Here's a few things that disgust me, just for fuck's sake.

-Alcoholics and other "recovering addicts" who deny ever having had any good times on the sauce or their drug of choice. I swear, if anyone ever tells me that "drugs/drink ruined their life" and denies any beneficial attributes of their particular poison, I might very well slug them. Nobody gets addicted to anything because they hate it or because it forced themselves upon them; ultimately addiction rests upon the addict, and any sane addict or ex-addict will most likely say "fuck yeah, I had a grand ol' time when I was fucked up." We live in a culture that despises so-called bad habits, and it makes me want to puke. If you use drugs, it's your decision; don't fucking apologize for it unless you kill someone or seriously ruin someone else's life. You're doing a disservice to a long line of functional boozers and dope fiends.

-The recent crop of books targeted at women. For fuck's sake, women, realize that all these books are doing are pandering to base instincts! There's no intellectual, spiritual, moral, ethical, or social content worth a fucking damn in a book called "Confessions of a Shopaholic." All it is is a motherfucking excuse for consumerism and post-consumerist guilt. Read some real fuckin' books, for the love of God, literature, and D.A. Smith!

- Light beer. Light beer is piss, and in many cases watered-down piss that bears the label of an equally piss-esque beer that isn't very good either. Yeah, I drink cases and cases of cheap, exquisitely tasty Lone Star, but fuck all y'all that look down on Lone Star when drinking Bud Light. I know serious girly-girls that'll take Lone Star or PBR over bullshit light beer any day. That might be sexist, but the ratio of women who drink shitty booze to good booze explains my resentment of "girl drinks". Yeah, frat boys, you're all fuckin' pussies for choosing Coors Light over the real thing, and to any women who read this, try a real daquiri cocktail, without eight ounces of fuckin' churned ice, and learn something new.

- Emoticons. Anyone who can't compose or read a sentence containing humor, facetiousness, or any other human emotion without adding/seeing a motherfucking smiley face needs to sit down and read some fuckin' books. Emoticons are for those whose writing and reading skills never progressed past second grade, or for the intellectually lazy. In either case, fuck you all.

- "Hipsters." Nowadays a generic term for "scenesters," AKA "sheepish fucking culture whores," calling someone a hipster used to mean something. Just because a person listens to shitty indie-rock that isn't on the radio and has taken to wearing vintage clothes doesn't mean they're hip. It means they're complete puds with no originality, a distinct lack of understanding of what makes underground culture worthwhile, and no style. Fuck 'em all. If I was a true hipster, I'd be ashamed to ever be called such.

- The internet. I'm not going to claim some old-school credentials here, but the internet sucks serious cock these days. 'Nuff said.

Excelsior, motherfuckers! I'm gonna go drink more cheap beer, listen to metal, read a book that doesn't need emoticons, and talk to women who don't immediately buy into bullshit quasi-feminism.

now playing: Mistress, "Bludgeon"

Essentially alone, sitting on the shore of some depopulated continent and listening to the song of the stars. From somewhere comes the thin sound of prophecy, Azathothian pipes from a leveled city.

It becomes painfully apparent that somewhere, somehow, a wrong step was taken after nodding to Nasht and Kaman-Thah, and that these are not the familiar dreamlands of so many nights' imaginative rest. This is some nightmare, a Roerich landscape no man was ever meant to visit, much less become imprisoned by.

I've finally got a computer of my own, complete with net access. Now all I need is a word processor; as much as I love Notepad, it ain't exactly cut out for writing novels on.

That's all. I'll leave everyone with a choice lyric from Brant Bjork's song "Cheap Wine":

"Stop at the liquor store, we'll start at noon."

If that ain't a great philosophy, I don't know what is.

The night winding down into lamplight and Herman Melville, I can almost feel the future: a smooth, translucent grey wall that I can see blurry things moving behind, especially strange because I know that wall is built on a precipice, and there's nothing for anything to walk on out there. The future is 3 AM when it's 11 PM, after-dinner coffee when you're eating lunch, your last cigarette when you're just ripping the cellophane off a fresh pack. The future is everything you tell yourself you can foresee, everything that makes sense for now. Once it's the past, though, it's all a blur, just like it was when it was the future.

I need to sleep.

Woke up hung over for the first time in, well, a long time, and forgot that I had beer in the fridge, so I actually just waited it out. This accounts for my sluggishness, and partly for my desire to crawl back into bed (if you want to call the floor a "bed"), but not for my inability to sit here and get any writing done. That problem's been lurking around here for a while, and I hope to ambush it and beat the shit out it with a rolling barrage of new writing. Yeah, right.

As far as I'm concerned, there are three kinds of bartenders: the good, who you get to know after propping up the same bar regularly enough, the bad, and the really good. Really good bartenders aren't necessarily quick to set up a new round, nor are they always masters of mixology, but simply people you knew before they became bartenders, and therefore will give you free drinks. I finally know one of these bartenders, although she doesn't work often enough to my taste (for free booze). Here's to Jodie for the cerveza gratis.

Debo tratar de escribir aqui en espanol. No se como hacer los accentos, pero lo no importa. Necesito practicar mi espanol, si no lo olvido. Y, naturalmente, quiero ser muy pretencioso (especialmente cuando no se como deletrear, o decir, la palabra espanol que ya he usado).

I just thought of something.

DCLXVI.

That's 666 to most of you. ("Adrian's Revenge!") Is it at all possible that the Book of Revelations chose this number because it incorporates, in descending order, every Roman numeral save M? From what I read in Everything Is Under Control, the conspiratorial pseudo-compendium by Robert Anton Wilson, Kabalistic interpretations of 666 are many and varied, which makes numerological arguments about the famous number dubious. This notion I just latched onto, however- courtesy of Orange Goblin's song "Quincy the Pigboy"- is simple enough to accomodate the theory that Revelations was some sort of hallucination, because it's not that uncommon for those suffering (or being blessed by) hallucinations to turn an otherwise ordinary notion, in this case descending Roman numerals, into something far more signficant than it is, or at least appears to be.

I'm sure someone else in history has noticed this amusing bit of trivia, so when I remember to do so, I'll look it up. Right now it's off to Catbirds.

It's old news now, but I can't believe I forgot to report it earlier:

Rob Halford has rejoined Judas Priest.

"Freewheel Burning," "Painkiller," "Electric Eye," "Heading Out to the Highway," "Metal Gods," and all the other classics, coming to your town in 2004.

Holy shit.

I thought I was lucky to see Iron Maiden with Bruce Dickinson. Looks like, to quote Down, "there's something on my side."

JUDAS PRIEST, MOTHERFUCKERS!

Well, the day went well, all things considered. I got my list of errata for my novel mailed off, drank lots of water, finally finished Lin Yutang's The Importance of Living, which is a phenomenal book, and saw Sara. There were a few downers, namely my brother's getting ill from being at work- literally- and my foolish failure to call him when I went to the bar this evening. I really feel bad about having forgotten to let him know we were there; I'd told him I would, and neglected to do so, so I feel as if I broke a promise. It sucks.

I've got a job interview six days from now. Nothing spectacular, but it'll pay the bills, which is all I really expect from a job. (Of course, by writing this, I open myself to all sorts of paranoid behavior, since I can't help but think that my potential employer is searching out every reference to me online in order to assess my viability as an employee. Highly unlikely, I'm sure, but nevertheless a concern.)

I haven't written much in a while, but that's fine, because I'm simply letting my mind fill with the thoughts that constant writing rarely allows to accumulate, thoughts that may very well strengthen my ability with words. I ranted tonight to some folks about how much I despise the culture of denial, but, following Lin Yutang's advice, tempered my words with a certain amount of reasonableness, in that I noted that it is not entirely impossible that sometime in the future I might join said culture. As it stands, however, I don't intend to apologize for certain behaviors, and hope to never turn my back on them, even if doing so means I have material for a memoir or what have you.

Whenever anyone asks me what my favorite albums are of all time, I have to remember to include Ulver's Perdition City. Simply put, this album is the future, as filtered through Norwegian musical geniuses and contemporary technology. Utterly unbelievable, Perdition City is required listening for anyone seeking to understand the condition of urban man, especially the urban man who does not fall for society's pitiful tricks and half-assed cultural deceptions.

Good night, world. I leave you with this and this.

I received the proof copy of my novel today. Aside from some serious typesetting problems, which I guarantee weren't my fault, it's utterly bizarre to hold a book in your hands that you wrote. I really have no interest in re-reading it, since I've already gone over it more times than I have brain cells (that's at least three), but damn, to see my name on a piece of paper that I didn't put text on is unreal. I just hope that people like it and buy enough copies to support my unemployment habit.

Speaking of not having a job, I need one ASAP. My finances are incredibly bad, so come Monday I'm going to spend all week hitting the streets looking for work. I despise doing so, but any income is better than none. (I don't count what the state of Texas gives me, since I haven't received a single check yet.)

Listen to Acid King, kids. "Teen Dusthead" is somethin' else.

Despite all the hassles that come with it- especially those of the financial nature- unemployment is fantastic. I really, really like loafing around, much more than I like having a job. I like being able to do just about any damn thing I want when I want, since I'm not under any real time constraints. I like knowing that, if only for a little while, I'm not one of those people out there being forced to "do something." I like doing nothing, and until I can no longer afford to do nothing (which, if you think about it, is an absolutely absurd notion, because it should be cheaper to do nothing than do something), I'm going to do exactly that. Nothing.

Here's to Monster Magnet for writing "Negasonic Teenage Warhead."

And here's to my brother for setting up this stylish website for me and my novel.

Unemployment, as I understand it, is at an all-time here in the glorious US of A. Our government is raping its people with the stealth of a drunken frat boy slippin' it into a passed-out sorostitute, with all the insidious, destructive results. Nobody outside the US really likes America, or at least the mob of brain-dead whores that announces itself as America. God, if he ever reciprocated the trust that America had in him, certainly doesn't now. Can you blame him? He's got fundamentalist beasts roaring in his name, and I bet that if you were to sit down with any of them and discuss theology, you'd get nothing but idiotic literalist interpretations of the Bible, quotes from which would come mostly from the fucking Old Testament. Convicted fucking criminals hold government positions, underpaid, uneducated, and apathetic drones carry out those criminals' orders, and the economy is a motherfucking joke. Hell, America is a joke, and a bad one at that, because the monsters telling the joke have a prison cell waiting for everyone who doesn't laugh and ask politely to hear another one.

Christ, this country is the best place I've ever lived, but it disgusts me how it became such a great place to live. Is it because Americans are conscientious, well-informed, and caring as a people? No, it's because of dirty tricks, lying politicians, disinformation, hysteria, and war. But you know what? Despite all the underhanded shit pulled in order for me to have the standard of living that I do, I'm willing to put it aside- not entirely, but momentarily, because I understand history well enough to accept that nobody has ever come to power through altruism and virtuous behavior. Nevertheless, the wretched power wielded by the government is growing at such a rate as to exceed the standard level of deceit and shadowy activity pursued by governments worldwide. It exceeds the standard so much that America will set a new standard: no longer will the US be beholden to the Corruption Index, but it will become the focus of a Corruption Index 2.0, the Aberrant Democracy Index. How willing officials and businessmen are to take bribes will only be a small part of the ADI; how willing the government is to sacrifice the ideals it was founded upon will be the new measurement. And not only will the government be accountable, but the sheep, the people who unswervingly believe what the news has to say, the people who support half halfwit/half cunning fucks like George W. Bush, the people that believe that slapping a US flag bumper sticker on their car means something, will be accountable.

And there will be no mercy for them. Those who choose not to vote for ethical reasons will be receive more leniency than those who willingly pissed away the ideals of America into the mouths of the politicians, businessmen, bankers, and multinational con artists. The fools who express joy that America is being eaten alive by snitches, databases, lawyers, soldiers operating on national soil, politicians, and related vermin will burn far more fiercely than any poor soul in any of Dante's circles of hell, because they are giving in to the atavistic human urge, an urge that Wilhelm Reich was fully aware of, to let someone else take control. They will be consigned to a hell wherein they are eternally raped by flaccid politicians, mouth-fucked by the batons of cops who couldn't even earn their GED, and mournfully stared at by the loved ones- and even strangers- that they sold out in the name of that false, greedy, and thoroughly wicked god, SECURITY.

Fuck security. Security is for people who do nothing and believed their high school teachers. Security is for all the poor bastards in the Korean DMZ waiting for the shit to hit the fan. Security is for people who think the God they hear about on Sunday bears any resemblance to the true God. Security is for paranoids, who know that someone is out to get them (and probably a whole lot of others in the bargain). Security is for assholes who shop at the mall. Security is for anyone who thinks the government won't fuck them over to make a buck, sieze an oil field, or secure a seat in the Senate.

"...all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." -The United States Declaration of Independence

Translation: people are far too willing to take shit. If Americans would read this damned document, they'd realize that it's their right to tell the government to fuck off and die.


As a famous fellow Virginian once said, "give me liberty or give me death."

As famous fellow Texans once said, "come and take it."



-D.A. Smith, July 5, 2003


Thanks to Hunter S. Thompson, for all the obvious reasons.