what a snob my dad was.

i'd always suspected it, but it wasn't clear until this morning when rick santorum said that the president was "what a snob!" in wanting everyone to go to college. my dad wanted all his kids to go to college, but that was because he was such a snob. it's not like he sacrificed everything in order to start a good career instead of pursuing a baseball career. no, he got my mom pregnant when she was 16 so he could be a snob and not play baseball semi-professionally and instead make enough money to pay for his kids to go to snobby college and be brainwashed by liberal college snobby professors. snob!

well, julie joined the army because she wanted to see the world; jess got an athletic scholarship; jack dabbled in guitar and drugs, quit the drugs, became a devout christian and remains a phenomenal guitar player to these ears, which actually means something, believe it or not (you may or may not recall that i happen to be a regular snobby mcsnobbington when it comes to music); al walked on his college football team and got a full ride the next year. so far so good, right?

then there's me, snobert e. litist jr., off to new york city to study music and such, the son of the son of a farmer, who didn't own the land they farmed because lemuel marlow was tighter than a snare drum. (see, dad married up when he married mom; her family spread the wealth insofar as iowa farmland could be considered wealth.)

what's... cute, for lack of a better word, is that dad would've agreed that not evertybody should go to college, because not everyone can get into college. he would've noted that college is a merit-based concern, that, indeed, those not going to college fulfill valuable roles in the non-academic sphere as well as in it. but i don't think that's what our friend rick meant. i think he meant that people who go to college are liberal drones sent there to be inculcated by liberal teachers so that they accept things without question. except for when the college sort of teaches them to question everything. so now i'm confused.

dad also would've noted how european rick's notion of higher education is, that those that don't get in get sent to trade schools to learn screendoor repair and mouth breathing. so now i'm confused.

i guess that the only thing i can be sure about is that my dad was a european elitist snob with no money until he had money to send his kids to college and was only happy when we were? as long as we were snobs about it all? yet taught us that education was a privilege, even if we couldn't spell it, which meant we needed to be...snobs about it?

barbarians at the gates of the academy of motion

have you been to the movies? i haven't. but i can't resist the one time of year where hollywood people take their rightful place at the center of attention, population: them. the last movie i went to see at the theatre was either "team america: world police" or "water world 2: the spawning of lord foul's bane". but seeing as how last weekend's snl hosted by maya rudolph was 90 minutes of genius, and that billy crystal is still a little bit relevant, i think we can all assume oscar will run away with the awards, that there are no losers, except for those who didn't win, and that if mental retardation were fuel that the republican frontrunners could power the moon long enough for newt to repopulate it again, and that either one of those bigoted rice cakes would be about as effective running america as a magic 8 ball would be running a brothel. snap! which begs the question as to whether or not we need to refer to "the artist" as "a freedom" film. are we still doing that?

ah, michigan.

i love michigan. i was born here. the trees. their heighth. the heighth of the trees, so well and pleasingly. and the lakes. the lakes. i love the lakes. the great lakes are so great and pretty. land of a thousand lakes. and thousand islands. i love them and their dressing on my salad. and cars. i love cars, with the wheels and the country music on the hifi unit in the cars. i have a car here in michigan where i was born. then i governed in new england as a severe conservative. i was morbidly conservative in england of the new. oh the lakes there are not like the heighth of the trees here. and shoes.
oh beautiful and special skies. oh embers waves and trains. for purple fountains pageant trees and love of insane things. americans. americans. god praise his gays on me. and found thy hood which brother would on sea through blinding sea...

it's its own kind of poetry, really. but how ironic that he's the only white man on the planet who could actually be characterized as some kind of fucked up uncle tom.

OH THOSE NUTTY GRAMMYS!!!!!!!!!!!!

sorry about the spelling.
just a couple quickies. it makes me chortle that katie perry was terrified of her parents' finding out that she was going to get D-I-V-O-R-C-E'd but she's perfectly comfortable up there on the stage re-enacting MATRIX 4HORE's s&m scene in front of 14.8 trillion people. chortle. adele is a musician's singer, and i'm sick and tired of all these goddamn limies with their perfect time feels. (see also christopher martin and joss stone) it also makes me guffaw to see her just kind of stand there and sing without all those faggotted dancers gyrating to last year's cheese, literally. follow that, skeeziks! then there's that one old guy who used to be a beetle. beatle. beetle? also, i don't like to hate, but i really do hate sarah palin. and i wouldn't have turned away had she made her grammy debut in the BEST IGNORANT TWAT CATCHING ON FIRE EXPLODING category. oh well. and finally, consider mitt singing "oh beautiful" and fletch singing the national anthem and then saying, "that's right, i said it, hug a cop." now figure out which is funnier. also, whitney was a singer's singer, and that douche nozzled talentless bobby brown got her hooked on the junk and she never got off it. she went from genius to punchline well on her way to where are they now status. too bad she was the first pop star to dare to hit the middle of the note since karen carpenter, and that they both got killed by rolling stone and rolling stones: karen by her mom, and whitney by a house nigger. (see also etta james) lastly, glen/glenn campbell seemed always to be on the radio when dad and i took road trips. good guitar player, bad coke head. i blame tanya, also devoid of talent. glenn's forgotten more about country music than we'll ever learn, or he'll ever remember. (see also bad taste) and one more thing: i have a great deal of affection for all you guys. we'll get through this. but fuck is it cold.

anxiety, &c., and things of that nature and so forth

hey guys. i've been struggling the last couple days. i don't know what the deal is. i'm here in piqua and have everything i could need, basically, and i do mean basically. but the mood swings have become confusing. today is 8 months and 3 weeks. i'm not bragging, i don't want a medal or anything, but these fucking mood swings send me into these little panic attacks. i suppose i could find some meetings, but it's not like that exactly. i don't know. there are times when i feel much happier than i think i deserve to be. euphoria, almost. you know, finding a sweet stash of wood for several days, hauling it across the field, moonpie racing by me, happy as can be, snow falling on cedars (never read that), she just running cause she can, trying to cut me off like she's getting the better of me, which she is to my delight. fuck, i don't know, i've done enough thinking for 3 lifetimes and i've gotten to a little place where doing is more pleasurable than it's been... shit, ever. i'm alone, and i'm much happier here by myself than i was staying with al and his family. it's complicated. what isn't complicated is life here. it's becoming elegantly simple and meaningful. so what the fuck is it with my stupid brain that i feel like i need an off switch still? i don't crave alcohol at all, and i don't want to drink because it turns me into someone i don't recognize, and it turns me into someone i recognize all too well. weird: i do miss pot, of all things. it's cold and getting colder, yet this stove rules all and i don't mind a life built around it even on the worst of days. then what's with all the angst? christ. anyways, mitt romney is a cunting whorebag, which makes me wonder if my troubles are karma related. hmm...