It's Friday Night

I started reading Drop City. I'm still on Chapter 2. I'd rather watch TV sometimes.

Also, I'm grading papers. Why do students refuse to listen to advice. I basically told them how to get an A. I walked them through proper citation sandwiches (thanks Hellsea), wrote them a pseudo introduction of my own about a fake paper focusing on Mexican Cinema (that made me want to actually write the paper), and gave notes on two drafts before their final, yet, many of them didn't even follow my notes. Some of them turned in the same draft three times!! UGH. AND HALF MY CLASS (80% of my Wednesday class) didn't even meet the page requirement. Fucking Kids/Adults. There was one kid who turned in a 14 page paper. He rocked. Though, it was hard to reign him in. He cared so much about the issue, I constantly had to remind him to step back and look at his arguments objectively. Many papers, though, we enjoyable to read, so that's something.

My Dad turns 50 on St. Paddy's Day. I remember when he turned 30. His church folk threw him a surprise party, and kept calling him "Mike Old." I could tell he didn't like many of those people, but he shined it on for as long as he could. This is to you, Dad: "Happy 50th, Mike Old."

I'm watching Criminal Minds, and Em and Sir-Smells-A-Lot are in bed. We just had our friends Barry and Valari over. They are old friends of mine from back in my early twenties. Barry is a musician (he's scored all of our films) and we've been helping with, watching him, and listening to him and his music for years. The guy is brilliant. His latest venture (besides video game, commercial, and film scoring) is his rock-psych-rag time band, Brother Bear. They played their first show a couple weeks back. I've been listening to different versions of these Brother Bear songs for a long time, and tonight he gave me a CD with new "finished" tracks. This project is a story about a town called Wretched Knob. Basically, it's a book (in the style of Edward Gorey) with rhyming prose focusing on certain characters in this town. Each character has a song and a story, and they all meet somewhere in the grand scheme of things. I wish that I could print and release the project (I've been editing and helping Barry with it for many years now). Right now he's working on the art-work, and recording the music. I'm excited to listen to the tunes in the morning, and excited to see what kind of artist he gets to do the work.

Tonight, we just ate Indian Food, watched Pirate Radio and The Wedding Singer and talked about life, the past, new shit, music, and films. I gave Barry a copy of The Dream Songs by John Berryman, a copy of 24 Hour Party People, Quiet City, and Buffalo '66. He had already scene Mutual Appreciation and Puffy Chair (which he hated...HA, the least fav Mumblecore film!), and when I said, "Ah, you've seen Mumblecore films." He was like, "Mumble-what?" And had to explain it--the short version. Em said, "Movies about Emo Kids, who like to whine about girls and boredom." Someone I don't know once posted a line about Mumblecore that went something like, "Mumblecore: Rich Kids complaining about being bored." Or something like that. I think I'm gonna watch a couple of those films coming up, when I get some time.

Chas and I have been emailing about our project. I've been writing a lot more. And I made some rules for the project. I'll post them when I actually type them up. Oh, we're also doing footnotes in our collection. I'm STOKED.

OK. Back to Criminal Minds. But I'll leave you with a picture:

He's saying, "Come Visit Me Fools!" He's mainly speaking to Chelsea and Matt, though the rest of you are also included.

LOOK AT HOW CHUnKY HE IS!!