montana meth

i guess i'm in brainless video watching mode today. this is from human giant, as found on funnyordie.com.


via videosift.com

colbert cracks up

my favorite stephen colbert clip, from his time on the daily show. i dare you not to fall into helpless peals of laughter. :)


via videosift.com

seriously...

...what's wrong with the japanese? i found this on videosift. mildly NSFW.


via videosift.com

these are the people who invented selling girl's underwear from vending machines, who are working on using vibrating phone technology to create dial-up sex toys, and now this.
a masturbation machine.
enjoy.

dream

Dream 07.15.08

Again with the nicotine patches. That always makes dreams weird and especially vivid.

there is a place, a huge, bustling metropolis that is also a large outdoor market of some sort, the size of a small city perhaps. There are indoor-ish areas where there is refrigeration and groceries are sold, but there are also wide avenues and streets you walk down to get to other sections of the supersuperstore. It is as if Wal-Mart has taken over every type of retail there is, and enclosed an entire city under a dome.

I am working, but the sense is one of killing time, as if it is more a lark for me than the others. I feel like I am only here temporarily, and tagging these coats and moving around these cantaloupes is something I might as well do while I am waiting for whatever is going to happen.

I am working with an older woman who I don’t really know, but with whom I am comfortable. I don’t really know any of these people at first, but they seem familiar anyhow. I keep running back to the bathroom way far out near the entrance to the mall/dome for some reason. It’s like I am doing coke, but I’m not. I’m not sure why I keep doing that.

Soon, Denise F. comes to find me, with a credit card receipt for vet bills I owed her. It seems I filled it out for $419 when I actually owed her $819. She is upset and an accusatory, and I tell her I don’t have enough in my account to cover the difference, she keeps nagging at me and I finally tell her I will call the bank so she can hear what my balance is, and that I will pay her in a few days. She continues to press, and I finally tell her I am disappointed that she doesn’t seem to believe me, or that she thinks I might have deliberately ripped her off.

She has an assistant walk along with me to hear the bank message, a nice enough kid, and I am dialing when she catches up with us as we are walking back toward the entrance, saying she might as well go this way, as it is lunch break and everyone is heading that way. I give her a dirty look cause I am really pissed with her, and I say, ‘well, you two go on a ahead then. I’ll go somewhere on my own.’

Earlier, and this might be why the whole communal store situation developed, I was living at a place that was almost like a compound of log cabins out in the woods. It is a familial, communal atmosphere, with adults, children, older folks. It’s almost like it is a former city of log cabin structures, but one that has fallen in disrepair in places, with some houses abandoned and dusty. There is snow on the ground and I need to get the car down to the other end of a long ‘road’ that runs along in front of the houses. There is snow on the ground, plenty of it, and only one or two tire tracks in the extremely narrow path. And although there is an easier way, if I had just followed my friends as they went around to the front of the first row of cabins to the main street, for some reason I decide to plow ahead in my truck.

Which I soon regret. The road narrows to the point of the ridiculous, with rock outcroppings nearly scraping the sides of the vehicle, and still with miles to go. I look back, though, and it seems like I have come as far as I still have to go, and so I press on.

At some point I pick up passengers, other friends from the log cabin commune, and as we are getting ready to debark and go into the building we were trying to reach, I see that Ben has snuck aboard the truck. I grab him and ask someone to hold onto him tight while I park the truck.

I think it is my mom who finally takes him and says, ‘Oh, I’ve got him, I’ve got him.’ I try to explain how much he hates being held, and that he is very squirmy and wily, and apt to escape, and that out here in the woods away from home, I’m not sure I’d be able to get him to come back. She swears she’s got it covered.

But as I am backing the car up, I hear her yelling, in a panic, and I know she has lost him.

Explain that, Dr. Freud.

Oh! Almost forgot: I had had one earlier, from which I awoke with my heart racing and unable to go back to sleep for a while. It is that sad, near-twilight hour, on perhaps a Sunday. Everyone has stuff to do tomorrow, and so all have said good-bye, and I am more morose for not having anyone around than happy for the time I spent with them earlier. I am inside, in the basement apartment, only the architecture is somewhat askew. And I see a man’s feet outside my window on the stairs, and for some reason I hug up against a wall, hoping he won’t see me. There is a mirror on the opposite wall, however, and I see that he has seen me. He lurches his way easily down into the apartment through the window, but casually, as if he enters this way all the time. He is a dumpy, bespectacled, nerdy looking guy, but with two huge knives strapped to him, one nearly the size of a machete.

He slowly, threateningly eases one in and out of its sheath, saying something totally casual like ‘Oh, hey, thought I’d stop by...’

I think about dashing for a weapon but realize it’s too late for now. of course, i watched 'funny games' earlier that night before, so a dream about a casual home invasion isn't all that unlikely, i guess. :)

we're number two! we're number two!

CNN/Money posted my comment about their piece on the best places to live in America!
HA! The fools!!!
agree? disagree?

why? false heart 10

Okay. So, I hear the train signal sounding off in the distance, and I feel nothing. I barely think of it at all. This being Fort Collins, it is a pretty regular occurrence, and so maybe some of that is attributable to the frequency of the sound. But honestly, I think I have lost poetry in my soul. I think that if you can hear a train making that lonesome, plaintive sound and not even think about it without trying, then something has died within you.

Here’s the thing: and I need help with this. But please, understand that although I am from time to time, I don’t know, somewhat sardonic, I mean this with the utmost sincerity: ladies, and gentlemen, if you have any insight, share with me.

What is it about unavailability, or perceived unavailability, or potential unavailability that makes us guys so attractive to you ladies?? I am being completely serious, without any kind of sarcasm intended, because I want to know. Why is it that as soon as I have my heart set on someone I suddenly find myself nearly surrounded by … while not OFFERS per se, but let’s just say if I followed up on the signals I am seeing being thrown at me, well, my dick might not be dry for a week.

So, my theory has always been biological in nature: I believe that there is an animal part of women which can…I guess, smell or otherwise sense when a man has been, shall we say, successful with another woman in recent memory. And based on this odor--call it pheromones, or whatever (if you don’t like the idea of an odor tracking and determining our behavior, subconscious though it may be, then sorry, but in nature, other animals ‘see’ it this way) women judge a man to be either a positive or a negative. Because when you think about our biological imperative, we are built to reproduce, nothing more. And in nature--meaning, outside of human morals and whatnot--when an individual is successful at reproducing, i.e. when he has recently had sex with another woman, or seems to be the target of another woman’s interest, he becomes more desirable.

I think.

I mean, there is really no other way to describe what happens, at least in terms of my own experience.

Why do you all want me now? Now that I only want one. ??? And to top that off, one that seems most likely to end up unavailable to me as well.

Perhaps the human condition is simply this: not only do you have to live with the reality of ‘you can’t always get what you want,’ but also maybe ‘you want only that which you can’t have.’

How sad, if that is the case. Grass is always greener, indeed.

No wonder so many people believe in the prospect of heaven.

protest, but do it quietly

Here we go again. Just like G. W. Bush, the man that ‘Maverick’ John McCain is trying so hard to emulate, the one who has a 29 percent approval rating, the McCain campaign seems to believe in freedom--but only if you don’t disagree with them on anything.

You’ve probably heard about this one already, but yesterday at a town-hall meeting open to the public in downtown Denver, a woman was issued a ticket for trespassing and escorted from the public sidewalk outside the event after a security guard called police.

The problem? She was carrying a sign that read “McCain = Bush.” As she told someone who filmed the event, “Why would someone who supports McCain find this sign offensive?”

Here's video of the incident:

If you recall, our fine metro po-po’s have a history of this sort of thing. Back in 2005, three ticket-holders who were attempting to attend a presidential talk in Denver were removed by someone claiming to be a secret service agent after people reported that they found the bumper stickers on their car offensive. The White House later claimed it was a mistake made by a White House staffer. As carpetbagger asks, was this person punished for impersonating an officer with the secret service? Whose idea was it in the first place to remove ‘potential protesters’ who up to then had done nothing wrong but drive to the event in a car bearing a sticker that stated dissatisfaction with Bush’s foreign policy?

Proposed new Republican slogan: “Freedom. We believe in it, as long as you don’t use it."

these awesome posters came from xarkaganda. there's lots more. :)

we are a nation of idiots.

I literally could not stop laughing as i read this today. Fed up with high gas prices and a decidedly non-interventionist stance by God, a group of people led by a fellow named Rocky Twyman (no, really) who is a member of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, has formed a prayer group to show up outside Shell and Exxon stations and pray for lower gas prices. (What, Conoco is doing the Lord's work?)

Because if there's nothing God hates more than shellfish and homos, it's you having to curtail your trips to the grocery store in your new Hummer. I mean, if Jesus didn't want me to leave my car running with the air conditioning blasting while I shop at Wal-Mart, he wouldn't have had humans invent air-conditioning, right?

And now Mr. Twyman has decided to take the fight to a higher power: the Saudi embassy in Washington. From the article:

"Our people are really suffering through this crisis," Twyman told Cybercast News Service. "We need the Saudis to release at least 1.2 [million] barrels of oil per day for about the next six months until we can get everything settled in America ... (I)f they can just do that for us, than this will help us get through this crisis."

Jesus wept.

happy fourth of july

I try to watch this piece and reflect on it every Thanksgiving, and even though we’re a ways off from that, it occurs to me that it is appropriate for this time of year too. A little reminder of where we actually come from, and who we actually are, as Americans.

Happy Fourth of July.

A very cool William Burroughs multi-media site here.

A Thanksgiving Prayer

William S. Burroughs

Thanks for the wild turkey and
the passenger pigeons, destined
to be shit out through wholesome
American guts.

Thanks for a continent to despoil
and poison.

Thanks for Indians to provide
a modicum of challenge and danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison
to kill and skin leaving the
carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves
and coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until
the bare lies shine through.

Thanks for the KKK.

For nigger-killin' lawmen,
feelin' their notches.

For decent church-goin' women,
with their mean, pinched, bitter,
evil faces.

Thanks for "Kill a Queer for
Christ" stickers.

Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

Thanks for Prohibition and the
war against drugs.

Thanks for a country where
nobody's allowed to mind the
own business.

Thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the
memories-- all right let's see
your arms!

You always were a headache and
you always were a bore.

Thanks for the last and greatest
betrayal of the last and greatest
of human dreams.

woody guthrie's american song

In today’s Denver Post I review the play ‘Woody Guthrie’s American Song,’ now playing at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. This is truly an amazing show, and I urge anyone interested in great, heartfelt music that speaks to our roots to see it. Without Woody Guthrie there would have been no Bob Dylan. Without him it’s even possible that the sixties as a radical reset of our values and mores might not have played out as it did. He embodies the spirit of speaking out against oppressive power in a bold and fearless way, and he did so before it was fashionable, often at the risk of life and limb.

But even if you don’t think rustic, Depression-era music is your cup of tea, I still think anyone who believes it is time for a change in this country should check this out. This amazing man stood up to entrenched power at a time when it was much more difficult to do so, when big companies and those with power could physically beat strikers, when people were so desperate for work that 10,000 of them would show up for a couple thousand potential jobs and thus were totally at the tender mercy of big money.

He fought on despite charges that he was a Communist and other attempts to discredit him, simply because he believed that regular folks ought to get a fair shake, and that this country wasn’t built to benefit only those in power. He spent his entire life fighting to make this a better place for all the people, and through his songs the cast of this show make that spirit come to life. The five-part harmonies they sing are absolutely stirring, and the story of the Ludlow Massacre will bring you to tears. That’s the tale of a mining strike in 1913 when the governor of Colorado ordered the National Guard to aid a private army of mining company thugs in evicting striking miners from a camp they had set up to carry on their strike. It didn’t make the company happy that they were striking, of course, but having moved out of the company housing--for which they were charged--and demanding better pay and safer working conditions, the company found the strikers intolerable. Finding the miners and their families firmly entrenched in pits and caves they had dug underneath their tents, the troops waited until night and doused the tents in kerosene, then lit them on fire. When the men, women and children tried to flee, they were cut down with Gatling guns.

It’s a stark reminder as we approach the celebration of our nation’s birth that our history isn’t always as pretty as textbooks would have us believe.

this machine kills fascists, indeed.

dream

cat? what cat? i haven't seen the cat.

Dream 07.02.08

Patches on again, and so dreams getting weird again. This one I’m sure stems partially from last night when I got the dogs back from Erica, after she had a little doggie vacation for them down in pueblo for a week. I picked them up in downtown Denver after a rehearsal, and so that’s kind of stressful in and of itself. Then the drive back involved about 30 minutes of sitting in traffic at one of the many, many wonderful places our state dept. of transportation has decided to tear up on I-25 this summer. So with panting, thirsty dogs in the back, and a frustrating drive, it kind of makes sense that I had this weird dream.

I am in a frat house of some kind, but it’s out on a green heath, away from anything. It’s a gray late afternoon day. Like early winter, with snow coming soon from a heavy sky. The house is packed with frat-type guys, who are busy extracting money from people for various bullshit things. Eric is there, and he has gotten in trouble with these guys over something, and I am trying to get him away from them. But they are playing like they’re all Tony Soprano, and saying even though he wants out of the deal he had originally arranged they were going to charge him a ‘cancellation fee’ of like $50 or something. He looked like shit, like he was strung out or something, and I finally paid them, I think, and told him to come on, but he kept delaying by the door waiting for those douchebags to do something or give him permission to leave.

Finally I get him out of there, and we walk up a hill toward another building, where I am going to get my dogs from someone. When we top the hill, it turns out that it is actually Folsom Field in Boulder. We are in the building attached to it and looking down into the stadium, and among the seats there we can see that the frat guys have a bunch of dogs on leashes, two of which are Sabi and Mena. They are kind of mocking everybody, holding the dogs and saying we are going to have to pay them to get them back.

I am pissed.

I go back into the building I think to find a way down to where they are. It them becomes one of those ‘you are almost lost, but you know where you need to get, but there is no way to get where you want to get, and time is running out dreams.’ It kind of faded out from there, as the dream-wiper was hard at work.