Ashlee Simpson, who I didn't know existed until now, was caught in the act —quite literally—on Saturday Night Live. Exposed for the musical fraud that she is, like a zillion others before her, she's actually being held to task, unlike a zillion others before her. Where has everyone been? Lip-synching has been passed off as live performance for years, by an uncountable number of "artists" and "musicians". The real question is, when will the masses stop eating whatever the pop music machine feeds them? And when will the machine realize that true "pop" is exemplified by the Beatles and XTC, not "bands" formed by the following process:

1. Conceptualize the next money-making band in a board room. Make sure it's targeted at the 10-15 year old female demographic. Posters on bedroom walls translate into dollars and limitless merchandising.
2. Hold tryouts to fill the concept. Contestants need not have the ability to play any instrument. But they should be "cute" or have the potential to be made to look cute.
3. Hire ghostwriters to create the songs that will fool millions of young minds into believing these random hacks have musical talent (even though the songs invariably suck).
4. Hire studio musicians to perform the songs for the recording.
5. Hire a choreographer to train them how to move like minions of Janet Jackson, just like Britney Spears and her entourage was trained.
6. Collect.
7. Buy a vineyard in Tuscany.

[ Watch the impressive 10 second performance. Notice that, in her desperate effort to cover up the fact that she's just another lip-sync queen, she had the gall to blame the mistake on her band at the end of SNL. ]

In a similar vein of thought, there's a new, real documentary out there that paints quite a different picture than Michael Moore presented the world. It's called "Voices of Iraq". Moore had an agenda before he started filming—he openly admits that. What nobody seems interested in discussing is the fact that such an admission should file his film under Propaganda, not Documentary. "Voices of Iraq", on the other hand, is a true documentary.

They handed out 150 digital video cameras to Iraqi citizens and asked them to document their lives. Is a more direct and true documentary possible? This is just more evidence that the news organizations, particularly CNN, are not showing the world the whole truth of the Iraq story. All we see is the car bombs. They don't show us the more telling and compelling side of the story—that there's no better weapon against terror than democracy. They don't show us that the vast majority of Iraqi people are thankful for what the United States is doing there.

Only time can accurately determine the success or failure of the "war" in Iraq. You can't go from torturous dictatorship to democracy overnight. Ten years from now we will all view the Iraq war differently.

I was in Wegmans the other day, in the cookie isle. Actually, I was in the sauce and condiment isle looking for some Dinosaur fixins, but across from the sauces, marinades and spreads is the cookie display. It's a strange marriage of food categories. On my way out of the isle my eye caught the Pepperidge Farms specialty cookies—you know, the "fancy" cookies named after European cities like Milano, Brussels, Geneva, etc. This reminded me of a thought I had more than 10 years ago.

Something my friend Jim said back in 1991 made me think of a new series of cookies with less attractive names. I didn't know about Photoshop back then, so the thought was never realized. While tweaking that T-shirt idea for the last thingy, I figured what the hell. Now, after all this time, the cookies have arrived.

Without further ado, here are said cookies.

Albany has been discontinued.

Speaking of strange product groupings, am I alone in thinking that there's something bizarre and hilarious about places like BJs? Places where you can purchase radial tires, wedding rings, televisions, underwear and mayonnaise? I know these joints can save us consumers some dough, but come on...

In 1992, MTV's "Rock the Vote" campaign seemed like a pretty good idea: Wake up the sleepy college generation and turn them on to the democratic process. But they're not helping themselves with their actions. It's too easy to dismiss the organization if it doesn't adhere to objectivity. Most college-age kids are Democrats, and that's fine, but encouraging the political process should mean more than placard-style platitudes. They can do better, and should do better.

* (Last two cent piece:) Methinks the country has never needed a third party as badly as it does right now. I want to pull a lever that doesn't exist.

Labels: politics

Congratulations, Tiger. You scored again. Elin ain't homely. Now get out there and make some Swedocablinasians. My gut tells me you're going to run for President of the United States some day, and candidates need families or they're not viewed as trustworthy and credible. (Strange, isn't it—has there even been a single guy elected President? I don't think so, but I'll look it up.) I think I understand why. Maybe the subconscious desire to see that the President has his own family is to help ensure the integrity of the future. I mean, every decent parent loves his children and wants their future to be bright and fruitful, right? Assuming this is true, you feel better knowing that he's not going to let Any Corp. dump ammonia and mercury into the great lakes, or similar things like that.

Anyway, congratulations Tiger. Now that that's all sorted out, you can start winning again. Right?

About that gut feeling...where would you peg Tiger in terms of political affiliation? Left? Right? Center? Elsewhere? He's as tight-lipped as any household name, and has dodged pointed political questions with well-trained aplomb. Earl Woods is no dummy. I'll bet Tiger is more conservative that most people would guess, and it doesn't have anything to do with his 68 laquillion dollars. (1000 trillion = 1 laquillion. In my world.)

I've read a lot of opinion about what has made Tiger's game "slump" in the past 2 years or so. First of all, his record over the past year would be considered a good year for any other player on tour. It's not a slump. It's a...correction by the golf gods perhaps. He set the standard, and now he's merely great. He'll be astounding again. Just a matter of time.

But unlike all the pundits who think his game is down because of his knee or his back or not having his old swing coach or concern about his dad's health, etc., I believe it's because his perspective has changed, if just a little. Beating Jack Nicklaus' records is still his #1 career priority—for now. But his back burner is on, and he's cooking up bigger plans for himself. Plans that are beyond golf and certainly weightier than golf. We'll see, but I think Tiger has major political ambitions, no matter what he might say about it publicly. And I bet he'd run as an independent with conservative / libertarian views. Secular conservatism. Common sense fiscal conservatism with a strong military, streamlined government that allows our social programs to be more effective and put incentives in the right place, and a renewed commitment to educational standards, which have taken it on the chin for too long.

I think this partly explains why he gives such safe answers to so many non-golf questions. You don't want to create opportunities for future opponents. Everything's close to the vest. For now. In time, we'll all know more about what makes him tick. Even if you couldn't care less. You'll know. And it'll be good.

Gordon Cooper, familiarly known as "Gordo", died today. Here—read this. If you've never seen "The Right Stuff", or better yet, the "From the Earth to the Moon" series, don't wait. The stories from the early days at NASA are some of the most fascinating and important stories in recent U.S. history. At a time when computer technology was still in its infancy, guys like Gordo strapped their asses to giant rockets and took a ride that nobody was certain wouldn't be fatal. A zillion things could go wrong, and often a zillion things did go wrong. With a few tragic exceptions, they survived unbelievable circumstances and solved seemingly unsolvable problems.

Gordo was also a vocal advocate for disclosure. Disclosure of what? Well, he and many other NASA astronauts saw some things up there that shouldn't have been there. On multiple occasions. The interesting thing is, Gordo and Buzz Aldrin both said that all astronauts, and everyone working directly with them, were sworn to secrecy on that issue in particular. Not "general secrecy about the missions", but secrecy about inexplicable artificial objects in space. If there was nothing strange to be found up there, why was there an official policy about the issue?

It has always been amusing to me how the many qualified, professional people investigating this issue are summarily dismissed as "fringe scientists" when there's so much evidence out there that warrants serious scientific investigation, if not Congressional hearings. Give Gordo credit for sticking his neck out. And reminding anyone willing to listen that maybe there's more to our cozy little reality than we think—or perhaps, than we want to think.

Of course, maybe...just maybe...if there is a dark, shadowy secret government that has worked overtime since the mid-forties to keep this collossal story under wraps, maybe there's a good reason for it. I think I think that if the truth about this whole subject is significantly disturbing, maybe they've been doing us a great service in keeping us in the dark. Or, because the whole thing really emerged during the cold war, maybe the secrecy started for obvious reasons and at some point they realized that disclosure would mean admitting they had lied about the biggest story in human history for half a century, which probably wouldn't sit well. Or maybe "they" know as much as you and I know. Or maybe there's nothing to know. The shadow knows.

Because that issue is weighty and potentially Heebie-Jeebie forming, let's balance it by swinging around 180 degrees, from intriguing and significant to pathetic and insigificant. I've gathered that this is what people like to do when they're confronted with ideas that threaten their entire Gestalt. It's tantamount to being eight years old, sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling NyaNyaNyaNyaNyaNyaNya to drown out your big sister's retort. Yes, let's go waaaay back down to Earth to our pathetic little world of pop culture. Now, I've always liked Elton John's old stuff, and have always respected him despite the crap he's produced for the past two or more decades. But cheers to Elton John for putting Madonna in her place, which ought to be the dusty "where are they now" file, but she's just too loaded to disappear outright.

Achtung Britney, all you worthless boy bands, and everyone else (you know who you are): If you need to lip sync, you're not a performance artist. If you need to lip sync crap, you're approaching the Useless Humanity category. We already know your "songs" are written by studio musicians and ghost writers who are contractually obligated to give you credit, but if you can't take their cookie cutter songs and perform them live, then why do you exist, and how do you sleep?

First thing's first: Why, O why do they call these things debates? There are so many smart people involved in these things, and yet they too call them debates...many of the Ive League pundits and campaign staffers were members of their collegiate debate team. They know better. And yet the misnomer rides on. These things aren't debates. These things are more like simultaneous, competing press conferences. So that's what I'll call it here—an SCPC for short.

Nowthen. Everyone wants to see the post-SCPC poll data. I only saw one, the ABC poll that had Kerry getting 43% of the "SCPC winner" vote and Bush getting 36%. I'm not sure how you can say either candidate won. You can say which candidate made a better impression, or elucidated his ideas better, but won? You can't win a debate when it's not a debate. But enough of that.

George Bush clearly didn't help himself. I imagine even the most ardent Bush supporters were disappointed. He came off as nervous, uncomfortable, and he slurred his speech more than usual. He mispronounced a zillion words, repeated himself...repeatedly, and generally had a look of "please end this". We shouldn't vote based on who's a better orator, or who looks better up there, but I'm sure Bush's advisors will be working overtime to better prepare the presentational aspect of the next debate.

The Kerry folks must have been patting themselves on the back. Kerry has given me the creeps for the past six months or so. And the creeps give me the heebie jeebies. But I have to admit—last night he didn't bother me. Much. I like an effective speaker as much as anyone, and in contrast to Bush's broken sentences and awkward syntax, Kerry was oddly refreshing. He still looks like Frankenstein, but hey. We shouldn't vote based on these things. Still, imagine a giant bolt through his neck. If the bolt fits...

I'm not going to let Kerry's superior communication skills lull me into believing that he's the wiser candidate. I'm not a big fan of "whichever way the wind blows" type of guys, and you have to admit, this guy has a long, wet finger and it's always in the wind. I sense a smugness in Kerry that rears its head every so often. It shows up in subtle expressions as well as blatant assertions. The guy seems to be in need of a big ol' slice of Humble pie.

These things are a lot more interesting when there are 3 candidates. Ross Perot was tons O' fun. Unelectable, but tons O' fun.

Labels: politics