AN OPEN LETTER to MAD SCIENTISTS, VAMPIRES, WITCH DOCTORS, AND ZOMBIES from THE LIVING PEOPLE OF EARTH

Dear makers of the undead:

Last week one of us died too early. So, would one of you please us do us a solid and use whatever dark magic or black science or hoodoo or unholy power you have to please, please, please re-animate Lux Interior?!?!

Here’s the deal. Most of us are working pretty hard, stressed out about money, or taking pills to get to sleep at night. It’s been a rough few years. We’re trying to keep our merde together and do what needs to be done. Kinda sucks, but we pretty much got ourselves into this mess in the first place, so now, it seems, we’ve got to suck it up.

But when Lux died last week, a lot of us looked up and said, “Wowie-zowie, I never realized how much comfort there was in knowing that at least one of us was doing whatever the hell he felt like at any given moment.” Because that’s what Lux did. At least on the nights we saw him, anyway.

e.g.




Lux somehow bulldozed right through our huuuuuge aggregation of “thou shalt nots” in order to decide for himself that whenever he felt like he wanted to be a spike heel and lady-undergarment-wearing polyvinyl-chloride-bedecked rock and roll ghoul, well then, that was just what was gonna happen . . . and anybody who didn’t like it better get the hell out of the way.

So here’s our offer. Help Lux kick the crypt, rise from his grave and return to shaking his moneymaker, and we promise to feed him the blood, braaaaaaiiiiiiiiiins, mojo hands, electrical charges or whatever he’s going to need to keep it in gear.

Like we said, Lux had worked himself two-thirds of the way down the ghoul path already, so it seems like this is not going to be an especially burdensome re-animation. And once he’s up and rocking again, you’ll have had a hand in creating — clearly — the greatest undead rock and roll icon of all time (we anticipate the added bonus of Glenn Danzig finally realizing that he just isn’t that scary, really).

We mean no disrespect to your previous efforts at rocker re-animation, for which we remain most grateful. You guys did a really great job with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. And Alice Cooper was pretty great too, at least until he started to get “serious” about golf — but we can hardly blame you for that.


We don’t know how the whole re-animation thing works but we can’t imagine this is going to take up too much of your precious time.





OK, OK, we’ll sweeten the pot.

Re-Animate Lux and we’ll deliver the Backstreet Boys to you for their/blood/braaaaaaains/shrinkable heads/spare parts. Just be sure not to inadvertantly re-animate any of those guys when you're done with them. That’s a dealbreaker.

And if you promise not to bite or dismember anyone, maybe you could come to Lux’s first “Back From the Grave” concert. We can trust you on those points, can’t we? Pinky swear?

So, you’ll get back to us soon, right?

Maybe you could just lean Lux up against a lamppost on the Sunset Strip?

We’ll be looking for him.


Sincerely,

THE LIVING PEOPLE of EARTH

Touchdown, Jesus!

The NFL has backed away from is obnoxious exercise of so-called "intellectual property rights." Now football fans can pray for the Cardinals in their favored houses of worship (as — notwithstanding my headline — I presume the League's largesse extends to synagogues, mosques, ashrams . . .)

Free Music That Saves Kitties from Neko Case and Anti-

And it's even GOOD music.

Go here.

Download:http://www.anti.com/media/download/708


And, apparently, both Neko Case and her label will donate a significant chunk of change to a worthy Animal Rescue organization. Details are here: http://www.antilabelblog.com/?p=1301

Is this a promotional ploy? Sure. But it helps kitties. And it's free music. And it's creative. And if you can track down the online press kit for Neko's album with the broken-down pianos and the wind whipping through the farmhouse you'll see that she is now earning comparisons to her hyper-creative spiritual godmothers like Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn. And that's just one side of her work. I'm not even talking New Pornographers now.

So go, get a free MP3, and/or make your own post. And save a sad,lonely little kitty.

The 10 Commandments of FACEBOOK

...found on tablets in Second Life. I translated them from the original XML.

John Logie's TEN COMMANDMENTS of FACEBOOK

1. You shall not maintain a Facebook profile without an actual picture of your face. Not your whole body . . . which makes the face all-but-illegible. Your face. YOUR FACE. (If Faceless people want to be my friend — and the number will probably shrink after I post this list — the place for faceless friends is MySpace. Find me there.)

2. You shall not substitute a picture of your baby, however adorable, for a picture of your face. (Personally, I looooove babies, and will look at your baby pictures. There are great places for baby pictures elsewhere on Facebook. Your Facebook profile picture is expressly for viewers to weigh the latest returns in the battle of You vs. The Ravages of Time, or You vs. Your Latest Questionable Haircut.)

3. You shall not substitute a picture of your pet for a picture of your face. (I am reasonably certain that no one else on the planet finds your pet as cute/charming/by-gosh charismatic as you do, and again, that pet is not welcome in the place where your face belongs. Don't wanna? Go start "MyPet'sFaceBook".)

4. You shall not seek to "friend" those with whom you have an obvious ongoing professional power imbalance (e.g. student/professor; employee/boss; drone/Queen Bee). I have friended former students, but there's an embedded discomfort that properly arises when the people who grade or evaluate one another are also announcing themselves as "friends."

5. You shall not dispatch your zombie/vampire/werewolf/slayer/superpower to attack more than once, excepting in those cases where you sustain a reciprocal attack. And that principle goes for li'l green things, too.

6. You shall not SuperPoke more than three other people at any given time.

7. You shall not draw a virtual bath via SuperPoke for anyone with whom you have not already shared a terrestrial bath.

8. You shall cc any important professional information to the recipient's actual personal e-mail account.

9. You shall think long and hard before attempting to extend the reach of your local fundraiser — however noble — into Facebook, recognizing that most people are already committed to concerns in their own non-virtual communities. (NOTE: this refers specifically to fundraisers — online political action and badging for various causes is not targeted here).

10. You shall continue mortifying one another by posting scans of dredged-up high school photos.

Hating the H8

I'm weighing in late on this, but I need to say that the month since a very inspiring election has consistently been undercut by my anger at the passage of Proposition 8 in California. I circle back almost daily to this, thinking about my gay friends who — on a daily basis — face messages that their love doesn't count, or counts less than, or counts almost as much as, but not quite.

Well, fuck that. And anybody who is knowingly or unknowingly sending out those vibes.

Full citizenship is this country is as foundational a right as I can imagine. That we are, at this late date, sorting people into bins because of who they love is, simply put, insane.

I'm past the point where I can simply sit back and thank my lucky stars for my good fortune that I was born liking women rather than men. I'm past the point where I can leave the status quo in place for my daughters, my nieces and nephews, and all the kids of the next generation who deserve to grow up in an America that will -- should they be so lucky as to find the love of a lifetime -- not actively disrespect that love.

This Wednesday is scheduled to be "A Day Without A Gay." I'll be at work, because the point of this day is to make visible how many of our friends and family are not as straight as, well, me.

But my heart will be with my friends who are "Calling in Gay." And I made a Creative Commons licensed poster to underscore this point.




The CC license means you are free to take it, clean it up (my graphic design superhero/wife is a tad overbooked), improve upon it and maybe challenge the thinking of some people who need a good swift kick in the challenge.

Take this poster and use it or make it better.
H8.pdf

Norm Coleman and I are very, very different.

If I had held elected office for the better part of six years, and at the end of that period, an election was held, and I could not successfully persuade 50%+1 of my constituents that I was the best person for the job going forward, and further, if one of my opponents had managed to duel me to a stalemate, demonstrating the presence of a viable alternative . . .

I WOULD RESIGN.

I simply do not understand how Norm, having witnessed nearly 60% of his constituents saying "it's time for a change" on Election Day can, without apparent embarrassment, press his claim to return to the Senate. I'm not naive — I understand his obvious attachment to power and clearly nobody wants to be looking for a new job in this climate. What I do not understand is the lack of apparent mortification at the current result . . . the lack of humility scaled to the settled judgment of most of his constituents that his tenure has been a failure.

While Al Franken could and should have run a better campaign, ethically his claim to the office is much stronger than Coleman's. If we understand the election as, effectively, a stalemate, does the incumbent who failed to make his case for more of the same deserve the office more than the insurgent who, despite the incumbent's inherent advantages, managed to match the incumbent's total?

For me, the answer is clear.

For Minnesota, not yet. But if you'd like to see some awesome coverage of these events as they unfold, go see my pals at The Uptake.

Emissaries from Munchkinland urge you toward . . . something.

I'm not quite sure what yet . . . I'll get back to you.

Definition I feel the need to share . . .

crap•puc•ci•no [krap-oo-chee-noh, krah-poo-; It. krahp-poot-chee-naw] –noun

any of a number of hot, sweet, frothy, and vaguely coffee-flavored beverages dispensed from a shared spigot, typically found in a gas station or vending area.

My Two-Word Review of Charlie Kaufman's Synechdoche, NY

Forrest Dump.

Does the Cosmos Itself Want John Hinderaker to Understand That He Is Wrong?

This is just too easy.

November 9, John Hinderaker posts the following at Powerline:

Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn't raise his standards, he will exceed Bush's total before he is inaugurated.

This clearly offended the Gods.

I have on good authority that George W. Bush did not always "choose his words with care and precision." My support for this claim? George W. Bush three short days after Hinderaker's post:

"I regret saying some things I shouldn't have said," Bush said. He cited comments he made after the Sept. 11 attacks, when he said of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden: "I want justice. There's an old poster out West that said, 'Wanted, dead or alive.'"

He also said he regretted telling Iraqi insurgents in 2003: "There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on."

'Be Careful'

In the interview yesterday, he said, "My wife reminded me that, 'hey, as president of the United States, be careful what you say.'"

Yeah, Laura Bush agrees with me, too.

GUY I DO NOT LIKE.

Norm.

I find his pre-emptive declaration of victory in the current Senate race profoundly offensive. And yes, I know that the AP momentarily declared Coleman the "winner" — but given the numbers, Coleman didn't have to pounce. And he did, and this was enormously disrespectful to the voters. Part of the reason why this was so disrespectful is because of the CONTINUAL mismanagement of elections in urban centers (which just so happen to tilt democratically). In my neighborhood, people waited alomst two hours to vote. I watched people arrive, look at the line, and turn around. Now I've heard people argue that if your vote isn't important enough for you to wait then it's tough luck, but I don't want to hear that from anyone in a) a "red" county where there was b) no significant wait for voting. People were losing their opportunity to vote in neighborhood because they had to go to work. That's not right. At this moment, Senator Coleman is up by less than 400 votes, and the number is shrinking as the counties double check the bottoms of the vote bins. I honestly don't think Franken would be playing his hand this way if the numbers were reversed. When Franken was up ever so slightly Thursday night, he expressed cautious optimism, but also the importance of being patient and counting all the votes. Given how long people waited TO vote, this is entirely reasonable. I've been struggling to come up with an analogy that captures how jarringly inappropriate Coleman's behavior is here. This is my best effort so far.

Heck, if Rachel Maddow can go the well for a football analogy, why can't I?

Imagine a football team (the Pachyderms?) that won the last Super Bowl because the opposing team's quarterback was killed in a horrific accident days before the game. Imagine further that this Super Bowl winner talked a lot of smack after edging the other team (the Donkeys, captained for that one game by an old second string QB who comes out of retirement for the game). After the game, the Pachyderm QB says that he's a better QB than the late Donkey quarterback ever was, while wearing his "Pachyderm Super Bowl CHAMPS" t-shirt. Fast forward to the next Super Bowl. The losing team is back with a new, better QB. In the 59th minute of a hard-fought game, the Donkeys manage to tie the game, and they kick off to the Pachyderms, who respond with a drive that stalls on the Donkey 45-yard-line as time expires. The Donkey QB takes a deep breath and prepares to play on. The Pachyderms, by contrast, led by their QB, begin a victory celebration at midfield.

"Hey," the Donkeys and the referees say. "The game is not over yet."

"We win!" shouts the Pachyderm QB. We've got the ball and we're in your territory!"

"Yes, but you don't have more points. The rules say you need to score more points. This game is tied at 42-all."

"Well, I'm driving, and we probably would have scored more points on this drive had the clock not expired, so let's acknowledge that we're the better team. Woo-hoo! We win!"

"No, the rules specify we flip the coin and start a new quarter until somebody scores. Might be you, might be us, but after a short break we're starting the overtime period."

"But won't that mean we'll have to pay the referees extra?"

"Sure, they get time-and-a-half for overtime."

"Given the financial pressures that the league is facing, shouldn't you spare us all that added expense?"

"Ummmm, NO. Because we've already budgeted for this possibility, and because the fans are still waiting in their seats to see who won the game according to the rules of the game."

"Are you really going to put us through all of that trouble?"

"Y'know, it's not really me, and it's not really my Donkey teammates. It's the rules. We have the rules so that we stand a good chance of finding out who has the better team today. So far, you're not better enough. Don't you want to know whether you're really better than us?"

(long pause)

"Repeat Super Bowl Champions! Woo-hoo! We're going to Disneyland!"

Norm Coleman would like to think that he can reconcile his professed interest in bipartisanship with his overt and profound disrespect for the votes of the 1,211,190 Franken supporters who did not wish to see him returned to the Senate (to say nothing of the votes of the Barkley supporters).

He can't.

57% of the people of this state DO NOT WANT HIM to continue as Senator.

DO. NOT. WANT.

Yet Norm surveyed that lanscape, and decided to shout: "VICTORY."

To which I think a lot of Minnesotans are responding: Uff da!

GUY I LIKE.

Robert Gibbs. For years I have watched liberalism be characterized as a refuge for unpricipled, mealy-mouthed equivocators. Robert Gibbs, by NOT being afraid to use the "L" word (in this case, I mean "lie") here shows what tough liberal sounds like.

We. Could. Be.

Stubbed

I am saddened by news of the passing of Mr. Levi Stubbs. I was fortunate enough to see him in late 1985 or so, when the Temptations and the Four Tops were together on a package tour in the wake of the Motown 25 TV special. At this point, the band hand been together with the original four members for three decades. I interviewed his fellow Top, Obie Benson, for the University of Michigan student paper and Benson said that once one of them died, they would probably pack it in as a group (the survivors have since changed their minds, in part because the catalog of songs sung by the Tops is too enthralling for audiences to leave behind). At the time, Benson was making a competitive boast. The Tops' tour-mates, the Temptations, had always been a bit of a revolving door. But not the Tops. They were always the same four guys. And they had a lead singer. The band easily could have been Levi Stubbs and the Tops - the set-up would not been much different from Gladys Knight and the Pips or Smokey Robinson and the Miracles -- but Levi Stubbs was, apparently, content to be one of four friends from Detroit who made it big, and the Tops were thus perceived as a quartet in ways that diminished Stubbs' own recognition as one of the greatest singers of his era. Oddly, the most attention I remember Stubbs receiving during my adult lifetime was when he voiced the part of the carnivorous plant Audrey II in "Little Shop of Horrors." He was great as Audrey, but that was Stubbs on a lark. His catalog with (mostly) Motown, offers so many more treasures. Billy Bragg wrote a beautiful tribute to Stubbs - a testament to the power of a truly emotive vocal. This one spiraled out from a shabby home studio in the shadow of downtown Detroit, found Bragg across the Atlantic in Barking or London, and drove Bragg, with his own odd, distinctive, and emotive voice to make more. And that, perhaps, is the highest kind of tribute we can offer one another. Goodnight and thank you, Levi Stubbs.

Billy Bragg - Levi Stubbs' Tears