Don’t you hate it when you wake up at 2:45am after a nightmare in which some invisible assailant is trying to kill you with a bow and arrow, and you are trying to defend yourself with a pool cue? And tens of minutes after you’ve forgotten about the dream, you’re still fully awake, feeling all tense and weird? And you get off your high horse and pop one of those legally obtained, prescription anti-anxiety pills provided by Big Pharma via its drug dealing proxy, your physician, and thus join the ever-swelling ranks of the pitiful bourgeois neurotics too lame to just drink and street-drug their way out of their malaises? And the next day you sit around blathering on about it in your fucking blog?
Actually I don’t mind it all that much, I find it rather entertaining.
Author: Professor B
Farenheit 9/11 — I just bought my ticket to opening night
See you Friday at 5:00 pm at the Loews Village VII in downtown NY.
Nunberg: The Swearing on Deadwood is anachronistic
According to Goeff Nunberg on Fresh Air yesterday, the swearing on Deadwood is anachronistic. Nobody said fucking and cocksucker all that much in the 1870s. These didn’t get popular until the early 20th century. For serious shock value, they would have used true profanity as opposed to obscenity, that is, blasphemous expressions like god damn it and hell and jesus christ. You can see why the writers decided to crank it up for modern audiences, whether you agree with the approach or not.
And here I thought the show’s every detail was historically impeccable. Oh the disappointment.
The Deadwood Award
Deadwood fans, you know that our show is so goddamn good that they haven’t even invented an award distinguished enough to do it justice. You might as well create The Deadwood Award.
Doc Cochran’s little conversation with god — we might call it the What Conceivable Godly Purpose? Speech — was one of the most compelling performances you’ve ever seen on your television, bar none.
And how about the exquisite complexity of Al Swearengen’s character? He has always striven to be as cold, calculating, brutal and self-interested as possible, because he had a horrible childhood, and his cruel ways have been rewarded with material prosperity. Now, in spite of himself, and although he’s certainly still a violent hard-ass in his business affairs, he sees in himself disturbing tendencies in the direction of becoming a regular human being with normal feelings like love (e.g., for Trixie) and compassion (for the reverend). Despite his uncommonly dark, sardonic sense of humor, the man is incapable of smiling — even at the sight of Jewel the Gimp waltzing with Doc Cochran. A psychotherapist could hang an entire career on Al’s head.
Reagan Day — What To Wear?
In the midst of this revolting media deification of the Old Gipper, I rise this morning and face the big 
question: what shall I wear today? See, I’m a public sector employee so I get the National Day of Mourning off at your expense; I don’t have to wear my usual suite-and-tie costume. Of all the miserable garments in my pathetic wardrobe, which is worthy of so momentous an occasion? What T-shirt do I own that best expresses an attitude, an ideology, a worldview that one might consider the opposite of Reaganism?
Ah, here we go: my tired old Che Guevara T-shirt, yes I think that will do just fine.
Good riddance Ronald Reagan
I’m glad that evil fuck is dead.
Setting Shit Off
I saw a note yesterday in the New York Spanish language daily El Diario that said that some miners set off two explosions outside the building in La Paz that houses the Confederación de Mineros de Bolivia. They were protesting the loss of jobs, and they evidently had the skills, the equipment and the balls to set shit off and let motherfuckers know what time it was. I admire their style.
E. B. Farnum for President!
I have complete confidence that E. B. is a more worthy candidate for president of the United States than either Kerry or Bush, and his chances are at least equal to Nader’s.
Think about it. The current Mayor of Deadwood has amply demonstrated integrity, honesty and leadership qualities that far surpass George W.’s, and cowardly though he may be, has he more balls than Kerry. Al Swearengen could be the power behind the throne as VP; A.W. Merrick, with his media savvy, would make a splendid press secretary; maybe a Farnum administration could recruit Eddie Sawyer from the Cy Tolliver organization and put him in charge of Treasury. I’m not sure whether Dan Dority would be more effective at the top slot in the Pentagon, or as Chief of Staff. But I know I’d rather have a principled, upstanding lad like Seth Bullock enforcing the law of the land than that fascist looney tune John Ashcroft. Mrs. Garret would surely make a fine replacement for Condi at National Security. And we all know Doc Cochran is a no-brainer for Surgeon General.
MoveableType goes commercial
I was disappointed to discover just now that MT is now requiring paid licenses for all but its miserly, stripped-down free edition, and calling it a “publishing platform.”
Good luck guys.
Time to think about migration to another blogware.
The Joy of Swearing
There are those who say that the use of gratuitous profanity is symptomatic of weak powers of expression, laziness, poor self-discipline. Well you know what? I happen to enjoy swearing. Some argue that the promiscuous use of our friend the F-word, for example, diminishes its expressive power. Well guess what: that’s one fucking trade-off I can live with.