Questions…and Answers
Anyone familar with Tom Stoppard’s work knows about the game of Questions. It’s sort of like tennis, but with words. If you have no idea what I’m writing about, then put the film version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in your Netflix queue and get ready for some incredible wordplay.
Since it’s just me-myself-and-I having a one-way conversation, I won’t play that game. However, I will pose some questions that I hope to answer. I don’t know why. I just feel like it.
Where’s the Music?
Yeah, I know it says “Graphic Significance Music” right up there at the top. Well, to be frank about it I gave up on the music game when it became clear that I had no business anywhere near the music business. It’s all run by creeps and psychopaths, anyway. If you ever wondered why each new song sounds like it was created by someone other than the actual artist, well…they make it all in a factory. I think the band Utopia nailed that one back in the early 1980s. Here’s what I mean:
Plus ça change, motherfuckers. Anyway, I’ll write more songs when I feel like there’s something worth writing about. I still love music, though. Maybe I should write about it instead of trying to create it.
Why do you sometimes curse?
I’m an adult. Get used to it. Anyway, I use cursewords sparingly, the way that I use Tabasco on my scrambled eggs. It’s what’s called a ‘sentence enhancer’–you grownup fans of Spongebob Squarepants will get that one right away. For readers of Henry Miller, however, I’m just too tame for their liking. I simply won’t ‘cartoon swear’ because that’s not what I’m about. I’d much rather use my words.
Why do I Use Captcha for Comments?
After too many damned spambot comments, I had no choice but to set up a Captcha system for comments. I can’t be spending all my time sorting through all the comments, and to be honest about 98% of them were–to put a very fine point on it–spam. And I don’t like spam! In fact, I am an antispamdinista (one of my past email addresses on Yahoo! had that before the @) and very much against some mobster from Russia selling crap on my site or leading the innocent to a malicious virus. After too much time spent bulk-deleting comments, I bowed to the pressure in my soul and installed a Captcha plugin. Good thing, too. I have a life, after all.
Why am I a Liberal?
Actually, I’m not a liberal. I’m a progressive. There’s a major difference. You see, President Obama is a liberal. Greg Palast is a progressive. Liberals tend towards the middle of the left while we progressives are holding on to the railings trying to keep the road from crumbling. We like to live dangerously by talking about dangerous ideas…such as freedom of speech, universal health care and free higher education.
Speaking of Greg Palast, I hear he has a new book called Vulture’s Picnic. Here’s a bit of an advert for it:
If you’ve never seen him on Democracy Now or The Young Turks then go to his website and you can see a few videos. He also uses WordPress, as do about a billion other people on the Internet. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. It just feels like that many. However, I think his site looks much cooler than mine. Oh, and he’s a fucking hero. Keep that in mind, okay?