perfidy

The end of the year is typically a summing-up time, a time to take stock of what you have done and where to go next. For bloggers, it's a time to expound windily about the best this and the worst of that, and what album really made the grade.

Well eff all that. Maybe I'll get to it later. It's December 22, I'm tired, I'm busy, and I got no time to weigh Kanye West off versus Loretta Lynn for my choice for record of the year (ok... it's Kanye West. No!... Loretta.)

Instead, here is a quick list of things I did this year for the first time. Onanism!

• Turned 30. Hopefully this has happened for the last time.
• Ran a mile without having to lie down afterward.
• Ran three miles, period.
• Bench pressed my body weight. This was the year Johno got fit. Turning 30 puts a scare inta ya.
• Baked French-style baguettes successfully. Nummies.
• Figured out what an index fund is and how it works.
• Moved without having been evicted or otherwise encourage to leave first.
• Tasted a wine that finally made me understand why some people get obsessed and spend fortunes acquiring the stuff. (Can I remember which wine?... well... it's written down somewhere, I'm sure of it.)
• Got my writing published in the online version of the Cleveland Scene, a paper I always dreamed of writing for growing up.
• Became a paid, published writer. Paid! For writing!
• Read and enjoyed military history. ... well, I see that's about it. Pretty thin actually. 

Compared to Buckethead's list, it's downright pathetic. With two items ("Heard son's first word," "Watched son take first step") his list blows mine away. Within the next eighteen hours you shall see a cessation in blogging from me as I head west to the Johno Homeland for Christmas. Have a pleasant holiday.

[wik] Since comments are turned off, I will use my powers as a Minister to insert my question here: what military history did you enjoy?

Gather 'round, children as the New York Times covers the true history of Festivus.

I'll go get the pole out of the crawlspace.

and I piss on his grave. Not regular piss, either. Bad beer piss. Milwaukee's Best piss. Black Label piss. Coors piss.

Thanks to Gawker I find the late unlamented terror kingpin owned a piece of East Village (that's Manhattan, in New York City) landmark Bowl-Mor Lanes. Never you mind that Bowl-Mor is a hellhole for real bowlers, favoring flashing neon day-glo crud-ola over niceties like a pleasant environment in which to roll. Never you mind that the serious bowling crowd at Bowl-Mor is outnumbered about six to one by goofing hipsters.

Never mind any of that. Bowling is the one sport closer to my heart than any other (Mrs. Johno in fact was a state champion bowler in her youth, and you better believe that only endears her to me all the more), indeed it is the only sport I own the equipment to play. That's right. A fourteen pound, custom drilled purple Columbia White Dot named Loretta. And Yasser Arafat used the money of people like me to increase the misery of the world.

It's bad enough-- in fact it's evil-- to fund terrorism. It's a special kind of sick and twisted evil to fund terrorism with money made off Manhattan hipsters and off-duty garbage men.

F**ker.

Through which the Ministers warmly remember our mothers pinning our mittens not to our coat sleeves, but straight through our tender little wrists.

For the week....er, or thereabouts...ending 22DEC04

Spotlight Turkey: A USAF Maj General serving in Turkey was almost offed by a member of his Turkish security detail. The General is America's highest-ranking officer in country and senior advisor to the US embassy in Turkey on martial matters. One of his guard's weapons misfired, so the official story goes, and the General was hit by tiny bits of shrapnel from the bullet that impacted at his feet.

Not sure if it was an accident by an inept guard who can't control his weapon, or an assassination attempt by an inept guard who can't control his weapon:

"Death to America! ALLAHUUUU AKBAA...rrr..oooohhh...I mean... how you say, the 'oops'?"

Spotlight Costa Rica: In other gun-related shenanigans, a Costa Rican cab driver shot some guy running around the neighborhood wearing an Osama mask and carrying a pellet gun. The man said he was jumping out and scaring drivers on a narrow street, you know, for fun.

Long regarded as the Central Americans with no sense of humor, a frosty attitude toward foreigners, and morose outlook on a grim life of senseless surf gamboling, sun worship, and hemp cultivation, it should shock no one that this solitary man who tried to inject a little levity into the otherwise colorless void masquerading as life in Costa Rica would get capped. Such is the twisted world in which we live.

Spotlight Londinium: An 18-year-old kid killed his friend because he wouldn't get out of his dog's favorite chair. As is so often the case when planning seating arrangements, words were exchanged, dogs became agitated, bats were brought out, 5.5 centimeter skull fractures were inflicted, and someone succumbed to brain damage.

This is precisely why I participated NOT AT ALL in the seating arrangements at my own wedding- just this sort of thing, because if I was going to hear one more time that Uncle A couldn't be within 3 tables of the bar but no closer than 4 tables of cousin B, someone was gonna get a bat in the head.

Spotlight Noo Yawk: A NYC landlord hired a pair of hitmen to kill 2 of his tenants, brothers who shared a rent-controlled apartment, so he could then free up the place and triple the rent. In another example America's declining work ethic, the hitmen didn't kill the brothers, but DID manage to inflict "disfiguring injuries". At trial the landlord said he didn't hire the men to kill, but to scare, which sounds like the "I tried pot but didn't inhale" defense. It didn't wash with the jury; sentencing in January.

Spotlight Wiscaahnsin: Truck driver Jeff Lafferty was shot by a second man who claimed Mr. Lafferty had damaged the man's mailbox. This particular story does not verify whether events unfolded the way the gunman thinks, but what is undeniable is that he put 4 rounds into this guy and didn't kill him. Obviously the product of a kum-ba-ya, touchy-feely public school that taught guns are bad.

This sort of event shows why this country needs more and better gun education programs. Somewhere along the line the NRA failed this man, who couldn't kill with at least 4 opportunities to do so and after his property was threatened by an interloper. We need to refocus on the fundamentals here, people: readin', writin', 'rithmetic, and riflery. We owe it to our children. American children.

Spotlight Nuevo Mexico: In the most brazen case ever recorded of institutionalized theft, an Albuquerque woman took $20,000 in child support payments from her ex-husband for a daughter that never existed and with the full cooperation of the judicial system. The fact that the "father" had a vasectomy a year prior to the supposed birth, that on no prior occasion had the woman ever produced said daughter, and that DNA tests proving the paternity were blatantly forged were entirely overlooked and indeed, refocused the blame and difficulty back on this man for being so ridiculously obstinate in the whole affair.

I'm sure this chick is a hero in the Wymyn's Studies, Herstory, Womanist set, and could have a bright future in academia when all this furor is passed. But she turns my fucking stomach. The man here made a huge mistake even getting involved with such a psychopath, but at least got out before there were real children involved or he got an icepick in the neck while sleeping.

Spotlight Missourah: But that chick from New Mexico is a fucking saint compared to this sick specimen. Lisa Montgomery has been charged with murdering a woman 8 months pregnant, cutting the unborn baby from the womb, and then, in a final homage to the macabre, passing the baby off as her own.

This story covers what is possibly the most reprehensible set of behaviors ever chronicled in the brief history of this feature. I had to reach for the eye soap after I first read about it and nearly called out sick from my real job- not because the story made me ill necessarily, but because I just couldn't go out into normal, functioning society knowing that such people really existed. Out there. Among us. Maybe next door. Not that I have neighbors here on the Frontier, I'm just sayin'.

If anyone else needs to sleep with the light on for a few nights, the Ministry understands. We will open the Ministry amphitheater/cafeteria/zombie-proof bunker, the Catastratorium, to loyal readers until we all feel a little better.

[wik] The above story is eerily similar to events that happened back in September 2003, very near to the college Johno and Buckethead attended. If anything, this story is a fraction of a bit creepier, because the murderer knew the mother, and had to change her story when her original target had a miscarriage. Check here and here for sickening details.

Spotlight Julian Sanchez' scary brain: Sanchez chronicles the relentless assault on Christmas by the evil forces of secularism here. Judging by his reasoned and persuasive essay, Sanchez is clearly one of them. The attack on Christmas is really just a feint, as true believers know; the real target is Christianity itself, and by criminalizing its holidays, maleficent liberals come one step closer to their ultimate goal of mandatory gay marriage for all, 100% gun confiscation, and Stalin worship.

The Ministry of course encourages these conflicts, as they provide just that much more lubrication for our tentacles to slither into the orifices of power.

Orifices!

For no good reason I am reminded of two quotes today.

The first is from New York politician (and later US Senator and founding member of the GOP) William H. Seward. After a dinner party in the late 1840s at which he locked horns with Elizabeth Cady Stanton over the vexed questions of women's suffrage and women's rights, Mr. Seward admitted to Stanton:

You have the argument, but custom and prejudice are against you, and they are stronger than truth and logic.

The next comes from everyone's favorite humanist misanthrope, H.L. Mencken.

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard."

In other news, I think it's kind of funny that certain parties are doing their yearly Dance of Vexation over the greeting "Merry Christmas." Leaving aside the delicious ironies inherent in Protestants of any stripe defending a Mass, a pox on all y'all's houses for bringing this up in the first place. 80 percent of the country is Christian. That's no beleaguered minority. And, hearing a few "Merry Christmases" isn't going to blacken anyone's soul within their bodies (or burn the ears out of their heads). Tolerance isn't about making everyone feel comfortable at every turn. It's about tolerating shit that makes you crazy. Your shit is making me crazy; this is me tolerating you with all my feeble might and precious good will. So, to those making noise: Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, kiss my ass, kiss my ass, kiss your ass, kiss his ass, Happy Hannukah.

Happy Festivus, everyone.

21DEC04: There are 10 days left in the year.

There are 4 shopping days 'til Christmas.

There are 2,354 days until the end of mankind and the rise of the Perfidious New Order.

Today in Ministry History:

1999: Johno offered MA in History but declines; feels he hasn't read enough yet. Considers pimping as a career alternative, but is concerned about the strength of his pimp hand.

1980: GeekLethal can't decide between Pat Benetar or Debby Harry for dream girlfriend.

1976: Ross refuses to enjoy American Bicentennial, even a little bit and vicariously through American relatives, on principal.

ca 3,000 BC: Malevolent aliens unleash the first fighting robot on an unsuspecting and primitive humanity; a scribe in the court of Sargon records the robot's name as "akkadinakidinu", or "Bucket-headed one". 

Shaun Carter has 99 problems but a career ain't one.

Jay-Z has been named new head of Def Jam Recordings. This is only interesting if you find the music industry interesting. I do. This is an intriguing move for Def Jam, and one that points up both the strength of the brand and the dangers of having a founder as important as the company itself.

Just look at the chain of stewardship for Def Jam, one of the first-- and arguably the most important-- label in all of hip hop music and culture: Russell Simmons, 1984-1999. Lyor Cohen, 1999-2002, Simmons' longtime right-hand man all the way from the 1980s and now part of the Universal corporate ladder. LA Reid, 2002-2004, hitmaker, songwriter and Russell Simmons Disciple. And now Shaun Jay-Z Carter, the most successful Simmons-style businessman in the industry today (save perhaps Puffy), merging music, fashion, style and business into one irreducible whole.

The thing to notice about this chain is that Def Jam still gets most of its strength and momentum from moves originally made by Russell Simmons, who was never a musician but rather the greatest cool-hunter and trendsetter around. The label's late-90s turnaround with the signings of Ludacris, DMX, and Ja Rule took place under Simmons' auspices even though by that time he was mostly out of the label's picture.

Lyor Cohen was Simmons' chosen apprentice and stalwart company man, and his time in charge amounts to Bush I after Reagan. The strategic distribution deals with labels like Roc-A-Fella and Tha Inc. (formerly Murder Inc.) were done on the strength of Simmons' name and brand. LA Reid-- a once-time Simmons disciple-- had a fabulous run at LaFace and a rocky time in charge of Arista as temporary replacement for Clive Davis, and it's not clear what value he added to Def Jam in his time as label head.

Jay-Z is a natural choice to take the Def Jam helm, since his Roc-a-Fella empire was modelled consciously on Russell Simmons' business strategy (Simmons had/has advertising agencies, management companies, the Phat Farm clothing label, and a galaxy of strategic licensing/branding deals to prop up his brands). Moreover, Jay-Z knows the ropes since his label has been part of the Def Jam family for several years. However, his skill as a corporate warrior remains unproven. As head of Roc-a-Fella he was totally in charge of his own label even as that label reported through Def Jam to the rest of the Universal conglomerate. Now that buffer is gone and he needs to learn how to speak directly to that conglomerate, in a language they can understand.

He takes charge of a label family that, though it is the biggest name in hip-hop, is still one tiny column of figures on the quarterly balance sheet of a gigantic international colossus. For all the Kanye Wests, Ashantis, and Beanie Sigals he has, it is still a small roster in a volatile industry, and a label getting farther every day from the firsthand guidance of the man who founded, grew, and guided it to unparalleled success.

Jay-Z already has the skills. Can he pay Universal's bills?

[wik] A scratched copy of Europe's "The Final Countdown" to the first person to email with the correct answer to this question: What does "Jay-Z" the nickname refer to?

***Must Credit Dr. Rusty Shackleford*** Rusty asked me (and others, I hope) to guest blog on the Jawa Report (formerly hot lesbo star wars chick pundit) in his absence. I threw a little something up over there, so check it out. I will endeavor to increase the volume of posting both here, and there.

Also, if Minister Ross will actually send the software for expression engine to me, the site migration will go much faster. Infinitely faster, in fact.

Fool:

Fool:

Fool:

I've been posting a few music reviews over at blogcritics.org that I haven't put up here assuming that you wouldn't care.

Ha! Of course you care!!

DVD- Poncho Sanchez: Live at Montreux

CD- Poncho Sanchez: Instant Party!

Trifecta- The Prestige Recordings Best of Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins, and Red Garland.

CD- Antler

Play safe, kids! The Ministry homunculi are hard at work converting ones into zeroes and zeroes into nullsets in preparation for the Great Software Migration. The trek will be long and arduous. Morale would be lower but for the regular electric shocks administered to each minion. We cannot fail.

In the meantime children, be good to each other.

[wik] A word on onanism. One of my projects in graduate school was researching the intellectual history of Mason Locke Weems' Life of Washington, the book in which the whole cherry tree/cannot tell a lie thingy got started. It's a worthy project that touches on the very origins of what it means to be a citizen of the United States; indeed Weems' Washington was more than anything else a Primer For The Young American With Attention To The Virtues, Duties, and Benefits Which Are His To Bear. Weems was also a huckster, an itinerant bookseller whose livelihood pre-Washington (which was the number two bestseller in the nation after the Bible from about 1800 to 1850) who wrote a great many other books aimed at a mass market. Among these titles were: Hymen's Recruiting Sergeant (1799); God's Revenge Against Murder (1807); God's Revenge Against Gambling (1810); The Drunkard's Looking Glass (1812); God's Revenge Against Adultery (1815); The Bad Wife's Looking Glass (1823), and The Sin Of Onan (~1795), the last of which I desperately want to read though no copies are known to have survived. Onan!