And the Scales Fell From Her Eyes...

Is it just me or does anyone else get the sense we're all just fiddling while Rome burns? The horrific news: atrocious crimes against people, animals, the planet...labour unrest, economic meltdown and; a world where celebrity skidmarks like Perez Hilton make front page news. I dunno folks. I just don't know anymore...

I'll tell you what it was for me: it was finding out about dogs and cats being used as live shark bait; one 6 year old child in my city dying of swine flu - it's "closer to home" now I'm ashamed to say. I'm not a voyeur or a spectator anymore. I can't be. I can barely read the news but I have to, and I do. I refuse to be stupid and more importantly, I refuse to be IGNORANT. I can't write anymore, not along the tone, vein, or topic of PopClash. I'll continue the blog under Baho, but the blog will have a different name and a different direction. I can't pander to the celebrity schiesse anymore because at the end of the day, that nonsense just doesn't matter.

Amuse-Bouche

• If the Challah Doesn't Fit...Poor Yosef Baron, manager of Cheskel's Shawarma King in Borough Park NYC. Well, seems he sent a non-Jewish employee out for more Kosher chicken weiners and the worker came back with the wrong kind. As in totally NOT Kosher. A long time patron noticed that his frank was too big to fit the challah bun and called Mr. Baron on it. A melee ensued and Mr. Baron ended up being punched in the face, spat on and fending off the ensuing irate crowd with an electric carving knife. The local volunteer crime patrol (sorry, here they're called "vigilantes") showed up and restored a semblance of order to the situation, "however the ultra-Orthodox community continued to boil over the roasted weenies, with talk of protests lingering all week."

(Probably not kosher either)

This is what happens when people live in a bubble. They've nothing better to do than sweat the small stuff and hold ridiculous grudges. They wouldn't know what to do without a feud of some sort; insular communities thrive on them. I understand the importance and significance of Kosher but it was a mistake. It happens. There are bigger problems in the world and the reaction of these people was disproportionate, inappropriate and downright appalling.

• Students of Sutton Grammar School in the UK spelled out "cock" with bricks on the school's roof and it was picked up by satellite photograph in a Google Earth image. Nice. You can't see toilet-papering from space. I have no worries about the resourcefulness of today's youth. Fresh, ballsy pranks are an integral part of human society: people can't cram into phonebooths or run underwear up flagpoles forever can they?

• Facial reconstruction of a Central-European woman from the Last Ice Age (the maximum extent of that glaciation was about 18,000 years ago) and; a reconstruction of a 5,000 year-old man from Verona Italy. Is it just me or are people gettig uglier? When did European teeth start going so wonky? Seriously, overbites galore: much of Western Europe could eat a cob of corn through a picket fence.
  
  
• Cinematical is all cranky about the American Film Institute giving Michael Douglas a Lifetime Achievement Award. Well, "Falling Down" was good and so was "Fatal Attraction" but as far as Douglas advancing film art overall, uh, no - I agree with Cinematical's assessment. He's old, he could keel anytime, his father was the over-actor Kirk Douglas, and he bangs Catherine Zeta Jones. At least the AFI would be keeping it real by giving him the award on that basis. If anybody should be giving Michael Douglas an award, it should be the makers of Viagra. Also, I'm thinking he and Martin Sheen see the same plastic surgeon and hair-plug guy.

Right...and by "The Trinity," What They REALLY Mean is "Threesome"

I overheard this on the ubiquitous church TV this morning while noodling around the internet and reading about the Iranian "election." I really have no choice, I get approximately three-and-a-half channels (the one that alternates between picture or sound is the "half") and so I normally just have the tube on for background noise that I can easily tune out...until this barged its way in front of Ahmadinejad's election theft:

"Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.

Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.

Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me.
Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me."

WTF?!

And there aren't more people going to Church? This isn't even subliminal or anything remotely couched, this is pretty blatant...

...now get a load of this:

"Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after Thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Search me and try me, Master, today!
Whiter than snow, Lord, wash me just now,
As in Thy presence humbly I bow.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way...!"

Church is hardcore. The preceding makes me wonder why congregations aren't showing up in sensory deprivation hoods or slave collars (everybody knows a person can't sing along to the hymns with a ballgag in one's mouth...) and raising their voices in worship to what, from the sounds of things, could be the rotating, foghorn-blasting obelisk 'Leviathan' in Hellraiser 2 for all we know. Can we be sure they're not all secretly reading from "Story of O?" - you know, when you put one book inside another book to make it look like you're reading something you're really not; or really reading something you shouldn't be reading?

People complain about society being fixated on sex, well it is. It has to be to a degree because the genetically encoded biological imperative (regardless of orientation) is to ensure perpetuation of the species, but it's been amplified, warped, and twisted by the churches, shuls, mosques and what-have-you. The teaching of the morality and virtue of restraint, yet at the same time essentially singing about submissive sexual relations with Jesus or God has done nothing but create a whole herd of individuals who can't get their noses out of the goings-on in other people's bedrooms - unless it's to make sure women are doing as they're told.

Simple as that.

Sticky Vinyl Saturday - The Vapors

In keeping with the previous post, this is 'Turning Japanese' by The Vapors; a one-hit wonder from 1980.

The song purportedly refers to masturbation. I don't know. Does that mean the Japanese are compulsive masturbators? I don't know that either but I do know some Japanese guy holds the world record in wanking. I also know that the Japanese take their shoes off before entering changing rooms - backwards. Could be if they had their priorities a little more straight they might've won the war. At least then I'd be able to figure out their clever cartoon packaging on sex toys and not mistakenly buy some little kid a disposable canned vagina from a vending machine on a hot summer day..."Really officer, I thought it was some kind of slurpee-like kinda deal," as I'm led away in handcuffs.

What I Really Wanted Was a Dr. Pepper...

I might as well shut down this blog because now I've really seen everything. There's just nothing left after....

...disposable CANNED vagina:

Being an overall plebe and not familiar with the way the Japanese package things in general, never mind not being able to read Japanese, I would've popped the lid on this little piece of anime delight and tried to go at it with a spoon.

What's that? "Give us more questionable sexual devices?" Why certainly, folks!

Sticky Vinyl Saturday - Kraftwerk

From the 1978 Album 'The Man Machine,' Here is Kraftwerk performing the title song live. The video comes from their long awaited 2-CD live set 'Minimum-Maximum' recorded during their 2004 world tour.

Without Kraftwerk, we'd have no Depeche Mode, Erasure, Nine Inch Nails, no Killing Joke, no Rammstein, no 'Da-Da-Da' one-hit wonders, no Skinny Puppy, no Ministry and so on.

'The Spirit of Radio' by Rush puts it very succintly: "all this machinery making modern music can still be open-hearted..."

That's why Techno has gone as far as it has and diversified as it has: it strikes a chord in the living brain. The computer language of Techno speaks to the internal computer we all possess, our computers are forever grateful for that contact. The Heart loves the down beats and the visceral quality. How simple, how perfect. How Kraftwerk:

And Elektro-Kardiogramm from the Tour de France soundtracks:

Way To Go Out, Icon.

Did Michael Hutchence's one-man sexual fiasco not teach these kinksters anything? This NOT just in: When the brain is deprived of oxygen, there is no warning tap on the shoulder that you're about to pass out and strangle yourself while in pursuit of enhancing what the French so eloquently call the orgasm - le petit mort (the little death). Engaging in autoerotic asphyxiation will get you just plain old mort because any warning of impeding blackout isn't going to come in time for a person to untie themselves.

It's a funny thing this behaviour: It's like cocaine, you can spend years doing it and then one innocuous little line can kill you. Participants foolish enough to think they can control their circulatory system because they've done it countless times end up hanging in a closet stiff in entirely the wrong way; mortifying their family, friends, fans - and themselves too if they were around to see the result.

Breath-play is risky behaviour and autoerotic asphyxiation is just flat-out Russian Roulette.

So David Carradine found out. I won't say it was a tragedy because it was just stupid. And sad. A 72 year-old man who thought getting off by obstructing his breathing solo was worth the risk of dying of strangulation or heart-attack...but then there wouldn't be the thrill otherwise, would there? I suppose that's the rush.

You can only push the envelope with Death so many times before he snatches it from you and slaps a stamp on it.

Ignorance IS Bliss...

Finally, I'm not alone. A while back I posted about the Hollywood Wax Museum selling off replicas of characters from the Golden Days of television and that TV now officially blows. Well I recently read the following over at Cracked magazine and promptly refilled my wineglass and toasted to the Solidarity of the Ignorant. Do the ignorant have a patron saint? Is Emo Philips taken?

What is "The Hills?" An "O.C?" I've never seen American Idol, or ANY "Idol" for that matter aside from the Billy/Generation X one. I've never heard Susan Boyle sing because I said "meh," and settled into my lazy rebellion by refusing to click "play" on the video embed plastered all over the 4 corners of the internet. I've really no clue about anything that goes on after 'The Bernie Mac' show at 12:30. Now that I'm back to work, I even miss out on that. I make due with repeats of 'King of Queens,' 'Friends,' 'Two-And-A-Half Men' and 'The Simpsons' - after which I fill my head with horror, goreporn, documentaries and 'Deadwood.'

I follow celebrity news blogs and haven't got the faintest clue who half the celebutards they're talking about are, and here I am blogging about popular culture without having seen a "The Hills" or an "The O.C." I think "chicken cutlets" are either cheek implants or bra-stuffers but I'm not sure. And I don't give a tinker's damn either.

I always was a nervy broad.

Friday Shoe Porn

• "The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw." Jack Handy and shoes, it's almost as perfect as a circle. Or MGD and suicide chicken wings.

• Want male attention without having to spin around a pole? Take these babies for a test drive. The more I look at these, the less tacky they seem but I've been beaten down by the world lately so what the hell do I know.

• Madonna wore these shoes: A variation of the ones on the left in her tiki-hut/Flinstones ensemble, (either that or something that would involve her having an umbrella and bendy straw sticking out of her left ear) and the pair on the right in a heavily photo-shopped Louis Vuitton ad. Amazing what a little Vaseline on a camera lense will do. Anyway, as you see in the ad, she wore a brown version but I think they they look much nicer in red. Nearly everything looks better in red. Except my eyes after an all-nighter. Although I do think it would be cool if periods were magenta instead...

• Shauna Sand saw these and then her eyeballs promptly fell out and rolled under the wheels of a bus. I'm really hoping we won't have to hear about her anymore but she'll probably get new lucite eyeballs. Can't keep a good skank down...

• Yeah, I know. Clogs. Even the word is ugly and half sounds like a person is hoarking when they say it. I include these because they're comfortable as all get out and; I am privy to the information that in the 1970's guys would utilize their clogs in fights by flinging them off their foot to bean a dude: "Keep your fuckin' hands off my April Wine 8-track, ya fuckin' goof!"

Well, They're Not Just "Pets,"

Heartsick.

Nauseous.

Worried.

Guilty.

Angry.

Protective.

Grief...

I am a current co-habitator with a mammal other than my boyfriend. Let me tell you, when people sing about a "song" or a "someone" saving their life tonight, for me it's usually been a furry creature of the four-legged variety.

I wanted to post this entry because I have two very dear friends of mine who have non-human family members either in crisis or missing.

I have been in both places, and they are a terrible, helpless place to be.

I've had people say to me "it's only an animal" to which I could turn around and say "it's only a relative," Jesus. They are one in the same. The animal faces we provide for are no less a member of our family than any other, because they fit the criteria: we love them unconditionally, they love us back, we miss; we miss terribly when we are away from each other. They do too.

There are personal stories I could share, but I'm not writing this entry for me. I'm writing it for Codzilla whose Denver isn't out of the woods yet. I'm writing it for RAN, whose babies have been gone for too long now. Not knowing is the worst.

People have said to me that because I don't have human children, that's it's easy to project those feelings onto something else. I've never projected those feelings to a car, or a piece of furniture...

Go fuck yourselves, you people who talk smack like that.

To those people I say: Love is never "projected," love is honest and because it is, it carries risk; it carries joy and it carries heartbreak; it carries all these wonderful and awful emotions that are part of the "human" experience - but I'll tell you one thing: a wee pair of eyes looking into yours with love, acceptance and confidence in knowing you will never harm it - how is that sentient being any less deserving of the "benefit" of human love? It surpasses human love, it simply is...LOVE. Trust, is a very good way to describe or define love: without Trust there is nothing.

My heart is with my friends and their family members, whether two or four-legged. Why? because there are certain special, wonderful people who know that sometimes what we really need to know about ourselves and the world comes from the voice of the critters. That's why we wait, worry, suffer and give a big part of who we are to them.

Amuse-Bouche

• According to Michael Moore in his recent article "Goodbye GM," General Motors has nobody to blame except themselves: "Twenty years ago when I made "Roger & Me," I tried to warn people about what was ahead for General Motors. Had the power structure and the punditocracy listened, maybe much of this could have been avoided."

• Angelina Jolie is "too old" to play Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider series anymore so the producers are doing what all lazy-money-for-nothing-since-when-is-cinema-art studio wonks do: they're coming up with yet another "origin" storyline. I don't think she's too old, certainly they could write a story around an aging (!) Lara Croft and some 'Tween vampires...the latter seems to be working at the mo.'
  
  What I suspect here is market over-saturation with Jolie and "the powers that be" recognize this. She's also too skinny. They'd have to digitize the bejeezus out of her (like they did for 'Beowulf') and bulking her up will take some work; it's not just implanting a background or throwing some actor in front of a green screen. Now, if they made a movie (I don't even call these pieces of shit "film") called "Fridge Raider" and it revolved around some bulimic sitting crosslegged on the kitchen floor hydraulically spooning in icing and mayonnaise, that would be more do-able...
  
  ...This leads me to ask: When have we ever seen the eating disorders onscreen? I mean as the focus of the film? Am I missing something? We've had the alcoholics ('Barfly',' Leaving Las Vegas' etc.), the junkies ('Drugstore Cowboy,' 'Rush' etc.); Most of the mentally ill roster are there ('One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' 'Taxi Driver' etc.,) why nothing about anorexia or bulimia nervosa? Oh wait, that would involve two-thirds of Hollywood actresses playing themselves and that, people, just isn't "acting." I suppose a film about a bipolar character would be just as pointless...

• A woman boarding a Toronto commuter train yesterday flipped her lid when apparently jostled by another passenger. She said "Don't you fucking cut me off!" - which is where most of us relatively sane people would have left it - and then proceeded to throw her coffee in the man's face, causing second-degree burns.
  
  Of course this woman cracked, she does Customer Service for a living. People have no idea what a difficult job it is to deal with the Great Unwashed and be treated like crap on the daily AND have to, at the very least, be courteous. Customer Service is hard. It chips away at a person's self-esteem and a paper route pays better. In fact, the paperboy gets more respect: you piss that kid off or don't pay him when he comes collecting, he's going to leave your "Anywhere Times" bagless in the rain or in a pile of dog-do. He's got the upper-hand.
  
  Customer Service people have no control over their own work but are expected to shoulder the accountability for practically the whole damned planet if the volume knob falls off somebody's new bookshelf stereo.That means tremendous job stress. People can be atrocious to customer service folks. Especially when one's computer goes tits-up and the helpline connects you to some guy who has to move a cow out the way before answering his phone.

• My sincerest and deepest condolences go to the family and friends of the 228 souls aboard Air France Flight 447. I don't know if it will ever be determined what happened but so far, whatever did was catastrophic enough to take that plane right out of the sky and into the ocean without a Mayday call. If the pilots did have radio contact with other flights in the region, nobody is talking - and apparently regular radio contact is something that occurs over this dangerous flightpath. Searchers will never find the Black Box in the mid-Atlantic, that's absurd: The mid-Alantic ridge is essentially the Rocky Mountain range covered in water with the Grand Canyon at the bottom. Something caused immediate electrical failure and decompression of cabin pressure in that plane. Lightening or storms alone apparently do not do that. I'm not saying anything, I'm just saying nobody's saying. That's what worries me.