| recent comments mjp said: You seem to know a lot about "the Chandler kid." Maybe too much. Is he tied... ~ Much to the relief of adolescent boys everywhere... mjp said: I see the retard division of the Minutemen is checking in. Welcome special... ~ Life is just a bowl of chickpeas you should read your news said: the chandler kid said he lied about his accusations of MJ abusing him..read... ~ Much to the relief of adolescent boys everywhere... if you like everything foreign said: go live overseas....you are racist to Americans ~ Life is just a bowl of chickpeas Mikey said: There were 2 michael jacksons - the real one that died after thriller and the... ~ Much to the relief of adolescent boys everywhere... Sonny said: Hi Brett- I'm glad the video reached you and its nice to hear your memories... ~ death wants more death gerard said: Very well put, but your new title needs to be shorter. When is BET going to... ~ Much to the relief of adolescent boys everywhere... shane jones said: wouldn't feed him to my worms.thought he died years ago anyway. kill your... ~ Much to the relief of adolescent boys everywhere... previous ramblings I got better things on the other side of town 5.21.09 Complacency is not an option 4.9.09 Good artists borrow, great artists... 3.24.09 Who colt the game? 3.1.09 Speak 1.28.09 Life is just a bowl of chickpeas 1.22.09 Well, I'll be damned 1.20.09 I took a ride with the pretty music 1.15.09 The brutal reality of a life spent doing your own thing 1.5.09 Holiday questions to warm your heart and tickle your beautiful soul 12.29.08 Move aside and let the man go through 12.26.08 Some people call me the space rabbit 12.19.08 My baby, she wrote me a letter 11.30.08 Everyone's a critic 11.28.08 If I were a carpenter 11.16.08 Who is Grandma Clementine Reynolds, and why should you care? 11.16.08 Soon we'll find out who is the real revolutionary 11.10.08 Ready for his closeup 11.4.08 It's food for thought, mobsters! 10.29.08 What you lookin' at city slicker?! 10.13.08 Throwing some heat 10.10.08 He was an old man in a young girl's world 9.27.08 Moded again! 9.20.08 The answer my friend, is blowing a lobbyist out back... 8.29.08 Moded, (moated?), burned and jerked 8.9.08 A confederacy of dunce 7.14.08 I'm like a stepping razor, don't you watch my size, I'm dangerous 7.7.08 H.L. Mencken and the American dream 7.7.08 Satan has a new concubine, and I couldn't be happier! 7.4.08 Harry Potter, I'm coming to kick your ass! 6.6.08 The Land of the Lost, minus the Sleestacks 6.3.08 Hey, Bo Diddley! 6.2.08 This is not a test 5.29.08 Fly me to the moon, then blow that shit up! 3.4.08 I can see for miles, but it's kind of blurry up ahead 2.18.08 Simple is as simple does 1.31.08 I feel the earthworms under my feet 1.22.08 New boots and panties 1.19.08 I haven't given up, I've just stopped trying 12.25.07 I don't pray. Kneeling bags my nylons. 12.20.07 So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night 9.19.07 Grab the closet case by the horns 8.11.07 Blogged down in the forum of my youth 5.23.07 Hotter than July 5.16.07 26 Miles Across the Deep Blue Sea 5.11.07 A rose by any other name, still doesn't smell so good 4.6.07 Children of a lesser dog from hell 2.22.07 Squid lights 1.9.07 Cats and dogs 12.19.06 Mission accomplished! 11.22.06 ©1995-2009 mjp | Much to the relief of adolescent boys everywhere... Thursday, June 25th 2009, 6:02pmMichael Jackson has dropped dead. I did learn something from Jackson - no, not how to moonwalk - but rather this very important lesson: if you call yourself something, everyone will eventually quote it as fact. In Jackson's case, it was the laughable and grandiose "King of Pop" title. One day his management started telling journalists to refer to him that way, and they did. Now in news stories of his death you read things like, "Known as the King of Pop..." Brilliant. Thanks for that tip, MJ. In my case I have asked journalists to refer to me as "The Pope Of The Earth And All That Is Beyond The Earth." No journalists have written about me since I made that proclamation, but if they ever do, I fully expect that you'll become quite familiar with my new status as Pope of everything. Once that is in place we'll be able to get rid of the other pope. He'll be inconsequential. I mean, more inconsequential. This was great: ![]() Well yeah man, people were crying because you assholes blocked off the emergency room doors and their broken bones and knife wounds were really starting to hurt. But they had to hang around in the parking lot bleeding out because Jackson is so fucking important, even in death, that everyone has to clear the fucking way to cater to his marvelous ass. How sad and idiotic. Bundle the looney child-molesting cunt into a burlap bag and bury him in the dump.
I got better things on the other side of town Thursday, May 21st 2009, 6:13pmSony Music, Warner, EMI, Columbia Pictures, et al continue their assault on the Pirate Bay in particular and file sharing in general with a short-sightedness that is awe inspiring. They are obviously confused and frightened, clinging to their 20th century model of thievery and exploitation while the world shifts beneath their feet. I know they can't see the changes because they are too busy looking to the sky for the falling pennies, but you would think that they could feel it. There's an interesting story in Clay Shirkey's book Here Comes Everybody where he talks about scribes - the monks whose tedious copying work used to be the sole method for duplicating books. When the printing press and movable type came along, the scribes were made obsolete practically overnight. Yet one of the monks was (understandably) anti-printing press and wrote a book called In Defense of the Scribe, arguing that scribes were still important and relevant. And how did he publish that book? With movable type printing, of course! The big entertainment conglomerates are not as clever as that 15th century scribe. Like the monk, they arguing that they are still important and relevant, but they are failing to do so in a clever and subversive way, making use of the new and inevitable technology. So the scribe has them beat there. Every human being over the age of seven can clearly see how horribly wrong and clueless these companies are, so for them to be arguing that they are still relevant is kind of a public joke that everyone but them seems to be in on. And thank your respective gods that they are no longer relevant, because they are no more than elaborate rackets created to make a few people rich off the work of a creative underclass. Seeing them scramble for their last few millions, squeezing it from ridiculous targets like Pirate Bay or the parents of the kid down the street who was caught running Kazaa or BitTorrent is like watching rats drown in a rapidly flooding river. There's no satisfaction in it, but when they're all dead, you realize that you are happy that the pests are gone, and life will be better without them. What are we moving toward? Anarchy? The death of quality entertainment? No, we are moving toward a world where tens of thousands of artists can make a living selling their work rather than fattening the wallets of a few hundred wet corporate rats - or worse yet, stockholders - acting as unnecessary gatekeepers and middlemen. The entertainment industry as we knew it only hampered creativity. It did not cull the best of the best or weed out the crap so that you could safely listen to any record or watch any movie secure in the knowledge it would meet a certain standard of quality. It did quite the opposite. It pandered to the lowest common denominator to milk the maximum profit from the captive audience consumer. Look around, big time recording artists are all just lifeless rehashes of something or someone from the past. And movies - has there been an original idea in a major movie in the past 20 years? What number was behind the title of the last movie you saw at the multiplex? Some people like to weep and wail that breaking down the barriers to publishing books, music or films is resulting in a tidal wave of mediocrity and amateurism. Well, that's true. I've probably weeped and wailed the same thing myself at some point. But how is that any different from the mediocrity that we suffer at the hands of the conglomerates? The only difference is the conglomerates are highly paid filters that seem to filter out quality, rather than let it through.In the early punk days we used to shout that the world was changing and the old guard had better pull their socks up and prepare for big trouble. Well, we didn't really have anything to base that threat on, but now we do. Everyone can see it, and everyone embraces it. With the exception of the parasites who are terrified at the thought of losing their hosts. So long, suckers.
Complacency is not an option Thursday, April 9th 2009, 8:04pm ![]() "Yeah, I know we're supposed to be...I know the human race is supposed to get down on its knees in front of all this new technology and kiss the microchip's circuits. It don't impress me all that much. When there ain't nothing but "You make! You buy! You die!" That's the motto of America! You get born to buy it! And I'll tell you, those people out in East L. A., they ain't gonna stay there forever. And if there's anything going to be in the future, it's gotta be from all parts of everything, not just one white way down the middle of the road! So everybody out there grow up - FOR FUCK'S SAKE!" - Joe Strummer, from the stage of Steve Wozniak's US festival, Memorial Day weekend, 1983.
Good artists borrow, great artists... Tuesday, March 24th 2009, 2:19pmOkay, I may have to steal this idea.
Who colt the game? Sunday, March 1st 2009, 2:52amI love the music of Bob Marley and the Wailers. A lot of people do. But the reggae music of the mid to late 1970's actually changed my life, as it knocked me off the musical axis I was spinning on and shot me into an entirely new direction (and 2000 miles across the country). But yes, everyone loves Marley. Soul rebel, natural mystic. Lately I have been listening to the Wailers music from a period that I had previously neglected, the late 1960's/early 1970's - pre-Island records. There are literally hundreds of tracks recorded during this period, and many songs that became well known later in the Wailers career were first recorded during this time. A couple of compilations try to catch every track, but both fail, so you end up buying more than 20 CDs on three different compilation series to get all the known recordings from the 1967 - 1972 period. Even if you take away the duplicated tracks, it's a shitload of music. ![]() A little clarification here: I use "The Wailers" to mean all the versions of the group that Bob Marley recorded and toured with. In the early days, from 1964 through 1973 or so, the Wailers were Bob, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer. After the first two Island albums, Catch a Fire and Burnin', Tosh and Bunny left, and Bob continued on with a rotating cast of musicians. Some people consider the Wailers to have ended when Peter and Bunny split, though Bob continued to use the name. For me, if Bob was on stage or in the studio, it was the Wailers. And he felt the same way. But despite the cast of literally hundreds of musicians that played on Wailers tracks, two people were almost always on stage and in the studio with Bob, and they were Aston "Family Man" Barrett (bass) and Carlton "Carly" Barrett (drums), the Wailers rhythm section. In the summer of 1969 the Wailers had been recording and performing for five years, and while they had success in Jamaica, they were in a bit of a creative slump. The Barrett brothers were self taught musicians who, through hard work and innate talent, became the top session players in Jamaica. They played on hundreds of records and had a successful performing band called the Hippy Boys. At the time, the Barretts were riding a much higher wave than the Wailers, making more money and enjoying more fame. But through a series of fortuitous events, the Barretts and the Wailers joined forces that summer, and Family man, Carly and Bob would be the constants in the Wailers lineup right up to Bob's death in 1981. I say all this to let you know that the Bob Marley music that you know was shaped, and in many cases created, by the Barrett brothers. Bob Marley was a marginal musician at best. A great songwriter, yes, but he didn't even know how to play the guitar when the Wailers formed, not until Tosh taught him a few simple chords. Later Family man would teach him a little more on the guitar, but it was generally known and accepted that Marley was the songwriter and Fams was the musical architect. He is the person most responsible for the Bob Marley and the Wailers sound, both in the studio and live.It is not an exaggeration to suggest that without Family man, Bob Marley may not have become BOB MARLEY. Now the Wailers didn't start making a lot of money until 1978 or so, and all of their band business was conducted and based on verbal agreements. There was a lot of legal bullshit involved from the time they signed with Island up until (and well after) Marley's death, but the group always had the same arrangement, half the money went to Bob, and the other half went to Fams, who split half of what Bob paid with his brother, and used the remaining 25% to pay the rest of the musicians. Consequently, during Marley's life his band was always very well paid. Unfortunately for Family man though, he never secured any contracts with Island or with Bob (not that Bob would have ever entered into a contract with a band member anyway - he generally distrusted that kind of paperwork and preferred to operate on trust and Rastafarian ideals of justice and equality). So to Fams' mind he was being paid royalties all those years, but in fact, he received writing credit on only a few songs, and was basically being paid as a hired musician.That would have been fine for most of the other Wailers, but not for Fams. Not for the man who created the sound that Marley rode to worldwide fame. He should have been officially and contractually cut in on the Island and other deals, but he never was. Part of that is his fault (all of those guys were notorious for not reading legal papers that were sent to them and consequently they never signed many things that needed to be signed), part of it is Bob's fault at the time, but in the long run, all the ugly bullshit that happened after his death is directly Bob's fault, because he neglected to write a will. Marley was not tight with a dollar, as his arrangement with his band shows. He cared very little about money, and only valued it for its effectiveness in helping advance the message of Rastafari. In fact, he gave away staggering sums of cash. Once he began to make serious amounts of money, every Friday was "pay day," and struggling people from all over Jamaica would line up at his house on Hope road and tell him why they needed some cash - leaky roof, hungry belly, toothache, kids need shoes - you name it. Marley's accountant during the last years of his life said that Bob gave away nearly a quarter of a million dollars a month in relatively small amounts to anyone who needed it or asked for it. So it would seem obvious that he never intended to screw Fams out of any money he had coming to him, but that's exactly what happened. Long story short, the Marley "estate" is worth over half a billion dollars today, and every last one of the surviving Wailers is virtually broke. What does this say about the Marley family in general, or Rita (who was the original estate executor) in particular? What does it say about the Marley family that not one hospital or school has been built in Jamaica with a minuscule crumb of that half a billion dollars?Bob would be really fucking furious if he could see what his legacy has been reduced to today. The destitute musicians. The endless repackaging of the same couple of dozen songs. The tsunami of trinkets and worthless bullshit. Rita and the kids have tacked Bob's name onto every item known to man that can be sold for cold, hard cash. This was not Bob's mission. This was not his vision. And Family man's story is just one ugly, horrible, aching, infuriating part of the whole disgrace.
Speak Wednesday, January 28th 2009, 8:23pmI got sick at the beginning of the year and a nasty infection decided to set up a permanent home in my chest. It is improving somewhat now, but only after two rounds (!) of Azithromycin. I don't usually take antibiotics, and I sure as hell don't go to the doctor for a cold, but this has been something else entirely. I think it comes from outer space. So I was open to taking whatever any doctor wanted to shove in front of me. One weird side effect of this thing has been laryngitis. For three weeks now I have been unable to talk normally, barely able to speak at all outside of an unrecognizable croak. I have been whispering for about a week and half in an attempt to "rest" my voice, but now I read that whispering is worse than trying to talk. But when I do try to talk it just comes out like a dump truck full of gravel, and within a couple of minutes I have a headache. So it seems that I'm screwed whichever way I turn. Losing your voice is an odd thing. It sounds so trivial. But like a lot of trivial things, if it goes on long enough, it starts to consume you and drive you insane. You don't realize how much you use your voice, and how isolated you are when you don't have it. I am not what you would call a chatty guy, but I am realizing now how much I really do speak over the course of a normal day, and how negatively it affects me at work and at home. I have had to put off a lot of things at work that I had planned to do at the beginning of the year in order to knock them off my long to-do (a.k.a. procrastination) list. But I can't do most of them. I can't return calls, do any training, place any orders, participate in meetings. And at home I just lay on the couch under a blanket and watch truTV ("Not reality, actuality!"). Since I have been whispering Carol has been whispering too, which is charming, but neither of us hears half the things the other says. People are coming in this weekend from out of town who I have never met and would like to sit down with, but If all I can do is croak and gasp at them, I don't know how groovy that would be. Another thing that has been surprising is how many times a day I open my mouth to sing. I am not a wonderful singer, I had to come to grips with that brutal reality a long time ago. My voice is exceptionally unremarkable. But that doesn't stop me, apparently, from singing all the time. I am beginning to realize what an annoying fucker I must be. I mean, I knew I was annoying, but I may have to rethink some things around here. So, no more whispering, the antibiotics are finished...now what? How long can this go on? These are my problems. I suppose if you lost your job, car, house or apartment you would happily trade places with me. I understand. But here I am, so all I can do is moan about my problems. We'll talk about yours next time. Maybe.
Life is just a bowl of chickpeas Thursday, January 22nd 2009, 2:07amA new Fresh & Easy market recently opened a few blocks from the house. That is unexciting news unless you're old and weird, as I appear to be. So it was great news to me, especially since the other nearby markets are in crowded areas at least a mile away, and feature everyday high (and seemingly higher by the week) prices. But as fun and interesting as it is to talk about grocery shopping, it isn't really why I'm here today. I am here to show you my naan label. I picked up the naan at Fresh & Easy (see how I tie it all together? Now that's high quality writing, kids!) and as I was enjoying a big hunk of it covered in hummus, I noticed the logo on the bag: Good Life HANDMADE! TANDOORI NAAN with a little graphic of what is presumably a woman, wearing a veil. I'm not sure what to make of that. What the implication is. That it's a good life to wear a veil, stop going to school when you're eight years old, never drive a car or show your face in public, never look a man in the eyes, always walk a few paces behind them? Yeah boy, the good life of a traditional Arab woman! Woo! No wonder they get excited about HANDMADE! flat bread in a bag. At least they didn't have to make it themselves over an open fire. Now before you go off all cocked and bothered, yes, I know that a lot of Arab women live normal, modern lives. I had a Lebanese girlfriend 20 years ago (although her family had to come to America when the Lebanese civil war broke out in 1975 in order to maintain a normal, modern life). She advised me that when I was in Tunisia I should try to get to Libya somehow and shake Muammar Gaddafi's hand because he was a great man, and that the PLO were really okay guys and intifada was a good thing. In other words, she was Arab down to the marrow. But her picture isn't on the bread bag. A veiled woman is. A veiled woman living the good life! But what do I know. Maybe freedom is overrated.
Well, I'll be damned Tuesday, January 20th 2009, 11:35amDid Obama just include "nonbelievers" in his list of religious beliefs that made up America? I was listening to his inaugural address in the car, and I'm not sure I heard that right. That has to be a first. Let's ask Google. Yep, there it is: "For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers." I have to admit that I am shocked by that. Pleasantly shocked, and still skeptical.
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