i haven’t really seen commercials for a long time.   since about 2001 i’ve downloaded most everything i’ve ever watched.  or i used tivo.  so at best i’d fast forward through commercials.

but even shows i could watch on cable with commercials, like breaking bad or mad men, i’d download rather than dvr because i didn’t have to see the ads.

i feel oddball on this because i don’t have a lot of exposure to commercials.   people often say ‘have you seen that commercial….” and i have to shut them down by saying ‘no’ or worse, i have to hear them recount the thing.  the place i get screwed is at the movies.  there you are a hostage if there’s a commercial.

anyways – commercials are what they are.  and what can you do.

i stream the daily show and the colbert report on the comedy central website because it’s faster than waiting for the shows to pop up on piratebay.  here technology screws me.  here, like at the movie theater, i’m mostly forced to watch the commercial.

there’s this dr pepper commercial that they run right now that i absolutely hate.

it’s a hum-drum commuter day and this goofy, whiny song plays.  a guy strips off his suit (the outfit of a slave working in the service of other people’s dreams, i guess) to show he’s wearing a purple tshirt that says ‘i’m one of a kind’.

a small revolution takes place wherein everyone strips to reveal that they too are secretly wearing tshirts, each one with a hip, cool slogan on them.

there’s a hot girl in a white shirt which says ‘i’m a rebel’ – although the rebel hottie is still slave to the wear-a-tshirt-with-a-slogan paradigm, apparently.

let me rant and talk about why this ad hits at everything that is wrong with consumerism in this digital age:

1 – burgers or pizza is not freedom.  that is to say, variety is not freedom of choice.  customization isn’t self expression, it’s walking death.  it’s buying into the business-based lifestyle lie that you express yourself by the shit you buy

2 – everyone in this t-shirt revolution are all dressed the same.  am i missing something?  they all start out as individuals, all different to degrees of propriety and personality as people naturally are.  but then, as they ‘gotta be me’ they strip down to reveal that they are all the same, save for a slogan.  they all love dr pepper, that’s how they know they are free.

3 – in this socially networked, twitter snipped thought-pattern society, each person is reduced to expressing themselves not just in 140 characters, but in some cute way that fits on a tshirt.  i was reminded of the line that the cop yells at the serial killer at the end of the movie seven, directed by david fincher:  “you’re a fucking t-shirt, at best”

i was going to end this by asking ‘what would your tshirt read?’ but now that i think of it, nobody stupid enough to think to express themselves that way would be curious enough to be reading my blog.

below is the ridiculous ad.

i wonder what mr pibb is up to these days?

what is bric?  it refers to the countries with emerging economies that are quickly becoming the big players on the economic horizon.   specifically they are brazil, russia, india and china.

these countries recently had their fourth summit in new delhi.

why does this matter?

it matters to us here in the west because they are trying to get away from using the euro/dollar standard of value and trade.  there are many in the bric contingency who want to use local currencies to finance bilateral trade.  instead of trading via euros and dollars they want to use their own currencies – and they are powerful enough traders to do it.

they’ve been under pressure by the world community to use IMF (international monetary fund) money to finance their growth, and to lean on the resources of the world bank.  they have been resistant.  at this latest summit, the idea of forming a ‘bric development bank’ was floated.  basically this means that they don’t want to rely on western support in any way.  they want to shut us out.

these countries are growing stronger economically than ever before.  and their GDP’s (gross domestic product) are not a hocus-pocus, derivative-based model like our western economies.  theirs are based on producing tangible products.

they seek to be free of the hegemony of the dollar, to overthrow the bretton woods financial system and institute their own means of valuation and currency.  the result for us, however, will mean a weaker dollar and very likely a lowering of everyone’s standard of living.   but, maybe we don’t deserve what we already have.  in the past, our success has largely arisen out of our imperialistic economic approach.  the world doesn’t seem to believe in our solvency anymore.  these nations are seeking out new avenues of economy, to the detriment of ours.

the bric countries are doing the smart thing:  combining their resources so that they can better dictate the terms of business in this new age. the fact that they may want to separate themselves from the euro/dollar economic systems is just an unfortunate indicator of the decline of the west.

the bric countries and the western economic leaders all seem to want one thing:  globalism.  super-country factions like bric, as well as ‘the next eleven’ (korea, mexico, indonesia, turkey, egypt, nigeria, bangladesh, pakistan, iran, the philippines and vietnam), and others are merely shoring up their resources to ensure they all get a voice in whatever is coming. who could blame them?

there are those among us who seem to think the ‘free market’ is as immutable as the word of god.  whatever the market dictates simply …. ought to be, and cannnot be bad.  but as we saw in the late 90s with the ‘asian contagion’, the free market and the financial system we’ve designed is prone to fault and even self destruction.  it can get sick.  it could even die.  think of that.

so are the bric countries and their new alliance a threat to us or even themselves?   will they merely look out for themselves simply to maximize growth and profits?  what will happen when/if they no longer need us as trading partners?  what will our economy be based on, then?   it is partially their faith that sustains us, even as they turn slightly away from us.

what will happen?

7 seasons and two (sort of) movies in, here’s my favorite scene from the trailer park boys.  i won’t explain any of it.

i guess this was the first slcnerd event.  it’s very promising.  it was in one large room at the complex in downtown salt lake city.   the stage was lit for the music and entertainment which came later.  nerd was in the air.

there were tables set up and some guys played role playing games, about which i know nothing.  i wandered from table to table listening in.  not knowing the ins and outs and hearing things out of context, some of it was downright hilarious.  but i’m sure in context and inside the games it was all serious business.

lots of local ‘nerd’ outlets were represented.  comic book stores, various podcasts, some artists and my personal favorites, the black monday society – who are guys who dress up like superheroes and purport to actually fight crime.  i wrote a review of a documentary about these types of guys not too long ago.

there were people dressed up in costume.    some guy who was 7 feet tall was chewbaca.  it wouldn’t be an event without that.  another guy was ironman.   there was a sexy catwoman wandering about.  there was a wonder woman who was adorable.  you get the idea.

i think my favorite part of the day was the larping display.  larp stands for live action role play.  they dress up, created a universe of rules and then ….. fight.  it was fun to see a girl dressed as some kind of wench heal herself while wielding a plastic sword.

the rules of larping get insanely precise.  you have to say certain things at certain times.  there’s a whole universe of powers, vulnerabilities and rules.  and the rules felt like they changed as the playing went on.

my favorite quote of the day was something like ‘what i forgot to tell you was that he is also a day vampire, but unfortunately, his opponent is also a necromancer’.  jesus….  but what fun!

slcnerd was a small event with a lot of promise.  there are some bugs to work out, some tightening maybe to do.   there was a good lineup of live entertainment at the end, but i only stayed for parts of the first two acts to perform.

i think if they can keep putting this event on, it will grow to be something amazing and totally fun – even if you aren’t a nerd.

i’m not a nerd and it was a blast.

pics i took at the event will be here when i get around to it.  that is to say, this text will become a hyperlink.  it will be blue.  is this blue?  if not, i haven’t done them yet.  however, if this text is blue, feel free to click.

below is an ever-s0-brief video i made on my iphone of some of the larping.

this past weekend was the 2 day holi – festival of colors.   in utah it is held at the sri radha temple in spanish fork, utah, which is a very cool looking structure that i’ve photographed before.

here it’s put on by some hare krishnas, who are hindu.  the festival is a celebration of spring, at it’s heart.  it is celebrated mainly by coming together, throwing colored, starchy powders on each other.  it’s fun, which is why it is growing ever larger, especially here in utah.

there was some great live music, which mostly seems repetitive and largely seems to be composed just of the words ‘hare’ and ‘krishna’, but this is not to say that i didn’t enjoy it.  mostly it was just a backdrop for the proceedings.

it was 2 bucks to get in.  but they also sold food and the colored powders.  they have a nice package deal.  even though it’s not a ‘free’ thing, it doesn’t feel like a money deal for the church.  utah is a mostly mormon state, and few in attendance were hindus, nor would they ever consider becoming hindu.

this isn’t the point of the festival.

i took pictures from the start.  i parked about two miles away on the main highway.  i could have parked much closer but i wanted to walk and mingle on the way.  walking there, with a bunch of younger, mormon-looking kids about i felt like a true pilgrim on a religious journey.  maybe i was setting myself up for what would come later.

i took pictures of the kids who were around me.  everyone seemed happy and light.  there was excited chatter about how cool it all was.

inside the proceedings i wandered about the whole place in two rotations, snapping pictures as the first color throwing began.  then i laid down in the grass by the stage and watched some people dancing and goofing off.  i became downright emotional.

i was struck at how all these people, of different backgrounds, beliefs and class came together in this joyous but senseless way.  was it senseless?

the colors and the throwing of them became somehow significant to me, although before going i had assumed it was just a fun diversion.

where ever you mingle at holi, people randomly spritz you with power.  but people were kind about it, and friendly.  i could tell that when people saw me holding my camera they took care to not douse my camera with the powder.  i had wrapped it carefully in a bag but i probably needn’t have bothered.

the colors became a living metaphor to me.  the affect we all have on each other, how we interact, the tracks of it was visible in the form of the color.  we are all the same, though we think we are different sometimes.  we have these preferences which we think define us, but which i know merely serve to separate us.  and yet, we are all unique.

i don’t think i believe in god as hindus and most religions subscribe to, but i also do think there is some kind of connective tissue that binds the manifold reality of existence.  maybe i talked myself into it but it felt tangible at the event.

indeed, there in the grass i felt like we were all one consciousness.  the auto-hypnotic, chanting music probably helped this feeling along, but still i think it was genuine.

i wondered how many others around me were feeling this same welling inside them, this same idea.   i know many came just for the novelty and the party, but there was such a positive vibe of one-ness i felt from so many i looked at that surely for some folks it ran deeper than just a wild way to spend a saturday.

some people left their colors on them all day, others were washing it off at their cars.  back in salt lake i saw people here and there with color in their hair and on their shirts and even faces.

i wondered if it was just a fun status symbol for them.   a kind of ‘yeah, i went there today’ or if it meant something deeper to them.  i hope they got something deeper out of it, because it was truly remarkable.

pictures that i took there are on my photoblog if you want to bother.

below is a short video i made, also.

i’ve listened to adam carolla since he replaced howard stern in certain radio markets back in the terrestrial radio days, which even now already sounds old fashioned.  i had never watched the man show until after this point, and have really only checked it out as a reference based on stuff he talks about on-air.

when he was on dancing with the stars, i tuned in until he was booted, after his unicycle dance routine.

he’s a comic persona, a carpenter and kind of a right wing guy.  i find his rants repetitive and his personality grating, but i have nonetheless listened to every hour of his broadcasts since his first KLSX days and will probably get around to listening to all of his lovelines stuff (which i have downloaded from giovanni) eventually.

adam carolla had a huge contract with cbs radio when they decided to fold up radio operations.  as it was, he was paid for nearly a year without having to do a radio show.  what he did instead was to do a daily podcast and literally ‘steal’ his daily audience away from the moronic network that axed him and those like him in favor of bullshit, programmed radio.

and, three years in we find that right now he’s on celebrity apprentice, with donald trump.

that he would be picked for this show seems a strange choice, because he has mocked trump openly for years.

but nonetheless – he was asked and he took the job.  i have not watched the episodes yet.

he is on the celebrity apprentice show with penn jillette.  penn is antother guy i’ve paid a lot of attention to in life.  i’ve always admired his deconstructive magic style with his partner teller, and i’ve listened to every hour of penn’s broadcasts as well (he used to do a podcast).

well – the other day on adam’s podcast, penn called in to talk about what had happened to them while filming celebrity apprentice.

in the episode, adam details not just how the nbc producers ‘cooked’ the show, edited it and presented it to look like such-and-such happened, but he and penn both went into detail about what actually went down.

apparently, adam’s agent, james ‘baby doll’ dixon, who also manages jon stewart and stephen colbert, got the call from nbc that adam had crossed the line.

this is where/why i love adam and the podcasting world in general.

adam came online the next day and said:

i’m just telling the truth …. we live in a town that is really weird … if you work on a movie, for three months with jeremy piven and he was a total douchebag and someone asks you ‘what was it like’ …. and you go ‘he was a douchebag’ everybody says ‘why you hatin’….  celebrity apprentice … they were trying to cook the show, they gave me erroneous information from the producers…. and i’m just explaining the situation

i don’t give a shit….  look … fuck nbc…. fuck buick (the company involved in the celebrity apprentice challenge) ….. fuck celebrity apprentice….. doesn’t matter

i don’t give a fuck about nbc, i don’t give a fuck if they are pissed off at me….

here’s the thing – i like the people from celebrity apprentice…. but i don’t give a shit because i’ve got YOU GUYS (referring to the podcast audience)

i like this attitude because, besides it expressing a truth about a needlessly corrupt and dishonest industry, it hints at the true nature of independent media.  adam is free to speak what he thinks because over the course of the last few years he has cultivated an audience and an income stream that allows him to be him, totally

even when he is stupidly wrong, or silly.  just like rush limbaugh.

i think adam is funny and worthwhile.  i will always listen to him, unless he goes batshit crazy in some way, whereas i’d never listen to limbaugh.

the point is, adam carolla, in the position he has crafted for himself, has nothing to lose by telling the absolute and total truth.  and it’s nice to hear as i go about my day.

i agree.  fuck nbc.  fuck buick.  fuck celebrity apprentice.  fuck adam carolla, even.  but not just yet…

‘hate crimes’ are, in essence, thought crimes.

they are anathema to freedom. what’s in someone’s head when they commit a crime is immaterial (except in aiding the establishment of the fact of the crime itself).

‘hate crime’ legislation is emotionally based nonsense. laws exist to maintain social order, not to aid in boosting societal self esteem.

over time, accepting the ‘hate crime’ approach to societal change will lead, like so many ill conceived, half-assed social remedies, to diminished freedom