So I married a dumbass…

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Amusement

Talking about the plane crash…the one with the skydivers on board, my husband says, “It was at ground level when it crashed.”

Rly?  Ya think?

Du Jour…

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Amusement

Word of the day: Katsa

Phrase of the day: “That thing starts beggin’ at the table, it’s gonna become an outside turtle.”

Picture of the day (A Warholed Kang):

Yarrr!

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Amusement, T3h Intarweb

It’s, “Talk Like a Pirate Day!” Yippeeee!!! I mean…Yarrr!!!

My profile seems to be keeping in spirit with my life as a closeted Dominatrix.

You are The Quartermaster

You, me hearty, are a man or woman of action! And what action it is! Gruesome, awful, delightful action. You mete out punishment to friend and foe alike – well, mostly to foe, because your burning inner rage isn’t likely to draw you a whole lot of the former. Still, though you may be what today is called “high maintenance” and in the past was called “bat-shit crazy,” the crew likes to have you around because in a pinch your maniacal combat prowess may be the only thing that saves them from Jack Ketch. When not in a pinch, the rest of the crew will goad you into berserker mode because it’s just kind of fun to watch. So you provide a double service – doling out discipline AND entertainment.

What’s Yer Inner Pirate?
brought to you by The Official Talk Like A Pirate Web Site. Arrrrr!

LOL Sting

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Amusement, Music

I have never cared much for Stink Sting. I’m not exactly sure what it is about him but…oh…let’s face it. Stink is annoying and irrelevant.

Which is why I was simply tickled to discover this delicious tidbit whilst reading The Daily Mail.

Superstar hypocrite: Meet Sting the master of contradictions

He boasts of his rock solid marriage, but this week was caught in a brothel. He’s oh-so green, but is paid to advertise gas-guzzling limos…meet Sting, the master of contradictions…

The passenger ducked down in the car seat so that he couldn’t be spotted as the silver 4×4 accelerated away from the Hamburg club in the early hours.

Not such an unusual sight, perhaps, as customers leave the Relax club which modestly describes itself as a strip venue but is in reality the city’s most luxurious brothel.

However, this was no ordinary customer.

The fashionably-cut blond hair and rugged good looks made him easily identifiable.

As one of the most famous rock stars in the world, Sting really needn’t have bothered trying to hide. Everyone at the club on Wednesday had recognised him, and the two bodyguards who accompanied him did little to disguise his celebrity status.

Surprising behaviour, perhaps, from a man who is obsessed by trying to keep his private life separate from his public persona.

But then Sting is a figure of contradictions.

Although never short of a few words of wisdom for the rest of us on carbon footprints, saving the rainforests or Third World debt, he could be described as an adherent of the old adage: “Do as I say - not as I do.”

In a 30-year career, which has earned him a personal fortune of more than £100 million, Sting has established himself as not just a pioneering rock singer with his original band the Police - now on a worldwide reunion tour - but as one of the first stars to parade a social conscience.

As early as 1985, he took the seemingly rash decision to step aside from the Police, then at the height of their commercial success, and release what was called by one reviewer a “jazz-inflected personal manifesto” entitled The Dream Of The Blue Turtles.

The first single from the album, which was to launch him on his highly lucrative solo career, was called If You Love Somebody Set Them Free.

At least some of the song’s lyrics seemed to touch on Sting’s much-vaunted support of recycling and conservation, at a time when many considered these to be fringe issues rather than the global preoccupations they are today.

“We can’t live here and be happy with less/With so many riches, so many souls/Everything we see that we want to possess”, Sting sang, in one emotive passage.

It was a theme to which he returned at this summer’s Live Earth climate change concert, where the reunited Police were among the leading attractions on the bill at Giants Stadium outside New York.

At one point in the performance, Sting pledged to the audience that he would “work to reduce” his carbon footprint in the future.

A commendable objective - but what Sting didn’t mention was how much larger his carbon footprint is than just about anyone else’s.

He maintains no fewer than four properties in the UK with his ‘core’ home the 800-acre Lake House estate in Wiltshire, which boasts 14 bedrooms and eight baths.

Earlier this year, a glimpse into Sting’s daily routine at the mansion was provided by Jane Martin, 42, a cook who took the rock star and his wife Trudie Styler to an employment tribunal which awarded her £24,944 following her “shameful” dismissal from her job.

According to Ms Martin, Styler in particular had a “grandiose ego” and wanted to be treated “in a royal manner beyond her station as an actress”.

Revealing some of the “fabulous” lifestyle of her former employers, Ms Martin said that “opulent extravagance reigned” at Lake House, and that there was “no regard to expense, cost or wastage” where food and drink were concerned.

The cook added that she had often been required to make an expensive rail and taxi journey between London and Salisbury just to prepare a soup and salad meal for the family, even though they also kept two housekeepers, two nannies and a butler on the premises.

But Sting’s well-heeled lifestyle in the Wiltshire countryside is only one part of his worldwide empire.

This same paragon of self-denying minimalism who reminds us all not to squander our resources also owns a three-storey mansion in Highgate, North London, a townhouse in Westminster and what’s described as a workman’s cottage in the Lake District.

He also maintains a beach house in Malibu, California, and a 600-acre estate in Tuscany.

And when Sting performs in New York he goes home at night to a £1 million duplex on Manhattan’s exclusive Upper East Side.

His immediate neighbours in Manhattan included his friend and sometime collaborator the late Luciano Pavarotti.

Other rock stars live just as lavishly as Sting does - the difference is that relatively few of them have proved as willing as him to back up their words with generous, and often anonymous, donations to causes around the world.

But he hasn’t always been enthused.

Sting was introduced to the Brazilian rainforests by a Belgian author and adventurer named Jean-Pierre Dutilleux, who had made an Oscar-nominated film about the plight of the local Xingu Indians. Sting’s initial reaction to Dutilleux’s pitch was blunt: “Dolphins, penguins, who gives a ****, JP?” he asked on their first visit to the area.

Despite this unpromising start, Sting and the Rainforest Foundation were eventually able to set up a 12,000 square-mile national park dedicated for the use of the Xingu and other indigenous tribes.

Given the generally lukewarm support of the Brazilian government, this was an impressive achievement.

Sting’s involvement included not just giving away money but also a more personal gesture.

While lobbying political leaders around the world, the singer was to play host at his elegant Highgate home to two Brazilian Indian chiefs named Raoni and Red Crow, the former of whom sported a CD-sized wooden plate stitched into his lower lip but little in the way of clothes.

Sting’s neighbours’ view of the chiefs sharing a peace pipe in a makeshift camp laid out on the back lawn was one major local talking point, although the sight of Raoni calmly strolling up Hampstead Lane in his loincloth was also something of a novelty.

Sting was later quick to refute a charge by critics that his campaign was badly managed, and specifically that the Rainforest Foundation had failed to both properly account for the money it had raised and prevent the deaths of several local tribesmen from malaria.

Certainly nothing illegal or unethical ever came to light involving the Foundation’s fund raising. There was, however-a well-placed source assures me, something of a row when, on a subsequent trip to the area, the rock star declined to buy his hosts a helicopter as they had asked.

In time a certain coolness also crept in between Sting and Dutilleux over their jointly-authored book, Jungle Stories.

Although the book’s cover stated that “all royalties go to the Rainforest Foundation”, it later emerged that Dutilleux had pocketed at least some of the proceeds.

“I’m a professional writer,” he said. “I had to take the advance. We’re not all multi-millionaire pop stars.”

A British TV programme raised questions about some of the Foundation’s business practices, but it may well be that its celebrity figurehead simply didn’t concern himself with the mundane details of its accounting practices.

This is perfectly possible given that, in 1992, Sting learned that a company managed by his long-time accountant Keith Moore had crashed with debts of £13 million, and that Moore had embezzled some £6 million of the singer’s own money over the previous five years.

Sting had never even noticed.

As Moore told me while serving his six-year sentence for fraud: “I always judged clients, particularly those in the music business, on a ‘meeting tolerance’ scale.

“My recollection of Sting is that his ‘meeting tolerance’ level was near nil. He was easily bored and was quite content to leave the business side of things to others.”

Such insouciance over his affairs will surprise the many people who know him well and who describe him as being highly astute in micro-managing every aspect of his career.

But perhaps that is only one of the paradoxes about this 55-year-old singer who’s rarely been burdened by consistency.

Early in his career, he expressed the opinion that “I just don’t agree with (procreation) any more.

“I think it’s bull****, and I think if we carry on thinking like that, we’re doomed.

“We have too many people - we’re not the most important thing on the planet, and until we realise that, we’re in deep s***.”

How ironic then that Sting has six children, from two wives, ranging in age from 30 to 11.

There’s nothing wrong with that - he’s long since earned the right to live just as he likes - but, taken as a whole, it would seem to suggest that Sting’s campaign against Western excess might not always be a priority in his own day-to-day life.

In 1981, he declared: “I don’t want to end up as the guy in Vegas with the balding head and the tux singing Roxanne.”

Some 15 years after making this announcement, he walked out on stage at the city’s MGM Grand Garden casino, and, sporting a radically cropped haircut, performed his first hit. (To his credit, he avoided the tuxedo.)

In 1995, he was happy to accept a reported £500,000 to advertise the Seagaia golf complex in Japan, where developers had flattened miles of historic pine forests to build a luxury leisure resort.

The contradiction of a man known for his environmental campaigning helping to promote a project that locals complained harmed the local ecology wasn’t lost on his critics.

More recently, the singer gave his blessing to an advertisement for a gas-guzzling Jaguar that used his hit Desert Rose as its backing track. Sting was reportedly paid a six-figure licensing fee.

Some may see this as not entirely in tune with his well-known views on energy conservation.

Even his attitude to his band the Police is marked by inconsistency.

Despite the regular recycling of the group’s records since their last new release in 1983, until recently the prospect of a full-scale reunion has seemed remote at best.

Asked about the rumours of a tour in 1997, the 20th anniversary of the band’s formation, Sting said: “Bull****. I’d rather die.”

It may be purely coincidental that his radical change of heart on the subject follows the relative failure of his last album Songs From The Labyrinth, whose accompanying DVD features an extended sequence showing Sting, dutifully followed by his musicians, padding around the well-manicured maze at Lake House.

Whatever, in 2006 Sting decided that reforming the Police was not such a bad idea after all.

The tour, which has played to packed houses in North America this summer, is said to have guaranteed the three musicians an initial payday of £4 million apiece.

One cynic has described it as “the unedifying sight of a pension plan being topped up”, although that’s unlikely to concern crowds who waited nearly 25 years to see their heroes on an extended European tour.

And although Sting’s wife Trudie seems remarkably unconcerned that the singer may see the tour as an opportunity to visit other venues such as the Relax club in Hamburg, it is hardly the behaviour of a man whose social conscience is his calling card.

The tour itself - with its fleet of accompanying trucks, dazzling lighting systems, jet travel and so on - shows no signs of restraint.

It all adds up to a personal carbon output for Sting that has been estimated at up to 30 times that of the average Briton. And the trips in a gasguzzling 4×4 to the local brothel will certainly do nothing to reduce that prodigious footprint.

Påfågel

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Amusement, LOL Swedes

Dock Ellis’ new colleague:

Not to be confused with others in the family such as:

1. en kisskuk
2. en ärt-kuk

Pink Moon

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Amusement

In honor of tonight’s eclipse, I present the lyrics to Nick Drake’s, “Pink Moon.” Y’all may remember this from a Volkswagen commercial years ago.

*sighs*

What a magical song.

I saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on its way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get you all
It’s a pink moon
Hey, it’s a pink moon
It’s a pink, pink, pink, pink, pink moon.
It’s a pink, pink, pink, pink, pink moon.

I saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on its way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get you all
It’s a pink moon
Yeah, it’s a pink moon

Achooooo!

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Blame Canada, Personal

Apparently, I am keeping with the grand tradition of new employee illness.  One of my colleagues fell sick immediately upon starting his position with Canuck, Ltd.

This morning I woke up feeling that my brain is far too large for my skull.  I’m operating 30 seconds behind the rest of the world.  I really hate having a cold.

As I sat in the den, trying to figure out what to do with myself, I realized…I can work from home!  I feel like hell…but at least I can work from home, maintain a decent level of productivity and not annoy the bejeebus out of my colleagues with the constant nose-blowing and coughing.

Last job required us to have a laptop and be accessible 24/7 (or foster the illusion that we were).  Every so often, when feeling like hell, boss would let the staff work from home.  He did away with that luxury once I came down with the yuck. 

Once I had decided to work from home today, I slithered into the bedroom to inform Dock.  Without even thinking, I mentioned that it was so pleasant to work for a boss who is an adult.  A boss that doesn’t feel this need to force staff into the office to prove this bizarre point of loyalty and diligence.  A boss that truly manages without micromanaging.  It struck me as a skosh harsh to refer to my current boss as an adult, given the implication that my last boss is an ass-bandit.  Then I realized, well…old boss brought that upon himself.

So here I sit, surrounded by two laptops, working, sneezing and snotting.  But…I’m being productive through my summer cold misery.

I’m rather happy.

Judgmental Cow

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Pearls Before Swine

Moo moo moo.

Could it be an omen?

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Amusement, Pearls Before Swine, Personal

Possibly Kang’s second day at the new job?

It’s (sorta) new to me

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Amusement

Flying to Chicago last week, I bravely reached into the seat pocket and retrieved the in-flight magazine.  Typically, I find these rags to be a petri dish of germs but the crossword puzzle makes the risk worth while. 

This particular issue of the in-flight magazine was unusually interesting.  Devoted entirely to music, I read an interview with Jeff Tweedy, an article about Sun and an article about Abbey Road.  There was also a small piece devoted entirely to new music and middle aged folks.

The writer challenged us aging GenXers to creep outside our cynical shells, turn away from the alternative stations and begin exploring music all over again.  She encouraged us to find new artists and listen to them.  Unlike most critical pieces, there wasn’t a specific reference to a specific band.  The author basically said something along the lines of, “if you like Avril Lavigne, then so be it.” 

I started pondering my music discovery inertia.  If not for Swedish radio, I would know of any new artists.  Unfortunately, I cannot easily snap up a cd given that those who appeal to me are based in Sweden and lack a substantial American audience. 

Crap.  I’m one of those GenXers who listens to what kids today would call, “oldies.”  You know…bands like R.E.M, U2, Elvis Costello (pre-jazz), etc…  Ick.

Radio in Raleigh sucketh.  It sucks a mammoth sized sucky egg.  Yet, I didn’t exactly feel like listening to the Waterboys (see, proving the author’s point that I’m a musical anachronism) this afternoon.  Nor did I feel like rummaging through Inga’s many pockets and a shopping bag full of cds for something else.  I poked at the dials until I heard something that I could stomach.

Suspicious Minds by Elvis Presley.

G-d damn!  What an amazing song.  I cannot believe I wouldn’t listen to that song or the lyrics back in my youth because the Fine Young Cannibals saw fit to destroy the original version. 

The song ended and I started pondering rifling through the cd collection for any Elvis we may have bought because of camp factor.  The next song started playing and…again…I found myself thing, “wow.”  “Stuck in the Middle With You” by Stealer’s Wheel.  I began to focus on the bass and found myself in another world (good thing I can daydream and drive at the same time). 

These two, combined with my new found love of, “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” by Elvin Bishop and “Cruel to be Kind” by Nick Lowe have me thinking that I do not necessarily need to seek out, “new” bands.  When irritated and bored with the desert that is decent music these days, I can simply act like an old phart and go back in time.  We still have a rather sizable cache of songs from our youth that we may have not liked as children/teenagers but can appreciate now that our musical tastes have developed (or devolved, depending on your taste).

These songs may not be, “new” but they are refreshing and new to me.