Confederate History 101: Papal Papalisms and The Case For The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act

Hi,

Okay, so I lied on Friday when I said:

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. The following "P.S." completes my Christmas shopping list ...

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. The following digital representation of a receipt entitles me to an 8x10 autographed photo of Tony Hawk.

The truth is that on Friday I got so caught up in the holiday spirit that I bought myself another Christmas present. Tickets to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular! That's right kids ... the Rockettes! All 36 of them. Including one African American! 72 legs, in all their misogyny perpetuating glory! Wait, I think I saw another black dancer! Oh, it's so hard to tell from the 2nd mezzanine. Anyway, it was a great show except for that one part where the lead dancer fell during Swan Lake. Oh, crap. Sorry, I got my dancing mixed up. That was Black Swan. Pretty good movie by the way. I mean, if you like seeing movies wherein Natalie Portman is totally doing it with another girl. If you don't then you may or may not be as excited about the repeal of DADT as Billie Jean King. It depends. On a few things. Anyway, the Rockettes Show was great. In fact, it was so great, I think they should just go ahead and change the name to The Rockettes Show And Advertising Spectacular and drop the whole Christmas charade. Not that I'm saying Christmas is actually a charade or anything, but let's face it, baby Jesus is gonna unleash the waterworks if he doesn't start getting a little more stage time. I mean, really? One scene? It was a pretty bitchin' scene, but still. A christmas show where there are more product placements for Capitol One bank than there are mentions of Jesus H. Fukldjafkldjioaing Christ? How is this possible? In America? I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't had it all pointed out to me by the half-jewish girl I was sitting with. Very astute. Large black eyes. Like pools really. You just want to dive into them. Or something.

Anyway, I just got an email from a monopoly called "Ticketmaster" imploring me to "Let... " my "... voice be heard" and review The Rockettes Show And Advertising Spectacular. The email looks like this:

And here is my official review of the show:

Oh, and speaking of shows, if you're looking for some company to go antique shopping next month ... don't bother calling me during the week of Jan 15th - 22nd because I'll be knee deep in what can only be described as a Two Show World Tour with Casey Shea! That's right kids, we'll be bringing the mid-tempo-sixties-esque-shuffle-rock back to the home of the greatest airport in the history of airports in countries where the police are so badass they don't even have to carry guns.

Fortunately for all people like me, we live in a country where guns are still held in high esteem. People here like guns so much that some of us will choose to hang around with a bunch of other people that not so secretly hate our guts just to get to walk around with them, polish them and occasionally even get to blow some poor sonofabitches face off with them. And as the digital representation of an x-ray below demonstrates, still others among us are simply thankful that in our country, you don't even have to be in the armed services if you want to hang out on airplane with a loaded gun.

Finally, I'm done with my coffee so you're just gonna have to get back to your life now.

Mwah!

M

P.S. If you're like me and stayed home on Monday night ...

P.P.S. Apparently you too missed a pretty remarkable party.

P.P.P.S. Today's unattributed quote of the day is ...

P.P.P.P.S. "Where are the s'mores ingredients? This is in honor of Michelle Obama, who said the other day we should not have dessert."

P.P.P.P.P.S. Oh wait! Sorry, I found an even more fu@%ed up unattributed quote ....

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. "In the 1970's pedophilia was theorized as something fully in conformity with man and even with children."

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. Write to me with correct origins of one of the above quotes and I'll tell you about how you can earn me money by clicking on the convenient advertising links in the right hand margin of this page!

Nutrition 101: Sainthood and The Case For Richard Holbrooke

Hi,

Today is the fourth day in a row that I have attempted to not ingest unnecessary amounts of pork, especially the kind cooked in the delicate blend of butter, vegetable oil and left over ham fat used at the place where I pretty much ate breakfast everyday for the last year. The fact that Morir Sonando is still closed is starting to make me feel like I have willpower. Alas, here I am eating a delicious "everything" bagel with cream cheese and pesto on a paper plate.

What?

A paper plate?

Oh, and, I got a paper cup for this coffee too.

I mean, I guess the coffee cup I didn't really notice cuz that's a pretty common thing to be getting coffee in. A paper cup that it.

But a paper plate? I haven't used a paper plate since my 11th birthday party back in 1843.

Actually, those were styrofoam plates.

What's that? Oh, you've never heard of styrofoam?

Well, why don't you bring your pretty little self over here and sit on my knee for a while ...

See, you kids may not know this, but a lot of people, including yours truly, used to consume all manner of foodstuffs using plates and cups made of a material whose chemical makeup is a long chain hydrocarbon with every other carbon connected to a phenyl group (the name given to the aromatic ring benzene, when bonded to complex carbon substituents) containing the chemical elements carbon and hydrogen, which, because it is an aromatic hydrocarbon, burns with an orange-yellow flame, giving off soot, as opposed to non-aromatic hydrocarbon polymers such as polyethylene, which burn with a light yellow flame (often with a blue tinge) and no soot. Complete oxidation of polystyrene produces only carbon dioxide and water vapor. Because of its chemical inertness, polystyrene is used to fabricate containers for chemicals, solvents, and foods.

What? Was that a little confusing?

Okay. No problem. Here's a visual example of what I'm talking about:

You're welcome. Anyway, apparently it took a few years for everyone to realize that good ol' Polystyrene (Ed. Note: Styrofoam is actually a brand name. If this confuses you, just think about Kleenex) never stood a chance of biodegrading in the stream where we unceremoniously threw our garbage after family picnics. And, if you have time over Christmas or whatever sucker for advertising holiday you're celebrating next week, you should totally ask your grandfather about how hard it was to successfully eat a Greek salad on one of these gems of DOW Chemical (who will soon be celebrating the International Year Of Chemistry) engineering without accidentally also digesting some amount of the chemical formula (C8H8)n. Assuming grandpa's not suffering from memory loss due to Alzheimer's, I'm sure he remembers how the styrofoam plate would be so easily defiled under the brunt of even the least expensive serrated plastic butter knife (of which Aunt Phyllis would conveniently purchase 1000 count boxes of for the everyday low Caldor price of $1.99) and thus upon cutting your cucumber into smaller cubes you'd end up with a crumbling mess of little white styrofoam balls getting all mixed up into your feta cheese. The only solution of course being to transfer your salad onto a fresh styrofoam plate because, as Aunt Sarah would say: "We've got plenty!" And then Uncle Phil, the one who used to be Aunt Phyllis, would chime in: "They were two for one over at Bradlees! I bought six cases." And then Aunt Sarah would say: "Yeah, we can hardly walk in the basement anymore. We've got enough styrofoam plates to feed all of Africa on." And then Uncle Phil would retort: "You should be thankful I'm not wasting our money." And then Aunt Sarah would say: "I should be thankful to eat on an actual piece of porcelain someday." And then Uncle Phil would retort: "Think of the money we are saving on water!" Anyway, if you you can't imagine this sort of conversation going on and on, you should watch more sitcoms. For the rest of us, I'll be moving right along now to say that eventually everyone got tired of constantly having indigestion on account of all of the styrofoam we were accidentally ingesting on account of some really great advertising by the Greek Feta Cheese Board. Some of you may remember those ads. If you're too young, suffice to say that you could hardly get through an episode of Cheers or a rerun of All In The Family without sitting through 60, 30 and 15 second variations of ads about the health benefits of Feta Cheese. So, of course, because Ted Danson was so popular and Carroll O'Connor was so funny, pretty much everybody with a pulse was watching these commercials and constantly eating Feta Cheese. Off of styrofoam plates. Maybe you see where this is going? Yup. Soon, alarming headlines throughout the US read: "Mass Epidemic Of Accidental Styrofoam Ingestion On Account Of Eating Of Feta Cheese". It's true. Every paper in the US had that same headline one day. You can imagine the ensuing backlash and protesting of DOW headquarters and the relevant suppliers of super-products. Which of course explains why stalwart Connecticut based retailers Clador and Bradlees went out of business and forced people throughout New England to stop using styrofoam as part of their dining experience. The astute among you will likely surmise that they switched to ... that's right, paper plates. And now I'm here in a state that's not even part of New England and I'm being forced to participate in mass deforestation all because I'm trying to not eat less healthy and the people that own this cafe fired their illegal immigrant dishwasher and started shopping at one of the seventeen 99 cent stores on Havemeyer St. between Grand and Broadway because they finally realized that giving away internet access doesn't make them enough money. Wow. Apparently everyone really does win in a free market.

And speaking of winners, I'm not even going to comment on the fact that I just overheard a woman say that her boyfriend lost 100 pounds in 60 days by only consuming juice.

In today's episode of "Rock And Roll Saved My Soul, Or So I Hope"... I offer you the following historical nugget from our good friends at VH1 that's sure to impress all of your annoying nieces and nephews over the forthcoming Holiday: 'In 1981, fifteen-year-old Christopher Tyrer sees the metal group Saxon in Wolverhampton, England and head-bangs along to their set. When he wakes up the following morning, Tyrer discovers that he is paralyzed down one side and can't speak. His condition deteriorates and dies on Christmas Day. A coroner rules it was "death by misadventure."'

And finally, here's a human interest story that's actually kind of interesting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/17/man-spends-year-of-unempl_n_798311.html

Oh no, wait, this is the human interest story I thought was interesting:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/16/secret-service-agents-que_n_797768.html

Oh no, wait, I think it was actually this one:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/16/daniel-ellsberg-wikileaks_n_797801.html

Oh no, wait, this is actually the one I was thinking of, even though it's gonna be way too long for you:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-brenner/obamas-war-on-wikileaks-a_b_797612.html

Mwah!

M

P.S. http://mirror.wikileaks.info/

P.P.S. http://mirror.wikileaks.info/

P.P.P.S. http://mirror.wikileaks.info/

P.P.P.P.S. http://mirror.wikileaks.info/

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. The following "P.S." completes my Christmas shopping list ...

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. The following digital representation of a receipt entitles me to an 8x10 autographed photo of Tony Hawk.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. Speaking of online Christmas shopping for the greedy sonofabitchofaboss that you'd naively hoped would not make you want to barf every time you walk into the office to find him glued to his 81" iMacProBookAir perusing the finer details of Facebook pages of women half his age ...

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. You should totally use the convenient link to amazon.com provided here, free of charge by me, in the bottom right margin of this page to buy all those cases of overpriced wine.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. dhjlsfkgsyoiufghs.dfgjh;sdfigsdjfgsdfigsfdgjsdfgusdhgsdfgnlsjdfglsdfgwer'qfdhawkjfbdskfgf.

Nutrition 101: Redactions and The Art Of Self Promotion

Hi,

Well, yeah. I mean, kinda. But to be honest it's hard to tell if a bagel with cream cheese and tomato is actually more healthy than eating eggs and sausage and other stuff cooked in either butter or oil or who knows what is on the bottom of that grill. I'm gonna assume that it is on account of the fact that I am deciding to try to not eat foods that will definitely cause me to just suddenly collapse on the street one day. Or, at least not as often. I'm gonna replace those foods with foods that at least sound like they are better for me so as to give myself an opportunity at self righteous indignity when I just suddenly collapse on the street one day. Case in point, the following digital representation of "Plate With Napkin And Tissue -or- Thank God I Know I Won't Be Having A Heart-Attack Today" which used to contain an "everything" bagel with tomato, cream cheese and something called: "Pesto".

For more information on why I am not convinced of anything, at all, ever, the following digital representation of that famous (I'm pretty sure it's a Mapplethorpe) photograph, "Egg Carton With Label Containing Bulls#!t", may or may not be a link to an article about how confusing it is to be healthy while not actually growing all of your food yourself.

And speaking of the art of product placement and people who have apparently been eating too much pork this year, tonight the band that features Casey Shea will be performing number 632 of a 736 part performance art piece entitled "Pipe Dreams: More Than A Nightmare" at The Living Room. I think that happens at 10pm.

Oh, before I forget, in case you missed the Andy Fitzpatrick gig, at the greatest venue in the history of venues that have really annoying velvet ropes all over the sidewalk, on Monday night, I have conveniently extracted the best part of the show for you and embedded it below for your aural pleasure:


(Ed. Note: For the life of me, I can't figure out how to not have the preceding audio file not play upon the loading of this page. I've done it before, and used the same code. Alas, it is working not so much.)

And speaking of convenience, don't forget to purchase your Casey Shea t-shirts and other fine holiday gifts via the convenient link to amazon.com located in the bottom right margin of this page.

Finally, clicking anywhere on this sentence will bring you to an article that you, dependent upon your asshole quotient, may or may not think is good news. Let's hope you do think it is. I'd hate to think I need to start discriminating against you and your kind.

Mwah!

M

P.S. If you really want to know what's going on in the world, you should click on this link to a mirror site of WikiLeaks: http://mirror.wikileaks.info/

P.P.S. Don't be scared.

P.P.P.S. Okay, maybe you should be scared if you clicked on the mirror link to WikiLeaks.

P.P.P.P.S. It's hard to say.

P.P.P.P.P.S. Whatever, you only live once right?

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. Go ahead, dance like no one's watching!

Mathematics 101: Billy Ray Cyrus 'So Sad' About Miley Bong Video

Hi,

You're not gonna believe this but, the woman sitting next to me is not using an Apple computer. What do you think I should do? One can only assume that the manager of this cafe would want to know. Maybe I should pretend I have to take a crap so I can ask the manager for the key to the crapper and then tell him that he has someone in his cafe who he should be actively discriminating against. Maybe he'll be relieved to know that not all the whistle blowers of the world have gone limp in the last week. Maybe he'll give me a free coffee in return.

Oh, and speaking of stories about people who sympathize with whistle blowers and as such better start watching their back, have you ever heard of Ron Paul? Even though I know you rely on me for pretty much everything you need explained to you, I have to admit that I don't know a lot about Ron Paul except that he is a member of The House Of Representatives, representing the State of Texas and if I know anything about congress, I know that The House Of Representatives is kinda of like being a senior in High School but still playing point guard for the Junior Varsity basketball team. You're just not getting to second base with Julie Anderson. Nope, not even if your dad let's you borrow his Corvette for that date to the mall. In fact, that might actually lessen your chances. Unless you live in a suburb of Hartford, Deerfield, St. Paul or Tampa. Anyway, sorry to have been mixing metaphors. You'll have to excuse me. It's been a long morning. For starters, it would appear that that stalwart of breakfast cuisine, Morir Sonando ...

... is closed? What? I know. I tried calling Mayor Bloomberg but his line was busy, or something. Who the hell is he talking to all the time? Doesn't he know I've got real problems. I mean, I spent about 17 seconds walking around the block to the next counter-seat-only Dominican diner in the greater Broadway and Marcy arena of Brooklyn to get my requisite high fructose corn syrup enhanced fuel for under $5.00. And then of course when I got this place to tell you all about Ron Paul, there was the girl here with the computer that wasn't an Apple. Luckily for all of us, she was duly marginalized, quietly accepted her station in life, and left.

Anyway, Ron Paul hates America and supports terrorism. To wit, feast your freedom loving eyes on his recent manifesto of submission as presented in the form of an aurally delivered questionnaire to the other members of Congress:

"Number 1: Do the America People deserve know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?

Number 2: Could a larger question be how can an army private access so much secret information?

Number 3: Why is the hostility mostly directed at Assange, the publisher, and not at our governments failure to protect classified information?

Number 4: Are we getting our moneys worth of the 80 Billion dollars per year spent on intelligence gathering?

Number 5: Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?

Number 6: If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the first amendment and the independence of the internet?

Number 7: Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on Wikileaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?

Number 8: Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in a time of declared war, which is treason, and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death and corruption?

Number 9: Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it is wrong?"

Which of course reminds me that the conspicuous silence of the "Eric Clapton Camp" regarding an invitation to perform a goodwill concert in North Korea can only be a sign of said bluesman's latent terrorist sympathies.

Oh, and speaking of people who may or not belong in the greatest country in the history of countries where 90% of caucasian television pundits need a remedial math class, I'll be performing with not one but two, count 'em, two foreigners tonight at Rockwood Music Hall. That's right kids, Emerald Isledian Andy Fitzpatrick leads his band of handsomeness tonight at 10pm with the very Italian Andrea Long on something he calls chitarra. Don't forget... Immigracion is always just a phone call away.

Finally, if you're like me, or wish you were like me, or just like hearing about things that people like me like, you'll also be happy to know that one of my secret admirer's continues to hold fast to her rightful place among the also ran's for 2010. Whew.

In the meantime, I have to go now ad do some New Year's Eve preparation busy work for slave driver Queen Mother Feather.

Mwah!

M

P.S. Don't forget to do your holiday shopping at amazon.com via the convenient link to amazon.com located in the bottom right margin of this page.

P.P.S. Don't forget to make other plans for Thursday night.

Tax Preparation 101: N.B.A. Union Chief Outlines Proposals

Hi,

In case you haven't been keeping up with mtv.com, you may not know that today is the day someone named John Lennon died. From what I understand, because he was killed under a surprise attack, he was actually something called "assassinated", by way of several gunshots. One can presume that the pedestrian understanding of "assassination" involving political motivations does not apply because as I just read on trusted news source Wikipedia, Mr. Chapman well explained that his issues with Mr. Lennon had to do with a perceived phoniness regarding material wealth on the part of Mr. Lennon and not because he probably could have gotten a bunch of people to vote for Jimmy Carter back in 1979 but instead allowed some guy named Reagan to become the best tax cutting president in the history of presidents before the one we have now. No, apparently Mr. Chapman was upset because John said he didn't believe in The Beatles ten years prior.

Anyway, since my target demographic of readers earns upwards of 7.2 million dollars per year, I know that you must be jumping for joy that your little tax break has just been extended for two more years. All the while what can only be explained away as a colossal mistake that I'm sure all of our overqualified and underpaid congressional representatives will work overtime tonight to fix, families that earn less than $40,000 per year will actually end up paying more in taxes than they did last year. Let's be clear. These poor sonsabitches did not get a tax increase. It's just the way things happened to work out on Monday night when The Big O. was busy flossing his teeth with Mitch McConnell's foreskin. Clearly The Great Appeaser was distracted. I mean, let's not forget that he's got a lot on his mind. How could he possibly be expected to remember something as simple as "All Of The Policies That People Thought They Were Voting For".

What's that? Oh, no actually it is not okay to say that a person coulda shoula woulda known to really look at all of the details in his campaign platforms and Senatorial voting record and thus have known that speeches where Barry said things like... "In reaffirming the greatness of our nation we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those that prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long rugged path towards prosperity and freedom..." was really all a bunch of something my dad would have called "bulls#!t". Because the "men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long rugged path towards prosperity and freedom..." that he was talking about in the above quoted inauguration speech don't have time to parse through all of the other stuff. Instead, they vote with an expectation that you will not be lying to them in the speech they watched after a long day at work, carrying us along that aforementioned "...long rugged path towards prosperity and freedom." To those people, it just kinda maybe seems like people that make a lot of money already have a lot of money. To those people, it just kinda maybe seems like funny man Steve Martin actually wasn't joking when he said: "If you've got a dollar and you spend twenty-nine cents on a loaf of bread, you've got seventy-nine cents left. But if you've got seventeen grand and you spend twenty-nine cents on a loaf of bread, you've still got seventeen grand." Although, maybe he kinda was? I mean, he's got a lot of money right? Anyway, could you imagine what it would be like if you were one of those people who only had 71 cents left after you bought the cheapest loaf of bread on earth and then in some act of cruel irony the guy you voted for made a deal that caused your taxes to, in effect, get raised just so he could keep his $400,000 a year job that he got in part because you donated the money you coulda spent on lottery tickets to his application process? Wow. I bet that would SUCK! Good thing you don't have to imagine that...

Oh, never mind.

Anyway, like I was saying, today is the day that mtv.com posted what they consider to be "The Five Best Covers From The Past 10 Years" of John Lennon's "Imagine". Since you're too lazy to copy and paste "mtv.com" into your browser window thing and find them yourself, I'm gonna let you imagine that you're actually not lazy and do something called "embed" them here for your annotation reading pleasure .

1. Neil Young: This one is cool because I wish that Neil Young was my uncle. Not that I don't have cool uncles. My Uncle Tony is pretty hilarious. I've been playing with his comb-over since I was adopted.

2. Eva Cassidy: This cover is from a woman who has the same name as my sister. She's pretty cool. Even though for the last oh 18 years, we hardly see each other. We still really feel like we know each other. Isn't it funny how that happens with people you knew when you were a little kid? And btw, this version of Imagine is a real snore-fest. She should get a gig opening for _____ at ________ on a Friday night on Stage #_. I bet it would sound so beautiful.

3. This version starts playing once you finish watching a commercial. Which is almost as annoying as the way the guy who wrote that one cool song sings it. Having said that, I bet it would be kinda cool to hear this version in concert. Bands like them only sound good loud. But my roommates are home and I can't bear the embarrassment of anyone knowing that I was actually listening to A Perfect Circle covering Imagine. Wow. This really sucks.

4. Up next we have the award for "The Last Thing I Ever Expected To Be Listening To Today". I got 17 seconds in. Tell me how far you get okay?

5. Finally, we are at number 5 on the list of the 5 versions of Imagine that mtv.com posted today. This version is better than yours.

Finally, thanks to my good friends over at the HuffPost, I don't have to use as much imagination today.

Mwah!

M

P.S. Tomorrow night we have a date.

P.P.S. Yes, you can bring all your friends too.

P.P.P.S. Apparently they didn't get that WikiLeaks guy after all!

Harmony 101: Foreign Students In U.S. Forced To Work In Strip Clubs, Eat On Floor

Hi,

Since I know how much you like contests, I'm offering the opportunity for a special behind the scenes glimpse at the re-writing of rock and roll history to the person who can guess on which day I had the following meal for breakfast:


Wow! What a wonderful guesser you've grown up to be!The mother you don't call often enough must be so very proud of you! Below is the reward for all your hard work... but while celebrating any good fortune is warranted, it's important to keep in mind that gloating is rude. You can never be sure why another person might not be in the mood to have a celebration.

Oh, and speaking of contests, did you know that the internet is a contest and that last week somebody won it?
And speaking of all the hard work that goes into testing the boundaries of acceptability with regards to ethno-race relations, below you will find a digital representation of an Irish man and a half Jewish woman rehearsing for the same show! You shoulda been there ... Or maybe you were. How would I know?



The Old Fashioned Ladies Club
Harmony. Hope.
For The World. For The Future.
Zidsfalehrlsfgirfakdshf;shoidfsdfah.

In related news, how am I supposed to maintain my quality of being "inspired by the presence of God" when there are no photos of Chirstine O'Donnell on the front page of HuffPost? That's it. I'm switching my news source to talkingpointsmemo.com. And now it's snowing outside. Flurries really. Don't freak out. You can't call in to work. What are you looking at?Finally, today is Gilber Gilmore's birthday. In case you didn't know, he's a guitar player who plays backwards and looks like this:


And, he's also responsible for this:

Thanks Gil!

Mwah!

M

P.S. You can thank Mr. Gilmore for his part in shaping the modern woman on friday when we play with the vacationing Casey Shea at Rockwood Music Hall.
P.P.S. We'll be playing at 7:45 am as part of Rockwod's new Breakfast-Rockfest.
P.P.P.S. Love it or leave it?