February 2004 - As Seen On TV
 RayzRealm (c) February, 2004

[Feb 06][Feb 13] [Feb 21][Feb 28]

Friday February 6

I avoid products that bear the "As seen on TV" endorsement, whether it be music, videos, appliances and gadgets, miraculous new discoveries, miracle cures, services and political messages. It seems that if something is advertised on TV, it must be good, right?

I almost find some of the late night infomercials entertaining (there's a sucker born every minute). A long time ago my Dad ordered a miracle all-in-one saw through a TV commercial. It didn't live up to it's claim but came packed with a bunch of neato Bible tracts accusing the buyer of being a sinner destined to hell unless they recited the enclosed sinner's prayer "now" and call the 1-800 prayer warrior line for salvation. Of course if you called the number, you would be asked to donate money to provide Bibles for El Salvador, or some such nonsense. Dad's saw wound up in the trash. It did not remain eternally sharp.

I only purchased one item through a TV ad back in the days of vinyl, a "Greatest Hits of the 70's" on 5 GIANT LP's. An LP was an LP, they were all 12" wide. From the sound of the ad, you would assume each disk was at least 100 feet across. The ads also claim, "not available in any store, but only through this exclusive TV offer." I found if you wait a couple of months, some stores will carry these same collections in their discount section. There are a few I have not seen in stores.

Before I saw the TV offer some years ago for "Zamfir and his Pan Pipe Greatest Hits", I had never heard of the artist. The announcer claimed that Zamfir has sold more records world wide than the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springstein and Elvis combined. I'd like to know what country's "top 40" he's on. An ad with similar claims was made for a "Slim Whitman's Greatest Hits" collection. To be honest I hardly knew who Slim Whitman was until the movie, "Mars Attacks" was released. In the film, the only thing that could save the Earth from the Martians was playing Slim Whitman record, which made their heads explode.

All the silly ads for miracle mops, never dull knives and hair restorers aside, some of the mainstream stuff comes across just as silly, "ask your doctor if Gullibrex is right for you", "Command an Imperial presence on the road in your 2004 Trendia Titanic SUV. 10 MPG highway, 6 city, your mileage may vary. Trendia Motors Inc is not responsible for roll overs or explosions. Suggested MSRP $95,700"

I'm waiting for a TV infomercial for the Elite Force, George W. Bush action figure. I already bought 10 George Bush Action Figures for myself and those that I love. It's sure to become a collectible and heirloom. After seeing the Bush reelection political announcements on TV (yeeesssss, FOX....I vill obey!) Dubya is the only man to lead our country; integrity, honesty, war hero, military pilot, admired by foreign countries, won two wars, caught Saddam, a Bible believing Christian, rich, from blueblood line, done more for human rights than any other president in history.....he's got my vote :-) That's why I bought 10 of the action figures. One sits on my night table, next to the Jesus night light. Another stands watch over the remotes on my coffee table, and one sits on the dashboard of my car, right next to the glow in the dark plastic Jesus. I always keep one with me safely hidden in my back pack, just in case I should encounter any evil during my daily routine.

I don't know what's wrong with the people I gave the Bush action figures to for Christmas, none of them will speak to me any more, and one gave it to his dog as a chew toy; how blasphemous!

Mea cupla, I didn't even peek at the Super Bowl, and I'm a New England native. I've always viewed sports as a total waste of time; more big business than pure sport any more. This sort of puts me on the "weirdo" watch list with most red blooded, beer swilling American men, but I could care less. So the Pats won again, whoopie!...there I celebrated. I swear news of the second coming of Christ or landing of alien spacecraft on the White House lawn would be pre empted by the Super Bowl.

The only other news I read about the bowl was the "Titty Gate" scandal involving Janet Jackson. It seems this tidbit blurred all other less important news and world affairs in comparison. I don't know what's wrong with Americans, mention sex or expose some skin, and the masses go ape shit, calling for crucifixion or burning at the stake, but lies, evil, mass murder and mayhem hardly get a raised eyebrow from the population.

Other scandals in the news, Massachusetts has thrown it's hat in the ring to be the next Sodom, affirming gay marriages. Resident Bush says he will fight this, which means Massachusetts may be added to Bush's "Axis of Evil" dance card and invaded by a large military strike force; Patriot missiles and bunker busters will be deployed on Provincetown, the South End and North Hampton for sure. People are shocked when they hear my stand on gay marriage, "I'm against it, and always have been...really!" I also know quite a few gay people who also do not support it. I do fully support equal rights in housing, commerce and work. and have no problem with private committment ceremonies. The subject of gay marriage is getting way more media and political attention than it deserves, like Janet Jackson's titties and Bill Clinton's penis.

I went out last night to have my taxes done in town square. I'm getting a little back from state and federal, but not enough to stimulate the economy. After having my taxes done, I made a rare visit to the "Buck-a-Book" store, and picked up a VHS copy of "Conspiracy Theory", starring Julia Roberts, Mel Gibson and Patrick Stewart (of Captain Pickard fame) who plays an evil Nazi CIA doctor, who was involved in the MK-ULTRA program. The video only set me back $2, so the price was right. I had rented the film when it first came out on video and didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I did when I watched it last night. It even has a semi happy ending with an interesting twist.

I was involved in a conversation last Summer, babbling on about Area51, The Tuskeegee experiments, mind control, eugenics and mentioned MK-ULTRA when a guy asked what this had to do with conspiracies and spooks. I'm not making this up, he honestly believed MK-ULTRA was a men's razor from Gillette. If you want to know the latest sports scores, stock prices or Hollywood gossip, go down to the third door on the left. If you want to know all the stuff your mother, the church or gummint never told you about, come see me, or one of the 2-3 surviving associates I have that are still around.

Right now it's raining, snowing, sleeting, hailing, raining, snowing, icing, freezing, so it looks like another banner weekend is here. Here's a short list of articles for the week

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Friday February 13

I made some changes to the links pages over the past week, adding quick jump links to the various sections withing a page. This was based on a reccommendation from my friend Bob, who is languishing up in Maine. It took a bit of testing before I got the internal page targeting working, but now all major links pages work fine.

Fun With Google

I remember when AltaVista was "the balls", the best search engine on the planet, but now I hardly ever use it in favor of Google, which almost always delivers the goods. Over the years many have asked where I find the sites I have linked around Area51. I find some through links from news and other sites, but many come from entering a query into a search engine, then looking over the results. I'm pretty impressed with Google so far.

A song kept playing itself in my head from years ago and I wanted to find (if possible) a link to a site where I could get the lyrics. Sure enough, entering a phrase like "I'd love to change the word" returned a number of sites containing lyrics to the song of the same name by Ten Years After. Many times I'm too lazy to do an advanced boolean search, and find entering a string within quotes works quite well. I wanted to find the lyrics to an old Zappa song, "Trouble Coming Every Day" and entered that in a Google search. I used to sing "Trouble Coming Every Day" to myself, along with other underground tunes from the 60's while I was in the Navy; The song says a lot about racial and class inequality. We need a 60's revival; questions, questions, questions.

An interesting link came back from my "Trouble Coming Every Day" query, an article/diary entry from a federal prisoner who shares my first and last name....spooky, if you ask me. And no! I don't know the guy and have never met him.

Now for the fun! No matter what sort of phrase you make up and enter into a search engine, it's bound to spit back a few gems. Try some of the following, replacing the ..... with your own completion.

"Bush should be....." [reelected, impeached, committed, arrested, knighted, canonized, etc, etc]

"Bush is ....." [a patriot, a nazi, a sociopath, a liar, a thief, a murderer, a good christian, etc, etc]

[reelect, impeach, fuck, screw, hug, etc, etc] "......Bush"

The permutations and combinations of query results are endless, considering you can replace the resident's name with that of other well known, notorious figures; Karl Rove, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rummy, etc.

Get adventuresome, enter fun stuff like "eugenics", "eugenics movement", "bfee", "new world order", "globalist agenda", "aids conspiracy", "gay conspiracy", "genocide conspiracy", "aids as a weapon of war", "mk-ultra", "mind control", "secret government", "shadow government" and see what comes back, which will be sure to provide many hours of light bed time reading. Don't limit yourself to this short list, be creative and use your imagination. Your search may return either nothing or surprising results.

The web is truly amazing as a research tool. The are "billions and billions and billions" of web sites, blogs, discussion groups and zines out there from all over cyber space, with an equal number of opinions, hopes fears and ideas. As my dear old Dad regularly said, "opinions are like ass holes, everybody has one." I find it surprising that so many of the other ass holes out here think like I do. For all I know, I have a soul mate in "Possum's Balls Kentucky" or anywhere else on the planet, who is just an e-mail away. This must be very scary to those among us who are total control freaks.

Here's this week's collection of articles for Resident's Day weekend.

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Saturday February 21

Last Saturday night I did manage to have dinner and chat with a sort of remote friend who lives in the shadow of the Minuteman's butt, who I only see a few times a year. We share similar political and philosophical views, which is scary. I tend to meet people like this every pass of Haley's comet or so. It felt good not eating out alone for a change at a very nice (cell phone zombie, yuppie infested) Thai restaurant. Al agrees with me, that life in the Bush empire is like a badly scripted B movie, or worse like a bad acid trip, "phhht phhtt testing testing, may I have your attention please! Stay away from the people selling the brown acid, it causes neocon hallucinations and delusions of grandeur. We're seeing a lot of people in the first aid tent who are bumming out on the brown acid, that is all!"

Sunday morning I rode out to see Noel and Ellen, who I haven't seen since the holidays. I always enjoy visiting with them, discussing music, movies, literature and life in the New American Century. We went out for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant, then I tried helping Noel fathom the depths of some scanner and graphics software problems he's been having after we returned to their house.

Monday I took a ride into Harvard Square to book browse and got to field test Area51 on a new Power Mac. Now that I've worked out a few more minor design issues Bigboote's Area51 looks and works fine on the Mac platform with both the Explorer and Safari browsers; Netscape is still a mostly losing proposition.

I've been having some really bizarre dreams this week, the kind that have me reaching for the light switch on my night table lamp in a cold sweat. I had the same dream twice, where I was living in some huge Victorian house in the woods that had no locking doors. A group of terrorists (or whatever they were) showed up wearing paramilitary gear and pitched camp in my apartment, eating my food and taking over my living space. I could not get rid of them and felt very threatened, then the feds showed up and liberated me from my captors. Now my place was full of FBI, CIA and other agents, who ate all my food and took over my living space. I tried getting rid of them, but they claimed it was their apartment now and they were taking it over by eminent domain. More and more of them kept coming in, making themselves at home until there wasn't any place left to even stand. I tried waking up, but couldn't, and when I did it took me about 10 minute to realize I was not still in this wacko nightmare.

An old Gil Scott Heron tune has kept playing itself in my head this week, so I looked up the lyrics on the web. The song, "Winter In America" seems appropriate, seeing the times we're now living in.

"Winter In America - Gil Scott Heron"
From the Indians who welcomed the pilgrams
to the buffalo who once ruled the plains;
like the vultures circling beneath the dark clouds
looking for the rain/looking for the rain.

From the cities that stagger on the coast lines
in a nation that just can't take much more;
like the forest buried beneath the highways
never had a chance to grow/never had a chance to grow.

It's winter, winter in america
and all of the healers have been killed or forced away.

It's winter, winter in america
and ain't nobody fighting 'cause nobody knows what to save.

The con-stitution was a noble piece of paper;
with Free Society they struggled but they died in Vain

and now Democracy is ragtime on the corner
hoping that it rains/hoping that it rains.
And I've seen the robins perched in barren treetops
watching last ditch racists marching across the floor

and like the peace signs that melted in our dreams
never had a chance to grow/never had a chance to grow.
It's winter, winter in america
and all of the healers done been killed or put in jail

it's winter, winter in america
and ain't nobody fighting 'cause nobody knows what to save.
Jazz poet and musician - Gil Scott Heron

The God of that "good ole time Gospel hour seems to be calling the shots lately, either that or Ann Coulter was God's personal trainer. Those neocons sure love the smiting and smoting, fire and brimstone of the Old Testament. Our beloved prez claims he takes his marching orders directly from the big guy himelf, and in God's own words.....

"As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you. But these instructions apply only to distant towns, not to the towns of nations nearby.

"As for the towns of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as a special possession, destroy every living thing in them. You must completely destroy the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, just as the LORD your God has commanded you. This will keep the people of the land from teaching you their detestable customs in the worship of their gods, which would cause you to sin deeply against the LORD your God."
Deuteronomy 20:10-18 -

Lastly here's a joke that's been hanging around in my e-mail in box...

Little David was in his 5th grade class when the teacher asked the children what their fathers did for a living. All the typical answers came up -- fireman, policeman, salesman, etc...

David was being uncharacteristically quiet and so the teacher asked him about his father. "My father's an exotic dancer in a gay cabaret and takes off all his clothes in front of other men. Sometimes, if the offer's really good, he'll go out to the alley with some guy and make love with him for money." The teacher, obviously shaken by this statement, hurriedly set the other children to work on some coloring, and took Little David aside to ask him, "Is that really true about your father?"

"No," said David. "He works for the Bush administration, but I was too embarrassed to say that in front of the other kids."

Here's this week's roundup of news articles and journals I bookmarked during the week, enjoy!

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Saturday February 28

In Memorium...

Today marks the 4th anniversay of the passing away (kidney cancer) of one of the kindest, gentlest, intelligent, most self giving souls I ever knew, my closest friend, companion, confidant and partner in crime, Paul. May you be resting in peace with God now my friend; you're certainly not missing much down here right now. Your family and friends think of you often and miss you....peace bro!

Another month just about gone! After the 3 feet, plus another 12" of snow within a week during the beginning of December, it's been a fairly dry, but bitterly cold Winter. I'm sure the energy companies have made some fat profits from the frozen North. I know my gas heating bill increased by about 35% over last year, and I keep my apartment so cool, you can almost see your breath.

I've gotten into a lot of casual conversations with store clerks, fellow customers, and people in cafes and restaurants, and the conversation always seems to lead to the current White House resident. Other than Hummer driving yuppies, everyone felt that America is "doomed" if bush is not defeated in November. I'm pretty much 100% certain that bush will be reelected, and no I hope and pray he is not, but the extreme far right, greed, slash and burn have and agenda and schedule, and my gut tells me they will use lethal force if necessary to maintain power. A lot of people are waking up (at least here in Massachusetts), but as more than a few have shared, 'it's proably already too late to turn the tide.' I wouldn't put it past them to purposely nuke and American city, then pass the blame onto some nebulous terrorist group if bush's approval rating keeps dropping. Or they could pull Osama out of hiding from the retirement community in Florida for public display, "see we got the bad guy", and ya know what, the vast unwashed masses will eat it up hook, line and sinker courtesy of the controlled press.

I was talking with a guy and his wife last week in a book store. We got to chatting while browsing the same shelves filled with "the emperor has no clothes" titles. They both voted for bush, thinking he was a traditional fiscally and politically conservative Republican, but they said they have lived to regret that decision. I asked them what they thought would happen when he gets reelected. The husband replied, "Just pray he doesn't! I don't think this country can take much more. There's a lot of rage out there (yeah tell me about it) and there will be civil war for sure." And then I run into a small minority who think he's the best thing that ever happened to America, go figure!

Sticker shock,
Pagan baby orgies
and mimosa's of mass destruction.

I don't want to talk about the shrub any more. The last time I saw my doctor my blood pressure was up by 40 points. The weather was splendid so I headed into Boston early this morning, even though the urinary infection and worsening neuropahy in my feet sent me returning home a few hours later.

I made the usual stops and picked up what looks like an interesting 2 DVD set, "Disinformation, The Complete Series." I came close to ordering this DVD from the Disinfo web site and was not aware that it was available through retailers, but as usual Newbury Comics almost always has (or can get) whatever off the wall title I'm looking for. This will be a welcome addition to my already "off the beaten path" collection of movies, TV shows and documentaries.

I stopped at the Living Center, now wondering why. I've been so totally socially isolated I needed to be among some people that I semi know for lunch. Two guys at the table were talking with a couple of people about attending a large party later this weekend. I've heard about these closed parties, a collection of pagans, anarchists, metrosexuals, sexual outlaws, Democrats and other free thinkers, and have long wanted to attend one, but you have to know someone on the inside to be invited. There is no booze or drugs at these, but I've wanted to go, just to break into a network.

I casually asked one of the guys what you had to do to be invited. He looked away, trying to ignore my question. I asked again, he replied, "you have to know someone who's already a member." Hmmm, "but I've known you for what, going on 20 years now." He got quiet again, then replied, "you have to fit in with the group, and I don't think you'd fir in well. You have to be attractive and interesting, and .......long pause....let's face it, you're neither." I wasn't in the best of moods to begin with, so rather than stick around to socialize, I left after having lunch. One guy looked up at me as I was leaving, "Ray, you didn't say two words the whole time you were here, that's not like you." I told him I just wasn't feeling talkative.

I walked into the belly of the beast (The South End) and stopped at one of those up scale yuppie/guppie bistros that used to be a mom'n'pop coffee shop, for a cup of coffee (3 bucks for a cuppa joe). I must have been feeling masochistic, sitting in the midst of cell phone and lap top toting pretentious up scale young professionals; all talking in high strained tones, trying to be so sophisticated, but this is the South End of the new Amerikan century. The South End used to be a bombed out boarded up hood full of hoods; heavily black and Hispanic until the onslaught of the rainbow legion gussied up the hood before the mass arrival of yuppies. The neighborhood used to have a lot of tiny family run ethnic eateries (good cheap eats) but now everything is beyond the reach of mere mortals. I stopped in a corner store, or as it was called a Formaggio. A tiny box of candy, no bigger than a tin of Altoids had a sticker price of $19.95. I wondered if this candy was made from cocaine, plutonium or some exotic ingredient from Zeta Reticuli.

I casually strolled through the South End looking in shop and realtor windows, gasping at the sticker prices. One "where the elite meet to eat" eatery had a brunch menu in the window, bloody Mary or mimosa $11.00. This did not include food, which ranged from $17 to $35...FOR BRUNCH! Jeseezzzzuss, sit me at the counter of a greasy spoon and I'll have eggs fried in bacon grease for $3 to $4, including toast home fries, bacon or sausage and coffee, and it'll probably taste a lot better to boot!

I would have liked to have walked up to Mass Ave, then down Newbury street, among the musty old money and arrogant nouveau riche but my feet were just about giving out, so here I sit back at home on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, soaking my feet in a pan of epsom salted water. I'm just so tired, tired of a lot of things, Jesus take me now.....oh wait, I'm neither republican or saved in the eyes of the neocon far right, so Jesus would probably turn a deaf ear to my plea.

It's song time again. For those of you not familiar with Frank Zappa, I found the song lyrics from one of his early albums "Freak Out" on the web. It's a fitting and snappy little ditty for the times in which we live. I used to hum this tune to myself quite often during the 60's.

Trouble Coming Every Day -Frank Zappa

Well I'm about to get sick From watchin' my TV
Been checkin' out the news Until my eyeballs fail to see
I mean to say that every day Is just another rotten mess
And when it's gonna change, my friend Is anybody's guess

So I'm watchin' and I'm waitin' Hopin' for the best
Even think I'll go to prayin' Every time I hear 'em sayin'
That there's no way to delay That trouble comin' every day
No way to delay That trouble comin' every day

Wednesday I watched the riot...Seen the cops out on the street
Watched 'em throwin' rocks and stuff And chokin' in the heat
Listened to reports About the whisky passin' 'round
Seen the smoke and fire And the market burnin' down
Watched while everybody On his street would take a turn
To stomp and smash and bash and crash And slash and bust and burn

And I'm watchin' and I'm waitin' Hopin' for the best
Even think I'll go to prayin' Every time I hear 'em sayin'
That there's no way to delay That trouble comin' every day
No way to delay That trouble comin' every day

Well, you can cool it, You can heat it...
'Cause, baby, I don't need it...Take your TV tube and eat it
'N all that phony stuff on sports 'N all the unconfirmed reports
You know I watched that rotten box Until my head begin to hurt
From checkin' out the way The newsman say they get the dirt
Before the guys on channel so-and-so And further they assert
That any show they'll interrupt To bring you news if it comes up
They say that if the place blows up They will be the first to tell,
Because the boys they got downtown Are workin' hard and doin' swell,

And if anybody gets the news Before it hits the street,
They say that no one blabs it faster Their coverage can't be beat
And if another woman driver Gets machine-gunned from her seat
They'll send some joker with a brownie And you'll see it all complete

So I'm watchin' and I'm waitin' Hopin' for the best
Even think I'll go to prayin' Every time I hear 'em sayin'
That there's no way to delay That trouble comin' every day
No way to delay That trouble comin' every day

Hey, you know something people? I'm not black
But there's a whole lots a times I wish I could say I'm not white

Well, I seen the fires burnin' And the local people turnin'
On the merchants and the shops Who used to sell their brooms and mops
And every other household item Watched the mob just turn and bite 'em
And they say it served 'em right Because a few of them are white,
And it's the same across the nation Black and white discrimination
Yellin' "You can't understand me!" 'N all that other jazz they hand me
In the papers and TV and All that mass stupidity
That seems to grow more every day Each time you hear some nitwitsay
He wants to go and do you in Because the color of your skin
Just don't appeal to him
(No matter if it's black or white) Because he's out for blood tonight

You know we got to sit around at home And watch this thing begin
But I bet there won't be many live To see it really end
'Cause the fire in the street Ain't like the fire in the heart
And in the eyes of all these people Don't you know that this could start
On any street in any town In any state if any clown
Decides that now's the time to fight For some ideal he thinks is right
And if a million more agree There ain't no Great Society
As it applies to you and me Our country isn't free
And the law refuses to see If all that you can ever be
Is just a lousy janitor Unless your uncle owns a store
You know that five in every four Just won't amount to nothin' more
Gonna watch the rats go across the floor And make up songs about being poor
Blow your harmonica, son!

Submitted for your enjoyment (enjoy'em while you can) is the February end of month articles and journals I book marked during the week

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Shalom, Ray