Friday, February 27, 2004
so, re: this howard stern debacle, here's my take: fuck clearchannel. fuck clearchannel for exactly this reason. because when one company owns a huge percentage of the market, they can effectively limit the open exchange of ideas, and impose their own agendas, fears, and whims on the public. this is just the most glaring example of this yet. fuck the bush administration, specifically the FCC, more specifically michael powell. he scares the hell out of me. I love how republicans are for small government and delegated authority until it comes to legislating morality and pushing puritanism down our throats, at which point it suddenly becomes the government's responsibility to save us all from whatever it subjectively deems "harmful". (hey, it's not government's place to provide universal healthcare when it comes to bad things like physical disease and injury - i mean what are we, socialists? Ah, but it IS apparently government's place to protect us all from the spiritual disease and injury that results from a PG-13 superbowl performance...) I wasn't personally offended by the janet jackson thing, I just thought it was stupid, but apparently it was "30 minutes of simulated intercourse" and unfit for the american public. thanks, but that's a decision i want be able to make for myself and my (future, potential) children. oh, and fuck howard stern, too, just because i think he's a pompous ass and his show sucks. this is a good case of "i don't like what you've got to say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it." arg. these are sad times for the civil libertarian. and the independent thinker in general, for that matter. Monday, February 23, 2004
damn. this movie looks fucking amazing. makes me wish i understood japanese. hope we at least get a subtitled release here.
woke up this morning with the hellish headache i deserved, and spent most of today (sunday) recovering from last night's post-endymion excesses. which i'll get to. rod was in town for the weekend, for some conveniently timed junket for washington political types sponsored by UNO, so we got to hang out for most of saturday. strange how quickly friends can fall back into familiar rhythms, and though it's been years since he'd been back for mardi gras, everything just seemed so... normal. reminded me of those few years when three of my best friends lived here, and the rest visited often, and of all the conversations and the arguments and the wine and the bourbon that we went through together. i know i couldn't have survived the ordeal of law school, and the terrible two years after that, without them. i miss my friends so much. that being said, rod bailed after the first few floats of endymion had passed his hotel on lee circle, and i was left to my own devices, alone and on foot - and of course gravitated toward the quarter and la fee verte to meet up with my friends and the krewe du noir, the nola goth scene's mardi gras 'parade' across the quarter to the whirling dervish. i had brought a flask of scotch along, but had pretty much ignored it most of the day, but it seemed to disappear pretty quickly once i started with the pear cider. geez. which lead to some pretty good conversation, from what i remember, though i'm pretty hazy toward the end there. and then i had to walk back uptown, from the far side of decatur street - something like 5 miles. thankfully, i was feeling no pain by that point, had my ipod to keep me company, and i made it home, drunk and determined, by around 4 or 4:30. so today was a recovery day. slept until my headache was tolerable, had a random but quite pleasant call from an ex-girlfriend wishing me a happy mardi gras; then, avoiding the parades as much as possible, biked to a late lunch (sushi!) and then to coffee, circumnavigating the uptown parade route and managing to mostly avoid the bacchus parade and its adoring multitudes until i got home, at which point there was no escaping it. so i walked outside with a diet coke and observed, quietly, far from the madding crowd... which is a nice way to do mardi gras, once in a while. made a late trip out to buy some bloody mary mix (the vital marrow on which i will be sustained for the next couple of days), and got to watch the last episode of sex and the city. it was sad in the way that i find all final episodes sad, but being a guy and a not very consistent viewer of the show over the years, all i was really concerned about was that 'big' gets the girl, which he does. good enough. and that's probably more than you wanted to read from me today, so i'll shut up now. Saturday, February 21, 2004
despite several sets of plans for tonight which materialized then and fell through, things worked out well enough anyway, as they usually do. biked down st charles to catch the parades, met up with darren and (after de-biking and picking up my car from home) eventually gave he and gina a ride home to the quarter, ** found parking ** which was a positive miracle, and walked through the sea of humanity that is the quarter tonight, and made it to la fee. saw molly and harley and kelly and stayed for a wine and a coffee. not feeling too... participatory... tonight, I guess, myself. now I'm on the way home to try to install a new toilet tank in my guest bathroom, to replace the one that got broken (in half) last mardi gras. and/or redesign this very website. make no mistake, y'all. the french quarter tonight is a newly minted, fresh hell. and so it begins... Friday, February 20, 2004
when was the last time I... went to the doctor... went to my e.n.t. in september or something. when I couldn't shake a sinus infection. went to the dentist... sometime in november, when I chipped a tooth. put gas in my car... yesterday. full tank, too, which is kinda rare. got enough sleep ... no clue. backed up my computer... sadly I don't really know that that's ever really happened, with either my work or home machines. Thursday, February 19, 2004
saw my first parade of the mardi gras season last night - muses - which was great, mostly because it was my friend darren's first mardi gras parade ever, which is always fun thing to watch, when people realize that it can be a fun family holiday rather than all the drunken debauchery that happens in the french quarter. after the parade darren and i went down to the house of blues parish - the smaller, cozier club upstairs from the main venue at the house of blues - to see the sage francis and the non-prophets show (underground emo-hip-hop kinda thing), which i had won tickets to on WTUL earlier in the day. we got there early enough to see the openers, but somehow, we ended up downstairs in the main hall instead, watching willie nelson. which is always amazing... the man just defines "living legend". very cool. and then we made it back upstairs in time to catch the whole non-prophets show. very cool night. rap and country. at the parade last night, darren and i were accosted by a moderately inebriated and very friendly and talkative lesbian woman who, after talking to us for a while, accused me of being a yankee, because i happen not to have any discernable new orleans accent. i've got a few theories on why this is true, but none of them are foolproof - i think it mostly has to do with education and a steady diet of PBS programming as a kid. yankee or dixie accent quiz. (i got 100% dixie. so there.) Monday, February 16, 2004
today can go fuck itself. Saturday, February 14, 2004
i saw "big fish" tonight, with kelly. despite being quite the tearjerker near the end, i thought it was extraordinarily well done and should easily rank among tim burton's best work. like most of his movies, i came away sad, but hopeful. i like. friday five, quite late. but i've been referenced in sim's journal, so i don't guess i can really justify skipping this particular one. 1. Are you superstitious? um...yeah, i guess. despite the fact that most superstitions can be scientifically disproven or historically explained away, there are some that still get me, especially the black cat thing. i tend to think it's more psychosomatic than anything actually mystical or paranormal - if a black cat crosses my path, i'll be looking for something to call bad luck, and inevitably something will happen that will fit that description. the course of events hasn't changed, just my interpretation of it... that being said, i still try to avoid the situation if i can, because perception is reality, right? 2. What extremes have you heard of someone going to in the name of superstition? i can't think of any in particular, other people wise - but it's probably worth quoting simeon's answer to this question. and yes, i do this. occasionally. "Oh, this one is so easy! ab3 is truly, truly weird. I have literally seen him driving down the middle of a street where a black cat darts across several blocks ahead. He will slam on the breaks, reverse into traffic, and turn on the first side street in order to avoid the path of the cat. Amazingly eccentric..." 3. Believer or not, what's your favorite superstition? black cats. or is that not obvious? 4. Do you believe in luck? If yes, do you have a lucky number/article of clothing/ritual? luck. yes, in that i believe in chance. every even chance you take is 50/50, and one outcome is good luck, the other is bad luck. so there's luck either way. i do believe that some people come out on one side or the other of that equation more often than others, but there are always other factors at work. 5. Do you believe in astrology? Why or why not? a little, just based on my own observation that people born near the same dates tend to be unusually similar. Wednesday, February 11, 2004
pity. wesley clark pulled out of the race for the democratic presidential nomination today. i had high hopes there. i think that kerry is about as interesting and charismatic as a ken doll. another travesty is Sunday, February 08, 2004
"tell me about myself," he said, with not a little trepidation. (go on. answer the little quiz thing. I can handle the truth.) Saturday, February 07, 2004
it's the new meme of the moment, so who am i to resist: williamhung.net i don't even watch "american idol", but this is great. Wednesday, February 04, 2004
maybe it's the weather, which has been gray and cold and wet and windy all day. maybe it's work, which has been stressful lately. maybe it's that i've been listening to a lot of dar williams just now. or maybe it's people, and my woefully inadequate understanding of them.
but the practical upshot of it all is that right at this moment my emotions are running not so far under the surface. one of those moods where, for no reason in particular, i'm on the sharp edge between tears and laughter, and i'm conscious of my heart in my chest. maybe happier music will help. |