Original Flavored Jenny Crunch Returns to Stores

This movie ending is starting to feel like our beginning. Is today in 2014? 30 years after 1984? Or is it 1984 again, 30 years before 2014? Or 1954? Note that Winston moves his knight...then moves it back. Then begins to move it again and drops the knight. Colorado Koch brother knights are trying to erase history books to fit the narrative of a brave and triumphant Eurasia...I mean Oceania...I mean Eastasia...I mean Guatemala...the knight moves back one and over two. Winston is playing an endless chess game against an invisible opponent. And the Koch brothers fill an empty chair like ghosts on a cotton plantation. Notice the Black Knight is about to take the White Queen like the anti-christ Miley Cyrus raped by a smiling teddy bear. Prophetic or nonsense? White pawn must take black Knight.

The Orwell book ends:
"Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother"

But in Sacramento the Governor successfully erased the Confederate Flag from the gift shop of the Capitol. Not that the flag was being sold proudly, but mostly because it was on a phony Confederate bank note from 1863, that was sold with some kind of historical incongruity like fake Bill of Rights are sold in D.C. or like the fake Babe Ruth contract with the Yankees I used as a dart board in 1983. Sure, there are people proud of the fact Slave States like Alabama seceded but, believe me, they would not use these fake Confederate bank notes to show their pride. It's history, or was history...and now the history is about alleged fake confederate bank notes once sold somewhere...maybe. A government formed to defend citizens opens fire on citizens. At least Hong Kong police have an excuse...since they are not advertised as a Democracy. When your police force looks like Hong Kong's then you know you have a problem. Putting dog shit in the oven doesn't make it a frozen pizza but we've elected people serving us sliced hot dog shit. America doesn't "build" democracies, it destroys them in Honduras, Guatemala, Panama. The refugees of these military coups flee north and are doubly punished by first being labeled illegal by the very culprits of their plight, and then being sent back to the blighted landscape they fled from, the unstable landscape America created. The combination of ignorance and arrogance to criticize someone for fleeing a house you casually set on fire is more troubling that Eastasia's victories on the African Front. Billy Joel was wrong; we did start the fire.

I don't know if any of this actually happened or if there is a black market now trading fake confederate bank notes. I don't know shit except the Knight moves forward two and over one.

The important bulletin: Suspect cornered, officer awarded, man beheaded, terror warnings, airport burned, lose weight, look sexy, eat less, earn more, fuck harder with a bigger cock, good cop, bad cop. If I merely repeat the news I am flagged by FBI metadata assailants as hostile. Because it may not be news...or even exist. Edward Snowden is the new Emmanuel Goldstein. Edward Goldstein. Emmanuel Snowden. Emmit Gotfried, Erin Smith. Snoward Dengold. It all blends together. I even wonder if Orwell is not an artifice of the party...giving the false vocabulary to placate intellectuals. George Bleacher. Oggy Orcher. Ogwell Geoforce. Maybe a future Oggy will be employed with writing denouncements of past Oggys. The knight moves...

In the future of 2013 commercial plazas are guarded by toll booths. The homeless scratch lotto tickets for food and watch digital folders filled with surveillance footage looking for murders. But they don't know that most of the footage is actually staged by actors to test if the homeless are doing their jobs. Oggy is hired to work in the surveillance center but is fired after he misses three murders (one was real and involved a known criminal Oggy fed with illegal garden food). The bait car is waiting and the drones carry cameras, so we are told. The knight moves forward two and over one.

News is a product like toilet paper and Batman Comics. There is no need to lie when you can interview someone about the taste of a new Gelato flavored cigarette and then make that news. Or invite them to interview each other. Events too big to be ignored are spun to fit the commercial narrative. Bigfoot on Mars, gaseous Jupiter evaporates to reveal the hidden enemy who will be revealed after this message from our sponsor:

"Crinkle cut your love life with a 4 speed online atmosphere containing extra foot freshening qualities and anti-smog heat-activated crystals. Ask your doctor if Jenny Crunch is right for your cat's breath! Jenny Crunch, the Crunch that makes you orgasm!"

That's right, Oggy of the future is hired to drop acid and babble nonsense that becomes the droning commodities your kids will consider buying. Like a milk cow in a dark stable that smells of straw and shit Oggy will be harvested for his non-sequitur knight moves. Dancing his pulverized cripple foot to flashdance remixes, his cerebral nipples feed dramatic transsexual flies. Orwell saw oppression as the future means to docile people but I think we're moving toward the opposite, total debauchery. The torture is only hard on the sober people so it will be determined a stoned populace are more docile. The Russian Revolution was fueled by vodka. The Mexican Revolution was funded by Tequila. The French Revolutionaries had their wine. Americans have crystal meth and revolution is the furthest thing from what is left of their minds.

The irony of the homeless tooth challenged asylum escapees bearing witness to their own torture and forced drugging is the gradual training of Americans to drug themselves.

Truth: A bank can make a loan because it borrows the money from another bank that bought the original loan so it could loan money to someone else.
Lie: See above.

Let's all claw ourselves to death for a taste of Jenny Crunch. At least until they release Jenny Crunch Plus!

Some Good Dance Music

This wasn't produced by Phil Spector. No, it was a Muscle Shoals in 1961 Alabama. Rick Hall was the producer and The Swampers were the studio musicians behind Alexander, all white, at a time when they could not sit and eat a sandwich at an Alabama deli together with Alexander. There's a lesson here of changes and divides.

For a taste of Phil Spector's influence here's Spanish Harlem from less than a year earlier. No doubt the sound of Ben E. King and Spector filtered down to Muscle Shoals. Spector was an apprentice for Leiber and Stoller in 1960 and their production of Save the Last Dance for Me could easily be considered the source material for You Better Move On, which is almost identical, but slower. Any of you hotshot mashup wizards out there could put a swinging mix of these three songs which all share compositional DNA.
Imitation works because it's a chemistry that works, prominent voice, opulent production, a swinging sound, hopeful and pleasant, something to make you think tomorrow is going to be better than today, something to make you buy the wine that costs $2 more and kiss your woman a little longer than normal.

Top 10 Thoughts Oggy is Pondering

1) Why does every gun rights debate end up discussing the minutiae of 1789 philosophical thought? Sure, that's when this debate was initially started, but isn't a policy of reaching so far back into history to find the "purist intent" of the 2nd constitutional amendment kind of insane? Are we being nostalgic or is it a smokescreen to obscure the actual problem? Or Both? It seems 2nd Amendment fundamentalists believe the only limit on spree killing victims should be based on the response time of someone else with a gun. And those who have been shot by a maniac during a spree killing believe there should be a limit at least technically, since a maniac realistically will heavily arm himself, illegally, prior to a massacre. So maybe the only difference is that after the next mass school shooting we can nod grimly and think, "at least he illegally acquired the guns." instead of asking, "How was he legally allowed to acquire all these guns and ammo?" Thus the outcome will be substantially the same but philosophically different. Find me a mass spree killing where a toothbrush was the murder weapon and I will adjust my opinion.

2) My response to generic questions is either cliche or generic...so I don't bother saying anything, which is also a cliche.

3) Are the major news outlets orchestrating world events for ratings? NBC Artifice mocks my withered dreams while Fox news prods variety schemes, CNN makes child rape commonplace and Al Jazeera waves Jew hate in my face.

4) Not worth pondering.

5) In 40 years what atrocities will become commonplace?

6) blah blah blah

7) In the future there will be 9 billion people. How will they all eat?

8) If patriotism means honoring Benjamin Franklin then isn't the best way to honor him by violently seceding from the Union in order to secure absolute sovereignty? He advocated revolution...so we should revolt. He questioned authority...so we should question authority. In Arizona some lawmakers believe the best way to honor Franklin is to behave, keep quiet, follow, obey and wave a flag...which would make Franklin a stand-in for the King George III...someone Franklin's peers burned in effigy. Would I get a positive reaction burning a life-sized Ben Franklin puppet?

9) 24 million Americans have diabetes now. That number is expected to reach 44 million in 20 years. That will be 10% of America. Will we still be legally allowed to eat frozen custard in 2034?

10) The Smiths sang about a light that never goes out...but is the light his friendship and love or the headlights of the ten ton truck that is going to kill him eventually?

Wisdom of the Ages

"I too had woven a kind of basket of a delicate texture, but I had not made it worth any one's while to buy them. Yet not the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them, and instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them."  Thoreau in Walden

Didn't need to take both roll pins off.

 Thoreau wrote those words around 1846 and when I first read them around 1986 I felt they were worth reflecting on...continuing Thoreau's research, maybe embracing the unpopular results. "Instead of studying how [to sell the baskets], I studied how to avoid the necessity of selling them."
This is a central conflict I've encountered in the following 30 years. The question is not how to fix the broken sewage drain pipe or the c4 transmission or paint the plaster wall or establish reliable 480v power in the middle of the Chihuahuan desert to periodically activate oil circulating pumps...no, that is merely one question. A more fundamental question is how to avoid the necessity of these projects...but the process of answering that question is fraught with conflict. The treadmill of time will not pause while Oggy sorts out the factors involved in modern living. And because the grey beard will wither with the fall leaves and the ligaments dry in cracked harmony with the tendons, the answer can not come quickly enough. Thoreau was aware that he had asked questions which required more than one life to answer, so he wrote them down in the hopes others would pick up where he left off. And still time marches on. Current Events are the modern narcotic, the nihilistic comments are the new age version of town halls. The process of questioning is negated by the time spent answering.

improvisation

This drive gear for a sears garage door opener is a good example. While the world waits for Oggy to sort all the complications out this door still needs to open. The gear was broken when someone used a crowbar to tear the door off and stripped the old gear...in order to access the garage that was empty, so they broke some beer bottles and proceeded to break into the house with same crowbar. Is the bigger issue the drive gear? Or something else? Or both? But the roll pins have to be hammered out and in. And the gear needs grease and reassembly. What does this all mean?

roll pin insertion

My present conclusion is that the necessity of selling baskets is a paradigm facade, a construct of a failing mythology...but an easy role to play so we wear the pathetic costumes and dance when the comic orchestra strings ring. The Holy Bible was written specifically for descendents of Egyptian slaves who followed Moses to freedom but it encourages industry like a Martha Stewart cookbook written for dinosaurs...so we can't deny the value of industry. Thoreau was industrious to a point. He determined that too much industry returned the slave not to Egypt but to the office...to mock the legacy of Moses with a 74 hour week in the conduit trenches. We do this why? For a future that must be better than our present, which raises the question of how terrible the era of the New Testament must have been. Autistic html robots present gadgets for the consumption of gadget addicts. Industry must double to support the doubling of industry. The essential questions are processing speed...mechanical and electrical diagrams...vocabulary is usurped by economists. Humanity without philosophy is a McDonalds commercial.

Otis Rules

Something to ponder while Oggy resurrects his self esteem.

El Clima es Caliente

How do you increase interest in the climate? Put a plaid miniskirt on it! Mayte Carranco is the only reason you'll be watching 6 year old weather forecasts. If she sponsored a recycling campaign men would crawl through shit to track down plastic bottles. Mexico is getting hit by two hurricanes right now and Mayte makes all that seem unimportant.

How the West Was Won?

Actual 1962 landscape brought to you by Cinerama. My guess, Western Rockies, Colorado.

In the 2+ hour long "How The West Was Won" film from 1962 that features a timeline from 1840 to 1890 there is one (1) black character, a bartender who gets no lines. A few Cherokee Indians and Chinese railroad workers round out this cultural atrocity. Oh, I love the spectacle and mastery of the three directors including John Ford and especially the Cinerama technique of using three cameras rolling side by side and then projected on a curved screen to actually do justice to the majestic landscapes. So much effort was required to reset three cameras that much of the dialogue is shot in one long take and characters make a point not to look at each other because the perspective was wrong to the audience. Everyone was expected to be a professional! I recently drove through much of the remarkable land filmed so I thought, "Man they got lucky with their filming schedule to shoot on such perfect air quality days." Then I remembered this was filmed in 1961 when air quality wasn't a big concern. The title comes from a kind of mythological fable whereby anyone alive is considered justified because they are alive. All genocides are forgiven before the credits roll, all sins absolved; all of the past was a precursor to my existence...so I must be the hero of the story.

There are elements of truth to the story and some appreciation of the problems caused and experienced by western migrants. It wasn't a total jingoistic handjob as notable actors like John Wayne, James Stewart, Debbie Reynolds (the only original character who lives), Henry Fonda all are rightly belittled by the scope of the project. A movie like this, directed by three directors, casually killing off primary characters wasn't really trying to be a "masterpiece" so the word that comes to mind is "accomplishment" both as a film project and as a truth of human migration. It's sort of pre-destined that mankind will outgrow his environment and thus be required to spread out or build up or what have you. We like to fuck and that leads to babies and like a guy I used to work with would say randomly through the day, "Baby need shoes." We either grow or perish seems to be the mandate. Pundits like me argue philosophical platitudes over the campfires burning our own relevance while the real work happens in the plains and on the battlefield and in the factories. I could write the narrative for a feel good documentary except I don't feel like it. History happens one day at a time but movies can show a condensed version of 50 years in 2 hours...so they can't be expected to get it all right. This is the 1962 creation myth that made people feel good about voting for Kennedy and Johnson. I recommend the film for visual if not content related reasons. It appears to be the only actual drama filmed in 3x35mm strip Cinerama. All the others were documentaries and then it evolved into something called 70mm Cinerama from 1963 to 1974. It's interesting to note that the 1968 Film 2001: A Space Odyssey was initially conceived for the 3 strip Cinerama treatment, but was ultimately filmed in Super Panavision 70 (though is credited as Cinerama). Kubrick nevertheless imagined he was working with the ultrawide Cinerama so that film does stretch the eyes.

Oggy wore his patriotic sweater for this essay.

 

Fried Plantain, covered with strawberry, chocolate, nuts, and a marshmallow that melted.

Mexican Food Count
Al Pastor Tacos: 4
Mexican Pizza: 2
Helados: 2
Churros:6
Plantain: 1
Jarritos: countless

Another One Bites The Dust

I'm not trying to be insensitive. Sly Stallone couldn't get the rights to the Queen tune for his Rocky III movie, so he got Survivor to custom write a song that became the subtitle of his movie: Eye of The Tiger. About a week ago I was listening to The Search Is Over, bathing in my own isolation with the soap of lost loves. I have the music for this somewhere but I can't sing any Survivor song since their lead singers, (thru 1982 Dave Bickler) and then Jimi Jamison (in their prime years) both had the high tenor pipes a la Steve Perry of Journey or Kelly Keagy of Night Ranger. It's hopeless for a Bass Baritone to try to sing in that range and even if I lowered everything they still pass my threshold of a one octave spread. Alas, Jimi the voice of Survivor has died and I only learned this looking for a video of this song.


To my disgrace, I actually owned (and wore) the wide stripe jacket with the shoulder pads. I will note that Survivor's golden years corresponded to my own musical awakening so they are forever linked to what I consider formative music. 1982-1988 had a vast variety of musical traditions destroyed and rebuilt and reinvented and I was completely enchanted by it all even if I was under the belief that all musical eras were basically the same. I did not listen to older music, say from the Disco Era, and had never heard of The Hollies or The Dave Clark Five or Nat King Cole; nor did I judge it harshly. I simply had too much brand new music from Madonna, Springsteen, Mellencamp, Survivor, Cyndi Lauper, Toto, Run DMC, Michael Jackson, Van Halen, Hall & Oates, and many strong new wave British bands like Tears for Fears, Big Country, 'Til Tuesday, The Cure, etc. I would still be tested to listen to every song from 1985.

1985, when this Survivor song was released, also included what I consider to be the quintessential 1980s song: We are the World. It's not my favorite, but it represents that era of incredible, optimistic talent all uniting in one room to sing a song written by Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson, produced by Quincy Jones, a song about making a difference. There was nothing ironic or parody-worthy about an honestly genuine fundraising effort by the top musicians in the America. It was not viral. It was not mocked. I was living in a small New England town where the very first shopping mall had recently opened. I was addicted to vector graphics arcade games that all cost a quarter to play. A grandstand seat at Fenway Park cost $6.50 and could be purchased at the gate before I went into the game. Hot dogs were $1. African affairs never entered my mind until Lionel Richie sang about them. "There comes a time..." For a very brief time MTV and pop music were amazing vehicles of good. That's the cultural backdrop of this Survivor song and the video is a low budget affair with lots of hairspray and prop cars...stonewashed jean jackets, Carerra sunglasses...lip gloss...broken hearts, but the message is that the music and not the spectacle was paramount. Survivor did not dance...and didn't pretend to dance and they weren't very photogenic either; they were musicians. The topics are timeless but the presentation is trapped forever in 1985, which those who weren't teenagers at that time, stumbling through their Freshman year in high school in 501 jeans that were too short and clinging to the ninja uniforms of their youth, won't understand.

Survivor's songs are idiomatic of the time immediately before Hair Metal cleavage bands took over and got me thinking of oral sex and drugs. They are self-reflective, optimistic, urban-gospel. They had high hopes that hard work would pay off and their lover would forgive them for being aloof. Major key piano licks were blatantly overstated and not considered cliche. Survivor songs are classic mullet hairdo time capsules. These videos made me think I could be a cool musician with long hair and a pretty girl in a fast convertible would still break my heart. I had Madonna's sexy eyes and Survivor's courageous worldview. What could go wrong?

Rock on, Jimi.

Some History

Commander Pancho Villa

As an American student I was filled with so much distorted garbage about American History that I have barely begun to sort that out let alone figure out the distorted garbage involving Mexican History. The basic history lesson for Oggy was, "America is rich and powerful because we deserve it. We worked harder. It's justice. All who stood in our way were destined to fall. Capitalism is mankind's greatest accomplishment." For the most part my teachers broke their own arms patting themselves on the back.