Cable censors are absolutely absurd. I'm watching a stand-up comedian's act on comedy central. Here's what's going on.

He references god numerous times. But, every time he says "god damnit" he gets bleeped. The individual words he gets away with, "god" and "damnit" seperately, but put them together: "*beep* damnit"

And this is one I hadn't noticed before, but this comedian used the phrases "punk-ass bitch" and "ass-kicking" without getting bleeped, and yet he said "*beep* in the *beep*" when he tried to say "fucked in the ass." So apparently it's not the words that are offensive, it's their context? I don't even pretend to understand.

  posted by Matthew @ 7:55 PM

 
Kudos to this guy, definitely.

And by the way, if you haven't yet, do a google search for french military victories and click on the first result. Somebody's got a pretty goofy sense of humor. Just because they've had a bad century or two...

  posted by Matthew @ 4:45 PM

 
I continue to be irony's bitch.

People who know me relatively well might know of my hatred for Rufus Wainwright, which was due in no small part to the movie Shrek, which I didn't care for. There's a song in that movie, a version of Leonard Cohen's spectacular "Hallelujah" that was so hideously misused that I nearly walked out. After seeing the movie, I went online, checked Amazon, and saw that Rufus Wainwright's Hallelujah was the one used on the soundtrack. So I started despising the man for letting his cover of a great song be used with such a piece of animated tripe. I have since learned, much to my chagrin after two years of hating him, that it was not in fact his version that appeared in the movie. It was John Cale's, which the producers - or whomever - couldn't get the rights to for the soundtrack. So Wainwright's was substituted. It's an understandable misconception, but here's the kicker. I have a song from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, "Compliante de la Butte," that I always really enjoyed. Yesterday, I discovered it was in fact performed by Mr. Wainwright. I don't know what to think anymore.

With that solid foundation of distaste shattered, I am going overboard with an attack on Russel Crowe by message board with a friend of mine. He's another artist I don't particularly care for, so I'm just overcompensating.

Blast you, irony!

  posted by Matthew @ 3:05 PM

 
Jesus-Fuck-My-Eye-Christ. I finally found a message board post that somebody actually wrote which embodies the absurdity of the whole thing completely. I found it here.

"Comment by WinTime Monday, November 10th, 2003 at 03:54.
The Matrix Revolutions is the perfect film to complete the trilogy. It reveals the ignorance of the critics and masses (read Plato). The Matrix success is that it awaken the psyches (Greek for soul) of many who watch it repeatedly and found that they where keen to concepts of philosophy and metaphysics.

The responsible was therefore left to the individual to study and prepare themselves to be worthy of the effort made primarily to the content. But what effort did you bring, did you read your bible, did you read Plato, did you read Russell, did you read the Prince of Machiavelli, did you read 100 pages this year of any classic philosophy or did you just watch the movie hoping the answer would be spoon feed to you. Remember there is no spoon.

Everyone will agree that the special effects are spectacular but it is the narrative that gives the trilogy its depth and texture.

Ask yourself what do you know of the relationship of yin and yang and how does it play within the structure of the film. Which one is dark and which one is light, which one is feminine and which one is masculine. Do you use these concepts in your own life to be the good man (read Plato dialogue of Socrates). If you have, you will understand what I have written, if you have not then please learn to be wise and speak only when spoken to."

Australia once said in an amusing flash movie, "WTF, mates?" As a philosophy major, I take personal offense to this. There is not a single coherent thought in those four paragraphs, not a one. Part of me hopes that post was created by a "fuck-with-the-guys-who-take-this-too-seriously" program that was written by a philosophy and comp.sci double major somewhere, because it distresses me that there are people (or at least one person) who can hold this thought in their heads without their skulls exploding. And no, I'm not making fun of this WinTime individual because English is their second language (I hope to god it is, anyway). It's the content I'm making fun of.

By the way, here's another amusing (if slightly more perverse) flash movie. Ah, I wish I could write an academic treatise about how flash movies signify the return of minimalism. Well, I guess I know I could write one. But nobody would care. And really, upon reflection, good for them.


  posted by Matthew @ 10:59 PM

 
I feel weird. Okay, I always feel weird, but something unusual's going on...

I feel like I did about three years ago. By that, I don't meant that I'm experiencing some kind of emotion that I haven't felt since then, it's just that - I think - there's a particular combination of emotions that I haven't had in this ratio since then, I guess. Something like that, anyway.

It's like how there are smells that I associate with seasons. Not smells that I recognize what they are (e.g BBQs in summer or fireplace fires in winter) but smells that are very general and signify - to me - the change of seasons. I say it's how the air smells. I don't know what it is, but when I detect the smell that says "winter" to me, it reminds me of other winters I've experienced in the past. That's kind of what I've got going now.

I'm listening to music I listened to then and feeling the same way about it. I'm remembering things more vividly than I used to. In some ways, it's a good feeling... kind of exhilirating, I think. But on the other hand, looking back at my junior year of high school, there's a lot of things I regret.

When I started writing this, I wasn't sure why I was having such mixed feelings about this resurgance of old emotion. But now I figured it out. That was the most exciting period in my life, thus far. By far, the most was going on then. Of course, that's when I made more and worse mistakes, but I suppose that's to be expected, isn't it? That's an odd realization to come to. This requires some thought...

Funny you should have had Aimee Mann in your head, Peg. Well, not ha-ha funny...

  posted by Matthew @ 7:06 AM