Showing posts with label Hippies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hippies. Show all posts
04 March 2010
02 January 2008
I Am Incapable of Expressing How Loathesome I'm Likely to Find This Upcoming Film . . .
. . . normally I can express my disdain pretty well, but my eloquence fails when faced with the prospect of this project.
Boomer Nostalgia-ism, check.
Radical Chic-ism, check.
Spielbergian Moral Relatvism, double check.
Sacha Baron Cohen in a serious role, Wawaweeee.
Maybe I'm wrong and it won't be hagiography, instead it will attack the Chicago 7/8 for the jerks they were, but given that Spielberg has already compared the tone of this picture to his awful piece of Munich, I think we can expect to get exactly what it appears to be, another picture that 'sticks it to the man' and glories in yippie radicalism.
Uggghhh.
The reanimated corpses of hippies will never die, it seems. Their pungent odor will waft throughout history (or at least till Boomers start dying in droves sometime in the 30s and 40s)
Boomer Nostalgia-ism, check.
Radical Chic-ism, check.
Spielbergian Moral Relatvism, double check.
Sacha Baron Cohen in a serious role, Wawaweeee.
Maybe I'm wrong and it won't be hagiography, instead it will attack the Chicago 7/8 for the jerks they were, but given that Spielberg has already compared the tone of this picture to his awful piece of Munich, I think we can expect to get exactly what it appears to be, another picture that 'sticks it to the man' and glories in yippie radicalism.
Uggghhh.
The reanimated corpses of hippies will never die, it seems. Their pungent odor will waft throughout history (or at least till Boomers start dying in droves sometime in the 30s and 40s)
04 October 2007
Things Expressly Designed to Irritate Me (Or So It Would Seem)
[photo borrowed from the webpage of Southern California Disposal, also the same folks who are choosing to fly this flag]Something new has popped up on the Santa Monica landscape, catching my eye, and irritating the hell out of me. We have a 100 foot tall tower adjacent to the Cloverfield onramp/offramp of the 10 Freeway (yes, I used an article before the name of a freeway, wanna make somethin' of it?) from which flies a 30'x50' American flag usually, but Old Glory has been replaced.
The owner of that mast has decided to fly the goddamn dirty hippie "American Ecology Flag" instead.
Here's what they have to say for themselves on their webpage (and the PDF of their press release here):
SCD Flies World's Largest Ecology Flag
Since the late 1960's, the Ecology flag has been an icon of the Ecological movement.
We are flying our large, 30 foot x 50 foot Ecology flag as a symbol that we are doing our part to reduce global warming through our recycling services and by our use of renewable, earth-friendly B100 Biodiesel fuel made from soybeans. By using Biodiesel, we are significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions, a leading cause of global warming. We are also lessening our nation's dependency on foreign oil while at the same time supporting American farmers.
Our hope is that the flag will serve as a daily reminder that all of us can play a role in reducing global warming by making environmentally sound choices in our daily lives.
For more information on the benefits of Biodiesel, please visit the National Biodiesel Board website at: http://www.biodiesel.org/.
Learn what you can do to reduce global warming by visiting: www.stopglobalwarming.org/sgw_actionitems.asp.
If GLOBAL WARMING (sorry, seems you always have to shout at the top of your lungs and intone the words with as much gravitas as you can muster) is your main concern, then you should be troubled by mounting evidence that switching to biodiesel is counterproductive.
I'm guessing the city is harassing them over some petty issue, so this is Southern California Disposal's sly way of tweaking our city over their green nonsense. At least I hope that's what they're doing. Clearly, 'going green' is a great excuse for garbage haulers to charge more fees, so all this green nonsense could be good for SCD's business. I'm hoping that their flying of that goddamn dirty hippie "American Ecology Flag" has more to do with motivated self interest than any desire to 'save the planet'. I don't mind greedy businessfolk duping idiot hippies into thinking they are on the hippies' side, I do mind dumb hippies duping businessfolk into following silly and counterproductive practices just because of the latest faddish nonsense regarding the latest push to 'save the planet'.
14 September 2007
Sure, I Hate Hippies . . .
. . . but who doesn't love a (slightly NSFW in a Le déjeuner sur l'herbe sort of way) naked Hippie Chick?
(with the caveat that she not be too old (Sienna Miller is only 25), not too hairy (no strands of armpit hair can be seen in photo, which is always a relief, though probably not period accurate), and pleasingly curvy (which due to a strict director mandated regimen of less exercise Sienna has a nicely curving bum in these pics), needless to say there's no way in hell that I'll watch the film Hippie Hippie Shake, even with a naked Sienna Miller in it, dewy-nostalgia for that awful scene makes me sick)
The film Hippie Hippie Shake is based on the memoirs of Richard Neville, an Australian rabble rouser who, judging from his website, is still stuck back in the 60s. Everybody is getting a serious aesthetic upgrade in this pic, I mean, really, Cillian Murphy as Richard Neville, and Emma Booth as Germaine Greer?
According to the wiki on Oz magazine, the film is centered around the British obscenity trial over an issue of Oz that mashed-up Rupert the Bear with explicit cartoons by R. Crumb.
No doubt a 'the man was keeping us down, man' movie, with lots of actors playing famous people in bit parts. These type of films tend to become self-congratulatory wankfests (to borrow a Britishism), and should be avoided at all costs.
(with the caveat that she not be too old (Sienna Miller is only 25), not too hairy (no strands of armpit hair can be seen in photo, which is always a relief, though probably not period accurate), and pleasingly curvy (which due to a strict director mandated regimen of less exercise Sienna has a nicely curving bum in these pics), needless to say there's no way in hell that I'll watch the film Hippie Hippie Shake, even with a naked Sienna Miller in it, dewy-nostalgia for that awful scene makes me sick)
The film Hippie Hippie Shake is based on the memoirs of Richard Neville, an Australian rabble rouser who, judging from his website, is still stuck back in the 60s. Everybody is getting a serious aesthetic upgrade in this pic, I mean, really, Cillian Murphy as Richard Neville, and Emma Booth as Germaine Greer?
According to the wiki on Oz magazine, the film is centered around the British obscenity trial over an issue of Oz that mashed-up Rupert the Bear with explicit cartoons by R. Crumb.
No doubt a 'the man was keeping us down, man' movie, with lots of actors playing famous people in bit parts. These type of films tend to become self-congratulatory wankfests (to borrow a Britishism), and should be avoided at all costs.
14 July 2007
A Story That Doesn't Pass the Smell Test
Sniffing this story, and I get a strong whiff of patchouli.
Could it have happened as outlined in the article? Possibly, but it seems unlikely.
A scenario I imagine is a lot more likely is as follows;
A bunch of people gather, get themselves worked up into a lather about how messed up the world is and how we just need to practice more 'acts of random kindness' and 'love each other more' and 'group hug' more often.
Course those random acts of kindness are always so messy in real life. That homeless guy you give the meal to, pesters you for weeks afterward for a meal every day. That undocumented worker you hire to help with the lawn work pisses on your roses and drinks beer on the job. Sometimes the bumper stickers just aren't enough and small acts aren't enough.
But what if you made up one of those 'oddly enough' type stories that get so much play in the media? What if the 'oddly enough' scenario you spin is a perfect encapsulation of the kind of random act of kindness that everyone should be engaging in ten times a day?
Once the party comes to that decision, then the details require some hammering out. First, it should involve guns and poverty, cause guns are evil, and poverty, like, really, really sucks. Second, make sure the story has enough odd details that nobody would suspect you of making the whole thing up. A robber who when offered a fine wine decides to partake in said wine, and then comes to appreciate the wine seems so unlikely as to be beyond making up. Third, group hug, everyone loves a story that ends in a group hug, if more people practiced group hugs, there would be no war, no genocide, no Republicans, and no Global Warming.
There is some risk, filing a false police report is filing a false police report, and the 911 call you make will most likely be publicly available, so when you make the call, better make the performance convincing. Also everyone would need to get their description of the suspect fairly consistent, but also nebulous enough so that some poor schmo who actually was in the neighborhood, doesn't get wrongly accused.
The detail about the crystal glass being found unbroken in the alley, without any recoverable prints is what suggests to me that this is all crap. But really, if you can give the guy with a gun a 'group hug' you can disarm the criminal.
Also I find it unimaginable that after a gun is pointed at your 14 year old daughter that you don't rip the perp apart with your bare hands, rip off his balls, and stuff them in his mouth. Call me old fashioned, but I think my response (and just about everyone I know) would be more along those lines than, 'here take this bottle of Chateau Malescot St-Exupery"
Also if you're wondering what the man who would 'group hug' the perp who brandished a firearm at his 14 year old's head looks like, Ricky Carioti of WaPo was kindly enough to shoot him (lovely manbag he has, there).
Could it have happened as outlined in the article? Possibly, but it seems unlikely.
A scenario I imagine is a lot more likely is as follows;
A bunch of people gather, get themselves worked up into a lather about how messed up the world is and how we just need to practice more 'acts of random kindness' and 'love each other more' and 'group hug' more often.
Course those random acts of kindness are always so messy in real life. That homeless guy you give the meal to, pesters you for weeks afterward for a meal every day. That undocumented worker you hire to help with the lawn work pisses on your roses and drinks beer on the job. Sometimes the bumper stickers just aren't enough and small acts aren't enough.
But what if you made up one of those 'oddly enough' type stories that get so much play in the media? What if the 'oddly enough' scenario you spin is a perfect encapsulation of the kind of random act of kindness that everyone should be engaging in ten times a day?
Once the party comes to that decision, then the details require some hammering out. First, it should involve guns and poverty, cause guns are evil, and poverty, like, really, really sucks. Second, make sure the story has enough odd details that nobody would suspect you of making the whole thing up. A robber who when offered a fine wine decides to partake in said wine, and then comes to appreciate the wine seems so unlikely as to be beyond making up. Third, group hug, everyone loves a story that ends in a group hug, if more people practiced group hugs, there would be no war, no genocide, no Republicans, and no Global Warming.
There is some risk, filing a false police report is filing a false police report, and the 911 call you make will most likely be publicly available, so when you make the call, better make the performance convincing. Also everyone would need to get their description of the suspect fairly consistent, but also nebulous enough so that some poor schmo who actually was in the neighborhood, doesn't get wrongly accused.
The detail about the crystal glass being found unbroken in the alley, without any recoverable prints is what suggests to me that this is all crap. But really, if you can give the guy with a gun a 'group hug' you can disarm the criminal.
Also I find it unimaginable that after a gun is pointed at your 14 year old daughter that you don't rip the perp apart with your bare hands, rip off his balls, and stuff them in his mouth. Call me old fashioned, but I think my response (and just about everyone I know) would be more along those lines than, 'here take this bottle of Chateau Malescot St-Exupery"
Also if you're wondering what the man who would 'group hug' the perp who brandished a firearm at his 14 year old's head looks like, Ricky Carioti of WaPo was kindly enough to shoot him (lovely manbag he has, there).
Questions I have, the event happened June 16th, why all the publicity 4 weeks later? Why no description of the perp given in the story? Presumably you have an unstable individual desperate enough to threaten young girls within a party of folks with a gun, that person should be sought after, they may do something worse than drink wine next time, where's the description? Why the hell are you conducting multiple interviews (WaPo, Guardian, Today Show?!), and why the hell are you letting your daughter do interviews as well under her own (unusual, and very hippie-ish) name? Do you know how easy it was for me to find her on Myspace (at least it's private)?
Watching the Today Show interview linked above, and I get a serious dose of hippie bullshit.
Sorry, call me a cynic (I don't think Campbell Brown believed them either, she laughs at them throughout the whole interview).
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