Trumpdate

"His mother was a hippie; his father was a guy from Kenya who split... What is he? Baby Jesus?" O'Reilly joked. "There was a sophisticated conspiracy to smuggle this baby back into the country?"

Trump countered that far more nefarious conspiracies were possible.

"I grew up with Wall Street geniuses," Trump said. "What they do in terms of fraud and how they change documents..."

"I have my birth certificate," he continued. "People have birth certificates. He doesn't have a birth certificate. Now he may have one, but there is something on that birth certificate - maybe religion. Maybe it says he's a Muslim. I don't know."

Currently no word on whether, in addition to religion, the alleged birth certificate contains Obama's favorite beer, his credit rating or his golf handicap.

From Wikipedia's "List of Television Shows Considered the Worst"

Barney & Friends - One specific criticism is: "[H]is shows do not assist children in learning to deal with negative feelings and emotions. As one commentator puts it, the real danger from Barney is denial: the refusal to recognize the existence of unpleasant realities. For along with his steady diet of giggles and unconditional love, Barney offers our children a one-dimensional world where everyone must be happy and everything must be resolved right away."

Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos - The only known series in world television history to be canceled by its network midway through its first airing. Kerry Packer, Australian media magnate and owner of the broadcaster Nine Network, saw the show whilst out at dinner with friends, and reportedly phoned Nine central control personally, ordering them to "Get that shit off the air!" The network complied and immediately replaced it with reruns of Cheers, citing "technical difficulties." Packer arrived at the network the next day and again referred to the show as "disgusting and offensive shit." The show itself largely consisted of videos of animals having sex interspersed with off color jokes from the show's host. The show would not be seen in its entirety until 2008, three years after Packer's death.

Holmes & Yo-Yo (1976) - Holmes & Yo-Yo was universally panned by critics and is #33 on TV Guide's List of the 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time. Many Nielsen viewers claimed they felt "uncomfortable" with the show's often racy humor, most especially episode seven, over 14 minutes of which was Yo-Yo verbalizing (in graphic detail) his desire for genitalia. Although the series lasted only 13 episodes ... the influence of Holmes & Yo-Yo can be felt in other "robot cop" series and films that followed ... [including] Mann & Machine, which used the same premise as Holmes & Yo-Yo, only with a sexy female robot instead of the stout Yoyonovich.

The Swan - The show has been criticized for promoting plastic surgery, a view of beauty packaged and marketed by the fashion industry, and a lack of ethics in preying on vulnerable people. [USA Today] described it as "the most morally bankrupt TV since Al Qaeda's latest press release."

Who's Your Daddy? - For the show's premise, an adult who had been put up for adoption as an infant was placed in a room with 25 men, one of whom was his or her biological father. If the contestant could correctly pick out his or her father, the contestant would win $100,000. If he or she chose incorrectly, the person the contestant incorrectly selected would get the $100,000, although the contestant would still be reunited with his or her father.

Heil Honey I'm Home! - This UK sitcom depicted fictionalised versions of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun living next to a stereotypical Jewish couple. The show was criticised for being unfunny and distasteful, and was cancelled after a single episode aired.

Cop Rock:



Also noteworthy: Homeboys in Outer Space, Galactica 1980, The Jay Leno Show.

Never Gonna Dance Again

Apparently SNL ripped these dudes off, too.

Trump

TRUMP: The fact is they asked me the question. I said I want to see his birth certificate. It's very simple. Somebody asked today, "can I see your birth certificate?" I had it in my hands in less than an hour. People that are born in this country have birth certificates. So I wanted to see his birth certificate.

I mentioned that on "The View." Whoopi, who is a friend of mine, I did a movie cameo for her. Whoopi said if that were a white man you wouldn't be asking that question. I said what does this have to do with race? It has absolutely nothing to do with race.

The fact is if you look at what has happened, with respect to this birth certificate issue, he doesn't have it. He spent millions of dollars on lawyers trying to get out of the issue. They get what is called a certificate of live birth which doesn't have a signature on it and anybody can get a certificate of live birth. It has nothing to do with a birth certificate. And they are really reeling.

Now, they talk all sorts of things. You don't have a doctor or a nurse. Here's the president of the United States, and no doctor, no nurse, nobody has come forward saying I delivered that beautiful baby. There are so many things.

Even if you look at the newspaper, the so-called newspaper article in Hawaii, that was days after he was born. So that wasn't like when he was born. And if you think about a couple of things, whoever took a newspaper advertisement? These were poor people. These aren't rich people. Whoever took a newspaper advertisement to announce the birth of your baby? I don't think you know of anybody. I know of nobody. I know poor people and rich people, but I've never heard of taking a newspaper ad to advertise that you have a baby. So that's one.

And then you have this beautiful governor, a Democratic governor that says 50 years ago he remembers, OK, he remembers when Obama was born. I'll bet he didn't even know the parents 50 years ago. I think it is absolutely insane. What he's doing is taking a bullet for the party by making a statement that I remember.

So I've been into this issue for a couple of weeks and I'm starting to get very concerned. The fact is if you are not born in this country you cannot run for president. If Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted to run for a president -- he's a friend of mine, a good man. If we wanted to run for president he can't because he wasn't born in this country.

VAN SUSTEREN: Here's my thought. First of all, I don't know about the article, whether he had to pay for the article or not. As for the birth certificate, frankly, I haven't seen mine in years. I have a passport and the president has a passport having traveled at one time, I had to surrender a birth. And so I suspect that when he got his passport he had to provide a valid birth certificate.

And the other thing too, this is the most incredible -- this doesn't hurt the Democratic Party. This is how they are raising funds. Using all this controversy to say, "please, money" because the Republicans are going after him about his birth certificate.

TRUMP: I don't think it is. I disagree with you 100 percent. I see what is going on over the Internet. I see the questions asked. People have never -- you have to understand, terrible term, the word "birther." A birther is a person that wants -- these are great Americans in many cases, in most cases. They want to see the president was born in this country. They want to see the president actually has a birth certificate.

And I don't think it is helping him at all. And I wish it did help him. To be honest with you, I want him to have a birth certificate because that would mean his presidency is legal. You have to be born in the United States.

I hope he was born in the United States. I hope that he -- I want to get rid of the word "hope." I want to know for sure. I hope that he was born in the United States. And I hope this doesn't become a big issue. But I will tell you, if you look at the Internet and the kind of questions, this is not an issue that is popular for them, believe me.

In Other News: tiny Hats

thankyou huffington post

Are you surprised? 'cause I'm not.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-kill-team-20110327

It's shocking in a graphic, gratuitous way, absolutely disgusting and thoroughly disappointing... but it makes sense. This should all be culturally predictable. Don't you feel it?

Bear Surprise

[John Lurie's "Bear Surprise"] is considered an internet meme in Russian culture and has been described by Victor Sonkin in the The Moscow Times as having "gained vast popularity with the speed of an avalanche." Its popularity, especially in runet, led to the bear's speech balloon being changed from "Surprise" to "Preved", a made up word that combines the Russian word "privet" (hello or hi) and "medved'" (bear). The title eventually became known as "Preved Medved" (translation "Hello Bear"). - Wikipedia

they're gonna make a big hole

"Scientists To Drill Deeper Than Ever Before, Hope To Sample Mantle"

slightly longer, but similar article

looking around at moho discontinuity arrived at this eventually:



which you may notice is posted by this guy gwap360. who is quite a character.
thats it for now.

If the humanities and sciences can't get along, we have no future

"In May 2010, geneticist J. Craig Venter and his team made news by creating the first “synthetic life form,” replacing the genetic code in a bacterium with DNA they’d composed on a computer.

But during a presentation delivered Monday morning at the South By Southwest convention in Austin, Texas, Venter talked about two ways the landmark innovation went wrong.

In order to distinguish their synthetic DNA from that naturally present in the bacterium, Venter’s team coded several famous quotes into their DNA, including one from James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist of a Young Man: “To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life.”

After announcing their work, Venter explained, his team received a cease and desist letter from Joyce’s estate, saying that he’d used the Irish writer’s work without permission. ”We thought it fell under fair use,” said Venter."

Craig Venter's Genetic Typo

A Failed Entertainment

Stephen and I went to see this at the Fine Arts Building on Broad today, its last day in town.
Too bad nobody attempted this one:
"The Joke" - B.S. Latrodectus Mactans Productions. Audience as reflected cast; 35 mm x 2 cameras; variable length; black and white; silent. Parody of Hollis Frampton's 'audience-specific events,' two Ikegami EC-35 video cameras in the theater record the 'film's' audience and project the resultant raster onto screen - the theater audience watching itself watch itself get the obvious 'joke' and become increasingly self-conscious and uncomfortable and hostile supposedly comprises the film's involuted 'anti-narrative' flow. Incadenza'a first truly controversial project, Film & Kartridge Kultcher's Sperber credited it with 'unwittingly sounding the death-knell of post-poststructual film in terms of sheer annoyance.' NON-RECORDED MAGNETIC VIDEO SCREENABLE IN THEATER VENUE ONLY, NOW UNRELEASED

You Are Sooo Good-Looking

www.christiannightmares.tumblr.com

corporate creativity

In Agreement.

"Remixing is like musical prostitution. I think it's really cynical and vacuous; I'm batting offers away like flies. It never used to be like that. Ray Charles didn't need five remixes. The song speaks for itself." - James Blake

"I heard that fucking Radiohead record and I just go, 'What?!'... Them writing a song about a fucking tree? Give me a fucking break! A thousand year old tree? Go fuck yourself! You'd have thought he'd have written a song about a modern tree or one that was planted last week. You know what I mean?" - Liam Gallagher

But Seriously

http://vladimirputinactioncomics.com/

David Simon

on Snoop getting arrested:

"First of all, Felicia's entitled to the presumption of innocence. And I would note that a previous, but recent drug arrest that targeted her was later found to be unwarranted and the charges were dropped. Nonetheless, I'm certainly sad at the news today. This young lady has, from her earliest moments, had one of the hardest lives imaginable. And whatever good fortune came from her role in The Wire seems, in retrospect, limited to that project. She worked hard as an actor and was entirely professional, but the entertainment industry as a whole does not offer a great many roles for those who can portray people from the other America. There are, in fact, relatively few stories told about the other America.

"Beyond that, I am waiting to see whether the charges against Felicia relate to heroin or marijuana. Obviously, the former would be, to my mind, a far more serious matter. And further, I am waiting to see if the charges or statement of facts offered by the government reflect any involvement with acts of violence, which would of course be of much greater concern.

"In an essay published two years ago in Time magazine, the writers of The Wire made the argument that we believe the war on drugs has devolved into a war on the underclass, that in places like West and East Baltimore, where the drug economy is now the only factory still hiring and where the educational system is so crippled that the vast majority of children are trained only for the corners, a legal campaign to imprison our most vulnerable and damaged citizens is little more than amoral. And we said then that if asked to serve on any jury considering a non-violent drug offense, we would move to nullify that jury's verdict and vote to acquit. Regardless of the defendant, I still believe such a course of action would be just in any case in which drug offenses—absent proof of violent acts—are alleged.

"Both our Constitution and our common law guarantee that we will be judged by our peers. But in truth, there are now two Americas, politically and economically distinct. I, for one, do not qualify as a peer to Felicia Pearson. The opportunities and experiences of her life do not correspond in any way with my own, and her America is different from my own. I am therefore ill-equipped to be her judge in this matter."

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/browbeat/archive/2011/03/10/david-simon-creator-of-the-wire-speaks-on-felicia-snoop-pearson-s-arrest.aspx

Stoked

"'Battle: Los Angeles' is noisy, violent, ugly and stupid. Its manufacture is a reflection of appalling cynicism on the part of its makers, who don't even try to make it more than senseless chaos. Here's a science-fiction film that's an insult to the words 'science' and 'fiction,' and the hyphen in between them. You want to cut it up to clean under your fingernails...
"The dialogue consists almost entirely of terse screams: Watch it! Incoming! Move! Look out! Fire! Move! The only characters I re­member having four sentences in a row are the anchors on cable news...
"When I think of the elegant construction of something like "Gunfight at the OK Corral," I want to rend the hair from my head and weep bitter tears of despair. Generations of filmmakers devoted their lives to perfecting techniques that a director like Jonathan Liebesman is either ignorant of, or indifferent to. Yet he is given millions of dollars to produce this assault on the attention span of a generation.
"Young men: If you attend this crap with friends who admire it, tactfully inform them they are idiots. Young women: If your date likes this movie, tell him you've been thinking it over, and you think you should consider spending some time apart."
-Roger Ebert

chillwave. bro.

Screen Shot of the Moment

I Dream of Sheen

The other night I dreamt that I went on a long drive through the night with Charlie Sheen. I have no idea why Sheen specifically managed to manifest himself into my mind in such a state, but I usually just try to accept these things as they are. That being said though, I don't normally dream in this way. I don't normally remember my dreams and when I do, figures usually don't come in such a mold.

It was a brisk night, I could feel it intensely on the skin of my arms. I could feel the coolness of breeze cutting against the warmth of the tropical night. It was normal. It was dark, but lit ever so lightly by a sort-of nondescript distilled bluish tone. The light emanated rather beat, and you could see it's luminescence especially clear in the thinner portions of the palm trees. This was not so normal, and I'm not sure what it means.

We walked out of the resort and got into the car. It was some sort Ford, maybe a Bronco? The seats were worn red leather, and the stereo-deck was 'tapes only'. We didn't put anything on, as up to this point we both hadn't said anything, and I don't remember there being any tapes in the glovebox. The dialogue commenced but for the most part I can't remember what exactly was said. A lot of fuzziness here, what's more important was the feeling. The car sped down a two lane road in the night. The palm trees blurred by only capturing still imagery when focused on in specific points while above the stars remained completely still, almost dead. The stars were almost dead. Around this time is when I remember Sheen asking me how old I was and I responded "almost 25". At that he told me I "didn't need to stress" and that life would move "for me and with me". He told me that I had "a long time to go and that I would fade", he reminded me that he wouldn't and soon he'd be gone, but up to that point he had "lived quite peacefully" The most resonating point I remember in our talk was that he said that "insanity hadn't visited my doorstep" until he was "on the morning shows".

From then I don't think anything else was said. Sheen continued to drive, he was driving, did I mention that? We pulled back up to the roundabout of the resort and entered the lobby. From there we separated. On one end of the room stood everyone here, on this blog, plus Jackie P, Starbuck, and some sort of faceless man. He had a face, this is nothing that visually disturbing, but I can't place or remember who it was? I feel like it might have my father, or Jay maybe? I don't know, but at any rate Sheen had awaiting his arrival a group of women all dressed (somehow obviously non-corodinated) in white. They all seemed to welcome his arrival and followed as he walked into the adjacent hall and disappeared from view.

This all somehow made me at least for a morning feel really good about where I'm at. Whether that's the correct reaction to all of this, I don't know but I feel OK.

Serial Comic Books to Follow at the Moment

If you're so inclined:

1. Batman Incorporated and Detective Comics

Bruce Wayne decided to announce to the public that he is "working closely with" Batman, in order to go around the world finding worthy candidates and training them to be Batmen, in the name of taking his style of justice global. Dick Greyson holds down the fort as Batman in Gotham with Wayne's illegitimate son as Robin. Grant Morrison (Arkham Asylum, All-Star Superman, The Filth) is the head writer on Incorporated.

2. Scalped
A gritty crime drama set on a hellishly depicted present-day Indian reservation. Written by Jason Aaron.

3. Rasl
Alternate dimensions and shit. From Jeff Smith, the writer / illustrator of Bone, which I read a lot as a kid.

4. Boy's Club Five funny animal friends smoke weed and spout catch phrases. Written and illustrated by Matt Furie.

5. Neonomicon
An FBI agent and recovering sex addict uncovers an underground world of depraved H.P. Lovecraft-worshipers. Written by Alan Moore (The Watchmen, From Hell.)

Don't Tell Me I Don't Know What Vietnam is Like

from John Waters' "Desperate Living."

The Sunset Limited

A recommendation:

Definitely not the kind of thing a trailer can do justice to, but worth checking out if you can.

video+music

Strong Tea from Chris Pittman on Vimeo.