You may not want to see this but:
http://aljazeera.net/

Its an Arabic site, so if you can interpret this for me, id be grateful...

Pictures of captured and murdered soldier on it too...

Our first "heroic" casulties occurred today. Yippee skippee. 16 dead. 4 American. 12 Brits. A helicopter went down. We need better helicopters. I need to design it. Anybody want to give me a job?

Right now we are bombing Kuwait City. Many people are nervous and worried, especially about retaliation. Many people are nervous and worried for the dead people over there. Many people don't like it.

I feel that it is sad, wrong, and can feel the general atmosphere of wartime fear creeping over the nation yet again. I haven't felt it since Gulf War. This may be me projecting onto society as a whole though. There is some sort of unmentionable tension in the air though. Luckily with wartime comes good satire. Also, I may get a job now.

There is always that silver lining, small as it may be, that surrounds a cloud for some people. You just have to find it. No matter how negative it really is.

Oscars is closing down the red carpet section on Sunday, though everything else will be going off. Bad movie night will be present to take our worried sober minds off these things by drunkenly mocking horrible things that never existed.

And, I have some uncontrollable urge to watch Apocolypse Now.

Maybe that could be next week's movie night, maybe I'll have it on a Wednesday. War movies: Full Metal Jacket, Apoc Now, and Dr. Strangelove. The parallels to the last one are phenomenal. Maybe I'll get Three Kings instead of one of those three, since I still haven't seen it.

War is so cool. It puts people on edge, and it makes people nervous. Who wants to make a tasteless joke short film with me? We'll throw oranges at the federal building, and call ourselves orange level terrorists. Or we'll attack people with box cutters and vials of germs. Would people be disgusted? Would they be too scared to laugh? Would the take it seriously? Would it be too blunt? Hrm.

Have I ever said I can relate to the Latino community? No? Good. I hate most of the Latino community, ess-aye. They are loco. Of course, I am loco too. I am also a Latino, ess-aye.

Last month or the month before Vanity Fair printed a Dame Edna column, whom I generally think as funny. Dame Edna, of course, pokes fun at the upper-crust mentailty and stereotypes they believe in with satire, right? So, in this issue, she says something to the effect of "Latinos aren't smart. They only know pots and pans, not Shakespeare." or something like that (I can't find the original e-mail). For some reason the Latino community got in some sort of uproar, causing VF to print an apology from the eds. Now, come on people. Are we in such a hypersensitive P.C. time that we cannot see that a joke isn't even aimed at us?! Can we see that it is to better the Latino community by making fun of that stereotype, and the people who uphold it? I mean, FUCK, these people are retarded. Sheesh.

More Hippy Thoughts

My Generation is back on on Encore. I caught the beginning of it this time (I missed out on it). It is strange how commercial Woodstock 94 was. But, I remember thinking this back when I was 12. Pepsi was the major sponsor, along with Sony, nobody beats The Wiz, Continental Airlines, and other big corporations. Wow. This wasn't around in 69, there weren't big corporations trying to sell you what was cool. I'm not going to be naive and foolish and say that 69 wasn't a commercial event, it was. I will say that it wasn't a corporate event.

Was the mainstream culture jaded in 69? Were they jaded in 94? What would be the difference between the two cultures? I think that 69 had more of a sense of being a part of something huge and being able to move the world, but I could be wrong. 94 seemed to have more of a sense of here I am, and I can't do anything better really, so lets have a fucking kick-ass time.

One of the major differences in the two concerts is the perception of the audience. Woodstock 69 was not mainly populated by hippies, just as 94 wasn't populated by the subcultures. When some guy in a 60s leather-esque vest and no shirt is getting hassled because he bought the wrong type of tent (metal poles) which he just paid $200 for is given prime time on a movie intending to document the generation we belong to, you know that there is something odd.

I can't help but compare 69 and even 94 to Burning Man. Burning Man is much more of a true subculture (though one you kind of have to pay through the nose for...). Though you do pay for the land rights and the water and upkeep, etc. Burning Man is the opposite of Woodstock concerts. They encourage metal stakes (nothing weaker could punch into the hard playa), and discourage corporate sponsership. In fact all symbols of commercialism down to the Ryder logo on their trucks must be hidden and/or disguised in some fashion. Burning Man allows you to cook your own food, and you can't even buy food once you're there. Woodstocks wouldn't let you bring pots and pans, because you'll use them as a weapon. No alcohol at Woodstock. Sheesh.

Perry Farrell (Jane's Addiction, Porno For Pyros) said something to the effect of 69 is different than 94, and he isn't a big fan of it. He said "I smell money." that was his big lament on the difference between the two concerts. However, Porno For Pyros was paid $150,000 for 50 minutes of playing. Hrm...

Maybe we're in an age of hypocrisy. I dunno. But, I do know that 94's kids got into it the right way because, Henry Rollins put it best, "Hopefully, they'll be able to get past all the hype and have some fun." He's a much smarter guy than Farrell. He knows there's sponsership, but he says not to hate it, but to get around it.

Due to a nap, I just saw My Generation. It was Encore, which I normally don't like as a movie channel. But, it was a comparison of the three different Woodstocks.

Pre-note: I feel I am a Generation X kid who was born too late...

Film analyzation:
The movie was OK. The director definately felt she was closer to Generation X than Generation Why. This is pointed out by the fact that the first 80 minutes of the movie are dedicated to a comparison of Woodstock 94 and 69. Sure, they were closer to each other than 99 was, but 99 deserves the same amount of treatment. Obviously 99 was an add-on.

Another detraction was the violence of 99 was completely down-played for its size. But, thats the nature of the beast. You have to downplay something.

Cultural analyzation:
Being true to my subculture professor, I am regarding 69 as a mainstream event. Moby had no idea what he was talking about when he was quoted in this movie by saying that the hippy subculture had something to rebel against, meaning Vietnam. The hippy culture was a rebellion of disillusionment against the establishment, as all subcultures before and after it should be. (side note: subcultures are now being commercially created, IMO). My professor established a difference between the hippies and the protestors, mainly saying that the hippies were too wasted to care about events.

Either way, Woodstock 69 was a mainstream event in the end. It was a bunch of people perverting and stretching the ideals of hippy culture to fit their own idea of what fun is, and how it relates to them. I'm not saying that hippy culture wasn't there (some of them probably were), but that more than a few were corproate lackeys even at that point. I mean a migration of 500,000 people from San Diego to New York is a bit hard to believe.

Woodstock 94 was played out the same way. The bands, like the ones in 69, were just subculture enough to be counter yet mainstream enough to attract everybody's attention. Will Ferrell had already started Lollapalooza, and was already in the band Porno For Pyros (to put it in time reference frame). Many of the bands were of the grunge/alternative station. NIN also played.

Woodstock 99 was a completely mainstream event. The only subculture that may have been truely represented was the techno/rave culture. But, nobody cared about the techno tent that was there. The main acts were all the mainstream bullshit that you heard on the radio and turned off faster than you could hit a fly in 99. Some of them you can still turn off today. Green Day, Limp Bizkit, Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews, etc. To say that corporate sponsorship was revealed in all of its full glory is to put it bluntly.

Basic comparisons:
69 & 94 - Mud people; 99 - sewage people (near the portopotties too, blech)
69 & 94 - Ultra planning gone awry; 99 - Ultra planning succeeding to bad ends
69 - Angry bands like The Who and Hendrix; 94 - NIN, Metallica, Porno for Pyros; 99 - DMX, Limp bizkit;
69, 94, & 99 - kids disillusioned about the societies before them
69 & 99 - Fires set to food vendors;
Major 99 differences - stupid new rules, ATM lines, outrageous prices, sturdy fences, lack of water, air force place (new venue), heat (no storms), Woodstock Visa

Sexism was a major part at all 3 Woodstocks. Woodstock 69 had footage of men asking women to strip, 94 and 99 had all of this too. 99 also had sexual crimes against women.

69 was out for pure fun. They didn't care about the world changers. The people who were there wanted to be a part of something, and thats all. 94 was a bunch of jaded kids looking for something to do. They found a community which they could be a part of, and it promptly self-destructed in a couple of years. The difference being shown in 99 by the completely different line-up, the ultra-commercialism, and the happily stupid people. The riots were a big fuck you to the corporate stooges ripping off the kids of america.

Don't get me wrong 69 and 94 were definately trying to make a profit (neither did). But, 99 should have been seen as a major difference when a producer guy gets up on stage and says "this is not a free concert like the previous 2 have been. I'm glad word has gotten out that if you don't have a ticket ($150 incidentally) then don't come." GACK. Talk about subverting the whole cultural idea of what Woodstock means. It was INTENDED as a commercial event, but ACTUALLY MEANS a subcultural community.

Whats next? We're in 2003, one year from the next Woodstock anniversary if there will be one. What wil be coming up next? A rap festival since that's what is "in" now. Hippy bands were "in" in 69, alternative was "in" in 94, angry commercial music was "in" in 99, now rap is "in" in 2003. Unless something else makes it big, its going to be another bad music festival.

I was born too late. I was -12 when 69 came around, 13 when 94 came to town, and 18, old enough to recognize a sham, when 99 came around. GACK. But, then, the born too late has been a battle cry for a little while. Since the '80s at minimum.