Michael Dukakis is now my second favorite Dukakis. The favorite spot still belongs to Olympia, because her rapport with Shirley MacLaine was so amazing in Steel Magnolias. for several semesters in a row my schedule was always too full to allow for any good lecture attendance, but my present one suits my fancy very well, thank you. when I was able to attend them before, in my first semesters, they were my favorite part of being in college. and now, though I'm immersed in my majors and enjoy the majority of the classes I'm taking, the guest lecturers still give me that thrill, make me feel like I'm benefitting from the old university education, like I'm getting the most out of it. or something. oh, and paper status: complete as of 9:00 this morning. fell into bed at 1:00 after writing something of a thesis on a sheet of paper and then taping it to the wall by my bed. woke up at 4:00 and typed furiously for minutes at a time, and in five hours had produced as many pages, give or take. print. staple. vroom. so fast that sleepyhead has yet to catch up with me. going to eat at soul vegetarian. gee....zzz.

rainer maria is a good band to hear and see. I was pleased with the show, glad that I pried myself away from my cup of miso and tofu soup. the boy singer is fun to watch because he goes guitar-jesus crazy, but the girl singer is more fun to watch because she is trying to compete with his guitar-jesus craziness by kind of bouncing and two-stepping around her bass, and you can tell that she would maybe be much more comfortable simply standing and craning her little neck toward the mike, singing pretty. and I appreciate how un-punk she looks, really I do. she looks like a wednesday night church girl. tonight is crunch night, paper-writing night, and I am exiling the girl from my presence. but just between you and me, I will probably still watch some must-see tv. I am an NBC whore. admit it- you want to know if rachel's really preggers, too.

I should be working on a religious studies paper. I am not doing so. after my 7:15 class liana and I are going to the rainer maria show at the echo. I am holding out hope that it won't be a waste of my time. haven't been impressed by music in a while- even the pedro the lion show last week failed to significantly shake my moneymaker, and they never fail. we'll see. tomorrow I will devote to the paper, due friday. then after class on friday I think I'll go see the Duke, speaking at the G-state. he, most definitely, will rock, I think.

'kay. so missed wilco at the roxy- all sold out and stuff. but it's okay. I wasn't totally in the mood for standing up all evening in the midst of a fire hazard, anyway, so settled for a late dinner with shirley at the apres diem. and she bought me a vegan cookbook for a consolation prize. RAWK! oddly-textured chocolate chip cookies for everyone! I want to cuddle up on the couch with a plate of them and watch weezer's "island in the sun" video over and over and ooh and aah about how cute it is.

surfing and listening to the new wilco album. kids finally decided to stream it on their page, and I give it my thumbs in an upward direction. admittedly I'm only three songs into it so far, but I see little evidence of an album so freakish that no major label would get behind it. I confess, I mourn the absence of jay bennett more than a little bit, but we'll see tonight at the show how they hold out without the greatest secret weapon of all time. oh! goodness. Jeffy's voice just cracked so beautifully in my headphones, on the word "understandable," and I'm in some love.
there is a movie out there that everyone should see: divided we fall. from our czechoslavakian (spellcheck) friends. I don't really know much about the medium, but I thought it was kinda cool how the director spliced in what looked like digitally filmed footage for dramatic effect. but mostly I just thought the story was superb- stayed away from typing people as either absolute good or absolute evil. or absolut vodka. refreshing these days, I think.
stopped by the parents' on sunday with liana in tow. I suppose I could've made up for the presence of a tattoo on my arm by agreeing with everything they said that was political in nature, but alas... my parents think I'm a communist gutterpunk. but I think I won a small victory by pointing out that I was the only one of three offspring who's never done drugs or been arrested. I would like to express my appreciation to my trouble-prone siblings for being perfect scapegoats and surefire vehicles for changing the subject. I love them for that. and I still love my parents. we're the poster family for putting aside idealistic differences. or something. I'm trying to be all clever about saying that my family is the best, better than yours, but I suppose I'll just say that: the cassettes family could kick your family's ass.
love, johny.

lemme just say now, for the world to hear: jon stewart is class. now I didn't see conan or dave, or really anyone else of the generally "comedic" genre speak to the events of the past weeks on their programs, but liana and I got the chance to see the daily last night, and the man was approximately one million times as moving as anyone else I'd heard, including your friend and mine, GW, of course. We, the two of us, unanimously voted him in as president. the man wasn't even looking at his notes! I know it's probably not entirely founded in reality, but it's nice once in awhile to discover how nice a guy some celebrity is.
and on that note: this was, for the most part, much more humorous than it meant to be. good intentions, I'm sure, and even some decent performances, including bruce, my man paul simon and even the bonj. but the fred durst/goo goo dolls guy "collaboration" ( also known as singing, badly, in unison) on floyd's wish you were here? gimme a break of that kitkat bar, dudley. and the celebrity speakers generally had way too much of a "the more you know" PSA feel for my taste, though again, there were notable exceptions: I count myself among the "everyone," now, who loves Raymond, for example, and the aforementioned mr. o'brien. A little bit of sincerity goes a long way, folks- and coming off as just another actor doing just another acting job doesn't cut it.

rather extensive renovations underway...