perfidy

Today's posting reminds me of this solemn creed:

I believe in Iggy, Jimi, Chryssie, and Joe Strummer, the Parents Almighty, Creator of heaven on earth; I believe in Malcolm McClaren and Sid Vicious, His only Son. I believe in punk, lo-fi and gangsta, indie, post-punk, indie-pop, rock, singer-songwriter, and insurgent country, conceived by Uncle Tupelo, born of Jeff Tweedy who suffers, as does Lou Barlow. I believe in Squirrelbait and Johnny Cash. I believe in the Motor City. I will respectfully love and fear Tad. I believe in Superchunk and PJ Harvey. I believe in new bands and will never pretend to know music I have never heard, so my mind may stay open and I will sitteth at the right hand of Mission of Burma so I may one day ascend to heaven, where I will be greeted by Sonic Youth, Eazy-E, and Mike Watt. I will not listen to rock critics, but trust my own ears. I believe in DIY, zines, Yo La Tengo, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of Cobain, and rock everlasting. Amen.

Rock be with you.
And also with you.

Weren't the Nineties grand?
Okay, I can't just leave that to lie there like some bluegill gasping for air in the bottom of a rowboat. The long version of that thought is: "now that early '90's revivalism is in full swing-- Clintonian centrism, the indignant crusades of the post-Moral Majority moral minority, localized genocide, war in Iraq, apres-boom recession blues-- it's interesting (to me at least) to take a look back at the music of the early 1990s and see how it has aged in relation to what we gots today.

Popular music in its time is like a flea market. Even the most discerning buyer is hard pressed to identify the good stuff, the real finds, the million-dollar tea sets, in among all the crapulous junk exuded from a thousand moldy basements. For every Nirvana, there are a dozen Nerf Herders, Candleboxes, Collective Souls, and Four Nontalented Non Blondeses. It's only in retrospect that the really good stuff can shine through.

Case in point: the early to mid 90s. Listening to a whole set of the best of the period all at once, like I get to do whenever WFNX, the local 'alternative' station runs a 90's lunch, makes it seem like rock music hit a high water mark around 1995 and that everything since is a recession. (Hell, for all I know that could be true. I can't think of one band-- even one single-- in the last four years that's as indelible as Smashing Pumpkins' "Tonight.") I bring this up because I was recently poleaxed by Hole's "Doll Parts." I haven't heard that song in years, at least not that I can remember, and I can't believe how well it has aged. Back when it came out, Hole was just another part-girl 'grunge' band right along with L7 and Four Non-Blondes. and Courtney Love was the new Yoko Ono. Now "Doll Parts" seems absolutely perfect-- timely, relevant, tough, freaky and disturbing, without a whiff of quaintness-- and underscores the appearance that nobody today is doing it as well. What the hell? Is it possible that rock music managed to go for ten years without noticing that it's run off a cliff?

It seems to me that since about 1996 all the forward momentum in pop music has been on the hip-hop/soul side of things as Timbaland, Missy Elliott, Jay-Z, The Ruff Riders, the Dirty South crew, Eminem, LA Reid, Irv Gotti, and even Clive Davis have moved the state of the art forward by leaps and bounds while rock stays stuck in a rut. Aside from critical darlings (Radiohead and their clones, Coldplay), rock is a revival act now. The White Stripes worship "Electric Mud." Franz Ferdinand worship Gang of Four. Queens of the Stone Age worship Foghat. Creed worship Jesus (and, to a lesser extent, Collective Soul). Even Radiohead bear more of a debt to Bowie, Pink Floyd, and Brian Eno then they like to let on. And, yes, I will grant that Courtney Love took all the cues for "Live Through This" from "Nevermind," which in turn was pretty much the Pixies "Doolittle" all over again, but such first-hand piracy is different from today's nostalgia acts pretending that New Wave never actually happened the first time.

My assignment to you: prove me wrong, children! Prove me wrong! Is it possible that rock's forward progress stopped around the time Rage Against the Machine released "Bomb Track" and Smashing Pumpkins broke up?

Don't ever take anything away from addict in training Arleen Mathers of Memphis, TN. Loyal Ministry reader #00017 EDog sent me the following story, which should stand as a cautionary tale to anyone who thinks that music is "just a hobby" with some people.

Cough. Ahem.

Pod Used In Domestic Homicide
Friday, March 5, 2004 Posted: 4:50 PM EST (1450 GMT)

MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE (HLN) - A Memphis woman was arrested and charged with first-degree murder after she bludgeoned her boyfriend to death with an iPod.

Arleen Mathers, 23, was arrested Thursday morning after she called Memphis Police and said she had killed her boyfriend, according to a Sheriff’s Department report. When deputies arrived at Mathers’ apartment at 528 Poplar Avenue, Mathers led them to the body of her boyfriend, Brad Pulaski, 27.

Brad Pulaski had died of blunt trauma to the head after being repeatedly bludgeoned with an iPod, a popular MP3 player produced by Apple. Police said no motive has been confirmed, although evidence suggested the murder was the result of a domestic dispute after Pulaski erased the contents of Mathers’ iPod.

According to law officers, Mathers was hysterical when police arrived and told them that she killed her boyfriend only after he accused her of illegally downloading music and erased about 2,000 of her MP3s. Mathers complained that it took 3 months to build her music collection.

An autopsy performed Friday afternoon at Methodist Hospital showed that Brad Pulaski had been beat multiple times in the face and chest by a blunt metal object, and died of internal bleeding, said Dr. Felix Klamut, deputy coroner.

According to Apple’s website, the iPod is partially made of a hard metal plate that’s been praised for it’s resistance to regular wear and tear, like drops and coffee spills. “It took him a while to die,” Dr. Klamut said. “She must have stabbed him 40 to 80 times with that iPod. His death was not instantaneous, that’s for sure”

Arleen Mathers was arraigned Friday night by a video hookup from the county jail. Municipal Court Judge Simon Lambert set her bond at $600,000 and scheduled a preliminary hearing for March 9.

I have to wonder.... those IPods are durable little things. D'you think hers still works?

In honor of Arleen Mathers, winner of the August edition of the infrequently awarded Perfidious Prize for Inadvertant or Vertant Asshattery, I have included below the fold a mix of suitable music in her honor.

Cutting Crew: "(I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight"
Hall & Oates: "Man Eater"
Queen: "Killer Queen"
Ramones: "Beat On The Brat"
Neil Young & Crazy Horse: "Down By The River"
Prodigy: "Smack My Bitch Up"
Johnny Cash: "Folsom Prison Blues"
Willie Nelson: "Crazy"
Flaming Lips: "Should We Keep The Severed Head Alive?"
Ella Fitzgerald: "Everything I've Got (Belongs To You)"
Elvis Costello: "Psycho"
Chemlab: "Blunt Force Trauma"
Guns 'N' Roses: "I Used To Love Her"
The Gamma Scalpers: "If You Touch My Mp3 Player Again I'll Bash Your Freaking Head In!"

In what has been explained as a "public rehearsal of material for our new album," the Dave Matthews band dumped 800 pounds of human waste from their tour bus into the Illinois river on August 8, scoring a direct hit on a tour boat passing below. The state of Illinois is suing the band for sanitation and waterway violations.

The last few times this happened, the DMB titled the outcomes "Tripping Billy," "Crash," and "Ants Marching." No word yet on what the new release will be called.

The Ministry thanks loyal reader #00017, EDog for the hat tip.

Via Cold Fury, we learn that Alice Cooper is disgusted with liberal musicians campaigning for Kerry. Aiming a broadside at Michael Stipe, John Cougar Melloncamp and Bruce Springsteen, the Coop said:

"To me, that's treason. I call it treason against rock 'n' roll because rock is the antithesis of politics. Rock should never be in bed with politics," says the 56-year-old Cooper, who begins a 15-city Canadian tour on Aug. 20 in Thunder Bay, Ont.

"When I was a kid and my parents started talking about politics, I'd run to my room and put on the Rolling Stones as loud as I could. So when I see all these rock stars up there talking politics, it makes me sick.

"If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal." [emphasis mine]

Truer words were probably never said. Ted Nugent'll probably shoot 'em all, anyway.

Patton, over at Opinion 8 has got just about the best take on the endless Kerry-Vietnam controversy that I've yet seen. Here's the money shot:

The story here, and the lesson yet to be learned, is whether and how Kerry can deal with a public relations problem, albeit a severe one. Filing a complaint with the FEC was not an encouraging sign. It won't have any likely effect before the election, it is based on wisps of smoke and innuendo in any event, and he knows this. It's a weak play of a weak hand. It's just as weak as would be a lawsuit against the Swift Boat Vets or John O'Neill (or Regnery Publishing, or any TV station who airs the ad, or, now that I think about it, me personally). As a more practical matter, Kerry might be able to make all this go away by signing the Form 180 that would authorize disclosure of his service records.

Strangely enough, I don't care whether he does or doesn't - and I believe that there's more to learn here about Kerry's qualifications to be president if he stays above the fray and simply answers the questions, posed by any and all comers. If he exaggerated his CIA/Navy Seal/Cambodia adventure, so what? Just say so (clearly, not in the mealy-mouthed manner attempted so far) and proceed with the matters at hand. The alternative, a continuation of the campaign's shrill claims indicating he doesn't feel he has to respond to the questions, and that the questions themselves are not allowed, can also provide a lesson, you see. And it's not the lesson they want to provide.

That really is the point. As I commented on his post, I reached a similar conclusion after the minor incident Kerry had on the ski slopes when he ran into the secret service agent. It wasn't that he fell - everyone falls on the slopes every now and again. It was significant to me that he had to make sure that everyone knew that it wasn't his fault.

Kerry's reaction to this controversy is not encouraging. After the Kerry campaign started loudly insisting that Bush disavow the swifties, Bush genially denounced all 527 ads. (While I have issues with campaign finance reform on free speech grounds, this was a politically astute move that took much of the wind out of the democratic counterattack - and we won't likely see a similar condemnation of moveon.org and other Soros-funded 527s anytime soon.) Moving to file FEC complaints, insisting that publishers pull a best selling book - these are exactly the kinds of legalistic maneuvers that I most particularly hate in a political campaign. If Kerry has nothing to fear, full disclosure and a sense of humor will impress more of the electorate than shrill condemnation and lawyers.

And, as a side note, I would like to once again insist that it is not an attack ad, or negative campaigning, to point out your opponent's record. This is information (with spin, to be sure, but information nevertheless) not negativism. If you want examples of negative campaigning, go back to the early 1800s, where candidates were regularly accused of all manner of immoral acts, baby-eating, satan worship and worse. Mentioning how your opponent voted on something hardly qualifies.

Historians at Mount Vernon (just a stone's throw from the Buckethead Happy Funtyme Compound on the banks of the Potomac) are engaged in a project to make over the image of George Washington, and it's 'bout time. The popular image of Washington (as appears on the dollar bill, etc.) is of George as an old man, stooped and withered and suffering from sore and swollen gums. The younger man was quite different. Every book I read on the late Colonial period and early Republic describe George Washington as a large, rawboned man with red hair, ruddy features, and an undeniable presence, a social gravity, even when sitting quietly. He looked every inch a Commander-in-chief, an image that the popular Gilbert Stuart painting can't possibly convey.

If you're like me, you have the need to put faces to the names you read about. That's simple when reading a biography of say, Benjamin Disraeli or Ben Franklin, that includes numerous portraits of the man. But in Washington's case, not many portraits exist (not that many reliable ones, anyway), and it just doesn't sit right with me to envision an old man with an infected mouth marching through the mountains of Western Pennsylvania under General Braddock or accepting the peace at Yorktown.

Unfortunately for my fevered brain, there is only one current public figure who looks anything like George Washington at all. Reddish hair, gone gray: check. Tall, physically imposing: check. Lumpy nose: check. Ruddy features: check. Charisma: check. That's right, America. In my head, a young George Washington looks like nobody more than William Jefferson Clinton.

Help me, somebody.

The Ministry's vast legions of overworked, unpaid migrant worker drones were hard at work this morning; chiseling names off a granite edifice with their teeth. Why, one might ask, were these hard working and underappreciated proles performing work such as this; when they could have been laboring in the html mines, digging up web goodness for you, the gentle reader? The reason is simple. That sheet of granite contained the laser etched names of all those who have willingly become registered members of the Ministry of Minor Perfidy's extended family. (The Ministry is also curious as to why many of you do not have your name on that roll of honor. The Ministry is keeping track of those who abuse the its generosity. Our memory is long.)

Dark and unknown forces have shamelessly perverted the Ministry's enlightened policy of openness and transparency. Initial indications are that these forces are Russian, which does not surpise the Ministry in the least. They have registered for membership not to revel in a sense of oneness with the Ministry's goals and vision; but only to use that sacrosanct status to attempt to spam the innocent with invitations to disgusting, ill-designed, and tasteless porn sites. (Nota bene: The Ministry might forgive invitations to well-designed and artistic porn sites. The Ministry is well aware of the beauty of the unclothed female form. But these sites require the download of malicious software, a practice the Ministry does not support or condone.)

Therefore, from this moment forward, all prospective registrants will be vetted by the Ministry's crack team of investigators and busybodies. Those who survive the rigorous and intrusive background check will be granted membership, an email confirming their new status, and their name will be laser etched on granite wall in the lobby of the Ministry's headquarters. Those who do not pass will live in fear, fear of the highly trained and lethal hordes of assassins at the Ministry's beck and call; and praying that they will not be unleashed.

Those who pass muster will bask in the bright sun of comradery, and feel the warm joy of submission to the Ministry's vision for the future. As well, they will in time have access to special features unavailable to the unwashed masses. The Ministry invites all those of sound moral character to register instantly, lest they suffer the consequences.

This message from the Ministry of Minor Perfidy
Thank you for your cooperation

I don't remember how I got to it, but Ken Layne is having some fun with the linking rules established by the nasty bureaucrats of the Athens Olympic Games. Apparently, the internet department has some rather authoritarian ideas about how one should go about linking the games' website:

For your protection and ours we have established a procedure for parties wishing to introduce a link to the ATHENS 2004 website on their site. By introducing a link to the ATHENS 2004 official Website on your site you are agreeing to comply with the ATHENS 2004 Website General Terms and Conditions. In order to place a link embedded in copy interested parties should:

a) Use the term ATHENS 2004 only, and no other term as the text referent

b) Not associate the link with any image, esp. the ATHENS 2004 Emblem (see paragraph below)

c) Send a request letter to the Internet Department stating:

Short description of site
Reason for linking
Unique URL containing the link (if no unique URL than just the main URL)
Publishing period
Contact point (e-mail address)

Once the request has been mailed, interested parties can proceed to include the link and will only receive a response if ATHENS 2004 does not accept the link. All requests should be sent to: 

The Internet Department
Iolkou 8 and Filikis Eterias str.
GR-142 34 N. Ionia, Athens

On further research, Ken discovered that there are also rules about linking to the Olypic logo:

Incredible.

There are additional rules if you'd like to use one of their stupid little gifs, and Big Trouble awaits should you dare to use an image of the stupid little Olympic circles:

"Linking using the Olympic Emblem is strictly prohibited as the Olympic Emblem, Trademarks and Terms are duly registered internationally and are protected under existing legislation (as defined in article 2 of Greek law 2819/2000). Parties wishing to use the emblem are requested to contact the ATHENS 2004 Internet Department (see address above). Permission to use these properties as links will be granted only under special circumstances."

Because of his deep concern for the people making these rules, Ken created this special logo:

Some others got into the game as well.
 

posted by chicobangs at 4:51 PM CST on August 16 Chico, is that a new demonstration sport? And BTW, DrJohn, I ate an Atkins bagel today, toasted with CarbOptions Peanut Butter! -- posted by billsaysthis at 5:16 PM CST on August 16

Tasty, yet morally ambiguous. -- posted by DrJohnEvans at 9:53 AM CST on August 17

Chico, I have nothing to add except for the fact that that's the best picture I've ever seen anywhere. -- posted by Samsonov14 at 1:16 PM CST on August 17

Chico, is that a new demonstration sport?

Yes, it's called Mexican Farm Animal Stacking and the Antarcticans dominate the sport. Them penguins can stack the fuck out of some farm animals. -- posted by NoMich at 1:26 PM CST on August 17

Indeed. Mexican Farm Animal Stacking will, I think, become a very popular Olympic event. It is even possible that this man will someday win the Mexican Farm Animal Stacking gold medal: 

From the Scam o Rama files, the best Nigerian email scam ever. Ever.

Received: from [203.121.131.31]
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 05:11:32 0100 (BST)
From: Paul Jones
Subject: Nigerian Astronaut Marooned In Space!!! Please Help
To: [email]paulwhjones@yahoo.co.uk[/email]

Subject: Nigerian Astronaut Wants To Come Home
Dr. Bakare Tunde
Astronautics Project Manager
National Space Research and Development Agency
(NASRDA)
Plot 555
Misau Street
PMB 437
Garki, Abuja, FCT NIGERIA

Dear Mr. Sir,

REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE-STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

I am Dr. Bakare Tunde, the cousin of Nigerian Astronaut, Air Force Major Abacha Tunde. He was the first African in space when he made a secret flight to the Salyut 6 space station in 1979. He was on a later Soviet spaceflight, Soyuz T-16Z to the secret Soviet military space station Salyut 8T in 1989. He was stranded there in 1990 when the Soviet Union was dissolved. His other Soviet crew members returned to earth on the Soyuz T-16Z, but his place was taken up by return cargo. There have been occasional Progrez supply flights to keep him going since that time. He is in good humor, but wants to come home.

In the 14-years since he has been on the station, he has accumulated flight pay and interest amounting to almost $ 15,000,000 American Dollars. This is held in a trust at the Lagos National Savings and Trust Association. If we can obtain access to this money, we can place a down payment with the Russian Space Authorities for a Soyuz return flight to bring him back to Earth. I am told this will cost $ 3,000,000 American Dollars. In order to access the his trust fund we need your assistance.

Consequently, my colleagues and I are willing to transfer the total amount to your account or subsequent disbursement, since we as civil servants are prohibited by the Code of Conduct Bureau (Civil Service Laws) from opening and/ or operating foreign accounts in our names.

Needless to say, the trust reposed on you at this juncture is enormous. In return, we have agreed to offer you 20 percent of the transferred sum, while 10 percent shall be set aside for incidental expenses (internal and external) between the parties in the course of the transaction. You will be mandated to remit the balance 70 percent to other accounts in due course.

Kindly expedite action as we are behind schedule to enable us include downpayment in this financial quarter.

Please acknowledge the receipt of this message via my direct number 234 (0) 9-234-2220 only.

Yours Sincerely, Dr. Bakare Tunde
Astronautics Project Manager
[email]tip@nasrda.gov.ng[/email]

http://www.nasrda.gov.ng/

Sweet.