SOME of what I'm thinking...

Waste of life, waste of money, waste of time.

This presidency is appalling.

I used to think Sean Combs was a little ridiculous because as the success of his clothing line grew, his persistent attempts to rap seemed to detract from the intoxicating effect of what he was achieving in the fashion world. Why not just leave the rapping to other artists who aren't diversified moguls, let the record label do what it does, and run with the Sean John project? The other thing that bothered me was that whenever he was photographed without sunglasses, his eyes appeared oddly beady. And then there was the whole J-Lo episode, during which he came across as a bit of a thug. Not to mention the seemingly endless name changes. It was all just a little off.

But the truth is, you've got to love this guy. He's like hip-hop's male Oprah. Witness the longevity of Bad Boy Entertainment. Witness his Sean John line (and now its multiple offspring) conquering the fashion industry. Witness his annual White Party becoming as hot a ticket as the Cannes Film Festival or the Vanity Fair Oscar party. Witness his righteous VOTE OR DIE campaign. Witness the gorgeous record ("No More Drama") Mary J. Blige made when she and Puffy reunited. Witness his new cologne, Unforgivable (an unforgivably stupid name, IMO), becoming the number one selling men's fragrance in the U.S. And witness the return of his Bad Boy label to the top of the charts with the success of his second reality-TV group, Danity Kane. Holy smoke... he's on fire!

Not only that, but when you really delve into what he says and does and represents, he is a very powerful - and important - icon on the popular culture landscape. His value as a role model is immeasurable on many levels. And beyond the social implications of his achievements (which are vast - both the achievements and the implications), he's having a damn good time, and that in itself is worth a lot these days.

Am progressing through the never-played-in-iTunes portion of my music library (see previous post on this topic)... today I went through a bunch of Chemical Brothers tunes that were terrifically uplifting work accompaniment. Am now on to Chico DeBarge - yes, you read right! After getting out of prison in the late nineties, dude broke out with some smooth new soul music. In fact on "Long Time, No See" he actually gives D'Angelo a run for his money (the follow-up album, "The Game," isn't as good). Speaking of D'A, what happened to a brother?!

I'm looking forward to reaching Curtis Mayfield, and have to go through the following artists to get there:

The Chimes
The Commitments
The Communards
Corey Glover
Counting Crows
CCR
CSNY
The Cult

Yes, it's an eclectic situation here - and I'm loving every minute of it.

I could scarcely believe my eyes while reading a profile of Christopher Hitchens in the October 16th New Yorker. Hitchens, whom I know and love from Vanity Fair - he has an impeccably wry, dry, irreverent sense of humor and a wonderful way with words - apparently has made a transition to a sort of hybrid brand of conservatism. While I wasn't looking. But that isn't the point.

The point is that in the New Yorker piece one finds the following anecdote:

[Ian Parker, author of the piece in question] mentioned [Hitchens'] Pentagon meeting [with then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz]. "Wolfowitz was not asking my advice about Iraq - don't run away with that idea," Hitchens said. "He just felt that those who worked for the ousting of Saddam should get on closer terms with each other." According to [Kevin] Kellems [special adviser to Wolfowitz], who attended the meeting, "Hitchens said, 'I was trying to signal you'" - through his writing - "and Wolfowitz said, 'I wondered.'" Hitchens disputes that memory; he does remember asking Wolfowitz for reassurances that, in the event of an invasion, the United States would protect the Turks from the Kurds. (emph. added)

It goes on but I won't because there is the kicker: Christopher Hitchens, journalist, has the ear of Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, and asks him this little favor that the Turks be protected from the Kurds if the U.S. invades Iraq. One can almost imagine Wolfowitz replying, "You have my word."

I'm trying to make the point that the level of access to the center of power that is available to the right white male is downright astounding. And even as I write this I am becoming tongue-tied by the casualness of the whole thing. "Hey - take care of the Turks for me, will you?"

So I'll end here, inarticulately, by saying WTF?!

I'm very behind in the game here having only today become enamored of YouTube. How did this happen? YouTube hadn't even registered on my radar until about ten days ago. I think I saw lonelygirl15 mentioned in Rolling Stone, then came Google's acquisition and all of the subsequent hoopla. Of course, the YouTube phenomenon has been under way here for... well quite honestly I don't know exactly how long, but certainly the better part of the past year. YouTube, dare I say, is the new Blogger. But I'm just figuring that out.

I peeped YouTube for the first time one day last week, real quickly in the midst of a flurry of work I was doing. I didn't really delve into it at all - just a quick glimpse. But after reading a story in my still beloved New Yorker just last night (a story which, by the way, went to press prior to the Google announcement) and then clicking on to the SF Gate Web site this morning and finding a story mourning the imminent transformation of YouTube post-Google buyout - which was accompanied by a link to a video of a snoozing cat - I took the plunge... clicked on the link, watched the video, and went wandering around YouTube.

I didn't wander very long, however, before I started doing searches for specific content, and after watching some random stuff like the kid's drum solo and some Jimi Hendrix & Red Hot Chili Peppers clips (okay, and a little JD Fortune), I remembered a YouTube user mentioned in the NY'er article - geriatric1927. Now regular YouTubers will know about this gentleman already, and if you're reading this and don't know about him, you should. And you may well soon whether you seek him out or not, since he is officially, and far and away, the leading attraction on YouTube and therefore the involuntary subject of a great deal of media attention (witness my encounter with him in the NY'er.)

I spent a good part of the day today in the virtual company of geriatric1927 and later in the day I felt like a much calmer and more civilized person for having done so. He is at once an anachronism and a revelation - at once the absolute antithesis to everything the Internet represents (and to much of the content on YouTube) and the embodiment of the very best of our humanity that it has to offer... and for precisely that reason he is the biggest breath of fresh air I have encountered online in my many years of peripatetic surfing.

I should mention that as I spent much of my work day with his videos playing on one of my two computer screens, at times only listening to his voice, I couldn't help thinking he would do wonderfully well with the Podcast format as well. It was partly the sensation I had of listening to some terrific programming on BBC radio that led to my subsequent sensation of enhanced civility. Seeing and hearing geriatric1927 tell his life story - or talk about any subject, for that matter - has the effect of restoring realism to the frenetic world we live in today, a world whose freneticism is due in no small part to the mad genius of the World Wide Web. And the fact that Peter has been able to reach out through this medium and have the whole world reach back to him is the original IDEA(L) behind the Web: the facilitation of global community building.

[Note: Yes, this applies only to those of us who have computer access. That is another conversation that I don't feel like having right now.]

Which leads me to my other YouTube fave, renetto, who is over the moon for YouTube for precisely that reason: how effective a tool it is for true networking. Renetto is, in my opinion, a wonderful complement to geriatric1927... going back and forth between the two of them made me feel like if they were all YouTube had to offer, I would be satisfied. It's a sort of gospel according to Peter and Paul, and it's poetic.

I imagine I will write more here about these two in the future. But for now I'll just say that several posts ago I stated that the revolution is being broadcast via your computer, and now that I've made my way to YouTube I realize that that statement is more true than I realized.

The question is, what will Google's acquisition (as someone dubbed it, "GooTube") ultimately mean for YouTube?

I'm currently on a campaign to listen to every song in my iTunes library that has a zero play count (meaning I have not yet listened to them through iTunes since loading them into my comptuer). It's looking like this is about half of my library, which as of today consists of 13604 items @ 55.57gb. So far today I've been through several Beck odds & ends, a few Bee Gees tunes from the "Saturday Night Live" soundtrack, Ben Harper's last album (brilliant & oddly Stones-like in places), and I'm currently enjoying the extended version of Berlin's "Sex" from their 1982 "Pleasure Victim" album - serious memories of high school there.

Coming up: Beth Hart, Big Country, Billie Holiday, Billie Myers & Black 47.

Working at home and being able to listen to music all day while I'm doing so is a pretty nice bit of good fortune.

Music is right up there with cycling as one of my great joys in life.

Beth Hart is a crazy rocking freak, by the way. If you want to hear what the love child of Janis Joplin and Robert Plant would sound like, check out her version of "Whole Lotta Love."

So I managed to miss the "Focus Group" episode of "Studio 60" last week, as well as the prior week's "Grey's Anatomy." Along with "Boston Legal," which I've managed to miss two weeks running, these are my favorite television shows right now.

Yes - keeping up with television can be challenging.

But lo! Courtesy of iTunes, it is now possible to catch up on missed episodes before the next episodes air. Granted, in theory, it is possible to watch "Studio 60" on demand, for free, on nbc.com (my experience: the video doesn't load) - and granted, ABC does rerun "Grey's Anatomy" on Fridays. But the convenience of being able to download a television show for $1.99 per episode and watch it on your iPod or (as I do) iMac - which is in some ways superior to watching it on television because your $1.99 does not include commercials (or should I say your $1.99 includes deletion of commercials!) - is irresistible. Unfortunately "Boston Legal" isn't yet available on iTunes, but I have faith that it will turn up before long. Anyway, this development has taken on-demand television to a new level.

In other television news, I want to keep loving "Desperate Housewives" - though I haven't really loved it since the first season - but it is becoming increasingly difficult, even painful, to stay tuned to the ridiculous story lines. I am close to cutting it from my television viewing schedule all together because frankly I've begun to notice myself feeling stupid while spending time sitting and watching it. Which means I'm so bored with the program that I'm noticing how bored and stupid I feel watching it. Now that's bad.

Finally, saw a promo spot for "30 Rock" last week with Tina Fey & Alec Baldwin. Hilarious bit about him thinking he was supposed to be on "Studio 60" and freaking out when he realized he was on the other show. He is always excellent and she was great on SNL - will be interesting to see how she will fare in this new context, and how the show itself will do in the shadow of "Studio 60."

Pop culture - gotta love it.