Northern Nevada Freethinkers

How Does a Crush Work?

2011-12-11T00:37:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-17T01:42:00.000-08:00

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

2011-09-11T02:08:00.000-07:00

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

2011-09-01T03:24:00.000-07:00

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...

2011-08-30T20:21:00.000-07:00

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...

2011-08-11T01:45:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-10T16:51:00.000-07:00

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...

2011-05-21T19:19:00.000-07:00

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:

2011-04-22T01:14:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-01T01:57:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-03-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-12T09:01:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-09T15:41:00.000-08:00

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...

2011-02-06T08:20:00.000-08:00

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!

Reflection

2011-02-05T16:20:00.000-08:00

Reflection

by Justin Mason on Monday, December 30, 2010 at 1:29pm

A confusing understanding of an image,

with the eyes you can see,

but so blind you can be,

depicting in your mind,

so clear so perplexed,

with the answer so near to affect,

the being,

what you are seeing can be so misleading,

understanding can be so relieving,

perceiving the apparent, appearance of reflection,

can be deceiving.

Justin Mason- 08/30/10

Notes- With poetry, some people can read into its depths, some people relate in other ways, I processed the piece in afterthought, if it has touched you in a way of contemplation- that was the goal.

IP Exhaustion

2011-02-03T18:42:00.000-08:00

Not a full post, just a quick update.

On the sidebar of this page, near the bottom, I have added a widget for estimated time until X-Day. In case you are unclear, X-Day is the day that the internet runs out of IP addresses in the IPv4 system that most of us use today.

There is a plan in place, a system called IPv6 for new addresses in the future, but most people and systems are not set up to handle it yet. We will see what happens when X-Day comes along!

If you want to see more about IP addresses, please visit Wiki/IP_address and if you want to know your public IP, just click this link: http://www.whatsmyip.org/

Spread the Word

2011-02-01T12:39:00.000-08:00

As a huge fan of comic books and as a huge fan of original graphic novels (See:...the End of a Decade.) I have to report this video for you all. I know that I have readers out there are don't give two shits about comics and the art of graphical storytelling, but I do and at least watch the video for its humor value. Thanks!

It is a fact that while Marvel and DC squabble about who is the top company and sell their supes to every product imaginable, there are a ton of awesome publishing houses that produce wonderful content with art, depth, and a message.

If you have never really read comics or love comics, but what to read something beautiful and creative but don't know what to look for, please comment or email me and I will give you a great reading list along with good publishers to keep your eye on.

The Award Season is Full of Grit and Made for Kings

2011-01-26T08:17:00.000-08:00

Every year at this time I am excited to see what films the Academy has chosen to nominate. I have this weird Love/Hate relationship with the Oscars and the Academy, but it is like a weird cultural train wreck that I can never look away from.

The Academy has this thing they do almost every year which is to pick the best movies and performances to nominate, but then (usually) give the award based on popularity or politics, at least in my humble opinion. This year I do not think it will be any different, but we are always hoping.

This year I will run down the list in the two main categories that I am concerned with and give my predictions as to who will win, why, and who should win and why they will not.

Let us start with my favorite topic: Best Director.

David Fincher for The Social Network
The Coen Brothers for True Grit
Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan
Tom Hooper for The King's Speech
David O. Russell for The Figher

These are some very high-class directors and a very competitive match up, both in my pick to actually win and my pick on who should win. David Fincher is an amazing director that with a normal group and with one of his normal films I would choose hands down, but in this group with this film...he is not my first choice in any way. The Social Network is a good, well directed, well acted film, but is it the best direction of the year? No. What it is though is the most popular film of this group and the most likely that the Academy will grant with this honor.

The Coen Brothers are one of my favorite production teams that make some of the highest caliber of American films in the past 20 years. I love them and I love their version of the Charles Portis novel True Grit. It is, as the name states, gritty and fun at the same time. The acting was wonderful with two of the best performances of the year, but as with David Fincher, in this group with these films...I have to pick against them.

Tom Hooper is a wonderfully gifted director with such credits as John Adams and Elizabeth I and has shown good poise with her newest offering, but in then end what make this film great is the performance or Colin Firth, not the direction.

This leads us to David O. Russell who is one of the most underrated directors of the past 15 years who brought us the great films of I Heart Huckabees and Spanking the Monkey. While a great film mind, with this group he does not and should not stand a chance.

Now we get to my horse in this race. Mr. Darren Aronofsky. I love this man and I love his neo, semi-Kubrickian, art-snob style of wonderful film making. I have not and will not miss his work and with Black Swan, this was no exception. Anyone that could make such a haunting film and produce the performance out of Natalie Portman should win every award in the book. He won't win though. The Academy does not like Artsy directors anymore and for some reason seems to find all art films as pretentious. He will continue to make great movies and sooner or later the Academy will feel that he has paid his dues and grant him recognition as they will this year with David Fincher.

Now, as I have rambled for quite awhile, the Best Picture award is about int he same boat the as Best Director. I am sure that The Social Network will win surpassing the great films mentioned above along with the other great movies of the year in Toy Story 3, Winter's Bone, Incenption, and 127 Hours, the last being directed by the great Danny Boyle whom the Academy finally granted the Best Director Award to a couple of year ago after 15 years of making brilliant films that never got their attention.

So to wrap it all up, here are my emotional pick, the horses that I am rooting for in this race:
Best Director: Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan
Best Picture: True Grit
In the end though, in my heart deep down and am completely sold that both of those awards are going to go to:

Oh well, it is what it is and we cannot force the Academy to do anything. While I am not trying to take anything away from David Fincher or this fun and almost Vonnegutesque film, I doubt you will ever convince me that this was the best film of the year or the best directed. David has paid his dues in the film industry with such greats as Se7en, Panic Room, Fight Club, and the beautiful sad The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which if you did not cry during that movie, you are probably not human...

...Same goes for Toy Story 3.

The End is Nigh...Again!

2011-01-19T10:12:00.000-08:00

So I guess it is finally time for me to say something. Since vowing not to write political posts anymore, it is hard to write something and not point out the battle against simple logic and mathematics that the Republican party is trying to use to claim that the Health Care law is bad for the economy, or about the new Alabama governor that yesterday came out in a huge public speech stating how non-Christians are not his brothers or sisters, but alas, that is all politics.

Today I am hear to speak about the more than obvious apocalypse that is coming very soon. Oh, were you not aware about the End of Time and that it has started? Well, neither was I until I read some articles by some very smart people who are also Christian bloggers. The reported death of 200 cattle yesterday was the final sign that they needed to believe that a biblical prophecy is in order.

That is right! The Anti-Christ is coming and then Jesus will be reborn! Duh! Because both of those things exist, we know it for a fact, and there is no argument at all to the idea that this is the sign we have been waiting for! Come come Jesus Zombie, rise up and eat out brains! Oh...I mean, rise up and save us...well...only 144,000 of us, if you believe what the bible says. The rest you, fuck off, you are dead even if you were a brilliant and wonderful person, even if you were a Christian that led a good life. If you did not receive the final stamp of approval from Jesus himself, then you are dead too. Woot!

According to the Bible, which we all know to be true and correct in every way, there is a "prophecy" in the book of Hosea which states the following: By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood...Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.

Whoa! They are speaking the truth! It has happened! OMG!

Okay, it is time to get serious here because someone are so out of touch with reality and have no ability to take sarcasm. I better explain myself before people think that this is real. Let me start by letting all of you prophecy and conspiracy people in on a little secret that I know for a fact you are not aware of. Here it is, are you ready:

Animals die...everyday.

Now, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, as if stating reality and denying the rapture is a bad thing, but animals die in mass numbers all of the time. All the time. You think some fish and birds dying is the sign of the End of Days?! What about the mass extinction of millions of people in EVERY WAR? Those were far more frightening than 200 cows dying or thousands of fish washing ashore in a river. Some people will want to associate this with the idea of the "End of the Mayan Calendar". This is one of the most hilarious ideas ever. First of all, anyone who thinks it is the "end" of the calendar, is misreading the calendar in the first place. Second of all, if the Mayans really knew so much about the future, why are they an extinct culture?

Anyone who believes in the rapture is just silly, I am sorry, but it is just a silly superstition that does not even fall in line with the basic tenets of Christianity as a whole. It does not make sense people, even if you are someone that follows the word of Christ!

How many times have Doomsday prophecies gone unfulfilled? Too many to count, that is for sure. One day, yes, the world will end and all of these people are going to sit around going "I told you so!" If you make enough guesses you will be right eventually. The fun part is that if the world is going to end, fuck it, we have no real control over it. We may not even know it. One day we are sitting around, drinking out lattes, the next we are gone. Oops!

It seems like a study in human arrogance and ego to want to claim to know the end of the world and claim that there is an answer. It is another case of man claiming control of the forces of nature. I cannot blame mankind for wanting to, but in then either we will achieve this feat through the acts of logic and science or we won't and nature will kick our ass again. This feat will not be achieved through random beliefs and silly superstitions. I am sorry, it won't. Your arguments fail again and again and again.

So I will wrap this up by listing some of the Doomsdays that were supposed to have happened in my life time alone...
1. 1982 some preacher claimed was when it was going to happen.
2. September 1988, another Christian claimed it was going to happen.
3. Y2K...that is all I need to say about that one.
4. May 5th, 2000 was, according to some Christian scholars, the day the Devil will be set loose on the earth.
5. The LHC and black holes. Sure...

These are just a few. Now, let us just sit around and hope that Zombie Jesus, the only savior that can use his hand as a friggin' whistle, will come back to save us. Thank you Zombie Jesus!

PS: If this sounds bitter, it is because it is. I am tired of religious assaults on reality and reason. I am tired of people thinking that it is okay to fail at life and at humanity because your soul, a thing that you cannot see or test or feel but it is there and we cannot prove it, needs access to an afterlife. Fuck that. Live a good life. Help people be and do what you feel is morally correct, and you will win in the game called life. Why does there have to be a reward afterward?

For John

2010-12-15T04:01:00.001-08:00

I am adding this small pic for John. It is a long story and someday I will elaborate, but here you go:

The Last Political Post...(Hopefully!)

2010-10-10T23:07:00.000-07:00

I am so tired. I am tired of all of this politics. The state of politics in America is a joke and a disgrace to the idea of our democracy as a whole. We are so divided and it has gotten to this point because radicalism has become the mainstream. These political fascists are some of the most watched people in America and they spend all of their time grandstanded and claiming that the other side is destroying our country or tearing apart the constitution. Even on the hallowed floors of congress we see this sort of talk between people that are supposed to be working together to make better our country and the state of our people. It has gotten so bad that it has become personal. One side no longer makes friends with people on the other side because that would show weakness. Because of this these colleagues no longer seem to care about one another on a personal and human level. Without that, they no longer care if they attack the other instead of working together to make history. They lose the ability to dignify the other. That is an important idea to a humanist: to dignify the other.

An example of this was the Health Care bill. It is not my favorite bill that could have passed, but it is a step in the right direction. The Republicans refused to work on this bill. All they cared about was defeating it and arguing it and grandstanding for their constituents. This lead to the Dems having to force the bill through with some good ideas, but not the best. If the Republicans would have stood up and worked on this bill in the first place, we could have one of the best bills and a high point in American government, but instead we have more anger and more hatred.

I am tired of this feeling. I am tired of having to listen to these people that care more about showing up the other side then working for the greater good. This is not how public service people should be acting. My tax dollars go to pay for this garbage??

So much of the divisiveness is caused by the good ol' American 2-party system that we have in place. This is an atrocity of reason and education. During the past presidential election I was basically forced to vote for Barack Obama. It was either that or give my vote to the Republicans. I am not saying that I would not have voted for him any way, but I hate the fact that my choices were so limited. A vote for a third-party is a vote for the people that your want in office the least. This is a horrible state to be in. This is not democracy.

Henry David Thoreau once wrote that you can vote if you want to, but it means nothing but a hope in a change for what you believe to be right, not actual change itself. If you really want change you have to go out there and grab it by the throat, not just vote and feel like you did something without ever actually doing anything at all. He also wrote that voting with a party and not with your heart is an injustice and goes against our civic duty. After some rereading of the great American master, I have decided that if I ever vote with party again just to vote against the other party, then I am only supporting this system and telling the politicians that it works and is the right thing to do.

Fuck that. It won't happen again. I hate that feeling and for now on, I swear to you all, I will only vote for the person that I believe to be the best candidate and if I do not know the candidates, I will not choose. If I failed to educate myself on candidates or a particular referendum, then I no longer consider myself educated enough to vote on that topic. Party lines are shit and need to be scrapped. The 2-party system just allows people to get away with not educating themselves. It allows people to just choose the R or the D on a ballot and feel like they can sleep that night. The American people deserve better than that.

Thoreau also wrote to not concern yourself with politics, but only with what you find morally correct. Your family and your friends deserve better of you. As long as you have done what you feel is correct, whatever that may be, then you have done your duty. That may involve politics if you so feel that, but your civic duty and your right under a democracy is to vote or not vote, but just do what you feel is morally correct.

I used to think that meant educating the people on the horrors of right-wing extremism, but I have realized that with the 2-party dominance, this only leads to a simple conclusions: The Dems must be correct. Now, I tend to agree with them, but they are not that much better when it comes to this divisiveness and grandstanding. They are part of the system much more than they act in public. I do not want to write about politics anymore because I do not want to take sides. My side is and always has been for the freedom and dignity of people, not just Americans, but people everywhere. If I write about social topics, it will be from the heart and from the mind, but not from the eye of someone that cares about the political game that these yahoos like to play. I will attack stupidity on all sides, whether it be the lack of any caring from the Republicans or the lack of personal freedoms from the Democrats.

I hope that my beloved readers will comment. I want to hear your thoughts and ideas on this matter. If you think that I am wrong, tell me. If you agree, feel free to post your pledge as I have, to support democracy and deny politics. Trust me, when I made this decisions a few weeks ago, it was like taking a weight off of my shoulders. I felt better. Listening to these morons in the news is now more of a joke than it ever was. Mind you, it is a funny joke, but a sad one as well.

It Has Been Awhile for Us All

2010-10-04T02:45:00.000-07:00

The day has come. For those of you that know me well, you might know what I am talking about. Many friends and family back from my hometown will know about the events that transpired today which would cause me to make this post, but for you all, my new friends, you probably do not realize the outstanding mood that I am in.

I have been a baseball fan since childhood. Not only a baseball fan, but a National League baseball fan, and on top of that, first and foremost a San Francisco Giants fan. Every summer since adulthood has been spent religiously watching and listening to my Giants play the game. In that time, my heart has been consistently broken by the end of our season. In 2002 my G-Men made it all way to game 7 of the World Series, only to lose to the Anaheim Angels. In 2003, we were expected to take it all only to end our season in the first round of the playoffs. In 2004 my friends and I watched Steve Finley of the Dodgers break our hearts with a Grand Slam on the second to last game of the year. Since that point in time, hope had diminished and October baseball in the Bay Area had been little more than a distant memory connected to a thousand pains, each pain connected to sight, a sound, a call, and a pitch.

Today was the last day of the regular season. For the Giants this year has been a roller coaster of ups and downs, trades and acquisitions, and a fitting motto to our style: "Giants Baseball...TORTURE!" I had almost forgotten until that final regular season pitch today just how good torture can feel.

On the 59th anniversary of the famed "Shot Heard 'Round the World" the Giants fought and clawed their way back into October baseball with a 3-0 win over our division rivals the San Diego Padres. When Brian Wilson through a high fastball, when Will Venable swung at that pitch and missed, the roar was amazing. The payoff was worth it. Not one player on the Giants had been to the postseason as a Giant. A couple of long-time great players have finally made it to the postseason for the first time in their careers.

We clinched.

Not only did we clinch our spot and chance to make history, but we are taking the second best record in the National League with us. We are taking the best pitching staff in baseball with us. We are taking some of the best fans with us.

San Francisco is a town that has never had a World Series title. It is a town that loves their teams greatly, and the Giants most of all. It has been through the ups and downs of having amazing teams that just cannot get the final job done. It is a town that seems to always been the bridesmaid, but never the bride. In the late 80s baseball wept with the great city after an earthquake ravaged the town and put the World Series on hold. In the early 90s when it seemed all but certain that our beloved team was going to be moved to Tampa Bay, fans stepped in. When the Giants traded the great Matt Williams for a bunch of "random players," we trusted in the move only to have it lead to some of the greatest Giants years and some of the greatest members of the Giants family. San Fran always shows up to the games. After years of trying to live up to the hype, when Zito put together a string of great starts, San Fran stepped up to chant "Barry! Barry!" Only this time it was not the Home Run king they were rooting for, but a southpaw with the best hook in the game. After two consecutive Cy Young Awards, our ace Tim Lincecum will get to feel what it is like to have that wonderful, loving, and forgiving city cheer for him as he starts his first career playoff game.

It was a season of pain and glory. The Buster Posey era began, Molina started the season but did not last much longer in our uniform, Aubrey Huff proved that he was a winner, Andres Torres fought hard to show that he was more than a bench player but the leader of a team, Pat Burrell thrust himself into the Giants-Dodgers rivalry with a two run shot in the eighth, and Brian Wilson took a share of the team saves record with one of the best to play the game.

I respect the Padres game this season. They played very well, but in the end they were the Mudville Nine and we were left with more games to play.

Sometimes I turn off the game when I do not want to watch the outcome. Sometimes I let a hard loss get to me and get depressed the rest of the day. Sometimes I forgot when I care so much for this game and this team, but when we work hard for 180 days and earn our place, I am reminded of the simple beauty inherent to the sport. It is a game of subtlety and thought. A lot of Americans find baseball boring to watch, but those are people that think that nothing is going on between swings. It is a far more cerebral game and I think that is what turns them away. They do not give it enough of a chance to sit back and learn that it is a game where when it seems like nothing is going on, there is actually everything going on. It is a game of strategy and tactics as well as execution. It is a give and take, cat and mouse game where those slight contributions can turn out to be the plays that turn everything around, from an at-bat to a season.

I have had many girlfriends, friends, and lovers over the years and almost all of them cannot understand why I want to watch every game. They give me the "...but you watch it every day" or the "can't we listen to music now" speeches and occasionally I am persuaded to skip it for the night, but even my wife was smiling as my boys earned their contracts today and reminded us all why San Francisco, the Giants, and Baseball are parts of the heart and soul of the American culture.

I Had to Share This

2010-08-11T02:17:00.000-07:00

I read this recently and it just made me smile and lifted my spirits.

There was once a good man and powerful orator by the name of Eugene Debs. Now, Eugene was a strong headed man that fought for the common man against profiteering companies and worthless governments. There are a couple of sayings that you may have heard in your life but never knew that it was Debs that said them. First of all, this quote:

I am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition.

That was a wonderful line, but his most famous quote is this one:

Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

...but I read something tonight that blew me away. Mind you, the people he fought for were the people of this country, and the corrupt government that he fought against was the government of Woodrow Wilson, who branded him a traitor to America. In 1918 Debs was giving a speech to against the draft in WWI to which he urged people to resist it. This got him in trouble in which they found him guilty of sedition. During his trial he spoke for nearly two hours, and then a few days later at his sentencing, he spoke again. This speech is one of the most amazing things you will ever get a chance to read (This is also the same speech that the quote above came from.) Debs had a power of words that was inspiring, poetic, and both angry and moving at the same time. Here is the small section that got to me tonight:

Your honor, I have stated in this court that I am opposed to the form of our present government; that I am opposed to the social system in which we live; that I believe in the change of both but by perfectly peaceable and orderly means....
I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and factories; I am thinking of the women who, for a paltry wage, are compelled to work out their lives; of the little children who, in this system, are robbed of their childhood, and in their early, tender years, are seized in the remorseless grasp of Mammon, and forced into the industrial dungeons, there to feed the machines while they themselves are being starved body and soul....
Your honor, I ask no mercy, I plead for no immunity. I realize that finally the right must prevail. I never more fully comprehended than now the great struggle between the powers of greed on the one hand and upon the other the rising hosts of freedom. I can see the dawn of a better day of humanity. The people are awakening. In due course of time they will come into their own.
When the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for relief from his weary watch, he turns his eyes toward the Southern Cross, burning luridly above the tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches the Southern Cross begins to bend, and the whirling worlds change their places, and with starry finger-points the Almighty marks the passage of Time upon the dial of the universe; and though no bell may beat the glad tidings, the look-out knows that the midnight is passing – that relief and rest are close at hand.
Let the people take heart and hope everywhere, for the cross is bending, midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.

When I read this was a filled with a renewed hope. Yes, this was almost 100 years ago now and a lot of what he was hopeful for has yet come to pass, but still it is refreshing to see. One of the most sad things was that he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and lifetime disenfranchisement. I did not even know that they could legally give someone that sentence?!

Debs appealed to the Supreme Court, but that appeal failed. He was branded as anti-American and really never recovered. Afterward there were multiple attempts to grant Debs clemency, but President Wilson denied them all, stating:

While the flower of American youth was pouring out its blood to vindicate the cause of civilization, this man, Debs, stood behind the lines sniping, attacking, and denouncing them....This man was a traitor to his country and he will never be pardoned during my administration.

Wilson felt that Debs was basically a terrorist for not agreeing with his views and wanting people to stand up for what he felt was wrong in this world. Debs was eventually released from prison when his sentence was commuted by President Harding in 1921. Three years later he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Karl Wiik, stating that "Debs started to work actively for peace during World War I, mainly because he considered the war to be in the interest of capitalism," but he did not receive the award.

He died two years later...

I just wanted to share some of the life of Eugene Victor Debs with you. Let the people take heart and hope everywhere, for the cross is bending, midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.

One of the reasons that this speech hit me was that it reminded me greatly of another writing that touches me deeply and that is the "Great Wave" speech of Hunter S. Thompson from "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Hunter used the same poetic style, but to describe the opposite of Debs, the loss of hope and meaning. These are polar opposites, but they were both inspired by the loss of freedom and human rights in the United States bought on by corrupt Republican administrations. Hunter just did not see that light that Debs saw. Hunter only saw the "high water mark." that it left behind as hope was enveloped by darkness and greed. Hunter was not a socialist or labor rights leader as Debs was, nor did they share much of the same political opinions, but in the end they wanted the same thing for all people. That thing is what a lot of politicians, especially on the right, never seem to care much about anymore and that is basic human dignity.

Dignity for all people is the basis of human rights and freedoms, but in today's society it seems that dignity only goes to large companies and those people that can afford it. That is exactly what Debs and people like him fought so hard to prevent from happening, but maybe Hunter was correct. Maybe the time is past. Does dignity still belong in today's America?

I still think so. I also believe that it is still worth fighting for, but most people seem to have fallen into apathy and forgotten about the fact that they have a right in this country to be an artist, a writer, a painter, a musician, a mechanic, an inventor, an astronaut, a fireman, an uncorrupted policeman, or whatever they want to be.

Justin "Hellspawn" Bieber

2010-07-19T02:12:00.000-07:00

So I have been trying to be nice about this all, but I have reached a point where I can stand it no longer. Here it goes:

WHY THE FUCK DOES ANYONE CARE ABOUT JUSTIN BIEBER???

I am reminded that we are at a threshold of human evolution, we have almost all of the world's knowledge at our fingertips, but we are far too interested in what that little white christian boy has to way. Have you ever listened to this no-talent ass clown and been able to hold back the full-body dry heave that your body instinctively pushes up? I mean, you might want to sit there and think "Oh man, lay off the kid. He is just a kid man, let it go."

No. I will not let it go.

I used to be so passionate about music but I have grown more and more apathetic as the years go on because of crap like this. Not only this, but even rock music sucks a big one lately. I happened to turn on the radio recently, which was my first mistake, to find a band that used to be considered metal, and I think they still are, but I guess metal just means heavy aggro-rock with retarded lyrics like "Everyone come clap your hands" and shit that you used to only find on the worst hip-hop songs. Rock and roll, rock music, used to be home to the most hardcore and fringe people writing some of the most edge-of-your-seat lyrics that were made to talk to the youth of America and make you want to become a true idealist, but now it is just more garbage. Music today is basically just some producer shitting on a microphone and sending out to ClearChannel so that they can pump the airwaves with it twice an hour.

To quote the ever brilliant Bill Hicks when we was talking about pop music 20 years ago, these musicians are just "demons set loose on the earth to lower the standards for all mankind and making us pay a higher psychic price in the long run." I knew Bill was smart, but it is amazing how topical some of his work is still today. Sometimes I think he was a prophet.

There are so few bands out there and play something new and interesting with meaning and depth. It used to be that you could go to the indie scene and find creativity and truth, but the hegemony of the music system has bought and sold most of those artists as well. Now most of it is junk too. It is a huge snowball that is rolling around and around, sucking up anything that pops up. As soon as a new fresh face comes around it is bought and sold ten times over. I do not blame them, we all wish that we could get paid to play music for a living, but what ever happened to rebellion and anger in music? The issue is that because the man buys everything up and puts it to market, now people have to be safe and afraid or else someone won't want to buy their record. Fuck me! If I was a big-time musician I would say what I felt needed to be said and if you are offended by it, then you are not that one that my record was intended for and I probably don't want to listening to my music anyway. You are wasting it. Give that record to someone that still has a soul and stick with your Jim Neighbors vinyls.

Moving forward on this topic, I see tons of articles about people complaining about the new single and video from Lady Gaga. Now, before I start on her, I will admit that not all of her tunes are bad. At least she can actually play a damn instrument, but she is just another attention whore that is doing and saying things so that those cameras never leave her face. The issue that I am having is that her new song and video for "Alejandro" is not that controversial. People are making a mountain out of a molehill here. The video is not that blasphemous or sexually suggestive. Some people label her as the new Madonna, but she has little to no substance other than preaching for gay rights, which I am all for, but that is about it. The sad part is that people have gotten so apathetic with music that they think the slightest suggestion is controversy when it shouldn't be and while the true musicians that should be making headlines get no attention. Hell, other than small-time punk bands and some indie rockers, very few people with any clout fought against the wars in the middle east. The beauty of the 60s was that in the great turmoil, some of the most amazing and influential music grew and flourished. This time we have a very unpopular war and had the worst president in office and everyone with any influence were too afraid to really speak. There were a few exceptions to this, but again, they did not receive the attention that they should have...(NIN, A Perfect Circle, Green Day).

We are in a lull marketing and the capitalist dollar have truly taken hold. Everyone is afraid of losing their jobs. Even people in powerful positions are becoming Chomsky's "wage slaves." There are still many mediums of free speech in this country, but through right-wing fear tactics and corporate greed we are left far too scared to use them. Music and stand-up comedy are two of the perfect mediums for speaking out against the problems of the world but even they have become scared or losing album sales and sponsors. We need a new Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, or Bill Hicks. We need someone that is not afraid to stand up and piss everyone off. There are still a couple of them out there, but few and far between. Howard Stern finally gave up his fight years ago and was relegated to satellite radio. It is a sad state of affairs and these little twerps like Justin Bieber are just riding of the crest of the depressing and hideous wave. Someday, will we be able to look west and see Hunter S. Thompson's high water mark of awfulness and remember that we were there when the wave broke and rolled back into the pit that it came from?

I doubt it. Not as long as retards run this country and they are more afraid of losing votes then doing the job that they were voting in to do. People are far too willing to try to cater so that they can still have a voice instead of standing up and using that voice with reason and clarity to educate the world on what they truly feel should be done.

We should be ashamed of ourselves. I know that I am.

By the way...if you love good writing and hate everything that Justin Bieber stands for like I do, check out this site:
http://themountaingoatswillcureyourbieberfever.com/

Rehashing Old Memories...

2010-06-28T01:40:00.000-07:00

**I have to give a bit of a warning about this post. It goes over a few different places and rambles some, but I took some ideas, some old posts, and some new material and mashed them into this monstrosity that you are about to read. Thank you for bearing with me and comments are always welcome.**

So we have all heard the analogy that is, "The Tapestry of Life". Have you ever stopped to wonder how absolutely amazing that metaphor really is?! I mean, everything in life, everything we eat, breathe, do, and interact with makes up this tapestry. Each thing, moment, person, and event is a thread woven through to create you and me.

Now that is easy, but we can expand on this even more...

If we say that the above is true, then the beautiful part is that with the absence of any single, little, minuscule thread, the entire creation would cease to be. The essence of everything that we are is destroyed. By denying life we choose to be apart from it. From denying memory, we choose to kill a piece of ourselves. That goes for all memory, not just the good or the bad times.
People find it easy to remember the good times and the painful times. Both are extremes but in the end they are all the same thing. The great moments are just terrible moments in disguise and vise versa.

Pain is only weakness escaping from the body.
Pain is the most direct way to know you are alive...(No middleman required)
So is pleasure. Whenever we...well...snatch life out of the jaws of a little death, if you know what I am talking about, we do just that. We live. Not only are we living at that time, but we are accomplishing what our bodies were built to do. We are beings that were made to procreate and survive. At that moment, we are truly human.

Remember all those times, from the most amazing to the most painful. The only fool is the one who does not learn and grow from his mistakes. Well, I guess I am not really going anywhere else with this. Memory is important. Without it, the blanket of who we are is immolated.

This is why dianetics (and henceforth Scientology) is not a good thing. This is a belief system that willfully and conscienceless destroys those things that make you the beautiful, wonderful, interesting human that you are. It is an injustice to all good things in this world.

Our memories our what allow us to remember history and learn from it. We need to grow and attempt to learn from the beauty of love and the horror or war.

The modern genius Tom Waits once wrote,

"I will tell you all my secrets, but I will lie about my past."

Our personal past is an amazing thing. The thoughts, memories, dreams, and accomplishments are the little things that we have which no one can ever take away from us. In effect, the only person who can control those things is yourself. You have every right to block out whatever memories or regrets you may have. It is not the way I'd recommend, but it is one way to live.

I believe in openness. I believe in telling people about all of my sins or acts that are less than reputable because hopefully someone else can learn from my mistakes and errors. This is why I have been a decent councilor for people. I have made a lot of mistakes in my life, as we all have, and I do not wish to lie about those things. I see no purpose if lying, forgetting or hiding those facts. If we do forget, then all those mistakes were in vain. Use those things, those acts or sins and learn from them. Use everything bad you have ever done to evolve and create a better person from them.

I understand certain things that people like to hide though. I know how sometimes you may not want certain things as public info because of our chastising, non-forgiving society and the way it looks at certain things.

It is fucked up for us to take the past and hold it against someone, especially when that person goes above and beyond to correct their actions. I am speaking right now with a certain person in mind. Anyone remember Tookie Williams? He was the man who started the gang wars in L.A. and all that. Many people died because of what he created, but he learned from it. He spent 25 years in prison, educating himself, denouncing the gang lifestyle, and writing books to educate others on the horrors of the gangs and other options. He spent many years doing good for the world in an attempt to make ammends for the wrong he released onto the world. Then we, as a group, had the option to not kill him, but to let him spend the rest of his life in prison where he could never harm the public again and attempt to do more good, but instead we chose the way of bloodlust and hate. We did not forgive, even though he could never injure society again and he in fact did a ton of good in return, we still were not happy until we killed someone. Mind you, I am not trying to defend his actions, but put them into perspective.

When we commit someone to the death penalty, we have decided to play the role of executioner. Acts such as that only tend to perpetuate a cycle of hatred and violence. I do not fault the people who wanted him dead. I only feel sad for the fact the people still cannot live happily until someone dies. It is a pathetic excuse for what we call "the most advanced species on the planet".

If this is the most evolved, then I want off this fucking rock...

These are things that I remember. These are things that make me who I am. As much as I wish that we could live in a world where education and honesty was paramount, we don't, but everyday we should be attempting to use history and memory as a tool to future enlightenment. People will always have selective hearing, choose what to know and how to interpret that knowledge, but as long as we take time and effort to evolve and better ourselves, then each day we will be one step closer to truth. Each day we will be more human and less of a talking monkey.

We think of ourselves as the top, but if there are higher beings out there, then we are nothing more than talking monkeys to them. The late, great Carl Sagan once wrote about Earth as nothing more than a "Pale, Blue Dot" in space. He was not putting us down, he was attempting to teach people that there is more in the universe than our squabbles over land and oil. Maybe it is time for us as people to stand up, accept our dark sides and grow into what we could be. Memory is the key to all of that. I will end this post with Carl Sagan's words. Anyone that knows me has probably heard me talk about this speech on multiple occasions. I like to remember it because it is still poignant after all of these years. Remember, he is give this speech in the context of the famous picture of Earth from millions of miles away.

Carl Sagan:
From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Sharron Who??

2010-06-21T00:35:00.000-07:00

The Tea Party here in Nevada has chosen yet another psychopath to represent them in our Government. This time, it is long-time Republican Sharron Angle. I know, the same question came to my mind as well and that is "Who?"

Well, as it is my duty to educate the public on the B.S. of politics in America, this woman sticks so badly that I have to now say something. Let us learn about Sharron Angle:

She has consistently said that we need to remove the Department of Education and that local communities need to be in charge of their education. Now, while having a certain percentage of education locally ran, I fully agree with, but to have it all run by local bodies is just dumb. If this were to happen, it would be a miscarriage of justice for facts and science. We would have certain people "learning" of so-called "sciences" like Creationism and Intelligent Design. We would have something like Texas is trying to do in changing history to their whim and ignoring all evidence. We have to have some kind of standard or else children in Alabama and Nevada will never have the chance to go to high-end universities because their education systems would not stand anywhere near the level that they need to be. This is one of the most nazi-esque things that I have seen. It is not far removed from book-burning in an attempt to control what people read and learn. Keep them stupid, and those in power get to stay in power.

She believes that the United Nations is a bad thing just established to try to enforce a liberal agenda. Just because some liberal ideas are accepted WORLD WIDE and known to be FACT, that is truth, not an agenda.

She does not believe that people should be married that are different than her, mainly gay people. Why not? She claims that it is because she thinks that children can only be raised a certain way properly. She just hates that which is different. Just because it is not her way of doing things does not mean that it is wrong. I like how she tries to use "scientific evidence" to support her claims, but ignores real scientific evidence that states how wrong she is on everything else.

She wants to abolish the IRS. Wow. I mean, we all hate paying taxes, but come on. Government has to be payed for on some level.

She ignores all evidence and states that global warming is a false, liberal agenda. I cannot believe that ignorant people can still be this ignorant in today's world where information is everywhere and free. Anyone can look at the evidence and see that climate change is real and to ignore it is just being plain stubborn of change and of fact.

I will stop with this last thing...she wants to drill for oil everywhere, including in our most sacred of items, the National Parks. Do you realize that two of the best ideas to come out of the U.S. are Jazz music and the National Park system. To destroy one for greed will lead to destroying them all. Not only that, but to destroy one for the purpose of oil is just moronic. We do not need more oil, we need to find alternatives. Why rely on a very limited and polluting resource when there are a ton of free and virtually limitless sources? Some people like to argue "Well, it is not windy all of the time and the sun is not out all of the time."
So? If you build a nation-wide power grid it is very simple. There are plenty of areas where if you were to put some solar power plants and some wind power plants, it would easily harness enough energy for all of our power needs and more. You just need the infrastructure to support sending that power to the more remote locations. It is not hard to figure out people!

All in all, Sharron Angle seems to be another neocon fascist. Do not vote for her.

Is "The Streak" this Out of Touch?

2010-06-01T19:06:00.000-07:00

Today's rant is about someone that I used to have a certain amount of respect for, but with his latest offering he is showing just how apart from reality he is getting in his older age. The man that I speak of is the country singer/humorist Ray Stevens. You remember him, right? Well, don't feel alarmed if you don't. Ray was popular for about 20 minutes in the 70s with the humorous song "The Streak" which, in all of its sophistication, was a song about a guy running around naked and...well...that was about it.

Recently Ray decided to post his opinion on the "Get rid of the Mexicans" law in Arizona which, by the way, it has come out in a series of emails between politicians and constituents is seen as a good thing for "taking our country back from the Mexicans".

Ray's new song is entitled "Come to the U.S.A." and is basically attempting to make the sociological argument that people come here illegally because we like to help people instead of criminalizing them. He states that all other countries will beat, imprison, or kill you for being there illegally.

First of all, this argument is completely false and misguided. I understand people's frustrations with our efforts and money going to criminals, but the issue here is that Stevens is completely wrong as to what the issue is. Illegal immigration is a symptom, a huge one, of yet another gigantic problem with our country. If you break this down and create an analogy, Ray is agreeing with a law that states that if your head hurts, take a pain killer to squash the pain instead of facing the real problem which is that you have a metal bar jammed into your skull.

Conservatives have this long-standing political mantra that states that anyone who does something that they do not agree with should be criminalized. This is called negative reinforcement and has consistently been proven to be, well, let us just say, not the most effective way to make things right. They like to lock up sick people (drug addicts) in prisons with murderers and rapists, to dehumanize them and remove them from sight. That seems to be their answer as long as we do not have to look at them to destroy our 1950s whitewashed "Leave It To Beaver" mentality. If their arm burns, cut it off instead of removing it from the fire.

To Ray Stevens:
Dear Ray, I remember listening to your tapes when I was 10 and thinking they were funny. Then I grew up and saw reality and found that you are really nothing more than another misinformed good ol' boy that thinks fart jokes are the end-all be-all of humor. Your new song, "Come to the USA" is not funny in any way and is completely wrong in its assessment of the things that this country was founded on.
It is with the support of ignorant hicks, such as yourself, that give people the idea that it is good to be racist, it is good to forget about history, and that "gated communities" and malls are a good thing. I understand your frustration with situations, but to think that dehumanizing Mexicans and spending valuable police resources on this is just the biggest waste of ideals and money since ol' Bushy left office.
Please take the time to think this over and find that only with true education and immigration reform will we start on the correct path of this that you see as a battle.

Here is the video for people to understand. Mind you, the video itself is not that awful, but the fact that it is in response and support for Arizona is the issue:

Arizona: The New Home of Ethnic Cleansing

2010-05-04T20:07:00.000-07:00

So we have all heard about the Arizona law that makes it mandatory for police to question someone of their immigration status if they have "reasonable suspicion" to think they are illegal. It is very controversial and some rather heated debates have sprung up from this and I have to say...well...I was considering going sarcastic here and pretending to agree with it and how racial profiling is a good thing and how it is perfectly fine as long as you are not brown, but I could not bring myself to do it. I considered the risks and I could not allow someone to read what I was thinking and take it seriously.

Arizona is attempting to become the first all-white all-English speaking state. Heaven for WASPs. Now then they just passed another law and ruling to remove all classes that are geared towards ethnic groups or can be construed as "anti-American" as well as a ruling from the education department that anyone with a "thick" accent is banned from teaching English classes.

Wow how Arizona is going off of the deep end. The first Police State. Here is a cartoon from the great Matt Bors that sums this up nicely: (http://www.mattbors.com/newstrip.html)

Not only do the right wing of Arizona claim to hate Obama because of what they see as him being a Nazi, but they sure seem to want to rather fascist regime in their state.

They try to argue that this is a law only to prevent crime and they hold this weird belief that illegal immigration is the main problem with our country. Let me be the first to pop your little bubble Arizona, but the problems with our health care, the problems with our prisons, the problem of crime, and the problem of the economy is not due to the illegal immigrants in the USA. The problem is more due to the lack of educated Americans, the functional illiterates, and the people who are addicted to drugs in the first place, most of whom in all of these situations are legal Americans that cannot even name three of the founding fathers. The drug running and drug problem that they claim to be fighting against is not due to people drug running, it is due to that fact that there is a market for it in the first place. Most people, if given a choice, would rather do a legal, honest, hard working job for their wages and wants, but our society has made it so difficult for them to do so that they revert to drugs and alcohol along with black market goods, including narcotics. It is a simple formula. You are never going to eliminate drug use, but you can attempt to fight the causes of it instead of the symptoms. I have known a good amount of illegal immigrants and they are just like you and me, struggling for a better life for themselves and their loved ones. Many come here because of all of the violence and corruption in their home countries and America is still one of the few places that if you are lucky and work hard you can make something of yourself. They come for hope.

Many of them would rather be legal, but you have made it so much more difficult for them to come legally that they have no other option. This country was founded and took pride in the idea of the "Melting Pot". Different people and cultures could come, become integrated, and thrive in peace and freedom, not the idea of white rich people only which is what you are trying to claim. While the last president, ol' Bushy was in office, he made it even harder and more expensive to come here legally. Hmm...

Also, just because someone has an accent does not mean they do not know English or even that they may know it better than we do. Oh, here it comes, another bubble-bursting moment...English is not that "National Language" as you so like to claim. It was never founded or formalized as such. It is the most common language, but the idea of freedom means that you can speak whatever language you would like, and if the people or business owners do not want to cater to Spanish or whatever language, you do not have to.

You are afraid of what is different. You are angry because you cannot communicate with some people, or at least that is what we are saying to be polite. The truth is that people who claim such things are just plain racist and hateful of that which they do not understand. Those "damn Mexicans" as I have heard them called, are some of the nicest and hardest working people in this country. You like to claim that they are taking our jobs, but the fact remains that many of you will not do the jobs that they will. You are to good to build houses or pick in the fields.

I love America and the freedoms that it was founded on. I personally despise a lot of religions and people who are paid to lie on televisions for political ends, but they have the freedom to due so and I defend that freedom. I feel bad for the ignorant Arizonians that honestly think this bill is a good thing because most of them are just brainwashed by Fox News and education cuts. Many totalitarian dictators believed in burning books and banning freedom of thought because education as a whole will open everyone's eyes to how they are being fucked everyday by the people in power. The right-wing especially loves cutting education spending because many of their ideas on social issues are of such a third grade mentality that they can retain power as long as that is your highest level of learning. Texas is working on changing facts in their school books, we saw it with Kansas and Pennsylvania over the whole "intelligent design" theory which was not intelligent at all, and we saw it with President Bush issuing a decree that park rangers were not allowed to say how old trees and sites were due to the idea that the scientific fact is against the bible. Can't you see the horrible problems with this?

Many of you claim problems with science and their are problems, but it is a self-correcting philosophy that is not always right. You claim that science does not know anything, but they know and can prove way more than you can, so please shut your mouth until you have an actual logical argument. Get your facts right and admit your own problems please. Speak up if you want, but at least have some idea of reason. The great old quote says this: "It's better to be thought a fool than open your mouth and prove it." and boy, how many people prove it everyday in this country. I love the right of free speech but as is consistently noted, with rights come responsibility. Have some.

It is a Historic Night....

2010-03-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

We have done it. It is not the bill that I wanted or the situation that I wanted, but in the end, it is something that we needed and needed badly.

The republicans have shown their true face. It is the face of a party that truly cares about the rich white man only. I agree with the need to control costs, but when pretty much ALL estimates have said this is a money-saver in the long run, how can you deny it? How can someone be so heartless as to say to the people of America, "Oh, I am sorry that you are dying of a treatable illness, but the rich white man does not want to pay a tiny bit to save your life, help your small business, or allow your child to see a doctor."

We are so divided as a nation lately that it sickens me. I was proud to see some people stand up this past week and put aside their differences because they understood that this bill, whether you like its means or not, is better than the status quo. Right now the insurance companies are allowed to do whatever they wish in order to FUCK the American people. I have what is considered by a lot of people to have a good health insurance but even I have to pay ridiculous amounts in the end. I heard a republican congressman say that this bill will be the end of private insurance and the government takeover of health care. This is false, but I wish it were true. The private insurance companies have screwed us over for the last time and maybe it is time to give the government a shot to do what private insurance has consistently FAILED at.

In case you are unaware, I am a supporter of the single-payer health system. When this was not going to happen I settled for the public option and removal of insurance anti-trust laws. The public option went out the window because republicans screamed "socialist!" Most of them do not even know what that word means. They love expanding military but the fact is that the American military is one of the largest socialist programs on our planet. The republicans are crying because they are forcing the democrats to use various parliamentary procedures to get their votes, but again they loved it when those same procedures led to the GIGANTIC tax cuts for the rich that have really driven this country into the ground.

I have never seen a larger group of hateful and hypocritical people in my life. Let's spend billions on attacking sovereign nations, but the moment that you want to spend that money to better our society as a whole, you are an evil commie bastard. I personally am not trying to tear down republicans and all of their ideas, but overall they failed us as leaders. They refused to assist in the writing of the bill and then cried foul that they did not have a say. They refused to propose anything unless this bill was completely removed. You know full well as I do that if we would have agreed to their terms nothing would have happened and corporate greed would have won again as it did for all of the years under ol' Bushy.

Again, normally I am not as bitter toward the republicans and even agree with them on some stuff, but most of that is in theory, not in practice. It would be nice if the federal government were small and left things up to the states, but slowly the government has been expanding because the states have failed the people over and over and when they do where else does the little man have to go? If the states had their way there would still be separate but "equal" in many areas, which we all know was the biggest lie ever. The states are run by the large companies that reside in them and under "free-market" capitalism, it is us, the people of America and our democracy that loses. The free-market system is fine and dandy, but it does not work and has not worked well since its induction. Human greed is strong and the free-market system just gives greed a place to thrive while the politicians roll in the dirty money that is built on human suffering and live in a fucking Reagan wet-dream.

I am personally an old-school classical liberal/Hustler Democrat. I believe in small government but the republican government seems to always spend money in the wrong places. They still believe in this idea of "trickle-down" economics that always favors the rich and fucks the poor. I believe that the federal government has a moral and civic duty to protect the health and well-being of its people. The two greatest ways to do that are through health care and education. I personally think that college should be public and free to everyone that can handle it, but that is just me...well...and logic and reason, but no one pays attention to that.

I am done ranting. Today is a day for rejoice as reason has triumphed over individualism again and our nation is one step closer to fulfilling the promise of liberty and justice for all....

...now once Cheney is found guilty for war crimes then justice will win again. =)

Infringe on Rights

2010-02-01T00:49:00.000-08:00

I am writing tonight to ask a question:

When is it right to infringe on the freedoms that we are granted by the Constitution? When are we, the people, willing to give up a certain freedom for a better society?

I really want to know. This question keeps me thinking quite a bit. We seem willing to give up some privacy rights for security as the Patriot Act had proven. Almost no one would argue that freedom of speech is not sufficient enough to protect those people who deal in kiddie porn. Where is that line?

We choose to criminalize people who make threats. It is illegal and the argument is simple to understand. Yes, free sheep should allow you to tell someone that you want to kill them, but by doing so we are infringing on that person's right to exist without a constant fear of being murdered. Okay, makes sense.

There is an issue that came up recently where I really want to agree in principle, but in practice, we have opened the floodgates to the what may be the greatest miscarriage of democracy since the 2000 election, and that is the Supreme Court setting a new legal precedent in what large companies may spend on political campaigns.

The sky's the limit now!

For some reason, citing freedom of speech, the Republican Supreme Court decided that the people no longer need any form of truth in politics. The people will now be flooded with ads for the candidates that only the largest companies want you to see. It has been shown that almost always, without fail in today's world controlled by media and advertising, that the candidate with the most monetary backing tend to win the elections. That means that now the good guys, the people who want to serve the public out of honesty and belief in the amazing document that is the constitution lose. Why even fight anymore?! Why donate 10 bucks to Joe Shmoe's campaign because the other guy, the career politician has the backing of Altria or Disney or GE or Google or whomever and most of the companies do not want people in power that care. The masses lost a huge decision and I applaud our President in his State of the Union speech for ripping the Supreme Court over it. They failed us, the faceless masses that make up most of the U.S. John "Whitewash" Roberts and Samuel "Hypocrite" Alito (Along with Scalia and that idiot Justice Thomas) do not give one fuck about the spirit of a law or the meaning behind an amendment. They are bought and sold just like the politicians. I am going to miss the great Justice John Paul Stevens when he finally retires. If anyone wants to learn something, read his opinion on this ruling that count be found here.

It sickens me when I see what has happened to the people on this country. After eight years of a moron running our country into the ground, his legacy still lives strong in his choices for the highest court in the land. Shame on you. I wish we lived in a world where we would not have to regulate companies. I wish we lived in a country where we would not have to have laws protecting the masses, the consumers, the voters because people and companies would regulate themselves, but as we have seen time and time again this does not happen and probably will not happen as long as capitalism rules all and as long as humans with there endless greed continue to run it.

This happened in the same week as the loss of the great Air America radio shows. Whether or not you agreed with them, as least it was another side of the coin from the psycho fundamentalists that rule radio airwaves now. An hell, at least the most extreme of the liberals on there were way more reasonable than the extreme, oh, I am looking for the right word here...douche bags? Hate Mongers? Nazis? that control the airwaves now.

I am sorry, I do not like resorting to name-calling, but I am so frustrated right now with everything. The one shining light was the President's speech the other night. I know he will not get to do everything that this country needs him to do, but at least for the first time in many years I can believe that we are in good hands and that he honestly will make thoughtful decisions based on what he honestly believes is good for America. Whether or not you agree, it is at least uplifting to feel that someone in power actually cares about people and our future history.

Sex and Violence

2010-01-09T21:06:00.000-08:00

WARNING: This is a reposting of a blog that I write awhile back on my old page. I was thinking about this again and just decided to edit and repost this thing that I wrote. Don't worry, new posts are still coming!

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I have meditated and written often in the past on sex, so really this writing will be about the other, our good friend violence.

I have been contemplating violence quite a bit lately, watching a bunch of violent films and reading graphic literature. Finally tonight I realized it and asked myself "Why?"

So I thought about it. Violence is so prevalent in our society, in both reality and fiction, that we take is with a grain of salt, even entertaining. Our movie theaters and televisions today are our new version of the ancient arenas and coliseums of yore. The only difference is that we are (usually) not actually harming anyone or thing.

Is this a good idea?

That may seem like a strange question, but a valid one I think, something worth asking. Why, you might ask?

The more and more that we remove humanity from acts of rape, murder, torture, and war, the more we condone and accept it as just life and entertainment. Should we be entertained by human suffering? I am entertained by some shows and some violent acts, but that is because no one actually gets hurt and usually because the violence is understated. It exists for a purpose, to force us to feel a certain emotion. This is one of the reasons that I hate big hollywood films. To glorified. They use violence nowadays instead of dialogue or character. It is weak...

Anyway, the more and more that we remove humanity from our inhumanities toward other men, the more accepting and desensitized to it we become. I mean, do not get me wrong, I am a full believer in the first amendment and our right to say what we want to say, and show what we want to show without censorship. I am not claiming that we need to censor any of this. I am just asking, what is it for and is it a positive thing?

Artists are people who try to communicate, try to reach out to themselves or others, reach for human connection through some form of media. They tent to do these things to express an emotion or force their audience to feel a certain emotion. In doing so, they are usually attempting to heal this world in some way, to force us to see something in the big or small picture about us all. To sum it up, I see artists as asking us to evolve somehow.

Some people use the nature argument for violence, and that is an argument that you cannot win. Yes it is natural to have violence, human on human or human on nature, or whatever. Yes it exists in the wild and has existed for as long as we know, we cannot really argue that fact, so don't even try. But...what we can argue is this question: Does that mean we have to perpetuate violence? Does that give us just cause? These same people that tend to use the nature argument, tend to do very unnatural things. Watching tv and movies is not natural, so does that mean we need to do away with it? Having one life mate is VERY unnatural, so why do we do it? Poly-amorous lifestyles are very natural, but frowned upon, and often by the same people who argue that natural violence is okay.

The point being that we are humans. We are evolved, even though you watch reality tv and you would think that we are still apes. With rights and great power comes great responsibility. I know it might seem antiquated, but I still believe that. This means that I feel that we have a responsibility to one another. We are all connected on this orb we call Earth and helping each other through this thing...well, I will stop there and cease being preachy or trying to place my own beliefs out there. The point is that, well John Donne said it best when he said that no man is an island.

So I decided to watch a movie that seems to sum up human violence better than anything I know of, Julie Taymor's version of "Titus" by Shakespeare.

This film studies violence, man's inhumanity toward man. It really shows the brilliance of Shakespeare better than any of his plays. It covers every type of violence, almost all possible motivations, and forces us to ask certain questions:
What is Justice?
What is Revenge?
and
What are justifications of War?

Type of violence and motivations:
Personal revenge, avengement, sibling rivalry, cold blooded crimes of passion, premeditated murder, war, torture, self-sacrifice, sex, sense of duty, religous piety, ritual, rape, lust, racism, love, hatred, pride, use of all sorts of weapons, killing one with your own hands, guilt, appealing, and one of the most real: Becuase we feel there is no other choice.

The two sons of Tamara rape Titus's beauitful daughter Lavinia, a symbol of love and purity, then cut out her tongue and chop off her hands so she can tell no one who did this. Then they made her live. It tortures her to know whom is guilty, but she cannot do anything about it. How horrible!

Titus willingly gives up his own hand, cuts it off for the belief that by doing so, two of his son's lives would be spared. He would have gladly give his life for his sons if they asked for it, but they didn't. They wanted to torture him as well. Only then to not give him his sons back, but only their heads along with his hand sent back to him! Wow.

Lavinia submits herself to death by her father, who both felt it was just to do so! What will they had?!

Titus kills the two sons that raped his daughter, cooks them into mince meat pies, and feed them to their mother!! My god!

These are just a few of the most grevious acts of violence in the play/film. It makes me think, these acts of violence are rather over the top, not normal, but they are not unheard of in life. Mercy killings for purity (Chastity) by loving family members are still practiced in some parts of the world. People still sacrifice themselves for ideals and rituals. It still happens.

What does it take? Why do we submit ourselves to certain things? How much will does it actually take for someone to wrap their hands, skin to skin, around a loving family member's warm neck and strangle or break it? I cannot even begin to imagine. To know that some people can perform that act is a scary thought. To think that we as humans have the ability to feel such feelings, do such things, and some of us can do it so sociopathically, so disconnected, that we can do them without even raising our heartrates.

Maybe, to sum that thought up, that is why we created the idea of the devil and of demons. By dehumanizing those people, we can sleep a little better at night...

I do not think that is a justified answer...but it is the only one I got.

End of a Decade (Part III)

2010-01-02T06:40:00.000-08:00

I am a huge fan of comics and graphic novels. Since the nineties we have seen a new golden age dawn in the medium, while at the same time sales are dropping. The smallest percentage of people/kids now read comics than have ever read them in the past 75 years and a lot of that is due to this strange monopoly that is in place with the "single distributor system" as well as the squabbling between Marvel and DC that continues to this day. Although the new rise in comic-based movies is helping some, it will hopefully never take over. At least people like Jeff Smith, Dave Sim, Terry Moore, and many others have proven that this is an art form and one can be successful without the mainstream system.

Here are my picks for the decade. This with yet another hard list to compile due to all of the great young writers and cartoonists that have emerged as well as the ending of some of the most iconic series's.

5. Marvel Civil War.

This is the only book from the mainstream Marvel/DC companies to make my list. Although overall I despise these all-encompassing, multi-title crossovers because for the most part they are a plot just to sell more comics and not about the story, they actually did a decent job with this one. Some of the most unthinkable things happened to the Marvel Universe and we got to see characters in situations that were thought of as impossible at the time. I will give credit to Marvel for not totally messing this one up.

4. Bill Watterson - The Complete Calvin and Hobbes.

This is the first of two of me choices that are 90's based, which I know is kind of cheating, but this collection is the definitive edition of the work of Bill Watterson. He only created comic strips for ten years, but in that time graced the world with some of the most influential strips along with fun and lovable characters. The collection here also earned the distinction of being the heaviest and one of the most expensive books to grace the New York Times Best-Seller list.

3. Craig Thompson - Blankets.

Blankets was first printed in 2003 with the 9th printing edition coming out this year. This piece by Craig Thompson is autobiographical and shows some wonderful cartooning designs. A sweet story about growing up and finding one's first love while questioning faith and the meaning to life, Blankets is a great mix of story and illustration.

2. Alex Robinson - Too Cool to be Forgotten.

When I first saw the cover to this, I thought it was silly and looked interesting. I knew Alex's work and knew that this was going to be good, but I was blown away by what I found. This story starts of silly, almost comical, quickly falls into reminders of high school and being kid, only to hit you hard at the end like a punch to the gut. I have read it a few times and wept at the end each time. Alex has proven himself as one of the premier graphic novelists of our age.

1. Jeff Smith - Bone.

This is the other 90's cheat coming in at number 1, but I would not have felt right with myself if I left it off. This series, started in '91, ended in '04, but since it's end and the subsequent color editions that were released in the recent years, Bone has been one of the most successful publications in the past few years. Not only has the big (1300 page) "One Volume Edition" been through like 14 printings, the Scholastic reprints have gone on to change the way that parents and teachers can use comic books as a learning tool. Thanks Jeff!

That is the end of my "Best of the Decade" series. I almost wanted to do a list on televisions, but then I saw some again recently and was reminded why I didn't.

Any questions, comments, or suggestions, please comment or contact me directly. I will start working on the lists for this decade and it comes along and hope to find more creativity and brilliance.

End of a Decade (Part II)

2010-01-01T18:10:00.000-08:00

In my last post I went over my top 5 films of the decade and, as promised, this time I am going to cover music. This has been a strange decade for music as a whole with the progress of compressed music, the decline (even more) of radio and Mtv domination, and the increase of garbage Disney music.

What do we want out of music? Most people are happy with a simple melody a "nice, clean-cut image" it seems. Image, for the most part means dick. I am always reminded of the late, great Bill Hicks who stated "I want my rock stars dead, damnit!" Who cares if they choked on their own vomit?! At least they jammed and played from the heart.

There were still a ton of great albums, just most of them were outside of the mainstream section. Well, here we go:

5. The Mountain Goats - All Hail West Texas.

This fan favorite was the last real lo-fi album created by one of the Gods of lo-fi, but not only did it cement his fan base but showed that with nothing more than brilliant songwriting you can still make a name for yourself in this generation.

4. Tom Waits - Orphans.

Tom has been recognized as one of the most amazing musicians for the past thirty years, but in 2006 he topped himself by releasing a folio of new and unheard music separated into three disks, one of rockin' blues stuff, one of slower jazz stuff, and one of stuff that really does not fit into any category. I linked the vinyl version which was just released this year. It is a must-own.

3. Tool - Lateralus.

One the heavier side of things, post-alt, art-rock band Tool made two albums in the 90's and showed that you can play hard rock and still know a thing or two about music theory and songwriting. In 2001 they came out with this effort, Lateralus, which just showed that after a five year hiatus they could still make one of the most rockin' albums of all time. With the album art by Alex Grey, Tool demanded that the format of the album is still alive and well in some form today.

2. Bright Eyes - Lifted, of The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground.

I was a reluctant Bright Eyes fan for a long time due to his earlier stuff that consisted more of whining than anything else, but when Conor, Mike, and the rest of the Saddle Creek guys got together to build, what in my mind is one of the last great concept albums, they hit the nail on the head. I found myself compelled to listen in awe thinking that he was able to write every song that I had been wanting to write for years while backing it with some arrangements that are sometimes simple, sometimes complex, but always wonderful.

1. Radiohead - Kid A

What can we say about this? Was it the last hurrah of a great 90's band or the start of something new and beautiful at the same time? Radiohead were not afraid to find out, risk everything, and change the face of pop music. Not only, from the very first note did you realize that this was something new, it was strange, smart, and sometimes scary as well. Because of this masterpiece Radiohead became one of the largest bands in the world, fought for free music for everyone, and have since made more great music that is still just as weird and scary. Long Live Radiohead and may they continue to write for many years to come. I am hoping that their next album will make my decade list again.

If you feel that I missed something or are way off base on any of these, contact me or comment. I am always ready to go with a musical argument. Listen well!

Next Posting: Part III, Comics/Graphic Novels.

End of a Decade

2010-01-01T09:11:00.000-08:00

So, like a bunch of other bloggers, the time has come to start naming the best of the decade lists. This is a hard think to do, especially for me. Anything that I think is remotely great becomes my favorite ever. To top it all off, I have limited myself to only 5 for each category.

The categories that I have chosen are mine, and many others, favorite art mediums. Also, I know that while compiling my lists I have forgotten a few here and there, but this is what I got.

Movies:
5. Kill Bill (Vol. 1 and 2).

Tarantino does it again with this amazing ability to mix ultra-violence with beautiful dialog while crafting a wonderful 70's homage.

4. No Country For Old Men.

The Coen Brothers have proven themselves as a couple of the best storytellers of the modern era. In this chase movie they show a character of great morality and evil in a time of change.

3. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

This makes the list for many reasons, but mostly because Peter Jackson took this feat head on and created the definitive film version of one of the most beloved stories in the English language. Not only that, but all three were nominated for Best Picture. The only other trilogy to do that was The Godfather.

2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

This is it. Charles Kaufman had already won my heart with Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, but here he connected with the brilliant director Michel Gondry to put together a tale of pain, loss, and the persistence of memory. I still weep when I watch this.

...and my favorite movie of the decade...

1. Lost in Translation. Not only did this earn Scarlett Johnansson an nod from the Academy, a Golden Globe Win, and launched her career, but even Bill Murray got some must deserved respect from this one. Sofia Coppola had already shown she could make a film with The Virgin Suicides, but she proved that she could create a story that was so smooth and sweet. I love it.

In the next post I will work on my top 5 albums...expect that one soon.

Careful Man, There's Vinegar Here!"

2009-12-23T00:04:00.000-08:00

Here is an article that I wrote for The Dudespaper.com with a bit added by the editor. I am reprinting it here as well. I little note for those that are unaware. The Dudespaper is the official publication of the Church of the Latter-Day Dude, also know as Dudeism. The basic ideas of Dudeism are a mixture of Taoism, Humanism, and The Big Lebowskirolled into one package.

This article is about how I equated The Vinegar Tasters to the bowling team from the movie, The Big Lebowski. Hope you like it!

By William Hoffknecht, The False Prophet of Dudeism
To have a great team, you need a good balance. The bowling team comprised of Donny, Walter, and The Dude is a perfect example. They work so well because of the mix of people and emotions that are ever prevalent within their circle. They are able to combine two great extremes, and one center weight to keep the polar opposites from clashing constantly.
Their mix reminds me of one of the most important pieces of ancient Chinese art, especially Taoist art, entitled "The Vinegar Tasters". If you are unaware of the piece, it is a simple picture with a vat labeled "vinegar" in the center and three men standing around it. The three men have all taken a taste and each is giving a different reaction to the situation.
The three in the picture represent the three pillars of Eastern thought. The first man in the picture is Confucius, standing next to him is Buddha, and the three are rounded off with the wise master, Lao Tzu. Each of their reactions are indicative of their philosophies and schools of thought. I equate Confucius to our friend Walter Sobchak, Buddha to Donny, and of course The Dude is very much Lao Tzu. This analogy can be expanded very deeply if you really want to try…and I do!
Confucius:
As the history of the painting describes, Confucius tastes the vinegar and finds it to be sour. This is a metaphor for the fact that he thought life to be sour and that the only way to find balance with nature and the way of things was to implement rules while remembering and worshiping the past, the ancestors. Walter, as much as we may love him, is so hard-line with the idea of following the rules that is goes to a great extreme. He also finds any situation to remind us of Vietnam and the sacrifices that his friends made for this country. Not only that, but he continues being obsessed with his ex-wife, her religion, and her dog. It is as if Walter is telling all of us that in order to be at peace, we need to find rules, live by them, and be reminded of the past.
Buddha:
It is said that when Buddha tastes the vinegar he found it to be bitter, full of tragedies and desires, extremes that lead away from inner peace and enlightenment. Before he became The Buddha, Siddhartha lived a lavish life of beauty and love with no idea about pain and suffering. One day he saw a sick and dying man and wanted to know more about the real world and what was happening. This caused him grief. After more trials and many years of meditation, Enlightenment was said to have been reached when Buddha practiced "The Middle Way", balance of the body and the soul. This reminds me of Donny in a lot of ways. He is not an extreme in the ways that Walter or The Dude are, but instead stays peacefully in the middle, totally unfazed but also somewhat unmoved by the complexities in life.
One can also find a parallel in the fact that Donny was on a roll, strike after strike, until one day he left one pin hanging and finally learned about suffering. This was also the last day that he walked the earth, at least in a physical sense of the word.
Yet also, in comparison with Confucianism and Taoism, traditional Buddhism has as its ultimate goal "Nirvana", which literally means a "a snuffing out", that is, a release from the cycle of birth and death (and by extension, bowling). Taoism and Confucianism are arguably more interested in the day-to-day affairs of our physical and social lives; in the same way, the Dude and Walter are far more "in the world" than Donny is.
On a slightly different note, when Donny hears the conversation about Lenin and thinks they are talking about John Lennon, his mind goes to "I am the Walrus", who has been revealed (by Kevin Smith in the movie Dogma at least) to represent the Buddha. I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together my friends.
Lao Tzu:
In the painting, Lao Tzu is said to be smiling. That’s because he found pleasure in the flavor of life as it is. As he tasted the vinegar, he realized that this is the way nature intended this vinegar to taste and therefore was at peace with it. The Dude is very much the same way. We also know that the Dude rides the Taoist wave. He is a human and sometimes gives into human stress and frustrations, but he is quick to be reminded that he is being very "un-Dude" and meets life’s challenges at the next crest, never fearing the outcome. The Dude does not get bitter or find suffering in the fact that he may need to get more milk for his Caucasian, or that it is time to pay the rent again. I also think of the Dude mixing a White Russian. He does not measure the parts, but pours them and drinks merrily. Maybe there is a different mix of Kahlua or Vodka, but each serving has something positive to take from it.
There is beauty in the fact that it was the Chinaman that caused his heroic journey by peeing on the Dude’s rug. We know that the Dude was a more of a fighter from his past experiences. After the Chinaman set forth the series of events that we know of, the Dude is a more peaceful and calm man in the end. Perhaps the Chinaman taught the Dude that a little vinegar need not be such a catastrophic drag.

The Vinegar Tasters has been one of my favorite pieces for many years, as has the Tao, but now we see that Lao Tzu was ahead of his time. The Vinegar Tasters lived in the days before Ralph’s, In-N-Out Burger, or bowling, but they knew that even many years later they would be reincarnated in the souls of these people that would go on to teach us all that there are many different ways to view a situation and react to it. Walter found peace in structure and the past, Donny in both knowledge and the present, and The Dude in life as a whole.
To which I say, "Mind if I do a J?"

Looking for Another Writer

2009-12-20T20:12:00.000-08:00

Hello all. I am posting this here first and depending on what kind of responses I get I might expand out to craigslist. I am looking for another blogger to join my little project here. This is, at the moment, a non-paying position. Hopefully that will change in the future.

I am looking for someone that can submit an article once a week. I would like to edit this article, but I will not silence or change your voice. Overall I am just looking for someone with an opinion that can meet a deadline. Preferred length of the editorials are somewhere around 750-1000 words, but that is not firm as of yet. You do not have to agree with all of our politics nor am I looking to censor here. The only thing that I do ask is that you have a humanistic viewpoint, whether secular or sacred, I do not care about. This is a website that as you can see by the title is based on reason and humanism, not lies and ignorance.

Near the bottom of the page is a link to a contact form if you are interested. I would like your name, contact info, and if you have links to some sample writings or just add some into the email. If you have opinions on how or why to change this site, I will gladly accept those as well. I am posting here because I would like to give my readers the first crack at this, but if I do not get any replies, then I guess I will go outside of our little circle to find someone.

Thanks!

Time to Touch on a Few Points

2009-12-19T23:40:00.000-08:00

This has been a very busy and exciting, as well as frustrating month for me. It has been very hard for me to find the time to sit and write like I am used to, so that is what has caused the lack of recent posts. I suppose that would matter if I had readers, but that is a delusion of grandeur at this time. =)

First I need to touch on the Health Care Overhall bill that is about to be passed in the Senate, once the Republicans run out of stall tactics and go on with doing business. As happy as I am that there will be this bill and some good things are coming out it, I am disappointed in almost everyone over this, but mostly that traitor Lieberman. He says he is standing up for what he believes but I doubt that. Whether or not he voted for the bill is not the issue, the fact that he would have broke lines and voted with the Republicans for filibusterer is sickening.

Back to the matter at hand. This bill is going to help a lot of people and screw the insurance companies. Fuck them. They do way more harm than good and hide under the veil of being helpful and welcoming. I was for abolishing the entire thing. Get rid of them as a whole and go with the system that makes sense: the single-payer system. This was never going to happen at this time though. Instead we were given the "public option" which the Republicans misrepresented and consistently LIED about until they got enough people on their side as well as a couple of the democrats that are in the pockets of the insurance agencies to vote it out. So what does this bill really mean? Not much at all. The consumer now has some protections against the beast, but that is really about it.

The fact remains that without free preventative health care, with fast food so cheap, and with so many alcohol and tobacco related deaths, our nation will continue to have an awful health record. Health care is so expensive because we spend so much on a mixture of things that we do not need as well as on things that are preventable.

I will get down from my soapbox on this issue for now. Time to move one.

Dell, the computer company, has just about the worst customer service I have ever seen. I am waiting to deal with them again sometime in the next few days and depending on the outcome with decide whether or not I will be a customer of theirs ever again. They have long wait times, a horrible system where you have to bounce around between a ton of people just to get a hold of someone that can actually answer you question, a recording system and does not work right, shipping, delivery, and contact promise times that are a lie, and overall a website that is a joke to navigate. I have been through hell and back on the phone with them for over a week and I am still in a place where I am unclear about the status of my order. Fuck their service and I ask all of you to save yourself the hassle and never purchase a Dell product again. It is nice that they are a US based company, but when all of their jobs are shipped overseas, what does it matter? You are no longer supporting Americans except the few that are still on the board.

In other news, Google.com has gotten hit with a huge fine from the French. About time. I love Google and for the most part love their business model, but they are one of the worst offenders in copyright violations and are finally getting some shit for it. There are some things that I agree with the laws and others that I do not. When it comes to copyright, I will side with the artist 99% of the time, and with the heirs and family of a deceased artist about 1% of the time. This is a time where Google needs to step back and rethink their system.

We are in the thick of the holiday season at this moment which for me means work work work. I do love working for Amazon, not just because I love my company, but also because with the amount of stuff and orders that come through our building, I feel kinda like Santa, or at least one of his elves...a manly elf though. Not one of those with a high voice and pointed shoes. I am like the elf tech support guy...hey...I wonder how I can get that job??

Just a Quick One to Start Off the Month

2009-12-01T20:11:00.000-08:00

Happy December everybody, fellow writers and readers alike. This is the beginning of month number three for my little project here which, even if I have no readers or people who give a shit, I feel better getting to speak to my small, no wait, exclusive audience.

Today I read an article that sums up a lot of what I think and things that I wish to make better in this world while I am here. It is on the website "Art of Manliness" (artofmanliness.com) which is one of the most excellent web sites that I have found in recent times. If you have not read it, do it, sign up for it's RSS feed (...and mine while you are at it) and take the time. Women, this web site has stuff for you as well!

Anyway, here is a link to the specific article:
Amusing Ourselves to Death

I will say that some of the skills and thoughts that I found here and all over this site I use in daily life. I think I actually do feel more manly, but in a good way, not in the alpha-male sort of way. There are skills that all men should know. I grew up in a house where my father worked hard and knew a ton about a lot of things, but unfortunately he worked all of the time and did not have time to show me as much as I would have liked. A lot I figured out on my own, but some came from the AoM site.

I will stop gushing and wish everyone a happy holiday season, whatever religion/social class/creed/ethnicity/nationality you may be.

It is Good to See Hate Still Exists in This Country

2009-11-26T04:42:00.000-08:00

So an article tonight caught my eye. It is about a new billboard put up outside of a small town in Colorado. Here it is:

I protect their right to say it, but this is the exact reason that we need to educate people. This is why we liberals feel that spending money on education is an important thing. This person/group that devised this piece of ignorant racist hate is why we want people to think and read and know what is actually happening in the world.

There are many things wrong with this opinion.

First of all, Obama has shown his birth certificate, but these people choose to ignore that.

Second of all, he is not Muslim, or even if he was, that would not mean a fucking thing people.

Third, even if Obama was a Muslim and even if he was not born in the US, then where is the connection to Ft. Hood there??

There are so many leaps in logic on this that it spun my head when I saw it.

They want people to believe that there is some huge cover-up or something going on, which they have NO PROOF of. They have their wild and crazy speculations that do not hold water. Anyone that can think about this for more than 5 seconds sees this. I am surprised that this billboard was not written in crayon with the level of thought that we are dealing with.

This is what happens to ideas that are dying. When an ideal is compromised, then the survival instinct kicks in. Just like a person caught in a corner, they become desperate and lash out. Their reason does not hold water, they do not have any kind of proof, they turn to ad hominem attacks and any other tool that is within reach. Really this is just sad and pathetic.

Who contrives this? Are they living in a bunker twirling their mustaches and hatching plans to take down anyone that is slightly different?

No...

These are follow people. These are our neighbors and people that we work with. It bothers me that some of these people are at heart good people that truly just do not understand or choose to stay ignorant for fear or security. Bush scared so many people so badly that they think that everyone that is not white, christian, and rich are the enemy attempting to take down everything we believe in.

I pity these people. If ignorance is bliss, then they must be in heaven, but I still pity them. They are sad and as we evolve as a society they will find themselves more and more lost and lonely. At least we, the people of character and empathy will be there to keep them company in their dark days.

I think I am going to stop now before I stoop to their level....

Musical Revolution

2009-11-23T15:31:00.000-08:00

Music is a weird thing: It can recall so many memories, fears, loves, and joys in a simple melody. Bands come and go, but some stay around for a long time, others disappear leaving behind a legacy pressed in vinyl that people will listen to for many years to come.

For anyone that knows me, I am a huge fan of The Beatles, as many of us are. They were hands down the greatest and most influential rock band and will continue to be for the future. There is no sight of anyone taking them down.

Anyway, back in February there was a leaked version of the song "Revolution" that was almost 11 minutes long and seemed to fulfill the rumor of a version of the song that connected the song "Revolution1" and the sound scape of "Revolution 9", both found on what we call "The White Album". I recently listened to this and was blown away. First of all, if you need any evidence to the fact that The Beatles were the greatest, all you have to do is listen to "Revolution" and "A Day in the Life" and that should convince anyone. Second, this was like hearing a brand new song by your favorite band.

Did you ever have that? A band that you loved so much and could not wait for their new album or single to come out? I know that feeling so well, mainly from when I was younger. Now, I am far more patient and other things are important in life. When I was in high school though, everyone came to me because I always had the newest music before anyone else and a trustworthy opinion on it, along with the meanings and references. When I first heard this new Beatles version of "Revolution", called "Revolution 1, Take 20", I found that feeling all over again. It was as if I was a kid, brimming with amazement at the newest release from my favorite band, which in those days were Tool, Nine Inch Nails, or Cake.

A melody is a simple thing. If you are unaware of the parts of music, the melody is the tune, the thing that you hum when you have a song stuck in your head. It is wonderful how we as people can find these associations, a simple thing like "ba-da-da-lalala" can find its way into the depth of what some people would consider a soul and transport you to a time or place, a feeling or range of feelings. Sometimes when I hear certain songs I feel as if I am Billy Pilgrim becoming unstuck in time.

Please my dear readers, comment on your songs, where they take you emotionally, and the stories behind them. Continue to rock on, and here is the link to that Beatles version if you want to check it out for yourself:
http://nevergetoutoftheboat.blogspot.com/2009/02/beatles.html

Meditations on Food and Sex

2009-11-19T00:35:00.000-08:00

I love my food.

Some of us really enjoy our food, others despise it, and others really do not care much about it. Here is America we are taught a few different things from our parents depending on cultural differences. There are two main viewpoints and some people get one, some get the other, while some people are torn and taught both.

1. Eat all your food. There are starving kids in Africa that could live for a week off of what you throw away.
2. You ate too much. You are fat.

Now, there is most definitely a major problem with obesity in this country. There is also an issue with eating disorders. On top of it, we are force fed the idea that your image means everything from the time we are young children. This is where it all clashes. What are we supposed to do?

To top the issue off even more is the prevalence of video games, computers, and of course television. These are all things that keep us from getting off of our fat asses and taking a walk. They also help with the fact that we do not really have to converse with people face to face anymore. Intelligent conversation, the evil riot-starter is out the window as well. As long as we are still happy watching that reality garbage, we no longer have to want things. As long as we, bovine America, are being force-fed Doritos by some asshole with a bad toupee or some dysfunctional family with a million kids, then we will sit and be happy as Hindu cattle.

I know I know, television is not all bad. I agree, it isn't, just most of it. Advertising is one of the major culprits here. If we do not have the best body, the coolest shoes, the nicest skin, the most awesome iProduct, then we are even bigger losers than we already feel like and, again, no one will want to have sex with us.

Is that what is all boils down to? Sex? We all know that sex sells in advertising and all that, but I am thinking that it is the heart of everything. We are, for the most part, endowed with this very strong instinct to want to reproduce. We are built to survive, but that survival instinct is really only in place to fuck. I remember that time in high school, puberty, and those feelings that a young man gets. I felt like I wanted to have sex with everything, not to mention that I could many many times in a row. To a young guy, anything can make you want to. It is so hard to get anything done when every math problem reminds you of sixty-nine, biology class reminds you of the female body parts, and when you are trying to do sports the cheerleaders are distracting ever move. It is frustrating and overwhelming.

Sex. We want to reproduce. The smart people in marketing, those assholes that see everything as a dollar sign know this. What are our fears and insecurities rooted in? The fact that if we do not have a biggest tits, hardest penis, or most awesome car, then it is less likely that we will find a beautiful mate to reproduce with. You will not be the alpha male and only get the sloppy seconds of of the alpha male. You are a sub dominate example of a human and therefore do not get to mate with the people that will produce the smartest and most attractive offspring.

Is this what our ancestors meant for us? Did they toil and fight for survival so that some smooth young prick can tell us what to eat, what to wear, and how to treat a woman?

It all seems so unnatural.

I do not offer much in the way of conclusions, just questions. It just occurred to me that the cavemen are probably looking down on us and thinking that we are morons. They may have worked harder than we do, but at least they had a purpose and something worth being proud of. Voltaire famously stated that we much "cultivate our garden". This is what we, as a society, seem to not be doing enough of. We are too busy giving our children diabetes while destroying the planet.

I guess that at least we are multitasking this issue. All I can think of is a drunken frat idiot yelling "I've got two beers!!"

On that note, I feel like asking Donald Sutherland if I can buy some pot from him. =)

AdSense Makes No Sense

2009-11-02T21:41:00.000-08:00

So I added these ads onto my blog and have been disappointed so far in what their automatic engine has decided are the ads that will best work on my blog.

Just a few minutes ago I noticed one at the bottom that just pissed me off something fierce. It was an ad against gay marriage in Maine, a vote that takes place tomorrow. Fuck that.
Here it is:

I do not want to endorse any of those idiots that think that denying someone the right to marry based on sexual preference is okay. I think I will write a nasty letter to Google over this even. I want everyone to know that not ONE of their arguments against gay marriage holds water when you actually think about it; when you take more than 5 seconds to consider this. It is just another way for religious types to cast their moral values on other people. It sickens me and I will get into a debate with anyone any day of the week over this. I have been arguing for gay rights since I first learn how to form an argument and I am tired of it.

Are we still children here?! Are we this cynical as a nation? I thought that our society has moved past this. At least I know that gay marriage will become legal in Maine, as it has in many other states now, and will soon be in California again.

I am usually against name-calling, it is no way to argue a point, but I am just getting so frustrated over this argument. I think that is what they want though. If we get frustrated enough that we resort to the way that neocons like to "argue", then they win. Fuck that shit. I want to sit and call them all a bunch of people using religion to hide their thinly veiled racism and fears. They do not understand, so they push away. I want to call them a bunch of ignorant pricks, but I will not resort to that.

I welcome any of you to comment or email me through the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of the page. Come on, I am ready to throw down with this any day of the week. I have logic and reason on my side, you have nothing. I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE on this topic!

...and one last thing: Google, you should be ashamed of yourself. If your little crawlers worked at all, then your AdSense crap would know that this blog is for reason and humanity, not junk science and silly beliefs or superstitions that do not make ANY SENSE.

Month Number 2

2009-11-02T03:23:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the few readers, writers, and comments that we have gotten over the first month of existence!

Today is the start of November and I want to talk a bit about what November means to me.

There are a few family things, my mother's birthday for one, and of course Thanksgiving, but that is not all. For those that have known me for awhile you will know that my favorite writer in the late Kurt Vonnegut. I have read everything that I could possibly find of his and will continue to search and hope for more. And for anyone that has read much Vonnegut, you know that his writings are personable as well as very personal. We readers of him know many facts about his life. We feel like we knew him. That sad April night in 2007 was hard for many of us...the news broke to me in a text message from a friend reading something along the lines of "I am sorry...about Kurt". Just reading that...I knew he was gone along with all hopes for a new piece of fiction and the chance to shake his hand once in my life.

The reason that I think of him here in November is because his birthday is the 11th of this month. On his birthday I celebrate a personal tradition of buying a pack of unfiltered Pall Malls and enjoying each one, trying to get slightly closer to his life in some way.

As I sit here, I realize that I am looking back, which reminds me that this writing must be a failure because it was written by a pillar of salt. If you do not understand what that means, you have not read enough of KV.

The first thing that I read of Kurt's was Slaughterhouse-Five. Some of my friends had read it and told me that I would love it. I knew about Kurt, but had never gotten around to reading him. Finally one of my dear friends forced the book on me. I read it all in just a couple of hours. From the first moment that I read the opening title page I knew that I would love this book. I had never read something so silly and honest at the same time, which if you know me, then you know that is my style 100%.

After that I reread the book. Then I went out to one of my local used book stores and picked up another book, this one was Breakfast of Champions. I was again blown away with humor and all the time realizing my values. Someone once asked me before this if I was a humanist, based on a conversation of personal philosophies. At the time I had answered no. Through Vonnegut I realized that I was and that my understanding of what a humanist is was greatly misinformed. Vonnegut had a way of making anyone understand. I now had quotes and reasons to sum up all of my ideas. I guess what he gave me was validation. I was not alone and I was not crazy. This opened up all new doors of thought and reason for me, and Kurt did it all with a smile and a joke, even in the most horrible of times.

I always think of when he wrote about himself in the underground meat locker. They listened to bombs dropping and nothing but Hell above them. Someone made a small joke and no one laughed, but he wrote that they were all happy that he said it.

Since that time, I veraciously bought every book and read it very quickly. I buy used copies are book stores to give away to people or leave around on bookshelves, hoping that some person will see it and become curious. I know I have gotten a few people into him, but who knows how many overall...

Kurt was the Honorary President of the AHA. After his death, the position was given to the brilliant Gore Vidal. As much as I respect that decision, there is a major difference there. Reading some of the recent interviews with Gore, he seems to have become very bitter in the world. He has lost hope in our society. That is something that I do not believe Kurt would have ever done. One of his sons wrote after his death that his father was an eternal optimist striving to be a pessimist, wanting to be depressed but having far too much hope for that. I believe that about him.

I guess I am just talking about him and for those that read this and know nothing about him, I am probably boring you, but it is my blog so if I want to write a long article about my hero and his affect on me, I will. That is the beauty of this medium.

I guess the reason this is on my mind so much more is that I relate to that attitude so much. I am known as a rather happy person. I consider myself a realist, but I am considered by most as an optimist. I would say that I am a cautious optimist at best, but more like a hopeful realist. I see hope everywhere and reasons to be happy. Kurt assisted me with that and I miss a voice like that in our world.

There are a few great voids in the world today. They are all heroes of mine, and we need them:

Kurt Vonnegut - We need guidance, we need a voice for the public to help them understand what we are all about and why we should be loving one another.
Carl Sagan - He was the voice of science to the public and since his death we have no one of his clarity, reason, or visions out there that can command a crowd as he did. The "Pale Blue Dot" speech is one of the greatest things ever written. I think that his loss is one of the only reasons we have such a misunderstanding of science in our current society.
Jim Henson - I cried as a boy when Jim died. I still weep from time to time when I think of my son growing up in a world where adults, the ones that create children programming, seem to have nothing but contempt for their audience. Jim treated kids with a beauty and an art, with a general respect for their ability and intelligence that has not been matched.

For people that are unaware, humanism is not a bad thing. In fact, there is a good chance that you are one and do not even know it. Whether sacred or secular humanism, learn about what it means. Kurt once stated that he would vote for the first person that ran under the banner of the beatitudes, but none of them do. That is one of the best ways to think of what we stand for. The beatitudes.

I also often quote the idea that if Jesus Christ had walked the Earth, and if he actually said the wonderful things that he said, then what would it matter if he was the son of God or not? I quoted that to a Christian friend of mine and she agreed. I like that.

Now I shall let you all go your separate ways. Feel free to contact me with the "Contact Us" link at the bottom if you want to know more about him or his writings, or humanism in general.

Also, if anyone can find out where he is buried, please share. I want to start a tradition not unlike the "Poe Toaster". I would leave notes with reason and quotes on his grave along with a shot of something that would make my breath smell like "mustard gas and roses".

NC is still living in the 16 Century.

2009-10-25T23:03:00.000-07:00

Check out this article and watch the video:

http://www.examiner.com/x-10853-Portland-Humanist-Examiner~y2009m10d23-NC-Baptist-church-plans-Halloween-book-burning-Video

Wow. Sometimes people still amaze me even though I know in my heart that they shouldn't. I have met a lot of people with all sorts of beliefs and feelings. We are all made differently and, as the saying goes, it takes all kinds, but this really amazes me. I thought that we put these things behind us. Even the Christians should have...

1 Corinthians 13:11 - When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

Are people still this lost and confused in the world? The area where I live, Northern Nevada, is full of a lot of misinformed people who think that hoarding their dollars is more important than the health and education of their community, people who do drugs or drink are accepted as either friends that are just doing their thing or worthless trash that needs to be dealt with instead of realizing that the alcoholic and drug addict are a product, a reflection on their community, and that hate and violence is okay as long as it is against whomever they choose, but I have not met many people with the gall to stand up and say that we need to burn books.

I can see them now, a bunch of older, confused people dancing around their book pyre, speaking in tongues and hissing as if it were nothing more than an old time melodrama.

I believe in freedom of religion and I think it is one of the many brilliant sparks in the Constitution. I believe that these people, whom I wish I could just write off as crazy, but that is not productive, should be able to burn these books if they want. The right of protest is important, but I cannot understand how people are so lost and misguided. Do these people actually think that destroying books is going to change anything? It sounds to me like it is revenge for logic and reason showing how obsolete and ridiculous these people are. Through education we find that these silly acts of childishness are just that, silly and childish.

There is another thing going on here as well: The town has said that setting this bonfire is a safety hazard and that the fire department will stop it. If the church continues with the burning, the FD will put it out and charge the ringleader for the services.

I do give them a certain amount of credit for standing up for what they believe in, something that a lot of us have lost due to apathy. If we as reasonable people stood up in 2000 and protested the election, maybe the Bush/Cheney regime would not have ever happened. It shows that us reasonable people believe in the rule of law and the constitution. By the way, whatever you think about 2000, whether you thought it was fair or stolen, you have to admit that it was very fishy and not everything was on the level there...but I shall move on.

According to the website of the church, they are destroying perversions of the will of God, including many books written by other christian writers as well as various versions of the bible that they see unfit.

First of all, don't you think it rather presumptuous to assume the word of God?? I don't even believe in that great illusionist, but I cannot assume to know what he wants. Even if they go by the word of the bible, they should read the damn thing before making assumptions and learn a little about their actual history.

The very early Christians were considered a cult in ancient Rome, which in turn made them illegal. In order to fight this, they decided to add what we call the old testament to the new testament and therefore claim that this is an actual religion that goes back a long time. this gave them a certain amount of acceptance, especially after Constantine came along.

In the new testament, Jesus, the man that they claim to follow, the man they claim is their lord and savior preached a few, very simple things to live by. He also made this statement that he would tear down the church and rebuild it in three days. This was a great metaphor meaning to turn away the old practices and look forward to the new ones, those simple ideas that are quite often summed up as the Beatitudes.
Here:

Matthew 5:2-10 (New International Version)
²and he began to teach them saying:
³"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
      for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴Blessed are those who mourn,
      for they will be comforted.
⁵Blessed are the meek,
      for they will inherit the earth.
⁶Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
      for they will be filled.
⁷Blessed are the merciful,
      for they will be shown mercy.
⁸Blessed are the pure in heart,
      for they will see God.
⁹Blessed are the peacemakers,
      for they will be called sons of God.
¹⁰Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
      for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Christians today seem to forget that they have a religious obligation to the poor and to make peace, but many choose to follow the old eye for an eye saying or practice hate on others unlike themselves.

On eye for an eye for a second, Jesus specifically said in the book, and mind you this is not me assuming, this is what is says, that eye for an eye is the old way and we do not practice that anymore. Now we practice love and forgiveness, turn the other cheek. Oh how quickly we tend to forget when we are becoming desperate.

I did not mean to turn this into a christian-bashing party or anything. I actually have many christian friends and agree with a few of them, mainly the ones that follow what the book says and don't cram their religion down your throat. I have one friend that never, ever preaches to you. He is willing to speak and educate you on the bible if you would like, but truly understands that it is not his place to convince you of anything. I respect that a lot. It is refreshing in this world to see someone that has great experiences with religion and has used it as a tool to assist him in becoming a better person, not a crutch to fling hate and fear at one another.

This NC Church enjoys this book burning. To them, it is a practice of faith in some twisted way, but to evolved beings, they are nothing but silly, uneducated people. To quote Mickey Knox, "From where you're standing, you're a man, but from where I'm standing, you're an ape."

Let them burn their silly books. Let the people like Limbaugh, Savage, Robertson, and the other right-wing wackos say what they want. It will only be through education that we will evolve as society toward peace and love, not the hate that these people want to spew. It takes us not regulating or looking away, but watching and seeing the ridiculousness of it all to show how weird these people really are. You cannot argue against that which you do not understand or know about.

The Tao teaches us that when you create more laws, you create more criminals. It is with patience and teaching that we will move forward.

I guess this post went a few different directions there, but oh well. Say what you will because I will not shut you up. I will not burn your books. I may call you a moron and laugh at your antiquated superstitions and rituals, but feel free to do them as long as you need to.

That is one of the great things about the internet: People can't burn it. Also, really check out that website of the church. It is almost as funny as the all-powerful TIMECUBE!!

Lies Conservatives Believe

2009-10-19T17:14:00.000-07:00

I have several motivations for what follows. I have a sincere desire to see a better world come to pass and to make peace with my conscience. I believe that there are many great people in this nation who will, if given the chance, always do the right thing, and it is my duty to say something when my people have been mislead. Too, I have written the things which follow because I have a sincere love for those soldiers who have given their lives for our country and for those who honor them with local tributes and memorial services which I have witnessed. Jesus said that a man has no greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends. I think of Jesus’ words every time I witness a memorial service for a fallen soldier. Along with that, part of what follows may have kind've a religious tone. I usually don't write or speak this way, but because of the religious nature of some of the right wing notions, this time I have written this way purposely.

Well, I’m neither a democrat nor a republican; neither a capitalist nor a socialist; but I do consider myself a realist. When I write about the problems with right wing conservatives I am writing about the problems of moderate democrats and common everyday well intentioned people as well. The problem is two fold as I see it: 1) Some people just do not know the truth about our nation; 2) Others can’t understand the truth because of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy, because of its nature, is a malady of deception. Americans, like any other people, tend to believe that they are more intelligent and righteous than they actually are. Let me discuss briefly six lies which many people believe about our nation but do not really think about.

(The following is a work in progress. I am planning on adding references later. However, any of the statements made concerning U.S. foreign policy or references to Jesus can be looked up very easily by quick web searches.)

The first lie is that our country has done more to promote democracy and freedom than any other nation.

Like all of the lies our nation has come to believe, I wish this statement as well as the rest were true, but an accurate telling of history will deny this. From the very beginning and before The United States Constitution was signed into existence, the hope which America offered to “all” men (all people) has never been realized; neither have the most powerful leaders of this nation tried to realize the hopes of equality the Constitution guarantees.

It is a hard truth to accept, but most of the wealth generated in this nation from the very beginning has been made possible by stealing from vulnerable people. The obvious examples are committing genocide against the Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans. Too, as our nation began to prosper from cheaply gotten land and labor, our nation was able to steal large tracts of land from Mexico and exploit cheap labor and cheaply gotten natural resources from Central and South America. After the Spanish American War, our nation was able to not only exploit the people south of our borders, but we were also able to conquer the Philippine people. Our nation is still oppressing and exploiting other people by cheaply taking natural resources which rightly belong to others. One can easily research the tin mines of Bolivia; the overthrow of elected President Allende, by Pinochet's cruel military forces, in Chile for the copper mines; the oil fields of Peru, Columbia, and Ecuador; the fruit wars of Guatemala instigated by the U.S. United Fruit Company; and the cruel repression of public opinion and labor forces in El Salvador and Nicaragua. It does not take much effort to come to the realization that the wars which we are waging at this modern time in Iraq and Afghanistan are about exploiting the natural resources of those lands which we are occupying by force.

From the very beginning, our nation has been extremely hypocritical when it comes to promoting freedom and democracy. Freedom and democracy has never been promoted by our nation in any other country, and it has not been realized by the Native American or the Black African in our own nation until recently. Freedom and democracy for Central America, South America, The Philippines, Israel, and many African Nations, costs too much for most of the policy makers of The United States.

The truth is that our nation has done more to stop democracy and freedom than any other nation. Anytime the people of other nations wanted to keep the wealth which came from the natural resources of their nation or keep more of the wealth from their labor by electing officials which represented their interests more fairly, those movements and leaders were put down by force and dictators were installed by brute military force empowered by stolen wealth and our taxes. [Check out the list of dictators which are and have been supported by our government: < http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html >]

The second lie is that capitalism is a good thing for all.

Capitalism in the United States is like a single big apple pie made for a holiday picnic. There are a hundred people who want a piece of the pie. One person takes ninety-nine percent of the pie and leaves one slim piece of pie, equaling one hundredth of the pie, for the ninety-nine people left to fight over. It is well known fact that ninety-nine percent of the wealth in the United States is held by one percent of the population. The rest of us feel fortunate and blessed if we get a single crumb of that wealth to live on. However, there are many who not even get a crumb. It is a plain fact that to succeed in small business and practice any kind entrepreneurship is getting to be harder and harder. Big corporations are monopolizing everything—making things cheaper and cheaper but lowering the common man’s working wage more and more. It is almost impossible for most people to start a successful business in this monopolized country.

The third lie is that if a person works hard in this country she or he will be rewarded.

It doesn’t matter how hard some people have worked; many hardworking people still do not live above poverty level. Many migrant workers who migrate to the states to work are denied health care and never make any better than minimum wage, and some never get paid even minimum wage. Too, millions of hardworking citizens are denied health care because the insurance is too expensive. Most small companies struggle to provide health insurance for their employees; when many small companies try to pass the costs of health care to the employees, the insurance is too expensive for the employees to buy. I’ve known loggers, truck drivers, farmers, and teachers who have worked hard their whole life, but at retirement, they live barely above poverty level—many times because some health issue depleted their savings. Where is their reward? The fact is that a person must be smart and lucky enough to get a good job in order to live a wealthy life and few do.

The fourth lie is those who cannot take of care themselves will be taken care of.

There are thousand of people every year who die because they cannot afford the health care: many drugs and operations to keep them alive are too expensive for them.

The fifth lie is that our nation was founded on Christian principles and that it promotes Christian principles.

In order for a nation to call itself Christian it must live according to the teachings of the founder of Christianity—that would be Jesus Christ. Jesus said that you cannot serve both God and mammon—that is, that a person can not serve money and power and, at the same time, think he or she is serving God. Jesus said that the heart is the eye of the body. If the eye is bad the whole body will be full of darkness. Where a man’s treasure is there will be his heart also. Jesus told a parable about a wealthy man who stored his wealth in barns until they were all full, so he built more barns so that he could store more of his wealth. The man thought to himself, “See, I have much wealth. I will relax and enjoy myself for many years.” But before the man could enjoy his wealth, he died and had to give an account of his wealth to God. This is what Jesus said about people who are rich toward themselves and not rich towards God. At another time, a rich and powerful ruler came to Jesus and asked how he could enter the kingdom of God. Jesus told him to give his wealth away to the poor so that he would have treasure in heaven. Jesus exclaimed, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” The Apostle Paul said that the love of money is the root of all evil. Again in another place, Jesus also said, “To them that are given much, much are expected.” The more power and wealth one has, the more God will expect for that one to take his responsibilities seriously in this life—that is to use the wealth and power for the good of all.

Greed has driven the policies of this nation from the beginning, and the concern of most people in this country is continually economic. According to the teachings of Jesus, this nation is far from what He meant by the kingdom of God, and, according to the teachings of Jesus, this nation will be judged most severely. Many actions of our government are opposed to the teaching of Jesus.

The sixth lie is that the United States is special—more special than all other nations—that it has a special calling from God—like a light on a hill which gives light to the world. This is spelled out in books like “The Light and the Glory.”

This doctrine is made most clear politically in the Monroe doctrine called “Manifest Destiny.” The meaning of this term is that the United States has been predestined by God to conquer and progress over other peoples—supposedly influencing the world for democracy and freedom. Such a belief has justified the dehumanization of millions. This justified the genocide of the Native Americans, the enslavement of Africans, the cruel domination of indigenous people and people of Spanish descent south of our borders, and the cruel domination of our country over other peoples of the world by military force and the installment of cruel dictators.

The worship of a nation or any organization above God must be condemned as idolatry. This is what has happened in the United States. Not only has our nation with military force taken natural and cultivated resources which did not belong to us because of blatant greed, but, also, in the name of security and securing power, thousands of innocent people have died in needless wars. Power comes from God—not wealth and military might. What ever special calling this nation has had it has desecrated severely.

One cannot trust in money and power and at the same time think he or she is trusting in God. Jesus instructed his disciples that his followers would be recognize by their love—not wealth and military power. Likewise, a "Chosen Christian" nation will be recognized by its love--not cruelty!

Just a Quick One...

2009-10-19T01:30:00.000-07:00

This is just a quick announcement:

We have registered and are now functioning with various domain names:

nvfreethinkers.com
nvfreethinkers.net
nvfreethinkers.info
nvfreethinkers.org.

I was just looking to set up the .com, but they had a bundle deal for cheap, so I took it. =)

Well It Ought To Be...

2009-10-18T20:31:00.000-07:00

The philosopher David Hume once wrote this paragraph:

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark'd, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it shou'd be observ'd and explain'd; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.

This is a small paragraph that Hume was not overall concerned with, but it has sparked some debate with philosophers in the past 300 years since. In case you have a bit of trouble understanding what Hume is saying, the basis is this:

The world is a certain way. We say that things should be different sometimes, but how do we know that the world should (ought) to be that way until it is actually that way?

This is a very poignant thought that a lot of people overlook. The idea is that we really cannot claim that things ought to be changed until they are and we can see the overall consequences of those actions. Politics in America and really the world today are ruled by these things that we want to change. We think deep down that there is an issue and that needs to be rectified. Then when things get changed, later there is another issue that occurs which leads to the world needed to make another change or remove the original change, again, sometimes for the better and other times not.

Poor ol' Jimmy...I love Jimmy Carter and while some consider him one of the worst presidents ever, most people recognize that he is one of the best people ever, exemplary in fact. Jimmy gets a bad wrap quite often I think. A lot of things that he tried to change in the 70's got shot down due to politics, and other things that he did change got turned over once Regan came into the picture. The "Malaise" speech was brilliant and very true, but people turned away from it because Jimmy sat up and had the balls to tell people that we needed to change as a society. No one wanted to hear it.

The point being that now we see the effects of those things. We see the world in a terrible ecological state and in the past 28 years, my lifetime, 20 of them were ruled by Republicans who went out of their way to deny the reality and force their dogmatic visions down our throats. People who dislike President Obama are calling him all sorts of terrible names and threatening him and his family. It is sickening to me. Even if I agreed with their principles, and a few I do, I could never call myself a Republican or support them after the display during my lifetime. They call him a socialist, which if you know what a socialist is, then you can clearly see that he is not one. They call him a Nazi which he is no where near. In fact, on that note, the Bush administration went out of their way to use religious dogma and fear tactics for political and social ends which is a simple definition for a fascist, but who cares. We were safe!

We were not safe. All we did was move the battle onto their turf. Thousands of Americans, some of them innocent, have died in this war of lies, this shadow war used to remove the rights of the people, lie to us on many multiple occasions, elect their cronies to high ranking office, and give money to large companies with religious agendas or direct connections to that administration. That is fascism at its purest.

I digress though...

The best tool that we have to work with to determine answers of what should be is empathy, which can be broken down to what we know as the golden rule. The golden rule my friends...it makes sense. This is why it is one of the things that they first teach you in school. This may also be why ever major religion in the world has something very similar in its teachings, yet many of the followers choose to ignore it.

If you are sick, don't you want to be given the chance to get better?
If you make a mistake, don't you want a chance to admit and atone for that mistake?
If you were in a position of power, wouldn't you want people to believe that you had what you thought were the best intentions in mind?
If you were in a position of power, would you want your family threatened just because someone did not agree with you?
If you go to a news source, don't you want to trust you are getting accurate reporting?

These are simple questions people.

Overall, we as a society are evolving. We are moving in a forward direction I believe, but just like any idea that is becoming obsolete, the hardcore followers are becoming desperate, lashing out with all that they have left. The McCarthy-based Neocon Republicanism is dying and dying rapidly. Republicans used to be a symbol of the constitution. Now they are a joke, based on fear and revenge, not rights and reason. Do not get me wrong, Republicans will always be around, but they are being forced to evolve with the rest of the world. Hopefully they can put this dark history behind them and start thinking again sometime soon.

Hopefully...but with figureheads like Rush, Beck, Savage, and especially Palin, it is not looking too hopefully.

On that note, I cannot believe that any woman would vote for Palin. She does nothing but a disservice to women everywhere.

Time to Have some Fun!

2009-10-15T20:46:00.000-07:00

So those of you that know me know that there is only one major sport that I really care for other than arguing with idiots and that is baseball. As I am writing this we are in the heart of the MLB post season and to lighten up the conversation some I have decided to write a bit about my reflections of this brilliant, yet in some ways dying sport.

Baseball has been played professionally for something like 130 years and the World Series has been played consistently (except in '94) for most of that time. This is a sport that really grew with our country. Through the hard times: The Spanish American War, The Great War, The Great Depression, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and Nixon, baseball has been there to calm the minds and lift the spirits.

So when I see the game today on television, as much as I enjoy it, I know that being able to watch that game is what is killing it as well. Television ratings now rule the game. They start games later, there are more pauses, and the ticket prices have sky-rocketed.

These three factors lead to the main reason that the sport is in decline and that is because they are no longer marketing, nor have they been in 35 years, to what should be their chief audience.

Kids.

When baseball was truly the national pastime, games quite often started not long after school got out and the tickets were dirt cheap, even when you factor in proportionality of today's money. Kids are shut out of the game unless their parents have a ton of cash, let them stay up late and don't fight them for the remote, or if you are like me, make it a point to have live baseball on the radio (the way it was intended), keep supplies like balls and gloves around for when my boy is ready to start playing catch, and use a huge chunk of a paycheck to take the boy to the Bay Area for three hours of great food, good people, a great game, and what can only really be summed up as Heaven.

To survive the game had to make some concessions, as all of them do, for advertising revenue and all that, but there is a limit to where they are destroying the game. Look at Nascar and Football. Those are two sports that are completely ruled by their advertisers and they are now both abominations of what they once were. A few years ago baseball wanted to put small ads on the bases themselves, on the field. Luckily this got shut down. The base itself is what the game is named after and they're are beautiful white padded squares. An ad would have destroyed one of the last pure items left in sports.

The other reason that the game is dying is because as it may gain some fans, our culture and our current society has moved us away from the game. We got ourselves into a big goddamn hurry and all of a sudden find something like baseball boring. Baseball is a game of total nuance, a cerebral mindset, and patience, but in the end it pays off to one of the best and most unique sports. Of the major sports in the U.S, it is the only one where there is no timer, every field is different, and their two leagues play by different rules. Not only that, it is one of the only sports that you take a scorecard to and fans are encouraged to keep their own score, which in baseball, is a skill. It is one of the few sports that puts one man against a team, then breaks that team up and each one of them then has to challenge your team. One against all, but no one man can control that game. Not only that, but no one team is immune to one great swing of the bat.

You know that hitting a big league fastball is still considered one of the hardest feats in all of athletics.

Anyway...I should stop ranting. I am just saddened that people do not take the time to appreciate things as much anymore. We lost our ability to really relate to rituals and learning to calculate things on a slower pace. We want answers now and are not going to do your silly steps to get them. Another example of this is shaving. We want to get it done with so we get that awful foam in a can stuff and those VERY expensive throw away razors instead of taking the time and learning how to use the "badger and the blade" to get a better shave. We want quantity, not quality. The Wal-Marts of the world have taught us that everything should be cheap and disposable. Those press-board shelves that Wal-Mart sells may only be sixty bucks or whatever, but you will have to buy them 5 time in your life time instead of spending five-hundred bucks on a nice oak shelf that will last your life time and your child's as well.

So it may be a backwards way to say it...but Wal-Mart has destroyed baseball. I know that is not true, but I will admit that I take pleasure in blaming Wally-World for everything.

So now I am rounding third, and heading home...

Eugenics...no way!

2009-10-13T18:53:00.000-07:00

Most people do not remember or even believe this...but the practice of Eugenics, in some form or another, was still legal in this country as late as 1978. 31 years ago. Not long before I was born....

Eugenics, at its heart, is meant to be the practice of selective breeding in people to weed out the "bad genes", but that is not what it really was. It really was the forced sterilization of people that other people decided should not breed. Examples of this were hardcore criminals such as rapists as well as mentally disabled people. Now, there were cases of "purity" groups (i.e. white supremacists) that attempted to perform this practice on people they decided were beneath them.

I felt kind of dumb that I have never heard of this until a few years back, just the practice, and it was not until recently that I learned about how recently this was still enforced. I cannot even get that word out of my head, Eugenics.

The reason I bring this up is because of a conversation that I overheard the other day about the health care debate. A woman was talking about her anger toward our government and especially the President. She was bitching and ranting saying that "We are not Canada so don't try to make our health care like Canada's". Let me go on a tangent for a second here...

The health care bill that they are trying to pass is NOTHING AT ALL like the Canadian health care system nor does it try or claim to be.

Okay, back to my discussion. She went on to say that this is just a way for lazy people to bleed her dry and that they all need to either get a job or be castrated. I wondered at that moment who she wanted to pay for this castration because if she wants it, it will her money paying the bill and that is just another way to "bleed her dry" I suppose.

Well, the reason this is so enthralling to me was that she was advocating eugenics. For some reason, whether is be her religious, social, or economic beliefs, or may just the way she was raised, she decided that she was perfect and that anyone unlike here was not perfect and therefore deserved to die. Let's not beat around the bush here. To practice eugenics is to advocate death. Don't sugar coat it.

If everyone was like her...I probably would want to die anyway. Hell, I would pull the trigger in that case.

Then is reminded me of the fact that she is a person that constantly bitches about wanting her freedoms and that only her choice of people should deserve those freedoms. What I wanted to say to her at that instant was to call her a Nazi Cow, but that would not have been productive.

Anyway, all of this revolves around Health Care and the ongoing debate in our country. I hear the right say that we have the best health care system in the world. They say this and I wonder how this opinion is being formed. What, to them, is the definition of good health care because I see two glaring facts that counter act that statement:
(Both of these facts come from the CIA World Factbook)
1. We are rated #46 in the world for infant mortality rate, with 6.26/1000.
2. We are rated #35 in life expectancy with an average age of 78.11.

I am not complaining about these numbers. They are actually quite good overall, but to claim that we have the best system in the world while we are no where near the top in really the two major categories that help define health care is just ridiculous. Canada, UK, France, and other European nations with systems far different than ours that they like to just label as socialist or evil, are all above us in these categories.

I am not saying that we need a single-payer system like Canada or that we want a more government run system like in the UK, but something needs to be done. If you don't like this bill, do not worry, it will change once it is passed and we will fix the issues. Do not fret. In the end, even if it is nothing more than a health insurance reform bill and helps regulate this horrible market that is insurance, then at least that is a step in the right direction.

As long as it does not contain money for eugenics, then I think I am happy. =)

A New Project...

2009-10-12T00:15:00.001-07:00

Welcome all! Welcome to this new project that I am attempting to start here called "NV Freethinkers".

I live here in Northern Nevada and having lived here now for two and a half years I am tired of the lies, misinformation, nepotism, and general apathy that exists in this area. I wanted/needed someplace to write and speak my mind without getting yelled at and where someone might actually listen and want to engage in intellectual debate.

People around this area are so quick to judge and label, so quick to pounce on whatever Fox (Fix) News says that they just spew it back out as if it were gospel, never taking the second to reflect and wonder if they actually agree with their editorials, because, well, let's face the facts, they do not present news. Fox presents opinion and even when they are honestly trying to present facts, they use their amazing powers of rhetoric to frame their facts the way they want to present them.

Anyway, back to the people:

They are not bad people, most of them. A lot of them that I have talked to and are willing to discuss things on a platform of reason and education come to see how badly their politicians, media, and friends have misinformed them about the world. A lot of them though are only interested in lashing out, and if you disagree and show that their points of view do not hold water, then they just attack. It is no longer debating or exchanging ideas. It becomes hostile and argumentative. At that point you might as well just make fun of their haircut because nothing will get through to them.

Like I stated, I have lived in Nevada for over two years and in that entire time I have only met a couple of people that are like-minded, and I do not mean agree with everything that I think, but when we disagree, we are willing to exchange ideas to try to better both of our understanding of what is happening. So for over two years I have been kept relatively silent.

No more.

Today I heard some one talking (yelling is more like it) about their issues with our President and his politics, but they could not back anything they were saying up with actual reason. It became hate, racism, and just ignorance after a bit. For the first time ever I was so disgusted that I walked away from this person. I am a listener and enjoy trying to understand the beliefs of people. I want to know their logic process. I am one who never shuts someone out, but this person today I could listen to no more. I could not speak up either because of where I live and work. I have to maintain a level of decency with my job, but that would not have been possible here.

I hated myself for not speaking up. I realized that the apathy had gotten to me as well. I was sickened by this person's display, but all I could do is walk away. I knew that if I tried to say something, I would just get shut down and yelled. I knew that I would not get a word in and even if I did. It would just fall on deaf ears. What else could I do? Walk away. There is a great song lyrics that says "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding" and that was how I felt. If I did not leave, then I was condoning this person's rants. I did not want anyone there to confuse me with the people that agreed.

Well, I am tired of being silent.

I know that a blog is a pathetic attempt to be heard, but at least it is an attempt. Also, this blog is only the first step in a multi-pronged attack that I am going to attempt to launch in this community.

It is time that I put my balls out there and hope that no one castrates me. If I don't, I do not think that I will be able to look my child in the eye anymore.

Enough rambling for now. I know it is a long introduction, but I wanted to give you some background. In time, you will know a lot about my background I am sure. I hope to have a few fellow writers join me on this site as well.

G'night.