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Saturday, March 27, 2004
ghost town
eerie photos/story of one woman's lone-wolf bike rides through present-day chernobyl.
music for the man
this is a friend and former co-worker of mine. joe rank. i remember the day he told us he had als. he sent an email out that basically said, i don't want any of you shitheads feeling sorry for me. i'm going to fight this thing with everything i've got. and i think he has. i feel like i haven't kept in touch with him like i should, but, of course, i feel that way about everyone. mostly, i'm reminded of a scene from a david mamet movie where the doctor tells an idealistic young man that all he ever really does for the dying is hold their hand. that's all you can do. just hold their hand and tell them, like dylan thomas, not to go gently into that good night. old age should burn and rave at close of day. rage, rage against the dying of the light. anyway, that's enough mush from this shithead. i don't feel sorry for joe. i feel sorry for the people who don't know him.
secondhand suicide. an "entirely true" story (hard to tell on that sort of thing) written by a young woman whose husband committed suicide. i don't know why i was so engrossed by the story. grief porn? i think it's her attitude. spunky and defiant and fuck you in the face of it all. she doesn't accept the victimhood of it.
Friday, March 26, 2004
911 hearings summarized
i think maybe he should add...
responder is richard clarke 2 years ago >>> not bush's fault.
responder is richard clarke today >>> bush's fault.
Sunday, March 21, 2004
sat: blu, handsome boy modeling school, weapons of mass belief, chikinki, outlaw order, old 97s, los lobos, brown whorenet
Saturday, March 20, 2004
fri: the constantines, broken social scene, romz record crew, the flatlanders, delbert mclinton, dwight yoakum, the transgressors
Friday, March 19, 2004
bands so far:
wed: sound team, i love you but i've chosen darkness, octopus project, we ragazzi, division of laura lee, modest mouse
thurs: q, starlings, migas, tara angell, the new math, the latebirds, +/-, the walkmen
gratuitous celebrity run-in: jim jarmusch at the bar at exodus. kyle and i talked with him a bit. very down to earth guy. ghost dog is still one of my favorite movies.
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
via geekpress: the Times columnist corrections
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
now this is useful
what do you get when you combine printable html music schedules, dreamweaver, and obsessive compulsive disorder?
why, josh's sxsw 2004 schedule of course!
and for all those folks who think sxsw is for the uppity ups with badges and wristbands and piercings...well, check out the free shows, of which there are a plenty.
Sunday, March 14, 2004
i hate to say this b/c i'll prob. get dinged for it later (i'm always surprised that anyone reads this thing), but sxsw interactive sucks. i'm resisting the urge to make a list, especially after all the powerpoint presentations. the main problem seems to be an underlying uncertainty about intentions. it wants to be this devhead, web-monkey, technical conference, but all you ever end up with are political or philosophical/rhetorical rants from the likes of joe trippi and the move-on.org brainiacs. oooh. look. the web is empowering people to...to...to...donate money. and demand accountability. um, yes, welcome to 1999. plus, what exactly about blowing $40 million of other people's money is empowering? oops. sorry. i thought we were going to talk about search engines. i'm not sure that anything has changed since the last time i attended this wired clique-fest back five years ago. let's see. jeffrey veen telling us where to put style tags? check. howard rheingold? check. thanks for making us all re-live the WELL for the five hundred thousandth time howard. good stuff. people plugging in their laptops to wall outlets? check. people with the design sense God gave, well, Howard Dean, telling you how to make your site more "user-friendly." "label things clearly." "we can't overstate this...check your links." and if it's not overtly political or common-sensical, it's plain goof-ass. the keynote was from some woman who thought that the word "TRANS" could be applied to everything that came out of her mouth and we'd somehow all know what the fuck she was talking about. the web is TRANS-formative. the web is TRANS-meta. the web is TRANS-physical. she showed some arthouse short at the end that summed everything up. it was this middle-aged guy walking around asking "Better? or Worse?" to everyone he met. Better or Worse? Better or Worse? how about Same?
ms. helen stopped lonanne at school the other day to tell her about william. she was asking the children at chapel what they knew about God and most of them said something like "he loves me" or "he is good." she asked william what he knew about God and, as he was running off to the playground, he said, "he doesn't die." ah, the harsh facts of life.
as a side note, ms. helen is a wry scottish woman who runs our son's daycare. she's retiring in a few months and we'll miss her quite a lot.
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
kojo and kofi's big adventure or "how we made more money than haliburton and didn't end up in one move-on.org ad"
the museum of bad art (moba). good stuff.
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
the first superman comic book. completely scanned.
Monday, March 08, 2004
i heard from tsu's mfa program administrator today and...yes, despite my efforts at pissing off the entire dean's office, i got accepted. motherfuck straight!
ok, as you were.
Sunday, March 07, 2004
another great lileks
on the conspiracy theorists:
The theme of the Democratic primaries was clear: Bush is the problem, not the war. Clarification: the “war.” The “alleged” war. The “war” is a smokescreen to keep us in fear while a few top-hatted plutocrats convene in Texas to complete their grand strategy: we’ll invade Iraq for reasons we know will fall apart, and then we’ll turn the oil revenue over to the people under UN supervision, and the publicity will cause Halliburton stock to fall so we can buy it back at artificially depressed prices. Let’s all do the secret Mason handshake! Right. Paging Oliver Stone: you’re needed to script-doctor the third act, where Karl Rove’s shocktroops put Bill Maher and Howard Stern in a trunk so they don’t blow the whistle on the secret code in the electronic voting machines that returns a 99.9% mandate in the 2004 election.
on the latest bush ads:
Another suggested ad: “Some say that we shouldn’t haven’t invaded Iraq. Even after the discovery of mass graves. Even after the realization that the UN’s Food-for-Oil program diverted billions to Saddam’s pockets. Even after seeing how the terrorists have poured into Iraq to make a last desperate stand against freedom and democracy in the Middle East. Some say we should have listened to our allies.” A stock shot of Marcel Marceau in full-mime makeup, pretending to be trapped in a box. “Some people are a little too worried about what the waiter will think the next time they take a trip to Paris.” Shot of a Kerry lookalike in a bistro, saying “No, really, I’m Canadian.”
Friday, March 05, 2004
sometimes i wish tony blair was our president. check out this recent speech. damn. those britons can still kick it with ye olde english when they want to.
i always forget to say what i meant (possible title)
i saw...(inside joke for shirley...we'll see if she ever reads this)
mike d. who has come back to austin proper with his two beautiful kids in tow. lilly starts up at gullett next week in kindergarten. looking forward to those pool parties this summer.
thomas walker, who is playing soccer now. the coach took me aside and told me he's a natural. "he follows the ball," he said. this didn't seem particularly worthy of comment, but then i looked out at the field. most of the kids are chasing their shoelaces in the grass. still, it's almost as if he said "hey, your kid ain't retarded."
lonanne who fell asleep at the elephant room during the first set of blaze. no insult to blaze there. she had a rough week.
me, waiting like a nervous ninny for my acceptance/rejection letter from tsu. hating the fact that i've invested anything in getting into an academic program and, at the same time, wanting it more badly than anything in a long while...filled with a desire and longing that i couldn't explain to anyone. i tried to write a poem about it once.
i'm ambivalent. i know that means lukewarm. kyle told me i get on pretty good for being a christian conservative in the middle of a bunch of liberal heathens. i guess that's not surprising to me or in the least bit contradictory. everyone says the same thing. i would've never figured, etc. but the truth is, there are two types of conservatives. the nutty ones that nobody knows and the rest of us. sort of like pinko communists. easy to lay the blame on, but difficult to actually find. as for the christian bit and defending the passion, etc. i can only say that i agree with kierkegaard when he called the cross a scandal, which it is, and a stumbling block to the intellectual. christ didn't come to mend fences. he came to tear things asunder. and still, 2000 years after the fact (yes, yes, the roman empire and catholicism and blah blah fucking blah) people are still mystified and stumbling over what a possible lunatic in the desert did. perhaps churches should hang up a sign that reads, "crucial, if true." i'm simply amazed at how little thought or heart people put into it. and at the same time, here i am digging around in my feeble vocabulary for something that approaches the meaning of how i feel. i guess all i'm trying to say is, yeah, i believe.
john kerry just got endorsed by the north korean government. there you go. i'm done with it. really. vote your bleeding hearts out. my heart's bleeding too. really. i'd like to make my alec baldwin statement now. if kerry gets elected, i'm going to move to a foreign country. preferably that country will be texas.
listening to rufus wainwright. blu always told me he was great, but i didn't see it. then i heard this song, vibrate.
My phone’s on vibrate for you
Electroclash is karaoke too
I tried to dance to Britney Spears
I guess I’m getting on in years
My phone’s on vibrate for you
God knows what all these new drugs do
i like that line, "I guess I"m getting on in years." he sounds like edith piaf channeling jeff buckley. if you're a real music critic you're not supposed to make silly comparisons like that. but that's all i could ever do. what do i say? he sounds like a dying bird? i feel like one?
Monday, March 01, 2004
ok, i'm going to ask this and yes, it is a rhetorical question. but if you want to answer that's cool.
who gives a flying shit about the academy awards?
i mean besides all the pundits and people that either get paid to be there or paid to comment on them, does anyone really care about the outcome? does it certify something in you to be recognized for your moviegoing acumen? yes, yes, the lord of the rings, yes, that was certainly some fine production design. sofia? excellent screenplay! very well written! i knew it! sean penn's acting in that one long, boring revenge flick was incredible. no, the other long, boring revenge flick. yes, yes!
for the record, i watched miller's crossing. an underrated coen brother's flick if there could be such a thing. the dialogue sings like a chandler novella.
Tom Reagan: All in all not a bad guy - if looks, brains and personality don't count.
Verna: You better hope they don't.
another new issue of dirt. no, i'm not in this one. but hey, even more reason to read it!
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