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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"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, February 21, 2005
We'll Miss You, Hunter
I've spent the better part of the day going over some of the commentary and obits for Hunter S. Thompson, all the while trying to work out in my head what I could possibly contribute or say about his passing. But when I hit one of the comments posted on the blogs:
"Shit...they finally got him."
And I seriously broke up after reading that. One of the great interview questions put to Hunter was when someone asked that, for someone always decrying that the American Dream was dead, why did he seem to be such a living embodiment of it?
And while HST didn't like to admit it, he in some part found a portion of what the American Dream was about, and partook in it for as long as he could.
Even though I read Hunter S. Thompson in High School like a lot of disaffected teens, and continued reading him again and again throughout the rest of my life, he is, like a lot of my influences, hard to pigeonhole. So I took a walk. I had the day off, and I took a quick walk down 23rd past the State Department to the Lincoln Memorial, just to reflect, see if there were others from the area seeking to put it together, and maybe to attempt to put something together that I wasn't really sure I could.
I figured they'd be easy enough to point out if there were any to be found. After all, HST has to be the patron saint of misfits. But it was just the tourist crowd. I spent most of the time trying to stay out of the way of cameras as I tried to read Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address. They I looked at a few of the wreaths lain at Lincoln's feet, and puttered back down the stairs.
Nothing yet.
I strolled onto one of the paths towards the WWII, and it was quite peaceful. Even though you know that you are being observed by at least 5 or 10 Nation Park Service Rangers and/or Secret Service as you take your quiet, peaceful stroll, it's nothing to get up in arms about if you don't tend to think about those things. I usually don't -in fact, the only distractions from my internal conversation on all things Hunter were a couple of incidents where a handful of tourists were completely knocked out about the squirrels, of all things.
The first incident I passed by concerned a squirrel on his hindlegs, dancing around in a small circle. There was a crowd of tourists, and a guy at the POW kiosk was yelling at them excitedly -"No I don't have any more freaking nuts!" -A bunch of kids were apeing the squirrel excitedly, as if they had never seen anything like it before in their short, sad lives.
Okay -second incident was on the opposite end of the reflecting pool near the new WWII Memorial. The WWII Memorial hasn't really found a place in my heart for me just yet, but it's as good of an end point as any before hitting the Washington Memorial, which is just not walkable at this point. Not since they decided to stick in a subterannean shopping mall underneath it and do away with walking across the park. Actually, a lot of the National Mall is just dreadful for pedestrians right now -sidewalks and roads closed everywhere, jersey barricades and lots and lots of orange construction shit that does it's best to obscure the monuments they contain and terrify passersby at the same time -and detours upon detours that can make a simple half mile jaunt into a 6 mile road of confusion and fear. 'What happens if they find you on one of those forrbidden sidewalks?' you ask yourself, privately 'will they just shoot you onsite?'
But I meant it when I said that the reflecting pool portion of the mall does it's darnedest to allow you to forget that stuff, which is one of the reasons why I walk it so much. Anyway, enough digressions -the second squirrel incident occurred as I said, near the WWII Memorial, again tourists and their kids. The kids were running towards this squirrel, and I again blinked a few times. I know that other portions of this country have squirrels. The mother was laughing, "Hey, man -that's Alphonse! Don't touch him, Trudi -he probably has an acute case of the sickness!"
Then the father chimed, "Ha! Yeah! You leave that Alphonse alone! He's sick! And he's not doing anything to anyone!"
Now I'm not going to say I had this wild epiphany about HST while watching these children attack squirrels on a vacation in Washington DC. I'm sure Hunter could've done something with that sort of material -I mean he did do a "political allegory" susposedly based upon Pat Buchanan in which HST trapped foxes in cages and shoveled dung and peacock feathers into the bars. But unfortunately his political allegories left me confused at times.
Even so, there are a lot of reasons to appreciate and mourn Hunter S. Thompson's death. Too many. He seems to have affected everyone in a completely different way. Evidence -I haven't seen any two tributes to him attempt to paint him or his influence in a similar light. Politcos love him for his "On the Campaign Trail '72." Other people like him because he got the crap kicked out of him by the Hell's Angels...in pursuit of the story (something every journalist I'm sure has a hankering for). Some people are in love with him simply because of the Fear and Loathing movie, which I think is a bit unfortunate. After all, he was obviously a bit more than just a cartoon freak. But whatever.
Regardless, it seems to me that Hunter had a gift to allow the reader to make as big or as little of a deal as they needed to make out of him. To me, he outlined and documented the circumstances of how this country became less fun and more cynical to the generations born after him. He wrestled his entire life to come up with a reason for why it happened, but even if that's an unanswerable question, or perhaps too personal a one to answer himself, he still tried him damnedest.
That, and the fact that he could write like a sonofabitch, should make him a literary hero for generations to come (provided we're not at the End of Days already).
-duckwing, at 2:31 PM
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Thursday, February 17, 2005
Numa Numa Dance Has Already Been Played Out, You Sick Fucks!
I've gotten a pretty big increase in traffic here lately. Not because I'm suddenly being noticed or anything by anyone in particular, but just because I've gotten Google searched to death, due to the fact that I linked to that fat kid who lip syncs to his webcam. It's known on the web as the "Numa Numa Dance," and it's big enough that doing a Google search myself revealed not only a ton of threads about it in various forums but also a bunch of people imitating the thing in front of their webcams and posting it on the internet.
Well, whatever floats your boat, I guess.
I also missed doing a Valentine's Day thing here that I wanted to do, but alas, could not. In lieu of this, and since we're talking about Newgrounds for the most part anyway, I'll give you a link to this, which I think is pretty cute. The music works perfectly with the flash animation.
Posting will be pretty sporadic -there's just too much going on in the world, and in my life. I'm getting pretty overloaded, but I'll try to put some original stuff up as soon as I can.
-duckwing, at 10:34 PM
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Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Vacation Time!!
Just so you know, I'm taking a nice long break from blogging until next week...probably. I mean, if something worth relating comes up, I'll put it up beforehand, but I've got a feeling this is just going to be one of those weeks, and I hate the idea of people coming back here expecting updates and not getting any, so...
Check out my links, or read my archives if you're desparate for something to do. See ya next week.
-duckwing, at 10:18 PM
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Monday, February 07, 2005
Ooh..Someone's Going to Get It!
Slate stirs up the pot with this lame-o story, and puts it on the Front Page juxtaposed with smiling (or disorientated -take your pick) Tom Brady.
Wow! Let the shit storm begin!
-duckwing, at 5:45 PM
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Sunday, February 06, 2005
Honestly Couldn't Get into the SuperBowl This Year
One way not to get too involved with a Superbowl is to not care too much about either of the teams playing. I've found that this year the contrary position thingy also proves true -liking both teams equally also lends one to not care too much about the outcome of the game.
Because I couldn't root for one team over the other, I'm just content with the outcome of the game, and hope that there isn't a rematch next time around.
-duckwing, at 11:26 PM
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Wednesday, February 02, 2005
2005 State of the Union -Who Set the Roof on Fire?
Oh man.
Can't say I'm really looking forward to even watching this, let alone commenting on it in real time, but it's something to do, I guess.
See you in a bit.
Update (8:03 PM): Atrios has some little crumbs on the hot button topic of the SOTU -Social Security. I'm still up in the air about Social Security reform, but I figure the Social Security system works well enough not to warrant any major tinkering. I don't buy into the crisis thing, although I do believe in solvency, I don't like the the idea of a major overhaul and massive spending of my tax dollars just to cut SS benefits.
Update (8:30 PM): While we're waiting for this thing to come on, I might as well point out I'm listening to Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot." I'm not quite sure if I like this album or not. Not really sure if I like Wilco's other stuff to begin with, they're kind of a "meh" band with me. But a few of the songs are pretty striking. A lot of people think that this album is a 9-11 tribute, since it came out in 2002. Although it was recorded before the 9-11 attacks, some of the stuff about the album -the cover art features two identical towers (not those Twin Towers, but they're close enough to evoke the comparison), one of the songs is called "Ashes of American Flags," and the song "Jesus, Etc." contains the lyrics "Tall buildings shake, voices escape...singing sad, sad songs." Even the title is military lingo for...something, I guess. Whatever Jeff Tweedy was getting on about when he wrote those songs, after listening to the album a few times, I think he caught onto something big about what this decade in America was going to be about.
Update (8:55 PM): I need a haircut. I get really bugged out when my hair gets too long. You remember the Paul McCartney back up band "Wings." Yeah, they named them after me...when my hair gets too long. I once told a girl I was seeing (and I think this was in college, late 90's) that I wanted to grow my hair out like real, real long. And she was all like "NO! Don't do that!" When I was all like "Why? Pourquoi?" She was like, "You'd look like Dylan Klebold if you did that." Yeah. Remember Dylan Klebold, one of the Columbine High School shooters? Yeah, so I've kept my hair short from that point on, barring times when I thought that the Billy Ray Cyrus look was actually kinda cool and kept my sides short but let the back grow long. Embarrassing, yes, but I'm from a Red State. We think that way sometimes. And it was kinda like a protest in a way -"I want to have long hair but I don't want everyone to pick up on the Dylan Klebold thing." (Note: No, I don't look a thing like Dylan Klebold, or Billy Ray. Sorry about that. Anyway, the SOTU is coming up soon. Better get it together.)
Update (9:53 PM): Huh? Wha happen? I think I caught a bit of the "Axis o' Evil" Part Deux. Wait a minute. Is France a part of this? Am I a dumbass for speaking en francais? Sorry, I missed most of the SOTU, and I'm just catching up. Was it cool? Nine o'clock is a bad time for a SOTU, IMHO, and I've been slammed by a bunch of phone calls leading up to the State of the Union taking full advantage of the nighttime free minutes general for most cell phone plans, which -I'm sorry, but I had not the heart to put them on hold to listen to the President. Forgive me, gentle blog readers.
Update (9:58 PM): That's fantastic. Do we have any goals in Iraq at this point? Define stability.
Update (10:03 PM): Dreams. Confidence. Freedom. Providence. Dreams. Genius. That's all, folks.
-duckwing, at 7:22 PM
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Tuesday, February 01, 2005
This is Fantastic!
Check this out. Gleened from the Annals of Improbable Research, one of the great science-based humor sites on the web.
-duckwing, at 10:07 PM
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Amy Goodman on "Hardball" and the Last Hurrah for a Live Blogger
As a self-loathing liberal, I hate to conceed points to the far-left hippies out there who gain enough prominence in the media to get onto a show like "Hardball." But I will have to admit that Amy Goodman, who is the host of "Democracy Now!" on Pacifica radio, is smart and clearly ideological without being absolutely batshit fucking insane.
That's a breath of fresh air. I think.
I was amazed by how she turned the tables on Chris Matthews (at least in my mind) with the "who's the greatest personality in the Democratic Party today" question. The funny thing about political parties, at least in theory, is that they were initially susposed to group people together into a "party" based on a shared positions and political interests, rather than a charismatic cult of personality. Goodman correctly attempted to point this out Chris Matthews, and then was quickly put out to pasture the Matthews way by his repeating the notion that "she wasn't answering the question."
While I give Matthews credit for being a tad bit fairer than say, Bill O'Reilly, I still gotta say. Chris Matthews is a blowhard. His show is done in a format sometimes called a "debate show," and while the debate format can sometimes be rigid, it usually makes allowances that for when someone brings up a valid or more interesting point than the question being asked actually required, that point is allowed to be discussed and debated. While decorum is encouraged, debate was never intended to be an authoritarian, scripted enterprise. Amy Goodman made an interesting point about how political parties are susposed to be more about positions held by many than about personalities and celebrity. Matthews of course called her an insane liberal harlot who was "not answering the question!"
Democrats are wafflers who always evade issues! LOL!
Finally, with the State of the Union tomorrow night, I have to announce that tomorrow will be my last live blog. I honestly can't imagine how interesting a live blog of Bush's first SOTU of his second term would be to anyone, really, but I'll give it a shot.
It might not be my best, since I doubt my heart will be into it. But hopefully, and with a little bit of imagination, I hope it'll be my craziest.
-duckwing, at 9:13 PM
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