i got my first dadaistic "noise" voicemail on my cellphone today. the call apparently came from the 861 area code & i didn't recognize the number. when i tried to call that number, i got an error. plus i've had no luck finding where area code 861 is. so the main theory is that it was a calling card. so while i have some pretty good ideas about who left the message, i won't really know until i ask around...

i went through all my cables & stuff looking for my micromini adapter so i could record the message to my hard drive. (i bought an adapter awhile ago for use with my family radios, & i suspect it would fit the cellphone as well.) no dice. so now i need to get to radio shack to get another one. i have terrible luck with cables & adapters. somehow i lose at least 1-2 cables every show i play. or so it seems.   ¶ 3:16 PM

well even jessica lynch herself has come out to lambast the military for the way it misreported her story in the media, turning her from a normal captured soldier into some combo of she-ra, xena, & the dirty dozen. she's no rambo, she says, & it's honorable of her to come forward & say so (even if it's way way too late).

but at the same time, her story is about to get a lot cloudier. in coming weeks she has a tv movie, a bunch of big interviews, & an authorized biography coming out... & the biography asserts that she was raped while in captivity. of course, she has no memory of any rape; the implication is that this happened during the "three hours" when she was blacked out, with no memory. the book apparently cites some medical records as evidence that it happened.

now of course i don't know whether it really happened (neither does lynch, which means probably nobody knows for sure), & it's possible, since that & worse can happen on the battlefield. but it all seems suspicious to me, because that is the kind of detail that the military would've loved to publicize a long time ago. considering all the lies & disinformation that circulated about pvt lynch, if there were real evidence of rape, bushco would've publicized it long ago to demonize the iraqi army. it would've made the fable that much more sensational: "lady rambo" lynch is ambushed, empties her clip at the forces of evil assaulting her, is eventually overtaken, is brtually sodomized by those vicious baathist misogynists, & is slapped around in the hospital, before her saviors rescue her in a blaze of glory. the sodomy bit adds so much more emotional tension that if this kind of info were out there, they probably would've made saddam himself into the rapist. saddam forcing himself on jessica would've made one hell of a t-shirt. it's exactly the kind of emotional propaganda that the govt loves to foist on us anytime we have a new enemy (& if you don't think so, you must've forgotten the tale of nayirah & the kuwaiti babies being thrown out of incubators... a story that was completely fabricated to drum up support for gulf war I). of course now we know all the other parts of the lynch fable are pretty much false, so why should we believe this new detail?

in other military news, the sergeant who was accused of cowardice has had the charges against him bumped down to dereliction of duty (ny times article; registration required). this means that he can no longer be given the death penalty simply because he freaked out after seeing a highly mutilated corpse. of course, he already has the stigma of "coward" attached to him so his military career is as good as over, but it's a start. i guess the military realized that with so much bad press out there already, they shouldn't exacerbate the problem by openly turning on their own people.   ¶ 10:48 AM

did you know that members of the US military can be sentenced to death if they're convicted of being a coward?

i'm shocked, but i guess i'm not really surprised. executing traumatized soldiers is probably cheaper than paying their health costs...  ¶ 4:29 PM

in kinda-sorta-election-related news:

unfortunately porn star mary carey did not win the california governorship last year, losing the recall election to a lesser-skilled actor. but her career is definitely not over, what with two stories about her circulating the newsfeeds.

so yeah, carey didn't win the election but she will most likely have the best movie inspired by the election... i don't have much hope for a&e's upcoming arnold biopic. but carey will star in an uncoming porn film based on her campaign. it will star porn legend ron jeremy as one of carey's opponents, "spooge cruztamante", with some guy i've never heard of as another opponent, "ernie gropenegger". according to the afp story, 'the movie will show real footage taken from the 23-year-old Carey's campaign to become California's governor, interspersed with saucy new "behind-the-scenes footage."' if the movie is half as good as its character names, it will win a lot of awards (& carey will win a lot of erections) (sorry about that one).

on top of that, carey will also be one of the hosts for an upcoming reality tv show called can you be a porn star? the series will apparently be on pay-per-view & claims to feature "uninhibited nudity and sizzling sexuality".

seems like a pretty logical step. the obvious draw for shows like temptation island or big brother is a voyeurstic desire for sexual content, so just cut out all the other bullshit & make the show about the sex. an american idol who people can really get into. reality tv was always a lot like amateur porn anyway...  ¶ 2:41 PM

so bart peterson won, but that's not why i feel so disgusted.

fox 59 advertised that they were doing a "special report" on the 10o'clock news about the private investigator who's been casing local record stores on the behalf of the RIAA. some of you might already know that the RIAA (with IPD) has been raiding local record stores & confiscating all their mix tapes, despite the fact that the industry tacitly endorses mix tapes. so needless to say i wanted to see the report, as well as tape it for possible sampling.

naturally, since they'd been advertising this report, they waited until the end to show it. it was filmed at luna records (86 & ditch location), & included an interview with luna's todd robinson as well as the music spy, don finch.

the issue was framed as being about piracy: the real kind of piracy, not online downloading but bulk illicit duplication of cds that look & sound pretty much like the "real thing." they showed an example of a pirate beyonce cd that admittedly looked much like the original (at least over the tv), although they did not explicitly say where the cd actually came from (it is implied that the spy found it on luna's shelves; in one scene robinson is seen opening a cd & saying "i'm not surprised").

finally they got around to the mix cd issue: "finch says so-called dj mixes have become one of the most popular counterfeit products on the black market. the mixes include hit songs by popular artists, including some, like rapper 50 cent, who endorse them." then they immediately change the subject back to piracy in general.

so that's it. dj mixes are just another counterfeit product. never mind the hard work & skill that the dj has to put into making the mixes. & let's just ignore the fact that the labels happily give music to the djs specifically so it will be included in these mixes. the people who put out dj mixes are just pirates, & you know what kinds of people get into cd piracy: organized crime. hey, they must be evil! so sayeth fox 59. hang the dj.  ¶ 11:00 PM

well the gop did it again... they successfully got cbs to pull its upcoming reagan miniseries before it ever aired. apparently now the miniseries will be on showtime (also owned by viacom).

conservative critics, who had been screaming at the top of their lungs about issue for weeks now, dusted off this trusty old complaint about the miniseries: "i haven't seen it yet so i really have no clue what i'm talking about, but whatever it is, i'm offended by it." pre-emptive war, pre-emptive censorship (also called prior restraint): it's all good with these guys.

never mind that it would be exceedingly obvious that this miniseries is fictionalized (i'd like to think the average person can tell the difference between documentary & biopic)... since it's not the kind of glowing, reacharound whitewash that bush got in the recent 9/11 biopic (also aired on showtime, oddly enough), it's now been shouted off of network tv. god forbid anyone should say anything critical of ron reagan on network television! they say the miniseries will be inaccurate (even though they haven't seen it), & that's why they're censoring it, but i don't see them trying to get that jessica lynch biopic cancelled; i think we all know their big concern is that the thing will be too accurate, & people will realize what a heartless, inept jackass reagan was.

now i haven't seen the movie so i have no clue what i'm talking about, but i bet it's not vicious enough in its criticisms of reagan & his administration. yeah, i want to see him turn up his nose at the suffering of aids patients, like in one alleged scene the censors harp on so much; hell, i want to see reagan spitting on aids babies & throwing bibles at hiv+ patients. but i want to see more than that; i want to see his involvement with iran/contra: i want to see reagan snorting rails of uncut coke with the contras & personally selling them autographed guns from his personal stash. i want to see him & nancy in a 4-way with rumsfeld & saddam hussein, cracking jokes about how fun it would be to gas american minorities the way saddam was bombing his own people. i want to see reagan giving osama a one-on-one lesson on how to implement terrorist/guerilla tactics against the soviets. i want to see all that stuff & more, & i want to see it on cbs (i don't even get showtime). because you know, if people see it on a cbs biopic, they'll accept it as fact no matter how outlandish it is.  ¶ 1:44 PM

apparently i don't get to vote this year. even though we only moved a few blocks, we're in a new precinct now & i forgot to file the new address paperwork to get registered here. this is the problem you get into when your family knows all the people who work in your voting precinct; they already know we moved so if we showed up they'd know we were cheating.

it's a shame because i got all fired up by the thread on imn about how mayor bart peterson's "war on raves" & other anti-art police state tactics fly in the face of his claims about "supporting the arts". i don't really think the republican would be much better, so i likely would've voted libertarian, but it would have felt good to vote against bart regardless. at least i have plenty of time to make sure i'm registered to vote bush out in 2k4.  ¶ 8:00 PM

i'm growing really sick of all my work assignments having to be done immediately... i was just brought at least 1/2 hour's worth of work & was told it must be turned over today... never mind that i'm getting hassled about a different project with similarly unreasonable dates (dates which would be nearly impossible to hit even without other things constantly coming in that have to be done now now now)

everyone in front of me can have all the time in the world to twiddle their asses before doing their work, but naturally i don't have that kind of leeway. once it comes to me, i must do it right away to make up for all that time everyone else wasted.

sure, i spend time goofing off (like writing this blog entry), but jesus... we're talking about stuff that should've been done weeks ago, but instead it's only showing up today, which means now i need to do it all today. that only means i won't get to do the other pressing work, which only means i'm going to get nagged more, all because other people have let these files sit around on their desktops collecting e-dust.

oh yeah, & now i have to rush to get the crap done on time, which means the quality is going to suffer that much more...  ¶ 1:43 PM

damn, i'm listening to the new afx smojphace ep & tracks 2-3 are harsh noise! chaotic digital screeches, buzzing, & scraping. very unusual for an ep that starts with what's basically a dsp dancehall/jungle remix (afx mix of the bug/daddy freddy's "run the place red"). pretty much the last thing i expected from afx at this point. not necessarily innovative, but refreshing nonetheless.

on first listen the speedranch/jansky noise mi^grate & the donna summer/ove-naxx split are the standouts from this buying session, but then again it is first listen & i haven't even played everything i bought yet. i picked up the solo record by scratch, the embodiment of instrumentation & so far it seems like just a hip-hop record with beatboxing instead of drum machines. that's fine, but for a "solo" release by a "human turntablist", i was hoping for more focus on scratch himself, multitracked beatboxing & mouth noise, stuff like that. maybe i'm biased because i've done stuff like that myself, but i didn't think it necessary to bring in a bunch of MCs to legitimize this kind of record. there are plenty of "scratch" records by turntablists, so why not a pure "human turntablist" record by a man called scratch? (ps. if you haven't seen the movie scratch, watch it)

okay, i have more records to listen to before sunday night tv time, & apparently don't have anything else to say...  ¶ 6:24 PM