The Next Episode

Here's what's wrong with the most recent episode of the Real World:

Most everyone on the show is shamelessly self-promoting. They all want to use the show to launch their careers in acting/singing/dancing (although none of them are particularly good). Most recently, Devyn met her cousin (an actual actor) for lunch, and it just happened to come up that Devyn was looking for work, so her cousin had no choice but to make with the contact.

Also, the dolphin trainer got drunk and outed Katelyn, the trans girl, to the mormon (who had surprisingly little to say on the matter). I think I hate this guy most because he keeps selling out his own.

On a more uplifting note, Sarah, who was sexually abused as a child and wants to make something positive of it, is using her time on the show to volunteer at an arts program for underprivileged children.

My grandma fell and broke her hip the other day, so my mom flew out to Washington today to help out. Which means I have the house to my myself for three days, which means... PARTAAAAAAYYYYY!!!! Which will most likely look like this:



FYI, those are supposed to be bottles, and they're supposed to say beer on them. But it's really hard to draw things in Paint, and I've had beers.

More scorn

Today I was listening to the radio as I drove my mom's car back from taking her to the airport, and I had it on 106.3 WGER (for no reason other than I couldn't find anything better). I don't even remember what they were talking about, but the DJ (that d-bag above) stated that it's "despicable" for two men to be involved in a long-term relationship. It's maddening that that kind of hate speech can be broadcast, and I'm sending an angry letter to the station today. I'm sure nobody listens to that station anyway, but if you do, don't. And if you also feel compelled to write a letter, here is the address of the station:

WGER
1795 Tittabawassee Rd.
Saginaw, MI 48604

UPDATE:
This is actually much worse than I thought. I thought this was just a local DJ, but it appears that he's actually based in Dallas and syndicated throughout the U.S. His website is here, and contact information for the Citadel corporate office is here.

So I guess a boycott would pretty much mean not listening to the radio because Citadel owns just about every station, but I won't ask you to do that. I'm going to write to the local station, anyway, because they still broadcast his show, but I'm also writing to his show and to Citadel.

Ever wonder why your nards hurt when you play the cello? Maybe because you suffer from cello scrotum, which is akin to guitar nipple, or the irritation caused by the guitar pressing against your nipple, 'cept this time with a cello and your bag.

But not really, though, because actually this condition was a hoax fabricated by Baroness Elaine Murphy. Yet another attempt to pathologize the body when sometimes dude's balls just itch.

From the Desk of R. Davila

Dave suggested my blog might be more compelling if I were to make comics of my exploits. Unfortunately, it looks as though my exploits don't make for compelling comics, as most of them involve sitting in bed looking at the internet. Here's what a typical week looks like (the text is a lot clearer if you click on the picture):

I always thought I was following Elvis Costello or Buddy Holly with my glasses, but as it turns out, they're actually a very precise replica of the frames Woody Allen wears in Manhattan. Which is a bummer because I kind of think he's a turd.

I was searching for pictures of phonographs on Flickr, but this was what turned up. The internet was meant for so much more.

My Ph.D. (and one M.A.) applications are in the mail. It's a huge weight off my shoulders, immediately replaced with another as I wait (ha) to hear back.

And now (apologies in advance), I'd like to talk about politics very briefly. What I want to say is that what bothers me most about conservative groups (I'm thinking specifically pro-lifers, but this could easily carry over to other issues) is that, whereas liberals would like people to be able to make decisions based on their own moral codes, these groups insist that everyone be governed by the group's own morals regardless of whether or not the majority of the population agrees with them. Anyway, everyone reading this probably already gets this point, and the people who need to hear this aren't going to listen.

On a related note, would it be in bad taste/appropriating to make a t-shirt that says "keep your god off my uterus?"

Unrelated, if you have five minutes, you should listen to this song by the Middle East on my music blog. It's just such a nice song.

UPDATE: I want to talk about politics one more time, quickly. I just read that residents of Nashville voted down a proposition to make English the official language of all government business in the city. This proposition, and similar propositions that have been popping up throughout the U.S. are discriminatory, xenophobic, racist, I could go on, but I won't, and I say kudos to those who voted against it. Proponents say it would be incentive to learn English, but really what it would do is deny services to people who desperately need them. I assume supporters would argue that learning English is the first step to elevating one's position in life, but this of course ignores the structural inequalities that oppress immigrant and ethnic and otherwise minority populations. Let's not forget that black people, queer people, and even women can already speak English, yet they're still marginalized.

More things I hate about the Real World:

The marine or whatever got a chance to play his (awful on so many levels) music to somebody named Machine, who can apparently get things done, so this was a big opportunity. So what this d-bag chose to do, at the suggestion of the mormon, was play a song called "I want to be your tampon," or something like that, and he couldn't even get through his own song without giggling. Unsurprisingly, Machine was unimpressed and told him he should play smaller gigs and build a following (you know, like bands do). Which took him completely by surprise. I can't figure out if his sense of entitlement comes more from having been in Iraq or from being on the Real World, but either way, get over yourself, cake eater.

Also, Devyn/Scott drama is sooo-ooo-ooo boring.

I made stir fry tonight and then my mom complained that the kitchen smelled like peppers. So she lit a candle, a caramel corn scented candle. But it doesn't really smell like caramel corn, it smells like curry. So now instead of the kitchen smelling like peppers, the whole house smells like curry. So I think it was a Pyrrhic victory on her part.

Obama was just sworn in. He made a few blunders during his oath, but when he does it, it's kind of cute. Not like Bush. With Obama it's like, "Hey, this guy's human," as opposed to Bush, where it's more like, "Hey, this must be that monkey that accidentally typed out Shakespeare because why the fuck else would he be president?"

I will have more to say, obviously.

Hrrrmm!

Hrrrmm!
Originally uploaded by Karate explosion!

Learn your rules,
You better learn your rules.
If you don't,
You'll be eaten in your sleep.

Evidently I'm a glutton for punishment, because I bothered to watch the Real World again. The mormon and the marine are still assholes (go figure), but the mormon did confront the gay dolphin trainer because of his anti-immigrant tirade, which is sort of respectable. I say sort of because he ended his confessional about the argument with a bout of hypocrisy, saying something about not judging people because of difference when that's what he's done consistently for two episodes, only substitute immigrants for queer people.

Anyway, to get back to the dolphin trainer, his rant really pissed me off for a lot of reasons, but especially because his parents are immigrants. He tried to use that fact to justify his comments, but if anything it should make him sympathetic, not serve as a justification for intolerance. I'm going to use the fact that my grandparents were immigrants to justify saying that I can't tolerate it when children and grandchildren of immigrants take an attitude like this d-bag.

I think it's inevitable that my rants about the Real World (and I'm probably going to keep watching) will end by talking about how people treat the trans girl. I think it's good that when people find out, they want to learn more, but it always devolves into some patronizing shit about how they want to be a support system while she finds herself. She seems to have a much better idea of who she is than most anybody on the show.

Anyway, blah blah blah.

I very much like these Ghetto Fridas by Chicano artist/activist Rio Yañez. His interviews with Ghetto Frida here, here, and here are also worth reading. They're really funny, but also very informed. He also has a (small, at this point) series of Chicano icons as zombies, which is pretty awesome, and some other things that are probably only of interest to the Mexican segment of my readership (which is actually significant because not very many people read this, and at least two of them are Mexican (sup Molly, sup Dave)).

38-year-old guy here.

This 38-year-old guy's Flickr is a goldmine for games of gay lover/straight lover.

Did you hear about that teenager?

I finally got a call to sub today. I hated it. It's not so much teaching as babysitting. And I hate kids. I really do. I thought this blog would really pick up once I had amusing stories to tell about subbing, but I probably won't have many more because I told the school not to call me unless no one else was available.

But I do have some anecdotes from today. In my first class, they were supposed to watch an episode of the Twilight Zone (awesome, btw), then, if there was still time left, they were either supposed to talk about it as a class or watch it again since they had to write an essay on it. But they were very much opposed to both of those options and wouldn't stop bitching until I put on Tremors. I think I caved in large part because I also wanted to watch Tremors.

Then I had a prep hour, which I mostly spent trying to make my legs and hands stop shaking.

Then I had the class for kids who can't read good. They'd been listening (yes, listening) to Fahrenheit 451, and had watched the Truffaut adaptation (which I gather they didn't like), and we spent the hour in the library so they could work on their power point presentations about the book(/tape/movie). Most of them used the hour to go on the search engine Google and look up pictures of fires and explosions and graphics from Terminator 2: Judgment Day. One kid spent most of it applying chap stick to a spider bite on his stomach. I also had to help him and his partner spell "Fahrenheit" a few times, but then they never liked the way it looked on the page, so they would delete it and then forget how to spell it again. Also, at one point he said to his friend, "Hey, did you hear about that teenager?" The teenager in question was apparently the one who sent something like 1,400 text messages in one day, but I just like the way he phrased the question.

The next class was to do an ACT practice exam, which they then graded on their own and didn't have to turn in. But I still caught a lot of them cheating. They would look up to see if I was looking, and then pretend they weren't when I saw them. I didn't even bother to stop them because who cares? they aren't even being graded.

And then I repeated the same things over.

What amazes me most is the difference between 11th and 12th grade high school students and first year university students. They're essentially the same age, but I hated teaching university students way less. I might have even liked it. You can actually have a conversation with them. A few of them even want to learn. With high schoolers I usually got so fed up, I spent the last ten minutes of each class having students pass back papers while I ignored them completely.

Also, one thing that apparently hasn't changed since I was in high school is that high school kids think my clothes are weird.

FYI, The Sting is an amazing movie. And Paul Newman is so dreamy. R.I.P.

Also, The Bank Dick has maybe one of the best car chases in the history of film. But still, nothing can ever top The Blues Brothers.

Number One Song After Number One Song

I've been spending some time listening to Ben Folds' cover of "Bitches ain't Shit" lately. I kind of hate this song for all the reasons I'm about to mention. Most of the issues revolve around Folds being a straight, white, male whose audience consists mostly of straight, white, males.

So the first problem is that the song is terribly misogynistic, and I get that he's performing it ironically, but because of who he is and who his audience is, laughing at misogyny could too easily turn into laughing with it. I'm also bothered that he uses the n-word for similar reasons.

Another issue is that, while his intention might be to say, "Look, I'm a short, nerdy, balding, white dude, but I also know a thing or two about hip-hop," what the message actually seems to be, again because of his audience, is, "Look at how ridiculous black people are. Listen to the crazy stuff they're saying."

Also, he totally cuts out Dat N- Daz's verse.

But I do appreciate the way he turns the song into a narrative with musical cues to punctuate the emotional climax, and he does give it a good melody. I was going to post the song on Tumblr, but won't because I think I'd be guilty of all the same things I'm accusing him of.

Wholphin

Most recent Netflix rental: Wholphin, Iss. 4. What is Wholphin, you say?

"Wholphin is a new quarterly DVD magazine from McSweeney’s, lovingly encoded with unique and ponderable films designed to make you feel the way we felt when we learned that dolphins and whales sometimes, you know, do it."

I particularly liked "Heavy Metal, Jr.," a documentary about a Scottish metal band called Hatred, whose members are all 10 years old, and a Russian imitation of Married with Children, translated by several different people to varying degrees of accuracy.

The best moments of "Heavy Metal, Jr." come when the one kid's mom prints back patches for their denim jackets, but accidentally misspells the band's name as "Hatrid," and when they know they want a song to have Satan in the title, but can't decide what comes next, then an epiphany: Satan Rock. Or should it be Satan Rocks? If you want to know more, you'll have to watch the film.

The Russian sitcom, translated as "Happy Together," is pretty ridiculous, but the translations get progressively funnier. In a particularly good translation, the husband and wife are both revolutionaries, but he's a pacifist and she's for armed revolt. Hilarity ensues. In an even better translation, the translator begins with some amazing innuendo, makes up hilarious new lyrics to the theme song (which I can't remember, but really, they're very funny), then gives up entirely and starts free-associating for the rest of the episode. She tells an anecdote about her father taking a mime class and being "invisible-lassoed" into going with him, and that was a funny joke. Then she talks a lot about people she knows having kids, which leads to the best line in any of the translations: "If I ever catch pregnant..." Yup.

Disregard the pathetic attempt to moralize and just appreciate an elephant and a dog being best buds. It's pretty cute when they touch their feet together.

The Real World, Brooklyn: The mormon and the marine are total assholes (go figure). And gay for each other (go figure). The gay dolphin trainer is kind of a douche. He's incredibly patronizing with the transgendered girl. Everybody else is pretty boring.

I guess I can't help casting aspersions.

Right now I'm listening to the neighbor kid ride his snowmobile back and forth, back and forth across the lawn. He goes to one end, sort of idles as he turns around, then floors it back to hit the piles of snow left from clearing the driveway. So it kind of sounds like this: buzz-buzz-buzz-buzz, VVVVVRRRRRROOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, buzz-buzz-buzz. I've never understood owning snowmobiles in town. It's like the snowmobiling equivalent of an above-ground pool.

I finally broke down and listened to MGMT. I didn't hate it, but I'm not crapping my pants over it, either. The only song I might go out of my way to listen to is "Electric Feel." In their defense, though, I still wouldn't call them the most overrated band of 2008. How could that honor go to anyone but Fleet Foxes?

I don't want to make this blog a place for casting aspersions, however (excepting customs officers and assholes on snowmobiles), so here, something I actually liked: I recently heard and very much enjoyed a band called the Soft Pack (formerly the Muslims). They sound like a grab bag of New York bands, but maybe the easiest comparisons to make (if you want to limit a band to who they sound like, which I apparently do) are the Strokes and the Modern Lovers. I've posted a song here, and somebody else posted a better description and the whole album here.

Airborne Cats

These pictures are amazing. And ridiculous. And it's ridiculous that anyone would dedicate that much time to something so ridiculous, but I looked at them and then made a post about them, so, you know, glass houses.

I'm in love with this series of drawrings by artist Matt Furie. You can probably see why. Maybe people have seen these before, but I apparently just discovered the internet so here they are again.

Last night I watched Psychomania. As far as awesome movies go, this is one. It's about a bike gang called The Living Dead who achieve immortality by killing themselves and really believing that they'll come back to life (it's true, one member didn't believe and he just died). Then, once resurrected, they go on a murder spree because, hey why not? there aren't any consequences.

One of my favorite moments is early in the movie when Tom, the leader of the gang, first discovers the secret to immortality, but doesn't tell anybody, so when he rides his motorbike off a bridge, the other gang members think he's really dead. They then persuade his mother to allow them to give him a proper biker burial, which I thought was going to be really badass, but wasn't actually. What really happens is that they send him off with an acoustic ballad (which I've posted here).

Also, the gang members all had really badass names, including: Hatchet, Hinky, Gash, Chopped Meat, and Bertram. Also, a frog was somehow really important to attaining immortality, but I'm not sure how exactly. Also, the movie sort of disproves my earlier theory that to prove how crazy they are, two male gang members will dance together. The only dancing was between Tom and his mother. But a couple gang members did briefly carry parasols as they wreaked havoc. And they all killed themselves, which I guess is crazy in its own way.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that you should watch this movie.

I just finished watching Francois Truffaut's adaptation of Fahrenheit 451. One of the Firemen in the movie looked remarkably like the d-bag from the border the other day, which seems entirely too appropriate.

Off topic, I love Toblerone. I only realized recently.

Generally speaking, the worst part of any trip I take to Canada is coming back into the U.S. Today was probably the worst yet. Officer Vittron (I think that was his name) is a real asshole. After asking a thousand accusatory questions and clearly not believing my answers, he spent ten minutes searching the trunk, then when he found a copy of Discipline and Punish, he asked me another series of accusatory questions about the book. Apparently owning a book by Foucault constitutes a threat to national security. Mostly I think he was mad at me because he doesn't know who Foucault is. I want to file a complaint, but I think the actual result of that is he would be congratulated for being a dick, and I would get hassled like that every time.