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Dan Carlson
Houston, Texas

I'm a twentysomething white male with ambitions to be a professional film critic and generally spend my days getting paid to watch movies and write about it. A compulsive reader and stubborn cineaste, I take an often contrary stance to my more fundamentalist peers and upbringing by celebrating the pursuit of the good, and the Good, in life, love, art and film. If you watched enough episodes of certain TV shows — for starters, "The Hungry and the Hunted," "The Cut Man Cometh," "The Body," "The Zeppo," "Waiting in the Wings," "Out of Gas," "April Is the Cruelest Month," "20 Hours in America," "Colonial Day," "An Echolls Family Christmas," "Look Who's Stalking," "The Garage Door," "Charlie Gets Crippled," "Wind Sprints," and "Corner Boys" — you would understand me completely, and you'd also realize that much of my worldview and philosophical insights are heavily influenced by fictional works/programs, and many of the good things I've said in my life are just a regurgitation of someone else's imaginings, or at any rate a heartfelt attempt to interpret them. I guess I was made to be a film critic.

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« Oh Brother Of Mine, Please Don't Forget Me If I Go |Main| This Isn't Going To Have A Happy Ending »

August 25, 2008

Just Because We're Trying To Nominally Change Politics For The Better Doesn't Mean We Can't, You Know, Cruise For Trim

By Dan Carlson

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This week is the Democratic National Convention in Denver, and I'll be following the action on all the same old sites and stations, as well as Facebook updates from my friend, former classmate, and inevitable award-recipient Paul.

But I think we should all take a minute to reflect on the profound absurdity, sadness, and predictability that the casual encounters section of Denver's Craigslist page is already blowing up with horny conventioneers looking to go all Carcetti with whoever's in town. A lot of the ads are m4w, and quite a few are the extreme postings that will either be deleted by site admins or wind up leading some poor girl into a world of terror in a shady Days Inn. (Easily the most disturbing of these so far is the post titled "RE: DNC GANG BANG SLUT," which reads: "Hey guys. I am a straight guy here. If you actually have a Hotel room and are planning to use the 'DNC GANG BANG SLUT' that has already posted, I would appreciate if you let me know where you plan on using her. What's one more gonna hurt? Thanks." I'm too terrified to do anything but gape at the screen.)

So, there you go. Another important election at the crossroads of generational and cultural conflict, and the beginning of the end of a season that could finally see a referendum on the attitude of divisive pigheadedness that's been running rampant, but hey, let's get laid and maybe kidnap some ladies, too. I'm still a little too weirded out to draw conclusions, but I don't think I want to.

Comments: 2

brandon

Anyone who can work the phrase "crusing for trim" into a political blog post wins my life long readership.

Aug 25, 2008 8:13 PM

Drew

Can't wait to see what goes up for the Republican convention.

Aug 25, 2008 10:04 PM

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"The critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising."
— Pauline Kael

"Film lovers are sick people."
— Francois Truffaut

"I hope I strike a blow for chubby bald men everywhere. I hope they rise like an army."
— Paul Giamatti, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, 12/14/04

"Let others praise ancient times, I am glad I was born in these."
— Ovid

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the wisdom

Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?

O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.
— Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.
— John Stuart Mill

We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.
— G.K. Chesterton

We were, for the briefest of moments, something greater than the sum of our uncertain parts; we were youth itself, in all its painful glory and sharp joy.
— Me, Fall 2003

There is a time in the lives of most writers when they are vulnerable, when the vivid dreams and ambitions of childhood seem to pale in the harsh sunlight of what we call the real world. In short, there's a time when things can go either way.
— Stephen King

Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town.
— Ask the Dust, John Fante