Star Trek 2009

This was totally watchable. And the slightly crazy Star Trek device to reinvent the series was a good move. It's not really a prequel. No, it's a reset button with the help of a black hole. It goes to show you that there is always a way to start over fresh and there is always an original take on an old story...using original characters...in an alternate reality. And Kirk isn't exactly Kirk anymore. It's hard to explain. He doesn't have to have the same affectations because he's different. It is a leap to think all these individuals would end up on the same star ship in an alternate reality that would be completely different. But, as Spock would say, the conclusions are plausible.

my own library

Thoreau once said he had a library of 1000 books and 800 of them were his own. That's cause he self published A week on the Connecticut and Merrimac Rivers book. Imagine, no one wanted to read about his trip up the river to New Hampshire! Why not? So interesting. He ended up with what didn't sell. Then his sister ended up with those after he died along with the copies of Walden that got returned from the book dealers. It was a bomb because it discussed simple living. Why anyone would chose to live simply in 1845 was a mystery to them. A month ago there was a meeting in Copenhagen to determine the fate of mankind. I'll bet no one brought a copy of Walden.

Anyway, I've now got a library of 15 books and ten of them are mine. I need to sell these books to make back the money they cost me. Food stamps are looming in my future unless a bar books the Riverbank Review Band that I just started.

Uh, so, the books cost like $5. I will personally scrawl something indecipherable on the front page. Remember, this is an anthology of writers from Los Angeles who answered a craigslist ad and sent in a story. most of the authors didn't proofread their story. and really, it makes no difference. One story is about Kermit the frog hiring a detective to spy on Miss Piggy. The detective is Elmer Fudd. It's surreal, I think, which is another word for shitty.

my story has no point either.

Yeah, operators are standing by. My goal is not to pass these 10 books to my brother when I die. He will just refuse them along with my remains.
"Take those dirty hippy ashes off my property," he will say. "And I wouldn't take those books if I had a fireplace to burn them in and it was below zero."
You, Obi wan, are my only hope.

Haiti-Aid---Live!

I know it isn't much, but we've all got to contribute something. So, since I won't be involved in the musical benefit concert someone will have somewhere I will perform here instead.
Here is a link to the real Red Cross to donate
that's the group that my philanthropic buddy Dan works with in Sri Lanka and since Dan will probably end up in Haiti due to this earthquake I think they're the ones he'll be working with and he'll make sure your money pays for something useful to the Haitians. Right, Dan?








The catchy tune is by the Bloodhouse Gang.
Dear Chasey Lain.

I was wandering around in the magic internet world and cross referenced a few things and came upon this tune. It is so so bizarre. You would think I could just write a song of my own. I mean,

"Dear Chasey Lain I'm writing to explain I'm your biggest fan. I just wanted to ask could I eat your ass write back as soon as you can."

Lyrics like that amaze me. You don't need a lot to write a song. In fact, the trick is to not try hard at all. Just think like a drunk 16 year old. What will they think is cool. Then sing it. If you try hard the kids will sniff you out. They smell phony. This song is not phony.
So I sing it with the Haitians in mind. Donate to the rebuilding of Haiti and carry this song with you.

I don't want to steal the spotlight from Haiti but there is a small tragedy related with this song. Chasey Lain is an adult exotic performer. For you old timers that means she is a hardcore porn actress. Someone probably did write her a letter asking to eat her ass. It's a natural response to seeing her ass. If there is one thing that will distract you from 10,000+ deaths on a poor island it is the tawdry details of a porn actress. Hell, this earthquake is the best thing that happened to Tiger Woods.

Anyway, Chasey is a mere 3 months older than me and in porn years 38 is like 90. (38 is like a teenager in writers years) I'll let you go to your porn catalog of choice for nude pics of Chasey. (I would never put that smut on my blog.) Hell, she got into porn around the same time I did. I feel like we know each other.

But 20+ years of sex for money have taken their toll on Chasey. It probably wasn't the sex, but the crystal meth, fasting, cocaine enemas, and non stop exercise of pole dancing that did the most damage. She lived fast and miraculously survived. And in researching this song I found a pre-scene video someone recently shot of Chasey getting ready in makeup. It would've been on the DVD extras, if the scene ever got produced. D.A.R.E. hasn't produced a video this scary. Chasey, who once had nice, pretty features, has become a trembling, tweaking skeleton. She's got all the trademarks of a crack head/tweak freak/meth monster. It's one thing when an ugly person becomes uglier due to meth. But when a pretty girl loses all her looks then you get a good idea of the power of poison. I mean, she lost the one thing that was making her money! But in my musings on addiction I think there comes a point in a person's life when their addiction is the only thing they feel is their own. They know it is killing them but since something has to kill them (abusive boyfriend, cancer, Newt Gingrich) they would rather die by their own hands. Everything else feels alien, but the addiction is the one thing they OWN. They aren't proud of the addiction but they are proud of the ownership, so they don't give it up. This is a topic in the Santa Cruz book.

That's one theory I have because the addicts I've met (that could be a nice essay) all had that similar pride that would ordinarily be directed to a skill like painting or woodworking...but that skill never developed because of one trauma or another...so they built an addiction and directed their pride to that. And the addicts I've known also have developed an unusual skill in finding and doing drugs to the verge of death. Don't think it's an easy thing to be a strung out crack head. No. That ain't no easy road. The ins and outs of scoring crack with no money would make your head spin. None of the addicts I've known looked like Chasey so they had to use their head. I've seen the same tactics used by luxury car salesmen and stock traders. Everyone wants to score. But drugs just eat the brain until there is no self reflection. Who knows what a meth head sees in the mirror...

I don't want to promote that video because it's impolite and was posted only to humiliate the girl. Why anyone still books Chasey for scenes is a mystery. I don't understand it. Maybe she lowered her prices. She's not healthy. I've seen her exact symptoms in hardcore crack addicts living on the street. I realize one stripper falling on hard times is not a huge tragedy, but it's related to the song so I thought I would comment. She doesn't have a Red Cross fund to donate to so give your money to the Haitians. You can only save so many people a day...

The Onion still funny...

The verdict is in. For consistently funny satire and culture bashing you need look no further than the Onion. I bow to them.
They had an op-ed piece from Jon Benet Ramsey. (I'm still laughing) It was titled... "Don't cry, I'm in heaven singing with the pretty angels."
That is some brave shit. The girl is dead, murdered by some monster who is probably still alive, and they write her op-ed piece from heaven. But it's still funny, at least to me since I wasn't related to her.

And they reviewed a 1988 movie called Mac and Me. It was basically a product placement for Coke and McDonalds. And an alien trapped on earth...who gets addicted to soda...and then becomes a citizen. I cringe when I think of it. Wrong on many levels.

There is no end to the humor. If you are still watching the neutered Simpsons I recommend going to The Onion. Just read the comments on the articles and you'll laugh. Mainstream media is completely played out. All that remains is a funeral.

I went to the Onion website to see if they could put a humorous spin on the earthquake in Haiti. You know, the impoverished island in the Caribbean? It was already in deep trouble before all the buildings fell down. 10,000 + casualties? It's like more people died than survived. It was near bullseye on the capital.

Now, as a champion of the impoverished I think this would be a good time for the people of Haiti to take back the land. Only through design could a country be so impoverished. I mean, really. You don't get those kinds of problems accidentally, or as Pat Robertson said, because God is punishing them. No, that's human design.

Bob Corbett
Why Haiti is so Poor

HAITI: THE JEWEL OF THE ANTILLES

Haiti, once called The Jewel of the Antilles, was the richest colony in the entire world. Economists estimate that in the 1750s Haiti provided as much as 50% of the Gross National Product of France. How could Haiti have once been the source of such wealth and today be the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere? How could this land that was once so productive today be semi-barren? How did "The Jewel of the Antilles" become the Caribbean's hell-hole?

1. The international community's role.
   1. French colonial contribution.
   2. The international boycott of the new nation of 1804.
   3. The French debt of 1838.
   4. The United States Occupation, 1915-1934
   5. Post World War II United States domination.
2. The role of Haiti's rulers.
   1. Slave-like labor systems in the early republic.
   2. The elite's protection of its wealth.
   3. Haitian corruption.
   4. Human rights violations as a tool of oppression.

Someone tell Pat Robertson that God doesn't even make it to the top 10 reasons for the problems in Haiti. (#10 is this recent earthquake)

The earth's crust moves because it is actually floating on magma. This is a problem because we live on the crust. What is like 3 inches of movement can destroy San Francisco. So there isn't much we can do about that, but having the resources to deal with it, conserving the resources, is our only safeguard. What happened with Haiti is the French (and all of Europe) used the resources 100 years ago. So you might say that a $100 million aid package is a long overdue payment of a debt everyone owed Haiti. But it's a similar situation to the Thailand tsunami with a situation that was already dire and a natural disaster being an excuse to start over. Haiti had the potential to deal with this earthquake but was treated like a free food bank for 200 years. The only real justice would be to get the French to rebuild Haiti from the pockets of everyday French citizens. It's tough, but I'll support it. Some French people will probably die. The ones who will do the free labor will most certainly die. And every Haitian male will receive one fertile French woman...as payment. Put a sign on them that says, "Fertile" It'll be a small step to replace the women lost in the earthquake. That was supposed to be funny. Why isn't anyone laughing?

America Addicted to Junk

I've been reading about addiction lately, the symptoms, causes and effects. No matter how you cut it there has to be some kind of damaging result of a habit to call it an addiction. We all have habits that don't add up to addictions. Why? Because we aren't really damaged by them. I'm addicted to solitaire. You know the game where you deal different stacks of cards and then stack them in order of number and alternating suit and then pile them all on top of the suited ace? I will play this game beyond the normal level of interest. I will play and play and actually curse when I am dealt three 5s on the opening draw. Come on! Or all red suited cards on the first lay down. What am I gonna do with that?
I keep score and even printed a screen that has my high score of 730. That's a good score. I don't know what the maximum is but I know there is a maximum because the number of points you get for each successful lay down is set as is the points deducted when you cycle through the draw deck. So there is a known score that you can't beat. Anyway, my interest in the game started back in HSU. I met N___ at the dining hall and then we would meet at the computer room (before home computers were $180) and play solitaire next to each other. It was a kind of courtship because this ridiculous game had strategy that we shared and the opportunity for jokes never ended. Then we would go to the commons and eat cereal or lasagna or play piano in the music building.
Ah, those were the days.

Anyway, not to get off track, I'm addicted to solitaire and usually play one game before I do any writing. And if I look at the same sentence for too long then I play another game. And I play until I win. I do not just play and get stuck and quit. I reshuffle and play again. I'm not afraid. But it's at the point where I recognize the patterns the game throws at me. The red tens are always buried. So is one black King. The aces are usually given in the shuffle deck. So it becomes a game of guessing which layer has the king I need. It's usually in the layer of 8 at the far right end.

The point of this is that while my addiction to solitaire is mild, harmless, some might say natural, but my concern with the addiction of America to petroleum and copper technology IS ALSO AN ADDICTION. It's like I'm co-dependent on the computer junkie culture I'm living in. Yes, I rationalize that it's no longer possible to escape. I went to the most remote beach I have ever been on ever...a beach so far on the edge of nowhere that people fished with nets and spears...a beach that should have been deserted...and still I parked next to a guy who uploaded video footage of his flying machine to a computer station in space...using a satellite. So, am I the one who's addicted? He was completely at peace with the insane amount of computers and copper based. silicon enhanced machinery he used. I was the one appalled. But which of us is the addict? My assertion is that because copper and gold and silicon refinement is a gross exploitation of a global environment it is HE that has the problem...a problem he was blissfully ignorant of. But I had the problem because I was living in a van with less technology than in most cell phones. This van, my 1969 van, was manufactured the same year someone landed on the moon! And that was considered big stuff back then. Nowadays people get upset if their phone doesn't toast bread. But I bet my van was still considered fairly out dated because it lacked power steering.
Damn it. Listen. Living in a van because I don't want to be addicted to petroleum is damn near impossible. In Mexico I only met three other people who lived in their vans on the beach out of choice. One guy was named Phoenix and he lived in a kind of high ceiling cargo van that he called The Mothership. He had sold everything to buy it and it was a piece of work. He only wanted to do yoga, surf, and play chants on an Indian harmonium at 3am. The other guy was a semi-pro shortstop named Jay who only wanted to surf and play baseball. His van was, I think, a '70s era Chevy with plush lining and a woodland art scene airbrushed on the side. I guess I should include the technophile who arrived in a gigantic RV towing a gigantic trailer with enormous solar panels to power the satellite dish. He broke all the molds of self reliance. I can't categorize him because he was a skilled paddle surfer who also had built a kite flying machine from a VW engine and he would fly around looking at whales. Give him a bone and he would go to the Survivor island AND EAT ALL THE CONTESTANTS. Those guys were like bake sale moms compared to him. Never in my life have I encountered someone that intense.

We all had our different reasons for being there. Or at least we all started out with different reasons that eventually dissolved as we had to survive. We all wanted to live independent of a consumer culture. I believe this is important because philosophically it is the most rational. Like eating a ton of food will not kill you but it is philosophically grotesque. Self indulgence is one thing, but devouring more than necessary for survival is akin to theft because most of the world doesn't have the option. When you eat less you do less. When you do less you don't need as much food. This isn't glamorous so it doesn't appeal to the public like McDonalds and Hannah Montana. But it is nevertheless the alternative to an addiction to oil.
Unfortunately, it has become to resemble a drug addiction. I say this because every other person at the group home is an addict. One tenant just said, "I'm trying to get out of this mess."
He meant living at the group home. They are all recovering drug addicts and I'm right there with them. Basically, when my philosophy lands me in the same place as drug addicts, unable to get a job, unable to keep a job, too broke for even staples, walking miles to save gas, playing solitaire in a small room, undesirable, outcast, hairy, disease ridden, THEN it can be argued that I am no different than a drug addict. Even my buddy Don, the hooker king of La Paz, suspected me to be a meth addict. He wasn't just talking about my weight loss due to the 115 degrees in my van and diet of shrimp and chips. HE was talking about the wildness in my eyes and the stubborn adoption of SOMETHING (he didn't know what) that had me driving a 1974 Vespa with no accelerator control around Mexico with my guitar on my back and a solar powered speaker strapped to the front wheel. I'd run along next to it and pop the cylinder compression lever and it would spurt forward and I would jump on and take off as Don walked off with a whore and her pimp.
"I couldn't live your life for one day," said a guy who had been stabbed, shot at, imprisoned, married to abusive Russian wives and used drugs most of his life.
But it is not drugs. It has never been drugs. I have no desire to do drugs. Give me a choice between cocaine and solitaire and I will choose solitaire. And I know that sounds good, everyone should be real proud, but that's where it starts to go wrong too. Because it goes from no drugs to no beer to no salt to ONLY THE EXACT NUMBER OF RAISINS AND NUTS NEEDED TO SUSTAIN ME IN A PRONE POSITION.
Believe me, I'd be better off with a serious crank habit. I met people with serious crank habits who have adapted better. But what does that tell you? It tells you that the flip side is a culture addicted to Avatar toys and plastic spoons and wireless racing games. But since EVERYONE shares this addiction the adaption is simple. You fit in if you have credit problems and major debt. That's GOOD. Drug problem? Simple, just find GOD. You are included now.
I think it comes down to being at peace with your addiction. I renounced consumer culture and it has become an addiction that is not acceptable. But the addiction mimics an addiction to crack and since I don't smoke crack people suspect I am lying...because I ACT LIKE SOMEONE WHO SMOKES CRACK. Oh, the indignity. I don't even like gum...or caffeine. I put back a bag of $1 cookies the other day because of the sugar.
The important thing is that everything stays ABOUT ME.