Good people of the world, tell them what you think.

This has not been the greatest day for me -_-;;

They removed it? THEY REMOVED IT!? WITHOUT EVEN SHOWING EPISODE 5!? So there's a building that blows up. Other than that, there's no similarity whatsoever between "Ballad of Fallen Angels," or any other episode I can think of, and recent events. It's not even about terrorism, it's about gangsters and Shakesperean blood feuds. Oh, God damn. God damn, God damn.

Well, I didn't do it. My parents reminded me that I'm rather, ahem, busy this year, and sure enough, when I looked at the rehearsal schedule there were four Tuesday afternoon and two Wednesday evening rehearsals that I definitely wouldn't have been able to make. So, no tryout, and nobody gets to see my existential angst routine. What the hell. They wouldn't have let me play Clarence Darrow anyway.

Damn.

Isn't that a great speech? Audition at 6:30. Wish me luck ^_^v

[sigh] At least I've found a monologue.

from Waiting For Godot, Act II
VLADIMIR: Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now? Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today? That with Estragon my friend, at this place, until the fall of night, I waited for Godot? That Pozzo passed, with his carrier, and that he spoke to us? [Estragon, having struggled with his boots in vain, is now dozing off. Vladimir looks at him.] He'll know nothing. He'll tell me about the blows he received, and I'll give him a carrot. [Pause] Astride of a grave and a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave-digger puts on his forceps. We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. [He listens.] But habit is a great deadener. [He looks again at Estragon.] At me too someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, he is sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep on. [Pause.] I can't go on! [Pause.] What have I said?

Art time! I did this in Chicago but I haven't had the chance to scan it since I got back.

Aw, geez. The people at my mom's office forgot her birthday.

[bangs head on desk]

Bebop 5 and 6 were supposed to run on Adult Swim last night, and I programmed the VCR to tape them, but instead I have an hour of Looney Toons! WHY, GOD, WHY?

[sniffle] Vicious...

I am tired of being told that I'm wrong to look down on people who listen to Michael Bolton. I am sick of being called a Nazi or a fascist because I don't want my emotions sold back to me at a 50% discount. People who buy Michael Bolton albums may be nice. They may be my neighbors and my relatives. But they are willing, like cows, to eat the ground-up intestines of their fellow men, and they think they're getting nutrition. They are the most dangerous people in the world.

You may call this a ridiculous exaggeration. But the art and culture we consume are the terms on which we live our lives. Michael Bolton is part of the mass of music sold as a sedative. To hear more, turn on your local country radio station. These are easy answers, and people who buy this music are willing to accept them. Those who are misled by cheap false sentiment may just be ordinary, average folk, but ordinary folk who swallow great lies have committed some of the most unthinkable crimes of the 20th century. There is nothing to be respected in being average.

In Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening and Other Moodsong, Joseph Lanza wrote that "not every musician should be obligated to reassure us that we are not zombies." He could not be more wrong. That is exactly what musicians, and artists, and writers, are for. Those who do the opposite are the enemies of the soul, in Bill Hicks' words, "DEMONS tainting our collective unconsciousness and making us pay a higher psychic price than we imagine."

As Greil Marcus said in an essay on Kurt Cobain: "Anybody else around who can make decent, honest, fair-minded folk seem like the liars they are? Name them, they can be Artist of the Year instead."

Why do I give a damn what other people listen to? Why does it anger me that "You Light Up My Life" was the biggest hit of the 70's? Not because I hate seeing other people enjoy themselves or because I want to impress people with my superiority. What I hate is to see people turn away from the truth. This is why I hate creationists, this is why I hate "child protection" censorship advocates, and this is why I hate bad art.

Now Marlowe is gnawing on my ARM in a somewhat less adorable way x_x;;

I watched Chasing Amy with my parents.

MY PARENTS.

My dad went out alone to Blockbuster and apparently didn't read the back of the case where it said "GRAPHIC SEXUAL DISCUSSION..." I loved the movie, though. Wanna see it again.

Insult of the day: "Your family tree has no branches!"

Kitten update: Lo, the beast hath a name, and it be Marlowe. Right now he's gnawing on my sweatshirt zipper in an adorable way ^____^

Hey Sheri! Lookit all the Van skins!

My mom and I are fighting a bit. At the Columbus Mennonite Church service this morning, everyone kept referring to America as "the country we live in," not "our country." It may look to you like the two phrases mean the same thing, but when Mennonites are talking, they don't. I was offended (as was my father), and my mother took umbrage at my being offended. She thinks I don't understand her, that her lack of allegiance to the United States comes out of deep and fundamental feelings. I say, they live in this country, they take advantage of the rights the Constitution gives them, and then they act superior to the rest of us. I am an American, all its promises and curses are mine, and the people at Columbus Mennonite are the same, and I recoil when they try to deny that. That came out of deep and fundamental feelings too.

I'm probably not making any sense. I am looking for the words to say what I want to say, and I can't find them, only Bruce Springsteen singing out of my speakers: "IT AIN'T NO SECRET..."

"The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, and love of soft living and the get rich quick theory of life." --Theodore Roosevelt, 1917

Yeah, for most of the week CourtTV was doing Continuous Coverage. Thursday night's ep was the one in which Tim cooed over baby Olivia (aww), Meldrick's new marriage hit the skids (poor guy), and Frank had a stroke (FRANK! o.o). And, on Friday night, the new credits welcomed us into Season 5.

Which friend? -^_^-

My next-door neighbor, who also happens to be a grad-school buddy of my dad's, just got home from Tokyo. He was flying back on Tuesday when his plane was grounded in Vancouver. Not wanting to spend God-knows-how-long in Canada, he decided to take the cross-country train to Toronto. Unfortunately, the train runs every three days, and he had already missed it, so he rented a car and drove for eight hours, often at more than 100 mph, through northern Alberta, in order to catch the train. Had he driven to Toronto it would have taken eight days. Instead he spent three days in economy class, surrounded by bear hunters and kids from New Zealand. Every time the train stopped all the Canadians ran for a bar, and if they didn't come back on time the train waited for them. My neighbor counted 30 stops, only five of which were actual towns. Finally he started going to the bars with them. He says it was one of the most bizarre weeks of his life. In other news, my dad's boss is stuck in Albuquerque, but nobody really minds.

"I don't pledge allegiance to the government. I don't trust the government any further than I could throw the White House. I guess most people wouldn't consider this patriotism. *shrug* But the fact is, even though I don't like my government, I still love my country."

Dora-san, you are my soul sister ^_^v

All the damn monologue books are checked out of the library >_< Maybe I'll do Carl Sandburg's "Chicago."

Claman can't be drafted, he's a pimp :D Callon in the army, I can't even imagine o.O;;

I watched some of the memorial service on TV with my mother before Anime Club. When they came to the people on the streets showing pictures of their loved ones, she started to cry. I hate it when she cries. She's my mother, she's not supposed to. She's a tough woman. When she's crying, I know something is really wrong.

I'm trying out for a school production of Inherit the Wind on Monday. I probably won't get a part, because I haven't been to drama club since freshman year and I'm not "one of them," but then on the other hand I am a senior, which carries a little weight. I don't know what they're going to ask of me, so I've been searching frantically through my favorite plays for monologues. All the good ones are for guys, damn it. I want to do one of Hickey's speeches from The Iceman Cometh. Actually, I don't even know if there are any good female parts in Inherit the Wind. I wish they'd let me play Clarence Darrow -_-;;

I really need a new layout here.

Homicide is back on CourtTV. My world has returned to its regular axis.

Anime club is in jeopardy. Apparently we need some kind of adult supervision, but the teacher who usually does that forgot to tell Ms. President that she wasn't coming to school today, so we're all in frantic search of teachers who are willing to sit around for a couple hours and watch the first two Bebop tapes with us. At least, after December, I'll be eighteen and we won't have this problem anymore.

I'm so very bored.

"Never before, in all our history, have these forces been so united AGAINST one candidate, as they stand today. They are UNANIMOUS in their hate for me, and I WELCOME their hatred." --Franklin D. Roosevelt, Madison Square Garden Campaign Rally, 1936

I'm loath to admit it, but this actually looks pretty cool. Completely different from the book, of course, but cool nonetheless. Of course, I still haven't heard much of Heather Graham's Irish accent...

Movies opening soon which we MUST SEE, so keep your calendars open:
9/21 Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust
10/19 From Hell
11/16 Harry Potter & the Sorceror's Stone
12/19 The Fellowship of the Ring
and when Iron Monkey comes out we are so there.

Maybe I shouldn't be occupying myself with such frivolous things... but life has to go on.

Youth rehearsal is off! At least that's one thing to be happy about -_-

The student council wants to have a "Gold-Out" on Friday in the memory of the victims. Fine, nice idea... but you have to buy the yellow shirts from them. A fundraiser. Great.

My dad was in the park yesterday where all the peewee football teams play--for some reason those games weren't canceled, even though all the after-school activities at the high school were--and he heard a coach giving a pep talk to his team, the gist of which was "In honor of the dead, let's play some good football."

If this had happened in Tokyo, or Istanbul, or Amsterdam, I'd be shocked and saddened, but in addition to that I feel angry, because it was my country. Part of me has been violated. My father agrees with me; my mom claims she doesn't feel that way, but she's a Mennonite, and Mennonites are brought up not to feel like Americans. I think maybe she's right. It's all one world, isn't it? Shouldn't national boundaries be meaningless, in this day and age? But I believe in America. I love my country. I love democracy, even if today it's a democracy gone greasy and fat; I love the Constitution; I love my freedom, even if it's not real. I love the promise I was born with as an American. I love the America that made Robert Johnson and Faulkner and Abraham Lincoln. Even if we have become an imperialist oppressor to the rest of the world, I am not willing to give that promise up. I wonder if these feelings are wrong.

What wouldn't you give to have Franklin Roosevelt come on the air and reassure us?

Anyway, it seems we've moved, as a country, from the "Holy shit!" stage to the "What now?" stage. Good night, everyone.

My cousin Aimee lives in NYC. I bet my uncle's been trying to contact her all day. She lives way the hell up north, in Morningside Heights, I think, so it's not likely anything happened to her, but...

What I really want to know is, why did the buildings collapse? A plane once ran into the Empire State Building (which is now the tallest building in NYC, I believe), and it's still standing.

Damn. You deserve a foot massage. From Spike.

OLIVIA! I can't get to your livejournal! ARE YOU OKAY?

Oh my God.

If you'll all excuse me, I'm going to go throw up now.

Today I am going to write the first issue of The Hidden Princess. I'm GOING TO DO IT. Yes. Progress reports will be made regularly.

Vivian--"Drive, She Said" by my man Stan Ridgway. Really loud, great guitar riff, and very Raymond Chandler too ^__^

Spike biting pins out of grenades. Heh. I bet he can knot cherry stems with his tongue :D