Piers Morgan is actually good
When Piers Morgan first took over Larry King's spot on CNN, I was a bit skeptical. I didn't know how relevant he would be, but it gives me great pleasure to say that he's actually vindicated. He talks about real issues and let his interviewee get all over him on the issues (which most viewers would think is ineffective, i.e. 'he got pwned'). It's actually makes for good television moderation, showing that the Anchor is not insecure and thinks himself to big to be berated at. This tactic is quite different from the Chris Matthews style; and this style is quintessentially British (or European) in that issues are actually being spoken about, and the moderator pushes and instigates his subjects to get substantive remarks. The subject can become irate and blurt out their real feelings or choose an eloquent way to bring out their answers and retorts, but either way we get everything, along with all the neuroses the guest brings to the show. It's sort of like the Gerry Springer of semi-intelligent-quasi-serious-debate-or-issues, if you get the point. I think it's an interesting tactic in punditry that makes for worthwhile television.
c
Cracked articles, Redskins Must-Win, and End of Year
I love the random pseudo-facts from the articles of Cracked.com, it's usu. a good way to get through a boring hour or two at work. In Crack, I get to learn things I already knew or suspected but with new, hilarious explication. I get dubious facts(pseudo) I never thought about before, all while laughing—controlled gig's, of course. So the bloggers on the site have compiled their annual end-of-year-best list that's laughing me up bellyaches. Of the 25 articles chosen, my favorite so far (I haven't gone thru the whole list yet) has to be, and this is b/c I was just having a similar conversation, the actors who are the same character (basically) in every movie. But the article is obviously not even dealing with the subjective—something I just love about the humor though scat. at times.
Ok, The 'Skins. My team, and I feel very fortunate to say this, plays in the most difficult division in the NFL or maybe all of American sports for that matter. We hail from a history of dynastic and epic rivalries in the league: the NFC East is the best division in the NFL. With the Giants pretty-much eliminated from playoff play this year, it's up to the Redskins and Cowboys to decide the fate of this division, and I will be watching in a crowded bar, in the City.
So, football, that's how i'm enjoying the end of the year/ welcoming the new year (though I don't really subscribe to the superstition that connotes).
Ok, The 'Skins. My team, and I feel very fortunate to say this, plays in the most difficult division in the NFL or maybe all of American sports for that matter. We hail from a history of dynastic and epic rivalries in the league: the NFC East is the best division in the NFL. With the Giants pretty-much eliminated from playoff play this year, it's up to the Redskins and Cowboys to decide the fate of this division, and I will be watching in a crowded bar, in the City.
So, football, that's how i'm enjoying the end of the year/ welcoming the new year (though I don't really subscribe to the superstition that connotes).
"Ozymandias Melancholia."
As I walked with friends in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (keyword:
sylvan), we were surprised to be told that it was the capital of the whole
gigantic state (gigantic should be spelled with a J {just my opinion}). So
after getting on our android®s to check up on our forgotten grade-school civic-facts, we embarked on a tour of the two-mile radius downtown section…. At
night!....Our tour guide was a stripper—believe it or not—lol. And that's a
long story i don't feel like telling right now. Anyways, the capital of PA has
these grand-but-decaying buildings that just brought Allen's Stardust Memories
to mind. So I will embark on a project for the phrase.
It's a perfectly valid description of a particular phenomenon. It's that sad and depressed feeling you get when you realize that no matter how great and majestic and important something is at the time, in time it's going to pass. Just like the [Shelley] poem — eventually, time kills everything. It's just that rotting statue of Ozymandias, a once-great statue, and now a broken-down piece of marble in the desert. So you get a depressed feeling because it gives you a sense of the futility of life, that all that you're working for, and all the things that seem so meaningful, are nothing."
Racism is broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others
"Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward other"- Ta-Nehisi Coates.
The article was in the Atlantic this past summer, and I felt like posting it way after all the election hubbub was over. It's just great when you see someone make a statement this succinct to sum up something you've felt victim to for a long time, but were not eloquent enough to express it this well. I mean this is a tweet hidden w/n a much larger article, and it's a timeless phrase that only had the misfortune of being part of the election white-noise of shallow quotes.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/09/fear-of-a-black-president/309064/
If you do end up checking out the article on the website, make sure you watch the video too, on the page, of Coates discussing the article with Scott Stossel.
As for Coates, he's a big deal blogger from Baltimore, and was listed in Time mag's list of best blogs.
The article was in the Atlantic this past summer, and I felt like posting it way after all the election hubbub was over. It's just great when you see someone make a statement this succinct to sum up something you've felt victim to for a long time, but were not eloquent enough to express it this well. I mean this is a tweet hidden w/n a much larger article, and it's a timeless phrase that only had the misfortune of being part of the election white-noise of shallow quotes.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/09/fear-of-a-black-president/309064/
If you do end up checking out the article on the website, make sure you watch the video too, on the page, of Coates discussing the article with Scott Stossel.
As for Coates, he's a big deal blogger from Baltimore, and was listed in Time mag's list of best blogs.
Statuesque Blondes....
....you just don't see them anymore...
some early late thoughts on The Wire:
Joe Klein: “The Wire never won an Emmy?”
“The Wire should win the Nobel Prize for literature!”
I was re-watching the last-season of The Wire, after I finally got to finish Homeland (boy that Claire Danes huh). So the 2nd episode you get this quote by one of the news paper guys, and man does it bring to mind many things of a yonder-lost-era.
Haynes: “You ever notice how a ‘mother of four’ is always catching hell? Murder? Hit-and-run? Burnt up in a row house fire? Swindled by bigamists?
Price: “Tough gig, ‘mother of four.’”
Twigg: “Innocent bystander’ is worse. He’s always getting the short end.”
Haynes: “Not a lot of them around anymore. Not a lot of innocents anymore, you ask me.”
Phelps: “You know who there’s less of? ‘Statuesque blondes.’ You don’t read about ‘statuesque blondes’ in the newspaper anymore. Buxom ones, neither. They’re like a lost race.”
some early late thoughts on The Wire:
Joe Klein: “The Wire never won an Emmy?”
“The Wire should win the Nobel Prize for literature!”
I was re-watching the last-season of The Wire, after I finally got to finish Homeland (boy that Claire Danes huh). So the 2nd episode you get this quote by one of the news paper guys, and man does it bring to mind many things of a yonder-lost-era.
Haynes: “You ever notice how a ‘mother of four’ is always catching hell? Murder? Hit-and-run? Burnt up in a row house fire? Swindled by bigamists?
Price: “Tough gig, ‘mother of four.’”
Twigg: “Innocent bystander’ is worse. He’s always getting the short end.”
Haynes: “Not a lot of them around anymore. Not a lot of innocents anymore, you ask me.”
Phelps: “You know who there’s less of? ‘Statuesque blondes.’ You don’t read about ‘statuesque blondes’ in the newspaper anymore. Buxom ones, neither. They’re like a lost race.”
Finite prayers??
Dylan Smith, was a surf-boarder, who in NJ, helped rescue some
people during hurricane Sandy. But, tragically, he recently passed away surfing off the
coast of Florida. I'm on the People Magazine website (yeah I know, but I get it on my andriod) reading the article on his death, then I
get to the comments section and guess what? One commenter said 'my prayers are with
him'; another commenter wrote after that saying 'my prayers are with the peoplein Newton'!....wtf
my prayers are with the pepole in newtown
My
prayers are with the people of Newton...? Where did that come from? I know People Mag doesn't really call to the brightest of readerships, but still, I was flabbergasted. Then it occurred
to me that this person was being REAL and practical.... really he was being
practical. You don't see it yet? ...I'm taking you back to George Carlin's pulpit, so to speak...
Down and Out in Yokohama
On a lazy Sunday, such as this one, and as I lay on this couch watching Apocalypse Now for the nth time (for the quotables; and being made from Conrad's Heart of Darkness), I'm reminded of similar Sundays in a quiet Japan. Recovering from Fridays and Saturdays, we seemed to be out of wretched slumbers on Sunday mornings; awake and staggering from major metropolitan cities headed to our various h
omes in rustic towns.
Whether we came from Tokyo, or Yokohama we were always headed back, via Metro express, to the hill houses at Yokosuka or Atsugi to nurse our hangovers. But notwithout eradicating our collective hunger over a beef
bowl and miso soup. We spent the weekend quenching whatever thirsts we'd ganered all week; and our realization of however wild a weekend it had been, was felt over a silent beef bowl breakfast. 
There were mishaps in the misadventures though, for example, a fellow I knew, couldn't find a single article of clothing as he woke up in a motel one morning. Some were more trajic cases that involved arrests or hearing stories of drunks who'd been beaten by local Japanese gangs (certainly not the Yakuza clan, certainly not!) I'm glad that I don't have wild stories like that to tell, albeit I had some eventful nights.
Besides me there was my best friend Brent Jackson, my boy Diggs the fighter, Dukes (breath), Guy (rude boy), and a couple of cool white boys including Decker. Anyways, we slept in on Sundays not worried about wicked Mondays and rigorous work weeks. In my apartment in particular, I favored the couch in the living room down stairs, I'd be there with Lauren (or
whoeverelse before she came around) watching a sophisticated asian action drama. Everyone else was either on the matress in the living room floor, or the various rooms, going back to sleep, and watching their respective tvs. Brent was always in the guest room with incense lit and loud Japanese music, smoking with his woman. It was a time to remember. The sunlight tried to seep in thru the wicker screen doors that overlooked the valley. We slept still, with o.j., chuhais, and kool cigaretts dispersed about the tables. We were all broke suckers that spent recklessly and enjoyed our weekends as if the last. On Sundays we rested and pretended nothing about it. We were down and out in a foreign land and all we had was the atmosphere: each other, beef bowl, and the futuristic facade of Japanese media. 
DefJukies!!!!
omes in rustic towns.Whether we came from Tokyo, or Yokohama we were always headed back, via Metro express, to the hill houses at Yokosuka or Atsugi to nurse our hangovers. But notwithout eradicating our collective hunger over a beef
bowl and miso soup. We spent the weekend quenching whatever thirsts we'd ganered all week; and our realization of however wild a weekend it had been, was felt over a silent beef bowl breakfast. 
There were mishaps in the misadventures though, for example, a fellow I knew, couldn't find a single article of clothing as he woke up in a motel one morning. Some were more trajic cases that involved arrests or hearing stories of drunks who'd been beaten by local Japanese gangs (certainly not the Yakuza clan, certainly not!) I'm glad that I don't have wild stories like that to tell, albeit I had some eventful nights.
Besides me there was my best friend Brent Jackson, my boy Diggs the fighter, Dukes (breath), Guy (rude boy), and a couple of cool white boys including Decker. Anyways, we slept in on Sundays not worried about wicked Mondays and rigorous work weeks. In my apartment in particular, I favored the couch in the living room down stairs, I'd be there with Lauren (or
whoeverelse before she came around) watching a sophisticated asian action drama. Everyone else was either on the matress in the living room floor, or the various rooms, going back to sleep, and watching their respective tvs. Brent was always in the guest room with incense lit and loud Japanese music, smoking with his woman. It was a time to remember. The sunlight tried to seep in thru the wicker screen doors that overlooked the valley. We slept still, with o.j., chuhais, and kool cigaretts dispersed about the tables. We were all broke suckers that spent recklessly and enjoyed our weekends as if the last. On Sundays we rested and pretended nothing about it. We were down and out in a foreign land and all we had was the atmosphere: each other, beef bowl, and the futuristic facade of Japanese media. DefJukies!!!!
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