"I'd rather go back to Jew York. I thought the blacks in Baltimore were bad, but these San Francisco queers.... oooo weee."
Kenny Powers
A fascinating phenomenon that you may have noticed that has come about as part of our culture of equality and fairness, is the use of equal opportunity discrimination and derogation. It is a well-settled faux pas, bordering on crime in some circles to isolate and derogate any particular ethnic, religious, handicapped, sexually-oriented, or otherwise protected group of people. However, if you are so inclined to use a particular group to fuel your personal comic desires, it is now perfectly acceptable, as long as you treat all of the major groups equally. The entertainment industry the most fertile ground upon which this new phenomenon has been demonstrated. Take for example, Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay. In my estimation, certainly the most ignorant movie I have ever observed. Aside from the parts of that involved grotesque suggestions of homosexual prison sex-acts, and shamelessly disgusting displays of male genitals, its kinda funny, if only for its ballsiness. In short order, you can see a relentless detective try to pry information from a black witness by threatening to pour out the contents of a can of grape soda right in front of his face. In the background you hear one of the onlookers yell "Ask him if he's got any kool-aid." He later employed a similar pour out trick in the interrogation room, only this time with two jewish boys, and swapping out the grape soda for a jar full of pennies. To which one of the young fellas instantly responds, "Only seven dollars?"
Or take The Boondocks. A coouple jewels from that wild little cartoon.
Ann Coulter - "If black people don't want to get arrested so much, maybe they should stop riding around in stolen cars."
Over the Airport Loudspeaker - "While on Airport property, please refrain from looking Muslim at all times."
Eastbound and Down... You see how Kenny Powers wants to carry it. All you gotta do is spread the love, and no one can call you racist.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Dudes and Facebook Status Updates
I have said before that I think it is really unnecessary, and rather effeminate for a man to spend a surplus of time on facebook. For one thing, it really is set up to cater more towards women. Photo albums, and new profile pics, and updates on peoples personal business, and instant chats. (Did we really need another medium of instant internet communication? Fuck no.) The whole thing is really just one big public exercise in vanity.
Prior to the days of the internet this whole arena of social customs was typically reserved to women, and the softer, more gossipy variety of males that normal dudes spent a good amount of time making fun of in high school. I mean really before facebook when was the last time a dude showed you pictures he took of himself doing anything? If your answer is never, congratulations you probably have normal male peers in your life.
But it's one thing to be on facebook, after all there are broads on facebook and dudes will go wherever the broads are, that's the nature of things. But it starts to become a bit too much when dudes assimilate so much to the largely feminized facebook culture that they start to do shit that they really need not do. Case in point, status updates. Now I can let the odd update slide here and there if something notable happens, but other than that how much shit goes on during the course of your day that you think is so fucking special that everyone else needs to know about it? A man should have no need to do hourly, daily, or even semi-daily status updates on facebook that shit is girly. Seriously? What real man that you respect do you know that has so much shit he wants to tell you about his day that he would deliberately get on an online social networking site, type that dumb ass shit, and post it for all his buddies to see? And if he does choose to do this, it better be the funniest shit I've ever seen in my life, otherwise you've just entered the realm of the man-turned-bitch. If you are updating your facebook status routinely, you are a bitch. Who the fuck cares what you're doing?
As a man, you should be at work, or school. And if you're at either one of these places I already know what the fuck is going on, and so does every other man on the planet who isn't a bitch. You're at work, work/class sucks, you're hungry, you saw a hot ass chick with some big breasts and a fat ass that you want to fuck but probably won't, and now you're ready to go home. It really is that simple.
It's always been socially acceptable for girls/women to have more to say about their day to day operations. Look no further than your own relationships, or your parents, or even TV. That beer commercial where the chick comes home and wants to "vent" and her knucklehead dude thinks she's talking about some stupid fucking beer can with a slot in it. (By the way this is how you know you make a shit product if you have to try to sell people on the fucking container it comes in.) But all she wanted to do was tell him about her day, cause her day is much more dramatic than his. How? I have no fucking idea but I don't care, that's the way it is, and we should leave it that way. But this is no excuse for men to start bitching about their days, nobody wants to hear that shit. A grown man whining? Fuck that. You shouldn't do it in real life, and you shouldn't do it on the internet. Keep that shit to yourself and man the fuck up.
I'm out.
Prior to the days of the internet this whole arena of social customs was typically reserved to women, and the softer, more gossipy variety of males that normal dudes spent a good amount of time making fun of in high school. I mean really before facebook when was the last time a dude showed you pictures he took of himself doing anything? If your answer is never, congratulations you probably have normal male peers in your life.
But it's one thing to be on facebook, after all there are broads on facebook and dudes will go wherever the broads are, that's the nature of things. But it starts to become a bit too much when dudes assimilate so much to the largely feminized facebook culture that they start to do shit that they really need not do. Case in point, status updates. Now I can let the odd update slide here and there if something notable happens, but other than that how much shit goes on during the course of your day that you think is so fucking special that everyone else needs to know about it? A man should have no need to do hourly, daily, or even semi-daily status updates on facebook that shit is girly. Seriously? What real man that you respect do you know that has so much shit he wants to tell you about his day that he would deliberately get on an online social networking site, type that dumb ass shit, and post it for all his buddies to see? And if he does choose to do this, it better be the funniest shit I've ever seen in my life, otherwise you've just entered the realm of the man-turned-bitch. If you are updating your facebook status routinely, you are a bitch. Who the fuck cares what you're doing?
As a man, you should be at work, or school. And if you're at either one of these places I already know what the fuck is going on, and so does every other man on the planet who isn't a bitch. You're at work, work/class sucks, you're hungry, you saw a hot ass chick with some big breasts and a fat ass that you want to fuck but probably won't, and now you're ready to go home. It really is that simple.
It's always been socially acceptable for girls/women to have more to say about their day to day operations. Look no further than your own relationships, or your parents, or even TV. That beer commercial where the chick comes home and wants to "vent" and her knucklehead dude thinks she's talking about some stupid fucking beer can with a slot in it. (By the way this is how you know you make a shit product if you have to try to sell people on the fucking container it comes in.) But all she wanted to do was tell him about her day, cause her day is much more dramatic than his. How? I have no fucking idea but I don't care, that's the way it is, and we should leave it that way. But this is no excuse for men to start bitching about their days, nobody wants to hear that shit. A grown man whining? Fuck that. You shouldn't do it in real life, and you shouldn't do it on the internet. Keep that shit to yourself and man the fuck up.
I'm out.
Monday, March 16, 2009
postscript: a view from the streets
Just in case you couldn't narrow it down to 2 like they tell you on standardized multiple choice tests, they put up this big fucking billboard to let you know that help is here. I know some people have fucked up situations to deal with, but I can't get past the idea that we're all just becoming a little too complacent to reckless behavior when we start advertising partial remedies to people's parental fuck-ups like it's ok to just be out in these streets acting like scumbags. And if you happen to be the dude on the other side of this poster, praying that it was one of the other dudes she was fucking that knocked her up instead of you, learn a lesson, don't be a dickhead. Just cause your parents fucked up, doesn't mean you gotta go and fuck up the next round of kids.
This place should not even have to exist. I understand CPCs as they are called are actually in the business of talking girls out of abortions, but how are they just gonna call it a crisis pregnancy center? The whole notion is depressing and it made my stomach hurt a little bit to think that this is how far we've come as people. This particular venue is in a predominantly Mexican neighborhood on the east side, sandwiched right between the local high school and the main branch of the free library. School, library, crisis pregnancy center. God help us all.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Observations from Baltimore City
Everyday it seems something funny, revealing, or otherwise noteworthy happens in everyday life, here are just a few that I noticed.
A few weeks ago, on the front page of the Baltimore Sun was the city police department complimenting itself on a job well done with one of the biggest drug busts in recent memory in a city noted for having very little impact on its pandemic drug problem. On the front page was a picture of 40 kilograms of cocaine that was seized and spread out all over the table, around a long stack of 100, 50, and 20 dollar bills. "About $11,000 in cash was recovered along with the drugs; no weapons were found. Police are consulting with federal authorities to determine the next steps in the investigation." Now my knowledge of the illegal drug trade is admittedly rather amateur, but what I do know is this. The police kicked down the door of a major drug operation with almost 90 pounds of coke on the premises, and came away with 11 grand cash? Who are these people talking to? This is not even believable, if you're buying that much cocaine, probably turning it into crack and selling it on the streets of Baltimore, 11,000 isn't even believable street money. They could have at least done the public the service of pretending they weren't some scraping off the top crooked ass dickheads. But hey, it's a recession.
On a disheartening note, this encounter was observed.
While driving on Baltimore Street, two girls who apparently hadn't seen each other for a while ran into each other on the sidewalk. The exchange:
"Hey girl, how you doing?"
"I'm good, I had an abortion yesterday, I'm bout to go get something to eat now."
Wow. Just rolled off her tongue like it was a routine check-up, like an oil change. An abortion. Good grief. This is where we're at?
A few weeks ago, on the front page of the Baltimore Sun was the city police department complimenting itself on a job well done with one of the biggest drug busts in recent memory in a city noted for having very little impact on its pandemic drug problem. On the front page was a picture of 40 kilograms of cocaine that was seized and spread out all over the table, around a long stack of 100, 50, and 20 dollar bills. "About $11,000 in cash was recovered along with the drugs; no weapons were found. Police are consulting with federal authorities to determine the next steps in the investigation." Now my knowledge of the illegal drug trade is admittedly rather amateur, but what I do know is this. The police kicked down the door of a major drug operation with almost 90 pounds of coke on the premises, and came away with 11 grand cash? Who are these people talking to? This is not even believable, if you're buying that much cocaine, probably turning it into crack and selling it on the streets of Baltimore, 11,000 isn't even believable street money. They could have at least done the public the service of pretending they weren't some scraping off the top crooked ass dickheads. But hey, it's a recession.
On a disheartening note, this encounter was observed.
While driving on Baltimore Street, two girls who apparently hadn't seen each other for a while ran into each other on the sidewalk. The exchange:
"Hey girl, how you doing?"
"I'm good, I had an abortion yesterday, I'm bout to go get something to eat now."
Wow. Just rolled off her tongue like it was a routine check-up, like an oil change. An abortion. Good grief. This is where we're at?
Monday, March 09, 2009
A Man must have a Code
"There is no shame in the world, and without shame, you cannot have honor. We live in a world ruled by consensus."
-Milius
This is what I think. Everyone needs to have a code, a set of standards for themselves that set a bare minimum of expectations below which they will not venture. I think shamelessness has yielded the most critical wounds of cultural sin to our collective humanity. A person's sense of their own self and the meaning they convey through to those around them may be all that separates us from the brutish realities of unkempt human nature. Pure self-interest, moral isolation, and complete social de-evolution. It would be impossible for anything resembling a real society to exist under an atmosphere so inhospitable to cooperation, and upon parched land purged of all the fluidity of thought imbued through the ability to let life's lessons guide future decisions to a better end. It is the perspective of our own selves as members of a society, accountable to more than just our own individual interests that we seek to protect when we hold ourselves to admittedly difficult standards. But the case has always been that some of us require only the immediate, instantly gratifying comforts that really only come when we choose to regulate our behavior based on nothing beyond ease and impulse.
I know many people like this. I know few people who actually hold themselves accountable to a thoughtful purpose. It doesn't have to be anything grandiose or transcendent in scale, but just humanistic. Something that will allow you to preserve your sense of dignity, and not require constant reinforcement and external validation in order for you to carry it. If you can't carry your own life in a dignified manner without giving yourself over to purely self-serving, hedonistic interests, what kind of world are you leaving for the one's that come next, our own children even? I think having a code in life, no matter how big or small, is all that really separates us from the people we encounter in life who we thank God we are not, and to whom we can only hope our own children don't assimilate.
-Milius
This is what I think. Everyone needs to have a code, a set of standards for themselves that set a bare minimum of expectations below which they will not venture. I think shamelessness has yielded the most critical wounds of cultural sin to our collective humanity. A person's sense of their own self and the meaning they convey through to those around them may be all that separates us from the brutish realities of unkempt human nature. Pure self-interest, moral isolation, and complete social de-evolution. It would be impossible for anything resembling a real society to exist under an atmosphere so inhospitable to cooperation, and upon parched land purged of all the fluidity of thought imbued through the ability to let life's lessons guide future decisions to a better end. It is the perspective of our own selves as members of a society, accountable to more than just our own individual interests that we seek to protect when we hold ourselves to admittedly difficult standards. But the case has always been that some of us require only the immediate, instantly gratifying comforts that really only come when we choose to regulate our behavior based on nothing beyond ease and impulse.
I know many people like this. I know few people who actually hold themselves accountable to a thoughtful purpose. It doesn't have to be anything grandiose or transcendent in scale, but just humanistic. Something that will allow you to preserve your sense of dignity, and not require constant reinforcement and external validation in order for you to carry it. If you can't carry your own life in a dignified manner without giving yourself over to purely self-serving, hedonistic interests, what kind of world are you leaving for the one's that come next, our own children even? I think having a code in life, no matter how big or small, is all that really separates us from the people we encounter in life who we thank God we are not, and to whom we can only hope our own children don't assimilate.
Sunday, March 01, 2009
The Name Game Part 2: some other shit that makes me mad
You can't just make up a name and wrap it around some idea, and then push it in my face like it has some kind of credibility just because it can be addressed. If you go to cnn.com, and scroll down to the headlines by section and look under special coverage, you will see "The First 100 days: Track the issues and policies." What the fuck does that mean? The first hundred days? This dude is the President, and he's black. The first 100 days? Like on day 101, the entire worldwide news media is gonna crawl out of this man's ass and just let him do his job without reporting every statement he makes, every wave, every gesture, it's amazing he finds time to fart without somebody catching it on tape. Now I understand, he's the President, he's gonna get watched, fine. But call it what it is. Reporters and media people, doing their fucking job. Trying to get all fancy and shit. Like people are sitting around the dinner table asking each other, "So have you checked on the first 100 days lately? No? You gotta read the first 100, there's not ever gonna be another first 100 days, and you know the 2nd hundred isn't gonna be nearly as good cause it's almost impossible to make a good sequel these days." These people are too much.
Here's another one that I find hilarious, "The B n' T". New York is notorious for this shit. It's probably the center of the, we-gotta-word-for-it-now, so-it's-cool-and-you-should-use-it, and-if you-don't-know-what-it-means, you're-a-sambo-and-a-coon mentality. The B n' T is the term they use for non-Manhattanites. The people that use the bridges and tunnels to come in for the evening, and use them again to leave after they've emptied their wallets and have nothing to show for it but a debit card statement that reads like a trail bread crumbs of from cabs, to bars, and restaurants all over the city, only the bread is real. Or at least it was, now it is gone. And then that's what they got for me once I go? Looking at the back of my head as I leave, snickering cause I'm a B n' T? I can't do it. That place is crazy, it drives me crazy. It drives everyone crazy eventually I think, the only difference is how fast it happens. Nobody's really from manhattan anyway, but even so. Did you really need another word for tourists?
Here's another one that I find hilarious, "The B n' T". New York is notorious for this shit. It's probably the center of the, we-gotta-word-for-it-now, so-it's-cool-and-you-should-use-it, and-if you-don't-know-what-it-means, you're-a-sambo-and-a-coon mentality. The B n' T is the term they use for non-Manhattanites. The people that use the bridges and tunnels to come in for the evening, and use them again to leave after they've emptied their wallets and have nothing to show for it but a debit card statement that reads like a trail bread crumbs of from cabs, to bars, and restaurants all over the city, only the bread is real. Or at least it was, now it is gone. And then that's what they got for me once I go? Looking at the back of my head as I leave, snickering cause I'm a B n' T? I can't do it. That place is crazy, it drives me crazy. It drives everyone crazy eventually I think, the only difference is how fast it happens. Nobody's really from manhattan anyway, but even so. Did you really need another word for tourists?
The Name Game Part 1: Swagger
"dumb shit, by any other name..."
We have a lot of dumb shit in our culture. Fortunately for those who produce and profit from dumb shit, we have an abundance of dickheads and morons that come in many different varieties that are more than happy to absorb the dumb shit and nonsense into their lives. But in order for the dumb shit and nonsense to achieve optimal absorption in the minds of your common dickhead, it must have a name. Preferably simple, and containing as few syllables as possible for the memory-challenged. Sometimes, those in the dumb shit and nonsense industry can even get away with putting a new name on an old dumb shit concept.
Swagger. If you look it up, the noun swagger is defined as an ostentatious display of arrogance or conceit. In its verb form, it is to boast, or brag noisily. All very desirable characteristics, no doubt. But my beef with this word comes from its common employment among the young pop crowd. If questioned as to the meaning of this word in its everyday sense, the common dickhead will offer a variety of definitions. A few samples: "It's like a attitude."; "Confidence."; "It's kinda like sexiness with a thug appeal." I've heard Lebron has it, I've heard Obama has it, I've heard Denzel Washington has it, I've even heard Tyler Hansbrough has it. So, aside from success, what the fuck is it?
Urbandictionary.com, (which I can't even believe is real), says swagger is a person's style, the way they walk, talk, dress. But it seems to me we already had plenty of words for all of this shit, words that were much more clear, much more sensible, and much less irresponsibly thrown about as if we're all gonna go through swagger withdrawal if we can't use the word at least 7 times a day. The word and all of it's equally obnoxious permutations are omnipresent in popular media: swag, swagnificent, first-team all swag, swaggalacity. I find it even funnier that as I'm writing this, the little squiggly line that shows up when the computer doesn't recognize a word isn't showing up under notta one swag derivative. This shit is retarded. People measure themselves against this concept. A word with an at best ambiguous meaning, that is almost exclusively used by people who should be anything but arrogant, conceited, or modeled after. A while ago I asked a girl I know from the corniest county in Maryland just exactly how she defines that word, and she responded, "You don't know cause you ain't got it." Maybe, but I feel quite comfortable not needing to have made up definitions of words that are easier for rappers to rhyme with to describe myself. That shits childish. My man Mike might have put it best, "...maybe you're right, I don't have swagger. I guess I'm stuck with manhood."
We have a lot of dumb shit in our culture. Fortunately for those who produce and profit from dumb shit, we have an abundance of dickheads and morons that come in many different varieties that are more than happy to absorb the dumb shit and nonsense into their lives. But in order for the dumb shit and nonsense to achieve optimal absorption in the minds of your common dickhead, it must have a name. Preferably simple, and containing as few syllables as possible for the memory-challenged. Sometimes, those in the dumb shit and nonsense industry can even get away with putting a new name on an old dumb shit concept.
Swagger. If you look it up, the noun swagger is defined as an ostentatious display of arrogance or conceit. In its verb form, it is to boast, or brag noisily. All very desirable characteristics, no doubt. But my beef with this word comes from its common employment among the young pop crowd. If questioned as to the meaning of this word in its everyday sense, the common dickhead will offer a variety of definitions. A few samples: "It's like a attitude."; "Confidence."; "It's kinda like sexiness with a thug appeal." I've heard Lebron has it, I've heard Obama has it, I've heard Denzel Washington has it, I've even heard Tyler Hansbrough has it. So, aside from success, what the fuck is it?
Urbandictionary.com, (which I can't even believe is real), says swagger is a person's style, the way they walk, talk, dress. But it seems to me we already had plenty of words for all of this shit, words that were much more clear, much more sensible, and much less irresponsibly thrown about as if we're all gonna go through swagger withdrawal if we can't use the word at least 7 times a day. The word and all of it's equally obnoxious permutations are omnipresent in popular media: swag, swagnificent, first-team all swag, swaggalacity. I find it even funnier that as I'm writing this, the little squiggly line that shows up when the computer doesn't recognize a word isn't showing up under notta one swag derivative. This shit is retarded. People measure themselves against this concept. A word with an at best ambiguous meaning, that is almost exclusively used by people who should be anything but arrogant, conceited, or modeled after. A while ago I asked a girl I know from the corniest county in Maryland just exactly how she defines that word, and she responded, "You don't know cause you ain't got it." Maybe, but I feel quite comfortable not needing to have made up definitions of words that are easier for rappers to rhyme with to describe myself. That shits childish. My man Mike might have put it best, "...maybe you're right, I don't have swagger. I guess I'm stuck with manhood."
Sunday, February 22, 2009
freud?
--Word to the wise - some of the imagery contained herein is somewhat disturbing to myself, but I feel the urge to write it all out anyway. Any viewers who would rather not peer into a strange mind at rest, feel free to pass on this one.--
This is an odd venue to get into dreams and shit, but sometimes I'm just struck by the things that the mind creates while the body rests.
I never really gave much thought to what it meant when I heard people say they woke up in a sweat. It happened the other night, and aside from being disgusting, and disruptive to any further sleep I would get, it was an interesting experience.
I remember when I had just woken up, before I had even given any thought to why I was so hot, one of the first things that came to my mind was hell. That's what it felt like in my mind just a short while ago. I don't know how other people's dreams work, but mine have a rather staccato, shifty quality of imagery to them, so to anyone who is still reading this, bear with me.
Imagine riding along a dark dirt road at night, surrounded by thin mats of shrubbery high enough to conceal a man standing. It must have been one of those open-top safari style jeeps, I don't know who was driving, but I was riding in the back, and it was a little bumpy. We came around a bend, and the brush cover got gradually thicker, growing into full on forest as you got further away from the road. There was a faint glow as of a campfire all around bordering the road and the GI Joe style army tents which were scattered into the distance. All of a sudden, I knew I was out of place, but I wasn't sure if they knew. There were people, disgruntled, beaten looking soldiers sitting on makeshift chairs outside of their tents. Then there was the clatter of automatic gunfire, in no particular direction, but coming from all around me the further we drove on the road. One got the sense of anger, hostility aimed at no particular place, just unabashed disdain. Enmity.
It looked like there was just as likely to be any number of wild carnivorous predators of the African bush-country on the receiving end of that fire than anything else, but any of God's creatures would have long since perished in the face of such incessant, hateful discharge of assault weaponry. Suddenly I had a gun myself. Something like an M-16, it felt almost weightless in my hands. The broken faces and tattooed necks of shaven female marines stared back at me with meaningless eyes, discerning if I was a foe. I don't think they were shooting each other, but I don't think they had any friends either. I figured as long as I held my weapon close as if I was ready to use it I was safe. Relatively. I had no idea what I was supposed to be shooting at. But I feared if I shot at nothing, they would know I wasn't one of them, and that certainly be bad. As if by some natural reaction to the rising tension, I remembered I could fly, or rather, slowly begin to rise from the back of the jeep like a hot air balloon, and head for the relative safety of one of the high tree tops. When I got a few feet off the ground I realized that my latest trick would surely blow my cover if spotted. One of the bald-headed, soul-less eyed lady marines glanced up at me with the deliberation of a hollywood zombie. Before she had a chance to raise her rifle I instinctively put one in her face from about 50 feet in the air, it felt less personal from that distance. I quickly glanced around my periphery to see if anyone had noticed the lone shot amongst the background cacophony that broke up the otherwise deafening silence of a vast unknown wilderness. I reached a perch in the trees where I thought I would be able to get a better view and discern what was happening. But I never managed to turn my glance from the body that barely moved as I dispatched the life it contained. The chaos continued.
Then suddenly, my safe perch in the tree became a safe perch up in a high window sill, in my 10th grade study hall room back at Gilman. The ceiling was much higher for some reason, and I was still in hiding, but the soldiers were now teachers and deans from my old school that I didn't recognize. I glanced to my left and up on the ledge with me was my dog Django. I shuffled to hide his presence behind a makeshift curtain that was clearly too small to conceal either of us. My sense of danger heightened as the activity in the room below increased. I sensed if they saw me, it would be curtains for both of us, why I don't know. But there was a writing. An assignment that I had turned in, perhaps that was what they were looking for. I knew it was brilliant. If only they would read it, they would spare me my torturous fate as they could now see my value. It worked. As if by magic they had read it, and they loved it. And I glided down from my perch like a bird of prey, not a single flap of my arms, just gliding. And there was peace.
But I woke up in a sweat, and terrified.
This is an odd venue to get into dreams and shit, but sometimes I'm just struck by the things that the mind creates while the body rests.
I never really gave much thought to what it meant when I heard people say they woke up in a sweat. It happened the other night, and aside from being disgusting, and disruptive to any further sleep I would get, it was an interesting experience.
I remember when I had just woken up, before I had even given any thought to why I was so hot, one of the first things that came to my mind was hell. That's what it felt like in my mind just a short while ago. I don't know how other people's dreams work, but mine have a rather staccato, shifty quality of imagery to them, so to anyone who is still reading this, bear with me.
Imagine riding along a dark dirt road at night, surrounded by thin mats of shrubbery high enough to conceal a man standing. It must have been one of those open-top safari style jeeps, I don't know who was driving, but I was riding in the back, and it was a little bumpy. We came around a bend, and the brush cover got gradually thicker, growing into full on forest as you got further away from the road. There was a faint glow as of a campfire all around bordering the road and the GI Joe style army tents which were scattered into the distance. All of a sudden, I knew I was out of place, but I wasn't sure if they knew. There were people, disgruntled, beaten looking soldiers sitting on makeshift chairs outside of their tents. Then there was the clatter of automatic gunfire, in no particular direction, but coming from all around me the further we drove on the road. One got the sense of anger, hostility aimed at no particular place, just unabashed disdain. Enmity.
It looked like there was just as likely to be any number of wild carnivorous predators of the African bush-country on the receiving end of that fire than anything else, but any of God's creatures would have long since perished in the face of such incessant, hateful discharge of assault weaponry. Suddenly I had a gun myself. Something like an M-16, it felt almost weightless in my hands. The broken faces and tattooed necks of shaven female marines stared back at me with meaningless eyes, discerning if I was a foe. I don't think they were shooting each other, but I don't think they had any friends either. I figured as long as I held my weapon close as if I was ready to use it I was safe. Relatively. I had no idea what I was supposed to be shooting at. But I feared if I shot at nothing, they would know I wasn't one of them, and that certainly be bad. As if by some natural reaction to the rising tension, I remembered I could fly, or rather, slowly begin to rise from the back of the jeep like a hot air balloon, and head for the relative safety of one of the high tree tops. When I got a few feet off the ground I realized that my latest trick would surely blow my cover if spotted. One of the bald-headed, soul-less eyed lady marines glanced up at me with the deliberation of a hollywood zombie. Before she had a chance to raise her rifle I instinctively put one in her face from about 50 feet in the air, it felt less personal from that distance. I quickly glanced around my periphery to see if anyone had noticed the lone shot amongst the background cacophony that broke up the otherwise deafening silence of a vast unknown wilderness. I reached a perch in the trees where I thought I would be able to get a better view and discern what was happening. But I never managed to turn my glance from the body that barely moved as I dispatched the life it contained. The chaos continued.
Then suddenly, my safe perch in the tree became a safe perch up in a high window sill, in my 10th grade study hall room back at Gilman. The ceiling was much higher for some reason, and I was still in hiding, but the soldiers were now teachers and deans from my old school that I didn't recognize. I glanced to my left and up on the ledge with me was my dog Django. I shuffled to hide his presence behind a makeshift curtain that was clearly too small to conceal either of us. My sense of danger heightened as the activity in the room below increased. I sensed if they saw me, it would be curtains for both of us, why I don't know. But there was a writing. An assignment that I had turned in, perhaps that was what they were looking for. I knew it was brilliant. If only they would read it, they would spare me my torturous fate as they could now see my value. It worked. As if by magic they had read it, and they loved it. And I glided down from my perch like a bird of prey, not a single flap of my arms, just gliding. And there was peace.
But I woke up in a sweat, and terrified.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Complete Freedom, and the Internet. Too Much.
"Call it a crisis of leadership."
-Prop Joe
I don't think our collective people are grasping the gravity of the situation of our growing wildness and lack of respect and reverence for pretty much everything. A 22 year old girl, woman, whatever you want to call her made national headlines for her apparently successful attempts to auction off her very own virginity to the highest bidder. That high bid has supposedly hit a whopping 3.8 million USD. I don't know anything else about this girl, I'm assuming she has or at least had parents inasmuch as people don't come about through spontaneous creation like Athena springing forth fully formed from Zeus's forehead. Aside from the fact that any parental figure she ever had in her life clearly made a few wrong turns, I think it speaks volumes to the condition we presently find ourselves in as a people that this kind of thing happens, and then becomes news, making her famous. Famous for reducing what was at one point a valuable personal characteristic, perhaps the most valuable of one's youth, to little more than a cash transaction slightly more complicated than selecting a stale donut for purchase out of the big display case in your local Seven Eleven. Slide her some bills, and she will tender her previously unsavaged loins. I realize that such a transaction is hardly original, but to reduce it to the same medium that people use to buy songs on iTunes, order a few Netflix, or stream a little illicit pornography they'd be a little too embarrased to purchase if it involved looking a cashier in the face just makes it that much more caustic of a notion to me.
Another fascinating tidbit of our times was drawn to my attention a few weeks ago. A little google searching revealed information suggesting that this next horrific episode may have orignally been a hoax depending on the level of credibility you lend to wikipedia. However, even if it originally was a hoax, what I know of the modern human mind in this age of the internet leads me to believe that even if it wasn't real before, someone, probably many someones have defnitely imported this horror from the internet into the real world off of nothing more than the strength of it having been embodied in the depths of youtube. If one enters the search term "jenkem", or "butt hash" as it is popularly referred to, they will find what I believe is the absolute worst thing the world has ever known. The singular moment in which the concept first entered someones mind to fashion a drug out of human waste must in my estimation be the moment that God was waiting for before he finally washed his hands of the whole operation, and began to reach for the flusher. I just don't know how much more there is for us to do that hasn't been done, and that could possibly be more terrible than this, and any number of other horrific images and ideas that have passed through my frontal lobe for no other reason than the internet. Whatever they come up with next, I know for sure I don't want to see it. And I certainly don't want it to come off of the computer screen into the real world, my world, or anyone elses. I think we're gonna need a conscious effort to fight off the urge to take advantage of our bountiful, if not excessive freedom to do damn near whatever. Anything else, and we are dancing with some pretty ugly possibilities. I can't imagine what the world is going to look like in the age of my children should I be so fortunate and fertile. But I do know we're gonna need some help to make it that far. A whole lot of it. We need more parents, real parents. We need more guidance, we need more thought, sober thought and that's coming from a 26 year old who drinks scotch like your average grandfather of the Korean War/Vietnam age. We need teachers, educators, people need role models, even the adults. Something isn't working right it seems. I don't know what else to do except try to talk about it in a sensible fashion, because there's no reason that I should be able to buy a virgin online, and no one should have ever even thought about anything called butt hash, much less published a video about it or tried it. We need to start thinking about these things a little more. Maybe we need a little less freedom.
-Prop Joe
I don't think our collective people are grasping the gravity of the situation of our growing wildness and lack of respect and reverence for pretty much everything. A 22 year old girl, woman, whatever you want to call her made national headlines for her apparently successful attempts to auction off her very own virginity to the highest bidder. That high bid has supposedly hit a whopping 3.8 million USD. I don't know anything else about this girl, I'm assuming she has or at least had parents inasmuch as people don't come about through spontaneous creation like Athena springing forth fully formed from Zeus's forehead. Aside from the fact that any parental figure she ever had in her life clearly made a few wrong turns, I think it speaks volumes to the condition we presently find ourselves in as a people that this kind of thing happens, and then becomes news, making her famous. Famous for reducing what was at one point a valuable personal characteristic, perhaps the most valuable of one's youth, to little more than a cash transaction slightly more complicated than selecting a stale donut for purchase out of the big display case in your local Seven Eleven. Slide her some bills, and she will tender her previously unsavaged loins. I realize that such a transaction is hardly original, but to reduce it to the same medium that people use to buy songs on iTunes, order a few Netflix, or stream a little illicit pornography they'd be a little too embarrased to purchase if it involved looking a cashier in the face just makes it that much more caustic of a notion to me.
Another fascinating tidbit of our times was drawn to my attention a few weeks ago. A little google searching revealed information suggesting that this next horrific episode may have orignally been a hoax depending on the level of credibility you lend to wikipedia. However, even if it originally was a hoax, what I know of the modern human mind in this age of the internet leads me to believe that even if it wasn't real before, someone, probably many someones have defnitely imported this horror from the internet into the real world off of nothing more than the strength of it having been embodied in the depths of youtube. If one enters the search term "jenkem", or "butt hash" as it is popularly referred to, they will find what I believe is the absolute worst thing the world has ever known. The singular moment in which the concept first entered someones mind to fashion a drug out of human waste must in my estimation be the moment that God was waiting for before he finally washed his hands of the whole operation, and began to reach for the flusher. I just don't know how much more there is for us to do that hasn't been done, and that could possibly be more terrible than this, and any number of other horrific images and ideas that have passed through my frontal lobe for no other reason than the internet. Whatever they come up with next, I know for sure I don't want to see it. And I certainly don't want it to come off of the computer screen into the real world, my world, or anyone elses. I think we're gonna need a conscious effort to fight off the urge to take advantage of our bountiful, if not excessive freedom to do damn near whatever. Anything else, and we are dancing with some pretty ugly possibilities. I can't imagine what the world is going to look like in the age of my children should I be so fortunate and fertile. But I do know we're gonna need some help to make it that far. A whole lot of it. We need more parents, real parents. We need more guidance, we need more thought, sober thought and that's coming from a 26 year old who drinks scotch like your average grandfather of the Korean War/Vietnam age. We need teachers, educators, people need role models, even the adults. Something isn't working right it seems. I don't know what else to do except try to talk about it in a sensible fashion, because there's no reason that I should be able to buy a virgin online, and no one should have ever even thought about anything called butt hash, much less published a video about it or tried it. We need to start thinking about these things a little more. Maybe we need a little less freedom.
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