A Poem, found.

I am funny and kind.
I wonder why we exist.
I hear cats barking.
I see lions twenty feet tall.
I want a famous relative.
I am funny and kind.

I pretend to have my own country.
I feel strong.
I touch Neptune's palace.
I worry the world will disappear.
I cry when family members die.
I am funny and kind.

I understand school is important.
I say global warming is true.
I dream to become a Marine.
I try to help out as much as I can.
I hope the war will end soon.
I am funny and kind.

written by my son, 10 years old, in pencil on a single sheet of paper.

Al Gore, 60 Minutes and a Time Machine

Last evening's episode of 60 Minutes featured an interview by Lesley Stahl with Al Gore and his New Campaign. Point of interest to me, the monkey, was the reference Ms. Stahl made to Mr. Gore's birthday, which is by the way is today, March 31st.

From 60 Minutes:

"Tomorrow is your 60th birthday," Stahl remarked during her interview with Gore. "Sorry, didn't want to be the one, to be the first to tell ya. Have you completely, totally put the idea of the presidency behind you once and for all?"

"Well, first of all, 60 is the new 59. So, this is a new world that we're in," Gore replied.

Cute, huh?

Why, you ask, is this interesting? Are we to assume that this portion of the interview took place on Sunday March 30th? Given the gloomy weather in the Nashville area yesterday and the shots of Mr. Gore and Ms. Stahl walking the Gore homestead in big blue skies, I find it hard to believe that the shoot, editing and airing of this segment all took place on Sunday.

BUT and a big one at that, to frame a time sensitive question based on the air date is a bit disturbing, at least to me. Perhaps the question was prefaced like this:

Stahl; Al, listen honey, this is airing the day before your birthday so I'm going to comment on your big day. So you need to play along and step into this Time Machine for me alright?

Gore: Uh? Well...

Stahl: You want to look good right?

Tipper: That would be lying and lying is bad, just like filthy rock music and Prince with his big purple...

Stahl: Tipper, the PMRC was a long time ago and Zappa is dead, shut up! Ugh! We're talking about the script here, OK?

Stahl: Al?

Gore: Yes, dear. I'll do it, for the planet.

Just a small dose of how the media manipulates what is presented to us daily. Sadly, An Inconvenient Truth for us all.

It's there, you just need to look for it.

My father-in-law voted for Bush...Twice.......................... Subtitled: Spot the Monkey

and yes, monkeys do fly.

Words of Light

Sconsetmonkey has been stealing light for all the years that I've known him and I've been trying to steal it back. Here's a book that blends both worlds, those thieves of light and those that try to write some light into the world:


Words of Light: Theses on The Photography of History

Cops and Photographers: Thieves of Light

Four Thousand

The Easter Monkey

Since our own Sconsetmonkey is not a "true believer" in all things Christ, I thought it would be fun to see what Easter would look like in Monkey's house:

1) Instead of celebrating the Resurrection of Christ, Monkey resurrects his Mohawk (insert photo here, Monkey)

2) Instead of singing "He Arose" at the top of his lungs, Monkey sings "Dear God" by XTC

3) Instead of the cross, Monkey bows down to Henry Rollins and the Atheist's flag

Happy Easter, Monkey!

United States of America, March 19, 2008

Pissing the Green O'Way.

You know that quaint green line they paint on the parade route for St. Patty's day? Well, it's gone, as I noticed this morning while I trolled the route in my pre photo fuckfest ritual.

Were we trying to be green, with non toxic water based doesn't stick paint, for the green festivities while pissing away more green on a green stripe?

Brilliant.

Sexcapades: our brains, no good

Sex, sex, sex. America is obsessed and simultaneously repulsed by sex. Call us the "Land of the Repressed." We have token holier-than-thou persons on every network, shaking his or her head and wondering "What was 'he' (insert scandal-of-the-month guy here) thinking?"

I'll tell ya what he was thinking: how to satisfy his desires. What the hell else do you think he was thinking? Do we really think men (and women) don't think about sex---a lot? Come on. I hate this puritannical notion that somehow we turn off the innate human drive once we hit a certain age or a certain situation in life. We can be so naive in this country. My European friends laugh their asses off at America's hypocrisy and immaturity.

I heard a woman talking about the latest sex scandal say "His brain, no good." While that is funny and succinct, it is not true. His brain is just the same as most other guys' brains: craving sex. Does that mean all of our brains, "no good"?

Oh, what's that you say? Human beings are supposed to be able to rise above the animalistic desire to satisfy their cravings? Right. And that's why these "scandals" are so rare. That's why our population is booming. That's why our divorce rate is so high. That's why we all have just one sex partner our entire lives.

But, but, but...we're not animals, we're human beings. Right. Bow down to the perfectly controlled, higher-evolved human, the perfection of "God's" creation. (Air sickness bags are located right above your seat...)

Then you have conservatives saying that just thinking about sex outside of marriage is the same as cheating. Wow! Better lock us all up then.

Our brains, no good.

Quick and Dirty... no this is not an Eliot post.

As the tab for the war has surpassed 1/2 a Trillion bucks I performed some quick math to calculate the time frame it would take to spend an amount equivalent to the stimulus check (to be read: Hey look over here and spend this money) we are expected to receive.

1/2 a second.

That may not seem like a lot of time to the average person but to a photographer it is an eternity.

My camera du jour will fire at a maximum shutter speed of 1/4000th of a second.

A life can be cut short faster than that.

In that one second 4000 lives could be lost.

So my check and maybe yours could have been the money spent during that one second.

Keep the check.

END THE WAR.

BREAKING! Steal this Sweater Endorses O'Bama.

The Luck O' The Irish (atheists)

What happens when the Catholics of Ireland forget to hold onto their domain registration?

The atheists grab it.

HA!

Overheard in Shanghai

Dear friend in China: "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down."

Cultural observation
Conversation with sconsetmonkey

Body Language, 03/11/08

Moby Dick!

This seems to be the week of the resurgence of the big, white dick. Scientists in Alaska have found a real life Moby Dick in the waters off the Aleutian Islands. Rarely seen and hardly ever photographed (where were you, sconsetmonkey?), the elusive white whale was finally proven real.

Meanwhile, in New York, the other white meat is being eaten for dinner by the hungry Republicans eager to annihilate the scandal-plagued governor while saying publicly they feel bad for his family. This Moby Dick has weathered tough waters but the money-for-sex scandal is too rough of a sea to survive since the governor made his reputation preaching ethics reform.

Nice job of defining hypocrisy on both sides of the political aisle. I have my own part to keep under control, so I understand the struggle to keep it in the pants, but for the governor to squander his potential once again, I say "What a big, white dick."

In case you missed it...the gays are coming too.

With everyone jerking off on Spitzer lately, (how much does that go for these days?) please don't forget about this announcement from Changing Parma. Will the police state rear its ugly head again or would that divert much needed attention away from the Governor?

A topical refresher can be seen below.



Oil hits $109 bucks, eight U.S. soldiers died yesterday, the media has replaced the term wounded with injured, 46 million spent to let me know about stimulus, and here we are waiting for the media's money shot.

Will you spit or swallow?

P.S. If you listen very very closely you can hear a vibrating cell phone going off in the middle of Spitzer's apology. Looking at a variety of camera angles it is heard on all of them. I suspect it was his. Who could that have been calling?

Timing is everything. Wait for it, it's coming, baby.

Looking a gift horse in the mouth.

I was going to post this earlier but the Spitz or Swallows thing popped up or in, I'm not sure exactly what he paid for.

Have at it media fucktards, in your public circle jerk of ratings complete with the money shot on 55 inches of high def plasma.

So anyway, when we were blessed with the angelic snowflakes from heaven, I awoke the next morning to find my neighbor had plowed my driveway as well as my other neighbor. He sometimes does this when he's feeling Christ like. I went outside to shovel the steps and noticed the the plow job to be substandard. Yeah, I said it, that's right a free snowplowing was substandard. My neighbor's driveway was shorn, like a sacrificial lamb, right down to the quick of the pavement, yet mine was about three inches of densely packed snow. Multiple passes and repeated pressure created a big fucking headache for me. I suspect its the atheist thing, a little holy payback of sorts, while my Jesus loving other neighbor's path to salvation was Divine. Plowboy is one of those guys that leaves the wipers on his truck pointing to Heaven before a storm. Is it just me or is this a new thing? To me it's as if to ask to get them snapped off by a passerby like the jackass that parks his little dick sports car sideways in the back of the lot. This action screams KEY ME!

I'll bet money, real American "In God We Trust" can't save you foreclosure money, that he also has one of those safety orange glass break hammers in the truck, just in case of an unexpected submersion into a toxic pharmaceutical laced water supply. Really, what is the purpose of such an item. I know what it does but when would you use it as directed and hyped by the FEAR machine that our society has become. The chances of such a scenario are as slim as those that would lead you to carry a gas mask in the glovebox.

Just in case, they come here for you.

I've recently been told I need to get more sleep to adjust my self diagnosed OCD. Yep that's right, a good ol' eight hours a night is what I need. Simple math would suggest that I would need to be asleep by 9:30 in the evening. No way this will happen. Not a fucking chance. How can I go to sleep when they are out there? Four to five hours tops, anything more and I'd miss something wonderful.

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Did I mention the Fear machine?

Larry Craig taps his foot but our Governor Taps that Ass!

Can I get a Hell Yeah!

What else can I say? It's everywhere, spinning endlessly, sure to induce vomiting.

What's wrong with New York whores anyway?

Crooks and Liars...............every last one of them.

The Unofficial Henry Rollins review

I was asked by Kaos to write my review of the recent Henry Rollins appearance here in lovely Rochester. I've had some difficulty remaining objective given my past experiences with Henry. You see, my guest for the show, mentioned they saw Henry way back in 2001 and that got me thinking. Fuck, I'm old. But not in a fuck I'm old bad way but in a good way.

The first time I saw Henry was when he was with Black Flag. That was nearly 25 years ago at Trenton City Gardens in Jersey, just up the river from my hometown of Philadelphia or more recently known as Killadelphia. A shit hole of a place when shows cost maybe 3 bucks and the underage drinks were served by John Stewart. Yeah, that John Stewart.

A wide range of audience members filled in the gaps of the Alternati as my companion referred to the crowd. Old and young, alike were glued to every word for the three hour nonstop rant. And I mean nonstop, the guy barely took a breath. It was evident that there were new and old friends of Henry in attendance given the minimal applause when he mentioned his childhood friend Ian. D.C. hardcore spawned some of the most memorable bands of the Reagan Era such as Government Issue, Bad Brains and Minor Threat, Ian MacKaye's band. The applause, a sort of nod of approval of days gone by, served as a reminder and a wake up call to the newly anointed.



Henry continues to stick it to The Man.

Old punks don't die they just get angrier.

Monkey gets a call from The NRA

Why you say?

Because AMERICA IS IN DANGER!!!! according to pistol packin' telemarketing life member that called Casa de Monkey this evening. For a quick second I thought it was a gag. Me? You're calling me? I was asked to take part in a brief one question poll after a message from the NRA's Wayne LaPierre. To be honest with you, with a name like that I would consider packin' too. That would be kind of Kuhl.

So I listened to the 1-2 minute statement and was then asked the question. My hearts beats with anticipation.

Do you want the government to to prevent you from owning a gun?

A short sweet and loaded question. Before I answer I asked for some clarification from the caller as to what kind of guns we're talking about here.

All of them he said. Hmm. Really? All of them? Hmm.

The purpose of the call was, of course, money. They need my help, me the Monkey, to protect the Second Amendment from the "gun hating liberals". The Constitution will be voided without it and we will be stripped of our rights as free Americans. I reminded him of the PATRIOT Act under this Administration. What about the Fourth, Fifth and Eighth Amendments, sir?

Silence.

He then began to address H.R. 1022 introduced by a "New York Democrat", in his finest southern twang, apparently unaware of the geographic location of this monkey. And lest we forget about the evil Clinton or Obama, he even used the middle name, gaining the esteemed Oval Office. Oh the horror!

Did you use Obama's middle name to imply he's a terrorist?

Silence.

Our back and forth lasted about thirty five minutes as I dodged his repeated requests for membership numerous times and we then ended up back at the poll question.

Mr. Monkey, sir, do you want the government to prevent you from owning a gun?

Pause.

Silence.

Wait for it! Wait for it! He's on the edge of his seat, I can feel it.

Sir?

FUCK YOU!

Silence.

A photographer's rights

How many times have you heard "You can't photograph this"? Ha! Wanna bet? Here's a great article from USAToday.com about a photographer's rights, amateur or professionals like those named sconsetmonkey, an excerpt:

If you can see it, you can shoot it

Let's get the easy stuff out of the way. Aside from sensitive government buildings (e.g., military bases), if you're on public property you can photograph anything you like, including private property. There are some limits — using a zoom lens to shoot someone who has a reasonable expectation of privacy isn't covered — but no one can come charging out of a business and tell you not to take photos of the building, period.

Further, they cannot demand your camera or your digital media or film. Well, they can demand it, but you are under no obligation to give it to them. In fact, only an officer of the law or court can take it from you, and then only with a court order. And if they try or threaten you? They can be charged with theft or coercion, and you may even have civil recourse.

The entire article is great and certainly worth it for those amateur photographers out there, and in general, for all anarchists.

Overheard in Rochester

An exercise in eavesdropping.

Car Show attendee: "I don't know which way to go to the bathroom. There are so many ways."

Rochester Convention Center
Overheard by sconsetmonkey

Pittsford, NY 03/01/08