Brother Nail Gun of Reasoned Discussion

Mr. B.B. Underwood was at his most bitter, and he couldn't have cared less who canceled advertising and subscriptions. ...Mr. Underwood didn't talk about miscarriages of justice, he was writing so children could understand. Mr. Underwood simply figured it was a sin to kill cripples, be they standing, sitting, or escaping. He likened Tom's death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children, and Maycomb thought he was trying to write an editorial poetical enough to be reprinted in The Montgomery Advertiser.

How could this be so, I wondered, as I read Mr. Underwood's editorial. Senseless killing--Tom had been given due process of law to the day of his death; he had been tried openly and convicted by twelve good men and true; my father had fought for him all the way. Then Mr. Underwood's meaning became clear: Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed. --Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird, pp. 275-276

"...Atticus Finch was the deadest shot in Maycomb County in his time."

"Dead shot..." echoed Jem.

"That's what I said, Jem Finch. Guess you'll change your tune now. The very idea, didn't you know his nickname was Ol' One Shot when he was a boy? Why, down at the Landing when he was coming up, if he shot fifteen times and hit fourteen doves he'd complain about wasting ammunition."

"He never said anything about that," Jem muttered.

"Never said anything about it, did he?"

"No ma'am."

"Wonder why he never goes huntin' now," I said.

"Maybe I can tell you," said Miss Maudie. "If your father's anything, he's civilized in his heart. Marksmanship's a gift of God, a talent--oh, you have to practice to make it perfect, but shootin's different from playing the piano or the like. I think maybe he put his gun down when he realized that God had given him an unfair advantage over most living things. I guess he decided he wouldn't shoot till he had to, and he had to today."

"Looks like he'd be proud of it," I said.

"People in their right minds never take pride in their talents," said Miss Maudie. --Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, p. 112

But I’m trying. It’s the weird hours I keep that’s hurting here.

Anyway, today Super Mario Bros Wii comes out and I am waiting for 12 PM so I can ride my bike down to the store and buy my copy. I’m too cool for you; don’t fight it.

Q heard Richard singing something about "fish men" and asked, "Have you been playing Lovecraftian songs for him again?"

The Fu and Night of Frights made the cover of the Enquirer's arts section.

It's very nifty, despite the amusement that's stemmed from all the misquotes. Close enough, though, I suppose - especially if it gets us some attention. (Or is attention good? I think we thrive on knowing nobody's watching.)

I love it when people say "the media has no liberal bias!" For the most part, they are correct, but they ignore what prompts these accusations. (To be fair, most people who make these accusations don't elucidate them very well.) But I think this article about a New York State law that would increase punishments for drunk drivers failing in the Legislature illustrates what most people talk about.

The base of nearly all nanny statist rhetoric is pulling on one's heartstrings--"think of the children!"-which in rhetorical terms we call pathos, as opposed to logos, which is logic. The article I linked to is all pathos and no logos, focusing entirely on the father's depression over a bill in honor of his daughter not being passed. There is no one iota aimed at explaining how such a bill will save lives or prevent drunk driving. There is nothing talking about drinking laws already on the books. And there is nothing how such a bill is really useless, irrelevant, and stupid.

With all due respect to the father, who did not deserve to have his daughter killed, passing a law to stiffen penalties towards drunk drivers with kids in the car will do diddly squat. People will continue drinking, no matter if they're alone, with an adult, or with a station wagon full of minors. Most will probably never hear of the law being passed. And if the laws on the books don't deter driving, what is to say this will? It's just a useless "overlay" on top of preexisting laws.

This is why people say the media has a liberal bias. Until the media starts waking up and stop thinking that a single grieving person makes a story, we will have this debate--this problem--until the end of time.

So, Belle Du Jour has outed herself to India Knight.

Turns out she's a specialist in developmental neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology who ran out of money while trying to finish up her doctorate - and that's how she ended up being a high end escort.

What's interesting is that she's made a fortune from her books and the television show based on them, but still does her research.

That's pretty cool.

It keeps fucking me. Anyone willing to help a brother out and make this into an icon for me?

I've tried and the LJ system keeps fucking it up.



If it helps I'm taking the image from this:

Rome Girl and I agree that Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience is a very interesting movie.

That's the word we both used even though I really liked it and she was sort of "meh" about it. Her complaint is that you are never able to penetrate beneath the surface of the main character - a mid to high end escort played by Sasha Grey. She also complains that there's no dramatic denouement. It just sorta ends the way it begins with her feigning affection for yet another lonely man.

For me these are the movie's strengths. I get the sense that Soderbergh wanted to make a film that took away every expectation we have about movies about escorts and prostitutes.

She's not a drug addict. There's no evidence she was ever abused. She's not looking to fall in love with a client (though she does get a heavy crush on one who looks just like her boyfriend, but is much, much more successful.) She has a boyfriend at home who knows what she does for a living. She's not going to get arrested or contract HIV. She's not a nymphomaniac. She's not going to have a revelation that this is wrong and settle down with her boyfriend.

She's just going to keep doing her job. And she does work at it. She's doing well but not as well as she'd like. You see her talking to web designers and programmers trying to figure out how to increase her google rank.

She thinks about working for a high end pimp who claims he can get her Arab Shieks as clients. But she gets sketched out and walks away. The owner of an escort review publication tells her she'll get a great review if she gives him a freebie. She says no and he uses his site to trash her. She tries to write a book about what she does, but it goes nowhere.

There are a bunch of fascinating things going on here. For one, Sasha Grey is in real life a porn star. Since this is a movie about a prostitute, you'd expect a lot of sex scenes. You'd be wrong. The only time we see her naked is for about five seconds in a completely unsexual context. Instead almost every scene she's in is just a close up of her face. It's like he's saying "here's what you never look at when you see her, but here's what's really beautiful."

The other thing is how it's not about sex at all. It's about money. That's what everyone talks about constantly in the film. It's set right before the financial collapse and everyone is worried the collapse is going to happen and there's just this weird tension. Sex is the afterthought - the excuse for these men to have a woman they can talk to openly and honestly.

That's the real girlfriend experience.

The ability to make women wet for me through telepathy, so I could go to a packed bar and make every female dripping and just breathe in the scent of wet pussy while I drink my beer.

Channel surfing this morning led me to the last hour of Sneakers, then the last forty minutes of That Thing You Do!, and the last thirty of Young Einstein. That's a nice go, even if the whole thing turned into one big priority killer.

I assume Mike Selinker was also flipping around the cable today, since his latest "Most Beautiful" entry seems so timely.

• 14:33 Yay married people! #

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So awful I can't even remember the name and I just read it today after a friend lent it to me last night.

Fuck it's trash. By chapter 3 I'd already predicted where the shit was hidden and the idea that the key to the future of civilization is ancient Greek sudoku is the least creative idea ever.

If you like rock and roll you must see Anvil! The Story Of Anvil.

Fuck that - if you have a human heart in your chest you must download, rent or buy Anvil! The Story Of Anvil.

Seriously, Rome Girl isn't that into rock and generally hates heavy metal and she thinks it's one of the best and most emotionally moving documentaries she's ever seen.

After watching this film she wanted to PayPal the members of Anvil money.

The best way to describe this film is that it's the Hoop Dreams of rock documentaries. There are moments in here that will make you cry, moments that will make you laugh and others that will make you want to scream against the injustice of life.

So, what's this movie about?

Well, back in 1983, Anvil had one album that sold well enough so that they could tour with Bon Jovi, Scorpions, Ozzy and other name metal bands. And they were beloved by people who knew metal. Slash, Lemme and Lars Ulrich are all interviewed and cite these dudes as major influences on their sound.

Then, they picked bad management and the wrong record company and while every friend they had in the industry became rich and famous, they didn't.

But, they never fucking gave up or broke up the band. Instead they spent the next two decades just trying to do it. Meanwhile they work the most menial jobs imaginable, try to raise families and just get kicked in the teeth by the music industry time and time again.

At one point they get hired to headline the "Monsters Of Transylvania Metal Festival." They are excited and scream "The Mayor of Transylvania is going to see us!"

Then, we see the show and the the subtitle tells us "Venue Capacity: 10,000. People in Attendance: 174."

They get booked to play a festival in Japan - only to get told when they show up that they are playing at 11:30 in the morning. In some random Eastern European city five people show up for their gig. Promoters screw them out of money. Record company executives treat them like shit. They end up having to mortgage their homes and borrow money from their siblings.

They simply will not be stopped. They are convinced they have what it takes - and even when they are over 50, won't give up.

You can not imagine how sad some of the moments in this film are. But, there are also moments that are completely uplifting to the soul.

What makes it work is that they are really nice guys. They aren't in it for the money or fame or anything. They just like to play music, know they are good at it and just trust that their two decade spate of bad luck has to end eventually.

It's an amazing bit of celluloid. Though, all that kept Rome Girl and I from wanting to blow our brains out when it was done was going to the Anvil website and finding out that VH1 picked them up after the movie came out and knowing that they are now going to play Irving Plaza, The Filmore, The House Of Blues and other places that will make all the shit they went through worth it.

is curious what the rest of this collabo between the Black Keys and various hip-hop artists sounds like ...

I really can't afford $3-4,000 for one :( Suggestions anyone?

is really, really digging this LP.

wonders what coulda been had Deep Purple stuck along this path instead of becoming "Space Truckers."

has no idea why this one-hit wonder from 2000 just popped into his head.

Here's an all-star comedy cover version of "Do they Know It's Christmas" featuring Weird Al Yankovic, Garfunkel and Oates, Aimee Mann, and others. It's the first track from a Comedy Death-Ray Christmas 2009 album. (Ganked from yendi.)