A requiem for New Orleans...

I was very hopeful yesterday that I was wrong about New Orleans and my dire prediction; after all, Hurricane Katrina veered east and weakened at the last possible minute, still ravaging the Gulf shore but sparing New Orleans the spectacle of a Category 5 storm dumping all this water into the city surrounded by levees. In fact, last night at sundown, the French Quarter was dry. There were pieces of roof and debris scattered in the road, but that's all. It was dry, and bars opened up and all the people who defied evacuation orders celebrated, with good reason.

Then the levees broke.

It's very unlikely that any major building in the entire town is going to come out of this without major structural damage, if not permanent collapse or uninhabitability. It's really the worse-case scenario. The levees were scheduled to be upgraded in 2004, but the money was diverted to Iraq. Seriously.

We don't have enough money to go around. And all the money in the world might not have prevented New Orleans from going under, at some point, when a storm hit the town directly. This one is sad because New Orleans probably should have emerged in much better shape.

Right now, as I type, there are panicked evacuations of all the refugees in the Superdome; a man killed himself by jumping from the upper deck down into the lower seats. The mayor is being airlifted out because his offices are about to turn to soup. People are now realizing they won't be able to return before October, and that the entire town may have to be rebuilt. There are a number of major fires raging through downtown New Orleans, and there's nothing any human can do to stop them or contain them. Oil and gas are seeping (or gushing) into the city center's water, and none of the city's tap water is drinkable. Nobody knows how many people will have died...

This makes me profoundly sad, because I know people who have been through flood disaster situations and I'm becoming aware of how awful a long-term situation that is. New Orleans has always been vulnerable to storms because of its levees and the gradual loss of wetlands that our civilization causes. But this time, the storm actually DID spare the city. And it's still going to go under, for a long time.

If you have any old sad jazz, tonight's a good night to play it. I'm going to hit "The Majesty Of The Blues" by Wynton Marsalis. If you can, donate some cash to the Red Cross. They're not perfect, but they're about the only NGO that can actually help a whole lot in the next few (gasp) months...

"Bunk"

Evidently parts of the neon sign at Bunker's Music Bar & Grill in Minneapolis are burned out, because that's what it said as we pulled into the parking lot: "Bunk."

Dr. Mambo's Combo was in fine form, and in top-call form. All the main ingredients were there, Michael on drums, Sonny T on bass, Franze on guitar, G Sharp, Mark Licktieg, Margie Cox, and Julius on vocals.

The first song of the night was "Serpentine Fire" by Earth, Wind & Fire. I guessed wrong; I thought it would be Stevie Wonder's "All I Do," which they did later in the first set. Other treats: "Don't Change Horses (In The Middle Of The Stream)" by Tower Of Power, "Tell Me Something Good" by Rufus and Chaka Khan, a twenty-minute stomp through James Brown's "The Payback." The one-two punch at the beginning of set two was particular outer-space: "Once You Get Started" by Rufus and Chaka Khan into David Bowie's "Fame." Throughout most of the night, Sonny T was just insane on the bass guitar. Just. Insane.

Spooncat: songs for sale online

Yes, finally a number of our songs can be purchased for 99 cents a piece on broadjam.com. As of now eight tracks off of Tao Babies are available. Within a few days that list will include all of Tao Babies, Live Animals, portions of our two prior albums, and some oddities including new mixes of material appearing on our forthcoming project. I'd give you more information on said "project", but we're not even sure what it will be yet. Fun, vast, quirky, love, what Loraine, what? We do know for certain it will come with #2 pencils, so at least we have that going for us. I know you're all thinking, "We could do better." Well, if the we is you, you're correct. If the we is us, then I'm sorry but we're doing the best we can. We just don't have the poooooower.

It's a terrible thing to contemplate...

But it's quite possible that New Orleans, the cradle of jazz, might not really be much of a city anymore in a day or so. This will be a frightening day of destruction, I'm afraid...

On a selfish note, you might want to fill your tank all the way with gasoline, before the shocks of closed or destroyed refineries in the Gulf Of Mexico hits the marketplace. I suspect the price of gas will zoom up dramatically. 30% of the U. S. domestic supply of refined oil comes from the hurricane-affected area.

On a human note, whoa...

To the Wumpus Nation

How were the shows this weekend? Please comment on them below, and feel free to wildly exaggerate.

You can comment on the show EVEN IF YOU WEREN'T THERE.

We certainly can't be accused of having two LEFT feet.

I wonder when a prominent Democrat will call for the immediate withdrawal of our troops from Iraq. The moment we actually withdraw will be far too little, too late, by a tragic amount. In addition, I wonder when a majority of Americans will be calling for a withdrawal. Right now it's above 40%, inching up each time the pollers ask the question.

And I wonder when a prominent politician, of any stripe, will announce the plain truth that the U. S. is losing... in Afghanistan. You don't have to take my word for it. You don't have to take anybody's word for it. We're losing. It's funny: we had the guilty pleasure of watching the former Soviet Union spend itself into oblivion and dissolution because of their fool's errand in Afghanistan. The Soviets, of course, were wise enough to avoid an invasion of Mesopotamia AT THE SAME TIME.

Kosovo has proven to be barely stable since the 1999 NATO bombardment and subsequent arrest of Slobodan Milosevic and his fellow Serbian thugs. Barely stable, and it's much more Westernized, much wealthier, and has received much more attention than Afghanistan. For every NATO peacekeeper (that, of course, includes U. S. peacekeepers) in Afghanistan, Kosovo has 24. For every dollar of aid Afghanistan gets for reconstruction or security, Kosovo gets 20.

These stark examples, recent reminders of patterns that extend back for centuries and centuries, seem to say, "don't invade, not the Middle East. It won't work. It never has." The Afghanistan debacle is easy enough to ignore, and Iraq, while messy and expensive, doesn't force us to worry about our own American survival. Unfortunately, we may just be getting warmed up. I think Cheney wants to blow some shit up in Iran. That would be bad. The foreign policy and economic fallout would be disastrous. The passions that would be unleashed would make the current warring sects in Iraq look like the Waltons in comparison.

I'm sure some of this has our elected officials worried sick. It has to, really. I just wish they would say something about it. Voting for whatever Cheney wants didn't work too well in Iraq, and it sure won't help our security or our bank accounts. Normally I don't care too much about bank accounts, but a couple thousand bucks is still a lot of money, and that's what each of us has spent in Iraq so far, like it or not...

Random Ten...

culled from the 24,000 songs on my Iacocca hard drive:

1) Babylon Sisters - Steely Dan (Gaucho)
2) These Lonely Nights - Willie Nelson (Teatro)
3) My Kind Of Lady - Supertramp (Famous Last Words)
4) Mojo Pin - Jeff Buckley (Grace)
5) Trane's Blues - Miles Davis (Workin' With The Miles Davis Quintet)
6) Tuesday Heartbreak - Stevie Wonder (Talking Book)
7) Le Soleil Est Pres De Moi - Air (Premiers Symptomes)
8) Black Satin - Miles Davis (On The Corner)
9) Carmen Suite 2: Danse Boheme (Georges Bizet) - London Festival Orchestra (Carmen Suites 1 & 2)
10) Daughter - Pearl Jam (Vs.)

Anytime one artists sneaks through with two songs, they must be commended. Good job, Miles.

Honestly, it's hard to keep up...

Those of you wondering if we have real news in this country will want to keep an eye on this: the Iraqi woman that George W. Bush prominently featured in his latest State of the Union address (remember the blue fingers, the big hug from Laura Bush, etc.) is announcing the U. S. betrayed her and every Iraqi woman. Several high-profile Iraqi women's activists are actually moving out of the country for fear of an Islamic-fueled backlash against them.

This is a big deal, I guess. The most heartwarming moment in this year's most important speech has just been called out as bullshit. This is real news, and would at least spawn in-depth discussions about the current trends in Iraq concerning the marginalization of women and the U. S.'s callous discarding of principle in favor of panicked political strategy.

My prediction: very little coverage, and it won't get mentioned on Fox more than once (with the most unflattering picture they could find--it's what they spend their money on). The U. S. public is getting to the point where they would find Pravda an enlightening read, at least not so dogmatic, you know?

Where's the 'A' game?

The Bush team needs to rediscover its 'A' game. On Tuesday, crackpot Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, the elected leader of Venezuela, on his nationally syndicated television show. Yesterday, while Robertson was backpedaling from his statements in a pathetic array of non-denial denials, the Bushies declined to condemn the remarks. Meanwhile, Chavez was in Jamaica and Cuba yesterday, announcing a new initiative to sell gas at a discount to poor Americans. It was yet another loss-loss scenario politically for the Bush team, although it won't get nearly as much attention in the U. S. press as it will across the ocean and down in South America.

Meanwhile, Bush was in Idaho addressing a hand-picked crowd of American Legion conventioneers. I wonder how much longer before even the hand-picked crowds quit clapping for everything he says. His approval rating is 36% according to the recent ARG poll, 40% according to the recent Harris poll. Nixon's approval rating was 39% during the height of the Watergate investigations. Clinton's was 72% on the day he was impeached, 67% the day the Senate voted down the articles of impeachment. Polls are generally silly, but 36% is 36%. One-third, really...

Why are there still Norwegians?

I just heard somebody on a TV clip ask an evolutionary biologist, "How can you just flat-out dismiss creationism, since if evolution is correct, we descended from monkeys, but there are still monkeys around?"

Why are there still Norwegians?

I suppose this does offer a handy bit of information: if any of your stupid, ignorant friends are looking for better work or a higher-profile job, you could now recommend a position in the U. S. media...

A hell of an announcement here, everybody...

That's it! I'm actually going to post something new and refreshing on this blog EVERY DAY into the foreseeable future!

I must start with a R. I. P. for Robert Moog, who just died. He was the creator of the Moog synthesizer that changed everything except Dire Straits...

My sincere congratulations...

... to the man I saw walking downtown, assuming that is his real moustache.

We lost.

In Iraq. Both teams are putting their backups in. It was a really ugly, poorly-coached game.

Maybe the sports section will cover it; the news section doesn't really want to be bothered...

A short rant today for this Leo...

About ten days ago, here's how I responded when people asked me how I was doing: "Today is not a good day to be a thinker." There were a few reasons for the deflated feeling, but the figurehead was President Bush's comments endorsing the teaching of "intelligent design" in the nation's science classrooms.

Today I came across this, by the Kung Fu Monkey:

"Seriously. Here you are, Tsui or Sanjay, looking at a new century. A century in which the exponential curve of technology's rise becomes a sheer cliff. In which only the most intellectually nimble countries, best able to master new information technologies and couple them with manufacturing bases with high levels of technical training, will survive.

And you're looking at that big bastard across the ocean, the US of A. First to build the Bomb. First to master the secrets of the atom. First to build the semiconductor. First and only tribe of humans who actually put men on the GODDAMN MOON, to have STEPPED ON ANOTHER ROCK IN SPACE. Decoders of the human genome, the VERY BOOK OF LIFE!!! How will we ever stop th---

Wow, they forfeit. Cool...

I'm not going to rehash the whole ridiculousness of Intelligent Design, or as it's more commonly known: "Creationism Trying to Look Serious By, Say, Squinting -- Like Denise Richards Playing the Nuclear Weapons Expert In That Bond Movie." If you don't understand that there's absolutely no contradiction between believing in God AND evolution, then frankly I'm not going to waste the time trying to jam a rhetorical screwdriver into your pineal gland's butterfly valve and crank up the air flow.

I just have to say to my conservative friends... listen, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR SHIT WHEN THIS COMES BACK TO BITE US IN THE ASS. When you're watching your children rocket downward through the Brave New Working Classes from gamma through delta straight to the epsilons, NOT A WORD. When the leader of your party turns his back on science, the product of God's second greatest gift to us, REASON, when he turns from the very process which brought so much progress and prosperity to this land and encourages those who would so eagerly toss aside rational thought itself... gah, never mind voting Democrat: if my choice were between those cowards who would turn back the Enlightenment and anal-probing yet intellectually honest Martians, I would grit my teeth, vote for the Martians and learn to visualize my Happy Place during my Probe-Center appointments.

Am I reading too much into this statement? Am I making too big a deal of this? In one word, FUCKNO. This is just a symptom of what is, to me, the most destructive thing to occur in America in twenty years...

Look my conservative pals, we have our agreements and disagreements but on this one, you've got to just take the hit. Don't ever look me in the eye again and try to play the cynicism-dressed-as-realism card again. Seriously. There's no high ground left here whatsoever. The ultimate representative of your political party, standing on the limitless future's shrouded shores, has decided he needs no compass, no maps, no guides, no stars with which to plot his course. Just a shrug and a chuckle before he casts off, eyes closed, into the darkness.

You wouldn't trust your children to an airplane pilot who did that, or a Scoutmaster. If your doctor said "You know what, we're going to blow off all the currently available research and treat your child's cancer with a completely untested, never scientifically proven bit of guesswork which, however, reinforces my world-view. Because what does science REALLY know?" you'd be pulling out of the parking lot before he or she finished the sentence. But when it's public policy, it's OKAY?

Again, our motto at Kung Fu Monkey: "Everybody who wants to live in the 21st century over HERE. Everybody who wants to live in the 1800s over THERE. Good. Thanks. Good luck with that."

NEW POST! Dateline: Sunshine Foods, August 6, 2005

I don't know if my coffee was spiked or what, but I have an uncontrollable urge to POST!

It was an 80's moment at Sunshine--"Physical" by Olivia Newton-John, and "Oh Sheila" by Ready For The World.