Free California

The worst kind of Racism...Proudly Brought to you by Anheuser-Busch

Advertising reached a new low last night during Game 3 of the World Series with the in-telecast commercial for Budweiser. In case you missed it, late in the game, FOX’s Chris Myers "interviewed” Bud’s latest pitchman, the arrogant and fake sportsmen, Leon. There seems to be no end to the length advertisers will go to fool us?

However entertaining Leon might be, everyone involved with this promotion from Bud, to the broadcasters and producers of the telecast ought to be ashamed with themselves for this rash hucksterism. More significantly, Budweiser ought to think long and hard about what they are conveying with the character Leon. Leon is the classic stereotype of the modern black sportsmen. Leon, to put it simply, is Deion Sanders, a self-obsessed promoter who puts his ego above sporting pursuits. An unrelenting showboat who always forgets there is no “I” in team. This stereotype goes far back in American history. Leon is yet another example of the shuffling Negro, a tin-pan alley minstrel, a false black power clown. That none of these stereotypes are true and the fact that almost all of the players on the field last night were hard working black men does not seem to matter to Budweiser. With this ad campaign Bud taps into long held feelings among whites about THE BLACKMAN. Conveying, as fact, the fear that they are only in for themselves, not team players and just basically ignorant fools.

But there is hope among all this gloom and doom and it comes from a surprising and fortuitous place, Deion Sanders himself. At this very moment, Neon Deion is in the process of making an amazing comeback to the NFL. Though he retired 3 years ago and most pundits assumed he was done, he has made an impact and the old flash that made Sanders the most exciting player of his generation has not been lost. Sanders has done this, not though hype or self-promotion but through faith, teamwork, commitment and yes hard work. So in Deion, the ultimate example of the unrelenting showboat, we find no better slap in the face to the racist brand managers and ad men at Budweiser. A merry, juking “Primetime” tearing it up at age 37, defying expectation and raising a swift black power salute in the face of August Busch III.

We don’t need your stupid “Leon” we have Deion and, guess what you St. Louis jackasses, he really is “True”.

P.S. You also should let Nellie rap God Bless America tonight, playaz.

See, Nepotism really does suck.

Four months ago, just as Ashlee Simpson was entering the public eye, we railed against the sudden rise of siblings of famous people. To quote, we stated the following:

"How much are we hurting ourselves culturally by keeping a bunch of limited hacks in the picture solely due to their happy happy, joy joy genes? We know, we are being naive to the true nature of celebrity building and image manipulation but come on, if for every chance one of these dopes gets do we lose a Madonna, an Oprah or a Robert Deniro?"

So will Ashlee's acid reflux flap on Saturday Night Live put an end to this sad trend? Will people with real talent; however unknown, get a crack on our grandest stages, instead? Doubtful, but we do know this, the next time some crummy clone of of a crappy celebrity hits the news pass FC the Pepsid A/C cause it these trippers make us sick.

The Power of Repetition: Pundits, Pills, Confusion; Wash, Rinse, Repeat

Is anyone else sick of this election?

Hello- we’ve got it already for crying out loud. Kerry’s a flip-flopping wing-nut, beat down by his butchy foreigner wife, who will roll-over to have his belly scratched by the French, Russians, Germans and Chinese the moment he gets elected; then he will take away our guns, raise taxes and every Arab in the greater Tri-Valley area will start blowing the be Jesus out of our local Y. President Bush, on the other hand, is a money-grubbing, deserter-fascist, cokehead freak-a-zooid, who, on the day after he gets re-election, will re-start the draft, invade Iran and Venezuela, nuke North Korea, drop out of the U.N. and declare null-and-void every treaty we ever signed. Then he’ll start on his domestic agenda by, cutting all taxes, rolling-back emissions standards, making abortion 100% illegal, and eliminating any form of queer union or the worship of any higher power but the Judeo-Christian variant. Nothing will be funded; he’ll just randomly print money and send it to his buddies in Texas for BBQ’s and hookers. Then he'll pay for it by cutting down and selling the old growth forests, taking the kittie and outsource the whole government to Bangalore.

* * *

If you listen to most people, one of these inferences will be what we get on November 3rd. Here’s a test you can do to prove the hypothesis. Ask any Bush supporter what the next four years will be like if Kerry gets elected. Then do the reverse and ask a Kerry supporter. See.

The fact that there is zero chance any of these policies will be undertaken does not matter. Reality is the consent of the people and this kind of crazy-talk is what we agree too by listening to and paying for it. It becomes the truth as most people have neither the time nor patience to think otherwise. And in fact this goes deeper, people cannot reject dumbed down hyperbole because if they did it would mean negating one of things they cherish most in their lives, watching and then talking about TV.

This is what John Stewart was talking about on Crossfire last week. Long ago, marketing replaced real political dialogue. No one wants anything approaching truth; truth is really scary. If they moved beyond the hype of “sound bits”, catch phrases, and soft issues, all at once, we would vote Nader, cancel our Zoloft subsciptions, Clap the Clapper, put the 7up Extra in a cooler and head for the hills. Marketing can do strange things to people, and media and politics, the basis for our whole culture, have become nothing more than a marketing process. It has gotten so bad even the people creating the strangeness have no control of it; in fact, they actually think what they do is in service to the public. Do you think Kelly Ripa, Tom Brokow or even high-level TV producers know what they are doing? I don’t. I think they are just monkey-whoring for the juice of gossip and fame.

There is a solution for our retarded societal transformation, go local. The reason politicians, the media, and their real bosses (the super-duper-rich) talk to us this way is that they know there is no real issue a nation of 280 million people can agree on and keep paying attention too, so all we end up with are bigger and bigger performance art pieces, watered down Madison Avenue sloganeering. We have been conditioned to understand the world this way, symbol over truth, characters over character. But once we go local, everything becomes real, all of it- healthcare, safety, morality, and yes even God. When it happens, when California is free, we will speak to each other in real ways again. Anyone can speak judiciously about, say, how to guard the Golden Gate Bridge or how and by whom your children should be educated. Yes, there will be bumps in the road and in the beginning a lot of corruption but it has to be better than this.

Until we have broken free from the leviathan we will get nothing but the status quo. An automated political culture of bombs-god-partial birth-stem cell-gimme my gun, kookiness; McDonald’s politics, beaming from the oracle in your living room, better than God - faster, cheaper and most definitely out of control.

FC cannot wait until November 3rd so we can go back to Desperate Housewives without feeling guilty, thanks again Rupert, it makes us feel so much better, we may not have any healthcare or pension, and we might be all drugged up on Prozac but at least our wives are not stooping the Gardener.

Where have you gone Bull Moose?

Tonight, George Walker Bush and John Forbes Kerry meet to debate the issues of the day. There was a time in our history when the art of debate played a pivotal role in shaping of American Democracy. Rabble-rousing debate was a paramount tactic of our founding fathers and both the abolitionists and suffragettes used debate to change history for the better. But with the 24-hour news cycle and corresponding information overload, our political discourse has been professionalized, every topic, no matter how important, stripped of relevance and endlessly regurgitated.

After listening to tonight’s diatribe of “talking points”, remember it does not have to be this way. Both of these men are creatures of the age: manufactured robots that chirp and beep language few of us care about. Things have gotten so bad it is now a challenge to find anything interesting, new or useful in what they say.

Sadly, we live in a time of great tumult and can ill afford these bland polio-robots. Osama does not wait for a Mustapha El Karl Rove and the Al Jeezeera tracking polls to create the next Al Queda recruiting videos and the trade deficent with China cannot be talked out of exsistence. We live in a time requiring smart, independent leaders, a time for man like Teddy Roosevelt. In anticipation of the debates we re-read some of Teddy’s writings and were shocked and saddened by what we found. Here was a man of many faults, and like Bush and Kerry a son of wealth, but unlike them he did not hiding behind either and faced life as a man. TR had not need for scriptwriters, political gurus and media managers. It is my hope that as things grow worse one of us will rise above our culture of white noise and speak truthfully in the public realm.

So before you watch the show tonight, and do not forget it really is a made-up, pretend show, read some of Teddy’s quotes and dream of better days when we were human beings and could disagree on the central issues of the day.

"If I were an employee, a working man ... or a wage-earner of any sort, I undoubtedly would join a union of my trade... I believe in the union and I believe that all men are morally bound to help to the extent of their powers in the common interests advanced by the union."

"Behind the ostensible Government sits enthroned an invisible Government, owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible Government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt businesses and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.... This country belongs to the people. Its resources, its business, its laws, its institutions, should be utilized, maintained, or altered in whatever manner will best promote the general interest. This assertion is explicit. We say directly that "the people" are absolutely to control in any way they see fit, the "business" of the country."

"The foreign-born population of this country must be an Americanized population - no other kind can fight the battles of America either in war or peace. It must talk the language of its native-born fellow-citizens; it must possess American citizenship and American ideals. It must stand firm by its oath of allegiance in word and deed and must show that in very fact it has renounced allegiance to every prince, potentate, or foreign government. It must be maintained on an American standard of living so as to prevent labor disturbances in important plants and at critical times. None of these objects can be secured as long as we have immigrant colonies, ghettos, and immigrant sections, and above all they cannot be assured so long as we consider the immigrant only as an industrial asset."

Nepotism, Thy Name is Teen Queen

You may not have noticed this but lately there has been an incredible rise in the amount of celebrity nepotism driping onto your TV screen. And, no, I am not talking about George Bush, we elected him and we are just going to have to live with it, wait did we actually elect him...oh that's not what I wanted to talk about…damn it FC you have a one track mind...

No, what I wanted to point out is the increasing frequency of celebrity sisters and brothers supporting the careers and getting jobs for their relatives. This Week, People magazine even had a feature section called Kin which highlighted Ashlee Simpson, sister of Nick Lachey's snatch’ key, Jessica, of reality TV's The Newlyweds. Can you believe that? Is this now so common, and more maddingly so "okay" and expected that the phenomenon warrants ongoing features in People Magazine? God help us. I thought we got rid of that kind of thing when we booted the Brits! Regardless, one thing is for sure, The Simpson clan is not alone. With varying degrees of success, Ben Affleck, Hillary Duffy, McCauley Culkin, and many many others have used their earned celebrity to lift the careers of their siblings into the public eye.

Of course, unlike real business nepotism, this thing only works if the public accepts the little one and thankfully most of the time we reject second class offsping (anyone remember Frank Stallone or Randy Spelling). Nevertheless this trend is wrong, un-American and raises some troubling moral questions. For instance, how much is a Jessica Simpson using her leverage with People to get good press for her sister in exchange for juicy exclusives with herself and loverboy Nicky? And, more signifigantly, how much are we hurting ourselves culturally by keeping a bunch of limited hacks in the picture due solely to happy happy, joy joy genes? I know, I am being naive to the true nature of celebrity building and image manipulation but come on, if for every chance one of these dopes gets do we lose a Madonna, an Oprah or a Robert Deniro? I would think there is a pretty good chance we are, as Emminem says, “it takes just one shot.”

So, who exactly lost their shot when Haylie Duff got her :15? Come on!

Look at her, does she really deserve it? No, we can do better.

Haylie's the taller, horsier one.

"I'm a Star, I know it and I am going to work it as much as I can; this is my destiny."

Dollar Bill, Go Back to Arkansas, Please!

For the record, Free California thinks people waiting 19 hours to get Bill Clinton's signature at his book signing is the lamest event so far in 2004, and just maybe of this Century. I am sorry Clinton was a Pig. He got seriously lucky on the Economy and he will have no legacy, zip. zero, zilch.

In fact it is very likely that the only reason people will remember him is Monica, his devish cigar and that he did not kill Osama when he had the chance.

The truth about Omorosa

Youngstown, OH is a wasteland.

If this young lady actually grew up there, from her birth, and has managed to rise above it, we should applaud her. And put up with her rising star for awhile.

However, if this is the best they can do in Holly Holli-land. Or if quick cut editing by the producers of The Apprentice have purposely exadurated the racial element of the show, well, these people ought go back to dinner theater.

On the same day Condoleezza Rice testifies with iron grit and honor, this? And the masquerade on Oprah, please.

Come on.

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