Crusader AXE has been busy and pissed off most of the week. At times, I feel like someone gave the ducks that surround me dentures, and they're just nibbling away. Wasn't there a pre-human duck with teeth? If so, the bastards surround us, looking like mallards but then drawing blood.
I've been sucked into a pool of ennui. We knew that the Rs were going to be Obstructionist, the Dems were going to be reasonable, and everybody handy would end up looking like fools. We had a long confab amongst the Agiprop-Area 51-Defeatist community this week, and agreed ultimately that we'd like some infrastructure, but what we really want is CEOs in jail. Sounds like a great name for Jackson Browne-Bruce Springsteen collaboration or a New Age Band...
So, on a lot of levels its been hard to find something I've wanted to write about. It's all been done before...however, everynow and then the absurdity meter gets tipped. Since the apotheosis of St Sarah of Wasilla, I've been interested in Alaska's whole rugged individualist-meth crazed - demi-socialist zeitgeist. My guide on this has been the inimitable The Mudflats. I've sensed a more focused version of the Defeatists at times; we're kind of ADD renegades, slipping into all sort of areas as viciously and angrily as a crew of malecontents worshipping a teenage goddess can get, once we see something shiny. TMF stays focused on the craziness that Alaska offers combined with a left-libertarian whimsy. The gang isn't really shocked by the corruption, sleeze and general lunacy of the political spectrum; mildly surprised, amused and cynically inspired.
Yes, that is Peter Sellers, and he's kind of channeling Olivier doing Richard III only using the Beatles as opposed to the whole "Was ever a woman in this manner woed? Was ever a woman in this manner won!" thing. I stole the piece above directly from The Mudflats, by the bye. Love it. I kind of disliked most of the Beatles catalog growing up, and still think they're overrated...Paul McCartney versus Bill Wyman on bass? Ringo versus Charlie Watts on Drums? John Lennon versus Keith Richard on rhythm guitar? The only outright advantage they have over the Stones was in Harrison over Brian Jones on lead. But, once Brian wandered off to drown in his own tear filled swimming pool because nobody loved him anymore, Mick Taylor and then Ron Wood both are far better than George ever wanted to be. However, while Jagger is a better singer than any of the Beatles, the sum of their voices and the multiple ways they had to attack a song was an advantage. And, George Martin now, if alive, is still a far better producer than anybody the Beatles ever had. One other advantage that the Beatles had that we can forget, especially thinking about the over-produced experimental stuff they did at the end is that they had a really "cool" humor to what they were doing. This piece, which is from some Beatles TV show, shows very little Beatles, but I can't picture Mick and Keith doing the same stuff, and I really can't imagine anything as subtle as this from...well, just about anybody. I guess Ray Davies and the Kinks might have been able to pull it off, but there would have been too much smirking going on, and then Dave would have hit Peter Sellers across the neck with his Rickenbacker fucking the whole thing up.
Back to Mudflats. TMF was inspired by the Attorney General of Alaska who has compared working as lawyers for Sarah Palin's government to being with Henry V on St Crispian's Day. Seriously...they must have some really interesting growhouses in Alaska, producing some incredible crap -- Fairbanks Fairy Droppings? Heavy Mooseshit Shit? Anchorage-a-Pulco Gold?) to come up with that. Seriously, read the article and bookmark the site. It's pretty cold...err, cool. And, it's odd that Olivier in Henry V looks a lot like Obama, with a bad haircut in gay armor.
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