The Prime Says...

"Inter faeces et urinam nascimur."
--St. Augustine

Finally! D.I. Prime has come back to The Prime Says. (It's amazing how much I steal from The Rock considering that I don't even like him that much.)

It's been four months since the last edition. Sounds like a confession, doesn't it? "Forgive me, father, for I have slacked. It's been four months since my last update." While there's no good excuse for reneging on my promise to regurgitate these ramblings with greater regularity, allow me to present some extenuating circumstances. (i.e. some bad excuses)

• I finished and posted "Basketball 2002". It would have been the theme song for the 2002 WOLV basketball show had there been a 2002 WOLV basketball show.
   
• I finished and posted "Puttin' It Down For South Camp". This song was originally written and recorded in the summer of 2001 but the 2002 version turned out much better.
   
• Puss E. Beatz finished the final edits of the D.I. Prime / 1108 Thugz collaboration. The result, "Still Bout The Pussay", has been posted.
   
• I finished a battle/dis track that I started recording in September 2001. Tubley was screwed over by an ex-band mate (from his pre-Drooling Idiots days) last year and I wrote this song to put a particular pompous prick in his pathetic place. However, since the animus of impetus has slackened in the intervening time, it won't be posted. Besides, despite my Scorpionic proclivity to annihilate anyone messing with my little brother, Tubley doesn't need me to fight his battles. He can take care of himself.
   
• I took the stage at the Camp Michigania Last Chance Dance to perform "South Camp" and "Puttin' It Down For South Camp."
   

As you can see, although I have been remiss in my duties to keep The Prime Says up to date, I've been hard at work with a plethora of projects. This site is supposed to be about the music, after all, not the ramblings.

This month's spotlight birthday belongs to Michael Spaly. The intrepid Drooling Idiot guitarist was born on the 20th of September back in 1974. His incendiary guitar work (take that Russell Hammond!) can be sampled on the "Break To The Lakes" instrumental and on his own web page.

You should send Michael a belated birthday greeting if you wish to ingratiate yourself to a member of the D.I. family.

One of the things I've been doing to keep from working on music and updating The Prime Says is playing Parker Brothers' "Beyond Balderdash". Actually, I've only played it once but, in theory, I could have spent those two hours doing site stuff.

The goal of the game is to win. ("I'll take `keen grasp of the obvious' for 200, Alex") Or, if you're one of those namby-pamby, touchy-feely sorts, you could say that the goal of the game is to have fun while providing mutual validation and support for all players while simultaneously living in harmony with the world.

In a nutshell, each turn presents you with a very obscure word, name, set of initials, movie title, or date. You have two options. If you know it, you can give the word's definition, say what the person is famous for, say what the initials stand for, give a brief synopsis of the movie or say what happened on the date. Alternately, since you probably won't know the correct answer, you can make something up. After all the answers (phony & factual) are read aloud, each player takes a turn guessing which of the presented answers is the correct one. You score points by knowing the answer, picking the correct answer or having other players pick your phony answer as the correct one. You win by scoring enough points to move your token to the finish line. There's a few other wrinkles but those are the basics.

For example, in one round of the game I played, the category was "words" and the word in question was "pogonotomy." At the time, I had no idea what pogonotomy meant so I proposed the following definition:

pogonotomy - The condition of ennui that ensues from watching a screen-saver ball bounce endlessly.

As it turns out, the correct answer was "a beard growing contest." I didn't pick that one out of the batch of answers, nor did anyone pick my answer as being the most likely definition, so I earned zero points for that round. Next time I'll pick an example where I come off looking better.

Actually, the game screwed this one up. As it turns out, pogonotomy is not a beard growing contest. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Pogonotomy, from the Greek pogon (beard) and tomos (cutting), is beard shaving. (Mr. Portokalos would be so proud of me) Pogonotrophy is permitting your beard to grow, although there are no contest connotations inherent in the word. If there is a word with such connotations, I'll leave it to the pogonologists and logomaniacs to unearth.

Oh, who am I kidding? I am a logomaniac. A beard growing contest is a whiskerino.

Speaking of contests, I think it's high time we had a contest here at droolingidiots.com. In my not-so-humble opinion, my definition for pogonotomy is too cool to not have a word attached to it. Design a word whose definition should be "the condition of ennui that ensues from watching a screen-saver ball bounce endlessly" and send it to D.I. Prime. (pardon the 3rd person perspective please) The person who submits the best word will win some sort of lame prize (to be determined later) and get a mention in a future edition of The Prime Says. Your word may also appear in the Demented Word-smith's Monthly Calendar. (A dubious honor to be sure as there is no such thing. That was my Beyond Balderdash guess for what the initials "D.W.M.C." stood for. It actually stands for Dedicated Wooden Money Collectors.)

Although it should go without saying, allow me to allay your anxious apprehension and soothe your suspense - I won the game. As if there was any other possibility. Duh.

On Monday, September 24th, at 12:20am I made my on-stage debut at the Diamondback Saloon. Long-time readers of The Prime Says may recall the sordid tales of my past exploits.

Sunday night is "karaoke with the band" night. I performed the Leiber & Stoller classic "Jailhouse Rock". I only mention this because I can now declare victory over one of my resolutions; I have performed in public this year. Three and a half down, two and a half to go.

On a sad and unrelated note, the Diamondback's long-time Thursday night DJ, Mike, has moved on to bigger and better things. He will be missed.

On Thursday, September 19th, wire-services were abuzz with news that "Rasslin' Roundup" had been picked up by WOLV for a second spectacular season. Sir Flex-a-lot (Tubley) and Wiggety (Scott Warheit) will be dragging my carcass back in front of the cameras for more WWE inspired frivolity.

Stay tuned to The Prime Says for updates and air times.

People often come up to me and say, "Prime, do people really come up to you?" As a matter of fact, they do. They usually ask for directions but sometimes they ask "Do you do anything original or do you just steal material from Emo Philips?" Clearly, the answer is no - I steal from The Rock too. Weren't you paying attention? We covered that in the very first paragraph.

How's that for a mea clepto?

For reasons unfathomable to your humble narrator, people have been encouraging me to write poetry lately. I suspect that their motivation is the vain hope that if I write poetry then they won't have to hear me rap. Still, there seems to be more to it than that in some quarters. One person suggested that writing poetry as a prelude to writing rap would improve my rapping. I have my doubts that one facilitates the other, but what do I know? I can't even use the word "schism" correctly.

What the hell? I'm game. (as opposed to The Game) I've decided to accept their challenge. I submit for your approval three examples of D.I. Poetry by D.I. Prime: a limerick, a haiku and a refrigerator magnet poem straight from the refrigerator at D.I. Labs.

Limerick

A lusty young maid named Shaharzad
Caught the lion's share of a spunk wad
On her uvula and gums
While her lips gently hummed.
She should tell 1001 stories about that, by god!

Haiku

Aberrant estrus
Quell my passionate desire
Babe, I want your ass

Refrigerator Magnet Poem

Get hard
Wild love
I smile

Not exactly the sort of verse that uplifts the soul, is it? Perhaps I don't have what it takes to be a metrician. Oh Erato! why hath thou abandoned thy humble supplicant? Wherefore hath thou condemned me to sequester amongst poetasters? Heed my plaintive pleas! Avert piteous fate. Cast me not into the quagmire of doggerel. Anoint me in your grace!

On the other hand, Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, poets of great renown and acknowledged masters of their art, co-wrote "Sonnet Of The Asshole." Maybe my stuff isn't so bad after all.

In other poetry news, I'm an afflatus. After hearing me utter the phrase "21 Freak Street", a local poetess wrote a poem of that title. I'm eagerly awaiting its unveiling so that I may witness the fruits borne of my provocative verbiage.

On July 11th, I saw Huun-Huur-Tu at The Ark in Ann Arbor. For those of you who don't speak Tuvan, Huun-Huur-Tu means "sun propeller": a poetic description of the refraction of the sun's light just before or just after sunset. Huun-Huur-Tu are from the Republic of Tuva and practice the ancient art of "khoomei", Tuvan throat singing.

Throat singing involves one person singing two, sometimes three, distinct notes at the same time. The singer produces a guttural fundamental and simultaneously emphasizes one or two of its higher overtones. Scientific American published an article detailing the physical and scientific intricacies of throat singing. The Friends of Tuva have a large number of articles about Tuva and throat singing.

Huun-Huur-Tu has four members. They dress in native costumes, play indigenous instruments and do a variety of traditional (to our way of thinking) and khoomei (traditional to their way of thinking) vocal stylings. Their music was great but their stage presentation was somewhat dull. After the novelty of their costumes and instruments wore off, some sort of additional visual stimulation would have been appreciated. I'm not suggesting that they should have had dancing strippers in cages on stage but there must be some sort of Tuvan dancing that goes with their style of music. A display of that would help break the visual monotony of watching them sit in chairs for two hours.

They aren't big movers and shakers on the pop charts, but if they come to your town they're worth checking out. (Speaking of shakers, their percussionist had a shaker that he made out of a bull's scrotum. He has plans to make a flute when he returns to Tuva but declined to elaborate on its construction materials. Maybe it's best that we don't know.)

I try not to do this too often as few people care to hear pop stars opine on political matters. I probably don't even qualify as a pop star anyway. On the other hand, I do work in a popular music format and Sly Stone did proclaim that "Everybody Is A Star". Pop! Ouch. My over-stretched imagination just snapped. Anyway, if you believe that musicians should make music and not political statements, scroll. Otherwise, strap in and prepare for a tendentious disquisition.

I pledge allegiance...

On Wednesday, June 26th, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals made one of the finest judicial rulings that I have witnessed in my lifetime. A panel of judges ruled, 2-1, that the phrase "under god" in the Pledge Of Allegiance was unconstitutional. It's about time!

The Pledge Of Allegiance was written in August 1892 by Francis Bellamy. Its original wording was as follows: "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and (to) the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." The "to" was added in October of that year. Mr. Bellamy was a Baptist minister. One presumes that he was familiar with concept of god and, had it been his prerogative, would have included a reference to "Him" in the pledge. In 1923-4, against Mr. Bellamy's wishes, the National Flag Conference changed "my flag" to "the Flag of the United States of America". In 1942, Congress made this version of the pledge official.

The problem began in 1954 when Congress added the phrase "under god," making the formerly secular oath of patriotism into a prayer. President Eisenhower, when he signed the legislation, wrote "millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty." Clearly, the pledge was meant to be a prayer. In a country where there's a separation between church and state, a federally mandated prayer is clearly unconstitutional. You go, court!

Robin Williams has suggested a fine solution to this quandary. We should replace the words "one nation, under god" with "one nation, under Canada". It's secular, accurate and less disruptive to the surrounding text than "one nation, over Mexico."

Personally, I'm going with "one nation, under a groove" but I've always been a funkateer at heart.

Mega Millions

When did having a relative die in a terrorist attack become a winning lottery ticket? Don't answer. That was rhetorical. The answer is September 11th, 2001.

The range of 9/11 pay outs from the government is $250K-$4.7M. On average, the pay outs are expected to be about $1.2M. Not bad for a day's work, huh? (If you consider having a loved one killed by a terrorist to be work.)

I know that sounds crass, and I don't mean to belittle the bereavement of the victims' families, but when the Murrah Federal Building was bombed in Oklahoma the relatives of the victims received nothing. When the U.S. embassies were bombed in Kenya and Tanzania no compensation was forthcoming. When the U.S.S. Cole was bombed in the Gulf of Aden there was no star-studded telethon to provide a payday.

By comparison, the family of a soldier who dies fighting the "war on terror" doesn't fare nearly so well. Initially, the family will get about $8000 (including money for burial costs). The soldier's spouse will get around $800 a month until he/she remarries and will receive $211 per month per minor child. In round numbers, a 20 year-old woman (life span of 80, never remarries) who pops out quintuplets the day her husband dies in military service can expect to get roughly $800,000 over her lifetime.

If you were a home-making spouse and your bread-winning partner got hit by a car, how much governmental assistance would you be able to expect? $4.7 million? No way. $1.2 million? Try again. You might get to go on welfare for five years (with all the bonus stigma) before you were kicked to the curb. Would your grief be any less than the families of 9/11 victims? Would your financial hardships be any less? I doubt it.

I don't begrudge the victims' families their lucre. It will help them deal with quotidian financial matters while they piece their lives back together and I'm sure they could use the help. I do question the fairness of giving those families hefty doses of governmental largess when others who suffer similar losses are not given similar benefits.

(As a footnote, I should add that some victim families are complaining that they aren't getting paid enough. Cantor-Fitzgerald, the firm that lost two-thirds of its employees on 9/11/2001, has filed a complaint that the families of Cantor-Fitzgerald victims are being under-compensated. I'm sure it's not politically correct to bandy about words like "ungrateful" and "greedy" in reference to victim families, but if the shoe fits...)

Gulf War: The Sequel

Surprise! I'm not going to oppose Saddam Hussein's ouster.

Well, not exactly, although my misopolemiac membership card is probably in jeopardy.

I certainly won't be sticking up for Saddam. He's a bad man. He invaded and pillaged Kuwait. He routinely violates agreements he's signed. He flagrantly defies U.N. resolutions. He's used chemical and biological weapons on his own people. He supports terrorism. He's pursuing weapons of mass destruction for use on the U.S. and Israel. The middle east and the world will be a better place when he's not in power.

But who will replace him? Will the U.S. live up to its creed and install a democratic government, or is that the sort of "nation building" that George W. Bush spoke of so contemptuously on the campaign trail? Certainly removing Hussein and leaving a power vacuum isn't a good idea. Perhaps it would be more convenient to install a U.S.-allied dictator as we used to do in the old days. After all, it would be pretty embarrassing if the Iraqi citizens democratically elected an Islamic fundamentalist regime that was hostile to the U.S.. Besides, the success of the allied dictator strategy has been clearly illustrated by Manuel Noriega, the Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein. Um... perhaps "success" isn't the right word but it's a very clear illustration.

Ok, so we know that Saddam's a bad guy and let's assume, for the moment, that the succeeding regime will be an improvement. The next question to ask is why are President-Select George W. Bush's advisers in such a rush to get the war debate into the national spotlight right before the mid-term elections? Could it be to take the focus off of the anemic economy and put it on the war effort where Republicans are perceived to have an advantage? Of course it is. The administration is trying to "wag the dog" and, judging by the media coverage, getting away with it. My favorite part is when Republicans turn around and bash Democrats for politicizing the war. I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.

I also find it interesting how many of the administration's vehement warmongers either never served in the military or managed to find alternate forms of service that allowed them to elude combat. For example, the commander-in-chief managed to vault ahead of hundreds of more qualified candidates to get into the Texas Air National Guard instead of going to Viet Nam. Call it Aristocrat Affirmative Action. I don't blame him, mind you, I wouldn't have wanted to fight in the jungle either. Of course, I probably would have been against the war, unlike Georgie who was all for it - as long as he didn't have to fight it himself. He opted to serve in State-side safety while people who opposed the war and didn't have a famous last name got drafted and died in his place.

So what to do? Something has to be done about Saddam Hussein. A military operation to remove him might not be a bad idea. I could support that. An exercise of suffrage rights to remove Republicans from office on November 5th would be even better. I definitely support that.

Postscript: Let me to clarify something. Serving in the Texas Air National Guard was a perfectly honorable way to avoid Viet Nam, if you got in on your own merits and actually served. G. Weasel Bush did neither. After sliming his way in, George went AWOL for over a year of his enlistment. Not that anyone seems to care. Republicans sure make some wacky exceptions to their pro-military, pro-personal responsibility platform.

Whew...

Ok, enough about politics and current events. I now return you to your regularly scheduled adoxography.

Actually, I'll return you next time. That's enough for this edition.

Catch you on the flip side,
D.I. Prime
Monday, September 30th, 2002