Bobby D May Just Be God

I watched a good portion of "No Direction Home," the new Scorcese directed documentary of Bob Dylan's early years. The rest is on my DVR, so I'll make a night of it. A lot of people don't like Dylan, at least that's what I've gathered. I assume it's because of his voice, but you have to admit that it is unique. There is a passion in that voice and in his words. Joan Baez said it best, when she said something to the effect of she didn't know what the words meant, but she liked the way it sounded. She studied them for meaning and then told Dylan what she thought they meant. His reply was, "That's pretty fuckin' good!" He didn't even know what they meant a lot of the time, yet he was being called the spokesman of his generation. Crazy man.

Anyway, I suggest everyone try to get into some Dylan. He is good for you like prunes.

There are two other Dylan docs that are fairly well known, "Don't Look Back" and "Eat the Document." I wrote this paper about their history and differences.

Don’t Look Back Ma, I’m Only Eating:

the story of two 1960’s Bob Dylan rock docs

It is 2005, and Bob Dylan is still a hot commodity; granted, he isn’t what he was thirty and forty years ago, but to say that a musician made it through that time period of drugs, sex, and rock ‘n’ roll is quite a feat. He’s made it this far with over forty albums and still tours on a fairly consistent basis. Last year, he became a best selling author with his memoir “Chronicles, Volume 1.” This year, Martin Scorsese is producing and directing a documentary for PBS’ American Masters series entitled “No Direction Home,” which will cover Dylan’s first five years as a musician and include interviews with the man himself, who rarely agrees to interviews. Forty or so years ago, the mysterious Dylan exposed himself in two documentaries, “Don’t Look Back” and “Eat the Document,” or did he? Scorsese has already said of his own project, “It’s nonfiction—maybe. With Bob Dylan, you never know.”[1]

To put the two films in a historical context, “Don’t Look Back” was shot in London in 1965 by cinema verite pioneer D.A. Pennebaker. He was asked by Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman to make a film of the tour in England, which would be Dylan’s last acoustic tour. Pennebaker had very little knowledge of Dylan, but felt that he would be an important subject. Bobby Neuwirth, friend of Dylan and an assistant of sorts during his tours of the ‘60s, has suggested that Pennebaker’s work at the time was considered to be very different from everything else out there, like Dylan’s music, and that is why he was hired to do the film. The film, in turn reflects the music.[2] It is shot in classic black and white by Pennebaker, but he hesitates to say he directed it. “I hesitate to say I directed the film. It was more directed by those who were in it.”[3] That is a reflection of his cinema verite style, which is simply a fly-on-the-wall style that lets the film do the talking and negates any interaction from the filmmaker.

“Eat the Document” was shot in 1966 in London, also by D.A. Pennebaker. It covers a very historical tour in rock ‘n’ roll history, when Bob Dylan went electric. It turns out to be a very controversial happening, because some of Dylan’s fans could only accept him as a folk artist. Trying to figure out who directed this film is a bit more difficult. While some sources list Pennebaker as the director, it seems as if Dylan himself took the helm (the Internet Movie Database concurs with this) this time around. Some may have gotten things confused because Pennebaker was retained for his skills with the camera.

There are some common threads through “Don’t Look Back” and “Eat the Document,” but they are very different. Yet while both are significant films on their own, historically and artistically, together they can explain a lot about Bob Dylan at the time and more generally, the rock ‘n’ roll culture, which was still a toddler at the time.

“Don’t look back. Somebody may be gaining on you.”—Satchel Paige[4]

The title of this film points to the quickly evolving star that Dylan was becoming. He had four acoustic albums at this point and was about to release “Bringing It All Back Home,” his first electric album. He was being looked to as a spokesperson for his generation, a poet protesting all that is wrong, and seen as a god by some. As the film begins, we see him arrive at the airport in London, and the reactions mirror those for The Beatles when they hit the U.S. It is a bizarre reaction considering this man is a folk musician. His type were not know for playing huge venues, such as Royal Albert Hall, either. His friend Bob Neuwirth said it was the first time social issues were put into such a forum, and not in a blues club or a union hall.[5] This odd mixture of pop culture and social issues is not lost on the press, who constantly question Dylan whether or not he thinks his fans understand his messages.

Pennebaker uses many of the musician’s encounters with the press, which are unique because he is for the most part never sincere with them, constantly turning questions back on them. At one point, a young man from a college newspaper is interviewing Dylan and Bob insults him by basically calling him “middle class and stupid.”[6] That young man turns out to be Terry Ellis, who went on to co-found Chrysalis Records, so I am sure whatever Dylan said did not phase him. Ellis’s article that came from the encounter does speak to how Dylan was at the time.“This genius appeared at the City Hall last Thursday, the man who is said by his fans to ‘have the message’; the man who claims, paradoxically, ‘I have never tried to communicate to people. There isn't any point, it is impossible to makeanyone understand what I think.’I had a long conversation with Dylan, during which I was never sure who wasdoing the interviewing, me, Dylan or Alan Price of the Animals. ELLIS: OK., it's impossible for most people to understand but some may,and you must communicate to find out which they are. DYLAN: Do you think we have an adequate means of communication? ELLIS: No, but it's the best we have and we must use it. DYLAN: What would we do if we couldn't communicate? ELLIS: Oh, I'm sure ... who's doing the interview, me or you? PRICE: Well, you haven't asked any questions yet.”[7]
Even Dylan’s cohorts got in on the antics, such as Price, who left The Animals (who had just covered Dylan’s “House of the Rising Sun”) to hang with Dylan. At one point Dylan asks him about the band, and Alan replies, “These things happen,” and looks despondent for the rest of the scene.

Bob Neuwirth, who originally met Dylan on the folk music circuit, was credited by D.A. Pennebaker for making some scenes filmable. Early in the film, we can notice his closeness with Dylan. One scene has them goofily snapping their fingers in sync with each other. The director said that Neuwirth would present such scenes for the cameras on a daily basis to give him material to work with. Speaking more generally of the material, Pennebaker said, “A lot of the film was just happenstance,”[8] which one would hope from a fly-on-the-wall documentary, but it does point to the editing as a strong point of the piece. It is also one of the more controversial aspects of the film, for Dylan fans and Dylan himself.

Pennebaker shot everything he saw for much of the tour. This makes Dylan look like an ass at times, which is a bit off-putting to those that view him as an intelligent poet that speaks to social issues. He still fits those characterizations, but in social situations, especially with the press, he seems cold. Towards the end of the film, sitting with a reporter for Time magazine, Dylan says, “You can’t print the truth,” to which he elaborates, “like a picture of a tramp vomiting. Yeah, and next to that a picture of Rockefeller.” I can understand how celebrities have a disdain for the media, but not how Dylan feels he must impart his wisdom upon others, and it is uncomfortable to watch him constantly do so. It was funny at first in the film, I will admit, but he progresses to that uncomfortable level. Was Pennebaker painting a true portrait? He claims that it bothered Dylan, because it showed too much of him. It may not have been the complete picture, but those aspects exist and should be shown.[9]

Many complain that Pennebaker could have done justice to Dylan’s music more by including entire songs, which he never does. He has said he did not want it to be a concert film because the music itself was really absorbing and it would detract from the true purpose, which was to see behind the music.[10] The director does a good job of that, considering a film like this had never been done before. The viewer can get a sense of what it was like to be in Dylan’s posse.

As far as the quality of sound in this production, I’d say Pennebaker did his best, considering his sound person was someone already in Dylan’s entourage. The performances maintain consistent levels most of the time, but fade at some points. Pennebaker stated that for the final performance of “Love Minus Zero/No Limit,” he ran up to a balcony seat to zoom out from the lonely, spotlit Dylan singing his tune. He gave the illusion of an acoustical echo by layering the song over itself by split seconds, something that we in the age of video take for granted because we can do that in split seconds, but back then was an arduous task with film.[11]

“Don’t Look Back” represents Dylan at that point in time well. It is in simple black and white and his music was stripped down to just a guitar and a harmonica, yet both seem so artistic and beautiful. We get the sense that he is growing tired of that style, even seeing him at one point admiring some electric guitars in a storefront window. His first electric album is about to be released in England, and we see Dylan and his friends, including Joan Baez, previewing tracks from the album in anticipation of it. His popularity is getting to his head, as we can see through his attitude to the press and others. It paints a clear picture of the infancy of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. If they did not plan this film to be made to coincide with the last time Dylan would be playing those songs in that way, it would be a brilliant coincidence, but something tells me they knew it would be some kind of historical document.

“‘You’ve got your film’—which he called ‘Pennebaker by Dylan’—‘now I want you to help me make my film, but this time there’s gonna be none of this artsy fartsy cinema verite shit. This is going to be a real movie.’”
—D.A. Pennebaker quoting Dylan[12]

“Don’t Look Back” would not be released until 1967. It went on to be considered one of the best rock documentaries ever made, but Bob Dylan did not think so. During the year following its filming, Dylan was already becoming a viable rock star, through his music and his lifestyle. Rumors of his rampant drug use were hitting the press, but he was proving them true through his odd twitchy behavior on stage. While he enjoyed playing with a band (The Band) a lot more, his moods as down as much as they were up. Two of his good friends died in April of 1966. Folk musician Paul Clayton committed suicide by electrocuting himself in the bathtub on April 6, and on April 30, Richard Farina, author of “Been Down So Long It Seems Like Up To Me,” died in a motorcycle accident on the way home from the launch party for his book.[13]

The ABC network commissioned an hour long documentary to be made by the Dylan camp for their series entitled “Stage 66.” This time around Dylan wanted complete control over the finished piece. Pennebaker was brought on as the man behind the camera again, but he was under the command of a rock star under the influence of coke, speed, and god knows what else.
“He had some kind of it, but no idea in the world how to get it. He’d occasionally say, ‘Shoot that, shoot some of this over here.’ That kind of direction. For instance, he would get rooms filled with strangers who appeared out of nowhere and get them all into the scene. I don’t know what he was smoking, but he was pretty far up in the air a lot of the time! It wasn’t bereft of ideas. It’s just that the ideas in his head…what we were going to get on film wouldn’t be that…I was never quite sure what I was meant to be doing.”[14]

One could argue that “Eat the Document,” which is the title of the film that was born from this madness, is a documentary based on Pennebaker’s version of events. He even compared the experience to making home movies, which he did not want to be in the business of doing.
Howard Alk, who was listed as a cinematographer (along with Pennebaker) on “Don’t Look Back,” took on a greater role with “Eat the Document.” He was assistant director to Dylan, in addition to assisting with cinematography and editing duties. Alk would also go on to help Dylan with the cinematic mess know as “Renaldo and Clara,” a four hour epic mixing a narrative and concert footage from Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue tour, which takes the “ideas” he had for “Eat the Document” eight miles higher. This only proves that whenever the musician dips into the realm of filmmaking, the end product is filled with as many riddles and characters as his songs; it just works a whole lot better with his music. This theory can also be applied to “Masked and Anonymous,” starring Dylan and co-written by him under the pseudonym Sergei Petrov.

“Eat the Document” begins with the title and a mechanical hum, which cuts to Dylan leaning into the table. He is laughing hysterically, but it also appears he is snorting a line of coke. The next shot is an obvious shot of someone snorting the powdery white off of his finger. It is a shocking beginning to the piece, but then again, the whole film is a bit of a trip itself, especially compared to “Don’t Look Back.” Right off the bat you can notice that the shots are shorter in duration and the camera is more frenetic, such as the MTV style of today. After the initial coke shots, Dylan asks a worker in the hotel he is at, “Have you ever heard of me?” It is disturbing to see the drugs and fame get to someone this fast, considering he first came on to the scene six years prior, but one must also consider this was a time of over-indulgence by not only the rock culture, but that generation in general. Bob Dylan was lucky enough to survive it all.

Our introduction to this embarking of Europe, mainly England, includes some odd images and audio. We see a blind man with an apocalyptic sandwich board sign stating “It is appointed unto men once to die” on one side, and “after death, the judgment” on the other. He is pacing by a parade of sorts with bagpipers and police demonstrating their dogs’ skills of biting limbs. Dylan is there looking on as well. That cuts to Dylan in a car saying, “I’m sorry for everything I’ve done. I hope to remedy it soon.” You begin to wonder what this cryptic nonsense all means, but you are probably thinking too hard, and should not be pondering it at all. This is all some kind of wonderful nightmare.

Almost to show a different Dylan, the way he deals with the press is about the same, but giving opposite messages. On the 1965 tour, they asked him about the messages of his songs, to which he replied that there were none or that he was not protesting anything. This time around he tells them, “All my songs are protest songs. All I do is protest.” A member of the press addresses his attitude with the question “Do you ever come off stage? Are you yourself at anytime?” It sounds like what Martin Scorsese is wondering now as he is working on his Bob Dylan documentary.
Strangely enough, when it comes to concert footage, Dylan does the same as Pennebaker, even though the “Don’t Look Back” director was criticized for cutting numbers short. The first song is “Tell Me Momma,” which defines the music we will hear throughout the film and the tour—loud and fast, at least when compared to folky, acoustic Dylan. Marlon Brando once quipped, “The two loudest things I’ve ever heard are a freight train going by, and Bob Dylan and The Band.”[15] The last time the English heard Dylan, he was that folky, acoustic musician, and not the rocker they were to witness this time. It was a shock to almost everyone. Dylan makes good use of the extreme reactions after shows, which range from “He may think it’s gimmicky, but I think it’s rubbish,” to “It’s a bloody disgrace,” to “He is better than Donovan…better than Elvis Presley.”

As we see the evolution of Dylan onscreen, he becomes more “rock” as does his entourage. No folksy Joan Baez around now. Johnny Cash makes an appearance coaching Bob through a duet of his “I Still Miss Someone.” If those two legends in our midst is not enough, we also get to see John Lennon with Dylan being driven around town in one of the more memorable and odd moments in the film. This scene especially points to some kind of inebriation, which Dylan apparently does not mind putting out there.

The editing reflects Bob Dylan at this point through its random cutting and anxious shots. As he performs, we see repeated shots of his former fans grimacing in disgust and sometimes even pauses the music track to hear them say things like, “I wish he’d left that group in America.” Here is a man repeating such criticism of himself, something so personal and insulting. He believed in his evolving state, and did not care what the press was saying, nor seem to care if he isolated some of his fan base, which is obvious here. He does detract from Pennebaker’s cinema verite by staging scenes such as one with him and Richard Manuel of The Band asking a boy how much it would cost to buy his girlfriend. At several points, questions are asked by the camera operator, such as to a hippie outside one of the shows like “What are you doing here?” and “Why did you come to see Bob Dylan?” The end of the film itself is not climactic with a performance like “Don’t Look Back,” but rather a casual song in a hotel room which Dylan ends by telling the camera operator, “Why don’t you move around or something, unless you’re comfortable in that chair.” The frame then freezes on Dylan mid sentence, and that is our end, nothing flashy, but then again, the ride up to this point was.

It is difficult to discuss the technical merits of this film because a good print of it does not exist, at least for now. The colors are washed out and grainy, but the audio does not seem as affected. There are times that it fades, a bit more than “Don’t Look Back,” but some of the numbers sound surprisingly good. The addition of color to the performance scenes do amazing things for the lighting, which create some interesting lens flares. Dylan still had Pennebaker shooting for him most of the time, so the visuals did not suffer, except for the color issues. There may never be an officially released version that is cleaned up for us to see. Pennebaker apparently did cut a two-hour version of the film, which he titled, “You Know Something Is Happening.”[16]

Did Bob Dylan succeed in making his own rock documentary? To a Dylan fanatic, it is a must see. I could see others getting disoriented from the editing and nonsensical shots. Possibly he intended to isolate his fans through another medium, and this was all planned. If he can be such a genius with his words, why not with film? Maybe this is just over people’s heads, or maybe this was made by a rock star under the influence. Either way, it is interesting to watch for its place in rock history. He knew we would eat whatever he gave us. The film did not even premiere until a one time only television broadcast in 1972, because ABC did not like the end product. It remains to be available as bootleg only, except for a very limited press on the Watchdog DVD label in 2003, which still was considered a bootleg, but it was the best quality available so far.

These are two very different documentaries of Bob Dylan, each involving D.A. Pennebaker to some extent. At the same time, they both do a great job of representing Bob during the time they were made, even though it was just a two-year period. He was a pop culture phenomenon evolving right before our eyes, and still continues to do so. “Don’t Look Back” was telling us he was moving full steam ahead away from the Dylan that sang “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and “Blowin’ In the Wind.” It had a classic look through its black and white, yet was like nothing else because of Pennebaker’s innovative shooting styles that most had not seen yet. Even his audio was experimental. Bob Dylan tried his own hand at it with “Eat the Document,” which isn’t too successful, but is watchable. It looks like he wanted to be even more avant-garde than Pennebaker, but it just looks a bit amateurish in comparison. To him, it was a hybrid documentary, taking the finer aspects of Pennebaker’s style and expanding on them. By 1966 though, Dylan was experimenting with his sound; some despised it, and others thought it was godlike, so why not go all out and see what other reactions you can get. It is typical of Bob Dylan and of a rock star that is letting the fame get to him, so maybe that’s what makes them enjoyable. All of this is null and void though, because we are dealing with Bob Dylan, and the speculation and theory will get us nowhere.

[1] “Music Reporter.” 20 Jan. 2005. The Hollywood Reporter.
[2] Commentary track from “Don’t Look Back” DVD by Bob Neuwirth.
[3] Commentary track from “Don’t Look Back” DVD by D.A. Pennebaker.
[4] Referred to by D.A. Pennebaker as his inspiration for the title of “Don’t Look Back” in his commentary on the DVD for the film.
[5] Commentary track from “Don’t Look Back” DVD by Bob Neuwirth.
[6] Well put by Roger Ebert in his 1968 review of the film.
[7] from reprinting of original article located at
[8] Commentary track from “Don’t Look Back” by D.A. Pennebaker.
[9] Commentary track from “Don’t Look Back” by D.A. Pennebaker.
[10] Commentary track from “Don’t Look Back” by D.A. Pennebaker.
[11] Commentary track from “Don’t Look Back” by D.A. Pennebaker.
[12] Clinton Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited (New York: Harper Entertainment, 2003), pg. 252.
[13] paraphrased from Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited. pg. 251-252.
[14]Clinton Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited (New York: Harper Entertainment, 2003), pg. 252.
[15] Clinton Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited (New York: Harper Entertainment, 2003), pg. 245.
[16] mentioned in posting on

Dan--The Weekend Update

I promised over a week ago to post photos from my buddy Dan's gig at my brother-in-law Charlie's 40th birthday party. Alas, here they are.

A portrait of the artist as a young man.

We went all out. The mic stand was a tripod.

He played some original stuff and covers of Phish, the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones.

The crowd got into it, or maybe that was the booze talkin'.

Birthday boy Charlie enjoying the tunes.

Dan rocking it out with the birthday boy's sister.

For more info. on Dan Roth, who may be the next Dylan, contact me at jim@diabetoboy.com.

Special thanks to Juniper Grill in the Soulard neighborhood of St. Louis, MO, who hosted the party.

Mmmm...hot wings!

I made 'em myself, and ate 'em myself.

Damn, them hot wings were good.

Ob La Di, Ob La Da--death, hurricanes, and crap.

I have not posted in a week. Things have been nutty. My parents are off in Italy having a swell time. My sister flew in from San Antonio for my granddad's funeral. She went back to people fleeing Rita. Luckily, all they got was some wind.

Sadly my escape has been through Madden 2006. Video games are so addicting. Maybe that's why I try to stay away from them.

The plumbing at the homestead became a big, black, sludgy mess a few days ago. I spent my time sending Drano down the pipes and waiting. Then I snaked the pipes for a bit, to no avail. I called my handyman friend Travis over. He did everything I did. Then he tore up the pipes in the basement. Ye gads! There was layers upon layers of crap in the pipes. The collective crap of god knows how many people. And Travis was covered in it.

He did fix the problem though, with the help of a makeshift tool made from a broomstick and a toilet brush duck taped to it. Even better, he did it for $50 and breakfast, which were some damned good biscuits and gravy I cooked up.

Clean up was a bitch. Well, I am still cleaning...on my hands and knees. The smell is awful, but isn't all crap? Thank god for Clorox Clean-Up and for friends that are willing to touch our sewage.

Scott McClellan Is A Big Fat Idiot...Okay Maybe Not Too Fat, But He Is Balding and An Idiot

I mentioned this exchange between White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan and NBC's David Gregory a few posts ago. I also was pointed towards this swell one dealing with the leaking of the identity of a CIA operative, who happened to be the wife of former Ambassador Joe Wilson. Thanks to Steven Fitzpatrick Smith's STL Streets Blog for that tidbit. It's amazing that the government makes these humorous exchanges available to us. It only makes them look sillier. It's bad enough I have fuel like all those stupid quotes Bushie makes. I don't support any effort to fire anyone on this staff, simply because they are all idiots and hilarious to watch.

My Grandpa Died for My Mom's Birthday

There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening
with an insurance salesman?

----Woody Allen

Is it wrong to joke after a death? To me, it is the only way to stay sane. I can only imagine how my mother feels. Yesterday, September 18th, was her 53rd birthday. Fifteen minutes into the day, at 12:15 AM, her father, my granddad, Jim Gifford, died. He was 84 years old and had dealt with several strokes recently. We were told a few days ago that things weren't good, but the doctors gave him 3 months. So much for that. I think she takes it personally, because they say we can control when we die to an extent. I don't know what to think.

I just dropped my parents off at the airport for a trip to Italy to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. They've been planning it for years. I hope they have a swell time, because I won't. I do have a funeral to go to, but it has more to do with the accompanying family drama. My mother was written out of the will along with one out of two uncles. Apparently they didn't visit enough at the hospital. As people are ill, life goes on, and so do jobs and families. Either Granddaddy didn't understand that, or his wife (Grandma passed away 15 years ago) helped him to not understand that. And I am left to deal with this psychodramatic bullshit. I don't blame my parents...they invested a lot into their trip. I still do not comprehend why families like my mother's feel the need to bicker over petty crap when they are a family. They came from the same blood.

I am going to the visitation and the funeral. I owe it to my Granddad and my mother. That doesn't mean I am not completely uncomfortable. It's a shame.

Aside from the crap pertaining to his second marriage, Jim was good to have around. He watched and played more golf than anyone I've ever met. He even taught me and my late brother how to drive balls at the range, which I still do to this day on occasion (it is great for aggression). As a child, I fished with him at his lake house and learned a thing or two from that. Thanks Granddad, so long. And Happy Birthday Mom.

Drinking A Ass Pocket of Whiskey in Heaven: R.I.P. R.L. Burnside 11/23/1926-9/1/2005

As Mississppi deals with the loss associated with Hurricane Katrina, they lost one of their greats on September 1, 2005. R.L. Burnside, one of the great Mississippi delta blues singers and musicians, passed away after declining health following heart surgery in 1999.

I was first introduced to his music by a friend in 1999. I honestly did not like the blues much at the time, but could appreciate it. Burnside's music was different though. Just as Johnny Cash's music was reinvented and introduced to my generation, Burnside enjoyed a similar resurgence. His blues was remixed for a new generation. He signed to Fat Possum Records in the early 1990s, which was created for aging bluesmen Junior Kimbrough and himself. He recorded A Ass Pocket of Whiskey in 1996 for indie music label Matador Records with The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, who modernized blues themselves by infusing it with flavors of rock and hip hop.

The first season of The Sopranos featured the Burnside tune "It's Bad You Know," which also made it onto the HBO series's first soundtrack. I prefer "Shock Dub," which made it onto the second Sopranos soundtrack, "Pepper & Eggs." It is hypnotic, like much of Burnside's stuff, and it puts a lot of the crap kids listen to today to shame.

In 2004, he released "A Bothered Mind," which Rolling Stone gave a not-too-shabby three stars. Kid Rock and rapper Lyrics Born help out on the album, but reviewer Tom Moon wishes they didn't. It is a fine line when you take something as classic and raw as the blues and try to modernize it. For the most part, I think it works with Burnside. If you want the pure blues that he is rooted in, check out "Burnside On Burnside," a live album from 2001, which showcases just that.

Either way, the man was genius. He is a good introduction to the blues for my generation. As he wished on his album title for 2000's "Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down," I only hope he's doing just that. Rest on old man.

Check out R.L. Burnside through these free downloads at Amazon.com.

Signs of the Apocalypse: Bush takes blame, Press have balls

I never thought I'd hear of it. Dubya took the blame for something. He admitted fault. Someone in the press should take advantage of this and question him further on Iraq and the WMDs now.

I like the tension between the press corps and the President's Press Secretary. Finally, the press is showing some testicles in all of this and not accepting whatever the government feeds them. David Gregory of NBC is especially entertaining from what I've seen. He fights back with the attitude that most of the crap coming out of Scott McClellan's mouth is ridiculous. I also caught Gregory anchoring the Today Show for the first time a couple of weeks ago. He was giddy like a school girl, cracking jokes and acting like he was made for that job. I prefer he stay with the White House press corps and stick it to the man though.

And a joke of the weak (sent to me by former World Wide Magazine cameraman, Mike Perez):

Q: What's George Bush's position on Roe v. Wade?
A: He really doesn't care how people get out of New Orleans.

My Weekend (update to come)

Over the weekend, I got my boy, Dan, a gig playing music at my sis's hubby's birthday party, which was held in Soulard at the Juniper Grill. It was real swell.

Mmm...rum and Diet Coke...hey, I do have diabetes.

I will post pics and maybe a vid soon.

I also hope to get Dan on CD soon, so that the world may hear his mad skills on the guitar...playing originals and covers of Dylan, the Dead, Phish, the Stones, and more.

Goodbye Mr. Brown, Hello Jack Hanna

Finally, news I like to hear. A day after I blog about him leaving the devastation in New Orleans for Washington, FEMA chief Mike Brown, went ahead and stepped down today...like a good boy...putting himself in the corner. I only hope his replacement has more experience dealing with people, and people in emergency situations especially. Although, maybe it would be cool to have someone like Jack Hanna as director of FEMA. He can deal with all kinds of animals that he brings on Good Morning America and The Late Show with David Letterman, so I guess he could deal with a catastrophe the size of say, Hurricane Katrina. His experience with wild orangutans, reptiles, and birds is close enough to that of a category five hurricane, that I think he would be a fine choice. So Jack Hanna, you have my vote to lead our federal emergency management into the future.

Mr. Brown Goes (Back) To Washington

Farewell, Mike Brown, head of FEMA. Two days ago, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff relieved you of your duties with the Hurricane Katrina debacle. Good riddance.

Did he pad his resume to get the job, or did the White House simply get it wrong in his bio that he had emergency services oversight through a job as assistant city manager in Edmond,OK? Apparently he was simply an assistant to the city manager, which TIME magazine quoted someone from Edmond's government saying the position was "more like an intern."

Apparently he had no emergency management experience before coming to FEMA. Before joining FEMA in 2001 as a general counsel, he was a lawyer, also serving as a commisioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. Did he get this job because he was the college roomie of the former head of FEMA?

And Bush says, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." And that's why he's no longer doing that job, correct?

Even if some of this information is not accurate, as Brown has stated, isn't it a tad disconcerting that the man in charge of emergency management for the country doesn't have much of an extensive background with the field?!

I could understand if the citizens of this country were horses, then he would be great, but the media knew more about the suffering people down there than this man. Shame on him.

4 years since 9/11, and look at how this country has imroved its emergency management skills. Keep pumping money into the military and cutting funds and programs from these poor people. It seems to be doing wonders. Let those stars and stripes fly high.

If Only We All Had Employers Like the Catholic Church

I discovered a disturbing article on the cover of yesterday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Metro section. "Church posts bond for convicted priest" read the headline, which is enough to piss me off, but I read on.

Using ten checks with values ranging from $10000 to $350000, church officials posted bond for the Rev. Thomas Graham on the same afternoon that jurors recommended that Graham spend 20 years in prison for performing oral sex on the boy in the late 1970s, court records show.

The Archdiocese defends the move with excuses of exhausting all appeal opportunities. I really wish I could have a job that supports me after I am convicted of a crime, not even taking in to account the horrible nature of this crime. And he did it on company time.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests criticized the move by the church. That makes perfect sense. The SNAP victim outreach coordinator, Barbara Dorris, pretty much said the money is going straight from the collection plate to defending these nut job priests (pun intended). I don't know that for sure, but you wonder where all of the defense money comes from and the payoff money to victims. For a job that pays little, these guys have a lot of money to toss around.

Is this why my Catholic grade school didn't have air conditioning? Was the money that they were even collecting from the grade school children's small envelopes being put into legal defense funds, just in case the altar boys started coming out of the woodwork???! And the Catholic Church is always asking for money. They got their Bingo, Arts and Crafts Fairs, School Picnics, Homecomings, Flea Markets...you name it. Where does the money go? They should really share that with their congregation. Meanwhile I am going to go rob an old lady. It's nowhere near molesting a little kid, and I am pretty sure my job will cover my legal fees.

Hell and High Water Have Come

I have been watching the Hurrican Katrina coverage as much as possible. It's a bad addiction, but I don't have much of a job, so I watch. It is a surreal feeling to see a place that I just saw in perfect shape not too long ago. I haven't been incredibly emotional about the whole situation, besides the occasional bouts of incredible anger that our government would allow such a thing to get to such a chaotic point.

This morning on the Today show on NBC, though, I saw Harry Connick Jr. go back to his father's house, which was in a flooded area. Normally, I would think sending a celebrity in to cover a major news story would be silly, but this was different. His emotions were raw and very real. Imagine how it would feel to take a boat through your old neighborhood. Luckily, his father's home was spared, compared to the devastation we have witnessed from afar on our television sets. As they left the neighborhood, one of the people in the crew spotted a resident who did not look too good. He looked like someone straight out of a third world country, except in our land of freedom and liberty. How messed up is that?!

(the above from the AP and Houston Chronicle is of Connick Jr. as he says a prayer at a body he came upon in New Orleans)

Harry and his crew carried the man back to the boat, where they took him to receive medical care. It was the first time the news of Katrina brought a tear to my eye. Everyone is doing their part I guess. It is a shame that Connick Jr. was at the Convention Center before the head of FEMA, Michael Brown, even realized there were people there.

Something is happening here, and you don't know what it is...do you, Mr. Brown?

The New Orleans Times Picayune wrote an open letter to President Bush asking for Brown's head to roll along with the rest of FEMA. I realize that the levees were only built to withstand a category 3 hurricane, and we are dealing with a strong category 4 here, but that gives no excuse for people to suffer for three to five days, living in piss, shit, gas, oil, and amongst the dead scattered around them.

On today's Oprah, I witnessed the kind of coverage that the news was not even showing. Usually you think of going to the BBC or NPR for that meaty type of information. She went insidethe Superdome after the mayor and the military tried to talk her out of it. She described walking through human waste and the horrible smell that the building emitted. She heard stories of children being raped there in the bathrooms and people having to walk over bodies to use the facilities. I hadn't heard this on the news.

The police chief told her of two of his officers that commited suicide. One went back to his home and assumed that his family was dead. Abandoning all hope, he took his life. They turned out to be alive. He had seen some horrible crap though, so how do we know how we would react in such a scenario?

Oprah's resident doctor, Dr. Oz, went to Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans, where a makeshift hospital was treating the suffering. Many people who could not be saved were moved to the morgue to die in peace. This is very fucked up, and it is happening in our own country.

The doctor then walked through the streets, where he found a shooting victim in the middle of a street. He moved chairs around him and put a blanket over the man to keep people from disturbing the body. He found a woman on the side of the freeway dead. She was white and fairly young, it appeared, which is unusual compared to the face people are painting this with. (And why is it that the national news nevers shows people dead in our own country, but they have no problem with showing bodies in overseas countries. Oprah doesn't mind showing it.) Every type of person in every class was affected. The poor were just more affected, because they didn't have the resources to be as prepared.

NBC Nightly News did a piece tonight on the residents who refuse to leave. They are in denial over the awesomeness of this event. Even as rescue workers come to save them from this wretched hell that has become of their once beautiful city, they refuse to leave. Don Teague, who reported for NBC, ended the piece with a poignant statement, "Residents here pledge to stay come hell or high water. Tonight, they are living in both."

It is a time for our country to come together or fail miserably. By the look of the government, it isn't looking so good. We need to focus on the terror here that Katrina caused, and not that supposed terror overseas (not to say that it does not exist, but I believe this takes priority over an endless war).

To those living in that wasteland down there, I don't know what it is like to be homeless, but I don't know what it is like to live in hell either. I do know which I'd rather have though. We can at least make a home out of helpful people around us and being surrounded by some kind of caring environment.

Naked Guy

Last night, my fiance and I decided to take the dog for a walk. It was just a normal jaunt around the neighborhood...not really. We were about a block and a half from our place, when I looked over at an apartment complex that we were walking adjacent to. The door to a unit was open and right there in plain view was a man, at least in his 60s, standing stark naked in front of his television. I said aloud, "He's fucking naked!" My lady looked over at him and his almost invisible twig and berries, and we all made eye contact. As we stood amazed, he looked fairly calm. He simply walked away slowly like he intended this all to happen. We stared a bit longer, astonished. It is not everyday that something like this occurs, and while I do not get off looking at naked old men, I had to take in one of the most odd and random occurences to happen to me as of late.