Matt Sweet

I have not yet written about the Democratic National Convention. Enough other bloggers are sharing their thoughts... so let me just say that the convention is having the desired effect on me. That is, I felt plenty fired up listening to Rev. Sharpton and Pres. Clinton speechifying. For the first time ever I think that Kerry might have a chance.

Anyway, on to today's Friday Five:

You're stranded on an island. Not a completely desolate island. More along the lines that the boat delivering supplies only comes once every six months and will never, ever take you home. Decide what you'll bring!

One celebrity:

Girlfriend, please. Vin Diesel. And if the boat never takes him home either, then Vin will be more motivated to spend some quality time with me (read: we can do it like rabbits).

Two books:

Mmmm... more difficult. Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg. This is probably my favorite book in the world. It's a semi-autobiographical work that explores transgender issues in Upstate New York from about 1950 to about 1980. Trust me... it's really good.

And also La vie devant soi("The Life in Front of You") by Romain Gary. This is the story of a young boy, Momo, whose mother was a prostitute, and who is being raised by his mother's former Madam. It's amazing.

Chocolate of some kind, probably dark chocolate--this will keep my mood up. And also egg rolls--the really crispy kind made with bean sprounts and shirmp--this will keep my alive. And finally, a liberal dousing of my favorite cheap table wine: Chateau Detroit River--this will keep me regular.

1.Rue Cases Negres ("Black Shack Alley"). Fantastic.

2. The Last Metro. I resisted the urge to link to the French version. Anyway, this flick rocks.

3. A Clockwork Orange. How could you not love a movie with lines like this: "Bliss, bliss and heaven... it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh...Oh, it was wonder of wonders... And then, a bird of like rarest spun heavenmetal, or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now..."

4. Dangerous Liasions. The set design alone makes this a must-have.

1. Retrospective by the Indigo Girls. Who doensn't love lesbian folk singers?

2. The Essential Barbra Streisand. I know, I'm a big ol' fag.

3. Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane. Two great tastes...

4. Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, which is just sublime.

5.Beethoven, Complete Symphonies. Especially number 9.

I spent last night enthralled by UPN's show Amish in the City. In case you've had your head under a rock, the premise is that 5 Amish kids go to the city (Los Angeles) to live with 6 fucked up "more mainstream" young adults.

The critics and the Christians were beyond upset that the show would be mocking the Amish. Not so. In fact, the non-Amish (who are called "English," if I remember my Harrison Ford movies) look like attention-seeking drama queens in comparision to the well-adjusted Amish. In fact, I personally feel betrayed, because these poor Amish people are going to go back to the farm thinking that all us English are crazy egomaniacs.

Anyway, I highly recommend this show. You get to see some seriously good television (one woman weeps at her first time seeing the ocean; absolute wonder as the Amish see a big-city skyline for the first time; deep spiritual convictions used to help individuals during frightening times) and you get to see some sereiously hot bodies. (The picture above is "Randy".) You also get to hear the Amish swear like sailors, which is amusing. Read a review of the show here.

News:

Babs Ehrenreich on "The New Macho." I like this quote: "Of course, everyone knows that the macho approach is notably less effective than pixie dust - otherwise, we wouldn't be holding our political conventions under total lockdowns."

A lengthy article about DDR. I love DDR.

Done.

The old blog has a new look. The old color scheme was just not doing it for me anymore. I hope you like it.

Here is a conversation Jay and I had while watching a Queer Eye for the Straight Guy marathon:

Matt: Oh! Look! That's so cute! I'm getting all Verkempt!
Jay: You said that at the same point during the last show.
Matt: I'm all Verklempt and my mouth is full.
Jay: Yeah, your mouth was full last time as well.
Matt: Wait... Have I been eating this whole time? Am I still eating?

News:

The joys of sake. Personally, I like sake, but only really fine sake. The stuff you can buy at the grocery store generally tastes like cleaning fluid.

Okra is making a comeback. I enjoy my okra deep-fried, with corn syrup. Mmmm... White-trash cooking.

A wooden mirror. Check it out.

Ex-pro wrestler Ted DiBiase turned evangalist. He writes a monthly newsletter, in which he tackles (dare I say, "wrestles with?") such difficult topics as this on: "Some people believe that Christianity is all about money. It's just a scam to get rich."

I went to a training yesterday. I go to trainings and conferences fairly often--usually one a month, at least. I do this because I firmly believe that I am making myself a better clinician by sitting in an uncomfortable chair and eating mass-produced cheese danish.

Sidebar: Has anyone else noticed that they always have the exact same pastries at conferences and trainings, regardless of who produced the training or what the topic is? And they have the same water glasses and coffee mugs, too. Anyway.

This particular training was such a waste of my time and money so informative that I began to look around the room to see how the other bored therapists were coping with their boredom. This is the tally sheet:

Doodling: 9
Tapping feet or hands: 7
Eating: 6
Playing with garments or with hair: 3
Staring at the ceiling: 2
Looking around the room: 2

Wasn't that fun?

Goings on in the rest of the world:

Gays who are working to rob their fellow queer citizens of civil rights are being exposed, and they are none to happy about it. Read the article and listen to them whine. One Auntie Tom said: "The attacks have come from other gays and lesbians, and that's hard. It's very hard for me to understand how they can do that. Most people know how difficult this all is for all of us." You're rignt--it's hard to understand all these crazy activitst that want gay people to stop working for state-sanctioned discrimination. Meanwhile, it's completely understanable how a gay man can work to ammend the constitution to discriminate against himself. See the list of sellouts here. Write a few of them.

Revenge may be hard-wired into us. That's a comforting thought.

Why do men like Dodge Trucks? It's because the "Ram" emblem looks like female genitals. Paging Dr. Rorschach... Dr. Rorschach, you're needed in marketing...

You don't get to live vicariously through me today.

Instead, I invite you to caption this picture:

Tonight Jay and I are hosting his office's monthly poker party. Who knew that Texas Hold 'Em would be so popular?

Here's today's survey:

1. Do you follow current events? Why/Why not?

Ha! Regular readers of this blog will know that I do follow current events. I like to feel like I'm informed. And, current events interest me, and always have. Plus, my circle of friends tends to talk about current events, particularly politics, so I like to keep up to date.

I get my news from The New York Times and National Public Radio. I have been known to check out Yahoo! News, especially for their Community News (about the gay community). I also read the small paper that my hometown of Ferndale produces each week for neighborhood happenings (This takes about ten minutes.). I get my news commentary from The New Yorker, which has--undoubtedly--the best commentary on current events out there.

3. Do you believe that the media is biased? Why or why not?

Yes. I think it ludicrous to think that the media will ever not be biased. People are biased, and their biases are reflected in what they produce. However, I think that a quality media outlet tries to acknowledge its bias, and makes a conscious effort to present fair and neutral news. Thus, NPR, which makes an effort to try to be less left-leaning, is more quality than say, Fox News, which just tries to convince people that it's fair and balanced.

Yes, and I regret that I have but one vote to give for my country. I will be voting for John Kerry. I would vote for almost any alternative to That Man. If it were That Man versus Mussolini, then I would have to think hard about who I would vote for. In that case, I would probably expatriate.

By the way, when I first started refering to Bush as "That Man" and posting an anti-Bush link, I thought I would run out of links pretty quick. I was wrong. There are plenty more. And for those who have asked (and some people have) I refer to our President as "That Man" as a historical reference--that's how the wealthy elite referred to FDR during his presidency. I think it's a clever reversal, since Bush is the wealthy elite, and I am not.

Limit it to one? That's tough. OK...GLBT civil rights, like same-sex marriage. But not for the reason you think. This issue pushes my buttons because it is an issue at all. The civil rights of 10% of the population should not be a political issue. I am mad at the Republicans for using it to energize their base of fundimentalist hate-mongers and I am equally mad at Democrats for allowing our civil rights to become excluslively the property of democratic candidates.

The French are trying to define wine as a food in order to help boost sales. I'm all for it. Je prenderai deux verres, s'il vous plaît!

A national contest to see who has the best "guitar face." Everyone needs a hobby.

Poorly-drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines. Really funny. Check out "We have located several horny women in your area."

The table at the right is one of the items I put on the "wish list" that I sent to Jay's parents. What's this "Wish List" you say? Jay's parents have been hinting that they plan on buying us an entertainment center for our house. Our current entertainment center is one that I made out of an old dresser. It serves it's purpose, but it's ugly as sin. Jay's parents, bless them, have been asking us to go to the Sauder website and choose an entertainment center. Now, my taste runs more towards The Bombay Company, and not so much towards Sauder. I have been subtly trying to hint that no self-respecting gay man would put anyof the furniture from that webpage where anyone else could see it. Because I understand they are trying to be nice, and because I don't want to hurt their feelings, and also because I don't want to be stuck with some damn-ass-ugly piece of furniture, I made a "wishlist" of items that I want, or at least that I could live with. There have to be at least 30 items on the list, from all kinds of different stores, all of them under $200. Some of them under $50.

And I swear, with God as my witness, that I will burn any pressboard furniture that comes into the house. It's time we stopped living like frat boys.

News:

Stephen Roach proposes that the news jobs created recently are at the lower-end of the economic scale. You mean we are not living in another Gilded age?

I want a sleeping pod. This article is odd.

Here is an article about providing culturally-appropriate surroundings for children who are internationally adopted. Fascinating.

There has been a break in the clouds of crap that had been closing in on me. I finished a particularly onerous task today at work, and best of all I never have to do it again.

Today is my Day of Sloth. That's the day where I only work 8 hours, instead of the usual 12. This evening I'm in the mood for something fried, and something with tequila.

The world:

Here is an interesting piece about looking for love in Alaska. I've always wanted to visit Alaska.

Compulsory courses during the Army's Basic Training are actually life-insurance sales pitches. How come the "Go Army" commercials don't say, "We'll send you to die for our country, and steal from your paycheck?"

Read about the story of flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles, and make your own conclusions. Terrorist operatives, or paranoid soccer mom? You decide.

ADHD and the workplace. Long, but worth it.

Martha Stewart handcuffs herself to Nelson Mandela.

Today is busy. I'm booked solid with clients from 10:00 am until 8:30 pm. Trust me--that's a really, really exhausting day.

I've been more and more tired and cranky lately. I think I might be overworked. I wonder if I should cut back a little on my workload? I'll think about that.

News:

For others who are in the biz, I give you this article about the long-term effects of meth use on the brain. Of particular interest is the loss of brain cells in the limibic region--this might be what causes depression in meth users after they quit.

This column, about joblessness in black males, is worth a look.

Rejected hymn titles. Look around that site while you're there. It's funny.

Here is how the weekend went:

Friday night, dinner and Cranium with Jay, Josh and Carrie. Fun fun fun, even if Carrie and Jay did get all the easy questions. ("Spell 'Cow' backwards.") And even if Josh did hit me when he got a little over-zealous while acting out "Sudden death."

Saturday, clients all day and then dinner and DDR with Bill and Laura. I'm in love with DDR. What can I say? I'm actually considering going to an arcade to play it on a big machine.

Sunday, lunch with Jay's parents at Pronto. Good food, lots of fun. In the evening, Jay and I met up with my parents to see Napoleon Dynamite, and then had dinner at Max and Erma's. They have good cookies.

So, Napoleon Dynamite. I liked this movie quite a bit. I thought the actors were excellent, the music complimented the plot without being heavy-handed, and I liked the realistic portrayal of highschool as a fertile breeding ground for bullies and popularity contests. However, I thought that the ending was a bit too upbeat, because it contrasted too much with the harsh, "florescent light" style of realism that is the hallmark of the rest of the film. But don't just take my word for it. Read what The New Yorker had to say here.

Stuff to see and do:

Kerry is building a legal network to try and keep That Man from cheating to win the White House again. Good for him.

Here is an English translation of an article originally written for the French paper Le Monde, arguing that Harry Potter reinforces capitalist ideology. A quick exerpt:

Harry Potter, probably unintentionally, thus appears as a summary of the social and educational aims of neoliberal capitalism. Like Orwellian totalitarianism, this capitalism tries to fashion not only the real world, but also the imagination of consumer-citizens. The underlying message to young fans is this: You can imagine as many fictional worlds, parallel universes or educational systems as you want, they will still all be regulated by the laws of the market."

The "Left Behind" series is a disturbing "literary" series. Here is an article that points out why they are so troubling. The author describes one particularly violent scene, and asks: "These scenes also raise an eschatological problem: Could devout fundamentalists really enjoy paradise as their friends, relatives and neighbors were heaved into hell?" I wish the author had gone further, and asked: "Is the premise of devout fundamentalism that you can't enjoy paradise unless your friends, relatives and neighbors are all heaved into hell?" I think the second question may be closer to the truth.

If you are not watching The Graham Norton Effect, you need to start. I laughed outloud at the show last night... really, really funny shit. I plan on watchining it religiously. Whenever, of course, it does not interfere with I love the 90s.

Fridays are for memes. Here's a list of cult movies. I've seen the ones in bold:

2001 - A Space Odyssey Of course I've seen this.
Abba
A Clockwork Orange Seriously one of my favorite movies.
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
Akira
Alien I didnt' sleep for like a week.
Apocalypse Now You collect what?
Army of Darkness "Good, Bad... I'm the guy with the gun."
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
Bad Taste Watching a drag queen eat a dog turd.
Barbarella Barbarella, psycha-della...
Batman (1966 movie)
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
The Big Lebowski Feh.
Blade Runner
Blood and Donuts
The Blues Brothers Great music.
Blue Velvet
The Boondock Saints
Boxing Helena
Braindead
Brazil
Bubba Ho Tep
The Breakfast Club Don't you... forget about me...
Carnival of Souls -
Carrie So cathartic.
Clue Funny.
The Day The Earth Stood Still Classic.
Dark Star
Dawn of the Dead (George Romero original)
Day of the Dead
Dazed And Confused
Deep Throat
The Draughtsman's Contract
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb There's a lot of Kubrick on this list.
Drowning by Numbers
Donnie Darko
El Mariachi
Eraserhead
Evil Dead Good.
Evil Dead II Also good.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hmmm...
Fight Club Most homoerotic movie ever marketed at straight men.
Forbidden Zone
From Dusk Till Dawn Tarantino does vampires.
Gayniggers From Outer Space
The Grand Illusion
The Gods Must Be Crazy Little African boy with a Coke bottle.
Harold and Maude Decent.
Harry Knuckles series
Heathers
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
Highlander -
If...
Incubus -
The Italian Job (original)
Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter
Kids Disturbing.
Koyaanisqatsi
Lon
Liquid Sky
Little Shop of Horrors
Logan's Run Also a classic.
The Man Who Fell To Earth
Mars Attacks! Feh.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail "We are the knights who say Nee!"
Monty Python's Life of Brian "This calls for immediate discussion!"
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life "Every sperm is sacred..."
Motel Hell
Meet The Feebles I had to wash my eyeballs after I watched this piece of filth.
The Naked Gun trilogy Loathe as I am to admit it, I've seen these.
Night of the Living Dead Hard to watch... mostly because of the fish-eye lens used on the camera.
Office Space "I was told I could listen to the radio between the hours of nine and eleven."
Paris, Texas Pretty good, actually.
Pee-wee's Big Adventure Find your bike and ride like the wind!
Pink Flamingos
Pink Floyd's The Wall I don't remember much of this one. I wonder why?
Plan 9 from Outer Space The worst horror movie ever made. That's why we love it.
Planet of the Apes (Original) You bastards!
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert Beautiful.
Pulp Fiction I fell asleep both times I tried to watch this.
The Princess Bride You killed my father. Prepare to die.
The Producers Lots of laughs.
Raising Arizona
Reefer Madness aka Tell Your Children This really isn't good. Not even for camp value.
Repo Man
Reservoir Dogs Sick.
RollerBall (1975)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show Please people, get a life.
Scum
Shallow Grave
Silent Running
Six String Samurai
Solaris (original)
Southlander
St. Elmo's Fire
Santa Sangre
Shawshank Redemption
Star Wars series The Skywalker family is all fucked up.
Tank Girl Another of my favorite movies. Seriously.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the original)
They Live
Themroc
This Is Spinal Tap
This Island Earth
Tommy (the Who rock opera)
Total Recall Feh.
The Toxic Avenger
Tremors Brilliant.
TRON Ohh... that takes me back.
UHF
Waiting for Guffman Funny.
The Wicker Man
Withnail and I
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Odd.
The Wizard of Speed and Time
Yellow Submarine
Zardoz
Zoolander I liked the "Freak gasoline-fight accident."

Tune in again on Monday! Same Matt-time, same Matt-channel!