I get fan mail

(Yes, it's true: I am the proud author of the world's only Dangerous Dave FAQ.)

Today, I found this in my inbox:

Dude, I (assuming you're a man)will HAPPILY preform philatio to your
bidding, on account of the fact that you took your time to write up a DD
FAQ. I played this game from age 10-12 (I'm 21, now), and I, like you,
never beat it back then. A wonderful concoction consisting (I just
love con-words)of my boredom and your faq have bread (I feel like a
poet)inspiration for me to finish what I started all those years ago. From now on, my mission will be . . . TO BEAT DANGEROUS AVE!!!! BTB, I
always thought the game was called Danger Dave. I MISS FLOPPIES!!! Agian,
thanks for being cool, and I promise not to stalk you.


Many thanks to this highly enthusiastic person for the kind words.

Random Ten

Whoa--I almost forgot about this extremely vital ritual. And that would have been a shame indeed.

01. The Decemberists, "The Tain"
Lesser bands would have been reluctant to record an eighteen-minute song in five parts based on an ancient Irish epic poem, for fear of being compared to Yes or Emerson Lake & Palmer. But not the Decemberists, for which we should all be thankful (and don't worry; there are no keyboard solos to be found). If anything, this would be classified as metal...it's not a genre I'm normally all that fond of, but never mind that: this song rocks my fucking socks off. 10/10

02. Alias, “Divine Disappointment”
A lot of underground rap seems to revel in being as abstruse and difficult to enjoy as possible, but the pleasures of this track are pretty straightforward. I like. 7/10

03. Ennio Morricone, “Almost Dead”
The kind of twangy stuff you expect from Sergio Leone scores. This particular track is too short to really get into, but the soundtrack as a whole is damned impressive. 6/10

04. Calexico, “Ice Cream Jeep”
Have I mentioned how much I love Calexico? Seriously. This is one awesome band, and I need to see them in concert...as for this, well, it's hard to really judge a thirty-second snippet of an instrumental. It's meant to be listened to in the context of the whole album. Whatever. Have a six. 6/10

05. The Pogues, “5 Green Queens and Jean"
Man, there's not much good I can say about Hell's Ditch, the album. Okay, so “Wake of the Medusa” is good, in spite of being an obvious retread of “Turkish Song of the Damned,” and some of the others aren't that bad...but honestly, I have difficulty conceiving of how the band that had recorded three of the certifiably shit-kickingest albums EVAH could have decided that a song as dull and trivial as this was worth recording. Meh. 3/10

06. Manic Street Preachers, “She Is Suffering”
A vine that can strangle...life from a tree. I hate to give two tens in one list, but damn. Actually, I'd probably be forced to give this rating to a good half the songs off this album. Even having listened to it zillions of times...amazing stuff. 10/10

07. Injury, “Final Fantasy Legend 3 Talon Injury”
Yeah, I have a soft spot for the Final Fantasy Legend series, and this activates those wobbly nostalgic feelings. I really wish people would do more with the FFLII soundtrack, though. There are some really damn great tunes there...to be fair, there's a pretty rockass remix of “Burning Blood”--by this very remixer—out there, but come on: I wanna hear “Heroic Tune,” “Aspiration,” the classic “Legacy”--I DEMAND that you get a move on, people! 7/10

08. Ffmusic Dj, “Final Fantasy Trancelude”
Well, this is a techno-y rendition of the immortal Final Fantasy Prelude. In many ways the most standard, predictable remix you'll here. Not bad; just not spectacular, or original. 6/10

09. David Bowie, “I'm Afraid of Americans”
God is an American. Really. Ask any talk radio host. Latter-day Bowie may be an overall dicey affair, but I can't help enjoying this song a lot. 8/10

10. Space, “Me & You vs. the World”
Deeply ludicrous, but no less enjoyable for all that, hand-claps included. Too bad they went all squiggly after Tin Planet. 7/10

Bridal books, engagement rings, and other wicked little things

or, "I can't think of a snappy yet apropos title"

Yeah, so I wanted to post a comment in response to a comment posted in response to this blog post,* but for some highly irksome reason, my post would not go through--that is, it seemed to, but then it didn't show up. After trying this three times, I was forced to give up. And I was annoyed, because I was responding to a blatantly wrong line of reasoning that I've seen a lot lately vis-à-vis the possibility of the supreme court overturning Roe v. Wade. So I'm going to post this here, where the guy who made the comment will never, ever see it. Score?

In response to this rubbish...:

What happens if Roe gets overturned?
1) Utah and Alabama ban abortion completely.
2) Lots of southern and western states, and a few midwestern states, ban third-trimester abortions and require parental
consent for minors.
3) Nothing changes in California or Nevada, or anywhere in the Northeast.

This is where I differ from almost everyone in both parties. I just don't care whether Roe gets overturned, since 95% of people who get abortions today will still be able to without Roe. Other issues here will have a far greater affect on
people than the totally symbolic fight over Roe. Get real, people.

...I have this to say:

With all due respect, fuck that noise. Firstly, you're making some awfully damned big assumptions about what states might or might not do, miminizing potential impacts so as to improve your case. Secondly, and more importantly, "it doesn't matter because it will only hurt poor women in some states" is the biggest load of empathically-stunted bullshit I've ever seen--and mad undemocratic as well. You don't get to decree that certain groups of citizens are less deserving of basic rights than others, no matter how small the group in question may or may not be. Would slavery be okay if it was only targetted at the economically disadvantaged in a few states? If not, then what's the difference here? Okay, maybe slavery seems hyperbolic: how about anti-miscegination laws? Would you be cool with those, under the circumstances? I suspect not, and the reason for this is clear: consciously or not, you are applying a lesser value than you would to other issues to women's right to control their own bodies. Not cool.

Goddammit, some people, I ask you.

*Warning: this level of intense intertexuality should not be attempted by children, pregnant women, or people with pre-existing heart conditions.

Political Dream Blogging

Well, 'political' might be pushing it. But the other night, I had a dream where I was sitting around some sort of conference table with various anonymous people--and George W. Bush. It seems he was working on writing a book about Renaissance art (it could happen!). He mentioned something about including "Raphael," and for some reason I thought it would be hilarious to "trick" him into listing ALL the Ninja Turtles. How about Donatello?" I suggested. He was amenable to that, and Michaelangelo also. Worried that he might figure out what I was trying to do, I didn't just come out and say "Leonardo;" instead, I used the clever subterfuge of "how about Da Vinci? Leonardo Da Vinci?" This whole time I was grinning and laughing like an idiot; I just found myself too funny for words, and I was surprised that the rest of the table was remaining impassive.

I wish this dream had an edifying conclusion, but like most dreams, it just stopped. Feel free to subject it to rigorous political analysis, though.

Random Ten

Here it is: like clockwork. Albeit from a clock that would cause you to miss all your appointments and probably lose your job. But if you're so great, perhaps you should build your own clock.

01. John Prine, "We Are the Lonely"
Yeah, anyone familiar with this song can attest to its superfunnitude. 8/10

02. Tim Hart & Maddy Prior, "Fly Up My Cock"
Sorry, man. I don’t care how mature you fancy yourself: if that title doesn’t cause you to snicker in a juvenile manner, I don’t want to know you. Seriously. It would’ve helped a little if they’d used a comma, I suppose. Anyway. It’s a pretty if unexceptional a cappella performance by Prior. Still. "Fly Up My Cock." Smirk. 6/10

03. The Prodigals, "As I Roved Out"
A catchy traditional number from the band’s obscure first album. 8/10

04. Paza, "Chasingbits"
VERY limited appeal here: if you don’t like 8-bit videogame music beepatronics, you sure won’t like this. Otherwise, it’s not bad, if not the best of the genre. 6/10

05. David Bowie, "Memory of a Free Festival"
You know, this song isn’t actually so bad, listened to in a vacuum. Unfortunately, coming from David fucking Bowie, the hippie-dippie "we are stardust" stuff is just too risible for words. 4/10

06. Salty Dog, "The Fisherman’s Song"
A dramatic traditional song from the Montreal-based Celtic group. 8/10

07. Johnny Dowd, "I Don’t Exist"
Minimalist stuff from his first album. Not one of his highlights. 5/10

08. Nick Cave, "Brother My Cup Is Empty"
Believe me, you wouldn’t want to find yourself sitting next to the narrator of this song in a bar. 8/10

09. Joe Jackson, "Stay"
A rather transparent attempt to recreate "Steppin’ Out." A pale imitation of a great song still ain’t that bad, however. 6/10

10. Cleaners from Venus, "Armistice Day"
Excellent jangly pop from the best eighties British group you’ve never heard of. Now if only someone would rerelease their original albums on CD…8/10

The last word on this, maybe

Yeah.

The hugely popular video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" has been slapped with a new Adults Only label.

Yeah, sometimes sarcasm just fails me. Are you people fucking BRAIN-DAMAGED, or what? Do you frequently walk into walls and go "uh, uh, uh" like the hero of Dragon Warrior? I mean for the sake of GOD, aren't you even slightly embarrassed about this? I mean, sure, we gots ourselves a double standard, but for the most part we avoid being so...upfront about it. It's no wonder our country's so fuct. If our legislators had put a quarter of the energy they put into this into questioning our dirty little war...but nope: turns out fictional characters having sex was more important. It all makes so much sense in hindsight. America, fuck yeah.

Karl Rove

I don't really have much to say about this situation: naturally, I hope that, to paraphrase the man himself, he gets fucked like he's never been fucked before. And I hope he brings down the whole damn edifice with him. But what I really would like to do here is to point out that he looks a lot like Philip Seymour Hoffman's character in Happiness--the slovenly obscene phone caller. Only without the moral conviction. I'd post comparision pictures if I could find anything of Hoffman in that role.

And speaking of sex in videogames...

...Jeremy Parish has a succinct breakdown of the situation.

Speaking of homophobia...

In the latest edition of DC's free gay newspaper, the Washington Blade, we see this charming story: "Minister's fiery anti-gay sermon riles activists."

An influential D.C. minister is under fire by local gay activists following an anti-gay sermon in which he claimed that, “lesbianism is about to take over our community.”

Have you ever seen a community that's been taken over by lesbianism? It ain't a pretty sight, let me tell you: gutted, bombed-out buildings; smoking craters; survivors huddled around burning trash barrels for warmth--it's like Fallout, only with more girl-on-girl action. Speaking of which...

I ain’t homophobic because everybody here got something wrong with him,” he said. “But … women falling down on another woman, strapping yourself up with something, it ain’t real. That thing ain’t got no feeling in it. It ain’t natural.

Huh. You've obviously put some serious thought into this, haven't you, Reverend? With illustrative visual aids even, I'd imagine. Intellectual honesty compels me to admit that I too have spent some time thinking about these things. But afterwards, I generally roll over and go to sleep--I don't pound out hyperventilating sermons in a frenzy of barely-sublimated self-loathing.

“No wonder your behind is bleeding,” he said. “You can’t make no connection with a screw and another screw. The Bible says God made them male and female.”

Guh? Male and female screws? You know, I'd never really contemplated the gender politics of Ikea furniture before. Perhaps someone should write a book on this vital topic. But let's get serious, shall we, Rev? What would you say is causing this extremely alarming problem?

“Sisters making more money than brothers and it’s creating problems in families … that’s one of the reasons many of our women are becoming lesbians,” Wilson said.

Thank you for that trenchant socioeconomic analysis. You know, there is a Supreme Court seat opening up...

Hi, Jeremy

I'm sticking your letters here in lieu of any original content. 0wN3D!

Editor, Sun-Gazette:
Recently there have been a lot of letters written on the theme that it is okay to treat the detainees at Guantanamo poorly, because many of them are brutal enemies of America. The latest such letter read in part: "How terrible it is every time a senator or anyone else . . . speaks out about any discomfort to the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay . . . The prisoners are getting more than they deserve and are being treated too well."

What a very . . . un-Christian thing to say. Isn’t it apparent that if anything sets us apart from these people, it is our sense of compassion and sympathy? Just because they hate us and would act accordingly given the chance does not give us license to employ physical or psychological torture, or any other needless cruelty. Why did Jesus instruct us to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44), if not to counter our instinctive tendencies toward revenge?

It’s easy to act with humanity and kindness toward people whom we honor and respect. We need to try to go further. I feel just as terrible as you do when I think about those doomed passengers aboard the planes on 9-11. But I also think that we should step back and reconsider some of our ethical judgments. Mistreating prisoners won’t bring back the dead, but it will definitely rally more terrorists against us, seeking revenge for these abuses. Wouldn’t the best course of action be to abstain from further prisoner mistreatment?
Jeremy Moses
Williamsport

Stuff it up the hole in your culture

For some reason, my friend Claire was hellbent on seeing The Wedding Crashers this weekend. So.

It was mildly cute/amusing at best; largely painless, but certainly not a great movie. And there's no way in hell it needed to be two hours long. But what really fucking annoyed me about it was the homophobia. See, the love interest has a gay brother, who--of course!--is portrayed as a complete, maladjusted freak. And the ONLY purpose he serves in the movie is to participate in an unfunny scene where he comes on to one of the main characters, trying to elicit humor from the character's and the audience's latent (or not-so-latent) fear of gayness. Ha ha! Yeah, gay panic is some funny shit all right--just ask Harvey Milk! Think I'm overly sensitive? Think I'm exhibiting dangerous symptoms of "political correctness," which, as we all know, is the worst thing anyone could ever possibly be? Well, fuck that shit. I don't laugh at racist jokes either.

Of course, it's not so much this one individual example per se that bothers me. Is it likely that this one film in and of itself is going to cause an overall increase in bigotry in any measurable way? Is it likely to actually make anyone's life worse? No, of course not. It's more the entire culture which spawns things like this, and more than that, the fact that people who would, if asked, indignantly deny harboring a shred of homophobia let things like these go by without batting an eye. The fact is, until they become as socially unacceptable as blatant racism (and yes, that qualifier is there for a reason, but you have to start somewhere), we as a culture are never really going to be able to get past our biases. Would it kill us to be a little less lackadaisical about this?

I hate to keep harping on this...

...but Jesus Christ.

"We should all be deeply disturbed that a game which now permits the simulation of lewd sexual acts in an interactive format with highly realistic graphics has fallen into the hands of young people across the country," [Clinton] said in a letter to the head of the Federal Trade Commission."

I don't know what we'd do without a fearless moral arbiter like Clinton to tell us what "should" disturb us. And she makes a valid point: it's difficult to imagine anything that should disturb us more. But I want to get this straight: should we still be disturbed if there were a game that permitted the simulation of lewd acts in a non-interactive format? What if it's interactive, but it lacks "highly realistic graphics?" And what if instead of lewd sexual acts, it showed very proper, chaste sexual acts? What then, Senator? What then? These things are important. Apparently.

God I wish we could run a credible primary challenger against this woman.

Help smash Microsoft's hegemony!

For the Mac users out there, might I recommend Neo Office J as a tasty, low-fat alternative to MS Office? It includes high-quality facimiles of Word, Excel and (gag) Powerpoint, plus a primitive paint program and a program for drawing mathematical formulae or SOMETHING that I don't understand at all, but that could maybe be useful if you're into that kind of thing. All of these are perfectly compatable with documents created in MS Office. Plus, it's about two hundred MB smaller than MS Office 2004. And, you know, it's all free.

I had tried NOJ out earlier and liked it, but the deal-breaker in the earlier version was that closing a document caused the entire program to quit--huge pain. The new version remedies that problem, so now I have no reason to use any Microsoft products whatsoever! Hoozah!

Random Ten

Man, these are my highest overall scores yet. Am I going soft?

The The, “Gravitate to Me”
Perhaps it meanders a bit much at eight minutes, but it's still an eerie classic from M. Johnson. 8/10

John Prine, “Big Fat Love”
Bigger than me, bigger than you, bigger than a hippo down at the zoo. Lots of fun. 7/10

Gordon Bok, Ann Muir, and Ed Trickett, “I Drew My Ship”
Beautiful singing from Trickett, with unobstrusive but effective harmonizing from Muir. I can't imagine life without music by these people. 9/10

Violent Rage/mp, “Final Fantasy Hostility”
A short but entertaining take on the classic battle music. 8/10

Blood or Whiskey, “Majorca”
It ain't the Pogues or Flogging Molly, but it's still enjoyable enough Celtic punk. 7/10

Dead Can Dance, “The Carnival is Over”
Not quite as ethereal/mysterious as DCD's best work, but still quite good. 7/10

Manic Street Preachers, “Go Buzz Baby Go”
ARGH. When I was obsessively collecting Manics songs, I ran across a lot of these murky, impenetrable things labeled “early demos.” This is one of several where you can hear the roots of “Motorcycle Emptiness,” but on its own it doesn't have much value. 2/10

Mazedude, “Chrono Trigger Island of Zeal”
Man, there's nothing in the history of videogames more memorable than first seeing the Kingdom of Zeal. Great remix of a great tune. 9/10

Elvis Costello, “Oliver's Army”
Don't start me talking...truly a song that needs no introduction. 10/10

Calexico, “Impromptu for Piano and Contrabass”
Okay background music, but not that exciting in and of itself. 5/10

The best reality show ever

If you're a fan of wingnuts--and who isn't?--then you can't miss the Ultimate Wingnut Challenge over at S.Z.'s place. Forty wingnuts enter--but only ONE will be crowned as...The Ultimate Wingnut. Who has what it takes to be the wingnuttiest of them all? Check it out, and be sure to vote--unlike in the Presidential election, your vote could actually mean something here.

(and if this post is complete gibberish to you, click the link anyway--you could learn something)

Grand Theft Auto killed my dog and slept with my wife!!!!!111

Boy, as if this story weren't embarrassing enough. You don't have anything more important to do, Senator? I tell you, I'm just so proud to be a member of a political party that isn't afraid to get to the bottom of the issues that really matter. I mean, just think of the innocent, dewey-eyed children, laughing with joyful, childlike wonder as they mow down pedestrians and murder prostitutes. Then imagine these same embodiments of Christ-like purity...faced with the mind-shattering horror of a consensual sex scene!!! I weep for humanity when I contemplate all of the young lives irredemably corrupted in one terrible moment. Really, it makes you forget all about meaningless, trivial garbage like illegal war and the vindictive outing of undercover CIA agents. We've got us some MORAL CLARITY here, oh yes we do.

And now, your moment of Zen

I have no witty comment.

Because I'm too nauseated. Somebody needs to fucking stop us. I think we're beyond helping ourselves.

Chick Tract Review

Like all patriotic, god-fearing Americans, I await each new literary gem from Jack Chick with abated breath. Suspense! Thrills! Excitement? What will each new chapter in the ongoing spiritual odyssey of the Chickster hold? Will it tell us that we need to accept Jesus or go to hell? Will it tell the exciting story of a guy who doesn't accept Jesus, and thus goes to hell? Or an instructive tale about how Catholics go to hell? Or Muslims (moon-god worshippers)? Or Buddhists? Or Hindus? Perhaps he'll try to keep us off-balance with a l'il number about how gays are going to hell! Or perhaps one where we finally find out where witches go when they die! And if you weren't quite sure where Jehova's Witnesses are headed in the great hereafter...well, prepare to be enlightened!

Yes, with universal themes as diverse as these handled with such great aplomb, it's no wonder that Mr. Chick is widely considered one of the great literary giants of our time. However--and you have no idea how much it pains me to say this--the man appears to have gone senile. This latest tract is bizarre, and it leaves me with no idea what to believe.

So in the beginning, the woman is righteously enraged by the picture of a guy worshipping a statue of a dodo bird--and the curator is the voice of moderation: "he talks to his god and tells it all about his troubles...and asks forh help," he explains. "What's wrong with that?" Now this is a little bit confusing already, because, based on Chick archetypes, the curator should be the Christian and the woman the unbeliever--but we're being lead to expect otherwise here. Okay...I guess we can get used to that. But then! So fast it gives us whiplash, things change back again. With the flimsiest of segues, curator-man launches into a story about how idol-worship is bad, bad, bad--directly contradicting his earlier pleas for cultural understanding. And suddenly the woman is the unbeliever, in spite of the fact that she was levelling accusations of blasphemy at the painting just a moment ago. Are we to imagine that the curator was just baiting her in the first part of the tract? It's hard to know what else to think, but that seems like kind of a stretch--and it still doesn't explain the woman's transformation.

And what are we to make of the malevolent-looking boy who plucks a hair off an old man's head and then stalks out of the building as the camera lingers on him? Surreal side-action is not unknown in Chick tracts, but this takes it to a whole new level, detracting from the tract's overall message.

And after reading this, I don't know what to believe: should I be worshipping a dodo bird statue, or not? Aargh! Such confusion!

I sincerely hope that this is just momentary insanity, and that Chick returns to his usual lofty literary heights in the future. But this tract is a very alarming sign.

People with way too much spare time

Seriously, man, I find Grand Theft Auto on the whole to be pretty crass, but give me a break. Here's my favorite bit:

In taking on the Grand Theft Auto series, Mr. Yee was going after a well-known target. "This particular game has been known to include extremely heinous acts of violence," his statement said, "and now it has been uncovered that the game also includes explicit sexual scenes that are inappropriate for our children."

Yeah, it's always about the children, innit? Apparently, "extremely heinous acts of violence" are one thing, but "expicit sexual scenes"...well that's just beyond the pale. Okay, so it isn't exactly an amazing new discovery that we in America have a serious violence vs. sex double standard. But the point is this: no pure-as-the-cold-driven-snow children are in danger of being corrupted here. Any kid with the technological wherewithal to access the bad sex scenes in GTA has undoubtedly familiarized himself (or herself, I suppose, but...come on) with online pornography that's a LOT more graphic than anything you'd find in this game. Exactly whom do you think you're protecting here, Mr. Yee?

And, of course, the other, more important, questions: exactly what do these "explicit sexual scenes" consist of? And can we see some screenshots? It's VITAL that we know exactly what we're up against here! Do it for the children!

Random Ten

I would have posted this yesterday, but my internets connection was fuct for some reason.

1. The Clash, “Junco Partner”
A lesser Clash song, for sure. Pretty damn boring. Not as annoying as some songs off Sandinista! that we could name, however. 3/10

02. The Pogues, “Cotton Fields”
Feels a little undeveloped, but it’s still pretty good for a latter-day Pogues song. 6/10

03. Calexico, “Hot Rail”
An ambient kind of thing. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but I enjoy the band’s instrumentals. 7/10

04. McVaffe, “Castlevania Adventure Quasikaotic”
For future reference, any song with the name of a videogame at the beginning is likely from OCRemix. I like this song, though probably less so if I weren’t familiar with the original. Fuzzy nostalgia, and all that. 6/10

05. Kimagure Orange Road, “Actress in the Mirror”
KOR has the most consistently great music of any anime short of Cowboy Bebop (okay, and maybe Utena), and this is one of the best. 10/10

06. Zeratul, “Chrono Trigger Millennial Fair 2001”
Kind of fun, but I’m not at all sure that this kind of techno-lite suits the source material. And the less said about the voice samples the better. 5/10

07. The Pogues, “Sit Down by the Fire”
Whoa, two Pogues songs? What will happen next? as my dad always asks in a deadpan tone when you excitedly tell him something about videogames or something else he has little interest in. This one’s the better of the two. 8/10

08. Manic Street Preachers, “Elvis Impersonator Blackpool Pier”
Twenty foot high on Blackpool Promenade! A classic for sure. 9/10

09. Squeeze, “If I Didn’t Love You”
Not Squeeze’s all-time best, but still catchy. 7/10

10. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, “Abattoir Blues”
Hard to believe how good Cave’s last album is. I had really thought he was done. Not the album’s highlight (that would be “There She Goes, My Beautiful World”), but…very, very good. 8/10

Not that I expect a response or anything...

Dear Mr. Tinsley,

I have been following your series of comic strips this week—in which you painstakingly explain to your readers that the Mallard Fillmore strip that appeared in America: the Book wasn’t a real MF strip—with great amusement. I see two possibilities here: either you want to spare the feelings of those of your readers who were stupid enough to think that Jon Stewart and company were trying to “fool” them—or you yourself are that stupid. If the former is the case, I salute your admirable humanitarian impulses. But honestly, who are we trying to fool here: both you and I know that that’s not it at all. You were actually under the impression that an obvious satire of your work was intended as a fiendish trap to trick unsuspecting readers.

I would simply laugh at your dimwittedness and leave it at that, but that would not be the Christian thing to do, and anyway, I think I see your problem: you aren’t familiar with the concept of “satire.” Having followed your work for some time, this comes as no great shock. However, it’s a useful thing for any cartoonist to know about, so I’ll explain it to you, using the fake strip in question as my example. Fair enough?

Okay, try to follow me here: you know how Mallard Fillmore typically consists of regurgitated talking points that you heard on Rush Limbaugh, without any discernable “joke?” Good. Now—listen closely here—Stewart was making fun of this tendency of yours by having your character do what he so often does—that is, regurgitate a right-wing talking point—and then actually acknowledge that there’s no joke! Of course, it’s not as funny if you have to explain it. Nonetheless, it remains funnier than anything you’ve ever written. Intentionally, at any rate.

So do you understand now? I know it’s a big, hard concept, and it’s difficult for a li’l cartoonist like you to wrap his brain around it. But if you think about it for a while, I’m sure it will eventually start to make sense. You have to believe in yourself, Bruce! Who knows, perhaps someday you’ll understand it well enough that—dare to dream!—you can even incorporate it in your strip!

I hope this lesson has been edifying for you, Mr. Tinsley. However, if you still persist in your delusional belief that that wascawy Jon Stewart is trying to pull one over on people, might I strongly suggest that you sue him for libel? After all, per your interpretation, he’s claiming you said something you never said! That’s the dictionary definition of libel. It would be an open-and-shut case. Don’t let a lousy comedian get away with something like this! Nail him!

Yours in Christ,
Geoffrey Moses

Christ.

Violence begets violence begets violence begets...christ, why do I bother?

It was very early in the morning, the streets clean and deserted, I was on my way to the railroad station. As I compared the tower clock with my watch I realized it was already much later than I had thought, I had to hurry, the shock of this discovery made me feel uncertain of the way, I was not very well acquainted with the town yet, fortunately there was a policeman nearby, I ran to him and breathlessly asked him the way. He smiled and said: 'from me you want to learn the way?' 'Yes,' I said, 'since I cannot find it myself.' 'Give it up, give it up,' said he, and turned away with a great sweep, like someone who wants to be alone with his laughter.

From the department of the bleeding obvious...

Bush is a fucking asshole.

Random Ten

All the cool people do random song shuffles on their weblogs, so I'm going to as well. I have a pretty heterogenous library, so it could be interesting, although probably not.

01. The Royal Guardsmen, "Snoopy for President"
The Royal Guardsmen did something like four or five novelty Snoopy vs. The Red Baron songs. They all sound more or less the same, but they're all fun. 6/10

02. The Smiths, "Barbarism Begins at Home"
Pretty hard-rockin' for a Smiths song. I like it. 7/10

03. Gordon Bok, Ann Muir, and Ed Tricket, "Sailor's Prayer"
Very good acapella number. 8/10

04. Flogging Molly, "Don't Let Me Die Still Wondering"
Good philosophy. Inspiring song. 8/10

05. Calexico, "Corona"
Typical Calexico mariachi-type thing. Listenable, if not exactly classic. 6/10

06. Johnny Dowd, "On Shakey Ground We Stand"
A pointless reworking of "Death Comes Knocking." 5/10

07. Aesop Rock, "Daylight"
"All I ever wanted was to pick up on the day, put the pieces back together my way." Very catchy number from Mr. Rock. 9/10

08. ABBA, "The Visitors"
Not one of your first-tier ABBA songs, but it's not bad once it picks up around the two-minute mark. 5/10

09. The Tossers, "Young Ned of the Hill"
It's a great Pogues song, but this cover, while not bad in and of itself, has no reason to exist. 3/10

10. The The, "Dogs of Lust"
Scary, distorted weirdness. 8/10

Hoo boy.

I sense massive fuckedupédness ahead. It was inevitable that something like this would happen sooner or later, but that doesn't make it any less terrifying. I swear to god, if the Democrats don't obstinately block the shit out of whomever bush nominates...well, I'm not going to finish that thought, but the question of why I still bother to identify myself with these people will loom larger than ever.