Goings and Comings

Man, I must say that I love eBay for the opportunities to pick up cool things that I'm interested in. However, to browse the site and see the number of U2 tickets for triple, quintuple, even ten times the amount of face value is a crime and a tragedy. To see scalping agencies from all over the country posting "Great seats - only five hundred bucks - behind the stage!" crap makes me angry. I understand that not everyone can see their "favorite" band, but in such cut-throat, predatory circumstances such as these, many won't be able to. Adam Smith's "invisible hand of self-interest" surely is the blatantly visible hand of pure selfishness.

Oh well, on another note, rumblings about Bruce's new album abound on Backstreets.com. A possible release date of April or May, with a schedule of dates from theaters to sheds to arenas? Already?!!! My wife doesn't need to hear this! Rumors make it out to be an E Street Band retirement party for and by the members. "Tom Joad-ish" is mentioned a lot, which can't be bad at all, and dates with and without members seems interesting but fun. I CAN'T WAIT!!!! It sounds bad, and I know that we all have our principles, but for live Bruce, I'd be willing to break all (legal) rules and see him as many times as my wife will allow me before calling a lawyer or cop.

Let's raise our glasses and drink to the chimes of freedom ringing in Iraq, regardless of whether or not this test (legitimate or not) actually takes. For no one's sake, especially President Bush, but for the people of the country in which we've destroyed, I hope that this is a first step towards a better life. Here's to lobbyists, apathetic voters, political infighting and a loser from Baghdad University becoming the nation's next president!

Start Saving Your Pennies

Because U2 is going on tour. While the college students and budget-minded people will easily plunk down the $49.50 plus $345,234,234,564,000 in ticketmaster surcharges for general admission seats (which is fantastic), seats on the first level are going from $95 to $171 across the nation. That's a heck of a lot of money for four men who don't need it. I understand that if Styx can charge and actually get $60 a head, bands with actual legs will charge more. I just remember the first time I saw U2, which was for $17.50 plus a whopping three dollars for surcharges. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to try like crazy to go, but I sure could pay an entire week and a half of child care for a single entrance price to see the boys from Dublin, who'll probably release a live dvd of the tour.

Watched Woody Allen's Shadow's and Fog last night. A bit messy, with absolutely too much going on in the storyline and too many unresolved character issues. The most redeeming quality of the film was its nod of the hat to genres of movie past - German expressionism (I felt like Nosferatu the Vampire would spring out any minute), the Universal Studio monster movies from the 1930s, European cinema with a little Claude Raines thrown in. The half of the movie focused on Allen's whiny character was worthless but the wounded and fragile Mia Farrow character was worth pursuing further. I liked how Farrow visited a whorehouse needing a place to stay and ended up turning a trick for $700 with a young college student who instantly fell in lust with her. The underlying message of random feelings and the timing of life made for a poignant scene but unfortunately, the Farrow character would eventually have to meet up with the Allen character. As many reviewers have written, however, A disappointing Woody Allen film is still better than ninety percent of everything else that's out there.

Raise your glasses and drink to the Democrats standing up against the assumed confirmation of Condi "Fabricated Evidence" Rice. However, pack your bags and run for the hills if the rumor of Antonin Scalia replacing William Renquist as the Court's Chief Justice rings true. At least it's not Clarence Thomas. Thinking about it, if Bush, who has already named Rice, does name Thomas, wouldn't be totally ironic when he begins pushing for the dismantling of affirmative action?

Please visit my friend Lefty Brown's web page to see if you agree with his Oscar nods. For those of you who are irate for The Passion of the Christ not being nominated for any of the top awards, consider this: characters aside, a two-hour bloodbath without character or plot development a good film doesn't make. Why did Jesus HAVE to die? Why did Jesus pursue God's will for him? Isn't the most important message of Jesus' death his rising from the dead to prove God's power? Where does that happen in the movie? A guy in white with holes in his hands is not the proof that an almighty divine power desires to spread the message of love, compassion, and selflessness. The movie fails because Mel Gibson fails to portray the beauty of Jesus' return and mission to help those who need it, not because he cleaned up after a good whooping.

Spongebob, Social Roles, and a Ticking Clock

James Dobson, who is, of course, probably always quoted out of context to the point that no context exists, is out to get a topless sexless member of the plant kingdom due to his hatred of '70s disco and the idea of tolerance. Focus On the Family and other "conservative" (I love the label "conservative"; attempting to save society in order to return it to the past, with the Klan, glass ceilings, McCarthyism, Stalin's Purges, Prohibition, and the Inquisition) evangelical groups are targeting Spongebob Squarepants for supposedly peddling a "pro-homosexual" lifestyle. What does it mean to be "pro-homosexual"? There's no such thing as a pro-homosexual lifestyle; people either are homo- or heterosexual or a variance in between, but no one lives a lifestyle in order to promote it or to evangelize to others, unless they're a member of James Dobson's group. I don't live my life and happily love my wife because I'm promoting a white leftist heterosexual middle-class thirty-something suburban lifestyle; I just live my life. What I really think is that Spongebob is promoting is the pro-YELLOW lifestyle. What this little aquatic plant is really trying to do is force us all to not only understand, merely not tolerate, but open our hearts and fully accept everything that is yellow: cheese, cowards, the moon, certain fungi, the sun and half-clothed animated kitchen cleaning products that on one side are happy but on the other are sometimes abrasive, rough, and often times a bit steely.

My wife and I (there I go again, pushing the "pro-heterosexual lifestyle - do I earn my Red-State membership now?) watched both versions of "The Stepford Wives" this weekend. The original 1975 campy romp was a perfect piece of social commentary aimed at exposing the emptiness and truly humanless existence of women living as slaves to their husbands. I'm not quite sure why NOW members missed the message; men built robots because their wives wouldn't treat them as masters and therefore only the "perfect" wife is one who has been programmed to behave the way she does. Satisfied in bed, happy in servile positions; women as housewives had no other options than being exterminated or else they would have wished to be treated like the humans that they are. A bit camp, a bit biting metaphor; we all have relatives who at least spent a weekend in Stepford or at least looked at the brochure. Times have changed, and in ways, for the better.
We immediately popped the 2004 Frank Oz version with Nicole Kidman and Matthew Broderick. This was an absolute trainwreck of a film; characters that were extreme caricatures of social stereotypes that were obnoxious, self-centered narcissistic tools that expressed the slightest displeasure whenever things didn't go their way: the bitchy career-driven reality-t.v. producer, the flaming queer with an eye for fashion, the frumpy slob of a "free-spirit" who is different strictly because she's short and quirky. The cookie cutouts continue and yet the movie is more of a reflection of reality t.v. than a commentary on real life. I've never, NEVER walked out of a movie, but I turned this one off less than a half-hour into it. What a waste of time to watch a film with characters that deserved everything bad that happened to them. Nicole Kidman needed only her husband to threaten a divorce and suddenly she saw the light, realized she hadn't loved her husband and promised to do all she could to keep him happy by keeping up their upper-class elitist lifestyle? Mr. Oz (who is one of the greatest muppeteers but one of the most inconsistent film directors out there), your movie itself speaks more about contemporary society than the slipshod message you attempt to convey. Shame on you for even releasing it, unless you were hoping for a cult-status male fantasy dvd-rental phenomenon solely based on the Barbie-perfect empty-headed bimbo myths you perpetuated. Go back and do some more Fozzie Bear. You're good at that.

God bless Sy Hersch and his article in the New Yorker. Only with the publication of his story has the White House denied its contents, espoused the virtue of its failed war in Iraq, threatened Iran with possible military strikes, and then all veiled this week in a smokescreen of "freedom" and "liberty." Misters Bush and Cheney, you have six days to ratchet up your efforts to even guarentee the slightest amount of those two ideals in the nation you've both destroyed. Georgie, you're focused on your legacy? It's staring at you in the face: hubris often topples leaders of great nations. You had the opportunity to capitalize (a word you only know the first definition of) on a situation that could catapult you to historical herodom and have instead given historians (who, by the way are not your enemies just because they ask questions, raise concerns, and arrive at damning analysis of your actions and policies) all the evidence they need to find you one of the most blind, ideological failures in the history of the presidency. Newsweek is comparing you to the Calvanistic Woodrow Wilson; I'm equating you to the myopic Andrew Johnson. See you in a week.

Calm Before the Storm

For the last two days I have enjoyed listening to Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committe rail on National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice over her role in the Iraq War. This morning's panel hearing, lasting less than an hour, was music to my ears as Barbara Boxer and Joe Biden (while ultimately splitting their votes) castigated Rice, and essentially, the Bush Administration, for her poor efforts in the initial al Qaeda attacks and the subsequent Iraq quagmire. Listening to two Democrats admonishing an executive official like they held the power to do so was not only a comeuppance to the Bushies but also a noise that I have been waiting to hear for four years. While John Kerry voted with Boxer in opposing Rice's nomination, he was silent in most of her hearings. Understandably, he kept quiet as to not appear the sore loser in presidential race, yet the Democrats had the opportunity to take the Bushies to task and many chose to sit idle. Praises to Biden and Boxer to finally speak what a growing number of Americans feel (not by my intuition but a number of Gallup polls) that George Bush has failed in Iraq. To hear Senator Boxer in more words than none call the NSA CondoLIEzza Rice was brilliant; a woman with a Ph.D. in international government relations, most of her adult life in leadership roles both in the private sector and the federal government did one of two things regarding the evidence the Bush Administration used in promoting its war with Iraq: she showed a clear amount of ineptitude in deciphering poor intelligence or she pushed a fabrication of evidence. For a person of her caliber to demonstrate sheer cluelessness is not convincing, even to the most avid Bush supporter; Rice's acceptance of evidence even as shady as the Niger yellowcake line smells like the 21st Century Gulf of Tonkin and yet the American public bought it hook, line, and sinker. We deserve this mess in Iraq because the majority of voters wanted Bush. The Pottery Barn motto is now coming back to haunt us greatly.
Tomorrow, George Bush will take the oath of office in the fifty-fifth inauguration ceremony of this country's history. He will begin his second four-year term pushing for the eradication of Social Security, a furtherance of the privatization of the responsibilities of the federal government, and the claim of striking success with Iraq's national election though the greatest insurgence of violence in the last two years is upon us. God help us if we as the U.S. of A. wish to remain not only the world's dominant superpower but also the beacon and model of hope for the world as this president will do all he can to wipe out all means of strength, hope, and success this country still clings to.
God bless Seymour Hersch for reporting in this week's New Yorker about the clandestine military efforts in Iran. Iran has been the greatest problem in the Middle East yet the Bushies fouled up Iraq so bad that most public support has now been lost. Had Bush successfully toppled the Hussein regime and installed a democratic, free nation, the overthrow of the mullahs in neighboring Iran would have not only widespread support but also a fighting chance. The Bush Administration claims that Sy Hersch's story is total bunk. We should look into this man's journalitic past to expose the lies and fabrications he has printed: My Lai, Iran-contra, Iraq, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib. Yep, this guy's lying. Look at his record; he hasn't been right yet.
May these States that are not United find the courage to stand up for the true tenets of the modern American ideal - a people, working for individual improvement but participating in aiding the opportunity of all, striving to spread democracy, liberal ideas and free markets, who wish to see themselves free and safe as well as their children and the children of all nations, guiding a nation that serves as a benevolent leader with a clear vision and hope for the future.

Lie-Mart

Cnn.com announced today that Walmart is pumping a huge campaign to improve its image, one tarnished by charges of sexual harassment and bleeding the system dry. I'd like to see how Walmart, the world's largest retail establishment, can do or want to do anything altruistic, seeing that for its forty-plus year history, the chain has done nothing to contribute to either the communities where stores are located or for the majority of its employees. Reports from this summer have shown how Walmart is a drain to the system - employees aren't allowed to organize (you're welcome for the cheap prices), they don't have access to health care, female employees have a history of hitting a glass ceiling in promotion and pay, and the entire retail chain pays such low wages that many of their full-time employees require local welfare benefits in the cities which they live. Most people aren't even aware that by frequenting Walmart, they feed the monster- prices keep getting slashed customers are happy local communities are hit with a huge ugly store that pays its workers next to nothing who need public assistance which causes local county and state taxes to increase making most Californians who want everything but refuse to pay for it pissed off at those who are the ones who bag their purchases and stock their shelves and take their complaints and stack their carts and deal with their screaming kids revolt against the government which teaches their kids and paves their roads angry to pass initiatives special interest disguised as democracy system collapse MOLOCH! MOLOCH! MOLOCH! where have you gone Allen Ginsberg a nation holds its lonely eyes to you
If you care, if you're vaguely concerned, if this truly ruffles your feathers, please boycott Sam Walton's economy-killing woman-oppressing community-gauging monstrosity called Walmart and vote with your dollars for other establishments that treat their workers with dignity and respect.

The Sky Is Falling, Or How To Create A Problem

How is it that conservative anti-tax groups and the Bush Administration, which hasn't gotten shit right since it started four years ago, are the only two groups to have a monopoly on the idea that Social Security needs to be ended as we know it because it's going to collapse? How many other industrialized nations, world leaders in education, technology, commerce, and economics have begun to dismantle social services because their programs aren't working? How is it that George Bush is touting education reform and further testing in order to end mediocrity in education when the guy himself bragged about being a C+ student in college? I had a better GPA and higher test scores and yet I barely got into the UC that I graduated from, and I actually feel like I busted my hump and that I am good in my field. I actually knew more than five leaders of foreign nations before Bush started his presidency and yet he knows how to run my job? How about we take the Governator's plan to pay government employees on merit pay versus tenure? Damn, I love this idea; however, let's apply it to the legislative branch and to members of the Bush White House. Let's see, Donald Rumsfeld would owe back wages; Bush would be unemployed, Condi Rice would need to take out a loan; Tom DeLay would have declared bankruptcy (but sharked the lending agency money to spend); how much longer should I rant? Damnit, I get sick and tired of politicians who seem to be the number one example of ineptitude and compromise telling the rest of the nation how to screw up their own lines of work. I will be the first to state that government and education both need to be reformed. Having George Bush and Arnold Swarzenneger tell me how it will be done is a travesty. I'm glad the political heroes and role models are dead as to not see how Rome is going to dismantle itself in the name of self-interest and private accounting. Last time I checked, the Enron scandal erupted based on lack of accounting. George Bush's alcoholic first forty years were due to a lack of accounting, and those nineteen terrorists that slammed our own shit in our face were due to a serious lack of accounting. I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore. I agree with Ted Kennedy, who today stated that the Democratic Party needed to return to its roots and not become clones (i.e. "bitches") of the Republican Party. It's a sad state of affairs (nothing against Teddy, who's got probably one of the most liberal records in Senate history) that a septugenarian who has never been mainstream or "one of us" due to his silver-spoon upbringing and Camelot-connectedness, is reminding the largest political party in the history of the nation, that its roots lie in supporting the populace, labor, the working poor, the average American, small businesses, those who can't fend for themselves, those who fear oppressive government, progressives, liberal-minded free-thinking-theocracy-fearing lower case "d" democrats who love this country and what it stands for? Let's hop on the Teddy bus (as long as he's not driving) and let's steer it where we want it to go. People get ready. You don't need no ticket, you just get on board.

The First Week

Well, we made it into the first week without blowing up; Elvis turned 70 and celebrated at the FBI; more disaster relief is pouring in (though most of it seems to be from other countries than the U.S. - see Australia give $815? For a country of only 30 million, that sure trumps our per capita $1.18; the U.S. Senate has no problem lining the Executive Branch with masochists and war criminals; and Nancy Pelosi is now a political pariah for actually doing what Al Gore and John Kerry failed to. On the home front, it's been a fantastic week - my little boy is growing by leaps and bounds and is moving along quite nicely in the developmental aspect of things. He's turning over, grabbing his feet, grabbing other objects from you and placing them in his mouth, he's holding his bottle when he feeds and he's now learned to operate the t.v. remote. While my wife and I are so proud of him in his development (yes, he's ahead in certain areas, which we all knew he would be as he's preternaturally accellerated) he's also just the joy of my life. Tickle wars, cartoon character voices, the Joyful Noise dance (Chris and Steve, you know this one) bring absolute delight to the little guy and pure amazement and peace to me. We're already considering our little man's little brother or sister, which is a bit overwhelming since we're just starting with this one.

Got a raise at work! Fantastic, a three percent cost of living raise, which in my district is a nice raise. However, my health care out-of-pocket nearly doubled so with my raise, I'm bringing in two hundred dollars a month less. Figures.

Saw some interesting movies of late - "Saved!", which is a tongue-in-cheek light poke at contemporary Christian life among teens who are trying to figure their lives out while thinking they have everyone else's down, and "Closer." This is a disturbing, cold, and very detached film. Well directed, written and acted (though the New Yorker is ripping Julia Roberts to pieces), the movie's premise and plot development keep me, ironically, as far away from any of the characters as I'd ever like to be. What I watch is not a twisted web of deceit, anguished love, and sex used to patch up glaring holes in relationships but four people who I would never wish to associate myself with. The four main characters are so jaded, dejected, morose and afflicted with so many character flaws that the film, mercifully in one hour forty minutes flashes through the love quadrangle and leaves us with these people even more disturbing and disturbed than we find them. Nathalie Portman, who is truly drop-dead gorgeous, is pure gild - beautiful on the outside (and there's much 'outside' seen in this film - not just a Star Wars character anymore!) yet rotten and faithless on the inside. Jude Law plays a man willing to love but not trust who ends up getting burned by both Portman and Julia Roberts who plays a photographer willing to wreck any happy relationship that may come her way, and Clive Owen plays the man that knows just how to twist the knife in your back as he kisses your cheek. Maybe I'm no more looking for the type of raw drama that pulls back the scab to expose the wound underneath, but "Closer", while flawless in its execution, surely left me cold.

Picked up the Simon and Garfunkel "Old Friends" cd/dvd package and this set has brought back the wonderful memories of their concert tour and will serve as a nice way to bring the duo back regardless of their friendship status over the years. Also picked up a two-cd set of music from the movies of Woody Allen. These forty-two songs show that music is actually a character in each of Allen's films and one that plays a vital role. The latest tune being from 1949, the music gives me a real education in war-era swing and big-band jazz. I've really taken to the music and have delved into the swing genre over the last two or three years as my flair for jazz has grown. Listening to music from Allen's "Radio "Days" brings me into the 1930s, a time which I'll never truly know but think I do when I put that music on.