So the Lightning have one last game this season, and that last game is the true title game as the Stanley Cup Champion will be crowned after this game.

And Keith is heading down here tonight and will be arriving early tomorrow morning in Tampa to catch the game and stay a couple of day sin Tampa Bay.

It”s odd enough for me to deal with the fact the Lightning are playing for the Stanley Cup, it’s been a wild last couple of days and last couple of weeks as I have had several things change around me — which I never blogged in here .

But now I have to play International Host which I have never done before. Hell, i have never traveled by myself and can’t fathom how Keith is doing it – flying from Calgary to Tampa… I feel some insecurities because I’m still a gimp for the most part and he wants to take in some events here in Tampa and o course i want to show him around too… And doing that by car isn’t exactly how I planned it.

ON one hand, I wan tot meet him and show him the beauty of Florida before the Bolts kick the shit out of the Flames (and after :tongue) :biggrin, and on the other hand – now I know the feeling that others might feel when they are told someone is going to be visiting their neck of the woods to almost specifically meet.

But then again – it’s immaturity to look for a escape route – which I’ve seen in the past. Which I’ve participated in, in the past.

Odd I post this twice in a year.

This is the end, beautiful friend
This is the end, my only friend
The end -
Of our elaborate plans
The end -
Of everything that stands
The end -
No safety nor surprise
The end –
I’ll never look into your eyes again

This is the End

– Taken from The End by James Douglas Morrison
© 1967 The Doors Music Company

Still appropriate a year later. The fact I’m not playing the crutch again signifies the relevance.

I’ve been torn this evening on my mood for the day as it has changed over and over again from positive to negative to positive again. I’ve been walking around without the walker today – and when I say that I don’t mean walking and leaning on shit but walking walking a weird walk that was almost toddler like but I was doing it. That had me stoked to no end….

But then the other shoe fell as I got a message from my friend Michelle. Michelle has been a friend for a year now and it came as news to me, and as quite a shock when I found out that she will be moving to Brooksville in July as her family just bought land up there. I’m friend with her dad too and the fact we talk online mostly means I won’t have that relationship bothered much but to lose Michelle hurts.

Of course, this was made up for to me in the smallest of ways as the Lightning beat the Islanders and moved on to the 2nd round of the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs… But that really doesn’t help me feel better that a good friend is going away.

I recently saw the original Star Wars Trilogy on film (pirated Version — Han Shoots First, bitch! ) and was sorta’ sick because of how corny C3PO and R2-D2 were in the movies… But I can also remember how I was watching the movie and would see Artoo beep-blip-bloop and 3P0 seemingly translate what Artoo said into something rude (his responses told you this) and assumed Artoo was saying something dirty at the time.

I inserted lines of my own too in certain situations… Just for fun. It didn’t occur to me just who this reminded me of until tonight.

I get online and start reading the hilarious 64 Reasons to Hate Attack of the Clones and come across this gem at #25:

Bustin’ on Artoo
There’s this one scene where Padme and Anakin are walking on Naboo and she says she’s a little nervous and he confesses to also being nervous since this is his first assignment by himself. “Don’t worry,” Padme says. “We have Artoo with us.” Then they both laugh about how ridiculous a concept it is that Artoo could be at all useful. Artoo beeps and if Threepio were there to translate it would probably be something along the lines of “Fuck you both.”

The moment I read that, remembering the scene from the movie, I agreed with the above sentiment that Artoo would have been mouthing off here… Not only that, but R2-D2 has got to be what inspired Kenny McCormick of South Park.

Now, not to piss off South Park fans by suggesting this and knowing the full truth to who inspired Kenny, I just see the odd parallels between the two characters.

1) Unintelligible — Be it Artoo’s beeps or Kenny’s muffled statements, both characters almost speak a foreign dialect
2) Ability to piss people off — Be it Cartman or 3P0, Kenny and Artoo’s mouths
tend to have snide responses for others statements
3) Getting in trouble — Artoo gets hit in Star Wars and is severely damaged, Artoo falls in a Swamp and gets eaten in Empire Strike Back, Artoo falls into the Sand of the Dune Sea as well as getting shot during the Battle of Endor during Return of the Jedi… Kenny gets killed during every single fucking episode of South Park.

It’s uncanny, I tell you…

There are probably more similarities that I can’t think of right now, but I swear to you that Kenny and Artoo have to be related somehow with these odd coincidences… If not, Artoo had to inspire Kenny in a roundabout, fucked up kind of way…

A couple of days ago, I was flipping around the tube and came across a Beach Boys biopic I had originally seen when I was younger, called Summer Dreams, which I got lucky enough to turn on just as the British Invasion was beginning (1964).

I got to come across Brian Wilson’s anxiety and his musical genius that I had been aware of from quotes but hadn’t thought of much besides what I had heard and liked as a child — which is odd because some of the music is much more complex an innovative than the Beatles stuff and I had never given it a second thought (example: The introduction to California Girls).

I’ve had a song in my head since I watched the movie and I would love to be able to provide streaming audio of the music to share with everyone because of how beautiful the song can be — but alas, until I figure out how to do that, i can only share with you the lyrics. It’s a stirring and haunting melody with harmonies in multiple layers…. It was part of the Pet Sound album (which George Martin claimed, “If it wasn’t for Pet Sounds, there would be no Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band)…

Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is the song I haven’t been able to get out of my head — or stop pulling at my heart (as was the case with Dennis Wilson in Summer Dreams

God Only Knows

I may not always love you
But long as there are stars above you
You never need to doubt it
I’ll make you so sure about it

God only knows what I’d be without you

If you should ever leave me
Though life would still go on believe me
The world could show nothing to me
So what good would living do me

God only knows what I’d be without you

God only knows what I’d be without you

If you should ever leave me
Well life would still go on believe me
The world could show nothing to me
So what good would living do me

God only knows what I’d be without you
God only knows what I’d be without you
God only knows
God only knows what I’d be without you
God only knows what I’d be without you
God only knows
God only knows what I’d be without you
God only knows what I’d be without you
God only knows
God only knows what I’d be without you
God only knows what I’d be without you
God only knows
God only knows what I’d be without you
God only knows what I’d be without you
God only knows
God only knows what I’d be without you
God only knows what I’d be without you
God only knows
God only knows what I’d be without you

The ultimate skit comedy show that ever aired — outside of the opening seasons of Saturday Night Live, was Keenan Ivory Waynes groundbreaking and hilarious In Living Color series which aired on Fox on Sundays if I do recall when it first started out. I was in 5th grade at the time and it was a show quickly banned in my home because of some mature comedy but damnit – the early stuff was classic!

The reason I am going off on In Living Color like this is because I started searching for episodes transcripts and translations after thinking about the “Men On Film” segment and their reviews of films… (especially “A Few Good Men” ) I used Google and a bunch of times came up with nil. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Bupkus and such. The few sites that I did find were Jim Carrey shrines (that’s right, kids, Jim Carrey got his big break doing his crazy shit on television — though he had been in a couple of movies that didn’t take before his In Living Color role) or just filed with text tiles of the skits that aired in each episode… not the actual content of the episodes.

Homey the Clown is a cult hero and should be enshrined as so much on the Internet, which is a home to the tacky and humorous. Fire Marshall Bill should be compared and contrasted to George W. Bush (though I don’t think “Lemme…. show ya somethin’!” compares with certain Bushisms… Fire Marshall Bill’s saying was a lot more catchy :smile ) and of course– “Men On Film” and the cast of Blaine Edwards and Antoine Merriwether, should be displayed as the guys who started the Homosexual cultural revolution in America (ok, they were stereotypes and extremely effeminate and therefore actually impairing our perception of homosexuals as butts of jokes, but they were too damn funny to shun their… uh, preferences?). Lets give a giant two-snaps-up-and-booty-twirl to Men On Film! (which was re-spawned for one skit on Saturday Night Live as Chris Farley joined Damon Waynes Blaine Edwards and David Alan Grier made an impromptu appearance as Antoine Merriwether to resurrect the In Living Color — the only ILC skit to air on SNL).

Jamie Foxx, Shawn Waynes, Jim Carrey, Damon Waynes, Jennifer Lopez… This show really started these guys down the career path (yes, Damon was on SNL and had been in movies before this show. Yes Keenan had been a director before this show, yes J-Lo didn’t become a star until after this show, but the point is this show helped them all on their way). It’d due some respect… It’s a conspiracy, I tell you! C-O-N…. spiracy, my broth-a!

It’s time to embrace the kings of early 1990′s comedy. It’s time to embrace In Living Color… For you can do what you wanna’ do In Living Color. :biggrin

Something’s been bothering me for a while and I have put off talking about it in here for the sake of being a lazy shit – I’ve planned to write about it for a while but I just haven’t gotten around to doing it. It’s something that affects my family – or at least a member of my family – directly while the rest of my family is affected by it indirectly.

(Side positive note – at least it’s not a problem I am facing that is coming down on the rest of my family…. For a change :tongue )

No, this problem is affecting Andy directly. My younger brother who lives on his own with his girlfriend and her two kids. And even with this problem, it’s not Andy himself who is inflicted with the problem – he’s just the one who has to carry part of the blunt weight of this problem on his shoulders.

You see, Andy’s girlfriend’s son, Austin, has a bit of a problem right now… Something inside isn’t right and I don’t mean some type of disease like I have – but emotionally and possibly mentally not right. He has always pissed me off a bit for not understanding me and the fact I can’t understand him, he’s always come off a little hyper as well and I figured like “that”, you know?

But, and I am not fully aware of what is going on so believe me when I say this can be very inaccurate… Austin is having “rages” of sorts. He’s four years old and, instead of temper tantrums, he is going into fits of kicking, screaming, biting, clawing and such and then when it’s over he has no memory of what happened. Someone suggested the kid might be bi-polar at four-years-old?

And I experienced some of his oddities last time he was over here that sorta pissed me off at the time. He woke me up as I was taking a nap — staring at me and just making me notice him… He also went into hiding in my brother’s empty bedroom… Hiding behind the door. I noticed he was there and I started asking him why he was there. No response. No, he just started shutting the door and I wanted to know what was up. The kids (Austin and his sister, Elizabeth) aren’t supposed to be upstairs when they aren’t with someone… I asked, he pushed the door closed. I pushed back and he pushed harder. Now, the only problem with this is I am the gimpy one right now — still rehabbing and such…

I ended up getting pissed off and just shouting, “Fine kid! Fine!” I was already upset with how I had been “treated” that night and wanted no part of finding out what was going on with Austin….

But now I feel real bad if he is really… unstable? Not just for Austin himself (being one that knows the troubles of growing up afflicted) but for Andy and his GF. It’s a load of weight for him to carry on his shoulders at 23 and I certainly wou8ldn’t want to be in that situation…

I pray that he can get through it and come out on top.

Maybe it’s just me and I understand artsy-fartsy better than others?

Maybe it was because I wasn’t listening as-so-much reading the dialog, but I happened to enjoy Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation starring Bill Murray as an out of place American.

The entire premise of the movie is that – being out of place. Be it physical location, be it where you are in life or whatever – being out of place or not understanding your surroundings and trying to cope is what Lost In Translation basically amounts to.

Now, for those ho can deal with the artsy-fartsy, for those who can deal with less dialog and more imagery — this is a worthy movie for you. For those of you who can’t go on that, who can’t thrive on the social – it’s not a film for you. My father gave a firm thumbs down to the movie before even finishing it. Why? “Nothing Happens” was the excuse given. Indeed – nothing does happen. No slap-stick comedy, no bombs going off, no one liners, no thrills… It’s nothing you would expect Bill Murray to star in, nor is it something that you expect to headline the local multi-plex. It’s hard to understand if you are expecting a show that gets you interested right away with something happening or with a certain image – the image of Murray being driven to the hotel from the airport doesn’t exactly pull you in…. and obviously it didn’t pull my father in….

Lost is certainly Academy Award fodder and I have to hope both Sophia Coppola and Bill Murray can pull in awards for this… Of course, I am also pulling for a certain Hobbit-like director to take home a best-director Oscar, so it’ll be a very interesting finish to this award season.

Democrats loathe Ralph Nader (well, some of them do) because of the 2000 election which AL Gore lost because of poor campaigning. Voters looked for an alternative that was closer to their ideals and more of a stark contrast between Gore and Bush and Ralph Nader fit the bill.

I should know, I was one of those disillusioned voters that switched to Nader. Not just because I was tired of the Clinton / Gore scandals, not just because Gore was pandering too much to the swing voters, but also because I had some idea that I could help build the Green Party by getting 5 percent of the vote for their candidate and thus matching funds for 2004.

Mistake.

There is talk that Nader may run for President again in 2004 and I am one of many voters who sent Ralph’s exploration committee a note encouraging him NOT to run for President. The election is too important for a third candidate to play spoiler.

But there is still relevance to the man that is Ralph. There is still aneed for Nader in American Politics…

See, there’s this guy in Connecticut — Ralph’s native state — that has been running for senate the past few years and being successful at it. The problem is this senator – a democrat – is nothing like a democrat in his voting record… Not only that, he isn’t a progressive — he’s a moderate or Bush Lite.

I’m talking about little Joe Lieberman.

In the current state of America, where Democrats are afraid to stand up – Joe Lieberman is an embodiment of Democratic failure. Ralph Nader is an icon of the liberal/progressive kind… Which one will do more for the left politically in Senate?

Ralph ought to be running for Senate.

A stark liberal influence in the senate is what America needs. Washington Democrats are proving to be notorious for acting as the minority and bending to the will of Republicans. Though Nader is not a Democrat or a Green, he is Progressive enough to take stances on issues that would benefit both parties — and America with his votes.

So Ralph, if by some miracle you read this — stay out of the Presidential election… Do America a favor and run for Senate — we’re in need of your influence… But make sure your influence is felt through a election you CAN win, not a farce that only coddles your ego.

In the last few days, I’ve been taken for another political roller coaster from the left side of the political spectrum. I happen to be a liberal/progressive and that makes me vote Democrat / Green and support those candidates.

My regular readers should know this, my friends should be aware of this… Same with my allegiance to Howard Dean – it’s no secret.

What is a secret, or is something that I have touched on before but haven’t ranted about here on the Stonegauge, is that I am also in this crossroads politically. I have been there this summer after an incident with the local Green Party and I am there again because of national and local Democrats as well as the local Green Party.

Lets go back to Monday and Tuesday and Howard Dean getting an endorsement from former Veep Al Gore. This was a huge blow to others participating in the Democratic Primaries coming up, and none of them could muster enough nerve, during a debate Tuesday night, to actually raise their hand when Ted Koppel asked the group if Dean could beat George W. Bush.

Sour grapes, that is understandable for the most part – but it’s a continuing trend.

I have read today in the St. Petersburg Times Ed/Op – Letters To the Editor section that Gore’s endorsement should be considered “the Kiss of Death” for Howard Dean. I have seen others complain of Gore’s “betrayal” of Joe Lieberman… Forget the fact that Lieberman hasn’t won anyone over and just comes off as a nice guy for the most part – but hardly someone you want to lead you into a battle.

For some reason, these smallish grudges – Lieberman being snubbed by Gore, other candidates not believing in Dean because they hadn’t gotten major endorsements, etc — all just mystified the Democratic party to me. Why so much disdain for one another when everyone in the party is supposed to be working for the common goal of trying to improve America?

OK, lets take this to the local front now. The St. Petersburg Times letter section today probably put me in a defensive mood to begin with (though most letters were positive about the Dean / Gore endorsement). It put me on the defensive specifically because someone had brought up (as I mentioned above) the infighting among Democrats. I came online to check my email and got to read a local democrat putting down local Greens / Kurt Gratzol’s “tree Hugger” house party that he hosts every couple of weeks. The email in question talked about how Kurt and others at his parties (usual Greens) were just there to be brought back to the Democratic Party and actually using the term “Tree Hugger” wasn’t going to help their (Democrats) cause of trying to lure people back to the Democratic Party.

This ticked me off because, for the second time, I witnessed someone who was too concerned with the Democratic party give a care if he insulted another progressive/liberal. The email writer also didn’t / doesn’t seem to grasp the point that there is a difference between the Democratic Party and the Green Party and that the Democratic Party’s own actions is most likely the reason any Green has “broken off” away from the Dems in the first place.

A Green is still a liberal.

A Green is still a progressive.

A Green is an ally – not someone that needs to be “brought back” to the Democratic Party. You can go to them and vote for them just as much as they will probably vote Dem. in a general election where a Green candidate isn’t running. Why, in gods name, do you have to make a case for “bringing them back” into the fold? Or have to post an insult with regards to their politics in making your case that you are lobbying to get these people “back” to the Democratic party?

So where do I sit now? I don’t know. I am a leftist-progressive. I believe in the best in people… Yet it seems every opportunity the Left has to further make me feel comfortable, or make me feel tied to one party or another on the left, they screw it up in some way or another.

For instance, this summer when I was “forced out” of the local Green Party… I was called a “rubber spined…coward” for backing Howard Dean and believing the 2004 election was too important to vote for Principled Idealism. I had already grown disillusioned with local Greens because there was too much loony-left rhetoric, along with them lobbying for a Green presidential candidate (2004 is TOO IMPORTANT to the nation to have a split left vote again!)… This was the last straw when I was called a coward for not standing up to some ideal value of a candidate…

So I was no longer a Green.

I embrace Howard Dean and have met some very cool people through the Dean campaign so far, and will likely meet more as things continue to move ahead… But at the same time, I had posted about my Dean/Green incident and that inspired at least one nutcase to go and give me some grief for ever having been tied to the Green Party. Why? He was still pissed off over 2000 and just had to take a pock-shot at someone that actually voted for Ralph Nader.

Instead of welcoming a new supporter, or trying to make someone feel comfortable in political surroundings, this guy wants to coddle his own insecurities and ego by attacking and making snide remarks. GREAT way to win support :rolleyes

The infighting among the left can and will become the cause of defeat in 2004 unless the Democrats stop being such weak-willed cowards, stop being such infighting fools and start uniting for greater purpose. Stop trying to tear down the other guy because he doesn’t fit your ideal or doesn’t follow your beat in every step and start thinking about the bigger picture.

The bigger picture is what’s at stake — the very beacon of hope that the United States used to be. Why make a fuss over such petty things in politics and not just UNITE and CONQUER for the greater good of every citizen in the US and the world?

It’s not like this Ad does anything to stop my concerns about the Left vs. the Left either