freakpowertix

sometimes when i make trips up to sacramento, california, i start to tell myself, "i could move back there..."  i get hometown pride about much in the evolving capitol city (not all, of course... for instance, it makes me nauseated to think about politicians who "want to go to sacramento," like that murderous austrian stuffed suit, ahnold schwarzenegger).

but this entry is about good thoughts: one of my favorite things about sacramento is that the band cake (http://www.cakemusic.com/) hails from here!  and this song, off of last year's album pressure chief, is so great, & really speaks to my recent experiences...

"Wheels"

In a wooden boat in the shipping lanes
With the freighters towering over me
I can hear the jets flying overhead
Making lines across the darkening sky
And when the sun is going down I can take a taxi into town
And the waiter at the restaurant sets a table just for one
Wheels keep on spinning round spinning round spinning round
Wheels keep on spinning round spinning round and round
(okay)
So I had a plane to take me to a place so far away from you
Eventually we began to see that we could be completely free
And I could get away from you
And you could get away from me
And we could live each separately in our cities in the sun
Wheels keep on spinning round spinning round spinning round
Wheels keep on spinning round spinning round and round
(okay)
(alright)
In a seedy karaoke bar
By the banks of the mighty Bosphorus
Is a Japanese man in a business suit singing 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes'
And the muscular cyborg German dudes dance with sexy French Canadians
While the overweight Americans wear their patriotic jumpsuits
Wheels keep on spinning round spinning round spinning round
Wheels keep on spinning round spinning round and round
(Alright)
(This one right)
(Spinning round)
Wheels keep on spinning round spinning round spinning round
Wheels keep on spinning round spinning round and round
(Spinning round)
[Chorus repeats in the background]
(I don't know)
Why you say you are not in love with me
(I don't know)
Why you say you are not in love with me
(I don't know)
Why you say you [music stops] are not in love with me

i just walked outside the kcsb offices and can smell/taste sea salt in the air.  that's a pretty rare occurrence around here (or else i'm usually too distracted by work matters to notice)...

i hope that y'all are doing well today.

ted

wwbhd?
December 4, 2005
latimes.com : Style & Culture

COMEDY
An angry soul
What would Bill Hicks say now? His many admirers wish they knew, as more and more of the scalding critic's work is made public.

By Richard Cromelin, Times Staff Writer

BILL HICKS, the most scathing comedian of his generation, died 11 years ago at age 32, but he hasn't gone away. On the contrary, the mischievously shifting sands of history have granted an eerie afterlife to some of his material — you can play a recording of a Hicks routine from 1991 or '92 and hear him going after President Bush and the war in Iraq.

But Hicks' growing stature as a comedic beacon isn't because of a quirky recurrence of a name and war zone. Hicks went deeper than any of his contemporaries, and he did it with missionary zeal and fearless brilliance.


No one has come along to take up his challenge — Chris Rock might come closest, but unlike Hicks, he never quite seems dangerous — so comedy customers who need that bracing jolt of satire keep returning to Hicks, spurring a posthumous trajectory that, if not Tupac-like in sales figures, has a similar momentum and vitality. His estimated CD and DVD sales are around 750,000 — remarkable for items that have received no promotion besides reviews.

Since his death from pancreatic cancer, eight CDs have been issued by the Rykodisc label. On Tuesday the company will put out "Sane Man," a DVD featuring a restored and expanded version of a 1989 show.

A 2004 DVD, "Bill Hicks Live," has three routines and a documentary called "Just a Ride," in which Jay Leno, David Letterman, Eric Bogosian and other comedic minds testify to Hicks' genius in awestruck terms.

There are Hicks books too. "Love All the People" is a collection of routines and interviews, and the new "What Would Bill Hicks Say?" compiles Hicks-style rants on topical issues by comedians, writers, artists and musicians, including Radiohead singer Thom Yorke.

What would Bill Hicks say? That question becomes second nature once you've started seeing things through his eyes. At that point, the world of "American Idol" and this new Bush, of Wal-Mart and Paris Hilton, 9/11 and Viagra, is a blurred landscape just waiting to be blasted into focus by a Hicks screed.

It's no surprise that Hicks has fans among musicians. Besides Yorke, his high-profile boosters include Tom Waits (who calls him "our Lenny Bruce"), Rage Against the Machine and Tool (which used a Hicks sample on its song "Third Eye"). The comedian employed rock imagery in his show, railed passionately about the music, and tapped into its rebel spirit.

But in the DVD documentary, actress and comedian Brett Butler suggests another inspiration. "For all the talk about Bill being like Hendrix or Dylan or Jim Morrison or Lenny Bruce, it was Jesus Bill wanted to be," she says. "He wanted to save us all." She adds that he ended up emulating the Jesus who drove the money-changers from the temple: "He wanted to be Christ at his angriest."

Indeed, Hicks was one of the rare links to the time when comedy was a weapon and the comedian the scourge of the status quo. The anger that drove him is palpable in his restless stride and powerful voice, and the way his doughy features — he looked a little like Kevin Spacey playing Jerry Falwell — would twist in revulsion when he talked about the forces of ignorance and intolerance.

In the documentary, Bogosian compares the onstage Hicks to a tornado, but you might also think of a volcano: something unmistakable, massive and about to blow its top.

Born in Georgia and brought up in Texas in a Southern Baptist family, Hicks observed the techniques of the preacher and was fascinated by the rock theatrics of KISS and Alice Cooper. As a comic he was a natural. He started entertaining classmates at age 13, hit the Houston comedy clubs as a high school kid and was soon blowing the grown-ups off the stage.

Fellow Texan Sam Kinison had shown Hicks that he didn't have to care about people liking him, and the envelope-pushing edginess that endeared him to his hard-core fans may have slowed his progress toward the wider audience he dreamed of.

Still, he was clearly on his way before he got the bad news about his pancreas. He'd done Letterman 11 times (his 12th appearance was infamously cut from the broadcast), had an HBO special and had made his breakthrough in England, where he headlined large theaters and landed a TV deal with Channel 4.

It would have been fascinating to see how Hicks might have adapted his outrage and energy to more mainstream formats. One thing seems sure: He treasured passion and freedom so much that it hurt, and he'd never settle for halfway measures.

He didn't just make snickering jokes about pornography — he roared about how much he loved it and told you why. He didn't just do spaced-out drug bits — he reminded you how much of the music you love was created by people on drugs.

But Hicks' real vehemence was reserved for the alarmist mass media, the government, corporations and organized religion — the institutions that he saw promoting hypocrisy and mediocrity and causing society to lose its soul.

"By the way, if anyone here is in advertising or marketing, [pause] kill yourself…. "

Hicks makes it sounds like a throwaway, but that's a trick. He keeps pulling it back into his grasp, like a cat teasing its victim. "No. This is not a joke. You're going, 'There's going to be a joke coming.' There's no … joke coming."

His ferocity builds. "You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage…. Kill yourself…. It's the only way to save your … soul."

That's the volcano. But Hicks wasn't a one-note artist, a mere ranter. During the volatile set titled "Revelations" on the "Live" DVD, he suddenly shifts the tone with the skill of a seasoned preacher, lowering his voice and bringing you in close as he imagines a news anchorman delivering "a positive LSD story."

"Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves…. Here's Tom with the weather."

With that, Hicks reveals the vision of harmony and serenity that lies on the other side of his rage, hitting a sublime metaphysical plane where he dances in the clouds with the great hipster monologist Lord Buckley.

The best comedians can make you feel euphoric, giddy and enlightened, provoked, challenged and inspired. You can get all that from Hicks, and one thing more: Bathed in the fiery torrent of his words, you just might feel saved.

My mom & dad went to see the schmaltzy classical violinist Andre Rieu last night at the “Arco Arena,” best known for being the home of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings.  (Driving by it at night could make someone feel like they had suddenly appeared in the old sci-fi flick, The Incredible Shrinking Man: the focker looks like a colossal gas station.)  

My dad reminded me on the phone this past evening that they got 2 tickets to see this Rieu character early in April by making a sizeable contribution to Sacto’s PBS station.  My folks are both retired and on a fixed income, so the $250 they donated for those tix spoke volumes about how badly my mom wanted to see this guy.

No more than 2-3 weeks after they had made that purchase, I learned--on Mother’s Day no less--that my mom had been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in her saliva gland.  After surgery in early June, we also discovered that cancer cells had spread to 4 or 5 lymph nodes in her neck.

On top of the end of my relationship last year (man, the one year anniversary of that breakup is today? or was it yesterday?)... well, mom’s illness certainly made it hard for me to get my bearings again...

In the wake of all of this drama, however, I’ve definitely seized on some particular notions that I had never fully absorbed before: such as how much more important family is than work; and how decent, respectful, and *loving* human relationships are fundamental to any imagining (or fantasy) of “revolution” (to use that alternately loaded, overused, utopian, or downright scary term)...

Since last Mother’s Day, I’ve certainly seized on every opportunity that I could afford, or that made sense, to see my mum & pop... I also try to call them by telephone as much as is humanly possible for me (almost daily upon learning  of her diagnosis and on through the worst of her treatment, over the summer).

My mom bravely got through last summer’s 7 weeks of intensive cancer treatment, which combined radiation and chemotherapy.  Now, she can enjoy food again—thankfully, it doesn’t taste like paper or rubber any longer--, she hasn’t lost too much weight, and she’s getting around really, really well, just like before.  Of course, as one would expect, it’s all still a wait-and-see proposition, but I can’t say enough how HAPPY I am that she actually got to see that Dutch PBS icon just last night.

Looking around for an image to post alongside this little narrative, I pretty much decided that I couldn’t quite bring myself to upload an ACTUAL photo of the performer... Too many shades of the Three Tenors, Yanni, or John Tesh, I guess...

This found image seems absolutely ideal, though...

Hearing my mom beam on the phone last night about the concert reminded me of a phrase from Steven Soderbergh’s “Sex, Lies, and Videotape.”   While my mom may sorta be a “prisoner of public television” and all of that, she’s also a brave and incredible woman--at least from my perspective.  I guess getting older and wiser arguably means my learning how to embrace our differences...

Here’s to you, Arlene!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1922687,00.html

Americas
The Times December 13, 2005
Death row gang leader due to die today
From Chris Ayres in Los Angeles
STANLEY “Tookie” Williams, the co-founder of the notorious Crips street gang, is due to be executed today after Arnold Schwarzenegger, the California Governor, yesterday refused to grant the prisoner clemency.

Lawyers for Williams said that they were appealing to the US Supreme Court, which could grant a last-minute stay of execution. Los Angeles was bracing itself for retribution should the execution take place.

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Mr Schwarzenegger said: “Is Williams’s redemption complete and sincere, or is it just a hollow promise? Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption. After studying the evidence, I could find no justification for granting clemency.”

Just before the governor announced his decision, the 9th US Circuit of Appeals denied Williams’s request for a reprieve, saying among other things that there was no “clear and convincing evidence of actual innocence”. Williams, 51, is due to be killed by lethal injection at 12.01am today, local time. At 6pm local time yesterday Williams, who says that he is innocent of four murders, was expected to be served his final meal in San Quentin prison. Williams is also allowed to spend time with a spiritual adviser until 45 minutes before his execution. Then the prison warden will arrive to take down his last words.

City leaders fear that the death of Williams could provoke the kind of unrest that followed the 1992 not-guilty verdict in the trial of police officers involved in the beating of Rodney King.

Raymond “The Hatchet Man” Locket, a member of the Westside Harlem Crips and a former associate of Williams, told LA Weekly: “Took die, the city fry. That’s the word on the streets.” The Los Angeles Police Department said that it doubted the depth of support for Williams, especially among new-generation gang members. A police spokesman said that the force would remain vigilant but not deploy more officers. The execution, if it goes ahead, will take place before about 50 witnesses. Williams has not asked for family members or friends to be present, but hundreds are expected to gather outside the prison.

He will be strapped to a trolley and hooked up intravenously to two bags of saline solution. Williams will be injected by a sedative, followed by potassium chloride, to paralyse him, then pancuronium bromide to induce a heart attack. During his 24 years in prison, Williams has written children’s books with anti-violence messages, been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and been the subject of a television film.

But Lora Owens, the stepmother of Albert Owens, a 26-year-old cashier murdered by Williams, has campaigned against clemency. Mr Owens was shot twice in the back by Williams as he lay on the floor. “I will be there in the name of Albert and his father, watching the execution,” she said.

netflix

or

greencine

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or both?

(i'm not a rich dude, but... a one-out plan w/each is tempting [~$9.95/mo ea.]... that way i'd get access to the more obscure greencine stuff *&* could be a netflix "friend" with djMark & many others? [maybe *you*?]  ;)

i have to wake up in fucking less than five hours and cannot get to sleep.  damn.

i determined a few things tonight during my therapy session.  1) i should probably take another look at american beauty (didn't like it all that much the first time i saw it, but i was thinking about it recently & also am really intrigued by what i've seen of 6 feet under); 2)  i figured out why they call it "salon.com."  i never really got computer culture until recently (my mac laptop is really the only good computer i've ever used outside of the office).  buzznet got me thinking of the algonquin roundtable of late.  blogging: like an intellectual "salon!"  (doh!); 3) along those lines: making friends or deepening relationships through media like this has me thinking of videodrome again: vr, the "virtual"--long live the new flesh...the trick is to integrate the two, i guess, if that makes any sense (i certainly have been frustrated with much about life 'round here, outside of this virtual space,  for a while, and need to do something about it, to integrate the best of what comes here, into the experience of what goes on, out there!).

i won't discuss transference in my therapeutic relationship, though... save that for the sopranos.