i have a bunch of unrelated things to talk about, as usual. luckily there are these things called paragraphs, so i don't need to worry about appearing too fragmented. or do i?
first of all, let me just say that i need it to be may 9th right freakin' now, so that i can take my ass down to the record store and buy me some spoon: gimme fiction. merge is streaming tracks from the album, one a day until the release date, and holy crap, it is crazy good. i'm already planning for it to rule the interior of my head all next week. hell, it's ruling in there now, even though i can't take it with me and listen to it constantly.
i am missing the mountain goats/eric friedlander show tonight in d.c., which hurts. it really hurts. john vanderslice is playing guitar with jd and peter and i'm sure eric will be all up in it too, since he's on the album...i can't even talk about it, i'm getting choked up and thinking about calling in to work even though i am a few dollars away from falling headfirst off the cliff into financial ruin. god, i hate financial ruin. i hate financial anything.
here's something interesting. i actually found something that the oasis brothers said pretty spot-on. i have never been all that taken with the franz ferdinand-types, to be honest. i gave them a chance, but they just don't do anything for me. not a goddamnned thing. in a recent nme interview, liam had this to say. i agree with the million miles an hour and not going anywhere thing. this is probably the last time the gallagher boyz and i will agree on anything, but i must give the props where the props is due. although i don't really care much for oasis, so there won't be much in the way of props headed over there. i can't say that they don't have that special something, however. it may not be the special something that reels me in, persay, but it's there. franz and their ilk are critically lacking in the special something department.
now, for the scary stuff. i was eating a turkey sandwich and reading a magazine called yes! which deals with independent media, and they had a bill moyers speech in there, where he was talking about the importance of unbiased, uncorrupted media outlets. that was all very interesting, but what really got me was this little bit about american religious fundamentalism:
"How do we explain the possibility that the election in November may have turned on several million good and decent citizens who believe in the Rapture Index? That's what I said--the Rapture Index; Google it and you will understand why the best selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the "Left Behind" series. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative millions of people believe to be literally true.
According to this narrative, Jesus will return to earth only when certain conditions are met: when Israel has been established as a state; when Israel then occupies the rest of its "biblical lands"; when the third temple has been rebuilt on the site now occupied by the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa mosques; and, then, when legions of the Antichrist attack Israel. This will trigger a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon during which all the Jews who have not converted will be burned. Then the messiah returns to Earth. The Rapture occurs once the big battle begins. True believers "will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts, and frogs during the several years of tribulation which follow.
I'm not making this up. We've reported on these people for our weekly broadcast on PBS, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious, and polite as they tell you that they feel called to help bring the Rapture on as a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why they have staged confrontations at the old temple site in Jerusalem. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the ninth chapter of the Book of Revelations.
One estimate puts these people at about 15 percent of the electorate. Most are part of the core of George W. Bush's base support. He knows who they are and what they want."
(Bill Moyers, from a presentation to a Society of Professional Journalists conference on Sept. 11, 2004.)
wow, bill. that's some pretty heavy stuff right there. i would like to think that this isn't true, but i have seen the "left behind" books peppering the ny times bestseller list for too long to dispute that there are a hell of a lot of people out there who not only subscribe to this brand of craziness, but are rabid about it.
yikes.
in better news, "i turn my camera on" by the aformentioned spoon, is one of the sexiest, ass kickin' tunes i have heard since before irony took over as the preferred indicator of one's bad-assedness. come on, may 9th!!
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