Frontier Gibberish - June 12th, 2006

Famous People Who I Don't Know Personally But Who Strike Me As Probably Being Complete Assholes

Gary Sinise
Dane Cook
Bam Margera
Val Kilmer
Luis Guzman
Josh Lucas
Mark Wahlberg
Jennifer Lopez
Mick Jagger
Jonathan Franzen
Stephen King
Terrence Howard
Adam Sandler
Keira Knightley
Vince Vaughn
Russell Crowe (supported by ample evidence)
Steve Martin
Paul Thomas Anderson
Tom Cruise (well, this is probably beyond doubt)

Famous People Who I Don't Know Personally But Who Strike Me As Probably Being Really Nice People:

Scarlett Johansson
Kurt Russell
Jeff Daniels
Jeff Bridges
Angelina Jolie
Nicole Kidman
Bill Murray
Matt Damon
Sean Bean
Keith Richards

William Gaddis's J R is one funnyass book. I cracked up while reading this passage, in which two kids on a field trip are trading cheap advertisements they got through the mail:

--Where does it say it.

--Brilliantly executed K'ung-p'a maneuvers require no bodily contact, and yet K'ung-p'a can be deadly, crippling...

--That's a lot of crap.

--Oh yeah? Then look, you pay nothing if you can't disarm one hoodlum, send another flying through the air, and slam a third into the ground, all in a split second of...

--Well, maybe...

--Because K'ung-p'a is deadly beyond imagination, and since attack as well as defense is taught, only a small limited edition has been printed for serious students who must vow never to use it as an aggressor but only as self-defense to protect himself, his friends and his family. We don't ever want a criminal or hoodlum to be able to buy it because of its deadly power...

"Deadly beyond imagination". Ha!