Max "Bunny" Sparber

I WAS OUT UNTIL VERY LATE with my old friend MM and her current boyfriend. We got very stones, which has been the case for me with surprising frequency lately. We watched the movie Rebbecca and my thieving habits came up. MM was surprised. I had never mentioned it before, and she seemed very intrigued.

I skipped going to the radio station today. I just needed the day off, I guess.

IT MAY BE A SIGN of my poor understanding of the purpose of a journal that rereading it, I realize some of the most in these last months are oddly absent, while page after page is filled with details that already mean very little to me. I suspect I could easily have continued writing for months without mentioning that one of the alternateens had a masturbation contest with a girl he knew (they both retired to an upstairs room for a while to discover who could reach orgasm the fastest.) And I neglected to mention that two of the alternateens do what they call "dick tricks," which consist of twisting their genitalia into comic shapes, all of which have names that describe them: the baguette; fat man in a hammock; etc.

I almost didn't write about my father's cousin B, who was in town last weekend. He is known in the family as the "lost cousin," since he disappears for long stretches of time. Apparently he's been a junkie for most of his adult life, and he goes in and out of homeless shelters.

B had the Sparber look: handsome, with long gray hair and a beaklike nose. He was high-strung and very funny, talking openly about his drug habit and miserable life. His life seemed fairly monotonous. I wonder if my father wanted me to meet B so the cousin could serve as a sort of cautionary tale.

I have been listening to a collection of recordings of The Shadow radio show. The show is genuinely spooky, and is more morbid and ghastly than contemporary horror movies, which are often very clinical about violence. Once I finish with The Shadow, I'll get some more of these recordings.

I AM LYING IN BED and it is very early in the morning, about 3am. I am not able to sleep, even though I am very tired. I have been reviewing my own past, and it has been unpleasant.

I am thinking about a red-haired girl I knew years ago. I met her through a mutual friend and quickly became friends. She was living with another girl, and the three of us hung out for maybe three months in the fall of 1989. We had a lot in common and had great fun together, and I often stayed over so late that I would just sleep on their sofa.

I did not realize at the time that the red-haired girl had a crush on me., and she surprised me one night when I was on her sofa by kissing me and bringing me into her bedroom. For reasons that are lost to me now, I refused her advances. I never saw her after that, I felt too awkward and embarrassed. I now feel really awful about this, because I feel like I walked out on a friendship (two, actually, as I was also friends with her roommate) and possibly a nice romance. I am also certain that my rejection, which was unexplained and complete, must have been demoralizing and confusing. I do not like to think that I have hurt people. I would like to call her and apologize, but, seven years later, I don't know her number and, even more shamefully, do not remember her name.

I am reliving my fantasies of becoming a pornographer. There is a part of myself who is ready to pull up stakes right now and move out to Los Angeles again.

This fantasy is the oddest I have. Perhaps I think it would add a fascinating dimension to my biography. I am capable of enormous shifts of life based on unchallenged whims, so it is possible that this will not be a fantasy for long. A few more bad experiences in Minnesota would certainly be enough to drive me away.

My father has suggested that I come by his lab this week. He is going to see if he can find an old Macintosh to give me. I am no longer able to work without a computer.

THE CAT WAS GONE for a few days. I had started to give up hope. She returned, without explanation, yesterday. Now I am worried that she is pregnant.

The MST3K interview went well. JS came up with more than a few of the questions, but because of his mic fright he did not participate in the interview.

I do not like my current roommates very much. They keep bringing skinheads over, which I hate. They are generally not very respectful and most of them don't work for a living. I'm going to give them until June to straighten up, but after that I'm going to just kick everybody out.

THE CAT IS ABSENT. I am a little concerned. I don't much like cats, but this one has been growing on me.

Spent all night talking to the only remaining alternateen about UFO kidnappings. I discuss this as though I am a believer, although I am not -- in fact, I like to pretendd that I think I may have been abducted. When I do this, I find many people likewise suspect that they were kidnapped.

I am thinking about becoming a jazz snob again. Until recently, I had an enormous collection of disco and funk (much of it was stolen by the skinheads), but it got little plays. Right now I am listening to Cannonball Adderly on the radio, and I remember how much I used to enjoy jazz.

THE EDITED interview with the Irish woman came to eight minutes -- the longest piece I have done so far and my first feature. It was rough, but I tried to include a fair amount of her history. History is often absent from the news. I think I have created a good piece for a fledgling journalist, but I suspect that if I were to listen to it down the road, after getting a lot of experience, the squirm factor would be high.

I was able to confirm an interview with Trace Beaulieu and Jim Mallon from Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Besides being the director and the producer of the show, they are the voices of two of the robots, Tom Servo and Gypsy, respectively. Additionally, Beaulieu plays Dr. Clayton Forrester, the main heavy on the show, and both are on the writing staff. I am hoping to conduct the interview on the set, called the Satellite of Love. JS will come to the interview with me, if he can get work off, and he is already filled with terror. He has mic fright.

There have been drunk people sleeping on my sofas for, I guess, two days now. I am starting to yell at my roommates. They respond that they don't want to be squat nazis, and I must remind them that this is not a squat.

THE INTERVIEW WENT WELL. It presents, in half an hour, a rich and personal history of 35 years in Derry, Ireland, working for Catholic civil rights and for a justice that is not based on the self-serving interests of a forced majority.

I am starting to think about the media in terms of hacking. I have successfully hacked my way into FM radio news, although in a small way. How can I find my way into other systems?

HAD MY BIRTHDAY MONDAY, which was quite nice.

The fax machine is broken at the radio station, so the news department doesn't get faxes. I'm a little disappointed, since that is where I've been getting most of my stories. I spent yesterday leafing through the newspaper, looking for stories that would interest me. None did. Finally the news director found an item from Minnesotans for a United Ireland. They're bringing a nationalist activist from Sinn Fein to Minnesota to talk about the possibility of peace. I will be interviewing her tomorrow.

NS WAS PULLED ASIDE for shoplifting. He was spotted on a videocamera at a mall. Security detained him for over an hour, then gave him a summons, and he will probably be fined. I was with him and initially security tried to detain me, but I made a pain in the ass out of myself and they told me to get lost. Instead, I parked myself outside the security office and waited for the thing to be resolved. NS was less upset by the experience than I thought he would be. Today he left for Maine for a month.

I called KK tonight and she got off the telephone abruptly. I wonder if she doesn't want to talk to me. I feel toyed with.

I WAS ON THE AIR THURSDAY. I wrote a piece about some controversy in the queer community -- the tea rooms on the University of Minnesota campus -- and recorded it, then listened to it a couple of hours later when it was played on the radio. Being so distanced from my voice, I found I rather liked the sound of it.

I have called Best Brain Studios, the producers of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and am hoping to set up an interview.

I got to know one of the drunk punks last night. Justin. He seems okay -- very sweet, really. He was very nearly beat up the previous night by a skinhead named jackal, who apparently has been inviting himself into our house through one of our windows and sleeping here. He was here about three days, He was a thug, a monster.

I GUESS THE DRUNK PUNKS who have been sleeping on the floor upstairs for the last couple of days are my new roommates. Ugly must have yelled at them about the mess and the amount of noise they were making, because they were very apologetic tonight and explained to me that they are usually very nice. Well ... we will see. They made rent, so I only need to come up with $140 for this month, so that's something of a blessing.

Today is newsday. I've been reading books about journalistic technique, so I no longer feel like I am flying blind. I was writing news without knowing what a lead is or about the inverted pyramid structure. I think I have tried to mimic this style, but I was simply trying to sound like I think news sounds. Now I think I will be able to begin to writing in a genuinely journalistic style.

I SPOKE WITH KK for a very long time on the phone last night and articulated some of my frustration. I told her I feel like someone put on a terrific record, and I was just starting to enjoy the music, and then a hand came down and pulled the needle off the record. The record is still spinning and the needle is still hovering just inches above it, but I can't find the person who is holding it to tell them to put the music back on.

Today was my six-month anniversary of working at the office supply store. As always, a job I intended to be temporary has become an ongoing concern. I cringe with embarrassment every time I must tell people what my job is. As much as I scorn revolutionaries, I am guilty of the same sort of nonsense I see in them. I complain about an unsatisfying world, but do nothing to change it but hope for a revolutionary change: I hope that unpredictable events in the future will transform everything. I take stabs at things: I write a novel or screenplay and hope somebody will notice. But people don't just notice.

I AM BEGINNING TO FEEL that JS is very much a silent partner in our Media Active Collective. Of the two interviews we have done so far, he has asked exactly one question. I have written 30 pages worth of text for our zine, and, as far as I know, he hasn't written one. I've been at the KFAI news department for a month, while he has yet to become involved. When we get together to work on the magazine, he often sits in silence. I'm hoping my frustration is overstated, as, to be fair to him, he set up both interviews and claims he will be setting one up with a band called Ghost Dance Deluxe.

I know he can write. His last Digger Broadsheet was lucid and informal and funny. But he clings to a punk aesthetic that I think is a little tacky: misspellings, poorly constructed sentences, refusal to capitalize. I do not suppose he intends to write this way for Media Active, but, since I have not seen any of his writing for the zine yet, I can't be sure. We had intended to put out our first issue on May 15, but it is now May 1 and we haven't even laid the groundwork. Jeff confessed he was comfortable with this pace, and I snapped back that of course he's comfortable, he set the pace.

KA hasn't called me for a week, and, of course, KK doesn't want to see me for a while. I am not getting the sense that my life is progressing. More properly, I feel a lack of motion, as though events had begin and then paused indefinitely. It's beginning to frustrate me.