(Digg) Space: The Wino Frontier

Make no mistake - Captain Kirk and his crew were cowboys and they treated the universe like the Wild West. Alcohol played an essential role in that quest, Klingon Blood Wine, Romulan Ale, Saurian Brandy, but after Kirk finished ripping up (and repopulating) the universe, a bunch of Earl Grey-sipping sissies followed in his wake.

A friend of mine told me about the site Modern Drunkard Magazine. Check it out for musings on everything about the 21st-century alcoholic's lifestyle. Being a dork, I thought the Star Trek article was pretty funny.

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(Digg) Best Ecard Site You Done Ever Did See

Tongue-in-cheek ecards funny enough to actually send and receive.

I don't normally care about e-cards much, but these are great and I send them to people whenever I can. Like the site says, "for when you care enough to click 'send.'"

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And many a word at random spoken #2 – Capps Corner, Texas

Capps Corner, Texas

"Jerry, good Lord, look at that mess you're bringin in!"

The dust from Jerry's boots came back into the store with him, so he dragged his feet a couple times through the old, ragged piece of carpet they used as a doormat. He had stood outside for a little more than an hour, just to stretch his legs. People still passed through sometimes, on their way from Nocona, or drivin back down towards Saint Jo. He hadn't seen anyone yet today, but it was a hot day, bad for drivin anywhere. The August heat was finally kickin in, it was hot as hell for days now. He didn't think he would see anybody today, but he would hold out til dusk at least. Betty called him a fool for sittin up there everyday, hardly a customer in sight, but he had run the fillin station for almost forty years and he wasn't gonna give it up. His daddy never gave up his farm, even when the Depression hit. He wasn't ready to give up yet. He eyed the thermometer by the front window as the door closed behind him. It was 98 degrees in the shade at 3:41 PM, August 11th, 1985.

Most days, he was glad for Loretta's company, but this heat made her nasty sometimes. She looked at him cross with her squatty eyes, her big, fat cheeks red with sweat. "Hell, I'll sweep the rest up later," he said, expectin her to fuss over the dirt some more. "It don't matter."

"Alright. Come on in and get you a Coke, sit down and cool off."

He walked over to the cooler to do like she suggested. Loretta's daughter had just went off to college, so Jerry knew she had too much time on her hands. She had always come by three or four times a week to talk about what her girl was up to, or to complain about her sorry ass husband who didn't even call no more. He always told her it don't matter, Darrell had been no good, but she ought to get married again for her daughter's sake. Loretta kinda snorted and started down her beady eyes at him whenever he said that. "I swear, Jerry, a man ain't all that matters you know," she always said, and her look would soften into somethin like pity after a minute.

It used to be that a lot of folks came by and visited, but there wasn't many folks left of Capps Corner to come visit anymore. A lot of his old friends had passed, he bet there wasn't a hundred people even left. He remembered the days when the station was center of town, what little town they got, when everybody just had to stop by and say hello. He looked after Miss Edna's sons while she drove her crops to market, he patched up tires and filled radiators and did a hundred things that made him more than an old man holdin down a stool. Betty wanted to move to Gainsville, where their son Edgar lived with his family. Edgar offered to let them live in his house, it was big enough, and Betty wanted to be with her grandchildren so much. It sounded alright, they said he could even bring his old recliner with him, but he wasn't sure about all that. He knew a man took care of himself until he fell down doin it.

"Well, Jerry, I took up your time enough today, I need to be gettin home. Leanne is supposed to call me from school today, I hate to miss her."

"Alright Loretta, we'll seeya later, take care of yourself in his heat now." He watched as the chubby woman wandered out to her old Ford pickup and weighed down the driver's seat behind her. She drove off not too fast, but still dust shot up from the dry ground as she left. It took a minute for him to see that somebody was pullin into the station after her.

Jerry rushed out to meet them as fast as he could, even as his hip popped. "How you doin, folks, what can I do for ya?"

A young, sweet faced girl rolled down the passenger window of her big, wood panel station wagon. She couldn't have been more than 25, but Jerry saw her husband on the driver's side, and a toddler in the back seat. "We just need to fill up," she said with a pretty but shy smile.

"Oh sure, let me do that for you folks," but the girl's husband had already gotten out of the car, a tall, corn fed lookin boy.

"Thanks mister, but I will do it. Here's the money for you."

Jerry took the crumpled bill in his hand. He noticed that the boy was not wearin a ring. "Can I get you a Coke or somethin?"

"Naw, it'll just make her have to pee," the boy said, and his wife giggled a little and blushed.

"Where y'all headed?"

"We're goin to see my sister in Whitesboro. It sounds like a wide place in the road, but we've never been there," said the girl. She looked like she didn't wanna be bothered with her sister or Whitesboro.

"Do y'all need directions? Whitesboro is only a little ways from here, probly an hour."

"Naw, I got a map in here, we know it's just down 677 then you get on 82. Thanks though," the boy replied, swellin up his chest a little.

"Well, okay, then," said Jerry, "I'm fixin to go inside I guess, but let me know if you need anything else. I'll bring yer change to you." He coughed, and wiped the sweat off his brow with an old rag from his back pocket.

"Oh, no, mister, Billy will come inside and get it. We don't need nothin. You don't have to mess around in this heat for us!" exclaimed the girl helpfully. Jerry looked over at Billy, this young fool was named, and saw his face soften. Jerry had rather he kept puffin his chest up than look around goddam feelin sorry for somebody.

"Okay, well I'm right inside. Thanks for your business folks."

Jerry went inside, half brushed his boots off on the old rug again, and sat down on his stool behind the counter. Billy's dumb ass tried so hard to fill up the tank without havin to get back change that he spilt gas all over the ground.

Still, they got almost all their money's worth, and after Billy folded himself up behind the wheel again, they drove off, that sweet, pretty girl wavin out the window.

Jerry sat there starin at the empty spot they'd left at the pump. When he saw another car drive by down the road, he found himself cryin for no good reason at all.

* * * * *

Betty was putting fried chicken on the table as Jerry walked in the front door.

"Wipe off your feet," she said, with the practiced kindness of an old Texas wife.

Jerry did so, and came to sit down at the table. As Betty poured him a glass of iced tea, she thought his eyes looked puffy, but she didn't mention it. She could tell the station had been empty today, and she stopped herself from begging him to give it up again.

"Honey, I think maybe we should talk to Edgar about going down there to Gainsville," he said a little firmly.

"Oh, really? I think that's wonderful, Jerry. I just know you will love being down there."

* * * * *

Betty sat on the porch with Edgar after dinner. She hated that he was drinking a beer out where everyone in the neighborhood could see, but she kept quiet. Herself, she was perfectly happy sipping on Sissy's iced tea. She had asked Jerry to sit with them, but instead he shuffled off to their room and sat down in that awful brown recliner. It was all she could do to even get him to come to dinner some nights.

"Daddy talked to that fat woman, what's her name, from Capps Corner today. You know, the one that helped y'all move. I guess y'all miss it down there, huh?" said her son, wiping a spilled sip of beer off his shirt.

"Oh, I sure do. We knew a lot of good folks down there," said Betty, smiling her best. "Sure do miss it."

"I guess Daddy misses it too. I don't think he likes it much here."

Her son's sadness reached her. "Now, honey, it's not that. Of course we want to be here with our family, we love y'all. Your daddy will be fine. He's proud. All he ever did is run that station," she said, and she found herself tense again. "He doesn't know what to do with himself now is all." Betty thought of Jerry's father, how he always talked about a man working hard, how that's what made a man. She sipped her tea without meaning it, gripping the glass unconsciously.

"Maybe so," Edgar said, but he still looked like a scolded child. "Did y'all decide what to do with it, anyway?"

Betty listened as her voice said, "You know, I don't care one bit if somebody tears that damn thing down board by board."

And many a word at random spoken #1 – National Recording Registry

National Recording Registry

Examining all the recordings was taking longer than Gabriel expected, but he preferred it to the rest of the group's work. Many of them had been damaged by the building's collapse, or worn by exposure to the elements and the passage of time. Still, the group believed in this work, and Gabriel believed most of all. The recordings were all that could be salvaged from the library, and they held the best chance of understanding those who lived during the library's existence. Even fragments of sound or seemingly random words could help them understand their ancestors, and more importantly, what happened to them. All of them hungered for understanding.

He remembered learning as a child that his world was new and hopeful, a second chance for humanity; that sometime in the past, those who gave birth to his world had simply gone silent. It took forty years to send Earth a message and receive the subsequent reply, and for a time, both worlds clung to that tenuous connection. But Gabriel's world had not received a message from Earth in just over one hundred years. Gabriel's people continued sending messages, their urgency always increasing. Nothing but cold silence came back home.

When one hundred and forty-two years had passed, Gabriel's people were no longer satisfied by silence. The expedition they sent found an almost unrecognizable world. The first time he saw what remained of Earth, Gabriel remembered the pictures he'd seen of her vast, blue oceans, and the childhood dreams he'd had of swimming in the Pacific. He wanted more than anything to remember those pictures when he looked at the angry, blackened water before him. Endless kilometers of ash and bone explained why no one had answered their messages.

If I understand how they lived, Gabriel had hoped, then I might understand why they died. So, he pored over the recordings he found in the remnants of the library, even though few of them were intact, and even fewer made sense to him. But the one he had just found was undamaged, and it was wondrous, a song sung by a kind, plaintive voice. Gabriel turned the volume up on his equipment, and fell silent. The messages exchanged with Earth were far more advanced than this recording; they had contained text, images, computer data, as much information as their science allowed them to send. Still, the voice in this long-forgotten recording said more than a thousand such complex messages could carry. The ghost of a man sang hopefully, and certainly, as though he'd lived until the end of time and arrived in the presence of God.

"We shall overcome," he asserted, "we shall overcome."

It was the first of many songs Gabriel uncovered, but the rest of the expedition found nothing so encouraging. The ruins surrounding the library were all that remained of what was once one of the planet's largest cities. All of Earth's major cities were similarly destroyed, and the planet's smashed computer systems were inoperable. As Gabriel spent weeks extracting and preserving the recordings, the group's scientists found traces of radiation left behind by extremely powerful weapons. Further tests revealed catastrophic environmental damage, even before the weapons were used. No one spoke openly of the inevitable conclusions as Gabriel's group returned home. For the first time, Gabriel came to understand why his world existed, why his people had left Earth, why he had been taught suspiciously little about humanity's history. His nausea refused to pass for days.

* * * * *

Ten years had passed since the expedition returned home.

The group had given detailed reports of their findings to Gabriel's leaders, and they decided to hide the truth of Earth's destruction. The public believed that natural disasters forced Earth's population to evacuate to an unknown destination. Gabriel had never disagreed with a decision so strongly, but he kept the truth to himself. Though he knew the truth could save them, that it could secure the next thousand years if everyone truly understood the thousand before, he knew that it could also mean the end of his people's hope, and his uncertainty kept him silent. He learned to live with his lies, even though he felt like they might choke him. We shall overcome, he thought.

But Gabriel's silence had not been enough. Someone from the expedition had secretly released their findings.

Their world had never known war, but the truth about Earth's fate quickly split his people. Gabriel's leaders cried out for understanding, for patience, for peace. The weight of Earth's history must balance against your anger, they said. If we do not choose our actions carefully, we will destroy ourselves as surely as they did. Gabriel was respected amongst his people, and he echoed the call to peace, but he knew it was not enough. His leaders discovered that the citizens most outraged at their lies were organizing, secretly arming themselves. No one knew what was coming, nor were they prepared.

The fighting was terrible, made especially savage by the fact that its perpetrators were as unprepared for violence as their victims. Gabriel remembered the blackened oceans of Earth, and was unsurprised by humanity's rediscovery of its cruel capacities. We shall overcome, he told himself, even as his cynicism grew, as he saw a million wills bend toward bloodshed. Only when rebellion threatened to swallow his world whole did Gabriel's leaders come to him to finish secret plans they had begun long ago.

Even though they had not known of Earth's ultimate fate, they knew all too well that part of humanity's history they had hidden. It was only a matter of time, they finally told Gabriel, until the chaos we escaped came to find us.

Gabriel agreed to leave on another expedition, this one possibly longer, and with an uncertain destination. He had embraced those words of faith he found on Earth ten years ago, he had believed that the lost treasures he brought home would teach his people the lessons their ancestors had learned at so high a cost.

As Gabriel's ship left to find humanity's newest home, he could see the explosions rocking its last one.

He was determined to record the true history of his people, to shout it at the top of his lungs, if necessary. He knew those left behind had to avoid the mistakes that destroyed humanity's second chance. He could not stand the thought of another expedition returning to the crumbling planet he'd left, only to bring back horrible secrets that threatened to end them. He had never liked his world's name, Novo, he had never used it. Had "Novo" really been so new when its people brought old demons to it?

* * * * *

Humanity came to the sixth world that had cradled it.

They had long since lived among the stars, but they had undertaken the arduous task of studying their former homes to better understand their past. They still hungered for understanding.

Their science lacked knowledge of any other species that had migrated so drastically and survived; humanity debated the significance of this fact frequently and with great passion, but could not conclude whether it spoke well of them.

The sixth world had been evacuated without signs of destruction. Their first discovery was an orbiting satellite, broadcasting a single message in multiple data formats, including an outdated language.

"We have found it again," she said, with satisfaction.

"We shall overcome," spoke a disembodied voice to the night.

Experiment?

I was browsing random articles on Wikipedia and decided I'd try something new -- I'm going to take a series of random Wiki articles and write something about each one. It might be a story, or a part of one, or just a few lines, but I'm talking something creative, not a book report. And, by random article, I mean that I'm going to click "Random article" for each one. No cheating, or picking articles based on the inevitable, lengthy Wikiexploration that happens anytime I look something up.

So, I'll start that pretty soon. Look (out) for it.

(Digg) Bush to Surgeon General: Shut Up!!!

"The first U.S. surgeon general appointed by George W. Bush accused the administration of political interference and muzzling him on key issues like embryonic stem cell research. 'Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried,' said Dr. Richard Carmona."

Not surprising, but pretty sad. Who needs the bad old scary science?

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Happy Fourth of July

That time of year has arrived again, that special time where we celebrate our nation's birth, marvel in its magnificence, and pay tribute to those who laid its foundation. As always, there are many events in your local community where you can revel in America's greatness with your fellow citizens, and such events should be attended and respected appropriately. If, however, you notice that "The Star-Spangled Banner" is playing particularly loudly this year, or that the glorious yet DOT-approved red, white, and blue fireworks are unusually noisy, please understand that the racket is necessary to drown out the sound and terrible vibration of John Locke, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, hundreds of other assorted patriots, 39 dead presidents, Bobby Kennedy, 1,197,238 dead soldiers since the Revolutionary War, and the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. spinning in their graves like nuclear-powered turbines.

Happy Fourth!!! War rocks!!! So does poverty!!!

See why I can't keep a blog?

Yeah, I'm still around, I just haven't had much to say lately. I think work is sucking the life out of me. Oh well, I'm working on an awful project that will be over soon, so that's cool. Maybe I will think of something to bullshit about after that.

Random Paul Stanley sightings...IN A CUBICLE

Lately, I haven't been turning the lights on up here when I work at night, so there is kind of like a Resident Evil feel sometimes, but I like it anyway. One thing that's really weird tonight is the excessive airbrushing of Paul Stanley in some random guy's cubicle.

Seriously, WTF?

Good times at lunch with honkies

I had some lunchtime fun yesterday that I'd like to share. I work in the computer industry, and right now I am contracted out with several engineers on a major project. I went to lunch with a few of them on Monday, and we started talking about the closure of the Mall of Memphis.

For a long time, the Mall of Memphis was the biggest mall we had, a large, well-Gapped mecca of typically shitty consumer goods. It started to decline for several reasons discussed in the link above, but basically, the number of crimes committed at the mall began to rise, including violent ones, and the local "news" "media" shit their pants in a mad dash to label it the "Mall of Murder." If that wasn't enough to keep Banana Republic-lovers away, the final coffin nail was driven in by its location in an increasingly African-American, semi-poor area of the city that was suffering from the exodus of many higher-income residents to the suburbs. Yeah, that's right, motherfucking white flight smoked that mall like a turkey.

Anyway, I said as much, at a table of four other white guys, one Hispanic guy, and one black guy. And, let me tell you, I couldn't have brought the conversation to a halt faster if I had pissed in the gumbo. One of the white guys, about my age and more or less in line with my thinking, assented with a nod in a pretty chilled-out way, as did the black guy, who understands a thing or two about white flight, I'm sure, from living in the national capital of scared honkies -- grand ole Memphis, Tennessee. I think the Hispanic guy probably couldn't give a fuck, except to laugh at the awkwardness, but one dude was like "oh wow...I can't believe you said that," and another sat silently in what I suspect was a stew of invigorated racism. The guy who commented is a nice guy, and I think he'd more or less agree with my politics as well, but what seemed to freak him out was just my having the balls to bring up something nobody wants to talk about, especially in Memphis. I mean, public works has near road-widening parties here so white people can faster escape their crippling, irrational fears of, like, jheri curl death squads, or some other figment of their Fox News-addled imaginations. All this while whole sections of the city have potholes you could drown a toddler in, not to mention crumbling buildings, schools, and other decaying remnants of an infrastructure serving people nobody gives a shit about. Fuck it, I'm not keeping the scary talk to myself while that's going on.

Still, good times, even outside of my sociopolitical-whatever soapbox. Go to lunch with a group of assorted white people, maybe some cheese-sandwich-eating goober from middle management, or, say, the weird lady in accounts payable with the toxic waste perm and find a way to bring up white flight in the conversation. Watch them scatter like ants unless they have the slightest clue of what's up in America today. Wheee!!!

(Digg) Newsweek: Bush approval hits all time low of 28 percent

"NEWSWEEK Poll: Bush Hits All-Time Low - George W. Bush has the lowest presidential approval rating in a generation, and the leading Dems beat every major '08 Republican. Coincidence?"

I don't wanna comment too much on this, because really, it's kind of unsportsmanlike to boast when somebody is getting their ass kicked this bad. It would be like shit-talking a man on crutches in one-on-one basketball, or picking on a retard. I will, however, share a mean but hilarious comment someone left on Digg: "the last third is usually backwash."

Congrats, caveman-like neocon assholes! The chickens have come home to roost!

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(Digg) Bring it on, iTunes: Amazon readying DRM-free music service

"Amazon is rumored to be readying its own music store for launch next month,
which will reportedly sell unprotected MP3s in hopes of cutting into the iTunes
Store's market share."

I hope other music retailers will follow suit here. It seems like market pressure might be the best hope of eliminating DRM. Trying to block thieves at the expense of legitimate customers is definitely not a great way to survive in a free-market economy.

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Is that the sound of angels singing? No, it’s just Grindhouse being awesome

First of all, hello to the spoilers.

Now THIS is a comic-book movie. Yeah, I know it wasn't actually a comic book, but it missed a good chance to be. Grindhouse is the kind of movie I was thinking of when I talked so much shit about 300. See, it's fun without being insultingly stupid. There are no fucking queer jokes, there are no appearances by RuPaul knock-offs, there are no hunchbacks with questionable moral conviction (too bad, because Ugly = Bad Person, of course), and there are no handicapped-lesbian gang-bangs. In fact, Grindhouse shows a refreshing lack of any lingering flavor of "manly" by way of "excessive playing of video games and extreme living with parents." It pays homage to the cheesy, bloody, sometimes misogynistic traditions of '70s and '80s B-movies without absorbing all of their bullshit wholesale. But my favorite thing about Grindhouse is that Rodriguez and Tarantino chose to turn it into a Slayer story. And that's awesome.

Although Rodriguez and Tarantino's movies draw life from a hodgepodge of geek-cherished cinema, including all kinds of exploitation films, I don't remember either committing violence against women to film without reason. Granted, there is a fine line between violence in service of a story and violence for its own sake, and those distinctions can be subjective and difficult to judge. Still, think of the ass-kickers that both directors have brought to life: Jackie Brown, The Bride, Carolina, the prostitutes in Sin City. When you've reached that level of bad-ass-woman credibility, I automatically cut you some slack.

"Death Proof" is a perfect example of the difference between misogyny and just plain bad shit happening to women narratively. It tells the story of two groups of women: one murdered brutally, the other equally brutal in their vengeance against the murderer. To really stir up the pure movie satisfaction of watching Rosario Dawson crush Kurt Russell's skull with her boot, you have to go through the suffering he inflicted, and while it's hard to watch, I understand why those particular strings have to be pulled. Like, I remember thinking near the end, "you better let me see that fucker die." I would have preferred something bloodier, but really, I can't complain. I also like "Death Proof" as sort of a feminine retread of the talky roundtable scenes Tarantino is famous for. I was surprised at how real the female characters felt, and you'd think Tarantino would know fuck all about writing women if you focused on, say, Reservoir Dogs, but he pulls it off. And, Tarantino proves here, just like he has in the rest of his movies, that being a pop culture-obsessed dork is fine, but being a bitter, miserable dork who peers suspiciously at life through a fog of Doritos and emasculation is not. Somebody should probably explain that distinction to the macho retarded-gorilla powerhouse that is 300.

"Planet Terror" is the one that really stirs up my Slayer love, though. Here we have the go-go dancer with the secret destiny, the woman who finds her power by examining those places hidden in plain sight, who finds uses for all her "useless talents." She draws strength from the man she loves, but continues without him, leading those who survive fucking crazy zombies to a new home, a new civilization built among the ruins of a long-dead one. "One girl, in all the world, a chosen one." Plus, seriously, fucking crazy zombies getting killed by a machine-gun leg. What could be more Slayer than that? OR MORE AWESOME?

A priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into a comparative religion class...

So we've all heard about the drastic failures of American public schools, and how high-school seniors can't find their ass on a map of the country and whatnot. Gentle readers, Time is deeply concerned about this state of affairs, so much so that the cover of their April 2nd issue boldly purports to prove "Why We Should Teach the Bible in Public School (But Very, Very Carefully)." I'd like to propose an alternate cover article, maybe something like "Why We Should Shut the Hell Up Until We Have Something Meaningful to Say About This Hoary Yet Unceasingly Controversial Topic."

It's not really discussing the Bible in a classroom setting that bothers me, I'll get to that in a second, it's the fact that the article basically boils down to "we should teach the Bible, not religion." I'd like to offer everyone involved a tasty shake with that penetrating McArgument. Like, a comparative religion class is a great idea, frankly. Everything outside of Christianity is so mystifying to us as a country, and it's just retarded to look at Judaism, or Islam, or any other long-established religion as some kind of wacky fad. But, this David Van Biema goober in Time is a little too focused on the Bible in particular, and as always when this subject comes up, I get concerned over whether we're talking about teaching or converting.

The article doesn't really piss me off that bad, it's simply a waste of time because there's nothing new in it. The author mentions a few facts about the history of the debate, and drops the "fact" that the Bible is "the most influential book ever written" (almost certainly true, but something about the definitive tone doesn't sit right), thus proving that it should not be ignored in any comprehensive educational setting. Again, I pretty much agree, but seriously, why is this a cover story? I know several agnostics and atheists, and they all know the Bible is a materially important book, no matter their opinion of it, but maybe that's because none of them are stupid. The guy also asks rhetorically whether teaching the Bible wouldn't play into both secularists' and evangelicals' hands, then answers by way of saying "Yes. Both. Which may suggest that each is exaggerating its claim." OK…seriously, what does that mean? There's a paragraph that quotes a secularist, and one that quotes an evangelical, but it still doesn't explain the reasoning behind that cutesy bullshit. Then there's some stuff about a couple of proposed curricula, and his observations of a classroom wherein a Bible class is being taught. That's it. End of story. Whoopty-fucking-doo.

The only thing that kind of grabbed me was this paragraph:

"A BASIC QUESTION: WHY TEACH THE BIBLE and not comparative religion? It may not be necessary to provide Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism with equal time, but it seems misguided to ignore faiths that millions of Americans practice each day; and a glance at the headlines further argues for an omnibus course. Yet could a school demand that its already overloaded kids take one elective if they take the other?"

Well, actually, it's absolutely fucking necessary to devote equal time to other religions, if what we're really talking about here is the broad, humanistic process that is true education. This is where it feels a little like the author wants to crank up the temperature in the Easy Bake Christian-Making Oven. Stir in a Bible, sprinkle the briefest of lip services to "other religious texts," and broil for four years of high-school at Fahrenheit 451. It's not that I am seeing some grand conspiracy here, just the opposite; it's the breezy "oh shit, I almost forgot to name-check that Islam thing in one single fucking sentence" forgetfulness of everything outside the comfort zone. I mean, the guy seems neutral enough in tone, and he talks enough about the constitutionality of Bible education that I know he isn't a dumb-ass, but, what would a dumb-ass think about this subject? I don't like any of the answers I come up with for that.

For example, I think about how a Bible class would play out in my not-so-enlightened hometown of Corinth, Mississippi. And, first of all, I am truly grateful to my parents for never forcing me to go to church in Corinth, which anyone could tell you is strangled socially, culturally, and economically by an incredibly noxious mixture of ignorant "Christian" assholes. I mean, I haven't read the local laws or stone tablets or whatever the fuck real closely, but I know liquor sales are illegal, and possibly dancing, or looking at any given sex organ for more than five seconds. Anyway, all that being said, how can anyone expect in fairness that small-town teachers like the ones I grew up with talk about the Qur'an when everything in their environment begs them to be scared as shit of Muslims? I don't expect every teacher to be perfectly objective when dealing with such powerfully divisive subject matter, but that's kind of the point in NOT TEACHING THIS SHIT IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE. Jesus. The plain fact is that Christianity is not going to scare the bad old alternative religious beliefs away, so, if you can't talk about them all and sundry with due diligence and without freaking out, then the Bible as taught in school is nothing more than an extension of whatever you're getting in Sunday school. So, what's the point? Oh yeah, that's right, turning the whole of American society into a crazy Dobson fundamentalist zombie factory. My bad, I forgot. Queer killin' rocks!

Like I said before, I'm not feeling a grand conspiracy about this particular issue stated in this particular way, but it's just a little too risky to me. God knows I hate to trot out the tired old "slippery slope" routine for any length of time, but seriously, this kind of shit could get ugly if we aren't careful. I guess I could compare it to Pandora's Box. Booyah...Jason's ability to draw a metaphor from a mythological source, 1, America's subtly and not-so-subtly instilled Christian idioms, 0. Suck on THAT, Bible!!!

Manliness…BY GOD

"Manliness" has to be just about the biggest single piece of bullshit emotional baggage that men carry. Men have hungrily abused both substances and other humans in general throughout history for the purposes of manliness. Men are drowned in this shit from the time they are children, and I'm sad to say many of us don't get through it unscarred to become actual human people. Men die sooner than women in its mindless service. In celebration of the incredibly stupid-ass concept of manliness, I'd like to list a few of my favorite things that are manly enough to put fucking hair on your chest:

1. Wife beating
   
2. Rape
   
3. Misogyny of other unspecified types (see: referring to women by any term other than women, "LET'S GO GET SOME BITCHES")
   
4. Homophobia (see: gay bashing, assault, fucking murder)
   
5. Inferiority complex (see: giant Earth-devouring trucks, sports cars)
   
6. Fear of intimacy (see: "she actually wants me to TALK to her")
7. Repression of emotion, subsequent depression, alcoholism, murder-suicides
   
8. Lack of meaningful heterosexual relationships (see: man whoring, "LET'S GO GET SOME BITCHES")
   
9. Lack of intimate friendships of any kind (see: "dudes don't talk about that stuff," repressed homosexuality)
   
10. The goddamn fucking back-clap hug
    
11. Every fucking thing about That Guy (see: you know EXACTLY who I am talking about, "LET'S GO GET SOME BITCHES")
    
12. "Masculine" play fighting (see: dudes who can't actually fight but feel like they have to try, also repressed homosexuality AGAIN)
    
13. Excessive Bible thumping about only MANLY concepts (see: Church of Christ, "barefoot and pregnant")
    
14. Disgusting conception of sexuality (see "old enough to bleed, old enough to breed," "LET'S GO GET SOME BITCHES")
    
15. The phrase "LET'S GO GET SOME BITCHES" or its usage
    
16. The continuing existence of Hummers: not the sex act, the fucking mega-huge, cock-substitute trucks (see: penis enlargement pills, creams, surgeries, magic spells)
    

GO MANLINESS!!! I NEED A BEER AND A SHOTGUN!!!

This Black Snake Moans...with excellence! Also, 300 (stupid-ass gay jokes)

Let's talk for a minute or twenty about how 300 is kind of stupid.

People tell me sometimes not to make fun of something like a comic book movie, because they're supposed to be stupid. That doesn't have to be true, but it definitely IS true most of the time. Like, I guess Ghost Rider is a stupid movie too, I'll never know because I sure as hell won't watch it, but it's about a guy who rides a motorcycle and his head turns into a flaming skull every now and then. Now, flaming-skulled-biker movies are predisposed to be stupid, but why does 300 have to be? We're talking about some pretty impressive shit that actually happened, albeit in a way no doubt different from how a comic book would tell it, so why does that story have to be cheapened by stupid shit like ten million gay jokes?

I'm not going all Mr. Serious Art Feelm on it, and I don't expect a comic book adaptation to be necessarily realistic. There are all kinds of great liberties you can take with comic book material and it's a mistake not to take some of them. I thought Sin City was fucking cool, but everybody involved there took the comic book thing and just ran with it like hell, and the story itself is so balls-out crazy that it ended up being all kinds of fun. 300 came from Frank Miller too, so it surprised me that it's so blah. It's supposed to be a pretty much shot-by-shot recreation of the graphic novel, and that itself is kind of a dumb-ass move on everyone's part, because you might as well put some kind of individual spin on it, but whatever. There are some cool images, although overall it doesn't even look as good as you'd expect, and it doesn't have much else going for it besides looks. The problem could be a lot of stupid dialogue and cheesy shit going on, and seriously, about ten million gay jokes.

OK, so it pounds you over the head with the fact that the Spartans are the heroes here, they are "real men," so I guess the Persians have to be "vaguely androgynous and/or fags." Is America collectively that stupid? Like, why does Xerxes have to be RuPaul? And also why does Xerxes' camp have to have all kinds of "freaky" sex acts going on inside? I came in to see a battle epic and all of a sudden I get vignettes from Hot, Deformed Lesbian Bitches? I mean, I'm not humorless about this kind of thing at all. It's just that I expect it to actually be funny, and not somebody's homophobic pottymouth acting up. For example, the trailer for Knocked Up was attached to 300, and that shit will be funny as hell, and one of the jokes is that Seth Rogen is an expectant father, and his friend says he'll help "rear the kid." Jason Segel snickers out "Watch out, he wants to REAR your kid!" and I responded by laughing my ass off. I mean, I'm not above this shit. It's all about the childishness of the joke overpowering hatefulness, like when a friend of mine told me he was in a threesome the other day and I asked what the guys' names were. Fun all around! That's totally different than Leonidas in 300 saying the Athenians were "philosophers and boy-lovers" or some similar bullshit. Sure, that's factually true, but it's not like the Spartans and every other Greek didn't get into sport-fucking their brethren from time to time. Of course, none of that matters, because the joke for 2007 America is that nothing says taking it up the ass like reading a book. Jesus. Seriously, somebody tell me, are we all that fucking stupid? And with the shot of Leonidas' wife getting it from behind? Leaving out the fact that she's hot, it was all just way too much manly gamer dork attitude for me, I guess. Maybe they thought the audience would all be guys who had only the slightest acquaintance with vaginas. Who knows.

And also, while we're talking about my favorite things, I don't want to forget the ugly American shit 300 quietly hauled up to the table too. Leaving out the fact that the Persians were all dandies, and corrupt ones at that as proven by bitches actually KISSING!!! ohmygod did you see them up in the middle of their warlike goings-on, they also represent "mysticism" whereas the Greeks are all about "reason." So…yeah, that's right…

"Gee, I'm glad those brave, noble, hard-charging, hot-wife-doggy-style-fucking Spartans never surrendered to the kinda sissy, ambiguously non-white, differently religioned Persians! HEY do you think there is a parallel between those PERSIANS and this whole Earthful of DARK PEOPLE that AMERICA HAS TO KILL?!? Glory Be we cain't surrender to them Terrorists!!! Cause if it ain't Chrish-tin, it's puuure mystic-cism!!!"

Accuse me of reading into it if you want, I guess, but I don't think I'm crazy. It's not like I even think the movie was consciously pushing an agenda. I read a review where the critic said it was too silly to be actually about anything, politically or otherwise, and I mostly think that's true. I also read that the director had to quash rumors that 300 was government funded, and that's just retarded. Most of the feeling I get off it in this respect comes from how trained people are to jump on anything that jibes with some jingoistic bullshit right now. The last thing I would want to do is feed on that shit, and if I were writing a movie I would parse it word for word about fifty times to make sure I wasn't. So, I don't know whether it was a conscious choice, but I'm pretty positive somebody's "AMURICANS DON'T DUCK-N-RUN" was acting up. It's so awful to me to hammer everyone's frayed post-9/11 nerves but I guess that's how the movie industry rolls in general. But, anyway, I went through all that mostly to say don't waste your $8.50. Black Snake Moan is good, though. Go Craig Brewer!

New and unimproved

So I'm switching my blog from MySpace to Blogger, including moving the old entries from there over here. Any entries before this one were imported, including their original date and time stamps. Anyway, same old shit, different site. I serve at the pleasure of being completely ignored.

Resolution...?

Well, I'm still here.

I've been trying to write this for a few days, but for some reason, it just hasn't been coming to me easily. Maybe it's working third shift, maybe I'm just blah, who knows. Still, I've been thinking about how it's too easy to ignore people who are different from us, those who share a different viewpoint, those who haven't been where we've been. Like, a friend of mine got in my car the other day, and I had 2Pac's greatest hits in the CD player. So he goes off about how rap sucks, about how it's pointless, and ignorant, and ghetto, and blah blah blah. Now it doesn't bother me when someone just doesn't like rap, because personal tastes, whatever, but what sucks is a person refusing to acknowledge that there is any other viewpoint on the subject. I'm talking about looking down on someone else because they might listen to rap, even if you hate it. That's past objection based on personal tastes; that's a condemnation of an entire culture. And that's not cool.

People do this a lot, refusing to accept something they don't like, and I know because I do it too. For me, it's usually about philosophical, or political, or religious beliefs, but no matter what you disagree about, it's the same basic predicament. It's hard for me to listen to someone who completely disagrees with me, and honestly, I don't really try that hard to listen most of the time. But I'd like to change that. I don't know if I can change it, but I think it's worth trying to do so, because there has to be some middle ground, some commonality that we can all find. There's way too much violent, vehement disagreement, and it doesn't help that those in power, those we look up to cultivate that disagreement for their own questionable purposes. Because when it comes down to it, people are what matter, not the walls we build up around ourselves to separate us from each other. Despite our quirks and annoyances and differences, there is a common bond in our imperfect humanity. We have to try and smash those walls we've built, or I don't see how we have a future. Like my favorite teacher says, all we have is human capital; all we have are one another. Holding hands, and staring into the night.

So, for the new year, I promise to try to listen more, and actually hear, especially when somebody's saying something I'd rather ignore. We'll see how much success I have, but wish me luck anyway, 'cause I have a hard-ass head.

Happy New Year, and may God bless us all.