Smokin' Joe

If God ever calls me to a holy war, I want Joe Frazier by my side.

--Muhammad Ali, after Ali vs. Frazier III, The Thrilla in Manila

They just don't make 'em like him anymore.

Cuts for Cooky: Lady Gaga's The Edge of Glory

I'm not a Gaga fan, but recognize her talent, although it can be hard to find through all of the gratuitous garishness of her shows and production. Take this song in its album version and it's a dance tune, but as a ballad with just her singing with piano and it's better.

Leave it to the Stern Show's long history of bringing out the best in talent, whether in interviews or performing. It just figures that after her appearance, I'd post a song of hers; it's all Stern's fault. What's missing  here is the long preamble where she goes into the genesis of the song, how it's about her grandfather who at the time was dying, and her grandmother who wouldn't leave his side. Gaga explained that she told her grandmother that he didn't want to die in front of her, that (being Italian) he was too proud. So she convinced her grandmother to leave after having been there for something like two weeks, and a couple of hours later he passed. Gaga used being on the edge as that moment when one is about to cross over.

I guess I'm a sucker for these kinds of stories, and her setup made the song moving to my sappy sentimentality. As DeNiro says to Minnelli toward the end of New York, New York; "Sappy Endings."

Funny Hurt

Sarah's story was from the 3/10/11 show @ 2:13:15

Sarah Silverman was recently on the Stern Show and said something really funny but so on point. The setup was, as usual the way Stern can make the mundane interesting and/or entertaining, and in this case, he and Sarah were riffing on being sick. What Sarah says about her experience illustrates the relationship between big American style medicine and corporate payola.




Howard: When you get on that path of antibiotics, you're ruined.


Sarah: I think you're right.


Howard: Think I'm right, I know I'm right. Have your cold, go through it for a few days. Rest up, your body needs some rest, and you'll come back stronger. This is the first cold I've had in two years, because I don't take antibiotics.


Robin: Remember the good old days when people had colds and they just took care of them?


Howard: Yeah, they died!


Sarah: I went to the doctor and he goes, "I'm going to give you anitbiotics." I go, "Are you gonna give me Biaxin?" He goes, "Yeah, how'd you know?"


I go, "Cause you have a Biaxin notepad, Biaxin pen, a Biaxin calendar..."

The Show Must Go On

Ya gotta hand it to this kid, Kate Wilson, she soldiers on. And thank god she does -- this is funnier than shit! I like the ones she tries to stifle... LMAO!


Hat tip to the Stern Show.

The Oligarchy of Sports

As I listened to Artie Lange guesting on Bubba the Love Sponge, he was of course entertaining and, as usual, poignant. Toward the end Bubba, a big sports fan, asked fellow sports nut Artie if he'd gone for the Yankees' scheme; pay $20,000 to hold your season seats for the new Yankee stadium. My transcription of that dialog - with edits - is as usual at the end of my rant.

Here's the scenario when I was a kid: I went to at least a half dozen to a dozen Laker games a season. There were so many future Hall of Fame-rs then, and I saw them all; Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell, Wilt, Rick Barry, and my fave, Elgin Baylor... I am this old; I saw the Lakers play first at the Sports Arena. I did that up until about the age of 12. Then they moved to a bigger arena.

Sports then weren't dominated by athletes looking to get paid for endorsing some jerkoff sugar water. I suppose with what little most of them made then I wouldn't begrudge them if they had. But the air was unassuming then, so much so that a kid could hang around after the game and get all of their autographs - save for Russell and Chamberlain who never signed - which I still have on programs socked away somewhere. With the move to the Forum in '67, things changed. Much nicer venue, higher prices - but still in the ghetto. Jack Kent Cook - who'd go on to own the Redskins (a horrible name) - was the money and the man behind the move.

My last great memory associated with the Lakers is '88, when they were going for the first back-to-back championship in 20 years since the Celts. We didn't think we had a chance at tickets, and I didn't want to hassle going to the box office with all of the yahoos and scalpers. But my friend Linda went and got two tickets - one for game 6, one for game 7. That's all they had, singles. She asked me which one I wanted, and I said she should pick since she was the one who went through the trouble; she took game 7.

Game six is my favorite sports experience. The Forum was packed, the game was a classic, and produced one of the most jaw-dropping performances I've ever witnessed by a human being:

One of Piston guard Isiah Thomas' career-defining performances came in Game 6. Despite badly twisting his ankle midway through the period, Thomas scored a still-NBA Finals record 25 third quarter points, as Detroit fell valiantly, 103-102, to the Lakers at the Forum.
-from the Wiki on the '88 Finals

At one point, when the Lakes - both teams really - were whipping the crowd into a frenzy, it got so loud that the young couple beside me who I'd befriended and I tried shouting to each other to no avail.

I think we got those seats for under 30 bucks each. They weren't great seats, but this was the Finals. It was history in the making. And it was a classic matchup.

Sports have provided so many moments seared into my being that to me, life is kind of colorless without them. I mean, I love art in all of its forms, but for my money, nothing matches the intensity and elation of sports at its best. Let alone really good books or docs on sports - HBO's Real Sports being some of the best filmmaking around. Then there's playing sports, because if you play consistently and long enough the odds are that you'll experience "the zone" at least a few times. That's a remarkable thing.

Just last year, Fish got tickets for the playoffs. It was the first round, Denver, and they were good seats through one of her company's clients. I hadn't been to the Staples Center in a few years for a Laker game, although I'd seen the Clippers a few times, but any team that has had Benoit Benjamin start for them, well, that doesn't count.

Sports today, the business of sports, like everything else, is about spamming you relentlessly to cram consumerism down your throat and up your ass. The sheer amount of wattage running all of the spam signs in Staples could power Kobe's ego for a week. And for me, a lifelong Laker fan who's been priced out but who helped build their fucking business, it's bittersweet at best.

I don't like Kobe, I think many have problems with him but are cowed because he's a superstar. But what else explains why Shaq - arguably the most dominant player in the league then - would leave when by my estimation they could have won 2 possibly even 3 more after already three-peating?

The Lakers of today are a name only, or a commodity, a thing that's used - for status, not for enjoying. There's a thrill when you hear a band that you like; but it's so much more when you see them play live. TV and sports are cool, but watching a live game, being in that atmosphere, particularly as a kid, it's indescribable. And I would have loved to share that with Renee, but the Lakers fucked the very fans who made them what they are.

And still, the Lakers of today are nothing like the great 80's or even the struggling 70's teams (with the exception of the '71 championship team which is really an extension of the 60's team), let alone the classic 60's. Today it's all very in your face crass, impersonal, all about money and that just kills what sports used to be about - the real fans enjoying their team. It's Lamar - pay me 14 mil and watch as I fuckin' disappear - Odom. It's Kobe jackin up 20 footers with the team standing around just watching, about as interesting to watch as the jerkoff business people in the corporate boxes sipping fuckin' chardonnay or whatever their lame-o candy asses like. It's depressing.

No, the Lakers, they've broken cardinal rule number one of the streets; don't forget where you came from.

Just like our government and these jerkoff corporations are giving a big "fuck you" to all those from the working class who had grandparents and older generations claw their way over and literally build this fucking country. My grandparents' generation for one are stomping and yelling from their graves, but it's one quality of being a complete fucknut that you can't have a conscience.

No, the Lakers, much like Artie Lange's Yankees, have given a great big resounding finger to us from the working class, the real fans, and opted for the Hollywood jerkoffs who take their blonde bimbo with the fake everything because the Laker game is where you go to be seen. It's sad; the Laker game has become a circle jerk beauty pageant. God forbid you should get distracted by a basketball game.

Oh, as Fish and I drove up to Staples for that playoff game, I saw what for me was the most astounding representation of just how lame sports are today. As we passed a parking lot right off of Fig, I believe, there was a small parking lot almost directly across from the arena. In the lot were nothing but Lexuses, Audis, Benzes, Beemers, Bentleys, limos... a sign read: $40.

Sports are supposed to be fun, not getting you to whip out your wallet to corporations. For god's sakes, it's supposed to be something working class kids can have in their otherwise deprived lives of not being able to shop on Montana Avenue, but these shitheads don't care. It's like the kid who comes to a marble game and wants all the marbles so that no one else can play except whom he deems. The league, owners and corporations have all conspired and now only the kids in Beverly Hills and Brentwood can go, or those with parents who have connections. It's just mean and sad.

What's become of the world?

From Bubba the Love Sponge, 3/20/09 – guest, Artie, at about 1:07:45; transcribed & edited by jp
Note: Artie's a multi-millionaire, and Bubba's not poor by any means. Still, their working class roots keep them grounded. Spice is Bubba's sidekick.

Bubba: Did you cough up the extra money, just the fuckin’ outlandish amount of money they’re making people lay down for a seat deposit for the new Yankee Stadium?

Artie: Unfortunately man, I did.

Bubba: My god. Can I ask at all what that seat deposit was?

A: Well I’m splittin’ it with uh…

B: (Astounded) Man…

A: …with two other guys who I’ve always split it with. My cut now… in the old stadium, I had amazing seats; I had five rows behind third base, and I had ‘em for ten years. And, uh, you know, throughout the World Series and everything, they cost me, I had ta lay out about twenty g’s. But, when the Yankees are good, you know, back then they cracked down on this now you can’t do it anymore because, you know, huh, the Yankess don’t want you scalping tickets, not because of any ethical reasons because they fuckin’

B: Resell ‘em!

A: Exactly. So they wrote me a letter threatening to take my fuckin’ tickets away because… to a legal scalper, no bullshit…

B: A ticket broker.

A: Yeah, a ticket broker. So, uhm, I was laying out twenty grand but back when they didn’t give a shit about that you could make money on the fuckin’ deal because it was like a part-time job, the Yankees were that good. So you’re not allowed to do that anymore, so obviously, I’m not gonna sell tickets to anybody, cuz fuck it.

B: You have the same seats or no?

A: Okay, twenty g’s for five rows behind third. In the new stadium, okay? I’m now ten rows behind third because five rows back are all corporations. You can’t even get near it.

B: Not even close, huh?

A: And, it would have been two hundred grand.

COLLECTIVE: OOOO!

B: AIG needs that bailout money to get those.

A: Yeah. That includes the vig they charged everybody…

B: Jesus…

A: So now, going back another five to seven rows, I’m like around the tenth or twelfth row, I gotta see, behind third, still downstairs, not bad, uh, I laid out… sixty five thousand.

COLLECTIVE: OH!

B: That was only one third.

A: Yeah.

B: That would make me no longer a Yankee fan.

A: And I did it reluctantly. I actually told my friend who I do it with all the time, I said you know what?, cuz I hate A Rod, I just don’t like the guy, uh you know, he’s got no rings with the Yanks yet…

B: Missing in October.

A: Right exactly. I said this on Letterman, I said I got no problem with A Rod doing steroids, but clearly he stops doing ‘em October first.

B: It’s the truth.

LAUGHTER

A: If you’re gonna do ‘em do ‘em all fuckin’ year brother. I mean, Jesus. So uh, I’m an underdog kinda guy too like you guys, the Yanks were the one frontrunner I always liked. But it’s even getting nauseating for me with the A Rod. You know Jeter doesn’t like him, uh, he’s out for a couple of months. I don’t care if Scott Brosius is drunk with a big huge gut somewhere, and I don’t know if he drinks at all, I’m just saying if he is somewhere, just bring him back. I like Brosius better. Bring back Graig Nettles who I know drinks, I love Nettles, he’s the best! Dig up Clete Boyer’s bones, 1960’s guy who fuckin’ died.

B: Just prop him up there.

A: So … I almost said, “You know what? Fuck these motherfuckers”…

Spice: Cuz they’re fuckin’ the fans is what they’re doin’.

A: And I have a venue to say it. I almost wanted to say “Fuck the tickets” and then get on the air …

B: And say it.

A: …and say “Look, this is why I’m not doin’ it.”

B: Yeah. It’s highway fuckin’ robbery.

S: If you’re an average fan no way can you go to the game.

A: My old man climbed roofs for a livin’ man, I don’t think he ever made sixty five thousand dollars in a year, and he’s the one who got me into the Yankees, that’s what the Yankees were born on.

B: But you know, your dad, back in the day, he could still take his boy to the ball game.

A: That’s what I’m saying.

S: None of these corporate assholes are true Yankees fans from back in the day.

A: The story I tell in the book about when [my dad] threw me on the field, the Reggie Jackson game…

B: I remember that!

S: That’s great…

A: Now we sent away for tickets, World Series game, game six, he sent away in the middle of the season, cuz the Yanks had played the Reds in the series, got killed the year before, but, he took a chance, he said, “You know what? I’m gonna send away through the mail for tickets.” We got nosebleed seats cuz they came through the mail, last row of the upper deck behind third base. I remember Graig Nettles looked like a speck – not a spic, a speck – it was the South Bronx. So I can remember, that’s where a guy, right in front of my father, you talk about a different time, the ‘70’s, a guy asked me to hold his beer while he rolled a joint.

LAUGHTER

A: Ten years old I had a contact high cost my old man $80 in hot dogs. I still have those ticket stubs, it’s a shit seat, last row the upper deck, but this is a World Series game. TEN BUCKS A PIECE.

B: Yep!

S: God that’s cool…

B: And a guy could afford to take your boy to the ball game.

A: Oh! You know who you see at the Yankees games now? Guys in suits who get there in the third inning and leave in the seventh…

B: With their fuckin’ Blackberrys...

A: Or some rich kid in a polo shirt with khaki fuckin’ shorts whatever the fuck…

B: Penny loafers…

A: Right. In the ‘70’s and even into the mid 80’s you saw guys who just worked for the city somewhere, you saw a fireman, a cop, a plumber. Or guys like my father, I remember my father taking me to a Yankee game right from work. He had sheet rock on his arm and insulation, and he’d wash up in the fuckin’ sink at Yankee Stadium, and hold me up to take a piss in the sink.
…
A: But yeah, that’s it man. Can you believe that? Sixty five g’s I’m payin’. And I’m not allowed to sell ‘em anymore. I mean they’re just rape… They’re telling the blue collar fan to fuck off, and the Jets and the Giants both did it too. It’s a fuckin’ shame.

Bad Bet, or Bad Beat? Higher Education by the Numbers

As long as I'm touting "the gambler's way," which is basically applying gambling/probability in order to make decisions about the world, I should apply it to education. Being of the worker bee class, I can remember when my friends and I would balk at our fees and all of the other associated costs of higher education in America.

Then there was grad school stories. I distinctly remember when Devon called me one summer from Harvard Law; my jaw dropped when he told me what the numbers were. Luckily, Dev's a smart cookie, and doing quite well. But talk about dodging bullets.

And that was then.

Like everything else, college costs have exploded, and the amount of debt a person incurs now before even becoming gainfully employed is a "mini-bubble" that I've always felt unsustainable. As with all bubbles, the chickens eventually come home to pop them, to mix aphoristic metaphors.

To "do the math," as gamblers would say, we're lucky to have James Altucher, who's a pretty accomplished hedge fund wiz. After his recent article - which I was tipped off to by Howard Stern - there's an earlier blog post from February '08 by Altucher which, though not as analytical from the numbers perspective, is much more aggressive as a rhetorical argument.

I'd like to hear his take on entrepreneurship, which he advocates instead. The first article treats that a bit blithely, and you can trip and fall big time in that arena as the vast majority of businesses fail in year one, and the vast majority that get to year two also fail then. So, I agree with his prescription, I'd just like to see what he thinks should be a support system for entrepreneurs. But that's a minor thing in relation to the theme; both are good articles, and I couldn't agree more.

The NY Post, at:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/school_of_hard_cash_ep3MueBoMIiUqVe8uDAwmK


SCHOOL OF HARD CASH
Biz degree is bad investment

By JAMES ALTUCHER
Last Updated: 3:58 AM, November 1, 2009
Posted: 12:59 AM, November 1, 2009

Somehow I went wrong as a father -- the other day my two daughters informed me they eventually want to go to college.

I said, "No way!" and they attempted to argue with me. I have no problem with them talking back to me but somehow they've been brainwashed by society into thinking that college is a good thing for intelligent, ambitious young people to do.

Let's look at the basic facts about higher education.

The average tuition cost is approximately $26,000 per year -- including $10,000 in living costs, books, etc. -- or roughly $104,000 for a four-year program.

Some people choose to go to more expensive private colleges and some people choose to go to cheaper public schools, but this is an average. Also, a huge assumption is that it's just for four years.

According to the Department of Education, only 54 percent of undergraduates get their diploma within six years. So for the 46 percent that don't graduate -- or take 10 years to graduate -- this is a horrible investment. But let's assume your children are in the brilliant first half who finish within six years -- and hopefully within four.

Is it worth it?

First, let's look at it from a purely monetary perspective. Over the course of an individual's lifetime, according to the College Board, a college graduate can be expected to earn $800,000 more than his counterpart that didn't go to college -- $800,000 is a big spread, and could potentially separate the haves from the have-nots.

But who has and who doesn't?

If I took that $104,000 and invested it in a savings account that had an annual interest income of 5 percent I'd end up with an extra $1.4 million over a 50-year period -- $600,000 more then a sheepskin-toting peer. [emphasis mine]

That $600,000 is a lot of extra money an 18-year-old could look forward to in her retirement. I also think the $800,000 quoted above is too high. Right now most motivated kids who have the interest and resources to go to college think it's the only way to go if they want a good job. If those same kids decided to not go to college my guess is they would quickly close the gap on that $800,000 spread.

There are other factors as well. I won't be spending $104,000 per child when my children, ages 10 and 7, decide to go to college. College costs have historically gone up much faster than inflation. [emphasis mine] Since 1978, the cost of living has gone up three-fold. Medical costs, much to the horror of everyone in Congress, have gone up six-fold. And college education has gone up a whopping tenfold. This is beyond the housing bubble, the stock market bubble, any bubble you can think of. [emphasis mine]

So how can people afford college? Well, how has the US consumer afforded anything? They borrow, of course. The average student now graduates with a $23,000 debt burden, up from $13,000 12 years ago. Last year, student borrowing totaled $75 billion, up 25 percent from the year before. [emphasis mine]

If students go on to graduate degrees such as law degrees they can see their debt burden soar to $200,000 or more. And the easy borrowing convinces colleges that they can raise prices even more. So what should people do instead?

One idea: start a business. You don't need to be an entrepreneur to get valuable experience selling a service, or buying some set of goods cheap and selling them expensive. A year or two of that will be a substantial education in salesmanship, finance, and how to deal with the ups and downs of any business.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Financial Times, at:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5554c882-d90d-11dc-8b22-0000779fd2ac.html

College a waste of time and money for kids

By James Altucher
Published: February 12 2008 02:00 | Last updated: February 12 2008 02:00

Last week I made an off-the-cuff comment in my column that stirred up several e-mails asking if I was serious. What I said was that I had no intention of sending my kids to college. I was dead serious. I find the thought of college abhorrent, particularly for 18- to 20-year-olds. Kids have a lot of energy at that point, and to deaden it with a forced, unsupervised diversity of random topics taught by mostly mediocre professors is a waste of that energy.

I can't remember anything good coming from my freshman year - other than starting a business with a few of my classmates, which inspired me for subsequent businesses.

We set up a company called "CollegeCard", which offered debit cards to college students. This was 1987, before credit cards were common for college kids. Parents would send us money, which we'd deposit in the student's account with us, and the students could then use their cards up to that amount. My role was to convince every business in town not only to accept our card but also to offer discounts to its users. At night I ran the delivery business, which delivered from every restaurant that accepted our card. I was notoriously incapable of generating any tips, though one of my partners, Wende Biggs (daughter of Barton) always got great tips. (I had an unrequited crush on her.) Thankfully, she'll never read this because she now lives on a farm in France.

Here is what's wrong with college.

First, and foremost, it's too expensive. To send a kid to college you need from $200,000 to $400,000. That's insane. There's no way the incremental advantage they get from having a diploma will ever pay back that amount. Perhaps for the first time the opportunity cost (a phrase I remember from Economics 101) of college does not equal the extra profits generated by the degree.

Second, I don't believe in a balanced education. Most colleges require students to take a smattering of art, maths, sciences and so forth. Taking 10 courses a year on wildly different topics, with enormous homework responsibilities, not to mention droning, boring professors for at least eight of the 10, is the surest formula for creating complete non-interest and inability to remember anything in any of the topics covered. What a waste of $400,000.

And third, there are far better uses of time. One reader asked what her kid should be doing instead of college. Here are some of my responses:

1. Working - not just a labour or service job, but there are internet-content jobs out there. I have high school and college kids working for me who are making over $50,000 a year from writing gigs on the internet. Scour Craigslist for opportunities, your favourite blogs, or websites related to your favourite interests. Companies are dying for good content. Create your own blog, get yourself noticed, build relationships with other content companies and communities.

2. Take half the fee for one semester, give it to your kid, and tell him or her to start a business. Not every youngster has entrepreneurial sensibilities, but it's always worth trying once. The cost for starting a business is next to zero, so it's a viable alternative. What business should they start? For one thing, now that Facebook and MySpace have open development platforms, try out a few applications for these platforms; for a few hundred dollars you can outsource development of these applications to India, and get your friends to start trying them. Make sure they are viral (that is, a message should appear "click here to get all your friends to try XYZ") and see which ones are a success. I mention Facebook and MySpace because every kid is familiar with these sites and comfortable with the subtleties, and it's this comfort that can create the best businesses.

3. Spend a year trying to become good at one thing. Whatever your child's greatest interest is, whether cooking, chess, writing, maths, there are so many resources on the internet available for learning that college is almost the last place a kid should go to pursue a passion. Intense immersion in a favourite topic is the surest way to become an expert in that field.

And what about travel? Well, I'm not a big believer in that unless it's completely supervised. There's plenty of time to travel later in life. But right at home there's a plethora of opportunities that can far exceed the value of a college education at a 10th of the cost, and lead to greater experience and opportunities in career, wisdom, and life development.

james@formulacapital.com

Shove It

Via Robin on the Stern Show, I learned about teen embedding. When I showed my daughter several stories about teen embedding - where teens have self-mutilated by putting objects such as paper clips and crayons under their skin - she just shook her head in dismay. Google "teen embedding" and you'll see the stories.

It's not so much that teens are fucked up these days, that's normal; I think it's an expression of these times. It may as well be self-amputation, which also occurs. People are shocked but let's not forget that the practice of trepanation has been around a long time. So it's clear that humans have long self-mutilated.

The difference maker is that humans also have large brains; we evolve. Things such as social constructions like racism are systems that have come under scrutiny and we process through them, however imperfectly, yet we continue to make moves, both symbolic and real.

As an old fart, Ive regaled my daughter about what it was like to be alive in the crucible of the 60's and 70's. And I think I've been honest with her when I say that hippies were full of a bunch of goofy shit, but they also got up off their asses and helped stop an insane war, bounce a criminal out of the presidency and fought hard for civil rights and women's rights.

We also were fortunate to have a very active base of activist athletes and artists (film, music and literature in particular) who were plugged in and pumping out messages that spoke to us on the level of the social-political hurricane swirling around us. Without the slightest hint of romance, I can say that there was something in the air.

Today, my daughter finds her generation full of ennui, entitlement and a complete lack of awareness of history. I was talking to one of her friends who's in his 20's and I asked him if he knew who Robert Oppenheimer was, or J. Edgar Hoover, or what the New Deal was. It was shocking, but not surprising that he didn't know, much less showed any interest.

Thing is, it's really not all their fault; education here is a travesty. Kids come out of college and have absolutely no working knowledge of financial systems, much less political systems, and how history has shaped them and impacts the world, and thus their lives. Everyone, via dumbya's boneheaded "No Child Left Behind" program, teaches to rote memorization and test taking, and our kids come out of it beaten up, bored to death, uninspired and automatonic. The drop out rate is appalling in the hood; in East LA, it's probably over 30%, and I guarantee you if that were happening in Beverly Hills or Malibu, parents would be storming their respective city halls and heads would be rolling. But because it's disenfranchised brown mudpeeps, it's a non-subject.

It's tragic, really, when you hear someone such as a western European speaking English and their command is superior to that of a lot of our kids. And while everyone stresses reading as a fundamental skill, and indeed it's important, writing is a lost art. Forget it, it's gone, left to the few.

My father, in his last days, taught cons in medium security; his goal was to bring them up to high school equivalency. He had a wide range in ages, from 18 to old vets, lifers, and one day he asked me what I thought was the average literacy rate of his students. I thought about somewhere in high school. He then told me one of the most shocking things I've ever heard, that it was probably around 5th grade level, if that. Many were illiterate, others, functionally so. Of course, they were all black and brown.

In the midst of EM08, which is distracting everyone by continuing to throw up all over us, there is an American travesty that's been in the works for decades. Thing is, we know what to do. Programs such as "Head Start" which worked with pre-schoolers, have all but shown conclusively that they work well. Too many studies have shown that kids benefit by learning other languages and art, such as music - their academic achievement rises and they grow up to be healthier, more well-adjusted people.

Instead, we have bred generation after generation of disenchanted young people, and embedding is but one way they seek to feel, to live, or reach out for something. Talk about sustainability; these kids are a "resource" of the most precious kind, and we're wasting it like there's no tomorrow.

Churchill had a great quote about how crazy we are: "America always makes the right decision after they've exhausted every other possibility." I'm not sure in this case, because as George Carlin points out, the owners of this country want education dumbed down real good. George said, "It's called 'The American Dream,' because you have to be asleep, to believe it."

Truly.

The Biggest Thugs

I'm hopeful for B-rack, but the reality is that we are spiraling out of control. Make no mistake; what's going on in Amerikkka is nothing less than the biggest thugs committing the largest heist in history. For those of you who read here, I urge you to tune in to CNN's Lou Dobbs, virtually alone in the mainstream media in his unabashed calling out of this theft.

Remember, the mainstream media has a major role in this. They are a sham, when so much is at stake, they are not informing us of the reality happening right now.

Before he was elected, Howard Stern said that dumbya would bankrupt the country. Howard Stern! That has now come true, and dumbya's new record low approval rating does little to console a country out of control. Folks, if someone doesn't do something to reign in Congress to let them know this is insane, we are selling my daughter's generation down the river. And that pisses me off. It should piss you off as well.

And if it doesn't, you need to ask yourself and everyone you know why it doesn't.

Note to B-rack; you need to consult with David Cay Johnston. Now.

Courtesy of Dobbs today, here are the points every American needs to be aware of, the first major deconstruction of AIG:

$85 Billion for the first looting

$60 Billion for the second looting

NOW they are asking for an additional $27 Billion because AIG is struggling to meet the terms of its agreements.

"more money, cheaper rates, more flexible terms - it's historic, in US financial markets, where one institution has this much money available to it."
-Bill Bergman, Morningstar

Reduced interest rate on $60B as a result of this re-structuring

FED buys:

$40 Billion of preferred stock to be bought by treasury

$22 Billion from Fed to buy "toxic loans" ie: mortgage-backed securities

$30 Billion to guarantee credit default swaps, ie: unregulated insurance contracts that are in reality ultra risky bets, the highest stakes gambling in history.

==================

In the background, GM hits 60 year low for share price; bailiouts now heard... haven't they received 25B already???

In Homage: KOAM & Gang - A Fan's Appreciation

I've been watching Howard Stern and posse for over 20 years. I began listening - regularly - for about 10 years, and now we're on the horizon of a new dawn, because tomorrow marks the end of an era: Howard Stern, the King of All Media, makes his historic move to Sirius, and with it, closes a chapter on one of the most remarkable careers in ANY medium.

This week was nostalgic: KC came back yesterday and Jackie came back today. The walk down memory lane was really something... you think back to all those mornings when you didn't want to wake up, drag your ass out of bed... and then you'd put the show on, and one minute it's the Wack Pack, the next it's a leader of the KKK, the next Jose Canseco's talking about players he's juiced - and naming names!!! - the next Howard and Gary are fighting, REALLY going at it, for 15 or 20 minutes, and the bottom line is it's all compelling and super entertaining.

There's a famous commercial that KLSX in LA used to run - and I assume Inifinity ran it nationwide - where the announcer would say that the average Howard Stern fan listens for 2 hours. The reason? They want to see what happens next.

Today, late in the second to the last day on terrestrial radio, they played the "What a Wonderful Guy" parody song based on Pops' rendition of "What a Wonderful World." Robin, Gary, Artie... all had stanzas. And there I was sitting at a desk, overlooking the Pacific, and I'm getting ... choked up. MAN!!!

It's hard to convey to non-fans what this show means to me and millions of others familiar with the gang.

This is one fan's heartfelt appreciation.

Howard and gang - thanks for all the times when you brought life into drudgery, and light into the darkness that is the everyday workplace we working stiffs inhabit. You exist for us, not the hoity toity. I can't even convey how many times I've looked up at fellow workers and watched them while they toiled, while you and the gang were there inside my head, entertaining me to bits.

That is priceless stuff.

Some - perhaps many - of my relatives and friends will question this post. Even with my heartfelt sentiments. That's okay, because this isn't about them.

Tomorrow the terrestrial door closes, and the one on the final frontier opens - what a fitting metaphor. And I'm sure greater times await, but oh man, what memories we have.

One never forgets the skies of one's youth...

See you on the other side, Howard. And Robin, and Gary, and Artie, and Fred, and Benjy, and Scott the Engineer, and Blue Iris, and BEETLEJUICE, and High pitch, and ...

Set Sail...

This is for all of my ranting and raving on subjects that... I want to rant and rave about.

"Deep Thoughts"? Kinda. Sorta. Sometimes. Maybe.

A theme? Hmmm, maybe, inequality. But if I stray, so be it.

That's it. Nothing witty, incisive, curmudgeonly, smarmy, post-post-modern... yet. Instead, I'll take a note from my sista Van in Can, and for now give you a capsulized "What JP's about"in the form of a Top 10 off the top of my head...

1. I love to laugh and run the gamut - self-deprecating, political, toilet/animal house, cerebral thinking person's (I guess Carlin and Bruce), to the classics - Foxx, Carlin - and the neo-classics - Rock, Lawrence, Tucker, Chappelle. Huge Stern fan, altho I know he's problematic at times, he is consistently entertaining - from a male gaze pov certainly - and delivers the most incredible interviews beyond anything out there. Just listen to his interview with Jose Canseco regarding his book, "Juiced," if you don't believe me.

2. Movies. I was born in Hollywood, right on Sunset Blvd. So in a away I am a true child of "The Business," but don't believe the hype. Surf to my blog on filmmaking at: http://sibmovies.blogspot.com/ to see what I mean.

3. I like entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs distinguish themselves from business people. Can you think of how they do this?

4. I'm really against the corporatization of the world. EVERYTHING is SPAM SPAM SPAM, SPAM THIS, SPAM THAT. Geezus, I feel like I live in Hawaii. What next, a brand for homeless people? What about: "Disenfran: For the unlucky in all of us..."

5. Sports - Hoops, football, boxing, UFC, tennis. Greatest athletes: Ali, Magic, Jordan, Isiah Thomas, Jack Tatum, Ilie Nastase, John McEnroe. Special mention: Royce Gracie getting an opponent to tap out while turned upside down. (He did it with an arm bar) Most under-rated: Larry Holmes.

6. Politics - I should keep up more, but I like it. But I don't like what's going on these days...

7. Reading - Avid reader. Don't read fiction anymore, although my fave novel is "Invisible Man." Fave entrepreneurial story: J.B. Strasser's and Laurie Becklund's, "Swoosh: The Unauthorized Story of Nike and the Men who Played There." If you want to get really pissed, check out David Cay Johnston's, "Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else." And the "liberal media" tag? Doesn't apply - Johnston's a registered Republican. Gotcha!

8. Related to #4, mass media - more accurately, the relationship between mega-corporations, mass media and consumers, and how that defines free flow of info on a mass scale. Seven mega-corporations now control the vast majority of mass media worldwide: Film, music, television, radio, Internet, newspapers, books, and magazines. They are: AOL-Time Warner, Viacom, Walt Disney, NBC/Universal, Sony, News Corp, and Bertelsmann. Of note, the wireless industry is considered by many to be the next media pipeline, and is now exhibiting the same pattern of consolidation with the recent acquisition (as of February, 2004) of AT&T Wireless by Cingular Wireless, creating the largest wireless entity yet. Later, Sprint and Nextel merged as a result of the market pressures. Also noteworthy is the fact that as of midyear, 2004, Vivendi Universal became NBC/Universal and in reality a General Electric company. Thus, a mega-corporation was assimilated by another, larger entity. Readers are urged to seek out a copy of the PBS produced segment of “Frontline,” entitled, “The Merchants of Cool,” one of the best documentaries on marketing in the modern age that explains the relationship between mega-corporations, mass-media and consumers. For more, see:
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool

9. I like the gals at www.snarkywood.com - cruel and chicken-haided as they come, more often than not funny.

10. I tried to avoid this because it's trite. Oh well. Some of my fave flicks: Il Conformista (perennial top 3 feature film), The Eye of the Storm (PBS), Thirst (PBS), Lone Wolf and Cub (series), Zatoichi (series), That Obscure Object of Desire, A Place in the Sun, Giant, The Wild Bunch, Junior Bonner, Vertigo (the Hollywood studio system's most intensely personal film) The Godfather, Network, Chameleon Street, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (financed by Quaker Oats Co.!), The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao (Yes, Tony Randall's in yellow face), Chinatown, Brian DePalma's Scarface, Stranger Than Paradise, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Nightmare on Elm Street, Taxi Driver, New York New York,The King of Comedy, Raging Bull,

Bonus item - #11. - My dad was born in Hawaii, and I have relatives there. I love tikis.

Ok, I gotta post this or else it'll never get "borned"...