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| Time: | 5:24 pm. |
| Music: | Prokofiev, Montigues and Capulets. |
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I haven't posted in the Obama presidency. I started this blog during the Bush regime and I never thought I'd live to see the other side. Now that its over, nothing has changed (we still live in Bush's America; seen the stock market recently?). I'm still angry. I'm still scared. This world hasn't become any less hostile to human life or dignity. I tell myself that if it were different, I'd be here all day singing the glories of carbon-based existence.
The truth is, I haven't been posting here because I don't have anything to say of consequence to anyone. I could talk about the stupid optimism of religion, how cool Dalek is, or the necessity of socialist reform (revolution?) for the continuation of our civilization... but who gives a fuck? The stakes are so low and it takes time to put another 1,000 words on the internet.
Picture. That's why all you Russians are here, right?
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Friday, January 2nd, 2009
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| Time: | 3:45 am. |
| Music: | Múm, Ballad of the Broken Birdie Records. |
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I started my year off by buying the saddest thing I could find in a Thrift Store. Its a coffee mug with two bald eagles. It has "Grand Canyon, Arizona" written on it. At the top, it has "Debbie" embossed in gothic font. I bought someone's ironic memory mug.
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Comments: Read 9 or Add Your Own.
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Thursday, December 25th, 2008
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| Time: | 3:52 pm. |
| Music: | The Section, Fitter Happier. |
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It was early in the morning. I put my helmet on and got on my scooter. I made my way down the road like anyone would. It ran parallel to the river and I had forgotten that a new dam was being installed. Or, more accurately, had been installed while I had been out of the country. I drove up the ramp at full speed, onto the top of the dam. I was shocked to see a huge, green, dirty lake formed in the middle of the city. There was an observation room nearby, so I parked my scooter and went inside.
The metal used to construct the observation area was crude and barely seemed stable. I climbed a dubious-looking ladder to get into the booth which perched over the water. Every inch of the observation area was wet and slick. Corrugated steel was cheaper than sheets of steel so its what they used. There was an even chance that if you dropped a penny, it would end up in the water that rushed loudly beneath us.
Suddenly, sausage-shaped fields of white gathered near the surface of the green water. It was a school of some sort and as they approached the assembled people could see flippers and blowholes. A school of beluga whale had come down the river somehow and taken up residence in the new lake. They were wondrously beautiful things with white skin and articulated lips that made them seem kissable. Against the backdrop of the dingy river, they seemed immaculate.
Mothers started turning their children's heads when we saw the state that they were in. Their tails and posterior flippers had been mangled or, in some cases, removed entirely. Gangrenous skin hung there and spine protruded past where it had once been sheathed in flesh. Not a one of these animals still had their tails. Their means of locomotion was mainly their front flippers and the pull of the green river. Some of the assembled argued about how such a thing could have happened (Poachers! Boaters! The dam mangled them!). They didn't wonder how they had gotten there in the first place. One of the quieter ones threw slices of bread to them which they picked from the surface of the oily water. I didn't even think that they ate things like that, but it spoke to how fallen their existence had become.
Within moments, I was gone from that place.
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Comments: Read 7 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, December 17th, 2008
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| Time: | 5:05 pm. |
| Music: | Hoppy Kamiyama, Fantasm-B. |
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From the Humanist Manifesto III:
"Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis."
This, in my own rational analysis, hedges out truths handed down through ancient fables. Faith, as a mode of thought, is useless. As a lifestyle it does have its advantages but I'd rather be correct than advantaged.
"Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change."
Human beings are animals in the most literal of senses. We are made of the same things as the squirrels and possums we see mangled on the side of the road. Despite this, we have the unique capacity to reflect on our nature and to produce works of immense beauty. Art, in my estimation, is the single thing that sets us apart from other mammals.
"Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience."
This is a point I have often expressed and it tends to make people uncomfortable sometimes. To be ethical, you must be intelligent and rational. The "Forest Gump" myth of the virtuous idiot is pure fantasy. Ethics are the product of tested experience and if one lacks the ability to determine what is right, they are likely to choose wrongly. It sounds elitist. I know. Its also true.
"Life's fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals."
I believe that mankind's morality has a biological basis, not a cognitive or spiritual basis. Herds of buffalo don't need a reason to keep from goring each other. Nature provides them with a desire to protect their herd. Despite the presence of war (a legacy from our chimp-like ancestors) humans have a drive to protect and serve their "tribe". The trick here is to get mankind to finally realize that we are a single tribe, united in our common origin. Currently, we are hunkered down and mired in a million years of tribalism.
"Humans are social by nature and find meaning in relationships."
This is a similar point to the one above. We are moral beings because it is in our nature to be moral beings. Religious people like to argue that atheism discourages moral and social behavior because there is no point to it. Obviously, secular people aren't raving maniacs. Quite the contrary, secular people don't fly planes into buildings.
"Working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness."
This is true across the board. Witness the good part of human nature!
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Monday, December 15th, 2008
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| Time: | 12:48 am. |
| Music: | The Future Sound of London - Domain. |
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On my way home tonite, around midnight, a railroad crossing lowered its railings and prevented further passage. On the train were 126 military vehicles, all painted desert-tan. It was strange to see those miracles of engineering wheeling their way down the track. Was there that many people to operate them? Was it worth our tax money for this? How many lives would each machine claim?
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Sunday, December 7th, 2008
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| Time: | 10:19 am. |
| Music: | Daedelus, Femme Fatale. |
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Small Sample Size Polling
I've finally taken the leap and become a pollster. I find my passion is in figures and demographic shifts. My entire operation is based on a single principle: that polling is fuggin' expensive. With that in mind, I've taken some cost-cutting liberties that ensure that our results will astound and surprise.
You see, most polls are conducted with surveys of thousands of people. It takes a massive amount of manpower, time, money, and infrastructure. I took a look at the whole process and asked "Why so much overhead?" My polling is conducted with only a handful of people. Whereas the big boys like John Zogby and R2K contact upwards of 5,000 people, I only need 3 to 8 to reach my results. The data I gather is far less scientific, but it is also far cheaper. And folksier.
Bon Jovi totally:
Rocks: 66%
Sucks: 33%
Discovered Outer Space: 2
My name is:
John: 22%
Chris: 34%
Other: 44%
We're Exploited Barmy Army and you:*
90% Doi'n't fuggin' mess!
10% Don't fucking mess!
* Sample includes only self identified anarchists and actual members of Exploited
Using methodologies more sensitive and advanced than U3 or G5 or whatever, we have determined that the unemployment rate in the United States is 95%. 5% report that they are in the process of losing their jobs.
Exit polls suggest that a plurality of American voters are annoyed by people badgering them with clip boards. In order to avoid bias, we ensure that our poll reporters are trained in the art of haranguing.
Nationwide data collection reveals that the color blue is the best one and that The Great Escape is a really great movie. Also, there are people living in Kansas City who think they are part of Missouri. Very strange.
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Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, November 12th, 2008
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| Time: | 2:14 pm. |
| Music: | Múm, Ballad of the Broken Birdie Records. |
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It is one thing for me to say the that universe is chaos and meaninglessness and quite another thing to internalize it. In acknowledging such a thing, we arm ourselves against it. It is the same mental exercise as determining the extent of your knowledge. It is a processing of discovering what it is that you don't know. Not discovering the truth about things you don't know. I mean knowing that you don't know. That is an exceptionally healthy exercise because it reveals the extent to which chaos rules your world. Human perceptions are woefully inadequate to take in the scope of existence, even our own. We do not have the ability to know what will make us happy.
So, recently, I've witnessed that I, like every other human being, do not have the ability to determine what will make me happy. One takes actions that they think will lead one place and of course we have no means of seeing every variable involved. Because the human mind a pattern-recognizing machine, we look back and see all the signs of what was transpiring. We think to ourselves "I should have seen that coming!" but the truth is that there was no possible way of predicting such a thing. Despite that, one cannot look backwards and help but feel a sense of profound failure.
This makes me despair. On the one hand, I acknowledge that the events the universe catches me up in are not a reflection of myself as a person or as an organism. I cannot make judgments about my own level of fitness (in an existential sense) based on the course of events in this world. This is the merciful aspect of my belief in human fallibility. Its not our faults that we suck so bad. We are still made a meat. Yet, I find myself unable to internalize this message of absolution. I get all the negative effects of knowing that existence is meaningless (anxiety, lack of motivation, pessimism, misanthropy) without the positive effects (relaxation, attention to detail, keeping things in perspective).
I don't know how to reconcile this. On the one hand, I continue to falter and fail. This is the natural course of events for the pitiful meat-based creatures we are. All I can see in the future is more failure, punctuated by random, unforeseen moments of chaotic degradation. I suppose, even in that, I make a massive mistake. Human beings do not have the ability to see the future. If we did, we wouldn't suffer as much. Or vote Republican.
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Comments: Read 8 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, November 11th, 2008
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| Time: | 10:36 am. |
| Music: | The Conet Project, Swedish Rhapsody. |
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"Adjective noun is adjective."
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I've grown tired of music. Too rational. Too human. Too much meaning. I desire meaninglessness lately. Instead of music, I've been listening to number stations. The recitation of those distorted numbers and NATO phonetic alphabet have occupied the space that music once did. It offers nothing in way of art. It exists to thwart enemies, call up spies, and order assassinations. The voices, electronic and otherwise, belong to people who are long dead. I love the waves of ambient static, the high frequency humming, the low frequency hiss, and the mechanical droning. Its just exactly as noisy as I want, whereas music has failed to provide me with the level of chaos I have wanted. It does occasionally have music, twisted folk tunes played through primitive electronic filters. It frequently resembles a merry-go-round punctuated by the distorted voices of children reading nonsensical numbers at the edge of comprehensibility. I believe that my enjoyment of these things is a form of madness, but if it is so, I have no desire to turn by back on it.
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Sunday, November 9th, 2008
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| Time: | 3:43 am. |
| Music: | Orbital, Antique Toy. |
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A tasteless fruit hangs, utterly without a use. If it were delicious it might perhaps have a greater place in the world. If it prevented diseases of nutrient deficiency plantations would produce it. If it weren't so tough and mealy there would be a market for it.
But alas, this particular fruit will never gain popularity. It won't be mixed with berries or used to flavor icing. I suppose that if one were pressed by abject hunger, it would be a welcome treat. Otherwise, it scarcely has a point. This is not a very charismatic sort of fruit. It doesn't sell itself. It will never be cultivated.
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The Last Time I Was Desired
The last time I was desired
Limbs mingled and beckoned
Sexless strangers called to me
My wet nail polish on their skin
Out of dark sobriety
(So long an exile)
Into jubilant intoxication
(So quick a moment)
Inhibitions and promises break like
Chains of lavender-smoke-filled bubbles
This was the final moment of desire
And now the faces turn away
4.14.03
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Friday, November 7th, 2008
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| Time: | 4:06 pm. |
| Music: | Mogwai, Sine Waves. |
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Russians are fast outnumbering non-Russians on my friend's list. I attribute this to the fact that LJ is owned and is pretty much a Russian phenomenon now. You can't even start a new account without paying for it now, all but ensuring that LJ will languish in obscurity (at least, for English speakers).
Russians love my journal. Its the images. I seriously doubt that they Babelfish my every word. No, that would be absurd. Its the images. Russians love pictures. The internet primarily exists in Russia as a means of delivering pictures. Their favorite subjects are topless women, marijuana, beer, and women in bikinis. This speaks to their national character, I think. Thats a culture I can support. I do not include pictures of these things in my journal. They aren't very interesting subjects.
My aesthetic sensibilities have elements of European sentiment. My desire for large amounts of whimsy in my satire is reminiscent of French performance art. My drive to express existentialism (as in Dadaism) and the fundamental darkness of the human experience is quite German (Nietzschean, really). Above all, I tend towards a sort of fairy-tale pessimism drawn from the Polish painters and Czech animators whose works I constantly steal. Its that Eastern European negativity that draws most of my Russian friends, I think.
I don't translate my Russian friends' posts and most of their images are bloody boring (with a noteable few exceptions). Still, Russia has a passion for two things: Livejournal and images. In the Venn Diagram of this, my friends list is in between the two fields.
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Comments: Read 10 or Add Your Own.
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Thursday, November 6th, 2008
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| Time: | 12:21 pm. |
| Music: | Múm, Smell Memory (Traktor Mix). |
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When my friend's list is lit up with a particular subject, I refuse to post about it. I'm not the type to allow myself to be lost in the mix. However, shit is so real right now that I feel like I kinda have to.
Needless to say, I'm happy about the upcoming Obama presidency. It felt really good to call this moment 4 years ago during Barack's 2004 Demcon speech. It was something completely new. The thought that this country would elect someone like him as president flushes me with feelings of positivity (something I'm not used to).
However, being the overweeningly pessimistic fuckwad that I am, I have to be cautious. He is not going to be our savior. He is not going to govern from the left. There will be no unicorns. He has the potential to be the best president of our lifetime, but he is not going to turn this world into what it should be. That would require radical socialism. But he'll be good for this country, all said and done.
Not only that, but the idiot contingent will be hunting him from day 1. They will oppose his every move, lying in wait for him to abuse power. The traps have already been set by the Bush administration. Their habit of expanding the powers of the executive branch to clearly illegal levels makes minor breaches all the more likely even if Obama has the good sense to avoid them.
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, October 15th, 2008
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| Time: | 11:20 am. |
| Music: | Slowdive, Machine Gun. |
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From some liberal blog or another:
"Democrats fight for reasoned regulation of the markets using a consistent, fair framework. Republicans chaff at any restraint, sure that the market can be "self regulating." So how much data do you need to see which side is right?
Since 1929, Republicans and Democrats have each controlled the presidency for nearly 40 years. ... As of Friday, a $10,000 investment in the S.& P. stock market index would have grown to $11,733 if invested under Republican presidents only ... Invested under Democratic presidents only, $10,000 would have grown to $300,671 at a compound rate of 8.9 percent over nearly 40 years.
$1700 in growth under Republicans, $290,000 under Democrats. Even if you exclude the failure of the markets under Hoover, Democrats still come out with six times the results of the GOP.
Of seven Republican presidents, three turned in negative results and the average rate of return was only 0.4%. Every Democratic president since 1929 has turned in a positive performance, with Bill Clinton setting the record at a 15.2% rate of growth.
So the next time someone suggests to you that the market averages 6%, or 7%, or 8% growth over the long term, remember this caveat: only when Democrats are in charge."
I would go so far as to extend this to discredit the entire notion of "fiscal conservatism" and the idea that the "free market" is infallible. Libertarians, I'm looking at you guys.
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Life is mostly good. I'm currently in possession of my favorite thing in the world: a beautiful golden apple of angst. I suppose that its pretty maladaptive to find comfort in such things, but its a familiar state. I know how to live like this. Luckily, I have China Mieville to keep me company.
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The Dow is down 400 points. I'm hoping it hits 5,000 before Obama steps up to the plate (mainly because I've been wanting to see what societal meltdown really looks like).
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Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, October 8th, 2008
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| Time: | 4:54 pm. |
| Music: | Tettix, Alzheimers. |
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Punk.
The term originally was used as an extremely derogatory term. Useless. Petty. Weak. Used. Ineffectual. Imprisoned. Vicious. Pointless. It was the term given to prisoners who gave sexual favors to other inmates, especially in a submissive capacity. Its not a good thing. Somehow, this term got applied to a type of music that seemed to fit the image of a angry, useless wastrel.
I had a punk moment a few days ago. Its a bad habit, actually. Its a habit I've had for years now. I like to steal political signs of candidates I don't support. I've been doing it since 2004, when I hijacked my first "Bush/Cheney" sign from a neighbor's lawn. Earlier this year, I stole a "McCain" sign off the lawn of some rich assholes in Midtown. Earlier this week, I jacked a "McCain/Palin" sign, to finish off the collection.
In my mind, I'm like a warrior of ages past, capturing the battle standard of an opponent. Its a form of counting coup. I imagine their faces when they wake up the next morning to find their battle standard gone. I like to think that they are sapped of resolve, feeling as if their strength had been taken from them in the night. I want them to feel defeated. They are, after all, my enemy.
The reality is that stealing political signs is just a punk move. I mean that in the old, bad sense. Its pointless. It accomplishes nothing. It is not a radical statement. It is not a political act. Its petty. Its stupid. The people whose lawn ornaments I pilfer do not gnash their teeth at having their political prop taken. They could probably give two shits. They usually get a new sign and move it further away from the street where bastards like me fear to tread. It doesn't make them rethink their idiotic, bigoted views. If anything, it makes my side seem like assholes. And, in regards to my actions, they are probably right.
Still, I don't see myself stopping in the future. I like the idea of owning political signs for vanquished foes. I took the "Bush/Cheney" sign because I was positive that they would be defeated, thus making Bush a one-term president. A sign like that would then have had tremendous ironic cache. Its the same kind of cache that the "McCain/Palin" sign will one day have. And after all, how the hell else am I supposed to get my hands on one of those signs? Pay for it? With what money and in what manner so as to not donate to campaigns that would like to see me smeared into the dirt? Realistically, theft is my only recourse. Which suits me just fine, I suppose. Hell, I would probably respect myself less if I stopped. In 2012, I'll be 31 during the election. I'll still be a'stealin' and a'rustlin', mark my word.
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Comments: Read 9 or Add Your Own.
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Saturday, September 27th, 2008
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Pol'Tiks
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The president is AWOL. Again.
God, this man is the worst president we've ever had in this country. And we have had some stinkers. I'm looking your way Hoover. Taft, you get an honorable mention, too. Its not just that W is an idiot... and he is most certifiably an idiot. Its that his policies -are- the Republican Party's policies. The ideology is bankrupt and sunk. I hope people can see what is transpiring.
I think a 'R' by someone's name pretty much means a hatred for mankind.
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"orgy of spending"
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Gas lines and economic collapse. Its sure going to be awesome when Iran gets the bomb and Armageddon is unleashed upon the world. Crap... I hope Russia doesn't take the opportunity to blow us away. I'd probably lose my Livejournal.
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Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.
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Friday, September 19th, 2008
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| Time: | 3:02 pm. |
| Music: | Neutral Milk Hotel, (Untitled). |
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I went to the Masquerade's 80s Night last night. I haven't been to a club since... well... since before Iraq was invaded. It brought back those memories of flashing lights, Sisters of Mercy, and beautiful young bodies in motion. Its a very elemental experience for me because I'm not exactly a participant. I'm not comfortable in my own meat-prison to get up and move around like a maniac. I'm too poor to beat my cerebral cortex into submission with liquor. I'm too hung up to hit on the pink haired boys and blue haired girls. Somehow though, I don't think there was a moment when I wasn't smiling.
When I was a teenager, I had a dream that I could disembody and float around the world. I would be an unseen observer. My ideal was to exist as a ghost. I thought I would be happier watching things without having to be an active participant. This was before I had discovered the joys of sex, which brought this whole fantasy crashing down. Last night, though, I had the wish again. I wanted to be invisible, intangible, and immaterial so that I could slip into places without people being seen. That would be my way of subverting the "Chardarkuncertainty Principle". I wanted to find places of vibrant life, like the club last night, and watch over them.
I felt that, if I couldn't be a participant, I should at least be an observer. This is, however, bad logic. The fact is that I could be a participant if I desired. I could reach out a hand to a stranger and dance if I had but the courage. Something inside me, akin to the deadly sin Sloth, makes me hold back. Is it the nerd thing? Is it the perversity of my spirit? Is it a form of self defeating madness? I don't know the source. But I did smile all last night.
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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Thursday, September 18th, 2008
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| Time: | 4:54 pm. |
| Music: | Apocalyptica, The Unforgiven. |
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Dead lavender flowers floating on opaque black waters
Mirrors reflecting black and white marble tiles
Corroded iron alloys revealed by the retreat of white paint
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I can scarcely remember some things now. I remember the 80's about as well as I remember the 70's, which is odd because I was born in November, 1980. Actually, thats a lie. I remember Iron Maiden records in shops and something called "Big Wheels". But I forget the mundane, everyday things. I keep forgetting angry ravings about the idiotic president. And yet, I somehow have memories of swine flu and horrible upholstery. This doesn't hold much meaning for me, I'm afraid.
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I'm not writing about anything important today.
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Saturday, September 13th, 2008
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| Time: | 4:02 am. |
| Music: | TV Jesus, Kimono. |
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Oh, this world is governed by no single principle, save chaos.
I once thought of entropy, the process by which chaos eventually overtakes everything, as a gentle process. To me it was somewhat romantic. I thought of it like the Shivaic principle of reincarnation, where ordered forms return a primal pool of undifferentiated elemental chaos. Perhaps those forms emerged again or were lost. Either way, it made room for new patterns.
This isn't really the case though. Nature is a pretty brutal thing, from physics to biology. This world wasn't made for us. Hell, it wasn't made at all.
The point is that I'm seeing entropy in a new and terrifying light. On the macro scale, I am intrigued by the earth and how its biological systems thwart entropy wherever possible. The sun is the source of energy that keeps entropy at bay. Its constantly infusing our planet with the energy that keeps things alive and keeps our biological systems nice and orderly. However, it also spawning massive storms that are making life on the surface of the world difficult to survive. Human interference is squarely to blame.
I believe that the prosperity enjoyed by humanity in the 1990's (even when counting the genocide and rampant spread of AIDs) may have been the high water mark. We've burned so much oil that the resulting carbon is choking the planet with heat. We are reaching a point where carbon producing forms of energy need to be phased out, but even having said that, we are running out of the stuff. We've reached peak oil. Hell, we probably reached peak oil around 2000 and no one knew. Its all downhill from here.
I feel that our generation has missed the boat. The previous generations sort of fouled it up for everyone. I will be pleasantly surprised if quality of life breaks the high water mark I mentioned earlier. If I were a betting man, I'd take the 'under' bet. If there is any reason to believe otherwise, I haven't seen it.
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Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.
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Monday, September 8th, 2008
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| Time: | 1:54 pm. |
| Music: | Jon Brion, Get What It's About. |
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Someone asked me yesterday under what conditions I would be willing to marry someone.
Let me first innumerate the reasons I hate marriage:
1. Co-Ownership of Individual Sexuality: The idea that somehow someone other than myself has a claim on my sexuality and how it is used is abhorrent. Its frankly disgusting. I understand that its a voluntary process, but the whole thing reminds me of Dominance/Submission subculture "collaring ceremonies" and such. No one should own the rights to anyone else's sexuality.
2. Legal Ramifications of Sexuality: Not only does someone have partial ownership of your sexuality, but the law enforces the rights of ownership. In fact, it puts the government squarely in the middle of your relationship to the point where you can't even end the relationship without the government's consent.
3. Massive Overhead for Dissolution: Should your relationship sour (they almost always do; a statistical fact) actually ending it takes massive amounts of money and time. The overhead is ridiculous, whereas unmarried breakups are simply a matter of moving out or retrieving your toothbrush or whatever. Sure you love the person going into the marriage, but afterward they have the ability to fuck up just about every aspect of your life.
4. Corrupt Institution: Unless you live in a hippy dippy state that has gay marriage, marriage is a politically bigoted institution. It should either be dissolved as an institution or expanded to allow everyone into it. I hate that, as an institution, people have financial incentive for getting into it. That is unfair to people who don't want to be married or don't want to be in a relationship.
So basically, I think the idea of marriage is pretty dumb. I can't help but be cynical about it after seeing the things I've seen. It seems like half the married people I know are currently getting divorced, sometimes for the second or third time. Not a one of them is a clean break, either. They are all knock-down, drag out, petty affairs. All it takes is one person to act like a fucking jerk to pull the whole process down into the bitterest conflict humans engage in. Warfare is, in many ways, a saner endeavor.
So what conditions would be necessary for a hater like me to actually marry anyone? It would have to be one of those situations where we had been together for so long that it would be absurd for us not be married. This ensures that people are not going to change on each other. I can spot a nascent divorce a mile away, especially when couples marry young or without a requisite period of 5 years together. Does that sound like a long time to you? Good. It should be a long damn time. That shit is too important to screw around with, hearts and romance be damned.
It would also have to be with someone who understood the fundamental problems I have with the institution of marriage. They would have to deal with the my distrust of any institution which assigns co-ownership of sexuality. They would have to sign a prenuptial agreement that would negate or lessen much of the legal ramifications of marriage. That also can deal with the massive overhead for dissolving the marriage, should it come to that. It doesn't deal with marriage as a corrupt institution, but hell, if I'm in deep enough to consider marriage, I'm deep enough to abandon my political beliefs.
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Comments: Read 18 or Add Your Own.
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Thursday, September 4th, 2008
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Politics:
The Republican Party is imploding. They will fail at their stated goal of making John McCain president and that is a beautiful thing. Conservatism should be buried for a generation but I think that might be asking too much of Americans.
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My Life:
Everyone knows what you seem to be, but none knows who you are. I repeat this phrase to myself constantly.
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Music:
Everyone should go find "Poison Dart" by the Bug and Warrior Queen. I think John Peel would approve.
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Art:
Dragon-Con was good for business. Someday I'll be occupied with having fun and taking in the scenery instead of making contacts and finding players. I want to write a story about a world defined by pop culture. I don't have time for that as my writing is already spoken for.
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Madness:
Skipping multiple nights of sleep does terrible things to my mind. Coffee isn't even filling in the gaps. My mind's chemistry is ragged, sluggish, and hateful. I find myself slipping into old sources of madness but not without awareness of the fact. There isn't enough sleep in the world to marshal my forces against that of negativity and uselessness.
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Monday, August 25th, 2008
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| Time: | 4:08 am. |
| Music: | The Decemberists, Engine Driver. |
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Some Whimsical Nonsense
I'm an exile from a place that doesn't exist. Or rather, it does exist to most people but not to me. I can see it just around the corner, but there is no feasible means of getting THERE. It might as well not exist and, as far as my life is concerned, it is as fantastic as unicorns. Its very much like the images one sees on TV; Its someone's reality, but never yours. I suppose about half the people in the world experience it at some point, but not me. A good number of people come from THERE, but I'm not one of those people. Oh well. Time to move on, right?
Wrong. I once had my foot on the road to the place I can't get to. I remember it well. It excited me to think of the prospect of being THERE. I loved it when people played along with me. I imagined them thinking "That person clearly isn't from here!". Thats not really what was going through their heads. They would always say (with as much exhaustion as can be imagined) "Yes, we can see that you have your foot on the road that leads THERE. We see how happy you are. You've had your moment, can we move on?"
I've even stolen souvenirs from THERE. I've had accomplices. A couple, actually. Some from THERE, some from here. They smuggle out useless trappings for me. If you've been THERE, it probably doesn't seem very important. But, if you, like me, become fascinated by it, nothing else seems to really matter. Its all very humdrum to most people, either being THERE or not caring at all. The souvenirs help alleviate the massive dissonance one feels about these things though. Its all fantasy, though. How can I be from THERE if, clearly, I am here and have always been?
I've played the role of one of the people from THERE. Masqueraded, even. Thats no easy task, believe you me. Its a pretty fundamental thing, I think. Hard to fake, to say the least. I don't even bother anymore. You really have to be born THERE to get the accent right. So it goes, I suppose.
Yearn, yearn, yearn.
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