"In the world which is upside down, the true is a moment of the false."
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| rock and roll means fuck "In the world which is upside down, the true is a moment of the false." |
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Thursday, July 31, 2003 ok, so it wasn't quite this crazy... 
(i stole this one from the SCOTS site.) but, it was way rad nonetheless. fuck a duck, i needed that. the copious consumption of chilled beverages, the epic shaking of ass with fierce abandon, the picking, the grinning, the simple and ever dizzying joy of it all. by the end of the show i was one sweaty, tipsy, goofy, grinning, spent boy. hot damn. i brought a couple of friends, julio and nico, who really had no idea of what they were in for. they were blown away. this morning, after their obligatory crashing on my couch and floor, it was the first thing they spoke of. especially after they waked and.... ..you know. i think the spectacle of it all put the zap on their heads a bit too. cousin crispy weighs about 350lbs and wears bib overalls while dave the drummer plays standing up while wearing elvis glasses and a wifebeater emblazoned with the words, "mama tried", a nod to merle. they really weren't prepared for this at all. them kids can flat-out play, too. the set last night included a ferocious rendition of "shotgun", a blistering "jack the ripper", a ripping "meximelt" and a finale of "eight piece box" that featured 8 local girls dancing on stage while pelting the audience with pieces of fried chicken. a total freakin' hoot. as i mentioned in the previous post, things don't suck so much around here at present. the love-life is either completely non-existent or just fucked up, depending on how you look at it, but on the whole, things is good. i'm working my ass off doing work that i love, all the freelance stuff cramps any social life i would otherwise aspire to, but it's also dropping some serious change in to the bank. i've got this other big project that i am working on that makes me feel as if i matter to the world at large. i have my house to myself and kittyboo deigns to sleep with me more often than not. overall, things is just peachy. yet, as i described earlier, i have been emotionally kooky as fuck lately. i feel really good today though. i think last night was exactly the kind of reckless, sweaty cathartic fun i needed. (of course there are other reckless, sweaty things...) i think i just need to loosen the fuck up. that's the plan anyway. posted by downtown | 8:29 PM Wednesday, July 30, 2003
i don't know what it is lately it may be the stress of work and all the freelance stuff i've been doing as of late (there's been plenty) or the subsequent lack of sleep. i dunno. all i know is that i have been overly emotional lately. it seems that i will cry at the drop of a hat. the photos linked below knocked me in to a silly blubbering dork. sometimes it's a story in the newspaper or a song i haven't heard in a while. what is really weird about it is that, for the most part, i'm really pretty happy. things are going pretty damned well in most respects. anyhoo, i'm gonna leap from the bitter barn and frolic in the happy hay this evening as one of my all time most favoritest bands ever makes a stop in our fair city. that's right, kids. this boy is gonna be shakin' it to the boss sounds of southern culture on the skids!. look the fuck out.... posted by downtown | 7:12 PM Tuesday, July 29, 2003
bring 'em on. 15 dead americans this week. some rather disturbing images that must not be ignored. handwritten sign seen in a humvee's window last week in iraq: "one weekend a month my ass" fuck... i'll hopefully be posting again soon. sooper ass busy here. good busy though. when i do sleep, i sleep well. posted by downtown | 6:34 PM Saturday, July 26, 2003
some more from a softer world got loads to say and very little time to say it. that will change. soon. p.s. i implore you to get the new releases from cat power and american analog set. they're lovely... posted by downtown | 12:39 AM Thursday, July 24, 2003 busy as fuck as of late. it's starting to pay off. more soon. sleep... alex chilton "feudalist tarts", for nico loud. posted by downtown | 4:34 AM Friday, July 18, 2003 an observation and an epiphany or two. (or most vicious slander) we report, you decide... first, the administration is getting more and more isolated. the perfect shitstorm that is swirling around these clowns is just amazing. it's all coming together. the war is blowing up in their face, the whole freakin' rationale for the war is publicly crumbling, the fiscal cows from these massive tax cuts are beginning to come home, all of it. they've thrown so many stories against the wall in the past week or so that it's approaching farce. the laser-tag fingerpointing is becoming almost too sad to watch further. now, they're lashing out. in doing so are painting themselves in to an increasingly small corner. i think it's safe to say that there is pretty much open warfare now between the pros, the careerists in the intelligence community and the ideologues and appointees both within the agencies and with the white house. the WH has outed a CIA career professional working in arms control, specifically WMD, an act that apparently is not only a major felony but, would almost certainly have to be judged, by any objective standard as treasonous effectively ending the career of one of their own, woman who worked in an arena that we supposedly care a great deal about, all in a rather blatant act of intimidation to would be talkers, is a rather odd way to inspire much esprit de corps amongst those who hold a great many cards in this game. one fucks over the agency one too many times at great fucking peril. then comes this gem these boys are callin'the whole operation out and specifically tricky dick. "We recommend that you call an abrupt halt to attempts to prove Vice President Cheney "not guilty." His role has been so transparent that such attempts will only erode further your own credibility. Equally pernicious, from our perspective, is the likelihood that intelligence analysts will conclude that the way to success is to acquiesce in the cooking of their judgments, since those above them will not be held accountable. We strongly recommend that you ask for Cheney's immediate resignation." ballsy. then tenet names freakin' names oddly, the spooks have also done the WH a huge favor in my opinion by smacking down an appearance by john bolton before congress where he was supposed to make the case for yet another war i think these guys are sick of the PNAC/AEI types and are no longer much enthused by the prospect of taking any heat for them. the knives are out on both sides. delicous. add to this state of affairs something they may even be more significant. now they are swinging at the press. some sleazemongers in the WH, in response to a story illustrating the less than flattering opinions of the civilian leadership in the DoD and in the WH held by the unfortunate guys and gals on the ground in iraq outs the reporter as both gay and flamingly canadian "Yesterday Drudge told us he was unaware of the ABC story until "someone from the White House communications shop tipped me to it" along with a profile of Kofman in the gay-oriented magazine the Advocate." nice. while condi and rummy serve at the pleasure of the p(R)es, the whole adminstration, the whole enterprise, serve at the pleasure of the press. none of this, the war, the tax cuts, the massive dihonesty about just about freaking everything, simply would have never been possible without a complacent, uninspired or just plain spineless (all of the above, perhaps?) press. the press starts to turn on the WH and the WH turns on them. they didn't take a swing at some blogger, at the some lefty broadsheet, they went after a guy at ABC news, for cryin' out loud. alienating the press with such foolishness could be fatal. take a look at the public flogging that ari's replacement has taken in the past few days as the facade starts to crumble, the press find themselves in a "target rich environment", so to speak. there is so much "low hanging fruit" for the press to pick at that i have the feeling that karl ain't sleepin' real well as of late. who wants a pulitzer, kids? who wants to claim the woodward/bernstein moment they've been dreaming of since J-school? there's blood in the water and the gloves are beginning to come off. which leads me to the epiphany/slander screed i promised above. when i was in about 8th grade or so, i spent a semester baffled by algebra. i just didn't get it. then one day, out of the blue, something that i have long since forgotten was explained to me and it all made sense. it was a rosetts stone-like moment and i never had a problem with algebra again. i've had a similiar experience lately. what we've seen in the past decade or so has been an absolutely stunning grab for power and cash, for all the marbles. think about it. alterman has they impeached a sitting president. the won an election by losing/stealing an election. they've shoveled literally trillions of dollars on their plates. they've attempted to hijack the house of representatives, the judiciary and the governor's office in california. they have perverted the balance of power in the federal government beyond recognition. they've gutted the bill of rights. they've started a freaking war while simultaneously relieving themselves of the burden of such tragedy in both treasure and blood. the breadth and audacity of the operation is just fucking jaw dropping when looked at as a whole. and who appears to be grinning in to the rearview, hands on the wheel? dick fucking cheney. now we know why the WH has fought tooth and nail to keep the lid on who attended and what was discussed in the march 2001 meetings of his energy task force were they discussing the california "energy crisis", a "crisis" largely constructed by the enron types present? perhaps. what we now know is that they were also carving iraq's carcass 6 months before 9/11. here it is in black and white demonstrably criminal enterprises such as enron game the system in california, sucking tens of billions of dollars from the state, blame it on the state itself, create a a state of affairs that allows them to come back later and unseat the duly elected governor of the largest state in the union, use the blackouts as leverage to attempt to open ANWAR and the florida coast to exploration and divide the spoils of a war two years before it comes to pass. does it make sense now that wesley clark would get a call from "from the white house" on 9/11? Clark:"Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.' I said, 'But--I'm willing to say it, but what's your evidence?' And I never got any evidence." who initiated the joseph wilson mission? (and, it would seem, has the least plausible denial of knowledge about ambassodor wilson's findings) does it make sense that someone in the white house was hell bent on including the phooey from africa in the SOTU? does it make sense that halliburton, et al would be able to win "cost plus" contracts for the reconstruction of iraq before the war? where do all these trails lead? who is sitting like a radioactive duck at the center of all this shit? dick fucking cheney. karl may be bush's brain, but it appears to me that they both take their marching orders from dick. i don't wish to let georgie off the hook, but any scenario which would involve booting bush to install cheney is far more dangerous than i think most people currently appreciate. i've got shivers... UPDATE: apparently, the folks at tom paine agree "Vice presidents traditionally hide themselves behind the coattails of the man elected for the top job, and Dick Cheney is no exception. It's easier to spot the Abominable Snowman in a whiteout than it is to discover what the vice president's been up to. (...) Both the White House press corps and the Democratic candidates for president need to start paying more attention to Cheney. (...) Three years into the Bush presidency, another explanation suggests itself: Dick Cheney avoids the spotlight because he likes to wield power without being held accountable for his actions. Thus Cheney leads a secret energy commission; pushes the president towards war against Iraq; and appears to have been deeply involved in funneling dubious intelligence to the president. And that's just the stuff we know about -- (...) It's time for the Democrats to start asking tough questions, and the hidden power of a conspiratorial vice president is a fine place to start. " pay no attention to the man behind the curtain..... posted by downtown | 5:46 PM it's fucking cheney. all roads lead to him. he's fucking doomed (Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, said today that documents turned over by the Commerce Department, under court order as a result of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force, contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.” The documents, which are dated March 2001, are available on the Internet at: judicial watch I mean really, didn't we always, in our heart of hearts, really pretty much know? the brains of the operation, so to speak. the demonstrably criminal enterprise commonly known as "the bush" administration has a mister big and his name sure as hell ain't george. i don't wan't to absolve the somewhat dim little dupe that serves as the marlboro man for these mobsters, but, hey, c'mon, it's cheney. the nexus of evil that surrounds and may in fact be dick cheney is just astounding. this is nothing short of an attempt at massive global theft. dick has plans for " Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts" in march of 2001? we stole a country. it's just that simple. who gets the goods? halliburton, bechtel, "foreign suitors", defense contractors, all those enron types that were present at these meetings. the smell is just overwhelming. i am in awe. i think he's cooked. he's done. posted by downtown | 1:59 AM Wednesday, July 16, 2003 this is just absolutely must be seen be believed i confess this tale left me somewhat breathless. i love this country. 
posted by downtown |
10:21 PM
Monday, July 14, 2003
President Bush reviews the text with Director of Presidential Speechwriting Michael Gerson in the Oval Office, Jan. 23, 2003. this is a pic from the official white house site it's part of a rather revealing slide show i wonder if it will still be there by the time i wake. we'll see. heads up via media whores in other news, full moons are cool. posted by downtown | 4:19 AM Sunday, July 13, 2003 so, folks, things are starting to move with this whole film idea. i have been writing grants like a mofo, talking to attorneys, drafting articles of incorporation, etc. i finally have some artwork for the website. this one of the ideas and another follows. i want to know what you, dear reader, thinks of these proposals. 
do you like this? posted by downtown | 5:56 AM
or this one? i really need your help on this one, kids. blasting: superchunk "slack motherfucker" far too loud for this time of night/morning. posted by downtown | 5:47 AM Thursday, July 10, 2003 BOOM! here it is, kiddos. it was only a matter of time. explain this one away, you lying sacks of shit. "CIA officials warned members of the President’s National Security Council staff the intelligence was not good enough to make the flat statement Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa. The White House officials responded that a paper issued by the British government contained the unequivocal assertion: “Iraq has ... sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” As long as the statement was attributed to British Intelligence, the White House officials argued, it would be factually accurate. The CIA officials dropped their objections and that’s how it was delivered. " The statement was technically correct, since it accurately reflected the British paper. But the bottom line is the White House knowingly included in a presidential address information its own CIA had explicitly warned might not be true. " this is even more troublesome when you consider this "The CIA tried unsuccessfully in early September 2002 to persuade the British government to drop from an official intelligence paper a reference to Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Africa that President Bush included in his State of the Union address four months later, senior Bush administration officials said yesterday." i can feel a "...what the definition of is is." moment a comin' on. ...pants on fire... posted by downtown | 10:53 PM scary as fuck posted by downtown | 1:36 AM Wednesday, July 09, 2003 this, my friends, is an item, that if found to be true, would almost certainly have to quailfy as a smoking gun dig this: ''An intelligence consultant who was present at two White House briefings where the uranium report was discussed confirmed that the President was told the intelligence was questionable and that his national security advisors urged him not to include the claim in his State of the Union address. "The report had already been discredited," said Terrance J. Wilkinson, a CIA advisor present at two White House briefings. "This point was clearly made when the President was in the room during at least two of the briefings." Bush's response was anger, Wilkinson said. "He said that if the current operatives working for the CIA couldn't prove the story was true, then the agency had better find some who could," Wilkinson said. "He said he knew the story was true and so would the world after American troops secured the country." i have a feeling that the boys over at The Agency aren't about to fall on their swords for the chimp just yet. posted by downtown | 6:01 PM Monday, July 07, 2003 well, shit, fire and fuck the devil... they done canned that evil, hateful piece of shit hot freakin' damn. so long, ya little pissant fascist prick. you couldn't have carried il duce's boots. posted by downtown | 8:16 PM Saturday, July 05, 2003 ...hey, baby. it's the fourth of july..." -X some ruminations on my rather schizophrenic relationship with my country, on patriotism and where karl rove can get the fuck off... well, today is our nation's 227th birthday, an occassion that has inspired a great deal of seemingly contradictory emotions and ideas in the still spinning head and oft beaten heart of this particular and admittedly rather peculiar boy. i am consumed by both a great and earnestly sincere love of this nation and a fairly sickly contempt for not only those in the driver's seat, so to speak, but for what i perceive to be their overt and deliberate injury to this republic that i and countless others, here and around the globe, hold so dear. i should preface the rest of this dispatch by elaborating somewhat upon the aforementioned schizophrenic appreciation my nation, its history and my place in it. i have been re-reading sarah vowell lately. (an aside: if you haven't read her or heard her stories on "this american life", you damned well should. i am of the opinion that she is one of the most insightful, smart, compassionate and eloquent commentators on the contemporary idea of what this nation is, was and how we relate to it.) my loving/not so loving appreciation of my country is as insanely complex and as supremely nuanced as its history would seem to demand of anyone who devotes more than ten seconds or so of thought about it. (an effort that seems to be more and more rare in these times) sarah describes this insane dichotomy as follows: "it's a good country. it's a bad country. it's a good country. it's a bad country. but, of course, it's both. sometimes i feel like a battered wife. 'sure, sometimes he smacks me around a little, but, man, he sure can dance'." today we observe the anniversary of the publication of a document, that if taken at face value, is as close to perfect as any such statement in the entire history of human affairs in my opinion. it is an amazingly rational, compelling and fantastically beautiful read. it is the absolute apex of the 18th century enlightenment. the problem is that, at the time of its composition, a significant portion of what it had to say was a lie, a fantasy. this document states that "all men are created equal" yet was composed by a man that owned other men. these men would have to wait nearly a century before their legal status as property was abolished and another century after that before such an emancipation acquired any real legal relevance. one should also note that the declaration posits the equality of men. women were really of no consequence in the affairs of state at that time. still, this was the real 'shot heard 'round the world'. this was a collection of ideas so powerful, so reasoned and so undeniable to the enlightened minds of jefferson's contemporaries and to billions of like minded souls since, that it has been emulated countless times and in numerous contexts since its conception. all these contradictions are enough to drive a sensible, thoughtful person kinda freakin' nuts. this is a country that was founded by folks who owned other folks yet less than a century afterwards engaged in the bloodiest and most destructive war in their history to end the practice. we pride ourselves on being a nation of immigrants yet still bicker, often quite bitterly, about immigration. we are a nation of folks who pride themselves on 'rugged individualism' and were wise enough to craft the fourth ammendment 216 years ago and yet, the idea that what consenting adults do behind closed doors in the privacy of their own homes was finally recognized by the nation's highest court as valid and constitutional last week! we defeated the evil of bloodthirsty, globe hungry fascism in the middle of the last century only to prop up dimestore fascists around the globe in the name of "anti-communism". of course i would be remiss not to state that we then rebuilt those formerly fascist states in what is probably the either the most magnanimous or simply wise acts of a victorious state in the history of the world. i could go on. i shan't. "..it's a good country. it's a bad country..." it's undoubtedly nuts, but, for better or for worse, that's who we are. which brings me to what has been on my mind the most today. it's both a question and some answers, a lament of sorts and a celebration. i should acknowledge that the following screed was inspired in part by an essay by bill kaufman i read a few days ago. an excerpt: "There are two Americas: the televised America, known and hated by the world, and the rest of us. The former is a fictitious creation whose strange gods include "Sex and the City," accentless TV anchorpeople, Dick Cheney, Rosie O'Donnell, "Friends," and the Department of Homeland Security. It is real enough--cross it and you'll learn more than you want to know about weapons of mass destruction--but it has no heart, no soul, no connection to the thousand and one real Americas that produced Zora Neale Hurston and Jack Kerouac and Saint Dorothy Day and the Mighty Casey who has struck out. I am of the other America, the unseen America, the America undreamt of by the foreigners who hate my country without knowing a single thing about it. Ours is a land of volunteer fire departments, of baseball, of wizened spinsters who instead of sitting around whining about their goddamned osteoporosis write and self-publish books on the histories of their little towns, of the farmwives and grain merchants and parsons and drunkards who made their places live. " you can and should read the rest here the whole bit about the ol' VFD and such may strike some as cliche' and hokey and it just may be. whatever floats your boat. however, as one from a small town, a small southern town, these images (i'm a filmmaker. i can't help it. i think in pictures.) ring quite true and real. george bush II is not my america. karl rove is not my america. (special message to karl: ...fuck you, you ass munching fascist.) these clowns are nothing more than criminals, gangsters, usurpers. my america is jefferson (with all his faults), marion anderson, samuel gompers, will rogers, abraham lincoln, dr. martin luther king, faulkner, steinbeck, john ford, jackie robinson, twain, kathleen hanna, willie, barbara jordan, louis armstrong, tom paine, tom sawyer, tom jones, sam and dave. it's muddy waters and woody allen, sacco and vanzetti.. ..sacco and vanzetti.. ..sacco and vanzetti. my america is monk, miles, arthur miller, walker percy, jackson pollock, jello biafra, jello and john prine. it's ammendments 1 and 4. it's mamet, it's the missouri, the mississippi and the ohio. it's bull run and bunker hill. it's boston and blountstown. it's the cubbies and cowtowns and hank sr. it's those four little girls in birmingham. my america is chomsky and chi-town, cesar chavez, johnny cash, yogi berra, peanut butter and jelly. it's woody freakin' guthrie. it's frederick douglass, john brown and jack white. it's bed-stuy and the upper east side. it's whitman, frost, ginsberg and auden. it's the fourth of july and the drag queens of stonewall, too. my america is 'venus in furs' and 'rhapsody in blue'. it's the place that nabakov, brodsky, and solzhenitsyn fled to. it's james brown. it's dylan thomas, dylan and poe. it's harriet tubman, susan b. anthony and harper lee. it's black elk. it's joey ramone. it's the 6 train and the chattanooga choo-choo. it's apalachicola. it's a place that enron will never buy nor sell, a place that tom delay will never find comfort. it's a place where folks is folks and they're just trying to do the best that they can for themselves and for their community. community. remember that idea? the idea that the whole freakin' endeavour was founded upon? the whole "... And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." thing? it's an idea with no owner and no arbiter and it's the reason that try as they may, the greedhead empire builders will never be able to completely co-opt or destroy it. you can fool some of the people some of the time.... today i declare my independence. i declare my independence from that other televised, contrived, market researched, focus grouped and thoroughly fictional america. i pledge allegiance to our founding documents and the precious and wise ideas contained therein, to my neighbors, to the seemingly antiquated notions of decency and fairness. i pledge allegiance to the idea that dissent is indeed a patriotic endeavor, to the bill of rights and its preservation in these perilous times. i swear solemn vigilance to speak truth to power whenever and wherever i find that power is less than honest or lacking in candor. my america is all of these things, these folks and these ideas. my america is not to be trifled with, it is not to be dismissed. the state of the union troubles me. it also invigorates me in a way that i don't know that i can properly explain. there is work to do. the thought of this work is what gets me the fuck out of bed every morning. i will not go silently. i will not defer. i will not look the other way and hope for the best. the midnight oil burns brightly and often in this home. i am not alone and those that would rely on a complacent and slumbering populace to perpetrate violence on this republic, on this nation and others had better damn well know this to be true. we got your number, motherfuckers and we know where you live. patriotism, to me at least, is synonymous with vigilance and resolve. in that respect, i consider myself to be as patriotic, if not more so, than those who would state something to the effect of, "my country, right or wrong.". i absolutely refuse to sit by and watch the country i love so much, my Constitution, perverted and subverted for the aims of the greedy, of the imperialists, of the fascists. those that would despoil this republic for callous profit or tarnish her virtues for quick cash would be wise to fear the pointy ends of both my pen and my pitchfork. i wish to close with the words of a true american hero, barbara jordan. i had the outrageous fortune to be one of mrs. jordan's students at one time at the LBJ school of public affairs at the university of texas. a higher honor i have not known. "Earlier today we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States, We, the people. It is a very eloquent beginning. But when that document was completed, on the seventeenth of September in 1787, I was not included in that We, the people. I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision I have finally been included in We, the people. Today I am an inquisitor. I believe hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate the solemness that I feel right now. My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." hear, hear.... posted by downtown | 2:45 AM Tuesday, July 01, 2003 what will rummy call this then? BAGHDAD (AFP) - Four US soldiers were killed and two others wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on their vehicle by unknown assailants in central Baghdad, witnesses told AFP. (....) A US military official told AFP that there was still no word on US casualties and that "the incident has not been qualified as an attack yet." the rest posted by downtown | 1:05 PM you absolutely must read this it's so refreshing to have someone call it the way it really fucking is. All Americans die for free, and less than 2% die with estates that are taxed at all. Be this as it may, republicans decided to call this tax something really sinister sounding because nobody would support the repeal of the "Last Chance To Tax the Fattest of America's Fat Cats Before They Hand Over Enormous Piles of Cash to Their Lazy, Undeserving Children" Tax. who, given the pResident's and his party's blustery rhetoric, would seem the least likely to have to shoulder this burden? dig this shit the grunts ain't buyin' it either how these evil fuckers continue to get away with this is just completely beyond me. there is a special place in hell... posted by downtown | 3:02 AM |
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Cost of the War in Iraq
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