notes from behind the coffee counter

Jim Carroll, Poet and Punk Rocker Who Wrote ‘The Basketball Diaries’, Dies at 60

I remember seeing him in New York when I was a kid. Wasn’t a big fan of punk then but really appreciated his work, especially his music. (And yes I did read his book, “Basket ball Diaries.”) Catholic Boy [iTunes Link] was one of the first albums I bought on the iTunes Store. His song “People Who Died” was my first real introduction to the New York punk scene. Like I said I wasn’t actually into that scene (I was a metalhead but we didn’t call it metal in those days, it was just rock) but because of him and catching his live performance I learned to appreciate other genres of Rock (including New Wave at the time.) He was probably one the all time great punk rockers from New York.

We’ll miss you, Jim.

“I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth; banks are going bust; shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter; punks are running wild in the street, and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it.

We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat. And we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be!

We all know things are bad — worse than bad – they’re crazy.

It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we’re living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, “Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.”

Well, I’m not going to leave you alone.

I want you to get mad!

I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot. I don’t want you to write to your Congressman, because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street.

All I know is that first, you’ve got to get mad.

You’ve gotta say, “I’m a human being, goddammit! My life has value!”

So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell,

“I’m as mad as hell,
and I’m not going to take this anymore!!”
– Howard Beale as played by Peter Finch in Network (1976, Sidney Lumet)

Just thought this needed to be said. I’m mad as hell because I can no longer stand all this bullshit rhetoric about how Obama is a socialist, a Nazi, a Muslim (like thats bad) et al.

I guess both sides of the current political issues can take on this speech as their own, but I’ve realized that the whole issue about Obama and the Right boils down to one thing: he’s black and they can’t handle it. Maureen Dowd at the Times nails it here. Come folks just say it, “But hey, he’s black (or insert racially derogatory term.)” There now do you feel better?

UPDATE:

I just read on line that Glen Beck has compared himself to Howard Beale. Here’s an article disposing Beck’s assertion.
Yeah, right. The guy works for the very organizations Beale was ranting against.

Stupid Fuck.

Shit My Dad Says

My brother linked this to me the other day. I almost pissed my pants. Its got to be the funniest Twitter site I’ve come across. Basically this guy Justin lives with his 73 year old dad and he posts things his dad says. Too funny.