Briefly: Being back in New Jersey is much how I expected it, awkward and boring. The room that I stay in is generally occupied by someone who my mom has unofficially adopted, so the room is filled with the belongings of this person who I find objectionable and unpleasant. When in the room I know where to look down, what things to turn a blind spot to. I, like my mom, get to selectively edit reality and it sucks. I really just can't do it. I'm wishing to be back in Olympia where I have books and friends and can say "fuck" as frequently as I do.

I finished Wind-Up Bird Chronicle at the airport (I was there on Friday instead of Monday- a funny story, but long story short, it meant two more days spent with family) and it ended pretty well. I stole my mom's copy of One Hundred Years Of Solitude, but haven't started to read it yet, since I'm in the middle of things at Evergreen and class will be starting and all kinds of things will conspire to stop me from finishing it quickly.

Oh, and my streak of only seeing good movies has been ruined. Once I got back, I ran into a dude who wanted to see "The Sea Inside" which I knew nothing about, but kind of expected weak things. It delivered. It's based on a true story, the name is a metaphor, and the director's the dude that did The Others or something equally weak. The kind of dull foreign-language film that gives art theaters a bad reputation. And I still haven't seen Sideways yet.

I also got to read all of Morrison's Doom Patrol in one go. That was kind of nice, although a weird experience when you're familar with most of the material. So, yeah, here's what happens when that's your experience, in list form:
1. The stylistic tic of employing poetry and the odd juxtaposition of two words is really overused at first, but it stops being done completely about halfway through.
2. When you know most of the weird concepts ahead of time, they mean nothing to you. This kind of goes with the first item on the list.
3. Willoughby Kipling is a funnier joke when viewed all in one go.
4. You start to care about the characters more. Weirdly: I wanted happy endings for them, which doesn't quite make sense. In reality, the reason it's sad when people die is because you will never see them again and won't get to have new experiences, etc. This happens invariably with fiction, simply because the story ends.
5. You're really sad when it's all over.

Went to the mall today, to pick up my mom's gift. I didn't buy it, though. I just found the location in the mall where the silk scarves are.

The mall makes me feel horrible. Two songs ran through my head: Sleater-Kinney's "Milkshake And Honey" ("Baby come home, I can't take the apartment alone") and Pavement's Black Walls ("You shouldn't hate your body, it's part of you. You shouldn't hate your family, they're part. You shouldn't hate your neighbors because they're part of you! These black walls. Black walls, black walls, black walls.") I wanted to sing them as I walked alienated through the department store.

I wish I had a camera for the things I'd seen. Emasculated boyfriends, unresponsive to their girlfriends hanging off them. The pathetic uniforms of the people who sell hot dogs. The fat kids and the old women.

I wanted to yell out "Hold me" and fall into the arms of someone who would either be responsive or disturbed.

And I have to go back there tomorrow, to finish the job. I feel like a Vietnam vet who can't function in society.

Also: Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle gets really good in the third book. Loren got into it early on, but then stopped reading, although he's asked for it for Christmas. I found the beginning largely unremarkable. It's improved almost immeasurably: The weirdness at the edges of the first book's domestic chronicle has builded upon itself and has become the book's new focus. I've heard some people had misgivings about how it ended, but we'll see how I react.

Still waiting on my brother's Christmas gift to arrive via mail. It's got two more days that it can arrive before I'm fucked and will just have to give him an IOU.

Last night I realized that TV shows on DVD are such a default awesome gift. Also: I think I'm over cash as a gift. It just seems sad to me, unless you're young and it's being given to you by your family who are directly responsible for your well-being at least to a certain extent. Amongst extended family, it just feels like they don't know you. And granted: My extended family doesn't know me, and I don't really want them to. Still: Should this really be the case? Best gift I've received from an extended family member ever was a copy of On Avery Island on vinyl. And sure, I've since given it to a roommate who actually had a record player. But the thought that was put into that gift was much appreciated. If it really is the thought that counts, (and I truly believe it is) then cash is the worst gift ever.

You know what would be a great gift from my mom and stepdad? Fucking replacement copies of some of the shit that they ruined and got water-damaged. That would be great.

When it's 5 in the morning and sleep shows no sign of approaching one's body, one's mind turns to deep thoughts. These deep thoughts invariably give way to shallower ones, because that is how one's mind operates.

So it's in this manner that I found myself pondering the idea of making a mix CD for my mom for Christmas, and the borderline impossibility of doing so.

The deep thoughts that led me here, you may ask? Generally: The inability of one human being to communicate or in some way connect with another when there isn't a shared language. My mom doesn't view music like I do. She wants something that is inoffensive. I don't think she engages any music emotionally on any levels other than nostalgia.

She likes latter Flaming Lips. She liked They Might Be Giants. She liked it when I listened to Loaded by the Velvet Underground. She bought a Belle & Sebastian record because she liked the title. She was tempted to buy a Beulah record based on its title and the song titles, but I told her not to because their good record wasn't at the store that day. She generally doesn't like Beck but liked Lost Cause off of Sea Change.

Oh, and I'm paying attention to lyrics too because love songs on a hand-crafted mix for my mom is icky. Too bad that's a fucking huge topic in pop music.

I AM INSANE.

She doesn't seem to like instrumentals.

I want to put on Jesus Walks by Kanye West. Because she likes Jesus, you see.

I AM INSANE.

So yeah, some contenders: Cat Power when not all suicide style, something by Broadcast, Beulah- A Good Man Is Easy To Kill, The Velvet Underground- Who Loves The Sun, something by Jeff Buckley although I don't know what, Palace Music- New Partner, Mirah- Apples In The Trees, something by the Books, something by Manitoba, some kind of Magnetic Fields/6ths, something by Yo La Tengo. Stereolab? The Mountain Goats?

I'm not going to make this mix. Although, probably, I should.

I'm buying her a silk scarf, as per her request.

I don't even think my brother liked the mix CD I made him for his birthday. If I were to give him a CD for Christmas I think it would be The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me, although my confidence in such a thing is low.

2004, year in review, part three: My life and what I read.

2004 was no 2003. Which would be an unfair expectation. After that burst of progress, I'm put in limbo. 2004 I mainly just hung out.

2005: My future is uncertain. Will I stay this summer in Olympia? Will I even continue to go to Evergreen? If not, then what the fuck will I do next fall? Probably 2005 will be like 2004, unless my musical ventures take off and consume a shitload of time. Which probably won't happen.

But anyway, 2004. I went back to Philadelphia over the summer, for more of those depressing interactions with my brother and his roommates. I was constantly being reminded of what a loser I was. Even though I got a theoretically cool job, working at a music store. Sure, it wasn't a good one. But, in terms of what it was, it's probably as good a job as I will ever have. And it mostly sucked. I will never be happy. Then there was the lack of all social interaction outside the job. Hoo. A lot like 2003 in that it was a total no friends summer. I did have some interaction with my brother's friends, which as previously mentioned, was frequently vaguely condescending. I have no idea how much any of those people respect me. This is weird and hurts my head.

Then I went back to Evergreen, where I was considerably happier, but still have less friends than I did last year. Some of those old friends left. Some stayed around Olympia, but I felt strangely alienated from them even at the end of last year. The list of new friends is a short one. The list of old friends departed is probably three times as long.

And then there were classes. Looking Backward ended amazingly. But Telling The Truth was an exercise in testicular injury. I had to read Don Delillo's White Noise for both.

I finished Lolita in 2004, I think. I also read Nabokov's The Eye. Also: Borges' Ficciones and Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle now. That was mainly it, besides the large amounts of bullshit I had to shovel into my mind for class. Talking about books in a year of review is bizarre except as an autobiographical conceit, simply because I don't read that much new fiction. I think that's true for most people who aren't book critics. I mean, there's a barrage of classics I'll be reading until I die. Getting on top of the new good stuff is hard to do, and I haven't really attempted it. I guess the only new writing I read was in the last McSweeney's, of which 25% of the content was recommendable. Five new authors to watch out for. And that's the new fiction that I would be inclined to like, probably? That had editors whose tastes probably occasionally align with my own? Fuck if I know. I read a great deal of comics, which makes me feel dumb, but you know, they're shorter. It's also a scene that's easier to be on top of. Of what I read: Seaguy sticks out, as does the new Eightball. Those were the highlights. Hopefully I'll have read all of Morrison's Doom Patrol in one go before the year is out. That's it!

2004, year in review, part two: The year in film.

I didn't see a bad movie all year. Actually, I did, but none in the theater, none that were new. And, with the exception of Before Sunset, every movie I saw, I saw in a commercial mainstream movie theater. This is all odd. I saw a lot of mainstream movies which people like to talk shit on, (including me, sometimes) and I enjoyed them.

Which proves my point, although it was one I didn't plan on making: Fuck the indie/mainstream divide. (at least if we're talking cinema) Most indie people are incredibly unambitious. If they do have ambitions, they can't implement them, due to lack of budgets. Not like small films can't be good, just that there is such a thing as indie hackery. Auteur theory! Motherfucking auteur theory! Give smart people money and they won't disappoint you!

Still a few movies I've yet to see: Sideways, The Life Aquatic, A Very Long Engagement, and 2046. 2046 might not even count as a 2004 film.

But yeah, a good year for movies. A good year for comedies.

Movie of the year was Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, duh. I could write tons of weird shit about it that means nothing: Like how I've been on the Gondry tip for years, and prefer him to Spike Jonze. Like how Charlie Kaufman is a champ. Like how Human Nature was slept on and due for a reevaluation: I'm calling it the Being John Malkovich to Eternal Sunshine's Adaptation, more obviously a comedy, but still possessing thematic weight and well-drawn characters. About how the people saying that this is Kaufman's first script with emotion are fucking retarded. Some people said it was sad, with its fatalistic view of relationships. But guess what? Most relationships do end badly, who the fuck doesn't know that? But this says fuck it anyway, take the good with the bad. It's optimistic, but in a way that's also fucking honest. Let the emo kids have Garden State, the people who see the beauty in Neutral Milk Hotel will be watching Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. Actually, we might watch both. I like to think we'll all enjoy Eternal Sunshine more.

I think I've gone over every movie I've watched this year in this blog, so you can see the other movies I recommend if you want to. They were all good. The movie I was the least sure of was Spider-Man 2 and I can't even front like I didn't enjoy that, regardless of the cheesy dialogue. Seriously: that was the worst movie I saw in theaters all year, and it wasn't even bad. (Although if you want to get technical, I saw worse movies at the Capital Theater that came out in 2003. This doesn't count for our purposes now.) I saw two zombie movies and both of them were great. One of those zombie movies I can't think of the director, so to a certain extent: Poop on auteur theory too, don't try to be a pretentious jackass. I like what I like. Fuck it. I'm smart. I don't have to explain my zombie fondness.

After I finished Gravity's Rainbow, my brain needed time to decompress. Weirdly, class provided that with its complete lack of mental stimulation. So I read book two of Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in a day. The current reading list is book three of that and the Palomar hardcover. Hopefully, I will finish both of these before school starts up again.

I'm currently wait-listed for the program I wanted to get into. Here's the syllabus:
White Noise, Don Delillo. This is the third program I've had to assign this book. And it's also the third program I've taken.
The Awakening, Kate Chopin. My old nemesis.
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. I never finished reading this in high school, although it was pretty decent.
The End Of The Road, John Barth. The only American writer who's work I haven't read, and I'm kind of unfamilar, although in general, I hear good things.
Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End of the World, Haruki Murakami. Apparently this one has more of a pulpy feel to it, at least in terms of plot points. Also, shorter than Wind-Up Bird.
Confessions Of A Mask, Yukio Mishima. Mishima came up on a message board thread about Murakami. Good words were said, but maybe untrustable.
Masks, Fumiko Enchi. I don't know anything about this at all.
The Anatomy Of Dependence, Takeo Doi. Same with this. Still, my hopes? My hopes are high.

Also: Films will be viewed. Sweet mother of rock.

Just bought a handful of the books mentioned in the last post from Half.com. Also wanted to say that I should check out the films of Wong-Kar Wai. I've been hearing praise since In The Mood For Love came out, from smart people. No one I know personally, though.

In case the implication wasn't clear: I might be wait-listed currently, but I will fight like hell to get into this class. Although, apparently, the professor I had problems with last quarter was previously one of the teachers of this program, with the one who's teaching this quarter. Which disturbs me, but maybe unnecessarily.

Two things: Alex predicts that the next Animal Collective album will be their last. I disagree. I write this down as to remember it two albums from now. Their next album will be fucking amazing though. We've heard the songs in live form... Hoo. Sung Tongs is pretty great, but it's a weird album for me, as someone who doesn't take drugs. Also: the overall aesthetic seems overwhelming if you don't listen closely to each individual song. As an album, it's a cohesive piece of work, but listened to in passing as a whole, it's almost too cohesive, with a tendency to seem like one giant song with a few breaks. I didn't even think of We Tigers as being a great song until I decided to listen to it in keeping with my "I only like the short songs" theory, (There's another short song, Sweet Road, which blends in with the rest even listened to individually) and it was only today that I listened intently to Winters Love, which others have called the album's high point.

Also: ODB's autopsy results found him with a bag of cocaine in his body. He flew that day. The bag had a hole in it. Official cause is a heart attack, which I'm sure the burst bag of cocaine contributed to. Holy living fuck.

Wednesday I read my Ol' Dirty Bastard essay to class. I got positive feedback, but of a weird variety. People told me I could make money writing music reviews. Which is funny for two reasons: One being that I don't consider it a review, and another because of the fact that I wrote it five years after its release. Also, good music criticism should attempt to describe the music, which my piece, trying to avoid being called a review as it did, consciously avoided. I didn't even mention the beat to I Want Pussy. My professor didn't like it, of course, but he's a fucking douchebag, who insists on calling it a review and refused to call it an evaluation of gangsta rap culture in my eval, even after he said he'd change the terminology of "a review of a hip-hop record" if I gave him something to change it to. What a fucking fuckface of a fucker.

But after class was done, woo! The sun began shining it Olympia! Although not literally. It's been cold and wet outside. But inside, life's been swell. Thursday night was amazing. A song by The Art Project (Loren, Alex, and I) was recorded. A few practice takes. I fucked up the first chorus on each of the four takes. Still. Submitted it for rerecording for the Evergreen compilation, and the practices are currently being edited together by Alex with some guitar feedback drone (courtesy of Loren) to be thrown on top. What we have now sounds good though. Everyone got drunk. John Samson talked some hilarious crazy-talk, asking absurd questions. Like what would be the best combination of two movies. (I said Magnolia and Kill Bill vol. 1, and submitted Koyanaqatski [sic] and Touch of Evil on Alex's behalf. These are combinations that mean nothing, due to the absurdity of the exercise) Later he asked, out of the blue, what would be the best possible pinata. Hilarious night. Hopefully in future there'll be a nice mp3 of the song we recorded available for download.

Short story writing is currently half-stalled. I could probably push through without any problem. Which I might very well do, as the idea of finishing a story quickly is very appealing.

Haha, I'm a goddamn jackass. I woke up Alex to tell him that Animal Collective cover a Low song on this live set (Which, at an hour, is twice as long as the rest of their live sets) and then there's some talk and then fucking In Metal is played... The second half of the set is fucking Low. It's from some battle of the bands. Shit. Still. The songs early on are still pretty fucking great, and once I finish writing this I'll find out the exact moment when the switch is made from Animal Collective to Low.

And I'm finishing writing this now.

Had my eval today. I thought it wasn't going to happen until Thursday, but that's because I don't know what day it is ever. It was strangely anti-climactic. He caught a typo in my self-eval (effect for affect- that's a tricky one) that I didn't change. I guess there's a part of me that figures that no one will ever read the damn thing... There was also a John Cage joke in there. You know, for laughs.

I did get his piece of editing of my final piece though. It's one of the douchiest things ever. My professor is a bad man. The student I have the most distaste for is the one who is the most on his jock. His terrible old-man jock.

I would've loved to talk about how much he hates me. But this is the Northwest, where people are passive-aggressive. Still. After tomorrow, I will never have to deal with him again. Yay.

Got a new idea for writing a short story. Actually an old idea in terms of concept, but a new execution. I'll share it with you, because I'm not sure how feasible it is. This is the whole "magical realism meets indie rock" thing which is both my stated goal and the most retarded high-concept pitch to ever exist. Anyway, the idea has grown to the sort of thing that could be novel-length. But: What if I just wrote a short story out of it, by using the highly-condensed language of song-writing? The voice I wanted to aim for was that of The Hold Steady, which this new idea seems considerably more able to support. But if the ultra-condensed short-story thing doesn't work out, then what I have is one of those things which would have to be expanded to be a novel, which I'm not good at doing at all. It's pretty big in scope, at this point, you see.

I've got to be up in less than four hours. I've got to go to class. I want to get out early, in order to register for class as soon as I can. But according to my professor the asshole, missing the day in question (where I'd be hearing other people read their work... It would be a douchey thing to miss) would be the kind of thing to result in a loss of credit. Alex said he's be down to wake up at noon in order to sign me up, but Alex got pretty drunk tonight. Who knows what'll happen? I'm hoping for "Everything works out okay and I get into the good class."

My computer is virus-ridden. It craps out in a variety of different ways, and seems on the verge of crapping out permanently. The sound is skipping. Sometimes there are other sounds that betray the electric motorized roots. It acts like the wires are exposed and it is running on steam. Sometimes the screen will freeze. It will begin moving later.

I think some of this might be the fault of Firefox. I did have viruses before, but after downloading and installing Firefox, shit started freezing up.

I've sent some writings to myself, but there's a lot of music on this machine. I don't think it's going to die on me, as that is the kind of thing that tends to happen without warning.

Roommate John Samson has a subscription to Rolling Stone. This isn't a smart idea. Also not a smart idea is for said magazine to make a list of the 500 songs ever. I'm not going to talk about how bad their choices were. I will instead simply give my list of the 10 best songs ever.

1. Sweet Jane- The Velvet Underground
2. The King Of Carrot Flowers Part 1- Neutral Milk Hotel
3. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea- Neutral Milk Hotel
4. Two-Headed Boy part 1- Neutral Milk Hotel
5. Two-Headed Boy part 2- Neutral Milk Hotel
6. Holland 1945- Neutral Milk Hotel
7. Ghost- Neutral Milk Hotel
8. Communist Daughter- Neutral Milk Hotel
9. Debaser- The Pixies
10. The King Of Carrot Flowers parts 2 and 3- Neutral Milk Hotel

Yes, this post is a joke. This post is also my real beliefs.

I watched Saturday Night Live for the first time in over a year tonight. I should've seen the Modest Mouse episode, but I didn't. Was I at a party or something? I don't know. I probably just forgot what day it was, as that happens a lot. It's the kind of thing I want to be good... A lot of people involved I just think of as being funny people (Rachel Dratch's face makes me laugh, pretty much all the time. She is awesome and I want her to be my friend.) or just... Fred Armisen is on that Les Savy Fav DVD, and he's apparently also on the Wilco I Am Trying To Break Your Heart DVD. Also, in that issue of Vice I recently sang the praises of, he talked about hating the sun. So it would be nice if he was a bad-ass too. I think he was in one sketch, and he was in it as the straight man. He didn't break character by laughing though, so he had that going for him.

But what I saw... I was into it more than other people. There was a lot of the laughing at their own jokes, which is never good, but there also seemed to be a large amount of anti-jokes, especially during Weekend Update, just shit that destroyed the momentum completely so I found it funny. Ben Affleck is really fucking terrible though. Wow. He was not very good at all. They tried to get him to do characters and use him like a cast member, which is in many ways, the best tack to take. But he's not very good at line-readings. Not at all. Also, the John Kerry impersonation was sad and pathetic and missed the target completely. There's also a few people (besides the host) who are painfully unfunny and yet get a lot of face time.

I've laughed at that show in recent years, you know? The Tracy Morgan Woodrow bits were really funny. And they only did it twice, which is for the best. (Is Kel the new black guy? If so, that's a bad choice for a black guy.) (Is Rachel Dratch's Debbie Downer a frequently reoccuring bit? The last two episodes I've seen have had such sketches... And even though she's funny, and it's anti-jokes kind of comedy, and I laugh at these sketches, reoccurring characters are terrible and should just not happen. You'd think that people would know. Like, no one wants to be the next It's Pat! Or at least I don't want to be the next It's Pat! Granted, there's no danger of that happening what with me not being on television, but still... It's Pat! is a fucking punchline.)

TV is terrible. I hope the people I like make the transition to movies and the ones I don't like become swallowed by their drug habits. (Although, shit, the ones I like... They were involved with Mean Girls. What the fuck? Not even that that's a particularly bad movie, as I've heard good things, so much as it's a movie that I would never see. It's not so much a comedy so much as it is just teensploitation, so it seems marketed to an uncaring demographic. So that's why the what the fuck.)

(So many parentheses.)

2004, Year In Review, Part 1: Music.

I could be saving this for a few more weeks, since 2004 isn't done yet. But, in terms of music, it is. Nothing's going to be released in the next month that I would be interested in, as the holiday season approaches. If it were, it would've leaked already, as I've heard stuff due for release next year already. That said: Wasn't a Built To Spill album supposed to come out this year?

Album of the year was, I guess, Liars' They Were Wrong So We Drowned. Which, come to think of it, I had heard by this time last year. I remember listening to it on someone else's stereo in the mods, on a disc burnt for me by Alex. My heroin-addict roommate at the time commented that it sounded like Sonic Youth. I think I had already presumptively called it the best album of 2004. It turned out I was right, because 2004 mainly sucked. And a lot of people hated that Liars record, thinking it unlistenable noise. They were wrong. I also saw Liars live, on March 26th, a day that is both my brother's birthday and Angus Andrews'. The show kicked ass, and kind of helped me put them over the edge.

I saw a lot of live music this year, all of which I could probably give the album of the year too in a half-assed fashion. I saw Deerhoof, and apparently Spin called Milk Man a perfect album. They're wrong. They also gave Liars their lowest rating. They are a bad magazine.

I also Mirah live... Thrice, actually, twice with the Black Cat Orchestra. C'Mon Miracle I've already burned myself out on, actually. I'd done it before it came out, due to the leak. At first I didn't like it so I kept on listening until I got it. I only get half of it, probably, the other half is dull borderline adult-contemporary. But the stuff with weird instruments? Those parts rule.

I also saw The Blow live. Her Poor Aim: Love Songs EP is pretty great, which is weird considering what it is.

For a while I was calling Girl Talk's Unstoppable my favorite album of the year. This was me, being insane. It's not that important. It's completely disposable plunderphonics fun. It's a collage record. Calling it my favorite album of the year is the twenty-first century equivalent of calling some garage band's album my favorite record of the year, like giving a shout-out to the Electric Prunes or something. It's just weird, even though it was incredibly enjoyable, and good for a few laughs. Not really amazing or anything.

This year I got really into the Mountain Goats, thanks mainly to the greatness of All Hail West Texas, which came out in 2002. That record's amazing. We Shall All Be Healed isn't nearly as good, as it's frequently restrained and maybe a bit too slickly produced. But I've been downloading a shitload of Mountain Goats, with iTunes currently listing me as having 237 songs. None of those are live shows.

I also listened to The Hold Steady, who John Darnielle recommends. Lyrically they're awesome... I posted a verse from an unreleased song a while back, and the ones on the album are pretty good too. The vocalist mainly just speaks and the backing music sounds like a bar band. So that's The Hold Steady. I guess they're good.

John Darnielle also likes Destroyer, who I listened to this year. Streethawk: A Seduction was quite the discovery, as was City Of Daughters. But the album that came out this year, Your Blues, isn't very good. It's consciously designed with a difficult, irritating, anti-rock aesthetic, and I didn't dig it. What-the-fuck-ever.

The Arcade Fire and The Fiery Furnaces: Overrated. Pish-posh!

!!! are rad, but the album they put out this year was kind of disappointing, although I guess it's good.

McLusky are great, and the album they put out this year doesn't seem to be getting the respect that it's due. But when I think about it, McLusky Do Dallas just has much more good songs than the new record. When I listened to them at work, I liked both almost equally, but the songs on that older record just stand out and distinguish themselves more.

Wolf Parade put out a really good EP this year, and I think their full-length should be rad. They're not to be confused with Wolf Eyes... Because Wolf Eyes are fucking terrible.

The Pixies put out two new songs this year. Hot damn. Amazing. I guess Loren didn't like Bam Thwok but then, Loren never heard the Pixies until this year so maybe he just doesn't know. Bam Thwok! Wakka wakka wakka! Oh, fuck yes.

This was the year I got to raid the KAOS record library. I guess the best things would be Silver Jews and Brainiac. Brainiac are amazing. Shit. I guess I hadn't heard Hissing Prigs In Static Couture until this year? That album owns. As do their other albums, which I didn't hear until this year. God, that kind of makes the year better.

I also got a job at a record store and it kind of sucked, which is too bad. That's the kind of fact that suggests I will never be happy.

Animal Collective's Sung Tongs sometimes seems like it should be the record of the year: I definitely liked it, and other people love it. It's one of those hippie-kid/indie rock/electronic crossover hits, kind of like Manitoba last year, but I just didn't dig it as much as other people. Most of the songs seemed kind of aimless. It's part of the overall aesthetic, and that whole freak-folk thing was big this year... And they were the only ones who did it well. Fuck Devendra, Joanna, and all the rest. Bah I say. The Animal Collective songs I liked were the ones least in that aesthetic, that were more focused and on-point. When that was the case, they owned it. I'm calling Who Could Win A Rabbit the single of the year. Leaf House might get that honor if it were released as a single, as that one's pretty damn great too.

The Go! Team also had some great singles, and an album I was disappointed by. They're kind of a singles band, but they were also mining the best aesthetic of the year. The songs are just frequently not there. There's never really songcraft in the traditional sense. The comparison to TV theme songs is apt. I liked it a lot in isolation.

Anyway, Who Could Win A Rabbit is the single of the year, but it didn't get any airplay, which isn't surprising at all. In terms of stuff that did get airplay: Modest Mouse. Their album sucked. And I bought it the day it came out. I remember in 2001, getting people into them and feeling bad as the word of their awesomeness got out to lame-asses. Now, all the lame-asses know about Modest Mouse. And I don't feel bad about it. I just feel shocked and strangely alienated from this band that was once one of my favorites. I hope their next record is incredibly weird and alienating. Not to ward off the new fans. But because I like record that are weird and alienating. Interpol got airplay this go-round too. The video for Slow Hands is hilarious: It seems like it's mainly about the one dude's hair. And Antics is mainly a piece of crap, even though it's not really that different.

Yeah, I hate to be the asshole who's all singing the praises of hip-hop radio. Because that asshole is frequently completely full of shit. But I'm calling the two best singles of the year that received radio airplay 99 Problems by Jay-Z and Jesus Walks by Kanye West. The Kanye joint is a distant second. 99 Problems is... I've only heard it twice, seriously. But in theory, it's just so damn great. The video has Vincent Gallo in it for some reason. And Rick Rubin is also in it, but that makes way more sense. I was talking to Alex about this earlier, and he said that there were the highlights of the radio this summer at his job, along with the three Outkast songs on Alaska radio. (two of them were played out by the end of 2003, the other one most people hated but I think is OK) He qualified that they were only highlights in terms of him just being glad they weren't playing the other shitty songs again. These songs got played a lot. But a funny connection between both these songs is they both make references to not being played on the radio. That's awesome. This is not to say that the radio isn't terrible, but to say that isn't to downplay the greatness of these songs either.

I guess I got more into hip-hop this year? I don't know. Still don't own any records. Mainly I just like the fact that some of it is good and there's a lot of the good stuff that I haven't heard a million times, as all my favorite records are the kind of thing I'll listen to three years from now. (Speaking of which: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain got reissued. That's probably the best thing to come out all year, but I haven't heard the bonus material yet.) So I can listen to Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy and finally get into all these classic records that will probably never mean anything to me, and can serve as background noise that still has lyrics to pay attention to if I see fit. And Ol' Dirty Bastard's Nigga Please is a fucking masterpiece, and one I only discovered this year. And then he died. Shit. Saddest death of the year, if it's not too crass to rate such things.

Last year I did one giant post that tied my life into the culture I experienced. This year my life was considerably less interesting. And very little dominated the culture I experienced, so there'll probably be more posts like this, that skim the plain as there were very little highlights. In future: Comics/books, my life, and movies. Movies will come last as a lot of stuff I want to see I won't be able to see for awhile, possibly until the middle of 2005. (Right now it's just Sideways, A Very Long Engagement, and The Life Aquatic, but that could change. What's sad is that those first two movies look kind of ass.) The other two ideas for posts might be condensed into one.

I kind of hate saying this, but the new issue of Vice owns. The theme is Hate. It's not solid gold. But it's pretty damn golden. Compelling and interesting and most of it makes you feel bad and fearful. There's an interview with one little girl who kicks ass and then an interview with two older little girls who make you weep for the future of humanity.

http://www.viceland.com/issues/v11n10/htdocs/index.php

Happy Thanksgiving America.

Every time I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, my heart hurts. Surely, I am unhealthy. It does seem odd that it happens as I eat the sandwich and not afterwards, but this is not to say that there is not a correlation. My heart hurts because I am unhealthy. I am unhealthy because of my diet. I used to think that the lack of effect on my outward appearance meant that I just had the most amazing metabolism, but now I am thinking that maybe my body is just broken.

It's late. I'm not asleep. Waking up late fucks with my sleep schedule rather harshly, and now I'm thinking that maybe I should just push it. I've got some things to do tomorrow, and there's a part of me that likes the idea of doing these things before sleep. The other part thinks this is impractical and I will just end up passing out before I can do anything and tomorrow will be even less productive than today. I keep on thinking I'm tired as I write, but when I lie down, sleep doesn't come. And I'm considerably more lucid in my writings now than I am when I'm tired.

I woke up late today. After 4:30, to be somewhat less general. It's pretty terrible. I've previously said that the key to enjoying life is to wake up late, but I have to reconsider. I woke up as the sun was going down. Nothing will get done today. I feel like shit.

I've got these two short stories I'm kind of working on. One is paused as the characters don't have names. Another is just kind of stalled the way things usually go, and I reread what I have and I don't like the way it reads. I also have the beginnings of a novel which is kind of on the backburner. Then there's shit for class, evaluations and more rewrites of the Ol' Dirty Bastard paper and editing other people's work. I can't focus on any of these things. My other roommates are being productive.

Currently, my reading for class is a book of philosophy by Michael Foucalt. I don't care, not even a little bit. Class next quarter had better work out.

Tomorrow I'll bake pies. And hopefully, my amplifier will arrive, along with the new McSweeney's. Mainly I just want to make music and read things I find interesting, and maybe inspiration will strike.

It's a bad place I'm in.

The Gorilla Foundation Manifesto,
by Brian Nicholson:

Art is a form of communication. It serves a different purpose than conversation, as it attempts to put forth larger, more abstract ideas. Philosophy attempts to do such a thing using the same tools as conversation, and it usually fails due to its insularity. In this and in many other ways, art is better than philosophy.

And yet, this manifesto isn't a work of art, although it is a communication. It is a conversation, a philosophical text, albeit one made by one imagining himself to be an artist. In time, the art will speak for itself. Until then, this will have to do in order to articulate a statement of goals.

Olympia, Washington, is a music town, lorded over by two twin tyrants. One of the problems created by such things is the very existence of such tyranny. The other regards the way they rule, and how they've earned it. Their policies don't speak to the interests of the people, or at least the people I associate with.

And so, Gorilla Foundation exists in the service of both democracy and good art.

Gorilla Foundation breaks down both the hierarchy of the scene, and the distinction between performer and audience. Not fully, as to do so might lead to anarchy and chaos, which is good for a laugh but not necessarily good for art. No, but a balance is struck: Gorilla Foundation exists not in a chaotic state, but it does create something of a shambolic one.

Gorilla Foundation is a band, but it is a band with a fluid membership, open to any who are interested and present at any given time. It has charter members, but that kind of doesn't matter. In interest of democracy, you being there first doesn't mean shit. Take that, scenesters. It doesn't matter how early how arrived. Saying this may downplay the importance of several rather important people, present at initial conversations. Sorry.

The nucleus of Gorilla Foundation are the songs of Gorilla Foundation, whose lyrics are penned by me, but whose melodies are crafted by Evan Hashi. This is partly because Evan Hashi is far superior to I in areas of songcraft, and partly because collaboration is a key part of Gorilla Foundation. It's all about putting your trust in another person's hands. This might undermine the songs I write, and it might confuse the audience's persepective of those songs. It will assuredly create a kind of tension which I find inherently fascinating in collaborative works.

The nature of Gorilla Foundation creates more tension, and undermines the songs. For the performance of the songs, the main members are also Evan and myself. Evan provides the song with their spine, the vocals, the melody, the lead guitar line, the basics of structure. I conduct the improvisational rock and roll orchestra that swirls around that structure.

And this is where the other members come in. They come bearing their own instruments, and they are then conducted. There will be a lot of percussion, a rhythmic cacophony. There may be horns, there may be strings. There may be bounding acoustic guitars, providing counterlines. There may be harmony vocals. There may be basslines, going off the guitar and imploring those not playing instruments to dance.

There is no stage, there is no center. At a Gorilla Foundation performance, there are a good number of things to pay attention to, of utmost importance is the sound.

The sound: Indie rock. Because it speaks to me, goddammit. Because I call Pavement my favorite band, but I know I can't write melodies that good. Pavement were loose and spontaneous, there is a happy energy to their records that I seek to reproduce with Gorilla Foundation, because I can't reproduce it with my other theoretical musical venture, The Art Project.

The Art Project, along with the other musical ventures of Evan and the others involved (Notable in particular is Loren Thor, present in the initial discussions, member of The Tasteful Nudes, and advocate of Olympia scene overhaul) seek to legitimize Gorilla Foundation. The other ventures are to make Gorilla Foundation seem inviting to people outside our smallish circle. We want to paint a picture of a new scene, to replace the one that currently exists. (Well, Loren and I do, Evan seems much more content) That is what the other bands do. Gorilla Foundation is a way to prevent the flaws of revolution, lest we become tyrants ourselves. We our inviting others along, for we insist that ours is a democracy. And its a democracy open to current scene participants as well: We are not opposed to them as people, because some have made some very good records indeed, and some of them are probably perfectly decent as people. We are just opposed to what we view as their rule.

Ours is an open invitation. Come to shows, bring instruments. Join us, for ours is an exciting movement to be a part of; and with your aid, the music might very well end up being exciting as well. Excitement is a very large part of what we are trying to communicate with our art. There are other things as well, but they are comparatively boring. It is exciting to be excited. In a similar vein, it is also rocking to rock. Come rock.

Our protagonist pauses the generic early-nineties indie rock (Archers Of Loaf, again) and then removes the headphones from his head. He asks to anyone who is around to hear, "Eggo makes Cookies And Cream waffles, has the whole world gone mad?" And he hears no response. So he leaves his room and wanders around his dormitory, to discover it was empty. There was no one around to hear his empty words. Don't you hate this fucker?

He was called a hipster earlier in the morning, the kind of accusation that gets his blood up, for no good reason. Oh he can argue the charges. And he would have a good point. These are not the kind of things levied at him in Philadelphia, not even a little bit. But here, at Evergreen, in Olympia, where such creatures may actually exist, there is some confusion. In Philadelphia he is just a lovable loser and no one gives a shit what he listens to, they're just surprised he doesn't like The Misfits.

But let's not defend him too quickly. Because, you know, the third person thing? Oh my god.

Clever kids are killing me. For one, they ain't that clever.

The latest in the ongoing process: The magic eightball/impending death anecdote posted here will be the core of a short story, one that attempts the "balancing magical realism with the indie-rock-kid world in which I live" ambition also posted here. Don't steal that idea bastards!

So, it's 6:19 AM and I haven't fallen asleep. And I have class at 11.

I did have a brief go at sleep, around 1 or so. It didn't take. I woke up again, laid in bed, thought about class, then did some writing. I don't want to do anymore writing about class tonight. And I don't really want to go through the trouble of writing about what I wrote about.

So why am I writing here?

Because I can't seem to fall asleep.

So, how about a quick defense of Pitchfork? It's fallen off lately, or maybe I'm just seeing the seams. I'll defend Mark Richardson's music writing, and I'll say that William Bowers' self-indulgent meta-pieces work better than most of the others. There are other people with varying taste and varying writing ability. I think that Ryan Schreiber generally has decent opinions, although his actual review-writing leaves a lot to be desired. But those first two are fucking fascinating music writers, and they both come at it from different approaches.

And suddenly I'm tired again.

There's a magic eightball floating around the dorm. One day, John Samson, the owner, asked it some questions regarding 2012. John Samson got told (twice) that he will die on December 21st, 2012. It turns out that I won't, though. I'll die before that. A violent death, at someone else's intentional hand.

In the wake of ODB's death, we asked if the RZA will live past 2012. Yes, he will, says the magic eightball.

But earlier, when I played Magic Eightball Music Critic, the eightball said that Bright Eyes is good and The Arcade Fire's Funeral is the album of the year. What does a magic eightball know?

Ol' Dirty Bastard is dead.

RIP

Shit just put on Return To The 36 Chambers, in the intro he just said he's happy to be alive.

Alex is next door, blasting Nigga Please, right now he's on I Can't Wait.

Dirt McGirt album drops in March. I hope it's huge.

I still have to rewrite this paper. And now it will be shot through with a melancholy I never expected it to have.

I had a dream just last night that I was working at a pizza place and Ol' Dirty Bastard came in and everything was cool until he took something about white bread badly and put me in a headlock or something. I don't quite remember what happened.

This is a sad day.

You know, I don't think David Rees is funny at all. But right now there's a little letter of encouragement at his page and... it's pretty encouraging.

And I quote:

CHIN UP.
We're smarter than those motherfuckers.
We can learn more quickly than those motherfuckers.
We can be more ruthless than those motherfuckers.
We can be some six-million-dollar motherfuckers ourselves.

Chin up.
We're more American than those motherfuckers.
We're more responsible than those motherfuckers.
We're more compassionate than those motherfuckers.
Hell, our atheists are more Christian than their Bible-thumpin' motherfuckers.

There's an election in two years.
There's nothing we can't do.

Chin up.
Because it's on, motherfuckers. It is on.

Indeed. But that Get Your War On comic remains as unfunny as ever.

The latest in a string of overly-ambitious ideas, and how it got to be the size it is:

I was thinking about some kind of zine thing that would be a format for my short stories. Because of the zine format, this would also allow for commentary about other things: Music reviews and political rantings and such.

But then I thought "fuck zines" as it's too narrow. People will get sick of my voice rather quickly.

So then it grew into a literary magazine, a collection of short stories, with all the other content, the reviews and stuff, being there to serve two purposes. To show the mindstate of the people creating the art (As I wrote this I was listening to RZA and the Silver Apples, or something) and to be the voice of the magazine. Kind of like the McSweeney's online content implemented more into the print-version text. That voice would be what people could respond to, and would be the common ground for the disparate forms of fiction that made up the real content. It would also be a better music magazine than others around- most are horrible.

Then I was thinking about how most comics suck ass, made for boring old people. A few brits look back at the early nineties fondly... There were things like Deadline that were cool, bringing together music reviews and comics largely made by people who were really fucking cool... Jamie Hewlett, most notably, but I also think that Phillip Bond and Brendan McCarthy were a part of the same group of kick-ass art school kids. So then that got worked into the equation as well, with the comics being treated like short stories. Not particularly arty or literary comics, although a bit of that too, for depth. (Mainly because who's young and kick-ass? I have no idea.)

I'm thinking print it all up on cheap newsprint. A magazine, straight-up, with ads and stuff. Disposable. Well-designed graphically but not in terms of format and not to hamper with the ads. Actually I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of ads... Ads are anathema to looking good but key to keeping the cost down and again, I like the idea of disposability which ads help. Although ads also fuck with the credibility of the reviews and shit that would be the voice, which is something can't really be fucked with. I don't know. Awesome drawings and photography on the front cover, but hopefully that wouldn't be the extent of the design.

I don't know. I don't really have the money, the resources, or the connections to talented people to actually do any of this.

Still. Alex once typed "experimental music needs to be shaken the fuck up. Like now," and I was with him and it's a statement that applies to more than just experimental music. Most things need to be shaken up because I am getting bored. Who is on some next-level shit? As far as I'm concerned, no one.

The latest in the realm of things I've suddenly begun to hear about frequently is Italo Calvino, an author whose works I haven't read, but should probably get on.

It should also be pointed out that it could be argued that The Incredibles has right-wing themes. So did Team America, and Team America was more explicit. Both of these movies were good regardless, so people who bitch about things like that... Just suck it up and enjoy it. I can't imagine someone not liking the movie because of its themes. I can see people not liking it on that level, but being sold on the rest of it. You don't necessarily have to see the themes, but the argument that they're there is a pretty strong argument.

A few things I've wanted to say. Not my thoughts- these are Grant Morrison's predictions. In brief: The next big thing will be psychedelia. In the underground, and then it'll later boil over into the mainstream. Of course, psychedelia is such a vague term, it could be good or bad... I don't take it to mean jam-band shit but maybe that's my optimism. Oh and Morrison also predicts a new dark age. I don't know for how long though. Maybe when the psychedelia hits the mainstream it'll end. And of course, shortly after that happens... 2012 apocalypse. Psychedelia could be good though. The good kind. Surrealism, I'm fond of. I kind of think Arthur will be essential cool kid reading but it's a very specific kind of cool kid. I don't know. Sometimes I like to think I am on the cutting edge and will end up ruling the world, inheriting the Earth. I don't know though. I'm writing with fuzz on my brain like I'm on drugs but I can actually write so I'm not completely useless.

Oh and I didn't see McLusky. But I liked The Incredibles a lot, which isn't surprising. The next Pixar thing, Cars, looks ass though. The Incredibles: very pure superhero poetry. I don't know if anyone will get what I mean by that, or if that many people will understand the appeal. Kicks the ass of all bullshit live-action superhero movies... I was thinking as I watched The Incredibles about all the CGI and fuck it all, just go straight to animation. I mean, early Superman serials, I think I read, switched to animation for certain scenes, like where he flies, and it's a jarring distraction. So just pure animation, fuck this live-action with CGI nonsense. Other stuff... Like I said, fuzz on the brain. So I'll stand by my "pure superhero poetry" comment. For the kids, for the mainstream. And of course it looked amazing but that shouldn't even have to be said. The obvious: If you're inclined to like this sort of thing you'll love it. The only complaints I have are things that couldn't be avoided. I don't know if anyone would go into it not expecting to dig it and come out converted, but that's totally just me not understanding people from different perspectives. I'm even more inarticulate than usual right now. Sorry. My mom thought the commercials looked dumb. She doesn't get the superhero appeal. Damn I should write her an e-mail about the movie actually. She told me to tell her what I thought because she wasn't feeling the commercials. It seems to me that if you're not psyched by the commercials you're not going to be feeling the movie, although obviously it works better as a film than as commercials. It's not fucking Star Wars, you know? It's got a plot and the best parts are the big action set pieces, not the short jokes that can be thrown into a commercial. I don't know. I like superheroes and I'm kind of a moron. Aren't you the same kind of moron? Are you with me on this? Batman fucking rules, right? Dudes getting kicked, things exploding, and it all looking awesome... These are great beautiful things, yes? I don't understand people at all. I'm not as psyched on it as I was on Triplets Of Belleville, but Triplets was all french and sweet and it had grandmas instead of superheroes so it had a broader appeal to non-nerds while at the same time had this distinctively niche vibe. Anyway. Alex called The Incredibles the peak of Pixar and doubted they would ever make a finer film. Granted, he did it while drunk, and we don't know their future plans. I liked it, Alex liked it. Alex isn't as nerdy as I am but he does concede that superheroes are pretty goddamn cool and you may or may not be with us on that. I am getting repetitive. Sorry.

I am tired. About an hour ago I was talking about riding out a sleep-deprivation high. I talk crazy talk. I'm ready to pass the fuck out. You should all go see The Incredibles because maybe some of you won't like it and that would be interesting to me, as you're all friends of me and shit.

I've been really into The Mountain Goats lately, and last night, while laying in bed I realized that didn't make any sense. There's no reason for me to be feeling the Mountain Goats. It's all about lyrics, in the same way that other people like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen are all about lyrics and I just don't get that shit at all. The lyrics are "literate" but straight-forward, not particularly lyrically breathtaking. And yet somehow it works. Even though the musical backing is frequently just an acoustic guitar and tape hiss. Maybe it's that where John Darnielle is coming from is closer to where I'm coming from than hippie territory. He's a music critic and not a poet. But it doesn't seem like that should be enough.

Still, it makes it speak to me... Sometimes there's humor, it doesn't seem to wallow in sadness. (although the sad songs are frequently brilliant.) Then there's the concept album type stuff, which I guess I respond to. That kind of over-arching narrative gives stuff more of a purpose. It rarely seems self-indulgent.

Yeah... I am not a critic at all. I like what I like and sometimes I can justify those decisions. John Darnielle's voice isn't annoying like Bob Dylan's. And he's not political.

Other things that might grow into longer posts in the future: Going to see The Incredibles today and maybe McLusky in Seattle if all goes well. Also: My class is deeply flawed and I am expressing more rage by the day. The other students (and the professors) don't like me. It is all very haha.

I've got this Lenny Bruce autobiography to read for class. It's not particularly good, but the fact that I'm reading it brings stand-up comedy to mind. Stand-up comedy is rarely that far from my mind, but I'm being reminded of it.

Also: apparently there's been a new shift in Catholic dogma. Women can masturbate now, post-coitally, if the man involved in the act (who still can't wear a condom, as sex is for children) didn't bring her to climax. I mention this because I could do five minutes on this that would be hilarious. But then, really, who couldn't? Lenny Bruce might've broken rules and all that, but sex and religion are a short path to comedy gold. Not a lot of effort to be expended there. I mean, fuck, he was able to do it, and he was a junkie!

Elsewhere: http://www.artbomb.net/detail.jsp?tid=504, to be precise, Matt Fraction reviews Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol, as previously established, my favorite comic ever. This is cool because it seems like Artbomb's only violation of their "we don't review superhero comics, ever, we are for the nongeek public" rule. I could talk about why this is significant and I could talk at length about how it's only right that Doom Patrol should be the only exception (although I could also name two others that should be exceptions) but no one's reading this anyway, yes? No one gives a shit when I talk about comics. (oh fuck it: Watchmen and Enigma.)

For a while I was thinking about writing about something I love in art. Besides just "quality," there's something I really have a soft spot for. And that's this balance of the weird and the fucked-up with a very sweet and lovely core. I thought of this while arguing on the behalf of the poster insert in Jim O'Rourke's Insignificance... my roommate Loren Thor bought the record on vinyl and I wanted to take the poster and frame it in the bathroom. It's an amazing piece of art, so I don't want to describe it, but long story short, Loren didn't want it because it's not the sort of thing he wants looking at it while he poops, and he thinks it's the kind of thing that could alienate potential ladypartners. I maintain there is a sweetness but I said this to Loren in that half-ironic tone that I am known to use when I might very well be talking nonsense.

I cannot find the image in question, and I don't want to describe it to you. But I will say that the other art that comes with Insignificance is awesome too, and even better in the big vinyl format: The cover is a transvestite sitting in a chair, while the record sleeve shows the same transvestite being sodomized by an octopus. The poster isn't as good as the octopus image, but that should go without saying. As I look around the internet, the only images that are easy to find are the covers to the Jim O'Rourke albums Eureka and Insignificance. The cover to Eureka is a naked man holding the head of a bunny to his genitals. If I had a record player, I would buy the album just so I could put the cover on my door, (and the music's kind of dull on that one) so amazing is it. I am willing to entertain the notion that there's no sweetness to the artist's work and it's just my gravitation to the bizarre and alienating coming through and then I try to spin it like I'm somehow well-adjusted. I don't know, you make the call.

The name of the artist is Mimiyo Tomozawa and her work is highly recommended. (apparently she's done some manga but if it exists, it's hard to find.)

As is the work of Ken Kagami, who did the art for Deerhoof's Milk Man, and drew an image I very much want on a t-shirt. It's the kind of image that would ensure I made no new friends ever and would alienate all but my staunchest supporters. It is very much the kind of thing I enjoy as one that sometimes positions myself as being different than normal people. It is also amazing. You can see it here: http://www.kenkagami.com/work/d16.html (Warning: not work-safe, but everyone who reads this blog is unemployed anyway.)

I wanted to talk about my attempts to write stories that balance the bizarre and the sweet, optimism with surrealism, and magic realism with the indie-rock-kid world in which I live. But I got distracted. And to make a long story short, I haven't written anything that does that yet. And it doesn't look like anything I'm working on now will accomplish that goal either. Right now I'm just focused on getting all the boring nihilism out of my writing, and trying to avoid obvious autobiograpy. (At least I've never written about high school or struggling with writing in my fiction.) But if I ever do get around to doing such a thing... Look out world! I'ma kick your ass!

Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris (The Fog Of War, Fast Cheap & Out Of Control) made a commercial for Apple. It features cartoonist/screenwriter Daniel Clowes talking about his Mac. It's bizarre that such a thing can exist, but the reason I find it bizarre is a bit obscure.

Bush got elected. Straight-up. Culture war, good guys lost. Most of America is crazy. But then there's things like this. I don't know. I'm calling this "cultural dissonance." Like cognitive dissonance, but expressed through culture. This world doesn't make sense.

Bush's election doesn't make sense. That Apple commercial doesn't make sense, even to me. Even if Kerry had won, Clowes and Morris are rather "indie." These are things that shouldn't exist, but for completely different reasons. I'm glad that the commercial exists, because there are still good people out there. We are outnumbered. There's not enough of us to make a difference to the world at large, but there's enough of us to make a difference to one another.

Maybe I'm not making any sense. What the fuck am I talking about? I'm glorifying isolation. Why am I doing such a thing, after the democrats lost and the next four years of our lives (at least) our going to suck ass? Because I'm not a political guy. I'm just trying to live. And that's the way to do it, right now. Because if you are a political guy, and you're engaged with the rest of the world, things are going to suck even more. If you withdraw, you will survive. It's easy enough to withdraw. I did it before the election, I thought Kerry was going to win. It's the kind of optimism you need to survive. The argument could be made I've just got my head in the sand, like the president, and that's a bad place to be. Well, yes. But, I mean, Bush seems like a happy guy with his head in the sand. And since a civil war isn't going to happen, and a mass migration will just fuck up our chances in 2008, we've got to live with the fact that the majority of America is fucking crazy. And the way to do that is to do what we always do, seek solace in other things.

We are not the majority, but there's a lot of us. America is going to be hell on Earth for a while. And like any bad situation, it's only survivable when you've got friends. We've got a lot of friends.

The media isn't that liberal. The news, especially, would be better were it more liberal, if it engaged the rest of the world (i.e. the red states, the majority) and was able to convince them how shitty the world is. There has been some talk of a media elite, of a bubble. And I guess that is true now. But I don't have that much of a problem with it, because it's the same bubble I'm in, and it's a rather encouraging bubble. It's not great. I don't know, I need to work this shit out better.

Well, no, not really, I know where I stand: The media shouldn't be more liberal. It should be more vigilant in its reportage of facts. Really, the more facts people know, the less inclined they are to vote for Bush. But that's not because the facts are liberal, you know? Facts are facts. Facts don't come with points of view. I guess the main thing I want is less opinion, and less discussion of opinions, of polls, of spin, of shit that's not news. Yes. Wait. Um. I'm contradicting myself, as I said I liked the opinions because they convinced me that I Was On The Winning Side.

Goddamn it, what was I talking about before...

The rest of the media, the stuff that's not the news... That's encouraging to me. That's where my friends are.

How amazingly on-point was the Daily Show tonight (or last night? November 3rd.) So on-point. The funny that hurts, in a way I rarely feel.

This post is so goddamn unclear. This is not an essay, you know? It's a collection of stances. I stand by them all, (except for the unclear stuff) but not all of them have that much do with each other.

I'm really fucking tired. I started this blog so I wouldn't have to say the same shit to everybody as a conversation starter, engage me. If you do, I think I might be able to work out my stance and my guides to happiness for the next four years by the end of the week.

The soundtrack to November 1st was Brainiac's Electro-Shock For President. On a similar mood, last night I listened to GZA's Liquid Swords on headphones. Today, as I feel rage and disgust towards America, McLusky Do Dallas loud rock music with sarcastic lyrics is the perfect accompaniment.

Let me be the first to ask it:

So... what do we do now?

I don't have a solution yet, I just wanted to be the first to ask the question. Bush has this fucking mandate from, no shit, the majority of America. And Republicans I think won some seats in the house and Senate, but I don't know. America chose this shit. The youth didn't vote. Which is fucking sad. I now see why politicians ignore the young: Because we're fucking dumb.

Anyway, now for some shit I've said on message boards:

It seems like a lot of people are saying that they voted for Bush based on "moral issues." And it's easy to mock that, to say "fuck morality, vote on policy" but... As far as I'm concerned, voting for Kerry was the moral thing to do, you know? And that's even when you take in supposed judeo-christian morals like killing dudes being bad, as opposed to just my own personal set of morals. I'm confused that people are saying moral issues are important and the majority of those then vote for Bush. I mean, yeah, vote on policy, but policy is a reflection of morals. And Bush's policies are immoral as fuck, are you fucking kidding me? See... what they could've done, I think, was to talk about morals without talking about religion. Because Kerry is morally superior to Bush, in that he's not a fucking hypocrite. That wasn't a point that didn't get out, at least from Kerry. Or it wasn't made into a moral issue. And I don't think that would've pissed off the current liberals in the Democratic party, because everybody likes to feel morally superior.

Speaking of feeling morally superior, my roommate Luke is going to riot today, supposedly. Not because Bush won, or because the way he won was corrupt. No, he was going to riot even if Kerry won. He's going to riot in downtown Olympia (where we elected Democrats) to send a message about the things that aren't being addressed in politics. It's radicalism and it serves no fucking purpose. None at all. I mean... rioting's fun. But if you're going to destroy a place, why destroy Olympia? At least when there were riots in Seattle, they were opposed to something nearby. This is just foolishness.

But again: What do we do now?

So here's the thing I want to be the anthem of the left in the near-future.

Do you have a ballsack? Because if you do, you really should be shooting your metaphorical jism all over the place?

(i.e. call bullshit. There's a lot of bullshit to be called. Why isn't Kerry calling bullshit? I want Kerry to go on TV and say "the only reason Ohio and Florida will go to George Bush is because of extreme corruption.")

I voted. When I woke up, the morning felt better than last night. I like thinking the part of my brain connected to the collective unconscious is telling me something about how people are voting on the East coast. Let's see how I feel tonight.

It is now Election Day on the East coast, where my family and many of my friends live. The East coast, where the swing states reside.

I am on the west coast, and I am freaking the fuck out. Raw psychic tension is in the air like radio waves. I'm not where the riots are going to be. And I would almost bet money on small riots, at least in the swing states. I hope there's no reason to riot, but for fuck's sake, the past four years have been reasons to riot. Starting with the voter intimidation in Florida. That's the type of shit that I'm talking about, regardless of election results. But yeah, those results. A lot of people fucking hate Kerry. I don't encounter them ever, but they exist.

I need catharsis. I want to go vote and then go to a shooting range, partly for fear of a second civil war, partly just because I'm just going to need some kind of release. So much bad shit is in the air. So much fucking fear. I want to break glass.

This is my first election. Truly we are blessed/cursed to be living in times such as these.

If there was a second civil war, I am confident that the hillibillies would win. I don't want a second civil war, but I would fight in one.

There is the possibility that I will be ashamed of these words a week from now, no matter the outcome. I find it necessary to document the tension in the air.

God fucking dammit.

Vote Kerry, for the love of God. If you absolutely must vote for Bush, because you're a billionaire or something, and a Bush presidency would really work out for you, I suppose I don't have any problem with that, as long as you don't try to intimidate blacks. Also, if you could try to talk your yacht club buddies out of fucking with poor areas of swing states, that'd be great, I'd appreciate it.

If you're not a billionaire, and you're voting for Bush, you are fucking dumb. Trust me, it's not going to work out for you at all. (The New York Times reported that Bush told his supporters in a private meeting that he'll try to privatize social security once he's sworn in for his second term. I know that The New York Times is the liberal media or whatever- Which is funny because it's also the most respected newspaper in the country- and the Bush white house has attacked it, but the Times is sticking by this, and fuck, extremist conservatives do want more government agencies privatized, so it's not like the Times pulled it out of their asses)

Is John Kerry a tool? I don't even know anymore. Well, wait, yes, he is a tool for the Democratic party, a total piece of blandness. But what the fuck ever, that's the kind of tool you build a house with. Third parties are the kind of tool that means penis. And George Bush... he's the kind of tool that tears down a house. He's beyond being a tool, he's the fucking devil. Seriously. And that's a stance I would stand by, even if I were talking to a schizophrenic. I wouldn't even qualify it. Attention schizophrenics: George Bush is the devil.

Attention voters: Vote for Kerry, please please please.

I want to go downtown and just have shirts that say "Hugs for Kerry." And I will just hug people, no matter what their stance is. I will hug them, because a hug is something good and pure and George Bush is probably opposed. I will be the happy face for the Democrats. I'm just hugging, you know?

Although if Bush is re-elected, and the riots start? If that happens I will be the face on the bottles of poison for Kerry, the Yuck face. And I mean, I'll still give hugs, because that's just how I roll. One love!

It's going to be hard to calm me down over the next twenty-four hours without the aid of hard alcohol and hard narcotics that I am not inclined to take part in. Blowjobs won't even help, so intense will be my mind-state.

To the best Alex and I can work out, "I Want Pussy" off of Ol' Dirty Bastard's Nigga Please is the song where a main part of the beat is ODB fucking a girl on top of a bass drum.

My paper for class... it's not a review, but the teacher got the impression. I make the argument that it's the apex of hip-hop. This is a controversial view, because the album's rather offensive, and others might prefer something more politically conscious. My stance is that 'conscious' hip-hop is frequently boring as fuck and I am infinitely more amused by people just talking about themselves and how awesome they are. The point of my paper is that the reason that an ODB album is able to be the apex of hip-hop is because hip-hop is really fucked-up.

The record's also hilarious. I don't know how much of the hilarity is intentional, but it doesn't matter. It's never unintentionally hilarious because the music is bad. The music is pretty fucking solid, the beats accompany ODB's flow (which is insane, but GREAT and listenable) well. I don't know how much of what is being said is jokes and how much is just straight-up real ODB bragging. "Girls want to fuck me when they smell my underarm?" I don't know. "I take the cocaine, it cleans out my sinuses?" That's not true at all, but I still don't know whether he means it or not.

But yeah, good record. If you see it in a used bin (and you might... it had a hit single, but it's fucking weird, and most people are dumb) buy it. I'm pretty sure it's a party record but I am not a partier. Maybe play it at a party where you don't know everyone there. It can function as a conversation starter, while also making it seem like there's a crazy drunken crackhead in attendance at your party, i.e. spicing it up.

Oh yeah, and the original title was The Black Man Is God, The White Man Is The Devil. It also probably could've been released under the name Big Baby Jesus, as ODB had announced that's what he was switching his alias to before the release of the record. That's a lot of religious imagery for an album predominantly about fucking.

The election's in less than a week. I am alternately filled with dread and exhilaration.

This is great:http://www.salon.com/news/letters/2004/10/27/youngvoter/ It's at Salon, so you have to watch an ad, but... it's very encouraging. It's a letter from a black 21-year-old. The giveaway that he's a liberal might be that he's at Salon, but... he's also young, and he's black. So there's no way he's going to support Bush. It's a great piece, and I'll just quote a good bit from early on: "I saw Ann Coulter on some show where she was literally speaking for black America. Being that she is an aging white chick with poorly dyed roots, she obviously got it wrong. Those polls saying how Bush will get 16 to 18 percent of the black vote are just wrong. To quote ODB, "Nigga please."

There's other, more encouraging things. That quote just makes me smile. Because it's about politics and it quotes Ol' Dirty Bastard. I wrote a paper on the album Nigga Please for class. It's a pretty fucking great record, for many reasons.

There's other stuff on Salon, and elsewhere, about the GOP's plan to shut down the black vote. God, I wish that news would break.

So yeah, swing voters: Yes, they're dumb. But what's funny is the idea that they're waiting for something. Waiting for one of them to do something amazing, or maybe to eat a baby or something. And the funny thing is... That could totally happen. If the news I just mentioned broke? God. Of course, the mainstream media totally isn't covering shit like that, shit that will henceforth be referred to as "important news." They're covering campaign stops instead. And the Red Sox.

Oh, yeah, so the election night drinking game. It requires two kinds of liquor. For every thirty electoral votes that go to Kerry, take a shot of happy alcohol, whatever that might be for you. Like it's a party. For every thirty that go to Bush, take a shot of something else, like you're drinking to forget. I don't know what I'm talking about, so I'm going to say rum for Kerry, whiskey for Bush. But it depends on your preferences.

So in between all the politics shit... I'm in this class that isn't very good. My teacher doesn't particularly like me, I figure, but I arguably bring it on myself by making my distaste for the class known. The class is just wrong and based around bad ideas. I don't want to seem like I'm just casting myself in a rebel fuck-all posture because I think I'm so bad-ass, but... I mean, fuck, I disagree. No one else speaks up. Story of my life? You know, maybe.

Also: I saw some movies. I Heart Huckabees, Team America: World Police, and Shaun Of The Dead. Three relatively different movies. They have a few things in common. One is that they're all mainstream enough that I can see them in shitty-ass Olympia, even if I see them later than other people. The other thing is that they're all comedies, and they're all funny. Yeah, I Heart Huckabees is a bit pretentious. But it's funny. And Team America's overall position is one I disagree with. Shaun Of The Dead... is pretty fucking solid, nothing wrong with it. Not all the jokes work, but I definitely laughed a good deal. Of course not all the jokes in a comedy are going to work. But all these movies had enough jokes that did work that I can recommend them as comedies.

There are times when I'm at a movie and I'm laughing at shit no one else is laughing at. You know what I think is key to enjoying comedies, to knowing whether you have a good sense of humor regarding comedies? Show up early at the movie, watch the pre-film programming. This includes the trailers and the stuff before the trailers... Either big expensive shit, like you're watching TV type stuff, or the ads on the screen and an unrelated pseudo-radio broadcast. In all of these things you should find things to laugh at. If you can find anything unintentionally funny, you are smart enough to judge comedies. If you can't, than you don't get irony, so I don't know what you're doing seeing the movies I just recommended. I know that most people reading this get the idea of unintentional hilarity. I'm just sharing my litmus test with you.

That new Alexander Payne thing doesn't look very good at all. Sideways? God, the commercial even has a bit of "naughty girl, might have to be spanked" dialogue. What the fuck? Does anyone think that's edgy? Does anyone think that's funny? Has anyone not heard this a million fucking times before? Granted, it could be a matter of the funny jokes being too offensive for TV. But... God, that shit is just played out. It's fucking played out. And then when you see the actual trailer about the plot and shit... It looks like it's for boring old men. But the criticism has been made than About Schmidt is for boring old men, but I thought that movie kicked ass.

The Life Aquatic looks awesome though. Oh my god. Maybe a bit more jokey than previous Wes Anderson movies, but that's probably all down to editing, right? The trailer for Royal Tenenbaums had some obvious jokes that read subtle in the actual movie. But even if it is more jokey... I like jokes. It just looks fucking great. It opens on Christmas. I hope my brother and I live up to our Jewish heritage and leave before the Christmas dinner to see it.

So sometimes I think about the Pitchfork best of the 90s list, the second one. I always think about best records lists, but that's the one closest to my tastes, most reflective of what I like. And I mentally formulate my own list. Tonight I made an attempt to write that list down. It's awesome in that it really betrays me as a guy who only likes like five bands. It's also great in how quickly it falls apart... By the time it gets to Archers Of Loaf, it is abundantly clear that I am talking out of my ass and don't know anything about music at all. There's three Flaming Lips records in the top twenty, and Zaireeka is really just there in theory, because I only heard it once. It's hard as hell to make lists like this, because you ask yourself "Do I (a) more than (b)? Yes. Do I like (b) more than (c)? Yes. Do I like (a) more than (c)? Well... depends on my mood." And it falls apart as an exercise rather quickly.

So I just realized that people seem to be upping the number of fists to express new levels of awesomeness. Three-fists, four fists... The current peak is five fists, found in the title of an upcoming Matt Fraction comic.

Dude.

All you need is two fists.

I've got some viruses on this here computer. They can't be removed by anti-virus software, and I can't find the actual files yet. This could be a problem. So far the only thing I've been experienced was my computer wanting to show me gay porn... Not the most effective virus in terms of the large percentage of the population that wouldn't be bothered.

So when you do searches for files in Windows XP, the default setting involves a cartoon dog looking through a book. It is rather disturbing. It can probably be turned off, but I'm torn about whether I really want to do such a thing. Sometimes the dog looks up from the book to stare at you with big wide eyes.

So bizarre.

I should really be asleep.

Two words which will define the future: Gorilla Foundation.

Don't try a Google search. It's not on the internet yet. All in my mind. I'm writing it down because I sometimes forget the "foundation" part.

I like hanging around drunks because it drunks up my thoughts.

No essaying today, kids. Just some notes on the quick.

So a while ago (a week maybe? Probably more) my computer's hard drive died on me. It got replaced. But all the music I had on that old hard drive is now gone, as is a lot of writing. Beginnings of novels, journals of ideas, that kind of thing. So what can I do now, but come up with new ideas? The failure of the laptop led to my thinking about the failure of technology we nonetheless depend on, which brought to mind an old idea, which I then fleshed out, and long story short: my mind is a constant spring of disturbing imagery.

Class is okay. I disagree with the teachers in regards to several of the principles the class is based around, but in discussions I can make my fellow students drop their jaws. (I've done it to two separate students on two separate instances, and both times it was fucking amazing, because you can control your jaw, so there's no reason for that to ever really happen.) So there's that.

Oh, and the current goal of dorm J208 is to beat Sonic And Knuckles all in one go before October 19th. For that is the ten-year anniversary, you see. We realized this once one roommate (John Samson) put in some Dreamcast game compilation. While playing it, I made an offhand reference to 1994. Alex said he thought the game came out in 1996 or thereabouts. So he looked online and found out it came out on October 19th, 1994. This led to the decision to beat the game before then, and a lot of remembrances of the past ten years, growing up and shit like that.

I bought a belgian waffle iron and it is the smartest investment I have ever made. Or at least it will be until it breaks, which hopefully will never happen.

So the new Pixies songs... they're rather good indeed. Not the shock of the new, and they won't save music or anything, but it's one more good band in the world. They're still a good band. Their first new song has the chorus "bam thwok, oh, love, bang, wakka wakka wakka"which sometimes runs through my mind at times of intense joy. It's the joy of the fact that the Pixies are making music again, you know? It's nice. The Warren Zevon cover is good too, but it's not an original song with the chorus of wakka wakka wakka which means it's a lesser song than Bam Thwok.

So, back at Evergreen, haven't done any blogging, or any social interaction. Social interaction is more of a priority. Sometimes I'm on the bus and there's stuff I want to blog, but when I return to my dorm that urge has passed. So now, my passion is gone. So I'm going through the motions. But anyway, yeah, Let's talk politics goes so good with beer. Or: Everyone is retarded except for me.

So, the current Republican talking point is to label John Kerry a... I'm going to call him a waffler, because the term they're using is FUCKING RETARDED. "Waffler" makes me think of waffles, and even though it's still a dumb term, it's not one that the entire media have jumped upon. Anyway, the reason they're using this terminology... It's not to galvanize the Republican base. To do that, you just keep on calling him a liberal. Whatever. It doesn't need to be done. It's not going to get Democrats to defect and vote for Bush. (or more likely, get them to not vote, or vote for Nader, or something else that's not going to happen, because Bush is too fucking terrible.) It's done to make him not look like a good leader in the eyes of swing voters. Swing voters. Swing voters, whose minds aren't made up. Who, when the polls vacilate between 41% and 48%, it's their fault. People whose opinions constantly change based on the facts being presented to them.

... Do you get where I'm going with this?

It doesn't seem like an effective tarring tool. Leaving aside the fact that the reason Kerry might vacilate is that he's learning, and understands nuance, which is what editorial cartoonists seem to be picking up on. This is what the Republicans seem to be saying: Hey, swing voters. Kerry's like you. And you'd make a bad leader.

What's weird is that... this might be the Republican stance? The closest I ever came to agreeing with Ann Coulter was when she stated that swing voters are dumb, because if you're an adult, you should know your beliefs and know whether you're a Republican or a Democrat. Even that I'd only agree with on a tentative basis. I mean, yeah, you should know which economic policy makes more sense to you. But, in terms of shit like war... Wars are easier to either justify or regret after the fact. Also: War wasn't always the Republican thing. That's a neo-conservative thing. Back in the seventies, Bob Dole denounced Vietnam and World War 2 as being Democrat wars. But I'm getting distracted.

You know who I agree with more than Ann Coulter? Chris Rock. In his last special, he called bullshit on the breakdown of conservative/liberal, of Democrat/Republican. His stance was that, if you're sane, you don't automatically agree with shit before you hear the issue. If you're sane, you don't tow the party line. (This is not to say that Zell Miller is sane. As has been previously discussed, he's completely fucking off his gourd, and as such, doesn't realize that he's registered with the wrong party.)

As I type this, I realize these are two separate issues, and I'm kind of going against my original implied definition of a swing voter. So, um, damn. If my presentation of ideas was done backwards, it would've read like this: Swing voters are okay. And how funny is it that Republicans, in their quest to win the swing voter's favor, just talk shit on the idea of them? I think it's probably the secret resentment that political parties feel for swing voters bubbling to the surface in a subliminal way.

In brief: I'm now anticipating my return to Olympia. I guess this kicked into high gear after my last day of work, and realizing that I'm now in the home stretch. The fact that the mugging made me afraid to walk a street near my house at night might've helped.

I finished my short story, Drawing In Frosting. I don't know how good it is. I'll be sending it someone's way soon as my laptop is back connected to the internet.

I bought some CDs today, and found out there's a new copy of Arthur available. I had an audible reaction. I forget the first thing I said aloud, but I know that the last thing I said was "hellzapoppin'." The cover feature was an interview with Grant Morrison, conducted by Kristine McKenna.

My brother borrowed a copy of Simpsons season 4 DVDs. I got to see some episodes that I hadn't seen before, including what Entertainment Weekly apparently named the greatest Simpsons episode ever.

I think I had more thoughts, at one point.

Another Summer living in Philadelphia, another mugging. This time I really didn't have any money on me, but this time, the robber actually cared enough to run my pockets and shit. He got my wallet, containing two photo IDs, (one for Evergreen, one for Camden County, NJ) my voter registration card, two bank cards, ( one for Wachovia, one for Bank Of America, both canceled now) two pre-paid phone cards, a Best Buy gift card with eight bucks on it, and maybe some other crap.

So yeah I think I can go back to Olympia now. (although the ID shit will need to be replaced in order for me to get on the plane.)

The latest Chris Rock HBO special, Never Scared, is now available on DVD. For a while I was thinking that Chris Rock is the funniest dude around, but after watching the special, I reconsidered that stance. Not that he's unfunny, it's just that other people are funnier. Chris Rock is just the most on-point dude, especially vis a vis the whole men and women/whites and blacks tip. Other people try to be on-point on more political matters, like the overrated David Cross (did you know that Phil Ek and Chris Walla were somehow involved with the audio engineering of his tour? There is no reason for that to be the case) but Rock's great for the kind-of-oversimplifying for the sake of a joke. This is good because it allows for his bits to have payoffs, as opposed to just being riffing for the sake of riffing. The fact that the person I would now name as being funnier is mining a completely different terrain of comedy (Mitch Hedberg) should really speak that I'm not downplaying the awesomeness of Chris Rock at all. Chris Rock's... to say he's more perceptive than funny just seems fucking insane, really. But I always quote his bits, and think of them, and keep them in the back of my mind, whereas I don't laugh out loud when they're said.

Anyway, when I got online, I was thinking I was going to talk about comedians in vehicle movies (long story short: BAD IDEA) and talk about how great Pootie Tang is, and the key to enjoying it. (essentially irony, but more irony of the fact that you are watching a movie called Pootie Tang, about a rap star crimefighter who is too cool for the English language, and the movie's really poorly made but it's not a BAD movie, and many of the jokes just fucking work and are funny.) The irony thing would spin into talking about John Darnielle talking about "ironic music appreciation" in an interview with The Believer, and how it's basically just listening to things that you don't quite "get," but enjoy regardless. This was then going to lead to me talking about the complete fucking insanity of Ol' Dirty Bastard's album, Nigga Please. (It's insane... I've heard he doesn't remember making it, but more apparent when you listen to it is the complete lack of rhymes... I think most people think it's crap, but there's a charisma to it, even when talking shit on whitey and talking about girls on his dick.) Apparently Chris Rock does the intro to that album, but I haven't listened to it, just heard some bits while in my brother's room, looking at a clock. It would've wrapped up with me talking about someone's offhanded comment in Vice (I hate this magazine a lot in theory, but find it compellng and enjoyable as opposed to repellent in practice) that they think that "heavy metal is the new rap" which they probably meant in terms of hipster irony whiteboy appreciation, not in terms of defining youth culture of America... Which seems true and prescient, and I should mention that in that Believer interview, John Darnielle (he's the guy in The Mountain Goats with the zine/website Last Plane To Jakarta) was talking about metal. His fondness for/fascination with the band Deicide came up.

So, I've tackled all those topics, but in abridged form. It's like the cliff notes to my thought process. I am sleepy and have to go to work tomorrow, I should also meet up with both of my parents once or twice before I go back to Olympia, which is starting to seem crazy fucking soon.

There was a family function at my mom's house that my mom might be pissed at me for missing. There's cake in the fridge which might rightfully be mine. There's clothes on the floor of the living room which definitely are rightfully mine, but I gave them to my mom to get rid of because they suck ass. Lots of shirts she gave me for Christmas, I said I'd never wear, and she insisted that I would. Looking back at it now, I should've used the comeback that I'd been dressing myself at least since I was five and that wasn't going to change, but more important in retrospect is that I was completely right and she was full of shit. But to bring it back to a Chris Rock I didn't laugh at, but will be stuck in my memory for all eternity, a man can't win an argument with a woman because a man is concerned with having his argument making sense, which is an obstacle women aren't concerned with. Maybe there are some women reading this thinking Chris Rock and I are misogynists, but in your heart you know that is not the case, even if you are unwilling to concede that Chris Rock is, as ever, fucking on-point.

So, I haven't whored for McSweeney's for awhile. But recently, on the "McSweeney's recommends" section of their site, they recommended not moving. Which... um, yeah. Pain in the ass. Besides the whole packing things up thing, living in two different places and moving twice in a short span of time ends up in me missing many many shows.

Anyway, yeah, back to the whole talking about movies thing.

Watched Almodovar's Live Flesh. When it was over, I realized the thematic similarity/repetition at the heart of the oeuvre that I hadn't picked up from the other three movies I saw. This one put it over the top. I don't know if it's a bad movie, but in a way it's one I wish I hadn't seen because it tarnishes his other work. I imagine that if I'd been following Almodovar all this time, Talk To Her may not have kicked my ass like I did.

Also watched Tom Tykwer's Heaven. Apparently, when someone I knew saw it in the theater, much of the audience was pissed at the ending. Endings that piss people off tend to make me happy, unless it pisses people off by just being aggressively shitty. (like A.I.) This ending made me happy. Most of the movie... The first two-thirds (excepting the very opening scene) seem vaguely thrillerish. Not so much in execution. It's not much of a nail-biter... A lot of people call the movie hypnotic. But it's compelling, plotwise. The final third takes on a more languid tone, vaguely pastoral. (This opinion is shaped mainly by a few shots very close to the end.) The plot stops developing, basically. And then it ends on rather daring note, the kind of thing that I want to call "magic realism" as someone who has heard the term before but hasn't read Marquez and really has no fucking clue what I'm talking about when I say that. Think the ending to Barton Fink, if everybody took my advice and watched Barton Fink. Or that one scene in Magnolia everyone talks about. Basically movies embracing the fact that they are not real life and doing stuff which might not work according to its own logic, but rather, does something that DEFINES the movie's logic as being much larger than the strict realism-with-some-oddity it seemed to be embracing. Realism with some small oddities, but then one GIANT fucking oddity. I love that shit. Eat it up with a spoon.

Um, my brother bought a copy of Drugstore Cowboy so I watched that. Fun sidenote is that one of the movie's screenwriters is named Daniel Yost. I know a guy with that name. I also liked the moments with flying hats. That movie is just okay, nothing great. The kind of thing where you can imagine the director falling off sharply and creating pieces of shit like Elephant, Finding Forrester, and a Psycho remake, but this was made while they were young and hungry. Like, when you're done watching it, you wouldn't call Gus Van Sant a genius, and you wouldn't give him the benefit of the doubt ever, but you can concede that it's an alright movie. And, even though it's just alright, he never made anything that good again. So you accept it as a fluke, and chalk the quality up to Daniel Yost and William S. Burroughs, and then you go on living your life. (The moments with the floating hats are pretty fucking cool though.)

I saw Melvin Goes To Dinner. Which it turns out is not a comedy. Some of the cameos in there are rather surprising. I recommend it to fans of Richard Linklater. It's based on a play. One of the special features on the DVD is a scene from the play, which really brought home how I don't like plays as an artistic medium. Ugh. Seriously, why make a play when you could make a movie? Fuck plays.

I also saw Blood Simple, which was okay. Coen brothers doing something not a comedy. Which means... it's okay. I borrowed Miller's Crossing from work and will watch it tomorrow, along with Amores Perros. Apparently it's way better.

I also started watching Spartacus on DVD from work but the DVD crapped out. I liked it though. My brother mocked me for getting it, due to the gayness of gladiators.

There are some people I would like to contact but I'm not sure if the information I would use to contact these people is out of date or not. One of these people is Diana Fanelli. She used to read this, but I don't know if she still does, as a) it's rarely updated and it seems like most people should have stopped reading it, and b) I have no way to get in contact with her so I haven't communicated with her since the posting became erratic. Anyway, if you, the person reading this, are Diana Fanelli, contact me while I'm still in Philadelphia.

Which, for those of you keeping track, means sometime in the next two weeks. If I were in Olympia over the next two weeks, I could see Deerhoof.