Craig's List

I've been using this site for years for so much. Now I'm hunting for a place to live with it. If you have a moment and are familiar with the resources or good housing agents, please send me some links!

National Rock Anthem?

I love a good rock anthem! I get bored with national anthems and I wonder why new ones haven't been popularized? I mean, couldn't we write a better pledge of allegence? Why do we lie to ourselves? Maybe we should write a different pledge like "liberty for the rich... something about capitalism and a foreign policy based off of corporate interests rather than civil rights?" I should start a band and write a new rockin' anthem! I'm currently taking applications for bandmates, booking agents and managers.

Pollution & Clean Up

I've decided in the next few years I want to visit all of the endangered landscapes. I want to see all of the mountains peaks covered in snow. I have to do it now, because in a few years it will be too late. Environmental scientists have showed in empirical terms that these peaks will be brown and barren in just a few years.

At the Moscow Environmental Summit, President Bush & the Russian Premiere Vlad Putin joked about how it would be good and that we might not need to spend as much money on fur coats. What stupid fucks? Who elected these chodes?

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, House Majority Leader Tom Delay of Texas, Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici of New Mexico and other senior Republicans met in private hearing two weeks ago to draft a new energy bill. Ranking senior democratic officials on the energy commission were locked out of the meeting.

On top of this the Republican government has proposed an energy bill aims to offer some $16 billion in incentives and tax credits for oil and gas drilling, coal-fired power plants, new nuclear plants, ethanol and other programs. The bulk of the incentives are for carbon gas producing industries coal & oil. The legislation is the first major overhaul of U.S. energy policy in a decade. They claim that they are doing this because of the blackout from last August. But the real reason is that they will surely secure millions of dollars back from energy conglomerates in campaign donations this coming election. Especially from producers who along with their product create pollution. Companies that create PCBs, Deoxytoxins and MTBE.

Now let me tell you what I know about MTBE and other proven carcinogens. Democrats and scientists world wide want these chemicals banned. Put it this way... If you had a cigarette sized sample of MTBE in you, you'd die a slow hard death. PCB's trigger a cascade effect of hormones that should not be started in humans until much later in life. In other organisms it causes neurological defect. Delay opposes a ban and wants language that would protect MTBE producers from liability lawsuits. There has never been such a blatant disregard for the health and safety of constituents who drink water. These guys want to play with the public health and safety and limit liability of corporations pollute.

He is banking on the public being ill-informed. So email your house and senate reps. Make sure this doesn't pass. This law is EVIL. It puts corporate directly over public. This law is bad for anyone unfortunate enough to drink water.

Need money? Here are some interesting alternatives to work:

There are a few people I know who are looking for a few extra bucks. In college towns and cities across the country plasma donation banks have popped up. They will pay you roughly $30 to drain plasma from your body. Plasma is VERY important to research, but even MORE IMPORTANT to the health of your body. Please try to refrain donating plasma on a regular basis. Loss of that much plasma makes you susceptible to so many things I don't even have to tell you... but there are alternatives.
If you fall on hard times your body can become a powerful commodity for research organizations who scrupulously test pharmaceuticals. For instance, I could pimp my body out to a clinical research organization, be a guinie pig. If you wanted to do something like this there is a website called MOOT REALM which has an extensive list of study sites, both in the USA & Europe. As many of you who read this already know I used to work as a study technician for a Phase I clinical lab. I will be the first to warn you to read the possible adverse events that might occur from taking a drug. The average pay for a study harbors around two hundred dollars a day, give or take thirty.

Kid Koala at the Abbey Pub

I'm a huge fan of Kid Koala. I don't see him as just a spinner/scratcher... what he does can be more like jazz at times. He is in the midst of the "Short attention Span Theatre Tour." All of the DJs were incredible. The played their own sets, and then jammed together. The whole show was a wacky sit down affair which did, in fact, include several short animation videos and Koala scratching his Assman (a german dictaphone), and BINGO.

The first time I saw Kid Koala was New Year's Eve in '96 (?) with the John Spencer Blues Explosion at the Metro in Chicago with my friends Tim, Mark, Bill & Josh. Koala spun a set of hiphop/funk from soundtracks over the years including: Monty Python's Holy Grail, Colors, and Empire Strikes Back to name a few. He had stolen the show, but the promoters limited his set to forty-five minutes. Since then Kid Koala has been very busy. He works with DJs, animators, jazz musicians, and rock bands like Radiohead, Bullfrog, and Del the Funky Homosapien (Deltron 3030).

More about Kid Koala? A'ight!
Name: Eric San
Home: Montreal, Canada
YoB: 1975
Label: Ninja Tune Records
His website: Kidkoala.com

The Beginnings of a Good Horror Movie

Dane County, WI is facing a similar budget crisis as many other counties across the US. One way the government can raise revenue is via the sale of land. The land Dane County has slated for sale is next to the Badger Prairie Mental Institution. This has been the home to the criminally insane, dangers to society along with the poor, the homeless, the misdiagnosed and otherwise uninsured men and women who have been unfortunate enough to be sent there for treatment over the last hundred and fifty years.
Many of the "clients" I worked with at a supportive living program were rescued from the conditions of the facility. Some of our "clients" who were sporatically abusive to others and themselves would be told (as policy) if they didn't attempt to control their violent behavior they may be sent back there for their own safety and the protection of the community. If you could only know how they feared that place and the look in their faces almost to say "anything but that... I'll be good. I'll be good." That aside, Dane County has slated several acres of land adjacent to the facility for sale and has included the revenue of sale in next year's budget.
There is a small problem with this land, however. It seems for almost a seventy years after the civil war, Badger Prairie has been burying these aforementioned unfortunate souls in unmarked graves scattered across the land. Documentation regarding the locations of the corpses is scarce and historians and officials believe the entire lot was used and filled with hundreds and hundreds of bodies. The County government will try to remove all of the bodies from the ground... if they can find them prior to the sale.
And what of matters of the soul in transactions such as these? What if there were even darker, more cryptic entities buried beneath that memory has forgot? Maybe some soils are better left undisturbed and fallow.

Return to Madison

I had to return to Madison to wrap up some affairs on Thursday October 9th and returned to Chicago feeling lionized. Five years previously, String Cheese Incident played at the Barrymore Theatre as a Stewsday Production. As 10/9 is the anniverary of John Lennon's birthday, the show was dedicated to him.
Anyhow, I had barely pulled into the city before I saw familiar faces waving and smiling. It was good to return to my adopted home after being away for so long, if even just for a visit. An old aquaintance who saw me first walked up to me and asked me if I was here for the Keller Williams concert. I told him I wasn't, but I knew that I had to see him perform. Most of you reading this right now know because of my promotion history that I worked with Keller years earlier. He is a highly skilled performer who plays more instruments than most bands do. His guitar style is somewhere above Michael Hedges and Leo Kottke. Keller also multi-layers his performance using a multitrack digital delay so he can sample himself and switch instruments to sound like a full band rockin' the house. He's fun!
Anyway, it was last minute and it was sold out! But due to a courteous Tag Evers (thank you kindly), the current promoter for Keller, I was on the list plus a guest. Inside the show my friend Seth bought me drinks. I tried to buy some merchandise, but they refused my cash and gave me a complete assortment of product. This was the way the night went. I was greated with kindness and love everywhere I went and my money was no good. Possibly this is due to karma mixed with the respect of people who have come to regard me in the light.
Regardless, it made me wonder why it was that I'm leaving this wonderful city filled with such beautiful people. Then I remembered that winter. I remember all the crappy things that happened to friends then. I remembered January in Brazil and the girl who asked me "Why do you live in a place that if you are outside too long you die from the cold?" I didn't have an answer then, and I don't now. Madison is a safe haven where I cherish, but I have an urges and reasons to expand my horizons and explore.

Top Dog / Underdog

The Steppenwolf Theatre has an amazing production company. They did it again with their latest play about sibling rivalry, Top Dog / Underdog. It was well acted and directed. I'll post more when I get a chance.