Recorded 5.31.07 by Steve Dupont and released via RSS by special arrangement with The Obtuse Angle Corporation.

This is actually the third time.

Clearly, if Podcast Gods exist, they don't want this to happen.

Yet I'm doing it anyway. Trying, that is.

Rest assured though, I will continue THE QUEST -- on a different vessel.

You are all invited to come aboard that vessel.

Juicy beverages will be furnished.

15.7 MB / 23 min. Virtually all our technology at TOA Corp fails at once. DS-2. Camera. Computer. Not to mention my brain. Much I COULD talk about, but now that I’m getting my blog on – over at The Nervous Breakdown, I am not as motivated to use this medium for text communication. As Future Steve will likely tell you, at some point, detailed show notes can actually undermine the effectiveness and spontaneity of the audio. Or so he claims. Personally, I just think he’s a lazy bastard. COMING SOON (really, seriously): the Death Card Contest!

23.4 MB / 15 min. A chat with fellow Bonesman, Eric Strauss, featuring music by Mr. Strauss and Mateo Kates, and edited by Eric Strauss. COMING SOON: the Death Card Contest!

26.3 MB / 38 min. Apologies for the gap between episodes, which is about the longest since the podcast started ALMOST TWO YEARS AGO. Wow. Been extraordinarily busy juggling Steve Dupont Corp, TOA Corp and Skull and Bones Publishing business, in addition to new ventures such as The Nervous Breakdown. Topics: Girl Scout Cookies. Demons. The uncooperative federal government. The brainwashing power of TV. Rudy Giuliani a 9/11 hero? Other stuff. COMING SOON: the Death Card Contest.

20.1 MB / 29 min. Classic rock and talk from the Horse and Carriage Radio Network. Family Guy. Tivo Corp. Multiple messages from Future Steve. Government control of media. The gal behind the counter there. A very obtuse reference to the quote-unquote BLOGZINE I now contribute to, The Nervous Breakdown. Star Wars. Precision Decisions. More.

11.9 MB / 13 min. Featuring voices and music by Eric and Cohry.

17 MB / 24 min. Another roving episode in which I visit an Asian grocery and conduct surveillance from my vehicle. Good times.

In other news, I'd like to offer a huge public congratulations to fellow author and podcaster extraordinaire, J.C. Hutchins of 7th Son fame. He was featured along with several other emerging writers in a recent New York Times article, and deservedly so.

Both The Obtuse Angle Corporation and the Steve Dupont Corporation have enjoyed pleasant diplomatic relations with 7th Son Corporation’s Ministry of Propaganda, in fact, an upcoming podcast of 7th Son will include a special PRIZE PACK GIVEAWAY for my novel, Therein Lies the Problem. So, if you’re not already subscribed, now’s the time people!

Finally, stay tuned to The Obtuse Angle for an upcoming (perhaps the next) episode co-hosted by Eric and Cohry, former employees of the now-defunct Vox Monitor Corporation.

Have a day,

Steve

If you love the human race, you will share this with as many people as you can.

My appearance on the local affiliate's Good Day Alabama show, in which I discuss the novel, Therein Lies the Problem, as well as my recent bout with Scurvy. The video is also available on YouTube, so please feel free to distribute the link.

17.4 MB / 25 min. Walking round the pond observing a possible serial killer while making other observations and likely being observed, as well. Guerilla cell phone marketing, math problems, Jimmy Carter, cement trucks, bedraggled and more.

Today is Presidents Day here in the U.S. (this is Present Steve talking to you now), and so I would like to take this opportunity to shine a proverbial spotlight on the hypocrisy of our current national holiday system (granted, not everyone gets the day off on Presidents Day – me, for example – but nevertheless …).

My BEEF is this: We have Presidents Day to pay homage to the service of past presidents. Mainly the Founding Father types – Washington and Jefferson being the two most invoked by current politicians blowing hot air into the media’s whorish microphones. We have Memorial Day to remember the men and women who served in our military and purchased farmland so our children can plant their seeds of freedom and whatnot. We have July 4 to celebrate our independence from the Big Bad British Empire (BBBE). We have Labor Day for no apparent reason other than to give families one last summer hurrah at the beach before school starts again. Then we have a number of additional holidays primarily recognized by bankers and government employees, such as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Flag Day and Veteran’s Day.

AND YET, neither our politicians in Washington nor at the individual state level find it appropriate to designate ONE DAY EVERY TWO YEARS for a National Election Day.

This, of course, stands in blatant contradiction to THE RHETORIC, namely that our right to vote is the backbone of democracy – a means of exercising our freedom, and so on. Granting an election day holiday would certainly make it easier to be a good patriotic citizen, and without question result in higher voter turnout. I mean, is this a NO BRAINER, or what?

WHAT, apparently.

The question is: WHY?

One can only assume that a significant number of politicians feel it wouldn’t be in their best interest for THE OTHER HALF of the population to vote. Pun intended, yes, but it also refers to the actual statistics. In the 2000 presidential election, for example – arguably the most important election in our country’s history – turnout was 51.3 percent. And, keep in mind, that’s a percentage of REGISTERED VOTERS. I’m not going to do the math, but we can safely assume that well under half of the total population is going to the polls.

So, again, who in society would benefit most from an election day holiday? The corporate executive, who can easily push his meetings back to 10 am? Or the employee of the slaughter house, who has to be clocked in and slicing chicken gizzards by 7 am or else he’s docked pay? Hmmm … okay, so clearly the lower class, working class folks will be the most likely to vote, if they were not in the habit of voting before …

Low wage, low skill workers are who we’re talking about, here. And if I’m not mistaken, these are the types of jobs that have been shifting in recent years – either to illegal immigrants or nations overseas. China, for example. In other words, many of these “working class� people have been laid off, which probably makes them rather unhappy with their elected officials. More likely to vote for a challenger, as opposed to an incumbent.

So, by this logic, it would not seem a partisan issue, as many democrats in particular would attest, but another classic example of the ever-rising dominance of corporations over public policy.

Corporations give money to politicians who, in turn, grease the rails for outsourcing low wage jobs (while promising they’ll help keep jobs at home). The white collar people are happy, because they have cushy jobs and their 401Ks are growing nicely. So they tend to vote for incumbents – democrat, republican or otherwise. So everyone’s happy.

NOT.

Well, those in the lower tax brackets will always have the military, I suppose. After all, it seems WAR will continue to be a growth industry for decades to come …

A special thanks to Conrad Slater and Spainful Films for the jazzy production on this.

34.1 MB / 48 min. In this episode, proudly sponsored by Skull & Bones Publishing, it is only apropos that we discuss various forms of skullduggery and, in fact, predict specific future attempts of skullduggery on the part of ______.

Now, in the spirit of continuing to fulfill my promise to be all current and relevant and whatnot, some news of the day, blogstyle:

We have two stories dominating the news this week: Iran and Obama.

Obama, as in Barack Obama, Illinois senator and the latest Democrat to announce his candidacy for president. While I am hesitant to overhype an already-overhyped story, this news is extraordinarily exciting to me. In my opinion, Obama may very well be the ONLY politician who can rescue our nation from its current partisan morass (my only complaint is that he’s not running as an Independent). Moreover, because he has spent very little time in Washington, I am hopeful that he can resist the corrupting influence of Big Business on U.S. policy, both foreign and domestic, and truly do what Bush promised he would do way back in the 2000 campaign: restore integrity to the office of the president (no joke, W said that!).

In other words, and again, at risk of putting all my proverbial eggs in one basket, I think Barack Obama may be our ONLY HOPE. That is why I plan to give him my full support as he wages his 2008 campaign.

Next up, Iran. If you indeed live in America and have been paying any attention to the news in recent weeks, you have surely noticed a significant ratcheting-up of the rhetoric over Iran and its suspected meddling in Iraq. And if you have any remaining doubt as to the blatant propagandizing on TV news specifically, let me just clear that up for you right now.

This is how it works: The “Pentagon� or “The White House� or “The State Department� issues a press release to the news media. The headline might be something like, 170 U.S. COMBAT DEATHS LINKED TO IRAN. The story (notice the choice of words) goes on to explain how roadside bombs used to attack American forces have been traced to Iran, yada yada. Okay, so then the TV producers gather up some B-roll (stock video) from Iraq, cars burning in the street and whatnot, and they get someone to ostensibly retype the press release. This text is then fed into the teleprompter and your most trusted news personality looks into the camera and reads it.

Case in point, I turn on the TV in my Memphis hotel room on Sunday morning (we took the boy to Graceland, he being a huge Elvis fan already) and flipping around the dial I stopped on all the major cable networks for about 10 seconds apiece. ALL WERE TALKING ABOUT IRAN.

On one hand, sure, it makes perfect sense that Iran would be trying to further destabilize Iraq and drive the U.S. out of there. In fact, it seems likely they’ve been involved since the beginning of the war. It’s just the timing that seems a bit coincidental, seeing as though we’re about to send 20-some-odd thousand more troops into the fray ...

On the other hand, back in 2002 it made perfect sense that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam intended to sell them to terrorists. Because that’s what the government/media was telling us, and they seemed pretty sure of themselves.

So is this a case of the little boy crying wolf? Or is it the truth?

I just don’t know what to believe anymore.

12 MB / 17 min. This is a terrible episode, but at least it’s short. Basically I’m in the car – this is, like, November of last year – and there’s lots of annoying wind noise and Future Steve calls in a few times and he’s really annoying. So there you go.

Let’s blog a little, shall we? Talk about some CURRENT events, eh?

The Super Bowl just happened, and I always take in interest both in the game itself and the commercials, so I’m going to talk about that. More so the commercials than the game, however. The Colts won the game 28-17 and although I predicted (to myself) a 27-17 Colts victory, I have bubkiss to show for it. It was a decent game, made all the more interesting by a monsoon-like rain that made the ball quite slippery and difficult to handle. So much so, that one of my cohorts at the party I attended exclaimed “FUMBLE!!!� on nearly every play from scrimmage.

Scrimmage is a peculiar word, isn’t it? Let’s look that up:

1 a: a minor battle : skirmish b: a confused fight : scuffle 2 a: the interplay between two football teams that begins with the snap of the ball and continues until the ball is dead b: practice play (as in football or basketball) between two squads

My general impression of the commercials was that they sucked (although I missed a lot of them, much of the time being spent watching my son, and trying to keep him from swallowing things he wasn’t supposed to swallow). Which, on one hand is surprising, because you’d think these companies would want to get the biggest bang for their millions of bucks (they said it was $2.6 Million for a 30-sec. spot this year – so including production you’re looking at $3 Million, easy). On the other hand, having been in the advertising industry for some years, I know the general rule of thumb. The more money being spent on the campaign/spot, the more high-level executive types want to get involved. In my experience, these people tend to have no creative vision whatsoever, so what you end up with is watered-down, lowest-common-denominator GARBAGE.

I always think it’s sad when a no-name company puts out a cheap, amateurish ad in hopes of getting noticed. This year is was some company peddling “Sales Leads.� What the hell does that mean, anyway? Like, the Glengarry leads? The spot was just horrible. People smiling while polishing their sports cars, etc., to show you how successful the “Sales Leads� made them. But, again, you really have to feel sorry for these people. They’re hacks, with bad taste in advertising.

Now, it’s the BIG BOYS for whom there’s really no excuse. Thank god Pepsi stayed on the sidelines, having stunk the place up for as long as I can remember. Although, stepping into the void this year was Chevrolet, with their ghastly montage of crap-ass songs from different musical genres sung poorly, in some cases by loser B-celebrities like ... well, I didn’t know who any of those damned people were. You had muscle car dude, surfer dude, hip hop dude, NASCAR dude. I understand what they’re trying to get across – that Chevy has vehicles for every walk of life – but come on, guys. That commercial made me want to smash something with a baseball bat. A Chevy, for example.

Then you have the “Play it Safers� who stuck to their usual playbooks. Budweiser with sophomoric physical gags – namely people getting hit in the face and/or balls with something – and GoDaddy.com with gratuitous titties.

In the good category, my comedy award goes to Sierra Mist. Shit, that’s Pepsi, isn’t it? Well, whatever. The “Combover� ad was really funny, mainly because both guys who starred in the ad are really funny character actors. Weren’t they both on Ed? Remember the show Ed, about the guy who owned a bowling alley? Pretty funny.

Finally, my Best in Show goes to Coke for the “Video Game� ad, which was a parody of Grand Theft Auto where the character goes around helping everybody and doling out Cokes instead of shooting them. Very clever. Slightly humorous, and it even made you feel kind of warm and fuzzy inside. Maybe not quite as anthemic, but much better overall than “I’d like to give the world a Coke� or “Coke is it.�

So no more football until August, then.

Bollocks.

33.5 MB / 48 min. At time of show notes writing I honestly can’t remember the beginning of this episode, which has been edited slothfully by the Obtuse Angle Corporation’s editing team. Well over a week it’s taken, but I must say I’m pleased with the ending, if nothing else.

I’m resolved to write more in this area down here. See, that part above might have been passed off as show notes, like we’ve been doing recently. But really it’s a blog, is my point, so I should engage in blogging. They have a blog going at Skull and Bones Publishing by the way, not sure what those guys are up to, but I’d venture to say it involves fighting Scurvy. With vigor.

More. More. I know the sign language for More. It’s made like this [NEED LINK] [THERE IS NO LINK]. Shit. You mean I have to use more words? Well, it’s made by touching all the fingers together at a point, as if around a tiny globe, and tapping the fingers together twice consecutively. Does that make sense? Speaking of globes, specifically events that have taken place on the globe, have you heard of the Port Chicago disaster? 1945, a munitions ship explodes in California, killing the entire crew, who, just so happened to be 100% black. AND, most intriguingly, some scholars now believe the explosion was caused by a nuclear device. Which would have made it the first nuke ever tested by Uncle Sam. Anyway, it’s buried inside 12+ hours of material on the 911Sychronicity podcast entitled Excitement Begets Energy and The Benefits of Under-Standing Your Square Roots. As with every other episode I’ve listened to, it’s a rousing mindfuck for sure. That’s blogging, see. Mixing primary and secondary sources across reality platforms. I mean, you do more than just tell about your day and stuff.

Like earlier today when I thought to myself, and then said aloud immediately after: “I’d like to engage in the chewing of gum now.�

Right, so the episode mentions something about Mammoth’s Blood. That’s right, I talk all about the Mammoth Shooting Preserve I want to establish and fail to see the Jurassic Parkian reference until quite a bit later in the dialogue. Dialogue? Myself and myself, I guess you could say. Plus, probably a couple more myself(s) for good measure.

Yeah, so maybe the ending isn’t even good, I don’t know. One simply cannot judge his own media immediately. Say that three times fast. Anecdotally, at least, my opinion is that the show built momentum and energy as it went along, then imploded at the end. I can tell, the editing team wanted it to implode and I think it did.

Metaphorically speaking, of course. So what else is going on around the Obtuse Angle Corporation? Well, we had some Japanese people by the other day. Not sure where they were from. Someone decided it would be appropriate to serve them Hawaiian food. Maybe it’s just me, but I think that’s IN-appropriate.

You don’t want to EX-pire. You want to INs-pire!

Yeah, the little S really f--ks that up, doesn’t it?

SHIT.

It doesn’t? Cause it does sound quite nice out of the yapper, doesn’t it? Seriously though, there’s no other phrase like that on the Internets? I mean, seriously though. Nobody famous said that? I’m not saying that makes me famous, it’s just sorta cool:)

24 MB / 35 min. The Obtuse Angle is proud to host Eric Strauss’ triumphant, and drunken, return to podcasting. In fact, just about every element of this show was created, or participated in, by the Vox Monitor veteran himself. Mr. Strauss’ debut literary foray, Gospel of the Pantheon, is currently available here for a bargain basement price. Seriously, the book is phenomenal. You should buy it. Gimme some feedback at 206.350.0790, on the comment board or at obtuseangle@stevedupont.com. Have a day.

30.8 MB / 45 min. Yes, I am still here. No, the Obtuse Angle Corporation has not gone out of business. What can I say, the holidays took a toll. Happy New Year and whatnot. In this first episode of 2007: A simple guide to world domination. Peanuts. Warnings from the future. Wig man. More stuff. Just listen for chrissakes. Intro by The Fabrications.

23.3 MB / 34 min. All I want to do is get some business done on behalf of the Corporation. Is that so goddamned much to ask? Call 206.350.0790. Post a comment. Have a day. Intro by Ferg of AirFerg.

33.9 MB / 49 min. Kudos to Fabien. European coffee. The art of political mudslinging. What the fuck is that beep? Technical difficulties. Vonnegut’s bag of tricks. Self censorship. Relations with Ms. Primrose’s mother. Fat shoelaces. The _______ Corporation. Time upside down. Open call for creative endeavors. Amusing the child. Taking things bird by bird. Swallowing horse pills. Double Dickel. Choking a Christmas goose. An appeal to Carlos Bird. More carcass burning. And a very intriguing 9/11 tidbit. Check it out for yourself here. Call 206.350.0790. Post a comment. Have a day. Intro by Shelley and Ferg of AirFerg.