all of this is dead serious

Biographical--and especially autobiographical--movies tend to be pretty lousy unless there's an actual thematic thrust behind everything; otherwise, the movie amounts to little more than some guy (whom the audience probably doesn't know) recounting anecdotes from his life and hoping others find him as entertaining as he does. Straightforward biopics about even interesting people usually adhere to a really bland cookie-cutter structure. Regardless of how well-made one is, it's inevitably way less interesting than the story it's trying to condense to two hours.
Because of this, nobody should ever make a movie out of my life, but if anybody were to do so, they should do it in a fairly experimental style. The content itself sure as hell isn't interesting, but if the form is engaging enough then the movie might at least be watchable. Ideally, the film would actually have nothing at all to do with my life.

I'm thinking I should be played by a young Marlon Brando (because people always tell me I've got a "brooding, animalistic intensity reminiscent of a young Marlon Brando." I'm not sure what to make of that, exactly--and on second thought, I don't think anybody has ever actually said that--but who am I to disagree?) for most of the film. During the samurai fight scenes, which will have to take up at least half the movie, I'll be portrayed by Toshiro Mifune. The movie will be directed by David Cronenberg, and as such it will end with some sort of venereal disease (or a media-driven intellectual virus) manifesting itself as a violent monster that kills me, along with everybody else in post-apocalyptic Toronto.

It will be a worldwide hit and nobody will realize the whole thing's fabricated. The fame is so close I can taste it.

Goat by the Jesus Lizard

Whenever I listen to the Jesus Lizard's early albums, I become convinced that David Yow is trying to kill me. He's in an elite class of homicidal rock and roll screamers, conveying pure, unhinged lunacy like no other frontman since Nick Cave released the bats upon the unsuspecting corner of the world that was willing to hear him in the early '80s. The other musicians in the Jesus Lizard--Duane Denison on guitar, David Wm. Sims on bass, and Mac McNeilly on drums--are restrained in comparison to their ridiculous drunk of a frontman, but still a hell of an abrasive rock band. The combination of Yow's mic-shoved-down-the-throat vocals, Denison's twangy, textured guitar work, and the relentless pummel of the rhythm section makes for one of the most distinctive sounds of the early 90s.

Goat is arguably their best album, with an incredibly clear mix courtesy of their friend Steve Albini. Albini--also frontman/guitarist for Shellac, Rapeman, and the legendary Big Black--has recorded other bands ranging from PJ Harvey to Cheap Trick, but in my opinion his laissez-faire style had a perfect match in tJL's insane noise rock. Similarly abrasive underground bands often have thin mixes that make it hard to hear the musical craft behind the infernal racket, but on Goat every sledgehammer bass line and drunken yelp comes through clearly.
On an album that's full of great songs (admittedly, there are only 9 on the 30-minute LP, but the consistency is still pretty impressive), it's hard to pick a favorite, but at the moment mine are the frenzied 6/8 blast "Mouth Breather" and the sinister-as-hell "Monkey Trick."

More than anything, I think I like this album so much because it represents a time when indie rock didn't have to sound like bittersweet collegiate pop music. That's always been a part of it, of course, but there were always loud, confrontational bands that weren't afraid to get drunk and rock the fuck out as well. The Jesus Lizard were an indie band; that may seem impossible to audiences who only think of indie as Death Cab for Cutie, the Decemberists, and the Shins, but...god damn it, people, just be aware that "loud" doesn't have to mean "stupid." More bands should be willing to rock so hard.

I have nothing to say about the homeless problem other than that a) it is a problem, and b) the solution obviously doesn't lie in being a self-righteous dick to panhandlers ("why don't you go get a job?" and all that), despite what some people seem to think.

advantages/disadvantages to growing up in East Cobb

First of all, it's boring as hell. The local "scene" has always been pretty much limited to shitty teenage bands emulating whatever's dominating the radio at any point in time. I have to drive into Atlanta from Marietta to see good movies unless I want to wait until everybody else I know has already seen them. Everything that's ever been implied about suburbia in middlebrow not-quite-satirical movies that get way too much Sundance buzz is true (so congratulations, indie filmmakers! Your movies might not make any points that haven't already been made a million times over, but at least there's some basis in reality), and there's nothing exciting about living in someplace as "safe" or "clean" as this.

But it is, I guess, pretty safe and clean, to be honest. And the grade schools are better-funded than the ones in more urban environments--and yes, everything I know about inner-city public schools, I learned from season four of The Wire--even if they spend too much of that funding and time on football, a sport at which my alma mater of Sprayberry High will never excel, no matter how much attention is redirected to it from the gifted program.
I'd like to think that my unbearable laziness and cynicism are results of my suburban upbringing, but they're probably just inherent traits of mine. That sucks, I guess.

there are too many things to permanently settle on one, but

I had this really hyperbolic thing I wrote about OK Computer back in high school that I was going to post, but I think I might not.

At this particular moment, I'm thinking the graphic novel/comics miniseries Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons might be the most "important" book I've read in my life (whatever that means, really; it's not like I read the book and it inspired me to become a gritty, deconstructed superhero when I grow up). It's an important book for me because reading it led me to realize how much untapped potential is in the comics medium--it was kind of like actively watching Taxi Driver or some other mind-blowingly great movie for the first time--which subsequently catapulted itself near the top of my heap of interests. Since then I've read so many comics/graphic novels/trade-paperbacks that I couldn't begin to name them, and I've liked some of them better. Neil Gaiman's Sandman is absolutely brilliant, for instance, and even some of Alan Moore's own work is better than Watchmen. Still, nothing really equals Watchmen's mix of accessibility and intelligence: most "revisionist" superhero stories told in its wake were just exercises in nihilistic ultraviolence, rather than the intelligent, adult take on the concept that Moore perfected.
This actually makes it sound kind of frivolous; if the book had only reinvented a niche subgenre of comic books, then it wouldn't be nearly as well-regarded as it is. Instead, it was a sign that for once, mainstream comics were actually edgier and more interesting than mainstream movies or music. Speaking of movies: I'm a film major, but that might just be because I can't draw. I'm out of coherent things to say, if I had any to begin with. I need to stop making these posts when I'm already too goddamn tired to think straight.

"Is the American media, in all its weird forms, living up to its responsibilities to inform the public of relevant news from throughout the world?"

Of course not. I don't know how big a role empty gossip played in the mainstream media ten years ago--I was ten years old, and honestly way more interested in cartoons than the news--but the state of things right now is pretty pathetic. Obviously the media is a business like any other, but there's something seriously wrong with the system when all the genuine substance is buried under opportunistic, sensationalist bullshit.
One thing I find funny about the media's obsession with celebrities is that they're always talking about the shallowest parts of pop culture: rather than talking about, say, Britney Spears's music (ostensibly the reason she's famous to begin with), they devote their time and attention to her personal behavior. It's bad enough that celebrities get more airtime on news channels than Bhutto or Darfur or any of those things that could have long-term consequences in the world. But when they don't even make a convincing case for why these people are celebrities--the "outrageous" behavior isn't much more outrageous than plenty of people I see in Atlanta on a regular basis--it's actually pretty amusing, in a we're-all-screwed Dr. Strangelove sort of way.
I don't think that was coherent or insightful at all, but I'm really tired and I need to go to bed.