squidbag

Cars of The Boro

I've been driving around a lot more this week than I have in recent weeks, so I guess I'm becoming slightly more observant of the details of the vehicles surrounding me.

This first shot is of a van driven by some people who need a TV, or some hobbies or prophylactics or to move away from the train tracks or a new religion or diet or SOMETHING, for fuck's sake, because unless this cutesy vinyl graphic across the back window is supposed to be their body count, they have six kids.

Upon further inspection, you can observe at least two sets of twins, but that still means after having twins, they were looking to fill their house with more joy. Even the dogs on the graphic have surrounded this family, presumably to herd the kids into some kind of order. Six. Wow. On average, this house celebrates a birthday every month and a half.

The Camry in the bottom shot wins the brass balls award for illegal-ass driving. I was stopped behind him at a light (which makes the 1966 Batman angle of the shot even more inexcusable) and thought, "Wow, his temporary tag's expired." It took me a few more seconds to register just HOW expired it was. I mean, I drove around for three and half, four months this year with expired tags - I hate the DMV, have kids, not a lot of money and some societal/authority disorders. But this guy? I think he just bought the car and said, "Fuck it - that looks like a tag; I'll just do the speed limit forever and never let cops get behind me. I don't like waiting in lines, spending money or doing things."

So yeah - rampant applications of balls by Murfreesboro drivers. Enjoy.

Percussionist

I'm going to brag a little bit now.

My son's a percussionist. He went for his "band fitting" yesterday, and after a year of steel drumming last year and two weeks this year of sweating it, losing sleep and thinking he'd made disastrous mistakes in testing and was already thinking about his back-ups (trumpet and clarinet) he walks in yesterday only to find that his teacher had placed him at the top of her list - literally #1, she showed me - and wasn't going to make him drill or test anymore at all. He's in. He was caught so flat-footed by this because of his expectation that she was going to make him test anyway - that he tested anyway. Turns out, the thing he can't do and was worried about is an end of the year type skill, some kind of snare roll.

When he tested, I turned my back so he wouldn't have to see me looking, worked my out of his line of sight and listened. I heard this:

RAT-A-TAT-TAT-TAT; TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TATT! RAT-A-TAT-TAT-TAT; TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TATT!

Then I turned so I could watch him copy it only to find that he just had. His copy of her drill was indistinguishable from the example given. It was awesome. So yeah, I filled out forms and we laid out a bunch of money for sticks and mallets and rentals and he's in the band as one of eight percussionists from his grade.

I am bursting with pride, and told him so. 

I've been giving him Sun Ra and the Marsalis boys, Dizzy and Louis and Miles, Coltrane and Cannonball, Son House and Lightning Hopkins and Screaming Jay Hawkins and Elvin Jones since he was little, and his uncle Brian's music has always been around. More recently, Vini & the Demons and lots of ska (thanks, Josh) and 90s grunge and metal and his uncle Eric's music. Motorhead, Flaming Lips and Nirvana are on his radar now. He likes Mos Def and MC Chris, DJ Revolution, Rahzel and Chuck D and 80s hip-hop, though he dissed early Fresh Prince as "silly." He's recently developed an affinity for R.E.M., They Might Be Giants, Atomic Blonde and Sublime and lots of female singers - Kate Bush, Liz Phair, Natalie Merchant and Tori Amos have all been requested recently.

I knew he liked music - he was in steel drums and chorus last year and listens to all this stuff - but I didn't know he could do this quite this well, and the revelation and pride and love and excitement are almost more than I can stand.

Your Nightmares Are True

Deep in your atrophied and shrunken black poison pump, you knew it all along. The voices in the night, in your head, in abandoned hallways and in the back of liquor stores behind dumpsters and prostitutes told you who the hell he was, all along - and they were right.

Obama's got a pineal eye - they cover it with make-up - and he's a leader captain general of the vanguard of an invading race from beyond this dimension with perceptions that far outstrip anything a burgeoning panopticon can muster; he sees when you are sleeping/he knows when you're awake/he knows when you're a lying terrorist who needs a CIA drone up the ass. He's not American - he's quantum-American from a space dimension all around you invisible - that's how he's warping so many minds.

He's coming out of a toxic cloud of painless opium fumes and stale cigarette smoke straight out of a 1950's cathouse and he's snatching up your guns and your knives and your cudgels and your Dixie flags and your weapons so that when he comes around with his pan-racial, post-racial racist agenda - hating everyone that's not the mix he is, exactly - you're defenseless, and you have to wear the featureless grey coverall as institutional non-race mayonnaise post-consumer no property Lennon/Lenin communism kicks in under a totalitarian regime we asked for, we begged for, because we let that smooth-talking motherfucker into the White House and he didn't save us, he didn't save our country from itself, he saved it for himself, the last and most delectable treat on the tree of conquest. The government's going to get so goddamn big that you'll be able to see it standing on your neck while it's walking away in front of you and yet - it'll still seem like everything's out of control and going down the shitter because the chaos makes you seek comfort from the father figure daddy Obama.

Barack Obama's going to force abortions on everyone - he's going to do the abortions himself as the man-in-black leader of a cadre of ruthlessly efficient abortibots designed to infiltrate and make certain that everyone has a forced abortion and birth control rammed down their gullets like everyone's a fertile musket of baby-making madness and the only way to control the flow is to black bag your children in the dead of night, mandatory birth control for all sexes, forced abortions that you can write off on your taxes and the utter destruction of Christ's church here on Earth under the foot of a giant Pro-Abortion Monster wearing an Obama loincloth and talking like Tarzan but with Janene Garofalo's voice.

Despite his affiliation with a controversial Christian Church, he's a Muslim. A secret Muslim who manages somehow to promote the secret and shadowy agenda of Islamists everywhere while also speaking up for women's equality, gay marriage and praying - secretly - five times a day under the watchful eye of the Secret Service. He learned his Islamist ideology and secret handshake and agreed in a blood and semen pact to corrupt America for terrorism in a madrassa in a foreign country because of course, in spite of his birth certificate, which is an expert fake concocted by allies who manipulated media to create Barack Hussein Obama as a candidate in the first place - brainwashing you all - he was born somewhere else. In another fucking dimension, I know, but you don't know that, you only feel it. The big trick is, though - he doesn't believe a word of it, because he's got a personal relationship with the alien space god through his connections as the pan-dimensional messiah of hope and change. It's a good train; get on it.

He's gay, too. He's a gayesque bisexual pansexual straight guy who's just cool enough to get it on with anything that moves, and he's going to force the omnisexual agenda down the throats of all straight people everywhere like a load from a fully fluffed and hung damn ready pornstar just waiting to pump you full of hot ideological ejaculate that will disgust you all and damn you to hell and erode gender lines and whatever else you're afraid of, because that's what he is - the embodiment of all your fears, phobia made flesh, walking, talking, looking cooler than you, staying calm, cool and collected, a near-emotionless robot drone on a mission to bomb your America into dust and replace it with conspiracy Shadow America, waiting just beneath the surface - a quick left and you're there.

The media sold you a comprehensive nightmare, and you all bought in, with your hysteria and your need for change and promise of a new day - and you'll get it, cold sweating and wrapped in chintzy sheets under a steel-cold dawn and riding on the back of a mongrel demon from places you can't bear to consider. We know you believe it, and for you that's like knowing, and in the swirl of thoughts that echo in your brainpan you can't exactly nail down but you know you're in a nightmare of filth and lies and you can't figure out how this happened and you're surrounded all the time.

Your madness is real. Obama is the impossible sum of all of these things. Nightmare made flesh.

It's all under control.

Have a nice day.

Comb!

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DC Comics: Zero Sum Newsweek

DC giveth, and DC taketh away. Kind of.

Rob Liefeld, who cannot draw, is quitting DC. This is good news because he cannot draw. The first New 52 book I decided to drop was Liefeld's Hawk and Dove, because, as I mentioned, it was poorly drawn. This is because he lacks the ability to draw. He has no understanding of human anatomy, which would be forgivable if desktop figure models weren't so cheap. He deals with his numerous artistic deficits by ripping off superior artists, just like he was rumored to have financially ripped off his fellow creators at Image back in the 90s. His writing and plotting are worse, but his drawing is spectacularly bad - when I was a kid, I got a Cable action figure that was molded from Liefeld's drawings and the fucker couldn't stand up, because his biology was impossible, what with his giant torso and skinny little ankles. And tons of fucking teeth, always. I partially blame his art for the near-collapse of the comics industry in the 1990s. Him leaving DC and hopefully comics forever? Good news.

The bad news is that DC has decided to make Wonder Woman - a character who has had her origins and backgrounds relentlessly fucked with over the past year - second fiddle to Superman, getting them together for the same reason Frank Miller did it; it requires no real storytelling effort, and it's sparkly and saleable. I'm not down with this idea mainly because it doesn't improve WW, who has always been a third to Batman and Superman, and now she's somebody's girlfriend. I don't much care about the Lois angle - absent in the New 52 - but making her romance a focal point of her new story - and apparently, having her driven into Kryptonian arms by some kind of as yet undefined tragedy - seems like a cheap and easy trick designed to satisfy the lowest common denominator of fanboy. WW and Superman only work as a couple when they're on equal terms, like at the end of Kingdom Come. I don't like the idea, but we'll see...

Finally, I'm reading these now, and enjoying most of them. So not TOTALLY zero sum.

Advice to Republican Friends

Republican friends and family of mine who read this blog - both of you (rimshot) - think of this as an intervention. Because I care. Well. In an abstract way that crunchy hippie nice people friends of mine compel me to care. I care because I have to.

On this blog, you may have noticed, I frequently use rudely sophomoric grammar constructions to not-so-subtly imply that Republicans are deplorably immoral, stupid, socially backward, and often crazy. "Right wingnuts," "Republicunts" and "Republican'ts" are a few of these; there are others if you go and look. I made it through the entire Dubya presidency wthout ever referring to him by his given name, opting for the more descriptively accurate "Dubya Monkeyface." The time for these half-assedly witty monikers is coming to an end, though - soon, all a citizen of these United States will need to utter in order to connote a tragically lowered intelligence, fried logic and societally unacceptable levels of craziness will be "Republican." It'll be a derogatory term all by its lonesome, and how long do you want to be associated with that? There's already an "R-word," so I don't even know how we'll discuss you people and call elections once your name is a slur - but I'm looking forward to it.

You, individually, on the other hand, should get out now, while the getting's good. It might already be too late - I don't know if you can escape a tornado of bullshit like what's being spouted from this incontinent elephant's ass without getting a little of it on you. Let's face it; the GOP (and its bastard child, the Tea Party) in this country has long been a shelter for those who don't give a fuck for anyone but themselves and have a need to justify this propensity by associating themselves with something that looks like an ideology, or failing that, surrounding themselves with similarly inclined people. (I would have said "like-minded," and in fact, went back and replaced it, because it implies a mind at work, and I'm not certain that's accurate.)

You can prove a Republican doesn't care about anyone but himself with any argument, but I'm going to use gun control, because it gives me an excuse to draw attention to this before it drops out of the public memory forever. Only Republican conservative thinking would argue, in the wake of multiple instances of gun violence that people should maintain relatively unfettered access to guns, because of course, they don't want to give up their rights to guns. They'll tell you that it's because guns don't kill people - which is true, but it would be a lot fucking harder to build houses if you banned bricks and mortar. They'll also try to whip out the 2nd Amendment on you, but that was 221 years ago and a flat backward refusal to re-evaluate texts after that long a period is religion, not governance.

Some solid examples of backward-ass thinking have come from the Repubbies this week, which is why I think it might be time for you rats to get the hell off the ship. First up is Missouri Rep. Todd Akin, who shared with us what happens when you speak using your ass instead of your head with his now famous definition of rape biology: "It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down." This begs all kind of questions: How the fuck did this guy get elected? I mean, I know Missouri votes for dead people, but come on. Who are these doctors; Mengele, Doom and Frankenstein? How does a "legitimate" rape differ from an illegitimate one? Is there a 'level of effort' consideration here? Finally, the female body does have ways "to try to shut the whole thing down;" they're called mace, knives, keys, fists, and self-defense classes. Also, they can vote against Republicans like your dumbass self. Maybe you could for once focus on the male body's way of shutting the whole thing down - NOT RAPING PEOPLE. Why don't you address that, halfwit?

Predictably, a firestorm of criticism - some sincere and some staged for effect - landed on Akin's goober head and everyone short of the Ghost of Abe Lincoln himself condemned Akin's comments, including Romney, who has to. Everyone's calling on him to step down and stop running, but true to the monomaniacally zealous thinking of current Republicans, he's staying in there, not giving a shit if anyone thinks he should. There's a point at which sticking to your guns in the face of adversity becomes bull-headed arrogant jackassery, and that point is distantly fading in Akin's rear-view.

Today Akin got some help from Iowa Republican Steve King, (co-sponsor of the "redefining rape" bill from last year with Akin and Eddie Munster-looking mook Paul Ryan) who contributed his own turd of wisdom to the conversation by stating "I've never heard of a girl getting pregnant from statutory rape or incest." He went on to say that he'd be open to a conversation on the subject, but that no one had ever presented this information to him in any personal way. So he's a maniac, but he needs to have his offices filled up with people who've had to deal with pregnancies caused by statutory rape or incest, just so he can't say shit like this again. Theoretically. I mean, it won't work, because facts aren't part of the equation with Republicans - beliefs are WAY more important.

As demonstrated by the Texas Republican Party platform's language which now includes this little nugget: "We oppose the teaching of higher order thinking skills, critical thinking skills, and similar programs that are simply a re-labeling of Outcome Based Education which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority." Really, this is just the first step to "Slavery is Freedom, War is Peace," but you would have had to have read Orwell's 1984 to know that, and Republicans don't read anything not ghostwritten for one of their radio or TV talking heads. This is the crown jewel of ignorance for the GOP, and it's astonishing that it comes from the state that de facto controls our textbook standards nationwide.

So Republicans in Texas are against higher order and critical thinking skills, because those things frighten them with the questions and whatnot. You can tell they don't like questions, because they're also against early childhood education - one wonders how they handle "Why is the sky blue" when their unfortunate kids ask that one. To answer accurately is to educate. Hmmm. I think these are people who could have used some additional behavior modification - and what's so wrong with that, anyway? What do you dickheads imagine (if you can imagine) laws and social mores are for? They've been modifying my behavior for other people's benefit since 1974. Finally, no one - and especially not a child - should have any belief that is "fixed." If it's fixed against data, discussion, facts and reason, it's wrong; it's a stick lodged in the ass of idiocy, and you pricks stuck it there.

O, jump! Republicans, jump while you can from the ship of the USS GOP - it is a crippled and perilously listing craft; escape into the icy waters of thinking for yourself - board another ship if you wish, but please don't lash yourself to the mast of stupidity as the whirlpool consumes you!

MARK OF THE BEAST!

BUH-LLLAAAAARRRRRGGHHHH!

(That noise is supposed to be an Exorcist-type Mark of the Beast noise. Which I always hear like the guitar noise in this song.)

From this story found on KPLC and also in the Huffington Post (which seems more and more like USA Today everyday) Lake Charles, Louisiana idiot person, Mamie Sonnier is opposed to the hand / vein scanners at her kids' school because of The Book of the Revelation of St. John. She believes that scanning her kid's hand for so the school system can bill her for lunches will eventually lead to the Mark of the Beast because, in her words, "As a Christian, I've read the Bible, you know, go to church and stuff." And stuff. Awesome.

The part of Revelation that worries her is to be found in (and this one, I had to go look up; the things I do for you) chapter 14, verses 9 & 10, which go, more or less, "...and the third Angel followed them, [some other angels and the Lamb of God] saying with a loud voice, if any man worship the beast or his image, and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink the wine of the wrath of God..." and so on, there's a lot of brimstone and suffering after that part. So Sonnier's worried about her kids drinking the wine of the wrath of God. 'Cause they're underage, I guess. She goes on to say "I know where it's going to end up coming to, the mark of beast. I'm not going to let my kids have that." But what if they want that? All the kids are getting the mark of the beast these days - it's the next big thing at Hot Topic and shit - you want your kids to be unpopular freaks, Mamie? But we know Mamie's got bigger things on her mind...

Because we know in the last days of Earth, the vanguard of the riders of the apocalypse shall be The Moss Bluff Elementary School, the violet and gold standard stretching out before the four horsemen, and that with stomachs full of lunch, the children will rise up against their parents and be scanned for the glory of the Beast who will reign in tribulation for one thousand years. Or, you know - not. I can't fathom why people like Mamie are so focused on the end times - maybe their lives suck that bad, I don't know, but you get the sense that the end of days is like a giant comic book MEANWHILE... right behind everything else they do. "Sure, I'm buying canned peas today, but the end times might come before I get to eat them." It's a strange way to live your life.

Strange because there are other books in the Bible (and stuff) and you, Mamie, have picked the one with arguably the diciest provenance upon which to focus. The book is so weirdly written that its origins are chalked up to either hallucinogenic drugs or possibly as many as three guys named John, so they don't even really know who wrote which parts - I know that means dick to a religious right that ingests more ghostwritten pablum than Casper, but it's also the only apocalyptic book in the New Testament. In order to take it as she has, it implies the grimmest possible interpretation - throwing out allegory or a description of stuff that already happened, possibly over the span of several hundred years - in favor of regarding it as future prophecy, which is not a necessary interpretation. It's a choice. Like faith. Like not letting your kids pay for lunches with a scan because you think it's the Mark of the Fucking Beast.

You're going to believe what you want to, Mamie - I just feel bad for your kids.

(Contact the Squidbag at the above address with hate mail and requests for the LIVE from Patmos album from The Three Johns, the first century church's most revelatory triple act!)

What Life is Like

Woke up this morning at 7:01 from a dream where my friends lived on a giant interconnected farm and one of them had been taking Kung-Fu. I was also missing my wife, who was in Nashville overnight for a training thing. She would never have let me sleep with my glasses on and my cheek stuck on the corner of a book about witches that I'm not really enjoying, but I'm 400 pages in, and dammit, I'm not going to have wasted all this time and effort for nothing. I'm also not going to read the rest of the trilogy, I'm thinking. I'm bull-headed, not stupid.  

Rolled over to find the dog, who's not supposed to be in my room at all, sitting on the floor and looking at me, and the kids downstairs watching Ruby Gloom and not letting the dog out. So I got up and let her out, made coffee, and spent almost $200 online on textbooks for my semester that starts on the 27th. Let the realization that this is my last week of Summer freedom sink in and then went and got a shower after dicking around on Facebook for a few minutes over the coffee.

Showered and went out for breakfast, which ended up being at a Waffle House, because my kids like it there. The couple across from us was weird, with the lady complaining about the food quality and sending stuff back (at Waffle House?) and soaking her cutlery in ice water. That's a picture of their table up there. The lady behind us was having problems with her kids, which made me additionally grateful for my kids, who were being awesome, full of bacon and ideas. After that, we had errands - dog treats and fish tank supplies and potting soil and a poster frame for my new Dr. Who poster.

My house is relatively quiet now as my daughter swats flies in the kitchen and hums songs, and my son designs a game involving target shooting and swords. I've been reading up on the web about various skin treatments for my daughter, and am about to head back out to get things with muds and acids in them, things I never thought I would know anything about, and some of the basic grocery items we're out of. We have big plans to watch the Three Stooges movie this evening and re-plant Abby's squash plants while Max mows the lawn.

This is Saturday.

Whistler

Some people find the sound to be blisteringly annoying, while others find it pleasant. It has been argued that it's a pointless, inane and stupid activity, but I would have to disagree. Otis Redding, Carter Burwell, Billy Joel, Axl Rose and Andy Griffith would all back me up on this.

Whistling.  I'm a whistler. I whistle whilst I'm working, when I'm in the shower, and anytime the mood strikes me. I've often been whistling for a while before I notice I'm doing it - the tune in my head self-actualizes. If I'm going to sing (and stand the fuck back) I often whistle pitch before I start. When singing, I might whistle instrumental accompaniment. I definitely whistle better than I sing, and it's more brain-engaging than my iPod. I've also had my lips longer than my iPod, so there's a continuity factor, too.

Aside from the aforementioned tracks (all of which are definitely in my limited repertoire), I have a number of other tunes I can annoy people with and that seem to crop up in my internal whistle jukebox on a fairly regular rotation. There's the obligatory Cole Porter (this linked version, with Harry Connick Jr. is the lullaby I sing to my kids because it's something I know all the words to) and Sinatra, but there there's also some slightly more common things - things I just can't get off of:

The Witches of Eastwick Main Titles: John Williams. Kind of a cheat, since everything by John Williams is imminently whistleable - the Indiana Jones theme is always a favorite, too.

White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane;

Sweet Home Chicago - Robert Johnson;

The Ballad of Ira Hayes - Johnny Cash (just the chorus, really)

The Gravity Falls theme song;

Crazy Train - Ozzy;

Han Solo - MC Chris;

Behind Blue Eyes - The Who (though often in my head, this becomes the Bill Hicks "Dustbin in Shaftesbury.")

The Lazy Song - Bruno Mars;

Smoke Two Joints & Santeria - both by Sublime, the former of which can be a problem if I'm bored in a public / parental setting and someone recognizes it;

The Doctor Who Theme music (relatively modern era) - because I am an obsessed person;

Vivaldi's La Primavera; and I do always think of Nigel Kennedy playing it, hence the link.

There's plenty of other music that runs through my head, but I can't whistle it all, and I've subjected you to enough links now, I think. Are you a whistler or a hummer? A public singer? Have you music in your heart and wish to confess it in an ill-noticed public forum?

In Defense of Rory

(If you're not a fan of Doctor Who, this will make no sense to you. Also, it's kind of loaded with vague spoilers unless you're caught up.)

Every guy wants to be the Doctor - he's exciting, with powers, and cool clothes (sometimes) and he travels through time and space being clever, saving lives and putting things right, or an approximation thereof. He's a sexy alien who always wins (pretty much) and he's got the best toys. He's older and wiser and generally awesome. Women love the Doctor - for the reasons I've mentioned - plus, there's a little bad boy thrown in there for spice: arrogance and recklessness and superiority are things chicks dig in the proper measures. It's the same reason women think vampire guys are sexy. More women watch Doctor Who than ever before, and there's a reason for that. They want the Doctor, and guys want to be the Doctor (except for some of the guys, who want both, and let's be frank, almost anyone on the Kinsey scale would've taken a shot at Tennant).

However, if you are a guy, and you want to keep a woman in a successful relationship, it's time to admit that Roryness is a quality to which you should aspire. Amy wants to bed the Doctor, sure - but she loves Rory. Rory's who she marries and stays with forever (and she ditches a whole reality on the basis that Rory's not in it), because Rory's got some classic qualities that often get left behind on television but that make for lasting relationships in real life.

Rory is protective (he waits 2000 years protecting Amy) and kind where the Doctor is not - the Doc can be merciful sometimes and thoughtful and often right, but "kind" is not a modifier for our Doctor.  For a Doctor, his bedside manner kind of sucks. Rory's loyal - he'd have to be to not only put up with Amy, but track her across the universe - and he's faithful, he's not got eyes for anyone but Amy. He loves her. So he's not going anywhere. He's nurturing - he's a nurse, and we've seen how he can be with vulnerable, small, or hurt people. He's brave - leaping into the breach when you don't fully understand what the hell's going on takes a lot more courage than what the Doctor often does. Finally, in the classic heroic sense, Rory operates without recognition or expectation of reward; he's not "the oncoming storm" and often, his only payoff for dealing with a thing is another fucking thing he's going to have to deal with.

We should all aspire to rise to the occasion of our relationships like unto Rory, embodying the pinnacle of what ought to be considered basic humanity in the traits that he exhibits. We may love the Doctor, but we could do a lot worse than to want to be Rory.