Just for the record:

I love Little Jimmy Dickens, 82, who still kicks ass every weekend on the "Grand Ole Opry."

Last Friday he hosted the 8:30 segment.

The Matrix Reloaded is fabulous. The car-chase sequence alone is worth the ticket price--only when it was over did I realize I'd been holding my breath for twenty minutes.

If there's one thing the first movie has that this one doesn't, it's the blood-curdling revelation of what exactly the matrix is. I saw The Matrix for the first time only a few weeks ago, on DVD, and beforehand Ereck judiciously refused to tell me what the matrix is, even though I begged him.

That is some horrific shit, almost as horrific as what really happened to the crew of the Cygnus in The Black Hole.

I was thinking that for an equally effective surprise, The Matrix Reloaded could have revealed that the matrix is really the real world, and the real world is really the matrix. Or something.

Pass the joint.

For reasons that couldn't possibly interest you, mild summer nights like this one always make me think of reruns of "Dave Allen at Large."

Crazy anxiety dream last night. Dreamt I was taking some kind of math or science test, and not doing well. As I struggled with the exam, the thought occurred to me that my mind had undergone some kind of chemical change that rendered it incapable of learning about topics in which it's not interested.

Come to think of it, that's the story of my thirties so far.

Among other things, I ascribe the dream to the fact that I was recently trying to demonstrate to myself that the Pythagorean theorem works. I didn't have much luck. Math never was my strong suit.

But what about Spike Jonze

http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/06/24/tv.spike.ap/index.html

During #1 Dad gigs, Blake, our quietly dignified bouncer, always covers the television nearest our impromptu stage with a towel. This is to prevent spectators from remembering that #1 Dad can't compete with cable television for variety.

But the TV in the back of the room always remains unsheathed. As it's in my line of sight during shows, I watch it steadily. Typically there is little of interest--lots of sports highlights, plus commercials for exercise equipment and hair-replacement therapies.

Last night, however, the TV was tuned to TNN, a/k/a The New TNN pending the outcome of the legal battle Spike Lee is waging. (See my blog of June 20.)

TNN was showing the Brian DePalma romp Scarface, a film I've still never seen despite my admiration for DePalma. Scarface is, as Soylent Green was till a few weeks ago, a film I can quote lines from despite having never seen it, simply because it has been parodied endlessly. (See my blog of June 19.)

Scarface evidently typifies The New TNN's lad-mag aesthetic of booze, broads, and castration anxiety. Fair enough.

I kept wanting to comment on Scarface during the show, but decided that it definitely was not in my interest to call attention to the television during my set.

But I would like, for the record, to say that during last night's show, I saw the following images:

Al Pacino with suntan makeup and a Caesar cut.

Al Pacino sitting tied up in a small aircraft and being threatened by men with chainsaws, then splattered with the blood of someone of whom the chainsaw guys apparently decided to make an example.

A man dangling by his neck from a rope attached to a helicopter.

A 25-year-old Michelle Pfeiffer with big hair and a bikini. Meow!

All this to the soundtrack of my own renditions of Loretta Lynn and Hank Williams, Jr. songs.

The whole experience was weird. TV is weird.

So the question is, does this big DePalma fan even need to see Scarface now, or have I seen enough?

Ereck and I have been conducting a clandestine romance with each other via AOL Instant Messenger. Don't tell our boyfriends.