Friday, September 30, 2022

End-Of-Month Nostalgia

Steve Appleford / Los Angeles Times:
A profile of rock magazine Creem, which stopped publishing in 1989 but relaunched as a subscription-only quarterly with plans to eventually expand beyond print  —  For J.J. Cramer, the quest to resurrect the notorious rock magazine Creem was a lifetime goal that was always just out of reach.
Used to enjoy CREEM. Ah, literacy.

Death Sound

I Believe, I Believe My Time Ain't Long

Everything's made of shit & we're all dying, but this reporter's really been feeling it lately.
"What would you do if the people you knew were the plastic that melted & the chromium too?"
45 r.p.m. style.

Nervous Yet?

Susan B. Glasser / New Yorker:
What if We're Already Fighting the Third World War with Russia?  —  Putin's latest provocations once again put Washington in an awful bind.  —  Nuclear blackmail, illegal annexation of territory, hundreds of thousands of Russian men rounded up and sent to the front lines in Ukraine …
Let's see now: WWII started when Imperial Japan helped itself to Manchuria in 1931; at the latest, it started when the Japanese Empire invaded China in 1937, 1939 be damned. WWIII may well be underway as I type.
Doesn't look good.
Keith Gessen / New Yorker:
How the War in Ukraine Might End  —  In recent years, a small group of scholars has focussed on war-termination theory.  They see reason to fear the possible outcomes in Ukraine.  —  Hein Goemans grew up in Amsterdam in the nineteen-sixties and seventies, surrounded by stories and memories of the Second World War.

Thursday, September 29, 2022

Oakland School Shooting

This "RESTRICTION SUMMARY" has begun appearing w/ videos on the AP YouTube page, making me apprehenisve about embedding anything. (Note robot transcription.)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY: NO RE-SALE, RE-USE OR ARCHIVE; MUST CREDIT KGO; NO ACCESS SAN FRANCISCO MARKET; NO USE US BROADCAST NETWORKS KGO - NO RE-SALE, RE-USE OR ARCHIVE; MUST CREDIT KGO; NO ACCESS SAN FRANCISCO MARKET; NO USE US BROADCAST NETWORKS Oakland, California – 28 September 2022 1. Police officers approach microphone 2. SOUNDBITE (English) Assistant Chief Darren Allison, Oakland Police Department: Just after 12:45 In the afternoon, are Oakland Communications Division received a report of a shooting at a school in the 8200 block and Fontaine. This is the King Estates school that houses four different schools on campus, ranging from middle school to high school. When officers arrived on scene, they responded there along with Alameda County Sheriff's deputies and California highway patrol officers, who all immediately made entry into the school. They began looking for any suspects, any victims, attending the victims, while at the same time escorting students and staff out of harm's way. In all, six adults, individuals 18 and over who have some affiliation with the school, were determined to be suffering from gunshot wounds. They were all transported to local hospitals." ++WHITE FLASH++ 3. SOUNDBITE (English) Assistant Chief Darren Allison, Oakland Police Department: "At this time our clear the school is completed and we are determined that the school is all clear of any suspect individuals. We are currently in actively looking for at least one shooter although there may be other individuals involved. We have our ceasefire teams as well as our violent crime operations teams actively in this moment following up on leads looking to bring to justice those responsible for this heinous act." KGO - NO RE-SALE, RE-USE OR ARCHIVE; MUST CREDIT KGO; NO ACCESS SAN FRANCISCO MARKET; NO USE US BROADCAST NETWORKS Alameda, California – 28 September 2022 4. Hospital officials approach microphone 5. SOUNDBITE (English) James Jackson, CEO, Alameda Health: "Two of the gunshot victims are critical, but stable. And the third is in stable condition. This is an extraordinarily difficult time for us. But I want to take a moment and just thank the caregivers, the trauma team here at the Alameda Health System have done an extraordinary job and they continue to that's what they do. But this is a problem. In 2021 and 2022, we've seen almost a doubling of the violent crimes victims that we're seeing here at our facility. So something has changed. 6. Jackson listening to question STORYLINE: Authorities say six adults were shot and wounded at a school campus in east Oakland, California. The shooting took place at around 12:45 p.m. Wednesday at Rudsdale Newcomer High School. The school's website says it serves new immigrants ages 16-21 who fled violence and instability in their home countries. It is one of several adjacent schools located on the same block. Oakland Assistant Police Chief Darren Allison said the victims "were affiliated with the school," but declined to say whether any were students or teachers. Officials have not said whether any of the victims might be students age 18 or older. Allison said police were seeking at least one suspect but did not have anyone in custody. =========================================================== Clients are reminded: (i) to check the terms of their licence agreements for use of content outside news programming and that further advice and assistance can be obtained from the AP Archive on: Tel +44 (0) 20 7482 7482 Email: info@aparchive.com

Right Of The Poor To Sleep Under Bridges Reaffirmed By Ninth Circuit

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

― Anatole France

In case out of Grants Pass, Ore., court reaffirms right of homeless to sleep outside

America. Ain't she grand?

She's Available, Boys!

And The World Goes Wild!

(Guessing "soy boys" needn't apply.)
AJ McDougall / The Daily Beast:
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's Husband of 27 Years Files for Divorce  —  ‘IRRETRIEVABLY BROKEN’  —  Perry Greene, the husband of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), filed for divorce on Tuesday, according to court documents obtained by The Daily Beast.  The petition stated …
TMZ.com:
Marjorie Taylor Greene's Husband Files For Divorce  —  6:21 PM PT — MTG's estranged husband, Perry Greene, tells TMZ ... “Marjorie has been my best friend for the last 29 years and she has been an amazing mom!  Our family is our most important thing we have done.”  —  UPDATE
Marjorie Taylor Greene's husband files for divorce  —  Correction: Perry Greene filed for divorce in the Floyd County Superior Court.  —  Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-Ga.) husband filed for divorce Wednesday on the grounds that the marriage is “irretrievably broken,” according to court documents.
One wonders which straw broke the camel's back.

Weather Report

Water falls from the sky,the wind blows ...
People are amazed, as if such things have never happened before. Has anyone even died yet?

Wednesday, September 28, 2022

The Reeves Of The Shires

Ann McAdams / WECT-TV:
Sheriff: “I'm sick of these black bastards.... Every black that I know, you need to fire him...”  —  SBI investigating allegations of Obstruction of Justice at the Columbus County Sheriff's Office  —  COLUMBUS COUNTY, N.C. (WECT) - On one end of the phone was Columbus County Sheriff Jody Greene.

Seriously, Stop The Sheriffs Before It's Too Late

Transcript here for the literate. It's barely fascism, just barbarianism.
Guandolo echoes talking points put forth by extremists like Richard Mack, the founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, which teaches that “the power of the sheriff even supersedes the powers of the president” and urges local law enforcement to resist federal authority. This false idea that the sheriff holds supreme authority has increased in popularity among right-wing activists who would like to see sheriffs conduct more audits of the 2020 presidential election and be more involved in future elections.
The frontier has been closed since 1890 & the structure of local gov't. has evolved. We don't elect chiefs of police, & there's nothing in the freaking Constitution about sheriffs; they should be appointed like all the other oinkers.

L.A. County residents: Be damn sure to vote that bastard Villanueva out before he sends deputy gangs after you.

Everybody Talks About The Weather ...

... but there's not a damn thing you can do about it, to paraphrase American literary great Samuel L. Clemens.
So why don't you fucking cretins on the telly find something the hell else to talk about? Stop pretending that anyone who doesn't live in Florida gives one damn about those idiots.

All the moronic fuckwads who need to be told, again & again & again, how to survive a hurricane deserve to be washed out to sea to drown or be eaten by a shark. Death to stupid & ignorant people!

Dead Branch

I cannot fucking believe it is only fucking Weds., & barely fucking Weds. at that.

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Note To National Media

Hurricane Ian is not a nat'l. story. No one west of I-95 gives a flying fuck at a rolling dough-nut about idiots who've packed themselves in like rats on a tiny coastal strip. Suck it up & learn to swim, snowflakes.

Blackhawk

UH-60 Blackhawk, eastbound over Hollywood, 1625 hrs., 20 SEP 2022.
Not this Blackhawk.
Cropped & adjusted.

Monday, September 26, 2022

Priorities, People!

Let's see if Twitter's stupid robot can figure out this reporter is calling for the death of all eight billion of you chunks of undifferentiated tissue.

Monday Militaria: Regulus Films

This reporter is fascinated by atomic weapons that, rather than an entire strategic missile base, only require a few murderous thugs to launch. One could easily slap a Regulus in or on a semi trailer. Cover w/ tarp, you're good to go.

Sunday, September 25, 2022

Farrell "Pharoah" Sanders:
13 October 1940 – 23 September 2022

Easy listening from the master:
Sanders belonged to a cohort of musicians who, in the middle 20th Century, threw open the doors of jazz to allow for fierce dissonances, extended instrumental techniques, and a new style of improvisation oriented toward freeform collective expression rather than individual solos. Born in 1940 in Little Rock, Arkansas, he was at least a decade younger than the players who ushered in free jazz’s first wave, a generation that included John Coltrane, his greatest collaborator and mentor.

Whereas this first generation arrived at free jazz through complex elaborations of tonal harmony, the system of relationships between notes and chords that had undergirded bebop and earlier forms of jazz and classical music, Sanders and peers like Albert Ayler sometimes seemed to leave the precepts of harmony and melody behind entirely. At its most impassioned, their playing arrived in outbursts of pure sound—shrieks, sighs, thundercracks—that traditionalist critics and contemporaries of the era dismissed as unmusical. “I listen to things that maybe some guys don’t,” Sanders said in the New Yorker interview. “I listen to the waves of the water. Train coming down. Or I listen to an airplane taking off.” After Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and Cecil Taylor broke down the wall, Sanders and the second vanguard were free to explore the territory on the other side.

Newer version of the classic:
Version O.G., full length:
Wailing w/ the widow Coltrane:
And because it's the season:
[Pitchfork. YouTube.]

We Destroy The Family!

You can't handle the truth:

Red love, for all

Family is a terrible way to satisfy our desire for love and care, according to the writer and academic Sophie Lewis. The solution? Abolish it.

[Behind The New Statesman's paywall. Destroy them too!]

Saturday, September 24, 2022

World Gorilla Day

Stop turning their habitats into shitholes & killing the poor bastards, humanoid scum. The gorillas are your fucking cousins!!

Friday, September 23, 2022

Friday Freak Out: False Rulers

Very contemporary theme: Rulers are false & deserve (at a minimum) a beating, so beat them all, including your bosses & the damn police, "Morality" or any other variety.
And an excellent riddim.

I Know The Feeling

Not to mention living among 20,000,000,000,000,000 (Don't believe I've ever typed that before.) or so ants.

Thursday, September 22, 2022

Guess Which Party's "Political Elites"

Social media sharing of low-quality news sources by political elites

Abstract

Increased sharing of untrustworthy information on social media platforms is one of the main challenges of our modern information society. Because information disseminated by political elites is known to shape citizen and media discourse, it is particularly important to examine the quality of information shared by politicians. Here we show that from 2016 onward, members of the Republican party in the U.S. Congress have been increasingly sharing links to untrustworthy sources. The proportion of untrustworthy information posted by Republicans versus Democrats is diverging at an accelerating rate, and this divergence has worsened since president Biden was elected. This divergence between parties seems to be unique to the U.S. as it cannot be observed in other western democracies such as Germany and the United Kingdom, where left-right disparities are smaller and have remained largely constant.

Why don't some Euro politicos link to lies? American exceptionalism, natch: White Nationalist American Jesus has no problem w/ his people bearing false witness.

[PNAS/Nexus]

Fall Down & Die

It's over: Last song on the last Bleach Bots album.

Tuesday, September 20, 2022

"American Way/Try To Explain
Scab Of A Nation/Driven Insane"

There are eight million stories in the naked city, & every one of them is anxious.
Emily Baumgaertner / New York Times:
Health Panel Recommends Anxiety Screening for All Adults Under 65  —  The guidance comes as Americans are coping with illness, isolation and loss from the pandemic, as well as other stressors like inflation and rising crime.  —  A panel of medical experts on Tuesday recommended …
Those 65 & over can just eat shit & die? (Yes. Why do you ask?)

I do wish the jerks who come up w/ these studies would stop acting as if people are to blame for being anxious.
There are reasons.
Title quotation:
P.S.: "Rising crime"? I haven't even started.

Everything's Made of Shit & You're All Going To Die, Part Why Bother?

And these ancient fucking clowns will talk big but do nothing.You're all rats in an over-crowded cage. If world "leaders" failed to impose mandatory sterilization on their shithole countries the minute they entered office they are part of the problem, not the solution.

Post-Natal Trash

For my natal anniversary yesterday I wasn't expecting gifts, just hoping that I'd get my ass kissed. However, while the tributes were few & far between (i.e., non-existent) the universe, or someone leaving their ap't., placed this larger, cleaner bookcase (on the left below) in my way on my daily constitutional.
Now all the literature fits, including items too large for the previous model.

Thanks, universe; the rest of you can return to the hells whence you came!

Title:

Monday, September 19, 2022

Well?

On This Date: A President Died, A Queen Is Buried, And Many More Miseries Afflict The World

Her Late Bleedin' Majesty's flunkies decided to pre-empt my birthday w/ her stupid funeral. Yet another indignity added to the list.
Next yr. this reporter will reach the Biblicaly-alloted threescore & ten yrs. of suffering & endless ennui in this horrid moronic world of shit & pain. He figures it's borrowed time after that; no laws will stop him then. (It's important to set goals for the new yr.)

Another atrocity on this date:

Shakin' All Over!

How to live when the power goes.

Sunday, September 18, 2022

Shoot The Sheriff (W/ Ballots)

The Reeve of Our Shire actually did to an L. A. County Supervisor what Donald "Lumpy" Trump claims was done to him, search warrant-wise.

Raid of County Supervisor’s Home Is Abhorrent, On-Brand for Sheriff Alex Villanueva

Cityside Column: The mercurial sheriff, facing an Election Day reckoning, pulls his latest stunt at the Santa Monica home of County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl
Yes, "Zelda" of Dobie Gillis is one of our county supervisors, & would have been a better President than Trump. No idea if L.B. Chief Luna is much better than Villanueva, but few could be worse. Vote accordingly.

Saturday, September 17, 2022

Future Release Report

Of an old event at a local venue.

Saturday Stax o' Wax Featuring Booker T. & The M.G.'s!

It's going fast!

Fast Flying Mammal Found

Oh, wait: Typos can be dangerous.
A bat found at a parking lot in Fountain Valley tested positive for rabies, according to Orange County health officials.

The animal was found at around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at Pickleball Court No. 1 at the Fountain Valley Tennis Center on 16400 Brookhurst St.

Given the location and circumstance, the OC Health Care Agency urged residents to be on alert and avoid contact with any bats.

“Contact with bats should be avoided and any potential bat bite should be discussed with a medical provider,” the agency said.

Pickleball. Figures.

E/I: Saturday Scientific Show

EONS

Happened across this PBS streaming or something program that deals w/ the distant past "Mysteries of Deep Time". Not having the attention span of a gnat, approx. 15 mins. is just about right. Make some if it local & I'm there.

Friday, September 16, 2022

Consumer Alert: Buy Crap Now!

Don't crucify Santa on a cross of gold; ensure corporate profits by buying now. Nothing will be less expensive.

Friday Freak Out: The Real J.Z.

Turns out John Zorn (2 September 1953 -) is 17 days older than this reporter, & we missed it, so we'll dig out a few items from YouTube for a belated celebration.

Ah, eff digging. Have some greatest "hits".
Maybe I'll look for more before this item posts, & maybe I'll sprout great leathery bat-wings & fly to the moon.

CinemaScope!

Friday Finger

Ask & you shall receive. Good & hard.

Thursday, September 15, 2022

On A Slightly More Positive Note

A nicely polluted sunset.

The heat wave is over; currently a mere 81°F (27.222°C) in the bunker, down from a fluctuating high of 92°F/93°F (33.333°C/33.889°C). May put on a shirt later.

Good & bad: The rat bastards at Amazon are showing tonight's No Fun League game on local telebision. Keeps me from bitching about it being unavailable to the unwashed masses.

Fuck everything to hell anyway.

Indict Trump & Let The Country Burn!!

There's Little To Nothing Worth Saving

Wednesday, September 14, 2022

Funny, Sure, But Next Time Someone May Have The Air Let Out Of Them

Chris Hoffman / CBS News:
Police: Armed man wearing clown wig said he wanted to ‘kill all Democrats’  —  DELMONT, Pa. (KDKA) - A Westmoreland County man is facing several charges after police said he wanted to “kill all Democrats.”  —  Jan Stawovy, 61, took a loaded gun into a Delmont Dairy Queen and police said the quick action of an officer saved lives.
Did not know the DQ® was a hotbed of Democrats.

Culture War Intensifies To Actual (But "Minor") Injury

Sep 14, 2022 A package exploded on the campus of Northeastern University in Boston late Tuesday, and the college said a staff member suffered minor injuries. Authorities said another suspicious package was found near a prominent art museum.
Political? Personal? The personal is political?

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

Monday, September 12, 2022

Sunday, September 11, 2022

Get Over It You Two-Faced Pansies! It's Old Enough To Drink!

Don't be an imperial hegemon & then bitch, whine & moan when the righteous & well-deserved blowback occurs. Not that any of America's fucking sheep had the slightest idea of what was going on, or any control over it. Where's your democracy now, you pathetic fucking sheep?
The Twin Twinkies.
Pieces of shit. If any of them were calling for George Bush to be executed for dereliction of duty that'd be one thing, but NO!

Sunday Morning Coming Down

Today's wasted effort. Total readership/viewership/clicks so far: 584.

Here, presented at the highest possible resolution (because Web of Evil [& Ennui] gives a shit about the creative artist who volunteers his or her service) are some of the images we've presented this wk.
Wknd. warriors: Saturday's edition rec'd. the most comments.

Summertime Sunday

A reminder that summer's almost gone (in the Northern Hemisphere).

Friday, September 9, 2022

Tuesday, September 6, 2022

Today In Nausea

A tab is cleared, & some stuff on the hard drive is used.

Velveeta® is staging a comeback

New York (CNN BusinessIn 2020, something incredible happened in the dairy aisle: Velveeta® started flying off the shelves.

Sales of the processed cheese product, which food snobs love to hate, have been in decline for years. Then the pandemic hit, and suddenly stressed-out, homebound people wanted Velveeta® for their queso, fudge and extra-cheesy mac and cheese. The sudden interest in the brand presented a rare chance to reintroduce itself to new customers, and to those who hadn't bought Velveeta® in years.

"We recognized that as a great business opportunity," said Kelsey Rice, senior brand communications manager for Velveeta®.

Velveeta® wanted to make a big swing, not just to boost sales but to establish itself as part of the culture. "We think Velveeta® is an iconic brand, and it should be seen and viewed as such," she said.

To change its image, Velveeta® has had to change the way it talks about itself.

That means fewer commercials about affordable, meltable cheese, and more marketing stunts like cheese-scented nail polish and pricey Velveeta® martinis.

Cute enough name to hang in the galley, but we cannot recommend it as a Velveeta® substitute.