bald guy in a blanket

P.S.

-God must really hate all those unborn babies he lets be murdered.

That is the greatest website ever!

But...

if they included the rest of the Stones the rest of the Who and Bob Dylan alone the average would skyrocket.

It just seems to me that God has been trying to kill Kieth Richards since the 70s and he (HE) just can't get it done.

Jef

Hey.

Good thinking about the driving...

I'm gonna astral project.

Jef

(Char, you're faster but I'm cuter)

I've seen him twice.

Both time opening for Ani D.

He's quite awesome.

He also plays a mean "Face solo".

On his last solo tour he played the Reverb in TO, I think. I was out of town.

It'd be worth drive to a border town.

Jef

I think Ottawa will look the same for a while.

We'll get a new government when someone gets a new idea...

with one exception,

Layton will get screwed.

He's over...and it's his own fault.

Think of it this way...even with all the scandal money going the Liberals have balanced the budget 8 years in a row.

When was the last time that happened?

The problem is that people without an obvious issue in this election feel the need to punish the people in power who happened to work with some people who cheated a bunch of years ago.

People have this belief that the parties aren't that different so it doesn't matter who's in power--it does! They only seem the same because they're all playing for the middle ten percent. Trust me, I lived through the "common sense devolution".

The parties are different.

Jef

Hey,

I think they should just start a new band.

"PHISH, we've heard of them...nah...we don't play those songs...that band is sooo 20th century."

I'd check that out.

Jef

Sunshine--

Lisa,

I wish you all the best.

...and a ton of good vibes too.

I'm sure you'll be digitally-dancing before you know it.

good luck,

Jef

C'mon.

Isn't a little much to demand that recordings that a band made of itself from its own soundboard be freely available?

This somehow turns the Dead into napsterfucker Mettalica???

Look I think it's a cool notion (the open vault) but...

I can't escape the idea that so many of the complainers here sound like my students when I ask them to put their cellphones away.

"Waaah! Waaaah! I should be allowed to have it cause I want it! Waaaah!"

Do you really begrudge the man his attempt to profit from his good work?

Don't be so lazy...get back to taping and trading, old school.

Jef

Hux.

Go.

Stop Harper!

Best of luck my friend.

When will you be back?

Kiss a mountain for me.

Jef

Hey Sharon.

It's Jef.

Happy Be-lated Be-day.

From Scarborough to ya.

Long time.

It seems as though congrats are in order.

Have some.

Cool.

Jef

it's funny to watch Trey lose his marbles.

last night' date=' before his acoustic set, he got all warm and cuddly and announced:

"For all the people who are going to lambaste me on the Internet for playing Phish songs...Fuck you!"

hello, Trey? it's me Marc. Please don't say "fuck you" to me because I don't dig what you are doing. You only make yourself look like more of a self-absorbed bubble head than you already did. Didn't want Phish to become a "nostalgia act"? Fuck you.

I don't know if he was talking to you personally, Marc0. It seems to me like an awkward joke from a guy who's fed up with people feeling like they have the right to tell him what to do...I wonder if that has anything to do with the Phish breakup...hmmm...

As a fan that wasn't shocked or distraught that phish ended (and also someone that thinks "Come as Melody" and "Shine" are good tunes) I spent a lot of time last August wondering if phish fans will ever consider blaming themselves,just a bit, for suffocating the life out of their own favourite band.

Jef

there's a difference between people telling him what to do, and expressing their opinions, positive or negative, on what it is he is doing.

and before I could respond to your premise of Phish fans "suffocating" the band, I would need to know more about how exactly you mean that. Because, in the context of post-hiatus Phish, I can't see that. Sure, some people were hyper-critical, I thought that was terrible. But how that affected a band who released two new albums of new material within 30 months and toured relatively sporadically to the point of calling it quits, I can't connect those dots.

By "suffocating" I mean that there was never really a moment after, say, 1995 where the "phans" (and I do mean that in a cumulative way) didn't act like they had a right to make demands on the band.

Now I think that happens with all popular bands but Phish was a special thing.

The nature of their relationship with their audience was built on trust in an unprecedented way.

The band will do something new and challenging and the audience will listen and respond and this in turn will effect the band's artistic choices. The notion of this kind of paradigm in a modern pop culture setting is still staggering. I would dare say that the band was more engaged by and in tune with their audience(at least in the practice room) than even the Dead.

My point was...who deviated the paradigm first?

It's arguable.

I came to phish late but I remember being startled that the most vocal "phans" seemed to positively relish declaring Trey a "dick" or worse--it seemed to a newbie(me) that some people got more jazzed by slamming a not all that bad show than enjoying a good one.

I don't think the audience caused the break-up but I do think they had as much to do with it as they did with the band's success. That's the way Phish always worked. That's what Phish was.

Jef

P.S.-I would also use DMB's going on 6 year malaise as an example of this phenomenon. By the time the audience was made up of swooning sorority girls and dumbass frat boys trying to fuck them it became very difficult for him to continue to be you know...worth it.

He just keeps trying though. I don't know what is more admirable...

it's funny to watch Trey lose his marbles.

last night, before his acoustic set, he got all warm and cuddly and announced:

"For all the people who are going to lambaste me on the Internet for playing Phish songs...Fuck you!"

hello, Trey? it's me Marc. Please don't say "fuck you" to me because I don't dig what you are doing. You only make yourself look like more of a self-absorbed bubble head than you already did. Didn't want Phish to become a "nostalgia act"? Fuck you.

I don't know if he was talking to you personally, Marc0. It seems to me like an awkward joke from a guy who's fed up with people feeling like they have the right to tell him what to do...I wonder if that has anything to do with the Phish breakup...hmmm...

As a fan that wasn't shocked or distraught that phish ended (and also someone that thinks "Come as Melody" and "Shine" are good tunes) I spent a lot of time last August wondering if phish fans will ever consider blaming themselves,just a bit, for suffocating the life out of their own favourite band.

Jef

Hey,

I'm going to find time to watch.

I'll write after.

Jef

P.S.-timouse, I think you're right. We're back-analysing. We'll never really know. I just read a book called BLINK. It's fascinating. The premise is simply that our brains are incredibly good at assesing things instantly and not very good thorough analysis. It seems our brains are good at convincing ourselves that what we hope is right is actually right. The longer we look at something, the more possible any idea seems. It's an incredible book. Malcolm Gladwell is the author, I think, and he backs his work up with a massive amount of research.

Hey.

I haven't watched this yet but the talk of "secondary explosions" peaked my intrest.

I watched a great doc called "the anatomy of a collapse" a couple of years ago on Discovery. It focused on the truss ceiling and floor set up in the WTC and how this truss was connected to the walls from the elevator shafts at the core of the building to make a strong floor area uninterupted by pillars. Fireman however, have a saying "don't trust the truss".

When a truss-floored building is heated by fire the iron truss bends attempting to pull the outer wall closer. The wall doesn't budge so the massive iron gurter bursts off of the outside wall and falls into the floor below. With each guter lost the amount of weight the floor can hold gets less and less.

On September 11th, when enough iron gurters bent and fell the entire weight of the top portion of the buildings fell 9-12 feet through the first floor that could no longer hold the building's weight.

This 9-12 foot fall caused a chain reaction that immeadiately and systematically forced every iron gurter on the floor below that one to burst off of the outside wall of the building (they appeared from the outside as many tiny explosions). This was then followed almost instantly by the building peeling like a bannana.

Does this match up with the "secondary explosions"?

Jef

I don't know if Miles Davis should be in the hall---but he did change Rock 'n Roll forever...

From "A Kind of Blue" to "Bitches Brew" to "A Tribute to Jack Johnson" he sort of invented the kind of "rock" music that most of us call Jam.

...and as far as Mellencamp, like him or not, he embodies the American rock'n roll dream...he's lived it and added to it...and sold like a bazillion records.

He has to be in there.

Jef

P.S.-I have to also admit that a real cute girl once dragged me to a Mellencamp show and I was suprised to know every song and dig his band. Kenny Aranoff is a motherfucker drummer.

All,

Yhe day was just frickin great.

Serious thanks to everyone who had a thought.

Brad,

Actually we're working on it. We've been recording a few things. Really embracing a sort of alt-rock feel. We also have a single coming out on i-tunes (I feel like a whore).

I thought of you just today while I was eying the Trey buffalo date. How are things???

Jef

For those who read the post and thought good thoughts...thanks for the think you thunk.

It looks like sunnyness.

Cool,

Jef

Hey all.

Just wanted to ask for good thoughts to help hold off the fall weather for one more week.

After permit negotiations and one rain-out we've (UNCLE SETH) got permission to have a free afternoon show/picnic on the big festival stage in Trinity-Bellwoods in TO. The musicians we have booked are real cool city songwriters and we just found out we're up for an award ("Best Rock Band"-Toronto Independent Music Awards" [a bit silly but it sounds pretty cool]) the show should be great.

However...

I checked the weather this morning...we need good thoughts to change the weather. No big, right? We can do that...right?

Help.

Trinity-Bellwoods Park, Toronto Ontario

Saturday September 24 2005

[color:blue]"UNCLE SETH FAMILY PICNIC"

A FREE outdoor show

Music from 2-5pm

With Shawn Sage and Snoovy!

go to here for details,

cool,

jef

Quote:He believes he will go down in Canadian history as the best prime minister since Sir John A. Macdonald.

Wow.

Pearson? Trudeau? Deefenbaker

What the fuck?

Did he get a constitution passed that I didn't know about?

Wait. Didn't they isert God into our anthem during his serious of fiats? (oh wait, that was Turner...he was a dick too)

Can anyone think of a legacy that Mulroney left that doesn't include a massive deficit (sp?) or a revitalized sepratist movement?

Does he not remember that his time in office was highlighted by his most heralded and laboured upon policy (Meech Lake) being bitch slapped down by the previous Prime Minister showing up and just speaking for an hour?

I bet he's been to Crawford, Texas.

Jef

P.S.

Seriously, here's a list...of the people you've heard of--who's he better than?

1. Sir John A. Macdonald

2. Sir John A. Macdonald (2nd time)

3. Sir John Abbott

4. Sir John Thompson

5. Sir Mackenzie Bowell

6. Sir Charles Tupper

7. Sir Wilfrid Laurier

8. Sir Robert Laird Borden

9. Arthur Meighen

10. William Lyon Mackenzie King

Arthur Meighen (2nd time)

William Lyon Mackenzie King (2nd time)

11. Richard Bedford Bennett

William Lyon Mackenzie King (3rd time)

12. Louis St. Laurent

13. John Diefenbaker

14. Lester Bowles Pearson

15. Pierre Trudeau

16. Joe Clark

Pierre Trudeau (2nd time)

17. John Napier Turner

18. Brian Mulroney

19. Kim Campbell

20. Jean Chrétien

21. Paul Martin

Steve,

I have to ask then...

Why did you vote for GWB?

(I understand if you don't want to answer...I'm just curious) You've given lots of reasons why it wasn't all that bad, but what drew you to him? (I'm scared that you are going to say security.)

I just read this entire thread in one bite...

I happen to believe that both American political parties sound and look alike because they're always playing to the same 10% of the country--the undecided. It's why the republicans call themselves the "party of inclusion" and the Dems all but apologize for being pro-choice. I fully understand why they appear to the average voter to be the same. They have to--they've got their base--they need to get the middle. It just seems that right now the republicans play this game better than the Democrats. (for some reason that is a mystery to me, it just seems harder to belive that a rich guy from the northeast is interested in your family than a rich guy from the northeast is whose family moved to Texas.)

Remember, a politicians first job is getting re-elected.

In reality the agendas are quite different. It's hard to make a credible arguement against this. The parties proceed from completely different assumptions. The republicans believe that the wealthy will contribute to widespread prosperity by building business locally and helping communities and the Dems believe that a community is revitalized by ensuring that the poorest and most marginalized aren't so poor and marginalized that they become an enormous burden for a community to bear.

Republicans---top down

Democrats---bottom up.

If you research their modern policies I think you'll find this to be true.

Both theories seem reasonable (and if you refract both parties' most critisized policies through this prism, they make more sense (Anwar, Iraq, tax cuts to rich/poor, Welfare reform, universal health care etc.)

The problem is this...

The republicans theory has always worked when building a new community (colonization from Mother England to the Mob building of Vegas) but the Democrats theory works when it comes to established communities in need of help(everything from Scandinavia in the Depression to Clinton in the '90's).

I think, and I feel it's pretty obvious, that modern North American communities are crying out for help at the bottom---the Democrats at their root believe this and the Republicans don't.

They are different. You just have to look at the record and not the TV commercials.

cool,

Jef

P.S.-I'm a fan of Mr Moore but I think this recent letter is just mean. But I do believe that he's sincere just mad and frustrated---if he was trying to best serve himself, he wouldn't have written it like he did.

P.P.S.-If I has Karl Rove planning strategy for me I think I could get elected President of the USA --and I'm a Canadian born high school teacher/musician/writer. Does Bush have to be smart? He barely needs a pulse. What he needed to be elected was his affiliations and his smile.

i feel like the left sucks in people who aren't really politically aware... like girls who think they're feminists without really knowing what feminism is... or single income families who think they're owed something by the government because their marriage failed... or union workers who vote liberal or ndp simply to continue receiving their obscene wage without having to do too much work... each group is plotted out in pre-election campaigns and becomes the primary focus of all these hard driving liberal nuts... none of these people actually have any idea of what they are voting for, or what policy stands for what.. they are voting for the ideal that people like michael moore paint for them...

I think the left are by and large idealists and not politicians. I don't think that's bad, they've just never been professional debate controllers. So the debate tends to be around how crazy LIBERALS are as opposed to what would make the world better. Most "Left-wing" politicians are really centrists who are afraid at being tagged "liberal". Moore is a great example of this. If he had a political operative on staff he would have never come off the way he does now--he could have protected from the right-wing onslaught that came with F911. We'd be talking about what he believes in instead of how bad a person he is.

I don't, however, know if I want idealists to get swamped up in politics--I'd rather see true idealists rise out of the collapse of the party system.

Jef

P.S.-Anyone who thinks that union workers recieve an "obscene wage" needs to seriously re-evaluate the value of their own labour. Just because a group of people have organized to control the terms of their own living conditions doesn't make them lazy or overpaid, and just because a person feels they themselves are underpaid doesn't make me lazy. Despite what the Toronto Sun might call an editorial, most people can't do my job and unions (with a very few notable exceptions) do a good job of making sure their workers are trained, safe and professional.

What is obscene? Just because someone would take the job for less doesn't make it right.

As Chris Rock said "You can drive a car with your feet if you want to-it doesn't make it a good fuckin idea!"

i guess there was a big hurricane and new orleans is flooded and ruined...it was news to me last week.

That's okay, the director of FEMA didn't know about it until late last Wednesday.

Jef

P.S.-I don't know about "fuck Phil Lesh", as if he has an obligation or something. He does seem like a bit of a whiner though.

Put Ani in a room that has a guy casually holding a machine gun and another guy menacing her with a tomato.

She may change the lyric.

Oh come on.

..and Rob Hunter obviously hates women because of Jack Straw.

Please don't remove things from their context if you're going criticize them.

The whole line is

"I sing sometimes for the war that I fight,

cause every tool is a weapon if you hold it right."

The line is about empowerment and purpose (in a woman's life if you read the whole lyric "My IQ").

The person that's making it belittle guns is the one who took it out of context.

Don't blame Ani for this.

Jef

P.S.-Thanks George, I'm sure we're all feeling better now.

Steve,

Come on in the water's fine.

Jef

P.S.-We've got issues too, though. We just drink a lot of beer and put cheese and gravy on french fries to forget.

Hey' date='

Could someone make a list of his "lies"?

The things that he said or presented that are factually wrong.

Jef[/quote']

I just woke up, but one misrepresentation was the first scene in Bowling For Columbine: Guns were never actually given out in the bank to new bank members. The guns were mailed-out. The scene was staged.

he also spliced charlton heston out of context. he was talking about the (not cancelled) NRA meeting in Colorado shortly after columbine, and showed a clip of heston holding a rifle above his head, ranting that they will "take away my gun over my cold dead body," without explaining that the clip in question was from a different meeting pre-columbine.

inaccuracies aside, the guy does make a very good point, and it's excellent fillmaking. i don't think it's necessarily legit "news" as such, but the "news" isn't much better, and moore is at least obviously biased toward the good side, and is performing a valuable fuction as loudmouth entertainer & filmmaker.

If this is actually the kind of stuff that is meant by "liar", I'll gladly bow out now too. If anyone wants my condescending, simple and obvious response to these "lies" they can PM me.

Let's talk about reality TV.

Jef