The 'Story' Behind Welcome To The Jungle

New York Magazine has an excerpt from Stephen Davis' Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns N' Roses. The excerpt relates how Axl Rose (then Bill Bailey) came to find the refrain for his band's first big hit. I put the word story in quotes because Davis wrote Hammer of the Gods, a wildly entertaining if oft-refuted biography of Led Zeppelin. Davis gave our culture the story of Led's stay at a hotel in Seattle, which led to the bumper sticker on Troy McClure's DeLorean 'I [Heart] Sea World'. Yes, this is how my brain works. You don't want to be there. But I digress.

To Bill and his friend, it was bedlam, a Caribbean neighborhood in Washington Heights with a funky street scene of bodegas and shouting kids playing under open hydrants, crones yelling out of windows in Spanish, idlers under shop awnings, hustlers working the corners of 177th and Broadway. Bill and Paul, from Tippecanoe County in Indiana, were the only white faces in a sea of black people, Puerto Ricans, Jamaicans, Dominicans, Muslim women in veils, Haitians, Hindus, Chinese shopkeepers, and lots of kids immediately picking up on two white boys who'd just climbed out of the hellish Cross Bronx like hayseed mountaineers in cowboy boots, blue jeans, and very long straight hair. The boys just stood and gaped, checking out this scene. "Rapper's Delight," bass-heavy hip-hop, blasted out of a bodega speaker. Lurid graffiti covered every flat surface. Kids were busting moves — break dancing — on the sidewalk. Bill Bailey had never seen this before. Basically, there weren't any black people in his part of Indiana, so they might as well have been in Senegal.

Now an old man limped over to them. He gave them the once-over, seeming to linger over Bill's cowboy boots. Bill was becoming uneasy now, his friend noticed, which was never a good thing, because, when agitated or upset, Bill's behavior could get a little out there. Finally, the old man spoke, or rather squawked, in a high-pitched shriek.

"DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE?"

The boys, taken aback, just looked at him.

"I SAID, DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE?"

Bill Bailey said, "Uh, we're just trying to get to…"

"YOU'RE IN THE JUNGLE, BABY!"

Bill Bailey — the future W. Axl Rose — just stared at him in wonderment. And then the little old man wound himself up to his full fury and told these white boys what they could expect from New York City at the tail end of the seventies: years of bankruptcy, endemic crime, corruption, decadence — the gateway to the eighties and the scourge of AIDS. He told it to them straight from the gut:

"YOU'RE GONNA DIE!"

Either way, great 'story'.

A Swiss Army Knife, A Roll Of Duct Tape, & A Man

MacGyver sure knew how to rescue people. The man with the Scottish last name arrived in town, undid a nuclear missile with a paper clip, and left behind a tidy pile of separated recyclables. Wikipedia has an entry listing all the mad solutions this amiable rogue scientist used to get himself out of situations which would baffle Houdini. A few of my favorites:

Pilot (1x01)

MacGyver defuses a highly advanced nuclear warhead using a paper clip to short circuit the timing device.

MacGyver places a stick through the trigger of an AK-47 and hangs it from a tree with some string. He then attaches a paper match packet to the string and lights the matches, using them as a time delay. The AK-47 falls to the ground with the stick still attached to the trigger, causing the AK to fire and distract some guards.

He also makes a "Rocket Thruster" by hitting the end of a flare gun with a rock to make the nozzle thinner, launching him and a man he rescues from a mountain. Not only would the thrust produced from a gun of that size be unable to lift the weight of two human beings, flare guns fire projectiles. The more realistic result would be a jam at the end of the gun, much like if you bent the barrel of a normal gun.

When near a deadly laser grid, MacGyver lights a pack of cigarettes to make the lasers visible. He then smashes a pair of binoculars, removing a prism to deflect a laser beam back to the emitter, destroying it.

To help rescue a group of people trapped in a building, he ties a fire hose shut, places it under a girder in the way, and turns on the water. Using the water pressure to lift the girder, he pushes it out of the way.

MacGyver plugs a sulfuric acid leak with chocolate. He states that chocolate contains lactose and sucrose (chemically C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁), which are disaccharides. The acid reacts with the sugars to form elemental carbon and a thick gummy residue. (This has been tested and confirmed by Mythbusters).

MacGyver creates a bomb to open a door using a gelatin cold capsule containing sodium metal, which he then places in a glass container filled with water. When the gelatin dissolves in the water, the sodium reacts violently with the water and causes an explosion which blows a hole in the wall. ("MythBusters" questioned the size of the explosion but verified that pure sodium does cause an exothermic reaction when mixed with water, just not enough to destroy a concrete wall.) The amount of sodium required to destroy a concrete wall would greatly exceed the size of a cold pill.

The Gauntlet (1x02)

MacGyver is in a room trying to get out, but sees the key in the other side of the locked door. He takes out a map, unfurls it and sticks it under the door. He then pushes the key out of the lock using his Swiss Army knife, which lands on the map. He then drags the map back under the door, thereby getting the key to unlock him from the room.

In order to disguise himself, MacGyver rolls up the same map and uses it as a peashooter to distract a woman who was washing some clothes.

To get away from a guard with a gun aimed at him, he wraps the same map around an iron bar to disguise the bar from the guard. He first bats away the gun and then slugs guard in the chest with it.

MacGyver uses the same map again as a makeshift sled to slide down sand dunes to get away from the guards chasing him.

While escaping the guards, one of them shoots a bullet through the side of the balloon he is escaping in. He uses the same map and some duct tape to patch a hole over the balloon fabric and escape.

Thief of Budapest (1x04)

MacGyver uses a board and a bunch of light bulbs to simulate the sound of a tire being blown.

He uses salt combined with sugar and a small amount of chemical enhanced weed killer to create dynamite with a battery acid trigger.

He also creates a magnifying glass from a hairpin and wine to read names of spies off a watch.

He creates a traffic jam by jamming the timing mechanism for the traffic lights using cut strips of a plastic credit card.

He makes all police radios within a one mile (1.6 km) radius malfunction by duct taping an ordinary transistor radio to a pick-pocketed police radio and sends it up in the sky using around twenty balloons.

Who am I kidding? They're all great.

Iraq Now

Shambollocks prides itself it on providing educated differing opinions on the issues that most affect our country. One of the motivating issues for our editorial board is the war in Iraq. It is the standing recommendation here, and it will be until it becomes reality, that American troops be brought home ASAP. John McCain believes that America needs to stay in Iraq until the job is done, whenever and whatever that means.

The truth is that Bush's 'surge' has resulted in a more stable Iraq. Foreign Affairs, a premier foreign policy publication, states that there should be no forced withdrawal of American forces.

If the prognosis in Iraq were hopelessly grim, it might make sense for the United States to threaten withdrawal, hold its breath, and hope for the best. But the prognosis is now much more promising than it has been in years, making a threat of withdrawal far from necessary. With a degree of patience, the United States can build on a pattern of positive change in Iraq that offers it a chance to draw down troops soon without giving up hope for sustained stability.

The article affirms the importance of upcoming Iraqi elections, in which the major Sunni parties intend to participate, in creating a more united Iraq. I do not place much confidence in the results of elections to create stability. The elections in Palestine in 2006 showed that open elections do not ensure victories for pro-American parties. Yes, the elections later this year and next year in Iraq may very well create a functioning state that no longer needs our assistance. Alternatively, they could result in the same fractured government which exists now, further guaranteeing the need for American security. Stating a firm withdrawal date is risky. It would put Iraq's leaders feet to the fire. It very well could backfire. But we as a nation do not have a responsibility to Iraq to remain until they agree to compromise and completely disarm their sectarian militias. We can ask our ally England how long that took in Northern Ireland.

A firm withdrawal date lets every Iraqi citizen know the true stake of their vote. And it also proclaims to our hard-working servicemen that there is an end in sight.

Ahmet Ertegun and the Music We Love

Ahmet Ertegun died last year. You may have heard it in the news, and seen a picture of someone who looked like a '70s retread. Well, that man had as much to do with inventing rock n' roll as any performer. Ahmet co-founded and ran Atlantic Records, the most successful independent record label of all time. He recorded Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett, and Aretha Franklin. Later his label released records by Crosby, Stills, and Nash, the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin.

The New Yorker's George W. S. Trow wrote a marvelous profile of Ahmet in 1978. If you love rock music like Shambollocks does, you need to read this piece. It carries a bit of the publication's snootiness, but gives a crystalline vision of what it meant to be in rock in the '70s, when the coolness faded and money became paramount.

The record business is not, in its essence, picturesque. The processes of the work are straightforward, and while it is true that behind the scenes there are several coherent styles in operation, these styles (the style of engineers of twenty-seven or thirty-four with long hair and a nose for drugs; the style of press agents of twenty-seven or thirty-four with one small item of Vuitton and a nose for drugs; the style implied by stencilled T-shirts and access to rented limousines) lack the air of ingenious contrivance that was formerly found in the movie industry, for instance. There was about the old movie industry a feeling that adolescents—adolescent actors and adolescent moguls—were dressing up to play-act as adults. The superior candor of the record business has resulted in a formal recognition of adolescent styles. Styles that must be a little jittery, however, since they are juxtaposed with the real work of a cutthroat business.

If you wanted to know why the Ramones saved rock n' roll, read this article.

Only In America!

Only in a America can a right-wing, wingnut, web troll top the New York Times' bestseller list. Jerome Corsi, he of 2004's error-filled Unfit For Command, is back this year with Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality. You could not make up a guy like this. And because no one could, The Nation provides a great profile of the conservative dean of fiction.

After fleecing people in some crazy real-estate deal in Poland, Corsi made a name for himself as the scourge of the conservative blogosphere.

In a comment typical of the dozens he posted under the handle "jrlc," Corsi wrote, "Anybody ask why HELLary couldn't keep BJ Bill satisfied? Not lesbo or anything, is she?" In another, he ranted, "Isn't the Democratic Party the official SODOMIZER PROTECTION ASSOCIATION of AMERICA--oh, I forgot, it was just an accident that Clintoon's [sic] first act in office was to promote 'gays in the military.' RAGHEADS are Boy-Bumpers as clearly as they are Women-Haters--it all goes together."

It gets better. After writing Unfit for Command, Corsi faded from the public spotlight. He returned by announcing his candidacy for the nomination of the far-right Constitution party.

In early 2007, Corsi huddled with an old friend, Howard Phillips, a veteran conservative operative who had attempted to organize the anti-government militia movement into a cohesive political bloc during the 1990s. Corsi emerged from their discussion convinced of his destiny. He would declare his campaign for the presidential nomination of the ultra-right Constitution Party, enthusiastically embrace the party's call for a complete halt on immigration, banning abortion even in cases of rape and incest, and upholding its official platform that the "US Constitution established a Republic under God, rather than a democracy." With this momentous announcement, Corsi hoped to cast himself as the last, best hope to save America from the godless, globalist duocracy conspiring to merge the United States, Mexico and Canada into a "North American Union." (His latest flop, published in 2007, was a screed entitled, The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada.)

In July 2007, Corsi spoke before the Texas Constitution Party. At the time, he remained focused on foiling the ambitions of Hillary and Bill Clinton. "I don't want Bill Clinton anywhere near the White House," Corsi proclaimed. "We had enough serial rape going on when he was President." But Corsi didn't want a Republican in the White House either, especially not Senator John McCain. The war-scarred McCain, Corsi wrote in a column for the far-right webzine WorldNetDaily, is a possible jihadist dupe who "has enjoyed strong support from a lobbying group that backs...a Muslim terrorist group with ties to criminal drug networks and Al Qaeda." Even George W. Bush was now treasonous. "Bush," he told the Texas Constitution Party, "is post-America and post-God," a figure so indebted to foreign interests that he had allowed "communist China" to "run its gunboats up the Mississippi." In Corsi's mind, both parties were fronts for the money-masters, the Trilateralists, the plotters of Bohemian Grove--the "elitists who want to destroy the nation-state."

"They don't want to offend anybody. They don't want to offend Mexico. They don't want to offend God," he railed, accidentally inverting what he meant to say. "They take God out of my money. I think we ought to offend Mexico! I think we ought to offend the sexual abusers! I think we ought to respect God."

Wow! Yes, this guy's book is receiving serious coverage on Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and other outlets of conservative nonsense. Please, before you hear how this book is credible, know that you are dealing with an author who is one step away from a neo-Nazi.

You Make The Call!

The Daily Dish's Andrew Sullivan asks today's profound question: Was John McCain tortured?

To any reasonable person, and Sen. McCain himself repeatedly during this campaign, the answer would be yes. To the completely unreasonable people who created our current interrogation policy, it would be no. Sen. McCain, in another life (last year), voted for these new interrogation techniques.

Cheney denies that McCain was tortured; as does Bush. So do John Yoo and David Addington and George Tenet. In the one indisputably authentic version of the story of a Vietnamese guard showing compassion, McCain talks of the agony of long-time standing. A quarter century later, Don Rumsfeld was putting his signature to memos lengthening the agony of "long-time standing" that victims of Bush's torture regime would have to endure. These torture techniques are, according to the president of the United States, merely "enhanced interrogation."

No war crimes were committed against McCain. And the techniques used are, according to the president, tools to extract accurate information. And so the false confessions that McCain was forced to make were, according to the logic of the Bush administration, as accurate as the "intelligence" we have procured from "interrogating" terror suspects. Feel safer?

So let's ignore the fact that Sen. McCain was tortured, because according to what he voted for, he wasn't. Now he's just a POW. But he's not Jack Bauer, as he has been hilariously comparing himself to during this campaign.

Let's take the hero out of McCain, please. If he's a hero, than American interrogators have made heroes all over the Islamic world over the last few years.

Obama, McCain, and Taxes

A primary objective of the staff of Shambollocks is to fight the misinformation that floods us through campaign ads, talking heads, and irresponsible media outlets. I've been amongst a lot of my Republican-leaning friends of late, and what I hear from them is that Obama is going to raise their taxes. So, with the help of a great article in the Los Angeles Times, we're going to talk about some facts.

Fact: Both candidates' plans would balloon the federal deficit to (watch out!) $9.6 TRILLION dollars over the next ten years. Someone is going to have to pay that debt. Most likely, because our politicians are weenies, it will be our children. This is gross irresponsibility and fiscal negligence.

Fact: Obama will raise taxes on maybe fifteen people I personally know. All he's going to do is let the Bush tax cuts expire. Bush's tax cuts primarily helped the wealthy. The middle class will not see higher taxes, although they will find the tax cuts Bush made eliminated. Obama is simply asking that the rich (REALLY rich) pay a higher share of the tax burden. That is all.

Do you want to help out rich people? Really? When was the last time they helped you?

Fact: McCain supports millionaires. Rick Warren asked both candidates last weekend what they considered 'wealthy'.

Obama said the dividing line was an income of $250,000 a year, while McCain responded somewhat flippantly that it was $5 million.

OK, by Obama's standards I know a slight amount of wealthy people- all of whom can afford more taxes. None of them are people who have raised concerns about Obama's tax policies to me. McCain believes $5 million dollars is wealthy. In that case, I know ONE wealthy person. He can definitely afford to pay more in taxes.

Which is good for me, because I live by Bill Murray's words in Rushmore:

Keep the rich kids in your sights. And take them down.