The best and worst of the Buzz Fugazi Screaming From The Basement Blog
(MSIGARMY.com 2005-2015)
Buzz Fugazi
Lost Cross House – Carbondale, IL 2010
1. Glad to be here in the matrix This was the first Buzz Fugazi blog on MSIGARMY.com.
2. Iraq Now! Buzz wrote this off the top of his head at MSIGARMY studio a couple years before he quit smoking weed. This is the best and worst of Buzz in a single blog. He mentions mercury in child vaccines. He is not an anti-vaxer but alluded to a concern he’d heard about the rise of autism and the correlation of mercury in child vaccines. This concern has been officially debunked.
For more information about the use of Thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative used in vaccines, please consult this link to the Center of Disease Control
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/thimerosal/index.html
Regarding mercury in the drinking water.
https://www.epa.gov/mercury/what-epa-doing-reduce-mercury-pollution-and-exposures-mercury
There is also the matter of lead in drinking water, and lead in the air, but that is another subject and is not mentioned in this blog.
3. Slow Train To Blogtown Stream of consciousness journaling ain’t always pretty. Buzz does not remember why he initially disliked Bad Santa. Upon further review, it became one of his holiday favorites.
4. The New Test To Find Terrorists four and a half years after the 9/11 attacks, the War on Terrorism remained the driving political force in US foreign and domestic policy.
5. Answer the fucking question, Mr. President Though opposing the war in Iraq, Buzz frequently cited legitimate reasons for supporting it. He lashed out at President Bush for failing to do that.
6. Chicago Punk on MySpace
7. Professor Chaos Hates the Funeral Protesters From Westboro Baptist Church
8. Trick or treat? Tangent Man is just saying… The previous day’s blog “And we finally know what the meaning of is is” was Buzz Fugazi’s simple missive responding to George W. Bush changing his well-worn “Stay the course” directive on Iraq to “We never were stay the course.”
9. Clash of the photo opportunities
10. Blog for the booing broken-hearted Cubs fans who are disowning the team
11. Yet another reprint (October 16, 2008) Buzz was on hiatus while real life alter-ego Adam Broad worked on the Obama campaign. Mikey Snot blogged an Adam Broad November 24, 1994 alter-ego letter responding to a query from an ivy league alternative press project. From the mid ‘80s to the mid ‘90s Buzz was part of a co-op that produced a “quasi-underground” tabloid, BASEMENT. The co-op also contributed to numerous other local alternative publications, including Satyagraha, which received an award from the Society of Professional Journalists for 2nd Best Independent Student publication in the Midwest.
12. I scream, you scream, we all scream waking up in the middle of the night with nightmares that Bush is still President. Barely producing blogs or podcasts after 2008, Buzz repackaged an email from Lee “the Lorax” Dynamo.
13. The real dirt on Obama (February 10, 2012)
14. We’re supposed to be dead (April 17, 2013) By this time, blogging three or four times a week was reduced to once a year.
15. We’re back, but not quite (July 3, 2014)
16. Cecil the Lion (July 29, 2015) Putting aside any new work resulting from plans to reboot MSIGARMY.com at the end of 2023 or early 2024, this was the last Buzz Fugazi blog on MSIGARMY.com.
Glad to be here in the matrix
Thursday June 23, 2005
I’m plugged in and it’s great. I’m not here to tell you how it ends. I’m here to tell you how it begins. Some of you wanks who came in and out of the C-dale ’80s-’90s scene may remember my angry satirical political culture snob rag: BASEMENT. Yeah, me and my staff were the smug smart kids who understood that the only goal in life is to rule the earth by getting one cool bean and three shells (a left, center, and a right). We knew we were supposed to hide the bean, juggle the shells while we made smiling distracting jokes, and then grab the money and make the suckers weep.
Some of the highest ideals of journalism went into that project and I want to bring the same integrity to the MSIG ARMY: Our truth is more useful. Our lies are more fun. Aside from giving you a good wank to relieve the stress of your day, I want us to work together like hippies singing “I’d love to teach the world to sing” in an old Coke commercial. I think we should seize power for fun and profit. Let’s mobilize, organize, see our enemies driven before us, hear the lamentations of their women, throw a party, build nuclear power plants and nuclear dump-sites on every block.
Iraq Now!
Friday, July 1, 2005
Old punk rockers responsible for instability in Iraq… Ask not what George W. Bush does for your country, ask what your country can do for George W. Bush (or burn in hell!)…
It’s not just Mikey and I who unwittingly deprive the long-suffering Iraqi people of a functioning democracy. The liberal press and the trapped at 40% liberal enclave may contribute sons, daughters, and some portion of the 360 billion defense dollars, but not much more, except tossing negative vibes. Maybe it’s time we stop Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and Senator Dick Durbin from owning the major networks. If the people who stuff their pockets in the defense industry had a fair say in what goes on in this country, we wouldn’t have all these cry-baby liberals preventing total victory.
The left is way out of style. The Red Scare of 1986 is over, comrades. Choose a fundamentalist religion and prepare for Armageddon. Quit whining about fringe special interests like these oxygen breathing freaks demanding cleaner air. Just because the President thinks more pollution is a Clean Skies Initiative is no reason for us to call him an insane liar. Name calling makes us look bad. Americans understand the President’s hostile space alien attitude about the environment is not a hint that he breathes toxic fumes to survive, but rather, a sign of his deep religious faith. Be grateful for mercury in child vaccines and in your drinking water. It is a gift from Culture of Life, Inc.
If the President makes his religious faith a political issue, we have no reason to wonder if he’s a big fucking liar about that, too. It’s important we learned the truth about John Kerry: his war service was just a big photo-op to get him elected. It was all media manipulation funded by SEIU and George Soros.
There is no media manipulation going on in Iraq. Photo op capers of the Bush Administration are fair and balanced.
It’s time for the rest of us to ask: What can I do to help the more fortunate? What can I do to win the War Against Terrorism without putting more of a burden on the people who are getting rich off of it? Ask yourself: do I need to spend the day with my children? You could be volunteering on an oil barge instead. Family values means spending your time promoting the policies that make the world a better place. Positive thinking is the best way to start. That’s why my family vacation will be at a religious retreat in Iraq.
Slow Train To Blogtown
Wednesday July 13, 2005
The Unbearable Wordiness of Writing the 1st Graph Like A Deranged John Kerry Speech In Love With The Sickness… Security matters and “that terrorist bullshit”… bonus joke for people who endured “Bad Santa”… More boring and crazy adventures in Chicago…
(Note from the Editor: Posting the Wednesday blog was delayed for reasons that will become apparent in the following dispatch):
I’m on the Metra heading into the city, so I figure I’ll read the Sun-Times and find something to have an opinion about. There’s the Mid East deal, of course, but not only is Bush making me sick, I am making me sick. Suicide bombers make me sick. I am offended when a Palestinian child is killed. I am offended when an Israeli child is killed. I am the opposite of the President when it comes to children: he is the champion of fetus and embryo rights. I think they are fair game until the 2nd trimester and not beyond that unless they fuck with my car, bust into my house, represent the wrong clique on my block or otherwise disrespect me. It’s okay to kill people for lots of good reasons but only if you do it with a handgun face to face or with a baseball bat. Other forms of killing are immoral (except, of course, punching someone to death in a sanctioned boxing event or just sparring around the gym and you sucker-punch someone because they made you look bad… also it’s okay to off someone at the gym when you’re hooping it and the motherfucker never pass the ball or play defense. Die, wannabe, die! And death to starting pitchers who give up 5 or 6 runs early and punk out and roll over and wait for the bullpen to come in and chew their arms up with long innings while punky takes a vacation and prays for his punk-ass fastball to come back with an extra skip). For the most part, I am very much opposed to genocide. (Is that a Kerryism? You better believe it might be! Is his abso-fucking-lutely piss poor campaign at least partially to blame for this living abortion we call Dubya’s 2nd Term?)
I was for Kerry before I was against him, but I was against him before that, and until tonight, I was for him again… I need more time to reconsider, but I’m sure he’d rather be where he is and not stuck with the responsibility of the Presidency. Certainly the London bombing would not be putting an extra spring in his step like it seems to be doing for President Bush. Does the length of this paragraph remind you of Kerry’s acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention? Most of the Democrats at the Duval County shin-dig were grooving on it, but me and a couple of guys had to get the hell away from it. We took a long break in the next room at the punch bowl and snack table. This was after listening to a whole bunch of it, but it was okay. After we shared our life-stories and made friends and ate and drank our fill, we made it back for the last three hours of the speech. Somewhere in Outer Space… Kerry’s speech is drifting toward the Sun in a large haze that may deplete its energy. Not to worry: A Bushco implode-the-Sun-for-profit expedition is scheduled to get there first… with all the money as cargo.
But I don’t want to write about the Mid East, the President, Sen. Kerry, baseball, Florida, or any of my normal topics. I see a Lauryn Hill quote that catches my eye. I think about it for 10 minutes. I throw the Sun-Times in the garbage. I think about it for a couple minutes then I get it back. I tear off the remaining scheduled games for the Cubs and White Sox and the Lauryn Hill quote in my journal:
“As a young woman, I saw the best in everyone, but I did not see the lust and insecurities of men.”—a quote from Lauryn Hill’s “first interview in years” lifted by the Sun-Times from “the new issue of Trace magazine” (A total surprise that “Trace” James is publishing a mag and didn’t tell me or Funkmeister).
This is an awful lot of writing and my train is nowhere near Chicago. I’m stuck, according to the voice on the intercom, with a “signal malfunction.” It’s a typical Metra Rail message: Ding-dong! “We are sorry for the delay and we appreciate your patience. We will continue to do everything we can to make your trip a pleasant and convenient experience that resembles a 1950s sci-fi movie. The security guards with guns and black uniforms will only drag you screaming from the train if you act drunk or ghetto. Do not be alarmed. Remain calm. You will continue to hear loud pre-recorded messages blaring out of the speakers every 10 minutes for an indeterminate amount of time. Thank you for riding Metra.” Ding-dong!
Loud voices from young dudes on the upper level are blaming “that terrorist bullshit!” and they are wanting “a g-ddamned cigarette!”
Every time I look up to see what the conductor is doing I see some shaved head guy in the opposite side of the car glaring at me. He reminds me of the character sitting on the opposite side of the bar from Billy Bob Thornton’s character in Bad Santa (Bad Movie).
I raise my alert level to “orange.” I fully expect him to attack me.
If so, I’m guessing the pre-med hottie who was nice to me in the station won’t be much help. She dug through her entire backpack to give me the time, but I was a condescending jerk about her cigarette smoking. She said she’s been scuba diving for 7 years and her smoking didn’t interfere. I didn’t ask, “Do your parents know you smoke?” but I was in that same ballpark. All I could do is sniff and tell her she is kidding herself.
I snap out of my memory of the gal at the station, which remains only a few yards behind me. The train is rolling again. Now the voice on the intercom contradicts the line about the signal malfunction. Something about a “security matter” resolved. The train stops again. We’re at a station. We don’t leave. The doors are open. We wait. The young dudes from the upper level bolt outside for a smoke. Time passes and there is another “security matter.” The young dudes will not be allowed back on the train and they are pissed. One of them is demanding a refund. The Metra conductors call the cops. We sit. We wait. The young dudes are venting. I turn on my digital recorder and go to take a closer look.
Miss Pre-Med Scuba-Diver does the same thing. Turns out her name is Missi. I apologize for being condescending about the smoking and thank her again for going through so much trouble to let me know what time it is (add that to my list of “things it took me 40 years to figure out”). Missi is cool. So is Heather and her two friends. And Steve. He has his baby’s momma’s name tattooed on his neck. I’m asking them, “Do you like punk rock? Go to msigarmy.com!” Missi is frantically working her dying cell phone to line up a car ride at the next stop. She tells a buddy, “You know I’ll fill up your tank. I always help with gas.” She wants to get to North Avenue Beach before the cops chase everyone out.
I go to the upper level to chat with her and escape the bug-eyed gaze of the guy who looks like he attacked Bad Santa in the parking lot. I’m tempted to ask my new pal if I can get a ride with her, but decide that’s too forward. Big mistake. Just after Missi’s escape, the train hits a pedestrian. The first two delays were just a warm up for the third.
I should be in Chicago now, but I’m sitting on a parked train and I’m thinking: ‘the train is already an hour late… someone is probably dead. Was it a security matter with young smokers that synchronized this train with the person who got hit?’
I’m talking to the professional photographer across the way, but he has his laptop; he is polite, but doesn’t need my small talk. The only real communication we have is when the long tall drop-dead gorgeous woman in the short shorts goes by… our heads swivel and we grin.
I end up at the back of the train across the aisle from her. “Can we talk?” I ask. “Will you save me from my boredom?”
She snubs me at first. Her cell phone is buzzing like the phone at a cab dispatch when the bars issue Last Call! She’s talking Spanish, but I know the accent isn’t Mexican. It sounds a bit exotic for Puerto Rican, but that’s my first guess. Not Spain, I keep telling myself, but I keep asking myself: Spain? “I can’t quite place your accent,” I tell her. She gives me a dirty look.
Eventually I ask to use her cell phone.
She warms up a little for the rejection. “Oh, I’m sorry, baby, but I’m already using up all my minutes and it’s almost dead.”
“I understand,” I told her. “I wouldn’t even ask but there’s no payphone and if I don’t get in touch with my friend I’ll end up wandering the streets all night. I’m supposed to be there by 11.”
After a silence she asks, “Do you have any condoms?”
I’m blushing, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I do.”
She says I can use her cell phone for a couple of condoms while I’m already digging them out of my backpack. The one I got from the free condom basket at Longbranch Coffee House in February looked pretty mint, but two left over from Jaime one year ago look a bit ragged, the rings almost pushing through the package. “Sorry,” I say. “A couple of these have been banged around a lot. It’s been awhile since I had a girlfriend.”
I give her the shortest version ever about what happened with Jaime. “She was from Jacksonville. I fell in love with her, but she was young and went to Europe with a rugby team. She’s in England, but she’s okay. She left the rugby team for a soccer stud. She blogs about his football team in Leeds.”
Jasmine is from Manhattan and she told me about all the different kinds of men she used to fuck there. She hates Chicago. It’s crazy and boring. She misses her Italian boyfriend who went insane from taking too much X. All this fucking around, but she would like a real boyfriend.
We were talking about how much we hate drugs and all the people we knew who got screwed up doing the hard stuff. I told her the good advice of my late great philosophy professor George “Easy A” McClure: Stick to the tried and true. Do the stuff that’s been around for a thousand years and we know what to expect from it: alcohol and reefer.
She didn’t like that advice. She doesn’t like either drug. She gets off on looking hot and knowing she’s got it going on. She talked about married women hating her because they know their husbands would rather have sex with her. She talked about men who are angry with her because she is their wildest fantasy and they can’t have her. “There are so many haters in Chicago,” she said. “In New York I can wear a wig and high heels and come out of the club and ride the bus and it is no big deal. But here…”
“Yeah,” I said with sympathy, “our busses are a bit too grungy late at night for dressing fancy and coming out of a club.”
The part where she said, “they can suck my dick!” jarred me a bit, but I didn’t say anything. Then she said something about knowing who she really was in heart and starting her hormone treatments at age 11 back in Puerto Rico. The others are just pretenders trying to be women, but she started early, so she’s the real thing.
“Your family is cool with this?” I asked.
Sadness dulled her anger: “My father: no. He is not cool with it. My brothers are not cool with it. But my sister…” she stumbled, choking with emotion, fighting back tears… “my sister… my mother… give me so much love.” She had regained her composure. “That is the only reason I leave New York.”
I pointed my index finger toward the ground. “But you still have your equipment?”
“Yes, I’m not going to do that to myself. It’s mine! I cut it and I can never take it back. Guys love my cock. Straight guys…”
“Straight guys?” Straight guys love your cock? What the fuck?
She asked why I didn’t get another girlfriend after Jaime. “Well, there’s this one gal I like who I met on the internet last weekend.” I paused. For a moment I sounded pathetic to myself.. wasn’t I just as love-starved as a lonely fuck-mad transexual whore? I showed her the description I wrote of her in my journal before I met her: “Long tall drop dead gorgeous woman.”
She smiled. “That’s nice. Thank you.”
The train is finally pulling into Union Station. Three hours earlier I copied a quote out of a newspaper and started writing a blog that ended up writing itself. I overheard a conductor say the train hit an escaped mental patient who is still alive. I had a psychological adventure riding the rails. I met three different attractive single women (except one of them has a penis). I didn’t get blown up by terrorists, but my attitude still sucks. I can see the attraction of being holed up stoned and alone in a bombproof shelter flirting on the internet and pretending I am Stud-1138.
Long Live The New Flesh.
The New Test To Find Terrorists
Thursday January 19, 2006
It is the responsibility of El Presidente Bushco to decide who is a possible terrorist. That is why the Department of Homeland Security proctors a written test as a screening device for those not white, but not black, hispanic, or asian guys who fit the profile of possible terrorists.
Question #1: Are you a Saudi Citizen who receives money and instructions from Osama Bin Laden?
Question #2: Do you receive a paycheck from the government of Iran or Syria? If you are a US Congressman with donors who have Iranian back-door investments through the Cayman Islands or Vice President Cheney you may write EXEMPT. If the terrorist act you are planning (for example: torture or killing a journalist) is on behalf of the US Government you may write EXEMPT.
Answer the fucking question, Mr. President
Saturday March 25, 2006
Six years after neo-Confederate anti-negro voting procedures in Florida got George W. Bush into the White House, the Great W. Hope finally held himself accountable to a real journalist, fielding a question from the venerable Helen Thomas.
In a nutshell, she told him his ever-changing rationales for the war in Iraq have proven to be bullshit. Specifically, she asked: What is the real reason for the war?
This was a golden chance for the President to think of the sacrifices made by our troops, sit tall in the saddle, bite the bullet, take the heat, and give some straight talk to the American people about geo-political reality.
Why should I expect this guy to be half the man Harry S. Truman was? Or half the man Dwight D. Eisenhower was?
He’s a populist President in his own way… except for his devastating ought-to-be-criminal-but-isn’t environmental agenda… he may be no better or worse than me or any other shmuck. That’s a sorry statement, but true. In fact, he may even be, in relative terms, upright among his peers, as the Bible might put it.
The American people are increasingly aware of the gulf between honesty and what people in the politics biz call “message”…
But how many people noticed the President didn’t answer the question? He said he didn’t want the war.
Ms. Thomas didn’t ask if you wanted the war, sir. She asked, “Why?”
And you didn’t answer.
Mr. President, in your darkest hour with your popularity at an all-time low, a man on record as one of your staunchest opponents stood up to offer support for US intervention in the region. That man had nothing to gain except the intangible benefit one gets from listening to conscience. I am quite an asshole when the mood strikes me, Sir, but you made me look like an even bigger asshole than I am. Incredible achievement.
Thanks, Mr. President. I give a fuck about my own reputation or yours, but for the sake of the kids dying over there… compared to you and I they are kids, same age as your hot, silly daughters… how about it, Mr. President?
Answer the fucking question.
Be a man. Take responsibility. You are already a giant Judas goat anyway.
What do you have to lose?
Why do I have to be the one to bail your sorry ass out?
Answer the fucking question. No bullshit. Be real.
Why?
Chicago punk on MySpace
Monday May 8, 2006
Is it pathetic that I have a make-believe internet girlfriend I found on MySpace? Very pathetic. But what about 2 make-believe internet girlfriends? Not quite so pathetic anymore. What about 3 or 4? What about 3 or 4 HUNDRED? Not quite as studly as a Congressman at a strip club with defense contractor lobbyists, but not too shabby…
I think having a stable of MySpace babes is pretty damn cool.
Wait, it actually is pathetic. Why am I always the last one to figure this kind of stuff out?
Professor Chaos Hates the Funeral Protesters From Westboro Baptist Church
Monday April 17, 2006
When a 24 year old Marine dies in Iraq and the Chicago Sun-Times runs an article about people who will go to the funeral waving signs like “Thank God For Dead Soldiers,” it is easy to imagine something about ghoulish punk rockers finally going too far beyond redemption.
But the people who decided to publicly scorn the Christian burial of John Philip Martini are not punkers, hippies, nor communists.
While it may sound like a satirical story from the satirical Landover Baptist Church, it is real people who actually pass themselves off as United States citizens from Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas that decided to make the journey to South Holland to disrespect the memory of a fallen Marine and issue the following statement:
“He died in shame, not honor—for a fag nation cursed by God.”
Always ready to throw the first stone, this is following the logic of a previously offered argument from the American Taliban that God lifted his shield of protection from America because we aren’t doing enough to persecute gays. Enslaving Africans and wiping out Native Americans didn’t make a stain upon our grace, apparently, but letting gay people out of the closet is a deal breaker.
That is why the funeral protesters from Westboro Baptist plan to discredit the Baptist Church and free expression together by waving signs and shouting slogans at the mourners.
Further twisting the dying myth over who is the backbone in this nation and who is the threat to society, a motorcycle club — The Patriot Guard Riders — are offering comfort to the mourners by volunteering as a human buffer between them and the Taliban wannabe fuckos.
The Illinois Legislature is considering a measure called the Let Them Rest In Peace Bill. It would prohibit disruptive protests within 200 feet of funerals. The W.B.’s are citing the US Constitution to protest the bill despite their apparent contempt for the secular document (which, among other things, was intended to prevent our nation from suffering the bloody religious wars drenching Europe in centuries prior to the Revolution).
I have heard that Heaven’s Streets are guarded by the United States Marines and that does not bode well for these holy rollers. Perhaps these are just bored assholes that don’t have the brains to find anything better to do back in Topeka. Maybe someday they will receive G-d’s mercy, the kind of tender mercy that characterizes other Christians, as well as the righteous among Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Pagans, Jews, and Atheists… the tender mercy they cannot find in their own hearts, the kind that is in ever-shrinking supply in my own. Whatever eternal judgment awaits their sin of vanity, I can only hope that drunk, obnoxious lesbians play Bikini Kill at their funerals and gay men have anal sex on their graves.
Trick or treat? Tangent Man is just saying…
October 31, 2006
Never was stay the course. Never was. See us start a war over Weapons of Mass Destruction? What happens next in the Axis of Evil? North Korea blows a nuke. Some tool cranks out a story about what a punk ass nuke it was. North Korea blows another nuke… heh-heh.
Iran calls us the Great Satan… then becomes a mutant bastard offspring of the Western Enlightenment: the President of Iran, Iamabigjagoff, mutters something about Iran having “the right” to nuclear power. My answer: Find that for me in the Koran, you asshole, and then you can have them. Maybe the US will pay Israel to drop some off for you. Stranger things have happened. Organized crime is as organized crime does.
Is there another choice besides Gangsters or Clerics? Maybe: Dreamers with a Social Conscience. Hmmmm… you can find them anywhere among any ethnic group. What does it mean? What does it mean?
Mikey thinks meeting the President with a gathering of his True Believers is more intimate than ever. Aside from the people who drank the Guyana Punch at the New Church of Almighty Delusions, the hardcore rational support always did come from a rather exclusive group.
There’s also the matter of those Iraqi people that believed a man subverting Democracy in the United States knew how to establish it in Iraq.
I can only imagine how disappointed they are. Disappointed and afraid. Who gets left behind?
Certainly the big money interests would rather be hiding behind Barack Obama and a New Spirit of Optimism than be tied to this DUI to Armageddon we call the Bush Administration. Any insurance or pharmaceutical bigwigs getting their pictures taken with the President lately? Really? Let’s see it. I want names… heh-heh, only kidding fellas… I am just a song and dance man, really.
My guess is that those guys will plead “Businessman”… they don’t do politics, don’t you know. Besides, they are smart and they probably already sent a bunch of “we’re on your side, too” checks to the Democrats. Lobbyists gotta eat, too. A lot of ‘em are great and amusing people. Did you see the movie THANK YOU FOR SMOKING? What was the name of that lobbyist character, the tobacco industry guy… MACK THE KNIFE, or something. We oughta elect that actor guy President. Or George Clooney. Or better yet, President Oprah. No joke. I’ll vote for Oprah. And Christopher Walken.
As for the tens and hundreds of millions spent by the now ex-friends of the GOP, that money they get from you, that money spent to pay the administrative cost of taking human cattle to market. (Be honest. Do you really deserve any better?)… that’s not politics.
And your healthcare cost, the price you pay at the pump. Those aren’t taxes.
And we never were stay the course.
We’re inventing new tactics everyday for taking over and relinquishing the same pieces of turf. The implication is that we have good policy (though President Bush was very careful not to say that). The counter-spin is that the opposition is a bunch of assholes (though President Bush was very careful not to say that), and I will concede that point even though it is only being made in a wussy chickenshit manner through proxy. And even if it is true that somehow, someway, John Kerry is truly a bigger asshole than the President (there are strong arguments for either side of this debate)… does this argument mean that Iran will not someday have the capacity to nuke us (just because mobs sponsored by the Iranian government still have not bored themselves to death chanting, “Death to America!” is no reason to assume the worst… they are, as we are fond of saying about Israel, one of the few democracies in the region).
Anyone feel that establishing a Shiite theocracy in Iraq was worth paying for or dying for? Everyone okay with Iran and North Korea having nukes? No one asked you one way or the other, did they?
Happy Halloween. Vote early.
Clash of the photo opportunities
March 23, 2007
The insurgency is in its final throes **mortar attack in the green zone… duck and cover… kaboom!**
But wait, there’s more… you not only get the incessant brutality and lies, for no extra cost we will waste all the money and come asking for more!
Still not convinced?
You get the mortar attack, bankruptcy, hypocrisy based on false piety, the vvegematic… and a certificate of authenticity from the Vice Presidency announcing that after all the fighting in Iraq, Al Queda is resurging!
Send more blood and money now to help our mismanaged failed policies!
If you are still not satisfied, we guarantee that we will blame the entire mess on people who had no say in the matter until we totally fucked it all up!
If you don’t act now, this entire mail order house will be indicted and convicted so hurry while there’s still a chance to declare martial law!
Blog for the booing broken-hearted Cubs fans who are disowning the team.
October 7, 2007
I know how you feel, but you’ll come back. There’s no known cure for being a Cubs fan. Even if you ignore them, you’ll still have to carry that hurt feeling around for the rest of your life. Even winning it all next year is no guarantee you won’t die a little bit every October for the next 100 year draught after that.
Here’s an image for you to take with you in the offseason… Cliff Floyd’s dad on a stretcher at the ballpark hooked up to an IV unit with his Cubs hat on while the Cubs launch an improbable come from behind win…
Steve Goodman in the middle of the ’84 season (on the verge of death) in the studio with some of the Cubs recording Go Cubs Go! (and A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request).
Steve didn’t live to see the collapse in San Diego, but he could’ve guessed… just like me seeing Augie Ojeda take the field in Game One… you gotta know somewhere deep down that the stage is set for another disappointment.
Maybe next year we’ll know what it’s like to see our team as the last one standing. Maybe not. It’s baseball. It’s the greatest game ever invented, but it always breaks your heart in the end. Always. Even the greatest teams and the greatest players wear down from the seasonal marathons and get replaced by up and comers. Every champion, every dynasty, has to take the pennant down eventually and pass it on. That’s what happened to the Cubs and they are still waiting for their turn to come around again. New teams like the Mets, Padres, and D-backs keep coming along to get in the way.
Cubs usually start playing out the string around July or August, if not April, but this year it was October. We got beat by a better team. Maybe next year we’ll be the better team. The Cubs were pressing at the plate a bit, but good pitching will do that to hitters. Arizona looked sharp turning those double plays. Those were not flukes. Our guys came hard into 2nd base, but the D-backs hung tough. The Cubs were not losers this year. The D-backs were winners. Arizona played the games hard and tough with pitching, defense, speed, and power. What didn’t they do right? We did not lose to a bunch of clowns and if I would’ve been at the ballpark I would’ve given both teams a standing ovation. I understand the disappointment, but booing shows a lack of appreciation and respect for the game. It’s a great game, one of our great cultural contributions to the world and someday the world might appreciate it. Hopefully we’ll see the Cubs go all the way before that happens.
This year’s team played one of the best months I’ve seen any Cubs team play to get back into the race (June, wasn’t it?) and despite a season long lack of power, they set the team record for homers in September to make the playoffs.
I felt like I was done with the Cubs after watching them get swept by the Mets at the end of ’04, but seeing my 2nd favorite team, the White Sox, go all the way in ’05 only made me realize there’s only one cure for that boyhood longing that inexplicably remains inside me… to see the Cubs jumping around and celebrating the Championship.
If I go into a coma and wake up and discover a Cubs championship 10 years after the fact, I’m pretty sure my emotions will be soaring like I’m right there on the field with them in the moment. So will yours. We won’t know if winning will cure this disease until it happens, but I remain with my theory that there is no cure.
So put your Steve Goodman tunes on the boombox and raise a toast for the generations of fans who have come and gone in the hundred years since the last Cubs championship in 1908.
Dry your tears and know the leaves will fall, the snow will come and we’ll dig it out and try to call dibs on our parking spaces with cheap lawn furniture. The cruel hawk wind will howl off the lake like it’s the end of the world, but from our icy grey world we’ll see the Cubs warming up in the Arizona sunshine and we won’t be thinking about the Diamondbacks, but it will remind us that winter doesn’t last forever and soon the sun will shine in Chicago again.
We’ll know we shouldn’t get emotionally involved with the Cubs, but eventually they’ll win two games in a row, our sons and daughters will look pleadingly at us or a buddy will score an extra ticket, and you’ll think, ‘maybe it’ll be okay to take an afternoon off at the Friendly Confines and see the sun shining on the ivy.’ Despite the wisdom of experience we’ll shout “Go Cubs!” and there will be legions of ghosts swirling in the wind shouting it with us, and maybe that shouting will make the ball do a funny trick that helps us instead of killing us.
Wait ’til Next Year, Cubs fans. That’s what we do.
Yet another reprint
October 16, 2008
(Editor’s Note: Buzz Fugazi continues to be on a leave of absence. With the My Senator Is Great Brodzky poll showing Barack Obama edging ahead of his out of touch opponent, the distinguished Senator from Exxon, we decided to reprint this Buzz response to a query from an ivy league alternative journalism project in 1994).
Introduction: A letter I wrote to a name I couldn’t make out from an alternative journalism project at Cambridge University.
To: Rirb Coura, or whoever…
From: Basement c/o Adnon Kitkuda (Editor’s Note: Though the nickname Buzz goes back to 1975, Buzz used Adnon Kitkuda as an alter ego in the Southern Illinois alternative press from 1989 to 1994).
RE: alternative campus journalism
11/24/1994
Good Samaritan House
Carbondale, IL
Dear University Conversion Project Comrade(s):
I was very pleased and excited to receive your inquiry postcard. The only reason I did not respond sooner is that I hoped to enclose a November ’94 issue of BASEMENT. This proved unrealistic; the new BASEMENT was supposed to be more relevant than ever, but it’s just another bad college try.
As you can see from the enclosed back issues, BASEMENT is—as an editor for a local daily put it—“sort of an ego thing”: cultural catharsis, satire, etc. It’s good for a few snicks, but it’s hardly a speed bump on the fast road to a rigid crypto-fascist theocracy. We won’t be laughing when we get there. We’ll need back issues of BASEMENT to throw in our trashcan fires as we stand disenfranchised in East St. Louis—along with the crackheads—contemplating our thought crimes, begging Quayle for a presidential pardon.
Forgive my hyperbole. Too much newsprint has soaked into my fingers and polluted my brain. Plus, I’ve been a staff resident of this emergency shelter for over a year and I actually get to watch herds of children being escorted on American’s peculiar deathmarch for “the underclass” (or whatever it is we’re supposed to call those who probably won’t belong in the New World Order)…
Anyway, I’m impressed that your outreach efforts extend to obscure characters in minor league cities like Carbondale. I would like to know more about your organization and the kinds of papers you’re hooking up with. The corporate media is doing a suck job of informing the public and we can thank them and our inexperienced, poorly organized selves for all the goofy Gantry-type assholes who are marching to power under the gold (twisted?) cross.
I’ll be relocating to Chicago in a couple of months, gearing up for the ’96 election. I’m interested in joining forces, sharing info and experience with anyone who can help combat the dangerous manipulation of information by Pat Robertson and friends, an arrogant and corrupt circle of elites who hid their disdain for civil liberties and economic justice with carnival evangelism. I hope we can learn from the way the New Right overcame factionalism with money and incessant grassroots networking.
Good ideas that seem politically impossible now may be very feasible after years of concentrated hard work. Let’s get busy. Meanwhile, let’s try to maintain some sense of humor. Go Team, Rah, Rah, Rah.
Don’t Tread On Me.
Adnon Kitkuda.
I scream, you scream, we all scream waking up in the middle of the night with nightmares that Bush is still President.
February 11, 2009
What will we do at the MSIG Army without our favorite Bobo clown? Well, the haters dogged Clinton until they had President Obama to help them ignore their own shortcomings. Far be it from us punks to act superior to the opposition. We’re going to get down in the mud with them… with extreme ice cream humor.
Here’s something from my email inbox forwarded by progressive activist Lee Dynamo:
It’s cold but sweet…
Ben & Jerry created “Yes, Pecan!” ice cream flavor for Obama.
For George W. they asked for suggestions from the public. Here are some of their favorite responses:
– Grape Depression
– the Housing Crunch
– Abu Grape
– Cluster Fudge
– Nut ‘ n Accomplished
– Good Riddance You Lousy Motherfucker… Swirl
– Iraqi Road
– Chock ’n Awe
– WireTapioca
– Impeach Cobbler
– Guantanmallow
– imPeachmint
– Heck of a Job, Brownie!
– Neocon Politan
– RockyRoad to Fascism
– The Reese’s-cession
– Cookie D’oh!
– Nougalar Proliferation
– Death by Chocolate… and Torture
– Freedom Vanilla Ice Cream
– Chocolate Chip On My Shoulder
– Credit Crunch
– Mission Pecanplished
– Country Pumpkin
– Chunky Monkey in Chief
– WMDelicious
– Chocolate Chimp
– Bloody Sundae
– Caramel Preemptive Stripe
– I broke the law and am responsible for the deaths of thousands… with nuts.
The real dirt on Obama
February 10, 2012
He’s too left.
He’s too right.
He’s too black.
He’s too white.
We’re supposed to be dead
April 17, 2013
Greetings, punks. Fuck you. And fuck me, too. And fuck the Westboro Baptist Church. Seems like they could use it. 7 years ago today Mikey posted a blog I wrote about the religiously justified pathos of these sad, terminally bored assholes and now, BOSTON, and the subsequent media orgy with the theme of spectacular violence, the Westboro Baptist Church is in the news again. They’re still out on the road jumping in front of every news camera they can find… doing everything in their power to avoid returning to their formerly unpublicized lives in Topeka. I suspect the boredom and absurdity they carried with them when they left there is heavier than any cross, and no amount of attention will ever relieve the burden. They are sick. I’ll pray for them. And that’s all I have to say about that.
Killers in America work seven days a week, and neither Mikey nor I have time to mourn every victim of every senseless killing. Four were shot to death in Chicago over the weekend. Pretty low-key. Barack Obama, before he was President, referred to the parade of inner-city gun violence victims as “the forgotten children”—the Dems want to invent more rules to the game. Nevermind the existing rules against shooting people that are ignored, the existing gun laws, drug laws, etc. the prison-industrial complex that is overfed. They are amazed by their own usefulness. The GOP wants money to make up its own rules. I sometimes get indecisive about which political party should be destroyed first. Mostly I am pretty sure it should be the GOP, but I wonder if we can get rid of both at the same time? What are the odds that a new party can be any better? There’s a lot more I can say about all that and I will, given the time and inspiration.
Furthermore, no respectable media outlet spends too much time covering the relentless carnage on the roads. Just a small price to pay for the honor of feeding the oil companies and maintaining the status quo. Almost everyone is guilty of that and so the full depth of the horror is barely worth mentioning. We’ve had a few more oil spills here and there. I can hardly wait… for the assholes to start spilling nuclear waste. And if it’s true there’s a fool proof methodology for carting nuclear waste safely, would it be insane to suggest that somehow someway the mind-boggling profits of the oil industry should be used to adopt those? I suppose it is some kind of unacceptable ism to suggest that. Well, I guess that’s why we’re still here. Even if it’s only light entertainment for ourselves, our friends, or anyone out there who is still making an effort to make a positive difference while maintaining a sense of humor and the occasional impulse to jump up and down screaming.
Punk is dead. Long live punk.
We’re back, but not quite
July 3, 2014
Howdy, strangers. Been awhile since I tossed any words onto this site. I suspect I’m writing a note to the future and you, dear reader, are sitting in front of your screen, or maybe the internet implant chip is merely buzzing inside your head ten years from now and you’re just flabbergasted to discover MSIG ARMY blogs more recent than 2006.
Furthermore, there was an actual scheduled recording session for Mikey and I yesterday. The return of Over The Top streaming on a Live365.com station, CDFR, Chicago Daily Fuse Radio (“The Fuse”). But when a project popped up at my job and I went to call Mikey to cancel, I found a voice mail waiting for me. A project popped up at Mikey’s job and he cancelled.
Reminds me how the whole thing started. Nine years ago, after leaving a station that wouldn’t let me play punk rock, I discovered Mikey wanted to do podcast work on his website with punk rock. Furthermore, I had a blogging platform to play with. Did I mention that Mikey owns an espresso machine?
I remember the first blogs were about the first show coming soon and how Mikey’s professional life was causing delays. Well, here we go again.
It’s the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. We have a legacy to think about and now that a new generation of activists are holding the torch, where are we going? Who is trying to stop us?
Congress is up for grabs. The battle for the Presidency is already in motion. The Wingnuts are trying to copy the Dem formula from 2008: Worst President in History. We can’t have more of this.
Are we truly blind libtards marching lockstep with our Kenyan Socialist master, Kwame Nkrumah Obama? Where did we succeed by backing him? Where did we fail? What can we do better moving forward?
The Wickerman wants me to abandon the Democrats for a new third party. Not going to happen this time around, but we are going to explore Project 2024.
The First Rule of Project 2024: Talk about Project 2024.
Fake Mayor For Life Daley returns to give his fake assessment of Chicago and maybe some tips for Project 2024. Probably something to do with getting kickbacks from contractors and selling public assets to the UAE. I understand some oil sheiks will pay the city’s bills for a month if we agree to drain Lake Michigan and have all the water transported to the Middle East. That and other bright ideas to be considered amid the noise and waste. Punk rock.
Cecil the Lion
July 29, 2015
There’s a backlash against white liberals concerned with Cecil the Lion. Supposedly, if I am appalled that some dickhead needs to kill a cat for sport, I am a hypocrite because I am unconcerned with Africa otherwise. For the record, my campus activism began by demanding University divestment from South African Apartheid in ’85, and thanks to personal letters from a friend in Rwanda, I was well aware and concerned with genocide there long before it reached limited public consciousness in this country. My government has been reluctant to take my foreign policy advice and while many people in my generation were chasing dollars during the Reagan Years, I was a card-carrying DSA… writing, agitating, and organizing for a new Democratic Left. That being said, I do not wish to be a white colonial overlord of African politics, but at the same time, I will not object if the Great Cat Hunter is thrown into a cage to be dismembered by crazed chimps for pay per view entertainment. If anybody has a problem with that, go ahead and cry me a fucking river.
Little Snot and Buzz Jr.
at the Airwaves reunion, 2010
The Buzzsheet 