It's been awhile since I've had time to write about things, but here's hoping that I can, you know, keep it up.  Today I want to reflect on the recent deaths of 3 men I admire.

Tim Russert

I like the news.  I don't necessarily mean that I like watching or reading it, but i love the journalistic process, and I am fascinated by the players involved, reporters, pundits, you name it.  I am frustrated and annoyed by the media, though, because of its focus on irrelevant bullshit (flag pins, something stupid someone's surrogate said, whatever).  The 24 hour news cycle has made bullshit the prime mover of our national conversation today.  The standard bearer for non-shitty broadcasting was Tim Russert.  I don't mean "non-shitty" as in "eh, he's better than those other clowns," I mean that the man was a fantastic newsman.  He never gave people a free pass, he was fair, he was honest, and he focussed on issues, rather than bullshit.  His sudden passing is a shock to the system, and I will sorely miss him.

George Carlin

Carlin is my all-time favorite stand-up artist.  His way of chasing after taboos with a verbal blowtorch was glorious.  Even when I disagreed with whatever point he was making (and he always had a point), I was both intellectually engaged in the ideas he was discussing and laughing my ass off.  Nothing was sacred, and everything was funny.  The other thing that I love about his work is that he had such a love of language: how it's used, how it sounds, and what it means.  His riff at the beginning of "You are All Diseased," which is more slam poetry than anything else, is a verbal blitz all put together by a nimble and brilliant mind.  Thank God he made 14 HBO specials that I can watch over and over.

Tony Snow

He was pretty much the only competent member of the Bush administration.  Although I disagreed with his politics in general, Tony Snow was very, very good at his job, significantly better than his two predecessors.  He knew how to do combat with the press without being condescending, and he was always energetic and quick-witted.  We can only hope that more presidential press secretaries can carry themselves with as much authority and skill as he did.

Oh, 'Bama! etc.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/us/politics/15cnd-obama.html?hp

And who says a liberal can't be the candidate of family values? Let it never be said that Obama doesn't have the balls to tackle some really sensitive shit.

In the meantime, it's Tony night, for which we're having a party, and a particularly nasty issue in my love life got a little more closure today (although not the kind I wanted). I'm not happy about it, but I'm on the path to recovery.

Our subletters move out this weekend, and Brian and I are going to throw a bigass party to celebrate. It's about damn time . . .

Russert

Tim Russert, roughly the last journalist with integrity working today, died this afternoon. I'm very sad about it. Rest in peace, Tim!

Slacker

Having enough autonomy at work to be able to effectively slack off is aaaaaaawesome. Around the time I realized that my maximum level of productivity would have the summer's work done in a week, I decided to be . . . judicious. I'm quite pleased with myself. Meanwhile, I'm applying at Madeleine's, because $$$ is nice. Good God, it is hot as hell in Ithaca, NY today!!!

Lunch break!

Well, I'm on my lovely little lunch break at the moment. Yep, I'm taking a break from copying the Yellow Pages into an Excel spreadsheet. Kill me.

I went out with Cori last night and got caught up and will be doing the same tonight. It's nice to have her around to listen to my neurotic rambling (there seems to be a lot of that these days). In the meantime, I discovered that the perfect cure for toxic, brooding thoughts is Stevie Wonder. Oh, how I love that man.

I'm more than a little aghast that Hillary Clinton is dropping out of the race tomorrow. I mean, I know that Obama won and all (Go, 'bama!), but I don't think I can remember a time when Hillary Clinton wasn't running for President. Freaky. I have a feeling that how well he does with all those "hard working white Americans" is going to depend very much on her. She damn well better campaign her ass off for him.

Stuff today

I felt like a pollster today. I started my summer job, which is marketing work at an accounting firm in Ithaca. Apparently, my two big projects are putting together a shitload of radio ads and making their website not suck. I spent the entire day researching ads on streaming internet radio, and I wound up spending most of that research doing demographic hunting. Did you know that men listen to internet radio 3 times as much as women? You didn't? Well, now you do, and you're a better person for it. 40% of all people who listen to internet radio are men between 25 and 44. The problem with this "sweet spot" is that guys that age probably aren't business owners or in positions within their places of work to be making decisions about accountants anyway. Yep, that's my life until Lear starts.

I've been reading that Hillary might finally make a damn concession speech on Tuesday (fingers crossed), which means that it's time for Obama to make nice with all the old white women that are pissed off at him (I'm not quite sure why the anger is directed at Obama, though . . . ). Meanwhile, Obama and McCain are VP hunting. Go Jim Webb! One of these days, this election season will make a damn fine movie. As it stands, especially for us liberals, it's like watching a very slow, very painful trainwreck. Can we please get this show back on track?

In other news, Matt left, Brian's coming home, and Richard (my subletter) keeps playing crappy techno/reggae/hiphop nonsense when I'm trying to sleep. Oh, and I saw The Strangers, which I thought was decent (albeit spare). Matt hated it. In the meantime, I'm waiting to get a credit card so I can buy my damn Oleanna script and get to work. Woo!

Thank you, Newsweek, for giving me the giggles day in and day out:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/138456

It's about Obama and racial difficulties, you know, the usual campaign whatever. The fun part is here:

"Obama's race may well explain his difficulty in winning over white voters. In the NEWSWEEK Poll, participants were asked to answer questions on a variety of race-related topics including racial preferences, interracial marriage, attitudes toward social welfare and general attitudes toward African-Americans. Respondents were grouped according to their answers on a 'Racial Resentment Index.'"

That's right, Newsweek has found a way to quantify how racist you are. I can't make this shit up.

Shame and Victory

Well, last night was an interesting set of contrasts. I went to trivia at Mellow Mushroom with Matthew and Sarah (I'll be doing that again tonight with Claire et al), and although we were holding strong in second place through the first three rounds, we crashed, burned, and exploded in the fourth round by getting no (count them, no) questions right. Ouch. Pursuant to that, I went over to Scott's and played Rock Band most of the damn night, and it was here that I regained my sense of honor for the evening.. Well done Rock Band drumming may be a rather . . . loserly victory, but it'll do under the circumstances.

I am bored as hell in Atlanta. Fortunately, I go back to Ithaca this weekend, and we start rehearsals for King Lear next week, wooo!

Reboot

I had a few posts on this blog from a year or two back, but I obliterated them in the interest of starting fresh and actually making an attempt to be fairly regular with posting, or at least more regular than I have been.