Category: Politics

Like gardening, all politics is local.

Brawndo’s got what plants crave

idiocracyThe dialog below is from the 2006 movie, Idiocracy. But to really appreciate it, you should listen to this mp3.

The premise of the movie: Average guy (Joe) in hibernation experiment wakes up 500 years later to find out American intelligence has been dumbed down — literally transported to the shallow end of the gene pool fueled by generations of advertising and marketing.

The problem with this dystopian fantasy is that it’s too close to the truth: The number-one TV show is ‘Ow, My Balls,’ the Secretary of State is brought to you by Carl’s Jr., and the smart lawyer got into Costco’s law school because his dad pulled some strings.

The world’s food supply is also in trouble because farmers put Brawndo — a kind of sports-beverage for plants — on their crops instead of water. Joe tries to talk them out of it:

Joe: “For the last time, I’m pretty sure what’s killing the crops is this Brawndo stuff.”
Secretary of State: “But Brawndo’s got what plants crave. It’s got electrolytes.”
Attorney General (Sara Rue): “So wait a minute. What you’re saying is that you want us to put water on the crops.”
Joe: “Yes.”
Attorney General: “Water. Like out the toilet?”
Joe: “Well, I mean, it doesn’t have to be out of the toilet, but, yeah, that’s the idea.”
Secretary of State: “But Brawndo’s got what plants crave.”
Attorney General: “It’s got electrolytes.”
Joe: “Okay, look. The plants aren’t growing, so I’m pretty sure that the Brawndo’s not working. Now, I’m no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants, they grow.”
Secretary of Energy (Brendan Hill): “Well, I’ve never seen no plants grow out of no toilet.”
Secretary of State: “Hey, that’s good. You sure you ain’t the smartest guy in the world?”
Joe: “Okay, look. You wanna solve this problem. I wanna get my pardon. So why don’t we just try it, okay, and not worry about what plants crave?”
Attorney General: “Brawndo’s got what plants crave.”
Secretary of Energy: “Yeah, it’s got electrolytes.”
Joe: “What are electrolytes? Do you even know?”
Secretary of State: “It’s what they use to make Brawndo.”
Joe: “Yeah, but why do they use them to make Brawndo?”
Secretary of Defense: “‘Cause Brawndo’s got electrolytes.”

Just a word to the wise.

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Sunday music: Wonderlust King, Lela Pala Tute

Not the best cut from their latest CD, Super Taranta. But Eugene Hutz and Gogol Bordello put together a pretty good global road song here. I like the clips of gypsy musicians jamming and kids dancing from the forthcoming documentary, The Pied Piper of Hutzovina, due out in September. (View trailer.)

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So last Saturday, I tune in LiveEarth just in time to catch Madonna’s last song, the climax of at the London venue. Turns out, minutes before she had Hutz and another bandmate onstage to sing their traditional gypsy song, Lela Pala Tute. Broadcasting to hundreds of millions of people worldwide. And I missed it. Oh well. The Madonna big production number at LiveEarth wasn’t nearly as lovely as this version with Hutz singing in the backseat of a car.

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What I learned by watching LiveEarth

live earth australia logo

I’ve had LiveEarth — Al Gore’s climate crisis concert extravaganza — on in the background while blogging tonight. I’ve learned a few things:

  • Madonna plays a decent rhythm guitar.
  • Recycled tires and oil drums can be used to good effect as a stage background.
  • Kelly Clarkson has some pipes. (I had no clue she won American Idol. Maybe AI voters are smarter than I give them credit for.)
  • Red Hot Chili Peppers are, indeed, hot.
  • The Beasty Boys can still belt out Sabotage.
  • Drink enough gin and even Bon Jovi sounds pretty good.
  • Lenny Kravitz = Jimi Hendrix wannabe.
  • Bobby Kenedy would be great heading up EPA, but I already knew that.

I’m sorry I missed the Spinal Tap set featuring a performance of Stonehedge.

It’s easy to dismiss efforts such as these as all hype. But I don’t. I see the names of kids (mostly kids, I guess) scrolling across the screen who at least took the time to visit the LiveEarth website and took the LiveEarth pledge, and I’m encouraged. And I recall a similar concert more than 20 years ago, just about this time of year.

On July 13. 1985, Bob Geldof and Midge Ure’s LiveAid concert reached 1.5 billion people worldwide to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia.

I was a wired gardener back then, too. I remember weeding and listening along with the rest of the world on my cassette player/FM radio strapped to my belt, and realizing (while Phil Collins was singing “I can feel it coming in the air tonight … “) that the world had changed.

Is there still hunger in Ethiopia? You bet. But while I’m no fan of unfettered globalization, I’m glad that word travels faster and farther than it did just a generation ago. We’ve still got some work to do to make sure that that word is truth. But I, for one, am hopeful.

Look for Al to declare in October or November.

Updated/bonus track: So they could get a venue on every continent, LiveEarth included a pre-recorded performance by Nunatak — a garage band of British researchers in Antarctica. (Do they have garages in Antarctica?) They’re not bad, really — especially when you consider how cold their hands must be.

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Supertheory Of Supereverything

Super TarantaAcoustic version of a (very subversive) song from the gypsy punks’ forthcoming release (July 10) Super Taranta. String theory, religion and schizophrenia as only Gogol Bordello can do.

Approximate lyrics from mp3 of studio version (they’re different in live YouTube):

From the maelstrom of the knowledge
Into labyrinth of doubt
Frozen underground ocean
Melting milking on my mind
Kill me, everything theory
Without Nazi uniformity

Opening song from Bonaroo Festival last weekend.

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