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Kanye West is a Little Bitch

(Dr. Nick Dubuisson before the graffiti wall, Bonnaroo, 2008)

If you had somehow made it halfway through 2008 believing, against mountains of available evidence to the contrary that Kanye West was anything more than a whiny little bitch-child, an immature little ratfuck begging for attention with bright lights and sophomoric sexuality, a shadowy imitation of a man whose only apparent talent lies in recognizing the good in what others have done and exploiting it after a remix, then you are about to be violently disabused of your fantasy notions, courtesy of Kanye himself, and the patient-up-to-a-fucking-point fans of the recently concluded Bonnaroo, Tennessee music festival.  Of course, if you're the sort of easily-led scoop-skull that's convinced by magazines and television that Kanye is somehow good, than you didn't even complete the first sentence of this entry.  Verbosity: How we're weeding you fuckers out.

From what I heard, he didn't really fuck up the weekend for anyone so much as give people someone worthy and fun to hate on for a few days.  He now gets some criticism for being a prima donna, and apparently is so thin-skinned that he has to respond with ALL CAPS denunciations of those people who would dare to trash the personage that is the Kanye.  And just read this thing; Who references his Mac Book Air when really upset?  You think he gets paid for a plug like that?  This thing reads like the texting of a mad 15 year old girl.  And does anyone on Earth care if his stage show cuts into his skillion and four dollar paycheck when he could still buy and sell everyone who attended Bonnaroo?  And fuck your knees, Kanye; there's no reason we should have to listen to a vastly overpaid musician bitch about his swollen and sore knees when we have plenty of overpaid athletes - who have more right to that bitching - who are also willing to do it.  The gall of this slimy little turd is an abomination unto real musicians.  Way to punch the wind out of the good feeling created by Eddie Vedder and Jack Johnson onstage at the same time, you jumped-up little fucking whore.

There is no longer any denial: Kanye West is a little bitch-child homunculus being manipulated by evil forces who seek to alter our definitions of what is good and what is bad.  That evil force is childish, which explains the Teddy Bear used on Kanye's albums, his need to be seen as a Christ figure, his need for attention and approval which overrides his basic human sense, and his urge to be a symbol of sexual potency.  It's as if he is a bundle of confused teenage demons, dressed in a music star suit, or perhaps his whole career is compensation for a lack of true sex organs.  I suspect Kanye is smooth & undifferentiated in the crotchal region, like a Ken doll. 

The Kanye doll - no dick, no sac, no heart, no brains, no spirit, no soul; just a lot of fucking noise and a hollow interior.  Comes with lots of pretty accessories to disguise the fact that there's really nothing to it in the first place.  Costs more than you've got on you.

Distorting the Distortion

Dr. James Dobson of Focus All Over Your Family Whether Or Not They Wish It Or Think It's Appropriate criticized Barack Obama earlier this week, accusing him of "distorting the Bible," when he mentioned some stuff from the Old Testament about slavery being okay and shellfish being an abomination (which it also says about homosexuality) while mentioning that Jesus' Sermon on the Mount was pretty radical stuff, right up there with King and Gandhi for anti-hate speech points.  So, Obama took some things - maybe even out of context - out of a text, distilled it, and used it for his own purposes in a speech.  Made it into a sound bite.  This is what politicians do.

Dr. Jimmy was all upset about this, and blasted Obama.  Obama later accused James of "making stuff up."  Getting reactionary, over-responding, blasting other people's behavior and judging them while making stuff up?  Sounds like what evangelical Christians do, too.  Just so everyone's on the squares where they belong.

So.  Dobson's problem (one of them) is that Barack is supposedly distorting a cobbled together text, some of which may or may not be more than 2000 years non-relevant to goings on we experience presently, which contains glaring omissions and hypocrisies, and is bafflingly obtuse enough to be open to enough interpretation that not even all who travel under the banner "Christian" can agree not to persecute, ridicule and kill one another.  Regardless, this flawed codex, this hefty fairy tale, is, I am led to understand, an important document, one which Dr. James uses to defraud and mislead a lot of people.  He's actively engaged every day in spinning for interpretation the contents of the Christian Holy Book, for other books, a radio show, some TV, and his cottage industry of Biblical supplemental materials - he can't have Barack horning in on his actions, even though, if you believe Biblical doctrine, whichever of them becomes President will have been put there by God.

Leaving Obama in the uneviable position of pointing out the obvious: "He's making stuff up."  Well, yeah - that's his job.  A note from the Obama Camp to the crazy Christian preachers of the world: "Please, just stop fucking talking.  It's embarrassing for those of us thinking out here in the world."

George Carlin: 1937-2008

The grandfather of relevant comedy satire has died, age 71.

George Carlin, one of the best comedians ever to walk a stage, the origin point of the landmark "Seven Words" routine, and the first comic I ever heard express a specifically anti-religious, anti-government stance, died over the weekend of "heart failure," a euphemism he himself would probably have hated.

When you’re young and you start to really enjoy comedians, you have to hide it initially. You know that you’re getting away with something, and that your folks and other satellite adults would shut you down if they found out.  You also, when you are younger, glean much of your information and understanding of history in a style I refer to as "backwards acquisition."  Carlin represents a locus point for me of both of those things. He was the first comedian I listened to that I had to hide, because he was so raunchy and controversial that I knew I would have to conceal the tapes, lest they be confiscated.  Beginning to drive was handy for this, since I could just drive around for hours listening to various routines.  What Am I Doing In New Jersey, Place For My Stuff, Parental Advisory and Occupation: Foole were all albums I listened to this way.

Carlin also was my backwards acquisition point for Lenny Bruce.  I started listening to Lenny Bruce because of George Carlin.  Lenny Bruce’s style is addictive, as is Carlin’s, and once you get into them, no one else will do.  It’s a natural path from those guys into more comedy, and it led me into Richard Pryor, Robert Klein, Sam Kinison, and Bill Hicks, pretty much in rapid succession.

No one seemed to have a more perverse grip on the motivations of people than did George Carlin.  That understanding – bred, I believe, by his intelligence, stamina, and firm resistance to the beliefs of others - together with a love of language and a need to tear down authoritative systems and rail against the machine, deliberately walking against the flow of society’s direction, made George not just a comedian of the highest order, but a social commentator and iconoclast, which I suppose is what all great comics should aspire to be.

I only got to see him perform once, but his stage routines were often just expressions of his mind, which was accessible on his albums and in his writing.  The world is poorer and less funny without Carlin around.

The Flip Flop

I don't know when this shit really took off - I think though that it was 2004, when the Monkeyface's putrid, inbred, diseased & fever-brained hatemongers started using the colloquial name for a fucking shower shoe to describe what they perceived as John Kerry's reversal on some issues during the travesty of what would eventually become the second obviously stolen election of my lifetime. Obvious, that is, to anyone with an IQ larger than that of your average kept household ferret or anything else smarter than most card-carrying Republicans - though I don't think they let them actually carry the cards anymore because GOPers tend to hurt their eyes and gums with hard edges of the cards.  I think maybe it's a squishy elephant toy they carry now.  Named Ronnie.  Probably made in China.  We can only hope there's lead in it.

But, to quote the illustrious Mr. Silverman, I digress.

Flip-flop.  I fucking hate this, this childish shorthand, this fool's coinage.  Every time I take a moment and listen to the chatter coming from my fellow Americans, it becomes more puerile.  Just when you think it was safe to listen again - when the moronic fucking back-and-forth braying of idiots in the wind, on the networks, in the workplace, and on the streets wouldn't send you diving for stronger and stronger headache medications - you are once again lowered into a new and seething pit of disappointment, and informed by the trends extant in conversation that apparently, this relatively recent new stupidity is here to goddamn stay.  Great.  So we get the "flip-flop," the most recent perversion of the (supposedly sacrosanct to American born white people) English motherfucking tongue.

And both the big men have flip-flopped this week, so we get to hear about it some more: Obama turns down public funding from what he describes as a "broken system" after previously promising to go along with it, and McCain, who previously railed against offshore drilling now sees that it's politically expedient to be pulled along by Mr. & Mrs. Joe Motorist, and now thinks drilling offshore might not be such a bad idea.  Obama wants the cash money, Johnny wants the percentage points.  So they're a pair of flip-flops, I suppose.  Gah, disgusting.  Like pissing on real conversation.  And apparently, there's nothing to be done about it, other than gouging our your own eyes with a pointed stick, and then going after your ears next, because they're going to keep saying it.  Like lemmings, one of the media mutts has said it, the rest of them just dive off the cliff into the oblivion of meaninglessness.

English is supposedly one of the most complex systems of verbal expression on the planet, a living, breathing, changing, evolving language, that we, as the ones who speak it, are meant to use and modify, shepherd along into a new form and function.  Instead, we boil it down into a tallow mass of catchphrases, redefining half of most people's vocabulary every half generation or so.

Bullshit.  Poppycock.  Fie on your fucking "flip-flop," establishment talkers.

Recent Passings

It's entirely possible that I've been less vigilant about this recently than I could have been.

Stan Winston (1946-2008) - Hollywood makeup and effects guy extraordinaire, responsible for scaring the shit out of you with everything from giant killer cyborgs to T-Rex dinos, and designer of everything from Mr. Roboto all the way up to work on Iron Man.  Predator's dreads and Michelle Pfeiffer's disintegrating patchwork costume in Batman Returns; the hands of Edward Scissorhands - you appreciated his work and you didn't even know it.  It's all up to Rick Baker and legions of CGI folk, now.  I always thought Mysterio had to have been based in part on Stan Winston.

Utah Phillips (1935-2008) - He and Ani DiFranco put this song where my ears could hear it, at a time when I really needed to hear it.  Thanks, Utah.

Bo Diddley (1928-2008) - A former Golden Gloves boxer, a bluesman to his heart, and The Originator.  One of the rawest personalities I've ever seen represented in interviews, in songs or onstage.  My personal favorite is the Gunslinger album, which I wore out in 1994, and now cannot really listen to.  Most of the rock (and a lot of the blues) you love does not exist without The Originator, folks.

Tim Russert (1950-2008) - One of the best interviewers on television, and could conduct Meet The Press with something sorely lacking in today's political discourse TV shows: A modicum of dignity and respect.  There was no attitudinal bullshit, no O'Reilly puerile pandering, just well thought out Q & A, and a format of information gathering with a historical perspective.

Harvey Korman (1927-2008)  - a gifted comedian and straight man; someone who completely understood how to both over- and underplay his role in a joke.  Timing.  Korman was all about timing.  We'll miss you, Hedy.

Jim McKay (1921-2008) - Another of Frank DeFord's "World's Tallest Midgets," a true journalist whose area of interest is sporting, and so is destined to be known as a sportscaster.  I remember him as the voice of the Indy 500 from when I was younger, and he is the "Agony of Defeat" guy for anyone else from my generation.  Recordings of his reporting from the Munich Massacre at the '72 Olympic games are exceptional.  This is quite good, too.

Hulk vs. Hulk

First thing - how to make people stay through the credits?  Look like a comic book guy.  "Yo - check it, that dude with the ponytail and glasses on the front row is still here.  Maybe there's more after the credits."

I stayed.  There isn't.  You may feel free to leave during the end credits, unless you like sweepingly dramatic Summer movie soundtrack music.

Second thing - if you were worried about seeing this movie because of the first one, the thing to do is to pretend it didn't exist.  In terms of continuity, something quite cherished and dear to us fanboys.  The only reason to keep the 1st movie in mind?  If you were wondering if they listened to you when you bitched about their 2003 effort, well, they did.  They took out all that stuff you didn't like.  They took out confused and pensive Eric Bana and replaced him with anxiety-ridden and tense Edward Norton.  They put better actors in, and dare I say it: William Hurt does a better General Ross than does Sam Elliot.  It hurts me a little, but it's true.  I didn't dislike the first one like a lot of people did, but I felt that Ang Lee took things too seriously and too far in many places, & waited too long to show us the shark.  I also am not a fan of Ms. Connelly or recent Nick Nolte, and hated the ending.  In terms of the larger issues discussed in relationship to this movie - I consider those blown way out of proportion.

When you ask people to talk about their favorite super people, you often get Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, Wolverine, Iron Man - virtually no one says the Hulk.  Hardly ever.  The Hulk is not terribly sympathetic; he's pathetic, in many ways, and it's possible to feel for the character, but connecting with him is harder.  It's like rooting for Frankenstein's monster - part of you wants to, but only part.  Therein lies the challenge of the Hulk's ongoing story: How to engage people and make them care?  Ang went the only way he knows how - past tragedy and blame shifting.  It's in almost all of his movies.  Louis does a different kind of thing here, exploring the potential for humanity in the monster, while dealing with the monstrosity in some humans.  I like it, and I think it works.

LAST LINE YOU READ TO AVOID POSSIBLE SPOILERS.

I liked this movie.  There's very little to it but epic (in a classic sense, involving many characters and locales) action, not a lot more than that going on, at least - not on screen.  The actors are good enough this time around to let everything play on their faces and in their reactions, and they do it without five-minute conversations or flashbacks.  For the most part.  If you're not a fan of action movies, then you have no business going to see this.  It is a superhero movie, not a movie about superheroes.  It's also an action movie, with a big smackdown in Harlem at the end.  It goes on a bit long for some people, I've heard, but not for me.  I liked it, thought it afforded an opportunity to show character development and cool powers.  And to hear more of Lou Ferrigno doing the Hulk's voice.

The cameos in this - Downey, Stan the Man, and Lou - are all better, the situations are more interesting, the locales are prettier, the acting is first rate, and it's a worthy reboot of the franchise.  And there's more Avengers shit coming down the turnpike.  If you're unsure, wait and rent it, or ask me for a personal recommend - otherwise, give old Greenskin your greenbacks and enjoy the redemption of the character.

Father's Day Weekend

This was the best Father's Day weekend EVER.

Friday night, I came home from a difficult week at work (problems with basic project execution, encroaching deadline crap) and due to C's well-crafted and detail complete Google calendar, was notified that Vanderbilt's Dyer Observatory would be having one of its monthly open houses that night, in spite of the clouds.  Max & I went, found out a lot of stuff about old telescopes, Mars, stars and stuff, then came home.  The whole household crashed late that night, some of us more than once.  We got the kids in bed, C fell asleep watching Jon Stewart, and I read about zombies for awhile before finally tapping out at about 2 in the morning.  I was not awakened until 10 the following day.  I don't know how many of you have kids in your house, but try to remember the last time that happened for you on a Saturday morning.

After morning relaxment, Max & I headed out to do the laundry, which takes forever when you wait three weeks to do it.  We actually had a good time, sorting and washing and drying and drinking sodas and watching a movie I now realize was this one, which creeped us both out.  After redeeming Max's coupon for a free Frosty, we returned home, & everyone went into high gear for a little while as we packed up all our stuff to go camping at the zoo.  After some battery and hungriness issues, we got our tent set up and sleeping bags down.  The zoo had campfires for cooking, and provided me with one of the most entertaining combos I've seen in a while: little kids, pointed sticks, and fire.  Max cooked hot dogs and marshmallows for everyone, and C made s'mores.  We got Abby to sleep around 10:45 or so, talked to Ron via cell, and played some Uno.  We were pretty sure that we were the only ones awake in tent city around midnight, when C went for a brief walk while I finished the zombie book, in total black silence, save for Max's Spider-Man lantern.  Perfect atmosphere for zombies, really.

We slept great.  No, really.  On the damp (condensation in the tent; possibly some kind of leak), lumpy ground, four to a tent.  Seriously.

About six-fifteen or so, we all got up, and the zoo fed us breakfast.  We took down our temporary housing (thank you Cayce & Matt), saw the meerkats, an animal show, some lizards, snakes and fish, and decided that we had been in the zoo long enough at about 11:30 or so.  We stopped and grabbed lunch and then went to play some mini-golf.  Max & I both hit holes-in-one (see pic), and Abby ate some grass.  And ice cream.  Great times were had by all, but the weirdness of our recent sleep schedules had begun to catch up with us, and Abby melted down before we got home, complaining about corn.  Short naps were had by 3/4 of us, and we rounded out Sunday with Simpsons and thick crust pizza.   Meh on the pizza, though.

The first shower after camping in the rain which was followed hard upon by a 90ish degree day is really quite something else.  I think I almost fell asleep in there.  Now the kids are headed toward actual beds, and I'm either headed out to see the Incredible Hulk, or I'm about to crash hard.  Because my family loves me, and it's Father's Day.

Democratic Race in 8 Minutes

Brilliant.

Crazy Arrogant

Or just plain crazy.  Or just seriously arrogant.  Or, I could have titled this one "Crazy; Arrogant."  I don't know, I question it often.

The US Supreme Court has handed down a 5 to 4 decision ruling that the "enemy combatants" (a designation created by the Monkeyface administration solely for the purpose of holding fuckers indefinitely without trials or legal recourse - basically, so that it could suspend their Constitutional rights) cannot be flung up in front of semi-secret military trials, but instead, must have their Constitutionally guaranteed day in court, and now additionally, they can contest being brought in front of a Federal judge, a Constitutional right of people on trial.  See how I brought the Constitution up thrice there in rapid succession?  It's because you seem to run slap into it whenever you're talking about the rights of people who haven't been proven guilty of anything yet.  Weird how that seems to happen. 

Unless you're a member of the Dubya Monkeyface Administration.  They think all the rest of us must be enjoying our terrorism, since we are always so preoccupied with people's "rights," and not helping with the war effort by spending our stimulus checks on body armor.  Perhaps it's terribly spoiled and bourgeois of me, but I keep thinking there must be a way to defend our way of life against the terrorists without compromising our way of life in the process.  Probably that's me all mixed up again, though.  Me and the Supreme Court, the shockingly conservative Supreme Court who has three times told Dubya that he's exceeding his authority, that his Constitutional Law skills are lousy for someone who's a Shaolin Monk, and that his dick is smaller than that of the collective Supreme Court.  That's the metaphorical power phallus, wielded from the bench as they use it to slap down the silliness, you understand.  No need to be offended.

Unless you're a big fan of sense, logic, practicality, people's rights, or the laws of the land.  If that's the case, you're probably pretty offended, and hoping Dubya gets ahold of some tainted beef while he's on a fucking Euro vacation most Americans couldn't possibly afford right now.

Dubya's Big Trip

Does anyone else feel like US taxpayers are currently footing the bill for the Monkeyface (shown here measuring the amount of influence he has left) to have a free trip to Europe?  No one really cares about anything he does over there - not even protesters, who will usually use any excuse to skip out on previously established responsibilities, have bothered to turn out for this boring, mundane visit that even CNN is referring to as a "farewell tour."  No, no, no.  The Stones get a farewell tour.  Several of them, in fact.  Pope John Paul II got a farewell tour, even though we didn't really know it at the time.  Dubya Monkeyface Bush should get a "fuckya" tour.  And don't let the Semi-Evolved Simian Door hit you in your pampered, old-money tuchas on the way out.

CNN does point out that this trip is meant to assuage some of the bad feelings that Europeans might have about us because OUR LEADERS LIED TO THE WORLD ON TELEVISION and FUCKED UP ANY CHANCE OF STABILITY IN THE MIDEAST, yes, assuage some of those feelings, thus paving the way for better future relations between the US and the EU.  If that were true, why send him, the doorknob fuckhead who got us into this mess?  Why not send Ryan Seacrest?  People seem to like him.

Since he has no influence and really, no agenda (his pseudo-agenda being a last, desperate push to get leaders of other countries to implement or continue things he'd like to have done - kind of like a do-nothing employee giving notice and then struggling to understand why things will change when he leaves) there really is no point to this visit - it is the epitome of pomp.  He's being ferried around in large cars which take in excess of $100 to fill up, surrounded by security, and he's turning exotic foods from all over the world into shit - I wager without appreciating anything about them - on my fucking dime, and the thin, shiny currencies of other nations.  This seems so contrary to a theoretical American existence - fuck things up, become a meaningless joke & a barbaric waste of human resources, and get a free 8-day trip to Europe.

Maybe the hope is that he'll get lost over there and they can leave without him.  Like the slow kid on the field trip who you watched get on as you were sipping your Hi-C.  January 20th, baby.  01-20-09.