My views on politics, life, death, the army, and other things too miscellaneous to mention here. This is a personal blog. This blog is 100% factual.
Bill Duckwing
Poet, Author, Journalist
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Your Super-Cute Daily Terror Alert Update Will Be Forevermore:
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"There are some myths and untruths surrounding the role God plays in our daily lives. To say that religion and politics do not mix, is certainly a myth, unless you ask a liberal. Anything that affects a Christian (and voting is one of them) — enters into the religious realm. Trying to separate the two is like trying to separate oil from a glass of water, it's impossible to do. "
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Friday, May 30, 2003
Courage Comes From Few and Far Between
I haven't given props to Good vs. Ignorant for awhile, which is a shame, cause he's put up a lot of good stuff in the past couple months. Consider his latest:
Courage Comes Few And Far Between
“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
Sir Winston Churchill
I remember being a child and playing in the neighborhood with some of the older boys. They did not take it easy on me. I got beat up, scarred, bloodied, called names, and I was hardly ever victorious.
I also “got” some more things they never realized. I learned about perseverance. I learned about fighting back. I learned to outlast them. I learned that a struggle for the right cause is worth it.
But what I learned most of all, that has gotten me farthest in life has been this. I learned that you do not win them all, but the willingness to expose yourself to situations where you may lose exposes character. It does not simply build character. I learned a long time ago that some kids simply couldn’t handle losing. I never enjoyed losing; I just realized that I could try harder, practice longer, or prepare longer and be all the better for it.
I never believed in the, “It’s my ball and I’m going home” approach to life. Can’t we all remember those children that threw a tantrum or ran and hid every time things didn’t go their way?
Guess what? Those crybabies grew up. They work for us or, heaven forbid, along side us. And the scariest positions they hold... Texas democrats.
Think about what they did. They took their ball all the way to Oklahoma because they were going to lose. Call them what you want, but if i hear one more person call it courage or “smarts” I may faint.
We never labeled the whiners on the playground as leaders. They weren’t chosen as captains. How on earth are we now to believe that a flawed character trait in a ten year old is now virtuous in an adult.
Maybe Churchill was right. Sometimes courage is about staying put and taking your lumps. I guess the Texas Democrats don’t believe that. They believe the “I’ve never lost a fight I avoided” philosophy of life.
That’s fine. But remember,if you continue to play hide and seek as politicians, there will come a day when we no longer go looking for you. Those that stood their ground will remain. We know what to call them...Republicans.
God bless America.
All I can say to this is: WAAAAHHHHH!!!! WAAAAHHHHHH!!!!
Right. Anyway, he's got one of the funniest websites out there. Check it.
-duckwing, at 9:29 PM
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American Pride and Roxy Music
Today was an awesome day, in its own way. I say this with relish cause I was able to participate in a great beating, which took me by surprise, but then filled me with good old fashioned American Pride.
The incident happened at the coffee bar where I work. I get coffee there twice a day usually, so I'm pretty well known in those quarters. The manager at the counter is a hispanic guy that greets me with a smile and a warm "How's it going, Mr. Cool!" due to my frequent patronage, which is great. It's always good to be known somewhere on the planet as "Mr. Cool" when even a "Joe Cool" would suffice. Plus he listens to Roxy Music, as it plays constantly in the background on his radio player, which increases my esteem for the guy ten-fold.
Unfortunately, most people are not cool. Mostly guys who wear baseball caps to cover up their encroaching baldness, who are never cool. After I paid for my cup of joe and walked around to fill it up with life-sustaining liquid, one of these guys decided to ask the manager:
"So, is this shit free or what?" inquiring about the coffee.
The manager decided, unfortunately, to humor the guy.
"Oh, yeah, it's all free. Free service, free coffee. We just serve coffee because we have nothing else better to do."
"So I don't have to pay?"
"No, sir, it's all free." the manager replied.
"You'd better not be lying to me." the guy said, at which point the manager figured that this guy was immune to both humor and polite sarcasm.
"What?" the manager asked, incredulous.
"You heard me.." the guy sneered, "this cup of coffee better be free, because I'm not paying for it."
"No...Free? What?" the manager said.
"Didn't you just hear what I just said?" the guy said, and then decided to royally piss the manager off. He raised his hands, palms facing the manager, and started opening and clenching his fists like some bizarre semaphore, "No pay for coff-eee! Do...You...Un...Der...Stand! No com...prede English!?"
Whereupon the manager pounded him in the face with his own fist, right over the counter and into the guy's bridge. The guy stumbled back a couple of steps, but straighened himself out enough to focus and take a step forward. Luckily I was right behind the guy, as I immediately grabbed his arms and pinned them behind his back.
Whack! Whack! Whack! Just enough to make to guy wooze and slump onto the ground in front of the counter.
"Dude!" I exclaimed to the manager, "You rock!"
The manager smiled for a second, then got back to work. A man of duty, and a Roxy Music afficionado. Who knew?
I kicked the guy on the ground a few times as he started to get his bearings. "How does it feel to eat crow, mister!" I yelled at him as I danced around his body, "Crow! Crow! Want some more! I got a whole pie baking in the oven!"
But by then, the whole situation had gotten a bit weird, judging by the reaction from the crowd that had by now gathered around. So I left the scene, coffee in hand, and full of pride for being an American.
After all, what could be more American than Roxy Music?
-duckwing, at 1:41 AM
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Wednesday, May 28, 2003
Not Enough Hours in the Day
Really, there are not. Too much to say to link them together paragraphically (is that a word?), so I'm just going to write them as a list to simplify matters for me.
1.) Gotta start job hunting again. The bummer reason for this is that I'm only a term employee, and my two year is up in a few months. They plan on recruiting me as a career employee, or at least another two year term, but right now that's up in the air in paperwork purgatory, and at this point I'll have to wait until the end of the year to get a promotion with a substantial increase in pay. So it's time to hit the classifieds again.
2.) Blogspot. There has been a lot of "chatter" on other sites, blogs, and whatever about this recently, actually (type "blogspot sucks" into your search engine for more info). Blogspot is down about 50% of the time, so pages served by blogspot take anywhere from 10 minutes to never to load. Time to start researching other options, which I mentioned in a previous post, and that takes time. In any case, my last post here, which will probably be awhile, will direct you guys to my new address.
3.) iMesh. I spent most of my time tonight updating my spybots to get rid of the menacies that packaged with this monstrosity. It's a good program, except that it comes bundled with about 10 million spyware programs, which hijacked my computer today with pop ups and ridiculous toolbars. When you use Spybot or some other program, iMesh gets corrupted and you cannot use it again until you reinstall, so it's definately a mixed blessing at best. It wastes time.
4.) Trying to think up things to blog about. Actually, this was the easiest of my problems to deal with today, with so much going on. I think that this might have to go on the back burner, though. I don't know.
Anyway, I'll announce the winner of the "Explain the Meaning of the Apple Coda contest" thing. The winner is psh, who provided the following entry:
I think it has something to with Apple Computers....perhpas you are not Bill Duckwing as you claim, but rather Steve ''don''t call me Woz'' Jobs and this your semi-secret way of getting out your personal thoughts, now that you are covered by the rabid cadre of mac fanatics as if your every utterance were the music of God himself.
Way to go, psh. And your prize for the winning is my short rebuttal to your suggestion:
Actually, you have that wrong. I am not Steve "don't call me Woz" Jobs. I am, of course, Bill "Call me God if you can withstand the Brillance of my Holy Aura" Gates. And this is my attempt to subvert and destroy Jobs' hoard of iMac fans by misleading them into thinking my libelous comments were the words of that Lucifer himself. Slowly but surely I'll use this site to convert those fools into buying PC's and using MS Whatever indefinately, and then I'll have them. Conversion is slow work, but eventually they'll see the light.
Incidentaly, psh has a good site called Suckful, which you should check out. That plug wasn't part of the prize, but since he was a good sport about it all, I figured he was owed a freebie.
-duckwing, at 10:43 PM
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It's Time to Disenfranchise Our People!
In the academics mindfucking themselves to come to ludicrous conclusions department, John Derbyshire says that, in many cases, dictatorships are way, way better for the people than full franchisement, over at the NRO. And that it's something we should really think about.
And, hate to link to Salon due to the 10 minute ultramercials, but read Joe Conason as he reports the further backing away of Hawks from their previous statements about WMD's in Iraq before the war.
-duckwing, at 10:44 AM
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Jellicle Cats Have Moonlit Eyes
The incredible musical Cats, is of course not only the longest running Broadway Musical in the History of the World but also the most brilliantly daring. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s long running musical not only exposed the world to the humorous exploits of cats like Rum Tum Tugger and Mungojerry, he also made and enlightened us to the career of an previously obscure New York poet by the name of T.S. Eliot, who provided the lyrics to the musical.
The immortal lines:
Jellicle Cats come out to-night
Jellicle Cats come one come all
The Jellicle Moon is shining bright –
Jellicles come to the Jellicle ball.
These lines of course could have only come from the fabulous pen of American poet and automotive magnate T.S. Eliot, who in the period of his greatest proliferation (1924-1939) managed to compose two of his best period works, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, a strange titled little book that laid out the basic iambic pentameter poetic structure for Cats, and of course The International Jew, an influential series of essays that eventually inspired and cemented the dogma espoused of Adolph Hitler in his book Mein Kampf, whom the entrepreneur as young man Eliot helped finance the Nazi empire through clandestine negotiations using Swiss bank accounts and middle-men.
Anyhoo, the thing we’re concerned with is the Old Possum’s book. None of that other weird stuff here. And Cats. Man, I was like 7 or 10 the first time I saw Broadway, and I mean Broad-Way, out in NYC, with screaming large billboards of very sexy men in cK underwear, frowning and looking very artistic as they gazed pensively at their flexed biceps, and my eyes lowered to see the Winter Garden theatre. And then a pair of eerie moonlit eyes I caught looking at me, daring me to enter those Art Deco doors.
Nuff said. After begging and pleading with my parents to please please buy tickets for that night right now, I was rewarded with one of the most mysterious and magical experiences of my life.
Imagine (if you have never ever seen this thing) a group of humanoid creatures with vaguely feline characteristics, cavorting and singing and dancing around like some really uptight cats under a police helicopter spotlight. Then imagine some old hag witch cat mesmerizing the ensemble with a screaming soliloquy that turns these “cats” into messianic heads with the song “Memory.” Dude –so tragic.
But the true greatness of Cats lies in the sheer audaciousness of its interpretation of Old Possum’s book. The book is merely a description of cats, like an observation of cats from a human perspective –the book answers the question: Why do cats behave like they do, since they’re not telling us? Cats, the musical, takes it one step further. The cats tell us themselves, in entertaining song and dance, and almost ironically, the answer seems to conform to the exact same conclusions the Ol’ Possum (aka Ol’ TS) extrapolates. This musical is so 80’s that it almost contains the principles of the decade in one two-hour musical. Why rely on others interpretations and extrapolations, these cats say, when we can just tell you ourselves? That is the ultimate in self-assurance and self-explanation. If we cats can explain ourselves, they comment, why can’t you guys?
Why indeed? Is it because we’re too complex, too weird? I don’t know, but if you ever run into a problem with this, just do a little song and dance. It will clarify the matter for others, and justify your self-assurance ten-fold.
-duckwing, at 12:36 AM
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Saturday, May 24, 2003
Scatological Linkage, Baby
The whole idea behind my Links section was just a way to post links in any random order that I felt rated a mention. I decided not to catagorize them because I felt it better for people just to click on new sights that vaguely caught their interest, vs clicking on links that only justified their mood for the day. And also because I'm lazy.
The only trouble comes when I update the links section, and just randomly place links any old where, which some regular readers may miss if they don't bother looking at the links section anymore. Therefore, I've decided to place new links at the bottom of the page, so that's where to look for them from now on.
FYI, I'll write a little about the newest links here, just so y'know: LiberalOasis and Newgrounds are sites I used to frequent a lot months or years before I even started this blog, and just got up the ambition to link to them recently. If you have your own blog, you've probably heard of them too. The Mess Hall is a personal blog started a couple of weeks ago by a friend of mine apropriately titled "The Mess."
I also linked to Bloghop, out of my perpetual need to feel loved, so if you feel up to it, you can rate my blog over there by clicking on the link.
-duckwing, at 8:52 PM
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Wednesday, May 21, 2003
Point, Set, Match
It's too bad they didn't continue on with the whole state by state count, but hey, I got it right.
Calling only three states? What's up with that, man? Seems disorganized...but I'd still love to see the state by state breakdown of the vote, if for only my own perverse interests.
-duckwing, at 9:56 PM
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Calling States EC Style
Ohio goes Clay, so far confirming my hypothesis.
But can he hold his home state?
-duckwing, at 9:45 PM
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I'm a Little Freaked
Why? Because blogspot isn't spitting out my site when I type it in -hitting refresh is only giving me the cached vesion -with no title appearing on the IE title bar.
Pah!
Right now American Idol is on my idiot box -they're calling states for Ruben and Clay like the Electoral College in Presidential Races. New York goes Clay. Florida goes Rube.
A prediction is in order here: given the closeness of this match, I'm guessing that the traditional Red states go Rueben, Blue States go Clay. But given the fact they're both from Red states and likewise also probably both screaming Republicans, some odds are in order: 5-3 it ends up that way. Clay sinks like a Gore. Rueben rises from the post-electoral ashes like Bush Jr.
Recounts, anyone?
-duckwing, at 9:34 PM
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Monday, May 19, 2003
Goddamn Disappearing Archives
Not to throw off unsuspecting Google searchers looking for the same answers that I am (heh-heh), but I totally fucked up my Blogger Archives by trying to truncate some extraneous archive links in order to spruce up the site a little. Of course, I ended up deleting all of the archive links on the site, but I'll try to figure this out -Blogger says there's a way to do this without too much effort, but it my case, it just doesn't work...
Some vacation, eh?
-duckwing, at 8:54 PM
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Back in the Day, Part 1
Situated in my hometown for now.
Oldport News is a tiny beach community, with about 10 or 11 thousand peeps, situated in a well enclosed bay, so that the bastard waves of the always violent Atlantic Ocean break down into little yelps by the time they reach shore here. It's an old blue-collar working class community to say the least, and many of these guys fought alongside to protect me in my yellow journalism days. That many of these guys fought so that best and the brightest were able to finish up their B.A.'s in four years under the threat of communism fills me with great pride.
The downtown is divided into two parts, which can be called North News and South News, divided by a strip which connects the shorline with the two major bypasses through Oldport News. North News is kind of a collection of tons of motels, a couple of high rise luxary condos, and summer sublets where the drifters and iconoclats reside for part of the year. It runs about 30-40 blocks from the strip, but is only three or four blocks wide, due to a huge swamp that makes up most of the western part of North News. South News, contains still more motels, with a couple of bars and restaurants. The western portion of South News is primarily residential working class families.
I was just chucking around the bay yesterday, strolling the beach and following the breakers. Jush chilling, and counting the debris the waves left over for us. Seaweed, seaweed, kelp, seaweed, plasic cellophane bag, seaweed, Bright Orange "Caution" sign, covered in seaweed, small blue plastic shovel. Beer can.
Seaweed is big in OPN, simply because, as a tightly enclosed bay, it acts as a collection bin for almost anything that ends up in the ocean.
After checking out the ocean, I strolled into town, where not too much had changed for all practical purposes. An internet cafe had been set up in my abscence. A low key dive bar at One Soho Square had been converted into a hollistic medicine retreat and spa bar. Weird.
But not much has changed, especially after I crossed the street, and a visage I'd not seen in many a moon had just crossed my path.
It's Popeye!
...to be continued.
-duckwing, at 3:48 PM
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Friday, May 16, 2003
Stuff
Yeah, I know this has been a crappy week of posts -but I've been tired and cranky and no great ideas have sprung to mind lately. That being so, I'm taking a vacation next week to recooperate and my posting here will probably be sporadic at best. Not saying that I won't post at all, but it'll be intermittant and won't necessarily follow my regular evening schedule. It's time to break out of my daily routine for awhile.
I've been meaning to announce a winner to the "Explain the Apple Coda" contest, and will do so eventually.
Keep reading. Keep blogging. Many thanks.
Bill
-duckwing, at 2:49 PM
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Thursday, May 15, 2003
King Crimson and King Bush
Again, I have to pledge my undying loyalty to my main man Georgie. I know that's a really dumbass thing to say, and also really stupid, but hey, this is America and what's good for the goose...
Bush, Blair nominated for Nobel prize for Iraq war
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By Alister Doyle
OSLO, May 8 (Reuters) - A Norwegian parliamentarian nominated U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the Nobel Peace Prize on Thursday, praising them for winning the war in Iraq.
"Sometimes it's necessary to use a small and effective war to prevent a much more dangerous war in the future," Jan Simonsen, a right-wing independent in Norway's parliament, told Reuters.
"If nobody acted then Saddam Hussein could have produced weapons of mass destruction and, in five or 10 years, could have used them against Israel," he said.
An award to Bush and Blair would be a U-turn after the Nobel Committee awarded the 2002 prize to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter last October. At the time, the committee chairman called it a kick in the shins to Bush's Iraq policies as Carter had been calling for a diplomatic solution.
Simonsen said the war had "made it possible to create democracy and respect for human rights in a country which for so many years has been ruled by one of the worst dictators in modern times".
However, Geir Lundestad, the director of the Nobel Institute where the five-member committee meets, said Simonsen's proposal would have to wait for the 2004 award because the deadline for nominations for 2003 passed on February 1.
The secretive five-member committee names the annual winner in mid-October. More than 160 people and organisations have been nominated for the 2003 prize, including Pope John Paul, Irish rock star Bono and Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya.
"I'm not especially optimistic that Bush and Blair will win but I think it's worth a try," Simonsen said. He said he would encourage like-minded parliamentarians in other countries to also nominate Bush and Blair.
Nobel committees have frequently honoured the United Nations instead of unilateral action by member states. The United Nations did not give an explicit mandate for the war amid opposition from countries including France, Germany and Russia.
The 2001 Nobel Peace Prize went to the United Nations and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Thousands of people around the world, including members of national parliaments, professors of history, law and politics and former laureates can make nominations for the prize. The nomination process is secret, but people sometimes publicise their choice.
Granted, they won't win this one -Jimmy Carter beat them out last year even though the whole 9/11 thing still favored the guys in charge.
But still, you can't write anything stupider than this and call it parody. This so defies parody, that I see the writers of the Onion cringing at the idea that they might lose their jobs to the guys over at Reuters. A Nobel Peace Prize for starting a War? It defies explanation, comment, and parody. Given that, I hope they win, as it'll confirm for many more the end of practical human civilization, if it hasn't been confirmed yet...
But an even more oddball thing happened to me at work today. I was walking across the street to the subway station, and someone was blasting King Crimson, windows rolled down, from their car at the traffic light.
Did you hear that right? I'll repeat it..
King Crimson. Blasting from someone's car stereo. It was "In the Court of the Crimson King."
Weird.
Not knocking the King C here. I myself went through my two weeks of Art/Prog rock infatuation back in the day. But since King Crimson gets listened to by approximately zero percent of America, I thought it was significantly oddball enough to post here.
Gotta love DC.
-duckwing, at 11:04 PM
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Possibility of Putting this Site on my own Registered Domain
Blogspot is a great place to start out with a blog, but I'm getting tired of the load times when I want to check out how the site looks and it isn't cached onto my computer. It's completely understandable -Blogspot has a huge server, but also hosts millions of blogs, so pages with tons of images and other stuff (like my site) tend to get bogged down with Blogspot's huge traffic. My cable modem tends to take anywhere from 10-15 seconds to load Apple Coda, so I can't even imagine the wait for people with 56K's.
Go, given that problem, I've thought of registering www.theapplecoda.com and upload my stuff there. There's a couple of problems with this though.
Uno. -Fronting the monthy "rent" to keep the domain going and running on a server. It can run up to 30 bucks a month, and that's tough cash and tough love for me at this point.
Dos. -The necessary re-pub work. I'll have to resubmit the address to all the search engines and rings, inform my generous linkers that my url has changed. Recrawl, ect. will take months to take effect.
So, I dunno. It's a possiblity, but I'll have to think about it some more. Right now Blogspot is hosting this site for a mere 5 bucks a month, which ain't chump change, but better than 30, so maybe it's worth the wait.
-duckwing, at 9:05 PM
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Wednesday, May 14, 2003
I Got a Haircut Today
All I can say is wow, what a way to generate interest in this blog by stating a fact like this. I'm sure that all the readers are right now glued to their computer monitors at this moment, intrigued by the prospect of what comes next. Did I like the cut? Was the barber cool? What does he love about his work?
Digression...
So, yeah, I gotta cut. I was a little annoyed by the fact they practically shaved off my sideburns, but I was compensated by the fact that the hairdesser stated that she "loved my thick, greasy mullet," as she shampooed the love away, so I was consoled.
In Wash DC, mullets are definately atypical at best, so I felt it conferred a feeling of hipness and individuality to my appearance. Now I look like your typical tobbaco lobbyist, but I blend in better, so maybe it's all for the best.
Another digression...
Seriously -regarding Wash DC, I love this city. It's a small town with world-wide prestige. And it's a pretty homogenous community, not in culture, but because we all either work for the feds or with the feds for our companies agenda. There's solidarity there, boyz and girlz, and though we get knocked a lot for a bunch of different things nationally, I love this city for the simple fact that we're completely different from every other major city and for the sheer unlikelyhood that we all have a bit in common. Even with a major dorkwad running this place (and by extension, the nation) from a palace where you can't even cross Penn Ave anymore without being diverted by armed guards (and is there ever a non-dorkwad running this place?) I love DC and probably wouldn't live anywhere else.
-duckwing, at 11:50 PM
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Today I feel obligated to address the issue of using a standard Blogger template over a custom made over-the-top web page. Some would call it lazy.
I disagree.
The actual reason I've kept my blog template the way it is, is out of deference to the great Painter and Wit Piet Mondrian, from which this template is clearly influenced. He is the guy who realistically captured the life and flow of Manhattan city life with his famous portrait "Broadway Boogie Woogie."
And of course shocked the world with his most famous work of art, "Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue."
So I upload these pictures, if only in order to get more of a Mondrian-ness to this page. And to pay deference to a master. Enjoy.
-duckwing, at 10:26 PM
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Monday, May 12, 2003
Out in the Rice Paddies
Work was confusing and unproductive today –the bad started with my appearance. Seeing the I wasn’t going to get into work until 12:30 today, I forewent the weekly ritual of shaving and showering, the end result being that my week old bristle combined with my greasy-stinking mullet in a way that spelled “unprofessional” with a lower-case “u.” Regardless, some insights surfaced.
One old memory resurfaced from my psyche just as I was walking around my building to the entrance, when I was struck in the forehead by a low-flying sparrow. Apparently thinking that I was an open window, he bounced off at a velocity equal but opposite to the direction he came rushing toward me, and stumbled around on the ground for a few minutes after the impact before getting his act together -and flying off into the opposite direction he was going before he hit me, for some odd reason.
The incident, while unremarkable, managed to conjure up long repressed memories of my days as an embedded journalist out in the rice paddies of Vietnam. I was known simply as H. William Turkey then, my byline for the District Examiner, and was just some hot-shot kid trying to eke out a living and reputation by experiencing other regions of the world first-hand.
And what a mistake that was….back in the day, me and my buddies were listening to hippy bastards like Adrian Cronauer on Armed Forces Radio in Saigon, actively harassing and intimidating our troops by playing drivel such as Country Joe and Fish’s “I’m a Fixing to Die Rag” and the Dixie Chicks “Travelin’ Soldier.” It was horrible to see the troops grinding their teeth and seething at the dirty tricks our own government was playing on them, but to no avail. The unbridled liberals over at the Pentagon said that it was important for the troops to be exposed to a diversity of viewpoints while over in Vietnam, and that was that.
But that was the worst of the worst, at least while I was allowed to recreate in Saigon. True, one of our soldiers admitted his conversion to Buddhism on the sly, for which we had to take him out back in the fields and flog him repeatedly until he repented. But that was it –and I learned some cool military speak in the process through my dialogs with the Sarge:
“H! Turkey! What is your MO?”
“Sorry, Sarge…I’m afraid I’m AWOL at the moment, sir!”
“Very good, Turkey!” The Sarge said as he patted me on the head. “Keep up the good work, or else I’ll have to put you on…KP!”
Being embedded in actual combat is a completely different matter, however. Being a war correspondent and an acidhead, while potent, is not a good combination. The horrors of war are enough to traumatize even the most level headed soldier, but the horror of hiding in your bunker and watching your fellow patriots turn into menacing ice weasels with teeth and claws long as knives, that is not a good trip.
“What are these beasts!” I exclaimed, clawing into the hard ground with both hands as I tried to cover myself in enough dirt to conceal myself from these monsters, giggling maniacally as they sharpened their claws on the butts of their rifles.
When I woke up in the hospital, I was blissfully unaware of what had happened, thanks to extra helpings of morphine and Prozac. I even unlearned the fact that I ever reported for the District Examiner, and with time even forgot all of my old friends and lovers from those miserable barracks. And all it took was a direct head on collision from a misguided sparrow to bring back the memories. The joy. The horror. Oh, the horror.
-duckwing, at 9:43 PM
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No War for Language
Last week I played War Pundit for you and stated that under no uncertain terms that we must find WMD's in Iraq if Bush was going to maintain credibility for waging a war in Iraq.
A recap:
I hope they find the weapons -if they do, it will certainly give me more confidence that this government knows what it's doing. But to spin the argument that it isn't important is dumb. Because if we don't find them, we can't disarm them, and that was the point. I don't care what government is set up in Iraq, democratic or otherwise, if they still have WMD's buried in their backyard. Hitler was democratically elected (you knew that), and he'd wouldn't have hesitated to use whatever weapons he had on him to fuck his enemies, obviously.
So, obviously I was totally wrong about this. The whole point wasn't to find and disarm Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. The whole point was to find and disarm Weapons of Mass Ambiguity in Iraq.
It is obvious to me now that I was momentarily blindsided by the liberals in this country who snidely debated this issue. The idea that our country should have to justify its reasons for invading and occupying a foreign cournty with proof of a "smoking gun" now strikes me as fairly ridiculous. But we now have a "smoking gun" and that firey pistol is currently the ashes of Sadaam Husein. I know he said he didn't have weapons of mass destruction, but as we all know, the answer "no" can be fairly ambiguous, and open to interpretation. This country answers to no debate, no dissent, no snide objections from those who hate us, and harbor ill will, and I'm all in favor of that.
So you can do two things here. One -the haters of this country can continue criticising this Administration, and the CIA for erronious intelligence. Two -you can praise Bush as the Second Coming and place your hope and faith in your country. This isn't a war with weapons, it is a war with ambiguous language, and who has the right to use it and who doesn't. (Hint: it isn't Sadaam Hussein)
-duckwing, at 2:00 AM
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Saturday, May 10, 2003
Cat in a Spat
I was getting psyched about seeing the "Cat in the Hat" movie after reading some analytical nonsense about it in the New Yorker and today's Washington Post magazine. Despite the fact that the Post piece only deals with the book in a roundabout way, and that the New Yorker pierce was mostly incomprehsable, it stired up enough interest for me to serach the web, read some Seuss parodies again, and anticipate the coming movie, which I thought was released months ago. It will be released Nov. 21 of this year.
That's all folks for this weekend -I'll probably publish one more on Sunday night.
-duckwing, at 1:10 PM
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Friday, May 09, 2003
Contest Time!
Yes, this weekend I invite you guys to come up with a reason as to why I chose my title "The Apple Coda" for my blog. You can post your entries to the comments board, or email them to me at ducksanonymous@yahoo.com. Winning entry gets the satisfaction of being posted on this blog, as well as a short rebuttal from the author.
Good luck!
-duckwing, at 7:33 PM
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Thursday, May 08, 2003
The Only Post About Music You Will Ever See on This Blog
Right?
Back when I started this thing, a little over a month ago to the day, I made a pact with myself to never post a rock criticism piece here. It was important to me, cause in trying to etch out my piece of immortality, writing rock criticism, despite my fine devotion to music appreciation, was not the way to go. If you lined up two classic Rolling Stone writers, Hunter Thompson and Greil Marcus, and placed them side by side, it's pretty easy to figure out which one of them was the rock critic, and which one got biographies and movies made about him.
So no, I won't be going down into that abyss anytime soon. I will mention that one rock critic, Lester Bangs, has enjoyed a mild cult status lately, but that's only because of his pseudonymous apperance in the movie "Almost Famous," and also because he's dead.
Remember Lester Bangs -being fat, drunk, drugged out, and getting your kicks slumped over on your Lay-Z-Boy listening to the likes of ABBA and Van Morrison is not a good way to die. You guys dig your stuff, I'll dig mine, and that's that.
That said, here is my list for Most Underappreciated and Most Overappreciated Bands of All Time.
Most Underappreciated:
1.) Run-DMC -Clearly the obvious one here are these guys. Every hip-hop or rap artist gives these guys props for being a primary influence, and until the tragic death of Jam Master Jay, they were pretty much dismissed by the Rock Critic World as just a bunch of kooky old school rapper-relics from the 80's. Not. These guys not only popularized Rap in the 80's, but they reinvented their style and helped pave the way for House in the 90's as well. How many other artists can claim to be pioneers in two completely different musical genres? Credit goes to N.W.A. and Public Enemy for shaping hip-hop as we know it today, but these guys also cite Run-DMC as primary influences, and both, especially Public Enemy, are adored by Rock Citics today. So where's the love?
2.) Cheap Trick -Any band that attempts to combine the Beatles with Big Hair is okay in my book to begin with. That Cheap Trick actually managed to pull it off is a testament to their character and aplomb, much to the Rock Critics eternal dismay. "Surrender" is a far better punk song to freak out by than anything ever done by the Sex Pistols ("Anarchy" being the one possible exception). Fronted by sideman and Beatles-maniac Rick Nielsen (the geeky guy with the weird sunglasses and the baseball hat -and possibly the most un-rocking name in the history of rock), these guys wrote awesome songs -"Dream Police" "The Flame" -and for a brief moment in time actually made hair metal look cool. They deserve to be applauded for that.
Bands that Deserve to Be Taken Down a Notch:
1.) Yo La Tengo -Holy crap, could these guys get better press? Yo La Tengo is the only artist able to sell records based solely on the influence of rock critics alone. Because nobody else is buying their crap. They are Velvet Underground impersonators who don angelic Beatles-like vocal styles, and the result is pretty disturbing and unlistenable. They should banish these guys back to whatever Starbucks outdoor cafe they came from.
2.) Pavement -Yes ,I am about to knock the late, great Pavement! Granted these guys put out some great songs. The first cd I bought of theirs was "Slanted and Enchanted" -and I liked "Trigger Cut/Wounded-Kite At :17" and "In the Mouth A Desert." I also thought "Cut Your Hair" off the Crooked Rain cd was cool. But if you want indy at its lamest and most pretentious, this is the band to dig. And Rock Critics lap this stuff this up like the vicious gore-hounds they are. So much that saying you're not a big fan of Pavement is equivocal to saying you hate music. So yeah, there's a "Conduit for Sale," and I could take a guess which conduit Pavement are selling.
Well, I'm out of ideas. Comment if you can think up some bands that should join one of the circles, I'd like to hear 'em.
-duckwing, at 9:42 PM
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The Church State
The 'Pubs are getting the vote together to pass yet another law seeking to blur the line between church and state. This one extends the Civil Rights Act's provision so that religious charities may discriminatory in selecting workers based on faith. All paid for by us taxpayers.
Write your congressman.
-duckwing, at 11:23 AM
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In the Ear, or in the Ass?
Today was a rough day. Not only did I actually have to put in an 8 hour (damn), I also had to take temperature readings on a drugged up by perfectly peaceful pig, soon to be meeting its Maker in Pig Heaven. I needed blood to do my own work, but I also had to do additional work to as payment to perform the work normally expected of me. This was an extension of the favor for a favor deal common in research, you scratch mine, I scratch...
Anyway, my research associate Gringy McDuddlebutts, was really cool, smiling as she brought forth her proposition: "Do you want it in the ear, or in the ass?"
This was a tough dimlema, as the ear is a hard spot to take temperature measurement -you need to be spot on and be able to hold it steady for any number of minutes for the measurements to read properly. Wheras a pig's anus is much easier, all you have to do is just stick it in the hole and...
"Dude, are you fucking kidding me?" I answered, "I'll take the ear..."
So, I did what I was told to do, and the amount of praise I received from Gringy and the others for my performance totally confirmed to me that I was born to take the temperatures of sedated animals in unusual places.
"Awesome! You are so awesome!" Gringy screamed in praise to The Duck as she smiled lasciviously and clapped her hands in approval.
"So, besides my prowess with pig ears, why are you so into me?" I asked Gringy in a moment of clarity.
She looked down at the floor. "I don't know. Maybe it's the fact that you make soft quacking noises when you're sleeping..."
"Oh...shit."
Which brought a sort of revelation to me today. I totally need to focus more on what I'm doing during the day, in both my research and in my daily life habits. Because, having a life's focus is akin to cleanliness and Godliness the the Good Book. So, for God's sake, have at least one daily affirmation to clense your spirit and repent for your old unfocused ways. It'll help, or at least help you to steer clear of pig's asses.
-duckwing, at 12:03 AM
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Wednesday, May 07, 2003
If You Don't Get It, Don' t Worry
My day had arrived in old downtown Boston. I believe that the elements here have worked out a delicate equilibrium, a simple and singular rough draft of rhythm that is in essence a vortex –a downward spiral of dreamlessness that sucks the life out of the city in abstract ways I cannot even begin to fathom. I was standing outside of South Station, smoking a cigarette after an eight hour regional train from D.C., hot and humid in ways that Boston in the summer was never really conceived for. Walking out of motion sensor activated but “old fashioned” mahogany doors, my eye catches towers of glass beating out the top of my line of vision, and my eyes lower to follow people, mostly tourists judging from the number of sunhats and crazy sunglasses, walking briskly past me in the heat by fenced in sidewalks reserved for even more pavement padding and development downtown.
In fact the entire city seems to be under construction for now. But Boston the city is just another town under the perpetual construction that is the Big Dig, and that says to me, "we must suffer for a time in order to Become Great."
Sounds a lot like Bush's America.
Another short I wrote about a year ago, on a trip to Boston to attend a conference. I love Boston, but I also wanted to give weight to an initial impression of the town and wear it out.
-duckwing, at 10:12 PM
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Tuesday, May 06, 2003
Sick and Tired
I felt the need to post today if only to knock the picture of ol' scornful Charlie Daniels looking down on you from the top tier of my blog.
That's about it for today. Truth told, work this month has basically has left my mind frazzled and world weary, so that relating random work tidbits and political commentary just isn't in my bag of tricks today.
So I just posted a couple of things I've written or saved on my computer from the past couple of years. If you're new to my site, you can also check out the best stuff, somewhere in the archives. It's only a month old, so there really isn't too much to glean through. But I'm proudest of "Joseph and the Amazing Embryonic Dreamcoat," which I've posted three times already, as well as "I Had a Crap Day," and a few other things I'm too tired out to mention.
So that's the Best of Bill Duckwing this month. Enjoy.
-duckwing, at 10:33 PM
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The Affectionately Irritable Ed
A man goes to a bar, sits down, and orders a drink. The bartender laughs out loud as a couple stagger to and fro against a pivoting barstool to keep their balance. A lovable tune plays remotely from a remote corner-arbitrated jukebox. The man, drink in hand, glances sideways at the couple as they fall over laughing. The bartender laughs again. A sudden barrage of cigarette sticks appear magically in people’s hands, as if any sudden display of weirdness requires reflection from the cool. The man lights his own stick and exhales cautiously across the bar.
It is the evening on a Friday, and the Earth has changed its position in its orbit around the sun only slightly since the man finished work for the week. He enjoys his work, and was planning on bringing over some of his weekend work in social surroundings to enjoy over a couple of drinks, but thought it might look out of sorts at this type of bar. On the TV in the corner of the bar a documentary of something is shown. Some customers complain incessantly, due to an Orioles game that night on ESPN, but the bartender refuses to give in.
There is a buzz swarm around as the men discuss how things should be. This is a good day for the Orioles, against the A’s, they say, if only the stupid bartender would change the channel for a few seconds to ESPN. Sex is walking around this bar like a stilts-man in tights. Caution: A high and mighty word it is for the man with a laptop and a precaution against the glances of bar women.
A woman glances at him, he notices, but he is unable to draw any conclusions or insight into her motives. Interest is fine, but a duck sitting in a pond can be interesting. Chaos can be interesting, he laments.
One of my shorts, written awhile ago. Probably was inspired and tied into the Babbage quote posted below.
-duckwing, at 10:25 PM
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Babbage's Infernal Machine
"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." -Charles Babbage
Popular email signature. Worth posting here...
-duckwing, at 10:19 PM
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Monday, May 05, 2003
Time to Hit Charlie Daniels Again
Not only is he the best thing that's ever happened to this country, he also streams patriotism to us in a live performance from somewhere or other. It's just shy of impossible to knock him -he used to smoke 4-5 packs a day before he quit in 1967, for heaven's sake!
Chuck D
-duckwing, at 11:20 PM
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Zen and the Art of Making a Fool out of Yourself
My name, Bill Duckwing, is of course a pseudonym. I felt the need to do this in order to remain essentially anonymous to the general computer user, so that I could post anything I wanted about life, work, and stuff without it getting back to my employer. But it does weird me out that I sign off as Bill Duckwing in email correspondence to strangers when plugging my site.
Why is that? Well, I think the problem with that is when you’re using a fake name in correspondence, it will invoke whatever character the name implies. “Bill Duckwing” conveys to me, in retrospect, a character that is a noisy bastard (quack!…quack!) and is far too busy making a fool out of himself to take anything too seriously. So, yeah, it’s a caricature of Meta-me. And good caricatures are important on the web, because it conveys a quick impression of the person writing the email, chat, blog, whatever, without the reader spending too much time trying to process what the web-head is actually saying.
There can be pratfalls to pseudonyms, however. True, someone with the moniker “EvilDemonWithThirst4HumanBabyHeads666” might be a Trippy Talking Pile of Goo from the American Legion of the Damned, but a far more likely prospect is that he is your typical misunderstood Goth passed out over his desktop.
So, yeah, I hate pseudonyms, but they are useful and sometimes necessary on the web. If anyone wants to know who I am and can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they are not from Central Intelligence, I’ll be more that glad to give out my name, a short personal biography, address, and Social Security number to those that may inquire.
Which brings me to Zen and holistic theory, because nothing will bring you closer to Zen on the web than using a pseudonym. Let me start by explaining to you what Zen and holistic theory is, exactly:
Zen is, in essence, an exacting science. Its main scriptures include the koans, which are hilarious accounts of negation and paradox. These koans are meant to inspire and trigger past memories of early childhood, to pull the sentient being out of out himself and into MetaWorld, which is a lot of fun and contains many distractions for young and old alike. The process is akin to the realization that there are no two paths that diverge in the wood. For, if life is holistic, there is no separation in thought and no way that words can convey this.
So, a koan is a paradox in which words attempt to convey what cannot be conveyed through words. Zen cannot be described –it just is.
Sometimes, two thought processes can be combined to convey more of Zen’s parameters than one. If you’ve read this far, you can combine words and music to suggest more of the Zen than words can alone. In the classic rhyme “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly,” the “Da-dum-Dee-dump-Da-dum-Dee-dump” flavor of the rhyme and it’s connotation as a march towards impending doom does way more for me than the lyrics do, which get rather repetitive.
And the more random elements you can add to it, the more absurd it becomes. Sub in random items in the lyrics: house, black lung, art, pot, and fill in your obscene item here. And the more time you spend on this, the closer you’ll be to Zen.
And if you like your Rock from Minneapolis, check out “Zen Arcade” by the Huskers. Yes, it will bring you closer to Enlightenment.
-duckwing, at 8:44 PM
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Friday, May 02, 2003
Behold the Power of Hyperboyle
One by one we shall smite them all with grandiose verbiage:
Shoe Bomber Ruling by Judge William Young U.S. District Court
> >Judge William Young made the following statement in sentencing "shoe
> >bomber" Richard Reid to prison. It is noteworthy, and deserves to be
> >remembered
> >far longer than he predicts.
> >
> >January 30, 2003 United States vs. Reid. Judge Young: Mr. Richard C.
> >Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes upon you.
> >
> >On counts 1, 5 and 6 the Court sentences you to life in prison in the
> >custody of the United States Attorney General. On counts 2, 3, 4 and 7,
the
> >Court
> >sentences you to 20 years in prison on each count, the sentence on each
> >count to run consecutive with the other. That's 80 years.
> >
> >On count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years consecutive
> >to the 80 years just imposed. The Court imposes upon you each of the
eight
> >counts a fine of $250,000 for the aggregate fine of $2 million.
> >
> >The Court accepts the government's recommendation with respect to
> >restitution and orders restitution in the amount of $298.17 to Andre
> >Bousquet and
> >$5,784 to American Airlines.
> >
> >The Court imposes upon you the $800 special assessment. The Court imposes
> >upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires
> >it.
> >But the life sentences are real life sentences so I need go no further.
> >
> >This is the sentence that is provided for by our statues. It is a fair
> >and just sentence. It is a righteous sentence. Let me explain this to
you.
> >
> >We are not afraid of any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We
> >are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is all too
much
> >war talk here. And I say that to everyone with the utmost respect.
> >
> >Here in this court , where we deal with individuals as individuals, and
> >care for individuals as individuals, as human beings we reach out for
> >justice,
> >you are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a
soldier
> >in
> >any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a
> >soldier gives you far too much stature. Whether it is the officers of
> >government
> >who do it or your attorney who does it, or that happens to be your view,
> >you
> >are a terrorist.
> >
> >And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not treat with terrorists.
> >We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one
and
> >bring them to justice.
> >
> >So war talk is way out of line in this court. You are a big fellow. But
> >you are not that big. You're no warrior. I know warriors. You are a
> >terrorist. A species of criminal guilty of multiple attempted murders.
> >In a very real sense Trooper Santigo had it right when you first were
> >taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press
and
> >where the TV crews were and he said you're no big deal. You're no big
deal.
> >
> >What your counsel, what your able counsel and what the equally able
> >United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as
I
> >know
> >how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was
> >it
> >that led you here to this courtroom today? I have listened respectfully
to
> >what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself
> >what
> >sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you
> >are guilty of doing. And I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy
you.
> >But as I search this entire record it comes as close to understanding as
I
> >know.
> >
> >It seems to me you hate the one thing that is most precious. You hate our
> >freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we
> >choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we
> >individually
> >choose.
> >
> >Here, in this society, the very winds carry freedom. They carry it
> >everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual
> >freedom so
> >much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can
> >see,
> >truly see that justice is administered fairly, individually, and
> >discretely.
> >
> >It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on
> >your behalf and have filed appeals, will go on in their, their
> >representation
> >of you before other judges. We are about it. Because we all know that
the
> >way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties. Make no
> >mistake
> >though. It is yet true that we will bear any burden, pay any price, to
> >preserve our freedoms.
> >
> >Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long
> >remember what you or I say here. Day after tomorrow it will be forgotten.
> >But this, however, will long endure. Here in this courtroom and
courtrooms
> >all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice,
> >individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being
> >done.
> >
> >The very President of the United States through his officers will have to
> >come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can
> >be judged, and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that
> >evidence
> >democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.
> >
> >See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America.
> >That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag
> >stands
> >for freedom. You know it always will.
> >
> >Custody Mr. Officer. Stand him down.
And, just for effect...
"Let me explain this to you."
-duckwing, at 3:36 PM
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Thursday, May 01, 2003
No Mercy For AOL and it's CD Distributers
This is pretty standard griping from any number of people on the web. AOL sucks, and I hate getting junk mail, and I hate all of the fucking CD's urging me to try AOL one more time. It's a gripe that's very easy to ignore from others, until one of those cd's packaged in aluminum casing arrives in your mailbox, on your way home from work, and your nerves start to fray...
People I know have many different creative ways to deal with the AOL menace. Stick 'em in the microwave to see the sparks, much like the Wint-O-Green Lifesavers phenomenom. Carve intricate architechural designs into them with a carving knife, then bring it back down to the mailroom inside your apartment complex so that the others may see your work. So many things, so little time...
So, yeah, I received one of them in my mailbox today. My only real problem with AOL, besides the fact that it sucks and it is virtually impossible to cancel your account with them once you figure that out, is the absolute waste of money it is to put out this kind of junk mail. An aluminum case with a cd costs a bit of money, unlike your standard junk mail clutter, so that they actually make you hesitate before you chuck it into the garbage.
And that is insidious, and evil. AOL has got to go.
-duckwing, at 7:03 PM
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