Shock the monkey...

Back in 1984 or so I picked up a cassette sitting on a table in the audio/video department at Bay High School. It belonged to a tech guy who worked part time for the school. It was marked "Peter Gabriel-Live". I popped it into a cheap cassette player, put on a pair of craptastic headphones and proceeded to have my mind absolutely blown.

The music was unlike anything I had ever heard before. It sure as hell wasn't Pink Floyd or pop music. It was something mesmerizing, haunting. From the first track (The Rhythm of the heat) to the desolate and sad "Biko". I listened to it over and over. One of the first CD's I ever owned was Peter Gabriel and when I got to hear his music on a semi-good system it blew my mind all over again.

You might know his more popular tunes Shock the Monkey, Salisbury Hill or Sledgehammer. But you owe it to yourself to listen to some of his other works. He did the soundtrack for The Last Temptation of Christ and is a central part of Real World studios.

A while back he provided the source track to some of his songs and invited to people to remix them as they wished. The results were pretty cool. You can listed to a warped but very cool version of Shock the Monkey here:

Watch this...

Eating Elizabethan for a week. Absolutely awesome.

Things that make you go hmmm...

An interesting collection of photos of what some death row inmates had for their last meal. No significance, just a curiosity.

Listening to words

The recent gathering in Washington D.C. was quite impressive. Sure, it didn't actually have 2 million participants. That apparently was a lie. But there were a LOT of angry (mostly white) people loudly venting their disapproval of our government and our President.

Good for them. That is their right. They apparently had a lot to complain about. For the moment, I'd like to set aside some of these people. The abortion protesters have an actual point in that abortion is still legal. They have a position and a stated goal. The Jesus freaks, well, they believe that the bible should run the show. Obama is a Muslim. They also have a position. It's crazy. but they are led by the book their invisible sky wizard gave them. Arguing with them is fruitless. In the immortal words of Dr. House "If you could reason with religious people, there wouldn't be any religious people.".

Then there are those who oppose a whole host of things the government is doing. You can tell this by the 10 second flashes shown on the news and the sound bites of people yelling. But what are these people actually saying? What do they actually believe? A young man apparently went through the crowd and talked to some of these people. And the results are so cringe worthy as to be physically painful.

These people traveled great distances, made signs, got up early and marched to protest things they have no fucking clue about. Seriously. These are dumb people. Now, it is possible that there were some well spoken people with well reasoned objections to certain government bills or policies. But I have never seen them. Where are they? Where are the ones who aren't screaming about death panels and socialism?

When I attended a war protest a few years ago there were certainly a wide range of opinions about our government. From reformers to anti-globalists to outright anarchists. But if you stopped and talked to them you would hear about why they wanted the war in Iraq ended. They knew about the bad intel, the lies, the smokescreen of Al Qaeda the torture of prisoners, warrantless wiretapping. I'm sure a few of them wanted the president overthrown because he secretly was a pawn of the Trilateral commission or the Freemasons, but they still KNEW THINGS based on FACTS. And the interesting thing was the makeup of the protest crowd. Young and old, white and black, Christian and Muslim. They were concerned about a people and a war that didn't affect many of them directly. After all, they weren't being bombed or rounded up and sent to CIA black sites. But the screaming heads on TV these days seem only to care about two things. Themselves and "their" America. To listen to them you'd think that is a brown shirted Obama Youth and FEMA camps for dissidents ready to materialize ANY SECOND. That their guns are already being taken away and government money is being spent right this second on free abortions for gay married couples. All over a burning Bible.

These are scared, stupid, people. And I have no idea how to counteract this level of stupidity. How can you have a discussion with them?

A few give lip service to the idea of making the world a better place for "the children". Hey Cletus, if you wanted a better world you might have spent less time breeding and more time educating yourselves and your offspring.

pant*pant*pant

Ok, I'm gonna go over to cuteoverload.com now and lower my blood pressure...

Sweet tee's

If you're looking for a nice t-shirt based on your fav movie take a click over to Last Exit to Nowhere. There are some nice designs there for logo junkies like myself.


Via BoingBoing.net

Mornin' sunshine

The guys who run the maze across from us are pretty fun. We share a
few quick words during the day when we can, a friendly bit of verbal
sparring. This morning one showed off some new plumes in his cavalier
hat.

"Nothing says pretentious asshole like an obnoxious collection of
plumage".
he said, jauntilly adjusting the half a pheasant stapled to his brim.

"Really? I dare say there are a great many things about you that
scream pretentious asshole. Those boots for instance ' or your
doublet, the effite walking stick you use or perhaps your mug. So many
things sir conspire within you to form a kind of macrocosm of
assholery!"

The young man was actually left momentarily speachless. He then shook
my hand and congratulated me on a job well done. I'm sure later on I
will be on the receiving end of one of these rants. This is how we
pass the hours sometimes.

Sent from my iPhone

The wheels of commerce...

On our way home from Michigan. I'm the one with the cold now but a
decent weekend of sales somewhat makes up for a head full of crap. But
no rest fir the wicked... We are off to Ohio ren shortly to work on
our roof and hopefully make a nice living space for our minions.

We are listening to a book on cd about the construction of St. Peters
bascillica. Facinating stuff. Horrifying in that it had so little to
do with Jesus and his teachings, but keen from political,
architectural and artistic point of view.

Sent from my iPhone

Metal Pirates!

And now for your listening pleasure: Alestorm.

I'm not sure if these guys are god awful or awfully good. Post your opinion.



Listen to more here at Last.fm

More clever monkeys

Ok, I'm gonna need someone to take my wallet for a few weeks so I cannot order this thing. I mean, a working tricorder media player? For $350? Dammit! This is the kind of thing I would have given my left nut for a back in my more fervent fanboy days. And now that I'm a "responsible" adult I'm supposed to 'just say no'? Fuck that!

Okay... deep breath. As long as I don't ever actually touch one in person I should be safe.

Maybe.

Jesus Christ it's a Lion! Get in the car!

There was no greater genius than DaVinci. And this shit right here proves it.

Get up that hill

There's no way around it. This season, most recently this Pennsic War event was pretty brutal. I feel like I have been stumbling around, unable to get a solid footing. And when I thought I was on solid ground, something would rush up and smack me. Car problems, friends and acquaintances telling me of rough times, health problems, divorce, job loss.

And business? It was down almost 45 percent. That's a huge fucking drop. Then there were the rains and the inevitable mud. What else, oh yeah; my goddamned nemesis Beverle parked her ass right across the street from us. The single worst vendor I have ever known. A liar and a cheat. Kicked out of six different Ren-Faire's. Yet she somehow suckered some poor merchant to give her some space to set up her crap. Swell.

My chief minion Lindsey, who I love like my own kid has been a bit of a fuck up recently. I won't go into details. She's hit a hard patch like the rest of us.

We left Pennsic after the usual dark-thirty loadout. Rossana in a grim mood because Pennsic doesn't feel like Pennsic to her anymore (and that hurts to hear) only to have a full day of rain the next day at Great Lakes with accompanying shitty sales. The vendors at the show are now being cited by the local town for not having a 'local transient vendors license', something we don't fucking need under Ohio law but still threatens the livelihood of everyone working the show. Everyone is on pins and needles. Rumors run rampant.

Then we got the cherry. Russ shows up. He's an on site EMT. He tells us that his brother Hoss died at Pennsic that morning.

I've known Hoss for something like 7 years now. He was overweight, crude, politically incorrect, a know-it-all and an overall great guy. He took shitty care of himself but once threatened to kill a guy who accidentally cut the power to his camper where he kept his dogs diabetes medicine in the fridge. I talked with him Friday morning as we rushed around getting ready to pack up. Russ claimed he wasn't broken up about it, that he and his brother were just on polite terms. But he was seething. Hoss was told by EMT's on site at Pennsic three times that he was having a heart attack and he refused to go to the hospital. You just couldn't tell Hoss what to do.

At this point I just wanted to go home. But we couldn't. Sunday was the hottest day of the summer so far as I could tell. And the longest. We rolled in at about 11pm last night but we head out Wednesday morning for GenCon, which I pray isn't bad.

At Pennsic our camp it at the bottom of a hill. And every day you have to climb that hill. I've been doing it at Pennsic for something like 24 years. This year it took more, much more to get up that hill. It's not that I'm in bad shape. It was just the weight of all the things around me, pressing down. It would be easy just to stay in camp. A lot of my friends do. They seem content with that. But I can't. And this year once again showed me that stopping is not an option. Gotta keep moving. I've gotta get up that hill.

I never thought I'd be happy to see Winter and the end of a season.

Midnight madness

This is the day that all the merchants stay open late and offer
incentives to lure people I to their shops. The streets are lit with
lanterns and torches. How did we do? Meh. Way below last year But it
doesn't matter. Because there's an almost full moon whose rays stream
through the trees and a thick mist on the lake. It's beautiful beyond
words and that is truly the more important thing.

Sent from my iPhone

Blurry

More light rain again this morning. No need to get up. Sleep... I am
awakened by someone in out camp pounding on an anvil, literally. No
more sleep. It's late. I stumble to the shower but the water Is
lukewarm at best. Grim and Kayra waylay me with banana bread, juice
and eggs. We chat. I should be up on merchants row trying to sell. But
my energy level has been so low. Some of the time I just don't hive a
crap. I don't want to deal with people. I think to myself "I'm done".
I think that working Pennsic, an event that has always been a
vacation, was a bad idea. But more than that is the fact that my own
camp has changed so much. People I don't know whom I dont have much of
a shared history with. Mundane conversations at the campfire. I feel
slightly out of place.

The crappy weather and poor sales haven't helped things, but it really
isn't about money. Am I still having fun? Is there still magic here?
We have six days left. I'll let you know what I find.

Sent from my iPhone

Pennsic night

Late. Very late. I wander into camp just as the women folk are getting ready for a night out.
I sit with the men folk and have a cider. A pipe is
passed and I find myself wandering over to Vlads for the slave auction. I finally get to say hi to Ariana who got to attend Pennsic thanks to her father (whom she hates) dying, thus getting her out of Qatar. The butler in me takes over and I help serve some great pomegranite mead and canapé. It's hot, a light rain Patters on against the roof of be tent. I stumble back to camp where Wine and Alchemy are playing. I visit Darter who is busy cooking up sausages at one am. We eat. Tasty. It feels more like Pennsic now. Eyes are heavy. Feet so tied. Only a so-so day. Another long solo day tomorrow. The heat saps my energy. I need sleep.

I am not a number.. I am a free man!

It was many years ago that I first heard the original BBC show 'The Prisoner'. I say heard, not saw. My brother recorded them and played them for me when he visited. (No VCR, No tivo in those ancient times) It was a trippy show. Even more so when I actually got to see it. And the ending? Pure madness.

Now it's being redone. But from what I can see, it looks and FEELS just as whacked out (if not more so) than the original. Behold.