Saturday, March 21, 2009

The Non-Scavenger's Manifesto


That is the challenge and the payoff and the thrill: the never knowing, then the waiting, then the finding out. Can you handle uncertainty?

This is the magic, the apotheosis, of the random. In a paved world, modern scavengers reclaim discovery. Adventure. Self-reliance. Self-sufficiency.

The modern scavenger reclaims the quest.

Some scavenge for fun. Some scavenge to save. Money. The world. Their souls. While consumers around us drown in debt, we liberate ourselves with every cent we save while liberating would-be trash. We know the difference between brand-new, full-price products and their dented, scavenged counterparts is —

Debt.

Some scavenge to recycle. Repurpose. Reduce. Reuse.

Some scavenge to revolt.

Some scavenge to survive.

Some scavenge for the sake of spontaneity. That is another primal ecstasy that consumer culture has quashed. Consumer culture wants consumers to imagine themselves free and democratic, decisive and bold. Consumer culture teaches that choosing the color of your phone is creativity. Up to a point, it is. A tiny calculated creativity comprising elements designed and sold by corporations. Control disguised as creativity. A short-leashed independence based on your ability and willingness to buy. But what is missing from this picture?

It's funny: Consumers think they're free.

Why is AlterNet so insistent that I start going through trash bins? This is seriously the third of fourth "you should really start dumpster diving" article I've seen on there recently.

I'm not saying you shouldn't do anything to try to conserve resources and be less of a wasteful American consumer.

But if we're going to solve the considerable environmental, economic and social problems we're facing as regards excess consumption and waste, we need PRACTICAL solutions. Not encouraging more Americans to forage for scraps in the trash. I'm betting most of them are like me, and prefer to spend their weekends NOT exhausted and running from security guards whilst coated in refuse. Thanks all the same.

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Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Watching the Growth of Walmart Across America (via @althefierce)


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Bill O'Reilly says..."Off with those pants!"




"Off with those pants."

This is either the greatest or the most horrifying audio I have ever heard. Clips of Bill O'Reilly talking dirty, reading selections from his novel "Those Who Trespass." Bravo, Village Voice...you bastards.

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Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Millard Kaufman, 92, dies...He wrote "Bad Day at Black Rock"


Okay, go add it to your Netflix queues, because it rules...

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Trailer for "Thirst," from "Oldboy" director Chan-Wook Park


Looks like pretty standard vampire movie stuff, but I'm sure it will be more than that. I like his entire Vengeance Trilogy - "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance," "Oldboy" and "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance." Really impressive.

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"Where the Wild Things" Poster..Stunning...


Love it. I know it has been a troubled production, but this just looks beautiful. Can't wait. Don't let me down, Spike!

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Monday, March 16, 2009

Natasha Richardson suffers head injury


On March 16, 2009, Richardson was hurt in a ski accident while vacationing in Mont Tremblant, Canada, near Montreal. She suffered what is being called a "traumatic brain injury" and was rushed to the city's Centre Hospitalier Laurentien.

http://www.mahalo.com/Natasha_Richardson

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/16/natasha-richardson-ski-ac_n_175573.html

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Glenn Beck is a character being played by Paul Giamatti in the greatest prank movie ever mounted, right?


I'm not sure how many of you caught Glenn Beck's Fox News special on Friday night, "You Are Not Alone." I certainly didn't. I caught up with clips from it over the weekend, and needed some time to PROCESS what I had seen.

When you first see this clip, you can't help but be distracted by the fact that Beck is a bad actor and an utter fraud. He's not feeling the emotions he play-acts here, and he's not even doing a halfway-decent job of feigning them. I seriously think I could do a better job of pretending to be worked up over my love for America. (Maybe I'll try it on This Week in YouTube...hmm...) That's somehow even more insulting.

It's only after seeing it a few times that I realized how CREEPY the whole thing is, and how unsettling it makes life in modern-day America that this vapid blubbering actually RESONATES with some of my fellow citizens.

Yes, I watched it a few times. I've found Beck a loathsome little man for a while now, but I found this clip particularly disturbing. It's like watching an image beamed down from an alien planet, or some wretched dystopian future. If you were making an Orwellian satire of this moment in history, you could not render our media in a more over-the-top fashion. This is it. Beck here makes the propaganda guy from "V for Vendetta" look like Edward R. freaking Murrow.

At one point, Beck pretends (badly) to have the spontaneously realization that he sounds like a televangelist. It's an odd moment, because that's obviously the sort of pose he's trying to adopt (though most televangelists go about it in a more natural, charismatic fashion). You're wondering why someone who even pretends to have informed opinions about world events would want to invite comparison to charlatans like Benny Hinn, who yell at strangers and hit them with sport coats for a living. I guess that's what passes for austere sagacity in Beck's mind. Frightening.

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It's March Madness at Mahalo! Courtesy of @AmazingAngie!


We've prepared a metric crap-ton of Mahalo pages on this year's NCAA Tournament. Seriously, Angie and our Sports and News teams have really outdone themselves. I can't think of a better way to follow all the action than hanging out in the locker room. And as an added benefit, Mahalo doesn't smell funky and contains significantly less full frontal nudity. Unless that's your thing. http://www.mahalo.com/NCAA_Men%27s_Basketball_Tournament_2009
http://www.mahalo.com/March_Madness_2009
http://www.mahalo.com/NCAA_Bracket_Predictions
http://www.mahalo.com/Print_NCAA_Bracket

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Tony Stark and Doom Unite! (via @djmayhem)


Sick...

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Sunday, March 15, 2009

R.I.P. Ron Silver


Say what you will about the guy's politics, but Ron Silver was a great actor. Love him as Dershowitz in "Reversal of Fortune" and as the villain in the "Heat Vision and Jack" pilot. Trailers for both on the Mahalo page.

http://www.mahalo.com/Ron_Silver

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Why Would You F With Clint Eastwood's America?


You know he's not going to take kindly to that.

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Let Us Now Praise Infamous Men


Claiming O.J. Simpson was dealt an injustice, an effort is under way to solicit money for the former football star's appeal of his Nevada conviction and prison sentence on kidnapping and armed robbery charges.


                   
        

Barrett Prody, the brother of Simpson's former girlfriend, created a nonprofit corporation and an Internet Web site, the Society Against Legal Injustice Inc., to raise money for Simpson.


          
        


 
This guy wants us to give money because OJ was dealt an injustice...The mind boggles...

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