Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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Like my brownhouse:
   rich in hydrogen sulfide
Sunday, December 18 2011
My gut was bothering me again today, to the point where I felt at least a little debilitated. Had I eaten something suspect (other than restaurant Indian food)? Or did I have something indogenously wrong with me? My abdomen was uncomfortably bloated, I kept having to go to the brownhouse to explosively diarrhea (if that can be used as a verb). Furthermore, the gas coming out of my ass was rich in hydrogen sulfide and smelled simply horrendous. Later this evening it definitely helped to take a Pepto-Bismol, though nobody seems to be sure how exactly that particular substance works.
One activity that I was up for despite my complaints was watching the movie Menace II Society, a not-especially-glamorizing portrayal of African American street thug life in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. The movie begins with a scene wherein the most sociopathic sidekick in cinema murders and robs a pair of Korean shopkeepers using the iconic sideways pistol grip, where, in Hip Hop culture, it soon was to become a cliché. From then on, Menace II Society goes from crass materialism to murder to crass sexuality to murder to homophobia to murder and around again. In the informal street justice on display in the movie, most infractions carry a death sentence, though the people who carry out these sentences then themselves become targets in a never-ending cycle of violence. It's a fascinating view, however inaccurate, of life in Watts in the early 1990s. Most of it comes across as authentic, if only for the many details and nuances. O'Dog didn't have to get excited about eating the hamburger he took from the crackhead (after killing him for offering to suck his dick), but he did.
In need of new television programming, I started watching Moonshiners on the Discovery Channel tonight. I generally find Discovery-Channel reality shows overanxious with the drama and suspense (though at least Gold Rush is gorgeously filmed). But by comparison to Moonshiners, the others I watch are like miniserieses (is that the plural form?) by David Attenborough. Moonshiners is cheap and tawdry, all in an effort to keep you watching despite its slow pace. It's an hour-long show, but it should probably only be a half-hour one. Also, it's missing something in the credibility department. Why, after all, would a moonshiner allow a film crew to follow him to his back woods still and not demand that his face be pixelated? [REDACTED]


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