The Curtain With

Where I post sometimes.

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Jane

So apparently there is this female Professor at some University in North Carolina (her name is Jane Christiansen) who is teaching the following opinion's as fact:

1) That the Bush Administration orchestrated the 9/11 attacks

2) That they are currently involved in a massive cover up

3) That by attacking his own country George W. Bush has immensely increased his Presidential powers

4) And, finally, that the main goal of the Bush administration is to completely rape the democratic party and ruin the future of America.

Before I launch into how ridiculous I find her claims I want to first state that I am all for freedom of speech as long as it is known that what you're saying is your own opinion. Now, Ms. Christiansen is teaching an opinionated look at a very serious tragedy as fact. She has six students in her class, or as they will henceforth be known: "pods", and they are of a very impressionable age and obviously believe this "Zionist Conspiracy" she's perpetuating. This kind of thing needs to be kept on the protest marches and out of the academic halls of colleges. When Ms. Christiansen's lesson plan was exposed by a social justice lawyer in Florida, she accused him of "ruining academia." I think teaching flat out opinion is a slap in the face of "academia".

I'll offer up this corollary. If I applied for a job teaching at a University and said that I intend to teach European Literature BUT my on personal view of it I would get flat out denied. If I instead said that I would be teaching European Literature by introducing the class to my theories on:

1) William Shakespeare's time traveling involvement with "The Great Chicago Fire" and how it influenced his later work "The Tempest"

2) How Keats and Shelley laid the groundwork for Princess Di's murder

and How Queen Victoria instigated World War I from beyond the grave with her super secret smash hit "How Sexy You Have To Be To Kill A Serb"

If I said that, not only would I not get the job but I'd be subject to a psychological exam and I would have my teaching license revoked.

This lady should not be allowed to teach her over the top Anti-Bush agenda in a college class room. If she wants to hold rallies, or organize protests, hey go ahead, it's a free country. But she should not be preaching such an obviously biased agenda to students that intend to learn. This shouldn't be allowed in a classroom. Shouldn't institutions of learning be a bastion of fact and opinion FORMING? Not opinion MAKING. If she wants to talk about 9/11, talk about whether the Bush Administration followed the correct procedure in identifying the terror threats they'd been receiving. Present both sides of the issue. What you do not present is your bias, people don't pay to have ridiculously inflammatory opinions shouted at them as "The TRUTH behind 9/11".

And now for sports.

Monday, April 18, 2005

Support The Kaiser

Everyone who wishes to support my band "Kaiser Wilhelm's Orchestra" can do their part by purchasing a ticket to my band's show at the Palladium for 15 dollars. The show is on May 14th. If we sell enough tickets by the 10th of May I can select a time slot that is best for everyone to show up, if not the Palladium Police rape me and steal my first born child...and stick me with a bad time slot. If anyone is interested in procuring a ticket please comment and tell me your degree of interest on a scale of 1 - 10. Please realize that i need cash first and then give you the ticket second. Also i can not take checks because i guess people have done that before and the checks have bounced. Also realize that you CAN show up for my band's set and then leave, as there will be ALOT of shitty bands playing. Thank you for reading this.

Saturday, April 16, 2005

Grace

It's gotten to the point where my father will ask me the same question about five or six times in a span of about one hour. If I laugh because of how forgetful and genuinely funny it is he'll get mad at me, and if i get mad at his forgetfullness he gets mad at me and will come back with some guilt ridden line like "Well I'm sorry I can't be perfect." My point is that I hate not being able to react to something because of my aversion to being a robot. I hate being a robot sometimes. Lemme tell ya, when it rains in Pittsburgh and I'm walking around, guh, i'm just an oil change waiting to happen.

So i'm going to post something I've been thinking about and talking about to a few people lately. I really think Kurt Cobain killing himself was the smartest marketing move of all time and definitely the best thing he could have possibly done for his career. Before you say "That's horrible! A man died!" or something close to that please realize that I am removing all human emotion from that statement, of course I think it's horrible that someone who was once a living being decided to kill themself, but right now that has no bearing on my argument. POINT ONE!

Nirvana's most well known and most popular music came out four years before Kurt Cobain decided he couldn't handle being famous. His career had reached an obvious peak and whether or not he would have experienced a rebirth (provided he didn't kill himself) after his inevitable further downward spiral into drugs and depression is up for debate but, what is not up for debate is the fact that his career had nowhere to go but down. His music had become increasingly weirder and more "avante garde" in a way (listen to "Tourettes" off of In Utero if you don't believe me) and, most importantly for the preservation of the title of being a "Rock Legend" his weird stuff was definitely less commercial. Very few artists can become "weird" after being a commercial dynamo and continue to be successful. The only band I can think of that got "weird" and maintain or increased in celebrity is The Beatles and that was more due to the fact that their "weird" period beget a new genre of music. Radiohead gets very special mention here as they managed to alienate all the fans they got from the mid nineties (due to "Ok Computer" and "The Bends") with the release of "Kid A" and they ended up being more popular then they were before. Go figure.

FACT TWO!

The release of "In Utero" was met with the following phrase:

"The follow up album to Nevermind"

Not, "Nirvana's crowning achievement" as some call it today but just "A follow up to Nevermind". After Cobain's suicide the album was referred to in a new light "The last piece of official Nirvana material". Suddenly a good album because a timeless classic. Everyone is a saint after they die and everything they do immediately becomes more substantial.

The statement that Nirvana could have brought back rock and roll is crap. They didn't even create "Grunge". They popularized a genre that otherwise was frowned upon before they released Nevermind. People forget that Pearl Jam's Ten was released several months before Nevermind and was every much a commercial equal to Nirvana's "masterpiece". People also forget that the groundwork was already layed down for grunge to be popular it just took a hit or a catchy riff to bring it through the limelight. No one band has been responsible for anything in music since Bach took vocal music and created the Baroque period. And even he need other peoples work to do what he did.

http://www.myspace.com/kaiserwilhelmsorchestra

Right now we are "Kaiser Wilhelm's 'Happy Birthday Tony Danza' Orchestra"

Also Kojak was quite the bitch in the fifteen minutes i saw of last nights episode. Stay tuned for weekly Kojak updates such as this.

Monday, April 11, 2005

Ving Rhames

So i'm up at 2 o clock in the morning John Colon Time because i'm still reeling from the series premiere episode of Kojak, starring Ving Rhames.

I can sum it up for you like this:

If you don't like the gritty reality of FX's "The Shield" but find NBC's "Law & Order (ANYTHING)" to be a little light in the loafers then this show is for you.

Ving Rhames regains his Pulp Fiction form and provides some genuinely thrilling TV moments. For example, the opening scene has Kojak coming in to interrogate a particularly tough suspect, he completely ignores the rights of the suspect and decides to play a modified version of russian roulette with the now stunned-beyond-shitless suspect. What Ving Rhames does is put one bullet in a six chamber gun and repeatedly pull the trigger of the gun right up against the suspects skull. Slightly modified russian roulette.

Basically Kojak ignores the law and tilts it in his favor to solve various crimes. The pilot episode provides a really great twist ending that had me saying "You know, this isn't bad for a USA Original series based a much beloved TV show from 30 years ago." Must watch tv.


~ "Yes!"