Edwin Decker

My Funeral

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 10:58:00 -0800

I recently read that one of the ways you can make your death easier on loved ones is to let them know what kind of funeral or memorial service you want in advance. What a stellar idea! It makes perfect sense to take the guesswork out of funeral preparations. So, dear loved ones, you may consider this my official sepulchral request. Firstly, my funeral should be two things that most funerals are not: cheap and fun. Just because I'm dead doesn't mean you shouldn't have a good time. As for the cost, everyone knows the death industry is an enormous, inflated flimflam machine. Take heed, my beloved grieving widow, do not let some sleazy funeral director exploit your diminished capacity and coerce you into buying a bunch of overpriced crap I certainly won't be needing: not the diamond studded pall bearer gloves nor the laminated package of 1,000 prayer cards with micro perforation, the Cyprian torchiere lamps with pinkneck bulbs and ruby vigil glass. And for god's sake, do not let him up-sell you on the 20-gauge, gasketed, stainless steel Essex Monarch casket with the otter-fur inner lining and central air conditioning! Just put me in an unfinished plywood box with my New York football Giants blanket and call it a day.

HI MOM

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 10:54:05 -0800

Gregory Page(All Make Believe)

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:16:25 -0800

All Make Believe Gregory Page Sounden Records 8.6 stars *Goes well with gramophones and gin martinis Every time I listen to a Gregory Page recording, it reinforces my belief that Page doesn't just write songs, he writes albums. Most artists (and there's nothing wrong with this) write their tunes à la carte, drop them into an album, and give the album a name after the fact. But judging from what I hear on his records, Page comes up with an album concept first, then writes songs that perpetuate the album's theme. I could be wrong about this, but it's certainly how his albums read, especially on Make Believe, Greg Page's 7000th solo album, on which appear music-loving bumble bees, hand-shaking ghosts, silver dollar moons, telephone psychics, automobiles that dream, and bedrooms that rain - all of which, by themselves, are simple metaphors, but combined become important components of the Make Believe theme. Take the title cut for example: "There's a knock at the door My grandparents are here On a holiday from heaven We hug and we cheer And play cards and drink whiskey Then they disappear." The two signature aspects of this album are his lyrical imagery and the bittersweet that oozes from the speakers, thanks, in part, to liberal dashes of the most melancholic instrument in the world, the cello, as well as the violin, which puts the sweet into "bittersweet." Also enhancing the emotive aspect of All Make Believe is the hint of 40's style vocals - a cross between Mel Torme, Nick Drake, and James Blunt - with all of Torme's style, most of Drake's woebegone tone, and none of Blunt's overblown cornball-adry

Remote Control Control FreakThe art and the science of remote control flipping

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:06:34 -0800

W., and I are watching television. She is on the couch with the remote control, flipping around the dial searching for something good to watch and I'm on the recliner, staring at her with love and amazement and thinking, This woman is the worst remote control channel flipper ever. Of course, she doesn't get her hands on the remote all that often as I am a bit of a control freak. But in the rare occasion that she does stake claim, she always sends us spiraling into a substandard world of Television Suckland--so much so that I find myself directing her flippages from across the room--"Keep going, keep going, keep going, wait, wait! Go back..."--until the clicker comes sailing through the air toward my head--forcing me to duck--then crashes into the wall behind me and breaks into about three or four pieces, which has me always running over to the injured remote. "Oh no, no, no--are you all right?" I ask the tattered motherboard lying lifeless in my hands, then carefully rebuild it with duct tape and rubber bands, point it at the television, breathe a sigh of relief when the television responds appropriately and shoot angry glares at the heartless devil woman who did this terrible thing to my beloved remote.

Booze Floozies

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:32:02 -0800

Once upon a time, unscrupulous bar owners hired women of questionable repute to boost bar sales. They were called "B Girls" and they flirted with male customers to entice the gentlemen to buy drinks for them. The practice is illegal now. In recent years however liquor and beer companies have employed similar tactics. They hire scantily clad, provocative women to go into bars and inspire alcohol sales, circumnavigating the room like living billboards -- enticing weak or unsuspecting men to buy their liquor brands. I call them Booze Floozies and they are powerful and evil.

Cell-phone Liberty(Six reasons why the HANG UP Act is wack)

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:16:02 -0800

Recently, the House of Representatives' Transportation and Infrastructure Committee advanced a bill that will permanently ban cell-phone use on planes. The bill, which was approved in committee with bipartisan support, will now move to the full House and potentially become law. Currently, there is a temporary ban on cell-phone calls while airborne. On July 31, the House committee revisited the issue to determine whether to lift the temporary ban. Hence the HANG UP Act (Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace) which, if passed, will fortify the existing airborne ban and extend it to when the plane is on the ground because, according to the committee, cell calls on planes are "unsafe and annoying to passengers." And Congress would know. Who flies more than politicians? Before the bill came to vote, committee members conveyed their personal cell-phone-on-airplane horror stories, such as the congressman who testified that he was forced to endure a nearby passenger discussing her sex life on the phone (oh, the travesty!). Another conveyed a harrowing tale of a man who was on a mobile phone trying to save his marriage before the plane took off. "It was embarrassing having to listen to all that sobbing and pleading," said the congressman. (Sorry if my unraveling existence is making you uncomfortable, Mr. Representative). And, naturally, the terrorism card was played when yet another member claimed she saw somebody using a cell phone to take pictures of "sensitive areas" of the plane's interior.

Day Bar

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:56:38 -0800

This column is a tribute to day bartenders everywhere. Your typical day bar shift is a sentence. It is the working-on-the-side-of-the-road-picking-up-garbage-in-orange-vests of bar shifts. My brother calls it "Crossing the Desert," because working the day shift is like an arduous trek across a wasteland. For the most part, the day bartender's main task is to set up the bar for the night. The night is where there is life. There is no joy in day bar. There's no spicy Latin funk band to kindle the room, no giggling, perky women with racy shorts clinging to their buttocks, no mammalian mosaics with erect mammilla (Oh, momma!), no flashing lights or disco balls. . . There's only a flickering television and a jukebox that hasn't changed in 12 years. There is no glory in day bar. Being a day bartender is like being that lonesome roadie, setting up the stage in an empty arena for the sold-out rock-and-roll show that night. You scrub the wells, polish the glasses, set up napkins, straws, and ashtrays. You cut fruit, wipe lipstick from wine glasses, count and stock the liquor inventory, clean the brass spigots, de-bleach the rags, scour the sinks, and fill the wells with endless buckets of ice.

Virtual Avenger

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:05:07 -0800

Have you heard about the recent video game, the one where players try to assassinate President Bush? It's called "The Night of Bush Capturing: A Virtual Jihadi" (also known as "Quest for Bush"). Part game, part art exhibit and part political activism, "Quest for Bush" was created by Wafaa Bilal, an artist whose brother was killed in Iraq by U.S. bombs. Bilal created the game to express outrage for his brother's death and, also, as a response to the 2003 game "Quest for Saddam," where the object is to kill the former Iraqi president. Bilal believed "Quest for Saddam" stereotyped Arabs negatively, so he created "Quest for Bush" to "expose racist generalizations," according to his website. In "Quest for Bush," the protagonist player-character is an Iraqi immigrant who is recruited by Al Qaeda to become a suicide bomber targeting the American president. Naturally, there was a torrent of controversy. When Bilal was invited to exhibit the game at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., in February, RPI President Shirley Ann Jackson reportedly shut down the exhibit after a student group's blog called RPI's Arts Department "a safe haven for terrorists." After being ousted from RPI, Bilal moved his exhibit to the "Sanctuary for Independent Media" performance space (also in Troy), where Robert Mirch, the city's public works commissioner--who was outraged by the game's content--used his authority to condemn the building, thereby, once again, shutting the exhibit down.

Ultimate Music Challenge The Finals

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:54:23 -0800

Well, the Ultimate Music Challenge is over now. Last night, Sunday, was the finals. It was between 4 bands for a total of 32 thousand dollars in prizes and the show was beyond spectacular. Seriously. We had a Rage Against the Machine Tribute band called Anger is a Gift, a Hard rock cover band called Monsters of Rock, a Motown band called Detroit Underground, and an Alice Cooper tribute band (See photo). Every one of these bands kicked ass. Visit my Judge's Blog to read all about and see who came in first, second and third place.

Attention Visitors - Technical Difficulties

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:44:04 -0800

Or... "A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Upgrade" Yeah, so maybe you've noticed, but ever since I upgraded to Moveable Type 4.12 blog interface, the content on my site has become all screwed up. Basically, it's a coding issue, with all the apostrophes, quotations and hyphens being converted to these other-worldly symbols seemingly from another galaxy. Such as this bizarre conversion from one of my columns. In her book, Coulter says The Jersey Girls are, â€œself-obsessed,â€ and that they are â€œcelebrity-seeking broads,â€ and even went so far as to call them harpies. Anyway, the only way I can fix this problem is by going into each entry, one at a time, and edit and save so, as they say in the strip malls . . . "WE ARE UNDER CONSTRUCTION - PLEASE EXCUSE OUR APPEARANCE Thanks Ed Decker

Open and Shut (Revisiting the mysterious death of Michelle von Emster)

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:01:56 -0800

I just got off the phone with Ralph Collier of the International Shark Committee and am utterly blown away. My knees are weak. My brain is in a haze. And now I'm looking at the blank screen that will become this column thinking, Where on Earth do I begin? In 1994, a "friend" of mine was killed by a "shark" in the waters off Ocean Beach. I put quotes around the word "friend" because Michelle von Emster wasn't a friend-friend, nor was she a girlfriend. She was a young woman whom I fancied for several months, whom I eventually asked out on a date and who accepted. We went out to Winston's, a bar in Ocean Beach, watched bands and drank liquor. At about midnight, we left Winston's, bought some beer and cigarettes, returned to my pad and sat on the couch, where we talked and flirted all night. At one point, she let me take off her shirt so I could see the large butterfly tattoo on her right shoulder blade, after which we kissed and fondled each other until well past dawn. I was crazy about Michelle and was looking forward to seeing her again, and again, and again. But late the next night, Michelle went skinny-dipping off Sunset Cliffs and was attacked and killed by a "shark." I put the word "shark" in quotes because now (thanks in part to phone my conversation with Collier) I don't believe that's what killed her. Here's your backstory:

John Cusack with a Boom Box

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:42:02 -0800

A journalist I know was polling men for a feature story she was working on. It was one of those man-on-the-street type of articles in which everyone's asked the same question and the responses are printed. The question was this: "What's the worst advice you've ever received about dating." I told her, "Oh crap--that's easy!" The worst advice I have ever received was, "Don't give up on love." It's inevitable. Whether there's some new girl you adore who's not reciprocating or a long-term girlfriend who's tired of your horseshit, there's always some idiot in your life telling you not to give up on love, as though you're John Cusack with a boombox outside love's window. "Don't give up" is the second worst piece of dating advice ever. There's another name for guys who don't give up on their romantic interests. They're called "stalkers" and stalking is wrong, unless of course, you're John Cusack with a boom box, in which case it's romantic.

Ultimate Music Challenge Week 6

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:53:19 -0800

The Week 6 winner of the Ultimate Music Challenge has been announced. Click here to read the accompanying blog and some more bitter comments.

Gitmo-a-go-go

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 01:07:23 -0800

Props to the U.S. Supreme Court for making the right decision regarding Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, et al. This was the case about whether the Geneva Conventions apply to prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. The Bush administration argued that the Gitmo detainees were not, technically, prisoners of war and, therefore, not eligible for Geneva protections. At issue in the case was habeas corpus, the requirement that the government show legitimate reason to detain someone. Thanks to this ruling, the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay have come another step closer to receiving the same legal protections as you and me. Fukken-A! Now, I really hadn't planned on writing about this decision. It seems so utterly obvious why Guantanamo Bay detainees deserve due process; I just figured it would be argued, re-argued and over-argued a million times in the opinionsphere before I could ever publish a single word about it. Instead, I watched and listened as the right-wing blubbermongers blubbered on about how the court's decision puts the rights of foreign terrorists above the safety of Americans, that terrorists aren't deserving of habeas corpus because of their heinous actions and that the decision will cost American lives because the terrorists will all stampede out of Guantanamo like horses running from a burning stable.

Ultimate Music Challenge Week 5

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:42:19 -0800

Congratulations Anger is a Gift, the Winner of the 5th round of Ultimate Music challenge at Viejas. Anger is a Rage Against the Machine tribute band. Visit my Judges' Blog to read about the night, and the many controversies swirling around the Anger victory as they move to the next round for a shot at $20,000. They have some competition though, there have been some excellent winners of the previous rounds. It really is a lot of fun, you should come down and check it out.
Ultimate Music Challenge Sunday nights from 6-10pm DreamCatcher Lounge in Viejas.