Still haven't found what I'm looking for in Normal entries

Surprises me that I’ve been here at all this year. I’m not bad mouthing prose box, I like prose box, though there’s hardly any evidence to support that. I don’t participate much. It’s my head, my head has been foggy, full of opaque air and other ephemeral mists. Most of my best write-em-down thoughts have been catch and release. I’m very rusty on the whole sit-down-and-bang-something-out. Perhaps I was always rusty at it, but I remember at one point being satisfied with the stuff that came out.

I’ve bitched about where I am geographically from a lot of different angles, but the best summary is my stimulation here is limited. Given that we still live in a culture that prizes wealth, sex and, um, something else (I always think sex drugs and rock and roll with liquid cash being a given, depending on how exotic one likes their sex drugs and rock and roll) I have perhaps more stimulation than my deadbeat ass deserves, but, you know, apparently me and the culture have a few fine points of disagreement. I think I need majestic vistas, air and water that moves and, though it’s asking a lot, to occassionaly be shocked or at least marginally surprised.

I had a friend who used to use the phrase much of a muchness way too often, and sometimes he just meant same old, same old, and sometimes he meant to imply a homogenous environment, but mostly nobody knew what the hell he was talking about. There is much of a muchness ‘round here.

In general I cringe a bit when a celebrity decides that by virtue of being in movie that is popular of being the front man for a band that has a hit record, believes they are a pundit or a charity or voice of reason in a chaotic world. The most recent and best example I can think of was George Clooney condemning North Korea for hacking Sony (which, incidentally, he either never apologized for or wasn’t given air time for his apology when it turned out that was a mistake. I remember all the news channels running that one clip of fourteen Asians in a what looked like a Junior college computer lab). George is charismatic, he speaks well, he condemned them for interfering with the right to free speech, a popular argument (um, with a faulty premise; the Bill of rights and other such documents are not global, Canada, a pretty sane and humble big ass country, for instance, has their own government, and, whereas I believe they are still a commonwealth of England, though mostly self governed, they don’t toss around, say, the Magna Carta, when having a national hissy fit).

I think the celebrity that bothered me the most when he decided by virtue of writing some pop tunes his political views were vitally important, was Bono, who, fortunately, hasn’t had much exposure of late. In one of the live albums he introduces a song by saying something like “… Well, mister, the god I believe in isn’t short of cash”. People applauded, or rather, their was the sound of applause on the album. I don’t have a problem with the statement, in fact I tend to follow that rule myself, I get pissy enough when a zealot just starts pitching me his religion, and I go nuclear piss when they ask for money. With all due humility and even more than just due, maybe twenty five percent more humble than would just satisfy the humility quota, I think my opinion is equally valuable as Bono’s. Granted I never got an Emmy but I also never did a bad cover of All along the Watchtower.

It’s something to do with the sunglass, the self promotion and the being a protestant from North Ireland that ruins his credulity for me, at least on political matters. I have nothing against protestants or North Ireland, just saying if in any conflict one side is the oppressed and the other the oppressers, he isn’t affiliated with the oppressed. Not only did he feel entitled to push agendas beyond his field of expertise but he profited by it. Sinead O’conner only a few years prior had figurative rotten tomatoes thrown at her for tearing up a picture of the pope on SNL. The following week SNL instituted a fifteen second delay and dedicated a show to snarky Sinead slammin’. She was prostesting a recent affirmation of the churchs anti-abortion stance. Not only didn’t she hold a press conference, she didn’t tell Lorne Michaels she was going to do that. It was career destructive not career promoting, and, though it’s subjective, I think she’s a superior vocalist and songwriter than bono.

I know this happened a very long time ago. If y’all have read this far you’re thinking of your pet celebrity peeve. I tossed in George Clooney because that was recent. I like George, I will see a movie he’s in. I think he’s a good actor. I don’t think that makes him a reliable pundit or, you know, a judge of fine cuisine (I wouldn’t think it was cool if we were having lunch and he ordered for me, that’d be a little weird, him and I usually do the buffet, my point, however, is that just because I like his screen presence I don’t think he knows what I like to eat, or knows the first amendment better than I do). I’ll also admit I like George better than Bono. I liked the Joshua tree album.

The whole North Korea hacking Sony seemed like a fishy story from the get go, it didn’t make sense the way it was reported, I actually said to my friend when the story first aired; that sounds like a disgruntled employee. I had brief visions of Bush Junior attacking Iraq against UN judgement with the sensationalist accusation of WMD’s, which, incidentally have yet to be found. I mean if that newscylce had gone two more days we’d be nuking North Korean Junior College compter labs. Maybe not, but we closer to it than we were before the story broke, like we’d been looking for an excuse. Obama looked stupid speaking on it too, but at least it’s in his job purview.

See? Foggy. Below is a scrap on a flash that I saved as an object lesson regarding how not to write a flash demonstrably. Ok, carry on with your bad self or whatever self you started with.

“What part of fuck you don’t you understand?”
“Um, I understand all of it, fuck me. What is it you want me to do about it?”
“Go away.”
“Oh, you want me to fuck off, like, you know, Nazi Punks fuck off, I mean unless you like Nazi punks.”
“No, I don’t like Nazi Punks.”
“Of course you don’t nobody does. Nazi punks don’t even like nazi punks, but they couldn’t be such assholes if it was just one nazi punk.”
“uh Huh.”
“But it’s like Unicorns and Rainbows, fuck you. You’re not trying to get them to go away, you’re just making a statement. And deep down you kind of dig unicorns.”
“You’re right, I meant fuck off.”