New Chemical Brothers Single: Midnight Madness

I wrote a sweet article/review about the Chemical Brothers "We Are The Night" album last year. I made one mistake by stating the "Push The Button" album was released in 2006 (actually it was 2005, sorry electro-geek squads) - but anyway, here's the NEW single by the awesome band. It's called Midnight Madness. More next month when the bros release their new album.

I have to appologize to some fellow bloggers...

I'm trying to figure out how to build up this site. One thing I'm trying to do is go a little ape with blog-rolling any site I find in some way amusing. I want to build a community of some sort...

One of the major fault-lines with being dedicated to Blogger blogging services is that there is not the option to use categories. The sidebar on this site was customized and I wanted to keep it as uncluttered as possible.

Meanwhile, I decided to use a popular linking site called Blogrolling. A great service that makes linking other sites and blogs super simple, despite the lack of categories.

The other day I was going to add a site on my list and found out Blogrolling is down. Apparently, users are being held hostage, or as blogmaster (?) Ross states:

I will not be party to implementing the business model that killed Blogrolling, rather - I’d love to be part of the community that helped turn it into a shining success.

It appears that for the time being, all users (rather than just stopping NEW profile additions to the site,) are being stuffed so the site can figure out a method of making money off the 6 billion links they have helped building a community on. Student loans must be due...

So, to all the people I promise to add to my site, I'm searching for a method that can help me with these issues and I will try to effectively add as many blogs, in a semi-organized manner as soon as I can.

I Don't Know How This Turned Into an Obituary Column

But it is a daily, of sorts.

And I remember a long time ago I discovered a bad mother f'er named Dolemite. Rudy Ray Moore was a man who played it to the bone so hardcore that if you are my age, or younger, and had parents who were easily offended it took you much longer to discover the wonders of Dolemite. Doesn't matter as long as you were able to get a peek at some point. To me, he was less plastic than even Richard Pryor. More hated, more descriptive, more Black, and funnier than most any black or white man to ever walk the Earth. That is about as tough a compliment I can give in his passing at 81 this week.



This guy was the sex, the fight and the drip from the faucet and everything else in the kitchen sink...

Now to the Catskills: Greene County Daily Mail

Props to Greene County for having proven compliance in their state regulatory results for having proven PROPER voter registration. With HUGE expectations on voter turnout for this election only a couple weeks off, more attention and accolades deserve to be given for a job well-done. As Thomas Burke (d) states, such compliance isn't easily achieved:

"All election commissioners will tell you that the biggest problem is to find inspectors, and one of the reasons is the changing workforce,” he said. “It's a problem, and it’s a problem all over."

Ok - you might think "so what", but fact is, when little counties and districts nationwide get their act together, it just makes for a better process. A process indeed in heavy decline. The nature of voting has changed in all aspects and as a microcosm (my favorite word these days) of the electoral process, Greene County is doing their part.

From the obituary column, a fond farewell to Percy Omar Goff, a lifetime resident of Lexington, NY, passed away on October 21, 2008 at the age of 88. He was married to wife Christine 51 years and was a logger and farmer. I don't claim to know him, but apparently he has lots of family to miss him for me. Seems like the type of guy I'd have liked to have met... there is now a job opening for a logger in Hudson for anyone interested.

Get ready for a chilly, rainy weekend in the Catskills with highs in the 50s Saturday.

Sadly I was not able to find a blogging section for this daily, and a pretty weak sports section. Despite these shortcomings the Catskills seems like a reasonably mellow place to live...

And the Weathers Gooooood

I'm a total sucker for Mick Jones. Clash, of course, but really for me it was a very awesome 80's sound with BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE that rocked me a little bit. I didn't know quite how to do it all the way in the 80's but I learned.

So anyway, if you ever loved that British crap like I always have, you should listen to this song. Or watch it and listen or whatever. The band is Carbon Silicon and this song is The News. It is not exactly a NEW song, I've just listened to it a lot the past few weeks because we could all use a little good news. Both my fantasy football teams couldn't survive this past weekend, and I have more injuries both on my body and on my fantasy teams than I care to share with you.

Maybe I'm showing my age but if this is just good.



And fuck Tony Romo for not playing with an injured PINKY!! ARRGGGGH!

This is a Thank You Letter to Frank McEnulty

Without getting linked to this article, I never would have read the words my mind was TRYING so desperately trying to articulate.

I realize that when I ' m drunk I shouldn't type, but I just want to once again thank him for the fine job he has done in raising awareness. Not awareness to vote for him (though it would most excellent if more people did) is of most importance here. The issue is to listen to others when they speak. Practice your listening skills because when you go to the market, since when do you only have two different brands of cookies to purchase?

The choices are overwhelming, yet the person you are voting for is most likely going to be one out of two...

one out of two.

McDonald's or Albertson's tonight?

Well... Whole Foods just moved into the neighborhood one block away and fucked that all up.

Here is Frank McEnulty's linked words in NON-link format:

545 PEOPLE
By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then
campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and
high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional
duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private,
central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason.
They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a
congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if
they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the
power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is
the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of the Speaker of the House, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to
accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole
responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the
president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it,
they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace
545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and
irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not
traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain
truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it
must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Marines are in IRAQ, it's because they want them in IRAQ.

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan
not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire
and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they
can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from
whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the
belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like 'the economy,'
'inflation,' or 'politics' that prevent them from doing what they take an
oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!



Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

Neal Hefti, Dead at 85

Wow, news spreads insanely quick so you may already know about this, but I just found out and decided to dedicate a post to his life's two most recognizable compositions.

The Theme to Batman
The Theme to The Odd Couple



Both shows had an impact on my life as I tuned in to every episode and I remember loving every minute.

I bet you either didn't know there are lyrics to the Odd Couple theme, or if you do, you don't know the words... Here you go...

The Odd Couple (Sammy Cahn and Neal Hefti)

No matter where they go
They are known as the couple.
They're never seen alone
So they're known as the couple.

As I've indicated
They are never quite separated,
They are peas in a pod.
Don't you think that it's odd.

Their habits, I confess
None can guess with the couple.
If one says no it's yes
more or less, with the couple.

But they're laugh provoking;
Yet they really don't know they're joking.
Don't you find
When love is blind
It's kind of odd.

A Daily Mael View of the Charleston Daily Mail

NOT that I have been bored with the doings in my home town in Beautiful Southern California, but I have been writing some pretty political stories lately and I'm taking this opportunity to seize on my newly discovered interest in what is happening in other cities around the nation. Heck, while I'm at it I'll go world-wide in this little project.

I am going to just post my observations of the front page of websites that have 'daily mail' in their title. Every time I think of these ideas, I forget about them or give up on them, but this has been an idea I have a feeling might be fresh for me. I'm sure it will come off sounding like either me TRYING to be pretentious or me trying too hard, so take it for what you want. I want to know what's going on in Charleston today.

Naturally, I immediately went to the BLOG section and found some interesting posts.

Don Surber, WVU - Mike Casazza and Marshall-Jacob Messer covering sports is the blogging staff.

3 Bloggers, 1 Newspaper. Hmmm, makes me wonder why it took two girls to fill one cup so I had to read on...

Turns out I started with Messer's blog, and judging by his picture, I'm wonder if that just a nickname he picked up along the way.

Maybe its just that writing to Herd fans is difficult to endure, but man, there are only 9 posts and they are long-winded ones at that.

The NFL is heading into week #7 - Helllllllllo?
NBA fantasy basketball is starting drafts this week. Knock-knock.
Do you remember when Chris Hanson chopped his (fortunately NON-kicking foot) off in the Jaguar locker room trying to axe a log of wood?
Not a single word about Randy Moss getting screwed after his career year?

Messer is obsessed with Marshall, so you really can't blame the Daily on this.

I moved on to Don Surber's blog and was happy to see there is a possibility that the blog responsibility at the Daily might actually be a paid gig.

He asks great questions:

Question: Why doesn’t Madonna like Palin?

Answer: She’s jealous of a younger, prettier woman who has a man who loves her.

Just kidding. I know not why, nor do I really care.

But then he starts spreading his Glenn Reynolds love and once that got old I realized what kind of media we're getting out Charleston, WV. Herndon, where are you when I need you!? Ok, so Charleston clearly doesn't believe in blogs after all.

So I went to Mike Casazza looking for answers. Guess what I got? A regularly updated sports blog. I give Mike props for giving Steve Slaton some love, but honestly, all this blog did was clarify that Messer really is a nickname, and the Charleston Daily Mail is anything but daily. Wake up! This could actually be a paper with a little more perspective. Whys would a paper in 2008 be afraid to have a BLOG section?

The #1 story on the front page of the paper was the all too familiar rise in social security story similar to the one I keep reading about here in L.A.

But the story that really hit home was #4 on the top story marquee. The Kanawha County school board voted 4-1 to randomly test teachers for drugs.

Kanawha County school districts ranks 14169 out of 19379 nationally. And now they want to insert a costly program that will take money away from the classrooms and PARENT awareness only to be used to belittle the teachers. This was the brainchild of Pete Thaw, who also came up with another "winner" by suggesting all teacher salaries to be publicly posted online. Who would want to work in that kind of regime? The only thing melting here is Thaw's sanity.

Citizen Journalist Loses Cock

The mystery of Brooklyn Boychick's life revealed.


March changes everything, and something happened one March morning in the not so distant past. That morning Brooklyn Boychick woke up with a nasty hangover with no milk for his Kashi cereal. "Damn if there was ever a need for a Captain Kirk Bloody Mary this was it. May as well live life in a desert if I can't even get a fuckin' drink served to me this very moment." Irrational thoughts overcame Brooklyn whenever he sensed a Saturday about to be squandered hastily at a typewriter not clicking. In a rush, he accidentally knocked over the full-length mirror in his room and as he stood over the fallen reflection of his ceiling he noticed a void that begged for closer inspection. Brooklyn's Peter, Paul and Mary were missing from the reflection, and discovering this fact was less than music to his ears, or even whispers from a futuristic sex slave for that matter.

It was at this moment he was done getting his mind blown by Yochai Benkler; he got dressed and hit the streets to go find what was missing. He started with Larry.

"That is a damn shame!" was the last thing Brooklyn wanted to hear from his best friend. But it was the only offering by his best friend; Larry is a man with convictions. "Man, if I don't find my shit, I can forget about going to the Stripper Steakhouse with you Saturday." It was no consolation cover-up to the real heartache at hand. Finally, Larry urged Boychick to "go talk to that Jewish girl you've been spending too much time with lately. I hear there's nothing a Jewish girl wants more than her man's cock n balls for her own."

Larry had taken on a girl from Germany and married her on the spot in 2002. "Thanks Larry, the real problem here is my cock is missing. I don't want to get involved in your warped political views, I just want to be myself again. You know damn well there's no match on that dating site for non-penis having writers." Larry seemed a little uncomfortable, if not completely convinced there wasn't more to the picture. "It just sounds like, you know, like King Missile. I am concerned on three levels. One, you are either on a lot of drugs, and by that, I mean to include alcohol is a drug. Or two, you are too old or uninterested in life as it exists around your every day." Three. Yes, three would be tough to swallow. Brooklyn was already aware what three meant. Larry was damn sure he knew if three was the answer to this riddle Brooklyn was telling the truth. "Brooklyn are you 100% sure this isn't something you could have avoided?" As he left Larry's over-valued estate he purchased at peak of the housing boom a couple years ago, Brooklyn put his head down and told Larry, "I'm a little surprised at your doubt in me, man. But don't worry, it's not your problem. Anyways, I always kick myself when I listen to your advice." Brooklyn had always known Larry to run businesses the way GW runs the country - a yes-man with a deathwish and horse blinders on each eye. He would be no help on this front.

"Stop calling me or I'll slap you with a restraining order Brooklyn. You are sick and nobody really gives a shit to hear your conspiratorial bullshit anymore. It was cute when you thought you knew what you were talking about, these days it just gets more desparate and pitifully pathetic than you realize. Prosaic my ass!" Raintree was pure scum, a Valley girl who played him to the bone in 2007 - and all the while making this cock-less guy beg for more. "Look Raintree, you know I'm not actually blaming YOU for this, right?"

"If you are looking for answers Brooklyn, you should have thought about that last year when you had a chance with me." Brooklyn never liked looking back, so off he went, without bothering to close the front door or say goodbye. As he fled the scene he heard the screams of an insane woman. "My cats!!"

Mom and dad were logical cock culprits, what with all the shit they had pulled on him growing up. He sat in front of Pizza Goy for a good 20 minutes pulling tiny hairs out of his prematurely punished scalp. But something was telling Brooklyn this story had already been told once before. It wasn't five minutes later when Brooklyn was forced to put his head down in defeat on the hard concrete to take a nap. A few minutes later he woke up paralyzed with fear and he decided to walk over to a local coffee shop with a pen and pad thinking he'd sketch the missing member and post it on city light posts. There was something welling within him, a bitter reminder of what could have been, when suddenly there was heart piercing bang and a brewing commotion before his eyes. "I'm going to kick your ass!" he heard. When he glanced over to the left he noticed a beligerantly angry driver, and a very confused black man on the ground next to a mangled bicycle. The strange conversation happened in the middle of the street, where the casual onlookers shouted directives: "No Fighting Guys!" and "Calm down." Apparently, the driver cut off the biker and thought the biker told him he would shoot him were a gun handy. So he ran him down with his small cock supplement. It all reminded him of a weekend he spent at a bagel shop on Main Street in Santa Monica last year. The smell of those bagels was unforgettable and triggered more possibilities.

So he began to think about his network as a diagram. At first it was a drawing of his phallice and the connections it had to the extensive forms of collaboration that over the years may potentially have had transformative consequences. "Too deep?" he pondered. Then came a descriptive synopsis. And with that came forth a page long rant, and for the first time in what seemed to be ages, he felt a growth. Filled with hope, he checked under his bermudas only to set off a massive disappointment and then a massive alarm. A curious woman sitting next to him on the outdoor lounge with her child on a leash noticed Brooklyn slyly pulling down his trousers and freaked. She hurridly ran inside the shop to get the manager. Luckily, the leash got mangled in the revolving doorway, causing a delay when the tyke's cranium was split when the sharp wing flew past the center shaft. Unaccomplished, and still incomplete, and now in a hurry to avoid litigation, Brooklyn grabbed his shit and took off into the mid-day traffic in search of more clues.

With all the hope in the world, this will be continued...

Publish Her Love and I'll Buy You a Bloody Mary

I figured enough of the bad, in with the good... I have a spot where I go on Sunday mornings during football season and it's the best place for me and some buds.

Why?

Televisions everywhere and pseudo-dj and OMG - coffee. More on that in a second.

One morning I had a fantasy (football team) that was on a roll...

You want to know where this place is, don't you? Well I won't tell you because the place is already packed out it's dark, Buffalo lovin' ass. Everybody and their Bill's loving mother already goes there so YOU WON'T. Not on my watch.

But they do serve bloody marys in pint glasses and they are nice n spicey just like our "regular" server Bridget.

And the first week of football this season she curled herself around one of the empty chairs at our table, looked at us with those amazing blue eyes and softly asked us - "What do you guys want? Breakfast? You know we only have one fucking coffee machine and 20 cups to serve them in today, right?"

Oh Bridget, everybody at our table has dibs on you. We say we go there for the games, but you make it so much more... especially when you bring me that bloody mary with soft hands far more sure to deliver than Bernard Berrian.

I was happy to hear she has a blog, so go read it. She'll tell you where she works, maybe. That is if she wants more shmucks like us wandering in, stealing the big tables and ordering coffee all morning so she can make her pre-determined tip... Her blog has some crappy music and amazing poetry, I swear she's full of surprises. She likes Kombucha, like me, and reads some J. Krishnamurti and Buk... Don't worry baby, this isn't a stalker love letter, just a shout out. See you next Sunday!

OK OK OK... I like Radiohead. I just didn't wanna make her sound like I thought her to be my soulmate.

Couldn't Have Asked for a Better Day OJ

Don't be fooled by the deceiving title of this post, this day, this week, this month so far has been riddled in fools gold and animal mentality.

What saved me? Sleep. What hurt me? Well, nothing except a little too much working out. My body is sore but my mind is aching because I had the radio on in the background all day. So I got the full low-down, over and over by the many views, angles and representations from DJs all over talk-radioville about the verdicts slapped down on O.J. Simpson.

Already feeling in a down mood didn't help rehashing all the facts. Listening to the judge read the 12 guilty decisions was difficult to swallow for some reason. And then I was even more shocked at my own sympathetic mood when I heard details of how Juice got up after the first guilty verdict was announced, eyes bloodshot, mouth agape, staring at the bench and slowly nodding his head as if he suddenly realized the people had finally caught up with the ever allusive former football star. For you number readers, the un-lucky number 13 was everywhere - 13th September, 2007 was the day of the crime; 13 day trial; 13 hours the jury deliberated; 13th anniversary of O.J.'s acquittal for his "real" crimes against humanity.

I read someone say how O.J. is a hero who in a rage slashed Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman to their demise. Hero status is gone, buddy. This sadness was addictive. Most people don't listen to this much talk radio anyway, so I guess this makes me a bit sick, but I just can't get over what a menace this man has been to the world. He has been tied together by the F.B.I. to a massive drug ring while living in Florida from 1999-2001, a story that got lost in the shuffle after 911. We were already forced to believe, by vote of a jury, that O.J. was not guilty of committing murder and if that wasn't bad enough, he allowed a known drug trafficker to live in his Florida guest house, delivering his children to school while fulfilling drug deals. 911 happened and though O.J. was never brought down on anything criminal, his participation in heavy cocaine use was brought to light. What a dad.

But whatever, that stuff is just more indication into the world this guy lives in and that so many find so attractive. Using his star power to meet the people who want to run on a fast highway protected by lies and money. When being a legendary football player, and then an actor who was for the most part adored by America, O.J. is a fucking loser who has constantly had his feet entangled in fucked up activities. Last night at 10 pm I awaited to hear the verdict, and I was not let down. But today I got sad, sad that O.J. might live the most tragic life of any living person in the world. It has been filled with negativity, grounded only by the beauty of his two children, this man is a modern day monster. His meaningless tears and pleas for freedom are done. He is a 61 year old bastard and his only chance for a life of freedom is a pardon by our equally nutty president.

I almost want him to get out in 15 years so the world can see his disintegrated, withered soul one last time, and he can walk the streets where people can call him names everywhere he goes.