All Come Home - music video

Today is 11-11-11.  As a Levin, I feel somewhat responsible for everybody having an okay time today.  To that end, I offer you a tasty little bit of superpositivity in the form of a glowing audio-visual rectangle -- a music video for the song "All Come Home" by the electronic pop project Tiny Machines (Jon Margulies, April White and Lydia Ooghe)...

Enjoy!

What Should I Have Done?

Years ago, back when I still sorta participated in human mating activities, I started seeing a lovely young woman I will call "Lenore."  She was smart and cute and fun and stylish and quirky and creative and cool and I really enjoyed her company.  But whenever we were together I felt a weird vague unease.  At first, I couldn't put my finger on why, so I just ignored it.  Denial makes all bad things go away!

But when I got together with her and the unease came back, I was so consumed trying to figure out what the weirdness was about that I couldn't just relax and enjoy Lenore's company.  Then it hit me... from certain angles she kinda looked like my mom in her youth.

Oh.

Yeah.  That's a problem.  I mean, my mom is a very nice person and all, and was certainly attractive in her day, but you know... it's my mom.  I believe the scientific response would be: Ew, gross.

Of course, it was only from certain angles.  From other angles she looked nothing like my mom.  And Lenore was really very attractive from all angles, regardless of who she resembled.  I tried to ignore this too.

But no.

Because I was trying so hard to pretend there was no actual resemblance, or that it wasn't an issue, it took me a while to resign myself to the fact there was just no hope of any boners in her presence. 

She soon noticed that despite how well we were getting along, nothing was really developing between us, and she wanted to know why I was holding back.  She asked me if anything was bothering me.

I didn't want to hurt her feelings and I didn't want to lie.  I rationalized that since the situation was nobody's fault, completely out of our control and just one of those unfortunate life things, the truth wouldn't offend her.  So I told her, as gently as I could, that she kinda resembled my mom (a young and lovely version of course).

Though she did her best to remain composed, I'm pretty sure she was deeply offended and weirded out.  And I never saw or heard from her again.

But what else could I have done?  I mean, really?

Imagined Phone Call

It is the late 60's/early 70's and LSD has swept the nation. The CEO of, say, Lockheed, or GE or some other giant military contractor, is talking on the phone to, say, some high-ranking military official. In the CEO's office, there's a giant TV nearby showing footage of dancing body-painted hippies at a huge war protest rally in a park...

CEO: Yeah, I'm watching it. ... Yes I agree, this is completely unacceptable! A bunch of drugged up shirtless queers who look like they never learned to bathe are actually undermining popular support for our WAR?! HOW the FUCK did this happen? ... Well what are we gonna do about it? Because I'll tell you something General, nothing like this is ever gonna happen again! I guarantee you that! ... Well sure, we all know we need greater control of the media. And we should have control over the government soon enough. ... Yeah, I think Reagan has worked perfectly in California and there's no reason why we can't try installing him in the White House eventually too. And if that works out, it'll prove the concept beyond all doubt and then the sky's the limit! We'll control the presidency forever and nobody will ever know.

[the footage on the TV shows a hippie who looks just like every popular depiction of Jesus ever, except with the words "Peace" and "Love" painted on his face]

CEO: Damn hippies! ... Yeah ... I hate the Christ-looking ones the most too. Jesus was supposed to be OUR thing! Christians aren't supposed to dance around naked protesting against war with fucking flowers in their beards! Christians are supposed to do what we tell 'em! They're not supposed to want to BE LIKE JESUS! They're supposed to subconsciously assume that if they behave like Jesus then we'll torture them to death! The Jesus-on-the-cross-warning worked so well for so long! How the hell did we let THAT get away from us!? ... Really? You think that in just one generation, LSD could override centuries of subconscious conditioning? ... Fuck! We are gonna need to update our goddamn playbook here!

some thoughts

- If the right wing virtuosos of greed continue calling the shots for much longer, the other 99% of us will soon have only the following choices:

1. roll over and die
2. turn yourself into a raging selfish asshole in order to be accepted and able to survive
3. actively fight back and be labeled a terrorist, or discredited as insane (or both)

- I certainly don't want to be an apologist for the often-disappointing Obama administration, but we all knew that Dubya was leaving him with an impossibly huge mess to clean up, and that he'd be working in an environment of incredible hostility to his mere existence. There are right wing pundits and politicians (and those voters still fooled into drinking their kool-aid) who hate Obama and everything they think he represents so much, that they are willing -- and actively attempting! -- to burn the nation to the ground just to make sure Barack looks bad. OK sure, they're not literally setting buildings on fire (as far as I know). Their current weapons of domestic mass destruction are mostly economic, of course. President Eisenhower, a Republican and former General, warned us against allowing the military-industrial complex to get too powerful. Well, we obviously didn't listen to him and now the monster has become the military-industrial-media-financial-complex. As far as I'm concerned, the wall streeters who got rich by decimating the housing market are guilty of high treason and it's a little shocking that they haven't all been executed.

- Wait, why isn't Rupert Murdoch's head on a pike in the middle of town again?

- trying to imagine myself as a 12 year old in today's world. interesting kid. feel kinda bad for him though. his outlook is pretty bleak. or maybe he's happily making good creative use of shit like garageband on the iPad he bought with his paper-route money an' shit. Oh wait, nobody reads newspapers anymore. How do 12-year-olds make enough money to buy iPads these days? Selling meth I guess.

Bicycle Meditation Video