anybody wanna be on mtv?

dear readers and ravenous mtv addicts (not necessarily mutually exclusive), check out this once in a lifetime chance to get your face on mtv along with your little message to world about why you're going to vote in the election.

i'm sending in my picture right now, i'm just having a little trouble coming up with a pithy message for the kids. here's some that i'm toying with:

• i'm voting to save the whales
• i'm voting in hopes of joining a class-action suite against the voting box that disenfranchised me
• i'm voting to meet some new people in my neighborhood
• i'm voting to get the cool sticker
• i'm voting to get the fbi cold case on elvis' death re-opened

i'm hopeless, anybody got an extra reason i can use?

Posted by Owen at 11:03 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

funny . . . maybe not

well, i thought jon stewart was a standout funny man in this election mess. he was the one guy who could keep it real and real funny.

well, turns out i was wrong. he's just as much a chump as the rest.

check out this transcript from last friday's cnn crossfire show. stewart tries to show real concern for the partisan rancor for which crossfire is so well know. and beloved by it's small base of fans. what he ended up doing was joining, not so much in the partisan rancor (though he was on the cusp of that too), but in the general name-calling and personal villany of people who were bullied in elementary school.

i found a nice non-partisan site where you can watch the who exchange.

nobody's having fun anymore

this past sunday, the ny times magazine had an article worth reading (aside from the cover story about john kerry's understanding of how best to fight the war on terror - whch is clever.) but the real article of interest is the opening one, which laments, along with me, the absolute lack of levity in this year's campaign. here's the link, and here's a lift:

Many Republican voters say that there is a crusade at stake here, that President Bush's absolutist positions reveal the moral and -- some would say -- Christian heart of our nation. Many Democrats, on the other hand, see something just as important at risk: the Enlightenment idea that human reason and rational debate are the source of political truth, a notion championed by deists like Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin as the sine qua non of American democracy. There just may be too much at stake for cleverness . . .

ah yes, we're fighting the battles of the 16th century all over again, this time in reverse. how things come and go.

as for levity . . . there's always these guys.

listening in on old men

while reading prof. zambone's latest, i was reminded that i had never finished reading an interview with joseph epstein* that i started reading before i moved to new york. much to my surprise, it was still right were i remembered it was. it gave me the strange feeling that the internet may be taking on for me some of the feelings i associate with a library. i click around and find certain links just were i left them - sort of like wandering through familiar stacks of books.

i first heard epstein on a very similar topic. he was doing an interview with ken myers about whether or not the internet was a useful thing to literature or the beginning of the end. epstein concluded as any good editor of an erudite magazine might; "it's only as good as its editor."

reading the above-linked interview with epstein is like evesdropping on two very clever homeless guys in a park, neither of whom, despite their cleverness, are very comfortable in their skin.

also strange to note that roland just watched a movie mentioned in the epstein interview.

i am not left-handed

shifty pete knows me too well. it was indeed tyler hamilton's fall from grace that drove me, in wild despair, from my barely visited blogmeister console. well, it was that, and this blistering critique of my year-long effort to make citizens out of hipsters.

but the sherlock award goes to genius-boy blog9, who, by reaching back into the foul archives (and receiving a wee bit of insider privy), pieces together my real dilema.

that's right folks. not only am i heartbroken for tyler, but i'm all broken up about something else too.

yep, that's my pride and joy. going to the highest bidder. you may have noticed, she's missing a vital piece. that piece is laying somewhere on the west end of the queensboro. and that's why i'm blogging left-handed.

blogging the veep debate (left handed)

9.04 yikes! who told gwen she looks good in that blue mr. rogers sweater?

9.06 snap! aside from calling the vp a liar, edwards just gave the same opening line as kerry did the other night. good job on the talking points boys.

9.08 "we need to be straight with the american people." is this some sort of sneaky jab at the pres/veep split on gay marriage?

9.09 is it me or is john edwards the only person who has ever called dick cheney incompetent?

9.14 cheney is really really good at pronouncing those foreign names.

9.18 edwards is sincerely trying to tell us that cheney is not competent. cheney's "i'm pissed now" meter is at about 8.6.

9.20 cheney corrects edward's math. 90% + 50% = 140%?

9.22 "Talk Tough" is now a proper noun.

9.25 wait, i'm confused. is john kerry resolute and steadfast, or unstable and insecure?

9.29 edwards has four pieces of scratch paper. cheney, one. what does this tell us?

9.32 gwen just said she had a question about american intelligence. me too.

9.36 gwen asks better questions than her boss. "mr. cheney, do you think u.s. companies should be able to do business within the 'axis of evil?"

9.39 oops, not good to confuse iran and iraq johnny boy.

9.40 she's good . . . denying cheney extra time. you go girl.

9.41 correction mr. cheney, it's factcheck.org, not .com. mr. jackson would be sad to lose such traffic to a clerical error

9.43 uh, oh! edwards is telling stories like a southern laweyer. hold on to your wallet.

9.44 oh my jingles. cheney's pulling senate rank!

9.46 it's getting sooooo crazy. cheney hates mandela, mlk jr., headstart and meals on wheels!

9.51 "mr vice president, i don't think america can take four more years." cheese factor 6.7.

9.54 i like the edwards plan. i get to keep my tax cut for a few more years.

9.55 john kerry voted for tax cuts 600 times! sign me up.

9.58 cheney on gay marriage: if it weren't for those MA justices.

10.00 nobody wants gay marriage in this election. watch the edwards dance. dance johnny dance.

10.02 gwen is funny too. (initial sweater offense overlooked)

10.04 another bc04 obgyn reference. somebody check those contributions.

10.05 democrats have a plan for tort reform. this just in: hell froze over.

10.07 everything is so nice since they talked about mary cheney. once again, gay marriage brings folks together across party lines.

10.08 vp exposes tax loop-hole for trial lawyers. trial lawyers = offshore tax havenistas.

10.13 i'll give aids more money than you will.

10.17 cheney really shouldn't be joking about winning by three electoral votes. that said . . . funny factor 5.9.

10.18 "john kerry put criminals behind crime," edwards. and here i thought it was bad parents.

10.19 is anyone else tired of cheney repeating the questions.

10.21 why is edwards ripping paper into the microphone? does this mean something?

10.23 so how is cheney different from edwards?

10.23 they're lulling each other to sleep. cheney is passing on rebuttal options.

10.26 everybody's out of juice, including my left hand.

10.27 those are crazy numbers on latino andafrican american drop-outs. anybody know where those are from?

10.28 edwards took gwen to the bank for 15 seconds.

10.30 bc04 responsible for division in america. simple as that says johnny e.

10.32 again, cheney confused about where to start.

10.33 edwards closing: more southern stories. this man is hucklebury finn. kerry/edwards will make you happy, bush/cheney will make you have to work harder for less.

10.36 cheney closing: vote bush or there'll be nukes in a city near you.