Archive for the “Uncategorized” Category

Initially I was going to rant about how impulsive, desperate, career-clinging decisions both destroyed the world economy and squashed the Guantanamo vote, but hopefully this message, delivered by more learned sources than I, is sinking in. My short word on the subject: Get a backbone, everybody! This herd instinct sociopolitical theory in practice is getting way outta hand!
Instead I’d like to share my experimental website with you. It’s a global, streaming, viral imagebase called visionstream. If you don’t know what that admittedly crappy site description means, it’s ok, you can still visit the site.
I launched visionstream last year with the intent of imagining Jean Baudrillard’s The Ecstasy of Communication in visual form. It’s a non-commercial, non-curated flow of imagery that anyone can add to. So far, I’ve only gotten about a dozen submissions, so I’m desperate for more.
Please, submit to the stream! If the trickle increases to a flow I promise to spend more time tweaking the site to make it uber slick and sultry. Dig up all your visual experiments and click here!

I love a good documentary. In order to be good it has to be heartfelt propaganda or utterly objective, and since most are some mish mash between those two criteria, I’m usually disappointed and end up watching reality TV.
Reality TV doesn’t have to be good. At its best it’s like a documentary before the edit and overdubbed narration: raw footage of someone’s ordinary or extraordinary life. So, some thoughts:
How the hell did Annie Duke lose to that crazy biatch Joan Rivers?
I want to poke Coach’s eyeballs out with two sharp sticks.
According to the tabloids Jon of Jon & Kate Plus 8 is having an affair. If it’s true he’ll end up regretting it just because of the ensuing press harassment, but at the same time I understand. Kate’s just a wee bit too critical, dontcha think? And actually, the press harassment will go unchecked whether Jon did anything unusual or not.
The Kardashians don’t amount to much and they know it.
To all the guys out there I advise you to NOT date Kelly, the divorcee from The Real Housewives of New York City. You’ll regret it.
My current faves are The Girls Next Door on E and the MTV skateboarding samaritan that lets a tiny horse live in his LA condo.
So, you ask, what does this have to do with the image I posted? It’s part of the package that housed my cat Poofer’s stocking stuffer, the A-DOOR-able catnip toy. I hang it on the door and she goes bat, bat, bat. A-DOOR-able, huh?
The cat on that package is just like the reality TV celebs. It’s nothing like my real cat Poofer or the loud-talking, know-it-all next door neighbor. I have to deal with them, and as such they elicit a series of complex emotions from me.
The A-DOOR-able toy package and Reality TV are the same: pure Baudrillard-esque seduction, utter fascination, a flat one-way transmission, disposable.
Rest in peace Anna Nicole.

Tags: Baudrillard, documentary film, Reality TV, satire

The thing about blogging is that to do it successfully you must have one or more motivations for engaging the activity with some degree of regularity.  The list of these motives could be brief but must include a grudge, annoyance, anger, shock, Munchausen’s syndrome, an obsessive compulsive interest in the mundane or inane, a long prison sentence or a delusional belief that one is an unrecognized genius and simultaneously that people are interested in the expression of that till now unrecognized genius. At one time or another I believe that I would have been an excellent blogger but as of late the generous blogging opportunity provided me by Semantikon I have been unable to capitalize on.  This is not to say that I have resolved all past disagreements, have subscribed to Taoist mantras, found my bliss, been pardoned, nor been contacted by the Macarthur foundation, however I do feel even in this time of economic disarray, middle east strife and frigid weather I find myself oddly glass half full.  As today is the last day of the rest of George W. Bush’s life I feel as though any carping pales in comparison to the brightness that the future seems to hold.  So as one may view the lack of blog posts as negative I would suggest that one should rather take pleasure in the presence of the absence.

When you are little sometimes things happen within the closed social environment of school or camp or sports that distinguishes you from others.  Sometimes this event is affirming or seemingly heroic, like the guy who scores the winning goal or saves the anonymous passerby from a potentially ill-fated situation.  More likely however, the event that identifies you within your own social group, is the situation or action that is the impetus for the creation of the kind of nickname that follows you through your formative years, and becomes the single most salient reason for moving away for college. It is because of all of the taunted momma’s boys and slutty girls, for all of the nicknames like squid, pants, cool breeze, éclair, skin-dee and thunder thighs for all of the moments that trail you like a homeless dog—it is for reasons like that I have never posted a blog. Although the editor of Semantikon has assured me, much like a motivated lover in the
dark, that this activity is perfectly safe, and that anything that I write here can be edited or removed I know that, much like the gossip on the playground, once the word is out it cannot be retracted. And so it is with a combination of virginal ignorance, hesitation, and intentional blindness that you just want to hold me, and not fuck me that I type these words, and join the ranks of the hubris inspired masses that believe their thoughts and poorly conceived and punctuated posts matter. And so welcome to my blog and remember I never do this.