From the BBC online:

On the programme, the 75-year-old preacher responded to a news item about the reaction of Muslims in Europe to the publishing of cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad.

The footage showed Muslims screaming “May Allah bomb you! May Osama Bin Laden bomb you!”

Mr Robertson said the pictures “just shows the kind of people we’re dealing with. These people are crazed fanatics, and I want to say it now: I believe it’s motivated by demonic power. It is satanic and it’s time we recognize what we’re dealing with”.

He went on to say that “Islam is not a religion of peace”, and “the goal of Islam, ladies and gentlemen whether you like it or not, is world domination”.

Mr Robertson said in a statement later he was referring specifically to terrorists as being motivated by Satan.

See, I want to imagine that Robertson is a fringe-type, a nutjob that no one will claim at dinner parties, one of those guys that has been around for so long that even people like my grandmother who watched him all the time would be forced to shake their head at statements like this, with a gentle roll of the eyes and perhaps a whispered, “Oh, Pat…”

You can hear the tsking if you try.

And yet, when I shake my own head enough to clear the cobwebs that Claritin-D (irony of the week: Claritin D is inversely proportionate to clarity) has strewn about my brainspace, I realize that, even if people are embarrassed in public that Robertson has his own TV show, too many of them are thinking exactly what he’s saying.

Hey, fundamentalist Christian bloggers that I’m aiming this at: remember the Crusades. Among other things.

Spirituality is a wonderful thing that is all too often warped and made pointed by religion.

You know you’re doing okay in your art when the process of setting up to create — be it preparing your materials, rehearsing for the billionth time, or dragging a seventy pound amplifier around when your flu-ridden body would rather use it as a final resting place — is not that much of a hassle. Fun, at absolute best, or, in my case, something that I don’t even notice anymore.

We finish setting up the amps and the pedals and the mic stands, and Kyle calls me over to the bar. “Minimal volume, yeah?” My god, we haven’t even played a single note yet, and they’re already asking us to turn it down. What did we do to deserve this - outside of playing to the deaf people three states over most of the time? I assure him this will be no problem tonight — we’re coming off a hard played gig on Saturday, and I worked a nearly 24 hour day on Friday (leading to my relapse), so minimal is no problem. Minimal volume, tempo, and effort.

Playing a quiet gig is hard for rock and roll — because often, playing quietly means that you’re gonna lose your energy. Combine that with playing for a Sunday night crowd at a bar that is known more for it’s beer selection than it’s live music, and you’ve got a challenge — one that I think Eric and Carlos and I more than met last night.

Being a musician is much more than learning how to read dots on a page and play them with correct pitch and tempo. One of the most overlooked abilities — at least, from what I’ve witnessed over fifteen years over working in audio and bars and playing in bands — is dynamics — being able to bring the music up or down on the fly. The term dynamics in music refers most commonly to volume or intensity, but I’m talking here also about tempo, about feeling, about any number of things that the song might call for at a given moment. Musicians don’t seem to learn this — some of the most talented musicians I know seem incapable of using dynamics on an unprocessed instrument, relying on pedals and Eventides to take things up or down a notch.

Eric and Carlos and I showed why the Exhibit(s) are such a good band — we all have a strong sense of dynamics, and a good chemistry that allows us all to flow on the spur of the moment. Chance has it too — that’s one of the first things I noticed when I started playing with he and Eric three years ago. The four of us, all pushing and pulling and pounding away at a song until it just falls into place some nights — it’s like the rock and roll version of Brokeback Mountain. Only without the cowboys (though Chance sometimes wears that hat).

I think it should be said that any weekend that earns you hundreds of dollars for hanging out in bars is not a bad one, return of the great white flu or no.

Eliot: Oh, Dr. Cox, does this lipstick make me look like a clown?
Cox: No, Barbie, no… it makes you look like a prostitute who caters exclusively *to* clowns.

As much as I love Eliot — and Sarah Chalke, for that matter — it’s lines like this and responses like Cox’s that make me wish for a quicker wit. And more opportunities to use it.

J.D.: You know, when you stop being frightened, time really is on your side. And you can just go on being you.

Sometimes, SCRUBS is funny, sometimes poignant, but always worth watching. There are two moments on the show that are quite possibly the funniest things I’ve ever seen or heard. From season two:

Cox: Newbie, if the next two words out of your mouth aren’t ‘See ya’ then the third word will be ‘Oh my god. My crotch. You’ve punched me in my crotch.’.

And then, there’s the game of Gay Chicken from season three. Best moment ever shown on television.

J.D. It’s the kid inside of us that keeps us all from going crazy.

Sadly, that’s what Michael Jackson thought.

Oh, I know. Too easy. But if I joke, tis that I may not get maudlin.

J.D. Because nothing sucks worse than feeling alone, no matter how many people are around.

Shit. Too late, eh?

Cox: Relationships don’t work they way they do on television and in the movies. Will they? Won’t they? And then they finally do, and they’re happy forever. Gimme a break. Nine out of ten of them end because they weren’t right for each other to begin with, and half of the ones who get married get divorced anyway, and I’m telling you right now, through all this stuff I have not become a cynic. I haven’t. Yes, I do happen to believe that love is mainly about pushing chocolate covered candies and, y’know, in some cultures, a chicken. You can call me a sucker, I don’t care, because I do believe in it. Bottom line: it’s couples who are truly right for each other wade through the same crap as everybody else, but the big difference is they don’t let it take them down. One of those two people will stand up and fight for that relationship every time. If it’s right, and they’re real lucky, one of them will say something.

Holy crappucino! What’s happening to me? I started this as a tribute to the show that makes me chuckle uproariously, no matter how down I might be, and I end up bringing out all the touchy-feely quotes (the ones that go so well with the Colin Hay and Del Amitri songs). I’ll have to fix this, and quickly!

Cox: Oh, my God! I just gagged and vomited at the same time. I gavomited.

Much better.

Cox gets all the best lines. And Jordan — Christa Miller is gorgeous. Sigh…

Cox: By the by, this moment is so great that I would cheat on that other moment with it, marry it, and raise a family of tiny little moments.

See what I mean? Best. Lines. Ever.

And the little bits of philosophy tie it all together and bring it home:

Eliot:A person doesn’t have to be perfect to be exactly what you need.

It didn’t start out well — I got home from playing my show at 3 AM last night to find Adolf had jumped ship, too. And so I started walking the streets around my neighborhood, smoking way too much and finding absolutely nothing. Every hour or so, I ended upo back at my place, walking the few houses around mine to see if I can hear or spot one of the little bastards. Nothing.

Adolf’s huge, and they’ve both got claws and a mean streak, but I’m not convinced that either one is made for survival outdoors. Even beyond the cars, there’re a lot of stray cats, dogs, and probably large rats in a few-block radius of my house, and past the playing, I don’t know that Adolf or Ari would know what to do if attacked.

Fortunately, Adolf must have sensed that I was giving up on him, and came mewling out from underneath my house this afternoon (yeah, even fat, he can still squeeze himself into all sorts of strange places). He was the same talkative shit that he’s been all week, and that apparently drew Ari out of whatever hole in the ground she’s been hiding in for the past seven days — I could hear her through the closed windows upstairs when I took Adolf back inside. It took a little coaxing — and I’m fairly convinced that if I hadn’t just carried Adolf to the house, Ari wouldn’t have come anywhere near me.

It seems six days is plenty of time for a cat to start to go feral.

So I left the little buggers inside, with all the windows tightly shut. No more roof privileges for them. Ever. Or at least until I’m ready for them to run away.

Tonight, they pay for running away. I’m off to the store to get shampoo.

Bath time, bitches, cause I know you cats dig it so….

South Dakota: making Alabama look progressive.

Actually, I suspect that Alabama’s lawmakers are really pissed off that they didn’t think of this first. It’s not that I live in a state that is less conservative than South Dakota — just lazier.

No exception for rape or incest? I hope none of you assholes ever has a daughter or wife or grandchild that would need one of those exceptions that you’re trying to get rid off.

People are such shitbags in the name of religion.

A US state has signed into law a bill banning most abortions, in a move aimed to force the US Supreme Court to reconsider its key ruling on the issue.

The South Dakota law - approved by the governor on Monday - makes it a crime for doctors to perform terminations.

Exceptions will be made if a woman’s life is at risk, but not in cases of rape or incest.

(via Warren)

Although I think that Ces had the funniest reaction of all.

I’m not kidding. I was racing through thoughts like an Olympic sprinter, arguing with the voices in my head about which of the clever things was going to be the title, which would be the closing gag… And of course, like a good dream, all the brilliance is gone with the daylight.

The basis of the brilliance was a list in my head of strengths and weaknesses. It’s been stuck in my head for a while now, although only rising to the surface recently (which is to say last night at 4:30 AM), that I have a real disconnect in my head between reality and desire when it comes to who and what I am. At least, I think I do; it’s either that, or maybe there’s a stronger duality inside of me than I’m willing to admit.

Taking personality tests has always been hard for me, partially because I know how they work, and therefore can do a fair job of skewing them whichever way happens to suit me at the moment. And partially becuase of the above disconnect: I have a really hard time, I think, sometimes, answering truthfully about myself — rather than answering a question with what I do, I answer with what I would ideally do. I don’t describe myself as I am, but as I wish I were.

For the most part, this isn’t really a problem, I suppose — I don’t give a fuck if some profile of me is accurate or not. I’d rather people get to know me before they start applying labels. But at least in the sense of self-examination, it makes things difficult. Trying to figure out who you are when you won’t admit the truth, even to yourself, is not the easiest of pursuits.

• So am I extroverted or introverted? Equal parts both, I think — I really do crave large crowds and attention and recognition, but I just as much demand my own time and space, alone whether surrounded by people or not. It just depends on the time of day.
• Do I think more with my head or my heart - am I a thinker or a feeler? To steal a bit from Daniel, “Which answer gets me the cookie?” Not to say that I choose between logic and gut based on reward — except, yeah, maybe I do. I value logic at times when it suits my ends, just as I validate choice by instinct for the same reason. Hmm. I’d guess, for testing purposes, I’d show up as about 60% thinker, 40% feel, but then, I may be overcompensating for what I wish were true (which is less logic, more gut).
• Intuition versus sensing — fuck, I don’t know. Ditto on the Judging/Perceiving.

Maybe I just fall outside of all the conventional wisdom. And that’s fine, too, but it sure would be nice if there were more resources for those of us that want to understand what’s going on in out heads but don’t really fit in with the average Joe.

Even on the list in my head of strengths and weaknessness, I can’t quite figure out where some of the traits go. For example: I can be manipulative (although, according to Melissa, it’s fairly transparent) — is that a strength (very useful) or a weakness? Most people would be able to figure at least that much out — but then, tops on my list straddling the line is “overly analytical.”

If you’re bored, or want way too much of a glance into my head, or just need something that’s an easy target for amusement and humor, you can click on the little thumbnail for a bigger version of my hand-drawn list of me. Or maybe just my misconceptions of me. Or maybe just handwriting for the FBI to analyze one day.

the days go by
and nothing brings me joy
the glow was strong
when i was a boy
but it’s gone
-Blackfield, GLOW

But enough about me. Let’s talk about you. What do you think about me?

The Final Days of Art Buchwald: A Visit

Art Buchwald: whether you like his writing or not, whether you like him or not, you’ve got to dig his attitude.

Keep writing, indeed.

If there were Dutch people in my neighborhood, they’d be on notice right now. As it is, I have to view everyone with suspicion and distrust, and not just because I have a tendency to see all people in the same dim light. No, one of these bastards, I suspect, has an extra cat roaming their home.

By the way, if you are said bastard, the cat’s name is Ari, and she’ll drive you insane with her talking. I guarantee it. You think it’s cute, the way she doesn’t shut up, don’t you? Yeah, most people do. But give it a while. She’s no different than any other gorgeous but essentially brainless woman. The constant noise becomes static before too long, and then background noise, finally turning into something vaguely resembling fingernails on a chalkboard, only more irritating.

It’s been a rough couple of days without her, joking messages to people who don’t even own computers aside. She’s run off, and so there’s no way of knowing what has actually happened to her — she could be dead, or taken in by the crazy elderly folk down the street, or hiding under a pile of furniture in the alley behind me, or touring with the Dave Matthews Band. And I hate not knowing. I’ve spent hours each day walking the neighborhood, looking for some sign of her (the difficulty of which is compounded by the two strays that look enough like her that it’s distinctly confusing), just wishing that I could find some finality, one way or the other. I hope that if she has been taken in to someone else’s home, it’s at least someone that needs companionship and will treat her well; even the motormouths of the world deserve to be loved.

And poor little Adolf… he’s always been the bigger of the two, and much more akin to my own introverted side. Up until last Thursday, he was fiercely independent (only coming around when company was over or when I was laying on the sofa, something I haven’t done much of since the satellite got turned off a few weeks ago), and really quiet; since Ari ran off, he follows me constantly, right under my feet, and talks enough to make Ari proud. And it suddenly occurs to me that, even though he dwarfs her in size (he’s a right portly bastard, and dense, too), Ari’s his older “sister” — she’s been around ever since he has, and he’s got to be confused. Maybe even a little sad.

And so my spring cleaning has apparently begun in earnest, without me even being aware or in control of it. I had made it through “m” in my CD collection before I got sick, and hadn’t even moved into the back nine when Ari jumped ship. I guess the universe is serving noticed that even I hadn’t realized just how stripped down my life will be soon.

I just hope Adolf isn’t still giving interviews to local news a year from now. If Ari doesn’t come home fairly soon, I’ll just have to make up a story to tell him. And learn how to speak the dark language of the feline, so I can tell it to him so he understands.