This is from my friend Kathy. Her brother is stationed in Iraq as a reservist. He took both photos. One before and one after hitting a land mine.


"Note that both are the same vehicle. My brother’s job is to add armor to the Hemmett and other vehicles used in Iraq to lessen the damage done by Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs) and mines. Why? Because the vehicles they sent were inadequate."

Before
After

It is with great reluctance that I have agreed
to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic.
But I am mild by nature, and I do not desire to see the
destruction of democracy. The power you give me I will lay
down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And as my
first act with this new authority, I will create a grand
army of the Republic to counter the increasing threats of
the separatists.





http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/27/22442/878

JOHN FOGERTY lyrics - "Fortunate Son"


Some folks are born
made to wave the flag,
Ooh, they're red, whit and blue.
And when the band plays "Hail to the chief",
they point the cannon right at you.

It ain't me,
it ain't me.
I ain't no senator's son.
It ain't me,
it ain't me.
I ain't no fortunate one.

Some folks are born
silver spoon in hand,
Lord don't they help themselves.
But when the tax man comes to the door,
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale.

It ain't me,
it ain't me.
I ain't no millionaire's son.
It ain't me,
it ain't me.
I ain't no fortunate one.

Some folks inherit
star spangled eyes,
Ooh, they send you down to war.
And when you ask them,
"How much should we give?"
They only answer "More! More! More!"

It ain't me,
it ain't me.
I ain't no military son.
It ain't me,
it ain't me.
I ain't no fortunate one.

It ain't me,
it ain't me.
I ain't no Fortunate Son.

You can find the song here at the iTunes store. It's also on the Fahrenheit 911 soundtrack.

Let me give you a quick tour of my modern life. I started having children at the age or 24 and stopped at the age of 34. I'm now 35. I have four children who belong to three different mothers. That's three sons and a step daughter for those of you who are trying to keep track. All three mothers have stong personalities and 2 out of 3 of them are mad at me at any given time. All 3 can't stand each other for various reasons which all change over time. I am now not living with any of these women. The last one and I split up in September. The oldest son lives in Studio City, the middle son lives in Culver City, and the baby lives in Downey with the daughter. I live in central Los Angeles. I work a full time job from 9-6 Monday through Friday. Every morning I go and pick up the middle son from his mother's house to take him to school because she can't get him there on time. The school is 10 blocks away from her. Oh, and I should aslo mention that this son is in special education and has been diagnosed slightly mentaly retarded. From Thursday to Sunday I have him by myself. The oldest son I see Friday to Sunday. I pick up the middle son in Culver City first and then drive to Studio City to pick up the oldest son and then drive back to my apartment in LA. On Saturday we get up and go to Downey so that I can see my baby son and my daughter. Then we go home and repeat Saturday on Sunday until I have to then drive everyone back to their mother's house Sunday evening. Sunday night I teach my marital arts class, which thankfully is near my hosue in LA. I also teach the same class on Monday and Wednesday nights. This leaves me with only Tuesday to have anytime to myself. Usually by Tuesday I am so run down that I wind up just staying home alone. Shoud I start caring about something important on a Tuesday, like paying my bills or children suffering in Iraq, my brain will go into meltdown. Upon meltdown my brain will reset itself back to its defaults.

This is our president. The fortunate son.
Look and watch who half of you fucking morons are voting for.

http://homepage.mac.com/aledro/bushuncensored.mov

Just finished watching Ghost World on DVD. Actually, I'm in the middle of the deleted scenes. I can't figure out why I was really turned on while watching the film. Thora Birch must be a really great actress.

Ghost World is based on a comic book that I've seen in the stores a million times but never picked up. I hate making discoveries like this. There is possible genius in the comic but I wouldn't know it because I've never read it. Now I have to go find the collected works just to make sure.

The results of electronic voting are starting to come in and boy does it look scary. Check out

http://www.blackboxvoting.com/

After you're done with that (and maybe feeling a little suicidal) check out the comic relief:

http://homepage.mac.com/aledro/Voting_Machine.wmv

Why dont we learn from the very movies that we create? The Matrix and Animatrix showed us the dangers of accepting machines into our lives as servants. Just the other day I saw this ad for a robotic vacuum
cleaner that automatically searches out for dust. Yikes. Now I see this article:



http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2004/10/21/robots_domestic041021.html

Boy, having to watch the Yankees loose the ALCS so badly was crushing. For some reason is giving me a bad feeling about the election. Sorry Yankees, it was my fault. It hasn't exactly been my year. And since at this point I pretty much subscribe to solipism, my luck is the only one that counts. I alone dictate the course of the universe through my subconscious. Any day now Salma Hayek will walk through my door wearing her outfit in From Dusk 'til Dawn. Just wait and see.

"Hey, Mom. This is Amber. Real, real big emergency. I need you to contact someone. I mean, raise pure hell. We had broken down trucks. No armored vehicles. Get somebody on this. I need you now, Mom. I need you so bad. Just please, please help me. It's urgent. They are holding us against our will. We are now prisoners."


The above quote is from Spc. Amber McClenny, one of the reservists in Iraq. Due to the advent of cellular technology she was able to leave this message on her mother's answering machine. What a fucking nightmare. I can't imagine being getting a call like this from one of my children. I mean, I raise hell if I find out the school lunch room is having "McDonald's day".

You can read more about the story here:

http://www.pacifica.org/programs/dn/041018.html

I got nuthin' to say today. Nuthin' to say except for that I suck. I've reached a new low of disassociation from the world. I woke up this morning at 7 AM like most mornings. I showered, got dressed, ate, and picked up my son so I could drop him off at school. I was wide awake while doing all of these things. I then made it to work and talked with no less than ten people and had a meeting with the whole staff. So why in the world did it take me until 11 AM to realize that I had put on two different shoes??!!! What the fuck is going on? Don't believe me? Check out the proof.




They have diferent laces, different shapes and are even different heights.


I suck.

"Who's your Daddy?"

These are in no particular order.

Star Wars
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Seven Samurai
The Empire Strikes Back
Godfahter
Godfather 2
History of the World Part 1
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Unforgiven
DC Cab (trust me on this one)

Now notice on this somewhat predictable list that there in no Return of the Jedi. Let me explain what is obvious to any Black American in the world. Darth Vader is the biggest baddest Negro in the universe. That helmet comes off at the end of ROTJ and Vader turns out to be some fat old white English dude?? Oh hell no. This was worse than when I found out that Rick Astley had red hair and freckles. I can forgive the death of Boba Fett, I can forgive the Ewoks, I can even forgive the pussification of Han Solo. What I can't forgive is the Cyrano De Bergerac job that was done on the best character ever created.

Just when all is going well my brother decides that he's not happy with me being happy. So what does the monkey do? He throws me the monkey wrench. Well listen up your short dick mother fucker. At least my hair isn't endangered like the Brazilian rainforest. Bet you can't wait for the Lex Luthor look to come back in.

Presently Damon has the MIWF since I really haven't seen her since 9th grade. I met Damon Brindisi in the 3rd grade in Ruth's class (I went to hippie public school P.S 3 in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. All teachers, even the priciple John, were on a first name basis. Interesting of note the school was right next to an erotic gay bookstore that had a notorius back room. Corner of Christopher and Hudson for those of you who know the city.) Damon's Mom, Beverly, was the first hot mom I had ever met. Now, I'm half Black/half Italian. At age 9 this wasn't lost on me. Blame it on the crazy genes. Over the years I would go to Damon's house hoping that Beverly, with her stylish short blonde hair cut, would be standing there in the kitchen with her Levi jeans and white t-shirt. Wow.

Now I just have to hope that Damon or Beverly don't have the habit of periodically Googling themselves. Sorry Damon, your mom was hot!

No, not your mother. My mother. Now usually your mother (well I don't know her per say so let's say one's mother) loves eveything you do regardless but in this case my mother is well reviewed writer.

"Remarkable...Engrossing.... Ione has made an important contribution to both the literature of race and the literature of women in America." Susan Wood, Washington Post Book World.


"Wonderful...Astonishing...A remarkable, beautifully written memoir" Maggie Scarf, The New York Times Book Review


"Written with a beautiful, shattering honesty...shies away from nothing." Anne Harding, The Gannett Chain


"With her great-grandmother's diary as the key, Ione has succeeded brilliantly in unlocking the truth behind all her family's women. It is a proud legacy to share with the reader and to pass along to her own children." Julie Michaels, The Boston Globe.

You see? My mom is better reviewed than your mom.

Where the hell is my flying car? I was CONVINCED that by the time I turned 32 in the year 2001 I would have a flying car. 2001 was supposed to be a landmark year for science fiction becoming reality. Did we even get a re-release of the seminal film with the same name? Nada! George Jetson why hast thou forsaken me?!

"Hal... Open the pod doors Hal."
"I'm sorry, I can't do that Dave."

I shouldn't really complain. The future is here, just not the one I thought we'd get. I'm the same guy who this afternoon connected his iPod to his iBook which was connected to his wide screen 50" television so he could stream a TV show he had downloaded using Bit Torrent which itself was an ecoded HDTV stream re-encoded using DIVX and saved to his iPod. *Whew* Can you tell I'm still sick at home?

For the last 20 years of my life I've been involved in the martial arts. I originally wanted this post to be a theraputic rank about my original teacher but I figured I best let old dogs lay.

So let's have some fun instead.


That's right when things get rough let's go to the movies! My favorite niche genre of all time is martial arts movies. The best and most consistantly good of the niche are the movies made by the Shaw Brothers.



The very first Shaw Brother film I ever saw was the 5 Deadly Venoms.

This is a hands down classic. I won't bore you with plot points but if films like Kill Bill turn you on, this movie was part of their inspiration.

Still sick at home so I've been watching movies all day long. Well, movies and downloaded TV shows (who has time for the network schedules anyomore?). For movies I saw Man on Fire in which Denzel Washington does his best Denzel Washington impersonation since Training Day. I also saw Bad Santa which made me bust a lung (sloppy metaphor, I know) laughing and actually brought a tear to my eye at one point. Oh the things you'll admit on a blog...

For TV I watched Smallville and Lost. Both are on the same day and time so I just download them and save myself the headache. Smallville is arguably the best super hero TV show ever. Also the best retelling of the Superman myth since John Bryne's revamp in the 80s. Lost continues to wow me with every new episode though there was no porn factor this week. The softcore porn title this week actually goes to Smallville. Not sure I would have been able to handle that show as a teenage boy. Wow. Talk about the most attractive town on earth. Must have something to do with the Kryptonite meteor rocks.

Man, Fuck Tom Welling! Good looking mother fucker. Talk about hitting the gene lottery. And he gets to play Superboy. I know you weren't there Tom but just know that I know you had something to do with my divorce. Seriously, my wife couldn't watch an episode without having dreams about you. Thank god I was out of the house by this year's season premiere where your were naked for the first 10 minutes of the show. What chance do I have against this?:



Game over. He's Superman...

Alright. I actually got my first blog request today. Guess I have a fan out there even if we happen to share the same last name. Thanks bro *tear*. Love you man... *tear tear*.

So how did network TV get good again? I mean thank god! With Sex and the City gone, Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and Carnivale all back in production the next time Hailey's Comet comes around, I've got to have something to keep myself sedentary and sedated. Top new shows of the season:

Lost
Desperate Housewives
CSI: New York
Lost

Lost is so damn good I would actually forgo good porn for it. Actually, Lost is good porn. Have you seen the women in it?? Talk about some fine white girls!

Granted, I don't have access to the same kind of drugs that Spider Jerusalem has but I've got to admit that the pain medication samples my doctor gave me have pepped up my mood a bit. The only pain pill I've ever heard of that you can only take once every 24 hours. Scary.

Is it just me or is this really hard to swallow? http://www.teamgop.org/press_archivesb.htm

Sounds like Grand Old Pussy manipulations to me. Just name me THX-1138 in this Brave New World in the year 1984.

*breaking news* Speaking of manipulations!!! http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/13/15534/960

Far to late to be up when I'm supposed to be sick but what the hell. Just watched some extra features from the 8-Mile DVD which only goes to prove that Hollywood can make you jealous of anyone. I don't rap (and never really had the desire to do so) but here I am wanting Eminem's freestyle skills. I guess relationships to media never change. When I was 11 I just about started dressing up as a super hero to foil crime because of this movie: http://imdb.com/title/tt0080863/

OK, let me stop lying. It had nothing to do with that movie. Long before Hero at Large my brother and I used to live by the code of the Superfriends and pretend that we were Electra Woman and Dyna Girl. There. The secret is out.

Earlier this year Conan was elected governor of the state I live in and I was visiting howardstern.com for activism links.  What the fuck is wrong?  We've all shifted into the twilight zone.  Oh by the way there's a red under your bed.  Although these days we call them terrorists. 
Check out http://homepage.mac.com/aledro/gopconstrm.mov for the full scoop.

Seriously has there ever been a better cartoon character?

Stupor Duck, Duck Dogers, Shoot Me Now!, Slide DiMaggio! Slide!, Do you have a license to sell hair tonic to bald eagles in Ohmaha, Nebraska?, Oh De-puty..., woohoo! woohoo! whoo!


I rest my case. After all it was the yams that did it.