"PULL the Strings! PULL the Strings!"

"Glenn or Glenda," or, "I Changed My Sex." The full movie. Isn't this a wondrous age?

Quitting?!?

Houseplant Picture Studio is quitting?!?

THIS Is Coffee!

My morning. Get up, crime jazz plays as I make the coffee. Determination is what's needed to make sure that THIS is coffee!

Despotism

I Agree With Republicans!

Two Repub senators Sununu and Stevens, some of the most loathsome swine on the -- wait, no. They get it on this one issue. RIAA says they want restrictions an all technologies that play and record media content; Stevens says, "dude, I want to record my fave jams off the radio on my iPod, dude."

Republican National Convention, 2004

As we steel ourselves for the State of the Union, a look back. Oh, NOW you wish you never voted for the fucks, eh? Weren't the signs all in Cheney's speech back at the convention?

How's That Mughfughin' President Doin'?

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A majority of Americans are more likely to vote for a candidate in November's congressional elections who opposes President Bush, and 58 percent consider his second term a failure so far, according to a poll released Thursday....

....A smaller number -- 52 percent -- consider his entire presidency a failure to date, with 46 percent calling it successful.

What the hell is wrong with people? Only 52%?

In the spirit of fairness, here is a rebuttal from the supporters of Our President, George W. Bush:

Rock Me Wolfgang

I just couldn't wait. A warm-up to tomorrow's 250th birthday of the inspiration for one of the stupidest songs of the '80s.

Flip...

...flop.

They were against it before they were for it?

Incompetent

In other words, a fuck-up.

Incompetence is not one of the seven deadly sins, and it's hardly the worst attribute that can be ascribed to George W. Bush. But it is this president's defining attribute. Historians, looking back at the hash that his administration has made of his war in Iraq, his response to Hurricane Katrina and his Medicare drug plan, will have to grapple with how one president could so cosmically botch so many big things -- particularly when most of them were the president's own initiatives.

In numbing profusion, the newspapers are filled with litanies of screw-ups. Yesterday's New York Times brought news of the first official assessment of our reconstruction efforts in Iraq, in which the government's special inspector general depicted a policy beset, as Times reporter James Glanz put it, "by gross understaffing, a lack of technical expertise, bureaucratic infighting [and] secrecy." At one point, rebuilding efforts were divided, bewilderingly and counterproductively, between the Army Corps of Engineers and, for projects involving water, the Navy. That's when you'd think a president would make clear in no uncertain terms that bureaucratic turf battles would not be allowed to impede Iraq's reconstruction. But then, the president had no guiding vision for how to rebuild Iraq -- indeed, he went to war believing that such an undertaking really wouldn't require much in the way of American treasure and American lives.

It's the president's prescription drug plan (Medicare Part D), though, that is his most mind-boggling failure. As was not the case in Iraq or with Katrina, it hasn't had to overcome the opposition of man or nature. Pharmacists are not resisting the program; seniors are not planting car bombs to impede it (not yet, anyway). But in what must be an unforeseen development, people are trying to get their medications covered under the program. Apparently, this is a contingency for which the administration was not prepared, as it has been singularly unable to get its own program up and running.

Etc.

Swine

From here;

The former national director of the National Security Agency, in an appearance today before the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., today, appeared to be unfamiliar with the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution when pressed by a reporter with Knight Ridder's Washington office -- despite his claims that he was actually something of an expert on it.

A SwaG! Classic

From the 1966 film "Gumnaam" ...name that tune!

Coming up in February, another fab WIDR Dance Party, with disk jockeys including Bat Guano. We expect to set the scene as seen above.

More Monks

To put this in context: Vietnam era, a bunch of American GI's in West Germany start a band, dress like monks, sing abrasive song about sending people off to die and kill, German TV show dancers jerk about to it.

Just a Reminder

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." --Fourth Amendment, US Constitution

Negativland: "Gimme The Mermaid"

"I'm starting to think Bush couldn't follow the Fourth Amendment if he was on rollerblades and it was stapled to his dick."

New Get Your War On.

A Test

Essay Question:

Would you describe this as Stalinist, Fascist, or both? Explain. 500 words.

Wilson Pickett, RIP

I'd like to think that this is what the afterlife looks like for him.

SwaG! TV!

Okay, I suppose all the hip kids on the internets know about the "YouTube" thing, but it's new to me. I singed up, and am now making a list of vids of important cultural moments in SwaG! music. Enjoy.

WIDR Back to Streaming

Got this email from someone in the bowels of the WMU computer brain:

Hi Guano,

Caught the show tonight, I too was bummed about the stream being down, the computer club is being moved... again... Over break our current office area was being cleaned for asbestos and the maintenance people turned off the power which took down the stream server. Actually, it should have been okay, the server is on a battery backup, but the backup audibly and angrily alerts all around about it's unhappiness with being disconnected, so they turned that off too...

Anyhow, I dig the show, hopefully we won't have any problems with the stream when we move to the new location.

The stream was working, it may be down again, but keep checking. widr.org is where you go to listen live. I'll get last night's show up soon in the usual place.

Make Me Wanna Holla

On Gore on Bush:

These really aren't normal political times we're living in. And I think Gore is right to say that we're in the midst of a constitutional crisis, even though too few people are taking notice of it. Our constitution becomes the proverbial falling tree.

The point Gore makes in his speech that I think is most key is the connection between authoritarianism, official secrecy and incompetence.

The president's critics are always accusing him of law-breaking or unconstitutional acts and then also berating the incompetence of his governance. And it's often treated as, well ... he's power-hungry and incompetent to boot! Imagine that! The point though is that they are directly connected. Authoritarianism and secrecy breed incompetence; the two feed on each other. It's a vicious cycle. Governments with authoritarian tendencies point to what is in fact their own incompetence as the rationale for giving them yet more power. Katrina was a good example of this.

The basic structure of our Republic really is in danger from a president who militantly insists that he is above the law.

I haven't been able to focus on this stuff lately because, let's face it, it makes me bitter and angry and as mad as a Marine vet watching a hippy wipe his ass with the flag. But somebody's got to say it -- King George has got to be dethroned. He's shitting on the country and wiping his ass with the Constitution.

Al delivered the smackdown yesterday:

The MUMMIES!

The Monks

And, One More...

Where punk rock, Southern gothic, horror film, rockabilly, garage rock, hillbilly trash all came together, and it's still the shit.

He was a mongoloid, and it determined what he could see.

DEVO, "Mongoloid," 1979 -- Not sure, but this might have been their first time on national TV, and they make the most of it.

Oh My God

I present to you, "Hocus Pocus" by Focus. Enjoy.

Found thanks to these freaks.

Grind!

Las Vegas Grind here. A SwaG! favorite. DJs -- download and be just like Bat Guano! Practice talking like a crazy man with seedy background music...

I Wanna Love You Tender

Slobodon Milosevic proves that white people can dance just fine! go here for a Euro-Cheeze video that is probably from around 1979. Choreography by a man who went on to become a genocidal dictator. Who is to say how many would have died if he stuck with the performing arts?

Just some inspiration to you dancing fools who will be out at the next WIDR dance party, djs you-know-who, to happen in February. Waggle hips, grab groin!

Simple Math

Stolen from here.

Burn, Baby, Burn

The burning of 2005. I didn't do it, I swear. I was inside, playing the Jingle Cats' "Ald Lang Syne."