Members of the Silly Hats Only club, unite!

I have now witnessed the greatest thing ever animated. Rejected by Don Hertzfeldt. Buy/download it immediately. You will thank me.

I kick ass for the lord, my son

I ask you, who is your coach?

"Woah there son, a forearm block goes like this!"
Pictured above, Jesus instructing a child to his blackbelt.

Oh, and I will give $5, American, to anyone who gets the refference made in the title of this post.

I have joined the most elite of companies...

I have now joined the elite ranks of Jeff Foxworthy and Don Rickles, and I couldn't be any happier. Last saturday night was my last ever show with comical improvisation troupe Half Masted 3.2, and as a parting good bye, the rest of the troupe roasted me in the good-natured fashion of the Friar's club. I laughed, I cried, and I learned that I apprently talk really loud and clap my hands somewhat like a mokey.

Also, a girl had to go the hospital with a concussion.

Seriously, though, in my life thus far I've done very few things that I will look back on as fondly and with as much pride as being in this truope, which is an extremely sad indictment of what a meaningless life I've lead. But still, it's been really fun.

I don't seek out controversy, controversy just finds me...

So for those of you who go to UNI or live in the Cedar Valley area, you may have picked up tuesday's copy of the Northern Iowan. And you may have seen an article about the improv troupe I'm in, Half Masted 3.2. Well, to accompany the article, we sent them several publicity photos we had takenseveral moths ago (note my shorter dreadlocks) and they chose one to put in their fine publication. To be most accurate, for their half-page photo they chose this one:














I'm the fellow standing in the back at the top, for those of you not familiar with my earthly visage. Can you notice anything wrong with the picture? Well, I can. Not knowing this picture was ever going to be used for publicity (being as it is a very silly picture), I decided to use Jesse's patented fingerpenis(TM) to make with the funny business. Well, apparently the editors of the NI didn't notice, but several very angry students did. Now my fingerpenis(TM) has gotten the troupe and our director in some hot water. Obviously this was not my intention.

Nothing else to say, but good thing I didn't use my actual penis.

Obligatory penis joke:
Jesse: "Good thing I didn't use my actual penis"
Clever Reader: "That's ok, no one would have been able to see it. Zing!"

But I'ma the figgin' a pope!

So I've been really busy and haven't had time weigh in with my thoughts and feelings about the new pontiff yet, but has anyone else noticed that we've elected the evil emporer form Star Wars as the new pope? I can't be the only one who's noticed the similarities, both physical and otherwise...

What?!? The police told a lie?!?!

You may have heard about all those violent protestors at the Republican convention this year in New York. They must have been very violent, because over 1,000 people were arrested. At one recent trial, a policeman testified that the defendant had to be subdued and carried off by 4 police officers because he was so beligerant. Well, according to a videotape of what actually happened, the man was arrested by only one officer and walked calmly to the police vehicle after being cuffed. In fact, the officer that gave such a vivid testimony of this man kicking, biting, scrathing, and committing all other forms of assault was not even actually at the scene. And this has been the norm for many of the trials. Oh, and this informaiton didn't come from indymedia or some other hippie site, but from that fairly reputable New York Times.

They haven't done enough to ruin their own religion, now they feel they have to ruin mine, too

So the other day on FOX news (yes, that FOX news) the guest on Neil Cavuto's show was Hussein Ibish of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committe. When Ibish mentioned that the Pope impressed the Muslim world by being so strongly against the Iraq war, the discussion went as follows:

Ibish: "I think he impressed a lot of people in the Arab and Islamic world by taking a strong stance against the war in Iraq and by taking, by rejecting, you know, very categorically the idea of preemptive warfare, and what have you. So, he was respected both as a religious figure but also as a political figure who was able to be a friend of Israel and a friend of the Palestinians at the same time. Something we might want to..."

Cavuto, interrupting: "Well, to be fair, his views were not that black and white on the war in Iraq, but, Hussein thank you very much."

Ibish: "No. I think you're wrong about that."

Cavuto: "Well, we can argue but I don't want to argue with you today because I like you."

Well, actually Mr. Cavuto, you can't argue about it. For you see, my conservative friend, the Pope called the war on Iraq both a "defeat for humanity" and "immoral, illegal, and unjust" both of which I think make his stance fairly clear. But as always, I report and you decide.

And then there were 3...

Ok, so I don't want to become one of those people who blogs about pointless life-type things that no one cares about, but I have a dilemma. As most of you know (or maybe not most of you, assuming people I don't know may be reading my blog...probably not, though) I'm in the middle of applying to grad school. Well, actually, I'm at the end of it. To be specific, I have 8 days before I need to inform schools as to whether or not I will be attending them. Here's the stats on the schools I applied to.

University of Wisconsin Madison--Tied for best sociology graduate program in the nation. However, extremely funky funding situation means I would always be wondering if I could afford to eat the next semester, so they're effectively out.

University of Oregon--My fallback school I only applied to in the freak chance that everyone else denied me admission. Screw 'em.

University of California Berkeley--The other school tied for number 1. As such, they are offering me very little in funding, meaning I would have to go into debt if I went there. Although their prestige is very handy in finding a job after graduation, they also have an earned reputation of being a place where the faculty just don't give a fuck about their grad students succeeding or failing.

University of California Santa Barbara--Pretty nice funding package offered, temperature in the 70s 320 days a year, three faculty with whom it would quite benefit me to work with. Top 20 school, so my career options are still open. However, Santa Barbara is kind of a small town, and the cost of living is very high there.

University of Minnesota Twin Cities--By far the best funding package, also a top 20 school. However, they're very focused on breaking back into the Top 10, and as such, really discourage students from street-level activism, of which I'm quite fond. Not too sure how many faculty they have that I really want to work with.

Boston College--By far the coolest school. Full of crazy left-wing faculty who are always getting arrested for verious causes and writing really cool stuff. However, has a very low departmental rating, which would make it hard to find employment afterwards.

Univrsity of Michigan Ann Arbor--Denied me entrance. Fuck 'em.

So you can see the quandry I am in. Where the hell should I go to grad school?!? I only have 8 days to figure this out, people!

Is Lil' Jon a nerd? Yeeeeaaaaah!

So you've probably already seen this, but in case you haven't, this is Lil' Jon's senior picture. Man, I have more street cred than this guy, and I don't even have a diamond-encrusted crunk juice chalice.

I've been attacked by the right-wing attack machine! Hurrah!

So, I was doing that thing where you google your own name and see what there is about you out on the ol' internet, and I stumbled across something very interesting. Several months ago, I wrote a letter to the Editor of the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier (I'd link to it, but they don't archive letters to the editor this long) about how it's actually protestors, not the military, that get us our freedoms (the end of segregation, the GI Bill, freedom of speech, Social Security, the weekend, the 40 hour work week, child labor laws, to name a few). Anyhoo, some right-wing jerk-off posted it on his blog! It's way down at the bottom of the page (right above some drunken pictures of former ISU coach Larry Eustachy) in which he reprints the entirety of my article. He then informs me that this is "off the scale of lunacy" and that some needs to get me my medication. I'm not even sure how he knew I had a sore throat when I wrote that article.

But yes, stating indesputable historical facts is "off the scale of lunacy." This must be why there are no conservative college professors--they get very angered by intelligence, or even the simple reciting of facts.

Of course, I can be really upset by him being mean to me, because he also has a very erudite post in which he claimes the Associated Press is a terrorist organization. We'd better shut down EVERY NEWSPAPER IN AMERICA then, because they all use AP articles.

Quick! My meds!

Maybe that's why they're so obedient

So I stumbled across the best thing to come out of England since fish, but not chips. The term "dog whistle politics," a phrase the English use to describe political phrases meant to be only heard by certain segments of the population, much the way your puppy is the only one to hear the annoying shreik of a dog whistle.

For an example...

When asked about evolution, George Bush said he hasn't made up his mind yet as to whether or not evolution is a real phenomenon.

Yes, that's correct. He's still weighing the facts, pouring over textbooks night and day desperately looking for the answer. Or, as David Cross much more aptly put it:

"That is a tough one...one the one hand you have everything the Bible says about creation and how the world was made, and on the ohter hand you have...facts"