LEMON BASKET 300-310

THE LEMON BASKET: THE BEST AND WORST OF THE WEB
#300 February 11, 2005
 Copyright 2005 FRANCIS DIMENNO
 
 THAT’S MIGHTY BIG O’ YOU
 "I hope I never do anything to bring shame on
myself, my family or my other family."-- Jack Handey
 
 CONCLUSION: NOT ALL JUDGES ARE SOBER
 "A drunk was in front of a judge. The judge says
 'You'vebeen brought here for drinking.' The drunk
says  'Okay, let's get started.'"-- Henry Youngman
 
 THOUGH NOT YOUR WIFE AND ADOPTIVE DAUGHTER
 "Sex between a man and a woman can be wonderful,
 provided you get between the
 right man and the right woman."-- Woody Allen
 
 MAKE HIM A WARLORD AND EVERYTHING HE DOES WILL BE
 RIGHT
 NAPOLEON: What shall we do with this
soldier,Guiseppe?
 Everything he says is wrong.
 GUISEPPE: Make him a general, Excellency, and then
 everything he says
     will be right.--G. B. Shaw, "The Man of Destiny"
 
 AND THE NASTY GRAY RESIDUE IS IMPOSSIBLE TO GET OUT
 "Nuclear war would mean abolition of most comforts,
 and disruption of
 normal routines, for children and adults
 alike."--Willard F. Libby, "You Can Survive Atomic
 Attack"
 
 HAPPYLAND: A MIND WELL MADE
 
 "The tutor must listen to his student, not
 continually, 'bawl words into his ears as if pouring
 water into a funnel.' Good teaching will come from,
'A mind well-made rather than well-filled.'--Jacques
 Barzun, quoting Montaigne
 
 It is difficult for me to imagine, in very despite
of
 my advanced education in the hands of the good
 Benedictine monks at the Abbey, what might have
become
 of me had I elected to stay in Pittsburgh rather
than
 venture to the rocky shoals of that New England
 village (in 1971 little more than one) of
Portsmouth,
 Rhode Island, to commence my high school education.
 For one, I certainly couldn?t now wield this wordy,
 almost blathering prose style with quite the same
 panache. Portsmouth was where I spent four well-fed
 but sex-starved years soaking up nearly every
concept,
 aphorism, and Latin tag which served me well through
 College and beyond. Although I learned quite a bit
 about Jesus, I also learned about  Buddha, Lao Tsu,
 Shiva, Mohammed. I read the Bible. But I also
learned
 about the Higher Criticism. I read Flannery O?Connor
 and Graham Greene. But I also read Smollett,
Dickens,
 and Melville. I read Milton and Donne. But I also
read
 Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Keats, Wordsworth,
 Shelley, Browning, Hopkins, Yeats, and Eliot. I read
 Goethe, Mann, Kafka and Brecht in German. The monks
 would hand me books like C.S. Lewis? The Problem of
 Pain and the collected works of S. J. Perelman and
 assume I could understand them. (Well, I still like
 Perelman.) Even my fellow students would hand me
 reading matter: Walter Miller?s A Canticle for
 Liebowitz (which I never finished). Aldous Huxley?s
 Brave New World (which, as they said in the quaint
 parlance of the day, ?blew my mind?). James
Michener?s
 The Drifters (which I still remember vast stretches
of
 a good thirty-odd years later). And Gilbert
Sheldon?s
 Feds ?n? Heads, my first but far from my last
exposure
 to the lewd world of Underground Comix.  Would I
have
 encountered these in Pittsburgh? Probably. But in no
 particular context. I doubt they would have had the
 same formative impact (or lack thereof) in the
absence
 of some sort of discernable signal-to-noise ratio.
 Where everything is loud the silence deafens.
 
 In 1999 I met a man in Hugo?s Barber Shop in the
 Wanskuck neighborhood of Providence Rhode Island.
 (Back then Hugo still offered $3.50 haircuts; he has
 since raised his price nearly 43 per cent to the
 practically extortionate rate of five dollars per.)
 He was a short, middling, soon-balding man in his
 early 40s and he spoke with piercing logic and an
 almost excruciating intelligence about the current
 political scene. He offered up the old socialist
 argument of how the interests of the wealthy were
 invariably advanced on the backs of the working man,
 but he did so with specificity and persuasiveness,
and
 offered flawless examples of how this arrangement
 worked in local politics. I was astonished. Was this
 man a Professor of political science at nearby
 Providence College? If so, he was masquerading under
 deep cover, for his shirt was of the type which
 accommodated a name tag on the front pocket. And the
 name thereon was his own.
 
 My father used to be one of those guys, though now
he
 works for himself. Though self- cultivation of a
 natural talent, he can find a way to fix nearly
 anything. Though schooling, I take after him, though
 in another way. I flatter myself that I can find out
 nearly anything. This is far from the truth, but if
I
 can?t find it out there?s a good chance I can track
 down the one who does.
 
 Had I stayed in Pittsburgh I myself might well have
 become a local barber?shop savant. The sort referred
 to as a ?character?. A sort of shade-tree
intellectual
 consulted by acquaintances, co-workers, and
relatives
 on matters in which the merely book-smart are
thought
 to excel?statistics, etymologies, famous firsts,
 trivia; a skeptic, a cynic; a debunker of urban
 legends. Such people are superficially respected to
 their faces but frequently earn for themselves
 sub-rosa nicknames such as blowhard, smart-ass,
 know-it- all, and ?Professor?. They are otherwise
 ignored in the world of real men who accomplish real
 things in real time. If I were to assess myself with
 the same excruciating objectivity with which I was
 inculcated in high school, I might well assign
myself
 that role among my current peers. But fortunately,
my
 peers are of the same stripe.
 
 Would I have met them, or others like them, had I
 remained behind? I?d like to believe I would have,
but
 I know in my heart I would most likely still be
 hanging out with the same no-hopers I first met in
 grade school?people who Just Don?t Get It. There is
a
 good deal to be said for such folks, especially in
 these parlous times. Their philosophy is
 all-encompassing.  Don?t give yourself airs. Keep
your
 head down and it won?t get blown off. You don?t get
in
 trouble by keeping your mouth shut. If it?s a good
 life then why question it? Hey--all I care about are
 three squares, nice clothes, and a warm place to
 squat.
 
 Hey--come to think of it, maybe I should have stayed
 behind. Then I wouldn?t be at loose ends. At sixes
and
 sevens. Seemingly crushed, mentally, beneath burdens
 and obligations too challenging and numerous to
 resolve. Ahh, don?t give yourself airs.
 
 But I know I should not have stayed behind. To have
my
 every notion and avocation questioned and criticized
 24/7 would either make me dull or drive me slowly
mad.
 
 So this is a thank-you note, excessively belated,
 hopefully not excessively fawning, to
 the good monks, priests, and lay teachers of the
 Portsmouth Abbey School. They plucked me up from the
 glass furnace of ephemeral concerns and helped me
set
 sail to unsurmised, uncharted, and unimagined
shores.
 They taught me to think, to map, and by far the most
 valuable gift of all, to dream. That may not have
been
 their intention?who is to say??but I thank them for
 the result. Too bad they didn?t go co-ed until after
I
 left their care. But hey?three out of four ain?t
bad.
 
 1*SALUTATION
 From: The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter #181
 20020214
 SPEAK OUT
 One thing about the good old US of A ? you can say
 what's on your mind.
 At Speak Out, opinions are taken to the digital
 level.?Users can read news and information, and then
 follow up with activism tools that send the message
to
 officeholders, candidates, business and news
 executives. Visitors can learn about issues from
 abortion to animal rights, gun control to race
 relations, and react via online polls, email
messages
 to politicians, petitions and other passive and
active
 forms of expression.
 http://speakout.com/
 
 2*REFERENCE
 From: Neat Net Tricks Issue # 120, 20020215
 COPERNIC DESKTOP SEARCH
 http://www.copernic.com/
 
 3*HUMOR
 From: Cool Tricks and Trinkets 99 20000720
 SPECIAL KAYE: THE WORLD'S LARGEST HUMOR MAILING
LIST.
 http://members.tripod.com/paulspecialkaye/
 
 4*NOVELTY
 From BRILL?S 2-2000
 http://www.straightdope.com
 
 5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
 From MOTHER JONES JAN/ FEB 2000
 GE FOODS
 http://www.centerforfoodsafety.com
 
 6* DAILY UTILITY
 From: The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter # 157
 20010830
 FIND ARTICLES
 If you're looking for a magazine article you read a
 few months back,
 Check out FindArticles.com for articles dating back
to
 1998 from more than
 300 magazines and journals.
 http://www.findarticles.com
 
 7*CARTOON
 From: The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter # 182
 20020221
 THE BOSCH UNIVERSE
 If anyone could paint Hell, it was Hieronymus Bosch,
 the medieval
 Artist whose infernal fires have lingered in the
human
 imagination for more
 than 500 years. At The Bosch Universe, visitors
enter
 the artist's fantastic
 vision of the superstition and faith, virtue and
sin,
 mystery and death
 that lurched through the Dark Ages.
 
 Besides exploring the paintings and famous
 "triptychs," Bosch's
 Elaborate three?panel depictions, visitors can play
 the Bosch Game. Choose an
 identity, then meet at the local inn The Swan to
 wander through Bosch's
 paintings as you seek a pure life by resisting
 temptation and avoiding
 Purgatory--or burn in eternal Hell.  Jolly fun.
 http://www.boschuniverse.org/
 
 8*PRESCRIPTION
 From TIME 20000320
 http://www.thetruth.com
 
 9*RUMOR PATROL
 From NEW SCIEENTIST 19990703
 TROJAN HORSE VIRUS
 http://www.ciac.org/ciac/CIAChoaxes.html#geeks
 
 10*LAGNIAPPE
 From AMERICAN PROSPECT 20000828
 http://www.aflcio.com
 http://www.workingfamilies.com
 
 11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT:
 A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
 
 HORSESHIT MAGAZINE
 I seem to recall that in the early 1970s Horseshit
 Magazine was widely advertised in The National
Lampoon
 (under the rubric 'Gutslammer!').
 
 A definitive source identifies it thus:
 HORSESHIT. The Offensive Review. Nos. 1-3 (all
 publ.?). Hermosa Beach (Calif.), Gauntlet Press,
later
 Scum Publishing Company, 1965- 1968. [No. 4--1970?]
 Founded and edited by the brothers Robert M. Dunker,
 who made all the (some full-page and sometimes
rather
 shocking) drawings, and Thomas W. Dunker, who wrote
 the articles. Issues of 46-50 pp., inclusive the
 covers. A typical specimen of a magazine from the
 sixties, that aims to offend the American
 establishment. --PONY
 
 
http://www.thebignote.com/archived/real_horseshit.php
 
 Scott Shaw writes:
 "A while back, over on The Comics Journal's
 messboards, I was waxing nostalgic over a
particularly
 obscure item, namely, the subterranean HORSESHIT
 MAGAZINE from the late '60's. (Don't be surprised if
 they eventually turn up in my ODDBALL COMICS
feature,
 starting April Fools' Day on Comic Book Resources.)
 
 Not only did Jack recognize the reference, but he
went
 to a lot of trouble to dig up all four issues and
sell
 'em to me for a VERY reasonable price."
 
 http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.
 cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000552
 
 By the way, on a similar tack, the
 semi-contemporanous Horseshit Cigarettes ("they
 weren't, but might as well have been") are
apparently still available in Tijuana. And have been spotted as
 far afield as St. Louis.
 
http://www.aaabooksearch.com/Book/TableOfContents/0312134592
 
11A AUDIOBOOKS REVIEWED! PART FIFTY-EIGHT
 I'VE BEEN READING BOOKS AND LISTENING TO AUDIO BOOKS
 UP THE WAZOO AND WILL USE THIS
 MONTHLY SECTION AS A PRETEXT TO PROVIDE AN
 ALPHABETIC CHART OF SAME:
 
 ***** A MASTERPIECE
 **** ARTSY AND/OR ENTERTAINING
 ***ADEQUATE
 ** MERE TRASH.
 * JUST PLAIN AWFUL
 
 100 BULLETS 7. AZZARELLO & RISSO. ****
 AGE OF NAPOLEON. DURANT. *****
 BAD WORLD. ELLIS. ***
 BATMAN: BROKEN CITY. AZZARELLO & RISSO. ***1/2
 BEST OF AMERICAN SPLENDOR. PEKAR. ****
 CAPTAIN AMERICA 4. ***
 CAPTAIN AMERICA 5. **1/2
 CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCOLN 1. **1/2
 CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCOLN: MAD BOMB. ***1/2
 CAPTAIN AMERICA THE CLASSIC YEARS VOL. 2. **
 CHATTERTON. ACKROYD. ****1/2
 CHEAP LAFFS. NEWGARTEN. ***1/2
 THE DANTE CLUB. PEARL. ****
 DICK: THE MAN WHO IS PRESIDENT. NICHOLS. ****
 DICKS. ENNIS. ***1/2
 EAST TEXAS. DOUGAN. ****
 ELEKTRA: THE HAND. ****
 EMINEM: IN MY SKIN. LEGG & MCCARTHY. ***
 EXCALIBUR 1. ***1/2
 EX MACHINA 1. ***1/2
 FANTASTIC FOUR 5. ***1/2
 HARD TIME. GERBER & HURTT. ***1/2
 A HISTORY OF THE WORLD. ROBERTS. ****
 LESSONS OF HISTORY. DURNAT. *****
 THE LOSERS 1: ANTE UP. ***1/2
 MAGICAL THINKING. BURROUGHS. ***
 MARVEL KNIGHTS FOUR 2. ***1/2
 THE OFFICIAL RAZZIE MOVIE GUIDE. WILSON. ***1/2
 POWERLESS. ***1/2
 A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY. IRVING. ****1/2
 THE PULSE 1. ****
 RED/TOKYO STORM WARNING. ELLIS. ***
 RETHINKING OUR PAST. LOEWEN. ****1/2
 ROUSSEAU & REVOLUTION. DURANT. *****
 SHE-HULK 1. ***
 SPIDER-MAN: MAXIMUM CARNAGE. **1/2
 STRANGE KILLINGS. ELLIS. ***
 STREET LAW HANDBOOK. VISWANATHAN. ****
 SUPERMAN: BIRTHRIGHT. WAID. ***1/2
 SUPERMAN: GODFALL. **1/2
 SUPERMAN: SECRET IDENTITY. BUSIEK. ***
 SUPERMAN BATMAN: PUBLIC ENEMIES. ***
 THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT. TANNEN. ****
 THRILLING TOM THE DANCING BUG STORIES. BOLLING.
***1/2
 TRANSMETROPOLITAN 0. ELLIS. ****
 ULTIMATE ELEKTRA: DEVIL'S DUE. ***1/2
 ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR 2. ****
 US & THEM. DAVIS. ****
 WOLVERINE 3. ****
 X-MEN: INFERNO. ***
 X-MEN: MUTANT MASSACRE. ***
 
 
 CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
 211. ORIGINS OF PUNK
 Between 1963 and 1965 the grounds for proto-punk
were
 laid with tunes like "Louie, Louie", "Wooly Bully",
 and Cannibal & the Headhunter's astonishing "Land of
 1,000 Dances". By 1966, the Velvet Underground's
debut
 was instrumental in sheparding in a potent response
to
 the then-developing blues-based countercultural
sound
 of psychedelia. Iggy Pop, the New York Dolls, The
 Ramones, The Dictators, and their devotees in the UK
 were all instrumental in ushering the earliest
 stirrings of the punk movement, which by 1976 were
 already in place.
 
 As for hardcore, I believe that it more or less
began
 in the late 70s and was essentially ushered in by
 groups like Black Flag. [Though Mr Al claims, "The
 first hardcore song was "Out Of Vogue" by the Middle
 Class [in] 1978." In any event, hardcore does not
 appear to have pre-dated punk or to have emerged as
a
 response to it. It was more like a mutation of the
 D.I.Y. punk ethic which, of course, was basic to
rock
 and roll almost from its inception (a fact
frequently
 overlooked), but which was a philosophy which had
been
 largely forgotten with the baroque excesses of
 phenomenally popular 1970s arena rock.
 
 It's a curious historical fact that after the first,
 golden era of punk (ca. 1977-1982), the music scene
 began to fragment, and artists (and marketers) began
 to respond to it with innovations such as watered
down
 commercialized punk (New Wave and Power Pop), salvos
 against punk (Disco), and followup permutations of
 older rock and roll forms such as
nouveau-psychedelia,
 the rockabilly revival and the
 blink-and-you've-missed-them New Romantics. And how
 things have never been quite the same.

 THE LEMON BASKET: THE BEST AND WORST OF THE WEB
#301 February 18, 2005
Copyright 2005 FRANCIS DIMENNO
 
http://www.dimenno.blog-city.com
dimenno@gmail.com

 
AND TO THE MASS OF MEN, A REALLY CREEPY LITTLE GUY
"To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal
Opposition."?? Woody
Allen
 
THIS DICTUM MUST APPLY TO EXERCISING YOUR WIT AS WELL
" ... I told my doctor I got all the exercise I needed
being a
pallbearer for all my friends who run and do
exercises!"?? Winston Churchill

 
BOB AND RAY, CALL YOUR LAWYER
"I think that all good, right thinking people in this
country are sick
and tired of being told that all good, right thinking
people in this
country are fed up with being told that all good,
right thinking people
in this country are fed up with being sick and tired. 
I'm certainly
  Select Signature -------------------- not, and I'm
sick and tired of
being told that I am."?? Monty Python
 
PRESUMABLY THE SUIT WAS SWORDS
"I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. 
I got a full
house and four people died."?? Steven Wright

 
LIKELY ESCALATING FROM NAME-CALLING
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be
fought, but World
War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."??
Albert Einstein

 
UNPLEASANT TRUTHS
 
There is no American genius but in enthusiasm.
 
Every social class teaches your to be stupid in its
own way.
 
We're all on a train to nowhere.
 
We are told to think for ourselves but nearly always
required to think for somebody else.
 
Nightclubs are gulags for self-styled hipsters.
 
When people say "Why can't you be more considerate of
others," what they're really saying is "Why can't you
be more considerate of me".
 
A good way to find out what others think of you is to
accuse them of your faults.
 
Living? Our celebrities will do that for us!
 
Once you grow up in the gutter you never lose your
taste for it.
 
The story of somebody else's rise from poverty is
somehow always less inspirational than the story of
your own rise form poverty.
 
An ethnomusicologist is a music snob with a college
education.
 
You can be surrounded by friends just as surely as by
enemies.
 
J. Edgar Hoover hated Martin Luther King.
 
Johnson was a better President than Kennedy.
 
That we are living in a post-truth society is a dirty
lie.
 
People listen to a lot of pathetic crap, but remember
that you were that person once.
 
It's best to be open to all kinds of good things and
to not waste your time on those things which everybody
else wallows in because they pander to their basest
prejudices.
 
According to Madame DeStaal, a story should have in it
aspects of virtue, liberty, glory, happiness and
religion. But nowadays, at least for a significant
minority, religion is merely an approximation of
unquestioning belief. Those who do not rely on
religion frequently substitute for it some other
comforting structure, whether it be junkiedom, fandom,
or cynicism. Junkiedom appears to be the most
powerful, if we apply the term to encompass a surge of
endorphins produced by any compulsive form of
self-destructive behavior: gambling, over-eating,
fist-fighting. Fandom raises the pulse and lowers the
inhibitions in a way similar to alcohol. But knee-jerk
cynicism--an automatically sour interpretation of the
world--is perhaps the easist and most pernicious
intellectual self-distortion of them all. Having said
that, cynicism also apears to be the last refuge of
the utterly disillusioned, and perhaps it is a
necessary solace, in the same way that knowing (to
paraphrase Nietzsche) that "you can always off
yourself if things get too shitty" is.
 
Accoding to Pavlov, animals in a cage faced with two
equally unattractive options will bite the apparatus.
 
The kin of deceased people are not always brave.
 
The old are not always wise.
 
Cynics are not always wrong.
 
Question everything; believe nothing. Question
nothing; believe everything. Both are true.
 
1*SALUTATION
FOCUS ON TOP WEB LINKS 33 20000515
THE INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE (IMDb)
The ultimate online movie  database covering  over 
200,000  titles and 
750,000  people  with facts, trivia,  reviews plus
multimedia links
from the earliest films to the latest releases.
http://www.imdb.com/
 
2*REFERENCE
From SCOUT REPORT 20000512
Oxford University Press (OUP) Reading Room [.pdf]
 
Though of course created to sell OUP books, this site
is a useful
resource for university instructors, scholars, or
anyone interested
in the latest works from one of the foremost academic
publishers. The
site is currently divided into thirteen reading rooms
(Politics,
Anthropology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,
History,
Literature, Philosophy, etc.), each of which offers
sample chapters
(.pdf format), tables of contents, and other
information on the
latest offerings in that field from OUP. In addition,
users can
browse each reading room by their particular interest.
For instance,
the Literature reading room is subdivided into topics
such as
Shakespeare, Romantic Literature, Nineteenth Century
Literature,
Twentieth Century Literature, and Criticism and
Theory, among others.
An internal search engine is also available. [MD]
http://www.oup.co.uk/readingroom/
 
3*HUMOR
 
4*NOVELTY
COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW JULY/AUG 2000
MAGAZINES
http://www.feedmag.com
http://www.word.com
http://www.nerve.com
 
5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
From ECOLOGIST MAR 2002
SCIENCE AND PRECAUTION
http://www.rachel.org
 
6* DAILY UTILITY
From PC COMPUTER 11-99
FREE ONLINE E-COMMERCE
http://www.bigstep.com
http://www.econgo.com
http://www.freemerchant.com
http://www.smartage.com
 
7*CARTOON
From NEWSWEEK 20040412
DVD EASTER EGGS
http://www.eeggs.com
 
8*PRESCRIPTION
From SCOUT REPORT 20000512
MagPortal
 
Created and provided by Hot Neuron LLC, this current
awareness
resource helps users stay abreast of recent free
magazine articles
available online. Updated each business day, the site
organizes the
articles in twelve main categories, including
Business, Internet,
Family & Home, Sports, Health, and Science &
Technology, among
others. Each of these are further divided into varying
numbers of
subcategories. The articles are briefly described, and
links are
provided to the full text and the main site of the
periodical. In
addition, users can access a list of similar articles
via an icon at
the end of most article descriptions. A keyword search
engine is
provided at the main page, and registered users can
mark and save
articles for future reference. Although a master list
of the
periodicals indexed by the site would be a welcome
addition, the site
as it stands is quite helpful for users searching for
current pieces
on selected topics or simply tracking the latest
writing in their
areas of interest. [MD]
http://MagPortal.com
 
9*RUMOR PATROL
From AMERICAN DEMOGRAPHICS 12-00
http://www.quickfacts.census.gov
 
10*LAGNIAPPE
From NATIONAL REVIEW19991220
http://www.latinmass-ctm.org
 
11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT:
A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
 
RHODE ISLAND JUNK JEWELRY
 
In 2001 the sale of miniature plastic roses in clear
plastic cylinders
was strongly discouraged because skels were allegedly
using the
cylinders for crack pipes.
Rhode Island definitely has a low-rent sensibility
when it comes to
cheesy novelty items--in the early nineties in South
Providence you'd see
all these oldsters and Hispanic immigrants driving
around in rusted out
pimpmobiles with those 'crown' deodorizers on their
dashboards, as if
to say, 'The world may treat me like shit but in this
car I am the
King!".
 
ADVERTISEMENT:
BUY CDS, DVDS, & VIDEOS VIA SECOND SPIN:
http://www.secondspin.com/index.cfm?From=sd?20072
 
CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
http://www.dreamwater.net/mpc/lemonrocks.htm
http://www.dreamwater.net/mpc/lemonrock.htm
 
212. CASPER THE FRIENDLY JUNKIE
 
Look, buddy, I know you want to be friends, but I
gotta tell ya, I had
a serious drug problem for years and years and it's a
wonder I'm not
dead...or maybe I am!
 
How it first started was, I got pretty heavily into
the bennies which
is where I got that high-pitched Richard Widmark
giggle that drove most
grown-ups bats, but after I burned out on Superman
pills I discovered
the barbs and got really strung out. Spooky had a
nasty little junk
habit, but back then I was afraid of the needle, and
the Ghostly Trio were
into reefers, big time, but I didn't dig what hemp did
to them, it made
them stupid and mean, so I steered clear. Nope,
leapers and downers
were my bag until I got too strung out on coke in the
70s and famous
studios invoked the morals clause and cancelled my
contract...I got cleaned
up though, thanks to Wendy and a little help from
Richie Rich, who, by
the way, is my live twin brother who was separated
from me at birth. So
now I'm back on top and better than ever. OK, so my
second movie went
straight to video, but hey--it's been 50 years and I'm
still hanging in
there, which is more than I can say for poor Lenny....
 
Do I remember CBGB's? Yeah, the Trio played there in
74 after I got
pretty heavy into DMT which is where I got that
thousand-mile stare that
spooked the shit out of most normal people, but after
I burned out on
shrooms and acid I discovered booze and got really
heavily into
freebasing coke in the 70s and had to do the
twelve-step tango with NA after I
started getting migraines and mnosebleeds all the
time. Get this--I was
a fucking GHOST with nosebleeds, not very
friendly-looking either....
 
Y'know, y'ashk people t be yer friend and they just
SHIT all over
ya...I'm shick of it...the Ghostly trio can go to
HELL. They got tricks?
Well, I got a few tricksh...some muffuckas need some
hurtin an they're
gonna get some hurtin'...did you steal my drink?
 
TO CONCLUDE:
12*APPROBATION AND OPPROBRIUM
From: Rubin
ART KNOWLEDGE NEWS
http://www.artknowledgenews.com/

THE LEMON BASKET: THE BEST AND WORST OF THE WEB
 #302 February 25, 2005
 Copyright 2005 FRANCIS DIMENNO

THANKS, EINSTEIN
"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."
Albert Einstein

SO NOTED
"I guess you will have to go to jail. If that is the
result of not understanding the Income Tax Law I shall
meet you there. We shall have a merry, merry time, for
all of our friends will be there. It will be an
intellectual center, for no one understands the Income
Tax Law except persons who have not sufficient
intelligence to understand the questions that arise
under it."
Senator Elihu Root, during 1913 debates on the income
tax law

USUALLY BY REPUBLICANS
"Bank failures are caused by depositors who don't
deposit enough money to cover losses due to
mismanagement."
Vice President Dan Quayle, 1988

AND COME UP WITH A BETTER JOKE
"Maybe tomorrow I'll give up procrastination."
Lawrence Wade

BE UNREALISTIC AND EXPECT IT
"Be realistic--Demand the impossible."
Vancouver grafitti

IN RESPONSE TO THE SCOUNDRELS WHO CALL ME MAD...MAD!
A man who writes in all caps, in crayons, with cut-outs from
newspapers and magazines, in lemon-juice based invisible ink; a man
who cannot sit still but who remains seated with a persistently
quivering ankle; a man who gets up to wash his hands every five
minutes, who rubs himself and periodically groans; a man who
ostentatiously picks his nose in public places, who croaks 'eat me' to
old ladies in bank lines, who eats chewing gum from off the sidewalk,
who regularly dines in a bus station cafeteria, who likes to stick
pretty girls shopping in the lingerie department of Filene's with
sharp pins; a man who considers Psychopathia Sexualis his bible; a man
who sleeps hugging a caked teddy bear; who peeps at high school girls
from behind binoculars at 500 paces and sniggers; a man who snorts
down his loose phlegm, conspicuously swallows and loudly says AAAH!;
who huffs the nitrous oxide form whipped cream cans then walks too
rapidly out of the supermarket; who anonymously posts insulting online
diatribes--in other words, a man like you...THAT man is mad.

1*SALUTATION
From: The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter # 148
20010628
REVERSE PHONE LOOK?UP
Whether you want to find a long lost friend or the
address of someone
who owes you money, Anywho.com can assist you. Powered
by AT&T, the site
can provide the phone numbers and addresses of almost
any person or
business.
http://www.anywho.com/rl.html


2*REFERENCE
From NATION 19991227
GLOBAL NETWORK AGAINST NUKES
http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk

3*HUMOR
From THE NEW YORKER 19991206
P.G. WODEHOUSE APPRECIATION SOCIETY
http://www.smart.net~tak/wodehous.html

4*NOVELTY
From IN THESE TIMES 20000821
http://www.raceman.com

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
From Z 12-99
STAY FREE
http://www.metalab.unc.edu/stayfree

6* DAILY UTILITY
From Z 12-99
GETCRAFTY
http://www.getcrafty.com

7*CARTOON
From UTNE READER May-June 2000
EMANCIPATION DES JARDINS
http://www.menj.com

8*PRESCRIPTION
From TIME 19991025
ACTIVIST/POPULIST POLICY DISCUSSION
http://www.voxcap.com

9*RUMOR PATROL
From NEWSWEEK 20000320
CONTRA TOBACCO
http://www.no-smoke.org
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco

10*LAGNIAPPE
From: Neat Net Tricks 123 20020401
CLEANING OUT THE HARD DRIVE
An excellent slide show tutorial on sprucing up your
hard drive.  It's nearly spring you know, and time for
the housecleaning ritual.
http://www.viewhow2.com/gen.jsp?asn=rkxahpe&v=:vf:tkxwwsl:4:harddrive_viewlet.html

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT:
A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
FAR EASTERN ECONOMIC REVIEW

If you look at back issues of Far Eastern Economic Review you'll find
a column by Nury Vittachi called 'Traveller's Tales' with all kinds of
great information about the clash of East and West..

A sample:
http://www.feer.com/articles/2003/0305_15/p052tales.html

ADVERTISEMENT:
BUY CDS, DVDS, & VIDEOS VIA SECOND SPIN:
http://www.secondspin.com/index.cfm?From=sd?20072

CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
http://www.dreamwater.net/mpc/lemonrocks.htm
http://www.dreamwater.net/mpc/lemonrock.htm

213. IN MEMORIAM:  HUNTER S. THOMPSON

HST on Hubert Humphrey:

"A treacherous, gutless old ward-heeler who should be put in a goddamn
bottle and sent out with the Japanese Current."

On Nixon:
From ROLLING STONE Jun 16, 1994

NOTES ON THE PASSING OF AN AMERICAN MONSTER....HE WAS
A LIAR ND A QUITTER, AND HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN BURIED AT
SEA. ...BUT HE WAS, AFTER ALL, THE PRESIDENT.

"And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying
Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is
becoming the habitation of devils, and the hold of
every foul spirit and a cage of
every unclean and hateful bird."--REVELATION 18:2

Richard Nixon is gone now and I am poorer for it. He
was the real thing--a political monster straight out
of Grendel and a very dangerous enemy. He could shake
your hand and stab you in the back at the same time.
He lied to his friends and betrayed the trust of his
family. Not even Gerald Ford, the unhappy ex-president
who pardoned Nixon and kept him out of prison, was
immune to the evil fallout. Ford, who believes
strongly in Heaven and Hell, has told more than one of
his celebrity golf partners that I know Iwill go to
hell, because I pardoned Richard Nixon."

I have had my own bloody relationship with Nixon for
many years, but I am not worried about it landing me
in hell with him. I have already been there with that
bastard, andI am a better person for it. Nixon had the
unique ability to make his enemies seem honorable, and
we developed a keen sense of fraternity. Some of my
best friends have hatedNixon all their lives. My
mother hates Nixon, my son hates Nixon, I hate Nixon,
and this hatred has brought us together.

Nixon laughed when I told him this. "Don't worry," he
said. "I, too, am a family man, and we feel the same
way about you."

It was Richard Nixon who got me into politics, and now
that he's gone, I feel lonely. He was a giant in his
way. As long as Nixon was politically alive--and he
was, all theway to the end--we could always be sure of
finding the enemy on the Low Road. There was no need
to look anywhere else for the evil bastard. He had the
fighting instinctsof a badger trapped by hounds. The
badger will roll over on its back and emit a smell of
death, which confuses the dogs and lures them in for
the traditional ripping and tearing action. But it is
usually the badger who does the ripping and tearing.
It is a beast that fights best on its back: rolling
under the throat of the enemy and seizing it by
thehead with all four claws.

That was Nixon's style--and if you forgot, he would
kill you as a lesson to the others. Badgers don't
fight fair, bubba. That's why God made dachshunds.

Nixon was a navy man, and he should have been buried
at sea. Many of his friends were seagoing people: Bebe
Rebozo, Robert Vesco, William F. Buckley Jr., and some
of them wanted a full naval burial.

These come in at least two styles, however, and
Nixon's immediate family strongly opposed both of
them. In the traditionalist style, the dead
president's body would be wrapped and sewn loosely in
canvas sailcloth and dumped off the stern of a frigate
at least 100 miles off the coast and at least 1,000
miles south of San Diego, so the corpse could never
wash up on American soil in any recognizable form.

The family opted for cremation until they were advised
of the potentially onerous implications of a strictly
private, unwitnessed burning of the body of the man
who was, after all the President of the United States.
Awkward questions might be raised, dark allusions to
Hitler and Rasputin. People would be filing lawsuits
to get their hands on the dental charts. Long court
battles would be inevitable--some with liberal cranks
bitching about corpus delicti and habeas corpus and
others with giant insurance companies trying not to
pay off on his death benefits. Either way, an orgy of
greed and duplicity was sure to follow any public hint
that Nixon might have somehow faked his own death or
been cryogenically transferred to fascist Chinese
interests on the Central Asian Mainland.

It would also play into the hands of those millions of
self-stigmatized patriots like me who believe these
things already.

If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's
funeral, his casket would have been launched into one
of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean
just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and
a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked
that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on
every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was
queer in the deepest way. His body should have been
burned in a trash bin.

These are harsh words for a man only recently
canonized by President Clinton and my old friend
George McGovern--but I have written worse things about
Nixon, many times, and the record will show that I
kicked him repeatedly long before he went down. I beat
him like a mad dog with mange every time I got a
chance, and I am proud of it. He was scum.

Let there be no mistake in the history books about
that. Richard Nixon was an evil man--evil in a way
that only those who believe in the physical reality of
the Devil can understand it. He was utterly without
ethics or morals or any bedrock sense of decency.
Nobody trusted him--except maybe the Stalinist
Chinese, and honest historians will remember him
mainly as a rat who kept scrambling to get back on the
ship.

It is fitting that Richard Nixon's final gesture to
the American people was a clearly illegal series of 21
105-mm howitzer blasts that shattered the peace of a
residential neighborhood and permanently disturbed
many children. Neighbors also complained about another
unsanctioned burial in the yard at the old Nixon
place, which was brazenly illegal. "It makes the whole
neighborhood like a graveyard," said one. "And it
fucks up my children's sense of values."

Many were incensed about the howitzers--but they knew
there was nothing they could do about it--not with the
current president sitting about 50 yards away and
laughing at the roar of the cannons. It was Nixon's
last war, and he won.

The funeral was a dreary affair, finely staged for TV
and shrewdly dominated by ambitious politicians and
revisionist historians. The Rev. Billy Graham, still
agile and eloquent at the age of 136, was billed as
the main speaker, but he was quickly upstaged by two
1996 GOP presidential candidates: Sen. Bob Dole of
Kansas and Gov. Pete Wilson of California, who
formally hosted the event and saw his poll numbers
crippled when he got blown off the stage by Dole, who
somehow seized the No. 3 slot on the roster and
uttered such a shameless, self-serving eulogy that
even he burst into tears at the end of it.

Dole's stock went up like a rocket and cast him as the
early GOP front-runner for '96. Wilson, speaking next,
sounded like an Engelbert Humperdinck impersonator and
probably won't even be re-elected as governor of
California in November.

The historians were strongly represented by the No. 2
speaker, Henry Kissinger, Nixon's secretary of state
and himself a zealous revisionist with many axes to
grind. He set the tone for the day with a maudlin and
spectacularly self-serving portrait of Nixon as even
more saintly than his mother and as a president of
many godlike accomplishments--most of them put
together in secret by Kissinger, who came to
California as part of a huge publicity tour for his
new book on diplomacy, genius, Stalin, H.P. Lovecraft
and other great minds of our time, including himself
and Richard Nixon.

Kissinger was only one of the many historians who
suddenly came to see Nixon as more than the sum of his
many squalid parts. He seemed to be saying that
History will not have to absolve Nixon, because he has
already done it himself in a massive act of will and
crazed arrogance that already ranks him supreme, along
with other Nietzschean supermen like Hitler, Jesus,
Bismarck and the Emperor Hirohito. These revisionists
have catapulted Nixon to the status of an American
Caesar, claiming that when the definitive history of
the 20th century is written, no other president will
come close to Nixon in stature. "He will dwarf FDR and
Truman," according to one scholar from Duke
University.

It was all gibberish, of course. Nixon was no more a
Saint than he was a Great President. He was more like
Sammy Glick than Winston Churchill. He was a cheap
crook and a merciless war criminal who bombed more
people to death in Laos and Cambodia than the U.S.
Army lost in all of World War II, and he denied it to
the day of his death. When students at Kent State
University, in Ohio, protested the bombing, he
connived to have them attacked and slain by troops
from the National Guard.

Some people will say that words like scum and rotten
are wrong for Objective Journalism--which is true, but
they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots
of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to
slither into the White House in the first place. He
looked so good on paper that you could almost vote for
him sight unseen. He seemed so all-American, so much
like Horatio Alger, that he was able to slip through
the cracks of Objective Journalism. You had to get
Subjective to see Nixon clearly, and the shock of
recognition was often painful.

Nixon's meteoric rise from the unemployment line to
the vice presidency in six quick years would never
have happened if TV had come along 10 years earlier.
He got away with his sleazy "my dog Checkers" speech
in 1952 because most voters heard it on the radio or
read about it in the headlines of their local,
Republican newspapers. When Nixon finally had to face
the TV cameras for real in the 1960 presidential
campaign debates, he got whipped like a red-headed
mule. Even die-hard Republican voters were shocked by
his cruel and incompetent persona. Interestingly, most
people who heard those debates on the radio thought
Nixon had won. But the mushrooming TV audience saw him
as a truthless used-car salesman, and they voted
accordingly. It was the first time in 14 years that
Nixon lost an election.

When he arrived in the White House as VP at the age of
40, he was a smart young man on the rise--a
hubris-crazed monster from the bowels of the American
dream with a heart full of hate and an overweening
lust to be President. He had won every office he'd run
for and stomped like a Nazi on all of his enemies and
even some of his friends.

Nixon had no friends except George Will and J. Edgar
Hoover (and they both deserted him.) It was Hoover's
shameless death in 1972 that led directly to Nixon's
downfall. He felt helpless and alone with Hoover gone.
He no longer had access to either the Director or the
Director's ghastly bank of Personal Files on almost
everybody in Washington.

Hoover was Nixon's right flank, and when he croaked,
Nixon knew how Lee felt when Stonewall Jackson got
killed at Chancellorsville. It permanently exposed
Lee's flank and led to the disaster at Gettysburg.

For Nixon, the loss of Hoover led inevitably to the
disaster of Watergate. It meant hiring a New
Director--who turned out to be an unfortunate toady
named L. Patrick Gray, who squealed like a pig in hot
oil the first time Nixon leaned on him. Gray panicked
and fingered White House Counsel John Dean, who
refused to take the rap and rolled over, instead, on
Nixon, who was trapped like a rat by Dean's
relentless, vengeful testimony and went all to pieces
right in front of our eyes on TV.

That is Watergate, in a nut, for people with seriously
diminished attention spans. The real story is a lot
longer and reads like a textbook on human treachery.
They were all scum, but only Nixon walked free and
lived to clear his name. Or at least that's what Bill
Clinton says--and he is, after all, the President of
the United States.

Nixon liked to remind people of that. He believed it,
and that was why he went down. He was not only a crook
but a fool. Two years after he quit, he told a TV
journalist that "if the president does it, it can't be
illegal."

Shit. Not even Spiro Agnew was that dumb. he was a
flat-out, knee-crawling thug with the morals of a
weasel on speed. But he was Nixon's vice president for
five years, and he only resigned when he was caught
red-handed taking cash bribes across his desk in the
White House.

Unlike Nixon, Agnew didn't argue. He quit his job and
fled in the night to Baltimore, where he appeared the
next morning in U.S. District Court, which allowed him
to stay out of prison for bribery and extortion in
exchange for a guilty (no contest) plea on income-tax
evasion. After that he became a major celebrity and
played golf and tried to get a Coors distributorship.
He never spoke to Nixon again and was an unwelcome
guest at the funeral. They called him Rude, but he
went anyway. It was one of those Biological
Imperatives, like salmon swimming up waterfalls to
spawn before they die. He knew he was scum, but it
didn't bother him.

Agnew was the Joey Buttafuoco of the Nixon
administration, and Hoover was its Caligula. They were
brutal, brain-damaged degenerates worse than any hit
man out of The Godfather, yet they were the men
Richard Nixon trusted most. Together they defined his
Presidency.

It would be easy to forget and forgive Henry Kissinger
of his crimes, just as he forgave Nixon. Yes, we could
do that--but it would be wrong. Kissinger is a
slippery little devil, a world-class hustler with a
thick German accent and a very keen eye for weak spots
at the top of the power structure, Nixon was one of
these, and Super K exploited him mercilessly, all the
way to the end.

Kissinger made the Gang of Four complete: Agnew,
Hoover, Kissinger and Nixon. A group photo of these
perverts would say all we need to know about the Age
of Nixon.

Nixon's spirit will be with us for the rest of our
lives--whether you're me or Bill Clinton or you or
Kurt Cobain or Bishop Tutu or Keith Richards or Amy
Fisher or Boris Yeltsin's daughter or your fiancee's
16-year-old beer-drunk brother with his braided goatee
and his whole life like a thundercloud out in front of
him. This is not a generational thing. You don't even
have to know who Richard Nixon was to be a victim of
his ugly, Nazi spirit.

He has poisoned our water forever. Nixon will be
remembered as a classic case of a smart man shitting
in his own nest. But he also shit in our nests, and
that was the crime that history will burn on his
memory like a brand. By disgracing and degrading the
Presidency of the United States, by fleeing the White
House like a diseased cur, Richard Nixon broke the
heart of the American Dream.

KICKING NIXON WHILE HE WAS UP

It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal
and incurably violent side of the American character
that almost every country in the world has learned to
fear and despise. Our Barbie-doll president, with his
Barbie-doll wife and his boxful of Barbie-doll
children is also America's answer to the monstrous Mr.
Hyde. He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the
predatory shyster who turns into something
unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string warts,
on nights when the moon comes too close....

At the stroke of midnight in Washington, a drooling
red-eyed beast with the legs of a man and head of a
giant hyena crawls out of its bedroom window in the
South Wing of the White House and leaps 50 feet down
to the lawn ... pauses briefly to strangle the chow
watchdog, then races off into the darkness...toward
the Watergate, snarling with lust, loping through the
alleys behind Pennsylvania Avenue and trying
desperately to remember which one of those 400 iron
balconies is the one outside Martha Mitchell's
apartment.

Ah...nightmares, nightmares. But I was only kidding.
The President of the United States would never act
that weird. At least not during football season. But
how would the voters react if they knew the President
of the United States was, according to a New York
Times editorial on Oct. 12, presiding over "a complex,
far-reaching and sinister operation on the part of
White House aides and the Nixon campaign organization
... involving sabotage, forgery, theft of confidential
files, surveillance of Democratic candidates and their
families and persistent efforts to lay the basis for
possible blackmail and intimidation?"

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:Cxjuj...mphrey%22&hl=en
 

THE LEMON BASKET: THE BEST AND WORST OF THE WEB
#303 March 4, 2005
Copyright 2005 FRANCIS DIMENNO
http://www.dimenno.blog-city.com

AWW...
"...yet so many forgot that Jesus died FOR their sins,
NOT to justify them in advance!!!"
Brian O'Connell

SPOKEN LIKE A TRUE TROUBLEMAKER
"A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and
greater than a "Yes" merely uttered to please, or what
is worse, to avoid trouble."
Mahatma Gandhi

OR WHEN OIL PRICES GO UP
"A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when
the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it
begins to rain."
Mark Twain

AND A SMALL COMMUNITY IS WHERE NOBODY MINDS THEIR OWN
BUSINESS
"A city is a large community where people are lonesome
together."
Herbert Prochnow

STOLEN FROM THE OPTIMIST
"A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with
a stolen lantern."
Edgar A. Shoaff

NAMES FOR COUNTY & WESTERN BANDS
A Boy Has Never Wept Nor Dashed a Thousand Kim
A kick in the butt
A Track in the Dirt
Afternoon Everybody
Ah Please Papa
Alvin
Amarillo
Any Cow
Any Major Dude
Arnold the Pig
Ass Wranglers
Barfy Burgers
Bat's Breath
Benny at the Wheel
Blabber and Smoke
Blazing sword
Booger Bear
Buzzard on a buzzsaw
Call Me Rusty
Care Bear Stare
Casa Loma
Chimp Boy-Ar-Dee
Chug 'Em Down
Cincinnati
Coonie Up a Gum Stump Shoo Fly Shoo
Coot
Cootie Garage
Corn Syrup Uber Alles
Cream of Tobacco Soup
Crushing Your Head
Dead Dog in a Carnival Costume
Deadbeat Dad and his Soon-to-be-Starving Neglected
Demon Dogs
Dingos Stole My Baby
Dirtbag
Drivin On Nine
Exclamation Point and the Hysterians
Fast and Furious
Fifty dollars and time served
FIRE BAD
Firebox
Flowers and Grief
Four Roses And A Thorn
Frozen Pipes
Fun Is Fun
Get Off Me Paw, Yer Crushin My Smokes
Grab Ass
Grab Ass
Habanero Suppository Surprise
Heat Misr
Heavy Metal Thunder
Hey Edison
"Hey Red!"
High School Education and the Parking Lot Attendants
Hillbilly Heroin
Hominy Wishes And Corn Likker Dreams
Hopeless Drunks
How-Dee
I Heart My Cow
Idiot Starscream
Incinerator Babies
Jibba Jabba
Jinkys
Kenmore Square
Kiss My Grits
Let the Fraggles Play
Li'l Abner & the Mattress Testers
Long Neck Bottles
Lovers of Today
Lump and the Lumpkins
Maybe, Maybe Not
Me Grimlock, King
No Full Moves
No Hobo and Poboe
No Photo ID No Service
No Respect
Oofty Goofty
Oyer & Terminer
Pandemonium Running Wild
Papa Smurf
Paw Ain't No Kin to You
Piano-Player Shooters
Pop and the Tarts
Pot Likker
Power of Greyskull
President Stockboy
Purty Mouth
Rabble And The Rousers
Raintree County
Raise the Roof
Random Canyon
Red Man
Riverboat Gambler
Sit, Ubu, Sit
Squirrel Brain Pie
Sticky Parts
Streets of Laredo
Sump Pump
Survey Says
The Acorns
The Apples
The Ass Harvesters
The Beverly Hellbillies
The Boxcars
The Coma Bums
The Cowboy Lepers
The Dance Crashers.
The Dance of Joy
The Floating Outhouse Logs
The HEAD!
The Leather Boyz
The Lost Coyotes
The Master Cylinder
The One-Eyed Hillbillies
The Ornery Coyotes
The Owlhoots
The Potato-Seed Eaters
The Pushbroom Zombies
The Red Devils
The Tourette-Dart Band
The Ultimate Warrior
The Underdogs
Thundercats Ho
Tonto's Brood
Train I Ride
Train To Nowhere
Turtle Power
Virginia City
Voltron Force
Von Dutch
Why Cousins Shouldn't Marry
Windshield
Wine Spo-De-O-Dee
Yak
Yee Haw
Yipee Skipee
YQCA

1*SALUTATION
From: Neat Net Tricks Issue # 118, 20020115
A VIEW FROM AFAR.
Enter an address and get a road map to it, along with
a satellite photo.
http://www.globexplorer.com

2*REFERENCE
From: The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter # 171
20011206
PRESERVING WEB CULTURE
Without cultural artifacts, civilization has no memory
--and the explosion of the Internet could make for an
amnesiac future. With info on the Internet
disappearing in a blink, the Internet Archive, a
collaboration with the Library of Congress and the
Smithsonian, was created to prevent "born?digital"
materials from disappearing into the past. One of the
coolest features is the Wayback Machine, letting users
surf  pages stored in an archive by entering a URL or
clicking on specific collections.
http://www.archive.org/index.html/

3*HUMOR
After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled
from Heaven.  As he passed through the Gates, he paused a
moment in thought, and turned to God and said, "A new creature called
Man, I hear, is soon to be created."
   "This is true," He replied.
   "He will need laws," said the Demon slyly.
   "What!  You, his appointed Enemy for all Time!
You ask for the right to make his laws?"
   "Oh, no!"  Satan replied, "I ask only that he be
allowed to make his own."
   It was so granted.
[Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"]

4*NOVELTY
From NATION 20011008
http://eserver.org/bs

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
From TIME 20031222
ONLINE MAIL ORDER CATALOGS
http://www.catalogs.google.com

6* DAILY UTILITY
From ENVIRONMENT MAY 02
GEOTIMES MAGAZINE
http://www.geotimes.org

7*CARTOON
From NEW SCIENTIST 19990522
I HATE STAR WARS
http://www.ihatestarwars.com

8*PRESCRIPTION
From NEWSWEEK 20031222
WEIGHT MANAGEMENT
http://www.lifespan.org

9*RUMOR PATROL
From AMERICAN DEMOGRAPHICS 12-00
http://www.hirrhartsem.edu

10*LAGNIAPPE
From: The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter # 157
20010830
THE ARCHIVE OF MISHEARD LYRICS
Have you ever sang a song and knew you were butchering
the words? Or listened to a song over and over and not understood
the lyrics? Not anymore.
http://www.kissthisguy.com/

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT:
A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
DINOSAUR JR.
Dino's first single, "Repulsion," and their LP "You're
Living All Over Me" were signal accomplishments which
suited perfectly the spirit of their time. But
subsequent Dino albums paled, and Sebadoh's "The Freed
Man" was a ghastly mistake.

ADVERTISEMENT:
BUY CDS, DVDS, & VIDEOS VIA SECOND SPIN:
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CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
http://www.dreamwater.net/mpc/lemonrocks.htm
http://www.dreamwater.net/mpc/lemonrock.htm

214. The Doors: OUR LOVE BECOME A FUNERAL PYRE

Some 1930s critics like Walter Benjamin and Theodor
Adorno despise mass culture on principle. Some
academic types have taken up their banner, and that
almost instinctive distrust of the mechanistic
products of mass culture has trickled down into the
self-designated intelligentsia among music lovers.

On a more basic level, here's the deal:

Vulgarians with pretensions to culture enjoyed hack
poet Morrison's lyric effusions. 1960s-era
unreconstructed Hippies and 1970s wannabes grooved on
the vibes. If you define yourself in opposition to these
overlapping groups, you more or less feel duty-bound
to hate the Doors. If you feel in any way threatened
by the acclaim that Morrison's mediocre and
pretentious lyrics garnered from the brain damaged and
the brain dead, you are very likely to despise the
Doors.

Moral: Most if not all so-called aesthetic
distinctions are actually class distinctions.
Also, Rock and Roll is unforgiving when an Adonis turns into Porky Pig.

TO CONCLUDE:
12*APPROBATION AND OPPROBRIUM
*1 From: rubin
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 18:43:07 -0500
Subject: DisneyWorld from Space

http://tinyurl.com/3nrar

THE LEMON BASKET: THE BEST AND WORST OF THE WEB
#304 March 11, 2005
Copyright 2005 FRANCIS DIMENNO
http://www.dimenno.blog-city.com

BUT WHAT IF IT’S THE ROAD LESS TAKEN?
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over
if you just sit there.
Will Rogers

PROVING YOU’LL NEVER BE ON THE LIST OF THE SMARTEST
PEOPLE
Every morning, I get up and look through the 'Forbes'
list of the
richest people in America.  If I'm not there, I go to
work.
Robert Orben

WHERE WILL YOU HIDE THEM? IN YOUR SHIRT?
Give me enough medals, and I'll win any war.
Napoleon

BUT ACCORDING TO THE CATHOLICS, HE’S FOND OF BINGO
God doesn't play dice.
Albert Einstein

WITH WHAT? SNOW?
Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We
will bury you!
Nikita Khrushchev

1*SALUTATION
From NEWSWEEK 20050221
CELL CHIP DECIPHERED
http://www.arstechnica.com

2*REFERENCE
From MOTHER JONES Jan-Feb 05
LAWRENCE LESSIG WEBSITE
http://www.creativecommons.org

3*HUMOR
From: The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter #181
20020214
KILL YOUR PC
A gruesome yet delicious site for those inevitable
times ? usually when
a deadline looms ? when you want not just to kill your
computer, but to
make it suffer first. The Illustrated Guide to Killing
your PC details how
to torment the thing, whether smashing the smirk right
off its irritating
little monitor or taking a pocket blowtorch to its
motherboard. Revenge
is sweet.
http://members.aol.com/spoons1000/break/index.html



4*NOVELTY
From US NEWS & WORLD REPORT
BID ON SECOND-HAND FURNITURE AND B MERCHANDISE
http://www.ubid.com
http://www.overstock.com

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
From MOTHER JONES Jan-Feb 05
PRESSURE THE FDA TO MAKE ALL DRUG TRIALS PUBLIC
http://www.drugtaker.com

6* DAILY UTILITY
From TIME 20050228
FULL PAGE PREVIEWS
http://www.browster.com

7*CARTOON
From TIME 20050307
PUBLIC PHOTO SHARING SITES
http://www.flickr.com
http://www.fotolog.net
http://www.buzznet.com

8*PRESCRIPTION
From NEWSWEEK 20050228
AUTISM SITES
http://www.autismcoalition.org
http://www.autism-society.org
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/actearly
http://www.cureautismnow.org
http://www.naar.org
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/autism.cfm

9*RUMOR PATROL
From Z Jul-Aug 2004
CAMPAIGN TO STOP KILLER COKE
http://www.killercoke.org
http://www.laborrights.org

10*LAGNIAPPE
From NEAT NET TRICKS 106 20010714
AMERISTAT
Get charts, graphs, and extensive demographic data in
several categories, download files, and discover how
our population has evolved and what may be in store
for us.
http://www.ameristat.org/

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT:
A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA

ADVERTISEMENT:
BUY CDS, DVDS, & VIDEOS VIA SECOND SPIN:
http://www.secondspin.com/index.cfm?From=sd?20072

11A. REVIEWS
ALL THE PRETTY HORSES. MCCARTHY. ****1/2
ALPHA FLIGHT 1. **1/2
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 8. ***1/2
AVENGERS 4. **1/2
AVENGERS DISASSEMBLED. ****1/2
AVENGERS/THUNDERBOLTS 2. ***
BLINK. GLADWELL. *****
BLOOD MERIDIAN. MCCARTHY. *****
BLUE BLOOD. CONLON. ****
CAPTAIN AMERICA DISASSEMBLED. ***1/2
CITIES OF THE PLAIN. MCCARTHY. ****1/2
COMEDY ON TAPE. SENNETT. ***
THE CROSSING.. MCCARTHY. ****
DAREDEVIL 10. ****1/2
DC COMICS RARITIES ARCHIVES. **
DISTRICT X. ****
EMPIRE. FERGUSON. ****
ESSENTIAL PETER PARKER 1. ***
FROM DAWN TO DECADENCE. BARZUN. *****
THE GREAT TERROR: A REASSESSMENT. CONQUEST. ****1/2
HELLBOY JR. WRAY. ****
HULK AND THING. ***
HULK VISIONARIES PETER DAVID 1. ***
IDENTITY DISC. ***1/2
JIMMY OLSON ADVENTURES BY JACK KIRBY 2. ***1/2
MARVEL KNIGHTS 2099. ***
MARVEL KNIGHTS 4, 1. ****
MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN 2. ****1/2
MEN OF TOMORROW. JONES. ****
MIXED NUTS. EPSTEIN. ***1/2
NEW X-MAN: ACADEMY X 1. ****
NINETY-THREE. HUGO. ****1/2
POWERS 5.
POWERS 6.
POWERS 7.
ROGUE.
THANOS 5. ***1/2
THOR DISASSEMBLED. ***1/2
TIME AND TIDE. O’BRIEN. ****
ULTIMATE X-MEN 10. ***
UNCANNY X-MEN: THE NEW AGE 1. ****
UNCANNY X-MEN: THE NEW AGE 2. ****
UNSHELVED. BARNES & ANBAUM. ***1/2
VENOM 3. **1/2
WITCHES. **1/2
WOLVERINE: THE END. ***1/2
X-MEN THE END 1. ***

THE LEMON BASKET: THE BEST AND WORST OF THE WEB
#305 March 18, 2005
Copyright 2005 FRANCIS DIMENNO
http://www.dimenno.blog-city.com

Archibald Macleish:
The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when
he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.

Barbara Ehrenreich:
No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels.
Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty
of patriots.

Edward R. Murrow:
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition
dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.

Eleanor Holmes Norton:
The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to
support the rights of people you don't agree with.

Eric Hoffer:
The beginning of thought is in disagreement -- not only with others
but also with ourselves.

Florynce Kennedy:
You've got to rattle your cage door. You've got to let them know that
you're in there, and that you want out. Make noise. Cause trouble. You
may not win right away, but you'll sure have a lot more fun.

George Orwell:
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

Harry S Truman:
Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice
of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of
increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror
to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in
fear.

J. William Fulbright:
In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.

John F. Kennedy:
Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country
can succeed -- and no republic can survive

Mohandas K. Gandhi:
Non-cooperation is a measure of discipline and sacrifice, and it
demands respect for the opposite views.

Vaclav Havel:
You do not become a "dissident" just because you decide one day to
take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your
personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of
external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures
and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an
attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of
society.

William O. Douglas:
Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of
all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily
defeat us.

http://www.chick.com/tractimages65659/0001/0001_21.gif

MORE NAMES FOR COUNTRY AND WESTERN BANDS
Ayds Mama and the Crystal Meth Diet Revolution
The Costco Greeters
The Cockfight Brokers
Chloral Hydrate and the Mickeys
Comedo
Birmingham Church Bombers
Cirrhosis
LD 100 Au-Go-Go
Depot Provera
Lardass
Drop Your Cocks and Grab Your Socks
Two Hours of Pushing Broom
Tongue In Mouth
Stained Teeth
Bowling for Dollars
Positive Wasserman Jones
Brokeback Jockeys
Keep Yore Hand On That Plow
The Booze Brothers
Beer For My Horses
The Snopes Clan
The Jew Punchers
Fat Boy's New and Used Autos
The Chigger-Lovers
Shiny Happy People
Scraping Cletus Off the Wheel
Gotta Drain Mah Lizard
Armadillo Jerky
Chiggers Ripped My Flesh
Boss Hogg Foilers
Red State Zombies
Hogg Wilde
Gummy and the Stumps
Three-Fingered Mo and the Scarecrows
Smack Crack and Pot Make the World Go Round
When People Were Shorter and Lived Near the Outhouse
Peckerhead and His Feral Hogs
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
Porky and the Chops
Firewood for Sale
Non Compost Mentis
Chubby and the Chubb Group
The Four Beers for Breakfast Club
The Oxycontin Five
Polish Mafia
"Big Don" Trump and His Short Fingered Vulgarians
Big Barn Boring
Muttley and the Trash Dogs
Thousand Yard Stare
PTSD
The Ransom of Red Chimp
Toe Fuckers
Nambla Ramblers
Jumbo's Colostomy Bag
Doucheland Uber Alles
Spitback and the Methodone Wranglers
Ask Me About My Meth Lab
Jug band Mujiks
Rhesus Pieces
Ass Nuggets



1*SALUTATION
From TIME 20040809
http://www.cornerstonegardens.com

2*REFERENCE
From NEW SCIENTIST 19990109
http://www.keysites.com/keysites/netropolitan/netropolitan.html

3*HUMOR
From NEW SCIENTIST 19990724
CYBERIA SHRINK
http://www.psychtests.com

4*NOVELTY
From US NEWS & WORLD REPORT 20000417
RIDES
http://www.rideboard.com
http://www.chatscan.com

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
From ENVIRONMENT SEPT 03
EARTHSCIENCEWEEK
http://www.earthsciweek.org

6* DAILY UTILITY
COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW JULY/AUG 2000
MEDICAL SITES
http://www.WebMD.com
http://www.mayohealth.com

7*CARTOON
From: The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter # 186
20020321
GUM WRAPPER CHAINS
Almost 8 miles long, made of over 940,000 gum
wrappers, and costing
More than $65,000 in gum to produce, the gum wrapper
chain created by Gary
Duschl is a world record?holder. See the photos, read
the story and
Learn how to be a contender by starting your own
wrapper chain. But get
Started now. Gary has a 37?year start on you.
http://www.gumwrapper.com/

8*PRESCRIPTION
From NATION 20011231
http://www.progressivesecretary.org

9*RUMOR PATROL
From NEW SCIENTIST 20000506
FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS
http://www.fas.org/irp/overhead/groom.htm

10*LAGNIAPPE
From: The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter # 160
20010920
ANDANTE
Rich with both commentary and performances of the
works, Andante.com is
dedicated to preserving recorded classical music for
both sophisticated
and beginning fans of the art. The Web site is the
online presence of a new
company led by such heavyweights as the founder of the
European Mozart
Foundation and the former head of the Opéra de Paris,
backed by
musicians and musicologists. The Magazine has concert
and CD reviews, interviews and essays; the?Music
Room delivers radio broadcasts of historic recordings,
masterworks and contemporary repertoire, many of them
audio?video performances never
before available on the Web. Profiles gives you more
in?depth looks at the
people behind the music: their careers, chronology and
biographies.
http://www.andante.com/

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT:
A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
CYBERSPACE

The problem with cyberspace is that unsubstantiated poison pen
allegations can gather momentum.

There's no accounting for the rancor and amoral maliciousness of some
people. To think that your hard-won reputation can be eroded by the
rumor-mongering of one vicious sociopath is beyond credence.

Read Martha Stout's excellent THE SOCIOPATH NEXT DOOR to get the
run-down on these folks, some of whom are in fact full-blown
sociopaths. It is estimated that 1 in every 25 people have no
conscience at all....

http://www.bookslut.com/scarlet_woman_of_selfhelp/2005_03_004676.php

ADVERTISEMENT:
BUY CDS, DVDS, & VIDEOS VIA SECOND SPIN:
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CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
http://www.dreamwater.net/mpc/lemonrocks.htm
http://www.dreamwater.net/mpc/lemonrock.htm

215. BAD TASTE
Most people do not accept as a give that all aesthetic distinctions
are based on class distinctions. However, there is a certain truth to
the maxim that what you like is who you are and who you are is what
you like. So to talk in terms of either good or bad taste is to draw
an invalid distinction.

Better to discuss whether someone's taste is eclectic or not.
Eclecticism doesn't mean automatically latching on to the odd or
avant. It tends to mean the ability to identify the best music across
genres. An eclectic sensibility implies that you will be at least
somewhat familiar with the big names who predominate any given genre
or type of art. A person with eclectic taste will generally also be
able to give nuanced reasons for why they don't care for a particular
genre or artist.

On the other hand, since an eclectic taste is a broadly general one,
there is no shame in being a subject field specialist. Ars longa, vita
brevis. But most specialists are too shrewd to denigrate or even
attempt to rank anybody's taste. They remember back when their own
tastes were relatively unformed.

THE LEMON BASKET: THE BEST AND WORST OF THE WEB
#306 March 25, 2005
Copyright 2005 FRANCIS DIMENNO
http://www.dimenno.blog-city.com

LIKE LEWIS’ POST 1935 OUTPUT
Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it
is the cheapest
way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are
worthless.
Sinclair Lewis

SPOKEN LIKE A TRUE NEW YORKER
After all, what is your hosts' purpose in having a
party?  Surely not
for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole
purpose, they'd have
simply sent champagne and women over to your place by
taxi.
P. J. O'Rourke

JANE WHO?
All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should
have been more specific.
Jane Wagner

UNLESS HE RUNS AGAINST ADLAI STEVENSON
All other things being equal, a bald man cannot be
elected President of
the United States.
Vic Gold

WHICH IS WHY IMPROV EXISTS
All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately
unrehearsed.
Sean O'Casey

NAMES OF WORKING CLASS BOSTON PUNK BANDS
Groundskeeper Willy
Goodwill Hunting
The Search For Real Ale
Fuckaduck
Mama Get the Hammer
Rosa Parks Killerz
Martin Lucifer Coon
In With Flynn
The Day Hicks Louise
Erin Go Blargh
Away with the Orange
Ugly and Slawnche
Bezzychum
Doin' Yer Nut In
The Big Grewig Band
The EEjits
Wifebeatr
Muscle T
Nigger Eggs
Yoo Gize
Th Dawgz
Syko
Grand Am
Don't Call Me Yo, Yo
Killer On the Run
FTW
Johnny Clash
Groovy Death Candy

1*SALUTATION
From COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW MARCH-APRIL 2004
ETHICAL ISSUES IN JOURNALISM
http://www.poynter.org/oncall

2*REFERENCE
From ENVIRONMENT JUL-AUG 03
ENERGYSTAR
http://www.energystar.gov

3*HUMOR
From The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter # 143
20010524
THE MAN FROM HUNGER
http://www.themanfromhunger.com

4*NOVELTY
From: The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter # 179
20020131
TV Classics: Retro TV for Me.
http://www.tvclassics.com

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
From NEW SCIENTIST 19990724
SPORTS INJURY & ALCOHOL
http://www.sportscover.com/inj_calc.htm
SELF-SCORING ALCOHOL TEST
http://www.habitsmart.com/chkup.html

6* DAILY UTILITY
From: The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter # 144
20010531
FIXING APPLIANCES
If your dishwasher is leaking, or the baking element
burns out in your
stove, check out the Repair Clinic. This useful site
provides consumers
with helpful information for every major household
appliance including
troubleshooting, maintenance tips, answers to common
questions and a
diagnostic section.
http://www.repairclinic.com/

7*CARTOON
From The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter # 143
20010524
VIVIAN LIVES
Part comic strip, part voyeur, part marketing
presentation, part
multimedia fun, this…site may be a lot of things aside
from simple
entertainment....and you're not alone if at the end of
the day you're
still wondering exactly what it is. Meet Vivian, an
appealing, vivacious internet avatar, who is living
the 20  something dot?com lifestyle.  With the latest
Flash plugin and a fair
amount of bandwidth, voyeurs can turn on and drop in
to this young
ficticious New Yorker's life. Tune in the vidcam and
watch her at work, thumb through her diary for
shopping recommendations, or mouse through her
beautful brownstone
apartment. It won't be long before you know more about
Vivian than your
next door neighbor.
http://www.vivianlives.com/

8*PRESCRIPTION
From ENVIRONMENT 11-99
AMERICAN COUNCIL ON SCIENCE AND HEALTH: MILK
http://www.acsh.org/publications/reports/milk99.html

9*RUMOR PATROL
From NEWSWEEK 20030609
CHILDHOOD ALLERGIES
http://www.pediatrics.org

10*LAGNIAPPE
From NEAT NET TRICKS 20010531
URL PRINTING.
One way to turn off the underlining and color of a URL
before printing from Word and WordPerfect: Just select
the URL and press CTRL+Shift+F9 to convert the link to
plain text; or use CTRL+A to select all the text, then
CTRL+Shift+F9 to convert all links before printing.

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT:
A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
THE UNITED STATES OF PURPLE
http://www.boingboing.net/images/Purple-USA.jpg

ADVERTISEMENT:
BUY CDS, DVDS, & VIDEOS VIA SECOND SPIN:
http://www.secondspin.com/index.cfm?From=sd?20072


CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
http://www.dreamwater.net/mpc/lemonrocks.htm
http://www.dreamwater.net/mpc/lemonrock.htm

216. WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

Little regarded today except by specialists, he wrote
at least one poem which ought to be required reading
in American High Schools:

William Carlos Williams, "To Elsie" or "The pure
products of America / go crazy"
from Spring and all (1923)

The pure products of America
go crazy--
mountain folk from Kentucky
or the ribbed north end of
Jersey
with its isolate lakes and

valleys, its deaf-mutes, thieves
old names
and promiscuity between

devil-may-care men who have taken
to railroading
out of sheer lust of adventure--

and young slatterns, bathed
in filth
from Monday to Saturday

to be tricked out that night
with gauds
from imaginations which have no

peasant traditions to give them
character
but flutter and flaunt

sheer rags succumbing without
emotion
save numbed terror

under some hedge of choke-cherry
or viburnum--
which they cannot express--

Unless it be that marriage
perhaps
with a dash of Indian blood

will throw up a girl so desolate
so hemmed round
with disease or murder

that she'll be rescued by an
agent--
reared by the state and

sent out at fifteen to work in
some hard-pressed
house in the suburbs--

some doctor's family, some Elsie
voluptuous water
expressing with broken

brain the truth about us--
her great
ungainly hips and flopping breasts

addressed to cheap
jewelry
and rich young men with fine eyes

as if the earth under our feet
were
an excrement of some sky

and we degraded prisoners
destined
to hunger until we eat filth

while the imagination strains
after deer
going by fields of goldenrod in

the stifling heat of September
somehow
it seems to destroy us

It is only in isolate flecks that
something
is given off

No one
to witness
and adjust, no one to drive the car

TO CONCLUDE:
12*APPROBATION AND OPPROBRIUM
*1 From DP
There are more frequent hostile rumblings like the
ones in this article. I think the last election was
the death knell of the New Left. There need to be new
ideas, tactics, and most of all new people in
leadership positions on the Left. It can happen, but
the severest resistance will be from liberals. These
articles are sparks of hope.

http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh03182005.html

THE LEMON BASKET: THE BEST AND WORST OF THE WEB
#307 April 1, 2005
Copyright 2005 FRANCIS DIMENNO
http://www.dimenno.blog-city.com

WHAT ARE YOU, DRUNK?
The only thing that hurts more than paying an income
tax is not having to pay an income tax.
Lord Thomas Robert Dewar

OR ELSE TIME IS MERELY A RELATIVE CONSTRUCT
Either this man is dead or my watch has stopped.
Groucho Marx

THAT'S BECAUSE LENO IS THERE
Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching
the birds change color and fall from the trees.
David Letterman

AS IS SEX WITH CAMILLE PAGLIA
Sex at age 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a
rope.
Camille Paglia

AND CELIBATES DON'T CARE WHAT DAY IT IS
Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a
date on Saturday night.
Rodney Dangerfield

WHAT TO DO IF YOU GET A TRAFFIC TICKET.

THIS SYSTEM WORKS AND HAS BEEN TRIED IN EVERY STATE.
IF YOU GET A SPEEDING TICKET OR WENT THROUGH A RED
LIGHT OR WHATEVER THE CASE MAY BE, AND YOU'RE GOING TO
GET POINTS ON YOUR LICENSE, THIS IS A METHOD TO ENSURE
THAT YOU DO NOT GET THE POINTS. WHEN YOU GET YOUR
FINE, SEND IN A CHECK TO PAY FOR IT.
IF THE FINE IS $79.00 MAKE THE CHECK OUT FOR $82.00 OR
SOME SMALL
AMOUNT OVER THE FINE. THE SYSTEM WILL THEN HAVE TO
SEND YOU BACK A CHECK FOR THE DIFFERENCE, HOWEVER,
HERE IS THE TRICK; DO-NOT CASH THE REFUND CHECK! THROW
IT AWAY. POINTS ARE NOT ASSESSED TO YOUR LICENSE UNTIL
ALL FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS ARE COMPLETE. IF YOU D O
NOT CASH THE CHECK, THEN THE ACTIONS ARE NOT COMPLETE.
THE SYSTEM HAS RECEIVED IT'S MONEY AND IS SATISFIED
AND WILL NO LONGER BOTHER YOU. THIS INFORMATION COMES
FROM A UNMENTIONABLE COMPUTER COMPANY
THAT SETS UP THE DATABASES USED BY EVERY STATE.

SEND THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW. YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN
THEY MAY NEED A BREAK.

Somebody told me about this in March or April of 2001.
I looked it up in google. It's an urban legend.

The real way to beat a speeding ticket is to pull over
immediately, admit you were speeding, say you know the
officer probably has to give you a ticket, but ask if
you could get off with a warning this time. You were
worried about something and distracted, and you will
be more careful. If you are sincerely contrite I would
say this works about half the time. It also helps if
you are a teacher or a member of one of the helping
professions and have some sort of bumper sticker
identifying you as such. What practically ensures you
will get a ticket is if you give the cop an attitude.
They won't usually stop you unless you're driving
recklessly or going significantly over the limit
(usually over 80 on the highway but this varies).
Don't hold me to this, but I strongly suspect that,
for highway driving at least, your best bet to avoid a
ticket is to drive no more excessively fast than
ninety percent of the other maniacs on the road.

1*SALUTATION
From TIME 20000501
ESTATE PLANNING
http://www.netwills.com

2*REFERENCE
US NEWS & WORLD REPORT 19991220
WORK
http://www.vault.com
http://www.clubs.yahoo.com (bus & fin)

3*HUMOR
From NEW YORKER 20040315
VOTING IS FOR OLD PEOPLE T-SHIRTS
http://www.vintagevantage.com

4*NOVELTY
From Z 3-04
http://www.inthefray.com

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
From CAMPAIGNS & ELECTIONS 5-00
VOXCAP'S SUBCHANNEL
http://www.voxcap.com/content/c2k

6* DAILY UTILITY
From REASON APRIL 2004
GRASSROOTS PACS
http://www.PatDemocracy.com

7*CARTOON
http://www.battlebots.com

8*PRESCRIPTION
From NEW SCIENTIST 19990724
CYBERDIET
http://www.CyberDiet.com/profile.profile.html

9*RUMOR PATROL
From NEW SCIENTIST 20000902
GALVESTON STORM
http://www.history.noaa.gov/tales/weather.cline2.html
http://www.disasterrelief.org/Disasters/980813Galveston
http://www.weatherwise.org/98jfhughes.html
http://www.1900storm.com

10*LAGNIAPPE
From: The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter #181
20020214
Road Sign Rites

"Many signs are worth a closer look," writes
Bartolomeo Mecánico at his
site devoted to collecting and examining roadside
signs warning about
falling rocks, schools and road work ahead ? all on an
international
scale.

Mecánico writes about the loss of diversity and the
dangers of
iconization, while other site contributors, like a
French hairdresser, note sexism
in signs ? playground signs always show boys with
balls, girls in dresses.
Animals in ads get the same analytical treatment, and
links to other
sites point you in new directions if you get bitten by
the road sign bug.

http://www.elve.net/

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT:
A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA

WILLIE ALEXANDER & THE BOOM BOOM BAND
Fish Eye Records
Dog Bar Yacht Club
13 songs

Imagine that in 1974 Jonathan Richman & the Modern
Lovers had broken so big that popular music cleaved to
the post-Velvets style and so everybody suddenly loved
Beatniks and Tom Waits rewrote the national anthem and
the U.S. flag was redone in black and white and
Wreckless Eric became the Pope and Captain Beefheart
the President and everybody between 16 and 36 all
became nomad proletariats instead of recreational
bohemians. Imagine all that and you get a pretty good
idea of what you got here, some all-new but pleasantly
unreconstructed Boom-Boom blast-from-the-past mojo,
what some might call Pub Rock which is a mumbo-jumbo
way of saying Willie's one of those nonesuch
troubadours like Black Mountaineer Charles Olson, or
NRBQ---folks so damn original you just want to let
them do their thing and if that means I think they can
do no wrong then yeah, you're right. This album offers
an embarrassment of riches: the grandiose "Gravelly
Hill"; the irresistibly anthemic "AAWW" and "High Tide
Heroes"; the hilariously rollicking honky-tonkin' of
"Oh Daddy Oh," and "Telephone Sex"; the psychedelic
"Oceans Condo III" and, best of all, the classic,
inimitably brilliant narrative, "Frank Buck's
Footsteps."

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CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
http://www.dreamwater.net/mpc/lemonrocks.htm
http://www.dreamwater.net/mpc/lemonrock.htm

217. THE GREATEST JAZZ MUSICIANS

Mingus Mingus Mingus.

But I'd also nominate Joe Venuti, Lenny Tristano and
Stuff Smith, so what do I know?

In just the same way that hallucinations are
culturally determined, ranks and hierarchies must also
be a product of their times. Though nobody nowadays
would nominate Dave Brubeck, he probably had more
songs on the pop charts during the rock and roll era
than anybody else you could name.

Among jazz aficionados, the hierarchy rankings tend to
fall into a consensus pattern similar to that among
historians regarding the relative greatness of
American Presidents (i.e., Washington, Jefferson,
Lincoln, FDR, and then you take your pick); to wit:

Armstrong (first because he practically invented the
genre)
Duke Ellington (for the breadth and scope of his
compositions)
Charlie Parker (who essentially invented a new
permutation of jazz)
John Coltrane (who helped take jazz in totally new
directions)
Miles Davis (who altered paradigms over a long,
innovative career)
Count Basie (who epitomized the Big Band sound)
Ornette Coleman (a Free Jazz pioneer)
Charles Mingus (who next to Ellington epitomized the
orchestral strain of jazz)

And from there you take your pick. Sun Ra and
Thelonius Monk were gifted, brilliant eccentrics, but
certainly belong in or just below the first rank,
along with Dizzy Gillespie and Eric Dolphy. But from
there any ranking tends to be a matter of opinion and
predilection. Also, if you value innovation over a
body of consistent work, you might rank Miles and
Ornette lower and Mingus and Basie higher. But there
seems to be little argument over the top four.

THE LEMON BASKET: THE BEST AND WORST OF THE WEB
#308 April 8, 2005
Copyright 2005 FRANCIS DIMENNO
http://www.dimenno.blog-city.com

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in
ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
Saul Bellow

Everybody knows there is no fineness or accuracy of
suppression; if you hold down one thing, you hold down
the adjoining.
Saul Bellow

What is art but a way of seeing?
Saul Bellow

When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an
accomplice.
Saul Bellow

You never have to change anything you got up in the
middle of the night to write.
Saul Bellow
SAUL BELLOW, NOVELIST, DIES AT 89
By Gail Caldwell, Globe Staff  |  April 6, 2005
Nobel laureate Saul Bellow, whose singular, majestic
voice cascaded through more than a half-century of
American literature with runaway intelligence and
grace, died yesterday in his home in Brookline. He was
89.
Mr. Bellow was the author of more than two dozen
books, including novels, novellas, short story
collections, plays, and volumes of nonfiction. …Along
with Bernard Malamud and Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow
was soon to form the triumvirate of Jewish-American
postwar fiction. Writing in the aftermath of
Fitzgerald's and Hemingway's mythic self-inventions,
Mr. Bellow and his contemporaries replaced that
gentility with a far more equivocal, even precarious
world view….
''The backbone of 20th-century American literature has
been provided by two novelists: William Faulkner and
Saul Bellow," novelist Philip Roth said yesterday.
''Together they are the Melville, Hawthorne, and Twain
of the 20th century."
He was born Solomon Bellows in Lachine, a suburb of
Montreal, on June 10, 1915, to recent Latvian
immigrants; in 1924, his parents moved the family to
Chicago. A 1937 graduate of Northwestern University,
Mr. Bellow studied sociology and anthropology before
deciding he wanted to become a writer. He dropped the
final ''s" from his last name and changed his first
name to Saul when he began publishing his writing in
the 1940s.
He loved Proust and Conrad and Hardy and Dreiser,
heralding the form of the novel in his Nobel Lecture
as ''a sort of latterday lean-to, a hovel in which the
spirit takes shelter." The ultimate modern man, he
placed most of his faith in the gods of creativity.
He railed against tyranny of any sort …urging above
all ''the autonomy of the literary imagination."
1*SALUTATION
From US NEWS & WORLD REPORT 20050411
RECYCLE E-WASTE
http://www.ebay.com/rethink
http://www.earth911.org

2*REFERENCE
From NEWSWEEK 20050328
EDUCATIONAL SITES FOR KIDS
http://www.Strangematterexhibit.com
http://www.puzzlemaker.com
http://www.ratemyteachers.com

3*HUMOR
CRITICAL THEORY AND POSTMODERN THOUGHT
http://www.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/postmodern.html

4*NOVELTY
From NEW STATESMAN 20041018
NON-EXPLOITATIVE SNEAKERS CONTRA NIKE
http://www.blackspotsneaker.org

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
Anti Flag's anti-recruiting site
http://www.militaryfreezone.org

6* DAILY UTILITY
LOWEST GAS PRICES IN YOUR AREA
http://www.gaspricewatch.com/usgas_index.asp

7*CARTOON
HOLLYWOOD FLATLANDS. ANIMATION, CRITICAL THEORY AND
THE AVANT-GARDE
http://mag.awn.com/index.php?article_no=1577
http://www.imageandnarrative.be/issue08/olefrahm_leslie.htm

8*PRESCRIPTION
From NEWSWEEK 20050404
HYBRID VEHICLE SAVINGS
http://www.40mpg.org

9*RUMOR PATROL
From NEWSWEEK 20050328
CONSUMER SITE FOR KIDS
http://www.pbskids.org/dontbuyit

10*LAGNIAPPE
THE LITERARY MAGAZINE THAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT TO
READ
http://www.zemblamagazine.com

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT:
A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
ABE BARRETT   Naked Ear Records
Genius for Simplicity  13 songs

The performances of these songs remind me of tapioca;
of quicksand; of sucking chest wounds. No, maybe not
sucking chest wounds, because those are painful and
this CD is just understimulating and undernourishing,
like a meal of noodles and jello, where it's as if you
haven't eaten anything at all. Now, duhh, I ain't
denying the man his props, but this seems an awful lot
like Led Zep III fed through cocktail jazz to emerge
as this awful blobby mass of heartfelt nothing replete
with repetitive song structures and vocals
squeezed-out as though Abe were straining at his
stool. Overall, this is a collection of bland,
go-nowhere compositions devoid of ingenuity or even
variety. The best of show is the least characteristic
song, namely, Barrett's solo turn on "Voices".

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http://www.dreamwater.net/mpc/lemonrocks.htm
http://www.dreamwater.net/mpc/lemonrock.htm

218. WHEN CHIMPS GO BAD
March 4, 2005 BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - A couple's plans
for a birthday party for their former pet chimpanzee
turned tragic when two other chimps at an animal
sanctuary escaped from their cage and attacked. The
man was critically injured with massive wounds to his
face, body and limbs, and the attacking animals were
shot dead....
I seem to recall a place in Central PA where you could
actually wrassle a chimp. You'd have to be mighty
strong. Maybe even a little chimp-like
yourself...short, barrel-chested, muscular, and
insensate....
SEE:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/monkeywire/2005-March/000732.html
TO CONCLUDE:
12*APPROBATION AND OPPROBRIUM
*1From: Yahoo Von Bunny  

A senior
citizen said to his eighty-nine year old buddy: "So I
hear you're getting Married?"
"Yep!"
Do I know her?"                                                                                                                                    "Nope!"
"This woman, is she good looking?"
"Not really."
"Is she a good cook?"
"Naw, she can't cook too well."
"Does she have lots of money?"
"Nope! Poor as a church mouse."
"Well then, is she good in bed?"
"I don't know."
"Why in the world do you want to marry her then?"
"Because she can still drive!"

 THE LEMON BASKET: THE BEST AND WORST OF THE WEB
#309 April 15, 2005
Copyright 2005 FRANCIS DIMENNO
http://www.dimenno.blog-city.com

I'LL PASS
I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.
Bob Dylan

AFTER CLEANING UP ALL THAT HORSE SHIT
In ceremonies of the horsemen, even the pawn must hold
a grudge.
Bob Dylan

ACTUALLY, IT BLASPHEMES
Money doesn't talk, it swears.
Bob Dylan

REMIND ME NOT TO BE THERE ON THAT DAY
But even the President of the United States sometimes
must have to stand naked.
Bob Dylan

SOUNDS LIKE FUN
He not busy being born is busy dying.
Bob Dylan

WHY PEOPLE HATE BOSTON
I'm originally from Pittsburgh and the New England
chill takes some getting used to . But I prefer the
prickly independent-minded Boston attitude to the
deracinated earnestness of the Californian any day.

To those who hate Boston, I say this: New York City is
a veritable garden of Eden, I take it. And I imagine
you'll experience a love feast if you stray far from
the bus station in burgs such as North Philly, the
Lower Bronx, Los Angeles, Detroit, Denver, Buffalo,
and East St. Louis.

I've spent time in nearly every one of the lower 48s,
and was a telephone surveyor who called folks all over
the country, and there are assholes in every state.
But I will admit that the most guff I've ever gotten
was from a resident of Brooklyn.

Of course, I can't afford to live anywhere near
Boston, which is why I currently reside in Rhode
Island.

1*SALUTATION
From THE NEW YORKER 20050224
Poets and Writers
http://www.pw.org

2*REFERENCE
PICASA2 PHOTO ORGANIZING TOOL FROM  GOOGLE
http://www.picasa.com/download/index.php
3*HUMOR
From TIME 20050307
TIME COVERS
http://www .timearchive.com

4*NOVELTY
From NATION 20050321
THE HARMFUL EFFECTS OF DRUGS CROSS-COMPARED
http://www.CommonSenseDrugPolicy.org
http://www..DrugWarFacts.org

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
From TIMR 20050307
WEBLOG OF THE YEAR NOMINEES
http://www.boingboing.net
http://www..wonkette.com.


6* DAILY UTILITY
From US NEWS & WORLD REPORT 20050314
FREE VIRUS PROTECTION
http://www..grisoft.com


7*CARTOON
TOP POLITICAL CARTOONS
http://cagle.slate.msn.com/politicalcartoons/


8*PRESCRIPTION
Music: MONKEY KILL ROBOT
http://www.myspace.com/monkeykillrobot



9*RUMOR PATROL
From NEWSWEEK 20050331
MUCKRAKERS
http://www.rawstory.com

10*LAGNIAPPE
From TIME 20050321
"CHRISTIAN NAPSTER"
http://www.songtouch.com

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT:
A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
BOB DYLAN WOTE PROPAGANDA SONGS

bob dylan wrote propaganda songs
I'm waitin'
in third person
I'm collectin'
dispersin'
information
labeled rations
bob dylan wrote propaganda songs
bob dylan wrote propaganda songs
manifestos
are my windows
and my proof
locations
and more rations
outline my route
bob dylan wrote propaganda songs
bob dylan wrote propaganda songs
(The Minutemen)

The whole of American popular culture is thoroughly
mechanistic and mysogynistic and has been since at
least the 1920s. This has been asserted and
demonstrated by cultural commentators as diverse as
Gershon Legman (Love and Death, Rationale of the Dirty
Joke), Marshall McLuhan (The Mechanical Bride), Leslie
Fiedler (Love and Death in the American Novel), Jules
Feiffer (The Great Comic Book Heroes), and many
others. Nowhere, perhaps, is this more evident than
popular music where women are consistently
objectified, from "Chantilly Lace" to "Brown Sugar" to
"Put Anthrax on a Tampax and slap you till you can't
stand" (Eminem, "Superman".) Dylan is simply a child
of his era and a product of our soul-sick,
materialistic society.

11A Reviews
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: 500 COVERS. ***
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: FEARFUL SYMMETRY: KRAVEAN'S LAST
HUNT. ***
BACK ROADS. O'DELL. ***
BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL. DUPUE. ****
BIZARRO COMICS. ***1/2
BIZARRO WORLD. ***
BOSWELL'S CLAP AND OTHER ESSAYS. OBER. ****
BUSHWORLD. DOWD. ***1/2
THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME.
HADDON. ****
DARK KNIGHT ARCHIVES. VOLUME 1. **1/2
ERNIE BUSHMILLER'S NANCY. 2, 3, 4. ***
A FACE IN THE CROWD. SCHULBERG. *****
FELIX HOLT: THE RADICAL. ELIOT. *****
GIVE OUR REGARDS TO THE ATOMSMASHERS. ROWE. ***1/2
HULK 8. ***1/2
INTRODUCING CRITICAL THEORY. SIM & VAN LOON. ****
INTRODUCING CULTURAL STUDIES.  SARDER & VAN LOON.
***1/2
INTRODUCING WALTER BENJAMIN. CAYGILL. ****
I REMEMBER. BRAINARD. ****1/2
I WANNA BE SEDATED. DELLIO & WOODS.
THE ITALIANS. BARZINI. *****
LITTLE CAESAR. ***1/2
THE PUBLIC ENEMY. ***1/2
PUNISHER 2: KITCHEN IRISH. ***
ROMOLA. ELIOT. *****
SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. ELIOT. ****1/2
THE SOCIOPATH NEXT DOOR. STOUT. ****1/2
SOMETHING ROTTON. FFORDE. ****
A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN. SMITH. ***1/2
UNSHELVED 2. BARNES & AMBAUM. ****
WASHINGTON'S CROSSING. FISCHER. *****
WATCHMEN. MOORE. *****
THE WAY OF THE WISEGUY. PISTONE. ***
THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS. FFORDE. ****
WHO LET THE DOGS IN? IVINS. ****
X-TREME X-MEN 8. ***
A YEAR IN THE MAINE WOODS. HEINRICH. ****


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CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
http://www.dreamwater.net/mpc/lemonrocks.htm
http://www.dreamwater.net/mpc/lemonrock.htm
219. 8 Reasons Why Eminem's Popularity is a Disaster
for Women  by Jackson Katz
http://www.fradical.com/Eight_reasons.htm

Katz is creator of the film I bought "Tough Guise:
Violence, Media and the Crisis in Masculinity" for the
Massachusetts Prevention Center when I was their
Public Health Librarian. It is an influential film
often cited in media studies and media literacy
curricula, and well worth viewing, as are many of the
films from the Media Education Foundation (MEF):
http://www.mediaed.org/index_html

Also see:
http://www.mediaed.org/handouts/pdfs/10ReasonsPoster.pdf
http://www.eurowrc.org/02.faq/14.ten_things.htm
Also see:
http://www.gingkopress.com/_cata/_mclu/_meggs.htm

THE LEMON BASKET: THE BEST AND WORST OF THE WEB
#310 April 22, 2005
Copyright 2005 FRANCIS DIMENNO
http://www.dimenno.blog-city.com

IT'S ONLY ROCK AND ROLL...

A rancid-smelling aphrodisiac....The most brutal, ugly, desperate,
vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear....The
martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face of the earth.
--Frank Sinatra

If we cannot stem the tide of rock and roll with its waves of rhythmic
narcosis and vicarious craze, we are preparing our own downfall in the
midst of pandemic funeral dances.
--Columbia University's Dr. A. M. Meerio

Rock and roll is poison put to sound --Pablo Casals

... obscene junk, pretty much on a level with dirty comic magazines.
--Billy Rose, ASCAP

The Stones are more a business than a band.
--Johnny Rotten

THIS IS THE BEST--FORGET THE REST!!!!
Hitler: World's most famous vegetarian.

Jesus: Messiah with the purtiest mouth.

Seven: Most charismatic number.

Velcro: Most functional fastener in the universe.

E = Mc2: Sexiest equation.

Icebergs: Most obvuious threat to the Merchant marine.

Ben Gay: Most unfortunately named topical ointment.

Doom Patrol: Most misunderstood hero team in the DC universe.

April: Cruelest month.

Nonsensical Hyperboles: most meaningless form of rhetoric.

1*SALUTATION
From Don Saklad
INFOTHOUGHT
Seth Finkelstein's Infothought blog (DMCA, Google, censorware, and an
inside view of net-politics)
http://www.sethf.com/infothought/blog/

2*REFERENCE
CONTRA ROCK AND ROLL
http://www.wfmu.org/LCD/18/antirock.html
http://www.witchvox.com/whs/kerr_crusaderock_1a.html
http://quotes.prolix.nu/Music/Punk/

3*HUMOR
"WePraiseHim and FunLaugh Web Sites"
familynfriends@wepraisehim3.com

4*NOVELTY
BRIAN WILSON'S LOST SOLO ALBUM "ADULT CHILD"
http://www.m-1.us/SRI.html

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
KENNY CHAMBERS SOLO DEMOS
http://kennychambers.tripod.com/

6* DAILY UTILITY
ANTI-WAR SONGS
http://www.lacarte.org/songs/anti-war/

7*CARTOON
The Bear Truth
http://www.funlaugh.com/beartruth.html

8*PRESCRIPTION
From TIME 20050418
COMPARE HOSPITALS
http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov

9*RUMOR PATROL
From REASON 5-05
ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION'S LIST OF ENDANGERED GIZMOS
http://www.eff.org/endangered

10*LAGNIAPPE
From EXTRA! 4-05
SOCIAL SECUTITY "REFORM"
http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT:
A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA

Solicitation From The International Library of Poetry's International
Who's Who in Poetry

You have been invited
To be showcased in a book
For which you shall pay dearly
So your friends can take a look.

It's about as readable,
As a turkey baster,
But at least you can say
You're a published poetaster.

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http://www.dreamwater.net/mpc/lemonrock.htm

220. BOB DYLAN (PT. 2)

Every generation has their own Dylan and his name is Dylan only it's
the same Dylan under different guises. Folk Bob (1962), Protest Bob
(1963-5), Electric Bob (1965-6, esp. Bringing It All Back Home and
Highway 61 Revisited), Shaman Bob (Basement Tapes), Country Bob (John
Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline), Lost Bob (1968-73), Comeback
Bob (1974-6), Minstrel Bob (Street Legal), Born Again Bob, etc. etc.
etc.

Yours might be the Blood on the Tracks guy or the Blonde on Blonde
guy. My Bob is the Basement Tapes guy. For me, The Basement tapes is
Mr. Zimmerman's most idiosyncratic and delightful contribution to
American culture, howsoever incomplete and flawed.

BTW, Bob Dylan did not write most of the lyrics on Desire. It was
Jacques Levy, a psychiatrist and writer of the lyrics for the studio
sides of the Byrds' "Untitled".

TO CONCLUDE:
12*APPROBATION AND OPPROBRIUM
*1From mungenast@earthlink.net
Re: lb 208
Francisco:
Saul Bellow profoundly influenced my worldview and my writing. Anyone
who can come up with a phrase like "prime the pumps of the firmament"
really
has something worth sharing, something worthwhile, and the more kind
words said in his memory, the better. It is right and just that you
honored him in your e-zine with your selected Bellovianisms and Ms.
Caldwell's article.
Ya done good.
Peace,
Tim

[Thanks, Tim. I came to the man rather late in the day; it was only in
the last couple of years that I got around to The Bellarosa Connection
and Ravelstein; only in the past year that I read Humboldt's Gift;
only in the last several months have I gotten to Seize the Day (which
we discussed at the Avon Public Library Book Group, to which, by the
way, you are cordially invited; on May 12th AT 6:30PM we will be
discussing What Makes Sammy Run by the criminally underrated Budd
Schulberg; we will also be viewing the Schulberg-scripted and
Kazan-directed A FACE IN THE CROWD).Just prior to that I had also read
the remarkable Augie March, which is the closest thing I have ever
read to the Great American Novel; ironic that it should be written by
a Canadian, eh?--fd]