It just occurred to me that I haven't notified people that I've found a new (online) home as of late...
I moved most of what this blog covered (random fun stuff and small insights into my many lives) over to Tumblr. I like the ease of the thing, the quick flash of a post, and the moving on. Also, I like the social networking of it it combines blogging with the best parts of Facebook, but without all the annoying parts of Facebook.
Please, if you haven't already, follow or bookmark me over there. (You can comment, too! I hope some of you will resume occasional commenting over there - Disqus allows anonymous comments! Uh...provided you give a bunk email addy.)
As you can see in the sidebar, also, I am on Twitter, and I update more than a few times a day. I haven't yet integrated my Twitter account into my Tumblr, though that maybe be coming soon.
And, as you already know, I've taken the topical stuff over to Sex Drugs and Intellectual Freedom.
OK. So that's that. Hope to see you all around!
3.29.2009
10.24.2008
So, this is telling...
Twitter Grader shows you (kind of arbitrarily) how powerful you are among Twitter users. I was actually surprised by my score...but the word cloud is much more telling.*
*@panchomill represents responses to tweets by Ben. And, really, he doesn't tweet that much. Which makes this much, much weirder.
10.11.2008
EKKO GALAXIE @ TRASHFEST! TONIGHT!
Ekko Galaxies and the Rings of Saturn are back in action tonight at Trashfest!
Background: Trashfest is an chance for some of Milwaukee's crazier and zanier bands to come together and thrash their way through an evening of balls-to-the-wall rock and roll! More than 15 bands are packed into the night (each allowed one smokin' 20 minutes set), and it all begins at 7:30 at the Miramar Theater.
Ekko Galaxie and the Rings of Saturn take the stage at 11:30, bookended by everything from hardcore punk reviews to an all Fugs cover band. We'll be dropping some of the classic glam favorites from last time, and expanding outward with some Hedwig, Stooges, and one very special surprise track. Also, Ekko will be unveiling a new, more extreme look for this round. Come trash it up with us!
Trashfest
Cover: $10
Doors at 7
Music at 7:30
Miramar Theater
Eastside - Milwaukee
EGATROS at 11:30!!!
10.07.2008
Tonight's Debate and Health Care
What a sad, boring event tonight's debate was.
Obama held on to the ultimate "hope," insisting that the zombified debate audience could handle a little nuance in his answers. McCain got angry, audibly mumbled like a crazy person, and then proceeded to give maybe one or two really effective answers (most notably to the "evil empire" question). The worst folly the Internets can run with is McCain calling the other one "that one." *Snore*
But, I came away from tonight most uncertain and concerned about both candidates' responses to health care.
Now, I am coming at this somewhat selfishly or - more generously - I am coming at this on behalf of a number of people in my peer group...
It seems both candidates' plans on health care heavily favor the straight, heteronormative American family. Tax credits and expanded health care options for married couples with children; each plan's most salient talking points speak to this demographic. What I find, however, is that single Americans over the age of 18, college students who file taxes as independents, LGBT Americans who are not allowed to marry, and young post-undergraduates/post-graduates/post-docs who are just attempting to gain a foothold career-wise are virtually ignored.
Now, I know the conventional response will be to point out that stable single or double-income family households pump way more tax money into the system than the populations I mentioned above. This point, however, holds less water than it did 30 years ago. Why? Because it depends on the existence of a well developed middle-class. I hardly need to point out that our middle-class is disappearing faster than a polar bear's natural habitat. Additionally, if marketing tactics have anything to teach us it's that single or double income LGBT homes, particularly those of affluent gay white males, have their share of money to contribute. With a DeLorean DMC-12 set for 1963 and a mid-level desk job at Sterling Cooper waiting for me on the other end, I'll accept the tax contribution argument at its word. But, these are the kinds of things that would only be possible today if John F. Kennedy had personally dared us to achieve them within 10 years...10 years ago. Alas, he was not alive in 1998 and, as such, I can only point out that the tax contribution argument holds less and less water everyday.
I am also unwilling to support the same argument because I believe it provides a blatantly irresponsible answer to thefundamental most basic question: is health care a privilege or a right? Making health care more affordable for certain Americans (straight exurban married folk) and not others (say, gay transitional-neighborhood street performers...or college kids) sends a message that certain income brackets and lifestyles are more deserving of health care. In other words, health care is a privilege and not a right. In a nation as well endowed as the United States, I simply cannot subscribe to this belief. If health care is readily available (and it is) and human beings are in need (and we are), our lives should not be put at risk by compromising the access to - or quality of - treatment.
Obama's plan attempts to address this problem by subsidizing employers, encouraging them to offer more affordable coverage to their employees (I'm assuming regardless of marital status or fruition in reproductive activities). McCain's plan, as I understand it, would leave someone like me - a graduate student facing increasingly expensive tuition rates - sans paddle up shit's creek. Either way, neither plan posits access to health care as a right in our society. And it's not just people in my shoes, it's also young couples not yet married, single men and women driven by their art or careers and not by validity through codependency, the LGBT population unjustly denied the right to marry, Americans who are denied access to information or education that would land them the sorts of jobs that could might provide effective benefits, illegal immigrants searching for a living wage and better life than the one they left behind. All of these populations are conceptually and literally marginalized within the scope of either candidates' proposals.
I expect this from McCain's erratic, ego-maniacal policy stances. Barack Obama severely disappointed me in tonight's debate by standing up and declaring health care to be a "right" of every American while simultaneously espousing a policy that does not reflect that in the least.
This is the one issue America needed Hillary on more than any other. Sadly, I don't think she's about to give up her Senate seat to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. So, I hold out my own ultimate "hope" that, if elected, Obama will correct his campaign's mistake and, as President, defend every American's right to health care both ideologically and logistically. If McCain wins, I'm going to try to find a home in a country with socialized medicine that he's not looking to bomb. This makes for a short list, but I assume Canada is safe for now.
Obama held on to the ultimate "hope," insisting that the zombified debate audience could handle a little nuance in his answers. McCain got angry, audibly mumbled like a crazy person, and then proceeded to give maybe one or two really effective answers (most notably to the "evil empire" question). The worst folly the Internets can run with is McCain calling the other one "that one." *Snore*
But, I came away from tonight most uncertain and concerned about both candidates' responses to health care.
Now, I am coming at this somewhat selfishly or - more generously - I am coming at this on behalf of a number of people in my peer group...
It seems both candidates' plans on health care heavily favor the straight, heteronormative American family. Tax credits and expanded health care options for married couples with children; each plan's most salient talking points speak to this demographic. What I find, however, is that single Americans over the age of 18, college students who file taxes as independents, LGBT Americans who are not allowed to marry, and young post-undergraduates/post-graduates/post-docs who are just attempting to gain a foothold career-wise are virtually ignored.
Now, I know the conventional response will be to point out that stable single or double-income family households pump way more tax money into the system than the populations I mentioned above. This point, however, holds less water than it did 30 years ago. Why? Because it depends on the existence of a well developed middle-class. I hardly need to point out that our middle-class is disappearing faster than a polar bear's natural habitat. Additionally, if marketing tactics have anything to teach us it's that single or double income LGBT homes, particularly those of affluent gay white males, have their share of money to contribute. With a DeLorean DMC-12 set for 1963 and a mid-level desk job at Sterling Cooper waiting for me on the other end, I'll accept the tax contribution argument at its word. But, these are the kinds of things that would only be possible today if John F. Kennedy had personally dared us to achieve them within 10 years...10 years ago. Alas, he was not alive in 1998 and, as such, I can only point out that the tax contribution argument holds less and less water everyday.
I am also unwilling to support the same argument because I believe it provides a blatantly irresponsible answer to the
Obama's plan attempts to address this problem by subsidizing employers, encouraging them to offer more affordable coverage to their employees (I'm assuming regardless of marital status or fruition in reproductive activities). McCain's plan, as I understand it, would leave someone like me - a graduate student facing increasingly expensive tuition rates - sans paddle up shit's creek. Either way, neither plan posits access to health care as a right in our society. And it's not just people in my shoes, it's also young couples not yet married, single men and women driven by their art or careers and not by validity through codependency, the LGBT population unjustly denied the right to marry, Americans who are denied access to information or education that would land them the sorts of jobs that could might provide effective benefits, illegal immigrants searching for a living wage and better life than the one they left behind. All of these populations are conceptually and literally marginalized within the scope of either candidates' proposals.
I expect this from McCain's erratic, ego-maniacal policy stances. Barack Obama severely disappointed me in tonight's debate by standing up and declaring health care to be a "right" of every American while simultaneously espousing a policy that does not reflect that in the least.
This is the one issue America needed Hillary on more than any other. Sadly, I don't think she's about to give up her Senate seat to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. So, I hold out my own ultimate "hope" that, if elected, Obama will correct his campaign's mistake and, as President, defend every American's right to health care both ideologically and logistically. If McCain wins, I'm going to try to find a home in a country with socialized medicine that he's not looking to bomb. This makes for a short list, but I assume Canada is safe for now.
9.25.2008
The Idiot's Guide to Idiocy
Watch CBS Videos Online
For the record, this post is not going to be incredibly nice. And, well, here is the "Katie Couric interviewing Sarah Palin" video clip that put me over the edge. Katie, your patient smile is adorable, but it is even more adorable how you can barely mask your disbelief.
You know what Sarah Palin sounds like here? She sounds like that steadfast, fundamentalist Christian who, while condemning homosexuality is confronted with the fact that the very same book of the Bible condemns eating pork while detailing what to do when your clothes come down with bizarre medical conditions. This devout believer will invariably deliver some token of insular logic that - while not actually being "logical" - sounds pretty innocuous. But, upon any sort of real inquisition (even one as simple as EXPLAIN WHAT YOU MEAN BY THAT, MS. GOVERNOR) the logic will break down and be, ultimately, indefensible. This statement will have been, of course, imparted practically verbatim from some similarly insular Sunday School lesson. (Who says the oral tradition is dead? I'd say it's alive and well in the area of "popular defenses for dogmatic Christian beliefs!")
So...on to what I really wanted to talk about...
When McCain first chose Palin as his running mate I was all, "oh, yeah, totally. No one needs to explain this choice to me. Fine."
Then, when more information about her surfaced, my reaction turned to, "what the...? OK, someone who actually knows something should explain this to me. Please, I don't understand." I withheld judgment the same way the McCain campaign withheld Palin from the media.
Now? Now I'm just all, "no. Please, please don't explain it to me. Just...just stop talking. And, please, I just want... No, you must not be listening to me. What? No. No no no. Just. Stop. Talking. LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU OH MY GOD PLEASE GO AWAY."
Sarah Palin opens her mouth and out comes what sounds like a pretty and pretentious, but not all that talented, high school debate coach that would make a pretty and pretentious, but not all that talented, Vice President of the United States. People from all walks of political life rushed to defend Ms. Palin from this sort of criticism, usually by saying something along the lines of, "she didn't get to be governor of Alaska because she's stupid." So, I'd like to debunk this "position of power = smart, not being stupid = not being an idiot" myth right now...
Talent, ambition, education, class, or experience doesn't exempt you from potentially being an idiot. Let's call this "The Idiot's Guide to Idiocy." Governors can, in fact, be idiots. Senators can be idiots. Obviously, presidents can be idiots. So can college professors. So can medical doctors. So can CEOs and CFOs (HELLOS ZOMG WALL STREET IS LIKE LITERALLY ON FIRE LOL!1!!!1!!).
On the flip side, homeless people can be brilliant. Members of our society's impoverished classes can be wicked smart. That janitor in The Breakfast Club was like the smartest dude to emerge from the 1980's.
No one class or position has a monopoly on smart or a monopoly on stupid. We must allow for the fact that Sarah Palin can be an ambitious and talented politician while still being an idiot.
To think otherwise is to inhabit the same fallible, insular logic that gets you off the hook for eating a pulled-pork sandwich while defending any legislation or position that blatantly denies a cultural minority their basic civil rights.
[Video clip via Gawker]
9.19.2008
LAMBS OF ABORTION! TONIGHT!
Under the guise of "Trick Palin," I'll be hopping on stage alongside Jasper Valentino Oppenheimer IV, Stetson McWinchester, Smitherton Wigglesworth, Maxtone Witherball, and Cole Hammond. Together, they form the aural menace that is LAMBS OF ABORTION.
I'll be adding harmonica to a rousing cover of CCR's "Run Through the Jungle," as well as a couple LOA originals. This is what the group had to say about my addition:
In a recent development, morally questionable political sex outfit Lambs of Abortion has brought in the most sinful of wind instruments, the Harmonica. We here at Secure Your Prosperity have only learned sketchy details of this renegade, and it is truly SHOCKING.
Trick Palin, outcast son of newly appointed VP candidate Sarah Palin, will make a guest appearance with the Lambs of Abortion tonight at Cactus Club.
Disow ned at the age of 9 when he discovered the harmonica and his mother's sex toys, he took to the streets of New York. Associating himself with its liberal, communist, and ethnic undercurrents, he represents everything that is and ever was wrong with the youth of today.
Enough said.
Tonight! 10:00 PM! Cactus Club, Bay View, WI.
9.15.2008
Music of Late
So, I've been really into the Cold War Kids lately. Not like wildly or anything. Just into it. Sue me.
What's got me the most obsessed lately - much more so than CWK - is the "Wig in a Box" album. You know, the one where a bunch of people who weren't Stephen Trask played the songs from Hedwig and the Angry Inch? I figured out "Sugar Daddy" on the ol' acoustic guitar and have been playing it like crazy. More than that, however, I've been nutso for Spoon's cover of "Tear Me Down." Basically, I kind of always wished the Rolling Stones circa 1968 could have covered something off of Hedwig and, what do you know, Spoon took care of it years before I could even think to ask. Coincidentally, both "Tear Me Down" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" start with the line "I was born...."
Also, I am going to see Kings of Leon here in MKE on Nov. 5th and I found out who the opening acts are: We Are Scientists and the Whigs. Jealous much???
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