Germans Are Exceptional (At Thinking They're The Best)

No, really, they're very good at it,...

"The Second Renaissance" (Or The Story Of B1-66ER)

"A small event, such as a stone dropping into a pond, can cause ripples in the system of the world, and tremble the things that people want, until all this rippling and trembling brings down something enormous..."

Emails, Invites, Likes, Messages, Notifications, Pokes

HOW SOCIAL MEDIA FUELS CRAZY CULTS

Aww: Our Uncle Ray Ray Died (Ray Dolby: 1933 - 2013)

A giant of a man - Thank you.

Crack: The Sound Heard When Opportunity's Knocking

Obsessed 1D fan 'kills pet Chihuahua' after tweet demanding 'follow me or I'll break my dog's neck' goes unanswered by the band

Twitter announces, via tweet, that it has filed for an IPO

There's No Good Title For A Post On My Title Problems

So there now seems to be a glitch in Blogger's widget, which only allows TMR's title to show if I have a photo behind it. Not a big deal - I've got enough of 'em - but it is one more photo-related headache for me to deal with. (Other bloggers have it so easy,...)

And I've wasted 11 hours fixing this bullshit.

That's Banksy's piece behind today's title, so here's a documentary on him. If you're artistically inclined, he's got a LOT of good images and ideas out there.

I'll get back to blogging after I eat,...

MY TITLE BAR IS GONE! SCROLL WAY DOWN, BITCH!

I changed the blog's subheading quote this morning, to a joke on Betty Friedan, but the entire title bar (which I never touched) has elongated and the text has disappeared - and now a lot of the blog's other coding has started to come undone - go figure. 

I've contacted Google about it, so we'll see how long it takes them to address it. In the meantime, it bears repeating - when disaster strikes - for all the great products Google provides, decent costumer service has never been one of them. They don't provide a lot of info for the common user (Yeah, we're going to understand how to edit their layouts? Sure,...) and just trying to find real contact info is excruciating. 

Having been here before, it's honestly shameful how bad they've been in this regard:

Good Lord, it's not like they don't have the resources,...

 

When The Monkees' Mike Nesmith Tried Conjuring Cool

Michael Nesmith wrote the rarely heard "Daily Nightly" (so he's sitting behind the group, looking smug, in sun glasses) while Micky Dolenz sings and plays one of the first MOOG synthesizer's ever recorded on a Pop song. Fun fact:

That was Micky's MOOG, and it was only the third one ever sold,...

I'm Stuck On A High-Speed Rail Train To Nowhere Fast

While reading this, I had no idea if I should laugh or cry because, Buddy, TMR's already there:

A healthy culture transmits values. When it stops doing that, it dies. When the values no longer seem to be applicable, than the culture hunts around for new values, it undergoes a period of confusion while its forward motion slows down. That is where Japan is now. It's where America has arrived. 

The values of the left, that are present in both Japan and America, are a cultural suicide pact. The left pretends to add a spiritual dimension to modernism. It has been peddling that lie for two centuries and it has yet to deliver. In countries where it wielded full control, there was neither modernism nor values. Russia destroyed the economic, technological and spiritual potential of generations of its people. China is trying to use Communist values to avoid turning into another Japan, not realizing that those are little better than the collective obligations with which Japan rushed into the future. 

As America gazes at the ruins of Detroit and the insanity spewed forth by a digital frontier that increasingly looks every bit as eccentric and toxic as anything coming out of Japan, it is all too clear that we are Japan. There is no unique insanity in East, only a common disintegration of values in the East and the West. 

Asia and Europe have both witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations. It isn't technology that destroys technology that destroys civilizations, but a lack of values. 

To understand where Japan and Europe are, imagine an America decaying with no new ideas, losing its religion and values, losing its economy and finally its sanity, becoming coldly conformist and inhuman, while its families fall apart and its youth retreats into their own makeshift worlds. That reality is closer to home than we might like to think. 

America is destroying its values on an industrial scale. In a post-industrial nation, the destruction of values has become one of its chief industries. And while there is value in challenging values, in the conflict and clash of ideas, that requires that values go on existing, or there is no longer anything to challenge. And then there is nothing left but emptiness and madness. 

Another stupid product from an infomercial. Another ridiculous politician. Another protest. Another indicator of economic decline. Another day, week, month, year of empty nothingness.

I just used my "American Values" tag, on the last post, remembering all the flak I caught for it in the past. It does seem pretty worthless now, next to everyone scheduling "Eastern" medicines in with their meditation ("not just for new-agey folks") and no clue why they're doing either.

That's the only reason why I don't know whether to laugh or cry,...

Simon Cowell's Having A Baby With Another Man's Wife (So, That Means, Criticism Stops At Judging Ourselves)

Pop is suffering from the same malady as the art world, which is stuck on the tired old rubric that shock automatically confers value. But those once powerful avant-garde gestures have lost their relevance in our diffuse and technology-saturated era, when there is no longer an ossified high-culture establishment to rebel against. On the contrary, the fine arts are alarmingly distant or marginal to most young people today.

Unfortunately, the media spotlight so cheaply won by Cyrus will inevitably spur repeats of her silly stunt, by her and others. Image and profile now rule the music industry. At a time when profits are coming far more from touring than from CD sales, performers are being hammered too early into a marketable formula for cavernous sports venues. With their massive computerized lighting and special-effects systems, arena shows make improvisation impossible and stifle the natural rapport with the audience that performers once had in vaudeville houses and jazz clubs. There is neither time nor space to develop emotional depth or creative skills. 

Pop is an artistic tradition that deserves as much respect as any other. Its lineage stretches back to 17th century Appalachian folk songs and African-American blues, all of which can still be heard vibrating in the lyrics and chord structure of contemporary music. But our most visible young performers, consumed with packaging and attitude, seem to have little sense of that thrilling continuity and therefore no confidence in how it can define and sustain their artistic identities over the course of a career.

I think the phrase that pays nowadays is "unsustainable".

I love when Boomers pretend that - after their kids witnessed their antics - they now have no idea where any of this is coming from.

But - they also assure us - there's nothing that can be done.

It's just so neat and tidy,...

 

Random Shit: Taken Out To Maybe Paint The Town Red

The Happiness of the Extreme Right Winger

Music Bridges Cultures? Actually, Not So Much

What Narcissists Talk About When Narcissists Talk About Narcissism

Kevin Spacey’s anti-piracy business model: Give the audience control

"One wonders how much stronger a position the music industry would be in right now, if it had paid as much attention to developing great artists as it did to the supposed scourge of file-sharing."

The truth about the tourism industry in France

Men find women sleeping in PYJAMAS sexier than lingerie and sleeping with NOTHING on

Lena Dunham really is the voice of my generation — for better or worse

Suspect in WWII vet slay: We were buying crack from victim

The Problem In News Isn't News But Those Delivering It

I always get a sick feeling in my stomach when I read this stuff:

I think that hard news reporting is a great social good. But as the Internet has unbundled news, it has become clear that this isn't a social good for which many people are willing to pay. Reporters who thought that political and international news reporters, plus a few people who write long reported series about poverty and related “serious” subjects, constituted the apex of their profession, have been humbled to learn that readers considered us a moderately interesting freebie to thumb through on the way to the important stuff in the sports section.

This from Megan McArdle, a member of the club that wasted everybody's time arguing the travel arrangements of Mitt Romney's dog. How about these post-election "scandals" they're trying to keep alive? The hero Bradley Manning got 35 years. HELLO! The hero Snowden's in Russia. HELLO! The hero Assange is in hiding. HELLO! Whites ain't looking so good after Trayvon. HELLO!

It never occurs to NewAgers - they're doing it wrong. Fuck the sports section, they're mixed up with astrology, and the articles on yoga insure it never crosses their minds that maybe, just maybe, their voices might not be the most pertinent at the moment, if they ever were. They don't affect my life. I know people who die, they don't report it. They don't investigate. They don't care. I don't know what they care about that I'm expected to pay for. They don't topple the wicked. They can't tell right from wrong unless Anthony Weiner's waving his dick at 'em. I mean, when they're that clueless, why are they in the news business?

 

There's a lot of people out there who know they'll never be heard, and some of them sure seem to have a clue to what should be done.

These so-called "journalists" are so stupid they can't even establish water ain't medicine in their pages yet.

Pay them? I take it back:

They're less than clueless,...

 

It's Like Spinning Until You're Dizzy And Falling Down

So, naturally, I re-hurt myself yesterday, landing me back on the bed, trying to find a way not to rub my right elbow down to the bone. Can this get anymore fun? 

Yes! It! Can! 

I'll spare you, except to say iMovie - part of the iLife suite of programs that come with the Mac? Shittiest product from Apple I've ever encountered. How bad is it? You have to quit the program to save your work. And, since it's an unreliable and shaky contraption, that demands you save a LOT. 

I'm not ungrateful, but work's reduced to the time-consuming pace of stop-motion photography, where even small movements can take forever to accomplish. Or, as in the case above, I ended up abandoning my whole idea (after getting so dumbfounded with the previous project I was forced to stop) then - finally getting DIY creative - I switched gears and lowered my goal to "Fuck It" level.

Just Get 'Er Done! 

With the way things are going, I'm patting myself for even that much,...

Smile And The World Smiles With You (Then Get Out)

I can't link to it, because it's behind the L.A. Times' paywall, but here's what they're reporting:

“Tech wealth drives wedge between San Franciscans...”

You don't say? I remember a chap doing a song about that very subject in 2000:

   

 Two things: 1) Obviously, because the visual is static, this wasn't the next song in the series of tracks I wanted to make a video of, but (according to Apple) I have to recreate the video I wanted to make (while searching for corrupted files) and that'll take a little time. This album, Just Payin' The Rent: Amoeba Compilation, Vol. II, was one of the next steps I took after going solo, though, and the release was still something:

 First, it's actually a good CD - a rarity for a compilation album. 

Second, I was the last artist they asked to appear on it, and when I presented them with Babylon.com they freaked, screaming it was perfect for tying the whole project together. They then named the album after one of my lyrics, made Babylon.com the opening number on the album, gave me lots of props in the liner notes, and mine is the first name that appeared on the cover. Lastly, the producer offered me a record deal. Solid. O.K., here's the big one:

2) I did this out of bed. I'm walking around. Doing laundry. Changing the sheets. Functioning. That also means I'm smiling as I type this.

First time for everything, I guess,....

 

An Update On The Issues (That Should Be Over By Now)

I've been trying to get out of bed lately, only to discover how easily I can hurt myself again (It's a lot like going online in that way,...). The inflammation is gone, but the bulging discs are still getting pinched, depending on how I move. I'm teaching myself to coordinate around them, within reason, but I still can't work, though my boss has assured me he's willing to wait and see if I improve. If so, because I've been such a good employee and knows what he expects, he'll make me a supervisor. 

But right now, I can't even sit for any extended period of time, so whatever.

And I now have NO money. Not a little money - NO money. I know some of you can't imagine or relate, so let me explain: 

NO change in my pockets, NO money in the bank. Stretching my meals into two, and drinking only water. There is an up-side, though:

When this is over - by NewAge standards - I'll look "healthy" and "sexy" like women today expect.

And finally, I've got my third video for you done. This one has multiple photos, and scrolling lyrics and shit, but the software that I used to make it - which came with this still-new computer - is already outdated. Somehow, because of how I got the computer, Apple says it'll take them up to two days to straighten everything out and send me an upgrade. Two days in the age of technology? Bullshit:

I think it's all because I'm black (Kidding,...)

A Really Cheap Way To Talk About Rap Music Again

 

I've been up most of the night trying to make my next YouTube video from The Big Lowensky tracks, and it's more involved than the previous two, but the software is proving to be kinda hinky and crashes. Now, after all that work, I have to rethink the whole approach. I've since discovered this is a common problem, with no one or easy fix. I hurt my back a bit, again, to learn that. "Making an effort," you know? 

 BTW - 50 Cent's first underground hit was released on this day in 1999.

The beginning of a fortune,...