Friday, October 31, 2008

Trickster? Or Treat?



Julian Cope - Live on the Radio (1985)
Julian Cope - Live on the Radio (1991) Part 1
Julian Cope - Live on the Radio (1991) Part 2
Julian Cope - Live on the Radio (1991) Part 3
Julian Cope - Live on the Radio (1992-94)
Julian Cope - Live on the Radio (1995)
Julian Cope - Live on the Radio (1996) Part 1
Julian Cope - Live on the Radio (1996) Part 2
Julian Cope - Live on the Radio (1996) Part 3

You lucky bastards. I've been working on this all week and only just got it all done and uploaded this morning. I hope you appreciate it, you ungrateful swine!

I'm just kidding. Maybe. I've been wanting to post this stuff since day one, but organizing it was a bit of a chore and I'm a lazy sod, so you've had to wait. Nothing here is on Julian's Floored Genius Vol. 2 - which you should immediately buy if you don't have it already. I do have enough unused tracks from the same sessions used on FG2 to fill a whole CD. If you send me lots of love and kisses, maybe I'll edit them together for you crazy kids.

Have a safe and happy one. As I do every night, regardless of the season or holiday, I will be sitting on my porch tonight, throwing candy and razorblades at the children. Candy razorblades, naturally. Don't the kids just love 'em!

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Now playing: Julian Cope - The Great Dominions
via FoxyTunes

Storm the Reality Studios!



We are at War.

Not in Iraq. Though we are. Not in Afghanistan. Though we are. Hopefully not in Iran or Syria or Pakistan in the final few days before this fateful election. Though we might be.

We are at War for Reality.

On one side (or one of the sides?) we have the last eight years of misrule as represented by the Bush Administration.

On another side we have a continuation of and possibly even an expansion of this misrule as represented by John McCain.

On the third side we have a new (or is it an old?) revisioning of American politics as represented by Barack Obama.

Why do I say this is a Reality War? Why isn't it just another Presidential election cycle? Because we're talking about our Commonly Perceived Reality or CPR. (Pretty nifty how suitable that acronym is given the deflated state of the economy and our political spirit, eh?) Because the three sides of this imaginary coin each represent a different version of reality that we can either accept or reject, that we can submit to or battle against.

When you vote next Tuesday, if you haven't already, you are casting a vote as a shaman may cast a spell. Your intent is to change reality.

Our current CPR is a bleak, fearful, distrustful and discouraging one. Do not believe that this is an accident of time and space, that it is the sole result of accident at all. The engineers of our current CPR spent years planning and maneuvering to achieve the type of control over our perceptions that they now have. The public records and history of Cheney and Rove and friends make this very clear, though pundits and historians will only talk of this as politics and policy. It is neither.

It is piracy. Their stated goal was a "permanent Republican majority." Translate this as "permanent reality control" and you now understand. Like others before them who imagined permanent control, who dreamed of Thousand Year Reich’s, the Republicans hoped to have perpetual control of our reality via the Presidency, the Congress, the Courts and certain parts of the media. Bush had planned war and using the side effects of war to cement power and change our CPR before he entered office. The events of September 11, 2001 were, without meaning to trivialize them, only a fortunate catalyst for his plans. The terrorists gave Bush a powerful wedge on that day with which he could shift reality. And Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield and Rove took full advantage of it.

The result is the America we live in today. It is not the America of ten years ago, not that the CPR of the Clinton years was a perfect one, regardless of the nostalgia so many Democrats feel for it. There probably is no perfect CPR. We are too diverse a nation to create perfection.

But we can strive for perfection. This has always been part of the American CPR, the idea that we can be better than we are. Our nation would not exist without this central tenet. In retrospect, we may endowed our past efforts with this idea, but we could never have risen up against and overthrown a king without this belief. We are the children of the Enlightenment. Progress and perfection are inherent in our founding, in our idea of reality.

This has been lost to us in the current CPR. We have been blinded to the idea that we can work for the betterment of all. Fear and ignorance - willful and imposed - have worked to rob us of this basic American ideal. The enrichment of a few at the expense of the many, using manufactured fears and political weapons of control, has been a dominant theme of this CPR.

It's time for that to end. It's time for the people to go to war with reality. With a flip of the coin, we can reveal a new face for the future. Our votes are power and with them we will perform a tremendous feat of magic on November 4, 2008. We will change reality.

What we do with it after that is up to us.

Vote Obama!

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Now playing: Steve Hillage - Saucer Surfing
via FoxyTunes

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

North to Alaska, Comrades!



In case ya hadn't heard, Sarah Palin is the Governor of the most socialist, spread-the-wealth state in the Union!

Every damn individual in Alaska gets thousands of dollars handed over to them every year - totally tax-free and without any condition except citizenship - as a government stipend from oil revenues. This year, Governor Palin increased the refund by $1200 per person! And she claims that Alaskans somehow actually own the land of their own state, not the oil companies and other corporations - silly girl! - so that the people of Alaska "share in the wealth" when their resources are plundered. What a Commie!

That, my friends, is a socialist welfare state if ever I heard of one. It's the biggest dole in the nation. Nothin' but a handout to keep the proles happy. I'm surprised they don't have free satellite TV - with every ESPN channel! - for every citizen.

No wonder she likes being so close to Russia. Probably misses the good old days. Spends hours staring out her million-dollar windows at the Promised Land, sighing, wishing for a man like Joseph Stalin again.

Thanks to JedL at Daily Kos for jumpstarting this brainfart for me.
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Now playing: Roger Miller - The Promised Land
via FoxyTunes

Monday, October 27, 2008

A "Baa" In the Night



It's very simple really. It all came clear to me this morning as I drank my Obam-Aid (TM) Orange Style Simulated Breakfast Drink with Extra HOPE! Also, I was online looking at pictures of the hundreds of thousands of smiling, hopeful people that have been turning out to hear Obama in just the last few days, in Coloradaoand Missouri and everywhere else he goes in the country.

We just want a future. And Obama is the first candidate since JFK and FDR before him that says we can have a future. Not just a continuation of past policies, a reinforcing of the status quo, but an honest-to-Jeebus future for ourselves and our children. He's not promising that it will be easy, either. He's not talking down to us. He's said repeatedly that it will be a struggle and that we will have to work together for this future. I don't mind. I'm ready to work. I think I've been waiting all my life for this chance, for this kind of job.

And I like that. I like being asked to take responsibility and do some work. I don't want another old man talking down to me and telling me that if I give him my sacred vote he'll take care of me, just trust him, don't worry about the details, everything will be okay, close your eyes, go back to sleep, sleep, sleep my little sheep..........

Don't be a sleepy sheep. Wake up and "Baa!"

Vote O-Baaaaa!!!-ma!

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Now playing: DAVE KUSWORTH - The Story So Far
via FoxyTunes

Saturday, October 25, 2008

A Party Divided...Let's Hope



Sarah Palin doesn't seem to like being in the No. Two position. And John McCain just plain doesn't seem to like her. And the party seems bent on self destruction, so...I'm guessing here...but I think that after Obama wins on November 4th, we may see the Republican party split itself in two. Does that immediately make you think of the Meat Puppets? Yeah, me too.

On one side, the older and more conservative side of the Party. What I call the "reasonably sane" Republicans, if still not to be completely trusted. They'll get to keep the franchise name and dumb animal trademark.

On the other - nutjobs. Cranks. Crackpots. Crazies. Wingnuts. Loonies. Freaks. And Sarah Palin. I'm bettin' they have the word "American" in their party name. To differentiate themselves from all us un-Americans.

Hmm. I can't make up my mind if this is a good or a bad idea. What do you think?

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Now playing: Jimi Hendrix - Wild Thing
via FoxyTunes

Bartleby the Voter



In America, we should be able to say "Fuck You" to power. I'm pretty sure that's in the Constitution. In fact, I'm positive. It's called "The First Amendment." And fuck you right now if you're gonna say it's not in the Constitution, it's in the Bill of Rights. I know that. Everyone who took middle school civics knows that. But the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are complimentary documents, like some kind of crazy political geometry theorem. Pretty much one and the same in the American heart now.

The most powerful "Fuck You" every American has at his or her disposal is our vote. Our Sacred Privilege. Our Finger on the Button. Or Our Middle Finger in the Air.

Don't be a Bartleby. Don't say "I'd prefer not to." That's un-American.

Instead, on Election Day, proudly stand up and say, in your loudest voice, as proudly and patriotically as you can:

"Fuck You!"

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Now playing: Neil Young - Pardon My Heart
via FoxyTunes

Friday, October 24, 2008

My Glass Jaw Just Dropped. Anyone Got Glue?


Cognitive dissonance. Remember these two words while you watch this video.




This is the best question asked of any candidate this entire, overly long, incredibly stressful political season. It needs to be asked repeatedly of Palin and McCain, of Obama and Biden too. I want all of their answers on record.

If there is any way you are still clinging to McCain-Palin, still thinking that they can do a better job than Obama, unless you are a bomb-making doctor-killing foetus-loving domestic terrorist yourself, these few seconds of video should change your mind.

I won't elaborate any further, just push you over to this much better piece on Daily Kos.

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Now playing: MC5 - Poison
via FoxyTunes

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Get Out of the Bathroom




Obama's gonna visit his sick Grandma for a day or two. He's a good kid. While he's gone, watch this clip from his speech in Virginia yesterday.

If you are an "undecided voter," if you still don't know who you're voting for, if you are in some way still waffling after watching this, the exit is to your left. Or right. Depending on your political perspective.

Vote Obama!

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Now playing: Oil Tasters - Get Out Of The Bathroom
via FoxyTunes

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

You Want Fries With That?



A very cranky old man was on MSNBC this morning. No, it wasn't McCain. It was Lawrence Eagleburger, Bush the First's Secretary of State. Golly, but he had some tough words for that whippersnapper Obama!

I think Morning Joe Moron, after getting thoroughly beat down by Zbigniew Brzezinski yesterday (who, btw, is not one of my favorite people in the world regardless of his association with President Carter - the man was a scary freakin' hawk who would've been better off with Reagan), wanted a soft-ball player to make him feel better this morning and back up his favorite meme about Obama having no experience. (If you haven't watched it yet, check out ZB eloquently and politely crushing Joe's skull in his aged fingers. It's a good thing.)

But Secretary Hamburgler couldn't have been a worse choice. Besides calling Obama "Governor," he both played the "inexperience" card and then refuted the argument when it was asked of him that, technically, didn't Jimmy Carter have more foreign policy experience than Reagan during the 1980 campaign? Hamburgler almost choked on his milkshake at this point, spluttering about how that doesn't matter, that's irrelevant, by gum! - because Carter's experience didn't count! Experience, to paraphrase this senior Republican moment, only counts when you agree with the candidate's policies!

Oh, to the Hamburgler's credit, when Pat Buchanan tried very hard to get him to say that the Powell endorsement was all about race, the old man wouldn't take the bait. He quite resolutely and politely put that racist cracker bull down where it belongs by refusing to speak to it.

All in all, though, it was a textbook example of IOKIYAR. They finally pulled the plug on the guy and went to commercial so that Joe could clean his soiled parts in private. I think Mika B. was laughing by the end of it. She seems to be getting a charge out of yanking Joe's sad chain lately. I bet she's voting for Obama! I was laughing so hard I almost spilled my coffee.

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Now playing: Neil Young - The Last Trip To Tulsa
via FoxyTunes

Our Founding Fathers, Eighth in a Series



Captain Beefheart - Live at the Radar Station (1980) Part 1
Captain Beefheart - Live at the Radar Station (1980) Part 2

The wonderful world of bootleg recordings is full of highly obsessive people. Thankfully, one of them obsesses highly about the Good Cap'n, Don Van Vliet. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to tell ya'all that this is a live compilation bootleg from different venues and different years, supposedly recorded in the late '70s and early '80s. Though the oldest recording date is 1980, according to the info I was given about it. The information on bootlegs is often highly contraindicatoryful, if ya know what I mean.

(Funny thing I noticed on the home page of the Beefheart obsessatorium, that there's a link to an early interview of the Captain by Rick McGrath, who is another obsessive personality - J. G. Ballard is his thing. I've traded extensively with Rick over the years; got an incredible Fahey recording from Madison in 1984 from Rick that I haven't figured out how to share with you yet. Rick wanted some of my 1960s back issues of New Worlds. But he ain't ever gonna get 'em. Hey, I offered scans! I may be a jerk, but not a total ass. I'm just kinda obsessive myself is all. Anyway, the point is that it's a small, shiny world, kids.)

Personally, the Captain and I met when I bought the rerelease of Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) in the late 80s. Fact, I think I bought it from Ed when he was working at Rose Records. Hey, Ed - do you remember this? You were very excited. Can I say bouncy, even? Previously, I had stared in wonder, horror, awe and cosmic trepidation for several years at a battered LP copy of Trout Mask Replica behind the glass of the counter at Penny Lane Records (I think this was the name of the store) prior to this.

Buy the Captain's shit!

APOLOGIES: 'Tis fixed now, but I forgot to put the download link in when I posted this. That'll teach me to not get enough sleep - stupid monkey!

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Now playing: The Byrds - 5D (Fifth Dimension) {mono}
via FoxyTunes


Monday, October 20, 2008

Funny Pictures = Serious Message




I really like this. The animation is easy on the eye, with a multi-decade retro style going on, and the filmmaker presents the information in a graphically memorable way. That's not easy.

Vote Obama!

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Now playing: Mumps - Dance Tunes for the Underdogs
via FoxyTunes

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Weird Reasons to Vote for Obama #9



Women you do not know will smile at you.

Do you want pretty women to smile at you? Are you an even vaguely heterosexual guy between the ages of 25-to-Death, losing your hair, seriously worried about what you still affectionately call your "love handles" for some stupid reason, and think it's totally awesome if strange when a woman you don't know smiles at you for some unknown reason?

Then fret no longer, my friends, because I have the answer to the last of your pathetic problems if not the previous ones:

Get an "Obama" button.

Seriously. Women you do not know and will never see again will smile at you in public, regardless of how balding or fat or ugly or stupid you look. I'm pretty much all of these things and "It" has happened to me. More than once in the last week.

Why, I've been wondering, are women smiling at me in public? That's unnatural, that's weird, that just don't happen to the 'monkey. It honestly scares the 'monkey. The 'monkey prefers not to be noticed by man, woman, child, dog, cat (maybe not cat) and insect when in public. He don't like it. It bothers him.

Today, I realized why. When a woman at the chain-store-box-hardware-place-thing smiled at me, making me very uncomfortable and causing me to wonder where I knew her from though I obviously didn't know her and thus freakin' me out even more - AND DOING IT AFTER LOOKING AT THE MIDDLE OF MY CHEST WHERE MY MANBOOBS ARE!!! - I got it. It's the damn "Obama" button!

It ain't me they're smilin' at - it's that goddamn Obama! Christ on a stick, but that's an ego-deflater if ever there was. Just his name in writing on a small circular piece of pressed metal stuck to a windbreaker is more exciting and interesting and cool than I am in the flesh. Damn, but this confirms every suspicion about my place in the Universe that I've ever had.

Sometimes fat, bearded, bespectacled, balding, stupid, liberal white men just can't get a break. No wonder Powell endorsed Obama - he did it for the chicks! Screw you, Pat Buchanan/George Wills/Rush Limbaugh - race ain't got nothin' to do with it.

I hope My Smart Wife gets that this is a joke.

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Now playing: Gunslingers - Gigolo Albinos
via FoxyTunes

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Hey, Joe!



Joe McCarthy's ghost is haunting John McCain's campaign a lot these days, chortling with glee, shaking the red-hot chains of Hell wrapped around his bloated throat, egging McCain and Palin and their demonic surrogates and racist supporters on and on an on to greater heights of lunacy and depravity in their almost demonic obsession to keep control of the White House in the hands of the Republican Party and keep a black man out of it.

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Now playing: Roky Erickson - Stand For The Fire Demon
via FoxyTunes

Friday, October 17, 2008

An Invitation



I've been cross-posting some of my bits here on Daily Kos lately. Just a couple. Today the 'Kos got one first. If you want to read it, you gotta go over there. Don't be a lazy sod - just do it!

And check out how we're changing, kids, how the paradigm is flipping out. It's a weird world, eh?

I'm looking for more tunes for next week. Any requests?

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Now playing: Throbbing Gristle - Weapon Training
via FoxyTunes

Oh, How We Danced All Night



The Mummydogs - Live at the Press Club, Sacramento, CA (1/7/00)

Have you been without your "Guy Kyser's Scary Voice Fix" for too long? Then jones no longer, my friends, because here are...The Mummydogs!

You guys really like Thin White Rope, from the evidence in the Download Vault, so here's the only show I have by his more recent band, The Mummydogs. Yeah, huzzah, hurrah, yippee!

As far as I know, only one album out by this band, on good ol' Frontier Records. Remember Frontier? They were one of my faves long ago. Even put out a Madison band, E*I*E*I*O and I wish I had something live to share by them, because good as they were on their albums they were much, much better live. Great band for dancing and drinking. I took my little sister - when she was still in high school, I think - to see them at the long gone Turner Hall and she couldn't believe her big brother could dance like he was dancing, and for hours. She was the one that had to take a break.

If you don't know them, the Turners were and still are a kind of German-American institution dedicated to "Sound Minds and Sound Bodies" or some suchlike Germanic scary thing that would later turn nice young blonde boys into perfect cannon fodder for Hitler. Anyway, they built these big buildings with a gymnasium and a stage (and usually a bar in the basement, naturally) that were perfect for punk rock shows in the 80s. Saw the Minutemen and Hüsker Dü and The Replacements and Naked Raygun and tons of other shows at Turner. I remember watching Bob and Greg drag a completely wasted Grant Hart from this little room at the front of the building all the way through the crowd to get him onstage. One of them was on either side of Grant with an arm hitched under his pits, Grant's feet behind them dragging on the ground, head almost hitting the floor. He played amazingly once he was propped up behind his kit, for the first half of the show. He was nodding off big-time by the end, barely able to keep a beat. Wonder what was in his tea that night?

The old Turner Hall building was downtown, just blocks from the Capitol building and in a great location to bring weirdos together - something the City didn't really like happening. It was bought by the State or the City, I can't remember which, back in 1991 or '92 and then torn down. The Turners built a new building somewhere, I've heard, but I've never been there. Probably used for a lot of weddings now, I bet.

I didn't say much about The Mummydogs, did I? Just download and listen and enjoy your weekend. Grab that Neil Young show, too, if you haven't - it's a lot of fun! Have big guitars in your head all of the time, that's my advice - it's the best way to stay sane.

Buy the 'dog's shit!

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Now playing: Gate - Spirit
via FoxyTunes

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Insert Caption Here




A moment of levity is called for after the last of the 2008 Presidential debates, as we find out that the Secret Service is derelict in its duty toward Barack Obama and openly partisan in its actions, as we endure more racist bullshit from the people McCain so brazenly defended last night, as Obergruppenführer Sarah continues her mad rampages into Bizarro World, intent on destroying the last vestiges of dignity still clinging to the Republican standard.

If you can think of any captions to make this already insanely funny picture even funnier, leave them in the Comments, please.

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Now playing: The Dream Syndicate - Weathered And Torn
via FoxyTunes

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

A Loss for Words (Or, If It Quacks Like a Duck)



The conservative right intellectual set is flailing as wildly in the waters as McCain-Palin. Somebody pulled the plug, the waters are swirling and the drain is fast approaching!

First, Christopher Buckley - one of those Buckleys - endorsed Obama. In right and conservative circles, this is a Judas moment of epic proportions. I love it. It tickles me inside, gives me a kind of pink and green glow that I'll cherish for days.

Then, in an act of contrition to the editors of the The National Review, which Buckley's father started, he offers his resignation. They grab it like free french fries at a fat farm! (I used five F's in that last sentence. I've never done that before.)

And now they've come up with a new meme to slander Obama, based on first-year college lit-crit level analysis: Obama didn't write his own books. Bill Ayers did.

Wow. As an idjit who can read "Rape!" into a Cindy McCain campaign statement, even I'm flabbergasted. Perhaps in awe. Certainly my pink and green humors are all a-quiver.

If you have the stomach for it, read it. But it's a vaguely constructed argument full of obvious bias against both authors, aligning coincidences as facts and jumping rather willy-nilly from idea to idea, from technique to technique. The best - using "best" sarcastically, of course - is how the author compares books by Ayers and Obama to a book about boxing that he himself wrote. The logic in use is something like this: "My book was a memoir about boxing and can be used as a standard for what all memoirs are and should be." The gag-factor is very high here.

I do have a favorite part, though, lest, gentle reader, you think me naught but a partisan hack set upon destruction only. I particularly love the notion, only hinted at because the timeline is so loosely constructed it can't hold up to intense scrutiny, that Obama and Ayers met in early 1995 and somehow, within weeks, struck up a relationship so close that Ayers ended up writing Obama's first book. And managed to get it written in weeks, too, in order to meet the publishing timeline given! Dang, these guys are supermen!

If you're unfamiliar with publishing, the above notion won't rankle you as it does me. Allow me to explain why you should be pissed that this hack of an intellectual wants you to buy this gold-covered crap.

In the last ten years, I've worked on several books with different authors, proofreading and also sorting out the kind of confusion that results when a dozen articles from as many years get smashed into one book - making a mess of footnotes and references. My Smart Wife has indexed a number of books too, having to pay careful attention to schedules. I have friends that are small press publishers and have heard their tales of woe, waiting on long overdue proofs and how those damn writers don't understand printers and deadlines!!! So, I'm well aware of the kind of long-term scheduling that exist in publishing and how deadlines have to be maintained. The timeline so cavalierly hinted at by the author is ludicrous and insulting to the brain parts of the body. I think he realizes it, too, which is why it gets only a very short and choppy reference.

Anyway, cooling down, as I said before this is like a bad college lit-crit piece or a poorly conceived historiography paper. Here's my logic for why I can say this: I've read an awful lot of them. I even get paid once a year to read a few dozen of these for a college prize committee. It's not a fun job. Reading this isn't fun either. What most reminds me of this odious chore is when the author concludes that not knowing the true authorship of Obama's books is comparable to Sadam hiding his nuclear weapons program. Dangerously thin intellectual territory, kids. The average freshman would be told to rethink and rewrite this while the average senior would be slapped down with lead-filled sappers for this kind of loose cannon logical bull. And the author of this crap has a Ph.D. in American Studies. Or so he claims...

Finally, it's telling that this is the level that the intellectual arm of the right has sunk to in its senescence. They are looking desparately around for validation and support, while the few actual intellects they have are pulling up stake and looking for greener pastures. I wish those few luck and as for the rest...I honestly don't give a damn. They'll be asking Rush Limbaugh if he needs new writers soon.

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Now playing: Bill Dixon - Scribbles
via FoxyTunes

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Weird Reasons to Vote for Obama #8


Because after you watch this video, you'll wish you were Jewish. I know I do.



And what other campaign in American political history has ever engendered such inspirational humor in its support? This is freakin' brilliant - the idea and the execution by Sarah "Coolest Chick in Comedy Who Swears a Lot" Silverman.

What's the best McCain can do? Limbaugh? I wish he had the guts to have this Sarah on his show rather than that helicopter-huntress VP-pick of McCain's. She'd rip his head off and shit down his throat. That was what my other friend named Larry used to say to hecklers during his short-lived career as a standup back in '84 or maybe it was '85. He did it better than me.

(This other Larry is now a state trooper in a state I won't name. He did have the distinction of having one of his best jokes ripped off by another comedian and used on David Letterman way back then. It was some long-forgotten loser that Larry opened for; the loser stole his joke and had 10 seconds of fame with it. So, I guess Larry did too. Good job, Larry, good job!)

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Now playing: The Laughing Clowns - Clown Town
via FoxyTunes

"Monk fight! Monk fight!"



How long has it been since you heard those words, eh? Brings back some great memories, I bet. Well, now you can relive them, via the magic of disorganized religion.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of the holiest sites in Christendom, is about to fall down on itself, but the holy men whose charge it is to maintain and preserve it, are fighting about ladders and doors.

Sweet. Hope it falls in on all of them. End of discussion. Maybe end of religion. But that's probably too much to ask.

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Now playing: Gut Bank - Guilty As Sin
via FoxyTunes

Are You Ready?



Neil Young - Live at Bicentennial Park, Miami, Florida (11/12/77) Part 1
Neil Young - Live at Bicentennial Park, Miami, Florida (11/12/77) Part 2

If I could live in a world that's nothing but the echoes and reverberations from Neil Young's guitar, floating in the spaces between and around and inside of the notes and the noise, disembodied and gloriously auditory forever and ever, I would. That's pretty much my personal paradise.

Hell, half the time I think I'm there already. If you can find me a religion that promises personal afterlives adapted specifically to the user's desires, I'll join up because I'm ready. Gimme that new time religion!

A couple years after I bought my first bootleg at Madison's long-gone Paradise Records (the classic Falling Spikes LP boot of the VU), a friend at another record store made me a Neil boot tape from various LPs and even a rare CD source that he'd paid megabucks to get from Europe. I guess that was my first experience of the trading world, though I had nothing to give him in return. He even made a great wraparound cover for the cassette on his dot-matrix printer (which I later bought from him, I just remembered) and Mac, with a pixelated pic of Neil.

My Smart Wife and I logged hundreds of miles in her "cherry" Nissan pickup listening to this boot. A friend sang "Comes a Time" at our wedding. Wanna guess what The Boy's middle name is?

See, we're kinda obsessed with Neil at the Monkey House.

Odd that I haven't shared any of my Neil boots with ya'all yet. I've got hundreds of them and this is one of the oddest. It's a birthday party for Neil and even includes audience sing-alongs. Maybe not the best recording ever but very listenable with a great performance. It's a fascinating show with a funky setlist including some obscure tunes as well as being a totally classic audience-style bootleg with hollers and hoots galore. You can hear conversations at times from around the taper or maybe by the taper himself. This one is totally endearing if you are a Neil fan.

If you are, enjoy. If you aren't, why not?

Buy Neil's shit.

CORRECTION: If you've already downloaded this show, my apologies. It's missing the first track and another track had diginoise. Both are in the first part. You can get the missing bit and the corrected bit here. Let me know if you find problems in this post or any other post and I'll do my dang-diddley-doodley-est to fix them. Love and kisses from the 'Monkey.

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Now playing: Naked Prey - The Story Never Ends
via FoxyTunes

Stones & Bones & Things In the Ground


Gimme that ol' time, Neolithic religion!

I was browsing my favorite archaeology site today and read a couple of really fascinating stories. One is about the amazing survival ability of custom and tradition, even in the face of persecution. It's about witchcraft. Really fascinating. Really. Fascinating. Really.

And the other story is about this stone hedgehog. From Stonehenge. It's the Stonehenge-Hog, if you will.


The author, brief as the story is, hits the purely human aspect of this discovery right on the head. I could feel my own grief at just the idea of laying my child into the ground and putting his favorite toy with him for company. I was ready to weep for the father or mother that laid their child to rest forever three thousand years ago. I am actually choking up writing this. That makes about fifty times that's happened to me on this blog, I think, for those keeping track. (I tear up over a really good Jello commercial, though).

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Now playing: Danny & Dusty - Knockin' On Heaven's Door
via FoxyTunes

Monday, October 13, 2008

Black and White



It has been brought to this blogger's attention that "the perfect and non-refutable logic of guilt by association" used by him in his previous post can, evidently, cut two ways.

This blogger was under the impression via current media and political usage of "the perfect and non-refutable logic of guilt by association" that it can only be used against those one disagrees with.

He did not know that it could be used against him, in turn. And he is pissed about it.

Therefore, this blogger is forced to admit (again per the spirit of President Bush's "Telling It Like It Is Order") that he is: White, Black, Hetero, Gay, Male, Female, Japanese, Republican, Communist, Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Atheist, Norwegian, Scottish, Unitarian, Liberal, Conservative, French, Illiterate, Literate, College Educated and a High School Dropout. And Hmong.

Updates to this list will be posted as they are lived.

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Now playing: The Godfathers - Unreal World
via FoxyTunes

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Out of the Closet: John McCain



John McCain is Gay. He's also Black. And Hispanic. And Jewish. And he's a Socialist, Atheist, Teenboy-Loving Pedophile.

[Proper nouns must now by used to refer to all groups and subgroups of Americans per President Bush's recent Executive Order No. 102,398, aka "The Telling It Like It Is Order"].

After all, John McCain has been serving in Congress for decades with Gays, Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, at least one Socialist, an Atheist and one known Pedophile (and who knows how many others?).

And, through the perfect and non-refutable logic of guilt by association, John McCain is a Gay, Black, Hispanic, Jewish, Socialist, Atheist Pedophile. Probably Vietnamese, too.

It's the only logical conclusion that any decent, reasonable person could draw.

Why doesn't John McCain come clean to the American people about these things? What is he hiding? Why isn't he honest about his Gayness and his God-Hating and his Boy-Loving? Why can't he tell us why he's a Socialist? What's the deal with his being Hispanic, too? How come he never talks about that?

What is John McCain hiding? And why isn't Fox News covering this breaking story?

PS Isn't "Sidney" a girl's name? Is John Transgendered, too?

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Now playing: The Terminals - Ministry of Lies
via FoxyTunes

Saturday, October 11, 2008

The Who Discovered What?



Clay Allison - Live at the Electric Banana, Pittsburgh, PA (5/22/84) Part 1
Clay Allison - Live at the Electric Banana, Pittsburgh, PA (5/22/84) Part 2

Had a fun talk with a couple of my students the other day about Columbus versus the Vikings and who discovered America. Or which known European historical figure "discovered" the Americas, to be more politically correct perhaps.

They were flabbergasted at this idea; it went against everything they'd been taught. And these young ladies were 17 and 18 years old. But they had never once heard about this. Or if they had, they'd forgotten. My best guess, though, would be on the "Never Told About" side.

History teachers at the middle and high school level can be a fairly conservative bunch, both personally and politically, and it often shows in their teaching. I've met exactly two that I'd think of as "liberal." Also, the textbooks they use can be pretty conservative. After all, most textbooks in the US have to meet a vetting standard out of Texas - not a bastion of liberality. This is because textbook publishers desperately have to sell to the Texas school system, it's such a huge customer. So they tailor and basically censor their textbooks to meet the parochial demands of the Texas board which reviews such. California also plays a huge role in this process, but the best bet for publishers is to error on the side of conservatism even if historical truth and fairness and scientific reasoning and a bunch of other good things get jettisoned along the way.

My students probably didn't want to know as much about this as I told them, a common ailment I've found since I can go on and on at length on topics I enjoy (a fact any regular reader here will attest to), but the discussion was entertaining and enlightening. Their textbook actually mentioned "Lief Erickson Day' and they wanted to know when that happens. Lucky them, I said, it's this week - before Columbus Day! The rest of the conversion centered on where in town they could buy Viking helmets to celebrate.

Hmm. What does this have to do with some live Clay Allison? I dunno, except maybe that I've already said about all I can say about my obsession with all things Opal/Kendra Smith-related? And that the past is always prologue.

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Now playing: Ken Chambers - Out of the bag
via FoxyTunes

Friday, October 10, 2008

That's What She Said



Cindy McCain said that Barack Obama raped her.

Yes. That's what she said.

Why else the following two quotes, which pundits across the land have been boggled by:

Obama has "waged the dirtiest campaign in American history."

And:

"The day that Senator Obama decided to cast a vote to not fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body."

It's all code. Not anything as simple as a word-substitution or any kind of conventional cipher. This is cultural code, deeply ingrained and deep and dark.

The first is prelude; it sets up the conditions and makes us anxious to know more. Cindy McCain is saying that this "dirty" man, this black man, is doing something bad. And because it is Cindy McCain speaking, not John, the supporters feel immediately protective towards her, they know this has something to do with Cindy.

And what does Cindy have that a black man might want? Here, her second quote. It is her pure white "body," naturally. After all, accepting the culture of the code, it's what all black men lust after and will take with force given half the opportunity. We here move from implied threat to actual attack.

Cindy's second quote is the victim's lament - her wail of despair against the dark deeds done unto her. This is the actual attack on her, on her "body" - this is rape! The black man has violated the white woman! She's calling out for vengeance, crying out for some virile white male defenders to avenge her stolen honor that that villianous Obama with his foreign name and his untold, possibly violent secrets has now taken!

So, Cindy McCain said that Barack Obama raped her.

Credit for breaking the code goes to My Smart Wife; discredit for this post and all else is all mine. If this one doesn't earn me a large-scale, all-out troll hammer-down, nothin' will...

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Now playing: John Cale - You Know More Than I Know
via FoxyTunes

Thursday, October 9, 2008

A Very Special Senior Moment



I'm sitting at the computer in the living room this evening, searching the Intertubals, looking for some Blue Aeroplanes (anybody got any?) and there's a knock at the door.

What? Police? Men in black? Girl Scouts? Cookies!!!

No, it's an older white man in very nice golfing clothes. Total AARP ad. Not the norm at my door.

I go out on the porch to see what he wants. I expect he's a candidate for some county office, assuming Republican, knocking on doors. Maybe he didn't see the Obama sign in the yard...

But that's exactly what he did see - the Obama sign in the yard. And he asks me where I got it and how can he get one!

Seems he's been looking for the local Dem HQ but hasn't been able to find it. I sympathize with him; it's not easy. If you blink when you drive by, you've missed it. So I almost literally draw him a map, using pots on the porch as landmarks, to tell him how to find it. And that it's gonna cost him 5 bucks.

"Five dollars? I have to pay for a sign?" I tell him that, yes, he does. Illinois isn't considered a battleground state for Barack and they don't supply them for free to local party groups here.

He laughs; it's okay. And he says it doesn't matter because he really wants one and this is the first time he's ever voted for a Democrat for President in his life. He seems to want to talk about it, I think. It's obviously pretty important to him if he's willing to knock on a weirdo's door to get a yard sign.

Wow is what I was thinking. Wow. This is like one of those special moments in the Daily Kos blogs I read all the time where the election and Obama are bringing very different people together for unique interchanges of ideas and hope. Like a million ABC After School Specials! And it's happening to me!

So I ask him the obvious question: "Have you always been a Republican or do you consider yourself independent?"

"Oh, independent, really. But I've always voted Republican for President. Never thought I'd be voting Democrat, but I've got too."

"Yeah," I answered him. "Me, too. I mean, I've always been independent but voted Democrat for President. I did vote for Nader in 2000 because I think we need a viable third party in this country."

"You and my daughter" he says, laughing. "She's always said the same thing."

We agreed this was a pretty amazing time and then, for reasons I'm not going to blog about, we discussed black walnuts and one of my neighbors and in a few minutes he went his way and I went mine. If I hadn't had to leave to take The Boy to his martial arts class, I'd have asked him in for a beer. I really would have liked that. But we both had to go - he wanted to get to Dem HQ before they closed at 6 o'clock. We said our goodbyes and goodlucks and parted on the porch.

I feel pretty damn good tonight. I hope he does too.

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Now playing: Biff Bang Pow! - It Happens All The Times
via FoxyTunes

Crossing a Line


via FoxyTunes

This is video from outside the McCain-Palin rally in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on Wednesday, October 8.

I was amused a bit at first. The crowd entering the rally seemed to be parroting lines they've heard on TV or radio or read in emails. But as it goes on there is also real hatred on display. It becomes very uncomfortable to watch. (Especially uncomfortable is the cringeworthy song in the last minute when the camera turns on the pro-Obama supporters - My ears! My ears!)

At times, I didn't know what decade the footage was from. Cries of "Get a job!" and "Commies!" were like echoes from a 60s demonstration. I think I did see a beehive hairdo or two, but that may just be homage to Palin.

Strangely, this doesn't raise my anger. But my empathy for these people, for the fear that has locked their minds and hearts, is almost overwhelming right now. They are scared of the world and they are turning their fear outward as anger.

Where my own anger rises is at the political campaign that is embracing this rising tide of hatred, that is winking and nodding along with it, giving it every opportunity to grow, like a cancerous yeast. There is a darkness at the heart of the McCain-Palin campaign right now that is threatening to consume them, their supporters, the Republican party and possibly America.

I'm at a loss right for anything to say or do to help these people. Honestly, they've torn my heart open watching them, though I don't think this was the videographer's intent. I guess I can't help them, as much as I want to. I'll try not to insult them personally, but I won't let what they do with their fear go unanswered, in as small a way as I'm able.

Damn.

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Now playing: Death Of Samantha - Yellow Fever
via FoxyTunes

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

I Am Not A Number!




It's official. We're all being shipped off to the The Village soon, kids. Dibs on No. 6.

I love you Patrick McGoohan. Seriously, I am in love with you. Why won't you answer my letters?

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Now playing: Robert Fripp - Trap
via FoxyTunes

Flyin' the Double Standard



It's known but not much discussed that one of McCain's campaign aides was a lobbyist for Georgia (the country, not the home of the last American President I thought worthy of the title, Jimmy Carter).

But after the last two debates, I can't help but wonder what if any ties McCain or his lobbyist cronies - sorry, "advisers" - have with the Ukraine. He keeps talking about the threat to the Ukraine - it seems really, really, really, really important to him. But why?

Gosh and darn, but it didn't take long to find out! Seems ol' Ricky Davis has had his fingers in that yummy Ukrainian pie too. As well, RD was instrumental in getting McCain to meet with (and have drinks and dinner with!) a possible Russian mobster.

John McCain's new campaign slogan: "Do as I Say, Not as I Do!"

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Now playing: Current 93 - The Seven Seals are Revealed at the End of Time
via FoxyTunes

Conflicting Emotions



I feel bad for John McCain this morning. I saw a very uncomfortable man last night, one who was out of the depths of his normal partisan environment and unable to connect with the audience in what was supposed to be his preferred debating style, due as much to the rules of the situation as the lameness of his jokes.

As a viewer, it wasn't comfortable either, especially watching McCain talk down to the young African-American man, trying to explain to him what Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are as though he was just off the bus, first day in the big city. I expected him to pat the man on the head and tell him to be a "good boy" and that he should "just run along now."

It was clear that the direction of the evening and Obama's unwillingness to cave or give even an inch, plus Obama's hard jabs - especially on McCain's steadiness as a leader, referencing "Bomb, bomb Iran!" and "Next stop, Baghdad!" - got to McCain. He was clearly fuming* in the background as Obama hit him with that one.

Which leads us to the most uncomfortable moment of the evening for John McCain and America:

"That one."

I think this may be remembered years from now as the two words that ended McCain's presidential aspirations. His temper only barely under check, McCain came as closing to calling Obama "that n*****" as a 21st century politician can. In public. (Though Governor Palin may come a lot closer in days to come...)

Vote Obama!

* It was a classic cartoon steam-outta-the-ears moment. Expect to see it animated as such on YouTube soon.

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Now playing: Bobb Trimble - Armour of the Shroud
via FoxyTunes

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Throw Another Book On the Fire, Sarah, It's Cold Outside!



I've come to one conclusion about Sarah Palin: She's a great agitator and manipulator.

I don't know if she truly believes a thing she says, but she can make other people believe her. She insinuates well. She gives hints to her base about how they should act. She empowers them, gives them the freedom to publicly act in ways they wouldn't condone from any other group.

Example:

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."
This should scare you. But it gets worse:
The reception had been better in Clearwater, where Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)
"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.
Scared now?

Palin is telling her base that it's okay to express their inner racist child, to scream racial insults, to threaten death to African-Americans. Not a problem for her or John McCain, so long as it puts them in the White House.

What can we do about this? How can we react without acting like them?

One way - give Obama your time and your money. It's easy to donate; I've done it several times. Or volunteer if there is an active group in your area. If you can't volunteer, put a sign in your yard. It may not seem like much, but in this kind atmosphere its a symbol of your desire for change. It's even, depending on where you live, an act of courage.

And write your local paper. Again it may not seem like much, but most papers are actually starved for decent letters to publish these days. Some take emails, but many still don't and their In-Boxes are pretty empty. Give them your opinion, tell them why you support Obama, why we need to fight for the future.

Most importantly, really talk to people. Be the Anti-Palin. I know I mock a lot here, but that's not how I talk one-on-one with people. This is public play and political theatre, not interpersonal communication. Use your innate common sense and sense of decency to explain why you are voting for Obama and what an Obama presidency means to you. It's that simple.

I gotta go now. I think my lawn sign needs straightening.

Vote Obama!

Update: Paranoid validation. At least I'm not the only one using the eyes in the back of my head.

Update (x2): More about the violent rhetoric and fear mongering of the McCain-Palin campaign. With links to further stories.

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Now playing: The Chemistry Set - The Dreams That I Saw Yesterday
via FoxyTunes

I Guess I'm Falling In Love



Moe Tucker & Half Japanese - Live in Athens, GA (1989) - Disc 1
Moe Tucker & Half Japanese - Live in Athens, GA (1989) - Disc 2

In the early 80s I went into a little shop on Madison's State Street (this is the big commercial street that connects the University with the Capitol building on the hill at the center of the isthmus Madison straddles like a drunken Norwegian whore - just kidding, Madison, you're probably more German than Norwegian!) and I had them make me a big button to wear that said "Moe Lives!"

Yeah, I used to wear band buttons. And a vintage black London Fog raincoat that I covered with said buttons. My sad attempt at style. Until the night at the Guadalcanal Diary show at O'Cayz when this henna-haired girl stole a bunch of them. Even my Stiff Records button! I miss that button.

But I still have my "Moe Lives" and I still love Moe.

Moe, in fact, is why I love the Velvet Underground. My first encounter with the VU was the addict's heartbeat pulse of Moe's drums on "Heroin" in the summer of 1982. (Cue swirly backwards time-travelling memory music!)

It was late afternoon on a hot summer day and I was covered in sweat and grass clippings from a day of mowing lawns - my job every summer during high school - and I just wanted to collapse on my bed...but my brother was taping an album. Album taping was a sacred rite. Normally I wasn't allowed in our shared bedroom while he did this for fear my elephant feet would make the needle skip. But I think he wanted me to hear this album. Only if I lay completely still on my bed and didn't move a muscle, mind you!

Usually, I hated this shit, but I just wanted to get on my bed and maybe take a nap, so I didn't argue. Wow, what would my world be like if I'd gotten mad and gone back downstairs or done something sensible like take a shower instead? Best not to contemplate such madness.

Brother had already taped the A-side and he was flipping the album as I lay down and composed myself. I saw him lower the needle. I saw the levels on the tape deck start to flutter. But I wasn't really hearing anything. Or was I? There, like a heartbeat, was that music? Something, maybe a guitar, but what was that, what were those drums doing? Ohmigod!

And then everything went away for a while. Now, in 2008, I know that it's really less than sixty seconds before Lou starts singing on "Heroin" but on that one day time almost stopped, came almost to a standstill and Lou didn't start singing for at least ten minutes. Damn. For years I was ready to insist that "Heroin" was like, really, twenty or thirty minutes long, man, I swear!

That's what it felt like to fall in love, I guess. It all started with a drumbeat. And about six or seven years later when Moe came to town, backed by Half Japanese, I was there. I didn't wear my button but I was there. And I talked to her and I shook her hand and I got her autograph and I barely remember any of those ten seconds though they seem like they were really ten minutes, man - I swear, I talked to Moe Tucker for ten minutes!

Buy Moe's shit!

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Now playing: Sonic Youth - Karen Koltrane
via FoxyTunes

Monday, October 6, 2008

Sunny With a Chance of Doom



There was a fascinating moment of slippage this evening on Hard Ball. A gentleman named Mike Paul was stumping for McCain, talking about Obama and William Ayers, backing up Palin's remarks about Obama's relationship with the former radical.

During the exchange, Matthews threw Paul a question, but in typical "Gawd I love to hear my own voice go on and on and on forever" Matthews fashion, he had to bookmark the question by saying "of course Ayers was a Weatherman in the late 60s."*

To which, a stunned or just befuddled looking Paul said something to the effect of "Oh, sure. Yeah. Of course," before launching into his own remarks.

You had to see it to get it, especially that look on Paul's face, but the thing here is that Paul - while speaking out against Obama on Ayers for McCain - didn't know what Matthews was talking about. He thought Matthews meant that Ayers was a meteorologist in the 1960s; he was clueless as to the historical significance of Matthews' comments.

This is the intellectual rigor of the McCain campaign on display. Send out a half-prepared surrogate to spout the talking points, irregardless of whether or not they understand them.

This is the poor planning, bad campaigning and sheer desperation of the McCain campaign on display. And it speaks volumes about the type of governing style McCain would bring to the White House.

This is just one example of many I could have chosen to represent the McCain campaign but they all have a common thread: John McCain has chosen self over country and will do anything to obtain his goal.

One of the primary reasons I am voting for Barack Obama is that I'm tired of being treated like a short bus child by my President. I am tired of my President and his advisers thinking that they can throw crap at me and the American people in hopes that if they throw enough of it, some will stick. I am tired of being lied to and tired of being manipulated, tired of being used by men and women I wouldn't invite into my house for fear of never getting out the moral stank of them.

I want a President who doesn't speak down to me or my wife or my son, who will treat us as intellectual, ethical, moral and political equals. I think this is Barack Obama.

I want a President who will face up to the problems of the nation, like our avalanching economy, and not run away and say that he'd rather not deal with it because it will make him unpopular. I think this is Barack Obama.

Finally, I want a President that I can be proud of when he is representing us to the world, to foreign leaders and foreign peoples, a President that will show the world the almost lost face of American diplomacy and the inherent power of that diplomacy when practiced by intelligent men and women who have a firm grip on the ideals and history of this nation. Contrary to what our current President has told us for years, much of the world loves and idealizes this country and what it stands for. We have to show them that we also love and idealize this country and that, as Americans, we understand the special role and the unique responsibilities we've carved out for ourselves in the affairs of the world, that we take that role and those responsibilities seriously.

I think this is Barack Obama.

Vote Obama!

* I'm paraphrasing - I cannot find a clip of this exchange and left my steno pad in my asbestos long johns. Don't ask.

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Now playing: Wipers - Good Thing
via FoxyTunes