to ms maureen dowd (id hit it) who in turn turned her column over to the graduates of the New School who took ownership of their graduation at madison square garden while a certain republican sell out from arizona took to the mic

Maureen Dowd
New York Times 5/20/06

“Make Poetry, Not War”

It was a rough crowd for agents of American imperialism.

At the New School commencement at Madison Square Garden’s theater yesterday afternoon, dozens of the red-and-black-gowned graduates and some faculty were heckling, cackling, hissing, booing, jeering, whooping, bolting, turning their backs and holding up orange signs that read, “Our commencement is not your platform.” As for John McCain, he spoke about how the “passion for self-expression sometimes overwhelms our civility.”

“We’re graduating, not voting,” one young man yelled.

“This is all about you,” another called out. “We don’t care.”

A little while after the senator quoted Yeats about the fleeting nature of beauty, a student sarcastically called out, “More poetry.”

First, Mr. McCain and the New School’s president, Bob Kerrey, were slapped around by a student speaker, Jean Sara Rohe, a 21-year-old from Nutley, N.J., who sang a lyric from a peace song and then abandoned her original remarks to talk about the “outrage” over Mr. McCain’s speaking gig.

“The senator does not reflect the ideals upon which this university was founded,” Ms. Rohe said, adding: “I am young, and although I don’t profess to possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that preemptive war is dangerous and wrong.”

She continued: “And I know that despite all the havoc that my country has wrought overseas in my name, Osama bin Laden still has not been found, nor have those weapons of mass destruction.”

The New School, of course, makes New York University seem like Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., where Mr. McCain kowtowed last weekend to Jerry Falwell, the looney-toon he formerly deemed an agent of intolerance. (Just as Rudy buddy-buddied with Ralph Reed in Atlanta.)

The ultraliberal kids at the New School, the pacifist Greenwich Village university, think of themselves as free-thinking rabble-rousers in a world where many college kids, complacently cocooned under iPods, don’t even like to debate, much less protest.

When a rigid-faced Mr. Kerrey chided the audience for being rude, a young woman yelled out, “You’re a war criminal!” And a guy chimed in, “Yes, you are!”

It was a remarkable tableau to see the two iconoclastic vets, their bodies beneath the black gowns still bearing broken pieces from Vietnam, being pilloried by kids angry about another endless war, faceless enemy and feckless defense secretary.

Senator McCain came to Mr. Kerrey’s defense in 2001. That’s when graduate students called for the New School president to resign and for Congress to investigate him because a Times magazine piece had revealed that he had led a Seals unit that killed up to 20 unarmed civilians, most of them women and children.

(The Pentagon is now investigating a case in Haditha, Iraq, where marines are accused of killing 15 unarmed Iraqis from two families, including 7 women and 3 children.)

Yesterday, Mr. Kerrey returned the favor, admonishing the students that when they are “heckling from an audience … no bravery is required.”

The Arizona senator did not depart from his text and engage the students, as Bill Clinton might have done, with a passionate exegesis of his stance. And, still trying to show his temper is under control, he did not push back, as Rudy Giuliani might have.

He may have even found the screaming students useful, as a liberal hippie foil that will endear him to the evangelical base he’s smooching up. Mr. McCain’s adviser, John Weaver, talked dismissively of the West Village students, saying they should get out more and hear opposing viewpoints.

Mr. McCain’s panderthon grew even more absurd this week. He let the Wyly brothers — the Texas businessmen who financed a $2.5 million ad campaign in 2000 trashing his environmental record, a move that enraged Mr. McCain and spurred him to call the Wylys W.’s “sleazy Texas buddies” — hold a fund-raiser for him in Dallas.

The senator may have wanted to give the same commencement speech at Liberty, the New School and Columbia as a way of showing those disillusioned by his snuggling with old enemies that he is still a straight-talker, willing to say the same thing to Southern conservatives and Northern liberals.

But Bob Kerrey better summed up the feeling of many of us about the New McCain in the new issue of Men’s Vogue. He mocked the senator’s coziness with W., telling Ned Martel: “He kissed him! McCain let Bush’s lips touch him. Yuck!”

bonds hits 714 + SIRI hits 4 + jessica hits brasil + whatshername hits 28

best fake trailer for a real movie ever

i worked so much harder for your love

i mean just look at what i gave you back then

i havent been asleep before 3am at all this week. its been a strange week.

a year ago today i was freaking out after being fired i mean laid off, and if i remember correctly i barely enjoyed my time off because i didnt know how quickly i was going to be hired again so i sat around the house, occassionally going over to the mondrian pool to put my feet in the water, but mostly trying to save money.

big mistake.

if the lord gives you manna, eat it. there will be more tomorrow.

one of the nice things about not getting much sleep is it lowers the odds of any dreams. i pretty much hate dreams. dreams are lies sent right to your brain at your most vulnerable. you wake up and if it was a nice dream youre pissed cuz it wasnt true and if it was a nightmare you wake up pissed because your sleep was interrupted.

my life is interesting enough, i dont need any fake versions. but last night i had a dream that i was taking a shower because my girlfriend was coming over to go on a date with me.

whats funny is one of my favorite things is taking a shower preparing for a hot date, but my bathroom is pretty dark and in the dream it was really bright. and i was singing to myself. anyone who has seen my house knows that there is a music machine in every room of this place. three in my bedroom, one in the living room, one in the closet that i write to you, and a water resistant sony boom box in the bathroom. theres no reason for me to be singing.

nor do i sing. but dreams are retards and always get the story wrong so there i was singing. the tune was our house by madness. a song i like. the only reason that could have been in my head was because i was supposed to play it for the wedding but never did. instead i spun it must be love.

when i woke up i wasnt clean, i had no girlfriend, and i was probably the furthest to having one than ive ever been. i dont even think theres a babe in la who even likes me. and further, hell if i know even one line from the madness classic.

now that i have a car, if i were to be laid off again i would drive it around this country and meet girls whove always wanted to kiss me. i was gonna try to kiss lindsay when she visited me but i chickened out cuz i was so sick. murphys law – yesterday i was the least sick that ive been in two months. the two days of working from home was perfect.

i have a new doctor.

doc if youre reading this your pills and your advice were right on the money. so thank you. and i hope you start blogging soon.

kerry wood pitched for the cubs today and gave up a few homers in the loss. but you know what, id rather kerry wood give up a few runs for the cubs than any other asswipe except for mark prior and hes coming back soon too.

lost was fantastic last night.

they announced the bands for austin city limits yesterday:

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Van Morrison, Willie Nelson, the Flaming Lips, Massive Attack, Ween, Gnarls Barkley, the Raconteurs, the Shins, John Mayer, Feist, Stars, Cat Power and the Memphis Rhythm Band, Thievery Corporation, the New Pornographers, Sparklehorse, Son Volt, Aimee Mann, Nickel Creek, Nada Surf, Wolf Parade, Iron & Wine, Calexico, I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness, Ted Leo/Pharmacists, KT Tunstall, Secret Machines, the Rocket Summer, Okkervil River, José González, Matisyahu, Gomez, Galactic, G. Love and Special Sauce, Kings of Leon, Explosions in the Sky, Guster, Damien Rice, Damian Marley, Alexi Murdoch, Buckwheat Zydeco, Ben Kweller, Kathleen Edwards, String Cheese Incident, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals, Los Lonely Boys, Jack Ingram, Kasey Chambers, Centro-matic, Marah, the Black Angels, Sara Hickman, Trish Murphy, Asleep at the Wheel, South Austin Jug Band, Palm Elementary School Choir

it’ll take place from September 15-17 at Zilker Park in Austin, Texas.

bloopy + im writing more on thought mechanics + i have hot xgirlfriends + a photo essay from 5/19/05

be quiet as youre fuct with in a library

via metafilter + also on metafilter: blogger gets fired for blogging

especially when it comes from adults. i can understand it from children who dont know any better, but if you walk around this globe long enough you see that people with fancy cars or big houses or tons of money or great clothes have just as much difficulties enjoying this ride as those without.

both johnny cash and bob dylan have recorded a song called satisfied mind that starts off “How many times have you heard someone say / “If I had his money, I could do things my way?”/ Little they know that it’s so hard to find / One rich man in ten with a satisfied mind.”

the tune isnt about the rich having more troubles than the non rich, its about how everyone has a struggle with inner peace, real inner peace.

you might see a pretty girl walking down the street seemingly without a care in the world, or a skateboarder doing a sweet grind by the beach, and we can all hope that they’re in the spiritual place that they want to be, but everyone has wants, everyone is looking for bigger and better, anyone who says theyve got it all and theyre stoked is probably not being totally honest with you or themselves.

i do my best to be honest with you here, so when i lay out the things that i would like, dont think that its because im bummed with what i have. at my age there are tons of things that i should have: new car, big mortgage, kids, pretty wife, sassy interns, gray hair, a couple of dogs.

but the funny thing about life is, its that life gets in the way, and instead of one pretty wife you end up with a dozen pretty girlfriends and a half dozen pretty girls who just want to get naked with you, instead of a mortgage you end up with a killer apartment with cheap rent, instead of a new car you end up with a used car that runs perfectly, instead of a couple of dogs you have a couple of blogs.

so when johnny sings how he hopes to leave this old world with a satisfied mind it makes you think that hes talking about something deeper than what goes on during the board game of Life.

anyone can choose to look around and be unsatisfied with what they have, but i try to keep a positive attitude about things. would i like to be in the technorati 100 one day? of course. but im completely satisfied being in the top 400 out of 34 million blogs. would i like to have a steady girlfriend who wears a i heart tony gstring to bed, definitely, but in the meantime i will settle for dating girls who dont believe in underwear at all.

one of the best things that los angeles has taught me is that the american dream is vastly overrated. the concept of birth school work death is fine for lots of the people from where i grew up, but i bet you if they had to do it over again some might have chosen to stray a tad from the beaten path.

little did i know but there has always been something in my heart that has been secretly trying to convince me to learn how to replace work with rock. there have been a few years where i was able to do that, and “working” for buzznet where ive gotten to travel the world and get paid to cover rock festivals and get to meet lots of you is one step on the path where i want to be.

if you would have asked me in college if i thought id be married by now or kissing swimsuit models and roller girls half my age i would have told you that for sure id be married by the year 2000, definitely. and no way could i have imagined getting paid to do half the shit i get paid to do.

and even though im living the life that i am, and even though ive been pretty content since breaking up with my last live-in girlfriend, i still miss her deeply, even moreso now that shes in deepest darkest africa.

everyone hears the demons in their head that whisper “you should have more by now” and “you deserve what that guy has more than he does” or “you should live on that hilltop, not them”

i think that what will keep you happier though is to appreciate all the magic that sprinkles down into your life each day and savor it after it’s gone, but most importantly i think its in your best interest to life your life, not carol brady’s, not leave it to beavers, not your college roommate’s. your life. because your life has its own agenda that might not include all the trappings found in highend preppy east coast catalogues.

deep down i have a hope that ive been the one deciding my path in life, but secretly i think someone way cooler has been nudging me to where i am now, which is why i was so satisfied simply riding the bus than having to drive a car. however roadhead has been a very pleasant bonus.

who am i jealous of? anyone who gets to regularily see the cubs play while drinking old style in the bleachers at wrigley field.

raymi + fil + flagrant + whatshername

now we know why, because lawbreaking goes back at least two generations

kudos to wolf blitzer for somehow knowing to ask this question

– or sadder – than what the honorable republican from ohio wrote in his own comments in response to my post.

so here it is in its entirety. my friends, i give you joshua martin who says he “could have been” me if he hadnt gotten married and knocked up his wife. and wait till you read what he has to say about you:

Tony’s response (see first link above) is typical. He honed in on the fact that this blog doesn’t receive very many comments. This is true and is also because my writing style is the type that ends discussions rather than begins them. I learned a long time ago that silence following your gig is a good thing–it means that its sinking into the gray matter of your audience or that they didn’t care or weren’t listening in the first place–either way, even better for the person on stage. Here is a man whose entire sum worth is measured by his blog’s place on the Technorati 100 list (of which it like 256)–it’s just pathetic.

And he of course goes back to attacking my politics and how Ohio sucks because we hate black people and elected Bush twice, blah blah blah…

But the bottom line is that there is one of us who was accepted into creative writing school. There is one of us who earned the respect of other serious writers by putting their work through the fire of workshopping and having it come out cleaner, better, sharper. There is one of us who has been able to maintain a long-term monogamous relationship that has resulted in children and a stable family base. There is one of us that has maintained a steady career by developing business and networking skills on which we can stake our personal fortune.

And then there is one of us who has huddled up in a little room in front of a little computer for five years, eschewing proper grammar because we probably wouldn’t get it right in the first place, and trying to convince the world (successfully in some cases) that what we had to say was worthy of being reread in ten years.

See, I could have been this man had I not made the choice to accept the love of a great woman into my heart, to settle down, have a family, and vote Republican in the ’00 and ’04 elections. I could probably have 50,000 page loads a month also if I were willing to let my heart wither into a little black shrub that I would wear around my neck as a pathetic badge of honor in place of real talent. I’d probably be able to dump every piece of shit thought onto the page, jumble them together, and try to convince everyone that I knew how to tell a good story.

But I’m not like that.

I believe in giving back to the world around me–sometimes it’s advice, sometimes it’s criticim, and sometimes it’s both barrels of the shotgun. Sometimes it’s enough to stand up and speak your piece. Sometimes you have to shout the other guy down. But sometimes you just have to pull out a can of spraypaint, tag the other guy with a red “X” and say to the crowd, “This guy’s an asshole to the core of his soul–don’t go here!”

I started reading the Busblog because I wanted to learn how Tony did it–how he amassed a core of readers. But what I’ve come to learn is that I would rather have ten readers capable of interacting intelligently with what I’m writing than 5,000 yes men, perverts, and social misanthropes daily who did nothing but help to further solidify my already massive and immoveable ego.

I’ve said it privately, now I’m saying it publicly. There is nothing more for me to learn from this man’s writing style or his blog.

Get thee behind me…

washington post + los angeles times + new york times + la weekly + laist + ethan the mighty

even on the chat they have very sweet accents. i wonder what ours sound like to her.

if you were lucky enough to see the double overtime playoff game that the clippers barely lost youd be as exhausted now as i am. the refs blew it for them by calling teen phenom shaun livingston out of bounds when he was still in the air but when you play six quarters someones going to fuck up and at that point steve nash was even turning the ball over so of course the refs were fatigued as well.

jack nicholson was in the stands sitting next to james l brooks. billy christal was being annoying, penny marshall had also made the short trip to phoenix. they were definately entertained more than at any laker game this year, for the exception of the 81 point kobeshow,

and even though ive seen enough steve nash now for my liking, you can bet that there will be a game seven in this series because elton brand has a chance to make a name for himself if he can get there. however its good to see sam cassell remind the league that hes not dead yet.

i went to the doctor today and he told me he had good news and bad news. the good news was i wasnt going to die. the bad news was i wouldnt be able to go into the office until thursday. i told him that they could probably live with having me work from home until then.

we talked about blogging and its amazing to see people who know very little about this weirdo little fad get excited when they hear all the things that have happened for me through blogging. just like when i told my dentist, my new doctor became fascinated and took notes.

the nurse however was intrigued more by my blood pressure which was both too low and too high. i know very little about biology but apparently you have two numbers. one was higher than normal and the other was lower. i told her that it was my yin fighting with my yang.

she said how so.

i said my yin wants me to be a preacher and my yang wants me to be a porn director.

she said so what will you choose?

i told her that i will choose to work for buzznet in the day and volunteer with the xbi at night fighting crimes in the shadows of the city of angels.

she said that she isnt a doctor but perhaps i should choose one path and just one.

ah but if life was that simple.

for some reason i want to move to minnesota and be a high school english teacher but i dont dare do anything crazy like that because my rent is so cheap here in hollywood.

its like when george castanza got a really great parking spot near jerrys house and didnt want to ever drive his car again.

the way real estate prices are here in LA id be a fool to ever move away because i would easilly have to pay double for something not even close to how nice this pad is, and i wouldnt have the 24/7 security that i now enjoy.

or the good vibes.

or this little blogging closet.

or the great memories.

or the ridiculously good luck.

plus the cold is for suckers.

since ive lived here ive only gotten older dumber and fatter but the hot babes just keep parading through and the busblog keeps on rolling. it made me wonder the other day what cub fans would say if it turned out that the real curse of the cubbies wasnt the billy goat but the friendly confines of wrigley field.

fucking sox didnt win again until they destroyed their glorious park and moved across the street.

would cub fans sacrifice their hallowed grounds for a championship ring?

me, i wouldnt. if i cant see the cubs win it all while playing at wrigley id rather not see them win, because having them do it in some foreign, modern, replica of heaven wouldnt be at all heavenly.

speaking of which, the sopranos had me looking away a shit-ton on sunday. we get it, the fat fucker’s gay.

sweaty + enter the gray area + xTx wrote the poem of the day