Do Something Nice! Help the Oakland Public Library get some books.
Visit Cody's Books on-line and put your money where your mouth is... mebbe call your local library & see if you can help them?
jessferdahalibut... 5.31
we plantin' a tree today, well, sometime this weekend actually,
depends on the success of the hole-diggin' part...
besides the immersion into Richard Thompson's music & lyrics we've enjoyed
of late, yourstruly also happens to be one of the 23,000 or so who've invested
in Daniel Lanois' latest recording. Nice item at the L.A. Times re D. Lanois, so...
in that jessferdahalibut spirit, here's Santos & Johnny, Sleepwalk
and remember, boyz und gurlz... just one of the reasons why we should remain very concerned that
Richard "Dick" Cheney's just a heartbeat away from the presidency...
quelle coincidence... 5.29
heads up provided us by S. Laidlaw of the wonderful Riley Dog,
Can you spell pococurante?
oh, goshdarnitall...
just when ourowndamnedself was contemplating a return to the august groves of acadame, they go and futz things up... & we're still possessed by the longtime crush we've harbored for Professor C. Clover ever since our Palmer's Video days...
damn the pentagon, damn the commander in chief...
ooooooh, our royal blood boils at news like this login name: buttafucco; password: demanteca
"Bravo" shout the minions & ourowndamnedself...
to
esteemed S. Baum of Ethel the Blog, for his stick-to-it-tiveness
in his efforts towards maintaining a healthy/ier (egads! ---
it has really come to this for us, eh Steve?) lifestyle. perhaps he might be available to hire as a personal trainer?
"no, no, you've got it all wrong, Marquis, you raise the goblet
using your elbow as your fulcrum, not your entire arm..."
goodness gracious!
perhaps the universe is trying to tell us something?
l'Marquis blames it on S. Baum...
OhOhOh, and because our respected colleague R. Levy loves
to see his name included hereabouts (we can't imagine why...)
we thank him for sending us this link from The Onion...
& none of us shold be surprised by this...
charlatans & liars, the lot of them
l'Marquis's the last of the d'Monquis line...
and perhaps, all in all, that's a good thing for mankind,
personally we'd not want our children facing the idiot's legacy;
and ourowndamnself perfectly aware of what day it is...
other than being amigo CJ's b-day, so, gonna keep this simple,
as l'Marquis initially had intentions of running with this theme,
got a nice long thing in mind encompassing Christopher Logue, The Iliad,
meditations upon Memorial Day, writer by the name of Charles P. Pierce, and
a few other things, largely in that spirit of serendipity, coming across much
lovely nuggety goodness that showed up in the mining of some linkage relating
to things mentioned above, for now though, we'll begin here:
alongside a couple of other films, (by the way 25th Hour is now available
on tape/DVD for those of you who didn't manage to catch it in the theatre, for whatever reason; "you oughta see it"'s all we gotz to say) we brought home an item we were not very familiar with, although
we did remember hearing something about it, entitled Underground Zero,
and like nostrils (or is it some other body part?--- duh, we cannot remember...) everybody's going to have an opinion about these, for some folks maybe it be best to pass on viewing, might be too painful, even
with the distance a couple of years can provide, yet again, in OHO, worth seeking out and viewing, even
if just to judge for oneself. We mention it here in particular when (perhaps touched by the hand of the goddess herowndamnself today, the great & curious serendipitous accident that occurs on occasion)
in seeing the second short film that is part of the first program in Underground Zero, 'The Voice of the Prophet', we recalled our initial introduction to Rick Rescola, mentioned here in a dumbmonkey musing from Feb. of last year. Yourstruly took the liberty of updating said post as at that time, the New Yorker had not
provided that particular story in their on-line archive, & here's the link again, in case you don't want to invest some few minutes in our old rambles, but please read the N.Y.'er piece by James B. Stewart, might make ya cry, so have a hankie handy. Happens that this rapidly aging ol' silverback also had reason to mention Esquire magazine article which happened to be about film Mel Gibson
was making, We Were Soldiers, and the battle which is the centerpiece of that film is one briefly described
by Mr. Rescola in the short included in Underground Zero (that particular dumbmonkey ramble from
same month can be found here, for anyone interested...). So, you asking, what's the goddamned point, monkeybreath? okayokayokay, the point is, yourstruly is asking you to read 'The Real Heroes Are Dead' (the N.Y.'er item mentioned twice above) then, courtesy yourstruly, here's link to mpeg
(roughly 7½ mins or so, 33.9 megs) of 'The Voice of the Prophet'. Maybe, just maybe, it will provide opportunity for us all to meditate upon Memorial Day and what it should mean to us.
an obvious symptom of this very problem... 5.23
finding this program on KQED this same eve, by accident,
cursing ourowndarnself for not paying attention, and cursing
local newspapers and other media outlets for their lack of promotion of a
valuable program like Now with Bill Moyers,
In Depth: Media Consolidation.
(transcript of his interview w/Will Hutton is worth reading) what a fucking shame, reading stumpy's post at environy this Am,
re this very thing, ending our day watching excellent program on this issue,
thinking to ourself all the while of how few other folks knew about it.
Maybe still possible for you to catch it, check it out here.
Oh yah, also nice to see mention of these guys on the program, too...
oh, dear, spare us, please... this kind of thing makes us feel all kinds of,
ahhhhh... nevermind,
l'marquis finds himself speechless...
currently ourowndamnself beginning to regain some measure of equilibrium
least it feels that way, perhaps it just the meds finally kicking in, who knows,
oh but our catalogue of Notes To Ourself grows larger & longer by the day,
and we'll eventually have to do something with all this stuff, for now though,
how about Doors of Perception; Democracy Now! (lots of good stuff there,
and if you listen to KPFA online you can get the regular broadcast)
and lastly this small slew of
Richard Thompson linkage, as we listening to Old Kit Bag of late and enjoying it A LOT... RT#1, RT#2; RT#3; RT#4; RT#5; RT#6;
RT#7
Reason #213 - why l'Marquis loves the www... 5.22
from the official log of visitors hereabouts,
the results of somebody's googling kiss my monkey ass; hey, georgy-peorgy, Ya listenin'?
ourowndamnself became acquainted w/S. Parker some time ago
when, occasionally pinch-hitting for J. Carroll when he was away,
we'd read her column in our beloved fishwrap (pre-Hearst Corp. version);
"Thanks!" to the bright minds at Ralph for this review,
and buy an extra copy to send to someone you care for, okay?
a brief announcement... 5.19 Our Three Cities
heralding the arrival of the Very Early Summer Ralph '03. and we cannot describe our elation at the
news of A. Fleischer's resignation today...
go, Go, GO!
hie thyself far away, very far away,
never darken our doorway again w/your foul countenance.
a fine way to spend part of your weekend... 5.16
true stories... 5.15
ourowndamnself's been thinking of doing something different here (like putting the sonofabitch to permanent rest for one thing) & the idea of "True Stories" was kind of appealing, as over the last 4 plus decades or so (not that much interesting was happening to yourstruly till after the age of 9 or so)
we certainly acquired some hoary tales to tell, some cautionary, some heartbreaking, some plainly pornographic (but those will likely entail a membership fee, all major credit cards accepted...).
we been in kind of a funk for awhile now (damn, who hasn't?; what w/all the shit that has come raining down on us since the ugly overcast skies of the gwbush administration blocked out the sunlight of reason & fair play) & most recently, well, we had to change some plans we'd made and likely provided some small measure of disappointment to some friends & folks who had the possibility of being friends and maybe we go into more detail about all that some other time in some future episode of "True Stories" but for now, particularly because it be very timely let's begin by our pointing you back to the top of this column where l'Marquis exhorts thee to "Do Something Nice!". We was watching the news yesterday after putting our dear Popz on the plane home to the Momz in EPT, and caught the story about the state's plans
to charge additional fees at the libraries, etc. etc., & that got under our skin enough that we were motivated to get up and approach the pitas log in thingie and post, the fact that we'd had a couple of bloody marys had nothing to do with it, but we did have someone check our spelling & syntax, make sure the linky goodness provided therein was working as intended, so far so good. Then...
sometime the next morning, after Am ablutions & freshly brewed pot of Peet's filled the house with its lovely aroma, we settled down to check mail & visit a few of our daily requirements, where we stopped by
J. Carroll's place (some of you know we often pointing you in his direction & that you ought to be making J.C.'s column a regular read of your own) and lo & behold, our man J.C. is also
bringing up the idea of offering a helping hand to our local libraries (don't you just despise your elected officials for being -- generally speaking -- such scumbags & neer-do-wells & intent upon screwing up our quality of life?) along with linkage to Amazon wish list page provided for doing something nice, but what really caught our attention was his mention of Pamie. Now, some of youze has been around the backroads of blog-dom for awhile & will likely remember (perhaps with the same degree of fondness that yourstruly does, perhaps not) that oncet upon a time there was a lovely lass in Texass, the Austin environs, posting her sweet little heart out at Pamie.com and, well, if you took the time to visit some of the old dumbmonkey stuff like 3.14.00 where we first ran across the bright mind of Ms. Pamie AKA Squishy (& it was an eye catching little splash page she had there at the time), then in May that year, Pamie almos' made us cry & yesssss, we know that there's no longer content there, but that was when Pamie was writing 'bout herself & her Mom visiting Grandma's house after Grandma had moved on to the next plane, and checking out some stuff left behind, discovering little secret thing meant for her & her alone; or maybe (and this'll be the last one, we promise) in July when Pamie gave us the lowdown on titties (Hah! Bet you guys wish that one was still available, Eh?) which was actually about the trials & tribulations involved in brassiere fitting & selection. Now as far as the "True Stories" part goes, it was a month or so ago that we noticed Pamie had once again graced us with her presence hereabouts and
brought Pamie.com back into action, (intended to make mention of it here, even have it down in our Notes To OurOwnDamnSelf but we ran into this ugly patch of Low Self Esteem on our personal Road to Perdition) seems if we recalls correctly she & her paramour at the time had
decided to pull up roots and head to So Cal to seek out fortune & the possiblity of more than 15 minutes of fame, and it was shortly after her arrival there in La La Land that she put Pamie.com into deep freeze for awhile. l'Marquis realizes that those links mentioned above are no fun at all without the content that
they originally linked to, but if you visit Pamie's place now, you'll discover she is the author of Why Girls Are Wierd (yourstruly has oft wondered same...) and we'll make thee substantial wager that her book is funny and well worth paying full retail for and that maybe (MAYBE!) some of that great stuff she was posting while Squishy was happening might be within those covers.
Ennyway- datz diz episode of "True Stories" and we hopes you enjoyed it, come back
sometime and we'll regale you with the loss of our virginity or some such other collection of lies, but before we leave you, gonna get you back into the wayback machine for another visit to an old dumbmonkey post, and an early mention of a particular Jon Carroll column that we actually cut out of the newspaper when we first read it and still have that column stashed aside, as at the time it made a big difference in ourowndamnedlife. You can find the old post linked to here, and the link to the J. Carroll column at the end of the post. (Thanks, Jon!) (yah, gonna make you go there and find it, you lazy thing you...)
oy, are we in some deep shit or what? 5.5
provided in it's entirety, as we're not providing much content of our own,
from the Sunday S.F. Chronicle, byline credit to Tyche Hendricks:
The path the United States is pursuing in Iraq and the Middle East "is going to cost us for a long time," according to a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq.
Edward Peck, who served as U.S. chief of mission in Iraq under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, told Bay Area audiences Saturday that the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq was wrongheaded and a violation of international law.
Peck, now retired, is an unlikely critic. He is a Republican who voted for Bush, a former official in the Reagan administration, and a veteran of World War II and the Korean War who logged 32 years in the U.S. Foreign Service.
But he is an outspoken critic of the current policy, which he believes -- based on position papers by leading conservatives in the Bush administration -- includes toppling other governments in the region and replacing them with leaders friendly to the United States.
"The Project for a New American Century lays it out very clearly: You start with Iraq, then go to Syria, then Iran," he said, then added a jocular reference to European opposition to the war. "I personally think France is going to edge up into No. 3."
Peck opposes Bush's policies not least because he believes they contribute to hostile perceptions of America in the rest of the world.
"If you're trained in diplomacy, somebody should have said to Mr. Rumsfeld, 'Don't go into Saddam's palace and stretch out on his sofas, because all of a sudden you look like the pigs in 1984,' " he said.
Another failed policy contributing to America's poor reputation in the Middle East, he said, is U.S. support for Israel and the failure to find a peaceful solution.
"As long as we make it possible for Israel to continue to subjugate and suppress the Palestinians, people are going to be focused on making us pay for that," he said, suggesting that future terrorist attacks are not unlikely.
"Resentment leads to fear and fear leads to hatred, and there we are," he said.
Peck said a Cabinet anti-terrorism task force -- of which he was deputy director during the Reagan years -- concluded that it's impossible to defend against terrorism.
Instead, he said, the U.S. ought to be using diplomacy to promote peace and human rights.
Peck spoke Saturday afternoon at the Middle East Children's Alliance in Berkeley and later at a fund-raising dinner in San Francisco for the U.S. Organization for Medical and Educational Needs, a charity funding Mideast schools and hospitals.
to that braying charlatan in the white house... 5.3 Late Arriving News Update:
correspondent Dante Oblimov, at sea (as usual), reporting
recently from U.S.S. Abraham (I freed the what???) Lincoln
with news of altered news feed provided to
media outlets during alleged bravura presidunce-tial hi-jinks... We now return you to the regularly scheduled program in oho, we do a disservice to weasels, chimps, asses(as in donkeys), jackals,
hyenas, reptiles of every persuasion, & those many other
creatures who suffer in being compared to that incompetent,
devoid of rational thought, ill-mannered, wholly without a shred of
personal integrity, example of ineptitude known as g.w. bush...
Oh! this also applies to that posse he rode into town with.
Thank you, Mr. Saletan, Impatient Justice
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