Issue 50

News: Perfect list of things to sell your soul for.
If you know your Blues history, you would know that Robert johnson was said to have sold his soul to the devil. If you knew it well, you would know that the story was mostly told by Son House after his death, and that a man known as Tommy Johnson had actually claimed to have sold his soul to the devil, despite the fact that he remains more obscure. And so, I wonder why when someone sells his soul to Satan, he just gets one thing. Here is my list of things that would be perfect for me to sell my soul to Satan for.
If there was only one thing:
*The souls of the Homeless of Chicago (for all the things on the below list)

If I didn't require just one thing:
*A TARDIS-extention to my room, so I can collect all the DVDs, Books, CDs, and VHSs I want without sacrificing too much space.
*Free Borders (with CD, DVD and VHS) visits for life.
* One of FDR's cigarette holders. (Not necessarily with cigarette holder, but I like the visual aesthetic.
*My own T-shirt company to produce Black T-shirts with some very odd sayings on them (i.e. "A squid eating dough in a polyethelene bag is fast and bulbous, Got me?-Frank Zappa")
*A dinner date with Woody Allen, a la My Dinner With Andre, so we may discuss film and Jazz.
*The film rights to Catcher In the Rye.
* A defunct amusement park or theatre to convert into a recording studio/music club/theatre.
* A complete collection of Chick Tracts.
* Even if I didn't just need just one thing for which to sell my soul, I'd still take the souls of the homeless for more things when needed.

Band name of the Day: Snakes on Crack. Comes from the movie Snakes on a Plane, reviewed below.

Film Idea of the Day: A man preaches homophobia to penguins at the zoo. It's more of a Diogenean Theatre thing.

Review of the Day: Snakes on a plane. In a rare review of a film that was in theatres at the time of the review, Samuel L. Jackson boards a plane, filled with snakes. It gained a cult following a few months before it was actually released in theatres. It was worth the wait that was anticipated on the internet.

Quote of the Day: "You know we armed Iraq. I wondered about that too, you know. During the Persian Gulf war, those intelligence reports would come out: 'Iraq: incredible weapons –
incredible weapons.' How do you know that? 'Uh, well ... we looked at the receipts.'"
_________Bill Hicks.

Link of the Day: Happy Tree Friends: A simultaneously cutesy and violent internet TV show.

issue 49

News: Marriage and why Russian Roulette is a better choice.
Fairly recently, a constitutional amendment went through congess which, if passed, would ultimately ban Gay marriage. Today, I ask the question: Why should Heterosexuals be allowed to marry, much less gays? I doubt if you will still remember what happened two years previous, when the amendment previously went through congress, there was a show that had recently aired called Married By America, where people would actually call in to get two random people married based on the complete whims of people who obviously did not know anybody on the show. Also, "singing" sensation Britney Spears, who had gone on record as saying she would save herself for marriage, even when performing raunchy routines on stage, married a childhood friend while in a drunken stupor, and promptly divorced him within 55 hours. Clearly, Gay marriage doesn't mess up the sacrament of marriage as much as heterosexual marriage. Naturally, the author of such an amendment is an expert on the subject: He has been married and divorced twice, and has been photographed licking whipped cream off of a stripper at his '94 inaugural party, and was a major player in Clinton's Impeachment scandal when the Republican party decided that sex that would have been otherwise perfectly legal, should cost a Democratic president his job, ultimately adding that war crimes by a Republican should grant a second term, but I digress. Either way, marriage failure rate is at 50%, which means that the odds of a divorce in newlyweds are equal to those of getting "Heads" in a coin toss. I should point out that the odds of losing Russian Roulette, the kind that killed Johnny Ace and Christopher Walken are only 16.7% (For the record, I am not encouraging Russian Roulette among readers.) Indeed, I am sure that the percentage of marriages that do not work is much higher, considering that many married couples only stay together "for the children" or because their religion forbids it (Like Catholics and Mormons), and that many other marriages end in the death of a partner either before they get a chance to hate each other, or from death through the hands of the surviving partner. In any case, I am sure that long happy marriages are incredibly rare.

Band Name of the Day: The Töot Swoets. Comes from a musical number from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, with the addition of heavy metal umlauts and intentional misspelling.

Film Idea of the Day: The Woyczek fragments. A screenplay based on the existing fragments of Buchner's Woyczek, in vignette style.

Review of the Day: The Boondocks. I recently got into an Adult swim series based on Aaron Macgruder's comic strip. The series is about how an Robert Freeman gains custody of his two grandkids (one is a black revolutionary and the other is a gangsta wannabe). The series remains funny even after many viewings of episodes (I have seen each episode at least three times). Some of the show's funniest moments come in the episodes starring Charlie Murphy (Chapelle's Show) as Ed Wuncler III, who is the show's resident George W. Bush parody, who frequently goes on crime sprees with crimes with his best Friend Gin Rummy (played by Samuel L. Jackson) ranging from petty theft to murder to war crimes (He went to Iraq) which go unreported because his family basically owns the cops and the town.

Quote of the day: "Control over women... Is control over Bitches!"
_______________Ed Wunceler III, The Boondocks.

Link of the Day: A series of humorous dissections of Chick tracts (my favorite dissection is of One way.)

Issue 48

News: DOn't Read That Book! Don't Worry, I will.
I have a confession to make. I am no stranger to making myself read long books as a bet. In fact, in Freshman year, my English teacher mentioned the Book "Ulysses" offhand in one lesson as being notorious for being difficult. Drawing on his words, I read it cover to cover twice. Recently, I read a review for Jack Chick's tract "Don't Read that Book", which states that Christians should read 10 chapters of the Bible per day, using a KJV bible (after all, he does believe all others are the work of Satan), colored pencils to underline key passages, a Notebook, and this Tract as well as using a certain lesson plan (Gospels, Acts, Pentateuch, The Rest of the New Testament, The Poems, The Historical Books, The Prophets) ad infinitum until you die, or until you don't have access to your bible in Prison, so you won't feel stupid when talking to Habbakuk in the great beyond. I have created my own lesson plan to read the Bible, which is somewhat based on Chick's plan evenly divided into a single 115-day span, and to give you an idea as to how it should look, you should be done with the Pentateuch in 19 days, The "Histories" in 23 days, The Poems in 24 days, The Major Prophets in 18 days, The Minor Prophets in 5 days, The Gospels in 8 days, Acts in 3 days, The Epistles in 13 days, and finally, Revelation in 2 days.) After you decide how to set the reading schedules, you should keep your thoughts on what you read today in a document which will act as a diary.

Band Name: The Cannery-birds. Coming from a translation of Buchner's Woyczek, written as a pun on Canary bird.

Film Idea: A play about a homicide detective who learns that the murder he has been assigned to investigate has the clues getting even more bizarre until the shocking twist.

Review: You Can Get Arrested For that. Two englishmen set out on a cross-country crime spree, breaking laws that many people don't even know existed, including fishing in one's pajamas in Chicago, offering smokes and whickey to zoo animals in New Jersey, Cursing on a golf course in Long Beach, California, Flying a kite in Washington DC, Driving more than 100 times around town Square in Oxford, Michigan, and many others.

Quote: "I'm in a constant process of thinking about things. I'll think about things for thirty or forty years before I'll write it. "
___________Richard Brautigan.

Link of the day: A Daily Webcomic starring Abraham Lincoln.