San Diego Serenade

I got a comment on my Springsteen, Seals and Shit article from a few months ago from the folks at sealwatch.org, which caused me to investigate what had been up recently with the seal situation down in La Jolla. Sealwatch linked to the below video of some dick harassing the seals, provided by the La Jolla Friends of the Seals:

It’s pretty much a 50 year old petulant child named Tom Sauer scaring the seals into the water and then talking about how he had the right to do it. Sauer is a San Diego attorney who maintains childrenspool.org, which talks about how great Mrs. Scripps (who is long dead) was for donating the childrens pool and lists the legal briefs he has filed on behalf of his clients, whose fines for harassing the seals he is contesting. Before we mock and belittle his personal flaws, let’s just point out one thing from his most recent legal filing. In this case, someone named Lilo Creighton (who he talks about in the video) was fined for scaring away the seals. Part of her defense is as follows:

“the reason she landed on the beach in the middle of the hauled out animals was that she needed to concentrate on staying in a small channel to avoid being pushed on rocks; and that she needed to swim fast in order to reach the beach without being hurt”

So not only is the beach filthy, it’s also evidently very dangerous for any of the “children” who might choose to swim in it. Unbelievable.

Towards the end of the video, where Sauer lounges around with his legs flared open talking about why he just drove the seals into the water, he makes some trenchant points that many six year olds would do well to incorporate into their argument for why they should be allowed to go down the slide next if “You’re not the boss of the world” isn’t working out for them.

First off he cites the 9th ammendment, which from what I can tell, says “Just because we only have 8 ammendments doesn’t mean that those are the only rights we’re giving you”, kind of like a “we reserve the right to add in obvious things we forgot should they arise”, like say, giving half the population the right to vote. He then transitions, this is true, into claiming that the 9th ammendment to the constitution gives him the right to

“establish myself as the alpha animal on that beach.”

They all laughed at Madison when he wanted to pass the Alpha Animal ammendment, but who’s laughing now? Not Tom Sauer! He keeps going:

“If there’s a young child on that beach, I want that child to be the alpha animal on that beach.”

If there’s a young child on that beach, I would hope that this guy is nowhere near that young child.

The whole discussion reminds me of a scene from Bowling For Columbine, were Michael Moore discusses the shootings with South Park creator Matt Stone, specifically the decision of the NRA to come to Colorado within days of the shootings to have their annual rally. They defended the decision by trumpeting their “rights” to “go wherever they want within our great land.” Stone replies, “Of course you have ‘the right’, but just, don’t do that, you know?”

I think that expresses the situation about as good as it can be expressed: right vs. duty. You have the right to do a whole shitload of things in America, but you also have the duty not to be too big of a dick while you’re doing them. Of course you have the right to go walk down and scare all those seals away. But why be a dick and take away the one thing people enjoy about that small, polluted, dangerous beach? Here are some other things you have the right to do:

-Picket outside hospitals with signs that say “God Hates AIDS victims”
-Tell kids waiting in line to meet Santa that there is no Santa, that that’s just a man in a suit
-Walk out of a movie theater and tell everyone waiting to come in what the ending is.

I guess those kind of went in reverse order of seriousness…But still. Having the right doesn’t make you above the rules of decency and friendliness that are also just as important to allow a society to function. And disobeying a law that you consider unjust doesn’t make you into some kind of hero, who can lounge about spread eagle lecturing people about vauge constitutional ammendments. A lot of people throughout history have disliked, even hated pioneers like Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and Susan B. Anthony and the ideals and changes that they fought for. But the difference between them and Tom Sauer is that nobody heard about what King was doing and just thought “Wow, that guy, he’s kind of a dick…I wonder if that makes him happy?”

UPDATE: My friend Derek, who just graduated from law school and will start working in a month at a firm where I can only imagine he’ll be getting paid way more than a lawyer who primarily deals with seal related cases does, helped me out with some questions I had about the 9th ammendment, and Tom Sauer’s use of that as his reasoning to harass the seals:

“robert bork called it ‘an inkblot.’ it means something, but it cannot be interpreted to do anything, because there are no internal or external limits to what it could mean. i think people who don’t really know what they’re talking about use it to justify the supreme court’s invention of rights that aren’t specifically described in the constitution.”

Which would make sense, since this is what Sauer uses to grant himself the right to be “alpha animal”.

“it’s like if you and your parents got into a fight about something and they decided to let you do it…the reason you get to do it is because they let you, not because you had the right to do it. the ninth amendment can never be used to prevent the government from doing something. the types of things the people who wrote the ninth amendment and thought it was protecting may actually be protected,but they’re protected through some other constitutional or political means. the ninth amendment cannot serve as an independent bar to any governmental activity, and it’s been cited in like 2 supreme court opinions in 230 years. seriously, if you ever have a conversation with somebody who brings up the ninth amendment with some reverance, you know they don’t know shit.“

After a brief delay caused by overtime working and all day sleeping, we’re back with Episode 2 of our newly renamed Bo Bo Jo Jamaican Albino Podcast! You’ll have to listen to the podcast to understand what that name means, but rest assure that this second episode packs all the punch of say a Godfather Part II, and none of the dogshit of an Attack of the Clones.

This episode includes:

-Mashups Galore!
-Conor Getting Paid!
-Two versions of the same song!
-Andrew’s opinion on the best songwriter around today!
-The Boss sweatin’ to the Oldies!
-Techno!

And much much more! I kind of think it’s more fun to not post a playlist and make listening a surprise for people, so maybe I’ll go ahead and post one in two days, once our dedicated fans have already had a chance to listen to the
whole thing.

Please download the podcast here: (128k mp3, 107:35, 103.0 mb)

or subscribe, using iTunes, or whatever other service you use, via this feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SanDiegoSerenadePodcast

It’s a 128 bit MP3, and runs close to an hour and forty minutes.

If you’re wondering why posting has been rather limited on here the past few weeks, there are all sorts of answers I could give you, but in all honesty, it’s probably been because I’ve been watching Road House over and over and over again. The 1989 Patrick Sawyze flick about a bouncer with a NYU degree in philosophy is the first movie for a new project we’ve been working on at work called RiffTrax, where Mike Nelson provides a MST3K style commentary (riffing) on a movie as a downloadable MP3. So you play the MP3 while you watch the movie, however you choose to do so. It’s a cool idea, even after watching Road House for the 12th time to see what synchs up and what doesn’t, (This has been a maddening ordeal, but if I ever get the call for Jeopardy and the categories turn out to be “The Double Deuce”, “Jasper, MO”, and “Whether Pain Hurts or it Don’t”, I’ll be set.) So check it out if you like either Road House or MST3K. More movies will be coming in future weeks. And here’s a little short that we made around the office:

And I’d expect a new Podcast tomorrow, as well as some pics from Tuesday nights Cat Dirt Records showcase with Fifty on Their Heels, MC Flow and Grand Ole Party, plus my thoughts on last nights Raconteurs show last night, later today.

http://www.rifftrax.com

In case you were worried that the talentless photoshop hacks responsible for photoshopping the weekly dose of No Limit Records cover art (including such gems as the above Mercedes- Rear End) back in the late 90s was out of work and destitute, I present to you evidence that they are still hard at work in the music industry in the form of the cover for Bob Dylan’s “Modern Times” due out at the end of August.

And, much more amazingly, in the “Check it yourself to make sure it’s true” department, No Limit Recording Artist Mercedes - Rear End is currently selling for between 35 and 60 dollars (!!!) on amazon.com. No joke. Check it out. There is no god.

I was asked to guest blog at The Bubble Death, a music blog based in San Diego. I don’t know the protocol about such an endeavor, and was tempted to just shamelessly post Re-Ree songs, but instead I dug deep into my collection and posted a kick ass song by a kick ass band. So go here to check out what I picked.

It’s been a bit quiet around here since the holidays, but I haven’t been completely lazy. I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a podcast ever since I first heard the effortless brilliance of The Ricky Gervais Show a few weeks ago, and finally got the resources together to do it. So I’m proud to present the first edition of San Diego Serenade - The Podcast. Joining me on hosting duties is my friend Andrew Kilpatrick, who besides doing a savage job on the “Con” side of the first San Diego Serenade CDebate, is also the lead singer in my band Re-Ree and a friend since the third grade. We’ll hopefully be bringing you a new show on a regular basis, just how regular will be determined soon. Until then, please check out the podcast, and offer us up some feedback. The next episode should incorporate images, contain a nice intro, and eliminate the fan that was accidentally on in the room I was recording in, just to touch on those right off the bat.

This podcast features:

-Neil Young
-My Morning Jacket
-Death Row Correspondence
-Hank Williams
-The Blog Review
-Grand Ole Party
-How I Got Paid This Week
-Lightnin’ Hopkins
-Two Gallants
-Slayer
-Pres Maxson

and much, much more.

Please download the podcast here: (128k mp3, 99:30, 91.0 mb)

or subscribe, using iTunes, or whatever other service you use, via this feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SanDiegoSerenadePodcast

It’s a 128 bit MP3, and runs close to an hour and forty minutes