Here’s Sacrelicious!, a one-act play inspired by these car decals and all that creationist/”Intelligent Design” nonsense. Enjoy!

The scene: God’s office. God is sitting at His desk.

God (to intercom): Gabriel, please send Moses in.

Gabriel the Archangel (on intercom): Yessir.

Moses enters the office, holding a pen and steno pad. He bows reverently to God and takes the seat facing His desk, sits down and prepares to write. God leans back into His chair, stretches His arms, and places His hands behind His head.

God: “In the beginning, there wasn’t anything, period. Except me. I was feeling creative, so I created the space-time continuum. Nifty work, that. Did it in a chronon too — pretty fast, if you catch my drift. You see, the early universe was smaller than a mustard seed — a tiny dense of mass of nothing but energy for the first few fractions of a second…”

Moses: Space-time con-what-ium?

God: Space-time continuum. You’ve got the three dimensions, length, width and depth, in which you humans can move more or less freely around, and then there’s the fourth dimension, time, which you’re slowly dragged through second by second. One of the descendants of that bunch of guys you’re wandering around the desert with, a nice kid with a bad hair life named Einstein finally figures it out a few thousand years from now. He’ll get it wrong when he says I don’t play dice. In truth, I shoot a pretty mean game of quantum craps…

Moses: Quantum?

God: It’s the basic building block of everything, matter or energy. That Einstein kid, clever fella, he figured out that matter and energy are the same thing. Real clever of me to make the universe so modular, huh? Anyhow, back to the dictation. So: mere fractions of a second after the entire space-time continuum has been formed, everything is just a very hot soup of random quanta. As the soup expands, it cools, and you get the four fundamental forces…

Moses: Wait! The Four Fundamental Horses! I know this one! Death, War, Famine and Plague, right?

God (raising an eyebrow): Er…no. Forces. Electromagnetism, gravity and the strong and weak nuclear forces.

Moses: Uh, but they’re terrifying, and they go around killing up stuff, right? And could you spell “electromagnetism” for me, please?

God: No. They’re the four forces which pretty much dictate the behaviour of matter in the universe. (Thinks for a moment.) I may have to dumb this chapter down a little. Ah, I have an idea. Let’s skip to the part about Earth, shall we?

Moses (turning to a new sheet of paper): Ah, something I understand. As you know, sir, my adoptive father — the Pharoah — had me taught by the finest tutors and scholars in all of Egypt.

God (rolling eyes, muttering): Oh this should be good for a laugh…(Looks at Moses with a sly grin.) Very well then. Why don’t you tell me what you know about the Earth?

Moses (eagerly): Very well, Sir! It’s a big flat disc. The sun and moon circle it, each taking turns travelling across a big bowl we call the sky, above which there’s a lot of water…

God: I think your tutors rode the short chariot to school.

Moses: Sir?

God: Nothing. Say, Moses, what holds up the Earth? What supports this big flat disc?

Moses: Our best research indicates that a turtle does, Sir. We even have independent confirmation from the Babylonians.

God: A turtle.

Moses: Yessir. A really big one. (Moses holds his arms outstreched to explain the size of the turtle.) Twenty, maybe thirty thousand cubits a side.

God (learning forward): Let’s assume for a moment that it is a turtle that holds up the earth. What does this turtle stand on then, hmmm?

Moses (almost leaping from his chair): I knew you were going to ask me that, Sir! That’s the really clever part — it’s turtles all the way down!

God: Oh, Jesus Christ.

Another door opens and through it, Jesus pokes his head into the office.

Jesus: Mmmmmyes?

God (muttering to Himself): It’s 1300 years before your birth and already that joke’s old. (Addresses Jesus, points at Moses) Son, this is Moses, a somewhat ignorant rube. I’m trying to as they say in parts south of Israel, “school him proper.”

Moses (looking a little flustered): I’m really trying to understand, Sir.

Jesus (entering the office): It’s all right, my child. (Walks over to Moses, puts his hand on his shoulder.) Let’s start with something simpler. Do you know how old the Earth is?

Moses: Current analysis indicates…wait, I have it here (Riffles through his satchel and pulls out a scroll)…approximately…three thousand years.

Jesus: You know, Moses, when you use Q-Tips to clean your ears, you should stop when you encounter resistance.

God (laughing): Be nice, Son. Moses, it’s closer to 4 billion years.

Moses (getting really flustered): Uh…what’s a billion?

Jesus: It’s a one with nine zeroes after it.

Moses: I know what a one is. What’s a…a “zee-roe”? (God and Jesus break into laughter. God leans back into His chair and lets out a deep belly laugh, while Jesus is doubled over in tears, banging His fist against God’s desk. Moses is on the verge of bursting into tears of shame.)

Moses (blubbering): I’m…I’m r-really sorry, S-sirs…I know I could never be as smart as y-you guys…I’m just an ignorant pigfucker…

God: Dude, don’t say “pigfucker” in front of Jesus. God and Jesus look at each other and begin laughing riotously.

Jesus: That show won’t even be created for another three thousand years! Foward-reference inside jokes! I love it!

God: It’s good to be the king.

Jesus looks at Moses, whose face is buried in his hands, sobbing. He approaches Moses and gives him a big hug.

God (to Himself): My Son, the hippie.

Jesus: Moses. Moses! Yo, Mo, chillax.

Moses looks up.

Jesus: Look at me. It’s all right. We love you. You’re our scribe, right? Look, let me explain: the Hindus and Arabs will figure out the concept of zero.

Moses: Hindus? Arabs?

Jesus: Yeah, from India and Arabia. Generally east of where you are. Great food, worship us in the form of Shiva and Allah and…

Moses: They worship false gods? Give us their coordinates and we’ll get pre-Flood on their asses, Sir!

Jesus: Uh….no. (Turns to God) Uh, Dad, until they have their science all worked out, maybe you should try the allegorical route. Don’t say the universe was created in a chronon; make it a time period they can wrap their grubby pre-atomic-clock minds around. Say, a week.

God: Go on…

Jesus wills a Gantt chart into being. Its title reads “The Genesis Project”.

God: Good thing there’s no such thing as the Star Trek franchise yet. Paramount Studios are litigious bastards.

Jesus: Ahem. (Points to chart.) If we look along the critical path here, you’ve got light and darkness on day one. A nice allegory for energy and matter if I say so myself…

God (leaning forward, resting His head on one hand): Yes. Something their simple minds can grasp…

Jesus:…right up to humans on day 6, at which point you sign off on the project.

God: And what happens on day 7?

Jesus: Well, I’d like to establish the practice of padding the schedule in order to allow for unforeseen delays and such. Not that we need it; I just want to set a good example. In the words of the Jungle Brothers, we’ll say you “regroup and lounge / put on a couple of pounds / and make plans to create the raw, homegrown sounds.”

God (giving a “thumbs up”): Solid.

Gabriel the Archangel (on the intercom): Sir, your lunch appoinment is here.

God Ah, yes. Siddartha Gautama. Sid Non-vicious. I’m going to enlighten him while I make him some pizza.

Jesus: What kind of pizza does he like?

God: He wants me to make him…(giggle)…one with everything! Jesus and God break into laughter again.

Jesus: You’re hilarious, Dad! You crucify me!

God: Not for another thousand years or so… More laughter.

God: Moses, let’s call it a session for now. Why don’t you come back here next….Tuesday at 10:30? You’re free then?

Moses: Sir, I’m stuck in the middle of the desert. The only thing to do is gather manna and maybe keep the folks from building more idols out of their jewelry. Last week, they almost built a golden weasel until I stopped them. I’m still at a loss to explain how these former slaves managed to get enough gold to build the original calf. I think they stole it while they were in captivity, and I’m thinking of holding a board of inquiry into the matter…

God: Don’t sweat it. Look, I’ll see you next week.

Moses: Thank you, Sir.

Moses says goodbye, bows to both Jesus and God, and leaves.

God: You know, Son, there’s a chance they might always take the allegory at face value.

Jesus: Dad, they’re dumb, but they’re not that dumb.

Notes From the Scene

Chicks Dig It has moved…

..to its new regular location, The Apothecary (340 Adelaide Street West, at Peter Street).

The story, according to their mailing list message, is that the owner of the Temple Bar (their original venue), wanted them to stick to a strictly house-music playlist. “Genre prejudice,” the Chicks replied. The Chicks often mix it up, throwing in some reggae, jungle, dub and other tracks where the musicians decided to veer from their drum machines’ default settings. Apparently, the Temple Bar management thought that a steady diet of dance music in 4/4 time (that is, music with a straight “one-two-three-four” beat) was better for drumming up business at the bar. I suggest that they drop their ridiculous drinks prices instead.

Fortunately, Chicks Dig It found a new venue in a less out-of-the-way location: The Apothecary, at the corner of Adelaide and Peter Street (it’s one block south of Fez Batik). It’s smaller than Temple Bar, but it makes up for its size by having an enclosed patio, which will make for some interesting nights once the weather warms up. This Monday’s line-up starts with Chocolate, Sabrina and AMTrak and finishes with Freedom and Denise Benson.

I’ll be there with accordion in tow. Toronto locals who want to have a pre-Chicks Dig It drink chez moi (I have a lot of beer and live four blocks away from the venue) should e-mail me.

The street really does find its own uses for things

There’s an interesting article in a local free magazine called neksis that takes a look at the resurgence of cocaine use. The article is a set of short essays on cocaine use written from all kinds of perspectives — one from a drug dealer, one from an enthusiast, one from a club-goer, and so on.

The observation I found most interesting was the bouncer’s. He noted that the suits had taken to sniffing coke off their Palm Pilot screens. It’s quiet dark and in the bathrooms of many clubs, and the Palm’s backlight comes in pretty handy. I suspect the real high-rollers are snorting off their iPaq screens. They’re pricey, and their screens are quite bright.

I see a great product opportunity: imagine WriteRight Palm screen protective sheets that have been chemically treated to change colour according to the purity of the cocaine placed on them. Damn, I’m full of million dollar ideas.

I wonder if Microsoft can take advantage of this with a new slogan for Windows CE: Where do you want to do blow today?

Lindi Gigs

Lindi is playing two gigs in the near future. The first is at the Steam Whistle Brewery as part of a showcase of independent recording artists on March 15th (the ides of March!). Then we’ll play at C’est What on April 6th in a battle of the homophones: the tall icelandic gentle giant of folk rock, Lindy, vs. Lindi, accordion-powered sweetheart of the cabaret.

Be there or suck mightily.

I still have to write about the Lindi gig I played last Friday. It’ll probably go up tomorrow.

Hair

My friend Chris once chided me about my expensive gel. All I have to say is when you have your hair cut longer than standard-issue prison buzz, hair care becomes important, boy!

Based on my recommendation, my housemate Paul went to See Fu Hair Design (corner of Sullivan and Spadina, a half block from our house) to get his hair cut. As expected, he loved the experience. He very well could be the first gwei lo as well as the tallest person ever to set foot in the place.

See Fu is staffed with very cute club-clothed Chinese girls with anime-coloured hair who start and end your haircut with a very nice scalp massage and shoulder rub (I’m probably risking having the place flooded with otaku fanboys by singing the praises of their cute staff). A haircut at See Fu may take an hour — it’s no place to go if you’re in a hurry — but you’ll be way to mellowed out to care about the time anyway. They’re also very meticulous about their scissor and shear work, performing it with the zest of an Asian kid doing the computer science homework for the entire 2nd floor wing of the womens’ residence at university (yup, that was me, and it paid off in spades).

See Fu will eventually move into its new location, inside E-Zone, half a block south. E-Zone is a strange business that I would like to see succeed, if only for it quirky charm. E-Zone is a combination bubble tea cafe, Asian food lunch restaurant and hair salon. Any place that has cute hairstylists, mango bubble tea and satay chicken on a stick for 49 cents is cool by me.

The only downside is the language barrier; many of the staff can barely speak English. Don’t be shy, and be prepared to repeat yourself and use gestures. The other thing that may drive you crazy is the canto-pop that they’ve always got on their sound system. If you’re not into that kind of thing, the hour you spend there may drive you bonkers. Minor quibbles aside, I highly recommend it.

Recommended Reading

You might want to check out my original posting on Chicks Dig It and eye magazine’s article.

neksis one of a wave of new free magazines that have appeared at hipster stores and cafes all over Toronto (other magazines include Dojo and Trucker). According to their FAQ, they cover “hip hop, electronica, sex, drugs (they have a drug column written by University of Toronto Professor Konstantine Zakzanis, a Ph. D. in neuropsychology!), politics and whatever else we find interesting to a demographic (18-30 year olds) that isn’t often targeted by mainstream media”. In addition to the print magazine, they also have a Slashdot-like discussion site.

Hmmm…I’m just a shade older than neksis’ target demographic. Good thing I don’t look it. Or act it.

By the way, neksis’ Zakzanis says that using E will mess with your RAM.

The Lindi gig on March 15th will be my second performance at the Steam Whistle Brewery. My first is documented here.

Ah, to be a university journo again…

Here’s a hint for all you aspiring writers out there: writing a piece about how someone’s religion sucks is just going to inflame people. You will probably end up having to write a retraction.

Update

I made an update (a lot of spelling corrections, some addenda to the “Recommended Reading” section) to yesterday’s posting about Michael Greene’s evil Grammy Speech. You might want to give it a look.

Happy 3rd Anniversary, Superosity!

I’d just like to congratulate Chris Crosby on the third anniversary of Superosity, his great on-line comic! And double-congrats on finally coming up with that perfect catch phrase (the storyline for the catch phrase starts here)..

I can’t explain why, but I love this this particular one.

Long live the misfit instruments!

This posting just appeared in MetaFilter:

The Hendrix of The Accordion, the Stevie Ray of the banjo, and even Tubas are producing some rockin’ stuff. I see something of a small trend here an I think it’s a good one. These artists take the insturments you hated to be stuck with in the high school band and turn them into something astounding. If anyone knows of other examples, I’d love to hear about ’em.

If you’re a MetaFilter member, feel free to mention a certain accordion player who plays a pretty mean Nine Inch Nails…

Michael Greene, NARAS President and CEO

During last night’s Grammy awards, Michael Greene, President and CEO of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) delivered an anti-file sharing speech entitled The Insidious Virus of Illegal Music Downloading. Some excerpts:

No question the most insidious virus in our midst is the illegal downloading of music on the Net. It goes by many names and its apologists offer a myriad of excuses. This illegal file-sharing and ripping of music files is pervasive, out of control and oh so criminal. Many of the nominees here tonight, especially the new, less-established artists, are in immediate danger of being marginalized out of our business. Ripping is stealing their livelihood one digital file at a time, leaving their musical dreams haplessly snared in this World Wide Web of theft and indifference.

…

This problem won’t be solved in short order. It’s going to require education, leadership from Washington and true diligence to help our fans – that would be you – to embrace this life and death issue and support our artistic community by only downloading your music from legal Web sites. That will ensure that our artists reach even higher and, deservedly, get paid for their inspired work.

Life and death issue? I think NARAS should get over themselves.

It’s fandom, not theft

Greene squarely puts the blame for the music industry’s woes — woes most industries would kill for — on the customer. This, in spite of the fact that music sales were up during the peak of Napster. What he doesn’t realize — or more likely, what he realizes but chooses not to say — is that nobody “rips” (that is, converts CD music to MP3 format) music they hate. It’s a waste of time. Rather, they rip the tracks they love, and those are the files they share. No money changes hands in the file sharing process; no one — not even the Napster corporation — made money from the transfer of MP3 files. This isn’t piracy; it’s fandom. And unlike piracy, fandom is free advertising. They don’t like nor understand this, which is why they also consider making mixed tapes and CDs for your friends illegal.

They’re not too keen on the doctrine of fair use. If you have a favourite CD that you want to keep at home, they’d rather you bought another one for your car and another one for work instead of making copies for car and office use, even though that’s considered to be fair use in the eyes of the law. Here’s RIAA president Hillary Rosen and Utah Senator Orrin Hatch at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on MP3 downloading, courtesy of Leflaw.net:

”Can I make a copy of a CD that I buy and put it into a car?” asked Hatch. When Rosen hemmed and hawed, Hatch muttered, ”The answer is yes.”

”Is it fair use to give the copy to my wife for her car?” Hatch continued. ”Is it fair use for me to rip a CD? Is it fair use if (a computer network) decides for efficiency reasons that one copy is sufficient to serve for storage, instead of keeping 200 separate copies, is that fair use?”

”None of these is fair use,” Rosen eventually replied. She argued that musicians’ willingness to ”tolerate” people making copies was an instance of ”no good deed goes unpunished.”

They’re taking intellectual property protection to ridiculous new heights. The music industry would love nothing better than for you to shell out extra ducats in order for you to know what the lyrics and chords to your favourite songs are. That’s why the Harry Fox Agency tried to shut down or neuter OLGA — the On-Line Guitar Archive — and several other sites providing lyrics, tablature and chord charts. Listening to your favourite piece of music over and over again so that you can transcribe its lyrics and chords and then sharing that information isn’t a crime — once again, it’s fandom.

Recently, Pete Abrams, in his great online comic Sluggy Freelance, used the lyrics to James Taylor’s Fire and Rain to underline his storyline. He credited the creator and copyright holder, but still he was told to takes the lyrics out of the comic strip. The songs wasn’t central to the storyline; as Abrams himself puts it, “…the lyrics were just icing on the cake of this story…Actually it’s the little decorative flowers that go on the frosting of the cake.” It was merely a nice detail, and an act of fandom, not theft.

They’ve gone so far as to try and make money off cell phone ring tones that sound like your favourite tunes. Once again, that’s fandom, not theft. How much longer before your keyboard, guitar or accordion is embedded with a device that pays royalties whenever you cover a recording artist’s song, even for family and friends?

In all these cases, we’re not talking about acts of taking someone else’s work and making a profit of it. We’re not even talking about people who are taking credit for someone else’s work. We’re talking about fans who love the work so much that they use it, which in turn further propagates that work. This is advertising that is not only free, it’s done by people who truly love the work, not some disinterested ad exec who’s only promoting the work because s/he’s paid to do so. It’s honest and from the heart. It is not piracy.

The patsies

The patsies who participated in the downloading experiment-cum-publcity stunt. The filename of this picture is “hackers.jpg”.

During the Grammys, the cameras would occasionally cut to a scene where three college-age students, Numair, Stephanie and Ed, were downloading MP3s. It was part of a demonstration of the evils of downloading. Greene announced that they were showing just how many files could be downloaded by only three people in two days. These three patsies — or perhaps they’re doing this as part of some community service in exchange for time in juvie — managed to download almost 6,000 songs.

“That’s three kids, folks,” said Greene “The RIAA estimates that – now listen to this – an astounding 3.6 billion songs are illegally downloaded every month.”

In an attempt to paint computer programmers as part of the problem, the on-line photo of the three patsies is called “hackers.jpg”. The term hacker refers to a obsessively dedicated programmer, and even the correct term — cracker — refers to someone who breaks into computer systems, not someone who is downloading files.

By the way, if any you happen to know Numair, Stephanie or Ed, by all means feel free to give them a good pimp-slapping in my name.

Do you suppose they have any friends left after last night’s Grammy awards?

Forgive the ad hominem cheap shot, but I can’t resist

Mr. Greene, I respectfully suggest that you stop harassing the customers, and while you’re at it, stop harassing your own executives too.

Recommended Reading

The RIAA sucks donkey balls. Here’s proof. Want more proof? Here’s an article on how they’d love to look inside your computer.

George at blogaritaville reports that “the government, two gigantic content distributors, two consumer electronics manufacturers (one of whom owns a substantial MPEG/MP3 patent portfolio), a router company, and a chip company are getting together to debate your rights as a content consumer.” Hmmm. Around the same time as Greene’s speech at the Grammys. Funny, that.

Memo to George: Please use capital letters at the start of your sentences. It makes ’em easier to read. The e.e. cummings / archy-and-mehithabel thing is pretty old.

Support the good guys in this battle against industries who are deciding what you rights are. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is on the side of the consumer in the current imbroglio over copyright and fair use. They’re the good guys, and really stand-up people whom I know personally and for whom I would take a bullet. (Cory, Fred, Cindy, Brad, and Biella: please don’t put this to the test.)

Update, Friday March 1.

Welcome BoingBoing readers!

George at blogaritaville points out in this posting that “unless the artist had recouped for the record label, the band that made the music on the CD wasn’t going to make any money off their purchase, anyway.” He also points to a Steve Albini (producer for Nirvana’s Bleach and In Utero albums) essay, The Problem With Music. Oftentimes artists end up losing money when they make an album because the record industry middleswine have taken their inordinately large slice of the pie.

You might want to check my earlier postings on copyright and fair use, Death to Disney, Part One and Death to Disney, Part Two. Read about the influential Disney guy who says that there is no right to fair use, learn about copyright and how it’s been stolen away from recording artists, find out what this fair use thing is and what the RIAA really thinks about it. Then write your government representative!

Nick Mark of Naked Pope: The Movie fame reminded me of this funny Onion piece called Kid Rock Starves to Death: MP3 Piracy Blamed.