The Propagandist |
|
|
you better shape up and start shitting me tiffany cufflinks or i will definitely fuck you up.
tell me i'm
go here. now.
dj Shadow Dublab AP Wire CA political news didJital follow the $ in CA follow the $ in USA fruit for thought tequila! crazy, brilliant johnny museum of tolerance online
the good old days.
the irony is striking. look out for the truck! 5th grade level Congressional melee about a boy the garbageman group coffee dreams seamonkey campaigns P.O.A. perv murder, movies and porn
the old man.
in the sun german chocolate cake highstepper grandma's honor lady killer tough choices gone get the clown! talkin' fun places to go.
Archives
 
|
10.31.2002
this is why i work 20 hours a day. fuckers. GOP ad for Simon critical of gays Spanish-language spot put on Chico-area radio The 30-second Spanish-language radio ad, paid for by the Republican Party of Glenn County, features the dinnertime conversation of a couple identified as Panchito and Lupita. Over a plate of enchiladas, the couple discuss a laundry list of problems with Democratic Party. "I am scared that Democrats are supporting abortion . . . and they are teaching our children in the schools that homosexual practice is OK," says the male voice, "instead of using those hours to teach them to read and write." Simon, at a gubernatorial campaign stop in Sacramento Wednesday, insisted his campaign played no role in developing or funding the ad. Asked if he endorsed its implicit anti-gay message, Simon replied he would be a "governor for all Californians." Racist AND homophobic. what a wonderful world. 10.30.2002
i just finished my last piece of mail. that means i have about 7 days until the city council candidates (for the March election in Los Angeles) begin panicking. and i just love these calls six days before the election: "so, propagandist, just HOW much would it cost to saturate radio in the X district?" what the fuck? what is "saturating radio?" and why would I know, of all people, how to saturate radio? i mean, i keep all electrical appliances away from the tub. what they really want is for me to stay up all night writing and recording a 60 second radio spot that no one will listen to because radio is ALREADY saturated but god forbid that we don't throw money at this race now that money is useless unless it had been properly planned... oops. sorry. the only good thing about this will be the fact that philip morris, the tobacco company, is funding the opposing candidate. that brings in all kinds of cool possibilities for negative advertising. i once did a spot about this huge pile of petroleum coke dust, which is the black powdery crap left over after you refine gasoline, that was right next to a school. our opponent had blocked every attempt to move or cover the piles, which consistently blew onto the school and into the community. i had the 6 year old daughter of one of my post editors do the voiceover opening the ad: "sometimes its hard to breathe, and we all cough alot...cough cough." that ran about 600 times. come on, it was only cable. WHY PROOFREADING IS STILL ABOUT SPELLING TOO, #2 (er, since its different i guess it's really #1) Kimiko Burton for SF Public Defender Mail piece: "Our Choice for Pubic Defender" why vote when all you have to do is buy a cup? 10.29.2002
WHY PROOFREADING IS ABOUT MORE THAN SPELLING, # 1 back panel of piece. the description of the initiative is a little off. YES ON B Trauma and bioterrorism funding Our county health system is running out of money, and will be forced to close local clinics and emergency rooms throughout the county. This measure is critical to keeping our emergency rooms open and trauma network functioning. All true, but do we REALLY want to fund bioterrorism? 10.27.2002
got something you want to say? wrong@thepropagandist.com and no anonymous. you want to criticize, you do it to my e-face. 10.26.2002
the press release i wish i could release: Candidates spar in debate melee for immediate release contact: the propagandist In a scene reminiscent of the Japanese Diet, a local campaign forum disintegrated in a brawl in La Mirada last night. Three candidates were injured, one seriously, and four other candidates were emotionally scarred. “It was pretty ugly, but I’ve seen worse,” said Beatrice Hallihan, the League of Women Voters member in charge of security. “They break up a lot quicker now that we have the tasers.” After the opening remarks, in which Sally had to be rebooted after crashing on the word Edison, the debate took a turn for the worse. “I didn’t know that old lady could move so fast,” remarked Dean Rona, DLT's campaign trainer. “Lucky for Laura she was wearing that high collar, or Sally would have gotten a clear bite at her carotid. I saw somebody die like that in Vietnam.” The questions began innocently, Laura answered a question on her proposal to put ID tattoos on nursing home workers, Hector spoke of his plan to take 4 through 6 graders lunch money to endow scholarships. Sally was asked to spell “catapult.” But after Ken spoke mockingly of Sally’s American flag face painting, Sally attacked Laura. “She’s higher in the polls than Ken,” said Carlos “the jackal” P., Sally’s trainer and designated sedater. Leaping to the top of the podium and then diving at Laura, Sally bared her dentures (filed to points just for this occasion), but missed her target. Instead she got a mouthful of hair and, surprising the crowd, ripped free Laura’s wig. Only the chickenwire between the dais and the benches in the crowd keep the people out of the debate pit. “Nine candidates enter, one candidate leave! Nine candidates enter, one candidate leave!” the crowd chanted over and over. Revealed on Laura's head was a gleaming silver plate, etched with a picture of the Luisitania being sunk and the lyrics to the song “Dancing Girl” by Abba. The League of Women Voters Riot Abatement Squad moved in quickly, burying tasers into Ken, although he was standing aside, calmly watching. Sally quickly pinned Laura, and all the Republicans as well as Sesy and Helen turned on Rick Newhouse, the libertarian. Brandishing his miniature statue of liberty, he was forced the ground and kicked unconscious. Hector placed Sally in a full nelson and wrestled her to the ground. Laura slowly rose to her feet and began kicking Hector. Vivian Spokes of the League of Women Voters Special Tactics and Weapons team knocked Laura to the ground with a beanbag gun. “Two years ago and I would have had to shoot her in the head. Damn technological advances.” #30# 10.23.2002
one of my favorite people in politics is coming down to run the GOTV for one of my campaigns. in campaign vernacular, GOTV means Get Out The Vote, and it involves dragging recalcitrant voters to the polls, usually democrats from "arm twister" registration drives or with a lazy vote history. GO VOTE DAMMIT is the call to arms. anyway, my friend's intials are JC, and i try my best to come up with interesting variations - but his always seem to center on jesus: 1. baby jesus 2. jesuchristo 3. weeping jesus (when he had an eye infection) 4. lil' johnny any recommendations? 10.22.2002
Epitaph for the propagandist sometimes direct mail design can get kind of repetitive. i've decided that when i die, i don't want my name, or birth and death dates, or any pithy lament quote on my headstone. i only want the number of times i used the phrase: "we trust them with our lives...shouldn't we trust them with our vote?" on a mail piece in reference to firefighters endorsing candidates. running total: 428. 10.21.2002
god i love amoeba music hollywood. god i hate amoeba music hollywood. no, i love amoeba: midival punditz (nothing like an advance copy in the used bin BEFORE the album comes out! muhahahaha!) codcut journeys by DJ Gotan project -la revancha del tango billy bragg and wilco- mermaid avenue nightmares on wax - smokers delight dj shadow - six days ep mano negra - king of bongo nicola conte - bossa per due (us release of jet sounds) and the dvd of drugstore cowboy the mistress is expensive... two things, quickly: 1. while in the most stressful time period of your job, when deadlines are truly deadly, you may want to avoid the travel section of the los angeles times, especially any stories about trips on "banana boat" ferries in the amazon basin. that is, unless you actually like having dreams about being pursued by gangs of killers across said boats, disarming one of said killers of his weapon only to find the trigger rusted in place as the remaining killers swarm over bales of mysterious spices clenching gurkha knives in their teeth. 2. i hate my birthday because i feel like i have to take time during the one time i have no time just to make everybody else feel like they took the time. believe me, i understand if you don't have the time. neither do i. you can change your name, you can change your attitude, you can change your clothes. why can't i change my birthday to the first wednesday after the first monday in november? why not? back to work. 10.19.2002
i'm getting a feeling that julie didn't like my last post. Subj: the gun thing... Date: 10/19/2002 8:16:37 PM Pacific Standard Time From: julie To: wrong@thepropagandist.com Sent from the Internet (Details) IIIICCCCCCCKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YUUUUCCKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!! bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad now, i understand that JPFO may not be for everybody, and, in fact, their obvious respect for meir kahane makes them completely insane. but anybody that has an "ask the rabbi" section written by a talmudic student that just happens to be the handloading editor for guns and ammo magazine gets points for creativity in my book. today i am jamming. got 6 pieces to the graphic artist, making changes on 4 others, sent 5 others to film. no time right now, but i was recently reminded of this group, especially the "ask the rabbi" column. i'm a gun owner, but i believe in gun control. its just that until the wackos put theirs down, i'm not putting down mine. i'm a progressive with a very precise aim. 10.17.2002
10.16.2002
i'm still at work, and n just brought us coffee and me a piece of german chocolate cake. above and beyond the call of duty, 'cause its after 11pm. the cake helps. when i was growing up, i would usually spend a couple of days a week with my grandparents because my dad was still finishing school and working full time. my folks always admonished my grandparents to not let me eat junk food, buy me toy guns or let me stay up late. looking back, i realize the joy my papa took in shattering each of these requests. not just ignoring, shattering. there are two memories, or really themes because they stretch over many years, that stick with me from my experiences there. the one that comes back now is the german chocolate cake. the other involves an orange toy car. more about that later. when i would come over, my grandparents would take me (or us, if my sister was there too) over to safeway to get some "health food," which consisted of chocolate ice cream and german chocolate cake. but not just any german chocolate cake: it was a frozen cake on a foil base, with a plastic cover, kind of like those glass cake covers - only, like i said, plastic. the side benefit was crinkling and uncrinkling the foil to get the cover off. good work for little fingers. i can taste the cake. i can feel the texture. i can smell my grandparents place, and feel the orange naugahyde barstool i would sit on while i ate the often still-frozen cake. to this day, i can't think about my grandma or my papa without the attendant memory of the german chocolate cake. like my grandparents, that cake is gone. like my grandparents, i wish i could find it just one more time. i miss you guys. 10.15.2002
i should be working right now, but i can't stop thinking about my grandfather, so a quick story. my grandfather was raised in oklahoma and my grandmother was from texas. they actually didn't live that far apart, and after they were married my grandmother came to oklahoma. out there they would hold dances on saturday night - bands in a hall or barn, and all the young people from throughout the area would somehow make it there - it was the place to be. papa, being quite a dancer (a gene that, along with his natural athleticism, he neglected to pass on to the rest of the bloodline) and even more of a highstepper, would occassionally slip out to these events without my grandmother. one night she tracked him down. when she walked into the dance, the band was playing a slower song, and my papa was "clutch dancing" as my grandma would bitterly recall, with another woman. so, being the calm, nonviolent irish redhead, my grandmother politely cut in, startling the hell out of papa and his dance partner. she calmly laid her head on his shoulder and started dancing. my papa relaxed (having by that time had experience with my grandmother's temper and her extraordinary aim with cast iron cooking utensils) and began dancing. then she bit him. right through the shirt and into his shoulder, causing him to bleed and leaving a scar for the rest of his life. she turned around and walked home, leaving him a reminder of the consequenses of the highstepping. i miss the old man. i can only hope that this happens to me, and when it does i am man enough to follow bob's example. http://sourmash.blogspot.com/2002_10_13_sourmash_archive.html#83003552 10.14.2002
i've decided to cut all the remaining mail pieces left to write and design. i told myself its because the candidates don't really need them. but i know its because they really don't deserve them. sometimes this job can really suck - the hours are long, you deal with a lot of assholes and the deadlines are daunting and pile up upon one another. the stress can really get to you. and, of course, there is always the looming judgement on your performance - election day. but then sometimes you have a breakthrough and something small or seemingly inconsequential can clear the bottlenecks. often i have so much on my to do list that my tasks spawn their unwanted lovechild - inaction. its as if you were to take all the drawers in your kitchen and dump them in one pile on the floor and then decide to clean it back up. where do you start? your eyes and mind dart from the silverware to the plates to the utensils to the junk drawer, and for a moment you don't move, envisioning how you want to put everything away. add in a phonecall coming in every thirty seconds or so demanding that you attend to the silverware, then another call demanding that you put away the utensils first, and another from a different kitchen item interest, and you get the idea. but every now and then you get a breaktthrough. i can be as straightforward as making a to-do list (although that loses its effectiveness when the list stretches to more than 5 or 6 pages) or simply walking away from work for awhile and letting all the detritus settle. yesterday i took a few hours and spent them with a friend. had a late breakfast, went furniture browsing (for my woefully under-furnished house) and then rented her some movies. by the time i got back to work around 6, the mind was clear. i wrote 6 pieces of mail in two hours, more than i had done in three days. thanks, n. so today i'm happy. almost there, nov. 5. 10.11.2002
do you ever look back over old writing, or journals or just notes scrawled on scraps of paper and think: "i wrote that?" i feel when i'm writing, like now for instance, that yeah, just like that. i got totally stumped. it just stopped, the muse kicked me in the nuts and moved on. dammit. i have to give credit to my career for completely fucking up my writing. i was on a nice little run there for a few years, even got kinda flashy with some subtle turns of phrase, and then WHAM political consulting. know what i mean? betcha don't. it means that i write direct mail as part of my strategist duties, and the one thing i've learned is that voters HATE direct mail. so i gotta make it pretty with good graphics, excellent photography (new rockandroll photog this cycle- benefit of living in LA) and writing geared at the 5th grade level. "I have between the mailbox and the garbage can to make my point," to use one of my more shopworn sayings... 5th grade level. no big words. no complex sentences. using "And" at the beginning of sentences. remember that scene in Clockwork Orange where little malcolm is strapped to the chair, and they are conditioning him to make him peaceful? that was like my first year here, except instead of violence on the screen they were reading me strunk and white's elements of style. want an example? here is a piece that i did in the primary: Graphic: cigarette package, with Marlboro removed and replaced with candidate X in same font, four times, like andy warhol [back] candidate X. Candidate of Big Tobacco, Big Oil and Insurance Companies. candidate X takes the maximum legal contribution from Big Tobacco. Graphic: Tearout of contribution form. Caption: candidate X took the maximum legal contribution from Big Tobacco company Philip Morris. [graphic: little cig pack with “candidate X”] 462,000 children in California will ultimately die from the effects of smoking. (source: Center for Disease Control and Prevention). But candidate X still takes Tobacco Companies’ money. [graphic: poison sign +++ clr] Oil companies pollute our oceans, drinking water and communities. But candidate X still takes money from convicted polluters and Big Oil companies. (source: Secretary of State records) [graphic: fat cat businessman BU009656] HMOs and Insurance Companies make decisions based on money, not medicine. They overcharge for medicine and place health care outside the reach of working families. But candidate X takes nearly $20,000 from Insurance Companies. (source: official Secretary of State Records) [graphic: Warning Sign clr] Warning: candidate X's contributors may be hazardous to your health. Vote NO on candidate X. [disclaimer] i'll link a scan of the piece later, but you get the idea. this is what i write now. propagandist not happy. email the propagandist: wrong@thepropagandist.com 10.09.2002
dr johnson once said: "politics is the last refuge of scoundrels." while i may say that definition could maybe apply to me, i really do believe that there has to be someplace else for some of these people to go. i mean, really, how can this be the last stop? politics is not rock bottom - despite what your talking heads may shout on the am and sunday tv - and as simple minded as this business can be, it just seems WAY too complicated for some of my brethren. the reason i say the good dr's words may apply in my case is that i don't know anyone else that has been fired as a substitute teacher or asked to leave as a volunteer. that's right, i was fired as a volunteer at a nonprofit. so, to use another v-word, i am a bit volatile. but using my phone and email as a buffer seems to limit my offensiveness, as does the fatigue from working 18 hours a day. so i nudge the bottom here, and as long as i don't come into personal contact with too many people i should be okay. no, let me rephrase that: as long as i don't come into contact with too many stupid people i should be okay. selah. 10.07.2002
i tell myself that i keep this blog to help me write - that is, to help me warm up, get in the groove, start the creative juices flowing (isn't that one of the more disturbing euphemisms for warming up? is it sexual, or does it refer to slow roasting? hmmmm...) and so on. but really i think that it is more about forcing me to organize my thoughts and write strategically - because i know that at some point or another someone that i do not trust will get hold of this address and then...well...let my paranoia take over...they may use it against me or other horrible things - like judge me. well, i guess that is the risk i take. i write strategically for work, i think strategically for work, but in my personal life i am blunder through depending on the great scorer helping to guide me. this has led to disastrous consequences. so i guess the question of the day is: why am i so careful with the fate of others and so careless with my own? |