A few more people like that in this town and we'll be the Florence of a literary renaissance.

I


'm reading Rory's website, and I'm amazed with his writing. It's really funny stuff, and it's over-the-top with Britishisms. A few more people like that in this town and we'll be the Florence of a literary renaissance.

Yesterday I found out that my bank account has a much bigger balance than I'd imagined. I keep putting money in without asking how much is there. Now I can buy something really cool, a powerful Macintosh for example. But you know, I don't need anything. My frugality is why the money is there in the first place.

That's the key to their brillance: pearls of annoying genius delivered in a basket of wonderful garbage.

Today at Comet, I'm listening to three CDs I bought yesterday. I'd felt extravagant upon discovering my wealth. The best is Pavement's 1991 album Slanted and Enchanted, for $8. It's not the best Pavement out there, but it's got some righteous songs. My favourite is track 11, with its relentless (if slighly dazed and offhand) enthusiasm, although track 1 is really good too. It's all wonderfully noisy while being acceptably poppy. The liner notes and cover looks like it was assembled by a team of retards. That's the key to their brillance: pearls of annoying genius delivered in a basket of wonderful garbage.

I also got Tuscadero's The Pink Album, which came out in 1994. This is a band with girly vocalists and poppy, punk-grunge guitars. I suppose I mostly got it for the song "Mt. Pleasant" with its cool line "all leather and lace / drunk guys in your face / broken forties in the street and losing lottery tickets at your feet."

Last of all was a bit of mistake that I picked up in my rush, Clutch's single Passive Restraints. It's a great song, as are the two others, but not worth $6. The best thing about Clutch is their unpretentious attitude: "we don't really know what the hell we're doing but we're doing it anyway and it's in your face."

Finally there are the adult figures, who administer the cruelties of the middle school popularity game with their own uniquely refined adult brutality.

I


n the evening Leah and Matthew Hart and I turned off the cable, fired up the VCR and watched a movie called Welcome to the Dollhouse, by filmmaker Todd Solondz. This little independent film came highly recommended by Natalie. I have to say it's one of the best movies I've ever seen. The movie is a brilliant exploration and documentation of middle class unpopularity and hell of middle school. Unlike most teenspoitation films that use dorks and nerds as comic foils, Welcome to the Dollhouse focuses primary attention on an average Middle School's biggest loser, the awkward and socially challenged Dawn Weiner. She is dealt all the familiar humiliations and then a few imaginative over-the-top extra ones to boot.
For example, who would have ever considered standing in the doorway of a toilet stall, not letting an imprisoned loser escape until she has taken a shit?
Dawn isn't the only loser; she's surrounded by hateful community of them. There's the cruel humourless tough guys who tease and sexually harass her but who don't get invited to a popular girl's birthday party. There's the oh-so-serious "king of the nerds" older brother who is obsessed with what will appear on his college transcript. Then there's Dawn's kind little angelic proto-boyfriend whom everyone calls a faggot.
After a day of humiliations when Dawn can't find anyone else to pick on, she always has him to kick around.
Then there's the popular people, the cheerleaders who ask Dawn if she's a lesbian, the girl organizing the exclusive birthday party, and the long haired would-be Jim Morrison who gets talked into singing for a garage band of dorks in exchange for help in computer science.
Dawn falls in love with him, but of course nothing but outrageous humiliation can come from this.
Finally there are the adult figures, who administer the cruelties of the middle school popularity game with their own uniquely refined adult brutality.
The most completely disturbing part of Welcome to the Dollhouse explored Dawn's emerging sexuality. Here again, though, Dawn has no dignity. One of the bullies sets up an appointment to rape her, and it gradually develops into a sort of relationship based on emotional sado-masochism, complete with jealousy and a twisted master/slave form of affection.
The movie is a masterstroke of realism. As in real life, none of the characters are really very sympathetic. Dawn's complete absence of dignity makes you want to strangle her. And she's every bit as mean as the people who treat her like shit. But she's the star, she's the focus. What better vehicle is there for the exploration of unpopularity?
The acting throughout is excellent. I know these people; every social type is portrayed exactly, unsympathetically, as they are. I get a kick out of how the filmmaker toys with the characters, pushing them through dehumanizing scenarios like a playful feline god.

I'd been drinking vodkatea throughout the viewing of the movie. So of course, by the time it was though my mind was swimming.

That Rory's farts should smell so horrendous is not such a big mystery; he eats almost nothing but meat.

Lots of people were coming by before, during, and after the movie. There was Ray Roebuck. He and I smoked some pot. There was Sarah "Rosy" Rosenthal and a girlfriend. And as always, there was Rory. He was suffering from some kind of unusual bowel condition and was issuing forth some terribly odious farts. At one point he stood in front of the fan and one such fart blew across the room in an instant, right into my face. It smelled like it had droplets of liver extract in it. That Rory's farts should smell so horrendous is not such a big mystery; he eats almost nothing but meat. The only vegetables he's willing to eat are potatoes. Tonight, during a lull in his farting, he made some "chips" (or what we Americans call "French Fries"). I think I ate most of them myself.

Rory has a new place on Jefferson Park Avenue, directly across from the Observatory Avenue intersection. That puts him only a short little stroll away. We (Deya, Monster Boy and I) went there with Rory to check it out and to play a piano he said he had. I played the piano alright, and sang, accompanied by Rory. He was drunk too, you see.

Back at Kappa Mutha Fucka, I checked and responded to my email. That was the single drunkest I've ever been online and I'm pretty worried about what I might have written. Now that it's possible to be online in my own home, you can expect to see much less sobriety in my electronic correspondence.

I think I bruised my elbow pretty bad, but my thick German bones are very hard to break.

T


here was a scandalous rumour circulating that Monster Boy had been in some way sexually involved with Jenfariello. I was in a rowdy mood, and proclaimed this reason to go "kick his ass." This was supposed to be a drunken parody of the jealous redneck boyfriend thing. For some reason, I managed to convince Deya and Rory to come along.

We set out for the Brick Mansion in the 'Hood in my Dodge Dart. Owing to my intoxication, I was driving extremely badly. Deya wasn't so drunk and she kept telling me to drive more carefully, especially after I ran up onto the sidewalk briefly in a turn on Shamrock. She begged me not to exceed 30 mph.

I don't recall much of what happened at the brick mansion. Sam told us not to "tear up the house." Rory and I got into a tussle and he threw me to the ground with him on top of me. Together all three hundred and twenty pounds of us landed on my left elbow in the gravel driveway. I stayed down for a minute in agony. I think I bruised my elbow pretty bad, but my thick German bones are very hard to break.

Then I passed out in the teevee room. The others tried to get me to leave with them, but I refused to get up or give them my keys. They found some other way back to Kappa Mutha Fucka (KMF).

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