Media Mindfulness

I have some really weird stories about Allen Ginsberg, but I’ll save those for a rainy day. Suffice to say that when he was alive I had an argument with him over the word “mondo,” and when he was dead his ghost spoke through my guitar amp. Nuff said.
The task at hand is the yearlong […]

Some stories lend themselves to great headlines (”Cocaine cola a real buzz” for instance), but the demise of the Village Voice tends to not offer much humor (except in the Twainian sense of “news of my death is greatly exagerated”). I have mixed feelings. For those of you outside the Manhattan echo chamber, the Voice’s storied tradition of radical politics and culture was absorbed by a national chain of weekly urban “independents,” New Times Media based in Phoenix. The company also owns the LA Weekly, Seattle Weekly and SF Weekly among others. Many are alarmed by the firing of long-time investigative reporter, James Ridgeway. Add to the mix resignations, articles with bogus anecdotes, a shift in priorities and the international trend of media consolidation, and you get one pissed off crowd of readers. Plus New Yorkers are a tough audience to please. Go to a Yankees game and you will know what I mean.

It’s that time of year for the international holiday for freaks, TV Turnoff Week. Sponsored by Adbusters, this has become a calling card for school librarians (yes, they are feeing the pinch) and is a good time to reflect on our addiction to media. A few questions, though. What is a TV anymore? With TiVo, […]

Yes, well it was bound to happen. The liberals have declared war on Easter! Good thing we don’t have more important things to think about, like say, World War IV?

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I don’t always agree with MoveOn.org’s tactics (I don’t like their fear-mongering political ad techniques), but we should at least go and sign their petition to Congress to prevent Bush from using nukes on Iran. It may not seem like much, but it’s a start. We need critical mass.

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So I was being snarky when I posted on a wingnut’s case to nuke the moon. As I explained in that post, crossing the “insane” threshold is a political and military strategy to make people believe you will do anything to rule the world. After all, when logic fails, why not scare the shit out […]

Who said all culture jammers are lefties? (Discuss amongst yourselves.) Here’s a T-shirt company unafraid to use our tactics against us, and I love it! Sure they are distasteful, but they are funny in the same way that “Let’s kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out” is funny. But seriously folks, they are […]

Here’s the crappy thing about our culture today: I can’t tell anymore if I’m a total sucker. Is this another Yes Men prank?

The campaign is called, “nuke the moon.” Strange thing is, there is some rationality to this irrationality. The argument is that if the US as a superpower acts totally crazy, then no […]

“…Our culture has become so saturated with ironic doubt that it’s beginning to doubt its own mode of doubting. If everything is false, then by the same token anything can be taken as true, or at least as true enough. Truths are no longer absolute; they’re shifting, temporary, whatever serves the purpose of the moment. […]

Electronic motes anyone? Designed like something straight out of Neuromancer, US Globalnanospace (you’ve gotta love the name) is engaged in the wacky world of border security, bio decontamination foam and cigarette filters. Sometimes I wonder if I’m in the wrong business; writing, meditating and teaching doesn’t seems nearly as fun as what these guys do. […]

Today there will be national demonstrations against revised efforts to “reform” immigration law that are expected to draw over a million folks. This is great news. In an effort to explain why this sleeping jaguar has awakened, some in the mainstream media have finally examined the debate from a Latino perspective. In particular CNN profiled […]

As a Leo and space cadet, I thought I was the planet’s biggest astro-cat, but I’m outdone once again by the wonderful folks down in Florida who have their paws on the world beat of high weirdness, Weekly World News. As the paper warns its audience, “the reader should suspend disbelief for the sake of […]

“The only thing Americans recycle is fashion.”

I found something kinda creepy about this ad. Here we have a pluralistic panel of various demographics with each person donning a t-shirt inscribed with “me,” presumably as a way of appreciating the uniqueness of our highly individualized society. The ad copy states:
“Find your target with Boston Globe Media. From a narrow target segment […]

I just learned some shocking news that my friend and colleague Alex Magocsi was found dead in his car in Santa Fe. Alex was my editor at the Santa Fe New Mexican for many years when I was a music and arts writer for its weekly entertainment supplement, Pasatiempo. We shared a passion for music […]

Excuse me while I cry for a moment. Some poor cad in London was hauled in by the police for singing along to The Clash’s London Calling, which begs the question: Had punk been invented today, would it be considered a terrorist movement? Can paranoia withstand the leitmotif of our era, “irony”? Speaking of irony, […]

Only the Flaming Lips would have the audacity to cover Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” but they did, and you would be remise to not immediately download/purchase/rip/borrow their super awesome epic, At War With The Mystics, containing said magnum opus sacred cow. Only crazy or egomaniacal artists would tackle such a task. Which criteria the Lips fall […]

Polar Bears On Thin Ice:
“Perfectly at home in one of the world’s most forbidding environments, polar bears spend their summers roaming the Arctic on large chunks of floating ice. They drift for hundreds of miles, finding mates, hunting for seals and fattening themselves up for the winter. Without these thick rafts of sea ice, […]

Fearless freak and dharma teacher Noah Levine, author of Dharma Punx, is in Santa Fe April 28-30. To all my homies in Santa, yo, check it out, get your dharma on! (And for those of you from out of town, Upaya Zen Center is located in one of the most glorious locations on the planet- […]