On Saturday, November 13th, Russell Jones aka "Ol' Dirty Bastard" died in the studio.  His music touched me, and many of you in ways that one could only describe as "in the bathing suit area".  I was shocked and hurt when I heard this news.  I wandered the streets for hours... eventually collapsing in a freezing gutter, crying to the heavens: "WHY GOD, WHY!!!  WHY MUST YOU TAKE THE GOOD ONES FROM US!!!" 

I remember the first time I ever saw ol' dirty, it was on MTV news.  He was taking his children and one of his babies mamas to the wellfare office in a limo to pick up a check.  I saw this and thought to myself, "How can I be more like this man?"  I was instantly mezmerized.  Then i heard his tight rhymes, and was hooked from the line "Bitch burned me with the ghanorrhea, well I got the ghanorrhea twice, so the bitch burned me two times actoooally".  It was brilliant... like someone took a crack head off the streets and said "Wanna recording contract?" and that crack head said "Yes, I would like that very much." 

Goodnight sweet prince, may flights of angels take you to your slumber.

Good riddance.

I have to commute a long distance to get to work, right now. Philadelphia is about 60 miles away from Dayton, NJ, so I spend a little over two hours in the car each day. Also, in downtown Philadelphia, street parking is very scarce, so the only reasonable alternative for someone commuting by car is to purchase parking, which is quite expensive.

I may attempt to take the train each morning from Philly to Princeton, a town about 5-10 miles away from whereI work. I would park my car at a commuter lot in Princeton, and then drive the distance between the station and my job. I would have to get up a bit earlier, in order to make sure I caught the train on time, which would be inconvenient, but it would definitely be nice to have a couple of hours each day to read or work, while I was on the train. It also seems like Iwould be able to cut my travel costs in half.

Stone

See, I'm reading all of this election time goodness... and muckraking and bellyaching... and it all turns my stomach.  This whole thing makes me sick to be an American.  Now... To paraphrase Chris Rock, Anyone who classifies themselves as just a liberal, or just a conservative or just a liberal is a fucking moron.  I've got some shit I'm liberal on, and some shit I'm conservative on.  Abortion?  A-ok.  Execution?  Hang 'em high.  Gay marriage?  Who gives a flying crap, it doesn't effect me.  If they want the right to be legally bound into loveless husks of relationships, god bless 'em.  The only issue I care about is the economy and the job market.  Basically, my political views are whatever is in my best interest... look out for number one. 

So, who did I vote for in the end?  No one.  That's right, the year I decide that I'm going to make a political statement... that I will let my voice as an American be heard... I get these two fuckin' jokers to choose from!  Now, neither candidate encompassed all the political views that were quasi-important to me.  Guess that's because I have my own opinions and don't slap a political lable on myself.  Now, my primary concern... the economy, Bush was handed a nose diving economy in the closing days of the Clinton administration, and only made it worse through mismanagement and sending jobs to foreign country while college graduates were forced to get jobs at McDonalds.  But on the otherhand we have Kerry... This man's a millionaire!  He's gotta have some good ideas on how to turn this bungle job into gold!  What's that?  He made his fortune by marriages to rich women?  Fuck.  Well, Well, I have my choice between a moron and a pimp. 

But it's more than just the fact that the candidates were unfit... it's just that both of their campaigns were so distasteful.  See, failing either of the canditates meeting my needs, I was going to vote on who I thought was the most stand up guy, and I'd be able to see that through whoever led the cleanest campaign... but they were both dirty!  Mud flying on both sides... The issues were so obscured by all this bullshit, it was to confusing for the common man to know who stood for what.  Disgraceful

To the Bush camp... Well, you won so there ain't much I can say but Mazeltov, I hope you manage to turn around what you have fucked up, and while your at it, stop trying to co-opt America's fear of Terrorism to settle personal grudges.  To the Kerry camp, cool out.  You lost, by a slim margin, but you still lost.  Go home, lick your wounds and try to manipulate matters to your own ends for the next election, for that's what all this seems to be in the end.  And don't act like it's the end of the world, an administration only lasts 4 years.  People worried about bush banning abortion... That's what they've said about every republican to run since Roe v. Wade.  They said that about G dubs on the last election and he didn't pull it off.  A draft?  Hate to break it to you people, but this ain't 'Nam.  Granted we are still sending troops over, but not in big enough numbers to reinstate the draft.  And there's no way in hell that this conflict could get that big.  Saphire's post is the first I've ever heard of Emergency Powers being granted... But does anyone actually fear this as a possibility?  C'mon, This isn't Attack of the Clones, and he isn't Palpatine.  So long as there are Democrats out there with an axe to grind, that won't happen.  I don't believe Georgie is an evil man... at worst he's a man who's too incompetant to hold the position he's in.  Nice....

"God bless America, but she stole the 'b' from bless."

What's up? I feel like, with all this Red Sox vs Yanks stuff, that we've been overlooking one important thing that most of us can be grateful for. We're not Mets fans. The Red Sox may have only won 1 title in the last 87 years, the Yanks may have an enormous payroll filled up with crap underachieving overpaid players and may be looking forward to decades of being punished by the Curse of A-Rod, but at least the teams we like have competent management - the Mets have nothing. When was the last time the Red Sox or the Yanks did something as boneheaded as trading away Scott Kazmir for some Mexican dude from Tampa Bay that has an aneurysm every other game? Anna Benson is a fine looking woman.

I got up early today and bought some candy for the kids on my street. Toll House cookie bars and Snickers. I wanted to buy boxes of full-size candy bars, because when I was a kid I always thought that the families who gave out full-size candy bars were awesome. That was the ultimate display of wealth in my mind - being willing to give out full-sized candy bars said more to me than having an iced-out doormat.

South Philly is a weird place to live. In general, it's dirty and it smells a bit, but the people are good and there's nothing wrong with it. Every once in a while, though, I'll be driving down the street and notice that, like, a crippled guy shaped like a pear with one leg is jaywalking (jayrolling?), and two people are slapping each other on the street, and a family is sitting in their car, waiting behind another, double-parked car, while the father lays on the car's horn, and an obviously mentally retarded person is stumbling around on the sidewalk - and it'll seem like I've driven into a Hieronymous Bosch painting.

De La Soul came out with a new CD, and it's pretty damn good. MF DOOM is on the last track of it. I like continuity, I've said this before, but, I like continuity, I like liking things I've liked in the past. Today is warm out, mid-60s, even though it's November.

I am going to Ohio for Thanksgiving. The dinner will involve my grandparents, one set of granduncles, my Uncle Mike and two of my Israeli cousins, my mom - now, this is the first time I've done anything like this, anything involving my extended family, since what, 1993? I haven't been in the same room with my mother and a member of my extended family since 1997.

I also think that I am going to visit the Dominican Republic for a week in February. A friend of mine from Brandeis is a diplomat there, and an old roommate from Cornell is over there curing the sick and indigent.

#1 Stun