Much That Is Hidden

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Too funny to pass up (as seen on What Is Hip?):

$4275.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth

Actually, it's a bit depressing because I filled out the questions about as liberally as a 1040, hoping to up my carcass value. Alas, I don't even crack the median.
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Labels: dead bodies, depression

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Today was a good day. My sister is down for a visit, and I began a week's vacation. We went to the Sunday market downtown, which is always reliably filled with fresh produce, crafts (more earrings than you can shake a stick at), music and people in that Sunday la-dee-da mode. We bought some yummy artisan bread - one loaf of asiago cheese and another of tomato basil. We made roast beef sandwiches with the latter when we got home. We bought the boy a couple of cute tie-dye onesies, and the lady who made them is hoping we will come back next week so he can model one for her. We called on some friends for grilling supper and a splash in the pool - so satisfying in this rainless summer heat!



Here is a photo of my Father's Day gift from Jen. It is chock-full of fabulous tales of history and MacGuyver-style information to "Recapture Sunday afternoons and long summer days."



I'm ready to get started.

"If anyone knows anything about anything, it's a father," said Pooh. "What a lot of things to know."

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Labels: Max, parenthood

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Here are some random thoughts (I thought about apologizing to any readers who don’t give a crap, but then as they say, "if you’re not enraged, you’re not paying attention").

The bottom line, politically, is that the Bush administration has mismanaged this war beyond repair. I am a from-the-starter and was scratching my head at the split from Afghanistan to go start up Iraq. The neo-cons persuaded the president to go for it, and have gotten it wrong from square one.

In retrospect I believe that, since Iraq was a decision that few (including Congress) seemed willing to turn back from, we should've instituted the draft. The spirit was there to build up the forces necessary, but then we would've needed leaders who knew what the fuck to do with the mightiest army on the planet. My best guess is that Rumsfeld and Bush, even if they truly believed in the WMD theory, knew that invasion was a half-baked plan but simply hoped that we, as the hand of the Almighty, would prevail. When I say our leaders squandered a lot of goodwill in the world, I hear it argued that if other countries can't stick with us beyond just the sympathy phase of 9-11, then fuck 'em. But if we had leaders who were really looking out for the security of the citizens, I think we would be pursuing a much wiser spending of $430 billion (so far), with the world on our side and Al-Qaeda on the run if not already vanquished. I don’t know - is this naïve?

I am officially tired of the phrase is “freedom isn’t free.” It gets bandied about nearly as much as “they hate our freedoms” and “we fight them there blahblah...” I was recently reading excerpts from Ronald Reagan’s White House diaries. He wrote that after the terrorist truck bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, a father of one of the deceased asked him whether what we were in Lebanon for was worth his son’s life. The president did not write about what answer he may or may not have given. Leaders send the rank and file to die “for our freedom.” I put that in quotes because, while no grave decision is cut and dried, since World War II the U.S. has been cowboying about with military and covert operations with nary a care for how the big boot of karma will come back around to swiftly kick our ass. The use of our military strength to enforce political views has cheapened the lives of citizens who’ve become soldiers, ostensibly to protect our country from physical threat. Such is the case again in Iraq, so when people say “freedom isn’t free,” if the time and place is appropriate I try to remember to say “I agree,” then ask them if they think what we’re there for is worth the cost of lives of parents, brothers, sisters or friends. When it comes to that aspect of our freedom, I’d like to see our nation economize a lot more.

Labels: Bush, giant douche, Iraq, politix, rants, shit sandwich, war

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No, not that far back. Miz D-Cup offered up a general music meme to her readers, and after mulling it over I've decided I'm game.

The thing:
1. Go to http://www.popculturemadness.com/Music/
2. Down the left column pick the year you turned 18
3. Get yourself nostalgic/enraged over the songs of the year
4. Write something about how the songs affected you
5. Pass it on to 5 more friends (And because I suck at picking five people, regular readers/commenters - You're IT! And you know who you are.)


I turned 18 in 1983. The prime of my dazed & confused years was laid out before me. Preparing for college 150 miles from home – damn right I’ll sign those loan papers, which was a decision that would haunt me well into the next decade. Like those who would proclaim freedom isn’t free, you have to ask the question, “Is what we’re doing worth the cost?” For the education I pursued and the good it did me, in my opinion the answer is the same.

But I digress, because I didn’t give a shit about things of that nature (things that weren't me) when I was 18. So the summer was complete and I was a couple weeks into my freshman year on my birthday. Musically I was seeking to stretch my legs and feel what others were into beyond the rather cramped diet of my high school chums. I didn’t have any close friends nor many acquaintances who shared my fancy for British art rock and the deeper cuts of the Beatles, Stones and Hendrix. The going thing then was either hair metal or unmitigated cheese.

So while I may not have sucked the marrow of life from college, my life at college provided me with awakenings that served up several of my passions still in force. My toddling about in the realm of jazz fusion hit its adolescence with the music major people I hung with. My reluctant foray into pop music came by way of something I had put off in high school – the need to get laid. Yes, a relative late bloomer was I, but oh how pretty and prolific were those petunias when the spring did um, arrive. So the parties, at least the ones with the horny women, required listening to stuff I had not explored, and ohmigod, DANCING.

As it turns out this freshmen discovered nothing new - that dancing in concert with sundry libations make a fine prelude for the romantic vibrations. One of the worst songs of all time, Phil Collins’ Against All Odds, happened to be pretty much the secret password for “Take me upstairs." Irony aside, I think it may have been because fucking is incomparably superior to listening to Phil Collins. And while I still cannot happily listen to much of what the hot sorority bitches loved like Wham! or Culture Club, there was some dance and particularly new wave stuff that has either stuck with me or been rekindled by nostalgia to become favorites for today. Songs like the Modern English now-mega-retro hit I Melt With You, or Love My Way by Psychedelic Furs now have a distinct appeal.

It seems as if there were other things to pursue besides females given to expedited sexual surrender, but as far as my experience with the pop music of the day was concerned, that was the sole reason for enduring most of it. Here’s a rundown of the pop hits of 1983 that caught my eye:

Music by some of my favorite groups that I was glad to see on the charts

Shock The Monkey - Peter Gabriel
New Year's Day - U2
Burning Down The House - Talking Heads
Stray Cat Strut - Stray Cats
Radio Free Europe - R.E.M.


Music of some of my favorite groups that I was glad to see on the charts even if the song was shitty

Rock The Casbah - The Clash
Bang The Drum All Day - Todd Rundgren
Let's Dance - David Bowie


Music that I didn’t really like/pay attention to that gets listening time now.

Down Under - Men At Work
One Thing Leads To Another - the Fixx


Music that’s hard to get out of my head

Every Breath You Take - Police
Rockit - Herbie Hancock
She Works Hard For The Money - Donna Summer
She Blinded Me With Science - Thomas Dolby
Electric Avenue - Eddie Grant


Music that made me realize ZZ Top had totally sold out

Sharp Dressed Man - ZZ Top

And what retrospective would be complete without Deaths and Events?

1983 DEATHS:

Karen Carpenter, Tennessee Williams, Gloria Swanson, Chris Wood (flutist from Traffic), David Niven, George S. “Papa Bear” Halas, Slim Pickens, Dennis Wilson

1983 EVENTS:

• Lotus 1-2-3 is released for IBM-PC compatible computers

• Iran opens an invasion in the southeast of Iraq

• M*A*S*H ends after 11 years and 251 episodes

• Return of the Jedi

• McDonald's introduces the McNugget

Labels: me, music, Nothing about Yoko

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I love the end of the week (because you know I've been blogging my little fingers off). Here's a few to help you review:

• Cheezy serves up his experience so far with the audio version of The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins.

• The profusely-titled Bradley S. Rocket at Sadly, No deconstructs some silly think-tanking by the American Enterprise Institute.
  

• Loverly Lucy at Falling On A Bruise gets it going over the disappearance of little Madeline McCann in Portugal.

• Nat sets the Wayback Machine for the Summer of Love.
  

• The nostalgia continues as D-Cup gets all Bob Seger for the music of 1983-84.
  

As always, be sure to delve into the comments. I got nothin', though I'm pondering the general meme tag of the latter. Until then GO READ SOMEONE ELSE'S BLOG ! !
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Labels: Friday Five

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Labels: Max