Lil Wayne is the new Bob Dylan

Lil Wayne is the new Bob Dylan. Okay, I know, there's never going to be any such thing as the new Bob Dylan, or "our generation's Bob Dylan," or any of that junk. But I think Lil Wayne is in a close race with a young Bruce Springsteen for the title of "Artist least undeserving of the comparison to Bob Dylan." If you were wondering, the genesis of this thought was not recent on my part, but it was solidified and expanded upon yesterday as I listened to Tha Carter III and hit a tennis ball against the basement wall for an hour. I was having all these interconnected ideas about the history of American music, and playing the deuces, and cultural change regarding intertextuality--that sort of thing. Then I stopped hitting the tennis ball against the wall, and I didn't necessarily disagree with any of those ideas, but it didn't seem worth writing a book about or anything. So I think hitting a tennis ball against a wall in the basement for an hour is my new way of smoking up. Or my anti-drug, if you will.

Those finks at the Post-Dispatch still haven't published my letter, and I'm thinking by now they probably never will. So I got bumped? The finks! Well, the bailout got passed and signed and now our complete financial collapse will merely be a terrible recession or mild depression...so I'm happy, letter or no.

I'll make quick comments on completely random shit. Kimbo Slice is fighting on CBS tonight. I was one of those people who knew nothing about mixed martial arts, but when that son of a bitch came on the scene, I was like, he is the greatest athlete alive. Do you see his beard? Do you see the streets, in his eyes? But now he's struggling to beat even mediocre to poor opponents, so now you're sort of watching to see him be beaten by, like, the 235th best fighter in the world, even though it's sad at the same time you're getting that little schadenfreudy satisfaction.

When I had my great Klonopin-induced personal breakthrough, about a month ago, I shaved my moustache that I'd been sporting for over a year. It was kind of dumb and thin, but I was fond of it. Depending on how sympathetic you were towards it, is what just one out of a million dumb patchy hipster facial hair choices--or, it was like Errol Flynn, like Clark Gable, like Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Anyway, I'm trying to grow it back--but the damn thing is so thin it takes at least a couple months to come in. So now I'm walking around like a moron with some dirt on his upper lip. Hopefully Sheila (as I decided to call him, three seconds ago) will be at full strength by the new year.

If you've not seen the Sarah Palin Debate Flowchart being sent about through the internet tubes, look it up. I'm too lazy to reproduce it here. I printed it out for my mother, who has developed and nurtured a borderline violent and insane hate for the Republican ticket. Printed it out! So twentieth century, right? And so cliche to describe computer illiteracy as So Twentieth Century, but what else are you gonna say about? It is.

What else? The nation is waiting with bated breath for SNL's debate take starring Tina Fey's impersonation of Sarah Palin. Two parenthesis here. One: (What the hell does "bated" mean? No one ever uses it but in the context of "waiting with bated breath.") Two: (You can't even call it an impersonation, because Tina Fey's version of Sarah Palin and Sarah Palin are in this sort of bizarre, possibly postmodern, relationship with one another. More than one person has speculated that Palin's performance at the debate, re: extreme folksiness and winking, was influenced by Fey's version of her. I'm just sorry Jean Baudrillard isn't alive to see this. That old Gallic Americofetishizer would be blowing his load. Simulacra! Simulacra! Get me a towel.) Also: Queen Latifah slated to play moderator Gwen Ifil. Wow. Lorne Michaels. Could we please just hire a black woman comedian for, like, the second time in your show's 33 year history? I've not one for affirmative action in the arts (bit of a Harold Bloom booster), but seriously, that statistic is insane. And please put the funny Fred Armisen out of his misery playing unfunnily someone who is supposed to represent Barack Obama. Hire Jordan Carlos. Steal Wyatt Cenac from the Daily Show. But good Christ, do something.

Uh...I'm going to see the St. Louis Symphony tomorrow afternoon. I hardly listen to any classical music, but I've been listening the shit out of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony (i.e. not one of the famous two with the da-da-da-dum or the Ode to Joy) over the last couple months. So when I saw they were performing it, I was like, I ain't broke enough to miss that shit. Turns out the cheapest seats (like, 16 bucks) are at the front of the hall. ? Is this something to do with acoustics? A weird status thing among classical music people? Or maybe you can see the orchestra better from farther away. I was all stoked to wear one of my tweed jackets with leather patches on the elbows so that I'd be perfectly not-under-or-overdressed (unlike the dopes in a full suit, or in a golf polo tucked into their dopey slacks). Perfect for a fall afternoon! But then weather went up to the eighties again. After twenty-two and a half years in St. Louis, I've developed a theory: the weather changes very rapidly. That's an inside joke I guess if you're not from St. Louis. The conventional wisdom slash overused joke here is, if you don't like the weather here, just wait fifteen minutes, it'll be the exact opposite. This is turning from a boring, rambling post to an absurdly boring, rambling post. (I got me the Google Analytics, so I know I get a very small but not non-existent number of visitors a day. Though they have a tendency to spend 0:00 minutes here. As in, I guess, they get here and then feel compelled to leave in a manner that defies the laws of physics. Or maybe it's some goof with Google Analytics. Probably a little of both.)

And in other news, Jackie Mason is still alive, and supports John McCain. Maybe. He forgets sometimes whether or not he does:

Befuddled Endorsements: Confused Jackie Mason Starts Jewish Civil War