The Billiken's Bluff

during an afternoon nap, talk in background TV of Gerald Ford's 5 days of official mourning, kidnapped twins, cigars banned in the Capitol.




the nap, the dream felt like, looked like this...




in the foreground my dream involved searching through 7th grade for a quote, a book, i may have read that year. possibly Uncle Tom's Cabin. possibly not this year and maybe it was high school I was looking for, or some other book about slavery. the slave owners gave the slaves 1 week, or 1 weekend, or maybe only 1 day at end of year to drink and celebrate. they gave the slaves grain alcohol, everclear, and lots of it. the goal was to have the slaves debauch themselves to such a degree that they swore such things off for the rest of the year and were more productive. so it was written.

i was looking for this in my dream, half awake, somewhere between 7th and 12th grade, for sure, and decided that Google will create a search feature by April 2007 that will allow you to search for text, photos, syllabi, people, lectures, quotes from classrooms - by year, grade, hour, minute. a Google Desktop Search for your Junior High.

and next on the docket - a CTRL + F search for objects, people - RFID technology. every_one_thing tagged with a keyword and searchable, find-able.

I have a dream.

First Lines...

Frank Costello:

I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.



Years ago we had the church. That was only a way of saying - we had each other. The Knights of Columbus were real head-breakers; true guineas. They took over their piece of the city. Twenty years after an Irishman couldn't get a fucking job, we had the presidency. May rest in peace. That's what the niggers don't realize. If I got one thing against the black chappies, it's this - no one gives it to you. You have to take it.

and quite aptly,

When you decide to be something, you can be it. That's what they don't tell you in the church. When I was your age they would say we can become cops, or criminals. Today, what I'm saying to you is this: when you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OR on the Bob Marley, Pharcyde, LA Riots, death by heroin - tip:

it's the freedom game
you can see it every day,
'cause your freedom ain't free

Paradigm shifts like Blogger has moved to WWW2.blogger.com. Whoa.

The matter at hand:



Carbon Emissions Trading

I had something to say about this a ways back but didn't and thought the moment had passed me by (what up freshman year NYU?).



But it is just a strange enough concept that every 3 months NPR talks about it on their morning radio programs like BBC World. Because we all have,

"Economic incentive to do so"

Those in best position to pay do so. This was the US's idea back in Kyoto. They wanted to green the environment with free-market driven decisions. The companies in the best financial position, i.e., the easiest industries to reduce carbon dioxide/monoxide emissions in would do so on their own and be given credits for being "extra clean", for surpassing the benchmarks set by UN or the Kyoto Oversight Committee or whoever is tasked with monitoring these things each year.



The industries that had significant pollution, emissions and no affordable way to clean their factories, i.e., coal companies, could buy emissions credits from the greener companies.







Adam Smith's wet dream, right? Economics, free trade driving decisions, governing policies, and as a vehicle for evironmental decisions.

I don't pretend to know economic theory, or the Wealth of Nations. But this is interesting because cleaning the environment, fighting against global warming, and creating trans-national policy to battle common 9th Grade Earth Science enemies like holes in the ozone, definitely has a bit of moral momentum behind it, something you don't typically find in free trade outside of the Ethiopian Kitamu Roast at Starbucks.







I could see the liberal raging against this type of machine. Multi-national conglomerates trading rights to melt glaciers and kill baby seals, scorch bamboo trees in Sri Lanka.



But I think it's fine. If governments agree on a sum total of acceptable carbons emitted then it doesn't matter if they are coming from one company or 1 million. If anything it seems to give economic incentive to some progressive companies to find ways to develop technologis that will allow them to surpass benchmarks and collect payment for credits.

But, enough of making sense and arguing a policy point in a straightforward (read boring) way. Carbon Emission Trading sounds like what Nick Cage in War Games and Milo Minderbinder in Catch 22 would get together and do while shooting rocket launchers at rhinoceroses in Cambodia.

Milo, unlike most characters in Catch-22, who are only the subject of one chapter, is the subject of three chapters ("Milo the Mayor," "Milo," and "Milo the Militant"). Like most characters in "Catch-22," he is mentioned much earlier in the book than his chapter. He is one of the main characters in the novel. His most interesting attributes are his complete, mercenary amorality and absurd logic in the operations of his enterprise.

Milo's enterprise becomes known as "M & M Enterprises", with the two M's standing for his initials and the "&" added to dispel any idea that the enterprise is a one-man operation. Milo travels across the world, mainly though the Mediterranean, trying to buy and sell goods at a profit through black market channels. Everyone in the camp has a "share", which Milo uses to defend his actions, stating what is good for the company is good for all.

Milo even begins contracting missions for the Germans, fighting on both sides at Orvieto, and bombing his own squadron at Pianosa. He finally gets court-martialed for treason. At one point, Milo orders his fleet of aircraft to attack the American base where he lives, killing many American officers and enlisted men. As M&M Enterprises proves to be incredibly profitable, he hires an expensive lawyer, who gets the court convinced that it was capitalism which made America great, and Milo is an example of an American entrepreneur. Ironically, his company's phrase, "What's good for M&M enterprises is good for the country" mirrors a phrase Mussolini often used; "What's good for Fiat is good for Italy", or the similar "What's good for General Motors is good for America". There are some historical parallels to Milo Minderbinder, most notably Ford, who like Minderbinder avoided getting their factories blown up due to business connections.

And it seems that before long you will witness carbon emission rights being traded on commodity exchanges in Chicago, on the open market in New York, London, Tokyo. And this is made up. Completely artificial distinctions. Humans getting in the way of themselves, their environment. Their ability to extract and burn more earth to support - well, more humans.



I've thought about this while bathing in dark waters, watching water boil, and while reclining and pondering the cosmos at Jones Beach.





My socialist explanation - in between Italian ices and Starbucks iced coffees - an easy, simple-minded utopian (my 13th grade zeitgeist, where I peaked in terms of idealist Beat generation energy - which winds its way into an imperative for capitalism).

There are enough resources to go around. Artificial borders and fear of scarcity developed into disparate languages, cultures, rivalries, wars - disproportionate distribution of wealth. Guns, Germs and Steel.





Erected, artificial obstacles and want. We end up with foreign languages, religions, cultures.



In the rush of youth and speed pills and never-ending scroll





this might seem to make sense.

But there would be no progress, inventions without capitalism. True enough computer chips are made of silicon, which is made of sand. But there has to be a common incentive, credit, currency to transmutate beach into internet






This rant was not satisfying. But the point was something along the lines of there is a science to money, so there is no surprise that Al Gore's science and morals end up intersecting with Wall St. Which is also why you get a Master of Science in Economics and a Master of Arts in English Literature.

And on NPR, RE: CARBON EMMISSIONS, they asked some guy from a Green Party, maybe in France or US or anywhere really, what he thought about proposed inclusion of European Airlines in the Carbon Limitation Game. Is the Green Party, by default, opposed to carbon emissions? Or is it not that kind of Green? At one point was it that kind Green?





Something like Southern Democrats who used to vote Republican before the Reconstruction or after and not sure.

Nas from Hip Hop is Dead:

I'm lookin' over my shoulder
It's about eighty n$@gaz from my hood that showed up
And they came to show love
Sold out concert and the doors are closed shut.

And I like that, and that's the way it it is!!@!@#!@!!!!%$@!$$!$!#@$!#!!!!



This verse from Nas is, in short, my definition of not selling out, and understanding. This is the high end, the max of a min/max for # of humans who can really share, knowingly, in clever turns of phrase, references to specific neighborhoods, landmarks, roots of hip hop or urban lore, bodies of knowledge in general, before the reference becomes diluted.



And for this type of precision calibration to reach a larger, broader group it needs footnotes, artistic champions, English literature classes taught for 50 years, or else, it becomes watered down in meaning via pop music or broadcast TV and reaches us instantly, e.g., U2, or e.g.(er) Coldplay or Snow Patrol. And you end up comfortably numb.



I could write 100,000 words about this but I would rather YOU did.







So for it to be REAL hip hop, or otherwise, it has to be a limited engagement. Nas doesn't elaborate, but I must, which already gives him a rhetorical advantage over me. He could sell more seats for this fictional concert, in closing (of his verse), but he is only housing 80 people with common backgrounds, not in terms of race (I'd like to think) but in terms experience and shared knowledge - real hip hop heads, fans who are old enough to know that hip hop has died because the music that captured my imagination when I was 12 years old and memorizing all the lyrics, the verbal gymnastic session outlined on LP tape cassettes, in Wu Tang's 36 Chambers or Nas' Illmatic is not the same music on Hot 97 today.

So once Nas' 80 true believers are loaded on his ark he is setting sail. Ironically though, this type of earnest reflection will attract a wider audience, and this record will sell.

A charismatic fearless leader at five foot nothing.






The Sports Guy wrote about Iverson and I liked it. It reminds me of a couple of things. My experiences at Lincoln/Douglas high school debates.

AND

Bill the Butcher's foray in politics.



Charismatic leaders the world over. Larger than life - existing outside systems, laws, time. Men powerful enough, like forces of nature, that their likenesses are dynamited into mountains or are chanted in streets and inked onto arms - long after their deaths.







And Iverson as voiced by Jay-Z:

Face it y'all playin basic ball
I'm on the block like I'm eight feet tall
Homey, I'm in the drop with the AC on
That's why the streets embrace me dawg, I'm so cool!

Simmons:

There's another aspect to Iverson's brilliance, something the ESPN guys tried to describe last night: Quite simply, he's the most menacing player in the league. There's just something different about him, a darker edge that the other stars don't have. Once I was sitting midcourt at the Fleet Center when Iverson was whistled for a technical, yelped in disbelief, then followed the referee toward the scorer's table and screamed, "[Bleep] you!" at the top of his lungs. The official whirled around and pulled his whistle toward his mouth for a second technical.

And I swear on my daughter's life, the following moment happened: As the official started to blow the whistle, Iverson's eyes widened and he moved angrily toward the official, almost like someone getting written up for a parking ticket who decides it would just be easier to punch out the meter maid. For a split-second, there was real violence in the air. Of course, the rattled official lowered his whistle and never called the second T. By sheer force of personality, Iverson kept himself in the game.

Like Russell Crowe looking like Michelangelo's David in terms of musculature, chiseled physique, composure staring down lions and tigers and bears, oh my.






When in reality he is of average size, not particularly intimidating physically, but when he roars at hotel concierges



or he screams at NBA referees




tall buildings shake



But way back when it wasn't all technical fouls and whistles and TNT/ESPN cameras and analysis. There were brawls and riots and real 15 year prison sentences, later pardoned.

I'm not sure where this was meant to go. I was never AI's biggest fan but I like Simmon's description of Iverson at the Fleet Center and I hope that the anecdote relayed is true.

It's in line with my type of magic.

Calling all doctors, all medicine men, voodoo doctors, all the king's horses and all the king's men, every , brain surgeon and oncologists, all loop holes and legal impasses, and if all else fails call on a cryogenic deep freeze!!!









The smell of fresh tar smeared on a roof on an unnaturally warm day in December.




Which is to say something smelled funny on Wednesday and it has legs, staying power, permeating the entire block.





Lance the boil, dig deeper.

Let's do the math. 50 states. 51 Democratic Senators, 49 Republican Senators. 28 Republican Governors, 22 Democratic Governors. 13 States that have both a Democratic Senator and a Republican Governor.



Yes, I took the time to compile this information into excel, but it was worth it to sooth suspicion. When I heard this story I assumed there would be far fewer states that fit the criteria of having both a Dem. Senator and a Rep. Governor, the only doomsday scenario that could potentially wrest control of the Senate from the Blue States. If the odds were stacked against this scenario then there would be implications that Senator Johnson's stroke may have had other hands involved than those of the Almighty. Instead the odds of a Dem. Senator being from same state as Rep. Governor are about 1 in 4. Your average NFL parlay football odds, i.e., you'll probably lose but it's not impossible.




But there are other metrics, other limiting factors that make Tim Johnson not the most likely candidate to be felled by a stroke or rather arteriovenous malformation (AVM). History of congenital conditions. His age, only 59. This isn't a conspiracy, probably, but someone should ask these questions, crunch these numbers. The media, positioning themselves in the spineless center per the usual, can't, won't, is too afraid to explore what everyone is thinking, if only in passing. I discussed this in September.

This seems like a storyline lifted right out of Hollywood. I think something like this happened in The Net, starring Sandra Bullock and Dennis Miller.



And if Senator Tim Johnson dies the deciding vote on all legislation would be cast by VP Dick Cheney. That sounds impossibly impossible. And yet we were close to that becoming a reality this week and may still be.

And also testing the US's medical might is the push to keep The Blind Sheikh alive.

ABC is reporting that notorious al-Qaeda spiritual leader Omar Abdel-Rahman -- who's been cited as an inspiration by Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders -- may be near death. The 68-year-old Abdel-Rahman, convicted in 1996 of conspiring to blow up New York City landmarks, The FBI fears that Abdel-Rahman's death could trigger retaliatory attacks on American targets by al-Qaeda:

The FBI bulletin reminded authorities that the sheikh had previously called for reprisal attacks in the case of his death in prison. And Rahman has said:

"My Brothers. If they kill me, which they will certainly do - hold my funeral and send my corpse to my family, but do not let my blood be shed in vain. Rather, extract the most violent revenge, and remember your brother who spoke the truth and died for the will of God. The Mujahid Sheikh Omar Abdel al Rahman. In the name of God the kind and merciful."

This might have had a little more urgency, panic, and mania had I written it on Wednesday or Thursday but I faced a few impasses of my own.

Happy Holidays.

By 2030, with 9 million residents.

With a camera, looking forward and back.



Trying to create something. A record for posterity.

Guileless, hopefully.



and completely forthcoming (for the most part)



or sad



or sadder



menacing, piercing, Clint Eastwood stone cold-stare, eyes marbled with cataracts, without tumbleweed on a washed-out street in central Mumbai, which is all just to say - unforgiven



or a redundant

duck



duck



duck



goose



window into a world



various hats



or something perfect you want to dry



or something good for a little chuckle,



or juxtaposed, disparate, too good to be believed combined in a single frame and you won't believe this



or this



but enough about the past onward, upward.

Greater_than_Great!

through a jacket sleeve (mine or yours) trying to stealthy capture some sorry looking man with a humorous hat on the E train.



Fat dog with his own little piece of area rug, parked at a street meter. happy as a clam, content as a fat cat or a mule with his 40 acres.





in a fish tank, real art on display. Bubble-eyed fish



missing one, cyclopes.



Inbred is the artists explanation (calling to mind multi-national firms dumping caustic chemicals into the Hudson, killing cod fish, 3-eyed fish spawned),



I question this artist (who is there for questioning at this New Yorker Passport to the Art Galleries of Chelsea - Tour for the benefit of the Hi-Line Restoration) it seems there might be a bit of artifice, creating artful mutations (with a Swiss army) rather than seeking them out and documenting them in the democratic way.

it ain't no fun (if my homies can't have none) that way.



is it in an umbrella?



opened in doors bad luck, is it art, is it raining outside, at what point can't you separate the two, the three?



is it stylistic? ignoring capitalization and strunk and white as a stand against something establishment corporate conglomerate publishing houses art galleries that sell out rap music that sells out?





no page #'s or table of contents in this collection of poetry - the result of which was - I read two pages of table of contents before realizing that the collection of titles (not capitalized or denoted) was not, in fact, the first poem in the collection (I promised a review, and delivered). this speaks volumes to my reading comprehension skills of late and a well-executed slight of hand, for sure, although I'm unclear where it gets US.







turning the camera back at me





weird or eclectic, obscure or just made up? does the random lyric I insert as title to a post mean anything at all "The Sound of God is the Screech of Tires ?" or does it become blurred beyond recognition?



the ol' blank canvas on the wall trick. pause, observe, obscure, pretend you are considering it, hand on chin deep in thought



if you and I are ever in an art gallery and we fail to exchange knowing glances and smirk and laugh and make fun of this blank canvas posing as art, then I don't believe you and I will be fast friends





because when I see this type of art I want to immediately drop my gallery brochure and do the Irish jig or jump up and down screaming and pointing like a chimpanzee throwing banana peels at the walls or passers-by, or bring a polar bear into the exhibit and seat him in front of the blank canvas and watch as he lays down on the floor and rolling over due to his complete inability to stay awake while viewing plain white canvas on a white wall, which reminds this polar bear of planes of white snow, repetition, home, sleep, non-distinction and millions of snow flakes each so nearly identical so as to not warrant occupying exhibit space



wake the artist and all those concentrating on decoding and interpreting out of their monochrome/monotone stupors.



I feel like I'm showing my hand a bit too much, right? This type of rant is too easy but I'm having fun.




Come on, smile like you mean it!



Is that an ascot, neck brace, and popped-collar? That is just straight snidely. Well played.

Where were we - pictures, art, smiles.

on construction site fencing



Or playing instruments more suited for an orchestra pit at Carnegie Hall than in front of a barbed wire fence in Brooklyn



Traffic cones misplaced, anachronistically on a Doric column on Houston St. contributing to my aesthetic.





Art again life-sized viewed upright viewing you and your friends. Right back at ya, kiddo, art that you can conversate with cheese, crackers and merlot, art that looks festive in a Eyes Wide Shut Venice Mardi Gras Mask Saw II life-sized puppets horror movie maybe



way





Yes a bunch of pictures from an art gallery tour I went on and the streets of New York, coming and going - but what I really want to know is are these pictures and words only yours (Whose world is this? The world is yours, the world is yours It's mine, it's mine, it's mine) if you create something truly original. Draw, paint, sculpt, write a poem in a black hole vacuum with nothing coming in or going out. No references or influences. Pre-Post-Modern. Or is it more along the lines of name it and claim it.



Found art, funny pictures photographed or google imaged and paired with music lyrics or news references light in gravity (heavy in levity), high and low, or even stealing from yourself



borrowing old short stories, pictures, the same songs since I was thirteen. All recycled, reshuffled, and removed from context, gloriously



I really just want a vehicle to house e pictures I take. Ha



So if there is interest, discuss these attempts at art - mine and others - otherwise shower me with rose petals for a job cleverly done.

YESSSS (and it counts).



This kid unearths a Nintendo 64 on Christmas morn



and goes ballistic as if he just won the lottery,



or as if he just lost the New Hampshire Democratic primary.



IdleAtWork linked to the original home video version of this a year ago. My girlfriend and I thought it was hilarious and have been referencing it and going back to watch it ever since.

Tonight she saw a holiday TV commercial that starts with this home video clip and then segues into a BMW ad:

Remember when dreams came true? They still can. Introducing the BMW Holiday Wish Event -the best time of year to buy the new 328i sedan.

This is encouraging to me. If I were pitching ideas for BMW commercials (or writing on a blog after work) I would probably link to this a video like this. It’s like someone from the neighborhood you grew up in “making good”.



Maybe.

===============================================================
And a random video from Harvard Medical that makes the inner machinations of a cell pretty theatrical.

This is a ribosome or a mitochondria or a golgi body doing some werk.



Cheers.

Yankees Spend $26 Million for Rights to Negotiate with Kei Igawa.



Red Sox agree to contract with Japanese relief pitcher Hideki Okajima.





"Merely Talking to Japan’s Best Is Big Business" Red Sox pay $51.1 million for rights to Negotiate with Daisuke Matsuzaka.






Japan ready for cut in Indian Ocean tuna catch In another move that could drive up sushi prices in Japan, scientists at the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission have proposed bringing down the catch of bigeye tuna, according to Japan's agriculture ministry.




A 42-nation meeting in Croatia agreed on Sunday to cut the catch of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean Sea.




Environmentalists had warned that the lucrative Japanese market and a global fad for Japanese food were driving the fish toward extinction. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas reduced the gross catch of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean from 32 000 tons this year to 29 500 tons for 2007, and 25 500 tons in 2010.