Bullpencatcher

Category: Culture

  • What it takes to be rich

    Okay, I don’t usually do this but I started reading this article and got sick to my stomach. I mean, I’ve all but shunned the Marxist leanings of my past, but a huge political and cultural issue that is completely flying below the radar in public and political debate is the economic disparity between the richest in the country and the rest of us.
    Check out this article about Forbes magazine’s richest 400 Americans.
    Especially interesting (sickening) was this sentence:

    The minimum net worth for inclusion in this year’s rankings released Thursday was $1.3 billion, up $300 million from last year.

    Holy shit, at a time when most of us are not getting raises, or anemic ones at best, and more and more homes are going into foreclosure because people can’t afford their mortgages, yep!, indeed the rich are getting richer.
    I know I can’t blame it all on the President or his party, even if I am inclined to do so, but something has to change – with tax policy, corporate culture, most American’s way of thinking…
    Supply-side economics sure as shit doesn’t seem to be working unless you are one of the 400 on the list and their ilk.
    Those people stand out there as a carrot to all of us, making us think that with hard work we can all make it their one day. That’s an illusion. It helps keep us with our nose to the grindstone thinking that the reward for all of the labor is just around the corner. It’s not coming folks, at least not in the present economic climate. (I guess I have yet to kill the little white-bearded bastard inside of me after all.)
    I am glad I wrote this at work. The two head honchos of the company I work for are on that list of 400.

  • Hyperdeath: Jean Baudrillard 1929-2007

    JeanBaudrillard.jpg

    Randomly dowloaded image of Jean Baudrillard
    It was odd to find out today that he had died, and recently too, because what is time or recent, or death for that matter, when he had only really been words to me back in college, and words that I likely misunderstood, all the while engaged in the ecstasy of reading them. Did Jean Baudrillard ever even exist? Could that face possibly really exist in flesh and blood, taken with the digital camera, and replicated through this cyberspace. Was there a real Jean Baudrillard when he was born and later he stopped existing? What about where he lies now? If we robbed the grave would we perhaps find a series of notes written on cocktail napkins, a bundle of computer cords, a one dollar bill? Was the Paris that he died in “Paris” or more like that Paris at the end of the war. And where will he be buried there, if he is not incinerated, and does that fire burn, or is that just what has been said of fire. I am so glad I have relieved myself of this now, although surely I have still gotten it all wrong.
    Was playing: My Body Is a Cage by Arcade Fire

  • Hank Vegas & GarageBand.com

    Click here to hear the song.
    Click the image above to hear the song and vote for it.
    UPDATE: Until I figure out how you guys can vote on the songs, you can just go and listen to it. I know you may have to register to vote, but I haven’t figured out how one can pick the song they want to listen to yet. Oh well! Steve will have to wait, unless we can get someone to take a CD to him at the show at Variety Playhouse this weekend.


    Hank Vegas & The White Lightning has made its debut at Garagebands.com. It is a site that was started by Jerry Harrison (of the Talking Heads, and the Modern Lovers) and several others in the biz. The boast several top level reviewers such as Steve Earle and George Massenburg among their sleected review panel. The only way we can get those guys to take a look at the music is for you guys to go and vote and say good things about the song we have there right now, Long White Car. Click here, or on the logo above on the right to go to the site and listen now. Of course you can listen to it on this page as well, but that does nothing for getting the song into Steve Earle’s hands.

  • Pat on the Back

    Marines.com
    Marines.com
    Hey! Hey! all you little people. Marines.com won the Site of the Year Award from Favorite Website Awards, and aren’t we proud?!?! That goes with our Communication Arts site of the week award (there’s only 52 of them per year), and the Adweek article written about the site. Goes to show you how well an semi-ex-Marxist can lead a project to an end that he never foresaw. Now, let’s get a few more boys to sign up for the futile war for the lustful crude. and to get revenge for ole papa Dubya!

  • Art Parties

    I heard he even felt out of place at his own parties.
    I heard he even felt out of place at his own parties.
    Art parties are mostly excruciating. People dressed in black, or better yet, black leather. Matching jackets on cold nights like last night. I went to one last night hosted by the artist R. Land, and although I am sure he was there, I didn’t meet the guy. Didn’t really meet anyone as a matter of fact. Saw some folks I hadn’t seen for awhile and that was nice. The local politics writer for the local entertainment weekly who was the girlfriend of a guy I used to be in a band with, and another woman who has reached virtual legend status with a group of friends that I met living in the town I lived in before. It was cold outside and way to hot inside in the studio. One smattered from wall to wall with the art I would call ‘unique’ – manipulated photographs of kittens one with a paw brandishing its middle finger etc. A TV in the corner played artist manipulated videos complete with subtitles of men and women in passe undergarments in sexually provocative poses and scenarios, doing things that at a glance looked like sex but really wasn’t upon further investigatin. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, and in the end decided that that was precisely the reaction that was intended. Despite the fact that it was so cold outside, the party had reached a critical mass and sent people spewing out the door with cold Black Labels in hand. My claustrophobia in such situations got the better of me and I found the cold outdoors, complete with King Crap (Port-O-Let) to be refreshing after about 6 or 7 minutes of the party. Besides that’s where the smokers always are and the party conversation alwasy seems to be better where the nicotine intake is occuring. The strange thing about it all is that the ones of us that were inappropriately dressed for the weather, only at best with a long sleeve shirt and the occasional sweater, seemed to be the ones that found the outdoors to be the best place. All of those black leather coats (there was no coat check girl) filled the space before it was all over and even getting to the bar was difficult to do over or around the wallish mass of cowhide. Ther were no mylar pillow cloud balloons. Even the mention of Andy or the factory would have surely gotten sneering glances and jeers. To be honest, it was good to see the people I saw, and as far as art parties go, this was one of the better ones (conversation managed to achieve a modicum of genuineness. But I can never seem to get around the odd feeling at these things. that everybody really wishes that they have the life that they act like they have at these things. That we are all really that cool. I guess I gave up on ‘cool’ a while ago, and being there made me feel as odd as I imagine the snails on my porch feel this time of year.