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Up to the minute notes on the current state of free thinking and free living: Kentucky moonshine - original analysis and reporting from MoreThings, and all round pop culture museum of sight and sound - photo galleries, mp3 and video downloads.
Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
Live free or die!
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October 03, 2002
The RIAA's lamest excuse ever
The RIAA will clutch at any straw in their attempt to end the long established legal concept of fair use. They desperately want congress, the president, Batman, Saddam Hussein - ANYBODY to shut down peer-to-peer file sharing. They will say or do anything.
This argument, however, constitutes a hilarious new low in lameness:
"Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) chairman/CEO Hilary Rosen told lawmakers yesterday (Oct. 1) that the industry's parental-advisory labeling program is being undermined by massive downloading of unauthorized music files from peer-to-peer networks. Speaking at a House hearing reviewing music marketing and the labeling program, Rosen said that since downloads carry no stickers, the industry's efforts to "make the advisory program better are being diluted by peer-to-peer (P2P) networks."
How desperate are these people when they are reduced to urging congress to crack down on the P2P networks because they don't have those stupid "parental advisory" stickers? Is anyone at all expected to even pretend that they think the record companies are genuinely concerned about this?
posted by Al at 10/03/2002 04:53:00 AM
Driver's licenses and government mind control rays
Scary setup from the email: This is really scary.......... Now you can see anyone's Drivers License on the Internet, including your own! I just searched for mine and there it was, picture and all.
I don't think this is a good idea at all!!!! I think we should write our congressperson!!
Al's grouchy rant in response: Yeah, I've seen this little joke before. Apparently, the fact that the link does not actually cough up driver's license info is supposed to be re-assuring somehow. However, it doesn't really strike me as all that farfetched. Consider for a moment in passing how many people have access to motor vehicle information. OK, I can't absolutely anonymously and freely access driver's license information on the net.
That doesn't re-assure me very much, however. Best I can tell, pretty much any half-assed town cop or BMV worker in the country can get to just such information, and probably more at will. You might as well publish it all on the net for all the privacy or confidentiality you actually have.
I don't believe in drivers being licensed, and I don't believe in license plates. Note how readily just a little more technology to talk between the different state systems is turning driver's licenses into a de facto national ID card. [In a properly sinister German accent] Are your papers in order, sir?
Of course, this is just my own crazy, baseless paranoia. In the words of Sgt. Schultz, I SEE NOTHING. NO-THING!!
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go fashion a tinfoil hat to keep out the government mind control rays.
Skeptically Yours,
Al Barger
posted by Al at 10/03/2002 02:45:00 AM
October 02, 2002
Upstart? Of course you know, this means war
 Julius "Groucho" Marx was born October 2, 1890.
Was he the funniest SOB to ever make a movie? He has to be near the top of the list. Where Charlie Chaplin's tramp gave authority figures a lovable, gentle tweaking, Groucho and his brothers gave opponents of free thinking and free living a big fat boot in the ass.
Nobody but Groucho could have been Rufus T Firefly, the Freedonian dictator from Duck Soup, the funniest deconstruction of statecraft in movie history. Groucho gave him a joyous and destructive cynicism no other actor could have matched. Firefly is one of the great all-time movie villains.
He acted, cracked wise, sang and danced. The one and only Groucho Marx would have been 112 today. Slap on a greasepaint moustache, light up a smelly cigar, and look for some bureaucrat needing harassment.
Officious Cabinet Officer: Sir, you try my patience!
Groucho: Don't mind if I do. You must come over and try mine sometime.
MARX BROTHERS PICTURES
posted by Al at 10/02/2002 11:19:00 PM
September 30, 2002
Just watching the Torch burn: Delicious pleasure
Schadenfreude? Who me? Mmm, wonderful exhilirating schadenfreude for soon to be former US Senator Robert Torricelli. I for one haven't laughed so hard recently as while watching his September 30 news conference announcing that he was dropping his re-election bid.
Do I feel bad about this enjoyment? No I do not. Brother, you asked for it. He had his downfall coming to him - what a sleazeball. The ethics violations did him in. Most specifically, beyond everything else, anybody playing footsie with someone representing interests of the North Korean government deserves whatever befalls them.
Still, you might could feel sympathy for him if he had simply stepped up to the plate in a dignified adult manner and taken responsibility. Yup, I screwed up. I don't know what the hell I was thinking, but I'm paying the price and I deserve it. I'm sorry.
Of course he couldn't do that. Oh, no, he was determined to maximize the pleasure of all those who hate him. First of all, he insisted that he didn't do the things he's accused of. Right, buddy. You're lucky not to be sharing a cell with Jim Trafficant- though that may yet be coming. He was so sleazy that even the Democrats of the senate ethics committee felt it necessary to officially slap his hand, and you KNOW they didn't want to do that. Why keep lying now; do you think there's anyone at all who believes you?
Then he has to explain about all the wonderful things he's done. He'll take great comfort that old people will get some or other free crap from him. Tonight there'll be some woman fleeing her battering husband who'll go stay in the women's shelter that he built. Shut up assmunch. You didn't build anything. That would be some union bricklayers and electricians who built it. Nor did YOU pay for it. That distinction belongs to the taxpayers.
Then he's crying and putting up like the drama queen that he is. "When did we get to be so unforgiving?" Boo, hoo, hoo. Besides, you didn't do the things you're accused of, remember? Generally, the first step to seeking forgiveness is to confess and accept responsibility for your actions. Geez, step up and take your medicine like a man. The whole public display of self-pity caused my father to declare that Bill Clinton was just an amateur compared to the Torch.
Torricelli really stopped the show, though, with a childhood story that should go down in the annals [or anals] of infamy with Nixon's Checkers comments. In some early fit of morbidity, according to his story, five year old Bob Torricelli made out his will. He wanted to leave his worldly possessions to the the country and the Marine Corps because that's where his daddy served.
Somebody SLAP me! I, for one, was just hysterical with laughter. My old man got it right. He really did make Bill Clinton look like an amateur. The story sounds about as likely as Al Gore's mama singing him to sleep with strains of "Look for the Union Label." If it's really TRUE, that just makes it worse.
This one's going to be tough for the Simpsons to top. Even Mayor Quimby couldn't touch this.
posted by Al at 9/30/2002 11:38:00 PM
September 29, 2002
The devil's favorite singer
Jerry Lee Lewis was born September 29, 1935.
Everybody knows a couple of obvious early hits, "Great Balls of Fire" and "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On." Some of the effect, though, may be lost on folks in this more secular age who don't get the blasphemy of these recordings. Indeed, Lewis himself was convinced that this rock and roll he was singing was so wicked that he would certainly and quite literally go to hell for it. Well, if you're going to hell, you might as well go in a big way. The total abandonment to his self-perceived wickedness gives his work the soul that makes it so special.
These cornerstones of the house of rock essentially recast fundamentalist gospel imagery as sexual innuendo. "Great Balls of Fire" in particular commandeers the classic imagery of the day of pentacost, the first church meeting, during which flames of fire appeared over the congregants as a symbol of the presence of god in his manifestation as the Holy Ghost.
His determination that he is purely hellbound made him determined to get his rewards in this one, and give not a rat's ass about consequences. Perhaps only Keith Richards among all rockers has survived harder or more extended drug abuse, something that cannot be said for a couple Lewis' wives who have died under questionable circumstances. Jerry Lee lives every day like it's 1999.
Besides his first couple of years at Sun records, he had an outstanding career as a "country" singer with Mercury records in the 1970s. His musical style didn't really change, just the marketing. One particular highlight from that era that shouldn't be lost: the beautiful country waltz "Middle Aged Crazy." Few would sing of this character in sympathy, or with as much conviction.
Also check out the biopic Great Balls of Fire, starring Dennis Quaid. The film seemed to largely slip through the cracks with the public, but it's a must see for any true rocker.
Here's hoping he enjoys birthday #67 and many more before he gets to being Satan's bitch for all eternity.Labels: country_music
posted by Al at 9/29/2002 11:22:00 PM
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