and I'm nowhere near what I dreamed I'd be

* Dave Eggers interviews David Cross for the Guardian. excerpt:

"DE: You've been on a few TV shows in the US, Mr Show With Bob And David and Arrested Development, but both of them seem weighed down by your presence. Have you ever thought about quitting them so the shows could be better?

"DC: After I auditioned for the part of David in Mr Show With Bob And David, I remember thinking that I had really blown it. They were looking for an edgy nerd and I had just come from the American Douchebag Awards on MTV, so I was wearing my Prada suit and sunglasses. But they were able to see through the real me and see that I could, in fact, play a socially awkward nerd, and they gave me the part. But, in answer to your question, I struggled with that very dilemma often. I sought guidance from Jim Belushi, who told me that it didn't matter at all if I was talented or right for the part or not, that the best thing to do was not only ignore my obvious lack of any discernible talent or charm, but to embrace my loutishness. I will for ever be in his debt.

"DE: Or a more serious one: you've ranted about how goofy American protesters can be. When the war in Iraq was being pre-protested, you were on some of the talkshows, and you were berating the left for bringing bongo drums and dressing as clowns and generally treating an antiwar protest as a sort of hippie-love-in-party. And you're one of the leading liberal voices who's critical of how silly the left sometimes looks. There were more protesters of that war than at any time since the civil rights era. Were they ignored - by the media, too - because they looked like hippie freaks?

"DC: I'm not so sure that they were ignored, rather than dismissed. They (at least 15 million worldwide) seemed to be regarded with a sense of tolerated obligation, that this is what you get when you live in a free society - sorry, folks. A protest would be shown on the news and treated like it was a minor annoyance, like a bad storm or an outbreak of flu. And while there were plenty of 'regular' folks from all over the world who trekked to wherever because they felt it was important for their voices to be heard, it was usually only the radical stereotypes who got shown on TV because of, not in spite of, their inane, childish hippie outfits. Dressing up (inexplicably) like a robot wearing a multicoloured afro wig, standing on stilts and yelling that Bush is a Nazi at scared and disgusted middle-aged tourists only makes the already severe polarisation (not to mention the fierce anti-intellectualism) in this country even more irreversible. Way to go you dumb fucks."

-- If you look closely at the cover of David Cross's newest cd Its Not Funny, myself and two friends are visable in the lower right hand corner of the cd, to the right of the microphone stand and to the left of the parental advisory sticker. The show was taped in DC in January.

* Stressed Israeli soldiers suffering from combat stress after tours of duty in the Palestinian territories could soon be treated with cannabis.

* Yo La Tengo will be appearing tonight on CNBC's McEnroe.