of obtaining a Democratic candidate for President is too drawn out.

I might think differently if journalists - well, you know, how to put this? - SEEMED INTERESTED IN THE FUCKING WORLD AND PURSUED THE “NARRATIVE” ON THAT BASIS, RATHER THAN WHAT OBAMA’S FUCKING PREACHER SAID TEN YEARS AGO THAT MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE BEEN OFFENSIVE, DEPENDING ON WHICH GODDAM “EXPERTS” ARE TROTTED OUT TO COMMENT ON IT…. Oh, sorry, was I yelling?

Barbara Walters
Reading the NYT review of her new memoir, I came across: “She’s old enough to have had the daughter of one of the Three Stooges as a childhood friend.”

But which Stooge, I wonder? Moe? Larry? Shemp? Joe? Curly Joe? Curly Shemp? Shemp Joe? As a result of her childhood experiences, does she know how to poke another person in the eye without causing permanent damage? In private, can she say “nyuck nyuck” convincingly? Why is none of this reflected on THE VIEW?

Hi Def Teevee
Does anybody besides me think there are going to be riots in the streets when the switch to high definition happens? What was Congress thinking? Well, they were probably accepting large sums of money from hi-def enthusiasts. But has Congress ever done this before? Dictated that American citizens must purchase an item, or else?

HD Radio
Don’t get me started on this scam. See Harry Shearer for more on this.

Depressing!
Sorry I have been remiss in visiting my blog. I find it harder and harder to find anything funny in this stupid world.

Newspapers are dying, movies are crappy, my favorite teevee shows have not been the same since the end of the strike, gas is expensive, food prices are going through the roof, Mugabe is insane, Burma is insane, Hillary Clinton is imploding, Bill Clinton is still appearing in public, we’re using stuff we eat to make fuel (THAT’S INSANE!!!), this Useless Damn War, Afghanistan, rampant incompetence EVERYWHERE, including my OWN PERSONAL LIFE…. Oh sorry, I’ll lower my voice. Don’t want to alarm the neighbors.

From a recent Spam email
“Charles Marshall is a comic expert on daily living, because life is crazy and so is he. More than a decade of experience in comedy has given Marshall a quick wit and sharp edge, and his love of God and people has cultured a warm heart. He’s already shared his outrageous insights with thousands through his syndicated column Laughing Matters, as well as entertaining audiences at hundreds of stand-up performances across the nation. Now his versatile and vibrant humor has been collected in this new book. Each of these hilarious sketches gracefully segues into an encouraging and pertinent Christian message, reassuring readers that life may be a zany ride, but God is at the controls.”

In addition, I learned that he is “non-threatening.”

Reuters
Quoting… somebody….
"I think my generation has a lot to answer for because I think the youth culture in the 60s and early 70s threw out every rule book and thought it was really clever to use four letter words. But I think things should go back, not to the old deference, not to groveling, not to any of that but just to feeling respect, because I think that would make everyone's life more pleasant."

Oh, fuck you.

Branson, Missouri
My wife and I picked up a videotape, produced by a credit card company, about the wonders of Branson, Missouri” LIGHTS, CAMERA, BRANSON! The place is kind of amazing – it’s Vegas without the gambling and drinking. Celebrity after celebrity was trotted out – Wayne Newton, Glen Campbell, Tony Orlando, Bobby Vinton, etc. – each of whom has his (or her) own theater. The celebs enthuse about the freedom Branson offers. Because, apparently, the crowds will come to see them no matter what they do, they can do whatever they feel like doing.

There is much talk about authenticity, how Branson represents somehow a real America that is not represented anywhere else. There is much, to my mind, unfeigned gratitude on the part of the celebrities for a place where they can “be themselves.”

But these are people who are deeply inauthentic. They have no life, near as I can tell, beyond the attention of their fans. So Branson seems to offer a closed information loop, in which stars give fans what they want, fans give stars what they want, and everybody goes home fulfilled.

The Wee Bride and I want to go Branson. We are immoderately fascinated by the place.

That Darn Blog!

Bad for me, good for you!
This piece was rejected by the producers of Philosophy Talk, because they (well, okay, HE) didn’t get it.

Keep in mind I love them (him), but I thought this was pretty good. The particular Philosophy Talk episode is about promises. What do they mean?

For those of you who don’t know Philosophy Talk (and there are legions, I’m sure), check out philosophytalk.org, for streaming audio, links to shows, yadda yadda.

Anyway, I occupy the Andy Rooney seat on this program. Rather than complaining about, say, the thread count of tissues, however, I try to bring some kind of button (dessert!) to the meat of what has gone before.

So anyway, on PROMISES, I wrote this:

Promise me….
Before he succumbs to hemlock poisoning, Socrates’ final words are something like “Crito we owe a cock to Asclepius. Do pay it. Don’t forget.”

Crito was Socrates’ best friend, a rich man, around the same age as Socrates, and a good listener. You had to be to hang out with Socrates. Crito didn’t do much philosophical discussion in PHAEDO, Plato’s dialogue about Socrates’ final hours. Instead, Crito made sure that Socrates’ wife and kids got home safely. He kept the other guys away when Socrates bathed himself before taking the hemlock. He was the liaison between Socrates and the poisoner. After Socrates’ mysterious last words, Crito asked if there was anything else, and got no reply. It was Crito who closed his dead friend’s eyes. And then supposedly got a rooster for Asclepius, because Crito had made a promise to a dying man.

As for Socrates’ strange last words, well, who was Asclepius? He was the son of Apollo and a nymph, Coronis. When Coronis was pregnant with Asclepius she had an affair with some other guy, a mortal. Apollo found out about it, got mad and sent his sister Artemis to kill her. Which she did, but Apollo rescued the baby by performing the first caesarean section, then gave the baby to the centaur Chiron to raise. –You following this?-- Chiron taught Asclepius the art of surgery, and eventually Asclepius became very good. It helped that Athena had given Asclepius Gorgon blood, which can bring the dead back to life, apparently.

Some say Asclepius took money in exchange for resurrection. Others say that Asclepius could actually make people immortal. Whatever it was, Hades got upset, because as god of the underworld he considered dead souls his rightful property. So he talked Zeus into striking Asclepius down with a thunderbolt.
This enraged Apollo, who killed the cyclopses who made the thunderbolt. Then Zeus, saddened at the loss of his cyclopses, decided to return them from Hades, and Apollo begged him to bring Asclepius as well. Zeus agreed. But Zeus made Asclepius promise not to bring people back from the dead any more. Reassured, Zeus placed Asclepius in the sky as a constellation.

The traditional interpretation of Socrates’ final words – We owe a cock to Asclepius, pay it, don’t forget - is that Asclepius was the god of health and the body, and since death is a kind of healing, sort of, Asclepius was owed gratitude. Well, maybe. But if Asclepius wasn’t resurrecting any more, what was the point of that? In the context of Socrates’ dying, couldn’t it have been just a last minute thing Socrates remembered, like “Make sure the lights are turned off,” or “Check to see if the doors are locked?” or “We gotta give a chicken to Asclepius.” Socrates and Crito were both old men, and subject to the pains of the flesh. Couldn’t this chicken have been an old promise unkept for the healing of old wounds? Or even just some guy in Athens, also named Asclepius, that they once borrowed a chicken from? A promise is a promise is the message I get. Unless gods make them to us. In which case, aside from the certain promise of death, don’t count on it, kids.

The New York Times, ladies and gentlemen!
“In Ohio, Holly Levitsky is replacing the Lucky Charms cereal in her kitchen with Millville Marshmallows and Stars, a less expensive store brand.”

In other news….
The DC Madam has apparently killed herself. Hm.

In other news….
Mariah Carey is now officially more popular than Elvis.

FYI
A response on Twitter is called a Tweet. Fuck y’all, fuck all of y’all.

Furthermore
You motherfuckers act like you’ve forgot about Dre.

Happy Water Blog

Debate
The results are in! Apparently, the media all suck big time, and don’t ask substantive questions of candidates! Let’s put on a DVD and not watch news any more!

Barack BooBoo
Gibson to Obama, talking about poor white people in Pennsylvania: “And you said they get bitter, and they cling to guns or they cling to their religion or they cling to antipathy toward people who are not like them.”

Obama’s remarks, made fuzzily, and captured on video in San Francisco, got him in a lot of hot water. The charge of “elitism,” the most horrible charge you can level at a presidential candidate, was hurled at him.

Well now. I grew up in North Dakota. To my mind, there’s nothing that Barack Obama said about poor white rural folks that is untrue.

Hillary
In a flurry of pandering, Hillary Clinton dashed around Pennsylvania discharging weapons and swapping jello shots with laid-off factory workers.

Flag pin
Where’s your flag pin? Why aren’t you wearing one? Why aren’t you wearing one TODAY? Why are you wearing just ONE flag pin? Why aren’t you wearing fifty flag pins, each one representing a state in our glorious union?

In other news….
Our new cat, Rocky, a splendid orange creature, likes to hurl himself at the shower curtain whenever the Wee Wife and I shower. We call this “Happy Water Time,” because occasionally we indulge in whimsy. Cats induce whimsy.

New marriage game
The Child Bride has decided that I am now “the Commander.” She plans to volunteer inappropriate information about me when meeting new people, such as, “Oh, the Commander doesn’t like tips on his carrots. I have to chop them off or he won’t eat them.” “The Commander doesn’t like fizzy water. I have to let it go stale before he’ll drink it.” “The Commander would never let me watch a movie by myself.” "The Commander likes his socks folded, not stuffeed in a ball." “The Commander doesn’t care for Peru.” Etc.

The Pope
He has a lot of outfits. Does he pack them himself? What the Pope’s garment bag look like? Does he have to take his shoes off at the airport?

Expelled!
Ben Stein has a new documentary, EXPELLED, made in the spirit of Michael Moore, in which he ambles around interviewing believers in Intelligent Design who have been persecuted for their beliefs, and persecuting evolutionists, who are all raving atheists. Along the way, so I’ve read, he intercuts footage of Nazis and Stalin, to indicate that Social Darwinism has something to do with Darwinism. The thing is, though, the Soviet Union’s official stance was anti-evolution. Its “scientific” credo of choice was Lysenkoism which posits, roughly, that a giraffe’s neck grew so it could reach the high branches. In other words, it wasn’t evolution, but revolution.

James Wolcott on Nell Scovell on David Brooks
“Brooks's most recent column, "The Great Forgetting," ruminates on how our aging society is divided into ‘memory haves and have-nots.’ He writes: ‘This divide produces moments of social combat. Some vaguely familiar person will come up to you in the supermarket. “Stan, it's so nice to see you!”’ The smug memory dropper can smell your nominal aphasia and is going to keep first-naming you until you are crushed into submission.

“Brooks clearly thinks ‘aphasia’ is a colorful word for ‘forgetful,’ but anyone who has dealt with aphasia, or read Oliver Sacks's wonderful book The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat--knows that aphasia is a language-and-expression disorder, not a memory disorder, and occurs from damage to portions of the brain, usually after a head injury or stroke.”

Brooks apparently also doesn’t understand Asperger’s syndrome. So if you're looking for a good neurologist, Brooks is not your guy.

It’s alive! It’s alive!
Telegraph UK: “Matthew Hockenberry and Ernesto Arroyo of Creative Synthesis, a non-profit organisation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have created evolutionary software that alters colours, fonts and hyperlinks of pages in response to what seems to grab the attention of the people who click on the site.”

Evolution, or Revolution?

Popular Mechanics: 10 Genius Inventions We’re Still Waiting For
A sampler:

“Augmented Reality - Kids’ knees and noggins can be protected with padding and helmets—but how do we safeguard their delicate minds? … AR eyeglasses could detect inappropriate sights and remove them from view, while AR-enabled earbuds would delete ambient cursing.”

“Kid OnStar - … Kid OnStar could be packaged into a bracelet or necklace crammed with sensors that monitor location, physiological status and voice stress levels.”

If we invent enough stuff to protect the little buggers, we won’t ever have to pay attention to them again.

Erg Dept.
Another damn list, courtesy of damn Twitter, the Top Ten Made Up Words of Web 3.0, well, Some of Them.

Socialstainable
The act of socially conscious and sustainable conversations, interactions and recycled linking.
"Is your blog socialstainable? Mine is" "How can our marketing be more socialsustainable?"

Viruseful.
Viral marketing initiatives that are actually useful.
"Not only did Shave Everywhere make me laugh—I was able to configure and purchase my new electric razor online"

Emotrics
The analytical measurement of emotions.
"Yes—we've seen the metrics. But what about the Emotrics? We need to measure emotional engagement!"

Twiggles
A spontaneous burst of laughter caused by interactions on Twitter.
"Oh look who has a case of the Twiggles today"

Grokment
When you comment on someone's blog, fully grasping what the author is trying to say.
"Thank you for that grokment. You complete me".

Facehook
When you write catchy lines or clever comments in order to get more traffic on Facebook
"If I want more friends, I really need a Facehook—something to draw them in..."

Viruseful?
How do you even pronounce that? And if I ever use the word “grokment” in a sentence, you have my permission to shoot me. Just twiggling.

Barack Obloggo

Hi!
Been away from the blog for a couple weeks, but now I’m back. Did you miss me, honey?

Where have I been? Perhaps the New York Times provides an answer…

“… Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly. Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.”

Typing leads to death. That’s the message I’m getting.

We’ll always have Paris
I’ve been following the Olympic news on the radio. Many seem to be upset that protesters are ruining the Olympics by injecting politics into it. Well, I don’t have a dog in that hunt, really. I have never been anything but indifferent to sports, except for the event where competitors cross country ski and then shoot at something (what’s that called again?). But I remember the black power salutes, the murders at Munich, the protests in Germany way back in the thirties, the steroid scandals…. The Olympics have frequently been fraught, in other words.

The Chinese response to the situation in Tibet has not been very satisfactory, at least in my opinion. Even by despotic standards, the response has been both opaque and heavy-handed. My favorite moments have included hearing Chinese supporters accusing the western media of issuing pro-Tibetan propaganda. This is laughable, since no actual information has been emitted from Tibet. It’s all a big question mark. My other favorite trope is the Chinese attempt to depict the Dalai Lama as a rabble-rouser. But since he’s in exile, and the flow of information in and out of Tibet seems to be pretty much frozen, how exactly is he rousing the rabble?

The coverage of the protests in Paris has been odd. There was much about the torch being extinguished, as if that was some kind of tragic event. I mean, really, doesn’t anybody have a book of matches? Just light it again.

It was been reported, sadly, that the extinguished torch was placed in a bus to keep it out of the hands of protesters. There was an odd anthropomorphism here. I kept seeing the torch as some kind of cartoon Torchy (like the paper clip in Microsoft Word, only a torch!), smoldering and sad, all alone in the bus, a little tear forming on his little scorched face.

Andrew Ferguson, WEEKLY STANDARD
“No one who's wandered through an Obama rally and heard the war whoops and seen the cheerful, vacant gazes would come away thinking, ‘These are the smartest people ever.’ I'm sorry, they just aren't. What is unmistakable is the creepy kind of solipsism and the air of self-congratulation that clings to his campaign.”

Unlike, say, every other political campaign that ever was?

Laggards unite! But not yet.
“’Laggards have a bad rap, but they are crucial in pacing the nature of change,’ said Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster in Silicon Valley. ‘Innovation requires the push of early adopters and the pull of laypeople asking whether something really works. If this was a world in which only early adopters got to choose, we’d all be using CB radios and quadraphonic stereo.’”

I’m just waiting for 8 tracks to make a comeback.

Gossip Dustup.
From TMZ: “Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt - Did they or didn't they tie the knot this weekend? Does it even matter? Think about it. Hollywood marriages usually just equal messy divorces -- but it's not like Angie is going to sue Brad for spousal support. She does pretty well on her own. As for the four kids they have (and Angelina is pregnant again as we speak) they all bear the name Jolie-Pitt, so they have the gravy train coming in from both sides. Why mess with a good thing? Bottom line: they're better off just doing the Kurt and Goldie thing.”

On behalf of Brad and Angelina, thank you, TMZ, from the bottom of our heart for your sound advice. Without your sage counsel, I don’t know how we could go on. I really don’t.

Ann Coulter comes through again!
She writes: “If characters from THE HILLS were to emote about race, I imagine it would sound like B. Hussein Obama's autobiography, DREAMS FROM MY FATHER.”

THE HILLS is a popular television show with young people. It’s on MTV. It’s reality-based. Not being a young person, I’ve never seen it, so I don’t know what Ms. Coulter is going on about. Does she watch it? Why? Why does she refer to Barack Obama as B. “Hussein” Obama? Is that a joke? What’s funny about it? The headline to this particular opinion piece is: OBAMA'S DIMESTORE 'MEIN KAMPF.’

Now I know writers don’t usually create their own headlines, but what exactly is a “dimestore” MEIN KAMPF? Does that mean there’s a Saks Fifth Avenue version of MEIN KAMPF? Does it mean that Obama’s MEIN KAMPF is somehow not as classy as Hitler’s?

Ms. Coulter does say in her article: “Obama is about to be our next president: You might want to take a peek. If only people had read MEIN KAMPF….”

I haven’t read Obama’s autobiography, but I did read MEIN KAMPF some years ago. I understand that much of Obama’s book deals with his occasional discomfort around white people. Hitler did not have this discomfort. He really liked white people. Unless they were Jews or Communists.

And somehow I don’t think that Barack Obama views world events as a life-and-death struggle between Aryans and non-Aryans. I haven’t examined his position papers, but still--

Ann Coulter as torch.
She is kind of torch-like, isn’t she? Let us extinguish her, and put her on a bus.

Let us now turn to Hitchens.
Christopher, that is: “To have accepted Obama's smooth apologetics is to have lowered one's own pre-existing standards for what might constitute a post-racial or a post-racist future. It is to have put that quite sober and realistic hope, meanwhile, into untrustworthy and unscrupulous hands. And it is to have done this, furthermore, in the service of blind faith. Mark my words: This disappointment is only the first of many that are still to come.”

So much for my pre-existing standards for a post-racist future, I guess. Damn. I had them on a Post-it on the fridge.

Under fire.
Hillary Clinton lobbed a grenade into the bunker at Bosnia, then ducked and waited for the explosion that never came. She waited, and waited, but the explosion never came.

New one on me…
Reuters: “Mindset Media, a media company that examines personality traits of different consumers, found that people who buy more than three pairs of sneakers a year are 61 percent more likely to have the qualities of a modern leader.”

Why then, do you never see modern leaders wearing sneakers? They generally wear combat gear or sturdy Florsheims, do they not? What are they doing with these sneakers? Are they piling up in a closet? Are they some kind of talisman?

Argh.
This last Sunday some guy named Linden Weeks wrote a piece for the Washington Post. First, he evoked a vanished time: “Sentimentality reigned, frequently expressed through ‘the happy ending.’ We laughed together, wept together, said ‘awww’ together when Andy Griffith or June Cleaver gave us a parental talking-to.”

Things are different now, by golly! “The revolt against sincerity -- the Snark Ages, still upon us -- began as a rebellion against corny, over-the-top displays of emotion in movies, songs, TV shows. But the rebellion spiraled out of control, and any public expression of emotion, no matter how sincere, was a target for mockery.”

The Snark Ages? You can just smell the book deal, can’t you?

Mr. Weeks, not one to shy away from gilding a lily, also predicted in his piece that “We are entering the Era of the Cynicmental.” So I guess we have that to look forward to. He cites movies like JUNO, and writers like Dave Eggers.

So how to respond? Is this cynic, or mental?
“[A] Thai luxury hotel group ploughed ahead with a meal it claimed would help bridge the divide between the rich and poor. About 120 guests clad in black-tie finery late Saturday worked their way through 10 gourmet courses, prepared by five chefs flown in from Europe and served in the glittering ballroom of Bangkok's Lebua Hotel. Some guests were flushed -- perhaps from the wine, but also after a day in the sun in a rural Thai village. The visit was the first course of a scheme Lebua dubs ‘emotional tourism,’ but derided by some as ‘poverty tourism.’ Lebua flew about 30 of its top guests to an elephant camp in northern Thailand, with the idea that seeing the beasts and their handlers in miserable conditions would spark an altruistic streak in the food-loving high-rollers.”

Was there pie?

CryptoBlog

William F. Buckley some more…
In the various adulations and good riddances accompanying the demise of William F. Buckley, there has not been much note made about what an alarming public figure he was, at least to me.

I grew up with this guy on television. I never quite knew what his politics were because his presentation was so esoteric and high-faluting that I paid more attention to his gestures and demeanor that whatever he was going on about. Lip-licking! Eye-popping! Pencil waving! Words unfound in Webster’s!

I do remember watching the famous debate between him and Gore Vidal however. Arguing about Viet Nam and protestors in 1968, Vidal called Buckley a "crypto-Nazi." To which Buckley replied: "Now listen, you queer. Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, or I'll sock you in the goddamn face and you'll stay plastered." Vidal later amended his appellation to “crypto-fascist,” and the two went on to sue each other for many years.

Why I love Parker Posey
From the ONION: “I was doing the red carpet thing for the Independent Spirit Awards, and all the paparazzi were going…’What are you wearing?’ And I was like, ‘My shoes are made of bark, my dress is made of grass, and my coat is made of air.’ They said, ‘Where’d you get it?’ And I was like, ‘It’s from heaven.’ And it was total – crickets. Crickets! No response, no irony. It’s really weird to be taken seriously for what you’re wearing. It makes me want to wear a uniform.”

A uniform, eh. Does that make her a crypto-fascist?

But what’s the official bear whiz of Missouri?
Missouri state Representative Curt Dougherty wants to make Budweiser the official beer of Missouri.

Facebook kerfuffle
Sarah Lacey, a writer for Business Week, and author of a forthcoming book on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, conducted an interview with him at SXSW, which stands for something or other (oh, okay: South by Southwest, in Austin, Texas). SXSW is a gathering of over-enthusiatic geeks, who are over-excited about breakthroughs in new technology, especially web-related technology.

The audience for the interview was packed, and packing – iPhones, Blackberries, etc. Apparently, they were all on Twitter, which is a kind of real-time blog/instant messaging web deal, in which folks can post comments which are seen be anybody else who is on the Twitter.
Dissatisfaction with Ms. Lacey’s casual interview style quickly rippled through the crowd. Muttering occurred, then catcalls. Ms. Lacey transmogrified from interviewer to moderator, and fielded questions from the newly pacified crowd.

Well, the blogosphere had a field day. The interview was called a “meltdown,” a “disaster,” and Ms. Lacey was accused of “not being a geek.”

The thing is, though, Zuckerberg wasn’t much more forthcoming even after the virtual coup. He responded to questions and even non-questions with whatever he was going to say anyway. He repeated himself. He blathered. In short, he was another inarticulate geek who’s made a lot of money with an idea that came along in the right place at the right time.

The real question is not what this guy has to say to us, but why would we want to talk to him in the first place? The only question I have for the 24 year old billionaire is, “Can I have some of your money please?”

Great news!
One in a hundred Americans is in prison. One in four teenage American girls has an STD. Bear Stearns is going to get a bailout! Desperate homeowners are going to get a bailout! Erm. Not.

Eliot! You idiot!
The mighty New York Times has used all its resources to track down Kristen, the high-priced call girl with whom Eliot Spitzer with-whomed. Her real name is revealed as Ashley Alexander Dupre (sure it is). From the NYT’s hard-hitting no-holds-barred subsequent article, we learn:

“Music is her first love, and on the MySpace page, Ms. Dupré mentions Patsy Cline, Frank Sinatra, Christina Aguilera and Lauryn Hill among a long list of influences, including her brother, Kyle. (She also lists Whitney Houston, Madonna, Mary J. Blige and Amy Winehouse as her top MySpace friends.) In the interview, she said she saw the Rolling Stones perform at Radio City Music Hall on their last tour after a friend gave her two tickets. ‘They were amazing,’ she said.”

She is 22, and likes long walks on the beach. Anal is extra. No bukkake.

Hooray for people like me!
New York Times: “Laggards have a bad rap, but they are crucial in pacing the nature of change,” said Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster in Silicon Valley. “Innovation requires the push of early adopters and the pull of laypeople asking whether something really works. If this was a world in which only early adopters got to choose, we’d all be using CB radios and quadraphonic stereo.”

HIllary's Red Phone follies
Larry David, Huffington Post: “I don't care if it's 3 a.m. or 10 p.m. or any other time. I don't want her talking to Putin, I don't want her talking to Kim Jong Il, I don't want her talking to my nephew. She needs a long rest. She needs to put on a sarong and some sun block and get away from things for a while, a nice beach somewhere -- somewhere far away, where there are...no phones.”

Hooray for people like me! Part 2!
Feature in the New York Times: “I took a real day off this weekend: computers shut down, cellphone left in my work bag, land-line ringer off. I was fully disconnected for 24 hours.”

Well, give yourself a fucking medal.

Spokespersons in disgrace
The disgraced spokespeople, having misspoken, having issued their apologies, having been weighed and found wanting by the all-powerful, all-knowing League of Pundits, gather at the Spokesperson Bar and Grill, at an undisclosed location. There, they nurse their mojitos, and caress their CVs, and avoid each other’s gaze. The silence is deafening. At their sides the Blackberries rest, asleep, unringing.

Blogney

Poor Britney
In the line at Long’s I saw Britney Spears’ face on three tabloid covers.

I have a theory about all this. Okay, we’re in Web 2.0, right? According to theory.org.uk (a site I recommend by the way), Web One was people sharing their little gardens (i.e. websites), whereas Web Two is people SHARING gardens (social networking, etc.). The Web itself is “democratizing” media (Agh! Scare quotes!) in that media used to be tied to time and place – you have to be at the theater at 7:30 if you want to see the movie; you have to be parked in front of the television if you want to see your favorite story at 8:00. That has all changed.

And ANYBODY can make a movie. We can be the producers, the directors, the directors, and the audience. This leads to a lot of crappy video, but that’s not the point. The point is we can actually interact with people who make stuff, comment on it, share it with others. Any time. Any where.

Big media is scared of this. I don’t blame them.

But we (New Media, which is the world) should be scared as well. Big media is protected by lawyers, agents, public relations folk. We are not.

On the other hand, most of us post stuff as a lark. Then let it go. If it catches on, we high five each other, and that’s about it. Unless Big Media makes an offer….

Think about this: QUARTERLIFE (I won’t explain it to you; check it out) went from an Internet phenom to an NBC series to a series on Bravo (owned by NBC) in about two weeks. That is just weird.

What does this have to do with Britney? My theory is that we still crave celebrities, but now we have mixed feelings about them. Because we want them to interact with us. Because we are them now, after all, without the fame part. We can do what they do. So who are they? They're nothing. And yet everything!

We love you, Tom Cruise! Fuck you. We love you, Britney. Here’s a picture of her pussy!

The papparazzi gather, the last of a desperate breed, trying to get dirt on the last people who will ever be dirty, ever again. Well, from now on, all of us will be dirty, but we’ll only care for two seconds.

Oh, there’s an election?
I understand it’s about change. I like Obama. I think I’ve had enough Clintons for one lifetime. But “Change We Can Believe In?” What the hell does that mean? If you don’t believe in a change, does it still make a noise?

Back to dirt!
So Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, broke up with his wife, and hooked up with Rachel Marsden, the Canadian equivalent of Ann Coulter (I love her!), then broke up with her, posting the news on Wikipedia, causing her to spam the world with their hot IM chats, and posting the clothes he’d left behind at her apartment on eBay.

See? Geek scandal! Don’t even read about it. Two seconds from now it will all be over. Move on. Nothing to see here.

Watch out for Rachel Marsden, however. Google her. I think you will agree: you definitely don't want her as a girlfriend.

I fucked Ben Affleck. (Check it out on YouTube!)
A year from now, we’ll all be forced to watch hi-def tv. Do we really need to see Sarah Silverman, funny as she is no doubt, on a teevee screen the size of your living room wall? Which is she? Hi-rez, or lo-rez? Which are we all? Man that's deep.

I'm just waiting for the Rachel Marsden story on Lifetime.

ch ch ch changes blog

WFB
The death of William F. Buckley caused me to think: comedians used to do impressions of him. He was a highly public figure, familiar enough to Americans that his mannerisms as imitated by others were immediately recognizable. Aside from Rush Limbaugh, maybe, who has that recognizability any more? On the right, or left?

Odd.

WFB was a key figure in reinvigorating conservatism in American politics. But, if he were coming into the field as a young man, I suspect he would be appalled at what now passes as conservatism.

Castro
Years ago, I had a very smart friend who cited as a reason not to commit suicide: he wanted to see what would happen in China when Mao died. Not that I’m suicidal, but I’m very curious to see what will happen in Cuba now that Fidel has stepped down.

Some CIA guy once said that the effect Fidel has on America is the same effect a full moon has on a werewolf. It always amazed me how he could play us. The Mariel boat lift was my favorite. We demanded that he free his prisoners. He said, “Fine. You take them.” This resulted in that excellent movie, SCARFACE. Thanks, Fidel!

Obama
What is up with the photograph? You know, the one where he’s wearing African garb? Are we supposed to be alarmed or something? Politicians have a long history of donning sombreros, headdresses, yarmulkes, etc. If we now see a vice president, say, wearing feathers do we have to worry about Custer’s Last Stand, redux? Well, with Cheney, you never know.

Yarg
The wee wife spent the last month recovering from a hysterectomy. She is fine, and has gone back to work. (Thank God! Daddy needs new shoes!)

She spent much of that down time on the couch, exploring the wondrous world of daytime television, which I do not generally explore. Judge shows. Man alive, there are dozens of them! Who knew? Who knew that there were that many angry ex-girlfriends trying to get their deadbeat bfs to cough up their share of pre-breakup utility bills? And willing to share their trauma for a national audience?

Judge Judy is my very favorite. I do a Byrd impression, if you know what I mean, and if you’re a Judge Judy fan I think you do.

Double Yarg
My mother found herself in the emergency room over the weekend, with severe abdominal pain. It turned out she had an ulcer, which had to be operated on immediately. She is recovering nicely (she’s 83), but the main concern is Dad (87), who has mild dementia (mild? wtf does that mean?), and rather depends on her for the taking of meds, attention to personal grooming, remembering to eat, etc. Fortunately, they are both in a managed care facility, but this situation may require amping up the “managed care” part. Cripes. It’s always something.

It’s strange to watch how the circle of activities becomes increasingly narrow as one grows older. First the job goes away, if one has one, then the home, flying, the car, the day trips….

Unless you’re Fidel, of course. The world is still his oyster. Why would you want the world to be an oyster?

CBC
On AS IT HAPPENS, Barbara Budd recently mused about the dream cast for the movie version of THREE’S COMPANY: Daniel Day-Lewis, Meryl Streep, Dame Judy Dench, and Mickey Rourke as the landlord. Though grateful, I wonder why would Canadians muse about this? Isn’t this America’s problem?

Screwed
Reading between the lines, it seems to me that the United States is screwed, but doesn’t know it yet. It will be interesting to see what happens when that knowledge sinks in.

Word that pops up everywhere that I’m sick of already.
Rebranding.