"Anathem" is really good. Here's a quote, from a wandering math-monk trying to make sense of his new outdoorsman friend's strangely irrational and exciting way of life, as compared to the irrationally boring way of life followed by most people who are not outdoorsmen or math-monks:

"Thousands of years ago, the work that people did had been broken down into jobs that were the same every day, in organizations where people were interchangeable parts. All of the story had been bled out of their lives. That was how it had to be; it was how you got a productive economy. But it would be easy to see a will at work behind this: not exactly an evil will, but a selfish will. The people who'd made the system thus were jealous, not of money and not of power but of story. If their employees came home at day's end with interesting stories to tell, it meant that something had gone wrong: a blackout, a strike, a spree killing. The Powers That Be would not suffer others to be in stories of their own unless they were fake stories that had been made up to motivate them. People who couldn't life without story had been driven into the concents [math-monk collectives] or into jobs like Yul's [weird solitary journeymen]. All others had to look somewhere outside of work for a feeling that they were part of a story, which I guessed was why Saeculars were so concerned with sports, and with religion. How else could you see yourself as part of an adventure? Something with a beginning, middle, and end in which you played a significant part?"

How indeed.

I'm catsitting for my friend Robert while he's on vacation. I am totally in love with his cat Logan, so much so that when I play with her I kind of feel like I'm cheating on my own personal cats.

Sometimes I need a reality check about my affection for small animals who don't talk and poop in the wrong places. Robert is happy to provide.

The other day, in a fit of adorability, I sent him a text saying "Logan's name is now Lady Cuddlepants. Please refer to her as such in all future correspondence."

He texted this back to me: "Paul Jay's new name is Mr. Faggot."

Fair enough.

I saw some excerpts of Sarah Palin's speech, and I think it actually made me MORE sexist. I honestly could not think of a non-sexist-sounding thing to say about her. She talks like a beauty queen, like a trophy wife reading off a TelePrompTer, like a book club president discussing what she liked about The Secret. Women all over America look stupider because of her.

Sarah Palin is to white women what Flava Flav is to black men.

My response to my girlfriend asking why I blog at such weird hours:

"I never know when the Muse is going to sit on my face."

"I can't remember Labor Day, therefore it must have been a lot of fun."

Today's stupid statement overheard from a Ron Paul supporter:

"Kennedy and Lincoln both wanted to take us back to the gold standard, and they both got shot."

COINCIDENCE?

This guy also said, in the same conversation, that the IRS should be abolished because 25% of the money they collect "just goes to fill their coffers". Like the IRS has a Money Bin somewhere, with auditors doing the backstroke in it and loinclothed slaves dumping in buckets full of rubies that have been whipped out of the hides of poor hardworking sysadmins from across this great and oppressed nation.

Some Ron Paul supporters are smart, frustrated people who are happy to see a politician appear to talk straight and have specific ideas. Others should really go back to their bullwhip collections, ponytail maintenance and Windwaker papercrafting and leave the running of the world to people in possession of at least ONE fact. Unfortunately, the only way to tell which kind of Ron Paul supporter you're dealing with is to talk to them, and I'd really rather clip my nails.

My friend Troy was telling his lady a story about me, and he described me as "Paul Jay, comic", but he said it so fast that she thought it was all one name, and she was horrified.

"Your friend deliberately named himself Paul J. Comic? Is he the Hack Emperor?"

I might have to make Paul J. Comic into an alternate persona, for situations where a given crowd might not get jokes about the Transformers, or the hidden racism of "The Polar Express", or the hilarious side of serial killers.

Paul J. Comic talks about how L.A. is weird, and dating is weird, and people of certain races drive in certain ways, some of which are weird.

Paul J. Comic has a vast array of situations into which he could work his Jack Nicholson impression.

Paul J. Comic can hump a barstool like he fucking means it.

Paul J. Comic isn't a racist, but he just wants you to admit it sure SEEMS like there are differences between the races sometimes, specifically in terms of how they dance and behave at movie theaters, and you can't get mad at him because there's a black guy in the audience and he doesn't seem to be mad.

Paul J. Comic would like to know what you do for a living, where you're from, if that's your boyfriend, if it's your birthday, what you call those shoes you're wearing, and if he can have sex with you after the show.

Paul J. Comic will be here all week and would like you to please take care of your wait staff. He would also like to encourage you to come back tomorrow for Spicy Laff Tacos, the club's all-Latina comedy night.

Paul J. Comic is pleasantly surprised when women are funny, and says so when he's hosting for them.

Paul J. Comic fucks club waitresses while wearing a condom made of solid self-loathing.

And, of course, Paul J. Comic performs all over town and we're very happy to have him. Try the veal!

I don't actually believe Barack Obama is homophobic just because he's black. What a weird thing to have to type. I CAN tell you that a goddamn fuckload of the black people I've met in my life have been extremely homophobic. When I mention this on stage, I get one of two reactions: terrified awkward silence (from straight white people) or laughter and the occasional thumbs-up of agreement and recognition (from gays and lesbians and black people). But I guess anecdotal evidence from a personal life spent – let's face it – principally in the company of shitty open mic comedians is not the best thing to bear on vast and convoluted arguments over national policy and centuries-old cultural trends.

[Edited to remove excessive guilty-white-guy ass-covering.]

I don't have a great deal invested in the Presidential race, what with my total lack of commitment to basically anything. I like Obama because of the utterly hilarious reactions he provokes from the right wing, not because of his platform; his core beliefs seem to be "people should be good and nice and hey, change is all right", but I'm still waiting for specifics. But I also like McCain, because I would love to see what it's like for a sitting President to slowly die of old age. As far as I know, it's never happened in American history. I would love to see CNN update us on his bowel movements, and what he thought of this week's Andy Rooney monologue, and how his great-grandchildren are doing.

Some people think McCain looks evil. I just think he looks like he took a drink from the False Grail, and is moments away from crumbling into a little pile of bones and ash with an American flag pin on top while Alison Doody screams in terror. Hilarious, I know. And yet, there are those in this country who demand more from their President than the simple pleasure of watching someone die at a glacial pace. For those people, Barack Obama would seem to be the better choice.

OR WOULD HE???

Most of my friends are pretty excited about the idea of a black President. MOST of my friends. Not, you can be sure, the gay ones. I bet a lot of gays are afraid that Obama will take office and then turn out to be just as ragingly homophobic as almost every other black person in America.

(I love applying the adverb "ragingly" to the adjective "homophobic". Serves 'em right.)

A lot of people get uncomfortable with statements like "most black people hate gays", but seriously, ask around. If homophobia were a national sport, black people would be, well, black people: proportionally overrepresented, highly trained, and utterly dominant. Eddie Murphy said some shit back in the day that makes Fred Phelps look like Fred Rogers, and things have not really changed for the better since then. I started doing comedy in spoken-word poetry venues, and it is goddamn amazing how many dreadlocked Mumia-freeing power-fighting Sons Of Zion will start spouting gay-hate given the slightest opportunity, in some of the most liberal performance venues in one of the most liberal cities in the country.

I have no explanation for this. The closest I've come is to think that if I had been unwillingly ass-raped for five hundred years, I might have trouble understanding why anyone would want to do it recreationally. To be slightly less jokey about it, black men have had their masculinity systematically pulled out from under them in almost every conceivable way ever since they were first dragged to this country. Insecurity and hyperprotectivity of one's own masculinity manifests itself as homophobia all the time. And actually, it's not just black people; raging homophobia is at its ragingest among our country's most disenfranchised groups: blacks, Latinos, orthodox religious sects of all kinds, poor white trash, you name it.

I was very depressed by this phenomenon when I first found out about it. I always assumed all oppressed groups everywhere collaborated and loved each other. I also used to assume Santa Claus lived at the North Pole and spied on me when I lied.

Black people, Latino people, fundamentalist Jews, various minority whatevers, please allow me, a white person, to admonish you all as a group, because I know you love that: YOU AND THE HOMOS ARE IN THIS TOGETHER. You don't get to pick and choose. You can't free Mumia and then turn around and put the faggots in camps. You can't love Morrissey (sorry I couldn't help myself) and then disown your daughter when she comes out as a lesbian during her quinceanera. You can't fight tooth and nail for Israel's right to exist and then stab a drag queen. And you can't vote a black man into the Oval Office and then demand that he criminalize gay marriage.

He should change his name to MorRAZA.