Dé Luain, Iúil 21, 2008

McDonalds Boycotted for Supporting Gay Agenda in Ways Boycotters Seem Unsure Of.

Some knucklehead group out of Naperville called "Americans for Truth About Homosexuality" was whining about the Chicagoland media's blatantly conspiratorial lack of coverage of a press conference the group had on the boycott. This in spite of the fact that "nearly 200000" that's right, "nearly 200000" or nearly one-fifteenth of one percent of the American population, has signed onto the boycott.


"The people involved in this boycott of McDonald’s are good family people — not vegans, America-hating leftists, or some other fringe group."


Right. Boycotting a multi-billion dollar corporation for donating twenty grand to the Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce is clearly more American than boycotting McDonald's over objections to the meat industry's treatment of animals. Veganism is communism because people who don't eat meat hate their father's penis.

http://americansfortruth.com/news/chicago-media-blacks-out-mcdonalds-boycott-press-conference.html

The comments on the actual boycott site itself, http://www.boycottmcdonalds.com/ demonstrates how right-wing sloganeering is a bigger threat to the English language that VH1 can ever hope to be. The act of creating ultra-compound sentences for the sake of jamming all of the catch phrases in creates a very Beckettian sense of anti-narrative.

"America is tired of corporations and organizations twisting the free speech and actions of its citizens into 'hatred' when we simply oppose the corporation's, or organization's, involvement in areas where we don't want our money going. Opposing your involvement says nothing about the individual's point of view on homosexuality and yet you claim to know, anyway. How arrogant and childish. We are tired of the brainwashing politically correct movement. I hoped McD's was smarter than that, but obviously it's not. Don't expect anymore of my money."


"We love your fries, but we will not compromise truth. You have taken money that our family, and millions of others, have contributed to the success of the McDonald's Corp. and chosen to use it for an agenda that defies the foundation of our nation, the family, as created by a man and woman. Perhaps you should spend more time sitting at the tables in the play yards of the thousands of McD's restaurants around the country. We will only be missing the fries, but your corporation has lost something much greater, respect and truth."

"I will take me 10 great grand children to Wendys BurgerKing or some other place. YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN!"
(I will take ME ten great-grandchildren? Are London chimney-sweeps signing the petition?)

"We will not spend our money at MCD's until the Co. becomes neutral on the homosexual agenda which breaks down the natural family unit. Having two gay sisters, I know first hand how destructive this agenda becomes. I do not take it lightly labeling Christians as hateful. We just dislike the carefree lifestyles imposed on others. Lets keep our American values."

Conservative cant bingo anyone?

Politically correct
family values
American Family (capitalization theirs)
American Values (ditto)
gay agenda
Homosexual agenda
gay agenda
Homosexual Agenda
gay agenda
gay agenda

I believe I have a postage stamp.

I Swam At Blue Stem Lake Today

Tried to go to Branched Oak on the weekend but it was actually guarded by Game and Parks employees. I told one that I was lost coming out of Malcolm and he guided me back to town while his hand rested on the towel in the passenger seat.

Blue Stem was nice, the feeling of forty five minutes in pesticide-flavored water on a hot day is incomparable, something that one must do at least once in the summer. Some of the locals were there, don't know if they were from Lincoln or actually local-local. They seemed about nineteen and had no children with them.

Afterwords I went to Crete to have a drink at one of the local bars and catch something of the flavor of the town that way as is my wont. But it seems that Crete is woefully undertaverned, only three bars in a town of fifteen thousand, and only the VFW was open even though it was barely an hour before five o'clock. I take this as a sign of racial tension, or at least some sort of coldness and unwillingness of the townspeople to connect.

So I came back to Lincoln and stopped at the Ideal supermarket looking for some middle-brow tomato sauce to add to some pasta I made yesterday. All they had were the name brands offered at twice the market value, this and middle-brow wine priced at twice the market value. I still have at least a liter and a half on my box of Franzia.

After all of this disappointment the only logical thing to do was to dine at the KFC buffet at ninth and South. I waited in line for ten minutes behind an elderly woman who was having all of the combo meals explained to her point by point. I was the only one there who wasn't at least forty pounds overweight, I thought back to the lake and was horrified. Somehow I knew that, for at least those forty-five minutes, I had a full pair of breasts. I was shirtless of course, and they were there for all to see. Fat, milk gland, enlarged pores, covered in grease. If the police had shown up at that moment I would have been infamous. My breasts roast in the sun for eternity. I had the extra crispy, some buffalo fingers, buttermilk biscuit in brown gravy, and the vanilla wafer pudding.

Dé Sathairn, Iúil 19, 2008

Actual World-Herald Headline

"The 'Saddle Creek Generation' takes a cue from vintage listeners"

It seems that the (Choke) "Saddle Creek Generation" in addition to obsessing over failed relationships and awkwardly spouting liberal slogans, has the same taste for vinyl L.P's that every youngish music fan of every generation, every subculture, and every subgenre has had since the invention of the compact disc.

It is comforting, isn't it, that members of the (gargle) "Saddle Creek Generation" have shown their Midwestern essence by latching onto a (supposed) fad that could not possibly distinguish anybody from anyone.

I don't know how to say it, and yet I can't stop writing about it. I mean seriously, a vinyl collection is as universal as it gets.

"The 'Saddle Creek Generation' Enjoys Beer and Sex"

"The 'Saddle Creek Generation' will quote 'Simpsons' lines when conversation lulls."

"The 'Saddle Creek Generation' is happy at weddings and sad at funerals"

"Men of 'Saddle Creek Generation' are only pretending to enjoy Carly Simon"

"The 'Saddle Creek Generation' whispers at how mismatched you are with your girlfriend when you're not in the room"


"The tenacious comeback of classic vinyl LPs that started several years ago still is going strong."


Indeed it is John Keenen, indeed it is. Your piercing insight into the most obscure subcultural crevasses is truly exacerbating. I salute you sir. And I salute the entire staff of the World-Herald for extending showing such keen insight into youth culture.

Ya fucking dipshits.

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=1208&u_sid=10384767

Dé Luain, Iúil 14, 2008

Thoughts on The Memorial Park Show.

The Good Life are rather overrated. The impulse to write songs about nothing but your failed relationships is born of the same navel-gazing that causes relationships to fail. Tim Kasher is an absolute dope who lacks stage presence and makes political shout-outs so ham-fisted as to make Kanye West seem smooth. But hell, it was vaguely groovable music played on a beautiful day, their signiture, "Album of the Year" is undeniably endearing, and overall it could have been worse, even with the doddering teenage twits who make up the band's most loyal base.
4.5/10

Argentine Juana Molina's folktronica sound is damned fascinating, especially with her Italian-flavored, consonants-as-vowels, Buenos Aires dialect of Spanish. Her instruments are an acoustic guitar, some synthesizers, and an echo machine that enables her to use a a single lyrical line as background noise for the next minute or so. Very cool, and perfect for sunset.
8/10

I actually liked her better than Feist, who was perfectly fine, charming and playing a good mix of up-tempo songs and torch burners. I'm afraid that I was somewhat distressed by the climax of the show as I had lost track of anyone from Lincoln and worried that my Smiley novel and cheap cigarettes were lost to the four winds. But in the end I ran into Ms. Rebecca who had dutifully saved them for me. There was a shadow show that complimented the music very well, especially on the false closer before the encore, the night was cool and the crowd became more tolerable as Leslie began to command their attention. Overall though, I felt as if something were being held back, can't really explain why.
7.5/10

Dé Domhnaigh, Iúil 06, 2008

Tales From North Platte

Jade Keith is my six-year-old second cousin, the daughter of my cousin Richard and his wife Wendy. She has asthma and allergies that she inherited from my uncle Tim and needs breathing treatments every couple of hours. She is smarter than her age and knows it, reading books aloud, pointing out logical absurdities in movies just like I enjoyed doing at her age and do still, and showing off her handful of Spanish to whoever will hear. She is the primary watchdog for her infant twin brothers while the parents are out smoking.

Wendy is my age, 27. She looks a solid eight years older thanks to powder-parties in the Arizona desert. She has vague notions of going to college for something. I told her about my plans for grad school and my vague notions of being a professor. When I told her all that was required she said "so you're some kind of genius right?" She asked me to draw up an IQ test so she could see if night classes would be worth the trouble. I quickly explained that there's some precision to it, logical riddles and spatial testing and all that, nothing one could make up on the spot.

Aside from this request, Wendy gives every indication of being perfectly bright herself, able to read shades and vocal tone and understand the mood of the room and even get my jokes. She is ignorant to the world outside of the trailer park simply because it doesn't exist to her. I wonder how much she was like her daughter at her age. When I was six years old my family recognized my wits and even though they weren't college educated and not rich they still knew well enough to "encourage" me to take up an instrument, write a poem,go out for band, geography bee, get used to showing off my mental processes in public. I never have, but I can at least tolerate the public, more or less, tolerate having something like a name in a way that would be unthinkable if I wasn't a publicly smart kid.

And what about Jade? She lords over children four years older than her with her wits and the ability to say "silly" with all the honeyed venom that makes adults fall in love with young girls. Beyond that she has nothing but some public school in North Vegas that isn't even trying to notice the superlative poor kids and a family that knows nothing of the white-collar spelling bee and recital circuit.

She'll finish high school easily enough and be thrilled to death with it. She'll take She may or may not spend a year or two in junior college before shacking up with some galoot and moving to a trailer park three towns away from the folks, using her mental power to rationalize his thuggery and drunkenness, staying up late to drink every night with him in the neighbors in the hope that some dear girlfriend will show up and maybe they might get a few minutes to talk alone, acquiring a taste for upper-middle brow films and books before finally becoming addicted to General Hospital out of boredom, waiting for her children to grow up and call her for bail, knowing that it's simply a part of life.