Taking Out The Trash

Given how several of my most dearly loved friends are all opposed to capital punishment, I was idly thinking the other day about how maybe I should reconsider my very much in favor of it position. Being such an enlightened person and all.

Then I saw this and decided I’d been right all along.


New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com

Jury says death for cops' killer

BY KERRY BURKE, TANYANIKA SAMUELS and JOHN MARZULLI
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Tuesday, January 30th, 2007

An unrepentant cop killer was sentenced to death yesterday by a federal jury in Brooklyn, setting off a chaotic scene of jubilation that quickly gave way to a dramatic courtroom explosion.

After deliberating for one day, the jury unanimously decided that Ronell Wilson should die by lethal injection for murdering NYPD Detectives James Nemorin and Rodney Andrews—the first federal execution ordered in New York in more than 50 years.
The verdict prompted raw cheers of “Yes!” from the slain detectives' friends and relatives.

The jury concluded that Wilson remained dangerous even in prison, and lacked any remorse for the cold-blooded killings.

It didn’t take long for Wilson, 24, to prove the jury correct. He looked in the direction of the victims’ widows and stuck out his tongue.

“You're a dead man!” cried Nemorin's mother-in-law, Nicole Eduard. “This man is going to die.”
“You all are the murderers now!” Cheryl Wilson, the defendant's mother, shot back.

As the jury was leaving the packed courtroom, Wilson's younger brother Daniel shouted at them, “You motherf-----s!” and Cheryl Wilson immediately clapped her hand over his mouth, muzzling him.
U.S. marshals surrounded the youth and escorted him out of the courtroom.

Nemorin and Andrews, beloved family men revered for their bravery by colleagues, were each shot in the back of the head by Wilson during a gun buy-and-bust gone bad on March 10, 2003, on Staten Island.

Prosecutors argued that Wilson knew the victims were cops and killed them anyway to steal the $1,200 in buy money. Their bodies were dragged out of a blood-soaked auto and dumped in the street like garbage.
"If any case screamed out for the penalty of death, it was this case," said Detectives' Endowment Association President Michael Palladino.

A gantlet of detectives gave a thunderous ovation to prosecutors Jack Smith, Colleen Kavanagh and Morris Fodeman as they left the courtroom.
"I just want to say 'Thank you' to God and to the jury and the prosecutors who worked so hard. James and [Rodney] can rest in peace," said Nemorin's widow, Rose, whose powerful testimony about the impact of her husband's death on her and their three young children clearly helped seal Wilson's fate.

Andrews' widow, Maryann, who also is an NYPD detective, added: "At last we have some closure. Our prayers have been answered."
"We won't have full closure until the sentence is carried out," said Andrews' cousin Derek Williams.

A sob story that panel didn't buy

They didn't want to hear any excuses of a poor upbringing—or any element of his sob story, for that matter. In the jury's eyes, Ronell Wilson's troubled life didn't measure up to the two lives he took.

Not a single juror accepted Wilson's claim of remorse, offered in a brief statement he read in court last week. It contained no mention of what exactly he was sorry for and appeared to have been crafted by his lawyers.

Defense attorney Kelley Sharkey clearly hit all the wrong notes in her mushy argument to judge Wilson "by a different standard" because of his chaotic past. In contrast, prosecutors pointed out how thousands of kids grew up in the tough Stapleton Houses, including Ronell's sister, and did not grow up to be cop killers.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Smith said Wilson would say anything to the jury because he was scared of being executed. Another prosecutor, Colleen Kavanagh, added that the defendant was merely saying he's sorry "because he knows that's what good people want to hear." The jury of seven men and five women heard Wilson say it, but didn't believe a word.


Now, I know lots of people think capital punishment is barbaric and doesn’t deter future criminals and is merely institutionalized legal vengeance. Well, that cuts no ice whatsoever with me.

Sometimes vengeance is the only way to go. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord? No, vengeance is ours. If the crime is incontrovertibly correctly fixed on the individual(s) who committed it, with no possibility of error, and if it will give families and friends of the victims some comfort and closure, and if it will serve as a warning to others even though others are too stupid/bent/evil/steeped in corruption to profit by such a warning, I see nothing whatsoever wrong with it.

If it’s “barbaric” in some people’s eyes, what about the barbarity of the crimes that occasion it? Crime, meet punishment. What a concept.

As for those who piously blether that it's just lowering ourselves to the vile base level of the criminal to require a life for a life, to them I say: Piffle! and you need to have some sense installed between your ears. What it is is speaking to these thugs in the only language they understand. SImple, really. You Kill = You Die.
(Again, if it's beyond not just reasonable doubt but ALL doubt that you in fact did kill. Too many mistakes get made, I know, and if there's any chance of error, then just toss 'em in a cell and hope DNA or other evidence will sort it out after not too many years. Justice is complicated.)

I'm just glad they didn't try to play the race card on this one. At least, they haven't yet. And while I'm thinking of race, where's the Big-Mouthed Bass of New York Race Relations, Al Sharpton? Usually he would have weighed in by now in no uncertain terms. Perhaps because both killer and victims are ethnic, and he can't figure it out if Whitey isn't involved? Well, maybe he'll go after the jury members. I'll keep watching.

In any case, this toxic creature’s family shares his vileness: Wilson's brother and mother immediately started blaming the cops, the judge, the jurors, et al. Anybody but their murderous relation and their own selves. He didn’t have to grow up to be a cop killer, as the prosecutors said. He CHOSE to. Knowing what the penalty might be.

“Just because one family lost a member, does that mean it's right that another family loses theirs?” Daniel Wilson told the Daily News. “If their families are hurting so bad, how the f--k could they stand by and say ‘Yes’ when another man's life has to be taken.”

Well, yeah, kid, it IS right, and those families have every right to stand by and say yes and watch. Because by his actions, Wilson forfeited the right to be considered a human being. Maybe Daniel can learn from his brother’s mistake. Probably not, though, considering his mother’s response: the apples didn’t fall far from that blighted tree. They didn't just "lose" their family members, moron, your damned-to-hell brother took them away. He, and you and your mom, should keep that in mind. If you actually have one.

I’m soooo sick of this pathetic old familiar argument to “a troubled past,” begging human mercy and forgiveness for pigdogs who show none. If you behave like an animal to other people, you have no right to complain when you’re dispatched like one in turn.
And that’s a libel on animals, anyway. Animals are WAY better than people like Wilson.

I say, send him back to the factory, as a defective piece of work. Void the warranty. Manufacturer's mistake. Maybe someone will learn from the example. Maybe he’ll even get it right next turn on the Wheel.

Because rehab for criminals of this caliber just doesn’t work. Why keep them around for thirty, forty, fifty years, in a place with comforts and benefits, TV and lawbooks, the chance to earn college degrees? They’re just festering leprous sores on the societal body. Punish the pieces of garbage for what they did, and punish them harshly.

All this forgiveness crap for creeps like this makes me sick. I don’t think I’m ready to go back to heads on pikes along Tower Bridge, or the Brooklyn Bridge…no, wait, I am, actually. Little object lesson for us all.

And yes, before you ask, I would absolutely have been one of those unanimous jurors. And I would have absolutely no problem pulling the switch myself.

Dick-head

By Maureeen Dowd, who is a goddess, about Cheney, who is just a big tool...


Daffy Does Doom

By Maureen Dowd

WASHINGTON

01/27/07 "New York Times


Dick Durbin went to the floor of the Senate on Thursday night to denounce the vice president as "delusional."

It was shocking, and Senator Durbin should be ashamed of himself.

Delusional is far too mild a word to describe Dick Cheney. Delusional doesn't begin to capture the profound, transcendental one-flew-over daftness of the man.

Has anyone in the history of the United States ever been so singularly wrong and misguided about such phenomenally important events and continued to insist he's right in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

It requires an exquisite kind of lunacy to spend hundreds of billions destroying America's reputation in the world, exhausting the U.S. military, failing to catch Osama, enhancing Iran's power in the Middle East and sending American kids to train and arm Iraqi forces so they can work against American interests.

Only someone with an inspired alienation from reality could, under the guise of exorcising the trauma of Vietnam, replicate the trauma of Vietnam.

You must have a real talent for derangement to stay wrong every step of the way, to remain in complete denial about Iraq's civil war, to have a total misunderstanding of Arab culture, to be completely oblivious to the American mood and to be absolutely blind to how democracy works.

In a democracy, when you run a campaign that panders to homophobia by attacking gay marriage and then your lesbian daughter writes a book about politics and decides to have a baby with her partner, you cannot tell Wolf Blitzer he's "out of line" when he gingerly raises the hypocrisy of your position.

Mr. Cheney acts more like a member of the James gang than the Jefferson gang. Asked by Wolf what would happen if the Senate passed a resolution critical of The Surge, Scary Cheney rumbled, "It won't stop us."

Such an exercise in democracy, he noted, would be "detrimental from the standpoint of the troops."

Americans learned an important lesson from Vietnam about supporting the troops even when they did not support the war. From media organizations to Hollywood celebrities and lawmakers on both sides, everyone backs our troops.

It is W. and Vice who learned no lessons from Vietnam, probably because they worked so hard to avoid going. They rush into a war halfway around the world for no reason and with no foresight about the culture or the inevitable insurgency, and then assert that any criticism of their fumbling management of Iraq and Afghanistan is tantamount to criticizing the troops. Quel demagoguery.

"Bottom line," Vice told Wolf, "is that we've had enormous successes, and we will continue to have enormous successes." The biggest threat, he said, is that Americans may not "have the stomach for the fight."

He should stop casting aspersions on the American stomach. We've had the stomach for more than 3,000 American deaths in a war sold as a cakewalk.

If W. were not so obsessed with being seen as tough, Mr. Cheney could not influence him with such tripe.

They are perpetually guided by the wrong part of the body. They are consumed by the fear of looking as if they don't have guts, when they should be compelled by the desire to look as if they have brains.

After offering Congress an olive branch in the State of the Union, the president resumed mindless swaggering. Asked yesterday why he was ratcheting up despite the resolutions, W. replied, "In that I'm the decision maker, I had to come up with a way forward that precluded disaster." (Or preordained it.)

The reality of Iraq, as The Times's brilliant John Burns described it to Charlie Rose this week, is that a messy endgame could be far worse than Vietnam, leading to "a civil war on a scale with bloodshed that will absolutely dwarf what we're seeing now," and a "wider conflagration, with all kinds of implications for the world's flow of oil, for the state of Israel. What happens to King Abdullah in Jordan if there's complete chaos in the region?"

Mr. Cheney has turned his perversity into foreign policy.

He assumes that the more people think he's crazy, the saner he must be. In Dr. No's nutty world-view, anti-Americanism is a compliment. The proof that America is right is that everyone thinks it isn't.

He sees himself as a prophet in the wilderness because he thinks anyone in the wilderness must be a prophet.

To borrow one of his many dismissive words, it's hogwash.

© The New York Times


Brilliant. Except I don't think it's anything but a cynical, Cassius-worthy, selfish grab for power. He knows he's wrong and evil, and he doesn't give a rat's about what we think.

The problem is how many of our fellow Americans he's twisted into agreeing with him by distorting and pandering to their fears and prejudices. How do we make them see what a piece of vicious lying crap he is? Because that would mean they'd have to see themselves as vicious lying pieces of crap, or at least as morons who were duped for YEARS by a vicious lying piece of crap. And that's not gonna happen.

He and his puppet Dubya are made for each other. One has no heart, the other has no brains, and there's not a ball between them.

I Write the Songs

Being bard by nature, inclination and vocation, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when, over the last two or three years, I got into serious songwriting.

I did a bit, of course, for the books of my Keltiad series, especially the Tales of Arthur trilogy, in which the narrator was the bard Taliesin, foster-brother and brother-in-law of the king. Though lots of the songs/poems were indeed original, I did tinker a bit with actual existing stuff (long since public domain, since they dated from the sixth century on).

But the songs I’m writing now, for my in-the-works rock series, are very different. And since I posted one here yesterday, and a couple more beginning last summer, I thought I’d talk a bit about the process that got me creating them.

(These are all copyrighted, by the way, so don’t go thinking you can grab them and fannishly have your way with them. Because if you do I’ll have my way with you, and you won’t like it one bit, oh no, you won’t…)

Anyway, the current songs are from varying periods in the overall 1962—at-the-moment-open-ended creative timeline of a fictional, hugely successful, British power-bluesrock band (think early Stones/Cream/Who/Led Zeppelin) called Lionheart.

Most of them are “written” by my co-protagonist Turk Wayland, Lionheart’s founder and superstar lead guitarist (protagonist Rennie’s boyfriend and, later, husband), though he has a writing partner in the band who sometimes solos with his own tunes. (And, interestingly, those are very different from the ones Turk writes.)
I have melody lines for most of them, usually the hooks, but as I don’t write music they’re all just in my head...

Turk is an English blues guitar god (NOT lead vocalist!) loosely modeled, talent-wise, on Eric Clapton without the drug problems. He’s really the rock star that never was on land or sea: intelligent, gorgeous, blond, complex, literate—calm and temperate in his personal life but setting the stage on fire when he straps on his Strat.

And Lionheart is as real as any fictional band can possibly be. With all the problems and wonders of a rock band of that era—the personality dynamics, ego clashes, business difficulties and general over-the-topness—and that had to be reflected in the songs.

But, funny thing, somewhere along the way Turk noticed there were no actual songs actually in the books, and he decided he wanted a few lines here and there. Always eager to please a main character in one of my novels, I sat down and wrote some.

And then he decided he wanted entire songs. He got quite insistent about it, too. Wouldn’t let me write anything else until I wrote them. (My characters often do stuff like that, but nobody’s been pushier than Fictional Guitar Hero.)

So to keep Turk happy, as the books have progressed I worked out a complete 14-album discography for Lionheart, including dates, album and song titles, A and B sides of AM singles, FM airplay hits, band members, musician friends sitting in (both fictional and real-life ones), studio, live and greatest hits LPs, even a complete touring schedule for 1969, including venues, travel days and time off. Oh, and I designed their logo too.
Because that’s the kind of writer (or crazy person) I am.

As for the songs themselves (I have over thirty now!), it’s been a fascinating experience writing them. Very different from anything else I’ve written: oddly enough, it’s more like writing advertising copy or even criticism/reviews than like writing fiction.

I wrote a few songs with Jim, of course (including some extra verses for “People Are Strange”, really cool ones too, which we cooked up together one night when I complained once too often that there weren’t enough damn words to one of my favorite Doors songs and he finally got tired of hearing me whine about it). But I never did anything like this for myself, or for, in effect, an existing, working rock group. Which Lionheart is, albeit a fictional one.

It’s been interesting to see how Lionheart is evolving as a band, and Turk as a songwriter. The early songs are shorter, punchier—though still less simple than, say, Beatle songs of that era. In 1967, Lionheart has their own Sgt. Pepper moment, and their music gets denser and more ornate; then Turk falls in love with Rennie (and breaks up with her, and reunites) and writes some love songs for her (and to get her back). And after that, the music gets personally topical in a generic sort of way.

It’s hard to explain, which makes me appreciate all the more the many artists I interviewed back in the day, who were so patient with me when I was trying to get them to tell me How and Why when it’s so difficult to put into words at all. Words other than the lyrics, I mean.

Too, it’s a bit problematic writing songs for a band you never get to actually hear. Lyrics, sure: two songs in each book as front- and endpieces. But not the tunes, so I have to compensate somehow.

So, bringing out long-unused rock critic chops, I describe in detail a couple of Lionheart performances in fabled venues, and rock persons of my acquaintance who’ve read these scenes have paid me the compliment of saying that I have made these shows sound so amazing they wish they could actually attend them. Man, I wish I could too… But that’s still very nice to hear.

Of course, on quiet nights alone with my laptop and my iPod I fantasize about someone like Clapton actually recording one or two of them, but that’s just a fantasy-writer’s fantasy. Still, you never know…hey, Eric, call my agent!

Jim once told me that he always knew when something came to him whether it was going to be a song or a poem, and it wasn’t simply because one came with music and the other didn’t—it was that they came from very different places. Which of course made perfect sense to me.

But I never really understood what he meant until I met up with Turk.

When Worlds Collided

Today is the thirty-eighth anniversary of the first time Jim and I met. January 25, 1969. It was a private interview in his suite at the Plaza Hotel. He was wearing his concert clothes from the Madison Square Garden gig the night before, a white peasant shirt and black jeans and Frye boots, hair down to his shoulders. I was wearing a gold velour microskirted tunic dress over brown leather pants and suede boots, with tigereye scarab earrings and a knee-length black rabbit fur coat, hair down to my butt. We were both adorable.

I talk about the day at length in "Strange Days," so won't get into it here. But I will brag with great pride and delight on the fact that there were actually sparks when we shook hands. The prince and the princess touched hands for the first time, and blue sparks leaped out for at least a foot around. I was thrilled and shy. Jim loved it. "Portent," he said. He was right. "A sign," I agreed. I was right. Love at first sight, we both thought. We were both right.

So today I am wearing a bunch of Jim stuff: my engagement ring, his tigerclaw pendant (picture on the verso jacket of the hardcover SD), two of his rings on a chain (my wedding gift to him and his wave ring), a gold dog tag, the diamond heart that was the first serious present he ever gave me. It feels right. And connected. And contented. And he's here.

Love you, honey...



I wrote this for Turk to write for Rennie (in my rock mystery series), but really I wrote it for Jim...totally sappy, but I totally do not care.


Love at First Light

I never touched the sunrise
I never kissed the sea
I never held anything half so fair
Until you came to me

I’d been wandering in the dark
I was almost out of time
You came smiling through the storm
Your glance a kiss, your face a rhyme

Tell me what your name is
I will tell you who you are
I will tell you more than that
Candle to a star

And it was love at first light
Dawn came in to kiss us gently both awake
We both knew at first sight
We were lovers for our hearts’ wise seeing sake

You’d never seen the mountains
Of gold and bramble-dew
You said you couldn’t find the road
Until I came to you

You were all that’s sweet and strong
You were all that’s wise and best
Gave me glory in your arms
Let me slumber on your breast

And we had love that first night
Stars wrapped us in their arms and kept us near
We were new and so bright
There was nothing in the darkness left to fear

[bridge]

We awoke to see the sun
Daylight came as no surprise
Held each other close and warm
Saw tomorrows in our eyes

Tell me where you came from
I will tell you where we are
We will set the sky aglow
Candle to a star

And it was love at first light
Dreams came real for us in one another’s arms
Left fears behind in the night
Held each other sleeping close and safe from harm

And I saw love at first light
The winds of morning visiting your face
Together trust that love might
Find for us a safe defended secret place

For us it’s love at first light
Of all our tender hours this the sum
You and I by love’s right
Own all the mornings and the midnights still to come

And it was love at first light
Dawn came in to kiss us gently both awake
We both knew at first sight
We were lovers for our hearts’ wise seeing sake


[hook out to fade]


© 2006 by Patricia Morrison for Lizard Queen Music, Inc.

One-Trick Phony

I lacked the strength to watch Chimp-in-Chief ventriloquize the State of the Union address last night (the parlous state of an unhappy Union). Indeed, I lack the strength to rave about it today. (Yes, even I get tired sometimes. But, like the hot spot that created the Hawaiian island chain, my personal Hot Spot of Rage is never in danger of cooling off.)

Still, I heard enough snippets and gorge-rising commentary to know that it's the same old, same old. And the "new" stuff he offered is never gonna happen. All of a sudden he's callling for the country to get off the oil tit? When it's the same tit he sucked on all the livelong day? His whole life? And now he means it? Yeah, right, pull the other one, it's got bells on.

What is WITH this moron? His generals and his country are telling him it DOESN'T WORK, it HASN"T WORKED and it WILL NOT WORK. It's as if he doesn't even hear it. He doesn't hear anything he doesn't want to hear. He moves to the tune of his own private humming buzzing fireworks-accompanied crack-brained march tune. Maybe he's ON crack. No, on second thought, even crackheads are more persuadable than Chimpy.

Though I did quite enjoy hearing him refer to the awesome Nancy as "Madam Speaker." Man! You know he almost swallowed his tongue in getting those two words out...

Also loved Murderers' Row...all those stone-faced implacable Democrats watching him ready to pounce. Oh, I hope good times are down the road. We haven't had anything nice and shiny for far too long.

IMPEACH THE CHIMP! Just 'cause I feel like saying it.

Omelet

In the press of so many rants, I forgot to put up a tribute. And one that’s extremely well deserved.

Ahmet Ertegun, longtime president of Atlantic Records, died by rock as he had lived by rock. His death was the result of a brain injury suffered when he fell backstage at New York’s Beacon Theater on October 29, as the Rolling Stones prepared to play a concert that marked former President Bill Clinton’s 60th birthday. He had been in a coma since then, and died on December 15, 2006.

I knew Omelet (as he was fondly known) fairly well in the old days at Jazz & Pop. Atlantic's offices were on the second floor of 1841 Broadway, at 60th Street, and ours were on the top floor, so there was always a certain amount of up and down in the elevators: records, publicity stills, visiting. And Elektra, the Doors’ label, was at first up the block at 1855 Broadway and then across the street in the building that was then the Gulf + Western building and is now some Trumpery or other. Same goings-on. It was nice.

He was the son of a Turkish diplomat, but as a hustling record company guy he didn’t hesitate to stoop to dubious business practices. He told a story on himself of how when in the early days of the label he would go around to radio stations to try to get them to play Atlantic product, he would, if he got the chance, secretly scratch the records of competitors to render them unplayable, at least until replaced.

I vividly recollect a lunch with Ahmet and Eric Clapton and Delaney & Bonnie and a few other music biz people, served up in the conference room by Ahmet's personal chef.
Not to mention a formal cocktail/dinner party at the Erteguns' East Eighties townhouse, a surprisingly and disappointingly blah residence. We spent our time admiring the Magritte and wondering at the rather scary chicness of Mica, his society darling wife, who also ran an interior design company.

And once when Jim showed up unannounced in my office and we wanted to take him out to dinner at Trader Vic's and he needed a tie, we called downstairs in a panic and Ahmet's secretary came to the rescue with a very elegant one of his for Jim to borrow.

Lotsa memories. He was an urbane and civilized gentleman, and he was also a hip and happenin' dude. They do not make them like him anymore. Rock on, Omelet!

The Source of Denial

And again with the name-calling and hair-pulling in Tinseltown! (They only called it “Hollywood” because “Blockheadville” wouldn’t fit on the side of the mountain…)

It all started out back last fall, when “Grey’s Anatomy” co-star Isaiah Washington, fretful and peevish because actors were apparently tardy to the set, gets into alleged physical combat with star Patrick Dempsey. Then he unleashes the f-word against star T.R. Knight.

No, not that f-word. The word he called him was “faggot”.

Now this is rich, coming from someone who would probably burst into flames, or at least start punching some more, if somebody not a “brother” called him, say, “jungle bunny.”

Washington, of course, hotly denies it, but his own “Grey’s” castmates are not letting him get away with it. Katherine Heigl referred to it at the Golden Globes the other night, after the deep-in-denial-to-save-his-sorry-actor’s-ass Washington hijacked the mike from the show’s creator backstage after “Grey’s” had won for best TV drama, vehemently insisting that he had NOT called Knight a faggot, never never never. Heigl basically said he’s a lying bastard and she didn't care if she got in trouble for telling the truth. Good for you, Katherine!

Whereupon Knight went on the Ellen DeGeneres Show the day after the Globes and said that not only had the volatile Washington indeed called him a faggot, everyone on the set had heard him do so.
(Hey! Where was Rosie O’Donnell on THIS one? A real piece of homophobia, and she didn’t, you’ll pardon the expression, weigh in?)
Turns out Knight is, yawwwwnnnn, gay. And a few days after the original incident, he outed himself. What a truly classy guy. He just defended himself with the truth. And that was all he said. It's Washington who won't let it go. And who should himself be let go.

TV critic Michael Ausiello on Washington's Globe episode: "It was by far the ugliest, most uncomfortable press-room moment I have ever experienced. And judging by the shell-shocked faces on the cast — particularly T.R. Knight and Patrick Dempsey, who have been class acts throughout this entire ordeal — it was a new low for them, too. And what's ironic about the whole thing is that in Washington's attempt to clear his name, he came off as an out-of-control homophobe who throws the f-word around like it's candy.

"He's also playing fast and loose with the truth. Did he call T.R. a f----t to his face? No. Did he refer to him as one behind his back? Yes. T.R. says so himself on today's Ellen DeGeneres Show. His continued employment on a show that wears its diversity as a badge of honor is the height of hypocrisy. If ABC wants to be remotely true to the principles Shonda Rhimes so eloquently espouses through the show, it has to do the right thing and fire Washington. Anything else at this point is simply unacceptable."

Amen.

What gets me is how easily these words roll off their tongues. Mel Gibson gets lickered up, immediately he's Jew-bashing. Michael Richards gets rattled onstage, he's off on a racist n-word tear. Washington gets mad, instantly he's gay-bashing. Well, that stuff doesn't come out of nowhere. It has to have been in there in the first place, and comfortably ensconced at that, for it to come leaping out all ugly and warty at the least provocation, or no provocation. And that's scary.

I’m getting so sick of this crap. Granted, nobody calls me dreadful words like those, but down the years, I’ve certainly been called plenty of pretty horrible things by know-nothing obsessive fanatics. And sure, it hurts. But one has to consider the source and the motives, and when one does, it hurts rather less. Because then one laughs.

Because these are pathetic, fixated neurotics who are infatuated with people they've never met and things they know absolutely nothing about, who haven’t got a life and who haven’t got two brain cells to rub together while they live at home in their parents’ basements and go out to work their minimum wage McJobs.

And who are spiteful and hateful and jealous and envious because I had something they never came within lightyears of. And never would have. So I certainly don’t forgive them (being neither a Christian nor a Buddhist, I don’t have to!), but I do understand the poison swamp of nastiness from which they have oozed forth. And thus I can discount and dismiss them and their ravings.

I don’t know what Washington’s problem with gays is, though clearly he’s got a major one going on. And Knight’s responses have uniformly been gentle in tone and politely restrained in nature (I myself don’t operate that way, but that’s just me), so we’re proud and respectful.

Isaiah, just STFU. T.R., get him a tape of the classic Chevy Chase/Richard Pryor word association sketch and make him watch it till he faints. Re-education can be a beautiful thing.

Spot Removal

I mute TV commercials these days so fast you can’t see my gunslinger-worthy hand move. Not for the usual, heretofore reasons, which God knows are reason enough, but because I don’t want my memory well of rock and roll contaminated by the prostitutional uses to which the beloved music of my youth is increasingly put.

It’s bad enough hearing (and seeing! My eyes! My eyes!) Dylan pimping for Victoria’s Secret (oops, almost said Charlie’s Angels. Same diff) or, years back, Crosby Stills & Nash singing “Teach Your Children” for some disposable diaper or training-pants company. But it seems that almost every spot on TV these days has a classic-rock soundtrack.

Not to mention the use of classic rock in the shows themselves, for instant cred and solidity. As MDF Michael Rosenthal reminds me: it was a weird little shivery moment on NBC last night when "Medium", who had in that ep put "Sympathy for the Devil" into heavy rotation, broke for some bank or credit-card spot featuring Jagger singing "I'm Free." Apparently the Glimmer Twins have decided to seriously enter the commercial lists, going head-to-head with Pete Townshend in the TV whorestakes

But it’s "The Who Sell Out" in real life, Pete tossing his curls like a great big whore. He makes no bones about it: says they’re his songs and if he wants to sell them for automobile commercials or "CSI" themes it’s his right to do so and make money off them, and it's none of our business if he does.

He’s correct, of course, at least in the legal sense. But what he and others don’t seem to consider is that we their audience have a certain emotional and spiritual and historical interest and stake in those songs.

We listened to them, grew up/older/wiser with them, made love to them, broke up to them, fell in love again to them. They’re the soundtrack of our lives, and I think we can be forgiven for feeling proprietorial and possessive about them. And we do NOT want them to become associated instead in our minds with meds for nasty physical complaints or underwear however pretty or gas-guzzling eco-unfriendly vehicles or dubious foodstuffs.

May God set a flower on the head of John Densmore, Doors drummer, who has consistently held the line, alone, against his bandmates Manzarek and Krieger, who seem to feel that, Jim’s stated opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, Doors songs should be sold for commercial purposes to the tune of millions. John says if he has enough money, then they have enough money, and besides, Jim would be pissed off to see the songs so prostituted. The songs are sacred, in fact, he says.
And he’s right—unqualified. Go John!

In the meantime, I now have to listen to “Shape of Things to Come”, by a studio group d/b/a Max Frost and the Troopers, being used by Target. What irony: the defiant theme song of “Wild in the Streets”, a deliriously and delightfully exploitative “youth” movie from 1968 starring Christopher Jones as the charismatic rock star Max Frost, in which everyone older than 25 gets rounded up and sent to LSD rehab concentration camps, is now de-fanged and employed to flog merch for Tar-zhay.
(And it’s a fine, fine song, too. Go download it from iTunes.)

Bummer.

The Real Golden Globes

I settled down to watch the Golden Globe awards last night with my usual cozy anticipation. I was, as ever, well prepared: warm jammies, clean sheets, pizza and marble cheesecake and milk.

So imagine my surprise when I actually saw actual women with actual FIGURES, not the usual procession of bulimic/anorexic/horse-pill-taking walking skeletons. Except for better skin (usually), clothes and hair, the red-carpetbaggers on just about any award show you watch generally look like the pirate crew of the Black Pearl in moonlight.

But not last night. Cleavage ruled! And about time too, I say, being a woman whose rackage looms large in her legend, who could never pass the pencil test and never wanted to. (And whose men never wanted her to, either...)

This was a thing of great cheer and power to behold. Dangerous curves ahead, right up there for all to see: the delightful America Ferrera of “Ugly Betty”, anything but ugly, in a gorgeous purple gown and with eye-boggling cleavage atop it. Salma Hayek and Jessica Biel and Jennifer Love Hewitt, all curvaceous and NORMAL-LOOKING (well, as normal as Hollywood ever gets). Jennifer Hudson of “Dreamgirls”, stunning. Sara Ramirez of “Grey’s Anatomy”, spectacular in clingy red. Penelope Cruz and Beyonce, all hourglass shapes and impressive breastworks. Penelope especially looked like an old-time movie star, Sophia Loren 2.0.
And not forgetting the lovely Kate Winslet, who broke ground for this delightful trend back in her “Titanic” days.
Their globes were golden indeed.

Then when the cameras showed the bone patrol—Ellen Pompeo and Katherine Heigl of “Grey’s” leading the charge—it was painful and pitiful to see the contrast. Maybe, hopefully, the trend will take hold. (And no, it’s not the same as gigundo fake water-balloon boobs affixed like piñatas to stick-thin bodies. It’s more natural and simple and beautiful than that.)

Apart from that:

No great jewels! The Globes are less dressy than the Oscars, true, but that’s no excuse. Didn’t see a decent diamond the whole night. I live for the jewelry, and was sadly disappointed.

Her Majesty Helen Mirren appeared to have a wardrobe malfunction going up to accept her first award of the evening. But she looked great in a teal gown.

Watching awards shows, I generally root for people I know, have met or who have acted with friends of mine, and I am always proprietorially pleased when they win.
This year, it was Kyra Sedgwick winning for "The Closer." Lovely woman. Once met her in the company of her lovely husband and lovely kids, when MDF Kathleen and her lovely husband took me to the Malibu Carnival and Chili Festival. So I am two degrees of Kevin Bacon professionally, since I acted in a movie with Kathleen, who acted in a movie with Kevin. And one degree personally, since I have actually met him. (The whole family is gorgeous and delightful, in case you were wondering.)

Meryl Streep could have used better makeup and wardrobe advice. She looked faded and dowdy, but gave a brilliant and funny speech.

Angelina Jolie seemed annoyed with it all. Hey, Angie, stay home then! Her dress was nice, all gray, but it needed diamonds or pearls to set it off, not boring old gold.

Didn’t care for the bum’s rush they gave Peter Morgan, the screenwriter for “The Queen”, when he started to go off on Betty Windsor. Let him finish! So many gasbags with far less to say got far more than their allotted time. Boo!

On the men’s side: Hugh Laurie, who is a god, and quite disturbingly hot, and Jeremy Irons, who has always been the thinking woman’s bit of crumpet. They looked great (except for Jeremy’s skin, kinda gray and blotchy. Hey, that’s what TV makeup is for!), they dressed brilliantly, they spoke well, wittily and literately. Swoon! Honorable mention: Aaron Eckhart.

Downers:

Jack Nicholson. What do people see in this bloated clownish eyesore? He’s ragingly unattractive, modestly talented and has an ego the size of the Hollywood sign. I find him loathsome in so many ways, and whenever he was hogging the screen I went back to the book I was reading.

Poor Warren Beatty. Will no one buy this man some speech lessons? He sounded like an eighty-year-old on meds. If I’d been playing a drinking game every time he stammered or stuttered, I’d have been under the table in 60 seconds.

Clint Eastwood seemed a tad insulting, repeating Jennifer Hudson’s acceptance-speech comment about how this award gives her confidence. He looked smirky saying it and sounded ungracious. Boo!

Sacha Baron Cohen’s charmless and tasteless speech referring to the nether regions and bodily functions of his “Borat” co-star. Completely vulgar, NOT funny and the crudity went on waaaaay too long. Didn’t see the movie, now really don’t plan on it.

So all in all, a perfect evening. Now on to the Oscars!

More Mush from the Chimp

Lessee…over 3,000 dead, God knows how many wounded, thousands and thousands of troops being rotated like tires until they blow out from sheer exhaustion…and STILL IT DOESN’T WORK.

So…SEND MORE BODIES! Yes! That’s the ticket. Oh, sure, admit you made mistakes (you don’t really believe you did, and we know it, and you know we know it), but then go right on DOING THE SAME THING. Makes sense to me. Because it is Chimpy who is doing it.

He’s running out the clock. He’s made a nightmare mess of epic proportions, and he plans—insofar as he can be said to actually plan anything—to make sure it drags on long enough for the next President to have to clean up. He will do anything to avoid doing anything, because that is what he does. And two years from now, he will walk smugly away, the way he’s always walked away from the responsibilities he’s shirked and the jobs he’s botched in the past. Because that too is what he does.

In fact, it’s all he can do.

If the Iraqis don’t come through, he says finger-waggingly, they will have lost the faith of the American people. Well, Chimp Boy, they lost it long ago, and you yourself never had our faith to begin with. Except for the deluded and short-sighted morons who voted you in once (you stole the first one, thank you SO much, Supreme Court…), nobody with more than two brain cells to rub together ever thought for a nanosecond that you deserved something so precious as our national faith and trust. You had a chance last night to give us something more than your usual mush, and you blew it.

Esteem THIS!

I see where MDF Jared (firedrake_mor in my friends list) ran into a buzzsaw on an unspecified board for suggesting that an apparently young newbie witchlet in search of advice might do well to run spellcheck before asking anyone about anything.

Members of that board instantly started lighting into him, claiming he was way out of line for suggesting that her orthography was less than perfect (“speecking”, “fuchur”, “weard”, “abilitiys”, etc.), and now Jared wonders what he did wrong.

Nothing, my friend. Nothing at all. As the comments on your blog entry all attest.

But one of the commentators raises an interesting question, wondering if the pernicious practice of schools these days inculcating the cult of “self-esteem” is really to blame.

I bow to your insight, Fellow Friend of Jared! And I think it’s totally and utterly right on. Young persons today are taught that they are valuable individuals, and this is good and fine. What’s NOT fine is what they’re taught as corollary to that belief: whatever they do is right and good and valid. Even if it’s wrong and bad and invalid. And incorrect. And wrong. Did I say wrong?

“Discrimination” has become a word to be avoided at all costs. So have “judgment”, “criticism” and any number of other words along those lines. God forbid anyone should feel bad because they can’t spell or read or write. Feelings must be spared, no matter what, and, apparently, ignorance is to be preferred to knowledge. Because calling un- or undereducated people on their ignorance makes them feel bad.

As a result, it has become “elitist” to be an educated person, and especially elitist to be aware of it. Not even boastful about it. Just aware of it, and by being aware of it, by using it, making other people aware. And that’s where the trouble starts.

This preposterous policy has resulted in a cohort of little savages. Little uneducated savages. Little uneducated savages who think education is unimportant, and, preferably, something that happens to other people.

They can barely read. They can’t write to save their lives. They can’t spell. They can’t do math. They are ignorant of the Western social culture: history, literature, music that isn’t the abomination that calls itself rap.

But it doesn’t stop there, no! They have the right to get into college, just because they want it. Then they demand remedial courses once they get there, because of course they can’t do the work and they’re lost and hopeless and helpless, and the institutions of higher learning are then forced to teach them what they should have showed up already knowing, and knowing well.

Makes. Me. Crazy.

That Dirty Little Ten-Letter Word

You know the one. The one my generation rose up against once before, stopping a war and toppling a president. The one that the current Unelected President, a four-letter word if ever there was one, is trying to pass off as a five-letter word.

E-S-C-A-L-A-T-I-O-N. There. We have it out in the open. Oh, that other word, S-U-R-G-E, is how the little F-U-C-K is hoping we’ll all spell it. But we’re better spellers than that. Or so at least I hope.

What is wrong with this guy? Something major and pathological, obviously. He and his not-so-Grand Old Party lose the Senate and the House and tons of local elections back in November, and he takes that as permission to proceed as usual.
Going back a bit, he stole one election and almost certainly two, and used a micro-thin margin of alleged victory in the second to claim a “mandate” for himself and his wretched policies and the dark Satanic majesties who command his service. (Those would be Cheney and Rove, if you’re keeping score.)

Sure, Chimpy, send 20,000 more bodies into harm’s way. As long as it’s not yours or your Stepford wife’s or your trashy daughters’, why the heck not?

There is nothing in Iraq that 20,000 more pieces of cannon fodder are going to accomplish in the next months, or the next two years (until term limits blessedly put Chimpy out of our misery), that the thousands already killed, wounded and living under a death sentence over there could not accomplish in the past four years.

The man lives in fantasyland. The Iraq Study Group says time to go. Generals on the ground say time to go. All right-thinking individuals the world over say time to go. And also they all say this country never should have been there in the first place.

And yet Chimpy says time to send in more troops. (When he’s not saying more tax cuts for the rich.) And tomorrow night he is going to get on TV in front of God and everybody and only his personal God knows how he’s going to justify it.
Escalation! Worked so nice, let's try it twice! You're already neck-deep in the Big Sandy, sure, why not? You're not the one running for re-election in two years, but you're gonna try to dump all your feculent mess right in the lap of the next guy (or girl) to sit in the Oval Office, aren't you, you little coprophage.

I want God to strike him down with a thunderbolt for every sin in the Decalogue. Well, maybe I’ll give the Chimp the benefit of the doubt on coveting his neighbor’s wife. Maybe. It’s quite possible we just haven’t found out about it yet, and when we do I want him treated fairly, of course. Every bit as fairly as President Clinton was treated.

But it just never ends. He is like the Energizer Bunny from Hell. Just keeps going and going and going…

Time to drain the battery!

I call upon all parents of young men and women stationed over there, and to those who have none—yet—to rise up as one and call down thundering anathema upon the empty head of this cynical, self-interested, smirking son of Satan and put a stop to this.

I call upon my fellow citizens to see that the emperor has not just no clothes but no brains, spine, heart, guts or soul either.

I call upon Democrats, exemplars of my lifelong party of choice, to FUCKING DO SOMETHING for a change. You were all a bunch of spineless, gutless wonders when you voted for this war in the first place. Looking at YOU, Hillary. Looking at YOU, Kerry. Looking at every single one of you who bent over and took it and then whined about how you didn’t know the facts so it wasn’t your fault you got shafted. Won’t wash. Maybe you are not the giants who once rose up like redwoods out of your party—Jack, Bobby, so many more in days of old, yes, even Lyndon!—but for God’s sake can’t you manage a growth spurt of honor and put out a few leaves to show us you’re not entirely sawed-off stumps?

I remember, though you have obviously forgotten, how Bushboy tossed off a line few years back as to how a benevolent despot was the best form of ruler. Smirking as he said it, of course, just so’s we wouldn’t miss the point that he was talking about himself (the only topic he can speak on without a script). You know, where’s Peter the Great when you really need him? (Though I doubt Bushweasel knew where the quote came from, but was merely fed it to parrot, the way he parrots everything else. He’s a gooooood parrot! Awwwwkkk!)

Well, maybe I didn’t know Peter the Great—at least I don’t think I did (paging Shirley MacLaine!)—but you, Chimp, are no great Peter. You’re just a little dick.

Put That Hand Where I Can See It!

I see with approval where new Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) will be taking his oath of Congressional office on the Koran.

I have big issues with the Koran, of course. Mostly with the parts where Allah and/or his prophet are urging jihadistic slaughter against non-Muslims, and the parts that are used to justify the cultural slavery of women.

But I absolutely LOOOOVE the idea that the first Muslim elected to Congress in US history is using the holy book of his own faith to swear upon. And why the heck shouldn’t he? It’s as sacred as the Bible, if you believe that sort of thing.

Naturally, there has gone up a wailing outcry and rending of garments from the usual suspects. Chiefly emanating this time from the big, fat, flapping, presumably Christian jowls of Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.), who direly warns of a future where “there will be likely many more Muslims elected to Congress and demanding the use of the Koran.” Oh, the horror! How dare they run for office! How dare they want to use their own scriptures to put their hands to God on!

Fellow cretins protesting this include talk-show host Dennis Prager, who says that by using the Koran Rep. Ellison “undermines American civilization”, and goes on to demand that some law be passed so that the Christian Bible be required for oath-taking purposes.

Hel-loooo? Doesn’t that kinda shatter that whole pesky Church-State separation thing? Not to mention insult anyone who for whatever reasons doesn’t hold the Bible sacred—and there are quite a lot of us. If someone forced me to swear on a Bible, I would consider the whole oath utterly null and void. Which could come in useful, actually. Or maybe that's what the idiot Prager (no, I've never heard of him either) is counting on...

Other people of this distasteful and idiot persuasion have called for controls on illegal immigration—lest there be floods of illegal Muslim Mexicans wanting to swear on the Koran, I guess.

What just tickles me to pieces is that the Koran that Rep. Ellison is using for his ceremonial swearing-in (usually the reps just stand beside their desks, raise their right hands and are neatly and efficiently sworn in; the book stuff occurs at a private photo op) BELONGED TO PRESIDENT THOMAS JEFFERSON!!!

AND CONTAINS (I am told) HIS PERSONAL NOTATIONS!

Well, gosh-a-mighty, folks, just think of that! We always knew Tom was smarter than all the Presidents who followed him combined (current unelected incumbent doesn’t even bring enough brain tissue to the weigh-in to tip the scales…), but now we see, as if we needed further proof, that he’s a sight more tolerant and respectful of other religions too.

And no wonder, since Jefferson (and his buds) WASN’T A CHRISTIAN BUT A DEIST! (Go look it up, kids. I haven’t got the strength to explain…)

So here we have a black Muslim-American, the descendant of slaves, being sworn into Congress using Thomas Jefferson’s personal Koran. I think that’s one giant leap for humankind right there.

Goode (who won't accept Internet messages from non-constituents, hmm, wonder why) and his Christofascist ilk are just damn lucky (for many, MANY reasons) it’s not me being sworn in to national office today. Witches really don’t have one sacred book that we all agree on---since we were an oral tradition, and any books that may have been around later on were trashed by the Christians (no, the Nazis didn't invent book-burning---or witch-burning either, but that's a whole other rant)---so if I didn’t use some ancient Celtic Pagan epic or the Norse “Havamal” (yay Odin!) for my own particular swearing-in ceremony, I’d use “The Lord of the Rings”. I'm sure they're all at least as true as the Bible...and a lot better written.

In Frodo I trust.

And also, of course, in Commander Susan Ivanova of Babylon 5 ("Trust Ivanova. Trust yourself. Anyone else, shoot 'em!").

Don't Talk to Strangers

According to well-known wack job/evangelist Pat Robertson, God has personally told him to expect a terrorist attack on the United States by the end of 2007 that will result in "mass killing."

"I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be nuclear," Robertson coyly confided on his long-running divine comedy show on the Christian Broadcasting Network.
"The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that." said the 76-year-old preacher and one-time presidential candidate, who claims God gave him the dish during their yearly cozy little private gabfest, uh, prayer retreat.

Oh, that Lord God! What a tease! Such a kidder, not letting us know whether we need to build fallout shelters or stock up on Cipro. What a kind and caring piece of news from on high and no mistake!

Robertson blethers on that God has informed him that major U.S. cities and millions of people will be affected by the terrorist attack, which will happen after September. So there’s still time to be saved, my friends.

"The evil people will come after this country, and there's a possibility - not a possibility, a definite certainty - that chaos is going to rule," predicted Robertson, and encouraged listeners to pray, and, I’m sure, send him money.

"God said he's going to restrain the evil, but he isn't necessarily going to restrain it in the beginning," Robertson said. Well, hey, what a mensch that God dude is! Robertson goes on to assure us that “A lot of these things can be reversed; we just need to do a lot of praying."

Soooo…God is gonna smite us and deliver us over to terrorists, at least at first, and not help, but if we pray hard enough (or clap our hands to save Tinker Bell, or send enough money), then he’ll change his big old vindictive mind?

Huh. Who knew it was so easy to sway a divinity? Last year, you may recall, Robertson said that God told him the Pacific Northwest would get creamed by a tsunami. Guess what? Nobody's toes even got wet. Well, perhaps God got it wrong. Though Robertson hedges his bets by noting that record rainfall did wreak havoc on the state of Washington last year. Considering how rainy that state usually is ANYWAY, I’m thinking that was a pretty safe call. Maybe it was an air tsunami, like playing air guitar, or one that just dripped down from the sky.

"I put these things out with humility," Robertson said. No, you self-aggrandizing little crapweasel, you put them out with publicity and control and greed. And we haven’t forgotten, either, how you suggested last January that God personally punished Ariel Sharon with a stroke for ceding Israeli-controlled land to the Palestinians. What a hateful deity you believe in, Robertson, and foist off on your flock, perpetuating the message of divine retribution. I thought your boy Jesus was all for loving forgiveness? Or am I wrong to think so?

You know, if you or I went around claiming God tells us claptrap like this once a year in a private fireside chat, our compassionate families and friends would put us on major medication and see that we spent our remaining years at a secure yet pleasant little country bin. Or at least in a nice padded room.
But because Cadillac-drivin', television-hoggin', sadistic and venal “ministers” dish this swill out to credulous saps and pathetic nonthinkers, their flocks who are indeed sheep in all too many ways, it all gets coated with some sort of spurious “legitimacy.”
Perhaps one gets the deity one really deserves, and the cleric too. And if you end up with a heavenly despot and an earthly bully, or a punishing godfather and a pedophile-protecting misogynist pope, or an infidel-condemning desert deity and a bunch of bloodthirsty jihadist imams, hey, it's your own damn fault. Nobody said you had to buy into any of it. You might try thinking for yourself.

Well, you know, I just talked to Dionysus, who is kind enough and enjoys my converse enough to talk with me way more than once a year, if I may brag so, and HE says "Yes, there probably will be something bad coming down the pike sooner or later but you guys already knew that didn’t you and you certainly didn’t need to hear it from me—and I don’t lob sinners down to hell or call for jihad against anyone who doesn't believe in me or lean on little old ladies to send money, either, not like some other Gods I could mention."

And he’s quite right. And Dionysus has done a lot more positive stuff for mankind than the nasty fundie God from whom Robertson only hears once a freakin’ year. No doubt because that’s as frequently as God can stand to talk to the toxic creep.

Robertson, maybe YOUR God is a vengeful, spiteful, petty little tyrant. Most people beg to differ. What is it they say, “God created man in his own image. Man, being a gentleman, returned the compliment.” That would explain a lot about both you and your deity, wouldn’t it.

Except, of course, that you’re no gentleman. And neither is the God you claim to talk to.

And A Happy New Ear!

Now that my first 2007 entry has been posted, and is appropriately silly, I can get down to retrospective business.

Some reflections on the year gone by:

FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD!
CITY TO FORD: YOU ARE DEAD!
And we don't particularly care. You stiffed us and pardoned the Milhous and played golf and provided Chevy Chase with some fun moments. You are not our fave Prez. Though at least you could read and talk, unlike the current, also unelected moron. And Betty is cool.

SADDAM SWINGS
Like a pendulum do. And I don't give a rat's how barbaric it is, he was more so and he got exactly what he deserved.

RIP JAMES BROWN
That's "rip", not "R.I.P." The man was a drug abuser and a wife beater, and I never could see any particular musical talent amid the sweat and posing. All he did was screech and preen and posture. I can get that from Al Sharpton any day of the week. Including the sweat.

HILLARACK-O-RAMA
The spirit quails at the thought of the countdown to Election 2008. On the one hand, I don't think Senator Clinton can win, but she certainly has foreign and domestic experience. (Domestic in all senses of the word.) We in NY think she 's a darn good senator, but we're not sure she doesn't have too much baggage. Especially the kind named Bill. (Of whom I'm very fond, btw, but Flyover Country is probably not so much enamored.)
On the other, Senator Obama is cool, but he's a lit-tle too full of himself already, which cannot bode well for the future. Hey, kid, don't buy into your own hype. It will only turn and bite you on the butt.
I foresee a long, grim slog through the Valley of Meanness.

YOU SAY PATAKI, I SAY POTAHTO
And we all say buh-bye, not to mention Good Riddance!, to a tiresome colorless twit of a governor. And all hail new NY State Gov. Elliot Spitzer, from whom we expect much. I don't actually ask for much, and certainly not for myself, not anymore, but the removal from the books of the draconian Rockefeller drug laws would be nice.

METS-A MEZZA
Come on, lads! You came so close last year. This year, all the way! [/same old stuff for the past 21, is it?, years]

TAKE OUT THE TRASH, PLEEEEEEEZ
BritneyLindsayParis. And their little dogs too. And for God's sake and our own, will somebody please buy those girls sandwiches and underwear?

ARRRRT IT BE NOT!
But it sure was fun. Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man's Chest. Johnny Depp should be declared a National Treasure. And, like, Captain Jack is SO not dead...I love that not one person of the millions who watched this actually ever for a nanosecond thought he was.

CAN'T BUY HIM LOVE
The disgraceful behavior of Sir Paulie McCartney toward his wife Heather. Karma's a bitch, man: you marry a younger-than-your-daughter, blond, one-legged starfucker ten minutes after you bury your hero wife (paraphrasing something I read somewhere, but da truth for all that), that's what you get.That's why Paulie was always my least favorite Beatle. In the words of his pal George: Beware of Maya!
On the other hand, I knew Linda Eastman, and you, Heather Mills, are no Linda Eastman. There is wrong on both sides. Out and out. Red card.

NOT-SO-ROCKIN' NEW YEAR'S EVE
I shouldn't be surprised, but I was, when I heard that Dick Clark had a hard time finding entertainers for the big NYE show because so many "entertainers" these days can't perform live. They're all puppets, what with taped tracks and lip synching and studio tricks. Nobody plays anymore, nobody sings anymore...it's pathetic. And, I think, criminal.

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE...ER, TALENT
On a related note, one of the Sunday magazine supplements had an article about the music of 2006, and talked about "The Beatles: LOVE", the new reworking by the Martins, lamenting, and I quote:

"If you really stopped to think about how vastly the Fabs' body of work outshines anything being created today, you'd cry."

And I did, and I do...

Music today sucks, bites and spits it out. And it's not just the Beatles that the alleged "artists" of today haven't a prayer of matching but the Stones and the Doors and the Airplane and Cream and all the rest. NOBODY, not even Pearl Jam, can measure up. So just roll over, youngsters, and accept.


There, I'm bored now. But not for long!

Best to y'all for 2007.

My Favorite Martians! Uh, Wormhole Travellers!

Love these guys...

You scored as SG-1 (Stargate). You are versatile and diverse in your thinking. You have an open mind to that which seems highly unlikely and accept it with a bit of humor. Now if only aliens would stop trying to take over your body. SG-1 (Stargate) 100% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 94% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 81% Moya (Farscape) 81% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 75% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 75% Serenity (Firefly) 75% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 69% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 63% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 56% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 50% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 50% Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com