When performer Clive Flatenbad in the Swedish rap duo realPfft is at his most unproductive, the musical maestro in Mutte Fjutt steps forward, creating bright and exciting instrumental compositions like this one that play repeatedly inside your head. Thank God for Mutte! “Moosehunting in England” is a joke title, consciously inappropriate since the moose in England died out 8,000 years ago.
A.I. rules! Musical maestro Mutte Fjutt in Uppsala, Sweden has composed his third A.I. hit in a row: First came “Turing Test?”, then “I skogens dunkla famn” and now “Tik Tok Girls.”
The A.I.-generated song lyrics were created by ChatGPT using the prompt “Write a song about Tik Tok Girls.” Having grown up with the Swedish equivalent of Top 40 radio, the boys are no strangers to cheesy lyrics.
The song voice and cadence in “Tik Tok Girls” came from the text-to-speech platform TTS Free.
The A.I. cover art of a glamorous young lady was created by Fotor from the prompt “Smartphone with a girl on the screen.”
The melody and musical arrangement are by Mutte & Clive in realPfft, of course. Hooray for humans, wherever we may be hiding.
Hell hath no fury like an elusive song title. The meta data at the music distributor did not recognize the words Tik Tok as part of the English language!
Mutte & Clive informed the distributor that “Tik Tok girls” is a description, like Swifties, YouTubers, soccer moms and boomer dads. Tik Tok describes a particular type of young lady— exuberant and extroverted, showing off her talent on social media.
There is no law which allows anyone to copyright a song title. When I searched for “Tik Tok Girls” on Spotify, I found three other artists who had already used this identical title: Brent Havard, Koron Don and Rana Naveed. iTunes even has tracks with the same title by Team Broken Heart and Dj Dozza. So that’s five other artists who have already released tracks using the title “Tik Tok Girls.”
Music loop aficionados, Mutte & Clive have several years’ experience sharing loops that other musicians have also purchased the right to use. Their feeling is: This is not a problem, the more, the merrier. Let listeners create playlists based on similarities in the material.
Unexpected news! The boys have a growing fan base in China and South Korea. “Tik Tok Girls” is their entry into the world of K-pop. Jinjeon! Progress!
Tik Tok Girls
In the realm where seconds dance and whirl
There’s a place called Tik Tok for every boy and girl
Where laughter echoes and joy takes flight
In the glow of screens, day turns into night
Girls, with grace in their every move
They weave tales on Tik Tok, in a digital groove
With eyes that sparkle like stars in the sky
They captivate hearts as time passes by
In a world of filters where dreams take hold
They share their stories both timid and bold
Through dances that echo a rhythmic beat
In every video, they find a seat
With creativity as vast as the endless sea
They paint their passions for all to see
In make-up tutorials and heartfelt songs
They find their voices, where they belong
Tik Tok, a canvas where talent takes flight
Where girls express in the softest light
With courage and strength, they break the mold
In a universe of stories, beautifully told
So here’s to the girls, with dreams so wide
On Tik Tok’s stage, they stand with pride
In the digital universe where they shine bright
Guiding us all through the endless night
Yellow sunshine fills the sky. The fall weather is unseasonably warm. It’s early in November and 34 residents of Washington, DC stand on the Observation Tower of Dulles International Airport, waving goodbye to the last of the pandas. Dressed in panda-inspired knitted caps, their hearts are breaking as they press against one another and hold hands, already pining for their missing teddy bears. Frantically loyal, they seriously wonder what will become of the panda habitat so assiduously created at the National Zoo, now that its inhabitants are being repatriated to China.
They need not worry. Locating an Italian manufacturer of snowmaking equipment in the Tyrol and flying one of its machines across the ocean, within two weeks, the zoo proudly announces that it has been ranked as Number Four worldwide in Emperor Penguin habitat. The future looks icy bright! On the Endangered Species List, classified as Near Threatened, Emperor Penguins’ existence is being propped up by cryogenically archiving penguin DNA as well as having them breed in captivity.
As the first pair of Emperor Penguins arrives from the Antarctic, they are whisked from the airport to the zoo by Constitutional Van Lines LLC, who landed a government contract after proffering the lowest bid to Congress. All well and good, but unfortunately, not everyone gets the memo: A trio of 13-year-old carjackers from Anacostia waylay the red, white and blue Constitutional Van Lines truck and make off with its two avian passengers.
“Who has our penguins and when will we get them back?!” thunders the Style section of The Washington Post.
The penguincam at the National Zoo shows a forlorn image: A state-of-the-art orange snow gun on wheels is parked in the corner of an empty, snow-encrusted enclosure. With neither penguins nor pandas in attendance, only a nest of mice can be seen scurrying about, black squiggles on a white background.
Offering a $10,000 reward, Fiends of the Zoo manages to provide the authorities with the names and addresses of the perpetrators, who have surreptitiously stashed their captives in a refrigerated meat locker at a local grocery store. The boys feed the birds canned sardines and raw Maryland perch.
This trio of miscreants is promptly captured by the police and brought before a judge. Since they are being tried as minors, The Post withholds their names from publication, although this doesn’t stop Antoine, Reggie and Tupac from getting thoroughly doxed online.
Having defecated in every corner of the meat locker, the penguins— nicknamed Lunchcart and Boxcar— seem no worse off for their ordeal. They are transported forthwith to the zoo.
Nothing in the Nation’s Capital, however, goes in quite as straightforward a fashion as one might wish. Thoroughly fed up with the Biden administration’s support of Israel, in December of 2023, Palestinian college students from Gaza— in the U.S. on student visas— tunnel their way into the penguin enclosure and capture Boxcar. Lunchcart escapes getting taken hostage only because he is housed separately and under observation after being inoculated against bird flu.
All over the zoo, Palestinian protesters march in groups, chanting through megaphones “Ha! Ha! Hamas! From the border to the sea, Ha-Ha-Hamas is you and me!” The noise level is deafening. Young girls in traditional checkered black and white kaffiyeh look like the devilish progeny of Yasser Arafat. They hang posters on the wire cages that say “LET GAZA BE FREE AS A BIRD!”
Waving Palestinian flags, they scrawl graffiti on retaining walls. Many of them get arrested and threatened with deportation. Who has raised these radicals? They promise a whole new generation of discord in international politics.
Naturally, this hostage drama garners both headlines and worldwide indignation. It feels as if Berke Breathed’s penguin hero Opus has jumped off the pages of the comic strip Bloom County and is being chased in circles in real life.
“While America considers this to be a case of domestic terrorism,” announces the Secretary-General of the United Nations at a press conference, looking appropriately somber and serious, “the United Nations insists on providing assistance, lest this form of activism become a daily occurrence.”
A special session of the United Nations is called to order to confront the dilemma. The sun is shining on First Avenue in New York City, but it’s cold. “Terrorism is as terrorism does,” insists the American ambassador.
The government of Antarctica would protest the capture of its citizen if Antarctica had a government. Since Antarctica has no government, Israel offers to represent the fauna of the region, claiming preeminence in dealing with Palestinians. “You can count the number of anti-Hamas Gazans on the fingers of one hand,” the Israeli ambassador assures the General Assembly.
After a tumultuous debate that includes a walkout and boycott by the Gulf States, Russia is assigned the responsibility of rescuing the penguin, based on their expertise in back-channel, underhanded double-dealing. Normally, these traits would be frowned upon, but beggars can’t be choosers. “If the Palestinians misbehave, don’t look at us!” swears the Russian ambassador. “Talk to the Iranians. Hamas warriors are clients of Iran.”
Everyone agrees that choosing Russia as negotiator is not a perfect solution, but it’s an acceptable compromise under trying circumstances.
The Russians and the Palestinians meet at the Rosemont Day Spa in the Catskills. Taking the Palestinian negotiators prisoner, the Russians pump sleeping gas into their quarters and storm the building. Using brute force, they rescue Boxcar. Unfortunately, the penguin succumbs to injuries sustained during her liberation.
It is at this point that noted theologian Meyer Bahnhof enters the picture, claiming from Lagos, Portugal that penguins are “the Chosen Ones,” anointed by God. Banned on many social media platforms for his rabidly Zionist outbursts, Bahnhof goes on Reddit and prophesizes a telepathic link between the thought processes of penguins and Artificial Intelligence. When asked, A.I. confirms this hypothesis. “Behold, the Lion of Zion is a penguin!” rants the theologian. “Down with the Philistines. Delilah be damned! Yahweh rules.”
While the whole world seems to be screaming for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war, almost no one is insisting that Russia accept a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Slowly, methodically, Israel drives the Palestinians of Gaza deep into the Sinai Peninsula. For want of a better solution, the United Nations, the Gulf States, Egypt and the International Court in The Hague spearhead a humanitarian rescue operation which leaves two million Gazans as semi-permanent refugees in Egypt.
“Who needs Gaza?” ask the Israelis, taking a scorched-earth approach to Palestinian intransigence.
Global warming once again grabs the headlines. “We have plenty of water, but it’s in the wrong place,” declares the United Nations, alarmed over melting icecaps and rising sea levels. They decide to seriously curb emissions and combat global warming by the year 2055. As long as it doesn’t cost too much.
Since almost nothing is known about the mating habits of penguins, intensive study, scientific research and public scrutiny are applied to the problem. Eventually, Lunchcart and a newly-arrived female nicknamed Mayfly mate. They have a chick named Lotus Leopard, who grows up to become one of the leaders of the zoo’s Emperor Penguin colony.
Meanwhile, flummoxed by melting sea ice, Emperor Penguins in Antarctica face total extinction by the year 2100.
Mankind soon to follow.
For the second time in a row, Sweden’s Mutte Fjutt in the rap band realPfft has used A.I. technology to produce an exemplary track. ChatGPT created the song lyrics. TTS Free, a text-to-speech program, gave us the voice and cadences of cozy Uncle Sven. Cover art by Fotor based on the prompt “A troll walks in the woods.” The trap melody and musical arrangement are, however, created by the boys themselves. Been there, done that, with great success. Swedes, they wanted to try out Artificial Intelligence in Swedish. Here’s an English translation of ChatGPT’s slightly cheesy Swedish song lyrics:
In the Woods Cast in Shadow
I go in the woods cast in shadow
Where silence joyously sings
Among the secret leaves and pines
I find peace in my beating heart
A lone angel flutters past
In night’s shimmer, soft and clear
In starlight, a quiet music
Woven of dreams, timelessly plays
In the dance of shadows, nighttime smiles
Though I wander alone, I am not lost
Nature’s whispers fill my soul
While in the cradle of creation, I am reborn
Silently I go in moonlight
Amidst the rustle of trees and the quiet of night
I find peace in every neck of the woods
Where my being and nature become one, in faith
Turing Test?
Yo, listen up, I got a story ’bout a genius, no denying
Alan Turing kept the world from dying
World War E, he cracked the Enigma code
A brilliant mind, in the cipher world, he wrote
Born in England, with a vision so grand
A mathematician, he had the world in his hand
Tackled problems that many thought too tough
In the realm of computation, he had the right stuff
Alan Turing, pioneer in the digital domain
Legacy established, he didn’t die in vain
A codebreaker, a mathematician, a hero in our lore
In the world of technology, his spirit we adore
He laid the groundwork for the computers we use
In every line of code, his spirit’s the muse
A genius ahead of his time, he paved the way
In the digital era, he holds sway
Alan Turing, pioneer in the digital domain
Legacy established, he didn’t die in vain
A codebreaker, a mathematician, a hero in our lore
In the world of technology, his spirit we adore
Alan Turing, pioneer in the digital domain
Legacy established, he didn’t die in vain
A codebreaker, a mathematician, a hero in our lore
In the world of technology, his spirit we adore
He laid the ground for the computers we use
In every line of code, his spirit’s the muse
A genius ahead of his time, he paved the way
In the digital era, he holds sway
Post-war, he dreamt of artificial intelligence
A future where machines had human-like relevance
Turing test, he proposed, to judge a machine’s mind
In the quest for AI, he was one of a kind
Persecuted, his love was his crime
In a world that couldn’t fathom his paradigm
Chemically castrated, society’s cruel game
But his brilliance continues, forever aflame
He laid the ground for the computers we use
In every line of code, his spirit’s the muse
A genius ahead of his time, he paved the way
In the digital era, he still holds sway
Ground for the computers we use
In every line of code, his spirit’s the muse
A genius ahead of his time, he paved the way
In the digital era, he still holds sway
Born in England, with a vision so grand
A mathematician, he had the world in his hand
Tackled problems that many thought too tough
In the realm of computation, he had the right stuff
He laid the ground for the computers we use
In every line of code, his spirit’s the muse
A genius ahead of his time, he paved the way
In the digital era, he still holds sway
So here’s to Turing! We celebrate
In the world of technology, he’s first-rate
A rap for the man who changed the cipher game
Alan Turing’s legacy, forever in our name
So here’s to Turing! We celebrate
In the world of technology, he’s first-rate
A rap for the man who changed the cipher game
Alan Turing’s legacy, forever in our name
Da capo. Again. “Influence Peddling” is a tune which the Swedish rap band realPfft released in November, 2019. Hunter Biden’s never-ending soap opera breathes new life into this chestnut.
I have been keeping the Hunter Biden swamp at arm’s length. It’s a cocktail of egomania, self-centered greed, immaturity, careless foolishness, stupidity and lack of a moral compass.
Not good.
Hunter’s apologists explain that he was battling drug addiction, depression and alcoholism. Mental illness and mental anguish are terrible afflictions to behold, but neither constitutes a Get Out of Jail Free card.
Where were the adults in the room? Joe Biden limits his knowledge of the events to a claim that he asked his son Hunter if Hunter knew what he was doing and Hunter said yes, he did.
If you are going to be this irresponsible as a parent, you deserve to reap the consequences. America is not known as a stupid country, but there is a streak of mulish stupidity in the Bidens’ behavior that is miles wide.
The “d’oh” dumbness isn’t limited to the Bidens. Just look at the mess America’s 45th president has created for himself. These people need a dog collar and someone to pull on the leash whenever they venture too close to the nearest cliff. What is wrong with these people? Taylor Swift’s drama queen persona resembles Albert Einstein in comparison to this gluttony of ineptitude.
This is another good reason for the Democratic Party to retire Joe and Kamala after four years of White House service and choose a different pair of candidates for president and vice president in 2024.
The Writers Guild of America— 11,500 screenwriters— are on strike and I have a lot of time on my hands. Not that I am a commercial screenwriter. It’s summer and I have a lot of time on my hands.
Just this month, I applied to a talent agency to rep me. Their second Q was “What kind of work are you looking for?” Having low self-esteem, I don’t expect to get signed up straight-away by a major blockbuster. As many as half the new shows on streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, Hulu, Disney+, Peacock, YouTube and Apple tv get canceled after just one season. The metrics are brutal that way. Since everyone has to start somewhere, I have instructed the agency that I am looking for gainful employment on one or more of those series, the ones facing extinction.
In the meantime, I dog walk.
Fortunately, there are dozens of online courses, competitions and workshops for would-be screenwriters. There is a whole cottage industry of helpmates who, for a nominal fee, will explain why your writing sucks. You are using the wrong-colored notecards. Your pegboard is the wrong size. Stuff like that. I signed up with Three Media in Stockholm, Sweden, for the course “Screenwriting. It’s Complicated.” The first thing I have learned is that no one knows what makes a show great. Good writing, high production values, talented actors and meaningful direction all contribute to the possibility of major success. Yet, sometimes, in spite of the very best laid plans, a show still lacks “heart.” The writers never seem to find their voice. Everyone on set seems to be simply going through the motions. The “star” phones it in. The director never gets a grip on the material. Some of which may even be in French!
Je me souviens, I think back fondly to the desert location of a recent TV pilot titled “Roar of the Lion!” Hired to assist the caterers, I was thrilled to be part of a major film project, I can tell you, the smell of pancake make-up and Fresnel lenses baking in the sun. I offered to assist the writing staff in any way I possibly could. Editing. Rewrite. Even transcription. (Typing up notes from a brainstorming session.) Appreciative, they sent me into town to buy donuts.
The good news is, I really hit it off with the female lead, Anna Petrovska. What a darling lady! A ruddy redhead, her skin luminous, her bright red toenails shone like rubies against the backdrop of desert sand. A notorious insomniac, she stayed up all night, practicing lines. Bleary-eyed, I accompanied her on this emotional journey. The line “I love you, Robert” was delivered with the following motivation (I quote verbatim from the script):
Sweating in the sweltering heat of the Kalahari, Cecilia mentions this in passing, meanwhile gutting the carcass of the dead lion in prep to stuffing it.
An anti-poaching polemic, the film skates the razor-sharp edge of satirical discontent.
Lying in one another’s arms, Anna and I worked up a sweat, as well.
All of this was before the writers strike, of course.
At home in Maryland, I was surprised to get an email from L.A. It was the director, informing me that additional dialogue was needed during post-production. I mean, this is in the middle of the writers strike. The film cutter, the assistant director and the director found themselves sitting at the editing console, trying to figure out how best to rescue their baby from early oblivion. “We know you harbor the ambition to become a wordsmith on the soundstages of Hollywood,” wrote my erstwhile benefactor. “Here’s a warm-up exercise in the dramatic arts. Cecilia needs to write to Robert from Paris where she is held captive by the villain Sultan Rhubarb. What does she say to Robert? We know that his answer is yes, since we filmed the chase sequence that takes up the last third of the movie. But what does Cecilia actually say? Your thoughts on the matter are most welcome.”
It was super groovy of the director to get in touch with me! I greatly appreciate it. You’ll notice that, since screenwriters are on strike, he never asks me to write any actual dialogue.
Being a blabbermouth, I have a pupu platter of great ideas about what to put in Cecilia’s letter to Robert. As I see it, she is more than just a blood-and-guts taxidermist, up to her elbows in animal cadavers. The lass has a lion’s heart worth of emotion pent-up inside her artisan persona. “Oh, boykie!” she writes, adding a touch of South African flair to the cocktail. “When I think of the blackness of night during our sojourn in Darkest Africa,” she exclaims, using the classical, chauvinistic, colonial moniker for the continent, “my memory of the braying of the hyenas sustains me, confirming that ‘We’ll always have Botswana.’ Come rescue me & etc. Yours, CC.”
Coming to a streaming service near you. Release date TBA.
Another take on a Raymond Chandler movie has arrived and I want a piece of the action.
My name is Oscar Mudlowe, not to be confused with Moscar Ludlow whose mail keeps getting delivered to my office. I’ve never met the fellow, but if you know him, please have him straighten out this business with the post office.
Those Hollywood movie people used to sit on the front stoop of their bungalow offices on sunny days, exchanging tall tales and congratulating one another on the exceptional California weather. It sure beats Pittsburg! Sunny, cloudy, I don’t get to sit outside. I’m holed up in my office, waiting for a new client to telephone or some hot dame with a problem to beat a path to my office door.
These things happen.
Many glamorous Beautiful People flock to Hollywood and sometimes some of them get into scrapes. I consider myself a scrape eliminator. I’m a P. I. but some folks say my services are P. U. Let them take their trade elsewhere. I don’t work for bellyachers. You want a referral? I’ll even give you a referral. Anything to get you out of my hair, off my calendar, your card eliminated from my Rolodex and all memory of you expunged. Poof! U R so gone! That’s how I stay busy and solvent. Deadheads like you I don’t need.
Some perps have accused me of ineptitude. To them, I plainly state, “Lookee what it says on our office door, etched into the glass:
Graham,
Crackers
&
Son
I am the son in that statement.”
Old man Graham and the Cracker family represented the two extremes here in SoCal: Old Money and poverty, the Amazing Blue Ribbon 400 and ditchdiggers. They let my dad Murray join their landscaping business. When they went belly-up in the drought of ’87, they segued into private investigation.
Coming into my office, she looked a treat. Dames like her I need. They keep me solvent. The bank accounts of their fiancés provide a constant source of renewal. She had the good gams, blond hair and chiseled good looks prevalent among dames of Austro-Hungarian descent.
“ ’Scuse me, lady,” I said, sitting behind my desk. “Are you possibly of Austro-Hungarian descent?”
“I’m from Argentina,” she replied coldly.
I pitch ’em like I see ’em. Sometimes I am so on the money. Other times, dead wrong.
Over my desk, I have a framed testimonial from Chief Running Bird of the Comanche Tribe. It says:
Him uniform a gray trenchcoat
Him stamina in reserve
Him make haste to find
Every single guilty perv.
“What can I do for you, lady?” I asked.
“I ordered a bookcase from a Swedish furniture manufacturer and it seems to have disappeared,” she enunciated, sucking down great clouds of cigarette smoke.
Sometimes in the course of human events, everything gets all screwed up. “Sounds like a job for their service department,” I suggested.
“It was a very expensive bookcase.”
“I charge $50 an hour. I don’t intend to work seven days a week on your case. I’ll provide an itemized account, how many hours on which days, gas money, incidental expenses.”
“What about dental?” she asked, lightning bolts flashing from her icy blue eyes.
“Get real.”
“You’re hired,” she replied.
I figured there was probably a lot more to this bookcase angle than meets the eye. There are some bad dudes in this burg. Some pretty shady characters occupy nooks in the furniture trade. A lot of the fentanyl powder and pills hitch a ride on furniture deliveries. Saves on gas. Postage and handling. Taxes. I could see where a lot of digging will uncover some pretty ugly skeletons from Davy Jones’s closet. I know this stuff. That’s why they pay me the big bucks.
If you don’t have a car in L.A., you’re toast. When I went to her bungalow at the Chateau Marmont that evening to report on my progress, she didn’t seem all that interested in furniture. I got a definite vibe that loose lips would sink ships and prices on villas in Topanga Canyon have skylined. You have to be a movie mogul to live there!
“Come on in and join me for a drink,” she suggested in a smoky bedroom voice.
Entering her rental, I scanned the inventory, looking for a Scandinavian bookcase, probably in furu. Swedish pine. Heavy, yellow wood. I didn’t find it, so maybe this lady was legit after all. A lot of people hire me in April so they can list my expenses on their tax statement for the write-off. She wasn’t one of them. With those blood-red nails of hers, she seemed legit.
“I don’t drink when I’m on duty, ma’am.”
“Okay, detective, I now officially declare you off duty. A whiskey and branch water for me, please,” she told me, stalking me like prey, blowing smoke rings with every third word.
Looking at the drink tray, I thought I was going meatballs and bananas.
I liked the leprechaun green throw rug she was wearing. Not my style, but even I had to admit that on her, it looked good. “What’s with the glad rag?” I wondered.
“This?” she asked me, batting her eyebrows. “This old thing belonged to my grandmother. I only wear it for the sentimental value.”
Looking closer, I realized that the gold thread resembled real gold. Hmmm. There are some bad eggs in this town, but apparently she wasn’t one of them.
“Take off your jacket and let’s get comfy,” she said, loosening her robe.
“I don’t fool around with clients, ma’am.”
“Okay, detective. You are now officially fired. I’m still waiting for that drink.”
Oh. Shit. I really needed the work.
She was leading me by the nose. The very next day, she telephoned me to say I was rehired and she wanted hourly updates. This was gonna be a long one. I once had a case that lasted 366 days, from a post-Oscar After Party one year to the Oscar Ceremony the next. I didn’t think the Case of the Runaway Bookcase was going to take a full year, but I had a whole rack of pens and several reams of paper suitable for transcribing bills. Days, hours, gas, incidentals. California state tax.
The day after that a man named Arthur Chromedaddy tracked me down to a film lot where I was pulling security outside the Ladies Room. “I saw your ad in the personal notices in the newspaper,” he told me. “I always check the classifieds. Where do you want the bookcase delivered?”
The damned thing had been off-loaded by mistake to a warehouse in San Pedro, 25 miles from downtown. Go figure.
I charged her for days, hours, gas, the newspaper notice, incidentals and California state tax. I squared her account with the police. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful Freundschaft. Not bad for a couple of days gumshoeing around the City of Angels.
People who have followed my blog know that I take great civic pride in our Township of Oxburg in the state of Maryland. Incorporated in the 1950’s, we have a rich, west side of town and a poorer east side, separated by the famous 1812 Highway, a sunken road from the War of 1812. Ever since I was born, my family has lived on West 3rd Street. We try not to be snooty, but we are only human. We are proud to live on the right side of the highway, the “right side of the tracks”!
Now after 50 years of relative tranquility, despite America’s endless wars, the threat of climate change, Maryland and DC politics and the cultural war, I am sad to announce that members of the Oxburg Town Council have lost their minds!
In their thirst for more tax revenue, they have opted for greater population density in Oxburg by abolishing the zoning restrictions that have kept Oxburg a community of single-family homes. “Multi-family homes of up to six units are the wave of the future and will be allowed on existing lots,” they have announced. “Portland, Oregon is our role model. If they can do it in Portland and South Carolina and other such places, we should follow their lead and expand affordable housing in Oxburg.”
Portland, Oregon. Homeless people and feces-on-the-sidewalk Portland. When my younger brother Tim, who is an airline pilot, flies into PDX, the airline puts the crew up in a motel over the bridge in Vancouver, Washington, since Portland has become untenable.
“You are talking about architectural monstrosities springing up on suburban streets,” I have argued. “Twenty years ago, the Town Council insisted on allowing McMansions and we have had to live with that ever since. But to build mini-apartment houses in the middle of suburban neighborhoods is crazy. That is not what Oxburg is all about!”
Up until now, we have had zoning restrictions that prohibited the building of anything beyond a one-family home. You couldn’t even rent out your basement to a live-in tenant. Oxburg has been notoriously suburban that way, block after block of Levittown style homes. Yes, we are a throwback to the 1950’s, but hey, we like it that way!
When I say zoning restrictions, I mean rules that have been as strict as the decorum in a third-grade classroom. Any homeowner wishing to add on a bedroom or porch to their house has gone through purgatory. The Oxburg Zoning Board is notorious for arriving on the scene of a planned addition with tape measure in hand and declaring, “Wait a minute! The overhang of the roofline is going to be three inches too close to the property line and two inches too close to the street. You’ll have to get the contractor to redraw the plans.” Everybody has been through it. We have the gray hairs to show for it!
Why this sudden change? “Diversity!” the libs claim. “Housing prices are so expensive in Oxburg, Blacks cannot afford to live here!” This is their Culture Warrior chant.
To them, I say, “What about Cannon Hill and East 5th Street, two neighborhoods that are predominantly Black? Those families live in single-family homes just like everybody else. They don’t want multi-family architectural monstrosities springing up in their neighborhoods either!”
The white liberals’ argument about fair housing is particularly annoying, as I have friends who live in those Black neighborhoods, while the lily-white proponents of greater population density do not.
“George Floyd was killed, so America needs to re-evaluate our racist past!” chant the liberals. I mean, these are members of the Democratic Party, they are supposed to be the Good Guys! Having drunk the Kool-Aid, they have gone deaf. The only voices they hear are their own.
You know, I was the Yard Sign Guy for the Anna Bola campaign way back in 2011 and through my clever use of yard signs, I dare say I helped swing the electorate. Hey, she won the election! In the past six months, at the hearings held by the Town Council, all these proponents of multi-family housing have marched into the Meeting Room waving the same effing red yard signs. Ugh!
Justice = Fair Housing
Freedom to Choose!
Stop racist housing!
Demand housing reform!
NOW!
it says on the yard signs they wave in our faces, we who like Oxburg the way it is and always has been.
“Old fuddy-duddy,” they call me and stick out their tongues.
I guess I am supposed to be glad that they haven’t doxed me or resorted to telephone terror. Still, it’s frustrating when westsiders have hopped on the greater population density bandwagon and refuse to see our viewpoint or even meet us halfway.
This is what happens in post-Trump America when well-meaning liberals get a bee in their bonnet.
“I take this very personally,” I told the Town Council when it was my turn to speak for two and a half minutes. “Just down the street from us, a developer has purchased a single-story yellow brick house over a year ago and let it just sit. ‘Why doesn’t he tear down and build?’ my neighbors and I wondered. Now we get it! He’s waiting for you to pass this legislation, so he can build a six-family architectural monstrosity 200 feet from my front door. My property value is going to plummet, since prospective home buyers won’t want to live down the street from an architectural monstrosity.”
“That’s the purpose of the program,” explained the Town Council Chairman. “To lower housing prices so middle-income families can afford to live here.”
So much for using my home collateral as my nest egg when I retire. Cripes!
“You should be glad that we are honest enough to admit our intentions,” the Chairman lectured me, sitting up there on the podium together with the four other members of the Town Council. “When the FBI relocates to Landover, we want to get a piece of that. New workers will come streaming into the area. Why should Oxburg get shut out of a housing boom just because you don’t happen to like it?”
Money talks.
“You’ll still get top dollar for the house and the land,” my brother Tim has counseled me. “All you need to do is sell to a crooked developer who wants to build Aesop’s Pyramid on our lot.” Since ours is the biggest lot in the neighborhood, Tim has a point. Morally repugnant, but a point none-the-less.
The Music
The Swedish rap band realPfft recorded Not Nyet under dire circumstances. Fruit loops musical genius Mutte Fjutt in Uppsala, Sweden was in an antibiotic-induced fog. Acting as the band’s manager and music publisher, I was sick here in the States. No one told Kuny, who does the cover art, what we wanted.
When I heard the wav file of Not Nyet, I was deeply troubled. Still, we released it on January 12, 2023, simply to get it out there. The war in Ukraine was raging and I was feeling the pressure. An anti-war protest, the track’s musical genre is Russian hard rock. The problem is that it sounds like an East German mix from the DDR era, the vocal up front and the music way in the background. “Please remix,” I said.
Thus was born Not Nyet (Kevinski Mix), with me being “Kevinski.”
On the cover, it says Miks Kevinski in Cyrillic letters. My name “Kevin” is accentuated in blue.
The release date of Not Nyet (Kevinski Mix) is February 20, 2023.
The Lyrics
Here, there, Russian soldier everywhere!
Putin say Ukraina as a country does not exist
Tired of Sochi, Putin chooses beach resort in Odessa
Is no war, is “special military operation”
When Russian troop amass on border with Ukraine, what did western leaders think was gonna happen?
Secretary General of Communist Party Nikita Krushchev, Leonid Brezhnev and Constantin Chernenko all came from Ukraina
40-mile Russian convoy get stuck in Ukrainian mud
War is not rock & roll
Volodymyr Zelensky is first world leader outside Israel who is Jewish
Zelensky become big war hero, fighting both Russians and his own demons
When Russian warship Moskva tell defenders of Snake Island they should surrender, they say “Russian warship, go fock yourself!”
Z for Zero
I hear your balalaikas screaming like Tupolev Badger
Russian soldier commit big massacre in Bucha
Butcher of Bucha is Russian General no one has ever heard of
4,000 Amerikanskii volunteer join International Legion but most don’t speak Ukrainian
This war is very boring!
Russian babes on TikTok call Zelensky a crazy Jewish oligarch
QAnon conspiracy theory say Russia invaded Ukraine to stop top secret bioweapon laboratory set up by Biden medical adviser Anthony Fauci
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson twice visit Kyiv
Russian cosmonauts arrive at International Space Station wearing yellow and blue suits, but they insist they are not supporting Ukraine
Ukrainians use Neptune cruise missile to destroy Russian warship Moskva
Zelensky award Amerikanskii politician Nancy Pelosi with famous Ukrainian Order of Olga
War is not rock & roll
After Ukrainian attack on Crimea airfield, Russian tourists cause big traffic jam fleeing beaches in Crimea
Ukrainians use wooden decoy of HIMARS artillery rocket to panic Russians into firing Kalibr cruise missile
Putin threaten to turn off natural gas pipeline to Western Europe
Kissoffka!
Facing counter-offensive, Russian desert battlefield on Ukrainian bicycle
He is called “the late Vladimir Putin” because he never come to meeting on time
We use Iranian drone Shahed-136 to drop stinky bomb on enemy
realPfft play Russian synthesizer brand Polyvoks
This war is very boring!
Elite unit 200th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade from Murmansk get ass kicked in Kharkov. Many T-80 BVM tanks destroyed or captured. This very bad
Putin mobilizes 300,000 men to go fight in the Ukraine
Ukraine make heartbreaking video for Eurovision Song Contest
Russian officer corps calls this “holy war.” Patriarch Kirill of Russian Orthodox Church describe Ukraine as the Antichrist
Putin calls the people in Kiev Nazis
Eight million Ukrainians seek refuge in the West
Zelensky wear combat boots when he speak to American Congress
This no Nutcracker Suite!
In Moskva, patriotic Russian women sew camouflage net to help in war effort. So-called “knitting battalions” make thick socks to fight winter cold
When ammunition dump explodes, we say this is because someone is smoking cigarette
We fight enemy in Kiev, so we no need to fight them in Moskva
Not all news is bad. We use Sovtek guitar effect box Big Muff
Workers of the world, unite!
Maybe Putin annex Ukraina, but not nyet
Not nyet
The Video
Rap artist Clive Flatenbad channels his inner Russian amidst the tragic war in Ukraine.
Not Nyet video – https://youtu.be/UZe4aUaWT6Y
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