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dave32

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dave32 last won the day on December 7 2011

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  1. Somehow this notion has taken hold in pop culture that longevity trumps all; quality of life, richness of experience, etc. Personally, I'm a big believer in fear. Not threats or intimidation or causing fear - fuck that, but I mean as a personal emotional driver. When I see people around my neighborhood with these 'no fear' bumper stickers I just think -- frickin idiots. I think a better one would be 'some fear.' But people fear the wrong things, and go for the most bland life possible in the hopes of etching out a couple more years on the calendar. THAT is my fear. There is a Helen Keller quote I love: "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing."
  2. Mari Colvin killed in Syria this morning. Liked and respected her. RIP. Her final broadcast last night. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nww7rRSq0x8&feature=player_embedded#!
  3. "The End" - Documentary about rough characters brought up in difficult circumstances on London's East End. The film lets these guys tell their own stories. Victor Dark, Bobby Reading, Les Falco, et al. The Guardian was a little tough on it because the film was created by the twin daughters of Les Falco (I guess you'd call him a Boss on the East End - as it was years ago), but I thought it was well done. No air of cheesiness about it. As a matter of fact, I wish there were guys like that where I live now. From what I can see, young gangbangers in LA have no discernible values at all, despite any romantic ideas people might have. Anyway.
  4. Stacy Peralta, also did Dogtown and Z-boys. If you haven't seen it, give it a watch. When I watched Crips and Bloods I thought -- hold on a second, I've seen these guys before. Sure enough, one of the narrators (an actual longstanding crip) had a role in 'Training Day,' which utilized actual gangmembers for several scenes (didn't know prior). Anyway, it is an intelligent discussion of the evolution of the gang epidemic in LA. One of my favorite clips from Dogtown/z-boys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGehaXk09pc&list=FLSfVYwN0m9LZbQpviGNUjRQ&feature=mh_lolz
  5. RIP Joe Frazier. Re: Cassius Clay. When I was a kid in grade school, 5th or 6th grade, had 4 posters on the bedroom wall -- Kenny Stabler, The Clash London Calling, Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, and Muhammad Ali. Around 1980. Ken Stabler and Ali's time in the spotlight was already waning at that point -- but I knew who they were and idolized both as great outspoken athletes with electric personalities that inspired people. Can certainly understand the appeal to youth. Ali may have had faults and been wrong, and I don't know him to the extent of others here --> but there's no denying he did great things and left a mark on history (and not all bad), and there's no doubt some of this cost him personally. Ps. Next post will be from BKK, or somewhere in LoS. Debating whether I should scoot on down to WalMart to pick up an inflatable raft before the flight.
  6. Watched it last night. Would've never picked this film on my own but saw your rec and thought -- ahh, what the hell. Anyway, they took Blair Witch Project and turned it into something entirely different and it worked. A lot of inside humor (and I imagine there was even more I missed that would be appreciated by a Norwegian) - but also sucked you in. Very well done, especially considering the subject. Loved it when the cameraman was killed and they were all wondering to each other: 'why didn't he just tell us he was a Christian' (you have to see the film to get that).
  7. So let it be said. So let it be written. So let it be done. -Pharaoh, Ancient Egypt (sans the smilie)
  8. hey fag, was just in the beat museum in SF, they have Bowkowski postersk apparently he is a god...not in a gay way of course...

  9. A few mates of mine (good mates, spent a lot of time with in the past but they've moved away from Southern California), are traveling through SE Asia the same time I'll be there next month. So they tell me, go to Pattaya 11/21 to 11/24. Being an upstanding citizen I follow through. And then these fuckers tell me to change the dates to 11/18-11/22. BUT I CAN'T. Baaah! So, it'll be good to see old friends for an evening, then I'll be rolling on a solo mission in Pattaya a couple nights. Forgive the intro, I guess that's irrelevant to the question eh? Oh yeah, here's the question: I'll probably be doing a long pub crawl (well, beer bar with occasional go go crawl is more accurate), and then hitting freelancer spots late. Which I've never done in Pattaya. So -- I'm aware of some places: Insomnia, Walking Street Disco, Marine, and Lucifer. Anybody have input? Is Insomnia any good? btw - seeing Lucifer on your top 5 pretty much guaranteed I'll investigate it. Gratzi! And figured this kinda ties into this thread.
  10. When I visited Berlin in early 90s, after high school - but before Uni, ended up extending a three week trip to a year. I was that guy staying on the couch that never left. There was a large and tight-knit community of black American expats from the military. A lot of them hung out around the u-bahn stop Oskar Helene Heim. Kinda like Washington Square. I used to call them the OHB Brothers. Got to know some of those guys, interesting thing was --> they did not like to spend time with African expats in the city, oh no. And they got pissed off when people called them African. The rest of Germany definitely did not have many blacks, but there were quite a few in Berlin (then). And btw, I could not detect any racism at all, except perhaps with the much older generation, between whites and blacks in Germany. EDIT: I should say in Berlin instead of in Germany. If you left the city and headed south, it was a whole new ballgame. Have no idea what it's like now that the assimilation of East Germany and switch to the Euro have taken place (the reunification just started when I was there and it was not something people were happy about after the initial euphoria subsided, it placed a crushing burden on the West). But, there was overt hostility between the Turks and the Germans. You saw graffiti like "Turken Raus!" all over public restrooms. The 'edgy' part of town was the Kreuzberg, where the Turks lived, and many Germans wouldn't go there. My understanding is that there was a depleted resource pool after WWII and Turks migrated to fill those jobs. They didn't really adopt German culture though and there was a clash of values. From what I could see it was a mutual rejection of each other from both sides. My favorite convenience food in Germany was the Doner Kebab. Love em. I laughed when I went to Pattaya and saw the Germans had exported it there. It's a Turkish dish.
  11. The problems with the economy are significant and on that front, the Obama presidency has not been a success. He used his resource pool of political clout to push through the healthcare plan, but at great cost, with piss poor fiscal planning. Not good. I like his emphasis on infrastructure but there needs to be more. All that said, in my eyes a Republican victory would be a nightmare with more tax cuts to the wealthy and even greater irresponsibility managing the debt/economy, while using scare tactics to increase social controls and macho military posturing. The democrats are fucking morons and they suck, but the Republicans... they scare me. It's alarming how easy it is for things to spiral out of control, and we're in a vulnerable and fragile place. It's going to take time, effort, and intelligent management in the government to establish better footing. While I think many of Obamas advisers and cabinet members are weak, they're better than the alternative.
  12. Well hell, lets not discount Neil Bush, another prodigy from that great dynasty.... Link The Relatively Charmed Life Of Neil Bush Despite Silverado and Voodoo, Fortune Still Smiles on the President's Brother By Peter Carlson Washington Post Staff Writer Ah, it's nice to be Neil Bush. When you're Neil Bush, rich people from all over the world are eager to invest money in your businesses, even though your businesses have a history of crashing and burning in spectacular fashion. When you're Neil Bush, you'll be sitting in a hotel room in Thailand or Hong Kong, minding your own business, when suddenly there's a knock at the door. You answer it and a comely woman strolls in and has sex with you. Life sure is fun when you're Neil Bush, son of one president, brother of another. Just how much fun was revealed in a deposition taken last March, during Bush's very nasty divorce battle. Asked by his wife's attorney whether he'd had any extramarital affairs, Bush told the story of his Asian hotel room escapades. "Mr. Bush," said the attorney, Marshall Davis Brown, "you have to admit that it's a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and open it and have a woman standing there and have sex with her." "It was very unusual," Bush replied. Actually, it wasn't that unusual. It happened at least three or four times during Bush's business trips to Asia, he said: "I don't remember the exact number." "Were they prostitutes?" asked Brown. "I don't -- I don't know," Neil replied. "Did you pay them?" "No." Not surprisingly, the revelation made headlines around the world. Equally unsurprisingly, the sex story overshadowed the curious financial revelations that came out in the same deposition. In 2002, for instance, Bush signed a consulting contract with Grace Semiconductor -- a Shanghai-based company managed in part by the son of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin. Bush's contractual duties consist solely of attending board meetings and discussing "business strategies." For this, he is to be paid $2 million in company stock over five years, plus $10,000 for every board meeting he attends. "Now, you have absolutely no educational background in semiconductors, do you Mr. Bush?" Brown asked. "That's correct," Bush responded. Meanwhile, back home in Texas, Bush serves as co-chairman of a company called Crest Investment. Crest, he revealed in the deposition, pays him $60,000 a year to provide "miscellaneous consulting services." "Such as?" Brown asked. "Such as answering phone calls when Jamal Daniel, the other co-chairman, called and asked for advice," Bush replied. Ah, it's nice to be Neil Bush, who seems to be living the lifestyle immortalized in those famous Dire Straits lyrics: "Money for nothin' and chicks for free."
  13. GOP Elite? And who pray tell would that be... Dumb and Dumber?
  14. Slapshot with Paul Newman. Old 70s film. Saw it once before on video at a friend's house in high school but didn't really appreciate what it had to offer. I don't even know how to describe this film. It isn't heavy, but it's pretty fucking good in subtle ways (though the behavior in the film is anything but subtle). Down and out hockey team in an economically depressed area resorts to juvenile antics and violence on the ice to draw the crowd. Aging coach Paul Newman manipulates this, as his own future hangs in the balance. Definite thumbs up. The film is an adaptation of a book written by a woman who's husband was a hockey player. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJkHm2WtSsk
  15. Unemployment benefits were at 99 months for awhile with federal extensions, just google '99ers.' Though those were cut and (I believe) it's back at 6 months. Haha, I'm like Steve -- when in LOS for a few weeks I may logon once or twice to contact people (hey Flash, I want to go to the redshirt camp, serious... ), otherwise too busy running around. Logon much more frequently here. By biggest beef with the Republicans is also the social conservatives and their growing influence. Dubya courting the religious right might have got him elected, but it also created a monster. Last thing I want is to see the government hijacked by evangelicals. That said, I don't think HH is completely off in his criticism. As soon as I saw the first budget passed under Obama, in which he let congress do what they want and it was an expansive web of pork and garbage --> I knew there was something amiss. I'm glad Rahm is gone, the guy was a twit. I like Obama, but he's surrounded himself with people that seem to be strong on theory and weak on application. Bush's invasion of countries started a horrible vacuum in the economy, but he's done little to make it better. I honestly think he's in over his head. Kamui - a lot of people are stating that the wild swings in the market are literally being caused by greedy traders, and it's just that simple. People thought France was going to be downgraded and they saw profit by taking certain actions. Some people actually want that to happen as they'll make money off of it. The other thing is, I never seen cynicism so thick when it comes to the future. Maybe the wall street bailout was necessary, but now people are just saying 'fuck it, I've worked all my life and my home just lost half of its value, while these greedy cocksuckers continue on unimpeded, I'm going to get what I can.'
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