Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to say our goodbyes...

As you may or may not know, my friend Rachel (pictured above, and to the right) is leaving on permanent vacation this Monday. She takes to the air sometime during the day to start a new life in Oregon. I can really only wish her the best and be proud of her efforts, but I'm not going to pretend that I won't really miss her when she's gone.

Now, Rachel has been many things to me throughout my life... a lust object, an arch enemy, a best friend and an ol' beeeetch. However, it's the friend part that seems to have endured, so that's what I guess I'll go with. I don't think I'd be even slightly out of line in pointing out that there are more than a few of you that read this with negative opinions of her, but I can only really wish that you'd gotten to know her on the level that I did. You really would have found a wonderful person underneath all of that armor, and you'd be a better person for it. I'm sorry that you didn't... I really am.

Rachel, my life wouldn't be the same without you, nor would the lives of countless other people.

Rachel's the kind of girl that goes over the rainbow to blow up Auntie 'Em.
She goes against the grain, goes insane, goes mad.
She loves fruits, no absolutes, Absolut, choice and the Villiage Voice.
She's an us, not a them.
She's emotional, devotional and commotional.
She's Sontag, Sondheim, Ginsberg, Dylan, Cunningham and anything Taboo
Even Lenny Bruce...
Langston Hughes!

From Bisexuals to Trisexuals to Homosapiens.
Carcinogens, German wine, turpentine, Gertrude Stein
even
Antonini, Bertolucci, Kurosawa.
That's her, the ol' beeeeeeeeeeeeeitch.

So, in honor of her departure Rachel (fresh from her appearance on Furnace Mountain) will perform Native American tribal chants backwards through her vocoder, while accompanying herself on the electric cello - which she ain't never studied.

Goodbye Rachel, Life's too short, babe, time is flying I'm looking for baggage that goes with mine... I hope you find yours.

Currently Listening To: La Vie Boheme - RENT Soundtrack... duh.

The Lollapalooza schedule has been announced, woo hoo! For those of you planning on attending the show, shoot on over to the Lollapalooza website and check out the lineup for yourself. There were some bummers, but all-in-all I was fairly pleased with who was playing opposite who. So, to end the suspense, here's my Lolla 2006 lineup...

Friday

12:30 - 1:30 The Subways
2:30 - 3:30 The Eels
3:30 - 4:30 Stars
4:30 - 5:30 Ryan Adams
5:30 - 6:30 Iron & Wine
6:30 - 7:30 Special Guest (who knows, could be fun)
7:30 - 8:30 The Violent Femmes
8:30 - 9:30 Death Cab for Cutie

Saturday

12:30 - 1:30 Living Things
1:30 - 2:30 The Go! Team
2:30 - 3:30 Built to Spill
3:30 - 4:30 Nada Surf
4:30 - 5:30 Sonic Youth
5:30 - 6:30 The Dresden Dolls
6:30 - 7:30 The Flaming Lips
8:30 - 10:00 Kanye West

Sunday

1:30 - 2:30 The Hold Stead (skipping 12:30 show to get a good spot for this one)
2:30 - 3:30 Ben Kweller
4:30 - 5:30 The Shins
6:30 - 7:30 Queens of the Stone Age
7:30 - 8:15 Broken Social Scene
8:15 - 9:45 Red Hot Chili Peppers

Ta-Daa! I'm actually vain enough to believe that you want to know who I've chosen to spend my Lollapalooza weekend with. So, there you have it. I'm most jazzed about Saturday, although The Hold Steady are enough to make Sunday the highlight. As I said, things worked out fairly well. I won't get to see Common, Wilco or Sleater-Kinney, but that's just life. If anyone else is going, feel free to post your schedule in the comment section or email it to me and I'll post it on here.

So, the leader of the House Homeland Security Committee is going to attempt to prosecute the New York Times for releasing secret information regarding "National Security." As expected, conservatives throughout the country are dancing with glee, and thus proving their own short-sightedness. When you take away a newspaper's right to print the truth, no matter how much you may or may not like what it says, you're cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Sure, it may make things easier for the Bush Administration to do as they wish with the media out of the way, but keep in mind, you won't be in office forever. If this administration effectively shut down all dissent across the board, what would happen when the left takes over at some point? It may not be 2008, but it WILL happen, and surely no one is naive enough to suspect that it won't. Where will your checks and balances then be?

However, the most important point here has to be the clear-cut evidence of how little respect that the modern day right-wing has for the United States Constitution. Do you remember the document? It was something mentioned to us in grade school, a few of us have actually even read it once or twice. Unfortunately, most haven't and thus the shredding of the U.S. Constitution just flies right over their heads. So, just in case you've convinced yourself that any legal action from the Attorney General on this issue would be acceptable, let me share a couple of things with you:

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right... and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers.

John Adams
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)

The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

Thomas Jefferson
Letter to Colonel Edward Carrington (January 16, 1787)

Thanks to Kevin for sending this my way, it's a snippet from an article by Richard Roeper:

A number of readers have asked why I haven't weighed in on Ann Coulter, the
harpy-racist-homophobe who hates liberals like a 4-year-old hates vegetables
-- although the 4-year-old expresses his hatred in a more sophisticated
manner.

How about this comment -- not from Coulter's book, but from her Web site:
"Let's pause for a moment to observe that two facts are now universally
accepted: Liberals are godless and Hillary [Clinton]'s husband is a rapist."

Somewhere, Stalin must be smiling. Coulter must really hate her country to
make such an un-American statement. (Did she go to law school at the
University of Unsubstantiated Allegations?)

As for Godless: the Church of Liberalism: I have a copy and I've thumbed
through it, but I just can't bring myself to read Coulter's increasingly
nutty diatribes.

But hey, I did love her in "Transamerica."

I can take a great deal of bullshit from a sheep. But when one tells me that I'M wrong based on his or her own faulty information, well, that's where I draw a line...


Currently Listening To: Black Flag - T.V. Party

Sometimes I find myself lying around on my couch, minding my own business and realizing that I often let my inner masochist have entirely too much control over the body we share. For example, yesterday I managed to spend two hours of my life watching "The Butterfly Effect," two hours of my life that I'll never get back.

For those of you that have been fortunate enough to make it this long without contracting this terminal illness of a film, let me bring you up to speed on the premise. Ashton Kuthcer plays... ah hell, I can't remember his name... so we'll just call him jacakss. Jackass is afflicted with a rare brain disorder causing him to blackout regularly and awaken to find terrible things have gone on around him! If that isn't exciting enough, HIS FATHER SUFFERED FROM THE SAME CONDITION (a fact that is pointed out to the audience at least forty times within the first five minutes of the film... in case you missed it).

Of course, this condition regularly gets him into wacky situations involving dynamite, burning dogs alive in burlap sacks, drawing images of a murdered family and countless other similar things... y'know, the kinds of things that happen to all of us when we black out. As he matures he learns that he can use this power to go back in time (I'm not kidding) and right the wrongs that he found himself powerless to overcome while unconscious at the time.

Now, as anyone even remotely familiar with time travel will tell you, messing with the past can often have severe consequences for the future. His several attempts to save the world lead to repeated institutionalization for one character, a life as a heroin-addicted hooker for another, lung cancer and at one point even extreme dedication to Christianity. It's during the Christian exploits that Jackass finds himself with prosthetic arms (as a result of one of his actions in the past). To watch Ashton Kutcher turn what could have been a challenging scene for... well, Daniel Day Lewis couldn't have made the scene any better, but Ashton Kutcher CERTAINLY isn't the man. When he emotionally reacts to breaking a granola bar with his newfound appendages I was nearly brought to tears... with laughter.

If only I had such magic powers I could look into my childhood journals and recall moments of the past that I'd forgotten. I'd then go back in time and put an immediate stop to the production of this film. If I was somehow unable to do that, then I'd at least stop myself from watching this trainwreck.

Anyway, onto greener pastures. I was talking to my friend Kevin last night about the general state of affairs of the world when he made a remarkable point. Grown-ups need Underoos.

When I was a kid absolutely nothing was cooler than the Underoo. Strutting around the neighborhood with Spiderman on your crotch made you immediately cooler than that poor bastard who's mom mistakenly bought him the Strawberry Shortcake pair. By the way, I saw that kid the other day, he gets out of rehab any day now.

But for whatever reason, the manufacturers of Underoos decided not to carry this staple of youth fashion into adulthood. I, frankly, am appalled. We're not just talking about your over-the-top fanboys that want to wear Batman bloomers every day of the week, although they're out there. Perfectly normal people could be inclined just for kicks to pick up a pair of Iron Man man-panties, and why not? What says "superstud" quite like "Superman?" And at exactly what time would you want women to view you as Superman? Why, when you're in your underwear of course!

I don't know that petitions and such would ever work to the advantage of the ever-aging Underoos crowd, but there's still hope. You see, with the epidemic of childhood obesity that we have in this country, Underoos will soon have to be made to fit the ever-expanding waistline of your average 9 year old. Case in point:
Come on, are you going to tell me that I can't share clothes with the Michelin Man here already? And imagine when he hits 9 or 10 years old, even the most stereotypical fanboys with their stereotypically wide asses will be able to buy clothes from the boy's section!

That's all for now folks, I'll be working on my Chaos Theory for the next few days in an effort to go back in time and slap the above child's mother a few times, so if your present changes drastically please forgive me... hope you don't end up on death row or anything.

Currently Listening to: The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt. 1

Updates aplenty today folks... well, okay... three.

Let's start of with the amazing tale of Pat Robertson. In case you missed out on this delightful little news tidbit, 700 Club Founder and high-profile nutjob, Pat Robertson, has declared that through prayer and strict training he can now leg press 2,000 lbs... yes, an actual ton. Now, as amazing as that is, it's even more dramatic when taken into account that the world record for weight pushed on a leg press is 1,400 lbs. and is held by a Florida State University football player... someone slightly bigger and younger than Robertson.


What exactly would bring this man to make such a claim? Well, after doing a little research it became extremely clear, it isn't the prayer or the strict exercise regimen that Pat is practicing, it's his high-powered SUPER SHAKE that will give you that extra edge to do the impossible. This shake's recipe can be found here, but why do I suspect that it will soon be found at a retailer near me?

Unfortunately the photos and videos of Robertson working his legs like a thoroughbred happen to be of pressing a mere 1,000 lbs. Now, explain this... if he's capable of doing twice that, and thus setting a world record and the cameraman is RIGHT THERE, why not go right ahead and film the 2,000 pound lift? Oh, yeah, I forget... because it's impossible.

In other news, POISON is coming to town. Yep, you heard me... I didn't stutter... Rikki Rocket, C.C. Deville, Bret Michaels and Bobby Dall are on their way to Cincinnati on July 13th! If you don't have your Poison ticket just yet then you'd better act on it before they sell out! You may be asking, "Cory, surely Poison won't sell Riverbend out all by themselves!?" And you'd be right... but what if a little band called CINDERELLA was with them? That seals it folks, I may have been to the Festival of the Bluegrass, I may have tickets to Lollapalooza, but the Poison/Cinderella show is THE not-to-be-missed event of the summer.

What could make the deal even sweeter? Why, fifteen dollar tickets of course. For a mere $15 you can dance in the sun to the best and most thoroughly ridiculous hair metal band the 1980's ever had the chance to feast upon. So, peg your pants, tease your bangs, and break out those Ray-Ban Aviators... the rock has come back to town.

Speaking of the 1980's, I managed to catch a real winner from that decade on Showtime over the weekend... a little masterpiece entitled CHOPPING MALL.

In the long history of absolutely abysmal films... well, I was going to write something pseudo-poetic here, but frankly this movie just sucks. This is very possibly the worst film ever made... way worse than Pi, The Avengers, The Scorpion King or any other crap-fest that I've managed to sit through. Of course, there's the excellent point that this isn't a major Hollywood blockbuster, it's a B-Movie and should be judged as such... fair enough. Now, let me rephrase, "Chopping Mall is the WORST B-MOVIE that I've ever seen."

The plot is simple... okay, maybe it's not. My best attempt to explain would go like this: Apparently an affluent mall is under constant threat from armed madmen, to quell the problem specially designed robots have been brought into the building to patrol the grounds after hours and apparently electrocute extras from Michael Jackson's "Beat It" video. On the debut night for the robots a group of wild mall employees (and two people that just seem to appear with absolutely no explanation) decide to lock themselves in the building and have wild teen sex while drinking copious amounts of beer. That is, until lightning hits the mall and the robots go MAD, killing the only scientist that can stop their reign of terror... like so:

Now, you can pretty much guess what happens next... but in case you somehow can't *sigh* the robots run amok in the mall and kill everyone. Roughly half-way through the film they develop the ability to fire lasers from their eyes, something brand new to the audience. However, the lasers seem to vary in strength and intensity from time to time. In this clip (you really need to watch this clip) the robot fires a laser for the very first time. Note how the first few shots just seem to sting a little, however the last one manages to completely disintegrate this poor girl's head. It's okay though, you knew she was going to die... she's the slut of the group.

A few laser blasts and a few broken windows later, the nerd (as played by "Head of the Class" star Tony O'Dell) is knocked out by a remarkably well placed fire extinguisher and it's up to the mousey daughter of A MARINE to save the day, which she does by luring the robot into a paint store and then tossing a road flare in. I had no idea that a few cans of paint would go off like an atomic blast... but then again I don't really remember seen gun shops or paint stores in the malls around here, so what do I know.

Of course the two nerds that never get it on live. Of course everyone else dies. Some are thrown from things, some blown up by mysterious laser beams and one guy inexplicably jumps on a slow-moving golf cart (in a fit of rage mind you) and crashes into the robot... which somehow electrocutes them both. As far as the gratuitous nudity that you expect from a film like this... it's there. In fact, it's probably the most gratuitous nudity that I've ever seen. When entire scenes are being set in women's locker rooms (which this mall has) for absolutely no discernable reason, that's gratuitous.

But really, how can you get mad at a film with this kind of quality dialogue:

Greg: You smell like pepperoni
Suzy: Oh, well in that case [she stops the make-out party and stands up]
Greg: [smoothly] ...but I like pepperoni
Suzy: Oh, you do, do you? [her eyes open wide, she begins to remove her clothes]

Note to self, chicks really seem to dig pepperoni

Harry Shearer runs a small news blog entitled "Eat the Press" which contains fairly Shearer-esque comments on the world around us. Today's edition made me laugh just hard enough to copy-and-paste the entire text onto mine... but check Harry's out from time to time.

From Eat The Press:

Today's Washington Post runs an AP story on the newest wrinkle at the Clinton library: a device ($3, please) that lets you hear the ex-Pres's thoughts as you amble through the rooms of the library. Then the report adds:

The library, along the Arkansas River in downtown Little Rock, will begin offering the audio tour Saturday. The tour was Clinton's idea and is the first narrated by a former president for a presidential library, said Jordan Johnson, spokesman for the William J. Clinton Foundation.

Wrong. Though it was privately managed at the time I visited it, the Nixon Library offered a tour of Nixon's birthplace in Yorba Linda, with typically Nixonian narration available to all for free. Example: in the living room of the tiny house, discussing the piano he once played, Nixon mused: "I often thought, if I'd been born at another time, I just might be a rapper." True story.

As funny as that may be, the true humor lies in this photoshop, contributed by cranberryzero:

Get Rich or Die Tryin' indeed...

Currently Listening to: Primal Scream - Get Duffy

It's June 6, 2006... the day that we're all gonna die! Well, actually probably not. Although I'm sure someone is going to die today I have a fairly good feeling that it isn't me and probably isn't you. However, more than a few wacked-out fundies are using this day to propogate fear all throughout the country.

We have The Omen opening up today, an unusual release for a late spring, holiday-free Tuesday... but the 6/6/06 paranoia has worked to it's advantage. Ordinarily this film would have passed along the way with the Amityville remake or Skeleton Key or some other crap-fest, but now it's an international phenomenon. Thus proving that there are no more gullible creatures on this earth than humans.

Of course, let us not forget NATIONAL DAY OF SLAYER. I don't mind people who enjoy a little Slayer from time to time... hell, I have great friends that love some Slayer. But come on, isn't this a little too cheesy for the evil under lords of scary metal? And to top it off, you get the stereotypical Slayer fan making comments like these from a (I'm not making this up) blog dedicated to NATIONAL DAY OF SLAYER...

"I think our US friends are not thinking big enough. I'm calling for an INTERNATIONAL Day of Slayer. I reckon they probably sold more albums in Europe than the US anyway. With time zone differences, the INTERNATIONAL Day of Slayer could stretch out to around 37 hours, give or take some daylight savings (don't bother telling me that's incorrect - speed metal does not obey the laws of physics)."

True... but unfortunately it fails to obey the laws of quality as well.

Don't think for one second that the Uber-Christians are going to get off the hook on this one, either. If you've been stockpiling food and water or just sitting naked on your roof awaiting the goat-monkey-bat monsters to swoop down up you then let me be the first to say, "please get down from the roof and bring your cans of beans with you."

As Brinton so thoroughly enjoys pointing out, I am a man who believes in God. I am also a man who believes in science, and guess what people, those two people actually CAN cohabitate the same body! My point being, if you've gotten so sucked into the absolute fundamentalist madness of some sects of Christianity, then you need an intervention. You're no better or worse than the wacked out fundamentalist Muslims that you abhor.

How do you know if you're one of these people? Take my easy, five question quiz:

1. Have you ever recoiled in horror or been genuinely concerned when a bill and/or change comes to six dollars and sixty-six cents?

2. Have you ever refused to accept a license plate that features three sixes in succession?

3. If you knew that your child would be born on June 6, 2006 would you have asked the doctor to induce labor on the fifth?

4. Did you make any special preparations for today such as: stockpiling food or water, keeping the kids home from school, taking the day off, or building giant crucifixes on your lawn?

5. Did it even cross your mind that today was 6/6/06 until someone (myself included) pointed it out to you?

If you answered yes to any of those questions (except MAYBE #5) then perhaps you need to take a rather serious look at yourself. But I'll tell you what, I'll bet each and every reader twenty bucks that goat-monkey-bat monsters won't swoop down and eat me today. If they do, I promise I'll pay up on my deathbed.

Listening to: Manic Street Preachers - Motorcycle Emptiness

I noticed on Victor's Blog the other day that when he posts a new comment it tags at the bottom the song he's listening to at the time. Having found that feature extremely cool I plan on adding it to mine. Unfortunately, blogger doesn't allow that feature, so I'll just type it in at the bottom all by myself. I can't decide whether it should be the song that I started with or the song that I'm ending on... I don't guess it matters much. I think I'll go with the song I started with. That should set the mood.

In other news, The United States has decided to bring in a panel of experts on Iran in the coming days. Under any other administration this would be a wonderful idea and a show of good faith to a nation with a less than favorable opinion of ours. Unfortunately, this isn't any other administration. So, whom do we bring in to explain how Iranians think? Why, the fellow that completely fabricated the story involving ID badges on non-Muslims in Iran of course!

It should also be mentioned that as nearly every imaginable sign of the end of the world seems to be coming at us more quickly than Dennis Hastert at a Golden Corral Buffet, it's now raining aliens in India...

Hallelujah, it's raining aliens... oh lord.

Currently Listening to: Patti Smith - Gloria

It's 3:39 PM, Eastern Standard Time. I just finished reading Roger Ebert's review of the new film, "An Inconvenient Truth." Mr. Ebert has long been a favorite writer of mine, not only because of his complex knowledge of film, but because the man genuinely knows how to write. This review is one of the best and most passionate examples I could ever find to offer.

"An Inconvenient Truth" opens at the Kentucky Theater on June 16th

As regular readers may be aware, I suffer from a light case of insomnia. Some night's I'm blessed with satisfying sleep, however, most nights I find myself awake off-and-on until around five AM... at that point I'm just up. This morning, as I do most mornings, I sat on the couch with a Fiji water, wiping my eyes and watching infomercials. Now, when you leave the television on Comedy Central (while falling asleep just before the Colbert Report airs) until 5 AM you come across the same "RISE AND SHINE" infomercials every morning.

I'm fully aware that I've mentioned this before.

I'm certain that I've spoken on how much of an impact it's had on society.

But it wasn't until last night (this morning) that I realized that it may be the greatest cultural leap of an entire generation...


You may think I'm joking. But really think about this. The Girls Gone Wild video series has not only made spring break parties an absolute must for ANYBODY attending any sort of college, but has pushed the issue into the high schools as well. Granted, in certain high schools in Orange County and such, I'm sure spring break beach trips were fairly common... but I went to a Rural Appalachian high school, not the OC. I hear constantly about kids as young as Freshmen demanding their parents to put them on a plane, after all daaaaaaaaaad, "It's SPRING BREAK!!"

Now you may argue that MTV Spring Break has as much to do with this as anything else. Well, when I was a pup we had MTV Spring Break, and as much as we may have wanted to see Coolio, we knew it was unrealistic. It's this whole "PAAAAAAAARTY" movement that has been slapped on the television 24 hours a day that has convinced young girls that not only is that the way they SHOULD behave, but if they're not doing it, something's wrong with them.

This mentality has even stretched as far as local parties. No longer are girls throwing clothes off to get the attention of photographers, frat boys or just guys with beads, now they're showing it off to the math club (way to go math club, come into your own). Youth culture is slowly (or not so slowly) evolving into the least respectful creation that society has ever seen. Soon we'll be demanding girls take off their tops to get a cab or as photo id when writing a check. Laugh, but is that far off?


I don't want to give GGW all of the credit. Misogynistic music and film have certainly had their effect. Not to mention the arrival of the internet, webcams and myspace (which I always thought was rather harmless until every blonde teacher in America started seducing fifteen year olds... way to go fifteen year olds). So it's just the sexualization of an entire generation of girls that's to blame, but one that I really couldn't have been made so possible without the constant barrage of drunken breasts that we see on basic cable all night long.

Of course, I'm no puritan. And it would be wrong of me to sit here and pretend that I haven't been in places where girls were going wild. As those girls went wild I most certainly had a good time and hooped n' hollered with the best of them. Unfortunately, I'm getting older. People around me are having kids and one of these days I'LL be having kids. The thought of my daughter "going wild" certainly doesn't appeal to me.

But, since she hasn't been born yet, what's that 800 number?

To my right wing readers, prepare yourself... I am going to attack a Democrat.

Now, I've said for years that I'm an equal opportunity denouncer of the hypocrisy of our times, but no one seemed to believe me. I've bashed some of Clinton's policy decisions, called Joe Lieberman everything in the book and voted for Nader in 2000, but still no love from the right-wing. Well, maybe this will help (as I know you guys hate Charlie Rangel).

Recently (on Valentine's Day no less) Congressman Rangel introduced a bill, HR 4752 to be exact, into the United States House of Representatives. This bill would, if passed, reinstate a draft of involuntary military service (follow that link and type H.R. 4752 in the search box) in our country. Something that I find revolting.

Of course, Rangel has reasoning behind his decision to inflict this pain on the United States. His theory is that if a draft is reinstated, one that will force every person in this country to serve without regard of race, age, sex, sexuality or income, people will be far less likely to call for war. If your child WILL be going, no deferments, no excuses, then you'll be less interested in firing the first shot. However, despite Mr. Rangel's best attempts, people with power WILL find their way out of a draft. That's my complaint with the original draft and that's my complaint with any upcoming ones.

People with power have it for a reason. If you're naive enough to believe that Jenna Bush would have signed on with the U.S. Army on her 18th birthday then I have some very interesting pyramid schemes I'd like you to see.