Sunday, December 28, 2008

Year in Review: Part One

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?:
- Drove thru Manhattan, got a credit card, shit I dunno.

2. 2008’s Goals:

-Travel more (which I failed at)

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?:
-my friend's brother had a kid, but he's not really close to me.

4. Did anyone close to you die?:
-No, thank goodness. Though one of my ex-coworkers died in May, which was kind of a bummer

5. What countries did you visit?:
-the U.S & A.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?:
-Less drama, more responsibility, more direction in life.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?:
-9/22/08 - the My Bloody Valentine show, 8/9/08 - my sister's play, 11/4/08 - Obama won the election, 12/6/08 - I moved back home

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?:
-Not losing my shit, and developing more of a skin.

9. What was your biggest failure?:
-Not dealing with issues well, procrastinating everything.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?:
-No.

11. What was the best thing you bought?:
-muisc gear, and those My Bloody Valentine tickets.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?:
-53% of the American public

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?:
-the other 47% of the public, my parents.

14. Where did most of your money go?:
-Bills.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?:
-The shows I went to, Obama winning the election

16. What songs will always remind you of 2008?:
- "Tell the World" by Vivian Girls, "Machine Gun" by Portishead.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i) happier or sadder?: sadder
ii) thinner or fatter?: the same
iii) richer or poorer?: poorer

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?:
-traveling, being happy and not dwelling on the past

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?:
-Beating myself up for shit that wasn't my fault

20. How did you spend Christmas?:
-my sister's crib in Queens. No poverty baskets this year!

22. Did you fall in love in 2008?:
-I've been in love since 2004

23. How many one-night stands?:
-none

24. What were your favorite TV programs?:
-none. Well, Bill Maher & MSNBC kept me sane thru the election

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?:
-I don't hate. In fact I let go of a lot of hate I was carrying, but some people got elimintaed from my Xmas card list, that's for damn sure!

26. What was the best book you read?:
-Women by Bukowski.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?:
-Portishead, Isis, Silver Apples, Vivian Girls, Wire

28. What did you want and get?:
-Out of Southbury, and being happy with myself for who I am.

29. What did you want and not get?:
-A new job, a lot of my debt not paid off.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?:
-I didn't see too much, I'd say Stepbrothers.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?:
-I turned 23, spent it w/ my parents, went out for sushi

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?:
-Too much.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?:
-I know what I like, and I like what I know.

34. What kept you sane?:
-My girlfriend, my friends, music, writing, getting lost in video games.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?:
-Anne Hathaway.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?:
-Prop 8, Sarah Palin....but definitely the election in general.

37. Who did you miss?:
-A few people.

38. Who was the best new person you met?:
-Didn't really meet anyone new this year that I really liked. Miranda from the Newtown Starbucks lately, but I didn't keep in touch w/ her after I was let go.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008:
-That I'm fine the way I am, and don't let anyone affect who you are.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

-"I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me."

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Xmas Sucks!

So we're coming to the end of perhaps the most depressing Christmas season in my lifetime, with the bad economy and all. I hate Christmas anyway, but this year especially. Seriously, I just wish it was January... actually flash forward to April of next year so the miserable winter will be over. And put an end to this damn recession too! Kill all the greedy bastards that helped cause it! Chuck shoes at your boss when you get laid off! That'll get the point across!

Here are the Top 5 Things I Hate About Christmas... the top 5 things that make you want to commit some Holiday Harakiri:

1. TV commercials: Celebrate the birth of Jesus by buying shit you can't afford! Max out your already maxed credit cards to buy your daughter a Hannah Montana doll you'll donate to the poor next year! I especially hate those BMW commercials, where some snooty bourgeois fuck looks out the window and sees a shiny BMW/Mercedes/Lexus SUV with a big red bow around it. Why are they even advertising? For the rich 1% that the Bush Administration didn't screw over? Most people this day in age can't even afford a junky $2500 1992 Ford Taurus in the car lot on the bad side of town, let alone a car that's $35K at the cheapest.

2. Snow: We just got our first major snowstorm yesterday here in Connecticut, Five to 8 inches of cold, white, frosty goodness draped across every street, driveway, house and car, making it fun to drive in, and even more fun to shovel and clean up! And even more fun if you're a seasonal UPS driver helper getting paid slave wages to deliver QVC packages to rich housewives who live near a country club. Ho ho fucking ho!

3. Xmas Music: I hate Xmas music. HATE IT! HATE HATE HATE! Every radio station, and every place I go to blares it, and it sounds like a cow getting castrated with a chainsaw to these ears (my next list will be Top Five Worst Xmas Songs Ever). The ones I hate the most aren't even your average "Jingle Bells," "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" type crap. It's the ones that are either done over by popular artists, or when they write their own. I've worked in restauarants and retail long enough to just want to kill the motherfucker who wrote "The Little Drummer Boy." Pa-rumpumpumpump this!

4. Post-Xmas Depression/The brevity of the holiday itself (same category): People stop flooding the streets to go shopping or to travel to their Xmas destinations once Xmas is over. Even where I live now (Bridgeport, CT which has about 150,000 people) is like a ghost town on December 26th. It's depressing. Xmas is like not getting laid for 6 months, having your girlfriend tease you by wearing a short skirt and high heels promising to do you but she has a period that never ends, her finally getting off her rag, you finally getting to score, and you cum within 2 minutes of fucking her; all that excitement, and buildup for nothing. And she only lays you once a year.

5. The Shit Always Hits The Fan Before, During or Right After Xmas: Ask any family. They'll always have a great, heartwarming Xmas story about how someone lost their job right before the holiday, their parents getting in a drunken fight on Xmas, or their asshole Dad checking into rehab right after Xmas (That's me!). I don't want to rehash bad Xmas memories at the moment, but holy fucking shitballs, I've had some terrible Xmas moments that not even Bukowski or any great contemporary fiction writer can come up with.

It's only 5 days until Xmas, and I will be on an "I Hate the Holidays" tangent that will end as soon as I pack up the Xmas tree and put it back in the storage room! The sooner this holiday is over, and the sooner 2008 is over, the happier I will be. Bah Humbug!

Saturday, December 13, 2008

I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me

I refuse to let this become a blog consisting of my whining. That's what livejournal was for, and I've gotten to really hate airing out my dirty laundry on the internet. It usually has some pretty bad repercussions. In fact, that's kind of why I'm here today; not in a terribly great position financially, my personal possessions being held for ransom, and back somewhere that's more familiar. It's a hard adjustment. A lot of tears, anger, emotions... and self-realization. Though, this was a long time coming, and I can't place blame over anything that may have acted as an outside catalyst.

Whatever 'personal' blog entries I do write in this thing are epiphanies - revelations, if you will. They're moments of clarity being expressed in writing, and my patterns of self-sabotage, anger and regression have not worked out for me. It hit me the other day that I'm 23 and one half years, and I should be a lot farther than I am. I also know that it's not too late to change anything and turn your life around, and really, I could be doing a lot worse.

So, 2008 needs to end, like seriously. Next year is the last year in a pretty shitty decade, but I can always make the 2000s right, even if it's almost over if you really think about it. And why not make the remaining 18 days of the year good?

Friday, December 5, 2008

I can't believe it's December already. Where the fuck did this year go? Well, come December 31st, good riddance! This year blew more than Bristol Palin at her homecoming dance!

So what's been up? I landed that UPS drver help job till Xmas Eve, managed to get most of my Xmas shopping done, put some money away, and work on my writing a little bit. Speaking of writing, go to http://blog.photos2view.com, because I wrote a few articles for that and working on a long term relationship with the blog's owner. I can now say that I'm a freelancer (even if I'm not making very much money doing that, but some is better than none). My girlfriend and I even went out for the first time in a while. We saw a movie (Twilight, which SUCKED, but we saw just to see what the fuss was about, and we hadn't been to a movie in a while) and went out for a cheap, but very delicious Chinese meal. Seriously, we've barely done much of anything the past few weeks.

I have to stop watching the news and reading the news. It's depressing. All this talk of recession, bailouts, layoffs, and greedy CEOs on their knees asking for bailouts while flying private jets is making me discouraged about finding another permanent job. I have my days where I'm just a complete downer, consumed by negative thoughts, and that never leads to anything good; the past few years should be an indication of that. I overthink and overanalyze things and kind of view everything like it's the apocalypse sometimes. I get panicky, anxious, irritable, pissed off, and bitter. But when it all comes down to it I shouldn't be.

Things could be a lot worse. I could be entirely jobless. I could be homeless. I could be a woman in Darfur getting raped by militiants watching her kids being macheted. McCain could have won the election, and the U.S. could have turned into a fascist state under Bush. It could be a lot worse.

This holiday season is just full of pressure. It's hard to tackle even a crappy seasonal job. Both my girlfriend and I are struggling financially, and have been rejected for many jobs. I'm worried about after Xmas when UPS lays me off. I'm worried about having to pick up extra cash by doing temp jobs w/ lowlifes (Labor Ready... I did that a few years back during a worse period). I guess it's all about how you make it. Maybe people who aren't lowlifes are seeking temp jobs as well. Actually, I know that for a fact.

So I just have to stay positive, keep trying even when I'm exhausted, and remember that I'll come out on the other side. And, most importantly, I'm not the only one suffering, and I'm capable of making things awesome for myself.

Now, if only I could stop my brain from going 8 million miles per hour...

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Every bottom has a trapdoor...

As much as I bitched about the lack of sunlight last week, things started to look up that week as the sun finally peaked through the clouds on Sunday. I had a bid on some freelance writing job, and the guy who owns the blog decided to give me a go. It's not much money ($20 for 10 articles, so far), but hey it's something.

Then, the douchebags at the newspaper I guess have an issue with people doing more than one paper route with the weather approaching freezing, so one of my 2 routes got cut, which slices my current income of $350 a week (sometimes more, sometimes less) in half. So, I have 2 good checks coming in, then it's back to being the hobo I was in September, except with no awesome My Bloody Valentine shows to make me feel exhilarated , and with friggin' X-Mas coming up! Plus, my 2 front tires are balding, and need to come up w/ $200 by next month to get 'em replaced without having to borrow any more money from my parents and then having them give me one of their lectures about where my money goes, and that I'm in debt, and yadda yadda yadda. Seriously, I've been living pretty econo lately. I go out maybe once a week, eat cheap, and haven't really had any urges to buy anything for myself, save a couple of records earlier in the month. In fact, I kinda want to sell everything I own just to get out of hock. I know I won't, and really I don't want to, but that's why I'm doing that 'housecleaning' project.

So I've been applying everywhere, tryin' to get interviews. I have 3 lined up for next week. I have an interview at UPS tomorrow. I worked there in 2005, talk about regression. Well, regression rhymes with RECESSION! I've been trying to get another job since September, so I can actually TRY to get out of debt, but nothing has pulled through yet, so now I'm getting a job just to break even again.

I feel like my life is playing like a sad Bruce Springsteen song... I've been feeling "Atlantic City" lately, but I haven't been driven to kill anyone yet out of desperation, and I don't have any kids (thank God).

My mantra lately is "I'll get it right one day."

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Dirge Blog For November

Around the same time every year (late October-mid November), I just feel blah. No other words to describe it. And it could be because Daylight Savings Time ends and we lose one hour of sunlight every day.

The past week, I feel like I've been living a Joy Division song (Decade, maybe, or something less macabre but intensely dreary; Atmosphere or Dead Souls, or perhaps even Colony). I also feel like the entire Dirt album by Alice In Chains; sluggish, bleak, exhausted and trying to find a way to keep your shit together.

The past 4 or 5 days have been miserable, and rainy. The past 4 or 5 days, I haven't done much of anything but sleep. I work overnight from 2:30 to 6 delivering papers, and on a normal day, I sleep lightly. I usually wake up at 11 or 12, sometimes 1 or 2 if I'm really tired. Lately, though, I've been waking up later and later, and whenever I do set an alarm for 11:30 (because I have to look for another job and do errands I've been putting off), I can't get out of bed for the life of me. I feel like my bed is made up of Krazy Glue and I can't loosen myself from it. Today, I set my alarm for 12, and didn't get out of bed until 2. Thursday, I didn't get out of bed until 4:45 in the afternoon. And I feel like shit because of it. It's not like I really needed the sleep or anything, or enjoyed it. I've been feeling like I've accomplished next to nothing, or done next to nothing, and it's been like one long day that will never end.

To counter that, and try to make myself not depressed, I've been listening to nothing but jazz, Parliament/Funkadelic and Prince. And Patti Smith's Horses album gets me goin'. I need upbeat music. I heard Nirvana's "Something in the Way" the other day, a song I absolutely love, and felt suicidal. I think those dimwits who shot themselves after listening to Judas Priest did it on an overcast, crappy day. Bad call. If it were raining, you should have borrowed your little sister's Bangles record. It would have saved Judas Priest a trip to court!!

Seriously, though. The sun needs to come out. November sucks enough, with it getting dark at 4:30 in the afternoon, and the weather getting cold. Fuck you, November!

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Another one bites the dust...

If I were to take the original master tapes of the 3 Jimi Hendrix Experience records and mix them according to who was still alive today, you wouldn't hear anything (not including guest musicians, which was especially prevalent during Electric Ladyland).

That's right folks; I just found out via Tim Napalm's Myspace blog, and Pitchfork Media that the last surviving member of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Mitch Mitchell, was found dead in his Portland hotel room this morning. Natural causes, they say. A real shame. A real drag. Jimi died in 1970. Bassist Noel Redding died in 2003, and now Mitch Mitchell has joined them.

Mitchell was an extraordinary drummer, and one of the most underrated. He emerged in an era where drummers began to gain the spotlight in music, and he competed with the ranks of Ginger Baker, Keith Moon and John Bonham. With the exception of Bonham, Mitchell, in my opinion, was a far better drummer than the drummers of that era. It was that Jimi Hendrix was a bona fide guitar god, and people were marveled by his antics that Mitchell's drumming, always a source for acclaim, was kind of left in the dark. His drumming was frantic, jazzy and inventive. Motherfucker could create some killer drum fills. Listen to the drum fills in "Manic Depression," and you'll know what I'm talking about. Whenever I had a conversation about the Jimi Hendrix Experience, I always recognized Mitchell's drumming, in addition to the obvious genius of Hendrix. It's a shame that he didn't do too much, aside from under-the-radar session work, after Hendrix's death in 1970. He did however, just complete a tour with a few fellow musicians (Kenny Wayne Shephard, Buddy Guy and Aerosmith's Brad Whitford, to name a few) dubbed the Experience Hendrix Tour 2008, which celebrated the life and music of his former bandmate.

Predeceasing Mitchell this year was another Hendrix collaborator, Buddy Miles, who played with Hendrix during his short-lived Band of Gypsies. Miles died in February.

Damn! These classic rockers keep dropping like flies! And all the good ones, too!

Here's some classic Jimi Hendrix Experience

"The creator has a master plan..."


As a result of my housecleaning project (see below), I also came across a bunch of old CD-Rs that I hadn’t touched in a long time. I really haven’t had any use for CDs in the past couple of years, because CDs suck and I have an iPod with a pretty high storage capacity. In fact, I made back-up discs for all my CDs, sold them all, and made about $500. I still have a few CDs that either are on CD-Rs, or I can’t find the case or the insert to them (therefore, I can’t sell them), so I kept them in one of those spindles that CD-Rs come in. Always keeping inventory of my music collection, I decided that I should listen to them again. It wouldn’t hurt to rediscover some old stuff I loved when I was in high school.

Since the age of 15, I have been into jazz. I like Miles Davis a lot, and I worship John Coltrane. I go through phases where I listen to jazz incessantly, from the dissonant grooves of Ornette Coleman, to the whimsical stylings of Thelonious Monk’s Misterioso. I’ve always been drawn to avant-garde jazz (or free jazz), basically where jazz musicians say “fuckall” to conventional structures, and just play what they feel. It’s a generally misunderstood art form, and I even knew some hardcore jazz fans who found Coltrane’s Ascension to be “too out there,” even if they love Charles Mingus. But I get it. A lot of it is pretty genuine, but there are others who are avant-garde and experimental just for the sake of being so (and being able to tell the difference is an accomplishment on its own, a small victory for me).

Kenneth* and I were very into jazz during high school. We would listen to jazz records all the time; we would go to the library to rent jazz CDs, download notable jazz records online, and trade recommendations with one another. I went through a phase where I listened to these jazz records more than I listened to rock. I still would put Coltrane’s A Love Supreme in my personal Top Five records ever.

During my daily paper routes, I usually tune in to the local college radio station (WXCI – WestConn) but I guess after hours, they have a set playlist until regular programming resumes, so the same songs, most of them great, are getting kind of tiresome and repetitive. Regular radio sucks, and I’m too paranoid to leave my iPod in the car when I make deliveries (though, sometimes, I walk with my headphones on, but they get uncomfortable after a while). For the last week, these old CDs I have suffice just fine.

I put on an old jazz record I used to love, but had forgotten about; Karma by Pharoah Sanders. Sanders was a protégé of Coltrane during his experimental, free jazz period, and served as a sideman for him from 1965 until Coltrane died in 1967. I haven’t heard anything except some of his work with Coltrane and the aforementioned Karma LP, so I’m not gonna pretend like I know his entire back catalogue, although I intend to plunge into it headfirst soon. I put it on, and I immediately was transported back to when I was 16 or 17, and hearing it in my room for the first time. The opening notes to “The Creator Has a Master Plan” almost drove me to tears, and I was captivated immediately.

I put that track on repeat, and listened to it 3 times in a row. The track is 32 minutes and 47 seconds long…

That’s right. I spent over an hour and a half listening to the same song only 3 times. Some people do this with your average three or four minute songs. Not me. I do this with extended jazz compositions that grasp at your soul, flare up your heart, and make you feel like you are immortal.

From the opening four notes of Sanders’ wailing saxophone, you know that you’re in for an interstellar journey. The introduction alone is resonant in a way that most music just isn’t. After about two minutes, the main theme to the song begins, and along with a bassline reminiscent of Coltrane’s “Acknowledgement,” a flute, and exotic percussion instruments, Sanders solos for several moments, with not one note out of place, and not one second bordering on the song becoming repetitive or self-indulgent. The vocals finally start around 7:26, provided by the song’s co-author, Leon Thomas, an avant-garde jazz vocalist, and a disciple to Sanders. The lyrics to this song are very simplistic, yet effective, telling of a higher being whose ultimate plan for the universe is eternal grace for everyone.

The lyrics:

The creator has a master plan,
peace and happiness for every man
The creator has a working plan,
peace and happiness for every man
The creator makes but one demand,
happiness through all the land

In the liner notes, there are two additional verses, but Leon Thomas probably forgot to sing them. Oh well.

Then there’s the focal point of the song, which starts around 15:40 (stupid emo kids call it a breakdown, I call it the emotional zenith!). It starts off as a sped-up variation of the main theme of the piece, with Sanders just reaching deep into his soul and exerting these notes that are so primal and so passionate that it seems like his life is dependent on them, and Thomas singing and wailing as if he was experiencing an epiphany or a great deal of joy. And I wish I could be right there with him, getting a contact high on whatever he was feeling. Let’s not forget that the other musicians in that song (James Spaudlin on flute, Lonnie Liston Smith on piano, Richard Davis on bass, Billy Hart on drums, and Nathaniel Bettis on percussion) playing from their souls, and adding as perfect sidemen to Sanders (17:29 – 28:14).

After that, the song basically goes back to its variation, and Leon Thomas reiterating about the creator’s master plan. After the piece finally ends, you feel like you have been given a gift. Not only are you alive, but you live in a world where sound and technology has advanced to the point where seemingly perfect and evanescent moments such as these at your convenience. This may be just me, a cynical atheist who lost his faith in organized religion at the age of 9, but this song makes me feel that maybe there is a god of some sort that wants us all to be happy. The song’s lyrics, probably derived from the teachings of Buddha, are praising a higher deity in its simplest terms, which, in my opinion, is the correct way. If I were to believe in a higher power, I would be a Deist. I would believe in a higher power that created the world and all that, and wants us all to be happy, but does not interfere with your life, much like the Christian God portrayed in the Bible (or as Bill Maher calls it, “The book of Jewish fairy tales.”).

As one critic once wrote, “The Creator Has a Master Plan” is like a sequel to A Love Supreme. It’s not only that, but it’s a testament to Coltrane’s influence, as well as a cathartic tribute. Nickelbackers won’t get it, nor will I expect them to, but for those who look for music that is emotionally charged with joy, and need a break from anger or melancholia, this is one of those rare pieces.

Addendum:

I was on eBay the other day, just browsing, and I searched for records that the auctions on them were soon expiring. Lo and behold, I found Pharoah Sanders’ Karma. The original Impulse! label pressing from 1969 for $10. I placed a bid on it for $15.00, and guess what happened? That’s right. I was five seconds away from winning, and some douchebag OUTBID ME A THE LAST SECOND!!!!! I was so pissed off.

I wept. Like a kid with a broken toy…

Hope’s not lost. I found a few more copies of it on eBay stores, going for around $20. A small price to pay for spirituality you can’t find in your local congregation.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Housecleaning Time in Kyleland

There was a point in time that lasted for years that I would buy or collect things just to have them around. Clothes, records, books, movies, video games. I used to keep CDs and records if there were maybe three songs I liked from the record, or if I was just too lazy to MP3 them, and burn onto a CD (or, more recently, transfer them to my iPod). I kept movies I enjoyed a couple of times, or video games I enjoyed playing a couple of times, and what for? In the battle of quantity versus quality, quantity won for a long time. Friends are not exempt from this category. I used to add people on my Myspace page that I was nothing more than mere acquaintances with, or add people to my AIM Buddy List I’d talk to maybe once or twice. Perhaps it was a manifestation of my ever-persistent desire to be accepted or “popular.” Perhaps I was just a paranoid, insecure kid who thought that people would look down on me if I only had a handful of Myspace friends, or phone contacts. A testament to my stupidity and naiveté, I know.

Right before I moved around July, I started doing an inventory list of everything I had. All my records, DVDs, video games, books, and clothes… scattered in piles in my room with no A/C. Writing down what I had in a notebook. Everything went into generally two categories (with a third category being added, contingent on whether or not I liked something); the “No Shit Sherlock” Keepers, and the “You Know I’m Not Sure If I Like This/I’ve Never Fully Played This To Make an Educated Decision” Up For Review items. It took me a few hours to sort through everything, and write everything down, but I did it. I should have been packing them at the persistent request of my dad and stepmother, but I’m the King of Procrastination. But, I figured that this was a perfect opportunity to at least start such a daunting project, because frankly, a lot of my shit was just taking up room, and was usually purchased at the expense of personal and financial responsibility (a bad habit I’ve had for years; I might be a spend-a-holic).

Now, don’t get me wrong. A lot of the things I own I’m proud to have. My record collection (yes, records, the stuff before CDs and iPods, and even cassette tapes; I’m old school) has some great stuff I’ve acquired over the years. A lot of my finds I’m especially proud of. But then there are some records that I’ve acquired from thrift stores and old collections I’ve come across that I just don’t care for, as well as some overplayed and overrated classic rock albums I owned just to have them on vinyl. Sure, Back in Black sounds great on vinyl, better than on CD, but I really don’t need it. I’m tired of AC/DC! And if I hear their latest song again, which sounds like a rewrite of most of their other songs from the past 30 years or so, I’m gonna kill someone! As for video games, I’m old school as well. I’ll kick anyone’s ass in Street Fighter II (even when I’m drunk, as one of my friends found out one Halloween when I was shitfaced on Dubra), and Super Mario 3 for the regular Nintendo still gets my vote as the greatest game ever made, I don’t care how realistic graphics are nowadays! The most recent system I have is a PS2… I’m like 10 years behind on video games. Not that it really matters. DVDs? It’s pretty easy to buy a movie you like and think you’ll watch them a lot, but I’ve realized that that only applies to a few select ones. Clothes, you wear ‘em out, you outgrow ‘em, it’s natural. Books, you read ‘em once, maybe twice, and they just sit there. I used to think that money bought happiness. I was told that it doesn’t, but I used to prefer finding things out for myself, sometimes at my expense, and sure enough, it doesn’t. As I gazed at my possession sprawled across my bedroom that humid July afternoon, I realized that I felt as empty as I had ever since my senior year of high school. I had been nursing a void that had been persistent ever since I was young (see that long-winded entry about friends and letting go below), and what a pathetic way to fill it… with stuff that you can lose in a fire, or get stolen, Jah forbid.

So for the past few months, I’ve been on-and-off, playing the video games, listening to the records, and watching the films that I had put up for review. It’s an overwhelming process. I put it off a lot. But when I’m at it full force, it feels pretty liberating. The things that are worth keeping, I just put back on the shelves. The things that are not worth keeping I intend to sell (selling being that third category). FYE gives cash for used DVDs given they’re in good shape, so I’ve made a few runs there and got some money back for them. Amelia and I have been consigning old clothes, jewelry, and assorted knick-knacks to a consignment shop, and we’ve managed to rack in a good amount of dough for that. As for my retro video games and records, for now I’m gonna try my luck with eBay. I’m sure I can make some good money off of some of the shit I have! Some of the records I ultimately didn’t like too much are pretty generous in value. I have a mono copy of Jefferson Airplane’s “Surrealistic Pillow,” the original 1967 pressing, and see people sell it on there for upwards to $100, and I’m sure that there are some young record collectors who would like some of my old Van Halen records. Even old Nintendo games sell for a lot of money, depending on the popularity and scarcity of them, since, you know, they don’t make them anymore. For all the money I wasted on them, I might as well try to get some of that money back, and put it to good use. I am in a good amount of debt right now, and I’m just too old for pissing my money away.

As far as friends go, the delete button is still hard to press for a few people. I have a hard time diminishing or extracting people out of my life, mainly for the sole purpose that they’re people. People are composed of blood, skin and feelings, and an old Springsteen record won’t care if I get rid of it. But, you know what? I’m sure half the people on my AIM list and Myspace friends I haven’t had contact with in years won’t be affected one bit if they have one less friend on there. And if they do care, they can always add me back. Myspace is stupid. Fuck Myspace! I just deleted one-third of my “friends.”

Yet, there are a couple of people I’m just confused about. There are people you develop connections with, and there are people you can tell a lot of yourself to, but they turn out to be unreliable. I don’t know whether we’re friends or we just use each other for time, attention and a pair of ears. You know those types… the type that will talk to you once for a long time, then not talk to you for like a couple of months and make it a tedious and exasperating task to even try to hang out with them. I used to be able to take that with a grain of salt. I used to endure my stomach boiling out of anger and hurt feelings and write it off as an allergic reaction to milk, even if I had eaten no dairy products that day. I should just confront them and be like “So are you in or out? Cuz I ain’t doing this shit anymore.” One less person on my mind would be great at this time. I have too much to do to worry about other people’s perceptions and bullshit.

I already went over this “friends suck worse than the people who hate you” thing in my “letting go” entry, and it does fit in with the theme of this entry, using cheesy architectural metaphors. And no, I did not attend “The Plan.” But your life is essentially a house that needs regular and consistent upkeep, and too much clutter just makes your state of affairs a huge mess, and that gets in the way of everything. However, the more progress I make with sorting out my personal inventory, paying off my debts, and getting my life even the slightest in order, the better I feel. Unfortunately, it's like a colonic of the soul. It's a pain in the ass! but the results are positive. Invigoration, here I come!

Monday, November 10, 2008

If music be the food of love, play on...

This blog is going to feature more shit about music.

I'm gonna start a webpage devoted to music reviews.

I realized this today while working the paper routes, and listened to a 33 minute jazz epic two times in a row. I'm rediscovering all the freaky jazz records I was into my junior & senior years of high school.

More on that later.

Epiphany.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

One of those survey things, stolen from my sister

1. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up?

I’m gonna have to go with Sarah Palin on this one. Hard choice, and unoriginal, because my sister gave the same answer on her blog when she did this questionnaire. But, the talk of MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, etc. is that Sarah Palin is seen as the GOP’s possible future during its stage of regrouping and reprioritizing its ideals, while Barack Obama enjoys a well-deserved presidency, even if Sarah Palin is one of the most divisive cunts ever to tarnish the national stage. Then the GOP will have to find someone entirely new. Muahahahahaha!

2. You can flip a switch that will wipe any band or musical artist out of existence. Who will it be?

Just one? AHHHH! Do NOT ask a music snob this question. It’s a tossup between Miley Cyrus and Panic At The Disco. Panic, I think wins because they might have just a little more longevity than Miley.

3. Who would you really like to just punch in the face?

Dane Cook. And tell him that he’s not funny, and to stop stealing jokes from good comedians.

4. What is your favorite cheese?

Not a cheese guy. But I like me some mozzarella (fresh, or on pizza)

5. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your immediate disposal. What kind of sandwich will you eat?

Grilled chicken, with a slice of turkey bacon, romaine lettuce and BBQ sauce, served with an awesome pickle on the side.

6. You have the opportunity to sleep with the movie celebrity of your choice. We are talking no-strings-attached sex and it can only happen once. Who is the lucky celebrity of your choice?

Anne Hathaway, hands down!

7. You have the opportunity to sleep with the music celebrity of your choice, who will it be?

Joanna Newsom!!!!! I’d say Tori Amos circa 1992 or so, but she has that whole rape trauma thing, and from what I heard, mace sucks.

8. Now that you've slept with two people in a row, you seem to be having an excellent day because you just came across a hundred-dollar bill on the sidewalk. What do you buy?

Records

9. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

I’d say Paris. Or possibly Amsterdam. I wouldn’t have much fun though, as I am broke.

10. An angel appears out of heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the beverage of your choice. It is?

v-8 Splash!

11. Rufus appears out of nowhere with a time-traveling phone booth. You can go anywhere in the PAST. Where do you go?

I hate this question. How many places and time periods do I get to go to? You should specify!

12. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place?

No assholes or douchebags allowed! Hey, you have to start somewhere!

13. You have been given the opportunity to create the half-hour TV show of your own design. What is it?

“Shoot Assholes Out of a Cannon!” This week’s guest, Rush Limbaugh and that caller on his show that called the Obama supporters at Grant Park in Chicago on Election Night “Bolsheviks.”

14. What is your favorite curse word?

Fuck. Because you still can’t say it on network TV 

15. One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren't really doing anything, what do you do?

Kick ‘em in the balls!

16. Your house is on fire! What do you do?

Make like David Lee Roth’s spandex pants and SPLIT!

17. The Angel of Death has descended upon you. Fortunately, the Angel of Death is pretty cool and in a good mood, and it offers you a half-hour to do whatever you want before you bite it. Whatcha gonna do in that half-hour?

Kill the Angel of Death!

18. You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and whats even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What super-power is it?

Flying. I’d say teleporting, but… I like scenery and listening to my iPod when I travel!

19. You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

If I went back anywhere, I would be tempted to want to live past that half-hour and carry on as life was then with what I know now and prevent me from making some dumb mistakes. I guess the My Bloody Valentine show during the last half hour.

20. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

I wouldn’t change anything, per se. How I dealt with it, maybe, but I wouldn’t change anything.

21. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check this out you can move anywhere. Where are you going?

England

22. This question still counts, even for those of you who are under age, if you were banned from every bar in the world except one, which one would it be?

I dunno. I guess Rudy’s

23. Hopefully you didn't mention this in the super-powers question... If you did, then we'll just expound on that. Check it out… Suddenly, you have gained the ability to fly! Whose house are you going to fly to first, and be like "Check it out I can FLY!?"

Amelia’s 

24. The constant absorption of magical moon beams mixed with the radioactive vegetables you consumed earlier has given you the ability to resurrect the dead famous person of your choice. So which celebrity will you bring back to life?

Kurt Cobain or Bill Hicks. They weren’t done yet!

Friday, November 7, 2008

New Day Rising

Apologies in advance for the belatedness of this entry, but I have spent the last three days in shock. Three days ago, Barack Obama won the election for president by a sizable margin. Obama received 65,302,008 votes, more than anyone else in history, and 52.5% of the popular vote, while Republican John McCain received 57,335,106 votes, and 46.2% of the vote. With that said, the electoral college also worked out heavily in Obama's favor, surprisingly. He nabbed 364 votes (270 needed to win), while McCain trailed with 164 votes. By 11 PM EST, Obama was projected as the winner to this much-anticipated election, and John McCain gave his concession speech around 11:30. Obama won some of the heavily contested swing states in this election, including Virginia (who last voted Democratic for Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964), North Carolina (who hadn't had a Democrat win the state since Jimmy Carter in 1976), Florida (the one deciding state for George W. Bush in 2000), and Ohio (which cost John Kerry the election in 2004). He also won Indiana by a hair, and put Iowa and New Mexico back in the blue column after Bush nabbed them in 2004.

That day, I was a complete wreck. I voted, and spent the day anxious, nervous and irritable over the slight chance that the so-called Bradley effect would come into play, and John McCain's platform of being a "comeback kid" would result in the voting booths. For the first few hours of the votes being counted, I tried distracting myself by not watching the coverage on TV. I did, however, keep calling my mother every 30 minutes, and acting like Brad Pitt in Se7en after Kevin Spacey delivered that box with his wife's head in it, and Morgan Freeman not showing him the contents of the box. I was eventually told that Obama had shot up past the 200 mark with McCain pretty far behind. I then rushed to my girlfriend's house to watch perhaps the most crucial part of the election coverage.

The races for Ohio, Virgina, and Florida were still being counted. The press refused to project a winner for any of those states until the votes were 100% counted. By then, he was at 209 electoral votes. Between 9 and 10 PM, McCain managed to nab North Dakota and Nebraska. A total of 8 electoral votes (3 for North Dakota, and 5 for Nebraska). Woo-hoo. How threatening! McCain was now at 145, and he had already won Texas' 34 electoral votes, and most of the South as expected. However, the game-changer came at 10 PM EST, when the polls closed in California, Oregon and Washington. It was projected that Obama was going to win those states, like the Democrats have done so in the past 16 years, which gave him the three states' combined 72 electoral votes, which brought him past the 270 mark. Senator Barack Obama was now projected to be the 44th President of the United States. Shortly thereafter, Ohio, Florida, and Virginia added to Obama's total, which really sealed the lid on the McCain campaign's coffin.

When Obama made it past the 270 mark, the whole country exploded. People were celebrating in the streets everywhere, even in other countries. African-American congregations in Atlanta were dancing in churches, Times Square was an explosion of cheer and hope finally realized after 8 years of darkness, many people were crying, text messages and phone calls were made everywhere, and it was just a defining moment in American history. Other than 9/11, this is by far the most memorable major event to occur in my lifetime. A man of African-American descent has finally made it to the White House. The Bush-era has been wiped out with a bang. And I can sleep better now.

With that said, what's next for this country that has been through divisiveness, discord, mismanagement, and corruption for the past 8 years? We have 2 wars, a bad economy, a joke of an education system, and a health care crisis long neglected by elitism and greed. An election of a candidate as powerful and invigorating as Obama doesn't magically change things overnight, you know.

I can say this though; Sarah Palin can go back to Alaska and not bother us for a while. While she's at home in Wasilla, she can study a globe (bitch thought Africa was a country), read the U.S. Constitution, and shut the fuck up! Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh can take a good hard look at their parties they're so vehemently supportive of and realize that "Hey! The GOP fucked up!" and think before they run their mouths off. I will now laugh my ass off whenever I see Sean Hannity's stupid looking face on TV (I used to scream at him, much like my grandfather did during The Price is Right). John McCain can write a book called "When Your Party is in Trouble, This is How You Lose an Election" and detail every fuck-up of his campaign. And the U.S. can also look forward to being respected again on the international stage.

And this is a personal memo from me to President-elect Obama,

You have earned the confidence and trust of a good amount of voters and citizens of this nation you are now representing. I think you know this, but you did not waltz into a perfect situation. There is a lot at stake here; consumer confidence, two costly wars, jingoism, home foreclosures, health care, the cost of school, the list goes on. With a lot of other voters, you have to prove yourself. You have to prove to them that you're not a Marxist, you won't blow them up, you won't overtax them, you'll effectively manage the wars we're in right now, and get us back on our feet again with regards to the economy. You also have to prove to the people who worked so hard on your behalf for you to win this damn thing that their support and dedication was not wasted or misguided. I understand that there is a lot of pressure on your half, but you always appeared to be mild-tempered, cool, and calculated on the campaign trail and the debates. Let that same suave attitude carry over to the executive branch, and show some bona fide leadership. This country needs it. Besides, it wouldn't hurt for a reelection bid in 2012 either!

You are also now an inevitable historic figure. Even two months before your administration starts, if a guy were to write a history book of the United States, you would be written as our nation's first black president. Now, we've come a long way since the days of slavery, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement, but racism is still existent in this country, I'm afraid. There are still some people who don't trust African-Americans, even if they aren't Nazi sympathizers, or Klansmen. As the nation's first black president, you MUST earn the trust of the American people, so that people won't be so weary or divided on whether or not to elect African-Americans into the Oval Office in the near future. It took this nation over 200 hundred years to even have an African-American presidential nominee, nonetheless a winner, so don't screw it up! I'm not saying you will, nor do I believe you will for even a second, but those people exist out there.

You have earned a distinguished honor, President-elect Obama. You seem ready to take it on without a hitch, and you're choosing your cabinet members, and making plans for your presidency. Never lose sight of why you ran for president, never forget the hardworking Americans who have put their confidence in you, and don't get blinded by bipartisanship or corruption. We don't need that shit anymore. Eight years of it with Bush and his criminal friends was more than enough, and look where it got us. We're now more divided as people than we have been in a long time, we're practically bankrupt, and the line between classes only seems to get thinner. I know you probably can't fix everything during your first term, but give it all you have. You have a good guy as your Vice President (Mr. Joe Biden) who has been in the Senate since 1972, and you have some good people looking out for you if you need help.

Oh, and President-elect Obama? Do us another favor; be very careful out there, as you are now a target. Granted, all major politicians are targets for psychos and assassins, but you especially need to take caution. I have been fortunate enough not to deal with any presidential assassinations so far, and I don't want to have to deal with JFK-redux. I don't want to hear that a white supremacist (or Ted Nugent) decided to blow your head off! Save us the despair... please.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

YES!

We did it!

Just got home from the voting booth...

I just performed my civic duty as an American citizen. I filled in my ballot, and now Barack Obama and Joe Biden have one vote. My dad and stepmom voted for them too, so that makes three.

Well, the polls in Connecticut close at 8 PM EST...

The results should be pouring in as night falls...

"God, are you there? It's me, America."

Today should be interesting. At least we made it here, right?

Monday, November 3, 2008

"Is It The Fourth?"

These were the last words of Thomas Jefferson, in which his doctor replied "It will soon be." On July 4, 1826, both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams passed away, 50 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I always found it fascinating that two of the signers (Jefferson, himself, drafted it) of the Declaration of Independence, as well as being 2 U.S. Presidents, died on the 50th anniversary of its signing. Five years later, in 1831, the nation's fifth president, James Monroe, also died.

Enough of my dorkiness, straight from my endless troth of (often) useless presidential information. Is it really the goddamn 4th yet?!?!? I just want the election to be over with! I'm tired of watching the campaign stops, the spin masters, the commentary. I'm tired of constantly checking the polls, and reading ignorant comments on message boards and YouTube. Yet, I'm a political junkie during election season. It gives me fodder for writing, and I can't help but be like a guy with a scratch on the roof of my mouth. But I'm getting tired. I just want to get it over with.

As of this morning, the polls lead in Barack Obama's favor. Most election-related websites have him in the lead in both the popularity polls and the electoral college polls. Most of these sites also predict that Obama will lead with over 300 electoral votes. They're usually correct. They predicted that the Bush/Kerry election of 2004 would be very close, which it was. It should also be stated that no presidential candidate as far behind in the polls as John McCain is in this point in time has come back to win an election. I just hope that doesn't change in the next 24 hours or so.

I'm still optimistic, albeit cautiously. Thanks to the stock market going kersplash, Obama clearly has an advantage, and most voters seem to be worried about the economy and who will get it back on track, rather than the skirmishes in the Middle East, Roe v. Wade, whether or not fags can get married (I use the term "fags" not as a jab towards homosexuals, but more as a jab towards those religious nutjobs and redneck bigots who use that word perhaps too literally, and voted for Bush based on his gay-marriage ban proposal back in '04) and who has more experience in politics. As optimistic as I am, and as much as I can't fathom things going wrong, I'm also very nervous. I'm hanging on the edge of my seat at this point, and I can't seem to shake the thoughts of the upcoming election for a mere 3 minutes. I just want it to happen one way or another, so I can move on from it. I'm prepared already. Stop with the anticipation! Stop with the time moving as fast as a snail on quaaludes!

I know I broke my promise to not write about the election until the election was over. But, fuck it. It's not like I made a bet on it or anything.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

New Title

I changed the title of my blog. It was "Nothing to fear, nothing to doubt," which in many ways is my personal mantra, but I changed it to something more striking in my opinion. "Do You Want Hannah Montana, or Do You Want the Truth?"

The title was inspired from a Minutemen song from 1984 entitled "Do You Want New Wave or Do You Want the Truth?" The Minutemen are one of my all-time favorite bands, and that song is one of the best songs ever. That band, for me, signifies being true to yourself and rejecting the status quo, and using the best of what you have to achieve greatness. As a part of the burgeoning 1980s American alternative rock movement, the Minutemen were perhaps the most unique band out of the Southern California punk/hardcore scene. Bands like Husker Du and Black Flag were often identified with heavily distorted guitars, fast songs, and anguished screaming, at least in the early days of the movement. The Minutemen played perhaps faster than anyone (most of their songs averaged less or a little more than a minute long), but their late guitarist/vocalist D. Boon never used distortion, and their vocals were more like campaigning politicians than pissed off kids who hated their parents. Therefore, the Minutemen were more a microcosm of their own. Most hardcore fans rejected them early on in their too brief career, and most of their contemporaries (particularly those on Black Flag guitarist Greg Ginn's SST label) outsold them. But they were one of the most respected and revered bands of the 1980s. Shit, the press loved them.

As for that song, it says so much without saying much of anything (much like most Minutemen songs). As a brief encapsulation of their freethinking philosophy, "Do You Want New Wave..." is almost a mantra of using words to express thoughts and ideas that challenge people to think, and trying to get escape from their comfort zones (Duran Duran, perhaps?) to confront the truth. It also denounces the glitter and glam of mainstream Reagan-era society as a fraud, and saw their world of music and art expressed as a solace for many disaffected young people instead of a way to make a ton of money. For me, the message of the Minutemen (and a lot of other bands in that movement) resonates more than ever two decades later, as this decade has been marred by a turbulent economy, a disastrous presidency, and a society more superficial than it ever has been. My writing has always been very honest, and I don't hold back. I tell the truth. As for using Hannah Montana in the title for my blog, I think that she is the ultimate representation of superficiality in this generation. She is a product; an overexposed, commercialized, no substance, no talent product that the masses suck up like a vacuum. Forget the fact that her father was Billy Ray Cyrus, one of the 1990s worst musical figures (tied with Fred Durst and Vanilla Ice for my money). Remember "Achy Breaky Heart?" Remember his repulsive mullet? Well, he shot a load of semen into whoever was dumb enough to fuck him in 1992, and out came Hannah Montana (or Miley Cyrus, whatever her fucking name is; I think the role model for 9 year old girls today represents multiple-personality disorder, but that's another argument).

People don't think. Individuals do. I concur with whoever came up with that philosophy. People use trends to try to dull harsh realities, always have. In the 1980s, it was, in fact, the New Wave movement. I'm not talking about Elvis Costello, Blondie, Talking Heads New Wave. More like the Duran Duran, Culture Club, Human League New Wave, which occured a few years after the prementioned bands and the scene had become diluted. Nowadays, I can't go anywhere without seeing Hannah Montana's saccharine smile. This will never change. There will always be huge businessmen that want to get rich, and will always find something or someone to capitalize. They will put out products that will fly off department store shelves, sell out stadiums, make millions of dollars, and then be a cultural footnote in five years time. What will it be next? I'm almost scared to find out.

For now, here are the lyrics to the song that this rant was inspired from, and a video of the band performing the song 11 days before I was born (6/17/85), six months before D. Boon was killed in a van accident. To this day, their bassist Mike Watt still jams econo, and has never let money or whatever success he has had (which isn't very much, although he landed a gig playing with the reuinted Stooges, which is a pretty sweet deal!).

"Do You Want New Wave or Do You Want the Truth?"

a word war will set off the keg
"my words are war!" should a word have two meanings?
what the fuck for? should words serve the truth?
i stand for language
i speak the truth
i shout for history
i am the cesspool
for all the shit
to run down in

I Remember Halloween....

Back when I was young, Halloween was the coolest time of year. It was my favorite holiday, after Christmas. Getting to dress up, roam the streets, and get as much free candy you can lift to last you a few weeks. It was the best. Sadly, now I'm too old to go trick-or-treating, and for the past few years I've spent most of my Halloweens drunk or stoned (except this one). I still wish I could be 9 years old for one night, and go from house to house getting candy sometimes.

Apparently, Halloween ain't what it used to be in the suburbs. It seems that I see less and less people out. I drove past my old neighborhood, and past trick-or-treating landmarks, with my girlfriend, to see if the streets would be swarmed with kids, as it was way back when. Back in the 90s, you were literally tripping over other kids trying to go to as many houses as possible. I was disappointed when I revisited my old street. Barely anyone was out. It was around 8 PM on a Friday. When I was a kid, regardless of what day of the week it was, 8 PM was peak time for trick-or-treaters, especially if Halloween fell on a day where there was no school the next morning! Has life gotten lame or what?

Seriously. What the fuck, youth of today? This is your one time of year to dress up as a hooligan, and get all the free candy you can shake a stick at! How often do you get to do this, and why aren't you taking advantage of it? You only are young once, you know! And what the fuck, parents of today? Are you scared to take your kids out? I think that may be the case. My friend's family owns a gymnastics studio, and she overheard parents saying that they're weary and nervous to take their kids out, and instead have parties for Halloween. Scared of what? Terrorists? Child molesters? Kids stupid enough to not get out of the road when they see a car? Take a fucking chance! Don't curb a little kid's excitement in lieu for some stupid party in your basement! That's fucking lame! Teach em some responsibility ferchrissakes!!!! How are they gonna learn anything in this world if you keep them from experiencing anything? Grow some balls!

I remember Halloween 2001, that trick-or-treating seemed to be on the decline. It was right after 9/11, and parents were concerned that Osama and his buddies had taken over a Kit-Kat factory, and spent their time adding anthrax to chocolate bars. What a crock of shit! I know that terrorism is a concern, especially in the modern world, but honestly, I think that they have more important things to do than to poison candy, and have suicide bombers prowl suburban neighborhoods waiting to take out a few kids dressed as pirates & superheroes! If that's the case for these uncertain and paranoid times, then seriously, get a life. Just because something bad is out there, doesn't mean you shouldn't live.

Is Halloween just dying? Will Halloween not exist if and when I have kids? I would hate to think of a future without it for some reason. Seeing the empty streets of my old neighborhood was very sad in such a way that there is some sort of loss of innocence rampant in the world. Hopefully, that sense of joy will come back. Because, seriously... Halloween has sucked for the past 8 years!

Thursday, October 23, 2008

$150,000 can't buy class

Last year, people gave John Edwards shit for being pro-middle class, and spending $400 on a haircut. Now, this year, Sarah Palin, the non-elitist, small town values girl spends $150K (twice as much as her gubernatorial salary) on a new wardrobe, and the GOP is calling foul.

Another GOP double-standard. Will it ever end?!?!?

I think there may be another civil war, between the "real" America and the "fake" one. Yet, who the fuck decides what states/cities are real America and what states/cities are fake? Aren't politicians supposed to be uniters during these divisive times? Here's what Joe Biden had to say:



I couldn't have said it any better.

I'm not writing anything about politics, pre-election. Watch Keith Olbermann or the Daily Show (or Sean Hannity if you're an idiot) for pre-election coverage. The final 2 weeks before an election are too much of a headache, and I need to distract myself from the presidential migraine.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Then The Letting Go...

I did something this past weekend that I needed to do for a long time; I let go. For the past 5 or 6 years, I had spent a lot of time harboring feelings about people that ultimately mean nothing, and stunted my progression as a human being in all respects to try to impress people and to be something I'm not. My soul has been marred by envy, hatred, and low self-esteem, and for a long time I thought that there was a good reason for all of this. I thought that there was some poetic recourse for this, and my mindframe during my fits of rage was that "I'll show them!" and then vow to write pages and pages and pages of verses I can mold into the next "Rid of Me" but only to find myself not writing much of anything, and just pacing around my house being pissed off for no good reason, and just flat out bitch about it, and have people kind of boost my ego for some lame reassurance for something deep down I already knew, but my neurosis needed to hear it again and again to keep my self-image at bay for the time being.

My tale of self-deprecation began in middle school. I had spent the better part of elementary school as an outcast because I knew I was different. I preferred reading over sports, and Nirvana to Naughty By Nature. I was bullied a great deal, and beaten up on several occasions. Come middle school, I finally met a few people who had the same interests as me, and I had hoped that it would solve all my problems, I can create some sort of identity for myself, maybe form a band, and be "cool" (whatever the fuck that is). My best friend was a guy, who I shall call Kenneth (his middle name). From early 7th grade to about the first half of 8th grade, we were inseparable. We were the yin to each other's yang, we related to each other, we wrote songs together (bad ones, but still, better than nothing), and I honestly felt that I had found a guy who truly identified with me, and me with him. It was great. But, for reasons I still don't know to this day, he just... changed. I don't know if it was drugs, or influence from his other friends to latch away from me, or he was afraid to tell me if he didn't like me or whatever, I'll never know. Around this time, he started to pursue a career in acting, which was fine, but he would make plans with me then blow me off all the time with no phone call/email/IM beforehand, leaving me in the cold for that day or weekend or whatever. If I had a nickel for every time this happened, I'd have enough money for 2 years at NYU. I guess it started when we formed this bad metal/hardcore band called Endorphin, which splintered apart, and by all accounts, Kenneth quit. But he never told me, and I didn't find out until someone sent me a link to this new "band" he had formed, and I had gotten questions from some friends about what happened to our band, Endorphin. I felt betrayed like I never felt before. But I forgave him, and lived in denial that there was discourse in our relationship, probably because I was afraid of going back to the isolation I felt in elementary school, and I figured that this was better than nothing. Sure, we'd still hang out on occasion, but he would make plans with our friends without me several times, and canceled me out of many conversations.

This sadomasochistic friendship carried on into high school. One of the defining moments of this time period for me was when he formed another band with this kid named Alex, who had been a bassist in Endorphin briefly in 8th grade. And he resurrected the name Endorphin, and gave me a cassette demo of a song they had did. The song sucked, but I thought it was really good at the time, and I wrote this lengthy diatribe to him, saying that I was hurt that he had used the name we had came up with without my consent, and that I wasn't considered at all to be in the band. And he just wrote it off. He did let me in the band for like 3 days, but I was just a guy who would program their shitty drum machine for demos they redid over and over again, and I did some spoken word thing for a song at some lame show they did. Nothing came from this band, they never went anywhere, and I'm glad of that, but I guess I was, and still am, a man of principle, and the principle of the situation was beyond shitty, and what he did was something I would NEVER do to someone I considered a close friend, which says a lot about Kenneth. We would write stuff together on-and-off for a few years, we went to shows together until 2004, but by then it was truly a friendship of convenience at this point. It was me hanging on to a friendship that was diagnosed with a fatal tumor in early 2000, and me putting every resource I had into keeping it alive when really it should have gone out gracefully and without unnecessary suffering.

What really infuriated me for years was that Kenneth was a major part of my identity in the eyes of other people. He dropped out of school in the 10th grade to work on his acting career full-time (and his credits include a deleted scene in a cult movie, an indie movie that garnered about as much attention as a pig taking a shit, and a few walk-on roles on a few TV shows; some career, ay?), and I guess to be weird, and artsy and unique, or whatever. So I would get questions from almost EVERYONE in my class who knew me and him, and ask me questions about what he was doing, why he dropped out of school, and all that shit, like I was his spokesperson or something. They would rarely ask me how I was, or what was up with me. It was all about Kenneth. And for years that stripped me of any identity I had. I still had a group of friends I went out with, and played pool and all that shit, but I still had this phantom to try to cope with as well. And a new identity I'm still trying to carve out (aren't we all?).

I'm not exactly sure what was the straw that broke the camel's back when it came to our friendship. I know it was in 2004. I had gotten him a ticket to go see Rush, and he never showed up, something he had never done before. He had been late plenty of times, but never blew off a concert. He paid me back, but still... That year, he also formed yet another band, but by that time, the cloth over my eyes on his supposed "talent" and "brilliance" was starting to unravel, partially thanks to me dating someone who wasn't impressed with him at all. His band made a CD. To review it briefly, it was just ordinary but it was trying to be weird. He tried creating a few Can-esque sound collages, and wrote songs about infanticide and "acts of pure, pure color" (yeah, that's right), and there was nothing compelling about the composition of the songs. As far as his vocals... he would do fine if his vocals were laconic, and I always told him that, but his vocals were beyond histrionic. He would try to channel Neil Young, or Kurt Cobain into lyrics that had as much substance as a kernel of popcorn. I went to a couple of shows he had, and I just was tired of his shit by that point. I was tired of being his fanclub and not being appreciated. I hated his asshole artist friends, and all the insufferable pretentious girls he dated. I realized that most of his writing flat out sucked, and little by little cut ties with him. I talked to him briefly once last year, and never spoke to him again after that, for no reason except the fact that I had no desire to.

However, not speaking to a person doesn't mean they vanish forever. I still felt like I had to compete with him somehow. I still felt like I had to impress people by stuff like traveling or going to shows or by materialism, which Kenneth did nonchalantly. He came from a pretty well off family, so going skiing, or having good musical equipment and the original pressing of Blonde on Blonde on vinyl came almost naturally to him. That, and the people I know talked of him as if he was this great person who is immensely talented and all that, and they were more interested in him than me. I also befriended a couple of other people briefly who were "unique" but it seemed forced, and they were just pretentious shitheads. What I mean is people that write bad poetry, worship Wes Anderson, and list things such as vegan peanut-butter milkshakes, and exploration as interests on their myspace pages. Now, I'm not saying that all people who watch Wes Anderson movies are pretentious assholes, but it's an almost-constant pattern in life. As for listing obscure and esoteric interests on your myspace page (i.e. airports, vegan peanut-butter milkshakes, spontaneity, etc) is just plain old pretentious, and self-righteous. It just screams "I'm so goddamn unique, worship me!" and in the process, makes you seem like you're better than everyone else, except the few you've allowed into your self-important world, and have those that don't look to you like you're an emperor, and they're your tailor. I was a tailor for many an "emperor" (they only were emperors in their own mind) for many years, and I sewed my last stitch last year with some other girl I tried in initiating a friendship. She was one of those people, like Kenneth, who had to fill her life up with being busy for the sake of being busy, and would only hang out with you if she felt like doing you a favor, like if you were free to hang out once in a while, you're a loser with no life. The last show my band played in 2007, she said that she'd come, but never came, yet went to college in New York, formed a "band" and then texted me at 2:45 one morning while I was sleeping and said "Come to NYC on this day and see my band play!" And I was like "fuck you!" She couldn't be bothered to come to my show, so why should I spend money on a train ticket to New York, when I can't really afford it, and see a folk duo who isn't all that good anyway? I never said this to her, and probably never will, but... this is turning into a tirade against people I used to be friends with.

For a long time, I wanted to be like one of those people. I bought into that "High Fidelity bullshit," as Henry Rollins put it, and envied people who were snobby like that (at the time, I thought it was "profound"). I wanted to fit in somewhere, with some clique (I guess "hipsters," for lack of a better term). But, I hate labels, and the personifications of labels are complete snobby assholes who take you for granted. My conflict for a long time is that I was too weird for the "normal" preppy kids, and too "normal" for the arty people. My point is; I don't need to try to impress people anymore. I like the music I like because it appeals to me, and not to be cool. I don't measure my success because I go to all the latest shows to see the latest hip bands, have 30987 pictures (and almost that many friends) on my myspace, or whether or not I traveled to LA at age 17 and lived there in squalor for 3 months. I have a few close friends who accept me for who I am, and honestly, the most fun I had was with my girlfriend and two other friends, and all we did was watch movies and drink beer. We didn't feel the need to discuss the latest Stereolab record, or poems by T.S. Eliot (shit, most of my friends don't listen to Stereolab or read T.S. Eliot, but that's more to prove my point about the people I desperately tried to fit in with). It was just fun. I have friends I talk about music with, but I don't get too close to them a lot of the time. I don't force it neither. If I hang out with them, I hang out with them. I learned my lesson of forcing friendships that weren't meant to be more than what they are sometimes. I'm in a band with two people who don't share the exact tastes as me, but we write good shit and we have a creative energy that eclipses any connection I had with Kenneth.

I also realized that as a writer, and as a person, I was perfectly fine the way I was, with the usual developmental flaws everyone has growing up. There were moments where I didn't think of what others thought of me back in high school, and I was content with not hearing from Kenneth for weeks at a time, and being really happy. Granted those moments didn't come often, but happiness like that comes in short doses. I'm a likable guy, when all is said and done, but a guy who also lets his emotions, fears and anxieties get the best of him since the age of 8. I was also depressed the past month or so because I lost my job at Starbucks. But, so the fuck what? A lot of the people I worked with revolved their lives around Starbucks, even outside of work, and I didn't fit into that mold. Why should I feel like a loser because I left work-related stuff at work, and I wasn't a walking and talking Starbucks manual? I'm getting too old to worry about other's perceptions of me, and I should only concern myself with those who do care about me and have earned my trust, and friendship, instead of being a groupie to those who dispose friends faster than toilet paper, and take people and connections for granted.

To sum this all up; if anyone feels that I'm not cool enough to be their friend because I'm not a clone of you, then FUCK YOU! I don't need you! There, I said it.

You all probably feel like I'm silly and stupid, and childish, but I'm sure that everyone has their own humiliating story of trying to fit in and force yourself to try to fit in at a great cost to yourself. It's human nature, and for everyone dealing with it now, the best advice I can give you is not to care. It'll only end up hurting you in the long run. Live for yourself, and carefully evaluate the people you know in life, and sort out which ones mean the most to you, and which ones are expendable and you can picture your life without. It took me 23 years to do that. So the younger you start doing shit like that, the better off you'll be. Thank you, and goodnight.

Postscript:

I almost forgot something. Kenneth always said that I was a better writer than him and a better guitar player. Whatever I wrote came naturally, and my playing had soul, according to him. He also told me in a few moments of weakness that he had a lot of respect for me because of dealing with a shitty family life, yet managing to keep my shit together, and he wished that he had the same composure. I don't entirely agree with him still, to this day, but he must have had to be somewhat jealous of me in that respect, and I'm not even trying to be arrogant. I was always told I was a commendable writer, and I could do whatever I put my mind to. Hell, one of my lasting friendships was with a guy no one liked because he was weird, overweight and unconventional. But he didn't give a shit. I always think of this at times, and then forget it, because I let myself be duped by people who long to be the center of attention, and who feed off of attention stupid people give to them. OK, enough already! You made your point!

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

I feel compelled to post this story I read about McCain...

My stepmother forwarded this story to me, and I was appalled and disgusted by it, if in fact this story regarding Senator McCain is true.

Note from Kate:

Ana has a PhD in psychology and has a private practice in San

Francisco. Her husband, who has started and sold a number of successful

companies. Ana's husband is currently a Managing Director of a private

equity firm in the Bay Area. Ana and her husband are not political

activists and don't have any personal ax to grind. In fact, in writing

this account of her experience with John McCain, Ana is acting outside

of her own economic self-interest as she and her husband are among the

top 3-5% of our population who would benefit from the McCain

tax/economic policies. Please pass this on to anyone you know who

might vote for John McCain.



Dear Friends,

I have written about my encounter with McCain and his family in 1999 -- please feel free to share my story with whomever you think might be considering voting for him.

Ana

MY HOLIDAY WITH JOHN Mc CAIN

It was just before John McCain's last run at the presidential nomination in 2000 that my husband and I vacationed in Turtle Island in Fiji with John McCain, Cindy, and their children, including Bridget (their adopted Bangladeshi child).

It was not our intention, but it was our misfortune to be in close quarters with John McCain for almost a week since Turtle Island has a small number of bungalows and their focus on communal meals force all vacationers who are there at the same time to get to know each other intimately.

He arrived at our first group meal and started reading quotes from a pile of William Faulkner books with a forest of Post-Its sticking out of them. As an English Literature major myself, my first thought was 'if he likes this so much, why hasn't he memorized any of this yet?'

I soon realized that McCain actually thought we had come on vacation to be a volunteer audience for his 'readings' which then became a regular part of each meal. Out of politeness, none of the vacationers initially protested at this intrusion into their blissful holiday, but people's buttons definitely got pushed as the readings continued day after day.

Unfortunately this was not his only contribution to our mealtime entertainment. He waxed on during one meal about how Indo-Chine women had the best figures and that our American corn-fed women just couldn't meet up to this standard. He also made it a point that all of us should stop Cindy from having dessert as her weight was too high and made a few comments to Amy, the 25 year old wife of the a that she should eat less as she needed to lose weight.

McCain's appreciation of the beauty of Asian women was so great that David the American economist had to move his Thai wife to the other side of the table from McCain as McCain kept aggressively flirting with and touching her.

Needless to say I was irritated at his large ego, and his rude behavior towards his wife and other women, but decided he must have some redeeming qualities as he had adopted a handicapped child from Bangladesh. I asked him about this one day and his response was shocking ­'Oh, that was Cindy's idea ­ I didn't have anything to do with it. She just went and adopted this thing without even asking me.

You can't imagine how people stare when I wheel this ugly, black thing around in a shopping cart in Arizona. No, it wasn't my idea at all.'

I actively avoided McCain after that, but unfortunately one day he engaged me in a political discussion which soon got us on the topic of the active US bombing of Iraq at that time. I was shocked when he said 'if I was in charge, I would nuke Iraq to teach them a lesson'.

Given McCain's personal experience with the horrors of war I had expected a more balanced point of view. I commented on the tragic consequences of the nuclear attacks on Japan during WWII ­ but no, he was not to be dissuaded. He went on to say that if it was up to him he would have dropped many more nuclear bombs on Japan. I rapidly extricated myself from this conversation as I could tell that his experience being tortured as a POW didn't seem to have mellowed out his perspective but rather had made him more aggressive, and vengeful towards the world.

My final encounter with McCain was on the morning that he was leaving Turtle Island. Amy and I were happily eating pancakes when McCain arrived and told Amy that she shouldn't be having pancakes because she needed to lose weight. Amy burst into tears at this abusive comment.

I felt fiercely protective of Amy and immediately turned to McCain and told him to leave her alone. He became very angry and abusive towards me, and said 'don't you know who I am' and I looked him in the face and said 'yes, you are the biggest asshole I have ever met' and headed back to my cabin. I am happy to say that later that day when I arrived at lunch I was given a standing ovation by all the guests for having stood up to McCain's bullying.

Although I have shared my McCain story informally with friends, this is the first time I am making this public. I almost did so in 2000, when McCain first announced his bid for the Republican nomination but it soon became apparent that George Bush was the shoo-in candidate and so I did not act then. However, now that there is a very real possibility that McCain could be elected as our next president, I feel it is my duty as an American citizen to share this story. I can't imagine a more scary outcome for America than that this abusive, aggressive man should lead our nation. I have observed him in intimate surroundings as he really is, not how the media portrays him to be. If his attitudes toward women, and his treatment of his own family are even a small indicator of his real personality, then I shudder to think what will happen to America were he to be elected as our President.

Ana

What an asshole! This demeanor is only showing on the campaign trail, mirroring his desperate attempts to diminish Obama's lead. I seriously think that McCain will do anything in his power to try to become president and will stop at nothing. Luckily, every plan he has executed so far (the "suspension" of his campaign to ineffectively come up with a bailout solution, the linking Obama to Ayers and Wright as if no one else had done that before, and his fiery temper) has backfired terribly, and the number of battleground states are quickly evaporating from McCain's sight.

Three out of the four debates have happened, including the vice-presidential debate between Joe Biden & Sarah Palin. According to the majority of polls, the Obama campaign has been declared the victor in all three of the debates so far. Looks like McCain is in deep shit. YES!!!!!!

Yet, anything could happen at any time, but I'm cautiously confident that Obama could win swimmingly.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Bye Bye, OJ!

So yesterday, OJ Simpson was found guilty of 12 felony counts, including armed robbery, 13 years to the day after he was acquitted of that minor double-murder charge that was following him. After losing millions in the civil trial, The Juice decided that it might be a good idea to rob two memorabilia collectors at gunpoint w/ a few of his buddies. Not his smartest move. He faces an absolute MINIMUM of 20 years in prison, given the judge in Clark County, Nevada is the most lenient and sympathetic person on the face of the Earth. Otherwise, he faces a life sentence. Even then, if he does get the bare minimum sentence, here are the simple facts; OJ Simpson is 61 years old. If he serves 20 years in the pen, he'll be released at the age of 81, and even then, that's pretty much the rest of his life, if he even lives that long. Needless to say, we'll probably never hear from OJ again.

That notion is actually kinda sad. After his sensational trial, you never heard from OJ all that much. He would only pop up once in a while engaging in some new shenanigans. And it was entertaining. So last year, when I heard that OJ was being charged with armed robbery, I was like, "Uh oh, our lovable, ex-football star wife-killer OJ's causing mischief again!" It was great, because the news had gotten pretty boring during that point in time. I don't seem to remember any hype about the trial. It seemed to kind of come and go, maybe because it occurred just in time for election season, and as you know, that diverts most of my attention between the months of July-November every four years (any years beginning with 2000, that end in 0, 4, 8, 2, 6 in that order). You picked the wrong time to have a trial, Orenthal!

So was he framed this time? I don't know, and frankly, I don't care. A part of me believes that he murdered his ex-wife and the guy she was fucking. That's not out of racism, or anything like that, let's not even go there. He got off because he had a very good legal team, which at the time, he could afford (and it didn't hurt that Johnny Cochrane was still alive and healthy too in 1994-95).

So that's it for our friend OJ. Sentencing is set for the 5th of December. Unless his lawyer can appeal the case, it looks like The Juice is going away for a pretty long time. Thanks for the media sensationalism you stirred up for much of my later childhood, and the memories, OJ (and your performances in the world of football, and the Naked Gun movies)!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

MY BLOODY VALENTINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, this is a rant about music... not politics. Not even a rant. A recollection of the most amazing show I've ever been to.

The place was Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan. The act was My Bloody Valentine, playing their second U.S. gig in over 16 years. The long-dormant band had been long mythologized by the indie & mainstream rock press, and I honestly thought that the chances of a reunion were small for a while. Mastermind Kevin Shields did involve himself in music projects, namely working on the soundtracks to Sofia Coppola films Lost In Translation and Marie Antoinette, and a disc with Patti Smith, which brought some publicity to the reclusive Shields, and made us My Bloody Valentine fans rejoice to know that he was still alive, and messing with his tremolo pedals. Finally, this spring, it was announced that My Bloody Valentine would be going on tour. I maxed out my credit card to get tickets, so I can guarantee me and my girlfriend, fans of the band for the last 5 years, and who had been wishing they would reunite, could secure a place there in case the show sold out (which it did).

It was worth it.

The opening bands weren't that great, although the second band, Wounded Knees, did bring out J. Mascis from Dinosaur Jr. for a song, which was pretty good, considering due to financial problems, I had to miss out on a Dinosaur Jr. show at Toad's Place last week. Pretty much the opening bands were like third-rate, British Drop Nineteens, who, in turn, were Bostonian third-rate My Bloody Valentines (but they were good).

Then My Bloody Valentine took the stage around 10, and... wow. They opened with "I Only Said," and they were in top form, almost better sounding live, than on record. And LOUD!!!! Bilinda Butcher still looks gorgeous after all this time. Colm Ó Cíosóig's drumming was ferocious, and perfectly contrasted with the onslaught of guitar effects. Bassist Debbie Googe was very energetic. Kevin Shields stood like a statue, like some sort of sorcerer, and just intoxicated the sold-out crowd by his enigmatic presence, and his deafening, yet ethereal playing. The band just tore through their most notable songs ("Only Shallow," "When You Sleep," "Soon," "When You Wake (You're Still In A Dream)," etc.) It was like heaven. A complete aural orgasm. They hardly said a word to the audience, but they didn't have to. They just let the music speak to them, and the audience felt it. During the 15-minute feedback holocaust during "You Made Me Realise," many people (including myself), just held their hands in the air, as if it was some sort of seance or divine intervention. In many ways it was just that; many people's souls were enriched by My Bloody Valentine's music for the past 20+ years, with new converts who were born after 1991's Loveless, and somehow the band knew that those people needed them to come back and save them. I felt rejuvenated that night, and enthralled. All I want to do now is follow them for the rest of their tour, and after the show I was in such a state of bliss that I know for the fact that the comedown back to reality will be very dysphoric.

Thank God for Youtube! Here's some videos, so in case you missed it, you can kind of capture the magic for yourself.



"Soon"



By far, the most AMAZING thing ever


Sorry if this review sucks. But it's hard to find words for shows such as these.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Why Sarah Palin is a Misogynist

This will probably be my last political spiel until at least the debates. The lava that shot through my veins during convention season is simmering down to just… well, hot red water. Besides, there are other things in life. Politics only affects them.

So, I’ve come to the conclusion that Sarah Palin is a misogynist. And worse, she’s disguised as a GOP MILF. Underneath lies a black dragon with Pat Robertson’s face taped on!

So how did I reach this conclusion? Well, it’s very simple; her inflexible stance on abortion. She has stated that even if a woman was raped, or a victim of incest, she would not support abortion for those reasons. If I’m not mistaken, that’s even more conservative than Rush Limbaugh’s stance. I know that people have their reasons for being pro-life, not that I agree with them. But even then, most people would bend their stance for cases of rape and incest.

Not for our potentially next VP (oh God, I hope I’m not calling her that, come January 20th!)!!! Pretty much what she’s saying is that if you get raped, and you get pregnant, tough shit sister! Your assailant’s sperm is more important than your own well-being, and if it were up to me, you would have a reminder of your horrible encounter for the rest of your life, because your trauma has taken form of a baby! And that’s much better than a bunch of congregated cells being senselessly murdered in the name of science!

As for incest, THE GREATEST PERVERSION IN HUMAN HISTORY PERHAPS SECOND ONLY TO CHILD PORN, how could Palin justify someone not having an abortion if it is an act of incest? A sexually abusive father rapes his 14 year old daughter, and she gets knocked up. She has to live with more than the trauma she already has to deal with day to day? I’ll tell you this; if Palin and McCain hire enough Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade, and more “Janie’s Got a Gun” families continue to exist in America (which hopefully aren’t that many), we’re gonna see a lot of messed up family trees. So, fuck you, you Godless feminists, cried the Whackjob from Wasilla!

I think the misogyny speaks for itself here...

BTW, her church wants you butt-pirates and carpet-munchers to PRAY THE GAY AWAY!!!!! Maybe her church could have Obama pray his blackness away, too! Or maybe her church could help me pray away my dick and make a vagina appear, so I can get shanked after a night at the bar, and carry a terminally fucked up kid (wait until 2010, though, when her and McCain are ravaging D.C.), which will provide for a very bad “Mommy, where did I come from?” story.

God Help America,

Kyle.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Should I Be Optimistic? A Tale of a Young Voter Who Worries Too Much About Politics

So both conventions have come to pass. I spent the better part of the week watching the speechs from the DNC that I missed, and being totally inspired and enthusiastic about the Obama/Biden ticket. Kudos to the Clintons for putting their electoral differences and animosities aside and urging everyone who voted for Hillary to vote for Obama. Al Gore’s speech was awesome; Clinton delivered a speech that made me wish he was still eligible for another term in office (though, I’ve felt that way for the past 8 years); I even give props to John Kerry for delivering a darn good speech, as much as he is a critical disappointment to the Democratic Party. Lewis Black said it best when he said that “For the Democrats not being able to find somebody who could’ve defeated George Bush… It would be like finding a normal person who would lose in the Special Olympics!” But, all of that rubbish aside… The Dems had ideals, plans, and substance. Job well done guys! Job well done!

Now, onto the Republican National Convention. I couldn’t sit through any of the speeches, because all of them I watched seriously provoked me to throw my TV out the window! Fred Thompson…. GO BACK TO FUCKIN’ LAW & ORDER, ASSHOLE. NOT LIKE I WATCH IT ANYWAY. Joe Lieberman, clearly spitting venom in the face of anyone who voted for him to be our vice president in 2000, was no picnic either. And for the record, Al Gore’s stupidest move, besides marrying Tipper, was getting that smirking dimwit as his vice president. I really wish Joe Lieberman would just admit that he’s a closet Republican. After all, he was the asshole who called for a video game rating system after Mortal Kombat had Sub-Zero ripping someone’s head off (as well as their spine), and went after Marilyn Manson, which sounds awfully conservative to me. Yet again, Al Gore spearheaded the PMRC hearings. Still, though. Mike Fuckabee…. Er, Huckabee. Irrelevant. Not even a Chuck Norris endorsement could’ve saved his campaign. Mitt Romney, who wants to change Washington from liberal to conservative (as he said in this speech; so pretty much, Mitt, you want one party to rule? Fascist!). I never for three seconds took him seriously. He’s a Mormon, and has a demeanor of a used car salesman.

I saw Rudy Guiliani’s speech, and all he did was criticize Obama. He didn’t mention any plans that John McCain has for this country (if he even has any), and lead a bunch of jingoistic assholes to chant “Drill, baby, drill!” And, as always, the gopher-lookalike had to bring up 9/11 (I’m surprised they didn’t show video footage of him with his mouth covered, walking through the wreckage), as if he really knows what has gone on since. I think he should realize that President Bush lost sight of Osama Bin laden (you know, the guy who actually planned the 9/11 attack on us), and waged a dumb war in Iraq, and that this war is vastly unpopular with a lot of Americans, and WE ARE NOT MAKING PROGRESS! What Republicans don’t realize is that they are waging an abstract war; The War on Terror. There’s no nation called Terror. No one country is entirely a terrorist state (though, Iran is coming pretty darn close), but rather a network of many of them throughout the Middle East. Of course, this has only lead to innocent lives being lost, and as a result, less guilty ones being brought to justice (given they don’t blow themselves up first).

And so what if John McCain proposed a troop surge in Iraq when it wasn’t the popular thing to do? No offense, but popularity (and approval, I might add) is kind of influenced by these types of things. Just ask Dubya; he’ll tell ya. Do something to piss off the American people, and that a lot of them disagree with, and watch your approval numbers sink like a dog tied to a stone in a lake. The audience at the RNC ate it up though. I guess they haven’t been duped for the past eight years! Now they want four more, thinking that just because the president changes, the party will just transform into a delinquent, corrupt, unpopular mess to a progressive, fully operating unit. What tools!

Now onto the lady of the campaign, thus far, Alaska’s governor, Sarah Palin. Wow, what a cuckoo this lady is! Pro-life, pro-oil, anti-gay, moose-eatin’, big talkin’…I already don’t like her. Her speech at the GOP is garnering praise from the press (I dunno why), and she is strewn across headlines all over the nation. People praise her ability to stand up to her critics, and to throw punches at the opponent, but that’s about it. All she did was bash Obama, and undermine his experiences and accomplishments. I think she’s trying to create a diversion from all the other headlines concerning her family life, and she pulled the cheapest cop-out there was; making Republicans jeer the Democratic candidate by putting him down. She may have more executive experience than any major candidate on both tickets, but let’s face it; Alaska ranks 48th in population (that’s 683,478 people), and before she became governor, she was the mayor of the town of Wasilla (population estimated anywhere from 5400-9000). I’m not saying that being the mayor of a town with less than 10,000 people, or the governor of a state where caribou outnumber people isn’t a hard job, but Barack Obama and Joe Biden have been senators in Washington D.C., the nation’s capital, and have dealt with issues that affect about… 230 million people. Compare 683,000 to 230 million. Just the way I look at it. I do not claim to be an expert on politics.

Now onto her personal life. Her 17 year-old daughter, Bristol (nice name, ay?), got knocked up, and isn’t married (yet). Normally, it’s a sore spot for the Republican Party in their agenda of family values, morals, and all that other horseshit, but the Republicans and fundies are backing her up, and the press is having a field day. Now that the press is dragging Palin through the mud, even amidst her speech at the RNC, the Republicans are now crying foul. That brings me to a point; they say that private lives are nobody’s business. And, you know what? I’m for that. I think a public figure has a right to privacy. But, you have to remember the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky fiasco ten years ago. The Republicans crucified Clinton on a cross made of cigars, cum-stained blue dressed, and 50 million dollars the U.S. never got back for a bullshit investigation. I think Clinton was dumb to have lied about it, but I didn’t care. The economy was great under his administration, and we had the largest surplus in our history when he left office (only to have the biggest deficit ever a mere administration later), not to mention a better job market, no inflation, and him being aware of Bin Laden’s threats, in which a Republican controlled House & Senate cared less about. Nonetheless, the Right exploited Clinton’s flaws, and impeached him. In fact, there are many who still groan at the mere mention of Clinotn because of that. Now that Sarah Palin’s daughter is only 17, and unmarried (nice family values), it’s ok. It’s a double standard in the worst possible way. If, say ten years from now, one of Obama’s daughters got knocked up, the right would create a firestorm over the issue, and would be calling his daughter a whore faster than a bullet from Sarah Palin’s gun into a moose’s head, and put an emphasis on how liberals have no family values.. But don’t make fun of Sarah Palin and Bristol!

Speaking of which, Sarah Palin has some pretty dumb fucking names for her kids; Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig (who has Down’s syndrome). Did she just flip through pages at random of a Webster dictionary and pick a name at random? Seems like it. What’s her grandchild’s name gonna be? Pyx? And her husband’s name is Todd. My dad and I were watching the news, and there was a story on Alaska’s “First Dude,” Todd Palin.All we could think of was that George Carlin skit where he talks about guys named Todd. “Hi, what’s your name?” “TOOOOODD!!!!” I’m sure if George Carlin stuck it out for just a little while longer, he would revise that skit and add Bristol, Willow, Piper, Track and Trig to his list of goofy names.

The Republican National Convention was just a barrage of insults to an idealistic candidate, with very little substance and very little talk about the issues on most Americans’ minds these days; jobs, the economy, health care, the government fucking them over. Instead, most of the speakers rallied over the right-to-life (yet the right to hunt animals and execute retarded people), the elimination of the writ of habeus corpus (Sarah Palin actually jabbed that Obama’s main worry about terrorism would be whether or not their rights were read; a real bummer to those few who were innocent like Murat Kurnaz). As for John McCain’s acceptance speech, he did do something noble; he stated that he admired Obama…. And then went on to attack him. Nothing good can last. He also just told the crowd his life story on how he was a POW, and now he’s not his own man, but his country’s man, and yadda yadda yadda. He states that he will bring change to Washington, but he never said exactly what. I have no fucking idea what the GOP plans to do if they do get elected in November (and if they do, God help us all!).

So, now the conventions are over. Now it’s the time, like back in 2004, where I obsessively, and daily look at poll numbers to see where the candidates stand. Right now, Obama is still in the lead, but McCain is not far behind him, probably because the RNC just ended yesterday. I remember back in 2004, John Kerry and George W. Bush were deadlocked in the polls, so this could mean that we have a decent chance of Obama winning the election. Also, recent poll numbers have Obama leading slightly in noted “red” states, such as Indiana and North Dakota, two states Bush won by over 20% of the votes back in 2004, which makes things certainly more exciting (but I’m not sold on North Dakota voting for Obama; Indiana? Maybe, since it neighbors with Obama’s home state of Illinois). It’s still early to tell, but Obama’s lead has been for quite a while. Now with Palin possibly being a detriment to the GOP ticket, voters still unsure of what McCain is exactly going to change if/when he’s elected, and rather lackluster reviews for McCain’s acceptance speech, it might be safe to say that the Democrats will be victorious in November, if only slightly. But is it safe? We still have the debates. Should I be optimistic for an Obama victory at this point, or is it just wishful thinking?