Christial update

So it turns out that the fella that called me about his Jesus-related court plans (see below) was actually my friend and fellow improv troupe member AJ, not my protest friend Dave (although this does seem like a thing Dave would do, just so you know the kind of people I call friends). Anyway, because nothing happens in Iowa, even in our bigger cities, his little dress up incident made the cover of the local newspaper. Check out the online version here.

One of the better gags I've ever been privy to, and one more of the many things that makes me proud to call the 29th state home.

With friends like these" or "The Right Finally Wins"

So I get woken up this morning by an as-of-yet unidentified caller. Here is the conversation verbatim:

Caller: Hey Woz, guess who's showing up for jury duty this morning at the Blackhawk county courthouse?

Me: (very groggy and only half awake) I dunno

Caller: Jesus Christ

Me: What?

Caller: Jesus Christ!

Me: (by now extremely confused) He's come back to judge the living and the dead?

Caller: No, me in costume as Jesus Christ

Me: Alright...lemme know how that goes

Caller: I will. Gotta go, I'm getting called in now

At first I thought it all was just a beautiful dream, but I checked my cell phone when I finally got out of bed, and the call did indeed happen. I don't recognize the number, but I have a few guesses as to who it is. Regardless, it warms my heart to know that whoever it was made sure to let me know it was happening.

A great way to start off your day.

Hooray for our team!

Today is Kurt Vonnegut's birthday.

Kurt is probably the most-influential living writer, or at least living American writer. And he's a good-ol' Midwestern boy (or fresh water person, as he would put it) who even spent a good deal of time at the Iowa Writer's Workshop. As a socialist, semi-Christian, cynic, and all-around cantankerous old man, he's come to embody pretty much everything good about America. Thankfully, he broke his own promise to never write again by releasing a new book "A Man Without a Country," a semi-autobiographical work full of his musings on the state of the world.

Being a huge Vonnegut fan, I snapped it up right away, and read it cover to cover in one night. Almost. Seeing as Kurt has gotten quite old, it's extremely likely that this will be the last book he evers writes. As such, I just can't bring myself to read the last page of the book, because once I do, there will officially be no new Vonnegut books. Ever. From then on out, I'll just be re-reading classics, which is fine, but just not the same.

You see, Kurt is one of the few living legends that folks such as myself can look up to. Sure, there are other great, and possibly even better, figures in American literature (Twain, Heller, etc.) but they're all dead and gone. There just seems to be so much more urgency in reading brilliant works by those still inhabiting the earth. Probably the same feeling people used to have when a new Hednrix album would come out. Or the feeling we used to get every sunday night watching the Simpsons from seasons 4 through 8.

Anyway, go out and buy the book. It's good. Well, at least everything up to the last page.

And then this...

As always, "I'm not making this up!™"

A bold step toward equal rights

Things have looked dismal lately. Rosa Parks, the "mother of the civil rights movement" passed away last week admist an administration and political culture that seeks to overturn most, if not all, of the gains she and others of the great Civil Rights movement fought for.

But there's a silver lining to this cloud.

Yes, for the first time ever, the Westchester Cat show (motto: we've got cats!) is going to honor...get ready...a dog. But not just any dog. A dog who was once named Cat of the Year in 1998.

Has the world gone topsy-turvy?

You bet it has!

Topsy-turvy for ending inequality.

I hope we all learn a little something from this. It doesn't matter if your skin is white or black or brown, or if your genetic make-up is feline or canine. Deep down, we're all people (or quadraped animals) and as such, we should all be treated equally.

Singing the red state...blues?

“New York, New York”
“I Left My Heart (in San Francisco)”
“My old Virginnie Home”
“California Dreaming”
The bands Kansas, Boston, Chicago, and to some extent, Toto

The list could go on and on. So many states and locales have their own songs or bands bearing their name. Most of them (e.g. California, New York) have so many songs written about them (not even counting whiny acousitc songs that very few people, thankfully, ever hear) that you cannot even name them all.

Not Iowa.

Poor Iowa gets no love, whether it be from smart-alec big-town professors or from ironically named punk bands.

Hell, most people think we’re the potato state.

But there have been a few brave souls who’ve stood up and showed their pride in the home of quite possibly the nation’s worst president (take that, Texas!).

Of course, outside of Slipknot, you’ve never heard of any band from Iowa, much less anyone singing about Iowa. So I’ve compiled for you an entirely unthorough review of all songs about Iowa that can be downloaded conveniently off of limewire and their relevance to the Hawkeye state.

1) Iowa Nice--Meredith Wilson

Following the golden rule of artistic life, if you’re form the middle of nowhere, you have to make sure your opus is about the place you're from. And Meredith Wilson did not skip out on this obligation in the slightest, making an entire musical (Music Man, for those of you who haven’t caught on yet) about the 29th state.

Relevance to Iowa:

Excellently captures Iowans and our ability to be both nice and easily fooled by slick out-of-towners. Except now they sell meth instead of band uniforms.

2) Iowa--John Linnell

John is not from Iowa. Rather, he is from the annoying pop duo (and assumedly also soem sort of geographic region that's not Iowa), They Might be Giants. For those of you not familiar with TMBG, they’re the group that the semi-popular girl in your high school who’s bent on proving she’s different, but not too different, listens to.

Relevance to Iowa:

While the song does posit the entirely plausible notion that the state of Iowa is a witch, it incorrectly holds that as a state-witch we would cast spells on Vermont. We would do no such thing. All of our spells would be focused on New Hampshire, to add insult to injury. Think about it.

3) Iowa--Dar Williams

Soulful acoustic chick that somehow avoids the seemingly painfully obvious comparisons to Ani. Except she’s talented.

Relevance to Iowa:

Though it’s more of a love song, huge props to the fact that it could be set anywhere, but it’s set in Iowa. Also, successfully captures the fact that we’re modest folk out here.

4) The Truth About Iowa--Stretch Armstrong

Iowa is actually home to a surprisingly large amount of hardcore music (take it from a fella who knows), despite our humble and reserved ways, so this fits in well. Again, not from Iowa, but I love them for giving us love.

Relevance to Iowa:

Hard to say...is the song about an incident that happened in Iowa? Possibly. But it doesn’t take 18 hours to cross Iowa by car. It’s more like 4-5. But we do all treat each other like family, so it at least gets that right.

5) Iowa Waltz--Greg Brown

A song about a man who was born in Iowa, plans on staying there for life, and prominently features every country/bluegrass instrument possible. Never heard of Greg Brown before this experiment (turns out he's pretty cool...the shit you find on the information super highway, eh?), but he clearly has a high opinion of Iowa, so he can’t be all that bad. Or sane.

Relevance to Iowa:

The opening line “out there in the corn, in the middle of the U.S.A.” not only captures our greatest export, but also our geographical and political centrality. That, and the fact that we’re backward people who never want to leave, because we’re afraid of the outside world. Possibly the most relevant Iowa-related song ever recorded.

6) Iowa Fight Song

The rousing tune that always gets Kinnick stadium and/or Carver-Hawkeye Arena going. And the only words on this track are “Iowa, Iowa, Iowa.”

Relevance to Iowa:

Seems pretty damn relevant, but for the fact that it only covers Hawk fans. No love for Cyclone fans. And especially no love for Panther fans, but there’s only about of those anyway.


There you have it. Probably the most comprehensive list of Iowa-related music ever compiled, with a little something for everyone. And a bit surprising, really. I didn't think I'd find anything, but here I find myself opened to a multitude of new, pro-Iowa musicians.

California, New York...you're on notice. Iowa's a comin'. Musically, that is.

Team member of the month?!?

My roomate Gutter has finally acheived the dream, and bested the inanimate carbon rod (pictured), as he has been named Menard's Team Member of the Month. We're still unsure as to what this means, but what we do know is that you get a call at home that wakes you up in morning to inform you of the fact you've been selected for such an honor. But now we're left to wonder: what sorts of amazing rights and responsibilities come with such an honor? An executive parking space? Free tile grout? A ham and a bronze plaque? A date with the sexy, sexy Menards lady who replaced the Menard's guy for a short period when he was out with health problems, but for some reason wore his glasses?

Only the good Lord above knows, but I, for one, am waiting with baited breath to see what wonders await him. Check back for updates.

Best Trent Lott quote ever?

Trent has a quality stock-room full of great quotes. Who can forget him saying that we would have had many less problems in the 60s if the country had voted in Stom Thurmond for president, who of course, was running on a segregation ticket? I know I can't.


But Trent has out-Trented himself. Today, he let this little gem slip live on CNN:


"It's time for the president to search the nation to find the best man, woman, or minority to fill the supreme court vacancy"



As always, "I'm not making this up!"

Very interesting new blog...

A new person has entered the blogging world, and he promises to be an interesting read.

That man is Jerry Baker.

I want to tell you a little something about Jerry Baker, but most of what I can tell you is not necissarily known to be true. What I do know is that Jerry is a staple of the Cedar Falls/Waterloo (Iowa) progressive scene. You can always see Jerry in his trademark overalls, sandwhich board sign, and hiker's backpack, complete with 5' U.S. flag flying on a tall flag pole coming out of his back pack. He's definately an older fellow, but where he comes from, no one knows. What he's done in his life is open to conjecture and hearsay. My favorite Jerry Baker life story is that he used to be a high-level analyst for the CIA (he is an active member of Mensa, so it could be true) but was fired under suspicious circumstances, and thus turned radically progressive due to his hatred of the government he formerly believed in. No idea if it's true, but it's a great story.

However, one story I do know is true.

In 1984, Jerry ran for president of the United States as part of the "Big Deal" party. They were only on the ballot in Iowa. To trump up support for his candidcay, he walked all over the nation with only his backpack, sandwhich board (with "Jerry Baker for President" emblazoned on it), and his big flag flying proudly behind him. If you ask him about it, he'll give you a photo copy of a story about him from the New York Times (he always carries several with him).

In addition to protests, he can almost always be found at the University of Northern Iowa library, doing research (on what I ahve no idea) or swearing loudly at the computers that don't work.

I've only read his blog a few times, but trust me, you don't have to be a friend of Jerry's or a resident of Iowa to take something away form a reading of this man's blog. Check it out.

Rock and Roll alter egos

I was struck by an idea in a blog of a prof of mine that all musicians should have a cartoon alter-ego, so that they are free to experiment without the weight of past successes hovering over them (ala the all-star members of the Gorillaz). Of course, he was saying this in respect to legends of music such as Bruce Springstein and Neil Young, not former members of the CF Soundstation/Unity Crew or Broken Arms, but I feel it's just as important for us no-names. Maybe even more important. Most everyone has fun performing all sorts of styles of music, but most everyone will also note that to make it in today's music industry, you have to concentrate most (if not all) of your attention and publicity-seeking stunts on one musical personae. Having your cartoonish alter-ego to make great music that you may or may not want associated with your name is a great outlet for all of the creativity that just doesn't fly in today's restrictive, genre-dominated music scene. So in short, I encourage everyone to be a cartoon character in a semi-fictituos band, for a multitude of reasons, much as I have been fortunate enough to be a bassist/vocalist/drummer/guitarist for The Consumption of Neat Colors, illustrated above so well by my boy Widda-T.

I'm the one playing the bass...you know, just incase you don't recognize me solely by my well-defined pectoral muscles.

Lookie how professional I am...

Getting a squre day-job does crush a good part of your soul, but it at least gets you a neato web-profile.

So I've got that going for me.

Exploding alligators and low approval ratings: coincidence?

Florida: many things to many people. The sunshine state. America's wang. Home of overranked football teams.

But mostly it's a place where we, the rest of the nation, dump our unwanted things.

Like the elderly.

Or Burmeese pythons.

It seems that the Burmeese python population is exploding in the everglades, leading to humorous photos like these of half-digested alligators bursting out of the stomachs of pythons. It turns out that the Burmeese python was a favorite family pet a few years back, but the unwanted ones are now being dumped in the everglades and are causing huge problems, as they have no natural predators there, but thrive in the warm, moist conditions.

Much the same can be said for the elderly. They've long out-lived their cute-ness, so we dump them into a nice warm, moist climate where they can thrive amongst themselves and have no natural predators.

But there are un-intended consequences, such as voting Republican, that we didn't forsee, and we're now paying for dearly.

However, unlike nature, this problem seems to be self-correcting, as Bush's approval rating has dipped below 40%, with only 24% of Americans believing our nation is headed in the right direction.

Now if only we could take care of that snake problem.

I am not digitally capable of back-hollering

Gwen Stefani is set to receive an award next week for having the first single ever to break 1,000,000 legal downloads, proving once again, that although you can afford a computer, you can't necessisarily afford taste.

Necessity is the mother of all invention

Just when you thought your pitiful, meaningless life could never improve, along comes: ">carbonated yogurt!

Biggest selling point: "It's not painful like soda pop" said Lynn Ogden, a food science professor at Brigham Young University.

Finally, a substitute for all those hours of agonizing pain I've sat through trying to force down a soda will be replaced with soothing time spent with my carbonated yogurt.

Ogden, the inventor of corbonated yogurt, is in talks with a company that also sells e-Moo, a carbonted milk.

Life begins today!

Memories of inadvertant collegiate troublemaking

So I was reminiscing the other day with a college professor friend from undergrad (a very amusing man himself, check him out here) and I mentioned the time a poster I had put up for a theatre group I was in (everyone's favorite No Shame Theatre) which was semi-controversial. I don't exactly remember what it was (I made a ton of posters for No Shame) but I'm pretty sure it was the one in which I had a poorly drawn stick-figure Jesus on the cross with a very bloddy face and the caption read "No Shame: Christ it's good!" which I thought was pretty clever.

Anyway, somehow a state representative who happened to be on campus happened to see it, and set up a metting with the dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts (whom he mistakenly thought had somehting to do with No Shame) and himself and several other senators demanding that the person responsible for this (me) be removed from the school and severley disciplined.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I don't seek out trouble. It just finds me.

Anyway, then Doug reminded me of an incident I'd largely forgotten. A long time ago, the improv troupe I was in was taking publicity photos. We took one of those "for fun" photos (you know, where the camera person says "Oh, gee, you're all such a fun group. Why don't you take a funny picture?" as if it's an extremely novel concept to photograph people in humorous poses)and seeing as I figured it would never see the light of day, I whipped out the ol' finger penis. The finger penis, of course, is when one puts their hand down their pants and puts their index finger through the fly of their pants so it looks like their penis is sticking out.

How was I supposed to know that was the picture the school newspaper would use to accompany an article about the troupe?

Well, again, the shit hit the fan, the newspaper got in trouble, the director got in trouble, the theater manager got in trouble, and sevreal others. I, of course, did not, but I prefer to see myself as more of a victim in this case anyway.

Incidentally, the picture is still up on the newspaper's website for some reason. Check out my finger penis.


Humorous post-script: Awhile back, I was at the home of one of the other members of the troupe, and he had an article cut out of the paper where they used the same picture again. However, this time, the headshots of folks were cut out and put into their own little squares to make it look like they were pictures taken individually. So in the picture of the girl in front of me in the group photo, you could just see her face and a weird dangling object in front of it.

And as always, "I'm not making this up!™"

A critical anlysis of your cherished childhood memories

The president wants to send a man to Mars by 2015.

And Captain Planet is nothing but a tool of imperialist, racist global corporate capitalism.

In cartoon form.

How's this you ask? The Captain did so much for the environment, you say?

Not so fast. As if the mullet were not enough evidence, look at the powers all of the planeteers were assigned: there was wind, earth, fire, water, and heart. And what does the Latino kid get stuck with? Heart.

The shittiest power of them all.

While everyone else was out there making floods, and forrst fires, and earthquakes, this kid's stuck in the back standing there like a douchebag with no discernable superpower. No one wants the power of heart. I mean, what could he do? Make people fall in love? No! Only fate and circumstance can do that. A love devoid of free will is no love at all.

So, Captain Planet gave the shittiest job to the Latino kid. It's like the entire American economy, only in scale. Cartoon scale. People complain about Mexicans taking all of our jobs, when they’re not taking the kick ass jobs like doctor, or water; they’re taking the shitty jobs like janitor, or heart.

But they tried to mask the fact that it was racist by including one of every major ethnic minority group as defined by the network legal team. But of course, in their racist conception, the asian girl was a scientist. Obviously they needed a scientist to teach kids about the earth and that type of shit, but why'd it have to be the Asian girl? Why couldn't it have been the Scottish kid, or was he too busy getting drunk and playing golf?

So what's the point of all of this?

It’s called being a critical thinker, asshole. Captain Planet seemed like a harmless cartoon. In fact, it seemed like a good one. It tried to teach our children to love and respect the earth. Instead, it implicitly taught them to be racist tools of global capitalist imperialism. It’s just like this Mars landing. It sound all benign and even wonderful, until you think of the fact that there are millions of peple starving on earth, and instead of feeding them, we’re wasting billions of dollars sending people thousands of light years away for little to no reason. We may as well be searching for five magical rings that combine to form a weird gray superhero.

The kind of thing graduate study in the social sciences enables you to figure out.

Hurrah for education!

Doesn't matter your political views...

Well, I thought it was an urban legend, but it actually exists. The website NowThatsFuckedUp.com actually exists. It's a site where soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan can trade photos of brutally murdered/tortured Iraqis and Afghanis in exchange for access to pornography. Of course, all of the extremely gruesome photos (not safe for work, by the way) have captions such as "That's what you get for messing with the U.S." or other similarly machoistic nonsense. And of course, these mutillated bodies are almost always surrounded by groups of smiling soldiers giving a hearty Lyndie England-sytle thumbs up.

People, I don't care what you think about this war or any other subject, this shit is just about as wrong as wrong can physically possibly be.

Just something to ponder with your "Support Our Troops" bumper sticker.

Mars Volta/System of a Down Concert Review

Out of every show I've ever been to in my short existance, this one undoubtedly featured both the best hair and dance moves. But for a review in full...

Opening Act: Hella

Caught about the last 5 minutes of their set due to a wrong turn (still new to town). But from what I heard of their set and then later heard from musically-trustworthy friends, these guys are worth a listen.

First Act: The Mars Volta

Undoubtedly on of the greatest bands in current existance. These guys are insane musically and dance-illy, which very well could be a word. Throughout their set I couldn't help but think this was about the closest thing I would get to seeing Led Zep perform live. And not just because of the Robert lant-esque bell-bottom suits. The show was electric and insanely high-energy. The kind of thing that shows that good musicians are always better live. Not to say that Francis the Mute was not brilliant (it was) but it was merely one take from some great improvisers. Catch them live while they still exist as an entity.

Second Act: System of a Down

Given their outspoken political views with such side projects as Axis of Justice, I was expecting more political ranting between songs, but this was kept to only one comment from Darin about how we should establish one big purple state. The set was fairly straight-forward renditions of their music, but was notable for the extended intro's Darin performed. Also, more than one song had clearly newer lyrics either to reflect the current political landscape or just because these guys are clever lyricysts (sometimes) and like to show it off. I did question just how long it is until Darin releases a solo albulm, given the fact that he wrote a good 70-80% of SOAD's last albulm and was definately center-stage at the show. Finally, they capped off the show with an extended version of "Sugar" from way back in the day which got the hardcore fans going.

Only complaint about the show:

I do enjoy some hardcore and shred-metal (and I'm only semi-emberrassed to admit it) when it's done well. But like so many sub-genres, even if I like the music, I typically hate the people who listen to it. The best example is that in the exceptionally long line in the bathroom between sets, all of the stupid metal-heads were complaining about how weird and boring the Mars Volta are, which I would have argued about with them if they weren't all clearly on steroids.

Even though, couldn't kill my good music buzz. I must say, it's so nice to live in a city where it's only a 15 minute drive to see good music, instead of 4 hour drive.

Whatever happened to Teddy Roosevelt...

The great trust-buster must be rolling in his grave. Right now, Wal-Mart is applying for a liscence to open a bank in Utah. That's right folks, soon you could be banking at the good ol' Bank of Wal-Mart, presumably with 8 year old Asain girls for tellers. The FDIC is having an open public comment period to get feedback on whether it should allow Wal-Mart to do this or not. Because apparently being the largest employer and private company in the world just isn't what it used to be. For reasons that are far too painfully obvious, a Bank of Wal-Mart would pretty much spell out the apocolypse. Please go here and voice your displeasure and let the FDIC know not to go through with this.

Who's reading Jesse's blog? Part II of never-ending series...

Earlier I made a semi-humorous (or at least attempting to be humorous) post looking at who reads my blog and how they came to it. Most came looking for pornography, which either says something good about my exercise program, or just kinda tells the story of the internet as a whole. But now I've got a new and even more disturbing brand of fan. I was momentarily excited when I found that a recent post garnered a fair number of comments. Upon reading them, I found that 3 out of the 4 posts were actually advertisements for debt consolidation and/or loans. But again, this makes me ponder life. Is it just the internet? Or, have I been so horribly mis-managing my finances that people who don't even know me have finally taken to anonymously posting on my blog in a last-ditch effort to help me? Either way, I'm saddened and just a bit hurt. I mean, if "Sonya" or "blogs r us" really think I have that big of a problem with my finances, why couldn't they give me a call, or tell me over a cup of tea at the Hard Times? And "7472" with the extremely confusing offer of penis enlargement pills after posting half of an article about Orphans International Worldwide? I though I knew you "7472," but apparently we're just not the good friends that I thought. And really, if there's a problem of too many orphans in the world, shouldn't we all try to cut back on our consumption of penis-enlarging pills? I mean, they're not exactly related, but it can't be helping anything.

As always, "I'm not making this up!™"