7/4

That last section's melody reminded me of a track off of Science Fiction, the one with the Indian singer.

Cool. Enjoy....

Same here. At least we're past the Phil Schaap part of the day. I used to like him, but he's taking FOREVER to tell a story these days! Sheesh! I want to pratice, but it looks like I'll be listening to SOA for now.

After another day with these things, I think it's the shock of putting on the regular glasses and everything close gets fuzzy. I guess I'll get used to these things...

Ha! When I was a kid, my older sisters "baby sat" the high school bio labs white rat. We kept it in a cage in the basement, and our cat wouldn't go to the basement all summer. We lived in the NJ suburbs and I guess the cat just didn't know WTF the rat was!

Ornette Coleman (b. March 9, 1930) and a birthday broadcast on http://wkcr.org 'til midnight. I'm listening now via real audio. B)

I don't know what's worse, the nail or the bloody book.

Ah! I searched around in my trash bin and found this spam:

I think that stairing at the computer all day isn't helping any!

This was suggested by a friend, I guess I'll check 'em out.

At least he's not wearing lampshades!

NYTIMES: Spalding Gray, 62, Actor and Monologuist, Is Confirmed Dead By JESSE McKINLEY Published: March 8, 2004 Spalding Gray, the wry monologuist and actor who transformed his personal experiences, fascinations and traumas into such acclaimed pieces as "Swimming to Cambodia" and "Monster in a Box,"was confirmed dead today, two months after his wife reported him missing, a spokeswoman for the city medical examiner's office said. He was 62. Mr. Gray's body was pulled from the East River near Greenpoint, Brooklyn, on Sunday and was identified through dental records, said the spokeswoman, Ellen Borakove. The authorities did not provide the cause of death. Mr. Gray, who had been battling depression, was reported missing on Jan. 11, a day after he had left his apartment in Manhattan and never returned. He had told his family that he was going to see friends. Several witnesses told detectives investigating the disappearance that they had seen Mr. Gray aboard the Staten Island Ferry on the night of Jan. 10, the police said. Almost always seated behind a simple desk, with a glass of water, a microphone and some notes, Mr. Gray practiced the art of storytelling with a quiet mania, alternating between conspiratorial whispers and antic screams as he roamed through topics large and small. This talent was perhaps never better displayed than in "Swimming to Cambodia," his 1984 monologue in which his experiences filming a small role in the movie "The Killing Fields" became a jumping-off point for exploring the history and culture of war in Southeast Asia. The piece was itself turned into a noted film, directed by Jonathan Demme, in 1987. "Swimming" may have been Mr. Gray's most famous work, but for 25 years, he turned out a consistent stream of well-crafted, well-received pieces on subjects as varied as writing ("Monster in a Box," 1990) and illness ("Gray's Anatomy," 1993), to less-weighty issues like learning to ski ("It's a Slippery Slope," 1996) and performing while high on LSD ("Point Judith," 1980). His relentless self-absorption drew a broad range of audiences, from those at such high-end, 1,000-seat theaters as the Vivian Beaumont at Lincoln Center (where he produced four shows during the 1990's) to downtown crowds at the 100-seat theaters at the Performing Garage and P.S. 122, two performance spaces where he typically fine-tuned his monologues. While his performances resembled — and influenced — the confessional style of contemporaries like Eric Bogosian and John Leguizamo, Mr. Gray's work also displayed an instinctive curiosity and taste for first-person research, turning his life travels and travails into a type of closely observed,— and publicly performed, autobiography. A self-confessed depressive, he reportedly attempted suicide at least once before in recent years, Mr..Gray had a common refrain in many of his monologues: a search for larger meaning, a quest, as he put it, for "the perfect moment." The monologues were also, for the record, usually painfully funny. "He is a sit-down monologuist with the comic sensibility of a stand-up comedian," Mel Gussow wrote in The New York in 1981 in a review of "47 Beds," a chronicle of all the beds, and continents, Mr. Gray had slept in. "He describes in vivid detail his search for self-discovery, and then laughs at himself and needles nirvana." One of three sons, Mr. Gray was born on June 5, 1941, in Barrington, R.I. His father was a factory worker, and his mother a homemaker; Mr. Gray referred to himself as "a Rhode Island WASP," raised in a house he depicted as rife with repression, depression and all kinds of neurosis. Perhaps as a reaction to that, Mr. Gray, tall and lanky with an awkward charm, began acting in high school; by his mid-20's that interest had blossomed into a modest career as an actor on the regional theater circuit. In 1967 Mr. Gray moved to New York and soon emerged as an active member of the city's then-thriving downtown experimental theater scene. In 1970 he joined director Richard Schechner's influential troupe, the Performance Group, and in 1973, appeared in the New York premiere of "Tooth of Crime," by Sam Shepard.

Here's the deal: Like our topic, I'm 44. Instead of bifocals, I got a pair of computer glasses. I wear them and everything in few foot radius looks so sharp, kind of hyper-reality. Far off, it's fuzzy. When I put my new "regular" near-sited glasses on it takes a few min. before things clear up and they work. And nothing looks as sharp as the computer glasses. WTF, is there always an adjustment time between glasses? This is really fucking with my head....and eyes.

I'm not having any problems. Using Mozilla 1.6 Are your cookies for this site turned on?

Garbage in, garbage out.

And man! I really hated that song!

Ditto? Toto!

Yep. I know someone who got hooked because it was cheaper than weed.

I wonder what they were recording it on. Were they already using video tape back then?

Oh man that's ill!!1 That's one promo. Another spam I received features many detailed pages from the film. Lots of gore, I'm sure.

The Guardian: Amish reality show provokes outrage John Plunkett Friday March 5, 2004 In the race to invent the most outrageous reality show yet, the US has already given us Man Versus Beast, in which a Sumo wrestler did battle with an orangutan in a nappy, and dwarf dating show The Littlest Groom. But American TV bosses may have gone a format too far with Amish in the City, a new reality show in which five teenage members of the reticent religious group swap their unmodernised way of life for the fast times and bright lights of city life. The "life swap" show has not yet been aired, but is already under fire from rural groups claiming it will mock their way of life. "This series is not a documentary on how Amish teenagers struggle with their cultural and religious identity - it's a deliberate attempt to exploit the beliefs and practices of the Amish," said US congressman Joe Pitts. Amish in the City is in the advanced stages of production at US network CBS, which was also behind the controversial reality show, the Real Beverly Hillbillies, in which a poor family from the rural South was relocated to a Beverly Hills mansion. The programme was dropped after real life "hillbillies" staged a nationwide protest against the show. "We couldn't do the Beverly Hillbillies," the CBS chairman, Leslie Moonves, told TV reporters in January. But, he joked, the Amish "don't have quite as good a lobbying effort". However, opposition to the Amish programme has proved just as virulent. "Once again Viacom has created a reality show where rural people were going to be these curios," said Dee Davis, president of the Centre for Rural Strategies in Kentucky. "Viacom's got plenty of ways to make money without ridiculing rural people." In a letter to Viacom, senators Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum said they knew of "no other reality series that singles out the beliefs and practices of a specific group of people as a subject for humour". They added: "For almost three centuries, the Amish lived the way they do out of Christian piety and conviction, not out of ignorance. If, by producing this show, you fail to respect that, you will be opening yourselves to charges of bigotry." The Amish, whose way of life was brought to a worldwide audience in the 1985 film Witness, starring Harrison Ford, live in tight-knit communities and avoid contact with modern technology and the outside world. They are allowed to explore modern life for a brief period in a custom known as "rumspringa", under which they could take part in the show. In a statement responding to criticisms of the show, CBS denied that the series sought to demean the Amish and said it would depict them with the "utmost respect and decency", according to the New York Times. It said no date has been set for the series, which will air on CBS sister network UPN, and since it was "still in the early development stage, we sincerely hope that any judgement will be reserved until the show is produced".

ABC: Last Update: Friday, March 5, 2004. 4:01pm (AEDT) Amish reality show canned after protests American television viewers are unlikely to see a reality show about Amish youth facing the modern world following protests by members of the United States Congress. The program, tentatively called Amish in the City, planned to show five young people from the religious group living with mainstream youth. The Amish shun contact with the wider world, living in tight-knit communities with little modern technology. But media company Viacom is reconsidering its decision after protests. It has been accused of exploitation and bigotry. The company was also responsible for a program last year called The Real Beverly Hillbillies, which was canned after similar protests.

Karmic payback???

Moo! WTF..... I get back from dinner and it's Amish-a-mania.