Today I watched Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, and made a tracklist for a mix CD for my brother's birthday.

Also went to the Criterion website, and looked at some of their covers. They have some amazing designs. Here are the highlights of the search. It's a long list, but honestly, this stuff kicks ass. It might be my nerd-drive that leads me to compile such a list, but it's not the nerd-drive that makes me think this is cool, that's just me being smart.

Ingmar Bergman's Cries And Whispers.
The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgisie is actually a movie I've seen, unlike most of the rest of this list.
Double Suicide.
Playtime.
Rififi is a movie that I really want to see.
Diary Of A Chambermaid, by Luis Bunuel, well-served by Criterion. I think all his movies had cover designs that made this list.
Withnail And I. This is Ralph Steadman art, but my brother says the actual movie is pretty much unwatchable.
How To Get Ahead In Advertising.
Day Of Wrath.
Bunuel's That Obscure Object Of Desire.
Spellbound, by Hitchcock with an animated dream sequence by Salvador Dali. I NEED TO SEE THIS.
Milos Forman's Loves Of A Blonde.
The Firemen's Ball. A cover featuring boobs, the color red, and an angled camera.
In The Mood For Love.
Ballad Of A Soldier. Does the high-contrast thing very nicely.
Hopscotch.
Tarkovsky's Solaris.
Man Bites Dog. This has implied baby-death.
Jarmusch's Down By Law.
Trouble In Paradise
Straw Dogs. I think this was actually the movie poster. If so, Sam Peckinpah is awesome. This is a nice little summary of the movie in so many ways. You can't tell about the woman-hating, but you get a lot of other stuff, like violence and nerdy sensitive dudes repressing violence. Good movie.
Stolen Kisses. One of a box set of covers featuring shirts.
Bed And Board. This is my favorite in the set.
Truffaut's 400 Blows. This is my least favorite, but is included for completion's sake, so you're all "hey, shirts."
The White Sheik, a Fellini film. Kind of a weak design, I suppose... Fellini wasn't served as nicely as Bergman or Bunuel.
Night And Fog
Indiscretion Of An American Wife & Terminal Station.
The Marriage Of Maria Braun.So begins a triology of women's faces. These made up a box set that had a cool cover that a large image link doesn't exist on the Criterion site.
Veronika Voss.
Lola.
The Pornographers has an awesome cover.
Ingmar Bergman's Through A Glass Darkly. This is just a black and white photograph, of two people. No reason I should like it, and yet I do.
Knife In The Water by Roman Polanski.
Le Cercle Rouge, this is one of my favorites.
Cronenberg's Naked Lunch. Who saw this and liked it? I'll probably watch it at some point, but I don't think I'm feeling the Cronenberg.
Ikiru, by Kurosawa.
Maitresse. Bondage imagery cover. Really cool.
Samuel Fuller's Pickup On South Street. Is anyone familar with Fuller?
Onibaba
Le Corbeau. This one's inky.
Salvatore Giuliano. Uses the black/white/grey and blood-red effect, but in a way that's not trite.
Ingmar Bergman's Scenes From A Marriage.
3 Women, by Altman. Kind of an ethereal vibe, but this is one of the lesser designs to make my list.
Fritz Lang's The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse. I really like the dot-color effect, don't know what to call it. Unslick color printing effect, done in close-up, kind of like Roy Lichtenstein minus the commentary.
Floating Weeds. No idea what the movie's deal is. Japanese stuff, I'm thinking.
Kurosawa's Stray Dog.
The Tin Drum. I saw other alternate covers for this, and they were all pretty great.
Godard's Alphaville. Alphaville is both a band from the eighties, the name of a company involved in the production of Pootie Tang, and this, which seems much more accessible (read: sense-making, no long shots of car crashes) than Weekend, the only Godard I've seen as of this writing.
Flesh For Frankenstein. One of those movies that Warhol put his name on, a piece of crap movie that has a great cover, courtesy of the Criterion designers.
Diabolique. Not Danger: Diabolique, which influenced CQ (which I should see) this is instead a movie that Hitchcock says influenced Psycho.
Peter Brook's Lord Of The Flies.
The Red Shoes. I like this, maybe that's surprising to some people. I probably wouldn't like the movie, but that's true for a lot of Criterion. I am not arty. This doesn't seem that arty or what have you, just probably not my style. Although, if I were to see it at the library, I might rent it, due to Criterion's branding of my brain. I'd probably watch most Criterion's that aren't Michael Bay (The Rock and Armageddon both have Criterion editions, which is weird.)
Terry Gilliam's Brazil.
The Unbearable Lightness Of Being. I should read that.
Charade, what I believe to be a spy movie starring Audrey Hepburn. So yeah, spy movie, Audrey Hepburn, brings a certain image to mind of hip mod stuff, which this lives up to and exemplifies. It's slick in the best kind of way, you know? The movie probably isn't as slick- spy movies never really are as cool as they seem like they should be.
Peeping Tom.
Ingmar Bergman's The Magic Flute.
...And God Created Woman. There are a couple of covers that mine the whole painted pulp aesthetic, but this is probably the best.
Pygmalion. Really pretty cover, no violent overtones or weirdness like a lot of my favorites.
This is for a movie called Good Morning, which I'm not familiar with in the slightest. This is just a very nice slick cover.
FIEND WITHOUT A FACE.
This is for Gimme Shelter, probably one of the weaker inclusions on this list.

Fear And Loathing.
Notorious.

For the time being, here's the sweetest/nerdiest thing ever. After a couple of days it might be gone or down further or something. But for now, it's near the top of that page.

Brian

So today was my last official day of radio station training. So I brought the laptop in my backpack for one last heist, which sadly was not to be.

Come back to my dorm, turn on the computer. Now I find that sometimes when I play music, it has this kind of distorted skipping.

Also: computer takes a while to boot up. Sometimes blue screens come up that talk about Windows... I don't know what. Let's just say "smoking crack with Satan". And that I can fix this by uninstalling any new hardware or software. There is no new hardware or software.

I went to the college sound and image library, as I am writing a paper on 1950s American cinema. (probably going to be focused on the idea of auteur theory being put forth in Cahiers Du Cinema at this point, overseas) But I don't know shit about 1950s American cinema. I watched North By Northwest once. So I decided to see what the library had in the way of selection. Because I like movies and the research thing was a flimsy premise, I picked up All About My Mother. I also picked up Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, which is from the fifties, but Swedish. My uselessness knows no bounds.

So, I start to wonder if the audio troubles will effect the DVD. But then I look in My Computer and see that my CD-rom/DVD/CD-RW drive is no longer showing up, as if it had been uninstalled.

So I call technical support. Lots of shit later, they realize I need to physically remove the CD drive, then put it back.

I find a phillips-head screwdriver, courtesy of a guy who overheard me talking after he had gone to bed, but before he fell asleep.

I get one screw out. Turns out it was the wrong screw, this one was for the modem. I get out the other screw, for the CD. There's a second screw to be dealt with, marked with an O. If you have an Inspiron 5100, turn your computer upside down and see that which is labeled with an O. It's a hole. A hole which apparently leads to a screw, but I couldn't reach, even with THE SMALLEST PHILLIPS-HEAD EVER.

So it's been put on hold. I guess I'm going to watch these movies somewhere else tomorrow. Should be fun times. But the distorted audio is a bitch.

I can still get online and use AIM, and write papers and stuff. I'm thinking that the reason for the computer taking so long to boot up is due to the CD fuckups, and maybe the CD part that's fucking up is close to the soundcard, which maybe makes sense. I don't know anything.

Actually, no, there are things I know, and these things make me feel insecure and shitty. Like that technical support/customer service people HATE YOU. I've heard this so many times- all they want is for you to get off the phone.

So there's that bit of insecurity, and that's on top of me talking about how I have a crazy screwdriver and don't know where anything is.

There's also the part- this is racist- that is worried by the accent on the phone. Sorry. I think I just want Technical Support people to be TERRIBLE. Like voices you can hear that they're overweight. Where they make bad awkward jokes and are the worst people ever. That's what I want out of technical support. It's a white male stereotype. I totally prefer the person I was talking to as a human being. But for confidence? There is nothing like Technical Support that seems like the most socially-inept human being on the planet.

Hey, just saw Deerhoof live. Other bands played as well. All were pretty good, but the audience pissed me the fuck off.

On the bus, there were some loud, annoying people. I'm always afraid I'm one of the loud annoying people, but no, I'm not. The annoying bus people are always young and female. Or just fucking insane/mentally handicapped. But these were of the young female variety.

The bus driver told them to be quiet. Then they made SSSHHHing sounds at loud volumes, out of spite. They were then told to stop doing this.

Can you guess what they did?

Can you?

Think: What would someone that's twelve do? Yeah, in the minutes before getting off the bus, they said words with Sh sounds, and emphasized those aspects. Like SSSSHHHit. Clever.

The bus driver told them not to ride the bus. That bus driver was awesome. She asked if they went to the college, I told them they did not. Other reports later reported otherwise.

Anyway, these people. I was afraid they were going to the concert. Alex insisted that, yeah, they were, because they were people dying for attention, and as such, they were hipsters.

We walked in to the venue and didn't see them. Alex made a joke about the hipsters stopping off at Old School Pizza before the show. They showed up a few minutes later, and the Old School explanation is probably true.

When Old Time Relijun started, they got to the front of the stage and started the dancing. The herd mentality spread. I wanted in on the action, but goddammit, those bus people ruined fun for me. I also heard that the lead singer of Old Time Relijun (ex-Evergreen) posed nude for some art class last quarter. He also apparently gets naked at shows on occasion. He didn't do that at this show though. He remained dressed in a suit, like some kind of nice guy Nick Cave. Other obnoxious things done by the bus girls: smashing Arrington in the mouth with a microphone and playing with the lights in between sets while some beat-oriented electronic music played.

I decided I wanted to be in the shit for Deerhoof though. I think I was standing next to three people from Sub Pop, who stood like statues at first, but they later caused much of the pushing-around dancing. There was a lot of pushing around type dancing. For a while, I was in the shit and the other people became like a corset for my ribs. We fought for oxygen, like we will all have to do in the terrordomes of 2028. Still kind of a good time. I really wanted to punch the one Sub Pop guy. If it happened in the heat of crazy borderline-mosh action, it would've been perfect. But it was not to be. So the bus girls didn't ruin Deerhoof for me. The drummer for Deerhoof is fucking cool, and the singer's pretty awesome as well. Part of me hopes they get that Sub Pop money, part of me likes thinking that Kill Rock Stars isn't run by assholes. But it could be, I don't know. I'm not even sure the Sub Pop people were that bad... Just kind of in love with themselves, I'm thinking, and too much goddamn muscle mass to be standing in the thick of it when the kids start spazzing out.

Also saw Parenthetical Girls, who I saw do a radio show performance a few weeks back. I knew most of their songs. I guess they're okay.

Bought the new Deerhoof record. (not out yet!) Haven't listened yet, as Alex is going to rip it and put it on the network for all.

After Parenthetical Girls but before Old Time Relijun were Le Ton Mite. Who weren't a band, per se. They did this kind of musical performance art comedy thing. THAT WAS BAD.

Saw a lot of people I know. Three people from class who I didn't know were going, and others who were friends of friends etc. And some acquaintances I've met. And people from the floor above me who I didn't know existed.

But yeah: see Deerhoof if the chance presents itself. See Old Time Relijun in places not Olympia, because in Olympia, all the assholes will come out. If you don't have any kind of contact with them, you'll have fun.

Yeah, some mail. Got some stale cookies from home, courtesy of UPS, given to me as I came out of the shower. I was wearing a towel and the UPS guy was doing some kind of "funny" conversation with me, about how it was from my mom and dad, and how it was only to be delivered if I had an A+ average.

We don't have grades at my hippie college, but that's not the point. The point is, I was in a towel. And he chose to make it more awkward by talking.

I really want to skew this like he was hitting on me. Which wasn't the reality at all, but seriously, is a funny scenario. Black UPS guy, me a college kid in a towel, all wet from the shower, and him making fun conversation to stick around as opposed to just being all "sign here."

I also got Unlikely, which I talked about a few days ago, before I'd read it. It's OK, not a comedy so much but enjoyable for what it is. I think other people would dig it more than I did. Here's the pitch again- autobiographical comic telling the story of this dude's relationship, that resulted in him losing his virginity at the age of 24, and the same relationship's dissolution.

So this movie Secret Things is receiving positive reviews but it seems very porn. Like, very porn. Granted, a lot of movies get reviewed in such a way as to make them seem porn, but I don't think that's the case with this film. I kind of want to see it, but you know how it is with movies that seem super-porn but are actually arty. Watching them seems like a dodgy proposition.

This story I'm writing which now has a deadline and I got some writing done on it the other day? Stalled again, after I did another one of my either brilliant or a cop-out writing things. I also wrote about my idea that old men should smoke pipes. I've already covered my anti-bumper sticker stance. What do I have after that? I've got nothing.

Well, I have a plot, with a climax in mind. Which is actually a lot- I don't have that for that story Shoppe. But getting to that ending. I need a lot more middle, and a lot less bullshit to avoid having a middle.

Just realized that some major plot elements contradict each other in terms of themes. The main thrust of the story- alienation. The world at large is overpopulated. But the character is in a place where most people have left for the time being.

Shit.

In terms of plot, it doesn't really matter. (Although there might be a logic hole.) In terms of having a strong theme, I don't know what I'm talking about.

Oh wait... yes I do. Because when the character is in places with lots of people, the loneliness remains, and it's coupled with fear, hence creating more alienation.

I totally do know what I'm talking about, and I'm not full of shit at all.

I'm excited again. That Brainiac record showed up in the mail today, showed up early, and it's quite good indeed. I thought I was getting a care package in the mail, but maybe that'll come tomorrow, which is also the last day of the radio station training bit. I also go into the radio station record library with my laptop in my bookbag and rip CDs. So that's a fun time, although I'm not particularly excited for it. I like the idea of finishing up the training, even though it's far from the worst thing ever. Tomorrow I'm also going to go to Grocery Outlet and buy Pop Tarts, which is also not a cause for excitement.

What is a cause for excitement, at least for me, not for any of you, is this: McSweeney's is having a contest, which one of the stories I've been working on meets the criteria for. I probably won't win. Which is not to say that you should enter, because you shouldn't. But the possibility of winning is an invigorating one, to say the least. It invigorated me to write several more paragraphs of that story in question, which had been stalled. So for that alone, it's a good thing. That it's also given the story more of a slant towards the clever, away from the nihilistic/transgressive vein I'm afraid of falling into, is also a good thing.

Oh, forgot to mention this in my last post, that was all of ten minutes ago. Probably. Not feeling the math.

Anyway, yeah, I'm going to talk about comics, so like one person (Jason) cares, but I'm going to fill it with information so everybody can play along at home.

I finished reading From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell today. Other people think it's a masterpiece. I was reminded a lot of Brian Bendis' Torso. Which really isn't fair to either, but seriously: A lot of similarities. From Hell is probably better. But since you read Torso already, you'd probably have the same problems I did. I haven't made it through the appendixes yet. From Hell is "good." There's nothing wrong with it, unless you've seen similar shit before. It's kind of like when I was watching L.A. Confidential and realized I've seen too fucking many neo-noir movies, and nothing can surprise me. Only Torso and From Hell are two things. Two graphic novels in an under-represented genre. To my knowledge, these are the only English-language, exhaustively researched, comics about serial killers. And there's a lot of overlap.

On the good side: I guess my copy of Torso got kind of fucked up by rainwater, so it's like I replaced it with From Hell, which is better.

Be A Man by Jeffrey Brown is a pretty fun little humor comic. I can't think of anything that really reminds me of it a lot. I'm going to talk about that, as it was the best comic I've read for awhile. Unlike From Hell, it's not "good." But it's funny. So that really lets me neglect a lot. Because that's how it fucking should be: If something is trying to be funny, and it is, that's really all that matters.

Jeffrey Brown did some comics. They are all autobiographical, they are all very sensitive, because Jeffrey Brown is a sensitive guy. Two are in print from Top Shelf. One's called Unlikely, and it's about him losing his virginity. I ordered it from Amazon after reading Be A Man, even though, as I will get into soon, it's completely different. His other comic's called Clumsy, and it's about a long-distance relationship falling apart. Both feature lots of crying, or so I'm told.

Be A Man is a scene-specific parody of Clumsy, replacing the sensitive boy bits of what really happened with over-the-top male chauvinism that didn't. And it's funny, because male chauvinism is funny to me (When it's fictional. Maybe I needed that caveat, but probably not). Totally obnoxious and tongue-in-cheek, some might say in bad taste, but fuck those people, I don't know those people. Weirdly enough: I didn't read Clumsy. I didn't even know it was so scene-specific until a second reading. Because I wasn't familar, I just saw that obnoxiousness, and I laughed at it. If I had read Clumsy, it might've been funnier. But it was pretty damn funny as is.

There's also the chance that I could read Clumsy and hate it, and then end up hating Be A Man by extension. I don't know. I just know what I think is funny, and Be A Man has some shit in it that I thought was funny.

Anyway, I'm probably going to read Clumsy at some point. And I'm going to be reading Unlikely in the near future, as soon as I receive it, from that dude I bought it off of used from Amazon. I'm thinking this Jeffrey Brown fellow has the talent.

Also, speaking of Amazon: Ordered stuff from them for the first time last week. Used stuff, which probably wasn't the best idea, but whatever. In addition to Unlikely, I ordered Hissing Prigs In Static Couture by Brainiac. All I've heard from Brainiac is the Electro-Shock For President EP, which is pretty cool. Due to the wonders of music criticism, I'm excited about Brainiac. I can't think of any other band whose music I'm excited to hear. This is what I like about music criticism, the contagious enthusiasm aspect. I'm psyched on Brainiac partly because Enon are really good, and partly due to their placement on certain individual Pitchfork writers' top 100 records of the 1990s lists. And other stuff I've heard elsewhere. About them, not by them. Like The Dismemberment Plan apparently totally ripped off Brainiac. All of these things are encouraging.

I'm excited to hear it, which seems like it disproves what I wrote in the last entry. But no: being excited anticipating something which could disappoint and being excited about something once it happens and is awesome are two different things. The former keeps you going in anticipation, the latter invigorates you until the next great thing comes along.

I write "I hope that made sense" a lot in this, but that last thing I know made sense. Maybe you didn't get it, but that is your fault instead of mine. Retard.

Feeling like I should write in this, but nothing to say. I feel like I should say that I'm sad or something, but, no, I'm not. I'm not excited for anything, haven't been for awhile. It's not like I'm content with that, like I realize that there are times when nothing seems to happen and there's nothing to be excited about.

I do realize that, but that's not why I'm not sad.

Hoping that made sense.

Other stuff: Someone thinks I'm gay. I should really do something about that.

Our school newspaper comics page is fucking terrible. I did something, which has its moments, but all that is wrong with all of the comics in the paper is wrong with my comic as well. It's poorly drawn, too much of that wackiness/misanthropy, too self-satisfied. The only difference is that mine is being made from someone who is funny, it just doesn't come through in the comic. I want to put something in the paper, on the comics page, that's GOOD. Like, really good, like art, with thought put into it and stuff. What I did is mental diahrrea, and I find my shits more interesting to look at then other people, but- what I did is really inherently disposable. Really "don't give it a second thought." Which is both ideal for the school newspaper and bad for me as someone trying to create something good and worthwhile. So, people at the school: Don't think of me when you see it. Just view it in the context of the paper in which it appears. It will be better. Just not that much better. I'm not proud of it.

Other things I'm not proud of: I laid down some rap thing I crapped out on Alex's computer. He's trying to make an interesting backing around it. Weirdly enough, despite me being so music-asshole-guy, I was somehow able to create outsider art. Apparently, I have no cadence at all. The beat is really fucked up, no groove at all. Much like the comic strip, totally disposable and weird and not very good. Outsider art. All logic suggests I shouldn't be able to create it. And yet, I did. It's almost a miracle but because of the logic, no one's going to view it as outsider art, everyone's just going to look at it as shit.

Looking back at this, it comes off sadder than I intended. When in reality I just feel ambivalent. It's like when someone selling you food tells you to smile, don't look so sad, and you were just doing your default facial expression.

This happens to me frequently.

So old friend Diana posted a link to this here blog in her away message, so there's a chance of influx of new people reading this. I don't mind if these people like me, and find me hilarious when being hilarious is my goal. For them: the hilarious post was the one on Wednesday. Others might just find this hilarious on a completely different set of terms, one of laughing at me and my self-important blogging ass. For those people, I say: I don't want to entertain you. Luckily, I tend to write in this weird impenetrable cloud of references to comics people haven't read, music people don't listen to, and movies people don't give two shits about. And last time, Kids In The Hall. But still, you know, that's me being obscure, let me instead be clear.

To the new people I dislike: I fucking hate you.

To the other people who read this, who know that I'm not always going for the funny, I present you with this, taken from Salon.com, posted here because you shouldn't have to do the Day Pass bullshit and look at the ads for something that originally was on a politician's website, where it could have been viewed without effort.


Editor's note, from Salon.com: Following is the full text of remarks prepared for delivery on the Senate floor by Zell Miller, D-Ga. The remarks originally appeared on Miller's Web site on Feb. 12.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
The Old Testament prophet Amos was a sheepherder who lived back in the Judean hills, away from the larger cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Compared to the intellectual urbanites like Isaiah and Jeremiah, he was just an unsophisticated country hick.

But Amos had a unique grasp of political and social issues, and his poetic literary skill was among the best of all the prophets. That familiar quote of Martin Luther King Jr. about "Justice will rush down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream" are Amos' words.

Amos was the first to propose the concept of a universal God and not just some tribal deity. He also wrote that God demanded moral purity, not rituals and sacrifices. This blunt-speaking moral conscience of his time warns in Chapter 8, verse 11, of the Book of Amos, as if he were speaking to us today:

That "the days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land. Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the word of the Lord.

"And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east. They shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it."

"A famine in the land." Has anyone more accurately described the situation we face in America today? "A famine of hearing the words of the Lord."

But some will say, Amos was just an Old Testament prophet -- a minor one at that -- who lived 700 years before Christ. That is true, so how about one of the most influential historians of modern times?

Arnold Toynbee who wrote the acclaimed 12-volume "A Study of History," once declared, "Of the 22 civilizations that have appeared in history, 19 of them collapsed when they reached the moral state America is in today."

Toynbee died in 1975, before seeing the worst that was yet to come. Yes, Arnold Toynbee saw the famine. The "famine of hearing the words of the Lord." Whether it is removing a display of the Ten Commandments from a courthouse or the nativity scene from a city square. Whether it is eliminating prayer in schools or eliminating "under God" in the pledge of allegiance. Whether it is making a mockery of the sacred institution of marriage between a man and woman or, yes, telecasting around the world made-in-the-USA filth masquerading as entertainment.

The culture of far left America was displayed in a startling way during the Super Bowl's now infamous half-time show. A show brought to us courtesy of Value-Les Moonves and the pagan temple of Viacom-Babylon.

I asked the question yesterday, how many of you have ever run over a skunk with your car? I have many times and I can tell you, the stink stays around for a long time. You can take the car through a car wash and it's still there. So the scent of this event will long linger in the nostrils of America.

I'm not talking just about an exposed mammary gland with a pull-tab attached to it. Really no one should have been too surprised at that. Wouldn't one expect a bumping, humping, trashy routine entitled "I'm going to get you naked" to end that way.

Does any responsible adult ever listen to the words of this rap crap? I'd quote you some of it, but the sergeant of arms would throw me out of here, as well he should. And then there was that prancing, dancing, strutting, rutting guy evidently suffering from jock itch because he kept yelling and grabbing his crotch. But then, maybe there's a crotch-grabbing culture I'm unaware of.

But as bad as all this was, the thing that yanked my chain the hardest was seeing that ignoramus with his pointed head stuck up through a hole he had cut in the flag of the United States of America, screaming about having "a bottle of scotch and watching lots of crotch." Think about that.

This is the same flag that we pledge allegiance to. This is the flag that is draped over coffins of dead young uniformed warriors killed while protecting Kid Crock's bony butt. He should be tarred and feathered and ridden out of this country on a rail. Talk about a good reality show, there's one for you.

The desire and will of this Congress to meaningfully do anything about any of these so-called social issues is nonexistent and embarrassingly disgraceful. The American people are waiting and growing impatient with us. They want something done.

I am pleased to be a co-sponsor of S.J. Res. 26 along with Sen. Allard and others, proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to marriage. And S.1558, the Liberties Restoration Act, which declares religious liberty rights in several ways, including the pledge of allegiance and the display of the Ten Commandments. And today I join Sen. Shelby and others with the Constitution Restoration Act of 2004 that limits the jurisdiction of federal courts in certain ways.

In doing so, I stand shoulder to shoulder not only with my Senate co-sponsors and Chief Justice Roy Moore of Alabama but, more importantly, with our Founding Fathers in the conception of religious liberty and the terribly wrong direction our modern judiciary has taken us in.

Everyone today seems to think that the U.S. Constitution expressly provides for separation of church and state. Ask any ten people if that's not so. And I'll bet you most of them will say "Well, sure." And some will point out, "It's in the First Amendment."

Wrong! Read it! It says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Where is the word "separate"? Where are the words "church" or "state"?

They are not there. Never have been. Never intended to be. Read the Congressional Records during that four-month period in 1789 when the amendment was being framed in Congress. Clearly their intent was to prohibit a single denomination in exclusion of all others, whether it was Anglican or Catholic or some other.

I highly recommend a great book entitled "Original Intent" by David Barton. It really gets into how the actual members of Congress, who drafted the First Amendment, expected basic biblical principles and values to be present throughout public life and society, not separate from it.

It was Alexander Hamilton who pointed out that "judges should be bound down by strict rules and precedents, which serve to define and point out their duty." Bound down! That is exactly what is needed to be done. There was not a single precedent cited when school prayer was struck down in 1962.

These judges who legislate instead of adjudicate, do it without being responsible to one single solitary voter for their actions. Among the signers of the Declaration of Independence was a brilliant young physician from Pennsylvania named Benjamin Rush.

When Rush was elected to that First Continental Congress, his close friend Benjamin Franklin told him "We need you ... we have a great task before us, assigned to us by Providence." Today, 228 years later, there is still a great task before us assigned to us by Providence. Our Founding Fathers did not shirk their duty and we can do no less.

By the way, Benjamin Rush was once asked a question that has long interested this Senator from Georgia in particular. Dr. Rush was asked, are you a democrat or an aristocrat? And the good doctor answered, "I am neither. I am a Christocrat. I believe He, alone, who created and redeemed man is qualified to govern him." That reply of Benjamin Rush is just as true today in the year of our Lord 2004 as it was in the year of our Lord 1776.

So, if I am asked why -- with all the pressing problems this nation faces today -- why am I pushing these social issues and taking the Senate's valuable time? I will answer: Because, it is of the highest importance. Yes, there's a deficit to be concerned about in this country, a deficit of decency.

So, as the sand empties through my hourglass at warp speed -- and with my time running out in this Senate and on this earth, I feel compelled to speak out. For I truly believe that at times like this, silence is not golden. It is yellow.

----------

Hey, this is Brian again, and you know, there are new people, so maybe my stance needs to be made clear. THIS DUDE IS FUCKING CRAZY. I hate him like I hate the people looking at this to see how much of a pretentious ass I can be, or maybe hoping this is like my livejournal and they can see me crying.

But yeah: I guess that in Georgia, even the Democrats are fucking stupid. Switch parties. I mean, if you consider CBS to be the far left, during the superbowl, (which wouldn't air the MoveOn.org ad, or the PETA ad... if the NFL is being radical in its politics, it's to the right) maybe just maybe you shouldn't be in the nominally more liberal party? Just a thought.

That said, I fucking hate Kid Rock too, so maybe we can bond over that.

If you loved me, you'd buy me shit.


Damn that's tempting. I almost bought it then realized I don't really have a stable shipping address. The subscription's cheaper than buying it individually, and a lot easier, and now it's on sale. I like to consider myself on the McSweeney's tip but my lack of any of the actual issues of McSweeney's suggests otherwise.

As the Flying Pig would say "Wow, what a line-up!"

I AM THE BIGGEST NERD EVER.

YOU LOVE ME.

BUY ME SHIT.

So yeah, last night, I fucked up doing laundry and ended up staying up late, because my sheets were in the dryer. The internet was broken, and I had nothing to do, except for write. I have this idea for a book called Get Broken, where all the ideas come from semi-lucid states. I decided I would get high and try to give the book a go. It didn't. Fuck weed, man. Didn't allow me to focus, all my thoughts were semi-coherent (to me, probably not at all to other people), but it was all so self-involved, I just kept on thinking about my mental state. Here's the stuff I wrote. This was my attempt at writing Get Broken, before giving up. I did some audio recording of me talking, and I realized that all of my annoying mannerisms were being amplified, which you can see in my writings as well- it's very stylized in a way, but it's NOTHING BUT REFERENCES. Also, another note, in my defense: I left the room a bunch, so all the times where it seems like I am being repetitive about the internet being up and stuff, more time passed than can be discerned from this. Internet's still down as I'm writing this in Wordpad to copy and paste when it's back working. But yeah, once again: I like my brain sharp and angular. Kind of knew that that is not what weed does, but it really just reaffirmed it: Brain working all fast and stuff is the way to go. The drugs that make your brain "sharper" are also much scarier. Important to note that straight-edge kids, as dumb as they are, have that sharpness. If I understand the Minor Threat song correctly, it was all about how not doing drugs etc. keeps your mind sharp- that is the straight edge, never intended to start some dumbshit movement. My fear is that that edge is now fucking permanently gone. I'm so far from being high right now, I've sobered up, but I don't think I'm writing this as well as I would like to. Granted, not nearly as bad as I was writing last night, which you shall now see. I fixed some typoes- Far from all of them.


2:15 A M, 02/11/04, internet broken, Boredoms on headphones, just got high for the first-time, let's start Get Broken motherfuckers.

Mister you're on fire mister oops but I'

should this begin with me getting, i'm just thinking about what it feels like to be high. what's funny is how bored I am

and Liars lyrics many a Liars reference abounds

hah my legs are- exactly like how it feels like your legs go to sleep but with the edge off.

I actually feel bad which is i don't think bad pot trips are a thing affected by mood towards hit


The internet's broken the nework is on, we're just feeling like a split-off


I CAN'T WRITE WHY HIGH

I MEAN WHILE HIGH, BRAIN's tres'fucked

I don't know what the point is for me to do this. Listening to The Boredoms and no more awesome than usual? I AM WRITING DUMB I am writing like Evie talks sometime when she is parody. As i write this kind of clipped thing I realize this is so much of a Pitchfork at it's most styley bits My brain is moving back and forth in my brain, like it is there are so many fucking things to rewrite from just a sentence ago, this is fucking bullshit I am not stupid
jaw muscles making me smile will just came in interrupts wanting to know how it's going



taste of vomit in mouth
meaty

Just went to Andy and Will's, Broadcast on now, going to attempt simple task to fuck up: getting laundry. I'm thinking now I will pee on the way. I expect CRAZY HIJINX

imagining Evie reading this- my influences aren't Burroughs or Thompson, they're Fraction and Pitchfork. those past two thoughts- unconnected.

Now I do stuff....


it seemed like a good idea (the recording) after Andy came in and I realized I couldn't stop talking: AIM talk will be funny if the net's not still a-broked.

HA i forgot to not pee
goddamn i know my grammar.

I keep on thinking I should all FALL and stuff but that requires much more effort

this is going to be bad, so depressing.

I'm going to hate myself in the morning.

bad idea for many reasons

My french earlier? I don't know what to think

Let'see if Pitchfork new. went to correct than realized I was like a sucky James Joyce. that last line/thought best line/thought ever in history of linethought. need to go pack to repunctuate, adding periods. now internet oh wait no it's still fucked, as no AIMtalk which i wouldn't have gotten around to doing anyway

This took forever to do, unconnected thought. My thoughts aren't just jagged, they're diverged is the problem

I mention Joyce, Burroughs, and Thompson but that Fraction quote bit is such a pullquote. I AM such the booktyping hipster type. Realized that sentence bad mid-thought, Thoughts are fucking slow

and unconnected i hate this bullshit i'm doing

undid bad thought.

goddamn it i suck. i need to stop doing this and start being more awesome

Haha jewin' it up: when you need a little extra jewce

pop tarts jelly is better when high

laundry done now, if internet is up i will post this and horrify old friends HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY weirdos. I don't know what made me type weirdos just then.

internet: still down. i hate that i do this but i want stuff to be recorded.

I don't want people to say shit like "you were so high" because if I was that high i don't get the appeal. The idea of me being not very high, but if i'd done more i would've transcended the suck and finally entered AWESOMEVILLE where i never been to in my life ever. (sober addendum: Alex insists that I was not that high, otherwise it would've been much more enjoyable.)

Shaving is a bad idea, hilarity waiting to happen. I really like attempting simple tasks, i hate straining- I'm slowing down my thoughts.

So I found out today that cartoonist Charles Burns went to Evergreen, at the same time that other cartoonists like Matt Groening and Lynda Barry went here. Now that I think about it, the possibility that Charles Montgomery Burns is named after the dude who does Black Hole is kind of large, slightly less coincidental than the fact that The Simpsons live on Evergreen Terrace.

Anyway, this was a few years before the Sub Pop and K Records people attended, but there was some overlap, with Sub Pop guy and Charles Burns meeting and Burns drawing a Sub Pop comp cover. K Records and Sub Pop kind of sucked at their inception, but they've both gone on to release some good stuff, so you know whatever, yay for my college.

Aside from the cartoonists and the music folk, we also churn out activists. Like, remember I'm thinking Spring 2003, when the first American was killed in the Israeli-Palestinean conflict? A college student (whose name I won't mention lest this come up in a google search or some such thing, but I will say that her first name was Rachel, which explains some of those banners in the library about fighting in memory or whatever) went over there to act as a human shield. She stood in front of palestinean homes and got bulldozed by Israelis. It made the news, with some surprise expressed. I was confused by the surprise. Probably not a bad person or anything, ideals are nice, I have a few, but still. Anyway, yeah, an Evergreen student. I don't know what my response is- It's one of disappointment at the college and life and whatever and the people this college creates, idealistic but with head up the ass, is what I'm saying. Another person who went here is Inga Muscio, who wrote a book called Cunt, and seems pretty fucking dumb from this review I read, and dumb in an Evergreen way. I've seen copies of that book on many a shelf, by the way.

I act like this is exclusive to Evergreen. But I know it's not. Well, I don't know that, actually. I'm assuming. So, people at other schools: How full of shit are your alumni?

Things that are disconcerting:

People dropping out/transferring from Evergreen. With people I know, it seems to come out of the idea that Evergreen is not going to help them get jobs in the real world, and they would be better off going to a school where you can actually get a degree in sound engineering or special effects movie makeup. It's a desire I totally understand: Way to have your shit together, kids; but bums me out due to the fact that a) these are people I know and like, now leaving and b) that they're more focused, or reality-oriented than I am. I don't know.

Also: The realization that shitty people have good musical taste. Yeah, I know this is obvious, and not a big deal. I don't judge people by their taste, whatever. Listen to whatever the fuck you want. But the bad people who like good things- Kind of a non-issue at my high school.

On another, more positive note, I'd like to say that I looked at Paul Pope's website thursday night, and his shit remains some of the coolest shit ever.

There was an on-campus screening of The Shape Of Things. Fuck you, The Shape Of Things. Fuck you Neil Labute. He sure does hate the womenfolk.

I thought I'd watch it with my friend Thor, who didn't show up at the screening. Tyler did. For the non-Evergreen people reading this: Tyler is a fat awkward kid who is not funny, and is often intentionally annoying. People pity him. Anyway, so he say next to me.

Then I saw someone I knew from class, so I sat with her. Until she said "fuck this movie" and left. Then Tyler sidled up. I didn't leave. The denouement worked OK I guess, but the ending was far from surprising or satisfactory, the characters were unlikable and the dialogue sucked ass throughout.

I think this night can still be redeemed, but I don't know what could do it.

Just watched Talk To Her. That movie is really fucking good. I am now on the Almodovar tip. Everyone I know who'd seen it before I did enjoyed it, and despite my inclinations to hate everything, (which aren't real) I agree with them. A fine film.

I don't do the film criticism very well, but I will say: shot beautifully and the characters were all sympathetic, even when they did assholish things. Two things I like.

2002 was a really good year for movies, much better than 2003.

Some might say that I probably should have spent the night reading Their Eyes Were Watching God for class. I disagree.