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.

More Useless Opinions on Music

Once on my old blog, I wrote a fairly long-winded post on the "Five albums I'd take with me on a deserted island." After listening to some older tunes recently, here comes the follow up; "Five worst albums by otherwise good bands."

Radiohead: Pablo Honey

- "Anyone can play Guitar", "You", and "Stop Whispering" notwithstanding, their debut effort was full of sophomoric lyrics, muddled string arrangements (with the exception of the boring, any-garage-band-can-cover "Creep"), and Thom Yorke's near Rivers Cuomo-like tendency of including some real embarrassing shit about himself that no one needed to hear. Luckily, I was already really into The Bends before I really gave this album a good listen the first time around, and knew that these boys were actually capable of writing intelligent songs about politics, the age of technology, and...well, more than teenage angst (even though they were already in their mid-20's when it came out) riddled with "look at me!!!" grunge/Pixies wannabe drivel. It's not a bad album, really, but only average at best standing on its own, and more importantly just fucking awful when compared to the rest of their catalogue.

Pearl Jam: Binaural

-This album failed for me for a completely different reason; it was too political for its own good. Vedder and co put so much effort into preaching social and political commentary (okay, I get it, the US really sucked at dropping bombs in Eastern Europe) that finding a coherent melody in any track is futile. If they just scrapped all instruments and turned this into a spoken word album, then perhaps I'd dig it while sipping a vanilla latte at Tully's.

Blur: Think Tank

- Actually, not a terrible album at all. I even choose to listen to it on occasion.

Slight problem. A jarring lack of Graham Coxon. Meh. Anything else by them is better

Boards of Canada: The Campfire Headphase

- Their first two major releases were awesome. This is just decent...ly boring. Maybe it's the more prevalent use of guitars. Perhaps Geogaddi and Music has the Right to Children were just 12 kinds of better. Either way, major letdown.

The Pixies: Doolittle

- Perhaps a shocker, but I never understood this album. At all. "Hey", "Here Comes Your Man" and others I find to be very good songs. One problem; they're kind of...well...dare I say radio-friendlyish.

Now, before someone attacks me with a sledgehammer, a more "pop" sounding song doesn't automatically mean I assume someone is selling out, in fact, I doubt this was their intention. But, in case you haven't noticed, Frank Black absolutely fucking sucks as a singer, and is, surprisingly, at his best blaring out-of-tune wails with his jerky lyrics.

Call me a retard, but I enjoy those moments on Surfer Rosa where Frank trails off randomly into improper spanish for no good fucking reason. The straight-ahead rock sound (for the most part) on this particular album just sounds like your run-of-the-mill good alternative music, and the Pixies are not run-of-the-mill; they're one of the most influential bands in recent memory for good reason.

Thousand Mile Stare

You know it when you see it.

Spirit broken, and soul empty. The mind is going at the speed of light, flickering through the myriad of awful images witnessed which brought the person to this horrible conclusion. It's like the body, this now hollow shell, is asking "What is there left to do or say?"

The strange thing was, I didn't see this myself on the battlefield. On the corner of 5th and Cherry this woman just stood there, staring. As corporate types and regular folk alike marched on by, emotionless and stiff she was. I couldn't help and think what brought her to this point; what hand did life deal her which led to such a jarring realization that now standing completely frozen in time became her fate. A strange sadness came over me as I began to piece my own version of what brought her to this place, and suddenly everyone around me seemed to walk slower, and cars once buzzing around us seemed to disappear. Sea gulls one by one began to shut up, and scattered vagrants ducked in alleyways. Before I knew it, literally nothing was in motion, or emitting sound.

Then...*flash*...some impatient motorist blasted their horn, sea gull shit splattered on the ground mere inches from me, and life seemed to re-enter the picture. Also, the woman in question was now halfway through the crosswalk, and I was even able to detect a smile on her face.

At this juncture I realized this woman merely was daydreaming, and I am one giant retard.

Does Your Safeway Have a Hump?

I felt like doing some grocery shopping a half-hour away where there was actually some sunshine (it's been cloudy and foggy by the Sound for awhile now) and I was greeted by a hump.

I'll call him "Humpy".

Oh Canada

I've been in Toronto since the 30th and will be back in Sea-town on either the 7th or 8th (weather permitting; winter in these parts can be terrific).

I actually haven't done much of anything spectacular over the past few weeks. After celebrating Christmas with the folks somewhere in the woods of New England I arrived here, and since I'm trying to keep myself on a budget I've probably spent more time playing video games than anything else.

I have tickets for Maple Leaf and Raptors games before I leave however.

Happy Stuff-Before-End-of-Year

The puget sound is cold, and is not worth jumping in after plentiful amounts of wine.

The rainy-ish season is upon us, which means spending hours looking outside a window trying to correctly guess not only the type of precipitation, but whether or not it's really the spray from a homeless guy taking a leak somewhere.

My balls aren't very talented. They just hang there.

It is hard to incorporate umbrellas and Air Supply CD's in foreplay.

A Haphazard Sense of Wisdom

For some reason, I've been deluged (again) of late by sort-of-friends and past acquaintances about their perceived shitty lives, and the current state of depression they may be in. Depression is a serious thing, but the word gets thrown around a lot. If you get laid and feel better the next morning, you were not depressed. If you stop crying once you leave the Dashboard Confessional concert, you are not depressed. Simply being a mopey son-of-a-bitch does not equal depression. It means you're a mopey son-of-a-bitch.

My advice has always been simple, since I've only found the light in the past year or so. Know yourself. The "meaning of life", nirvana, and whatever hot air philosophical jargon you'd want to use, comes down to identifying within yourself what exactly, above all other things, you should be doing. More importantly, it's not just knowing what it is, but why.

It's not fate; you define it for yourself. If someone asks you "what this thing is" that either drives you or acts a prism which you view all of life through, you should be able to tell them, yet it's not your prerogative to make sure they understand it. It's your voice, it's your "thing". Fuck anybody else who questions it.

The crux of all of this is understanding the why. I can ask any asshole off the street what they do for a living, for instance. Many don't know why they do it. They may shrug and say "it pays well", or "I like it"...but the simple fact they shrugged first tells me they have no fucking clue. There's nothing wrong with that; some people live their lives without thinking about these things. However, if you're feeling depressed, and you can't identify why you chose your line of work (again, for instance, life is more than fucking employment) without a shrug and quick look to the heavens...well, I found one of your answers.

98% of the people I've met who are "depressed" (sometimes their own diagnosis which I question) are so, in my opinion, because they just don't know why the fuck they do things. They're bound by social constructs fueled by their own insecurities, which tell them to do things because, well, "someone" (often greater society) else thinks they should.

Trust me, your relationship dissolving is not the root of the problem. Staring into space while at work because it's sucking the soul of out of you is not the root of the problem. Monetary problems can exacerbate the issue, but again are not the root.

The root of the problem is the fact you don't know who you are, and I suggest you find out quickly.