Little Thom's Video Blog

I've got a new blog - Little Thom's Video Blog - which will be about and for music.

It'll be up and running in a little while with the first song, My Own Best Friend.

And don't forget: The perfect Christmas gift for friends and enemies alike is my CD, Bottomfeeders. God said so. Get it by the song - just 99 cents - or the entire album at the following links:

iTunes
Little Thom's Music at CDBaby

And just for a listen:

LT at MySpace
LT at Podsafe Music Network
LT at Pure Volume

When Harry Met a Knucklehead

Harry Shearer gets out the shears and shaves a few inches off Newt Gingrich’s knuckles. And head. Or something.

The Jesus Bird

The Comb-crested Jacana, according to the very knowledgeable and perfectly-talkative guide on the South Alligator River in Kakadoo National Park (part of the Yellow Waters cruise), has the longest feet, per bird size, of any bird in the world. Allows in to "walk on water."

The Comb-crested Jacana [check out the illustrations circa 1800 by John Gould], also known as the Lotusbird, has a red fleshy forehead comb, a black crown, back and breast and brown wings. The belly, face and throat are white, and there is a faint yellow tinge around the eye and throat. Both sexes are similar in appearance, but the female is larger than the male, and slightly brighter in colour.

At a distance, the Comb-crested Jacana appears to have the ability to walk on water. In fact, it is walking on floating plants. Its extremely long toes help it to spread its body weight over a larger area. In flight, the long legs and toes trail behind the body.

Kangaroos. Boxing.

This is just too cool. I just registered with YouTube so I can put some video from Australia up. I took this is Canberra in mid-October. I had gotten up at my usual Australian waking time of 5:30 and gone for a walk. This is right in the center of town. I saw my first two kangaroos, in the wild (zoos just aren't the thing), munching grass at a high school not far from the Australian War Memorial.

I was ecstatic.

And they did a show for me. Unbelievable. The buggers even seemed to stop and wait until I had my camera ready. Check it out.

Bottomfeeders on Tradebit

My CD Bottomfeeders is available at CDBaby, and they've sent it out to so far 26 online music distributors. iTunes has had it for some time, and I just found out that Tradebit now has it up. Looks pretty simple. You can even use PayPal.

A bargain at a buck a song download. Perfect for the holidays. (Just found out the entire album is available on this page.)

Katia and Kylie Mac: The Podcast

I got a notice a while back from a couple new computer radioheads in Paris letting me know that they had used a song of mine for the teaser for their upcoming podcast. They are now up and running. And they've used the song as their theme song:

k&k podcast : Katia and Kyliemac, an Australian and an American living in Paris, podcast about the expat life and how they eat Oreos.

(Thanks to Little Thom for the great song we've used as our theme tune!)

Thanks Katia! Thanks Kylie!

You can subscribe to their show on iTunes and various pod places at the above link and here at the Podsafe Music Network, which is where they found me.

South Africa to the Fore

An example for the world.

S Africa approves same-sex unions

South Africa's parliament has voted to legalise same-sex weddings - the first African country to approve such unions.
The controversial Civil Union bill was passed by 230 votes to 41.

...

The ruling was based on the constitution, which was the first in the world specifically to outlaw discrimination on the grounds of sexual preference.

Photos by the Sea

Sculpture by the Sea in the east Sydney suburbs is a truly enjoyable, makes you happy to be alive kinda event. A few kilometers of wind-sculpted sandstone beachfront (Tamarama to Bondi) with cleverly (and not-so-cleverly) installed sculpture, some on a grand scale, appearing along the way. People seemed to arrive in a good mood and it got better through the day. Many thanks to Christine's sis Shannon and her Kevin for taking us there.

Extra coolness: Kodak, the major sponsor of the 17-day—and free—event, had booths set up along the way where you could, if you had a digital camera (we got one the day before the trip) get three free prints and enter one into a photo contest. I entered this one:



It was one of the five finalists for the day and I'm now in the running for the grand prize (camera and cash). How cool is that?

Lots more photos coming, flora and fauna.

UPDATE: I didn't win. Bastards.

Back From Australia

Saltwater crocodile on the South Alligator River in Kakadoo National Park.

I was in a boat.

It was still a little freaky.

Top 300 Songs of the 20th Century

I normally don't give a crap about such lists, but NPR puts a personal hero up high where he belongs.

#12: "Angel from Montgomery" John Prine, as performed by Bonnie Raitt (1971)

The Constitution of the United States 2.0

Political Cortex:

ARTICLE I

Section 1

All legislative Powers are hereby ceded to the Executive branch, though the Congress will still make a Grand Noise and wave their arms as if they give a Damn.

Browsing

Via Metafilter:

• Air Sex!

• Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo is a grammatically correct sentence.

• Kung Fu v. Yoga

BOTTOMFEEDERS on iTunes

I've told you about CDBaby before - great place for unsingined and signed musicians alike to get their stuff out and into the world. Today I got up and lo and behold, BOTTOMFEEDERS is on iTunes. Thanks to the gang at CDBaby.

You can go there and buy one song at a time to download onto whatever device it is you have for 99 cents. How cool is that?

Of course, you can still go to CDBaby and get the entire CD shipped to your home and get the great graphics and all the lyrics too. Woo hoo!

Bottomfeeders, available at CD Baby.

The Hour of Dave

I haven't advertised the Greatest Podcast On Earth lately, so here ya go: The Hour of Dave. Go, download, open beer, listen. Piece of cake.

And better yet, a baby (created by Dave and Sage): The Sadie Project

The Sadie Project is an attempt to take two pictures per day of my new baby Sadie- one of her face and one of her whole body- in an effort to make a time lapse movie of her development.

This, my friends, is Sadie June.



I have smelled this child, and I can tell you with no hesitation that she is a perfect little inhabitant of our now-better world.

Meet the Relatives II

Brothers and sisters, the head of our cousin the hellgrammite as seen under a microscope:



I found this on the the helgrammite page of the Web site of the Stratford Landing Elementary School in Fairfox County, Virginia. The give credit to Uglybug.org.

I've gotta get out of here, so I'll just leave you some photos to drool over. Here's another view of the head:



And here's a view of the the head of what the hellgrammite turns into:

Thumbs Up, Roger

Yes, I am a sucker for sick sweet stuff like this.

Roger Ebert, still recovering from an arterial burst following surgery to remove cancer near his jaw, could use a little love. Show some, and be a gigantic nerd, by taking a picture of yourself giving a "thumbs up" and uploading it to this Flickr Group. They'll be sending the whole spiel to the good sir himself after they have enough pictures uploaded.

Your 2007 Tax Dollars

Via Metafilter again, a detailed look at the 2007 budget from Death and Taxes.

I'm Ready

Via Metafilter, this.

Keep it brief here. Just want to say, uh, family, take care of yourselves. Uh, look at this as a learning experience. Everything happens for a reason. We all know what really happened, but there are some things you just can’t fight. Little people always seem to get squashed. It happens. Even so, just got to take the good with the bad. There is no man that is free from all evil, nor any man that is so evil to be worth nothing. But it’s all part of life, and my family, take care of yourselves. Tell my wife I love her. I’ll keep an eye on everybody, especially my nieces and nephews. I’m pretty good. I love ya’ll. Take care. I’m ready.

A Song For Steve Irwin

Oh jeez. Just looking through some Aussie papers and I found a song by Colin Buchanan.

1. Wasn't he a beauty
Crikey what a gem
A dinkum Aussie treasure
A khaki larrikin
Throwin' it all out there
Doin' what he'd do
You'd better duck for cover
Cos Steve is comin' through

2. Crazy as a cut snake
Bold as any man
He'd dive onto a crocodile
Hold spiders in his hand
Dodge a deadly brown snake
With big-eyed, "Holy
Smoke!"
You could love him
You could loathe him
But you couldn't miss the bloke

CHORUS

And wasn't he a beauty
Crikey what a gem
A dinkum Aussie treasure
A khaki larrikin
Throwin' it all out there
With his heart upon his sleeve
Goodbye Crocodile Hunter
Farewell Steve

3. He loved those deadly creatures
He gave the bush his all
The nastier the moment
The more he had a ball
1000 miles a minute
A showman to the core
He'd take a bit of bark off
And keep comin' back for more...

CHORUS

And wasn't he a beauty
Crikey what a gem
A dinkum Aussie treasure
A khaki larrikin
Throwin' it all out there
With his heart upon his sleeve
Goodbye Crocodile Hunter
Farewell Steve
Goodbye Crocodile Hunter
Farewell Steve
Farewell Steve

Farewell from over here too.

CD Baby

Portions of the funding for this life brought to you by Bottomfeeders, available at CD Baby.

The Folks: Chris Chandler

I'm going to start a new regular feature here at LTB featuring my favorite, mostly underground, singer/songwriters. For many it will simply be a link, since a lot of these foks don't have video and I don't have the know-how to put a player in here. Yet.



Chris Chandler has been on the road for, I don't know, more than 15 years, playing at hundreds of places along the way—festivals, concert halls, union meetings, living room concerts, bars. Chris does something that is All. His. Own. I don't have time to do him justice this morning, but just check out this video, made with fellow New Orleanian David Roe.

Here's the Web site. Browse around, check out his New Orleans videos, listen to some tunes, buy a CD. He's out there for us. And here's Chris's MySpace site.

The ABCs of the 9/11 Commission Report

The best part of the statement from American Airlines is this:

A factual description of those events can be found in the official government edition of the 9/11 Commission Report and supporting documents.

A factual description of the events that you portrayed as based on the 9/11 Commission Report can be found…in the 9/11 Commission Report.

Twist.

Australia

Crunchtime is over. The book has gone to press and I am out of here. In early October Christine and I will be flying to Los Angeles and then to Sydney—for a five week stay here and there in Australia. I've never been; Christine is Australian. I am, of course, very excited and will be reading and watching whatever I can to prepare myself for best absorption. (My sister Sue just recommended Where the Green Ants Dream.) If anybody passing through this little site has a book or film recommendation, or a site in Sydney or around Darwin that I have to go and see, ithe advice would be greatly appreciated.

Here's to a good September.

News you Really Don't Expect to See

From ThinkProgress: Pentagon University Elects First Openly Gay Student President

For the first time, a Defense Department university has elected an openly gay student council president.

The student body of Uniformed Services University (USU), which includes uniformed personnel in the armed forces, this week voted for Patrick High to represent graduate students at the school. High served nine years in the Illinois Army National Guard and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at USU.

His election “is just the latest in a series of signs that those serving in our armed forces are ready to welcome openly gay colleagues,” said C. Dixon Osburn, executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

CD, Baby

Air Guitar

I'm off to work in a minute; read-throughs start today. Book goes to press on the 6th of September. Two weeks of snappy people (me included) ahead. Okay.

On the 20th or thereabouts, Christine and I are flying to San Francisco—then to Sydney. Damn. All I want is a long beach and to see wild kangaroos. That's all I'm asking.

Things I noticed...

Hey Joe, where you going with that primary in your hand.

"They have sound all over them..." New Dylan sounds like old Dylan.

Mexican fishermen ate raw catch, prayed, played air guitar

Kangaroos get the pill. (See you in September!)

The tents now cover a 12-kilometer (7.5 - mile) stretch of Paseo de la Reforma...

Things That Deserve a "War on…"

This is the kind of thing that should scare the hell out of everybody:

Even though the average American has more years of education than when Miller began his surveys 20 years ago, the percentage of people in the country who accept the idea of evolution has declined from 45 in 1985 to 40 in 2005.

Can we get a "War on Stupid" now?

The Other Twins

"Two fully functional penes is unheard of even in medical literature. In the more common form of diphallus, one organ is rudimentary," the newspaper quoted a surgeon as saying.

You're probably thinking the same thing I thought: the plural of "penis" is "penes"? Who knew? All these years it's "penises". Boy, have I got a lot of correcting to do.

Bottomfeeders To The People

You can hear songs from my CD Bottomfeeders at Pure Volume, or over at PodSafe, or at the now ubiquitous to the point of annoying MySpace. Recommended track: I Can't Wait to Do a Tracheotomy. A love song.

Then, because you have a deep appreciation for artists whose works expresses feelings so fundamental that you blah blah fucking blah.

You can buy Bottomfeeders at CDBaby for $12.97. They're a good company, lots of great music over there, and they're very good to us musicians.

THE AMAZING PLAYERS ON THE CD:

Tom Freeman: producer, engineer; drums, other percussion (Freeman Sound Studio, Ashland)

Jeff Addicott, Karl Mansfield, and Peter Falbo: bass

Theresa McCoy: percussion

Bob Evonuik: dobro, vocals

Frank Sullivan: pedal steel (Sullivan Recording, Talent, Or.)

Brent Norton: electric guitar, vocals

Dennis Freese: woodwinds, vocals

Paul Jenny: trumpet, vocals

Emy Phelps: vocals

Sean McCoy: engineer (Oregon Sound, Medford, Oregon)

Little Thom: acoustic guitar, vocals

Bat Boy

I want to do learn how to do this.

Fourteen-year-old Ben Underwood of Sacramento, Calif., is one of the few people known to use echolocation as a primary means of navigating the world on land. There's not even a hint of light reaching his brain. His eyes are artificial, but his brain has adapted to allow him to appraise his environment. He makes a "clicking" sound to communicate with objects and people around him.

Crunchtime

Deep in deadline mania here and will be until the first week of September. Ouch. I'll be putting up small bits of strange news in the meantime.

Like this:

MUMBAI, India - A new restaurant in India’s financial hub, named after Adolf Hitler and promoted with posters showing the German leader and Nazi swastikas, has infuriated the country’s small Jewish community.

Hitler’s Cross, which opened last week, serves up a wide range of continental fare and a big helping of controversy, thanks to a name the owners say they chose to stand out among hundreds of Mumbai eateries.

“We wanted to be different. This is one name that will stay in people’s minds,” owner Punit Shablok told Reuters.

Pulp Non-Fiction

Holy crap somebody made the 9/11 Commsion Report into a comic book.

I've Been Comment Spammed

About 60 comments at once. All spam. I've had to activate word veriftication. Sucks.

CDBaby

Jus got my CDBaby account set up and they've set up my site. Very cool. I even got a bar code for the CD—for only $20. If you have your own music to sell, I recommend these guys.

Memory Lane is a Street on the Internet

Varanasi: I kept saying, "What the hell was that"? The crowds on the ghats and in the water, the colors and smell and the sound; nobody else in the boat would see them. They'd make a beautiful gentle curl out of the water, like the dolphins at Knossos, but they'd be gone so quick I'd only see them out of the corner of my eye; an imprint of a long-nosed water-ghost would be left on half my retina. Years later I was jawdropped, watching the Discovery channel or somthing: I'd been seeing Ganges River Dolphins. Unbelievable.

Damn. Gotta go to work. I've also gotta go through the old photo albums, see what I can find. Here's a Gosainkund extra. I got altitude sickness, decided to lie down in the snow, take off my socks and warm my feet for a while. Godamighty, I don't know how I made it down. When I did the two nice young girls who were the only inhabitants of the chesse-factory town made me omelets, with mushrooms they'd picked "in the jungle."

There are More Coming Home

John Prine's Sam Stone

A Sage Enters the Net Neutrality Fray

Sage Meadows wants you. (Would you rather be had by this guy?) And she recommends these links:



Hey, wait a second. I forgot to tell you that the world would be a better place if every single person on the planet sat down and heard Sage sing. Honest.

I Just Thought About Warren Zevon

So I went and found a clip. 1989. Enjoy. (Comes in loud.)



So many good ones! Here's another one, just having a good time in the studio with Bruce Springsteen.

Anyone know where I can find a video of Mohammed's Radio?

It's a Little World

An anecdote, if I may.

So I'm downtown with Christine last week just walking and looking and we run into Bob and Danella the Evoniuks—Bob played the amazing dobro on my CD Bottomfeeders, as well as singing backup on the title track—and Danella says, "Oh my God, I've wanted to see you! I was driving to Seattle a couple of weeks ago..."

Background now needed. I have several songs up on The PodSafe Music Network, a place where podcasters from around the globe can grab songs of their choosing for their podcasts. I've been grabbed by 30 or 40 so far over the months from various locales around the world, such as The Hour of Dave from right here at home, Antecubital Liposuction from I don't know where, the JuLi Podcast from Zülpich, Germany, and MadPod with JADonnelly out of NYC.

And a knitting podcast out of Wales.

Yup. A Knitting podcast. "Popular knitting culture deconstructed, news, views and podsafe Knit-Tunes. Hosted by Brenda Dayne."

Brenda has quite a following and does an excellent show, so I'm told. She played my song Inside Joke for her listeners in early June. (Many thanks, Brenda Dayne.)

So back to Danella. Christine and I run into Bob and Danella as we're walking and looking downtown in small town Oregon and Danella says, "Oh my God, I've wanted to see you!" Seems she was driving up to Seattle in early June, and, like any normal person, she was listening to her favorite podcast.

A knitting podcast.

Out of Wales…

Things like that make my skin crawl.

Lazy Sunday

Republic of Dogs says Happy Canada Day to our friends up North.

Bra of the Week and so much more from Avedon Carol.

Glenn Greenwald on the latest NYTimes plot discovered by right-wing bloggers. Hint: they're helping the terrorist's assassinate Cheney and Rumsfeld…in their vacation homes!

Talking Points Memo on the Air Force's new program: “Automated Ontologically-Based Link Analysis of International Web Logs for the Timely Discovery of Relevant and Credible Information.” Translation: They read the blogs.

TalkLeft on Addington's Disease.

France beats Brazil. Steve Gilliard kicks it in.

Dengre at DKos on Abramoff, and the Inspector General's just released report.

Little Thom's Blog Has Hit the Big Time!

Well, that's it peasants. I'll so leave you and your furry shoes behind. I just found a comment in each of my last two posts…from Shara:

Shara said...
Hi, You are interested in Music!!! :)
I like your information. please visit the links:
Do you like t.i music ?
I think It is usefull, t.i music

A bit time to relax:
Do you want to try Poker?

I think it is useful too, Shara, this t.i music.

I'm assuming you mean "tit and intestine" music. My fave.

I have so made it.

Harriet the Tortoise

Well dang. I wrote about Harriet at that other outfit I write for and loved her story, so I was bummed when I read That Harriet the Tortoise has died.

Harriet the tortoise, one of the world's oldest known living creatures, has died in Australia aged about 175.

Senior vet Dr John Hangar told Australia's ABC that Harriet, a Giant Galapagos tortoise, had died of heart failure after a short illness.

"She had a very fairly acute heart attack and thankfully passed away quietly overnight," Dr Hangar said.

Last year staff at Australia Zoo, where Harriet had lived for 17 years, held a party to celebrate her 175th birthday.

Some people believe that Harriet was studied by British naturalist Charles Darwin.

Darwin took several young Giant Galapagos tortoises back to London after his epic voyage on board HMS Beagle.

What a life, even if she didn't meet Darwin. And she wasn't named "Harriet" until she was quite old; she was "Harry" until they figured out why tryng to breed her with female tortoises wasn't going so well. Here's a slideshow of Harriet doing all things tortoise.

Loudon Wainwright III

I remember seeing this guy way back when as a teenager I watched M*A*S*H every day after school. Little did I know he'd be up there with John Prine on the list of my all time favorite songwriters.

Random Blog Search

Wir Suchen ein Schiff really are looking for a ship (me too) in Cologne.

Meix2 is very, very pink.

I have absolutely no idea. The most laborious act of black mold test comprises trying in order to find out either or not We do have rotational mold in ur bedchamber. If You could’t see to it or even odor cake mold, it is very hard to know what to observe. As luck would have it, there are mold test compacts for Such too. That type of mold test packs come-at-able With the agar culture dish carrying a platter.

嘉盛苑 and other images.

Bildt Comments, A European in Sweden on European and International Developments.

Appalachian Greens. We are the people of Appalachia.

Little or Nothing (yes, it was something about the name). Name: Rebekah. Location:Australia. An ideal lazy Saturday afternoon would have me rising to a late brunch, managing to complete the day's crossword and then curling up on the couch reading the latest Harry Potter novel whilst watching Australia beat England in the Ashes with Ponting getting a tonne.

The Indian Expat, Talking Points for the Indian Diaspora - Culture, Food, Asia, Children, Relocation, Reviews, Corporate, Travel....

Life on Coatham Marsh.

29 Fragile Days. Here's one of their magic things.

Talking with Townes

Thanks, Hour of Dave. Thanks.

Now go listen to the song.

Bottomfeeders: The Australia Fund

Christine and I are saving for a September trip to her old home in Australia (namely Sydney and the Northern Territory.) My traveling days never took me there and I am of course very excited. I have a goal to sell 200 copies of my CD, Bottomfeeders, by then to help finance the trip.


(I just scanned these shots of a CD—the designer has the image files.)

The CD features tracks such as I Can't Wait to do a Tracheotomy (a love song), Squirt (an ode to a friend after she had her baby), Donald (for my Dad. Bob Evoniuk's dobro kills), and You Can Use My Bathtub, which features background vocals by the incomparable Emy Phelps.

You can listen to tracks at MySpace, at Podsafe Music Network, and at Pure Volume. You can download tracks there, too. For free. And then come back here and buy a CD! (How cool!)



A copy of Bottomfeeders will cost you $13, and that includes shipping here in the U.S. For international buyers, I'll add on only the cost of whatever kind of shipping you'd like me to use. Just hit the PayPal "Buy Now" button up in the top right of the page.

Thanks! I hope you enjoy the CD.

Late Update: Many thanks to Avedon Carol at the Sideshow.

Deals to Australia

Just looking at airfares to Australia for September. Not as bad as I thought. $999 includes the roundtrip and 3 flights within Australia on Qantas. Anyone know any better deals?

Getting to Know the Relatives

Having spent a great part of my young childhood on my hands and knees in the woods and swamps of Western New York, I have many animal-encounter memories. Better said: young, wide-eyed human and other strange animal encounters. The best kind. One of my favorites: the star-nosed mole.

Condylura cristata is one of the most distinctive mammal species. Its nose is hairless and is ringed by a unique 'star' of 22 pink, fleshy tentacles. The star is bilaterally symmetrical with 11 appendages per side that vary in length from between 1 and 4 mm.

Twenty-two. It's always been my favorite number. Thought it had to do with my twin sister. But I may have just really like star-nosed moles…and been an unconsciously fast counter.



How could you not love being on Earth seeing that?

Live Science:

A new detailed study of tiny touch receptors, called "Eimer's organs," on the tip of a mole's nose reveals how the animals do it.

For moles, the Eimer's organs serve the function of whiskers found in most small mammals and fingers in humans. By touching their noses to the ground repeatedly, the animals explore their surroundings and discriminate between different objects.

Using fluorescent dyes, the researchers found that the Eimer's organs in the coast mole and the odd-looking star-nosed mole are composed of a column of skin cells, around which numerous nerve endings are arranged. An outer ring of nerves interlacing the column function as high-threshold pain receptors, while nerves within the cell column act as low-threshold touch receptors.

The researchers think that this organization allows the outer nerves to sense abrasive or potentially harmful areas before the more sensitive inner nerves come into contact with them.

Scanning electron micrograph image of mole appendages covered with Eimer's organs. Credit: Kenneth Catania


Oh, by the way, Eimer’s organs were named, of course, after Gustav Heinrich Theodor Eimer (1843-1898).

Don't Watch This

I warned you.

From Jesus General.

Which Ones Are We?

Some Humans Ain't Human



Ain't nobody like The Prine.

Bottomfeeders

Just got another shipment of my CD—Bottomfeeders—in. You can listen to some of the songs on MySpace, Podsafe Music Network, and Pure Volume.

YOU CAN BUY IT RIGHT NOW FOR THE LITTLE PRICE OF $13! (that includes domestic shipping) Just hit the BUY NOW button in the "Vital Links" section on the top right of the screen.

If you'd rather send a check or money order, make it out to Little Thom and send it to Little Thom at Box 85, Ashland OR 97520. Send me an email at littlethomsongs@yahoo.com to let me know or to just say hey.

THE SONGS:

1. Lullab-I-90
2. I Can't Wait (To Do a Tracheotomy)
3. Donald
4. Bottomefeeders
5. Inside Joke
6. Lost and Found
7. You Can Use My Bathtub
8. Sigh
9. Squirt
10. Relish
11. I'm With You
12. The Bass Player
Extra: The CD ends with a ghost track from Marty, the Bass Player, doing his magic thing all by himself on his 5-string fretless.

THE PLAYERS:

Tom Freeman: producer, engineer, drums, other percussion (Freeman Sound Studio, Ashland)

Jeff Addicott, Karl Mansfield, and Peter Falbo: bass

Theresa McCoy: percussion

Bob Evonuik: dobro, vocals

Frank Sullivan: pedal steel (Sullivan Recording, Talent, OR)

Brent Norton: electric guitar, vocals

Dennis Freese: woodwinds, vocals

Paul Jenny: trumpet, vocals

Emy Phelps: vocals

Sean McCoy: engineering (Oregon Sound, Medford, Oregon)

Little Thom: acoustic guitar, vocals

Nyah Fearties Does Woody Guthrie

A Bed On Your Floor

Update: Help Save Nazanin

The Geekzone reports that Nazanin's death sentence has been stayed.

I posted about this last week. Nazanin Mahabad Fatehi is an 18-year-old Iranian woman who killed a man who was attempting to rape her and her 16-year-old niece. From the last post:

The girls tried to escape, but the men overtook them, and at this point, Nazanin stabbed one of the other men in the chest, which eventually killed him. According to the newspaper, she broke down in tears when she told the court: "I wanted to defend myself and my niece. I did not want to kill that boy. At the heat of the moment I did not know what to do because no one came to our help." Nevertheless, the court sentenced her to death by hanging.

Her ordeal is not over. She will now be retried and could end up spending many years in prison—when she should be given a fuckking medal.

The link has a list of things you can do to hopefully help this young woman. Please go there, international pressure can still help her.

Here's an online petition you can sign. I was number 151,314. And I called the Iran interest office in the Pakistan Embassy:

2209 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20007

Tel: (202) 965-4990
Fax: (202) 965-1073

Baghdad

Atrios just had WUnderground.com's (the "W" is for "weather") forecast for Baghdad. Great idea.

Updated: 4:00 AM ADT on June 02, 2006
Friday
Clear. High: 116° F / 47° C Wind NW 11 mph. / 18 km/h.

Saturday
Clear. High: 114° F / 46° C Wind NNW 11 mph. / 18 km/h.

Sunday
Clear. High: 114° F / 46° C Wind NNW 11 mph. / 18 km/h.

Monday
Clear. High: 114° F / 46° C Wind NNW 11 mph. / 18 km/h.

Tuesday
Clear. High: 114° F / 46° C Wind NW 13 mph. / 21 km/h.

Wednesday
Clear. High: 111° F / 44° C Wind NW 17 mph. / 28 km/h.

Thursday
Clear. High: 107° F / 42° C Wind WNW 13 mph. / 21 km/h.

Bet they can't wait until thursday. Yikes.

Chuck's Selection of the Day

Joe Pass. And Ella.

YouTube Testing

Amazing things coming out of YouTube. Especially music cuts like this, with this person I'd never heard of, Allan Holdsworth.



Shoulda heard of him, huh?

Tyger! Tyger! Burning Sao Paulo

This will blow your mind. Really.

And The Tyger that started it all.

Found that at Metafilter.

And from there also: Len Lye, "an experimental film-maker, poet, painter, kinetic sculptor, eccentric and ebullient personality, Len Lye is one of New Zealand's most widely-known modernist artists." He made films without cameras by drawing directly onto the film.

But wait! There's more! Now you can see Jesus in your food from the safety of your own home! It's the Jesus Pan.

Friki

I know absolutely nothing about Da Friki. And happily.

But I do know this:

DEVIL BABY
by MARK KNOPFLER

The freaks'll stay together
They're a tight old crew
You look at them
And they look at you
I love the ballyhoo girl
But she don't care
It's hard to find love anywhere
Hard to find love anywhere

The professor is the talker
He's the talking man
And if he can't clean a midway
Nobody can
He'll get the tip on in
From the midway mud
You gotta have the sawdust in the blood
Gotta have the sawdust in the blood

See the pig-faced man and the monkey girl
Come see the big fat lady
'Gator slim with the alligator skin
Come see the devil baby

Springer is the talker
He's the talking man
He's got the whole studio
Eating out of his hand
You can be on too
With the nuts and the geeks
Call 1-800-ima frek
1-800-ima frek

Be the pig-faced man or the monkey girl
Come be the big fat lady
'Gator slim with the alligator skin
Come be the devil bab.

Watch The Mark do his thing.

Help Nazanin

Do whatever you can.

The girls tried to escape, but the men overtook them, and at this point, Nazanin stabbed one of the other men in the chest, which eventually killed him. According to the newspaper, she broke down in tears when she told the court: "I wanted to defend myself and my niece. I did not want to kill that boy. At the heat of the moment I did not know what to do because no one came to our help." Nevertheless, the court sentenced her to death by hanging.

The link has a list of things you can do to hopefully help this young woman. Go there.

Here's an online petition you can sign. I was number 151,314. And I called the Iran interest office in the Pakistan Embassy:

2209 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20007

Tel: (202) 965-4990
Fax: (202) 965-1073

Speaking of Dogs

The song that is changing the way people bite themselves, My Own Bestfriend (Ruff Ruff, Bow Wow, Bark Bark, Fuck You), can be heard on JADonnelly"s MadPod, show #156. (You can also hear it and even download it by going to one or all of the Vital Links in the top right of the page.)

Check him out—Donnelly's a pro. Subscribe via iTunes or somesuch for hours and hours of The New Radio.

Oh, and check out The Hour of Dave, with Dave and Charles. Really good stuff.

Perhaps I should do regular Presenting a Podcast posts? Yup, think so.

The Archaeology of Korea

I ordered The Archaeology of Korea by Sarah Milledge Nelson for work yesterday:

Sarah Nelson's book surveys Korean prehistory from the earliest paleolithic settlers, perhaps half a million years ago, through the formation of the Three Kingdoms and on to the creation of United Silla in AD 668, when the peninsula was largely united for the first time. The author treats the development of state-level societies and their relationship to polities in Japan and China, and the development of a Korean ethnic identity. Emphasizing the particular features of the region, the author dispels the notion that the culture and traditions of Korea are pale imitations of those of its neighbors, China and Japan.

And I'm reading about the Korean language. As I understand it so far, and that's not saying a lot (holy crap, that's a really good pun) Korean is in the Altaic language family. Meaning that, going back to its far distant roots, it's more closely related to Finnish than to Mandarin Chinese. Which makes sense.

Can I be smarter now?

Oh look, I just found a very cool Web site. Ethnologue. Languages of the World: "An encyclopedic reference work cataloging all of the world’s 6,912 known living languages."

Enough already.

Lies

He was shot five times
And once with a crossbow.
He couldn't believe I didn't know
The Vietnamese used
Crossbows. Pinned him
Right to a tree
And the guy walks right up to his face
Out of the bush
And says
"Sorry"
And leaves him
Stuck up there like a poster of John Wayne.
"He's my friend," he says
Leaning his big face to me
Perpendicular
To the bar.
"My only friend
Wanna see the scar?"
I didn't say yes
But he showed me
Near his left armpit "See it?"
"Yes," I said
And the best part of it is
That he didn't seem to mind at all
I had lied



From Hesperides, Volume 3, Fall 1993
Edited by Richard Hartley and Michael Brewer

We Are the Bomb Sniffing World

My baby sister's husband returns this Friday from K-9 Cop training in Texas. He had to leave my sis, pregnant, for 10 weeks to be with the dog he'd been introduced to. In Texas. Who knew? Anyway, this story caught my eye over at Metafilter.


Landmine victims in Angola play soccer. Photo: Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation

From The Human Flower Project in Austin, Texas:

Danish, Canadian and U.S. scientists are closing in on a genetically engineered plant that will send up a floral signal: “DANGER—land mines below."

Weeds and humans to the rescue! Scientists in Denmark have been tinkering with Arabidopsis thaliana (the homely Thale cress) trying to produce a plant whose flowers will change color in the presence of landmines.

While superpowers harangue over nuclear-weapons programs, combatants in poor nations build and bury land mines. After the breakup of Yugoslavia, Bosnia/Herzegovina planted six million landmines and Croatia, three million. According to The Hindu Times, nearly every family in Cambodia has a relative who has died or lost a limb to these weapons. In Angola, between 70,000 and 100,000 people have been victims of land mines.

After the truces are signed, these bombs (easy and cheap to build) go on maiming people, usually children and farmers.

“Within three to six weeks from being sowed over land mine infested areas the small plant...will turn a warning red whenever close to a land mine.” Arabidopsis can be genetically sensitized to the nitrogen-dioxide (NO2) that leaches from buried explosives.

Ai yai yai. How do you let the good in from a story like this? You know it's there, but...

The Sergeant Majors Thoughts On That

Sergeant Major Larry A. Myers (Retired) is a veteran of 27 years in the U.S. Army. He has a blog that I read regularly, and he has a particularly powerful post up today:

As Rome Burns – Or It’s Not Just George That’s Fiddling

Last night, at the end of The News Hour, I watched sixteen young faces materialize and then dematerialize on my screen. They were almost all between 18 and 22 years old. Young, innocent faces much like my youngest daughter who is just 22. As their young faces faded from my screen I thought to myself, ‘thank dear God that none of them were my little girl’. And then I felt horribly guilty.

2,228 KIA – Iraq Coalition Casualty Count
17,869 WIA – Iraq Coalition Casualty Count
39,258 Civilian – www.iraqbodycount.org

How much blood Mr. Bush? How much American and Iraqi blood is enough Mr. Bush? When will your thirst be quenched Mr. Bush? It isn’t your children is it Mr. Bush?

Remember, this is a Sergeant Major, which, according to my research, is an E-9 ranking and the third highest elisted rank in the Army. He lead and fought beside soldiers in combat in Vietnam.

Read his blog.

Lebanon

I could go to Lebanon.

I know just how I'd get there, too.

Just take the boat from Piraeus
to Haifa, head north, act non-chalant.
Stuff pitas full of peppers
and tomatoes and hummus,
always knowing that soon I'd cross the line,
walk across the border
to hell.

I could decide tomorrow, start saving.
I wouldn't need much.
I've learned the trick of cheap living
and the waiting game
of thumbs up travel.
Two months in a dishwasher
I could be in New York,
Amsterdam,
setting up a ride south.

Springtime in Switzerland would be nice.
Visit some friends, maybe
get some work. And south.

I could be there in three months.
Hell, a week.
I could hit the First National and fly
to Beirut,
Lebanon.



From The Original Sky of Guesses, Ashland, 1989

Pesticides May Reduce Penis Size

I'm thinking this issue is about to get a lot more attention.

The London Free Press:

A renowned U.S. scientist who has documented fertility and sex changes -- including decreasing penis size -- due to environmental contamination says he wouldn't apply pesticides on his own lawn.

...

Penis size of the animals from the polluted lake was smaller than animals from the less-polluted lake.

"This is important because it is not just an alligator story. It is not just a lake story. We know there has been a dramatic increase in penile and genital abnormalities in baby boys," Guillette said.

Ich Kann Kein Finnisch

I just got two visits, one from Berlin and one from somewhere in Finnland. I have no idea how they found this Little blog.

Ich kann kein Finnisch, aber Ich wollte sagen an Besucher aus Deutschland, "Wilkommen!" Es ist viele Jahre gewesen seit Ich mein Deutsch richtig benutzt habe (und Ich habe keine Umlauts; es tut mir Leid), aber wenn Sie wollen Sie konnen hier auf Deutsch kommentieren. (Wie war dass? Ich habe keine Idee.)

Okay. Danke.

P.S. Und klar, Willkommen an alle aus Finnland auch! Und anywhere.

Old Timey Protest Music

Possibly my favorite kind.

From his esteemed excellence, Jesus General, a link to a new song by old-timey masters Norman and Nancy Blake, Don't Be Afraid of the Neo-cons.

You can buy their CDs right here.

Don't be Afraid of the Neo-cons
Norman and Nancy Blake

And away down yonder in the Florida sand
Old Jeb Bush is a mighty man
He told little brother, don't be blue
For I'ma gonna hand this thing to you

The churches all got on board
In the Holy name of our Lord
They took him for their favorite son
And they sent him away to Washington

Now Georgie Bush, he is the man
He landed in Afghanistan
We'll get Osama, was his crack
And now we're stranded in Iraq

He told ole' Rumsfeld on the green
Now you're the best I've ever seen
Just heed my words and you'll go far
And help me win my daddy's war

O' Cheney lives away down town
By a cement bunker underground
No more he'll roam Wyoming's hills
Halliburton is his thrill

Don't send your money to Washington
To fight a war that's never done
Don't play their games don't be their pawns
And don't be afraid of the neo-con

Katrina blew through the town
Black waters flooded all around
No money to raise the levees high
And so we watched New Orleans die

Bill Clinton was a Democrat
He saved us money in his hat
He fell from grace the story goes
Then Georgie put us in the hole

Now Casey was Cindy's son
He marched away with his gun
For a noble cause he heard Bush say
He died in a war so far away

Now Georgie is kind and meek
He kissed the king upon his cheek
They walked the garden hand in hand
As the oil and blood dripped on the sand

And now my little song is done
'Bout the neo-cons in Washington
No more I'll sing these words again
You can see it all on CNN

Don't send you money to Washington
To fight a war that's never done
Don't play their games don't be their pawns
And don't be afraid of the neo-cons

Ma Nofoaga o le au totoa!

I just posted this in the comment section over at the best blog in the business, Hullabaloo. It regards the recent kerfluffling over our national anthem being sung in Spanish. (No!)

Uhhhh, what about the lands that we Americans own where they have another language? Here's the Somoan version of the Star Spangled Question Mark:

In January 2006 it was reported that a Samoan-language version of the first verse of the anthem had been translated by Pouesi Pouesi, Jr. of American Samoa Community College. A bill was subsequently introduced in the Senate of American Samoa to officially adopt the Samoan version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" to complement the local anthem "Amerika Samoa". The proposed lyrics are as follows:

I.
Aue! se'i e vaai, le malama o ataata mai
Na sisi a'e ma le mimita, i le sesega mai o le vaveao
O ai e ona tosi ma fetu, o alu a'e i taimi vevesi tu
I luga o 'Olo mata'utia, ma loto toa tausa'afia
O Roketi mumu fa'aafi, o pomu ma fana ma aloi afi
E fa'amaonia i le po atoa, le fu'a o lo'o tu maninoa
Aue! ia tumau le fe'ilafi mai, ma agiagia pea
I eleele o Sa'olotoga, ma Nofoaga o le au totoa


ma Nofoaga o le au totoa INDEED!

So, my thinking here is, if we took over Mexico, then it would be okay to sing the national anthem in Spanish?

Welcome Neil Young Fans

Go to him.

Go listen.

Neil Young's got some things he wants to talk to you about.

Go. Listen.

Listened to the recording twice this morning, got to work hours late, jumping all over the house, screaming laughing, crying. Neil done good. Real real good. Proud to have him on our side.

Ruff Ruff, Bow Wow, Bark Bark, Fuck You

I've got a new song up over at my MySpace site.

I call it My Own Best Friend, but the damn bar has basically turned it into The Dog Song. Whattaya gonna do?

You can hear it and download it at Pure Volume and at Podsafe Music Network also.

Neil Young's Blog

Look at that title. Neil Young's got a blog. Too fucking fun. I can't tell you how much natural affection and respect I have for Neil Young as an artist and a human being. Honestly. From the time I was 12 in the basement of Mark Thomson's house with 12-packs and the album Harvest over and over and over and over...to learning the guitar when I was 17 or 18 and Needle and the Damage Done and Comes a Time...to seeing him at Buffalo Memorial Auditorium all by himself and turning some tens of thousands into his friends sitting around a living room (Do you want me to play this new shiny keyboard or this beat up old piano I brought with me?...) It just never went away, my love for the gentleness and strength and grace and grit and straight-ahead just say it beauy of the songs and, it has always seemed, his personal attitude. All done with a smile.

Hat's off to Neil Young.

Here's a link to the lyrics of the unreleased Living With War.

They're Not Ready to Make Nice

And piss on anyone who says they should.



Atrios is beating the drum for the Chicks. I'm truly happy to beat along.

Ahem.

Take a listen to a really nice song from the new album.

You can go buy one, too.

Live Science

The story about the flexible-necked, water-exiting, land-borne-bug stabbing catfish (oh, I know, we've all heard that one a million times) came from Live Science. Their front page today has a story entitled Amphibian Young Eat Mom’s Skin.

Many amphibian moms provide their young with an egg yolk nutrient sac and then take off, leaving the kids to fend for themselves.

Now scientists have found the world's most doting amphibians: mothers that let offspring eat the skin off their backs.

Brooding Bolengerula taitanus moms transform their skin into a nutrient-rich meal for developing offspring. The youngsters squirm all over mom's body, peeling off the outer layer of skin with special teeth.

Now that's what I call good news reporting. And the best part: they have video.

And I just found Live Science Blogs. They've got a live Animal World blog, a live Human Biology blog, a live astronomy blog, even a history blog.

They also reminded me of a blog I'd forgotten about, Pharyngula, by biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, PZ Meyers.

Class dismissed.

Wakes With the Fishes

Shhh. Don't tell the Flying Spaghetti Monster.



From LiveScience.com, a site I'll be visiting often now that I've found it, comes a catfish:

These particular eel catfish, Channallabes apus, live in tropical swamps in Africa, where most of the water is confined to small, acidic pools.

"There's probably more food traveling on land than in these small puddles of mud," said Sam Van Wassenbergh of the University of Antwerp in Belgium. "That's probably why this fish has specialized to go out of water to search for food."

The catfish pick up speed in water and flop onto land, where their flexible vertebral column lets them move around like a snake. They also have a special organ for breathing air without using their gills, although scientists don't quite know how this works.

In water, eel catfish suck in water to capture their prey. But because air is less dense than water, this trick is less effective when hunting on land, and these fish have developed a different approach.

Once they find their terrestrial prey, usually a small beetle or insect, they lift their head and mash at the creepy-crawly with their mouth.

And there's even video. How cool is that?

Naomi Campbell Had Sex On A Plane With Naomi Watts While Wrapped In Snakes Playing Online Poker

Google Zeitgeist conjuring from the internets:

Gaining Search Queries: Week Ending April 3, 2006

1. whitney houston
2. sharon stone
3. duke lacrosse
4. solar eclipse
5. britney spears sculpture
6. basic instinct 2
7. naomi watts
8. natalie gulbis
9. april fools jokes
10. ice age 2
11. jill carroll
12. daylight savings
13. naomi campbell
14. tori spelling
15. michelle wie

All the News That's Fit to Fake

From Raw Story

A study by a group that monitors the media reveals that, over a ten month span, 77 television stations from all across the nation aired video news releases without informing their viewers even once that the reports were actually sponsored content, RAW STORY has found.

One "news report" that aired on three stations relied on a video news release (VNR) produced by a PR firm on behalf of General Motors which was even apparently based on a "false claim."

Does your station air fake news? Does mine?

One More Piece in our Puzzle?

This is why big kids still play in the dirt"

The skeletons have the fins, scales and other attributes of a giant fish, four to nine feet long. But on closer examination, the scientists found telling anatomical traits of a transitional creature, a fish that is still a fish but has changes that anticipate the emergence of land animals — and is thus a predecessor of amphibians, reptiles and dinosaurs, mammals and eventually humans.

Dug this up at Americablog

Your Money in Their Hands

Via the Huffington Post, a story of incompetence that boggles the mind and strangles the heart. Read about your money:

A reconstruction contract for the building of 142 primary health centers across Iraq is running out of money, after two years and roughly $200 million, with no more than 20 clinics now expected to be completed, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says.

The contract, awarded to U.S. construction giant Parsons Inc. in the flush, early days of reconstruction in Iraq, was expected to lay the foundation of a modern health care system for the country, putting quality medical care within reach of all Iraqis.

It's not the only contract they have:

Security And Justice Sector - Parsons Inc. (US)... Provide design-build construction services for projects associated with the rehabilitation and construction of Iraqi security and justice facilities and facilities for the Iraqi National Defense Force

Repair of Iraq's Oil Infrastructure (North) - Parsons Iraqi Joint Venture (US)... Repair and restore Iraq's oil infrastructure in the northern region

Tadji Military Base renovation - Parsons Inc. (US)... Reconstruct and renovate the Tadji military base and the Iraqi Armed Forces recruiting stations

More later...

44

There were 44 people
At my funeral
I liked
Four
I
Didn’t know the others

The grass smelled like diesel
Ash
Gas
Cigarettes
1978 or 9

I wrote
Better yet
Sang
A song
As wide
As Alaska as
dead as
Buddha’s toenails
As
Easy as apples

I loved all 44
One
For each caliber

David Byrne and Brian Eno

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.

My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts came out in 1981. Over the last decades, hundreds of artists in genres ranging from DJs to alternative to electronic have all borrowed from its ideas and claimed its influence. It is now being re-issued in a beautiful new package, with extensive liner notes and photos, and featuring 7 previously unreleased tracks from the original album and a film by influential artist Bruce Conner.

I'd somehow missed that one, but that will soon be recitfied.

From the Snowflake Preservation Society...

[Links fixed] This is the coolest thing I've seen since Sunday.

Ever wanted to catch a snowflake and keep it forever? You can. This is a photograph of a snowflake that fell in January 1979, but it isn’t a 27-year-old photo. It is a recent shot of a snowflake that’s been sitting in chemist Tryggvi Emilsson’s desk for 27 years, locked in a drop of that miracle of modern chemistry we call superglue.

And I gotta learn that on April 1. Sheesh. C'mon December, I've got snowflakes to entomb.

(Things like this are why I go to Metafilter)

Oh jeez, now you're gonna make me cry

I just saw this at Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.

Buck Owens played a show at his club, Buck Owens' Crystal Palace in Bakersfield, hours before he died on Friday night. And he did it for you and me:

"He had come to the club early and had a chicken-fried steak dinner and bragged that it's his favorite meal,"[family spokesperson Jim] Shaw said. After dinner, Owens told band members he didn't feel up to performing and decided to drive home. On his way to his car, fans on their way in told him that they had come from Bend, Ore., and that they were really looking forward to hearing him sing. Owens turned around and did the show.

"He mentioned that onstage: 'If somebody's come all that way, I'm gonna do the show and give it my best shot. I might groan and squeak, but I'll see what I can do,' " Shaw said. "He died in his sleep — they figure it was about 4:30 [a.m.] — probably of heart failure. So he had his favorite meal, played a show and died in his sleep. We thought, that's not too bad."

Not too bad at all, Buck.

Seargant Major Myers

I just found a new blog and a well-written and powerful post by Sgt. Major Larry A. Myers, U.S. Army (Retired). He spent 27 years in the Army, including combat tours in Vietnam.

And he's got a thought or two about the situation in Iraq.

Bottomfeeders

Bottomfeeders, originally uploaded by Little Thom.

This is the cover shot from my CD, Bottomfeeders, shot by the lovely and talented Susan Parker, CD designed by Eric Warren.

You can hear songs from Bottomfeeders at the Vital Links on the top right of the page. And you can even buy one.

Okay.

Ramblin' Boy

From the handsome blog Body and Soul, a link to a great song by a great maker of songs and a personal favorite, Tom Paxton.

The Last Dance

A Sunday salute to one of the real giants.

The official site.

Those Old Sayings...

Benjamin Franklin said, "A stitch in time saves nine." Hmm. "A stitch in time saves nine."

It’s like time is this big piece of fabric that has a hole in it, and nine is gonna escape through the hole unless you stitch it up. That would be bad. What would we do without nine?

No more baseball.

No more bowling.

And how would we get to ten? We’d have to build a bridge from eight to ten. And only eight people could work on it until it was done. And they better finish the job in eight hours. We’re in big trouble if they don’t.

Of course everything would be okay if 6 was 9. Then every time you need a 9, you could just grab a 6. You’d be like: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, reach back and grab the 6—it's okay! 6 is 9!—10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, reach back and grab the 9 that was 6 and you’ve got you’re 16! You wouldn’t even have to stitch up time; you could just leave the hole in it. If the hole came around and said, “Hey, that’s a 9, isn’t it? Gimme that 9." You could say “What, this? This isn’t a 9. This is a 6." What’s the hole gonna do?

Benjamin Franklin was a pretty smart guy. But not as smart as Jimi Hendrix.


Have you been experienced lately?

The Naked Eye

I was in science class one time when I was a kid. The teacher was teaching us about atoms, and she said that they were "invisible to the naked eye." That fascinated me. "Invisible to the naked eye."

I really wanted to see some of those atoms, so when I got home from school that day I made little suits for my eyes so they wouldn't be naked anymore. Little tiny eye-pants, little tiny eye-shirts, and little eye-socks and shoes. Mom helped me sew them to my eyelids. It was really cool.

I don’t know if my eye suits would have allowed me to see atoms though, cuz the next morning on the way to school I got hit by a truck. You might not be able to see atoms with the naked eye, but I’m pretty sure I would saw that truck.

Riverdancers to be Arrested

BRANSON, MISSOURI: The FBI announced today that agents will begin arresting people for riverdancing, after the EPA said the practice was polluting rivers. "We'd been noticing a dramatic rise in pollutants in the nation's rivers for some time," said EPA spokeswoman Jilly Montange, "and we finally found the cause. It's riverdancing." FBI officers said dancers could face up to 15 years in prison.

On a similar note, cities across the nation have begun passing laws making breakdancing illegal. They said the practice was harming the otherwise respectable image of coffee, lunch, and restroom breaks.

Three Weeks Before 9/11

I confess to being completely ignorant of these facts
about the Moussaoui case until I just read this. How
is that possible? And how is this story possible?

In an electronic communication sent to his superiors on Aug. 18, 2001, Samit said he believed Moussaoui was "conspiring to commit a terrorist act."

Samit also warned that Moussaoui, who did not have a pilot's license, had been taking simulator lessons to learn the basics of flying a jumbo jet. Samit expressed his concerns that Moussaoui was plotting a possible hijacking.

"You thought you had a terrorist who was planning a terrorist attack. And you wanted everyone in the government to know," MacMahon asked Samit.

"Yes," he replied.

Although he sent numerous e-mails and formal requests to various agents and to his superiors, Samit said he was unable to get authority to seek a warrant in order to search Moussaoui's belongings.

MacMahon quoted from a report in which Samit accused people at FBI headquarters of "criminal negligence" and said they were just trying to protect their own careers.

Cashing in on hysterical

there's this guy just off the screen to the right
must be a brown paper bag
what's in the bag?
peanut butter sandwich?
nah, this is a bar, not elementary school
and i'll ignore that
rustling in right eardrum
that's a nice thing that
a paper risp in your ear
might be like he steps to the back of the mound
grinds into a slider powder
'batter up!'
salami sub from down the street?
yeah, wait, no, it's 11 a.m. sunday
noone eats subs this early on sunday
seeing how saturday night's bought
most of the real estate
from its weekend business partner
okay turn the head what the hell
i've got a spine i've got all the muscles necessary
for cranial rotation
oh, rest stop, the camera settles on
bartender white muscle shirt
wrap around flowered skirt
brown freckled shoulders
ahhhhhhhhhhh
who needs brown paper bags full of
wo!
twenty dollar bills
hey now, i wasn't finished counting the petals
stretchin my back
she's got her back to me
cleaning the cash register or something
upper back muscles rippling
triceps doin pushups
she's been exercising
riding a bike, drinking from a plastic
water bottle on a rock in the sun
she a camper, a hiker
she's a bartender, smokes
camel lights
looks me straight in the eye
when she says she's from new hampshire
and you got something behind that question
or you just gonna sit there and look stupid?
oh, i just wanted to talk
to hear you talk see
you talk to me your
mouth move to glance down
peep zap buzz brown
paper bags at the poker machine
ya know, some would say
that money belongs in a little basket
passed into your lap
on a sunday morning
but hey, i know
you play the odds
and the oregon lottery's
got it all over
a second royal flush
i go back to the flowers
i go back to the freckle hey!
whatcha do in new hampshire?
whyju come over here?
what's your middle name?
talk at me
here's my basket there
ain't nothin behind it
just this hysterical coming
this
jackpot

Blogger is Whacky Today

I went to my address and got sent to a "Bible College Online". The URL was right and everything. Whacked.

Emailing It In

Just figured out how to email a post in. Too cool. I
could get used to this.

And just in case you've been living in a cave and
haven't already heard about it, get on over to Blue
Grass Talk Radio. What else is there to talk about?

First, they came for Missouri:

"If you hand out contraception to single women, we're saying promiscuity is OK as a state, and I am not in support of that."

Via Fired Up Missouri.

Poor, Poor, Pitiful Us

History we all know: We rebelled against the British because the British governed us unfairly. Basically put: the super-wealthy ruled, and used the power afforded by their wealth to suppress and exploit the less wealthy.

We created a new form of government exactly as a response to that, one of its chief functions being, not surprisingly, the protection of the less wealthy from the super-wealthy.

We need to remember that, and we need to do a better job of it.

FACT: Jim Gerlach has taken $30,000 in contributions from indicted former House Majority leader Tom DeLay and he won’t give it back.

FACT: Jim Gerlach has voted with Tom DeLay 90% of the time.

FACT: We asked Gerlach to give back DeLay’s money, but he has refused.

These are the facts. They are indisputable.

And Clear Channel won't let you see them.

That’s right, media giant Clear Channel wouldn't let us run an ad that informs the people of Pennsylvania’s Sixth Congressional District about the tainted money Jim Gerlach has taken from indicted former Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Clear Channel refused to run this billboard (pictured above).

Clear Channel told us they wouldn’t run any billboard “that might make Jim Gerlach mad.” We’re not kidding. Clear Channel is a supporter of Jim Gerlach and has contributed money to his campaign.

There are other and clearer examples, and I'll be presenting them in posts to come. Especially: How taxation can and should be used to prevent the super-wealthy from taking control of government. Remember: It is one of the primary reasons we created this country.

hereboy

hereboy, originally uploaded by Little Thom.

Testing out my Flickr account here, which allows me to store photos and send them here to my blog, among other places. Pretty cool.

This is one of my paintings, and one of my favorites. From Spring 2005, roundabout.

HOW I GOT MY DOG TO BELIEVE IN GOD

My dog, her name is Melba
Had 19 puppies
7 and 6 and 6. All
Of them survived until
I hit them in the head with a hammer
Which was hard

I did this in front of Melba
Who seemed bothered
A bit
And snarled once or twice
Then we went into the back yard
And I buried Melba’s puppies
In front of her
With great ceremony. When
She tried to lick her crotch
I slapped her on the butt
No, Melba, no
This is important, I said

After a time Melba grew to expect the killing of her pups

When she had her fourth litter
A strangely small one
Of two
She bit them in the heads
And carried them into the back yard
Where we had interred the other pups
And dug a hole and buried them

She sits now
At night
And howls
By their graves
To the stars
To the sky
And eats her kibble
In the house
A bit dazed, hungover

Melba has grown old now
And hobbles and wobbles

A tumor here

A tumor there

And she has dug a large hole
In the back yard

She looks at me when
I come to stand beside her
And looks at the graves
And the grave to be
And looks at me
And howls
At the stars
At the sky

Blanche

She had a mouthful of raw hamburger
and keeled over
like a toy she continued
to roll
until her legs pointed up

I got her straightened up.
There ya go
old girl.
18 and one half years she is
walking, barking
eating from Australia to Oregon

She's walking now
there, drinking water
and walking
days become scrunched up
mouths, waiting
not waiting

Sunday, January 1, 2006

Headed off to a very special Open Mike at the Wild Goose. Besides being the first of the year, Jeff Stanley (and of course Denise) is in town from Australia and Moe Yess, who hasn't been to the gig in months, will be there for a reunion of the Yess Stanley Experience. Too good. Happy New Year to all of us.