Graduation Speech

I hope you're ready.

Growing up, both in school and at home, I was told many of the same things you were. Perhaps faith, geography, socio-economic background, and other factors unique to each family altered the message somewhat, but I bet said message was cut from a similar cloth. The message I'm talking about is our right to self-determination. It probably wasn't dressed in that exact wording or spoken in such terms; maybe it was heavy in Americanese with a big emphasis on buzz words such as "freedom" and "liberty" and topped with fiery, patriotic cherry. Maybe it was a more ethereal, wistful tone of "follow your dreams" and "passions" if your household and upbringing fostered a more creative side. Either way, the underlying ethos is the same; go out into the world and worry only about controlling your destiny. The history books paint a picture of morality, human decency, and democratic governance being saved for all eternity when the Allied powers were victorious in WWII. Our economic engine which took off when the soldiers came home portrayed a continuous exponential growth in both wealth and opportunity under the reign of capitalism. Essentially, we were led to believe the hard work had already been done. Our military is more than capable to handle whatever current and future skirmish may come, and our economic vitality is such that any recession is but a drop in a bucket. All we need to do, is just live our lives.

Slight problem with all that; it's entirely a pile of fetid bullshit.

What our parents, teachers, and other elders growing up failed to inform us is that in totality, the generations immediately before us completely fucked our world to shit. Every place of civil unrest, overthrown regimes, or even outright war in the world today can be traced to years of foreign interference and meddling from a powerful, wealthy country like us. Every economic and widespread financial hardship to outright collapse can be traced to greed and deceit from our elders. Our environment, experiencing an appreciable rise in global temperatures and sea levels, is left to only grow more inhospitable to our species thanks to decades of neglect by our elders in spite of growing scientific study and public attention. Outside of technological advancements and innovation, often of products and utilities yet fully harnessed and yet to have reach their potential (including especially the internet), I have a hard time finding one damn thing our elders did right or have truly left for my generation as an asset. I'm serious, fucking find me one. I'll wait.

In America at least, our infrastructure is failing. Opportunistic real estate developers build shiny condo developments alongside crumbling highways and bridges first built during the 1950s with little to no sizable improvements and modifications made to them since. In America at least, we find it more important to fill private, for-profit prison and detainment centers with non-violent drug offenders and continue to wage an inept, flailing War on Drugs which in reality no better than a modern day pogrom targeting the lower socio-economic "undesirables" in our country (let's not even touch how the War on Drugs affects our international neighbors), than to actually rehabilitate those clearly afflicted with addiction. Meanwhile, wealth inequality continues to widen but most of our elders, who are still in power by the way, continue to take the fuck less given. Oh, and of course those elders who created these clusterfucks and plenty more I have yet to discuss will wipe our social security safety net clean, rendering what you and I pay into the system utterly meaningless. But hey, we commit just under $700 billion a year to our military, affording themselves and us taxpayers such luxuries as building a $34 million facility on foreign soil that will do nothing but collect dust and attract spiders, so...AMERICA, FUCK YEAH.

Globally, the problems are even worse. An entire swath of Europe is awash with angry youth resisting harsh austerity measures caused in part because of the economic collapse, but mostly at fault are the previous generations for raiding generous pension and entitlement plans. For a country like Greece, tax evasion had become an Olympic sport in of itself, yet who gets to pay? Those in our generation. The so-called "Arab Spring" we're still watching unfold produces a wide range of emotions; on one hand, I'm proud a mostly young (in age of the participants) revolution in individual countries rose up to throw oppressive regimes, but as we've already seen in Egypt, power vacuums attract unseemly figures and groups. The common thread tying issues across international boundaries together is the age group leading the charge of unrest; the youth. The power structures in place for several decades have raped and pillaged the earth, our financial system, and our societies to the point where we're left with a much smaller slice of opportunity than we were promised. Factor in decades of ever-freeing markets through globalization, and you see there are no national boundaries anymore when it comes to the shit state of affairs we get to live in. We're all in it, regardless of ethnicity and national identity, and pretending otherwise when virtually every resource is traded globally and the price of every commodity is dictated beyond localized supply and demand is ludicrous.

Perhaps the scariest thing of all is the realization which I dread to even say; despite the glaring issues in front of us, there are no easy answers. The collective effort needed to painfully yet thoroughly unfuck what's been fucked on a line-by-line basis is massive, and it some ways, said effort goes against the grain of how we have been wired to think. For the vast majority of us, engagement with the political system involves little more than tableside chatter with friends over current events, passive attention paid to various media coverage, and then checking a few boxes on a ballot come election day. Some of us may actually stump for a particular politician during an election cycle, others may take individual issues and causes to heart and become an evangelist for them. Regardless of your personal involvement, politics and being agents of change don't come close to actually defining the significant majority of citizens. Ideally, that's how it should be; any acceptable definition of The American Dream doesn't entail tirelessly running your own political and social beliefs up flagpoles. We're supposed to be carving out a life for ourselves under the guise of fulfilling whatever personal desires and goals we have to be enjoyed specifically by ourselves first and foremost. The monetary and physical cost of living doesn't exactly lend a hand, either. Once you're on your own, you have to work for a living, and to keep yourself from otherwise going insane, you have to fulfill the need for social interaction which will understandably include doing lots of things that won't directly improve the standard of living in third-world countries, or break the glass ceiling in regards to women in the workplace, or any other of the umpteen million problems in the world today. It is simply not in our innate being to spend such an exorbitant amount of time thinking and acting on the behalf of others outside of yourself.

But, that all may have to change...at least somewhat. The "Greatest Generation" that fought in WWII and laid the basic groundwork for what good still exists today may have earned that moniker, but considering the multitude of smoldering bush fires scattered around our communities and the globe at large that could turn into blazing infernos at any moment, we millennials without question MUST become the unquestioned greatest generation to ever exist to even keep our world afloat. There is no "tweaking", "altering" or "adjusting" to our societies and culture that will do any good, as entire fucking paradigms and zeitgeists need to be overhauled. Voting every four years for the "less bad" alternative and spending a majority of the time in between captioning pictures of cats and masturbating is most likely not an option for this all to take place. It will require a much more intensive level of engagement, but unlike the shrill polemic that passes for nuanced political discourse these days, all talks have to be fruitful and informative. Even how we think about our beliefs will need to change.

So, good luck everyone. I'm in this boat with you, and while it's slowly sinking now, we have enough material to plug the existing holes and any new ones provided we don't fuck this up like the previous generations. Well, to be honest, we really don't have the room to fuck up even a little at this rate.

Like I already said; I hope you're ready.

What We Lack

"I've been fascinated by the idea that evil is the absence of empathy" - John Connolly

After DOMA was struck down earlier last week, I couldn't help myself but turn to Twitter and other corners of the internet to see the reaction; namely, the reaction of the religious right. I'm not above enjoying in the flappy-headed, nonsensical schadenfreude which could illuminate the night skies over Siberia whenever yet another example of a long-settled culture war over a slew of social issues takes place. An array of pastors and other religious leaders, including a few politicians, didn't disappoint as the oft-repeated, always incredulous claims of "slippery slopes" leading to men marrying turtles and some utopia of rampant, schoolhouse sodomizing while everyone listens to The Culture Club were filling the pages everywhere I read. Usually, such exaggerated, vile remarks disgust me to no end; yet in light of the Supreme Court decision, combined with the ever-growing realization that the club of hard-line social conservatives only grows smaller as it becomes more frenetic, I could only smile.

I'm no more of a "gay rights advocate" as I am a "tree frog advocate" or "if a guy wants to spend a Friday night masturbating to Golden Girls reruns, let him - advocate". The concept of enacting a strict moral code over otherwise legal, consenting adults is something I will never wrap my head around, and speaking as an individual whose level of spirituality registers a "null" grade, spare me any biblical quotes since they mean squat dick and balls to me. 

The only measure of a working, functioning society that I honestly want to see is one that truly embodies empathy for those who live their lives in sometimes vastly different ways from our own without hurting or otherwise prohibiting the free will of others. Full stop. I've spoken before (sometimes at length) about particular issues, but the underlying, wanton desire of the world, or at least community I wish to be a part of, is wrapped with a bow-tie in the above sentence. When someone truly understands empathy, their view of fellow humanity and of the world around them softens. With empathy, the need for shrill polemic in our political discourse vanishes, and as goes with it a myriad of other problems we humans run into with each other.

I'm a flawed human being, and I'd be surprised if I could go a full day without at some point committing one of the seven deadly sins. Yet, at the end the day, I want everyone to find their happiness, and I only hope you wish the same for me.

Don't Feed the Animals

Sometimes, the traps you set only snare yourself.

I'll never claim to be a modern-day Lothario when it comes to my dalliances with women, nor would I profess to hold an infinite and complex understanding of them in general. I've had my conquests and subsequent failures, licked my wounds, and moved on. The hidden saving grace among the dating rat race we all run is the eventual realization, which hopefully comes to one sooner rather than later, that you, as the individual, need to rule your own kingdom. It's very easy to allow your own being, and your own ethos, to become an ambiguous mess when too great of an impetus is placed on finding  someone, regardless of the reasons behind it. Most likely, we've all been there. I have, and while it was far from my darkest hour, it still proved to be an at times frighteningly confusing period. Once you lose your true sense of self, you can no longer accurately differentiate between wants and needs. Purely external factors manipulate and alter internal desires. You simply are no longer you.

The real point is accepting your own haste and coming to terms with your own being. You don't point fingers, you don't lay blame elsewhere, and you always look inward. Otherwise, insecurities and other perceived failures only further imbrue and can unknowingly manifest themselves in some terrible, awful ways. In the downward spiral of thinking less about yourself, you also choose to see the worst in others, finds faults (real or imagined) in those around you, and bitterness and spite reign supreme. You become cynical in your pursuit of interests, calculated in your motives, and you lose the humanity which should define us. People are no longer viewed as fellow humans, but as mathematical queries from which you seek to derive a formula to solve and extract whatever value it is you want out of them.

Or, of course, you can lie to yourself, throw your hands in the air, and say "well, shit, I'm just a nice guy and women don't respect me", which some cynical, broken bastards do on a daily basis.

There's nothing more annoying than the archetypal bullshit "nice guy", barely masquerading his pent-up frustrations and budding misogyny as an "aw shucks" down-on-his-luck trope. If your intellectual study of women stopped at  the age of 16 because one-too-many girls you longed for opted for the perceived bad boy, and you aped through your college years being a wallflower and convincing yourself over and over again that you simply aren't "interesting" or "edgy" enough to be taken seriously, you very easily could become this guy. Most adult women can smell you from a mile away.

And, admit it, if you are "that guy", you're dangerous. Yes, you. Are. Not. Safe. 

Seriously, own up to it. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Your faux-nice act and pseudo-emotional attentiveness is a contrived act meant to overcompensate for your own perceived lack of manliness. You, and no one else, decided you aren't suave enough, attractive enough, or ANYTHING enough to be honest and straight up about much at all. You don't really care about her problems, her past boyfriends, and her life in general. "She", no matter how high a pedestal you try to place her on, is nothing but a prize; a mythical princess you don't wish to save but to acquire and keep as validation that you can use emotional manipulation and otherwise trick into procuring. "She" isn't a person to you. Hell, you probably think all women are beneath you. If you have honestly convinced yourself you can use smoke and mirrors to win someone over, you obviously do not hold their intellect in high esteem, right? I mean, they're just "dumb bitches", right? They just always seem to fall for the dumb jocks who treat them like shit, right? Right? Answer me, motherfucker.

You know what, don't bother. You know why women don't take you seriously? For one, acting like a lap dog isn't attractive to any woman with an IQ in the triple digits and with any self-respect. People in general actually like a confident, headstrong individual, so playing the doting "good listener" role over and over again isn't winning you any points in the "okay, this guy has his shit together and can go places" department. There's no intrigue, character, or soul there. You might as well be a piece of furniture.

Furthermore, there's enough of you out there that most women have already run afoul with someone like you before. They've had a friend in their past who sprung into action during a time of vulnerability and stress, made themselves oh-so-emotionally available, and it too perfectly segued into something more. That is, until the rug was pulled out from under them and it became clear "attentive friend" was nothing more than an opportunistic fuckface. Game, set, and match.

See, guy? Your inherent dishonesty is the problem. The "jerk" you despise, displaying swagger and pretty much everything you believe you don't have and can't flaunt yourself? At least, for the most part, he's honest...at least more honest than you are. If you don't want to hear another sob story about an asshole ex-boyfriend from someone you like, you can tell her so. Don't want to go to Bed Bath & Beyond to help a romantic interest buy a new set of bath towels? Then don't go. It's actually pretty simple; don't do or say shit you don't want nor mean. Live your goddamn life and try, at least once, to stop worrying about made-up bullshit. You'll be better for it.

Artistically Autistic

I've seen Drive twice; once in the theaters when it came out, and recently again via instant streaming on Netflix during a boring weeknight. I had mildly high expectations going into my first viewing; the early reviews painted a picture of a throwback Western film archetype ( a "man with no name" basically) thrown into a crime/mobster flick. At the time, I had no real opinion of Ryan Gosling either way; I did "like" him in Half Nelson and Lars and the Real Girl, yet neither his respective characters in each, or the films themselves left an indelible mark. In fact, the only role of his I can remember leaving any effect was his creepily obsessive "Noah" in The Notebook, but there was enough uneasiness to go around in that movie where blaming his character would only be the beginning. 

Anyways, the best description I can give for my initial reaction to Drive after leaving that movie theater two years ago was of the feeling of just being awakened. There is a dream-like quality to Nicolas Winding Refn's film, as everything about the opening sequence to the score forces you to think of the setting as taking place in a different era, yet that gets compounded by the film's glacial pace and ridiculously slow dialogue, so your consciousness can't help but keep digging into farthest depths of whatever neural ether binge your own mind can allow given the few clues you're given about the characters and their motives. I wasn't so much watching Drive and observing the characters and storyline in a passive sense as I would with most films; I was imagining what the characters were really saying and where the story would ultimately go. While this proved to be a fun mental exercise, the few "action" scenes were especially jarring, and not just for their graphic quality. When Gosling's "Driver" character went into ass-kicking mode, I'd jolt back in reality and then ultimately become somewhat disappointed with the realization that the last twenty minutes or so the film had completely washed over me because I had been too busy thinking the film as opposed to actually watching it. By the time the closing credits rolled, I thought I had just watched a decent film, but I wasn't really sure. Not a single line of dialogue actually stuck, nor did any particular character.

I figured I'd give it another go a couple weeks ago and watch Drive again, under a "this time, no bullshit" premise. Instead of letting my mind wander to fill in the gaps of a slow, plodding film, I'd turn the creative part of my brain off and just observe it as is. Great plan, I thought. Now I'll get it.

Well...yeah, I sort of get "it". See, there really is nothing to "get" in Drive. It really is the most linear and simplistic "crime" film I have seen in some time, and it probably is a better viewing experience to allow yourself to get lost in the moody score and brooding nothingness that fills half of the run time than literally sit on the edge of your seat trying to wring out every drop of actual substance from the script. I didn't jump off my seat after my second viewing thinking it was the suckiest pile of suck to ever suck or anything, as I enjoyed it for what it is, but I was a bit embarrassed I had to watch it again to realize just how...direct, and to the point the whole thing was. In fact, it's really hard to write about Drive unless you're a cinefile of the highest order. I'm not, but usually I can blab about movies for a significant length of time. Not this one, at least in discussing the film's merits in the strictest sense.

In fact, the only real takeaway I have, is wondering whether or not Drive is the biggest endorsement of the omega male to grace the silver screen. Even in this role, Gosling still carries the same boyish looks and naive sense about him, despite bashing someone's head in at one point with the fervor of a man who is in no way boyish or naive about the world. In this film, our omega male lead character is presented in such a slightly awkward-yet-nice-boy-you-can-take-home way, devoid of any threatening or totally off-putting weirdness which usually gets ascribed to those who like to do things their own way, I can't help but think maybe the underlying moral to the film is as a fuck you to alpha males. Or not. I'm clearly thinking again.

To be perfectly honest, I was a shit soccer player.

I wasn't great at the other sports I played as a youngster either, but a part of me enjoyed soccer the most, if only for the belief it hid my relative lack of skill better than the others. Twenty two players on one field at the same time creates a hodgepodge of colors and noise roaming in all directions, and unlike the constant stop-lineup-and-start of football (or American football, for any international folks), soccer presents a fluid yet seemingly nonlinear picture to a random viewer. In other words, I could somewhat hide.

The one thing I could do very well in a generalized, unspecific sense was run around. I wasn't exceptionally fast, per se, but I could float around a field near or at my top speed for long periods of time without collapsing in a pool of my own vomit, which counts for something; that something being selected as a central midfielder which I played at almost every level of youth soccer I participated in, up through high school. I wasn't especially creative, and could barely use my left foot for anything other than short passes and as a source of constant self-loathing and critique, but goddamn it, I could run up and down the pitch and sure look like I knew what the fuck I was doing. 

Aside from being a shit soccer player, I also had the added value of finding ways to injure myself every other week. I gave up basketball during middle school because my left knee started to feel like jello. I had to put baseball down for a couple years after a shoulder injury on my glove hand made it virtually impossible to lift my left arm above chest level; a particularly cumbersome problem as a centerfielder which also made the whole "swing a baseball bat" thing kinda difficult. At least soccer put less strain on my knee once it began to heal and didn't require much use of my arms; but I was still brittle. After completing my freshman year on the JV soccer team, I felt as if I were using the body of a nearly deceased octogenarian. For the next few months, I moved about during school and elsewhere with the grace of a heavily tranquilized rhinoceros needing hip replacement surgery. Eventually the aches and pains subsided, and finding myself in surprisingly good spirits and awash with optimism, I thought I could make a run at the varsity team the following season. Two practices in during my sophomore year, while in the middle of running an otherwise mundane drill, I felt my left knee start to act up again. Didn't think anything of it since the pain was far from excruciating, yet mere moments later, in full sprint after the ball, I brushed paths with a teammate and our knees collided. You can see where this is going...it was my left knee that ended up buckling against his. The odd thing was, I don't remember the pain so much as vitriolic anger; not at the teammate for the collision, or at my ailing, utterly useless body parts. I was just...pissed. At everything. I hobbled towards the sidelines and I'm pretty sure I told our coach to "fuck off" when he gave a half-assed "you okay?" as I passed by. I do remember he didn't talk to me the rest of the day, which I could understand after having a 15 year old trying to make your team tell you to go screw, but I really didn't care. 

While the injury wasn't as serious as the cartilage tear I suffered a couple years before, it was a severe sprain that served a main course of required inactivity for a few weeks, which meant there was no way I could make varsity that year. More importantly, I found my desire to get back and playing waning by the day. I was done. I made a cursory attempt to play on the baseball team the following year, but mostly rode the bench as a few years removed the sport robbed me of my timing at the plate. In retrospect, I really didn't give a shit and have few memories from that team.

It was over.

While the benefits of playing youth sports are numerous, I share this because the hidden cruelty about my time playing competitive athletics is that the day I hung up my soccer cleats for good ended up being almost the exact point in time whatever innocence and youthful naivety I had was gone. Over the course of the next few months during that fateful sophomore year, a couple best friends of mine were killed and I lost my virginity; a bizarre one-two-three punch and kick combination that damn near changed me overnight. Neither of these things made me a "man", as becoming a man is decision one makes in regards to accepting and dealing with real responsibilities as opposed to simply "experiencing things"; yet, there's no doubt I was no longer the same person. The version of me that glided across a soccer field never once seriously thought about mortality or anything particularly serious outside of "where I should go to score a joint afterwards," nor did I have goddamn clue how to express or carry my own sexuality. For the first 15 years of my life, girls were pretty things with different anatomical parts that I didn't really understand well, nor did I have a strong desire at the time to learn more (outside of a couple early romantic interests, I was borderline asexual, really). Yet, in the aftermath of losing dear friends, something hormonal clicked where different gears starting turning; perhaps it was the materialization of some hasty carpe diem wave I rode during a time of significant emotional distress and upheaval, or it just took a few months before my 16th birthday to realize I had a penis. I really don't know; it was a fucked up time in my life.

Either way, it is funny, and sad at the same time, that giving up soccer so clearly represents a clear end to a certain part of my life. A certain part which was largely carefree, oblivious, and unrepentant. That "me" never wanted to take over the world or embodied any serious ambitions because I didn't know the world enough, nor cared to know it enough. I was just a kid. 

Recently, I had a random dream where I was back playing soccer on the JV team, yet I knew of the trauma and changes that would soon come. It took place during a game, and during the latter stages of it, our team draws a penalty kick and I'm asked to take it. The dream then momentarily becomes a montage of friends long gone and early sexual experiences, I assume this was supposed to be going through my head as I place the ball and approach the kick during "the game". Eventually, this dream then snaps back to me standing mere yards in front of the opposing goalie, and after standing there for what feels like eternity, my dream-self mutters "Carly" (one of my friends who would pass away during my sophomore year) out loud, before blasting the  ball into the lower right-hand corner of the net. There's no celebration with teammates however right after, nor is there anyone else on the pitch; the second I score, it's just me out there as everyone has magically disappeared. The dream more or less ends with me sauntering off the field, as I think even my dream-self knows this moment is complete bullshit. My alarm clock wakes me shortly after, and my non-dream, actual real self starts my day as normal. I choose not to really think about it much, because to conflate the pre- and post-soccer self into some feelgood nonsense seems almost like another tragedy on its own. Since that time and through today, I may dedicate things to those who have moved on, but not then. That version of me I want encapsulated and sheltered from the ills of the world and the now-realized faults of my current being. He was free, and I don't want anybody or anything to touch him. I don't want to burden him with loss, heartache, regret...anything. Let these things be the cross I bear today; I want to leave him be.

The Madness Continues

There have been more eloquent and erudite persons than I who have spoken and/or written at length about the polarization of our political and social climate, thanks in part to the rise of cable news networks, increased influence of interest groups, etc. I can attempt to rehash those points, but I won't, as I would only serve to boil them down to a tasteless mush of vague anger considering the steaming pile of fetid bullshit I've read over the past few minutes. Hey, at least I can admit the times when my mind isn't exactly as clear and astute as desired.

It's probably of no surprise that after the reelection of ZOMG PRESIDENT MULLAH BLACKENSTEIN FROM KENYA, the cantankerous, bed-wetting assholes of the far right became even more delirious. After all, Dick Morris and other retards at Fox News were all but promising a Romney landslide just mere days prior. LANDSLIDE! Yeah! Fuck that pussy Nate Silver using math and shit to come up with a "predictive model", whatever liberal and homosexual thing that must be, that ended up almost being 100% accurate. GOD! GUNS! AMERICA! Well, that dust settled a long time ago, and being the sensible people they are, they've clearly decided to reject the plain reality that they've lost not only the election, but more importantly the culture war, and just go off the derrrp end for once and all.

Recently, Family Research Council senior asshole, erm, excuse me, "fellow" Pat Fagan shit his pants over a very old Supreme Court ruling which overturned a Massachusetts law once banning the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried people. 

It’s not the contraception, everybody thinks it’s about contraception, but what this court case said was young people have the right to engage in sex outside of marriage. Society never gave young people that right, functioning societies don’t do that, they stop it, they punish it, they corral people, they shame people, they do whatever. The institution for the expression of sexuality is marriage and all societies always shepherded young people there, what the Supreme Court said was forget that shepherding, you can’t block that, that’s not to be done.

 I'll give you a few minutes to try and interpret that meandering block of goosefuckery, and if you can manage to read it more than once without having to fight a strong urge to start gnawing your own arm off, you're a better person than I. I'm used to seeing religious zealots of all kinds try, and ultimately fail, to explain their own morality as a necessity to be accepted by everyone, but to bring up a case about access to contraception from 1972 and argue against it so vehemently in the year 2013 only tells me this belligerent jackass must be just BRIMMING with other fantastic Puritan-esque views on sexuality. I'm sure he must be a blast to hang out with; perhaps we can get together and bitch about the heathen state of affairs in popular television, and maybe order some Shirley Temples at a bar and make impish conjectures about the OB/GYN bills of passing females. Deep down, it probably bothers him women are allowed to vote, drive, and all that "modern" stuff.

Of course, you must know in their impotent rage, maniacal conservatives would also attack gay people too, because, well, that's what they do. Dontchaknow, every time two consenting adults do something in the privacy of their own home, it affects EVERYBODY?? When my two gay neighbors have sex, the stock market crashes, my dog dies, and my car immediately bursts into flames. Sex between a man and a woman, however, when it's only for the purpose of procreation of course, saves cancerous kittens worldwide. Or something.

Some radio harpy Linda Harvey decided to throw her hat into the "let's shit on gays" ring with this deliciously batshit rant.

"I can’t tell you how many sad tales I’ve heard from people who’ve seen the destructive effects of homosexual behavior in the life of a son, a daughter, a brother or a sister. The first battleground of ideas is one’s own mind. We need to equip our kids to stand firm in their convictions and know how to defend them."

"Equip our kids" with what, exactly? Is there anti-gay weaponry out on the market I'm unaware of? Claymores that blow the homo out of you? An electromagnetic pulse gun that can stop any buttsex happening within a five mile radius? What in the fucking hell are you talking about? I understand as a radio host, you sort of have to fill the air time with words, but it helps when said words actually make sense. Seriously. Try that sometime.

And, actually using slavery to try and force a hamfisted analogy into whatever "let's protect the kids from them damn gays" revolt you're leading is utterly beyond comprehension. But, hey, maybe that's her thing; using historical struggles and heinous events to try and build gravitas around whatever hackneyed or utterly bogus conquest she goes on in daily life. "Much like how the roughly 1,000,000 who died at Treblinka deserved a better fate, I deserve a free macchiato refill at Starbucks!" "I can't believe Elizabeth Hasslebeck might be leaving The View! We can't let 8,000 more Bosnians be marched through the woods and endure another Srebrenica Massacre!!'

Good grief. Take a Xanax and fuck off, lady.

Foodie Orgasms

I like food. Good food. And, I especially love great food. I like to think I have a diverse palette, and a nearly unbounded willingness to try new things. I'll even admit to sometimes talking for a little too long about a new restaurant or particular cuisine I tried recently to some poor, nice-because-s/he-has-to-be coworker around the water cooler.

Yet, if I see another up close, soft focus picture of a plate of food on Instagram, I will stick my head into a gas oven.

I fully understand and accept that at its core, social media's raison d'être is to serve as a vehicle for everyone's innate narcissism and create circle jerks over how awesome someone is, and I'm just as guilty of this in my own ways, but shit is now getting just straight silly. My generation's reliance on the internet as a means to carve out a certain niche for themselves only results in literally NOTHING unique, or particularly idiosyncratic, as millions shout over one another creating an echo chamber of oblique, chaotic uniformity. Like, for instance, the hundreds pictures uploaded somewhere of pork dumplings in steamer baskets in the amount of time it took me to pick my nose just now. Wow, you like dim sum. What a fearless culinary trailblazer and precious snowflake you are.

All that said, the foodie craze, which has long been brewing for over a decade now, is not a bad thing. At all. The internet in general homogenizes certain fringes into the mainstream, thus opening the eyes of the masses to certain "alternatives" in anything from news coverage, music, medicine (not that the anti-vaccine crowd and hypocondriacs feverishly diagnosing themselves off of WebMD is an exemplary footnote to the wonders of humankind. We sure love to ignore professionals because "I read this thing once off a webpage..."), and of course food, just to name a few. I could easily write a more long-winded post on our food production in this country, but I'll eschew that in favor of simply saying this; it is unquestionably a GOOD thing we, as a general society, take more interest in what we put in our bodies, and how it gets to our plate in the first place. I can easily wax poetic on sustainable methods in agriculture and fishing, the importance of seasonality, organic foods, all that. These are all things absolutely worth the awareness and attention paid to them.

But, again, while I'm happy you may be making more of an effort to eat healthier and expand your diet, I don't really care to see it every fucking time you post an update to one of your feeds on the goddamn 'net. Really, it's charming that by Wednesday night you've already shown us your eighth meal of the week in pictoral form including a blurb of the ingredients, because, let's face it, absolutely no one on this earth honestly had any fucking goddamn idea that you can put bean sprouts in your pho. Fascinating! What next, are you going to tell me in excruciating detail that tomorrow night's ceviche has seafood in it? And it's marinated in a citrus juice such as, say, lemon? GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!

Jesus. Do enjoy your food and try as much as you can. But, if you get the urge to whip out your phone the second the server puts the plate down on your table, please shove it firmly up your ass instead. The ensuing picture you upload on Instagram of your colon I will find light years more interesting.

Okay, shit, I'm still alive

Between the actual job I have to pay the bills, and the freelance work on the side I tell myself will become my new career aside from the fact it still nets me at most beer money on the weekends, what free time I do have I prefer to not to spend on a computer. That said, I'm not happy with this development. Writing has been a hobby of mine for as long as I can remember, acting in part as momentary therapeutic vacations from the inanity of daily life, and also on some basic level as creative exploration. I never intended to use my words as a means to change the world, alter perceptions, or for any other doe-eyed, naively earnest endeavor. If I can raise a valid point here and there in between sharing stories ranging from the mundane to the extraordinary, I've already won. 

I'm not even sure, but I believe this is a my fourth attempt at a blog. There have always been long gaps of inactivity before eventual dismissal with previous attempts at blogging, thanks to whatever shiny objects distract me for lengths of time; be it women, new hobbies, you name it. The entire point of this blog was to, in some half-assed way, chronicle a move to a new city that I would honestly try to make my home for the foreseeable future. I have tried to be more consistent with my output; not for what handful of readers I have but for my own being, since the act of writing requires a level of activity from, and engagement with your brain and emotions that most daily tasks simply don't. Yet, sometimes life hands you either a fantastic new opportunity or a plate of steaming dog shit, and your priorities change.

My commitment to anyone who happens to be paying attention is that I think, think, I have a current handle on what the fuck I'm doing in my life at the moment to the point I can allocate some more time to this. I've done this sort of thing enough to tell you that it's not so much a matter of inspiration, as it is will, to keep going. Per usual, I expect the content to be of the meandering, anecdotal variety as opposed to anything remotely akin to a diary, since I'd rather carve hieroglyphics into my testicles than disclose details of my employment or sex life on such a potentially open forum...but...you probably knew that already.

Food Service, LOL

Inspired by the latest feature in The Stranger while sipping an iced mocha this morning, I couldn't help but wander off in thought about my one and only job in a kitchen; an upscale retirement comm...oh excuse me, "assisted living facility" back in ye olde New Hampshire. It's from a time in my life I don't generally look back too fondly on, during my days as a lazy stoner later on in high school; my athletic days already long gone thanks to countless injuries and the crushing realization that I'm simply too fucking small to play damn near anything competitively.

After hopping around between a few different part-time, after-school jobs in the area, this particular establishment, with a geographic location basically straddling the line of division between the two main school districts in the area seemed to have a complete overhaul in part-time staff between kids mostly from "that other district" to the ones in ours, so the recruitment process in the halls during school came hard and fast seemingly overnight. Since the facility only really served one true "course" (dinner), the needed hours for staffing to carry this out was perfect for local teenage dipshits to fill. Supposedly the best job was to be a server, and being the dumbass I am, I waited WAYYYY too long to pick up an application and was greeted with only two choices; prep cook, or dishwasher. Even though a prep cook would make more money, they also had to work longer hours, and I already had a cushy gig putting in a couple hours a day as an office "assistant" ("bitch" is more like it) at my sister's office, somehow earning $10/hr just waiting around to do menial tasks. So, dishwasher it was.

As you would imagine, it sucked, but the hours were incredibly flexible, and because literally everyone around me was a classmate, the time flew by. An already simple three-hour shift felt less than an hour, as in between every scrubbed pan were several moments of general teenage tomfoolery. I honestly could've stretched this dishwasher gig out for several months; it was easy, it certainly wasn't a career path, and at least it helped keep me busy during the school week.

Only a month into it though, one of the prep cooks quit, and the chef, a somehat goofy looking, 40-something year old who just had the essence of a man who goes home and gets berated by his wife for several hours before bedtime asked if I could take the now open position. I didn't want the gig, but I was so flattered that he bypassed the entire service staff and asked ME, one of the guys breaking more plates in the washroom than actually cleaning them, for it. Without thinking, I just blinked and said "yes". Shit.

I had to quit my easy office bitch job because my new shift started literally ten minutes after last period at school, and I was immediately thrown into the fire of: chopping. Endless, tedious, soul-sucking chopping of vegetables and whatever else was laid out. What made it worse was that the other prep cook was a college dropout from bumfuck nowhere with the personality of a doorknob, and my fellow classmates in the service staff and elsewhere in the kitchen wouldn't arrive nightly for another few hours. So, just me, and the college dropout doorknob in the back of the kitchen, going Jeffrey Dahmer (minus the eating) on various foodstuffs. During the actual dinner service we'd emerge with the other line cooks and at least be at the front of the line to serve plates and chat, but then towards the end it was back to the chopping; this time prepping for tomorrow's breakfast or whatever.

I found out quickly that the college dropout doorknob was also relatively new, so our sentence of endless chopping was mostly a training period to see if we could...chop things, I guess. It was only a week of this hell before the chef then also tasked us with making soups, some desserts, and other dishes. We still had to chop the living fuck out of everything though, so the first couple hours of every shift went from mindless vegetable slicing to "SUPERFAST FUCK CHOPCHOPCHOP" then actual cooking. This was essentially my after-school life for about a full year. And, while I had to make every soup known to man at least ten times over, I can't remember a single fucking recipe to pass along for the life of me.

But, as I'm sure anyone who has worked in a kitchen/restaurant can attest to, the actual environment is what you remember the most. If you haven't worked in one, let me break it down to you: it's an endless cycle of slow, FAST, slow, HOLY SHIT HURRY, quick, MOTHER OF FUCKING GOD SERVICE NOW, quick, SPEED OF LIGHT JESUS CHRIST, aaaand crash. Every night.

Oh, and there's lots of drugs, sex, and curse words. Every night.

Our chef was fairly normal, albeit a little "off" (again, I'm convinced his wife is the spawn of Satan so work is actually a refuge for him), but everyone else in that kitchen was a tinderbox of unreliability and questionable, often illegal, habits. One of our line cooks, named Greg, was arguably one of the biggest dealers on our side of the state, so he spent more time on the loading dock UNloading hash, pot, LSD, and other "goodies" to the underage service staff than actually at the front of the line. Another line cook (name I can't remember) was something of a loser in real life but was 21 and admittedly handsome, so aside from buying booze for anyone who would ask, I'm pretty sure his DNA is now a permanent fixture all over the walk-in where we normally kept salads because almost every 16-year old tart had at least one encounter with him in there. The other, other line cook, the oldest, named Frank, was a real nice guy. And a little hyper, but for good reason; I'm pretty sure the tallest point in SW New Hampshire was the mound of coke he snorted before every shift. It was also no wonder why he always "forgot something" in his truck every 30 minutes.

The real eye-opener though was how this trickled down onto the rest of the staff so quickly. Most of the service staff were females in my school, generally of the "preppy, I-wouldn't-have-thought-they-put-out" variety. Perhaps that's exactly what they were before they were hired, but holy hell, did they come out the other side smelling of cheap booze and regret. Aside from wild humps in the supply closet with Mr. 21 year old line cook, Greg was also certain that they became somewhat regular customers of his. When our eyes locked in the hallways at school, the unmistakable "please, do NOT tell anyone" written on their face was in bold, neon letters. I could only smirk and nod, as I could only imagine the horror if their fathers found out what their Abercrombie wearing, church-going daughter was doing while at fucking work. Let that sink in; this wasn't weekend shenanigans at so-and-so's house when the parents are away, pouding a few warm beers and maybe a hit or two...this was a Tuesday night, sex in one walk-in, snort a line in another, bang out a dinner service, steal a bottle of wine (our chef had allowed the 21 year old future sex offender to keep tabs on most of the inventory...bad idea), and then drive home for school the next day. Wash, rinse and repeat probably two days later.

When I quit, I quit hard. The long hours of prep cooking and watching promising young girls completely defile themselves, courtesy of Creepy Old Men With Drugs just...grossed me the fuck out. I only worked another three shifts into my two week notice, then just stopped showing up. My last day was actually a Friday night, and I ended up going home knowing I wouldn't go back and slept clear into Saturday evening. I remember then taking one of the longest showers of my life, and then a sobering realization hit me:

Wait, all I had to do was dangle some weed in front of those preppy, rich girls all this time? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

3+ Years and Counting...

If you're anything like me (and if you are, you should seriously consider changing everything about yourself), occasionally you find yourself on a weekend night too tired to spend time with peers drinking and fucking the night away, but instead of being smart and deciding to go to bed, or read a damn book, you reflect on the inane minutiae around you. I managed to ignore a few text messages because I was too caught up pondering the essence of my desk lamp, but then it dawned on me; holy hell, I've somehow lived in this city for over three years. It feels like, one, at the most, but...damn.

I'm coping like most displaced east-coasters do out here; constantly telling yourself "hey, at least it's not snowing" while crying into your coffee as you look out the window to the see the umpteenth day of drizzle in a row. I bitch like most displaced east-coasters at the passive-aggressiveness of a native populace in Seattle that boldly claim to hold "liberal" values while harboring a surprising level of ignorance towards most minorities and failing miserably to enable enough light rail routes to steer us away from our evil, carbon-emitting automobiles. But, like most displaced east-coasters, I take solace in the abundance of Asian food, goofy shit sold in Capitol Hill boutiques, and the undeniable fact that, when the weather IS good, it is entirely impossible NOT to find something to do.

Have I learned anything? Found undeniable truths? Possibly; but I'm also coming to a larger understanding (which is hard to admit) that most likely, I came out here for the wrong reasons. I didn't run from anything, but I sure as shit never looked back as I sped westward, on some undefined journey under the misguided flag of "self-discovery". Sure, it's not fun to tread on the same ground, with the same friends at the same hangouts where the relationship with the love of your life sped off the freeway at 100mph and crashed into the ravine. But it wasn't her fault, and it wasn't mine, simply a case of "life happens".

Damn, really? There's no way I packed my shit and high-tailed it to the Pacific Northwest for that, right? Well, the fact is I can't think of any other specific reason. And, while I'm not literally beating myself up over this, I can't help but facepalm at the fact I've put significant distance and strain between family and friends for a reason I can't pinpoint. I'm okay here, but not nearly in love with the area enough to be fully satisfied and to make an honest effort to really make this place home. It's an odd state to find oneself where you feel that something is lacking, yet you're not nearly restless enough to light a fire under your ass and do something about it.

On the plus side, I have a better grasp of my own morals, my own beliefs, and my own existence because, let's face it; for 2/3 of the year here, you have to duck into a coffee shop to save yourself from a drenching, and do a lot of thinking. I'm very good at thinking...could improve on the follow-through of said thoughts and ideas, but goddamn I can drum up a thought bubble that could kick your thought bubble's ass. And, surprisingly, said thought bubbles are not just about sex and "shit, did I leave the gas light on?" I'm talking like...thoughts...here. Deep ones. Thoughts that can move mountains and dismantle Iran's nuclear program.

So, here's to you, Seattle, for being an "alright" city that makes me think a lot. You're a real pal.

Alexander Funnylastname

One of the first books that I honestly fell in love with was Into The Wild, and this weekend I finally got around to watching the film adaptation directed by Sean Penn. Pretty good, I must say; certainly captured the spirit in which Christopher McCandless lived his intriguing life, and perhaps did an even better job than the book of (at the end of the film) portraying just the right amount of regret he probably had during his final breaths.

Of course, it made me think of the things I want to do; not necessarily the "things I want to do before I die" (generally a meaningless list) but the "things I need to do to find my own truth" (somewhat airy-fairy but still holds perceived meaning). Per usual, once I drifted off into thought I got distracted by the first shiny object and never completed the task. Now that I sit in front of the computer, I'm looking back at the important things I have done, and one particular event, a two and a half week odyssey in fact, seems to have provided me with most lasting value to this day.

"The Trip"

Four dudes, one shitty van, and the entire country of Canada in front of us...well, from Montreal westward, that is. Sorry, maritime provinces.

While some of the details I care not to explain, in part because of length required would take me all night to divulge, but also because, well, some of the experience I wish to keep my own, it still ranks as the best time of my life.

Many long to backpack through Europe, or trek through SE Asia (I certainly wouldn't mind doing either), yet this cheaper alternative provided four college students who couldn't legally drink in their own country a chance to explore a land not very different from their own, but at the same time still exciting and enchanting for the simple fact there were no rules, no itineraries, and no expectations...just driving, stopping when we so desired, and exploring. I have traveled abroad (like, over a fucking ocean and/or not in another largely English-speaking country) but it was different. For that, I had a schedule, and having a schedule means having a leash. For this...nothing. Just us, and whatever the fuck we felt like.

There was plenty of boozing, sexual encounters (some regrettable), and the like, but honestly all of that took a backseat to the wonders of the open road and the idea of being completely unchained to anything at the given time. Hell, two of those guys I'm no longer in contact with and the other I think is a raging douchebag these days, but it doesn't matter; we'll always be brothers for those 17 or so days, for the sheer amount of trouble we at times dance around, and for the immeasurable quantities of fun we had together.

For one, after getting back home once the trip was done for, I began to realize what I was capable of, and also what humanity in of itself can be. I can't even count the number of total strangers we encountered willing to buy us a beer and have a laugh with us (sometimes at our expense). In a dingy cowboy bar just outside of Calgary for instance, grown men who would make Sam Elliott and John Wayne look like Nancy boys regaled us with tales of love lost and other hardships of life, as if our mere presence automatically made us regulars at their watering hole. I really could go on all night, but you get the drift.

I would do a similar trip in a heartbeat, but it wouldn't be the same. While still a young guy, the weary roads we travel in every day life out in the real world can't help but make you grow cynical in some ways. My eyes aren't as open, and at times my mind seems to be padlocked. What made "the trip" so great was our youthful innocence and eagerness to trust anything and anyone that came in our path. Now, it's different; not necessarily worse, just different.

But I wouldn't mind trying.

Matzo and Flotilla Soup

In the aftermath of the siege, any level-headed observer is left with the feeling that Israel seems quite content to cut off its nose to spite its face. While I certainly have no problem with the nation of Israel itself, or its very right to exist, the fact they can time and time again act and react with belligerence with our aid, essentially our weaponry (we certainly helped pay for them), and our de facto backing is highly disconcerting.

We've helped to prop up Israel largely on two fronts; one, the "realist" approach, for the sake of having a democratic ally in a generally not-so-democratic Middle East, and the other the "wacko Christian"; the babble from Christian Conservatives about the rapture and how Jesus ain't coming back unless the Jews have their homeland (of course, no politician with the second mindset ever says so publicly, but, we know). While spending any time delving into the latter approach makes my head hurt and lowers my IQ, the former becomes troubling if they routinely fuck up relations at a faster pace than we can try to save. The route taken to deliver humanitarian aid directly through the Gaza blockade was a direct provocation, no doubt, but one that a military as modern and well trained as the Israelis should stop with no problem whatsoever. Yet magically, 9 people ended up dead, and now perhaps the only Muslim ally the Israelis had, Turkey, is rightfully pissed. Well done. And, of course, is there a shred of remorse from our own Middle Eastern, non-Muslim ally? Nein.

Is Israel bad? No; the country is a bastion of economic activity and scientific development in a region that otherwise lacks both, and generally promotes liberal social customs in a region that, surprise, generally lacks that as well. Outside of probably only Turkey, try being an openly gay atheist, for instance, elsewhere in the region and see how long you can last before being burned at the stake. Hell, several parts of America are backwards compared to Israel and their general tolerance and acceptance towards different lifestyles. Throw in the fact that both Hamas and Hezbollah are retards, and you can see why it's easy for the pro-capitalist, democratic American to throw their weight behind the Israeli cause and support them dutifully.

The problem is that, while perhaps on a more "dignified, Western-like" level, the Israelis are just as unwilling to accept the terms of peace that we try to set for the region. I'm bothered by this because, well, my tax dollars aren't arming the 12-year old Palestinian boy who might chuck a rock at frustration towards an IDF soldier, but instead helps pay for the IDF tank that may very well just run over said 12-year old boy and say "oops" after. My tax dollars helped pay for the use of white phosphorous that was used against ("accidentally", of course) Gaza civilians. And, my tax dollars helped arm the IDF soldiers that shot up those aboard the flotilla. Ignore the obvious moral issues for a second; we provide direct monetary assistance for this. Who gives a shit if we reprimand them after, we've given them a blank check. What does that mean? Every disenfranchised Palestinian is seeing little American flags on everything Israel does to them. If that doesn't bother you, I'm not sure what will.

Forget the Gaza blockade, as stupid and useless as it has been (all it does is cause further hatred to develop since many supplies can still be funneled through Egypt anyway). Forget the illegal settlements, further proof that there is a legitimate hardline Israeli contingent that really doesn't give a flying fuck about a two-state future. Forget everything else...and just let this sink in:

We. Are. Allowing. This.

We've allowed the Israelis to develop a nuclear program without putting an ounce of pressure on them to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and somehow think we have a leg to stand on to demand Iran and other bad boys in the region to comply. I can state other glaring problems, but my head is starting to spin. If, heaven forbid, the Middle East becomes the smoldering pile it very well could, we can largely thank ourselves for doing a shitty job of keeping our non-Muslim ally in check. At this point, I don't even blame Israel for anything anymore. We're a bad parent who has raised a spoiled, entitled kid and it's too far gone to reign him in.

I can't state it enough; most Israelis are great people, and the nation itself stands for many good things...but Palestinians are largely good people too, and because of our insistence on being pro-Israel first and foremost on everything, I don't know what future that region has that would allow for anything resulting in "peace" if the country with the best and most aggressive military thinks it can do no wrong, and we're too blind to ask them, just once, to chill the fuck out.

Closure

There is something indefinitely fulfilling in reaching inside yourself and finding something broken, and being able to mend it back together in a way that years ago you assumed to be impossible. There is also something about this which almost strikes you as embarrassing, as if you had waited for so long for nothing, simply out of fear. Regret is a powerful thing, made moreso when you realize what kept you from coming to terms with "it" was being afraid of your own shadow.

I made a giant step in the right direction last weekend, taking advantage of the Memorial Day weekend to plug an old leaky hole that had been letting a drip go on for way too long, and the fact it only took a few hours out of my day to come to an understanding, and to find peace, told me more about myself than most of the experiences I've had in the 20-some odd years of my existence. What I'm afraid of most, perhaps of all, is letting go of things that no matter how awful they might be, largely made me who I am today. The caring, thoughtful person I strive to be today (and to an extent I certainly am) stems in large part from my adolescence as a selfish prick, longing for a quick fix at every turn and displaying a general lack of empathy for everything and everyone around me. I wasn't a bad kid; I almost always obeyed orders, was polite and at times even outright demure, but at the end of the day my own well-being came so far out in front of others in terms of importance that I made a continual habit of missing the forest for the trees.

And then, things changed. Cemeteries began filling up with gravestones of those I knew, and I managed to find ways to let down other loved ones in my life. While these events would prove to be traumatic for anyone, the cross I carried from then on was mostly self-designed. I took these tragedies personal (some deserved, most however not so), made them a part of my being, and essentially lived my life as an act of pity. I was at fault for everything, and a complete change in who I was, and how I viewed the world around me, was in order.

To be fair, NONE of this is as nearly dark as it sounds. I still had fun, still drank, still fucked, and otherwise from the surface lived the life of a normal young adult with hormones and a penchant for deriving pleasure. Yet, inside there was something burning that told me to be a certain someone; be someone who loved unconditionally, and be someone who would never betray. Not out of an honest appreciation for my fellow man, but because of sheer guilt.

What I'm learning now is I don't need an excuse or some inner driving force to command my emotions. I can love simply for the sake of loving. Perhaps I've been doing such all along, I just convinced myself there must have been some other power. There is none. Only me.

And I like that.

The Break-up Dance

Years ago, in a non-descript diner having lunch with a girl in a boring suburb of Boston, I play with my clam chowder. It tastes good; after all if you're going to order a cup of clam chowder you best do it in New England (fuck Manhattan), yet I'm not really hungry. I mean, I kind of am, I hadn't eaten all day, but I just don't feel like eating. I make these cute little maneuvers with my spoon, twirling pieces of clam up against the oyster crackers I unceremoniously dumped into the bowl minutes prior, and I'm sure a couple times I've accidently toppled a little clam nugget over the edge of the cup and either onto the table or the floor. I really don't care, it's a diner. I don't even remember, nor care, what she ordered. I'm too fixated on pretending I'm that interested in the ingredients in my clam chowder that I must twirl my spoon endlessly to identify each morsel..."oh look, a piece of potato"...

We're about to break up. That much is inevitable and hanging over our table like a storm cloud. Why the hell could we not have done this over the phone, or at least in person without having to enter a dining establishment and placing orders which means we owe money afterward? Eventually, I fuck up my graceful spoon-twirling and said spoon careens out the cup and slides over the table, shattering the awkward yet predictable silence.

"We have to talk..." she starts.

I know.

The act of "breaking up" can incite many different emotions, but by this point it's happened enough in my life that it's become yet another predictable song-and-dance that I consider among many of life's other monotonous activities; the brushing of teeth, the wiping of your ass after a shit...yet the one potentially awkward variable is that while I know how I'll manage, you're never quite sure how the other party will. Even when it's largely their idea to end the relationship and move on with their life, sometimes they actually seem to take it the hardest. Some people just don't respond well to cutting ties with not necessarily the former romantic partner, but the actual entity of a romantic relationship. The emotional investment in something is now kaput, and all that time can be viewed as a total waste and utterly regrettable. Or, while they've grown sick of their former partner or just feel they've "grown apart", the idea of no longer having that romantic figure (again, not the actual individual) in their lives for the short term makes them feel lonely or incomplete.

Personally? For the most part, meh. Sure, some girls have gotten away that I wish I made more of an effort to please or at least not have been such a dumbass towards, but ultimately I'm not a "chaser". If you don't want to be with me, I don't feel angry or defeated, and I certainly don't want to continue something that you're already looking beyond. I have many faults, but I have plenty of strengths as well, and if said strengths aren't what you want or the faults just outweigh them in your mind, hey, that's cool. No hard feelings. Best of luck.

The problem is, that attitude can look rather cavalier and, well, uncaring to some, which is why I tag along to the diner in a boring suburb and play with my clam chowder as if I'm "avoiding some calamitous and trying emotional event about to ensue." It's probably not even convincing by this point, but I pretend to myself it is. I never want the girl to think I can get over her so quickly, as if I never loved her in the first place...I did (or still do). I also don't want to come off like some bitter douche who's first move after our "break up lunch" is to call one of her best friends for a hook up. Most of the time, it seems, it's best to play it off like I usually do; cautious, pensive, remorseful yet strong.

Is it a total act? Not really, many of those feelings are real yet my natural mannerisms don't always translate them well. Again, I'm more afraid/worried/flat out unsure of just how SHE will react, and the cautious-pensive-remorseful-yet strong routine generally conveys the safest array of feelings to ensure the least volatile or awkward reaction to the break-up talk. She can walk away feeling "I do think he really loved me, but I think we'll all be okay".

Perhaps all of this largely stems from the fact that I generally don't care if I "win" in most tense or dramatic situations. Arguments happen, but as long as I state my case I don't need to have the last word. Break-ups certainly happen, and again, I don't feel it's important to slay the victim with a jab about any perceived faults in the bedroom or other shit, real or imagined, that I "put up with" during our relationship. It's over, who cares.

I could go for some clam chowder, though.

Is That It?

Apparently NME magazine feels Is This It, the 2001 debut album from those posh NYC hipsters (yes, "posh hipsters" is the best way to describe them) The Strokes is the "best album of this decade".

I'll be honest; I really don't have the energy to vehemently disagree or at least counter with my own suggestion. There has been a lot of good music in this decade if you've been willing to look, and while I was never a huge fan of these guys, I originally welcomed the wave of adulation they received with the incessantly catchy (albeit musically simple and wildly overplayed) single "Last Night". Terrestrial radio up to that point had become swarmed with the likes of Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock, and I certainly didn't mind these "five rich kids who listened to way too much Velvet Underground growing up" taking some of the former's commercial oxygen.

That said, what "impact" have The Strokes really left? Their albums since commercially have sold well, although I haven't paid much attention to them. The same kids who embraced their style at the beginning of this decade; vintage rock t-shirts and Chuck Taylors, are now in the workforce and are probably too busy with Real Life Shit (™) to spend hours each weekend at thrift stores to don themselves with the appropriate apparel while nodding along to the cheeky lyrics of late-night shenanigans in Hipster Paradise by Julian "even my real name has its own fashion identity" Casablancas. Interpol, another NYC band from a similar cloth (but different sound) is still chugging away, but they too no longer carry the aura they once did back at the dawn of the 2000s.

Worse yet, neither band's music, in of itself, is terribly memorable. Is it good? Sure, but ultimately disposable. I brought it upon myself a couple years ago to obtain and listen to the entire catalogs of both bands as well as from others, such as British imports The Libertines, and others in that same ilk, and as much as I tried...I couldn't find anything meaningful.

So there we go. The "album of the decade" is nothing more than a promising debut from guys who idolized Lou Reed, yet aren't Lou Reed, and even two albums later their most profound lyrical statement is, essentially, "dating in NYC is hard". Sweet.

The "Monsters" Among Us

I caught a piece of some WW2 documentary recently late at night, mere moments before I went off to bed. A former Soviet prisoner, a captured Red Army grunt who had an unpleasant stay at one of the concentration camps barking out something which sounded awful (Russian is not exactly a "sexy" language to being with), which the subtitles translated to something to the effect of "Those Nazis...they were monsters. What they did to us (I assumed "us" meant fellow captured Soviets), and those people...". He was asked a follow question regarding what he thinks of the Holocaust, and basically repeated the same thing.

Any snarky comments aside about the not-so-humane treatment Soviets treated the POWs they got their hands on, I found the comment...odd. I can only imagine the hell he went through, and surely he has every right to make disparaging comments towards his captors, but to sum up the most tragic event in the 20th century as being perpetrated by "monsters" is too easy. It's convenient and narrow-minded.

The same fire-from-the-hip analysis we give when news of a captured serial killer hits the airwaves, and we him or her arraigned in court for the first time and say to ourselves "what a monster" isn't easily translated to a mass murder of the magnitude we saw in during WW2, is it? When so many individuals are complicit in an atrocity of the highest order, and your brain flickers like a bad spark plug trying to rationalize the "why", and you simply utter "monsters", are you satisfied? Probably not, but many still do it. Genocide is ugly and terrible, but it must be carried out by several, so were they all just "monsters?" When does one become a "monster"? Is it at birth? Is there a switch that turns on when a group of "monsters" who have been suppressing their maniacal and perverse view on humanity in the name of morality suddenly get together? We seem just fine brandishing them as "monsters", which really means "not human", so you tell me.

The psychology of groupthink, realities of economic and social disparity, and anything else one can throw out to explain the worst in human behavior has been well documented and explained time and time again, and it's a discussion perhaps best saved for those who want to spend the next several hours all coming to the same conclusion I can wrap up in a sentence; these things happen because we're human. Doesn't mean these behaviors should be excused or condoned, and the sanctity of human life should be protected most of all, but the answer sadly lies in the mirror.

The "monsters" are us.

All Aboard

The roommates and I, inexplicably it seems, had a rousing conversation the other night about "running the train". No idea how it started, or even how it ended (we were drunk) but I do recall laughing my ass off when one of our friends who was also over our place, who had not taken part in the discussion during its initial moments blurted out innocently something along the lines of "hell naw, that shit never happens."

Oh yes, yes it does, my friend.

Without any further ado, here goes my favorite "A party crashed by train-runners" story, witnessed hilariously (and perhaps unfortunately, given the really random circumstances of it) by me.

Rewind to Junior year in college. My then roommates and I throw a bit of a party at our apartment on a rather "meh" Friday night. Around 15 other people show up by 10pm, and nothing crazy or particularly monumental happens over the course of the first hour over the sound of ping pong balls careening helplessly across the kitchen thanks to errant shots at the beirut table. Then, four people just walk in our place (a girl and three dudes), and while it wasn't like a scene from the movies where the record skips and all attention is drawn to them, as the four slowly make their way through our living room, one-by-one heads turn and the occasional "who are they?" whisper floats through the air. I notice them right away myself, but I'm not alarmed...while I have no clue who the fuck they are, and it's obvious no one here invited them, they did bring their own booze and, hey, it's college; perhaps the only four years where brazenly walking into a party uninvited is more or less acceptable.

They plop on our couch and while they made little effort initially to introduce themselves to anyone, they seemed perfectly pleasant when I took it upon myself to say "hi", and at that point the largest of the men, while never even saying his name, just hands me a beer and smiles. Nowadays, you walk uninvited into my place at anytime and I'm going to want a verbal explanation, but again, this is during college; where the mere "gift of alcohol" is something akin to major powers brokering a peace treaty. Further attempts to chat them up a little (or, in other words, find out a goddamn name our two at least) go basically nowhere, so I just leave them be.

I completely forget about them, and seemingly so did everyone else since almost all of us where huddled around the kitchen, and after another hour or so I turn back towards our living room to say hi again to my "new friends...sort of" only to find their 30-rack on the table. "The fuck? They just left their beer and took off? SWEET!" While alcohol was a-plenty otherwise, we all dive in like vultures, or at least I did so more like a hyena since I was giggling maniacally (I'd been pregaming since 8pm and was well on my way towards Plasteredville) and pounded a few down without a second thought. Party continues, a few more people come and go, but at least we know THESE newcomers, and all is well.

Fast-forward to sometime around 2:00am. The party is starting to wind down, partly because of one my roommate's declaration that he had to work in the morning. I'm contemplating spending the night in my own bed or calling up the girl I was kinda/sorta seeing at the time, and doing so standing in the middle of our short hallway, when I feel a blast of air coming from behind me, and upon turning around, guess who I see leaving my roommate's bedroom?

I imagine because of the alcohol I had consumed, I thought nothing weird whatsoever about the four strangers leaving my roommate's bedroom at such a time. I actually apologized, for fuck's sake, about thinking they had left for good and drinking their beer, and was still a good few minutes away from understanding the shit-eating grin on all three of the guy's faces when they each told me "no problem, man". The girl, still without saying a single word to me, or anyone throughout the whole night, ducked into our bathroom for some time before finally meeting her three...whatevers....at our door and leaving...like for real, this time. The actual roommate in question, whose bedroom was "used", was still fucking around in the kitchen and never saw them exit, and briefly blamed me for the fact his bedroom door was wide open and the light was on. He had less to drink than I did that night, so you can imagine his lack of haste and understanding when I tried to explain to him it was "those" four who apparently were in there the whole time.

Just a couple minutes later, while in our bathroom myself, I hear said roommate exclaim "WHAT...THE....FUCK!!!" I run out, and he's standing by his bed with a look of horror, pointing to the floor.

Rubbers. Lots of them. Just scattered.

Used rubbers, by the way, in case I'd failed to set up the scene I was too drunk to interpret at the time. Lots of them. Just scattered.

By now, for me, it had finally come together, and I laughed like hell. My roommate looked like he wanted to punch me, but even he himself began to laugh. The other two roommates who had just gone to bed heard the commotion and were just stumbling out of their rooms, to find us two laughing, one of us pointing to a mass grave of used rubbers at floor of his bed.

I wasn't even disgusted (the fact it wasn't MY bed helped), just, amused and somewhat flabbergasted. Seriously...who just picks a random apartment, then goes into a random bedroom, and then initiates THIS of all things? Really? Is it supposed to add an element of danger or some shit?

I never saw those four again around campus...not that I spent my last three semesters of college actively looking for them or anything, but a part of me wanted to track down one of those guys (I doubt the female would talk about it) and be like, "I'm not mad, but, just, WHY?"

And in case any superheroes want to assume the worst about the situation, I can remember clearly the girl being just fine and sober both when entering and upon leaving...so, yeah, it was voluntary alright.

Why they picked our joint, no idea.

Oontz oontz oontz oontz

Been on an electronica kick recently, and I'm not terribly sure why. I went through a phase when I was about 18-19 years old listening to all kinds of stuff by Underworld, Orbital and others almost around the clock, but stopped and had only intermittently listened to it since...until about last month.

I bought Daft Punk's Alive a couple years ago but almost never listened to it. During a road trip recently, I gave it a spin, only to do it again, and again...hell, the entire 6 hours on the way there was a constant barrage of the French duo's live beats emanating from my vehicle on the interstate. I remember the big fuss about the Alive tour back in either '06 or '07 but the actual album cuts I had heard from them never really moved me (I thought it was decent but not "HOLY SHIT I MUST SEE THIS GROUP" material). Back in 2001 one of my high school friends was all about them when they first got big, but I was still in my alt-rock phase and was pretty indifferent to what they were doing at the time.

That said, Alive is a very good live compilation because Daft Punk was smart enough to do track mash-ups, which is a must for any electronica/house group. Rock groups and other musicians unfortunately get a pass for going onstage and usually playing songs exactly the same fucking way they're played on the album, all in front of fans who have paid God-knows-what to see them. Because DJ's are usually hidden behind their gadgets and whatever light show emanates behind them, for them especially it's imperative to do something a little different onstage for the paying audience. They can't just put their guitar behind their head and adlib a solo in full view of everyone, because they don't have fucking guitars. They can't interact with the audience by stating "I wrote this song about..." because people who would see a Daft Punk don't give a shit and just want to dance. The whole "heard and barely seen" aura of electronica groups in concert puts a real emphasis on the actual sonic output, and for that I give them a lot of respect. REM could go on stage, play random folk music on ukuleles for two hours and Michael Stipe could go on random political outbursts and I'd bet every single person would leave the arena thinking "BEST SHOW EVER, MAN". What, they didn't play "What's the Frequency Kenneth?" Who cares, Michael "interacted" with us, yo!....bands who actually play instruments and say stuff are elevated to such levels by their fans, that I don't think said fans would know when they've been had (I think REM is fucking amazing, btw).

I still personally prefer "rock" to electronica, but I give electronica groups more credit since they have to take the stage, and figuratively fire automatic weapons into the crowd and make them dance and have a good time. Your token rock band gets to play in front of thousands who have probably memorized all of their lyrics and bought into whatever image they've projected, and are generally mindless drones marching on the orders of their dear leader, Mr. or Ms. "Really deep songwriter". Big difference.

Music Rant # 3,455 (b)

A couple days ago while mindlessly touring social networking sites and perusing the updates of people I only pretend to care about, an old friend dedicated a "status message" to the wonders of Jeff Buckley, and in the comments section was having a back and forth with someone I didn't know about whether or not he was an overrated musician only receiving praise "for dying young".

Like many, I find his cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" breathtaking, but after giving myself several opportunities to enjoy his debut album Grace, and several other scattered tracks, I just never "got it".

To me, Buckley was an attractive dude with average guitar-playing ability and songwriting skills. The only real "eye-opener" (unless you're a female and a sucker for emotional singer-songwriter rocker boys) was his singing; or...well, his vocal range in particular. As a pure singer, even after a million takes and production magic in the recording studio, his voice is unpolished and lacks control, often warbling in unpredictable (which isn't bad in of itself) and needless directions. You can't knock his range and unrestrained power, however, as at times he could make Mariah Carey and Freddy Mercury look pedestrian...but whether it was youth, arrogance, or perhaps a combination of both, he just couldn't harness it for my liking.

The guy could play, I'll give him that. If he were still around today even with the same musical capabilities (which is of a fairly talented person still unsure of how to channel his strengths), I'd see a show if he were playing nearby. That said, while I'd never intentionally poke the eye of a diehard fan with a stick to stroke my e-peen in some useless internet spitfest, I do put myself in the "he's glorified too much because he died" camp. He left behind only enough music to show he had potential, but even then that potential, from what I can honestly gather, was of "a dude who someday could REALLY know how to sing". The actual music he left behind in my mind was not much more intellectually and muscially challenging than other pop stuff put out in the mid-90's by bands such as, say, The Wallflowers.

Way back in high school, I remember watching a film in class where a song by Buckley was played in the background. "Such a great musician" some classmate uttered.

"More like a great voice" our teacher, albeit somewhat smugly, responded.

I agree with the latter.

We Be Trafficking People...

I've been pretty stagnant of late (going a few months w/o a job has a funny way of putting a clamp on your expenses), so after scurrying around the eastern seaboard of both the U.S and Canada for Christmas and New Years, my ass has been planted here in Seattle for months and I've probably wandered at most 20 miles away in any direction for any sort of activity. If you know me, that's not me. I'm no global jetsetter by any means, but I used to be that guy who would grab a friend and drive four hours to Montreal for a weekend for no reason, or hop a plane to Phoenix because I know a guy and a really good restaurant there. Even spending a few nice days outside and partaking in some fun shit here and there in the area still gives me a horrid case of cabin fever if there wasn't a random excursion to Calgary, Baja, or SOMETHING mixed in. I don't like hanging out in airports, but being in one is a great sign.

Now that money is coming in again, I'm doing my best to stimulate the economy, or more importantly, the airline industry. I have a couple weekend trips back East for some stuff in the works, and am working out the kinks to go for at least a week down in Belize next coming winter. The coolest thing on my agenda however does not in any way resemble a vacation, or something "fun" on the surface. It's actually 'Serious Business'.

The first Global Forum on Human Trafficking is taking place in Carlsbad, Ca this coming October. I've been a member of Not For Sale for awhile, dating back to college, but like many liberal, white-guilt ridden new adults who glob on to any cause that makes them feel important, once I left school I did a crappy job of keeping up with it (and other orgs). Bills, jobs, weird girlfriends, relocations...hell, LIFE, has a funny way of making things you once viewed as important take a back seat. You stop buying the merchandise, and the e-newsletters over time magically get sent to your junk folder. Since I spent most of January and February on my ass dicking around online, a friend mentioned something to me through IM and my brain starting working, which is a rare occurence in of itself. A couple phone calls to old friends from school whom, like me, let this fall by the wayside, reinvigorated that old eager-to-save-the-world self of mine (to be fair, we mostly exchanged "I can't BELIEVE you slept with that chick!" stories, but it came up. Like, once, during a conversation. But still).

Had an email correspondence recently with a heavily-invested Seattle member, and while quite frankly she annoys me a little, I can tell her intentions are sound and she's worth working with closely. For an organization as large and with such an international reach and political capital, the "foot soldier" contigent here in the States is actually quite pathetic in comparison to other countries (I noticed in particular some South American countries are very well represented and organized). Hopefully this gets corrected, and soon.