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Hail Bansky!

In case you haven't already heard, one of the most original artists of today (a Brit fellow by the name of Bansky) hung up many of his own works of art in most of the major art museuems in New York. Most were fused with pretty strong anti-war messages, such as this one

Most of Bansky's work has been discovered and removed (such as at the MOMA and the Metropilitan Art Museum), thought the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Natural History have left them up. Big ups to the man who walks into the most presitgious Museums in America and simply hangs his own art. Bringing power back to the people, art style!

...Please/Axe yo' momma for some cheeze/Tell her you need some resitution like the Vietnameese

Your very own humble Blog writer himself will be in Iowa City April 15th to see Slick Rick and Rahzel together on stage. That's right--The Human Beatbox and the Human...guy who was once in NWA! Best concert line-up ever!

We cannot seriously be this stupid...

This little gem comes via my good pal Dave...

The Bush administration is now openly debating selling f-16 fighters jets (the very same jets that hand-deliver deomcracy to Iraq daily) to BOTH India and Pakistan. You know, the two nations who are very aggressively threatening one another with nuclear war, so much so to the point where they've both flagrantly violated international law and resumed nuclear wapons testing. As Dave said, this makes just about as much sense as if we "contract out to Smith and Wesson to distribute equal amounts to guns and ammunition to the Bloods and Crips in the Chicago area."

In other news, Satan is laughing.

Jesse predicts the news

So I don't know how much you've heard about this woman on a feeding tube, but here's the breakdown of the story: this lady gets severe brain damage 15 YEARS AGO and has been on a feeding tube ever since. Her husband wants to cut the tubes off and let her go, her parents (apprently thinking she'll finally snap out of it) want the tubes left in. Congress, because of course they have nothing better to do, passes a bill that lets her parents take it to the state Supreme Court, which Bush signs as fast as you can say "christian evangelical consituency." Anywho, today the court said it was the husband's right to cut the tubes, and thusly they were cut off.

MY PREDICTION:

George W. Bush will come out and sadly announce the verdict and empathetically tell the nation that he wishes those "activist judges" would hold higher regard for the sanctity of life.

WHY THIS IS A BAD THING:

First of all, does anyone else notice the striking irony of this happeneing the same week as 2-year anniversary of the Iraq war? Remember how the war started with the "shock-and-awe" campaign? The shock-and-awe idea was to kill as many people as physically possible in the first few days of the war so that those who think of resisting are too scared.

Ahh, the sactity of life.

Also, do Cnogress and the President have nothing fucking better to do with their time?!?!? I heard there's a war going on, a social security "crisis"/sham, a huge national debt, continued problems with aviation security, underfuned schools in godforsken ghettos, poor people starving to death everyday, and on and on. I hate to be that guy who brings down the party with bad news, but seriously people-she's been in a fucking coma for 15 fucking years and Congress feels this is the most pressing issue in the nation?!? Gaaa! I can't even thinking of a wittily-ironic enough comment to convey the stupidity of all of this!

A must-see digital versatile disk!

So I saw one of the best B-movies ever made the other night: Bubba Ho-Tep. It features B-movie legend Bruce Campbell and actual movie legend Ossie Davis. Campbell stars as an elderly man in a nursing home who is an ex-Elvis impersonator, but he himself believes that he is actually Elvis. Not in a crazy way, but he tells a story about how when he was at the height of his fame, he got so sick of the empty lifestyle and fairweather friends, that he sought out the nation's premire Elvis impersonator and switched places with him, becoming an impersonator of himself, living the simple life in the middle of nowhere. While in the nursing home, he befriends Davis, an elderly black man who believes he's JFK, and that his enemies died his skin black and dumped him in the middle of nowhere after the assassination attempt failed. Together, they team up to fight a zombie. Now, that's a movie!

Some days I think I'm truly insane.

Apparently yesterday there was an 11 hour congressional investigation into who among baseball's current and former elites have used steroids. I read about this in an article on ESPN.com, which likened the investigation to the McCarthy trial, and then furthermore claimed the nation would need a long healing process to get over this scandal. The author suggested that we'll all be traumatized by Big Mac's use of steroids to hit an egregious number of home runs.

What is wrong with this? Where do I begin...

1) McCarthy destroyed peoples lives and families by accusing them of engaging in a legal activity. Congress is now threatening to annoy baseball players who have engaged in a highly illegal activity.

2) I heard there's a war going on, and according to all valid sources, it was all predicated upon many, many lies. Maybe we could use a congressional investigation into that.

3) Nobody gives a shit about steroid use in baseball. We're not stupid. We fully understand that human beings cannot get to the point of having 15 1/2 inch forearms (such as Big Mac...for a little perspective, I'm a fairly good size fellow, and I have a 15 inch neck. That means Mark McGwire could not stick half of his arm through the neck of my shirt) without having some sort of chemical aid. We're just mindless sports fanatics. We want to see big men hit things far, and occasionally hit each other. That's what we find entertaining.

I could go on and on, but I'm already angry enough. It was bad enough that we had to send Martha Stewart to prison to get people to forget about Enron. Do we have to have congressional hearings in to fucking baseball to get people to forget about a certain war that's not going very well?



Pictured: The man who will make us all weep at the thought that someone who is paid millions of dollars to hit a ball with a stick would cheat to make himself better at hitting the ball in order to make more millions of dollars.

Political housekeeping...

Hey everyone, two chances to stick it to the man (and any applicable woman) this weekend. First, there will be a huge demostration against the war this weekend in Des Moines--why go all the way to D.C.? If you need a ride or more info, just e-mail me.

Also, next week in Cedar Falls there will be not one but two chances to come listen to Sue Neiderer, a woman whose son was killed in the line of duty in Iraq. You may remember Sue as the soman who was arrested when she interrupted a talk by the first lady while wearing a shirt that read "President Bush killed my son." She will be talking Tuesday the 22nd at Faith Temple Baptist Church in Waterloo (415 Walnut Street) at 7:00 and will be talking in the Maucker Union Ballroom on Wednesday the 23rd at 1:00. Both events will include live music and poetry, because everyone loves that kinda stuff.

And as always, for info on local protest actions, good reading lists, and all other sorts of cool info, always feel free to check out the hompage of my band Broken Arms, the world's premire political rock band.

Gangsta thug, political relevancy, and getting old

More and more these days I realize I'm getting old. Case in point: the other day, I saw a very humorous t-shirt, and I didn't buy it. Now, there was a time when Jesse Scott Genesius Wozniak bought every humorous t-shirt he could get his hands on (probably a contributing factor as to why I own well over 150 t-shirts). However, I saw this shirt, and I started thinking "Do I really want it? I mean, will I still be wearing it in 6 months? Couldn't I spend the money on better things?"

Now this may all seem trivial to you, but you must understand, this was a very funny t-shirt. It had a drawing of Jesus wearing a gigantic, blinging gold cross on his neck with his hands flashing gang symbols, and two apostle-looking gentlemen sitting next to a boom-box, and it was labeled "J-Unit" in a delicious satire of 50 Cent's own thug group, G-Unit. I'm sure you're all filled with mirth at the very thought of such a t-shirt. But as I laughed (and even grabbed it off of the rack, fully intending to purchase it) I paused and pondered 50's career. I know his new albulm is doing well, but let's think about it: when's the last time you heard of anyone reppin' the No Limit Soldiers? I mean, those guys used to look invincible, but now you'd just look stupid walking around wearing a shirt that had some Rabbis in a tank with "No Limit Schlamiels" written on it and Moses saying "Challah back, mein bruder!" You see what I'm saying.

So I didn't buy the shirt. Besides, I work in an office, so I have to wear "office clothes" 5 days a week. There would be precious little time to show off my witty shirt, especially considering the amount of time it has to be relevant.

God, I'm getting old.

Man, they are lucky bastards

So I've said it before and I'll say it again--no matter how much I loathe the G.O.P. (and belive me, loathe I do), they sure know how to play the game. So remember how there were these tapes "leaked" to the New York Times of Bush having a deep conversation with a "long-time" friend? They're the ones in which he may have admitted to smoking weed (see below). Well, it turns out this person isn't a friend, but a Republican strategist. And it turns out, it really appears as if the entire conversation was scripted to make Bush look like a really loveable guy who's struggling with important questions in life. You know, as opposed to the scheming bastard that most of us see him as. This is the exact style of Bush's little buddy Karl Rove:

1) Carefully script something that makes your guy look superhuman
2) "Accidentally" release it to the press
3) Pretenf to get mad at the press for playing it up, even though it makes your guy look great
4) Trick the majority of the public into believing you're not evil

It's a pretty ingenious strategy, and it work's the other way as well. Remember when Joseph Wilson questioned Bush's entirely false claims on yellow cake uranium, and then his wife's identity as an undercover CIA operative was "accidentally" leaked to the press? Isn't it amazing how accidents always seem to work out in favor of the president? Must be luck.

How to be funny, part I--stand up

So during one of my many long flights this past weekend, I came up with the formula for comedy. It hit me as I heard some people discussing Chris Rock, the white man's Dave Chapelle. It's a rather simple formula (which Mr. Rock uses quite often), and it goes like this:

Funny McJoketell: You see, the thing about (white/rich) people is that they (do some sort of common action) but us (black/chican@/asian/redneck) folk (do a rediculously stereo-typed version of that same action).
Audience: All laugh uproariously, for they drunk.

Examples:

You see, the thing about white people is that they drive everywhere, but us black folk don't drive because we're too busy getting new rims put on our car.

You see, the thing about rich people is that they love their children, but us redneck folk love having children so we can get more food stamps.

Etcetera.

The next time you're watching a comedian, count how many times they employ my comparative method of humor.

Oh, and just for the record, you have to be of the people in the second category (black/chican@/asian/redneck, etc.) or you are being racist. In fact, the only thing you can be out of category one is white, but then you have to be of the redneck category. Every once in awhile it can work if a member of your immediate family (wife, adoptive parents, etc.) are of another race, but this is very difficult and should be left only to the professionals. This is also why we never see rich comedians. And those who are rich, pretend they aren't.

Try it yourself and amuse friends and family members!

I am so worthless...

So I'm on my very first graduate department visit here at the University of Minnesota and I've just finished my first day. So here's why I feel like a loser. We go around the room, and everyone introduces themselves "I'm Bobby and I want to study poor people, because I think they'll make good fossil fuels." You know, that kind of thing. Anyway, so everyone's talking about their experience, and so-and-so has gone to the Humphrey Law institute, so-and-so2 has gotten their master's degree at Michigan, so-and-so3 ran the county juvenile detention center for five years. Then there's me. "Hi, my name's Jesse""And what have you been doing with your time, Jesse?""Ummm...I sleep in alot. Oh, amd my band is working on our second album. I think the recording quality is going to be alot better, which is really good, because our sound has really matured". Ackward Silence."Ok...moving on"

For you see my friends, I have done nothing with my life since finishing college, other than make music and write pointless plays. And this school is only ranked 21 in the nation. Next week I visit the two schools tied for no. 1 in the nation. And according to the roster of e-mails on the mass e-mail sent out about their visit weekend, the majority of these people went to Ivy League schools. I went to a school that is the proud produced of a one-time Super Bowl MVP (current bench warmer) and Michael Jordan's interior decorator.

Oy vey.

Another story about whiny natives...

So we're all familiar with the story about Manhattan being sold for a necklace of glass beads, and now it's ironically one of the richest places on earth, inhabited by all sorts of European American celebrities. Of course, certain Native Americans and "historians" will point out that that story is entirely made up and that in all actuality, the Native Americans who lived there were brutally slaughtered for their land, not bought off with beads. Well, as they say, history repeats itself as Mel Gibson is trying to buy a Fijian island. In a very similar story, legend holds it that the aboriginal people of this island sold it for 2,000 coconut trees, whereas the aboriginies themselves say they were forced off at gunpoint. So of course they have to get all indignant and insist that Mel Gibson can't buy their sacred ancestral home for $15 million. Oh, when will these native peoples quit their whining and allow our celebrities to live their lives free from constant pestering?