Citizen Reporter

Maybe in all my recent fame, I got sloppy. Maybe I’m just secretly a really awful person and I blog to look nicer then I really am. Maybe sometimes you roll the dice, and you lose. Whatever the reason, I wanted to come clean about this one, dear readers, I got my ass handed to me today. I got busted. Snuck. Outed. Shaq-ed. Ratted out and generally messed up by my own words.

Basically I chose to tell a story the other day and maybe it was too close to real and definitely hostile towards someone. And I somehow figured that person wouldn’t read it… you know? I rolled the dice. Figured the internets are so big, and life is so random, that it won’t reach the wrong person. And it did. As I was telling the Deconstructionist today, I started writing like an anonymous blogger, when I’m anything but anonymous. Anyone done a google search for bicyclemark? Dam I leave a paper trail like it’s TP stuck to the bottom of my shoe.

So in the midst of being stunned. I used that awful but classic line — I’m sorry you read it. Seems odd eh? But it’s the truth. This is NOT a public space. It’s a blog, and it is controlled by the blog owner… and YES the public can access it. In other words, a public park is just that.. public, but my living room, though I may leave the windows and doors open and invite anyone in, is still ultimately my living room. Then again if I start mooning the neighborhood and insulting everyone, I will have to deal with being socially shunned.

Then I started re-reading about blog ethics, which is a lofty and very journalistic ideas. I look at them and I think, oooh.. thats cute… now we bloggers should go forth and break every ethical rule we want to…. at our own peril, as I was reminded today. For my part, I just think to myself, what would Hunter S. do?

podcast out within the next 24hrs, depending when I fall asleep at the controls.

Today’s Sounds: My own raw audio from this evening.

This blog isn’t about describing what I ate for breakfast, or every little thing I did today. HOWEVER, when I feel like it, I share with you, fellow readers. And not more than an hour ago, I concocted the most delicious brew of yerba mat? in my life. The cause of such splendor? The herbs and yummy things that I purchased during this afternoons visit to the market with crazy dr. M. Check these ingredients out:

• Bunch of mint leaves
• A spoonfull of dried banana tea
• Bit of a cinnamon stick
• Sugar
• Almost boiling water
• Yerba Mat? from Rosamonte (Argentina)

The result? It’s raining outside but I’ve achieved nirvana while the clash sing about standing at the gates of the west.

If only I had made this formula last night for island girl. Back from her island, where she swims with dolphins, island girl is one of my oldest and most favorite acquaintances in Amsterdam. Rare is the opportunity to cook her a mighty veggie lasagne, share a bottle of white, and drink mat? like we’re chillin in Buenos Aires.

Sometimes I forget that before the madness of computers and the internets, which is such an insanely huge part of my existence now, there’s a whole ecosystem out there from which we can learn so much. In only a few hours island girl was breaking down the behavior of men and women according to the same behavior of animals in nature. For example… the desire to be the alpha male, and impress the female.. even if you already have a partner, there is still this desire to be the “top dog” and impress the femeninas. Seemed to me her work and the dolphins have helped her understand relationships in her own life, which is awesome because I sit around unable to make sense of my own behavior or that of others. Fuck computers, I’m convinced the answers to life are in the ocean.

Oh yeah, and then two awesome things happened:

First was told I’m feedster’s feed of the day! With a very kind email from Mike and more kindness on his feedster blog.
And then the midnight mailman, that genius of storytelling, inducted xtx and I into his Hall of Favorite People We’ve Never Even Met and wrote a story for us.

ROCK.

Today’s Sounds: Clash – Clash on Broadway

I had a mobile phone pow-wow with crazy Dr. M today, and he and his houseboat are likely to be involved in my next podcast. Incidentally, my world famooose Albert Cuyp SoundseeingTour, has now been downloaded over 1100 times, thanks inkernet!

I normally don’t love stuff that comes from Slate magazine. It’s not complete crap, it’s just not.. well…my thing. I’m much more into reading, oh.. ALternet or my bible that I start every morning with: Courrier International.

However today I noticed a decent piece with a good point about Burma. Or maybe you like calling it Myanmar. Unless you only watch television news, or live in a cave (apparently its hot real estate for the wealthy), you will, by now, have heard about the military junta that rules with a particularly shiny iron first. The article points out, as any rational world citizen could, that if the white house was serious about their spreading freedom and fighting tyranny thing, their next stop would be Burma, where apparently people would *cough cough* welcome them as heros.

Neither the article, nor I, are saying its something that should be done. It’s just another example of how much shit their foreign policy is filled with. Not that we didn’t already know.

And you think that’s bad… Rocky IV and Rocky V are on television tonight! Is there any wonder I’m completely and happily out of touch with Amsterdam night life.

Tomorrow: I See Dead Historical Figures Returns with Punk Legend JOE STRUMMER.

Today’s Sounds: TV on the Radio – OK Calculator

Come along as I get into the cool v-day podcasts from this week. Lots of namedropping in this one, I feel like such a kissass, but the truth is, I really love listening to the podcasts mentioned. (and more) There’s some comedy, clippage, and of course, TUNES.

AudioCommuniqu? #12 (mp3)

64kbps, 15min54sec, 7.4mb

Featuring:

No stinking licenses
Specials tune of the day
Art Blakey
Yeast Radio and other podcast shoutouts
Tokyo Calling clip/response
My Sweden Plan
Bill Hicks (from the album: Relentless)
Mates of State
Midtown

Ms. Thingk, who I once referred to as Kirsten Dunst’s twin, sends me emails. Lots of yummy delicious emails. I eat them for breakfast, sometimes an afternoon snack as well. While it sucks having to lose friends who move to D.C., it’s nice when my peeps in “your nations capital” send me thought-provoking words (D-Rock of course!).

So my darling dc intern has been asking for my 2 eurocents on the recent firing of that reporter dude who works for a republican funded rag, within the whitehouse press corps. She was especially interested in my blabber because he was out-ED by “liberal bloggers.”

Right away I cringe. As I was telling NoComunicado in the halls of the fishtank today, my intestines begin to liquify everytime I read, in some mass media outlet, about conservative bloggers doing this or liberal bloggers doing that. They make bloggers sound like packs of Alaskan huskies pulling sleds and eating raw meat.

Sure, it’s cool that bloggers are getting recognized. But I don’t subscribe, not even through RSS, to that whole “any publicity is good publicity” theory. As a seasoned blogger (lots of oregano and a dash of paprika) this isn’t how I wanted to see US get recognized. Like hoards of Boba Fetts, bounty hunting for the empire.

Perhaps na?vely, I hope to see bloggers become a recognized source of alternative media. Where Green Catfish or the StateImIn are just as respected as Maureen Dowd or that annoying but intelligent Paul “I grew a goatee” Krugman. I want to see the pedestals that have been built on artificial credibility, torn down, and replaced with the type of open-earned respect and loyalty system we bloggers work on. Sure it’s not SO different from the system op-eds work in, cept they get cozy offices and nice salaries. (where’s ours dammit!)

So anyway, bloggers got some crap journalist fired from the incestuous white house press corps? Too bad buddy… that’s what happens when you work with the executive whores in the west wing. Next time bring a stun gun and use it on the wild packs of liberal bloggers. Arf Arf.

Today’s Sounds: Pedro the Lion – It’s Hard to Find a Friend