Bill Maher Kicked My Ass
05.20.05 (11:18 pm) [edit]Rather than a regular review, let me simply paraphrase some of the wonderful stuff from last night's Bill Maher show at the Taft Theatre in Cincinnati.
"Welcome to an evening of faith-based humour and Christian conversation."
"Marriage was cooked up by the Catholic church in order to stamp out blowjobs."
"Rush Limbaugh was taking 30 Oxycontin a day. Do you have any idea how high that can get you? I don't, and I've been pretty fucking high."
"They say the drug war is supposed to protect the children. But they never talk about the good things drugs have done. They've midwifed a lot of good ideas. A lot of good songs. Penny Lane? I think that's worth ten dead kids. Dark Side Of The Moon? That's worth 100 dead kids."
(Very Bill Hicks on that last one, eh?)
"There are people who seem to preface every reply to what you say with 'Well, I'm a Christian...' as if that automatically gives them the moral high ground."
"I'm starting to tell people 'I'm Swiss. Yeah, I'm just visiting here.'"
"We're feeding sick cows that can barely stand to fat people who can barely stand."
"They told George W. Bush that the country was under attack and he sat there for seven minutes. Presumably waiting for the piss to dry. Seven minutes is a long time in the nuclear age. Bush and Blair sold us on the idea that Saddam had nuclear weapons that could reach Europe in 45 minutes. So even seven minutes is a very long time. Any other president would have gotten up the second he was told the country was under attack. Clinton would have gotten up. Reagan would have gotten up. FDR would have gotten up, and he COULDN'T GET UP.
And this is the nuclear age, it's not 1790. Even then, 'Sir! The British have just set sail from Portsmouth!' 'Well, what are you waiting for?? Let's go! They'll be here in three months!"
"Let's put the fetus on the dollar bill. And Reagan."
"Some people say the gay marriage thing isn't a big deal because they can still do their thing anyway. I get friends who tell me the same kind of thing about drug legalization. 'Gee, Bill. Does it matter if drugs are legal? You can just go out the back door behind the club and smoke your pot. I've seen you do it a hundred times.' And you know what I say to them? FUCK you. You take your brandy out the back door and drink it."
"George Bush is a willful little prick, isn't he?"
(After immediately being booed for bringing up the name Ann Coulter) "Yeah, yeah, I know. But she's different when she's coming."
"If anyone tells you the public owns the airwaves, laugh in their face. Rupert Murdoch owns the airwaves. You own a Sony. Big difference."
"The only person in this country fired over terrorism after 9/11 was ME."
And lots more. It was a wonderful night. He came on half an hour late and only went about an hour and fifteen, which didn't make me very happy. But every damn thing he said made me VERY happy. The funniest, smartest comedian in the country. I wanted to see if he would come out after the show so I could try to meet him, but it looked unlikely, so I bailed. I had the perfect line for him. I figure if you're walking up to a comedian, who makes his living provoking people and trying to shock them out of their complacency, you might as well have a great opening line. Mine was "Hi Bill! I'm gay for you!" I thought that might work. Oh well, maybe next time.
His next HBO special is called I'm Swiss and is on in July. Real Time starts back up in August. I can't wait.
Dougie
Happy Birthday, Katie!
05.17.05 (11:51 am) [edit]My daughter is four today. I'll be seeing her in a coupel hours at the party Sheryl is giving her at the daycare. I've got a Lion King toy for her, and a gift card to a toy store, where I intend to take her tomorrow evening to let her use the card for what she wants.
I LOVE YOU KATIE!
Daddy
Damn, I'm tired
05.13.05 (4:15 pm) [edit]Not just from not sleeping much, but from my brain bouncing back and forth so much. It's seeming to be slowing down a bit in the last couple days, but that happens sometimes right before going through it again. I don't know what would happen if I wasn't taking my lithium, because this is how I felt right BEFORE I started taking it, a year ago when I checked myself into the hospital for a couple days.
I have to work hard on keeping this away from Sheryl and Katie though, and I haven't done that. I've failed miserably at that. I've not done bad with Katie lately, but I know I'm bugging the shit out of Sheryl, and I keep doing it anyway. Shit. I keep thinking about myself and Katie, but I've been just as bad to Sheryl since I first left as I was before. I only hope she knows how fucking hard it is to keep things straight in my head right now.
I need to back off, though, because she wants to keep our relationship from now on based only around Katie and not on all this other crap I'm going through, and I don't want to make her hate me anymore than she probably already does. Shit, I was such a goddamn whiner the last couple times I talked to her. She doesn't need that.
I'm worried that she's going to be even more pissed now that I'm trying another direction (yes, again) though I'm trying to be smarter about this one. I've not been able to make up my mind about a fucking thing for so long now that I'm terrified of this ending too fast too, but I have something a little better to hang onto now.
My old band wants me back. In fact, they're playing a huge festival in Marion in a couple weeks and want me for that. Thousands of people, a lot of oldies bands, several old actors, far and away the biggest thing I've ever been involved in. After that it's back to the bars, but the fact is, I love these guys. Most of the music is too tame, but what the fuck else am I going to do out here? It's the fucking Midwest. This place is never going to be more than a minimal outlet for things that are really close to my heart. So this will have to do for now, and to tell the truth, I'm really into it, because I finally feel like I'm connecting to something again, something I have some kind of roots in. I came back here for my daughter, but I have to have something for myself too, or I'm only going to deteriorate until I'm utterly useless to Katie. I can't do that to her. I've done enough just being so fucking erratic lately.
I don't want to hurt them, dammit. I don't. I already have and I don't want to do it anymore.
Sheryl wants me to be more "businesslike" (a term from our wretched parenting class we had to sit through recently) and I haven't been confident in my ability to do that. But if I don't...I don't want to think about it. But I'll start by fighting the urge to call her so often. I'm not giving her enough space, and in a divorce, "enough" means a fuck of a lot. I'll try to stay out of her way. I only hope she understands how hard it is for me to do that. How hard it is for me to do anything that actually needs to be done. I'm not sure she understands what goes on in my head, how fucking UNPOSSIBLE it s for me to think straigh so much of the time. Maybe she does understand. Fuck, I don't know. I don't know much of anyhting anymore. Except that this divorce is MY fault and I'm the only asshole who can make things any better.
I've not had as much problems for two days now. I hope I can hang on to that.
Well, I'm still ADD as hell because I didn't finish what I was trying to say above. I'm wanting to be with my old band again and play bass. It's the one thing in the world I feel I'm truly good at, and I've not done nearly enough of it for five years now. To do this, I need to be closer to them, which takes me farther from Katie. I'm not happy about that, but like I said, I have to do SOMETHING for myself beyond just exist if I'm going to be any good for her. So I'm moving to Indianapolis. I was thinking about this anyway even a week and a half ago, but it seems to be the best way of doing both. It's not too far away from them or from Katie. I've got a few friends there I know the place, and best of all, I'll be able to have a job quick. The temp agency here in town I'm working for has offices there and it's no problem for me to switch over there. They've been REALLY good to me in the past week or so.
So I have something to look forward to on this move, not just go in blind like I have been lately. I have to do it quick, though. I'm so goddamn stupid with my money I'm lucky I have any left at all. But I've been better about that for a couple days too.
I hope it lasts. I don't want to go back to that fucking hospital. I'm really afraid of myself right now.
Hope you're all doing much beter than me,
Dougie
Assbake?
05.08.05 (3:15 pm) [edit]Seriously. The word "assbake" came into my head the other day out of nowhere. I need to update my Obscenity Of The Day page again, it's been a month at least now.
Well, I'm running out of money and I need a place to stay quick, but I do start a new job tomorrow.
I've been out of my head for weeks, driving around aimlessly in the wilderness (well, the Midwest), with fuck all of a clue what I'm doing. I even was about to take my last job back and settle into a place when I bailed on it and instead spent a couple weeks driving all over southern Indiana and Ohio looking for a guitar teaching gig. It didn't happen. Apparantly nobody needs to be showed power chords to bad punk songs anymore. And I was so good at it too!
I worked briefly for a temp agency a year and a half ago, so I came back here a few days ago (been back and forth between here and my parents' in Marion) and went there. They got me a job immediately. So I'll be part of the auto industry at a factory right across the road from the first house that Sheryl and I lived in together. Weird energy there.
I'm looking at an apartment in nearby Lebanon which is a bit more money than I wanted to pay, but it seems to be well worth it, particularly in this part of the area which is more expensive than much of Cincy. That's a joke, though. A month ago I was ready to live in California, which is three times as much as anything here. Shit, back in Marion there's little holes that would cost FOUR times as much in LA. So even though I'd rather be out there, this place has its advantages.
If not for Katie, though, I'd be back there in a second. Right now, I want to put a house trailer in the middle of the fucking Mojave and be Captain Beefheart. Oh FUCK how I wish I could do that. I'm actually thinking of doing the closest thing to that I can here, and save up enough cash to buy one of those little plots of land surrounded by cornfields that you see out in the country here in the Midwest. I don't want to be far from the city, but I definitely relate to one aspect of "good ol' country livin'", and that's being the fuck away from people when you go home. Maybe I'll buy a shotgun and sit on the porch waiting for dinner to walk buy. Yep, I've probably got a bit more redneck in me than I want to admit.
The apartment in Lebanon looks best now, even after seeing a cheaper place in South Lebanon an hour or so ago. It was bigger, had a much bigger kitchen (good for me, since I've got into cooking in the past several years) and there's even a small deck outside (it's upstairs) to sit out and enjoy some air. It's a really nice place for what it is, and after all is said and done it would likely translate into cutting a fifth of the cost off the other place I'm thinking about.
But the funny part is that the woman who owns it (who looks like the prototypical small town Sunday School teacher) is apparantly scared of me. I think she'd rent me the place, I'm pretty sure of it, but the level of uptightness was a thing of beauty and high humour for me. I had to work at hiding my amusement. I had my hair back, black pants and shoes, wearing my Hunter Thompson t-shirt with the Gonzo fist and dagger symbol on front. I did that VERY intentionally. Level the field, say I. I WANT people to turn me away if that's their reason.
She made a point not once, but twice, to inform me that both rooms downstairs were occupied by Christians (to which I wanted to say "Cool! Think they're into buttsex?") and had that sort of heavilly-forced friendliness that I recognize immediately from having grown up with fundamentalist nitwits who are still shocked by the Beatles and who automatcially associate male hair length past the ears with dope-fiends and outlaw rapists. They'll be nice to you. Jesus TOLD them to be nice. But that doesn't mean they want to. Oh, they don't. That might expose them to nasty little things that they have been safely sheltered from their whole lives. Like...oh, I don't know...cable TV, for instance. The horror! The horror!
And frankly, I just need a place to live. When I start bringing in the gerbils and bacon grease, I don't want to have people knocking on my door asking unnecessary questions. I don't need that aggravation in my life.
But it's still tempting. I'll go to the other place first after my first day of work tomorrow.
In other news, I've suddenly found myself addicted to the first Rage Against The Machine album.
Dougie