I now have a new giant web server with tons of room, so I am going to start putting up all my music. Next up will be the Christmas with the Flamingos album. I recorded this album for my parents and sister a few years ago when I had no money. Here’s one of the popular favorites from the record, “Downsized for Christmas.” Keep checking back for more holiday cheer!

I originally posted this story on the Contemporary Press blog, Needles on the Beach. Sadly, Needles has not been updated much in the past year. But the war on Christmas is ongoing, and so I present to you: The Last Christmas.

The Last Christmas

It was obvious to everyone assembled in the secret conference room on K Street that Christmas would have to be hijacked. This was back in the dark days when the Christian resurgence was driving more and more Americans into a frenzied state of peace and love. Seemed like everywhere you turned that holiday season, people were helping old ladies across the street, dishing out food at homeless shelters, loving their neighbors just as they loved themselves. Progress was finally being made against the heathen countries in the Middle East. Homosexuals and drug abusers were getting their comeuppance thanks to AIDs and natural disasters, abortion was about to go the way of evolution, and terrorists were being turned away at the borders en masse. The Christian dream was working and the assembled liberals, anarchists, and Satan-worshippers didn’t like it one bit.

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Mark and Mandy sent me this hysterically disturbing video of the new Elmo toy. It takes awhile to load, but it’s worth it.

I posted a link to this article about the-disease-that-is-Paris-Hilton in the comments of my Lindsay Lohan article from the other day. I thought I should share it with everyone in a more public space. I have extremely mixed feelings about it. I basically agree with everything the writer has to say. The idea of Paris Hilton being the go-to reference point for anyone wishing to make an ignorant-slut joke is intriguing. Really, the only point upon which the author and I diverge is in our respect for the author herself, Rebecca Traister.

I first became aware of the evils of Ms. Traister, a regular contributer to Salon, in this article from September, 2005. (Warning, if you are not a Salon member, I’m not sure if you will have access to this article. I’ll quote the relevant passages below.) In this article, entitled Attack of the Listless Lads, Ms. Traister discusses the “listless lad” phenomenon with Benjamin Kunkel, an over-hyped author and shitty magazine publisher who wrote a book about a young, overeducated dude who has trouble making decisions or commitments. First of all, the meme that men have trouble with commitment is a pet peeve of mine. I’m sure there are plenty of assheads out there who sleep around and refuse to commit to relationships. Ladies, here’s a word of advice: do not expect a commitment from an asshead. There is not a problem between “men” and “commitment”; there is a problem between “assheads” and “valid contributions to humanity.”

So, that being said, one particular guy (full disclosure: the author, Benjamin Kunkel was heralded as “the new face of intellectualism” in my most detested smarty-smart-wank-bullshit magazine article ever from the New York Times Magazine — seriously, try to get through this article without vomiting all over yourself, I dare you) wrote a book called Indecision about how one particular asshead has trouble making decisions. Rebecca Traister used her interview with the author to complain about how the extraordinarily unique main character (sarcasm mine), a New Yorker in his late 20s who doesn’t know what he wants, is emblematic of a trend she so perceptibly observes in the real (fake) world of, um, New York. (click “more” to read on)

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I love these freaking monkey portraits so much I can’t even tell you. In my perfect home I would have these lined up on one wall so I could sit and stare at them all day.

Something seemed fishy to me about the fact that I was able to go to Target.com and order a Wii the other day. They just wrote me this morning to say that the order won’t go through until the beginning of January. I somehow had a sneaky suspicion that the order wasn’t going to go through.

So, I am back to square one. Ah well. It is over for now. I’ll wait until February like the rest of America.

All right, I’ll admit, I was suckered in by this Slate article. Here’s what I learned: Lindsay Lohan sent a rambling email to people that was filled with poorly spelled words and grammatical errors. I don’t really understand who Lindsay Lohan is. I mean, ok, I’ve seen her in a few movies. I know she was the chick in Mean Girls (which I thought was remarkably mediocre for all the excitement it seemed to cause) and Prairie Home Companion. But like, who is she, really? She’s just kind of a second-rate actress, right? At what point did our culture begin paying attention to celebrities before they’ve done anything?

It’s pretty scary how excited people are when they see celebrities going nuts. This Lindsay character seems to be losing her marbles, and Slate can barely hide their glee. People are really unhappy, I think, and it makes them feel more comfortable to see others who are worse off than they are.

It is a strange world, the world we live in. A completely unremarkable person like Lindsay Lohan writes a bizarre email and it becomes a news item that is reported on Slate and then read by me. Am I adding fuel to the fire by even mentioning it? I don’t really care if Lindsay Lohan is dumb. She’s not doing anything where she needs to be intelligent. Yes, there is a skill to being a great actor, but I would not necessarily call that skill “intelligence.” With apologies to my acting friends, who are all very smart people. I’m just saying, ya’ know. There are plenty of people in Hollywood and the rest of the world making very respectable livings on limited intellectual budgets. Like our, um, President.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to see that Freedom Rock ad again.

(Thanks, Neatorama!)

Update: Watching these commercials has reminded me of how much I was obsessed with Max Headroom at a certain point. We children of the 80s (actually 70s, but who’s counting?) sure grew up in strange times. I was really into Max Headroom and Spuds Mackenzie. Let me repeat that: I was into Max Headroom and Spuds Mackenzie (the Budweiser pitch dog). I bought books and t-shirts (or probably more accurately, whined until my parents bought them) featuring these characters who were designed to promote products, and I didn’t think twice about it. And my parents, who I would say overall did an exceptional job of raising me, probably didn’t think twice about it, either. I wore my Spuds Mackenzie t-shirt to school all the time and my teachers didn’t say boo. It was a t-shirt promoting a mascot who promoted beer. That was the 80s, I suppose.

That being said, here’s an amazingly creepy video by the Art of Noise featuring Max Headroom. If I remember correctly, this song came out when the Max Headroom craze was on the wane. Matt Frewer (the actor who played Max Headroom) really phoned this performance in. He must’ve been getting tired of playing a head in a box.

Update Update: This sequel to the 80s commercial collection is much better than the first collection. One gets the feeling that the first list was put together by some dude clicking on random links on YouTube who then got schooled by the readers, because the second list is the one that actually contains the memorable commercials.

First off, let me say that I really hate the word “blog.” I never wanted to refer to this website as a blog, even though that’s exactly what it is. They really could not have come up with a more awkward and negative sounding word to describe personal websites. Say it to yourself — blog. It just sits there like a nasty, smelly lump. After saying the word blog, you really don’t feel like talking anymore. The sky turns grey and chickadees turn into vultures.

The source word from which blog is taken — weblog — is nicer sounding, but a little cold. A computer engineer would create a weblog. “Journal” doesn’t fit the bill either. Online journals are often filled with too much information. I don’t like to open up a friend’s blog and read about how depressed he’s feeling or how he’s been constipated for the last three weeks.

That’s point one: gotta find a name that is not “blog.” Point two is: what am I doing here? The original purpose of putting together this new website was so that I could update it easily. My last website was all hard-coded, and it was a pain in the ass to do anything. Word Press allows me to log on from anywhere in the world and add new things to my site. As a writer, of course, I like writing, and it’s nice to have someplace to put my writing that feels at least slightly more productive than squirreling it away on my hard drive.

But there’s no real theme, which is a problem, especially if I ever hope to grab someone outside of my extended circle of friends. Com$tock’s site has a great theme: science and video games. My theme is “things I find interesting.” And they aren’t even well-hidden things … do you see those sites on the right hand side of the page here? Those are the sites I go to. Boingboing, Salon, Neatorama and HuffPo are pretty much fueling my entire knowledge of all things interesting. You could just bypass the middleman and read those sites yourself, if you were so inclined.

Yet, once you get started, it’s difficult to stop, and once you stop, it’s impossible to get started again. Sarah and I had a blog when we first moved to LA. We stopped. Now, it is sadly lying there in the Blogspot universe like a drunken cow who cannot raise itself back on its feet. For months, people would say, “when are you going to update your blog?” And then you get into the whole trap of having to start each post with an apology for not writing earlier … this is a trap into which I am determined to not fall again. So like it or not, audience or no, I will continue to update this site. It could be something as inconsequential as this post, something that you will get to the end of and say, “why did I take the time to read that?” Or it could be something so monumentally hysterical and life changing that you will shower me with praise and email me off to all your closest friends. The only way to know for sure is to read every damn word I write.

Is that too much information? I don’t even really know anymore. My life has become my blog (for lack of a better term). If all goes according to plan, my entire identity will soon be moved online, and my body will be propped up in a corner somewhere, collecting dust. If you want to interact with me, just visit jeffreydinsmore.com.

Matt sent me this intensely terrifying recap of a story from the Observer, about how the Department of Homeland Security paid a known mass murderer as an informant. He apparently participated in several murders while wearing a wire for the DHS. As in, dude’s murdering other dudes while law enforcement is listening in. You should really read the whole thing if you want to know how truly insane our drug policies and law enforcement structure are. Here’s a snippet:

On January 14, 2004, Lalo kidnapped Luis Padilla in El Paso, Texas, drove him across the Mexican border, and then murdered him along with two other Mexcians, all while wearing an ICE wire. It was later revealed that Padilla — who had lived in the U.S. (legally) since childhood and at the time with living (legally) in Texas with his wife and three children — had nothing to do with any cartels and was abducted by Lalo as a matter of mistaken identity.

At around the same time, members of Lalo’s cartel– the cartel which ICE knowingly allowed to go on murdering — went to the home of an undercover DEA agent in order to kill him (they obtained his identity and home address by torturing an informant). The DEA agent barely escaped with his wife and daughters, though sheer luck.