the defeatists!

Not sure why but...it's the nature of evolution and the dinosaurs went to hell...

By the Bastard Fairies...
whatever I can do...
...

Despite the Ramone soaked past...

How can a guy like Crusader AXE not dig a band named Holly and the Italians?


Or, the Chesterfield Kings from Rochester, New York...


And, then there's the Woggles, led by Mighty Manfred...


Of course, Andrew Loog Oldham has a garage original from "The Red Skelton Show..." who, oddly, seems to me to resemble Iggy Pop, a bit

Rolling Stones on Red Skelton Hour '64 from Craig Snyder on Vimeo.

but this week's coolest song is pure garage-surf stuff...so pure it isn't out yet as a video I can find, but here're a couple more from the Dollrots...

And, how can I pass on the Detroit Cobras...

Just to set the record straight...

Although testosterone soaked and utterly straight -- growing up in the Defeatist clan makes you utterly unattracted to other men. In fact, all our defeatist sisters tend to have strong androgynous tendencies and aren't attracted to us either -- the Defeatists are definitely pro-GAY MARRIAGE. Especially now...this really closes the deal for us!

Ah, Chris, when you're on...

There's almost no point in not laughing about it. The late Alan Clark, Tory historian and amoral wit, once drew up a list of the occasions on which it is permissible to employ the word fuck in polite society. One of his examples was, "What the fuck was that?" as uttered by the mayor of Hiroshima....Of all the great cosmic questions, WTF still strikes me as one of the most pressing, relevant, and ultimately humane.                                                                                  
                                                                                 Christopher Hitchens

Guy goes to Hiroshima on business in August 1945. Shit happens. Hilarity ensues.

For your listening pleasure...

Listen to this, and then check out Wolfgang's Vault...Since I am basically in a vicious, uncommunicative mood, this thing which is one of my favorite Stones things anyway, says it all for me...Mick definitely was a great harp player when he wanted to be. Probably a better harp player than vocalist, actually...Now he's the front man of his own tribute band...

The President doesn't do angry according to Gail Collins...

Just so that everybody understands, Crusader AXE blew off the State of the Union message. We watched USA and John Cenna try to act, we went out and ate at a dinner because I wanted a reuben sandwich, and we came back skipping MSN to watch some NCIS stuff. Figured I'd have plenty of time and opportunity to find out what the president said. However, since I decided to glance through the Times before going to bed, I read this gem from Gail Collins that deserves a place of honor. Everywhere. I guess the president has decided to try and meet with and charm the Republican members of the House. Well, given that that particular forum includes Michelle Bachmann and Joe "You Lie!" Wilson, led by the guy with the day-glo tan, Johnny Boner of Ohio, I gotta say, the man has either Job's patience or enormous balls. Or, he's a masochist. Ms. Collins summed it up perfectly: "Have you ever seen all the House Republicans in one place? It’s like a herd of rabid otters." The only thing wrong with that line is that I actually like otters. I really don't care for masses of politicians. Otters, you know, are primitive tool-users, which to me indicates that they are higher on the evolutionary scale than most Republican congressmen, who are just tools.

the left disaffection with obama (watch ed schultz of rachel maddow these days) is an extremely good thing. cynicism and disaffection are the only thing keeping us free, and the cult of personality and incredible optimism about the the state (coercion) as a solution for all that ails us that swirled around the person of obama (chris matthews, "if you don't believe that government is the solution, you've got no business being a democrat") are the merest love of totalitarianism. give up. give the fuck up. and let's actually get on with living, day by day.

I have no idea why this guy isn't being listened to by every thinking creature...

"Guess you're mostly Baptists. Few Methodists in the back. Actually, we need the Methodists down here for this part..."James McMurtry is Larry McMurtry's son. Please don't hold that against him . He has a somewhat monotone voice and a poetic twist that reminds me of Robert Earle Keen, hung over and pissed off. He generally has great bands and excellent musical instincts. He also writes with razor...You might be in grad school/up at MIT/Or down in the Canal Zone/Being all you can be/You might get to thinkin'/You're ahead of the game/But when you're paining by numbers/it all comes out the same...He's been around since at least '89, putting his particular twist on things, and I know that I haven't been paying attention like I should have...my loss . Normally, I like to embed videos -- guess you probably noticed if you're looking at this site -- but the links are to incredible songs. For some reason, he or his record company isn't excited about letting people embed his formal stuff. Mistake, I think...part of the old music wants to be free mindset that I suspect he shares, but hell, he's trying to make a buck. Guitar strings and shit can get expensive. So, go to I-Tunes or Rhapsody and stock up. And, of course, if you're in North Texas, stop by Dad's bookstore ...maybe they'll be there bitching at each other while stocking shelves.

You know, this will all work out in the end the way it is supposed to...badly.

My brother AGI is at home doing the California-Dad-Bonding thing with Julia, and he volunteered to take her for her first shots. We have, as Defeatists, been nothing but supportive. I advised him to drink copiously; he misunderstood, and said he expected to this evening. I explained that I meant immediately, continuously up to and including while the child was getting stuck. I then pointed out that after he comforted her briefly, she'd be fine...although she'd remember subconsciously and when in 2024 or so, when she came in and announced that she had decided to run off to a Lesbian-Biker-Capitalist commune to study the art of vaginal tatooing, it would be ALL HIS FAULT! Like I said, nothing but supportive.



Anyway, I then happened on this, and I guess I may actually be prescient, except that the commune will probably be in Russia. Fred Phelps and his gangbang of GAGA gawkers need to wander over to Moscow and link up, with the mayor who has proclaimed "A gay parade... cannot be called anything but a Satanic act... We haven't permitted such a parade and we won't permit it in the future... It's high time that we stop propagating nonsense discussions about human rights, and bring to bear on them the full force and justice of the law." Frankly, I think both AGI and Phelps would look good in one of those hats, but Phelps would look more like he was an understudy for the Lenin corpse, while AGI would bring a bit of the troubled poet to the look, kind of slacker-Zhivago.

Then, it appears that Northern Ireland is about to spin off...into another realm. I just don't get the British relationship to the place. They've been wanting to get rid of it since before WWI, but the Orangemen keep threatening to fight to remain British...I don't mean at the polls or in the press, but with guns and stuff. The latest snakefuck involves who runs the justice system -- local authorities or the British. The Brits and the Irish government are in favor of the locals doing it, Sinn Fein demands that the locals do it, but the Unionists, ahh, they have an utterly different agenda indeed. Hilarity, as Molly Ivins would put it, ensues.

The major Irish nationalist party, Sinn Fein, is warning it will withdraw from the 2 1/2-year-old coalition – triggering its collapse – unless the Protestant side accepts the need to transfer control of Northern Ireland's justice system from Britain to local hands. Britain and Ireland both back the transfer. Sinn Fein formally accepted the authority of the Northern Ireland police as part of the deal, ending decades of support for Irish Republican Army attacks on the security forces. But the Protestants of the Democratic Unionist Party are blocking the move until Sinn Fein meets other demands, including permission for Protestant fraternal groups to parade near Catholic districts, an annual sectarian tradition that caused widespread rioting until restricted in the late 1990s.

Of course, this is what started the Civil Rights Movement. I guess it's not easy being Orange; Kings Billy and James are kind of not factors anymore. I personally think the Orange Men need to hire Mr. Happiness to provide some consulting experience.

Meanwhile, back in another dimension...

Nation-building. Without a plan. Priceless. One of my general officer friends, announcing that he's having an experimental procedure done for a heart problem admited that "Hope is not a plan. But, sometimes it's the only possible course of action." Iraq is going to be our Parthia, eventually. Meantime, well, it's not. Twenty years from now, people will be crying about how we deserted Iraq to go to Afghanistan. Meanwhile, back in Defeatist central, we're dancing to this...