Sunday, November 15, 2009

Ellen


I never turn the TV on during the day. I did make a note last week though that Ellen DeGeneres was slated for an appearance with her wife, Portia de Rossi on Oprah.

I watched the program.

What Ellen has done for the acceptance and subtle homogenization of gay people into the greater society is truly special. I made a mental note that I wanted to catalog all of the different shades of how Ellen has been so successful at this over the years and then I read this piece in today's NYTs.

Frank Bruni says it much better than I ever could.

I sure hope that these two women stick together for the duration of their relationship. All that celebrity blather is obviously hard on a marriage and it'd be a shame if this one crumbles for everyone's sake who believes in equality, acceptance and fairness for all alternative lifestyles.

Now, if someone would just pull Oprah out of the closet...

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Tick, tick, tick...


It's doesn't take but 6 minutes to read this NYT Book review article to get me foaming about the Sept. 11th disasters from 2001 all over agin.

We've been so screwed by the neo-cons and our military in his nation since nearly the end of WWII. Bush and the Cheney cabal just took the lid off the box and played with the toy is all. First preemptive war in the Nation's history, 'member?

Toy's busted and fucked now. Obama isn't gonna fix it either. Joint Chiefs won't let him. Ever.

Support the Troops.

Sigh.

Doc Ellis, again


Hey, didn't I post something about Doc Ellis' no-hitter a few weeks ago? Oh wait, here it is...

Anyway, here's a fresh little animated film that recounts the event complete with narration from the late Doc himself. It is teh funny.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Friday Random Ten


Quincy Punk Episode -- Spoon
My Back Pages -- Steve Earle
Harpies Bizarre -- Elvis Costello
Brain Cloudy Blues -- BR5-49
Thug Like Me -- Wyclef
It's Beginning To Get To Me -- Snow Patrol
Don't Wanna Talk -- Brendan Benson
Trying Not To Think About Time -- The Futureheads
Aurora -- Foo Fighters
1,000 Miles -- Dwight Yoakum

Bonus cutlet:

Runnin' Out Of Fools -- Neko Case

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Teabagging 101


Learn to speak Tea Bag. It's Fhun, like Ffonixs.

Pogue's Posts


I was introduced to David Pogue when I got the Mac Book Pro last year. He's the king of the published how-to guides for everything Apple, and lots of other stuff too.

For instance, here's his latest post on how much Verizon sucks. And guess what...it's a lot.

He's a funny guy and a good writer. Plus, he's from Shaker Heights.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Veterans Day Redux


Now that I've got the polite tribute below completed to honor Veterans Day , here's one where you get the sense of how I really feel war in general. This one goes out to you as well Mr. Obama...

11-11


Here's one for the veterans.

And particularly the brave souls that this day was originally intended to honor who fought and died in WWI. The Great War. The Trenches War. The War to End All Wars.

Sonic Youth


I hate it when the You Tube disables embedding for videos.

Anyway, click here and be afforded a clip of Thurston Moore and Sonic Youth covering Iggy's I Wanna Be Your Dog with no less than Hiram Bullock on backing guitar on the short lived, David Sanborn hosted TV show, Night Music.

And just in case you're curious as to what the original kinda sounds like, here's Mr. Osterberg himself tuning it up on the Old Grey Whistle Test c.1979.

BTW, If this ditty has a familiar lilt to it, you might recall that this is one of the covers that Sid performs as a solo act right before things get weird in a little film I like to call, Sid and Nancy.

Rock.

Ladies and Germs...

The Men Who Stare at Votes
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...the funniest man in America

Europe sucks...


...according to the Neo-cons. Yea, war!

Shaq and Shaunie


I sure hope this doesn't have a negative affect on his free throw shooting percentage...

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Thar's gold in them thar hills!


Being stout of mind and body, I endure the occasional half hour tooling around the Cleve with WTAM blaring either Limbaugh or Beck on the car radio.

Trust me, it's not for the feint of heart.

However, one thing that I've noticed that covers a broad spectrum of the advertising dollars on Fox radio, whomever is shouting into the mike at any given time, is gold.

Beck hawks gold so often and the segueway is so seamless it's actually difficult sometimes to discern if he's still screaming about Nacy Pelosi or telling us rubes to buy gold.

And considering that the other 60 percent of the ads are comprised of male enhancement products and debt consolidation schemes, I'd say it's fairly clear who the demographic is that Roger Ailes has in his sites.

Monday, November 09, 2009

Shouting into the wind


As a rebuttal to myself about my previous post regarding Right wing bashing, (re-butting myself?...can I get more pathetic?) I hereby post this reply.

The reason I rarely put up anything good about the Dems is that I'm none too fond of those dillweeds either. But sometimes, just occasionally, someone comes along to lift my spirit.

Let's hear it for Dennis.
While he may have caused the HCR bill to go down in flames in the House, (he probabaly did the math before he voted to make sure that didn't happen), he had the courage to vote his conscience and in my opinion, he's entirely correct about everything he says is wrong with H.R. 3962 .

See, that wasn't so bad, was it, Bob?

"...very bad for America"


That's the tag line on this piece from The Shrill One.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I post more stuff about stinky ol' repugs than I do about Hope, Change and all that rot. Whadya want from me?...come December I've been out of work for two years.

Things have been better.

Your Modern Day G.O.P.


The Republican Party hates women. Pass it on.

It was Twenty years ago today...



I was living in what was then West Germany in 1989.

The breach of the Berlin Wall started on that Thursday night, the 9th of November. We watched the whole thing on TV that Friday and then myself and one of the adjunct faculty members drove the five hours from Frankfurt to Berlin and got there early Saturday morning the 11th of November 1989.

Here are some shots of that weekend in Berlin (top photo of outbound East German traffic, an East German soldier atop the Brandenberg Gate, the guy who chipped off my piece of the Wall) and one of a younger version of myself sitting at my desk pretending to work for a living.