Alexander McQueen x Puma Scarred Street Low (via sneakerlog)

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The Yom Kippur morning service is being broadcast live both at 8am and 11am CST from Temple Emanu-El. Watching this morning’s Yom Kippur morning service requires Windows Media Player be installed on your computer. Thank you to Temple Emanu-El in Birmingham, Alabama for providing this stream.

Remember folks: streaming isn’t free for the temple. You can make donations to Temple Emanu-El here to show your appreciation for their webcasting.

Kol Nidre (Prayer for Yom Kippur) in my Father's Shul by Israel Birnbaum

To all those who visit, I wish each of you an easy fast, a good Yom Tov and L’Shana Tovah for Tishri 5769.

Click here to be taken to the live webcast of Kol Nidre, beginning at 9pm EST (6pm PST), service to be rebroadcast on-demand after the initial broadcast.

After procrastinating repeatedly, I finally made it out (thanks to Mark & Katie) to the beautifully-renovated Levitt Shell on Sunday night for a terrific performance from Samarabalouf (pronounced sah-MAH-rah-bah-LOOF), a Gypsy swing trio from France who energized the crowd in attendance. Seeing this show made me enthusiastic about the future of the arts in Memphis. This isn’t the old Overton Park Shell — it is transformed, ultimately, into something much more grand and beautiful than I could have imagined. More info and a video after the jump.

Samarabalouf Live at Levitt Shell, Memphis from E.J. Friedman on Vimeo.

I got a little teary eyed watching the sunset, surrounded by other Memphians clapping along or dancing, parents coming with their children (who did plenty of their own dancing) and enjoying this incredible free show. For a minute, I felt like I was almost in another city. This is something so special, you owe it to yourself to take advantage of the last few shows of the 2008 Levitt Shell season. After this weekend, shows will be on hiatus until May of 2009 — so, make a picnic, bring a blanket, and come on down. You’ll be very glad you did.

Thursday, October 2 – 7pm
John Jorgenson

Friday, October 3 – 7pm
The Bo-Keys w/ William Bell*

*Makin’ Music Muscles
This artist is offering a special children’s workshop at 5 pm.
Bring your children to this free, fun, and educational musical workshop.

Saturday, October 4 – 5pm
Kenneth Jackson

Saturday, October 4 – 7:30pm
Incendio

Sunday, October 5 – 7pm
Brave Combo

The candidates themselves are making the case for an Obama/Biden win through their own actions.

I’m wondering if it could be that the generation of my parents see McCain as a celebratory representative of what people are capable of doing even at age 72. While I respect the desire to identify with a candidate based on a superficial notion, using this reasoning to support a candidate is pretty frightening; age, or lack of age, is not a reason to select someone to be a leader of a country.

Of course, it could be that people cling to the soundbites that speak to supporting their notions. So-called “media bias” has become a talking point of the McCain campaign, used to support the idea that favorable coverage is being doled out to Obama and Biden. I agree that the media is culpable in this situation; and, by the same token, so-called “right-wing” media frequently, as Big Brother is want to, distort the facts and only focus on the pieces of soundbites that make their candidate look good.

Why wouldn’t they? There is a tendency by the media to focus positively on the Obama/Biden ticket, and with good reason: they have made themselves available. Palin’s two horrific interviews and McCain’s continued need to quote half-truths and lambast us with his record as a war hero are really just the kind of fuel that highlights what make Obama and Biden the clear winners in the upcoming election.

Republicans should rightly feel scared right now. Every time she opens her mouth, Sarah Palin becomes more and more a caricature of herself and a greater liability to McCain. To make matters worse, Tina Fey’s hilarious (and incredibly accurate) comedic portrayal of the governor isn’t helping; as MSNBC mentioned today, merely repeating the words that Palin said to Katie Couric in her interview last week (which happened on this weekend’s Saturday Night Live) is in and of itself a source of humor. McCain and Palin clearly are split on their own issues, and Palin has shown us she is obviously confused, distracted, and unable to communicate the talking points that the party is grilling into her.

McCain and Palin, speaking to Katie Couric about her comments to a voter on Pakistan, made the situation even more dire for the Republican ticket. During the interview, McCain stepped in and took the lead from Palin in response to Couric’s questions to the governor. They’re very far down in polling, by 5-8 percentage points across the board. Palin is being debriefed repeatedly in order to prepare for a debate on Thursday which pundits and voters already see as a slam dunk for Joe Biden. There are rumblings from the right wing asking for Palin to be removed from the ticket and replaced with someone who demonstrates more stability and ability.

For their part, Obama and Biden are taking every opportunity to let the soundbites and gaffes speak for themselves.

So with this mountain of evidence piling up, demonstrating the frightening realities of a Republican win in November, what’s with all the stickers East Memphis? Are you seriously better off now than you were 8 years ago?

Regardless of what we do, Tennessee has been labeled a red state by the media. Tennesseeans, and Memphians, probably accept this and feel like they are already marginalized. Nothing could be further from the truth. A strong showing by the Obama/Biden ticket on election day could do a lot to turn the media’s attention to how the larger crises in the United States have impacted the voting populace of our state.

I think that the focus on soundbites, angry rhetoric, one-liners and throwing punches by the Republican party and the political fabric of the media are merely pillars of a general belief that voters in the South are stupid enough to support anything they say because it carries the word “Republican” or “Democrat”.

I think these people who ignore the lies, ignore the half-truths and support their candidate no matter what really believe that you and me, well…we’re a bunch of dumb yokels down here in the South. They likely think that Memphis isn’t much of a city. Perhaps they tell themselves (and others) that Tennessee is really populated by a bunch of nincompoops who can’t think for themselves.

In every lie, there is a wish: that by telling the lie, it will somehow make it true. I find that more insulting than seeing the media slant favorably towards one candidate or the other. But there’s no better way to feed into their slant than to vote for your party’s candidate even though you don’t agree with the way they’re behaving or what they’re saying. You know the lies are there, and you can’t just throw up your future to someone whom you know is associated with a legacy of failed policy that has led to economic disaster.

The Dow Jones closed down -777 points today. The President is scheduling an address to the country for 7:45am EST tomorrow morning. We are spiraling towards another great depression, and everyone can sense it.

No matter how the right wing or left wing media tries to slant the talking points and jabs in favor of their candidate, there’s no denying that the Republican party has controlled the White House since 2001 and controlled Congress from 2000-2006, the formative years of deregulation which have led to this economic disaster.

If we don’t vote for the Democratic candidate, aren’t we saying that we’re okay with the way things are going?

So go ahead, Memphians. Sticker away with slogans of “Country First”. Show your support for McCain/Palin. Sip the kool-aid of your right-wing analysts and talk show hosts. All you’re going to do is end up wishing you’d saved yourself the trouble of figuring out how to scrape it off your bumper without scratching your car on November 5th.

“When I first heard the news,” a man who would only be identified as “Pookie” told Cherry Blossom Special, “I was … well, it was quite disturbing. I actually…I was at my partner’s house and…we had just started hitting the pipe. His buddy had got up and walked down to the store to get a pack of Newports and I guess he forgot he had left the TV on. Then they said 7 tons of cocaine… and in my mind, I was like, ‘WHAT?’ Man, I got so spooked, I broke my stem and almost set my hand on fire.”

“Pookie” was not alone in his concerns. All cross the country, within minutes “Pookies” everywhere, along with dozens of others from around the way, were driven to go on a mission. Klingons began converging en masse lining up out front of the spots, desperately trying to catch a price break before news of the submarine seizure reached the bomb squads and corners. Zoomers capitalized on the situation, leading to widespread complaints about “bunk shit”. Even “kibbles & bits”, pieces which previously ended up on floors, in sofa cushions or behind furniture, have become valued commodities.

Analysts see the takedown of “cocaine submarine” as a red flag to market trends on the quality, availability and, certainly, price of crack cocaine in major urban areas. As the news spread to investors and commodity brokers, the predicted price surge began.

Those investors who previously bought only pee-wees were hardest hit: what was once a 5 or 10 dollar rock suddenly cost 30 dollars. Biscuits were going for as high as $1200 in some cities. Long-held standards regarding the bartering of items for crack, such as televisions and DVD players,had dissipated while bartering was suspended in many areas of the country. In several areas of Chicago, Philly and all along the west coast, crack houses have begun hanging signs outside saying “CLOSED” or “NO BIRD”. The crushing blow to dealers and crack addicts alike has yet to be seen in its full light.

In the earliest hours of the crisis, many of the rock fiends we met remained calm and affable on the surface, continuing to ask passersby for spare change or a loosey. A quick exit poll conducted by Cherry Blossom Special of those leaving various crack houses on their “interplanetary mission” indicated that nearly 78 percent of all crack heads surveyed were angry about the possible long-term implications on the market. 72% of those surveyed were concerned about what would happen to their money if they didn’t buy-in short. But they could all agree: an even one-hundred percent of those surveyed indicated that their primary reason for being willing to wait for long periods of time was “because the pipe keep calling me, man”.

While some predict the situation to be potentially devastating, others such as Ghostface Killah were heard to echo the message they’ve long been telling people. Questioned on the matter, Ghost, aka Tony Starks, simply said “Tony’s got it nice, we never heard of any big droughts.”

Until more is known about the situation, lines continue to form at dope spots, fear grips an already skittish community of hopefuls, and an anxious world of pipeheads prays for someone to step in and provide a source of quality product and some form of immediate economic relief to those affected by this crisis.

The invasion of the Governor’s privacy has raised a number of questions about the privacy & security of public email providers, furthering concern and speculation that such use by government officials to conduct official government business would fall outside the realms of disclosure.

Months ago, Governor Palin admitted openly to routinely having used public email, even prided herself on the choice. Now that the email has been compromised, people on all sides were given a clear, if momentary, glimpse into what amounts to, essentially, very little: nothing untoward was revealed whatsoever. Quite the contrary: it bolstered confidences of people who supported Governor Palin, both sympathetically and contextually, for using public email in her practice as governor of Alaska.

Meanwhile, the CIA and the FBI appear to have become directly involved in tracking down the people (or persons) who infiltrated the governor’s privacy, a completely appropriate action in light of who, and what, was being tampered with. Blame has been placed on someone who, in the eyes of some, must clearly be an Obama supporter — someone who wanted to blow the whistle on some form of corruption. It has stimulated response from both Republicans and Democrats, denouncing the fiendish motivations behind such actions, creating increased finger-pointing by people who were already looking for reasons to chastise one side or the other.

The media has wondered, publicly, how such an attack could have occurred. But in the media’s coverage of this debacle, a series of critical reasoning flaws and motives have been overlooked.

Chief among these logic problems, to this writer, seems simple: what if it was merely an “inside job” by the McCain camp meant to discredit Obama supporters and create a firestorm of controversy?

Readers of this piece may not be familiar with the website 4chan and “Anonymous”, the default name given to anyone who posts on the 4chan website if they choose not to include a name. The “Anonymous” moniker was connected to controversy earlier this year in a rallied effort to discredit the Church of Scientology, known as “Project Chanology”. An inflammatory video was posted to YouTube, one which features Tom Cruise in the midst of a scientology presentation. Various protests and denial-of-service atacks were organized against the Church of Scientology in extensive ambiguity by the disconnected minions of both the project and of 4chan.

The philosophy behind this anonymity and ambiguity is culled from a character called V, the central character in the comic book and subsequent film V for Vendetta. V is known to be an “anarchist revolutionary dressed in a Guy Fawkes mask” who begins an “elaborate, violent and theatrical campaign to bring down the government”. Through association, the 4chan version of “Anonymous” has attempted to adopt the theology and philosophy of V, representing both everyman and no man at the same time. By being everywhere and nowhere at the same time, it is believed, the ability to find and conquer one’s target is always close at hand.

It is not known how many members there are of the 4chan community — no concrete numbers save those of their Alexa ranking (1,039 out of all the internet as of this writing). It is not known, even, who frequents the website itself. What is known by those who have visited the site’s adult section (or /b/), by chance or otherwise, is their insistence on disconnecting themselves from the content presented by participants. The disclaimer states the obvious: “The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact.”

The content warrants such a disclaimer: while the site is well-known as a way to quickly spread internet meme’s (such as Tay Zonday’s now-notorious “Chocolate Rain”), the site is perhaps better known as a catch-all for the posting of disgusting pictures (including mutilations, cutting, various body piercings, suicide photos and other atrocities), hideous imagery (people ingesting their own and each others feces for example) and (it is widely reported) even child pornography, or “CP”. It would appear to the untrained visitor that it is a haunt for the internet society’s lowest common denominators. However, a closer look will reveal simply this: a bunch of bored kids seeking any form of shock value.

What better group of people, it would seem, to take an inside job to and utilize for your own means — those with a reputation for illegitimate, shady behavior and the trafficking of illegal art, a group who have already been connected to protests and whose inherited kinship with anarchist behavior is widely known?

The media has purposefully overlooked what 4chan is and what it contains precisely because they do not want to promote the promoters. But is it not possible, in the grand scheme of things, that someone in the McCain/Palin camp said to themselves, “Hey, here’s an idea: we’ll clean up the governor’s inbox to make sure there’s nothing incriminating, we’ll ‘leak’ the password and a series of photos proving that Governor Palin’s account was hacked using 4chan, and create a shit storm. The content of the leak will prove what we’ve been saying all along, discrediting pundits who claim that the Governor is using public email to conduct important government business and bring further attention to this hotbed of anarchistic activity on the internet?”

While far from being “The Perfect Storm”, an investigation may lead directly to someone within Palin’s own camp, a trusted confidant or, perhaps, someone with a bone to pick. Only time will tell. However, as much as I would like to believe that this is all a grand scheme to discredit Governor Palin, it only seems to me, at this point, like a desperate attempt to sweep together soundbites that paint the Governor in a more palatable light. In light of recent allegations of corruption by the Governor and attempts to cover up that corruption by the McCain camp, what better time to unleash a simple, yet powerful, public relations tool?

John McCain’s final gaffe, selecting her to be his running mate, led to an outcome of critical proportions as we struggled to regain a foothold in the world economy, our creditor nations deeming us unfit to continue to invest in and, summarily, leading to the collapse of our weakened infrastructure. Under Palin, we maintained a course towards apocalypse, one in which the things taught in Revelations came true which, ultimately, led to annihilation and destruction in our major cities.

It is the hope of people of intense religious faith, as you may be aware, to push along the notion of “making Revelations come true”, a twisted, psychotic notion of intentional, albeit likely subconscious, “might makes right” behavior. I have no complaint with the concepts of Christian faith, but I take umbrage with extremism and sanctimonious behavior for the sake of completing some puzzle.

So, and with all due love & respect for Eli Parisier and the other fine folks at MoveOn.Org, whose email campaigns about John McCain’s health have riddled my inbox for weeks now, please hear me: you want him to stay fit and healthy for the next 48 days. You’d better pray like hell that he does.

For anyone else who thinks I’m kidding, look at the poll numbers since Sarah Palin energized the party. If John McCain makes it to election day, I believe firmly that Obama can (and will) win. If not, then in this scenario, Sarah Palin suddenly becomes the most disturbing kind of x-factor in this race, one from which America will never recover.

Think about it.