If this were a blog, "This is basically crap" would not be a good enough title for the item above. I am aware of this. Also, "Best $12.99 I�ve spent in ages" would not suffice for a description of the new headphones I got yesterday, I mean wouldn�t that be terribly wankerish because who the hell cares about my new headphones? (Ear buds don�t fit in my ears, these are hard plastic wraparound things, took them out running for an hour today and they stayed put beautifully, the gym gets KEXP reception so life just got a little better. There.) Earlier I was reading some news sites and on the left there was the obligatory sample personal ad from an online dating service and the female in question listed among the top five items she couldn�t live without as Chapstick, body jewelry, and her Hot Topic frequent buyers card and for one hot second I could see it there on the page in 14-point type: "You�re from Jersey, right?" But then in the next instant my laptop crashed � this is why I don�t remember the other two � and I felt like I�d been slapped on the wrist. In the past week or so I have been anathema to all manner of appliances � two clocks, the light in my closet, remote controls, the hand blender I use to make the breakfast smoothies, and both computers; Steve has diagnosed my PC, which today made a noise like a lawnmower when I turned it on, as needing a new OS. I suppose I should enjoy KEXP on Steve�s little armband radio while I can, because I�ll probably destroy that too.

I�m watching "On The Waterfront." I got it as the freebie with my Tuesday-night DVD rental, "Punch Drunk Love," because Steve hadn�t seen it and I thought maybe he�d be able to watch it before it has to be back on Friday, but no dice so I might as well. It�s such a tremendous movie, I never liked Eva Marie Saint except in this one. Marlon Brando has the eyebrows of a showgirl.

So here is the Dan Savage interview. This is perhaps telling, this morning I had second thoughts about linking to it here because I got paranoid that someone at the Stranger would find it and then find a way to make fun of me publicly in its evenhanded Stranger then-you�re-an-asshole way. Not with the emphasis on naturally someone would find it, instead on naturally that�s what the editorial response would be, do you see? But I must speak truth to power! Ha. I mean, I must push myself a little. Savage�s last line in the interview is, "One of the things we do right at The Stranger is we fight with our readers all the time, we battle them." Oh please. This becomes true if and only if you change "battle" to "bait." He says that daily newspapers are terrified of their readers, which is a point worth engaging sometime, but he seems to have decided that the solution to this problem is to terrorize the readers first. He talks about how he wants the paper to be "conflicted and divided," and he congratulates himself for being "the only alt-weekly in the country that dared to run anything that entertained the notion that the world would be a better place if we didn't oppose the war in Iraq" � no grandstanding there! � but I have always felt that his paper does things like this *just* to be contrary, just to be the only. Are you allowed to accept credit for practicing advocacy journalism and also to take pride in bomb-throwing among your readership�s fellow would-be advocates? I realize that my accusations are squishy, I feel and I felt, but, honestly, there�s something very knee-jerk about The Stranger�s contrarianism. Hitchens vs. Rall on the Iraq war, with Pollack as moderator � holy hackneying, Batman, that�s as lazy and stale as the DOA Segal review. It�s knee-jerk and then it kicks you in the face for liking the wrong things and calls you an asshole, it is no wonder I feel pummeled into helpless despair by it and can�t help feeling personally injured and discredited by its hegemony. Savage doesn�t distinguish between "punchy stuff" and that which punches. The Stranger is a strategy without a mission, a Frankenstein�s monster of the hipster Zeitgeist but without balls. I apologize for bringing up "Pictures from an Institution" yet again � it meant a lot to me, OK? it made an impression � but when I was out running earlier and thinking about what I was going to write here, I remembered a passage from the book. It is about a callous old-lady novelist, kind of a heartless Dawn Powell, and to me it is also about my local alt-weekly:

So because of all this � of all this, and so much more � even the best of Gertrude�s books were habitat groups in a Museum of Natural History: topography, correct; meteorological information, correct; condition of skins, good; mounting of horns, correct� Inside there were old newspapers, papier-m�ch�, clockwork. And yet, mirabile dictu!! the animals moved, a little stiffly, and gave the calls of their species, a little thinly � was it not a world?

It is not a world. (I love you, Randall Jarrell.) I think that conflict and divisiveness are overrated as measures of integrity. If I go outside and pick a fight with the people who live across the street, I have caused conflict, I have divided the neighborhood, but big deal, I�ve also been a disrespectful jerk. And it only stands to reason that if you�re arguing two sides of the same issue you�re going to get twice as many people riled up and twice as many letters to the editor � that�s not integrity, that�s arithmetic. I am suspicious of the way in which Savage�s care to set up The Stranger as not your typical alt-weekly, we�re doing something that no one else has the guts to do blah blah blah, provides an instant rationale for his paper�s consistent poor showing at the Alternative Newsweekly Awards.

Disclaimers: I often enjoy "Savage Love." I have seen Dan Savage speak in public a few times, and damn he is one charismatic motherfucker and hot with two t�s, and I like him even more now that I know he subscribes to the National Review. (Does he like my guy Matt Labash in the Weekly Standard too? Labash instead of Hitchens for the rah-rah-war piece, wouldn�t that have been much cooler and, well, alt-ier?) I admire his unapologetic capitalism and instincts for the market � he is a showman � and also his calm delineation, in the interview, of editing vs. censorship and general attitude about the impossibility of being all things to all people while still being at all worthwhile. Myself, I don't know Thing One about the business of running a newspaper. Please don't hit me.

I have high standards, and I am dissatisfied.

An old friend sent mail this morning, presumably after reading at least yesterday�s diary entry: You sound depressed. Can I help? He�s a great guy, the kind of person whose offer of help makes you feel better about yourself because someone like him believed you worthy of it. We chatted a bit via e-mail, and I told him what I would also wish to convey to you: Any ongoing worry about me is misplaced, because I�m not depressed. I am dissatisfied.