You've Come Back Here to Repent

You know, yes he might be a paunchy little character actor now who's gotten really good at playing trailer-trash assholes, and I really shudder at the thought of him squeezing into tight leather pants to strum a guitar on a moving train, but I'll stick by this assertion come hell or high water: Dwight Yoakam totally fucking rocks. His voice is like buttered honey and he calls to mind the old bardic tradition with really classic (read: cliche) songs about heartache and parties. The best country music always remind me of modern-day bards; Garth Brooks (pre-Sevens anyway), Clint Black, Mary Chapin Carpenter, The Mavericks, Sawyer Brown, Diamond Rio, Restless Heart, Pam Tillis, recent Dolly Parton, Colin Raye, Clay Walker, Dwight and even Alan Jackson on a good day all have that timeless spark that makes their music irresistible. To me, anyways; country music has an unfair rep mostly because of idiots like Toby Keith or Kenny Chesney who muck it up with jingoist crap or bland radio-friendly mediocrity. And don't even get me started on Shania Twain.

Hmm...I've wandered this road before...

I was pleasantly surprised by this months cache of comics. Fables was up to its usual awesomeness, and both Austen and Claremont turned in really...excellent issues in X-Men and Uncanny X-Men, respectively. Austen finally seems to have gotten the hang of weaving multiple stories together rather well, and his sense of pacing is really getting better. I think Claremont still has to work out his grasp of the roster he's controlling now (Would Iceman *really* mix it up with Juggernaut while Havok was in that kind of shit?), but he's still managed to hook me. I have a new respect for the man now that I know the kind of story he's capable of. ;)

District X, the brand new title under the Marvel Knights imprint, continues to surprise me with how smart and complex it is. It's not your typical superhero-in-tights, good-guy-v-bad-guy kind of comic; the idea of clean-cut morals goes right out the window from the first issue. The stickier aspects of mutant life are explored here, not just the whole 'mutants are in the same social niche as gays and blacks, only they can kick your ass with eye lasers' take. Here, mothers take advantage of the hallucinogenic secretions of their half-human/half-toad sons, and crime boss mutants only have the power to smell really, really awful. :D I was planning to drop this one after the first story, but I'm gonna hold on to it for a while. :)

I've been writing a bit over the past few days, and I'm surprised by how much I'm intimidated by it. The whole sound of writing essays on Buddhism is well and good, but when I sit down to actually do it this voice pops into my head: "Who the fuck are you to explain anything about anything?" And it's right; I'm nowhere near ready to actually say much about it but I'm writing because I feel I have to. It's important for me to crystallize my thoughts...*especially* if they're incorrect. Once they're something concrete, I can wrap my fingers around the little bastards and rip 'em out that much easier.

I've been kind of bummed over the past couple days about how I can sometimes be really shitty to people I consider friends. A general thing I've been noticing is a wide disparity over how I act when I'm talking to folks RL and how I treat people on-line; I've gotten a bit better with being all *there* when I'm talking to someone, but as soon as I'm on the computer it feels like I lose my mind. I don't care quite as much, my temper flares a bit more easily, I drop conversations, I throw temper-tantrums and generally behave in a sometimes embarrassing manner. For some reason the same rules don't apply when I'm talking to people on-line. I think it's just that I haven't really pushed myself to treat people better, which I will now that I know what's going on.

Ahem, anyway. I think I'm off to watch a bit of Firefly before bed.