On the shoulders of ants

Oh wondrous satire. Why on God's Green Earth would Bill O'Reilly ever put himself in the same room with his "adoring fan", Stephen Colbert?

Whatever the impetus for it, you can now watch (through the miraculous power of the internet) Colbert on the Factor, Papa Bear on the Report, and of course the slightly related, and now retro-awesome Press Dinner.

Mmmm good! Like a tasty dessert for your State of the Union blue state special.

Struggle in contradiction to the apparatus?!

Here's a pretty dream concert event for me...although getting there is prohibitive. I wish Atlanta was a hotbed of touring for all these bands. Seriously--RaTM (reunion!), RHCP, Air(!), and my new interests The Roots and Lupe Fiasco?! Good golly Mr. Molly. The real story is the possible (please please please) reunification of Rage Against the Machine. I've already bemoaned their absence from today's music scene--did they read my blog and decide to go to it once again? See article below.

Rage Against the Machine reunite for Coachella

After Chris Cornell and the remaining members of Rage Against the Machine formed Audioslave, it seemed like we’d never see Zack de la Rocha together on stage with his former Rage bandmates. In a surprise announcement that came down the wire today, it appears that after a seven year break-up, Zach de la Rocha and the boys are getting back together to headline this year's Coachella Festival.

MTV reports that the politically charged group will be getting back together with frontman, Zack de la Rocha to headline this year's Coachella Music Festival but as festival organizers state, the show would be a one-off gig only. Beyond the one show, the band's spokesman couldn't be reached for comment on the potential for longer term plans. However, a representative for Zack de la Rocha revealed the singer will not be commenting on the reunion.

This latest announcement brings the band full circle in terms of the Coachella festival, as Rage Against the Machine were also the headliners for the debut back in 1999. Sharing the stage with Rage at the Coachella festival will be former 2003 headliners The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Bjork, who headlined back in 2002. Also included on the bill are The Arcade Fire, Interpol, Arctic Monkeys, Ghostface Killah, the Decemberists, Air, the Roots, Sonic Youth, Kings of Leon, Kaiser Chiefs, Travis, Lily Allen, Lupe Fiasco, and Willie Nelson.

Before today's announcement, the music industry was abuzz with rumors of the Rage Against the Machine reunion, which former member Tom Morello tried to downplay in an e-mail to MTV earlier this month. Zack de la Rocha virtually disappeared from the music scene after Rage disbanded in 2000, only popping up sporadically to record with DJ Shadow, Saul Williams and Blackalicious. In recent years, there’s also been talk of a de la Rocha solo album, but nothing has materialized from the former Rage frontman.

Tickets for this year's eighth annual Coachella Festival go on sale January 27, 2007 with a three day pass running $249, while a select number on one day passes are available for $89. Debuting in 1999, the Coachella Music Festival is held each year at the Empire Polo Fields in Indio, California. The fest has played host to several tops acts in the music industry, including the Foo Fighters, Bjork, The Chemical Brothers, Tool, and Depeche Mode. The main attraction to the festival is it's continuous live music, which is performed on the five stages and tents - Coachella Stage, Outdoor Theatre, Gobi Tent, Mojave Tent, and the Sahara Tent. After the first event was staged in October 1999, organizers have since moved the show up to April as a way of avoiding the intense heat of the Mojave desert, which often climbs above 100°F.

Rage Against the Machine hit the music scene back in 1992 with the politically charged track “Killing in the Name,” which instantly generated a huge cult fan base across the country. As a result of the band’s immense popularity, legions of alternative fans fell in love with Zack de la Rocha's rap-based social commentary, backed by the band's hard rock sound. Rage Against the Machine topped the charts in 1996 with "Evil Empire" and again in 1999 with "The Battle of Los Angeles", the same year they headlined the very first Coachella festival.

Senior Year Selection

A poem from my senior year in high school. MORE THAN 10 YEARS OLD?!
~~~~~~

Reunion at Gettysburg

Suffering is interned within these pages
Before me. Its cold
Hands just missed my fragile heart.
I weep for my lack of death,
As a textbook returns me back again.

From across battlefields, unmerciful age
Charges, causes worn and sagging.
These brothers share the flesh
Of their kin, splashed wet on their uniforms.
These are survivors of battalions
Who gulped their own blood,
The neighbors of scorched ribs,
Shredded arms cast far from
Nameless bodies,
And apparitions feasted upon by gangrene.

All mailed by death, some lacked
The legs, the strong pillars
Of forty years before.
Instead of thunderous metal
Ripping through eyesockets,
Tears embrace. It is the unspeakable
Bond between bastards who survive.
Body on body, they walk back to hell.
Mouring for the dead, they live
For the useless waste of lost fathers,
Forsaken children, and the beauty
Of understanding, of sharing between souls.
Bayonettes forced brotherhood
Between these sworn enemies, dripping of life.
It is why the Civil War
Cries for itself.

-E. Andrew Coker
1-13-97 2nd Revision

Blue Ribbon Winner

While the theme was rejected by the rest of my team for this year's Rival theme (*2006 proved that we were indeed in a constant battle with ourselves...dur!), it is the theme of one of the latest AP/AOL polls. I'm not sure I trust that AOL part, considering they had that whole system of AOL Keywords for 5 years that nobody ever used and they flooded my personal mailbox with hundreds of coasters that just happened to look like 99 hour free trials. Well I showed them like I showed BMG music club back in the day (well, Edward Coker, Ned Coker, Suzanne Coker, and Andrew Coker showed BMG)...by signing up with multiple accounts and stretching into a free year of AOL. Don't tell them please, their lawyers are mean enough to squash my high school friend and his bulletin board dreams of Atlanta On Line. If you know what a BBS is, you get extra geek cred from me.

Back to bipolarity.

President Bush is unanimously the Hero and Villain of the year according to the American People.

In the villain category he won by a landslide. The kind that the Smashing Pumpkins covered. The kind that probably almost came out in a summer blockbuster at the same time as Deep Impact, Dante's Inferno, Volcano, Armageddon, and Speed 2: Cruise Control, but was scrapped at the last minute for fear that the theatre-going public would be saturated with implausible, escapist imagery. 1 in 4 put him at the top of the list. That makes him primo first pick for playground bully.

Osama Bin Laden, finishing behind him, had this to say..."At some point you begin to pity the whale and blame the Captain...even when the Captain is picking his nose in Iraq."

Saddam Hussein, facing execution some day before the end of January, replied, "I can't believe they didn't pick the Amerifascist that shot the dude in the face. I mean seriously, he's got that whole Grand Moff Tarkin vibe going on. Bush is more like a Watto type."

As for hero of the year, the President narrowly beat out the Troops in Iraq.

Peering to their left on the three-tiered medal stand, America's Troops observed, "Well, I guess if it weren't for him, we wouldn't have been invited to the 2007 Herolympics. We thought we'd peaked in 2003! Mission Accomplished sure was a sneaky trick at reverse psychology!"

Because Americans think celebrities are Heroic and Villainous, they were polled about Hollywood. 3 in 10 viewed Mrs. Spears as the creme de la crap. Big surprise. 2nd place Paris Hilton, Third Sign of the Apocalypse was shortly followed by Mr. Apocalypto, Mel Gibson.

29 percent of America is brainwashed into thinking Oprah Winfrey is da bomb, and Michael J. Fox finished 2nd. Third was superhottie George Clooney (I personally think it was for Goodnight and Good Luck, although I doubt if 1% of America liked the movie like they should).

And finally, because America and Celebrity can't be uttered in the same sentence without them--Angelina Jolie quadrupled her man's 2 percent of the vote. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes got 2%, because 2% of the population is either made up of Scientologists or people who are afraid Cruise will lead an army of aliens against us unless they vote properly.

I know you were wondering...here's my list.

Villain of the year: Bush (a no brainer)

Hero of the year: Indiana Jones (also a no brainer)

Vikings are the new Pirate

Oh epiphanic moment! How you twist the heart and sunder it in twain and then rebuild it stronger than before! What I held most deeply and tenderly in my soul as truth has been proven dire and sinister indeed.

Of the greatest question of all mankind, there existed in my mind no doubt as to the proper answer. I fought and I argued and I sought to prove that the Pirate was vastly superior to the Ninja and the Robot. But lo, like everything in Australia is upside down (as proven below)....my recent trip there has upended my long held belief. PIRATES! screamed the huge banner outside the Australian Maritime Museum in Sydney. So sinister, the giant sign! I simply had to make the pilgrimage inside...

...and what I found crushed me so completely, so dashed my love of the Piratical life on the rocks of corporatism and kitsch, that I can barely stand to look at the Jolly Roger or muster a half-hearted "Yaaarrrr!". One small paragrah informational panel surrounded by the single worst museum display for kids. Pirates have been reduced to a marketing ploy....the alternaprofession du jour. Awww, look at cute little Timmy with his eyepatch and plastic cutlass! These are not the pirates of yore. These aren't the men that drink gallons of rum and then gut you with a stilletto knife! These aren't the ones battling powerful storms on eight story ocean waves while barely holding on to a thread of life!

These are the nouveau pirate. And we should be ashamed. So I've been on a soul search for a new archetype. Clearly I could never surrender myself to Ninjadom. Only fools like my Good Friend Parag submit their will to the Robot side of things. Outside the box. Must think big.

VIKINGS! Nothing has tainted their will, their power, or their legend. On this great northern land I shall plant my flag...until the rest of the world catches up with me and ruins it.

Tipped scales

The richest 2% of adilts own more than 1/2 of the world's household wealth.

The richest 10% of adults accounts for 80% of the assets.

The bottom 50% of the world's adult population owns barely 1%.

America has 6% of the world's population, and 34% of its household wealth.

Boingy Boingy

Back from Australia. If you go there: Margaret River. Plain and simple--good wine, beeeeeeautiful landscapes, and wild kangaroos and bunnyrabbits galore.

Erin and I survived driving on the wrong side of the road. We survived the limited choice of fish and chips or fish and chips for lunch in many small towns. I watched her play awesome at Worlds. I came back with a renewed love of ultimate and a new hope and determination for the next year of play as well as a hatred for my injury during nationals. I now (mostly) understand cricket and rugby and now realize that they are much more exciting than baseball and hockey.

Seriously.

Its good to come back to the right side of the road, no option for fish and chips and free ketchup, and a couple of dogs. G'day Yanks!

Viva la vote!

AMERICA RESPONDS TO RENAISSANCE TAN!
Thanks for reading and listening voters! Oh joyous House of Representatives, you are blue again--and probably Senate. And Donald Rumsfeld runs like a little girl.