As I emerged from my REM sleep early last Wednesday morning, the first thing I heard was footage of President Sparkle Pony announcing his “support” for gay marriage on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program. Also — as per usual — as during the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster two years ago, President Sparkle Pony sat on his ass for weeks before being dragged kicking and screaming into speaking up on the situation. Like his speech on Deepwater Horizon, his day-late-dollar-short announcement on gay marriage was tepid and lukewarm, full of vaporous, non-committal tap dancing — in other words, classic Obama.

For some otherworldly reason, following President Sparkle Pony’s mealy-mouthed announcement, the mainstream media — along with, of course, vast swaths of Gay/Lesbian/Bi/Trans/Whatever America — practically crapped its pants with excitement. This was especially great news for the media, who had a ready-made excuse to spend the next week avoiding all discussion of the economy, the war in Afghanistan, the indefinite detention provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act, the health care debacle, and a host of other more important issues. This was also good news in the context of the current Presidential Freak Circus, as it finally gives the Romney and Obama campaigns something to disagree on.

So, I’d like to take this opportunity to offer my heartiest congratulations to GLBTW America, for so cleverly diverting the attention of the People, the ruling class and the media away from far more important issues to your goddamn’ lame-assed hot-button bullshit culture-war pissfight.

Next week: flag burning!

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Remember back during the ’08 Presidential Freak Circus, when everybody was talking about how Obama was a “blank slate” where his acolytes could project any ideas they had about who they thought Obama was (regardless of what he actually was)? What do you mean, “no, me neither”? C’mon, gang…

Well, aaaaanyway… I’d almost forgotten about that “Obama is a blank slate” business myself, until a couple of weeks or so ago, when one of “Mittens” Romney’s key campaign advisors mentioned that the Romney campaign and his conservative principles were like an Etch-A-Sketch, and that you “…can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.”

So, yeah… Obama’s a blank slate you can put anything on that you want and then erase it, and Romney’s like an Etch-A-Sketch that you can… well, put anything on that you want and then erase it.

Jeezus, I just love the spectacle of American Democracy.

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Continue reading "Blankness You Can Believe In!" »

Well, I’ve decided to make it official – at least inasmuch as anything on this blog is “official” – and replace the link to my YouTube channel with a link to my Vimeo site. I’ve been contemplating this for the better part of a year, after the YouTube Music Nazis gave me a ration of shit about using The Bangles’ “Walk Like An Egyptian” in my Egyptian Embassy solidarity demo piece in January of last year, and they stripped the audio track out of it, leaving my video silent, as if I was engaged in some nefarious scheme to mass-produce DVDs of that protest video and sell them out of the back of a friend’s van without paying royalties to The Bangles’ record label. So, the very day YouTube pulled that bullshit on me, I set up my Vimeo account, and posted the Egyptian Embassy piece there unmolested.

As many of you who follow my video work might have noticed, I’ve been using obscure mid ’60s garage-rock instrumentals for background music in a lot of my work lately – partially because I’ve kind of gotten into mid ’60s garage these days, but mostly because almost all those tracks are long forgotten, released by long-forgotten bands on long-forgotten regional labels, available only on old 45s, never reissued on CD, and so damned obscure and under-the-radar that I can avoid being jerked around by the YouTube Music Nazis.

Still, on general principle, I’ve switched my main video link to Vimeo, not only because they don’t have Music Nazis harassing people left and right, but also because you can find some pretty good quality work there without having to fight through all the footage of cats falling off tabletops, people throwing slabs of dry ice into swimming pools, and plane-crash porn. In fact, I’ve accelerated the process of re-posting a lot of my old work on Vimeo as lately I’ve been pestered a lot by YouTube about music I used in pieces I posted as much as five or six years ago with no problems (at least at the time).

I’m still leaving my YouTube channel active – for those of you linking/embedding my stuff from YouTube – and I’ll still be posting pieces there as well, but from here on in, Vimeo will get first priority. Between their cluttered new interface that pushes “featured” and “promoted” videos and other bullshit I’m not interested in, and their Amazon pop-up ads for the Rolling Stones’ Some Girls under my NYC 9/11 Anniversary piece which used “Shattered” (without giving me a share of the ad revenue), and their pestering me about music I used in a piece I posted six years ago, my attitude is pretty much “screw YouTube”.

Continue reading "Hey, gang, check out my new Vimeo channel!" »

It’s no surprise that the Liberal punditocracy has grabbed hold of the story of Mitt Romney making his dog ride on the roof of his car and jumped on it like… well, like a big dog. Likewise, it’s also no surprise that the same big-shot Liberal pundits have softpedaled the reports of the Obama campaign allowing the formation of a big-money SuperPAC on its behalf — basically condoning the same kind of corporate election-buying that it condemned during the ’08 campaign.

Granted, Mitt Romney making his dog ride on the roof of his car while the rest of the family rode comfortably inside is a crassly insensitive act — but it’s even more crass and insensitive that the allegedly “progressive” Barack Obama continues to give the cushy ride to bankers and corporate interests while The 99% are forced to ride on the metaphorical roof of Obama’s metaphorical car.

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