The medium of the weblog has finally reached its potential in Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst. I cannot stop reading his blog. (or, as the other kids who read it may call it, his "xanga.") I've found that each day I wait impatiently, hoping he will update it again with his "feelings." Fred Durst is a grown (fat, balding) man who, given the freedom to write without an editor or team of record executives, has all of the restraint and finesse of a high school boy with bad skin and a 330 verbal on his SATs. Fred's feelings are raw, and sort of stupid. He articulates emotions like he memorized them from watching season one of Dawson's Creek on DVD. I savor each awkward turn of phrase and find, more often than I could have imagined, that, upon finishing most entries, I place my fingers to my mouth and blossom-kiss them in that "abondanza" pizza-for-one gesture. It's perfection.

Here are a couple of wonderful jewels from the Thinkpad of Fred Durst. All spelling and grammar choices are his, not mine:

(on the current "situation" in the world)
"having a somewhat normal day or what may seem as a normal day is something i don't want to take for granite anymore. simple things like sitting in the sun and hearing birds, cars, airplanes, and voices filling the air while your whole world revolves around that particular moment. the frustrations and troubles we weigh ourselves down with can become transparent in such a simple moment. to think that this could no longer exist for me and doesn't exist anymore for so many people in the world is absolutely horrifying. maybe i am being sensitive, something i have always been, but i am sitting here in one of the moments in my backyard watching my son run around in diapers and little itty bitty sneakers. he is so innocent. he didn't ask to be brought into the world. it happened because it was meant to be."

(and later in the same entry)
"BTW- we rocked CBS last night on Pepsi Smash."

(from his May 6th entry, apropos of nothing)
"what i want right now is to be touched."

(a little later in this entry)
"when i listen to mazzy star all i can think about is the way we could lye in bed for hours without speaking one word or doing anything sexual and just fit perfectly together without wanting anything in the world but to be together. there are so many things i miss about her. could it be the same again or was that a moment in time that will live forever in a place inside my mind where my most precious treasures are kept?"

(from May 5th, after discussing some of the negative postings – dozens of them – left in his comments section)
"they say negative opinions are like ass holes right? everybody's got one."

Fred Durst's weblog is like Las Vegas, to me. It's so overwhelmingly pure and earnest in its own tongue-wagging stupidity that it sort of defies one's ability to analyze it, or critique it. It's like trying to put the ocean in a headlock. I apologize pre-emptively for writing about some damn blog in that "Oh my God it's so shitty it's GREAT!" kind of way, but I truly am amazed whenever I read Durst's thoughts. I've always argued that he was a dangerous character because it's very destructive for a band's spokesperson to be dumber than his dumbest fan, and Durst is possibly just that. But that's the old Durst, with something to prove. The new Durst has another generation of Bizkits to raise.

Wait. Who am I kidding. Durst still has a ton to prove, and he thinks by proving it to us he's proving it to himself. Plus, even better, his new prove-y stuff isn't all rageful and "smell my finger" -oriented. It's full of flowers and drawings of nuclear mushrooms reflected in the eye of a naked baby riding a kitten. And as such, the weblog has a delight around every corner.

Plus, if you're patient enough, the comments section is comparably enjoyable. You will have to suffer through many back-and-forths that go something like this...

Poster A: "Fred Durst is a faggot!"
Poster B: "No, YOU'RE the faggot, faggot."
Poster A: "At least I don't brush my teeth with Colgate Sperm Gel."

...etc. But occasionally you will run across an amazing entry, like the one that begins:

"Fred I'm the girl that gave you the PAPER ROSE Tuesday night at the Pepsi Smash."

By the way, why haven't any of you given me a PAPER ROSE yet? When will I make it? Haven't I brought you enough joy to warrant one PAPER ROSE? Seriously, what gives? What do I have to do for a PAPER ROSE? One goddamn PAPER ROSE!!!! I'm sorry. I feel too much sometimes. Sometimes my brain boils and all my secret thoughts that are trapped inside me are too much, and they strain the hinges on my heartbox, and crack its locks. My blood is my toner. My passion is my postcript font.