three.

hard to believe. even harder not to.


Watch Depeche Mode - Enjoy The Silence in Music Videos  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

yup.

that about sums it up. i'm getting a little too old for this bullshit.

now who's the bitch, bitch?

health (s)care.

apparently, john mccain had a stroke last night immediately following the presidential debate.



poor old, old, OLD guy. hopefully he'll hang on long enough to give himself a $5000 healthcare tax credit.

guess this means the pig-in-lipstick is one step closer to the white house.



gooooooooooo sarah! napalm that glass ceiling!

the greatest american hero.

"what are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough? suspend being president? we've got a guy like that now!"

off to the great gig in the sky.

r.i.p. rick wright.

"never saying never again again."

fire in the hole.

you are the ultimate american.

you are what we look up to.



all of you.

aw knuts.

remember that cute little nazi polar bear that won the hearts of millions and made it okay even for jews to say they like something about germany again?



well, knut's growing up fast and getting less cute by the minute. and apparently, as can be seen in the photos below, he's gay.





and the craigslist ad would read:

"single GWM, bear top, like my meat raw. looking for an older, hairy/masculine handler. if you bite me, i'll bite back ;)"

so it goes.

r.i.p. kilgore trout.

never trust a witch.

i've said it before. and i'll say it again: NEVER trust a witch!

they come on all sweet and sexy. they get you under their spell.



but the next thing you know...



and that's not even the worst part. trust me.

speaking of witches, our worst fears have been realized. there's witchcraft afoot, and it goes all the way to the top:



i believe somewhere nostradamus wrote: when the bull emperor and the bear king don the totally gay robes of witches in the far east, basically we're all fucked.

trapped by aids.

i try not to do this too often on here, but i want to get serious for a second. do i have your undivided attention? good.

you may not realize this because it's not the 80s anymore, but aids is actually still a pretty big gosh darn deal. and while thousands of starving africans that are in africa starving are getting aids everyday, it's not just a problem on a world scale. no sir-ee bob. it effects us on a national, statewide, and local level. hey, let's bring it in a little closer to home... my home.

every year in october, on a non-descript, unassuming sunday morning like yesterday, i get trapped in my apartment by aids. from about 10 a.m. to noon-ish. and let me tell you, it's a horrible experience. because every year i manage to forget it's coming, so i'm totally unprepared. i usually end up going out the night before and getting tanked, then going to bed around 2 a.m., only to be awakened four hours later by deafening cheers coming from melrose. then the dog gets all antsy and i have to take him out, only to have him go nuts when he sees all the people walking up the street. i'm not sure if he's just pissed that no one asked him to walk with them, or if he actually wants to kill all these strangers disrupting the flow of his neighborhood.

when i'm finally able to drag the dog back into my apartment, we both realize that there's no food (not even snacks!) and we're going to be stuck for another hour and forty-five minutes without breakfast. talk about starvin' in africa. yikes!

anyway, things always seem calm the day after, but i guarantee you that if we don't find a cure for aids within a year, the same thing will occur next october. we cannot let this happen again. we must not let this happen again. i don't think i could take another sunday morning being trapped by aids.

things as they are (the world with aids):



nothing in this world is free. not even aids. here is a link where you can donate some of your hard earned cash so we can end this horribly inconvenient epidemic once and for all. the donation goes through my friend emily. i think she won the race or something. anyway, yeah, the minimum is 25 bucks, but hey, that's like two beers and a movie on a friday night. five beers if you skip the movie. a small price to pay for ending the disruption to one sunday morning in october each year.

yes, yes, i know the race is over, but it's not too late to donate. it's never too late as long as aids is still out there, being all annoying and getting in my face and stuff. plus starving me, my dog, and the africans. together (or separately) we can beat aids.

the dream (a world without aids):




speaking of aids, apparently it originated in cats. here's a picture I found online of aids:




here's that same picture, magnified one trillion times:

crikey.

i never watched the crocodile man show, but i've felt it's presence for the past, what, 20 years it's been on the television. and, yes, it's a shame when anyone dies (except for bob hope), so i certainly offer my condolences to the aussies -- besides fosters beer and crocodile dundee, they didn't have much going for them. if you think about it, crocodile man was the real-life crocodile dundee. something that probably pissed paul hogan off to no end. in fact, has anyone thought of questioning the stingray? perhaps there's foul play afoot.

at any rate, all mourning aside, while i personally think it's great that the crocodile man died doing what he loves (i.e. getting attacked by wild animals), i must say that, in my book, this goes down as one of the douchiest deaths ever. it ranks up there with sonny bono skiing into a tree (and worse than that was when michael kennedy died shortly after him in the same manner. who's that, you ask? EXACTLY. there's nothing worse than copying a douche-y death. especially when your only claim to fame is being the son of bobby kennedy. and the sixth son out of eleven, making us all care even less. the cries for help were there -- a few months before he died, news broke that m-k was banging his family's babysitter. while she was underage. and she was totally down with it -- she wouldn't cooperate with the authorities to file charges. that's cool and all, but dude, if you're going to die a douche-y death, make it fucking original.). i mean, seriously, he's the fucking CROCODILE MAN -- he should've been killed fist-fighting a dragon or something. instead, he's stung by this jack-ass:



hmmm... guess he does look pretty vicious. anyway, rest in peace, crocodile man. the animal kingdom can now give a collective sigh of relief.

UPDATE:

after posting this, i did a little research and discovered that michael kennedy actually died from skiing into the tree a month BEFORE sonny bono did. my bad. actually, the more i sit with it all, the cooler m-k seems. considering the babysitter thing and all. and that makes sonny the copy-cat-douche-y-death. no wonder he couldn't keep cher satisfied...

shock and awe.

first off, i don't know how many other people have to go through this, but i am SO finished with this damned burbank-to-hollywood commute. last night it took me an hour to drive about seven miles. it's ridiculous. and i guess it's just another thing to add to a long, long list i'm compiling. change needs to happen soon.

because of this drive, and late work hours, i ended up missing the first 20 minutes of crosby, stills, nash, and young last night at the hollywood bowl. which means, since the setlists each night seem pretty much the same, that i missed seeing neil young and stephen stills jam out to my favorite CSNY song, "carry on." and i'll probably never get the chance to see it again (please put out a dvd!). a hard truth to get past, but i tried not to let it spoil the rest of my evening.

footing it from the parking garage of hollywood/highland all the way up to the bowl -- sprinting halfway as the anticipation and realization that i was missing it kicked in -- i finally got to my seat about four or five songs in, took off my flannel, shook out my hair, and was ready to rock.

the whole three-hour-plus show was a political statement, and one much appreciated. a good number of the songs were from young's scathing new album, "living with war," and the rest of the guys performed them with just as much gusto as old neil himself. the harmonies were so good on songs like "the restless consumer," "shock and awe," and "let's impeach the president" that i kind of wished CSN had been involved in the actual recording of the album. the latter song, late in the second set, roused a lot of emotion from the crowd (of which i was probably one of the youngest) and finally got them all to their feet -- not that they weren't enjoying the show sitting down.

besides the new young songs, the group played a lot of their best material, both together and solo. some highlights included the david crosby-penned "almost cut my hair" and "deja vu," and gram nash's "immigration man" and "chicago." all of the classics took on new politcal meanings ("immigration man" was performed in front of the backdrop of a mexican flag, etc.), and they were all stunningly performed. even though stills now looks about as bad as crosby, he and neil young rocked out. crosby and nash played more guitar than i ever imagined they would. and all four men, though in a politcal mood, were there to do what they loved and enjoy it.

the big highlights were stills leading the group in his hit with buffalo springfield, "for what it's worth," nash and crosby doing an intimate acoustic rendering of "guinivere" (a song i've never been particularly fond of in the past, but really thought was amazing in concert), young's beautiful "only love can break your heart," "almost cut..." and "deja vu" led by crosby, neil saying "thank god there's not a draft -- i wouldn't want to have to write this song again" and then busting into "ohio," neil's guitar breathing new life into the 1982 CSN gem "southern cross," and the ultimate closer, "rockin' in the free world" -- which i've seen pearl jam do live nearly a dozen times, but which is a whole new experience with uncle neil.

all and all it was an amazing night, and also a night to think. to think about what i'm really doing about the things in the world that don't seem right. it's one thing to sit around and complain, to do a little research, read the media, and come up with legitimate arguments. it's another thing to voice an opinion. strongly voice an opinion. and get involved in making a change. times aren't so different than twenty or thirty years ago -- maybe the world is bigger and smaller at the same time. maybe there are different forms of communication. maybe the same hippies that were getting high and going to see CSNY in the early 70s, protesting what was wrong in their world, are now yuppies paying their $150 to sit at the hollywood bowl and sip chardonney while watching these old guys crank out new tunes they barely know, waiting for the hits. but things haven't really changed that much. there is still a need for a voice. a voice made up of people in this country and world to call our leaders on when they are being wrong. that's the point of this tour. the "freedom of speech tour." we all need to speak up, do our part, help make a change. and i know it's easy for me to sit here and say all this, but i am now even more determined to find the ways to take action.

peace.