The Skinny on Skinny

The Ellis Place Wedding Experience

2011-11-06T13:25:00.001-06:00

Choosing a venue for a wedding can either be one of the most rewarding, or the most frustrating and emotionally stressing decisions you are apt to make in your short life. It is for these reasons that I am writing this review, to hopefully dissuade any newly engaged couple from going through the same disappointment and frustration that my new wife and I recently encountered, when we decided to have our wedding at Ellis Place in Bowling Green, Kentucky. It is definitely in your own best interest to exclude all other options first, as the people who manage Ellis Place, haven’t the first idea on how to properly treat their clients, or to run their business as professionals.

When we first met with Martha, who is the manager of Ellis Place, she said all of the right things to get us interested. The cost seemed reasonable enough, in comparison to what other venues wanted, and they included catering in their package, along with alcohol. The venue definitely had the vibe we were going for in our wedding, and despite the fact that the place looked a little run down, the pictures she showed us of other weddings and receptions that had taken place there, proved that the place could look really nice when dressed up for a formal occasion.

The second meeting with Martha, which included my fiance’s parents, she wore a stained white sweatshirt, and pink sweat pants, and it looked like she hadn’t washed her hair in about a week. Amid her clutter of a desk, she took notes for what we wanted on a sheet of yellow notebook paper, which she stored in a plain manilla folder. Our contract, was a computer printout with the basic checklist of options that she also wrote notes on, and we had to sign. She told us that she would send us a copy of the menu by email so we could make the decision of what we wanted for our meal. We asked her about the beer choices for kegs, and she said they were able to get any beer we could possible want, which sounded great to me, because I love craft beer. Another great thing that she said was that the night of the wedding, they would not be rushing us out of the venue, and that we could keep the reception going as long as everyone was having fun, and if we wanted we could pay for the extra hour, which we did, so we rented the venue from 4:30-9:30pm. We decided to go ahead and put down a 1,000 dollar deposit. I wrote the check, and when I asked for a receipt, she wrote me one out on a little receipt pad.

And then, for months, we did not hear from her. It was almost as if, all the polite things she said, and all the selling points of the venue that she mentioned with her personable demeanor, were only said as a coaxing method to solicit that first deposit check from us. Once that sealed the deal, it was like they completely stopped caring, and all the promises they made about attention to detail, and the day being all about making sure the bride got what she wanted, were just empty promises meant to lure us into a contract. All of the following examples only strengthen this notion:

As I said, for months, there was no communication from Martha. We sent email after email requesting the menu that we were supposed to get the day after we signed our contract. We telephoned and left messages. These were not returned. We eventually had to send a very angry email to the venue’s Facebook page asking them what the hell was going on, and we got a response from someone else who said he only ran the Facebook, but he would get in touch with Martha. She finally called us back the next day. Her excuse was that she had just been too busy to get back with us. We never got the menu emailed to us, we eventually just picked the food from choices offered in another meeting with her.

We were told we could get any beer that we wanted. I decided that I would like to get Rogue Dead Guy Ale for my keg, which would be a good beer that would appeal to both those who love craft beer as much as I do, and those who prefer standard macro brews. I checked online and the cost of a keg of this beer was 170 dollars. We told Martha that this was the beer we wanted. They told us they would have to check with their distributor. When Elizabeth went for the third meeting, they told her that they could not get that beer, that it would be too expensive to ship it to them. So, we settled for a keg of Sam Adams Oktoberfest beer. We were charged 275 dollars for this keg.

The night of our rehearsal dinner had to be scheduled on a Wednesday. The wedding was on a Saturday. Typically, the rehearsal dinner is held the night before the wedding. However, Ellis Place, according to Martha, would have wanted to charge us for a second night of rental fees to use their place on a Friday, even though a rehearsal would take place from 5 to 7, well before any of their other events or their regular business hours. This actually worked in our favor however, because our date that we officially wanted to be married was the 19th, which was that Wednesday. That was the anniversary of our first date and kiss, so we decided it would be good to have the dinner that night, and those who attended could witness us sign our marriage license that night, to make it more special. They still were planning on charging us for that day as well, just at a discounted rate, and they said it would be cheaper if we had them cater it too. The total charge for using the Wednesday and catering would have been 600 more dollars. If we just went with renting it Wednesday, it would be 400 dollars. This seemed outrageous, but was better than having to pay the full rental fee again for the Friday, so we accepted this offer, saying we could just go somewhere else and eat. Supposedly, this was factored into our total bill. They then offered to let us rent their table cloths. For 400 dollars. We declined that generous offer. They also pushed us to get a DJ, saying that they had someone they could suggest to us, who only charged something like 500 dollars, which would be a deal, since they had their own sound equipment their for their events, including some great Peavey speakers and a mixer, that we were not allowed to touch. Luckily, I am in a band, and we had our own sound equipment, that we had to transport to the venue, and set up ourselves, but was still better than paying someone a lot of money. This venue was looking better and better all the time.

So, we went ahead as scheduled. On the third meeting, Elizabeth paid Martha 1,000 more dollars, bringing us within 230 bucks of paying them completely off. When she asked for a receipt, she grabbed a sheet of yellow notebook paper, and scribbled on it that we had given her that amount and signed it. A piece of notebook paper. Very official. Very professional.

We ordered our own tablecloths and chair covers for the amount they wanted to charge us to rent just table cloths.

Finally, it was the week of the wedding. The night of the rehearsal dinner came, and according to Elizabeth, Martha said she decided not to charge us for having it that Wednesday afternoon after all, which was nice. This news was given when Elizabeth met with her the week before to give the final payment. Hmmm. Remember how it was supposedly factored into our bill? Anyway, we and our parents and our wedding party, and our officiant, arrived at the venue fifteen minutes before five, which was when our dinner was scheduled. We arrived to find the place locked up and no one there. Thinking maybe she was just running behind, we sat in our vehicles (it was raining) and waited to see if she would show up. At ten minutes after five she still was not there, and I told Elizabeth to call and find out what was up. She called. I could see the look on her face of pure shock as she listened to what Martha had to say. Turns out, Martha, the manager of our wedding venue, had FORGOTTEN WE WERE HAVING THE REHEARSAL THAT NIGHT. I was completely astonished. After everything else we had put up with, this was inexcusable. She told us it would take her thirty minutes to get there. So we sat and waited until she showed up. She tried to explain to me that her daughter had just had a baby. I just said, “That is nice.” There was no excuse for this type of treatment from someone who was running a business, especially involving weddings, where the level of importance of each day means an unprecedented amount to the parties involved. But oh, well. We had no choice but to accept it. And we rehearsed the ceremony several times and were still able to get to our restaurant of choice on time.

The day of the wedding, my mom, my sister, a friend, and my best man, arrived to help with the set up, to find out through a banner posted at the front, that the venue had scheduled a “Ladies Night : All Male Review” that night. It said it started at 10. This was odd, as we were supposed to have the option to extend our reception to 10:30 if we wanted. They agreed to take the banner down until after our ceremony. We cleaned the place up and got it looking pretty great actually.

The wedding itself went very smooth. It was a good ceremony.

Then came the reception. Everything went pretty well here too, except that once they ran out of food, that was all they had. They didn’t make enough to give anyone second helpings. They also started serving pieces of our cake, before we even cut our wedding cake. Then, at 8pm, while everyone was still dancing and having a good time, Martha walked up to Elizabeth (THE BRIDE) and said, very rudely, “You all need to wrap this up. I got another event to prepare for.” Elizabeth said that was fine, we would just leave, and come back tomorrow and get everything. She told her no, that we were not allowed to leave anything there, even though at our first meeting, we were told that we would not have to clean anything. Elizabeth was upset, and told her that we had paid until 9:30, but Martha told her no, insisted that she had another event, then went on to claim that she DID NOT CHARGE us for the thirty minutes prior to 5, when people started coming in, which was utter bullshit. At any rate, we announced to everyone that the reception was over, and that we would move the party to a local bar, for anyone who still wanted to party with us. So, we had to spend the last thirty minutes of our time, which was an hour early, cleaning the place, and taking all our decorations down. Luckily, friends a family helped with this task.

So, that was it. We left there and continued to have a good time at Tidball’s bar, despite the fact that this woman, who was the manager of a business specializing in wedding and receptions, did everything in her power to ruin that special day for us. When I went to pay the final payment to our cake baker, she even informed me that Martha was incredibly rude to her when she was trying to set up the cake presentation.

Despite the fact that our actual wedding went smooth enough, the experience of dealing with Ellis Place was a nightmare. Going through each phase of the planning there, after we initially paid the deposit and signed the contract, was like pulling teeth, and dragging an anvil up a hill. Everything that was promised to us would go smoothly, ended up being a struggle and a metaphorical teeth drilling. They make all the right promises to get you to agree to their service, but the horrible attitude and poor business practices of the manager, make the experience of having a wedding and reception at their venue, anything but enjoyable. Please, avoid it for your own sanity. Planning a wedding is stressful enough, without having to worry with a poor venue manager and trying to be ripped off in the process. Do yourself a favor. Go somewhere else.

Christianity

2011-10-18T22:30:00.001-05:00

My fourth painting. I think I hit a bit of a breakthrough with this piece. It is called "Christianity." I started painting to see what I was capable of, and completing this one gave me a lot of confidence. It appears I might be able to paint after all. I am excited to see exactly what I might be capable of. On to the next one!

Footprint in the Sky

2011-10-18T22:28:00.001-05:00

This was my third painting attempt. It is called "Footprint in the Sky." For the record, painting clouds is hard, and I am still learning how to do it.

Key Moments of Drive

2011-10-09T00:54:00.001-05:00

There are three key scenes of the movie Drive that make it a film that matters in 2011, and show that the director, Nicolas Winding Refn, isn't just into making action flicks. For one thing,Drive is not an action flick, and if you went into the theater expecting one because of the first trailer that was released, you probably walked out wondering what the hell you just watched.

I'm not going to waste your time by summarizing the plot for you, because if you want to see this movie, you should see it, and be surprised in all the right places. If you want a plot summary, check out Entertainment Weekly.

The first key scene of this film, takes place about a third of the way in. The main character, whose name we never learn, has been spending time with his neighbor and her son. Her husband has been in jail, and in this scene, he has returned home and they are throwing him a party. The Driver walks out into the hallway to find his friend Irene sitting alone. He knows that her husband is back, yet, while they had been spending time together, it was becoming quite clear that they had feelings for each other, although they had only held hands. The Driver seems like the kind of person who doesn't let personal feelings get in the way of his life. He doesn't speak often. His actions speak for him. The way this scene is shot is quite brilliant. The Driver walks into the hallway and sees Irene. They acknowledge each other. The camera frames Ryan Gosling in the shot with a very clear view of the exit door behind him. This seems to signify that the Driver knows he needs to just get out of there, he needs to cut ties with these people, because her husband is home now, and he should just let it go and move on. This is a pivotal moment in the movie, because he has this chance, and if he just walks away, the entire outcome of his life could have been different. But instead of leaving, instead of walking away, for whatever reason, the Driver chooses to stay and talk to Irene. Because of this, he meets her husband, who walks out into the hall and introduces himself. This meeting will change the Driver's life in monumental ways.

The second scene takes place nearly two thirds into the film. It is one of the best moments I have seen on film in a long time. There is a lot to analyze, because it is a very complex series of events. Lots of bad things have happened. The Driver has come back to the apartment complex to check on Irene. They get into an elevator. There is a third man already in the elevator. They start going down. As they descend, the Driver happens to see a gun under the jacket of the other passenger. He knows that this man is sent to kill them, and he silently moves Irene to stand behind him. Knowing that he may never get another chance, the Driver takes this moment to reveal his true feelings and kisses Irene, while a tear streams down his face. It is obvious that he loves her. He then turns toward the assassin, who goes for his gun. The Driver grabs him, slams his face into the wall, and throws him to the ground, where he starts kicking him in the head. The elevator reaches the bottom and the doors open. Irene backs out of the elevator as she watches the Driver, who is overcome with rage, crush the assassin's skull with his boot heel. As he snaps out of his rage and realizes what she has seen him do, he turns to face her, with a look of anguish on his face, and he sees the look of fear in her eyes, just as the elevator doors close between them. It looks like he starts to reach for her, but it is too late. In this one heartwrenching moment, the Driver revealed his love for Irene, but then he also revealed his true nature to her, that he is a killer, and in doing so, pushed away the only chance they had of ever being able to be together. It is truly a breathtaking scene of cinematic beauty.

The third moment in the film that I think is key is almost toward the end. The Driver makes a telephone call to someone that is a threat to him. At the end of their conversation, he asks him if he has ever heard the story of "the scorpion and the frog." He tells him that his friend did not make it across the river. Just this little section of dialogue reveals one of the main underlying themes of the movie. We never learn the name of the Driver, but we always see him wearing a white jacket that has a scorpion on the back of it. He is the symbolic scorpion of the film. The people he tries to get close to are the frogs. In the fable of the scorpion and the frog, which can be interchanged with the snake and the frog, a scorpion asks a frog to let him ride on his back across the river. The frog says no, because he is afraid of being stung. But the scorpion promises he will not sting the frog, and so the frog agrees. Mid-way across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, and the frog is drowning, he asks "why did you sting me, you said you would not." The scorpion says, "I'm sorry, it is my nature." This relates to the theme of the film in that, the Driver, in becoming involved with Irene, feels like he can change, and he allows himself to get close to her, but in the end, his nature prevents him from finding happiness, in that he ends up hurting the ones he loves, and his only respite is in the violence of his nature.

There are other great elements that make Drive a phenomenal work of art, not the least of which is the performance of Ryan Gosling, who does more with a stare than some actors are capable of when given entire monologues. His character doesn't say much, and yet we always know what he is feeling, and we know just from his squeezing his hand into a fist wrapped in a creaking leather glove, that the shit is getting ready to hit the fan. The violence is visceral and unflinching. The soundtrack is hypnotic, and genre bending, but perfect for the imagery and feel of the film. This is one movie you don't want to miss, and Nicolas Winding Refn is one director who, I can't wait to see what he does next.

2011-10-08T22:47:00.001-05:00

This is my second completed attempt at a painting. This one is called "Son of a Gun." I think it shows a slight improvement from the first attempt. Now, for the third. I am thinking I will paint a cockroach Jesus.

2011-09-19T21:35:00.002-05:00

This is my second attempt. It is a work in progress. I call it "Son of a Gun."

2011-09-19T21:33:00.001-05:00

This was my first serious attempt at painting. It is acrylic. I call it "Big Bang."

Mistakes Movie Critics Make

2011-09-19T11:58:00.000-05:00

If you are like me, occasionally before you go to see a movie, you will take look at the critics' reviews of the film, just to get an idea of whether or not it will be worth your time and money to see it at the theater. This was something I used to do all the time, but try to make it a rarity these days, because in actuality, there are very few movie critics who can accurately tell a movie-goer whether or not they will like a film. If you read a particular critic a lot maybe, like I do with Roger Ebert, over time you start to know what their personal preferences are, what their tendencies are, and where your personal opinion usually differs, so you can use that one person's opinion to maybe gauge if you will like a movie or not, but even then, you never know. Sites like Rotten Tomatoes try to make this easier, by giving people a general average consensus on their "tomato meter" as to what collectively "everyone" is saying about a movie, but even this can be flawed, because they only calculate what critics are saying, and if you don't think critics read what other critics are saying, you are crazy.

The problem is simple. Movie critics don't know how to enjoy a movie. Sure, they know a lot about movies, they have studied them, studied the theory of film, know all the tricks and all the cliches, but when it comes to an art form, looking at it through the veil of your own intellect can sometimes be crippling to the desired result. A movie is an immersive art form. It requires you to completely suspend all disbelief, all connection to the outside world, and all of your own presuppositions about life and existence, for the two to three hours in which it works its audio/visual magic. Do you think critics watch a movie like this? I would argue that most do not. Most sit with their little notepad in their lap, jotting notes as they view a film, and ten minutes after it is over, they are writing their review. They are not letting themselves be immersed as they watch, instead they are constantly looking for flaws, analyzing the plot and comparing it to things they have previously seen, while also taking into consideration the actors and the motives of the director and his choices for shots and editing. Trying to think of all these things the first time you see a movie, it seems to me, would be detrimental to the overall goal of a movie. How can you possibly enjoy something while trying to mentally juggle all these things at the same time? To truly analyze it, you should either A: watch the film multiple times, or B: wait until after the movie is over to begin your analysis of what you observed. The first time you watch any movie, you should really, truly just try to enjoy the experience as much as you can. Of course, this will not always work, because not all movies are good, but you get the point. At least give it a fighting chance to entertain you.

Not all movies deserve the same attention. Just because you are a film critic, that does not mean that you have to give the same amount of energy to reviewing Hannah Montana as you did to Brokeback Mountain. Trying to consume every film that is released will burn anyone out. Before you know it, having watched thousands upon thousands of Hollywood made eye-candy or teeny-bopper bullshit, you will be approaching every new film you see with an "Oh, God, what is this crap going to be" attitude. A movie critic does not need to be a cynical movie snob. If you commit your time to something, it should be something you love, not something you take for granted as an avenue to vent your frustrations. I've seen it too often where movie reviewers become so cynical they just don't enjoy anything anymore. So, what is the point of even writing reviews? If movies don't entertain you anymore, why watch them? Retire. Take a break. Only do things that really interest you. Read a fucking book. Don't waste your time and the reader's time by simply telling us everything sucks.

Critics need to decide who their audience is. Are they writing for the intellectuals who know film theory, or are they writing for the masses who just want to know if a movie is good. You can't have it both ways. If you are writing for the intellectuals, then actually provide good analysis of the film, by breaking down key scenes and thematic elements, go into detail about why you think the symbolism works or doesn't work. Don't give a plot summary and a few tag lines and then try to sound like you know what film theory is in your final paragraph. Local newspapers and Entertainment Weekly can handle that. Don't read other people's reviews before you write your own. It's a funny thing, sometimes when I am skimming through reviews of a film, and several times I will come across the very same phrases that have to be more than mere coincidence. If you don't have any original ideas to say about something, then don't say anything at all. The thing is, most films should fall into obscurity simply for this reason, because there really isn't anything to say about it, it just exists because it was made.

Consider the art. Film is an art form. Because of the volume produced, some of the art is more diluted than others due to the money-making goal, but it is still art. Directors, writers, actors, editors, musicians...they all work hard to deliver something that most people will enjoy. This is not easy. But, before you review a work of art and completely dismiss it as garbage, at least take into consideration what the goal of film was intended to be. If it is a scary movie, intended to make the audience jump during quiet, tense moments, and to make hearts race a little faster with suspense, did it accomplish this? Did you jump when it wanted you to? If it is a comedy, did it make you laugh? If it is a drama, did it make you cry? These are important factors. A movie is literally just moving images set to audio, but if these emotions can be stirred from the combination of these images and sounds, then the success of the creation of these emotions has to be taken into consideration. This is what most people want anyway, to escape from their own ordinary, everyday lives for two hours at a time, to be able to empathize with characters that see and do things they never will, and to feel something other than the pressing weight of their own mortality. If you have forgotten these things, but you still consider yourself a movie critic, then I suggest you either remind yourself of them, or you quit. I would rather read the review of a film lover, rather than that of a film cynic, any day of the week.

Thoughts on Straw Dogs (Peckinpah version)

2011-09-18T00:21:00.001-05:00

Which is the worse crime? Rape or murder? Killing a child or killing a man? Killing an animal or killing a man? Killing four people or watching four people kill a mentally handicapped person? Some of us, in fact most of us, might have trouble choosing between even two of these things, but in Sam Peckinpah's world, you will have to choose between them all in one sitting. This is the type of morality test he puts the viewer through in his film 'Straw Dogs,' starring Dustin Hoffman as a cowardly writer, who would rather hide in his office than stand up to people who may or may not have killed his cat.

Peckinpah is a director who made his mark on cinema with the western classic 'The Wild Bunch,' an awesome spectacle in which he was later criticized for sensationalizing violence with his use of slow motion. I don't know if it is true or not, but this film seems to me to be a response of sorts to all that criticism. The director constructs a masterful story involving some very human characters that progressively are subjected to just about every detestable violent act you can imagine. He puts these characters in situations that make the viewer have to decide which is the more acceptable action, when in fact, they are all equally bad. For instance, at one point of the film, Dustin Hoffman's character decides to take a stand, drawing the line when four people decide they are going to break into his house to kill a mentally handicapped person. Hoffman's character knows that the person he is deciding to defend has molested a girl before, and he knows he was last seen in the company of one of the intruder's daughters. What he does not know is that the intruder's daughter is dead, and that the handicapped man killed her, although it was an accident. He also does not know that two of the intruder's raped his wife one day while he was out of the house.

So, all of these things are in the viewer's mind, creating a conflict of sorts. Who's side are we on? Do we want the men who raped the wife to break in and get revenge for the dead daughter? Or do we want Hoffman to kill all the men who raped his wife, and also just shot a sheriff in his front yard, and who may or may not have killed his cat? It becomes clear by the end of the film who the director thinks should die for their actions, because in morality what seems to matter is the intent of action, according to Peckinpah. The child molester is a simpleton who does not know what he does is wrong. Hoffman doesn't even know that his wife was raped, so he is not seeking revenge. The men who raped the wife knew what they were doing, and they are seeking revenge, and also maybe some more rape. Hoffman is defending his home, even if he is pushed to the utter limits of humanity to do so, it is his right. The outcome proves that humans are capable of anything when faced with their own survival.

The movie was slow-paced, and disturbing at times, but when you analyze its content, you start to see it for the genius that it is. For instance, during a rape scene, what does the viewer feel? At first you must feel disturbed, as the wife does not want the man pushing himself onto her, and slapping her. But, midway through the event, the situation changes, and the rape becomes more consensual. How does this change the viewer response to the action? By the end of being raped, the wife is actually happy, as if she really wanted this man the entire time, but then what happens? This man holds her down and allows his friend who just came into the room, to rape her a second time. Her screams show that this is definitely not wanted, and again, the viewer has to go from comfortable to repulsed by the actions. The director is really testing the limits of what is acceptable. What is too violent? Where do you draw the line?

It is a shame more film makers aren't willing to ask these kinds of questions today, and to truly challenge their viewers' definitions of right and wrong. Sam Peckinpah, I salute you, you made me think.

An Open Letter to Corporate America

2011-09-17T09:21:00.002-05:00

Congratulations! You are managing to strangle the life out of the country you helped to convince capitalism was the basis of the American Dream. I know that life for you is stressful, having to responsibly control all of your bank accounts, making sure that all your employees make the equivalent of a 1950's meat-packing plant whilst you sleep every night on your mattress stuffed with hundred dollar bills, but I think it may be time to wake from this American fantasy. The problem with growing a corporation to the point that it nears a monopoly is simple, as other businesses shrink, and the large businesses get larger and larger, the large businesses become all there is, and therefore become the backbone of a nation's economy in two ways: one, they become the largest single employer of the majority of a nation's citizens, in that, there really is no other place to work, and two, they become the largest single avenue of economic redistribution of funds, because there really is no other place to shop. Now, as the ruler of a large corporation, this means at some point, you would have to realize that your actions dramatically have the power to either stimulate an economy, or to cripple it. If, say, your business is running in a time when major banks all across the country had to get bailed out of debt by the government, the housing market is in a state of decline, and the government itself is in a state of nearly defaulting on loans, while inflation has lead to middle and lower class families struggling to make ends meet more than ever and the gap between these classes and the upper class continues to widen, when the media follows unemployment levels as if they are the stock market, and sensationalizes the struggles of everyday Americans as if we are going through the beginnings of a second Great Depression, it would be sort of counter-intuitive of any business to be expecting to produce large profits in such a chaotic economic environment. Yet, the large corporations continue to do so! How is this possible? The oil companies, despite poisoning the beautiful Gulf, despite being invested in overseas wars (and yes, they are), and despite dealing with the decline in American demand due to the increased sale of hybrid vehicles, raise their gas prices to obscene amounts, and fluctuate the prices for reasons that make no sense, as they really have no basis on the supply and demand of the product in this country. They supply a product that they know is necessary to the mobility of the world, and they are milking the lower classes dry by price gouging in a recession, managing to post record profits every year with this tactic. Meanwhile, other large corporations also continue to grow, despite the odds. Companies whom refuse to post declines in sales or profit, even in economic downturns, because for some reason, they feel like perpetual growth of a business is a possibility. I don't know how this became the norm, but it is a fallacy. There is no such thing as perpetual growth of a business. At some point, you will hit a ceiling, in which you have grown as much as you can possibly grow, while retaining enough income to stay in business. Why? Because at some point, you will have saturated the market. How can you expect to INCREASE your sales and profit margin, by growing a business especially, if you have saturated a market to the point that there is no where left to go, and there is no one left to sell your product to who is not already made available to it? What is a business to do at this point? Has anyone thought about this at all? But that is beside the current point I am trying to make. Growth during a recession would seem a hard task, but it is being managed.

So, if a corporation is already so huge that it really has a dramatic effect on the economy, because of how many people it employs, this corporation has a choice to make, to either help stimulate the economy by continuing to hire people and give them comparable pay rates so these people can make money to redistribute back into the money pool, or they can help hinder the economy, by not hiring people, and cutting hours to the point that they run on the bare minimum of wage expense, so that while they still make profit, the majority of their employees are forced into worse states of poverty. On one hand, in the short term, a corporation that continues to hire and give employees enough hours of work to live on may temporarily post less profit, or they may even post negative numbers, but on the other hand, the economy will have a chance to dramatically improve. Have these people ever thought that cutting wages from the bottom up might not be the best option, if they want to provide good service to their consumer base, because if they run their business on the bare minimum of wage expense, their customer service needs will be hurt considerably? Wouldn't it make more sense, to lower the salaries of the executives and the higher ups, who make more money than they could possibly need, just until the economy improves? In fact, this should be a clause in every executive contract, that salaries can be lowered during times of recession, to help manage expenses. Hell, if you are making 200,000 a year, a fifty thousand pay cut would be hardly noticeable, unless you are living an extreme lifestyle. In fact, I don't even see the logic whatsoever, in running a business model where the majority of workers get hurt, because that would only be hurting the big picture of the economy, instead of the small picture. What sense does it make, to in a time of recession, cut millions of people's wages to the point they can barely survive? The only logical explanation, is that they are doing it on purpose. Why? Well, if your goal as a corporation is to become a true monopoly, which really is the goal of capitalism as its core, then making an economy worse during a time of recession will drive more smaller businesses to close, because the less money available to flow back into the economy will mean the less money these smaller businesses can generate, so you are in a prime area of opportunity to knock more competition out of the picture. Especially in poorer areas, your chances of becoming the only avenue of spending increase, as the smaller businesses are driven away. So, you can move closer and closer to true monopoly status, so if you keep hindering the economy during times of recession, you are helping make your business the biggest ant on the anthill. It's the American Dream, baby!

But why, why, why??? Ultimately what is the point of this perpetual growth? Would it really matter so much to be the only business in an area, if that area has no money left to spend in your business? Would it matter to be the richest person in the world, if that world has nothing left to sell you of value? Would it be worth it to be the last person alive, with all the money in the world? This attitude of the richest person wins, is just leading the world down that path of destruction. At some point, the people with the money need to realize that having all the money is not the answer. Everyone needs to have some money to keep a constant steady redistribution of funds into a healthy economy. If only a few have the money, and everyone else suffers and dies, then the rich will have no one left to steal from. So, in a sense, strangling the economy to the point of frailty, is setting themselves up for death as well. Capitalism pushed to its fullest extreme destroys everything. Moderation is the key. So, the government needs to step in and find a way to fix the system. Before its too late.

How Kevin Smith Puts on a Clinic

2011-09-14T21:56:00.003-05:00

Kevin Smith is a self-made success story. He takes pride in that fact, as anyone who reads his tweets will tell you, but success is not always a good measure of relevance or talent. One could argue that after initial success, Smith may have played it relatively safe, never straying too far from the source material that made him, returning to signature characters, writing and directing movies full of juvenile humor and a generic look that conveyed that "independent style" that befitted a director who dropped out of film school. When Jersey Girl flopped, he returned once again to his bread and butter to redeem himself to his teenage fanbase, only to alienate them again later by making CopOut, a film that on the surface seemed so obvious no one took it seriously, and Smith himself, despite repeatedly having defended it, has said he did it so he could afford his next project. With that self-funded project, Smith has finally propelled himself into the status of film auteur, making a movie with heavy adult themes without the juvenile humor that had been his trademark, while at the same time producing a stylized satirical message about the state of this country. Kevin Smith, with Red State, has not only proven that he is talented, but also that he is relevant.

I won't go into details about the plot of this film, because I don't have to in order to discuss why it is such a groundbreaking movie, and also because I hate it when people write about new films and just summarize the plot or give away important details. Hey, guess what, some people don't like to have their movies spelled out for them before they watch them, myself included. But what I will say is this, whatever you expect going into this film, prepare to be surprised, shocked, and reminded why you love movies in the first place. How, you might wonder, does the guy known for drug humor and long monologues about nerd trivia, accomplish these things? Well, one might say, the guy got real. Watching this film is like watching that triumphant moment when a butterfly finally breaks free from its cocoon, and opens its wings for the first time. You knew that beautiful creature was in there, growing, gestating, but you really didn't know just how beautiful it was until you saw it with your own eyes take flight in the summer air. Kevin Smith, I am proud of you. Having followed you from the beginning, and supported your films, I feel like we grew up together. Me, enjoying your silly movies as a teen, and still loving them for nostalgic value today, and watching you struggle with trying to adapt as an artist, while I myself found my own way in the real world, and now I feel like you have truly matured as a filmmaker, learning from your own mistakes and experiences, and ready to show the world what you have to say, while I, and the rest of your fans, are truly ready to hear it.

Watching Red State as someone familiar with Smith's previous work, it will seem like you are watching a movie made by someone else. From the very first frame, it grabs you with an intensity, and a vibe that speaks of immediacy, and a certain level of truth. The subject matter is topical, it is real, and it is scary. The dialogue is sharp, lean, and profound, mostly without any of the signature monologues that Smith is known for, except for one scene, which is intrinsic to the nature of the film, and the characters in it. Like all of Smith's movies, this one has unique characters, but unlike his other films, this one has true powerhouse performances. It is the performances that drive the movie, and give it its strength, and it is a testament to the director and his growth, that he is able to garner such performances from his cast. Michael Parks is the shining center of this aspect of the film, delivering a sermon in one scene that is so charismatic, with a voice that is so hypnotic, he draws you in, convinces you that his cause is just, and makes you want to join his cult, even though you know he is the Devil he preaches against. Surely, his performance will not be overlooked come award season. Another thing, which is important to me as someone who grew up in the South, is that the South is not portrayed in this film in a demeaning manner. The characters speak with southern accents, but those accents are not over-the-top caricatures of what the accents actually sound like, and they come across as perfectly natural most of the time, which is a triumph, as someone from the south can always tell the difference. There are religious evangelical extremists in this film, but they are not meant to be taken as the norm, however, Smith is not at all interested in making a movie about good vs evil. The real world is far too complex for that.

The most important elements of this movie, to me, are the ways in which Smith takes chances. He takes chances with what happens to his characters. He takes chances with the controversial aspects of government power he displays. He takes chances on the ways in which he breaks away from the standard Hollywood cliches. He takes chances on the messages and themes that his film delivers. If you go into this movie expecting to watch another Hollywood cookie-cutter action flick in which the good guys win and someone kisses the girl, expect to walk away disappointed. Smith proves he has no interest in making everyone happy for the sake of his art. This movies pulls no punches. It has a lot to say, and most of it is not on the surface, which shows levels of forethought and planning that have to go into true works of art. This is a movie that can be dissected and studied. The themes are challenging, and debatable. The outcome is controversial. And most importantly, the story is riveting. From the moment it grabs you, it does not let go.

On the surface, what you might see is a straight-forward suspense/action film about a group of psychos kidnapping kids and killing them for their religious cult. But what you really have is a message about the state of our current political culture. It is a statement about how easy it is to be drawn into crossing lines we have no business crossing, and how once those lines are crossed, there is no turning back. Kevin Smith knows the political climate, and as anyone with a brain should be, he is scared of what might become of it. This film shows us that if the extreme right take over this country, we may be in for bloodshed and horror. In the end, maybe the true people in power would stop the extremists, but how long would it go on before they did? Most people may not see this message from the movie, but it is in there, and it is loud and clear. I would not be surprised if this movie gets a lot of controversy, especially from the GOP, who are building their platform on anti-gay policy, and Bible thumping. But this is even more reason why this film is so important, it stands in the face of this current political environment, and it asks the world to take notice. For the sake of this country, I hope people do, and I hope they understand.

Thank you, Kevin Smith, for having the guts to put this movie into the world.

An Open Letter to George Lucas

2011-09-12T23:19:00.001-05:00

Please. Just stop. Stop thinking that because you created something that became a world-wide phenomenon and turned you into a larger-than-life money-making machine, that your every waking whim is infallible. You are only a man. Once upon a time, you may have had something akin to a creative mind. But success beyond measure destroys the creative drive. You have proven that. You have proven that you have nothing left to say in the creative arena, and all you are interested in is making money. To make art that truly matters in this world, it has to come from a place very close to desperation. When you and Spielberg were first starting out in the industry, and you had to fight to get the backing to even make your movies, you were fighting to earn your credibility, and your chance to make more films. You used this opportunity to complete a trilogy of science-fiction classics. And then, you just sat back and reaped the rewards of this effort, while stopping occasionally to help Spielberg make other great films. In the years that followed, you just got fat and lazy, while using your considerable wealth to develop ways to make other movies look and sound better. This is where your creative spark started to manifest itself. You became obsessed with how you could improve the technology of film making, during an ongoing technological revolution in which every two years the current technology became obsolete. Maybe this gave you an idea of how to make your one success a perpetual motion machine. You decided that just like the public's insatiable need for new technology, a group of people already obsessed with something, would flock to it again and again if it was re-introduced to them periodically with subtle changes. With your advances in film technology, you saw this as a possibility for Star Wars, and thus, started manipulating your original art to re-feed it as new art to the rabid fan base. This is such an obvious scheme of taking advantage of those who made you, that it is quite sickening. After a few re-releases and format changes, the fans started to catch on to your plot, and started asking to just have their original beloved films released to them in a quality format. Instead of granting them this request, being ashamed, yet indignant for being caught in your scheme of greed, you denied that your actions were selfish, and instead claimed the original art was inferior, although your original effort was even considered great enough to garner a Best Picture nomination from the Academy of Motion Pictures, when that honor still mattered. So angered at being accused of being in it for the money, you decided to prove everyone wrong by making a second Star Wars trilogy, which you would write and direct to prove to the world that you are a true artist. What you ended up proving is that you are a talentless hack, making a series of films with dialogue as full of emotion as a cinder block, and turning even first class actors into cardboard cutouts for your CGI wankfests. If no one had ever seen the original trilogy of films, and instead just watched the new ones, they would undoubtedly turn off Episode One after thirty or forty minutes in disgust at the horrible everything. How could anyone cast Jake Lloyd to play arguably the most important role of any film? How could any director not notice that most of the lines of dialogue in his film are being delivered as flat as a desert plateau? Watching Episodes 1 through 3 was like watching a filmmaker who had been in retirement for twenty-five years re-learning how to make movies. The third installment was passable, but still had way too many mistakes to be expected from a highly regarded as "expert" film director. George, if you don't use it, you lose it. With everything you have done to your classic film trilogy in an effort to "improve" it, I am wondering if you ever had it to begin with, or if you just got so caught up in the tidal wave of a good idea, that you became the luckiest man in the world. Your efforts to make the last Indiana Jones film with Spielberg, just sealed the deal. You have lost any talent that your fat bearded face may have once held. Your desire to turn your films into CGI cartoons from which you can make millions off the action figure rights have more than eclipsed your desires to make works of art that will stand the test of time. Your creative choices are a joke. Your writing skills are laughable. You are like the billionaire Branson of the film industry, just doing whatever you want and thinking you can do no wrong. I'm telling you right now, just stop. Stop making movies. Stop writing movies. And most importantly, STOP MESSING WITH MOVIES YOU HAVE ALREADY MADE. Instead, why not admit that your original effort was a lightning in a bottle moment of true inspiration, and give this work of TRUE ART back to the fans that love it, and the fans THAT MADE YOU. Or, are you so jealous of the fact that you can never duplicate your own success, that you punish these fans for propelling you into legendary status you don't really deserve? Maybe if you finally let it go, and gave the fans back their true, original films, in a quality that you know you can deliver, you might finally be able to move on and feel something akin to true inspiration once more. You never know. But until that happens, as far as I am concerned, you are a thief, and don't deserve to be called an artist at all.

What 10 Minutes Can Do

2010-05-25T17:55:00.004-05:00

I don't know if I have ever spoken about it on my blog or not, I think I mentioned it, but over the last year and a half to two years, I became a rabid LOST fan. Quite simply, I think it is the greatest show ever produced for network television. What made it so great? The characters. The characters were developed in the most unique way, each episode delving deeper into their past, and later their future, which over time let you come to know these imaginary people and learn to love them all for their individual flaws and struggles. Combined with the genius of the writing of these characters, was a terrific and riveting story that always kept you guessing and built layer upon layer of a mysterious mythology that always left you craving more and more. The production quality of this show felt very cinematic in scope, and the artists involved were very meticulous about every detail, asking their audience to pay close attention to every scene, and every bit of dialogue, because it became abundantly clear, that they were making every little thing happen for a reason. Mid-way through the show, they shifted gears and some story lines got abandoned for others, but if you paid attention, the past didn't matter, because "what happened, happened," and the show drove ever onward toward a finale that promised to be beyond imagination. It became quite clear that every question the writers raised throughout the series would not be answered, but for fans of the show, the answers weren't all that important anymore, what was important were the struggles of the characters, the human element embroiled in this epic saga of light versus dark and being pushed to the very limits of faith and reason. There were a lot of great things going on in this show, and the writers always kept us enthralled. One of my favorite themes of the show, was the balance of faith versus reason, light versus dark, life/death, the fear of the unknown. It was awesome to me how they always kept this theme going, sometimes tipping the scale a bit one way or the other, but never actually tipping it all the way over. This was genius story telling because it allowed for a great degree of interpretation and debate among fans of the show as to what exactly it could all mean, and this I think was the true master stroke of the authors'. Characters would think they had it all figured out, and they would choose one side or the other, only to find out that they were wrong, and this would be so thrilling for the audience, because we would be wrong too. Characters who had been on one side of the fence would go through different experiences and flip flop to the other side of thinking. And we would be left to wonder why. Just as they kept you guessing who was really good or who was really bad, and who was going to live or die, they kept you wondering what was it all for, how would it all end.

Then, came the last season. The last season was executed nearly flawlessly as well, living up to the expectation that they had already set by the previous five seasons of the show. I warn you, if you are not a fan, and have not watched it, and plan to maybe one day give it a try, you should stop reading now because there are SPOILERS AHEAD. At one point in the final season, there was a scene with a scale. This scale had a white stone and a black stone on it, perfectly balanced. This was a perfect representation of the theme present in the series of light versus dark. After the death of Jacob, who supposedly was the light side of this struggle, the nameless Man in Black removes the white stone from the scale and tosses it into the sea, signifying that he thought he had won the war, and tipping the scale all the way in the favor of darkness. But of course, he had not won yet, because there was a list of candidates ready to fill in for Jacob if they were given the proper chance. So, it still seemed like the scale could be balanced again, and this was a pretentious move of the MIB to think he had already won. Later, when it is revealed that the purpose of Jacob on the island was to protect a source of actual LIGHT in a mysterious cave on the island, and he was to prevent the Man in Black/ smoke monster from putting the light out, the symbolism of light versus dark was brought to a cathartic level of obvious. It was explained that if that light went out, all life would end on earth, so in some way, this light was the source of all life/death on the planet. All of this symbolism was very ambiguous and very open to debate, be it religious or not. Another genius move by the writers.

Also in the final season, we were shown an alternate reality, with all of the characters leading very different lives, in which their original plane flight never crashed, and they were mostly happy, although troubled by some of the same character flaws we were already familiar with. Characters that were dead, in this reality were still alive. It became a very intriguing thing to the audience as to what this alternate reality was supposed to signify, and as the season drew on, it started to seem like the realities were going to be intrinsically connected, because some of the characters started remembering things from the Island reality, and started trying to get the ones who had not remembered to see it themselves. As it drew closer and closer to the finale episode, more and more of the characters were remembering the Island and being driven toward a common goal, the catalyst being Demsond, who was known as the Fail Safe, because he was the first to see both sides after surviving a huge blast of electro-magnetic energy.

Then came the finale. With all of this potential and exposition, it promised to be the most exciting two and a half hours of television ever aired. And for two hours and twenty minutes it was. Then, something went horribly wrong. The writers built this massive locomotive of mystery and excitement, got almost to the finish line, and then decided to derail the train. How did they do it? Let me explain. To put it simply, instead of re-balancing the scales, they picked a side. They ruined the theme of the show by doing so. They killed the alternate reality, literally. Instead of having it be connected to the Island reality, they made the sideways world a dream created by the dead characters of the show, and they all met up, basically so they could go to heaven. I wanted to scream what the fuck!? Doing it that way, basically negated the entire season of what we had watched these sideways characters go through. Jack's son was not even real. The characters were remembering things just to be pulled back together because "they were so important to each other." What really ruined this idea was the fact that the best character of the show, John Locke, who was being made to seem like he still had a role to play in the outcome of the island, was really dead and therefore useless. To top it all off, the side they picked, was of course that of the light, basically the most optimistic and naive ending you could think of, not so metaphorically stating that it is possible to eliminate all evil from the world, when they literally killed his physical form in that of the Man in Black. It was a powerful moment in the show, but they turned it into another metaphor that was not so powerful to me, because it had been done so many times before. They turned Jack into Jesus. Jack chose to sacrifice himself for the Island, after not so subtly being stabbed in the side by MIB. Even this metaphor would have been okay with me if they had done it right. But they decided to really beat this dead horse with as much romanticism and sentimentality as possible. The characters all met in a church, with a huge statue of Jesus outside, met and hug around the pews, and then walked through a door into a bright light, once again choosing the side of light over darkness, once again choosing good over evil, choosing faith over reason, in effect saying that reason is the bad guy.

What a load of shit. Where was the theme of the show? The struggle? The balance? They did it this way, because even though they claimed to be brave enough to kill any character at any moment, in reality, they were afraid of the backlash of actually doing that, and they wanted to have an ending where it seemed like everyone was really alive and hunky dory. But they couldn't even do that right, because of the glaring obvious absence of Mr. Ecko and Michael. Both of those characters redeemed themselves either on or off the island from what they had done in the past, Michael especially.

If someone could take the place of Jacob to protect the island, why couldn't someone take the place of the Man in Black, and be his adversary? The rules were set in place that they could not hurt one another, as long as the light was lit. They were twin brothers. Yin and Yang. Once they were brought onto the island that way, it makes no sense that one could ever be without the other, and in fact, thematically, it is so much more complex. The ending should have shown that there is no victory in this type of struggle, just like the last five seasons of the series had proven.

First of all, Claire should have killed Kate. How many times have we been told there is some kind of infection on the Island, and once a person is infected they are never the same? Claire was supposedly infected. And insane. The fact that Kate changes her by just talking to her is absurd. Claire shoots Kate, Sawyer shoots Claire. Sawyer carries Kate to the plane. She dies in the plane.

It would have been better if they made Ben fight Jack at the light source, Ben becoming the gollum of the moment, and trying to stop Jack from restoring the light, because in his heart, Ben was tired of the island, and him saying he wanted to go down with it was a trick. The fight could have ended with Jack knocking him out so he could put the stone back, or Hurley coming out of nowhere to stop Ben from shooting him, then it looks like it doesn't work again, Ben wakes up and shoot Jack and Hurley, then the light comes back. Ben shoots himself, but it turns him into the new monster, and restores Jack's power before he can die. Hurley dies because the ritual wasn't complete, and he is already dead before the light hits him.

In alt world, Locke is still important because get this: not only does the island need protecting, but all realities need protecting. Get this: they meet at the church where Eloise took them before and tell them it's not over. Someone has to be the guardian. As the world starts ending on the island, it starts ending there too, and it becomes urgent that someone agrees to stay. And Locke volunteers, although Jack tries to of course, but Locke tells him, "No, Jack, I've already died once. It's my turn to live. You go be with the one you love." Jack shakes his hand and hugs him and they lead Locke away, down into another sublevel, where there is an actual Dharma station called "The Gateway." There are Dharma folks there, but they are panicking because they don't know what to do. Locke realizes he has agreed to push a button like before. Has to enter the code again into a screen, the countdown began the moment the light disappeared from the island. There were instructions for the Dharma people to enter a code if the alarm ever started sounding, but none of them know what the code is they are supposed to enter. The alarm had never sounded before. Locke says, "It's all right. I know the code," and he sits in the chair. Him entering the code is what really makes the light come back to the island. And everyone else gets to move on to their next life. I liked the pseudo reincarnation aspect of that.

Then instead of a reversal of the opening scene, they replay it exactly, except when Jack opens his eye, he sees the plane fly off. He goes to the beach and sits cross from Ben. His new rival. Ben says, "You see, Jack. I always told you that you and I were the same."

Jack says, "I am NOTHING like you."

Ben says, "Well, it's only a matter of time before I figure out how to win."

Jack says, "It's only a matter of time before I stop you again."

Ben says, "Well, we've got all the time in the world, don't we?"

Fuck you, Damon Lindelof. Fuck you.

Preconceived Notions

2010-05-16T13:01:00.002-05:00

My training is almost complete. This week is set to be my release week from the seven week training plan I have undergone. A week from tomorrow and I will be on my own, and expected to complete all the tasks I have learned about. No pressure or anything. The money should be nice though. I'm a little nervous, but at the same time, i have been at my store a lot lately, and am growing more comfortable with being there. It's gonna be a slow progression I am afraid, to the point where I really feel comfortable with balancing all the tasks and really feeling like I know what the hell I am doing.

We have found a place in Gallatin, TN, and have already paid our initial deposit down. It's a nice, two bedroom place, spacious, and it has a fireplace. The only down side is that it's on the third floor. But they are pet friendly, aside from asking for a 550 dollar deposit. We will have three paychecks to save money for all these moving expenses. The rent is reasonable. More so than most of the places in the area, especially considering that this place is fairly new, and seems more upscale than most apartments I have looked at. We are excited, although we both hate moving. I found out the other day that because I am moving fifty miles for this job, Walmart is supposed to help me with my moving expenses. I brought this to the attention of my supervisor. Hopefully, they approve me for the help. It seems there was a mixup, and they were supposed to tell me I qualified for this moving assistance, but they didn't. The process of being approved was supposed to be initiated within thirty days of me getting the job, but no one told me I qualified, and I had to find out on my own by accident. So, needless to say, if they try to deny me the help because it's been over thirty days, I am going to be very unhappy. It is hard to initiate a process, if you don't know the process exists.

It's weird how much of a morning person I have become. I am now tired by nine o'clock. Ten thirty and I am dragging ass. It's kind of sad actually. If I want to party, I will have to take a nap now.

The other night, Elizabeth and I went to her friend's graduation party. The first part of the night, we were at a house, drinking beer and socializing. The second part of the night, we went to this trailer out in the middle of NOWHERE. It was in some place near Georgetown, KY called Stamping Ground. The roads leading to this place, were the curviest, tiniest, snake-like roads I have ever been on. It was cool to look up and see a sky full of stars for a change. We sat outside and toasted marshmallows, made smores, and drank beer. Elizabeth and I slept on a blow up mattress in the living room of the trailer. It had been a long time since I had stayed the night in a trailer. Since I was a teenager at least. I have lots of bad memories from my youth revolving around being in a trailer, but none of those were what bothered me about it.

Around four-thirty in the morning I got up and went to the bathroom. I came back and laid down and was almost asleep, despite the non-stop creaks emitting from the floors around me, when CLICK, the light came on in the room. I sat there for a moment with my eyes shut, thinking someone just turned the light on in the kitchen or something, but no one made any sounds like they were up. I opened my eyes. The only light that was on, was a lamp in the corner of the living room. I realized that it had to have been turned on by the knob in its base, and that there was no way anyone had turned it on without walking into the room. I immediately thought that a ghost had turned the lamp on. My body broke out in sweat. Thoughts of the movie Paranormal Activity creeped into my head. I shook Elizabeth awake.

"Hey," I said.

She looked at me groggily. "What?"

"A ghost just turned that lamp on."

"Huh?" she turned and saw it, jumped up and turned it off. "There, I fixed it."

She climbed back into bed. She was asleep in two minutes. I sat there wide awake. I was waiting for the ghost to come back and turn the lamp on again. It didn't. But then I started hearing what I was certain was footsteps in the room. Cold chills ran up and down my spine. I kept thinking I could feel the covers move at my feet and cold breeze-like air, which I thought could be the ghost walking past the foot of the bed. I started wondering if the ghost would lay down in the bed beside me. Then, I heard the bathroom door shut loudly. I was certain that I was not alone in this room. I could not fall asleep until the sun was coming up and light was filtering into the room through the windows.

Later that morning, when people were up and moving about, I said something about the ghost in the room turning the lamp on. Elizabeth's friend laughed at me. The lights were on timers, to make it look like people were home, when no one was there, for security purposes. I felt like an idiot.

Now, the question you should be asking yourself is why, a person as devoted to skepticism as I am, would immediately leap to such an irrational conclusion as a ghost had turned the lamp on, before logically assessing the situation. I think I have some ideas. First of all, there is the fact, that growing up, I was fairly certain the trailer I lived in as a teenager was haunted. I would often wake up in the middle of the night, and hear a sound the seemed to be someone in slippers walking up and down the hallway dragging their feet. My brother said he had also heard that noise, and wondered what it was. I assure you, no one in my family was sleep walking. Secondly, there is the fact, that a couple moths earlier, my brother had told me some stories about weird things going on in his life, and thinking a ghost was harassing him, turning on lights, smacking walls, and such. Thirdly, there is the fact, that ghost stories are widely accepted in our culture, and many people readily believe they exist, despite a lack of physical evidence. So, when that scenario happened, in the middle of the night, when my mind was half asleep, it was very easy for me to skip all rational thought, and leap automatically to something beyond the ordinary, simply because no explanation was available to be seen from my perspective.

When you think about it, this type of mentality could easily be attributed to many things in our culture. The reasons that we jump to such irrational conclusions concerning events that occur in our lives, is simply because those conclusions are accepted by others, and that superstition permeates our society. Miracles, divine intervention, paranormal activity, supernatural forces...all of these things are still accepted because our culture has a history of accepting them. They float about passed by word of mouth and through our literature, to the point that when something happens for which we can see no obvious explanation, our brain automatically relates it to stories we have heard about from other sources. This is our nature. If we see an effect, we need to know its cause. If there is a question posed, we need to know the answer. This trait of our intellect, makes it very hard to weed superstition out of our thought patterns.

At any rate, I would like to say I learned my lesson. Only time will tell. I've been writing this blog the entire time with my head turned around backwards. Demon possession is detrimental to blogging.

New Job

2010-04-04T15:11:00.002-05:00

So, I started working in the Nashville area this past week, Wednesday to be exact. Mostly, I have been working down around the Brentwood area, in Antioch. The store there is nice, and all the people I have met are really cool and intelligent. It is different for me to have to be up and moving by six in the morning. But I have gotten used to it. This morning I got up at eight thirty without an alarm clock. I am generally falling asleep by eleven lately though, so my days as a night owl appear to be done.

There is not much to tell about my first three days, I have learned some things, but it has really just been a general once-over of a lot of stuff. I have been bombarded with lots of information that it will take me a while to digest. Friday, I attended a Walmart class workshop to learn about our new Inventory Management System. Loads of fun let me tell you. Later that day, I actually got to see my store for the first time. It is not a Supercenter. It is a small, old school store. It seems out of place, because they built this huge, nice Sams Club right beside it. The managers there are cool people, and like I said, I knew the store manager, and it was cool to see him again. I learned some scary things though. The crime in the area is apparently pretty bad. A car was stolen from the parking lot while I was there for three hours. The manager told me he had his stereo stolen from his truck twice, and the second time, they saw it on video and it only took them twelve seconds to steal it. So, needless to say, I won't be leaving my stereo faceplate or my ipod in my car anymore.

I anticipate it being a challenge, but I am looking forward to it. I still have five weeks of training left before I get released on my own in my store and start making the salary checks. That is going to be nice.

It is April and I am trying again to complete the poem a day challenge. So far, I am four for four.

I have neared the thirty page mark in my novel. I've reached a bit of a lull though, because when I get off work, I am so tired, I don't feel like doing anything. The problem isn't the job, it's the traffic. The store I have been training it and the store that is my home store are really only thirty minutes apart. At four thirty to five when I have been leaving there, it has been taking me an hour and twenty minutes to get back to the home store. And then it is another forty-five to an hour to get home. Driving in that traffic really wears on you. I hope we move soon. I was going to write some today, but got caught up doing other things. I will get back to it though. Not going to let it sit unfinished this time.

It is Easter. I'm an atheist.

Get me a bologna sandwich.

More Abortion Thoughts

2010-04-04T13:45:00.004-05:00

In the very large arena of the abortion debate, people like to throw around the phrase "right to life." I'm curious as to where this concept comes from. It definitely does not come from the Bible. God smites so many heathens in that book and sends them to hell that you would think Christians would be looking up all the time in fear of the inevitable. I addressed the concept of an infant's "right to life" some in my previous post, but I had some more ideas concerning it and thought I would bring them up here. Sure, in the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote that certain rights were unalienable and were held to be self-evident. These rights were "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Of course, in the same sentence, Jefferson would have us believe that all men were "created" equal, by a "Creator." Now, I think it is fairly well known that Thomas Jefferson despised religion, and that he said many things concerning Christianity that would leave one to believe he was not a religious man. It is also quite ironic that a man who owns slaves can write about the equality of a race, and unalienable rights to happiness and liberty. But, beyond the obvious hypocrisy of what he wrote, we have to analyze it for the merit of what truth it ultimately holds.

In order for a right to be truly unalienable, I think it must stand to reason that such a right must be based on an irrefutable truth. If someone is standing there with you, having a conversation about politics, they are undeniably alive. This is truth. The problem inherent in the concept of the "right to life" of the unborn, is that it is a debatable subject as to when that life actually begins. Christians would have us believe that life "begins" at conception, from the moment the sperm fertilizes the egg. But different people of different beliefs have different ideas as to when a fetus can actually be considered alive. Therefore, all people can not be held to the belief system of one specific group. I, for one, think that a fetus should not be considered alive, until it has grown enough that it can fight for its own survival, it can live outside the womb. But different people hold other ideas on this subject. Think about this, when a zygote is first beginning to form, it is little more than a cluster of cells in the womb. What else starts out as a cluster of cells in the human body? Cancer. And we do everything in our power to kill cancer if it starts growing inside us. Further more, on some levels I think the idea of a "right to life" is just absurd. Being alive, and staying alive in this world, requires too much random chance for someone to ever think that they have a "right" to be alive. Just getting in a car and driving to work safely each day is not a guarantee. From conception, to old age, every moment, we are susceptible to the decisions of other persons and random events that could end our life without warning, and without any way for us to do anything to stop it, whether it be a mother deciding to terminate a pregnancy, or a man deciding to run a red light. Without a doubt, it is wrong for someone to premeditate the murder of someone else, because that is a decision that could be prevented, but as I have said before, in the case of an unborn fetus, most abortions take place before the person thinks of the zygote as an actual living being.

The problem here, is that Christians want the entire country to be under the rule of their personal belief system. It is a simple matter of the majority versus the minority. In matters of law, this may be a good way for deciding things, but in matters of faith it is not. This type of mentality leads to persecution of the minority, and was a key reason as to why the Separatists pilgrims left England to come to America in the first place. This is why in this country there is supposed to be a separation of church and state. But the problem is this becomes harder and harder to do when so many of your citizens prescribe to the same religious doctrines. We are quite simply on the verge of becoming an unofficial religious state, which, in a country that is supposedly founded upon religious freedom, goes against the very nature of our nation. But think about it, most people in the country are Christian, therefore, most politicians are Christian, so, the values bestowed upon the belief system of that religion, are being inherently woven into the country's legislature. In areas like abortion, this shows more obviously, because it is an area where strong deviations from Christian beliefs can easily be found. These areas are where the minority must stand up and make themselves heard to prevent total control from being established by the Christian religious majority in our society. It is simply not right for one group to force their religious based values on an entire nation of people.

For Christian readers who may see this, I have a couple scenarios that I have thought out that might make you think a bit about the abortion issue:

1. You wake up tomorrow and Christianity is the minority religion. The majority is now Druidism. Suddenly, it is against the law to chop down trees, because they are considered sacred. All furniture, and other things made from wood in the past, must now be synthetically created materials. Even firewood must only be synthetic. But this law is based of course on the religious doctrines of the Druids, which you do not share. The synthetic firewood sold at the store is rather expensive, and it has been a hard winter. You can't really afford to buy the synthetic wood this paycheck, but you live near a wooded area. Since you do not share the Druid belief, would you chop a tree down behind your house if you knew you would not get caught?

2. Satanism becomes a majority religious belief in the country and they legalize the sacrifice of animals for their religious rituals and say everyone must keep animals at their homes for future sacrifices. Mormonism becomes the majority religion and says all curse words and sexually explicit content must be edited out of all films shown in the USA. As a member of the minority, would you feel these laws would infringe upon your right to not kill an animal, or your right to see an uncensored film?

Basically, this is a country founded upon freedom of religion, a melting pot of cultures and different ideas. This freedom allows its citizens to practice whatever religious beliefs they may have, including the right to have no beliefs at all. Christians should remember this fundamental truth, and stop trying to make the whole world in their own image.

Religious Morality and the Abortion Issue

2010-03-25T09:45:00.006-05:00

Amidst all the talks I have been involved in lately concerning the new Health Care Reform bill that was recently passed by our government, I have found that for most of the people I have run across who so vehemently disagree with the legislature, their reasons tend to hinge on the abortion issue. Never mind all the good things that the bill tries to accomplish, helping the poor and uninsured finally afford preventative health care, lowering the national debt, reforming insurance policies to never turn away someone for a pre-existing condition...all of these things are null and void if the bill retains federal funding for any type of abortion. Obama saw this was going to be the deal breaker, and removed the funding for abortion from the bill, except in cases of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother. Shockingly, for the extreme religious right wingers that I have talked to, this is not good enough. It got me to thinking about the logic behind the religious moral stance on abortion, and I thought I would analyze it and see if I could make some sense out of it.

First and foremost, the reason behind religion's stance on abortion is rooted in the Ten Commandments. The most cited commandment is, of course, "Thou shalt not kill," which appears at roughly number five, depending on where you see it posted (on most billboards it is ranked third). These set of laws that were established in the Old Testament, more than 2,000 years ago, are still heralded as some kind of ultimate moral compass for the religious minded, despite the fact that the New Testament, was supposed to be the replacement for the Old. For the most part, aside from the "have no gods before me" laws, that are just utter mind control, the laws are really things most people would consider common sense and have been generally accepted by all societies. No one is going to argue that murder is a good thing for instance. Everyone would generally agree that adultery is bad, no one should steal, and that kids should respect their parents. But in the case of "thou shalt not kill," a slogan that appears on many anti-abortion billboards and protest signs across the nation, I find it to be an unevenly administered law. The extreme religious right who seem to condemn abortion no matter what, will turn a blind eye to other forms of "murder" that are in most cases worse than the medical procedure of terminating a pregnancy. When a soldier goes to war, he is forced to and by a certain degree, chooses to kill his enemies. If this soldier is religious, he knows he is breaking God's law, but does it anyway because it is his duty. In the military, God is all over the place. The soldiers pray and attend church service and are repeatedly told they are fighting "for God and country." Undoubtedly, in the setting of war, countless atrocities are inflicted upon the enemies of our homeland, whether it be machine gun bullets, dropping bombs, or the collateral damages that destroy property and take the lives of innocents. Even in some cases, soldiers will go so far as to undoubtedly take advantage of war-time settings and use the scenario to unleash their barbaric nature by raping and killing women, which may be a rarity, but in the time of war, barbaric things have been known to happen. However, when these soldiers return from the war and come back to the quiet serenity of our homeland, no one condemns them for the lives they have taken. They are forgiven, and if they ask their deity for forgiveness, it is no doubt granted. In the case of war, it is kill or be killed, and this seems to be an accepted amendment to God's unchanging law of "thou shalt not kill." In my experience, it is a rarity to ever hear a Christian complain about the nature of war, especially if that war happens to be against people of a different religious belief, such as a Muslim nation. All you have to do is look at the Holy Crusades or our current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to see proof of that.

Besides the obvious war conflict with God's law, there are more cases where forgiveness is granted or the law is just completely ignored. In prisons across this nation, convicted murderers are forgiven of their sins all the time and come to God after the fact. It is a well accepted belief of the Christian nation that all sins are forgiven, (as long as the sinner chooses to ask for forgiveness), except for suicide if you are Catholic, and for choosing not to believe, both of which would be unlikely to ask forgiveness for anyway, one because you are dead, and the other because the non-believer wouldn't feel the need to be forgiven for anything. In other murder cases, in states where the death penalty is still used, murderers are condemned to death, whether they have asked for forgiveness or not. This is a direct violation of "thou shalt not kill," but also follows the old adage of "eye for an eye," which also originates in the Old Testament. No one generally condemns these people, either the murderer who asks for forgiveness, or the state that chooses to murder their murderers. Another example is in the cases of self defense. If someone is put in a situation where they are going to be killed themselves, unless they act and take the life of the person trying to kill them, this scenario is never even questioned. Because this is another "kill or be killed" scenario. No Christian would expect a fellow believer to just "turn the other cheek" when they are being approached with with death in the form of a blade or a gun. That would be a pointless form of martyrdom. In these cases, self-preservation takes precedence over the ancient law supposedly handed down to Moses. Why then, are religious believers so opposed to the idea of abortion?

It seems that abortion is a double edged sword in the religious community, not only because it is a violation of God's law, but because it apparently takes away a "soul's right to life." The religious believer has been told, and firmly believes, that life starts at conception, and that the potential there for a life, deserves to reach its fullest capacity. Technically, I guess it has to be granted, that when an egg is fertilized inside a woman, a potential human life is generated. However, this fertilized egg's "right to life" is often times not even recognized by the womb of the mother it inhabits. Twenty percent or more of all initial pregnancies are self-aborted by the human body for various reasons, and the new zygote is just expelled from the uterine wall and flushed down the toilet. Often times, this appears as a normal menstrual cycle, and the potential mother never even knows that she has been pregnant. If you put this into the context of God's will, if He actually controls the development of all souls into human beings, God himself would have to be considered the most active abortionist in the universe.

Besides that, the religious argument of a "soul," can have no rational basis in this debate, because there is no way to prove what exactly makes up a soul. If you want to argue against the destruction of a human consciousness, that is more valid, but it would have to be admitted that in order to have a consciousness, a human has to have a functioning brain. I don't know anyone who has memories of being a zygote. I personally have no memories of being in the womb at all, although, it has been documented that some people apparently have memories of being born, even if those cases are rare. When we are first conceived, humans are little more than single cell organisms. If single cell organisms have a "right to life," then I would suggest everyone stop cleaning their house, because you are murdering millions and millions of bacteria. Higher brain functions are simply impossible in developing fetuses until at least the third trimester of pregnancy because the brain simply has not developed enough. Therefore, a human consciousness, or what most people would consider the human "soul," has not formed yet when most pregnancies are terminated.

Another point I have to make is that a "right to life," is a potentially dangerous concept when you consider that there is no guarantee in this world as to what quality of life is being granted. If someone is a victim of incest, then the quality of life of the infant being born is seriously going to be lowered by a high probability of mental retardation or Down syndrome or other birth defects. Is it really more humane to force these people into life-long experiences of suffering and humiliation? Imagine growing up and never being able to fit into the context of social norms or even comprehend the world around you. Imagine the awkwardness of trying to grapple with conformity as a youth extended for the rest of your natural life, always feeling left out, always feeling mocked by people around you, or always having to struggle for the simplest of human endeavors, such as navigating a spoon full of food into your mouth. Is this the kind of life that you would want to live, or if you had a choice, would you rather avoid it? In cases of rape and other unwanted pregnancies, the quality of life being granted might be a state of perpetual impoverishment. Young teenagers, or women in poor communities, become pregnant from a lack of education of safe sex or other factors and are not ready to deal with the responsibilities of parenthood. Teenagers forced into this lifestyle will have a much harder time completing their education and going on to find successful careers necessary to sustain a good quality of life for themselves, much less the child or children they have to care for. For them, and for the people already in a state of poverty, what will most likely happen, is a cycle of endless poverty, barely surviving on government funds, and probably having more children instead of trying to improve the life of the one they already have. People who argue so passionately about an unborn baby's "right to life," have obviously not suffered the tortures of childhood poverty, living on powdered milk and eggs, and being dressed in consignment store clothing. Is this the type of livelihood anyone should wish on a child? What about in third-world countries, where children frequently starve to death? Does a right to live have to include being born into agony? As for cases of rape induced pregnancy, I do not see the merit in any way, of forcing that situation upon someone and telling a woman who has been raped that she has no choice in the matter. That is definitely not a humane stance to take.

Isn't it odd that these same people who argue about an unborn child's "right to life," will argue just as equally AGAINST a living person's "right to DIE"?

Ultimately, what it boils down to is "free will." Christians like to talk about how their god has granted his creations the ability to choose for themselves. Humans can choose anything they want, to kill or not kill, to sin or not sin, to believe or not to believe in the creator that supposedly gave them their life to begin with. Yet, having said that, the humans who DO choose to believe want to control the choices that all other humans are allowed to make. Doesn't this eliminate the purpose of morality in the first place? If morality is a conscious choice, what good does it do to limit the choices someone can make? Forcing a moral code does not make the people forced into that code "moral." If a choice exists in this world, whether it is legal or not, people are going to make it. Murder is illegal. Rape is illegal. Theft is illegal. Yet, people still commit these acts on a daily basis. The difference is they have the opportunity to repent for these acts if they choose. In the case of abortion, if it is illegal, or someone can't afford to get it done in the safe hygienic environment of a hospital, that will not stop them from trying to get the procedure if that is what they really want to do. Under cases of extreme stress, women will go to dark alleys and let less than qualified persons operate on them with hot coat hangers, or other less-than sterilized equipment, to terminate their unwanted pregnancies. Teenage girls who have been victim to incest have had their own mothers perform abortions in their homes. You can't stop people from killing each other, and you can't stop people from wanting to abort pregnancies. However, in the case of abortions, you can assure that the process is done safely and that they have a chance to continue with their own lives and maybe, if they so desire, repent for the mistake that they may feel they have made. Just as murderers and criminals in jails have a chance to ask for forgiveness for sins, a woman who commits "murder" through abortion should have this same right. Instead, if she has to pursue an illegal abortion, there is a high likelihood that something could go wrong that would result in her death as well as that of the unborn child. In which case, if you are religious, and you believe she in sinning, you are condemning her to hell for eternity because you are not giving her a chance to live and repent for her sin. In the Christian faith what is worse, to sin and ask for forgiveness, or to sin and never get that chance and to go to hell for all of eternity? If we as people, Christian or otherwise, create a scenario where more people die than necessary, we are just as guilty of the crime. This is wrong no matter how you look at it, and especially if you are religious, because judgement is supposed to be left up to God alone. But if we condemn people for abortion, and ultimately condemn them to death if they pursue an illegal abortion, we are putting the judgement in the hands of humanity. How is that a good thing, no matter how you look at it?

In the end though, all of this talk about morality will not matter when it comes to the topic of abortion. This is really just a matter of rationality that is clouded by the concept of morality. Why? Population control. At our current rate of procreation, we are outgrowing our planet. In the United States, right now, because of the economy, new housing markets are unable to keep up with the demand, and we are running out of living space in many cities. This problem will only get worse. In China, they already had this problem and are still dealing with it. Our government will ultimately have no choice but to implement a similar birth control policy on our citizens. If we continue to just rampantly reproduce, we will run out of resources before we know it.
Therefore, it is only a matter of time before Christians are forced to deal with the fact that their morality really has no basis in the logic of self-preservation of the human species.

Feel the winds of change

2010-03-24T11:25:00.002-05:00

Sorry I have not written a blog for a while, but I can assure you that it is not because I have been too lazy. Lots of things going on in my life. On top of my recent engagement, which still feels surreal to me. I was selected for the job I interviewed for a few weeks ago. My last day of work in Bowling Green is the 30th. I start training in Nashville the next day. I am excited, and also a bit overwhelmed. It seems whenever you sign up for these type of changes, it is like, buckle your seat belt time, because the trip starts whether you are ready or not. The increase in pay will be nice, but I don't get it until at least six weeks from now because they just give me a eighty cent raise for training and pay me hourly, and no overtime is allowed. The good thing is, the company is giving my pay class a significant pay increase which will occur before I go salary, and will really help out, considering that the cost of living in Tennessee is fucking outrageous, and Elizabeth and I want to move down there. I was really surprised that they selected me for this job, because, as you people who are my facebook friends might know, I was very disappointed in how I interviewed. I felt like I had bombed at least one question, and was also disheartened that I was interviewed over the phone. But my new boss said that I interviewed the best out of the candidates, which was shocking. They must have sucked balls. This is gonna be a major change in my life. My whole life style will be altered, because now I have to get up and be getting ready for work by 5:30 in the morning at least. Because I will be commuting for the first couple months at least that I am working there. I hope to stay with a friend of mine in the area every so often, to cut back on my expenses, but I don't want to be a loafer either, so I won't be doing that a lot. Until I go salary, I will really have to watch my budget. Gas is not cheap. But all this will eventually work out to me making quite a bit more money. At least ten thousand more a year than I currently make. That will help me out a LOT. Plus, I get my yearly eval in September, but I am not sure how that will work on management scale salary. I may not get a raise. But it would be nice if I did.

Other than the new job, I am excited to report that I have been writing again. I have posted a couple bits of what I am turning into my first actual novel on my poetry page, and also on my facebook. I have had this book in my head for a while, and just got the motivation to start back to writing it, considering I wrote the first chapter over a year ago. I am up to chapter four now, and gotta keep pumping out the pages, to keep my muse working. I think it is an interesting concept for a story, and hope I have the endurance to actually finish it. But I have that same spark in me now that I felt when I wrote my first screenplay, so, I think I will get it done. My writing voice has changed considerably since I have stopped reading so much Stephen King. I think this is a good thing.

I have read some great books lately. Jesus' Son and Angels, by Denis Johnson and a book called Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell. These books are more the style I am growing to really love. I have always appreciated the lean language that Hemingway used in his stories, and these authors, along with Chuck Palahniuk, who is still my favorite new author, really leave no fat on their stories. I am trying to emulate that style now with my writing, while still retaining my own voice.

At any rate, things are looking up for me. I just hope that after I finish this book, I can actually get someone to publish it.

Don't worry, I have not forgotten about my list of essays that I said I was going to write. I still plan on it, and am currently reading a book called The End of Faith by Sam Harris, that is only adding fuel to my fire.

Gotta go for now. I just farted and now there is a Roman standing in my room asking me where Spartacus is. I'm not sure what happened. Did I time travel?

Tiddly Winks

2010-02-27T11:59:00.003-06:00

Hey, I'm engaged! Wow. Never thought that would happen, but it feels great. We are already in full pre-planning mode, trying to make decisions about what we want and where it will be and stuff. We have some color ideas, some cake ideas, some vow ideas and are researching ways in which to keep some traditions, but break others. Any one with any ideas, please leave a comment and let us know.

Been fighting a hellacious sinus infection this week. Everyone around here seems to have it. It sucks. I have a bad cough for the first time in at least ten years. The first three days with it were the worst though. I started taking a lot of vitamins and seem to be fighting it off, but it is not leaving my body very willingly.

We got a new mattress set and damn it is a different world of sleep. I bought a bed frame that still hasn't been delivered yet, so we have the mattresses that Elizabeth bought setting on the floor currently, but they are so tall, it is about the same height as the previous bed I had. The frame is being delivered Thursday. I bought it last Wednesday. It sucks you have to wait that long to get something you already purchased, but what you gonna do?

I hope this thing I have doesn't turn into pneumonia. I have a lot of congestion moved into my lungs and can hear it when I breathe.

Crow Hollow Blonde is still working on our new songs. We have quite a few and have tentatively named our next album "Pathogens". Also, we have some actual shows booked for the future which is something to look forward to.

I might be getting an interview for a promotion again. I find out next week. The job is in Nashville, which would be perfect because that is where Elizabeth and I tentatively are planning to live. We want to start looking around May. I have had two interviews for similar jobs, so I think this time I can do pretty well on that part. Plus, I know the store manager, so that is a check in my favor. Also, since it is a Metro area store, I will start out at a higher pay rate, which is a plus, especially since at first I will be driving a lot. Wish me luck (again).

So, when I was a kid, my mom told me I was a dumbass all the time. Kinda gave me a complex. I got the idea that maybe if I ate pages of the dictionary I would get smarter. I got all the way to the letter "D" before my mom walked in and saw what I was doing. "What the hell are you doing?" she shouted. "Trying to improve my vocabulary?" I said. "Why would you do something so stupid?!" she said. "Well, you're always calling me a dumbass." She looked around and shook her head. She grabbed the dictionary from me. "Well, now you're a smart ass."

Along the same vein, a reclusive writer moved into the woods and would never leave his house. His reclusive nature got so bad that he would not even leave the house for food. Eventually, he ran out of money and had to start eating the paper pages of his library. He got a serious case of constipation and died of dysentery. Gives a whole new meaning to the term "writer's block".

Valentines Day Cliches

2010-02-16T19:25:00.013-06:00

Those who have known me through the years must know that I have never been much of a fan of Valentines Day. I don't like the commercialism. I don't like the forced conformity of a need to express love that should always be expressed anyway. I don't like the way it makes single people feel more lonely by forcing an entire day to be nationally devoted to couples. But in the past, instead of expressing this dislike of the holiday to people I have dated, and even in cases where the feeling was mutual, it was still apparent that if the holiday was not acknowledged, feelings would be hurt, due to a conformist desire to be shown affection, so I have always just gone with the flow. When I started dating Elizabeth however, I was up front with my dislike of Valentines Day, and she agreed that it was a pointless holiday. We agreed that we might go out and eat or something, but it should not be a big deal, after we had already celebrated one Valentines Day together already. We even decided to have a special day of our own, that would be our own sort of holiday, which was the anniversary of the day she first told me she loved me. This would be OUR valentines day.

So, keeping all that in mind, the idea of me wanting to do anything special for this year did seem a bit out of the question. Especially the thought of a marriage proposal. As my life has passed, I have grown to have a general cynicism to the thought of marriage. Whether it has been how many divorces I have seen first hand befall my mother and my friends, or the thought of how the idea of being with someone for the rest of your life has been perverted by our incessant need for instant gratification only worsened by technology and the internet, or maybe the way religion has tried to monopolize the idea of marriage in our society, coupled with the fact that in my own life pursuing relationships has always been such a heartbreaking affair, I had convinced myself that I would never want to get married.

Things change. Especially when you know you have found the right person.

Since Elizabeth and I have started dating, for the most part, all has been joy and bliss. We went through a few rough spots, due to the transitional period for her having just ended her previous relationship and the severing of some emotional ties there, but we were able to get past that, and even then, when we were together, we were happy. As we have moved on, it has become increasingly obvious that we just belong together. We complement each other totally, we get each other, we support each other, we love each other. In all of my life, I have never found someone with whom I feel so completely comfortable, and yet so utterly enchanted by. She is everything I ever thought I could possibly want. She is beautiful, intelligent, kinda nerdy, likes to go out and have fun, can drink me under the table, gets my sense of humor, likes and gets along with my friends, has an awesome family that I love, she likes books and movies, she loves music and the music I write, she is artsy but won't admit it, she is easy going and smiles a lot, when she is upset she tells me how she feels and when I am upset she wants me to tell her how I feel, we can be completely honest with each other and not feel threatened by drama, and most importantly, she made me earn her love back, which made everything else all the more worthwhile. When you have found someone so perfect of a match for you, you would be a fool to ever let it go. Which is why it didn't take me very long to realize I wanted to be with her for the rest of my life. I couldn't imagine sharing it with anyone else.

So, with all that in mind, my thoughts started turning to the idea of actually asking her to marry me. For the first time in my life, I felt like I could actually make that kind of commitment, and mean it. My thoughts turned to the prospect of buying a ring and thinking of ideas on ways to actually propose. I never even really considered proposing on Valentines Day, simply because I despise the holiday and it has become such a cliche in American culture to do it around that time. I came up with a cover story for spending the money, telling Elizabeth that I planned to pay a large chunk of my tax money toward settling some debts. This worked as means of freeing up around a thousand bucks of my income tax return for shopping for a ring. I enlisted the help of my mom, who knew a man in Louisville that owned a specialty second-hand jewelry shop, and she said he would help me pick out an awesome ring for a fraction of the price I could get one anywhere new. I thought this was a good idea, because some of the rings I had looked at in the retail stores were just ridiculously priced, plus my mother said she had gotten all of her jewelry from this guy, and he could be trusted. This was all a big deal for me, because a.) I have never thought I would do this, b.) I have always been poor and never thought I would have the money to spend on a ring like this (so much so that I once joked with Elizabeth and told her if I ever proposed to her I would probably use a Ring Pop because it would be all I could afford), and c.) I hate the diamond industry with a passion and had once vowed to never contribute money to their inhumane practices. At least, I figured, since I was getting a ring second-hand, I would not be contributing money directly to their vile slave trade.

So I went on the only day I had really set aside to be available to make a trip to Louisville, on a day when she had to work and I did not. Funny thing about this day was, she had actually been battling a sinus infection that week, and woke up feeling awful. She tried to say she wanted to call in to work, and I wouldn't let her. I encouraged her to just get out of bed and get moving and told her it would make her feel better. She got really pissed off at me and thought I was just rushing her off. I sort of was, because I had already made plans to go buy her ring, and if she stayed home I would not have another chance for at least two weeks. I thought it was rather humorous that the day I went to Louisville and was picking out her engagement ring, she was pissed at me and would hardly respond to my texts. I thought it would make for another funny story to tell her after I had actually given her the ring. I found the perfect ring that I was looking for. A classic half carat solitaire diamond set in a white gold band. He sold it to me for 800 bucks, which was 200 less than he had it priced for. I was very happy. Especially after I looked at some rings that were in the Walmart jewelry case of the same size diamond. The diamond I had chosen was clear, with only a few minor imperfections in it that I could see. But the ones Walmart were selling (for the same price I paid for mine) were cloudy as hell, and full of flaws. So, I thought I had made the right decision, and probably got a hell of a deal on the ring. I hoped Elizabeth would be happy with it.

Another thing that I had planned to spend some of my tax money on was completely unrelated to my proposal idea, but it ended up being the catalyst that sped up my plan. Last Valentines I had wanted to take Elizabeth to a nice restaurant in Nashville, but because I had waited to the last minute to try and make reservations, I could not get one anywhere and we ended up going to a place in Bowling Green. So, this year, to make up for my epic failure last year, I made a reservation at a prestigious four star restaurant called the Watermark. This meal, which was a special set menu for the day, was gonna cost me around 250 bucks. I told her about these plans and she was very excited. As the day got closer and closer, I started getting the impression that maybe she thought I had something special planned other than the dinner. She sent me a message about one of our mutual acquaintances getting engaged. Then, the day before Valentines, my sister got engaged. It seemed to be going around for sure, and I started getting this feeling that maybe I wasn't going to be able to wait as long as I first thought I should. I had thought that I would wait until April, or maybe July, when I could propose on the anniversary of her telling me she loved me, but I started thinking that maybe I would want to propose on the night of our dinner after all, or that maybe she was expecting me to and if I didn't she would be disappointed. To top this all off, she told me the eve of Valentines that someone she worked with had been telling her for two weeks that she was going to get a ring on Valentines Day. I assured her that this was a ridiculous idea, and we both laughed, because she knew I had no money to do any such thing. But of course, I already had a ring sitting in the top of my closet.

My idea for a proposal was to take Elizabeth to a place that was special to us. When we had first started dating, one cold night in November, she had wanted to go to this spot on campus after we left the bar because they had piled up all the leaves from the nearby trees in huge piles by the sidewalk. We stopped there and had a blissful twenty minute or so romp through the leaves, diving in them and rolling around, making out a bit, which really was a magical moment, just one of those memories that will always stick with you. It's the moment I look back on and know that it was the first time I realized I could spend the rest of my life with her. I just had never felt that kind of sheer freedom and happiness before. I thought it would be awesome to return to this place, ideally when their would be leaves again, and tell her what I had realized that night, and I wanted to give her a memory just as special. Well, things don't always go as planned, but sometimes they work out even better than you could hope.

I realized that I would probably not be able to wait for as long as several months after I had already purchased the ring, and I had decided that maybe it would end up being sometime around Valentines depending on whether or not I found the right moment to do it. I could see myself just not being able to wait any more at some point and just springing the question randomly in a fast food joint or something, which would not have been very memorable in the long run. I had checked the weather for that weekend and it was supposed to start snowing sometime Valentines night, and somewhere in my mind, I thought it would be a perfect picture to propose while standing in the falling snow. It would make for a beautiful memory. I decided I would carry the ring with me that night and see if the universe wanted to give me such a perfect moment or not.

Now, all this time, I had also been stressing about whether or not I should just call Elizabeth's parents because I did not want to propose without getting their consent. I know it is odd for me to feel that way, as it is an old tradition, and generally outdated, since daughters aren't normally getting engaged by the age of fifteen anymore (well, except maybe in eastern Kentucky and Tennessee). Ideally, it would have been the more respectable thing to do to have called in advance and arranged a meeting with them face to face. However, my schedule at work, and the fact that Elizabeth and I are usually off around the same times, had pretty much made that impossible. Plus, since I had decided I may not be able to wait until July anymore, my plans of asking their permission would have to be expedited. After consulting a close friend on the matter, he told me it would be okay to just make a phone call. I tried to call twice and just got the answering machine both times. The second time, I decided to leave a message because I thought maybe they were home and just didn't recognize my number, and if they heard my voice, someone would pick up the phone. I left a very awkward sounding message, something to the effect of "Heeeey, this is Jay Sizemore...just calling to wish you a Happy Valenitines Day! So, uhhh, Happy Valentines Day! Guess I will talk to you later, okay, bye". They did not pick up the phone.

That night, we went to dinner, and it was simply amazing. The Watermark was well worth every penny. Every entree was specially paired with a particular wine specifically to complement the palette of tastes you had chosen. The ambience of the place was perfect, very classy and pretty, with low-lit candles accentuated by down-cast lamp lights and cool-colored walls. There was also a groovy two-piece jazz band that played for the first thirty minutes we were there. It was awesome. Then, after we had finished the appetizers, Elizabeth asked me why I had brought her there. I explained that I just wanted to do something nice because I had failed last year. Then, she said, "Are you going to propose to me?" I was like, "I hadn't planned on it..." She seemed relieved or something, and said, "I thought you were more original than that!", and laughed. "Would you be disappointed if I had proposed today?", I asked, because I was suddenly worried that she didn't want me to propose at all. She said no, and that she would just be surprised, and she knew I had no money for a ring, but the people at work had really gotten her wondering what was up. I smiled. This could be the night.

Then, about ten minutes after the band had stopped playing, they started playing music over the speakers in the restaurant. The first song that was played was "Wonderwall" by Ryan Adams. That had been mine and Elizabeth's song for the past year or so, and she had played it several times on the radio when she was deejaying at the end of her shift. It was like a clear sign from the universe for me. I hoped things would play out well.

Dinner was over, and we got our car back from the valet. Earlier that day I had stashed a Ring Pop in the glove box. When we started moving toward the interstate to drive home, I told her to check in the glove box. "I got something for you in there", I said. She was like, "What is it?" I said, "You will just have to see for yourself."

She smiled and opened the glove box. I could almost feel her anticipation building. At first she couldn't see it, but I pointed it out to her. She pulled out the Ring Pop and immediately started laughing. She looked at me with eyes full of a bittersweet joy. "That is hilarious!", she said, still giggling. "Yeah, this way, I figured you didn't have to go back to work and not have a ring to show everyone", I said, smiling at her. She kissed me, but I could see she was slightly disappointed, although she says she was not. I think I had really convinced her that I had not gotten an actual ring for her. I asked her if she remembered the conversation where I had told her the only ring I would ever be able to afford was a Ring Pop and she said no, but it was still hilarious. Then, we were on the interstate and she was dozing off. I knew if she fell asleep I would have the perfect opportunity to take her to the place I wanted to propose. There was a steady rain falling, and I hoped that by the time we got back to Bowling Green it would change to snow.

We got back to Bowling Green and she was sound asleep. The rain was still rain, but I had already pretty much decided to go for it by this point. I figured rain would still serve as a nice backdrop for what I had planned. I pulled the car into the little parking area beside the place where we had dived in the leaves, and as I did, she was starting to wake up and looked confused.
"What is going on? Where are we?", she said. "Don't worry about it", I said and quickly jumped out of the car. I ran around to her side and opened the door, my head swimming with excitement. I couldn't believe I was actually doing this, but I knew it was the right moment. I grabbed the umbrella from the floor board, a green cheap thing that she had left in there a couple weeks before, and I opened it. I took her by the hand and said, "Get out of the car."

We walked down to the area where the leaves had been over a year before and she stood there with a confused, still sleepy look on her face. I was so filled with nervous excitement that I hardly felt my legs as we stepped down onto the sidewalk.

"Do you know where we are?", I asked her.

"The place where I wanted to go play in the leaves?", she said, wiping her eyes and looking around. The light drizzle of rain glistened like glass in the light cascaded from the nearby street lamp.

"You have a good memory," I said.

"What are we doing here?", she asked.

"Come here", I said, and I pulled her close. I kissed her deeply, once, twice, three times, reveling in her scent, and the hypnotic sound of the rain falling on the umbrella.

"I have a confession", I said, smiling.

"What?", she said, still looking confused, and bemused.

"I didn't spend all my tax money on debt."

"Really? What?", she was still confused, but her face was trying to smile.

"Hold this", I said, and pushed the umbrella into her hands. I kissed her quickly again. Then I stepped back and started talking.

"I brought you here, because, even though it was so long ago, and even though it was so early in our relationship, when we had just started really seeing each other, that was a very special night for me. Even back then, that night, I knew that you were the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with."

She smiled.

"And I brought you out here, standing in this pouring rain, hoping that I could give you a memory that would be just as powerful for you."

"I don't understand", she said.

I felt in my pocket with my left hand and grasped the ring box that I had kept in there all night.

"Well, Elizabeth, what I am trying to say is", and I got down on my knee on the wet sidewalk, and pulled the ring box out and opened it before her, "will you marry me?"

I couldn't stop smiling. She looked shocked. Her free hand floated to her mouth and hovered over it shaking. She let out an ecstatic cry, then took a closer look at the ring and exclaimed, "OH MY GOD!"

For a second I was like, "is she gonna answer me?", then she leaned down and kissed me several times, rain dripping off the umbrella onto my shoulders.

"YES!", she said into my ear. She stood back form me, and I slid the ring onto her finger. It was a tight fit, but a good fit.
Then, she laughed and slapped me in the chest. "You big cheese ball!", she cried, and helped me stand back up.

We walked back to the car, both ecstatic and full of unexplainable emotions. She was crying the first tears of joy I had ever seen her cry. It was a truly amazing moment.

Driving back to her place, I told her how I had been hoping for it to snow, because I thought it would have been beautiful, but I thought the rain was a nice touch too.

"Yeah," she said, staring out the window wistfully, "snow would have been pretty."

Not even ten seconds later, the rain in my headlights turned magically into snow right before our eyes. The universe had smiled on our behalf.

I definitely made the right decision.

We plan to get married on October 19th, 2011. If you are reading this, and are a friend of mine, we hope to see you there. :-)

Infant drug addicts

2010-02-01T11:56:00.002-06:00

Funny story. Last night at work we stopped this guy who had a kid with him. We stumbled across him as he was haphazardly stuffing his diaper bag full of goodies. When we approached him at the exit, he was a little jittery, but nothing out of the ordinary for someone who just got caught stealing, and he cooperated well enough. As with most of these people, he repeatedly asked us why he could not just pay for the stuff he took. That would be a great policy for a store. It would be like some kind of reality television game show: THE GETAWAY! Come on in to this superstore and see what you can sneak out with! Anything you get away with, you get to keep, but if you get caught...you HAVE TO PAY FOR IT!! Are you up to the challenge?

Stupid people piss me off.

At any rate, like most people who get caught, he was of course worried about going to jail. He seemed like the type who would freak out if he knew we had to call the police, which in his case we did because he stole a crap load of shit, but we didn't tell him about that little aspect of the situation until absolutely necessary, just stalling by saying we had to complete our investigation. When I did reveal to him that his circumstances required the law to be called, he immediately got more agitated and nervous. It could have been for many reasons. He had a small child with him that was probably less than two years old. He was supposed to be on his way to pick up his girlfriend. He just didn't want to go to jail. But whatever the case, you could see in his eyes that he was worried. This thin white guy with the oversized black coat, holding a baby that appeared to be of mixed ethnicity, had the faintest blue eyes, that suddenly had too much white around them and appeared to be struggling to stay in their sockets.

"Any way you can take me to the bathroom?", he asked.

In my line of work, that is a red flag. Any time someone asks to go to the bathroom after they have been caught, they are usually trying to get rid of something they don't want the cops to find. Usually that something is drugs. Our store policy states that we should accommodate requests such as this, but usually we make the people press the issue because we know what they are up to.

"Aw man, I've been holding it in every since we got back here!", he said, as he squirmed nervously and grabbed at his crotch, but I could tell he was lying, and I found it funny that he hadn't mentioned it before now. "Plus", he said, "I need to change his diaper. He's wet."

I told him he would just have to wait for the police to arrive and that when they got to the store they would escort him to the restroom if he really had to go. He nodded and sat back down in his seat. He began fidgeting with is pockets. He took things out of his pockets and tossed them into the diaper bag. I saw a pack of cigarettes go in for certain. He rearranged the items inside it, pulling a diaper over to cover what he did, then he zipped it back up. I thought that was odd. Then he appeared to be a little more relaxed, but he kept fidgeting with his kids blanket and readjusting it.

When the police arrived, we filled the officer in on the situation, and I made sure that he knew he should research the diaper bag because it looked like he tried to hide something in it. He searched through it and found a pill bottle that was for a morphine prescription. The name on the bottle did not belong to the shoplifter, or his girlfriend, and he claimed he had no idea how it got there. However, it was an odd coincidence that the name on the bottle was a person that the police had had multiple dealings with in the past. The officer then asked him if he had anything illegal on his person. He said no, of course not. The officer requested that he allow one of us to hold his baby so he could pat him down. The suspect agreed and handed the baby to my partner, Dave.

As the police officer was searching through the subject's various pockets, Dave happened to look down and see something plastic kind of sticking out of the little boy's hoodie pocket. He got the officer's attention and pointed at the baby. He leaned over and whispered to me, "I thought I saw him stick something in the baby's pocket."

I nodded. The officer sat the suspect back down then turned and pulled a little plastic baggy out of the baby's pocket. He smelled it and shook his head. Turning around, he held it up and showed it to the dude, asking, "Now, what is this doing in your baby's pocket?"

The look on his face was priceless. A comical look of shock and feigned surprise, his mouth hanging open like he suddenly forgot how to work his jaw muscles. He jumped out of his chair and pointed at the baby and the baggy, exclaiming, "Awwwwwww, nooooooo! Noooooo, maaaaaaan! I don't know anything about that!"

It was hilarious. As if we were going to believe that his little baby had a drug problem. Like the kid just got out of rehab and had put him through this shit before or something. Or maybe the baby was a dealer with connections on the streets and was trying to set him up, seeing if he would rat him out or take the fall for him, seeing if he needed to make a call to his other baby gang members and put a hit out on this spineless motherfucker, in which case, he would later be found in some alley behind a dumpster, having been beaten to death with rattles and bottles.

The dude instantly shined with a fresh coat of sweat, as if the temperature of the room had suddenly increased by about twenty degrees. The cop noticed it. With a little pressure, just basically telling him that his degree of cooperation either helped him out or hindered his chances of getting a break, the dude finally hung his head and admitted that he had hid the drugs on the baby. He just said he was scared. He had been in trouble for drugs in the past.

And that pretty much sealed the deal. His girlfriend showed up and took custody of her child. And the shoplifter was arrested with a few more charges tacked on for good measure. All in a day's work.

I usually would not post a story that occurred so recently, but this was so funny, I couldn't resist. Hope you think it is as funny as I do.

Time to finish my cross-stitch of Magic Johnson.

Some fake science for you!

2010-01-31T10:49:00.003-06:00

Actually you can't even consider it fake "science". This previous weekend my wonderful girlfriend and I decided to make the voyage to the fair city of Cincinatti. Our primary objective was to visit friends we had not seen in a while, which we did, and there was much rejoicing. It was great times. My good pal Jeregeno has made quite the life for himself and I am proud of him. His new home is very nice, and his kitchen is very yellow. We were not attacked by any mice while we were there, because he had already declared war on them and his soldier Bertie had eaten them all, which I am sure his wife Lisa would be glad to hear (she was out of town). Jason and Annette live up that way as well, and we stayed with them one night, much to the dismay of their cat Bauer, who hates me as much as he hates veterinarians. I schooled Jason in the art of Madden and they introduced us to the crack-like addiction that is known as Bejeweled Blitz, which has already proved to be a destroyer of free time the likes of which should come with a warning label for people like me, who have an unusually bad competitive streak. Chris, Meranda, and Shoop, came up Saturday and Chris has grown a magnificent beard. It was great to see all these people and relax a bit, for work has been stressing me the fuck out lately and I desperately needed a break. There was beer. There was brats. There was football. And then there was much rejoicing. Except for the fact that Farve threw away the chance at a winning field goal by trying to force a pass at the end of regulation in his signature style and cause me to scream obscenities that would make a deaf man blush. Oh well.

Friday we went to the Cinci Art Museum, which was free to get into, aside from the four dollar parking fee. There were some cool pieces in there, including things from ancient Egypt and Greece. But the place closed an hour earlier than we thought it did, so we were unable to see the top floor, which is where the Contemporary Art was kept, which was what I was looking forward to the most. Damn it. Another time.

Saturday we went to the Creation Museum, which is right outside of Newport, Kentucky, in a town called Petersburg, and is the source material for the title of this blog. Petersburg is a very rural area, kind of in the middle of nowhere, which I suppose is the perfect spot for a place like this, deep in the heart of Bible country, where it can stay under the radar of media scrutiny, yet still attract the kinds of people it caters to: fanatical evangelical types, or people like me, who are just there to rubberneck because they can't turn away from such atrocities.

I won't spoil this entry with all the grisly details of why the Creation Museum is absurd and a perversion of human intellect, for all that detail, I would suggest you check out Jeregeno's blog (link to the right), because he wrote an excellent summation of the place. But overall, I did find the "museum" to be a complete mockery of truth. Basically, the place just asks you to abandon all knowledge and common sense, and take the Bible as a source of ultimate truth because it is the "word of God". Of course, it has to be taken literally, for a perfect creator would not have made any mistakes in the direction of writing it, and definitely would not have his people have to wonder about metaphorical interpretations of his word!! If that were the case, several different interpretations might occur, leading to several different religions! Oh....wait...

There were a LOT of people there, which is kind of scary in of itself. The moment that our group entered the museum, we were targeted as a "problem group", which may have had something to do with the "Darwin fish" shirt I was wearing, or maybe the fact that we were all pointing and laughing at the exhibits instead of staring with a hushed reverence, but at any rate, they had a uniform security guard follow us for about the first half of our visit as a method of intimidation. They did not seem to appreciate our sense of humor. These people just accept this shit, despite all evidence to the contrary. They just block out the knowledge that has been gathered, call it tricks of human reason, and choose to believe a mythological story that is more than two thousand years old. Who woulda thunk, that over the course of two thousand years, our species would have discovered things that might disprove the writings of a religious document? Well, apparently not the deity that inspired the book. There were mennonites there, which arrived in a mennonite bus, and there were several bible camp groups, which all had their own set of logos and matching shirts, and worst of all, all of these people brought their children, to drink in the complete fabrications of this machine, and to pollute the youth of our country so they can continue to manipulate and control them for generations to come. As more proof that this is the ultimate goal of the establishment, at the end of the tour they have a gift shop, full of wonderful items like dvd's, t-shirts, keychains, and most importantly a complete section of books meant to be used for evangelical home-schooling. It makes me sick to even think about it.

I took a lot of great pictures, which I posted on my facebook profile, so if you are my friend on there please check those out.

Here are a list of some of the most ridiculous claims that this "museum" proclaims as truth:

1. Creation was exactly as stated in the Bible. Six days. This is despite the fact that plainly stated there were no stars before the fourth day. This is also nicely illustrated by cool diagrams and even a video. Do these people not see a flaw when they claim light was invented before stars?

2. The timeline for the age of the earth continues from the years and numbers referenced in the Bible, which means it cannot be older than 6500 years. The methods of human reason when it comes to dating ancient materials are flawed. We must trust the word.

3. Before sin, which came from Adam and Eve (yes, they apparently really were the first two humans) bit into the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, there was no death, and all creatures ate only plants, therefore, all species lived together in harmony, including dinosaurs, because nothing killed anything else for food (plants are not really "alive"). Can you imagine the carnage that must have occurred when they ate the fruit, and suddenly, animals were free to hunt each other?

4. As an explanation of why in the fossil record no human remains have been found with any dinosaurs remains, they simply state that they did not get buried together. To take this logic further, they state that humans today are not buried with alligators or hippopotami, but those creatures are real. Makes perfect sense to me!

5. The key to everything is apparently the Great Flood. Even if you can't take the creation myth as complete truth, you have to accept the Flood, for it is the reasoning behind everything else. The Flood is depicted as a giant tidal wave that encompasses the whole globe, and yet in one of their plaques they try to explain it as a series of hyper-canes, like the one that has lasted for years on Jupiter. They do not try to explain where all this water came from, or where it went after it was over. But because of the flood, most dinosaurs died because they could not come on the ark. Pangea was broken up and the continents were displaced in a period of six months. All the caves and canyons of the continents were formed in this time (including the Great Canyon!). Some dinosaurs were on the ark, but after the flood they died because they did not have enough food? But yes, God made sure that two (or seven) of every animal did make it onto this boat, which was approximately 500 X 100 X 50 feet in dimension.

6. Animals have evolved in their own species over time, which is why some are much larger now, for in the past they were smaller, which made it easier for them to fit on the ark. Evolution to fit their own needs is okay.

7. All races of human kind evolved from the family of Noah, which settled in Babel after the flood. God got angry at them for trying to build a tower to heaven and scattered them. He gave them different languages so they could not understand each other. And so, these people went to different parts of the world and procreated, thus creating the different cultures we know today.

8. In order for all of humanity to have originated from such small numbers, incest was okay in the past. This is explained because the human genome was not manipulated by time and the effects of mutation, for it was perfect the way God created, and sex with relatives had no ill effects on the offspring.

9. Dragons were real. Hell, if you are going to swallow the rest of the shit, this is just the icing on the cake. Their logic here is that the dragon appears in so much mythology, it must have been a real creature in the past. Also, they are mentioned in the Bible, and favor greatly in the book of Revelation. I am not sure why they felt the need to throw this in. As if the rest of the things they are saying are not outlandish enough, now I am supposed to believe that a creature existed that could breathe fire?

10. They say that dinosaurs could still exist on the Earth somewhere and we just have not found them yet!!!!

That about sums it up. If anyone you know actually buys into any of this crap, I suggest you lure them out behind a barn somewhere with a promise of a chocolate Jesus, and bludgeon them to death with a shovel. That museum deserves to get hit with a fuck ton of napalm. It was fun to make fun of, but the implications of what it is trying to achieve are not a laughing matter.

The rest of the weekend was much less frightening. We went to the Haufbra Haus, which is my favorite place to go for good beer on tap, which they serve in liter mugs, and on Saturday nights, it is like being at a giant party, with much standing on tables and hoisting of mugs into the air whilst singing. It was a blast, except for the fact that it was so crowded, we had to stand around for an hour waiting for a table to open up.

And that about concludes the summary of our weekend. I won't go into details about the football games. That just makes me angry. Oh, and if you ever get the opportunity to eat at a Five Guys burger joint, I suggest you don't pass up the chance. It is awesome.

Burt Reynolds is outside honking his horn. I guess he wants to race again. Always when I am writing!!!

Runners

2010-01-17T11:36:00.005-06:00

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, and he reminded me of a funny story. It has to do with the first time I ever had someone try to run from me in my line of work. I have had this happen so many times, there is no way I could remember them all, but the first one is always going to be locked in my mind, partly just because it was the first one, and partly because it is truly a funny experience.

Part of what made it so funny, was that earlier that day, I had talked to a fellow employee, and he had asked me if anyone tried to run yet. I had laughed about it and said "no" and I was beginning to wonder if anyone was ever going to try. It would seem that fate may have a sense of humor.

Less than an hour after that telephone call, I was walking through the toys and hardware action alley, and as I glanced to my left and right, out of my periphery in the hardware aisle I saw a black man, when on my other side, some woman said "there's one". I remember this so clearly, it's like it could have been yesterday, because the way it registered in my mind, it was almost as if some supernatural force was telling me to watch that guy. Thinking about it now, it seems even weirder, almost a racial slur, like, "there's a black man!" I kinda smiled as I walked to the edge of the endcap where I could see the guy and he could not see me, which is of course, the ultimate trick in this line of work, seeing and not being seen. Almost immediately, the man started selecting a large quantity of Dremel tool bits, as he looked around suspiciously. I was like, "what are the odds?"

I followed the dude as he carried the bits, two large handfuls, and those items are kinda expensive for being so small, some of them are like 15 to 20 bucks, into the garden center area, which is of course a popular area for thieves to go because it is usually rather empty and doesn't have a lot of personnel. As he walked he stuffed the Dremel bits into his pockets. Then he made a bee-line for the garden center exit.

Now, it should be noted that this was early in my career, and since this event I have of course learned to get help early on in the process of making a stop to be prepared for when I have to approach these people, so I will use either my phone or a walkie talkie to contact a manager or another security person before the thief leaves, but in this case, it all happened so fast there was no time for me to get any help. I was looking around wildly for anyone to grab, but there were no workers in the area. I had no phone numbers and no walkie yet to use. But I was gung-ho then, and was not about to let this dude walk out of the store with all that merchandise. As he approached the garden center exit, and I was walking behind him, I saw the door-greeter there, and I decided that would be a good enough witness for this apprehension. I signaled to him that I was following that person and for him to be ready and he nodded in acknowledgement.

The dude exited the store and I ran up and got in front of him. I said my usual greeting, albeit nervous as hell because I only had the doorgreeter there, "I'm with security and I need that merchandise back."

At first, the man seemed like he was defeated, he was like, "crap, I'm busted" and he started to shrug and pull the drill bits from his pockets. I was surprised. He was about as tall as me, and a little bit bigger. Then, he looked down and saw the doorgreeter, who just happened to be an older man in a wheelchair...who had no legs.

He immediately bristled with confidence. He said, "Oh, no, you ain't catching me today!"

He threw the bits down that he had removed, which wasn't all of them, and tried to run through me. I tried to block him and grapple with him, but he pushed me away and took a swing at me with his right fist, which I was able to dodge, but in the act of dodging, allowed him enough room to run to the left past me and round the gate toward the TLE section of the building. That all happened in two seconds. Then I was running after him. He had a good fifteen feet head start on me. I was yelling after him to stop, but he was in full blown escape mode. He was not going to stop. I was on the phone to the police and calling in the details of the situation, through gasps of air as I ran. As we were running past the garage bays of the TLE section, I yelled to the workers in there, "Stop him! Shoplifter!"

To my ears came the sweet music of tools and metal wrenches clanging off the concrete floor of the bays as the employees there all dropped what they were doing to come to my aid.

The next thing I know, we are all running through the soybean field behind the building after the dude, who apparently had the legs of a deer. I glanced behind me to see a string of about fifteen people following my lead. Keep in mind that this is all taking place in the middle of August in southern Kentucky, and the heat and humidity were ridiculously oppressive. My body was doused in sweat in about two minutes, making my clothes cling to me like an extra layer of thick flesh, and my lungs clamored for oxygen as if I were breathing through a straw under water. This was a time in my life where I generally would have a mountain dew and a small bag of Doritos with a Snickers for lunch. I was in no shape to be running in ninety degree heat, and my heart and lungs burned with exertion and exhaustion from a lack of physical endurance. About midway into the field I could feel my legs trying to slow down and I stopped for a second, thinking maybe I could just let this idiot go, but the guy behind me yelled at me to keep going, "Hell no! Don't give up boy!", he screamed, waving me forward, so I forced myself to continue. Sweat dripping into my eyes, I yelled after the dude to at least stop and give me back all the merchandise.

I crested the hill to find the shoplifter stopped and leaned over, his hands resting on his knees with his head down. He was apparently as tired as I was. He said, "Here", and handed me back the rest of the tool bits. I said thanks and asked him to come back to the store with me, just as the rest of the employees were catching up to us and surrounding the guy so he couldn't make another break for it. The thief still refused! He said, "I ain't goin' nowhere with you. If you wanna try to make me you can, but I ain't goin' easy."

At this point one of the TLE employees, a big burly white guy with forearms the size of my head and a farmer's tan, started taking off his shirt and said, "That's fine by me!" He was ready to beat the hell out of this guy for making us chase him so far. A manager and a couple other employees had to grab him and make him calm down, while the thief just smiled at us. I told him that that was fine, we could just wait here for the police to come to us, and the man said that was fine too, cause he was not going back to the store. So, I just called the police back and told them where we were. In a few minutes I could see a cop car weaving down a back road by the farm house that apparently belonged to the owner of the field we were in. They parked as close as they could and walked across to meet us. They immediately cuffed the suspect and dragged him back to their car, where they slammed him on the trunk, searched him, and then placed him in the back.

It all worked out in the end. The person I had talked to earlier that day got a real kick out of the story when I called him and told him what had happened. The real funny thing is, the man tried to say he never took a swing at me, and challenged me in court, because he already had time on the shelf, and since he had attacked me while trying to commit a crime, he was charged with 2nd degree robbery, which is a felony. I actually had to testify against him, and I believe he was sentenced for seven years in jail. Just goes to show that crime really doesn't pay, especially in the retail shoplifting field, and especially if you are a moron.

I will try to think of more cool stories to share about these kind of situations. Until then, keep on keepin' on. Do you think I could train a moose to tap dance?

Dumb lazy people

2010-01-15T13:12:00.001-06:00

The absurdity of the human race never ceases to amaze me. Last night the guy I work with and I were walking around the store. We round a corner and see a woman dropping two six packs of canned soda into her cart. She dropped them too hard or something, because one of the cans ruptured and sprayed cola about five feet in a wide arc on the floor. The woman, who looked like a typical American idiot that probably lives in a trailer and sits on her couch every night devouring bags of Doritos and leaving cheese dust finger prints all over her furniture, probably weighing in at a whopping 350 pounds, her wonderful solution to this development, was to grab the still spraying can from her cart and drop the whole six pack down inside a display of crackers, where it would continue to leak and cause more of a mess.

My friend and I just stared at this woman in disbelief as she grabbed another pack of soda. She noticed me staring and said, "haha. That was like that when I picked it up."

I wanted to grab this bitch and shake the shit out of her. I wanted to grab those cans of sofa out of her hands and beat her in the face with them. I didn't though. I didn't even come up with a witty response like, "well, I'm sure that display has a bottomless pit in the middle of it, so you took care of the problem." Instead, I said, "don't worry about it, we will handle it."

We then had to guard this woman's mess until someone from maintenance could come clean it up just to prevent anyone from slipping in the sprayed liquid. I love the fact that the best solution this idiot could come up with was to hide the leaking product, as if that fixed the whole problem. I wonder what her house smells like.

I wonder how giraffes have sex...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

In the market

2010-01-14T13:51:00.001-06:00

Assuming that I did my taxes right, which is assuming quite a bit, I should be getting a nice refund back. I hope I get it all and there are no problems with how I filed, cause I already have some serious plans for the cash. Among these are finally getting a blu-ray player in the form of a PS3, and getting a new bed and dresser. My returns should be accepted tomorrow. I hate taxes. They are so confusing. And they are that way on purpose.

At any rate, Elizabeth and I looked around town yesterday at the prices of beds, and I believe we found some good deals. It will be nice to sleep on something that doesn't squeak every time I move anymore. But it served its purpose well and was free, so I'm not complaining.

The future is looking pretty good. For all kinds of reasons. I just hope this tanking economy doesn't ruin everything by making life ridiculously hard anytime soon. You can even see the effects of it in Walmart. Employees getting hours cut, stores looking empty. It's weird. But the stress of economic hardship is working its way into all aspects of life. I'm glad I have a job right now. If things keep going this way, I wonder how much longer it can last.

Only time will tell. Until I am directly impacted, I will continue to smile and nod.

I highly recommend that everyone hear the album Emotionalism by the Avett Brothers and their newest album I and Love and You. I just recently was turned onto these guys by a friend, and they have quickly become one of my new favorite bands. You gotta check them out.

The iPhone is a great invention.

Time to go water the goldfish.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The state of things

2010-01-12T18:34:00.001-06:00

Well, sorry if you people are finding my rantings on religion to be boring or to be short-sighted or what not. I try to keep my logical mind sharp, but occasionally, I get so wrapped up in trying to get my thoughts down fast before I forget them, I can even confuse myself. I'm not sure if anything I have to say is new, or if it's all just repeated ideas that others have put out into the world before me, but I enjoy putting it out there nonetheless. If these thoughts annoy you or whatever, just skip it and wait for me to change the subject. I like to rant on all types of things. For the record though, future religious topics I plan to tackle are:
The Presence of God in Media
The Validity of Theory
Separation of Church and State
The Myth of Religious Freedom
The Promise of Heaven
The Meaning of Life

Those are just the starters. I'm sure more ideas will come my way. I hope I don't scare eveyone off, if anyone still reads my shit.

For those of you who have known me a long time, or have even been reading this blog very long, you may recall that money and I have not always been on the best of terms. I have had a bad habit in the past of spending more money than I make and consequently digging myself into the hole with overdraft fees. Hopefully those days are over. Two things have helped me out immensely. One: I recently got an iPhone, and when I did I downloaded an app that allows me to constantly keep track of the money I have in the bank. It's basically a check register, and I just put into it every time I make a purchase. No more charges sneaking up on me because I forgot about them. I also put in what recurring monthly charges I have which it automatically deducts for me, which is extremely helpful, and allows me to budget more wisely. Since I started using this app I have not overdrawn, although I have come extremely close. Two: I consulted a debt management group and consolidated all my student loans so I am trying to rehabilitate my credit. If all goes well, I should be free of unsecured debt in a few years.
I need that believe me. I looked at my credit record last night and it is fucked.

Other than that life has just been moving steadily along. Crow Hollow Blonde is still making music, working on our next collection of new songs to make our next album, although the number of shows we play out has dwindled and dwindled. Once we get these new songs finalized though, I have a feeling we will get some shows to play them before an audience. That's always exciting.

I have interviewed two times recently for promotions and failed both times. Maybe the time just wasn't right for me, but I am definitely starting to feel the drain of doing the same thing for so many years. In my first interview, I was extremely nervous, and I know I bombed. The second time though, I thought I did well, but I guess other people just performed better. Maybe the third time will be the charm. I would like to think I am capable of moving up in this company. I have been here so long, I hate to think I've wasted my time. Sometimes I wonder what I would be doing if I hadn't made such horrible decisions in the past. But of course, if I had done anything different, I would not have met Elizabeth, so I guess I am right where I need to be right now, which is okay. Eventually, I will make something great happen for me that provides financial security in addition to the happiness I have already found. It just takes time.

Good movies I have seen this year:
Avatar
Up in the Air
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Terminator Salvation
500 Days of Summer
Sherlock Holmes

I've also watched all of LOST and a lot of Dexter.

Well, that's all I can think of right now. I'm writing this on a lunch break. I think my stomach just grumbled to me in pig Latin.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Weapons of Mass Instruction

2010-01-09T12:03:00.005-06:00

For thousands of years, the source most cited as the proof for the existence of a supreme being has come from the writings found in religious texts. Be it the Holy Bible for Christianity, or the Koran for Islam, The Book of Mormon, or Scientology, the belief system is based upon the writings of supposed prophets or apostles, or science fiction writers. All of these people, last time I checked, were ordinary human beings, albeit with a higher developed imagination than most perhaps, yet multitudes of other humans devote their lives to the words these "prophets" have scribbled and use them as a guidebook because they "believe" the words that were written are actually the words of the supreme being being channeled through the minds and hands of the writers. Wow.

Since Christianity is the religion I am most familiar with, being indoctinated with its belief system for the majority of my young life, I am going to focus my attention on the Bible, but it should be noted that the generalities of what I am discussing can be related to any religious text, for they all work on the same basic principles.

First of all, there is the choice of medium. Why a book? Ok, we are assuming that this creator of our universe and our species is all-knowing. An omnipotent being who knows all that has happened and all that will happen and must exist on another plane of reality to avoid the laws of nature and science, like time and age. This being has the foresight to make a solar system where only one planet could sustain life and to create a group of lifeforms whose sole purpose would be to give it praise. All other flaws aside, like how many years it would be before civilizations even formed a written language, or the fact that the being gives the species free will, knowing in advance not everyone will choose to believe in him (which is like a perfect thing creating a flaw on purpose, which would be a contradiction), the being then chooses to teach these people he creates with a book that can't be created until generations upon generations of his creations have already died without knowledge of his written word, and multitudes more will still die without knowledge of because literacy would not become widely common among people other than the wealthy for a very long time. Not to mention, that this great supreme being allowed his creations to worship other gods and have other religions that were presumably wrong for hundreds of years.

But okay, let's let all that slide. He wants to give his creations the chance to redeem themselves and provide a book that they can learn the true religion from. Does he make this book magically appear on an altar somewhere, bound in gold, with pages written upon with a magic ink that automatically change before the eyes of the reader so any of his people can understand his word? Nope. This creator instead, and remember the creator knows all things, trusts his word with a handful of scribes, who will write the great book in the ancient Greek language. Now, why would an all-knowing creator of the universe rely on human beings to record his word, knowing full well that they are apt to make mistakes? Humans are after all, are only human. At least the original Book of Mormon that Joseph Smith supposedly found is reported to have magical properties and requires special glasses to read. The original texts of the New Testament had to be copied by hand and have been translated so many times there is no way to know what the original books even contained, especially since the original texts have been lost for a very long time. Hell, if a creator wanted to make something that would forever guide his people, he could definitely think of something much more reliable and longer lasting than the written word. I can think of lots of things off the top of my head, a giant smooth black rock that stretches as high as a skyscraper that when you touch it downloads all the teachings into your mind, an unexplainable phenomena involving the moon every month that makes the sky go black and shines images on the ground wherever people are able to see them, inscriptions in the girth of trees instead of rings that change for whoever sees them, etc, etc. But no, the all-knowing, all-seeing creator uses a book, that must be written by man, and has to be translated and rewritten countless times in order to be spread to the masses.

Of course, after this book is written, all the previous religions have to be banished from the world. Which means many more people once again have to die. If this was the one true word of the creator, why did the creator wait so long to put it out there? Why pussyfoot around and let the humans fool themselves with false gods and prophets, and then cause so much blood to be spilled when he trusts the humans to convert over to the new religion? And if it was the one true word, well that should solve the problem and stop any more false religions and prophets from cropping up right? Nope. There are still many different religions and most of them have their own set of teachings written in a book.

Since it is a book that we must deal with, a book written by men, it is plagued by the same mistakes that you can find in any large work of fiction from the past, being written before the days of the printing press and spell check. It is riddled with errors and contradictions. In one place the book will say one thing, and in another it will tell you the complete opposite. Of course, the people who believe in the book with all their heart and mind will defend it to the death and will argue that the book is perfect and has no flaw, for it cannot be flawed, since it was inspired by a perfect being. These are the people that have a biblical verse ready on the tip of their tongue for any given moment of their lives, as if the bible has something to say about every little thing that can possibly happen to them. They will say that any contradiction you bring to their attention is being quoted out of context, or that anything that seems wrong is just a misrepresentation because of the meaning being changed over time, and thus needing a better translation to properly understand what it would mean today. But many verses that these same people will use to fit their own agendas are just as easily removed from the context of entire passages. My favorite example of this is the Ten Commandments. All we ever hear about are the ten commandments that are posted everywhere you look: on every protestant church wall, in dentist offices, in public halls. These are the traditional "Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, etc, etc". However, if you find where these commandments are revealed to Moses in the Bible, the great supreme being does not stop with just these commandments. He goes on and on. He talks about the proper way to punish a slave for instance. Which would mean that the great god who created all life is okay with slavery. I brought this up to a friend of mine, and he said to me, "You misunderstood it, back then slavery did not mean what it means now". I asked him to explain to me what it did mean, and he stumbled all over himself and could not do it. This is a problem. Believers, you can't have it both ways. You can't quote things out of context all the time to suit your own purposes, and then say any mistakes or contradictions brought to your attention are irrelevant because they are out of context. If one is irrelevant, then the other is, which would make it all pretty much irrelevant.

I could go on and on about the mistakes present in the Bible, but fortunately, others have already researched it for me and have compiled lists of these things. If you want to check out these lists yourself, here are a couple of links:

Inconsistencies

Absurdities

Another problem with the Bible is the way in which the believers try to claim it as a literal historical document that proves many of the things they hold as the pillars of their belief system. The things in which it is supposed to prove for instance are: the way in which the universe and world were created, the age of the world, explanations for catastrophic events (wrath of God), and the most important of them all....the fact that a man named Jesus Christ lived and was a messiah that died for our sins, only to be resurrected three or four days later. The book also is supposed to PREDICT the way in which the world will END, which is a fundamental pillar of Christian belief, knowing that time on this planet is short.

Even having to examine these things makes my head hurt. It baffles me completely that people can refute the findings of science and support the scribbles of a group of ancient people. It makes no sense whatsoever. How can you refute a scientific theory, which has been painstakingly researched and labored over by teams and teams of some of the smartest minds in our society, and simply dismiss it because it might jeopardize something you have been told by others is true without a shred of evidence, and call the science irrelevant because it has the title of THEORY, which means it can be proven wrong? First of all, it takes years and years of research for a hypothesis to be considered a theory in the scientific community. For that title to even be considered, the hypothesis must have shown repeatedly that there is evidence to support the claim. Otherwise, other scientists would have already proven the hypothesis wrong, and the hypothesis would be forced to change. It seems to me that Christians just ignore the process of the scientific method all together, and just use the terminology as a scapegoat to convince other believers that scientists are just a group of guys sitting around somewhere making up shit to tell people. Well, no, that is definitely the job of someone else. Perhaps they could look into their own ranks to find that sort of deceit.

Science has proven in many ways that the majority of what is claimed in the Old Testament is just a made up fairy tale. The Earth is much older than six thousand years, which we know thanks to methods of dating ancient rock samples. Human beings have not lived on the planet for a long time, in comparison to other species, and therefore, all life was not just blinked into existence at once. There is significant evidence that all life emerged from the soupy mixture of our oceans waters. The possibility that all human life could be traced back to just two ancestors is ridiculous. We have found dinosaur fossils which are not even mentioned in the Bible. There would be no possible way to flood the entire planet. Even if there were a way to do that, there would be no possible way for a single family to save two of every species of animal (or seven depending on which passages you read), and even then, it would be impossible to build a vessel large enough to hold all of these animals, or to keep them and feed them while waiting for the water to diminish.

I am sorry to be so blunt, but anyone who can read the Old Testament and take it seriously is just ignorant. At best, it is a collection of fables or fairy tales. Nothing more.

The New Testament is supposed to be the book that took the place of the Old Testament, according to most Christian believers, and makes the Old Testament irrelevant anyway, because the fact that Jesus came and died for our sins is supposed to provide the clear path for believers to be able to establish their faith and to get to heaven. Well, if this is the case, why is the Old Testament even still published with the new one? Why do they still include it in the Bible? Why at church services, even at ones I remember attending as a boy, do the ministers still decide to read from it? Yet another thing about this "holy" book that makes absolutely no sense.

This next thing is definitely the most controversial part about what I have to say about this book that so many people hold in such high esteem. Even the New Testament cannot be considered as historical proof that the man Jesus Christ actually lived. The reasons are simple. The books included in this collection were not actually written during the time that this man was supposed to have lived. They were written many years later, and also, were not written by the people that they are attributed to. When the Bible was put together, there were many other books that had been written which were excluded from the collection for various reasons. If Jesus had actually lived, and been as great as the stories in the Bible have claimed, he could not have passed under the radar of other famous historians that lived during the time period. His works would have been documented by other sources. Instead, what we get are a couple of forgeries placed in works by people such as Josephus, which were obviously added over a hundred years after the fact, because the books of history back then had to be copied by hand and were easily manipulated. For a more extensive look at this, here is a link:

Proof of Jesus?

The book simply cannot be considered as historical evidence of anything other than a faint outline of the way in which ancient people behaved, and their civilizations functioned. Since it is a religious book, it does help historians to know what religion was like in the past. But I am hard pressed to find any other things to make it a reference guide to that I cannot get from other sources.

Which brings up another point: most of the elements present in the Christian bible, including the myth of a messiah, have been seen in previous religions. If this was the one true word of a supreme being, why does it rely so heavily on the mythologies of the past? Why does the messiah life of Jesus so closely resemble that of Horus from the Egyptian religion? Why are so many elements of the book based on astrological signs? If this was supposed to be the one book that truly showed the way to the people, shouldn't it have been unlike anything else, since it was proving all other religions to be false, rather than being a thinly disguised cousin to its predecessors?

Lastly, if this book was supposed to be the ultimate guidebook for humans, to teach them how to be more god-like and show them how to get to heaven, why does it create so much hostility toward others? Why does it include so many references to murder and conquering of other nations? Why does it create such persecution of homosexuals and women? If this was supposed to have been delivered from a supreme being, which would mean it would have to have come from a source of much higher intelligence, would it not have been above such things? Would it not have taught peace rather than war? Would it not have taught equality rather than bigotry? Would it not have taught reason over superstition?

For all of these reasons and more, the Bible and other religious works need to be called what they are, dated mythology. In order to learn more about ourselves and our universe, we should not depend on the works of a people who still sacrificed cattle to deities and believed that schizophrenia was demonic possession; we should look to the works of science and reason which are trying to further our knowledge and our understanding of the truth of nature. We should not fear change, we should embrace it, and put the demons of the past where they belong, in the mythology section of the bookstore.

Less than a month to go

2010-01-05T19:40:00.001-06:00

If you are a fan of good entertainment like myself, you should be as excited as I am that the best show to ever air on network television comes back on next month. Of course I am talking about LOST. If you didn't know that, you don't know what you're missing.

The characters are all great and the show uses the best technique of developing these characters that I have ever seen, through flashbacks and flash forwards that reveal parts of their backgrounds and personalities like slowly unravelling the layers of an onion. The story is just pure genius. But it is the characters and what happens to them in the context of the story being told that ultimately hooks you, because the way the characters are developed, you can't help but start to care about them.

I have never been so addicted to a TV show in my life. J J Abrams is a master of bringing great talent together to make wonderful experiences for his viewers. This final season of the show promises to blow those viewers away. It has to. The past five seasons just got progressively better as they went. It is unreal. Elizabeth and I watched all five seasons in less than two months.

Bring on the finale!! Although I am going to be sad to see it end and say good-bye to these characters I have grown to love. All things are finite except the universe.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A New Year Begins

2010-01-03T10:32:00.001-06:00

It's hard to believe it is actually 2010. Arthur C. Clark is probably a very disappointed man that he didn't title his books 3001 and 3010, seeing as how we still haven't made contact with alien life. This past year has probably been one of the best of my life, if not the best. For the majority of it I have been incredibly happy, which is a welcome change from the norm, as I'm sure most of you who know me realize. I have my girlfriend Elizabeth mostly to thank for this cloud I have been floating on. She really is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Since meeting her and getting to know her, I have come to realize how much I was trying to force myself into relationships that were wrong for me in the past. How I really had no idea what kind of person was really right for me. But from the moment that she and I met and started talking, everything seemed to happen naturally and be virtually effortless. We just clicked. I found in her everything that I had been looking for all my life, and I didn't even know what I was really after until then. We are perfect together, and that perfection certainly makes all the mistakes of my past worthy learning experiences so I more appreciate the true love that I have found. I'm not going to say it has always been easy for us, of course not. We are only humans after all. The circumstances surrounding how we started dating, and the eminent repurcussions of it made the transition a little tough, and there were some bumps in the road. But once the road got smoothed out, it has been a pleasant drive. I look forward to seeing just where and how far that road can take us.

Christmas was good. New Years was good. Started off the new year the right way: with a hangover from hades. I stayed the night at Elizabeth's and was apparently so drunk I blacked out. When I woke up the next day, I had no idea where I was. Turns out, I must have gotten up in the night and wandered into her roommate's room. I passed out in her bed. She wasn't home thank goodness or that would have been weird. I have no memory of moving at all. Maybe it was aliens playing a trick on me. But Elizabeth didn't remember me leaving either. She was drunk too.

If you have been checking this blog lately, you can see I have written two essays concerning aspects of religion and arguments people have made for why they feel they are right for their belief systems. These are the first of a series of essays I am planning that is going to take a while to finish because I want to address many aspects and cover as much ground with it as I can. I am not doing this to try and change any minds or anything, because I know that is impossible. I guess it's more of an effort to just get down on paper exactly what I have been thinking lately. Also, I recently had a scary thought that I could die early and be given a religious funeral by my family. I wanted to have on record that this would definitely be against my wishes. If I die, cremate my body and spread the ashes in the sea please. Please, friends of mine, don't allow anything different to occur. No preaching and definitely no god. I would appreciate it.

Well, that is about all for now. I see my latest shipment of donkey skin has arrived. Making masks is tedious work.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Thoughts on Morality and Religion

2010-01-02T11:42:00.005-06:00

A friend once said to me that without a higher power, morality would not exist in our society. He said, "what would be the point in living without a knowledge of good and evil?" This is an interesting argument, but I could equally argue what is the point in living with the belief that this higher power already has your entire life planned out for you in advance? What would be the point in trying to do anything, when the higher power is sitting up in his throne, looking down at you and saying, "Yeah, I knew that was going to happen!" But with the morality argument, I don't really have to dodge the issue, because the belief in a god is by no means the SOURCE of a knowledge of right and wrong in the human mind. Not even close, and it is interesting that believers will try to claim this as true. I think if a believer reaches the point of arguing over morality, they have reached the last straw of arguments they have for believing.

Quite simply, like everything else that we learn throughout our lives, especially in our early years of development, the idea of right and wrong has to be taught to us. How amazing is the mind of a child, soaking up information that it needs every minute of every day like an endless sponge, ready to imitate action, ready to become an independent thinker way before its body will allow it to happen. Through the eyes of a child, the parents are the god figures. They care for them, watch over them, teach them, and earn adoration and endless devotion. The parent-god is such a source of idolization that the child aspires to be like it. The things that the parent-gods say, the child will repeat. The things that the parent-god does, the child will imitate. From the parent-god, the child will learn the concepts of humor, what is "cool", what is fun, etc. From the parent-god the child will also learn the concept of fear, for at first the mind of a child is completely worry-free and has no idea of the concept of danger. When a little girl first ever sees a spider on the wall, their first instinct might be to inspect it, to see what it is, to pick it up and carry it to the parent-god and say "look what I found, what is this?" At this point the child will be greeted with a shriek and a probable slap to their hand to knock the spider free and see the parent-god squash it promptly with their large foot. The parent may say "don't touch those, they bite you!" And from that moment on, the little girl will shriek and be afraid when they see a spider. The same is true of morality. A child very quickly will learn the fear of punishment from a parent-god. When they break something that they should not have touched, when they try to take candy at the store without paying for it, when they hit their brother or sister, etc, a punishment is promptly issued, be it a slap to the bottom or being made to stand in a corner or sent to bed without supper, a child must quickly learn what is acceptable behavior and what is not. Some people may say that they just were always afraid of spiders, or that they felt they always had an innate sense of right and wrong in their mind, but this is simply because it is impossible to remember everything that they were taught at such a young age, especially when nearly everything is a new experience, and the mind is just working to put everything in categories like a reference guide for future experiences. This behavior is not special to humans. If you look in nature, you can see the same types of learning in many "lesser" species.

Everything that the parent-god tells a child is automatically perceived as truth. Everything. Until the child reaches an age where they have learned enough to start rationalizing truth for themselves, they believe everything they hear from the parents, and previously learned truths are still accepted until proven otherwise. This is easy enough to understand, for the child is completely dependent on the parent for its safety and security, and there is no reason to ever think that the parent-god would lie to the child or jeopardize it for any reason, because of the emotional bond of their relationship. However, in reality, the parent-god lies to the child on a regular basis. Be it tradition, or laziness, or just for the sake of humor, parents regularly instill in their children concepts that have no connection to reality. They tell children there is a Tooth Fairy that will reward them for putting their lost teeth under their pillow at night as a coaxing mechanism that eases the pain and fear of pulling loose teeth. They tell children there is an Easter Bunny that sneaks into houses and leaves them candy in baskets on the eve of the holiday. They tell children there is a magical man named Santa Claus that knows if they are good or bad and will bring them toys on Christmas if they are good. And of course, if the tradition of religion is present in the family, they will take the child to church and instill in them the belief in a god that is always watching them.

In some respects, these ideas are not harmful. Children of course outgrow lots of things they believe as their minds mature because they become more capable of ascertaining truth from fiction. The parent of course loves their child and wants them to grow with a vivid imagination and wants them to like the same things they like and believe the same things they have believed and still believe. However, it is often difficult and confusing for a child when they first learn that there is no Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy. This moment is probably the first time the child realizes that the parent-god is actually just a human. They don't understand why the parent-god would teach them something that was not true. But the parent will just explain that they love the child and it was for their own good, and all is easily forgiven. From the mindset of the parent, it is easy to understand why these beliefs are "necessary" as well. Maybe it is tradition, or maybe the parents themselves actually still believe what they are teaching (in the case of gods), but the parent understands that they will not always be around to observe and correct the improper behavior of their children. So, it is easy to invent the concept of an imaginary figure that is always watching and knows everything that they do. This is like having an extra level of security in regards to your child's actions, a giant imaginary babysitter if you will. Around Christmas time, this babysitter job is given over to the special figure known as Santa Claus, which really is nothing more than an extension of a god mythology, and is meant to ease the job of parenting for a couple months out of the year. The rest of the time, this job is relegated to the main god belief. Over time, the child outgrows other beliefs that were taught by the parent, but usually the main belief in a higher power is repeatedly conditioned over time and is the one "truth" that is never outgrown. Maybe this is because the mind becomes so dependent on feeling safety under the eyes of the parent-god, that when the child grows into an adult and has to live on its own, it somehow still needs that feeling of safety and uses the concept of an actual god as a coping mechanism for the absence of the parent. In some respects the mind has grown to always need that babysitter, on top of the other reasons and conditionings that have taken place to instill the belief.

Someone once said that if gods did not exist, it would be necessary to invent them. This may have been true in the earlier more primitive days of society and government, where order was held together by a rather loose net. It may have been necessary to instill in the people a fear of punishment from a spiritual level because of the difficulty in maintaining law and order from a simple lack of numbers, meaning that the population ratio of people to government is always going to be unevenly stacked and it is impossible to have enough man power to watch over the actions of every citizen in a state. In a sense, early government probably needed that imaginary babysitter to help maintain order over their society. But as governments have advanced, the need for the babysitter has grown less and less important, and the use of religion by government has switched from aiding in control of order, to aiding in keeping the poor placated and swaying public opinion. Since order has replaced chaos among civilzed society, people need not fear the reprimand of a higher power (although most still do), instead they need only fear the consequences of breaking the established laws of the society. These laws have been put in place to retain the order of civilization, and are also taught to everyone as they mature. Whenever a person breaks the law, or does something that they know is considered wrong by society, the fear that person feels is not a spiritual fear, but more of a fear of getting caught by the authorities who preside over said laws. If someone is brave enough to go through with an action that requires breaking the law, most likely they don't fear spiritual repercussion because they really don't believe in it, or they simply think they can bipass that consequence by the loophole Christianity leaves its followers, which is to just ask for forgiveness of any wrongdoing or sin.

In essence, society has outgrown its need for a babysitter. I think it's time that we as a people outgrow our need for this babysitter as well. Our children stop believing in Santa Claus at a rather early age. Why is it so hard for us to take the next step, and admit we have outgrown our need for his year-round cousin?

The Problem With Religious Faith

2009-12-30T12:18:00.005-06:00

Since I decided about nine years ago that I wasn't sure about religion anymore, having my eyes abruptly opened through an argument with a close friend, and since I have become an avid proponent of logic over faith, going back and forth between agnostic and atheist in my own mind until I have finally decided to just out myself as pretty much an atheist until something proves me otherwise, I have decided to broach the subject with many people of the other side, those who stay devoted to their religious faith, in an effort to understand why it is so easy for some people to believe something that really can't stand up to any kind of rational scrutiny. From what I have observed, it really all boils down to fear. Fear of mortality. Fear of the unknown. Fear of change.

When you try to rationalize aspects of faith to a believer, initially you are met with complete disbelief. Ironic I know. Some even may find it humorous. It is such an ingrained mentality in the majority of people, that they can't believe you would even ask questions about it. They try to just blow you off, explain the whole "God gave us a free will" thing, or they will just ignore you and pretend you never brought it up. I have even had one person say to me, when I questioned the authenticity of the Bible, "well, you either believe that the Bible is all the word of God, or you don't." If you continue to push the issue, and bring up questions that there are no logical answers to, eventually, the person will react with anger and probably either threaten you or tell you to leave them alone. But I think I can be pretty certain that it is not the faith that causes this reaction, it is the fear.

This is one of the main problems with faith that I see. In order to be an intelligent person, and still retain a faith-based belief, the believer is forced to live inside a bubble. The only truth that can exist, is what the person has grown to believe, through whatever reasoning that they came to believe this truth, be it conditioning by parental figures or self-conditioning as an act of psychological protection (for instance, a homosexual who cannot come to terms with their own sexuality), and any outside ideas that might threaten the stability of this "truth" cannot come inside the bubble. The believer holds onto their faith at the center of this bubble, cupped in their hands like a fragile baby bird, and they protect it with a tenacious ferocity, expecting that the ideas of the outside world are all contagions and pointed knives aimed to kill their pet. This is what creates the fear, because in actuality, although most believers will claim their faith to be as strong as a mountain, or as deep as the sea, it is really only an idea. Ideas are by definition fleeting and can be changed and manipulated by time and circumstance, however, once an idea has been shared by millions of people and accepted as truth, it can take on a stature of seeming to be greater than it actually is. For hundreds of years people believed that the world was flat. This idea became accepted as truth and was shared by the population of most of the civilized globe, until someone proved this idea was false by sailing around the world. People have believed many such things throughout time. That the Earth was the center of the universe, that bleeding was way to treat disease, that witches should be burned at the stake. All of these things were at one time accepted as the truth, because the truth is of course manipulated not by the eye of the beholder, but the mind of the beholder. I think it is safe to say that no two minds are alike, and that many are less than stable and may have a skewed sense of rationality or even reality. This is why, when faced with the argument of "can you really say that millions of people are believing something that is wrong" you should be able to say, without a moment's hesitation: YES. But these people want to protect their bird. And they are willing to kill in order to do it. This is only one reason why faith is the most dangerous of ideas humankind has invented.

I suppose it would be different, if the believer was happy to just live inside their bubble, happy to just have a bird to keep and feed and nurture. But in the mind of the religious believer, this is not enough for them, because by nature, religion is dependent on group activity, it is an experience that must be shared with others who have birds, the bubbles must be joined and the birds must sing together as a flock. And even this would be okay, if they were happy just to have a flock. The problem is, in order to really protect their birds and their bubbles, they feel everyone must live in their bubble and everyone must have a bird of their own to protect. This is the only way to stop the outside world of ideas from trying to invade their bubble and kill their pet. The outside world must conform to the reality of the world INSIDE the bubble that they live in. This is very dangerous. And it has lead to the race for missionary domination of uncivilized parts of the world, just to gain as much of a foothold as possible because to put it quite simply, the more birds that exist in the world, the harder they are to exterminate. Another problem is of course that there are more than one species of bird, and these species are incapable of cross-breeding. When the two species compete for domination of an area, the ultimate result is war. Millions of people have died in such wars, and are still dying, and they die believing that their cause it just. How can an IDEA that just happens to be shared by millions of people be worthy of so much death? How can it still be shared and revered by these multitudes knowing that the cost has been paid by so many innocent lives?

The answer is immortality. Of course at the heart of it all is the fear of death. No one wants to die. If you live in a bubble and have a baby bird, in essence, you believe that when you die, that bird is going to magically mature and carry you to another life where you can live forever. Herein lies the genius behind the charade of religious faith. It makes a promise that there is no way to disprove. It makes this promise on top of another idea that is already impossible to disprove, the idea that is shared by most of the globe, that behind all of reality lies a great creator, a puppet master, a magic Mother Bird that promises to take care of the people who take care of her babies. People are so afraid of their own mortality, because they can't understand it, that they are willing to believe anything to take that fear away. It is comforting to believe in magic and immortality. It is comforting to think that when someone dies that you love, if you both have a baby bird, when you die, you will be reunited with them in the next life. And there is no way to know that this is not the actual truth because, well, no one knows what happens to the consciousness when it expires from this body. Certainly no one has ever came back to tell us about it, not really. The religious believer can tell you that either Jesus or Muhammad has come back to tell them what happens on the other side of death, but these are just more ideas on top of ideas built to keep the foundation of belief strong. Remove any of these ideas from the equation, and the whole structure would collapse like a sand castle under an ocean wave.

The fact remains that religious faith is a blind faith. All these believers that guard their faith so carefully, protecting their baby birds from harm, are doing so without the knowledge that a Mother Bird even exists. They will say "you can't disprove the existence of a god" and this is true. As Carl Sagan once said "absence of proof is not proof of absence" however, it is not a viable argument for existence either. There is no proof that the Tooth Fairy doesn't exist. Nor is there proof against the existence of Santa Claus, leprechauns, unicorns, or dragons. But you won't hear many rational adults argue that these things exist in our world like they will for the existence of an all-knowing, all-seeing, ageless, and infallible GOD. When arguing this fact, a believer will try to say that their faith is not blind, that it is based on the observed works of their god and their close personal relationship with this god. However, everything that they perceive and have been taught to perceive as divine intervention in their lives, from answered prayers, to miracles, to emotional responses from self or group stimuli, can be explained away by scientific facts, random chance, and coincidence, all much more plausible than the spiritual explanation being offered. I can have faith in people, faith in myself, faith that my favorite sports team will win the championship, but with all these things I have a basis upon which to judge my faith, founded upon previous physical experiences. It's more like a hope that what happened before can happen again or be improved upon, whereas religious faith requires a leap to supernatural phenomena and superstition that has no basis upon reality other than previously experienced EMOTIONAL responses and/or coincidences and the teachings of a corrupt institution.

If you wanted to find answers for yourself, you could study the science of the universe, and maybe develop your own ideas on reality and the conscious mind. But most people want an easy answer to everything. They want an explanation that they can fit into their small bubble. That is why the idea of gods is so popular. It explains everything. It explains it all without taking an extreme amount of effort on the part of the believer, because it is so easy to just shape an idea out of what is already known. This is why gods always have humanistic features. It is harder to imagine something completely outside the bubble. And this brings up another point. Religious faith plays on another human trait that is easy to manipulate: our own arrogance. Humans want to believe they are more important than any other life form on the planet. They are by nature, egotistical and selfish. WE made our gods in our image. We made stories to explain things in nature that involved humans being of great importance. Believers are told that in the next life they will be sitting by the throne of their god in heaven. They are told that the creator writes their name in an eternal book of life once they agree to accept his existence and worship him. Even our gods deserve the constant praise the we as humans think we deserve. As people on the planet, maybe they cannot amount to all their dreams, maybe life is harder than expected and they dwell in obscurity and mediocrity. But tell them that to a higher power they will always be remembered and their name is forever written in the magic book, and they will believe for the rest of their lives.

Believers like to talk about "free will"; they will say that we as people have the right to choose whether or not to believe. But then they will say that their god already knows what is going to happen. That everything is a part of his plan. Isn't this a contradiction? If this is the case, it would be like the creator gives every person a baby bird to take care of when they are old enough, and it's up to the individual to CHOOSE whether or not to take care of it, but the creator already knows how each individual will choose, which would mean he is just sending millions of his own children to die for no reason. Where is the logic in that? How do you choose for yourself, if the creator you believe in already knows and has planned out what you are going to do anyway, to be a pawn in the grand puzzle known as HIS PLAN? This is another part of the problem of faith: it requires you to give up partial control of your own existence, requires you to surrender parts of your life to magic and mysticism. People actually believe so readily that they will refuse scientific medicine in certain cases because they think their faith will heal them. The human body is an amazing thing and is capable of healing itself under some apparently impossible odds, especially when the conscious mind doesn't give up the fight, but to a believer, when these situations occur, it isn't the human body that healed itself, but it is a miracle of god. The same can be said of other circumstances: surviving a plane or a car crash, making a decision that leads to safety instead of danger, a family member's cancer going into remission, etc. Instead of trying to understand the science or the random chance of variables falling into place, it is easier and much more self-serving to believe that a higher power acted in your favor, that you were chosen for a higher purpose to survive. And this "rationale" is used as a comforting mechanism as well for when things go badly. If someone dies, it was "their time" to be called back to heaven, if finances are tight, this is just god "testing your faith". Such a catch-all explanation should be seen through easily, but instead is readily accepted as truth.

People have said to me, "what is the harm in believing? What is the harm in having faith just in case?" I say to all those people now, the harm is the bubble you are forced to live in. The harm is shutting out the rest of the world just to have the security of an IDEA that is supposed to protect you from death, but ends up causing more harm than good, because of the nature of the belief. It is one thing to just have an idea, but to use that idea as a weapon to kill other ideas is in essence purely evil. Religion is evil because of this. It teaches the world to trust in it's "truth" while ignoring reality. It teaches the world to be afraid of reality. It teaches the world that others must be forced to join its idea of truth in order to SAVE IT. But nothing is being saved. If these bubbles people are living in are not abolished, the only result that can possibly occur is genocide. In this day and age, our weapons have outgrown our planet. We now have the power that centuries ago we only bestowed on our gods. If rationality is not restored to the center of our society, and mysticism is allowed to reign over the planet and keep us all in its bubble, the weapons of gods will be unleashed on the earth, and only then will we find out what happens when all the baby birds are gone and all the people are gone, that what everyone was always afraid of and the thing they were always fighting for was the same: NOTHING.

Pure Imagination

2009-12-22T10:47:00.004-06:00

For years I have waited for a movie that would take me back to the days of my youth, that would fill my heart and mind with the same sense of child-like wonder and awe as the first time I watched Star Wars sitting on my knees in the floor in front of an old beat up television. That day has arrived.

The movie Avatar, as it is meant to be seen, on an IMAX screen in dazzling 3D, is nothing short of an astonishing work of art, and sets the new bar for what a science-fiction epic can achieve. George Lucas, you have officially been de-throned as the Hollywood king of imagination. The new king is James Cameron, and he took the crown with force.

From the opening scene to the final scene, every moment has something new for your mind to take in and for your senses to be amazed by. I had a very hard time keeping my jaw off of the floor. If you have read other reviews of this film, then you know the basics of the story, and how it is a familiar tale, however, Cameron proves that even a familiar story can still be new, if it is told in a new way, and told the right way. He achieves both. The result is an almost flawless masterpiece. There are flaws, but they are few, and they are easy to look over, especially when the special effects are so seamless, you get lost in the planet that they have created, and will have a hard time knowing when the scene switches from live action to CGI.

That planet is known as Pandora. It has been painstakingly constructed by the visual marvels of this film to wow you. It is stunning. It is beautiful. From the creatures, to the plant life, to the sheer environment and landscape, it is marvelous to behold. And of course, like we have done to this world, in the context of the film, all the humans want to do is destroy it for monetary gain. The only thing stopping them is the natives, known as the Navi. This should strike some familiar notes in your memory, as it is basically a metaphor for the Native American genocide that occurred on American soil. The name Navi even sounds like just a shortened version of Navajo, and the tribes all speak and act like the Native Americans of our own world. They even use bows and arrows. In one scene, there is a Native American artifact hung on the wall of the main villain's office, as if to reference the fact that this character recognizes his own kind of evil.

The way in which the humans have begun to interact with the natives is complicated. They combine human and Navi DNA to clone an alien life form that the human who donated his DNA for the cloning can synch his mind with, kind of like the Matrix, only World of Warcraft style. The clones are called avatars. The main character, Jake Sully, is the twin of a marine who was about to undergo a mission as one of these Avatars, but died in the field, so Sully gets recruited to take his place, because he has the same DNA as his brother. The trick is that Sully, is paralyzed from the waist down, another war injury. You can't help but feel his sense of joy and adrenaline the first time he synchs his mind with his avatar and awakes to find that he can wiggle his toes, stands up, and takes off running through the grass, the only difference is, he is in a blue-skinned body that stands about ten feet tall. It's the little moments like this that make Avatar so special. This is not just a rock-em sock-em Michael Bay let's blow up everything and skip the plot holes cliched piece of Hollywood crap.....this movie has a soul and a heart. It tells a story that you can't help but be touched by, you can't help but get completely lost in. This is the new Star Wars.

I have to give James Cameron a lot of respect. After the huge success of Titanic, he could have thrown his weight around in Hollywood a lot more. He could have basically slapped his name on anything they handed him and walked away with millions. But he proved himself to be more than just someone who wants his name to be a cash cow. He walked away from the scene to let his mind refresh. He stayed out of the game for nearly ten years. Like a true artist he waited for the right time to bring his next vision alive. Supposedly, he had this idea for a very long time, but knew the technology would not allow him to perfectly create it like it was in his mind. His patience has paid off.

All of the trademark Cameron elements are in this film: you get Sigourney Weaver in a great role, you get marines and flying space ships a la Terminator and Aliens, you get a heartfelt love story a la Titanic, and you even get a finale that pits a person in a machine suit against an alien life form, only in a great twist of themes from the first time this scenario happens in Aliens. You will be hard-pressed to find something to dislike in this movie. Toward the end, Cameron makes a bold statement about the way the Natives of America were so easily defeated by our technology....what would have happened all those years ago, if all the tribes across the country had united to take a stand against their common enemy?

I could not help but get emotional as I watched this film. Such a no-holds-barred, go for broke, unleashing of imagination, is right up my alley. Such beauty, magic, and heart is rare to find in an American film these days, in a climate where the ultimate goal is to sell as many action figures as possible. Will this movie make money? Undoubtedly. Will it be a huge success? I hope so. But they have to make back the 500 million they spent on it somehow. Personally, I hope they triple their money, so they can make a sequel that makes me feel twice as great.

Go see this movie.

I hate dishonesty

2009-12-20T18:18:00.001-06:00

Every day I have to deal with the lowest scum on this planet. Thieves and liars. These people have no common decency. They are selfish and self-righteous, apparently feeling like the world owes them something for all their hardships. Hell, some of these people don't even really have hardships. They are well off and make enough money to buy themselves whatever they want. But they are so arrogant and self-serving they actually think they are above the common denominator of having to earn what you get. They think they deserve special treatment in the food chain. Hand-me-downs. This is all bullshit.

I don't understand what breeds this mentality. This utter disrespect for authority and morality and decency and the laws that people over time have deemed worthy of holding in place for all of humanity. These people are a menace. Their brains are wired wrong. They need electric shock therapy or a bullet in the brain.

I get so tired of walking in circles and having these fucking wastes of oxygen stare at me like I am the BAD GUY. I am the ENEMY. If you are reading this and you are a thief or a liar that makes a living by ignoring laws that most people consider common sense: fuck you. You are a bottom feeding organism. Every day I get further to the breaking point and wish for the mass apocalyptic event this world needs. A disease or war to wipe you off this earth. You have taken this gift of life and perverted it to the point it's meaning is lost to you.

If only there really was a such thing as justice.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

There is no god

2009-12-20T12:45:00.001-06:00

Hey folks. Guess what happened to me this week? I got banned from facebook. I don't know the entire story as to why, but I have a decent guess.

Earlier this week, I found my biological father had a facebook page. This was weird to say the least. Then, I happened to glance at his info only to find a very ironic thing: he had me listed as one of his children. This rubbed me the wrong way to say the least. I had not seen this guy since my grandpa took me to see him for maybe an hour visit when I was sixteen. Before that I hadn't seen him since he decided to abandon me for the second time in my life when I was 9 years old, after I had sought him out to get to know him and fill the void in my soul of the missing puzzle piece only a father figure an fulfill. When my grandpa took me to see him years later, after he had written me a letter all those years ago explaining it was simply too much of a hassle to drive such a long way twice a month, but my mother could drive me there if I wanted to come up for a weekend, I was supposed to tell him what I thought about him. But I was young. I was naive. I listened to the excuses pour out of his mouth and saw how pathetic he was and I just couldn't say anything. So we left. And I carried all these emotions with me all this time.

Fast forward seventeen years. I saw his facebook. Saw his picture of him with a grandbaby he was so proud to hold. Saw my name on his page. All those feelings came back. Immediately. I saw my opportunity to take a chance and finally say all the things I wanted to say to this man. To unleash all the buried hatred and let him know once and for all what his poor decisions in life had done to me and what they had cost him. I wasn't very nice. I didn't expect a response.

He of course is like me I guess and isn't one to just let things lie. He wrote me back. But it was the same as seventeen years ago. He wanted to blame my mother for everything. He basically called her a whore and said she cheated on him and every husband she has ever had. This was not a way to win back my good graces. I tried to explain to him that no matter what happened thirty years ago, or what the actions of other people were, that could not excuse his actions or his decision to completely ignore me all these years. Especially the second time around. He accused me of taking sides. I restressed my point. He said fuck it and he was done.

So two days later he sends me another message in a separate thread that says we need to talk. He sends me his email address. This all strikes me as hilarious, because I thought we were talking just fine through facebook. I also might mention that in our previous conversation he had made the statement that " I thought with the caliber of man you are Jay you could see two sides of an argument" I guess trying to win me over with a compliment that I saw through immediately because he has NO IDEA WHO I AM. So I told him off again, told him I thought we were talking and he used his chance to make things right by playing the blame game and pointing fingers and trying to turn me against my mom. I told him instead of making false claims as to the knowledge of my caliber, he should worry what caliber of bullet would be best used in a suicide, because I wouldn't care if he died. Then I told him to go away forever. I then blocked his sorry ass so he couldn't respond anymore. I was tired of the whole thing. I had said what I needed to say.

The next day my facebook was disabled. I appealed it but I don't even know why for sure yet. If it's not Larry Sizemore trying to get me back for not letting him have the last word, maybe it's crazy Christians mad at my atheistic status updates. We shall see I suppose.

Oh, and last week I applied for a new job, had an interview, and I didn't get it. Again. Apparently I am destined for failure.

On the bright side, I have found the love of my life. She is all I really need.

Happy holidays.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Red alert

2009-11-04T11:03:00.000-06:00

I just added this handy dandy lil app to my iPhone, so be expecting more updates and random thoughts from my mind. Looking forward to getting back in the habit of writing.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

2009-11-04T10:03:00.001-06:00

I am alive

2009-02-14T18:58:00.002-06:00

It seems that when I am happy, and have nothing to complain about, I guess I don't think to post on this stinking thing. I realized today that I had not posted since my grandmother died, and that was in November. Wow. There are many things that I could delve into about that whole experience, but I will save that for later. For the record, if you read my poetry, you already have an idea of it anyway.

I got a cat for Valentines Day. His name is Gandalf the Grey and he is cool as hell. I have been watching him frolic around in the floor all night. The only thing is he is a bit sick, has a bit of a cold and has probably been infected with ringworm cause his brother had it and they were in the same cage. But he has been being treated for it and I am continuing the treatment, so hopefully he won't get too sick, and hopefully I won't catch the ringworm. I had that once when I was a kid and we got a cat. How funny.

Another funny story, the other night at work, I was walking the floor and talking to my mother, and I stopped beside this rack of DVD's. The store was practically empty. Then, suddenly, in my ear, I mean IN MY EAR, I hear this loud, clearing the throat kind of sound, like someone is frustrated you know. I turn, and there is this old man standing there. He was probably 60 years old, was wearing a red pearl snap shirt, tight blue jeans and cowboy boots. His hair was slicked back, gray, and long in the back, and he had about three gross teeth on the left side of his mouth, and that was all. I said, "What is your problem?" He said, "BOY you sure do know how to walk in front of someone dontcha??!" I was kind of in shock, cause this dude acted so infuriated that it almost crossed over into pure insanity, and I said, "Hey, you could walk around me." Seeing as how we were the only two people in the aisle, I didn't see how this option could escalate the situation. But he walked around me and he stared at me with these wide eyes of pure madness and he said, "You fucking punk! You fucking punk! I ought to teach you a lesson!" And I said, "Well, maybe you should learn how to say EXCUSE ME" to which he replied, "Fucking punk, I should slap you right in the face!" My only response to this was to laugh and say, "Go ahead, buddy, I will just call the cops." And he stomped away, as if every step he took was gonna shake the store to the ground. Believe me, this person was completely nuts. I was weirded out for a good thirty minutes.

The top of the ferris wheel

2008-11-13T13:06:00.003-06:00

Things in my life have sort of seemed to slip into a dream-like state. I awake to the perfection of smiles drenched in the muted glow of morning sun. I bask in the glow of the perfection for hours at a time. I get lost and found in the space of seconds and exhaled breaths. My mind is a flurry of sensations and emotions, mingling like vapor trails of different colored smoke. Everything feels so surreal, I often have to pause and ask myself if it is really happening, or if I have really went off the deep end and have created this new reality for myself inside a padded room. It's too perfect. If it is a dream, I hope I am in a coma and never have to wake up from it.

The sweet never comes without the bitter tho. My grandmother has lost her battle for existence. There is nothing more that the doctors can do and they are sending her home for hospice care. She developed a case of leukemia due to all the antibiotics and chemo therapy she had been given. She is no longer making her own blood platelets. Once they send her home, probably tomorrow, she won't last very long. Maybe a week. Maybe less. This is hard to deal with, and even as I know that it is all part of the grand cycle of life, and that we all pass through it, and that I should be thankful she had such a full life, it is still hard to let go. These are the hard lessons of adulthood. Everything has an expiration date, everything physical.

On another lighter note, Crow Hollow Blonde finished up the recording on their second album, Metaphors and Monsters, last night. Eight songs. We start mixing it tonight. Looking forward to the finished product. It sounds pretty great so far. Much better than our last effort. Be expecting new songs up on myspace very soon.

Time to go. The munchkins are getting restless.

Greetings from the Show Me State

2008-10-30T21:19:00.002-05:00

So, I am in Missouri. Just saw my brother for the first time in three months. He looks mostly the same, only harder. He looks chiseled out of rock. And he has this intense look about his eyes, such a fierce form of something akin to what must be determination. I patted him on the back and it seemed like I was striking a spool of steel cable. He could definitely kick my ass now. Not that he couldn't before. I am frail. But at any rate, he just seems so different, but I know he is still in there, despite all the army lingo he utters like common phrases now, such as "getting smoked", "sounding off", and "ACU's". It is so strange. He seems completely like he has found his niche though, which is weird. I would just hate to see him rushed out to some foreign country though, and get in something he wasn't really ready to face.

This is my second time coming to Fort Leonardwood to see someone graduate from training. I came this time with my mom, my sister, my stepfather, and my sister's boyfriend. The drive is so long. I spent most of it blocking out country music by listening to Ryan on my headphones. We're staying in a hotel that we just learned today doubles as a whore house. Pretty funny, but not unbelievable. This morning I could not take a shower because there was no hot water. The room is an utter piece of shit. But I guess it was cheap, so there is that.

It sort of sucks being so far away from home. My grandmother has gotten progressively worse. She has gained nine pounds today due to fluid building up around her lungs and she has developed a rare and aggressive infection in her lungs, which has caused her to also have a dangerously high fever. They are probably gonna put her back in the intensive care unit. This is a lot to deal with, especially for my mom, and especially cause we can't be there. I hope she holds on. I hope she pulls through. My grandmother practically raised me when I was really young, was a huge influence on a lot of aspects of my life, and her and my grandfather have been huge role models, a living example of what can be between two people who love each other and depend on each other and lead good lives. I don't want to lose either of them yet.

I am also missing someone like crazy. God. I got it bad. My head swims and my stomach churns. I can still feel you, even so far away. Damn, Sam.....

Also, for the record, there is a hilarious billboard here across the street from some adult bookstores that reads: "Pornography pollutes the mind, body, and soul" and it has this painting of a little blonde girl holding a wilted rose. I laugh out loud every time we pass it. Don't worry, I'll take a picture.

This town we are in is called St. Robert. Also known as, the Devil's ankle sweat. As in, there is nothing here.

We come back tomorrow, my brother in tow. Hope the journey back feels shorter, like it always does.

David Hasselhoff stars in the new Anaconda film. No joke. Seriously. I am not lying. Chest exposed on the cover and all. Go rent it now.

Freeeeeeeee fallllllllllinnnnnnnnnng

2008-10-27T02:39:00.003-05:00

Hey, there, friends, neighbors, resident internet stalkers and former acquaintances of this vast circle which has become my life, I say hello, for it has been far too long since I have updated on my freaking journal. As you can tell, I am not quite dead yet, am in fact, getting better, and you there, there with the club raised, you better back the fuck up.

Lots of shit going on in the life of the skinny man, although some of it must stay underground, in the basement so to speak, most of it is quite compelling autobiographical reading.

First and foremost, I saw Ray Lamontagne in concert on the 19th. It was a great fucking show, in Nashville, at the Ryman Auditorium, and probably the last show I will see for a while. I went on quite a tirade of concert viewings this past couple months, and now must focus on saving money. Ray put on a great show, coming out for three encores, the third of which he played my favorite song "Jolene", which for various reasons, made my heart want to leap out of my chest. That whole day shall remain in my mind as one of the most perfect I have ever lived.

My heart keeps wanting to leap out of my chest a lot here lately. Maybe I should get that checked out.

In other news, my grandmother is still sick with pneumonia and in the hospital. She just can't seem to get over it. I can tell when I talk to my mom that she is really worried about her, and I am too. I went down and visited last weekend and it just hurt my heart to see her looking so frail, hooked up to oxygen, and in pain. But she definitely still had some spirit about her, so I don't think she is quite ready to give up the ghost, which is a good thing. However, they just can't seem to get her well at the fucking Leitchfield hospital. That place is run by a bunch of goddamn clowns. At any rate, I hope she pulls out of it soon. Staying in a hospital for such a long stretch can't be good for one's morale.

This week my brother comes home from the ARMY basic training. I am riding down with my mom and my sister to spend the day with him, watch him graduate, and then bring him back from Missouri. Should be a fun trip, and hopefully not too stressful.

I just went three whole days with no sleep, something I had not done since high school. I just can't get my brain to shut off lately. I lay down to sleep, and thoughts and images flash every time I close my eyes, and I end up tossing and turning the night away, looking at the clock over and over again, and hoping that my phone will ring or something. Finally, I slept last night, a good seven hours, but I can already tell that tonight doesn't look good. I have a lot on my mind.

When I dream, I only dream of you.

The Cardinals with Ryan Adams concert review

2008-10-03T03:15:00.003-05:00

Just got back from the show in Idianapolis. Let me just say, it was stellar. This was my sixth time seeing Ryan and it completely blew my mind. Despite a slight hitch thirty minutes into the show when Ryan had problems with his earphones, and they had to take a five minute break to fix the problem, they came back out and rocked for another solid two hours straight. His voice was the most powerful and pitch perfect that it has been since I have been listening to his music, and the chemistry of the band on stage was palpable, and gave me chills several times. They played several new songs, the best of which I thought was Sinking Ship, and dipped into the catalogue of classics as well, turning some favorites into wall of sound jams that accompanied by the awesome stage design and light show, really became whole new entities and took us to another universe of musical experience. Also just want to add that the version of "wonderwall" they played was fucking the best thing I have ever witnessed. Really it was quite phenomenal, they ended the night with the most awesome, jammed out version of "Easy Plateau" I have heard, taking it to a wonderful feedback euphoria that just seemed like it came from another dimension. It was definitely worth the four hour drive.

Here are the songs I can remember being played, but I cannot vouch so much for the order:

Cobwebs
Wonderwall
Goodnight Rose
Please Do Not Let Me Go
Off Broadway
Natural Ghost
Like Yesterday
Desire
I See Monsters
Sinking Ships
OMG, Whatever, ETC
The Sun Also Sets
Mockingbird
Games
Everybody Knows
Let it Ride
La Cienega
Beautiful Sorta
What Sin
Bartering Lines
Evergreen
Come Pick Me Up
Two
Rescue Blues
Stars Go Blue
Easy Plateau

I have probably forgotten a couple songs he played, so if anyone was there and can add them that would be great. It truly was the best show I have seen. Mesmerizing. And all you Neal haters are idiots. The harmonies are perfect, and every song that the Cardinals play as a band is leaps and bounds better than the original versions.

Vacation and Turning 30

2008-09-26T15:37:00.003-05:00

This week has been great. Had some down moments in it, like today, when I just felt like sleeping until I disappeared from the Earth, but I eventually forced myself to get up and face the daylight, what little of it there was left. Last night, I got obliterated early in the day at my favorite restaurant and thought that the night was going to go better than it did. But I watched the Season Premiere of Grey's and then proceeded to continue to drink until I hoped I would forget my own name. That never happened.

But let's sum up the rest of the good days of the vacation shall we? For those who did not know, I turned 30 this past week on the 21st. I tried to not get overly depressed about it, and for the most part, I have just been about as depressed as normal, so it hasn't really gotten to me. Crow Hollow Blonde made their return to the stage in Bowling Green with mixed results. We were not as rusty as we could have been, but we were not as good as we could have been either. Overall though, I was satisfied. Once again playing to a sparse crowd of friends, but that just shows that we have good friends. Then, the next day we played a wedding reception. OPEN BAR, DUDE!!! It was loads of fun and I am happy we got invited to do that. Probably the most beautiful wedding I have seen also, and I am not even a fan of weddings, but it was at night and outside under the stars, and it really moved me more than any other ceremony I have seen. Nice.

Then, on the day of my birthday, I got to go see a show at the Ryman in Nashville and eat at Joes Crab Shack for the first time. That was good food, and the show was excellent. Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley fame and Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes fame were the performers and they both put on a stunning show. I had never heard Jenny Lewis before and she just blew my mind. Conor I knew and he did not disappoint. It was a great night. My friends got me an Okkervil River cd which is a great album "the Stage Names" and a poster from the show. I wish every birthday could be so fun.

The next night, my sister and I got drunk and played guitar hero til 5 in the morning. I drank nine Miller Lites, which was just the kind of beer that Conor was drinking the night before, and I never drink that beer. Weird huh?

Later that week, I went to another show. Nick had gotten me a ticket. We went to the Ryman again and watched The Swell Season. It was one of the best shows I have seen, despite the fact that the opening act Bill Callahan sucked monkey balls. His voice was very flat and monotoned and it seemed like he just made up songs as he went. I hated him. But when Glen Hansaard and Marketa Irglova took the stage, the memory of the previous performance just vanished. These two were destined to play music together. If you have never heard of them, go out and watch the movie ONCE immediately. It was definitely a night of beautiful music. I won't forget it.

I got to go back to work tomorrow. Boo. Maybe I will be refreshed. But this week has really seemed to just breeze past, cause I have had stuff to do every day. Also, just want to say that the HEROES season premiere was stellar. Loved it.

Here is a funny story I have been meaning to put up here, one that my friend at work always likes to tell people when I am around to make fun. You see, in my line of work, we don't always catch people. We often times run across the aftermath of their deeds, like packages empty and cast under some items, or carts that have been used to conceal their actions. Well, one day, my friend and I were walking our usual route when I happened to see an abandoned cart in the mens wear section. I immediately noticed that it appeared to have been used by a thief because of the way the merchandise was stacked around the edged and the way that there was a high volume of high theft items in the top of the cart. This pissed me off because we had been walking around for hours and not seen anything. I walked up to the cart and picked up one of the items, which I think was some expensive toothbrush heads. I turned to my partner and I said, "Well, fuck, someone's been stealing!" and then I threw the item into the bottom of the basket with disgust at having missed one. At about this point, a little old lady with gray hair comes out from behind a display of pants with a concerned look on her face. With a quiet, timid voice she utters to me and him, "That's...that's my buggy." Without hesitating, I picked the item back out of the cart that I had thrown and gently set it back in the top part of the basket. "Sorry, ma'am", I somehow manage to say and then turn and start to walk off, unable to keep from smiling. My partner looks at the lady and says, "That's just what we do". He joined me, and we both erupted into laughter. Maybe you had to be there. But it really was hilarious.

Anyway. I need to shower and spill the blood of a chicken before midnight.

Shenanigans

2008-09-16T02:45:00.002-05:00

Well, I am sure everyone who ever checks this page has started to wonder by this point what the holy hell is going on with me. I can answer that with one word actually: drunk. I have been drunk more days out of the past month than I would typically think anyone would consider healthy. But I needed to get it out of my system. Maybe I was near the point of putting my head in a plastic bag after drinking a bottle of whiskey and a handful of pills. Maybe I was near the point of giving up on everything I ever dreamed. Maybe I was near the point of saying, goddamn it, I can't pick myself back up anymore, my arms are exhausted from all this fucking crawling. Or maybe, I just love to be dramatic. Who knows? But I am over it now.

This drinking binge that I went on, it sure did hamper a lot of my creative outlets. I can't write anything when I am drunk. And being hungover all the time is not a good thing for motivation. SO, I started a novel that I have not even begun to finish, and my poetry has fallen off the spectrum of consistent. But I am getting back on that wagon. Just like I plan on getting back on the health kick I started so long ago. Somehow, I allowed all my stresses to push me off focus. I was controlled by my fears. I have realized this. And I am fighting back.

In other less exciting news, the other day at work I was almost killed yet again when a dude pulled a knife on me and my supervisor. Luckily, neither of us were stabbed, but the dude fully intended on hurting us if we did not back off. I hit the son of a bitch twice in the face with my elbow to try and make him drop the knife, but he was apparently so high on whatever form of drug is popular these days, that he didn't even feel it, at which point he started screaming he was gonna cut me, and I backed off. I had to yell at my boss to let him go too, before he got hurt. Then, like a scene from a movie, the piece of shit ran and dove through an open passenger window of a car and they sped off like the fucking Dukes of Hazard. But we got the license plate, and less than twenty minutes later, the cops had the bastard. I really was not as freaked out about this chain of events as I should have been.

I cannot stop listening to the new Metallica cd. It is fucking awesome. It is like a bright shining gift from the metal gods. I needed this record. It healed something inside me.

Also, I have went to two poetry readings recently in town. Those have gone well, aside from the fact that my fucking anti-social tendencies have prevented me from meeting any of the people there really. I just listen, read, and then leave. Maybe eventually I can talk to some of those people, cause they all seem like cool chaps.

Finally, and I don't want to upset the Karmic balance or anything here, but I have been sort of talking to someone new, and she is very cool. For me, it's just great to have someone to talk to and hang out with, that feels natural. She laughs at the majority of my jokes, which is good, because I have always thought that my humor was totally under appreciated. Haha. At any rate, I am keeping my expectations at a minimum, because we all know what happens when I start to think happy thoughts.

I have yet to receive a letter from my brother. This is sad.

Chuck Norris beat the sun in a staring contest.

Punching Women

2008-07-29T05:24:00.004-05:00

I am not a violent person. That being said, yesterday, I was nearly driven to the point of madness, to the point of just snapping and punching a bitch right between the fucking eyes.

This is what happened:
The previous night, what did I notice when I went to pull my car out of the parking lot of the store I work at? That my left front tire was flat. Those of you who know me, or that read this blog, may remember that not too long ago, I had a blowout on I-65 and therefore do not currently own a spare tire. So, for a moment, I panicked. But, I went inside and bought a can of Fix-A-Flat, which did air up the tire enough that I could go home. On the way home, later, after I went to a friend's house, I stopped by the local gas station to see how much the air cost, because my tire still needed some air in it. The machine boldly stated in large block numbers "0.75".

The next day, I gathered seventy-five cents out of my change jar and I drove to the gas station on the way to meet my friend for a trip to the gym. I was already running late, having slept much longer than I expected. I put the money into the machine, and nothing happened. I pressed the button several times, and yeah, it was apparently out of order. I was like, well, this sucks, but surely they will give me my money back, because they must not know it is broken.

So, I went inside. I told the first attendent that I saw, a grizzled looking man with gray hair and a mustache. He seemed a little bit slow, like he had a learning disability or like he had an addiction to pain medication. I said to him, "Yeah, I just tried to use your air machine out there." His response was, "Oh, that thing is broke." So I said, "Yeah, I figured that out. So, I guess I need a refund."

The dude actually started to act like he was going to open his drawer, then paused, with a confused look on his face and he was like, "Wait" and he turned to the next attendant, a short, chubby pale woman, with a lot of freckles and curly, greasy hair that was pulled back in a pony tail, and he asked her, "Can I give him his money for the air?" She said, "Oh, no, we can't do anything about that, sir. That is not our machine."

So, the gentleman, just dropped his arms to his sides and walked off with his head down, while I stared dumbfounded at this mouth breathing sack of under arm sweat. I said, "What do you mean? It's on your property." She said, "Yeah, but we don't own it, you have to call a number on the side and they can give you your money back."

I went outside and looked at the number on the machine. It said for service/repair. This was not going to help me, and I did not want to have to drive all the way back to the apartment to get 75 more cents. So, I went back to the attendant. I said, "Yeah, the number on that thing is for repairs, not customer service. You will need to give me the refund. You can just make a note and put it in the drawer, the vendor will repay you all. Trust me, I work at a place and deal with vendors all the time, I know how it works." She said, "No, my manager won't let me, my drawer will come up short." So, I said, "Ok, let me talk to your manager then." She said, "He is not here and won't be here til four in the morning." So, I said, "Let me get this straight. You are left here in charge, but you don't have the authority to make your own decisions?" She shook her head. "Look", I said, "just give me the 75 cents. I am just gonna go to the next freaking gas station and use the same freaking machine. It is only 75 cents, I don't see what the big deal is. If you knew the thing was broken you should have had a sign on it." And she says, "Yeah, I have been telling him to put a sign on it, but if its only 75 cents, then why are you making a big deal?"

So, I just stormed out and screamed, "FUCKING GO TO HELL BITCH!"

Oh. Your. God. I was so pissed off. I just wanted to kill penguins, or fat bitches. I could see the look in her face that just said she didn't care and was enjoying watching me get upset. I could have killed her. I swear. I drove home, got 75 more cents, and drove up the street to the next gas station. Low and behold, they had an air pump. And it was free. I filled my tire. I drove to my friend's place. Seventy-five cents is still resting in my cup holder.

In other news, my grandmother fell and broke her hip today. Also, I guess I reinjured my back. I went to work and took a pain pill. Later that day, I had to wrestle a 300 pound woman to the ground that tried to fight me. I also played a game of poker. I am still awake and it is six in the morning. My life is freaking amazing.

Balls.

Spelunking

2008-07-21T01:53:00.003-05:00

So, yesterday I went on a wild cave tour in Mammoth Cave National Park. This is where you get a "true caving" experience. You get a miner's style hard hat, some knee pads, and a guide, and then you go into the parts of the cave that most people don't get to see on the standard walking tours. Oh, the fun to be had when you are squeezed into a crevice of limestone about twelve inches wide, crawling like a snake. It actually was a good time, but also the most physically challenging six hours of my life. Humans walk upright for a reason. Having to crawl for twenty minutes really strains the old neck muscles. Also, squeezing your body through a hole in the rock about the size of a large watermelon puts a lot of strain on the shoulders. There were some interesting sights to behold. And the tour guides took us through two sections that they technically were not allowed to, but because my friend was like, "give us the most challenging tour possible", they went for it because we seemed extra adventurous. So, on one leg of our journey, we travelled through a section that had not been cleaned up at all, having to navigate over several fallen rock piles, trecherous footing, and through knee-deep water, which was ice cold. Then, at another spot, we had to shimmy down a pipe of rock, where there was a thirty foot drop, and we had to maintain three points of contact at all times. At some points, I was like, holy shit, I can't believe I am doing this, I could literally fall to my death. But it was cool as hell. On the last leg of the journey though, when we were having to climb back up towards the top of the cave, carefully navigating up through the maze of rock upon rock, it required a lot of upper body strength to continually pull myself up and up, and my body was already so exhausted, my arms and legs were literally trembling and on the brink of giving out, which would have been bad. But I made it out alive, albeit beat all to hell. I feel like I was beat with a baseball bat. Good times.

This weekend I watched The Dark Knight two times. It was well worth the wait, and far surpassed all the hype that had been built around it. I was just revisiting Batman Begins, and The Dark Knight somehow adds to the legacy of that film, it is actually better than I remember because I have seen how the characters grow in the next installment. This is a testament to the genius of Christopher Nolan. I hope he makes the third one as well, although there is no way he can top Dark Knight. That movie is the best film I have seen in probably five years or more. Truly amazing.

I officially give up on relationships. I am convinced I will never meet someone. This is a little depressing, but I am getting used to the idea. At least this way, I only have to spend money on myself. Look at the bright side right?

We are destined to play this game forever.

Californication

2008-07-15T03:22:00.001-05:00

Why is it so sad that I can relate to a piece of fiction better than I can relate to my own fucking life. Art imitates life, correct, so this beautiful piece of poignant work had to come from someone's life experience or someone's dreams that may yet pour some more hope into this sorry human's heart. As it is said in this show, after happy endings stop showing up for so long, you just have to eventually say "fuck you", but when you really let it all go, sometimes what you've been looking for comes back to find you. I really hope so. For you people out there who have not yet witnessed the brilliance and the beauty that is to be witnessed with the greatest season of television programming to ever grace a television set, I invite you to please partake. I am going back for a second helping. Maybe if I watch it enough times, I will find the hope in the fiction that will prolong my eventual suicide and actually find the gumption to do something productive with this fucked up existence. Thanks for reading. Sheep.

FCK

2008-07-13T00:41:00.003-05:00

No sleep last night.

Went to a wedding today. Had some fun.
Probably saw my brother for the last time
for over three months.

Got some new poetry up. Please read it and let me know what you think.

Take back that fucking remark about my fucking cunt kids!!

Quick hits

2008-07-07T16:32:00.003-05:00

First, how cool is it that Al Franken is running for the Senate in Minnesota? I think it is very cool.

Second, I was going to go back to the doctor today, but sometime between last night and today, my back stopped hurting so much. Weird. I mean, it still hurts, but its not killing me. Another weird thing is that my hands go numb when I am reading a book, or if I just have my elbows bent for any reason. This doesn't strike me as normal and I wonder if it is connected to the nerve that may or may not be pinched in my back.

Why is it if you have 190 sick hours saved, that after you use 32 of them, they tell you you have to take a leave of absence at this place I work?? Doesn't make sense to me. Further more, I have short term disability insurance, and I have to be off work for 14 days and still be an active employee for the benefits to start coming in, so if they force me to take a leave after only five days, then I am not active, and the benefits are nullified. Shouldn't this be against the law? So, because of this, I went in and worked last night, still in pain, and on pain medication. The whole situation reeks of illegal. But what do I know.

I may have written my most self-deprecatory poem to date today.

I may see the movie Wanted tonight.

Chicken biscuits.

Explosions galore

2008-07-04T23:13:00.002-05:00

So, it is the fourth of July. Happy birthday to a good friend of mine, Jeremy Logsdon, whom I didn't get the opportunity to call, cause I have been passed out on pain medication most of the day. Seems like when doctors are not really certain what is the problem with you, they take an educated guess at the problem, and then throw lots of pills at the problem to help you deal with pain, thinking that it will probably go away on its own before the meds run out, and then it will look like they knew what they were doing. At least I found it it was not my kidney that was bothering me, which was a huge relief. But apparently, I either have a pulled muscle in my back, or a slipped disc/pinched nerve. Whatever it is, it was the absolute worst yesterday when I went to pick up my prescriptions. Just walking around on the hard floor in Wal Mart, my back would sort of spasm every minute or so and send sharp pain down through my hip and all my lower back muscles on the right side would tense up and make me grimace in pain. Not fun. So, for the last two days, I have been drugged up and resting on a heating pad. The pain has obviously eased, and that is good. I will probably take on emore day off from work, and then try to make it back. I was lucky to get this injury flare up during a holiday week, so I really didn't lose that many hours. But I can't really lose a lot of time next week, so I hope it goes away, or that at least I can deal with it, cause I would hate to have to work while on this medication. It really spaces me out.

Outside, all these kids are apparently trying to kill each other with fireworks. It really sounds like a fucking warzone outside. People screaming. Things exploding that sound like grenades or machine gun blasts. Shouting commands and groans. The fourth of July: the only time we commemorate our independence, by reenacting war. So much fun to watch things blow up.

I have not written a review of it yet, but the film In Bruges is freaking amazing. And yesterday I also watched the animated French film Persepolis, which I also loved. Oh, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a masterpiece too. See all those, but first watch In Bruges, that movie is in my top ten right now. I loved it.

A note about prescription drugs: I was looking through the warnings for side effects and what not for each medication, because I am kind of a spaz about stuff like that, and one of the meds, the anti-inflammation pill, has some really scary precautions with it. It says, EXTREME chance of increasing stroke, heart failure, etc. and to only take the pill for the shortest time necessary and in the smallest dose. It says if you have sudden shortness of breath, sudden intense headache, or a sudden feeling of IMPENDING DOOM, to seek medical attention immediately. I was like What the Fuck? All these serious warnings, and this doctor apparently has no qualms about asking me to put this shit into my body. Well, I am not a doctor, but it just seems like if it were that dangerous to take a fucking pill, they should not be allowed to give it to people. But what do I know.

All right, I think my latest dose has started to set it. My face is feeling rather tingly. Ok, gonna pass out again now.

If you were a Care Bear, what would your name be??

What is crappening

2008-06-30T20:34:00.002-05:00

Hello and welcome to another addition of the low and the downtrodden. I am your host, the man with no smile, and as always we will begin on a somber note. My kidney is killing me! It started a few days ago, and I realized that I had been getting back into my old habits of drinking Mountain Dew for every meal, so I stopped drinking Mt. Dew completely, and went to only water. I also, drank a little bit of cranberry juice. It seemed to go away. Then, last night, after the gym, I drank a 20 oz bottle of Gatorade. Oh, that sent my kidney into spasms of pain. It has been hurting ever since. Sheesh, I can hardly move around. I called in to work today. I have just been lying around and drinking water and cranberry juice. The pain has eased a little, but last night, it was so bad I did not sleep at all. Why do I deserve such things? I am a good person damn it.

Also, I have floundered about in the dating pool and nearly drowned. I don't get people. I guess I never will. I met this really nice girl at a party the other night. We talked. She seemed cool as hell. I got her number and asked her if she wanted to go see a movie Sunday. She said sure, we could do that. Then, she vanished, but it was a party, and I had her number. So, Saturday, I called to verify the plans, and got the dreaded voicemail. I left a message, which was never returned. What the fuck? Why would you tell someone you would do something, and give them your number, when you actually have no plans in doing anything with them?? This is very frustrating. After asking a couple other people to go, with no result as well, I just gave up on the idea. My friend Kenny went with me. The movie was WALL-E and it is a brilliant film. I wrote a review which is posted on the reviews page. Enjoy! But I just don't get it. I am a nice person. I am not hideous. I just never seem to meet the right people. Maybe I am just too open and honest a person, and this comes across as being naive or overly earnest. I don't know. Fuck it.

Crow Hollow Blonde has a chance to play at this year's Revfest. It is a concert that occurs every year on Western's Campus. If you get a chance and have a myspace account please go to this website:

http://www.myspace.com/localshots

and cast a vote for our band. We would really appreciate it, we have never played for more than a 100 people, and this thing usually has fairly large crowds, with maybe more than 1000 people gathered to watch the shows. Yeah, that would rule. All right then, that is all for now.

I have perfected the art of screaming like a cat in a toaster.

Soapbox High horse and or valium prescription

2008-06-11T12:50:00.002-05:00

So, just so every body is on the same page here, the new Coldplay album is a freaking masterpiece. I cannot stop listening to it. I got a leaked copy, cause I am never one to like to wait for band's new material, and since, I have not taken it out of the cd player. It is phenomenal, such a gorgeous multilayered canvas of sound that builds a canopy in the mind, it is an experience, always keeping you interested. The songs flow seemlessly into one another. The production is beautiful. This really is a great work of art for this age of music. Not only that, but the melodies and songs are very well arranged and orchestrated. They get stuck in your head for days, and you will find yourself singing them all the time to yourself, especially song number 4, "42". So, when this album comes out later this month, do yourself a huge favor and pick it up. I think it definitely legitimizes all the early praise Coldplay received, although I have always really liked them, and thought the critics were way too harsh on X and Y. This really is the first must-have record for the year in my opinion, although the new My Morning Jacket definitely comes close. At any rate, buy it, if you can. You won't regret it.

I was going to take a moment here and hound music critics for a moment. Why, when a band reaches a certain level of celebrity, does their celebrity status have to impose itself on the music they make?? Why, for instance, whenever I read a Ryan Adams review, in the midst of learning about the album, does the critic have to wax philosophical on the state of the artist's life, talking about his crazy stage antics or whichever celebrity he happens to be dating at the time, as if this holds some sort of sway over how good the actual music happens to be. This really pisses me off. It is like certain critics will hate on perfectly good music just because they disagree with things artists do in their personal lives, because they hold the artform on some sort of pedestal and can't imagine liking music made by an eccentric asshole. Well, here is a clue, artists are people too. Some are crazy, some are lazy, and some like to have lives outside their profession. So what if you disagree with what color their hair is, or how many celebrities they have fucked, or you think that fame is infringing on their integrity. First of all, you don't actually know these people. The music is the only conduit you have to gaining any insight, and I am certainly not going to wax philisophic on the status of Dali's love life just by the brush strokes he used to paint "The Persistence of Memory". In the grand scheme your opinion will have no impact on the band's audience, so why can't you just stop being a personality snob, and focus on the MUSIC for a change, which is what really matters. I can see the reviews now on the new Coldplay cd, "How does Chris Martin write such sad lyrics when he gets to have sex with Gwenyth Paltrow every day?" Whatever, man. Get a fucking life. Music is art. Critics just write words about art, and they should be glad people actually care what they say. I do try to criticize art, this is true, but my opinion is always just about what I see or hear, not what I think may have been going on in the bedrooms of the artists.

Now, to rant about something completely unrelated. Has anyone else heard this about how Tennessee lawmakers, yes I said TENNESSEE, so maybe this isn't so surprising, but it still made me want to hurl, are trying to pass a law where the King James Bible has to be taught to kids in public schools??? Ok, first of all, there is no way this law will ever pass, but to even try is absurd. Even more absurd is the basis on which they are trying to base the law, saying that the Bible is essential for a child's understanding of historic art and architecture because so much art is religiously inspired from the early eras. Ok, this agenda is so transparent hopefully you can see through it without putting on your glasses in the morning. Seriously, this is bullshit. Such an obvious way for the religious right to try and gain another foothold in the school system. Since prayer is not allowed in school, well, let's have a Bible study. Give me a fucking break. How can you possibly try to legitimize the King James Bible as HISTORIC text?? At the most, it is an important piece of LITERATURE, but it is RELIGIOUS LITERATURE, which belongs where it is at, in RELIGIOUS STUDIES, on COLLEGE CAMPUSES, where students are old enough to be able to decide for themselves whether to take what they read with a grain of salt or not. To try and indoctrinate children through the school system is such a Nazi tactic it makes me sick. To try such a sly tactic as to say it is historically relevant is laughable to any one with a brain. Sure, religion had a huge impact on historic art, and lots of art of the past had religious icons used in it. There, I summed up the relevance of the Bible to art in one sentence. There is no need to study it to gain further insight. Besides, it isn't like people can go through existence and not know who Jesus was supposed to be in this day and age. Hell, Christianity has this world in a stranglehold and it will never let go of it. But when I see things like this trying to be implemented in our society, it really shows me how far we have yet to come to really be taking steps forward and leaving mythology behind. Someday, maybe, if the human race lives long enough, Christianity may be studied in history the same way we study the religions of past civilizations like the Greeks and the Egyptians.

For the love of Greg Gumble, I hate people!!

Empty Dance Floors and Reverb

2008-06-08T17:58:00.002-05:00

I just ate a whole pizza. Granted, it was a small size one, but still, that was a lot of food. Don't judge my gluttony, I had not eaten all day. I needed the calories.

There are a lot of books on my shelf that I have not read. Maybe I will never get around to reading them. There never seems to be enough time in the day to do everything I would like, mostly cause, I sleep the majority of the day away when I have the day off, and that is because I never seem to be able to fall asleep at a decent hour. The other night, I knew I had to be up early to go to the gym. I went to bed at midnight, but I did not fall asleep til eleven thirty that morning. I skipped the gym trip. The next day, I had to be up by 5:30, so I went to bed early again. And even as exhausted as I was, I did not fall asleep til 3:30 in the morning. I don't know what is wrong with my brain.

Crow Hollow Blonde played their first show in over a month last night. It was in Glasgow at this new place called The Venue. We played with Chest Rockwell again. Black MArket Peepshow was supposed to be there as well, but they did not show up for whatever reason. Neither did a crowd of any kind. There were maybe eight people there, intermittently. The most I noticed at one time were three. So, were on this decent sized stage, playing to a huge empty dance hall. It was kind of demoralizing. But we needed the practice. I really enjoyed Chest Rockwell's new songs. I really dig the direction their music is going in. Can't wait to hear the next album.

Afterwards, I went to Matt's new place and drink some beer with him and his roommates. Played some pool. Listened to some Metallica. Good times. And I watched my alcohol intake very well, thank you very much. I may not be an alcoholic after all. I mean, I got a little drunk, but once I started drinking, I did not just go hog wild like I thought I might. I held myself in check, and quit drinking like two hours before I left so I would have no worries. It was a good time.

Well, I watched the new Rambo movie today. The actual movie is only an hour and twelve minutes long. That is really short. But the movie was actually pretty damn good. You know, it's Rambo. It was at least better than part three. I enjoyed it. Some nice people exploding effects.

All right. Time to go take out the garbage.....FOR SPARTA!!

Rantings

2008-06-06T12:11:00.002-05:00

Outside the sun is no doubt shining, dousing the globe in its vitamin rich light, making it insufferably hot and humid as a freaking rain forest. Gotta love Kentucky weather. It will probably storm tonight. I had another tornado nightmare last night. Of all the nightmares I have, that is the most reoccurring. It is the utter feeling of helplessness that causes it I think, cause in that situation, there is not a lot you can do, but grab onto something and hold on for dear life. Maybe that is a metaphor for what I seem to be doing a lot lately. But in my dreams, it is either that, or I have nightmares about being killed by someone. Yep. I am a weirdo.

I can hear the gas motors of the weedeaters running. But I can't smell the grass. All I smell is the filtered cool air pumping into my room through the vents in the floor, and occassionally my breath, which smells awful. I need to brush my teeth. I remember when I used to have to mow the yard at home every week. At the trailer we lived in on Crow Hollow Rd, the yard was HUGE. We had a small front yard, the back yard was probably half the size of a football field, and there was this side yard that was almost as big, the side yard was where friends of mine and I would play tackle football games, so you can see how big it was. At the bottom base of the back yard, we had like six apple trees, but we never picked the apples for anything, so they just fell on the ground and gathered in piles of rotting acrid sweetness, which gathered hornets to the area, so mowing around that was kind of treacherous. Not only that, but periodically, I had to actually rake all of these rotting apples to the bottom of the hill. We only had a pushmower. So, usually Friday or Saturday afternoons, I would have to spend around four hours mowing this monstrosity. It was hard work. I generally would mow without a shirt, letting the sun just bake the hell out of my skin, slick with sweat and dappled with little specks of shredded grass. I used the same shoes over and over for this job, and they became stained green and torn, a testament to the task, but at the end of the day, sitting on the back deck, sipping a glass of coke or iced tea, my stepdad and I would survey the yard, with its freshly defined lines of mowed symmetry, and watching the sun fall behind the tops of the trees, listening to the locusts start to whir, feeling the air start to cool on the back of my neck, he would say it looked good, and that was all that mattered to me.

the sound a dying rabbit makes

2008-06-06T04:15:00.003-05:00

So, I have decided that every new blog entry I put on this thing, I am going to start out by trying to free write a paragraph or two, cause I did that on the last entry and it seemed to go fairly well. Here goes:

I find myself thinking about death a lot lately, maybe I am suicidal. I just wonder daily what is finally going to push me over the edge, what is going to be the proverbial final straw that just makes me think I can't take this shit anymore. Maybe that straw will never come. Maybe it will happen tomorrow. Maybe I will get hit my a bus in the meantime while I am thinking about it. Maybe my kidneys will shut down. Maybe I will eat too much cookie dough and my stomach will explode. Maybe I should not have a gun.

Tonight, it was so beautiful, and yet so hot in my friend's apartment, he actually set up a television and a futon outside in the cool night air. It was neat. At one point we went and sat in a small partially enclosed area, beneath a tree, lit by a streetlamp. The atmosphere in this pseudo grove, the contrast of the fluorescent light with the greenery reminds me sooooo much of the final scene of E.T.. I rediscovered the joy of making pistols out of weeds, firing the blossoms like missiles at the enemy.

I have made too many mistakes in my life. I have dug myself into a grave that I doubt I can ever get out of. I am going to work at this fucking retail store my entire life. I spent the other night talking with my mother about some people and just how worthless they are, and about midway through that conversation, I got really depressed, because I could not see how I was any better than the people I was criticizing. My contribution to this planet at this point has been nothing so far.

Wow, I am really depressed.

Anyway, the movie The Strangers is excellent. Very well made horror film. They make too few good scary movies any more. This one, had me terrified. Had to watch the Beastmaster when I got home to clear my mind, and I still had trouble sleeping.

I have to mention that tonight at work, the most strange and surreal and somehow hilarious thing happened to me. I was watching this man, that I thought was trying to steal something, well, actually, he was stealing something, I just didn't know what the hell it was, and I walked around the corner into a bra aisle, and when I did, I ran right into this short, old, toothless woman. Her face reminded me of how witches are always depicted in fantasy films. At any rate, when I walked around the corner, she was in the process of trying to shove an entire handful of bathing suits into her purse. Her hand was raised with the bathing suits clutched in it, and her other hand was holding the purse open. As soon as she saw me, she dropped the suits into the cart, and, this is not an exaggeration in the slightest, she started screaming in this weird, animal like voice. It sounded just like either a rat or a rabbit trapped in a beartrap. It was so freaking weird. I was just like, What the fuck????, and I kept walking. It turned out, that she was with the first dude I was watching, but he got away, and then this lady proceeded to follow me around and yell at me. She called me a four-eyed monkey and told someone that she was going to kick me in the balls. Every time I think of the way she screamed when I ran into her, it makes me laugh, and then shiver. It was just so freaking bizarre. I will never forget it.

That is all for now.

I'm Not There

2008-05-26T01:35:00.002-05:00

So, life is an ever changing myriad of contrasts. You get beat down by things, you get picked up by things, you lose hope, you gain hope, you make decisions, you get pushed around like a piece of plastic on a boardgame.

Why are memories so important to us? They are reference points that build the layers of our consciousness. Our identity. What makes us, us. Every part of what you are today, was somehow influenced by things that occurred deep in your past, some of which you may not even remember completely, but it is left in your brain like a water mark on a coffee table. When something new happens that changes you, you feel it. It makes its mark and some memories get shuffled around to form this new identity. But you are still a mosaic. You can't ever disassociate yourself from your own past, no matter how hard you try.

I am a nostalgia addict. Because I recognize the glory of innocence lost, the gloss of seeing the world with fresh eyes, the creative spark in me is flickering out, and I don't know why.

I watched a great movie tonight. I'm Not There is a miracle of modern cinema. It is about Bob Dylan, but told in a way that is more expressive than pure biography. It is art manifested through images and symbolism, an interpretational film in which the atmosphere and emotion of the moment tell the story in a somehow more pure form than just words ever could. The film shows us six different aspects of Dylan's persona and uses six different actors. The way it is edited is pure genius. I was so moved by this picture. Dylan's music has been and is such an influence on my life anyway, and it is weird to idolize him because what he does is so easy to him that he feels like he should not be put on a pedestal, but he is such a conduit for truth and his words penetrate straight through all the bullshit of this world. The movie feels like that too. It shows us a complex maze of the mind of a man who may never be understood, and maybe doesn't want to be, because he understands that his life should be his own. But, this movie had a huge impact on me. I felt so insignificant after watching it, and yet thankful to be a part of a greater whole in the universe. It made my mind try to grasp out at the intangible part of my creative self and give it a good shake. Made me realize that I have not been working hard enough to pave my own way in this world. I just feel that, in my creative arena, my accomplishments thus far have amounted to nothing, and maybe because I am not good enough, or maybe cause I don't push myself enough. At any rate, all great works of art should on some level make you want to try harder to make something great yourself, and I feel I have yet to make something truly great. Maybe I never will.

Sense of humor?

2008-05-24T01:52:00.002-05:00

So, today, I was at the Hot Topic and was standing in the checkout line with a friend of mine. There was this crazy, over the top, hardcore metal music playing, you know the type, where the lyrics are just screamed through vocal cords that have been shredded long ago, and the guitars are just being beaten with hammers while the drummer kicks the double bass like he is having a seizure. Anyway, I thought it was excessive, so I turned to my friend and I said, "You know, this music really makes me wanna go out and start punching babies." He laughed, said something to the effect of what the heck. And I was like, "Seriously, listen to this music, I want to punch babies now." The girl in line ahead of me, already at the counter making a purchase turns around with this look of horror on her face and she says, "You shouldn't say things like that! I am pregnant!" Then there was this awkward silence. I was like, "Oh, sorry, I was really just kind of quoting Dane Cook." She didn't say anything, and she walked off. The girl at the counter was like, "Well that was awkward." And she laughed. I laughed too. I almost laughed at the girl. I should have been like, "No worries, I said babies, not fetuses." But she probably wouldn't have thought that was funny either. I bought a kick ass shirt that was on clearance. The End

I fucking HATE George Lucas

2008-05-23T01:15:00.002-05:00

Well, I guess it would have been too much to ask from George Lucas for him to deliver me a movie that would at least sort of maybe kind of made me feel like a kid again. Instead, like Harrison Ford in the new Indiana Jones film, it just made me feel old. Because this new movie lacks what the other three films had going for them: magic.

Replaced in this new age with green screen, CGI, artificial gloss, it shows once and for all, that old-fashioned story-telling and genuine empathy for the characters on the screen overpowers visual spectacle any day of the week.

When you watch Raiders, Temple, or Crusade, each being a flawed but somehow sure-hearted film, what you are seeing is a group of artists at the peak of their powers, churning out action sequences and charismatic thrills at whim. Every freaking shot of these movies has a gritty purity, a tone of earthen mystique, a swagger, a sense of effortless greatness.

In the new one, maybe the filmmakers feel a little bit of the pressure of their own legend. Everything seems forced and contrived. Even Harrison Ford seems awkward in the role most of the time, and I don't understand how I am the only person who has noticed this, most critics are just praising him left and right, but he delivers so many lines stiffly, it is ridiculous, but I think I put most of the blame on the director and the writer and producer.

George Lucas, why can't you just be satisfied with having made some of the most memorable movies of all time? Why do you feel the need to try and recapture that glory? You are just tarnishing your name. If you were truly wanting to build on your legacy, how hard is it to fucking MAKE SOMETHING NEW!!?? You already created two of the world's most reknowned movie worlds. And then you made crappy imitations of these worlds. For what? For money?? You are a fucking BILLIONAIRE. Either come up with something new, or just retire. I don't know if there is anything else you can possible ruin from my childhood, but as of this moment, I don't care. I hate you.

Nineteen years we waited for this movie, for another Indiana Jones movie. We really didn't even need it. The story seemed complete. At the end of Crusade, they rode off into the sunset. But Lucas had to resurrect his franchise for another paycheck. You would think that with that much time passing, they could come up with a good story. No. Instead, we get a string of chase sequences strung together with a very obvious plot involving Russians, area 51, and (ahem) space aliens. There are moments when the film works. But it never generates that feeling of tension, that feeling of holy crap what is going to happen next, how are they going to get out of this. It is just one thing after the other until the end, including some scenes so ridiculous that you just have to shake your head in wonder, like two people sword fighting on the backs of speeding jeeps, and then Indy's son swinging on vines like Tarzan with a whole lot of monkeys. It is a visual spectacle, but at the film's climax, it all seems pointless. There is no goosebump moment, no uplifting sense of transcendence, no edge of the seat eyes wide with amazement, no matter how many times they replay the theme song.

So, all in all, it was just ok. But if I am going to be completely honest, I hated it. This should be a lesson to Spielberg and Lucas. You can't dress a dud up in the clothes of a blockbuster and expect it to be the same. I hope they are ashamed of themselves. I hope the movie flops after the opening weekend.

ALIENS!!!!???????? WHAT THE FUCK?? GIVE ME A BREAK. This movie sucked.

As a side note, Nick wanted to add, why did Henry Jones die? Didn't he drink from the cup of eternal life? He thought this was a major plot hole in the continuity between the films.

Dum da dum dum, dum da dum

2008-05-22T00:10:00.002-05:00

Well, haven't been able to keep posting on this damn thing like I mean to, I just keep putting it off. But, for those of you who may have been worried, I do not have skin cancer. Turns out, I have a mild form of psoriasis that apparently was worsened by the fact that I kept digging at it, but damn it, it itched, so what you gonna do? I got some prescriptions and it seems to be goin away, so that is something right?

I have decided I am cutting my hair. As much as I hate to, it must be done.

I joined a gym this past week. Have worked out three days this week and started drinking protein shakes again. Trying real hard this time to get healthy and stay healthy and to pack on some actual weight onto my wirey frame. One week and all is well. The first two days after the initial workout were a real bitch though, I was so sore I could barely function.

I am super excited about the new Indiana Jones flick. I watched the originals this week and damn, those movies are so freaking great. This one better live up to my expectations, or I will burn Lucas Ranch to the ground.

I finished the Poem a Day challenge for April. That was a blast. Can't wait to do it again next year.

Turns out that the hospital bill I ranted about before on here did not accept the 600 dollars I gave them as a settlement back in 2006. Instead, they never even told the lawyer that was handling the collection that I made a payment and this past week they started garnishing my wages. They took 200 bucks from me. I live paycheck to paycheck understand, so this was not something I could take lightly. I called and they stopped garnishing my check. But I still have to pay them 50 bucks a month til the debt is paid. This sucks. I am already broke as it is. Oh, well. I have to learn to pinch pennies I guess.

Crow Hollow Blonde has a show coming up on the 7th of June in Glasgow and we are playing with some other cool bands. We will be debuting another new song. Coolness. We worked on a new song tonight too, and it is going to be sweet.

Obama lost in the KY primary, which is sad, but hey, at least I voted. I hate this state.

Well, that is all for now. More at a later date.

I have never been desperate enough to fuck a vegetable, let alone a tomato, I just don't find them attractive at all.

IS there a Doctor in the house?

2008-05-14T13:10:00.002-05:00

What a life this is that I lead. Yesterday, I got the staples taken out of my scalp. It did not hurt, and there were only three left, as the previous night, I was just playing with them and one fell out. Glad that the nurse who put them in wasn't there, or she would have been like, "Oh, that wasn't in there good at all" and got out the staple gun again to redo it, which she did like five times initially anyway, damn sadist. The doctor that took the staples out looked like he stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting, and also a little bit like a PBS actor from the seventies. He told me that my headaches should go away after a few weeks, but they may never go away. They should not get worse though, if they do it is a sign of something serious. Oh, this is so comforting for me, considering how much I stress over the smallest shit anyway. I have a headache that may NEVER go away?? What the fuck.

Today, I go to the dermatologist. I finally get to find out if this shit on my neck is skin cancer. Wish me luck I guess.

Oh, another funny aside about being in the waiting room yesterday, is that one of the worst shoplifters I ever caught was in the waiting room with me. This woman with dark hair except for the swath on the top of her head that was dyed bleach blonde. We called her "skunkhead" at work. It took forever to finally get her because she was so skilled at being a thief. When I finally caught her, it felt like a moment of obscene triumph. And here she was, in the waiting room at Corpcare with me. Very awkward for her I would guess, and she was getting stitches because she had cut her finger open at her job, which ironically was at a beauty salon. I could see her watching me out of the corner of her eye, but she never actually turned to acknowledge me. I thought it was funny. It is quite rare for me to run into people I have caught in public. Praise Joe Pesci for that.

That was almost as awkward as running into the cop that arrested me at work. He had this look on his face that seemed scared that I was going to hate him forever or something. Some kind of guarded prideful fear, like he respected me and regretted what he felt he had to do or something. At any rate, I am not one to hold a grudge even if I disagree with the motive, so I just nodded at him like always and kept going. Fuck carrying a chip on my shoulder, I have done that enough in my life.

The friend that argued with me that fateful night actually apologized last night as well. So we are square again. I was not expecting that at all. It was a nice surprise. Maybe I was wrong, maybe he is glad to be my friend after all. So, that is another awkwardness that resolved itself nicely.

I gotta get in the shower now. I am such a slacker.

If John Travolta ever asked me to dance, I would say yes, then kick him in the balls.

Worst week ever?

2008-05-12T02:15:00.002-05:00

Karma just gave me a steamy hot karl and I had to sit there and take it like a man.

That's right, I am going to go out on a limb and say that this past week was without a doubt the worst in my life thus far.

First of all, Saturday. The day started off bad for me, I had to wake up to find out that plans I had made were cancelled, but this was ok, just put me in a sort of disappointed bad mood I suppose. I realize on the way to work that this is derby day, and how much this really has nothing to do with my life. As many of you may or may not have realized, and I say "many" completely with the sarcasm one might expect from me, since I know that this blog might be read by two people regularly, at any rate, I work as security for a retail store, the undercover type, as in, I walk around all day and appear to e shopping, when in fact, my motives are more diabolical in that I look for shoplifters. Ok, so, on this day, I followed a shoplifter that appeared to be a woman that attempted to steal a bunch of undergarments concealed into a purse. This person, when I approached at the door, decided they want to run, so I had to try and grab them. We went out into the parkign lot a ways, it was the third time that we grappled that I realized this person was a man. Maybe it was this surprise that lead me to be distracted or maybe it was just luck, but we spun in a circle and he let go of me, in which case I flew back, tripped over my feet and smacked my head straight onto the blacktop. I was in immense pain, and all the buttons on my shirt had ripped open, so I was thrashing on the pavement, bare chest shining like a beacon of white frog belly to the slack jawed public. I clung to consciousness by a thin thread, and knew that I had a concussion. My scalp was bleeding, as were my elbows. I had to take an ambulance to the hospital and undergo a series of tests and a CT scan. The cops got the guy thanks to a helpful passerby that got the license plate of the car. SO, that worked out, but I ended up with a mild concussion and four staples in my head to boot. This could have all been avoided if I had not underestimated the dude, and if the person who was supposed to back me up had actaully backed me up instead of standing back to watch the outcome like a helpless mime. This is the problem of training for situations like this. If these people are supposed to help me in situations such as this, then they should be prepared to do so instead of standing like a statue when situations occur. I mean, no matter what restrictions are applied to this postition, every time a stop is made, there is the potential for a dangerous chain of events, so the people in the store that are authorized to assisst in apprehensions, should have all the training they need to do just that, and have no fear for their own employment because of it. The problem is that every time something like this happens the blame is automatically placed on the person that gets hurt, rather than the fault in the system that expects shoplifters to be stopped, but to always be stopped according to a perfect little checklist in a computer. Nothing ever goes as planned. This is the rule of life. A person's well being and health should always be more impartant than a profit margin, especially when they have repeatedly proven themself to be a loyal employee, and devoted to the cause. But what do I know.

That was an unexpected tangent.

In other news, since then, I have had a slight headache every day. Have been taking Aleve. I never have had headaches repeatedly before. This concerns me a bit.

Then, later that week, I got arrested for public intoxication. I was totally in the wrong place at the wrong time. I had been drinking at a friends house. I got mad and decided I was leaving. I started to drive. My good friend convinced me not to, and we sitting in my car talking when a cop drove by and decided to investigate the scene. By this point, honestly, the situation was well under control, and we were about to go back to his apartment and chill out. We were literally fifty feet from his doorway. But the cop would not listen to me and arrested me for public intoxication. A 200 dollar fine. I had to spend the night in the drunk tank. I had to be processed at the jail, got fingerprinted, got mugshotted, got patted down. I did not sleep. I sat on the cold concrete all night, while four people who were much more drunk than I just slept passed out on the floor. Two people there had quite serious charges filed against them. One dude was so stoned on Lortabs that he actually talked to himself and shadow boxed for a while. Then when he sobered up a bit, he said he couldnt wait to get home and take some more Lortabs and go to sleep. This man owned a construction company which made me feel real safe about buying a new home let me tell you. At any rate, my good friend was waiting for me when I got released and we went to the Hardees for breakfast. What a life experience. However, one person that I thought was my friend, the person that I argued with and inherently caused the whole unforunate chain of events, I have written off as a lost cause and apparently someone that was never really my friend to begin with. Oh, well, that is life, you learn as you go who you can really trust and who only lives to get inside walls so they can get closer to stab you in the back.

To top it all off, plans I had for the following weekend were cancelled too, but it was mother's day, so there was that. I had to once again avoid my mother requesting me to go to church. Apparently, that whole conversation in which I told my mother about my personal beliefs never took place, or she blocked it from her memory. At any rate, every time she asks me that, I feel like she is just ignoring how I feel and trying to force her beliefs back on me, when she knows that I don't want that. Oh, well.

So, hopefully, this week has just been a weird breakdown in the Karmic flow of my life and things will get back on track. Wish me the best in that regard.

I cleaned my room.

Now, I know why Michael Jackson loves to climb trees.

Vote for me please

2008-04-24T02:45:00.003-05:00

Hey, folks, I got a nomination through this website for the Blogosphere Poet Laureate for 2008 for my poetry blog, The Ghosts of Silence. Don't know how or who or what, but if you would be so kind as to cast a vote in my direction that would be great. Go here:

http://wanderingpoetics.wordpress.com/

and hit the link to vote.

Much appreciated. I probably don't have a freaking chance.

Also, for the record, Hot Rod is a freaking hilarious movie. An instant classic.

Hillary Clinton will NOT be president. Or I am going to be sad.

The show this past weekend was very cool. Those of you who missed it missed the last chance to see Crow Hollow Blonde for a long time. No shows in the near future, which is a shame. The sound that we captured that night was pretty neat, a stripped down version that added something to the quality of our music. Probably in the future I will take my acoustic to change into for some songs just to mix it up a bit on some songs. It was neat to know that our songs still sounded good when played in such a simplistic manner, and it was a neat dynamic for the band to have to adapt to the difference in style. Anyway, you should have been there.

Why are my socks fighting? I just fed them two hours ago.

Highlights of the week

2008-04-19T02:15:00.003-05:00

Ok, first of all, let me just say this, Fuck you, New York Yankees. You should not have beaten my Red Sox this past Wednesday in such a horrible fashion. All of you should catch hepatitis from a prostitute. Especially you, A-rod.

With that out of my system, we can continue this blog as if normalcy still exists. And it does...somewhere. I am sure.

At any rate. Earlier this week, like two days ago, at my wonderful profession, which if you have not guessed it by now if you have been reading this blog for any extended period (if you have sorry for all the cussing and nonsense, I am a child), has something to do with fighting crime in the retail arena (figure it out, ha, you thought I was actually going to tell you, didn't ya?), this eight year old kid who has been taught to steal by his wonderful meth-riddled mother, after I scared him away from his initial goal of taking a large item, and ran out of the store, he gave me the finger and said verbatim "Fuck you, you fucking queers!!" to me and my partner. It would have been utterly hilarious if it were not so sad. His mother shouted something obscene as well as they drove off, however, it was not nearly as amusing. This woman should really be strangled with a rusty piece of barbed wire, and then run over five or six times by a yellow school bus, to drive home the point of how important educating the youth really is. Her son will probably develop into a life of hard crime and be dead before the age of thirty. Thank you, trailer trash mother, for being another shining example of why inbred rednecks are so well cherished here in the state of Kentucky, you fucking skank whore bitch. The end.

Also, my muse has been quiet these past two days. I tried to write a poem about the non existence of god last night, did not go well, then at about 4:30 this morning, I felt an earthquake for the first time in my life. Weird coincidence or...YES, it was a coincidence, don't be naive. Anyway, the quake nearly scared the holy shit out of me (nice pun, huh?) and my brain did not know how to react at first. I was like, what the hell is happening? Is someone breaking in? Should I get the gun? Is there a tornado? There is not a storm? What the fuck? AN EARTHQUAKE???? I seriously freaked out for a minute. But then I chilled. I don't know how you people in Californee handle that shit. I would be very nervous all the time if I thought I would have to deal with that.

One of the main reasons I think I am being so uncreative is because this week I wrote a poetic response to the entire new NIN record, which is an awesome album by the way, pure genius stuff, Trent Reznor is a demigod and should be worshipped, oh wait, he is. At any rate, the poem is Ghost Planet I-IV, just like his new album is Ghosts I-IV, and each stanza is for each track of the cd. It took me a while, and toward the end of the thing, my brain was starting to hurt trying to think of new images to go with the music, but really, the music did all the work, it is so unique and inventive, that it takes your mind to very interesting places.

My newest poem is about suicide. Hooray. Imagine that.

I have been very secretive about things that have happened to me in my occupation, but now I figure, what the heck, I have some very entertaining stories to share about this, so over the next little bit, I am going to try to put some of those on here. Woot.

Ok, I think that is all for now, Crow Hollow Blonde plays an acoustic/half electric show tomorrow is Louisville. Wish us luck and shit. We may need it. This is a new one for us, usually we rock like the phoenix with a hard on.

Seriously, I have to leave. My cowboy boots just came to life and want me to sing them a song. They sound a lot like Johnny Cash when they talk, and I am scared they will make fun of my singing voice.

Creativity

2008-04-10T03:20:00.002-05:00

So, hey, in the past twelve hours or less, I am approximating, I have written five new poems. That puts me up to date on this poem a day challenge I am working on for this website thing I entered into. I had fallen a few days behind, simply because I have not really been home at convenient times to write anything, and havent really been feeling creative, and then last night, I was drunk out of my skull. Today, I have slept a lot. My hangover was fairly bad, and I really didn't feel like doing anything but lying around and being lazy, but I had my laptop nearby, and therefore, felt the need to write. Good times.

I watched There Will Be Blood again last night. Fucking brilliant.

Sometimes I wonder how much longer I can take this monotony.

I need something new.

The ghost of Charlton Heston just showed up and says I owe him thirty dollars.

Adventurous Wii Bowling and BEER

2008-04-09T05:35:00.001-05:00

Well, somehow i am still alive, albeit slightly or extremely intoxicated, however you want to interpret this nonsense.

In case you were wondering, the show went fairly well this weekend. There were some complications with my guitar tuner and some issues not being able to hear as well as we would like, but overall everything was all right. The only thing that sucked was that Black Market Peepshows crowd left right after they were done, not hanging around to hear the stellar cover band in all their sweat pant glory known as Supernatural Flapjack. At any rate, we gave it what we could and it was for a good cause which is more than you can usually ask for.

Lately I am addicted to Wii bowling. I dont own it, but a good friend does, and when you want to drink and have some fun, boy does it contribute,

Also, I wanted to rant a bit about true love. I have started to wonder if in life you only get one shot at it. Maybe you have already had your shot and that was your one opportunity at true love, which in most cases should be your first love. If you screw it up, then you ruin your opporunity the rest of your life for real true love. I think I may have already blown my one true chance, which was my first real love. So, now I am doomed to repeatedly fail...

What a sad life this is.

Hey, Chuck Norris says I bowl like a girl. Time to get my ass kicked.

Equlibrium

2008-04-06T16:02:00.002-05:00

Just received another rejection notice. This one from American Poetry Journal. Oh, yes, that is right. I am documenting everyone of them on here. Suck it if you don't like my self-pity.

On a much lighter note, I forgot to mention earlier that I saw the film Equilibrium last night, and it has jumped up the ranks as one of my absolute favorite movies. Sort of an updated version of Fahrenheit 451, one of my all-time favorite novels, starring Christian Bale, and some of the coolest action scenes and symbolism I have seen. How was this film not more popular? Because it came out around the same time as the Matrix, and although I believe this to be MUCH better than the Matrix, the Matrix took all the hype away from this one. They are similarly themed, but man, I am not lying when I say this is the movie to watch.

Ok, now, I am really getting ready to leave. I shouldn't just sit around naked when I have important things to do. Or maybe I should?

Music for the Masses

2008-04-06T13:54:00.002-05:00

Tonight Crow Hollow Blonde takes the stage for the first time in what seems like forever. We are playing this benefit show for Tornado Victims in Franklin, KY and there are a whole lot of good reasons that people should come. The bands start playing at noon and it goes all the way to midnight. Among the acts, Technology Versus Horse, Chest Rockwell, and Black Market Peepshow are playing, and that is more than worth the 2 dollar admission price alone. Hopefully, a lot of people come out to hear the tunes and support families that really could use the help.

We have been in sort of a lull with our show lineup, haven't played very much lately, which sucks, and I tried to get this friend of mine to start being our manager to help out with that, and he said he would, but then never called me back, so that kind of blows. We are working on putting together new material for the next album. I have some neat ideas for the title. What is better, Metaphorical Monsters, or Autmnal?

I am trying to complete this poem a day challenge for April that I entered in this month, and that is fun, it seems like my creativity thrives when it is pushed like that. Maybe I should just hire someone to follow me around and tell me what to write about, but I would probably get bored with that very soon. Speaking of which, I liked the old days when people would comment on poems if they liked them. Now, I am like, crap, nobody likes anything anymore. Have I started sucking? The answer is I always sucked and people tried to make me feel good about myself anyway, and now they are tired of trying. I can deal with that. Ha ha ha, I crack myself up.

I guess I better get going, I am supposed to leave here by five, cause I really want to see Chest Rockwell's performance. Every band only gets 45 minutes, so that is just very little time to cram in one hell of an energetic show.

Hey, what is this? I just found a key under my pillow. I bet it leads to Narnia. I am going to go there and make Mr. Tumnus a knuckle sandwich.

Spatula City

2008-03-31T18:33:00.003-05:00

This has so far been a quiet day off. I have laid in my bed and listened to the sounds of the wind and the creaking walls of this apartment, I have written some poetry, I have read the entire Ryan Adams blog (very awesome), and I have surfed the net (mostly facebook) while watching the daylight dim silently from amber to a more muted glow through my bedroom curtains. Relaxation at its finest, I have not even gotten up to eat yet. Some might call this wasted time, but for me, it is time alone that my brain was desperately needing to defragment and regain some sort of sanity. This has been a rough week. I shall say no more, because the stress has been mostly work related.

Earlier this week, I received a text message from a friend telling me that Hulk Hogan had died, this being the subject of one of my poems today, and I was floored by the news. I had no reason to doubt this, because I trust that my friend would not say this to me without good info. So, I messaged several of my high school friends to let them know. I was at work and had no way of verifying the story. It shocked me because I grew up really idolizing Hulk Hogan, I was a Hulkamaniac, and I loved the drama between him and Macho Man. It was great to have lived as a child in that era and to be able to believe the drama as fantastic reality. My friends and I collected WWF trading cards. How could you not idolize a guy that said if you just did your homework and took your vitamins you could be like the Hulkster? So, I was sad that one of my childhood heroes was gone. Course, this turned out to not be true and I felt like a moron for believing it. I did cause quite the ruckus at work though, by starting the rumor there, and several die-hard wrestling fans were quite shocked by it. So, lesson learned, make sure you know the facts before telling other people, and also, that when heroes of childhood die, it stings a little bit, for whatever reason.

Another funny story is that also at work, this Asian girl approached me and asked me if I knew where the "chopsticks" were, and I was like "what?" cause her accent was thick, and she said it again, and I was like "which kind are you looking for, the ones you eat with or the ones you put in your hair for decoration?" and she was like, "No, chapsticks, that you put on your lips" and I was like, "Oh, they are right over there" and I felt like a racist asshole. But seriously, it sounded like she was saying chopsticks, I am not stupid. The situation was funny though, and I got embarrassed a little bit, which is rare for me.

So, enough amusing anecdotes of my life. Anyone still read this thing anyway?

I gotta go, today I am trying to build a lifelike robot replica of myself out of cardboard and scotch tape. It is harder than it sounds.

Rejection is awesome

2008-03-27T11:49:00.002-05:00

So, I received my first "real" rejection slip yesterday. I had sent some poems that I thought were good to the American Poetry Review. Five to be exact. Alas, I don't know if it was because my cover letter sucked, if the poems sucked, or if they just have a policy to reject every first time submitter. At any rate, I am not down about it. Stephen King wallpapered his trailer with submission rejections. And poetry is harder to get published anyway, so yeah, I am really trying to run up a hill. I think I am going to start including a bio in my cover letter though. I think I need one.

So, a couple people recently expressed concern about me due to having read some recent blogs. Not to worry people, I am not going to kill myself anytime soon. Let me tell you though, there is nothing in this world more fun than riding with your ex-girlfriend in a car (not that is a problem, we are still friends) and having her give you a pep talk about why your life still has so much promise and such a bright future. Bright future, eh? This is where people have a delusion about poetry writers. They don't make money. They don't get fame. So, I dont know what future she is trying to refer to. Maybe the band. But hey, as I was saying to Scott last night, our time is sort of running out to be "discovered", you don't see many bands being signed to labels when all the members are thirty years old. lol. At any rate, not giving up on anything, just being my usual pessimistic self, which is to say my realistic self.

On another note, I watched Across the Universe last night. Very well done.

All right here is a question, if you put a toothpick and a match in a room and told them to fight it out, who wins? Sylvester Stallone you idiot.

Country roads take me home

2008-03-26T12:13:00.002-05:00

to the place I belong, which is certainly not West Virginia. I am actually glad that I live in Kentucky for a change. If you have ever been near a WV mining town then you might know what I am talking about. It was rather creepy, but interesting. The experience already heralded one poem from my brain, and I think I got two more in there bumping around, which knowing me, may really only be one. So, yeah, I went with my boss and friend from work (same person) on this voyage because he had a job interview and it sounded like an adventure to me. So, sixteen hours of driving total. That is a lot of time in a vehicle. With a broken cd player. At any rate, it was fun. Drank some beer. But now, I am back to not drinking, for another month. There for a while I had been drinking consistently every day, and it was starting to worry me, but I digress. This town we stayed in was very strange. The houses all looked ancient and as if they could crumble into dust at any moment, and some of them had multiple colors of siding on them like they had been pieced together from scraps or something. The whole town had a dirty look to it, like it had been covered in soot, and it probably had. But that was when we took the wrong exit, on our actualy exit, it was all booming commerce, and no residential areas at all, which I also found strange. THEN the next exit was the hotel. At any rate, I started to feel glad that the area I live in is not so poor, I earned a little more gratitude for my lifestyle and environment. At the hotel, late at night, we met some interesting characters. One the bartender, a short bald man that reminded me of a drunk Steve Austin, if Steve Austin had been dropped a lot as a child. He told us all kinds of interesting stories about naked girls that love to swim in the pool, how West Virginia people never have teeth, about the strippers that would come and have parties at the hotel and would come up to anyones room for a price, and about this female security guard that once picked up a 300 pound man by his throat. Oh, and then there was his wife, a crazy looking lady with so much hair you could not see her face, although I imagined she looked sort of like Kathryn Hepburn, and he said she lifted 300 pound people all by herself all the time, because she worked at a nursing home. Good times.

On the way back, as my friend continued to berate himself for thinking that he fucked up the interview, we stopped off at the Hofbraus House for beer and brats. Good times, drank a liter of exquisite draft dunkel, and got to spend some time with one of my best friends who met us there. Good to see the ole Jer-Bear, and I hope he enjoys the Wine Festival he is attending this weekend.

SO, so much for West Virginia. John Denver is a liar.

In other news, my XBOX is fixed and back in my possession. I actually got it back rather quick, like less than a week after I mailed it out. The longest wait, was just waiting for them to ship me the box to mail it to them in. And I have actually had it back now for about two weeks, but I am a forgetful blogger, so don't judge me.

The movie Southland Tales is definitely worth checking out. I loved it.

Oh, and the Counting Crows just released a new album, and it is as good as it should be. I picked that up in WV as well. My main souvenir though is my liter mug that I bought from the Hofbraus House, woot.

Ok, now I am just starting to ramble. I better get going. These chimpanzees ain't gonna shave themselves.

hangovers and left overs

2008-03-21T13:42:00.002-05:00

I feel like shit today. It is my fault. I drank way too much Jager and beer last night. I passed out around five I guess, while watching Gremlins, one of my favorite movies from my childhood, and the nostalgia still holds, then I woke up at around seven and came home to my own bed, where, once I laid down, I could not go back to sleep because of the light filtering into my room through the blinds and curtains, and so I tossed and turned for five more hours and finally said fuck it and forced myself to get up and get on the internet, because that is now the first thing I do everyday, get on the internet and check facebook and check my email, it seems I am addicted to the internet in the worst way, I check email and facebook like twenty times a day, like it is now how I know if I am alive, if other people contact me through some form of electronic dispatch, like I lead a separate life through the keys of this laptop vicariously relating my personal information to people across borders and seas, and letting my actual self deteriorate into alcoholism and insomnia and skin cancer and gout, but just so you know, I am going to a dermatologist finally because my skin may be trying to eat itself and this is disturbing, but I have to wait til May to see if I am dying or not, and let's hope I don't die in the meantime ok?

All right, I watched Perfect Blue last night. Great film. Also, No Country for Old Men is now officially in my top ten films of all time. It is perfect.

I have to go now. My alarm clock just went off, which means it is time to get in the shower and get ready for a long night of work, which is to say, a long night of walking around and staring at people, especially the hot females, and not getting stabbed, like someone I know almost did the other day, but fate prevented it by sneezing.

Also, just for fun, I hid my neighbor's skateboard the other night. He found it today. Damn.

Toby Keith is here and he wants me to punch him in the face with a banana, the only problem is, I don't have any fruit.

long drives

2008-03-04T01:58:00.002-06:00

Long drives are generally fun for me. I like to have the time alone with my car stereo and my thoughts, singing at the top of my lungs where I can only annoy myself, and just the soothing sounds of tires rolling on road. But tonight, in the pouring rain, my drive home from Elizabethtown was anything but fun. About twenty minutes from my starting point, I saw my first wreck of the evening....a Jeep Cherokee had apparently come across the median and hit a semi truck. The Jeep had been thrown back into the median, and its whole front half was folded up and mangled into a shape that barely resembled anything at all. The semi had went off the road in the opposite direction, ending up in the trees, its front also smashed. How anyone survived this would be a miracle. Three miles past this wreck, I reach traffic at a standstill. I then proceeded to sit in the same spot for two hours. Finally, I was able to continue on and saw the second wreck of the evening, which was just as bad. A semi truck was up in a tree, smashed and destroyed like a childs toy. I somehow imagine that both these wrecks happened because of hydroplaning. It just goes to show, that when it is raining, 70mph is not the safest speed. I made it home. It took 3 and a half hours, for a car ride that usually only takes one. So much fun, but at least I am alive, which is weird, because a majority of the week I have spent wishing I was dead. Thanks to whoever invented irony.

thoughts

2008-03-02T02:18:00.002-06:00

So, I published my 100th poem today officially on my poetry blog. I like it. I think that is a fair accomplishment for me, and I am actually sticking to what I said I would do in that realm. Writing more often that is.

On the whole fast food thing, I am sticking to that as well, although on one drunk occasion I did go to waffle house, but hey, at least you can see them cooking your food there.

I have been really depressed today. Lord knows why, or Tift Merritt knows, you decide. I think I must be really imbalanced. So many times today I just wanted to blow my brains out. Part of the problem must be my ever still problem of no real sense of self esteem. Why? Who knows. Adolescence was really a bitch for me I guess. But not to worry cause as down as I may get, I am never gonna be brave enough to actually pull the trigger, which is also kind of sad in and of itself.

On a lighter note. Lucky Number Slevin is a good freaking movie.

Just a small note to say

2008-03-01T20:26:00.001-06:00

FUCK COMPUTER VIRUSES!! Any worthless sack of shit that actually makes one of these things and puts them into circulation should be taken into the street and beaten with a lead pipe until they are nothing but a pile of bone bits and blood. FUCK.

Take this sinking boat

2008-02-28T01:36:00.003-06:00

and point it home.

These are the key lyrics of the song "Falling Slowly" by Glen Hansard, and it is the cornerstone of the movie ONCE. I just watched this movie and was completely blown away. So much beauty and honesty and heart, it is barely contained in the physical boundries that bind it. Watching this, I felt like my chest wanted to explode. So much hope and life. I need constantly to see things like this to remind me that good things are still possible in this world. It is strange, as an artist, I constantly need more art, new art, to fuel my inspiration. The fact that other artists continue to pursue their dreams and are capable of success gives me strength. I love this movie. If you have not seen it...shame on you.

Also, watch Paris Te Aime. It is great too...

I realize I have neglected songwriting a little. I need to get back in that arena.

I got noting else right now. I am on a movie high. Just watch the damn thing.

relief

2008-02-23T04:35:00.002-06:00

My dad pulled through the surgery. I don't know all the details, just that everything went ok, and he is in recovery. I guess they did not have to cut his chest open, the option of going in through the artery in the groin was a success. Good news at any rate.

I have been having a lot of mood swings lately. Probably because at same base level I still feel the need to not be alone. This is a flaw of mine that is deep seeded and I blame on my mother, for putting me through fourteen marriages and step fathers and divorces and her obvious need to always have someone. This has obviously been transferred into my genetic makeup, or been imprinted in my psyche like some Pavlovian experiment. So, because of that, I have just been dealing with a lot of emotional instability. One moment, I am completely fine with being alone and the next I see someone that I think is attractive and I just have this wash of conflicting emotions, because I feel like I am not good enough for anyone. I see all the flaws about myself, and I look at someone and see no flaws, and they can see flaws in me immediately. I feel like no one should ever give me a chance. I am almost thirty now, and my life is passing me by. But oh well, this is all probably due to just my insecurity and the fact that I have no idea of what lies ahead in my future.

To test out my theory of how things should transpire normally between two people, the other day I asked out a stranger and got turned down, just as I knew I would. Normally I would not do this, but I was convinced to do it by a friend. Bad idea with a bad result. Case closed. From now on I stick to my own rules, just like my new rule to never eat fast food, which I have not broken since I made it.

All right. Fuck Simon Cowell.

3 Red Rings

2008-02-19T04:04:00.002-06:00

So, yeah, after a little more than a year of near flawless functionality, my Xbox 360died last night. I received the dreaded 3 red rings of death when I tried to play a DVD of Interview with the Vampire. Apparently, Tom Cruise's insanity crashed my system. So, I am sending it to Microsoft to be repaired for free, and it will take four weeks to get it back. Four weeks without a DVD player or gaming system, when I have been on a DVD buying binge the likes of which I have never been on before. I am glad, because this gives me a reason to stop. Maybe I can kill the monster that I have created. I mean, did I really need a dvd of The Devils Rejects? But it was only 4 dollars!! Ok, then what about Mulholland Dr? Ten bucks? Maybe worth it, but I don't need to spend money. I don't know what is wrong with me. I guess this is my way of dealing with depression. It is either buy dvd's or buy beer for me, no middle man. And when I am not drinking, I am working and looking at dvd's to buy, and then I drink while watching the recently purchased movies.

But I digress. You know, some people are pressuring me to get back into the dating pool, and I find that I really have no interest in that at all for some reason. I just am so tired of the whole process, having to get to know someone, the whole awkward nature of dealing with trying to find compatibility, and all the pressure of trying to live up to some kind of standard that you aren't even sure of. I feel like the past couple relationships I have had have come from me trying to force the issue of being in a relationship, and thus I have ruined the process of finding someone truly compatible because from the get go the environment in which the relationship developed was a forced environment of searching for something. So, I feel that if a relationship is going to happen, it should happen naturally between two people, and no expectations should be involved. If two people are genuinely attracted to each other, then they know it pretty much from the onset, this is true, but you only know if you are going to work in a relationship, if the compatibility is there as well, and the nature of your conversations is very relaxed and just "right" feeling. I think I met someone like that once or twice in my life, but on these occasions was unable to feel like it could really be anything because I was already in another relationship that I had gotten myself into the wrong way. This is very depressing to me, but it is part of life. You live and learn, and you move on and try to make the best of it. The only bad thing about this realization is, not only am I kind of happy about my personal freedom and new understanding of why things have gone wrong for me in the relationship field, but I am also ridiculously craving physical attention. Attention that I can't really get wihtout a relationship, and I have not had for a long time. Too bad I am a nice guy and can't just be a man whore. Not that I could be anyway, I have no delusions of grandeur. LOL I guess maybe I should get used to the idea that I will be single for a long time, cause I am definitely not going to force the issue of a relationship on anyone that I really don't feel comfortable with, and yet I won't just meet any new people because talking to strangers is an uncomfortable task to begin with.

So that is that, and now other news. First of all, my grandfather still has cancer. But they are not going to do treatment because he still has no symptoms, and although the tests do show it in his bones and lymphnodes, he seems prefectly fine. So, once he starts developing symptoms, they can start treatment plans, but there is no need as long as he is still able to lead a normal life. It is a weird situation. My grandma has finished her radiation therapy on her arm and we find out sometime if that took care of all the cancer in her. My dad has his surgery this Friday in Louisville, and let's hope everything goes as planned on that one.

Also, I came to another realization this week, it has been a week of epiphanies. I know that I will never die of an illness. I won't let something like that take control of my destiny. When it comes down to it, I will decide when and where I leave this plane of existence, I will control that aspect of my destiny, unless some freak accident occurs of an unforseeable nature, I will end my own life. Fuck cancer.

My immune system fails me

2008-02-07T17:49:00.000-06:00

So, guess who has the flu? Ok, that is not really a great guessing game as it obviously has to be yours truly. And it is, for those of you who guessed Robert Downy Jr, I am sorry, and there is no consolation prize, unless you show up here with spaghettios, in which case I will sneeze on you and say thanks, now enjoy your flu.

This thing really sneaks up on you. For the past week I have had cold like symptoms that have been just kind of hinting that they are getting worse, a little tickle in my chest, a sinus congestion ache that makes my eyes hurt, and then today, I wake up and it is like it just decided to unleash all of its troops it has silently been amassing in my system. Now I feel totally like shit. I tried to go to work today, but lasted only 3 hours and 20 minutes, really a valiant effort, when you consider that I was freezing the entire time and felt like I was going to die. My bones ache all over and I am freezing. Sheesh. So, I left work, bought some theraflu and some chicken noodle soup and sprite. Let the healing begin. Now, I must sleep.

It is 4 AM

2008-02-01T04:01:00.000-06:00

Why am I awake? Cause I am stupid. I am yawning as I am typing these words. What is this, I sense.....caffeine in my future.

Probably had some good news today about my grandpa. His cancer may have been misdiagnosed. The Brown Cancer Clinic in Louisville apparently did not find any cancer at all. Which is crazy. I don't know if I believe this or not. How could such a drastic life altering cancer have been found one week, and then another have no trace. It is possible that my grandpa is just telling people this so they won't worry. He is a wiley one. SO, I am going to find out what the skinny is on this and as soon as I know I will update my two readers.

My dad is finally getting his surgery on February 22nd. He says that he is not scared at all cause if they put him under and he never wakes up, he will never know the difference. This may be true, but everyone else will. The world is definitely a better place with him in it. Everyone think happy thoughts.

I have not written a poem in a couple days. I got a few ideas floating around though. I think a good one is on the way.

I am excited about getting my income tax refund. I am going to take a hundred dollars and get another tattoo and then the rest is going to Western. I have to pay them off so I can be elligible for school in August. I plan to go back and finsih my degree, just so I haven't completely flushed thirty grand down the toilet. My new tat is going to be awesome. I want the middle stage hominid in the diagram of the evolution of man on my farearm, the one that has the little stone dagger in his hand. Under it I may put the word "evolve". Who knows. I like the idea though. Came to me last week.

New roommate is fitting in nicely. We put a HUGE Pulp Fiction poster in the living room. Very nice. I started playing Assassins Creed tonight. Fun game.

Nothing much else to report. My watch doesn't fit tight enough. I put curtains and a tapestry up over my windows so no daylight gets in. Now, I am officially a vampire. You have been warned.

up around the bend

2008-01-30T04:40:00.000-06:00

Hey, so tonight I was lookin at some old posts here on the ol blog and I noticed that not only did I use to have more readers, but I also wrote more interesting blogs. So sorry for the apparent unending stream of whine. From now on I will try to be more optimisitic in my blog or if that is not possible, I will at least try to contribute something worth while to the blogosphere.

So, today I reasoned with the student loan people and got them to put off my payments for a period which considerably took a lot of weight off my back. Woah, that was a relief, I thought I was gonna default which would have meant check garnishment which would have meant my own personal recession or great depression and I would not have been very happy.

My new roommate officially moves in tomorrow. That is cool. He is a cool guy, I have worked with him and we generally seem to get along well.

My week back at work has been very productive. Caught someone we had been after for three months and tonight we caught another of her crew. I was very pleased. Drank several beers in celebration.

I was looking over my recent poetry and found that some of recent stuff seems to not be as good as previous material. This is sad cause I am getting ready to mail out some submissions and need to narrow down what would be good to try and get published. Any suggestions here are more than welcome. Thanks.

Well, it is that time again. Chuck Norris is here and he wants to arm wrestle. I told him only if he will burp the National Anthem.

There Will Be Blood

2008-01-25T14:45:00.000-06:00

Saw the movie. Let me tell you something folks.....Daniel Day-Lewis is not an actor, he is an artist. He is a god trapped in a human body. Every film he is in, he does not just play the part, he becomes that person. It is a marvel to behold, and this film is no exception, in fact, it is the proof. It is worth watching just to see this terrific portrayal, an amazing descent into misanthropy and maybe insanity. This character chews every moment of the screen up like a live wire or a cannibal, daring you to look away so he can eat you too. In case you couldn't tell, I loved the film. Day-Lewis will win the Oscar again, no one can deny this performance. And if they do, they are as mad as the character that they are turning their back on.

The film holds other marvels as well. Every scene is perfect. Paul Thomas Anderson it seems is saying, hey, remember me, I am that one director that everyone should notice, but somehow doesn't. His other works to me have been brilliant and unique, and definitely anti-formula. An artist trying to make interesting visions for his audience and actually making films you have to think about afterwards, which may be why he hasn't achieved huge box office success. This film is long, but I was never once bored. I was held captivated. The atmosphere of every scene is pitch perfect, made even more so by the amazing cinematography and lighting, which captures just the right amount of light and dark, often times lighting a scene just with a campfire or candle light, or maybe the sun coming in through some windows. The music is exceptional and creepy as hell, written by Johnny Greenwood from Radiohead. The tone of this music reminded me many times of 2001:A Space Odyssey crossed with The Shining, playing disturbing minor-key sequences for extended periods to add a haunting feel to the imagery.

Also like 2001, in this film there is no spoken dialogue for the first ten minutes or so. Amazing to behold, as we find Day-Lewis's character, a gold prospector digging alone in the hills in 1897. A man so tough and determined that after he finds gold, and breaks his leg in the process, he drags himself out of the mine and how ever many miles it is to the nearest town to cash it in. This is Daniel Plainview, the most ruthless man you are ever likely to meet. Nothing stands in the way of his pursuit of the world's riches, not even caring for his son, or huge oil companies that try and buy him out for less than he deserves. His biggest rival in the film is a local church's residing prophet, in a town where he makes hs biggest discovery, and this conflict builds to some really amazing moments in the movie, and some revelations that were quite astonishing. The end of the movie has one of the most fitting ending lines of dialogue ever put on the screen.

More often than not, the film feels like a western, and I have a sentimental spot in my heart for this genre. There are some nods to John Ford in the beginning, which are great beside the nods to Kubrick, making an interesting juxtaposition of styles.
I really loved this movie, my top ten list for 2007 got altered, cause this one obviously jumped to number two on the list. I feel that to really appreciate it, like all of Anderson's films, you have to see it multiple times, and that is great, but I am not driving another hour to watch it in a theater (although it would be worth it), it was more worth it just to see it the first time. I will buy it on DVD, and then watch it, probably more than once.

Star rating: *****

Winter where are you

2008-01-24T03:23:00.001-06:00

Ok, it is close to the end of January and winter has still not decided to show itself. Kentucky, you depress me. Winter is my favorite time of year, and now I am being deprived of its beauty. No cold air, except for brief whisps, no snow, no ice, no somber skies that make your insides ache. The next person I hear say that the evidence for global warming is inconclusive I am going to punch in the face. Damn it, even the change in my LIFETIME has been significant.

Went to band practice tonight. Not really sure what is happening here. The future is seeming unclear for Crow Hollow Blonde and I am having trouble being optimistic right now. Only time will tell.

I am going to see There Will Be Blood tomorrow night and am looking forward to it. Have to go to Nashville to see it though, cause Bowling Green sucks. Expect a full review.

This week has been fairly uneventful. I have relaxed and slept enough to be considered for a reclassification of species. Now, I am a grizzly bear. On the positive side, I have written poetry nearly every day. I am trying to find inspiration in everything I do, even the most mundane of activities, and am trying to find interesting ways of looking at them. That is the job of poetry, to show things from new perspectives.

Speaking of poetry, you have to check out this poem by my favorite contemporary poet Bob Hicok:

http://www.aprweb.org/issues/sept07/hicok.html

Bob Hicok is a prof at Virginia Tech. The shooter that killed 33 people was one of his students and this is a poem that he wrote about that kid. Very intriguing stuff. If you are not familiar with Hicok's work you definitely need to be. He is a genius.

Well, that is all for now. I am the emperor of Care Bears. Rainbow Brite be damned.

Shit hits the proverbial

2008-01-17T04:03:00.001-06:00

What's up folks. I put up a couple more poems. I am trying to write more often. Every poet says write every day, and well, although that is hard to do for me, I figure if I can write a poem every other day, or at least get some ideas down, that puts me in a better spot than before. I am trying to get some good material together and enter a first book competition this year that could get my stuff published.

For those who have not heard, I just became a bachelor again. Things had been heading in that direction for a while. It was an interesting situation. There are no hard feelings. That is hard to imagine, but it is true, which is good, because we have to share this apartment until I can find another roomate. I started into this thing with the best of intentions. Of course, as we all know, that is what the road to hell is paved with. I really thought that although on the surface we seemed incompatible, that my feelings for the person outweighed the differences and the she was the right person for me. In hindsight, I may have not been in the most stable mindset to try and make decisions that I made, but I thought I was, which is all that mattered at the time. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, and once I was in it, I still thought I was doing the right thing and that I was strong enough to handle it. As it turns out, I was not. The stresses on the relationship proved too much for me and I became detached from it, living inside a reality that passed daily as a waking dream. This caused unhappiness and lots of misunderstandings, which ultimately lead to the decision which had to be made. Without the gloss of newness and excitement that always comes with new relationships, I found myself under more stress than I should have, and things that never bothered me before started really getting under my skin. So, now it is over, and I am semi-normal again. I feel I have learned a lot about myself, and just about life in general. I have learned some valuable lessons, and don't plan to make the same mistakes twice.

Now, if I only could be so lucky with my debt situation. Seriously folks, my luck is running out.

The first night of single life I spent on my couch, which some of you may know, does not hold tall people very well. Sheesh, I woke up the next day feeling like a human slinky. My back ached and I had to walk around for eight hours in hell. Nice. But my very great boss had a bed that he was going to take to Goodwill, since he had just purchased a new one, and he let me have it. A friend at work helped me to lug it into my apartment, which also involved moving my couch back downstairs to store it in the kitchen, which was not very fun. But thanks to the kindness of others, I was able to get a good night's sleep and now have a queen sized bed to accomplish this task on a nightly basis. I have always depended on the kindness of strangers....or in this case, friends.

Well, speaking of beds...I should get to one. Until next time, sweet dreams.

Things

2008-01-08T12:36:00.000-06:00

First off, thanks to anyone who actually read any of my new poems.

Secondly, it has been a while, again, and sorry. I am sure everyone is wondering what my top ten movies were of last year and they are as follows:

1. No Country for Old Men
2. Juno
3. Bug
4. Zodiac
5. Superbad
6. Michael Clayton
7. Seraphim Falls
8. Eastern Promises
9. Hot Fuzz
10. Grindhouse

Keep in mind, that excludes a few that might have made it, such as There Will Be Blood, and Gone Baby Gone, that I did not have the chance to see. But that is the list of movies I watched and absolutely loved this past year.

Speaking of past years, my new year passed uneventfully. I did nothing but sit on the couch and play Halo 3, and drink Mountain Dew. Partly because I had a cold and didn't feel the need to party. Partly because my life as become a broken record of displeasure and any attempt at remedying it just seems to make it skip more. But, Halo 3 is an awesome game, and since I just recently got myself into the world of XBOX live, it is all I have been able to do lately. I am addicted. What can I say, it is fun, and I have nothing better to do most of the time.

In the world of Crow Hollow Blonde, things are going well. We have several new songs in the making and talks of making a new recording are already swirling about. I wish we played more shows, the last couple have been fairly good, especially since we made the decision to play original shows and teamed up with another local band Chest Rockwell, who are great and underappreciated as well.

The decisions I have made in my life are starting to haunt me. They weigh on my every waking thought. I don't know what is going to happen, but the future seems less bright every time I try to imagine it. I won't let anything take me down without a fight though, and nothing will ever get me alive. Not that it would want to. My life has become a little bit of a joke. I go to work late every day. I stay up too late every night. I feel like I am in a waking coma. Events slip past me at the speed of light or in slow motion and I just smile and stand there oblivious. My memory has started to fail me, and just remembering what I walked into a room to do is sometimes an impossible task. Maybe I drink too much. But increasingly I am starting to feel like the paths I have chosen or just lazily allowed to be chosen for me are all starting to lead to the same place, which is a desolate land known only as nowhere.

Sorry.

Depression can be ugly. I don't mean to just complain, but I made a brief reference in a previous post about my grandparents and my father and as it currently stands they are all not too attached to future events. My grandparents were both recently diagnosed with cancer. My grandfather is much worse than my grandmother, but the difference in their lifespans will probably equal months. My grandfather doesn't have too long because the cancer is stage four and is already in nearly every part of him, including his bones. They tell him chemo is his only option and at his age, that doesn't seem like much of an option. So, needless to say, my mom is taking it hard. I am sort of numb about it. I have never lost anyone close to me in my 29 years on this earth, and now that moment is staring at me in the face from across a room, like staring into a gun barrel. Time is inescapable. I feel like my lack of religious faith here kind of helps because I see life as a cycle and feel that although people may pass out of existence on this plane, their energy moves into everything around them and thus they are never truly gone, just their consciousness is gone. Of course, someone's conscious mind is what we fall in love with. I wasn't raised by a glowing particle field. But, people like my mother, they think that in the after life when they die they will see everyone that they lost again. This is a comforting idea, but also, if there is an after life at all, imagine the disappointment if its not what you thought it would be. Luckily, when someone dies, they probably don't know the difference.

At any rate, the problem with my dad is a bit strange, but just as ominous, as he has an aneurysm on the main artery in his stomach. He needs surgery, but he has had a heart attack and his heart is supposedly too weak to survive the surgery. So basically, he is a walking time bomb, and the doctors are all clueless as to what to do. He has dealt with the problem by going out and having fun at gambling boats on a regular basis. I kind of find this ironic.

It is sad, but it is reality. People you are close to are going to die. It is part of growing up and part of your growing understanding of life. There is nothing to do but try and understand the cycle of existence, and try to appreciate the time, however short it may be, that you get to share with people that you love. I have lots of great memories of my grandparents, and they will live in my heart forever. I sort of feel like I should call and talk to them more lately, knowing what I know, but I find it difficult...I don't know what to say. I feel like my words will come across as insincere. I don't want to be told how much I should pray and go to church, or how much the world is coming to an end. I don't want to listen to my grandmother cry. But I will. Because I know it is what I should do.

Well, this has been a sad trip down the mental processes of my now. See you next time, that is, if the debt doesn't kill me first.

My Daemon

2007-12-06T01:44:00.001-06:00

Catch up Part 2

2007-11-18T13:06:00.000-06:00

All right. Sweet. Cool. Get pissed.

You know, sometimes I just wonder what is the fucking point? What is the point of typing this shit, thinking someone might read it? What is the point of doing anything when in the grand scheme nothing really matters? I don't have some kind of delusion that my actions will or won't take me anywhere in the "next life", I am not trying to get into "heaven", eventually I will die and after 100 years no one will even know I was here. Does it really matter if they would know? Will someone still look at or listen to something I create in this pathetic life? Probably not. Will I be in a history book? Not bloody likely. If there is a form of reincarnation I think I am almost ready to just skip to the next chance. The only thing that sucks is having to learn how to live again and take the chance at being an idiot. Ah, fuck it. Time goes on. The world keeps spinning. And I keep typing this worthless garbage. No one ever learns from mistakes. I hope my energy goes into something beautiful when I die, like a field of daffodils. That sounded gay. Fuck it.

Anyway, so, to conclude my attempt at catching you all up on what has happened lately...sorry for the brief burst of melancholy. I am not feeling very chipper today.

I went to Utah at the end of October to see some friends that I had not seen in some years. I am broke, but the plane ticket was purchased for me by said friend (muchas gracias) and therefore, I went anyway. Sounded like an adventure. It was a great trip. I met a lot of great people, drank way too much, and played a lot of video games. I also got officially hooked on watching the show HEROES, which I think is the greatest thing since sliced cheese. It deserves its own paragraph somewhere, so I will wait on that rant. Aside from the overly present Mormon influence on the community and the state, the area was very pleasant to visit. The air was crisp and clean to breathe, didn't feel wieghty like Kentucky air can, and the skies were so BLUE. I had never been anywhere where mountains are the predominant attraction, and it was definitely a beautiful site. I loved being able to get up every day, walk out to the balcony, and have a vision of such breathtaking beauty in my view: a majestic, snow-capped mountain. It was very awe-inspiring. Probably because we don't have that around here. I stayed for a week, then came back.

Neat aside: on the plane ride there, flying out of Nashville, I rode next to Larry Hanson, a guitar player for the famous country band Alabama. We chatted all the way to Utah, and it was very cool. He was as uninspired by the state of the music industry as me, and gave some advice on how to be successful, which really boils down to: keep pushin onward and upward and you will get there. Such optimism.

So, now I push an agenda. Go here:

www.zeitgeistmovie.com

watch the movie. Free your mind.

I have never been one to subscribe to conspiracy theories. But this movie Zeitgeist doesn't even pretend to be a conspiracy. It just gives you the facts, a lot of which have been deluted and clouded by media that are supposed to give you truth instead of fabrication. But what we don't realize a lot of the time, is that the media ultimately can't do any more than what they are allowed, and that the information they deliver through the outlet allotted them, is only what they are told they can give. Sadly, I think the majority of them must believe they are telling the truth a lot of the time.

What it all boils down to is this: religion is the infrastructure of manipulation being used to control the world by powers that are definitely in on the big secret. Things are not what they appear. Events that seemed tragic and horrific and calculated by outside forces are even more tragic and horrific because they were premeditated calculations enacted by OUR OWN government. 9/11/2001 was not a terrorist attack, unless you consider the richest men in the world terrorists. The plan that is being enacted right under our very noses is one of the up most deviance and is moving as steadily as a well-oiled machine. These people only want what they have always lusted for: money and control. If nothing is done to stop them, the Federal Reserve Banking system will ultimately acheive world dominance, and then we will all be slaves. If you think about the way the economy is already working, and how gas prices are controlled, we are already slaves to powers we can't even see.

Watch the movie and open your eyes. The revolution has to be NOW.

I have more to write, but all this has made me even more depressed than normal. I have a lot weighing on me. My grandparents and my dad are probably not going to be around for much longer due to health complications. My brother joined the National Guard and might be forced to go to Iraq to fight a "war" on made up shit. I am drowning in debt. What next? What next?

Catching Up

2007-11-17T12:48:00.000-06:00

So, a lot has happened to me since my last post. I have done some memorable things and have seen some things that have changed me in ways that are hard to describe, but hey, that is the way life goes isn't it? Things are not always easy to describe. That is what poets are for.

Anyway, what has happened.....hmmmm, let's think....let's go back to September shall we?

First of all, I turned 29. Hooray! Time grows even shorter to accomplish anything, and funds are even less available. Before you think I am being pessimistic, let me tell you I always see the glass half full...I just know it is full of poison. Thank you Woody Allen.

Secondly, I went to my ten year high school reunion. I was apprehensive about this, didn't really want to go, and was coersed by several of my friends into changing my mind. Okay, this turned out to be one of the weirdest evenings of my life. Change happens constantly, at a rate that is usually unperceivable to the eye, but it is always there, working its magic, pulling things apart, making things sag. Sometimes, you can't tell how much something has really changed, that is until you throw a bunch of modified components into an atmosphere that was once very familiar and has also changed with time. In this atmosphere, not only has the environment changed rather dramatically (except for the haunting smell) but all the people have changed as well. Being confronted with all of this change at once is very daunting. You realize how much all the people that you were once very close to have gone on with their own lives and just how much separation there is now between you. You realize that distance has become more than just a term for mileage. You realize that people you thought were real have put on different faces. You find out who still wants to talk to you. Overall, it was a rewarding experience, but I would have had more fun if I was drunk. The after party was a good time. I know that. But the actual reunion was a trip down a lane that I was not really prepared for. So, if anyone has that coming up in your near future, be prepared for the weirdness.

Let me ask this of you dear readers: how much have I changed? I am thinking about this, and I know that a lot of people I used to be very close to have changed so much they are barely recognizeable to my memory banks. Have I changed that much? I know I may have physically, I mean in outward appearance, but I think at my core I am still the person that I have always been...but maybe not. What do you think?

October:

I saw two great rock shows. And I went to Utah. Crow Hollow Blonde entered the Spin Hot Pursuit competition.

First, I saw Ryan Adams for the fifth time. It was an excellent show, despite the fact that I had a fever the whole night, or maybe because of that fact. It was weird on the way to the venue I saw this dude walking across the street that looked just like Ryan and I yelled at him, but it turned out to be some wannabe fan and I felt stupid. The show was amazing. He played all electric except for two piano songs and one acoustic song in the encore. The jams were very powerful and filled the room with a virtual wall of sound that pierced into my very heart. I cannot comprehend why more people don't love this man's music. He is exceptional. The best lyricist of this generation.

Heather took me to see Bob Dylan later that same week. This was a great show too, and I am glad to have finally gotten to see him, as this may be his last tour. I can only imagine how awesome it would have been to see him in his prime. For this show he played mostly new material off the last three albums, but he dappled it here and there with old greats. He played "Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat", "Masters of War", "Highway 61", "Things Have Changed", "Don't Think Twice", and closed the night with "Like a Rolling Stone". It was awesome. For an old timer, he could still rock. He played guitar for the first couple songs and then was on the keyboard for the rest of the night. It was fun to see him do his little dances and point at the crowd. When the show was over he stood at the center of the stage with the band and did a gunslinger pose, which I thought was hilarious. Dylan remains an enigma, and I wonder what he is really like.

I have more to talk about. I have to talk about Utah, Zeitgeist, the band, and my latest family woes, but first I have to go to work. So, until next time friends, keep it real.....

Ain't Religion GREAT?!!

2007-11-14T16:49:00.001-06:00

Changes are in the air

2007-10-26T00:34:00.000-05:00

All right folks, here is the deal, I am such a horrific blogger, I realize, but seriously, this is important, so wipe the shit out of your eyes left over from last night's drunk, and take that penis out of your ear:

My band, or, as to not claim ownership of said artistic property , the band that I am a part of, (ah, fuck it, to each member, it is their's anyway, right?), my band Crow Hollow Blonde, well we entered into this little competition on the ol' internet and it is being run by Spin Magazine. It is called the Spin Hot Pursuit competition and each week two bands are chosen to the next round to compete for a major recording contract with Epic Records. It goes for eight weeks, so sixteen bands make it to the next round. One band gets chosen by label people, and the other is the top ranked band according to the voting public. Now, it would be an honor to be chosen to the next round by the label geeks, but I have a feeling that that is very hard to do, so we are whoring ourselves out as much as possible to try and get as many votes as we can. So, far it has paid off. Last week before voting ended we had reached seventh. Now, since then we have been stuck in 10t place. Now, remember, this is a nation wide competition and there are more than a thousand bands competing, so just to be in the top ten for us is amazing. However, we know that in order to get chosen we have to be number one, so obviously we need more votes. So, now, you are asking, "How do we vote?", I am sure. Well, there are two ways, and you can do each of them once a day. First, go to http://crowhollowblonde.musicnation.com/ and click the vote button. Second, text the word CROWHOLLOWBLONDE to the number 628466 with your cellphone. Do this everyday, and you will have helped us get ones tep closer to maybe achieving a dream that for some of us has seemed just out of reach for a long, long time. Just getting to the next round is awesome, because we will get a good sum of money to make a three song demo in an actual professional studio and that demo will get heard by major record executives. So, please, take the 2 minutes per day that it requires, and help us out. Much appreciated.

Skinny

The First Rule Is...

2007-09-15T21:50:00.000-05:00

Hey, folks, so here is the deal. I have been neglecting my duties as a faithful blogger, and for that I humbly apologize. What can I say, between all the responding to fan mail, and all the sex with groupies, and the spending of my millions and having gold replicas made of my penis, I have been preoccupied and have not been able to write as much as I would like. But the good news is, I haven't let it all go to my head.

But seriously, a few new things have come to be encompassed in my makeup which is mostly assembled through pieces of pop culture that I ingest like the necessary food group known only as Pez. These things are a new favorite film, and a newly acquired favorite author. Now for those of you who have known me for a long time, and known me to be a faithful worshipper of Stephen King, let me just say, that some of his works will be with me forever, especially his earlier stuff and of course my all-time favorite Dark Tower series, but as I have grown more mature in my acquisitions of reading material, I have regrettably noticed that Stephen King has an uncanny ability to write the most unbelievable dialogue. Some of the things his characters say, just seem unnatural, and thus degrade the believability of the character. This is a sad fact, but I have grown to despise the things that Stephen makes his characters say. It is almost comical. At any rate, it has only gotten worse over time, and his earlier works were not so dappled with these nonsense phrases. Sorry, Mr. King, you may be the most popular writer in America, and may have written some of my favorite books, but you really should work on your dialogue skills.

As for my new favorite author, well, I think it may be Neil Gaiman, but it is hard for me to declare that. I also really admire Clive Barker, who has a penchant for creating some of the most mesmerizing scenarios in current literature. However, I believe that my current favorite author would have to be Chuck Palahniuk. For those of you who this name does not immediately have a reference, this is the writer of one of my favorite films Fight Club. I read this novel sometime after viewing the film, and the work did not resonate with me so much, because the text was so similar to the movie. There were differences, but mainly, because the author of the screenplay was the same as the novel, it stayed the same. The language didn't strike me as particularly great, because I had at that point seen the movie probably fifteen times. So, a friend told me numerous times to read more of his stuff. Well, finally, over the past couple months, I have had the opportunity to do just that. And, well, it is brilliant stuff. I have read Lullaby, and Survivor, and am most of the way through Diary. I think this is genius stuff. The prose is so terse, and yet packed with meaning and significance. The language is so cynical and yet full of some kind of humor. He can say so much with just one line. For those of you not familiar with his work, you really should check it out. You can't find a more original and entertaining storyteller out there right now (in my opnion).

Also, I should note that my new favorite film of all time is The Seventh Seal. This is an old classic directed by Swedish film maker Ingmar Bergman, who just recently died. You may be familiar with the premise, as it is one of the most iconic films in history: a Medeival knight, returning from the Crusades, has to play Death a game of chess to determine his fate. This movie speaks to me on so many levels. The imagery is so beautiful and stirring. The music is so creepy and perfect. The story is so satirical and moving. It criticizes religion and close minded ignorance. This movie is just awesome. You should see it if you have not.

Speaking of movies, I just watched a masterpiece last night. Clint Eastwood's companion piece to Flags of Our Fathers is a true showing of a master filmmaker in peak form. Letters From Iwo Jima is a brave work of art that shows the true nature of war with an unflinching eye. The movie is poetry in motion, using beautiful imagery and a poignant story set in the backdrop of one of the bloodiest battles of WW2, but telling the Japanese side of the battle through an American artist's vision. Making this movie took some balls, but in doing so Eastwood has proven himself as a pioneer, creating what I believe to be the best war film ever made. This is saying a lot considering how much I hated Flags. It seemed everywhere that film went wrong, falling into familiar cliched war-movie-isms, this one stayed true to its goals, and delivered a story so moving and memorable that you will be hard pressed to finish this one with dry eyes. Watch it and see for yourself.

Finally, I just recently discovered that I did not have all the unreleased Ryan Adams albums, a fact that I was not very happy about. But I just downloaded Destroyer and listened to it, and it is fabulous. Can this guy write anything that is not brilliant? I don't think so. Listening to this makes me anxious for October to hurry up and get here so I can go see him again in concert.

Also, the new Bruce album is excellent, maybe the best outing since Born to Run. Every song is written to perfection. My favorite tracks are definitely "Devil's Arcade" and "Terry's Song", but the title track of the album also stands out as one of the best Springsteen songs ever. "Livin in the Future" seems like a track taken directly from the Born in the USA age, saxophone solo and all. The album as a whole speaks as a great criticism on the nature of today's music, and then gives hope back to it. Leave it to Bruce. I wish I had the money to go see him again.

The new Foo Figheters cd is also excellent, but I need to hear it some more before I give my full opinion.

Well, aside from that, all is basically the same. My band will be on a local radio station tomorrow night, being interviwed and playing some tracks from our cd. That is cool. I will probably have more to say about that tomorrow.

Looking forward to the class reunion. Not.

Anyway, that is all for now. Check it, fool.

"the best way to add insult to injury, is when you are signing a cast"-----Demetri Martin

Halloween Zombies

2007-09-05T00:28:00.000-05:00

Well, well, well, here we are again, and although I am now starting to think that I have lost all of my readers, I am at least blogging for the second tim in two weeks. Hee heh heh.

I saw the new Halloween film this weekend. Twice. I really went into the theater dreading what I was about to take in. Seeing as how John Carpenter's Halloween has always been one of my favorite scary movies, a masterpiece of the horror genre and the cream de le crem of slasher flicks, not to mention an inspiration to any indy film maker considering the huge profit margin that flick raked in...I was kind of scared as to what Rob Zombie would do to my precious nostalgia, the movie that I have watched at least once a year for as long as I have been old enough to appreciate it. But from the start, it was obvious that Zombie had no intentions of trying to just re-make Halloween. Instead, he made it his own, and he finally used his visual flair and concocted a film worthy of his talent, while his previous efforts had only hinted at it. Although I have some problems with his casting (has he not figured out by now that these same people he uses in every movie can not act their way out of a paper bag???) at least in this movie he was able to use some sort of creative restraint on them, and seemed to gather better performances than usual from these wannabe's (Sherri Moon Zombie being the prime example here, her performance was obviously flat, but still effective). There were notable efforts, being those of Malcolm McDowell and the kid that played the young Michael. The movie did not go down any sort of cliched paths you would expect. The ending is one of the most harrowing I have seen in a while, leaving me with chills into the closing credits. In short, I love it. I think Rob Zombie brought something new to the franchise and made a film worthy of the Carpenter legacy. Go see it, and try not to jump and get a little on edge for the night.

Anyway, one thing I forgot to mention in my last post is that we now have an official band website. Go check it out. www.crowhollowblonde.com

Other than that, things are pretty much the same. No complaints, other than I am poor. When am I going to win the lottery?

Later.

The Funniest Movie Ever?

2007-08-27T14:28:00.000-05:00

Ok, folks, I just watched the funniest movie I have ever seen, at this given moment in my life anyway. SUPERBAD equals SUPER HYSTERICAL. Holy shit, I practically laughed non-stop for two entire hours. My chest hurts now. And it is the next day. Wow.

I could ot really afford to go to this movie. But it was worth the excess grief the financial stress will cause me. Go see it. And try to hold your guts in.

If you are wondering how things are going with me...not bad. Things could be a lot better. I was really stoked about winning the lottery. But that did not happen. Someone in Indiana won it. Fuck that noise. I bought nineteen tickets and picked a set of numbers with nineteen as the powerball. Fate was close, but just enough to taunt me. Nineteen was the powerball and I was off by one number on three of them and had two of the numbers. I won four dollars. The rest I quick picked and did not get but one number on any given ticket. What a crock. Makes me think that the system is rigged somehow. Quick picks are monitored in some computer and the lottery broadcast is pre-recorded or something. It is a scam. But I almost won...maybe someday. My finances are so screwed that I really have to either start selling vital organs or become a pimp.

My class reunion is coming up next month. And so is my 29th birthday. Both reminders that I have not accomplished any of my dreams yet and have basically been a waste of space. I guess I better go to this damn thing though. Several of the KORD are going to be there and I better make an appearance. I just hate having to pay for the godamn thing. Why do I have to pay to go to my fucking high scholl reunion? It does not make sense to me.

Speaking of dreams. Crow Hollow Blonde also has a cd coming out next month. Our first full length effort. I have heard the rough mixes of everything and I am pretty proud of it. Of course, the way we made it, on a four track recorder, and mixed through cakewalk, it doesn't sound like it was recorded in a million dollar studio or anything, but it sounds pretty fucking good for the resources, if I have to say so myself. The songs are all good and make the album stand on its own with all the other local shit that I have heard. We are going to be selling it for six dollars a copy and hopefully have a release party at the Great Escape here in town. Maybe play an acoustic show for that, if it works out. Then get some songs on the radio and success is around the corner.

Success will have to come that way, because just playing live is apparently not garnering any attention from people. Maybe we are playing the wrong places. I don't know. Maybe we just aren't that good. But I think we are good. People are just stupid. Programmed by television and American Idol to not be able to think for themselves anymore about what is good. I hate this culture. It is so empty. We played at this place the other night, Saturday, and I won't mention the name of it for anonymity, but the place was ridiculous. Our first set, we had to play so low we could barely hear ourselves. We turned up after that, but the night was pretty much already ruined. The people, which consisted of some people that we knew (who we love an appreciate for coming to our shows repeatedly) and then a crowd of no-personality cookie-cutter frat/sorority types that just stayed completely on the other side of the bar and never even came to listen to us play, unless they had to get in line for the bathroom. Why are people so fucking close-minded that they refuse to listen to anything new? I don't get this culture at all. Let's all just fucking worship Ryan Seacrest and drink the KoolAid when he says to. Fucking retards.

But I grow cynical.

Things are good. My relationship is going well. Like all relationships, it has its ups and downs. But mostly there are ups. She bought me a Denver Broncos hat in Denver. That is cool. We are going to see Ryan Adams again in October. Maybe I can get him to sign the print there that he didn't sign in Louisville this past July.
Maybe he will play with an electric guitar this time. Not that I didn't love the entire acoustic show he played (it was incredible). But usually his shows have more energy.

Anyway, I gotta go eat. Maybe I will write more later, instead of just saying that I will and then never getting around to it.

Peace.

Top 5 Films of the Year (...so far)

2007-08-04T11:20:00.001-05:00

5. Grindhouse
4. The Lookout
3. Transformers
2. BUG
1. ZODIAC

This is so far, and Transformers is held in place by sheer fun and nostalgia. I should mention that Hot Fuzz is a very close number 6. I love that movie.

Also, the Simpsons movie is a great time to be had. Loved it. Makes me remember why I love comedic elements that actually help to develop a plot, unlike say, Family Guy, which is also good, don't get me wrong, but the Simpson's proved their superiority here.

More later.