Friday Fives

1. If you could, would you be a movie star or a rock star? Which one, and why?

movie star for sure. As a music guy, I understand the life of a rock star and it is a lot of work and a short shelf life. Unless you are Mich, you get 5 to 10 years in the limelight tops. Movie stars get life long opportunities. Plus, I really don't think it is that much work. The average film shoot is 30 days. Do two of those a year and you are set. Also, I ♥ johnny depp

2. Do you know anyone who’s been on a reality TV show?

while I am personally convinced my day to day activities carry 'Truman Show' like importance... no. Wait, my big brother was on Love Connection some time ago. Does that count?

3.Would You Rather…be trapped in a cage with a lion? -or- eat peanut butter off a hobo’s foot?

the lion, because I have an amazing repoire with animals. I don't know why but animals seriously really like me. I have had ladies tell me their horses are nicer to me than them. Plus, my feet have many hobo like qualities... and nobody wants to be there.

4. Have you ever met anyone famous?

sure. When I was a kid I met Mr T at a one of those stadium motocross things that later evolved into tractor pulls. I think I got his autograph. Also, I have done ok with rock stars since I am an obsessive rock fan. So in that arena I have met: stone gossard, don mclean (American Pie guy), Billy Corgan, Trey Anathasio, Les Claypool, all the guys from late 80's Anthrax, Ozzy, Dave Mustaine (Megadeth). In addition, I have not just met but been hugged by these gentlemen: Moby, Richie Havens, Arlo Guthrie.

5. Who would play you in a movie?

who could carry my boundless joy for life and charisma, while still being short fat bald and ugly? I would have to go with the amazing Paul Giamatti for his amazing acting skills... and his generally schlubbiness in physical appearance.

Just stop! Stop listening to him, stop asking him questions. Get rid of this President

Ok, I must have missed something. Govt is three parts, right? The executive, the legislative, and the judiciary… right? Ok, it is well understood the executive is largely in renal failure right now. It is official, 66% disapproval rating, his entire party voted out of office last month. Oh, and this. Yesterday his own appointed advisors released their report on Iraq which said essentially: everything you are doing right now, go ahead and stop doing that soon as possible. Then, go ahead and go everything differently starting immediately.

So, Bush is a lame duck president who has botched the war fatally by refusing to listen to advice or course correct over the last 5 years. Every general and advisor and president and yahoo has advised Bush to re-asses his plan. He refused to.

Today the headline in the Denver paper says: A Way out of Iraq? Bush must decide.

Really? How in the WORLD is anything left up to Bush anymore. He has failed us, and he has failed Iraq. That is a fact his own advisors said in the Baker Hamilton report. So now that we know he is a bad president, and his entire congress was kicked out… why in the world are we waiting or asking for Bush to fix things. He is a bad leader. He is a bad president. It’s finally official. Can we use the other two arms of Government to get something done?

That would be swell.

It is not a term of endearment

I was watching Clerks 2 this weekend, and a funny political issue came up. Randal drops a 'porchmonkey' bomb on a black couple. You can imagine it doesn't go well, as he explains his grandmother used it as a 'term of endearment'. After a few minutes, Randal concedes "come to think of it, maybe she was a racist".

This is funny because it is true, and seems to have a glorious history in politics. See, I come from Arizona... the land of super bad governors. Before felon Fife Symington was around, we had Evan Mecham. Even Mecham was famous for being a racist... and almost unfairly.

I say unfairly because he was bagged as a racist for putting MLK day to a vote. Frankly, that was the prudent thing to do... and he was simply the first to do it. It went to popular vote and got voted down. Not because people didn't want an MLK day, but because crafty racists split the vote creating two issues. So, while some 70% of Arizonans wanted an MLK day, neither ballot initiative got more than 50%. This was a very very big deal. Arizona lost conventions and was threatened to have the Super Bowl pulled if they didn't pull an MLK day out of a hat.

This is why I say unfairly, now let's get to the racist part.

See, it came to light that Mecham was fond of the term 'pickaninny'. Surely, you know this as a diminutive for blacks. Mecham claimed it was a term of endearment used by his grandmother, and in no way reflected any kind of racism. Don't worry, we impeached his ass. It was for something else, but we got him.

Fast forward a few years to my new home in Colorado. As a reader, you may know I have taken issue with the leadership of Colorado University at Boulder. Here was the best part. It was found out that leadership at the school had called rape victim Katie _______ a 'cunt'. Classy, huh? The best part comes after this, though. Instead of censuring this behavior, the delightful and criminally incompetent University president Betsy Hoffman said the C word was used as a 'term of endearment in Chaucer's time'. Really? So was slavery, genius. Anyhow, thank god, she got fired.

What have we learned? Nuttin! Just this fall presidential hopeful, racist, and sister beater George Allen called a man of Indian descent 'macaca'. In brief, he called the dark skinned guy a monkey, stopping his press conference to point the guy out. Sadly, that guy almost won the election.

I guess what I am thinking is that Kevin Smith is known for the best and most racy dialogue in all of modern film. Yet, his 'porchmonkey' is hardly as offensive as what our leaders are saying.

Last thought. I work with a dude who liked to use the term 'zipperhead'. Not knowing what it meant, he said it was diminutive slang for Asians. I did some research, and that does not appear to be the case. Still, I told him if he runs for office not to use the term. Whatever 'zipperhead' means, it is surely not a term of endearment to anyone.

I wrote this a few hours ago, and have been thinking about it. Allow me to close with this. Anytime you have to qualify a comment with the words 'it is a term of endearment', it probably isn't.

John Lennon, arsonist?

ok, I was going through the archives as I plan on a huge cleanup of my once terrible HTML skills. As you have probably noticed, the archives thing on the left doesn't work right. Before I restore it, there are a lot of pieces (probably around 100) that need to be cleaned up aesthetically. While I work on that, here is a gem from back in 2003

Was John Lennon an arsonist?

Well of course not. But did you know that happy little ditty 'Norwegian Wood' is about torching a girl's place? Let's take a look. We start when our protagonist, we'll call him John, hooks up with a girl and goes home with her

She showed me her room, isn't it good, Norweigan Wood. She asked me to stay and she told me to sit anywhere.

So at this point he is sure is going to score.

We talked until two, and then she said, it's time for bed.

However, our hero John does not end up in her bed. Instead

I went off to sleep in the bath

Then it gets worse, when we wakes up, she is long gone

and, when I awoke I was alone, this bird has flown

So what does our boy Johnny do? Torches the place!

So I lit a fire, isn't it good, Norweigan Wood

Yeah, her prized furniture that she bragged about to him... burned baby.