Monday, March 31, 2008

The Hunt for Dread October

With the Cubs at least on the outskirts of contending for a title, I admit to a feeling of dread for what will follow if they succeed.

I refer to the ten thousand books on the Cubs' "magical season."

Thanks to the Red Sox's jinx-busting breakthrough in 2004--the biggest setback to New Englanders' tired self-martyrdom since Godzilla attacked Toyko instead of Providence--I have a clear idea of the storm that, even now, gathers strength in the notebooks and laptops of a hundred writers.

The pro media types have already begun to set aside observations and witticisms gather at the Cubs spring training camp, the Lou Piniella bon mots, the details of the Mighty Fukudome, anecdotes about Derrick Lee's family life and Geovany Soto's meals, and a lengthy (but colorful!) explanation of where Ryan Theriot buys his elevator shoes.

Not all are local scribes. Sports Illustrated and ESPN: The Magazine no doubt have their on-staff Cub fans, or if nothing else a clutch of ambitious contributing editors looking for a slam-dunk book deal. They're in, too.

And there'll be more.

A handful of big-name national magazine writers and novelists/non-fiction aces want their piece. God knows, baseball attracts eggheads. On top of that, Tribune and Sun-Times columnists from outside the sports pages are ready to regale us with tales of their first Cubs game with grampa and pop anthropological studies of the Wrigleyville frat bar/vomitoriums and--save me!--accounts of Harry Caray gazing down from heaven, though I admit he could see that far with those glasses, assuming he's ever sober in the afterlife, which I doubt.

Here's a survey of what you'll see on shelves should the Cubs defy history and win the Series (and should the world not end the next day):

• The greatest inning. In this clutch of a half-dozen or so books, long-form writers will go into immense, not-so-fascinating detail on the Inning That Turned The Season Around. Perhaps it'll be a come-from-behind triumph in the fourteenth frame powered by one of the Cub no-names (Matt Murton, Mike Fontenot) getting a clutch hit. Perhaps it'll happen when Carlos Zambrano head-butts a petulant Lou Piniella. Whatever the case, mercenary sportscreature John Feinstein and former Sports Illustrated scribe Leigh Montville, the world's most boring writer, will be on hand to tell you about it for $27.95 hardcover.

• The greatest game. Either the playoff clincher, the improbable Game Seven playoff victory (after choking away a 3-0 series lead), or whichever World Series game secures the championship. Expect many, many of these books. At least three will be written by actual Cubs players, and probably three more by former Cubs now working as part of the grounds crew.

• Reflections on the Cubs and What They Mean. Here's where the non-sportswriters get into the act, though it'll be no surprise if talented baseball writers like Buster Olney enter the waters, as well. In these pages, see how the Cubs express the hopes and dreams of Chicagoans, with lots of refs to the city of big shoulders and status as a blue collar town, despite the fact half the city and about 80% of those with playoff tickets attended Notre Dame or grew up in Michigan, and that the average patron of Wrigley Field clears $80,000 a year, all of it white collar.

And that's not all. The reader of these books will learn how the Cubs (1) delivered hope to a nation made cynical by the Iraq War and the ongoing stench of the election year miasma; (2) brought fathers and sons together, and a few fathers and daughters, too--at least one of the latter pairings will be the subject of a book no longer than 120 pages by a Tribune writer; (3) given at least one local sports columnist a chance to be as sickening as Mitch Albom (probably Jay Mariotti, which is even worse, because he's disgusting on the fortunately-rare occasions he tries to be sincere).

• Richard Roeper. Every large city has a media remora like Roeper, ready to hitch onto the big story with his sentimental anecdotes and personal thoughts masquerading as something of interest. In fact, Chicago used to have Bob Greene, one of the pioneers of the horrid strain of journalism that reports on the deeper meaning of a kid eating an ice cream sundae ("the caramel means America"...).

When Greene got busted using his Tribune perch to seduce teenyboppers, Roeper filled the niche in the local environment and, like kudzu, has since grown wild over the landscape. He had already laid the groundwork by appearing in front of every TV camera that would point in his general direction. By scoring the slot next to Roger Ebert on a syndicated movie-review program, Roeper was guaranteed a half-hour of national camera time per week, allowing him to quit hustling for gigs on 6 a.m morning shows and as filler for Enzyte ads on AM radio. How did he use the free time? To write a stocking stuffer book on the White Sox's magical season.

Odds he'll be a Cubs fan by October? We don't take sucker bets here.

• A memoir by a thirtysomething hipster filled with wacky anecdotes about vomiting in the family section, seeing Ron Santo at the grocery store, working as a peanut vendor at Addison and Sheffield, losing the job because he stayed home to watch a critical tilt against the Pirates, and then losing his girlfriend for the same reason. Unfortunately, the book will be amusing, and therefore undercuts the point of this blog post.

• A book of interviews with nonagenarians who remember Rogers Hornsby and outdoor plumbing. Bob Greene will write a similar book but his peg will be Cubs fans who were teenaged girls during World War II.

• Jimmy Buffett's musings, possibly fictional.

• Yet another tiresome collection of Cubs folklore--the goats and black cats, the mustaches and Jose Cardenal's 'fro, the three-fingered pitchers (Mordecai Brown) and six-fingered pitchers (Antonio Alfonseca).

• The inevitable "Then Harry Said to Steve..." collection.

• My suicide note when that comes out.

// posted by KC45s @ 4:58 PM

First pitch

With the Red Sox-A's novelty games done, the world moves on to the real opening day of the major league baseball season. For those of you who, like Dag Banners, hope the world's about to end, rest assured and store up your 1000 rolls of toilet paper--because more than one expert observer believes the Cubs will reach the World Series.

My own complicated relationship with the Cubs prevents me from being overjoyed at the prospect. As a kid, I cheered for the Cubs, because my dad did. Some years later, in an act of Oedipal rebellion, or simply because I was tired of watching coked-up losers like Leon Durham, I switched to the White Sox, and for a long time worked the exhausting waters of baseball infidelity, pulling for both Chicago teams, a dual loyalty that most people in these parts consider impossible. (Fuck you, most people.)

I swore off the White Sox in 1994 when their owner, the loathsome Jerry Reisdorf, led the owners' side in that year's strike and pulled the plug on the greatest Sox team of all time--a steamroller and World Series slam-dunk destined to chip and peel away without glory for the rest of the Nineties as the acharismatic Albert Belle produced empty stats and alienation in equal amounts. When the team marched toward the title in 2005, I ignored it, because I knew if they won it would make Reisdorf happy, and by then I despised him even more for blowing up the Michael Jordan-led Bulls dynasty in his haste to suck for ten years.

I take no joy in the Sox's decline, by the way. The players have nothing to do with their owner's sins or, to add one more level of loathing, with those of Hawk Harrelson, the team's long-tenured hillbilly broadcaster/propagandist. And I am, after all, from the south suburbs, White Sox country, born with a vestigal organ that releases sympathy for them.

Anyway, off we go.

// posted by KC45s @ 12:26 PM

Friday, March 28, 2008

TV Listings

Kampin’ With Keef (10 p.m., Travel Channel) Tonight, travelin' guitarist Keith Richards guides viewers through some of Europe's great art museums. He impresses with his knowledge of Rodin, astounds with his offer to buy a Rembrandt, delights with anecdotes about the lives of the Impressionists—and then causes a scandal when he drops his pants to demonstrate his "drip technique."

Swingin' Avengers (8 p.m., FOX) An alien powerhouse (Liberace) lands at the outskirts of Neon City and, due to several telethons and a local shortage of anti-depressants, only Captain Blueyes (Frank Sinatra) is on hand to deal with the crisis. A whupping ensues when his swaggering machismo cannot overcome the monster's flaming campiness and frequent calls to Mother.

Movies That Rock: "Mac and Miles" (7 p.m., VH-1) Mac Davis and Miles Davis play the opposing sides of one man’s psyche in this tale of a happy-go-lucky trucker who, when angered, transforms into a jazz musician. After years of lovin’ and losin’—and not a few fights with trumpet-hating rednecks—Davis/Davis falls for a truck stop waitress with a heart of gold. Conflict arises when she finds herself torn between the southern charm of Mac and the fantastic dope supplied by Miles.

Ms. Beast and Tilda (7:30 p.m., ABC) A naive dance student advertises for a roommate and is answered by the down-on-her-luck Antichrist who works at a nearby coffeehouse. Unavailable for preview.

Love That Diogenes! (7:30, History Channel) Plato seeks to shame his Cynic rival by organizing a contest: who smells worse, Diogenes or the infamously musky minor deity Dionysius? The wrath of Olympus threatens when, in a moment of confusion, Diogenes finds himself overseeing a bunch of naked, drunken women while the inebriated goat-god urinates on Plato's students.

Nosferatu, Gandhi, and Stipe (9:30 p.m., HBO) Tonight, the Three Happiness Detective Agency takes on its first case when a lovely dame with great gams asks them to torpedo her cheating spouse. When the creep corners Nosferatu and Stipe, Gandhi threatens to hold his breath until the louse drops his gun.

// posted by KC45s @ 4:19 PM

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Ask the Bolshevik


Dear Bolshevik,
Did the Soviet Union ever have a song that paralleled "American Pie," you know, with hazy allusions and Boomer nostalgia and all that? —PAPERBOY

A: A USSR singer did release such a song in answer to Don McLean's smash hit. I can hear it now. "Pravda on the doorstep/We're deader than Ptah-hotep."

We of course did not have Chevys to drive to the levee, but instead East German autos built of plywood that we took down to the half-built-then-abandoned hydroelectric complex. "Whiskey and rye" became "vodka and vodka." And our singer removed that verse about the Bible, for obvious reasons. Allow me to reprint another verse here, translated by myself:

Oh, and while the premier was looking down
The commissar renamed another town
The courtroom was adjourned
Ten guilty verdicts were returned!
And while Stalin chatted with his narks
A firing squad practiced in the park
And we lost fingernails in the dark
The day the music died.

Dear Bolshevik,
I am starting a band and know the importance of an excellent stage name. As most of your fellow Bolsheviks adopted nom d'commies (Stalin=Man of Steel, Molotov=Hammer), I figure you have some insights into what sells to the masses. Can you help a comrade? —L.K. in Detroit (Rock City)

A: In looking over the landscape of great music industry names, the Bolshevik believes the tradition started--and in many ways peaked--with the Big Bopper. Having already chosen rock ' roll, a field named for a euphemism for sexual activity, the Big Bopper went one further by choosing a name that announced his own bedroom prowess. In fact, this visionary looked ahead to rap and added "Big" to his title, for even in the 1950s, size did matter, though of course no one actually had sexual intercourse outside of decadent enclaves like show business.

Thus, using the Big Bopper as our inspiration, and Clarence "The Big Man" Clemons as Exhibit B., I suggest the only possible name for you is J. Maximum Pussyhound.

Other inspiration? Well, there have been so many good ones. Bootsy Collins; Sly Stone; George "Old Possum" Jones; James Brown, aka Soul Brother Number One, the Hardest Working Man in Show Business; Jello Biafra; Sid Vicious; Belinda Carlisle (if you want to be silly); Big Mama Thornton (big again); Elvis Costello; Iggy Pop; Howlin' Wolf; Keith Partridge—

Well, there are so many.

In closing, since you asked my advice, let me add I personally have a weak spot for the name Randy California. Actually, Randy anything works, suggesting sexual desire as it does, though alas the natural extension of this adjective (pardon the term) is Randy Johnson, and someone famous already has that name.

// posted by KC45s @ 4:22 PM

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Opening Day-Japan, or OD-J

Heavy hitter

The baseball season is underway, albeit on the other side of the planet. Predictions? I have none. If the Colorado Rockies can make the World Series, entropy rules, and I am not fool enough to think I can guess what happens next.

// posted by KC45s @ 5:00 AM

Monday, March 24, 2008

He gonna rate your record high

As very longtime readers know, Wolfman Jack was/is one of the many spiritual godparents of this blog, for reasons I do not understand.

Ken Levine offers an excellent remembrance of this strange and jive (in a good way) pop culture icon.

If that isn't enough, well, go ahead and click for the Wolfman at the following:


He Gonna Rate Your Record High

FLASHBACK: A post from the early 45s days on the Wolfman:

Of all the Wolfman manifestations, none can possibly be more surreal than his guest work on Galactica 1980, the ghastly sequel to the original Battlestar Galactica. This showed up on the Sci-Fi Channel one morning as I ate my delicious bowl of Total. At first I thought I must still be asleep. A search of the all-knowing Internet, however, made it clear I had indeed witnessed Wolfman Jack dressed as Henry VIII and administering medical help to a Cylon felled by a microwave oven.

"Help me, Wolfman," one guest says, as they try to lift the Cylon to his feet. So the Wolfman was playing ... the Wolfman! Good casting. In the meantime, some nonsense was taking place involving a Cylon plot to take over a radio station--hence the Wolfman tie-in.

Now a Wolfman in his position has to take what work he can get. After a taste of real celebrity, going back to Mexican radio was out of the question. And probably the show paid well, for the rest of the cast was filled out by familiar faces like Robert Reed and Robbie Rist (aka his Brady Bunch nephew Oliver), plus the ubiquitous Barry Van Dyke and Bearded Lorne Greene. But it was nonetheless sad to recall the slumming the Wolfman had to do in his decline. There's no shame in, say, an episode of Vega$, but giving CPR to a humanity-hating robot from deep space in a show with the production values of an Elvis movie? That has to make you wanna howl.

// posted by KC45s @ 9:53 PM

The Martian Manhunter vote

Much is being made in the political sphere about the superdelegates. Will they flock to the Clinton Banner? Long live the fighters of Hillary Maud'dib! Or will these mysterious figures instead go with the leading vote-getter, known on this blog as Multiple O.?

A split, maybe?

Some of the daily observers of the primary season have begun to state, unequivocally, that Hill Maud'dib should consider packing her sandworm and head back to the Senate. Though we at the Satellite of Love have no real problem with her carrying on, the math is against her. As we live in a post-Enlightenment world where reason and numbers hold great (though not total) sway, that means something.

Of course, how it comes out depends on the powers of the superdelegates.

Let's say the superdelegates with the powers of, say, Superman and Wonder Woman lean to Clinton, while Obama collects the Ant-Mans and Quicksilvers and Iron Fists of the party? Because that kind of fight isn't going to last long. Even if Obama wins the Greens to his side--Green Lantern, Green Arrow, the Hulks of both genders--you have to give Clinton the edge.

Then there are other post-Enlightenment facts, like those related to physics. Superman can throw the earth out of its orbit. Carrying a floor fight at the convention shouldn't be a problem for him. And since a fair number of national journalists are in the bag for one side or the other, I wouldn't count on ethical behavior from Clark Kent, either.

It may be that Clinton has peeked into the back room and sees just such a favorable break among the superdelegates. Then again, kryptonite is green, so if Obama has strong support there...

Electoral politics can be so complicated.

// posted by KC45s @ 7:14 PM

Friday, March 21, 2008

TV Listings

Nosferatu, Gandhi, and Stipe (9:30 p.m., HBO) When circumstances reunite three long-separated brothers, the trio forms a detective agency to battle crime and right wrong. In the debut episode, growing pains are in evidence as Gandhi criticizes Nosferatu for drinking the blood of the living. Further argument ensues when Stipe finds out his vampire sibling stored the leftovers in a Styrofoam container.

Gnome Chomsky (8 p.m., PBS) Heartbroken after a failed romance, the elfish anarcho-syndicalist foregoes politics for the hedonistic joys of the Good Life. Old instincts die hard, however, as Gnome interrupts a striptease to unionize the erotic dancers. Parental advisory: pro-union politics, brief nudity.

Love That Diogenes! (7:30 p.m., History Channel) In this new sitcom, the curmudgeonly Cynic philosopher appalls ancient Athens with his principled rejection of materialism and civilized mores. Tonight, Diogenes joins Plato on the daily commute into the city and crowds him off the #151 donkey; later, he disrupts a recitation of The Iliad when a rogue breeze reveals he goes "commando" beneath his robe.

Swingin' Avengers (8 p.m., FOX) After the super-team gets the credit for a recent drop in crime, jealous district attorney Colt Fortyfive (Billy Dee Williams) gets down and digs up scandal. Public opinion plummets when Captain Blueyes (Frank Sinatra) is found to have Jimmy Hoffa's mummified left hand on his mantlepiece; meanwhile, Staggerman (Dean Martin) must explain why he defied a United Nations order and checked the box for "liver" on his organ donor card.

I'm Real Mad and I'm Wearing Sunglasses (8 p.m., BET) The pudding hits the fan as host Bill Cosby complains about the important issues of the day. Tonight's topics: the media double standard regarding clergyman Jeremiah Wright, war profiteering, and lactose.

// posted by KC45s @ 11:24 AM

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Mistakes were made

I have been reading, with morbid fascination, Slate's ongoing "How Did I Get Iraq Wrong?" series.

I've had two reactions.

First, I am truly depressed I wasn't blogging in 2002, because given my feelings about the war in particular and the Bush Administration in general, I would look like a genius today. A couple of Slate's contributors admit they had no idea the Administration could be so incompetent. Truly George Bush had a golden touch up until then. Having told numerous people at the time I wouldn't trust his hires to sell newspapers in traffic, let alone run a land war in Asia, I feel I could have parlayed my amateurish, shrill insights into a good blogging gig, especially if I had added a few posts on ass fucking.

Second, I'm astonished at how so many of these people allowed personal feelings to cloud their judgment. These are the sober, analytical experts we expect to reason through problems and share with us their conclusions? Jesus Christ.

Blogosphere whipping boy Richard Cohen admits he supported the war in part because of hysteria over the anthrax letters, a personal need to correct the mistake of opposing the intervention in the Balkans, and--here's cold logic in action--because he "wanted to strike back." Unless I'm mistaken, Cohen hasn't done much striking at anything other than his keyboard, though I appreciate his honesty, and sense a bit of guilt underlays it (see below for more on that). Alas, he comes across sounding like one of those people who use "we" to describe the actions of his favorite sports team. By the way, this man was into middle-age when the war started.

Jeffrey Goldberg had visited Kurdistan and felt such sympathy for the Kurds that the war seemed reasonable--until it became clear the Bush Administration was incompetent. Not surprisingly, he fails to mention his major role in selling an invasion by letting others use him as a channel to pose (non-existent) links between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Want the whole sordid story, plus how the owner of The Atlantic gave Goldberg's children ponies to entice him to leave The New Yorker? Click it.

Writer-without-portfolio William Saletan, meanwhile, astonishes with his willingness to confess his own ignorance of history, the concept that governments lie, and that a country must know its limits, and judge its leaders soberly, plus a lot of other things most of us pick up in basic college course work. Those were your blind spots? Why were you writing on fucking foreign affairs rather than the dining scene?

Saletan structures his essay on the lessons he's learned from the Iraq War. Just as a footnote, let's say it appears he flunked the mid-term:



I'm all for suspicion, particularly in foreign relations. The world is full of bad people, and bad people are more likely to claw their way to power in other countries than good people are.
Other countries??? The torture thing not enough for you?

An in-depth analysis of these efforts cannot but drive me insane. Even having the information rattling around my brain has thrown off the ratio of a handful of essential chemicals.

But one question.

Do none of these guys see their essential role in the deaths of tens of thousands of people? Including 4,000 Americans? With the additional lives ruined by wounds, family breakups, and psychological trauma?

Because, if so, none of them mention it. Neither have a lot of others like them.

I understand the journalism game well enough to know you cannot be right all the time. God knows. The business is what it is, and you can't be gun-shy, not covering the town council, and not at the top, where these guys operate.

But Jesus. The Cohens, Goldbergs, Packers, et. al helped make the war happen. The painful, in some cases catastrophic, results of the decision to invade are not abstractions. They admit to being (mis)guided by emotions churned up by anthrax and Kurdish civilians. Why not at least mention the human suffering they helped bring about?

Unlike many, I don't dismiss them as tools, morons, war-mongers, or what-have-you, though Goldberg really pushes it. (As for this bunch being blindly ambitious ... well, okay, that's another matter.)

At the same time, I'm sure they feel they've done enough regretting. Maybe they have. There's nothing else to ask, what I wrote above excepted, unless we insist on the resignations and suicides of eighty percent of the national press corps. Frankly, I'm surprised any of them went on record as being wrong at all.

Hell, I actually placed trust in guys like this. That makes me stupid. And with life and death on the line, that's as deplorable as being wrong.

Update: Glenn Greenwald does this post better here.

// posted by KC45s @ 6:40 AM

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

45s: Tin soldier... rusted

[A replay of a past Holy Week's top-rated song review.)

"One Tin Soldier," by Coven
Written by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter

There is a proper time to pair the flute with the marching drum. That time is the Battle of Yorktown. Alas, a record producer in the 1970s used the martial combination to introduce Coven’s "One Tin Soldier," the proof that you can record a song about pacifism and still get it chosen as the theme of a violent martial arts film.

"One Tin Soldier" held another distinction. It hit the charts four separate times, something accomplished in pop history by a relative handful of songs, most of them about chipmunks and Christmas. A Canadian band first scraped the Top Forty with it in 1969. Coven’s cover rode the Billy Jack phenomenon to hitdom in 1971. A re-recorded version charted two years later. Then the original version hit again in 1974. Not only is that cocktail trivia, it’s a disturbing comment on American tastes. For even by the standards of Christ rock, "One Tin Soldier" is sub-Godspell. It wasn’t even as good as the music on the secular humanist Electric Company.



"One Tin Soldier" entered the pop consciousness via Billy Jack, one of the legendary cult films in movie history. Violent, disturbingly sincere, clearly shot for about $300, the film brought its "kill a redneck for justice" message to drive-ins everywhere including, oddly enough, drive-ins patronized by rednecks. It was so successful that the flying feet and strange hat of Tom Laughlin graduated to sequels like Battle for the Planet of the Billy Jacks, Billy Jacker, and Billy Jack VI: The Ass-Kickering. The record company released "One Tin Soldier" with every new movie and it was like minting money. Coven became an ongoing trivia question while Laughlin vaulted onto the national stage as a fringe political candidate.

I am not sure if the song is a Bible story, or merely written in the style of one. My knowledge of Scripture has some holes. That "One Tin Soldier" sounds plausibly like a parable is either a credit to the songwriters or proof of my ignorance.

As it is a story song, "One Tin Soldier," requires summarizing. Listen up, children. On the one hand you have the aggressive Valley Dwellers. On the other you have the pacific Mountain People. Not the Man of the Silver Mountain—that’s Satan rockers extraordinaire Rainbow—but a peace-loving folk, herders of animals, perhaps, though not eaters of them, a tribe that keeps away the chill of the highlands with sweet herb and wooly Birks and campfire singalongs of "Blowin’ in the Wind." Alas, the song wafts down to the mad-eyed laddies of the lowlands. The valley-dwellers demand the treasure reportedly squirreled away beneath the mountain. An offer to share only angers them—the lowlanders want the whole bank. A short massacre later, the Valley Dwellers find that they should’ve considered letting in the inspectors:


Now the valley cried with anger
Mount your horses, draw your sword
And they killed the mountain people
So they won their just reward
Now they stood beside the treasure
On the mountain, dark and red
Turned the stone and looked beneath it
"Peace on earth" was all it said.

As is obvious, "One Tin Soldier" lacks nuance the way fishing with dynamite lacks nuance. Indeed it is a song arid of irony and humor, and therefore as inhuman as the Hallmark card that possibly inspired it. Fearing that the comatose in the audience might miss the point, the band throws in the Trumpet of Gabriel on the very profound chorus. Meanwhile, the singer—named Jinx, by the way—impersonates the always-earnest Joni Mitchell:


Go ahead and hate your neighbor
Go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of Heaven
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day
On the bloody morning after...
One tin soldier rides away.
Harsh judgment, that.

Perhaps Lambert and Potter foresaw changes in American religious thought, for one of the jarring aspects of the song to the modern ear is the reminder that Christians in America once believed in peace. Not Billy Jack’s karate-based peacekeeping, mind you, but a Quaker-inspired pacifism borne of the deep-seeded belief that humanity must avoid the evils of war. A short thirty years later, our most vocal Christians preach holy war, pray for Armageddon, and promote the virtues of torture. Whether or not you think that an improvement, it makes for one hell of a more rollicking Hallmark card.

On balance, then, "One Tin Soldier" has an idealistic message, yet still seems to lack any praiseworthy qualities. Deep reflection, however—very deep—reveals one, and in the music no less. Over the years thousands of young people have been forced to learn the flute, to no apparent purpose. Even in the early 1970s, the chance to lay down a Tull-inspired woodwind odyssey was rare, whereas acoustic guitar always got attention—and lots of girls—at band camp. Thanks to Coven, though, the flautist shared the spotlight for a brief period, a nice segue to all that Bicentennial fife music destined to fill the program a few years later.

// posted by KC45s @ 5:00 AM

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Your Guide to Apocalypse Media

Consume it while there's still time!

[Film] Death Race 2000

Can a movie with Sly Stallone and gratuitous low-budget violence play at an art theater? It can if it springs from the mind of Roger Corman, schlock purveyor to intellectuals. Fast cars. Busty drivers. An oppressive future. All are necessary to the apocalyptic car movie. But political satire?

Death Race 2000 takes place in an America writhing under the dictatorship of Mr. President. In this dark future, our country's problems are caused by the French, so the scenario on display, clearly, isn't that far-fetched.

To distract the unhappy masses from their problems, the Powers That Be organize a cross-country road rally every year. But the drivers do more than race to the finish line and trade quips with Burt Reynolds. They score points for the number of pedestrians they mow over en route. Old people and babies are worth the most, working age adults worth less, and so on.

David Carradine plays Frankenstein. He's a futuristic Evel Knievel clad in bondage wear and—nice touch—a cape. Thanks to numerous fiery wrecks, half of Frankenstein's body parts are artificial. (His hand is a grenade, for instance, and there is understandable curiosity about his private parts until a romantic pit stop halfway through the film.) Carradine's behind the wheel of a scaly freak-show hot rod complete with a boss saurian-themed roll bar.

Though playing the part of the government's official driver, we get hints that Frankenstein may have sympathy for the Resistance. He eventually tells his co-driver he means to win the race and then blow up Mr. President during the congratulatory handshake. That's a waste of a good leather outfit, but whatever.

His main rival is Machine Gun Joe, aka Sylvester Stallone, a man so mean he runs over his own pit crew for a few extra points. Joe's car, like that of all the drivers, reflects his personality. In other words, it's a loud, chrome-covered beast with all the accessories: a bimbo, Tommy guns, and a giant Bowie knife as a hood ornament. You just know that knife's going to find pedestrian crotches throughout the film.

But the real star of DR2K is the play-by-play announcer, portrayed by legendary DJ The Real Don Steele. Sporting an ascot and ur-Blu Blocker shades, Steele throws down the hyper-spastic jive of the future, explaining the rules, whipping up enthusiasm, and providing every great line. His introductions of the principals are worth the two dollar rental:

Frankenstein! Frankenstein the legend, Frankenstein the indestructible!Sole survivor of the titanic pile-up of '95, only two-time winner of the Transcontinental Road Race! Frankenstein! Ripped up, wiped out, battered, shattered, creamed and reamed, a dancer on the brink of death! Frankenstein, who lost a leg in '98, an arm in '99! With half a face and half a chest, and all the guts in the world, he's back!
And Machine Gun Joe:

Here he comes, Machine Gun Joe! Loved by thousands, hated by millions!
That's poetry.

Though enjoyable as an action flick, DR2K abounds with social commentary for you deeper thinkers. Hospitals wheel on the aged to be run over. A sexless revolutionary named Thomasina Paine plots the deaths of the racers (including Frankenstein) and the assassination of Mr. President. Nero the Hero argues with his partner about whether or not he should score a troupe of Boy Scouts. And, for you postmodern mind-fuck fans, Fred Grandy navigates for the she-wolf-of-the-SS-themed Matilda the Hun. You'll have to find your own sociological implications in that.

Cartoon violence, satire, the meanest machines this side of your Hot Wheels collection—it's all here, race fans. See Death Race 2000 and NASCAR will never satisfy you again.

How YOU can survive this scenario, by Dag Banners If you're unlucky enough to find yourself under the leadership of Mr. President, use good judgment. The weekend of the race is a bad time to schedule a picnic or a Boy Scout event. Also call in sick to your job as a public works employee. Be smarter than the people in this movie.


// posted by KC45s @ 9:02 PM

Monday, March 17, 2008

We can't even think of a word that rhymes

As I contemplate my entrance into the for-profit world of the Banality of Evil, I have sought the wisdom of experts. Or, rather, experts in the Banality of Evil’s most fecund offspring, Mediocrity. For while I can be mediocre—ask my editors, my professors, my wife—I have thus far failed to be mediocre in the truly diabolical ways that so often get rewarded.

No doubt you’ve heard about the recent catastrophe at the giant investment bank Bear Stearns. This important and venerated institution, facing disaster, had to sell itself for $2 per share, when it had been valued at $60 just a few days before. Anyone responsible? Apparently not. This saddens me, because I could’ve run the company into the ground. And since Bear Stearns passed out billions in bonuses just two years ago, I presumably could retire now, assuming some of that money came to me in cash, rather than stock.

Still, that’s the high-risk world of whiz-bang capitalism. Perhaps mediocrity entered the picture at some point. Someone approved all those decisions. But the Banality of Evil? That may be pushing it too far. We won’t know for sure until the gavel comes down on the Enron-esque trial that’s sure to follow.

I cannot wait that long for life lessons.

Fortunately, other forces of mediocrity entered the picture. Screaming head Jim Cramer just last week advised viewers to stick with Bear Stearns.

This reminds me of why I sometimes wish our media figures swam in the Darwinian waters of sports. You fuck up like that in football—say by throwing a long-term contract at a quarterback with a wooden leg and sub-normal sense of direction—you stand a chance of losing your job. Mediocrity does get rewarded in sports, don't get be wrong; but it often gets punished, too, whereas media practitioners pay no penalty for stupidity, for costing those who pay the bills, their viewers, a bundle of cash.

As it turns out, though, newspapers don’t track the accuracy rate of cable news screamers. There’s no Sporting News with eye-wrecking pages of agate type, nothing analogous to the celebrity sportswriters filling up tabloid pages and ESPN’s daylight hours with frothing criticism of melting down in a playoff game—or, as the case may be, somehow missing out on one of the biggest company collapses in recent history.

I’m learning. I’m learning. God, what a racket. My future is gonna be great.

// posted by KC45s @ 12:27 PM

Friday, March 14, 2008

TV Listings

Tyler Perry's The Yodas (7:30 p.m., SCI FI) When vandals stomp his snake farm, Yoda takes the law into his own hands and initiates Jedi mind-control of rambunctious local teens. Peace and justice reign, rainbows overhand the swamp planet, and Mrs. Yoda even cozies up to her husband--until young Jakob Yoda is revealed as the leader of the hoods

Honky Tonk Monk (7 p.m., TNN) Country music hopeful Zen Pritchett is invited to sing at the Opry, but dreams die hard when he is told, "That orange saffron robe has got to go, son." Later, cryin' in his herbal tea, Zen contemplates why both Buddhists and hillbillies go barefoot.

Better Red than Dread (8:30 p.m., NBC) Health inspectors force the restaurateurs to find employment outside the food industry. Rasta Lenin gets a teaching job but is fired when he preaches revolution to the oppressed cold lunch crowd. Rasta Stalin encounters the Peter Principle when he becomes head of the National Endowment for the Arts, and draws fire when only artists who paint his portrait are given grants.

Swingin' Avengers (8 p.m., FOX) The Avengers take on the evil within when the nefarious Golddigger (Zsa Zsa Gabor) injects herself into the bloodstream of Staggerman (Dean Martin). Our heroes travel into the body of their teammate to confront the deadly foe and all goes well--until Periodic Table (Liza Minnelli) lights a match while searching the liver.

Swingin' Avengers (9 p.m., FOX) A nation turns its lonely eyes to The Voice (Tom Jones) in an effort to end the partisan bickering and unite our country. But as the World's Sexiest Welshman rises in the polls, political foes release documents revealing him as the leader of the Nation of Panties.

// posted by KC45s @ 10:06 AM

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Embrace your destiny

Bacon-flavored lollipops, here.

Via here.

// posted by KC45s @ 7:31 PM

My favorite career

I've decided that my job search--heretofore unsuccessful--needs a re-boot. I'm giving up the voodoo that I do for a new career path.

Evil.

And I'm gonna make it after all.

Having lived on this planet for multiple decades now, it seems to me that Evil is the way to go. I want swag. I want security. I want, I want, I want.

But my current attempts to live a reasonably non-evil life--though I wouldn't say I'm virtuous, just unimaginative--have come to naught. I've had enough. Despite the fact I went to a state school, I'm no dummy. I can look around. And as I do, I see the good returns a hardworking guy can get when he embraces Evil.

For you FBI agents accidentally monitoring my email: I don't mean criminal Evil. I'm happy to give up on ethics, abandon the Golden Rule. But I fear prison. As Office Space tells us:

Michael Bolton: We get caught laundering money, we're not going to white-collar resort prison. No, no, no. We're going to federal POUND ME IN THE ASS prison.

Samir: I don't want to go to ANY prison!
Amen, Samir.

What I'm talking about is the banality of Evil. Mediocre Evil. The stinky waste product of apathy. The taking out of unaddressed emotional pain on others. Sociopathy, yes, but passive socipathy, just doing what it takes to make the grade, rather than actively seeking clever ways to torment other human beings.

Based on anecdotal evidence, Evil clearly has a less-rocky road to success. As I am no longer young, I need to cheat to reach the top. I'm a long ways away, trust me. A willingness to embrace the Banality of Evil--nay, an eagerness!--should boost me like a Saturn Five rocket through the graham cracker ceiling that has thus far held me back.

Because, frankly, I can't make it on merit. It's time to listen to the music.

And that music is Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells," the most Evil sound ever made.

Unfortunately, I've never aspired to the BOE. How do you get started? Is there a placement office? Maybe one of those Kaplan classes to train you? I know I'm moving into Evil relatively late in my career, so I desperately need training. My background is no help, either. I'm not the antichrist, born of a jackal. Nor am I related to the antichrist's relatives.

But I know I can seize onto the BOE, given a little direction. In fact, according to Hannah Arendt, anyone can do it.

I considered white supremacy. I have some of the pre-reqs--German genes, years of unfocused rage, large boots. The Jewish wife may be difficult to explain, however.

Don't you worry, though. I intend to use Evil to help better myself and my bank account, if I still have one after paying the power bill. In the great tradition of noted Satanist Norman Vincent Peale, I'm going to take lemons--spoiled, rancid lemons--and make bacteria-laden lemonade--that I will sell to old people and cripples. HAHAHA. See? I'm on my way.

// posted by KC45s @ 6:01 PM

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The Banners Way: Spring 2008 product rollout, continued

Because you should've demanded it! Yet more products from the upcoming Survive! with Dag Banners spring catalog. And don't forget to shop here for additional must-have items for living the Good Life after Doomsday. Remember: the End Times don't have to be Bad Times.
--Banners

New this season!

THE BLAME TAROT
Any way you look at it, the Post-Everything will present its share of challenges. Who's responsible when motorcycle-riding rovers destroy your crops? What about when a solar flare animates the dead? Face it, you’ll need the steadying power of Blame to maintain morale through dark times.

The Blame Tarot explains to you and yours why giant mutant scorpions are infesting the next valley, laying out the secret alliances, hidden cabals, and unknown affiliations of those neighbors you always thought might be non-Protestants. People smart enough to reject the idea of a randomly cruel universe know enough to blame others for their misfortunes. Be it all-powerful Masons, unexpected comets, radiation-resistant brown immigrants, or bespectacled One World Government types with liberal ideas and large vocabularies, flip a card and always know which of your enemies is/are near at hand. Your worldview depends on it! Laminated and in full color.

FRUIT-FLAVORED FLUORIDATION TABLETS
By now the relationship between fluoridation in America’s water and the infiltration of ideas like tolerance and rock & roll music is indisputable. Yet the fact remains: fluoride is important to dental health, and strong teeth are important for your chances of survival in the high-meat, low-Jello diets of the Post-Everything. Many of those visiting my booth at shows or attending Survive! Seminars want good oral health, their current appearance notwithstanding. Now they can have it—without side effects like weak-mindedness and communist sympathies. Banners Sundries, Inc. offers a tablet GUARANTEED to circulate through the body without accumulating in brain tissue. Drop in one for every five gallons of rainwater and enjoy a lime-, lemon-, cherry-, or blueberry-flavored refreshment that protects against cavities and subversive thoughts.

New from the Banners Bookshelf!

Build That Cult, 2nd Ed.
by Dag Banners (Banners Bunker Books, $35 hardcover)

An updated version of the Banners classic! In the non-Rapture post-Doomsday world, religion is going to be up for grabs as traumatized human beings abandon organized faiths due to bitterness or untenable theological contradictions. Fact: religion exists in all societies. Fact: this void has to be filled by someone. Fact: with this book and a little imagination, that someone can be you!

Now expanded to 500 pages and fully illustrated, Build That Cult shows YOU everything you need to know about appropriating elements of existing religions and attracting vacant but hard-working followers. Banners has always held that an apocalypse is the ultimate opportunity for personal reinvention. Of all leaders, theocrats inspire the most fanatic loyalty and the greatest willingness to give over wives and (of-age) daughters. Why become anything else?

So, whether you dream of a life as a peyote-sotted fertility god or plan to be a pulp prophet awaiting flying saucers in purple hospital scrubs, Dag has the answers. Now with six new chapters covering topics like branding, staging resurrections, and more!

Sturm und Vermin: Keep Your Abandoned Missile Silo Rodent-Free
by Dag Banners (Banners Bunker Books, $25.95, paperback)

Many of you who have taken advantage of cheap Cold War-era properties. Your leader, Dag Banners, has written the definitive guide to pest-free subterranean living. We all know it’s unwise to use small arms in an underground tunnel, but what do you do about the clever vermin determined to destroy your supply caches—the same vermin likely to survive The End? Sturm und Vermin shows you what to do and how to reuse what you kill as food, insulation, or tools of prophecy.

// posted by Dag Banners @ 1:50 PM

History's greatest monster from this week

Any semi-interested observer of the punditosphere could predict what was coming five seconds after news of Eliot Spitzer's affection for prostitutes hit the airwaves: a lot of head shaking, faux-deep pondering of why the wife stood by him, what this does to the presidential election, and of course What It Means About America.

Unlike pundits, I lack the ability to read minds or see the future, so I cannot comment on the things addressed in those categories. As far as my opinion matters, and it doesn't matter at all except to the unfortunates forced to listen to it at dinner, I'd say Spitzer's an asshole, because he had the world on a string, and he pissed it all away. To me, that's unforgivable.

But, then, I think Axl Rose is an asshole for busting up Guns n' Roses. You can fill in your own candidate--musician or actor, politician or preacher, athlete or astronaut.

What? you ask. No sympathy for his wife? I have a lot of sympathy for his wife, in fact for the spouse of any politician, frankly, as you get a ringside seat watching the person you love, or loved at one time, selling his/her soul on a daily basis, in countless ways, and perhaps you sell your own, too, just to deal with it--which is worthy of pity--or because you like the perks--which is not.

But I don't judge when these things happen. Because I don't know the whole story. Maybe Silda Spitzer hated sex. Maybe her husband's got split-personality disorder. Maybe she had cheated on him. Maybe he got set up. I have no idea. All I can say for certain is that a marriage is a complicated thing. I defy anyone to analyze my own, let alone a union between ambitious Type A's aiming at the White House.

Why did Hillary stand by Bill? No idea.

Why did Lady Bird Johnson ignore Lyndon's indiscretions? No idea.

Why did Barbara Bush not divorce George H.W. Bush when he got into a car accident with his mistress, an event the then-VP's White House colleagues laughed over? No idea.

Did Eliot Spitzer drag his wife before the cameras, as many pundits insinuate? Or did she insist on being there? No idea.

Mind you, I seriously doubt any explanation--assuming one is forthcoming--would forgive the sin of spending thousands on high-priced hookers. If we follow what Occam's razor tells us, it's likely Eliot Spitzer's just another randy, arrogant, upper-class asshole.

What kills me is the hint of puritanism. Linda Hirshman at Slate, offers us:

And even if the marriage does not break up, women's decisions to make their social position completely dependent on the ambition, discipline, judgment, and steadiness of another human being is not only an act of extreme self-abnegation, it risks the very dramatic fall we have just witnessed in the Spitzer matter. Does anyone think that even as well-heeled a divorcée as Mrs. Spitzer would be the same force in philanthropic Upper East Side circles as the governor's wife?
It's been a while since I've seen the word divorcée outside of an episode summary for Love, American Style.

Then we have Glenn Beck's frowning friend John Kass of the Chicago Tribune, who is to Mike Royko what Tim FLoyd was to Phil Jackson. A journalistic straight-shooter allegedly of a kind beloved by Chicagoans, Kass (or his copy editor) started the column's header with Gutless governor... before getting to the anger:

He was cool, seemingly forceful, making one of those weasel statements that befits lawyers, a vague apology but nothing in his words admitting he broke the law. So he had things together, he was under control, drawing it all out, teasing federal prosecutors into offering him a deal: Spitzer resigns, they don't press charges on his money transfers to the high priced online whorehouse.

The former prosecutor who attacked, among other things, prostitution rings, has been hoisted on some whore's petard.
You always know we've entered the realm of righteous outrage when the word whore comes out.

Kass also vented particularly on poor Silda being forced onto the stage while her husband outed himself as a john. This is why the soon-to-be ex-governor was gutless. As the coup de mediocre, he then favorably quotes John Fund. A quick search at Google will reveal Fund as a man with impeccable credentials regarding ethical behavior.

No doubt a few of the pundits commenting on the Spitzer case have paid for prostitutes, engaged in infidelity, or have a spouse who has so engaged. Maybe two or three of those things. Knowing that, and knowing that such things have causes beyond "gutlessness" or "the collapse of marital values due to Bill Clinton's johnson," I might try to find out a few facts before spouting off.

But I'm just a schmuck, not a pundit. I can't read minds or see the future. No doubt these wise people, and all those like them, have it in perspective.

// posted by KC45s @ 1:48 PM

Monday, March 10, 2008

Silver lining

New York governor Eliot Spitzer confessed today to dallying with high-priced call girls. If you're going to be a politician and pay for sex, it's even better if you have a last name that sounds like slang for a bodily fluid.

"I want to spitzer on you."

"That'll cost extra."

Not to be confused with spritzer, with an r, a refreshing beverage made with white wine and carbonated water or, as with Ocean Spray products, juice and carbonated water.

// posted by KC45s @ 9:19 PM

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Stone cold

Here in Chicagoland, former pitcher (and Cy Young winner) Steve Stone has signed on for the radio broadcasts of the Chicago White Sox, a move that threatens to turn what's a reliably boring three hours of airtime into something that's borderline interesting. Stone did TV for the Cubs for years, until deposed by the Tribune Company after feuding with several Cub bench players, all of whom are long gone, and most of whom performed at a level referred to in baseball circles as "below jack-shit."

Already one local columnist--ESPN bomb-thrower and egomaniac Jay Mariotti--has predicted that Stone's penchant for honestly appraising bad baseball will lead to the man's speedy demise with the Sox. Although seldom correct, Mariotti is onto something here.

White Sox Nation is notoriously thin-skinned. A World Series title failed to heal the inferiority complex of the team, its executives, and its dwindling fan base, all of whom watch with barely concealed rage as the Cubs, the lovable losers, sell millions of tickets year after year. My father refers to the Sox as the city's minor league franchise, and about eighty percent of the city and suburbs treat them that way. The rest of the country is unaware Chicago has even fielded a second pro team since Shoeless Joe Jackson. (Most years, that's basically true; in fact, Chicago rarely fields pro teams on either side of town.)

Stone comes with a rep as a straight-shooter and "thinking man's analyst." That may not work for a franchise and fan base that (1) is addicted to perceived victimhood and cannot tolerate criticism; (2) values "loyalty" and "community," i.e. operates as a tribal enclave that sees itself under constant siege; (3) generally scorns thinking itself as elitist North Side crap and markets itself as a team of "grinders," i.e. league-average, modestly-priced "blue-collar" players more celebrated for dirtying their uniforms than achieving useful things like home runs and strikeouts; and (4) knows Stone once worked for the hated Cubs and may have even praised them on occasion, not that he often had cause to do so.

We truly wish Steve all the luck in the world.


// posted by KC45s @ 7:44 PM

Friday, March 07, 2008

TV Listings

Swingin' Avengers (7 p.m., FOX) In this very special Easter episode, the archangel Gabriel descends from heaven to offer each Avenger an opportunity to undo past misdeeds. Captain Blueyes (Frank Sinatra) misses the point and lays a hit list of personal enemies on "Gabe," while Periodic Table (Liza Minnelli) asks for a fresh start in life and must endure the attentions of the Golden Age superheroine Lady Zonk (Judy Garland). Gabriel faces his greatest challenge in the happy-go-lucky person of Staggerman (Dean Martin) who, when pressed for a regret, simply wishes he had used a six-iron on Hole Fourteen.

Gnome Chomsky (10 p.m., PBS) While at a conference, America's favorite anarcho-syndicalist partakes of too much cognac and causes a scene with his complaints about room service and East Timor.

Corporal Kanzi (8 p.m., Animal Planet) After being asked to display more leadership, Kanzi has her symbol board retooled to shout the words to off-color marching songs. The stockade ensues when the platoon chants about swollen ape bottoms during Family Visit Day.

Heisenberg Cooks! (9:30 p.m., Food) Tonight, Chef Werner applies heat to a pot of water and ponders whether it would boil if he looked away. Unavailable for preview.

Tyler Perry's The Yodas (8:30 p.m., SCI FI) The Jedi Credit Union goes under, so Yoda and wacky co-worker Obi-Wan Norton organize an amateur talent show to raise money. Obi-Wan's samba band brings the house down, but a new definition of global warming is felt when, while levitating rocks, Yoda inadvertently sends the swamp planet hurtling toward its sun. Sample dialogue: "Worse than the singing dogs, this is."

Honky Tonk Monk (7:30 p.m., TNN) Monk and would-be country singer Zen Pritchett heads for Nashville with an empty mind and a song in his heart. In tonight's premiere, Zen hits the NASCAR circuit to sing for his single grain of rice, but encounters bad karma when he refuses free Budweiser.

// posted by KC45s @ 12:15 PM

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Your Guide to Apocalypse Media

Consume it while there's still time!

Damnation Alley [FILM]

During the Cold War, you could start off any movie with a nuclear holocaust in order to create a familiar setting without making the screenwriter work too hard. Such is the case with Damnation Alley.

There are givens to be found in any post-nuclear landscape. Mutant animals, for instance. Damnation Alley features giant scorpions--badly superimposed around Jan-Michael Vincent and his motorcycle--as well as cockroaches who had adapted to the radiation by becoming carnivorous. In addition, there are foxy women to be found (check), terrible weather due to the earth being knocked off its axis (check), deserted cities to be looted (check--Las Vegas, in this case), and, returning to our theme, tooling around in a boss machine. The carrier in Damnation Alley is outfitted like a tour bus for an aging rock band, minus the hyperbaric chamber.

The cast bears mentioning. Jan-Michael Vincent, one of our true masters of the action truck film, has ample opportunity to ride motorcycles as well as take a turn with the armored carrier. JMV has a solid B-level charisma, can carry a load in an action film as well as, say, James Brolin, and of course brings one of the best squints in the business. By the end of his career, Vincent had about every vehicle on his list of credits, from a helicopter in the Airwolf television show to numerous car wrecks on behalf of Burt Reynolds in Hooper.

Paul Winfield has died in as many movies as Harry Dead Stanton, and in equally gruesome ways. With no disrespect intended, Winfield--a solid character actor--often had to fulfill the role of Diversity Man when he dipped into sci-fi. Not a token, exactly, but inevitably a black man with no hope of surviving the film, as in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan and The Terminator. In Damnation Alley, the aforementioned cockroaches get him. In Salt Lake City! There's a snide comment to be mined in that, but I'm going to leave it to Chris Rock.

George Peppard is also on hand, wondering how Breakfast at Tiffany's led to this movie.

To round things out, we have Jackie Earle Haley. No 1970s film could cast an adolescent male without Haley getting consideration. He had range, boy--playing a delinquent slugger in Bad News Bears and a blue collar cutter in Breaking Away--then disappeared for decades prior to scoring one of the most left-field Oscar noms in history for playing a child molester in 2006's Little Children. In Damnation Alley, he's a stringy-haired kid with an overbite playing mascot to Vincent's character. Of course, the time comes for his lesson driving the boss machine. There's some adolescent fantasy for you.

Back to the plot. Vincent and Winfield team with George Peppard and the stick up Peppard's ass to drive the armored carrier across a radiated America. Once Winfield meets his fate courtesy of the man-eating roaches, the rest of the group heads for upstate New York, where other survivors live in an area free of contamination. Getting there is a diverting enough adventure story, in a "not-worth-renting-but-will-watch-on-AMC-while-eating-pizza" sort of way.

The vehicle is cool, it must be said--all-terrain, gigantic wheels, inexplicably comfortable. Alas, its mechanical problems lead our heroes to a scene in a junkyard, another of the genre's conventions. In some films, the junkyard serves as a metaphor for the disposability of contemporary civilization, a comment that our garbage will, like radiation and giant scorpions, outlast Human Folly.

In this movie, though, the vehicle just needs some spare parts.

How YOU can survive this scenario, by Dag Banners: For those of you with a bunker and canned goods at hand, this is a typical post-Everything scenario. Follow the instruction book. For the rest of you, I advise looting, avoiding mutants (human or animal), and, for the more socially inclined, trying to find other humans to help you rebuild civilization. Warning: you may have trouble finding allies. With resources depleted and consumer manufacturing unlikely to rebound soon, bands of hardy travelers are not likely to help you unless you have survival skills or a nice rack.

Survival skills in demand will include auto repair and other proficiency with machines. A liberal arts education will be even more worthless than it is in the current pre-apocalyptic society. Inevitably, however, someone will be called upon to furnish a grim quotation from Dante and/or Darwin. Secure your survival by being that person.

// posted by KC45s @ 11:01 AM

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

To Hill and back

One of the best things about not concentrating on political blogging is one can write about important topics--setting up a happy polygamist household, Faye Dunaway's ravaged career--rather than wondering if Hillary Clinton's appearance on Saturday Night Live helped her in yesterday's primary tilts.

Jesus H.

Has Saturday Night Live influenced anything other than a speedy change of channels since Mike Myers left? Hell, since Eddie Murphy left? Barring a good musical guest, I cannot imagine watching it; and even then, if memory serves, you pay for your Nirvana fix with the comic stylings of Nancy Kerrigan. Has anyone injected more suck-ass into America's entertainment industry than Lorne Michaels? Besides Robin Williams?

It's a rhetorical question.

But Clinton is back, at least for a news cycle or two. Blogger Tom Watson throws down some analysis:


As great a candidate as Barack Obama is--and man, he is something--Hillary Clinton is his equal in many ways, most obviously in her ability to take a punch. She ran a great technical campaign in the last week--tough, but not vicious, and she made herself available to the voters through her SNL appearances. This was all accomplished while virtually the entire national press corps tried to push her toward the exits.
Watson is a smart guy, seasoned in both journalism and political activism. But while I get as tired as anyone of the subset of Obama fans who Believe He Can Do No Wrong (wait'll he's elected, kids), it's kind of hard to take this kind of thing from Clinton supporters, too.

"Tough, but not vicious"? When her campaign either created or signed on for an ad that used technical doo-dadery to darken Obama's skin and widen his nose to make it look more "African-American"? Okay, it's not vicious. It's merely poisonous. What's it going to take to provoke even mild criticism of this sort of thing from Clinton supporters? I'm not sure. Maybe if Mark Penn tells Chris Matthews some darky jokes. (Maybe not.)

The point is, the blinders are in place on all sides.

Clinton's comeback, whether it's just perception (probably) or reality (never count her out), does have its advantages. You can read all about them on other blogs. Being only mildly political, and heartily convinced that even the greatest politician is nothing more than an unusually well-dressed and motivated used car salesman, I cannot speak to these weighty matters.

But if her staying in the race causes Matthews's head to explode, it's worth a little ugliness. Mind you, I'd prefer something other than laughably blatant race-baiting. That's just me, though. I know it plays in Peoria. And she's got a dinged-up car to sell. You do what's necessary to close the deal. As the song says, I don't like it, but I guess things happen that way.

// posted by KC45s @ 10:06 PM

Sunday, March 02, 2008

The Banners Way: Spring 2008 product rollout

Friends,
As I have every spring since my excommunication from Amway, I have released a new Survive! with Dag Banners catalog of survival-oriented wares. We've now entered meteorological spring in the only hemisphere that matters, so it's time to reveal some of the essentials YOU will need to survive society's inevitable (yet desirable) collapse.

New this season!

CONFEDERATE GENERAL LAWN GNOMES
Are you embarrassed to have your militia brothers over for strategy sessions because Mom insists on propping effeminate fantasy characters next to the shrubs? Blush no more! Banners Sundries, Inc., in partnership with the Kiln or Be Kiln Ceramics Club, has produced the handsome Lawn Rebels series. These Fightin’ Gnomes are ready to stand tall and send Mom's fairyland characters running like the Federals at Chancellorsville. Each comes in full uniform and authentic beard/mutton chops. And for those of you tired of painting miniature lead figurines, order your Lawn Reb fresh from the Fiery Crucible of Heroism and paint him yourself!

Robert E. Lee $79.95 (+ tax)
Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson $79.95 (+tax)
Jubal A. Early $69.95 (+ tax)
Nathan Bedford Forrest SOLD OUT!
A.P. Hill $69.95 (+ tax)
James Longstreet $69.95 (+ tax)
P.G.T. Beauregard $69.95 (+ tax)

BANNERS' DE-TANNING FORMULA
Banners Sundries, Inc. does not endorse racial politics of any kind. But let’s be frank. Many of those statistically likely to survive an apocalypse because of superior paranoia, excellent preparation, and the remote locale of their compound entertain a suspicion of those with non-white skin.

Ironically, most widely accepted apocalyptic scenarios will feature conditions likely to encourage melanin production. Whether the cause of your browning is fallout, dire climate change, or a cross-country looting expedition that keeps you exposed to sunlight for days on end, Banners' new formula can help you maintain the pink, even sickly skin tone that announces your Northern European ethnic origins through a rifle sight at four hundred yards. Misunderstandings are likely enough in the violent aftermath of societal collapse. Why ask for trouble? Comes in a spray or odorless non-greasy cream. And now with aloe!

EASYMELT 3000
Gold has been the cornerstone of civilization since Adam named the elements of the Periodic Table. Smart investors know it will inevitably become the currency during the world’s sudden death overtime period. But what to do if you’re wily enough to loot a mess of unwieldy gold bars to add to your stash of Krugerrands? Worry not, Auric Goldfinger! The Easymelt 3000 can turn any block of any precious metal into tradable forms guaranteed to make you into a post-apocalyptic player. Whether you want to melt down your gold for coinage or for a glittering coronation codpiece on the day you establish your Post-Everything fiefdom, the kerosene-powered Easymelt 3000 is a safe and efficient tool for turning a soft metal into hard clout.

New on the Banners Bookshelf

Eight Bathrooms for Eight Brides: Setting up a Polygamous Household by Dag Banners (Banners Bunker Books, $35)

It’s in the Bible. It’s a part of societies too backward to appreciate its wonders. It’s polygamy, and for most of us, it’s THE incentive to survive the disasters ahead. Yet the grim march down the road to equality has convinced many women—even God-fearing women—that they deserve to be the only partner in their man’s life. Eight Bathrooms for Eight Brides: Setting up a Polygamous Household helps YOU overcome the practical and emotional obstacles to a happy, functioning Man-Harem relationship. Polygamy may be the key to repopulating the shattered world. Make sure it’s fulfilling for everyone.

Sample chapters:

* Why Are We Talking About Hair Again? How to maintain your sanity during dinner and other gatherings

* It’s Hard to Rub Sixteen Feet At Once: Proven Schedules for Childbearing

* Dakota Has Pigtails: When your first wife is old enough to be your eighth wife’s mother

* The Happy Wife Plows the Longest: Intimacy in plural marriage

* It’s Her Turn to Clean the Rifles: Dividing the work fairly while maintaining efficiency

* Too Much Antiquing: Finding "man time" in your leisure hours

* When Ginger Likes Lori Better Than You: Signs of trouble

* Barracks or Bedrooms? Making space for everyone

* For Ladies Only: How to get MORE than your fair share of attention

Should I Kill My Neighbors?, 2nd Ed.
by Dag Banners (Banners Bunker Books, $23.95 paperback)
If you're able to live above ground after Doomsday, you may find that those around you prepared less well than might be desired. Or perhaps your neighbors did prepare, but belong to a sect, organization, or evolutionary line you find dangerous. At some point you will have to decide between peaceful co-existence and preemptive strike. Know the nineteen essential questions you must contemplate before asking yourself: Should I Kill My Neighbors?

A note to customers: Despite many requests, Banners cannot sell firearms north of Honduras due to some unfortunate mistakes back in the 1980s. Yes, guns will be an important part of the post-apocalyptic world. Yes, I know you rely on your leader, Dag Banners. And yes, Banners Sundries, Inc. is still DEDICATED to making sure you, our customers, survive. So, let me suggest that loyalists who trust only the Banners Name visit our international mail order location in Pretoria, South Africa. A complete selection of weapons is available and the apartheid nostalgists in charge are trained in The Banners Way—a triple-threat GUARANTEE of excellent service, product quality, and 100 days of survival in the Post-Everything. No refunds.

Dag Banners is an author, think tank founder, entrepreneur, proud former Amway distributor, and the world’s only survivalist advice columnist. His column appears regularly.

// posted by Dag Banners @ 7:15 PM

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Saturday music moment: "Blue Kiss," by Jane Wiedlin

Oh, Jane Wiedlin! Greatest Go-Go in Go-Godom! Accept my humble video posting in your honor. I don't know the full story of that Go-Gos trouble, but I know you should've sang a few more of the songs you wrote, and was glad long ago when you took the chance to head out on your own. The music-buying public recalls your modestly-big single "Rush Hour." For those of you straining to remember, it had a video with dolphins.

Here at 45sandunder, though, the wind will forever whisper "Wiedlin" over the melody of the poppier-than-pop-can-pop-at-its-poppiest "Blue Kiss." Oh, Jane! Permit me to bow and leave your presence.


// posted by KC45s @ 1:09 PM

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