Two Best Lines from the Video Music Awards

Sung by Jack White, to the tune Video Killed The Radio Star:

"Internet Killed The Video Star"

and

Pink, seemingly stoned, upon receiving a Video Music Award:

"I'd like to thank God and MTV"

And Now For Some Levity

Okay, okay, okay, so I am about a week too late on this, but I am still getting over what I posted last week (as if) and I have been reading all about this on Grant McCracken's rocking blog, so here it is (again), in all its splendor and glory: OK Go...

There Are No Words That Can Describe This Film

9/11 Cover Up, a film from Loose Change 2nd Edition: Korey Rowe / Dylan Avery / Jason Bermas Running Time: 1 hour, 22 minutes

Poetry Tuesday: Two Animated Poems by Billy Collins

The Dead

Forgetfulness

10,000 Reasons Civilization is Doomed: A Must Read

10,000 Reasons Civilization is Doomed
Originally uploaded by debbie millman.

Stop the presses. This just out...run and don't walk, please.

Welcome to the 10,000 Reasons Civilization is Doomed website.

FROM THE WEBSITE: "This site was started by six friends who, sitting around the dinner table one Saturday night, came to the conclusion that civilization was doomed. We felt this way not because of the inevitable dimming of our sun, or an errant asteroid, but rather because of the idiocy of our times. Frankly, we are tired of the fake optimism, superficiality, non-talented celebrities, doped-up athletes, dishonest and illiterate politicians, corporate thieves, wife-beaters and evangelical terrorists rampant in the world today and we decided that one way of making ourselves feel better would be to list them for all the world to see and to add upon.

This is a list that is started by the people, aggregated by the people and an offering to all people everywhere that want to take solace in a list that proves that we are not being fooled. Rather, we are on to all the bullshit out there and want to make it clear to anyone that adds to this list that you, too, can take comfort in like-minded individuals that have come together to express the 10,000 Reasons Civilization is Doomed. Perhaps if we are heard, some of the doom can be deterred."

What Kayla and I did on Sunday night before Entourage

Trippy animation of Joni singing Joni

Miss Jackson singing Joni

Green Day singing Joni, as hard as it is to believe

Joni singing Joni

Poetry Tuesday: Def Poetry Jam

More About The Monkey

Now Charlie is thinking this:
He doesn’t know if he is coming or he’s going
His fingers are all burnt
They smell like piss
And he feels like shit.

This is what Charlie thinks of poetry:
He likes ugly words.
He feels pride when he doesn’t understand.
He wishes he wasn’t here.
And he isn’t.

Charlie slides the needle in.
It burns as it travels and he knows
The journey is nearly over now.
He tries to remember how it feels.
He tries to remember his mothers face.

He thinks he sees her and he squints.
He tries to find her charm and he wonders if it ever really happened.

Now Charlie is feeling this:
His head is reeling, his arm is bleeding
He is awash with love.

This he will remember.

A Beautiful Ani Di Franco Video

Back When We Were Young

Then, Like The Summer

The earthquake took me by surprise; there was no siren, no news report.
It was late in the afternoon, around five o'clock, eight years ago. We had a
fight about the barbeque and whether I should invite Amanda to meet
your friend and you said to me:

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

I should have known.
I’d spent a lifetime being ridiculous. I was an expert.
I knew the rickety back roads, the twenty-one hairpin turns
to get there, bam bam, lickety-split.

In fact, I could do it instantly.

Once we had that in common. The private snickers,
the arrogant eyebrows, holding our laughter back
behind silly cupped hands. You fooled me.

That night, the evening of the barbeque that never happened,
the air was thick and salty. It was summer then, but leaves had already
started falling in our backyard. I often bragged that I knew
when autumn began before anyone else because of those futile leaves.

The unopened food was on the kitchen table:
Plastic covered ground beef for those burgers
you raved about, shiny bags of chips, the vegetable dip that I hated. It sat there
for days afterward, the meat turning brown and then blue, the dip going rancid.
For a long time I stared at that food, waiting for a hidden message. I wonder now
if we'd eaten first there would have been a different outcome.

I am superstitious that way.

Instead there is this. It has been this way a long time.
That day, it started one way and ended another.
Then, like the summer, poof! you were gone.

Three Girls

us
Originally uploaded by debbie millman.

Poetry Tuesday: memory

memory, by Lucille Clifton

ask me to tell how it feels
remembering your mother's face
turned to water under the white words
of the man at the shoe store. ask me,
though she tells it better than i do,
not because of her charm
but because it never happened
she says,
no bully salesman swaggering,
no rage, no shame, none of it
ever happened.
i only remember buying you
your first grown up shoes
she smiles. ask me
how it feels.