Good Night!

Last night I had a very pleasant walk; heard someone playing harmonica on their porch as I passed by. A welcome sound; my Dad dabbles in harmonica. Once he had to make lunchtime announcements before a church camp group. They wouldn't get focused, so he played a tune on his harmonica, they all started clapping, and he had their attention for the rest of the announcements.

I came home to find that the director of the show I just auditioned for had called to offer me the part I wanted! Limping Man in Fuddy Meers, here I come!

Then I watched a movie called Daisies, and it's totally dope. It's like a New Wave mash-up of Little Rascals and the Monkees, with two cute bratty young women as the protaganists. It's full of creative surprises, and it's a hoot. The girls get a really ambiguous comeuppance that leaves me wondering what the director (a woman with a complicated Eastern European name) really thinks of the rightness or wrongness of the girls' antics. Fer cryin' out loud, check this movie out.

Dress Code

I have no idea how long conservative blogsite RealClearPolitics keeps links online, but this editorial touches on an interesting situation. At a high school some kids have a day when they wear pro-homosexuality t-shirts, buttons, etc. So a couple of students decided to wear shirts bearing the legend "be happy, not gay" as a counter statement. The school cracked down on said counter statement.

Reminds me of them high school days.

I had a buddy who often wore two shirts; the top one would be a tasteful button-down deal, but beneath that would be a Naughty T-Shirt. He'd pull us aside, unbutton, let us admire his shirt, then button up and go about his business. Smooth.

And the school paper had a tradition of having Senior Wills so the graduating class could give some final shout-outs; you know, "I, Aaron White, do hear by bequeath my coolness to Frank Thompson cuz he needs it, and all my hugs and kisses to the Virginia Sister. If she doesn't want them she can have my apartment instead." That kind of silliness. One guy I didn't know had one: "I leave my Dr. Zog's Sex Wax shirt to Assistant Principal Smith; wear it with pride, Joe!" You can pretty much figure out the story behind that, but I thought the will was classy. He got his dig in but wasn't mean-spirited about it. It was almost friendly.

Okay, so, this editorial. The editorial frames it as a free speech matter, which is correct, but (while I am not a lawyer) I believe courts have ruled that minors are not entitled to full First Amendment rights and that schools have the power to curtail freedom of speech and expression. Usually I'm a free speech absolutist, but I can see why a school might need to curtail things to keep a building full of hormonal drama queens from fighting.The editorial also asserts that a pro-gay message is arguably as offensive to anti-gay people as the anti-gay message is to pro-gay people.

Um. Well.

I have many family members and friends who work in education, and I suspect this decision was not a result of a faculty member boosting a pro-homosexual ideology, but of the faculty trying to head off a Sharks Vs. Jets conflict. Running a school is like raising kids; if your kids are squabbling then you don't care about who's right, who's wrong, who started it. You care about restoring equilibrium. It's not time for ideology, it's time for pragmatics. If one group is wearing shirts saying "Hooray for X" and another group is wearing shirts saying "X sux," these are not equal opposite statements.

Take homosexuality out of it. Make it the Republican Party. If the school Young Repubs are wearing shirts saying Vote Republican with a red white and blue elephant on them, that might annoy people who don't like the GOP but no serious-minded person could call it egregiously confrontational. It's advocating, not condemning or confronting. Now, if some students respond by wearing shirts saying "Vote Democrat," fine and dandy. If they respond by wearing shirts that say "Republicans are Warmongering Torturers," that's confrontational and could lead to friction in the hallways. Well, "Be Happy Not Gay" is confrontational and condemning. So this isn't a case of pro-gay vs. anti-gay; it's a case of "hooray for us" vs. "you suck." The faculty's decision isn't about boosting one side of a discussion; it's about keeping the discussion civil.

Chattanowhere

I lived on Signal Mountain near Chattanooga for quite a while. I haven't been back since before 9/11 (there's no connection there; just using it as a reference point). I hear they've really fixed the city up, and I'm curious to go see it, as well as to visit D and T (if they'll forgive me for my blogsnark) and the old church (which I don't think is aware of my blogsnark). Anyway, I recently was gripped by... I wouldn't call it nostalgia, since that implies a pleasurable yearning that doesn't apply here. Call it curiosity about what's happened to folks I used to know. So it's time for the pathetic googlesearch; everyone does it but we hate to admit it. Results:

Bawdy guitar-slinging Italian buddy: Married with children; wife's blog has tons of happy-looking family snapshots. I'm glad things worked out for him.

Brainy but lazy fat nerd buddy: only found one thing; a really unhappy-looking snapshot from a tech college website where he's apparently a student. unshaved, very sour expression, fatter than ever. I'm sorry things haven't worked out for him.

Brainy ambitious gothnerd buddy: no net-record except a mention on a role-playing game database for a contribution he made to an old White Wolf gamebook years ago. He has a distinctive name but I couldn't find him. His Internet presence may be "Darth Adamantium" or "Overlordius Illuminatus" or some such.

Actress with whom I did a play and had a brief chaste fling: OMG I can't remember her name. We were in a play that was a big local hit back around 1998 or so, but there's no record of it online. It seemed to make such a big splash, but it seems to live only in the memory. Even the theatre that staged it has no record of it on their website, which doesn't seem interested in being a historical record.

Other actress from the same play: now a DJ on a Chattanooga radio station (which plays the Clash and Depeche Mode). Full stage name includes my middle name (Galen) as her last name because she liked it. I'm flattered.

Lead actor from the same play: Still a dentist, occasionally pops up in locally produced short films, had small role in full-length film that got horrible reviews and sank beneath the waves.

Girl I was in dopey, unrequited high-school love with: runs a lot of marathons.

Her friend with whom I fought all the time for reasons I hesitate to contemplate, but with whom I made up after we both matured a bit: has a really common name and I can't find her.

I wanna emphasise that I'm not out to reestablish contact with these people. I don't miss Chattanooga and I have a fine net of friends here. I just want to know who's gone down what roads...

Snake Id'a Bit Me!

I had a pretty groovy weekend. My ongoing efforts to cleanse my apartment of several years' slovenly sloppiness is bearing fruit, in the form of, uh, a less grody apartment. I went out, priced some shelving and storage units, came back, looked around, and realized that I already have shelving and storage units that simply aren't being efficiently used. It's amazing what you start noticing when you start looking. I have a fresh energy, a new drive; this sense that I'm remaking my living quarters brings with it a corresponding confidence that I'm remaking my life. I worked for Stanley Steemer for a year, and by dealing with customers and sniffing around their homes I came to the conclusion that you can find out most of what you need to know about anyone by checking out their living quarters. If that's true, and I still think it is, then reworking one's living quarters really does go hand in hand with reworking one's life.

I've been watching the A & E miniseries of Magnificent Ambersons in installments; it's got some lovely acting, costumes and sets, although the cinematics of it are sustantially more polite than Orson Welles'. I've yet to read the darn novel, but having recently enjoyed Orson's radio adaptation of the novel as well, I'm quite eager to. As all the adaptations say, and so I'm presuming the novel says as well, our lives are indeed like smoke, and time is the sky into which the smoke fades. And our money and our lives are alike; we look back and wonder where it all went.

And a third. This one's a quote.

The purpose of a great novel is not, however, to cater to one’s passing needs but to enter one’s life, even alter it. So the great novel will kill no time on airplane trips. They are not good page turners.-Norman Mailer, from his 2005 National Book Awards acceptance speech.

Second Post of This Here Day

Just read on Yahoonews that the Governor of Mississippi has signed one of those as-close-to-banning-abortion-as-they-can-get bills; this one actually says that if and when Roe V. Wade gets overturned, abortion is illegal in Miss. No surprises so far, but the sting in the tail is that they make exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape... but not by incest. Ladies and Gentlemen, the great State of Mississippi!

As surely as I mock Mississippi, though, we'll find a way to top them. "Alabama just signed into law a controversial bill requiring women to eat any fetuses they abort." We'll think of some way to regain our status as SHAME OF A NATION.

Pollen Nation

Every year when the pollen comes out I get sick. All that flower spunk throws my system for a loop. Being sick has had a few notable effects on me this time around:

1. I've switched from coffee to tea. As Frank Thompson says, tea has certain restorative properties, while coffee abuses you awake. Irish Breakfast is my new drug of choice. I feel much mellower on a tea high than I do when coffee's got me reeling.

2. I'm more aware of how much activity I've got going on. All the performances, recitals, auditions really stand out when you're going to them despite feeling like lying down instead.

3. Everything I do feels awfully noble and even heroic. The mere fact that I show up for something makes me feel like a pretty swell guy, what with my doing it in the teeth of illness and all. By illness I mean sore throat and runny nose, so it's not really a big deal, but let me enjoy what I have.

4. I don't talk to myself anymore. I don't talk to people much, but in the privacy of my home I yammer to myself like a crazy person. Not now that I feel like I've been gargling shattered Pepsi bottles, though. To keep monastic silence makes me feel pretty levelheaded and stable; I'm not expending energy in pointless verbiage.

Oddition

Ah, community theatre. For some of us it's a stepping stone between college theatre and professional theatre. And I've spent an awful long time hunkering down on that stepping stone.

In college theatre there's a certain understanding that if you come to the theatre, willing to work, we will find a place for you. To only allow persons who show theatrical panache into the school theatre is like only allowing people who show promise as surgeons to dissect frogs in Lab. This is as it should be; the college theatre is there to teach, to allow young people to try on the theatre.

In professional theatre the understanding is more like "We need people who know how to do this work at a very high level. If you can bring something wonderful to the table, if you can really make the audience sit up and take notice, then we can use you." Or so I imagine; I can't say I know from experience.

Community theatre vacillates between these two approaches; sometimes finding room for persons with limited theatrical ability, other times striving for a professional-quality company.

I've had great times in both kinds of situation. The more relaxed and inclusive approach allows for really fun people to participate, and really puts the "community" in community theatre. I've met a lot of wonderful people in these shows. But the "As close to pro quality as we can get" approach is the only one that really hones, rather than dulls, serious theatrical skills.

One problem community theatre directors often face is a lack of good performers showing up for auditions. If you're trying to craft a pro-quality show, you need pro-quality people turning up at the audition. But it doesn't always work out that way. The other night I was at an audition with a few standout performers, but not enough to fill out the cast. I'm terribly curious to discover if the director will cast "from the audition" or will open her little black book and ask capable performers whom she knows but who didn't audition to consider stepping into the production. If she casts from the audition it's going to mean taking people as they are and trying to coax good performances out of them. Half the cast will be skilled performers who can really sparkle, half won't. There's a lot of community theatre that's similarly uneven.

It intrigues me just how much pro-level talent there is out there that doesn't go pro, though. Some folks took a s--b at being working actors, came home, and haven't taken a second s--b. Lots of people have family considerations; sick parents who need care, kids to raise, all that. Some, like me, are basically too lazy and afeared to take that leap into the poverty-stricken world of professional acting. I have self-induced trouble in auditions that approach professional norms. Perform a memorized monologue? I always strike out with those auditions, and heaven knows I can memorize a monologue just fine. I seem to have a neurotic block on memorizing a monologue for an audition, though; I always turn out with a really half-baked performance and blow the chance. This last one was simply cold readings from the script, and since I've read the script it was a breeze. In the pro world, though, you need memorized audition monologues, and until I get over my block I'll never be able to play the audition game with the pros. I think I can perform at a close-to-pro level, but applying for a job takes different skills from doing the job.

Second Post of the Day

I just heard an item on NPR: audio of a group of US soldiers patrolling in Iraq, finding and detonating IEDs, and trying to pacify children who set the IEDs by throwing peanuts and candy at them. One soldier says, whimsically, "please don't blow us up!" Indeed. Is it really helping the new Iraqi government to have these poor soldiers putting themselves on the line, and inadvertantly making the civilians feel like an occupied territory? I suspect that we can help the new government succeed, but it will be with advisors and financial assistance, not soldiers. Bring 'em home.

Anyhow, more on those purity balls. A little googling reveals they have similar things for boys, only the boys get "Integrity Balls." This speaks volumes. "Integrity" connotes an active principle, while "purity" connotes passivity. Boys have choices to make, actions to carry out; girls just have to glow like the widdle angels they are (don't fornicate or you lose your hymen halo). This sexist framing of men as active and women as passive probably flatters the predelictions of the evangelical daddies at these things, but it has less and less application to the big bad world. Women can be active; they need integrity as much as guys do. Integrity is something everyone needs. What is purity? Cocaine can be pure, but that doesn't make it good.

My [CENSORED] Belongs To Daddy

This article by Mary Zeiss Stange probably won't be online long, but it's an intriguing editorial about Purity Balls, a new attempt by the abstinence-only crowd to get young women to take abstinence seriously. The sons and mothers are conspicuous by their absence. Perhaps they figure teaching boys to abstain is a lost cause. How Victorian. I'm extremely conflicted on this stuff. On the one hand I'm totally in sympathy with the daddies in this. I don't think young people should be having sex, and if I had a daughter I'd be desperate to keep boys from seducing her. But consider the narrative they're creating here; abstaining equals purity and faithfulness to Daddy; not abstaining means losing one's "purity" and betraying Daddy. As the article points out, studies show that these girls are going to break their purity vows at a ratio comparable to girls who don't get the abstinence-only treatment. What narrative obligations will they be compelled to live out when they do so? Will they carefully select decent partners, protect themselves and maximize their erotic and emotional pleasure? Not on your life; they've been taught that not abstaining=A SECOND FALL FROM GRACE, and they'll take it as a duty to live out that narrative, choosing the worst partners and having really awful times. When you're in thrall to the patriarchy it's possible to defy Daddy's will, but not to defy his narrative.

And another thing; having run with members of the abstinence-only crowd, I know that for some of them it's very important to discourage the use of condoms and other protections for the very simple reason that unwanted pregnancy and disease are God's divinely ordained punishment for fornicators. The fact that fornicators can beat the system drives a substantial subset of the abstinence-only crowd into a fury. If you fornicate, they want you to get sick or pregnant; it's God's will.

Lost Weekend

I was sick most of last week. Been sleeping a lot, drinking a lot of tea. Yet it was pretty busy.

Thursday we performed a cutting from the Cabaret for the Music for Peace and Justice series at The Church of the Reconcilier. This is a church that's aimed at the city's homeless. I saw the preacher in action, putting his well-dressed arm around an unbathed homeless guy. That's a Christianity that Jesus would recognise. It must take such strength to work at such a church; I could never do it.

(I was way too low-energy in the show. Sure, I was sick, but a pro wouldn't let it show. A lesson has been learned-if you're performing sick, aim to fool everyone into thinking you're in perfect health.)

Speaking of churches, I recently found out that the church in which I grew up, Signal Mountain Presbyterian, has voted to leave the Presbyterian, uh, syndicate, because they're getting "too liberal" on stuff like homosexual preachers, Trinitarian theology, etc. Hmm. I have a friend who was a church secretary for a while, and he tells me that his liberal Southern Baptist church decided not to leave the increasingly conservative Southern Baptist Convention because that way they have a chance to get on the floor and be heard. Better to be a loud minority opinion than an absent one. According to the handed-down account I got, Reverend Dudley, the Pastor of Signal Mountain Pres., had a similar point of view and wanted to keep the church in the PCUSA, but the church packed him off on a sabbatical so they could hold a vote without openly humiliating him. Poor Reverend Dudley. He and I may not agree on homosexual ordination and such, but he's one of the good guys; a voice of compassion who's really been trying to make a difference in a very comfortable, very white community. He was a good pastor to me and I hope he's able to discourage the church from ousting him and replacing him with Fred Phelps. Obviously I'm joking; Fred Phelps isn't polite and well-groomed enough for WhiteTight&Polite Signal Mountain.

When I was a college boy I wound up involved in a big church concert in which I had to give a closing benediction. I'm not sure how it happened. Anyway, there were two performances on two nights. On the first night in my Benediction I asked that we share Christ's words with all people, and proceeded to list some of those types of people, like rich and poor, old and young, etc. And being a college boy I threw in heterosexual and homosexual, just to show 'em. You go, teenage Aaron! STICKIT TO DA MAN! Well, some people acted like I'd pooped on the Bible and wiped with the communion elements. Reverend Dudley was very nice about it, and some people understood that I was only saying we should share Christianity with homosexuals, not commenting on the rightness or wrongness of homosexual activity. But I was instructed not to repeat my little stunt on the second night of the performance... and I didn't. You go, Aaron! KNEEL BEFORE DA MAN! I was cheered up considerably by the guy they'd hired to conduct the orchestra for this concert, though; we met briefly before the show and, upon learning that I wasn't to mention those dreadful homos again, stated "I wonder what they'd think if they knew their conductor was one?" I wonder indeed.

Okay, anyway, this weekend I did crawl outside to see two shows; The Children's Hour at Birmingham Festival and Guys and Dolls from Centerstage. I enjoyed both but don't have any insights, except to point out that Valerie Lemmons and Leah Luker, who play the female leads in Guys and Dolls, are two of the great talents in Birmingham Theatre, and woefully under appreciated. KNEEL BEFORE THE DIVAS. As for Children's Hour, it's still running, so go see it for yourself.

Finally, I got a couple of movies from Netflix this weekend: Zu Warriors and The Magnificent Ambersons. The former is a CGI-laden kung-fu fantasy that I would have creamed over as a boy, but which bores me to tears now. It's odd how CGI from a few years ago looks more dated than A Trip To The Moon. Director Tsui Hark has a rep even among the most snooty film buffs for artful kung fu drama, bursting with dynamic choreography; action as dance. I like that kind of stuff, but there's a big difference between having extraordinary acrobats doing extraordinary acrobatics (supposedly Hark's usual modus) or using a few mouse clicks to blatantly fake extraordinary acrobatics. Plus the story is such little-boy stuff; it's heartening to discover that my nerdiness has its limitations. Although if someone makes a movie titled Zoo Warriors featuring CGI giraffes and llamas kickboxing each other, I'd totally watch that.

As for the Magnificent Ambersons-surprise! It's not the old Orson Welles movie, which apparently ain't available on DVD, but a recent for-TV remake. So far it's pretty Masterpiece Theatre; well done on many levels, a bit polite and pasteurized for my tastes. It has some lovely elements but can't match the peculiar richness of Orson's mise en scene, which blazed with hothouse theatricality without seeming over the top.

Mattress

I was out sick the other day, and spent a good bit of time considering the mattress situation. The mattress, along with the bedframe, was a generous donation from my friends the Steibs, way back in the late nineties. It had been a guest bedroom bed, and everyone in my social circle has had carnal relations on it, excepting myself. I've often joked that I feel close to my friends when I sleep on this bed because it has so much of their DNA soaked into it. That mattress had a liquid center, although under my stewardship it has no doubt gone dry. It is an unattractive affair by now; it has worn down until it looks like part of an art installation. I've considered writing a monologue about it, simply because the thing would look so stark hanging on the wall behind me in some little venue like Birmingham Festival. But how would one keep such a monologue from turning into a deadening exercise in solipsism? Kind of like this blog, only with the blog you can skip around or stop reading without my noticing.

Anyway, the mattress: I'm about to replace it, but I'd rather have the replacement delivered than tie it to the hood of my Saturn and try to lug it inside myself; furthermore I want to fix up the joint a bit more in terms of bookshelves, etc. I've been abstaining from such accouterments of baseline civilization under the theory that squalor both costs less and encourages me to move. Moving is essential in the long run because I want to make a go of a real acting career before it's all dust and ashes.

Everything changed recently when a friend insisted on seeing my home, ran her white glove over the place, and told me in no uncertain terms that my lifestyle was unacceptable. This was a conclusion I'd been tiptoeing around for years, and now I'm trying to come to terms with almost a decade's worth of squalor accumulation. Buying a mattress that doesn't have springs bursting out and open tears in the material will be a big step in that.

Anyway, here's some instructions for easy DYI Punk Rawk Majickque from one of my favorite comics pros who still works with superheroes, Grant Morrison. Apply at will, particularly to my aforementioned troll neighbor. Don't use it to ask for his death, though; I'm drawing back from the earlier call for the guy's death because I don't want a big karmic blowback. Just ask for what I need, which could be phrased as "He moves or is evicted."

Nashville Cabaret

This went way better than I feared it would. Bongo Java is a teensy performance space, and I like it that way. OTOH it's too darn hot; I thought I was going to collapse from heat prostration right in the middle of my first song. I wanted to trade costumes with the dancing girls; ya'll wear this heavy jacket, I'll wear the skimpy fishnets. Anything to stay cool. Anyway, if you go to Bongo Java, try the granola. Yum!

The feedback I got from the family and friends who saw it was that it was quite good but about three weeks too long. "Leave 'em wanting more" is not the credo of our little group. More like "Pound 'em into submission." But it turns out I enjoy the stress and payoff of taking the show on the road. My voice is shot (mostly because of the transition from cold weather to hot) but now I'm looking forward to doing it again in Atlanta.

Also I publicly (and onstage) declared my big crush on fellow cabaret performer Kimberly, regarding which the reader is referred to this post.

Meanwhile, the prayer vigil for my neighbor continues. Never before have I heard him when he was in his apartment and I was in mine, but last night I clearly heard him doing what he does best: cussing real loud, apparently into his phone. Does this burst of renewed vigor indicate that he's in better health than ever, or is it the Thorn Bird's Song? Here's hoping it's his dying throes. Keep praying

The Hardships of Life on the Road

For some reason the trip to Nashville this coming weekend has been preying on my mind; I'm not used to travel, and my usual rule of thumb is to never do a show anywhere I can't walk to. Nashville violates that rule by a nasty margin. I always get lost when I go anywhere outside of Jefferson County, we're on a tight schedule... you can see the potential for trouble here.

Anyway, please notice I've been adding labels to this blog, so if you want to read, say, all my posts about theatre, you can live that dream. (It's not done yet though). It's distressing how many posts are filed under "boo hoo," representing all my weepy self-pitying posts. I don't think of myself as a weepy or self-pitying person, but the labels speak for themselves. So I'm going to make this the last Boo Hoo post for a nice long time.

A relationship recently flared up out of nowhere and after a burst of heat has cooled into a distant friendship. That's not a bad thing, per se; one more good friendship than I had before, and a lot of overdue personal growth has been triggered by the brief attempt at, well, at figuring out what it was about. But I'm finding the cooling process to be awfully distressing; I'm just a little boy who wants his mommy. That's true of every guy, but we have to learn to modulate it, don't we?

Okay, that's my last boohoo moment. For now.

Dangerous Game

Mary Weiss is back! The lead singer of The Shangi-Las is responsible for the title of this blog; the way she intones that startling instruction reverberates around my spinal cord. So I'll be scooping up Dangerous Game, her new CD. She's being interviewed on Fresh Air on NPR today. I'll for durn sure be listening.

We're taking our Cabaret to Bongo Java in Nashville for one Saturday performance, this weekend. Experience shows that people who drink a lot enjoy the show, while people who don't drink a lot tend to have a muted response. How will a coffee-sipping audience respond to a show that's best enjoyed drunk? We'll find out.

Let Us Prey

I saw that awful neighbor the other day. He looked really bad but he's still alive. You people are not praying hard enough. Oh ye of little faith. Here's the new prayer:

Oh Lord, kill the bastard already. Just take one of those deaths You're planning to ship to someone in Darfur and hit him with it instead. Make it look like an accident, oh Lord, so law enforcement won't read this blog and think I had anything to do with it.

Selah

Kill him, oh Lord, and he will be killed. I know You don't make no trash, but some of what you make becomes trash, and that horrible neighbor of mine is a case in point. I've had bowel movements that deserved more respect than him. Flush him, oh Lord.

Storm

A storm passed through last night, so we were sent home early from work. I got home, and since it was grey but dry I went for a walk. Of course I got caught in the storm, but I always enjoy that; the cold pounding rain makes me feel like I'm in touch with the elements in a raw way, like the world is forcing me to engage it in an unprotected way. It's like being touched by God. EDIT: I didn't know that twenty people, some of them Alabama schoolchildren, died in this storm when I wrote the proceeding. It was much milder around my way. I'm sorry for the dead and their loved ones, and grateful that my blithe stormwalk didn't have any consequences beyond a cold soak.

Anyway, Ken Hite has begun a series of blogposts on H. P. Lovecraft. There's a lot to disdain about Lovecraft (clunky prose, all kinds of bigotry, lousy characterization, way too indebted to his influences) but there's a lot to love, and Hite's the man to tease out the good.

I'm listening to an Acid Jazz compliation. I've slowly fallen in love with acid jazz's blend of hiphop and horns. Anyway, lyrics in this stuff tend to be pretty nominal, but there was one song with the lyric "Give it all you've got, don't give up, life's a game and you've go to play to win!" Once I thought that was trite, but now it's the kind of motivation I need, so it added fresh cheer to my day. Sadly the next song's lyric was all about making love tonight. I won't be making love tonight, so that stripped my fresh layer of cheer right off. I'm ready to join with Tipper Gore to get all these sex lyrics out of songs, but only so I won't be constantly reminded that they're writing songs of love, but not for me.

A Man's Home is His Castle.

I live in a teeny apartment. I like it there; it's a lovely, safe neighborhood, and as soon as I clean up the mess I've been accumulating, it's going to be a pleasant home. Only one problem. The Crazy Scumbag Upstairs And Across. He usually lies low, but tonight, not for the first time but for the first time in a while, he stomped downstairs and loudly pounded on the door of the woman who lives under him and across from me, hollering profaine demands that she keep it down. I was sound asleep until Dr. Douchebag started carrying on (around two in the morning, per his own hollering). Ponder the psychology of someone who is outraged to have been awakened, but who deals with his outrage by waking everyone else.

So I've written a little prayer for him. I ask that you pray along with me if you are so moved.

Dear Lord, Creator of the Universe and Lord of Love: please kill this guy. We don't need his worthless ass around here, o Lord. Please kill him. I'll give You fifty bucks. And I don't mean kill him "in Your good time," I mean TODAY.