sounds of the space age

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

school...jesus.

I have a lot of friends who are or are trying to become teachers (not the least of which is my housemate Farrell). All these motherfuckers are crazy. Teaching must be the worst job on earth. My opinion on this is backed up by data gathered in the field as follows:

I used to teach outdoor science to sixth graders in Santa Cruz California. Now, I'm not about to try to make the case that this should be considered legitimate teaching. To the contrary, that shit was about as Mickey Mouse as it comes. All i had to do was take kids into the woods and show them awesome shit like redwood trees and banana slugs and Pacific Giant Salamanders. We talked about ecology and sustainability and hiked around for a few hours and then i handed the kids off to some other teachers who took them to meals and watched them sleep. I worked 3-4 days a week and surfed or tried to court this girl who worked at the bookshop (QUITE unsuccessfully) the rest of the time. I know you think this sounds like the best thing ever (except for the making an ass out of myself), but it was not. It was the worst time of my life, in fact. Why? Because children in groups larger than two are bad people. These children say the meanest things they can think of. They destroy all they touch. They persecute like little hitlers. This is what children are: little fascist fuckheads. Now, they aren't all this way. If they were it wouldn't be so bad because they could just destroy each other and it would even out. The problem is that about half the kids are very sweet and kind and are interested in holding a pacific giant salamander. These kids are the jews, fodder for the fascist machine. I can't tell you how many days off were ruined by my fury, how many tacos made bland by blind rage. I quit that job within months (it should be noted that another factor in causing me to quit was the fact that we had to sing songs (look for the one called "shooting star") to the kids which i pretty much refused to do because there was this line about how much we were gonna miss the kids which was a fucking lie since i didnt miss those assheads a bit, especially once i was at the taco store. i dont like lying to children)(really, just picture me singing this shit).

Also, so you say that not everyone teaches sixth grade. some people teach, like, high school or college where the kids are way more tolerable. You are wrong. College is a little less stupid maybe, but the fact that these people are supposed to be intelligent makes their stupidity intolerable. I find myself in a 100 level Architecture class for reasons that i'd rather not get into (because they involve a lot of negative attributes that i certainly possess but won't get into because i'm not here to tell you how bad I suck.). Yesterday i went to the first section for this class (now you have to understand that my even being in this class is a little embarassing, thus infuriating, because my peers all graduated back when Al Gore was still busy inventing the internet) and the TA was telling us things about how to study, do the readings BEFORE lecture, take notes, you know. I was amazed by how engaged and happy she seemed to be teaching us. Then this girl raised her hand and asked if it would be ok (wait for it...) for her to use highlighter to highlight passages in the text. You know, the text she had bought. At the bookstore. Though i could barely see through the smoke created by my blown mind, i'm pretty sure the TA made a face of complete and total confusion. I don't mean like the face you make when you don't know the answer. I mean the kind of face you would make if you were just walking down the street and suddenly the sky turned purple, the buildings turned to popsicles and the sidewarks transformed into laffy taffy. She was totally mind-fucked. The prblem with teaching though is that she had to recover, smile and say some shit like "yeah that would be fine" or whatever. She wasn't even sarcastic. I don't know how any human could be in that position and not say something sarcastic. Jesus! There are so many kids who don't get to go to college because they don't have any money or they don't know they can do it because no one ever encourages them or whatever and then there are people who have to ask permission to highlight books they own as a study method.

Yeah, i know, its not that that students are not worthy of my teaching, its that i'm too big of a shithead to teach.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

my heroes have always been cowboys

When it comes to the future of the American empire, i have about the most bleak outlook possible. Encouraging signs come once a blue moon and they tend to be minor and insignificant victories wrapped in a shell of loss.

In the midst of what has been a terrible couple of weeks (mostly because i've worked 18 of the last 19 days) comes some good. I heard this story on NPR this morning and it made me pretty happy. It even made getting out of bed easy. The part about it that gets me is that the truckers, a group of people who tend to be intellectually marginalized by educated people are, at least in this instance, leading the way on a pretty major political issue. It's sort of great to see truckers talking about the concept of using fuel derived from farm grown products as if it were the most logical fucking thing in the world. I mean it IS the most logical thing in the world but you sure can't tell this to the government. I see this situation as proof that there is too great a connection between business and government in america. Think about it: If america wants to stop hostilities from the middle east, all we have to do is stop buying their oil. It is oil money that drive the armies of our "enemies" and it is out thirst for oil that drives our aggression. I think most of us can agree that this is at least partially true (i mean, my dad agrees and he's pretty much my litmus test when it comes to testing out my ideas on the right wing maniacs of america). Also, who the fuck can not sympathize with the plight of the small time farmer in America? I mean, i would expect the red states in the middle of America to have a lot more concern for the family farm than coastal, blue-state city folk, since it is or was THEIR family within the last few generations, but i guess you can't mess with the sort of arguments GW makes. Image how much more sound our country would be if, instead of sending all those ducats overseas, we kept them in the US. Imagine the farmers of America with the power of OPEC. No, i don't think we should stop looking into more radical departures from the internal combustion engine, but in the short term, the switch to biodiesel requires almost no change in infrastructure and immediately reduces greenhouse emissions. And it's made in the USA. What's not to love you fucking corn state-living assholes? In the story, they mention that if the american trucker switches to biodiesel, soccer moms will not be far behind. I don't know if that's true but i sure hope it is.

A year ago, the University Transit Service (my place of employment) switched to a B20 blend in all our buses. The most difficult part of the switch was finding the fuel in the quantities we needed it in. There was no demand for Biodiesel on this scale. After seeing our results and hearing our experiences, many of the local transit organizations are moving toward biodiesel. I was at a joint community info session with some Charlottesville Transit representatives a few weeks ago, and a member of the community asked the director of their organization why they hadn't switched to biodiesel like the University had. As they explained that they were going to start a pilot program in the very near future, i couldn't help but be a little bit hopeful.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

uh

For once i am at a loss for words.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14121008/?GT1=8404
This line sums it up pretty well i think: “We are not promoting Hitler. But we want to tell people we are different in the way he was different.”

Hey Ray, i think a certain joke of yours just became appropriate dinner conversation.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

yeah... i saw snakes on a plane

I don't really want to talk about the actual content of the film. I would rather comment on what motivated me to see it. I have caught myself saying things like "i really went to see Snakes on a Plane as sort of an anthropological experience. To see how those indigenous to the North American continent react to the infusion of such wealth that they have nothing to do but go en masse to see one of the stupidest films ever. or maybe to see how hollywood has created an interactive film writing experience by heeding the input of the internet". That's all cute and maybe partially true, but really i went to see the movie because as shitty as it may be, i wanted to be connected to other people. I wanted not to be the complaining curmudgeon who sees entertainment at a time like this to be counter productive and wasteful. I wanted to see if maybe there is something to just trying to enjoy yourself. My conclusion is that there is. My life has been off balance toward negativism of late. So, i went to see snakes on a plane. The cops came and stopped the film halfway and took a bunch of people out of the theatre for yelling and causing a problem. I was right there with the rest of the crowd who's feeling was basically "leave us alone pigs! this is snakes on a plane, not casablanca!". Then i started thinking about how absurd it is that while they haven't caught that rapist, the Charlottesville PD has six officers to spare to break up the rowdys down at the Seminole Square Snakes on a Plane showing. I guess some things are inevitable. That shit was off the hook, though. Samuel Jackson is the bomb. When he said that shit about getting the motherfuckin snakes of the motherfuckin plane, i was all like "Oh Shit!"

Nate Millington is Great

Nate Millington is one of my favorite dudes. I saw Nate a few weeks ago and he was like "oh yeah! I haven't seen you in a while! I was just wondering where you were!" He was so excited about the whole thing that i really felt loved. I think this is Nate's gift. He's always so excited about shit that you can't help but join him is his excitement. He somehow manages to avoid the pitfall of all optimists which is sounding stupid. Now, I'm not saying that i dont like optimists. I do. I even consider myself one of them deep down and would say that it is optimism that drives my pessimism, but they often seem sadly insulated from the shitty elements of the world around them. They close up as soon as you start to talk about how the world isn't such a happy place for some people and how maybe we all should get around to doing something about it. Not Nate, though; he's right there getting pissed off about the sad state of political affairs or the way drivers will run you off the road when you ride your bike or whatever. The difference is that Nate is excited and proactive, thus avoiding the pitfall of critics and pessimists, which is hopelessness and complacency. When he complains, his tone isn't caustic but rather disappointed. He is yin and yang in one neat (though often disheveled) package. He does not contend. Have you ever talked to nate about music? It's the best thing you'll ever do. No one is more excited about music than Nate. Even better is listening to music with Nate. A while ago we were at the Bistro and Chelsea put on the first Sabbath record. Nate was so happy. He exclaimed and danced. If i was gonna take a spaceship into space, never to return and i could only have a few people on it, Nate would definitely be there. Though i'm sure he'd have lots of useful skills that would come in handy, i think he would really just be there so that no one forgot that though shit gets rough and there's no denyin' it, all you can do it what you can. If i ever meet anyone who says they dont like Nate Millington, I will be instantly and irrevocably suspicious of them. You can't dislike Nate and though i don't see him as much as i wish i did, Nate is one of my top dudes.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

in the aeroplane over the sea

My old man works for United Airlines. One of the perks of his job is that he and his family get free air travel to pretty much anywhere. I'm sure i dont have to explain the greatness of this to anyone. The only problem with it is that my parents were never very adventurous. We used to go to Hawaii once and sometimes twice a year when i was growing up. I was on Maui so much as a kid that i knew where to find a moray eel in this one spot, and where this one turtle liked to hang around, things like that. I don't want to make it sound too bad (because it wasn't at all) but the underside of this was that I knew stupid shit like that the hard rock cafe on maui cooks their hamburgers too done so you have to order down. At a certain point it started to occur to me that as nice as Maui is, there are other places in the world. When i brought this up to my parents, they took us to the big island or kauai. Really, though, i wanted to go to europe or asia or anywhere. Eventually i got old enough to travel on my own, which opened up some pretty impressive doors for me. No longer encumbered by my parents allotment of paid time off, nor their dependance on expensive hotels, i became sort of the ultimate bum. free airfare to anywhere in the world but only my allowance to spend when i got there. this lead to some pretty absurd situations. Since this free travel was on standby basis, i sometimes got stranded in at O'hare or Dulles or De Gaulle for days at a time. It got to the point that getting stranded was little inconvenience to me. I would bring CDs and books and would make a camping trip of it. I knew where all the best food could be had in airports. I knew all the best deals. Eventually, i realized that no one could actually tell whether i was at the airport to catch an airplane or not. I had a pocket full of "write your owns" (literally i had blank tickets that i just had to write the destination and origin on and i was off) and no one could tell me i wasn't at the airport to catch a flight, because if they gave me any trouble i could just board a plane and jet. The thing is that no one ever gave me trouble. In the days before American fear, i was an accepted part of the fabric of air travel. Thus, airports became my hotel. Eventually, airplanes even became my restaurant. One time i was stuck in Chicago and had no money. I was headed back to San Francisco but was having trouble getting on a flight. In order to get a hot meal, i boarded a flight to Dulles just to get the in flight food. I got first class, ate poached salmon and was given an entire bottle of bordeaux by the flight attendant (i was 18 at the time). when i got to dulles, i caught the next flight back to O'Hare; just in time for dinner. I had about 40 cents in my pocket.
When i started college, i wanted to get far away from my home in Fremont California. I moved across the country to Boston University. It was a bittersweet move for me. I was separated from my highschool girlfriend (who i was still trying to date and who moved to Spokane Washington) by about 3000 miles. Fortunately, i was able to fly to see her and my friends at home pretty often. I would ditch friday classes and fly to spokane or san francisco overy other weekend or so. The jetliner became the conduit for my affection; it's cabin, my sitting room, where i pined and burned for the woman who i knew would one day be my wife. It was there, as well, that the totality of my broken heart was realized when i was assured that this was not the case. Thus, the cabin of a jetliner became the source of all that was romantic, all that was free and alive.
As the nest has emptied for my parents, they've stopped going to hawaii all the time. they've gone to italy, germany, france, austria, china, you name it. It warms my heart. I wish they had figured that shit out when i was a kid. Mom and Dad just came back from a trip to Switzerland. On the flight over, an old couple boarded the plane and sat across from my parents. Sometime during the flight, the older man started to have trouble breathing. A doctor was called for but there was nothing that could be done. The man died somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. Since there is no place to store a corpse on an airplane, the man was left sitting in his seat, his wife still holding him, as the warmth and color and life slowly drained from his body. She didn't cry or anything. She just held on to him.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

throwing stones at my own glass house

Everywhere I go I run into some misanthrope who is feeling really good about talking about how fucked up everything is. Humans are an unstoppable force destroying everything in their path etc. If you know me, you know that there's a big part of me that agrees with this notion, but what's bothersome is the tendency amongst these radicals to talk a hell of a lot about how mankind is the problem with the world, but very little about real solutions. The reason they have no real answer is the same as the reason that the problem exists in the first fucking place: selfishness. These wise motherfuckers talk all about how the human population is choking the earth (true) but they never want to get down to brass tacks about solving it in any practical way (and by practical way i mean shooting themselves in the face). Seriously. The first one of these whining misanthropes who gives their diatribe and then pulls out a pistol and shoots themselves in the face is gonna be my personal hero and will be listed as such on myspace from here on out. I mean really. Put your money (barrel) where your mouth is. I would even be a little refreshed to hear just one of these sonumbitches try to get a group together to save the earth with them (like a bunch of lemmings). Don't even mention Jim Jones to me, that self important ass. I'm talking environmental solutions here, not feeling like a badass because you suckered a bunch of fools. The sick thing about it is that the reason you never hear this sort of thing come from these would be Captain Planets is that they're selfish. It's the same reason people drive cars around and shop at the whatever mart and get things that come in too much packaging. We're all scared of death. At least the regular consumer isn't making a big fucking thing of it. When pressed on why they insist on their food being double packaged, pasteurized and processed, they say because it's safer that way. Less germs. Less bacteria. Less danger of discomfort and death. Funny, this isn't so different from our friend the rebel. The difference is that rather than just accept his or her fear, this motherfucker veils it in something worse: narcissism. Because he or she has had this epiphany, because he or she has not been fooled by the government, the corporations, the evil, the watchdog feels that they have become more valuable than the run of the mill consumer. They can't shoot themselves in the face because then who would tell us all what is wrong with us. Who would guide us toward the light of our bright human future? We certainly couldn't figure that shit out without them. And maybe this is true. From the evolutionary perspective, maybe this all knowing individual is the future of the species. Maybe this person is what we will all one day be. A human disinterested in procreation and preoccupied with sustainability; a biological end of the road. Perhaps we will stop mating for the good of mankind and will devote our child rearing energies to making the earth a great place for everyone to live again. Or maybe we're just gonna keep on using shit up until we've got nothing left to use. Like a bunch of fucking rats. But thank the good lord somebody's here to tell us all how bad it sucks. And though the misanthrope has the solution to the selfishness of mankind, they'll never use their discovery because they're too damned selfish. The misanthrope just may be the salvation of the human species. I just wish they'd get to solving the problem and quit fucking talking about it. I'd do it but i don't want to leave a mess for you all to clean up. I'm selfless, you see.

i cannot fucking understand musicals

I like the theatre arts as much as the next fellow (provided he could really give a damn one way or the other) but I cannot fucking understand musicals. There is some part of me that sees people breaking into song at a dramatic point in a performance to be the most absurd thing ever.
I've been watching a lot of Turner Classic Movies lately. This is contrary to my usual stance about not watching TV but this doesn't really count. I really like old movies. Just now, I'm watching Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Sometimes old movies are fucking dumb. In this one, this newly married guy with six brothers who live with him in a remote locale notices that the brothers are hard up for some action. They inform him that they're in love with some women who live nearby but have no chance at getting them. His response is simple. Quoting the story of the Sabine women, he tells them that they need to go and kidnap the women and drag them back to their house (!?). So the men are sort of, you know, not convinced that it's such a good idea. They sort of argue that it might be better to, like, not drag the women of their affection out of their homes. Adam (the married one) finally decides that the only tool he can use to convince them that stealing women is a good idea is a song, composed on the spot and delivered in a beautiful baritone. The display is so convincing (now hang on a damned minute. I'm no rhetorician but I'm not real sure that the best way to convince someone of something is to sing your argument to them. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe if, during the last set of presidential debates, John Kerry had phrased his retorts in the form of song, things would be worlds different. I can just hear it now "Oh Mister Buuuuuush, your stupidityyy is mind numbinggggg. Your foooooreign poooolicy is absolute shiiiiiit". I mean, I would argue that if he would have SAID those things, things would be different but that's for another day)(ok, bad example. Kerry singing would have been fucking incredible) that the brothers are won over instantly and begin to sing along in perfect harmony. Now, I don't know if you've ever gotten seven people in a room and tried to get one of them to sing a song while composing it in his head and then the others to anticipate the composition and compose sympathetic harmonies, while singing them, but it fucking doesn't work. (OK I haven't tried it either but I'm pretty sure about this). I mean, i feel like he'd have just as good a chance at looking convincing if he were giving a blowjob to a jackass. Now, i know what you're gonna say. your're gonna say "but Mike, you didn't raise any hell at all about Yoda using the force to lift an enormous fucking spaceship out of the mud in "the Empire Strikes Back". Of course that's less realistic than a bunch of singing. But i was predared for that Yoda shit ahead of time by a bunch of other clues about what i should expect (Like, for instance, the part in the beginning that tells me about how that shit took place long ago, in a galaxy far, far away). That, and the fact that when i first saw Starwars i was like three. Maybe they should just put a big reeling warning at the beginning of every musical saying "some time that isn't now, in a galaxy where everyone can make up bullshit songs about stupid-ass nonsense on the spot, there lived these ridiculous, annoying people who thought it would be cool to sing about everything, even being in fucking jail (sorry elvis but the premise sucks). Perhaps then I could watch musicals and not be confused.

things i learned this weekend

1. According to a woman i don't know on the downtown mall, riding a fixed gear bike is the sexiest thing a man can do (i'm not sure she really thought out all the angles before telling me this but, you know, it got a sheepish grin out of me)(this is not part of the "lie about how great bikes and left wing politics are to convince people to come on board" scheme discussed in the bit about victim mentality being donkey shit)(no, i swear).
2. Drunk jon bray certainly doesn't know when to hold 'em or when to fold 'em but he's got a pretty firm grasp on knowing when to walk away and when to run.
3. How to send text messages. Yes. I learned that this weekend. it isn't funny.
4. My porch may actually be the best place on earth.
5. I am just barely capable of caring for Bartleby the sniveller (Farrell's cat) and a few plants at the same time.
6. There is a wide spectrum of public acceptance to a group of people drunkenly singing the national anthem. Deciding factors include: a) How well you sing it. We sang it at Escafe quite poorly. People liked that none too much. We did a much better job at Michael's Bistro. Things were smoother there. B) Where you are. Escafe didn't like it*. Michael's Bistro was tolerant at least. C) How you introduce it. At Asscafe we just started singing it after being there a few hours. I think we were hated instantly. We made our entrance at the Bistro by gathering at the foot of the stair and began singing softly. I think people deep down want to be good americans and like the national anthem but sometimes it needs to be warmed up to (This is actually a metaphor for the inevitable spread of Captalist Democracy through all the nations of the world and our current problems with Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, North Korea and, you know most other countries.You see, rather than hit them over the head with our superior ideals, we must show them the light slowly [by this i mean drawn out limited warfare, not talking about stuff you fucking candy ass. don't get the wrong idea]. Once their eyes have adjusted to the light of the american way of life [i mean, you know, once they've had a big mac] they'll join us in beautiful harmony).
*I actually think Escafe disliked the national anthem for the obvious reason... they're RED.

with friends like you, who needs enemies

So lately I've really started to view the cultural divide in this country as a war. This means that more and more i view people with right wing ideals to be the enemy. Not just like "that guys a dumbass" but more "that guy is killing my unlikely to ever exist children" This also means that people who say they are on "my side" but who turn out to be either stupid to the point of being unhelpful or who, worse still, display their lack of discipline as if it were a badge of honor, are traitors to me. Here are two examples i ran across recently.
#1: "Too damned stupid"
I was reading some newspaper or something (no i CAN'T be bothered to quote the source or hyperlink it) and there was this article about organic food and how it is rapidly replacing conventionally grown food on the grocer's shelves. Now, you should know that the fact that this is true is possibly the only one that has given me reason for hope for our culture in the last few years. So the article is written from the point of view of this supposedly environmentalist fellow who was also happy about this fact until a friend of his informed him that he was actually hurting the earth by buying organic because most organic foods have to be brought all the way from places like California, since that's where most organic foods are produced, instead of being moved only a small distance from local conventional farms (our noble author lives in New Jersey)(of course). Thus, as the argument goes, the emissions form the trucks coming all the way across the country are great enough to outweigh the reduction in pollutants achieved by the change from conventional to organic farming. And, like, it's almost enough to make you throw up your hands and go eat a fucking big mac to calm your nerves unless, you know, you have a brain and consider the quite fucking obvious fact that if they're paying all that money to move the shit all the way across the fucking country, that must mean that they're making money off doing it (this is still a fucking capitalist country, right?). And if they are both making money off doing it and are driving down the demand for local, conventionally grown food, DON'T YOU THINK THAT JUST MAYBE THE LOCAL CONVENTIONAL FARMER THAT IS SUFFERING FOR THIS FACT MIGHT GET THE NOTION TO GET IN ON THE ACTION AND START MAKING HIS/HER OWN ORGANIC FOOD TO COMPETE WITH THE CALIFORNIA FARMERS WHO HAVE TO SHIP THE SHIT ACROSS THE COUNTRY? (i really am fighting the urge to switch to a bigger font to express my fury but maybe you can just imagine me fuming and that will suffice) AND DON'T YOU THINK THIS MIGHT, ON A LONG ENOUGH TIMELINE REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF PESTICIDES IN OUR (local, mind you) SOIL AND WATER AND REDUCE OVERALL EMISSIONS (it takes fuel to move pesticide around too dickhole)?!? BAH!!! Who's side are you ON you dimwitted shit artist!?! (I'll come back to this)
#2 "the Dilettante"
I'm gonna preface this by saying that I don't hate all my friends who do not ride bikes all over the place. Sometimes I don't either. I carry lumber in a car. It was a hundred degrees today. Anyone riding a bike today was stupid (i did it but i'm stupid). We have to choose our battles and this one happens to be mine.
So I'm reading this story online (it came up on my hotmail while i was opening my account and piqued my interest by saying something about switching to bicycle commuting. I thought it was gonna be great) and the author is a regular contributor to Outside Magazine. Now, I shouldn't be surprised by this since Outside is pretty much a magazine for dilettantes (the ranks of whom sometimes include me) but here goes. The guy talks about how all the environmental/ health benefits of riding bikes to work finally convinced him that it was a good idea and since he was a cyclist already, he figured "no problem". So the article meanders through him buying all manner of expensive dogshit and unnecessary accoutrements for his new life adventure. Then he starts talking about how when he got started at it, he was confronted with how hard it is to ride a bike to work with all the hills and heat and whatnot (the motherfucker was a cyclist to begin with. didn't he know that it's harder than driving?). He talks about how he's scared of the cars doing dangerous shit. He talks about how hard it is to carry beer in his bag (Millington, Bridge, AJ or whoever can speak for the fact that you can fit enough beer to kill you and your three best friends in a messenger bag, especially when there are race points on the line). Here's the worst part though. He seems ok with all these factors but what broke his resolve was the fact that when he went in stores or bars or whatever people looked down on him because he had his pants rolled up and a helmet and some sweat on him. His friends were looking at him differently. Like he was a freak! Dear Jesus!.... ......We're fighting a fucking war here and this dick is giving up because he got dirt on his fucking uniform. Now i want to reiterate that i don't hate everyone who doesnt walk or ride or whatever. i do know that there are days when you just dont want to ride a bike. i am not perfect at this either. but here's the thing: i may not always succeed but i'm not gonna let that cause me to give up all together. and i'm sure as FUCK not gonna TAKE MONEY FROM SOMEONE TO PRINT THE STORY TELLING EVERYONE EITHER a)that biking to protect the earth is TOO HARD TO BE FEASABLE, so hey everyone, IF I CAN'T DO IT, THEN GOD KNOWS NO ONE ELSE CAN EITHER. AFTER ALL I DO WRITE FOR OUTSIDE fucking MAGAZINE!, OR THAT b) I AM TOO BIG OF A FUCKING BABY TO PUT UP WITH PEOPLE LOOKING AT ME FUNNY BECAUSE MY PANTS ARE ROLLED UP OR BECAUSE OCCASIONALLY I SMELL LIKE I FUCKING DID SOMETHING FOR ONCE IN MY WORTHLESS-ASS LIFE. JESUS!
Now, before people start sending me shit telling me how they just figured out that this shit is probably written, not by stupid left wing environmentalists, but by conservative shit heads, save it (not that anyone who reads my shit responds anyway). if anyone's thinking i haven't come up with at least a hundred conspiracy theories to account for this, you're dreaming. So the moral of the story is to hell with naysaying right-wing shitheads and double to hell with sorry ass no good fake environmentalist left wing dilettantes. no i'm not perfect. no, i'm not doing everything i can. but that doesnt mean i should give up and it certainly doesnt mean i should expect payment or the adulation of my peers for my failure. here'e what i'm gonna do about all this: I'm gonna lie. I'm gonna lie about this shit the same way they do and i'm gonna exaggerate in the opposite direction to compensate for this shit. it starts now. next time you see me with my pants rolled up you can look down at me all you want. i find cycling so easy, fun and comfortable that i can't imagine driving a car (even when it is 100 degrees outside). You should join me. it will never be a bit of inconvenience of discomfort. honest injun. if you see me climbing some steep ass hill in the hundred degree heat tomorrow and i'm grimacing, it isn't because it is uncomfortable. i'm just doing that so that it LOOKS uncomfortable so that not just everyone starts biking (i'm telling you about this only because we're obviously close friends if you're reading this on my MYSPACE page). i would rather share the road with cars than bikes (because of the drafting opportunities, duh) and besides, if everyone was in the market for bikes and bike parts it would raise demand and thus the price i would have to pay for them (duh again). so keep on driving. suckers.

victim mentality is donkey shit

i found out today that my stolen money has been restored to me thanks to some insurance the bank has against this sort of thing. funny part was that when i discovered this, my heart sank momentarily. i have deduced that this means one of two things about me: Either I have a bit of anarchist in me who pulls for the poor, clever thief (never mind that this thief made more in a weekend than i've made in my life)(i know this to be true, the bank told me about it)(yeah i know it was probably "thieves" plural) taking down the "man" (who i guess is me if i have an entire thousand dollars in one account) or I relish the idea of being a victim. If it is the later, Then I either relish it because i assume that if this bad shit is happening and it's only losing some money, then real bad shit is not coming my way in its stead (its the whole karma argument) or it means that i like feeling like a victim. Why? maybe so I have something tangible to complain about rather than just, like, being lonely or even general sadness. I mean, the I'm sad because i'm sad complaint gets old early. like 11th grade if you use it a lot (i know this for a fact). Or perhaps I liked it because it got a small amount of attention which is always good. I could be all like "look at me! my money got took and i dont even mind! i walk the walk! Shiiiit!". Unfortunately Theresa lost some money the week before so my story wasn't really that cool at all. Thanks Theresa. Anyway, if i have to tell you what i think it really was or if you don't know yourself then....you should call me up and we should hang out.... Really though, I guess it's a soup of all of the above. I'd like to think it's a nice vegetable soup like at the C&O. Evenly mixed and hearty. It's probably more like tomato soup from Cafe Europa, though. The tomatoes are the shitty, self-centered parts, and that bit of basil in it is the cool part about anarchism. Before you go thinking I'm a fucking ass though, (i am) i'll tell you this: I'd give all that thousand bucks back if the US would officially apologize to all the countries they've sent Condoleeza Rice to talk down to in the past few months. I mean seriously, that bit about making a new middle east? Goddamn. If you dont see what I'm saying, here's a parable (yes, a parable, fuck you). So, you and your friend are trying to put a new carburator in your '63 Thunderbird in the front yard. You're a little stuck on how to go about it but, you know, you've got a Haynes manual (for those of you who dont do a lot of auto work, these are about as useful as a receipt from hardee's when it comes to figurin' out how to fix a car. actually less useful. if you had a receipt from hardee's, that might imply that you were the sort who would know how to do this operation without a manual. anyway, sorry). Then along comes this dog. It starts barkin' and growlin' and then it begins to speak.(i know, bear with me). Dog says:"yo, i see you's guys dont know what you're doing. (he's a new york italian dog it seems) I tell you what. Take that carberator and piss on it and then throw it over that fence". So, you know, you do it of course (it's a goddamned TALKING DOG!). Then the dog bites you each in the leg and grows at you. Then it walks away. So you're like "hey! What the fuck!?!" And dog just sort of shrugs and growls and keeps on going and you're left with your carburator pissed on and on the other side of a fence (in the original version of the parable the dog was a lawyer or preacher or other know-it-all but these had too many redeeming qualities) (and now i know all of you are gonna say "Shit, Mike, I think dogs are swell! Dogs are way cooler than Lawyers! Do you hate animals? You are an ass! so here's the crux: the dog has rabies and steals babies from homes so he can eat them.) (yes. see. that dog is Condoleeza Rice). So, you know, to all you countries who Condo's busy setting straight on my behalf, I'm sorry. You can have my thousand bucks now. Just, you know. Call me or whatever.

Letter to a friend

Boy, now you've gone and wound me up...

As far as cigarettes go, I don't think the California mentality of avoidance at all cost is a good idea. This only creates the necessity for rebellion. If a smoker is seen as a rebel then by nature, soon many people will smoke. This paradigm never reverses because there will always be enough religious zealots and health freaks to keep the rebels rebellious. A healthier approach is to consider tobacco what it is: a mild natural drug that, like most drugs is bad for you in quantity and ceases to be any fun anyway. Occasionally, however, it gives you a fantastic calming rush to the head. I'm having about 1-2 a month on average. I try to smoke them on top of mountains or on my back porch listening to the stream ripple by. I refuse to give money to American tobacco companies, though. They need no encouragement. The cigarette break can be sublime. I prefer the coffee break but I'll admit that Architecture (school) and coffee are like natural mates. Not unlike coffee and cigarettes (sans jarmusch's dumb ass)
And now that i'm going you'll have to bear me out.
McDonald's is maligned more than perhaps they should be. They never have been the least healthy fast food alternative. Just the most successful. I disagree with their practices regarding animal treatment but that has nothing to do with them and everything to do with the greed-based system that is capitalist democracy. That in conjunction with a nation wealthy enough that a microscopic percentage have any dealing with the food we eat pre- cooking, combine to create a system that values efficiency above humanity. If we had to kill our own meat there'd be more vegetarians and a lot more humane ways of putting an animal to the blade. I'm no animal rights activist, I just think things should be done well.
Walmart is dangerous because they are nearing the point where they can dictate what we buy simply by carrying nothing else. Remember their "Made in the USA" campaign of the mid nineties? They claimed only to sell american made products unless there really was no alternative. They did a good job of it until they ran most of their competitors into the ground. Have you looked around there lately? Hardly any american goods to be found. This is because in most american towns, there is no longer an option. There is no other place to shop. People take what they can get even though it's their very own jobs they're screwing themselves out of rather than drive the, in most cases super long, distances it would require to come across a real alternative. Also, these are the same people who are becoming poorer at a fast clip (because their jobs are in mexico and now they have to work for wal mart) so they can only afford to pay the lowest possible price to get the goods they need. What can these people do? Not much now. I would argue that people who really are poor have few choices but to buy where they can. Once a person does have some discretionary spending money, however, i feel like it's their duty to shop elsewhere if for no ther reason than to keep our options from homogenizing any more than they have. I have spent most of my life being poor (compared to americans, not the chinese) so i too am in the habit of buying shit from walmart. now that i have a little more money though, i'm trying to stop; to buy in town; to use other options. i dont ever want to be in the position where walmart controls what is available to me.
how's that for rambling. i should write this somewhere else rather than make you read it all. i shoul d put up a blog or some shit. feel free to tell me i dont know what i'm talking about. you'd probably be right.-m