While our nation seems to succumb to just about every global influence and convention that comes down the pike, we have somehow managed to remain steadfast in our general disinterest in the sport of soccer.  Every year, be it an Olympic year or a men’s or women’s World Cup year, I hear that this will be the year that soccer with take root in America, and we will be swept up in its pageantry.  And every year I laugh.  I laugh the laugh of someone who 30-some years ago was told that I needed to learn the metric system, because everything would be converted by the end of the year.  And with the exception of 2-liter bottles of soda, and the drug dealers, America stood her ground.  Sure, Canada bit on the metric system, but even they never really went all in with soccer.

But I am not here to tear soccer down, but rather to build it up.  While the sport of soccer has enjoyed its run as pastime of 2nd and 3rd world countries, I offer some humble tips to make it more appealing to an American audience.

EDITOR’S NOTE: When I say American audience, I am not referring to those among us who secretly rooted for Japan in the Women’s World Cup Finals because that country has been through so much strife lately and a win for them would be nice; nor am I talking about the guy who wrote, “bicycles should just be everywhere, and when we need to go somewhere, we should just take one then leave it for the next person,” on the Starbucks suggestion wall.

• Turn The Clock Around – Americans cannot and will not get excited about a game where the time is counted upwards.  We are a people of deadlines, and we hate math.  We certainly don’t want to do any ciphering to figure out how much time is left in a game.
• End The Game On Time – When the game is over, it’s over.  Please stop tacking on random amounts of time at the end of a game.  First and foremost it makes the game very difficult to bet on with any confidence.
• Make The Field Smaller – I’m not talking Arena Football smaller, but let’s face it, there just aren’t enough lines on the field, and it is very boring for us to watch the camera sweep across giant expanses of uninterrupted green.
• Let The Players Use Their Hands – I assume most professional soccer players have hands.  Let them use them.  It is very un-American to put yourself at a willing disadvantage.  Use what you got, baby.
• No Chants or “Waves”- We Americans have always been a society of rugged individualists (with a few hundred million followers thrown in for good measure), and we don’t do things in unison.  Except for that weird chant they do in Denver when Troy Tulowitzki comes to the plate.  And “The Wave” caught on for a while here, but look where it started – Seattle, the same place that gave us Starbucks.

With the Women’s World Cup wrapping up, and much being made of it ending on a shootout or penalty kick situation, I offer one last suggestion.  Either settle tie games with a sudden death overtime, or just make the whole game a shootout, and do away with all of the unnecessary 90 minutes of running.  Hell we all know that both teams will most likely be tied at the end of regulation anyway.

FYI, I’m not too thrilled with the changes to the NFL overtime either.

I’ve attached a couple videos below that sort of illustrate my points and demonstrate what soccer would be like if it were just more “American.”

Just about every morning I stop at a local convenience store (I suppose the fact that it is local adds to its inherent convenience, but I digress), and all too often my purchases have totaled $1.99, or $2.49 or whatever, and I generally hand the cashier $2.00 or $2.50 respectively.  You get the idea.  And these transactions have been causing me more and more anxiety as well as a feeling of what can only be described as general uneasiness.

Sometimes I wait for my change – one shiny penny.  Other times I don’t.  On the occasions I wait for my cent, I feel the cashier’s disdain surround me and hear its inaudible scream:  “IT’S JUST A PENNY, DUDE!  MOVE ALONG!” and he seems to take his sweet time digging a dull and dingy penny out of his drawer, then hands it to me so awkwardly that I fumble the exchange, letting the penny fall into a box of Tic-Tacs.

Now I’m holding up the whole line.

On those occasions when I don’t wait for the change, or more precisely “wave off” the change, I feel the cashier’s eyes scrutinizing me, looking me up and down, checking out my clothes, as if to say, “Oh, Mister Big Baller doesn’t need a penny.  He’s got more money than he knows what to do with.  If he’s so independently wealthy, why don’t he ever donate a dollar for Children’s Cancer Research when I ask him every morning.”

It truly is a no-win situation.  I’ve actually grown so tired of being judged thusly that I’ve started carrying 99 cents in my pocket everywhere I go.  Why must I suffer like this?!

There are many ways to “do” Twitter.  Especially if you are someone who’s already made something of a name for himself outside of the aforementioned ADD addled social network.  Some people (genuinely funny and successful comics, for example) go the plug route, just telling you where they’ll be, and how you can buy tickets to see them, or where to purchase their merchandise.  Others do their thing, they put their stuff out there, and give us more of a glimpse of who they are.

Eli Braden is the latter.

His hilarious musical stylings have been featured numerous times on The Howard Stern Show, and have garnered him a regular spot on Web Soup on the G4 network.  And I think we all know how I feel about things with Soup in the title.  But hey, enough of my yappin’  (I gotta believe my horrible introductions are the main reason I’m not a successful opening act). Ladies and gentlemen, Eli Braden…

And since Eli doesn’t fill his Twitter timeline with a bunch of self-promoting tweets, I will plug his stuff here:

• Check out all of Eli’s videos on his YouTube Channel
• Listen to Eli’s song parodies from The Howard Stern Show
• Download the entire Eli Braden song catalog in the iTunes Store
• Follow him on Twitter

Anyone who knows me, or has read more than two posts on this site knows I am not a religious zealot (with the exception of my brief stint with the Westboro Baptist Church).

But I am a word zealot.

And perhaps, that’s where my problem with gay “marriage” lies.  I have no problem with two guys or two women spending their lives together and enjoying all the same legal benefits that heterosexual couples have.  I couldn’t actually care less.  I would even imagine that the “divorce” rate among these couples would be less than for traditional couples.  What I do have a problem with is using the word “marriage.”

With a more than 50% failure rate, there is no more inherent sanctity to an opposite-sex marriage than a same-sex one, so I can throw that argument out the window.  But marriage is a word, complete with a definition.  First and foremost, marriage is a sacrament — a religious ceremony.  Therefore, if you were not joined in a church or by a religious official, by definition you cannot have a marriage.  The legal version of a marriage, presided over by a judge, etc. is a civil union.  So whether you are a same-sex couple or a man and a woman, if you were wed outside of a church, you have a civil union.  Neither is better than the other; one is simply a religious ceremony, the other a state ceremony.  Remember how we’re supposed to be keeping those two things separate anyway?

So for me it is a question of semantics, but also of religious conventions being hijacked by a more secular world and then altered or downright bastardized.  It has been happening with holidays, mostly ones with some type of religious undertone, and mostly Christian ones.  I guess that’s because unlike some peaceful religions, we don’t behead people when we are dissed.

God forbid you wish someone a Merry Christmas anymore, and I guess St. Patrick’s Day is just too religious sounding for people who want to get drunk and vomit all over themselves, that Hallmark shops have taken to calling it Shamrock Day.  If the names or the history behind these holidays is too religious for you, don’t fucking celebrate them!  Believe it or not, there are enough people celebrating Christmas and pretending they’re Irish.  If you want a secular winter holiday, start one; and if you want a secular version of marriage, it already exists.  It’s called a civil union, opposite-sex couples have been taking advantage of it for millenia.

Representative Anthony Weiner is the latest in a long line of public figures to trip his perv switch.  It would be very easy to moralize and exile him to the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, but I’d rather try to come to an understanding of what happened, if for no other reason to keep talking about this idiotic topic.

Okay first of all, whether we want to admit it or not, we were each born with an internal perv switch (guys, anyway).  It is like a circuit breaker that can trip the moment that a sexual stimulus becomes just too intense to ignore or repress.  And a response (usually a stupid one initiated by a brain deprived of blood flow) ensues.  The sad and often tragic side of this is that although there is an obvious build-up to this tripping point, one never knows when it will happen; and is hard-pressed to stop it once the ball is rolling (or the camera for that matter).

Der Sperminator

There‘s no exercise one can do to strengthen his switch.  In fact any type of attention will probably just weaken it.  And although it is a surprise when the switch is finally and irrevocably tripped, I am about to take you on a journey into the male mind down the path to that shameful end.

First and foremost, you have to understand it is all about arousal.  Getting aroused can be a tricky and fickle thing even if you are not a member of the Viagra or Cialis clubs.  I compare getting aroused to getting high or drunk in two very important ways.  First, depending on your personality it can be addicting.  Secondly, and probably a more important distinction, you will build a tolerance to certain things.  What I mean by this is that what excited you as a teenage boy probably won’t be enough to do the trick anymore.  So to get that high – that arousal – you need to raise the stakes.  And that’s where the perv switch first starts to feel the strain.

Flashing his Frank & Favre Beans

Here’s what happens when we follow this logic:  As a boy of 12 or 13 you see a girl exposing quite a bit of cleavage.  You become aroused; it’s exciting and it feels good.  As you age and no doubt see more and more cleavage, it just doesn’t have the same effect on you.  Now you need to see a nipple, which you find either in the pile of musty magazines that were in the woods we all seem to have grown up near, or nowadays – online.  Soon, that’s not enough either.

As social beings we need to engage another human being.  But feelings of shame associated with matters of sexuality creep in, so you settle for staring at a woman’s curves, maybe letting your stare linger long enough for her to catch you.  Now it takes getting caught to get you aroused, and your dad’s Playboys are rendered useless.  But soon that’s not enough anymore either, and you need to up your game.  Looking isn’t cutting it anymore, and now you need to feel one.  With or without permission. The path of least resistance when it comes to this is the ET (or Elbow Titty), which is an “accidental” grazing of a woman’s chest in such a way that you can apologize for your clumsiness; walk away with your “dignity” and erection fodder for later.

Pat Faggard

EDITOR’S NOTE: I realize I have gotten kind of off the track that most normal men seem to follow, and I am sure that growing up, at least three of you jumped off this train back at the magazines in the woods, and got a girlfriend and your perv switches are still very much intact.  I am using somewhat extreme examples to illustrate how the more socially awkward guys, guys like a Representative Weiner, or countless priests and dentists, get to the point they do.

Okay back to the story.  Let’s face it, the Elbow Titty can be exciting to a kid, but it just doesn’t have any real “gravitas.”  Your actions have to be more intentional from this point on.   I was at a friend’s 40^th birthday party recently, everyone was dancing, and a woman at the party (who was rather busty) was approached by a drunken guy at the bar.  His perv switch had definitely seen better days, and he said, “I like your boobs,” to which she replied, “My boobs?”  I’m not sure if he was expecting a response from her or if his admission alone was enough for him, but he responded, “No, your boots,” acting as though she must have misheard.  She hadn’t misheard, nor did her huge husband when she told him about it.

Client #9? More like Client #2 1/2

Which brings me to my next point.

The perv switch can and will get you in trouble when it trips.  Obviously in the case of Anthony Weiner, his career may be ruined along with his marriage, but in the case of the drunk guy at the bar, you could be in danger of getting your ass kicked.  But neither of these scenarios occur to you at the time because you are chasing that high, and presumably much of your blood has evacuated your brain and has been rerouted to more southerly climes.  See I don’t think it was Weiner’s ego that caught up to him; I don’t think he thought he would never get caught.  I actually think he was powerless to stop it once it started, and while in the throes of it, he had a singular focus.  He was the proverbial hunter.

Tap Tap Revenge

With the advent of the internet and its perceived anonymity, perv switches are no doubt being tripped at an alarming rate.  Cell phones with cameras are willing accomplices in the hands of sexting men and women alike.  It’s sort of ironic people use scientific and technological advances to satisfy our more primal and animalistic urges.

So @RepWeiner, you are not alone, but due to most people’s shame and feigned indignation, you will be made to feel that way for at least a little while.  Until a hurricane knocks your story out of the news cycle for good.  Or until the next jackass does something even more stupid.

As a boy, I had the type of ears that stuck out.  I don’t know how else to say it.  They just stuck out.

From kindergarten on people warned me to stay inside on windy days so as not to blow away.  One clever fellow remarked that from the back, my head looked like a taxicab with the doors open, and I recall (and by recall, I mean that I will never be able to suppress) an incident involving my own parents on the Dumbo ride in Disney World.  But hey, at least I got to go to Disney.  Am I right?

My mother would try to convince me that my ears were a gift.  That I could hear far away things.  Like a super power.  Big (fucking) deal, Mom – what kind of bo-bo super power is that?

But my eyes, my vision… that would make a much more suitable power.  I could see things, things off in the distance.  I could make people trip by staring at them hard enough.  This had an effective rate of about 1 in 100 times, so it seemed pretty effective to me.  I could make traffic lights change within about 2 to 3 minutes of staring at them correctly.  I was a regular cape-wearing, mother-fucking, bad-ass super hero.  Until someone would sneak up behind me and flick one of my ears.

Then it would all crumble.

Now, 25 years after my ears have been surgically “corrected,” and I can still hear far off noises (unless said noises resemble my wife’s voice, which for some reason confuses my auditory canal), I have purchased my first pair of glasses.  Real glasses, not the cheap magnifiers that I have been wearing for the past two years because I was in denial about my diminishing power to “see.”

And guess what – my first glasses are bifocals.  Fucking bifocals.  I’m pretty sure that even Clark Kent’s glasses were single vision lenses, and not the progressives that I’m wearing which is pretty much just a euphemism for BIFOCALS!

Now at the ripe old age of 42.5, I am forced to come to terms with the fact that my eyesight probably wasn’t my super power after all.  And while I don’t believe it is my ears either (sorry, Mom), I do believe they may have helped me discover what it is.  Being called Dumbo, while other kids pointed and laughed (looking back I think a lot of them laughed because they were simply happy not to be the one that was being teased), I learned to laugh at myself.  Especially if it sounded like the kid took some time to come up with something at least slightly clever.  I learned to heckle the kids with such hacky insults as, “Hey big ears!”

That’s all you got?

And I would rattle off a list of far more imaginative things they could have said.  To this day my ability to laugh at myself remains, and it has joined forces with my ability to laugh at other people.  We need that kind of duality as human beings.  So I credit my ears, not my surgically corrected ones, but the other ones – the ones that could pick up radio signals – for helping me discover my sense of humor, and giving it a voice, and an attitude.  Because that is my real super power.

Comedian, Jay Larson taps into some of those childhood fears that have somehow stuck with us in his Comedy Central Presents special which premiered earlier this month and can be found OnDemand this month on Verizon Fios anyway.  Hailing from Stoneham, Mass, Jay mixes his wildly imaginitive streak with some keen observations to provide material with definite mass appeal and some outside-of-Mass. appeal as well.  I laughed hysterically during his half-hour special, and look forward to seeing the next one.  To me it was more than a stand-up act – it was a performance.  Below are some of my favorite moments.  Enjoy.

Then go visit Jay’s home on the web: WhoIsJayLarson.com, and
Follow him on Twitter

On a side note, can you imagine how rich her deaf, indulgent parents must be?  I also feel I should mention at the time I posted this video it had over 16 million views on YouTube.

We moved in across the street from Brian and his family in 2002.  Our Gilbert, Arizona neighborhood was still very new, but was quickly filling up with young families.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with that area of Arizona, just southeast of Phoenix, young families is synonymous with Mormons.  LDS Mormons, not the Juniper Creek kind.  Our children introduced Brian and I, and our connection was only strengthened when the neighborhood’s Mormon missionaries not only stopped trying to convert Brian and I, but seemed to actively shun us. 

I moved away in 2005, coming “home” to Philadelphia.  Brian soon followed suit, taking his family to one of the Carolinas. I think it was the North one; whichever one isn’t communist.  But then Brian moved back to Arizona, and if even for that reason alone, I will always consider Brian to be much more intelligent than your humble narrator.

Brian is an artist.  Whether painting a picture with software, a brush, or his words, his extraordinary talent is immediately evident.  He draws cars for a living, and he’s very good at it.  I encourage you to check out his site, Problem Child Kustoms.  I guarantee you will be thoroughly entertained.  He’s like Jesse James if Jesse could put two sentences together, or had eschewed an affair with a heavily tatted Nazi.  And while Jesse’s ex-wife starred in a movie called 28 Days, Brian created a painting with the same title.  Its subject matter had nothing to do with rehab, and smelled vaguely like a handful of old pennies.  I imagine now that his children are older it is proudly displayed in a box in a public storage unit.

Anyway, this is supposed to be a guest post, one that I’m very excited about btw, so here’s Brian.  

*     *     *

It’s like a rockstar life, with a horrifyingly “Where are They Now?” kind of twist. But without the troublesome fortune. Or fame.

Yes, it’s the real-life, no-holds-barred look at the life and times of a full-time, self-employed, hyphen-addicted hot rod designer. I think I’m gonna flesh this out as a book, or maybe a Lifetime movie!

Yep, that’s it: A Lifetime Movie of the Week. I’ll switch-up a few choice details, and Judith Light can play my estranged wife, whom I throw conte’ crayons at. I’ll naturally be played by either George Clooney or Edward James Olmos, and it’ll be three parts documentary, a third of two percent dramedy, and a stout .0078 percent feel-good family blockbuster of the Thanksgiving weekend, (with the remainder being porn) and be compared to a stop-motion Lego brick animated remake of Weekend at Bernie’s, but with one quarter of the budget.

In other words, it’ll be like those Progresso Soup commercials where people phone the chef using a can meets the Progressive Insurance chick meets every ABC After School Special, but way less structured. Or progressive.

That said, and having very little clue as to when I’ll find time to pen that cinematic experience, I just thought I’d answer a question that I’d received from a younger artist seeking to follow in the footsteps of we who have made the incredibly dubious career choice of drawing cars for a living. Here goes:

“As a hot rod designer, I’d imagine that your car is pretty tricked out. What mods does it have?”

My daily ride is an awesome collection of semi-broken and aftermarket-reman parts. It’s a cobbled-together mess of wiring repairs gone bad, haphazardly taped and wire-tied hose hold-downs and often stripped-out thread-having, elongated bolt hole-equipped, tacked-together brackets that sort of defy gravity by elevating noisy components mere inches from once, quite possibly important moving parts. And it knocks a little when cold. And running. Or stalling.

Yeah, it’s a life of ballin’ and stylin’, and occasionally late night cryin’. So you wanna draw cars as a sole means of income, eh? Consider dentistry instead. While the rich and famous read some liberal tome or Nietzsche or pilates manual on the beach, your life lessons will be best served from volumes like this:

(note that “Madness” sits right next door on the shelf… always a step away)

Seriously, though, it’s the life I chose, and I go at it each day as though my life (and my kids’ lives) depend on it… because, well, duh… they do. And in between drawing cars, t-shirts and more, I repair the little things that break. It keeps you on your toes, and makes you appreciate what you can learn and do, and even more important: The skills of friends who come down to turn a wrench when the machine goes down. On that thought, consider this:

I snapped this the other night as I was about to back out of my parking spot at the grocery store (literally bringing home the bacon, no less), and wanted to share it, because, well, it made me proud of the old gal.

With 200k on the clock (presently… the photo was snapped a while back), and a miniscule investment about eight years ago, we’ve managed to not only keep it running through some rough spots, but crank out gas mileage that puts a brand-new econo box to shame. Hell, I couldn’t lease a new ride for six months for what we have into it… Thankfully, too.

It has character. It has space. It makes noise when running, so I can tell the difference between stalling and ready-to-move modes. It was built in one plant, and has state-of-the-art solar heating capabilities. The volume knob on the radio broke months ago. It has a sticker that says “7 Out Of 10 Women are Battered, But I’m Still Eating Mine Plain”. It was never marketed as the answer to global environmental issues. Not one movie star owns one. It passes smog with flying colors every time. It’s effing brilliant, irreverent, and like a member of the family. It has soul.

Come to think of it, your Prius can suck it.

We won’t even get into the mileage on my shoes or underwear.

The point? It’s a job that lacks a lot of glory, takes a ton of sacrifice, and certainly won’t get you laid. But, as some great friends have shown over the years, it’s the little victories that make it all worthwhile, and are truly worth celebrating. Sure, I can’t afford a new car, or some $300 shades, but you know what? I smile from ear to ear as I cruise that magic machine every time I need it, because it’s my sweat and loose bits of skin all over those messed-up brackets under the hood that show I’ve been there. And that, more than anything is a way to go at your day: Tackle everything with pride, a willingness to make something work, and appreciate those challenges as some douchebag in a brand new hybrid cuts you off while texting to move funds he doesn’t have to cover his car payment again. After all, for what a less disciplined soul will spend on lunch this week, you changed your oil and replaced that broken door handle.

If you can see yourself putting on those shoes each day, the perks are amazing. From haute cuisine to luxury boxes, you’ll trade ‘em for rotisserie chicken and swinging from the rafters in the $5 seats:

…and I ENJOY the shit out of ‘em both. You know why? I get to see my kids smile, and at the end of the day, not once has anyone approached me to berate my low-budget lifestyle. Never have I felt like the better man because I had the most expensive jeans or shoes or seats at the game… Hell, I was just happy to make it there with my family. I’m not working with some counselor to reduce what I owe to some credit card company because I bought more than I could afford… Rather, my meager belongings fit really well into the Swiss minimalist design ethos, and my back-dated crap is retro chic. And, unlike the rockstars, I haven’t contracted VD or a nose candy habit (however, I absolutely cannot listen to Bob Seger without mentally plugging in the sound of the 8-track switching tracks… the horror).

Am I satisfied with where I am? Hell no. And that’s why I get up each day and work at making it better for my kids. Will I ever be satisfied? No… simply because there is never enough that I can do for my family. It’s a hunger, plain and simple. Get in the way of that, and you’ll be but a steaming pile tomorrow. Never do anything for just you. Find a reason to make things happen.

There you have it: a primer for living the ballin’, jet-setting, superstar lifestyle as a professional automotive artist. Not easy, and certainly gritty… but if I can do it, I’ll bet you can, too. Read it while you await late payments from deadbeats, and ponder new ways to kill yourself with a shovel. The miracle will never cease to happen if you’re positive and creative.

This whole mess started with a Pat Green lyric… (at least this article did… chances are that the whole mess that is me started with a Bills win and some Genny pounders) and to quote him one more time:

I’m just a good man, I work with my hands
I get the picture, I heard the message
Hell ain’t waiting for a guy like me

If you’d like to be a part of our car’s on-going history (or my personal living Hell), hit me up here in the mighty Studio, and we’ll perform some miracles for you, too, turning some funds into artwork!

*     *     *

Thank you Brian!  And again I encourage all of you to go visit Brian at his home on the web.  Also linked below in my blogroll.

Comedian Mike DeStefano passed away yesterday at the age of 44, reportedly suffering a heart attack.  Mike was a finalist on last season’s Last Comic Standing, and he was just an honest and funny guy.  And one hell of a story teller.  Mike appeared regularly on the Opie & Anthony Show.  He will be missed.

I’m gonna let Mike do his own talking.

First, a poignant tale of his lost wife.

And now for some comic relief.

* Open Mic Nite *

I’m not  beyond giving people credit for “getting up there.”  I tried it.  The first time was simutaneously exhilirating and nerve-wracking, and I don’t remember a second of it.  The second time was torture.  And I’m funny.

But enough about me.

Meet Ramzy Sweis.  I pored through his YouTube channel looking for just the right videos to showcase his talents for you, and I’m not sure if his delivery is intentional (in which case he may very well be a genius), but bring on the awkward!

NOTE:  I put his most recent video first because quite franky it’s my favorite, and I’d really be asking a lot of you to get through all three of them.  Where my hairy Arabs at?

I’ve been shamefacedly following the story of Natalie Monroe, the suburban Philadelphia teacher/blogger with a shitload of fun stuff to say about her students.  What can I say, it’s gossip-y, she’s a blogger, and she pokes fun of “special” kids.  This one is so up my alley that it reinforces my suspicion that I am living the Truman Show.

(My students are) “out of contol,” “rude, lazy, disengaged whiners,” “rat-like,” and “frightfully dim.”

(I have a student that) “dresses like a streetwalker.”

“I hear the trash company is hiring.”

(Your child is) “a complete and utter jerk in all ways.”

“Although academically okay, your child has no other redeeming qualities.”

“There’s no other way to say this, I hate your kid.”

These are some of the top insults that Monroe allegedly posted in her blog.  I say allegedly because when I tried to visit said blog I was redirected to her new domain which contains only three posts, all of which came after the apple hit the fan. 

As you would probably expect, I have no issue with anything she’s said.  I’m sure it’s entirely accurate, it’s kind of funny, and it’s nothing that teachers haven’t said to one another since the days of the little-red-one-room-schoolhouse.  She just put it in writing.  And she had every right to.  Moreover, she claims to stand behind everything she said.

Well, almost everything.

The news ran a story the other day highlighting a derrogatory sentence from Monroe’s blog concerning the kids in the SpEd program.  The sentence, “I don’t care if you lick windows, take the special bus, or occasionally pee on yourself…you hang in there Sunshine, you’re friggin’ special,” and the news story surrounding it prompted Monroe to write a response in her “new” blog where she came off like one of the whining, petulant students that she gained notoriety blogging about.

Yea Natalie, the media sucks and most of the time they’re full of shit, and they’ll make your story what THEY need, but that’s something you should have considered when you decided to use them to promote yourself.  You picked the picture with the saying on it.  Stand behind it or go away.  The fact that I cannot access your original blog has already told me what your decision will be.

Here’s the link to the new blog.  Pretty anticlimactic.  Just notice how the number of comments decline from the first post to the third. (639, 71, 23 respectively at the time I am writing this).*

Tick-tock Natalie.  I guess in your case, Andy Warhol literally meant 15 minutes. #kthanxbai

*Note:  In the interest of full disclosure, all of these are higher than the number of comments I have received on any one post.

Okay, two things.

First:  Yes there did used to be a Music Friday on here.  It’s right here.  And second:  Yes, Soupy’s Spotlight is yet another series on here that I will probably forget about in the very near future.  Thanks, ADD. 

In the meantime, I figured I would use a couple posts a month to highlight some of the “stuff” that kind of flies into my radar.  Maybe it’s a new blog I “discovered,” or a podcast, a twitter account, a video maker, a comic, a musician.  Whatever.  I may highlight someone who already enjoys some modicum of celebrity, but more often not.

Anyway, here’s some music I came across this week.  And yea, I know the first two have views numbering in the multi-millions, and the kids have their own record contracts now.  What can I say, I wanted to make sure they were the real deal  And I’m busy.  Fuck.  Consider the third one a gift.  Enjoy.

PS  When those girls get up and go back to class, you might want to look for a wet spot around Tierra del Fuego.

He’s got 99 problems, and an itch ain’t one.  Okay, yes it is.  And don’t be afraid of  ’im.  ‘es ‘armless.

This picture may actually require a little additional information.  The shot on the left shows Sofia Vergara (allegedly) on her way to “hair and make-up,” while the pic on the right shows a more recognizable, albeit bundled Vergara for reference purposes.

It was 1998, and I was living in beautiful Scottsdale, Arizona.  One night while flipping through the channels I came upon Fuera de Serie on one of the Mexican channels, I’m not sure which one.  A young Sofia Vergara walked across the screen, and I immediately picked up the phone and ordered Rosetta Stone.  And although I still have no idea what Fuera de Serie means, and I’ve seen the drastic difference between actresses in full paint vs. au naturel before, I am having a very difficult time reconciling my thoughts and emotions on the split-pic above.

But I’m not going to let that stop me from having some fun with it.  Comment below with your hilarious comments.

Since this is my site, I will get the ball rolling by taking all the easy ones:

• Wow, She looks like her own cleaning woman.
• To be honest, I never even noticed her face before.  Is it usually different?
• “Accepting the Oscar for Mr. Brando…”
• “OMG, has anyone ever told you you sound just like Gloria from Modern Family?”

No one really cares where I found this, but suffice it to say that I came across it today, 15 years to the day after it was written, or more accurately typed, by Mr. John Perry Barlow.  Its truth resonates with me as both a writer and a reader, and I am thankful that this Man of Ideas has taken up this fight.

I have always tried to write posts for this blog that demonstrate to my readers that I don’t answer to anyone; I am not beholden to the whims of fickle advertisers, government agencies, or religious groups.  I am obliged only to my readers and myself, and John Barlow’s grand exposition and its brief introduction serve as something of an inspiration, and strengthens my resolve.

Mr. Barlow is a poet and essayist, a political activist, former cattle rancher as well as lyricist for the Grateful Dead.  He is a founding member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a Harvard University Fellow.

Without further ado, I present A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace (reproduced here with the permission of the author) :

Yesterday, that great invertebrate in the White House signed into the law
the Telecom “Reform” Act of 1996, while Tipper Gore took digital
photographs of the proceedings to be included in a book called “24 Hours in
Cyberspace.”

I had also been asked to participate in the creation of this book by
writing something appropriate to the moment. Given the atrocity that this
legislation would seek to inflict on the Net, I decided it was as good a
time as any to dump some tea in the virtual harbor.

After all, the Telecom “Reform” Act, passed in the Senate with only 5
dissenting votes, makes it unlawful, and punishable by a $250,000 to say
“shit” online. Or, for that matter, to say any of the other 7 dirty words
prohibited in broadcast media. Or to discuss abortion openly. Or to talk
about any bodily function in any but the most clinical terms.

It attempts to place more restrictive constraints on the conversation in
Cyberspace than presently exist in the Senate cafeteria, where I have dined
and heard colorful indecencies spoken by United States senators on every
occasion I did.

This bill was enacted upon us by people who haven’t the slightest idea who
we are or where our conversation is being conducted. It is, as my good
friend and Wired Editor Louis Rossetto put it, as though “the illiterate
could tell you what to read.”

Well, fuck them.

Or, more to the point, let us now take our leave of them. They have
declared war on Cyberspace. Let us show them how cunning, baffling, and
powerful we can be in our own defense.

I have written something (with characteristic grandiosity) that I hope will
become one of many means to this end. If you find it useful, I hope you
will pass it on as widely as possible. You can leave my name off it if you
like, because I don’t care about the credit. I really don’t.

But I do hope this cry will echo across Cyberspace, changing and growing
and self-replicating, until it becomes a great shout equal to the idiocy
they have just inflicted upon us.

I give you…

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I
come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask
you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have
no sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address
you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always
speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally
independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral
right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true
reason to fear.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You
have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not
know us, nor do  you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your
borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public
construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows
itself through our collective actions.

You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you
create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our
ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order
than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this
claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don’t
exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will
identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social
Contract . This governance will arise according to the conditions of our
world, not yours. Our world is different.

Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself,
arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications.  Ours is a
world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.

We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice
accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.

We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her
beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence
or conformity.

Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and
context do not apply to us. They are based on matter, There is no matter
here.

Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by
physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest,
and the commonweal, our governance will emerge . Our identities may be
distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our
constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope
we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis.  But we
cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose.

In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications
Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams
of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These
dreams must now be born anew in us.

You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world
where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust
your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly
to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of
humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole,
the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes
from the air upon which wings beat.

In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States,
you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at
the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small
time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in
bit-bearing media.

Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate
themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own
speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be
another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world,
whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed
infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires
your factories to accomplish.

These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same
position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had
to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare
our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to
consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the
Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts.

We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more
humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.

Davos, Switzerland
February 8, 1996