Yes, I stole this idea, but....

National Review's attempts at coming up with 50 Conservatives has pretty much changed how I look at music. Things that I didn't know were conservative, such as the Sex Pistols "Bodies" suddenly appear in a whole new light. It's just a new matter of how I look at things.

So I began to think, maybe even some of my favorite songs are actually conservative in nature. Maybe my favorite songs aren't soulful songs bespeaking the progessive heart, but actually reactionary tunes calling for family values! So I opened up my iPod and hit the first 10 songs I heard and, OH MY GOD, they are conservative! It's all in how you look at it.

Here they are, with my new interpretation. I'm pretty sure my membership to the Young Republic Party should be fairly forthcoming.

The Police- Everything She Does is Magic
Notice this song definately does not say "Everything He Does is Magic." That's because love can only truly be between a man and a woman.

The Beatles- Let It Be
Everyone thinks that "Revolution" is the great anti-revolutionary tract, but this song really is. See, in it's simple plea of letting things be, what Paul McCartney is singing about is the desire for things to be left alone and not to be changed by activist judges.

Primus- Too Many Puppies
You want to know why there's too many puppies? Because who would want to abort puppies? There might be too many puppies, but too many puppies is so much more preferable than too many aborted puppy fetuses.

NWA Straight Out of Compton-
See liberals would make you believe that the only way out of Compton is thorugh big government and racial recriminations. But as this song shows, the only way out of Compton is to work hard, save, adhere to traditional values and lower capital gains taxes.

Ratt- Lay It Down
Listen to these lyrics: "I know you only want romance/I'll give you all that I can/If you'll give me just one chance/To prove myself and my love". You know what this song is really about? Abstinence. What do you think they mean when they say "romance?"

Tool- Hooker With a Penis
I can't figure this one out and why it would be conservative. Maybe because it's about Anne Coulter.

Montel Jordan This is How We Do It
Cut taxes, bash gays and Mexicans, invade foreign countries without international support....this is how WE do it.

Cake- Mr. Mastadon Farm
Evolutionists would say that Mastadon's lived in a time very long ago when man was barely evolved. But if that was true, how could there be a Mastadon farm? The only way there could have been a farm would have been if the world was created by God in six days.

99 Problems Jay-Z
You want to know why Jay has 99 problems but his bitch aint' one of them? Because by having a wife and a family, he is truly living up to God's blessing and showing correct family values.

Soundgarden Blow Up the Outisde World
I don't think there's ever a better to song to describe our proper response if somebody hates our freedoms.

I went river rafting on the South Fork of the American River over the weekend and had a little adventure. And it goes something like this....

We hit this rapid called Satan's Cesspool, one of the rougher rapids on the river, maybe the roughest of them. So much so, the guides all talked about it before-hand as if it was a major challenge and something we absolutely, positively, had to nail just right or bad things would happen.

Whatever. I wasn't really that scared or worried because I've done that particular rapid about five times before and haven't had any problems with it. The only time I've fallen out, "gone swimming" as they say, was at another rapid and I don't particularly remember it being that scary. Scary to my dad and the river guide, but not me.

Anyways, I'm on a boat with seven rowers and one guide. I'm on the back of the boat, on the right side. We hit the main part of the rapid and pretty much make it free and clear and as we pass the rock in which the photographer is stationed, I silently give a "phew" and relax a bit, knowing the worst part of it was over and it was just a matter of bouncing off a few waves from here on out. Later, everyone tells me they thought the same thing.

We were wrong. I'm not exactly sure what happened next or what caused it all-- nobody on the boat could figure it out and everyone has different recollections of what happened-- but I remember we came off a wave while a bit on our side-- nothing too terribly off-- when it felt like we just stopped and the right side of the boat began to rise up out of the water.

What we think happened was that we hit an eddy on the way down and it was like being stopped in mid motion. Picture a skier sailing down a hill only to hit a branch or a root or something that makes them come to a complete standstill and figure out the physics of it all. So our boat started to rise on up to the right side as the left side started to get lower and lower into the water. People behind us said that it looked like just, out of nowhere, we just popped out of the boat.

Now I'm on the back side of the boat and on the side that's rising up out of the water. And I see all of this happening in slo mo as it were. As we go up, the first thought in my head is "huh, this is kind of weird. We shouldn’t be flipping.” My second thought, which comes to me as the boat is now almost on it's side, is that it was like in "Titanic" where the boat starts sinking and everything starts flying towards the water because at this point I start seeing things fly from my side of the boat into the water. Including the guy sitting in front of me and a few people on my left. I mean, I literally did see the guy who was sitting in front of me just fly out of his seat and land in the water.

It is at this point where I realized that I'm about to go in myself.

Boom, I go, into the water, and go under.

Now I have a life vest on and I'm not in that deep, but once I try to begin my ascent back up, at this point completely calm, I realize I can't necessarily go back up. I try to push myself up a few times but get nowhere. The eddy is holding me down.

Huh.

My thoughts when I realized I wasn't going to be able to go back up? "Huh, shouldn’t I be able to swim back up?"

After what felt like a few seconds and was probably a lot less, I finally manage to come up and try to get my first big breath after being under the water. But as I start to take a breath in, a huge wave came and slams into me so that I wind up swallowing as much water as air. I try and gain my bearings only to realize that I'm pretty much still in the shit as it were and all I could see coming at me was wave after wave after wave. I can't really see anything other than the waves-- no boat, no shore, no nothing-- and I can only really hear the rush of the rapids. To make matters worse, I'm starting to realize that it's going to be hard to breathe in all of this because water is flying everywhere and the one thing I don't want to do is swallow a wave. Now I start to feel a bit panicky.

I flutter around a bit in the rapids, trying to get into position (on your back, feet first) but not being really successful at it as the current is pushing me everywhere. And I'm having catching my breath not just because the water is splashing everywhere, but because the water is also butt cold-- we were given wet suits before starting in fact. I am not a happy camper.

Then I see it, a kayak. One of the rescue kayaks in fact, used by the rafting company to fish people out of the water in case people need to be fished out. Holding onto one side of the kayak is one of the guys on my boat, the person on the center left. Either he calls to me or the kayak dude does but once I see it, I start swimming for it, knowing that this is pretty much my rescue.

I approach the kayak only to get a little confused as what to do next. The kayak isn't that big and one guy is already on one side so I start to go to the other side. The kayaker, however, sees this, and starts yelling at me to go to the back. I don't. It's a friggin' kayak, what is the front and what is the back? I swim to the wrong side and the kayaker pretty much grabs me and shoves me to the other side where I see a rope attached to the back and hold on. That makes two people hanging on.

Somebody else from the boat floats by, a tiny Chinese woman who looks kind of like the famous Scream figure from the Munch painting, all shock and freezing cold. The other guy who is holding on reaches out and grabs onto her. So there are now three people holding onto the kayak.

I am not sure the kayak is supposed to have three people holding onto it. There is no room for the three of us. I find myself drifting away from the back towards the side, something I am told not to do by the kayaker, but I can't help it. As this is going on, however, a huge wave hits the kayak, followed quickly by another, bigger wave. The wave lifts up the kayak and starts pushing it onto it's side and I hear the kayaker yell out "I'm going to flip!"

Now I was a little scared up til this point. Now I am really scared. After all, if the person who is coming to rescue you suddenly finds themself needing to be rescued, what does that do the people who needed rescuing in the first place? If the kayaker goes over, I'm thinking not necessarily that I'm fucked, but more like it's now up to Plan B and I have no friggin clue what Plan B would be.

But somehow, the kayak steadies. He doesn't get flipped. And as we all breath a sigh of relief, the kayaker finally feels steady enough to push out and he starts paddling us out of the rapids. At the end of them, he sees another one of our boats and heads over to them. As we get close, I let go of the kayak and swim up to the raft where a group of hands reach out to pull me in. I want to help them, to try and push myself up, to be strong, but I can't. I have nothing left. I surrender to what's going on and let them pull me up.

I am safe.

The raft quickly heads to shore and a bunch of concerned faces look over me asking me if I'm allright. One of the guys on the raft later tells me the look on my face was somewhere along the lines of "had just seen God." I also see the Chinese woman on the other side of the raft, still in shock, pale white and wide-open mouth. The people on the raft not taking care of me are holding onto her, hugging her, trying to get her to snap out of it. I finally sit up as we approach the shore and catch my breath. The second we hit sand, I fly off the boat, take off my helmet, and plop myself in the sun, trying to dry myself.

Now, I know "swimming" while rafting isn't that uncommon. Out of six boats that went down the rapids at the point, three of them lost people. Carnage, they call it. One boat lost everyone but one rower, the poor lady finding herself the only person on a raft still shooting through the rapids with the guide still in the water trying to get back to the boat. And some people, even on my boat, had a fairly easy time of it. They quickly found another raft and hopped on in. But not me. I went under, lost my breath, got rescued by a kayak, almost lost the kayak, and then was lifted into another raft.

Pretty hairball, as they say.

Now this is what you call a Hemingway moment, a moment to show the biggest thing of them all, Grace Under Pressure. I would like to say that in my Hemingway moment, I exuded nothing but Grace Under Pressure. But I did not. I didn't get into proper swimming position. I got grabbed by the kayaker because I went to the wrong side. And I was partially responsible for the almost losing of the kayak. All this in comparison to another guy on my raft, the one who grabbed the Chinese woman and helped steady the kayak. I showed no Grace Under Pressure.

But on the other hand, I am here, typing this now. And isn't grace under pressure, when it comes down to it, merely surviving? I mean, I lived, so whatever I did, I must have done something right because I made it through.

And not only that, the next morning I got up and rafted again. Scared shitless enough to seriously think about bailing and going home. But I did it. And after a few bits of white knuckling through white water, somewhere around the time we hit the hole we shouldn't have hit and almost got thrown again if it weren't for emergency measures we had to take and which made it so we got through the rapids, I got my mojo back. I want to do it again. Except hopefully this time, there will be no swimming.

Okay, so you discover that your Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather was Jesus. What do you do? Do you just keep it quiet and try to live a normal life, all the while knowing that you hold like the biggest secret in the history of the world? Try not telling that secret when your drunk. And how do you go back to the real world if you know that. Just imagine being at work and totally hating your job and getting bitched at by your boss. You gotta be thinking "Fuck that, I'm a descendant of Jesus. I'm outta here."

Or do you do the full Oprah, reality show, party circuit thing? That's gotta be fun, but imagine the pressure. Get caught drunk on camera or snogging some dude and it's "Mary Magdaline's Grand Daughter is a Tramp" headlines. Imagine the crazies coming out of nowhere asking to be healed or blessed or endorsement for political office. Wouldn't you want to call up all the people who screwed you over in some ways and lord it over them too? You know, like the boss who fired you at Starbucks? "Yeah, hello, Jenna? Well, guess what. I'm the daughter of Christ. Yep, that's right. And you know what? Your going to hell." Wouldn't that be fun?

Either way, you got major pressure on you to have children. And considering that people are trying to off the blood line, lots of children. You basically gotta start spawning as fast as you can. That's pressure right there. And what about all the ex-boyfriends? You'd think they'd be all stoked, you know, like "dude, I nailed Jesus' granddaughter" but, instead, they'd probably be thinking "oh dear, God, I am so going to hell for doing that with her and that night in the backseat of the limo? Totally fried." Or imagine if you were the ex-boyfriend and you cheated on her. Imagine the guilt about that. And don't even get me started if you had an "experimental phase" in college. That's so going to cause problems with the Vatican.

Yes, I just saw "The Da Vinci Code," why do you ask?

Is it wrong that when I was at Safeway this evening buying groceries, I got into what looked like a pretty short line and seeing that the person in front of me was a feeble, very old lady, got out of the line and went searching for any other line that wasn't too long and not holding feeble, old people?

Unfortunately, I couldn't find another lane so went back into the lane and, yes, it did take forever.

So last week, our congress held hearing on a gay marriage ban, voted to make English the official language of America, decided to build a wall on the border, while in another hearing, somebody who is responsible for illeagally monitoring our phone messages announced he couldn't talk about any of it and got thumbs up from Republicans who couldn't care less.

In other words, it had to be one of our finer moments as a democracy.

I was kept up til 4 this morning because my courtyard neighbors decided to throw a party in the courtyard, which they've done a few times. It occured to me last night as I was being blasted by stereo speakers that sounded as if they were parked right outside my window, that most people who throw parties make at least a half-hearted attempt to not be noisy. They have it inside, for instance so they can at least say that there was some buffer between stereo and neighbors and party-goers are not quite outside where noises tend to echo and echo around. Out in the courtyard, as there's no buffer, there's not even the pretense of trying to not be noisy. And then I started to think about everyone else in my apartment building and the one next door and the ones next door to the apartment complex that held the party (it had to be the complex itself because the people in the rest of the complex had to have agreed to it) and the two buildings that are to the left and right of the courtyard also were pretty much deluged with noise and music and crowd noise too and were probably lying in bed too and wondering just who the genius was who followed up a bunch of Motown tunes with Lou Reed tunes on the party playlist.

Now, I've been to my fair share of parties. And I've thrown a few myself. I consider myself as somebody pretty allowing of neighbor's to have their occasional fun. I am also one of those people who hates people who complain about city noise, like trains or bells or clubs, and feel that if you live in the city, you have to expect a certain level of noise. But was last night's party a bit, umm, too excessive?

Or am I turning into an ever crankier old man?

More quick takes from somebody who hasn't been feeling the blogging lately

-Between Margie getting in trouble with Nikki, poor Vito on "the Sopranos" and the last fifteen minutes or so of "the Office," it's been one long, week of cringe on TV. I actually couldn't watch part of "the Office," the bit when Michael's two dates ran into each other, and the last five minutes or so, woo-hee.

I need to start watching something less stressful. Like "24".

-So yes, so far while driving I've cursed out my first fellow driver (for tail gaiting on a completely empty four-lane highway at 12:30 at night), gotten cursed at (for sort of crossing while yellow, but it had just turned yellow and it wasn't fair for me to get it considering three cars followed me across), been honked at for a near miss (totally my fault-- I totally missed seeing someone while merging onto an off-ramp), and had my first heart pumping "what the hell?" moment when some car in front of me on the 101 couldn't decide which lane to go into and went to and fro two lanes without signaling. The thing I'm waiting for most hasn't happened yet (well, other than being stranded on the 101 while waiting for AAA) is to get yelled at by a biker. I know that's coming at some point because those suckers do appear out of nowhere. And I really don't want that to happen because as somebody who used to bike to work, I was the one who was getting cut off by drivrers. I don't want to be that driver.

-Jaywalkers really piss me off. It's not just that some of them kind of lollygag across the street as if there's nothing at all wrong or dangerous about walking across the street right into upcoming traffic, it's the one dude who instead of running across the street, decided to stand in the middle of traffic and play traffic cop so as not to be hit. Dude, if you don't want to not be hit, don't stand there and try and make eye contact-- RUN.

-I was at the cafeteria at work and it became apparent that one of those co-workers who I don't talk to that much (my bad, not them) and I were about to get in line together to ring up the cash register. But when it became apparent, they ambled over to the fridge and pretended to look inside for a drink. In other words, they totally dawdled so as to not get stuck in the line together and make small talk. How do I know they did that? Because that's MY move.

-I know I harsh on "Lost" a lot and I shouldn't considering how great it's been lately and how much fun it is to read through people's Web sites in which they dissect the clues, but here's one more thing that I wish the show did better- trippiness. Considering how much weird things happen on the show, it should be totally whacked out and surreal. But it's not. It needs to be more "Twin Peaks" and it's not. If there was anything "Twin Peaks" did better than anything, was make your jaw drop and bring the goose bumps because it was so well done in it's surrealness. It was trippy as all hell. That's what "Lost" needs to be like.

Or maybe it was because "Twin Peaks" aired while I was in college and more susceptible to trippiness?

-Yesterday was one of those beautiful, cloudless, warm days we rarely get, the kind of day that reminds you that you actually do live in California and this is the way it's supposed to be. The reason why California is what it is. I went with a friend to meet up with other friends to go to the Giants game, a game they won by scoring 4 runs in the ninth inning to beat the hated Dodgers. Afterwards, we spilled out to a new bar partially owned by Sammy Hagar himself to drink margarita's, and then headed off to Gordon Biersch where we managed to somehow score a table in the outdoor patio. Safely ensconced there, we hung out for four hours or so, until dark where we sat and watched the Kaboom from the comfort of our own seats. While the Bay Bridge obscured our view, we were still close enough that the fireworks almost looked directly above us. And from our cozy little seats, there's something more dramatic about the fireworks when it's obscured like that. From where we sat, we saw people who were milling about, stop what they were doing to watch. We watched as the N Judah continued on with it's run right underneath the explosions and cars above on the bridge drive past. And then, towards ten or so, almost twelve hours from when I set out, I made it home.

Everyone once in awhile, you get a day like that, one in beautiful weather and a large collection of friends and something special like a Giants game and fireworks show and you realize once again what an amazing place San Francisco is and just what a great gem of a place it is.

I hear a voice in the distance, whispering to me. It's fairly distant but sweet, and full of visions of peace and traniqulity and things put back to where it's supposed to be and karma restored and balance being restored to the force and it sounds like this: Al Gore in 2008.

Turned on SNL last night and like a lot of people, I watched his opening bit and was, well, struck. More so than the Colbert bit. You know how in all those sci-fi tv shows there's an episode where somebody from the future goes into the past and changes everything to make things worse for everyone because they're evil? That's what the past six years have been like. We need somebody from the future, a James T. Kirk figure if you will, to come and make things right.

Or, it's more like this. You know how sometimes in the middle of the night, when it's you and your psyche, and you wake up with the cold sweats dreaming of visions of What Could Have Been and What Should Be? You know, when you realize that if you just did this instead of that, you're life would be totally different and better and maybe in truth, it wouldn't be and the grass is always greener but still? That's Al, right now. The one who got away.

And if Al were to run again? Well, how many times do you get to correct the biggest regret of all?

That's what this country needs to do, to just fall prostrate in front of his Al-ness and beg forgiveness.

Only, until then, maybe, will this darkness pass.

A few odds and sods and sorry for the no posting- crazy week. Did you know I got a car?

-I have become really into "Big Love" and I'm not sure why. After reading through a bunch of blogs and talking to friends and family, a lot of people have been saying the same thing, they're all really into it but nobody really knows why other than it's totally fascinating. My theory about why I was into it was mainly because Margie (Ginnifer Goodwin) had become my TV girlfriend. I was also convinced that I was the only who had stumbled onto her beautifulness, thus leaving her to me. I was wrong. It turns out she's now de rigueur TV girlfriend for the bloggerati as she's everywhere these days.

-I am supposed to be psyched about the new Superman movie but I am not. In truth, I was never into superheroes, Superman least of all. What was the fun in being into home? He was indestructible, faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, blah, blah, blah. The only that could weaken him was kryptonite. All of which made him boring. Who wants to root for somebody who is kind of perfect and can't really be harmed? Oh sure, he's got that identity problem and his unfulfilled love for Lois Lane but don't you think the ability to fly around the world in seconds flat would take some of the sting out of that?

For the record, the only superhero I really liked in any sort of way was Spiderman because he was always kind of human and vulnerable, which is why the movies have been so good (well, the first one not so much, but the second one was really, really good).

-Somebody weighs in on the great Enterprise vs. Death Star debate and goes with the Death Star. Phooey on them. The Enterprise would win just because it has the one thing greater than the Dark Side, greater than the Force even- James T. Kirk.

-This morning, I got spam mail from one company saying my student loans are overdue and from another person company saying I need to sign up for student loans. Shouldn't they get their mailing lists better organized? How could I both be overdue and lacking in student loans?

-I'm not sure why, but for some reason, the shuffle option on my computer's iTunes is much better than the shuffle option on my iPod. When I play music on my computer, it's how I picture my shuffle option to work, where I go from Zeppelin to Amerie's"#1 Thing" (great song) to Black Sabbath to U2 to Sam Cooke to Belle and Sebastian. In other words, the perfect radio station and exactly why the shuffle option exists. But on the iPod, it always seems to find the same three artists and ten songs and throws them in there. I may start off with say Missing Persons or the Monkees, but at some point, I'll be back to the same four Tom Petty tunes or the only Fu Manchu disc I dared to put on there. I just don't understand it and actually, there are certain songs I won't listen to on my iPod not because I don't like them but because I hate the fact my iPod always plays it.

Possibly the best thing I have heard in years? A flute solo buried deep on the new Wolfmother cd. Which is also the best thing I've heard in awhile. I would wax rhapsodic about it, but I'm pretty sure there's about a million MySpace users doing the same as I type this. On the other hand, I'm not 17.

Lest I say, best proto Sabbath/Blue Cheer knock off band I've heard in years, with just enough songs about devil women, unicorns, and dragon imagery used on the cover to make it that much more rockinger.

Of course, as of last week, I would have said The Go Team!'s new album was the best thing I've heard in years. It's still good though, but doesn't quite make you bounce your head and do air guitar like the Wolfmother disc.

And one more thing before I stop sounding like every other blogger out there (I think as part of the agreement in being a blogger, you have to write about Wolfmother, just like I'm supposed to write about Our Hero, Stephen Colbert, which will come later), here is the best political blog I've stumbled upon in the past year or so: Princess Sparkle Pony's Photo Blog

So best.