Inspiring. Not to duplicate voor mij but to blaze your own Paskowitz way…

Ludlow was no cobbler. He merely did what he needed to do and right now he needed a new sole for his left shoe, worn thin from the wheel. It needed to be replaced 3 weeks ago but he hadn’t been able to find any tires to craft a new shoe bottom, or to sleep for that matter, during the stretch of “Everest” as the carny leggers called the Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada circuit. It was named Everest after the bio-scare of ‘23 when the larger half could no longer afford even low grade, “McDonald” biofuel. That’s when the leggers emerged as the latest indentured slave. Horse’s, mules and donkey were now for eating so it was up to the leggers to pull the carnival load. Literally. They ran the little wheel, the human powered wheel that powered the ferris wheel for the children of the energy riche. They were the only ones that could pay other people to spin them around on the ferris wheel. After the stop they broke it down and pulled it to the nearest train. This west coast tour had many stops far from the railroad stop so in addition to driving the rides on site, setting up and breaking down, the leggers had many extra miles to pull it all. Places like Moxee, Washington, Lake Oswego, Oregon, McCloud, California and Gabbs, Nevada. And they had very little time to do it all. Hence, Ludlow’s predicament of a growing hole at the ball of his left foot. The hole had allowed for a blister which popped, pussed and became infected which made for a horrible smell.

The bull shit is so thick these days that instead of even trying to engage in a debate, ultra conservative ignoramuses just send their minions to go to town hall meetings and make a ruckus. Don’t engage in debate about health care, just know that it’s wrong and make noise because it’s socialist and fascist, as if something could actually be both. In general, Americans have bought into the lie that as long as something can be made profitable it is “the good.” Anything that is even slightly directed by the government is “the bad.” Ridiculous really. If “the good” had it their way my internet connection would be slower (e.g. less bandwidth) so Fox could spread even more rubbish into the world on my bandwidth, just to name one. Make it stop.

Speaking as a child of the 80s, John Hughes died this week. He made movies about middle class, suburban white kids that wanted to be individuals fitting in (among other things - see above clip of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles). They came from affluent Chicago that could have been anywhere affluent America. But he did capture something that people think they can replicate but I haven’t seen someone do it yet. To some his films could look like some current teenage romance but that would be wrong. The 80s was a strange decade. It was the moment that the marketers perfected how to sell shit to teenagers. Woodstock was the eureka moment of a new, cashed up demographic and by the 80s the strategy was perfected. However, we weren’t clueless, sheep to the slaughter. Not all of us anyway. But none of us are immune. Maybe that’s what John Hughes did so well. He showed emotion in the time of Gekko. America has not left the mindset of Gekko, we just talk about it differently.

It’s not entirely right, but I see a strong connection with John Hughes’ films and The Smiths. It’s the wolf in sheeps clothes and what a beautiful wolf. Machismo and materialism ruled the 80s and Hughes and The Smiths subverted that mentality although Morrissey did it in a much bigger way. Hughes did it by focusing on the sensitive, yet attractive, anti-hero, outsider that could navigate relatively seamlessly through the high school social circles. Morrissey and Marr did it differently, in particular Morrissey. Just watch the video below and you might even cringe when you see him dance. Is he taking the piss? Is he serious? Is he just dancing? Who knows but so many people, macho or not, loved their tunes and had to deal with their emotions, and some with their homophobia, while they danced and sang and cried in their beers. Morrissey challenged all the nonsense just by putting out records. Really good records.

Both were critical, crucial and emblems of the 80s. It’s great that you can go to a bar in the Mission on the 3rd Thursday every month and hear The Smiths on vinyl. A lot of it is nostalgic but The Smiths and John Hughes will be referenced forever by anyone who wants to know about that decade.

Pretty in Pink being shown in Dolores Park (Mission), San Francisco, Saturday, August 1, 2009.

And here’s a great band from the nineties and naughts covering The Headmaster Ritual….

Where were you?

Only time will tell.

Brent Dennen - San Francisco

Now that I’m a shareholder of GM by simply being an American taxpayer, I’d like to express my wishes for the future direction of the company. I realize most shareholders just want to see profits and really don’t care about “externalities”, but I’m gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that GM adequately consider social costs in future actions. This has had a bit of an effect in the past. Remember all the calls for divestiture in companies that did business with the apartheid South African government. Socially conscious college kids all over the world petitioned their schools to divest in South African businesses. Apartheid is now a fading memory. Witness also the rise of socially conscious and “green” mutual funds.

But back to GM. Plain and simple, I want an apology. Not just one, but multiple apologies.
First, I want an apology from Bob Lutz. Bob Lutz is GM’s soon to be retired chairman. Last year he famously commented that “Global warming is a crock of shit.” Have a look. Before he retires, he should apologize to the people of Tuvalu, the Pacific Island nation that has had to abandon its low-lying islands. He should apologize to the people of Arctic villages that have had to be relocated due to thawing permafrost. He should apologize to the American people for politicizing a scientific matter.

Second, I want an apology for their role in dismantling privately-owned transit systems in numerous American cities. This was done by fronting companies, which Standard Oil and Firestone helped to fund. See this. And this. For a comic version of it, watch the animated movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
GM has been instrumental in spreading the plague of car culture and its methods for doing so have not always been particularly ethical. I think it can be argued that our level of fossil fuel consumption makes the US less competitive with other countries on the global market, and will become more so in the future. The agenda of GM and other car makers has put the US in a hole, a hole which they are now being swallowed by, and they expect us to pull them out of it. The least they could do is show a little contrition. Before you label this position alarmist or hyperbolic, consider this. There is substantial evidence that the oil price spikes of 2008 played a larger role in the foreclosure crisis than first assumed. Many of the new buyers who were already financially stretched saw their budgets break when they had to pay so much to make their long commutes to far-flung suburbs. Among the worst hit areas for foreclosures has been newly constructed homes on the outskirts of major cities. This has been reported in no less than that well-known Lefty rag, the Wall Street Journal.

Thirdly and relatedly, I want an apology for killing the EV1 in the late ’90s. A movie was made about it. See Who Killed the Electric Car?
I would like to see total transparency on the issue. They had an electric car that worked fine, looked good and was easy to drive. Then they took them off lease and destroyed every last one of them. Now we have to deal with this hyperbole about them “developing” the Chevy Volt.

That’s all, just three apologies. No big deal, right? I’m not even asking for an apology for the Hummer, possibly the most polarizing vehicle ever made. Las Vegas’ only Hummer dealership has been converted into a Smart Car dealer. I smile every time I drive by. That’s enough of an apology. But, I do want to ask, can you please explain the Pontiac Aztek? What were you thinking?!

I also propose, as a goodwill gesture, that the Chevy Avalanche be renamed the “Glacier Melt”.

Who’s up next? Chrysler? OK, apologize for building cars that look like they came out of a time warp from 1971. Chargers with Hemis? The re-release of the Challenger? Are you friggin kidding me? They really look like they just took the old molds out of the warehouse and added some new electronics and drivetrain stuff. Its like their designers live in a fantasyland where “American Graffitti” is the adolesence and NASCAR races are every weekend. Start acting like you have a grip on what people need to get around in their daily lives and maybe you’ll become profitable again.

“‘Look at this traffic,’ he said. ‘Look at them, rolling along on their rubber tires in their two-ton entropy cars polluting the air we breathe, raping the earth to give their fat indolent rump-sprung American asses a free ride. Six percent of the world’s population gulping down forty percent of the world’s oil. Hogs!’ he bellowed, shaking his huge fist at the passing motorists.
‘What about us?’ she said.
‘That’s who I’m talking about.’”
-Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang, 1975.

Surely, one of the purest affirmations of Brotherly Love is the daily sharing of a stolen sandwich and the throwing of the disc on a green. Wharton provided the sandwich and the green-green grass was owned by a bunch of morally bankrupt knob-heads spewing gobbledegook from “Gurus” like Tom Peters at each other on their way to financially bankrupting themselves and hordes of unsuspecting (and unfortunately trusting) laymen and women.

The rapture in this case is that the “brothers in sandwich”, sensed quite well the coming storm - it may have taken 10 years - but better late than hungry I always say.

Not coincidentally the events of which I speak took place in the city of Brotherly Love on the Lehman Brothers Quad within the Wharton School’s corner of the UPENN campus

Yes … I am still on the phenomenon of the MBA Scourge and all the awful and anti-human shit people have come to believe about it whether they have one or not.

The real meat of any discussion for me is the phenomenon’s future. Currently there are a lot of rumblings about the Scourge of the MBA and ways to show it for the sham that it is. Efforts by actual human beings are building up to re-humanize our world and the way we do our deeds.

I believe that beyond the overtaking of the human being by glib gurus and their gobbledegook, compliance procedures, faceboook and Tweets there MUST be a human revolution coming. Call it a resurgence of the Luddite movement. Otherwise we might as well just take off for the beach and fry into eternity like “little brown sausages lyin in the sand.”

As I am usually one to spit in the bulldogs eye and let others discuss it … I give you an article from the London Times.

It’s a little hard to follow at first but so, I’m afraid, is the hocus-pocus of the MBA Scourge.

You can find it here

The sandwich is the spit. The bulldog is bankrupt.

Enjoy

at least once …. if you haven’t seen it.

200 is 0.00006666666666666667% of 300 million.