TMZ POSTERS. GIVIN' THE LOOOOVE TO GOOD DAY SACRAMENTO.

So, I had missed the Joan Rivers "F-Bomb" episode of Good Day Sacramento (musta gone to work already?), but caught it on CNN tonight, with the, ahem, comedienne providing further comments on the incident. So, I nosed around on the Internet frontier for some more info, and of course, the trough for media pigs everywhere, TMZ, had a story posted right after the whole sorry spectacle aired. Out of the comments, looks like Joan Rivers took the brunt of the bruising (I got sorta bored reading "old bitch" and "old hag" so many times- please, people, invest in a good ol' fashioned thesaurus sometime, 'kay?).

But the comments on Mark S. Allen (who, naturally, triggered the Rivers meltdown) and, occasionally, the rest of the Good Day staff were at least a bit more interesting, to put it mildly.

I thought that comment 50 was intriguing.

"Mark S Allen is the sort of unchanging, incompetent juvenile delinquent that the degenerate subculture in media loves, since it allows them to greatly lower their standards and ethics and hence pay less, reduce the expectations of the audience and "dumb them down" all around. That is exactly the same subculture that put George Bush in government and put two missiles into the towers after rigging them and WTC Building 7 with the thermite. "

So, the Stinking Shadow Conspiracy is responsible for the election of Dubya, the 9/11 setup, and Mark S. Allen's career. No, haven't caught that one on Disinformation recently.

Commenter number 62, apparently, can't decide whether to hate Rivers or the show more:

For that dumb as s reporter ( the woman ) to keep repeating I didnt expect her to go there at all.. GIMME a break. Joan Rivers has a mouth to make sailors blush.. You have to always watch what you say with that old batalax(sic). She can dish it out in heaps but when someone dishes to her she gets all freaked out.. She's 100 years old what do you expect from a foul mouth old hag.

Comment number 64 (which is posted by the same username as number 50) really was the work of someone who was feeling the bile rise up the throat, and decided to come back for an encore:

The skank reporter in the middle is a stale suburban polyester politically correct bag of bleach. Everything except baby kittens offends people like that. The most appropriate thing to do for Sacramento is to BURN THAT TELEVISION STUDIO TO THE GROUND, OR, change the channel, or of course, the best option is to STOP WATCHING TELEVISION YOU MORONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

(Gentle word of advice: When holding down the exclamation key to emphasize how wild and crazy a ranter you are to the world, remember to take your right finger off of the "!" key first, and then let go of the shift, then that pesky lil' "1" isn't hanging at the end and you don't look even lamer than you have just demonstrated).

You can always tell who is posting from a "real city", or at least wants to be, as evidenced by poster number 306:

Rivers was on their rinky-dink little local show as a GUEST, and the awkward, effeminate nobody from the two-bit "Good Day Sacramento" program (or is that a podcast from someone's garage) thought he would take a cheap shot for some publicity. Talk about riding someone else's coattails, eh, Johnny Nobody?

His ass should be canned ASAP because you do NOT treat guests like that on a television show and then expect others to appear in the future. It would be no loss whatsoever to any celebrity or author to skip appearing on a program in a impoverished podunk town full of gang members and foreclosed homes like Sacramento.


I'm surprised that comment 393 didn't pop up earlier...

Wow, that loser from Sacramento looks like he's had even more plastic surgery than Joan! Of course he looks like he's about twenty or thirty years older than her, plus he has no real career, so I guess he's had lots more time to get it all in.

But 394? Now that was just wrong...

Maybe this guy took Joan's child molester joke about Michael Jackson personally. He sure has a really creepy vibe about him.

I just couldn't do more than skim most of these 571 points of light. But before I go rinse my eyeballs from my exposure to TMZ, I need to share something important with you.

You see, I am the cause of all of the controversy.

What happened is this: the F-bomb uttered on live TV the other day followed me here from Boston.

A detailed account is found on page 142 of From Rage To Reason, by Janet Langhart Cohen, the former host of the WCVB Channel 5 1970's morning talk show, Good Day! (uh, huhhh... yeah trippy huh?) Lauren Hutton, then a very hot supermodel, was asked about the keys to her success, and her reply was, "I fucked around". Well, at least she was a little more creative than Joan. (And by the way, this book is overall a pretty decent read.)

SACRAMENTO REGIONAL TRANSIT. JUST GIVE UP, AND SHUT IT DOWN.

We have heard a lot of hoo-hah over the recent years about how Sacramento needs to become a world class destination city, like, say, New York or Boston or our nearby neighbor San Francisco.

All three of these cities tend to have something in common. They all have extensive and conveniently scheduled public transportation systems. Believe it or not, some folks who earn a living wage don't even own a vehicle in those cities, out of choice! They just use the bus or train like it's a perfectly normal thing to do, to work, and go shopping, or even go out at night to clubs and the movies and whatnot. Every day, for like, practically their entire lives! Weird, huh?

Take S.F., for example. As recently as January, I could literally step outside of my hotel at Van Ness and Geary and board a Muni bus to Ocean Beach or towards Union Square or the Ferry Building and transfer to basically wherever I wanted for one low fare. At three in the fuckin' morning if I wanted to.

On the other hand, here in Sacramento, we have a transit system which, frankly, is complete shit, and will be for what seems like decades to come. We have buses that run sparingly throughout the day, with the central artery of the system being a whopping two light rail lines. The cost to ride on Regional Transit has become increasingly jacked up, with transfers now non-existent and fares among the highest in the nation. Now the career politicians who are sitting on RT's board are considering a halt to light rail service after 9 PM.

I say, only half in jest, just shut the whole damn system down and stop embarrassing yourselves, Regional Transit. Of course I'm not serious, but guess what. I was considering a trip on the 67 bus recently to shop but at the last minute I decided to dust off the ol' Specialized and rode to a location closer to home. I may have been able to save three or four bucks total (with discounting of the extortion which passes for RT fare nowadays) had I rode the bus instead. God, it felt good to get on a bike for once. Thanks, RT!

In reality, a public transportation system shouldn't been seen as a luxury by the leaders of this city, but an investment in the future. We're only gonna get more populous eventually, and the best way to meet that inevitable part of our future is to develop a mass transit system comparable to the cities we claim to striving to emulate. I'm someone who has spent his whole life riding public transit (being taken to Grandma's in JP on the Orange Line at six months old... oh, never mind) and can tell you that, yes, the convenience of getting where you want or need to go without a hassle or waste of time makes a huge difference in the quality of city life.

In the case of Sacramento's situation, however, I'm figuring that if they manage to get Light Rail running slightly past Natomas Marketplace by 2032 (when I turn 70), it will be nothing short of a miracle. And that, my friends, is nothing short of pathetic.

IT'S A FREE COUNTRY, AND IF GOOGLE WANTS TO BE STUPID, THAT'S THEIR RIGHT.

So, my site michaelpsycho.com was removed from the almighty Google index. Curiously, the pages within the site are still listed but not the main page. Strangely, this happened just days after I signed up for a Google Alert on my name, which was (supposed) to send me alerts whenever something about "Michael Psycho" comes up on their search engine.

I sent an email politely asking why my main site page was removed. Here's the bullshit automated answer that I got from Google:

From: help@google.com
Subject: Re: [#476796004] Why was my site removed?

Thank you for writing to Google. If you have a question or suggestion
about our products, please visit http://www.google.com/support/. There,
you'll find links to our Help Centers, which offer answers to our most
frequently asked questions. Due to a high volume of email, we currently
respond only to messages submitted through specific forms in these Help
Centers.

Regards,
The Google Team


No you don't. Stop lying, Google. You just send some generic "go check out our terms" link in response. I've read your response to the same question I'm asking on the Help Centers and that's all you do in response.

Oh well. Fuck 'em. Hey, what can I do, they're a private business. It would create a tremendous amount of publicity and discussion to just lawyer up and sue them, but I don't want my name in the paper anyway. If they restore the listing, great, but I'm not holding my breath.

Google, of course, won't go into any details as to why the site was removed.

If Google had removed it at somebody's request, I doubt it, but only because

a.) Google supposedly doesn't do that, and

b.) I don't think that anyone could be that much of a pussy.

And then again, I'd be flattered if they did, because it means that they fear me and can only do juvenile shit like that to try and discourage me, which will never happen. The only way that you will discourage me is to kill me. I'm not going away, Google listing or no Google listing, so deal with it.

The consolation in all of this is that, thanks to Google's ban, this blog is now listed first on a search for "Michael Psycho", and lately the blog is what's been pissing certain people off. So, in that respect, thanks, Google! I can't wait to not hear the bullshit reason why you shut down this blog as the next step! After all, they own blogger.com and it would be too easy. If anything, I've learned a valuable lesson about what happens when a corporation gets too powerful and can, in effect, do whatever the fuck it wants without any recourse.

(Update 7/26/09: How nice of the folks in Mountain View. As of 1345 hours PST, the site is back up in the search engine listing! Either Google listened to a squeaky wheel right quick, or I really am a raving paranoid. Perhaps a little of both. If this was simply a mistake on the part of Google, I sincerely appreciate the effort to correct it. It would actually restore some faith in the integrity of people again.)

THIS YOUTUBE THING ON THE INTERNETS IS KINDA ADDICTING.

Just forthafugguvit, I put up a video for my song "War" on YouTube. Some of you may have seen the previous version on Download.com. Don't worry, I re-edited it and cut out the dork with the top hat reading the piece of paper, so IMHO, it's a much more enjoyable clip.

DEEP THOUGHTS ABOUT PRIVACY, WHILST SITTING ON THE TURLET.

There is hearing, and there is listening.

People can hear, but they choose to listen.

Within reasonable confines and levels, a person within his or her own environment has a right to privacy in communication and information.

When people make extraordinary efforts to breach this boundary established by the right to privacy, an inexcusably egregious violation has occurred. This violation, when discovered, should be exemplified as the epitome of evil behavior and the violators should be prosecuted if the offense is damaging to the subject of the eavesdropping and the offenders should be denigrated to the point of absolute humiliation.


Click Here, Pilgrim

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: THE GLORIOUS MESS THAT WAS INDUCORE.

My former associate in Inducore, Schizm Murphy, has been bugging me for the past year to put a video clip from the, ahem, good old days on You Tube for about the past year or so. Every other email he's been sending me has been something like, "So? When's Inducore going up on You Tube? Huh? Huh? When?"

Okey doke, Mr. Murphy, you've finally gotten your wish. This is a clip of Inducore from 1987 or so in somebody's house in the 'burbs of Sacramento, with the legendary Joey Lucifer (RIP) behind the camera. Joey had a camera for a spell and had also taped the early version of Dead Sam Club at the time. Though Inducore was pretty much toast at this point, it was decided to tape some tunes just for posterity's sake.

So here, in gloriously off-tracked audio on badly damaged twenty two year old VHS tape, is the one and only Inducore. (Mr. Murphy claims to subscribe to my blog, so I'm not even going to email to let him know it's up.)

By the way, who was the skinny douchebag in the "Bob" Dobbs shirt? I remember seeing him back in the time, but the name escapes me...

THE OBLIGATORY MICHAEL JACKSON POST

Despite what my previous blog posts may suggest to some folks, I've never hated Michael Jackson. But I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon of those who, upon the minute of the announcement of his death, were suddenly declaring themselves devoted fans.

I saw the kid perform with his brothers on The Ed Sullivan Show when I was just 7 years old (1969), and from that point on, I just wanted to sing and dance. The dancing part was soon replaced by guitar playing, and later on, folks like the Clash, Dead Boys and Ramones made me decide what kind of music that I wanted to play.

Around the same time as the Jackson 5's Sullivan appearance, I had read a Classics Illustrated version of Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs.

Michael Jackson, by my estimation, grew up into the Gwynplaine of our time. His remaining fans, the ones who stuck with him through all of the embarrassment and ridicule, are now a personification of Homo, Gwynplaine's faithful companion wolf, staring mournfully over the railing and instinctively acknowledging his drowning, sight unseen.

THE MYSTERY OF "MAKE ME OVER AGAIN" BY THE ROGUE SHOW. SOLVED 37 YEARS LATER.

Back when I was a lil' brat we had a local store just three or four blocks away from my childhood home called the Melrose Drug Center. It was sort of a proto-Walgreens for the area, which sold, besides drugs, candy and the usual fare, kinda weird knickknacks and novelties and closeout books with the front cover torn off (I scored a copy of Patti Smith's Babel there as a young burgeoning punker kid) and really cheap records and tapes.

One day, at the age of 10, I had a slightly fat pocket (for 1972 dollars at least, and for being a kid back then) from birthday money and blew a whole dollar on a "mystery box" of sixteen 45 RPM singles. This was an interesting collection. There was a single from Welcome Back Kotter's Marcia Strassman (who played Mrs. Kotter) of a tune called "The Flower Children", a Roy Orbison number, "Breaking Up Is Breaking My Heart", and a sorta creepy sounding release from 1969 by a now-obscure act called Coventry, the sides of which were entitled "Let Me Off At The Next Town" and "Around The Corner There's A Man (He's My Friend)"(mmmm...okayyy).

The one single that truly kept my interest, however, was a sorta mysterious looking record by a band called The Rogue Show. It was a song titled "Make Me Over Again", released on the Paula Records label, with a label that looked like it was typeset with a retail kit from Woolworth's (and influenced the cover design of my 1990 Think album). The song was a pretty catchy lil' garagey number, and apparently it was a promo copy, as "Make Me Over Again" was on both sides, totally identical to each other.

I played the shit out of this single through my pre-and early teen years, but it ended up in one of my "lost" vinyl collections. Still, I had always wondered about who the Hell the Rogue Show was, and their history. As recently as a few years ago, there was absolutely nothing that I could find about these guys.

Of course, this is now 2009, and as we all know nowadays, you can find just about everything online if you search for it long enough (and know how to use Google). Finally, after 37 years, the mystery is solved, at least somewhat.

So here, for your viewing and listening pleasure, is the Rogue Show from 1971 with "Make Me Over Again". (And as an added bonus, after viewing, check out this blog where a collector posts a pic of the label and the Rogue Show's drummer posts some memories and facts about the group. It's actually pretty interesting stuff. Click Here, Pilgrim

(Update - 6/20/09) I received this link to yet another site in which someone had posted the news that Rogue Show drummer Ellis Starkey, whom I had mentioned earlier, had died on June 1, just a few weeks after I posted this. Strange timing, and sad to hear nonetheless. Well, my condolences to the friends and family of Mr. Starkey, and here are some more extensive memories of the Rogue Show (and his band previous to them, the Back Alley) which he had submitted for garagehangover.com. Click Here, Pilgrim

(Yet One More Update - 6/20/09) Further adding to the weird coincidence surrounding this record: apparently, the day after I posted about the Rogue Show, somebody put the exact same record on Ebay. Here's a chance to reclaim a relic of my childhood. But, ninety nine bucks? I'll settle for the memories for now. If I could, I'd offer to trade up two copies of Think, but alas, I don't have that record anymore either.

NOW MY TWITTER PAGE IS EVEN MORE OBNOXIOUS.

So, I've updated my Twitter message (and by message, I mean lonely ol' solitary message).

Already I've had to 86 a a few fuckers who have "followed" me because they're selling shit. When I say "don't fuckin' follow me", I mean it. If you're just following me because you know me, apologies, but I'm on a mission G. Don't take it personally if I nuke you.

But feel free to read it nonetheless: Click Here, Pilgrim

MESSAGE FROM "MAINSTREAM AMERICA" TO LETTERMAN, THE PALINS ET AL: SHUT THE FUCK UP. NOW.

Two things are clear after all of this David Letterman vs. Sarah Palin hullabaloo.

First of all, David Letterman was very irresponsible with the joke in question.

What he should have said was,

"...during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by the Yankees bat boy."


We wouldn't be having this conversation today.

And the second thing that this tempest in a teapot points out is that, quite obviously, Sarah Palin thinks that the American proletariat are a bunch of gullible idiots. Todd Palin reinforced that sentiment by saying: "...these sexually-perverted comments are outside the acceptance of mainstream America."

Well, I don't watch Letterman much nowadays, since, as a member of so-called Mainstream America, I have to get up early just like most of my fellow Mainstream Americans and tend to be dozed off by 11 PM (when Letterman airs in Sacramento). However, anyone who has watched his show, oh, at least once or twice or so, can figure out that David Letterman's opening monologue has always been about this corny ol' Midwestern dude making these kooky borderline off-color jokes and like wow, dude, you just don't expect a dude that looks like that to say those things, maaaan!

Unless, of course, you've been watching him for years and years, just like, y'know, most of Mainstream America who can still keep their eyes open at that time of night.

Sarah Palin can make as many "statutory rape joke" accusations as she wants, but Mainstream America quite easily figured out that the joke was about the Palin daughter who fucked her boyfriend out of wedlock and under the age of 18, and Mainstream America also realizes that the joke's object was the Palin daughter whose Baby Daddy walked from the shotgun wedding, so, nice try but uh-uh, it's not going over.

And besides, as any of us in TV-watching Mainstream America knows, A-Rod seems to prefer older, powerful famous women, like Madonna and ladies of that type. If anything, he would have tried to scam on Governor Palin, not any of her daughters.

Enough is enough. Mr. Letterman, Governor Palin and family, assorted commentators, associates, bloggers et al:

On behalf of Mainstream America, I respectfully request that all of you shut the fuck up about this incident. Right now. No more apologies, no more accusations of perversion, no more extended analysis. We're already sick of hearing about this shit.

As a way of walking my talk, I will promise to never address the subject again. Trust me, it will be too easy.

MR. CARRADINE, THEY HARDLY KNEW YE.

Usually, when the deaths of famous people are covered in the media, I'll tend to react with a typical mixture of disinterest and detachment. No matter how much the dearly departed in question accomplished, in almost all cases, I simply could not give a shit.

When I saw the morning news crawl concerning the death of David Carradine, it was a different story. It's been a while since I've felt this sorry to hear of the passing of someone whom I didn't know personally , although in a sort of indirect way, I feel like I did know this guy.

I remember when Kung Fu was on the air back when I was a kid, and like a lot of my generation growing up back then, I was sorta sucked up into the martial arts fad of the time. I even watched the latter day revival Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, which was on the air in the 1990s, well into the era that Carradine's abilities as an actor were considered by many to be (falsely) a punchline to a joke of mediocrity.

I was pretty much over Tarantino's films by the time that the Kill Bill movies were made, but Carradine certainly deserved the revived recognition. My personal admiration of his talent will always be his larger-than-life portrayal of Woody Guthrie in Bound for Glory, which helped to earn a Best Picture nomination for the 1976 Oscars. I consider it to be the best Depression-era film since The Grapes of Wrath, and a big reason for that opinion is because I feel that Carradine completely wraps himself around his role of Guthrie, transforming into a character straight out of one of those Steinbeck novels.

I've also never been ashamed to admit that I was impressed with, and actually went out and purchased, Carradine's Tai Chi and Chi Kung instructional videos. Carradine technically took the lead in these videos but the real expert was a gentleman by the name of Arnold Tayam, an instructor with over 30 years of experience. These tapes triggered my interest in both forms and I expanded my knowledge of them on my own, moving my interest past these tapes. I do a mix of Chi Kung and Tai Chi stretches and motions every morning before my weights, and I am convinced that it has kept me from transmorphing into a pear shaped stiff limbed hunchback, as is the case for many cubicle-trapped proles at my age. I feel that I will be eternally grateful to Mr. Carradine for this positive change in my lifestyle.

I am going to refrain from any commentary on the circumstances regarding Carradine's death. I will leave the discussion of certain speculated causes to folks like Larry King and Rush the Donut Worshiper.

I consider David Carradine to be a True Original and, personally in my life, an inspiring figure who seemed to do some things in his chosen career that he didn't quite want to do, but got to live some great life in between. By all eyewitness accounts, he was a rare mix of integrity, wisdom and joie de vivre who was liked and respected by so many that got to know him and work with him. The man deserved a much better closing scene to the later years of his life. Dammit, I want to hammer out a re-write and to re-shoot an updated ending, pronto.

HEY, THE CRIME RATE DROPPED! GREAT JOB, KJ! HA, PSYCH.

Hey kids, remember when Kevin Johnson's campaign and his supporters were harping on about the city of Sacramento's skyrocketing crime rate, and how electing KJ for mayor was gonna fix all that up and make public safety real copacetic and shit?

Well, whaddaya know! Less than half a year into Johnson's term, the FBI has just released statistics showing that violent crime actually dropped in Sacramento!

In 2008.

In Heather Fargo's last year in office.

Excuse me. I can't type right now because I'm having trouble controlling my laughter.

Read the story yourself. Click Here, Pilgrim