ARCHIVE WHAT SARA SAYS WHAT CAROLYN SAYS ASK DR. ELMO REMOVE FRAME
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ARCHIVE WHAT SARA SAYS WHAT CAROLYN SAYS ASK DR. ELMO REMOVE FRAME |
April 15, 2004MoonedSomebody mentioned here that I seem happier. Well, I guess I am, but I'm a guy who orbits the moon: sometimes I'm on the light side, sometimes I'm on the dark side. I've been pretty busy building websites and working on three projects that have all collided, just like I knew they would, because of things beyond my control. I think it's a reasonable measure of my current sanity of I at least show up here once a week. If you don't see me, I'm likely buried or seriously wishing I were. You can also find me over at the PraiseNet, where absolutely nobody posts to the blog (black church folk are quite intimidated by technology). This beast took up an enormous amount of time, but I think we've got it swinging now, which frees up time to come here and complain about Bush. Which is a long-winded way of saying, yeah, I guess. Knowing CAF won't be cancelled before #1 hits the stands helps. The Crew thing really hurt, and really had me focusing on other things.The more my life makes sense, the more time I spend on the light side of the moon. Thanks for noticing and, hey, for caring. Total Eclipse Of OpinionGreg sed: Then I read your blog, and you dismiss everything the President does as the actions of an evil chimp being directed by bwahaha evil overlords. But... he IS an evil chimp being directed by bwahaha evil overlords. I don't always have time to do a lot of homework for blog posts, but I HAVE done a lot of homework on Bush and posted the essays here: http://phonogram.us/viewpoint/limo.htm It's really not personal-- the guy IS a chimp. He is either evil or stupid. Either way is bad news for us. But, I rush to add, I'm no Kerry fan either. I assure you if Kerry gets in, I'll swing just as big a bat at him. a desire for a better world, molded by the bold actions of principled, heroic people who make difficult choices with eyes open to the complexities of their actions. I'd like to read your thoughts on how that might actually work in the real world, with the people who are actually in power at the moment Impossible. The real world is simply not wired for this. Gene Roddenberry's utopian future is just a fairly tale. Greg, blogs are not meant to be taken seriously. Blogs are for rants. There's a real difference between my rants and my essays. I can rant in about 15 minutes. Some of the essays archive don this site took weeks to research. I don't have weeks these days. Which is not to say I won't rise to your challenge and design PriestWorld, I'm just terribly busy, so I take shots at Bush's blinking necktie. I think the man is a boob of irreducible proportions who shot himself square in the face with this news conference. Regretfully, I don't have two weeks to invest justifying that opinion-- it's just an opinion. I was joking about your repressing my views.
My work here is done. April 14, 2004There's Something About MaryI think "hot" is an emotional thing if not a spiritual thing. I think Lauryn Hill is indeed hot. I think Norah Jones is incredibly hot. The hottest women, IMO, are those who aren't even trying. I'm not sure India.Arie is hot because I'd think calling her "hot" demeans her message. Which, of course, makes her hot. The hottest woman I ever met in life was Mary Wilshire, a fabulous artist Larry Hama and I worked with on CRAZY Magazine. We all went to Atlanta for a con and Mary and I ended up jamming on a club floor until 2 in the morning. I was shocked that a white girl could dance (no offense), but even moreso that Mary danced with an abandon I've not seen since. She loved life and loved art and really educated me about women. Mary converted me to her religion, a kind of user-friendly feminism. She remains one of the great joys of my life. I have not, from that day to this, seen a hotter woman than Mary dancing herself into a tizzy in the hottest little black dress I've ever seen (mind you, in those days, Mary dressed a lot like Elaine Benes from the first two seasons of Seinfeld; real girly girl stuff, bobby socks. She rarely wore makeup, was just this utterly unpretentious woman). I thought I was going to lose my mind. She was SO unbelievably gorgeous and, after an hour or two of NON-STOP Mary, the little black dress was even littler and was clinging to her like a second skin. To her, I was Hama's teenage sidekick. Robin to his Batman. To me, she was Wonder Woman. I had *such* a crush. but more than that, I truly respected and admired her. She was the first woman I ever came to see as an actual person. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's true: often boys see girls as merely objects of a game. Without actually meaning to, Mary taught me to see girls and women as PEOPLE, a real epiphany for me at age 18 or so. I adored her, I respected her, I greatly admired her. THAT, my friends, is the true meaning of "hot." BushwackedAnybody see Bush's electric tie in his news conference? What utter moron pocked a tie that would create migraine-inducing moire patterns on television? Doesn't anybody in the Bush WH know what they're doing? In an effort to portray strength and confidence in America's foreign policy, here's Dubya struggling to look and sound presidential even as reporters worldwide rush to look up the spelling of "quagmire," and all I can do is repress a chuckle and a shudder at Bush's patented deer-in-headlights stammer and his flashing neon tie, and Bush's face-saving determination to turn power over in a country that is clearly out of control. Wow-- it was fun watching Dubya disintegrate when a reporter asked him about the common criticism that Bush never admits mistakes. He blanched a little, got turned around, and rambled on and on about Iraq-- never addressing the issue of his inability to admit mistakes (a trait inherited from his dad, the man who gave us Dan Quayle and squandered a 90% approval rating to lose to an adulterous southern governor). April 13, 2004That's DR. Hot Black ChickOver the weekend, Genius Journalist Geraldo Rivera referred to White House National security Advisor Condoleeza Rice as, I kid you not, "a hot black chick." Brought Fox News' usual idiocy to a complete halt as the other panelists completely blanched at Rivera's description, and all but physically moved their chairs back from him. The moderator immediately clarified that that was Rivera's personal opinion and not his and not Fox News', but nothing saved the moment (other than it being Fox News and Saturday; I've seen no mention of this faux pas anywhere). I *suspect* I've been insulted worse, but I couldn't swear to it. Rivera's condescending tone is really necessary to understand how patently offensive this came across. It was utterly astounding to see Gerlado lob both racism and sexism at so accomplished a person at the same time. It was, for Rivera, a personal best. Just when I think he could not possibly disgrace himself further, he goes and shows me something. Oh, and for the record, while I find Dr. Rice very attractive, I'd hardly consider her "hot." Beyonce's not hot, either. In fact, fairly few "hot" people are actually hot. Lord knows Christina's not hot. Janet is surely not hot and hasn't been hot in a very long time. Alicia Keys-- bleh. Not. I Hate YouOk, I've decided: the greatest song ever written is I Hate Everything About You by Three Days Grace. Until last week, the greatest song ever written was "Comin' From Where I'm From" by Anthony Hamilton. There's just this visceral thrill to Three Days' head-banger. Yesterday I was consumed by joy, something that hasn't happened for me in a very long time. I'm driving along and blasting this obscenely simple 3-chord record, and suddenly it's like rocket propellant. It's quite clever and ridiculously simple. It's one of those sings I certainly would have written had I thought of it first. It reminds me of the fun and pathos of Live, like the song about the waitress from Throwing Copper. Next week's favorite song will be the one about Stacy's Mom. Hilarious. A great record. Y'know, these kids almost give me hope for the future of popular music. meanwhile, there's very little that's clever or useful over in the R&B; section. Sex and profanity, but that's about it. Beyonce can be clever, but I wish to heaven she'd stop trying to out-skank Britany. I wish to heaven Lauryn Hill would pleeeeeze put out an album, already. And, has anybody seen or heard MJ;'s new video The One? I have no idea what this is, and MJ has long ago squandered his free pass (remember when you just used to buy his records, no questions asked?). April 08, 2004Finally, Something Goes RightWell, I finally did something right. I recently re-seeded my lawn, which requires you to water heavily so the seeds can take root. Watering here in drought-stricken Colorado can be an expensive proposition. Thankfully, God parked a low pressure system over my head so it's cold and gloomy and raining constantly, here where we really need it. Nor sure I've ever been more pleased to see a rainy Resurrection Sunday... Can You See Me Now?Eureka: I think I found the drain: apparently somebody linked to an animated gif of King T'Challa playing poker with Tony Stark and included it in their mail list .sig or something. While I will assume this to have been an innocent mistake, it is catastrophically dumb to link to an image that is nearly 700kb and circulate it within a mailing list that gives me 44,000 hits on this image every month. Once again, with feeling: please, I beg you, do not link to images or sounds on this site. If you don't understand what I am talking about, all the more reason to not do it. After I made changes to my htacess files, some visitors reported missing images, Soon: I tried your script, but it caused a server error and the site was gone. So now I've removed my script and Soon's, so we're back at square one. If you see missing images, please let me know. Thanks! April 05, 2004And The Band(width) Played On...Trying to track the bandwidth drain, my webhost said: It looks like there is an image [or sound clip] in someone's e-mail message sent to a yahoo address that is linking back to your site. Readers of the message are either clicking the link to your site or viewing the image [or playing the clip], causing the referrer's link to show up. It is really impossible to tell without seeing the actual message and knowing how many people are clicking the link or loading the image. Yahoo is blocking access to this letter, likely in a mailing list or some such: http://us.f128.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter http://us.f128.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?MsgId=7036_1342272_77714_830_288_0_104683_-1_0&YY;=6572&inc;=25ℴ=down&sort;=date&pos;= If this is you, please fix this. If this is not you, please don't let this be you. Please do not link to images or sounds on this website. If you have any suggestions abut how to un-ring this bell, please let me know. Thanks! April 02, 2004Huh?Here's something I can't figure out: is the Rubber Band Man from the Staples commercial offensive? This black mailroom guy with a huge afro grins as he merrily goes abut solving the problems of hapless white office workers while dancing to The Spinners' classic Rubber Band Man. I'm stuck somewhere between being amused and offended, and I need a little guidance to tell me which I should be... They Like Me, They Really Like MeY'know, this is very heartening for me, as I wasn't terribly happy with issue #1. First issues are REALLY tough to handle, and Bart and I were really just getting acquainted. I haven't read any reviews and I've, frankly, been really distracted by other things (the GL hardcovers among them). Personally, I think the series just gains momentum with each successive issue. I'm much happier with #2, which has much more action, and then issue #3 where we really start peeling the onion. Those of you who have read my BLACK PANTHER must surely realize the first issue or two of most any arc I'm writing is rife with misdirection. CAF #1 is no exception. The mysterious Cap imposter will present tremendous new challenges to Cap (hence the "Two Americas" arc title), and the larger characteristics of that challenge will not present themselves until AFTER Cap resolves this story arc. Meanwhile, Falcon is in for big changes as he continues being a kind of outlaw, which causes real conflict (maybe for the first time) between Falcon and Cap and Cap ultimately has to choose between his friend and his beliefs. I'm hoping you'll be pleased as this thing unwinds, including a huge development you will either love or hate. Just watch those curves-- they're pretty tight. As for the GL books, they are coming along. I've been asked to not give out plot details, so I will anyway. The three books of the trilogy focus on Kyle Rayner, Alan Scott and Hal Jordan, respectively. All three are individual stories that tell a larger over-arc. Many GL villains (MALVOLIO! LORD OF THE GREEN FLAME!!!) are featured and the story spans several decades, from Alan Scott all the way to an unnamed Future GL in the far-flung future. All books are in continuity, so, yes, Hal is the Spectre, but we finagle him back into the emerald tights for one of these volumes. All three books will have painted covers, and there's a possibility of Mike Baron and myself adapting the novels into a comics maxi-series (not confirmed yet, but cross your fingers). It's a huge, cosmic bru-haha (and it's been awhile since anybody asked ME to either bru or haha) while also being a very personal character-driven story, allowing us real depth with Kyle, Alan and Hal. It's a terribly ambitious project and I'm terribly grateful to be chosen to helm it. Stay tuned... This Just InThanks, in no small part, to you, CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON will remain on Marvel's publishing schedule at least through Year One. Marvel informed me today we are green lit through issue #12, so no danger of CREW-ing this book (at least for now). Thank you all for supporting this title, thank you Bart for your brilliant work giving us a great Nitrus boost out of the gate. and for those of you doing the wait-and-see, you heard it here first: the book is solid. Get on board! When I can come up for air, I'll continue developing the CAF site here on Digital-Priest.Com, with hints of what's to come. Hard to do much hype before issue #3 comes out. That's where we start pulling the rug out... The Mean SeasonI've been too busy to make much noise about this, but it's worth mentioning that the presidential race is already heartbreaking in terms of just how quickly it has gone negative. President Bush, in a desperate effort to not be the second single-term Bush, has turned things nasty right away as he threatens to suffocate Kerry within his $150M war chest. The Bush camp is counting on the US public to be gullible and stupid, they are counting on the old adage, "The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it." They're spinning Bush like he's Ike in this Christ-like Via Doloarosa strolls across the presidio. It's incredibly insulting to my intelligence as it tells me this is what the think of me. They actually think I didn't see those US civilians burned in their car, or they act like I don't believe the president bears direct responsibility, that this president started this war, when the US should never, under any circumstances, be the nation that starts a war. The Bush camp is counting on the stupidity and ignorance of their right wing fanatical followers, who parrot the White House line with uniformity while we liberals tend to debate even among ourselves. Their message is organized and focused while the Dems are still, as I type this, scrambling to find something that actually sticks to this guy. It's a terrifying thought that Bush might win, that Bush is likely to win, even though he has plunged this nation into war and wrecked the economy (and don't kid yourself, Bush had the economy on the ropes long before 9-11. Back in Florida, a desperate Bush, hanging by a chad, kept warning of dire economic times, to the point where James Baker had to, ah, parse or redress some of the Governor's statements. The economy nosedived almost immediately after the Supreme Court elected Bush president). The campaign has gone nasty right away, and it is mostly the president's money trying to make us scared of Kerry. The Republicans are peddling fear. MoveOn.org is also peddling fear, and it doesn't work. When thinking liberals stoop to tactics honed and developed by the Rush Limbaughs of the world, it really doesn't work because even the liberals are looking at MoveOn.org's scare campaign and shaking their heads. I don't like extremism, even when it's going my way. The Republicans are the fear peddlers. Even in their most hopeful ads, the subtext is, "Don't mess this up-- we're doing fine." And, despite having opportunities Bill Clinton would have killed for-- the 911 commission, the economy, no-bid contracts to Halliburton-- Kerry and his team have not found the fire in the belly. They're still the vanilla ice cream cone. Kerry refuses to get Clinton Hair, and he has no coherent single message, ITS THE ECONOMY, STUPID, to focus his campaign on. He neither looks nor sounds like the leader of the free world. The haircut alone makes him look as though he is refusing sound advice, and makes me nervous about him. Surely SOMEBODY has told him how he LOOKS and SOUNDS is 62% of the battle. He is utterly unconvincing on the stump, he has a kind of Herman Munster thing going on. His sunken, cold eyes do not inspire trust, and his inability to nail a single, focused, cogent theme-- despite the enormous opportunity he has-- makes me anxious. He is clearly not taking advice from Clinton-- there seems no Clinton elements at all to Kerry The Generic Democrat. And, while, yes, the people he does take advice from got him this far, just remember that Jesus was hailed when He arrived in Jerusalem, too. What's scariest is not even that the Bush campaign thinks we're all that easily manipulated but that they're probably right. I fear this guy is going to win in a walk, that money talks and they've got tons of it. That Bush is too powerful a spokesperson for big business to get run out of the White House, and that we will continue this spiral into economic and military horror for another four years, while the Dems continue to throw things at the wall, hoping for something that sticks. Whatever your thinking abut Howard Dean, at least he had a message. Kerry is vanilla. Like Gore before him, he's anther too-tall wooden liberal with incredibly bad hair that he has always refused to do anything about. The guy needs Clinton Hair and a Dean Message. Kerry has no real message that sticks, no real theme the Bush camp can't mow over with their money. Bush's is a campaign with no conscience. Kerry's is a campaign with no soul. Back In BlackGreg wrote: Tell me again why she didn't show up in The Crew? Nope, sorry, not good enough. Well, they cancelled The Crew PDQ. That's a pretty reasonable reason... And, had we had JRJr, T'Challa's book would still be on the stands. Which is not to disparage my friends Sal and Bob, had they had Brian Bendis instead of me, BP would still be a going concern as well. These days it's all about the numbers and the names. The right names get you the right numbers. Lots of fans who passed us up will be curious about the new book. That's just the way it works. I have not heard from any official channels that this project exists. But, assuming it does, I wish the new BP crew every success. I greatly enjoyed my tour of duty, but have no immediate plans to go back to Wakanda nor do I have any emotional bias towards the next guys and gals to take over. Perhaps the only area of concern is that elements of Sal and Bob's BP run will be appearing in CAF as The Falcon, now a fugitive from justice, takes up residence in the Wakandan embassy and deals with a cranky Omoro (BP's African Sir Jonathan Geilgud). . While we have no immediate plans to bring her in, it is certainly likely that QDJ could appear in CAF, and even perhaps a GIANT Talking Monkey Pirate or two. I hope what we're doing doesn't conflict with the new mini March 30, 2004OK I'M BEGGING YOUSorry to be so invisible-- I'm spinning multiple plates right now and storm fronts are colliding. I'll try and get back here soon, but in the meantime, I have a real problem I need your help with. Someone here has linked to an image or images on this site or has linked this blog and has included it in a posting to a newsletter on Yahoo: http://us.f128.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter I don't know if this is friend or foe, but please sir or madam, I am begging you: do NOT link to the images or sounds on this site. My webhost is trying to track this person down but, on the chance you're reading this, you may shut my entire site down. I'm sure you meant no harm, but if this is you or if you know who this is, please get them to knock it off immediately. If I can't stop the bandwidth drain, I'll yank the site altogether. It's a crappy deal, but there it is. Linking to images or sounds on this site may seem innocent enough, but once you link to a message board or newsletter, the bandwidth drain increases exponentially and CONTINUES to drain long after your thread or topic of discussion has exhausted itself. You''re not even taking about whatever it was, but I'm still getting hammered by bandwidth charges. I am begging you, please do not do this. If this is you, please eMail me and tell me what file you've linked to so I can fix things on my end. Otherwise, we have to search from our end and hope to find you and find the file. if we can't do either, I'll just take the site down. I appreciate each and every one of you. But please don't let your enthusiasm for whatever you find here cause you to drive Priest broke. Thanks! |
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Mooned
Total Eclipse Of Opinion There's Something About Mary Bushwacked That's DR. Hot Black Chick I Hate You Finally, Something Goes Right Can You See Me Now? And The Band(width) Played On... Huh?
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