perfidy

Episode One, In which our hero taunts and humiliates the villain, and discovers that not all Nigerian widows are lying.

It has been half a decade. Unlike that day five years ago, today is chill and damp. I remember how gorgeous that September 11th was; it would have been a perfect day but for the evil that was visited on us. There are lots of remembrances of 9/11 around the web, read them and remember, pray for the souls of those we lost, and pray for peace even if that seems a forlorn hope.

Wizbang has an excellent web roundup which is well worth your time, and there is 2996, an effort to memorialize each of those who died in the attacks. The server for the homepage is swamped, but several friends have participated, Cat, Army Wife, Rocket Jones, Blackfive (who also memorializes Rick Rescorla), and the Oldsmoblogger. If I've forgotten or missed anyone, let me know and I'll add you to the list. Read of all of them, and thanks to all of you who wrote these wonderful posts.

Finally, from our gracious webhostess Kathy Kinsley, we also have two truly excellent links about other 9/11s, and Lilek's 9/11 movie.

Apropos of nothing in particular, I found this kickass pic of a commie attack helo. Seemingly a late-model Hind variant:

Pretty flippin' cool, huh?

What can you say about Nebraska? Well, this:

• In the middle parts of fortune
• You're Not in Kansas Anymore! Not that you’d notice
• More culture and learning than you can shake a stick at, plus the stick
• We named our rivers "White" and "Republican" - do we need to hit you with a brick or what?
• Yeah, corn. And under the corn, thermonuclear warhead-tipped, MIRVed Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. So shut the fuck up about the corn.
• "N" is for "Knowledge!"
• We’ll get a sea coast if we have to destroy Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas to do it
• We're Located Somewhere In The Center
• More Corn than Kansas, Less Bombs than Oklahoma
• "Wildfire Free Since...oh, shit..."
• We're only half as boring as our state sounds
• Where Elephants Roam the CornFields
• We’re glad that Jerk Marlin Perkins is dead
• Ask About Our State Motto Contest
• The geographical center of the USA, and therefore, the universe
• The Flat Water State
• The Delaware of the Plains
• The Plainsy Plains Plains State
• More than just college football. Well, ok, just college football.
• We think we’re not New Jersey
• Home of the Cow-Tipping World Championship
• We put the ‘Mid’ in ‘Midwest’
• There are ten times as many illegal immigrants as Nebraskans
• The "looks kinda like Boba-Fett's spaceship" state
• We still want our corner back from Colorado
• Proud Home of Identical Twin Entertainers Fred Astaire and Malcolm X
• When you think of flat, think Nebraska!
• We believe in Evolution, because we see it stalled to the south
• Nebraska, possibilities...endless. Roads... endless
• The Bug-Eating State
• We gave the world Kool-Aid, and, indirectly, the Holy Purple Jesus
• Our tractors have air conditioning
• If civilization collapses tomorrow, we’ll be the Mongol Hordes by next Tuesday
• And Bill Callahan will be the Great and Dread Khan

[wik] Thanks to GeekLethal and Princess Cat, who contributed mockery and derision to this installment of, "Hey, let's make fun of a state."

I had often thought that I was a nice guy. Rather non-demonic in the general run of things. It seems, though, that I was wrong. My inner demon is not a little boy, but rather:

You scored as Dareigeo, Demon of Rage and Death.

You are Dareigeo, Demon of Rage and Death. You are a demon who will kill your victims with the most violent and gruesome methods ever imagined. You like to rip off your prey's body parts and inflict excruciating pain, but only to let them die slowly while you enjoy every second of their misery.

[wik] I am sick and tired of editing the descriptions on these quizzes. Perhaps if I ripped a few of them limb from limb - you know, pour encouragement les autres - I would need to less of that.

[alsø wik] I guess I'll have to give up hope of ever being Beelzebubba.

Without having had my cockles warmed for several days now- and I loathe cold cockles- I thought I'd have a look at gauging my own evil. Not only is there a quiz for it, your personal evil has a name:

You scored as Xeohelios, Demon of Cunning and Manipulation.

You are Xeohelios, Demon of Cunning and Manipulation. You are an intelligent being who kills his victims in unique and unusual ways. You often have others do your dirty work for you by manipulating them. You rarely dirty your hands with killing, but have many people killed.

And the only times you do this yourself is when you have a personal issue with them. (like envy or hate)

Fair warning: the quiz is a little intense.

[wik] "Who kills his victims" yet "you rarely dirty you hands with killing," a conflicted demon, I guess. - B

[alsø wik] First, running true to form, Buckethead had to fix the quiz code and take the rough edges off the mis-spellings and retarded grammar. So, props. As for the "conflict", maybe not- note the qualifier "rarely"; so he will do his own dirty work at times. But regardless, the end result- whether inflicted by the actual malevolent entity or his tormented slaves- is the same: an unusual and/or cruel death.

[alsø alsø wik] But besides that, who are you to question Satan's minions, Daniel fucking Webster?

So, there I was - out of town the past couple days, when I got a call on my cell, from one of my correspondents who happens to have both my office number and my mobile.

The message? "What's wrong with your office phone service?"

I called the office number from my cell phone, and as reported, heard that

We're sorry - your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and dial again.

WTF? I think I'm still in business, and I know the bill is paid, I said to myself. But at the time, I wasn't in a position where I could spare the inevitable hour+ the search for a solution would take on the phone to some hair-lipped dipshit in Bangalore, Mumbai, or New Jersey. So I punted. (Actually, "teed off" is a more appropriate sports metaphor, under the circumstances)

When I got back to town this evening, I decided I'd spend some time building up karma points, and I've heard that talking to soulless retards is good for one's karma balance. And so I called for technical support. The menu tree on the automated answering system at the service provider was clearly designed to ensure that, except for the most serious problems, no human would ever be bothered with my travails. When I'd finally gotten to the point where I was allowed to make a selection proving that I had, in fact, checked all the obvious problems and found them n/a, I did as requested, and pressed "1" to be transferred to a supposedly sentient being. After the standard boilerplate about how, to ensure quality, my call might be recorded, I heard a couple clicks, followed by a message:

We're sorry - your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and dial again.

After I'd taken a moment to mop up a bit of the blood that burst, geyser-like, from my ears, I called again, and speed-pounded all the same responses as the first time, this time reaching quite the chatty Kathy (though his name was Greg) who asked me to do all the standard shit, and who seemed credulous as I paused after each request for just a long-enough time to allow him the delusion I was actually following his instructions. And when it was all over, I had several phone lines on which I could make outbound calls to anyone, but could only receive inbound calls from other customers of the same provider, though none from anyone who'd been smart enough to choose a different telephone company.

Just as I had been when the call began.

Except for one thing - I now have an "RT Ticket" (whatever that is) and a promise that the engineers in New Jersey will provide something (not necessarily a solution, but something) within 24-48 hours.

Marvelous. Just bloody marvelous. I don't think it would be right to name the company with whom I've so enjoyed this mincing waste of time and loss of telephonic contact from much of the business world, because, while the truth is an absolute defense against libel claims, and everything I've related here is the truth, they don't have a forum here to defend themselves.

[wik] Oh, and on a completely unrelated note, Vonage sucks. Like a Hoover.

[alsø wik] Correction, Vonage sucks like a Hoover trapped inside a Eureka.

[alsø alsø wik] On third thought, Vonage sucks like a Hoover trapped inside a Eureka, jammed up Dave Oreck's ass. Sideways. No disrepect to Dave Oreck intended, of course.

[wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?] Yes, Virginia, this does get me out of the hot seat, probably at least until the esteemed Minister Ross weighs in again.

[wik] No, Virginia, this doesn't get me out of the hot seat

Just go look.

For the first time since getting over the initial withdrawal period, I am regretting my decision to get rid of cable. Sure, I am no longer wasting time watching the fifteenth documentary on the Battle of the Bulge, or Tsunamis. I'm not watching movies on HBO. I'm getting more reading done, playing games with the family. It's all good. Except. This Saturday we will witness, in the words of sportswriter Stewart Mandel, "the biggest, most colossal event in the history of organized sports." Well, those with television will witness it. What event is this, you ask? Nothing more than the OSU - Texas football game. My buckeyes are ranked number one. The slope browed neanderthals from Austin are ranked second. It's the second week of the season. And, short of finding a sports bar suitable for three year olds, I will miss it.

I've thought about asking Mom to record it - she'll be driving out the next day. But somehow I doubt that I will manage to make the next 24 hours without someone telling me the results. I will have to make the effort, for Cleveland has, as usual, given me its annual disappointment. My only hope for sports happiness is college football.

[wik] Hat tip to, of all people, my wife for the link.

I meant to post this a while back, but John over at Texas Best Grok linked to a fascinating page of Bill Waterson rarities. I've always been a big fan of Calvin and Hobbes, and this is just cool.

From Rootsvilleburg, Oh, resident BTD Matt, we have another excruciatingly fun interweb sign generator thingy. Behold, my creation:

Over at Naked Villainy, we find a quiz that warms the cockles of our heart. A soft and fuzzy quiz that probes at the feminine side of our soul. This quiz asks, "What WWII Army would you be?" The answer is clear: Finland

You scored as Finland.

Your army is the army of Finland. You prefer to win your enemy by your wit rather than superior weapons. Enemy will have a hard time against your small but effective force.

[wik] And what rule insists that the authors of these verdamt quizzes can't write or spellcheck their way out of wet paper sack?

[alsø wik] While I am utterly unsurprised that I ended up as Finland, given my genetic heritage and disposition, I am surprised that I ranked so low as America. Granted, I don't believe that the American strategic campaign was terribly useful, or even terribly moral, but I don't think that those answers should have bumped the 'ol US of A that far down the rankings.

[alsø alsø wik] If I were to get all reckless and shit, and attempt to rank those nations without the assistance of an interweb quiz engine, it might go something like this:

• Finland
• USA
• Britain/Commonwealth
• Poland
• Italy
• Germany
• Japan
• Soviet Union
• France, Free French or Resistance

[wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?] If I were to choose purely on the basis of prowess, rather than ideological preference, the list might go like this:

• Finland
• Germany
• USA
• Britain/Commonwealth
• Poland
• Italy
• Japan
• Soviet Union
• France, Free French or Resistance

Strangely, the lists are nearly identical, with the exception of Germany moving up rather precipitously.

Operational Art of War III
Scenario "Taiwan 2015"

People's Republic of China: Programmed Opponent (PO)
Taiwan: Yours truly

This scenario is a hypothetical sketch of an invasion of Taiwan by the PRC. Discussion below the fold.

The area of operations is the northern quarter or so of Taiwan. The north-central area is dominated by Taipei and environs; to the west, there is dense urban terrain around the airport. Much of the map outside the cities is open/cropland that favors fairly easy mobility.

The PRC starts out aggressive, but is not consistently so. Turn 1 finds large airborne attacks that seize the airport and much of the surrounding city; the harbor; and most of Taipei proper. Subsequent turns see further airborne drops, as well as marine infantry flowing into the harbor. By about Turn 4, Taipei was in commie hands, their grip on the western areas was strong, and the marines were poised to blast south between them.

The good news for the Taiwanese player is that victory is tied to Taipei. The city center is worth 90 vp alone; counting up the broader urban sprawl surrounding it, it’s in the neighborhood of 200 vp. This is good, because the mission is pretty cut and dried: hold Taipei, win.

In order to do that, a couple of things needed to happen. The strong marine forces lollygagging around the harbor could not be allowed to flow into the city; I had a feeling that once in there they’d never be dug out. As it was, the light units dug into the city were trouble enough. The enemy marines had to be either destroyed, fixed in place, or otherwise prevented from linking with its forces in Taipei to the E or the force in the W. Such a link would establish a solid line of invaders across a fairly narrow frontage, stretching across nearly half the island. The Taiwanese player does not have enough combat power fielded to destroy them; fixing them might be feasible with a strong force, but most of my heavy units were trying to wrest the airport or the capital from the bad guys.

So it looks grim in the opening turns- strong PRC units appear everywhere you don’t want them, and do a lot of damage. Friendly forces are dispersed and, early on, inadequate to do much beyond meeting engagements. But, as with NATO/Pact scenarios, the invader’s reinforcements peter out as the defender’s increase. Although parity is never reached, Taiwan is able to field some robust armored and mech units, as well as several attack helo units that are very effective against PRC artillery.

What ended up happening was that I had basically 3 forces. The west had armor and mech units leavened with some reserve leg battalions that, in time, were enough to destroy most of the PRC airborne and push back the rest until the enemy line thickened up with reinforcing marine units. In the east, everything I had went toward retaking Taipei, an ugly fight. The only way to keep attrition to a minimum in the destroyed, dense rubble of the city is the application of overwhelming, concentrated firepower. There are no political consequences of reducing the city to ash, or for making the rubble bounce, so go for it. The defenders don’t retreat readily, so it’s fairly easy to maneuver around and isolate them, but then it’s time consuming to eradicate them. The center, though, was my biggest concern.

Even though the game would be won by whoever held Taipei at the end, the PRC marines in the center were the key element in the fight. After committing everything I felt was needed to recapture the capital, there was very little left to drive between the city and those enemy marines. For most of the game, I had a thin line of leg infantry and a couple small mech formations as a speed bump for them, and that was it. At any moment, the PRC marines could have burst out of the harbor area and swung east to relieve the capital, or west to maneuver across the open terrain and envelope my force there. The PO chose neither. It made a few thrusts that pushed the line back pretty easily, but it never really went for it. Once all the PRC’s units were committed to Taiwan, it just sort of let them hang around. An aggressive human opponent would’ve eaten my lunch, I’m sure.

This scenario is really the PRC’s to lose; with Taipei and the airport the game is all but won. The rest of the game should be spent holding them, and parrying efforts to dislodge them. There is plenty of space and favorable terrain for bold maneuver, but in this scenario it’s not strictly necessary for the win. I’d like to try this fight again, but as the Chicoms, and see what kind of damage I can do with those marines.

If I've got this right, six monkeys, tossed in the air, would land on their heads as often as their tails... The internet, natural habitat of all things pointless and nevertheless fascinating, is of course home to the Monkey Shakespeare Simulator. Here, billions upon quadrillions of electronic monkeys munch bananas and type, hoping to produce - despite a complete lack of knowledge of literature or even language - the complete works of the Bard. The current record, according to the page, is 24 letters from Henry IV, Part 2.

Amazingly, my monkeys - enlisted in my service when I loaded the page - managed to duplicate the first 40 characters of Romeo and Juliet:

After 6.18685e+77 pages in this session, a monkey typed:

Sampson. Gregory: A my word wee'l not caoyF
v9MYN;.(pGVEd0O?9LiCF.
:O(Y...

the first 40 letters of which match "Romeo and Juliet"
This occured after 3.92099e+73 monkey-years in this session,
when there were 8.00248e+73 monkeys.

Excitement! I set a record! Instantly, I submitted my results to the webmaster. My excitement abated dramatically when I realized that I was getting 38 and 39 letters of various plays with amazing regularity. Checking back now, I see that I have racked up 40 letters from Henry VI, Part 2 and the Tempest over the last ten minutes or so. My apparent record is, seemingly, more an artifact of inattention on the part of the people who run the website than due to any puissance inherent in my electric monkeys. This is confirmed by a closer reading of the large type near the top of the page, which informs me that new entries are not being accepted thanks to a lack of resources. Cheap bastards.

Still, until proven otherwise, I have the record! Mine, mine, mine, mine.

Found on the wall of a cubicle:

Click on the pic for a larger, clearer, and more legible version. You'll feel better, trust me.

Kevin Drum notes that the California legislature has passed a measure that would direct the state's electoral votes based on the national results, rather than the results in California. There's speculation on whether or not the Governator will sign it; I hope that he does. The odd and divisive strategies of national elections are driven by the craziness of the electoral vote system, and if enough states adopt this legislation, the country will be heading firmly back in the direction of "one person, one vote". With any luck the tyranny of rural America will end.

Under the legislation, California would grant its electoral votes to the nominee who gets the most votes nationwide — not the most votes in California....The California legislation would not take effect until enough states passed such laws to make up a majority of the Electoral College votes — a minimum of 11 states, depending on population.

It's bad for Republicans, of course. More populous states would gain in overall power. I do note the irony that under this system California's electoral votes would have gone to Bush in the last election, which is fine with me (in the numerical sense).

Once again, Bush makes it crystal clear that he, personally, does not believe there's a direct link between 9/11 and Iraq. Doesn't it wear this guy down even a little to have to go out there and push this crap, continuously? Bush speaks.

We're approaching the fifth anniversary of the September the 11th attacks -- and since that day, we have taken the fight to the enemy. Yet this war is more than a military conflict; it is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century.

He spoke to the Seafarer's union too:

And my message to the world is this: Just treat us the way we treat you. That's all we expect.

The following was published at blogcritics.org as a supplement and companion piece to my review of Pere Ubu's Why I Hate Women:

Over the past decade and a half, I have probably written a couple hundred reviews of albums by artists from Sam Cooke to Samhain. When the PR firm handling the fifteenth album by the formerly Cleveland-based new wave band Pere Ubu, Why I Hate Women, asked me for a review, I agreed to give it a shot. I'm a big fan of Pere Ubu frontman David Thomas, and his last couple projects have been right up my alley. But as I sat there staring at the blinking cursor on a blank field of black, I tried to write a straight review and found I just couldn't do it.

What I turned out instead was (very kindly) kicked back to me by an editor, who asked in essence, "um, this is very nice... what is it?"

Well, long story short, I love music, but I'm damn sick and tired of writing music reviews.

The usual formula goes as follows:

"Band X formed in Year A and influenced Y1, Y2 and the incredibly obscure Y3, who had one single on the Kankakee, MI based Fancypants label. Their newest album, X', is a (adjective) non/departure from their previous work. Adjective, adjective adverb quality assessment, subordinate clause hedging previous assertions. X' is recommended to fans of A, A', and A'', but is not as essential as classic album X''. "

There's a lot you can do with that basic template, and a quick glance back through my Blogcritics archive will reveal a number of (if I do say so myself) pretty good variations on that classic theme. Unfortunately, templates are limiting. If you'll permit me to disappear up my own bunghole for a thousand words or so...

The novel form was stale as long ago as the 1760s, when Laurence Stern broke all the rules of narrative and continuity in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Ever read that book? It's awesome. Ostensibly the autobiography of Tristram Shandy, the 900-odd page novel only gets up to recounting the events of a few hours after his birth before Shandy (Stern) gives it up and quits.

The entire book is a sort of deconstruction of the novel form, as well as a very smart parody of the eighteenth-century penchant for flowery apologies. I mean, the first four or five chapters are an extended explanation-by-way-of-apology for his parents' moods at his moment of conception, followed by a chapter following young sperm-Tristram on its journey to meet egg-Tristram!

The rest of the book is a study in digression, with fake-but-accurate musings on noses, names, women, and tragic groin injuries, and every so often an entire chapter apologizing for not ever getting to the point of writing about his life. That book was written a good hundred years and more before Dickens and Hardy would perfect the English novel, and already the form was done!

The modern record album review dates from - what? 1966? That's when Paul Williams published "How Rock Communicates" in the inaugural issue of the rock-zine Crawdaddy, which was just about the first time that anyone took rock music seriously as a worthy subject of critical examination. Only five years later, Lester Bangs was kicking back against that staid and hoary 'tradition,' writing first-person-heavy rants and love letters only thinly disguised as "reviews." That's less then five years between the genre's inception and jumping the shark.

So little wonder that, after writing a couple hundred-odd album reviews, some of which are perfectly normal and some of which have merely nibbled at the boundaries of what a review normally is, I've gotten dangerously bored. As if you care.

Here's the trouble. I think many, if not most, of the people who write about music for Blogcritics would agree that it's impossible to be perfectly objective about music. Part of its attraction, after all, is the intensely personal reaction that it evokes in someone. That is, part of music's appeal is its subjectivity - how it makes you feel.

Long ago, I gave up trying to be The Voice of Authority. What the hell do I know that other people don't? Nothin'. So, I figure the best I can aspire to is to relate to music fans and prospective buyers what exactly a certain album does for me; yep, how it makes me feel. Whether or not someone else will encounter a song or album the same way as I do is a one in a million shot, but still I can't see it any other way.

I can't possibly imagine for the life of me why my good friend Ron doesn't think Wolf Confessor Brings The Flood Neko Case's is the best album of the year, and I have no idea why anyone thinks the Black Eyed Peas have made a half-decent single since "Joints and Jam" in 1998. So, all I can do is make sure when I write a review, that the reader understands where I'm coming from, because that's as important as what I say about the music. But how do you make what you feel about the music relevant to the album, without tipping too far over into mere masturbatory autobiography?

When I sat in front of that blinking cursor trying to write a review of Pere Ubu's new album, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't bear to write another X-Y-Z review, especially of a band that has spent nearly three decades deconstructing rock music. That would just be weak. So, instead I ended up with a short story (or something) that summed up how the album made me feel. By a stroke of luck, the lyrics (which I hadn't even really absorbed by that point) matched the story in my head pretty much exactly, so in they went.

Was the result a review? I guess, but only at a remove. My wife read it and opined that she never ever wanted to hear any album anything like what the story described, and she's right. It's totally not up her alley. So, success! Okay, what I wrote won't tell you whether Keith Moline's guitar work is reminiscent of Robert Fripp (sure it is, why not?), but that's not really as important as knowing whether the album is going to make you run screaming, and I figure a story can do that just as well as a sober transmission of data.

Anyway, after all that hoo-ha and bullplop philosophizing, if you still hunger for a more straightforward review of Why I Hate Women, here you go.

The press release I have describes Why I Hate Women as "a disorienting mix of Midwestern riff rock, 'found' sound, analog synthesizers, falling-apart song structures and careening vocals," and that's about right. Having had someone already write this is a load off my mind, as I don't have to struggle to come up with the appropriate metaphors on my own. I really am sick of writing descriptive music reviews, even about such a disturbing, fascinating, and very nearly brilliant piece of post-rock.

Pere Ubu frontman David Thomas (a bearish Clevelander who now makes his home on the English coast) has spent thirty years tearing at the fabric of rock music. His first band, Rocket From the Tombs, wrote songs that were for the time (the early 1970s) and place (Cleveland), practically from another planet. His singing voice was then (as now) a strangled whine that seems to emanate from that part of the chest that clenches when you puke (Neil Strauss of The New York Times describes it as "David Byrne with a plugged nose,"), and the lyrics to Rocket From The Tombs songs like "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" and "Final Solution" toyed with the outer reaches of suicidal disaffection with a surprising amount of wit and grace. Even before there was such a thing as punk rock, Thomas and RFTT band members Peter Laughner and Gene O'Connor (better known as Cheetah Chrome of The Dead Boys) seemed to be trying to move right past it to the next thing.

Thomas has made fourteen albums, with Pere Ubu, none of which I'm incredibly familiar with. But I do know Rocket From The Tombs, and I do know Pere Ubu's reputation for making difficult and stand-offish music that attempts to reinvent the wheel to varying degrees of success. How could I write a straight review about a band fronted by a guy who was postpunk before there was a punk to be post of?

All of this was in my head when I gave Why I Hate Women its test spins. The first time I listened to it through, I didn't like it very much at all. Nearly every song on the album features a heavy dose of Theremin (the electronic instrument that gives cheesy old horror movie soundtracks their noooWEEEEoooo factor), and through my bargain-basement earbud headphones, listening to the album was like taking a power drill to my eardrums. Upon repeated listens through better speakers, the music took on more focus and balance, and the underlying attractions began to show through. Jackhammer guitar riffs alternated with queasy atmospheric soundscapes, and Thomas' nasal vocals lend a suitable sense of dread and foreboding to his elliptical and impressionistic lyrics.

Thomas claims that Why I Hate Women was written with an overarching story in mind: "the back story is more or less detailed and peopled with characters. The purpose of the album then becomes to capture a specific psychological moment from one of those characters." I figured, why not take a shot at that story?

David Thomas has compared this album to a Jim Thompson novel, and I can see his point. Thompson was another stylistic innovator, a crime writer who wrote pulpy and disturbing novels from the point of view of the unredeemable killer rather than the rugged and flawed (but likeable!) detective. Although not easy, the album does bear repeated listens, in the same way most people have to experience Frank Zappa's music as unpleasant twaddle a few times before things finally click and his approach begins to make sense.

So I wrote a story for a review. Have I jumped the shark? Have I inaugurated a rich new genre of music writing that will sweep the world in the weeks and months to come? Or, in the immortal words of Mel Brooks, am I just jerking off?

To celebrate Labor Day, the Ministry continues to riducule and belittle the states of our glorious Union. On deck is the last of the 'M' states, Montana, where the buffalo roam and home is a shack in the wilderness.

• We’ll be first to go when the glaciers come
• Population: 12
• Where what a man does with his cattle is his business
• Now with 50% fewer radical dissidents
• At least our cows are sane
• The New Jersey of the Upper Midwest
• Mountainous, know what I mean? Nudge, nudge
• It's where you're wanted
• Big Pie Country
• We Dug up Our State to Enrich Eastern Mining Interests
• Anti-Government-Isolationist-Compound Conventions Welcome!
• Bring Your Own Guns
• If you’re tracing the steps of that Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance guy, get the fuck out.
• Land of the Big Sky, and and a lot of dirt
• The Stubtoe State. Don’t Ask
• One nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all. Unless, of course, you don't believe in that sort of thing, in which case you can find a patch of land, build an arsenal, write a manifesto and start your own damned government.
• Turn The Lights Out When You Leave
• Proud Home of Gary Fucking Cooper
• Your Militia Is Safe Here
• We could all fit in Cleveland, Ohio
• We've got lots of 10'x10' shacks in the woods
• Land of the Big Sky, the Unabomber, Right-Wing Crazies, and Very Little Else
• Is Mercury Poisonous?
• More guns per capita than Detroit
• More Prairie Dogs than People

It gradually dawns on you that the drive from Vermont to Cleveland probably shouldn't have been attempted at night, especially given the circumstances. Tarry highway coffee can't beat back the buzzing behind your eyes and the vile taste of exhaustion rising at the back of your throat. The last time you looked in the mirror, the bruises around your neck had blossomed from faint red suggestions of violence into splendid purple and blue memorials of the last hour you'll ever spend in that town. You need a shave and a transfusion probably wouldn't hurt either.

You reach down to press in the cigarette lighter, and as you look away from the road the edge of your eye catches sight of the furry... thing... driving the white panel truck as it blows past you on the right. What the hell?

Later, pitching the dead end of the same cigarette out the window, you swear the trees furring the black hills to the north suddenly resolve themselves into a gigantic man-shaped figure rising out of the woods against an inky Berkshire sky and striding off to the west. A second later, you pass a tractor-trailer. When you are able to look back north, there is nothing there but trees and sky.

As the exhaustion creeps deeper into your chest, you drift in and out of awareness, the center line a punctuated commentary on the tedium of driving through upstate New York. You climb that line hand over hand, every mile one mile closer to Cleveland. The radio cuts in and out, a jittery melange of classic rock, bad country, and paranoid ranting about God, UFOs and government conspiracies.

It is some time before you realize that the whirring you hear is the car's front wheels grasping blindly at mud. You open your eyes. It is some time before you realize that you aren't driving any more, and that you probably shouldn't try to move in case it makes the pain hurt worse. It is some time before you realize there had been someone in the car with you, and you don't remember where they came from. You wonder what could be making that thrashing sound in the brush down below you.

The night is getting colder, and over the occasional whoosh of passing cars on the highway above, the radio is playing again, a curious mixture of agitated rock, stealthy nightmares, and electronic squealing that echoes the buzzing behind your eyes. There's a theremin playing like a demented steel guitar, and the singer's disembodied nasal voice hovers just above you like a wisp of fog, intoning cryptically about lost luggage, two slices of white bread sealed in a ziploc bag, and bars where the beer don't walk on him. He's got a job for life. In your head -- in my head is a white room where all the good things go. A man with a bag walks in, drops it on the floor and he goes. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

I gotta get out of this place else I swear my head will crack - crack!
I gotta get out of this place else I swear my head will crack
What will you do for me?
Johnny Two-Toes says to Betty Groove

I wait for the dawn but I fear the dawn will not come back
I wait for the dawn but I fear the dawn will not come back
What will you do for me?
What will you do?

There's something that's closin down on me feels like a hand grabbed round my throat
There's something that's closin down on me feels like a hand grabbed round my throat
What will you do for me?
Johnny Two-Toes says to Betty Groove
What will you do?

I gotta get outa this town for I swear this town will be the death of me
I gotta get outa this town for I swear this town will be the death of me
What will you do for me?
Johnny Two-Toes says
What will you do for me?

Sleep finally overcomes and the night is split by the red pulsations of emergency vehicles. The activity comes nearer, and the man and the electronic buzzing sing together just for you, with the infinite love of a father for his helpless newborn child,

My eyes are growin tentacles for to grab you
My eyes are growin hand grenades for to have you
My eyes are growin tentacles for to grab you
I live in a house without any windows

My hands are growin spectacles for to grab you
My hands are growin half the night for to have you
My hands are growin spectacles for to grab you
My hands are growin spectacles...
I live in a house without any windows
I got a 40 watt bulb to light up my life.

As the music grows to a stormy climax and abruptly fades into the busy sounds of an upstate New York freeway night, it gradually dawns on you that Cleveland is going to have to wait a while.

When my parents drive out to visit goodwyfe Johno and myself, they usually bring a giant haul of goodies; vegetables from their garden, blueberries or apples from their bushes and trees, and jams, jellies, and pickles. Usually, they bring more than we can possibly use.

Two weeks ago my parents came to town, and when they left, our refrigerator and pantry were bursting: leeks the size of baseball bats, summer squash of every size and description, tomatoes, cucumbers, and green beans, dozens of yellow onions tasting of the Ohio earth they grew in, enough shallots and garlic to see us through to spring 2008 (at least), and a good eight pounds of blueberries.

Now, my parents' blueberries are spectacular. Some of them are gigantic and mellow specimens, but others are much smaller and a little tart, but absolutely full of flavor.

And me being me, the first thing I thought this year when faced with eight pounds of berries, was "hey - I can make beer out of that!" (Of course, that's what I think every time I see a potato, pepper, bag of kaffir lime leaves, cherry, apple, or old shoe, so it's not like I'm exactly making a leap here.) Many, if not most, blueberry beers are made with blueberry essence or extract, which imparts the flavor of blueberries without turning the beer purple. Unfortunately, blueberry extracts tend to behave a lot like imitation vanilla - if buried way down in the mix as part of a recipe, they work great and do the job of providing acceptable flavor for a minimum cost. However, once they take center stage, their shortcomings (mainly the one-dimensionality of their flavor) become apparent. And although I could certainly come by canned blueberry pulp or several kinds of extract from a beer supplier, here I am with fresh berries and an overzealous desire to do everything the hard way.

So I say, "nuts to all that!" If my beer must be purple, so be it! I have fresh berries to use, and as God is my witness, they shall be beer!

Brew #11: Buckeye Blueberry Ale

1 Munton & Fison Export Pilsener kit, hopped liquid malt extract.
1 lb honey (in this case, wildflower honey from local bees, because I'm like that.)
2 lb frozen Ohio blueberries
EasYeast European Ale Yeast, liquid

For this recipe, which was going to be a blueberry wheat until my supplier didn't have any wheat malt, I used for the first time a can of hopped malt extract that does not require boiling before fermentation. To make an all-malt beer, you need two such cans, but since I'm after not only a light-colored but a light-bodied beer, I went with one can of malt extract, one pound of honey both for alcohol and for a dry finish, and whatever sugar turns out to be in the berries.

Since this recipe didn't require boiling, this was an ass-easy brew.

Brought two gallons spring water to a boil and added the berries in a gauze bag. Held for 15 minutes at 160-180 degrees to pasteurize. Added the malt extract and honey and held at 160-180 for ten more minutes to pasteurize the honey, which was probably not necessary but the safe thing to do.

Removed brew pot to an ice bath and reduced to 75 degrees. Added three gallons of room-temperature distilled water to fermentor and added contents of brew pot, including the bag of berries. Poured the wort back and forth to aerate. Pitched yeast at 72 degrees and fitted airlock.

At pitching, this is a pale beer with a dramatic orangy-pinky-purply tinge from all the anthocyanin pigments released from the frozen berries. You ever peed the morning after eating a lot of beets? My beer is that color. Cool.

I don't really expect that very much berry flavor is going to survive the primary fermentation - it's probably mostly going to fly out the airlock with the gases. As such, I'm considering adding another pound or so of berries at the end of primary that will macerate in the young beer and replace the lost berry flavor. This will also kickstart another small fermentation as the yeast eat the fresh berry sugars. If I can figure out a way to pasteurize the berries (maybe by heating them to 20 minutes and cooling them in a sanitary environment?) I'll try this. Or, I might just let it go and see what I get for the minimum of effort.

It's a bit of a mystery as to whether this beer will turn out well. But, if I did everything right the first time, I'd never learn anything.

[wik] Very light body with a orangy-purple color and a light pink head. Flavor is very light, almost watery, buy crisp and tart from the faint berry flavor. Not a home run, but nicely engaging as a glass to drink. I'll need to double the fruit and add in some light crystal malt next time in order to make it really good. On the other hand, the yeast is really nice and I want to see it in something darker for sure.

I play the guitar. By which I mean that I know some chords and can improvise a lame lead built in a pentatonic box. That knowledge pretty much grants access to the entire AC/DC catalog which, really, ought to be enough for anyone.

But there are legions of folks in this great land of ours who are just starting and can't yet play by ear. Others seek more than what Angus Young can teach us- odd, yes, but they're out there and I've met them. They want an edge, a little more knowledge, or at the very least, a more refined dabbling in the guitary arts. Some people take private lessons which, judging by the fliers I see at any given moment on any campus or metro area, must be a booming business.

The quickest way though to learn how to play a song yourself, and if you can't do it by ear, is to use tablature. Tab is a graphical shorthand that explains where your fingers go on certain strings. Tab can help you fret a weird chord you didn't hear in the song, or with a spiffy lead run you can't pick out yourself. It also has the benefit of having near instantaneous utility, as opposed to having to train to read formal sheet music. If you can see, you can apply tablature. Its main drawback though is that tab cannot help you if you don't already know how the song is supposed to sound.

As with every other perversion, the internets are full of tablature sites. Typically, more skilled players will post their shorthand interpretations of popular songs for novices. They are free, and understood to be a sort of fraternal public service. Yours truly, not 2 weeks ago, consulted a site because I knew the tuning of a song was all fucky, and didn't get it. In about 10 seconds I was able to find the song, see the layout, go "Oh, THAT's how...", and presto-change-o, could play the song.

But now the lawyers got wind of it, so it's all fucked up for everybody.

The site I used for tab, OLGA, has been down for awhile. They've now posted links to the nastygrams they got from the law firm representing the National Music Publishers Association and the Music Publishers Association of the United States that accuse OLGA, and several similar sites, of copyright infringement and ordered them to stop operating. Their argument is that because music writers, transcribers, and related fields have to go through the legal hassle of following copyright law when they do their business, the result of which is selling songbooks and such to musicians, offering what is ostensibly the same service for free (yet still generating an income with blogads and such) is illegal.

So dig, I can get- marginally- the infringement argument. That's the law, the publishers feel threatened, and seek remedy through legal action. As far as a reasonably well-adjusted society's legal mechanism working, I get it. But the MPA said a little too much with this remark:

We are doing this to protect the interests of the creators and publishers of music so that, the profession of songwriting remains viable and that new and exciting music will be continued to be created and enjoyed for generations to come.

So- just so I'm clear- the Music Publisher's Association's position is that, if the broader population know how to play older, previously released music, musicians will no longer care to produce new work?

I'm pretty sure that wide popularity has not yet worked AGAINST a musician. And it's odd that a dilettante has to explain this to the MPA, but here you go: musicians are artists. Artists create because if they don't, they go mental. Admittedly sometimes they are mental beforehand. But regardless of their personal sanity timeline, artists make art because they have to, not for the friggin pay; are you kidding?! As for the income, I am highly skeptical of the claim that some schmoe running a tab site is winning the big money and fabulous prizes. The whole point is to share information to enjoy the music, not to play musical capitalist. It's not like Russell Simmons made his gajillions on tablature.

And thinking about it, are they going to file cease and desist orders on every cover band in the Union? Because not only do they play copyrighted material, they profit from it too. Sure some get paid in cocaine, but it is, strictly speaking, compensation. And as much as I would love to see crummy cover bands wither and fail, I'd rather it done through people telling them they suck by not paying to see them, than by playing lawyer-ball. Although, to be fair, they may have tried serving them with court papers, but often those folks have no fixed address and it's tough to deliver to "the van with all the bondo on it in the field behind the old fire station."

But let's test the waters here, and see how music publishers feel about this. I will reveal the most secretest secrety secret of rock and roll, right here and now. I am gambling that this revelation will not cause popular music in general, and rock n roll in particular, to screech to a jarring and disastrous halt. I am willing to gamble that, contrary to the MPA's weird assertion, its transcribers will continue to be able "to feed their families". It is nothing less than the Key to Rock. It is the entry path to Chuck Berry; through Crosby, Stills, Nash and (sometimes) Young; past KISS; on to the Ramones, Pearl Jam, and the nu-metal flavor of the month.

I stand at the cliffside now, Prometheus-like, and hereby give the gift of rock and roll fire to the yearning multitudes:

A-C-E-A

Use it wisely, my children.

Now let's see if they send their legal vultures to peck at my innards for all eternity.

One of my favorite flicks, Full Metal Jacket, was on last night.

For me, the whole movie is the first half or so. Everything after the suicide scene gets weirder and weirder, it starts to drag, and byt he end I really don't care what happens to these characters, who I nominally cared about to begin with anyway. But every scene that includes Gunnery Sergeant Hartman cracks me up. And the harder he pushes his recruits, the harder I laugh. Lady Lethal, who I have asked to endure the movie in the past, doesn't really get it. Even after I pause the scene, and repeat the rapid-fire obscenities just to make sure she got them, she agrees they're terrible but can't quite get from there to humor. So, alas, I laugh alone.

And for no better reason than because I fucking feel like it, here are two quotes from FMJ that crack me up to tears. These have been washed and then, heh, back-washed through Altavista's web translator:

Who said that? To whom did the Bumsen say that? Who has slimy little communist shit, Twinkle toed more cocksucker down here, who signed straight its own Exekutionsbefehl? Nobody, huh? Fairy fucking the patin said it. From bumsenden standing. I will pint it all cube bumsender to it. I will pint you to their ass hole suck butter milk.

And my personal fave:

Private Pyle you had the best place your ass far and beginning shitting I them cufflinks or me of Tiffany get stuffed will certainly upwards.

Curiously, with the movie fresh in my mind, astonishingly perceptive-and loyal- reader Othershoe provided me this link to discussion of what Joker calls "the Jungian thing". I went two ways with this exchange. First, I was excited at reading reasonably detailed explanations or interpretations of Kubrick's intentions and results with Jungian philosophy in the film. Then, about halfway through, I thanked the Dark Ones that my college days are safely behind me and I didn't have to listen to a roomful of students discuss the hidden, and probably made-up, meanings in movies.

Mad props to Othershoe for providing a trifecta of entertainment, nostalgia, and the creeping feeling you're going to blow the final, all in one swell foop.

God bless the lowly search function. I knew that, at some time in the past, Minister Johno had admitted his admiration for the Mexican soap opera.

Due to my advancing years, it helps, of course, that said admission happened within the last three months, but never mind that. I remembered.

And while it wasn't the key point of his missive, or even anything other than a footnote, the second of many such footnotes, it caused me to stop and pay attention to a story in today's Wall Street Journal, entitled "With Sexy Story Lines, Low Budgets, News Corp. Will Launch MyNetworkTV" (sadly, unless I get lucky by linking to the "print" page, subscription required).

Now, my entire exposure to the Mexican soap opera can be found in old episodes of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?", when Ryan Stiles was called upon to do improvisations on such things, and always made his point by using his hands to simulate having big, bouncy, heaving sweater puppets. So I, perhaps more than the average normal reader, was taken by the phrasing used by Brooks Barnes in describing the upcoming offering from News Corp. To wit:

Every time News Corp. launches a new television business, it turns to programming that entrenched players decry as schlocky and culturally debasing. Then, in many cases, the company starts printing money.

What? This sounds like fun, even for a guy who's got perhaps two TV shows he watches with any regularity. The article continues:

On Tuesday, Roger Ailes, chairman of News Corp.'s Fox Television Stations, will flip the switch on MyNetworkTV, a new broadcast network that will feature a novel format for mainstream U.S. television: Super-sexy -- and super-cheap -- prime-time soap operas that air six nights a week for limited runs.

It's an over-the-top format borrowed from Spanish-language broadcasters. While story lines on American soaps can drag on for years, Spanish soaps, or telenovelas, deliver immediate gratification. They wrap everything up after 13 weeks, offer a cliffhanger in each episode and culminate with shocking finales that can rack up Super Bowl-size ratings -- just the formula that MyNetwork hopes to duplicate.

U.S. viewers may be jolted by the style and content of the two shows MyNetwork is rolling out next week -- "Desire" and "Fashion House." But "Fox has a way of turning unsophisticated, simplistic programming into a success," says Laura Caraccioli-Davis, an executive vice president at ad-buying firm Starcom Entertainment. She adds: "And this is definitely unsophisticated."

(emphasis, of course, mine)

I'm not sure if they're trying to up the sophistication, or to provide full employment for second-tier talent in Hollywood (neither of which would offend me, nor would they improve my quality of life), but their approach might provide something to help waste more of Johno's increasingly limited free time:

MyNetwork has largely hired actors with limited experience. And in another bid to save money, it is buying telenovela scripts from Mexico, Cuba and other Spanish-speaking countries and translating them into English. It employs a staff of writers to smooth out the story lines and winnow the shows down to 65 episodes from 120, and taping is done on union soundstages well outside the Hollywood infrastructure in San Diego.

Schlock TV, but now in English, with "smoother" story lines, and shorter runs. What more could we ask for in mindless entertainment?

And it's not that I have a problem with mindless TV. Perhaps I'm the only guy who remembers a feature that used to be on (the Comedy Channel? - heck, it might still be on for all I know), called Short Attention Span Theater. Reading the plot development for one episode, SAST was the first thing that came to mind, minus the alleged comedy:

The plot points are rapid-fire. "Desire" is the tale of two brothers who are on the run from the Mafia and happen to be in love with the same woman; one brother sleeps with two different women, dodges a spray of bullets and escapes from an exploding building -- and that's just in the opening 10 minutes of the first episode.

For those rare cases when I'm in the mood to watch crap (and of course, sometimes I am), I prefer that it be really efficiently delivered crap, so that I can either watch twice as much in the allotted time, or spend half as much time watching it.

News Corp to the rescue, it would seem. And I'm rather looking forward to seeing just how bad this stuff can possibly be.

[wik] This all reminds me - I really miss MST3K. Is it still shown anywhere on cable?

[alsø wik] I was surprised to preview this story and see the phrase "...fuck, it might still be on for all I know", and came back here to the entry to find out if I had suffered Tourette's Syndrome. Nope - I typed "h e c k". Honest. Blogging software is amazing, no?