Thank you! It's working much better now.
One more problem though, when the upper thread tension is adjusted so the stitch is even and smooth, the thread will end up getting stuck in the tension disks. Is this just because it needs to be oiled? Is there something else that could also be causing this problem? (I'm going to oil it, I just want to make sure nothing else is wrong too).
(oh, my original problem was that the needle was twisted around the wrong way, and possibly not in all the way, and the tension was way off)