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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Monday, November 24, 2003
Good Morning!
I am a pretty extreme night person, in that I generally feel most awake after 9 or so at night, and could probably keep going until 5 in the morning if I didn't have a 9-5 job (I got flex-time, but only to a certain extent and only if I don't abuse it), or a need to keep up with the rest of the human race. So usually I try for bed at 11 (which never works) and up at 7. But it's cool for a change just to pull an all nighter for no real reason, and try to hash out a normal working day without going comatose into the coffee.
The reason I pulled an all nighter last night was because I managed to catch the tail end of a South Park marathon, and when it was over at two, figured there wasn't any real reason to go to bed and catch 5 hours of sleep, as I certainly wouldn't be able to get anything done on that amount of sleep. So I ended up watching the tail end of the Adult Swim thing on the Cartoon Network, but I missed the good stuff: Sealab 2021, Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Space Ghost CTC, as they were on too early (I hate Mission Hill and The Oblongs). After that was over, around 4, I watched some History Channel thing, which was educational. That's the great thing about channels like History, Discovery, and A&E, besides totally destroying museums and momuments in DC by adding their corporate logos to them. It had something to do with those fucking Soviets hiding gold and shit as "spoils" from WWII underneath a goddamn stupid Commie museum in Moscow that could not even lay a finger on the Smithsonian. We should've kicked their asses in WWII when we had a chance.
Uh..yeah. Between 4 and 5 in the morning, without a cup of coffee yet, and forced between Edu TV and informericials, I get belligerent. But it all good, because at 5 you realize the other sludges are getting up, turning on their TV's, because it's time for "Good Morning America!" Except I don't watch that -I turned it to CNN, where a less than perky anchor was waking up America by re-enacting visions of hell on camera and telling a portly weather guy that "I don't do cleaning, I let the servants do it for me..." after saying she was tired and had a rough weekend "watching football."
I hear that. Philly and New England have collectively won their umpteenth games in a row, which made me happy, even if New England's squeaker over Houston (come on!) left me exhausted. I am still awaiting a Philly/NE Superbowl that will have me finally end my half-hearted fanship of both teams and pick one team over the other. I'm thinking Philly has a real shot this year -NE is great but has to get over Kansas City, of course. That'll be a tough one.
Anyway, after watching CNN for awhile, and drinking a few cups of coffee, I headed out (still dark, a first) for work, and as I walked, dawn stared breaking. The air was early morning hour crisp, but rather warm for the end of November, which I like. And unlike most days, people aren't rushed, but more relaxed and attuned to other people. I mean, of course, most people up and out by 6 aren't quite tuned into an all-nighter's wavelength. They're sleepy, groggy, but relaxed. But there are the few, a couple of guys, normal night people, looking for a change of pace, just getting out, and enjoying the morning break, for the first time in weeks, months, maybe even years.
-duckwing, at 8:52 AM
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Saturday, November 22, 2003
How to Be a Phone Weasel and Make Lots of Dough
All I have to say by way of intro is that, wow, what a knockout week! I don't usually apologize for what I write, but I have to this week, cause I've been kinda copping out. The last couple of posts have been a bit off, and I could be accused of blogging when I really didn't have anything to say. Well, yes, I could be accused of many things here, but man, if it's a cop out, I just have't say: I'm really sorry...
With that out, I gotta say "Happy Happy" that some of my writing is actually getting published here and there, and to the Washington Post for not only publishing Michael Jackson's mug, but also inspiring some goof ball to write this little treasure about the Art of Celebrity Mugshots. (hint: there isn't much)
So, some threads:
Outkast, Bold n Beautiful: If they didn't exist prior to 911, somebody would've invented this. This actually kinda segs into the 40th Year JFK gettin' killed thing, and the Beatles. The Beatles, history acknowledges now, healed America after losing it's president, JFK. Music heals the world after trauma. And honestly, I think that, living in a pretty bitter, cynical world, we should take note that if any pop musical group is going to "heal the world" it's probably going to be Outkast this year, and not Michael Jackson. They've dropped an incredible, long ass album this year -absolutely the best record out right now. Also happens to be Number 1 on the Billboards, and I can't even remember the last time someone put out a number 1 that anyone with half a brain cared about. People care about this record. The world is theirs -if they want it.
Michael Jackson: I was going to start this post with a complete comprehensive eulogy and history of Michael Jackson, for those unfamiliar the King of Pop. Seriously, it seems like every time the Wacko gets into trouble, we get a knock out synopsis of his career on MTV and VH1, and ET, and AH, and whatever else I don't watch. Here's my disco analysis of his solo career for those who care: Off the Wall -never heard it. Thriller: awesome. Bad: Smooth Criminal was cool, everything else sucked. Dangerous: not. History: never heard it. Blood on the Dance Floor: sounds freaky. never heard it. Invincible: apparently.
The Title for this Blog: Just liked the title. No relevance to anything.
-duckwing, at 9:04 PM
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Monday, November 17, 2003
Democracy and You
Well, right now just burnt out and looking forward to the holidays. I'm drinking coffee at night, pots of it, actually, to keep awake just long enough to fall asleep before midnight -wake up, go to work, come home, drink coffee.
And my crappy DSL connection allows me to surf web pages at about 3 pages every hour or so, so that's no good. Can't really find any interesting stories on the web at that speed.
Which kinda leaves me to my own musings about life and politics in America. Democracy? What is it? How much does it cost? In real dollars?
The idea behind America is that we're really a republic, not a true bona fida direct democracy. This prevents the majority from burning criminals at the stake, lynch mobs, and general clutter, and allows the minority to burn flags, watch opera, and Clear Channel. It represses, but to a limited extent. It allows, but what it allows is decided by an elite.
Okay. So what? That's pretty much my conclusion, but it gnaws on me sometimes, and put on your idealism filters for a second here, that we cannot have a perfect system. A perfect system is dynamic, where when it occurs to the majority that something in our government is fucked up, like the media consolidation thing and Clear Channel, and when something like 90% of America thinks that radio sucks, that we can't do anything about it. But when something like 90% of Americans think a kind of expression should be banned (like flag burning), Congressmen are up in arms about it, and will probably pass a real Constitutional Amendment banning it.
But I do stand with the elites for the most part, in that I think the republic is great, and that too much change on the will of the majority would screw things up tragically. Even with Clear Channel, I think that we already puts the nails into that coffin, it sucks, and should be a lesson learned. Same with Iraq. We put a helluva fight on that one, but we made our bed.
-duckwing, at 11:33 PM
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Sunday, November 16, 2003
Dope Notes of the Week
Let's see, what happened last week?
Quite a bit. We'll break it down with subtitles...
Democratic Primaries: I'm going to subtitle this one, just because it's seems to get more buzz than any other news story week after week. Nothing new to add to it, we'll see what happens later this month.
The War in Iraq Unravels Even Further: My question -when's the last even press-manufactured good news you've heard about this war? The Conservative Media Establishment are on to something though -if you bludgeon people with pessimism, eventually they'll get bored and turn their attention to Paris Hilton and Tom Cruise.
Weirdly into Hip-Hop Lately: One reason that I don't comment on music in this blog, is that's a little too close to real life. When people ask me in real life what kinda music I listen to, I basically just shrug and say "a little bit of everything." Truth is, I usually get obsessively into a particular type of music for a few months, eventually get bored with it, and find something else. So far in my life, I've pretty much gone through everything, at least for a few months: Jazz, Classical, Rap, HipHop, Classic Rock, Oldies, Punk, Hippie Shit, New Wave, Grunge, Ska, Reggae, Metal, Country, Indy Rock, Techno. I know, it makes me sound like one of those pompous music freaks, and that's why I usually don't comment on it or hold it over people's heads. But this is the third or fourth time I've gotten into the whole hiphop thing, and I'm just trying to figure: Why? Big reason I've come up with -I'm a newly single guy undergoing Mid-Mid-Life Crisis, and I'm trying to get back in touch with my inner young single guy. Or maybe I'm just really into the new Outkast album, which to me sounds like the best thing they've ever done -separately...
This is too funny to not mention here, since I'm commenting on music -this dude comes up to me while I was out for a smoke, he's "Dude, do you like metal?" I'm like "Yeah, it's okay..."
He's like, "Well I got the band for you...(wait for it)...Dream Theatre!" And I'm like, "Yeah, I recognize -they were like big in the 80's or something..."
He says: "Dude, you have no idea -I went to see 'em over at RFK, and I got (insert name of the lead singer here) to sign my CD!" I'm like: "Yeah?" He said: "But my bitch stole it from me..." "Bummer..." "And she stole my tapes of me playing drums with the band!" Me: "Dude, why are you even living anymore..." Him: "Yeah, I know! Bitch!"
Okay, enough of that. Just sharing...
Blogs are Apperently Not Over: By sheer coincidence, both Neal Pollack and The Mess (of the Mess Hall fame) will be up and stronger than ever. Neal Pollack has deleted last weeks self titled "whiny posts" from last week, and The Mess has put up a new post last week with a cite for Philip K. Dick. Yay!
Which leaves this week -I'm personally psyched and ready to leave my take on whatever needs taking. Bring it on!
-duckwing, at 8:42 PM
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Wednesday, November 12, 2003
The End of an Era...
Hopefully I can keep this post short but sweet. But it looks like the Era of the Blogs is pretty much over. I have been feeling this for awhile now, with the lack of media attention given to Instapundit and Atrios lately, but I've also felt that blogging has just gotten way too democratic lately. There's just way too many people doing it, and at least some percentage of those people have something vaguely interesting to say, at least more interesting than most daily newpaper pundits.
But some of the more notorious of our ranks have thrown in the towel. The journey and a half that was the Neal Pollack Blog is apperently over, as Neil is claiming to have posted his last entry today, and it's been at least a few months since The Mess Hall has last posted. Even Atrios him/herself is down to only about 20 posts a day. Bummer.
New fads die hard. That's all I can say. But I'll keep the dream alive, here at the Apple Coda. As long as we have Google in our corner, we shall prevail.
Yes, I'm being a little sarcastic, and yes, I will post a new Bill Duckwing story this week. I promise...
-duckwing, at 11:39 PM
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Monday, November 10, 2003
Yawn!
I'm sleepy. My leg still hurts. I've been hoping to relate a story or two to you guys, but unfortunately, my life is too boring, and unimaginative right now, so, just to let you know, rather than writing tonight, I'm just going to take a nap and call it good.
Actually, I'm just fucking with ya. The big deal right now seems to be the Democratic Primaries. Who's the Frontrunner (Dean)? Who's the insurgent (Clark, no wait...it's Gephardt)? Who's the real insurgent (actually, it's probably Sharpton)? How many more feet can be crammed into the maw of Howard Dean?
To put this into more of a personal perspective, I'm going to tell you what's impressed me about each of the candidates, respectively, and why (unless Hillary decides to get into the race, or Al Gore, or...well, that's a pretty big "or" -and one I'm not about to speculate on unless this particular decides to throw it's hat into the ring). Here we go:
Al Sharpton: Al is going crazy from all the media attention this week. Small wonder, now that I'm getting to see more of the guy, the more I like him. He's articulate, pretty much fearless, and has a couple of well placed skeletons in the closet to make him the guy's candidate in this race, compared to the other stiffs. If Dean becomes president, you can be sure (if Sharpton isn't nominated for VP) that Sharpton will be remembered as the Guy who made the President Apologize. Alright.
Dick Gephardt: Mr. Big Labor special interest. DG is the embodiment of a labor union representative. I mean, in a way that's a good thing -y'know big labor isn't really represented efficiently by any political party right now, except for the old guys like DG, and, holy shit -a President held accountable only to Labor Special Interests! If we must play the "Draw a parallel to the '72 Presidential Election" here, I call DG the Hubert Humphrey of the bunch, minus Richard Daley and the Mafia connections. If Dean looks about to wrap it up by next month, and the Democrats start up with an "Anything but Dean" campaign, expect Gephardt be one of the candidates in line for the old Humphrey nod.
Dennis Kucinich: Still no chance in hell. In '72, probably a John Lindsey type, or something. The exposure is only going to mean good things for this guy though, maybe a run at the Senate (in Ohio? -shrug-) or something. I think he's good with plans and a platform, loses major points with his articulation and charisma.
John Kerry: Easy '72 parallel: Ed Muskie. Makes Gore look like a populist. Contrary to the media's proclamation of Kerry as Frontrunner last year, though, I don't think that Kerry ever really "had it." It was never really Kerry's race to lose, because he never really had it. I think most Democrats took one look at Kerry and said "Gore Redux." And his endless revisions, poll watching, and stories about 'Nam suggested too much polish, not enough substance. The media love this characterization of him, too, but it's an easy enough characterization for any butthead to make. He'll stay in the race a little longer than Muskie did, due to the fact that Muskie was an actually frontrunner who was subject to the same stuff Dean has weathered for awhile now, but he'll be one of the first to drop out, especially if he hedges on spending his own money and commits to public money for his campaign.
Wesley Clark: My best candidate for John Lindsey in '72. Jump in with a blueprint for winning the Presidency, accented by a small group of grassroots supporters. The public becomes excited. Come out swinging with no real agenda and inability to articulate reasons for running for President or even why you're a Democrat. Blueprint unravels. Public becomes bored. Drop out.
Joe Lieberman: Probably the only Democratic candidate in the bunch that will cause the Young Urban Professional Democrats (Yuppied's, I guess) to go out and vote for Bush in droves if he gets the nomination. '72 parallel: Henry Jackson, for sure, only more self-righteous. His main tactic seems to be getting the rest of the Democrats to rip each other apart, and emerge as the only candidate worth standing. Which seems to be all the more a probability that we'll get that Lieberman ticket now. Yikes.
Six down...three to go. Oh boy.
Carol Mosley-Braun: I like this candidate a lot. Articulate, thoughtful, honest. Avoids the limelight like the plague. No real '72 comparison here. A checkered past, but I think she deserves more consideration. That's all.
John Edwards: Another candidate that has impressed me more the last couple of weeks. An obvious '72 comparison: Sam Yorty. Just kidding. I don't know...maybe Hubert Humphrey again, if the Anything But Dean thing really picks up steam. Seems to be just a generic mold in the Bill Clinton-DLC vein, but I could give him half a chance. But are we ever going to get sick of: "Do we want a Clinton-mold president or a Reagan/Bush mold president?" Maybe not, and if not, maybe this year is a vintage Edwards year.
Howard Dean: Oh boy. You knew where this was going: McGovern. There, I said it. Except this McGovern is a bitter, centrist McGovern. A McGovern sick of the hippies always pissing on the parade, got into the whole nihilism with the punks, mellowed out again with a condo in Miami during the 80's, slacked off at Starbucks during the grunge era, and is now pissed off again at what's happened to this country since toking up behind the barn for the last 30 years.
Well, okay Dr. Doom, Mr. Populist, let's see what the last 30 years have taught us.
-duckwing, at 9:07 PM
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Thursday, November 06, 2003
More Beatings into the Ground
I had a pretty hard week at work this week, so I'm going to go back on my promise of a story today, and post it tomorrow, as I got the whole day off. I'm just too fucking tired, and even though I'm well into my second pot of coffee this evening, I'm going to chill out and go to bed early tonight.
My ankle's not bugging me as much anymore, but my knee is. I'm trying stretches, hopping around, etc. The stretching is the worst, makes me feel like I haven't used my leg in years, even though I've already been off the cast for a month, and I was only in the cast for about a month and a half. It kinda makes you wonder what shit people who have been in comas for years (or even months, for that matter) have to go through when they wake up. Imagine waking up and finding out that every muscle in your body has atrophied to goo.
The funny thing is the more exercise my bad leg gets, the better it feels. It's when I sit down for long periods of time, resting the leg as it were, and then get up, that the pain and limping come back.
Well at least that's what I'm going to tell my doctor for my follow-up. Yeah, it's boring, but it's gotta be said.
Anyway, Dean seems to be in some hot water, eh? Today's Post I count two opinion columns, one editorial, all knocking some aspect of Dean. He's a lukewarm media favorite nowadays, it seems. I think his advocacy of the Joe Conferderates of this country probably reflects a bit of naivete (throw in some accents on some of those "e's" -it's fun!), rather than actual bigotry on Dean's part. Seems like most people seem to agree with me on that point. Where I do differ from most people is the fact that I think Presidents should be able to be candid and say stupid shit from time to time. I think where Presidential candidates cross the line from being stupid into being offensive is when the quote actually reflects a controversial policy the candidate has taken up (like, if Dean's plaform included a Constitutional Amendment replacing the American Flag with the Confederate Flag).
But I'm kinda generalizing again here. Different things cause different reactions. When I get behind some dude in a pickup truck with a Condfederate Flag, my general reaction is pretty condescending ("Dude, what a jackass!"). Some other dude might feel threatened by the same guy. So me and this other guy are going to have two completely different reactions to Dean's quote (Me: What? Oh, Dean's being a dumbass and shooting his mouth off again. Oh course he's not serious... Other dude: Dean is really starting to piss me off.)
Okay, holy crap, I must stop right here. Kinda have to stop here mid-thought. Give my brain a rest. But if this thing gets prolonged for some reason, maybe I'll just finish that thought. Maybe.
-duckwing, at 10:59 PM
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Wednesday, November 05, 2003
Off the Air
Well, I guess some things are still too controversial to be aired on network television. "The Reagans" quite possibly the most anticipated mini-series ever scheduled by CBS as part of it's fall lineup, is kaput (you've already knew this). And now I have to join hands with Barbara Streisand and voice my displeasure at the silencing of real, if bland and mediocre, American voices at the hands of Corporate pussies with a right-wing agenda.
I guess I'll have to watch it on Showtime now, if they have the guts to air it. Only that'll be a problem, as I just moved and didn't really have any intention of getting cable in the near future. This is a problem. I could just shell out 100 bucks a month in the hopes that maybe they'll air it sometime in the future, but as far as I can tell, the Showtime airing is a pretty big "if."
If only I had cable, so I could watch Fox News, and see how the progress on whether Showtime will air this mini-drama is going. Only they would have the guts to give me hours and hours of full, in-depth debate on this, and maybe even give Barbara Streisand a chance to shrilly vent the case for airing it on CBS again. I don't know, but I just know I'm missing out big time.
I don't know -should I get cable or shouldn't I? I mean, on the plus side, HBO's new line-up of Carnivale (mentally put an accent on that last "e") and K Street are knocking the concept of "edge" right out of the freaking ballpark. And I love edginess. Crazy about it. Plus, Sex in the City is pretty cool, as long as they lose that stupid loser writer guy and that guest dude with the mental issues and get Carrie back together with Mr. Big. Oh, they did? Missed that one...sorry.
Plus -lots and lots of repeats of big blockbuster movies from last year. Tag-teamed with Showtime, and that spells out..."The Reagans."
Okay, I'm going to lay off the cynicism for awhile -must be my medication. Tomorrow: Happy Fun Joy Story -a day in the life of Bill Duckwing!
-duckwing, at 10:40 PM
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Tuesday, November 04, 2003
Shaking a Tail Feather, Whatever the Hell That Means...
One of the big reasons that young people don't really read the news dailies (see: Big Trends Leading to the Downfall of American Civilization, Vol. 1), is that half of the newspaper is news you coun't care less to read about, and the other half is weird generalizations of current trends that are completely untrue, and are usually disproved by other weird generalizations a week or two after they see print. That leaves the Op/Ed section, which tends to be talking heads following threads of other talking heads, leading to conclusions on extremely fine and difficult points that stray so far from the main point of interest that they give new meaning to the word "convoluted." It's a trend that bloggers tend to follow with increasing regularity, and one of the reasons I'm trying to "take a step back" from the political discourse.
Even parody. I used to do some political satire, but now I cringe away from it like a wounded dog. I've seen so many opinion columns in the Washington Post debating whether or not Iraq is the Second Coming of Vietnam, that I'm almost disinclided to react. I know some people have said Iraq is a "quagmire like Vietnam," but we've haven't even been there for a year yet. Imbecilic Richard Cohen's most recent piece of nonsense basically muses "is Iraq Vietnam, or is it Bosnia?" -How about -"Is Iraq... Iraq?" I agree with the basic tenet that frames these musings -how much longer are we going to be there? But the attempt to see the forests from the trees 12 years into the future is really stupid. Using history can be useful to score some bonus points in an argument, but using historical incidents as a talisman to predict future circumstances is pretty stupid.
And like I said, the biggest problem isn't Richard Cohen in particular, it's the sheer convoluted storytelling involved in most of these Heads arguments. 9/10's of the articles fail so utterly in making an interesting point that, for a young man, reading the dailies everyday is an almost bitter excerise in masochism. Luckily, I'd be up for the Ombudsman job at the WP if they're hiring.
Another example: Robert D. Novak's crummy attempt to stir up controversy over Mel Gibson's stupid movie called "The Passion" or something. His opinion can be summed up as: "I'm a libertarian, and I'm fucking pissed off enough to write a column about other people who are pissed off about this fucking stupid, yet emotionally charged movie." I think my biggest problem with this is the fact he assumes that all liberals who defended "The Last Temptation of Christ" (and you knew I was there, back in the 80's, defending the shit out of that movie in the by-gone District Examiner) are now hypocritically lynching themselves by saying all copies of "The Passion" should be burned, along with the last reprint of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." Oh, the hypocracy!
Could anybody care less about this movie? I mean, is it offensive to anyone? Or is it more offesive to be the knucklehead that's like: yeah, you know, the idea that Jesus starts thinking about having a wife and kids and stuff before he's nailed up on the cross is kinda unnerving, if really boring cinema. But give me 4 and a half hours of the last 12 hours of Jesus's life, and make it really gruesome and cruel and stuff, and that'd be like...cool. Or better yet, have Jesus come back to life right there on the cross as some sorta weird zombie like thing, who pulls himself off the cross at the end, and says, with eyes full of flames, "Ye Jews that hath condemned me...vengence is mine!!!" Man, that'd be weird.
My point? Does mainstream America really give a crap if anything's offensive anymore? Sure there'll always be protests from the fringe whenever anyone makes a movie concerning the Passion, abortion, or the French. I mean, Reality TV's kinda destroyed any shock value most mainstream Americans held before in their daily entertainment dosages. But people like Novak who always attempt to pigeonhole the fringe as representative of some vital aspect of the left wing or right wing of the general public, or like Cohen, who channel up the ghosts of history past, without making a compelling argument for it's use, are missing something really vital. They're missing the fact that they really don't have anything important to say anymore in their column(s).
-duckwing, at 10:31 PM
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