RoSamBo

11:04 pm: Patriotism is Dumb

Last week my father and I got into a discussion stemming from ABC's "World News Tonight" report about the waterboarding of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.  In his view, which is all too common, the prisoners there are special cases that are exempt to the no torture rule because September 11 was a horrible day and those guys are lawless madmen who will do anything to hurt the American people and we should do anything we can to protect the homeland and besides, who cares about their suffering anyway because September 11 was a horrible day, etc.  He went on to say that although he wishes Obama well, he is sick and tired of his going overseas and bowing down to other countries and apologizing for everything we've ever done because even if we're not perfect we're the greatest country on earth and all of Europe would be high-stepping Nazi style if it weren't for us, etc.  It wasn't heated, but my father was the only one talking for a minute or two by the end of it, his argument spinning into bits before he agreed to disagree with me.

My father is my favorite man on earth and he is rarely fired up about anything, so it was unsettling to hear all his talking in circles with that us-and-them kind of bull.  His view is a common one and is part of a bigger problem-- people believing their own nation, region, religion, or whatever category is 1) a real distinction at all, and 2) something that renders them right no matter the circumstances.  Patriotism is the empty faith that somehow when the U.S. tortures Pakistanis for information, torture is part of a grander scheme to keep its people safe and rid the world of ruthless men; and that when a country like Pakistan tortures an American, it is only then a savage thing-- it is only then that no harm should be inflicted on a prisoner.  Suddenly a prisoner should be told why he is being arrested; he should have access to legal counsel; he should not be tied up or mocked or beaten.  The assumption with that line of thinking is that somehow the American is superior because he was born within certain geographic boundaries.  This is a lie, and a harmful one at that.

I agree that the American prisoner should be treated humanely, but so should any prisoner anywhere-- this is the first step on the way to true justice.  These American Constitutional standards are sound, respectable, just ways of applying the law.  These laws are not superior just because they are in our Constution; they are superior because they make the most sense.  If a person is guilty then our justice system should have no problem trying him fairly.  To torture is to put through false trial, false sentencing and intolerable cruelty.  I do not care about the guilty prisoners at Guantanamo Bay-- may they all burn.  I do not care about violent, maniacal Americans like Timothy McVeigh, either.  Why didn't we arrest him without explaining why or without letting him speak to a lawyer?  Why didn't we torture him to get the names of more white, anti-government nationalists?  Are they worth so much more because they are American?  That's the assumption with patriotism, but I tell you the truth: they are worth the same as murderers anywhere, which is nothing.

I am glad that I live in a country with such guarantees as habeas corpus, the right to an attorney, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, freedom from self-incrimination and double jeopardy, among many other rights.  It is our general respect for the accused that really makes us shine.  I cannot legally be tortured by anyone in this country, which is a great thing.  Our Constitution affords rights to all persons, not just citizens.  We have the rule of law so that when we are sober and sitting through legislative sessions writing boring lines in heavy, slow language we take the time to consider what is right, what is fair, and what constitutes justice and not vengeance.  We should not bend the laws like we did with the Patriot Act (fitting title) when we are still reeling from an attack like September 11.  Torturing prisoners eats away at our credibility as a level-headed, legal-minded, freedom-loving democracy, which is the only grounds we have for fighting ruthless men around the world.  If we are ruthless in doling out justice, then we have defeated our own objectives-- we have admitted that ruthlessness will always have a place in this world.

Patriotism is the magic potion that can make logical in an affected mind any glaring hypocrisy, any gap between what is right and what your country is doing.  It fills in for racism when the enemies aren't all the same color, just all living outside your national borders.  It is egotism, selfishness, laziness, and senselessness.  I am proud of America when it is living up to the values that I hold so dear.  It would be insanity to support it otherwise.

01:34 am: How Can You Still Be A Republican?

I would like to hear any good reason for still being a Republican after that eight-year night terror we've just been through under Li'l Bush.  I will not accept, nor will I acknowledge, any answers that include the usual Stone Age, racist, uber-patriotic, us-versus-them, homophobic, misogynist, neo-Con/neo-Nazi ignorant rot that most of you peddle.  Why not?  Because if you support anything like, "My country, right or wrong," or, "Kill 'em all- let God sort 'em out," then you are arguably subhuman and I don't want to communicate with you.  Plus, I've heard it all before and your tactless, pathetic "fight" with me on here would show just how loathsome your breed can be. 

Instead, could you, a level-headed conservative, explain why you haven't just turned into a Libertarian (which is sometimes a respectable thing to do); or explain why you aren't convinced that the Republican Party is run by the likes of the people I refuse to communicate with, described above?  Is it that you swore you'd never vote for a Democrat but that you'd always vote?  Is it because you think the government under Republican leadership was a small, non-invasive, non-taxing entity that cares about your civil liberties (you're flirting with ignorance here)?  Do you think Obama is actually a socialist and that the only way to "save" "our" country was to vote Republican (you and ignorance are become one).  I am beginning to think a "level-headed conservative" is an impossibility.

Am I such a Democrat, then?  Well I guess so, but only for lack of options.  I have not and will not switch my affiliation from "unaffiliated" because I am not a fan of party politics- at least not two-party politics.  I usually have to vote for the Democrat because it's a good indicator that the candidate is at least less wrong than his or her opponent, the Republican- and less wrong is not a cause worth strong attachment.  Why don't I sign up with the Green Party then?  I actually agree nearly 100% with the tenets of the Green Party, but I can't get behind a movement that has no hope of winning anything in the two-party system that we are stuck with, nor any real answer as to why it should be the government that does absolutely everything to meet those goals.  I do want social justice, a cleaner environment, an end to illegal wars and all that, but I find that those changes are coming about despite powerful opposing interests (Republicans).  That first point- that I can't get behind a party with no chance to win- sounds awful, but I believe the best way to move our government toward the progressive is not through some weak third party but through the liberalization of one of the two parties that always win.  The liberalization of the Democratic Party is ongoing thanks to the work of the tons of journalists that have raised the consciousness of citizens and alerted us to just how perverted the Bush administration was and what a bunch of Amerocentric, out-of-touch pricks the entire Right has become.  Actual fair and balanced coverage (something which the geriatric, xenophobic FOX "News" is completely unfamiliar with) reveals that to be a true moderate one can no longer straddle the line between Republican and Democrat, but must be in the middle of the Democratic Party.  The trend to the Left will continue and if the Republicans don't change dramatically, they soon will be so far Right as to be relegated to Green Party status (so maybe the Greens will have their day yet).  This is all great news for me and others who can think, and it's very much a losing battle for the Right, which brings me back to the point: how can thinking people continue to fight for the Right?

And I will explain my problems with patriotism next time.  Thanks for reading.

04:52 pm: Hack Sinatra, Ol' Hack Eyes, Chairhack of the Board
I heard Frank Sinatra's stomach-turning treatment of "Mrs. Robinson" today and it compelled me to revive this journal to announce the following: Frank Sinatra is the biggest hack who ever lived.


I'll start out with a definition for "hack" from dictionary.com, which describes him perfectly:

a person, as an artist or writer, who exploits, for money, his or her creative ability or training in the production of dull, unimaginative, and trite work; one who produces banal and mediocre work in the hope of gaining commercial success in the arts

I will add my own thoughts, not completely unlike the definition above, on what it means to be a hack:

a person, especially in the music recording industry, with limited talent who has no misgivings about depending on the skills of others in his or her line of work to create a product, far inferior to the sum of its parts, that is packaged to sell wildly

I have a particular interest in Frank Sinatra because much of my later elementary school years were filled with his cold, vomitous renditions of otherwise good songs. I remember waiting for him to shut up so that I could hear the arrangements behind what he was belting out. Instrumental breaks were always the best parts of the songs, and in particular I remember laughing with my dad at the tail end of the break in "The Way You Look Tonight" when a trumpet skyrockets into a quick, brassy fart.

Frank Sinatra forms the third part of the black-and-white, Applebee's-style wall art triumvirate, with Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. James Dean had talent and died early. Marilyn Monroe died early. Frank Sinatra survived into old age and never stopped hacking it up. Why is he up on anybody's wall? His voice is unspectacular; his singing is unconvincing and cold; he only "writes" songs when he gives it that awful Jersey kick, such as in "Mrs. Robinson":

12:13 am: I Want A Divorce!

So a family member has decided to split from her husband after 20 years of marriage.  They have zero kids, zero previous marriages and zero financial problems to overcome.  The problem: They had zero communication.  Lack of communication is killer in a relationship and it finally got the best of them.  Without naming my cousin (my mother's sister's daughter), or for that matter how Mary Ann is related to me, I want to outline my opinion on divorce.  I just want to be ready when someone tries to catch me off guard with the ever-controversial question, "Your stance on divorce?"

I was riding on the CAT bus the other day, sitting across from a jolly, middle-aged black man who was voicing his support for Hillary Clinton, in part because of her willingness to "stand by her man" through the Lewinsky scandal.  He went on and on about how when a person says, "I do...'til death do us part," it's forever, no matter what.  He would later leave room for abusive or adulterous relationships to dissolve, but only after the repeat offender proves he or she is not going to change.  I respect his opinion but must disagree.

Since hearing this man and learning of my cousin's divorce, I've done all this thinking and I've decided this: By nature, divorce is always right.  It puts people back at zero, as they were before they were one.  It's no more wrong to be divorced than never-married.  The wrong part was being together.  Marriage can be wrong.  The more wrong the marriage, the more right the divorce.  When reconciliation is no longer desirable or possible, then it is time to be separate again.  Wanting to be apart necessitates being apart.  It's really not much of an issue to me.  The unfortunate thing is that people can change over time and that marriages can weaken and fade into nothing.  If a divorce were imminent from the beginning, the marriage would not have happened.  More time could be allowed or better judgment exercised in deciding to marry, but there's no use waiting around forever.  It's a chance you take and sometimes things go sour after a long time, just as they did with my cousin and her husband.  I am proud of her for going through with it and ending what seemed to be a very taxing relationship.  It wasn't an abusive relationship, but the wear on her mind and body from his lack of communication and the lack of mutual interests between them must have felt like abuse at times.  I can see no wrong in their separation. 

Through this blessed journal, I can publicly express that I am glad about the divorce.  I never liked him and will never like him and over the years I accumulated more reasons for not liking him than I had dismissed through acceptance of him as my cousin-in-law.  I love my cousin and think her to be a real catch for someone thirty-six times the man her husband ever could be.  I do not wish him harm or misfortune, but I feel a relief is in store for all of us now that he won't be around.  Already tonight, my dad and I, in our usual way of dealing with touchy issues, joked about how we'll miss his creepy, manufactured-home-selling, Harley-riding, speed-boating, partying, possibly womanizing ways in the coming years.  I feel great about this divorce because from here forward, I know my cousin will be happier, less stressed, and less lonely (ironically) than she has been in a long time.  I thank God that I inherited my mother's family's ability to communicate well about nearly anything, and I am learning to appreciate it more all the time.  I'm sure Mary Ann is glad she could talk to my aunt about it over the last couple years, and I bet her husband wishes he were able to communicate at all.  It's really a nice thing.  Godspeed, Mary Ann.
    

02:57 am: Can You Believe What a Simple Update This Is?

So it's about time I just write about what is actually happening in my life.  I know there are just tons of people wondering what I've been up to, how I'm doing, what I'm about to do and what-have-you (blecch), so here it is.

I am going to finish school, finally and hopefully, in May with a degree in Political Science ("Can't let that flag touch the ground!") and a minor in Spanish ("You come here, you learn our language!").  I'm not pumped about either and going through the scholastic motions has dragged me down as much as possible.  I have failed numerous classes from lack of interest, lack of motivation, lack of knowledge, lack of everything and have come up with just as many excuses as to why I've failed and haven't already finished.  It comes down to simple fear.  I am afraid of failure and of success.  I worry that I'll try many things and get nowhere and when I find my niche, I'll become so pressured to maintain the original level of success that I will shrivel up and underestimate my value and potential.  Depressing, huh?  Not really.  Notice I added "as much as possible" to the end of "dragged me down."  Nothing is getting me down lately.

I'm about as happy as I've been in a long time.  It's almost a year that I've been avoiding all meat except fish; I am probably moving to Greensboro in August with a dear friend of mine (let's call her "Heather") and will continue my educational career in something that actually interests me, like graphic design or advertising; I have judged less harshly and my outlook on human nature is as good as it has been since I've been able to contemplate it; I have stopped underestimating myself a little bit and embraced a lifestyle of kinda-trying and I've got more ideas about the future than I've ever had before; the list goes on.  I think taking my head out of my ass after leaving it there during my entire college career has really brightened my outlook.  Singledom has its advantages, which says nothing negative about the person to whom I was coupled;  I think I've just lost that protective righteousness that became my "character" over the last few years.  Don't get me wrong: I'm still an asshole.

Other than that, I'm pretty much the same person.  I am still a pessimist because that's most comfortable to me, despite how flowery and self-satisfied this entry seems.  I still listen to Pet Sounds an average of once every other day, all the way through.  I still watch Letterman every night and keep an "All-time List" of favorite people in my life (disclosed ad nauseam to the unfortunate people who have to listen to my yammering), and I still don't watch many movies, although "No Country for Old Men" was pretty thrilling.  Caine and I have found a roommate for the next six months starting later this month.  His name is Drew Ball (look him up) and I think he'll do well here. 

Concerning the family, I am going to be Uncle Rob come late June.  It is very exciting and I am preparing to be the crazy uncle in that kid's life: it's a role I was born to play.  My sister passed out Christmas cards with her ultrasound photo printed next to a message that my immediate family and aunt all read at the same time on Christmas day.  My mom teared up with excitement while my dad fought an ecstatic smile and grinned pretty healthily out of one side of his mouth, just as I did.  Her pregnancy gave me an entirely different feeling toward the person that my sister is and toward pregnancy in general.  The hug that I gave her was a natural, biological reaction, it seemed, and the gladness I felt was astounding.  Pregnancy wasn't just an "eh, who cares?" sort of thing anymore.  It was happening to me in a way and it makes me wonder how I'll take my wife's pregnancy some day.  It will be quite a thrill.

I really saved the best for last there, since none of my self-reflection makes a bit of difference.  A new family member is always welcome since my relatives (aunts/uncles/cousins/grandparents) have only lost members in the last decade or so (three uncles, one cousin, three grandparents since '95 or so).  Not to trivialize the death of my human family members, but the loss of the great Max the Schnauzer about a year or so ago was just one more loss for my immediate family.  Here I am, reaching a point in my journal where I've become sentimental, sappy and soft.  Don't get used to it.

So yeah.  Your thoughts (however grossed-out and unimpressed)?  Can we get coffee sometime so I can repeat what I've just told you on here?  No?  Maybe lunch then?

01:28 am: Race Relations, Feces, and other Crap

Ok, so questions of race relations are always on my mind and as an effort to find a sort of solution to the problem of prejudice, I have forced myself into a certain line of thinking: There is no such thing as race.

It's easy to say that color doesn't matter, but it does.  It has mattered in the past in our nation because of slavery and imperialism, so it still matters.  The original sentiments of whites toward natives and blacks still exist in our time.  That "they" are somehow inferior in mind and spirit and only useful when accomplishing a monetary end is a notion alive and well today, however hidden and diluted.  The trouble in my mind is that racism almost cannot exist because it does not make sense.  A person cannot hate every member of a certain race if said person 1) does not know every person of that race, 2) does not find every person of that race inferior in every way, and 3) find that the reason for the inferiority is solely due to skin color, since that is the prime genetic marker of difference between any two given groups of people, and the reason for racism.  Since none of those three steps are possible, racism is an illusion.  It is a disorder and a sickness.  It is a psychological disease and should be treated as such.

But in all seriousness, I know that racism does exist.  I know that racism is the belief in fundamental differences between races that supposedly render one race inferior to another, but I'm happy to discover that no one on earth can actually hate everyone of a certain race just for being of that certain race, because race is purely cultural, political, social, and all the other -al's that are thrown around.  All that's keeping people racist is lack of education, lack of effort, and fear.  That's why I have a problem with people saying someone is acting black or white.  I hear this within my circle of friends, within my family, within my group of coworkers; everywhere.  There is no such thing as acting black or white.  We must get over this.

If a black guy wears tucked-in polos and boat shoes with a visor and sunglasses with croakies, what are the chances that someone has not described him as trying to be white?  If he enunciates when he speaks and uses mostly school-taught grammar, he is hated for trying to be something he's not.  Well what is he supposed to be?  Are good grammar and snug clothing a monopoly of the white race?  Certainly not.  I cannot understand the average sentence from any of my relatives from the eastern part of the state.  Why is it that intelligible speech from a black man is seen as something white and fake?  I really don't know.  Why is it that spending a fortune on clothing and auto accessories makes a white man a black wannabe (or wigger, if you feel like being a moron)?  Why is it that there is a color attached to any sort of personality or habit?  It's all because of past prejudice.  Prejudice is a poison, as I'm sure everyone would agree, and it has created such a deep-seated rift, between black and white especially, that its legacy seems almost inescapable.  Assumptions we make about others before knowing anything about that person are hurtful to everyone involved.  Loud black girls at a movie theatre giving you a headache?  Don't let them represent their entire race because they can only represent themselves.  The pain that you feel is guilt deep down for letting a few individuals ruin your outlook for an entire race, and that headache is a natural response to prejudice.  Prejudice is misplaced anger combined with laziness and pride.  It is quite the cocktail.

Lately I have actively put my brain into "There is no such thing as race" mode and it is completely liberating.  My mind feels as light and free as ever when I can honestly be pissed at a black guy based on what he has said or done without feeling bad for it.  Judging by the content of the character is where it's at.  At last, no person has a claim on another person as a brother or sister because of race, at least in my mind.  I have just as much right to call out a black woman as I do a white man for being rude and it's great.  I hold no allegiance to any race when I'm in "the mode" and although not many people are playing my game, I am sure that deep down the message is clear; that my unfiltered scorn for a black woman, for example, comes not from considering her race, but ignoring her race and dealing with the issue at hand.  And it is very frustrating at times when you realize that others are not playing that same game, and that they see another angry white man getting pissed at a black person, but so be it.  It is only the fault of that person that they cannot see the motives and the situation at hand and make a fair judgment without considering the race of those involved.

I have noticed, through perusing hate websites and other extremist literature, that the one thing all these hate groups have in common is the objective to divide people into groups.  The neo-Nazis even recognized that the white race is being weakened by the stigma that a lot of white supremacists have attached to the word "Catholic", and that white brothers and sisters are being left out due to this small difference.  So they realize that separating whites from the other whites weakens the white race, but fail to see how separating whites from other humans weakens the human race.  Funny stuff!  Even the Black Panthers have apparently decided that being completely exclusive of other races is retarded, adding the clause "and other oppressed, poor peoples" to "black" in much of their crap-talk.  Basically I've learned that unity within small groups is what kills the human race; that the trash like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who seem pretty tame compared to most bigots, have done more to create tensions between humans than to destroy them all by underlining the words black and white.  I have also learned what a great guy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was and how truly lost his message is in today's civil rights movement.  Most of the above I already knew, again, on paper.  The ideas I've presented are not shocking revelations about the state of mankind, and I realize that.  I have simply started acting on some of the rhetoric I've thrown out before, and it's really working and I'm quite pleased.

Until people can truly hate (or appreciate) based on character and nothing more, our race relations will resemble the feces that I left in my toilet about two hours ago, and that's just too ugly.  Try and flush that toilet with me, won't you?  Hold your breath!

Tell me your thoughts in a nice (or not-nice) comment.  I know I've screwed up somewhere.

03:41 am: Would You Believe... Even More Crap Sayings?

"You have way too much free time."

This is the choice jab from a spineless, thoughtless person whose main objectives are as follows: Look good, make others look bad, get laid. "Oh, you have so little free time, with your big job and all those people to talk to and all those responsibilities that come with being on the cusp of a huge inheritance.  I deserve the snubbing; the belittlement.  To think that I, with all my ego, might dare mention something of such little importance that took so much time.  Then again, my time is so ample that I have nothing to do but try and come up with something with which to please you.  I have failed again, master.  Don't look at me.  Please, get back to your busy day so that you can get your beauty rest and wake up swinging again tomorrow morning.  Or do you sleep at all?  Next time, if you can even find the time, give me part of the assignment that is so time-consuming that even a demigod like yourself can't finish it."  Is that what they want you to say?

"The truth is stranger than fiction."

Fiction has been, is, and will always be stranger than the truth.  Maybe some realistic fiction isn't as strange as the latest scientific discovery about deep sea life, but if you think about the endless options of the untrue, it's safe to say that overall fiction is much stranger than truth.  A single-celled microorganism that predicts with 88% accuracy the answer to tonight's first puzzle on Wheel Of Fortune is stranger than any fact out there.  And fiction can be still stranger.  It may be very strange that something is true, but the actually truth is not all that strange when compared to the vast, strange expanse of the fictitious.  So maybe the saying should be this: "The fact that some things are true can be stranger than some fiction that isn't at all strange for fiction."  Sound too clumsy and non-quippy?  That's the truth for you.

"That's what she said."

Please, God.  I want to believe in You, but when I hear this every painful day I begin to doubt.  Where were You when I last heard this?  I'm a good person, Lord, and I have my faults; it's true.  But do I deserve to hear a catch phrase from an excruciatingly average sitcom with maybe one talented comedic actor that has gained way too much acclaim because of the lack of competition?   If I place a noun here and a verb there and it gets anywhere near implying something sexual, could You strike me deaf for about 10 seconds afterward, just in case?  I know 10 seconds seems like a long time, but for the average person that would use this phrase, it will take his or her mind that long to jump on a "comedic" opportunity.  Or maybe just strike him or her mute for 10 seconds.  That would be justice.

01:53 am: All They Need Is Change
    The homeless are a rare group of people that make me feel like a Stone Age conservative.  Notice I addressed them as people, so I guess I'm not quite there yet.  I have tried and tried to reason out why, week after week, I see the same individuals using the same ploys for quick drug and alcohol cash.  "Oh, they're just in a rut," I will say to myself.  "It's part of the Legacy of Slavery," I'll sigh when I see a black homeless man.  "Maybe he really is trying and will use my money for some books," I'll kid myself.  I've run out of excuses for these people. 

    I, with my silver spoon and lily-white skin, have never been poor and cannot begin to identify with the struggles of some:  The immigrants, the single mothers, the physically or mentally retarded that cannot work or who cannot afford much with the work they find.  I also cannot find one of those types of people laying around Hillsborough Street.  It's strange that I can only find the able-bodied, mostly coherent, mostly doped-up, entirely lazy and dishonest laying around Hillsborough Street.  And while drug-use may be mentally retarding, the mind has to overcome what it has done to itself through determination, or else accept the damage done and be complacent or keep doping.  The congenitally retarded cannot be blamed for a lack of faculties, and the dangerously doped-up are in hospitals or in prison.  The homeless drug addicts have found a moderation that allows them to be free without having to work.  I see homelessness as more of a destination for the lazy than as a low point on the path to an industrious life.

    Shelter is priority number two after food.  Food is not a problem in the U.S.  The poor, and even the homeless, are not starving.  Only children or victims of natural disaster starve in the U.S., and sicko parents and hurricanes are inevitable.  With food out of the way, shelter becomes priority one for a person living in the U.S.  With subsidized housing, homeless shelters, and the occasional God-sent humanitarian, housing is affordable to anyone who is trying at all.  What are the reasons for needing money?  "I'm hungry," is the most popular choice, but only one percent of those who say they are hungry are willing to go inside the nearest restaurant with me to get a bite.  If they do, it's more of a humor-him-and-get-a-free-meal sort of thing, and it's really quite a gain for him, and only him.

    On the rare occasion that I feel I'm helping someone who actually needs it, I feel better for giving.  In the case of the homeless, when I give I feel stupid.  I feel like an idiot who is adding to a greater debt owed by the lazy to the industrious.  I feel like I'm helping the guy get his next high, or delaying any real action he might take toward an industrious life.  And when I say industrious, anyone who is working in any capacity qualifies.  Hell, I'm industrious.  And I am, more and more every day, convinced that laziness is a poison that affects everything around it.  I see it in my job where if someone is not giving enough of themselves, it costs the others.  Have I always known this?  Well, it has made sense on paper since I could grasp the concept, but now that I am experiencing it, I know it.  When I am lazy, I feel awful.  I feel best when I've been working hard, mentally or physically.  To work in one's highest, benevolent capacity must be the meaning of life.  It is the one thing that, by definition, everyone can do and that brings reward to others and the self alike.

    Are the homeless lazy?  I think so.  Homelessness seems to be a career in laziness.  I feel like the homeless life is fitting punishment for inactivity, if it's even punishment at all for that person.  Do I dare say the homeless want to be homeless?  Well, not so much as I say the homeless don't mind homelessness enough to do anything about it.  Can you honestly picture a hard working individual being doomed to homelessness?  I cannot.  What should be done with the homeless?  Well, just about everything short of forcing people to take them in has been done.  Keep the avenues to non-homelessness open.  If every sucker on the street stopped giving cash to the homeless, the lifestyle may lose enough appeal that the lazy person would become a worker.  A person's lot should reflect the industriousness of that person, which is why I have such a beef with inheritance, but that's my next topic.  Goodnight.

03:46 am: Lust Is Strange
Well so far I haven't been your typical single guy.  After four years and four months of being in a relationship, I've sort of forgotten how to be single.  I have to make an effort to look at girls a little longer because I'm so used to glancing once and forgetting all about the attractive girls I see, and now I just tell myself, "Relax.  It's okay.  You deserve this.  You deserve that.  Oh yeah!"  I can't help but feel like one of those uncreative, inbred, doofus rednecks that makes excuses for their excessive horniness by saying, "Man, the female body is the most beautiful thing in creation.  Ain't nothin' better than what God made for me, etc."  Oh, so that's why you watch so much porn, Kenny?  Why is it that the most unworthy of reproduction seem to want sex the most?

I must say, sometimes I feel like, "You know, I've been a good guy for all this time.  Maybe I've earned my meaningless if not anonymous fooling-around phase," but that gets me nowhere.  At the end of the day I'll just feel like the crap that I truly am, and it's good to at least pretend not to be that kind of crap.  And it's not fair to the next girl that all I would be thinking about is physical contact.  I've decided that I'm going to take it slow, that being an honest and trustworthy companion for the last four or more years is what I should have done anyway and that there is no cause for reward, and that even if there were cause for reward, it wouldn't be in the form of fooling around casually.  My deepest apologies to the league of women that I could have at my beckoning call.

I guess what I've learned from my month of singledom is that I can better understand the endlessly horny guy, or the girl that always needs a boyfriend, or vice-versa.  It seems that in the worst times in my life, like a break-up (thank God something like a break-up can be among the worst ordeals in my life), I can learn about the people I usually judge, and the main thing I'm learning is that I'm just one of them.  This has been my fear all along.  I have trouble escaping the thoughts and motives of the very worst people on earth, and it's time that I improve myself instead of bitching about everyone else.  It's always good to be taken down a notch, and who better to take me down a notch than myself.  Afterall, I'm all I have sometimes.

Thanks for suffering through another poorly written entry with no structure.  Tell me what you think.

01:47 am: The Power of IMAX
So the IMAX has turned out to be my second least-favorite job, after Victoria's Secret.  Yes, I worked at Victoria's Secret.  No, I'm not a panty-sniffing pervert.  No I didn't help otherwise topless women try on bras.  No, I didn't steal catalogs or posters of the models for my very own, very private use.  And even if those are all true, that was 2.5 years ago, so it wouldn't matter anymore anyway.  I'm completely different now, you know?

Well the IMAX kinda gets me bummed out.  There is a never-ending stream of impatience, rudeness, ignorance and downright stupidity roaring through that place, and it's not all mine.  I'll prove it:

-Redneck teenage bastard: "Do y'all feel guilty for charging 3 dollars for a bottled drink?" 
  Me: "I would only feel guilty if we made people buy them." 
  Redneck teenage bastard: "...Lemme get 2 Dr. Peppers and a large popcorn."

This delicate little scene illustrates what seems to be the average customer at IMAX.  I've worked with the public before, but the swine that invade our lobby are a retarded sub-species of the dumb world at large.

-Every damn customer who enters the place:  "Where are your restrooms?"

I feel like slinging unpopped kernels at a blood-drawing velocity right into their eyes.  "Why don't you look around for four seconds and tell me where the restrooms are, you unobservant prick," I feel like saying.  Of course, I'm not brave enough and out slips another, "Just around the corner to the right," accompanied by a point and a smile that sets a new standard in emptiness.  And why is my smile so empty?

I feel that at the IMAX, I am part of a world that I desperately want to leave.  I feel more like a wage-earner than ever before and it depresses me to no end, especially given that I should have graduated in May.  It is helping to motivate me, which is a side much brighter than the dark side is dark.  What do I want to do after graduation?

My real desire is just to have a goal.  I'm decently intelligent, especially given how little I read or go to class, and my social skills aren't really lacking.  My defeatist attitude has got to go.  I want to be the world's best at whatever I decide to do, and if I'm not certain that I will be great at something, I never try it.  This is killing me.  I've always admired those who try hard for something and rarely do I remember whether or not they fail.  Failure is okay, I need to realize.  Ambition, I need to realize, is also okay.  It is not always a selfish and dishonest way of going about things.  This is news to hardly anyone, but I'm really kind of talking to myself.

And yet another entry ends without an ending.  I'm about to fall asleep right here.  Thanks for reading.

10:46 pm: I Approve of Disapproval
Before I begin, I'd like you to know that although I said I'd quit this whole livejournal thing, I need the outlet.  So much junk gathers up inside of me and since I would never force it on anyone verbally, out it comes in journal form where you have the choice of reading or not reading.  You've read this far, so thank you.

Well it seems that my never-ending bitching about the world that TV and film portray will never come to an end.  Why do I care about what's on TV?  Because a lot of people out there seem to care.  People watch more and more TV all the time and some kids, my age and even older but especially younger, were and are practically raised by a TV.  I realize that TV can't make a decision for you, but I believe the attention and acceptance that TV gets is worth noting since it reflects the trash that our culture has become in general. 

I've noticed that people my age are either really proud of being conservative (which usually means holding a door for a lady because you're such a damn gentleman or being scared in those shady parts of town where all the black people live) or are frightened to death of being conservative about anything.  And while some are proud of being liberal, it is the fear of being conservative that truly marks their philosophies.  So where does TV come in?  Well, I think TV has done its share of dividing us students and other young folks into two categories that need much more consideration and intertwining than we feel compelled to acknowledge.  The words liberal and conservative mean absolutely nothing.  They are names to fear or to relish in, whatever the case may be.  I think the majority of kids my age choose to be called liberal because the people that suck loudest in life (politicians, talking heads on those crap 24-hour news channels) love to be called conservative.  "You damned conservative!"  "So?  At least you know where I stand on the issues!"  What crap.

Anyway, I think that having taken the liberal label or the watered-down "moderate" label, we (which actually does include me), are afraid to disapprove of other people's moral decisions.  (Oh God!  Morals!  And he just capitalized "God" too!)  There is something conservative about condemning people to hell for the decisions they make that we don't agree with, especially in regards to sex and family, but liberals condemn for decisions regarding pollution and victimizing the poor.  For my purposes, I'd like to deal with the sex side of things.  I don't like to take that route, condemning.  I like to disapprove.  Disapproval is my favorite tool in maintaining the order in my life.  I often slip into condemnation, but that's the folly of trying something as delicate as disapproval for the first few hundred times.  I am honing my disapproval talents every day, even now as I sit here at my crappy desk.

Disapproval is necessary to maintain goodness in our lives.  Your average anarchist would champion disapproval, since that's the only force we would need to govern our lives and the only way an anarchy would ever work.  Actually, your average anarchist doesn't think that deeply, only that if we didn't have a government, we could smoke weed.  But anyway, I think there's some validity to that theory.  My beef with free approval of most any sexual decision, like promiscuity, is that we are not helping each other in any way by sitting back and being "open-minded".  Men are nearly glorified for promiscuity on TV and that same glory is implicit in sexual ads everywhere.  What guy is brave enough to tell his friend that having sex with any attractive female he so chooses is not helping anyone?  Who is out there telling a girl that she can't be a dicktease if she wants real fulfillment from a guy.  No one but their pastors and parents, whom they would call "more conservative". 

Morality does have a place and it's okay to stop your friends from making awful decisions.  Think about how many lives have been ruined by alcohol or drugs or sex or over the lust of money and things.  Why can't we disapprove openly about the evils (dear God!) of sleeping around, and how no one has ever truly improved their lives by drinking more or having more sex.  "Well, Rob, people that drink tend to make lots of connections with others that help them... blah blah blah... money!"  Well, if that's your idea of fulfillment, I disapprove of your motives.  I am not condemning you to hell.  That would get us nowhere.  Improve yourself and those around you and we're getting somewhere.  If they care for you and you for them, you won't be at risk of being labeled a "bitch" or "bastard" or, worse yet, "conservative".

Well, that rambled and never finished itself and forgot some loose ends and probably has some run-on sentences and grammatical errors and typos and things, but oh well.  Let me hear your approval or disapproval in a nice comment.  Thanks.

06:50 am: Meat
Meat helps me believe in a supreme being.  Meat, in my eyes (and stomach), is a blessing.  The fact that we can eat meat and that it can actually be good for us is quite a miracle.  I love meat, from my head down to my feet.  You could almost say I'm made of meat.  In fact, say it all you want because it's true.  I am what I eat, and I am meat.

But now I'm considering doing without meat.  I am now a dietary masochist.  I want to do this because I've thought about how poorly the animals are treated that are processed like scrap metal to become a bonus for my palate.  I don't need the bonus, they don't need the treatment, and that's enough to add up for some change.  I've listened to the animal rights groups and the environmentally-driven vegetarians and I purge myself of most of the propaganda.  I shouldn't eat a chicken because I loved my dog as a kid?  I don't think all animals have the same value in life, as I'm sure those same people don't believe fire ants have the same rights as cows.  So where does the difference come in for me?

I believe dogs, for their intelligence and usefulness to humans, are of much greater value than a cockroach.  I believe that there's a sliding scale for any value we can put on anything.  Nothing is black and white for me, which is why I never decide my stance on anything and thus have no real passions that matter (sad, yes).  I have struggled with the notion that all people have the same value, for instance, because some contribute so much to society and do so much good for so many people while others sit around and think about themselves and what's for dinner.  And the people that would say all humans have the same value would still say humans have more value than fire ants and so on.  And the people fighting for animal rights would argue that we are only animals, but would still call on us to make a moral decision not to eat what is in our nature, and that doesn't sound very "animal" at all.  It's all a confusing web of religion and philosophy, and some of my opinions (like man being different from beast) go right along with some religious views; others go against religious views (like one person being better than another).

I do not think consuming meat is wrong.  I won't try and convert others to my new way of diet since that's not me at all.  I see it this way:  Man has been hunting and killing animals since prehistory.  Mankind has found a use for every square centimeter of an animal's body.  And we should use the animal and all its parts when we need them.  The real trouble with eating meat nowadays is that meat has become such a commodity.  Animals that we find tasty have been reduced to a  common and faceless item.  Every day millions of animals are mistreated that could serve some other purpose; if not economically, then aesthetically.  A cow has a value as a grazer or as an animal to watch and study.

But it's tricky to protect animals that are in great supply because the danger of losing them altogether is almost zero.  What we would really lose is their purpose on earth while we are well-fed, which is really not determined.  What do we do with animals we cannot use?  We leave them alone and make sure they don't become endangered or extinct.  And why?  Well, I guess we've acknowledged that animals have some purpose besides being eaten.

And I think our general compassion for animals is possibly the greatest evidence of the existence of a supreme being.

What have I tried to do with all this?  Well, I guess I've tried to reason out my belief in a supreme being;  I've tried to explain why I think that I should be a vegetarian; I've tried to show that if people knew what enough was, many problems we face now would be eliminated.  If I've presented any of these, I've accomplished something today.

08:13 am: Movies Suck
I just saw Night at the Museum tonight, which was dreadfully awful in most any way possible.  I began to wonder, "What's wrong with me?  It's easy not to like this movie, but why do I dislike almost every movie, even the 'good' ones?"  I know that Shawshank Redemption is a fine film, but I never want to see it again.  The only filmmakers to ever enchant me are Charlie Chaplin and Stanley Kubrick, and even watching their best work is more of a chore than a pleasure to me.

Hearing myself explain that I'm not a 'movie kinda guy' must sound like an impossible sweeping generalization, like "I don't really like music" sounds to me.  Please forgive me, but it's true.  I always sit in the dark movie room and think more about the room than the film, or which eye holds a retina stain for longer when I look away from the screen, or even why there are movies at all.  And I don't think my attention span is all that short.  Besides all this, my interest in the room and my eye stains is not a reason for lack of interest in movies but more of a symptom of my condition.

I think I just despise the pretentiousness of actors and actresses and writers and producers and directors.  They've created Hollywood, which has created an imaginary bar that no one lives up to and no one should live up to, but somehow that everyone is trying to live up to.  Arguments between lovers have to be more fierce and hurtful, and the amends-making more passionate.  The guy has to be richer; the girl prettier.  Everyone has to go out as often as possible and be seen by as many people as possible.  We should all drink more wine and pay too much for our clothes.  We have to care about the poor people on the other side of the world because it's far away and it sounds more sensitive, educated and well-traveled to be concerned about poor Bangladeshi people than it does to give a buck to a Hillsborough Street bum.  I think in the beginning Hollywood picked the parts of life most interesting and worthy of watching and magnified them so greatly that the average life seemed dull and downtrodden, so much so that life now imitates Hollywood instead of the other way around and people don't care what's happening from neighbor to neighbor as much as they care about being broadcast to the world.

Besides all that social-problem-ridden muck, I just don't feel like the movie experience ever really pays off.  If a TV show is bad, it's usually only a loss of half an hour and you are in your home on most occasions.  With a movie, a whole evening can be ruined.  I have never thought, at least since the time that I've had half a brain to think about the movie I've just seen, that the movie was worth the price or the time.  Not once.  The best times I've had at the theater involved sneaking candy or drinks in, or shooting spitballs at the screen.  The good times are over once the movie starts and I basically wait to be dismissed by the end credits.

And that's why I don't like movies, I guess.

05:01 am: And the Blues Begat Eric Clapton...
This is my least favorite respectable genre.  It's respectable because it has morphed into better music like early rhythm and blues, which only narrowly outweighs the damage it's created (see Clapton, Eric or Plant, Robert Anthony).  The only major differences from one blues song to the next are tempo and the riff being played over that worn out chord progression.  Erase all blues songs with "Woke up this morning," or "My baby left me," or "I won't do you no harm," or "I'm so lonesome," or the word "blues" in the lyrics and you have maybe 142 songs in all of blues history remaining, most of which would be instrumental.

It should be a dead genre by now; sort of the "Latin" of the modern music world.  But year after year, some white clown or unoriginal old black man straps on a guitar and plays D-G-D, A-G-D or something similar and keeps the lame old blues alive.  Enough already.

06:07 am: Coming to Grips, Popping the Zits
I have come to grips with an unsettling reality: I have picked the wrong major. 

Political science means as much to me as Keith Urban's personal life, and you know how much I loathe country music and celebrity gossip.  I have an obsession with not reading for my political science classes.  I don't want my eyes to waste their time glossing over centuries of wrong-doing and injustice and murder and rape and war and deceit and macho phallus-flinging bullyism.  I don't want to know who killed Kennedy.  I don't care that North Korea tested a nuke recently.  I don't care what blunder President Bush made recently in some important speech to some important people.  I don't care that it takes this many bastards to pass a law and which bastards were particularly bastard-ish and didn't go along with all the other bastards and how many people died because of it.  Political science can be anything, but every time I try to name it, I'm wrong.  I am well into the major and I don't even know exactly what the Whig party platform was.  If I gave one crap about the Whigs and their views, I would know their platform.  But I don't.  I can't wait to be finished with my last political science class.  It will be like popping a gigantic pimple after four years of buildup.  My hope: take up a Spanish major.

I'm a smart guy, but I have to keep telling myself that because there's little hard evidence that I actually am.  I can talk to people, I can write decently, I have artistic sense, I'm honest, I'm observant, I can solve problems, I'm generally kind (if you can believe it), but that gets me nothing.  What counts is the resume and the people you know and how well you can kiss ass.  I've talked about this over and over and the world's not going to change.  I'll have to change for the worse in order to be... successful?  What a moral dilemma.  How can I live a good life while I compromise my morals?  What does "good" really mean anyway?  Ask the political science department.

08:04 am: Pro Crastinator
Well, my Procrastination and I are up to no good again.  We've put me in quite a pickle this time.  I am staying up all night doing a paper because he and I are such great buddies.  We've been friends forever it seems like, as I recall having my mother finish our projects for us in elementary school.  He's quite a nuisance, but I keep him around.  We pass a lot of time together and dick around when I should be working.  I even drink quarts and quarts of coffee to stay up with him sometimes.  We have to write seven pages by this afternoon or else we'll lose even more points for being even later.  I wish I could end our friendship, nay... marriage!  But I just wouldn't be the same.

But really, this "friend" of mine (I hope you followed the metaphor) is a serious problem for which, if I were the help-seeking type, I would seek help.  Is this my cry for help?  Probably not, since no one who would read this can really do anything about it.  If I was suicidal, this might be a cry for help, as friends can get you on your feet and help you remember why life is worth living.  No one is going to check up on my assignments and set a schedule for me.  That would be pretty conceited of them, not to mention annoying and somehow selfish (remember, I'm a cynic).  I am the only one who can dump this controlling "friend."

My prognosis:  I'll dump Procrastination when I find something I'm even more passionate about.  Right now, I'm going through the motions of college, which is really a modern high school.  Think about it:  so many people go to college now and graduate, that it's really become the new high school.  Finishing high school a while back put you at an advantage, but as more and more people finished high school, it became less and less glamorous until it became an embarrassment not to finish high school.  It's an embarrassment not to at least try college, but give it a while and it will be embarrassing not to finish college.  Currently, graduate students (oxymoron in this head) are the new "college" kids that are getting the advantages.  Who are the new doctors?  Well, doctors are still pretty high up there.  We need some sort of Super Doctor status to really complete the new wave in education.  But anyway, once I find a new "friend" about whom I am more passionate than I was about Procrastination, I will make a transition.  I find that learning Spanish is pretty exciting and fun and Procrastination has already taken a back seat to me-and-Spanish time.

Tell me how that made you feel.

07:33 pm: We might not be friends if...
you use "sketch" as an adjective.*

you think Bush is even a decent president.*

you have ever been proud of yourself for consuming alcohol.

you listen exclusively to Christian music.

'' '' '' '' country music.

you tell bullshit stories that I can't actually prove are untrue.*

you tell bullshit stories that I can actually prove are untrue.

you are homophobic.

you enjoy the "sarcasm" on Gilmore Girls, but not the sarcasm on Seinfeld.

you want to be a stay-at-home mom and you're in college.

you're a know-it-all.*

you spontaneously start singing to the discomfort of most around you.*

you are really into weapons.*

you think every firefighter or policeman or soldier is automatically a hero.

you think it's cool not to care about anything.

you think women really have a "place."

the booming Hispanic population bothers you.*

you've used "pimp"or "bad-ass" as a sincere compliment.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

More to come, probably in a form other than a list.

*I can think of one or more people that I consider a friend who fall into this category.

02:26 am: Some Ideas
-I could develop a children's video game full of funny characters with bad grammar.  It would be "Adventures in Grammatica" and the quest would involve correcting the bad grammar to get by gates and doors and trolls and witches, etc.

-I could start that elusive debut album and write a dozen or more songs that are connected in some way and involve the stories from my 5th Grade Anthology book in which my former classmates and I all published our stories.  Here I go.

-I could begin drawing my own comics and submitting them to papers in the area to see if there is any interest at all.

-I could volunteer at WCPE: The Classical Station and get into classical music.  It can be very satisfying, but it's hard to remember who composed what and what the songs are called and even more difficult to try and hum the tune to a person nearby to see what that song might be.

-I could try my hand at comedy writing and see if I could get an internship with David Letterman.  Or better still, I could try an amateur stand-up comedy night.  I can't be as unfunny as some of those other people.

-I could study abroad in Mexico next spring or summer in order to immerse myself in the Spanish language.  I'd go to Spain, but for some reason they seem like assholes.  I guess it's the European thing, coupled with my American ignorance.

-I could start working out in that dinky fitness center downstairs in my apartment building and really look great.  Or I could look like someone who used to be fat and lost a lot of weight very quickly and who doesn't really fit that in-shape image or lifestyle.

-I could melt more records into bowls and cups and tell morons that it's really something special and that they should buy this art from me because it's a good conversation starter.

-I could see myself being the peddler at The Peddler Steakhouse.  All you do is cut meat and act like you really know something about beef.  That and take down the order with a golf pencil.

-I could really spruce up my room with some paint and some more decoration.  I'd have to check with the unhelpful and unmotivated staff downstairs first because stuff of this magnitude can cause a breach of the lease and really piss off anyone involved, including me.

-I could get a job in a field that I would never consider staying with.  Food service, for example.  That way, I could piss and moan about my job without really caring whether or not I kept it.  It would be nice to keep a steady enjoyable job, as I am 14.3 million dollars in debt to my parents.

-I could try marijuana and get caught up in the social addiction and ruin my life for a little while.  During that time I could be indebted to a stranger with a gun and be in constant jeopardy of a bust by the fuzz for a substance, that if legalized, would be of little significance or danger.  Not that I'm for legalizing it.

-I could skydive and be scared out of my mind for days leading up to the jump and then relax for 5 minutes as I fall and then panick again when I think we're too close to the ground.

-I could write Forest Hills and tell them to beg Larry Ballard to stay so that our music program doesn't go to crap in the hands of some Kermit-like, Indiana-Jones-villainesque egocentrist.  (Just a hypothetical.)

-I could write President Bush about the mundane details of my life and get a cut-and-paste letter back thanking me for taking the time to write and withholding any specific response to my letter.  Bonus points if the letter includes a fake signed photograph.

-I could end this right now and go to bed. (Clever.)

No, I was not on any substance as I wrote this, as I do not abuse substances.  I was in a deep trance as I stared into the mostly-white computer screen because it is so quiet in my room.  I was mentally tired but physically very awake.  It's a trying combination.  Hope I haven't scared you.

11:41 pm: Mr. Boone Goes to Jones Street, Part II
Today I returned to the number one site for sausage-flinging, the North Carolina Legislature, and hob-nobbed once again with some local celebrities.  In its futile quest for good, clean, honest and open government, my nonprofit organization got together a ragtag group of nobodies (namely: me, our field coordinator, a black lady, a white lady, and another white man) to distribute a short (one-question) questionnaire asking, "Do you support banning lobbyists from raising campaign money for legislative candidates?"  My task: hand each of about twenty lawmakers this simple, straightforward question on a sheet of paper and have them answer "yes", "no", "undecided", or "no response".  We were given two hours to gather approximately fifteen to twenty answers to said question. Sounds quick and easy, doesn't it?  You'd think so.

My first Representative was a middle-aged white man who stood intimidatingly close to me while I told him who I was and what I was doing.  He marked his answer and handed it back to me while I was still talking.  I was thinking, "Pssh.  Great start."  By the time my excursion was over, I realized that he was one of the lesser assholes.

The second guy I talked to answered "undecided", but kept me in his office for about eleven minutes explaining why he wasn't an asshole for not saying "yes".  He started out all of his examples with "Not that I have ever done this, but..."  and then would give me a "hypothetical" scandal situation.  His message: limiting lobbyists from campaign spending is futile because there are so many ways to get around restrictions.  He may be right, but what's the harm in taking a step toward the ban?  He didn't touch on that.

The third guy was a "no" through and through.  He claimed that lobbyists were such a valuable source of information that banning them altogether would not be worth it.  He misunderstood and rather than tell him that the question didn't ask to ban lobbyists altogether, I sat and grinned and shook my head politely.

A few more people went by without leaving a big impression on me, so let's get to the next asshole.  This guy had a much bigger office than the other Representatives, apparently to better house his magnificent ego.  I introduced myself and told him I was with Common Cause, which he apparently did not like.  "You're off to the wrong start," he said, very loudly.  I then proceeded, remaining standing in the middle of his office while he sat.  I tried to give my spiel about how lobbyists with a lot of money can have undue influence and he asked, "Who told you that?"  I shrugged and said, "Common sense," to which he replied, "Have they brainwashed you?"  I tried to laugh it off, but he kept right on.  Another card-carrying asshole wandered in at some point and sat on the loveseat next to the desk, acting like a little girl enthralled with her daddy's big office and the grown-up stuff he was doing.  He was another nameless idiot who joined right in on the circle-jerk.  I finished not a single one of my sentences, but I was at peace the entire time.  I knew that nothing I said mattered to this pompous twit, whether he listened or not.  I let him impress his little admirer by shrugging at all of his backwards rhetoric.  "Can you be bought?" he asked.  "No," I said, to which he and his bitch chuckled.  Then he gave me the real answer, "Everyone has a price.  For some people, it's way down here; for some it's up here."  He drew a diagram in the sky for me.  Then he finally zipped up his pants and told me that he was not going to answer the question.  He left his male mistress begging for more but I had had enough and walked out.  My boss assured me that he was just joking around with me, but I'm not so sure that cold-hearted lizard-men can "just joke around."

A couple more less insane Representatives went by and then I met this one guy.  He was waddling out of his office and I caught him in the nick of time.  He must not have been in a hurry, as I discovered, for we spent my entire remaining time together.  He had one question to answer and I sat in his office for an hour.  Not 45 minutes; not 56 minutes: an hour.  He was the poster boy for the Republican Party: he was 300+ pounds, white as a klansman, and as old as the Capitol.  He made sure to say my name in every damn sentence for at least the first few pages of the novel he dictated while I sat there in a vegetative state.  I soon felt like a visitor to a nursing home.  He told me stories about how he brought lawsuits up against Governor Easley back when Easley was Attorney General and how black people won't vote for white Republicans even though it's the Democrats who are, in his words "fucking them."  Yeah, he dropped a few F-bombs for good measure.  He answered "yes" to the question, to my surprise, but I'm not sure he meant it, for he told me a story about how if I were an engineer and robbing trains wasn't illegal, I would come to him and say, "Please make a law against robbing trains."  After the law was made, he would wink at Jesse James and his train-robbing crew and say he never really liked me much anyway.  That made as much sense to you as it did to me while I sat in agony in his office, nearly drooling and eying my questionnaire in order to hint that I needed to go.  Nothing got through his thick white skin.  At one point, he told me that Ronald Reagan hadn't made him a Republican; Lyndon B. Johnson had.  You see, the Vietnam War was raging and somehow he was young enough to be in the army at the time, but old enough to be close to 80 now.  He was a college student in the sixties, but was also in the armed forces and also very aware that he was being lied to by President Johnson every day on television.  His story was pure bull and it didn't add up.  He talked about the My Lai massacre and how one of his commanding officers witnessed the atrocities firsthand and that as he told the stories, he was sweating and breathing irregularly "like a person on the verge of sexual climax."  He said this without batting an eye or even stopping the deep, war-story-telling gaze he held.  I couldn't help but imagine him on the verge of sexual climax, sweating and breathing irregularly right there on the chair that struggled to keep him up.  I gave up on trying to get out on time and let him ramble for another ten minutes before meeting back with the ragtag team.

The lesson: Legislators are so full of shit and self-interest that it's hopeless for anyone to change anything about them without money.  I see the need for lobbying reform now more than ever, but I also see its futility now more than ever.  These bastards sit around and think of scenarios to try to put to rest any theory you might bring to them, no matter how clearly right and true your theory may be.  I needed just fifteen or twenty boxes checked today and I got through only nine because of ego, self-interest, bullshitting, and just plain jerking off.  I'm done with the political world, thank you.

12:29 am: John Cale
John Cale is a new musical inspiration that I'd like to add to my list.  I'm not a musician, as I can barely pick out simple melodies on a piano, and my transitions on guitar never go smoothly, but he is nonetheless a musical inspiration.  His songs, most notably "Mr. Wilson" and "Paris 1919" have changed my outlook on music.  He has taught me that there is passionate music that is not self-important and superficial.  He has reminded me that lush orchestras don't necessarily make a song cheesy.  He gives me hope in my never-ending quest to find more music that is melodic, unique, respectable, and just downright good.  He is a blessing.

12:05 am: More gayness.
I've decided to faze out the string of comments on the last entry, simply because no one was getting anywhere and there are contained within those comments some words that a few may regret having said.  Having said that, let's move forward.  Or sideways, at least.

A summary of my reasoning, coupled with deep revelations about the shabby state of my faith:

I guess the real trouble I have in believing homosexuality is a choice is that the gay person would gain nothing by making such a decision.  If someone chooses to murder, they have eliminated someone they found undesirable; someone they felt, if even for a second, should no longer live.  Murder then has a benefit.  Adulterers choose to have sex with people other than their spouse for obvious reasons: feelings of domination and probably sexual satisfaction.  An alcoholic is chronically drunk because he wishes to escape a certain problem and often does not consider who he is hurting.  It is a selfish lifestyle.

Homosexuals doom themselves to non-reproduction (while self-preservation is the most basic of instincts), they gain nothing by choosing to have sex with the same sex.  Often, for gay men at least, sex is painful.  So what does he gain?  He gains the satisfaction of pleasing another male to whom he is attracted sexually and gains pleasure in return.  That is all.  There is no reason to choose gay sex over straight sex other than for your own natural attractions.  By these standards, a homosexual lifestyle cannot be more selfish than any heterosexual lifestyle, or vice-versa.

How is it that often it is no surprise when a man admits to being gay?  Many times his friends suspect it, or even people that have never spoken to him.  Forgive me for jumping into stereotypes, but it highlights my point: why are lisps disproportionately common among gay men?  Why are certain mannerisms associated with gay men?  How is it sometimes easy to guess that a man is gay?

I didn't want to get into research because I like to ponder on these issues without consulting the endless speculation in the media, who take a vantage point of the "gay gene" story based on the ends they seek.  The fact that it has been called into question is a step toward scientific proof (or disproof), which always starts as a question.  Even fifty years ago, there was no question about whether gays chose their lifestyle, but now there is open dialog on a subject that matters to people for one reason or another.  For many, it matters because of a deep religious belief that homosexuality is a wrong choice.  For many others, it is a matter of ending hostility between religion and homosexuality so that homosexuals may seek God in peace.  For still others, it is a fight to disprove Christianity and shun religious people for their beliefs and make them look archaic.  None of my goals are specifically listed above, but it has something to do with the pain I feel when someone is looked down upon for a trait that is possibly genetic.

When I say that gayness must be genetic, I offer no prescription for what kind of life to choose.  If you believe it to be a sin, and find yourself in temptation to act upon gay feelings, then by all means: don't act on those feelings.  I happen to believe that the Old Testament may have been divinely inspired, but was still written by men in an ancient civilization to whom homosexuality must have been an awful curse.  Imagine men loving other men!  "How detrimental to society!  We must put something in the text to get rid of this so that our population continues," they might have said.  The message of the Old Testament is valuable and ever-present, but I think some of the minor details may have been placed for civilization's sake.  As for the New Testament scriptures, the same could be true.  The message of love for God and each other is the central message of the New Testament and nothing compares to the coverage that love gets (no, not even sexual immorality).  Do I dare say that the Bible could be mistaken?  Yes.

I believe in Christ and his resurrection, as evidenced through the flawlessness of his ways.  I have thought at great length about what is right and what is wrong, and I find that Jesus has never been wrong about anything in any situation I've encountered.  He advises us to talk out our problems, and if the problems persist, ask another to come along as a witness.  He tells us that when a man asks you to go one mile with him, go two.  When I listen to Jesus, I feel alive.  I mean no disrespect to the Bible, but sometimes I feel that Jesus was surrounded by ordinary people who understood a lot, but not enough.  The disciples were as common as any man and I can't help but feel that in gathering scripture for the Bible, part of their personalities tainted the original message. 

The only claim to the Bible's validity is in the Bible itself, which, if it were any other book or say, website, most people would consider it a crock.  The real validity, for me, comes from playing the part.  I hardly ever play the part of a Christian, which is why I struggle with faith (I don't feel I'm good enough to claim to represent even the first thing about Christ).  I believe that in due time, I will accept that God has accepted me, even for the endlessly malicious, superegostical bastard that I am.  I do have problems, as everyone probably should at some point, in believing everything in the Bible, especially when I'm such a cynical person to begin with.  I see how easily religion could be politics or any other selfish endeavor.  Preachers are rarely dirt poor and often make great money quoting scripture and conjuring emotion from massive crowds.  People can take the Bible to help them do horrible things, of which gay-bashing is just one example.

I will not bore you with my church history, but I never set foot in a Sunday morning service until 8th grade.  I continued to attend church because, quite frankly, I liked the attention I was getting from the girls and the friendships I was building with everyone.  I am glad that I was not raised in church, as it probably made thinking about religion easier.  I had no real platform to build upon, nor did I think many things about Jesus just because I was told to.  Does this history give my opinions more validity?  No.  Validity comes through deep and continuous contemplation.  My history made my validity come about much easier, which may hurt my case.  Those that were raised in church and have given no real honest thought to why a certain belief is the right belief have no validity in their religious opinions.  A person who thinks "God hates fags" can have a valid opinion if that opinion is based on self-realized evidence (gut feeling).  Otherwise, by my guess, a man with such opinions has no valid claim.  Such a man was likely urged into the opinion by his environment, and will likely in turn force someone else to believe the exact same thing.

Please, leave a comment.

01:01 am: That's so gay.
Gay.  You're gay.  This is gay.  That's gay.  What are you gay or something?  Don't be gay.  Marvin Gaye.  What's goin' on?


    Why is there so much anger towards gays?  What are straight people losing by allowing gay people to live in peace?  Why would God hate fags?  Why create something that you cannot love, if you are God?  Even if you think being gay is a sin, why is this sin so horrible?  Arguably there are no victims.  I would say that alcoholism has far more victims and has far more subscribers than homosexuality, yet this man does not spend his rainy Texas days holding bright "GOD HATES ALCOHOLICS" and "ALCOHOLICS DIE GOD LAUGHS" posters.  Why not?  It's just as justifiable to drag an alcoholic behind a pickup truck until he dies or to beat an alcoholic senseless and leave him for dead.  In fact, it is more justifiable.

    I cannot wait until science proves that homosexuality is genetic.  How could it not be?  Are you asking me to believe that gayness is a choice?  One day, each person who is now gay, after days of consideration, if not years, decided that they were attracted to the same sex.  Yep, and then after being raised in an anti-gay society, nay world, they decided that they would undergo nearly endless persecution and gasps and sighs and stares and loss of friends and family and basically become dead to straight society just for the hell of it.  They really like a challenge, those people that chose to be gay.  Enough with the crap.

    I cannot wait until generally everyone accepts the science of genetic homosexuality like they accept the science of gravity.  I've heard "But how would the gay gene be passed if the two people couldn't reproduce?"  Well, how are there still mental retards?  Mental retards aren't out there procreating new mental retards.  Maybe gayness is just a simple chance genetic mutation that results in a sociological "disorder."  In fact, that's probably it.

    How else could gay men claim to feel different even as young as age three?  Why is it so obvious that some men are gay by just their appearance?  I don't see where the choice comes in.  I didn't choose to like girls.  I didn't decide when I was in preschool that it felt better to have the girls laugh at me than the boys.  No one is praising me for liking girls, but there is plenty of cursing going around for the guys who like guys.  What's the difference?  It should be as trivial as eye color or left- or right-handedness.


    And how does the marriage of gay people threaten the marriage of straight people?  Or family life?  Two dads who cover the roles of a mom-and-dad couple have not denied the child of anything but breast milk.  There are so many terrible families out there with a mom and a dad, one mom, one dad, or no parents at all.  Single-parent homes are shown to raise criminal children disproportionately.  But children's needs can be met by one parent, so how is it that two parents of the same sex cannot meet the children's needs?  Basically, the only thing the kids will suffer is torment by their peers because they have two dads, and that is only the fault of the other child's upbringing.

Let me know what you think in a comment.

12:24 am: June Bugs
Is an unselfish act really possible?  This bugs me.  Surely it is right and good, for example, to rescue a drowning child.  But could the rescuer really not think of himself at all in doing such a good thing?  Does he not want a little credit?  Even as little as a 'thank you' from the child's parents?  If the liquid in which the child was swimming were deathly poisonous to the rescuer (maybe really thin peanut butter), surely the rescuer would be much less willing to save the child, even to the point of failing to rescue the child altogether.  That would mean that saving the child depends on the outcome for the rescuer as well: the better the outcome, the sooner and more willing the rescuer would be in saving the child; the worse the outcome, the slower and less willing the rescuer would be.  That means that doing the right thing can and does take a back seat to one's own preservation, which indicates that people are always looking out for number one, i.e. being selfish.  The only unselfish act possible, by my uneducated guess, would be death for a cause beyond the reach of legacy and power.  This does not include those who commit suicide as an ultimate attention-getter, or a kamikaze pilot wishing to make a mark on history.  This would include only those people who wish to leave nothing behind; a person unnoticed in their passing; someone that died only for the good of the person they saved.  I doubt this could ever happen, because even Jesus needs credit for his death in the form of a personal relation with millions of followers.  If Jesus couldn't be completely unselfish, then I doubt anyone else could.  Maybe an animal could, but not a person.  We're too wicked.

Also, on a "lighter" note (you'll get it in a second), how is it that the speed of light cannot be surpassed?  This also bugs me.  What makes light so special?  How come sound waves are so easily defeated in a race with a rocket-boosted car in the desert, but even scientists don't joke around about outdoing the speed of light?  I guess it's the energy involved?  What is a black hole?  Isn't that an exploded star that won't allow light to exit its gravitational field?  Isn't that force working faster than light?  I have no idea.  Do my research for me.

Two more things...

Is there anything more to a person than their mind?  What makes you "you?"  If a guy slips in the shower and busts his head on the floor and can't remember his entire life and cannot speak, is he still the same guy?  Doesn't memory make you who you are?  What more is there to a person than their personality and experiences?  Where does the soul come in?

Finally, are we eventually going to find a reason (or an excuse) for the way in which every person acts?  Is there an adulterer gene?  The Kennedy family supports that theory.  "Well it's a matter of willpower as to whether or not you act on that 'adulterer gene'," someone might say.  Well then is there a willpower gene?  A curiosity gene?  An endless rhetorical questioning gene?  Maybe one day no one will be guilty of any crime because it was nature that made them do it.

Oh, the next entry will be: "Gay people are born 'that way'."

11:35 pm: Internship
Well, today I started my internship with the North Carolina Coalition for Lobbying Reform.  I think I've already ruled out a career in politics.  I got to the office where I will be working for free and I met the head honcho of Common Cause in North Carolina.  Basically, they are concerned with ethics and accountability within the government and making sure people actually have the power in our democratic system.  Right.  Anyway, this guy, this girl, who is responsible for the Coalition for Lobbying Reform sect of Common Cause, and I share this suite in a crummy building downtown.  The lobby of this place looks like it was being prepped for renovation but they decided not to go through with it.  Sharing the "suite" kind of sucks because I can hear everything the guy and the girl both say in their offices, since there are no doors separating the rooms.  All I did today was listen to a bunch of details about what Common Cause and the Coalition do and why it matters and what the agenda is for this legislative session and on and on and on.  Then I got to re-read all of the information on the internet for a couple of hours, afraid to make a noise as I could feel the other two listening.  They are cool people, but they are victims to a very ass-kissy job: lobbying.  Their job is particularly difficult because they themselves have to lobby in order to get support for anti-lobbying legislation.

So after a few hours of reading articles and trying desperately to gain some quick-fact knowledge about who my state representatives were and how things worked in downtown Raleigh, I got to follow the head honcho guy around as he... lobbied?  He was chatting on the phone in his office and I wandered down to the street to wait for him downstairs with the girl.  She started chatting it up with some guy from the News & Observer.  After a few minutes, the head honcho caught up with us downstairs and began chatting away with this guy, to whom they never introduced me.  So I just followed the two suitemates around downtown Raleigh and we saw about three more people that the guy and the girl both knew (how, I'm not sure), and I was only allowed to be introduced to about 50% of them.  I cannot figure out how this guy I work with knows every person from West Hargett Street to the Legislative Office Building and everywhere in between.  Wait a minute, look right.  Isn't that the impossibly young Duke-grad super-important, overly-ambitious geek guy we know and love?  Look left, there's Representative Queenbitch from Podunk County.  She's looking great, even with all those wrinkles and all that makeup, and she's such a hard worker.  We're really fortunate and grateful to have her in our coalition.  How about that!  It's good ol' boy Representative Jimmy Joe Johnson from Hayseed County, 22nd District.  He came to several meetings of the legislature last year and that same legislature passed our legislation, regardless of his no-vote.  He's super-special because he's an enemy.  Doesn't he look well?  Oh, look who it is!  State Senator McCracker from Bendemover County.  He's 82 today.  Happy birthday!  Why the hell are you still working?  What difference do you make?  What difference could we, as people with even less power than you, make?  Oh, fellow lobbyist O'Douche, how have you been?  Let's drop about 86 names in our conversation and sort of wink and chuckle and not let anyone have a clue as to what the hell we're talking about.

The highlight of my day was meeting this one guy, this sad lobbyist guy.  He was one of maybe four people who introduced himself directly to me all day.  He is what I would become if I ever had to be lobbyist.  He was so cynical and unexcited and sort of pissed about dealing with the legislators.  He complained about the politician we had just seen and how stubborn and self-righteous he was and how it was impossible to sway him and if you ever did, he would never admit it: all right outside his office and close to within earshot.  Then he talked about how all the representatives that didn't sign on with the lobbying restrictions bill just wanted their free dinners and other crap from lobbyists and couldn't bear letting those perks go.  He started several sentences with "I don't know why the hell..."  He was the man.  I wanted to divorce the couple I worked with and join him as he walked the other way down the hall.  My guy is nice, but he is so fake it feels contagious.  The other guy was a glimpse of hope.  I need to find him.  I could really get motivated to work for him.  And his name was Rob.  What a fine name.

12:47 am: Some More Musical Influences (Entry #50!)
As I finished up that last post, I started thinking about all the other musical influences I forgot to mention: the artists who suck so much that I would avoid sounding anything like them at all. They might just shape my music more than the previous influences. The following artists are not necessarily the artists I hate most, but rather the artists that have huge undeserved success and a tremendous lack of appeal to these ears; the artists that have too many fans based on minimal talent in songwriting and/or performance. Some of these guys are just lousy representatives of an otherwise decent band, and some are not. I left country out completely because I do not have the time, and the rap genre is not represented for a similar reason. Feel free to question my choices. And no, I won't pick the artists that are very obvious (i.e. most country, new rap and r&b, and boy bands/solo teen girl artists). Here goes something...


Don Henley and The Eagles

Maroon 5

Eric Clapton

Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin)

Jim Morrison (The Doors)

Aerosmith

Incubus

Oasis

Lynyrd Skynyrd

P.O.D.

Jack Johnson

Phish

Everclear

Bono and U2

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

KISS

Guns 'N' Roses

Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam

AC/DC

OAR


Jimmy Buffett

Chicago

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Bon Jovi



Uggh.  I'm sick of this.  I'll stop here.

12:39 am: Pictures and Musical Influences
I just discovered that this website allows pictures.  The first image I thought to put up was that of a young Brian Wilson, and from there I decided to post pictures of artists/songwriters that I would cite as musical heroes/influences, were I a recording artist/songwriter myself.  I do like other music besides that of the artists/songwriters listed below, but I doubt that I would keep anyone else in mind while writing music.  Enjoy.

Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys)

James Mercer (The Shins)

Wayne Coyne (The Flaming Lips)

John Lennon and Paul McCartney (The Beatles)

David Bowie

Scott Joplin

Kurt Cobain (Nirvana)

Simon and Garfunkel

Ray Davies (The Kinks)

Brian Eno

Arthur Lee (Love)

Burt Bacharach

Todd Rundgren

Pete Townshend (The Who)



----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Accidentally omitted:

Neal Eller (The Neal Eller Show)

Larry Ballard (FHBC Choir)

Ascella Vega

Andy Baumeister

I have omitted Mac MacElrath on the basis that my church no longer recognizes him as a human being since his hugging went a little too far back in the 60's or 70's.  You understand.

12:13 am: Dude It's 420. And There's Hope.
Marijuana smells awful.  It smells like something that should not be burned; sort of a plastic/poisonous burning smell.  At least tobacco can smell nice when it's burned.  If I was a pothead, I'd probably eat it rather than burn it.  Then again, I would not be Rob and therefore I cannot produce any valid conjecture as to my decision concerning pot consumption.

This past week has shown how poisonous my procrastinating habits can be to my school work.  I waited until the last minute to do three papers (for a combined 28 pages required).  I have to rush and sacrifice quality for limited quantity of time.  Is it lack of motivation?  Is it a gene?  Why am I not motivated?  The reasons are many: I can't see how any of my classes will help me in my life after college, with the exception of Spanish.  I thought college was the end of joke classes and busywork.  I thought high school was the end of "smoke weed"-pseudo-bad-ass fronting.  I thought college would find me reading for enjoyment, listening to jazz and getting it, finding people who felt the same way about vanity and music and television.  So far, I've found about one person worth my time that I did not know during high school.  I've read about two and three fifths books for pleasure.  I've heard discussion about beer at least 46,000 times.  I've done papers the night before and settled for a B just because I was not interested in the subject matter.  I've realized that dropping out of school is more appealing than I once thought it was.  I thought college would change me, but instead I molded it into a lazy, just-getting-by routine, all the while dreading the huge changes in my life in the coming five years, where I know more of the same will take place.  I will never make up my mind as to who or what God is and how Jesus fits into the whole picture and why some things seem so wrong but are accepted by everyone around me, even the ones I love.  What's my goal in life?  It's simple: to raise my children to be the best people possible.  That's right.  I've given up on Rob.  He's a fat sack of bones.

I will support my children and teach them the ways of truly good men and women.  They will not ridicule others for shortcomings, looks, social awkwardness, or anything else for which I ridiculed someone.  I will listen to my children and they will listen to me.  I will teach them to stand up against anything that is wrong, no matter who is involved and what outcome the situation has in store for them.  I will love them unconditionally and reward them with the occasional treat.  I will not be a permissive father. I will never bring work home.  I will keep them in line with the very occasional ridicule (a la Mr. Newson), but never insult them.  They will respect me because I will be their example, and I, in turn, will learn by teaching.  I will encourage them to make life better for other people at any cost.  Fatherhood will change me in a way nothing else could before.  I'm looking forward to it.*

*Note: Nina and I are not expecting.

10:49 pm: Right On, Rousseau!
Jean-Jacques Rousseau is one of few philosophers that I do not abhor.  He was way ahead of his time (1712-1778) in his thinking, being the first, according to my professor, to put forth in writing the basics of animal rights, the idea of evolution (early man being stronger, healthier than modern man), the notion that compassion developed in man before reason, and that mankind should respect nature.  But what really caught my eye was his attitude toward private property:

"The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society.  What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had someone pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: 'Do not listen to this impostor.  You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!'" [Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Pt. 2]

That was Rousseau spitting in the face of our beloved John Locke, from whose teat nearly every Founding Father (God bless their souls) suckled and spewed onto our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.  If they suckled from Jean-Jacques' teat, I imagine we would have a much better nation in nearly every way, especially in regards to inequality.  But they were wealthy and thrived in Locke-land and so they made their new nation continue on the path to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property Happiness (phew, that would have been too obvious).

Rousseau acknowledges that we can never go back to simpler times and live without "the extreme inequality in our lifestyle: excessive idleness among some, excessive labor among others; the ease with which we arouse and satisfy our appetites and our sensuality; the overly refined foods of the wealthy... the bad food of the poor, who most of the time do not have even that; staying up until all hours, excesses of all kinds, immoderate outbursts of every passion, bouts of fatigue and mental exhaustion; countless sorrows and afflictions which are felt in all levels of society and which perpetually gnaw away at souls: these are fatal proofs that most of our ills are of our own making, and that we could have avoided nearly all of them by preserving the simple, regular and solitary lifestyle prescribed to us by nature," [Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Pt. 1] making him a realist as well (I'm too lazy to find the evidence at this moment).

This guy is right-on in my book, which I have yet to publish.  What do you think about all this?

01:47 pm: Brooks: Classmate or T.A?
Surprise! Another annoyance! This one is particularly annoying, but basically harmless. It is a type of person that many, but not all, classes have. It's hard to give one name to such a variety of annoyances, so I'll just begin describing this person.

You get to class and on the first day, it's the student that is talking to everyone, introducing himself to everyone sitting minding their own business. "Hey, I'm Brooks. What's your name?" He feels that everyone in the class is so damn lucky to share the room with him that we might as well know his name so we can refer to him in our praises. Usually he squeezes about five to six people for their basic info, no doubt "making contacts." He's always one of the first to get to class because he owns the place. Once the professor arrives, he is also greeted by Brooks and you could swear that they have a personal history together. The professor likes these energetic, outgoing brown-nosers and is tickled to find that he has one in his class. Brooks discusses other professors and meetings while the professor settles in and once they're done talking, the rest of us can begin getting the education we paid for.

If you're lucky, Brooks' unwanted questions and comments ends with the beginning of lecture, but this is often not the case. Once things really get going, Brooks will be on cloud nine, nodding away at the lecture as if the professor needed his approval. He's all smiles and uh-huh's and mmmhhmmm's with the occasion chuckle if the professor gets clever and presents a juicy tidbit that one is lucky to find in the textbook. The other classmates have to refrain from looking at each other in disbelief of Brooks' over-confidence and asinine behavior for fear of being caught by Brooks and his seemingly endless ego. Brooks is oblivious to his performance and becomes a distraction for other classmates. At times, you could swear that Brooks was the TA, as he is always carrying an important looking folder, sitting as close as possible to the professor, and dressing a touch nicer than the other students. Any questions asked might as well be directed to him because he chimes in, unasked, every time another student is unclear on something. He can always dumb it down for you. The class goes on and he may leave to use the bathroom or attend an important meeting elsewhere; you just never know. What you do know is that whatever he does is unquestioned by the professor, as he doesn't bat an eye when Brooks jumps up to leave from the seat right beneath him. Brooks returns having lost no information because his tape recorder is on the professor's podium. He begins laughing in satisfaction as he finally finds his intellectual equal in the professor.

No one stays after class because that is "Brooks Time." Have a question for the professor? Better make it quick. Want to ask about an assignment or exam? Just ask Brooks. Want to get out of there without hearing Brooks start up the pre-lecture chat where he left off? Better leave early. Somehow, come exam or paper time, Brooks is outdone by one or two of the silent types in the class that are actually smart and believe that the "it's not what you know, it's who you know" business is out the window. There are exceptions to this rule and Brooks will likely find a way to make a living off of connections only, which will further the injustice done to those who deserve to be successful and the injustice done to society in denying jobs for the people most worthy. Godspeed, Brooks.

11:51 pm: A Poorly Organized, Unfocused Gun Control Babble.
There's no clearer a sign of your endless stupidity than sporting a bumper sticker with "GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE...PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE" written on it.  Rednecks are issued these bumper stickers with their birth certificates, it's just that most lose them before they drop out of school and get their driver's license (sweet sixteen, indeed).  The ones that are smart and keep track of the sticker slap it on their Ford F-450's the first chance they get and show the world what's up.  They're just southern gentlemen- the selfless gentlemen that hate gays but think lesbian porn is A.O.K.  Anyway, they've had guns in immediate reach their whole lives and figure everyone else is the same way until they get cable.  Then they see the liberal propaganda that says maybe not everyone is qualified to have a handgun or assault rifle with them at all times.  Having stayed in school just long enough to learn their second amendment rights and learn to hold this right very dear, Junior is prepared to lead the good fight and backlash against the liberal enemy at large.  Pappy made Junior care in the first place, since there is no way that Junior cared about the Bill of Rights.
I feel that gun control is a good thing.  There are people out there that think guns should be as available to the public as bread, milk, and Skoal.  Even more believe that since those divine creatures we call "Founding Fathers" thought of this right while amending the Constitution, we should all treasure it and that challenging this right is heresy.  "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is another clever bumper sticker often found right next to aforementioned sticker.  This sticker means nothing because even when things are broken (like civil rights, education, etc.), the redneck denies that anything is wrong and refuses to do anything about it.  Anyway, gun-control people have beaten the "it's an old, outdated document that was written in the early days of the nation when soldiers forced themselves into private homes" reasoning to death and it has no effect on Junior and the boys.  I say let the southern gentlemen keep their hunting equipment so they can feel really manly and shoot those menacing and delicious quail, and maybe an occasional elderly friend (see Cheney, Dick), but deny them the right to "protect themselves" with a handgun.  Who are they protecting themselves against?  If it's not the ever-present and malicious government, it would have to be other people with guns.  How are we supposed to stop those criminals that trespass our 80 acres and threaten us with handguns?  Hey Roger Redneck, maybe the government could control the flow of weaponry and keep guns from those bad guys that attack you at your old-money estate.  What an idea.
Gun control does not mean gun elimination.  And as far as being defenseless in case our democracy is overthrown and we somehow are forced into a fascist regime that attacks rural homes first and foremost...nevermind.  This will never happen.
Remember, while it's true that "GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE," it's also true that "PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE WITH GUNS."  That'd make a nice bumper sticker.

02:51 am: Allow Me To Criticize Myself
If you've read more than two of my entries on here, you've likely noticed that I am very critical of people in general. While talking with Nina the other night, I realized that much of my malice is directed at no one in particular. I direct my criticism to someone who may or may not exist; a paradigm of a crappy person I like to call "Brandon." I make excuses all the time in order to ridicule this embodiment of all that I despise in a person when I am every bit as crappy as he.

I have major flaws that you should know about; flaws that I must discuss in order to point them out to myself. Here it goes...

I take few risks.
I am lazy.
I think I'm too cool for most people.
I think I'm really something special.
I dismiss people before they even give me an impression.
I have little confidence where it matters and much confidence where it does not matter.
I place too high a value on sense of humor.
I am rude when it comes to music that I do not like.
I am out of shape.
I don't challenge authority enough.
I don't handle criticism well but give it out liberally.
I sit on the fence about issues for far too long.
I am afraid of my future.
I don't listen well.
I am generally not willing to try new things.
I do not keep up with friends like I should.
I try to look smarter than I am.
I am not trusting of others.
I give no one the benefit of the doubt.

The list goes on and on...

After that criticism, I need an ego boost. Here goes that...

I have a good sense of humor.
I care deeply about people.
I am non-violent.
I do intense thinking.
I think before I speak (usually).
I am rational.
I am capable of holding a conversation.
I am trustworthy.
I am honest.

The ego-boosting list took about four times as long to create. I guess I don't see the good in myself, either.
It feels good to acknowledge flaws and share with others what they already know. You should try it.

12:43 am: Bravery
It seems that every time there's a show on t.v. about someone who survived a major accident that person is called "brave." If he's been paralyzed, it's almost habit for an interviewee or a narrator to say, "Oh, he's so brave. He's just out there being brave every day. Brave brave brave brave brave." There's a problem with calling someone brave when they've only fallen victim to a serious accident. Is Brian brave because he accidentally faced his fear (death) and survived and continues to live today? Does "brave" spew out for lack of a better term?
I don't think Christopher Reeve was brave because a horse got spooked (I should have a "Stupid Horses" entry) and threw him over a hurdle onto his neck. He might have been brave when he first went horseback riding, knowing that this could happen, but that's not what the interviewees mean. I think "resilient" is a better word. Christopher Reeve was pretty resilient. He regained more motor skills than any doctor would have ever dreamed. He fought to return to as normal a life as possible, which takes will-power and a desire for self-improvement, but a negligible amount of bravery.
I guess some crippled people were brave before their life-changing accident, but their bravery was no different than it was for anyone else. Bravery is not affected by accidents. It's all relative. It all depends on what one's fears are and how one deals with those fears. Don't get me wrong; I admire the will-power and the desire for self-improvement from a crippled person just as much as a non-crippled person.

01:47 am: Rebel Rebel
The Confederate flag ("rebel flag" in the remainder of this entry for difficulty in capitalizing and correctly typing "Confederate") has an interesting past with me. I met the rebel flag in eighth grade when all the other white guys (most of whom I could not stand) began sporting it on their belts and t-shirts. I don't recall ever seeing a rebel flag hat; none of us were rebellious enough to break the hat rule at Daniels Middle School. I showed off my empty "southern pride" with one shirt and one belt buckle. I was close to a particular friend in late middle school and early high school that reinforced the coolness of our new symbol and kept me feeling sane in my lowest point in life so far. I don't like that Rob but I guess some pain is necessary in order to attain this perfect present state. But seriously, I would ridicule the younger Rob to the point that the younger Rob would break down in private and throw away all his rebel gear. I've been off the flag for seven years now and the future is looking bright.
Some people never outgrow the rebel flag. Some people have a bumper sticker while some have an entire pole in their front yard devoted to a flag of remembrance for those blessed souls who gave their lives for states' rights. The flag was a symbol of the territory that wanted to keep its own rights (namely slavery) and secede legally from the United States. It wasn't wrong for the south to fight (they had every right and sometimes I admire them for the effort), it's just that the goals (keeping slavery and keeping slavery) were wrong. The rebel flag does not represent states' rights. The most honorable quality it represents is challenging authority to the death, which is pretty honorable. Had the challenge not been backed by a lust for slavery, I could wear that flag.
"Heritage, not hate" doesn't cut it. If it's just heritage, why not wear a kilt or sport your family coat of arms on a t-shirt? It's not all about heritage when Bubba Jr. has no other memorabilia from any other event in his culture's history. Why concentrate on five years of American history? There's a little hate there. If not, it's a desire to agitate black people, which is pretty close. I have numerous Confederate soldier ancestors, with a little black C.S.A. cross stuck into each burial plot for rows and rows. I can't be sure but I'm guessing most of them only wanted to preserve their way of life (including slavery). I don't find that particularly noble, as nearly every person who ever lived wanted to be comfortable. Realizing this, I can't look down on their efforts.
People who still wear and defend the rebel flag are either foolish teens or ignorant people who want to cause controversy. They couldn't care less about their ancestors or the civil war or challenging authority (especially in Bush's America). They bring nothing to the table and I am sad that such an interesting turning point in American history now has a taboo attached to it. Way to go, KKK.
For people that are absolutely outraged at the sight of a rebel flag, just calm down. No one who wants the flag around is changing anything in any way. It will fade away (if it hasn't already). Those colors do run. They aren't saving up Confederate money because they know the south will never rise again.

12:21 am: Let's See What Happens...
I am beginning to type without planning what I'm going to discuss. I think about race relations a lot so maybe I'll start there. I watch football games and try to see if black players treat black players better, or white players treat white players better, or if the races (especially white) overdo it by being too nice to the other race. I have seen no pattern, happily. A black guy spat in a black guy's face tonight and a black referee ejected him. A black guy helped an opposing team's white guy stand up again after a play. A white referee helped up a white player (to my astonishment). White guys are under-represented in sports like black people are in politics, but both seem to forget about all that when they become teammates. I'm glad to see that the color of the jersey matters more than the color of the skin.

On a heavier note, skin color matters to me. I pity the earnest black man that is trying to prove himself in a world full of Durhams, where each night there is a shooting (no doubt from a black male, age 16-25 with a black jacket, jeans, and a long white tee) for no reason. The earnest black men don't need my pity, but it's there for the taking. I have never been in a hostile confrontation with any black person in my entire life, but somehow I always feel that it's just around the corner and that I'll pick the wrong guy and he'll shoot me somewhere. I'd have enough luck to escape life-threatening injury, but it'd scare me so much that I would never go out alone at night. Why such fear? I'm not sure. Maybe I only hear about what young black males do wrong and my mind has shut out the possibility that a nice young black guy from Durham wants to help people and thinks gangs are stupid. I ask young black males in my mind: "Why do anything? No one will mess with you. Why have any respect for any authority? You've probably gotten your way in the past through violence. Why obey the law? Doesn't it show a flaw in our government if a black man gets a speeding ticket?" And then I have a genuinely good experience with a young black male. One day on Hillsborough Street, I didn't have any quarters for the quarter-only parking meters. I had dimes, pennies, and even nickels aplenty and I asked the two guys that fit the above descriptions if I could swap some change for a quarter. Both of them dug through their pockets and one of them had a quarter and when I tried to give him 25 cents, he said "It's good, man." Why would he do something so kind for someone like me; someone who doubted him; someone of my race? I've passed numerous black homeless men and lied by saying I had no money when I had plenty to give. They could have (maybe should have) done the same thing. Why did they help their white beggar? Maybe decency has no barriers. Yes, I think that's it.

02:37 am: Off-pissings.
These are some things that piss me off:

*Competitive storytelling.
This is the litmus test of superficial conversation. It is the mark of someone so self-absorbed, so stubborn, and so superficial that they cannot listen to anyone and take in the story without puking out some half-truth, personally unaffecting bull that will "beat" anything said by anyone because life is tougher for them. They have all the signs of being allergic to real conversation, where more than half is listening. These people are useless.
-Someone: "My friend John tore his ACL and now he can't play sports."
-Despicable person: "No. My friend Brandon tore both ACL's and had a brain tumor and now he's in a coma and they say he'll never walk again."

*Bragging about drinking.
It's one thing to abuse a drink and lose control of yourself and poison your body; fine, do it. I probably care little about you as it is. It's another thing to make it the center of your social life; to casually and sometimes boldly boast about what you did last night or what you'd rather be doing or what you're going to do tonight: get drunk! If someone mentions beer in a college classroom, people laugh or say "yeaahhh" or "ooooo" as though someone said "vagina" in a fourth grade class. Alcohol is more of a problem than pot. Show me where a "high driver" has killed an entire family in a traffic accident and I'll show you six thousand "drunk driving" articles. Alcohol is nothing new and people don't get it. It's been around for thousands of years and you're never creative for mentioning it.

*Country music these days.
I don't need to explain.

*Hurricane Katrina dubbed "racist".
Not the storm itself, but the failure to respond efficiently. It wasn't a race thing; it was a poor thing. It was a bad leadership thing. It was a "my city is a huge bowl" thing. Bush hates poor people more than black people, it just so happens that most of the poor people in New Orleans are black. Government miscommunication is not racist. Think of all the white people that died in the World Trade Centers because of government miscommunication. It's too easy to play the race card. If every white person was bused out of New Orleans and every black person was left behind, you'd have a case. It was the people who couldn't afford to move who got the raw deal.

*Family Guy.
Family Guy is a disgrace. It is anything but subtle. It is blatant idiocy, comparable to new Simpsons episodes. Only hardcore Simpsonites still watch the Simpsons and love it because the rest of us aren't delusional and can see that it's gone to crap- the same crap that Family Guy is. The appearance and fast-paced physical comedy is a Simpsons knock-off. The dumb father, the sensible (sometimes) daughter, the housewife mom, the screw-up son...all Simpsons. Sure, Family Guy can get the occasional smirk out of me, but so can Geico commercials. The smirks aren't enough to get me through the talking baby (so clever, British accent and all), the annoying-as-hell voices, the long, awkward pauses for that "random" factor (a la new Simpsons), and the sacrifice of story for shock-value slapstick comedy. It's no wonder this show is popular as hell with people my age. They hate round characters and thought.

*Older people trying to appeal to my age.
I was reminded of my hate for this situation when I sold a c.d. to some guy over the internet and he came to pick it up. On the phone, he was very polite and respectable and I could tell by his voice that he was older. He pulled up to my apartments and rolled down the window and, noticing my youthful college face, he said "Wassup, my man?" Ugh. A 40-something white guy, green mini-van saying a 90's young black male phrase. He lived up the street in the same apartments where that girl was murdered about a month ago and I brought it up for small talk purposes. "Yeah, man, I lived right next to her. That's some fucked-up shit." Wow, could it get any worse? I loathe being near anyone that uses language like that in casual conversation, but coming from this guy it was quadrupally nauseating. He continued, in his yellow windbreaker from 1992, that "they should torture those bastards", and I politely nodded and took his three dollars. What a douchebag. He was a "musician" on his way to "a gig". He never said what instrument he played, but I'm guessing it's something really cheesy like a saxophone for a white blues band or keyboards for a soft-rock 80's band. He left and I felt immediate relief wash over me. Act your age. I would rather him say "Hey there. So I guess that's my c.d. you have there? Alrighty then, thanks a lot." I respect that kind of guy. Oh, he was buying a Simpsons c.d. I had; no doubt a fan of the newer episodes.

08:50 pm: More Tired Phrases
"If life gives you lemons, make lemonade."
Please.  How can this phrase have meaning anymore?  It's a given that I don't hear the lesson anymore, but I don't even see lemons anymore, I just see lame people with empty slots on their facebook profiles.  If you're a real cool party person, you can make yours say something like this: "If life gives you lemons, find someone whose life gave them tequila and have a party!"  That would be even better, see, because it implies that you drink and have lots of crazy friends and good stories and inside jokes and that people must truly value your existence.  The quote is too generic to begin with.  "Make the best out of bad situations," is a no-brainer, and it doesn't apply to anyone in particular.  It's a crappy line of advice, and no one takes it to heart.  Most of the people who have used this line are given "lemonade" and choose to make a "lemon" out of it just to get pity or a movie-ready survival story. Stop dreaming.

"I heart _____." 
This annoys me to no end, especially in the form "I <3 ____".  I always see "less than three" when I read it.  It doesn't even look like a heart, you mindless bimbo.  What is it that you love?  Your friends?  How unique!  Your friends will see it and each will think, "She really loves me. I am one of her friends and it says here that she loves her friends. How nice. I've really changed for the better in knowing this."  Everyone loves their friends, insecure one.  Chances are, your friends probably don't like you all that much when you're not around.

"Live like you meant it."
Whoops.  Thanks for catching me not living like I meant it.  It's good to have an accountability partner.  But really, what does that mean?  What does it look like to "live like you mean it"?  Do you strain every second of the day?  Do you scramble around and try to fit in as much conversation as possible?  Do you neglect sleep?  I'm having trouble, but your motto is helping.  I swear it's not meaningless advice like, "If life gives you lemons..."

"No regrets."
Wow.  I guess it doesn't matter that you killed two people for cutting you off in traffic; you have no regrets.  I'm glad you've gone through life and messed up and haven't done anything to fix it or even looked back and wished you hadn't done it.  That time you made fun of the fat girl in front of her class...gone.  The time you didn't finish high school and opted to attend cosmetology school...vanished.  Regretting is a basic and vital human process.  Are you telling me to plan ahead and avoid doing things that I'll regret (which is the only way your t-shirt makes sense)?  I wouldn't choose to do something if I knew I'd regret it, nutjob.  Go beat your submissive wife.  No regrets; at least not on your part.
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Don't worry, there's a galaxy of crap mottos and useless advice out there. Meanwhile, I <3 you all and I'll be living like I mean it, with no regrets, because if life gives you lemons, you gotta make lemonade.

02:10 am: The Controversial Issues, Part Three: Same-Sex Marriage
The last issue (Terri Schiavo) didn't seem too compelling. You can't win 'em all.

Gay. What does that word mean? I see a blond, tall, thin, neat, well-dressed, tight-lipped, clean-shaven, boyish man flipping his hands around with his supple wrists as he tries not to laugh at a vulgar joke, as if he's clawing at the joke to get it away so it'll stop making him giggle. He's wearing a lavender, silky, button-down shirt (for clubbing) tucked into black pants (I can't quite tell if they're leather) and shiny black platform boots. When I hear "gay marriage", I see two of him (maybe one brunette version of him) marrying in tuxes with a lot of happy people around. The people are happy because they'll have something to talk about to make them sound cosmopolitan and open-minded, having gay friends and all. They're happy because they can also get offended if someone makes a statement about gay people, even if it isn't a derogatory comment. I also see flashes of Congress and the conservatives who are watching my mental images and protesting passively with a hard frown. I see a fat white man with an even harder frown banging a gavel repeatedly, as if to drown out the gay men from speaking in a court, possibly fighting for the right to marry.

Do I think same-sex couples should be allowed to marry? I can't really say. It seems like two bachelors who aren't looking to get married could cook up a scheme to get benefits and stay in their apartment together, reaping tax breaks and having promiscuous sex with women all the while. When I think again, I realize that a man and a woman could do the same thing. It seems like two men who love each other are more entitled to a legal relationship than a sixteen-year-old girl and a seventeen-year-old boy, who accidentally got pregnant together and were forced into marriage by their parents, are entitled to one. But then there's the problem with opening up the possibility for polygamy to be legalized, which seems problematic for issues of divorce, property rights, and child possession (the list could go on). When I raise that point, I see that gay marriage is different in that gay households are shown to be quite steady and nurturing, and that the fear that two dads would "mess up" a kid is not at all justified. But if it's results in children that we're concerned about, we'd have to control marriage so far as to make it illegal to be a single parent (with some exceptions, like spousal death), because a disproportionally high number of criminals come from single-parent households. While we're at it, let's discourage couples from having male children, since an alarming majority of convicted murderers are male. That's a little extreme, but my point is peeking through.

Let's not forget the Bible-thumper, conservative stance: Leviticus 20:13 says, "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them." Hey Falwell, Leviticus 22:28 says, "Whether it be a cow, or ewe, ye shall not kill it and her young both in one day." Let's go after cattle farmers too.

My thoughts chase each other around and cat-fight every day, looking much like the gay man in my mental images. Tell me what you think.

10:05 pm: The Controversial Issues, Part Two: Terri Schiavo
Terri Schiavo, the lady who was in a vegetative mental state for a really long time (what was it...15 years?), somehow got national attention when her husband, the one who had legal rights in making decisions about her health care in the absence of her capable mind, decided that he would let her die by taking her off of a feeding tube and whatever other life support devices on which she was dependent (shows that I've really done my research here). I've already hinted at my stance via phrases like "for a really long time", "somehow got national attention", "who had legal rights", and "would let her die". If that wasn't obvious enough for you, here it goes: I don't see anything wrong with what the husband decided to do.

My grandfather, who died about a month ago, was in a vegetative state and was living only because the doctors could revive him and keep his breath going with a respirator. My dad had to make the decision of whether or not to take him off of the respirator. This was not national news. Why is that? My grandfather's life had, arguably, as much potential as Terri Schiavo's life, since neither could do anything for themselves. The difference: Terri Schiavo could blink and make sounds; my grandfather couldn't open his eyes and was quiet.
Was it a sensational story because the media blew it out of proportion? It's quite possible.
Was it actually wrong for Terri Schiavo's husband to take her off life support? People have argued so.
Was Terri Schiavo different because she died before her time and was once a decently attractive young woman? That doesn't quite cut it.

When I commit to my stance, I can see the critics' challenges (some less laughable than others; some not laughable at all):
-An infant can't talk or do much of anything for himself, so should we be able to starve every baby?
-If the husband's idea of a life devoid of purpose were more liberal, could he starve Terri if she were simply comatose?
-How could the government let a woman starve?
-What makes a mind "capable"?
-What do you know about anything, Rob?
-Etc.

Some might say taking her off the feeding tube was "playing God", "against God's will", or something of the like. Here's my reply to that argument:

-You don't know God's will.
-Terri Schiavo's husband doesn't know God's will.
-Why does God's will always include everyone being alive?
-Why isn't God's will unavoidable (i.e. Why hasn't everything happened, including Terri Schiavo's death, because God willed it to happen?"
-Maybe God's will was violated when the doctors kept Terri Schiavo alive.
-It's funny how God's will is very similar to your will.

I'm sure there's enough here to bite me in the ass already. I'm sure it won't be hard to throw my crap right back at me. I better brace myself.

10:58 pm: Morbid Stances
Abortion is one of those few, critical, crowd-dividing issues that are really personal but somehow get around and become part of a party platform. Homosexuality is the only other one I can remember, actually. But anyway, I know you're dying to find out my stance on abortion. I am anti-life, not pro-choice. Anything that controls population in a manner that doesn't cause unreasonable pain or suffering is A.O.K. by me. An unwanted child is better off never living; never being a burden to someone's lifestyle. It bothers me more to see a child dragged around at all hours so that his mother can still party and be hip, despite being a mother. I know there's always adoption, but if every baby that was aborted were put up for adoption instead, there'd be a huge foster child population. If you want to adopt, there's a way. Some call abortion murder because potential humans are being destroyed. I say each and every sperm cell and egg cell are a potential human, but it's still not wrong to have a wet dream or a menstrual cycle, so abortion still fails to bother me.

I think the death penalty is A.O.K. as well. It's not a matter of population control, since probably less than 50 people are killed by capital punishment each year in the U.S. It's a matter of justice. If someone raped and killed my entire family and all of you reading this entry, I would want them to die. Even after counting to ten, taking a year or two to reconsider and cool down, I'd still want them to die. It seems wrong that someone could kill 58 people and have no chance of being killed themselves. That's 58 lives destroyed. Not potential lives. Real lives. As for the government being the middleman, well that just makes sense. What other entity is more appropriate to punish than a government? G-men have no feelings. As for wrongful death via capital punishment, it's been rare in the past and things are only going to improve as far as evidence is concerned. It may seem too logical, too simple, and too black and white to decide my position on such an important issue with these reasons. I can't apologize.

What do you think?

02:16 am: Inside Jokes! Right, Reader?! Hahahahaha!
Surprisingly, I haven't mentioned inside jokes and how I want to shove down anyone who tells them.  It has repulsed me for quite some time. 

Hey there, inside joker.  You'd be completely empty if it weren't for your little inside jokes.  "Garbage bags, right Brandon?!"  I have three questions for you:

1)Why is it your goal to leave someone out? 
Oh, you're not leaving anyone out?  Then why is it an "inside" joke?  Someone is "outside."  Do you think exclusion makes you seem elite and mysterious?  Ironically, it makes you common and uninteresting.

2)Was it really that funny, and is it still? 
You scream with delight every time you remind Brandon about the garbage bags.  It can't be funny anymore.  You're an attention whore.  Brandon isn't laughing.  Brandon probably hates you.  He wishes both of you were decent people and didn't have to fill your lives with superficial friends you meet at parties, who would have nothing to talk about if it weren't for other party-goers.  Don't you wish the same?

3)Where do you go now? 
The joke is "out" and you're standing there with Brandon, trying to decide whether to explain your crappy joke or to keep it in and let one of the "outsiders" change the subject.  If you explain, you'll reveal that it wasn't funny at all and that you ruined the evening by bringing up something painfully stupid and unimportant.  If we outsiders don't like the story, we "had to be there."  Keep that in your back pocket, right next to your emergency condom.
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Do me a favor.  If you think we have an inside joke, know that we don't.  Even if it qualifies (i.e. we were the only ones there, it was funny, we want to leave others out), don't say anything.  You'll piss me off as much as you will the "outsiders."  I will have to explain the story to everyone there and it won't be funny and it'll look like you were the "setup" and I was supposed to "know 'em down."  We didn't arrange anything.  You know why?  Because I don't care for those situations.

12:35 am: Goodbye, Wade.
I went to the State Fair on Friday, opening day.  Wade Shows, Inc. took over for the first time this year and they suck.  More than half the rides weren't open on opening day, including the beloved Zipper, and the ones that were functional weren't too fun.  They don't have any form of the Kamikaze/Skymaster rides this year.  They don't have the chair lift or a main midway.  The carnies are unusually filthy and lustful.  There weren't many people there, which may have been a good thing, but it was a little depressing.

I rode a ride called Rock and Roll or Rock 'n' Roll or Rok 'n' Rol (or some dumb variation) with Nina.  The ride had poorly airbrushed "rock stars" all over, but, being the observant type, I noticed that none of the names of the bands were official.  I'm a big fan of The Who and apparently there's another band called simply "Who."  The Rolling Stones just performed at Wallace Wade stadium, but did you know that they have a tribute band called "Stones" who sort of look like them?  There was a strange Val-Kilmer/Jim Morrison type painted next to "Doors."  Stevie Ray Vaughan was the only properly represented name that I saw, and since that name isn't really a band, cheap fair companies can probably airbrush a vague likeness of him on their nauseating rides.

O.K.  Here we go.  I handed the carney a portion of my sheet of tickets (yes, sheet of tickets, not booklet; sheet).  We were strapped into a circular, flipping, two-seats-facing-each-other "car" or whatever it's called.  Then the nice greasy carney strapped us in with a wide, woven, formerly white "belt" (it's proportions, had it been any wider, would render it a "mat"): the only thing holding us in our seats.  The carney, being astute and concerned for our safety, made sure the belt was tight enough to interfere with the gastro-intestinal, urinary, and circulatory systems.  Needless to say, it was uncomfortable being held upside down for several seconds at a time by a gut-busting belt, all while spinning and flipping for a few minutes.  I began trying to regulate my breathing so that my gag reflexes would settle down and my vomit would not splash around in Nina's face, and later mine.  Nina was across from me and was apparently trying the same technique, all while our blood rushed in and out of our heads (mostly in, it seemed).  I wanted to puke on the carneys on the way out.  "Thanks for nothing, greasy carneys!" I would've said.

Wade Shows makes me sick. It will not be back next year, and even if it is, I can't use my left-over tickets from this year.

Let's get Strates back.

03:22 am: Poe
Edgar Allen Poe is a great author.  I'm not just talking about "The Raven," which has been drilled in our heads since middle school.  I'm talking about "The Purloined Letter" and "William Wilson."  His short stories use all my favorite details; details of thoughts and emotion rather than the appearance of a room.  I've had to read some of his works for my American Literature class and it's the most fun I've had in literature in a long time.  His poetry is good enough (I'm not really into poetry), but his short stories are superb.  Superb: a word I don't often use.  Check his stuff out sometime.  Most of the works I've read were online in their entirety.  Will there ever be another Poe?

02:16 am: Mercer, Bowie, and Kurt...Oh My!
How incredible is David Bowie's Low album?  Never listened to it?  Heard bits in my car and thought it was too weird?  Try again.  It's great.  It's a rare jewel of an album that is listenable all the way through from start to finish.  Also rare is the quality of getting better with repeated listening.  Bowie has staying power.  He fills a room.  The first half of Low contains lyrics, the second half is all instrumental, with the exception of his chanting nonsense on "Warszawa".  Put on your "excited about something new and different" hat and give it a listen.  I'll make a copy for you.

Nirvana and The Shins have gotten old for now, as they've been in my car with me for the last two weeks non-stop.  I never stop and change cd's before pulling out in the car, and I don't like changing cd's while I'm driving because I lose control and pose a threat to the safety of everyone on the road.  I never thought I'd respect Nirvana; they had always been a sort of goof band in my eyes and playing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" really loud gave pleasure through laughter, not reflection and admiration for songcraft.  I have given them another listen, starting as far back as my senior year of high school.  Cobain had a knack for pumping out personal tragedies in his songs.  He was also gifted in keeping songs simple and straight to the point without invading other artists' territory.  He was unique if nothing else, and influenced a resurgence of hard rock in the 90's.  Some Nirvana songs can bring a tear to my eye, which is surprising.  I think about how much Kurt Cobain hated himself, probably more than anyone else could hate him, and how he finally killed himself after failing several times.  He suffered from horrible gastric problems and was constantly seeking pills to ease the pain, and taking laxatives and antacids to calm his stomach (read the lyrics to "Pennyroyal Tea").  In "Dumb", he repeats, in almost mantra fashion, "I think I'm dumb" as the song concludes.  It's very saddening.

The Shins...wow.  They are one of few bands that can make me proud, if only for a moment, of American music.  I would love to go to England and hear someone humming "Know Your Onion!"  James Mercer (lead singer/songwriter/lead guitar) has an incredible voice that at times reminds me of Brian Wilson.  I wish The Shins would cover one of the cornier Beach Boys hits, just to see how well he could match Brian.  His songs are pretty complex, but rarely get sloppy.  His lyrics are above average and his melodies are sugary sweet.  Chutes Too Narrow is a fine album with only two songs that are noticeably weak.  They only have two albums and waiting for the third is driving me mad.  I'm also hungry for some new Flaming Lips.

10:42 pm: Keep Your Shirt On.
Outward criticism:
Hey you.  Yeah, you...with no shirt on.  What are you doing?  Oh, you work out and feel like the world wants to see your upper body: uncensored.  You are not porn and the entire population isn't a thirteen-year-old boy.  You are doing no one a favor.  You are a distraction.  It's ok that you have a void to fill; we all do.  Maybe you could fill the void with something else.  Try learning and being serious sometimes.  A man is not a big muscle.  Sculpt your mind instead.

Self-Analysis:
I am not in great shape.  I never have been.  I'm not disappointed.  I have put little to no effort into being in great shape.  I do not like being shirtless.  I keep my shirt on in public as long as possible.  I don't feel as though anyone would want to see what I have, unless they need a good laugh.  I would like to have a sculpted body but I feel like the effort would consume my life.  I am certain that if I did attain a great physique, I would not show it off.  The only change: I would take my shirt off a few minutes before jumping into the water, as opposed to a few milliseconds.

01:04 am: Hell's Smells
There is a smell coming from somewhere in the vicinity of the section of my preferred parking spot at the apartments.  It is the worst smell I've ever smelled in my life, and I'm not saying that as a drama-queen attention-whore says it in exaggeration when she talks about the breath of some guy she rejected.  I really mean it.  I think back through the years and through all the times I shat my pants, smelled a stink bomb or passed a dumpster on a balmy summer day and I cannot remember a smell that evoked such strong emotions in me or put me on the brink of gagging.  I've never been angry after smelling something.  It's like someone found a raccoon carcass, healthy with maggots, and soaked it in yogurt and urine and let it bake in the sun.  It's roadkill from hell.  I know when the smell will hit me so I take a deep breath and walk briskly to my car and jump in and start it and pull out without putting my seat belt on or rolling down the windows.  I feel like I'm deep-sea diving and my scuba gear is broken.  It's a sort of panic.  If it continues, I might have to get really Jewish and complain to an authority.

03:50 am: Decision, Collision, Sanitation, Vegetarianism
I am becoming less and less interested in political science, but never fear. I'm just going to stick it out for another two years and then start doing what I really want to do. What is it? I'm not sure yet. I just turned 20, so I figure I have about 60 more years to make up my mind.

I bumped into a blind guy the other day. It wasn't really my fault, either. I said "excuse me" and since I know blind people have razor-sharp hearing, I figured that was enough warning. We collided in a doorway. He was probably in his 60's, wore dark sunglasses and a short sleeve button-down thin cotton shirt typical of men his age. His skin was very loose and saggy, and almost powdery to the touch. I apologized profusely and I could tell he was annoyed. I felt like a real asshole, bumping into a blind man, even though it wasn't all my fault. I did my part. I wonder if he told anyone about it? How would he describe me? What do blind people's dreams look like?

Why do all dumpsters smell the same? Surely not every dumpster has the exact same contents that mix in the exact same proportions. What is that smell? Does someone go around pouring milk all over everyone's trash? I remember smelling the dumpster behind E.C. Brooks elementary school and watching a trail of milk making its way from the dumpster, across the asphalt and into the grass. It reeked. Since then, I've assumed that dairy products are to blame.

The last two times I've eaten at K&W, I've gotten a vegetable plate, which is three servings of vegetables. I also got cornbread and a desert. It's a great deal, but I really miss the meat. I've entertained the idea of being a vegetarian for awhile. I'm starting to rethink my challenge because smooth bowel movements don't make up for the satisfaction of having a complete meal with meat. Sometimes meat makes me feel sluggish, but it sure does satisfy.

I wouldn't be a vegetarian for any cause, even though I've watched a gruesome video highlighting all that is wrong in the meat industry. They showed a guy with a huge device much like a lock cutter and he used it to cut off a bull's horn and blood shot out in a steady stream from the pulpy nub he left behind.* It got me wanting vegetables really bad. Surely something else could be done to get meat in a good, clean way.



*Sorry for the graphic mental image.

02:14 am: Bob vs. Brian & a Short-Lived Top 20 Albums List
Bob Dylan is my new phase in music. I never really listened to his songs until now. I kept hearing about how great he was and how he inspired just about everyone musically, but I never thought "Rainy Day Women #12 and 35" was such a great song. I never gave him a chance, but never ruled him out either. Then, I happened upon "Simple Twist of Fate" after finally listening to the free disc that came with the "500 Greatest Albums" edition of Rolling Stone and I was suddenly very excited about hearing more. He soon became part of the rotation of artists I always check out whenever I'm at a music store (along with the Kinks, Todd Rundgren, the Flaming Lips, David Bowie, and the Beach Boys). I never buy any more of their music, I just have a habit of looking for albums that I already have. They all have very bright spots in their careers, mingled with plenty of crap.

Bob Dylan is almost the opposite of Brian Wilson. Dylan's strength is in his words; Brian's is in his voice and melodies. Dylan's voice is very lacking, but I've gotten used to it. Some of Brian's lyrics are corny and shallow, but I don't notice them through his soaring arrangements. Dylan takes a lot of getting-used-to, but I think it's worth the time. An unusually large percentage of Dylan's songs that I've heard have brought a tear to my eye, which is a rare and special occurence.

I'm going to pull a "VH-1" and make a list of my top 20 favorite albums, though I know I'll forget one, misplace a couple, and/or soon regret my decision altogether.  Let's call it...

Rob's Top 20 Albums for Today, September 6th, 2005 (he thinks)

1. Pet Sounds (The Beach Boys)
2. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (The Beatles)
3. Smile (Brian Wilson)
4. Revolver (The Beatles)
5. The Who Sell Out (The Who)
6. The White Album (The Beatles)
7. A Wizard, A True Star (Todd Rundgren)
8. Hunky Dory (David Bowie)
9. Rubber Soul (The Beatles
10. Low (David Bowie)
11. Magical Mystery Tour (The Beatles)
12. Odessey and Oracle (The Zombies)
13. Something/Anything? (Todd Rundgren)
14. Abbey Road (The Beatles)
15. Help! (The Beatles)
16. Beatles For Sale (The Beatles)
17. The Soft Bulletin (The Flaming Lips)
18. Chutes Too Narrow (The Shins)
19. Paul's Boutique (The Beastie Boys)
20. The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (Bob Dylan)

Did you know?
By the time the average reader read through the above list, Rob's mind changed 4.82 times!

02:21 am: Why this and why that?
I'll take a page out of the Ben Folds' Solo Career book: Society really sucks.  I don't think I'd have any friends if I hadn't make them back when I was more accepting of how people are.*  I can't imagine myself talking to the guy next to me in class and him not talking big or bringing up alcohol or how little he cares for school.  And if he somehow didn't play down to my expectations, I can't imagine really wanting to know him.  These people are everywhere.  You've seen them.  They're in small groups everywhere around campus.  They mention a party at just the right volume for others to hear.  The blast bass beyond a level that the human ear can really appreciate, just to get attention.  They are the ones who talk big and loud and never really say anything, and usually do so on a cell phone.  Who are these people when they're by themselves and no one listens to the boasting?  Who really knows them?  Do they ever cry or think?  Do they value real feelings or learning or conversation?  Could they admit to being scared?  Why do I feel as though I'm in competition with everyone around me when I don't want to be?  Is it them or me?  Why do I feel so out of place?  Why do I feel so old?  Is there any hope for turning this around?  Do you ever wonder?

What bothers me is seeing a bit of "society" in my friends.  What sickens me is seeing it in myself.





*This does not mean "I only have my present friends because I had low expectations back when I was a stupid kid."  I love you very much for all that you are, friend.

02:53 am: Theory, Conjecture, Cliche.
I put this crap in my profile, but I thought it'd get out better by being on here.

I. A theory: The closer your job is to being taken over by machines, the less you typically get paid.
                  
II. A conjecture:  One would have to have no soul in order to beat a dog to death.

III. Some tired phrases (it'd be cliche to call them cliches):

"She tells it like it is!"  Yeah.  You admire this hag so much that you want to praise her brutal honesty, as if it were a great character trait.  The truth is, you're scared of what she might say about you if you don't kiss her ass.  This is the best compliment you can offer such a person.

"That's just how he is!"  Okay.  So I guess I shouldn't mind that the prick is trying to flirt with my girlfriend!  You have no point.  I know he's that way, that's why I can't stand him.  Some people are just child pornographers!  I don't accept child pornographers and I don't accept him.

"You either love him or you hate him."  Actually, Dale Earnhardt meant nothing to me.  Some people just don't matter, but you've been blinded by your love for him and know that you're in the minority.  Better drum up some support and divide all people into two groups!  That way, you'll feel like a lot of people love him when a vast majority couldn't care less.

note: The above represent approximately 0.00000000000074438% of the crappy, cutesy and meaningless garbage that spews from the mouths of the masses.




"I tell it like it is.  That's just how I am.  You either love me or you hate me." - Yours Truly.

01:19 pm: Let's Gauge the Interest!
Good news: After the school year starts back and I'm all settled in my apartment, I will begin regularly updating this site. If this excites* you in any way, please let me know in a well-thought-out comment.

An apology is in order for my laziness with this site over the summer.  I haven't been busy, really.  I can't find a reason for my neglect.  Sorry.

If you care to promote a subject that you would like me to "tackle" on here, say so in your comment.  I know you value what I think.





*note: "Excitement" can be negative.