d u m b m o n k e y

a splendidly rainy day...       6.27.06
(well, certainly all of the morning, at least...) was enjoyed by the denizens of the west texass town of elpaso yesterday. Mineowndamnedself was awakened by huge jolt of noise, my first impression was perhaps a gas station had exploded, but it was merely (heh!) a sizeable thunderclap, figured this out once I stepped outside and noticed raindrops fallin' on my head and some related distant rumbles of thunder, ooooooh boy, but was that one Loud Motherfuckin' Thunderclap.
Many of you who've spent some time in arid regions might know what I speak of when I mention the scent of rain (our Momz refers to it as the smell of wet dirt), around here often experienced as something wafted along in a strong breeze coming from whatever direction the raindrops are actually falling, truly a memorable scent, and an especially nice thing to wake up to in the morning, and step outside into the backyard, a fine hot cuppa in hand, underneath the mantle of overcast grey skies and take a deep breath of that marvelously scented air. More raininess forecast for local environs over the next week, yourstruly will keep his expectations to a minimum & hedge his bets, as it remains damnably dry.
This next slew of verbiage is directed towards those inclined to watching television, in particular anyone who might be (to some degree) fond of HBO's Deadwood, & perhaps those who wonder what all the fuss is about might find something worthwhile here. Two reviews published recently, now in its third and last (as announced on the heels of the season premiere) season. One from the wonder that is Tim Goodman (TV critic for the S.F. Chronicle), Nothing Can Revive 'DEADWOOD', the other from the pages of The New Yorker, by Nancy Franklin, Dead On. I've given vent hereabouts on several previous occasions re mine own abiding affection for the show, and have no problem copping to my propensity for channeling Al Swearengen on many an occasion. Talking with brother Dave a Sunday or two ago about the show & who some of my favorite characters are, Momz interrupts and answers "Calamity Jane", yessss, indeedy, is true. Also quite fond of the work done by the folks who flesh out the roles of Doc Cochran (oh man, appears to be much heartbreak ahead for us folks, for one thing, appears as though Doc is tubercular...), Charlie Utter and Jewel, just to name a few. Feel badly for those who attempt developing some affinity for the show via introduction to season three, you just got to bite the rental bullet and view it ALL, katz und kitteez, from show numero uno season one, on thru the trials and tribulations of season two, but (and l'Marquis will wager LARGE on this), ye shall find it worth it your while. Forget alla dat other shite on the box (well, 'ceptin for stuff like Frontline/World and the like...) Deadwood is one of the best things ever created for the small screen, and while I know I am gonna miss it when it's gone, am sure glad it happened 'fore the show jumped the shark.
Looked around for a New Yorker piece from year or so ago, and HOLY BOY! - the fuckin' thing was out there: THE MISFIT; How David Milch got from "NYPD Blue" to "Deadwood" by way of an Epistle of St. Paul. Great Thanks to Marty McFly AKA Big Man Tabasco Sauce for providing us that minor miracle. Peruse the goddamed thing, mine own appreciation and esteem for the work of Mr. Milch was pretty damned sizeable post Hill Street and NYPD Blue, ye can imagine the humongousity of it now we be in season three of Deadwood. Supposed to be something new in the works for Mr. Milch, appears to be another HBO project, tentatively titled John from Cincinnati and based on the work of Kem Nunn. AwrightAwreddy, enuf o' dis lovefest, eh Binky? Some misc linky bits re Deadwood, Milch, whatever: Salon interview with Milch; yesssss, an expensive proposition to film Deadwood, but quality shows, and much credit to the folks behind the scenes as well as those anonymous faces we see onscreen. Ye Yeowndarnedself can google up a storm of linky goodness re historical Deadwood and the actual folks whose lives inspired Mr. Milch, para exemplo, here's a chunk of linky goodness re Al Swearengen and the Gem Theatre

admittedly...       6.23.06
a victim to mine own preoccupations, having picked up Jimmy McDonough's bio of Neil Young, Shakey (and glad I decided to pick it up as Rick Moody's Deviners -- the other book brought home the other day -- is a real drag, man, that first chapter is interminably BORINK!), must've been our mention of Buffalo Springfield the other day got me all wistful and missing some of me days of yore. Remember Do I Have To Come Right Out And Say It? (No, am sure some of ye have NO recollection whatsoever of that tune...)? So, whilst here this morning (and contemplating meeting up with brothers Dan and Dave & Dan's pal Chester for more guitar-slinging noisemaking tomorrow afternoon -- and yourstruly will admit to having shied away from making that joyful noise of late, too much spooky talk centering on getting serious and even playing in front of some people- YO DUDES, not this fella, sorry) l'Marquis was casting his net out into the ether, seeking various & sundry items, and I discovered Red Sun, where, as ye can imagine, ourowndamnedself happy to find the aforementioned tune.
The entire desert southwest is hurting folks, pretty serious drought conditions, some scary big fires here and there, nothing too nearby hereabouts on the border, just DRY and HOT! Opportunity for some thundershower activity here, the degree of hope that it will rain is almost palpable. A few sprinkles dropped here late afternoon, what was left over from severe thunderstorm that left parts of Alamogordo hurting yesterday evening, would be nice to be blessed with a significant shower, no doubt about it.
Wrapping up today's business with some linky bits, starting with a pair of sports related sites, Dime Mag's Smack (and Oh Man, the Knicks are in more trouble than ever...) alongside DeadSpin; lastly, another of the unindicted co-conspirators known as the Big Brass Alliance (where one might normally point ye to, 'cepting it appears the site's been hacked ugly, so check out Big Brass Blog instead),
media girl

first day of summer...       6.21.06
in an "official" sense, I suppose, as it feels it has been summer here ever since May rolled around. Hey, big congrats to the Miami Heaters, ourowndamnedself tippin' the ol' red fez to young D Wade, cuz it would've been another story entirely if it wasn't for his hardwood heroics. Tickled us immensely to see 'Zo & GeePee finally (!!!) get themselves a championship ring, very happy for Alonzo in particular. Oncet upon a time dumbmonkey made much more mention of his love of the game, collegiate, pro, whatever. Events of late '03 kicked my ass and the luster of much of what yourstruly was enamored of, well, we lost it. Perhaps some equilibrium has been regained, who knows, certainly enjoyed this most recent NBA playoffs and championship series much more than we had any of the last couple of years. Anyway, congratulations Riles, Shaq, DWade, & Co., t'was fun, especially seeing Mark Cuban watch his team lose in that up close & personal way he favors. 'member Mark, what doesn't kill you often makes you stronger...
l'Marquis admiring the nicely appointed roomful of books that C.J. shared photo of, two hundred or so of ours are shelved in the rearmost section of the Albany house garage presently, and if it wasn't for our dedicated patronage of the local public library, that dresser-top collection likely be four or five times that size by now. Jeez, if I'd only hung onto those given up at time of separation/divorce years ago, ahhhh shite, that might be too many books (Never!). Talking 'bout books, the news of Cody's closing was mentioned hereabouts not so long ago, a notable enough event to have made the pages of the Grey Lady last Sunday, link to story here. Yea, verily, the world changes before our eyes & so does that small world of Berkeley, California & environs that I have known so intimately over the last three (shite! nearly FOUR) decades.

cooled off a bit yesterday...       6.18.06
only got up to ninety-eight or so, and forecast is again for 100+ degrees today, not likely mineowndamnedself will wander far from the pool today, datz fo' damned sure...
just a few words about some films seen recently on home video, happy to recommend each one of the titles I am about to mention, and as far as genre-specific recommendations are concerned, Running Scared is one damned good action picture. Might be a tad too violent for some of ye, so be mindful of that, but I've seen much worse, both in the amounts of blood spilled and quality of film-making, but if you've a yen for a film that will get your attention and manages to avoid losing same, ye might want to check it out. Saw this next one on cable, The Final Cut and best slotted under category of Sci-Fi drama, plot centering around the interesting concept of an implant that allows a person to record every minute of their life, and once you've entered the realm of the dearly departed, surviving family can hire a cutter to piece together a "rememory". On a scale of five bananas, l'Marquis would be generous and give it three, despite the few plot holes and minor inconsistencies, found the basic premise of the film interesting and compelling and, quien sabe, ese, one day, who knows, right? Heard a lot about this next title, never had a chance to see it here in the desert S.W., seems the local theatre chains believe that locals only want to see crap and utter pablum (and goshdarnitall it they aren't right about that, talk about an uneducated movie-going audience...) so I snapped it up as soon as I noticed it available on video. Sassy, smart-assed and funny, carried off with some wit and style by the principals involved, I enjoyed every bit of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, mebbe you will too. Alright now, a wee bit of background before mention of the next item. I suppose it's the Beatles that remain the largest muscial influence on yourstruly, I mean, if it wasn't for John, Paul, George & Ringo, it is pretty damn likely that I'd never have picked up the guitar or learned to play the drums, and these days, while I still play the guitar, you'll notice my tendency to drum up a storm on a table top or the top of the steering wheel of the ol' blue Subaru when we go cruising down the highway. ANYWAY- another big influence from way back in the day was Buffalo Springfield (fuck, was that a first great album or what? - FUCK, they were ALL great albums...) and as the years passed, it was Neil that remained hugely influential. You know that line from The Big Lebowski, "the dude abides"? Yah, like the dude, Neil abides, so, if you happen to see Heart of Good out there on the shelf of your local video emporium, rent that sucker, take it home and settle back and enjoy. Maybe, if you happen to be inclined similiarly to ourowndamnedself, you'll also want to take home Year of the Horse (another of our personal fave directors behind the helm of that one). Yeah, babeee...

too frickin' hot...       6.15.06
to be doink much of anything of late, particularly outdoors. Got a much greater appreciation for that midday shutdown you'll find in many warmweather cultures & peoples, ye know, that siesta kind of thing, when businesses and what not close their shutters during the hottest part of the day, then once the sun is well below its zenith folks come back out on the streets, restaurants & shops re-open and a lively evening can be enjoyed by one and all, out of that debilitating heat & glare of ol' Sol. Another fine tradition bites the dust...
Yah, yourstruly avails hisowndamnedself of the coolness of the pool here at Chez Esther on plenty of occasions, be a fool not to with local temps ranging 'tween 100-105/6 over the last week. Oh, and the local public library, very nicely air conditioned it is, too; one can spend an hour on their computers doing a bit of ether-strolling, maybe check out a few of the periodicals, then spend some leisurely minutes in the stacks hoping something will pique one's interest. Reading some fiction lately, just finished the lastest novel by Martin Amis, Yellow Dog, and whilst Martin's stuff will certainly not appeal to everybody, if you've had a taste of anything by Amis the Younger and enjoyed same, ye might seek out Perro Amarillo. Also, here in the last week, dove deeply into Number Nine Dream after coming across mention of it in Jon C.'s column of 6.6. Some years ago I enjoyed David Mitchell's Ghostwritten and am very glad to have followed up on that inclination inspired by J.C. Look forward to seeking out Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, experienced some small disappointment upon discovering that book was not in the E.P.P.L.'s collection, so I suppose I'll seek it out next time I am visiting Las Cruces and the fine bookstore/s that are COAS #1 and #2.
now, afore yourstruly waddles away, some quick and dirty linky bits:
from pal Euphorbita, something interesting and timely, TerraPass;
wotdafugg is Al Kooper doing these days? news here, courtesy SF Gate;
Ovimagazine #15 is now available for thy perusal;
and be sure to stop in on one of our favorite places in the ether, Ralph,
in particular we point ye to Why Keep Books;
oncet upon a time, the entity known as Cabinet graced the ether; t'was where ourowndamnedself first became acquainted with Stumpy Delko, Dante Oblimov, and the rest of that old east coast mob. Cabinet these days (and it will no doubt happen to el chango tonto tambien), alas, s'a thing of the past (altho' Stumpy keeps his hand in intermittently at Environy) and was for a moment only that I imagined that ol' gang was up to their hijinks of old when l'Marquis came across mention of this Cabinet whilst enjoying a leisurely perusal of that marvel that is wood s lot and discovered mention therein (6.13.06 post) of the Cabinet National Library. Hot Damn! Deming, New Mexico! can ye say Road Trip, Binky?

Sitting Bull's history lesson for today...       6.07.06
well, mebbe more like bigbrownapefellah's history lesson, right Binky?
alright, ye know we've mentioned some of the items on our reading list of late on occasion, nearly done with J. Carroll's House of War here, and came across something in it yesterday that we wanted to share with thee, so here goes:
from early in Chapter Seven "Upstream", Part 4. Enter Rumsfeld & Cheney-

The man on whom Ford depended as he sought to navigate between the Scylla and Charybdis of Kissinger and Schlesinger was his White House chief of staff, a former fellow congressman named Donald Rumsfeld. As a conservative Republican from an affluent Illinois district, Rumsfeld had routinely voted against legislative vestiges of the War on Poverty, federal programs designed to help the poor, but that had not prevented Nixon from naming him director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, the antipoverty agency. Rumsfeld's job was to gut it. This was the beginning of the right-wing republican campaign to roll back the "big government" bequeathed by Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, a movement that would gain great success under Ronald Reagan. Rumsfeld's two young deputies there were Richard Cheney and Frank Carlucci. Rumsfeld had left OEO to serve in the Nixon White House. He was spared the poison draught of Watergate by having been named ambassador to NATO at the end of 1972. When Ford succeded Nixon, he immediately turned to his trusted ally Rumsfeld for help. And Rumsfeld, appointed chief of staff, once again named Cheney as his deputy.
At Ford's elbow, Rumsfeld out maneuvered Henry Kissinger, undercutting the uncertain new president's faith in the entire project of détente. (Its opponents loved to point out that the French word meant both "relaxed tension" and "trigger.") Rumsfeld was one of the first to resuscitate, from its Truman-era iterations, the moral argument against the Nixon-Kissinger real-politik project of making big-power deals with the wicked Communists, an appeal to which Ford, the moralistic midwesterner, was susceptible. It was not only that the Soviets were not to be trusted, but the link between arms control concessions and Soviet behavior on human rights, in particular emigration policies and the repressive treatment of dissidents, had to be reestablished. Détente was taken to be a form of incipient ethical relativism, a signal of the Vietnam-induced rot of American character.
Rumsfeld had a hard-liner's sympathy with Schlesinger, but the arrogant secretary of defense had impossibly alienated his insecure superior, and Ford wanted to escape his shadow even more than Kissinger's. In the fall of 1975 -- a "Halloween massacre" -- Ford's chief of staff made his move. Now throughly under Rumsfeld's sway, the president fired Schlesinger outright, removed Kissinger from his position as national security adviser, banishing him to the relative harmlessness of Foggy Bottom, and replace William Colby at the CIA with George H.W. Bush. (Rumsfeld saw Bush as his own main rival to become Ford's vice president in 1976, and the intelligence post removed him from contention.) In the most dramatic move of all, Rumsfeld had Ford appoint as Schlesinger's replacement at the Pentagon none other than himself.
two paragraphs later: It is hard to believe that observers could have taken Rumsfeld's maneuvers as anything but a triumph of traditional anti-Soviet ideology, given what they put in place. Rumsfeld immediately sought major increases in defense spending, reversing the dramatic downturn in the percentage of the gross national product that had been spent on the military under Nixon. Rumsfeld's move to the Pentagon marked the definitive end of détente, destroyed any chances for SALT under Ford, and laid the groundwork for a post-Vietnam generational shift that would aim at, and ultimately accomplish, the restoration of America's overwhelming military dominance, a supremacy unapologetically based on nuclear weapons.
Among those empowered by Rumsfeld were his acolyte Cheney and his factotum Carlucci, each of whom would follow him as secretary of defense, together with Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, who would, from within the government and outside it, be permanent Pentagon tribunes of American hegemony. They would be joined by the likes of Colin Powell, Richard Armitage, and Condoleezza Rice. The group Rumsfeld put in place, shaping policy through the Reagan years and then coming fully into their own when Rumsfeld returned to the E-ring office over the River Entrance in the early twenty-first century, would eventually become known as the Vulcans, a name James Mann used as the title of his book on the group. What they all had in common was a hunger for martial dominance that was born of the failure of Vietnam.
several interesting paragraphs later (Read the Book!): Its triumph, however, would not come easily. In the first post-Vietnam instance of military challenge, within weeks of the fall of Saigon, Ford's team would stumble badly -- and an ominous shadow would fall over the future. A U.S. cargo ship, the SS Mayaguez, was raided by a Cambodian naval force in May 1975. Another of the Kissinger legacies in the region had been the fall of Cambodia, a month before, to the Khmer Roughe, and the new Communist regime was flexing its muscles. Ths ship's thiry-eight American crew members were taken prisoner. Rumsfeld, with Kissinger's concurrence, persuaded Ford to bypass diplomacy and display his toughtness, first by bombing the port city of Kompong Som and then by ordering an operation aimed at rescuing the crew. Ford denounced "an act of piracy," and U.S. Marines, like swashbucklers, swung aboard the captured ship (the first such hostile boarding at sea since 1826), only to find it abandoned. In another foreshadowing, the Rumsfeld circle had based its action on ridiculously flawed intelligence. Hundreds of other Marines invaded an island where the captured crewmen were thought to be. In the battle there, forty Americans were killed -- for nothing. It was then discovered that the Mayaguez crew had been released unharmed shortly after being captured, set adrift in a Thai fishing vessel. Despite vast differences in scale and intention, the incompetent rescue attempt was a kind of overture, complete with the music of bombing, for the war Rumsfeld would orchestrate against Iraq beginning in 2003. The Mayaguez action was ovewhelmingly popular with Americans, lethal to young U.S. soldiers --
and it was unnecessary.

sand creek, wounded knee, no gun ri, my lai, haditha...       6.04.06
odd how those names seem to roll off the tongue so effortlessly, one could think that the enormity of occasion signified by those combinations of letters might induce, at the very least, a lump in one's throat, perhaps the formation of a tear or two in one's eye. Put a link to google search of Haditha in these pages back in march, shortly after Time magazine published early news of the event, which actually took place in November of '05. Ye know, it had ceased to be a source of amusement long ago, this buffer that exists between the Moron in Chief and reality, so altho yourstruly was not amused, he was also not surprised to hear the story from the W.H. re Bush's ignorance of the events alleged to have taken place in Haditha. Going to have to indulge me here, folks (well, ye can always click away, right?), just want to share a few things with ye that l'Marquis discovered during some recent peregrinations thru the ether. The human tendency towards massacre is a distressing thing, I should consider myself lucky to have lived in a place in time where my minority and strangeness wasn't so great as to include me in some suspect and luckless population of victims, and will mention here that I was only seeking out some information re actions of our own government. Alright then, just a couple of things to begin with here, then the deluge:
recent item from CounterPunch online, War Crimes Start at the Top;
from the Law of War website, reviewing the A. Gonzalez Memo of 2002;
from Mykeru.com, Iraq Body Count Visual Aid (last updated 2/16/06);
via SourceWatch, Bush Administration War Crimes in Iraq;
now a bunch of stuff, admittedly in no semblage of order,
'cause it be sunday and I am a lazyfukker...
Machiavelli and U.S. Politics;
The Case For Universal Jurisdiction :
The United States military and the law of war: inculcating an ethos...;
..., US Abandons Move to Exempt Troops from War Crimes;
U.S. Renounces Its Support of New Tribunal For War Crimes
War Crimes and Consequences;
War Crimes and The "Just War" Theory;
US War Crimes and the Legal Case for Military Resistance;
War Crimes;
A Timeline of CIA Atrocities;
List of War Crimes;
The United States has its own record of atrocities;
Did Americans Mass-Murder Korean Women and Kids?;
When will the United States Apologize for its War Crimes?;
'Kill anything that moves': U.S. war crimes & atrocities in Vietnam, 1965--1973;
US War Crimes During the Gulf War;
American War Crimes In Iraq 1991-2005;
Returning to the Scene of the Crime: War Crimes in Iraq;
Iraqis Target Gen. Franks for War Crimes Trial;
Documents Show Possible Interference by Army Commander In Investigation...;
US military atrocities and the moral choice facing the American people;
War Crimes, USA ;
Amnesty Int'l 2006 Report/USA;
Human Rights Watch/USA;
Crimes of War Project;
War Crimes Watch;
Frederick K. Cox International Law Center War Crimes Research Portal :
lastly, for today, some linky bits seen recently from a couple of other folks:
from the marvel that is wood s lot, his post of 5.31.06 (from which we point ye to this in particular, Joe Bagant's Revenge of the Mutt People);
and certainly something of a marvel hisowndamnedself, Gordon Coale,
please do not overlook his post of 5.27.06