Personal

Here's an actual personal ad that I found. I'll give you the link to it later in this post:

Hate the media? Fuck me! - w4m

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Date: Mon Mar 21 21:26:55 2005 Hi. I'm a journalist. Or a reporter. Whatever word pisses you off more, I'm part of the mainstream media, the liberal media, the so-called liberal media. I am the epitome of all that is wrong with contemporary journalism. That is why I need you to fuck me until I feel as disgraced sexually as I do professionally. Look, I started my career with a great deal of optimism. I thought I was going to expose some hard truths. I thought I was going to tell stories that mattered to people. I thought I was going to write clever, piquant critiques of popular culture and politics that turned conventional wisdom on its head and opened new avenues of understanding and appreciating the world we live in. Maybe I did some of that in the years I've been slaving in the salt mines. But mostly, I've capitulated to The Man. Now, I want to capitulate to an actual man. There's some sort of odiousness in my professional life that will irritate you no matter what your political stripe. If you are Republican, I am indeed a liberal. There, I said it. I've left Republican voter quotes out of election stories because they were too infuriating; unless, that is, the quotes made the subject ridiculous and then I played them up. I've ignored your fucking women's clubs and your business "luncheons" (for fuck's sake, "lunch" will suffice!) and I would never deign to profile your pathetic loser hateful whitebread "Pioneers." I have a pitiful, wretched bias against asshole honkies like yourselves that manifests itself in small, ultimately meaningless ways since you never seem to realize the joke is on you. You are arrogant, deluded and selfish assholes, and if you'd act like a supercilious pig who hates poor people — oh, excuse me, government handouts — and non-WASPs while jamming me with your arrogant cock that'd be great. If you are a Democrat or progressive, there are reasons aplenty for you to hate me as well. I consistently toe the publisher's line; anytime there's an issue that a certain, moneyed sector of the community helps the publisher adopt as a cause of the publisher's own, I make sure all the coverage of said issue is superficial. Hey, I used to fight this, but after I nearly lost my lousy-paying shitty-benefits job because I told the truth about a community group with powerful vested interests, I decided the community would lose whether or not I caved. I don't file FOIA letters, either. You are right about people like me, and if you could lord it over me while fucking my brains out, that might just do the trick. If you don't hew to any political interests there's plenty to revile about my professional life which, sad to say, is the only life I seem to have. I capitalize Web site and Internet. I never use the passive voice. This is the longest thing I've written for publication in ages. I don't use a comma after the terminal "and" in a series. I rely on the press releases of boring and often insane community groups to develop stories around that you don't give a shit about, and I can't blame you for that! I'm better-looking than your average reporter — God knows it's goblins and gnomes all over the newsrooms of the world — so that isn't saying much. Mostly, I expect my half-assed way of getting my shit pulled together to fuel your aggressive, angry libido. I am everything that is wrong with the media, incarnated in human form. If you've ever said "Fuck the media," this is your chance.

---

OK, so here are my questions:

1. Smart, sexy broad or desperate skank?
2. Serious reaching out or amusing hoax?
   
3. Guys - Are you going to answer the ad? (The link is below.)
4. Girls - Should I answer the ad?
5. Is there any chance that liberals/progressives/Democrats will hate her enough to give her true satisfaction?
6. Or will she hear only from Republicans?
7. Who knows what FOIA means?
8. Great opportunity or sad commentary on modern life?

Because you won't believe that this is a real personal ad that I found - I mean stumbled across while researching oil reserves in Colorado - on the internet, you can go to the actual post and read it yourself by clicking here. If any of you decide to respond, I'll expect a full report.

Tappin' It Out

I love this blogging thing! It's almost exactly like writing.


If I were a real writer, I mean like a professional writer, a guy who actually got paid for, you know, writing, I think it would be a lot like this. You sit down at the computer - I'd use a computer because that whole typewriter thing, while it looks cool in the movies, you have to keep ripping out the paper with the crappy false starts on it and crumpling it up and throwing it away in disgust, missing the waste basket at least half the time, plus you have to use whiteout. Have you ever used whiteout? As The Oldest Blogger, it's possible that I have more experience with whiteout than all of you combined. Oh, sure, it's got a kick. I've seen the antelope-sized jackrabbits galloping alongside my car on the freeway. But it will give you a righteous headache, too, and it takes like five years to develop enough skill to use it and not make a big, soft lump of whiteout on your page, a wet mass of paste that will not dry anytime soon. You might as well rip that page out and toss it at the waste basket, because you will never be able to type over that goo-covered mistake. Plus, the high is not worth the headache.

So I'd use a computer.

Where was I? I'd sit down at the computer and start my professional writing. I'd have a beginning, a middle and an end, every time I sat down. Or at least I'd want to. And here's another way that blogging is like writing: Writer's block. Only you don't get writer's block. That's for the writers. What you get is Blogger's Block. You think you're going to have a beginning, a middle and an end, but maybe you don't have an end, or a middle. Maybe right now you're like me, and you don't have shit.

Don't worry! This is Blogger's Block. It's not a bad thing. It is the proof that you're a blogger! If the blogosphere gives you lemons - say it with me now - you make lemon-fucking-ade!

Welcome to Blogger's Block. That extremely brief moment when you have nothing to say. Work through it. Chances are, your "readers" won't even notice if you fill the screen with meaningless nonsense. I know that when I'm a reader, all my bloggin' buddies get the full benefit of all my doubts. Was that a stupid, thoughtless remark? Of course not. Facts a little, ah, wrong? Nah - just a matter of interpretation. Was that a conclusion she just jumped to? Couldn't be - she's too smart. See how that works? Blog through your block, and you can't go wrong.

Hey, and how about readers? Writers have readers. Well, so do bloggers. Bloggers have technical ways to check up on their readers, too, find out if they are being loyal. So I guess that's a little different than it would be for a writer. A writer would go to bookstores and read his book out loud to a bunch of readers, and then he'd take his pick of the nubile coeds who had attended his reading. Bloggers don't get out as much, but they do have stats. And they make up for being just a little withdrawn at times by being in the forefront of a new medium. Bloggers are in the vanguard, so they're cool, and you can take that to the bank.

I wish I had a gray wool houndstooth sport coat with leather patches on the elbows. That would be something a writer would have. But that's another post.

My Stick-On Family

If I were a loving husband and doting father of two I would certainly have these things on the back window of my SUV:

That would be me there with the bowtie, beaming and waving at the world behind my big V8 Expedition/Navigator/Tahoe/Armada. Doing a little jig, too, because I am so happy with my little stick-on family and my 420 cubic inch engine.

Next to me is Mrs. Jones, in a demure calf-length skirt. Mrs. Jones is happy, too, because she just took a whole handful of Prozac. She's got those telltale Prozac eyebrows, doesn't she? But, oh-oh, what's this? Mrs. Jones has no tits at all! No stomach or intestines, heart or lungs, either. Well, I guess that's how the little vixen keeps her weight down. Good for you, Mrs. Jones!

Then there are the kids. Little Madison with her polka dot skirt and that adorable crooked smile. She's got her mother's tits, don't you think? Somebody's got 'em, that's for sure!

And my boy Justin, the apple of my eye, always scaring the pigeons, that dickens. His mother picked that name. I wanted to name him Ken, after Kenny G. "K-Man!" I'd say to him, "whassup?" But Mrs. Jones said it would always remind her of Kenneth Starr. I was happy to let her give him a fairy name. Because I am the loving stick-husband and she gives me stick sex if I don't ever contradict her. Secretly, though, I call him Ken.

But I would never put these guys on the back window of the big ol' rockin' SUV:

Because if a stalker followed me home, or some hoodlums intent on committing a home invasion, I would want them to think that it was just me and Mrs. Jones and our beautiful children. Then, after they tied us all up (but before they fooled around with little Maddy, bless her heart), out would come good old Rex and Fluffy, snarling and hissing, and rip those home invaders some new butt-holes!

That's the way I think, because I am Stick Man, and I take care of my stick family.

Angel of Death

Molly the Cat was sitting motionless on the back stoop.

She's the first cat I've ever had, having grown up more of a dog person, so she is teaching me all about cats. One of the things I've learned is that cats often sit motionless for long periods of time. When they are not sleeping, I think they are trying to demonstrate what they might look like stuffed. Most of the time, they're sleeping.

But I am standing quietly behind her, in the kitchen, watching her through the screen door, when I detect a slight variation in her stance. Her body tenses slightly, her ears swivel toward a certain point in the backyard and her feet gather up under her as she slowly lowers herself into a crouch. Her back legs tense and flex a few times. I am about to learn something new, firsthand...

I know a girl, her name is Kristin. She'll never see this, so I am using her real name. She is a beautiful child, just eighteen years old, or maybe seventeen, a fresh, vibrant new bloom. She is my niece's best friend, has been for a decade. They are rarely apart. They might as well be sisters, for all the sleepovers they have had at each others' homes. They have studied together, played together, caroused around Southern California together, and I have no doubt have drunk together and started to learn about boys together. Last week, just last week, they graduated from high school together. They rigged it so they could walk together in the procession, and then they partied together until dawn.

As long as I have known Kristin, she has lived alone with her mother, in an apartment, just the two of them. I talked to her mom twice. Once on the phone when I took the girls to Disneyland (naturally I had to be checked out), and once when I found an unrecognized phone number programmed into my cell phone. It was hers, and we spoke for a minute, not knowing each other. She figured out who I was first, before I could solve the puzzle, so I thought she must be pretty smart.

I missed the graduation ceremony myself, and I still had not met Kristin's mom when I made a little photo slide show of the affair, using what was on the memory card of someone's digital camera. One shot that I included was of the two graduates just after the ceremony, posing in their caps and gowns, holding their bouquets and flanked by their two proud mothers. Smiles of pride, joy, relief and mischief. Just a week ago.

Kristin's mom was a waitress, so it can't have been easy to get the kid through high school, and who knows what might come next? We sometimes think we know, but we don't, really. Last night, coming home from work sometime after midnight, her car was struck by another, and she was killed.

She was two blocks from the apartment, making the last left turn. The other car rammed hers broadside and pushed it at least a hundred feet down the street, into a tree, where it stopped and caught fire. It must have been all over in a matter of seconds, and the other driver fled.

There are some older sisters, but they have been out of the nest for a long time. So Kristin won't be completely alone. Just more alone than she has ever been. I try to think how I would handle this myself, at her age, and my mind just won't look at it. We think we know, but we don't, really.

It happens so fast I hardly believe it. Molly the Cat rockets off the back stoop, and in about a second she is at the cinderblock wall at the distant end of the yard, 60 feet away. She looks into the bougainvillea there for another second, then stands on her hind legs and bats something from a branch to the ground, floomp. There is the momentary peeping and shrieking of the baby mockingbird, and then Molly the Cat is running, bird in her mouth, into my kitchen. In those ten seconds, she has brought mindless, meaningless, inexplicable death, but she has done nothing wrong, nothing I can punish her for, and she is confused at my raised voice.

We think we know, but we don't, really.

Protest, Schmrotest

One day I will hit upon a traffic-generating scam that will make this blog the Most Popular Destination on the Web.


The revision99 Protest Song UnContest was not it, however. I am reviewing the entries this evening, and I have a few thoughts:

• Thank you, thank you, thank you to those who wrote lyrics and proposed song ideas. My creative days are long in the past, so I really need this stuff if I am going to maintain any sort of illusion of vitality.
• I will not name names at this time, because then everyone will know what a flop the UnContest was. Besides, you know who you are. If any of you "win," - and this is a big if - I will request permission to identify you in this blog.
• Apparently, not many of you are very angry, and those who are, aren't really angry, just a little annoyed. You have to stoke up a pretty heavy head of steam to actually want to write a protest song (or, apparently, even to say a protest sentence), and I guess I just didn't piss off enough of you, enough.
• I thought my list of things to be angry about would get your creative juices flowing, and just in case, my reprint of the lyrics to "Eve of Destruction" should have made it obvious that there would be no reason for embarrassment, no matter what you wrote. But most of you who said anything, said you "didn't know how" to write song lyrics, or that you "suck at" writing song lyrics. You should listen to "Achy Breaky Heart" a few times.

But, whatever. I warned you what the punishment would be if you didn't cooperate on this: I will write a protest song myself. God knows I am angry enough. I will steal what I can from the songs and ideas you have sent me, mix in a little tambourine and acoustic guitar, and try to put them together into a rousing anthem for the New Revolution. When it's finished I will record it and post it for you all to hear. Then you'll be sorry. Get your picket signs ready.

If you're here for the first time, details about the UnContest (which is over unless you want to enter now) can be found here and here.

Pomp, Circumstance and Sleep Deprivation

Jesus X. Fucking Christ in a gypsy cab, I am tired tonight.

Last week I drove to The University of California at Santa Cruz for the graduation ceremony of my goddaughter. If you've only heard about godfathers in reference to Mafia bosses, be advised that a godparent is supposed to be responsible for the spiritual upbringing of the child if something happens to the bioparents. Due to a warp in the time-space continuum, I was picked to be a godfather twenty-four years ago. Luckily, nothing happened to the girl's parents, or else by now she would probably be a Hong Kong call girl. Regular readers will know that I am a deeply spiritual person, but during her formative years I was, shall we say, otherwise occupied.

The girl grew up to be a pretty good young woman, but I was never convinced that she would graduate from college. Frankly, I didn't think she wanted to. A few years after I myself finished college I had a lot of friends who were still attending. Most of them never accomplished enough to trigger a graduation ceremony, and some of them are taking classes to this day, with no graduation in sight.

I thought that would be the path my goddaughter would take. I mean, when she traveled to Spain to study, it was only a matter of weeks before she moved out of the safe boarding house arranged by the university and into god knows what dive. Then she stopped going to classes, and instead joined an itinerant street theater troupe. When I got the news that she had broken her arm falling off the table she was dancing on in a Madrid bar, I was pretty sure I'd never be attending a graduation, and, spiritual guru that I am, I became one with that.

When she returned to the U.S. and enrolled at Santa Cruz, the Hippie Campus, I still felt I had nothing to worry about. I mean, the school mascot is the banana slug. Need I say more?

But life has its twists and turns, and eventually she found a calling and not only earned a degree, but with honors, and a job offer to boot. And the whole procedure took less than seven years, which is less time than my friend Mike took to pass English 1A. (Note: I am jealous, because I am still looking for my first job offer related in any way to my major, which was Semantics.).

Since it costs the same to fly to Santa Cruz from L.A. as it does to charter a jet to Antarctica, I decided to drive up there for the big weekend. So I had a nine-hour drive the Friday before last, including three hours of traffic jams in the middle of fucking nowhere, which is what central California looks like. I don't know why there would be traffic jams when we were so far away from anything that we could see the curvature of the earth, but there you go.

To add to the fun, all the rooms in Santa Cruz and environs were booked, so I had to be smuggled into someone else's motel room for the weekend. The last time this kind of pajama party/sleepover was actually fun was Cub Scouts. But I was 35 then, and a lot of things were more fun in those days.

The town was alive with freethinking and strong coffee, and I got very little sleep, except during the graduation ceremony itself. Governor Schwarznegger, our answer to Jesse Ventura, did not speak at this affair, which took place in an open meadow, so the quiet drone of the various valedictorians and faculty members combined with the hot sun and a lazy breeze to create the perfect nap time, and I nearly fell off my folding chair three times.

Following the ceremony there was a forced march several miles up a steep hill to some sort of quad, where we attended a reception, which, I think, was mainly a chance for our rather large group to get separated from one another over and over as we kept telling ourselves that we were leaving as soon as Uncle Jack (or cousin Mildred) came out of the bathroom, or got back from the food concession, or had their picture taken in one previously untried permutation of relatives, graduate and friends.

When we finally overcame this inertia and got the hell out of there, we had to wait for a shuttle bus to take us back to the parking structure concealed some miles away in the redwoods. When the bus arrived, there were too many people at the bus stop, but we all got on anyway, and the little tram got as crowded as a municipal bus in Baja. I must compliment the manners of the students who were on that tram, however. One of them actually stood to let me have his seat, although it is possible that he was influenced by my Crazy-Eyed Killer stare. Still, he got out of my way, and that's what counts.

Then there was a drive to another small town nearby, a dinner at an Italian restaurant with heavily accented waiters (no Mafia bosses, though), several toasts, a session of gift-opening, a great deal of earnest after-dinner conversation and a drive back to Santa Cruz where I was re-smuggled into the room for a refreshing four hours of sleep before getting back on the road for Southern California.

You'd think that sitting in a comfortable car seat for eight hours would be easy and restful, but there is nothing like hurtling down a freeway in a vibrating steel box at ninety miles per hour, a hideous death only seconds away if you lose your concentration at any time. There is nothing like that to get you all stressed out and fatigued, which is what I was by the time I got home on Sunday night (the Sunday before last).

It was a wonderful weekend with great sights, the electric buzz of young brains and a pretty coed who wanted to discuss Linguistics with me, and I can have no complaints, but jeez, the driving and the eating and the speeches and the not sleeping, well, it wore me out. And I was only halfway through the graduation festivities. The following week (this past week) I had another graduation, this one right here in my town, with me acting as the host for out-of-towners and throwing a party for the graduate and her rowdy teenage homies.

But I see that I have been typing so long now that probably no one is still reading, so I will just say that I have survived two graduations in a row, I am thoroughly burned out, and I am thankful that I have no dad and I am not myself a dad, or else I would have had a Father's Day thing added on. Luckily I started back to work today, so I will be getting some much-needed rest there.

As always, my heart overflows with tender joy and bittersweet affection.



Remember, tomorrow is the first day of Summer, so the deadline for the revision99 Protest Song UnContest looms. You still have time to submit lyrics and song ideas to vent your rage against The Establishment (or whatever pisses you off). Details can be found here and here.

Clocking Out

Au revoir, my friends.

Last week I went away to attend a graduation, and I was completely disconnected from the internet for almost four days. I got so far behind in the daily serial that is my bloggin' buddies' lives that I felt guilty. Every blog I visited had three or four (or five) posts that I had not read. I was not just disconnected from the internet. I felt like I had been disconnected from life itself.

I tried to catch up, but I am hopelessly behind. Whatever was discussed is gone forever, and I am destined always to be out of the loop when references are made to the occurences of that long weekend. Oh, wait. I've been out of the loop since Reagan was shot, anyway, so what's new?

Now, the very next weekend, I have another graduation. This one is right here in my town, and the wrap party is right here in my house. Due to the close family connection of this graduate (my niece), many relatives are descending on my town, and I will be entertaining them, probably every second from Friday early in the morning (who flies at 6:30 AM? My sisters.) until late Sunday evening. My only plans for entertaining all these people is a backyard party and barbecue on Saturday. Other than that all I've got is getting ready for the party, and cleaning up after the party.

The party might not be so bad, because my niece may have hot teenage girlfriends, and I have made it clear that there will be no underage drinking at my home. So I'm assuming they will be loaded to the gills when they get here, and you never know what those crazy kids will do.

So again I will be out of the blogging loop, in the dark, incommunicado. Naturally, I'll be right here close to my computer much of the time, so I might be able to sneak in and check some blogs. But I have a large, demanding family, and I'm not in any way ready to throw a party for hot teenage girls (OK, and boys), so with all the last-minute running around I will be doing I anticipate that I will be offline again for the next few frantic days.

I'm guessing this is going to be mildly disappointing to about eight people. I don't seem to have as many readers as Pops, or MPH, or Theresa, and they (you) don't seem to be as fiercely loyal. But they make up for that with their intense, uh, their, ah, occasional mild curiosity, or something. Maybe. I'm not jealous or anything. All those people who don't visit me here, well, it's their loss. This really is one of the only places on the internet where "to, two, too, there, their and they're" are never misused, and all apostrophes are placed correctly. Oh. Maybe that's why no one visits me here.

Well, I just thought I should let you know. About my upcoming busy weekend and all. Busy, busy, busy.

Mulholland Dancer

Will you dance for me, if I play the music just right for you?

I must have forgotten how you liked it, the music. Before I saw you, before you had me, it must have been nearly perfect, else how could you have been drawn to it? That summer I made the patterns, and the rhythms. It was a trance, those hot nights, and I was in it.

You danced for me then. How did you do that thing, that look where you are shy and suggestive at the same time, innocent and nasty? All the gyrations and shimmies, the little halter, the bare brown skin, but it was that look that took me. Later you said you were a belly dancer, and maybe you were, but you would never give me a private show. You said it was too nasty. Only tramps do that, or a woman for her husband. It was the only thing you wouldn't do, and it became the only thing I wanted.

That first night you gave me your phone number, and I had it in my pocket for months, and I still can't say why I didn't call. I waited until it was too late, the moment was long past, the scribbled note a dead leaf in my jacket pocket, flaked and crumbled. I could squint and read the number, but you were gone from me, and, to be honest, I was afraid, the way I am when it matters.

You wouldn't remember me. You'd found a boyfriend. You didn't want me to call. The number you gave me was fake, a way of getting rid of me.

How many times in these reminiscences can I get away with saying I was young and stupid? I think I'm pretty smart, but when did that begin? Surely sometime after you happened, precious dancer. I was young, but you were younger, and wiser. The second time I saw you dancing, I couldn't believe my luck. But it wasn't luck at all, was it, sweetheart? You simply came back and got me. Sent your girlfriend home with the car and told me I had to drive you, somewhere way the hell down Mulholland Highway, out into the Valley.

I made the music. You made the magic. I can see your storm of black hair flying as you spun, later spreading on the sheet. It wasn't rock'n'roll sex, there was no cocaine or absinthe, no leather. You were kind of new at it, but you gave yourself so sweetly that I almost cried, and you really did cry, and we tried it many times that night, and many nights that summer.

The whole thing collapsed of course. My fault. Young and stupid. Your mother may have been right: if you pursue, you are a tramp. A piece of ass. Sorry, babe. I am so, so sorry.

I'd give anything if you would dance for me, one last time.

Flat Up Against the Wall, 2005

I am having a hard time getting back in the groove.

I guess I don't want to get back in the stinking groove. I had a great weekend, with lots of high-speed driving on the California coast, more intellectual stimulation than I have experienced in years, lemon sorbet served inside a hollowed-out lemon - I was even smuggled into a hotel room without registering, and I stayed there for three days, and got away with it. Fuck The Man! (No, girls, I am not The Man.)

I was completely disconnected from the internet. I couldn't check my email or read any blogs or post anything. Oh, I could have found an internet cafe in the university town I was in, but I was busy having fun. So imagine my surprise when I return to find that most of my otherwise genius readers don't think they can write song lyrics! What the fuck?

When the Protest Song idea first occured to me, it was because I thought everyone was mad as hell and not willing to take it any more. MPH complained that there weren't any good, rollicking countercultural change-the-world type of songs for his generation (whichever one that is) to rally 'round, and from the comments he got, I thought writing a protest song for the 21st century was an explosion ready to happen. Thus The revision99 Protest Song UnContest.

But will you look at yourselves?

• "...i'm not sure i'm talented enough to put it into song..." (Alex)
  
• "...Damn, this blog has a lot of homework..." (Digitalicat)
• "...I'm not promising anything..." (Adreeyin)
• "...This is too much work..." (Steph)
• "...I suck at writing lyrics..." (L of Random_Speak)

What a bunch of weak sisters! You are writers, people! Take a peek at this example of "songwriting" from the 1960's, and tell me you are intimidated:

The Eve of Destruction, by P.F. Sloane

The eastern world, it is explodin’.
Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’
You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’
And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’

But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.

Don’t you understand what I’m tryin’ to say
Can’t you feel the fears I’m feelin’ today?
If the button is pushed, there’s no runnin’ away
There’ll be no one to save, with the world in a grave
Take a look around you boy
It’s bound to scare you boy

And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.

Yeah, my blood’s so mad feels like coagulatin’
I’m sitting here just contemplatin’
I can’t twist  the truth, it knows no regulation.
Handful of senators don’t pass legislation
And marches alone can’t bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin’
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin’

And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.

Think of all the hate there is in Red China
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama
You may leave here for 4 days in space
But when you return, it’s the same old place
The poundin’ of the drums, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead, but don’t leave a trace
Hate your next-door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace
And… tell me over and over and over and over again, my friend
You don’t believe
We’re on the eve
Of destruction
Mm, no no, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.

Is anyone intimidated by this drivel? There should be a protest song protesting this song!! Yet - and you'll have to trust me on this, because as The Oldest Blogger I know this to be true - that stupid song was played on the radio all over this country every hour, 24 hours a day for three months during 1965.

Really, how much effort would it take to scribble something that bad?

OK, you're thinking "Hey, I've got a life, and my own blog. Why should I contribute lyrics that will only make Larry Jones rich and famous?" Fair enough. Here are the reasons:

• I deserve wealth and fame.
• I need a faster car.
• It will be easy.
• It will be fun.
• You can make a difference!
• You can leave a lasting legacy.
  

As an added inducement, I promise not to:

• ...subject you to ridicule
• ...ridicule you myself (as you know, I love you all)
• ...reveal your identity (if you don't want me to)

So you can't possibly lose. Everybody knows the music business is a pushover. Now you have a willing collaborator, and hey, let's face it: In the end I will be doing most of the work, and you will be sitting back and taking the credit.

What are you waiting for? Don't answer that! Here's even more good news! You don't have to write a whole song! That's right, just send me your 21st Century Protest Song idea, in the form of a simple couplet or singable chorus, and I will somehow massage it into a song that's guaranteed to be as good as The Eve of Destruction!

The first day of Summer is the deadline, so there's just one more week to do this. Remember, there are no losers in The revision99 Protest Song UnContest. Only people who didn't win. Member FDIC. Substantial penalty for early withdrawal. Details at this earlier post.

Getting Back

A Few Items:

1. I was out of town since Thursday, attending the college graduation of someone I have known since the day of her birth. I was cut off from all computers, so I haven't written anything or read anything you may have written.
2. I discovered that I really miss being on a college campus. I have almost no daily intellectual stimulation at my crummy job, whereas on campus, there's tons of that.
3. College kids today have little to no fashion sense, at least in Santa Cruz, California.
4. If you think I am going to stop promoting the Protest Song UnContest, you're wrong. I'm just too tired to do it tonight. But let me assure you the entries I have so far are stunning. The rest of you have a little more than a week to deadline. Don't put it off, people. The punishment will be a protest song by me.
   
5. As always, my weary heart overflows with love and bittersweet joy.
   

Up Against the Wall, 2005

Announcing the revision99
Protest Song UnContest.

OK, first go and read this post at the blog referred to by its author as "The blog lovingly referred to as 'Heightened Thoughts.'" The guy's all fired up because there ain't enough modern revolutionary music, given that we live in times that are approximately as shitty and hopeless as the 1960's and '70's, when there were all kinds of protest songs that caused what we now wistfully remember as "the Revolution."

Completely aside from the fact that there really was no revolution in this country after 1776, and discounting the truth that there is a fairly hefty library of current music protesting the state we find ourselves in, I'll play along for a while.

Hey, kids, let's put on a show!

Well, OK, let's not put on a show. But how about if we write a song? Here's is the comment, somewhat abridged, that I left in the comment section of Heightened Thoughts:

OK, all you angry people. Here's a challenge, for you and for me: Write a protest song for the 21st century, and I will put it to music and record it and post it. (I'm talking about lyrics here. If you can play and sing, do this yourself.)

Post your lyrics on your blog (make sure you notify me), or MPH's comment section (again, you'll have to notify me), or email me. Look at my profile to get my email address.

• Your song can be a joke, or it can be serious, and you retain all rights to the words no matter what I do with them.
• Of course you get full credit for your contribution whenever and wherever the song appears.
• If more than one of you tries this, I get to pick which one to record.
• If you want to give me a melody, try Audioblogger, or post something on some server somewhere and send me the link.

I am a child of the sixties, a blast from your past, and I am not only angry, I am drug-addled. I warn you: If no one sends me anything or posts anything, I will do this myself. We don't want that, do we?

So, what is pissing you off about the status quo?

• The religious right?
• The lap-dog media?
• The neocon hawks in D.C.?
• Tom Delay?
• Right-wing AM radio?
• The rich getting richer?
• Environmental destruction?
• Governmental invasion of privacy and disregard for human rights?
• Anti-stem cell research bullshit?
• Abrogation of international treaties?
• Institutional homophobia?
• Corporate scandals?
• Is there more???? Of course there's more!!
• Stolen elections?
• Globalization?
• Voter apathy?
• Skinheads?
• Longhairs?
• Job outsourcing?
• Drug laws?
• Big fat smug politicians with lifetime paychecks and excellent health benefits fucking with your meager Social Security plan?
  
• The pumps don't work 'cause the vandals took the handles?
  

Write it down!!

Here's your chance to express yourself. It would be good if it has verses and a memorable chorus that we can sing over and over and over and over and over and over while we are marching on Washington. Rhyming is welcome, but optional. Naturally there has to be an unreasonable and arbitrary cutoff date for song submissions...

...So let's say you have to send your song BEFORE SUMMER STARTS. That will be sometime on June 21.

OK? Bring it.



Oh, before I forget. Get over to Kristi's blog if you want to read about hot pickup truck sex with virgin schoolteachers.

Maybe Someday

I need a break.

My previous post, Another Memorial, got me down and I still feel like shit. Many of the truths I believe are crappy, but I know that the world sux and I put it out of my mind and laugh and live my life. But after writing something like that I can't forget it easily.

Making music has always been good therapy for me, so this past week I fired up my home recording system, which is basically just a PC with some special software on it, and recorded a song, just to get my mind free. I started from scratch, and I played and sang all the parts, except for the drums, which I sequenced. Extremely careful readers will know that this is a song I wrote a long time ago. I just thought it would be easier to (re)learn the recording process if I already knew the song.

It's just an experiment, folks, but I have posted the project if you'd like to hear it. Just click on one of the buttons below. Both files are MP3. The low-resolution one is 2 megabytes, and the high-resolution version is 4 megabytes. Either of them will take a while if you're on a slow connection. Sorry, I just can't stand to make the sound any worse by compressing it more.

Oh, yeah: The song is called Maybe Someday. Turns out it was good therapy, and it made me feel better.