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April 6, 1998
VANILLI IS DEAD.
a german newspaper reported yesterday that Rob Pilatus, formerly of the hitmaking combo Milli Vanilli, was found dead in his hotel room of a possible drug overdose. I've developed a bizarre personal connection with the two members of that group, having watched the VH-1 "behind the music" documentary on them (and mc hammer, too) several times for no reason that I can explain in a language other than sanskrit. sure, their music was crap, but those poor guys didn't even get the second life that most 80's stars get in late-night CD commercials. and the entire world has seen them looking like they did when they were in the band, so you've got to feel a little bit sorry for them. on a darker note, though, this comes hot on the heels of Vanilla Ice's announcement that he will be playing at the Clybourne, a bar here in champaign, leading this reporter to fear that poor Mr. Ice may be in danger when he arrives.

did you hear about Macauley Culkin getting married? that's for real too. he's engaged to a 17 year old broadway actress. when I saw the announcement I was assuming it was going to be something much more disturbing, like if Michael Jackson's name had been mentioned anywhere in the press release, but fortunately it's normal. sign of how old we all are, yes, but it looks like Macauley's off to a healthy start on the long road of marriages ahead of him.

don't be sayin' I never done nothin' for ya:
fans of the Monty Python movie "Life of Brian", download this trailer for a rather amusing example of previews done for movies by people who don't really understand them. not only does the voice sound wildly inappropriate, the whole thing just doesn't fit the movie. it's a large download (8 megs) but worth it to see a Monty Python movie (especially this one) promoted with lines like "Getting stoned wasn't against the law - it was the law!". And if someone's any good an extracting sound clips from quicktime movies, I really want a .wav of this announcer guy saying "He wasn't a messiah. He was a very naughty boy."

okay, well, enough pop cultural exploration and on with the sordid details of my life. I'm currently enjoying my first conscious multi-hour stay at my apartment in several days, having been ensconced in the planning and performance of the first annual Conference on the Elimination of Racist Mascots here in C-U. it went ridiculously well and I had a great weekend doing it, but much tiredness was mine by its end. "chief" illiniwak is a dick and so are all of its supporters. that's all that can really be said. I had the main part of the first "paper season" (as most liberal arts majors know, most of our writing, which is most of our work, tends to get bunched up into a couple small periods of time during the semester) last week, which was unusually late in the semester and unusually badly timed what with the conference and all but I pulled it off OK even if by the last page of the last paper I was using phrases like "utterly disgusting display of human self-debasement" and "the agenda of the bourgeoise as reflected in the media promotion of the internet". coming up, many many lines need to be memorized for various presentations of a theatrical nature and it's just not happening which is not good and suggests that I will have little rest until june. 'sokay. I didn't really have anything else planned.

WEFT pledge drive is this week. call and pledge during my show, (217) 359-9338, and send a message to the station and the world that you support the kind of radio that features a man who believes himself to be a gigantic lizard while he gurgles and coos attempts at seduction into the microphone.

raves:
this new mix for sugar cookies that I came up with, Otto from my theater class who just called me seconds ago to tell me that I don't need to go to class today because he hurt his knee and we have a long scene together to perform but now it's been pushed back.
distastes:
frat boys who still think it's clever to shout things at people who pass by from their windows when they're drunk, that I haven't read the third act of King Lear yet and I'm going to be quizzed in-depth about it in fifteen minutes.

oh, and for the record, from this point on I demand to be referred to as "DEATH ON WHEELS".

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