Joe Strummer sings Bob Marley's Redemption Song

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had, redemption songs

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds

All your dumbness are belong to us.

I realized today that it's been probably decades since I've heard anyone use the word ineducable, which is such a pity, because with our manifold billion dollar school system which any child may attend, I keep seeing examples of people who apparently are beyond reach, intellectually speaking. Translation: you cain't learn 'em nuthin'. I suppose it's not kind to call someone profoundly stupid in this age of "no rocket-surgeon left behind."

Um, ok.

So call me a bitch. I can live with that.
_____________________________
I've posted a mashup video of this song before, but it's so good I'm repeating it with an even better video. This City Never Sleeps is my favorite song by Eurythmics. slow, lovely and hypnotic. Bonus - this video is of night driving in London, one of my favorite places in the world.

This guy was on the most wanted list. I wonder how they found him?

Um, anyway. Seems like 10 or so years ago, tats started creeping from what could be hidden by a long-sleeve high-collared shirt into the public space of neck, face, skull and hands. Then there are all those people with bolts-through-the-nose and big hollow spools in the ears.

By all means, find your tribe.

But that doesn't make a person hard-core. I'm still waiting to see one of these modern primitives who actually fits the bill of hard-core.

I'll believe they're hard-core when they have a hemorrhoid pierced. Until then: shut up and sit down.

Housework cuts breast cancer risk.

Ruh roh, Raggy.

Looks like I may be in for it, averse as I am to cleaning.

Actually, I like having a clean house. I just like someone else doing the cleaning.

I have a bitchy voice mail I got from someone which I'm thinking of posting. It was over-the-top. It's funny when someone says something with the intention of cutting you to the bone, when in fact they only bone they reach is the funny one. Asshat.

Golly, I'm busy. It's gotten so bad that I don't even pause at noon to wish I were still in bed. In fact, I find myself waking up about 7am whether I have to get up or not. Meh.

Busy is good, though.

I got a lot of great snaps of that fire over on Industrial south of downtown on Monday. It was wild, because the whole of downtown was engulfed in stinky smoke. *gag* *sputter* About 2 miles away, a fairly large piece of ash fluttered down before me. Freaky.

If you saw or smelled evidence of the massive fire that engulfed Downtown Dallas today in smoke, here is ground zero. This was reported as an hotel on fire at Industrial and Cadiz, but I knew there was not hotel at that locale. Fortunately, it was a massive group of disused warehouses which were in the process of being demolished. Several sections of same had already been taken down earlier this year. The fire was spreading and seemed pretty nasty, smoke-wise, but otherwise, didn't seem to damage much more than air quality, as far as I could tell. The fire seemed to emanate from a pile of rubble at the south end of the demolition, and the wind carried the flames north across the entirety of the structures. Interesting.

GET THAT SUCKER!

This post over at Xavier Thoughts was just too golden not to link, and there's video to watch, too. Some bright robber went into a black beauty school in Louisisana and the 50 or so women in there beat the ever-loving crap out of him. He was trying to get away from the women, and they wouldn't let him go. Read the story and watch the video - it's the perfect ending to what could have been a tragedy.

My take on Michael Moore:

He has met with such critical acclaim in part because the liberal, politically correct crowd think there is some kind of valor in being such a hideous creature. They think someone that homely and un-intercoursable would never lie to them.

I went to see Roger & Me when it was first released. I found this film mildly amusing but heavy-handed. R&M revolved around MM trying to corner Roger Smith (then-CEO of General Motors) and needle him over layoffs at GM.

I've always been a film buff, and in my early 20s I was going to at least a couple films a week, sometimes more. This film interested me because people raved about it, but some things rather stuck in my craw. The tradition of documentary until that point had typically involved the film maker being entirely off-screen, and on rare occasions, simply voicing questions from behind the camera. In R&M, MM hogs the screen and can't get enough of the sight of himself, fat and winded, chasing after the suited, freshly powdered Roger Smith. Again, I go back to my original premise that the knee-jerk reaction to this would be that "here, this revolting person has put himself out there and gone to the mat to get the real information for us and has brought us a big bowl of truth. How heroic." I think the truth is that, high on his own armpit vapors, Michael Moore is in love with the sight of himself. Yes, as inexplicable as it may seem, his primary purpose in making films is of a Narcissistic bent. (And now Al Gore is tip-toeing through the tulips on the shining path MM has blazed. Joy.)

Think about it, in all the years of your life, how many documentary film makers can you even remember ever having seen on camera in their projects?
*crickets*
There you go.

The other thing about R&M was the interviews he did with people who had been laid off from GM, which presented the story in a manner carefully engineered to evoke a negative emotional response from the viewer so they would ultimately take a bad feeling about Roger Smith away from the theater with them. One particular subject was a white-trashy sort of woman MM interviewed outdoors. The camera and MM followed her about her rounds on her property, where she killed and butchered a rabbit on camera during the interview. Overkill? Well, I think the granola-munching PC crowd who would typically go see a documentary like this would be the very type to be outraged by the sight of abattoir-type activities. See what this poor woman was driven to by Roger Smith?!!! Never mind the fact that most of us eat meat-- we live at remove from the idea that our meat grows on animals and someone needs to kill it first. MM exploits what is surely the first killing of an animal for food that many city dwellers ever saw. I'll bet there are lots of vegetarians whose restrictive diets found their origins in that very scene. *much eye-rolling here*

Now, if you or I took a film crew to try to get an interview from Ted Turner or Oprah or Michael Moore himself by following same, it would be called stalking and we'd be jailed forthwith.

That's entertainment? What absolute twaddle.

Anchor Motel Harry Hines Boulevard 23 June

After a day with Ordinary Girl on Saturday, I whipped out my camera and headed out to collect snaps of sundown Saturday night. I love this mid-century neon, and frankly, I'm surprised it's still working. Good stuff.

Is blogger going all wonky to anyone else, or am I getting some special treatment?

Dunno... Is this thing on? PFffft! Pfffft!

OK, I posted this once, and it all disappeared. Hopefully, second time's a charm, even though it won't be so well-composed as the first. Seriously. That first one was Pulitzer material. I swear.

Saturday I met the wondrously lovely Ordinary Girl.

We're both on a foodie online group and she organized for a bunch of us to converge on an Indian restaurant in Irving. There were about 9 other people there, and there was lots of talk about everyone's favorite local restaurants. I learned a lot about food and about great cooking resources and local eateries. The group will meet somewhere for Dim Sum next time, and I'm really looking forward to that.

Of course, the highlight of the whole event for me was just meeting OG. She is an absolute doll. She looks about half her age, which is sort of how I picked her out in the restaurant. She has an easy laugh and a warm, open smile and bright eyes. I think it was bold and daring of her to organize the gathering, and everyone seemed to enjoy the gathering immensely.

After the meal, OG & I went across the road to a home goods store which has a fantastic selection of cookware and kitchen-y stuff. I bought a pair of red wellies [now I'm ready to tramp through some mud should the opportunity arise] and various sauces and seasonings. All the while we were shopping, we talked and laughed and had a grand time. When we'd finally sufficiently had our way with that store, we went over to a nearby coffee shop and sat and talked a while more.

We had an instant rapport and OG makes the second person I've met this year from the blog. In the same way Holly was instantly a dear friend, I know OG and I will be friends for life.

Thanks, OG. You so totally rock. Let's get together again soon.

Tuesday is Soylent Opera Singer Green Day

Having been through the human-meat grinder that is the pathway to this type of career, I really hope this Englishman makes it and makes it monster in the operatic field. He won a tv competition called "Britain's Got Talent" and is due to release an album within mere weeks. At 36, this telephone salesman always nursed the secret longing to make it as an opera singer, but was too shy to come forward and take a crack at it. With some prodding from supportive family, he entered the competition and won it handily.

What I expect is that he will meet with popular acclaim and the opera establishment will remain curiously mute on the subject of him. After all, he didn't go through the channels and perform all the traditional obeisance to the useless pedantic powers-that-be in the opera establishment. Due to popular demand, he'll get some opera gigs and do some recitals. Hopefully his agent will see that he has an exacting coach, particularly for his diction. I really hope that his technique will be beyond reproach and that the critics will cheer him, as well. I hope that, but I doubt it. Remember what I said: meat grinder. I expect the critics to be vicious and not at all happy for any degree of success or acclaim he ever achieves. After all, opera is for a more elevated, less common sort, oui? Good singing could never come out of the non-rarefied air of the solidly middle class, could it? Poppycock! The irony of this will be that someone like Paul Potts could potentially inspire a new crop of fans to bolster the flagging ranks of the opera audience which is fast succumbing to attrition. I hope I am surprised by his reception in the professional opera realm.

Here's to the underdog and not letting go of one's dreams. Good on you, Paul Potts!

Almost Swiftian in its rapier-like subtlety.

I love these guys, even though they are fake rednecks.

Goths have toilet-cleaning needs, too.

I coulda been a goth you know - I like a lot of that music. Bauhaus. Type O Negative. Skinny Puppy. Sisters of Mercy. It's just that I didn't like their uniform.

Oh, this is great - did you ever see Hope is Emo? Funny stuff.

OK. I take that back. I could never have been a Goth. Gothtard. Hyuk! Hyuk!

Over on his big swinging blog, Dick posted a link to this fabulous squirrel catapult video. You'll laugh and laugh. I did.