idle hands, idle minds

Though it might be considered "wasteful" or even "coming on too strong" to post two posts in as many days, sometimes, I just can't help myself. I'm ackin' like an animal. Now here's my scandal:



Bob Herbert writes in "Even Worse for Young Workers" (NYT 2/28) about the effect of the recession on the current under-30 crowd ("millenials", children of "baby boomers", somewhat younger than GenX, etc). Times Are Tuff. (Couldn't tell ya the relevant Roman Numeral but let's start off @ III)

"According to a report by researchers. . . : 'While young college graduates have fared the best in maintaining some type of employment, a growing fraction of them are becoming mal-employed, holding jobs in occupations that do not require much schooling beyond high school, often displacing their less-educated peers.' "

I'm gonna have to start using That phrase more often.

That's certainly not the only, or nearly the most important point of the article, it's just one that stuck out for me due to my White Privilege and sense of related Entitlement. It's still Tuffer for everybody else, clearly.

Readers drill home the unignorably, shockingly obvious:

"The young college-educated in Dallas [k.c.: "didn't dallasftworth have a reputation as an up-and-up place to live'n'work?"] have labeled this the 'gig-economy', so my niece tells me. They are living from one temp job to the next, hoping to make the rent and buy food for the month, never mind EVER hoping to purchase a luxury such as health insurance.

Inevitably, an injury sent her to the ER with a resulting bill she says she will be paying for the rest of her life, along with her student loans. It's obvious that this generation will not be buying up any of these vacant foreclosed homes anytime soon."

And it's worse than a greek tragedy that health care has become a Luxury. This is absolutely 100% the mindset of many under-30s like myself. You rarely, if ever, wonder why you don't have health care. That's de rigeur. It's unquestioned, understood. If there's one thing people should be "entitled to", it's affordable health care.

Us youngins don't think to talk about this issue so much now, exactly because we are cutting throats looking for pennies, while benefitting from the general good health conferred by Youth.

But in 10 years when the threats of cancer and diabetis and heart disease and all that other scheidt becomes impossible to ignore, then, I believe this health care crisis will surpass even the fever pitch of the current economic crisis. Not only will people not be able to find gainful unemployment, but they'll also be Physically Dying.

As I see it, the only reasonable solution is to KILL YOURSELF BEFORE AGE 30.

A few days previous, our favourite newspaper-of-record had run another titillating piece by Patricia Cohen entitled "In Tough Times, Humanities Must Justify Worth." I'm sure you can glean what that one's about. There's some good discussion on the pitfall-ridden dichotomy of "Vocational Training" (i.e., trade schools, certificate programs, job-oriented, woebegone Community Colleges) vs "Traditional, University Liberal Arts Education."

I agree that this dichotomy is harmful to everyone in the damn country. The Liberal Arts argument goes that the vaunted "critical thinking/writing" skills are vaunted for the damn good reason of creating a well-roundedly educated and mature electorate. But these degrees aren't job-oriented. And most people who get these degrees are privileged enough that they don't really need a job-oriented degree anyway.

The Job-oriented side doesn't even really NEED an argument: they see a real need (real jobs) and fulfill that need (educating students FOR those jobs.)

So is anyone actually saying that this "Niche" Education does not a well-rounded, rationally-thinking populace make???

Well...that is a terribly black-and-white thing to say, but you know people do love their stereotypes'n'snap judgements. ("heuristics?") I've had the ridiculously unique and valuable opportunity to be privy to both of the aforementioned worlds; have had the reassuring pleasure of meeting people from the working-class "vocational route" who were 6,000,000 times Smrtr than people from the (Un!)Getawaywithably Bourgeois Liberal Arts route.

I do argue that incorporating Moar Humanities into Vocational Programs is definitely not gonna HURT anyone's education, however, it damnsure will hurt their damn pocketbook. WHAT A WORLD!

I have a problem with the term "middle class". I think I've mentioned this before. When you hear public figures speak of "the middle class", they're really actually probably talking about "the working class." I think we just need to throw out the "middle class" term, call a duck a duck, and get back to using the terms "working class" and "bourgeoisie." Then again, I AM Kenneth Classwar. Go figure.

Commenter Phil Balla puts it nicely:

"As you ... note the excruciating damage of our bankrupt economy for so many, Patricia Cohen’s column stressed the squeeze...on the traditional humanities, as if such courses in our colleges and universities scarcely had relevance anymore, given the severe hurt of our economic downturn. But many of the “comments” turned market realism around and pinned greater blame on our MBA culture: a wasteland...of historically imbecilic and amoral specialists.

"We don’t have to divide schools into vo tech and other professional programs on one hand, and the flowers of humanism on the other. We could instead have a program to combine them – apprenticeships that give experience with all these companies, foundations, NGOs, charities, and other organizations, along with classroom activities that balance out the practical with deeper background reading, and wider writing exercises for wider connections, personal and multidisciplinary."

[FWIW (good god, those feminist blogs I read really like their acronyms and intranets shorthand), there's also an article in this week's Time about "boomerang kids" (moving back with parents during Tuff Econ Times.) The article is not that great, but it points out how "boomerang kids" are not just the domain of "Emerging Adults" (18 - 2?) anymore, but, due to The Horrendous Economy, is being extended into the 30s and 40s. Boomerang Grandkids, son.

(As You can see, I'm of the mind that linking as many things as possible might increase readership of the SIBHoD. Really I don't know a damnthing about Internets Traffic.) ]

TIMES MIGHT BE TUFF IF.... merely blogging about Health Care (and especially Libido!) is considered decadently extravagant! And actually getting these "needs met" is even worse!

OF COURSE the only Action we're getting is when we're getting Raped Up The Ass from Emergency Room Medical Expenses! I don't have time to talk about it, I have to spend all day cutting throats to find a job I'm vastly overqualified for!

Remind me, again, WHY did I stop drinking? Because the HANGOVERS made me feel bad??!

Oh yeah. Before I forget. Gotta cram as much Economic Woe in here as possible: I would like to give Big Ups to yet another guy I know who just lost his job. Layoffs, baby. Mostly everyone I know around here is underemployed at best, including myself. Many people are unemployed, some getting unemployment checks, and some Not. I know people whose primary source of income is online gambling. Jesus Fucking Christ, What a World. It devours the youth. Hell, it's devouring everyone, young, old, and in-between. Unless your surname rhymes with "Blernsteim."

Are you beginning to understand why I str8-up don't TRUST happy-go-lucky and bubbly people? If you have any sensory or intellective faculties and are even 1% aware of the world around you, you cannot possibly be a super-happy person! Kill Yourself! NOW!

If you need a little "encouragement", just read the comment thread to Herbert's article.

YOU KNOW YOU MIGHT BE IN MICHIGAN IF... somebody is wearing a goddam SWEATER that says "UP NORTH."

It's weird being the only known specimen of Your Species. Take me, for example. I don't think it's fun to hang out in large, noisy, chaotic rooms filled with screaming, drunken, violent barbarians. It's because of that (not to mention the fact that, being a Different Species, I'm Biologically Unable!) that I will never reproduce.



Our Esteemed Queer Male Feminist Blogger (heh, I originally wrote "blooger" on mistake) Figleaf has just written a purty good new post that screamed out "link me! link me!"

Figleaf was inspired by an article by Ezra Klein which describes the maladjusted luv-life of a recently laid-off investment banker who feels completely emasculated after he no longer has the means to maintain the same standard of spending he'd lavished on his ladyfriend when he was rakin' in the Large.

Figleaf astutes notes:

You see that effect in a lot of guys: not just thinking that *being* "worthy" is the key to "getting" women but actually taking themselves *out* of consideration when they don't see themselves as worthy enough to "deserve" a partner. Putting yourself in because you think money makes you attractive, and taking yourself out because you think not having it makes you unattractive, is kind of leaving, you know, actual women's opinions about whether or not they think you're attractive out of the equation. Which is pretty self-destructive but also awfully, well, patriarchal.

You don't see this only in finance-managing, east-coast douchebags, but even in my home environs. Which has been hit especially hard by The Recession (which I've heard described as "The Great Depression II"), just in case that wasn't clear from the Huge Speech I gave a little while ago.

Hard-working Everyday Joes are feeling the financial strain worse than ever, and for some, it certainly does affect their Sense of Masculinity. Masculinity, for better and worse, is a big part of many guys' Wholesale IDENTITY. A man without a gainful job can't support himself, and he sure as hell can't afford as many meals at Fancy Restaurants anymore. So he worries, alone, privately, very evolpsych thoughts: "What kind of woman would want anything to do with a man who's not a Solid Provider?"

There's some sexism going on here in that he's so worried about himself that it never occurs to him that women are affected by the recessional shitstorm as well, and that they might possibly understand how someone can't "make it rain" every night, because they're facing the same problems themselves. As Figleaf points out, Men's Obsession over money completely ignores any sort of Thought/Agency/Decision-making on the part of women.

But men don't necessary do all this sexism in ill-will, or even consciously. This is just how people are Raised, son.

Oh yeah. Figleaf had another great quote on That point:

Semi-related aside: There's a larger point to this... I'm... pretty sure most women don't see men mostly as "walking wallets" but that's how a lot of men are indoctrinated to think women see them. I'm similarly sure most men don't see women mainly as "life support for pussies" but that's how women are indoctrinated to think men see them....I think a lot of the resulting assumptions interfere with both inter-gender communication *and* personal decision making.

Jeez. Why don't I just approach Figleaf to write the SIBHoD.


Your song of the day is "Mourning The Death Of Aase" by everyone's favourite true nerdy norwegian pseudo-blackmetallers IN THE WOODS... (ps opeth totally ripped this song off with their song "epilogue" LUGAF)



Your Second Song O The Day is "The 3rd World" by Immortal Technique:



It's kind of interesting that he says "you might have a black president but he's useless, because he does not control the economy, stupid!"

I will be eagerly awaiting IT's new work and what he has to say about Obama, and The Recession.

Your Unsolicited Recession-Proof Advice of the Day is: Go to school to become a NURSE.

Allright. I got most of the Bathwater out here. You goan haffa wait a lil fo nex sibhod suckaz.

Have a saturday that is not excruciating or dehumanizing.

gettin' Reiched-out

i. calling women "cumdumpsters" makes them irresistibly attracted to you







Cool, uh?


WHA WHA WHAAAAT???!!!




So, The Oscars.

Mickey Rourke got robbed. sean penn does not need 2 oscars.

danny boyle still has no penis.

SLUMDAWG BAUDRILLIANAIRE

I repeat what I just said about danny bowel. I will never forgive this idiot for making gay movies like "28 days/weeks later", "a life less ordinary", and "milions." The guy's a collossal poof. Did you even see his hair?

"Trainspotting" was ok, but it doesn't deserve the cult following. "Slumdog" was better, if only because it didn't seem like "typical boyle". I dunno. It was watchable for 2 whole hours, and I liked the main character. The "love story" aspect was cheezy, but I am a sucker for that kinda stuff sometimes. So some poor idiot liked some dumb girl. Good for him. He's a 20-million rupeeaire. Even better for him!

Did it deserve so many Oscars? No. Was it better than "The Wrestler"? No. Was it better than I expected? Yes.

I think I'm pretty safe as far as not getting fired, praise the lawd.

Politics of the workplace. It's a funny thing. Every place has their own perspective on "seniority", "promotions", and "qualifications." Sometimes education and no experience can trump ("pwn") years of demonstrated successful experience, if there's no diploma to back that experience. This is Stupid Raw-Rawng.

It's different everywhere you go, though. Still, I'm tempted to get the Easiest MBA just to use that as a damn bargaining chip. It's hard finding that happy medium between "Least Selective University" and "Str8-up Diploma Mill", though. I don't actually want to work for it. You think I actually CARE about business at ALL? I just care about making enough money to live'n'pull!

Yeah, I like talking about Politics and Economics, but my heart will always be closest to the Libidinal. That's just the way this kid was rigged.

Have you ever smelled like curry even though you haven't eaten curry in a week? Fucking Slumdog!

I like writing the SIBHoD. If someone held a gun to my head and said "stop writing the SIBHoD", I'd say "shoot me now. put me out of my misery." I write so goddam much because I like doing it, goddam it.

It can take a while for important realizations to dawn on us. Like: I'm one of those kids that was simply "rigged" not to be able to drink. Drinking absolutely KILLS any productiveness for me - even if it's just one Avg Bar Night per week. So I'd rather be stone-cold sober and angry and somewhat useful, than hungover and really angry and really useless. I'm always Angry. Get used to it. That's another reason I write the SIBHoD so goddam much.

"Why are you so angry, Classwar? You've got it MADE! You're not a goddam Slumdog! You're just another fat, privileged white amerikkkan who does nothing but bitch, bitch, bitch!"

See. This is why I don't even TALK to people.

You wouldn't be able to tell this from the SIBHoD, but when I do talk to people, I'm generally very friendly and agreeable. I don't talk about sex, money, religion, or politics exactly because I don't like arguing. That's yet another reason I write the SIBHoD so much. I'd rather have chillaxed, agreeable conversations than fucking arguments all the time. I save teh arguments 4 teh intranets.

It's been forever since I saw a good concert. I'd like to see Animal Collective in April (May?) but I wouldn't be surprised if it's already sold-out. Plus the place will be ABSOLUTELY TEEMING with EXCRUCIATING HIPSTERS. Of that there is no doubt. That's enough to make me not want to see Animal Collective.

I wouldn't be 100% against starting a band, but the people would HAVE to hate people AND hate bands/music as much as I do, and These are really tuff criteria for potential bandmates to fulfill. So I'm more than happy with the Solo Project setup, other than I can't play drums and guitar at the same time, and all the drum machines I've worked with are really annoying.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

I SHOULD TOTALLY CLONE MYSELF.

That would be the perfect solution for this die-hard narcissist. I'd Love to clone myself. I'd love to make a woman-version of myself and then marry myself. That would be My Ideal.

So some news piece was talking about how unemployment was gonna continue to increase throughout 2009. Big surprise, there. Commentary: This sucks. Even if your job totally sucks balls, being able to provide for yourself gives you a real sense of responsibility and accomplishment. Take that away, and you've got absolutely nothin'. You should just kill yourself.

People think Greg House M.D. is such a curmudgeon and a prickly pear. But the fact of the matter is, he's a world-renowned M.D. who makes $HITLOAD$ of MONAY. You can't take that away from him. If he were a real person who actually existed, I mean.

I don't know if this is a testimony to the generative nature of human language, or to the undying awesomeness of the human spirit (not guessing the latter), but it is amazing that humans have not exhausted their sense of humour. Many people manage to be Funny at least part of every day. Although, to be fair, they Are recycling a lot of jokes in there. But still. Recycled jokes are so much better than but-but-but "political" arguments and other verbal Jockeying.





ii. nelson muntz: "stop labeling yourself! stop labeling yourself!" WHACK! WHACK!

We've all seen 'em: those lame-ass, hand-wringing AFC/NGT's who call themselves "Hopeless Romantics." These guys need to go beat-off in the corner for the rest of their lives and die alone just like they've always feared. Idiots. Fucknecks. This is yet another example of things you really don't want to refer-to-yourself-as. Like "A feminist." or "AN artist". or "A social commentator". or "A Political blogger."

Labels are gay, and they don't magically become less gay when we "take the initiative" of applying them to our own selves.

iii. "i got a mean case of the ol' bloodfarts today"

VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA

I'm ashamed to say I was too lazy to see this at the theatre.

I think I gave it 1.6 thumbs up, adjusting for the face that I enjoy Woody Allen's movies more than other people's movies. It wasn't his Greatest Movie Ever, but it was absolutely much better than "Scoop". It reminded me, structurally and thematically, of Husbands and Wives, (which I liked better, of course), but more zany and "sunny". This was certainly aided by the Geographic Setting. I was pleasantly surprised at how well The Woody Aesthetic meshes with places other than New York City, and I did enjoy the Spain location better than the London location of his previous several movies.

You can go crazy finding similiarities between this one and his other works - the characters are very much "typical" Allen, but there is a Freshness and Spontaneity and Reaffirmation of Purpose here that I felt was lacking in some of his recent work. Allen is hit-or-miss, but you kinda have to be when you churn out a movie every single year. This one is definitely ahead of the curve, and proves that if sometimes Woody "loses" it, he always brings it back.

VCB was a "sheer delight", if I may say. If you try to take it seriously you're just gonna disappoint yourself, i.e., you shouldn't get all defensive and NGTish and expect a serious treatment of gender relations or polyamory. It's just a movie, chrissakes.

So if you take the "feminist perspective" here, you'll probably get a little angry. While it's good that Woody is one of the minority of filmmakers who strives to have centrally-placed, humanistic, intelligent, nuanced women-roles, he still - especially in VCB - shows the women as flighty, ruled by impulsive emotion, (ranging from impetuous to absolutely batshit insane like Cruz's character) who INEVITABLY will cheat on one with a handsome, roguish, mysterious, semi-badboy Spanish artist.

So just keep telling yourself there's exceptions to every "rule", and that it's just a movie. Have fun, for gods' sakes.

Javier Bardem was handsome and charming, though, and it was great to see his versatility in playing this role as convincingly as he did the menacing Anton Chigurh.

I thought Vicky was pretty. I was glad the movie introduced me to this actress Rebecca Hall. I hope Woody - or at least Someone - puts this lady in more pictures. Too much media attention has been lavished on Johanssen and Cruz re this movie!



I would totally see this movie again. High rewatchability factor.

Although the doubting thomas in me, well, doubts that Woody's next movie will be as enjoyable, but his career has proven that he always gets back to the real good stuff sooner or later. Hopefully as soon as possible because he's like 88 years old and I am gonna be heartbroken when he dies.

Finally, the "theme song" of the movie is both ridiculously catchy And it captures the spirit of the movie to a T.






The NYT has a blog called "Proof", in which ex-drinkers wax philosophical, romantic, and "literate" on their Drinking Days.

The blog has its haters - "Rename this blog to “Sobriety” or cancel it. It’s getting worse every week" - and it's not always good, but sometimes it's great, as in the two posts linked below. Some haters believe that the articles are too worshipful of drinking and do not set a good example for recovery; they may "trigger" people, and/or cause them to fall off the wagon. Which is irresponsible writing.

I dunno. Maybe. But anyone who has ever drank too much knows that there absolutely is something romantic about drinking. Drunks don't drink for no good reason.

This first article is about one drinker's fondness for drunk writers. The comments create a fine discussion, and prompted me to look for James Crumley in the publib. I.e., my interest in the Hard Boiled, Hard Drinking Detective was revived.

Writers make the best Drinkers, and, arguably, Drinkers make the best Writers. You can't deny there's some kind of connection between the two. I certainly can't. Both are contradictorily noble AND cowardly attempts to reign-in an overwhelmingly unreigninable Real World.

Yes, he mentions Bukowski, but not enough for my liking. I'm out of my "Bukowski Phase" now, but he's still one of my favourite people/writers. The reason I used to (obsessively) read Bukowski, and no-one else, was because I felt Buk was the only person I could really relate to. Reading anyone else was pointless and boring.

But since I like hard-boiled detectives now, I think I'm gonna delve into That world. So long as the author was a Known Heavy Drinker. I did get a Crumley book, and I rented the movie "The Big Sleep."

A few days ago, a young woman wrote another good proofblog. It's good to finally hear a woman's voice here, and I found myself nodding my head and smiling knowingly as I read her story:

"But the worst thing was I feared even those folks [sanctimonious non-drinkers/ "high-on-life" types / people who didn't "need to drink" ] were more interesting — if exasperatingly earnest — than I was sober.

"My favorite word was 'subversive' and my favorite humor was cruel. Every day was hard, but every night was Saturday.

“Don’t even for a minute think I’m vanilla because the truth is I am so hard core I had to quit. I drank so much it was a matter of life and death. I’m like a rock star compared with you."

Sometimes Proofblog is boring, other times it's a decent read. For me, it's eminently feedable all day long. At its best, it affirms that reformed/ing drinkers are not alone, and it gives non[problem]drinkers a glimpse of The Life. I would hope the blog would reduce some judgementalism.



WENDY AND LUCY

I saw Kelly Reichardt's "Old Joy" a while ago, drawn to it because of Will Oldham's starring role. I found the movie to be ultimately memorable, as in, I remembered it fondly, and it made me remember Reichardt's name. I found OJ to be rather beautiful and refreshing and "zen".

So I was happy to see that Reichardt had done a new film, and also that it was actually playing at the "Art Theatre", which I hadn't had a reason to go to since "Synecdoche NY" played there MONTHS ago.

W&L was ultimately pleasingly Reichardtian. Ms Reichardt specializes in the quiet and the mundane. Her style is minimalist, yet humanist. Her stuff is just about the antithesis of "hollywood movies", or even "independent-SPIRITed" movies: the lack of pretense and hype I welcome heartily.

In other words, she keeps it pretty damn Real, and that small dying "feminist" part of me is also glad that She's a Woman, because women auteurs are few and far between.



The former Mrs Ledger gives a pretty good performance. I could be an ass and say The Meat of the Role is just her wandering around and Looking Real Purty, but the role invokes the subtlety of being An Emotional Iceberg. I greatly appreciate how she is On Her Own, Isolated, Alienated, and Utterly, Utterly Alone. It's not too feel-good at all, is what I'm trying to say. As a person who is grappling with his own experience of Being A Loner, though, I found her character rather relatetotable. And certainly not the type of character/movie you see every day.

Reichardt has this kind of scheidt on Lock, and I hope she continues to make movies like this.

Yeah. The whole movie is "simply" Michelle Williams ("Wendy") having her car break-down and her losing her dog. I feel that it's bold to take such a boring-sounding subject and then to make something rather compelling out of it. I think it might open a few bourgeois collegeyes to the reality of the economic hardships that devours some small one-industry towns like blabla oregon, or detroit mich. Wendy drives a shitbox car and lives out of the car and washes herself in a gas station bathroom and shoplifts food and sleeps in the woods and hangs out with gutterpunks around a fire (one of which is the colourful Will Oldham again ftw).

None of it is really romanticized/sentimentalized Or sanitized. So it almost doesn't seem like you're even "watching" a "movie."

But all those silences and long shots are "poetic" and "pregnant with profundity", kinda like tarkovsky or malick or korine or early david gordon green. I KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT MOVIES

You might be annoyed at why Wendy doesn't ask for help: is she too proud? too scared? what the hell is the story of her life? But I enjoyed that these things were ambiguous. And You should too.

Because of the low-key nature of Reichardt's work, I don't think you could ever call it "mind-blowing", but she definitely sets a pretty unique mood. She's made her mark and I will continue to support her and seek out her movies. 1.55 thumbs up son!






iv. thong diaper

As one delves deeper into the feminist community, one learns that the issue of Male Feminists has certainly not gone unnoticed. Twisty @ I Blame The Patriarchy somewhat snarkily refers to the "Men and Feminism" issue with the acronym WATM - What About The Men?

I like Twisty exactly because she takes such a strong stance. Men, non-feminists, and semi-feminists might call her a "man-hater." She has said some stuff that has made me laugh in somewhat shocked disbelief that she said such a thing. GLOVES OFF, SON.

She's an even more verbose wrtr than myself, and much of her stuff is absolutely shit-hot. I fed that blog into my reader faster than I feed myself slices of pizza pie. She cuts right to the marrow and excoriates anyone who tries to give a "unique male perspective". Understandably, she (and many women feminists) is irked by men who claim to be Feminists. From her blog somehow I found some guidelines on how to spot a Fake Feminist, which were pretty right-on and painfully funny.

Again, I could definitely not say any of this better myself, so I'll leave it to the ladies.

And that's something I could say for much of my feminist talk, so I'm feelin' that I'm gonna be toning down here.

While I give myself a nice sanctimonious pat-on-the-back for realizing - like these Women Feminist Bloggers point out - that any man who vocally Claims to be "A Feminist" is most likely disingenuous, (not to mention horribly obnoxious) and actions speak 6,000,000,000 times louder than words (I think I noted all this many posts ago, haha) the Obvious Truth is dawning on me again a bit slowly: That to be a Real True Feminist, it really, really, really helps if you're a woman. To paraphrase Twisty, "Men's experiences are not commensurate with women's experiences." If you believe that Patriarchy exists, then it only follows that you also HAVE to believe that your experiences in life depend a LOT on what gender you were randomly born into.

It's a Little like White People being all about Black causes, or Bourgeois College Kids for Worker's Rights or something.

But It's not as easy as it is in the above two examples for the NON-oppressed group (i.e., men) to be effective allies of the oppressed group. Men going around saying they're feminists can actually be counterproductive. Or, a lot of men who say they're feminists are not truly feminists, they just say they are to get feminist Pussy.

Like there was some male "feminist" blogger who later got busted for inappropriately handling a young woman student in his charge (exposing her breast'n'taking a picture of it after escorting her shitdrunk person to her room; he was her Dorm Resident Advisor.). Women Feminists were of course disgusted, but not entirely surprised.

I don't think I'm THAT bad, yet I did feel as if I were being called-out by Twisty. And since I do have my Misogynistic Streak, I constantly call my own sense of "Feminism" into question.

It is uniquely annoying when MEN write Feminist Blogs and comment so confidently and "Authoritatively" on Being a Feminist, because all men, women-hating or "feminist", benefit from the Patriarchy just by being men. It would seem many of the Male Feminists lost practical sight of this.

So I hang my head for all the times I've gotten all "passionate" and (self)righteous with my feminist talk.

As Twisty says, it's probably best if Men just shut the hell up about feminism and did a lot more listening and reading. So now I'm on that kick.

And an Authentic Male Feminist would prove himself and Stand Up For Women when his masculinity is most at stake - when he is hanging out with Just The Boys.

So if you ever hear me SAY "I'm a Feminist", then PLEASE cut my fucking balls off.

Although I have been wondering: what would a Real Feminist say to A Woman who, for example, doesn't see Pornography as necessarily exploitative of women? For example, young women on Livejournal Sextips discussion forums who simply take it as a given that their sex partners enjoy jerking-off to porn? That people INEVITABLY will Like porn?

A responsible Male Feminist would just send them to Finally Feminism 101 rather than try to "explain" it himself, because that would SURRYOUSLY hurt his chances at Pulling. HA!




MILK

Finally. I'd been resisting seeing this for the longest time, and I'm not even sure why. I think I felt a little resentful towards Sean Penn for mysterious, unknown reasons. Especially weird, because I usually like Sean Penn. And I was a little "miffed" that he "stole" the oscar from Mickey Rourke.

But since I've been on my "Oscar kick" since the ceremony, and my Slumdawg viewing, and since Milk was the only good-looking movie at the theatre I hadn't seen yet, I decided to go see Milk.

I should have seen this a long time ago! It was really That good! Better than Slumdog, hell!

I think I was ambivalent about Gus van Sant, because I don't like his super-pretentious artsy movies.

So: Sean Penn was wonderful. He won me over. James Franco was also surprisingly good (and handsome!) This performance allows me to forgive him for appearing in "Pineapple Express." (Not talking about THAT one so much anymore ARE YA???!!)

And I'm pleasantly surprised this movie became so big; that it even got made. The movie is both VERY gay and VERY big, with tons of Gay Making-Out from beginning to end. If I were a Huge Homophobe, I would have been disgusted and walked-out. If I were a Typical Slightly-Homophobic Guy, I would have giggled immaturely throughout the whole thing.

Of course, it was presented as nothing other than tender and Humanistic, because van Sant is also a Huge Gay.

I was also in the mood to see an "underdog political activist struggle" type movie, and Penn certainly conveys a very palpable charisma. I got out of the movie wanting to start a revolution, or run for office. It's a pretty good feeling to catch once in a while.

I was a little upset that there weren't "enough" Women in the movie. There was one Lesbian, and she suspiciously smacked of "Token." This only occurred to me when Cleve was in the phone booth calling people, and they call 2 people etc etc and the screen filled up with a grid of like 100 people on the phone, and all of them were dudes. That was a little much. Yes, I know this is based off a true story, but I would like to think that Milk's Movement included a lot of Women - Dykes and otherwise - and not just a bunch of Cute Young Boys.

There was an older couple behind me who were talking obnoxiously loud the whole movie long. All the remarks were initiated by the man, who was obviously dragged to the movie by his wife, and his tone barely disguised his incredulity and, sometimes, his disgust. I suppose it'd be kinda like bringing a old-fashioned white racist to a spike lee movie. Either way, it's sad, and speaks to Milk's Struggle, that people would be so vocally disgusted by the gay making-out that they couldn't see the obvious humanity of the gays portrayed in the movie. It shows that Milk's work is far from done.

Bottom Line: I have to give this movie Big Kudos for being so damn Big, and so damn Gay. FTW4GE!!!






http://www.andrewzimmernatemyballs.com/

I'm not sure if "Ate My Balls" qualifies as a "meme". It's been around for years and always had a good ring to it. Leave it to the internets's favourite Humourist, Drew, to breath wicked new life into the concept.

holy scheidt

I wasn't planning on posting today, but it has been a rather weird day. I found myself needing Catharsis, and, to make matters worse, I drank way too much coffee. So any Serious Readers should skip this one, and wait for something less spazzy. Holy Fuck.


THE UNBORN

I was dying to go to the cinema after a recent snowstorm. I'd been wanting to see this ever since the preview stage. A friend told me it wasn't anything spectacular, and I didn't have the highest expectations to begin with. I expected a stupid "hore movie." I just hoped I would be entertained.

It was a stupid hore movie. But damn was I solidly entertained beyond my expectations! It wasn't too long, there was a decent Quantity And Quality of Scares - i.e., both of the "jump" variety and the "that's fucked up and creepy" variety. Crabwalks, Inverted heads, scary kids, scary old men with inverted heads doing crabwalks....pretty stock elements, but they were used to great effect. And I won't even Spoil the part about the girl's Mom sitting in the chair. DIZZAMN! All capped off with Gary Oldman playing a Jewish Exorcist. Yes, this was the height of ridiculousness, but I felt I got more than my two dollars' worth. I give this an unshakeable 1.25 thumbs up!

I went in the middle of a Sunday and thought there wouldn't be too many people there. WRONG. There were too many people there. People were being loud, rude, and obnoxious the whole movie long. People were coming and going the whole movie long. The theatre was packed with uncouth, boorish vulgarians. People who let their phone ring stupid ringtones OVER and OVER again WITHOUT silencing it. Goateed guys with sagging pants surrounded by girls who swooned at his vociferous articulations: "Holy Shit! Awww Shit! Fuck! Holy Fuck! There's a fuckin' shitload of fuckin' people here! What the Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

More than a few times I wanted to stand up and shout: "You're all a bunch of fucking idiots! I HATE YOU ALL AND WANT YOU ALL TO DIE!"

It was excruciating. I just don't get why people ever want to hang out with people. How can these people be FUN? How do they have Friends?

Makes about as much sense as a blue-eyed jew.

ii. filled to the brim with girlish glee

My Feminist Systren have been blogging up a storm lately about "The Hook-Up Culture." (link)

I love it. They (Feminists) say what I want to say better than I can say it, and before I can say it. If it seems like I'm "Copying" them, it's just because I so soundly agree with so much of what they say.

I actually laid awake in bed, my mind swirling with thoughts of "Patriarchal Moral Panic" and "The Hook-Up Culture Does Not Actually Exist" and "Why Aren't Women Allowed To Enjoy Sex In Our Culture/Media" and "All Sex is Not Drunken Rape - Much of It is Fun And Consensual And Good Why Don't We Hear More About That" etc etc etc.

I'd almost like to believe that more sex was Drunken Coercion and Irresponsible and Regrettable, because that would mean I wasn't Wrong all those times I myself pounded the pulpit of Moral Panic and Disgust and Outrage.

But I was wrong. I ate up that Moral Panic like The Col's Original Fucking Recipe, but for personal - yet appalling! - reasons.

So I'm just gonna let it all go. Fly, fly away, little starlings.

Bottum Line: There's a lot of angry, uptight, anxious, creepy white men in Positions of Power in Our Culture'n'Media, who get even More angry, anxious, creepy and white when they think of all those women having happy sex with happy guys - i.e., not them - and then no-one "pays" for it later. Accepting this reality would decimate their feeble worlds.

I'm not saying that there's not too much sex diseases and too many chillens being birthed What Shouldn't Be Birthed. But, like most social/sexual problems, this is really a problem of Class. And the "Hook-up Moral Panic" of the educated middle-to-upper class is not really a problem at all.

Here endeth the lesson.

iii. the living end

I talk about rape all the damn time because it is, bar none, THE most significant Feminist/Gender/Women Issue. It's a damnimportant human issue. It embodies Sexism at its most blatant/extreme. If we can solve the problem of rape, then we'll be in the home stretch of ending the gender war, i.e., dismantling Patriarchy.

Now, some women might say: "Yeah, Classwar, rape is horrible, but you're reading into it too damn much. It's not some kind of Symbol. It doesn't 'reflect' some kind of 'gendered power structures' or 'patriarchy'. You went to too much college! It's just a senseless, mindless crime: no more, no less. There's no hidden meaning or godforbid 'narrative' going on here."

Fine, fine, fine. These are the women you can getawaywith raping, clearly.

In the heat of "passion", sure, nobody is thinking about The Meaning of Rape. When any kind of sex is going on, higher faculties go out the window 'n'under the bus. It's sensual and animalistic. But that still doesn't disclaim that rape happens for a reason - that it has manifold functions, consequences and implications.

I'm not saying it's simple. I'm not saying all rapes are the same. It is a case-by-case basis in that there's so many permutations: the people involved, the motivations involved, etc. There's persuasion and coercion and uncertainty and silence and quite a huge grey area.

But, I argue that the common thread of all rape is the sentiment, conscious or not: "I want this woman's body and I'm gonna have it. I'm gonna make it happen. I'm not gonna take no for an answer. I got this far, and I DESERVE/AM ENTITLED TO/HAVE EARNED access to this warm female body."

(snarky rape apology that should be deleted groooan:)

But, controversially, I'm kinda like those fundie retards with their "hate the sin, love the sinner." I don't think rape is Inherently Evil. Hell, I don't think the fucking holocaust is inherently evil.

Who am I kidding. Of course it is. Rape's a pretty shitty thing to do, regardless of the situation. But I do think otherwise "moral, good people" are capable of rape. Just as they are capable of murder, genocide, drunk driving, child pornographing, etc.

I'm just saying all rapes aren't equally awful.

I think if you got Mohandas K. Gandhi drunk and surrounded him with drunk, giggling 18-year-olds, he would be damntempted to pull some Coercion. At the very least, he would certainly Cop a Feel off a passed-out girl. That's all I'm saying. Would he premeditatedly, violently rape a woman, and say "Take THAT, Bitch"? No.

And then he'd probably feel sorta creepy for some time, because of that one time he drunkenly Copped a Feel off a Passed-Out Drunk girl.

That's the difference between Mohandas K. Gandhi and a Sociopathic Serial Rapist like The

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Rapist/Racist. Racepist, Rapecist, Ragecepist.

(THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DRINK 2 BIG COFFEESSSSSSZZZZZZZZZ)

I just think Rape is fascinating and interesting, that's all! It's MY Topic!

But WHO SAYS things like "all rapes aren't equally awful" ???

A woman-hating, woman-raping, misogynistic Rape Apologist !!!

Any woman reading this - any woman who meets me - can tell right off the bat: "this guy would totally rape a woman."

And they'd be totally right.

(that's the part that's Gonna Get Me Fired)

Rape Apologists. Basically "Rape Rights Advocates" (see Men's Rights Advocates.)

Perhaps this is where my interest in Feminism comes from: my Internal Moral Struggle of: would I actually do that, or wouldn't I? How far would I go?

It's not pleasant or fun at all. Note the word Struggle. You think priests touch boy's buttholes because they LIKE it?

Ok, bad example.

So this might be the post that gets me fired, because one of my co-workers got on the computer I was using, at the worst possible moment, at the worst possible place: that part shortly above where I was saying "rape" every other word and talking about how "I'd totally rape a woman." (to be "safe", I nerver go to the actual sibhod site, but I do the composition in an email draft in gmail, and then copy and paste to the sibhod once I get somewhere more private.)

There was really no time to Really Actually Read what was there, although the word "rape" jumps off the page about 32165465143416351 times. And I was taking a very snarky tone. GULP.

So now I'm the gay-acting, ticking-time-bomb, creepy two-faced rapist guy.

I tried to nip the situation in the bud by saying I write a "political blog", and I was "writing a passionate post on sexism and patriarchy and feminism, and I'm sorry if anybody caught a glimpse of anything scary/triggering. Taken out of context, that would seem really creepy."

Now you're of course saying: "You're a total idiot and deserve to get fired for doing something so stupid." And, of course, You're absolutely right. I do deserve to get fired. Actions have consequences, and we're not in high-school any more.

That would suck, though. My job is chill as hell. I've been here 3 damn months already. 3 Months at any other job would have driven me to hopelessness and physically unhealthy habits.

I'm crossing my fingers that this just blows over. I'm not an asshole on the job. I'm overly helpful, friendly and responsible. A people pleaser, bordering on Eunuch Doormat. Everyone there has, till this "scandal", probably thought I'm GAY or ASEXUAL. Now they think I'm a sociopath who puts on a smiley face. They'd be partially right.

Can you actually be a sociopath if you genuinely worry about yourself being a sociopath? Because I think a true sociopath just wouldn't care.

Or maybe I'm still a sociopath, but I only care because my job is on the line.

A man can threaten a woman by raising the spectre of "you might get raped." A woman can threaten a man by raising the spectre of "you might get FIRED."

Whatever. It would suck, sure. It wouldn't make the future job search any easier, sure.
But it's not like I've never been fired before. And it's not like I'm making real money anyway.

Besides, as long as there's construction companies, then alcoholics, drug-addicts, felons, murderers, rapists, boys'-butthole-touchers, gay-seeming socially awkward Political Bloggers and other unemployables will always be able to Find Work.

Grrrrrrrrrrreat!

I was watching a documentary on PBS "Our World" the other day that showed how commonplace it was for teenage girls to get sexually harassed at their after-school jobs - coffee shops, movie theatres, restaurants, etc. Their mid-to-late-20s managers would do much worse things than writing an Angry Blog: They'd actually touch/grope/molest/rape/make sexual remarks to the women.

And, "moral" or not, sociopath or not, I would never dream of doing such things. And If I were making enough money to get my own place and not move backward in life, then I wouldn't be so goddamn careless and write Politically Inflammatory Shit where anyone might see it!

But I'm making even less money now than I was when I was 20, chrissakes! By this stage in my life, I'm a goddam nihilist who just doesn't give a fuck. Go ahead. Fire me. It'll be like that one time I was an unemployable loser for a fucking year.

You just can't pin me down. Y'all's don't know me!

I think it'll all be all-right. Just because I come across as so harmless and timid and nice and agreeable whilst on the job. Never an attitude.

What's really ironic, is that most dudes would get fired for looking at PORNOGRAPHY on the job, where I would get fired for Blogging About Gender. I would.

Go ahead. Take a Look at my Record. I've NEVER written a "rape fantasy" story! I've never actually seriously encouraged men to go out and rape women! I've never raped a woman! I've known Rape Victims! I've only ever made really, really awful JOKES about rape. I've never seen anybody make such godawfully offensive "Jokes" about rape, though, so I AM kinda living on the edge here.

You can keep your "advice" to yourself.
"You should know better. I know people who have gotten fired over stuff like this."
Really. That thought had not yet crossed my fucking mind yet.

The SIBHoD is my Hobby and I've never intended to use it to Hurt anyone. Not Even the kike cunts on my shit list. I've only ever used it to try and get a few laughs, and to channel some of my Raging, Raging Intensity and Rage. I make a lot of Rape Jokes because I'm obsessed with both Intergender Interactions and Violence.

Eh. As I say, I have been fired before (negligence towards Company Policy - giving too many discounts). Employers aren't allowed, by law, I think, to say why you "left" a job or "why" they fired you. In future interviews, I could just say I was checking my email on the job. Which I technically was doing. Everybody does! They just don't write horrendous/ridiculous "Political Blogs" in their emails. And "what I learned" from that experience is that I should never do that again.

Besides: REAL Gud Writers are willing to lose their job because of their convention-smashing, radical writing!


Still, this whole fiasco underscores the importance of maintaining your privacy on teh intranets. And I haven't been so good at that with the SIBHoD lately. Maybe I unconsciously WANT to get caught.

Whatever. Fucking Fire me. I've still got a clean criminal record and a driver's license. I should be able to get a job in construction no problem.

I don't think Superprozac'd be enough for me. I'd probably have to combine that with some mad xanax too. And some viagra just for kicks.


I AM a sociopath because I just don't like people. I don't like them on the internets, I don't like them in the movie theatre, I don't like them in the bar, I don't like them in real life. I don't like women, I don't like men. I don't like socializing or talking to people. I don't even really like Emily Osment. I just like the Notreal characters she plays.

Well, I do like Drew and Natalie Dee. Or at least the comics they write.


All this kinda hammers home how ridiculous it is to be a Male Feminist - when you explain that you write Feminist Stuff and you desperately want people to believe you, but they just CAN'T believe you: Men aren't feminists! They jerk-off to porn and they rape women!

I talk about Gender all the time because I'm SO not a typical Masculine Man! Duh!

Oh well. At least something interesting's going on in my life, finally. Scandalous! I'll just keep being The Agreeable Friendly Good-Job-Doing Guy and stop publicly writing about Rape, and hopefully everything'll be all-right.


But I did get to thinking:

This really isn't a "political" blog. It's a goddam SEX blog. And that makes me feel like a goddam pervert / sex addict. And I do not like that feeling. So now I'm a "freak." And I don't even like Porn!

Wait, wait, waitwaitwait. Let's not beat ourselves up here. Sex is EXTREEEEEMELY Political. Any Feminist can tell you that! That's first-day-of-class, Elementary Scheidt right there!

I wish more women were feminists. I wish more men were exterminated.

The population demographic I identify with the most is: LESBIANS. DYKES. I LIKE DYKES. I like them even more than I like gay men. Because they are smart, funny women who are as obsessed with sex and gender and feminism as I am. Whereas gay men are just obsessed with cockum and clothes. YAWWWWN. Why dontcha just be a Traditional Woman already?

Although I don't hate gay men. I like them more than I like most str8s. I used to have some gay friends (homosexual men) back in the day. I unfortunately did not know enough Dykes, though.

I've got to start hanging-out with more gays.

Now THAT really sounds like something a str8 man would say!

They can fire me, but they can never fire my spirit!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah. I'm just a bit manic today after drinking a bunch of coffee and getting scared shitless by The Rape Scandal.

Every day that I'm not sending scads of resumes'n'coverletters out-of-state is another day I've foolishly flushed away forever.

It doesn't really matter what state I send them too, I guess, as long as there's a good movie theatre around.



And You know what else is really fucked up? How some people just assume that they're gonna "get married and have children Someday". Like: I overhear young women talking about how "someday" they're gonna get married and have children, after they Get Their Degrees And Start Their Careers.

Yeah. And I'm gonna go to dinner with Emily Osment.

How is ANY of this such a Goddam GIVEN? (Note: I'm not EVEN talking [yet] about the Patriarchal Code that says: "It Is Women's Main Purpose In Life To Have Children") What I'm talking about here is the likelihood of merely finding somebody one would consent to splice their goddam GENES with.

Meanwhile, I'm smugly-and-sadly thinking: "Baby, you ain't no prize pig. I hate to see the man YOU pull. Ain't nobody ever gonna like you-for-you."

WHAT. A. WORLD.


A non-recovering / non-insightful alcoholic would have run screaming to The Store many, many paragraphs ago.

I could try to "explain" myself to people by saying I'm like Todd Solondz - that I get a masochistic schaedenfreude from watching the tragicomic trainwreck of the world and from gaping at the flinchfromworthy - but, then, people would be likely to gape at me and be like "wtf's Todd Solondz?" Much like they probably do to him.

Oh, Narcissism. Narcissists often have a Toxic Relationship (bleccch psychobabble) with themselves. And since one can't really "Break Up" With Oneself, short of B'in the ol' B's out, one simply needs to change the nature of the Relationship to something less Narcissistic.

Yeah yeah, I'm working on the volunteer stuff.

This is how we take it one day at a time, baby.

So yeah. I'm pretty optimistic, actually. I just got back from finally seeing "Slum Dawg" (it was ok - I still don't like danny boyle) and will talk about that l8r. If I get called before the boss, I'll just tell the damn truth.

Besides, I always try to be "a model employee", and the boss likes me. I think.

Lesson Learned: Never forget how horrifyingly close you are to dying on the streets.

The next post will be better, I can assure you.

"kikes aren't whites"

I'm sure using racist hatespeech in the title of the post will only gain me more feed subscribers!

Trust me. I know whatchya reallyreally want!



I've posted this one before, but the stuff I post is often so awesome that I can totally getawaywith posting it twice. In fact, I probably should post it twice, because it's so obviously awesome that it slips under the public r.a.d.a.r. the first time around. Figure that one out!

This post is of wildly fluctuating quality, and is a good stream-of-consciousness of my Winter Mood Swings.

I've been so somnolent lately that I can't even stay awake for the 9pm-Thursday new episode of The Office. I watch "My Name is Earl" then fall asleep during "Kath and Kim." After a 2 to 3 hour afternoon Nap, no less!

I like when dreams are not simply "weird for weird's sake" and are at least somewhat entertaining, interesting, and/or fascinating.

I often dream of this town where I used to live and get edumacated. The version of the town remains 1. pretty consistent from dream to dream 2. markedly different from the actual town. In other words, it's an official "Dream Version" of the town.

Last night I got to explore the Dream Version a bit more. Here I found myself on "the west side" of the dream city, which, in comparison to the Liberal, Progressive, Bourgeois Fantasyland of the Actual University Town, was more Poor, Black, and Real.

I staggered down the sidewalk in the drunken way that you walk in dreams. I passed numerous Angry Young Blacks, who were muttering angry things to themselves and using the words "Sheeit" and "Mufucka" alot. I minded my own business and tried not to get mugged.

Ok, the dream itself was kinda fun and interesting, but I'm in a blase mood now and can't really describe it in a fun or interesting way. Still feeling very lethargic. There is absolutely no way I'm going "out on the town" tonight (friday?). I have been extremely antisocial lately, even by my standards.


www.marriedtothesea.com

MTTS is a comic I greatly enjoy. Fortunately they've gotten with the times and have an rss feed now, so one can get the funnies delivered to their reader on a daily basis.

Big Question: If Emily Osment were Dating Huge Faggy Douchebags, like Miley Cyrus is, would I like her as much?

Probably not. She'd still be cute, but it would tarnish some of her appeal. Part of the reason I like her is because she's not huge in the Celeb Gossip Scene, and/or widely-known for being nymphomaniacal for Idiotic Gays. If she's getting SHOT-ON by D-bags, I don't even wanna know about it. And I'd like to keep it that way.

What am I really trying to say, though? Am I placing that infamous horrendous, double-standardish, patriarchal premium on virginity and "innocence"?

Kinda, but not completely. Some people find brash, brazen, overt, lip-smacking sexuality appealing. Some people don't. They prefer "cute" to "sexy", and welcome "discretion" as courteous. Or, as An A.F.C. might say:

"It's already a given that Any Given So-and-So's been Shot-On by Huge Douchebags, and I already Understand and Accept that. Fine. I'm just simply saying it's none of my business, and I really don't want to think about it. It's a turn-off. To me. Now, where's my Mountain Dew?"

Also: Emily O is not the Stereotypical Girly Girl. She's a bit of a tomboy, wears "funny/weird" clothes, occasionally acts "nerdy", doesn't publicly date huge douchebags yet, and is sometimes clumsy (while still having some of the best dance moves Evar). These are more Salient Selling Points for her extraordinary Cuteness - that she, in some ways, breaks out of the Gender Box and "differs" from the "norm".

I should be much more concerned with my Career than with Stupid Emily Osment. Things are out of balance. Ideally, I seek a Balance: I believe The Career and Getting Along With People are equally important. (Compare: what's been in vogue in Teh Modern Era is the belief that The Smrt Thing To Do is to: Cutthroatishly, Obsessively, Machiavellianly Advance your Career, and treat People as Disposable Sex Dispensers, and become a Sociopath in general wrt Your Social/Human Life. That, to my old-fashioned mind, seems to be tragically out-of-balance.)

The bottom line is, unfortunately, it's gonna take a few years to advance my career to the Next Level, because of a Complete, Abject Lack of experience, education, and network(s). The Big 3-0 is terrifyingly close.

In The Woods is still aeons ahead of their goddamn time. In 10 years, people will love In The Woods even more. I will love them even more. They're one of the few bands I don't hate, and I've only come to like them more over the years. The Pink Floyd comparisons are not out of line. ITW has that same "it factor". They're larger than life, they're Beautifully Magickal, and they hit you equally hard on both the physical and the metaphysical levels. They don't have as many fans as some dinosaur band like, e.g., Opeth, but their fans are die-fucking-hard-till-death. You can count me among them. I would totally wear an ITW shirt with pride.

"Karmakosmik"


(they also do a Killer Cover of King Crimson's "Epitaph", fer chrissakes!!!1)

What 4 dvd's did I just recently add to the Permanent Collection?

1. "Dancer In The Dark"
2. "The Man Without A Past"
3. "Manderlay"
4. "Happiness"



I defy you to name ANYOne you Actually know who has ANYOne of those movies!
L337ftw4g31111

The only bad thing about becoming more and more kewl, is that it just gets more and more lonely at the top. SNIFFLZ



The only thing one can do in this situation, of course, is to continue to Outdo Oneself:::

Kenneth von Classwar stepped out of the taxi with his khaki shorts, black socks'n'black reeboks, squinting at the incredible california sun. The driver generously retrieved Classwar's suitcase from the trunk and Classwar gave him a tremendous tip. "See you later, Jose."

Classwar looked at the house before him and whistled to himself quietly. This place was, without a doubt, solid gold Ta-ta's. The quarters for "the help" were probably 6,000,000 times nicer than anything he could have ever asked for.

He rang the doorbell, no answer; began knocking steadily on the door; no answer. Well, I guess if they didn't need someone to open doors they wouldn't have hired me, he thought, as he cautiously opened the unlocked door and dragged his suitcase inside.

This was odd. There was not a soul to be found. Although it was really too nice of a day to stay indoors. Is every day really gonna be this seasonable, Classwar wondered. He heard the sounds of music and laughter in the distance, and walked through the spacious living room only to find Robbie Ray and Jackson on the deck.

Robbie Ray was standing before a mammoth grill, wearing an outrageous chef's cap and an apron splattered with BBQ sauce. He swayed back and forth to a loretta lynn song, whistling, and slathered large hunks of meat with sauce from a brush. Jackson was polishing up a surfboard.

Classwar couldn't believe his eyes. It was gonna take a while before the reality of this new life began to sink in.

"Hoo boy, getta load of that brisket!" said Classwar, trying to announce his arrival as casually as possible.

Robbie Ray continued to slap on torrents of sauce without turning around.

"You betcha bottom dollar son, just hold yer horses for a minute and purty soon we'll be basking in the glory of Robbie Ray's World Famous Beefstravaganza-Extra-Ordinary!"

Classwar turned to Jackson quizzically.

"Dad gets into his own Beefy La-La Land at times like this. Believe me. He couldn't see ya even if you were the ghost of hank williams."

"I understand. Sometimes the beef just speaks to you."

"Especially to him. Yo dad, why dontchya say howdy to our guest?"

Robbie Ray finally glanced over his shoulder and took a double-take at the sight of Classwar.

"Well pull my niblets, if it ain't the newest hand on the Stewart Funny Farm! Howdy there, son!"

Classwar offered the firmest handshake he could muster, only to find Robbie Ray had a pretty respectable grip himself.

"Kenneth von Classwar, at your service, sir."

"Now son, we ain't gunna have any of this 'sir' nonsense, you just call me Robbie Ray."

"Sure thing Robbie Ray, and you can call me honoured. But srsly, you can call me Kenneth, or Classwar, or von Classwar, or Kenneth von Classwar, or k. von c., or just k.c., or whatever you darn well please."

"Kenny Classwar, the man of many mysterious names, uh?"

"Heh. Well. Vaguely Mysterious. Ominous, if you will. Chilling, even."

Robbie Ray laughed, slapped Classwar in the chest playfully and said to Jackson

"Looks like we got ourselves a real old-fashioned highway robber here, huh son?"

"Now Robbie Ray, I'll have you know, I am a man of the Uprightest Moral Quiddity, honest injun, and I'm just here to help you keep your happy home the verysame way."

Robbie Ray laughed and threw his arm around Classwar's shoulder.

"I'm just bustin' yer chops, son! I cain't tell ya how happy I am to have you around. And I think you'll find out purty soon that us Stewarts are a purty friendly bunch, ain't that right, Jackson?"

"Can't take the hill outta the hillbilly, pop."

"Well, If that bbq is any indication, you-all are gonna have a heck of a time gettin' me out of this place..."

--

You can make your jokes about "classwar finally really going off the Deep End this time", but You don't even know where this one's going.

BOLT

I love a good animated feature. It was a given I was gonna see this one. I unfortunately missed the 3-D version, which I've heard was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

The "2-D" version was indeed entertaining, but nothing earthshattering. Fun to watch, etc, but I was starting to get kinda bored. And Miley C didn't have as big a role as I would have liked. This one will not be permanently remembered in the canon of recent Disney animations, like, e.g., "The Incredibles." But it's still a decent movie to take your bastard idiot kids to. I was able to correctly guess the voice-actor for "Dr. Calico" before viewing the credits...canYou?

RONALD J. DIO SONG O' THE POST



Jack Gay and Tenacious Gay made it a little too "cool" to like Dio, but the guy is/was still Ultimately Unfuckwithable.



The Nyquil Hangover isn't 100% as bad as the Alcohol Hangover in that you don't Physically Feel Like Total Garbage, but you do feel Vury lethargic and sleepy and grouchy and nihilistic and empty and blargh. This can really give you a Violent Mood Swing such that one day (thurs) you're merrily pumping yr fist to DIO, and the next (fri) you're lurching around to Cat Power's "Interpretations"-of-Songs:




Katatonia is also a Choice choice.



You "reminisce" about the worst kind of Nostalgia. And you get that horrible sense of Entitlement. That's the kiss of death. It's bitter and passive-aggressive and sarcastic and self-pitying and absolutely ungrateful and pathetic. You feel resentment and jealousy towards anyone who's ever "been able to" appease anything ever.

At times like this, it's good to eat an entire pizza by yourself, play some RPG's, and go to bed way-early. These days, even FantasyFiction won't save ya. But your Career might. So go back to WORK, because WORK is the only thing that really matters.

Yeah, the obvious answer is that my Resume and Cover Letter just aren't Strong enough, and I can't seem to strengthen them enough on my own. But I don't feel like getting help with that right now. I feel like eating an entire pizza and going to bed early. You ever get those kinda days? "I'll work on it later."


This is why I'm a MONIST. I don't buy that bullshit that says you can cleanly cleave mind and body in two - separate the physical and the mental. No. They're Intimately Intertwined. If you feel mentally drained one day with "no good reason," well, then retrace yr steps: maybe you drank 1,251 dranks last night. Maybe you had 75% of one single suggested dose of NyQuil. Maybe you had your skull crushed by a fire extinguisher. These are all things that happen to One's Physical, Corporeal Body, but they have a very real effect on how one feels - mentally - the next day.

Almost as bad as People who give advice are people that tell you "You Should Do [This!]." Fuck You. I'll do what I want when I want. You have no idea of anything I might like doing. No, I don't want to listen to some shitty band. No, I don't want to move to San Francisco.

Almost as bad as people who say "You Should Do [This]" are people who leave 99.99% of comments - on a blog, myspace, facebook, anything. 99% of comments are basically barely-veiled ways of saying "Um, no, you're wrong / I'm-kewler-than-you, and here's why." And I thought Constructive Criticism was annoying! And I thought I was Passive-Aggressive!

The Bottom Line is, I'd rather listen to In The Woods struggling to just-barely-keep-it-together Live (they weren't the greatest Live Band), than listen to some artsy 20-year-olds sing about Sartre, Sex, and Staying Up Late.

When You think about it, it's really kinda weird that a Norwegian Band, playing a show in Norway to Norwegian fans, would do all of their between-song banter in English. Of course, those scandinavians do have a hardon for English. They speak it better than most amerikkkans.

In addition to the Awesome Supercreep Voice, I have this other voice I use to say the word "BEER!" in the most awesome Way Ever, which I guess might accurately be called The BEER! Voice. I don't usually like to Toot my own Horn, but I gotta make an exception for The BEER! Voice.

Bottum Line (r) II: Having even less than one suggested dose of NyQuil can make you the world's Crustiest Crab for the entirety of the following day. Get all your NyQuil and just flush it down the fucking toilet.

But, finally, ptl, here's the Good News: Emily Osment In: DADNAPPED will be playing today (saturday) at 9pm.


musical interlude







No, I don't take cocks up the butt. I just have an innocent fondness for Gay Men In Zipperhead Drag performing really gay musical numbers. YOUR MOM takes cocks up the butt!!

Although, I must confess, I was only turned on to "Three Little Maids" because it sometimes plays in "Curb Your Enthusiasm" right before Larry does something Epically Ridiculous (even by Larry Standards!) And it took an performance by Zack And Cody to clue me into the fact that the song was actually by Gilbert And Sullivan ("The Mikado").

The new Emily Osment song absolutely sucks balls. But she still looks prettycute. I'll probably end up downloading her damn album.


I watch WAAAAY too much Disney Channel for a 29.9-year-old man.





I think you'll agree, the most fun part of horrible puns is having to explain them. "HUH?"













www.toothpastefordinner.com







Have an ok week, don't get fired, don't get hpv, don't get preggers, don't get cancer, don't get buried in snow, don't get hosed.

male receptionist: "your son Rip is on line Toot"

Yeah, I blatantly stole that from this Gas-X commercial:

Totally uninspired. That's what this SIBHoD is. See, I typically jot down half-ideas whilst On The Clock, with the implicit promise that I'll "flesh them out" later. And then later I never feel like doing this, so I simply turn the fragments into sentences and check grammar etc.

Hell. It could be a lot worse, though, and we all know it.





i. cockum

(You should probably say that word with the supercreep voice, btw.)

There's a great point on Shakesville about how non-pc comedy has no place in "safe spaces." Violence/abuse happens Everywhere-In-The-World to the tune of these exact same so-called "funny" words, so safe spaces, necessarily, would prefer to take a break from it. It's not that comedians like yours truly are not allowed to getawaywith using violent sarcasm. It's just that this bitter form of Humour does not belong in self-proclaimed Safe Spaces. That's understandable. The Sibhod is not, by admission, "safe".

But it is kind of safe, because it's not a forum or a community where one risks assault by trolls. You'll only ever get assault from me. And I'm good natured, so it really is pretty harmless. I warmly invite all victims of violence! (Although I will never stop using non-p.c. words / hatespeech so long as I'm an Angry White Man. Heh. The only thing better than Sarcastic Faux-prejudice is Unentitled Sarcastic Faux-Prejudice!

You don't like it, then suck my dick, bitch.)

So. Recent News. 40-50 teens beat a man unconscious in kalamazoo, an act of violence which was sure to invite controversy and heated discussion:

Udontsaa wrote:

A 50 year old man riding his bicycle in Kalamazoo Michigan was brutally attacked and hospitalized. A relative of the man says he is mentally ill and tri-racial (part white, part black, and part American Indian).

You won't hear this from "the mainstream media" but the attackers were a mob of 40-50 black youths. A witness says some of the attackers were as young as 12. The victim has a fractured skull and had to be put in a medically induced coma.

If the attackers had been white, this would be the single largest news story in the nation right now. The media would be screaming that the attackers were white over and over. However, since the attackers were black it is confined to the local city media and none will even mention the race of the perpetrators.

Now: Is this really nothing but mere trolling and race-baiting? If what the commenter says is true, though, then what kind of discussion should we have about that? In such a situation, it's impossible to be colorblind.

Imho, what separates racists from nonracists is: a racist would say

"this is typical Nigger Bullshit; those barbarians";

and a nonracist would say

"the perpetrators' blackness conflates with their shitty SocioEconomic Status - no opportunities, no money, no hope - so they throw their lives away at a very young age and are made savages by their savage SocioEconomic Condition. This is a self-perpetuating cycle of poverty that disproportionately affects blacks; past racism fuels present'n'future racism and stereotypically black behaviour. They don't act like savages because they're black."

You will find blatant racist language on this thread, referring to blacks as "cockroaches/animals/apes" and encouraging them "to evolve." It's sad. But I wonder: are these people making "The Chris Rock Distinction" (e.g. "Black people" vs "Niggers")? Are they actually calling all black people "cockroaches", or are they "just" calling those poor, hopeless, thuggish blacks ("niggers") "cockroaches?"

BUT: even IFF they Are referring to only "the bad apples", the connotation of the word "cockroaches" discourages any'n'all intelligent discussion about The Economy.

With stuff (both the event and the discussion) like this going on, we cannot in good conscience afford to be "postracist", just as we cannot afford to be "postfeminist." It's Hell Out There Right Now All The Time. WAR.

Gender still matters. Race still matters. But they only matter Exactly Because of Economic and Political Power Structures, not because of some mythical gender or racial "Essences."

I entertained the idea of organizing a "Regional Bloggers Convention", in which [Kewl] Bloggers from across some relevant region (metro area? tricounty? SE MI? MI? MI-OH-IN-IL? Midwest?) would all gather together at one time in one place. They would meet the people behind the words and have actual real-time discussions. They would be social with one another, and then, of course, blog about it all later.

There would be serious discussion, not-so-serious discussion, and hopefully an inebriated dance party. Of Bloggers. Now, there Needs to be some Thematic Commonality amongst the Bloggers, i.e. no wingnuts or troggies allowed. This is crucial.

ii. "close your legs, whore!"

Gynecological / women's health care is inarguably disproportiately Unavailable to poorblack women, but does this account for all the little "cockroaches" they seem to be spawning? Undoubtedly these children would have been better off Aborted, but would the women have had the abortions even if this this were a viable/feasible/plausible option?

Cockroaches Spawning: Even more staggeringly shocking than the notion of so many poor, uncared-for kids running around is . . . . now, stay with me here . . . . . .
1. These children were produced through sex with a delinquent "babydaddy".
2. The mothers were sexually attracted enough to the babydaddy to have unprotected sex with a clearly irresponsible, immature, thuggish man; and then the mothers were unable (see above) to have an abortion afterwards.

The question that boggles my mind is: HOW WERE THESE WOMEN ATTRACTED TO THESE MEN IN THE FIRST PLACE???

I know there had to be some rapes in there, but they can't ALL be rape-babies!

But sometimes women give birth to (or don't abort) rape-babies (or babies they're obviously not able to take care of ) BECAUSE it's a (epicfail of a) rationalization mechanism - "If I have this baby, then that means I wasn't raped, so thus I don't have to feel the shame of rape" or "If I'm a mother, that means I have a purpose in this shitty black ghetto".


I know I'm more judgemental than most, and I'm turned off by many women all day, every day. On the hypothetical off-chance that I were attracted enough to a woman to have functional s.e.x. with her, I'd certainly use protection, and if I got "the bitch" pregnant, I'd pretty much DEMAND that she get an abortion.



Everyone on Myspace is annoying as shit. And these are the "People I Might Know", too!
Good God! I HATE PEOPLE SO MUCH!

"Wendy and Lucy" is at the Art Theatre and "Twilight" is at the Cheep Theatre. DAYUM SON.

I have done the logical and downloaded an SNES Emulator to my computer. So now you're reading the blog of a Guy that has pir83d versions of: Final Fantasy 2 AND 3, CHRONO TRIGGER, Secret of Mana, Illusion of Gaia, ad nauseum. Quite preferable to paying $6,000,000 to buy the cartridges uh?

Well, kinda. The emulator doesn't play nearly as smoothly as the system itself, and it's damn near impossible to set up my gamepad so it works just like the snes controller. In an ideal world, I would have those cartridges. But the emulator will save me a lotto money in the short-term, and I shall focus my Ebaying on buying absolutely ridiculous dvd's such as "dancer in the dark" and "the man without a past."

Pretty soon I will prob even get "I STAND ALONE."

I already had the best movie selection Evar, but this is just getting ridiculous!


(I'm well aware I've probably posted this exact same clip before.)

I do have some sense of Empathy. I do try to put myself in the other person's shoes. I swear. I try to give benefits of the doubt to the extent that I might even be making excuses for other peoples' bad behaviour: "Oh, they're just having a bad day." "Maybe they're having family, relationship, or financial stresses." That kind of thing.

I think I hate people most when they are in a good mood, and, thus, free-to-be their boring, lame, uninteresting selves. At least horrendous stress is somewhat interesting!

Yeah, I'm too judgemental. But how the hell do you change that once you recognize it? I don't have a clue. I want to take a nap.

Whenever I am in a crabby and/or blase mood, I just lay down and take a nap. This is my protest to the world. Or I go to bed super-early.

Have you ever found yourself just not giving a damn about anything or anyone?

I AM A SOCIOPATH.

MOOOOOOOVIES

YES MAN

I didn't have the highest expectations, I just wanted something lite'n'funny'n'cute to get me out of the house and maybe even bring up my mood. And this movie worked. Even Zooey Deschanel was kind of cute. Not Really cute, mind you, but just sort of. Which is strong praise coming from me, since I typically HATAR her and think she's FUGLYASSIN. Also, isn't Jim Carrey old enough to be her father?

So yeah. Good times. It was a pleasant diversion. I used to hate Jim Carrey, but now I kinda like him.

Totally worth seeing.

FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009)

I'm not going to waste our precious time here. This movie was horrible. I was quite excited to see it, on the day it opened, no less, and I was wholly disappointed. I guess you can't expect too much out of a "slasher flick", though. And I am not as well-versed-in/biased-towards the series as I probably should be. But this movie was boring and stupid and also fairly misogynistic. I'm surprised that so many people went to see it, making it far and away the top-grossing movie of the weekend. The hype machine was on full throttle, this much is for certain. I got fooled. In a just world, I would hear a deafening roar of "boos" and this movie would drop off the face of the earth over the course of this week. But from what I've heard, no-one seems to share my opinion that this movie sucked balls. It was really the type of thing better saved for the cheap cinema.

TWILIGHT

Finally. I wasn't gonna shell out the big bucks for this one. However, I'd been angling to see it at the Second-Run Cinema, so, when it debuted there this week, I was duly excited. Hell. I didn't care if I looked like a childrapist going in there alone, surrounded by giggling high-school girls.

The movie was So boring and disappointing. Edward Cullen was a big fat idiot. Not to mention very creepy. It's fine if young girls are mature enough to view this as pure escapist fantasy (as they should), but I'm concerned for any girl who uses the Edward/Bella model for an "ideal relationship." In this sense, the movie also sets a turrrrrrrrrrible example for boys as well as girls: "Be brooding, distant, rude, 'hovering', moody, always-staring, treat the person like an addictive drug and then you'll get the girl, and she will reciprocate your obsessive, mad love."

I've been doing the broody/stalky move for the past 10 years and it hasn't gotten me anywhere!

girls: "but you're not Edward Cullen!"

Good job. Even better message to send to the Youth, Meyers/Hardwicke: "The guy can Getawaywith

being broody/stalky/creepy if he's Cute like Edward Cullen!"

But, to give the audience some credit, I think the young girls did realize "it's just a movie." Like when Edward says/does some really wack shit, like telling Bella how much he likes watching her sleep, I heard some murmuring from the young ladies around me which indicated that they, indeed, thought that was a wack thing of him to do/say.

Bottum Line (r): The movie was just flat-out disappointing. Boring. The characters were one-dimensional and uninteresting. Edward was boring. Bella was boring. The movie was way too long and the pacing was....long and boring. Even Kristen Stewart didn't look as cute as she usually does. I was also hoping she'd be a huge dork/social outcast. No. She makes friends RIGHT AWAY and immediately she's asked-out to prom by that dorky guy Mike. Who, more-than-likely, would have been a muuuuch healthier choice than EDWARD CULLEN. What a huge gay.

This movie sucked balls. It was boring and, worse, potentially dangerous to tweenage girls. The only good thing about it was the beautiful photography of the washington wilderness. I might steal one of those scenes for the cover art of my black metal album. They were some honestly really good natureshots. But the movie itself was like a BAD made-for-tv movie. I can't believe I was so bored. I can't believe this movie made so much money. Jeeziz.

And it was surprisingly Cheezy (ridiculous dialogue'n'acting, somewhat overbearing soundtrack). I suppose it's part of the fun to buy into the cheeze/ridiculousness of this whole movie, but I'm concerned if even one Developing Mind took it even semi-seriously. Plus it was so disappointingly boring-as-shit. My God. After the first hour, I was constantly checking the time. For shame!

So, I'm hoping the sequel is better.

We are all on the not-so-proverbial line here. If you're lucky enough to have a job, never forget there ARE at least 50 people gunning for your job RIGHT NOW. One strike and you're out!

And How exactly does one "grow" jobs in a failing economy anyway?

I hear it sucks to be a newspaper reporter. Gannett is a behemoth. You can outsource all the articles stuff anyway. People in India writing articles, for pennies, about your hometown.

Goatees are gay. When I was young and gay and "experimenting" with facial hair, I probably had a gay little chin-beard at some point, and I probably thought it made me look like an "artist" or a "writer." HUBRIS! These days, I'll take a cheesestache any day of the year.

I don't like not being at the top of my game. I'm certainly not at the top of my game now, and it sucks. It's going to take me another 2 days to get back to the top, I reckon. That's also no good.

I am absolutely girl-crazy. I'm like how a 15-year old girl is for boys. I'm like how men are for sports. Honestly. It's even starting to distract me from the shitty movies.

All credible sources advise a person to "do something else to get your mind off it. Get a hobby. Learn an instrument. Learn a foreign language. Read a book. Travel. Volunteer. Become a workaholic. Become an alcoholic. Go for a Brisk Jog. Work on your resume. Go Skydiving. Play team sports."

I've done most of this stuff. I can tell you the alcoholic thing doesn't really work. And this is the wrong state to do anything workahol-related. I do play guitar quite ably. I've had a Solo Project for 10 years. I can play drums better than Ringo Starr. I taught myself Beginning Piano. I'm thinking of picking up the Saw and the Theremin. I can speak Scandinavian languages (well, sorta.) I started teaching myself Russian. I'd like to travel once I obtain the money. I'm in the process of becoming a Volunteer. I do occasionally Briskly Jog. I have worked my resume and cover letter to death, and I just did a Major Revision/Update of my resume. I should take some tech/business courses at the CC to make myself more "marketable." I'm fairly well read, or, at least, I can pass myself off as well-read. I can name more than one book by Nabokov and I can run my mouth about Thomas Pynchon and Don Delillo.

I might improve my "marketability" if I never wrote steaming kkkkrap like the following, however. I caught the end of "Dadnapped" the other night on Disney, and was reminded of a certain Torch I've Been Carrying:::

iv. statutory fanfic

[warning: this useless, pointless, UnSafe Story contains Verbal Abuse of Women. Funny at first, then horrifyingly sad, then, in hindsight, kinda funny again. Then, possibly, episodic sadness. So You might want to have your Lithium handy.]





"EMILY'S DINNER WITH CLASSWAR"

Kenneth von Classwar opened the door of the restaurant for Emily Osment.

"Don't think this means I'm gonna let you walk all over me," he said with a smile.

"Oh no. And I'd planned on having you buy me dinner, too," Emily smirked back.

"Fuck you, you Fat Fartslut, I ain't buyin' you shit. You can suck my big black dick."

"Prick." Emily slapped Kenneth von Classwar in the face.

"C'mon, baby, You know I don't like it when you make me talk to you like that."

"You are, without a doubt, the most ridiculous young man who has ever taken me out to dinner. I worry I'm setting a bad example for my fans, being seen with such a Gallic Barbarian as you."

Kenneth von Classwar removed Emily's coat and they slid into the booth, on the same side, like a bunch of faggots.

"Gallic Pussycat, is more like it. Believe you me, I coulda just raped the shit outta you when I came to pick you up."

She beat her little fists against his chest as he put his arm around her and rocked her side to side. She was way too smart, nice, and cute for him to getawaywith talking to her like that.

"Kenneth von Claswarrrrrr...."

"Iiiiiii'm sorry, Emily, I'm just clownin' around. I like you way too much to rape you."

She gave him the look.

"I mean, Not WAAAY too much. Not like, ''Like'-in-a-creepy-and-inappropriate-considering-how-long-and-how-much-we-actually-know-about-each-other kinda way', You know? We cool, baby!"

Classwar knew that's not what The Look meant.

"I have honestly never met a guy like you before, Kenneth Classwar."

"And you never will."

"Noooo. What I mean is, you think you're so clever."

"Yeah? So? You wanna make somethin' of it?"

"But you're not. I think it's all just a show. I think you're a scared little boy."

"And what about a 26-year-old man taking a 15-year-old girl out on a Romantic Dinner Date could possibly make you think THAT?"

"You think you know everything. And just because you openly say what everyone's really thinking, then that magically makes it all ok."

"If it wasn't ok, then you wouldn't have said yes."

"You really think I wouldn't?"

Classwar sighed. He couldn't think of a joke fast enough for that one.

"See, Emily, when you say stuff like that, it reminds me of why I stopped dating girls for 10 years."

"Either you're making another one of your stupid jokes, or I need to run screaming out of here right now."

"The door's right there," Classwar turned his head to look back over their shoulders, meeting her ridiculously disarmingly beautiful eyes for a second. He was really pushing his luck.

"Sorry, Emily, you know how it is with us comedians. We're always laughing on the outside, so the world doesn't know we're crying on the inside. So not masculine."

"But the world can tell you're crying on the inside. You might as well just be weeping right now. Like, a big blubbery mess."

"YOU'RE a big blubbery mess. Blubbercunt. Easy, Sleazy Garbagewhore."

"Let me guess. Some Nasty, Evil Nemesis-girl broke your Poor Little Heart years ago, and so now you're the asshole comedian with Intimacy Issues. See, you think you hate women, but you're really more scared of them than anything. You're scared of how you let yourself get affected by them."

"Who are you, my therapist? And no, that's just not quite accurate, Cummily Jizzment."

"Well, then, what is the true story, then, Kenneth Assfart?"

"TMI, baby, TMI. Didn't YOUR therapist tell you what's considered a reasonable level of Self-Disclosure in the early stages of a relationship?"
"I don't go to a therapist. I don't have problems forming relationships with people."
"Yeah, keep living that lie. From this stuff you're tellin' me, it's clear you're a fucking SOCIOPATH."

Why was Emily Osment being such a cunt? Classwar almost had a heartattack when she accepted his invitation to dinner; he'd had a terrible crush on her for a while.

"You're a prickly pear today, aren't you? Did you forget to take your medication this morning?"

"No. I'm on the Rag."

"You know, for a person who SAYS he likes me, you don't ACT like you like me very much."

"Maybe because you're acting like a Huge Horse's Ass."

Emily's mouth dropped open.

"Yeah. I bet you've never been called THAT before."

"You're an asshole."

"Hey. At least I'm not a Nice Guy(tm)."

"That's why I'm disappointed. I thought you WERE a nice guy."

Kenneth von Classwar sighed again, rubbed her arm with his hand, and Emily whispered "No," and folded her arms and turned away. Classwar sighed again, took a sip of the whiskey he'd ordered earlier, and lit a cigarette.

"I'm really not a bad guy, Emily. (sigggh) . . . . . I know I kinda had a crush on you, and I was excited to see you today, but . . . . . . oh jeeeeez . . . . . you know, that's the thing exactly, is, I don't really know you. All I know is what I thought I knew about you. . . . . I'm really hoping that maybe this is all just an honest misunderstanding, 'n' maybe you just don't really know me, and I just don't really know you, 'n' . . . . ."

Emily had turned to look Kenneth Classwar dead in the eye. He had to try real hard not to look away. She had some of the most beautiful eyes he'd ever seen. Emily reached over and took his free hand, and held it on her lap with both of her hands.

"Shhhh.... ."

Classwar shut the hell up right then and there. He really, really had to learn when to stop talking sometimes.

"So why don't we get to know each other. Let's just start over."

"Right now? Just like that?"

"Just like that."

Classwar had another miniheartattack. Then Emily smiled, and he smiled back.

"It's ok, Kenneth von Classwar. We just had a bad start. It's not the end of the world."

Classwar laughed as he began to feel the wave of relief overtake him.

"It's not?!1"

"NO, silly. I'm not that bad of a person, either."

"Heh. I didn't think you were."

"Things are gonna be allright. Now, you just relax and be yourself and have fun."

"Ok."

". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Aaand you can buy me a steak."

Classwar looked up at Emily's shining eyes and they both smiled.

"Suck My Big Black Dick, you Fuckin' Fat Piece o' Shit."

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SONG/ALBUM O' THE POST:

I'm pretty sure I've nominated Terrorizer for this honour before, but they're more than worthy of a second mention. This band will terrorize your face clean off, especially with riffs like the bridge starting @ 1:04:

"Whirlwind Struggle"

You know what makes us really sick
Are these fucking assholes in control
With their power, greed for money
they take it all from the poor

Whirlwind Struggle

Taking force on the innocent
take what rights, what little we have
they say we're free as can be
but we're all slaves to the government

Whirlwind Struggle

Understand there's too much pain
the suffering of man continues
will we ever learn from this
or will war be the final destiny

Whirlwind Struggle.

supercreep voice: "gonna put the taster right up the ol' FART-SPOUT ah"

(Warning: Damn. This SIBHoD absolutely sucks balls. But the logorrhea has been amassing in the verbal colon lately, and I'd like to EXPEL it all-at-once today, in the hopes that the next one is better. Christ, I hope so. Jesus.)

The Supercreep voice is something only I can do, which I use to say lines that would make Max Hardcore blush. It sounds kind of like the voice the drummer from NUNSLAUGHTER uses when introducing songs, crossed with the voice "The House Bunny" uses when trying to commit people's names to memory. (Would post links, but FUCKIT)

Hope that clarifies things.

i. person in bathroom stall: "Grrruuunnggrrrrggghh-rrrrrghhhuughhhhhh"

greg house, m.d.: "are you having a bowel movement or a BABY?"

Is there some kind of theory or principle or equation or "law" or curve or trend or something which describes how a series of auctions for Item A (for example, a cart of SNES "Final Fantasy 3") will change in price over time? For example, if One chooses to outright buy this at the Store, it's going to cost no less than $30. Plus shipping. More likely, it'll easily be near $40.

I don't want to spend $30 to $40 for a 15 year old game that One could ostensibly get on an Emulator with a newer system. But since I don't have any newer systems nor am I positioned to buy one, I'm trying to get the Best Price I Can on the 15 year old cartridge.

$25-including-shipping has been my maximum, although lately it's becoming my "target." My ideal. Because: the trend I've noticed, is that, ever since I made up my mind to Get This Game, the prices have been steadily going UP.

Cases in point: the oldest auction closed at $16. 16 freakin dollars! I could have had this game for 16 dollars! (that did not include shipping. BUT STILL.)

The next one closed at around $20.50 or so. This has since become my maximum bid, but I wouldn't be surprised if I broke down and upped it. Especially given the disturbing trend...

Subsequent auctions in this 5-auction "cohort" closed out at around 25-30 dollars. NO WAY, SON.

So Just Like The World's Biggest Dork, I sat there on Sunday night trying to SNIPE the auctions at the last minute. It was disappointing, yet still thrilling, and definitely fascinating seeing how the auctions in a given "cohort" (i.e., 5 or so auctions that all end in the same 24-hour window of time) can vary wildly in final price. It seems the earliest-ending auction will fetch the best price, and then they steadily go up.

I'm determined to go through a couple more "cohorts" to see if this trend continues. Fortunately, the game is in high enough supply that I can do this. In other words: 5 auctions closed yesterday, and today I'm in 5 new ones ftpw.

Shut your god damn facefuckhole. It's a good clean hobby! It doesn't destroy your liver or give you Herpes!

(Sarcasm alert) I was "entertaining" the idea of getting some Cosmetic Surgery to make me look More Like A Douchebag. This is very akin to insecure women getting Fake Breasts so they can get more "Positive Attention." So I would make my head/face more Square, and maybe install a Butt-Chin, and I would certainly want to do something to my bone structure / build to make myself generally Moar Rectangular. A Big Rectangle, to be more precise: Shoulders-chest-torso like a goddam BATTLESHIP.

But seriously. There's no reason you can't be happy with what the good lord gave ya, and you certainly can use more natural agency to "modify" it. The most effective thing I could do would be to Work Out until my Guns and Chest and Shoulders are BULGING.

But I'm pretty happy with not being BULGING and HUGE. I think that looks pretty stupid n gay.

On this "100 Sexiest Singers" show, they mentioned something about LL Cool J being really sexy. Yeah, his body is pretty "jacked and tan", but what I take umbrage with is how someone drew attention to his "trademark sexy move" of licking his lips all the time. They showed him on the red carpet at the Grammy Awards last night for 2 seconds, and sure enough, he was licking his lips like a damn chimpanzee. This is not "sexy". It's disgusting. Not to mention uncouth and lascivious.

My Power Sex Move is walking around grabbing my crotch and hawking real loud loogies.

Have I mentioned that Spitting is also retardedly disgusting? I don't even spit amongst my man-friends, except very rarely.

Oh, Michael Phelps. I usually like to be The First to comment on something (like when I started Blogging Joaquin's Beard and the Deschanel/Gibbard Engaygement weeks or even months before anyone else started talking about them), but everything that needs to be said about Phelps has already been said in the maelstrom of press over the past week.

So let me discuss him sorta-within the framework of The Anti-Pleasure Crusader. (Psychology Today Blogs are much more a Guilty Pleasure for me than they are something to Heartily Agree With.)

We all already know that Anti-Pleasure Crusaders are just puritanical Haters. Killjoys. They not-so-secretly yearn to do the sensualistic things other people happily do, so they pound their good books and call this behaviour evil and they act like pompous, pious, moralistic martyrs. Not a lot of fun, in other words. EXCRUCIATING.

Sex, drugs & Rich'n'rare. That's what they're talkin' about.

While I share their views on sex - that too many people are having way too much irresponsible (unwanted pregnancies, HPV, pubic rashes; I shouldn't have to keep beating this drum, but as long as people are Irresponsible Idiots, then beat I shall) s.-.x., most of the time I think These Moral Crusaders are way out of line when they call for Teetotaling on Substances.

Now, alcohol can give you cancer/failure in every part of your body, and alcoholism has destroyed many, many lives (but as many lives as Irresponsible Breeding and Genital Rot??? I riddle You THAT!), but there's no reason a mature person can't enjoy an occasional cocktail. Moderation, son.

Phelps's drug-of-choice, while quite argubly a much healthier choice compared to alcohol, is still quite illegal under US law. And maybe it shouldn't be. I'm not gonna get into that right now.

But my stance is, I don't blame any of the people that are dropping Phelps's endorsement deals following this recent fiasco. They should have done this after his drunk driving arrest (link?)

Just-as-annoying as the Crusaders are those people that say "he was just smokin' a Dooby, maaaaaan, get off yr high horse . . . . (or maybe u should get on the HIGH horse hahahaha)" should be shot to death.

My simple point is: I'm no ANGEL MYSELF, but I'm ALSO NOT a 88-time Gold Medal winner, Million$$$-Maker, and a Role Model For The Youth Of The World. With these things come an understood Higher Public Scrutiny AND Professional Social Responsibility.

GRAN TORINO

Clint Eastwood has faced a sliver of controversy over saying that we're living in "The Pussy Generation, which started when we stopped being tough and knowing how to fight back against bullies." (Paraphrased Esquire interview. Too lazy to link.)

Here I think common sense prevails in interpreting Clint's comment in a non-misogynistic way. There's good masculinity and bad masculinity. Common Sense would itself be a trait of "good masculinity", as well as would (imho): assertiveness, accountability, standing up for your beliefs, a strong work ethic, etc.

Rebuttal: But Am I saying that these positive traits are somehow in the unique domain of men only? Why can't also they be positive Feminine Traits? The way gender is constructed, aren't the positive masculine traits more in quantity AND quality than the positive feminine traits - for example, "gentleness" and "compassion" and such, which are clearly positioned as somehow "softer" or "weaker"?

Yeah, that's the hidden trap here, I suppose.

But Clint certainly is not encouraging men to go out and rape women, or to keep women barefoot and pregnant, or even to be racists seething with years of pent-up anger. A smart person could see that he's not encouraging Americans to be more like Walt Kowalski - who embodies many "bad masculine" traits e.g. racism and anger and hate and violence and nocommunicativeness - but of course, we mustn't assume that most Americans are sharp enough to pick up on the fact that Clint is creating a caricature for the very reason of pointing out its absurdity. This involves some prior knowledge of Clint as a "man's man" from his decades playing cigar-chomping cowboys and Dirty Harry. We must tease apart Clint-the-actual-person from Walt-the-caricature, which asks for some intellectual finesse - maybe a little too much - on the part of the audience.

When Clint says "don't be a pussy", he's simply saying: "don't let yourself get jewed" & "take responsibility for your actions" & "have courage in the face of adversity" & "assert yourself: shit or get off the pot" which are great lessons for women and men both.

However, his language, his image, and the over-the-topness of this movie does ensure that his quote would be taken out of context and misinterpreted. He's speaking to people like you and me: who understand the use of hyperbole, and who are somewhat wont of using coarse language and being misunderstood. Right on, Clint.

At any rate, you can be sure I'll be using the term "Zipperhead Swamp Rats" to describe Every Asian person I see.

But here's my super-provocative point of the day: it's not considered masculine-at-all to even TALK about Gender.

Think about that one for a while.

I don't really have a problem Playing the Hyper-masculine Role when it benefits me AND when it doesn't harm others. I mean, how much of a buzzkill would it be to be Out With The Boys (or The Girls) and then some palooka starts talking about Gender Itself? At these times, it's okay to Be The Man's Man.

However, I contend that Writing About Gender on my blog should not constitute any sort of emasculation. But yet it does, because there's no environment in which this "feminist speech" is considered socially acceptable. Patriarchy strikes again!

Not that Intellectualism itself is unmasculine. Otherwise we wouldn't have Male Professors. Come on. You can write books about Philosophy and Physics and maybe even Psychology and get away with it.

I'm just saying that being a Male Feminist, and a vocal one at that, can alienate one from both men and women.

Except maybe the Women Feminists, I suppose. But how many of those do You know?

All's I'm sayin' is, it shouldn't always be Excruciating - bad times - to talk about gender. I dunno. I guess it's 'how' one talks about it, just as much as it is the 'with whom', 'when', and 'where'. Who gives a flying fuck.

Anyway, the movie was solid entertainment. It was a lot funnier and lighter than I expected, and could be framed as a giant farce. Like when Clint starts Growling at everything that pisses him off. Only Mr Eastwood could get away with that, and his Growling in the very first scene is a Dead Giveaway that the movie should not be taken at face value.

Blararrgargargargrgrgahrgrhrgrhg.

I'm not sure how much of the movie was informed by our own local area, in which part of it was filmed. He is right that we-as-an-area are absolutely obsessed with race/ethnicity. Detroit-area racists are the most stubborn racists on the planet. You see open racism everywhere at all times.

Man, I'm literally going insane. I cannot tolerate basic social situations. I think this is part of the reason I enjoy writing so much, because I have never been so great at talking.

But, then again, Patriarchy Helps Me because I'm a man and it's Women who are supposed to be good at talking.

Unless you're talking about Power Talking, in which you're PERSUADING somebody to do something you want. I.e., Making Monay and Pulling Pussy are the only reasons men need to talk.

Note well the scenes in GT where Clint trains "Toad" to "talk like a man" and chastises him for being a "Big Fat Pussy".

Clint also uses the phrase "Christ All Friday", which I'm gonna be saying every nanosecond.

libIDo. I think most times when I say "libido", I really simply mean "id." Now, when normal people say "libido", they simply mean "sex". I've always extended the meaning to ALL sensual/physical pleasures: eating, drinking, sleeping, race-car driving, endorphin-rushing, etc. But now I eagerly extend my definition even further to encompass "anything that gives any sense of satisfaction," including intangible/existential things like "achieving one's goals" or "cultivating a sense of inner peace." Getting what You came for. That's my version of libido. Which is basically the domain of the Id - "Gimme gimme gimme."

iii. "only in a world this shitty could you possibly say these were innocent people and keep a straight face"
-john doe


When I'm in a bad mood like I am now, I think most people should feel such intense guilt/shame for the shitty things they've done in their lives, that they should kill themselves immediately. Or at least be so crippled by guilt and shame that they live in misery the rest of their godforsaken lives. Liars, Cheats, Thieves 'n' Cunts.

When times are as tuff as they are now, sometimes Men don't want a Lover as much as they want a "Mother"like Entity. Now before you go'n'get the FREUD RAGE, note those quotes. All I'm saying is simply:

it's such a bullshit, ridiculous, unforgiving, thankless, loveless, shitty world out there. We could ALL lose it ALL tomorrow. Men don't want to be lustily spurting on women's faces all the damn time. Sometimes people just want someone warm to tell them "everything's gonna be ok" and "i don't care how much money you make". Try A little tenderness and affection and comfort and all that, even if the words and gestures are empty. Meaningless words/motions can sometimes mean more than meaningful struggles[-of-attrition].

I'm not saying men want to fuck their own mothers. I'm just emphasizing the importance of a minimum of comfort in discomfiting times. For starters: the reassurance that the $ does not ultimately MAKE the man. All people are struggling. Even the Wall Street Fat Cats are losing their jobs, baby.

Weird Dreams: I dreamed I was drunk, and then when I woke up, I sort of felt h'ed-over: "Oh god why did I do that last night?" when, in fact, it was all a dream. This event makes me question the psychosomatic nature of h-overs, and underscores the extraordinary vividness'n'potency of my dreams as of late. . I can assure you I was quite happy once I realized it was only just a dream.

You ever get those days where you just don't feel like doing anything? I'm a bit worried that if I were taking some Mickey Mouse Intro To Computer Systems class, that I couldn't drum up the energy to read/do homework and I'd fail the fucking class ftf.

Am I the only one who has seen a picture of Kenny Rogers and thought he was Michael McDonald?

What do you do when there's no movies you want to see at the first-run theatre, at the second-run theatre, at the library, AND at the video store?




iii. rape the world



What you do at times like this, is you listen to DESTROYER666 and get your proverbial fist pumping.

(tangent: Darkthrone completely defected from their "first era" which was summed-up in their first LP "Soulside Journey", but after listening to it and thoroughly enjoying it recently, I'm feeling they're selling themselves a little bit short [by renouncing SJ].)

SWEET FANCY MOSES. Here is the best article ever written by anyone about anything in the history of the universe, at Shakesville. Great article, even greater discussion. It's about the "phenonmenon" of "Nice Guys (tm)" who are always moaning that "nice guys finish last" and "nice guys never get the girl." [for convenience&clarity, let's call "Nice Guy(tm)" NGT. Because there is an important difference between NGT's and "genuine nice guys.")

This article/discussion absolutely PWNS them. It Rightfully Rips them to Shreds. I was sorta looking for an article like this, and today I finally found it. A total must-read for all men (esp those pussyfaggots in danger of becoming NGTs) and probably also for women. And although women probably realize all this already, a whole bunch of shit gets Articulated very soundly on that page.

A major reason I've been an Epic Fail with Women in my life is that I am one of those dreaded NGTs. I.e., I'm not Really Nice at all. If anything, I'm a huge fucking asshole. A big gaping asshole. Narcissistic'n'Insincere to the eXtreme. I.e., The "Nicest" NGT you could ever hope to meet. I'm not really nice. I fucking HATE everything and everyone!

And for all my talk of "Feminism", and "Respecting Women as Human Beings", and "Egalitarian Relationships", I have a Misogynistic Streak in me 6,000,000 miles wide. So wide, you might even be able to call me "A MISOGYNIST." When you strip away all the feminist righteousness, really, I essentially treat women as nothing more than "Sex Dispensers" (grrreat quote from the article; I've been known to use the phrase "Mere Receptacles" myself) while proudly, emptily CLAIMING to treat them like Humans.

Nuh-uh. Lies. I haven't treated a woman like a human being in years, if ever.

One of the big criticisms of the NGT is that he's not honest/forthcoming/ingenuous with his feelings/intentions. Absolutamente Correctamundo! The one single good thing Alcohol has done for me in my life is that it's helped me get over the NGT thing, because it causes me to finally animalistically Throw myself at women, and set huge, angry, godforsaken Trainwrecks in motion. This takes the worst NGTs a bit longer to do.

Someone called NGTs "PSYCHOPATHIC TODDLERS". I was pumping my fist and shouting "YESSSSS!" at just about every comment on this post. And you better believe there are a few good NGT Apologists in there too!!!!!!1

Clint Eastwood would definitely approve of that article.

Although, to my defense - finally! - as much as I hate women, I hate men too. It would be more accurate to call me "A MISANTHROPE" rather than "A MISOGYNIST".

And, I would claim that some NGTs don't assume an interchangeability between emotional-satisfaction-for-women & physical-satisfaction-for-men; OR an interchangeability between all women-as-"sex dispensers." I might argue that these are NGTs-In-Recovery. Something I didn't really see addressed in the article's superlong comment thread was the idea that The NGTIR might actually want a healthy Combination of both the emotional And the physical, a combination which cannot be reciprocated. Of course, the NGTIR should be more apt at signalling his intention, and for backing off when he finds that the combo is not reciprocated.

Full-Blown NGTs probably need years of Therapy before they can establish a rudimentarily healthy relationship with women, if ever, but in these tuff times, most people - especially NGT's, who are probably Economic Failures as well as Social Failures - could not afford the necessary Years of Therapy.

I wish I could do a study on NGTs. Since I'm intimately familiar with their Behaviour, I can recognize it Immediately. It sends a strong, strong, obvious signal.

Ok. So our culture tells us that women are better at Reading Signals and Reading Nonverbal Meanings. Wouldn't Telltale NGT Behaviour also be immediately apparent to women, hence, they would immediately run for the hills and never let the NGT sink his hooks in in the first place?

But I'm essentializing. All women are different, all NGTs are different, all people are different. Sometimes, for whatever reason(s), the pathological behaviour is not noticed. It obviously happens quite a bit, for NGTism to be such a Big Deal To Feminist Bloggers.

When any amount of (Erotic) Libido is on board, It's hard enough for two people to be on the same page for one day, let alone many days. This is why I distrust long-term libidinous relationships. But damn, are they fascinating - exactly because they merely happen, in the face of them making no sense. It's my Academic Cross To Bear (tm) to try to make sense of this nonsense.



Man. I do honestly hate everyone and everything. CHRIST ALL FRIDAY.

Oh yeah. Before I forget. Here's an awesome demolition of the movie "Superbad", which contends that said movie promotes rape. I don't know why these Feminists get their hempanties in a bunch or don't develop a sense of humour; don't they know that rape is funny?

Also, Who's Slashing Jobs. GM's slashing jobs. 10,000 newly-announced slashes of salaried workers, that is, not to be confused with the 60,000+ hourly workers the company is trying to trim through buyouts.

Good thing the D-3 have my resume on file!

If you have any SNES games you want to sell me, lemme know.

Have a Good Hump Day. If you're Humping Around, then I hope You at least satisfy the Ol' Id Doin' It.

little piss-gargler

So the quality of this post isn't top-of-the-line. It's still not too bad, and it's a hell of good time to read on a Saturday Nite.


CORALINE:

I first heard about this movie via a trailer previous to "Revolutionary Road" the other week. I enjoy the trailers at the Real Movies compared to the ones at the Bargain Cinema, because they're (the former group) for movies that have not actually come out yet, and of which I've likely never heard - so, best-case-scenario, I can build up some anticipation for movies I Want To See in the upcoming weeks/months/year.

"Coraline" looked intriguing, i.e., as I watched the trailer I thought, "Eh. I'll probably see it." So Friday I was torn between Coraline and The Reader, and decided some animated, youthful fantasy was highly in order. I was ultimately sold on the 3-D feature, as I'd never seen a 3-D movie before.

The 3-dness "justifies" the theatre in adding an extra $2 to the ticket price, but it looks like I was willing to pay it, uh?

Coraline is written/directed by Henry Selick, who the trailer told me had done "The Nightmare Before Christmas," which I'd seen once long ago and don't really remember hating per se. This one looked stylistically similar, and from the age of the former film, I assumed he was a "pioneer" of the genre.

The opening titles revealed that the movie was based off a Neil Gaiman story, which gave me a bit of pause. Not the world's biggest Gaiman fan over here. I do not like books and stories and reading, you may recall. Why bore yourself to death with a book when you can watch a movie and be "visually stunned", is my rationale. Plus I associate Gaiman with "Crass Commercial Pulp", like Steven King or Clive Barker or something. IMHO, these guys should just write screenplays - their "literature" seems almost custom-made for film adaptation anyway.

Yeah, I well-know there's a ton of Gaiman Geeks out there, and I just don't care about Y'all. Bottom line: I'd never read any of his books, but I had little doubt that the source material would make a watchable movie.

And It was very watchable. Eye-popping, dazzling, a treat for the senses, etc etc. The only thing about animation I know is it's horrendously painstaking work, and I can't even imagine the (literally!) millions of work-hours that went into this movie. Good animations get an "A for effort" from me. I'll take a bad animation over a semi-bad movie anyday.

Coraline's world/milieu invites the viewer right in. The house, the misty mountains, the garden, etc. It's all lush.

I found it extremely strange that there was so much emphasis placed on the "wonderful" state of Michigan. I wonder how much of that was Gaiman's intent, or if it has something to do with Michigan trying to reinvent inself as the "next hollywood." The father sports a Michigan State shirt most of the movie (although he acts more like a Michigan Man!), a "Detroit Zoo" snowglobe plays a prominent role, and it is mentioned several times that Coraline and her family moved from Pontiac.

If anyone involved with this movie had ever been to Pontiac for 1 minute, they'd know it is a gaping shithole and that it does not produce professional, college-grad writers like Coraline's parents, or precocious little smartypants white girls like Coraline. It sucks. I try to avoid it whenever possible. This family is much more of a Bloomfield/Birmingham/Rochester family. Pontiac wtf????

Still, these little inaccuracies were quaint rather than annoying per se. They're building a new movie studio in Pontiac, btw. Guess how that's gonna work out.

I was a tiiiny bit disappointed in the character development, although I didn't dislike it. The characters were all pretty stock, but the lavish animation helped give them a bit of extra personality. Coraline is obv the focus of the movie, and I am absolutely positively biased towards Young, Precocious, Smart, Angry, Angsty, Loner/Outsider Girls. I was thinking about writing a story about such a girl myself.

It didn't hurt that these qualities were emphasized in Coraline by her less-than-ideal existence: BORING, stupid, gay, etc. She wants More, and she certainly finds more when she goes down that proverbial rabbit-hole. Again, somewhat predictable, but it hit a decent number of notes that resounded with me.

And Coraline was adorable with her blue hair and pouty face and spaghetti-thin little stick body.

There was enough going on in the story to make it somewhat interesting, and it even got a little more "creepy" than I expected. There was a little girl and her parents sitting behind me, and at one point, the girl said "can I sit on your lap, this part is kinda sca-wy". Cute.

I enjoyed how Coraline's quest became rather Task-Oriented; it reminded me of an RPG hahaha.

So yeah. It looked great, it was good entertainment, I was hoping I'd like it a little bit more, but it wasn't bad at all. Not bad. And apparently the animation was stop-motion, I just found out. So it gets extra kudos for that.

I vowed I was going to go to the Cheap Cinema later in the evening and watch "The Man Who Fell To Earth" or "Punisher" or "Yes Man" or "Transporter", but instead I ate a pizza and went to bed early. The pizza was an extremely unhealthy choice: a Meijer "Tombstone" knock-off (Supreme). But it was tasty.

It's tuff business being social. You can really get out of the loop without even trying. Everytime I go out with my friends, we usually end up at a bar, and then I usually end up having a few too many, which is stupid and gay. The only way I could reasonably justify having a few dranks would be if eventually ended up getting my Dance on. And, snob that I am, I'm just not down with most Dancing Environments. So I just stay in and watch movies. Or go out and watch movies. I'm gettin' real impatient waiting to win some SNES RPGs, though, because those will usher in a new Golden Era of solitary'n'sensible fun.

I don't like being social in Bars. I don't think bars are the greatest Place to meet Interesting new people. And I kinda want to meet interesting new people in order to prove that I don't automatically hate all new people. But when I go out to some gay bar with my friends, really all I do is hang-out with them and have a few cocktails. Which have unfortunately been having a more-potent-than-usual effect on me as of late.

ROCK AND A HARD PLACE I TELL YA.

I kinda want to see "Che" but I'm not thrilled that this is a Steven Soderbergh Movie, and I'm REALLLLY not thrilled about the 4 hour + run time. I do really like Benicio Del Toro, but do I like him THAT much?

Freelance writing. People have told me I should become a freelance writer. I guess this would involve submitting pieces to magazines/newspapers/blogs etc and begging to do a few pieces. Just thinking about it makes me TIRED, however, and all accounts I've heard of the life of a Freelance Writer are miserable. I think I'd just rather make my 2 dollars an hour at my current job and continue to write the SIBHoD for fun. Because if there's one thing Freelance Writing does NOT sound like, it's FUN.

Here's a Distubring Dichotomy that is sounding less-and-less false by the minute, as The Great Sucking Sound becomes ever more urgently deafening:

A. Stay in Michigan and be a Big Fat Epic Loser for the rest of One's godforsaken life, or B. Move out of state and try to find even a shred of hope for Not being a Big Fat Epic Loser.

http://www.macombdaily.com/articles/2009/02/03/news/srv0000004623537.txt

Here's a typical comment-discussion amongst My Local Neighbours regarding employment, gainful livings, the economy, jobs, wages, benefits, unions, layoffs, un/employment, givebacks, etc etc etc.

There's no cut-and-dry answer. When you're a L337 College Kid in good health, then it's all fine-and-dandy to be the world's biggest Union Supporter. But if you're not so l337 and not so healthy and you've got mouths to feed and your job is on the line and your employer is fucked and your union is fucked and the economy in general is fucked and you and your family are fucked, then it's a little bit more difficult to be such a gung-ho union supporter.

I believe unions are fantastic in principle. Many people have this fundamental belief that a company's job is to make money, and they have no other obligation, and certainly not to the workers. If I were a die-hard capitalist, I'd think that too. But in my blood, I believe there NEEDS to be that classwar. Workers are obligated to fight their employers tooth-and-nail exactly because their employers are greedy-by-nature (B'cuz they Hate Ya) and want to make as much money as possible off their backs. And who needs that money more?

But then you start talking about "entitlement", and now things get Really heated. This is where people crucify the UAW and the lazy autoworkers for living too high on the hog for too long, and causing the companies/economy to be as fucked as they are now.

Without being a labor expert or an economist, I cannot say exactly how much the "grossly, disporportionately high" union wages/benefits have contributed to The Recession. And Labor Experts and Economists would disagree on the percentage-of-unions'-culpability, too. I think Unions certainly do play a role, but I can't say I believe they play the Primary role.

Behind the accusations of "entitlement" and "laziness" is a growingly-obvious sense of envy: "why couldn't I have that too." So the people making less are bitter, and so they say "at least I work an HONEST job. Go ahead. Lay the autoworkers off. There are 1,000 hardworking people willing to take even ONE of those jobs, and at half the pay", and such.

And they're not exaggerating, either.

You can see how it would seem hopeless that anyone could make a good living in this area. That's why so many Young People are leaving the state behind altogether. And You can see How if a Young Person (under 30) DOESN'T leave the state, then he might be considered an Idiot, and be setting himself up for a wasted life.

(And how does a poor person with a wasted life get Action with interesting people, especially if all the interesting people have left the state in order to Not Waste Their Lives?)
(Titillating topics of Libido are indeed quite the Convenient Distraction to the Hard Times, uh?!!)

To paraphrase Lloyd Bridges: "Looked like I picked the wrong time and place to QUIT DRINKING."

Or maybe I picked the exact right time and place.

The Economic, The Libidinal, and The Political. What an Unholy Trinity.

I'd join the peace corps, but I have a feeling they'd deem me "unfit" Plus I'm still stinging from 8 months ago when the director of a hoity-toity Americorps program asked me point-blank: "What have you been doing the past 3 years? Couldn't you have jumped on a plane and helped Katrina victims like thousands of other Young People?"

Yes. Yes, I could have. Sometimes the Hard Truth is exactly what we need to hear in order to Light A Fire Under Our Asses and Get Us Going. In my case, though, it just made me Angry and Discouraged. That Fucking Asshole.

I'm in kindof a crabby mood today. Thinking about the local economy can do that to a Smrt person.

Man, I hope I win the auction for that video game.

So I tried doing a little research on "best economy in the US" and things are slightly inconclusive:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/19558099

http://www.city-data.com/forum/general-u-s/135242-what-states-have-best-economy.html

I think the bottom line is, any state/region would be better than Michigan. Except maybe Louisiana or Mississippi. And I hear Ohio and Rhode Island kinda suck too. And Illinois doesn't seem to be as many leaps and bounds ahead of MI as I assumed they'd be (y'know, Chitown being the "NYC of the Midwest" and all). MA, NJ, as well as regions around DC (MD, VA, NC) seem to be doing ok. BFE states like Utah, Idaho, Montana also seem to be surprisingly-not-so-bad. WA and OR seem somewhat safe bets, as well as slightly Interesting (read: non-boring) Places. AZ is ok, but not so much NM?

It's almost a crap shoot. I'm not super-popular, so I won't know many people wherever I go. Plus I generally hate people anyway, so, theoretically, it shouldn't make a difference if I move somewhere lame like Chubbuck, ID, or someplace supposedly "cool" like Seattle or Boston or Austin or Chicago or something. But I think I'd prefer a Cool City, just because it seems the Odds/Probability of Making New friends there would be greatest. At least, in a city, there'd be stuff to do, like when we went to Chicago. There it was fun just to walk around. (Although it would be damn near impossible to afford to live there!)

But since moving is a kinda a Big Deal and I'm slow to make big life changes anyway, I should probably pick a place that has good long-term potential. I.e., could see myself getting old and dying there. Someplace that's fairly economically stable and has decent higher education opportunities, in other words.

I mean, with my limited skill-set as it is, I'd be applying to the exact same "clerk" "assistant" "data entry" "entry level" jobs I applied to around here . . . . but I'm simply assuming that an entry-level job in, say, Spokane is going to have relatively fewer desperate'n'overqualified people willing to throw each other under the bus to get that coveted $8-an-hour full-time job.

Yeah. I mean I'm slowly but semi-surely trying to beef up my Skill Set and Resume. The Tutoring and volunteer stuff. Some sort of Computer Certification. Some sort of Accounting Classes. That sort of crap. My job is @ a Community College, which is unquestionably THE Ground Zero of Higher Education in this immediate area.

It's just so hard to Stay On Track, though, and Way Too Easy to fall off the deep end. Way too easy. You don't even know how easy it is to FLUSH FOUR YEARS OF YOUR LIFE DOWN THE FUCKING TOILET.

It's almost not even worth it to look for another job in this state, considering how ridiculously hard it was to get the one I have now. Time to Ramp Up The Ridiculousness on my Resume. How 'bout that "vigorous problem-solving" ?

I might go to yet another first-run movie this weekend. Sunday before 4pm, $5 son. The Reader. Still need to see Gran Torino. Dayum.

I think I would be a pretty good actor. Like the screen and stage. I just hate actors, though, and I certainly don't "regret" not going to acting school. Because you know who goes to that? Obnoxious actors! It's natural-born in me is what it is.

The weather is really nice today. Really, really nice. I would be an idiot if I didn't go outside and take a Brisk Jog.

You ever get those times where you are absolutely STARVING?

I used to easily be able to drum up the energy/will to go see a crappy movie I didn't even really want to see. But I think "Australia" really screwed the pooch there. FILLED-UP FIDO. There's at least 3 horrible movies at the cheapshow but I can only seem to convince myself to go see "Yes Man." Might as well, uh? They have a Del Taco near the one theatre, and a White Castle near the other.

Although I'd hate to be many lbs overweight again. That sucked a "fat" one, hahaha.

What will get you the better price: placing a winning ebay bid through Proxy (Automatic Up-to-Maximum) bidding, or SNIPING somebody at the last second? Methinks the latter would provide much more satisfaction!

Totally going to "Yes Man" today. Will go to either "Milk" or "Gran Torino" tomorrow.

On the Wii they apparently have this massive emulator where you can use Wii Points to buy a bunch of old-school games: NES, SNES, 64, Cube, all that. Although methinks a computer would be a more responsible/useful investment than a Wii.

Heh. I have become such a grumpy goddam old man. Music. I hate music. I can't believe most people wouldn't have a problem with hanging out with most musicians. I hate music and musicians.

I'd have a brandy with Vivaldi, though. I think that'd be pretty straight.

Eh. Wish I had some good clips or quotes for Yall today, but I think yr gonna have to wait for later. I told ya so!

Have a good rest-of-the-weekend.

ok,

ol' nickycave sez it best: PPL JUST AINT NO DAMN GUD.

got yr dick on-hard, from fuckin yr road-dogs

(thurs)

For being a supposedly "smart" guy, I can often be really, really stupid. Those who know what I'm talkin' about do know what I'm talkin' about.

I'll learn my lesson one of these days. Believe me, I will. I'm tired of all the Empty Promises too. I'm not exactly sure when it's gonna happen, but do fully believe it will happen. And hopefully sooner rather than later. Good God. I think I'm actually getting pretty close, though.

Alcohol does not at all interact well with my Superprozac.

No, I don't take Superprozac, but I really should. Sometimes I don't trust people who don't take it.

In my old age, I've become outwardly more affected by dranks, such that I "act out" and my behaviour is really TELLING. The end result is, I begin sending out extremely ridiculous/offensive messages: texts, myspace, etc, and making a damn fool of myself. The next day I hang my head and say "you're a fucking IDIOT" and vow never to do this again. And then I do it again about a week later.

It's not great that Insight and Acceptance and Knowledge (i.e., non-denial) is sometimes just not enough. Sometimes you just need to go to Moral Jail - if not actual Jail.

I think this is what the professionals call "Stages of Change." We realize what the problem is and want to change, but, for whatever reasons, we have a tuff time putting that plan into successful action. The challenge is just taking it 1 day at a time. I have learned that Not Being Around Alcohol (i.e., not going to bars) might be the next best thing in the ol' tackle box. And trying to stay busy with Better Shit, like going to movies and helping the Needy and getting a Microsoft Certification and making my resume and cover letters more "competitive."

Also, Somebody hacked my Solo Project myspace page and my Hit Single 2008 is unplayable/unavailable. I'm also str8-up unable to log on to my regular myspace page, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were permanently f-ed. Seriously. I still can't log on, and it's not just because my password is super-complicated. I've got a feeling it's flat-out fucked. So I might be on permanent Hiatus from Myspace now.

Sometimes the best solution to Life is simply to go to bed. I can lay in bed for 20 hours no problem. I'm really thinking about doing a 36 hour extravaganza today, though.

Here's the immediate prescription:

1. Fast Food.

2. Napction.

That will really do a world of good. The question is: MacDonalds or Burger King? OR Taco Bell or KFC?

(it was Burger King, btw)



I have much weirder dreams than you. Last night I dreamt I was in Russia. I went with my friend to a large big-box store where we were trying to buy some cheap Russian vodka. Everything was dusty and dim and decrepit and downtrodden.

Then stuff started getting REALLY weird. I don't know how else to put this, but

AN ARM ATE A LEG.

That might have been the single weirdest thing I have ever dreamt in my life.

The "arm" didn't look like an arm; it looked like a big tube of ground beef, but my mind thought of it (and still does) as an "arm". It split apart at the end to resemble a Lipped Mouth, and then, sure enough, it started slowly munching on a severed leg. (The leg did look like a [human] leg, fyi.)

Yeah, it sounds funny, but it was extremely disturbing at the time. I felt like I was going insane.

There was also some very disturbing violence, in which a man crushed a woman's head such that it collapsed downwards into her neck/torso. And then blood and gooey white stuff started squirting everywhere and damaged bodies began writhing/crabwalking everywhere like a Tool video / bad new horror movie.

Then I was in a small convenience store. Everything was black-and-white, and the understanding was that I was actually In A Movie. Johnny Cash was playing a Cameo Role of an emotionally-disturbed stock clerk at the store. He was muttering something to himself about how his girl had left him. Here's the really weird part, though: he didn't look like Johnny Cash, he looked like an Extremely Short Roy Orbison Sans Sunglasses. I went and stood next to him and I was at least a foot taller than him, and I said to my friend "Hey look, I'm way taller than Johnny Cash!"

I don't know why I see things and then interpret them as other things. Because the guy clearly looked like Mini Roy Orbison, NOT Johnny Cash.

The "Madonna/Whore Complex" is technically a psychological thing on the part of men, where, because of a cold/distant mother or whatever, they can't reconcile that one woman can be BOTH saintly motherly AND filthily, sluttishly sexual. Thus, they need two separate women. At least.

I'm actually don't have this complex, praise the lord.

Anyway, is it unreasonable to think that some women might have a similar thing going on? You're essentially separating the physical and the emotional, right? I'd claim the female cognate of the madonna/whore complex is the badboy/niceguy complex. Women afflicted with this unfortunate psychological disorder want to have passionate, swept-away sex with big, strapping, roguish, mysterious, unavailable, women-hating "bad boys", but
they want to "settle down" and "have kids" with smrt wimpy little rich guys.

Yes, I know I'm being Hostile and Facetious, ASS HOLE. The problem with these just-so stories is that nothing is ever really just-so. Sometimes I repeat the mantra "FALSE DICHOTOMY" to myself 598,930,295,698,756,654,218,879,519,363,144,742,739,040 times a day.

The song of the week/month/yr is "Bleak Shores" by the one-man US Black Metal Wunderkind KROHM. Man, this song has got it all. It cuts immediately to the quick and reassures me of why I LUV Black Metal: The mid-paced, hypnotic "transilvanian hunger" type beats, the classic necro guitar sound, the sweep-picking/arpeggiated thang going on....this is my preferred kind of Black Metal. Also, THE RIFF near the middle of the song might just redefine the entire genre for me. It's not the most typical "black metal" riff, but it's haunting and epically bone-chilling and soul-freezing. My Solo Project is totally gonna do a cover of this song. This song is monolithic and very easily coverworthy.

I'm just gonna come right out and say it:
KROHM IS THE NEW BURZUM.

I watched a Richard Lewis comedy special yesterday. It was hilarious...but he was even more neurotic than he is on "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

One of my favourite aspects of "The Office" is how desperately lonely everyone is. For example, in the new episode, Andy immediately falls in love with Stanley's client and tries to get closer to her, by making a ridiculous joke-version of a terrible Feist song, and by pathetically inviting her to go on a "mall-walk" with him, in a last-ditch, throw-self-under-the-bus attempt to hang-out with her. Talk about an Epic You-Know-What.

Yes, it's funny, because Ed Helms is a talented and funny actor, but when you think about it, it's also horribly sad - there are people out there who are actually like Andy. Ol' Arrogant Andy, always boasting about the Hamptons and his long-gone glory days at Cornell, Cornell, Cornell. Now he's sliding down the ladder o' life due to his Anger Problem, but maintains an overbearing sense of humour despite the fact his life is obviously going down the toilet. He does show some insight, too, such as in the hilarious line last night where he said something like "Nard-dawg 1, Crippling Despair 0" or something like that.

Essentially he's the guy in the office who's most like Michael. Michael is just as desperate, and just as much of a failure. He's a little boy when it comes to women. The situation between him and Jan was such a clusterfuck, but at some points there were actually a few rays of hope, and I was hoping it would work out between them.

And then he fell in love with Holly from Nashua, who I believe came in to fill Toby's HR position when he temporarily resigned. Now she's back in Nashua. I'm not really "caught up" on what happened here, but Michael fell head-over-heels for her and finally appeared to begin getting over Jan. And then Holly leaves, and in the new episode, we find Michael ruminating over the past and wanting "closure" after he saw how good Pam felt after reconciling things with Karen. So Pam, perhaps naively optimistically, convinces Michael to make a detour to Nashua so he can meet Holly again. When the camera zooms in on Michael's face at the end of pt 1 of this two-episode series, we know he's gonna royally fuck it all up yet again.

It's hilarious but also sad. I really hope that when the series finally ends, losers like Michael and Andy finally attain some amount of happiness, as Jim and Pam seem to have done. Obnoxious Michael and Andy may be, but they are undeniably Good People, and I hate to see good people getting The Raw Deal. Although that is the way things work sometimes.

It's Friday and I'm gonna see a $5 movie. I'm thinking "The Reader" but I also would actually like to see "Coraline (3-D!)" too. And maybe even "He's just not that into you". Bottom Line: I'm gonna see something hopefully somewhat watchable and y'all are gonna hear about it.

T.I.T.4

I'm thankful that I've been the high bidder (@ a "whopping" $9.99!) on an ebay auction for "Final Fantasy 3" (SNES) for like 3 days. If I can win this for under $15, I'll be very pleasantly surprised.


I can assure you, the next post will be much, much better.

Have a good weekend.


ps here's an absolutely ridiculous clip from "family guy." Apparently the guy who posted it thought a certain aspect of it was as hilarious as I did.

decent, open violence

i. max hardcore voice: "i'm gonna cream in your crack, baby!"

(saturday):

Damn. Down to 0 Subscribers. Well, there's no place to go but up, I suppose.

You ever get those days where You're just bored to death and nothing sounds like fun? I would much rather be working and getting paid. In the near future, I'll be stepping up my productivity/usefulness so I'll be thankfully less likely to get these boring nights, but... even one is too many. I checked out the Weekly Paper for Events and Things To Do, and nothing sounded interesting at all. Then I saw a bunch of Bar-Night pictures of 21-25 year-old hipsters with their black-rimmed glasses and their ties and their sweaters and their PBR and their tattoos and their shaggy hair and their beards and their bands and their music and I was like "HALE no." You'd have to pay me to go to a social function with such a group, and then you'd have to buy alcohol and pour it into me. I don't typically love Hipsters to begin with, but this area's particular breed of Hipster is more rough-around-the-edges, more "working-class", and more "artistic/musical" it seems. And dumber and more obnoxious.

I already went out to a movie today. I'm just gonna think about watching a dvd and going to bed early. I don't feel like calling any of my friends or doing anything with them. I don't feel like reading. I don't feel like playing geetar.


(tuesday):

Gender gender gender gendergendergendergendergendergendergender. My fascination teeters between a hobby and an outright obsession. Sometimes I take a step back and say "WHY SO FASCINATED?" Perhaps it's a Sadistic-Narcissistic desire to possess, control, and ultimately Cannibalize women. Or perhaps it's a Masochistic-Narcissistic Pathological Need to get close to a Warm Female Body. (Pref. Emily Osment's.)

One thing is for certain: when men gather to watch the Super Bowl, I somehow end up drinking 570 beers and messaging every woman I know. It's like Motley Crue with their song "Girls girls girls". Or Beastie Boys with their song "Girls." If I drink beers, I go Ga-Ga for Girls. Fact. It's So Retarded.

You could frame it as "knowing the enemy", but I think the much more positive/realistic spin is really: "knowing the Unknown." And the most prosaic, boring explanation is: "a normal, healthy desire to live in a co-ed society."

YAWWWWWWWNNNN.

But What is the deal with that, anyway? Tolstoy didn't need to associate with women! Or John "The Duke" Wayne! Or Barack Obama! Real men don't need women in their lives!

Once again, I blame going to an all-male high school for permanently skewing my social development. And also the women in College who finally got me Interested. The Mean Girls who Pantsed me in Grade School didn't help much either.

And I'm largely to blame myself, for being not-100%-competent on negotiating that Impossible, Paradoxical Double Standard of Wanting to Treat Women like Human Beings, but Being Culturally -- Patriarchally -- OBLIGATED to "Treat Them Like The Pigs They Are."
(Of course I'm being facetious, as I realize the far more difficult paradox is that double-standard of Actually-Living-As-A-Woman: the madonna/whore issue, I mean. I.e., Men's pathological, unreasonable, contradictory-in-terms Expectations. If you don't know, now you know.

Dumb Woman Voice: "Huuuh? What are you talking about?" )

So after hanging my head in well-deserved shame for a couple days, I'm more than ready to Talk Politics. Anything but Gender Politics!

Even THE ECONOMY is a better topic than Gender!!

jk.

SO, WHO'S SLASHING THOUSANDS OF JOBS TODAY?

Ans-wer: Macy's. Macy's just cut 7,000 jobs. Retail ftw.

Stay tuned to the sibhod for all Your latest Job-loss updates!

My new gameplan is to be a Literacy Tutor. This is SUCH a good idea, I don't even want to jinx it by talking about it. More l8r.

Our city's former ("embattled") mayor "King Kwame" was released from jail last night, surrounded by a "phalanx of large and nattily attired escorts". He then had a meaty late-night BBQ Snack and was whisked off to Texas this morning for a job interview.

I could be mad and bitter and make all sorts of racially-loaded comments like all the other "suburbanites". But hey. He got his law degree, he was a Better Student in College than I was, his mother's a U.S. Congresswoman, his wife beat a stripper to death, everything adds up.

Still, a small part of me wants him to Fail this Job Interview. Just because I think Everybody needs to fail a few Job Interviews. It's a grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat character builder. And it is a crying shame that most people who Never bomb an interview are often the ones who Need to bomb an interview the most. (and vice-versa.) But no. They get their degree, get a job with a living wage and god forbid Health Insurance, move to an expensive apartment in the city, and have way too much climactic, wild-oats s-x.

Christian Bale "went off" on the Directory of Photography on the set of the new "Terminator" movie. Good job, Christian. It's kinda funny. Maybe I just like hearing people get angry. I think that's it. Anger is cool. When I'm driving in my car I say some very angry things to people.

I'm taking yet another Hiatus from Myspace.

ii. "i'm gonna KILL you two idiots!"
I cannot find the Beavis and Butt-head episode "Wood Shop" where the Wood Shop teacher says that line to B&B. That was one of the best lines of that show ever.

I have reached that point where I've finally started playing video games again. I'm thankful. It's really becoming my salvation. Movies are boring; books are boring; music is boring; the internet is boring; tv is usually boring; but Video Games are so fun it's not even funny. Playing a game like "Zelda: A Link To The Past", even when I've beaten it 6,000,000 times, is more fun/healthy than many, manymany things.

It's fitting the only video game system I have is The Super Nintendo (SNES), which I got at least 15 years ago. I unfortunately have lost almost all of my games, except for the only two that matter: "Super Mario World" and "Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past," the latter of which is, inarguably, The Greatest Game Ever Made.

I was naive to think one could still go to Gamestop or "Funcoland" (ha!) and actually buy used SNES games. You apparently have not been able to do this in YEARS. Now you must buy them off the Internet. And wouldn't ya know, all the Epic RPG games I want are among the most expensive.

I like Epic RPGs because you can really lose yourself in that world for a month or so. That's exactly what I'm looking for.

So I was unsuccessfully looking for games at "Game Crazy" @ Hollywood Video when I walked by the Used DVDs and "DOGVILLE" literally jumped off the shelf at me. It was 12.99, and I had to pick 2 other movies from this "3-for-$20" section to really justify any sort of purchase to myself.

So what 2 other movies does one buy to augment "DOGVILLE"?

"THE SQUID AND THE WHALE" and "REQUIEM FOR A DREAM".

Somebody's a Real Happy Guy!

My new favourite TV show is "The Tool Academy", where Huge Douchebags are sent to Reform School by their desperate girlfriends. (Who are idiots for even being seen with these men.) But the women just don't know any better. They are Conquered'n'Brainwashed women, and would benefit more from Empowerment Training than these guys would ever benefit from "How Not To Be A Huge Douchebag" Training.

Eh. Most people just turn me off. Seriously. I wish I had "Final Fantasy 3" or "Chrono Trigger!" BOIOIOIOING!!

Well, the weather has actually been nice for 3 days, but I was still grumpy. Still am, factually. Been drowning my sorrows in Pad Thai. I think I gained 2 pounds in a week. Damn.

I'm at least 88 times more Intense than Average People. That's just the way I was born, son. Brain Chemistry. It's challenging finding ways to channel all that "Surplus Intensity". Basically, it boils down to: More House M.D., More RPGs, More Movies, More Sleep, More Brisk Jogs, More Blogging, and More Navel-Gazing than any one human should be able to bear.

The new episode of House was pretty good, btw, as was the new episode of Intervention.

The Interventions themselves are usually pretty cheesy. Overly sentimental; maudlin. If the experience weren't so emotional'n'harrowing, their cliched words would be utterly laughable. Plus I tend to get annoyed whenever they say that line "Please accept this gift we're offering to you today."

Oh yeah. Before I forget. Amanda Marcotte, my favourite person, said something insightful and encouraging (O RLY) on pandagon the other day. She was talking about how Evangelical/Xtian/Right-Wing media uses Sex'n'Gender to

**TITILLATINGLY** APPEAL TO PEOPLE'S RELIGIOUS'N'SEXIST **PREJUDICES**, SO AS TO **DISTRACT** THEM FROM THE HOPELESSNESS OF THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE.

That was the most with-it thing I've read in a while. When people are losing their jobs and their homes and their life savings, they tend to feel a loss of control. They become scared and angry as their life slips away. There's not much they can do - become alcoholics, commit suicide, declare bankruptcy, or project their anger onto a Whipping Post - a Straw Man, that, many times, seems to take the form of a Woman.

Hearsay is sensationalized into a Moral Panic in a predictably Nancy-Grace style fashion. People beat their chests and talk about High School Sex and Teenage Pregnancy and Gay Marriage and abortion. Always Abortion, Abortion, Abortion.

Wingnuts can feel more Righteous in their indignation about Sexual Behaviour than they can feel Righteous about being helpless to make a damn living.

So, you get people talking about the MORAL TURPITUDE of The Communist Barack Hussein sending money to Family Planning Agencies, and so then people can FORGET HOW CLOSE THEY ARE TO THE POORHOUSE.

My other favourite TV Show other than "The Tool Academy" is "Wife Swap." They find the two wives/families Most Likely To Have A Failed Swap, and then they swap 'em and let the sparks fly.

I think most average Wives could swap pretty easily. Wives/Life Partners are all pretty faceless, replaceable, and disposable. Not to mention reasonably malleable and cooperative. But the show's producers find the world's most stubborn egomaniacs just so they can create conflict.

The worst are the "permissive" mothers who believe in letting their children "creatively express themselves." They usually swap these women with an extremely strict religious fundamentalist woman who censors everything their children see. And then the "cool mothers" force the wingnut kids to play "rock music" even though it's clear the kids don't really like it. I feel sorry for the kids.

What boggles my mind is how these idiots are married and have families in the first place. The husbands and the children are idiots too. It's great TV, though. I wouldn't mind seeing a Husband and/or a Children Swap, either!



MOVIES

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

Once a week I go to a first-run $5 matinee of one of the Oscar Bait Movies. (I'm sure to be The Last Person to see "Slumdog Millionaire" ugh). Partly because I'm so tired of seeing crappy movies at the Cheap Cinema, I Am willing to shell out the big bucks to see something middling-to-Actually-Good.

I'm extremely biased towards movies about Marital Strife. I Love to see a man and a woman violently arguing. This is why I enjoyed "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" so wholly. The entire movie was Liz Taylor and Richard Burton tearing each other new a-holes. I love seeing festering resentment brought to the fore, and people who used to "love" each other now hate each other with a raging, bitter passion. I like watching "close relationships" come falling apart. Call it Schadenfreude. Call it a lack of faith that people actually can have a Healthy Relationship. When I see a man and a woman getting drunk and being ruthlessly nasty to one another, I just can't tear myself away.

While there was a good deal of that nastiness in "RR", there wasn't as much as I expected/wanted. Kate and Leo weren't at each other's throats 100% of the time like Liz and Richard were. Maybe 47.45% of the time, at most.

That doesn't make the movie bad, mind you. Not at all. I enjoyed the "arc" here which showed both the good times and the bad. I appreciated that the film showed How Kate And Leo Met.

The central theme of the movie is how Suburbia and Meaningless Jobs Completely Stifle one's drive towards Expression and Self-Discovery. Director Sam Mendes explored a similar theme in "American Beauty." I am just-as-a-fan of this theme as I am of Failing Marriages, and Mendes proves how splendidly the two can go hand-in-hand.

So he sets up the pins and then knocks 'em down. Kate and Leo plan to escape what they painfully-accurately call "THE HOPELESS EMPTINESS" (I think I was the only one in the theatre who pumped his fist and said "YESSSSS!!!" at that line!) for a life of Truly Being Alive in Paris. So howja think that plan works out?

The Catalyzing Character is John (Michael Shannon), the Emotionally-Disturbed Institutionalized Intellectual. He is clearly used as The Voice Of Reason, speaking the Cold Hard Truth that Everybody is Thinking But No One Is Saying Because they're Afraid To Be Labeled an "Insane Outsider". I know I've seen this trope of The "OR Maybe He's Really the Only Sane Person Here" Weirdo before, and Mendes seems aware of the heavy-handedness of the Trope (heh love that word). This awareness permits Mendes to skilfully frame the role for both laughs and effective plot-momentum. It works well. I think Mr Shannon was nominated for a best supporting actor oscar. He doesn't get a lot screen-time, but he does pack a thespic punch.

In short, it's John who says the Socially Inappropriate Really Real Scathing things, for which his ashamed mother (Kathy Bates) tearfully apologizes, and which really gets Kate and Leo going. Because they understand all too well what John is saying.

I "Eternally" hate Kate for one certain movie she did, but I'm finally starting to warm up to her, after "Little Children" and especially "RR." Leo also did a Good Job, but I have been liking him a little since enjoying him in "Body Of Lies."

But I am proud to say I've never seen "Titanic," and I don't ever intend to.

In the near future, I plan on seeing "The Reader," "Doubt", "Milk", "Rachel Getting Married", "Wendy And Lucy" (opens Feb. 20th!!!!), "Che", and, last and least, "Slumdog."

Not sure what to see next. I really don't like Anne Hathaway (RGM). I think she's ugly and annoying. So, Pry "The Reader" methinks.

There really isn't a ton of good movies when you think about it. Really can't wait for "Wendy And Lucy".





THINGS I'M THANKFUL FOR

I'm thankful Pharmaceutical Companies are spending Billion$ to promote their drugs so more people can chill the fuckout than ever before. "Overmedication" my ass. I'd rather everyone was a zombie than obnoxious and excruciating.

I'm thankful I don't live in a slum in India.

I'm thankful my blog is hella-above-average in terms of Interestingness and Quality.

I'm thankful I found a copy of "Dogville" and had the money to buy it.

I'm thankful I can afford to occasionally get some Thai Lunch.

I'm extremely thankful I still have my copy of "A Link To The Past."