HAIL ANTS

We are doomed.

thanks, prez

"there's no such thing as a lost cause if you're willing to be creative, and challenge the conventional wisdom, and take some risks -- if you're willing to try, and fail, and then try again until you find something that works"

The beast with 40 eyes

Having spent the past 72 hours or so listening almost exclusively to Michael Jackson, I've realized that I'll remember him differently than I thought I would.

I thought that I'd remember him most for his early hits- the universally loved dance songs that you hear at every wedding, and which absolutely kill at every wedding, regardless of the attendee demographic.

And yes, any discussion of my favorite MJ songs pretty much begins and ends with "I want you back". But that said, reviewing his solo work revealed, once again, just how dark his lyrics could get. Billie Jean is obvious, but even Thriller, which has, because of the video, become sort of cartoonish over the years, has some freaking dark subject matter once you strip away the halloween dance party veneer.

But the one that I love, somewhat inexplicably, even more than Thriller?

Smooth Criminal. Just a perfect, perfect song, about stabbin' a chick. Love it.

Oh, and one more tip of the hat to this 1978 demo of "Don't stop til you get enough". Hearing this makes me rethink my list of places I would travel if I had a time machine. CBGB's during the Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense tour still tops the list, but this comes close.

THIS is optimism. This is public health

DOOM

Thanks, intarwebs.

Quick hits: retro music

Mastodon: Oh crap this is amazing. Metal is back.

Japandroids: Terrible fucking name, great fucking band. Emo is back?

Arcade Fire on Pitchfork TV

YAY!

The best thing Pitchfork has ever done. They are hosting the new Arcade Fire DVD: Miroir Noir. Check it out before it goes down.

YAY!

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

If you don't get excited watching this, congratulations, your inner child is dead, and I really don't want to know you.

Signs of Spring

Thanks Deadspin.

Where on earth would we be without Bill Walton?

He is the greatest.

NOW we're getting there

This idea is so good I wish I'd thought of it.

Introducing..... SEPTAfail.

This contest is over

They might as well shut down the interwebs. This is the greatest anything ever.

Thanks, Failblog.

One day like this a year'd see me right

Holy cow it's nice outside.

It likely won't last very long, so let's make it count today.

Rise up Philly! Ditch work! Get outside. Go easy.

It's looking like a beautiful day

The Plan

I have a new strategy for securing a mortgage on the house I probably can't afford. Pity!

In which Alex sees the silver lining on being down in a $2,000,000,000 hole

So i know you all know that much of the Wire is based on Philly, but the current budget crisis REALLY makes the parallels obvious.

In October, Mayor Nutter announced a $1B deficit, and proposed massive cuts, particularly to libraries and pools. He was nearly run out of town on a rail (yes, we still do that in Philly). Then, a month ago, he announced that the deficit was actually more like $2B, cause what's another billion dollars between neighbors.

Now, he's called for every single department in the city to plan for 10%, 20%, or 30% cuts. It's crazy and awesome.

• They're talking about possibly closing fire departments, and doing so in the middle of winter, when fires are at their worst due to poor heating systems.


• They're talking about laying off thousands of cops, at a time when we're still reeling from the 2004-2007 wave of violence that made us the shame of the nation.


• They're talking about scaling back trash pickup to just twice a month in this already filthy city, reversing the good will garnered by increasing recycling to weekly just last month.


• They're talking about eliminating street cleaning, while scaling back rat patrol. More garbage + less rat patrol = bring out your dead.


• Oh, and of course they're talking about shuttering city health centers that provide health care to thousands of the city's most vulnerable residents, resulting in untold millions of dollars in unnecessary health care costs due to increased ER utilization. Costs that we will all bear because of the high rate of uninsured that rely on those health centers. Of course, this last scenario may be less likely if we all get bitten by rats and die of the plague before we can get to the ER.

At any rate, this is probably really all a bunch of doom and gloom posturing so that Mayor Nutter can get city council to propose a massive tax hike to avert this catastrophe. That way he ducks the criticism both ways. And to that I say bravo.

Anyway, his comment about using PhillyStat as a scalpel for targeting cuts is pretty sweet. I only wish my MPH program taught us how to cook the stats on rat patrol. Wait, what if we legalized rats in certain neighborhoods? We could call one Hamsterdam!

Anyway, here's the list of meetings where the people can come on out and voice their opinion about all this:

Thursday, February 12, 2009 - St. Dominic’s School 8510 Frankford Avenue (Northeast Philadelphia)

Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - Mastery Charter School Pickett Campus 5700 Wayne Avenue (Germantown)

Thursday, February 19, 2009 - St. Monica’s Catholic School 16th & Porter School (South Philadelphia)

Monday, February 23, 2009 - Pinn Memorial Baptist Church 2251 North 54th Street (West Philadelphia)

Doors open at 6 pm. All meetings are from 7 pm to 9:30 pm. Seats limited.

Thanks, Failblog

Requiem for a freak

RIP Lux Interior.

Oh when the sun goes down and the moon comes up
I turn into a teenage goo-goo muck
Yeah I cruise through the city and I roam the streets
Lookin for something that is nice to eat

You better duck,
when I show up,
the goo-goo muck.

I'm a night headhunter looking for some head
With a way-out body underneath that head
Yeah I'll get you baby with a little luck
Cuz I'm a teenage tiger and an goo-goo muck

You better duck,
when I show up,
the goo-goo muck.

The city is a jungle and I'm a beast
I'm a teenage tiger looking for a feast
Yeah I wan't the most but I'll take the least
Cuz I'm a goo-goo muck tiger and a teenage beast

You better duck,
when I show up,
the goo-goo muck.

Guilty Pleasures

I've been really enjoying Ladyhawke recently. In particular, the song "Back of the Van" should be played regularly at all roller and ice skating rinks. It's good nostalgia.

Happy New Term

Yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah

If you could blow up the world

With the flick of a switch

Would you do it?

(Yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah)

If you could make everybody poor

Just so you could be rich

Would you do it?

(Yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah)

If you could watch everybody work

While you just lay on your back

Would you do it?

(Yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah)

If you could take all the love

Without giving any back

Would you do it?

(Yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah)

And so we cannot know ourselves

Or what we'd really do

With all your power

With all your power

With all your power

What would you do?

With all your power

With all your power

With all your power

What would you do?

(No no no no, no no no no)

If you could make your own money

And then give it to everybody

Would you do it?

(No no no no, no no no no)

If you knew all the answers

And could give to the masses

Would you do it?

(No no no no, no no no no)

Are you crazy?

It's a very dangerous thing to do

Exactly what you want

Because you cannot know yourself,

Or what you'd really do

With all your power

With all your power

With all your power

What would you do?

A quick dose of seething hatred

Wag of my dick goes straight at the US Army, for fucking up the mailing addresses of letters to family members of US soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and referring to the men as "John Doe". Forget for a moment the crippling dehumanization that comes with having your dead mom, dad, husband, wife, son, or daughter labeled a John Doe, and think for a second about the arrogance and disdain it takes to outsource the writing of letters to families of dead fucking US soldiers.

Oh, Army chief of staff General Casey is now writing a "personal letter" to each of the 7,000 family members? I award you no make up points - you should have been writing these letters your damn self all along.

Look, anyone who has watched a single fucking Vietnam or WWII movie knows that the only way to save the General that led the dead soldiers to their sad fates is to show him agonizing over writing exactly these kinds of letters. Outsourcing that shit is so goddamn horrible, I don't know that Dante even thought up a level for it.

So, in short, fuck you US Army.