How Does a Crush Work?

To set up this story, you have to know a bit about where I am from.  I grew up in the Central Valley of California, between fields of corn, rice, and cotton with dairies and orchards all around.  When your nearest neighbors are old farmers that are still a couple of country blocks away, you learn to appreciate the social aspects of school, no matter how positive or negative they might be.  That being said, all I wanted to do was to make friends and be accepted.

We were rather isolated growing up.  My parents works hard to support us and my sister was always buried in the books, so I was left to my devices which normally revolved around music, movies, and video games.

Our elementary/jr. high school was placed smack dab in the middle of all those aforementioned farms and ranches, and while we only had around 80 kids in our 8th grade class total, most of them were either the offspring of the richer farm owners, or the poorer kids which included the migrant worker's children and a few others such as myself.

While I had started going to that school since 3rd grade and knew all the kids rather well, only a few of them I would have called my friends.  We were the geeky, video game playing, rock music listening, comic book collecting few.  While we sometimes mingled with the rich kids, it was mostly because they needed us to do their homework for them.  Once we were in 8th grade, I had gotten smart enough to make some extra pocket cash off of them from charging a couple of bucks to copy my work.  This at least gave me access to some snacks and soda or whatever.  What I lacked in money, I made up for in brains.

That was all well and good, but in the end all we really wanted was to belong to the group.  We wanted to be accepted by the rich and popular kids, no matter how much we acted as if we did not care about their opinions.  Now, what made this difficult was the fact that I was always a rather tall and chubby kid.  By this time I was already 6'1, somewhat overweight, not huge, but I did not flatter much because I wore sweat pants and baggy shirts everyday.  I could not find pants that were comfortable to my awkward size, so sweat pants were the way to go.  This made me a huge target for ridicule of course.

I mean, not only did I not have decent looking clothes, they were not name-brand, top of the line stuff.  We also could not afford to get my nice sneakers or the name-brand backpacks that most of the other kids had, so therefore I was even more of an outcast.  Like I stated before, I was overall a happy child, but I just wanted to belong.  Add that to the fact that my hormones has recently started raging out of control to that point where even the slightest touch from a girl could set you off, and I was not comfortable in my on skin.

To move on though, 8th grade started off as most years did, nothing special, just back to school stuff.  While we were trying to figure out all of the new comics and cards to trade with each other, we were also trying to gauge where we stood with everyone again.  About a month into the year, a new girl appeared at our school.  We will call her Annie for this story.

I was immediately drawn to Annie, not due to a sexual attraction even though she was cute, but due to the fact that she was wearing some kind of grunge band t-shirt.  I cannot remember for the life of me what band it was, but it was that signal, that flag that we wear on our chest.  Your t-shirt was a way to signal to others things you were into, hoping to get a response.  Add that to the fact that I knew how hard it was to be the new kid, I reached out to her within the first few days.

We immediately hit it off.  She was obviously one of us outsiders that was not into designer jeans and top-40 music.  She was someone that was into rock, movies, and Star Wars.  Up to that point I had never met a chick that was into Star Wars before like us geeks were.  This was an immediate point of convergence.

Needless to say Annie and I became good at-school friends rather quickly.  If you are not aware, an at-school friend is someone that you talk to and hang out with, but only at school.  Never outside of that.  We started writing each other Star Wars and other assorted film quizzes, always trying to stump the other with our facts and useless knowledge of the film industry.  We also started recording all of the band names and singers we could think of, writing them down in a notebook.  She would go for awhile, then pass it to me to think of more.  We held this fantasy that someday we would name everyone.  We thought we were so smart, but thinking back we really only had knowledge about a small subset of music.  Mind you, we were more informed than most of the people at the school, but still, it was small in the grand scheme of things.

Being in this group of outsiders, most of just wanted to be part of something, but Annie...she was different.  She came with this walk, this air, this attitude that strongly signaled that she did not care about what they thought.  She was happy with who she was, or at least she faked it rather well.  It did not take long for her to pair off with one of the other outsider guys.  Up to that point, I did not even think about things in terms of having a girlfriend, but I knew then that I had a crush on her.  Oh well, she was now taken.

Mind you, in my mind, I had no idea what having a girlfriend really meant, or hell, I was not even sure how to handle a crush.  I just knew that I liked this girl, but she was taken, so that took a lot of the stress away from those thoughts anyway.  Up until that point, the idea that a girl would actually like me back was so far removed that it was alien.  I held this belief that no girl would ever be interested in me enough to even hug me or hold my hand.  The idea of sex with a girl was something that I thought about, but never once actually considered it a possibility in my life.  Girls were like foreign creatures to me.  Like I stated before, until Annie, I had no idea that there were even girls that were into the same things as us guys were.  What a revelation!

To move on, even though I was in a small group of outsiders that even contained a couple of girls now, I still wanted to be accepted by the "cool" and "popular" kids.  I believe the others had similar feelings, but they would never admit it.  We all got picked on and shoved around some.  Rarely did anything escalate into anything more than words, but once in awhile a small shoving match would break out.  We would all make up stories about girls outside of school, or elaborate lies about thinking that X girl liked us.  It was just a way to try to help our self-esteem by feeling more connected to those "cool" kids.  Of course most of it was bullshit and while we were smart enough to know it, we all accepted it because our lies reflected each others lies.  If one tumbles, they all do.

One day I was rather ripped-apart for the awesome sweats that I was wearing.  Then during the next class period, Annie asked me "Why do you let them pick on you like that?  So what if you like wearing sweats.  They are comfortable, fuck 'em."

Now, I did not think much about that at the time, but in the years since, I came to realize that this was the first time that a girl showed any kind of concern for my personal well-being.  She cared for me, even if only on the most superficial level.  She hated that they picked on me and wanted to try to help me through this rough time that was adolescence.

Then, as 8th grade moved along, she broke up with that guy she had dated, started dating this older guy from another school.  I thought that was do weird.  I barely knew anyone that was not from our school, so first, how did she even meet someone different and then how did they hook up?  That was such a strange and confusing idea to me, being an isolated farm kid.

So I had a crush on a girl that I only saw at school and dated a guy from outside of the norm.  How cool was she?!  How could I compete?  Well, this was the age that I learned about the powerful tool known as the "mix tape."  If you are unaware of this brilliant, yet hard to wield device, the mix tape is where you record a bunch of song on a tape, from your own collection and/or off of the radio and give it to someone in an attempt to let the songs tell your feelings for you.  You give it to the person you have a crush on, silently screaming to them "Just listen to the words...it sums everything up!  Just listen!"  We would trade mix tapes back and forth, talk bands and songs, but mine were not so much to express my feelings as they were to try to get her to realize that we were so in tune with each other that we MUST be made for one another.  We are kindred spirits, so please, be with me.

I know it is silly.  Hell, I couldn't even muster up the courage to call her once in awhile just to chat.  I mean, what if I called and she was like "What the hell are you calling me for?"  I would have been mortified!

At the end of the school year, I decided that I wanted to give her a present.  Something to remember me by, but also as a gesture of affection.  While I did not really have much money or know what I could buy for her anyway, I found something in my room that was perfect.  We were both fans of Pink Floyd and I was given, sometime before, a huge poster for their album "The Division Bell."  That was it.  I would give it to her after our graduation dance.  She would finally know of my affections towards her.

The last week of school came.  We went on some field trips to the bay area and whatnot.  In a store on Pier 39 she wanted a shirt that had the "Fruit of the Loom" logo on it, but instead of saying the brand name it said "Freak in the Room."  She was short a few bucks, so my mom, who was one of the chaperones on this trip, gave her the couple extra bucks to get her shirt.  Alright mom, more bonus points for me!

The day was finally here.  The last period of the last day we were given an extended recess period to sit outside with our friends or do whatever and let it all sink in.  During this time, some people got together, signed year books, exchanged good byes, some tears flowed.  For the most part, I sat alone, away from everyone.  I wept a bit.  I was not mourning for this thing, this society that I loved, but for the loss of a certain step of childhood.  I was about to leave the only real group dynamic that I had known, even if it was a shitty one.  At least I knew my expectations here.  To top it all off, many of us were going to different schools, including Annie.  She and a few others were going to one high school, most of us were heading to another, just due to location.  I was about to lose the first girl that was truly nice to me, that showed some form of concern for me, that tried to teach me that I could be happy without being part of the exclusive club.  That was a big deal to this 14 year old boy.

Once we had our graduation ceremony we all shuffled into the auditorium for our final dance. We were not ones to enjoy the dances much as they were too poppy and all of the "cool" kids went to them, but as this was the last moments together, we all decided to go.  For the most part our small group of friends just sat alone, danced a bit, but tried to talk the DJ into playing something that was not hip-hop or top-40 garbage.  We did finally get him to play one Pearl Jam song.  That was enough because Pearl Jam was Annie's and my favorite band at the time.  For the most part though, I counted the seconds until we were forced into the world as separate people, no longer the friends that I hoped we would continue to be.

When the dance came to a close, I told Annie that I had a gift for her.  My mom brought it with her when she came to pick me up.  When I showed Annie the Pink Floyd poster she jumped for joy, said thank you, and gave me a hug.

A hug.  I know it does not mean much, but to me at the time, it was the greatest moment in my life.  This was my first real crush, the first girl to care about me as a human being outside of family, and we just crossed the threshold into the world physical contact.  No one but family had ever shown me affection before.  My heart jumped and a smile was on my face for the next two days.

My mother drove me home, and the entire way I felt new.  Finally I understood what Annie was trying to tell me many months ago when she told me to stop caring about what the "cool" kids say.  I looked forward to the future in a new school with a positive attitude.  Maybe I could reinvent myself?  Maybe I could finally be the person that I felt I truly was, and no longer this awkward guy that planned everyday around how to avoid ridicule.  Maybe, just maybe, life would hand me new friends and people, new adventures, and a I would find more girls out there like Annie.

That hug signified the first step into a world of manhood and I am happy that she was the one to give that to me.  Over the years she and I talked a bit, wrote a couple of letters, chatted over social networking sites, but really never had a friendship again.  While I reached out for her on multiple occasions, she rarely reached back.  I don't know much about her life since as she never really wanted to talk about it, but she always accepted friend requests and chatted a little bit.

I wish that I could find her today.  She still has an old myspace page out there, but no updates or contacts in years.  I hope that wherever she is, however she is doing, she knows that she made a difference in someone's life, no matter how insignificant that may seem, or how insignificant I may be.

They Might Be Amazing

This weekend was an outstanding one.  If you are unaware, since about the age of 14 I have been a huge fan of the band They Might Be Giants while maintaining a very respectable collection of their disks and records.  Back in 1999 I went with a group of friends and first saw them at the Warfield in San Francisco.  It was one of the most amazing shows in that the crowd was great, we were near the front, and they played a ton of great songs.  The opening band for that show was a small band called "You Were Spiraling" that played a brilliant set as well with some cool old covers and original work.  It was a good time.

While I still listened to them often, I did not get another chance to see them until 2007.  This show was also in SF, but this time we were at the Fillmore.  The opening band for this show was called "Oppenheimer."  They were a 2-person group that really did well for themselves.  That show, while it rocked as well, did not recreate the same feeling for me as the first show did some years earlier.  I enjoyed myself overall, but it was not the same as it was in my youth.  While I still purchased merch and would not say I was disappointed, I started to question if I had grown away from this band that I loved so dearly.

Did they change or did I change?  It took me awhile to realize that we both had, but that the change is not a bad thing at all.

Earlier this year TMBG sent out an email selling "Fan Club" memberships which included free t-shirts, free vinyls, and 2 free concert tickets to one of the shows on the upcoming tour.  I jumped at the chance for a few reason, but mostly for the records.  It is a good thing that I did jump at the chance as they only had 1000 spots open and they sold out in about 24-hours.  I was one of the lucky few and my name is listed with the other fan club members in the digital booklet to their newest full release "Join Us."

I now started to see what they were going for here.  Once the album came out my love for the band was rejuvinated in that they were playing smart adult rock tunes again.  For the first time in years I had to take out my dictionary to find out what a song was talking about.  The music was new, while still being TMBG, and the lyrics were spot-on with their quirkiness, while still maintaining dark themes hiding inside of beautiful pop melodies. 

The album title, the fan club, their website, and everything was changed from the previous few years to reflect a band who was once something, trying to get back to those roots that made them great and they succeeded wonderfully.

For my free tickets I got a pair for an SF show, again at the Fillmore.  This time they also booked a second show that same weekend at the venue.  I picked up a pair of tickets for that show as well.  Then, just a couple of days before the shows, they announced a free show at Amoeba Records in SF along with a signing.  Holy crap!  3 shows in 2 days!  Woot!

We booked a hotel for the weekend and we were off.  First show was Saturday night.  My uncle who lives in the area met us for the sold-out concert as I had an extra ticket.  The opening band for this tour was the great Jonathan Coulton.  I had never seen him before but was familiar with his nerdy songs, so that was fun.  We stood near the back of the venue, had a good view overall, and listened.  After Coulton preformed, then TMBG took the stage and right off the bat opened with a strange set list.  In the past they would open shows with harder, mostly upbeat songs.  This was different.  They opened with an old song from their second album called "Pencil Rain" which was one of my favorites like 15 years ago.  I was floored with a "Wow..."

The set followed along these these lines.  Overall it was a strange set that was kind of weird and choppy and did not flow that well.  That was my only complaint.  The show was fun and positive in the end.  I got the feeling that John Linell was really not that on-the-ball that night though.  I came to find out that the show the night before was a huge disappointment with a terrible crowd, so it was understandable that the band was a little off the ball for this one.

After Pencil Rain they followed with a few flowing songs in "Can't Keep Johnny Down," "Celebration," and "Why Does the Sun Shine," but followed with more chop in "Snail Shell" and "Fingertips."  They ended the main set with the rocking tune "The Mesopotamians."  This led to a series of encores with just the Johns singing "How Can I sing Like A Girl," then the whole band for "Don't Let's Start," "San Francisco," "The Guitar," and ending the night with the crowd singing the softer tune "Dead," a fan favorite since it first came out 20 years ago.  Like I said, my only complain was just the strange vibe that the set brought with it, but overall a great a show.

The next day was started with the in-store free show and signing at Amoeba Records in SF.  My wife and I got there early, which if you know me, taking me to a record store with money and time is one of the most dangerous combinations.  I had to really restrain myself from overspending, but in the end I was able to limit myself to just a few albums for purchase.  We bought a copy of the newest album to get signed after the set and got a spot right up front, just a few feet from where the Johns would be standing.

On and off we talked to other people in the crowd and before the show started Flansy came out and asked us to start chanting "Boring, boring, why are we waiting!" over and over while he shot a short video on his phone to upload under the title "Amoeba Records Show Not Going Very Well..."  It was fun.  The Johns, along with their drummer Marty Beller, came out a bit after that and started the short, but rocking set.  Flansy told an amusing anecdote about him dreaming about the prosaic aspect of being on tour, like blank crowds and tuning up.



After the 8-song set was done, which finished with the song "Pencil Rain" again, we were near the front of the line for signings.  They signed my album and I told them I was glad to see them playing a good mix of older stuff and wished them a good show that night.  John Linnell told me they were trying to mix it up a bit.  My wife was a bit star struck with the Johns, especially when Flansy asked her for her name and wrote it on one of the ticket stubs she had them sign.  Linnell said something like "Don't you need these for the show tonight?" and I replied with "Oh, they were from last night" and he smiled.


This led into that night's show.  As announced beforehand, the band was going to play the entire album, cover to cover, of their breakout record from 1990 called "Flood."  Knowing the length of that album coming in at around 40 minutes, I was curious as to how they would fit this into the show.  Would they do it first, then pad the end, of the other way around?  Would they play it in order or what?  Normally, when bands play entire albums they start from the beginning and end at the end. 

Well, when the show started they opened up again with a softer song in their lament of aging called "Older."  Well, that answered the question that they were not starting with the "Flood" album.  They followed up with another series of weird songs that I was not expecting such as "Subliminal," "XTC vs. Adam Ant," "Drink!" and "We're the Replacements," along with a few others.  This time the set flowed much better though than the night before.  After about 8 songs they busted into the "Flood" set but with a twist.  The album would be played in reverse order.  At first as was a bit disappointed, but then after I thought about it for a second and I realized that this was an amazing choice because of the strength of the first half of the album compared to the relative weakness of the latter half of the album.

After a wonderful set and the completion of the album, the band left the stage.  This then provoked a couple of encores including the songs "Can't Keep Johnny Down," "Fingertips," "How Can I Sing Like A Girl," and ending with "When Will You Die."  It was an overwhelming night in all.

This ended our weekend of rock shows with a band that we grew up with and still love.  After getting home I was checking into stuff on the band's website to which they updated with a new tag line stating "Independent Music for Independent People."  This, along with talking to them, the fan club, and set list, and the new album named "Join Us," I came to realize that the band was trying to reconnect with their core audience, the grassroots movement, and the joy of music.  They wanted us to join them in finding that spark that made them great songwriters and performers in the first place. 

Once I realized that, I was all-in.  I was inspired to listen again to the old stuff and create a new mix of older tunes and newer ones.  The band had gone full-circle and I had joined them on this journey and remembered something that I missed from years ago.

Thank you John and John of They Might Be Giants.  I still love you guys and always will.

9/11 Story

So with the 10 year anniversary of September 11th upon us, I thought that it might be time to write down my 9/11 story.

During this time I was living out at our family's ranch and going back to school.  A good friend of mine was living with us at the time and we shared my room.  I was dating a beautiful young woman that had just started college away from us as well.  That is about all the set up to my life at this time.

I used to wake up early and this morning was no different.  My mother was in the kitchen cooking something for breakfast that morning.  When I entered the front room, I saw the TV with the news on, which was normal for this early in the morning.  That was when I saw something strange on the television...

This was early, after the planes had hit, but before anything else really happened.  I saw the Twin Towers on fire, tons of smoke, and just that overall feeling on the news when it is a breaking story.  I asked "Uh...what is going on here?" to which my mother replied with what knowledge we all had, that some planes had crashed into the towers.

I was immediately intrigued as to how this could happen, let alone to both towers.  I quickly realized that it must have been something planned by someone maliciously.  It was the only real explanation.  Shortly afterward, the first tower fell.  That was the moment I knew that this was more than some freak event.  This was huge.  This was something that was calculated and executed and is not only going to caused many deaths and pains, but completely change the world.  It was sickening and beautiful in a weird way.

It did not take long after that for my phone to ring down the hall.  This was before I had a cell phone and just kept my landline as long as possible.  I ran down the hall to find out it was one of my other good friends.  It was not like him to be up this early.  He just said "Hey man, have you seen this shit?"

Of course...it was good of him to call.  He needed his friends as the world had started changing in front of him.  He wanted to make sure we were both up and experiencing this with him.  I said yes and he said that there was no way he was going to school today to which I agreed and told him to come over.  I got my other buddy up, the one that was sharing my room with me, and told him come out and see what is going on.  For the next many hours, we were glued to the TV.

See, I live on the west coast.  We don't really know many people back east and the ones that we do were nowhere around NYC, so the TV was our only connection other than the direct human one.  This was where it was happening for us.

It took a little bit, but my buddy that had called before called once more and asked if wanted anything to eat.  He picked up some McDonald's breakfast sandwiches and finally made it over.  Was not long after that when the reports of the 4th plane missing along with the reports of the Pentagon were all coming on. 

The second tower collapsed.  All we could do was watch and listen to Peter Jennings on the TV.  The various camera angles, the sounds, the smoke and debris....was very overwhelming.  Never in my life before or since have I felt what I felt on that day.  I know it is silly, but looking back the best way to describe what I was feeling was like what Obi Wan felt when the Death Star blew up Alderaan.  It was like an entire city crying out, loud and fierce, then nothing.

We speculated on who and how this could have been done.  One of my buddies sworn that it was Qaddafi.  I just could not even speculate.  I assumed some kind of terror attack, but as to whom would do this and why, it was unfathomable to me at the time.  I was thinking that is was home grown though at the time. 

This lasted all morning.  We just sat and talked.

That evening I had to go to work.  During this time I was a manager at Pizza Hut.  Once getting there we had our TVs on the news, a few customers, but overall not much action all evening.  There was one man that I worked with that I want to talk to.  He was an old man, one of my part time drivers, and a very patriotic veteran.  He was an interesting man who's opinion I greatly respected even though we did not always agree on things.  He was quiet and watching with us.  Later I found him and asked him what he thought.  Like a true gentleman, he did not have much to say.  It is amazing to see his emotion through the lack of emotion he had shown, if that makes sense. 

The next day I went to school early to hang out a bit and see people.  It was a somber, solemn day and most of my classes were cancelled again.  We used to all hang out behind the campus theater because there was a large dock there that was a great meeting place.  I sat, and talked to many people as they came throughout the day.  There were various opinions and thoughts, not all I wanted to hear or had much respect for.  A long-time friend came to me and said he needed to talk to someone.  We walked a bit away and he was just confused and lost, did not know what to think.  Finally he asked me what I thought...

This was really the first time that I had some chance to really digest and reflect on my own thoughts.  In doing so, I was the first of my friends or anyone in my group to say that I was amazed and the organization and power people can exert if they feel the need to.  I could not believe that someone could believe so deeply in a cause to do such a horrific act, murder thousands of people, and maliciously tear the heart out of a city.  I speculated about the will power involved and the pain caused, even thought about the idea of some kind of metric to study emotional pain.  The direct human pain was still unknown to me.  I had not felt it in that way yet.

We discussed various ideas and thoughts, there were fears and tears abound.

It was not until many months later that I saw something on TV about the event that I really connected to it on a direct level.  This was later, once all the videos and whatnot were coming out with more human stories of that day.  I connect with stories deeply.  Seeing some of those documentaries hit me and for the first time I cried about what happened.  I finally saw people directly affected, people that were there, and stories of how that day changed the lives of millions of people in a very real way.

It did not take me long to protest even the idea of going to war.  I joined groups in college along with occasionally heading out to a group who would hold peace signed on a busy corner every once a week.  I joined a peace protest with a friend where people were reading poetry, or just talking to try to promote the idea of stopping the violence before it started.  It was of course futile, but the journey itself is sometimes just as important as the outcome. 

At that event one of the professors at the college stepped up to the podium.  He talked a bit about himself as a Vietnam war vet, a bit about his experiences, and then took out a letter to read.  This was a letter that was sent from a buddy in the war back home just days before he was killed in an unjust war.  It was a few pages and by far one of the most emotional things I had ever heard.  The crowd were all crying, the teacher was in tears just trying to finish the letter.  He knew first hand the results of unjustified violence as a scar on our collective consciousnesses.  He knew that the outcome was nothing but more death and the later pain caused by empty revenge.  That revenge is what we still have ongoing today.

I don't want to get political anymore.  The political events post 9/11 are a story all unto themselves.  As for my own fallout, I still have trouble watching the events and thinking about them, but I cannot look away when anything is on about 9/11.  It is like seeing someone die, you can't look away but looking just rips you apart from your humanity in a weird way.

That is all I want to say about 9/11 today.  This has not very well edited, so there are probably typos and bad sentences abound.  I apologize for that, but I just want to finish typing on the subject for tonight.  I want to just say that I wish I could hug every living victim of that event.  I could not imagine their pain.  I want to shake the hand of every volunteer that gave their time, their money, and in some cases their health to try to save anyone left in the rubble.  I commend you.  This was a dark time for our country, but a strong point for us as human beings.

This is A Story of a Friend

So for those that have seen, I have been writing about my various friendships lately.  The point is to start documenting my adventures and travels in relationship to those that were with me, but from my point of view.  Today I have decided that it is time to talk about one person that meant the world to me for some time.  She was not a girlfriend, but a best friend during this time...

I used to hang out at the college a lot, in between classes, or just because a lot of my friends were there.  I was sometimes seen as a glue that held groups of people together.  One friend once looked around and saw a bunch of smiling people, talking and playing games, and called me the Patron Saint of this group, claiming that it was because of my influence that this existed at all.  It was a compliment, but an overzealous one.

On a particular set of days I saw someone walking about the college by herself.  I noticed her, as you do, but not in any sexually attracted sort of way, more in a sense of how she moved, walked, ignored the world around her and lived in a happy contemplation.  Then this day came a long where, while sitting outside and assisting a friend with homework, quietly talking and smoking or whatever we were doing at the time, I saw her walking towards us.  She was still wearing that coat that caused her to not care what was going on, but this time she was obviously coming towards us for some kind of engagement.  I was thrilled.  I had found myself intrigued by her for a few days, so this was a chance to meet a new friend.

There was some awkwardness at first as she was attempting to figure out how to, well, basically how to make friends.  Come to find out she had just recently moved there, was young (17) at the time, and did not really know anyone at all.  She came from Oregon and had later told me that she was amazed by the Central Valley because she had never seen a land so flat before.

We got to talking and right away we hit it off.  We had a lot of the same tastes in music, in reading, and in movies.  We talked philosophy, friends, and the world which we grew up.  It was like finding your soul mate.  We would clash and argue sometimes, but I like to believe that she looked up to me as an old brother.  She would ask me questions, not just about the world, but about personal stuff, stuff that a parent should have taught her but didn't.  Needless to say she was extremely smart for her age, but lacked some of the normal social common sense and niceties.

Later that first day, I saw her walking around town.  I stopped to talk, gave her a ride to where she was living.  That was a strange situation on it's own.  She was staying with this person all the way across town, the other side of the tracks you might say, payed a shit ton for rent, the woman made her sleep on the couch, and refused to give her a key.

Over the next week is when we really bonded.  We argued about the nobility in the action of Socrates, what a songwriter meant when choosing certain words, and which poets are better than others.  It was fun, informative, stimulating, and most of, it was all done without a sense of pretentiousness or fuss.  It was just good conversation.  We stayed up together every day after classes talking.  After only a week of knowing her, I went to give her a ride to the place she was staying.  When we got there, it was cold and late.  I would not leave until I knew she was inside and that night, it was not going to happen.

She banged and banged on the door, kept telling me to leave, she would just stay outside and wait for someone to come home.  After awhile I just refused and told her to get in the truck.  It was 2 in the morning, cold, and I was not going to let her freeze out there.  I told her she is coming to stay at my house tonight, no arguing.  She slept on the couch and the next morning we went back to school.

This became the norm.  Giving rides and just plain being friends.  She introduced me to the music of Bright Eyes, I showed her The Mountain Goats, and we would spend so many nights just talking and listening to music.  We taught each other a lot of things.

Then she started falling for this guy from back home.  She was going to go back up to see him soon and started asking me those questions about sex.  Like I said before, she never seemed to have much in the way of common sense guidance, but a lot of good stories about her father otherwise.  I remember this night because of a hilarious tangent our conversation went on when she became confused about a certain term for the woman's anatomy and my descriptions.  She thought I was talking about one thing when I was talking about another and it caused some rather weird fears in her for awhile until we finally got on the same page.  We laughed about that night and some hilarious imagery associated with it for many nights to come.

Soon, she was kicked out of the housing situation she was in.  This caused her to become a squatter.  She stayed on my couch most nights, but was always gracious and always kind.  She was not a bum or a mooch by any means, but she always needed someone for a place to crash.  She was in college with no place to live.  All of this caused some tension between us because it got to feeling that maybe she was only my friend for a couch, maybe she only wanted to hang with me because she needed to sleep some place safe.  I got frustrated with it, got somewhat cold towards her...

I feel awful for ever thinking that.  It was not her nature and I was wrong to question her motives.  Luckily, not long after she took that trip back home and to this guy she liked.  When she got back a couple weeks later...she brought him with her.  That was a bad decision, nay, a horrible decision, but they got a place to live together.  That took all of the strain that I had felt and removed it.  She later said that our friendship was much better and stronger after that.  It meant a lot to me.  She did not blame or judge me for my feelings, she understood them completely, but I still believe they were still unjustified.

Well, as time traveled, she made friends with our whole group, she made new friends and brought them into the fold, and we were always there, like a brother and sister, close as could be in that way.

Then a huge moment happened.  I decided to move away.  I decided that it was time, with various other things falling apart around me, to move and start a new life.  I wanted so badly for her or other friends to come with me, but that was never to happen.  At my going-away party we had bands and musicians play.  When it was the end of my set, I sung and played her favorite song for her...she was in the crowd, singing and crying...I was crying too after seeing her and trying to finish my song.  I knew what I was leaving and most of all, I was leaving my best friend in a scary world where she needed someone there...I couldn't look at her for the rest of the set.  It tore my heart out and still, when I recall it today, I wish I could turn away from that image in my mind.

After I moved, we still talked over the internet and phone, but not as often.  She grew tired and wary of some of the friends and normalcies of life.  After a few months, she was done with that boyfriend she brought back down.  He needed someplace to go.  Somehow, in a weird turn of events (another story all together), he came and stayed with us.  We gave him a chance, payed for him to get his GED which he failed.  We got him 3 jobs, all of which he quit or got fired from in a short amount of time.  This guy was a complete train wreck.  The reason I talk about this is because it leads to the last part of our tale...

A couple of months after he moved up here, she came for a visit.  She had a new boyfriend she wanted to tell me about, moved on in her life, and all the things that had been happening since I left.  It was good, but weird because of the tension of her ex that was living with us.  It all culminated in us throwing a Halloween party, alcohol, and a sexual encounter between her and her ex that should have never happened.

The next morning everything seemed good.  She was leaving to go back to Merced.  We dropped her off, she hugged and kissed me, and that was the last time I saw her.  A couple of days later she called me to ask me to tell her ex to leave her alone and not talk to her again, which I agreed to do for her.  That was fine, but that was the last I ever talked to this person that means to much to me.  She never called again.

I reached out to her a few weeks later.  She was not home but her roommate answered the phone.  The conversation went like this:
Me: Hey is [girl] there?
RM: Uh, no, she is working.
Me: Oh, okay, can you have her call me later please?
RM: Uh, well, I will tell her, but she does not want to talk you.

Now, this was the first I had heard anything about this at all.

Me:  What?  What is going on?
RM: Well, she just told me she did not want to talk to you, but I will tell her you called and that you want to hear from her.

That was it.  She did not want to talk to me.  Still, years later, I don't know the exact reason for the break in contact.  All I know is that I lost the best friend that I ever had.  Just writing this gets me weeping because to me, she was my soul mate, or at least the closest thing I have ever known to such a title.  Since that time, there have been major events in my life and when I looked over to find that friend to talk to, to alleviate my fears and work out my thoughts, she wasn't there.  That was the first time I realized my isolation from the world that I knew.

Since that day I have found her on social networking sites, attempted contact a few times, but I have not heard a word in response, not even a "fuck off".  That I could handle, but this silence has been about the hardest thing in my life to deal with.  That fear, that unknown, it is a killer.  I have recently found her once more, but I do not have the guts to reach out again.  I have this extreme sense of fear that if I did, I would get the same silence and it would tear open this unhealing wound that I have learned to live with.  I tell myself that if she wanted to talk to me, she could find me.  I am not a hard man to find at all. 

I heard some stuff through the grapevine about her, some stories, some whispers of her life.  I listen intently, hoping for some clue as to what happened, but rarely do I get any good leads to work off of.  One time recently I was back home, went out to a bar that a lot of my old group frequent.  I saw a girl that might have been her there.  My heart sped and I just could not contain myself very well.  I kept looking over because I was not sure if it was her.  It has been years and she was still growing and changing.  After catching her eye a few times, I convinced myself that it was not her.  There was no reaction at all.  Mix that with the fact that I was not sold it was her in the first place, I finally settled down some.

That brings us to today where I write about pining for a friendship that I feel was stolen from me.  I have a theory that she cut ties to everyone associated with her ex and me due to the influence of her boyfriend at the time.  I have no real evidence of this, just suspicions from knowing him some and knowing things she said to me about him.  I am saddened by this though because I thought she was smart enough to not let a guy control her life, unless, well, unless she wanted to.  Maybe she did not need me anymore.  This is the most heart-breaking theory because I would have thought that she loved me enough to tell me to fuck off at least.

I wish that I had more insight to add to this.  I wish that I had some lesson to take, but if there is anything, it is this:

I feel that I will always be her friend.  I will not let her decision to cut ties so dis respectively destroy my love for my best friend.  I have told myself that if she ever comes calling again that I would treat her as I always had and be that brother to her that I liked to feel that I was.  I would not treat her with scorn and possibly push her away again.  This pain that I have is just a signal telling me that that I care, that she is a friend, reminding me that even though friends do some fucked up things sometimes, a true friend will always be there for you and accept you with open arms if that is what you need. 

Take it or leave it.  I just needed to write it down.  Thanks for reading.

There is Always One...

So here is a bit of a story.  This may turn out to be what you refer to as a "girl blog", but not in the normal way.  This is not about girl troubles, just more of a story about a journey with a particular person.

So when I was in high school, I could not get a date for the life of me.  I was the "friend."  All nice guys know the pain of being the friend.  These amazingly beautiful and sweet creatures are treated like shit and then they come to you to cry about it.  Well, once I got out of high school I suddenly became more attractive to the opposite sex it seemed.  My years of being the nice guy paid off and I could not fit the ladies into my schedule.

Anyway, I started dating this girl at this time.  She had a younger brother that I knew as well and we used to all go out together, play music, movies, whatever.  One time we all went out to eat after he got out of high school.  This time, he brought a friend that he was kind of hanging out with.  She was by far the most beautiful young woman I had met.  It was not that she was completely hot in a standard Hollywood sort of way, but she had this air of confidence well beyond her years along with a smile that could slay a dragon.  Mix that with deep blue eyes that seemed to hold a sad, human soul and I was hooked.  We never talked much then, and I never pursued her as I was in a relationship and she was still a couple years younger in high school.  Really too young at the time.  I believe I was 20 and she was 16 or something like that.  I cannot recall exactly, but it was too big of an age difference.

To move on though, that girl stayed on and off in my life through my group of friends.  She would date a friend or somehow be associated.  I always had this secret crush, but nothing outside of that.  Once she got a couple years older, we started hanging out again.  She was dating this asshole guy and she often needed a friend.  By this time, I was good friends with her.  The guy was always jealous of me because for some reason we seemed to have this bond, this deep love that neither of us seemed to want to admit.  She always smiled and hugged me and my heart would flutter every time.  She was always more happy with me than with her boyfriends, but we still were not any closer to dating ourselves.

Finally, she graduated high school and started to go to the community college where I went and worked.  All of a sudden, she was thrust back into my life.  We had occasionally talked about trying to date at this time, but it was always this situation where she was dating someone or I was dating someone.  Never did anything line up.  We even went so far as to make one of those marriage pacts.  By the time she was 30, if neither of us were married, then we would get together.  This clock was finally ticking!

Well, as we were back into each others life at this point, we finally started going out to lunch often, just the two of us, hanging out, watching movies, and running errands together.  One day in between classes, she came along with me to the bank so that I could deposit my check and take her out to lunch.  During this time I was a manager of a pizza place, worked as a tutor and councilor at the college, had a band, worked for a karaoke company, and went to school.  I was a busy guy.

Once we were done at the bank, I went to open the door of my truck for her, as you do, and she stopped while entering the truck and kissed me.  Not a simple peck mind you, but a passionate kiss.  Never in my life has my heart skipped so many beats.  The feeling is something that I remember to this day and I will never forget.  It was that amazing spark that you think only exists in film until it happens to you.  Not only did I receive a display of affection from this woman that I had feelings for for many years now, it was the fact that she came to me.  It was a signal that she was ready to move to the next level with our relationship.  We were moving closer and closer to finally having those elusive titles of "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" that has seemed to haunt as since we first met.  The only problem turned out being that it appears that she was not quite signalling that at all.

I thought this was a shoe in.  I thought we were finally going to be "together".  This was not the case.  A few days later she comes by my work with some friends.  One of those being a guy that I also knew from school.  She was all over him, in front of me, blatantly.  Later, she came to me to ask me what I thought about him, almost asking my permissions to date him.  I was hurt and terrified, but I am not one to get angry or territorial.  I just reverted back into "friend" mode, game her as honest of an opinion as I could at the time, got mopey, and that was the end of that day.  A couple more days go by and I find her at a friend's house.  We talk a bit about it.  She says she does not want to settle and wants to date a few guys.  So she was not signally that we were going to be together, she wanted us to date, but not exclusively.  I thought that maybe I could handle this.

A couple more weeks go by, we are hanging out, I take her out for some Chinese food lunch.  We stuff ourselves on cheap Chinese buffet and go back to my vehicle.  As we are pulling out of the parking lot, she looks over at me with those eyes and that smile, and I know what she is thinking.  I read her like a book.  We stopped my car right there and start making out.  We ended up blocking traffic in the parking lot for a few minutes until we got a grip on ourselves, but I did not care.  I felt that I had won the lottery.  She was dating around, but it seemed to me as if she had finally made her choice.  I was the one.

So, a little more insight into this woman.  I mentioned the air of confidence that she exuded.  This air was a defense mechanism, a strength to her, and the more she held it up, the longer she would have until she had to deal with her own pains and emotional baggage.  She never wanted to be human, never want to show people that she was anything but happy and smart.  On this front, she was never really comfortable talking about the things she did, let alone being questioned on their morality or merit.  She seemed to trust me more than anyone, but even that was glazed with this layer of saccharin.  I was a councilor in college.  I was trained to read people and I knew all of this about her.  Her eyes, which always told me so much, told me more than she even knew, but I could not talk to her about these things as she would just get more defensive.  People are quite often like great poetry.  They are not that hard to read if you really put in the time to look, but that does not mean that they are easy to interpret or fully understand the true depths of.

This leads me back to my story.  I thought that I had finally been chosen to try to make her happy.  This was incorrect.  A couple more weeks go by and she is rarely talking with me.  Finally she breaks it to me that she is going to date this other man for awhile, and see how that goes.  I was hurt, but I understood.  These were friends, and I will support them and we still had not lain out any ground-rules for our relationship.  During this time though, she would continue to hint at us, drag me along, keep me in some sort of bond where it seemed like she and I were going to be together.  More and more this frustrated me.  I knew that I was being manipulated, but like any addiction, it was so hard to do anything about it.  This had to stop.  I needed to know the truth.

I invited her out to coffee, telling her that we needed to talk.  She seemed to think this was more innocent, friendly, hanging out.  We went to the StarBucks one morning, ordered our coffee, and sat down.  She said, "What's up sweetie?" to which I stared at her for a minute, trying to find the right way to frame what I wanted to say.  Finally, it just came out like this, in a very calm and deliberate style:

"What the hell are you doing with me?"

That was all I said.  That moment I saw something that I had never quite seen.  It was like her soul was shattered.  Those blue eyes glazed over with tears.  She is someone that never wanted anyone to see her cry.  To her, this was a weakness and she never liked to face her weaknesses.  She did not really cry, but she did inside, you could see it.  She was fighting so hard to figure out what was going on and she did not quite know what to say because she had never been confronted so blatantly about her actions before.  This did not make me feel good in any way, but it had to be faced.

After maybe the longest 20 seconds of her life, those small moments that seem to last forever, she was finally able to squeeze out a "Well...what do you mean?"

She knew what I meant.  I retorted with something along the lines of "Well, you seem to care for me, I care for you, you tease me with affection, with passionate kisses, but never seem to want me as more than a friend.  Please, I can't do this anymore.  It hurts too much.  If you want us to be together, I need to know.  If not, that is fine, I still love you as a friend, but let me know.  I can no longer let myself be dragged around by you.  Please, tell me what you want with me, why you do this to me?"

This caused another stunned silence.  What answer was she supposed to give other than face the facts that she had been using me to fluff her ego and be somewhat of a safety.  She finally said something that I still to this day am unaware of it's truthfulness or not.  That being said, I like to believe it because it makes me feel good.  I was looking as deep down into her at the time, and still I could not tell either way if it was true or just something to appease me.

After fighting back tears, holding onto her strength, she said "It is true.  I love you.  I love you so much that it scares me.  I feel that if we were to be together, that would be it.  It would be set.  My feelings for you run so deeply that I know I would not leave you and that scares me.  We are still young and have lives to live away from one another.  Someday though I feel we will be together, just not today."

This eased me some.  I don't believe that she had ever in her life been backed into a corner like that.  She was always so sure of herself that people followed.  She was forced to give a hard answer and that is what I received.  It was like the chains were free from me.  I had a definite answer.  It was not to be at that time.

EPILOGUE:
We remained friends and while occasionally losing contact with one another, we always were in the background.  That guy she was with at the time instead of me, well, they were engaged for awhile.  I warned her of something that I felt about him which she ignored it and it turned out to be true.  He was gay and finally admitted it to himself and they broke up.  After that she dated a good friend of mine, like a brother, and that was hard for me to sit and see.  I knew 100% that it would not last long though as they were both very stubborn individuals.  It ended badly and shortly after.  Then I started dating someone else, she started dating someone else, moved a couple of towns over for school.  Once in awhile we would still get together for drinks.

The last time I saw her in person she brought her new boyfriend to me for approval.  After meeting him, talking to him, he seemed like a good man.  I was happy for her and she was happy.  For the first time she had a glimmer in those wonderful eyes that I had not seen before.  She honestly seemed that for once she knew something.  She knew who she was, she knew of her past wrongs, and what is clear and correct now.  She was on the right path and winning at this game we call life.

That was a few years ago when I last saw her.  We lost contact for awhile, but then one day I found her on the facebook.  It was hard because she was now married to that same guy with a new last name.  We spoke some, she felt bad that I was never let known about her marriage.  I wished I could have been there.  I always feel like I should have given her away in some form, even though I know this was not true.  I wrote her a letter telling her that our chance seems to have sailed, but I was happy to know she was in good hands.  She never responded to it, but I never expected her to either.  It is not her way to face things like that.  =)

I was inspired to write this all down to both work out my own story, but also because we were recently talking as old friends again.  She has moved away, living what she says is a happy life across the pond now.  She is restarting school to finish her dream and she posted a new picture of those eyes and that smile.  It was a face of pure joy that I had not seen on her, or on anyone for that matter, in years.  I almost wanted to weep because I was so happy and proud of her.  She made it through some rough times.  My only regret is that I was not always there by her side to help her on her way, but sometimes that is not our job, no matter how badly we want it to be. 

Dreaming of Old Friends...

So recently, as in today, I had a dream.  For those that don't know me as well as others, I don't remember my dreams very often, but this one was rather vivid and I remember it well.

I won't go over everything, but the main thing was that my wife had called a bunch of my old friends and got them to come out for a huge party in my honor.  Not only a party, but to help with some massive landscaping and yard renovations.  I woke up to find many old friends, people who meant a lot to me in the past and still do to some form, as well as a few other people that were acquaintances.  I was so happy to see everyone, but there was an issue.  I did not get much time to talk to any of them, at least not one on one.  It was all group settings and everyone was there, happy, but not really interested in me that much, just casual conversation.  Finally a found a couple really good old friends aside from the group smoking (I don't think either of them smoke IRL either...)  I asked them to ride with me, get away from everyone for a little bit, run down to the store to get some more smokes I think.  They were a bit weird about it, but said sure and then I woke.

When I woke, I thought about this dream quite a bit.  As I rarely remember any dreams, when I do I considered them as deeply as I can with what facts I remember.  I realized that there was this feeling that I did not know many of these people anymore.  I mean, yeah, I knew them, but not really.  It was this very superficial level of "knowing" and many of them I knew intimately at one time.  In fact, if you want to ask I will tell you if you were there and what feelings I remember.  I realized that these friends used to be so important to me, and in some ways still are, but in many ways they aren't either.  It felt a lot like Facebook or some other social network.  We have become so connected while very disconnected at the same time.

I say this because while we can see small changes in life and little thoughts throughout the day from these friends that we know and love, it removes the want and desire to talk to these people directly, to really know them on a level that is truly personal.  Everything that people post on the facebook is a superficial level of themselves.  They know who is watching and what they are saying.  It expands the idea of our ego and our self-image.  We all have at least three versions of our selves:

1. Who we think we are.
2.Who others think we are.
and 3. Who we really are.

But more and more I am thinking that the internet version of you is another one.  Think of it like this: if someone just google's your name, they may find this snapshot of you that lives on the internet.  You had some control over it's creation, and if you are some social network sites, so did your friends.  This is a version of you that lives on the internet only.  You and your friends had some input into it's creation, but so did various websites and whatever else you plugged your name into.  This you, in a lot of ways, may be the ideal you.  You don't normally post too many of your faults on here.  Most people don't advertise that they are a racist or a wife beater, but these parts may exist.  You know it, your friends may know it, but this facebook version may not.

On this same level, this internet version has changed the definition of friends and likes.  They are much more loose now.  I have people request to be my friend that I do not even know.  I dig through their profile constantly looking for some clue as to where I know them from only to find that the connection is really only that we may both like something.  In real life if I see someone reading a book by an author I like I may talk to them, strike up a conversation and I would not consider us friends right away, but on facebook we are all willy-nilly to say "Hey, this person is a friend of a friend of a friend and likes Kurt Vonnegut as well, we shall be friends."  Then you click a button.  Once the request is sent one may accept it and you are then, from that moment on, officially friends.

I kind of went a few places here, but the overall point that I am trying to get to in a backwards way is that even this version of my real friends is a weird bastardized version.  I get certain details, mix them in with what I remember of them IRL, and that is my image of them.  I have come to the conclusion that I do not like this at all.  The problem is that there is not much that I can do about it, especially since I am so far removed from them in location anymore.  We were once together at a school or in a house, but now we only see what they chose to show others.  If my facebook friend disappears, did they just choose to delete their account or did they die in some horrible wreck?  It is safe and sterile and therefore takes a lot of the fun out of meeting people, knowing people, and wondering about people.  The clues to who they really are can get buried so deep down that there is this false sense of security and therefore friendship that is created.

I guess to sum this all up, do we really know anyone anymore?  A few people, maybe, but trying to reconcile those images of self into an actual being is becoming harder and harder.  It is not all bad, I am not trying to say that, it is just that human relationships are difficult already and we are throwing this monkey wrench into it that complicates things even more.

Here is my end question:  What are your experiences with friendship in the age where the definition has become so blurred?  In what ways is this better or worse?

Things That I Love

This is a blog post that I wrote for another site.  I am copying it here.  I know I have been writing us much in the last 6 months or so, but I just have not been writing something that I feel okay about posting.  I will be back though as I have a couple of things in the works.  Thanks to everyone.

Things That I Love:
Interacting with people on a personal level.
I love being useful and trusted to help someone when they need support.

Playing games. Most of all, I love the nights with friends playing games like Risk or Monopoly. I love it when you plant seeds and try to talk people into or out of trades or plays because they may affect you later in the game but acting like they are not important. I love the personalities between the players and knowing when to play the game and when to play the player.

Women. Yeah, I am a guy. I love beautiful women in dresses on a warm summer day. That feeling when you hold the one you love and run your hands on and around their curves. Curves are the best. =) I will stop here before getting rated-R.

The Beatles. I am one of the hugest Beatles fans that you will find. I have a theory that so far has held true for a lot of people that if you claim to dislike the Beatles, it just means that you have not found YOUR song yet. Their styles are so varying and diverse, lyrics are top notch, and their entire story is one of interest. When I hear "Revolution" or "Day in the Life" on the radio, I have to turn it up all of the way because to me they are proof that they were the greatest musicians in the world. I love that slight ghostly sound to John Lennon's voice when he starts the song with "I read the news today, oh boy..." Sends chills up my spine.

StarCraft and the TL Community! Since joining I have found the site, the people, the players, the tournaments, and the community as a source of strength and that which is fun in the world. I love when we were watching MLG and the stream kept going on. People on the treads just kept joking about the eagle stream and posting the pic of the cat jumping the shark over the river and all that. I was practically rolling on the floor laughing at each reload.

Playing my acoustic guitar and singing. I love just sitting alone outside of a coffee shop and playing old folk covers by Phil Ochs. He had so much to say and he said it with humor and humanist sensitivity, but is all but forgotten by a lot of people today. I love singing and playing songs by Bright Eyes or The Mountain Goats and opening people's eyes to those two wonderful songwriters.

Comics and graphic novels. Cartooning is the closest medium to film making which I originally wanted to do when I was younger. I remember when I first read "Blankets" by Craig Thompson I wept at parts because I knew his life very well and he understood those confusing feelings of growing up in a world where it is hard to reconcile being a nice guy and being a man in today's society. Same goes for "Too Cool to be Forgotten" by Alex Robinson. When I see someone's soul poured out on paper I am constantly amazed.

I love that feeling of checking one's email and seeing something a response from a friend that you miss. This also applies to snail mail, facebook, and other forms of contact. Finding or hearing from old friends is one of the best feelings in the world. There was a great old blues song which said "I love old friends because they remember me when I was a young man." That always hit home with me.

Awkwardness. This is strange, but I love meeting someone and trying to gauge how to approach them or talk with them. Learning about someone, that stage of intimacy known as "Infatuation", and playing the game where you want something, they want something else or even the same thing, and trying to navigate that world of awkward communication.

Childlike Wonder. I love getting to see the world through the eyes of my son, who is 2 right now. He is open, nice, and unprejudiced to new things. I like to get on my knees to the ground and look at bugs close up with him, watch his excitement when he finds a worm or a rollie pollie and laughs. It makes me feel like I am doing someone good for at least one person in the world.

Reading books. My wife and I own quite a few book shelves and they are all stuffed to the gills with book, periodicals, and artwork. I love when someone is having some issues and I can pull a book off of the shelf for them to read, they do, they understand it, and it helped them in some small way. Short stories are such a good medium as well as ultra-short fiction, hint fiction. The six word story which legend says was Hemingway:
For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn.
Wonderful stuff. The shorter the writing, the more the imagination has to fill in.

Sitting out side on a warm evening and watching stars. There is not much more to say about that. Perfect for contemplation.

British humor. Come on. Hilarious. Whether is be Monty Python, Black Adder, of reading Hitchhiker's Guide where the meaning to life is 42, it cracks me up every time.

I think that I need to stop there for now. Maybe I will make a part 2 later. What are things that you love and why?

Short and Simple...

I was promised the Rapture, yet again, and just like all the times before, it did not come. 

Harold Camping is an ass.  Thank you.

To All of the Cursed Out There:

What are you passionate about?  What can you do that no one else seems to be able to do?  On that note, what do you appreciate and to what extent do you appreciate it?

I am asking because I am one of these people that has a gift.  I call it the "Gift of Appreciation".  That is correct.  I was built with this keen ability to find the beauty in many things, to understand it on a deep level, to connect to the people doing what it is and see where and how this has come to be.

What I am not gifted with though is to ability to emulate.

I can listen to almost any piece of music and hear what is happening.  I can see the notes and chord structure along with the timings, the modulations, and be able to express what is so amazing about this piece of music to almost anyone in a way that they can understand, but can I copy it?  Rarely.  I can play a various chunk of instruments, but none of them on a level of depth and beauty as I can see in others.

I am not much of a sports fan, but I can watch a baseball game avidly.  I can see the difference in the long-term between an 0-1 pitch and a 1-0 pitch along with the ability to give people the run down of what is happening and why it matters for ever step of the way.  I can throw decently enough and hit okay, but could I ever play in the majors or even the minors for that matter?  There is no friggin' way.

I love chess.  It is a game that requires some of the most intense concentration to look into the board and into the opponent and see moves many places ahead.  I can explain the theory behind the placement along with the structure of the opening.  There is almost nothing more amazing than replaying games from Capablanca, Fischer, Morphy, or Kasparov and seeing the simple, subtle moves that make them great.  Can I see those when I play?  Goodness no.

There is the game of StarCraft which I love playing and watching.  It is like chess but in real time with strategy, tactics, information and build orders all taken into account.  I love watching the game.  There is nothing more amazing than watching TLO pull a win out of nowhere or see the simple things that MC or MVP do that make them champions.  I appreciate the greatness of July, NaDa, and SlayersBoxer with the ability to explain why they are great and why they were important to people that could not give a crap and get them to understand, but when I hit that button to play a ladder game, can I do any of it?  Not a chance.

The study of theoretical math is something brilliant to me.  I love playing with the ideas and trying to form pictures of simple numbers and symbols on a page and turning them into art, but could I ever have thought up the brilliance of simplicity in things like Fibonacci, Pythagoras, or Mandelbrot?  Heck no!

My favorite novelists are Kurt Vonnegut and Charles Dickens.  I sure as hell can explain everything they said and show you how there is a secret wonderful thing hidden in the beauty of a well-structured sentence, which builds into a wonderful plot.  I love graphic novels and can tell everyone everything great about Dave Sim, Alex Robinson, or Craig Thompson.  I can read all of these writer's books over and over and never get tired of them.  Can I draw a person or create a sentence with beauty and meaning?  Hardly.

Some of us in the world were born with this innate sense for the depth of things.  Some of us can teach and embolden people with their meanings and virtues.  We can see things in the way that the most passionate and able see them, but only with the granted ability to sense and not do.  We are those people that were given the gift of appreciation.  For years this pissed me off.  I could practice on the drums for months, be decent enough to play in various bands, but never reach the loftiness of the greats like Neil Pert, Danny Carey, or Gene Krupa.  I would try and try and pour my blood, sweat, and tears into these things that I loved but always felt like I was falling short.

For all of those out there that are afflicted with this gift as I am, I want you to know that it is not a bad thing, just a frustrating thing.  Without the appreciators, concert venues would be empty and the only people interested in an MLB game would be the other players watching from the bench.  Appreciators also make great teachers.  Sometimes people will question your credibility as you attempt to teach because you cannot do, but that is garbage.  Sometimes you have a stronger ability to harness the passion and pass it on than the people who do it.  Passion for something is contagious and those who can feel the tears come when watching an amazing film or staring deeply into a painting are necessary to this world. 

So please, if you are like me and if you sometimes feel like you are cursed into always being the bridesmaid but never the bride, learn to accept that position.  Where would a bride be without a great bridesmaid my their side?  Where would Mozart be today without us?

It seems like a curse, but let me promise you, it is not.

Day9 is the Man

This is a short post, but a long video.  I am a huge fan of games as a whole.  I play a lot of board games and I used to play a lot of video games, but now I am basically down to one:
StarCraft 2

StarCraft: Brood War was a staple of my childhood and I played it constantly for many years.  Since StarCraft 2 came out last year I have played it and I run the internal company league at work.  I love it.  I love the game, the theory, the community, and just thinking about it.  It is real-time chess with a ton more excitement.  Anyway, as a fan, I am also a huge fan of the American StarCraft Major-domo Mr. Sean Plott, known by his handle Day9. 

Once reason I love him is for the video that I am restreaming below.  Whether or not you love games, just listen to the man because the insight into personal growth and family is the real message of this.  Thanks to the community and thanks to you Sean!

It's Friday Bob Geldof!

It is time to write about the state of music again.  Really though, it is more about the state of us and our interaction with music.  This post is being prompted by a couple of events that have taken place in the last few days.  First and foremost is the brilliant and moving speech from the great Sir Bob Geldof which he gave at the SXSW music festival.

Bob Geldof may not be as well-known in the US, but is huge and highly respected in Britain for his contributions to music as well as his charitable events.  He is mostly known in the US as the organizer of the "Live Aid" concerts as well as staring as "Pink" in Pink Floyd's The Wall movie.  Bob was asked to be the keynote speaker at the hugely popular SXSW Festival this year.  He gave a strong and emotional speech that is right up the alley of things that I have blogged about many times in the past, which is the idea of the loss of soul in rock music and how it is killing itself due to apathy.  After reading sections of his speech, they sounded like something that I had written, only put together much more gracefully.  He said that he is amazed that with all of the things going on, all of the controversy as well as triumphs in the world today, why aren't the artists speaking out?  Where would the 60's have been if not for the music of the time, defined by it's rock music?  I noted this in a previous blog as well.  The fact that when we invaded Iraq many years ago now, that only a few mainstream musicians had the balls to stand up, write songs or album about the atrocity that we were witnessing.  Most artists were too afraid or did not care. 

This is still the case and I love that one of my heroes, Sir Geldof, stood in front of a large hipster crowd at SXSW and said it to their faces.  He was basically telling the audience and artists to stop being pussies.  I believe that he was trying to say that they are the ones that will drive change and drive the spirit of music but they are too busy inflating their fevered egos with twitter, facebook, and other diversions, too afraid to alienate some of their fan base while truly discouraging the ones that want to care.  The artists, rock musicians in general, need to grow a pair or rock music will lose all meaning. 

I once read that all people feel change, but that the artists are defined as being much more sensitive to those winds of change.  Now I love that quote and it has stuck with me from the moment I read it.  This is how I have defined true artists, by their creativity as well as their sense of the movement around themselves.  Now, talking about the ineptitude of music recently brings me to the next event from this past week which was the release of the single "Friday" by tweeny-bopper Rebecca Black.

If you have not heard of her, that is because this is her first single.  If you have heard it, then you should not be able to forget the song that is being hailed as the Worst Pop Song Ever.  It is worse than that new Kim Kardashian single, which is a really hard line to cross.  I do not blame the Ms. Black as she did not write the song, did not produce the song, and had nothing to do with it other than sing it at her mom's request.  She is the victim here.  If you heard anything about this, the company that made it released the song/video on youtube.  They released this young girl to the wolves holding a stick of dry salami as a weapon!  We all know that the internet is a harsh harsh mistress and dealing with her is hard water to tread, but this is what they did.  She has been called awful, a terrible singer, and told to cut herself and die. 

The issue here is not Ms. Black.  The issue is that this is the pinnacle in a long-line of garbage that the music industry tries to force feed us.  The lyrics are about on the level with Raffi while being passed off for teens.  This is worse than anything that Disney has forced down the throat of America's youth.  I have heard kid's songs with more depth and better structure than this atrocity of the ears.  Not to mention that when you pair it up with the awful overproduction and auto-tune features as well as the weird and puerile rap part about catching a bus, it is the perfect recipe for disaster.  In this case, the internet is not really lashing out at her as much as lashing out at the industry as well as the "artists" for the apathy that Bob Geldof spoke of.  Ms. Black seems to be taking it all with as much of a grain of salt as a teen girl in today's world can, but I hope she will someday understand where this anger and frustration over her release is really being aimed toward.

We are right now still a world of change, sometimes for the worse, but overall I believe we are still moving in the right direction.  As a people, we are evolving and changing, growing with every step.  We are now capable of so much that our grandfather's would have never foreseen.  We have the knowledge of the world at our beck and call while finding more ways to utilize our abilities to new heights.  The artists and musicians though are not following.  They are lagging behind when they should be the motivating force. 

I once read an essay by the great David Hume asking the question why we study philosophy.  I took a lot out of it, but mainly I found that the study of philosophy is the precursor to the study of science and knowledge.  The idea is that the questions of philosophy are the motivating force behind the questions and answers of science and evolution.  Without us asking "Why?" we would not have everything we have today.  I see art/music the same way.  Music and art should be the driving force behind social change.  The artist should be the ones that feel the need for change, write and rally, which will evolve ideas and politics.  Lately, they have failed in this mission and we are all paying the price.  We lost our ability to organize in a real and meaningful way behind an idea.  This is why the politicians no longer fear the constituency.  Once the politicians no longer fear the society, they are truly the most free people in the world to do and say whatever ideas come through their crazy heads. 

I must digress now before I break my own rule and start talking politics again.  But I shall leave you with the video that has caused all of this commotion. 

WARNING: I do not recommend this to anyone.  This is not safe for human consumption and we will all pay a higher psychic price in the end for this monstrosity of music.

Interpretations Unstuck in Time

For those that have known me or have read my writings you know that I am a fan of the great Kurt Vonnegut Jr.  That being said, his wonderful opus magnum "Slaughterhouse-Five" is one of the most influential and meaningful writings to me.  I have read the book many times a long with many writings about the book and Mr. Vonnegut in general.  None of these writings have ever answered one question within the book that has always bothered me and I hope that some of my readers might have an opinion on this.

In the book, our hero Billy Pilgrim becomes "unstuck in time" and slips between various times in his life.  His life leads him down a path where he becomes abducted by aliens and taught to see life like a mountain range, each peak being another point in time.  This leads Billy to hit any moment in his life and know exactly how it is going to happen, even up to the exact moment of his murder as well as how and who cause it.  This being said, Mr. Vonnegut weaves a brilliant story with simple and understated references to colors and actions that help flip Billy between memories.  These things help us to believe that Billy's "unstuck-ness" is really just his mind slipping around between memories and times due to either some mental issues or PTSD from World War II.  He is really crazy and battling to keep his wits in a world full of hate and death that he cannot handle.  He invents the aliens and their world as an escape route, finding that the only reason no one stops the violence is because they can't, it has already been written into 4-dimensional time, and therefore, it is, no matter what anyone does.

As brilliant and wonderful as this interpretation of the book is, as well as being the prevailing viewpoint, there is at least one huge question that bothers me about this.  We take the narrator's description of what is going on to either be literal or metaphorical.  Either the events are true and Billy was taught by aliens, or Billy is suffering from trauma.  I do not believe there is much room for a grey area here.

If that is so, if Billy is crazy as the books aims towards, then how is it that Billy knows, 100%, the moment and style of his death?

Billy tells everyone how he is going to die, and when.  It happens exactly as he knew, as if he knew the exact future.  The only way that I can reconcile this is that Billy was not actually murdered as he said, but even his own death is a created memory from his trauma.  This does not sit well with me though as that implies he fantasizes about his own murder.  He then must want to die to prove to himself that his memories were real.  This just does not make sense to me because the book, at least in my reading, makes not reference to this as a created memory as it does with everything else.  The book appears to treat it as reality.  Also, if Billy wanted to fantasize about his death to prove his life, then there were other points where this can be made reality.

Please, if any of you have an opinion on this interpretation, let us discuss.  Comment or email me directly and we will go into discourse.  I even asked this question on some KV forums and no one seems to have a direct answer to this either.  Any ideas will be discussed.  Thanks!

The Library

I recently discovered that our local Fernley library has their own blog.  It is nice, simple, and fun.  This discovery both excited and depressed me for a variety of reason.

The main thing is the excitement of finding news and events that are going on in the area, especially having to do with the local library.  The library is one of those places where deep in my heart I love as a bastion of free-thought and hope for the education of our younglings.  It is one of the last places that is not corrupted by advertising or money, but it exists purely for the betterment of us all.  I love the librarians that fight whenever governments want them to give out private reading information and habits.  They also fight whenever people want to take away the internet and other educational rights.  The librarian should be a hero to us all.

The reason that I am depressed is that I do not have a ton of faith in our local library, at least not yet.  Since moving to this area I have found that local community events as well as community groups are so closed and cliquish that it has excluded my family from doing much participation.  Here is an example:  When my wife was pregnant she went looking for a mother's group here locally.  She found one, "Fernley Mothers" that was advertised as a group for mother's and their children to meet, play, and just have adult conversations.  When my wife called them up trying to inquire they completely shut her out because we were not legally married and we were not Christian.  That is fine, it is their group, but do not advertise that you are for mothers if you are actually for "Legally Married Christian Mothers."

There have been other small incidents like this that cause me to become suspicious.  I am not judging, I am just tired of finding out that my family, a good and hard working family that loves film, reading, and public radio, are not allowed to play in the local reindeer games because we will not accept their same belief system.  It seems like anything else that people do around here revolves around the casinos/bars, which I cannot spend more than 20 minutes.  Maybe that is my problem overall.

Do not get me wrong, I will still try to take my little one down to the library with me and try to meet some nice people.  I think I am just overly jaded about it all.  Since moving to Nevada I have seen an entirely different world from home.  I am not saying this is bad, I made my peace with this area awhile ago and although there are a lot of problems, it is not a bad place.  It is just different. 

The library, which you can follow at this blog: http://fernleybranchlibrary.blogspot.com/,  is a great place that needs our love and attention.  Please take the time to subscribe to their feed and use them as a resource for knowledge and thought.

...or Uncorrupt Police at Least...

For those that have not heard, there was a leaked video the other day of a bunch of abusive cops beating the eff out of a 15-year old robbery suspect.  If you have not seen the video, please don't.  It will only piss you off and hopefully make you sick as it did for me.

This is one of the major problems with positions of power.  It is because of crap like this that people have lost respect for police officers as a whole.  The police are supposed to love and know their community along with trying to keep the peace.  Even if you are the worst of the worst suspect for the worst of the worst crime, you still have Constitutional and Human rights.

Not all police are bad, but not all police are good either.  There is a song that this reminded me of called "Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror" by Jeffrey Lewis.  Jeffrey is one of my favorite singer/songwriters and when I am constantly amazed with how much insight he can put into a song.  In this particular song he is writing about his feelings of failure as a musician along with insight of other good things to do for the world.  There is a line where he says that we should strive to better humanity through a variety of professions, one of which is being "uncorrupt police at least".

That is the key there.  Uncorrupt police...at least.  As a bear minimum.  The police departments tend to hate the officers that work in internal security because they tend to believe that the ISS officers are after them.  They are just trying to do their job in keeping the police as honest as possible.  This is a noble cause and one of the hardest jobs out there I believe.  These officers are under attack and internally threatened by the people that are supposed to be protecting society.  It is a sad state of affairs when police get so power hungry that they will do anything to hold on to their status.  I recommend an episode of This American Life where they talked about a police officer in Chicago that was under attack by his own unit for trying to keep people in line.

I have known a lot of police officers and most of them were good, or at least were trying to be, but I also know of a long drawn out story about corrupt police in my home town.  These police were being fed by the dealers to overlook things.  Not one, but three separate privet investigations have told everyone the same thing and even police from other counties have said that they will not work with my home town sheriffs because they are in line with the dealers.  This went as far as not to bring justice for the death of a young man, ruled an "accidental death" when all evidence pointed to a savage beating and manslaughter.  Those people were never brought to justice because of local law enforcement.

These issues are what cause disdain at power and government.  Whether or not it is true, the story lives on and the people due nothing to try to discount it.  They just ignore the feelings and will of the people because they have no real obligation to do otherwise.

I am getting upset now and I think it is time for me to stop with this line of thought.  Below is the video for the song I was mentioning.  Please take note, listen to the words, and hopefully you are as amazed as I am at the amount of, well, just stuff he fits into one song.

  

EDIT:  As you may have seen in the previous post, we here have a new writer from the Northern Nevada area named Justin Mason.  I want to thank Justin for joining us and he will be posting on a normal basis.  Everyone, please take the time to read his works and comment on them.  Thanks Justin and I hope you have a good time here with us!