Unfinished Business

I have some unfinished business to attend to on this blog, if the title was not enough to tip you off to that fact. Someone has been holding out on me. Long have I begged for a simple task to be done from a so called "Friend" of mine. Long has he mocked my simple request with venom so spiteful that a pit of vipers would die from even a single drop. Long have my pleas for sanity and decency fallen upon the deaf ears of my fallen brother, while he twists the knife of ill-will in my gut. But now you, my loyal, wonderful readership can do something about this horrific injustice under which I have suffered far too long. Pick up your pens, pull out your paper, get those stamps from the back of the drawer, and write to the address below, and ask, in no polite terms, that the madness cease! You can address your letters to:

John L. Tetzlaff,
Jerk King of Assenstein
1492 Loch Jerk
Los Angeles, CA 90210

Plead for a cessation of the horrific assualts on your beloved Nate and demand that he buy me a GOD DAMNED BASS! Only you, John L. Tetzlaff, can end this horrid blight upon your soul. Stop this abhorrent rampage across the existence of mankind and buy me a damn bass. You cheap shit!


This message brought to you The John Tetzlaff Needs To Buy Me A Bass foundation, a division of Halla-Corp, makers of the famous Auto-Robotic Voice Time Machine. When you think "sleep disorder", think Halla-Corp.

Requested Topic

My buddy, Greg recently sent me an e-mail, wondering aloud what I thought of a particular article. The long and the short of it is these two high-school cats were somehow going to be portrayed on a C-span talent show as Huck Finn and N****r Jim, from the wonderful book "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". However, the roles are reversed: A black guy plays Huck and a white guy plays Jim. Because of that, C-span was forced to pull it out of the lineup by the copyright holders, because they wanted to "preserve the integrity" of the book.

Bullshit. Seriously, what kind of horseshit answer is that, anyway? I think that by doing something as simple as swapping the ethnicity of the two characters and keeping the same dialog and situational distress that appears in the book makes for some interesting social commentary. While Jim is not a slave any longer, as a black man of the period, he was seen as less than human, or at least, less than a full man, and more of a child. However, he is the only character in the book that plays the part of a rational, compassionate adult, and really serves as a good role-model for Huck. The switching of this role from a black man to a white man raises some interesting questions about cross-race dynamics. Should there really be a dominant race when it comes to being a good-hearted person? Can't inter-racial relationships be free from PC bullcrap and filled with simple understanding and friendship? I think the copyright holders need to sit back and stop being so draconian. This novel was originally intended as both a rather entertaining jaunt, and as a biting social commentary. Why can it not be adapted to be so again, in a form that is more appropriate for our times?

Also, I think it's just plain funny for Huck to call Jim "Cracker Jim", or something like that.

Real ID

Well, it happened. The Real-ID act passed through Congress and will be signed into law by Fearless Leader, which means by around 2008, everyone can be legally stopped and asked for "their papers". Actually, it doesn't sound all that bad. I've watched a few movies that had places like that, and it didn't seem too terrible. I had no idea what was going on in the movies, though, because the narration was in german.

Alright, I'll get past the hyperbole for now. Will the Real ID single-handedly turn our (decreasingly) free country into a totalitarian state? No, it's highly unlikely, but it's just another step down this oh-so-slippery slope. Next thing we know, biometerical data will be involved, and then all hell is going to break loose. As it stands right now, the government, in order to issue you your Real ID, will need a form of picture ID (don't they usually handle that?), your birth certificate, proof of your social-security number (what happened to the days when you weren't suppoused to use this for identification purposes?) and all that rot. Then, they scan it and keep it INDEFINETLY. Oh, yeah, just what I want. All of my personal information, and as far as the faceless government is concerned, who I am, in a governmental computer system. Pardon me while I jump at the chance. It already makes me wince when people ask for my SSN. I got into a rather heated debate with one of the admissions ladies at McHenry County College about my SSN and whether they should really be using it in an identifying manner, blah blah blah. Whatever.

Another big problem that the Real-ID is that it is a standard form of ID that is federally mandated to be machine readable. The Department of Homeland Services has expressed great interest in RFID (Radio Frequency ID), which means that the cards will be readable from a distance. Without your knowledge. Fan-fucking-tastick.

No Title Needed

Well, there's a lot of crap going on, but I'm going to try and remain positive today. My therapist says that may quell my nightmarish bloodlust, which keeps me up at night, crouching on my roof and pouncing upon the stupid. I am just kidding, of course, because I could never afford to hire a therapist. Let's get on with it.

The folks in Hollywood should be VERY proud of theirselves this year. They'r getting more than one movie ticket out of me... in fact, they're getting five. Shocking, I know, but they're actually putting out a few movies this year that I will shell out dough to go see, not just another crappy remake. (Alright, so the last one isn't a remake, it's just a shitty movie.) This year, however, we see Sin City, which I thoroughly enjoyed, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I have not seen yet, Serenity, based on Joss Wheadon's incredible Firefly series, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Holy crap, I'll be at the movie theatre more times this year than any year since 1991. Nice job, butt-whores!.

Now then, on with the sweet part of this article. Do any of you folks remember Hillary Rosen, former head of the RIAA and all around nasty ho? She made her name by chasing down "music pirates" (dyarr) and pushing for better "protection methods" on music, like DRMed CD's and shit. Well, now, she apparently is an iPod owner... and she doesn't like the DRM system that the iPod and iTunes use! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, bitter irony, you taste so sweet! How do you like them apples, ho-bag? And how do you like those very same apples, Eggers?

Ahhh... well, thats all for today. I'm going to go chase small animals around the yard with a weed-whacker.

Gerald Allen and Alabama: Idiocy South of the Mason-Dixon

Gerald Allen, a state legislator from Alabama, is presenting a bill to the State House that would ban books from public libraries (school libraries too) that were written by gay authors, or involve gay relationships, or mention them off-hand, or imply them, or talk about oral sex in a positive manner (I like blowjobs), or talk about oral sex in general. Specifically, "No public funds or public facilities shall be used by any state agency, public school, public library, or public college or university for the purchase, production, or promotion of printed or electronic materials or activities that, directly or indirectly, sanction, recognize, foster, or promote a lifestyle or actions prohibited by the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws of the state of Alabama." I'm sorry for the horrible choice of words here, but this law is fucking ridiculous. Seriously, that's the stupidest thing I've ever read, and I read Dan Quayle speech transcripts. If they were to pass this law, here's a list of authors who would be outright banned, simply because, in their private lives, they were homosexual:

Horatio Alger, Hans Christian Andersen, James M Barrie, James Beard, Brendan Behan, Rita Mae Brown, Samuel Butler, Sir Winston Churchill(experimented), Craig Claiborne, Jean Cocteau, E.M Forster, Aaron Fricke, Jean Genet, Andre Gide, David Leavitt, W. Somerset Maugham, Herman Melville, Gordon Merrick, Kate Millet, John Milton, Marcel Proust, Victoria Sackville-West, etc.

The list above is by no means extensive, and only lists a small number of well known gay, lesbian or bisexual authors. All of their works would be banned from public libraries in Alabama, just because they were homosexual. This is addressed to the good folks of Alabama who believe this is a great law: Nice job, you hate-mongering fear-shitting testicle-warts. Not only are you polluting the world with your stupidity, but you're also passing it on to the children, who now, under your guidance, have no chance of growing up to be good, decent, hard-working folks, and will instead be worthless piles of pig-shit. Just like you. Hope you're proud of yourselves. This one's for you:

Me, flipping your ignorant ass off. Pay no attention if
you're not from Alabama or an illiterate homo-phobe.