Getting Fornicated

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Tuesday, November 20. 2007

So, Neil Diamond’s hit single, “Sweet Caroline,” was inspired by Caroline Kennedy (Schlossberg), daughter of President Kennedy. Who’da guessed? Many of us had a secret crush on Caroline, the quiet Kennedy. Rich, beautiful — still, at 50! — every man’s (boy’s) dream of the glory train! Ladies, you pined for John-John—so openly, so shamelessly—while we boys quietly lusted for Caroline, afraid that our carnal—and maybe romantic—fantasies would get us labeled as pervs.
 Okay, there is more than enough evidence to more than suggest I’m a perv, but that’s beside the point.

Here’s another bit of celebrity news: The Red Hot Chili Peppers are suing Showtime for using the term “Californication” and the name “Dani California” in their new series, Californication, starring David Duchovny. I wondered about that when Showtime began advertising the new series a few months ago and when I started watching it, looked for any homage to the Chili Peppers in the credits, or even just the use of the songs somewhere in the series. Nada.

The show’s creator, Tom Kapinos, told newsies he got the idea for the show title from hearing about bumper stickers from the 70’s prevalent in Oregon, that said, “Don’t Californicate Oregon,” even though that was before his time, before he was politically or socially aware of things like the urban creep of Los Angeles and California. Yeah, right. And I never got a woody looking at photos of Caroline Kennedy.

Californication is the Chili Peppers biggest, most successful recording to date, even bigger than Blood Sugar Sex Majick. I have both on my iPod. Think I’ll listen to the offended album now, while I write.
 Heck, I’ll make it the soundtrack for viewing the photos on my iPod.

There will be a settlement and Kapinos and Showtime and go ahead with the second season, if they don’t get sued by the members of the Band, for using the term “Last Waltz” for the first season’s final episode. The Peppers will get their due, the filthy lucre! Deservedly so.

Got a Chili Peppers story: in 1984, maybe ’85, who can be sure, when they embarked on one of their first, if not their first, tour of the United States, they basically had the clothes on their backs, their gear and some crappy vehicles. Or one crappy vehicle. Can’t remember. Anyway, they played the dorms at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee — for effin free if I’m not mistaken, or so little money it might as well had been free — and they couldn’t afford food.

Well, the guy who booked entertainment for the dorms was a friend and I was the head cook for the dorm kitchen. You see where this is going. So after the students had been fed I arranged for the Chili Peppers, including Hillel Slovak and Jack Irons, to at least get a meal out of the deal. Anthony Keidis, Flea, if you read this, I’ve been a fan ever since and what the heck, throw a little love my way.

Ah … entertainment news, other than Britney being a bad Mom and Lindsey being a bad … girl? I like bad girls, in a good, mature sort of way. Yeah … right. And Tom Kapinos didn’t get the idea for his Showtime series from the Chili Peppers 1999 hit.

But the “real” news rambles on. It is real. We are so inured to life in these United States we don’t notice how the crumbling housing market is beginning to crush the U.S. economy; the higher prices at the stores, the longer lines at the food pantries for the poor—more bodies in the homeless shelters—and still we ramble on, glued to the celebrity news like never before, lost in our MySpace world (or facebook, etc) hoping it will all go away.

It always goes away, doesn’t it? After Reagan’s disastrous years as president, didn’t things get better? At least for a little while? Reagan’s foreign policy decisions set the stage for what we are facing today and the effin yahoo sitting in the captain’s chair at the White House is trying to extend that gross miscalculation of judgment — and succeeding I might add.

But not without casualties of his own.

Bush’s Homeland Security Advisor, not the Homeland Security Secretary, resigned her post. Didn’t know she, or her job, existed? Secrecy man! Don’t want the world to know there’s someone advising the president in these important matters. Why, if there is a secretary of Homeland Security, is there a Homeland Security advisor? Guess a president can’t have too many voices to complete the confused and incompetent administration of his Administration.
 Can incompetent administration ever really be completed? If it doesn’t continue, the confused administration, does just hanging there like a voting ballot chad left dangling in the wind constitute completion or cutting and running? Questions, questions, question.

Fran Townsend has been on TV talking up the president’s confused policies before, even on networks other than Fox. But, no one’s really paid much attention to her, judging from the Google search. But, why focus on the White House Hottie when we have stories like Alberto Gonzalez and Donald Rumsfeld to kick around! So, it wasn’t secrecy that kept Townsend low on the radar.

She says FEMA is much better now, after Katrina. So, explain why FEMA went from being one of the best disaster relief agencies in the world to the worst. How did that happen, Fran? It all occurred on your watch. Kinda bugs me: the newsies who get paid the big bucks to interrogate the newsmakers haven’t asked her that question.

She’s real good at explaining why she and the president’s administration created and use the term Islamic Fascists: “Regardless of what label you pin on it, it is this form of radical extremism that really wants to deny people freedom and impose a totalitarian vision of society on everyone.”

So, pick a term that insults the adherents to the most widespread religion on the planet. You may be a hottie Fran, but yer fucked up in the head.

Press Secretary Dana Perino — I love Dana! — said the additions of Michael Mukasey as Attorney General and Ed Gillespie as White House counselor where proof the administration wouldn’t be hurt by the departure of Bush’s “top talent.” You gotta be kidding me! If Townsend, Gonzalez, Rumsfeld and Harriet fuckin Myers were Bush’s “top talent,” it makes you shudder thinking about how that administration was run. And Ed Fuckin’ Gillespie! Formerly the chair of the Republican National Committee, the same RNC that approved and paid for the racist television ad against Congressman Harold Ford, Jr., when he was campaigning to be the senator for Tennessee.

Not to mention the CIA fiasco. Do you remember? How do you wreak havoc on the Central Intelligence Agency? appoint Porter Goss the director.

We’re fucked.

Posted by Tim Forkes in NEWS and POLITICS at 12:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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