Transcript Of "Deal Or No Deal"

[Dramatic Music]
Hairless Stooge: MONEY!
Plebeans: HURRAH!
Hairless Stooge: MONOTONOUS BEAUTIES!
Plebeans: HURRAH!
Hairless Stooge: SOULLESS BANTER!
Plebeans: LOL!
Middlebrow Shlub: SOULLESS BANTER!
Plebeans: LOL!
Hairless Stooge: HARMLESS GAG!
Plebeans: LOL!
Hairless Stooge: MONEY!
[Dramatic Music]
Hairless Stooge: MONOTONOUS BEAUTIES!
Plebeans: HURRAH!
[Crypto-semitic banker appears in shadows]
Middlebrow Shlub: BOO!
Plebeans: BOO!
[Suitcase is opened]
Hairless Stooge: WINNER!
Plebeans: HURRAH!
Hairless Stooge: LOSER!
Plebeans: AWW!
Hairless Stooge: PEACE, LAND AND BREAD!
Plebeans: HURRAH!
Hairless Stooge: EIN VOLK, EIN REICH, EIN FUHRER!
Plebeans: HURRAH!
Hairless Stooge: OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT AND GIVE POWER TO MANDEL, BEGUILING BALD DISTRIBUTOR OF MONEY AND DISTANT BEAUTY!
[Beerhall putsch]
Plebeans: HEIL MANDEL, HEIL MANDEL!
[Screen goes black]

Death Wish: A Poem For Paul Kersey

Death wish is the state of mind
Of an architect bereaved.
Death wish is how rugged men
Must learn to cope with grief.

Some men pray and wait in church
For God's justice to be done,
Others wait by their door
With a custom Magnum gun.

Yeah, you can wait by your door
With a custom Magnum gun,
Or you can take it outside,
Go and have yourself some fun.

'Cause does it really matter
If you believe in Jesus,
When there's a man with a gun
Who wants for you to meet him?

Some men turn their pinko cheeks,
Saying "Vengeance is still slaughter,"
While the creeps roam the streets
With their eyes on your daughter.

Yeah, you can turn your cheek,
Saying "Vengeance is still slaughter,"
While Paul Kersey takes a stroll
With his snub nose revolver.

So he shoots a three-time rapist
Who'd get a three-year sentence.
This is your America:
Who really has the death wish?

Song Of The Day

I don't know whether I like Richard Ashcroft (best known in America as "that guy who won't stop walking") in spite of or because he thinks he's the Messiah. Regardless, this song stands as one of his greater claims to that title. I admit, I hear what he's saying.

Richard Ashcroft - Check The Meaning

When I'm low, and I'm weak, and I'm lost, I don't know who I can trust,
Paranoia, the destroyer, a-comes knocking on my door,
You know the pain, drifts to days, turns to nights, but it slowly will subside,
And when it does, I'll take a step, I'll take a breath, and wonder what I'll find.

Can you hear what I'm saying,
Got my mind meditating on love, love,
Feel what I'm saying,
Got my mind meditating on love, love

The human condition, the human condition.

Too much blood, too much hate, turn off the set, there's gotta be something more,
When Mohammed, Allah, Buddha, Jesus Christ, are knockin' down my door,
I'm agnostic, in God, but man, she takes a female form,
There's no time, no space, no law, we're out here on our own.

Can you hear what I'm saying,
Got my mind meditating on love, love,
Feel what I'm saying,
Got my mind meditating on love, love.

Check the meaning (the human condition),
Check the feeling (the human condition).

Yes it's life, doing its thing, making you cry, making you think,
Yeah life, dealing its hand, making you cry and you don't understand,
Life's, doing its thing, making you cry now making you think of,
Thing, doing its thing, making you cry yeah making you sing.

Don't say it, don't say it's too late, don't, don't say it's too late, don't, don't say it's too late, don't, don't say it's too late.

The human condition, making decisions,
The human condition, making decisions.

I'm like fish with legs, I fell from the tree, I made a rocket (check the meaning), I made a wheel, (alright), I made a rocket, (check the feeling), I swam the ocean (the meaning), I saw the moon, say a prayer, I saw the universe (and beyond), I see you, (check the feeling), I see me (check the meaning).

That's my reality, and while the city sleeps, we go walking, come on, it's a beautiful world.

And when the city sleeps, we go walking, we find a hole in the sky, and then we start talking, and then you say, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, buy us some time, buy us some time, hear what I'm saying, can you hear what I'm saying, can you hear what I'm saying, can you hear what I'm saying...

Sum Linx 4 U

Alluc.org
Fake Cyrillic Generator
Mithrandir's Gamebook Grotto
New Order Downloads
Nine Inch Nails vs. Bauhaus Downloads
Permanent Autonomous Zone, Operating Manual
Prolegomena to the Great Asia War
Strange Statues Around the World
Ticklopedia
Top Ten Ancient Capitals
War on Terror: The Board Game

The Light Of Morning Pierces Illusion

Let me tell you my thoughts on signs. It is my belief that whether or not God exists, signs do. These signs may or may not be of any significance, but we must assume they are or else life is reduced to a series of random absurdities. "But life is a series of random absurdities!" you and I cry. True, and all the more reason to recognize and embrace signs from above when they come. Of course they are only signs from above when we see them as such, and so I see them as such. I believe in God insofar as he is a thread allowing me to connect moments of significance in my life. And so onwards to my present argument.

Certain life lessons can only be learned while drunk. I woke up at 7 in the morning when the sun is but a cruel joke. My lack of sleep could be a mere coincidence but I demand it be a sign. And so it is. It is a sign that I must record the strange feelings and thoughts that this early morning brings. Sometimes words run dry but sometimes they rush like floods from a forgotten bank. This is my forgotten bank. My love of this world is only increased by the reticence of its inhabitants. Let me explain. Being drunk reduces I, a complexion of thoughts, to a creature of emotion. I find myself seeking what my rational self compresses: love, warmth and such and such.

Yet I find that this world rejects the expressive face of a desperate semite. People grope for advantages and irony and a whisper to their friends. This even while drunk, even while liberated from the unholy hand of the MODERN COMPRESSOR! Women are beautiful creatures but there can be no doubt that they drove Man from Eden. I shall bear no grudges though, I've long determined. Bitterness only harms yourself, so purge that shallow feeling. This is not about men or women or me or them but the whole corrupted mass. Of course I am not innocent of the disease though I recognize the symptoms. "Human, all too human" cried Nietzsche and as usual he was two centuries ahead.

And so this overly emotive drunk sought a companionship, nor even! Merely a repartee, an innocent exchange, with any fellow hater of the unholy leveller of irony and society. Yet even when people get drunk, they do not escape the only reason to get drunk. Namely: the guards they place on themselves. It is my nature to be a sensual creature of the desert. By sensual I do not mean sexual. In fact it is a well-kept secret that I even prefer intimacy to sex, but I will never reveal that not even here. Who knows who could be reading! And it is these inhibitions, I say, which corrode and destroy our poor modern souls.

Why should I care who is reading! What precious secrets do I have to defend! God forbid someone could give two shits about this temporary occupier of space that is I! Am I the only one who feels this way? Fuck irony and secrets and insiderdom in all its incestuous false glory! Yet if anyone else feels this way surely they would reveal it at their state of most open, the drunken state. Yet this Wandering Jew has wandered the bar and found nothing but guarded secrets people are saving for the grave. Women have been hopelessly corrupted by the thought that every man wants them and every other woman is in competition with them. Fine, I won't pretend to understand that mindset. But even the unwanted are beset with preset goals that are, in fact, preset limitations.

An open mind is too much to ask. I am willing to share my soul precisely as I feel it is of no worth otherwise. I live in a cold Anglo-Saxon climate and oh how it shows. I have much admiration for the Anglo-Saxon spirit but my spirit longs for Brazil. Not necessarily Brazil as it exists, but Brazil as I want it to exist. A place where people speak as they feel and gesture to the sun in lieu of trite answers. I have given up on Europe, I have given up on my own People, but let there be a paradisal Brazil. And if there is not, it will exist in my mind and I will forever search for it. The light has crept into the morning. So now I am no longer alone in being awake. A pity.

I feel my spirit dwindling now. Cold analysis is creeping in. A voice is saying that I have revealed too much or I have revealed myself as a fool. Needless to say I despise this voice, this hesitation. I will not bore you with the details but I have known the corrosive vice of self-limitation. I know that I at my most purest will never be accepted as such. I accept shallow retreats like drink and drugs precisely because these give me the illusion that I will be! Yet perhaps what I truly value is the morning after, because it allows for a most intimate piercing of this shell. Drink and drugs provide an illusion and certainly illusion has its place. Yet it is the morning after, the consequences of the pierced illusion, that matters most.

And so I have learned a certain lesson. I would like to fall asleep again and forget this whole thing. Of course I would! History is a nightmare from which I should soon awake, I paraphrase. Yet without history there is nothing and without the shameless open feeling of now there is even less. So I reveal these thoughts and feelings for an imaginary audience but what matters most is the truth of Signs. Namely, that signs exist insofar as I interpret them as such. One doesn't have to believe in God, but one should at least believe that it is a useful illusion. Where would I be without illusion? Back in the bar, trying to recover its preciousness...

Song Of The Day

Darwinism has never sounded so beautiful, triumphant and terrifying.

Swans - Love Of Life

For The Love Of Life
For The Love Of Life
In The Light Of Life
In The Love Of Light
And The Strong Survive
For The Love Of Life
And The Strong Will Rise
In The Endless Light
For The Blood Of Life
For The Love Of Life
In The Bloodless Light
For The Love Of Light
In The Blood Is Light
In The Light Is Life
For The Love Of Life
For The Love Of Life

In The Endless Light
In The Blood Of Life
Now The Strong Will Rise
For The Love Of Light
In The Bloodless Light
Now The Strong Survive
For The Love Of Life
For The Blood Of Life
And The Heavens Come
For The Strongest Ones
In A Universe
Made Of Blood And Love
In The Blood Is Light
In The Light Is Life
For The Love Of Life
For The Love Of Life

Ten Reasons To Love Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

10. He always stands out in a crowd.


9. He enjoys springing from the bushes to the delight of statuesque blondes.


8. He's stone cold handsome, in that he literally looks like he's been sculpted out of cold stone.


7. He enjoys funny hats.


6. Even Muslim girls show him skin.


5. He is actually a hologram.


4. Kids love him. (This is true!)


3. His bodyguard/chargé d'affaires/go-to guy is a shapeless retard who looks like he just escaped from a mental hospital.


2. He was the original RIIIIIIICOOOOOLLLAAAA guy.


1. He is an emissary from the future sent to teach humanity how to love again.

SUPER FUNTIME BONUS REASON:

He got Bush back on (off?) the wagon.

See also: Ten Reasons India Is The Greatest Subcontinent On Earth

Who Says Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Doesn't Love Jews?

People are people so why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully

So we're different colours
And we're different creeds
And different people have different needs
It's obvious you hate me
Though I've done nothing wrong
I never even met you
So what could I have done

I can't understand
What makes a man
Hate another man
Help me understand

People are people so why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully

Help me understand

Now you're punching and you're kicking
And you're shouting at me
I'm relying on your common decency
So far it hasn't surfaced
But I'm sure it exists
It just takes a while to travel
From your head to your fist

I can't understand
What makes a man
Hate another man

Help me understand

Music Over People

I don't usually post random links, but if you like reading extremely offbeat music reviews (and who wouldn't!), I'd recommend Mark Prindle. He has an absurd sense of humour I relate to, a sense of obsessive record-collecting I relate to and I basically spent six hours at his site so what more can I say. I like more "professional" music reviewers too, like Trouser Press, but their windbag tone can get grating; particularly one Ira Robbins, who is to music as Human Rights Watch is to war. (He takes all the fun out of it.) This is popular music, not the New York Review of Books! I'm not saying every review should be written drunk and include rape jokes and soliloquys about balls, as is Prindle's wont, but there comes a point where academic becomes indistinguishable from inhuman. Being human, all too human, I'd rather feel pathos with a fellow soul than suck at the teat of Official Opinion.

Someone once said "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture," but Prindle gets closer to the mark than most because he invokes the subjectivity, absurdity and memories music truly evokes. People doing a PHD on Motorhead are missing the fucking point. Pitchfork Media sometimes attempts a sense of humour, but they still come off as politically correct wonks with English degrees instead of souls. It's ironic because they profess to favour the rhythmic and loose tone of popular rap, while exhibiting none of those qualities in their writing. I love a lot of what is classified as indie music, but I hate that indie mindset that only likes what is pre-approved by a committee of wankers. I like music because it evokes certain moods and memories, because it's a good outlet for my escapism and obsessiveness and because it reinforces my fundamental article of faith. Namely that out of the absurdities and degradations and pettiness of daily living some beauty can be found.

The reason I still buy CDs while downloading mp3s is because it feels real to me. That's the same reason I like history. History invokes a sense of the real, it speaks of times and people that mattered. I'm not saying that feeling doesn't exist today, but certainly it's been weakened by the present spirit of the times. Music lifts me to that state of drama. It makes my emotions feel like they matter. It lifts me higher than the money-ordained urge to fuck and buy. If I ramble it is because life is a ramble. I don't believe in a utopia or love, just little moments of nostalgia and peace. If certain elements of life can take me there, then I beseech their company. People aren't reliable but the beauty of a melody is. The present is too big to be grasped but the past can be parceled into stories, and stories can have meaning. I can latch on to it and feel real, or at the very least feel that the real once existed. I too could be a song. The future could quake with our aftershocks. That possibility still exists. Remote, probably, but I can hear a hint of it sometimes. Sometimes I must smoke or drink to get a taste of it, but the purest kind comes when I'm pure too.

In a roundabout way I guess I'm saying that I value authenticity. Kind of like what rappers mean by keeping it real except in an educated way. I try for that here and if I fail I'm happy to be called on it. Maybe not happy but willing to explore the possibility. Like when I wrote that I don't believe in love I was partly serious, but also just partly bitter. I realize these hidden motivations and I try to fight them, but they emerge here and there regardless. Again, music. Music makes me feel that these minor things have meaning. Sadness isn't just a random chemical imbalance, it's an epic ballad. Anger isn't just misdirected frustration, it's a pounding masterpiece of industrial-metal. I'd like to imagine so, at any rate, and if the alternative is to be cynical then fuck cynical. I am cynical of course, but only when it comes to humanity. Ideas and music and stories and art, on the other hand, I'm happy to sacrifice myself for. This probably makes me an asshole but I have my headphones on and just don't care.

Ten Best Song Titles Of The Atomic Age

Titles courtesy of ATOMIC PLATTERS: COLD WAR MUSIC FROM THE GOLDEN AGE OF HOMELAND SECURITY:

10. "Get That Communist, Joe" by The Kavaliers
9. "My Radiation Baby (My Teenage Fallout Queen)" by George McKelvey
8. "They Locked God Outside the Iron Curtain" by Jim Eanes
7. "Mr. Stalin You're Eating Too High Off The Hog" by Arthur 'Guitar Boogie' Smith and his Crackerjacks
6. "(My) Fallout Filly (With The Atomic Kiss)" by Chris Cerf
5. "Bert The Turtle (The Duck And Cover Song)" by Dick 'Two Ton' Baker
4. "I Dreamt I Saw Khrushchev (In A Pink Cadillac)" by Walker Edmiston
3. "Watch World War Three (On Pay TV)" by Crown City Four
2. "The Bear Flew Over The Ocean" by Jimmie Driftwood
1. "Jesus Is God's Atomic Bomb" by Swan's Silvertone Singers

Whitesnake Never!

I found myself at a keg party predominated by fratboys last night. The song "Here I Go Again" by Whitesnake came on and they all start singing along. There was no irony involved, and those who weren't singing along got accusatory stares. This to me is everything that's wrong with fraternities. It's not so much the prescribed uniform of dress shirts, the strangely cult-like earnestness or the disregard of everyone not fitting into their social paradigm that bothers me, it's the Whitesnake. It's the fact that people who don't sing along with it are deemed untermenschen. Whitesnake are not, were not and will never be cool. I understand that the isolation and anomie of modern life causes people to seek organizational order. I understand that the feminization of mass culture can cause men to seek refuge in a quasi-homoerotic context. I understand and sympathize with all of this. But I can't understand or sympathize with Whitesnake. I must draw the line and say, "Here you go again, but you're on your own." Death to false metal! Oh, and fuck Ratt too.

Ten Former Countries I Wish Were Still Around

10. Central African Empire


9. Munich Soviet Republic


8. Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights


7. Pyrate Utopia of Libertatia


6. Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia


5. Free State of Fiume


4. Warrior-Rabbinate of Khazaria


3. Viking Republic of Vinland


2. Indo-Greek Kingdom


1. Tawantinsuyu (Inca Empire)

Wikipedia Category Of The Day

Category:People_executed_by_single_firearm

A Bunch Of Albums I Want To Own

Why am I listing a bunch of albums I want? Quite simply because I can't sleep, I'm bored, I find list-making soothing, I like collecting albums and I like being self-indulgent. Some I haven't bought yet because I can't find them anywhere, some because I'm waiting for a good price and some because I'm content to get to them eventually at a leisurely pace. On with the show:

Afghan Whigs - Congregation
Arab Strap - Ten Years of Tears
At the Drive-In - Relationship of Command
Atmosphere - God Loves Ugly
Bark Psychosis - Independency
Bauhaus - Mask
Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath
Blood of Abraham - Eyedollartree
Blue Oyster Cult - Secret Treaties
David Bowie - Heroes
David Bowie - Low
Leonard Cohen - Songs of Love and Hate
Constantines - Shine a Light
Chris Connelly - Shipwreck
Chris Connelly - Whiplash Boychild
Clutch - Elephant Riders
Clutch - Pure Rock Fury
Cop Shoot Cop - Ask Questions Later
Course of Empire - Course of Empire
Depeche Mode - Black Celebration
Doves - Lost Souls
Eazy-E - It's on (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa
Echo & The Bunnymen - Ocean Rain
Eels - Daisies of the Galaxy
Einstürzende Neubauten - Tabula Rasa
Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets
Faith No More - Album of the Year
Firewater - The Man on the Burning Tightrope
God Machine - Songs from the Second Storey
Herman Düne - Switzerland Heritage
Idlewild - The Remote Part
Interpol - Antics
Isis - Oceanic
Killing Joke - Brighter Than a Thousand Suns
Killing Joke - Revelation
Kino - Gruppa Krovi
Kraftwerk - The Mix
Kyuss - Blues for the Red Sun
Kyuss - Welcome to Sky Valley
Liars - They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument On Top
Mark Lanegan - Bubblegum
Mark Lanegan - Whiskey for the Holy Ghost
March Violets - Botanic Verses
Mclusky - The Difference Between Me and You Is That I'm Not on Fire
Ministry - Side Trax
Mission of Burma - Signals, Calls, And Marches
Mogwai - Come On Die Young
Morphine - Yes
Motorhead - 1916
Motorhead - No Remorse
Motorhead - No Sleep Till Hammersmith
Mr. Bungle - Disco Volante
New Fast Automatic Daffodils - Pigeonhole
New Model Army - Thunder and Consolation
Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile
Noir Desir - Tostaky
Outkast - Aquemini
Pavement - Wowee Zowee
Pharcyde - Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde
Pinback - Summer in Abaddon
Iggy Pop - The Idiot
Iggy Pop - Lust for Life
Quickspace - Precious Falling
Quickspace - Quickspace
Roots Manuva - Awfully Deep
Siouxsie and The Banshees - Once Upon A Time
Sisters of Mercy - Vision Thing
The Sound - From the Lions Mouth
Stooges - Raw Power
Sunny Day Real Estate - How it Feels to be Something On
Swans - Children of God
Swans - The Great Annihilator
Swans - White Light from the Mouth of Infinity
Swervedriver - Ejector Seat Reservation
Talking Heads - Fear of Music
Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings and Food
Talking Heads - Naked
Talking Heads - Talking Heads '77
This Heat - Deceit
Theatre of Tragedy - Assembly
Three Mile Pilot - Another Desert, Another Sea
Tones on Tail - Everything!
Tricky - Maxinquaye
Tricky - Pre-Millennial Tension
Truly - Feeling You Up
Ugly Casanova - Sharpen Your Teeth
John Vanderslice - Cellar Door
Wipers - Youth of America
Bill Withers - Live at Carnegie Hall
World Domination Enterprises - Let's Play Domination
XTC - Skylarking
Young Gods - Second Nature
Young Gods - TV Sky

Secret Map Of Islamic World Domination

Click to zoom.

Ten Suprising Aspects Of Islamic World Domination

1. Denmark will still generously be granted dominion over Greenland--though it will be reduced to a blackened crater
2. Canada will be incorporated into the United States, to be henceforth known as "United Amorphous Mass of Women, Jews and Other Things We Don't Like"
3. Japan will be renamed "Bye Bye Kitty, Hello Quran"
4. Ocean and sea will apparently become synonyms
5. Israel will continue to exist (even after 100 years)!
6. A giant Islamic flag will be built off the northern coast of Turkey to be visible from space
7. All cartoonists will be exiled to the Philippines, to be renamed Simpsonia
8. That island north of Scandinavia will be renamed "Place Where Gays Are Sent to Freeze"
9. Brazil will be nuked for possessing too many scantily-clad sexy women
10. In order to ease the pain of banning music, kites, sex for pleasure and Jews, cookies will be freely distributed to all*

See also: Secret Map of the Elders of Zion

* Though the cookies will be made of camel hooves

The Only Man In America Who Knows What's Really Going On

While I may have implied in a previous post that dictatorship is the most entertaining form of government, democracy has its moments too. God bless Citizens Forums. Plus, he just might be on to something!

Re: The Donald Trump/Rosie O'Donnell Feud

"It's a shame they can't both lose."
- Henry Kissinger, in reference to the Iran-Iraq War

Rock Against Freedom: A Tribute To Dictators

Head Wide Open Records is proud to present Rock Against Freedom: A Tribute To Dictators, the only compilation album to ever feature tracks from both Pink Floyd and Anal Cunt, plus The Lox featuring Lil Kim & DMX. The best artists from every relevant musical genre--grindcore, hardcore punk, industrial, arena rock and Bad Boy-era hip hop--have come together to celebrate that much-maligned symbol of the twentieth century, the dictator. Who can deny that the resplendent Shah of Iran, who once had his air force scatter 17,432 roses (each representing a day of his life) over Tehran on his forty-eighth birthday, was the political equivalent of Freddy Mercury? Or that 50 Cent, valuing nothing but personal loyalty and gold, is the type of person typically running Liberia? As of late, the non-free world has been devastated by the recent deaths of veteran tyrants Saddam Hussein and Augusto Pinochet, as well as the debilitation of the seemingly immortal Fidel Castro. Even Muammar al-Qaddafi, undisputed leader of Libya and supervillain mastermind, has been pacified by the lure of Western reconciliation. With the rise of the terrorist as the new public enemy #1, the classic authoritarian dictator has been brushed to the sidelines. While Kim Jong-il continues to hold the fort for the beleaguered forces of international socialism, even his semi-successful nuke tests seem more a desperate cry for attention than anything else.

Whither Peronism, Titoism, Ceauşism, militant anti-communism, absolute monarchy and even secular pan-Arab nationalism? In the heady days of the Cold War, both the Left and the Right could count on friendly tyrants to make excuses for. On the communist side: the more-Marxist-than-thou Enver Hoxha, self-proclaimed "Genius of the Carpathians" Nicolae Ceauşescu, the slippery Ho Chi Minh, original North Korean bad-boy Kim Il-sung and the only man ever able to hold the south Slavs together, Tito. On the Right-is-right side: anti-communist watchdog Augusto Pinochet, Paraguayan Nazi patron Alfredo Stroessner, Chinese nationalist holdout Chiang Kai-shek, the ever-luxuriant Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Samuel Doe, Reagan's Liberian shoe-shine boy. Now there's an ideological battle royale! Plus, of course, there was the rogue's gallery of the simply batshit crazy: jovial cannibal Idi Amin, self-proclaimed Emperor of Central Africa Jean-Bédel Bokassa, voodoo kingpin François "Papa Doc" Duvalier and Pol Pot, the only socialist to ever make Stalin look good. America had their boys, the Soviets had their boys and even France managed to keep a few African despots in their stable. Plus you had your miscellaneous rump-fascists in Iberia, wiley Arab autocrats and a few lone wolfs here and there to spice up the dish.

Now? Hugo Chavez talks a big talk in South America, but his taste for bravado has been notably short of action. Africa is still full of two-bit tyrants, but none of them have the colour of the resplendent god-chiefs of yesteryear. The regime in Myanmar is tough but colourless, Syria can barely bring itself to domineer Lebanon anymore and Belarus's Lukashenko is a two-bit Russian stooge. Of course there's the Great and Little Satan-baiter in Iran, but Ahmadinejad's nuclear saber-rattling and apocalyptic fanaticism don't change his status as a plebean stooge of the Ayatollahs. A dictator should be humble before no one, least of all God and his moth-ridden (quoth the Shah) so-called representatives on earth. Say what you will about the fascists and Stalinists of yore, but at least they put on some kick-ass parades. The Taliban and their jihadist ilk would ban parades, and even the wholesome music featured on this compilation. Their rhetoric is repetitive, their agenda is unoriginal and their methodology is hopelessly nihilistic even by other terrorists' standards. Mussolini and Stalin may not have agreed on much (see "Mussolini Vs. Stalin" by Gogol Bordello), but they could agree that religion should leave the dictating to the dictators. On that nostalgic note, here's an album to remind us of the way things were:

Full Tracklisting:

1. "One Vision" by Queen - 4:38
2. "In The Flesh" by Pink Floyd - 4:16
3. "Outside The Trains Don't Run On Time" by Gang of Four - 3:27
4. "Dictators Are Cool" by Anal Cunt - 0:35
5. "Money, Power, Respect" by The Lox featuring Lil Kim & DMX - 4:35
6. "Freedom Of Speech Won't Feed My Children" by Manic Street Preachers - 3:00
7. "Idi Amin" by K9's - 1:59
8. "Funkahdafi" by Front 242 - 3:16
9. "Der Mussolini" by D.A.F. - 4:01
10. "Blues For Ceauşescu" by Fatima Mansions - 6:19
11. "Mao Tse Tung" by MDC - 0:54
12. "Shah Shah A-Go-Go" by The Stranglers - 4:50
13. "Hitler Was A Sensitive Man" by Anal Cunt - 0:49
14. "Amazin' Man" by Idi Amin - 4:56
15. "Il Duce" by Big Black - 3:16
16. "Mussolini Vs. Stalin" by Gogol Bordello - 2:43
17. "Stalin Wasn't Stallin'" by Robert Wyatt - 3:23
18. "North Korea Goes Bang" by Ultraviolence - 4:45
19. "Adolph Hitler" by The Doors - 0:12
20. "Godlike" by KMFDM - 6:30
21. "We Don't Need Freedom" by Saccharine Trust - 1:26
22. "Master Race Rock" by The Dictators - 4:15
23. "Follow The Leaders" by Killing Joke - 4:55
24. "Geburt Einer Nation [One Vision Reprise]" by Laibach - 4:21

Total Running Time: 83:09

Teddy Roosevelt Anecdote Of The Day/A Question For The Ages

"The president proceeded to sound out the Russian ambassador [on the subject of the Russo-Japanese war], who initially replied with what Roosevelt called 'his usual rigmarole, to the effect that Russia was fighting the battles of the white race.' Roosevelt answered this with a query as to why, then, Russia treated other white people so badly."
- Theodore Roosevelt: The Last Romantic by H.W. Brands, page 533

My Ten Favourite Bands

#10 Band: Catherine Wheel
Favourite Album: Happy Days
Favourite Song: "Eat My Dust, You Insensitive Fuck"
Collection: Five albums


#9 Band: Course of Empire
Favourite Album: Telepathic Last Words
Favourite Song: "Persian Song"
Collection: Three albums, one poster, one cassette, one DVD


#8 Band: Black Sabbath
Favourite Album: Master of Reality
Favourite Song: "Into the Void"
Collection: Two cassettes (!), two albums


#7 Band: Pixies
Favourite Album: Surfer Rosa
Favourite Song: "Hey"
Collection: Three albums, one poster, one bootleg DVD, two concert stubs, one shirt


#6 Band: Joy Division
Favourite Album: Closer
Favourite Song: "Transmission"
Collection: Three albums, one tribute album, one poster


#5 Band: Nirvana
Favourite Album: In Utero
Favourite Song: "Drain You"
Collection: Six albums, one shirt, one poster, two books


#4 Band: Radiohead
Favourite Album: OK Computer
Favourite Song: "Let Down"
Collection: Six albums, one poster


#3 Band: Killing Joke
Favourite Album: Killing Joke
Favourite Song: "Aeon"
Collection: Five albums


#2 Band: Modest Mouse
Favourite Album: The Lonesome Crowded West
Favourite Song: "Doin' the Cockroach"
Collection: Six albums, one EP, one shirt, one concert stub


#1 Band: Jane's Addiction
Favourite Album: Ritual de Lo Habitual
Favourite Song: "Summertime Rolls," live versions especially
Collection: Five albums, four side-project/related albums, one bootleg, one shirt, one concert stub, one poster

Honourable Mentions: Siouxsie & the Banshees, Bauhaus, Tool, Talking Heads, Pavement, Big Black, Girls Against Boys, Pink Floyd, Young Gods

Happy New Year's Or, As It's Called In Turkmenistan, Niyazov Day #365

U2 sang that "Nothing changes on New Year's Day," and while I slept in till 5:30 today, it seems that quite a few exciting events have recently passed. Most importantly, the death of the world's last great dictator. Yes, I am referring to Saparmurat Niyazov, the Turkmenbashi, immortal ruler of Turkmenistan and author of the epic Ruhnama. The world has lost an astoundingly eccentric ruler and we are all the poorer for it. While that "other" recently deceased dictator Saddam Hussein beat the tired dead horse of pan-Arabism, the Turkmenbashi pursued a trailblazing course of magnetic Central Asian monumentalism. Shine on you crazy, ballet and beard-banning diamond. A few other egomaniacal bon vivants have died recently as well, including former President James Brown and Godfather of Funk Gerald Ford. While neither will have as lasting an impact on history or my heart as the Turkmenbashi, they will surely take their places as important footnotes to the wider zeitgeist of 2007, Year of the Turkmen. Have a Happy New Year's or, as it's called in Turkmenistan, Niyazov Day #365.