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April 9, 1998
this is a bunch of long ones, kids. to make sure things don't get too pretentious, I will at the outset announce "balls".

a letter written by myself was published in the campus newspaper yesterday. hurrah. you can find it and another good one on the same topic at those addresses as well as the first letter that we were both responding to. the unedited text of my letter is also available for comparison's sake. I can't complain too much about the editing - they did do a couple mediocre things with the formatting (the attempt to give "I do" poignancy by giving it its own line was entirely their idea) and they cut out some of the more inflammatory bits, but they did give me a lot more space than the average letter gets. it's interesting how a little editing can change the meaning of a piece, though. I don't know if it comes across, but I wrote the letter to be a dismissal of the entire industry of spoiled white kids whose great great grandmother was maybe Indian coming forward and claiming to be Indian when it's convenient to them, i.e. when some idiot who doesn't know dick about that aspect of their heritage says that a racist Indian mascot is OK because it "doesn't bother" them and expects that to trump the feelings of full-blooded Native Americans. basically, I feel that while race may essentially be only a biological construct, for it to have any meaning it must be paired with a certain degree of experience. the edit job, however, neutered the letter into just saying that "yes, there are Native Americans who are against the Chief" (UIUC's dancing mascot / symbol / caricature). but, you know, I was expecting them to do worse, so it's alright. nothing like the egregious injustice done to what was my magnum opus up to point of my life, the 3,000 word essay on my trip to high school theatrefest that the high school newspaper refused to devote an entire issue to and cut into pieces. philistines. like anyone really cared about whatever the heck else was going on at the time.

required reading
new Smoove B in this week's Onion!

WEFT pledge drive kicked ass this week, during my show at least. we (I) nearly doubled our (my) goal and just generally rocked. heard from a guy who's been listening to my show every week since I started (he knew when my first show was without me telling him) and apparently even tapes it every week. how cool is that? very, think'st I. if you're in the C-U area, call in and pledge, you sponge. (217) 359-9338.

in the midst of all this world domination, I've been having a really hard time resisting the urge to go to sleep in the shower several times a day. huh?

since they apparently took a lot of crap for it, I feel obliged to voice my support for the april 1st episode of "South Park", the Terrance and Phillip one. it kicked ass. I read in the news today that over 2,000 people called Comedy Central to complain about it because they really wanted to know who Cartman's father is. what does this mean? it means that over 2,000 people don't fucking get the show and are stupid. who cares who Cartman's father is?!? the whole humor of the thing comes from two things: beating the joke home that his mom's a slut (it was funnier when it was an occasional subtle drop-in) and making fun of the entire concept of the cliffhanger episode. if you don't get that it's completely pointless who the father was, then you are dumb and you need to re-watch the entire run of the series (well, except the mecha-streisand one, and the mutant Stan one) until you figure it out. you know what disturbs me? walking by the revolting shiny new sports bar on campus, "Legends", and seeing people lined up around the block waiting to get in to get plastered and take part in "South Park Nite". say I'm bitter for telling these people to fuck off? I say you're an idiot. what I'm doing is reacting. what I'm doing is being alive and recognizing the co-opting of a once good thing and doing something about it in the only damn way I can by mentally interacting with the unpleasant reality and making noise about it. what the hell are you doing? (that's a hypothetical 'you', dear reader. you know I love you.) I don't necessarily buy the "if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem" doctrine but it's not far wrong either. you can't take part in every fight but you need to at least strive to be aware of things. so thumbs-up to Trey Parker and Matt Stone for going against the marketing beast that they spawned (even if they were forced to back off). Time magazine had done a story. frat boys can go to the campus store and buy a poster with Kenny and his "please pardon me I have explosive diarrhea" and think they're hip. the monster has grown out of control. maybe this is what it was like for "Simpsons" fans early on, I don't know, but I'm worried that "South Park" doesn't have the intelligent base that the "Simpsons" does and won't rise to a new level like it did. I don't know. I think it'd be awesome to shock the hell out of Time and the frat boys by suddendly shifting focus to Terrance and Phillip. and then wandering over to Ugly Bob. and then to something completely different. that which is brilliant is usually unmarketable because a certain degree of stagnancy needs to set in to match up with the t-shirts. it's sad that now that "South Park" has become this profitable, I don't see how they can possibly go back.

more required reading
The Hand that Time Forgot, a cautionary essay for everyone who would dream to create art. hopefully you've seen MST3K's version of "Manos: the Hands of Fate". it is the most fascinatingly inexplicable and downright bad movie I have ever seen (and yes, I've seen "Plan 9 From Outer Space", and anyone who counts that as the worst film ever made needs to stop letting Leonard Maltin think for them and see some more movies). try to imagine a movie that concentrates not on plot or characters but entirely upon creating an atmosphere of dread - which can potentially be good, there are movies which are of value for their atmosphere alone - and misses the mark so badly that you can't even really figure out where it was aiming. read the article, it's good stuff and a valuable experience.

warm weather means lots of frat girl and boy chanting outside. evolve, damn you! evolve!

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