Several years ago, the office Independence Day party fetured "God Bless the USA" on a continuous loop.
The next year, I threatened the person in charge with bodily harm if she played any Lee Greenwood.
I also removed the batteries from a singing reindeer at an office Xmas party.
Maybe the lesson for me is "Avoid office parties."
I wish I knew how to spell that shuddering noise that Homer Simpson makes, because that was my reaction to the words "President Bush" and "Lee Greenwood" in that article.
I once saw a stripper dance (perform?) on stage to what I assume is the Lee Greenwood song in question, with a giant American flag in the background. Made me proud to be an American.
That's terrible!
Last time I did jury duty, I hung out with a court clerk in the well-disguised smoking room (the last one in NYC?) for a half an hour or so. He told me all kinds of wonderful stories. His favorite part of the job was the naturalisation ceremony. Apparently, every year or so, someone gets so overwhelmed with the excitement of becoming a citisen that they have a heart attack. Anyway, for this cynical old New Yorker to love the naturalisation ceremonies after so many years performing them, it's got to be right somehow. Also, who the hell is Lee Greenwood?
Instead of a speech delivered by a federal judge, new citizens would see a video address by President Bush
Thus removing all incentive to be a legal immigrant.
The guy who does that craptacular "God Bless the USA" song. David Cross did a fantastic dissection of it.
" 'And I'd proudly stand UP to defend her...' Well, the line to enlist is right over there, asshole."
" 'And I'd proudly stand UP!' Well not me, really, but my neighbor's kid."
Also, who the hell is Lee Greenwood?
Our favorite jingoist troubadour.
Greenwood also recorded the song, with slightly altered lyrics, as "God Bless You, Canada".
Maybe Lee Greenwood can be replaced by Neil Diamond's "America"? Meh.
Heh: Google Image's first hit for Lee Greenwood.
upon reflection, maybe Lee Greenwood can just be replaced.
As I was walking to class today the chimes were playing that song. It was awesome.
10.--Heh.
If anything is to be sung, let it be the fucking anthem and "America the Beautiful." Or if the judge is particularly musical, I can see granting an exemption for "Take Me Out To The Ballpark"---but that's it.
I have also not heard of this Lee Greenwood character. YouTube, here I come.
16: don't forget to leave a trail of bread crumbs, ogged.
A YouTube commenter informs me,
Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you,
Jesus Christ and the American G. I.
One died for your soul;
the other for your freedom.
Thnak You Lord.
How are Ogged and JM so fortunate as to have never been subjeced to Lee Greenwood?
I bet you two have never seen a Thomas Kinkaid painting either.
I know about Thomas Kinkaid from earlier Unfogged threads.
It's probably not nice to link to this picture.
20:I was about to go into a rant on this thread until I remembered that Lee Greenwood is not Lee Hazlewood. I mean the names are close, and I skim comments very fast.
OK to diss Greenwood.
I want to live in the America where people never have heard of Lee Greenwood. You have no idea how the knowledge that it exists has filled my heart with hope.
I can't believe you've never heard that horrible Lee Greenwood song, Ogged, having lived through both Gulf Wars. They played it even more nonstop during Gulf War I, with servicemen reading letters home mashed in.
25: We're not all connoisseurs of war porn like yourself, Becks.
I thought I knew who he was, but googling suggests I don't have any idea; I've just heard the name when people complain. I refuse to make use of youtube or any audio or video service to answer this question.
Only people who hate 4th of July fireworks can avoid knowing who Lee Greenwood is.
And those people are evil.
26 - I was in junior high during Gulf War I. They played that song on the bus to school every day for months. I was trapped.
28? Round these parts they mostly don't play music during the fireworks -- we just listen to the booming noises.
29: Junior HIGH?!?!?! I hope AARP has an Unfogged-like blog.
That's because you live in some liberal coastal anti-American place, LB.
I was at the '92 Republican convention in Houston, where I got to hear Mr. Greenwood perform the song in person. So awesome. Helped make me a Democrat.
Junior HIGH?!?!?! I hope AARP has an Unfogged-like blog.
Generation Awesome = Generation Changing Your Diaper.
I doubt that Ms. Quarantillo will get her wish anyway. The federal judges who do naturalization ceremonies really enjoy doing them.
29: I was a junior in high school and refused to stand when they played it at a school assembly featuring some bad hair band doing a tour. Gods, I fucking hate that song. The memory of the "letters home" remix is going to haunt me for the rest of the day.
I was in junior high school (or "middle school") during the war, but all I remember is a bunch of kids having a walkout in protest one afternoon.
I've never heard this Lee Greenwood song, either. The name sounds vaguely familiar. And I live in motherfucking Texas. Maybe it doesn't really exist.
My son's HS had a walkout, led by a Vietnamese-American beatnik girl. So many wrestlers walked out that the team lost a match when they were suspended for a week. They were contending for the sity championhip and may have won it anyway.
37 - I'd be even more annoyed with the Greenwood song if I were gay. "No, I can't start again with just my children and my [spouse] because you fuckers won't let me get married!"
44: I will give Greenwood credit in that if he hoped to inspire violence and thoughts of the motherland then he was successful; I simply didn't want to commit violence for the motherland.
45: Sorry, it was a lame war-themed pun. Omaha Bitch, Omaha Beach, D-Day, war stories, etc.
Not to be confused with Leigh Greenwood, the "independent male romance writer".
My junior high backed down on their threats of suspension, if I'm remembering things right. I think they gave them some weak collective detention after school.
47: That was lame. But then what do you expect from someone who defends Garrison Keillor?
Click this link.
I don't click links.
When did you become so petty, Standpipe?
I don't know, it was a while ago.
What I remember about Gulf War I is one of the guys I was in band with was totally into reading about the history of military weapons, and he was bringing all the articles in the L.A. Times about weapons systems to school and reading them during lunch. I don't remember much in the way of uber patriotism at school.
Funnier memory is of a teacher in elementary school that had a giant American flag on the wall, and a big Oliver North coloring book she'd made herself. Crazy old bat told us all about what a great American he was. Thankfully I was transferred out of there only a few weeks into the year. Ended up with another teacher that was a complete 180. Total hippie who had a guitar she'd play in class. We'd take breaks to sing. Made us learn O' Christmas Tree in 8 languages. I almost had to kill myself.
What I remember about Gulf War I was hobbling down the street with my cane.
In the Bay Area, they play that godawful Lee Greenwood song during fireworks shows, but only in the snug, All-American confines of our baseball stadiums. And they precede it by dimming the stadium to -- what else? -- Journey's "Lights." (There's a perverse local pride in that band that people just need to get over already.)
One particularly vivid memory from the time of Gulf War I: I was walking to poli-sci class with a guy on my floor who was a parliamentary page. He said -- in all seriousness -- that he thought all Arabs in Canada should be rounded up and interned for the duration of the conflict.
This guy now works for a super-prestigious law firm in Canada and is probably positioning himself for a political career.
Alif, I think he was just sweet-talking you.
Made us learn O' Christmas Tree in 8 languages. I almost had to kill myself.
Gah, I had a creative writing teacher like that in junior high. We were supposed to be sad about the Challenger crash, so one of my poems was a riff on a Challenger joke--the punchline to which was "fish food"--about how now the astronauts would have a chance to "feed colorful fish," but she didn't realize it was a joke, so she gave me an A++.
positioning himself for a political career
And only you can stop him.
Oh my god, James whatisface the anti-teacher troll is right.
Did George M. Cohan receive this much hate for "Yankee Doodle Dandy"? I think not.
for cunting shitting fuck's sake. I was actually listening to a Prince song on my computer (who, NB, represents America, which is why it is still popular internationally, despite everything), and I stopped it from fucking playing, in order to look on YouTube for that fucking Lee Greenwood song. For crying and fucking out loud. If people thought America was like that, why would anyone have fucking bothered with it? I happen to have lived in America for a couple of years, so I happen to know that the Lee Greenwood song is a minority taste in a small part of America, but other Europeans won't necessarily know that. Prince is America. Lee Greenwood is not America. Trying to suggest otherwise to non-Americans ought to be punished as treason.
Yankee Doodle Dandy is objectively pro-gay.
59: Believe me, I tried.
The best was that the term paper for that course asked us to analyze an op-ed by Richard Nixon, applying Kenneth Waltz's "three images" analysis of war.
Buddy got a B and I got an A+. He was pissed.
Dsqured, you obviously aren't a Real American.
And therefore I shall refuse to put an "A" in your name.
59: Believe me, I tried.
I mean you need to go to the press and say that he was in favor of internment, and that he called someone "the n-word."
Also you should tell them that he thinks Canadians are a bunch of pussies who need to just shut up and do what America tells them.
one day America is going to drop a fucking nuclear bomb on "Real America" and although I will be outraged at the civilian deaths (particularly the Moore Junior High, OKC class of 1984), there is a part of me that will admit they had it coming.
63, And Lee Greenwood is obviously gay, so what's the dif?
Prince song on my computer (who, NB, represents America,
Because you know, man, just think about it. What do you get when you mix red, white, and blue? That's right, lavender. Those aren't rhinestones, those are stars, man...
67, 68: Excellent suggestions both.
71: No, no. You get something you will never understand. The je ne sais quoi that is this great nation of ours.
My wife did the naturalization ceremony in April 2006. It was held in the auditorium at Florida Community College at Jacksonville. The ceremony Quarantillo proposes for New York is the ceremony she went through, although I'm not sure if they showed the history of immigration video (I was in and out of the auditorium; my wife told me about the Bush video). The MC recruited kids from the audience to lead the pledge. The Lee Greenwood video on You Tube is the same one they showed at the ceremony. One of the higher-ranking bureaucrats at the USCIS' Jacksonville field office was in charge of the oath part. Once all the participants had taken the oath, he led them in doing a little leap for joy.
I would assume this ceremony has already been implemented in other parts of the country as well.
Some serious thoughts:
1) You only revamp the system to ease naturalization if you're expecting more naturalization applicants.
2) Fees for green cards, naturalization, and all marriage-based visa jump between $1000-$2000 at fiscal year 2008.
3) Expect a general amnesty and/or a path leading to citizenship probably by early summer, definitely by October 1.
On the Lee Greenwood anthem, I sort of have a soft spot for it because during Gulf War I one of the units that got blown up badly was from nearby, and we had an assembly because the dad of one of the girls was seriously injured. It's cheese that reminds me of sixth grade.
76. Those PA reservists?
62: I now will try to imagine D^2 slinking around in a lavender silk bikini bottom like the great Wobegonian, Prince.
On some level I understand that many of you are barely out of diapers, but stuff like being in sixth grade during the first Gulf War brings it home in a way that I really could do without.
not to mention the ones who are still in diapers. Then again, consenting adults and all that.
It's ok to be young, just as long as you don't go around flaunting it.
82: you can flaunt it, but only if you've got a fine ass.
stuff like being in sixth grade during the first Gulf War
I was in third grade, and the only way it affected my life was that after it was over we had an assembly where one of my classmates' moms gave a speech about her experience soldiering over there.
I had no idea who Lee Greenwood was until blogs started complaining about him a few years ago. Was not paying attention to the music on the school bus. The earliest song I remember hearing nonstop on the school bus was probably 10,000 Maniacs' version of "Because the Night", which was two years later..
85. LA Times reports today that Sumo is fixed!!!11!! Is nothing sacred?
The Iran hostage crisis and Reagan's election were the big events during my junior high tenure.
I knew this thread would be blanded into submission as soon as I mentioned 10,000 Maniacs.
83: Flaunt away; a truly fine ass only gets better with age.
What children you are. I was talking to someone yesterday about school being let out early the day JFK was assassinated. I remember seeing the film of Ruby killing Oswald on TV at the time. The 60's got more interesting from there.
Apo gets it (although I guess I was a freshman in high school by the time Reagan was elected). And now we, in turn, get chased off the lawn by the AARP set.
I'm in favour of naturalisation by mail. It would beat standing in a parking lot at the LA Convention Center for 3 hours, in the very hot June sun, with no way for small children to use a bathroom, learning that the announced "9am" ceremony time was just a random suggestion. I let the kid pee right there and was thankful he was a boy. [Some of this was, in fact, remedied by the Child Citizenship Act of 2000. Before then, adopted kids had to go through the whole process, no matter how young.]
the AARP set.
Once you turn 50, AARP is relentless. I probably get a letter every month or two trying to get me to join. The bastards know how to rub it in.
I just heard the Greenwood song the other day at the mall where I get my groceries. This is in Montreal. Wtf? I can't escape...
94: So I hear. Part of what's a little weird for me about this place is that I'm more accustomed to being one of the younger people in most of the groups I hang out with.
94: do they provide pre-paid reply mail? send pennies. lot's of pennies.
94. What's that you say, Sonny? l can't hear you. Idealist, since you like yesteday's link, here's another.
http://bubbleheads.blogspot.com/2006/04/staffers-hard-sayings-log.html
90: I remember that too.
One reason I have never been able to dismiss the conspiracies is that I remember how worried everyone was that there was something more behind it, and how much energy was put into persuading people that everything was under control. We'd already had one WWIII scare with the Cuban criis and this seemed like another one.
The second group of reasons was: Oswald being killed almost immediately, Jack Ruby dying in jail talking about a conspiracy, and OSwald's very peculiar life story and his strange Russian friends.
I never read any of the assassination books and never had any particular theory as to who did it. It boils down to a handful of suspects, though.
I happen to know that the Lee Greenwood song is a minority taste in a small part of America
It is, however, the majority taste in a larger part of the United States. That would be the part that elected George W. Bush twice.
90:The 60's got more interesting from there.
Funny, I don't remember the Kennedy asassination in school, but I do remember watching John Glenn orbit in the auditorium.
I check my ass in the mirror to work on the boils and carbuncles. I really don't see myself anymore. Someone else is looking back at me.
The commenters here make me feel elderly. There shouldn't be anything at all surprising about coherent reasonable people with sensible things to say who are ten years younger than I am, but it continually throws me.
Who was it who didn't understand how Nixon won, because she didn't know anyone who had voted for him?
I think the Greenwood song can't hold a candle to "This Land is Your Land", or even the subsequent verses of The Star Spangled Banner. But what do I know.
Of course, at a motorcycle race in California a few years back, an Australian won, but the promoters couldn't find the right CD with national anthems or something, and ended up playing "Watlzing Matilda" instead. Of course, the generic Australian reaction was "enh, it's better anyway, who cares?"
104: I'm with you, so long as it's the A.G. original. Actually, the list of songs the Greenwood one can't hold a candle too is long.
but I do remember watching John Glenn orbit in the auditorium.
Zero-G auditorium or giant cetrifuge?
Pretty much every song ever performed, with the possible exception of the Chipmunks' cover of Abba's "Dancing Queen."
Hell, I remember Sputnik. That was the day that being smart was no longer something regarded with suspicion and a fair amount of distrust.
I was in gym, at Valley Road Junior High, in Princeton, NJ, when Kennedy was shot. They sat us down and delivered the news, then told us to put on our street clothes over our gym suits and go home.
And I was so peeved that NASA couldn't have held off a few more hours and landed on the Moon on my birthday, dammit...
106: A.G. or W.G.? I may disagree with some of the senior Guthrie's political ideas, but the guy certainly had quite a way with words and music.
112: Whups, it was Woodie, of course. Brain fart, sorry.
They'd never go for "This Land Is Your Land". The later lyrics are too hippie for a Greenwood crowd:
As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!
Chorus
In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.
The first Gulf War was a very strange time for me. I was living in Providence, near the RI state house, having dropped out of college. I was unemployed, living with other people who were un- or underemployed, drinking heavily and doing a lot of cough syrup. Our apartment walls were covered top to bottom in different versions of these fives a friend was making at the time, all different colors. The economy was in the tank, in no small part due to the RISDIC credit union crisis, which cut off a large number of people's bank accounts. So almost every day, just down the street from us on the state house steps or lawn, there would either be some pro-military rally with marching and martial music, or demonstrations by angry old people carrying signs that said things like "Where's Joe M. and my money???" They had a giant yellow ribbon tied around the exterior of the state house dome. Like I said, a strange time. And yeah, that fucking Lee Greenwood song was everywhere.
I've never heard lee greenwood, and I intend to keep it that way.
I'm with 117. (Although actually I'm sure I have heard the song, it's played so much; just not in such a way as to put it together with a title in my memory.)
Possibly only Jackmormon on this list will be able to appreciate the full extent of the depression that Lee Greenwood's song sends me into.
In February 1989, I was transferred on my church mission to a small city on the eastern edge of Seoul, South Korea. I was assigned as a companion a fellow I'd known from my months in missionary training. He was from Texas, a former boxer. He was filled with all sorts of right-wing wisdom that he'd picked up from Reader's Digests; the trite observation, "A bum sat on a corner and watched a Cadillac drive by, and said: 'There, but for me, go I," was a particular favorite of his. He had wonderfully entertaining stories, like how he had some friends back in his high school days whom he'd go "rolling gays" with, but how he stopped associating with them once he realized that his friends didn't just beat these guys up, but would steal their wallets. ("They were freaking thieves!" was his conclusion.) He also had interesting ideas about theology and race, once observing that he couldn't wait until the Resurrection, because then Whitney Houston would be white. He was one of the hardest working, most enthusiastic, most outwardly friendly people I have ever met in my life. I hated him with every fiber of my being.
He played a Mormon Tabernacle Choir recording of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A." on his little battery-powered tape recorder every single morning. And he would sing along with it. It was the longest month of my life.
I have, since them, attempted to prevent my month with him twenty years ago from completely prejudicing me against boxers, Texans, readers of Reader's Digest, or people who like cheesy patriotic country music. I have been partially successful.
Miscellaneously:
I started junior high (7th, 8th grades) during the Bicentennial, and a strange time it was, having just retired as a military brat. Dammit, I was chiefly worried about my *hair*. Uh, who was president?
I've realized by now that I was, as a youngster, peculiarly unaware of politics.
102 I check my ass in the mirror to work on the boils and carbuncles. I really don't see myself anymore. Someone else is looking back at me.
This is funny. But no, I check my ass in the mirror to make it my own. See the effects of teh Working Out, say. Disaffection isn't right.
And no, I do not know who Lee Greenwood is.
Who was it who didn't understand how Nixon won, because she didn't know anyone who had voted for him?
It's usually attributed to Pauline Kael, probably falsely, and Northeastern liberals have never been able to live it down.
I was in second grade. I only remember some Gulf War trading cards and that our teacher made us write letters to Bush thanking him for the war. I got a letter in reply which contained a picture of Bush's dog. I think I still have that around somewhere...
A couple of movies from the 30s I've seen have people singing Sweet Land of Liberty in situations where you might expect the Star-Spangled Banner to be sung. I've always wondered if that was unusual, or just a reflection of the national anthem not being so widely performed back then.
I wish the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's "Messiah" were sung at ballparks at the beginnings of baseball games.
Y'know, I don't think I've ever encountered a blog or discussion list on which people with, let's say, 20 year age gaps do more than just converse over topics of mutual interest, but actually share their experiences of the matters in question.
It's marvelous.
15. "Take me out to the Ball Game", JM. It is not a song about hotdogs. Sung traditionally at the 7th Inning stretch, but lately some parks are having some soldier or cop sing "God Bless America" as well. It's like being at a Rotary meeting.
Crazy idea- bring back the "bouncing ball" cartoon at the movies. Everybody singing along will unite us, and we can go on to lick the Kaiser, or whoever it is this week we need to bring to justice.
It's not a song about hot dogs---and peanuts and crackerjacks? We must've sung it wrong.
R.A. Fox---you don't have a very good-looking relative who'd be around 35 by now named Par/is, would you?---your mission companion sounds horrible.
I always imagine Duke having hangings in their locker room. I love seeing them lose. Just beautiful.
127 was me. Mr. Rueckheim's confection is probably the earliest example of product placement, no?
Geez! I'm having flashbacks to 1966 w/ Barry Sadler and the Ballad of the Green Berets. Anyway, I was glued to the TV during GW1 ('cause I had a friend over there) and living in Alabama but never heard of Greenwood and don't remember hearing the song.
R.A. Fox---you don't have a very good-looking relative who'd be around 35 by now named Par/is, would you?
It's Mormon connection time! And some of you may laugh, but I won't be a bit surprised if she knows relatives of this guy. I swear to Christ there's like two, maybe three degrees of separation between every mormon on the planet.
It amazes me how many guys go on missions. I was never too keen on the idea anyways, but voluntarily giving up the "getting laid" thing wasn't going to happen.
This is fun:
Me out to the ball game, take
Me out with the crowd. Buy
Me some peanuts and Cracker Jack, I
Don't care if I never get back, let
Me root, root, root for the home team, if
They don't win it's a shame. For
It's one, two, three strikes, you're out, at
The old ball game.
Duke loses!
AHHHH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
gswift, per 135, obviously does care if he ever "gets back".
Paris, Paris...sorry, Jack, I'm not coming up with a match to that name. Doesn't mean that there isn't some second cousin out there in Idaho somewhere whom I'm not remembering. (Thanks for the condolences; I'd like to think I've successfully processed the experience.)
"I was glued to the TV during GW1..."
Biohazard, I actually use a story like this regularly in my American Government classes. I was working for a newspaper at the time, and the afternoon that CNN started carrying the first footage from Baghdad of bombs dropping, and left work early, went home, turned on the TV--because my roomate had sprung for cable--and I watched the bombs falling between shots of talking heads on CNN for probably ten hours straight. Every time I thought "ok, this is really enough," somebody would mention that there was going to be a "briefing" in ten minutes, and of course I had to stay awake for that...it was a live briefing!
I use it to try to communicate just how amazing and revolutionary and strange the world of 24-hour, global, near-instantaneous news coverage appeared in 1991. I don't know how well it comes across to kids who have had cell phones their whole lives, though.
128: Boy, those Duke players are honkies, aren't they? And Coach K looks like a thug.
I can't believe this many people have never seen Three Kings. Also, I was in kindergarten during GW1.
I am amazed at people who have never heard of Lee Greenwood. #24 gets it exactly right. Of course, I'm also a little amazed that Ms. Quarantillo isn't adding a Toby Keith song to the ceremony.
Prince is America. Lee Greenwood is not America.
Grounds for honorary citizenship, right there. If it's good enough for Winston, it's good enough for D2.
What I remember about the Gulf War I is doing community theater at the time and not paying too much attention to it. I do recall a couple of remarks about the start of the war which I wrote down at the time. On or about 17 Jan., following the first day or so of the war, on All Things Considered, Peter Zimmerman of George Washington University said "It's almost as if we'd walked into a Tom Clancy novel--and everything works--just like Clancy said it would."
Tom Friedman, eat your heart out.
And I remember C-SPAN showing video footage titled En Route to Iraq, depicting a military caravan stretching off into the desert. Passing a stone pillar on which someone wrote "Irak--->." Very Mad Max.
I didn't like the first Gulf War and I never trusted the first Bush, either. But I do recall being reassured by the sense that at least there were very limited objectives to the war, that the objectives were more or less just, and that efforts were made to secure international approval and support.
At this rate, UNC is going to join Duke in the loser's circle. What a pitiful performance.
Fuck, I had both Duke and UNC going to the Final Four. Shows what I know.
I've linked to this before but . . . Take Me Out To The Ball Game (instrumental version) (details).
Hey guys, we're 1/6 of the way to being the only blog in the US not to have an NCAA tournament thread. Let's keep this one oriented back toward how awesome us youngsters are, okay?
"awesome" s/b "surprisingly human"
Aw, hell, you are pretty awesome, even if you do make me feel old.
I was in third grade during the first Gulf War, going to school in a relatively conservative suburb on the fringes of a somewhat liberal city in a generally very conservative state. I have only a few distinct memories of this time. First, there were the Gulf War collectible trading cards, which had half the boys in the class eagerly trading and trying to get the cards representing Saddam Hussein or various tanks or whatnot. I think there was a "Stealth Bomber" card that was especially rare, or popular, or something? Second, there were the extensive arguments between the kids claiming this was World War 3, and the kids claiming it couldn't be because their dads had fought in World War 3. Third, there was that "Proud to be an American" song, everywhere. And once we had some sort of school assembly, where local cops from the D.A.R.E. program were rapping original songs about staying off drugs, and they also sang "Proud to be an American."
Even at the time, I seem to remember finding all of these things kind of ludicrous, but maybe I'm giving my younger self too much credit.
Screw you youngsters. U-N-C! U-N-C!
139: The JFK assassination was the only other time I spent that much time in front of a TV. The Cuban Missile Crisis was different, I was living close enough to a bunch of high value targets that I figured I'd see a flash and that would be that.
The GW1 coverage was initially bewildering. I'd seen plenty of after-the-fact coverage of wars from WW2 on but *live* coverage from a hotel during an attack was really disconcerting. It made it seem less real. I was translating it into a movie, I think, and it was missing great amounts of movie pacing. There was little context provided by analysis and hindsight either, it just unfolded as I watched.
I had both Duke and UNC going to the Final Four
Duke was never going to make it. Even if they beat VCU, Pitt was going to pound them. And if they managed somehow to miracously beat Pitt, UCLA was next. I've got Carolina winning it, but they're going to have to actually play entire games rather than falling asleep for ten minutes per game. Unfortunately, they've been doing it all season.
I have no idea what's with the "First", "Second", "Third" thing in my last comment. It annoys me. Stupid writing. Maybe it's because I am drunk.
Also, damn Gonzaga. I was doing remarkably well with a bracket based on random guesswork. Why did I pick Gonzaga to win, anyway? I will forever associate it with the one time I was in Spokane and witnessed people brawling in the streets, multiple times in the same day.
Poor Weber got a serious hurt put on them by UCLA.
So far, my only incorrect pick was Old Dominion beating Butler.
No, wait. And Gonzaga. Still, tied for first in my league.
My mom went to UCLA, so guess I'll root for them. She had a history class with Abdul-Jabbar back when he was still Lew Alcindor.
I was a fetus for the first part of the second gulf war. It was very peaceful, unless Mommy ate something I didn't like.
The helpy-chalks are kangaroos?!
154: Sadly, that's the sort of information that would have come in handy a couple days ago.
Ben, is Sleepytime Gorilla Museum interesting enough to see? They're in DC on the 16th, and I'm intrigued by what I've read.
By all means, md, they are interesting enough to see. Nils Frykdahl, in particular, is a great showman.
One only one of the three or four times I've seen them, though, did he specifically pause before playing a guitar solo to put on some sunglasses.
My mom went to UCLA, so guess I'll root for them.
Don't hate America, gswift. Pull for Carolina.
Good. That tips the scales in favor of going.
(@ Black Cat in DC in case anyone cares.)
This dude will probably be there. He seems cool, though we've never met.
Oh, SGM is touring with Secret Chiefs 3. Wiki describes them as a mix of Surf rock, Persian, Arabian, death metal, cinematic themes, etc. Good stuff.
I can't tell which is the opening act, so I guess I'll show up early.
Secret Chiefs 3 is Mr. Bungle minus Mike Patton.
I think in the past they've switched off opening and headlining duties.
Don't hate America, gswift. Pull for Carolina.
That's not a bad idea. I'm having a hard time getting excited about UCLA for much of anything lately.
I was in junior high too, and a faithful Nation reader. I've gotten so moderate in my old age.
I've gotten so moderate in my old age.
Yeah, really. In high school, I was wearing ripped up jeans with SANDINISTA written in big black letters down one leg.
Jesus. I still read the Nation at 60, and my late mother read the Nation till the week she died. And she gave her copy to another old lady here in Lake Wobegon. Hmph.
Well now, I missed this thread, not being on last night.
Old fashioned Naturalization ceremony, USDC ND IL. Dignified, moving ceremony, crapless. Outside the Judge's chambers, a display of the memorabilia of one of his predecessors, Kennesaw Mountain Landis.
In Baa Baa Black Sheep, Greg Boyington remembers being back from the Flying Tigers, fall of '42, awaiting recommisioning and deployment, parking cars in Seattle. He went to a football game, where they were singing one of the now-classic patriotic songs, I forget which one. He hadn't heard it before, he'd been out of the country (fighting the Japanese, he was already an ace) Noticing his non-participation, a gang of thugs set upon him and beat him up.
The coverage of the Gulf War, its wholesale reinscription of the jingoism I had fondly believed the country had outgrown, at least while Vietnam was still so fresh a memory, depressed me terribly.
That was when I first seriously began using Shortwave radio for all of my news, and when I gave up on NPR. Mostly, through that entire period, I had my good-quality portable tape player—it was an Aiwa— headphones on, listening over and over to Glenn Gould's 1966 recording, with Leopold Stokowski, of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto. The military sadness of movement two caught my mood exactly.
163 to 162, 154 be damned.
There were a whole bunch of Foxes in Northern California---also, in the same wide social group, a bunch of Wolves and Bears. Pari/s F/ox was soooooo dreamy, and of course he had the coolest name of any Mormon I've ever met.
No time to read all comments, going to brunch at Victor's, but in re: the immigration video, I could see that being useful, if it were interesting and not just Bushie propaganda. Louis Lingg died for your sins!
179: nothing becomes more dignified by adding a Bush video.
Somebody keep their cat away from the keyboard, please.
This song is very nice, I love it!
I also looooove Jump 5's songs!
