unfair fighting

I know I've been rambling a lot about my dreams lately, and I apologize. I have no intention of turning this into cotton's hippie dream journal, but it's rare enough that I remember my dreams, even rarer when I wake up and just say "what the fuck was that about?" Case in point: Last night I had a dream that I was going around setting people up on blind dates...with fast food mascots. Invariably, they were pissed and got into fistfights with the mascots. I was filming it and would pop out at the end of the fight to tell them they were on candid camera or whatever, and oddly avoiding a beating of my own. There was Hamburglar, Ronald McDonald, Jack in the box, etc... I guess I should be thankful that the Grimace didn't make any appearances, but something tells me that he's rooted far deeper in my subconscious and won't reveal himself until I completely snap at a crying child in a movie theater or something. It should also be mentioned that this was just one facet of a dream which also involved several fictional TV characters (sigh), and a lengthy chase by drug-crazed Hell's Angels across an amusement park. I don't think I could make something up like this if I tried, though i bet watching It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World the other night probably had some sort of zany contribution. So yeah, I'm still sorta getting over that...
There's an interesting article over at the Huffington Post (i know, I know...) about Starbucks switching to 10% recycled cups and cup sleeves in an effort to preserve paper goods. Just by soing this 5.5 lbs of recyclable paper is going to be sent to a landfill. Which means if they upped it to 50% there'd be 27.5 million tons saved. It's so easy to forget how much of an impact even the slightest chance in corporate consumerism can have on conservation efforts and environmental concerns. I'm thinking especially about the article in the Guardian a few years ago about howMcDonald's, just by including apples in happy meals, affects everything from the global price to availability of certain kinds of apple and the sustainablility of small-scale growers. That's terrifying to me. Can you think of a bar that recycles? I can't. and I spend a pretty healthy (erm...) amount of time in bars. This might be an east coast thing, but it's so annoying to think of how little effort it would take to introduce a recycling program in the places that seem to go through the most amount of glass.
In other news, the Washington Post creeps back ever-so-slightly into my good graces with a great op-ed (seriously, sending Condi over there to negotiate a settlement while we're rush-delivering weapons to one side of the conflict is the most insane thing I 've ever heard. I'm willing to bet this is the work of a jackass think tank or the New Century assholes.
Oh, adn Arlen Specter's still just itching to show you he's not afraid to cross party lines and standup to the president (and quietly give up when the president offers an airtight excuse like "because I felt like it).

So anyway, who doesn't like Pulp? Jarvis Cocker (along with Craig finn) might be the greatest songwriter since Tom Waits went totally batshit a few years ago. It looks like they've broken up again, which kills me because I never was fortunate enough to see them live. These recordings (from La Route du Rock on August 8, 2001) only further convince me of this. Two of these tracks are from what is easily my favorite Pulp album (though one that is generally not as well liked) and the third is from their last one, which also has the greatest video ever made. This version of "A Little soul" has a great slide guitar that isn't on the album version, and I can only assume it's being played by Richard Hawley. So yeah, here's some pulp.

"A Little Soul" (live) - Pulp
"Help the Aged" (live) - Pulp
"Bad Cover Version" (live) - Pulp

Buy This is Hardcore and We Love Life here and here, respectively.

in other news, anyone near Philly who's a fan of Tom Goes to the Mayor should totally head over to the Franklin Institute on friday. Personally, I think they're insane, but that won't stop me from checking out whatever they've got planned for an aquarium.