I really miss Bill Hicks

Dear Dane Cook,

For the love of humanity man stop deluding yourself into thinking you are any of the following:

• Funny-- I know this will be hard with all those frat boys hanging on your every movement, but it would honestly be best if you come to terms with this now
• Creative-- We get it already you can't write your own jokes. So essentially you are this generation's Denis Leary. You know what you did Denis!
• Performing for a hearing impaired crowd. There is loud and appropriate and then there is you. Please refrain from crossing the line, sir. You are making a scene.
  
• Actually have anything that resembles a joke. This axiom should be paired with the first super-bullet but the reality of comedy is that a joke lack humour, so I figured this point really needed to be hit home.
• Hitler. If anyone understands this comparison I will bake you a batch of cookies.
• Have greater endurance than Dave Chappelle. Quit fronting.
  

As a side note, you really should thank Kevin Costner for beating you to death with a shovel in Mr. Brooks. I swear that made me laugh so hard. So I'll give you credit for making me laugh that one time. It's kind of like Spiderman, everyone gets one save.

With that we come to the end of another episode of Laura's Angry Open Letters. Stay tuned for more embittered rants and jabs at the mediocrity of the media today!

There is certainly no room for squares here

In two weeks I will be done my degree. Two weeks! Hard to fathom five years of this will be over and I shall have to pretend to be an adult. Pretend... until I start my next degree. This wonderful relationship education and I have. I'm anxious and excited about what lies ahead.


Presumably in two weeks I will also be able to devote much more time to music, both playing and enjoying. Presumably. I want to get my voice back up to singing quality, and maybe dust off the old keyboard. I never did learn to properly read sheet music. That and my didgeridoo has been mighty lonely so I guess I should be getting to the circular breathing.

In two weeks I am going to force myself to really write here about music and the world around me.

Until then...back to the grind!

If I could turn back time

I started to write this blog post much in the same way I would write my facebook status, then proceeded to smack myself on the desk. The Internet is amazing some days. I fear for the language skills of future generations. Sure they will have to have bionic thumbs implanted to handle their impressive texting skills, but they will still be unable to write without the pseudo l33t speak and fail to differentiate between its and it's. I miss Dawson's Creek. Despite the complete unbelievability of the words that came out of their 15 yo mouths, at least they were words that the Oxford dictionary could look at and say " well that is sure a word. Pip pip!" I miss the pip piping. And Gram's dirty looks. And Pacey. Lord I miss my dose of Pacey. Grown up Josh just isn't the same


I am sitting here listening to an Icelandic classical radio station. They are finally redeeming themselves after the Sugarcubes and Sigur Ros. Thank you Internet radio.


In other news I'm actually sitting down and writing more of my final paper. Nearly at ten pages now. Ten pages of intermittent coherency and rambling thoughts on atheist left wingery and religious right wingbats. If I can get 20 pages, I am really going to be shocked. It feels like the last week before summer vacation, where you know you've passed so you're all " Screw this, siesta time brain!". I had a teaching in high school who concurred with that thought, and in my last semester he only counted me absent 1 out of every 4 times I skipped ( I ended up with an A+ in the class, if that was what you were thinking). Good times, good times.

With that I bid you farewell. Writing for grades to commence.

I really should be writing a paper on left and right-wing evangelicalism......

So I'm going to deviate a bit here from my usual musical ranting and raving to talk about the current drama surrounding Prop 8 in California. You know the one I am talking about, repealing the right for same-sex couples to marry.

Let me set the record straight on this: I support the legal union of homosexual couples under the eyes of the law. I strongly believe they deserve and it is their right to be joined legally regardless of religion, in what we define as marriage. I do however think so much of this battle is for the ownership of a title. Same-sex couples have lived through the same defining characteristics of marriages for decades, so ideally this one step should not be hard to reconcile. Ideally being the key word in that sentence for those of you just joining us at home. I wish that the idea of marriage could be redefined. Being neither gay nor married I can't truly comprehend the importance either label is. That being said I still feel that legally same-sex couples deserve constitutionally the same marriage rights as heterosexual couples. Marriage under secular law, not religious. Never would I support the idea of allowing secular law to dictate religious customs and beliefs.

All of that being said, democratically I support the decisions that were made by the voting constituents of California. The sad fact of the matter is that no matter how regrettable the outcome, a decision was made by a majority. By the people, for the people. Sure the American public got a bit confused back in 2000 about the concept of majority with that grey area surrounding the electoral and college votes, but they are convinced they have a grasp of the value and necessity of a democratic system. Their current invasion of the Middle East is evidence enough of that. And please no e-mails about how they are fighting a war and not invading, pull your head out of your ass and realize that.

What saddens me in all of this is the absolute blind-eye that the majority (though small it may be) of Californians took to the concept of the separation of church and state. They are allowing a fundamental yet religious concept of "marriage" to supersede the actual ideals of a union. Why is it that being joined by someone in a religious authority is such an important defining factor in your union? In 20 years of living with someone, toughing it out through the bad times and living it up through the good ones, will your marriage be defined by who joined you, or will it be defined by how you lived it? If it is a man and a woman, or a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, how is the term marriage going to change your union? That question is directed at those who supported Prop 8 not the other way around. Restricting marriage under religion is one thing, but under secular law now that's jumping right into refusing fundamental rights.

In all of this however there is something in the backlash that I cannot stand: blaming the whole of a religion for the outcome of the vote. Recently media whore and he who is unable to spellcheck Perez Hilton called a personal boycott on the Sundance Movie festival in Utah because an article in the New York Times outlines how the Mormons in the U.S. are what gave the fight for Yes on Prop 8 it's final push. He says, and I quote "We CAN NOT in good conscience support or give money to people that see us as second-class citizens." Now disregarding his misuse of the first person plural, he is using nothing more than the same pathetic logic in boycotting that the fight for No on Prop 8 denounces. He defines an entire populace by a religion with no thought to the reality than many in the state of Utah may be moderate or liberal Mormons, or even Mormon at all. It is a slap in the face of both the intelligence and integrity of a population, as well as to the spirit of independence the festival stands for. If I were Robert Redford I would publicly denounce Perez Hilton, but Bob may have bigger fish to fry.

One of the good things about democracy and the world of politics is that you are able to voice discontent, well except in China. But they had lipsynchers at the Olympics so they don't count, right?

People have to want to change, and it would seem that they are not ready for it, as disappointing as that is.

This brings me no end of joy

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2008/11/stick_inducted_into_toy_hall_o.html

Tequila!

Apparently playing Time Splitters 2 and listening to traditional persian music at the same time are incongruous.... who knew? I live an incongruous life it would seem.

Clarification: I was listening to persian music while writing a rough draft for my final BA term paper, and then took a TS2 break. I

In between drinking tea and eating cranberry foccacia bread, that sums up my entire day.

Damn you Easy Rider

Is cursing this new found love of Gram Parsons and the Byrds on certain people.


Damn this ballad. Damnit it all!

I hear you calling, calling from the dead of the night

Two songs kept playing in my head during the American presidential election: "Tomorrow" from the musical Annie and Alice Cooper's "School's Out". I thought they were apropos and giggled to myself after humming them the entire evening.

I'm kind of glad the campaigning and election is over. I'm sick and tired of Bruce Springsteen really, and artists getting angry that McCain pilfered their song without permission. I'm ready to fall back into a complacent** state as my own country keeps digging a deeper hole which I now like to refer to as Harper Gate. It's like Heaven's Gate minus the computer geeks and ritualistic suicide. We're still worshipping an alien-like political figure though.


Congratulations President-Elect Barack Obama. You have inherited a horrible legacy and a devastated country. You inspired people back into electing, though that in itself is sometimes questionable.I wish you the best of luck in the four (personally I hope he runs for and wins a second term as well) years ahead.

In the immortal words of Freddie Mercury and Queen (and Leo Sayer!!): The show must go on!




** I'm not really complacent just frustrated and apathetic at the opportunity of reform in light of the Conservative turn my country has taken.

All he gave me was this ticket to heaven

I feel a twinge of nostalgia for Staind right now, and I don't know why.


Poll: Who likes the new singer for Alice in Chains?