2001-12-19 - 3:44 p.m.

Probably time for an update, yes? I realize that the way I left the page, it promises a update later in the same day as that last update. Update, update, update. Well, the week ended up being a little rougher than I had originally thought. Feelings of futility, not wanting to do anything except flip over the same three records (mid-’80s REM) over and over, etc. Didn’t even do much in the way of Christmas shopping.

I’ve had lots of fun reading everyone else’s diaries, though.

Most of the really interesting stuff I’ve written in the last two weeks has ended up on index cards. I swear this is true. No, really. Sometimes on the subway, sometimes on the bed.

I locked myself in my room on a Saturday afternoon, writing and flipping over this one record that I had bought. It was an “old-school comp” made for DJs. Starts out with “The Show” and “Lodi Dodi” by Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick, then it’s “Nobody Beats the Biz,” “Mona Lisa” (Slick Rick again), “South Bronx” (BDP) and finally “The Roof Is on Fire” by somebody really old-school. Sounds like Slick Rick is one of the rappers (though at that point he’d be known as MC Ricky D), which would make sense because in one of the early Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five singles, there’s a breakdown and the MCs start chanting, “Slick Rick, Slick Rick, Slick Rick, hooooo!!!” I always wondered how the hell he got props on record at the young age of, what would he have been, 15? Sixteen, maybe? Tops, because in 1985, he was 19 (“Lodi Dodi”: “I said ‘I’m 19’ / she said ‘stop lying’ / I said ‘I am, go ask my mother.’”)

Incidentally, on “The Roof Is on Fire”: this was the cool thing to chant on the playground in second or third grade. You know, “The roof, the roof, the roof is on fi-aah! We don’t need no water let the…” Then it would kind of trail off into a peal of giggles, or some enterprising young lad would substitute “stupid people” for the more offensive four-syllable pejorative. Of course, at the time I didn’t know what the hell everyone was covering up, and whenever I asked the kids were too scared to tell me. Are kids still as prudish as they were then? This was Catholic school, but it was also Detroit.

I didn’t learn the f-word (ha ha, f-word) until I was listening to The Wrestling Album, specifically “Rowdy” Roddy Piper’s “For Everyone” track. “You know what he really means to say,” said my babysitter for that evening.

“No…”

Looking back, he wanted really badly to teach me a new swear. “You’ve heard your parents swear, right?”

“Yeah.”

Well, I’d never heard them say the word he was about to teach me.

My take on The Royal Tenenbaums: Really, really funny in a lot of parts. Wes got his old actors to turn in good performances and taught the new ones his brand of humor. Ultimately, a little bit too fast-paced. I’m of course comparing the movie to Rushmore and Bottle Rocket, so the bar is set really high. Still, it seemed like Anderson tried to cram a few too many gags into too few scenes. But I can’t complain. No, I can’t. I was laughing my ass off most of the time. But it didn’t seem, I don’t know, as sweet as say, Rushmore. That’s my two bits.