Wicked Bad Headache, Sunday Night

Well, I may have made a huge mistake in ordering that gigantic box set of Sly and Family Stone's first 7 albums. To make myself feel better, I ordered The Bear Bryant Funeral Train which got the author into trouble for appropriating some of Carl Carmer's material from the 1930s and using it (a number of passages from it) as a basis for one of the stories. The Amazon page for the book has people accusing Brad Vice of being a fraud, or, if not going that far, saying "it's great if you ignore the plagiarized parts." These people are retarded. If we go by their logic, let's start accussing Shakespeare and Chaucer of plagiarism. Rock and Roll's foundation is plagiarism of a kind. An aural kind, I guess, but a kind nonetheless. Every independent movie director of the past thirty years has just been ripping off the French New Wave, Fellini, and Cassavetes. George W. Bush just a more spiteful and blissfully unaware Reagan. You're likely based off some asshole in a member's only jacket in the '80s. I'm based off every single male main character of every NBC sitcom from 1995-2002. I've also got a little Charlie Sheen. Not the part that gets laid. The other part. And finally, to head off the analogy, Mel Gibson has his foundation in Torquemada's notorious "stump penis," which, oddly, was neither.

Like Slate's David Plotz and the Bible, I was thinking of blogging my way through the collected short stories of John Cheever, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Updike, Tobias Wolff, Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates, and a number of others. I'd do research on them and all kinds of shit. I'll think about it.

I've been trying really hard to break out of this painful shyness that's plagued me since I was little. The biggest breakthrough was letting go of this disdain that marked my college years - shyness, in my experience, many times stems from an baseless sense of superiority. Not in all people, but in numerous Marquette alums with my name. Anyway, I keep tricking myself into thinking things will turn around at once, but it'll happen, if it happens, in small, painfully social increments. I'm kind of hoping to pull a reverse-Lou Reed. When you stop blaming people for their faults and seeing them as people with faults, you see the world a bit more kindly and reserve your judgement for those closest of friends who deserve, nay, call for, scorn (A. Tyler I'm looking at you). I've found even the most obnoxious, stuck up people will be nice to you if you talk to them. That's probably obvious to everyone else. Before, they could tell I didn't care for them, but now, the worst that could happen is they could invite me to hang out and they have a shrine to Tina Weymouth in their basement, which would be weird for me on a number of levels (for instance: if this was not a shrine to Tina Weymouth and was instead a shrine to Kim Gordon, would I have to take mine down?).

And on the wine bar crush-counter, it's been three months and I am now aware of the waitress' name. Didn't find it out from her, though. That's probably negative points, then.

New CDs: Tilly and the Wall (Is the tapdancing a novelty? It hasn't worn off yet), My Latest Novel (there is a very problematic Belle and Sebastian-lite vibe to it, which totally contradicts my previous statements on appropriation), Besnard Lakes. I gave in and ordered A Sunny Day in Glasgow, which, strangely is from Philly. They sounded too much like My Bloody Valentine when I heard their stuff on myspace, but now I guess I'm okay with that. MBV is my fourth favorite band influencer. There should really be an index for that - and this isn't like, the most well-known bands, which would probably be in some order The Beatles, the Stones, the Beach Boys, etc. This list for me reads 1) The Velvet Underground 2) Eno 3) Pixies/Pavement (tie) and 4) MBV (influenced ...Glasgow, Asobi Seksu, etc., etc.). I'll hold off on 5) til I get Love's first two albums and the afore-mentioned Sly Stone box-set.

I just got Roxy Music's first two albums, the ones with Eno, and Jesus Christ, these guys were like the Scissor Sisters with a fabulous '50s vibe. Check out Eno's thinning, pointy-in-the-back hair. Kind of looks like Christopher Guest would in a glam-rock mocumentary.

R.I.P. Josh Hancock. It's a little surreal, given the Darryl Kile thing. Also, classy move by ESPN, breaking this on their sports-ticker. We would not be able to escape updates on this had he played for the BoSox or the Yankees.

Ashby, this is for you: (from the South Bend Tribune) "[Jimmy Clausen] arrived at the Hall in a white stretch Hummer limousine, complete with a police escort."

-Oh, Christ. He'll either get bitchslapped by Charlie Weis and change his tune, get bitchslapped by Charlie Weis and transfer, or I'll end up hating Notre Dame. Frankly, there is no frontrunner at this point.