The Sad News

Yes, newspapers are dying a horrible death, while American culture, unable to see truth past ideology, crippled by a financial crisis exacerbated both caused & "helped" by greedy moneyed people insensitive & apathetic to anyone or anything but their class, their corporate overlords, & their bottom line, falls sadly to pieces, to be replaced by who knows what, & in the middle of it all, forces more sinister than even those (whose evil is banal & whose appetite is vulgar & obvious) seek to replace some standard of justice & right with twisted hurt & sadistic want - friends, the future has never looked more bleak. Not, of course, if you weren't aware of the War On Sailing.

Sadly, the War On Sailing radio show is no more. While I would love to blame it on pressure from above, or sneaky corporate misdirection, or confounding & scheming from within, the fact is, the War On Sailing offices are in need of tidying & relocation. I will attempt to update the playlists for the final two months in the near future, & continue to compose and collate dispatches from the front, & the back, & probably the sides. It may be too much to expect dispatches from the seedy underbelly, which is how one client got impetigo, & of course it's just unpleasant to get dispatches from the rear.

Will it reemerge at some point? I wonder myself. Just stay tuned.

"War On Sailing" Playlist March 15, 2009

This was a very long show during a very short Spring Break. & that's the long & short of it.

Screw Radio: "I'm A Generation X" from I'm A Generation X
Roots Manuva: "C.R.U.F.F." from Slime & Reason
Blacklisted Individuals: "Fist Full Of Strife" from Fist Full Of Strife
Volcano Suns: "Four Letters" from All-Night Lotus Party

Matmos: "Count Tweakula (Donnacha Costello Remix)" from American Breakbeat Rebuilt
Sleepy Eyes Of Death: "Shattered Limbs" from Dark Signals
Bad Sports: "All The Time" from All The Time
Howlies: "Dirty Woman" from Trippin' With Howlies
Broken Family Band: "The Booze & The Drugs" from Balls

The Bad Plus: "Variation d'Apollon" from For All I Care
Headhunters: "Rima" from Survival Of The Fittest
Jean-Luc Ponty: "Rhum 'n' Zouc" from Tchokola
Amon Düül II: "Archangels Thunderbird" from Yeti
Lejeune: "Replaced By Robots" from For Club & Country

Ruth Copeland: "Suburban Family Lament" from Gimme Shelter: The Invictus Sessions
King Clarentz: "Martha Stewart" from Day Of The Supermodel
Jerry Lewis: "Sunday Driving" from Jerry Lewis: Capitol Collector's Series
Carrots: "Secret Since '99" from Local Live Volume 13: Stimulus Package
Built By Snow: "All The Weird Kids Know" from Mega

P.O.S.: "Savion Glover" from Never Better
Illustrate: "Winter Lady" from The Stuff
AYB M.O.D.: "Turn Back The Clock" from G.A.M.M Allstars Doin James
Philip Glass: "Island" from Glassworks
Gourds: "Foggy Blossom (Mechanical Bride)" from Cow Fish Fowl Or Pig

Arborea: "Onto The Shore" from House Of Sticks
Depth Affect" from Modellbilder: "Little Darla Has A Treat For You, Vol. 24: Endless Summer Edition
Michna: "Triple Chrome Dipped" from Ghostly Swim
The Great Luke Ski: "What's Up Spock?" from Unconventional

Kasai Allstars: "Katuulu Balu" from Congotronics 3: In The 7th Moon, The Chief Turned Into A Swimming Fish & Ate The Head Of His Enemy By Magic
Badawi: "Enter The Heretic" from The Heretic Of Ether
Guild League: "Mouse Vs Mountain" from Speak Up
Lucksmiths: "Good Light" from First Frost

Bertha "Chippie" Hill: "Trouble In Mind" from Fattenin' Frogs For Snakes: The Essential Recordings Of The Blues Ladies
Lightnin' Hopkins: "Gamblers Blues" from Devil's Blues
Clarence Pinetop Smith: "Jump Steady Blues" from Piano Boogie Woogie Vol. 2
T-Bone Walker: "Mean Old World" from Colored

Bran Flakes: "I Comb My Hair Sideways" from I Have Hands
Aurora Plastics Company: "No Place For Restriction" from No Place For Restriction
The Thoughts: "1235" from Consider The Bear
Eugene Mirman: "Joking & Lying/Jack In The Box/Extreme Bowling" from En Garde, Society!
Abe Vigoda: "Don't Lie" from Reviver EP

The Belleville Outfit: "Caroline" from Wanderin'
Klaus Nomi: "Metronomi" from Za Bakdaz
Billie Holiday: "Gloomy Sunday" from Lady Day: The Best Of Billie Holiday
Blue Giant: "Lonely Girl" from Target Heart EP

Charles Spearin: "Mrs. Morris" from The Happiness Project
Los Destellos: "Para Elisa" from The Roots Of Chicha: Psychedelic Cumbias From Peru
MC Solaar: "Paris Samba" from Chapitre 7
Dadamnphreaknoizphunk: "Waiting (feat. Jen)" from The Cheerleaders Are Smiling At You

The War On Sailing. Detailed & delineated Sundays 7 to 9am on KVRX Austin.

"War On Sailing" Playlist March 8, 2009

Some people, I hear tell, can recreate radio shows from playlists in the same way baseball fans can recreate ball games from the descriptions in the little boxes in the newspapers. This playlist, then, is for those people.

Ryan Lee Crosby: "Nicoline" from Out To Dry
One Happy Island: "Shorthand" from Promotional Sampler
Mystic Zephyrs: "It's Much Too Soon" from Maybe
Tanya Donelly & Dylan In The Movies: "The Lovecats" from Just Like Heaven

Dim Dim" from Riri: "Little Darla Has A Treat For You - Volume 17
Squarepusher: "The Coathanger" from Just A Souvenir
Hypnoz: "Generation Qui En Veut" from Compte Avec Moi
Bran Flakes: "Dance Of The Sugarsnap Fairy" from I Have Hands
Yusef Lateef: "Nile Valley Blues" from Reevaluations: The Impulse Years
Fight Bite: "Age Of Faith" from Emerald Eyes

Johnny Dollar: "Action Packed" from Gene Vincent Cut Our Songs: Primitive Texas Rockabilly & Honky Tonk
Gary Numan: "Me! I Disconnect From You" from BBC Sessions
Amar Singh Chamkila: "Jija Lak Min Le" from Kings & Queens - The Best Panjabi Roots Music
Billy Eckstine & His Orchestra: "I Love The Rhythm In A Riff" from The Savoy Story
Academy Of St. Martin-In-The-Fields Under Neville Marriner: "W.A. Mozart: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (Serenade), K. 525; 1st. Movement" from Amadeus: Original Soundtrack Special Edition: Directors Cut

Lee Fields: "Problems" from Problems
The Final Solution: "Girl In My Life" from Brotherman Soundtrack
Norman Rose: "Deteriorata" from Greatest Hits Of The National Lampoon
Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus Three: "What You Is" from Goodnight, Oslo
Abashed: "Exploitation Is Cool!" from Green Light Go!

Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele: "College Town Boy" from The Good Feeling Music Of...
The Colours: "Helplessly Hoping" from Colours
Ezra Weiss: "Get Happy" from Get Happy
Peanuts Hucko: "Memories Of You" from Peanuts Hucko - Vol. 2

Elder Utah Smith: "Two Wings & Every Man's Got To Lay Down & Die" from I Got Two Wings
Claude Rains: "Joseph & His Coat Of Many Colors" from Bible Stories For Children
Ashra: "Deep Distance" from New Age Of Earth

You don't just have to do for this show, either. There are more at kvrx.org. Your brain will bleed.

"War On Sailing" Playlist March 1, 2009

Do I look fat in this playlist?

Bosque Brown: "Train Song" from Baby
Blue Giant: "Lonely Girl" from Target Heart EP
La Fille d'Erne: "Ta Petite Amie (I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend)" from Ramones Forever: An International Tribute
Howlies: "Sea Level" from Trippin' With Howlies
Big Sonny & His Furies: "Fail Safe" from Fail Safe

Distant Seconds: "Half A Believer" from Spectral Evidence
The Juan MacLean: "One Day" from The Future Will Come
Mux Mool: "Night Court" from Ghostly Swim
Spoonie Gee: "The Big Beat" from The Big Beat
Captain Dan & The Scurvy Crew: "Hook It Up" from Rimes Of The Ancient Mariners

Freddy Kempf: "Impromptu No. 4 In C Sharp Minor, Op. 66, 'Fantaisie-impromptu'" from Chopin: 4 Ballades / Polonaise-Fantaisie / Fantaisie-Impromptu
Glenn Miller & His Orchestra: "Song Of The Volga Boatmen" from A Legendary Performer
Frank Teschemacher (with Eddie Condon & Quartet): "Indiana" from Clarinet Masters
George Wild Child Butler: "Axe & The Wind" from Willie Dixon - Mr Dixon's Workshop

Kutumba: "Maitighar" from Folk Roots
Rokia Traore: "Kounandi" from Tchmantche
Charles Steven Page: "Suddenly" from Bizarro Compilation #1
Juni Jarvi: "If We Just Want To" from Wherever Thou Art

Del Reeves: "Barroom Talk" from Friends & Neighbors
Salesman: "Beekeeper" from Sweetheart
Rattlesnake Cooper: "Rattlesnake Blues" from Howling Wolf Blues: The Story Of Talent & Star Talent
Johnny Nicholas: "Tell Me Why" from Bocce Boogie

Earthtribe: "Indian Dope Trick" from Indian Dope Trick
Spaceships Are Cool: "Let Things Go" from Spaceships Are Cool
Robert Tilton: "Singing In Tongues" from Jesus Made Me Do It Volume 2
Fishboy: "Talking To The Doctor After Pressing The Elevator Button That Grew On Your Forehead Overnight Causing Your Legs To Grow Uncontrollably" from Zipbangboom

You'd tell me, right? Right?

"War On Sailing" Playlist February 22, 2009

I heard tell of a President's Day like no other, where all the famous dead presidents appeared in a deejay's head, & he woke up only slightly more confused than he normally did, it being 6am on a Sunday & only thirty minutes since he went to bed. Then, without warning, he played this music on the radio:

Bennis Hess: "Novelty Yodel" from Wild Hog Hop
Pains Of Being Pure At Heart: "Come Saturday" from Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
Tears Run Rings: "Send Me Back" from Always, Sometimes, Seldom, Never
Dear Nora: "The Sign Of The Times" from Three States: Rarities 1997-2007

Yuksek: "Break Ya" from Away From The Sea
Powerfunk: "Kill Your Children" from Pie!
Roxanne Shante: "Let's Rock Y'all" from Bad Sister
Femi Kuti: "Do You Know" from Day By Day
Oto Psoa: "Les Chemins d'Allahabad" from Asian Vibes
The Appleseed Cast: "Like A Locus (Shake Hands With The Dead)" from Sagarmatha

Buddy Tate: "Texas Twister" from Buddy Tate: The Texas Twister
Ernie K-Doe: "Here Come The Girls" from New Orleans Funk
Original Dixieland Jazz Band: "Livery Stable Blues" from The First Jazz Recordings, 1917-1921
Harry Simeone Chorale: "Onward Christian Soldiers" from The Ember Records Story Volume 1

Bronnt Industries Kapital: "Underground" from Haxan
Bell Telephone Labs: "Computer Speech" from Computer Speech
Lucksmiths: "California In Popular Song" from First Frost
Sally Timms: "Dreaming Cowboy" from Cowboy Sally's Twilight Laments... For Lost Buckaroos

The Secret History: "The Ballad Of The Haunted Hearts" from Desolation Town EP
This Microwave World: "In Hospital" from The Same Things Kill Your Kids
Sad Day For Puppets: "Marble Gods" from Unknown Colors

Mrs. L Reed & Mrs T A Duncans: "Light In The Valley" from Goodbye, Babylon
Big Joe Williams: "Coffeehouse Blues" from 55 Years Of Blues
Lee Hunter: "Back To Santa Fe" from Down Home Blues Classics 1943-1953
Sidike Diabate, Batrou Sekou & Djelimedi Sissoko: "Asumuka" from African Roots
Xela: "You Are In The Stars" from Tangled Wool

Where did this happen? Perhaps you didn't hear it, but you can find it on Sundays from 7 to 9am on 91.7 fm KVRX Austin.

"War On Sailing" Playlist February 15, 2009

Do you remember the mid-Februarys? They say that they never quite catch on, but you can get caught on one of them. Here's what was caught on this past mid-February:

Belle & Sebastian: "Stars Of Track & Field" from The BBC Sessions
Provision: "Intruder" from Visualize
Klaus Nomi: "Valentine's Day" from Za Bakdaz
Edan: "Syllable Practice" from Primitive Plus
Dan Le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip: "Angles" from Angles

Natacha Atlas: "When I Close My Eyes" from The Best Of Natacha Atlas
Rokia Traore: "Tounka" from Tchmantche
L'Altra: "Goodbye Music" from In The Afternoon
Antony & The Johnsons: "Kiss My Name" from The Crying Light
Phil Phillips: "The Evil Dope" from The Evil Dope

Freddie Keppard: "Messin' Around (Cookie's Gingersnaps)" from The Legend
Hank Locklin: "You're The Reason" from Happy Journey
Kinney Abair & Sonny Boy Terry: "Mr. Rockefeller" from Texas Harmonica Greats
Jimmy Holiday: "The Turning Point" from Dave Godin's Deep Soul Treasures: Taken From Our Vaults, Vol. 1

Rusty Warren: "The Newlyweds" from Knockers Up
Distant Seconds: "Your Politics" from Spectral Evidence
Voyeurism Is The New Tattoo: "Luxuriator" from Luxuriator
The Reflecting Skin: "Traffickers" from Ghostly Swim
Benga" from 26 Basslines: "Diaries Of An Afro Warrior
The Mackrosoft: "Hold Up" from Antonio's Giraffe

Michael Jacobson: "Concerto Da Camera: Allegro (Fisher Tull) (with the Baylor University Brass Quintet)" from Mixed Company
Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele: "I'm An Alcoholic" from The Good Feeling music Of...
Tamiya Lynn: "Mojo Hannah" from In Yo' Face!- The Roots Of Funk, Vol. 0.5
Ruthie Foster: "Stone Love" from The Truth According To Ruthie Foster

Burning Hearts: "The Galloping Horse" from Aboa Sleeping
Aissaoua Brotherhood Of Marrakesh: "'Ada (Part 2)" from Morocco The Music of Islam, Vol. 5: Aissaoua Sufi Ceremony
Angelo Badalamenti: "Dance Of The Dream Man" from Music From Twin Peaks

The old post is still standing. It stands Sundays from 7 to 9am on 91.7 fm KVRX Austin. Then, slightly worn out, it sits again.

Remembering Dogface Clifton

I was in the marketplace of ideas on the other side of Remington Avenue last Thursday next haggling over the price of strawberries & the Protestant concept of "free will" when word came down from unreliable sources that Homer Baraka "Dogface" Clifton has at last shuffled off his mortal coil. By all accounts, he was rather old, but he was also tenacious, & many folks expected him to outlive us all, usually to his face, if only to shut him up when he was complaining about the rheumatism. His death went unnoticed in the press because he was not in the least bit famous, but scholars of The War On Sailing knew him by sight, & unfortunately by smell.

Born somewhere on or near an apple cart just a few miles outside of Pennsylvania, Clifton was used as a glorified road sign & dinner bell for his hard-working parents, who sold cynicism door-to-door in the otherwise positive glow of post-war America. Accused often of heresy & redaction during his formative years, Clifton left formal schooling after accidentally making out with Neal Cassady, who had been introducing himself around town as Marie The Bellhop, & who was reportedly charmed by Clifton's inability to whisper. Clifton was to compulsively enroll in various schools, programs, seminaries, drug tests & surveys the entire rest of his life, but unsurprisingly never was able to attend or finish any of them. He was fond of saying, "I just like to sign on the dotted line."

Drafted to serve in Vietnam despite being unable to read an eye chart or even hear the instructions, Clifton hopped a boat & fled to Cambodia, incorrectly believing he was going to Cornwall. A lengthy imprisonment gave him a great deal of time to work on his hobby of inventing difficult Tom Swifties (one of his most famous was, "'They just took my left ventricle & right aorta,' he said, half-heartedly") & to examine the details of a government in decline. After he accidentally bested Saloth Sar (later known as "Pol Pot") in a game of Theravada Buddhism Horseshoes when the future dictator was touring rural prisons, he was expelled from the country. A chance encounter with a record by British mod/psychedelic band the Creation coincided with his first attempt at snorting crystallized cough syrup, & Clifton realized for the first time the central factors in what we now call "The War On Sailing."

It was at this time that he received his famous nickname, which people had called him since adolescence, actually, because he kind of looked like a dog. That condition got worse as he got older, much to the chagrin of dogs, all of whom were always more attractive than Clifton.

Hiding out for a long time (the entire 1970s) in a deaf couple's basement in Canberra, Australia, Clifton wrote several memorable observational treatises which have served as references for the entire Oceanic critique. In particular, it is widely thought that Clifton's polemics against SEATO, which he called "an anagram that smells like butt," brought the organization down despite its ineffectiveness in the United States' invasion of Vietnam. Clifton also privately published at this time angry letters he wrote to SEATO headquarters in Bangkok, although he did managed to ask for coupons at the end of every one.

"He was a showman," a colleague at the time wrote in personal correspondence upon hearing about Clifton's death. "Since nothing ever made any sense to him, he forewent the whole idea of reasoned argument. He was bellicose but conciliatory, blustery but demure, formal in manner but informal in personal hygiene. He was a little hard to be around, if you can believe that."

He accepted a seat in the California Underground Quilters Parliament at the beginning of the 1980s, but resigned once he explained that he had just stowed away on a liner for months just to get a new chair. Falling in love with the beach in Southern California, his affections were subsequently spurned. (Explained the beach, "I'm more attracted to surfers.") He moved, broken-hearted & drunken, to Utah, where he worked as a wife-tagger for a fanatical Mormon splinter group which claimed their holy writings demanded that all men have at least four hundred wives each. To help the husbands identify them, Dogface made attracted tee shirts for every wife, some with catchy sayings that later, in a manner that is still unclear, became popular slogans for fast food chains such as Wendy's & Taco Bell.

He wrote little (well, that wasn't on a tee shirt) in those days. His letters to the Christian Science Monitor, while generally on target about Broadway shows & the skin cancer chances of famous Republicans, were generally devoid of the insight which made his 1970s writing so powerful. In particular, Clifton refused to discuss populist movements, the decline of Disney animation, or anything having to do with the television show "Who's The Boss" - three of the great pillars of War On Sailing scholarship of the 1980s. His old compatriots, more or less disgusted by what they saw as his decline, but also probably too busy watching "Night Court," quickly abandoned him, & he seemed to be entering what many would consider obscurity.

But in the mid-90's, a traffic accident with a cast member of "Friends" propelled him back into the spotlight, & he became a staff writer for "E! News Daily," a "newscast" on a vapid pay cable channel which reported primarily on the cast of "Friends." Clifton inserted clues to those in the know about the actual state of the world, which he discovered to his delight was being re-written on the fly by powerful Hollywood moguls who actually did have four hundred wives each (& for whom he also made tee shirts which, as is now well-understood, became the names & plot-lines for every horror film released since 1997). It was heady stuff, & those of us who remember those days look back fondly on a brief moment when an actual "news" telecast contained real information.

Sleeping with the enemy took its toll, so Clifton began sleeping at ramshackle Hollywood parties, including a famous weekend at Tom Cruise's place, which he would never speak about, but which always produced one small tear at the corner of his left eye. He began writing pieces for the Internet, most of which he'd delete a few days later, so trying to catch a Clifton commentary became a frustrating game for his admirers. The fire had died a little during the Bush monarchy, but his continuing obsession with a group of far-right-wing Boy Scouts in Birmingham, Alabama, shed more light on Dick Cheney than the Vice President could tolerate, & a group of thugs armed only with Ralph Reed masks assaulted Clifton last year when he emerged from Nick Nolte's goldfish pond to steal some cheese crackers for breakfast.

Clifton made a slow but creaky recovery, & hopes were high that he'd be back sleeping on Bill Maher's lawn in no time. But it was not to be. An infection characterized by doctors as "reluctant" caused Clifton to return to the hospital, where he managed to infect not only his doctors, but also two nurses, a bedpan cleaner, the three other patients in his room, & former Laker Norm Nixon. He died not very peacefully, screaming at the top of his lungs, in his hospital bed, earlier this year.

Former friends are considering a collection of his many articles, letters, screeds & (in his later years) twitters.

Cogwell Machine: Birth, Uses, Stuff

Enrest Lemmoin invented the Cogwell Machine in his second wife's sewing room on a cold January morning this very day, February 5, 2009, in 1859. While English by birth, he was British in temperament, & lived his entire life in the small village just outside the hamlet located due east of the growing suburb south of Baltimore, Maryland. Not far enough south, though, as his village was either in the United States or in the United States Virgin Islands. Not even a hastily modified land-bridge could help the hapless atlas markers.

Enrest showed a propensity for proposals are a pretentious age. Ever full of ideas, young Enrie (as he wasn't called by virtually everyone who knew him) stuck his button-up nose into imaginary arguments between peddler & pedant, cop & choreographer, shopkeep & shut-in, artist's model & model citizen. His "solutions" (as he called them, making the quotes with his fingers) were more often than not embraced by the disputers, if only to make Lemmoin go away. His self-esteem thus enhanced, Enrie lived to butt in another day. & another day. & another day.

Graduated from a tiny arts college located in the storeroom of West Point in 1844, Lemmoin immediately enlisted in the Peace Corps, one hundred & twenty years before its invention. Having no government sponsorship, his ill-conceived plan to work in a small village in central Africa turned disastrous, but since Lemmoin barely made it out alive & swore never to speak of it again, we shan't either, except to say that it was not there, as previously imagined, that Enrest acquired his taste for human flesh. That would happen when he became friends Stephen F. Douglas.

Still spry & nimble though possessed of a crushing ego, Lemmoin took to inventing in the inventive 1850s. That decade saw the invention of the baseball bracket, the curlicue curtain, the car stereo (though not just recognized as such), the Society For Creative Anachronism, grape jelly on a stick, malaria (not considered a great invention), dental dams, fast-acting baby oil, & that picture of a heart with an arrow through it, among others. Lemmoin jumped into the market with both pants down, & found employment at Hooper's Inventions, Unlimited.

Old Man Hooper (whose really name was Young Man Hooper) ran a tight ship, although he allowed the famously seasick Lemmoin to work in his Manhattan office. Lemmoin was essential in the invention of such common household items as the stapler, the common house string roll, & refrigerator magnets, but he dreamt bigger, his dreams aided by the enormous amount of opium he smoked, & the enormous amount of gin given to all the employees of Hooper's Inventions, Unlimited. He'd return home every night with ideas cracking through the back of his head - although later, he'd admit it might just be blood.

The Cogwell Machine was patented just before the Civil War got all whiny. Demand at first was scarce, but as Americans (in rebellion & not) learned about the wonders of this modern labor-saving device, it was reduced to nothing. Even Abraham Lincoln mentioning that he had one in White House during his annual weekly radio address failed to help the product, mainly because he was out of town that week, so David Brenner did the address. The failure of the Cogwell Machine drove Enrest Lemmoin to the brink of despair, & then over that brink, into the sad pool of blood & bones called suicide.

Lemmoin died unhappy, leaving behind his three wives, nineteen children, kin in central Africa, & the fortune he made inventing refrigerator magnets. All three wives remarried the same person, & that person's grandson discovered the Cogwell Machine in one of his funny-looking relative's attics one day. Amazed that somone in his family, at that point the scions of New England aristocracy & three-time winner of Lifetime Achievement Awards from Inbreeding Today, could have invented something so practical terrified him, so he burned down the house. Ironically, though he lost an uncle, an aunt, two cousins, two wives, his left arm, part of his face, & a pet goldfish named spot, the fire fighters were able to save the prototype of the Cogwell Machine, which was quickly secured by the Department of the Secret Stuff & flown by unhappy butterflies to Washington.

Where it languishes to this day. Yes, the rumors are true! The Cogwell Machine not only exists, but it works! Rumor has it former Vice President Cheney spent more time with it than with his terrorist torture subjects. What does it do? Oh, you know what it does. When can we see? Oh, I believe we'll see - soon. Soon.

Arts &/Or Crafts

The Never Clean live in the Untidy Areas where Nothing happens. Leaving aside their allegiance to the Filth & to Disaster, it's fully possible to imagine a political or cultural scenario where the Never Clean serve a purpose, never useful, always Insidious, for the Powers-That-Are. & my friends, not only has this happened repeatedly in the past few Whens, it may yet be happening Now.

It is a strange fact of sociology that, although there are the Never Clean, there are not the Always Clean. For although most people will tell you they live somewhere in the discomfort between Normality & Hyperbole, they can never quite achieve the latter. Don't get me wrong - it is inherently human that we strive toward the Hyperbole - & fall toward it, too, on its other end. Or else there would be the need for Cure songs. But that we can never reach the more happy Hyperbole (the unhappy Hyperbole would probably be eternal damnation, so perhaps we never reach that, either) is an essential part of our natures.

Perhaps, then, the Never Clean are also mythological, & this essay spoke out of turn. Frankly, the author of this essay had not expected to be blind-sided by a kind of inner dialogue more often reserved for the dog-end of a long night of drinking. There were many other insights that this essay was prepared to share, but, as it stands, they are rendered suspect by the admission that the Hyperbole can never be reached, whether the reach be grasping high or digging low. Therefore, the tag "Never Clean," containing, as it does, the Hyperbole in its own title, becomes a useless description of a class of humanity which this essay endeavored to show as willing tools to the Powers-That-Are.

Damn it! This always happens. Weeks of gathering data for examples & extrapolation are completely ruined by attempts at poetic turns of phrase. Oh well. Never mind, then.

Who's Who In The Minneapolis Zoo

One might be forgiven for reading the above subject line & say to oneself or perhaps to another, sitting nearby, whom one has singled out as a person who might enjoy the gainsaying of a blog page, "There's no Minneapolis Zoo! There's the Minnesota Zoo, which is about twenty miles south of the Twin Cities, but there's no Minneapolis Zoo itself! What a mistake!"

I honestly worry about the sort of people who feel the need to quibble & nitpick in such a manner, not the least reason of which is the simple courtesy of questioning the assertion of the blog title. For example, this author might well be engaging in a "puff-piece" about the Minnesota Zoo, which is close enough to Minneapolis to engage in a "nickname" of sorts. As well, the author may well have been taking too many over-the-counter pain medications & may have simply "mis-print" the word, as he may have simply meant "Minnesota" but wrote "Minneapolis" because the words are so closely related. Or there may well be a Minneapolis Zoo that the person simply does not know about - which is entirely the case.

Because at the Minneapolis Zoo, the charges are not nature's creatures, caged for the perverse delight of so-called "free" people to view them as they live in mockeries of their natural habitats. No, the charges at the Minneapolis Zoo are none other than human beings themselves!

Scandal! Triptych! Diorama! It's more true than one might dare fear. & before there are other assumptions hurled at this writer, specifically ones about the underground human slave trade, I wish also to simply ask that the reader bear with me. True, the human slave trade has a very profitable hub in Minnesota, primarily because of all the lakes, but the Minneapolis Zoo has a different sinister scheme, one being replicated in many dying industrial cities across the United States & Europe, which is this: the displaying of human beings in mockeries of their natural habitats.

Imagine, if you will, a housewife abducted from her Tupperware bacchanalia in Rochester & put on display in a glass-case as a representative of the "Now Generation." Or an aging golfer on the fourteenth hole in the Boca Raton Community Gardens snatched away & placed at a kitchen table as an example of a grandparent with Alzheimer's. Or three children from a reform school in John McCain, Arizona, dressed as hip-hop artists & forced to reenact historically inaccurate gang violence for a wide-eyed, affluent audience. This is the Minneapolis Zoo. This is what the powers-that-be are doing in our crumbling economy.

Outraged? You ought to be. Instead, you're given an invitation, & though you imagine leopards with cancerous scrotal tumors belching at you behind plexiglass, what you get is far more intriguing: a bevy of unhappy southern women beating up black men as a demonstration of the "PUMA" of the last election cycle. Or a Chicano worker dressed as Santa Claus being forced to sleep cold nights in the Wal-Mart power-tool department. Or an overgrown lawn to which a sorority girl & a member of the cast of one of the cancelled "Law & Order" shows have been inexplicably tied, to represent god-knows-what.

These are the things the rich, famous, lucky, disturbed, politically well-connected, & media-employed are not only watching but fostering. This author received an invitation accidentally; it was meant for my nearest neighbor, a giant corporation dedicated to polluting America's lakes & rivers. I went, & discovered something so awful it makes Cirque Du Soleil seem as innocuous as Ban De Soleil.

Skeptics are invited to seek their own "New City Zoos." There are reported ones in Dallas, Vancouver, Los Angeles (not hard to find), Denver, Pittsburgh, Portland, Des Moines, & Lexington. They are expanding - & more & more innocent people may be involved. A crisis is brewing of national import - please learn more before you too become just another exhibit!

As a postscript: Xhibit the rapper is not currently an exhibit.

Stayed Of Execution

Good news! Bad news! Someone put cheese on my sandwich news!

Yes, kind floorboards, "The War On Sailing" radio show has been renewed on KVRX 91.7 fm Austin for another few months. We campaigned against it. We made a viral video with a virus in a music video, but to no avail. It seems too much of a good thing is not important in this grey area we are starting to call "Obama's America." I don't want to have to keep up, but I suppose I shall.

This time around we'll be "pulling out all the stops." By which I mean, the buses will not stop in the regular places. Why? All the bus stops have been pulled out. It'll be smooth sailing for the bus, from the garage & back. It no longer even needs to stop at red lights. It's a worry-free bus. Like the bus in "Speed." Without the bomb or Keanu Reeves.

Which is my way of saying that "The War On Sailing," once very nearly listenable, may yet be. & we have something of a chore ahead of us, as the show will air on Sunday mornings from 7 to 9am Central Standard Time, when the only people awake are in the drunk tank from the night before (or in church - same difference). It shall be a long road & we shall limp feebly down it, only to wake up somewhere someday thinking, "Did I really just kill a hobo?"

Please listen. The rest is yet to come.