Getting Real About Bipartisanship

Today I have the honor of being a guest blogger on a conservative blog, The BoBo Files. BoBo has a feature called Liberal Blogger Friday, where he invites a liberal blogger to post. When I saw his call for this week, I jumped at the chance. While I enjoy being a sarcastic critic of the right on this blog, I wanted to use the opportunity to reach out to the other side and see if I couldn't find some common ground. While the idea of walking into potentially hostile territory and going for pure shock value appeals to the part of me that made the angry political comedy film that you can watch in the top left column of this blog, I just gave JSF a really hard time about his two posts on "bipartisanship" and wanted to show him that the spirit of bipartisanship is about seeking common ground, not making unrealistic demands of the other guys. So what are you waiting for? Go read my post already! UPDATE 5/11/08 - Well apparently, most readers of that blog liked the idea of bipartisanship, but once the rubber hit the road they weren't so crazy about actually hearing another perspective without calling it bullshit and making snide remarks and making zero attempt toward working anything out. Gee, so much for listening to each other and trying to make a compromise. Like my failed attempt at holding a summit between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian bloggers, this was a lofty idea that just didn't work and left me feeling sad for the world.

An Instant Blog Classic

My brother in law just send me a link to this... Hillary Clinton: The Psycho Ex-Girlfriend of the Democratic Party.

No End in Sight

Aaaarrrrggggghhhh this damn primary race is still going on, and it gets uglier by the day. This slash and burn campaign is going to make democratic voters, dare I say, bitter. But thankfully whoever is left after this ugly slug fest is over gets to run against John McCain who gives reasons to vote against him on a daily basis. If it's not 100 years in Iraq, it's his latest promise to stack the supreme court with even more conservative judges, you know, the kind that are against "judicial activism" except when they need to get their guy into office and all. JSF promises the republican half our our left-right coverage to be up sometime this evening. If I were him, I'd be mighty happy with how this is going, though I think he gives Rush Limbaugh far too much credit. Howard Stern had more influence in last year's American Idol voting (go Sanjaya!) than that limp dicked pill popping assclown has in the democratic primaries. Baba Booey to you all.

Free Music, a Quiz and a Meme

It's amazing how prolific Trent Reznor has become since parting ways with his record label. Just a couple of months ago he released Ghosts for $5 online, today there's another album and it's completely free as long as you're willing to give him your email address. Like Ghosts, it's released under a creative commons license. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but Trent's mission to change the face of the music business has made me more interested in his newer music than I might have otherwise been. And now, the quiz. See if you can tell the difference between Bush and McCain. And lastly, I've been tagged by JSF to the 1-2-3 meme. Here's the deal... * Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages). * Open the book to page 123. * Find the fifth sentence. * Post the next three sentences. * Tag five people OK folks, get ready for the word of "Bob" Most people will spend the first couple of weeks materializing huge feasts, piles of money, pots of gold and lakes of liquor. There will be no limitations; the many disgruntled Pinks who will envision H-bombs with which to destroy themselves and the surrounding 500 square miles will find their intentions stymied. MWOWM will be diplomatic as "gods" go. You know you want to read more of that! My policy on memes is that continuing it from here is on a voluntary basis. Please feel free to tag yourself, and if you do, please let me know in the comments.

Progressive Nation

No, I'm not talking about my vision for America. I'm talking about progressive rock, and specifically progressive metal, and even more specifically live progressive metal last night! Originally the plan was to shoot a documentary on Three. They are very good friends with my brother in law, and we'd been talking about doing a documentary about them. Part of that would have been concert footage of their Progressive Nation tour set. The guys from Dream Theater wanted to do a tour with a bunch of prog metal bands and they hand picked all of them for this tour, so it was a pretty big deal. We were going to drive down to LA with 2 other cameras and a laptop getting multitrack soundboard audio, then drive back up to the Bay Area with them, doing interviews in their van, and then shooting last night's show in Oakland. That wound up not working out due to tour logistics, but I was still able to get 2 passes to the show and went with a friend of mine. We got in, sat down, and met the guy next to us who is Joey from Three's uncle. It turns out not only does he live near me now, but I sort of knew him from NY. My old band opened a show that he headlined, so I had never actually met him, but he's still pretty tight with my old bandmates who are now in a death metal band in Las Vegas. Three's set was incredible. I had never seen them live before, though I'd been hearing about them since they were the opening band at Woodstock 94. I've also really been enjoying the hell out of their most recent 2 CDs. They play very melodic, intricate and heavy music. The rhythm section has a huge sound with a drummer and a percussionist who also plays some keys and a bass that unfortunately got a little lost in the mix. What makes them really different is their approach to guitars. Both guitarists play lead, and one of them plays classical style on an acoustic/electric with effects. The musicianship was top notch and the audience loved them. We went to hang out with them after their set as they went to their merch table and met people, many of whom who had seen them open for other bands or had heard them for the first time and really liked them. Then we hung out at their van outside and got to hear real stories of the road. We missed Between the Buried and Me while we were outside, but we hurried back in when we heard Opeth was on stage. These guys are SICK! They started out as a death metal band, but somewhere along the way they become a progressive death metal band. These guys go from barking heavy death to soft melodic interludes and back and forth, all incredibly tight and incredibly dark. I think they might be my new favorite band. Definitely the best thing to come out of Sweden since Absolut Vodka. After a little more time at the van, we decided to check out Dream Theater. I had never really gotten into them, but I knew they have a very rabid following and they are known for incredible musicianship. While i certainly don't want to dis the people responsible for putting on such an incredible tour, they proved to not really be my cup of tea. We left a few songs into their set. All in all, it was a great evening. It really helped my entire state of mind.

Shit Week Almost Over

Guess who's having the worst week ever. If you guessed me, you're right. I've had a nasty cold since last Friday and I'm still coughing and not breathing so well. My wife has it too, and Stella to a slightly lesser extent. This has made our usual busy lives of already busy and hectic day to day life with a wild child excruciating. There's also been a rash of car break-ins in the gated parking lot of my complex, the latest of which was our car, in broad daylight. They tore out our whole center console to get our stereo which hasn't had a working CD player in over 2 years. The cops have been less than helpful. They refuse to even come out to take a report of a car break in. They give us a report number that we could give to our insurance company and then send us a form to fill out if we want to create a police report. So because actually doing their own paperwork would cut too far into the valuable time these worthless donut munchers spend at the Starbucks around the corner and since most insurance plans have deductibles higher than the cost of replacing a stereo or a window, nobody is filling out these forms and the lazy donut munchers then turn around and not log the fact that there have been 9 break ins in 3 weeks and don't even acknowledge that there's a crime wave going on. So combine complete police ineptitude, that special violated feeling you get from being a victim of a theft, and being sick and overwhelmed with everything there is to do and you've got a pretty lousy state of mind. Take two overstressed parents and add one very sensitive toddler who feeds off her parents emotions and you've got extra difficulty. Add extra difficulty to 2 parents who are both sick and stressed to their limits and you've got a bad cycle. And then there's work. Take one boss with personal problems of his own who is not particularly pleasant to be around right now. Add cash flow problems which makes him look at every employee as a liability. Add extra people piling the work on me when I already am not feeling like it's a very good place to be right now. Add lack of sleep from having to stay up way too late because of a puking toddler. Add everything else going on in my life. And what do you get? A nervous breakdown, a heart attack, or weekend that can't come any sooner, whichever comes first!

Albert Hoffman, Rest in Peace

I had no idea the good doctor was still alive, but apparently he died last night at the ripe old age of 102. Whether you've experienced it yourself or you think it's an evil chemical, it cannot be denied that his invention had a profound impact on the world. Just try picturing a world where Sgt. Pepper never existed. I would not want to live in that world.

Today on the Who Gives a Shit Channel...

Welcome to the Who Gives a Shit Channel, where we cover all the insipid and meaningless top news stories that nobody should care about. Our top story today is the outrage over Miley Cyrus' Vanity Fair photo. Oh no, they showed a 15 year old's back! Child porn! Child porn! Disney is certain to go bankrupt over this scandal. If they wanted something vanilla and boring, perhaps Sears Portrait Studio would have been better than Annie Leibovitz. Next up is Reverend Wright. There are enough people of every race and political persuasion who are outspoken and angry about something that chances are everybody knows somebody like that. I hope nobody I know ever runs for president and has to waste time with questions about my blog. And possibly the most irrelevant story all day is that Bush is speaking about the economy sometime today. The best thing he could do now is just not to do anything. At least then whatever is wrong can't get any worse. As a reward for slogging your way through three very boring and tedious bits of non-news, here's a whole batch of headlines about a sensational story full of depraved sex and human misery.