May 2003 Archives

How does he stick his foot so far up there (in his mouth, that is?)

From Reuters today:

Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson insists he never sexually assaulted the woman he was jailed for raping in 1991, but talking about her makes him so angry he wants to rape her now.

In a Fox News interview to be broadcast on Thursday, Tyson, 36, calls former beauty queen Desiree Washington "a lying, monstrous young lady" and says, "I just hate her guts."

"She put me in that state where now I really do want to rape her," Tyson said, according to excerpts provided by Fox News of Greta Van Susteren's interview for "The Pulse" program to be broadcast at 9 p.m. (0100 GMT on Friday).

Charmed, I'm sure.

OK, it's not much, but check it out, anyway. One week's worth for 5 seconds to show for it. That's Flash for you!

My CD player at home isn't working, I'm not home that much anyway, and I try to drive as little as possible. As a result, I'm often not near "normal" sources of music, like my CD collection or a radio (radio reception in my office is poor, and the selection of radio stations these days is even poorer.) So where do I listen to music? On the computer. So I thought I'd write in praise of those sites that make it possible for me to get some good tunes and not go completely insane.

(None of these guys are paying me to say any of the following, by the way. I'm just feeling enthusiastic.)

Emusic
I first stumbled upon these guys when I was trying to find a song I'd heard on KALX (OK, not all radio stations are crappy)... it was this obscure but funky Ethiopian song. I tracked it down and found it was part of a series called Ethiopiques... in record stores for $15, or on Emusic for $8.99. I happily bought and downloaded it. About a year later, Ghost World came out and I decided I had to get the soundtrack. Once again, Emusic came to the rescue... but now it was a subscription-only deal. However, they did have a free-trial offer (100 songs at the time). I signed up, and when I'd gotten to 100 songs, I just kept subscribing. And they've kept adding new albums!

The weakness of the service is perhaps its greatest strength: with a few exceptions, they simply do not have the "big names" like Madonna, Eminem, Snoop Dog, Dixie Chicks, Pink... you get the picture. What they do have is amazing assortment of independent labels and musicians, and they just keep adding more. Interpol, Cat Power, Amy Rigby (you've probably never heard of her, but you really should have... there's no justice)... and even some bigger names like the Hives, Badly Drawn Boy, and 50 Cent. They recently added a bunch of albums from the Beggar's Group labels... Cocteau Twins! Stereolab! Love and Rockets! Needless to say, I'm having a grand old time, all for $10 or $15 bucks a month for as many albums as I want (within reason... a few people have gotten the boot for overdoing it. I haven't hit that point.)

For some reason, though, whenever the press writes about online music services, they always talk about PressPlay and the like... you know, the services that charge you $10/month plus x amount for each track you stream, or each track you download or burn to disk. It's all very complicated, and very pointless to me. I think Emusic has it right and they don't. But will users find in large enough numbers to make it successful?

Boombastic Radio
An internet-only station broadcasting out of the U.K., Boombastic has been my favorite discovery from ShoutCast. They play a melange of jazz, funk, world music, hip-hop... anything from Nina Simone to De La Soul to Feta Kuti. I can't listen to streaming audio at work, but at home I'll often put these guys on. They don't charge a cent, but if you donate to them, they'll send you cool mix CDs.

Epitonic
I don't know who these guys are or how they make money, but this site has great information on various alt music, as well as mp3s. You won't get the whole album, but you will get a couple of songs — not just 30-second clips — from many groups. It's a fun place to explore.

Trouser Press
These guys published a magazine, and then released a few compilations of alt album reviews, and then went away. But now they've generously made all the reviews from the books available on the web. What a great reference. I wish the 70s/80s material was integrated with the 90s; it seems silly to have two different databases for them. But this is a quibble, really.

Pitchfork Media
I stumbled onto this site recently; they have a great collection of music reviews, and their music news stories betray a sense of humor.

I also like (but not as strongly):
Q Magazine
IUMA
Amazon's online music section
KPIG (used to be essential listening for me but now they charge and you have to listen through RealAudio)
Virgin Radio

Article in the May 27th San Francisco Chronicle ("Band gives Baghdad a pounding") about a death-metal group in Baghdad called A. Crassicaud. Their lyrics are all in English. When Saddam was in power, they had to write a song praising him, so this is what they came up with:

Follow the leader
Saddam Hussein
He'll make them fall
Drive them insane

This little masterpiece is called "Youth in Iraq".

("'Damn, I'm really mad we can't sing that song anymore,' says Talal [the lead singer]. 'It was our best song. The chorus was too much, it was great.'")

I wish them luck.

--> sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi? f=/c/a/2003/05/27/DD233050.DTL

The tax cuts are a BAD IDEA. Paul Krugman says so too, citing FT's article (pet peeve: hate it when columnists mention an article but don't give a proper citation so you can never find it again. I won't make that mistake. This column is in the May 27 edition of the New York Times and it's called "Stating the Obvious".) But it's not just short-sighted and economically suicidal... it's deliberately so!

--> www.nytimes.com/2003/05/27/opinion/27KRUG.html

This story, "US accused of deserting diplomatic path in Iraq", from the May 26 Financial Times (link here, but probably won't be for long; I think only the current day's stories are online for free) says that France concluded in January that the Bush administration was only paying lip service to attempting a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Iraq and had decided on "regime change". "I realised then that those who wanted to make war had a free hand," said French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin. And Jacques Chirac said on Monday, "A war that lacks legitimacy does not acquire legitimacy because it has been won."
As some people say, "Le sigh..."

When I took my 93-year-old grandfather out to lunch on Saturday, he told me that his graduating class at Cal had a chant, which was:

Give 'em hell
Treat 'em dirty
California
Nineteen-thirty

This tickles me to no end.

Also, he said he used to live in a fraternity (the name of which escapes me — something that begins with "Zeta" I think) located at College and Haste. Supposedly the building is still there. Need to check it out.

"The White House actually seems to believe that it is fighting a holy war. By the same token, so did Pope Urban II. He thought the first crusade would be a breeze, that his forces were noble and heroic and of God, and that they would rescue everyone. He did not think about the aftermath, what effect the ripples from his rock would have on the pond. For 90 years people thought he'd won, and then we got a thousand years of rage between Christians and Muslims, endless death and brutality in the name of sanctimony and obsession. "But when this makes me feel hopeless -- I don't think I have 90 years -- I remember that the current pope, John Paul II, for all of his disastrous policies, apologized a few years ago to the Muslim community. He said, in the presence of Muslims, "Every single one of the crusades was a mistake, and I am sorry." Then he went into a mosque, and kissed the Koran. This sharp spiritual vision takes my breath away."

--> www.salon.com/mwt/col/lamott/ 2003/05/23/failing_vision/index.html

The place: my living room.
The time: about 8:25 pm on May 20.
The phone rings.

"May I speak to Ms. Falk?"
"Is this a sales call?"
"Yes it is."
"Can you please put me on your do-not-call list?"
"Certainly, ma'am. I just need to inform you that it can take three to six weeks for your record to be changed, and during that time you may receive more calls, and ..."
"I understand. Buffy's on."
(A pause, then a chuckle.) "Have a good evening."
"You too."

Oh, and the show? Just OK, albeit with a few good one-liners. "Are you going to go all Dawson on me every time I have a new boyfriend?" and "I'm cookie dough. I'm not done baking." Salon.com has a good article on it here, but don't read it until you've seen the show.

"Al-Qaida is back and stronger than ever" screams this headline in the Guardian's May 19 edition. The gloating of the Bush administration nonwithstanding, it appears that a) the terrorist organization is doing quite well for itself, adjusting to changed circumstances and toughter security around government buildings, b) continuing to attract recruits and c) well and truly pissed off.

Meanwhile, looters hit nuclear waste facilities in Iraq and waltzed off with G-d knows what. Also, everybody in Iraq has machine guns now, since those weren't secured either.

This war made us safer how, exactly? Please tell me again that this is just sour grapes talking?

It seems we're trapped between two insane groups of people with strongly held beliefs. The one, a bunch of religious fanatics who understand us just well enough to figure out how to kick us where it hurts, and the other, a group of people with absolute conviction of the rightness of their cause, and an eye for profit. Alas, they are our leaders. That had better change come November 2004.

--> www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/ story/0,12469,958881,00.html

So now Al Queda has hit Morocco, striking four locations in Casablanca. Morocco is an, um, interesting choice because it was considered one of the more moderate, Western-friendly travel destinations in the region. Given the rainbow coalition of targets (a Jewish community center, a Spanish club, the Belgian consulate, and a five-star hotel), I guess the point is to make Morocco less attractive to Western tourists and weaken the king's position the government postponed elections recently and supported the "liberation" of Iraq"). Casablanca is a pretty modern (and unattractive) port city; lots of industry, located near the airport, lots of international connections. I'd guess that also made the city a choice target.

When I read about the attacks, I realized that the hotel in the story sounded familiar...

This review cracked me up... he also does a good job of explaining what was so good about the first one. (I'll have to see it again; I didn't sufficiently appreciate it at the time, for various reasons.) Read on for my favorite extracts...

--> www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/ ?030519crat_atlarge

From the May 16 edition of the Jewish Bulletin, a story about U.C. San Diego's Hillel, and their novel approach to promoting Israel. They are giving away condoms on campus.

The catchphrase for this campaign: "Israel. It's still safe to come."

--> "Pro-Israel campus condom giveaway raises eyebrows"

Managed to get over to the Bill Bryson reading at Stacey's Books yesterday. For those who haven't heard of him, he's the author of the extremely funny Neither Here Nor There, Notes From a Small Island and several other books, mostly travelogues. He was reading from his latest, A Short History of Nearly Everything which sounded weighter and more serious, but still had several giggly moments in it, at least in the part he read. I just got my Stacey's bonus; perhaps it will go towards this (even though I am one of those weird people who dislike reading hardcovers ((too hard to read in the bathtub)) ).

My favorite part of the reading was the Q&A afterwards; someone asked him what he was planning to write about next. He said, "I'd love to go to Canada and do a book about it. The trouble is that publishers go white when you mention Canada. No one wants to read about Canada. Even Canadians don't want to read about Canada."

Bill Bryson has an interesting accent. He's originally from Ohio, but moved to England, married, and lived there for two decades (they moved back to the U.S. for seven or eight years, but are now heading back over — I wanted to ask if politics had anything to do with it, but didn't dare). As a consequence, although he looks like your typical burly Midwestern guy, his speech is a blend of American Rs and softly trailing sentences that just somehow sound English English. Note, please, that he doesn't sound anything like the put-on way Madonna talks. Please.

So it wasn't a joke? Has someone been inhaling the air freshener again in Redmond?

--> Microsoft Comes Clean on iLooSeattle Times, May 14, 2003

With apologies to the South African Independent, whose brilliant headline I nicked.

And speaking of nicking... a man is claiming that they stole his idea! (Dude, I'd leave that one alone if I were you...)

My only question... why did it take Microsoft over a week to issue a retraction?

(And my other question: why don't they have anything about it on their website?)

More pictures of my floor. Hubba hubba.

Probably of interest only to my boyfriend, but...

I'm getting bamboo floors put in! No more nasty white carpet! Of course, nothing is easy, and getting everything out of the living and dining rooms was tough, even with help from a very capable mover. Plus, there was a scary couple of hours where I thought one of my cats had escaped, and as I was walking around the block calling her name, I wished I'd come up with a better cat name for her. There's just something not right about yelling "Princess! Princess!" But it's all done... now just waiting for the installers to come back and put in the floor later this week. In the meantime, check out my living conditions!

Just raced through Jeffrey Brown's Clumsy and Marjane Satrapi's Persopolis. The former is the tale of the brief relationship between Jeffrey and Theresa. It jumps back in forth in time and depicts a number of incidents of the kind that are so charged with meaning when you're in love (and suspect the relationship is doomed to end.) The drawing style seems very crude, but I think it's the product of someone a lot more sophisticated than he lets on. Although you sometimes want to tell the characters to grow up, the story, such as it is, does manage to suck you in. I'll be curious to read his next book too.

Clumsy was finished barely two weeks after Jeffrey and Theresa's relationship ended. Persopolis, on the other hand, had the benefit of a lot more hindsight, since the events it covers took place two decades ago. The drawing style is much more sophisticated. For example, there's a great scene between two groups of women demonstrators; the women wearing white outfits on the right with their eyes angrily open face a group of women robed in back with their heads tilted back and their eyes closed in what seems like ecstasy. Marjane herself looks like a Persian Madeline.

The story itself follows her life growing up in a very westernized and well-off family; she reads comic books about Marxism and imagines long heart-to-heart chats with God (she wants to be a prophet when she grows up). Of course, historical events impinge on her life, and to make a long story short, her parents send her out of the country when she is 14, fearing that she will get in trouble (or killed) otherwise.

Some reviewers have complained that the book isn't emotionally weighty enough; there have been a few unfavorable comparisons to Maus. I think that's unfair. The definitive telling of the Islamic revolution it's not, but it is a compelling story about one girl living through those times, and I'm looking forward to reading the sequels to find out what happened to her next. (And to her parents — they come across as very interesting characters.)

-->Interview with Jeffrey Brown
--> Interview with Marjane Satrapi

After listening to Boombastic Radio play "Anti Love Song" one too many times, I broke down and ordered Betty Davis's debut album. Who the heck is Betty Davis, I hear you ask? Well, she was married to Miles Davis for a short while, but she also recorded a series of extremely funky albums in the early 1970s. I thought she sounded a lot like Macy Gray; some reviewers think so too. I'm looking forward to hearing the whole album. I need some funky music, since EMusic removed their James Brown selection before I could download all of it, and there's really only so many times you can listen to "Hot Pants" before going insane.

You'll have to scroll down a bit in this article, but still, it's pretty cool!

While cleaning out my house last weekend, I found newspapers that I'd saved from Gulf War I... and found the contents startingly contemporary.