Gods and Ghosts

The boys are watching "Hercules" tonight. They love that movie. It butchers the Greek myths, but for Disney fare, it's enjoyable enough.

I'm researching ghost towns for one of the projects I'm working on. Ghost towns fascinate me. It's funny -- ghosts, not so much, but ghost towns? Definitely.

Ever see the pictures of Chernobyl these days? This isn't the best-organized Web page, but the pictures are haunting. A lost place.

Ill-Suited

I forgot to mention this morning, an amusing moment -- I got on the elevator with a Korean couple who had a golden retriever (Sweet dog. I asked its name, and it was "Polo"). Anyway, it was a friendly dog, as goldens usually are, and the elevator opened and this young guy in a very nice pinstriped suit stood there, and you could see him weighing it in his head, whether or not to get in the little elevator with that friendly dog, or whether to wait until the next elevator came. He decided to enter, and came in and hugged the wall. It really was a nice suit, no doubt, but the look on the guy's face was priceless, like "PLEASE, PLEASE let this dog stay the fuck away from me. Don't. Fuck. With. The. Suit." Polo the Wonder Dog didn't mess with him (I helped Pinstripe out by petting the dog, running interference, basically), and when we reached the lobby, everybody filed out, going their separate ways.

Small World

I haven't watched "Jersey Shore," but a few coworkers have, and have talked about it more than a bit. That show seems to have captured a bit of a pop cultural moment. I'm amused, in that my hometown of long ago (Youngstown) was sometimes known as "Little Hoboken" (!!!) and, in some ways, there is a bit of cultural affinity one can find between dwellers of Youngstown and folks in New Jersey -- what plays in New Jersey is likely to play in Youngstown, in some way. You can almost count on it. Anyway, Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi is apparently emerging as the "star" of that show, surely swilling down her 15 minutes of fame. I was amazed to read that she's only 4'9" -- wow. THAT is tiny. That's only about three inches taller than B1, for god's sake (I mean, he's a tall boy, but still, wow). Tiny, tiny chick.

Mission Statement

Damn. Mission of Burma are coming back to Chicago, for the Wicker Park Music Festival. I saw them the last time they were in town, at Double Door, and they were fantastic. Truly, one of the best small-venue shows I've ever seen. I'm tempted to see them again, EXCEPT that it would mean cooling my heels in Wicker Park, where you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a hipster. Never mind that Wicker Park's been gentrifying for the past decade, or that its best years were another decade before then (and even then, not so swell) -- the WP is still a hipster haven, and the prospect of being there with all the too-cool-for-school motionless minions would be tough to take. I will give Mission of Burma credit at Double Door -- they brought it, and that show actually had an incredible dynamic where they actually broke through the wall of Too Self-Conscious To Dance-ishness that plagues so many shows -- they just did it through sheer chops and performance skill. That show was organic and impressive, a living thing, and by the end, everybody was jumping around and howling, completely transported. But that was in a small indoor venue -- at a festival, it's trickier. I dunno. I likely won't go, although I'm sorely tempted. Mission of Burma are such a good band, I'm glad they've been touring steadily since their reunion. Some bands just ride reunion tours and phone it in, but Misison of Burma bring it. It's better than Wicker Park deserves! Hah!

Kalamazoo River Oil Spill

Nice going, Michigan. Michiganders. Pffff. Just what we need, an oil slick on Lake Michigan. Were they envious at all the attention the Gulf was getting or something? Lordy. This article doesn't cover it, but the Kalamazoo River flows swiftly, and feeds into Lake Michigan, which is about 80 miles away from the site of the disaster.

It reminds me of a pizzeria job I worked around 1992, where this total clod was working in the back, and he was just worthless, a total drag on our crew -- he'd sing "Rumpshaker" all day and would dance around and was gloating about how he was joining the Air Force. And another coworker and I were commenting on it to each other, and I said "Someday, we're going to read about planes falling out of the sky, and it's because HE'S gonna be the one doing the rivets on the jets." Then we mimed hip-hop dancing to "Rumpshaker" and working a riveting gun haphazardly. "Shake baby shake baby one, two, three..."

Power Games

Saw this curious article in the Chicago READER today.

While who knows if or whether this guy's invention would work, the real roadblock to alternative energy revolves around centralization of energy resources. That's the irony of it all -- Democrat or Republican, control of power is the main sticking point, where moving forward is concerned. Because many of the alternative energy resources (particularly wind and solar) allow at least the potential for decentralization of the power grid. The "virtue" of existing fuels is control of supply -- whether oil or natural gas or coal (or even "alternatives" like oil shales and ethanol) -- you have a company controlling the supply of the energy source. That plays handily into the cartel model of energy production that keeps everybody else dependent on the supplier (think of DeBeers and their diamonds, how zealously and jealously they control production there -- it's actually quite striking the measures they take to ensure control). And even nuclear, the most-likely to be implemented "alternative" energy source is one that is tightly-controlled and centralized (which, in my view, is why it's the likeliest to be fully realized).

The "problem" with wind and solar is that if the right approach is used, it would allow individuals to become their own energy producers. It's no accident that the existing model for even these alternatives is having solar and wind farms -- trying to centralize these alternative energy sources, and keeping them "behind the wall," brokered by energy companies.

The biggest nightmare of the power brokers is a decentralized energy grid, because suddenly people would no longer be dependent on a company for their power needs (sure, the wind and solar suppliers would still have a market, but the centralized power company, whether oil, coal, natural gas, or nuclear -- would be extinct).

Fundamentally, it's about control, as is so much in our society. People generate their own power, grow their own food, what need is there for a State? You'll see -- while they won't frame it that way (because of what it implies), centralization of power will continue to be the shadow hanging over the energy debate, and the goal will be keeping everybody dependent on power companies and utilities for their energy needs, regardless of the actual energy delivered.