Red Right Blog |
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Rants, Rates, Slags, Slates. Manic-depressive posts from Red Wright-Hand. Because there are thousands of worthless blogs out there and who am I not to add to their number?
Total US troop deaths in Iraq to date (09/01/07) since 03/20/03: 3739
From 05/02/03 through 06/28/04: 718 Myeloma (etc.) Blogs
Adventures of Cancer Girl Browse
Arts & Letters Daily
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Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Monday, June 28, 2004
No I didn't see Fahrenheit 9/11 this weekend, on account of the long lines and sold-out shows I never like to deal with under any circumstances, not to mention I spent much of Sunday afternoon helping out with a voter registration drive. But I expect to see it sometime this week...meanwhile, if you've seen it yourself, please send your comments, which I will cheerfully post. Friday, June 25, 2004
You know, I'm really sick and tired of all the one-sided palaver we continue to hear about Ronald Reagan almost three weeks after his death. I think it's high time somebody said something nice about him for a change. And who better to do that than sweet-tempered Miles Davis... Swear to God, it's true. On page 378 of his autobiography (published 1989), the Prince of Darkness Himself wrote (or spoke to Quincy Troupe, if you will): "When I met the President [in 1987] I wished him good luck in trying to do what he was doing, and he said, 'Thanks, Miles, because I'm going to need it.' He's a nice enough guy when you meet him in person. I guess he was doing the best he could....Reagan was nice to us, respectful and everything." When I remembered that Miles Fucking Davis said that about Reagan, I understood that all the stories of Reagan's legendary charm really had to be true. Any white man who could get Miles Unbefuckinglievably Fucking Davis to say that about him HAD to be one primo smoothie. All the more so as Davis (who met Reagan during a tribute to Ray Charles, eerily enough) had this to say about the rest of the evening: "That was a hell of a feeling I had down there in Washington, feeling embarassed because those white people down there who are running the country don't understand nothing about black people and don't want to know! It was sickening to be put in a position where you've got to teach dumbass white people who really don't want to know in the first place, but feel obligated to ask them silly questions...And the President sitting up there and don't know what to say. Man, they should have written down something hip for him to say, but they ain't got nobody hip nowhere around him. Just a bunch of sorry motherfuckers...When we left, I told Cicely [Tyson, his then-wife], 'Don't you ever as long as you fucking live bring me to no more of this shit, make me feel sad for white folks. I'd rather have my heart fail doing some other shit than I would have it fail doing some sorry shit like this. Let me run my Ferrari into a bus or something.'...After this, I knew it was over between us and didn't want to have anything to do with her." By the way, the entirety of Davis' thoroughly absorbing autobiography, all 448 pages of it, is in this vein. And Reagan charmed this guy? God, I suppose it's true.... Wednesday, June 23, 2004
I'm way too beat to post a detailed account of last night's David Foster Wallace reading at the Free Library of Philadelphia. But until I do, here's a scan of (merely one page from) my now-officially-DFW-approved notes compiled while reading Infinite Jest (any resemblance to certain LP cover purely unintentional). Tuesday, June 22, 2004
FORGOT TO CARRY THE "2": "The State Department said today that global terrorism in 2003 killed or wounded more than twice as many people as the department had reported earlier. The department said the earlier report was based on flawed calculations...The revised report said that 3,646 people were wounded in terror attacks last year, more than double the 1,593 cited in [the original 'Patterns of Global Terrorism' report published in April, 2004], and a substantial increase from the 2,013 in 2002." Full article in today's New York Times (free registration required). "Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of 'dissenting" bravery.'" Christopher Hitchens goes after Michael Moore big-time in today's edition of Slate. Friends have questioned my own criticism of Moore, but all I say today is: please read Hitchens' comments in full, then e-mail me with any comments, which I'll be happy to post. Monday, June 21, 2004
UPDATE OR DIE: Both Moby Lives and Harvey Pekar have been removed from my Browser Hall of Noteworthiness. In their stead, I give you The Farting Dot. Saturday, June 19, 2004
Then, if you're not too exhausted, try this future-First-Lady-and-President double-feature this weekend: Donovan's Brain and The Killers (1964). Then try recalling all those Reagan tributes with a straight face. FOR THE SOLO TRAVELER: CNN.com profiles Onancock, a small town on Virginia's Eastern Shore which I had the solitary pleasure of visiting last summer. And what a pleasure it was! It's amazing how much fun you can have by yourself in Onancock. Seriously, this is one jerkwater burg you'll want to come back to again and again. Don't forget to stop by the seed store downtown...just be sure to have them double-bag your purchase; you don't want it spilling all over the ground, do you? Yessir, no visit to Virginia is complete without taking a whack at Onancock. Wednesday, June 16, 2004
QUICK, WHILE IT'S STILL JUNE 16TH: I am going to risk sounding pompous, I am going to risk sounding troglodytic. To begin, my credentials: I first read Ulysses in its entirety almost 20 years ago (this book by Stuart Gilbert helped) and the novel remains one of my very favorites, a work of art so thumpingly good (and comical) that I still enjoy any one of its randomly-turned-to pages, continue to quote certain lines from memory, continue to believe that its 17th chapter is the greatest sustained achievement in English prose ever. That being said, the present so-called "Bloomsday centennial" is something of a crock. Anything that promotes James Joyce and his unique accomplishments is fine with me, but...TODAY IS NOT THE CENTENNIAL OF BLOOMSDAY! Ulysses was originally published in February 1922, which, I will argue, means that the fictional day in June 16th, 1904 it celebrates (as opposed to the real-deal calendrical June 16th, 1904) is REALLY ONLY 82 YEARS OLD! I know, I'm anal, I'm a party-pooper, I need a good therapist, but nevertheless, THE FICTIONAL BLOOMSDAY OF ULYSSES IS REALLY ONLY 82 YEARS OLD. ITS CENTENNIAL WILL PROPERLY OCCUR IN 2022. Just you try it on.... Sunday, June 13, 2004
"I'm really embarrassed for this nation, and for MTV and VH1 and Rolling Stone, because it was a very racist thing not to acknowledge [jazz drummer Elvin Jones] when he passed...For them to (play up) Ozzy Osbourne and other corny-ass white people, but not Elvin, is demeaning and I'm really embarrassed to live in this country." Carlos Santana speaks his mind for the San Diego Union-Tribune on the recent passing of Elvin Jones and the lack of media attention thereof. My new hero. Thanks to bassist Mike Watt for posting this on his mailing list. Saturday, June 12, 2004
Looks like readership is really picking up around here; some days I get as many as 6 unique hits! Thanks to all browsers, and perhaps I should have given y'all a heads-up about my being on the road (from the 9th thru the 12th) and not particularly able to sit down and blog. Business travel, you see. Work. Oh where? Sunny Tampa, FL, and now at last I fully realize that while there is a body of water named Tampa Bay, and a generally defined land area around same (consisting largely, it appears, of Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater) that goes by that name, there is in point of fact no city named Tampa Bay. But there is a Tampa, I can attest to that, with a deservedly storied, Old-World-flavored neighborhood called Ybor City, at least one terrific restaurant I am compelled to plug, and a smart-alec President-Bush-hating-but-not-the-lapdance-kind-of-bush-hating stripclub owner with a penchant for eye-catching banners, one of which was hugely visible from the front of my hotel at all times. Monday, June 07, 2004
Meanwhile (once again): Earlier this evening I passed through Philadelphia's more-or-less-finally-revitalized downtown district on my way home from work, and decided to stick my head in at the Broad Street Border's to check the crowd awaiting David Sedaris. It was vast! And getting vaster! Well over an hour before the beginning of his scheduled appearance! As much as I enjoy Sedaris' writing, I wasn't going to hack this mob, and I turned to go, when who should pass directly by me, escorted by a store employee, but Mr. Sedaris himself, ker-fuffling in his unmistakable voice. Great timing, eh? So I left. Certainly got my money's worth. Like I was saying: "[T]he fact is, huge swaths of [Philadelphia] voted against [Reagan] in 1980 and again in 1984. His fiscal policies helped bring the city to the brink of bankruptcy. And his conservative views not only made Philadelphia one of the most Democratic cities in the country but eventually pushed away the once pro-GOP suburbs." Read the whole article here. Free registration required. Sunday, June 06, 2004
MEANWHILE: In case there was any doubt the horse was ultimately from Philadelphia.... Just as well, I suppose. The way they were hyping Smarty Jones in all the pre-race bullshit, I thought they were going to breed him with Britney Spears right there on the finish line. RONALD W. REAGAN, 93, CLAIMS "CAN'T RECALL DYING": Bob Hope...Katharine Hepburn...Ronald Reagan...when will this pitiless litany of tragic death ever cease? How many more icons of American culture will meet their untimely ends before the national psyche is permanently shattered? Let us give thanks for the great legacy of the Reagan Presidency, the lasting accomplishments of those eight years: the unquenchable burgeoning of hip-hop, a really impressive string of small-label rock bands, network broadcasts of SCTV, the mainstreaming of condoms, the small-plastic-vial market and the related car-window-repair industry (special discounts for downtown urban residents). But mostly, when I remember the swelling numbers of mentally-ill homeless folks who appeared on the streets of Philadelphia and New York (to say nothing of other American cities with which I am unfamiliar) in the 1980s, and then think of Reagan's last decade of life lost to Alzheimer's Disease...I fucking laugh out loud! Unless, of course, he was Alzheimer's by choice. Friday, June 04, 2004
POST-MEMORIAL DAY ANNOUNCEMENT: The latest in simulated military-funeral gadgetry. If only Philip Dick were alive to appreciate this... Thursday, June 03, 2004
RUTH IS STRANGER THAN DAVID: Two days ago, Michiko Kakutani laid into David Foster Wallace's new book, Oblivion (free registration required), and perhaps a bit unfairly; I haven't fully read Oblivion yet but have read at least three of the stories contained in the collection, as they appeared in magazines previously, and while I have my problems with Mr. Wallace, I find his work can't be dismissed so off-handedly, certainly not for the squeamish reasons given by Kakutani. Case in point: the same Monday edition of the New York Times in which the book review was printed also ran this article about a peculiarly-named Princeton senior who fed almost a decade's worth of New Yorker fiction into a database in order to detect statistical trends in that mag's editors' publication habits, and if that ain't an instance of a DFW-style OCD missing-the-spirit-for-the-forensic-details character breaking into real life, then I don't know what is. Wednesday, June 02, 2004
Search items that have brought select individuals to this blog: Orwell Rolls in his Grave Cha Chi and Joanie Joanie Loves Trotsky Tayeb Salih and Pulitzer Uma Thurman's feet Naked Actors Photograph, Penis Tuesday, June 01, 2004
Three video clips from The Fall's April 9 appearance at NYC's Knitting Factory are available herein. (Courtesy Punkcast.) SEE Mark E. Smith redefine insouciance by singing and chewing gum at the same time! HEAR the much-too-trebly videocam soundtrack! STRUGGLE to make out Elenor Smith's voice in the mix! |
