"TORTURE DAVE" DAY, GOOD DAY SACRAMENTO STYLE

Mark S. Allen of Good Day Sacramento was out and about the other day giving away tickets to a premiere preview of the new Eddie Murphy film, Meet Dave, to people named Dave.

He must really hate people named Dave.

Who Would Actually Pay to See the New Eddie Murphy Movie? -- powered by Cracked.com

THE TOP 10 REASONS WHY I REMOVED MY SACRAMENTO TOP 25 BANNER FROM MY WEBSITE

10. I wanted to retire at the top.



9. The spotlight was too demanding. Now I know how Dave Chappelle felt.

8. Oh okay… that’s a good idea… speaking of comedians… I did it for CARLIN, man! Yeah, to Hell with popularity contests! That just shows that people like you, man! Fuck that shit, knowwhatumsane? If people want to find me, there's this thing called Google that works just fine! (Um, actually it brings in more visitors than the Sacramento Top 25 but I digress.)

7. There once lived a sage philosopher by the name of Julius Henry who once said “I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.” Something like that.

6. Ringo Starr turned 68 recently. That has nothing to do with anything; I’m just trying to fill out the list.

5. Moving from the middle of the list to the top was like moving from a neighborhood of cool, trustworthy folks into a nicer neighborhood, only full of self-absorbed assholes who were only concerned with their ranking in life. So I couldn’t hang.

4. This “success” only made me appreciate the satisfaction I get out of being an obscure artist. Hey, it’s actually a good thing if people have to kind of seek you out. Van Gogh, Hasil Adkins and Mother Teresa were “nobodies” for years and it didn’t hurt any of those guys.

3. I’ve been really exhausted from my side gig as a proxy site tester and I need to lighten my responsibilities.

2. Oh shit! I just remembered! I have a link to my CaféPress store on my site! And the rules of Sacramento Top 25 clearly state, “No commercial sites”, so I’d better do the right thing and DQ myself. Sorry, kids. An oversight on my part. I’m so ashamed of myself.

And the NUMBER ONE reason…

I realized that I didn’t want to be some publicity desperate… to borrow a phrase from Morton Downey Jr., “media pig.” Think about it. What could be more pathetic than some dumb schmuck or schmucks who waste interminable amounts of energy just to create the impression that they are popular? Week after week after wasted week? Yeah, that’s a sad sack of plasma there, I’m telling ya.

So, anyway. I’m through now, and this has been such a meaningful learning experience. I’ve gained so much wisdom and valuable evidence, I mean information. You can have your lil’ site back now. Thanks.

Epilogue/Update (7/16/07): Here is my personal account of the "events" which made the Sacramento Top 25 Debacle of 2008. That's it, that's all, I'm through discussing it. Click Here, Pilgrim

THE LIBRARIAN SECURITY THREAT: A MCCAIN CAMPAIGN CHALLENGE

Let's hear it for the McCain campaign's flunkies. In the form of a massive Bronx cheer. They are putting the Secret Service protection to the dubious task of shooing away semi-retired librarians holding posterboard signs outside of one of the candidate's pandering pseudo-"town hall meetings" (on public funded property no less.) The dangerous act this lady was committing? Holding a sign reading "McCain=Bush"! Blasphemy!

Here is the video from MSNBC's "Countdown" (and Keith, on a side note, watch you all the time and love you man, but feel free to take a vacation anytime. Rachel Maddow kills at the guest slot and why she isn't following you up or preceding you with her own hour is beyond my comprehension.)

HURRAY! YOU LIKE ME! YOU REALLY LIKE ME!

Well, looks like at least for the time being, I've snagged the number one spot on the esteemed Sacramento Top 25 list. Amazing how many visitors have shown the love, eh? Thanks to all of me, I mean, you who have been so kind to click my page link and vote me up to the TOP, baby!

And oh yeah, on an, ahem, unrelated note, in my research on my previous accomplishment (namely, getting tagged up by Websense as NSFW) I got a line on a nifty site called proxy.org, which I would like to share with the workers of the world as a public service (at least until your company IT snoop calls you or drops by.) By all means, visit that site and it will help you surf your favorite sites without detecting your local IP address. And there's probably a whole truckload of other uses for anonymous proxy servers as well, but gee, I can't think of them off the top of my head right now!

So anyway, I'd like to thank everyone from here to Poland who helped me achieve my 15 minutes of success on the Sacramento Top 25. But now, I have a special request of all of you.

Please, please, please stop voting for me.

But, Michael, somebody may ask, why such a strange request? Isn't this what you want? To be recognized as the top site on somebody's list in Sacramento? I mean, Sacramento Top 25 has been recognized by the News & Review in a previous Best of Sac issue!

Well, the answer's simple, Psycho Nation. You see, being at the top of this list, week after week, makes certain site owners feel special about themselves. They look at their constant weekly number-one-to-number-three ranking as a reason to feel validated, nay, to feel alive. Oh, I'm not going to go into these silly allegations of how these paid actors are putting up advertorial blogs in order to generate money through these insidious shadow marketing sites because at this point, if they were actually stupid enough to do it, it would be chump change and irrelevant anyway. I also won't rant about any self-made attention whores who center themselves on a single scapegoat and think that "controversial" has the same definition as "pandering." No, we don't need to go there.

But, troops... you need to understand. These folks need their top rankings and little mentions in the SacBee Blog Watch. Yes, I know, I've even been there (on 12/16/2007- oh and also linked by the Washington Post) and never made much of a big deal, but to other folks it's a really special thing. So I don't want anyone slitting their wrists just because they checked in on their Top 25 ranking and see my media terrorist ass sitting on top of their chance at fame and fortune because the local media was looking for yet another local blog profile type story and doesn't notice you because you are (shudder!) number 2!

So anyway, it's time to give the glory back to these needy ones. I respectfully ask you to grant my request for the good of people with self-esteem issues everywhere. Thank you, God bless you, and God Bless America.

P.S. - If you would like to see what the Sacramento Top 25 normally looked like in the non-Psycho Dominated days, Click Here,Pilgrim

Let's try one more. Click Here, Pilgrim for flashback #2. (Is it me, or is there some sort of pattern going on here?)

Oh, what the Hell. Let's go way back, back in the time to 2003. Click Here, Pilgrim, for flashback #3. (Wow! that site must have some DEDICATED fans!)

Epilogue/Update (7/10): This is old news, by the way. Click Here, Pilgrim

A EULOGY YOU CAN'T SAY ON TELEVISION

Shit, Mr. Carlin, I'm sure going to miss you. You really knew how to take the piss out of the follies of human nature. I admired how you could fuck with the priggish fools who try to inflict their brand of moral retardation upon our society, and you’d do that simply by grabbing a mike and speaking to a crowd of people. Whoever filed that FCC complaint against WBAI in 1973 was a real cunt. But hey, if it wasn’t for that cocksucker making a big stink about those seven words, you probably wouldn’t be heralded as such a legendary and controversial motherfucker today. Your brand of humor, as well as your dissemination of the sheer absurdity of what people take for granted, nay, even tolerate and accept on an everyday basis, was, in this writer’s estimation, the absolute tits. Goodbye George, and thank you so much for being an inspiration, and a unique brand of philosopher, and entertainer who brought stand up comedy to a level of art like no other ever will, or ever could do quite the same.

"DRILL, DRILL, DRILL" RIGHT LACKEYS? GOOD DOGGIES!

Surrrre Dubya! I'm one hunnerd percent with you and all your cronies! Let’s done DO it! Let’s go drillin’ and go strip... oops I mean shale minin’ and dig up and drill the whole Ay-lasker wild-nuss and that’ll save America from the grips of forn oil! Yuh, that’s the ticket!

Fuckin’ morons.

IF you honestly believe any of the horseshit that has been spewed out by the Bush Administration and its designated media whores, especially the latest pathetic ideas re: fighting high gas prices, I may have a swell deal for you on a Streamline Moderne vertical lift bridge with a spectacular view of Old Sacramento and a recent coat of paint.

Let’s start with the idea of renewing offshore drilling by California’s coast. All of you who support this idea: Quite frankly, fuck you. Even Schwarzenegger doesn’t like the idea, so it must be a really stupid one.

Alaska? Yeahrite. Granted, since so many Americans don’t live there, don’t plan to visit there and probably wouldn’t care if it slid down and sank into the Pacific tomorrow, there IS a chance that a Bush the 3rd, I mean a President McCain could convince enough folks to sucker down with the program as far as turning the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge into a strip mined, oil drilled rape victim of a landscape is concerned. But, like the atrocities of the Third Reich, just because so many of a nation’s people can be convinced by its leaders that something is okay still doesn’t make it okay.

Which now brings us to the latest burnt offering to corporate oil interests from all of the fat cat politicos whose campaigns get stuffed with big oil money like tips in a stripper’s thong strap during Fleet Week. Shale oil mining. People like Congress’ Chris Cannon (R-Utah) and Bush lapdogs like Larry Kudlow and Glenn Beck are ramping up the shale mining mantra as if I could grab a fuckin’ garden shovel and hop on a plane to Colorado right now if I want to help drive the price of gas to 2 bucks a gallon by, like, tomorrow, maaan!

Reality check, ye shale oil groupies.

"Despite all the attempts to develop a shale oil industry in the US over the past 100 years, the fact remains that no proven method exists for efficiently removing the oil from the rock. There are a number of candidate processes possible, but none has demonstrated a practical capability to produce oil."

The preceding quote was recorded from a statement made during a Senate hearing by a guy named Bob Loucks, a FORMER SHALE OIL PROJECT MANAGER. Were you able to read that, or should I have used boldface?

Why don’t you try to sell America on shale mining while pointing out how much water will get fucked up in the name of corporate spoon fed pseudo-patriotism? And hey, if you really want to flash a crystal ball in all the eyes of your desperate Hummer owning flock of sheep, give ‘em the, erm, collateral results of a country already knee deep in shale oil diggin’! In estimates from 2002, 91% of the water consumed by Estonia was used for… yup, not drinking, folks! Just guess. And there was no decimal point mistakenly left out in that number. NINETY.ONE. Percent. They call it “above-ground retorting.” So with that statistic in mind, these boneheads think that it would be a great idea to suck up millions of gallons from an already depleted Colorado River! VUNdebar! I’d also mention the fact that shale mining will produce a whole load of greenhouse gases, but most crap-corroded conservatives are in denial about all that stuff, so why bother?

Hopefully a significant enough number of Americans can see through the wizard’s cheesy curtain in this scenario and tell anyone stupid and / or enough of a corporate tool where they can go by using the ballot box this November. But seeing as this is the country whose majority of voters was stupid enough to vote for possibly the lamest POTUS ever (twice!) I’m not going to go to Vegas and propose to put a wager on the books anytime soon. But, hey, a fella can dream.

KARMA CAN BE A BITCH

Somewhere, in a Boston locker room, Coach Zen was patting his star player on the back and saying,

"Karma, Kobe... karma."

Happy Bunker Hill Day, Boston. Go Celts.

MIDTOWN SHOPPER'S ALERT!

The Ace hardware store on I Street is an excellent place to buy a shovel. Apparently us folks living within the city limits of Sacramento are going to need to keep one handy between now and November. It seems fitting that the Ace is only 10 blocks up the same street as City Hall. Just sayin’.

THE 2008 SACRAMENTO MAYORAL PRIMARY: BLANK IS THE NEW BLACK

The 2008 campaign for mayor of Sacramento, California.

Really, who gives a fuck?

I’m leaving that section of the ballot blank. The only reason I’m even showing up at the polls on June 3rd is to vote on Propositions 98 and 99. More about that in a moment.

But first, here’s my take on the prospective candidates, and why they completely neglected to win over my vote.

ADAM DANIEL – First off, he’s a self-described conservative. Next.

SHAWN ELDREDGE – Shawn actually came close to getting my support. Seems like a nice guy. Fellow Midtown supporter (note to out-of-town readers: the area of Sacramento in which I live, not the band.) Has some well-thought out and well-expressed views on what Sacramento needs. But if the Republican Party goes out of their way to endorse a mayoral candidate in a non-partisan election, something’s up. Scratch.

RICHARD JONES – Wants to increase salaries for teachers and firefighters. That’s nice. Otherwise, he seems like just an average retired guy who jokes that his wife will let him run for office, but won’t let him spend any money on campaigning. In a way, I envy Mr. Jones and hope I’m that together by the time I’m 73. Unfortunately, I don’t think that those qualities would qualify me for mayoral duties either. Thanks for playing sir. Let’s move on, shall we?

LEONARD PADILLA – I think that, with the scattering of Padilla campaign signs on lawns around Midtown, this guy may have a chance of being the reason that a runoff vote will happen in November. If this election was dependent upon the most entertaining candidate being the most qualified, Leonard Padilla would have my vote. But this is a city election, not “American Idol”, so fuck that shit. In the next spot, we have…

MURIEL STRAND - Wants to turn Sacramento into one big 'ol eco-village (read: hippie haven) with chickens running wild on the streets of Sacramento. Or something like that. Peace out. On to...

ROBERT DRUMGOOLE – Running as a write in candidate because a tree fell on his house and the structure had to get torn down. He claims that the city did nothing to help him. That sucks. Good luck with that. Hopping right along…

KEVIN JOHNSON – Speaking of running for mayor because you have a personal gripe with the city regarding your property problems… Cornel West, someone I respect greatly as an intellectual and scholar, is set to endorse Johnson for mayor. But, to quote West (from a Starbucks Coffee Cup saying - The Way I See It #284 to be exact,) “You can't lead the people if you don't love the people. You can't save the people, if you don't serve the people." Agreed. And as someone who can be described as “the people” (re: member of the proletariat), I don’t see Kevin Johnson serving me very soon, if ever at all. If West means the slumlords, developers and pork barrel dippers, then, yeah, Kevin Johnson would definitely love and serve. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the latter was not what West meant. See ya, Kev.

And that leaves us with the incumbent…

HEATHER FARGO – I can’t really find too much fault in Heather Fargo’s job as mayor of Sacramento, but on the other hand, I can’t really find too many reasons to vote for her either. Whenever I see her on the news I can remember only two things that she has expressed re: the city at large:

1. Downtown isn’t unsafe;

2. Downtown has some really cool places to eat.

Since I live in Midtown (which is definitely by any fair description safe – for now at least) and don’t get into fou-fou dining like Lucca (one of Arnie’s fave hangouts) or 4th Street Grille, there’s nothing I can hear in those statements that make me declare, “Yuh! Go Heather!” or something like that. She seemed to do a lot more in her previous role as a City Council member, so if there is anything Fargo’s accomplished in her years as mayor, it is demonstrating exactly how powerless and insignificant the duties of Sacramento’s mayor really are.

So there it is. Seven candidates, no oval dealiebobs marked by my precinct-provided Bic pen. But like I mentioned earlier, I will be showing up for the sake of the ballot initiatives, which are both simple enough for me to decide upon:

PROPOSITION 98 (Government Acquisition, Regulation of Private Property.
Initiative Constitutional Amendment.)

FUCK NO! This is a great initiative if you are a slumlord, but if you are a renter (like me,) you need to vote against this. Supposedly it protects property owners from government property seizure, but in reality, it has provisions written in to eliminate rent control , the fair return of rent deposits, and 60 day notices. Hopefully more renters than property owners show up and vote this dog down.

PROPOSITION 99 (Eminent Domain. Limits on Government
Acquisition of Owner-Occupied Residence.
Initiative Constitutional Amendment.)

HELL YES! This one will actually protect good property owners from the government taking your property for purposes of, for example, kissing Walmart’s ass in order to give them a location to build a new Supercenter in town. It will maintain purposes of eminent domain in order to do stuff like shut down crackhouses and tear down toxic houses contaminated by use for crank labs, and although it still keeps eminent domain powers for road and airport construction, how the fuck often does that happen? Exactly. So this proposition doesn’t screw over renters, and gives homeowners as opposed to corporate pigs protection.

So that’s my take on the ballot. That’s what voting your conscience is about: if you don’t support anyone running for the office, why would you vote for anyone at all? Because SOMEone has to hold the office? To me, that’s not a good enough excuse.

And don’t EVEN get me started on the school board campaigns…

UTAH PHILLIPS 1935-2008

It's been reported now that folk legend U.Utah Phillips passed away on Friday, May 23. Utah was a genuine performer of the people, champion of labor and overall Hell Raiser First Class. Utah's brand of grass roots activism and "walking the talk" will be missed but hopefully carried on by the members of future generations upon whose conscience he has left an indelble mark upon.

Utah's family is requesting memorial donations to the homeless shelter Phillips helped create, Hospitality House, P.O. Box 3223, Grass Valley, CA 95945, (530) 271-7144. If you prefer to make your donation online, Click Here, Pilgrim

Below, here is a video tribute somebody posted on YouTube which was soundtracked with one of my favorite Utah songs, Daddy What's A Train? which, IMHO, gives a fine tribute to the man and his musical legacy.

NOW I CAN CORRUPT YOUR MUSICAL TASTES AS WELL

I've done it! I've finally joined the swelling ranks of net denizens who want to force their musical tastes on you through the miracle of streaming digital audio!

See the lil' gizmo over on the top right side of this page? That thar is a streaming "radio station" based solely on the approximately 1800 tracks of various free form crap I have loaded onto my (brand name refused because I don't want to get trapped into any fake viral marketing) audio player! (Think I'm kidding? I even lost the goofy white earbuds from the day I started using it! No sorry, Steve, you can't turn my ass into a walking billboard, brother!)

Here's the scoop, Pilgrim: in that lil' right corner of the player (the arrow square thing next to the "view profile" sign) you can open the player into its own little window and won't have to feel embarrassed when one of your goofy ass trendy friends walks by your laptop and sneers "Ew! What are you reading HIM for?" So open it up, blast my favorite all time hit parade of bands from all over the musical map, scare you boss, family, neighbors, etc. and yeah!

I'VE MOVED, AND WHAT'S MORE, I WANT MY DEPOSIT REFUNDED IN FULL

Dear Yahoo,

I sincerely apologize.

Had I known that my decision to pull out of GeoCities and (finally!) open up shop on my very own website (www.michaelpsycho.com)would negatively influence Microsoft's decision to buy you out, I may have waited at least a day or two to say bye-bye and start to redirect folks from the old place to the new one. Or maybe not. Well, probably not.

Anyhoo. What's done is done and I gotta admit, after our 10 years(!) together I just can't figure out why I haven't done this sooner. It's not like I've been a brokedick for the past few years. Actually, I couldn't believe how cheap domain registration and site hosting has gotten nowadays. Oh, sure, I'll admit that I might look back with bittersweet nostalgia at your funny lil' GeoCities quirks.

Like the times I tried to put MP3s of my music (or even high-resolution pics of my paintings) on my site, only for my visitors to be greeted with a "Sorry, This Site Is Temporarily Unavailable" page instead on my usual mainpage layout. Yeah, I must have been acting pretty selfish, considering that the whopping 4 megabytes of data transfer that you offer GeoCities Free users must be thought of as a pretty magnanimous act on your part.

And I must say now that I might miss those hilarious attempts to place targeted advertising in that cheesy embedded frame only occupying the entire right end of my pages from top to bottom! Why, just checking my old page to see what pops up, it offered me the complete seasons of ER 1-13 on 72 DVDs and another ad was trying to entice me to "Find out when designer bags & shoes go on sale in your size."

Wow, you folks sure do know my demographic, DON-cha now?

Yeah, yeah, I know, I got what I paid for right through all of those years. And apparently Microsoft changed their mind about what they were getting if they had paid for it. Don't lose heart, Yahoo. Plenty of people still like stuff like your email and such and maybe Google will make an attempt to suck you up in due time. IMHO, I would consider that kind of takeover attempt not just merely logical but a match made in Heaven. Because, just like your good fortune in the previous decade, I have just as much of a hard time trying to figure out why the fuck they made all of that money in this decade.