Tomorrow (Friday, October 8) is the last day to sign up for a free bus ride from NYC to DC for the “Rally to Restore Sanity” on October 30!  Sign up on the Huffington Post website!

Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon wrote this song a long time ago…

So, I’ll admit that I have an unreasoning dislike of Facebook.  I had a MySpace account fairly early on and used it in a bloggy kind of way, and I liked MySpace because it was a good way to discover new bands and generally connect with like-minded music-lovin’ people and follow people and bands I liked in an easy, noncommittal kind of way.  Then Facebook came along, and all of a sudden there were all these people asking me if I was on Facebook and offering to “friend” me, and the more they asked, the more resistant to the whole thing I became, and I still don’t have an account.  So in a way you might think I’ve cut off my own nose to spite my face, in that it would be easier to keep track of what’s going on in friends’ and family’s lives, but I honestly don’t care to follow along that closely.  I mean, I mostly don’t care to know the minutiae of people’s lives (which I realize is a little hypocritical, given that I blog and read blogs) and if people I know and love have important news that they think I should know, I’d rather they just phoned, me or e-mailed me at least.  But that’s probably giving it more thought and justification than my Facebookless status deserves—the truth is that the  pressure to join got my back up early on, which has gelled in a stubborn refusal to submit, and that’s where things stand.

So that’s my Facebook backstory, or lack thereof, and probably I was prejudiced against The Social Network, but having read a pretty interesting Vanity Fair profile of Sean Parker, I was curious to see the movie.  Which I did tonight.  Eh.  Here’s my off-the-cuff reaction:  pretty dull movie overall, the attempted yucks mostly miss the mark, Zuckerberg comes off like a savant-asshole, Parker comes off like a master-manipulator asshole, and apparently all the women of Harvard, Stanford, and various satellite colleges are psycho bitches and ho’s.  It’s a shame that what might have been an interesting story was reduced to a single-dimensional portrayal of the central players; it might have been interesting otherwise.  My verdict: “unfriend.” Barely worth a rental.

Aw jeez—I plan to leave my home state unprotected for a DAY and this is what happens. That’s right, while I’m in DC rallying for sanity (and promoting a little truthy fear), Glenn Beck (who resides one very rich town away from where I live) and freakin’ Bill O’Reilly will be “bringin’ it” to Mohegan Sun Casino.  The “Bold and Fresh Tour.”  You can’t make this stuff up.

So, plans for the Colbert/Stewart rallies continue apace!  I asked some friends if they were interested in going, and the response has been an enthusiastic YES! so far.  So the numbers grow!  Road trip! 

I think Stewart has it right—this is for the rest of us, the sane and perhaps too disengaged but generally well meaning, including those of us who think the Tea Party is a well-financed and well-organized right-wing invention (follow the money) bolstered by a media all too willing to make them seem mainstream and vox pop.  In his words:

I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

Who among us has not wanted to open their window and shout that at the top of their lungs?

Seriously, who?

Because we’re looking for those people. We’re looking for the people who think shouting is annoying, counterproductive, and terrible for your throat; who feel that the loudest voices shouldn’t be the only ones that get heard; and who believe that the only time it’s appropriate to draw a Hitler mustache on someone is when that person is actually Hitler. Or Charlie Chaplin in certain roles.

Are you one of those people? Excellent. Then we’d like you to join us in Washington, DC on October 30 — a date of no significance whatsoever — at the

Daily Show’s “Rally to Restore Sanity.”

Ours is a rally for the people who’ve been too busy to go to rallies, who actually have lives and families and jobs (or are looking for jobs) — not so much the Silent Majority as the Busy Majority. If we had to sum up the political view of our participants in a single sentence… we couldn’t. That’s sort of the point.

More… 

Looking into hotels for the Stewart/Colbert rallies (Sanity and Ironic Fear-mongering, respectively) on October 30.  DC hotels are booking up rapidly (those in my price range anyway!), so we may stay a little bit outside and Metro in.  Trying to see if we can hook Glenn up with a gig while we’re down there too—roadtrip with dual purpose! 

HuffPo is offering free buses from NYC to anyone who wants to go.

Roadtrip!

New gold, these stubbled fields, as summer goes,
and late-day slant of sun lights grassy tufts
to amber clarity. Seeds cling to stem,
but wind will tug and free the feathered ends.

We try to count the dragonflies adrift—
hundreds glide over the stone-set paths,
fly hidden labyrinths we cannot trace,
alight on walls with quick, transparent grace.

We’re stunned and slow as autumn-heavy bees,
transfigured by September’s sorcery,
dazzled as we move through spellbound fields,
bound to hardening ground, beneath curved shield

of pewter sky. Cicada’s churn and swallows dip and dive
beneath the sky now leached of summer’s bright
displays of blue. The air itself is charged,
and edged with cooler chimes, as nature shifts.

The New York Times blogs about Stephen Colbert’s in-persona testimony before Congress regarding the ongoing plight of migrant farm workers.  Excerptiness:

On the whole, the mood of the hearing alternated between the serious and the absurd. (His spoken testimony departed significantly from his prepared text, which was straightforward and earnest.)

“I certainly hope that my star power can pump this hearing all the way up to C-Span 1,” Mr. Colbert said, before explaining that the “obvious answer is for all of us to stop eating fruits and vegetables — and if you look at the recent obesity statistics you’ll see that many Americans have already started.”

But, he continued, his gastroenterologist had explained to him that fruits and vegetables are an important source of “roughage” and said that he “would like to submit a video of my colonoscopy into The Congressional Record.”

“I don’t want a tomato picked by a Mexican — I want it picked by an American, then sliced by a Guatemalan, and served by a Venezuelan in a spa where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian,” Mr. Colbert said, before turning just perceptibly more serious and talking about how difficult work as a farm worker was.

Colbert and Jon Stewart will hold rallies in DC on October 30:  The “March to Keep Fear Alive” and the “Rally to Restore Sanity.  Yes!  Go!

Catherine Wheel, “Crank,” from the album Chrome (1993).  Still sounds great.