To err is human...

I always err on the side of erring, and erring-do, and let me tell you, that style went out ages ago. Yes, there are people who fuck up fucking up, yes. [Ed. 11.13.2012: So, in essence, they get it 'right.']

It's a Guy Thing: A Visit from Football Dumbo/Legend Daryl Sanders...at Facebook

WWW--I'm on Facebook a lot (no shit Sherlock), one of many reasons I rarely post on here anymore, besides the fact that...oh, never mind.

Any reader of this blog will know that I'm adamantly iconoclastic, that I hold no sacred cows and that slaughtering them is something I excel at. Football (not the EU version, the real deal) is an American obsession to the point of being nauseating. Like baseball, it very openly wraps itself in "Old Glory," and doing so is the last refuge of scoundrels. Yes, Hunter S. Thompson was just as obsessed and it was something I could never relate to with him. I see it as a failing on his part and that of many Americans, it is a drug, literally, to socialize as well as to anesthetize the public.

Like a lot of self-destructive American institutions, I hope to live to watch it also bite the dust, and it's a roundly corporate one. People having fun is one thing. This shit isn't fun, it's a pathology.

It would hardly be the first time were I to observe that American football is equivalent to the "bread and circuses" of the Roman empire, it's literally a cliche at this point and obvious, something to take for granted. It is a distraction, one-of-many, but it's served a very central part in shaping the public mind since the 1920s, and is an adjunct to jingoism with its over-emphasis on competition, machismo, and a Manichean (us vs. them, black & white, etc.) worldview. What's more, and has many others have observed, George Carlin being a noteworthy example, football pushes a military mentality and is a cultural avatar of militarization. Anyone watching the coverage of the first Gulf War on CNN will know what I'm writing about here, but that scoreboard mentality could just as easily be applied to the current conflicts America's now mired down in. It's all part of the same moronic, wrong-headed Americanism that got us into Vietnam.

I have never, for one moment, entertained the bullshit surrounding the sport and find it unbelievably boring, as much as going to church, and that's what it really amounts to (or doesn't). This is literally institutionalized nationalist barbarism. The rest of the world fears us over how pathologically feral we are as a nation thanks to these cultural roots, never mind our entertainment output, enough to scare any normal human being into paralysis. But we're not a normal culture at all, we're a sick one, a degenerated settler state like many others. It's no surprise, then, that a sport like football is so popular here, even supported over our museums and cultural centers that are actually frequented more often.

And so, into this mix came me...and some asshole I only heard of over the years: Daryl Sanders, professional flag waver. Amazingly, he can walk upright and read and write, but his trainers had to use negative reinforcement therapy for all of that. Somehow, some way, some retard on Facebook got his ire up and thought he'd tap the "champ" (chump, chimp) to confront me over my opinions of the recent deaths of a helicopter filled with professionally trained assassins in Afghanistan. I apparently wasn't showing enough "respect" to these Einsatzgruppen-clones and he posted a comment on my wall, which was nice of him.

Next week I'll ask him to get groceries, mow the lawn, he's a rock and apparently does widow, a rarity these days. A hero isn't some oddly-shaped lummox who chases a ball around a field, little FYI. A hero is someone like Pat Tillman, a real man who wanted to protect his country, but also a dedicated leftist who wanted to go to Afghanistan to bear witness. He knew where America had been and wasn't a little child like Sanders, he was a real hero who was probably slaughtered by his fellow soldiers for seeing too much, like the fellow who recently reported the "kill team," another real hero. Heroes don't follow illegal orders. The resist, from inside of the military, putting their lives on the line in the truest sense, for the common good and the good of humanity.

That was Patrick Tillman. I don't even know or care if dumbo ever served, but members of my family did, so don't even go there, sunshine patriots.

Some of this bullshit goes back to John Wayne, a Californian (the genocide state, look at their constitution) college athlete in the 1920s who excelled at football, so much so that he landed a movie contract since if there's anything Americans value, it's the sport. That's called having your priorities out of order. "Wayne" (not his real name) became a wrong-headed icon of American manhood, machismo, just like Daryl Sanders, a little boy who I have to assume still thinks the Vietnam War "was a good idea." He also supports the illegal and genocidal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, our point of entry. Sanders told me that I "have an odd sense of right and wrong." Oh really? Someone should really air-drop this piece of shit there and see if his over-sized ass could even make it out alive.

The fact is, those assassins who were killed weren't heroes, they were mindless killers who are paid to murder human beings in the service of private power, something Tillman grasped, making him that rarest of things, an intelligent and reflective American football player. Perhaps that's why he's dead and Sanders is still alive and will die at a ripe, old age. Heroes--real ones--don't live to old age, like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The system here finds some way to eliminate them or to wreck their lives. Daryl's an obedient lapdog, and so his taking-up-space ass will probably continue on, contributing more sickness to our culture. He's a disgusting little man, a joke, a fraud, but then, so are most football players and phony patriots.

I really should post less since it gets more hits post number 1: Anderson Cooper to be joined soon in Cairo by comedienne Kathy Griffin

Testing, testing. Is this mic on? Yo, bitches, yo.

The time has come: erstwhile Cooper and his erstwhile career of erstwhile and ersatz reportage could really liven things up in Cairo and his own "undisclosed location" (either this was a sex joke by CNN or Andy's taken a shining to former VP Dick Cheney) by bringing in Kathy Griffin.

Griffin can pinch his ass, make jokes about what a bourgeois prig he really is, then do real reporting for him, hold his winkie for a little leakie, love.

Antijournalism has been born, that rough beast sloughing towards Bethlehem and Madison Avenue (though it's better to take the subway than cabs, gets you there faster, and be sure to avoid Broadway if you hate heavy traffic...).

Griffin loves to talk-talk-talk about Cooper and his mama--Gloria Vanderbilt--and really knows where to hit the Coop where he lives...the seat of his pants, naturally, and we know what's written on it, in blood.

My only request to Kathy: honey, we really don't want to see what's underneath those clothes, please! Cover! Happy New Year! And Cooper's looking eerily like Culkin-as-Alig these days. Just sayin'! Egypt?! Those cats love the military there! Democracy? They've probably killed it in the crib there already, like that assassination attempt on baby Moses, eh.

The next logical move: Rupert Murdoch pushes Cooper and Griffin into a pay-per-view live sex show at Times Square! Ok, bring in the Japanese pixilation, but who wouldn't want to see the look on his face? Or Kathy's? It would be worth another generation of traumatized children, admit it.

Aging Americans could relive their partying days: "Fuck him Kathy! Fuck him!!" while Cairo goes down in flames, sealing its own fate since the public there is also a Pentagon addict, but hey, they look photogenic, those crowd shots are going to determine fashion for the next ten years, face it.

Welcome to stand-up journalism.

Songs from the Site Meter: The DOJ Returns to Read on D.C. Interim-Appointed US Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor

Washington D.C.--This is interesting, and they did a long read, and from Washington D.C., rather than from Potomac, Maryland as they often do. I'd imagine this is some of the brass reading. Strange, because they've read this article before. I guess they wanted to see if it was still up. Uh, yep.

To Mr. Taylor: if Barack Obama wins the presidential election, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. And get a lawyer, you're probably going to need one...or not.

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Don't tell Alex Jones: Journalist Ike Pappas, witness to murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, dead

WWW--Ike Pappas was a longtime journalist for CBS. He as sent to Dallas after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22nd, 1963 (45-years-ago).

Pappas was shoved-away from Lee Harvey Oswald's path as he asked him a question by Dallas nightclub owner (...and a mafia courier, Jew, and FBI informant) Jack Ruby. What was really going-on? Who knows? To say you do is ignorant and a gambit for money.

It doesn't appear that Alex Jones is claiming he was "suicided"...yet. Perhaps he can sell some more t-shirts and mugs if he does. Why not? For those who think Jones is anything but a clown and a huckster: you're a simple little man/woman/transsexual.

And, if you stew cranberries like applesauce, they taste more like prunes that rhubarb does. Ike Pappas: 75, Greek-American, dead, and taken by poor health. Rest in peace.

Ike Pappas, dead by natural causes: http://enews.earthlink.net/article/ent?guid=20080902/48bcba40_3ca6_1552620080902-1891201945

"Stuff White People Like"

WWW--Nope, it's not "Black people love us!" it's a site called "Stuff White People Like." Hilarious, controversial, and painfully true. Check it @ http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/

An Open Letter to GOP Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin

Gee-Oh-P--It appears that you had no problem--or is it idea?--that your daughter was having premarital-sex, so I have to ask you this: did you sign a letter-of-consent, or are your going to go after the father of your daughter's child? Nah, it looks like it's shotgun wedding time. By the way, she's cute (WINK-WINK, NUDGE-NUDGE). Welcome to real world politics, by the way.

Yeah, OK, I've heard she's gonna marry this little twit, but did you ever stop to think that she did this on-purpose because she thinks you're an asshole? How many teenagers would love to be in her shoes, having the capacity to totally screw-things-up for a parent whom they think is full-of-shit (all teenagers do, the majority of them are right).

Again: did the boy have a signed-note? Of course your youngest isn't hers, the child has down's syndrome which usually comes from a woman having a child too-late in life.

And don't think we don't know you've been in-tight (pun intended) with the accused Ted Stevens, that other crook from Alaska. The remainder of the functional press is digging deeply into your life, talking with everyone you ever screwed-over, all your past comments you should have kept to yourself but had to say in-front of journalists and enemies, and-then-some.

The picture--I predict--will not be a pretty one. That's gonna leave that shell-shocked McCain in a real pickle if enough hammers drop. Luck? You're gonna need it lady, and that's not even bringing "troopergate"into the picture. You were a cheerleader, right? Correct, women can be fascists too.

yours-in-Christ, Matt Janovic

The Analog Brothers--Pimp to Eat: The best hip-hop album ever?

This one dropped in mid-August of 2000, and got a little coverage, but not much. Even Ice-T and Kool Keith seemed to think it was one of their minor works! They were wrong, this is some of the best hip-hop ever.

I've heard just about everything in rap (pity me), and this is really as classic and cutting-edge as all the greats of rap like Grandmaster Flash, or Afrika Bambaataa. What makes it so great is that it consciously looted the past, the present, and the future.

"Pimp to Eat" could be released now, and it would still be fresh. Sure, there are tracks with titles that date it a little ("2005"), but overall, these are some of the finest moments that Ice-T and Kool Keith have ever had.

The best part: it's loaded with that Parliament/Bernie Worrell analog-synth sound that literally drags me back into the 1970s again...that's a good place to be these days!

From the hilarious cover, to the insane and comedic rhymes and great beats, it just kicks. You cannot lose with a lineup that includes Jacky Jasper, Kool Keith, Ice T, Marc Live, Black Silver, DJ Cisco, Rhyme Syndicate, & Pimp Rex; all of them are associates of either Kool Keith or Ice-T, and all are incredible at writing whacked-out music and off-kilter rapping (and most all of them can freestyle too). Anyway, there was coverage in URB, some interviews, and a tour. That was it. Nu Gruv didn't have the budget of the major labels, and rap fans love hype if they love anything at all.

Maybe that's inevitable: anything that's genuine or real has to be underground nowadays. Maybe that's always been the case, and that it's OK. But wouldn't it be cool if Keith and Ice could be Black Elvis again? I mean no disrespect to either of them, I'm just wishing for some breakthroughs like Elvis. He came out of nowhere!It wasn't the big labels that made him, it was the fans. It wasn't the hype--that came later--it was the skill and the freshness. Ice-T had his period of major fame and he still does on tv. Kool Keith had his time in the Ultramagnetic MCs, Dr. Octagon, Dr. Dooom, and all his other side-projects, but this album shoulda, woulda, coulda been huge.

Pimp to Eat is unashamedly Black, and couldn't be anything else! I could see a new Black Nationalist Movement grooving to this shit, like they did to James Brown's "Say it Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)." Without quoting it, it's a celebration of Black culture, even the dregs, the pimps, the hustlers, the shills, the junkies, crackheads, stickup men, with a healthy-dose of humor.

Ice-T even lampoons himself on "Who Wanna Be Down?" It must be heard to be believed, and probably one of the rarest things in rap: merciless self-deprecation.

The cuts that really hooked me were "2005," and "Analog Annihilator VRS. Silver Surfer," some of the heaviest L.A.-based rapping I've ever heard. It just has the right mix of pachuco and pimpness, very hard and cutting. But hey, that's really the whole concept of this album: it's pimp rap! That's what you get. "So Bad" has roots in so many R&B and blues songs--and high camp--about a mother's worries about her bad son, so familiar that it doesn't need comment. It's in the American genetic makeup now, something in the water.

Listening to this album, you may not exactly be down, but you can enjoy the few delights of pimpdom, that rarified universe of Iceberg Slim and his cousins the Analog Brothers. Find it, burn it, earn it, learn it (and yearn it). Best rap album ever? I'd be hard-pressed to find one that's better, though I would nominate Sensational's "Corner the Market" (1999) and Dan the Automator's and Kool Keith's "Dr. Octagonecologyst" 12" series and LP (1996) as major contenders.

What makes this so fun is they get that rapping has to have the same elements of "playing the dozens," of alter-ego grandstanding and the putdown. It's all in good fun, though, and the pimps elevate hip-hop to an art. "Pimp to Eat" takes a very free genre and shoots it into the stratosphere, which shouldn't be surprising considering the talent here.

Playing the Dozens: Your momma, your poppa, and your greasy-greasy grannie.

--Yo momma is so fat, when she jumped into the air she got stuck.
--Yo mama's so ugly, when she looks in the mirror, the reflection ducks.
--Yo mama's so ugly, well.. look at you!
--Yo mama's so ugly, she looks like you.
--Yo mama's so ugly, she could only be Yo mama.
--Yo mama's so ugly, they filmed "Gorillas in the Mist" in her shower.
--Yo mama's so ugly, they push her face into dough to make gorilla cookies.
--Yo mama's so stupid, she got stabbed in a shoot-out.
--Yo mama's so stank, that her shit is glad to escape.
--Yo mama smells like hot ass on a cold day. (from pimpdaddy.com)

1982: my eighth-grade year in our blunderful educational system in America. This was when there was a lot of court mandated school busing (due to Brown vs. the Board of Education, 1954), and our school was no exception. In the case of my experience, all of the rich kids from Jefferson School got bused to our crappy little Edison Elementary, away from much better teachers and resources. The reaction of many Jefferson parents--most of whom were doctors, lawyers, business owners, etc.--was incredibly vocal and racist.

When their kids came to our school, they'd boxed-up some of those resources, while shunting the rest of us away from them. This escalated when we all went to the same high school, where you basically had two separate educational-paths that kept most all of us from having a decent learning environment (while the rich kids got an excellent one). I can remember skipping-classes to go home and read something relevant, and it was common for us to be taught the same thing year-after-year! But they couldn't do it with every required class, either at the elementary level, or high school.

That was when the fun began, and we'd pillory the lone punks and the jock-stragglers. Our school had more Black and poor kids (like myself), and Edison could be seen back in the 1970s-1980s as a dumping-ground for lousy teachers, so-called administrators, and "problem students" (meaning "not white," or from poor or "broken-homes"). The best part of all this was that many Black kids got to go to the better Jefferson!

But many of us "problem children" stayed at Edison, both Black and White. The mix of White rich kids, poor White, and poor Black kids was pretty explosive, with most of the Jefferson kids constantly complaining at how they were getting shafted at our shitty school. Well yeah, welcome to our world assholes.

Every morning--it seemed--there was a major fight between Blacks and Whites when everyone was getting off of the buses, and it was repeated when they got back on at 3 PM. Almost all of the fights surrounded the waiting-time at the buses. The racial tension wasn't just palpable, there were parents coming out and yelling racial-epithets at Black students, their children doing likewise, and the Black kids sending it right back at them (and more stinging).

You had Polish-American students (an extremely racist group at this time in Michiana), Hungarian-American (a little better), Irish-American, all the WASPs, and me and my little brother (German-Czech-American). Where did we fit in? Nowhere really, but most of the Black kids knew we were getting shafted too, so we got treated better by them. To this day, I can say Black people have generally treated me and my family better than White America ever has or ever will.

Naturally, President Reagan, the GOP, and even many Democrats in Congress were opponents of both providing adequate funding for predominantly-Black schools, and mandatory busing as a cure for that lack-of-funding. We heard tales of the single-parent Black families (headed by mothers) being the cause of Black poverty, and other such ridiculous arguments. It was all just racism and racist-assumptions about Black Americans.

It was this kind of racist wrongheadedness that created the need for mandatory crosstown busing, and yet what he really wanted to give Black Americans was nothing. He just couldn't get away with it at that time. Reagan was truly a horrible human being, and he wasn't alone in his racism, it was (and is) still deeply-rooted in White mainstream thought. What was so exhilarating about all this busing though is that we got to have first-hand experience fighting those lily-white motherfuckers from Jefferson in every possible way.

There was some real unity between groups of us Black and White kids who fought these scum. The fights were verbal and physical (I'm not one to duke, so I had to use my wits). It was literally a front-line class war that had all the shades of race and class that typify the American experience. Of course, there were sell-out Blacks who were already bourgeois-types before all of this, but the worst ones were the White sell-outs who were basically working-class--the suck-ups, the sycophants, and the social-climbers. All of us Black and White kids would endlessly attack these morons and ass-lickers. The best way was by-insult: Playing the dozens (also known as cutting or snaps).

Compared to the Black kids, I wasn't shit at this, but they were ingenious in their comebacks. You couldn't top them, it was impossible. How could you? They invented the dozens, it comes from West African traditions. It's older than old. The rich kids couldn't cope with it at all, until the lure of sports hypnotized everyone, and George Lucas united a divided nation (snicker). However, the fights continued into High School anyway, and the real divisions never went away. Playing the dozens was frequently the prelude to a fight, but it was also a way to avoid all of that. As brutal and vulgar as playing the dozens is, it's more civil than kicking someone's ass.

And so, J-7 is really a part of this tradition: I'm belittling people with power because there's no choice in the matter. One of the best approaches to taking-down the abusers of power is to confront them and denigrate who and what they are, it works. There is a tradition of this in our own history, and Black Americans are a part of this, they more than compliment it.

From the Ranters' written attacks on the monarchy and the aristocracy, to the Levellers and Diggers and their communalism, from the pamphlets during the run up to the American Revolution, to the Abolitionists, the rise of the unions, to the attacks by cartoonist Thomas Nast on Boss Tweed and Tamanny Hall's corruption, reviling and mocking power works.

NEA (National Education Association) school integration timeline: http://www.nea.org/brownvboard/integrationtimeline.html

Your home for the dozens: www.pimpdaddy.com

The Ranters (brief histories): http://www.exlibris.org/nonconform/engdis/ranters.html
http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/glossary/ranters.htm

The Profoundly Racist Moynihan Report (1965): http://www.blackpast.org/?q=primary/moynihan-report-1965