From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V8 #155 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, April 26 1999 Volume 08 : Number 155 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Suckin' Satan's pecker [Glen Uber ] Re: nuck fegativity.... ["Jason R. Thornton" ] Re: nuck fegativity.... ["Jason R. Thornton" ] Re: nuck fegativity.... [Glen Uber ] Re: nuck fegativity.... [Glen Uber ] Re: nuck fegativity.... [Joel Mullins ] shall we discuss John Elway now? [Eb ] littleton @media.com [John Barrington Jones ] Re: shall we discuss John Elway now? [Aaron Mandel ] a few thoughts about the reaction to Littleton (was Re: nuck fegativity....) [Christopher Gross ] Re: "Screamin' Jay Hawkins, he's my main man" [Tom Clark ] Signing off [dsaunder@islandnet.com (Daniel Saunders)] Seattle with Kids ["The Rooneys" ] If you think they're fun at feg parties, wait 'til you try them at home. ["The Rooneys" ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V8 #154 [digja611@student.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan)] ancient reply [digja611@student.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan)] Re: ancient reply [Aaron Mandel ] Re: Grammar. [Terrence M Marks ] Dan Bern song [Mark Gloster ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 11:37:30 -0700 (PDT) From: Glen Uber Subject: Suckin' Satan's pecker On Mon, 26 Apr 1999 DDerosa5@aol.com wrote: > All this talk of who pushed the taste boundaries in the past got me > thinking of my adolescent years (and, for me as a teenager, after Kiss > and Alice Cooper, it was mostly the Ramones and Lords of the New Church > and other bands more embarassing than the latter) has reminded me that I > just recently saw a TV commercial, a car commercial (might have been for > an SUV) that used the first Ozzy hit, "Crazy Train." I've heard Janis > and Iggy in commercials recently, but this amazed me. I've seen that commercial, too, and, although I am opposed to using pre-existing songs to sell products ('...Suckin Satan's pecker..." as Bill Hicks so eloquently put it), I think that "Crazy Train" was the perfect song for that commercial. Usually, I scream "Sell Out" when I hear someone's song in a commercial. Bowie's "Rebel Rebel" in a mini-van commercial makes me a bit queazy (sp?), as does the US Postal Service's "Fly Like An Eagle" spots. Every now and then there's one that comes along that makes me rethink my position about artists selling themselves out. There was one that aired during the Super Bowl that used "Come Together" that I thought was brilliant (I think it was IBM). My current favourite, of course, is the new Volkswagen commercial that uses "Mr. Roboto". I'm waiting for Holiday Inn to use the Eagles' "Hotel California", Noxzema to use "My Brave Face" by McCartney and Charles Schwab to use 10cc's "Wall Street Shuffle." Cheers! - -Glen- "There are two ways to get enough. One is to accumulate more. The other is to desire less." --G.K. Chesterton Glen Uber | uberg@sonic.net | http://www.sonic.net/~uberg ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 11:43:46 -0700 From: "Jason R. Thornton" Subject: Re: nuck fegativity.... At 11:18 AM 4/28/99 -0700, Joel Mullins wrote: >You're right. That was a bad example. My point is that I wouldn't want >to spend much time with someone who is a big MM fan. I wouldn't trust >that person and wouldn't want to be around all that negativity. It just >didn't surprise me when I found out that those killers listened to that >type of music. Does it surprise you that Mark David Chapman listened to the Beatles? Does it surprise you that a lot of Mafia goodfellas like Frank Sinatra? Does it surprise you that the Inquisitors, Crusaders and abortion clinic bombers read the Bible? - --Jason (who went to an aggressive Smashing Pumpkins concert Friday night, and a mellow as hell San Diego Symphony performance Saturday - how fucked up does that make me?) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 11:45:24 -0700 From: "Jason R. Thornton" Subject: Re: nuck fegativity.... At 11:59 AM 4/28/99 -0700, Joel Mullins wrote: >Well, I'd much rather listen to the Spice Girls than Marilyn Manson. At >least the Spice Girls can sing and a few of them have nice bodies. >Marilyn Manson is what makes me sick. The Spice Girls just make me >laugh. Amusingly enough, your comments objectifying the Spice Girls are exactly the sort of thing Marilyn Manson finds "sick" about this culture. People wearing glass pants should remember to wipe their asses. - --Jason (who thinks MM's music is very derivative, but finds his anti-religious diatribes hilarious) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 12:13:27 -0700 (PDT) From: Glen Uber Subject: Re: nuck fegativity.... On Mon, 26 Apr 1999, Jason R. Thornton wrote: >People wearing glass pants should remember to wipe their asses. Yeah man, I tell ya what...them dang 'ol fegs have the best quotes! Cheers! - -Glen- "There are two ways to get enough. One is to accumulate more. The other is to desire less." --G.K. Chesterton Glen Uber | uberg@sonic.net | http://www.sonic.net/~uberg ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 12:17:10 -0700 (PDT) From: Glen Uber Subject: Re: nuck fegativity.... On Mon, 26 Apr 1999, Jason R. Thornton wrote: >--Jason (who went to an aggressive Smashing Pumpkins concert Friday night, >and a mellow as hell San Diego Symphony performance Saturday - how fucked >up does that make me?) Judging by some of the "now playing" tags in posts to this list the last 5 years, I'd have to say that you are as fucked up as the rest of us on this list. :-) Cheers! - -Glen- who currently has the Crumb soundtrack, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Elvis Costello, BR5-49 and the Cure in the CD changer right now. "There are two ways to get enough. One is to accumulate more. The other is to desire less." --G.K. Chesterton Glen Uber | uberg@sonic.net | http://www.sonic.net/~uberg ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 14:42:10 -0700 From: Joel Mullins Subject: Re: nuck fegativity.... Jason R. Thornton wrote: > > At 11:18 AM 4/28/99 -0700, Joel Mullins wrote: > > >You're right. That was a bad example. My point is that I wouldn't want > >to spend much time with someone who is a big MM fan. I wouldn't trust > >that person and wouldn't want to be around all that negativity. It just > >didn't surprise me when I found out that those killers listened to that > >type of music. > > Does it surprise you that Mark David Chapman listened to the Beatles? no. > Does it surprise you that a lot of Mafia goodfellas like Frank Sinatra? no. > Does it surprise you that the Inquisitors, Crusaders and abortion clinic > bombers read the Bible? No. The Bible is worse than Marilyn Manson. Joel ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 13:37:12 -0800 From: Eb Subject: shall we discuss John Elway now? http://users.powernet.co.uk/higgs/fz_mosaic.html These things amaze me. I just don't understand how they do 'em. Anyone? Eb ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 13:52:59 -0700 (PDT) From: John Barrington Jones Subject: littleton @media.com hi- the thing that bothers me most right now (and every time something like this happens) is the coverage in the media, particularly how there seems to be _just enough_ new information each day to warrant more headlines from a particularly gruesome or spectacular event such as the one that happened last week. Anyone else feel like this? That there is a deliberate rationing of information, so that each new day the media can continue the coverage, the saga, etc. For example, today another front page story here: more about the diary. yesterday was all about the diary as well. how long does it take to read the diary, ya know? nah, they release a little info here, a little info there, and bam---the whole thing reeks of a serial novel or a soap opera. - -jbj (known by some as a lobster, man.) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 16:53:05 -0400 (EDT) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: shall we discuss John Elway now? On Mon, 26 Apr 1999, Eb wrote: > These things amaze me. I just don't understand how they do 'em. Anyone? i think i heard the process was someone's doctoral thesis in computer vision and was patented. the patented part, i suspect, is true; otherwise, everybody i know would have the software. anyway, here's a very rough guess about how it works: for each tiny rectangle of the larger picture, the program finds the edges within it that have the highest contrast. those edges divide the rectangle into three or four chunks, and then from its enormous database the program picks the image with the most similar average hue in each chunk. no idea how similarity of sharp edges would be weighted relative to similarity of color. that's just a guess anyway. obviously it's not so easy to do well. a ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 14:07:11 -0700 (PDT) From: fred is ted Subject: Re: High School shooting - --- David Librik wrote: > This story is just a bloody Rorshach in which > everyone sees whatever > bugbear they fear threatens society. All you learn > from listening to > people talk about it is their own worldviews, their > own cultural > scapegoats. It really ends up as the worst kind of > political discussion: > nobody knows what really caused this horror, so > let's drag up our > favorite explanations for social and moral decay and > bash them around. Thank you. Is anything that happened at Littleton any different than what has transpired over the millenia in Western society? I say no, except that technology has allowed a scale-up of the body count. So whether it be C4 laden boom boxes on airliners, nerve gas in Tokyo subways, or kids marching through their mega-high schools with semi-automatic assualt rifles, we will get used to bigger body counts. "Because bigger is better, an American tradition." Is America a more violent society now than in the past? Hah! Check out per capita murder and domestic violence rates in the e. 19th c. We're a bunch of hippies compared to our forebearers in that regard. All I ask is for a little perspective on tragedies like Littleton. Karma payback? Littleton, home to one of the first ICBM factories in the U.S., is a hotbed of the defence biz. > The only worthwhile thing to come out of the media > brouhaha of the > next few weeks is that it'll give you a great X-ray > of the psychological > state of the nation. That may be a pretty scary > thing in itself. Yep. The Sanctimony Olympics have begun. Count me in! Ted "Yeah, we get high on music" Kim Deal _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 17:20:19 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: a few thoughts about the reaction to Littleton (was Re: nuck fegativity....) Like pretty much everyone else in the world, I was shocked and depressed by the massacre in Littleton. That should go without saying, but for lack of a better opening sentence I'm saying it anyway. I've also been disturbed by one fairly minor aspect of the media coverage: the tendency to describe the killers as "goths" or "inspired by the goth movement." While I don't consider myself a goth, I'm close enough to the gothic subculture to to feel a little offended by this. Folks, wearing black and listening to Marilyn Manson does not make one a goth! (If wearing black was enough to make one goth, then why doesn't wearing the popular outfit du jour make a kid popular?) Meanwhile, these kids also apparently espoused racism, admired Hitler and marched down the school halls in pseudo-military fashion; all this is almost as incongruous in a goth as it would be in a hippie. So their connection to the gothic subculture is tenuous at most. Furthermore, the gothic subculture is based on a shared aesthetic rather than any sort of explicit or implicit ideology, so two goths are even less likely to act the same than two hippies or two rap fans. Yet now that the killers have had the "goth" label slapped onto them, anyone else whom that label might fit will be classified as "members of the cult that produced the Littleton killers" in the public mind. It's a bit like what would have happened to hippies if the general public had first heard of them in connection with the Manson Family killings. Perhaps this was inevitable. Someone who never heard of goth before the Littleton massacre, then heard other students call the killers "gothic" is naturally going to base his or her image of goths on the killers. And if that someone happens to be a reporter with eight hours to write an in-depth article on the killers and their motives, then he or she is not likely to develop a more nuanced view until after that article sees print. That's natural. But I think there's another factor at work: many people can't tolerate anyone who's too different. To them, someone who violates cultural norms by dressing strangely or listening to strange music is equally likely to violate cultural norms by committing mass murder, rape and maybe cannibalism too. This might be natural too, but it's not one of the better parts of human nature. It's also kind of pathetic that school administrators around the country have reacted to the massacre by banning not only trench coats but all sorts of gothic clothing. (BTW, that's another thing: trench coats were never a big symbol thing until the media annointed them as such last Wednesday.) Sure, they have reason to fear copycats, but still.... Even if it was reasonable to suspect all goths (which it's not), these administrators are confusing cause and symptom. Now, as for the question of whether or not the media is to blame: the answer is, of course, yes! The media is blameworthy for its sensationalist coverage (see above) as well as for invading the privacy of the grief-stricken survivors. But is the media to blame for the violence itself? A few years ago I would have said definitely not, but lately I've moved a bit toward the center on this issue. It seems to me that kids these days are raised as much by TV as by real people, and so constant exposure to violence on TV is going to have results similar to (though milder than) constant exposure to violence in real life. No single show is going to turn little Johnny into a homicidal maniac; but a constant stream of violent shows throughout childhood will make him more likely to grow up thinking violence is normal, acceptable, or even the preferred way of handling problems. TV violence is not the only, or even the most important cause of real-life violence, but I think it does play some role in warping young minds. (To expand on this a little: Violent video games might have a similar effect, but I doubt movies and music would, movies because they're only an occasional two hours and music because it lacks a visual element. I think most of the damage is done early in life, probably before the age of ten, while teens are much less at risk. And I don't think televised sex, profanity, disrespect of authority and other sorts of "immorality" as defined by the likes of William Bennett have as bad an effect as TV violence does.) However, having said this, I don't know what to do about it. I don't think all violent programs and video games should be banned. I'm opposed to censorship, I don't like the implication that all non-violent shows are okay, and frankly, I suspect that a kid who's never seen violence is going to be as warped (in a different way) as one who's been over-exposed to violence. But I do think parents should limit children's exposure to violent TV. (Hell, I think everyone, adults and children, should watch less TV of any sort.) And parents should do more real parenting, to balance out the influence of TV. Of course this isn't much of an answer: some parents suck at parenting, and plenty of other factors, from family relations to brain chemistry, probably have more of an influence than TV. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that there isn't any answer. Every once in a while, someone is going to go nuts and kill people. We can try to make it less likely (or try to make sure the nut in question doesn't have a gun), but no matter what we do, it's still going to happen sometimes. About Marilyn Manson: Joel, I can understand you not liking him, but to say that his stuff is "not even music" is going a bit far. What MM makes might be good music or bad music, but I think it's definitely *some* kind of music; and it's music not too far from the mainstream rock tradition at that. (And this applies whether you're looking at his song structures or at his stage persona.) Okay, I'm done for now. - --Chris np: This Ascension, _Tears In Rain_ ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 14:49:26 -0800 From: Eb Subject: oh yeah...a memo to Hal, et al http://www.spin.com/ will allegedly rebroadcast Tom Waits' recent SXSW concert tonight at 7 pm PST. Eb, grumpier than usual ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 16:04:08 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: "Screamin' Jay Hawkins, he's my main man" On 4/25/99 6:06 PM, Mark Gloster wrote: >Subject line is from what movie? > < blah blah blah violence blah blah blah mr. big blah blah blah> >Oh. The line is from _Stranger than Paradise_, one of my >favorite flix. At least six of you probably had that. d'oh! I was thinking "Mystery Train" - close!! Carrrrl Perkinza!! - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 16:16:06 -0700 From: "Jason R. Thornton" Subject: Billy Corgan, looking very goth I must say... At 12:17 PM 4/26/99 -0700, Glen Uber wrote: >>--Jason (who went to an aggressive Smashing Pumpkins concert Friday night, >>and a mellow as hell San Diego Symphony performance Saturday - how fucked >>up does that make me?) >Judging by some of the "now playing" tags in posts to this list the last 5 >years, I'd have to say that you are as fucked up as the rest of us on this >list. :-) Speaking of the Pumpkins show... once again, color me floored. It was a tiny gig, by their "Melon Collie" standards, in a theater of less than 1,500. The majority of audience members were "hard core" fans, as I'd guess just from their reaction to Jimmy Chamberlain. That and the fact that everyone was wearing Pumpkins shirts from previous tours. No one commented on my The Olivia Tremor Control t-shirt, by the way. It was just the original quartet line-up this time around, with no guest musicians of any sort. The bulk of the set was made up of new, unreleased numbers, but was also sprinkled with very "rawking" versions of recognizable songs like "Ava Adore," "Today," and "Zero." "Zero" may well be the one of most aggressive, perhaps violent, songs I've ever heard played live ("Bullet with Butterfly Wings" in Dec. '96 is another contender), and I loved every heavily distorted note. If Friday's show was any indicator, I expect their new album, which supposedly will be out in the fall, to be a return to their old way of doing things. Which may or may not be an interesting turn of events, depending on your point of view. As much as I liked "Earthling," "Lift," and "Homogenic," it's nice to see someone finally jumping OFF the whole "electronica" bandwagon. As lukewarm as your reactions might be to their records, do NOT miss the opportunity to see this band live. They're a godzillion times more impressive on stage. Given the laid-back atmosphere of "Adore," I was expecting a more moody, subdued show. Instead, they tore the roof off the Spreckles, and beat it to a bloody pulp. Billy Corgan was dressed all in black, in a skirt-like outfit that looked vaguely similar to a trenchcoat. I had a half a mind to throw my NRA Membership Card at him in disgust. I think his head is a-getting shinier on a daily basis now, too. - --Five Spices Spice ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 19:43:29 -0400 From: "jbranscombe@compuserve.com" Subject: guns So-and-so liked classical music, so-and-so liked goth. The killer in my most potent nightmares likes Phil Collins. I don't want to trivialise the affair but even the liberal Americans prevalent on this list seem not to understand the prevalence of guns in their culture. The NRA always say in defence of the outmoded and essentially misrepresented 'right to bear arms' under the Constitution - 'It's people who kill not guns'... It strikes me that rather too often, the people who kill use G. U... urgh i've fergoten howw to spel ve rest. Bare-hands Elvis. Boy did he like his toys. jmbc. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 08:18:01 -0700 From: dsaunder@islandnet.com (Daniel Saunders) Subject: Signing off Here I am, unsubscribing to the mailing list after about five years of getting it. I don't have much of a presence here in terms of posting, but I do read virtually everything that comes through. The list has shaped my vision of the world, especially in the area of music, where, looking back on my purchases over the years, it's had a greater influence than any other single media source, be it TV, radio, or magazines. My reason for unsubscribing is just that I'm moving to Calgary to work for four months, and I won't have the access to a computer like I do now. To ebquailwojeddiecapuchinjoelmikemarkcarolerussnataliesusanbayard and all the rest... thank you; I will miss you all. - -- Daniel Saunders Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away. - Philip K. Dick ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 14:57:22 -0600 From: "The Rooneys" Subject: Seattle with Kids I'll be in Seattle in June with two sons (2.5 and .75) while my wife attends boring conferences. Can anyone recommend fun stuff to do with kids? Any SeaTacs with kids wanna play date? - - Bill, Timothy & Owen ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 14:57:29 -0600 From: "The Rooneys" Subject: If you think they're fun at feg parties, wait 'til you try them at home. Gotta let this hen out: A waiting room's Williams Sonoma catalog featured Crab, Hen, Prawn and Lobster stainless steel cutters for vegetables, fruits & cookies (you can ink-stamp wrapping paper with them as well). Catalog order only. #64-223410. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 20:57:30 -0400 (EDT) From: normal@grove.ufl.edu Subject: Re: nuck fegativity.... On Wed, 28 Apr 1999, Joel Mullins wrote: > > Does it surprise you that the Inquisitors, Crusaders and abortion clinic > > bombers read the Bible? > > No. The Bible is worse than Marilyn Manson. This statement has been officially noted and ignored. Terrence Marks (not going to let it pass by without _some_ comment) Unlike Minerva (a comic strip) http://grove.ufl.edu/~normal normal@grove.ufl.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 20:24:58 -0700 From: Joel Mullins Subject: Re: nuck fegativity.... normal@grove.ufl.edu wrote: > > No. The Bible is worse than Marilyn Manson. > > This statement has been officially noted and ignored. > (not going to let it pass by without _some_ comment) I'm assuming, Terrence, that you were somewhat offended by my comment. And since no one else has said anything about it, I'm assuming they either agreed and didn't feel like saying anything, or disagreed so much they chose to ignore it as well. If I've offended you or anyone else, I apologize. That was not my intent. I think we're all starting to finally see why the Colorado shooting wasn't mentioned on this list until 4 days after it happened. I think we should all just agree to disagree, tell each other I love you, and move on to bigger and better and more positive things. Joel (who's losing the argument anyway.) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 14:10:14 +1200 From: digja611@student.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V8 #154 >> Eddie, is it possible for American society to be reflected badly upon? > >Terry, this reads as though you'd gone out of your way to end this >sentence with a preposition. nah. He's just gone out of his way to find a preposition to end his sentence with. >Red House Painters -- talk about suicide sympathetically >The Cure -- ditto >Elvis Costello -- got famous for hating almost everyone >the The -- apocalyptic images in which the self always loses to cruel fate >Velvet Underground -- prophets of self-destruction >The Soft Boys -- as robyn has said, not the nicest stuff and don't forget that they had songs with titles like "I wanna destroy you"! some more... The Beatles - "Yer blues"refers to wanting to commit suicide Rolling Stones - Misogynism abounds! Kenny Rogers - threatens to kill his lover in "Ruby, don't take your love to town" Tom Jones - ever listened to the lyrics of "Delilah"? Simon and Garfunkel - songs like "A poem on an underground wall" encourage urban vandalism The Monkees - "Cuddly Toy" is about using women as objects, then discarding them Donovan - songs like "Superlungs my supergirl" and "Mellow yellow" could be construed to imply sex with minors[1] what an unhealthy bunch! To quote oor Frankie, "You can't play that on the radio anymore!" James (needing light relief from marking first-years' lab reports) [1] not to be confused with sex with miners, which is okay as long as they take their hardhats off and clean the coal dust off themselves... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 14:11:40 +1200 From: digja611@student.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: ancient reply >lists winging their way here is a top ten POLL.> >which is *exactly* what michael and joel were proposing. interesting that, >amidst all the bleats about how evil top ten lists are, there hasn't been >a one posted to the fegmaniax computer network. probably because we all realise that sending them to the list is a silly idea, and we're waiting for someone to tell us where to send 'em. No, not you "Why I hate fucking top ten list" people - I know where you'd suggest we stick 'em! James PS - welcome, Chris - you're new here, but it's nice you're here. Grab a squid, sit down and enjoy the party! James Dignan___________________________________ You talk to me Deptmt of Psychology, Otago University As if from a distance ya zhivu v' 50 Norfolk Street And I reply. . . . . . . . . . Dunedin, New Zealand with impressions chosen from another time steam megaphone (03) 455-7807 (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 22:32:07 -0400 (EDT) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: ancient reply On Tue, 27 Apr 1999, James Dignan wrote: > probably because we all realise that sending them to the list is a > silly idea, and we're waiting for someone to tell us where to send > 'em. No, not you "Why I hate fucking top ten list" people - I know > where you'd suggest we stick 'em! stick them up http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~aaron/poll/feg/best-albums.pl and encourage all your fellow fegs to do likewise. you can vote for up to 20 albums, with everything that's already garnered votes listed to ensure concurrent spelling. a ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 22:42:54 -0400 (EDT) From: Terrence M Marks Subject: Re: Grammar. On Mon, 26 Apr 1999, Capuchin wrote: > > On Sun, 25 Apr 1999, Terrence M Marks wrote: > > Eddie, is it possible for American society to be reflected badly upon? > > Terry, this reads as though you'd gone out of your way to end this > sentence with a preposition. Sorry. I meant: Eddie, is it possible for American society to be reflected badly upon, bitch? Terrence Marks Unlike Minerva (a comic strip) http://grove.ufl.edu/~normal normal@grove.ufl.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 19:53:56 -0700 From: Mark Gloster Subject: Dan Bern song Dan wrote this the last time there was a high school shooting. A song about a media event has to be incredibly honest for me to give it any attention. I saw Dan do this shortly after he'd written it in a tiny radio station studio. There was not a single dry eye in the room. Maybe it loses something as words on a page, but not for me. Look, I hate the movie of the week drama reenactments of terrible stories, I can't sit through warbling foofooheads blubber for twenty hours about a ship that took twenty minutes to sink.... But I digress. Digression is a common thing for me.... Maybe you don't want to read on, but this still affects me. This is different. I wouldn't even know how to write a song like this. I think this is my last post on the subject. All the best, - -Markg KIDS PRAYER So sad, so sad, the news that come our way this morning Like a bad, bad dream, a dream you never even talk about In school, a school, a place where we send our precious children And the only place of innocence the world might ever let them know And barely aware of the odds against existence in the first place Of love and fertility of risk of a baby being born And of clothes and food and fear and maybe relocation Of sickness, recovery, of music lessons, painting the bedroom And lingering over eggs and thoughts and sleepy conversation And plans for the weekend, one last pause to say goodbye And glance at the clock and grabbing another sandwich and a notebook Confident of nothing but the unbroken days that they've been granted But comes a child, a child so full of anger and hatred Barely aware of the genesis coursing through his veins With a gun, a gun, deaf and blind deliverer of madness Skilled beyond his own unformulated brain And with his hands in a fist, and his soul in a knot and his heart racing And mind sick with images, his slim shoulders finally feeling tall And his fellow creatures, students in their crushes and their daydreams Struggling to unwrap the ancient secrets of geometry He pulls from his coat the instrument to shatter all forevers In a random blaze of insides and blood and endless now And noise and flash and more and not even when it's over Can any so much as summon up the sanity to scream And on the floor his classmates blown down, choking As he lays his weapon on his desk, partly sure he isn't dreaming And all the world descends and offers up their condolence And offers up their theories of what went wrong and who and why and when and how It's all the killing day and night on television It's all the movies where violence is natural as breathing It's guns and bullets as easily obtainable as candy It's video games where you kill and begin to think it's real It's people not having god in their lives anymore Or it's all of it, or none of it, or some of it, in various combinations And all those theories sound pretty reasonable I guess Though I ain't no scientist, I ain't no figurer of statistics I ain't no theologist, no psychologist or biologist All I can do is offer up a prayer of my own Talk to your kids, play with your kids Tell 'em your dreams, and your disappointments Listen with your kids, and listen to your kids Watch your kids, let your kids watch you Tell your kids the truth, best as you can tell it No use telling lies, your kids can always smell it Cook for your kids, let your kids cook for you Sing with your kids, teach your kids the blues Learn their games, teach them yours Touch your kids, find out what they know Be sad with your kids, be stupid with your kids Learn with your kids, cry with your kids Be yourself with your kids , be real with your kids Embarrass your kids, let them embarrass you Be strong with your kids, be tough with your kids Be firm with your kids, say no to your kids, Say yes to your kids, take it easy on your kids You were a kid not so long ago There's things you know, your kids will never know There's places they live where you will never go So dance with your kids, paint with your kids Walk with your kids, tell stories to your kids Watch movies with your kids. eat popcorn with your kids Tell secrets with your kids, stop for rainbows with your kids One day your kids, won't be kids Maybe they'll have kids of their own Lets hope they talk to their kids Play with their kids Tell 'em their dreams And their disappointments -Dan Bern ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V8 #155 *******************************