evil litigator identified

"Elizabeth", the Wall Celebration Committee member who recently sued Hootenanny for our candid assessment of the 99th Celebration earlier this year, has been identified as an evil Star Wars impersonator known as "Darth Vera".

Hello Kitty.

What a way to get out of this world.
Wrapped in a big plastic bag secured with duct tape.
A few flowers in the heat of the day in Lebanon.

how does killing anyone anytime ever make any sense

I bet we would have liked them.
I bet we would have opened our homes and backyards to them.
I bet they smiled a lot.
I bet they loved their children like we do.
I bet they buy milk and bread on their way home from work just like we do.
I bet they watch TV and laugh at us - we have so much and complain so often.
I bet they like us anyway.

how does killing anyone anytime ever make any sense

Hezbollah, Bush and Israel fight over who knows what while we pay the price for history?

I don't get it anymore. I'm too stupid to figure it out, I guess.

I frequent a Lebanese owned market and each day they treat me like a long lost friend. They lament the situation in the ME and fear for their relatives and friends. They don't challenge my citizenship or my government. Instead, they grab the freshest pita and the best olive oil and indulge my hankering for ripe tomatoes, cucumbers and sweet onions with tatziki. I buy some stuff and get the gyro sandwich for free. If it's brewed fresh, they ask me to stay for Turkish coffee with sweetened condensed milk. Last time, we watched World Cup Soccer on the 13 inch security monitor and fucked with each other like a bunch of South Dakota cowboys.

When I'm away: they keep the freshest vegetables, bananas and watermelons in the back for me. They rotate it out and when I come in we go back and find the best while they bring me up to date on their children and grandchildren. I'm going to miss these guys - my friends.

how does killing anyone anytime ever make any sense

"Democracy means that you cannot blame someone else for troubles caused by your own government. That is a comparatively new lesson ... , and whether it is learned or not will determine the prospects for democracy itself ... But dodging missiles and running from tanks is not the ideal circumstance for rational reflection on the nature of self-rule. As in Iraq, what is especially risky and worrisome about democratization through destabilization is that it comes accompanied not by peace but by the sword. In this dangerous environment, the costs of democracy ? the weakness of government, the uncertainty, the violence ? can be felt everywhere. The benefits of democracy, though, are barely palpable."

from 'Ballots and Bullets'
By NOAH FELDMAN
New York Times Sunday Magazine - Published: July 21, 2006

stuart mettler's ballroom blitz

Remember this song! I heard it first down by Stan Mettler's new grocery store and mini-golf course that little Stuart managed from his Jeep. I got the first edition cassette at Shelton's V Store as a free gift with my LaCrosse sneakers and PE gear.
Check it out. Stuart Mettler vocalizes some deep land-based angst and manages to maintain a girlish flair with a pre-pubescent squirrel-like voice (not too gay, unless he shaved his head), some forgotten dude on lead guitar (either a Lurz or a Kjerstad) - "Fat" Mike Doyle and Brett (Pay You Today for a Cheeseburger on Tuesday) Estes keep the English beat rock-steady.
Oh Yeah!

brookers

'elizabeth' of the wall celebration committee is suing hootenanny!

HootVille, July 30. Someone going by the name of Elizabeth (which we believe is simply a not-so-clever pseudonym) has taken exception with Hootenanny's Wall Celebration Coverage and brought suit in the 7th Judicial Circuit Court in Rapid City, SD charging slander, libel and intentional infliction of emotional distress while requesting damages in excess of 50K. I'll post the Certified Complaint and Supporting Documents later for your easy reading.

Our initial public response is to let it be known Hootenanny will stand on the truth and will present evidence and witnesses that will support our editorial integrity and our sincere assessment of a dismal social gathering in a hot, small town just east of The Middle of Fucking Nowhere. We believe that but for the good companionship of a few former residents who traveled far (Kansas and California) and those beings both internal and regionally extrapolated (Jim, Randys 1 & 2, Grant, Jem, etc.) the Celebration was a complete, fucking failure. A waste of time. An anti-celebration. A lower-table-eating, working/moron dork-fest. About as much ancillary fun as cleaning a rest area toilet with your last t-shirt.

Why don't we tick off some specific failures:
- no weed
- no pot
- no acid
- no shrooms
- no cocaine
- you call that a single malt?
- pizza, my ass
- how about a third bar?
- beer tent (what the fuck is that?)
- how about some music?
- a carnival? did this ever cross the celebration committee's agenda?

We could go on and on and sooner or later we will. So, Ms. Elizabeth (why don't you tell us your real name so we can correspond more efficiently), quit your lawsuit against the Hoot or prepare for a long, drawn-out administrative nightmare. We have the means and the ability and look forward to the fight. Check your credit record and get your tax docs in order. We'll be seeking those first with our FRE Rule 5 Discovery Request (you can look it up on Westlaw or pay your attorney/prostitute to do it for you). Don't make us get a Court Order. If that's necessary, we will inflict serious pain. Simply file the fidelity bond to the tune of 300K with my friends at Western Surety in Sioux Falls and you better get a bigger mailbox.

We mean well but in the immortal words of Dave Simms, "We do what we want."

If that displeases you, then "Frank Olic". Or FO if you know what I mean.

Oh yeah. I almost forgot. Suggestions for next year's celebration. Here's one. Let's have it somewhere else!

i'm coming over

Damn! She's so cute with knitted hat.

golden smog releases another fine day

A photo of some of the Dudes in Golden Smog from 199something.

The new Golden Smog album 'Another Fine Day' is available now. Our advice is to drop everything you're doing right now and go get it, it's incredible. Painfully good.
Listen to it straight through.
First hearing, I channeled The Beatles' 'Revolver'. Go get that too and listen to it first. You will be amazed.

here's a link to some Smog info

Washte Kola

all is well now that soul asylum has released a fine new album

soul asylum is dan murphy and dave pirner
with michael bland and tommy stinson

Minneapolis, July 25. Soul Asylum releases new album "The Silver Lining".

HootMusic just downloaded it's complementary copy of the new Soul Asylum album released last Tuesday 7/25 and we're very pleasantly surprised. This is very possibly their best record since the early 1990's "And The Horse They Rode In On" and 1988's "Hang Time" (the latter is hands down the best Soul Asylum LP ever and an all time top ten in my paltry catalogue after The Replacements' "Let It Be" and The Meatpuppets' "II").
Production value is top notch high - like amps that go to 11. The guitars scream - Murphy is clearly running the Zipper. Michael Bland and Tommy Stinson smack and plunk and Pirner crys and bawls with his voice on every song, just like old times. Heroes will never let you down.
Thanks, heroes.

Here's a "making of" video.


Here's the original boys in '88 performing "Sometime To Return" from the LP Hang Time.


This is from First Avenue in Minneapolis in 1986 from the Minnesota Music Awards. "Made To Be Broken". Twenty years ago; the best show in rock and roll!


About Karl:
RIP

Karl Mueller, the bassist and founding member of the rock band Soul Asylum died Friday morning, June 20, 2005 in his Minneapolis home of esophageal cancer, at age 41. Muller was diagnosed in May 2004 and spent his last years of his life in hospitals.

"Even then, in the face of all that had happened, and was to come, Karl was still Karl - upbeat, welcoming, humble," said Mould, who briefly reunited with his long-estranged musical partner Grant Hart during the benefit concert.

"Karl was one of the nicest people I have ever encountered. He always let you know where he stood, and rarely had anything but kind words for those around him."

Bush Losing Support in Core Group

WASHINGTON, July 29 - President Bush appears to be losing support among a key group of voters who had hitherto stood firmly with the president even as his poll numbers among other groups fell dramatically. A new Gallup poll shows that, for the first time, Bush's approval rating has fallen below 50% among total fucking morons, and now stands at 44%.

This represents a dramatic drop compared to a poll taken just last December, when 62% of total fucking morons expressed support for the president and his policies.

The current poll, conducted by phone with 1,409 total fucking morons between July 5 and July 9, reveals that only 44% of those polled believe the president is doing a good job, while 27% believe he is doing a poor job and 29% don't understand the question.

The earlier December poll, conducted by phone with 1,530 total fucking morons, showed 62% approved of the president, 7% disapproved and 31% didn't understand the question.

Faltering approval ratings for the president among a group once thought to be a reliable source of loyal support gives Republicans one more reason to be nervous about the upcoming mid-term elections. "If we can't depend on the support of total fucking morons," says Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), "then we've got a big problem. They're a key factor in our electoral strategy, and an important part of today's Republican coalition."

"We've taken the total fucking moron vote for granted," says Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL), "and now we're paying for it. We've let the Democrats control the debate lately, and they've dragged discourse back into the realm of complex, nuanced issues. So your average total fucking moron turns on his TV and sees his Republican Congressman arguing about Constitutional law or the complexities of state formation in the Middle East, and he tunes out. He wants to hear comforting, pandering, flattering bromides and he doesn't want to hear a logical argument more complex than what you'd find on a bumper sticker."

For Feeney, the poll is a dire warning that Republicans can ignore only at their peril. "This should send a signal that we have to regain control of the debate if we want the support of our key constituencies in the coming election and beyond. We need to bring public discourse back into the realm of stupidity and vacuity. We should be talking about homosexual illegal immigrants burning flags. We should be talking about the power of pride. We should be talking about freedom fries. These are the issues that resonate with total fucking morons."

But some total fucking morons say it's too late. Bill Snarpel of Enid, Oklahoma is a total fucking moron who voted for Bush in both 2000 and 2004. But he says he won't be voting for Bush in 2008. "I don't like it that he was going to sell our ports to the Arabs. If the Arabs own the ports then that means they'll let all the Arabs in and then we'll all be riding camels and wearing towels on our heads. I don't want my children singing the Star Spangled Banner in Muslim."

Total fucking moron Kurt Meyer of Turlock, California also says his once solid support for Bush has collapsed. "He invaded Iraq and all those soldiers died, and for what? We destroyed all their WMDs, but now their new president is making fun of us and saying he's going to build nuclear bombs and that we can't stop him. Well, nuclear bombs are even worse than WMDs, so what did we accomplish?"

Laura McDonald, a total fucking moron from Chandler, Arizona, says she is disappointed that the president hasn't been a more forceful advocate of Christian values. "This country was founded on Christian values," she says, "but you'd never know it looking around and seeing all the Mexicans running around. I thought Bush was going to bring Jesus back into the government. Instead, Christians are being persecuted worse than ever before in history, because all these Mexicans come here and tell Christians that we have to respect their religious beliefs. So now it's illegal for children to pray in school. Soon it will be illegal for them to speak English."

Not all total fucking morons have turned their backs on the president. Jeb Larkin of Topeka, Kansas says he still fully supports Bush. "He is doing a great job. He is a great president. He is a great decider. I have a puppy. His tail sticks straight up and you can see his butthole."

And not all Republican lawmakers are concerned about the poll. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), for one, does not find it a cause for anxiety. While he agrees that his party should not take total fucking morons for granted, they "really don't have anywhere else to go. They're never going to be able to understand someone like Al Gore or John Kerry or anybody intelligent and articulate who wants to talk about substantive issues. Just try having a conversation with one of them about global warming. They'll say, 'Oh, but Rush says volcanoes consume more ozone than humans do.' I mean, they're morons! Total fucking morons!"

"They've got nowhere else to go," Alexander reaffirms with a smile, "and they always vote."

garsch

I met this singer at the Garden Hilton on Indian School Road in Gilbert, AZ and she is my new favorite Sri Lankan (formerly Ceylon or Ceylonese, I guess).
The show in Tempe was outstanding
The first song is a George Bush song. Bucky Done Gun.
The second song is older M.I.A., Galang. Tanks and bombs or if I recall correctly, "police and thieves in the street, oh yeah" - Joe Strummer (The Clash)
work it out among yourselves

Bucky Done Gun


Galang

leaving town

since i'm leaving town and won't be able to post very often over the course of the next few weeks
i'm going to post some anti-war songs
some will probably offend you or someone you know, i hope so
they aren't offered up here to offend or enlighten
just look at all of them and think


anti-flag


bob dylan's masters of war (it's a slideshow with the original album version)


the cranberries - zombie


john lennon - imagine


u2
bullet the blue sky

answer the phone

sugar ray - a plug for hootenanny's seatbelts mandatory affiliate

girl drink drunk

suit trappers

gavin

gavin and the chair painter


gavin at the butcher shop


gavin attends his mother's funeral


gavin receives a visit from some religious missionaries

listen up

posting this promo vid of the cure to promote the new hootenanny goth page
look just to you left and maybe down a little bit and follow the link
be forewarned: some of it's scary and should only be viewed during the day time or
after you've had a sedative

the cure - just like heaven

too skinny?

They must not have had beer back then.
Isn't that Ronald Reagan?

the call-up and the clamp-down

heed the call-up

workin' out in harrisburg

bluetooth basket weaving

Look closely. Looks like a man casually weaving a basket in a Polynesian Paradise. Doesn't it.

In fact, he's weaving an environmentally correct bluetooth wireless mobile headset from coconut palm leaves in Costa Rica.

The cellular conductivity of Costa Rican coco palms was first recognized by Leonard Dale Vincy of St. Peter, Florida. Vincy was in the Gulf fly-fishing big jigs for sawtoothed Patagonian toothfish when L. Dale's good friend Simon, an unemployed carpenter from Lazio, ran his chainsaw against the grain of a towering Cypress and, as the fibers flew, everyone's cell phone coverage improved.

A few days later, while attending a graphic artists conference in Panama, L. Dale had an epiphany. Costa Rican palm fiber has a crazy resinous goo that conducts satellite radio frequencies. It was palm fiber that could prove to be core component of the next generation of wireless headsets. Initial tests confirmed everyone's suspicions. D. Vincy was right.

Unfortunately, L. Dale doesn't have the necessary capital to move this project forward fast enough, i.e., before Google gets a hold of it.

So. Buck up campers and send $10 to Hootenanny Coco Headset Co. Email us and we'll give you the info you will need to send your funds via PayPal.

Mato Paha

Mato Paha.

Small colored pieces of cloth containing pinches of tobacco are wrapped around trees and bushes as prayer gifts to the Creator. Larger flags of red, white, black, or yellow, the sacred colors, also are tied to trees to carry the prayers to all the directions.

Mato Paha is a Tertiary-aged intrusive body. The result of the forcible entry (or intrusion) of magma into cooler crustal rock. In this, it shares a similar geological history to other formations in the region, including the Black Hills, Devils Tower, the Missouri Buttes, and some parts of the Rocky Mountains.

Mato Paha rises 1,253 feet above the surrounding plain and is 4,426 feet above sea level.

Geologists, on the other hand, call Mato Paha (Bear Butte) a lacolith, or a bubble of magma that did not become a complete volcano. They say this happened millions of years ago. Yet the Oglala Lakota call this place, Groaning Bear. How did the Oglalas know that this mountain groaned?

Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota, come to Bear Butte to pray. The months of May, June, and July will see families camped at the base while a relative is standing on the side of the mountain fasting in deep meditation. Prayer bundles hold the souls of elders. Once placed they cannot be disturbed.

Mato Paha is currently a "National Historic Landmark" managed by the South Dakota Game Fish and Parks Department. Although a few parcels of adjacent land have been purchased by some Native American nations, the rest of the surrounding area is ranchland, or is being sold to developers. Two drag racing strips, a biker bar, a convenience store, campgrounds, and housing developments are all located within a few miles of this sacred place.

More are being built. Shame on us all.

Hootenanny opposes any 'development' near Mato Paha. What is the value of a liquor license, a road, a motorcycle or an automobile?

Tunkasila, le miyelo. Wotehikeca, le ca mauwelo.

My father once said that when he was only a child, he was told that his great grandfather was one of those who believed that the earth was round and turned. According to him our pipe was designed to be like the world we live on. The bowl we put the tobacco in is round, like the world. And outside this bowl is the endless universe where the stars are. That is why the pipe is so sacred, why it is used for every ceremony, and for prayer to Wakan-Tanka .
Frank Fools Crow (Oglala Lakota)

new coilspring notebooks available now

forget the laptop PC
this is a very handy approach to the old notebook problem
no more need for the embossed leather portfolio that you could only get at the high end stores
this is a simple very high tech solution. like French made ballpoint pens and Chinese calculators
available all over all the time

this ought to take your mind off the war

why me lord?

stop the war in lebanon

hootenanny finds billy batest

this is a video of the billy batest band "detour" performing in helena, montana


As most of you know, Billy Batest grew up in the house behind the post office in Quinn, SD.
No one knew his parents. They were clandestine.
Billy sat in the desk in front of me in 6th Grade. He was always irritable. He always wore stiff cowboy clothes to school - heavy starched button snap shirts, usually black; worn pointy toed boots and a Copenhagen-can-lid belt buckle. He kept his hair short in a Wilburn cut well above the ears - 'whitewalls' as they were called back then.
At the time, I was afraid of Billy Batest and his fearsome western personna. Who knew what he was capable of?
So, like most of us would in a similar situation, I began a small war of intellectual attrition.
He demanded a pencil. I gave him one. Unsharpened. He demanded a sharpened pencil and I balked. "Billy", I said, "I can get you a sharpened pencil but I'll need some time. Pencils are easy to come by in the 6th Grade but sharpeners are not. I'll have to talk to the Newtons.This won't be easy."
Without his knowledge, Billy had just met his first lawyer. He was outdone. Outfoxed. Outsmarted. It took him so long to figure what had just happened that I don't recall he ever bothered me again. After pounding Arlys Klundt in the sand over by the monkey bars, Billy and his family just disappeared.
Over the years, my friends and I wondered what happened to Billy.
It seems he's no longer a starched shirt cowboy.

the johnny cash show

i'm not sure whether i was on acid
or johnny cash was


go to hootmusi©

president bush sings topical song at G8 summit sunday

sunday, bloody sunday

rock the casbah

another tribute to another passed brother
RIP Joe Strummer

pretty fly for a white guy

the editors have regained control
this site is for fun
remember this old tune

so you think you can tell

goodbye syd barrett

lebanon

I walked over to the Third Avenue Market today to buy a watermelon. I like them in the summer when it's hot. They have a deli there but it's not like a Subway since you can't get a sub. They sell falafel, shawirma, souvlaki, kebabs tomatoes and cucumbers and saffron rice. Their hummus is the best. As a plus, they're nice guys. And they're Lebanese. When I ask for stamps they argue, then sell them at a discount. I think they like me. I always pay cash.
I carried my watermelon to the counter. As a frequent customer, they always recognize and call me by name. A few days before as I bought cereal and milk, my Lebanese friend suggested I try feta cheese, olives, cucumbers and toasted pita with olive oil for breakfast. I had to agree it sounded very tasty. Better than Cheerios I'd put on the counter.
I brought my purchase to the counter today. The big watermelon. My friend was comfortable in telling me his horror and fear for his family in Lebanon and his hatred for both the Israeli incursion and the Hezbollah. Like me, I'm sure he wishes we could just stop shooting at each other.

We talked about the situation in Lebanon. Freely, as we are entitled to do in this country. The watermelon was big so he grinned as he double-bagged it and suggested it was worth more than I was going to pay. He put my cigarettes, ice cream and a couple of cans of pico in another bag and I left.

I really, really hope his family and friends are OK.

wall celebration deemed a partial success

It was a reasonably good affair said paid spokesman Kent Obermeyer last Friday.
HootPress Exclusive - Wall, SD.

The 99th Annual Summer Celebration in Wall, South Dakota was deemed a partial success by paid independent observer and Wal-Mart Loss Prevention Specialist Kent Obermeyer of Loveland, Colorado. Obermeyer, a semi-professional town-celebrationist, noted familiar town celebration trappings including an early morning jog followed by a short, orderly parade of cars and horse drawn wagons. "It's the wagons that get to me," Obermeyer mused, "that really makes for a fantastic, horse-filled parade."

Hootenanny sat with Kent after the parade in the wood paneled dining room of the local pharmacy. While Kent picked at a "ham dinner", including a small mound of plain yellow potato salad and a minature ceramic pot of "baked" beans, he explained the existential paradigm of small town celebrations, like that presently occurring in Wall.

It's a little like a wooden clock, painstakingly carved by a Woodshop Junior but incapable of keeping reliable time. You can't use it to power a belt-sander, can you? Or say you carefully covered a piece of plywood with a walnut veneer, and then left it in the closet until Christmas while you weaned a wildcat on saltpeter and sawdust. Would you be anymore likely to treat a bushy-tailed squirrel to an ice cream cone on the following Sunday. Absolutely not!

It was impossible for the HootPress team corespondents to contradict Obermeyer's argument (or check his references, for that matter since we were arguing about whether we should download more Spoon or the recently released Arcade Fire EP on our only company iPod while he spoke).

Obermeyer went on to downgrade his estimation of the Wall celebration with an indirect jab at the powerful, but ultimately ineffective town celebration committee headed up by the Kitterman Flower and Hospitatlity Conglomerate.

Where was the carnival? The Zipper, poorly crafted stuffed animals and the liter-of-pop ring toss? The games of skill or feats of strength? This local hospitality syndicate has apparently got a death-grip on this town's inherent creativity. The bands at the beer tent lacked originality, sticking strictly to covers. No fresh lemonade. No fried cheese curds. Have you people even heard of corn dogs? It was like the Soviet Union out there. You had to stand in line for a turnip then peel it yourself.

After a brief interlude of uncomfortable silence, we left Kent Obermeyer to his Drug Store lunch and retired to the adjacent cocktail lounge for a round of Bloody Marys with pickle spear and celery stalk. There we could watch the war coverage via satellite as we inhaled our cold, vodka-spiked tomato soup. Finally, dude showed up with the BC and a dozen Canadian 80s. In short order, Wall's 99th turned into the best celebration ever.

african soda fountain