Happy Sunday, folks. One last day of freedom before it's back to the 9-5 ball-and-chain that is the workweek.
We had originally planned to head out to the Arrow Sports Club last night here in town to catch my friend Jon's band, The Brewins (see picture of Jon, above). If you're interested in hearing a bit of The Brewins, check out some tracks from their full demo CD full of classic covers by clicking here.
However, after a hefty belated-Valentine's Day Italian dinner at Carmelo's, we opted to sit home, drink Newcastle, and watch the copy of The Aristocrats which we had received on Christmas from Luke.
I didn't really know what to expect to see during The Aristocrats. I heard it was crude and incredibly funny. After finally seeing it, I can agree with the crudeness and the shockingly-funny aspect to it, but I didn't really think it was all that funny-funny. Sure, pee-poop-vomit-violence-bestiality-incest jokes are great, but a lot of the comedians different versions were terribly uncreative and unfunny. The mime bit and Sags were pretty good, though.
Maybe it's because I really don't have as much sense of the boundaries of humor as most people -- I mean, I'll say pretty much anything to anyone to get a laugh or response -- but to your average, conservative humor fan, this was probably their first introduction to this world of comedy. If so, I recommend they run straight out and rent Pink Flamingo and the G.G. Allin documentary, Hated, to continue their education into the world of things generally thought of as taboo in comedy, music, and film.
With all that discussion of bodily functions last night, you can imagine my surprise when I saw on Yahoo this morning this story about the lack of toilets available at Mardi Gras.
Finding Toilets at Mardi Gras a Challenge
As story goes, "Joe Briand recalled a less-than-fond Mardi Gras run-in with the law almost a decade ago, when hundreds of revelers were hopping a fence at a local school to use the playground as an impromptu bathroom.
With no restrooms to be found, Briand and two cohorts — well into a long day of eating and drinking — also made the trip to the al fresco latrine. However, a police officer confronted them.
The problem is one that thousands of revelers attending Mardi Gras in New Orleans have experienced over the years — almost anything goes at Mardi Gras, but not everyone is able to go in a restroom.
The police officer "made us take off our shirts and clean it up and there was a river there from everyone using it all day," Briand said.
The second Mardi Gras since Hurricane Katrina is expected to attract a much larger crowd than last year's — so the availability of toilets during the celebration has once again become an issue.
The problem is one of simple biology and geography. Take about 1 million people, turn them loose on the streets with plenty of beer and few bathrooms.
"No one seems to think about needing a bathroom until it becomes urgent," said Archie Casbarian, who owns two restaurants in the French Quarter — Arnaud's, a luxurious Creole restaurant, and Remoulade, a casual Creole restaurant.
"The gates to patios are used, the recessed doors are very convenient outlets. That's why we're all used to getting up in the morning and hosing down the sidewalk," he said..."[READ MORE]
Hmm, urination, defecation, alcohol, nudity...sounds like a Mardi Gras version of The Aristocrats, no? Hopefully this one doesn't involve bestiality or incest, though.
Politics
The Invisible Man Rises Again
By Stephen Smith
Barack Obama image courtesy of Time magazine
ALTHOUGH SEPARATED by more than 50 years, and the success of the civil rights movement, politician Barak Obama and Ralph Ellison's existential hero of the "Invisible Man" have something in common.
Ellison's classic novel was a profound exploration of how the struggle for black identity in America embodies the human struggle for authenticity and transcendence. When it was published in 1952, critic Irving Howe described it as "a searing and exalted record of a Negro's journey though contemporary America in search of success, companionship, and finally himself." Its protagonist begins his story by emerging from his hideout in his basement apartment -- driven by the desire for recognition and meaning -- to confront an often hostile and alien world. In the last chapter, he falls into the darkness of an uncovered manhole. He is guided by the light that emanates from the burning contents of his briefcase, which contains many remnants of his past.
Ellison's unnamed hero is forced, like all who seek an authentic and committed life, to confront the many hazards and challenges of living and to light his way to the meaning of the present by letting go of and making good use of his past. In coming to terms with his blackness, he finds a set of values to live by and a way of connecting his own struggle to the human struggle and the American dream.
Like Ellison's hero and Ellison himself, Obama is a black man on his own searing journey, in his case a presidential campaign. He, too, journeys in many different worlds and finds himself fully accepted in none of them. To whites he is still a black man, albeit one who is exciting and potentially electable. In the words of Senator Joseph Biden he is "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."
To blacks like Stanley Crouch and others he is not quite black enough to be real: "When black Americans refer to Obama as one of us, I do not know what they mean." In fact, nobody seems to fully get a handle on him other than to say he is talented and they like him. Like Ellison's hero, he is attempting to realize success while navigating the shoals of America's many polarities, and he is attempting to use his diverse experience to articulate a narrative that will illuminate the universal shared struggle that is symbolized by the American dream.Perhaps Obama has fired the public imagination because in a world that is multicultural, and in an America in which the 300-millionth American baby was born to Chinese immigrants, who better than a good-looking, articulate, black Hawaiian with a Kenyan father and a white mother to represent the American ideal. Continued...
Entertainment
20 Comics that Can Change your Life
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Marjane Satrapi's coming-of-age memoir, about growing up through the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war, got much attention in the mainstream media's traditional "Comics can be serious art!" fashion. It deserved the hype. As the child Marjane discovers punk rock and grows increasingly skeptical of the Islamist regime, the adult's sharp and tender re-creation of her precocious youth brings a vivid humanity to a piece of recent history many readers might think of as another world. Originally written in French, the book has since been translated into twelve languages, a fine measure of its universality. An animated film, directed by Satrapi, comes out this year. — PSTransmetropolitan by Warren Ellis
This comic about gonzo journalist Spider Jerusalem in futuristic America manages to achieve exactly what all great political journalism does: shame you into paying attention and giving a damn. I started reading this in 2003, right around the time I was starting to wonder why I'd voted at all in 2000 and 2002. Spider's column "I Hate It Here" — full of sermons to the people of the City, calling them out for their indecision and ignorance — made me itch with embarrassment. Ellis' city and Darick Robertson's images of just what the Information Age would evolve into didn't feel like the future; it felt sickeningly like right now. — JC
Read more about the comics here
World News
The Daffodil Delusion: Sensationalizing Global Warming
by Michael Corcoran for The Nation
Scientific consensus has been warning us for years that climate change is real. But the mountain of scientific evidence wasn't enough on its own for the issue to penetrate mainstream debate. For some to be convinced of the coming environmental threats, they needed to feel the heat. Literally.
So with freakishly warm temperatures over the last year, many pundits are now increasingly alarmed over the fate of the planet.
Tom Friedman lamented the daffodils growing off-season in his garden. "Don't know about you, but when I see things in nature that I have never seen before in my life, like daffodils blooming in January, it starts to feel creepy," he wrote in the New York Times. Even Pat Robertson started to care during the excessive heat of last summer. "I have not been one to believe in global warming," he said on a broadcast of The 700 Club in August. "But I tell you, [the blistering summers] are making a convert out of me." [READ MORE]
Music News
Britney goes bald (YouTube)
Music
Featured Performance: Sam Beam (Iron & Wine) Live at the Pabst Theater
I wasn't lucky enough to catch Sam Beam (Iron & Wine) when he recently played the Pabst Theater down in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but I was lucky enough to run across some MP3s of the performance.
Ryan of Muzzle of Bees and also Milwaukee-music blog Mirrworld have been much more on top of this in-state performance than I have, with a review from the show and a YouTube clip of "Upward Over the Mountain."
As for my part, I want to share a few of the tracks with you as well, hopefully without angering the artist, label, or venue. Live performances have always been a topic of interest to me when it comes to music blogs. I guess I feel live shows are essentially "up for grabs" since they aren't licensed by any record label or one person, but instead are usually bootlegged by someone at the show. Others may possibly disagree, and believe the artist should have full rights to all performances as well. It's a tough call.
Regardless, here's a few tracks from Sam's performance for your listening pleasure...and be sure to stop by your local independent record store and pick up all of the amazing albums this band has put out thus far.
Iron & Wine - "Die (Working Titled from Ice Storm Airport)"
Iron & Wine - "Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car"
Iron & Wine - "Love Song of the Buzzard"
Iron & Wine - "House by the Sea"
Iron & Wine - "Peace Beneath the City"
Iron & Wine - "Carousel"
Iron & Wine - "Resurrection Fern"