 The newest Modest Mouse (Good News For People Who Love Bad News) is incredible - I love the morose, indulgent self-depreciating introspection of Modest Mouse - it helps me feel so less lonely :-) OMFG - I love this band... "Evil Home Stereo, what good songs do you know?" Holy fucking shit holy fucking shit holy fucking shit - I'm gonna buy this CD.
You know, fuck the RIAA - I've bought more music because of "pirating" than ever - the record company has to be sued to even feel like paying their artist - and even then they pay less than the contract due to "settlements" - those fucking bastards... :-) Fuck'em - keep on downloading and buy what's worth it.
Current Mood: Loving It Current Music: Modest Mouse - Bukowski |
Kendall CLARK over at
has written a great article that addresses some of the subject matter going on at the SouthernFried Yahoo group
Just to quote one poster to the email group:
"When you free yourself, you enslave others; while others are freeing themselves, they enslave you. But that's just a little philosophy I picked up from Satre." and "Less minority card sporting. Everyone's got a history, ain't no one's more tragic or harrowing than someone else's- it's just history. Let's focus on the present."
I love it (sarcasm alert) when white folks say shit like this and then follow with, "I'm not a racist."
Anyway, a tasty nugget from Kendall's article:
Poor and working class whites object to the idea of white privilege, pointing out that not every white person is wealthy or powerful. But other benefits accrue to white people, including one which W.E.B. DuBois called the "psychological wages of whiteness". Membership in the privileged group, even for whites on the bottom economic rung, confers a social status and recognition which is denied to all but the most powerful members of oppressed groups.
Even today, as Glen Loury suggests in his recent book, The Anatomy of Racial Inequality, African Americans suffer from a racial social stigma unknown to even the poorest white Americans, who share in many of the privileges of being white, no matter their economic disadvantage.
Current Mood:  frustrated w/ my people Current Music: NPR All Things Considered (preceeded by Modest Mouse: Good News For People Who Like Bad News) |
Man, I love their Java Shake - it's a milk shake thing - it's got ice cream and espresso and magic Java ingredients of some sorts... it's a funky little place - clean and well lit too. Almost always has good music playing. Couches and bar stools and tables - seating for almost every mood. But now I'm bored - that seems to happen more often these days - me getting bored - bye bye Java, the shake was tasty - I wish you had wireless Internet access...
Ahhh - wait - I'm here still, I'm trying to figure out how to pirate some high speed Internet - Java is in a cozy urban mix-zoned neighborhood - mostly hipsters, artist, musicians film makers (Cooper - Young, home of the MeDiA Co-op) et cetera. The Media Co-op is half a small block away. They have DSL and they would share with Java if someone would do the WiFi range extension.
I'm thinking a couple of weather-proof extenders and a cheap router for the coffee house. Maybe. I don't know - I'm not experienced in so many things, especially the extension of wireless networks. Any 133t 633ks got any tips?
Current Mood: full&interested in conversations Current Music: some Jazz shit... |
| » Did US Agents Kill Nick Berg? |
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Interesting reading today at LJ - ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) radioactiveart says the following in the comments section of his blog entry "Article re Nick Berg":
As far as I can follow it, Berg lent his laptop to Moussaoui when they were both at the University of OK. Somehow, ZM used it to send e-mails, then kept Berg's username and password. It was on the hard drive of ZM's laptop. The FBI questioned Berg in early 2002 about it.
Ashcroft, at a news conference the Friday after Berg's assassination, said that the FBI determined that it was all just a coincidence, and after all, it was common for students to borrow each others' laptops.
Yup.
So you've got a guy with known connections to a probable 9/11 suspect, also connected to the Republican party (he did work on the 2000 convention), apparently loose for no reason in a war zone, being held maybe by the FBI, maybe by the Iraqis for two weeks, released and then publicly executed.
Yup.
May. 21st, 2004 @ 03:19 pm
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| » Professional Hug-giving Therapist |
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I've built french drains, resisted the tyranny of freedom fries, dug pools, worked with welders, had a summer career in construction, flipped burgers and tossed tacos for parasitic franchise monoliths, worked as a picture framer for a man named Flavis, landscaped until I hated the smell of lawnmowers and weed whackers, waited tables and washed dishes at an Appalachia pizza joint, waited tables during ALL hours of the day all over TN, Slaved as a stocker at Wal-mart, designed restaurant menus and menu boards, failed a client in a food photo shoot, built intranets for FedEx and companies bought up by FedEx, provided tech support for estate lawyers whom I'll never have the luxury to afford, made charity work of supposed paid work for deadbeat clients, consulted for Time Warner station Turner South on a poetry series in Memphis, pan-handled, loafed, leeched MP3s and DIVX files, organized rallies, festivals and psychotropic micro-gatherings.
I want to take a piss in a stall I can barely fit into on a train in Canada. I want to teach English for a year in China and not worry about money. I want to write better, perform better on stage, learn how to memorize and be on time. I want to learn how to always say the right thing to make the world a better place. I want to go back to college and get a degree in everything. My mind is like a child in a candy store - it even eats dog food - I read the fine print on toilet paper packaging. I've never smoked tobacco - never, not once in my life. I have smoked a daisy stem - and it was a retarded move on my part. I've never been able to eat enough nutmeg to do anything to myself except make me sick. Hip Hop continues to be one of the most inventive popular musical forms of my time. Somedays I wanna learn how to rap but I don't want to be a cultural colonialist.
Even though I hate it, I hate it I hate it, I am trying to teach myself how to be a novice computer programmer. I've done some very basic PERL, hacked out some useful regular expressions and faked my way through some PHP - I've also done the "Hello World" exercises in RUBY and PYTHON. If the world only existed in shades of gray, I'd be a dope ass graphic designer - I'm better with layout - and spatial relationships - I can't really draw. I'm a generalist with an obsession for detail. I get lost in the minutia of my surroundings. Right now I see a toaster oven with years of bread crumbs and carbonized cheese. My gaming friends mock me because my computer is so old. I like Howard Zinn better than Chomsky because I think Zinn would be cooler to drink beer with.
I misunderestimate the power of myself. I've wondered if I could go to jail for working as a professional hug-giving therapist - I've decided that it'd all be okay as long as I didn't provide a naked hug service. So many people refer to me as a "teddy bear" - I figure I got something going for me - maybe this is the profession I've been looking for. Easy money that comes with talent. Would I charge by the hour or by the hug? I dunno. I'd be a man-whore for the ladies but I'd never make enough to pay the rent - or even get drunk for the day - that and Sara would break off all my limbs, one by one, until I had nothing to work with. True, it's a primitive form of love, but it works for her...
I am drifting inside this little form field - my PHP/mySQL application is dicked up - the form validation logic keeps telling me I need to enter a user name even though I am... Screw it. I'm gonna post this on my live journal.
May. 21st, 2004 @ 11:54 am
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| » Been dicking around around again |
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I am so behind on my list of things to do. One person so far from the Atlanta OI has been hired by a Union. Others are almost finished with their 2 week field training. Gotta get my new hire pack in the mail back to the placement office.
Holy fuck - thank you notes for the My South Speaks poets, a shower, gotta do the laundry (I hate wearing the once-purple bonus pack underwear now bleached and lavender/pinkish spotted - who the hell wears discolored purple boxer briefs UNLESS the laundry needs to be done.) - yesterday I spent the day validating and troubleshooting code at http://southernfried.org - AND writing diatribes to the SoFried listserv - making a complete ass of myself - the up side is that maybe the email group will notice how me and the others involved have worked through the issues with complicated emotive back and forth - the idea being that conflict is ok, and can actually be fertilizer for quality, functional relationships, even relationships of acquaintance. Here's to hoping... I am such a rude ass and I don't even realize it until later - ffs does anyone else deal with this? Blaming it on ADD feels empty - even though I can clearly see the ADD connection - fuck it - whatever - I live, I learn, I fuck up and do it again...
I smell like a turd on wheels - In Memphis, it is getting as hot and wet as Satan's asshole spewing liquid shits into the furnace of hell... omg - that's gross... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh - complete freak out time... 4:05 pm CDT. I am so fucking fuck fucking doomed...
May. 20th, 2004 @ 04:09 pm
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| » My South Speaks is a wrap |
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So, the show is a wrap - it has been amazing. Turner South has come to our community with tons of respect. Due to a night of amazing poetry, they expanded the prize cache - instead of a single grand prize of $500 - Turner South decided to also award 2nd and 3rd place. Because of a two-way tie for 2nd, two poets got $300.
It was interesting to have to wear make-up. We performed to the cameras with MOST of the crowd behind us. J'malo and I emceed with script cards. Matt's and my after party kinda flopped due to no flyers handed out - a few people showed up including Kirk and Jerri Hardesty.
More later... right now on the roof garden of the Lofts - cold chilling with 9 crackers drinking beer.
May. 16th, 2004 @ 11:45 pm
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| » Possessed by an impulse to Fvck Shit Up |
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This post is a head's full of ramblings. Please don't expect any polish or coherence of thought... I want to be a better writer than what is seen of me in this post...
Doing some early morning web surfing - couldn't sleep - thinking about this Turner South event I've been working on, just got my AFL-CIO new hire packet (almost fucking giddy about it) - thinking about the power house of talent and beauty present at Java Cabana in the ol' Cooper-Young neighborhood... I'm tired but not sleepy - my mind zooming. I jump from thinking about things I could have done better as an Emcee - about whether all the "wow Thom, great night" and "you were awesome man..." kind of comments were just typical social greasing small talk or whatever - which is lame of me to question because in a way I am not trusting the speakers of the positive feedback to be honest with me - which is not cool. So I force myself to believe that it doesn't matter if I did well or not - people gave me positive feedback in generosity and goodwill (duh... obviously LOL) and that it is face value conversation and whatever social greasing involved is not my concern but the personal concern of each and every communicating human I interact with...
to thinking about what this or that person looked like sounded like smelled like...
Ok - so like, this is the kind of tangential shit that goes through my head while I'm laying in bed. That and a whole lot of other shit I can't put into words - at least not on a 2D surface - think about a bowl of Alphabets breakfast cereal, but with whole thoughts instead of just letters ... all strung together dumped into a big bowl with milk poured over them - there you go... my brain without Adderall or high stimulus activities...seriously, chaos in my environment brings clarity and focus to my mind. Quite room, serene environment, forget it - this is a mental noise I hope most people don't have to deal with. But then, you know, maybe everyone has a never ending carnival of unrelated thoughts (or, actually, hyper-related by long long stretches of the imagination - in this carnival of thoughts, i connect things that are seemingly unconnected - so unconnected that if I try to verbalize the connection in public, people look at me as if I'm retarded - the association between two things is so far sometimes, I can barely navigate the distance in conversation...) raging through their head in some gonzo-styled self-reference... I dunno - maybe I am just being narcissistic and/or abusing the functionality of parentheticals...
While I'm "on the floor" - working the room during a show, my mind quiets. I thank people for coming out, for performing, for supporting home grown entertainment and culture. I try to introduce people to people. I am able avoid becoming to enamored by whatever beauty is standing before me, whether it is a sharp mind, a potty mouth, a tongue of wicked wit, a conversational riot, an exposed belly - I try to take stock of the room along lines of race, gender class - noticing individual style, both group and individual body language and other non-verbals
I am searching for the "vibe" - I do it analytically and intuitively, adjusting my humor a little here a little there, feeling out my pacing, trying to be dynamic without being fractured or scattered, just wanting to avoid monotony... I think about potential snares I might encounter and calculate solutions just in case. I take comfort and motivation in knowing that my efforts are contributing to a night of enjoyment for others.
I step back, listen to all the big talk, the craziness and exuberances large and small shared between two or three to 5 people at a table. Yes, I fucking ease drop - maybe in some ways the audience is what I've come to see - because when a poet isn't on the stage, s/he is just another member of the audience, like me and everyone else not at the mike. I like to listen - sometimes I ramble on...
My goal, my focus, is to entertain and transition between poets, to keep the show moving, on schedule but loose, free but directed. I never know how I've done - I feel it out, hope my instincts are on, apply some theory I've cobbled together. I work it, I work it - but still, sometimes I forget to plug people's shows, I forget to thank our sponsors I forget people's names - sometimes I forget what to say next so I wing it - I free fall and I try to do so in a way that no one knows if I am just the goofy emcee or if I've just fucked up - and I try to recover with grace and style (albeit, an awkward grace and an idiosyncratic style)
When the show is a wrap, part of me says, "damn Thom, good show - you hit all the main points, didn't make too big of a fool of yourself and people seemed to have a good time" - and another part of me (the bigger part of me) says, "so what, some people laughed, no one looked bored so I guess you weren't a complete failure - but you missed that punchline - you forgot to mention so-and-so's main claim to fame - you didn't remind people how good the tofu egg-rolls are here - you fucked up your timing - et cetera..."
People give positive or negative feedback to me and I thank them for being generous, I honestly reply that I'm never sure if I've done well or not, I only know that I love it when shows generate the kind of excitement that the show tonight did.
After a show, I want everyone to come home with me and cold kick it in an imaginary den perfectly designed for entertaining a racus crowd of bohemillectuals. But instead, people filter out and away, one by one or two by two or even 3 by 5 or whatever - (I feel like a lumber salesman.)
So, uhhh, like, how does this all relate to the Subject of the post, the title? It doesn't. What can I say? Here is the clip from the Billboard Liberation Front that prompted the subject:
http://www.billboardliberation.com/faux.html
Another favorite tactic in this daynage is politely concealed behind the mock academic initials FSU.
I'm sure there is a state or private university out there going by those suggestive 3 letters. If I am an FSU alum, however, it is under a more profane cred....what I take to be an engine of creativity, and the restless spirit of mischief, which in Native American culture is represented by the coyote, in Norse mythology the god Loki. In puppet theatre, he might be the Harlequin, possessed by an impulse to Fuck Shit UP, or FSU.
Obviously we have no Prufrockian hesitation about disturbing the universe, or we wouldn't be here. What I'm saying is we all have it, just as innately we require food, sleep, and sex. In order to succeed, we need to feel effective as human beings, something the shrinks have been on to for the last century.
That means taking an active role in shaping the world in which we live. Socialization is supposed to round off the roughest of edges, or we would not be able to get along with each other. Public space should include areas in which the public can truly express itself, rather than just running around the hamster wheel of commerce at the mall.
May. 14th, 2004 @ 05:54 am
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| » The mighty windbags |
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A young writer for Rupert Murdoch's neoconservative Weekly Standard named Matt Labash -- ... right-wing journalism at The American Spectator -- was probably laughing, too, when he was interviewed by Columbia Journalism Review partner Web site JournalismJobs.com. The interviewer asked, "Why have conservative media outlets like The Weekly Standard and FOX News Channel become more popular in recent years?" In his answer, Labash conceded that conservatives reject in their own media the standards of fairness, accuracy, and unbiased coverage that they demand from the "liberal media." -- former rightwing journalist propagandist turned whistle blower, David Brock, author of the book, Blinded by the Right
I read this at Salon.com in an article "The mighty windbags". It is nice to read a conservative ideologue admit, even brag, about this subversion of democracy. Matt Labash essentially gloats about how easy it is to deceive the public. I find that kind disrespect and cynicism towards common people to be fucking disgusting.
May. 12th, 2004 @ 04:57 pm
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| » Google Bombing the White House |
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From the bowels of my instant messaging client, today:
[05-10-2004, 14:28]
sixsigma113: hey
th0MdaB0M: what's up
sixsigma113: go to Google and search on miserable failure
th0MdaB0M: does my name show up?
sixsigma113: ha no even better
th0MdaB0M: O my fucking GOD
sixsigma113: thought you might like that
th0MdaB0M: LMAO OMG LOL LMFAO LMGDMFAO
May. 10th, 2004 @ 02:58 pm
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| » Standing On the Corner / Suitcase in my hand... |
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FFS - My MemphisPoetry Domains are Down - Must be time to rock the Velvet Underground!
My domain registration service is normally awesome - I don't know what happened. It is irritating though. If their past service holds fast, they will help me get it all fixed. Until then, I'll just be a cranky little geek.
Don't tell my obnoxious Mac friends 8P - but I just installed iTunes (for PC) and it kicks my ass. I'm ripping my Velvet Underground Loaded cd - "it was a l l right... ohhh baby!"
and now I'm rocking myself in to sweet sweet nothin... good morning y'all - good night.
May. 10th, 2004 @ 11:42 am
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| » Worm Food |
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============================
| A Few Bad Apples: |
| Bush Cheney Rumsfeld |
============================
May. 7th, 2004 @ 09:15 am
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| » Live at LJ |
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I've known about LJ for yrs now - only laziness and trouble kept me
from trying it - but I'm live now. It is 5:50 am. My throat hurts. My
eyes are heavy. My To Do list is longer than -- than Haliburton's profit sheets.
I'm so tired, I could be dreaming. I can hear "I need that J'Lo booty banging in the back -
Let me squeeze it. Let me squeeze it..." My second floor apartment is on
the corner of a nice neighborhood street that crosses a 4 lane. There
is a middle school right across the street. It is lively. I like being
a city dweller. And believe it or not, sometimes I like thumping bass
rattling my windows even at almost 6 am. I got a lot of booty - not sure if it qualifies as J'lo quality - maybe if I shave it.
For all the criticism I could level at 3-6 Mafia lyrics and how women
factor into their songs (make no mistake - their lyrics are horrible), there is something about their beats and their
flow - maybe it is Memphis ghetto - but I'm too tired right now to
fight those banging bass tags and those crazy ass - almost comical - lyrics...
and talk about hooks - they hooking me right now and the
early-in-the-a.m. drive-by DJ has motored on to another location out of
my earshot - and still, that hook be hooking me - I'm gonna lock
my stereo onto the all new Hot 107.1 "Is the bomb baby!" and wake up my
neighbors. It don't matter - somebody has done already used up all the
hot water. I heard a dishwasher shaking its thang downstairs not just 5
minutes ago. I'm gonna get me a shot of JD before I go to bed. A little
something to ease those dreams into the gullet of my gray matter.
My South? This shit is so complicated - motherfucker - Jr. Kimbrough
won't a shaman with a guitar - he was a motherfucking quantum
mathematician computing Beauty's material weight in relationship to the
stench of human depravity - he was reworking Einstein and Hawking -
shit - all life from DNA? - DNA - shit - that's just an alternate tuning, baby.
I saw a website that criticized Bush like this:
"All hat and no cattle"
Oooooh doggy - that's down right nasty. And I ain't even from Texas
May. 7th, 2004 @ 05:47 am
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