MORE DISSENT IN THE RANKS

I see from the comments board over yonder that the sound muttering may be rising in the audience about how Doc40 has been getting too grim and political lately. In fact, blanche and some girl may be right. I’m constantly catching myself sounding as though I was on a one note bender of Bush, culture wars, and impending doom. Is this true I ask myself? And back comes the answer: “Of course it is. Lighten up now and again.” But then one of the other voices in my head counters with, “How could it be otherwise? Who the fuck do you want to be? Ryan Seacrest? Yesterday some assholes blew up Madrid.” So thus I wrestle with the dilemma of how to fight the good fight...

(A bloody great spider just walked across the legal pad next to my computer. I shoo it away with a Post-It. Begone child of Shelob.)

...without becoming a fucking bore?

FUN STUFF FOR SATURDAY

Well okay, I thought. It’s Saturday. Let’s get down with the light hearted trivia and see where it takes us. And then I looked around at what there was and found a tip-off on the new David Mamet movie from Henry C. Beck and wadda y’know? The movie is bloody grim and bloody political. Then I find a website called God Hates Shrimp, but that turns out to be political satire – but funny in an Old Testament, exoskeletal kinda way. (http://www.godhatesshrimp.com/)

Which leaves me with Safe For Work porn site which seems humorously to demonstrate how porn will look if we lose the culture war. (http://www.area29.com/sfwporn/)

And then there’s the chance for a sick grin at the expense of the mundanely demented at Group Hug (http://grouphug.us/) where strangers post anonymous confessions, as in...

I slept with one of my best friend's girlfriend. I feel guilty about it, she feels guilty about it, but I would still do it again given the opportunity. She's so hot.

or...

I sniff white out and magic markers all day while at my desk. I have an office job.

or...

I live with three other girls. I like one of them and want the other two to die. I dream of axe murderers breaking down the door and them dying. They are fat slobs who just eat bacon and sound like elephants.

And finally we have Lithium Journals which the is the blog of a strange young man from an “imaginary metaverse” who writes like some seriously depressed 21st century neo-Burroughs and whose work I really dig, while finding it a trifle disturbed and disturbing. (http://lithiumjournals.theoutcast.com/) Here’s a taste...

razors and guns. the coolest fucking bandaids, ever. they will fix you right and proper and when they are done, the only scab left is you.

i am an unwilling survivor of a life i never wanted. i speak to the ghost of the child who died inside my mother months before i was born. she tells me, she says, "luck of the draw." i look at my hand and i see the two jokers, the jack of spades, the queen of diamonds and the king of clubs. the jokers mock and laugh, the jack of spades regards me with mild curiousity. the queen of diamonds looks at me with hatred and contempt while the king of clubs whispers, "fold while you can

BECK ON SPARTAN

As to Bush and the administration– In the new Mamet thriller, Spartan, which I saw the other night, the President's daughter is picked up at a cat house and dragged off to be the plaything of some white slavers in the Middle East. The slavers don't know who she is.
Spoilers:
Val Kilmer thinks his job is to rescue her, but when she ends up dead (somewhere else altogether) he takes it to heart. Why I mention all this is that in Mamet's movie, the Prez is out with her secret service detail getting his horn scraped, leaving her vulnerable. And when she goes missing, the White House fakes her death, more than anything because she's an embarrassment, it's a re-election year, and they could give a fuck if she's getting passed around the camel lads. The woman (secret service) who actually raised the girl says to Kilmer, "These people are savages. They don't even know how many kids they have." There's more of that sort of exposition that I can't remember offhand, but it's a very very nasty picture of politicians in general and the Presidential family specifically. One doesn't often see such a bitter and dismal and probably accurate view of the heartless ruthlessness of the people on top. A bit of a surprise, actually. It's like the church--Bishops and administrators pretending they are unaware of the huge volume of in-house abuses, when dealing with the mold on the human soul is their very raison, venality their stock-in-trade. If it weren't for sin, they'd be out of work. There's no room for illusion on their end. How many confessions do you suppose a priest has to listen to before his faith in human nature, assuming he ever had any, is reduced to compost?

CRYPTIQUE – Smile when you say that.