telescreen.org

I see on one of the posters advertising Ronnie Spector's shows this weekend at B.B. King's, they're billing her as "The Ultimate Rock 'n' Roll Survivor."

Seems appropriate somehow.

So I've come down with some sort of cold/flu crud, which is making me cranky and achy and wishing I had Jack Kevorkian on speed-dial. (Well, no, not REALLY, but compious complaining is about the only fun you can have when you're sick.) I went to the drugstore to pick up drugs (drugs! sweet, sweet drugs...NyQuil and Alka-Seltzer Plus and Zicam, oh my! And tissues! Lots and lots of comfy, florally fragrant, aloe-infused tissues! -- okay, I'm trying to keep my chin up about this. Really I am.)

As soon as I crossed the drugstore threshold, I realized that this particular Duane Reade's holiday Muzak seems to specialize in that subgenre of Really Really Crappy Christmas Music. I heard a Michael Bolton version of "White Christmas" in which he howled and squealed so much that I was wondering if he was undergoing some sort of fairly complicated oral surgery right there in the vocal booth. That was followed up by a children's choir doing "Holly Jolly Christmas." (On second thought, get me Kevorkian after all.)

By the way, I've been thinking about keeping a running count of how often I hear my least-favorite Christmas tunes this holiday season. So far, it's:
"Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree": 4
"Simply Having A Wonderful Christmastime": 5

N.B.: I have not as yet this year heard the flipside to Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime." That particular steaming piece of musical excresence is an instrumental called "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reggae", and is a prime example of the kind of putrid recording that McCartney shits out the way you or I scratch our respective asses. It's a synthesizer-based reggae tune that sounds like you've inadvertently left the turntable on 33 rpm. (Click here if a.) you're brave and b.) don't believe me.)

Which member of the Bush Administration are you? (via Stet.)

This site as a ransom note. (via Amberglow.)

Every Girl Crazy 'Bout A Sharp-Dressed Saddam (via Eyeballkid.)

Today is aviation's 100th birthday. At 10:35am, the Experimental Aircraft Association will attempt to re-enact the first flight of the Wright Brothers' "marginal" aircraft. (It's apparently very difficult to fly -- for one thing, the pilot must keep the airspeed to between 27 and 32 mph, using an engine without a throttle.) Wish I could be there in NC at the Wright Brothers National Memorial.

It's utterly astounding that only 66 years -- less than a lifetime -- elapsed between Orville Wright's flight and the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Dontcha just love it when the country's chief law enforcement officer defies court orders?

I got an e-mail a couple of days ago from Amita at beyondthepath.com, who is organizing a gathering of Astoria bloggers and website owners on Thursday. It'll be at Fatty's Cafe on Ditmars Boulevard at 8. And I was told "the more the merrier!", so I'll see you there.

My cousin Waitman is in Iraq with the Fourth Infantry Division. Amazingly, he found time to go to an Internet cafe and set up a website with lots of pictures from the war. Pretty interesting stuff.

Get home safe, now.

Jason brings his site out of 1996. Way to go!

For those keeping score at home, Jason, a college friend, was the first person I knew with a website, and one of his sites ("Bananaman's Poem of the Day") was by far the first daily-updated, weblog-esque site I'd ever seen. (This was maybe 1995 or so...)

Tony Hightower (aka Chico Bangs), the Bard of Midtown, is performing a rare show tonight at 9:30-ish at Micky's Blue Room in the East Village. You owe it to yourselves to go.

Even though his readership is probably fifteen times the size of mine, one of Jonmc's latest posts is too good not to pass along.

Sen. Hillary Clinton has posted an interesting first-person account of her Thanksgiving trip to the Middle East. My favorite part: the "Where's Waldo?"-type pictures:

A typically contentious (half-interesting, half-maddening) thread in the blue regarding Saddam Hussein's capture.

Miguel's captions are certainly great (and Dong makes the funny over at his own site, as does Andy Borowitz), but Stavros nails it:

There's no point in railing against Hussein. It's like recess-time taunting. . .Everybody knows he's a Bad Man. It's not in question. There is, however, in my opinion, a point in railing against Bush and Cheney and their crew - not everyone seems to be aware of what deeply Bad Men they are.

What I have trouble understanding is what the point of triumphalism about capturing Saddam may be. It's meaningless. The fact that a positive collateral result can come of an illegal and venal war started by a ideology-blinded group of American criminals does not in any sense erase the original venality and illegality of the action itself. Nor does it mitigate my loathing for the current American administration in particular, or the current state of American politics in general.

An amazingly complete analysis of Christmas music. (via Looka.)

A sample:

"I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"

What a demented scenario. A little girl spies on her mother making out with a stranger, and her reaction is that it would be a "laugh" if her father could watch, too? Hey, I'm all for deviant sexual get-downs, but there's something downright sinister about this one. Okay, fine, the stranger here isn't exactly strange; he's Santa Claus, and therefore a familiar face. Moreover, the implication (I guess) is that the listener is supposed to know that "Santa" here is Daddy dressed up in a costume, and that this is actually a wholesome scene of laughable family hijinx and winsome misunderstanding. Plot-level, though, the eavesdropping child certainly does not recognize Santa as her father -- even after watching long enough to be able to communicate some specs about the make-out session. Her glee at the scene can either be attributed to a desire to hurt her dad or to replace him with a figure of greater masculine potency (note the mention of the beard, you Freudian types). Like a fifties New Yorker cartoon, it's ugly and voyeuristic if you look at it closely, and only funny if you're skimming.

The same author also has a fine exegesis of "The Star-Spangled Banner" on his website.

A collection of nifty photos. (via BoingBoing.)

Oops. Hopefully heads will roll. (via MeFi.)

Cool kidwear.

Last night B. and I were in K-Mart (don't ask), and we came across some inexplicable toys for kids, all from Play-Doh.

First was the Play-Doh Buzzin' Buzz Saw. It lets kids extrude wood-scented Play-Doh (!) and then cut it with the bandsaw. The packaging seems perverse, though: there's an arrow labeled "Press Here! for cool buzzing action!" Which wouldn't seem bad, per se...if the arrow didn't point right to the blade. Should we really be encouraging kids to touch power-saw blades?

Along the same lines, there's a Play-Doh George Foreman Grill. It makes "sizzling" sound effects when you press down on the grill plates. But waitasec...it doesn't strike me as a good idea to teach kids to press their hands on electric grills, either.

Sign this petition to request a "Star Wars" film for Mace Windu.

(Truth be told, I'd settle for a bit more of his backstory and making him a bigger character in Episode III. Come to think of it, I'd actually just settle for a new one that doesn't suck.)

And you know who'd make a great Jedi Knight? Jackie Chan. Seriously. He's even said that he'd love to do it.

And no, I'm not a Star Wars fanboy -- I just like watching movies that don't bite.)

From the back page of the current NY Press issue:

BLINK 182 COVER BAND WANTED!!!
Low paying gig on Sat. 12/13

I don't doubt it for an instant.

An e-mail received the other day by my [big-media news organization] employer:

(in bold-face thirty-point type, all caps) WHY IS THE REPUBLICAN NEWS MEDIA SUPPORTING HOWARD DEAN AND IGNORING WES CLARK???

Well, first of all, if they were the "Republican news media", I think they'd hardly be supporting Dean...

Josh Marshall hits one out of the park with this interesting analysis of the Iraq contracts issue from a "former high-level Democratic executive branch appointee":

The answer is, as so often before in Bush Family history, Jim Baker. Only the naive can think his mission – special part-time job (so conflicts of interest will not need to be disclosed), with plane, staff, and direct report to President – is about renegotiating Iraq’s debt obligations, as if he were restructuring a company’s balance sheet. This company is deep into chapter 7. It loses vast sums of money a day. Its few, severely impaired assets have been spoken for many times over. Its employees are impoverished and barely working. Its political liabilities are burgeoning: indeed it is the principal risk to the parent company’s future. If Iraq could be liquidated, it would be. But instead the proprietors need to abandon it.

Finding a way to separate Bush and the United States from Iraq is this latest, and hardest, of the Baker rescue missions.

Baker knows – as does presumably the vigilant Rove who has perhaps arranged this supplanting of Rumsfeld, Powell, Bremer, and Rice – what it will take to get this Administration out of Iraq. Baker has to pull off a trifecta: (1) involve Europeans (and perhaps Indians) in an indefinitely long occupation of a country they did not want invaded, (2) bring in enough non-American troops to create an appearance of stability by next summer, and (3) enable President Bush to announce with a straight face at the Republican Convention next September that ‘progress’ will permit him to withdraw virtually all American troops soon after his second inauguration.

Yes, it's sponsored by big megacorporations, but who doesn't like making snowflakes?

The Barnes & Noble Experience. A fine slice of retail hell for this drizzly Thursday afternoon. (via Gawker.)