Man, Democrats these days are the whiniest bunch of pushovers I have ever seen. Tom Daschle's "fiery" rant in congress was fucking child's play compared to something LBJ would have unleashed. Why are Democrats failing to ask the salient questions about Iraq, especially when it looks like Bush's support is slipping after the post-UN speech upswing? I still vote Democrat, but I find myself more and more disillusioned with a party that is slipping closer to the center...hell, closer to the right. Joe Lieberman? Zell Miller? Democrats? Really?

And what's up with conservative talk show hosts calling Bill Clinton a liberal? Did I miss something? Was the Defense of Marriage Act liberal? Neal Boortz calls him a "liberal icon." Most of the real liberals I know think Clinton was a fucking sellout and a monumental waste of potential. Conservatives think the guy was some kind of socialist. I hate the way AM radio slings about the words communism and socialism as if A) they still meant something and B) they knew what the hell they were talking about. How many socialists do you know? 2? 10? None? The number can't be too high. And yet, the Democrats have a secret "Socialist" plan for America. Yeah, right...they can't even beat fucking George W. Bush in 2000 and they have a secret "Socialist" plan? Most of the Dem leaders I know are just businessmen with a conscience. Socialist? Give me a break, Rush et al.

Admission: I really love my rental job despite myself. I got excited about our monthly numbers this week. Capitalism is a drug sometimes. Competition is intoxicating. I hate myself and I want to die (not really).

Boy, you have to feel bad for the Red Sox, Dodgers, and Mariners this year. These were some really good teams that didn't make it to the playoffs. These were probably the best teams left out of the playoffs in a long time, actually. I mean, they all had over 90 wins! This year there seemed to be a bunch of good teams and some really, super-duper, bottom of the barrel, unbelievably crappy teams that offset everything. I think it was a pretty interesting baseball season, all in all. Maybe that's because I followed it more than ever. Go Braves!

And fuck the Big 12, Big 10, Big anything...! I love that Nebraska is unranked. The days of the "Big" conference superiority are clearly over, and yet sportscasters still cling to the notion that these conferences crank out more than one or two good teams each year. Michigan is a perennial disappointment. Nebraska has a terrible bowl record over the past two decades. Penn State has been shitty for two years now. Ohio State: overrated. The SEC is having its troubles this year and lately in general, but I think most of our teams (sadly, MSU is not one of them...it's time for Jackie S. to say goodbye) could really kick ass in the Big Conferences and the ACC, though I think the ACC is coming along in the football department, much to my chagrin.

In other news, Selma Blair looks like shit. Christina Ricci looks like shit. Jennifer Connelly (who I used to think was the most beautiful woman on earth) looks like shit these days, too. I mean, she's still pretty, but she used to be real, not wafer-thin. Gross. Like Bernie Mac said: "White women...stop losing weight!"

I finally broke down and bought Animal Crossing for the Gamecube. My life is officially over. And I think my car is burning oil. 100,000 miles without a problem and the oil light comes on. It had to happen sometime.

Sounds like the rich kids got out of control:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/Northeast/09/26/drunk.students.ap/index.html

Ha! I love it when rich kids get busted. Don't know why, but you don't ever see this kind of stuff on TV. It's always the poor folks on Cops, etc. Rich people always seem to get off the hook, media-wise (and in the courts, now that I think about it).

I am bone-achingly tired. I can barely think. I have a HUGE paper to do.

Dick Armey, you're a fool:

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/local/4128097.htm

If you don't read The Daily Howler at (duh!) dailyhowler.com, you really should. I can't think of a more aggressive moment-to-moment media watchdog out there.

Oh, I bought Wire's 154, the new Wilco record (finally!), and the Beach Boys' Sunflower/Surf's Up (Sunflower is a great record), as well as Love's first record (the stereo rerelease) and David Byrne-Brian Eno's peerless My Life In the Bush Of Ghosts. I had a gift certificate from June (!) that I hadn't spent yet.

I wish my name was Busta Cherry Jones.

On a less serious note, Animal Crossing is like heroin and Mario Sunshine continues to amaze. And Microsoft bought Rare, those bastards. Microsoft will win the console war by virtue of their ruthless business practices (while Nintendo, apparently, is content to be niche) and all games will become "mature," meaning T&A parades like DOA Extreme Volleyball and racing games. Maybe that's a little pessimistic. I shouldn't hate the Xbox so much, but I do. So there.

Someone should apologize to those three Muslim medical students:

LOS ANGELES TIMES (9/19/02): Police dismissed a traffic citation against one of three Muslim medical students interrogated as terrorist suspects in a false alarm last week, the men’s lawyer said Wednesday.

The men’s lawyer, David Kubiliun, said Collier Sheriff Don Hunter notified him Wednesday that authorities had voided the ticket after reviewing a videotape that showed him paying the toll. “It’s conclusive that Mr. Butt did not run that toll plaza,” Kubiliun said. “This is just further evidence that the young men have been telling the truth all along.”

A sheriff’s dispatcher could not immediately comment late Wednesday.

Is there a worse columnist in America than Michael Kelly? By columnist, I mean columnist at a well-respected paper, the Washington Post, not columnist at a crazy militia paper or something.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62888-2002Sep24.html

I'm not a big Al Gore fan, but this article is ludicrous, if you actually read what Gore said. Gore said that the war on terrorism would be hurt by a UNILATERAL attack on Iraq, meaning we would lose allies in the war on terrorism. He is still fairly hawkish on Iraq; he just wants a coalition attack. And attacking Gore because he said that the men who "implemented" the attack on the WTC were still at large? Well, that's just idiotic: of course the actual hijackers are dead, but I think Gore (and anybody without an unusually large chip on their shoulder would see this) is talking about the big picture--Al-Qaeda--here. I mean, that just seems petty.

Okay...this secret British Iraq dossier that Tony Blair "revealed" hardly seems secret to me. I mean, they rebuilt buildings that were once blown up. So what? Does Dresden have a nuclear program? Everybody with half a brain knows Saddam has chemical and biological weapons--he's used them, for Pete's sake--so it seems rather disingenuous when the White House comes on after the speech (God, Tony Blair whups W.'s ass any day of the week...he almost had me convinced...and he only talked of disarmament, not regime change) and says the dossier is "frightening," like it was some big fucking surprise. Give me a break. Everybody has seen this shit before, especially the White House. It might be "frightening," but I'm sure it was more "frightening" 10 years ago when we knew it then. I hate the overdramatic rhetoric of the Bush White House. Ari Fleischer is a fucking chump.

I shaved off my beard tonight. I left some big, thick sideburns on my face, but I shaved the rest of it off. I had that Mach 3 (still the best fucking razor ever) workin' overtime. I haven't shaved my beard in at least two years, and there is a definite skin tone disparity between my cheeks and where my beard was. Still, I think I look okay, despite my fucking double fucking chin (too many years of fast food). Courtnie seems to like it, so that's all that should matter. She's asleep on the futon right now, face first on her chest with her legs in the air. I don't know how she does that. I can't sleep with my legs in the air.

I drank three Pilsner Urquells tonight, and they actually got me kind of buzzed which is weird considering the four hour time span within which I drank them. I played the piano for an hour tonight, and I must admit that I'm getting better at playing and singing at the same time. I learned how to play "Gold Soundz" by Pavement.

I need to take my heartburn medication.

From a bumper sticker: "The more you complain, the longer you live." Ain't that the truth! I deal with some of the most complaining-est motherfuckers ever to roam the earth, and they are all over 65. What's weird is that most of the nicest people I deal with are over 65 or so as well. Maybe by that time, you only have the energy to divide yourself into two camps. The complainers and the non-complainers. I don't know. I hate generalizations like that.

Sometimes, I wish I were rich.

And God, do I hate Microsoft!

I can't type too well b/c I just cut the shit out of my right pointer finger and it has this big bandaid on it. Ouch! I feel sort of faint. There was a knife in the sink and I didn't see it. I am going to eat a veggie corn dog. They are almost as good as the real thing. Almost.

My apologies to the NY Times for this potential copyright infringement:

Cronies in Arms

September 17, 2002
By PAUL KRUGMAN

In February 2001 Enron presented an imposing facade, but
insiders knew better: they were desperately struggling to
keep their Ponzi scheme going. When one top executive
learned of millions in further losses, his e-mailed
response summed up the whole strategy: "Close a bigger
deal. Hide the loss before the 1Q."

The strategy worked. Enron collapsed, but not before
insiders made off with nearly $1 billion. The sender of
that blunt e-mail sold $12 million in stocks just before
they became worthless. And now he's secretary of the Army.

Dick Cheney vehemently denies that talk of war, just weeks
before the midterm elections, is designed to divert
attention from other matters. But in that case he won't
object if I point out that the tide of corporate scandal is
still rising, and lapping ever closer to his feet.

An article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal confirmed
what some of us have long argued: market manipulation by
energy companies - probably the same companies that wrote
Mr. Cheney's energy plan, though he has defied a court
order to release task force records - played a key role in
California's electricity crisis. And new evidence indicates
that Mr. Cheney's handpicked Army secretary was a corporate
evildoer.

Mr. Cheney supposedly chose Thomas White for his business
expertise. But when it became apparent that the Enron
division he ran was a money-losing fraud, the story
changed. We were told that Mr. White was an amiable guy who
had no idea what was actually going on, that his colleagues
referred to him behind his back as "Mr. Magoo." Just the
man to run the Army in a two-front Middle Eastern war,
right?

But he was no Magoo. Jason Leopold, a reporter writing a
book about California's crisis, has acquired Enron
documents that show Mr. White fully aware of what his
division was up to. Mr. Leopold reported his findings in
the online magazine Salon, and has graciously shared his
evidence with me. It's quite damning.

The biggest of several deals that allowed Mr. White to
"hide the loss" - a deal in which the documents show him
intimately involved - was a 15-year contract to supply
electricity and natural gas to the Indiana pharmaceutical
company Eli Lilly. Any future returns from the deal were
purely hypothetical. Indeed, the contract assumed a
deregulated electricity market, which didn't yet exist in
Indiana. Yet without delivering a single watt of power -
and having paid cash up front to Lilly, not the other way
around - Mr. White's division immediately booked a
multimillion-dollar profit.

Was this legal? There are certain cases in which companies
are allowed to use "mark to market" accounting, in which
they count chickens before they are hatched - but normally
this requires the existence of a market in unhatched eggs,
that is, a forward market in which you can buy or sell
today the promise to deliver goods at some future date.
There were no forward markets in the services Enron
promised to provide; extremely optimistic numbers were
simply conjured up out of thin air, then reported as if
they were real, current earnings. And even if this was
somehow legal, it was grossly unethical.

If outsiders had known Enron's true financial position when
Mr. White sent that e-mail, the stock price would have
plummeted. By maintaining the illusion of success, insiders
like Mr. White were able to sell their stock at good prices
to naïve victims - people like their own employees, or the
Florida state workers whose pension fund invested $300
million in Enron during the company's final months. As
Fortune's recent story on corporate scandal put it: "You
bought. They sold."

It was crony capitalism at its worst. What kind of
administration would keep Mr. White in office?

A story in last week's Times may shed light on that
question. It concerned another company that sold a
division, then declared that its employees had "resigned,"
allowing it to confiscate their pensions. Yet this company
did exactly the opposite when its former C.E.O. resigned,
changing the terms of his contract so that he could claim
full retirement benefits; the company took an $8.5 million
charge against earnings to reflect the cost of its parting
gift to this one individual. Only the little people get
shafted.

The other company is named Halliburton. The object of its
generosity was Dick Cheney.  



http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/17/opinion/17KRUG.html?ex=1033302972&ei=1&en=a5d4d85886fa6467

I'm about to go mark out a spot in my backyard for a patio. Wish me luck.

I liked the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at first, then completely soured on them. I don't particularly care for Death Cab for Cutie. I'd rather listen to Built to Spill (and I didn't like their last record at all) or, well, something else I like. There are too many shitty bands out there getting good press: the Vines (sorry, they are worthless to me); the Hives (great record two years ago...oh wait, no it wasn't); the Yeah Yeah Yeahs; Interpol (not bad actually, but Joy Division records are still in print)...God, the list goes on. People will try to act like the new Lips record sucks or something and then tell me that !!!, the Fucking Champs, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are the saviors of rock and roll. You know what? Fuck the garage rock "revolution"...it seems to suggest that A) this music hasn't been done in a long time (wrong: the scene has been vibrant for years, just underground); and B) new rock and roll has nothing to offer us, so we must go "back to the basics." It's quite a conservative movement really...I have nothing wrong with three chords and the truth, but tell me: will you be looking back at Radiohead, the Lips, Neutral Milk Hotel, Grandaddy, Spoon, SFA, etc. or the Hives/Vines/Strokes/YYY's as the true artists in your collection in 5 years. Yeah, that's what I thought. I still listen to Perfect from Now On and OK Computer, but my Mooney Suzuki record has already gathered dust. Okay...not a fair comparison, but I feel that this whole "return to rock thing" is false and has already been coopted by starfucker rock critics (David Browne comes to mind) and marketing mavens.

And who really thinks the new Coldplay is anything more than been there, done that...everybody apparently! I liked it better when it was the Bends or the Verve or something.

I like Neil (Neal?) Boortz, Atlanta's nationally syndicated Libertarian radio talk show host, despite myself. He's funny and aggressive and pompous, but not in a Limbaugh way. But lately he seems to have strayed from Libertarian ideals with his supporting of racial profiling and his vocal support of Israel's policies towards Palestinians. It seems okay for him to defend the Israelis' Nazi-like laws restricting movement and segregating the Palestinians (he is one of the alarming number of conservatives who defend the Israeli position by calling into question the actual existence of the Palestinian people...listen, they exist now and think of themselves as a people, so you need to deal with it), but if these laws were implemented in America, he would be up in arms. He's always going off about how the American people are willing to sell civil rights down the river for security (and I agree with him), so why is he such a staunch supporter of Israel? I guess it has to do with some Libertarian "to each his own"/Social Contract something, but it seems a little hypocritical. And his support of racial profiling, while more honest than most, seems anathema to the Libertarian agenda. Maybe someone can email me and correct me on this one, but how is the suppression of a group of American citizens' civil rights in the name of Homeland Security in line with his beloved Bill of Rights?

I don't know...I guess I thought he was a little better than that.

And don't get me started on his "Democrats are Socialist" hoo-ha...there is a myth out there that the Democrat Party is somehow liberal...even communist/socialist (does anybody even know what communism means anymore? I'm not sure I do). Hillary Clinton was a Socialist. Bill Clinton was a Socialist. Joe Lieberman is a liberal. Hogwash. Bullshit. Garbage. These people are just Republicans masquerading as Democrats. It's so funny how much conservatives lash out against the Democrats when they're not that far apart. Witness the cheap pandering on the capitol steps after the Pledge of Allegiance decision. Barf.

I'm going to try to get into the last show of the Star Room Boys tonight. One of the best names for a band ever notwithstanding, this band (who never managed to break out of the local scene) marked a high watermark for country music over the course of two albums and 5+ years. They are amazing and everybody reading this needs to buy one of their records. They are thoroughly country (no alt-country BS) here with a little of the cheese of 70s country, but all of the heart. Fantastic stuff.

If I can't get into that show, I'm going to catch Of Montreal, The Masters of the Hemisphere, and the Sugar Shakers (led by a Parker Posey-esque high schooler). You know, I don't feel like an old man anymore. Tonight is a good night for the Athens scene.

Rain keeps falling...down...down...down...

I am writing this naked. I just spent an hour and a half moving around equipment in the rain. Thank God it's raining...the city is banning all watering on the 16th...but damn! I was wet. My pants are in the bathtub.

I just put on boxers. No one is here. I'm tired. I have heartburn (so what else is new). I feel like an old man.

A friend of mine sent me this very strange story:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/primetime/DailyNews/iraq_saddam_mistress020908.html

Okay...I just had the weirdest dream. I was taking a test on New Order (I couldn't remember the song titles on PCL or Brotherhood...for shame) and I went to the teacher and told her that I was having trouble 'cause this thing was in my house last night, and I said it kept me up because I was trying to get it out, but I was scared of it. She says, "Oh! I know exactly what it is...a trilatal (trilateral?) "huff." Now let me backtrack and say that I still lived at home in Auburn, but went to school in Athens and much of this dream concerns me running away from this...thing...that looked like it was made of paint stirrers, except it was more held together like a mantis, but it moved like a monkey. It had a dog or wolf's mouth, and it was always open, panting...guiding by scent b/c it didn't have any eyes. It was an insect, she said, but it breathed and people had them for pets in the 1800s before they started killing people. They were venomous, you see. And they changed color depending on where they were. And the thing followed me to the classroom, where I was taking the test with Josh Hartnett and Britney Spears (we had just somehow offended "the fat girl" played by Aida Turturro of Sopranos fame).

Okay...this thing may not sound scary, but it was scary as hell. There's an excellent Gamecube game called Eternal Darknesss that has these things called Bonethiefs in there, and that's kinda what this "trilated huff" looked like. But these were really slow moving and seemed nice at first. Good Lord, I think I've had this dream five times tonight in different variations. But I wrote this one because of the New Order test. And Britney Spears.

Good God almighty, I hate the Ditech.com guy.

Anybody out there notice that all this Iraq talk has squelched any talk about Bush's corporate past and the economy. Pretty convenient, eh?

Speaking of "hates," I hate it when people say "hella" anything (as in "hella cool"), and I really hated the late 90s/early 00s expression "Hells yeah" which I got a lot more of from people in the Northeast. They said "sick" a lot earlier than people down here (Georgia) did, so I was constantly confused. I had to call this guy from Rhode Island for my job and conversations went like this:

Him: Dude, saw Joe Strummer last night, he was fucking sick. Hells yeah!
Me: Joe Strummer was sick, um, huh?
Him: But I was almost late to the show 'cause I left my car keys in my other khakis...
Me: You left your "khakis in your khakis?" I don't...
Him: It was a wicked fucking pissah.

I hate Microsoft and boycott them at every turn (I will not buy an Xbox, though I want to), but I gotta tell you: I love Hotmail and I like Internet Explorer. At least I own a Mac and use Appleworks, right? I wish I was better at boycotting stuff...I boycotted Texaco, but then Chevron and Texaco merged and I like those cute Chevron cars and the concept of "Techron" and...sigh...I'm a terrible liberal.

The excellent online Dusted Magazine has posted an equally excellent article about, of all things, the melodramatic coverage of 9/11 and the Afghan Whigs' superior record, Gentleman. Here's the link:

http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/19

I know my updates have been sparse lately, and I apologize. I don't feel inspired to write as much these days as my work/school schedule is killing me slowly. I will say, though, that on the music front, things have been fairly creative. The Bunny Kitty record-writing process has been coming along well (Bill brought in a stellar new tune the other day that rips off Tom Waits in the best possible way), and my new Big Gray tracks are pretty impressive. Well, by MY standards they are. I'm really happy about them.

At the same time, I'm having some trouble with a now ex-band that unceremoniously dumped me. My feelings are extremely hurt: I was the band's #1 cheerleader and I think the record we just recorded is fantastic. It's the best music I've ever been a part of. And now they're practicing for some mythical "tour" without me. It sucks.

I've been putting off my homework for a while now...don't know what's wrong with me.

I popped in Yo La Tengo's 'Painful' whilst driving around today. God, that is a fucking great record. Definitely a sentimental favorite of mine. It reminds me of driving to Gulf Shores, AL for a family reunion and a particularly good week I had in a particularly volatile relationship. Good times!

Great oldies?

I don't know when I became a "howdy" person, but I sure am one now. I dole out a "howdy" to every person that walks in the store at work.

And people really respond to it. I feel like such a goober.

On the Bunny Kitty front, I wrote a weird song about Mononucleosis and Bill wrote one about Anxiety. So far we have Chlamydia, Mono, Anxiety, Angina, Bipolar Disorder, Laryngitis, Psoriasis, Glaucoma, and a few others whose names I can't remember. It's quite a lineup, believe you me.

Someone that I sorta know (my sister is pretty good friends with him) was just busted on child pornography charges. The whole thing is surreal. Whenever someone says that movies are unbelievable, I point to numerous real-life examples of bizarreness...you know, like someone flying planes into the World Trade Center and/or Pentagon. Or the chicken that lived for 18 months with its head cut off.

I just bought the Guinness Book of World Records 2003.

I just went running and didn't make it nearly as far as I wanted. Maybe a mile and a half. I had to walk back in the heat. Something didn't feel right today. I took a shower and I'm still sweating. Must...rehydrate.

Auburn lost to USC last night...I didn't watch it, but they must have gotten tired out in the second half. These SEC teams need to stop losing to PAC-10 teams. The PAC-10 is the most boring, overrated conference in America, and yet my teams are trying to prove me wrong.

On a jazz note, Lionel Hampton passed away and if you don't know who he is, well, that's okay, but you should get one of his records. Or one of the records he did with Benny Goodman. He and Benny Goodman (black and white, respectively) were instrumental in breaking down jazz's color barrier. Also, Hampton was one of the champ vibe players...maybe the best...I honestly don't know how you could get much better.

I don't have anything to say right now. Sorry.

Mississippi State's quarterback did something stupid (involving tires?), so he couldn't play in our AWAY game against the ranked Oregon. I'm all for starting the schedule off with a bang, but sending the kids across the country to play in a tough stadium (all that flourescent green!) seems like suicide. Especially coming off a 3-8 season (though State has always been able to bounce back from bad seasons...and good seasons for that matter...previous records mean squat to them for better or for worse). Especially starting a redshirt freshman. At least it wasn't a shutout. I hope that State can bounce back from this one.

Auburn plays on Monday (?) against USC (as in the University of Southern California). Weird scheduling abounds in the SEC.