I'm Tired of the Censorship

So, after many weeks and months screaming at the television set and radio dial buttons I have put together an essay on censorship, with the emphasis really on talk radio. You can see it on the web here or download it as a word doc here. (Please don't plagiarize my work, I worked hard, just cite me).

Feel free to comment with your thoughts, reactions, etc.

I'm sure I'll contribute more after finals...

Chocolate bunnies,
-Jake

Pete & Pete. On DVD. In my hands.

I've been waiting on Pete & Pete for weeks on end, and the day is mine! It's here!

Holy crap, did I ever love this show as a kid. I didn't see all that many of the episodes, but the memories I have of what I did see are extremely pleasant.

I know P & P had a bunch of hip guest stars and whatnot, but as a kid I just liked it for its surreal tone. A show like this one would never get off the ground today; Nickelodeon's glory days are far behind them.

1993 was really simple. Being thirteen was essentially an unpleasant gig, but it was simple: stay alive at school and try really hard to not look like you're trying really hard to get people to like you. Catching up w/ the Petes on Saturdays (as well as Salute Your Shorts, Hey Dude, Welcome Freshmen, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, etc....) made even the most miserable school experiences tolerable.

Yay 1993 TV programming! Yay Petes! (Hopefully, watching this won't make my Pete memories suck in retrospective...)

Ron Paul for President

I've been blissfully apolitical for awhile, mostly because it seemed that getting emotionally involved in the rat race was a recipe for guaranteed disappointment; it's for this reason that I don't watch the evening news. Especially on Fox.

So Josh tells me about this dude Ron Paul. RP is a Republican Congressman from Texas, and I say this literally - he is an Ideal Statesman.


I'm not going to tell you about his platform. Go check him out and get back to me. Dude is 71 years old and is an utter badass.

Forget all the Bipartisan squabbling and empty rhetoric you think is a necessary component to our national machine. If RP were Prez, this country would stop sucking wind.

That's really saying something.

I will see your Belushi and raise you a Murray

I read Scott Adams' blog (the Dilbert guy), and I've also read some of his books. One of them, The Dilbert Future, has a section at the end where he waxes poetic about the limits of human perception. I recommend that you read it; he makes some excellent points which I won't go into, but he describes a particular arrangement of Multiverse Theory that I found to be fascinating and plausible.

I'm not going to describe his theories; you should read the book for yourself. The reason I bring it up is because I remembered yesterday that Bill Murray's role in Ghostbusters had originally been written for John Belushi. So, in a (perhaps distantly) parallel universe, Belushi is the guy who says, "Egon, your mucus."

Just think about that for a second: can you see him pulling off Venkman? 'Cause I'm not buying it.

In fact, I'm going to say something the older readers may not like: I don't think Belushi was all that funny.


I've seen the Samurai skit with the sword-chopping, I've seen Animal House, I've seen most of Blues Brothers...whereupon I turned it off because of disinterest.

You might say there's a cultural / generational gap that prevents me from being amused by him, but I like all the other early work by the classic SNL / SCTV crew; Akroyd, Chase, Moranis, Levy, Candy (God love him), Ramis...heck, I even think Martin was sorta funny.

So, I'd categorize Belushi as the least funny guy out of this bunch, but Murray as - by far - the funniest. Because of this, I find it amazingly interesting that Murray's career might have been vastly minimized if not for Belushi's death.

Belushi in Ghostbusters? No, thank you. It sucks that he went out like that, but dude was no Dr. Venkman.

Mr. Sentimental

I re-watched What About Bob? over the weekend, a film I was introduced to at about age 10 by my Uncle Brett. If for some crazy reason you haven't seen this, get on it. It was made at the tail-end of Bill Murray's Golden Age (which closed with 1993's Groundhog Day) and is some deliciously funny stuff. The Drey Fuss is also in there, and he makes quite a fuss, just as you'd want him to. His frequent expressions of inarticulate rage are absolutely unforgettable.

Anyway, Bob makes a few references to Leo's family as "The Fam". I have a Fam of my own, and I often think of and describe them that way. Last week, my wife and daughter went to Savannah for a four-day Girl Scout expedition, and my two sons stayed with relatives to accommodate my work schedule. For a couple of days, I was living a life much like the one I had at 17.


One night last week, I went out with my pal to see Transformers (me going to a theater is pretty rare). After it was over, he rushed home to his family with some trepidation, as it was pretty late. I, on the other hand, meandered back to the strangely empty house and then went straight to bed.

After waking up Saturday and bumming around, it started sinking in that I've become totally domesticated. I'm not saying that I was non-functional or a weepy mess, just that their absence was clearly noticeable on an emotional level. I mentioned all this to a (single) buddy; he promptly called me a porno-word for female genitalia.

My friend won't understand until he's in my situation, but having the Fam is deeply good in a way that words tend to cheapen. What they mean to me is thrown into razor-sharp relief when they're away, even for a short while.

I'm grateful for my wife and children; they're irreplaceable.

I should be more obvious about that.

The Gnomes...they help me...

I've been re-writing "Bridger" to make it not be so freaking boring; I need some stuff to play solo that doesn't sound utterly retarded without Jake-o. Also (as he mentioned in an earlier post) I tend to get tired of our earlier material, which leads to a visit from The Revisionist Gnomes. "Bridger" in particular has been accused of sucking live because it's too long and plodding, so it was a good candidate for tweakage. I'm pretty satisfied with this shorter, more linear version; come out to a show - when I finally announce one - and hear it! Tell 'em "the Gnomes sent me" and you'll get free admission at the door. And yes, I'll be playing a free admission venue.

If you like-a the Toad, you'll like this: Glen was on some goofy show called JBTV (in Chicago) recently, and he talked for awhile and ran through a few acoustic numbers and whatnot. JBTV also played footage of a 1992 visit to the station from the entire band, who commenced to perform a rollicking and funny version of "Is It For Me?", which is about five minutes into the stream.

And now for something totally different: car talk.

I was having a particularly manly conversation with Daniel last week. We talked about cars.

That's a little unusual for me. I don't have any disposable income for cars; subsequently, I rarely think about them. That's why I was at a loss for a solid answer when he asked me what kind of sports cars I liked. I hemmed and hawed about Corvettes and RX-8's, but even if I had the green to blow on wheels, it's doubtful that I'd bother with anything so conspicuous.

So here's my solid answer; if the flow was no issue, I'd totally get a Tesla Roadster. It's all-electric, has a 200 mile range between recharges, and features torque and power curves that are vastly superior to what can be achieved with internal combustion technology. This thing is the sweet ride of the future, and as if to prove it, a lot of the units from the first production run (of 100) were snapped up by Google folks.

It'd be nice to spend less than a penny per mile in travel costs (price tag notwithstanding)...