Scary Places In The Mind

#29 (are the Japanese really better than us at everything? yes.)

2008-05-18T02:28:08Z

Okay, if you’ve been paying attention, you know that my favorite author is Haurki Murakami. So, naturally a couple years ago, I picked up a book called Shipwrecks by fellow Japanese existentialist Akira Yoshimura. Although Murakami brings to mind authors like Kafka, Yoshimura is really reminiscent of Shirley Jackson, Alan Paton and even Flanner O’Connor. So, when I saw Yoshimura’s name on another book, On Parole, as I was browsing one day on my lunch, I picked it up, even though it was based on a movie, The Eel, that I didn’t really like. I finally got around to actually reading it. And goddammit, what a perfect book. And although I’m not really one to judge a book based on its ending or what kind of twists are thrown at you, Yoshimura ended this story beautifully with a development that was surprising but at the same time felt like the most natural thing in the world. On Parole, just like you’d gather from the title, follows a man from an indefinite prison sentence for a horrible crime through the few years that follow his unexpected parole. Yoshimura carefully examines what we have traditionally come to think of as freedom and imprisonment. He makes a compelling argument that these are states of mind and not a matter of physical restraint. The narrative of our every-man anti-hero (Sorry for the two hyphenateds in a row and also for using the word ‘hyphenateds’ which doesn’t exist.. You’ll live; worse things have happened.) is harrowing to say the least but we have a certain comfort level with this man who may or may not be disturbed, may or may not be a sociopath, and may or may not be capable of remorse. We are asked to think about not only whether or not this man deserves redemption, but whether or not he wants it. Seriously. Buy this book, then buy Shipwrecks. I’m going to have to re-watch The Eel now because unless Shohei Imamura is simply the most incompetent filmmaker ever, I obviously missed something on my initial viewing.

#28

2008-05-08T05:23:17Z

We have eyes and we have nervses

We have tails we have teeth

You’ll all get what you deservses

When we rise from underneath

I read Coraline by the great Neil Gaiman. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Any list of the greatest minds of the 20^th century would have to include, along with people like Einstein and Hawking, Dr. Seuss and I am officially declaring Neil Gaiman to be his successor. You can see parts of Seuss, Clive Barker, E E Cummings, Lewis Carrol and Kafka in Gaiman’s work, but it is not at all derivative. His vision is fresh and full of imagination. And it’s a tightrope Gaiman walks, painting genuinely frightening images that are still suitable for children. Coraline is made from the same stuff as nightmares and beautiful fantasies alike. Yes, it’s a kids book, but suck it up and read it anyway because, like The Cat and the Hat, it is also a work of art.

Number 27: Gimmie an “S!”

2008-05-02T21:20:41Z

Okay, I read The Comics Go To Hell: A Visual History of the Devil in Comics, which I’m not really sure how to categorize. It goes through the evolution of our perception of Satan as portrayed in comic form. He has chapters exploring several facets of Satan and how he is presented including how he comes into play in the superhero genre, how he is used humorously, how he is used to represent the evil in ourselves and how and why he is used to frighten. He even has a chapter devoted to the endless adaptations of the story of Dr. Faustus. While this is hardly a comprehensive analysis of how our civilization has come to think of the Devil and evil in general, it is a fascinating read and Stromberg even surprised me a few times at just how deep he was willing to go. One of the things that amused me so as I read this was how I was constantly reminded of how intimately I know this subject matter in comparison to the public at large. Anytime he would explain the context of something as far as how it references the Bible or just Christian popular culture, I found myself thinking, “well, duh.” Then I’d remember that most people probably weren’t aware of whatever he pointed out. I was very pleasantly surprised that Stromberg referenced the Chick gospel tracts. These comics scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. The images of Satan in these tracts are far more unsettling than any horror movie I have seen. The Satan that terrorized me the most when I was young, the one that gave me endless nightmares and caused me to accept Jesus into my heart over and over and over just in case I hadn’t done it right the first time was Satan as drawn in the last panel of Somebody Goofed. I still see this as an absolutely paralyzing image.

A Very Girly 25&26

2008-05-01T06:42:43Z

Okay, I was at a flea market and I saw these two books, Witch Child and Sorceress by Celia Rees. They looked supernatural and were like a buck a piece so I figured, what’s the worst that could happen? Well, I got halfway through the Witch Child and I looked it up on Amazon just to see what else this author had written, etc because I was really enjoying it. Well, much to my chagrin, it turns out that these books are written for pre-teen girls. That’s right. Pre-teen girls. Imagine my shame when I saw that these were featured on lists like “Books For Teenage Girls That Will Rock You Soxs.” Okay, I can take being lumped in with teenage girls, but can we please watch the spelling? And, I’m just going to come out and say it. I was into the story enough to finish it anyway. And also read the second book. So there. The first one, Witch Child, was quite simply a very beautifully written first person narrative. It follows Mary, a fourteen year old witch-girl from the site of her grandmother’s hanging for witchcraft across the ocean to the New World where she settles with Puritans. Of course, lots of light-hearted fun ensues. The narrative ends very abruptly, (fitting, as it’s being told in the first person) and it is suitably jolting.

Alas, Sorceress is less of a success. Rees jumps back and forth between Mary’s story and the story of one of her present-day descendents, Agnes, also known as Searching Sky. (Yes, apparently Mary got in with the savages after being shunt by the paleface dicks.) The shifting in the narrative from one point of view to another, to in some chapters, even another is not something Rees really accomplishes with any kind of fluidity. It would have been much better to just stick with Mary’s story, but then you she would have had to lose a clever gimmick. Sadly, sometimes an idea, shrewd as it might be, just does not serve the story. It happens to the best writers. It’s hard to let go of a brilliant idea. But this concept isn’t quite sharp enough to distract us from noticing just how disjointed this narrative feels.

So there. Witch Child was very good. Sorceress kept my attention when it was following Mary. So if you’ll excuse me, now I have to go put on my training bra or listen to Panic at the Disco or Creed or arrange my Hello Kitty things or whatever the shit twelve year old girls are doing these days.

being 34

2008-04-20T23:41:10Z

So, as of today, I have officially outlived Jesus. Suck on that, son of God!

books 22-24

2008-04-20T21:32:55Z

Okay, I read Gluttony, a collection of shorts, poems and essays about well, Gluttony. Hence the title. I picked it up like a couple of years ago because it was on a clearance rack (actually, it might have actually been at Deal$.) or something and one of the stories was written by Woody Allen so I figured, “Hey, what’s the worst that can happen?” Well, I’ll tell you. The worst that can happen is you can have to read a lot of tedious shit. There were a couple of pieces that were pretty entertaining, A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole and Notes from the Overfed by Woody Allen were pretty damn funny. And Feast by Diane Mason was surprisingly creepy. I’m pretty sure it was supposed to represent what gluttons have to look forward in Hell. On the whole, though this collection really didn’t amount to much. But if you’re in Deal$ and have a dollar, these three pieces are probably entertaining enough to justify paying 33 & ½ cents apiece for.

Hiroshima by John Hersey follows the stories of six survivors from about an hour before the bombing until a year after. As an aside, I’d recommend Isao Takahata’s film Grave of the Fireflies as a companion piece. It goes without saying that the accounts of what happened that day are horrific. The scale of the devastation was so great and survivors unarmed enough to help were so few that they had no choice but to ignore the countless cries for help from people who were buried alive, being slowly crushed or suffocating because they simply couldn’t get to them all. There were so many devastating moments in the story, like how after a few days, the Reverend Tanimoto became so used to the carnage and trying to move living bodies from one place to another that he had to keep repeating aloud, “these are human beings” just so he could keep going. There is another moment when Reverend Tanimoto had helped drag dozens of the injured to lie by the side of the river only to find when he had come back that the waters had risen and the wounded were so weak that they couldn’t crawl even a few feet to safety, so they had all drowned, helpless. And while the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were appalling acts, what struck me when reading this was how Hersey refuses to make any overt moral judgments or political statements. He simply lets the narrative do its work. This is a very important book. It should be read by everybody, no matter what you think about whether dropping the bomb was the right thing to do or not. Even if action must be taken, no matter how justified one is in using deadly force, we should always be reminding ourselves, like Reverend Tanimoto that “these are human beings.”

Then, I read Dude, Where’s my Country? by Michael Moore. There’s nothing like reading a book on current events 4 &1/2 years after it comes out. Sadly, this shit it still relevant, though. If you’ve seen Fahrenheit 911, you’ve already been exposed to a lot of the information in here, but there’s still enough to justify reading this book, most notably an open letter from God to America and a dream conversation Michael Moore had with his great granddaughter 50 years from now. One of the things I appreciate about Michael Moore is the importance he places on the 4^th amendment. It’s really not given the weight it should be. Moore argues, and I could not agree more that the right to privacy is freedom itself. The argument that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about is not one made by anybody who understands or cares about freedom. If we are free to do as we wish while being monitored, then we are not free!!! So fucking fight the power. Yeah.

Book #21

2008-04-13T05:29:36Z

Okay, it’s one of my favorite movies. I’m a huge fan of horror and a huge fan of Satan. So why is it that in the year 2008, I’m only reading Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin for the first time ever now? I’m sure that you’ve either seen the movie or know the basic plot, but it’s a story of a woman who is raped by Satan and the subsequent pregnancy and birth of the anti-Christ. You wouldn’t think that this story could be told in such a delicate, patient, gentle way, but that’s exactly what Levin manages to do here. The attention given to the mind frame of Rosemary is so lovely and deliberate that we are lulled into a false sense of security. We forget that we are in fact, reading a horror novel.

What struck me, now that I’ve read the novel is just how faithful Polanski’s adaptation was. It’s as if he didn’t even bother with a screenplay but rather just storyboarded the novel. The only thing that the book goes into more than the film is the intimacy between Rosemary and Guy, making his betrayal all the more sickening. I pretty much read it straight through without putting it down except to work and sleep; it took me less than two days to tear through it. So now, after finally getting around to reading this, I have to track down Levin’s other novels. Here’s hoping that, like Rosemary’s Baby, The Stepford Wives and A Kiss Before Dying are as brilliant as the films they spawned. (That last sentence was sarcastic.)

an elegant #20

2008-04-12T02:45:59Z

“How many lost souls do you need, Lord, to satisfy Your hunger? God, in His infinite silence, looked at him without blinking.”

Okay, I have to concede that while we don’t share common tastes in pretty much everything, Joia’s recommendations have proven to be trustworthy. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafron is quite simply one of the most elegant and beautifully crafted novels I have ever read. Once, in an interview Salman Rushdie said that when he was growing up, it was a rule in their home that if somebody dropped a book, if a book touched the floor, he had to kiss the book before returning it to its shelf. I found myself remembering that frequently while reading Shadow. The story opens up with a prologue of sorts where a child is taken by his father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books to select a book. The rest of the book is about how profoundly literature and art can affect our lives. Every character Zafron draws is fascinating, whether repulsive, charismatic, evil or saintly, we care a great deal about these people and, like people in real life, they keep surprising you. The book is basically about how one’s concept of art, God and especially death shapes their choices and actions. His characters are drawn with the greatest of care and what defines them is how they think about art, God and death.

There was a point in the book, when a major revelation had been made when I was afraid that Shadow was going to take a downward spiral into the realms of cheap melodrama. If you’ve read the book, I’m sure you know what I’m referring to. But rather than having it be just a twist, the kind that writers use to show off how clever they are (Mr. Shyamalan, I’m looking at you) Zafron weaves it carefully and deliberately into the events that lead from the revelation to the book’s climax. Zafron, if I read another of your novels, I promise never to doubt you again. This is the rare author that you can trust implicitely to take you to the most profound, beautiful and terrifying places.

Please, please, please go out and buy this book. There is an acute grace in every character, every image, every action, every plot point. Zafron is a master worthy of comparisons to Dickens, Hugo and countless others who have taken what could’ve been melodrama and elevated it into an art form.

book #19

2008-04-09T05:57:11Z

Okay, I read New Rules by Bill Maher. There’s not much to say except that if you find him funny, you will enjoy this book. If you do not, it will just piss you off. It is sad to think that a comic digs deeper and challenges presuppositions than most journalists in this country. For shame, everyone in my field.

I know this one doesn't count

2008-04-08T19:23:49Z

Okay, World War 3 Illustrated: Life During Wartime isn’t even a graphic novel, it’s an issue of a ‘zine, so I’m not counting it as one of the fifty, but I read it and thought I’d report it regardless. I actually thought, by the cover that it was going to be funny, but suffice it to say it was very hit and miss. There were a few clever pieces here, most notably, Nakedness and Power, about women protesting the presence of oil companies in Africa, but more often than not, what you get is very obvious and unimaginative political criticism. There was a lot of shit I already knew and had already heard said in more imaginative ways. So, despite a couple of good jokes & a couple of fun images, it really was a letdown.

books 15-18

2008-04-04T23:50:11Z

Okay, I’ve been sick for the last few days and my doctor was gracious enough to let me have some vicodin for the headaches that go with this bug, so I’ve been at home in a daze. So, I’ve been sticking to Graphic Novels, since they’re easier to follow when I’m high. First off, I read Buffy the Vampire Season 8: The Long Way Home.

Dear God, what the hell is up with you? Sex and the City gets a movie but not Buffy? What the fuck, dude? Not cool. Please stop falling asleep on the job. Amen.

Okay, for what we got, which is a series of comic books for season 8, it’s very entertaining. Joss has not lost his sense of humor or his ability to surprise us. He has an amazing ability to follow a story arc, not just through a single season, but through the entire series. His gift for foreshadowing without disappointing in the payoff is staggering. Yes, I would rather have more episodes to watch or even a movie, but Joss is a master storyteller and at this point, we’ll take what we can get. The story here for season 8 is very compelling, moving, frightening and funny. Plus, bringing back the one villain we have absolutely no fascination with (Adam, the First, Gloria) or any affection for (the Mayor, Faith) is a master stroke. The only thing we have ever wanted in Buffy’s dealings with Warren is for him to die and die horribly. I sense a very gratifying end to this season when at last it ends. (I don’t know if it’s been completed or not since I’m waiting for them to come in graphic novel form and don’t plan to waste my time with just the comic books.)

Then, I read Bad Blood which is actually an anthology of three different graphic novels, Sweetmeats by Steve Tanner & Pete Venters, Sugar Virus by Warren Ellis, Martin Chaplin & Garry Marshall and Night Vision: Intermezzo Bette Noir by David Quinn & Hannibal King. Then, there’s some naked vampire artwork by John Bolton thrown in at the end and you know, you just can’t go wrong with that. Sweetmeats, the first in the anthology is by far the best of the bunch. We follow a young vampire from her days as a child prostitute (don’t worry, the would-be sexual predators ended up getting more than they bargained for) through her adolescence in an asylum to her liberation by a young doctor. The characters are very complicated and interesting and the story has several effective surprises.

Sugar Virus leaves a lot to be desired, from a storytelling standpoint. It’s more than a little muddied, but the artwork really makes it worth checking out. At one point, we get to see what happens when somebody tries to see just how far he can go in torturing a vampire while keeping her alive. (Okay, since we’re talking about vampires, alive really isn’t the right word. Animated probably fits better.) At any rate, the pictures of that poor, tortured vampire are the stuff that nightmares are made of. Very chilling, disturbing imagery.

The third story, Night Vision just isn’t very good at all. But, Bolton’s naked vampire art at the end is definitely worth looking at.

Then, it was on to 300 by Frank Miller & Lynn Varley. If you’ve seen the movie, you pretty much get the point. I think I actually enjoyed the graphic novel more than I enjoyed the film which I thought was good, if a bit over hyped. If you liked the movie, you’d probably enjoy reading the book. If not, I’m not sure it’s going to win over any new converts.

Now, we’re on to the best of the bunch, The Hard Goodbye by Frank Miller. It’s one of the books in his Sin City series. For those of you who’ve seen the movies, The Hard Goodbye is the one with Mickey Rourke as the big galoot avenging Goldie, the hooker with the heart of gold, blah, blah, blah. I’m making it sound trite and this story is anything but. It’s my favorite of the three segments of the film. Marv is just such a compelling character. He is sympathetic and terrifying at the same time. We’re not sure if he’s the kind we’d want to protect us or if he just scares the fuck out of us. If Goldie was the hooker with the heart of gold, Marv is the sadistic, homicidal thug with the heart of gold. Miller’s work, all of it, the story, the dialogue, the characters, the artwork, all of it comes together so beautifully here. For those of you who’ve seen Sin City, but as of yet have not read any of the books, The Hard Goodbye is a great jumping off point.

book 14

2008-04-01T04:54:31Z

I read Tales From the Crypt Volume 1, adapted by Elanor Fremont. It’s a compilation of six shorts, five of them very disappointing. Okay, so I picked it up at a flea market for 50 cents, but still. As a big fan of the series, I was kind of looking forward to some goofy, funny, stupid stories. Instead, it was just lame. The exception is Auntie, it’s Coal Inside! It was actually pretty damn funny. Other than that, I think from now on I’ll stick to the comic books and TV series.

book 13

2008-03-31T01:09:32Z

Okay, I read Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill and fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, what a great goddamn book. On the back cover, Neil Gaiman says that he thought it was the best debut horror novel since Clive Barker’s Damnation Game and fuck if he isn’t spot on. The premise does sound cheesy (a rock star buys a ghost online and gets more than he bargained for) but Hill has written what might just be the perfect ghost story. It’s in turns funny, terrifying, touching and most importantly of all, surprising. Seriously, don’t go to the library, just go and buy this fucking book (unless you don’t like horror novels, in which case, well, you just won’t want to read this.) And, unlike the last book I read, the romantic interest here feels very organic. It’s as natural a part of the story as any of the supernatural elements.

book 12

2008-03-27T04:32:20Z

Okay, I read Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin. I read the description and was expecting kind of a gothic horror novel, maybe with a little mystery thrown in. And I did get some of that. It’s a story of a forensic scientist, a woman no less, back in the 12^th century when the idea was obviously unheard of, tracking down a child killer. Now, I have to say that this book was involving, if not entirely engrossing and there were many truly disturbing and chilling moments. However, this novel seemed to suffer from schizophrenia. At times, it was a mystery, at other times, historical fiction, at times, chick-lit. And I’m sorry, but the romance that Franklin tacks on is unnecessary, not believable and just downright annoying. It was a bit chicky for my taste but again, when it was concentrating on the basic plot of our protagonist trying to catch the killer, it was a very good read. Since most of you are women, I’m sure any of you would enjoy it even more than I did.

in defense of pastor wright

2008-03-27T04:20:37Z

Republican pundits have been talking a lot lately about one Pastor Wright, friend and minister to one Barack Obama. They have been calling on Obama to denounce what they see as anti-American comments made by Pastor Wright. And if there is one thing that Republicans will not stand for, it’s dangerous, hate-filled religious leaders influencing the people we elect into office. (One of the shortcomings of the written word is that you can’t hear the inflections in one’s voice. But let me assure you, that as I wrote that last sentence, the tone of the voice in my head was dripping with sarcasm.)

First of all, before you condemn someone for their association with someone who has said things you don’t like, you really out to listen to what they actually said and not what someone on Fox News said he said. Seriously. For many reasons, time constraints being one and bias being another, you are generally going to hear the most jolting lines from anyone in any given sound bite. They simply don’t have the time to play you an entire sermon so you can get a good idea of what the nature of what he said was. They keep sound bites down to twenty seconds or so. They just don’t have the time to deal with nine minute clips.

Aside from that, the news in our country has become more and more sensationalized. What we hear from our ‘journalist,’ if you can still call them that, is more like gossip than real substantive debate. “Did you hear what that guy said?” “Can you believe the nerve of that guy?” These questions have replaced any meaningful discussion. We’d rather be indignant than informed. And the truth of the matter is, if you can find someone to say something angrily, you really can make him look crazy by putting only that sentence up for scrutiny, leaving out what he said before and what he said after whatever it was that is supposed to piss us all off. If the only thing you show us is an angry statement, then that’s all we’ll see and we’re going to think, “Damn, what an angry dude.”

So before we go any further, take nine minutes to listen to what Pastor Wright actually said. There’s a link right here. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Back already? Good, that didn’t take too long, did it? The first thing I find disturbing is that in all the indignation that I’m hearing, the ‘how dare he say that’ what I’m not hearing is some kind of refutation of some factual error. I call this the Ron Paul syndrome. Nobody is addressing what was said, or even questioning the truth of what was said; they’re too busy yelling about how they should not be saying it. When Ron Paul said that the terrorist don’t hate our freedom, but rather our ties with the Saudi royal family and our support of Israel, people were pissed. How dare he say that? But I don’t remember anyone saying that what he said was untrue, just that it was offensive. Ron Paul pointed out that the reason the terrorists hate us is not for our freedom but rather because of the role we have played on the world stage. What he said may not be what you want to hear, but it is correct. Same with Pastor Wright. You might not want to hear someone say that our country started with the genocide of Native Americans, but it’s true. You might not like hearing that our infrastructure was built with slave labor, but it was. You might not like hearing that we killed civilians when we bombed Grenada, but we did. You might not like hearing that we are the only country to ever uses nuclear weapons against a civilian population, but we are.

But rather than debating the merits of the short, controversial clip we’ve all heard, I want to talk about the content of the sermon as a whole. He talks about how this should be a time of reflection for all of us, a time to examine our relationships with God. He talks about the cycle of hatred. He speaks from Psalm 137: 8-9, where there is a call, not for justice but for vengeance against Babylon. He talks about this passage serving as a spotlight to the insanity of the cycle of violence and the cycle of hatred. Pastor Wright asks his congregation to think carefully about what our response should be to 9/11. He asks what the Bible says about the concept of retribution and payback. These are questions that a pastor out to be asking. And yes, he talks about the actions of the United States and the role it has played in the events leading up to this tragedy.

I am a pastor’s son, so I’ve heard more sermons than most people and part of what every pastor does is speak out against what they feel is immoral about our society. It is nothing new. I’ve heard preachers lamenting American tolerance for all kinds of sin, from premarital sex to pornography to divorce to rock music to homosexuality, the list goes on and on. Pointing out society’s immorality is part of a pastor’s job. The only difference here is that Pastor Wright, instead of preaching against sexual immorality or dishonesty or something like that, he is condemning things like genocide and slavery.

So why was it acceptable for people like Falwell or Robertson to, in the wake of 9/11 to say that God brought it about to punish us for our sexual immorality but not for Pastor Wright to say that our actions may have contributed to this event? There are several reasons for this. First, and most grave, is the state of what we call Christianity in America. The Evangelical movement is very selective as to which passages in the Bible it is willing to pay attention to. Any passage having to do with sexual immorality is magnified and trumpeted as if this were the most dangerous type of sin a society could engage itself in. The law, the rules set out are given a great deal of attention. There is a fight that never seems to end about the Ten Commandments being posted at courthouses around the country. But does the law make up the majority of the Scriptures? Is it even the most important part? Christ said no. I find it interesting that in this debate, nobody has suggested that Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount be posted in a courthouse. Why not hang the Beatitudes up next to the Ten Commandments? Because conservative America doesn’t like that part of the Bible. Do we really want jurors who are deciding criminal cases to read things like “Blessed are the merciful?” What kind of soft-on-crime leftie, hippie shit is that?

So, we condemn Pastor Wright, for many reasons. He chooses to point out different sins in our society than white, conservative Evangelical leaders do. Also, he has given conservatives a convenient, angry sound bite that they can use to try to take down one of their political rivals. Never mind that if you hear the entire sermon, it is very much in keeping with the teachings of the Scriptures. Also, and I hesitate to bring it up, because it feels like too easy of an answer, but I truly think that racism has something to do with this. For all the progress we’ve made, an angry black man is something that white Americans are terrified of. One question is, does this fear betray a guilty conscience or is it simply fear of revolution, a shift of power out of white hands?

When it comes down to it, anyone who has heard Pastor Wright’s sermon in its entirety and actually understands what a pastor’s role is could not have any problem with what he said. They may disagree with some of what he said and that’s fine. But claiming that a minister ought not to point out sins that our nation has committed is ludicrous. If a religious leader, one who is supposed to help us understand God’s nature and his will is not supposed to comment on our sins, then what is he supposed to be talking about? If you watch this clip, it is clear that this is just a pastor, doing his job, pleading with his parishioners to examine themselves before God. Remember, the separation of church and state does not only protect the state and the public from the dominance of the church, it also protects the church against the interference of the state. So please, for the love of God, just let the pastors, leftists as well as conservatives do their jobs.

top 100 songs A-L

2008-03-23T04:34:12Z

Top 100 Songs

Okay, I was fucking around with iTunes and I decided to put together a playlist of my 100 favorite songs. It was tough whittling it down and I had some tough choices to make. In fact, I could only get it down to 162. Rather than go through the painstaking process of putting them all in order of preference, I just put up my top six (I felt they deserved special recognition) and then threw in the rest of them in alphabetical order. Interestingly, a handful of bands that I hate, (Green Day, Live, Pearl Jam just to name a few) happen to have like one good song and show up on the list even though as a whole, they suck. Also, you’ll find a couple of covers on here that I happen to like just a bit more than they originals. This might piss off some purists, but oh well. If you don’t like it, make your own fucking list.

1) Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry – Nick and the Bad Seeds Cave

2) July – Chris Connelly

3) Love and Anger – Kate Bush

4) Three Days – Jane’s Addiction

5) Black Girls – The Violent Femmes

6) Stigmata – Ministry

7) 100% - Sonic Youth

8) Add It Up – The Violent Femmes

9) After Hours – The Velvet Underground

10) Armageddon Days Are Here (Again) – The The

11) Be Aggressive – Faith No More

12) Beers, Steers and Queers – The Revolting Cocks

13) Below and Above – Low

14) Bible Basher – Deicide

15) Bigmouth Strikes Again – The Smiths

16) Blueprint – Fugazi

17) Bobby Brown Goes Down – Frank Zappa

18) Bone Machine – The Pixies

19) Bring the Noise – Public Enemy w/ Anthrax

20) Bubblegum Factory – Redd Kross

21) Ca Plane Pour Moi – Plastic Bertrand

22) Caroline Says II – Lou Reed

23) Catch – The Cure

24) Chantilly Lace – Big Bopper

25) Clockwork Banana, Banana Moon – Alien Sex Fiend

26) Club Mekon – The Mekons

27) Damn, It Feels Good To Be a Gangsta – The Geto Boys

28) Dang Me – Roger Miller

29) Dead Christian – Foetus Inc.

30) Deanna – Nick and the Bad Seeds Cave

31) Dear God – XTC

32) Debaser – The Pixies

33) Debonair – The Afghan Whigs

34) Devil’s Advocate – DJ Shadow

35) Die Like Someone – Eve’s Plum

36) Dig – Adam Again

37) Dig It – The Coup

38) Do You Love Me? – Nick and the Bad Seeds Cave

39) Driving in England – The Swirling Eddies

40) Elysium – Portishead

41) Essence – Lucinda Williams

42) Flower’s Grave – Tom Waits

43) Fuck Tha Police – NWA

44) Fuck the Pain Away – Peaches

45) The Future – Leonard Cohen

46) Gasoline Dreams – Outkast

47) The Gentle Art of Making Enemies – Faith No More

48) Georgie Girl – The Seekers

49) Gimmie Brains – Bratmobile

50) Girl Anachronism – The Dresden Dolls

51) Girls of Porn – Mr. Bungle

52) Goddamn Rock ‘n Roll – The Cramps

53) Goddamn, That’s Love – Apocalypse Hoboken

54) God is a Bullet – Concrete Blonde

55) Goin’ Out West – Tom Waits

56) Gone Daddy Gone – The Violent Femmes

57) Gulf Coast Highway – Emmylou Harris & Willie Nelson

58) Had a Dad – Jane’s Addiction

59) Hanky Panky – Tommy James & the Shondells

60) Head Kult – Angelspit

61) Heart Attack and Vine – Lydia Lunch

62) Hello Cruel World – E

63) Her Way of Praying – The Jesus and Mary Chain

64) Hey, Hey Helen – Lush

65) Hey Ladies – The Beastie Boys

66) House of the Rising Sun – The Animals

67) How Do – The Sneaker Pimps

68) I’ll Be Your Mirror – The Velvet Underground

69) I Am Nina (Junkie) – Nina Hagen

70) I Am the Resurrection – The Stone Roses

71) I Want You – Elvis Costello & the Attractions

72) If You Were Born Today (Song For Little Baby Jesus) – Low

73) In My Time of Sorrow – Marianne Faithful

74) It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue – Bob Dylan

75) Jack & Neal/California Here I Come – Tom Waits

76) The Jeep Song – The Dresden Dolls

77) Jerk Off – Tool

78) Jesus Built My Hot Rod – Ministry

79) Jet Boy, Jet Girl – The Damned

80) La La La Song – Low

81) Land of Sunshine – Faith No More

82) Lapdance – N.E.R.D.

83) Leopard-Skin Pill Box Hat – Bob Dylan

84) Let My People Go-Go – The Rainmakers

85) Levitate Me – The Pixies

86) Lightning Strikes – Lou Christie

87) Little Argument With Myself – Low

88) Little Fingers – Apocalypse Hoboken

89) Lolitapop Dollhouse – Kahimi Karie

90) Losing My Religion – R.E.M.

91) A Lover’s Concerto – The Toys

top 100 songs M-Z

2008-03-23T04:33:05Z

91) Man in the Long Black Coat – Bob Dylan

92) Mate, Spawn & Die – Lard

93) Mellow Yellow – Donovan

94) Memories – Leonard Cohen

95) Minority – Green Day

96) Miss Otis Regrets – Ella Fitzgerald

97) Monkey For Salle – Momus

98) Mother of a Girl – The Violent Femmes

99) Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter – Herman’s Hermits

100) My Curse – The Afghan Whigs

101) My Women, My Guitars – Cody Chestnutt

102) Never Understand – The Jesus & Mary Chain

103) No No No – Yoko Ono

104) Nobody’s Baby Now – Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

105) Not Too Soon – Throwing Muses

106) Oh, the Guilt – Jesus Lizard w/ Kurt Cobain

107) Oliver’s Army – Elvis Costello & the Attractions

108) The Omen – Fantomas

109) One Armed Scissor – At the Drive-in

110) Only You – Portishead

111) Operation Spirit (The Tyranny of Tradition) – Live

112) Out Ta Get Me – Guns N’ Roses

113) Paper Thin Hotel – Leonard Cohen

114) Porno for Pyros – Porno for Pyros

115) Prayer to God – Shellac

116) Professor Booty – The Beastie Boys

117) Punk Rock Girl – The Dead Milkmen

118) Rainbows – The Moldy Peaches

119) The Real Thing – Cypress Hill w/ Pearl Jam

120) Redemption Song – Bob Marley

121) Return of the Beat Menace – Daniel Amos

122) Ride – The Golden Palominos

123) Rock N’ Roll Nigger – The Patti Smith Group

124) Room Service – Pizzicato Five

125) Sabotage – The Beastie Boys

126) Sex (I’m A…) – Lovage

127) Shame For You – Lily Allen

128) She’s Not There – The Zombies

129) She Bop – Cyndi Lauper

130) Smoke Gets in Your Eyes – The Platters

131) So What – Ministry

132) Spooky – Dusty Springfield

133) Stairs and Flowers – Skinny Puppy

134) Start Choppin’ – Dinosaur Jr.

135) Starving in the Belly of the Whale – Tom Waits

136) Summer Wine – Gry w/ FM Einheit

137) Sweat Loaf – The Butthole Surfers

138) Tangled Up in Blue – Bob Dylan

139) Ted, Just Admit It – Jane’s Addiction

140) Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now) – Cracker

141) Ten Ground and Down – Pigface

142) Thumb Thumb – KMFDM

143) Tomorrow, Wendy – Concrete Blonde

144) Too Drunk to Fuck – Nouvelle Vague

145) Too Young to Date – D-Day

146) The Trial – Pink Floyd

147) The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove – Dead Can Dance

148) Unholy Roller – The Electric Hellfire Club

149) Vicious – Lou Reed

150) Violin – Kate Bush

151) Walking With Thee – Clinic

152) Waltz #2 – Elliot Smith

153) Welcome to Planet Motherfucker/Psychoholic Slag – White Zombie

154) When Will They Shoot? – Ice Cube

155) Wish – Nine Inch Nails

156) Worlock – Skinny Puppy

157) Wuthering – Kate Bush Heights

158) Your Dirty Answer – Kristin Hersh

159) Your Hands – Sam Phillips

160) Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me – The Pipettes
161) Zero – The Smashing Pumpkins

Investigative Journalism with huge sarcastic quote marks

2008-03-21T22:59:28Z

Working in local news has never been a source of pride for me. In fact, before I started working at KSHB, I never even watched local news because I felt it was beneath me. And, after working in local news for three and a half years nothing has convinced me otherwise. Local news is one of the lowest forms of human communication, somewhere between armpit noises and burping the national anthem. But I have never been embarrassed about what I do for a living, either. Yes, it’s insipid and the priorities are way out of whack (dropping important national and international stories in favor of some really cool dash cam video of a wreck.) It has become little more than a glorified best-of-you-tube clip show, but on the whole, it’s an honest living. Generally, any issues I have with what we do are issues that I have with local news and what journalism has become in this country as a whole. For the most part, the people I work with at KSHB are very good at what they do and I’ve been proud of them.

But a few weeks ago, that changed. On Thursday, February the 7th, however, for the first time, I was actually ashamed of where I worked, what I did and who I had the misfortune to call a co-worker. It was a new feeling, knowing that I was taking part in something that was just plain wrong. Sinful, immoral, unethical, pick your adjective. Sweeps pieces are often over-hyped, overblown and self-important, which is to be expected, but for the most part they are harmless. Once in a very long while, these pieces can be helpful. There are times when the public at large should be made aware of people who are trying to hurt them or rip them off. Keith King and Jenn Strathman actually do some very good work in this area. And again, I’m proud to work alongside them. This past Thursday was different. The story that was put on by Aaron Keller, NBC Action News Investigator and fuckface extraordinaire was distended, which is to be expected for a sweeps piece, but it was much worse than that. Sinister even. Instead of the usual hyping up something and airing a bloated story, he went on TV and did very real harm to some people who have not done anything illegal, immoral or in any way improper.

The story was about teachers’ myspace pages. The viewer was told by this pathetic, dickless excuse for a TV personality (I refuse to use the term ‘journalist’ because it doesn’t apply.) that it was shocking, yes shocking, that the women who teach our children, when they’re off the clock, go out to bars with their friends, make out with their boyfriends, hold parties at their downtown lofts where adults are going to be consuming adult beverages, and even (gasp) swearing! I’m not even going to get into the underlying misogyny of only singling out women. Apparently, we’re supposed to be outraged that our children can go online, hop onto myspace and find out that their grown-up teachers engage in adult activities. The logic is that our children must be protected at all costs. Protected from what exactly?

It’s supposed to be shocking that these profiles of private citizens, leading their private lives are available to anyone on the internet. Yeah, well so is porn, fucknuts. If you’re letting your kids just go online and look around unchecked, then the possibility that they might find out that their teachers go to parties with their friends and make out with their boyfriends is the least of your worries. It gets very old very fast when people seem to think it’s the legislature’s job to protect children. If you’re talking about going after sexual predators or violent criminals, then yes, it is the state’s job to take care of that. But when it comes to how children are raised, what’s put into their minds, etc., everybody needs to back the fuck off. That responsibility belongs to us as parents and nobody else.

A few months ago, Ethan came home from school talking about a video his friends had been watching online called 2 girls, 1 cup. He wanted to know if it was okay for him to watch. See how that works? We actually talk together about what he is and is not allowed to look at online. Yes, it takes time and effort, but that’s parenting. At any rate, I had him leave the room while I checked out the video. It was the worst thing I have ever seen in my 33 years on this planet and I’ve seen a lot. Fortunately, Ethan didn’t look at it because I take it upon myself to monitor what he looks at instead of leaving it to the legislature and just trusting that they’ll keep his fragile little mind safe. It blows my mind that his friends had watched this video online. The only way to make sure children don’t look at inappropriate content is for each parent to take it upon themselves to monitor what their child watches. Otherwise, you’re stuck with limiting what people can and can not say and do and we can not go down that road.

The way that Aaron Keller treated these poor women is indefensible. Investigative journalism is about exposing corruption and letting the public know about things that might hurt them. When was it reduced to intimidating and bullying people who haven’t done anything wrong? At one point, when he is confronting one of the teachers, she looks and sounds truly frightened of what might happen to her because of this report. She was very close to tears. And all I could think as I looked at Aaron Keller, sitting smugly at the news desk, watching his own piece on the monitor as it went out over the air was, ‘wow, what a tiny, tiny cunt of a human being.’

And to make matters worse, cockface took it on himself to contact the legislature. Of course, he found some tight assed busybody in the state legislature to agree with him and insist that something had to be done for the good of the children.

Another thing that struck me was just how uneven the piece was. Christ, did this prick ever take anything even resembling a journalism class? Where the fuck was the other side? Nobody from a teacher’s union or the ACLU to say that these people have the freedom to live their lives and that none of this shit is the superintendent’s business or the legislature’s business?

What also seemed to be unclear is what exactly Aaron Keller seemed to think the problem was. At one point, he spoke of a law from 1969 requiring teachers to live up to a certain moral standard. So is he saying that teachers shouldn’t be drinking at all? Later, he argues that their profiles are not set to private and that this is the problem. At one point, it seems that he thinks that they should be allowed to enjoy these grown-up activities as long as they don’t let anybody know about it. Should teachers be free to lead their private lives as long as they don’t publicize it? What exactly are you suggesting they do, you Taylor Hicks looking motherfucker? He’s just all over the place here. Aside from the lack of ethics this piece had it was also just very sloppy.

I truly believe that every journalist, (and in dicklicker’s case, the word “journalist” belongs inside of huge sarcastic quote marks) should wear bracelets like Christians do, except instead of WWJD, they’d say WWERMD? That’s an easy one. He would turn in his grave, climb up out, make his way to Kansas City and punch Aaron fuckball Keller right in the junk. Kansas City deserves to have a media that does its job. We need actual journalists. What we can do without is a tiny, petty tight-assed, stalker-like busybody cunt like Aaron Keller.