"clear! make way, coming through!"
Jake, covered in blood, both his own and otherwise, came crashing through the double doors of the medical part of the facility. Covered in dirt, guts, blood, he looked terrible from the neck down. Ironically, he was grinning from ear to ear like a cheshire cat.
"unbelievable!"
"Allright Jake, try not to talk too much or else I'll have to sedate you,"
"Doc, you should have been there, it was..." Jake couldn't even begin to describe what it was.
"Well now, if I would have been there, who would have been here to take care of your mangled leftovers?"
Jake was asleep, probably from loss of blood.
"That's right, Jake, you sleep. When you wake up, you'll be about as good as your going to be,"
"he's going to make it, doc?"
The Doc didn't reply, but his eyes spoke for him.
Upon waking, Jake found himself staring up at ten or so happy faces.
"there he is, good man" it was the Sergent.
"good boy jake, glad to have you with us," said the Captain.
"Doc was right, he woke up right on schedule."
Tell us about the battle, Jake.
The amazing sense of fantastic that Jake had been feeling prior to passing out due to blood loss had been replaced by an overwhelming sense of good fortune and a perma-grin.
"Now, now, don't press him too much, he's been through a lot, give him a minute now."
"Actually," Jake smiled at them, " I feel great."
"That's fine, Jake, really that's fine," Doc was smiling too, "just try not to overdo it right now, okay?"
"Sure, doc. No problem."
All of it was like a crazy awesome dream where you are a super-hero with all these powers and get to bone all these hot blonde porn-stars, but when you wake up, all you have left is the good feeling that's remained, while the details are sketchy at best.
The Doc was the first to speak, "Now, if you can, could you tell everyone what happened at the DOT?"
"Man, what a fight!" Jake sounded like a sports fan that had just watched his favorite team trounce their rivals. He didn't sound at all like the only survivor to the biggest all out battle-royal between good and evil that the New World had ever seen.
"It all started with Techno music, we were so scarred in that little room that we would have probably froze when the call cam in, but then..."
Jakes eyes became distant, his face relaxed, everyone in the room waited intently on his silence. A tear started rolling down his dirt smeared face.
"They're all dead, aren't they." It was not a question.
"You're still here, Jake," the captain couldn't cry, so he was the one to speak.
"We knew there was going to be security, but there wasn't just a force of VM guarding the component, there was a small army, five hundred at least. A whole armored guard of tanks, trucks, motorcycles, fuck. I think they were thinking to just make it so fucking obvious NOT to fuck with them that is why we won."
Everyone knew the outcome, 100 of the facilities warrior class, those with a strong kind of combat skill or other combat qualification, against 500 armored guards both VM and mercenaries. And even against those odds, the machine had been destroyed, the VM force destroyed, scattered to oblivion. It was as if equal parts of matter and anti-matter had come into coexistence, only to obliterate both simultaneously. What nobody could understand was: why?
"The music, it was the music," said Jake, "it made you strong, fast, and brave to the point of idiocy." Over the next few hours, Jake spoke of those that had passed, of their heroic efforts against impossible odds, how one good-heart had taken down a socre of armored trucks by confusing of the tanks with illusions, how the music, blasting through the air out of a combat helicopter speaker system had just as much of a negative effect on the VM force as a positive one on the facility's; How the music caused some of the VM to turn and run, only to be gunned down by their own support troops, and others to freeze in their tracks with their guns pointed with the dangerous end towards the fight.
"It was as if they were so shocked by the fact that we were actually attacking them, and the sheer force of will, the sheer ferocity of teh attack, that they felt that they were fighting on the losing side." Said Jake, as if one statement could ever explain the unexplainable event that had occurred.
That night Jake slept the sleep of the just. The VM scheme to tip the scales had resulted in a cataclysmic event, severely damaging both sides resources and leaving both licking their wounds. But one thing was true, all the momentum was with the facility and their attempt to stifle the Vice Magistrate's efforts to bring the New World down into chaos. Never before had the goal of defeating the VM and instituting a world where equality and justice were the bread and water of the people been so real. Jake never woke up, but he was to be credited as the hero of the Battle of the New World, not for his actions, but because he survived it, giving those left behind the story, the legend that was to become the Legacy of the Just. His job finished, Jake died.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
calm before storm
dark. always so fucking dark. ok, stay calm buddy.
no sense getting your head blown off when your acting like a fool. might as well be calm as shit when you get your head blown off. ya. cool as a cucumber. might as well be coll when you get your cucumber blown off. damn fuckers.
Jake, along with the rest of the team that was chosen to fight that night, in his own head only. unaware of his fellow cannon fodder crouched against the walls of the small hallway of the DOT building, about to run out into the night, guns blazing, for what could possibly be the deciding battle of the goodhearted vs. the Vice Magistrate. Even though every single one of the 100 or so soldiers were shit their pants scared, you wouldn't have known it. all you could see on their faces was grim determination like warpaint made of hard lines and fixed eyes. very likely, most of them were going to die in the great conflagration that was going to follow. the prize was to stop what was potentially the most devastating accomplishment of the vice magistrate, the ability to turn regular people into people with powers, evil powers. with the Arcane project on the line, the vice magistrate was about to have an unlimited supply of personnel to throw at the good-hearts efforts. this advantage would be more than enough to ensure the VM victory, to tip the scales.
In an unprecedented turn of good fortune, the facility had come across information that the transportation of the final, necessary component to the arcane project was being planned by the Vice Magistrate. Knowing the importance and vulnerability of such an endeavor, both sides saw this as a pivotal point at which to focus. The vice magistrate had acted accordingly, the facilities source had said, stacking the transport with enough firepower and soldiers to subdue any attack. It was Jakes hope, along with the 100 other good hearts, that they could in fact break the defenses in an all out attack. While some of those at the facility had what could be called "combat abilities": heightened agility or strength, the ability to make ones skin tough, or to set fires (or put them out), Jake was not one of these. Jake had been chosen because he was a cop before the Change. Almost a lifetime ago, he wasn't sure that it would matter. He didn't resent the choice. He was glad to do his part, put in his share. If his share was his life, so be it.
"It's almost time."
Softly at first, like the song of grass and trees in a gentle wind, then louder so that all the fears and hopes and thoughts were drowned out into perfect tonality, the music of Techno began to play.
no sense getting your head blown off when your acting like a fool. might as well be calm as shit when you get your head blown off. ya. cool as a cucumber. might as well be coll when you get your cucumber blown off. damn fuckers.
Jake, along with the rest of the team that was chosen to fight that night, in his own head only. unaware of his fellow cannon fodder crouched against the walls of the small hallway of the DOT building, about to run out into the night, guns blazing, for what could possibly be the deciding battle of the goodhearted vs. the Vice Magistrate. Even though every single one of the 100 or so soldiers were shit their pants scared, you wouldn't have known it. all you could see on their faces was grim determination like warpaint made of hard lines and fixed eyes. very likely, most of them were going to die in the great conflagration that was going to follow. the prize was to stop what was potentially the most devastating accomplishment of the vice magistrate, the ability to turn regular people into people with powers, evil powers. with the Arcane project on the line, the vice magistrate was about to have an unlimited supply of personnel to throw at the good-hearts efforts. this advantage would be more than enough to ensure the VM victory, to tip the scales.
In an unprecedented turn of good fortune, the facility had come across information that the transportation of the final, necessary component to the arcane project was being planned by the Vice Magistrate. Knowing the importance and vulnerability of such an endeavor, both sides saw this as a pivotal point at which to focus. The vice magistrate had acted accordingly, the facilities source had said, stacking the transport with enough firepower and soldiers to subdue any attack. It was Jakes hope, along with the 100 other good hearts, that they could in fact break the defenses in an all out attack. While some of those at the facility had what could be called "combat abilities": heightened agility or strength, the ability to make ones skin tough, or to set fires (or put them out), Jake was not one of these. Jake had been chosen because he was a cop before the Change. Almost a lifetime ago, he wasn't sure that it would matter. He didn't resent the choice. He was glad to do his part, put in his share. If his share was his life, so be it.
"It's almost time."
Softly at first, like the song of grass and trees in a gentle wind, then louder so that all the fears and hopes and thoughts were drowned out into perfect tonality, the music of Techno began to play.
dream number six
i'm at home, as a child, at my mothers house. i feel disconnected, and i feel something stuck in my teeth. i put my finger to the back of my mouth and discover that my back molar has become a thumbnail. when i pull out the thumbnail, i can feel a hole where the tooth used to be. now in my hand is this big, crescent shaped, nail clipping. i run to the nearest person in the house...
"look, look"
but they don't seem to see me. i yell, "everyone look!" i get a response, but they are just confused, as if they can hear me but not see me.
i start to spit like you are trying to get a hair out of your mouth...
"pfft, pssft, ppsstppstff"
out of my mouth start spraying thumbnails and fingernail clippings, like my teeth are disintegrating into shards. this continues until i have a fistful of fingernail shreds...
jump to...
i'm in the army, i have a black partner. we are special ops who are some bad ass mother-fuq-ers. we are headed to a new assignment where we are going to be stationed in a important city after civilization has destroyed itself. disease and nuclear bombs and starvation are all about in equal numbers in this new world. we arrive at the barracks...
as we walk in the door, immediately we have a sense of not belonging. all the soldiers in the barracks room walk to their bunks and turn their backs on the door we just walked in. we are being ignored. a small woman walks up to us to interview us on if we are supposed to be there, either me or my partner pushes her away...
"i'm not getting interviewed by you!"
she is too small and insignificant. instead, two bodies approach, they are wrapped in kind of a red leather, they are the newest recruits before us. this must be some kind of initiation. we will not be so intimidated and let ourselves be taken advantage of. let them try to do that shist to us. we find the empty bunk and swing in like the pros we are,
we put the blankets entirely over our body, as do the rest of the soldiers in the bunker. the image of 100 sleeping soldiers covered entirely by blankets so that only their shape is seen. as the camera pans towards a single soldier, the imagery is of the blanket rising so that the shape of the soldier is lost, first near the base, then only the head is discernible, then only the face....then as the blanket lifts, the details of the face are erased until a blanket of nothingness is all we see.
that night,
we wake up to a fight, two of the leading soldiers are fighting us. my partner fights first. he wins and then i fight, the one i fight has a bomb, i throw the bomb out the window, then i decapitate the one i fight, i throw his head out the mail slot by the window (it fits?!) and then it follows the bomb, since i was outside already (?) i fork through the mailslot (this means to me in my dream that feet first i enter through the mail slot, then i kind of limbo my torso through the slot and come out on my feet)...
when the bomb goes off, it was a nuke, everything is decimated. the bunker, the people, the base, and oh crap, my mom's pleasure cruiser is out on the water, she was coming in to visit me, but the blast from the nuke destroyed the cruiser, now it is just a flaming wreckage. i sit on the beach, too soldier to cry, sitting behind a tin-can dumpster just watching through a pinhole the cruiser burn. i get up....
a street urchin girl is near the street as i get up and start to walk back towards the base; her friend screems and points at a beer bottle that has become alive and is running at the first girl. the girl tries to get away through a door of a building that has been blown off it's hinges, but the bottle gets close to her and then goes off like a firecracker. the girl is dead even though the blast shouldn't have hurt anyone, it wasn't a big blast, maybe the glass got her...
i walk with my partner through the wreckage of the base...
"hey, when we find our C.O., i'm gonna have to ask for time to go help with my mom...this blast was bad for everyone, but he's not gonna like that..."
"actually, my mom got blown up, so i guess there is nothing really for me to go back to"
DREAM ENDS
"look, look"
but they don't seem to see me. i yell, "everyone look!" i get a response, but they are just confused, as if they can hear me but not see me.
i start to spit like you are trying to get a hair out of your mouth...
"pfft, pssft, ppsstppstff"
out of my mouth start spraying thumbnails and fingernail clippings, like my teeth are disintegrating into shards. this continues until i have a fistful of fingernail shreds...
jump to...
i'm in the army, i have a black partner. we are special ops who are some bad ass mother-fuq-ers. we are headed to a new assignment where we are going to be stationed in a important city after civilization has destroyed itself. disease and nuclear bombs and starvation are all about in equal numbers in this new world. we arrive at the barracks...
as we walk in the door, immediately we have a sense of not belonging. all the soldiers in the barracks room walk to their bunks and turn their backs on the door we just walked in. we are being ignored. a small woman walks up to us to interview us on if we are supposed to be there, either me or my partner pushes her away...
"i'm not getting interviewed by you!"
she is too small and insignificant. instead, two bodies approach, they are wrapped in kind of a red leather, they are the newest recruits before us. this must be some kind of initiation. we will not be so intimidated and let ourselves be taken advantage of. let them try to do that shist to us. we find the empty bunk and swing in like the pros we are,
we put the blankets entirely over our body, as do the rest of the soldiers in the bunker. the image of 100 sleeping soldiers covered entirely by blankets so that only their shape is seen. as the camera pans towards a single soldier, the imagery is of the blanket rising so that the shape of the soldier is lost, first near the base, then only the head is discernible, then only the face....then as the blanket lifts, the details of the face are erased until a blanket of nothingness is all we see.
that night,
we wake up to a fight, two of the leading soldiers are fighting us. my partner fights first. he wins and then i fight, the one i fight has a bomb, i throw the bomb out the window, then i decapitate the one i fight, i throw his head out the mail slot by the window (it fits?!) and then it follows the bomb, since i was outside already (?) i fork through the mailslot (this means to me in my dream that feet first i enter through the mail slot, then i kind of limbo my torso through the slot and come out on my feet)...
when the bomb goes off, it was a nuke, everything is decimated. the bunker, the people, the base, and oh crap, my mom's pleasure cruiser is out on the water, she was coming in to visit me, but the blast from the nuke destroyed the cruiser, now it is just a flaming wreckage. i sit on the beach, too soldier to cry, sitting behind a tin-can dumpster just watching through a pinhole the cruiser burn. i get up....
a street urchin girl is near the street as i get up and start to walk back towards the base; her friend screems and points at a beer bottle that has become alive and is running at the first girl. the girl tries to get away through a door of a building that has been blown off it's hinges, but the bottle gets close to her and then goes off like a firecracker. the girl is dead even though the blast shouldn't have hurt anyone, it wasn't a big blast, maybe the glass got her...
i walk with my partner through the wreckage of the base...
"hey, when we find our C.O., i'm gonna have to ask for time to go help with my mom...this blast was bad for everyone, but he's not gonna like that..."
"actually, my mom got blown up, so i guess there is nothing really for me to go back to"
DREAM ENDS
Monday, July 7, 2008
puzzle
when you start out,
you are at home. it is tuesday.
you start walking on a tuesday at 12:00 noon, easterly, at a constant speed. thirty minutes later, after circumnavigating the globe (you walk really fast), you return. as you traveled, you kept asking people what day it was.
tuesday.
that was the reply for a while. but then, when it was near midnight by wherever you were walking (like tokyo), they started to reply
wednesday.
as you kept walking, you keep asking people what day it is.
what day is it when you get back home?
you are at home. it is tuesday.
you start walking on a tuesday at 12:00 noon, easterly, at a constant speed. thirty minutes later, after circumnavigating the globe (you walk really fast), you return. as you traveled, you kept asking people what day it was.
tuesday.
that was the reply for a while. but then, when it was near midnight by wherever you were walking (like tokyo), they started to reply
wednesday.
as you kept walking, you keep asking people what day it is.
what day is it when you get back home?
that thing about time
"So, tell me the thing about going around the world again, Teacher."
"So if you travel around the world, leaving Monday at noon, traveling so as to offset the motion of the earth, and take 24 hours to traverse the circumference, then the time that you arrive is one day later, Tuesday at noon. As you traveled, every hour from the time you left you would ask somebody,
'hey, what time is it?'
'Noon,' would always be the reply."
"But, then what day would it be for the people you ask?"
-----
It's 10PM where you live. you pick up the phone and call your friend Sara in seattle. It's 7PM there. They are in the same day as you, but London, at 2AM is in the morning, is already tomorrow.
Half way around the world, it's 10AM, what day is it?
It's tomorrow.
------
you pick up a phone. anyone you call upon answering states the current time.
you dial the first number, "10PM, yesterday", it was your friend Sara again, in Seattle, it's 2AM for you on a Tuesday morning, but for Sara it's still Monday night.
You call NY, "2AM today" answers.
at 11 AM you can call yesterday, but at 1PM you can call tomorrow.
---
if you still don't believe me, check out this link i found when i wiki'ed International Date Line
International Dateline Wikipedia
P.S. The 3rd paragraph is legendary!
"So if you travel around the world, leaving Monday at noon, traveling so as to offset the motion of the earth, and take 24 hours to traverse the circumference, then the time that you arrive is one day later, Tuesday at noon. As you traveled, every hour from the time you left you would ask somebody,
'hey, what time is it?'
'Noon,' would always be the reply."
"But, then what day would it be for the people you ask?"
-----
It's 10PM where you live. you pick up the phone and call your friend Sara in seattle. It's 7PM there. They are in the same day as you, but London, at 2AM is in the morning, is already tomorrow.
Half way around the world, it's 10AM, what day is it?
It's tomorrow.
------
you pick up a phone. anyone you call upon answering states the current time.
you dial the first number, "10PM, yesterday", it was your friend Sara again, in Seattle, it's 2AM for you on a Tuesday morning, but for Sara it's still Monday night.
You call NY, "2AM today" answers.
at 11 AM you can call yesterday, but at 1PM you can call tomorrow.
---
if you still don't believe me, check out this link i found when i wiki'ed International Date Line
International Dateline Wikipedia
P.S. The 3rd paragraph is legendary!
Sunday, June 22, 2008
A Light in the Dark
The facility was quiet, darkened. Techno's music wafted through the air like an ambianic smoke machine had been left on. The whole place had the feel of a sleeping giant of some sleeping army after a day of marching. That is, all except for one office where the lights were still hot, and the music was off. The Captain and Jake were pressing Clyde Armstrong for questions. By the looks of their faces, they were not getting the answers they wanted.
"So when was project Arcane put on the table, then?" The captain was pressing hard and starting to sweat under the lights. Clyde had a look of purpose, albeit an evil one, that was completely absent back in the alley, noted Jake. Clyde took his time to respond.
"Well, your guess is as good as mine, Cap'n," he almost smiled the last word.
"You mean they hadn't started the project before you had left?"
"Well," Clyde sat back and looked at the corners of the room, "I didn't really leave, or at least not as much as they threw me out."
Captain Harcourt and Jake exchanged glances.
"You mean they forced you to leave?"
"Well," Clyde said, pointing at his neck, "you don't suppose I gave myself this scar, do you?"
"Well," Clyde said, pointing at his neck, "you don't suppose I gave myself this scar, do you?"
"Dammit Clyde!" The Captain pounded the table, hard enough that the few heads outside on the main floor of the Facility looked up from that nights work.
"Captain, I think I could use a break," the speaker was a tall, pale androgynous male whose sense of peace and serenity more than was plain on the his face, it actually filled the corner he was standing in.
"Ha! If I'm getting you down then maybe the scales aren't so perfectly balanced after all," Clyde emphasized this with a table slap and a sneer of false joy.
"Come on Cap, I could use a break too," said Jake as he went over to the Captain.
"We've been at this for hours and we hardly know more than when we started. Maybe we shouldn't have put so many of our resources to finding this ... shithead."
"Well Cap, we didn't know that he had been forcibly removed from the Magistrate, so that's a leak we could work on."
"But, ... oh I guess."
"Please remember, spoke the androgynous one, "as a three, we have a significant advantage in the questioning, indeed. It is only by allowing him to influence your minds does he succeed in evading your intentions."
The statement almost, but not quite, set off the two big men. What stopped it was the calm that was spreading over them as Andy spoke. Mixed with the warmth and music of the Facility, the words had power of a sort. By the time they had stood and heard the words, they felt that the criticism had awoken them from a dark sleep. Calmly, they went back to the room where it appears that Clyde is laughing.
"Clyde, I want you to listen to me," said Jake. The laughing stopped.
"We want you to help us, and there is no way that we can force you to, but we're going to try anyway because according to all of our information, you're our best bet and figuring what's going on in the Vice Magistrate.
"We can't really offer you anything that you would usually want for helping us, but we can get you off the street and into some clean clothes, get you a shower and try to help you if that's what you want."
Fuck you. That's what Clyde wanted to say, he was too afraid to start crying, so he didn't. Jake saw that look again, the one from the alley. But under the hopelessness, just maybe...
Fuck you. That's what Clyde wanted to say, he was too afraid to start crying, so he didn't. Jake saw that look again, the one from the alley. But under the hopelessness, just maybe...
"Now, we know that project Arcane has something to do with converting Naturals, is that right?"
A tear, golden sparking in the hot lights, snuck out of Clyde's left eye and started it's decent. Clyde nodded, but he couldn't understand why.
"We think is was started by someone outside of the Eight, maybe one of the Lieutenants, is that right?"
"It was Victor."
"Victor?" The Captain asked, Jake shot him a glance: don't break the spell the glance said. Clyde didn't notice, he was about to go off like a geyser.
"It was Victor."
"Victor?" The Captain asked, Jake shot him a glance: don't break the spell the glance said. Clyde didn't notice, he was about to go off like a geyser.
"Yes, Victor Goodbane, he's the one who discovered the theory behind the project's research."
"When you were thrown out they beat you and gave you that scar."
"Yes," the tears were really flowing now.
"Why did they kick you out?"
"I told them it was rubbish, that it would never work, that converting Naturals had to be done with their consent, usually indirectly but that it couldn't be done with their will being bent against it," Jake and the Captain, until just now, had thought the same thing. It was common knowledge until that point, that despair either by self-abasement or other's wrongdoing could lead to that downward spiral which led Naturals to convert.
"But what Victor was suggesting was different, completely physical, a response to a stimulus that produced the emotional destitution required to damage a soul beyond repair. In a sense, nothing else was required than the treatment he was suggesting."
"What treatment?"
"The premise of Victor's idea was simple: Pain."
"What treatment?"
"The premise of Victor's idea was simple: Pain."
It had been a goodnight, thought Jake on his way home through the streets. They had accomplished with Clyde more than they could have hoped. It was Andy's intuition and Jake's insight, formed from years of dealing with hopeless people in the city, that had finally cracked the code. Even the Captain's sincerity and determination were a necessary part of the recipe for that evening's success. On the other hand, the news that they had received from Clyde wasn't really to be classified as 'good news'. The Vice Magistrate was working on some kind of treatment meant to convert Naturals to the side of despair. Project Arcane was real, not just some gossip on the street. It was real and it was coming for them, all of them. But now, with the Day shift starting, Jake was headed home for some R&R for the first time in weeks. They would fulfill their promise to Clyde. They would try to help him deal with his demons. Even more, he needed it now. Old scars are harder to heal than new ones, the Doc would say.
In the increasing light of dawn, walking down the dark streets of the city which was the center of this New World, but was equally about to come apart at the seems, Jake walked with his head high and purpose in his step. Just like the light of a new day, thought Jake, there is a hope.
Monday, June 16, 2008
The Smell of Sin
"So when is the last time you've seen him?"
The Captain was a big bald man. He looked like a lumpy, pale version of the incredible hulk as a high school janitor, but his resolve was as big as he was, or bigger. Questioning the whereabouts of a previous member of the Vice Magistrate was a funny thing to do, thought Jake, especially when the one you are questioning is a streetrat. Pictures of Clyde were strewn about the table.
"He was in the streets, ya' know. Bummin' and hustlin', but he didn't look like these pictures much. But I've been trying to tell you I 'aint been down there for a while."
"He's telling the truth Captain, I can smell it on him," which Jake meant rather literally. He could tell the sins of people in the vicinity just as if it had left a stink on them.
"He's telling the truth Captain, I can smell it on him," which Jake meant rather literally. He could tell the sins of people in the vicinity just as if it had left a stink on them.
"He's been clean for a while, haven't ya bud."
Back out on the floor of the Facility, the usual amount of activity was taking place, creating a heavy murmur. As always, the music of Techno was wafting through the air, giving those present an ample feeling of productivity and a mood of pensive replenishment to those leaning back in their chairs. Coming out of the interrogation room, Jake walked to one of the desks nearby where a small boned good-heart was doing some menial task really well.
"Hey Roger."
"How's it goin', Jake? Any progress finding Armstrong?"
"How's it goin', Jake? Any progress finding Armstrong?"
"Not really, just heading out again here in a minute. Hey, have you seen..."
"They're in your left front cargo pocket."
"Oh, so they are, thanks Roger."
"Hey Jake, when you're out there do me a favor, ok?"
"They're in your left front cargo pocket."
"Oh, so they are, thanks Roger."
"Hey Jake, when you're out there do me a favor, ok?"
"What's that?"
"Watch out for yourself, okay? Things have been getting real screwy lately, ya' know?"
"Ya, I know, see you around Roger."
As Jake walked away, he thought about the city he was entering. The contrast of fluorescent lights and the darkness, the extremes in speed and light. He thought about the smell. He almost took a deep breath walking out the door, leaving that warm little center that he was becoming more and more to think of as home. He was doing his part, he knew that, and he had his part to do. He only hoped that the little he could contribute would be enough to tip the scales in their favor. Almost holding his breath, mentally carrying the feeling of that place, feeling the hope and light, the industry contained within, he stepped out into the darkness.
"Watch out for yourself, okay? Things have been getting real screwy lately, ya' know?"
"Ya, I know, see you around Roger."
As Jake walked away, he thought about the city he was entering. The contrast of fluorescent lights and the darkness, the extremes in speed and light. He thought about the smell. He almost took a deep breath walking out the door, leaving that warm little center that he was becoming more and more to think of as home. He was doing his part, he knew that, and he had his part to do. He only hoped that the little he could contribute would be enough to tip the scales in their favor. Almost holding his breath, mentally carrying the feeling of that place, feeling the hope and light, the industry contained within, he stepped out into the darkness.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
some links
i thought i would provide two links of some recent stuff that i really liked on the internet. This first one is a digital telescope.
www.worldwidetelescope.org
www.msn.com/downloads
The first is the telescope page itself, but i needed a patch from the second website to get it going. Maybe you have less trouble with it than i did, and if this is the case then maybe you just googled 'worldwidetelescope' and got things going that way.
here is a free nine inch nails album, "The Slip", which was produced and is being given away by trent reznor, thanks dude!
Aside from tracks 3, 6, and 7, i think that all the songs have something to offer. I think the single Discipline is particularly catchy, like the nine inch nails that i like should be. The other truly notable track is Corona Radiata, which is a ambianic side of nin that i wouldn't have really considered until i heard it (*considered it's existance).
http://dl.nin.com/theslip/signup
www.worldwidetelescope.org
www.msn.com/downloads
The first is the telescope page itself, but i needed a patch from the second website to get it going. Maybe you have less trouble with it than i did, and if this is the case then maybe you just googled 'worldwidetelescope' and got things going that way.
here is a free nine inch nails album, "The Slip", which was produced and is being given away by trent reznor, thanks dude!
Aside from tracks 3, 6, and 7, i think that all the songs have something to offer. I think the single Discipline is particularly catchy, like the nine inch nails that i like should be. The other truly notable track is Corona Radiata, which is a ambianic side of nin that i wouldn't have really considered until i heard it (*considered it's existance).
http://dl.nin.com/theslip/signup
Monday, May 26, 2008
soul-sniffer
Dark. The alley was so dark that Jake couldn't see the detritus and filth that he was practically wading through, but he could smell it. That wasn't the smell that interested him, though. The smell of rotting cardboard boxes and waste filling his nostrils wasn't why he had come down this alley, like a bloodhound on the hunt. A different smell had caught his attention, the smell of sin. Back at the street, it had been faint, almost undetectable. Now, however, it was getting stronger. It was getting stronger with each step he took down the alley, with his hands in front of him, trying to keep away the invisible obstacles. Walking this way, he kept his nose pointed like a compass toward his expected goal. Down the alley, it was becoming lighter. One of the street lamps wasn't out. The smell was becoming stronger: thievery, deceit for sure, but also despair, drug addiction, and anal sex. In one of the doorways a man was lying, or at least it could have been a man. To Jake's eyes it just seemed to be a ragged bundle of old, dirty clothes, roughly in the shape of a man. Jake stood over the man, and he took a photograph out of his jacket pocket. As he did this the man on the ground started to stir restlessly. As Jake's gaze began to take in the man's features, the man on the ground looked up at him. Physically, he smelled nearly twice as bad as he looked: unshaven, dirty face, with a look of hopelessness that Jake was only too familiar with.
"Clyde Armstrong?" asked Jake.
Although the man did not move or speak, nor make a sound, and even though some people in Jake's place might have said he made no reaction at all, Jake saw in the man's eyes a certain resolve appear in the man's features, and he knew that this was the man that he had come to find. The only problem was what he was going to do next.
"Now, " Jake said to himself, "how am I going to get you out of here?"
Saturday, April 26, 2008
random sh*t
when? now the other one? now the chicken is cooked...
it has flown to the coop, the cooper tire planet, the one in to the other one,
what? random? theater neanderthal? you know that you're crazy when eyes...
the other one? lets go, ill be over, we'll go together....ok, sounds good, sounds perfect
sounds like a plan, sounds like the way to go, good stuff, right on, keep um comin,
no way man, that sh*ts whack
it has flown to the coop, the cooper tire planet, the one in to the other one,
what? random? theater neanderthal? you know that you're crazy when eyes...
the other one? lets go, ill be over, we'll go together....ok, sounds good, sounds perfect
sounds like a plan, sounds like the way to go, good stuff, right on, keep um comin,
no way man, that sh*ts whack
a morning dream
we were in an Avis van, my mom, my dad, and me. we were heading to the airport to go out of the country, to africa I think. when we got to the airport, it was really big but kind of run down. it looked like a mid-80's terminal with the architecture and old paint. when we got on the plane it turned out that there was a little problem with the throttle control. due to some wire, the engines would suddenly get cut, and then start again. it was like if you had a bad connection with a wall jack and the thing you had plugged in couldn't decide to stay on or turn off, so it would just flicker. the pilot, who was this old guy with wispy gray hair in a horseshoe around his head and a kind of shabby but not unclean outfit, was able to keep the plane from falling out of the sky. the trick, you see, is to use the potential energy from being high up in the air to give some speed when the engines cut out. at one point, (I was sleeping in the coach section, curled up with one of those pillows), my mom woke me up because they had lost enough altitude that the ground was coming up. I looked out and couldn't see much in the dark, but it looked like a huge, black, ocean. in fact it was trees. from the ground, anyone standing in the path of the airplane would have seen a huge 747 clipping the canopy branches. at one point we got so low we actually chopped off the top centimeter of a tree branch reaching above the rest of the canopy, "that is a sight you don't see everyday".
the next thing we were in the Avis van again, but no longer in america. we had ditched the plane because it was taking too long and we had got a van and were going to the local airport (now in africa or something) to get a new flight to our final destination. when we got to the airport it was nice, and there were a lot of africans with yellow and green colored outfits walking around, and quite a few of them were in wheelchairs. "it must be because of the heat, that they don't want to walk". we came to a door that said 'Le colonie HaHa's', which was the name of the dominant group at the time. My mom reached for the door and I told her to stop and explained. the door led to a corridor that we couldn't see much about. there was another door 'The Boy's Hatanian' which I thought they were from Haiti and were obviously the second most powerful group. Their room was dark, as in a unused movie theater, and in the same fashion had stadium style seating but the seats seemed to all be facing uphill, towards the back of the theater. "Come on mom", we walked down to a lower level, where there was a door that led in the same direction as the corridor above, towards the airplanes.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
four dreams
I was standing in a crowded place, probably somewhere near the ocean. I started to hear screams, and I could tell that everyone started looking in the same direction. I followed their gazes and saw it: a huge wave. At first we thought it was water, but then the smell hit us, it was gasoline. the pungent odor changed things immediately, instead of worrying about drowning or clunking your head when the water hit, now we were worried about the vegetation, it was all going to die. I found an old cold meat locker which was neither cold nor had meat in it, but it had no windows and a door that locked airtight. when the water hit, I couldn't feel anything of movement of the locker, but I could hear all that was going on on the outside. I noticed a small, opened can of nacho cheese sauce and thought "im going to need to save this so when I get out of here I have some food, since there won't be any when I get out". I knew I had to watch out 'cause if it was water, a little drop of water in the cheese sauce wouldn't hurt it, but if gas got in it it would ruin it. eventually, the noises stopped, but I didn't know if I was at the bottom of the gas ocean or floating at the top, but then I could hear people crying coming from the crack in the door.
the scene on top was much different then the old world. only the tops of mountains had a few trees and is where all the people now separated lived. everyone had formed into zealous fanatical groups. there was one group who felt strongly about this, and this group thought we should do it this way and so they wanted to do it like this, and one small group was in charge of the food. you were lucky to get a crust of bread in a day, they were unfair with the distribution. I killed someone, stabbed them, when they tried to get my food, I didn't want to hurt anybody, I just wanted to live.
There were five of us, in some kind of a ghost trick house. shadows flew by just outside your vision and you knew if the shadows got you they would kill you. you walked slowly, trying to avoid the shadows, but if you saw one coming you ran. one room was cluttered with two doors in and out, and there was a disgusting bathroom that was a safe room, there were a few staircases that kept leading to different places. every once in a while, you heard a scream, now there are only four...now only three. finally, a shadow got me and I freaked out.... everything went out.
the game started over, but this time I WAS the ghost. I had to run, run as fast as I could because I knew if I was seen then I would cease to exist. I was constantly running, here comes someone run up the stairs, look for an exit, the sliding door into the closet, now what, there is a small staircase to a passage upstairs, look for an exit, run run run... finally, I was cornered, I couldn't get away from the human that was unknowingly trapping me in the room, he saw me, and I was so mad that I was going to cease to exist, I shook him, screaming, until he died.
she was really really big in the belly. she got a little smaller in the belly by having a little baby, but the big baby was still in the belly. we went to the woods and the baby was walking through the trees. we weren't paying attention for a moment. the woods took the little baby, we hadn't watched it for a moment and now it was gone. later, near the football fields where the band was practicing, we saw the cop lights coming. three cruisers pulled up, they were school cars, not the real thing. we thought they must have come to deliver a message to one of the people out here since there was no phone, maybe. but then they got out of the cruisers and started walking towards the woods. you could see flashlights. then, from far away, you could hear the calls of the persons name they were looking for, the woods had claimed another and they were looking for them.
the soccer game was very competitive, but we were up by a goal. we switched some positions, the large golden skinned guy with the mexican team shirt played behind me on defense. he shouldn't be playing defense. he makes a big mistake and they score. I tell him, "you are really good on offense, don't play defense", and he nods. I reassign someone else to the position and we take our places again in the center of the field. now I'm on a break away, but the guy behind me pulls on my shirt to slow me down, I fall. I chase after him and cleat him in the back of the leg with my cleated shoes. he says, "hey" and I say "don't pull my shirt and I won't cleat you". now even when I don't have the ball, he is behind me holding on to my shirt and yelling "faster, faster" because I am like a dogsled dog pulling him through the dirt. I put my cleat on his throat and step on it, then the same on his exposed belly. he looks at me with surprise, but no anger. the other team doesn't like that I'm abusing their teammate, so they start harassing me as well. I have enough cleats to go around. the game is very competitive.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
and another thing
why is it that the little indian restaurants always charge you for everything everything. i mean, $1.50 for raita, $1.65 for onion chutney, you wanna have a refill? $2.00, you want some soup? $2.95 each, you spend $41 on a 'dinner for two' and spend $25 on 'extras'...
...and another thing
what, exactly, is wrong with a 28 year old getting a remote helicopter for his birthday? hmmm? no, what is wrong with that? what is wrong with going to the store and buying 10 more of those bad boys so all your friends can have one and you can have mid-air helicopter wars? huh? what's wrong with having a martini set and a remote controlled helicopter be simultaneously the best birthday presents you could have asked for?
...and another thing
what is up with your buddy coming over to your party, getting on the phone for 20 minutes, and leaving pubes on your toilet seat? is this normal? is this really something that i want to understand and have be a part of the 'things that i acknowledge as being understood', prolly not.
...and another thing
what is up with your girlfriend changing your f-u-c-q-i-n-g desktop all the f-o-c-k-n-g time? she has her own computer, or at least she has her own settings or whatever. change your own god-dammit desktop and leave my shit alone dammit!
ok im done, but seriously...
...and another thing
what, exactly, is wrong with a 28 year old getting a remote helicopter for his birthday? hmmm? no, what is wrong with that? what is wrong with going to the store and buying 10 more of those bad boys so all your friends can have one and you can have mid-air helicopter wars? huh? what's wrong with having a martini set and a remote controlled helicopter be simultaneously the best birthday presents you could have asked for?
...and another thing
what is up with your buddy coming over to your party, getting on the phone for 20 minutes, and leaving pubes on your toilet seat? is this normal? is this really something that i want to understand and have be a part of the 'things that i acknowledge as being understood', prolly not.
...and another thing
what is up with your girlfriend changing your f-u-c-q-i-n-g desktop all the f-o-c-k-n-g time? she has her own computer, or at least she has her own settings or whatever. change your own god-dammit desktop and leave my shit alone dammit!
ok im done, but seriously...
Friday, April 11, 2008
life on earth and reverse time theory
one of the things i'll never forget about my dad are the times when I would be laying in bed, i've always had trouble sleeping, so he would come in and sit and we would talk about all sorts of stuff. usually somewhat science based. planets, extra-t life, the idea of huge distances, new technology on this planet, the future.
this has been a common way of me to communicate forever since then. sometimes it isn't what the situation is called for (think: girls), but this isn't something i can just turn off when its not appropriate. nope. this is the way i am.
my dad and i never talked about the past. or if we talked about anything other than the future, we would talk about the far distant past, saying "back then they didn't realize that the sun was really a big ball of gas, their explanation was ...", or "they used to think that the sun went around the earth, too..." and never about OUR past. again, for better or worse, i have a lot of trouble feeling regret, happiness about my own life up to this point. i don't think it is really a character flaw as much as a trait, after all, everybody is different.
as far as I can tell, the way I am is a result of where I have been. but couldn't it go the other way? Can't you look at it to say that the person I am now completely determines what experiences I must have had up to this point to make me do things the way that I do them? I call this viewpoint "reverse time theory" and it goes something like this:
ex: as i look out the window, i see a young man riding down the street on a bicycle. i think to myself, "that man is going somewhere". but then i realize, "that man is coming from somewhere, too". is he riding in front of my face as a result of where he is going or where he has been? of course, since i'm at my window, it must be a result of both since my window is likely to be in between both locations. but now make me an "impartial observer" independent of my own location. i'm just an observer watching this guy go by, ok fine.
then i would say (if i was being completely honest with myself) that the reason he is peddling on his bike is because of the decision he made at home to go, and the speed hes riding at is because of his past experience with riding bikes, and the pothole he swerved around was because he didn't want to crash. in order for me to be who i am, and make the decisions that i make, my past has to be exactly the way it is. any change in my past would have altered my present from it's current state.
we say that things had to happen in the past so that things in the present can be the way they are. in other words, if anything in the "past" had been different, then so would the present be different. so we in general think that the past influences the present. let me say it one more time, and please don't think im completely crazy: in order for me to be who i am, and make the decisions that i make, my past has to be exactly the way it is. any change in my past would have altered my present from it's current state.
can we "reverse the arrow of time" and find that everything still makes sense? I'm sitting here typing, clean as a whistle. before that i thought about typing, before that i was taking a shower, before that i was eating breakfast, before that i was hungry, before that i was sleepy eyed, before that i was asleep.
can we ask that effect implies cause? according to some physics books i've read, this is a completely acceptable way of thinking about things, but i've run out of time for now (when i get to school, i'll be on time) so i guess i better go now.
this has been a common way of me to communicate forever since then. sometimes it isn't what the situation is called for (think: girls), but this isn't something i can just turn off when its not appropriate. nope. this is the way i am.
my dad and i never talked about the past. or if we talked about anything other than the future, we would talk about the far distant past, saying "back then they didn't realize that the sun was really a big ball of gas, their explanation was ...", or "they used to think that the sun went around the earth, too..." and never about OUR past. again, for better or worse, i have a lot of trouble feeling regret, happiness about my own life up to this point. i don't think it is really a character flaw as much as a trait, after all, everybody is different.
as far as I can tell, the way I am is a result of where I have been. but couldn't it go the other way? Can't you look at it to say that the person I am now completely determines what experiences I must have had up to this point to make me do things the way that I do them? I call this viewpoint "reverse time theory" and it goes something like this:
ex: as i look out the window, i see a young man riding down the street on a bicycle. i think to myself, "that man is going somewhere". but then i realize, "that man is coming from somewhere, too". is he riding in front of my face as a result of where he is going or where he has been? of course, since i'm at my window, it must be a result of both since my window is likely to be in between both locations. but now make me an "impartial observer" independent of my own location. i'm just an observer watching this guy go by, ok fine.
then i would say (if i was being completely honest with myself) that the reason he is peddling on his bike is because of the decision he made at home to go, and the speed hes riding at is because of his past experience with riding bikes, and the pothole he swerved around was because he didn't want to crash. in order for me to be who i am, and make the decisions that i make, my past has to be exactly the way it is. any change in my past would have altered my present from it's current state.
we say that things had to happen in the past so that things in the present can be the way they are. in other words, if anything in the "past" had been different, then so would the present be different. so we in general think that the past influences the present. let me say it one more time, and please don't think im completely crazy: in order for me to be who i am, and make the decisions that i make, my past has to be exactly the way it is. any change in my past would have altered my present from it's current state.
can we "reverse the arrow of time" and find that everything still makes sense? I'm sitting here typing, clean as a whistle. before that i thought about typing, before that i was taking a shower, before that i was eating breakfast, before that i was hungry, before that i was sleepy eyed, before that i was asleep.
can we ask that effect implies cause? according to some physics books i've read, this is a completely acceptable way of thinking about things, but i've run out of time for now (when i get to school, i'll be on time) so i guess i better go now.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
friends
who is going to listen to you? when you are talking stuff that somebody has to understand, to be normal. to be a person, and feel like everything is o.k.
who is going to be there for you when you need to do those things that are too hard to do alone. who can give you rides, and you can use their truck, and who are you going to give rides to? who can you be dinner guests with and invite over for dinner?
is it enough to feel like something, somebody by yourself? do you? why do you feel the need to get out and connect? is the connection there? if so, who is on the other end?
Friday, April 4, 2008
which is better: the best or good enough?
in economics, there is this idea that it is best to spend your money on something until the additional utility you get per dollar stops increasing. that is, until d^2U/dx^2=0. for example, if you could spend $1 on chocolate to get 100 utility, then $2 to get 300 utility, $3 to get 600 utility, and $4 to get 700 utility, then you should spend $3. This is because the 2nd dollar you spend gives you an additional 200 utility, the 3rd dollar you spend gives you an additional 300 utility, but the 4th dollar you spend only gives you another 100 utility. so even though you still get more "happiness" from spending $4 rather than $3, the extra benefit from that 4th dollar isn't as much as the extra benefit from the 3rd dollar, so the 3rd dollar is the last one you should spend.
this concept could be called, doing things 'good enough'. since in some sense, im not really getting the most possible utility out of chocolate if i employ this technique. maybe i could have maxxed out utility from chocolate by spending $10 and getting a maximum of 755 utility, and if i spend one more dollar i go down in utility (since then i have a belly-ache).
it's pretty reasonable, then to see that doing things good enough might be better than doing them to the best possible extent of how good you can do them.
the question that i want to pose is this: does the same argument work in every day to day life? Is doing things good enough (or half-way as my wife likes to call it : P) actually better than doing things the best you can?
I think i tend to employ the technique of doing things good enough. and the reason is that i have a lot of different pulls on my time, and if i focused too heavily on one then the other would suffer. so im constantly trying to find that line where i can stop doing something because the 'dollar' (in this case, just think arbitrary resource unit) i spend could be better used somewhere else. in short, my total utility looks something like a product of the utility i get from each facet of my life, with certain weights. maybe my utility function looks something like this
U(x_1,x_2,...,x_n)=prod_j (x_j^i_j) + L
L is some function which somehow records what has been happening in the last week and thus deforms the real utility function accordingly (ex. a bad week means L is negative, getting cookies means L is positive)
the point is this: you want to try to maximize your total utility, but if you lack on any one thing then you can't really be that happy. so even if you really do well in one aspect of the n things that you consider important, you better not neglect the other n-1 things that you want to do well at, otherwise, you can't be as happy as possible.
i think this idea has been a long time coming so long as i can think of myself as 'me' (this is another idea maybe ill tell you all at some point: how the 'me' changes, is born and dies, to become different 'me's from time to time, usually dying after some big change. i kind of talked about this briefly in the previous post, something like people tend to stay about the same unless something dramatic happens to 'change' them. the changing i call 'death', but it's not really death as in the termination of life, but rather the termination of the personality traits which signify the person as 'me', and the introduction of new traits which are somehow fundamentally different than the old 'me')
i think the reason i thought of this post is a talk i was having with a recruit; it was brought up if i thought that it was good to have a family and be in the dept at the same time. i said absolutely and that it was hard to balance everything at the same time, but totally worth it. of course, being me, i wouldn't make it any other way.
this concept could be called, doing things 'good enough'. since in some sense, im not really getting the most possible utility out of chocolate if i employ this technique. maybe i could have maxxed out utility from chocolate by spending $10 and getting a maximum of 755 utility, and if i spend one more dollar i go down in utility (since then i have a belly-ache).
it's pretty reasonable, then to see that doing things good enough might be better than doing them to the best possible extent of how good you can do them.
the question that i want to pose is this: does the same argument work in every day to day life? Is doing things good enough (or half-way as my wife likes to call it : P) actually better than doing things the best you can?
I think i tend to employ the technique of doing things good enough. and the reason is that i have a lot of different pulls on my time, and if i focused too heavily on one then the other would suffer. so im constantly trying to find that line where i can stop doing something because the 'dollar' (in this case, just think arbitrary resource unit) i spend could be better used somewhere else. in short, my total utility looks something like a product of the utility i get from each facet of my life, with certain weights. maybe my utility function looks something like this
U(x_1,x_2,...,x_n)=prod_j (x_j^i_j) + L
L is some function which somehow records what has been happening in the last week and thus deforms the real utility function accordingly (ex. a bad week means L is negative, getting cookies means L is positive)
the point is this: you want to try to maximize your total utility, but if you lack on any one thing then you can't really be that happy. so even if you really do well in one aspect of the n things that you consider important, you better not neglect the other n-1 things that you want to do well at, otherwise, you can't be as happy as possible.
i think this idea has been a long time coming so long as i can think of myself as 'me' (this is another idea maybe ill tell you all at some point: how the 'me' changes, is born and dies, to become different 'me's from time to time, usually dying after some big change. i kind of talked about this briefly in the previous post, something like people tend to stay about the same unless something dramatic happens to 'change' them. the changing i call 'death', but it's not really death as in the termination of life, but rather the termination of the personality traits which signify the person as 'me', and the introduction of new traits which are somehow fundamentally different than the old 'me')
i think the reason i thought of this post is a talk i was having with a recruit; it was brought up if i thought that it was good to have a family and be in the dept at the same time. i said absolutely and that it was hard to balance everything at the same time, but totally worth it. of course, being me, i wouldn't make it any other way.
Monday, March 31, 2008
coincidences, karma, death, and humor, but not in that order
i watched "no country for old men" tonight. great movie, or at least good. one thing that i noticed that instigated this blog post, it seemed as though near the end of the movie that two events involving the protagonist and the antagonist (separately) and women caused injury or death to them. the first instance of this is when the protagonist LouEllen (?) is flirting with a girl by the pool. up to this point, there has been almost no indication whatsoever about sexuality in the movie. the closest up to this point being near the beginning which is funny enough to mention:
"oh, is that why you keep looking out the window?"
"well, that and to see what's comin."
"you can never tell what's comin though, how about a beer?"
"i know what comes after beer,"
"more beer?" (smile)
it's left (relatively) to the viewer's imagination what happens next, *(and the editing segue to the next scene still has me a little intrigued, it is FAST, almost like it can't wait or that the previous scene somehow didn't happen). In any case, the next we see of our hero, he is toast...dead.
The second instance is of the evil villan Sugar. Apparently, he waits for the mother of LouEllen's wife to die before "visiting" her. She, along with the rest of us, had the uncanny feeling that "it" was not over yet. so Sugar tells her that he's here because he made a promise to LouEllen,
"i gave my word"
"that doesn't make sense, why would you promise LouEllen that you would kill me?"
"i gave him the chance to save you, but he chose to save himself instead"
"no, not the way you said it"
"..."
"you don't have to do this you know"
"everybody always says that" ....
in any case, in my opinion she is toast. the indicator for this is that when he leaves the house he checks his shoes. this isn't the first time that he's been careful not to get blood on his shoes or himself (see woody harelson scene or the mexican in the bathtub for 2 quick supporting scenes). in any case, as hes driving down the street after (supposedly) killing LouEllen's wife, he's in a random car wreck and completely f#&k's up his arm, with the bone coming out of the socket.
something just hit me about these two events. i mean, the whole movie is really violent, sure. but the death of the hero was a shock to me (which shouldn't have been, he really did have it coming in a reality point of view). and the car wreck was so OUT OF NOWHERE that you just have to wonder if the director/storyteller had the inclination of somehow pointing out to everybody that there is some kind of karma or justice for going out of your way to mess with girls or something. now that i think about it, these two instances were the only ones that i can think of where a feminine character was harmed (in the swimming pool scene i suppose it is the wife which is emotionally harmed, while she is actually MURDERED by sugar in the scene preceding the car wreck, which is really messed up since it somehow indicates that you get punished more for hurting a girl emotionally than to kill her???)
so, all of this also kind of reminds me about coincidences or karma in general. by coincidence i mean the things that happen to everybody, a bunch of times in a given week or day, where it just seems "too good to be true" or in other words that the thing happens in such a way that you say to yourself "there is no way that that was a natural occurrence, but must have some deeper underlying reason which i'm not aware of".
some examples:
you drive from your house to school and hit all the lights green, and as you get to campus a car pulls out of a spot right in front of your building, and as you enter your building the elevator dings and you walk in, etc.
you get in a fight with your sweetie, your mom yells at you, your dad is having a bad day, your best friend is out of town, and your pet has a bad rash and is highly irritable.
you run out of beer and its sunday. (this one ALWAYS friggin happens to me!)
Now, the thing is, i remember lots of times in my life that i've said stuff (to my dad, for instance) like..."man, this stuff is always happening, like a lot more often than it really should". Lately, i can't really say that as much, since things lately have pretty much been happening about the way i would expect them. so what is that stuff? in other words, why is it that "when it rains it pours". why does good and bad stuff seem to clump together. why do problems multiply and cause other problems?
i guess the obvious answer to this is that when problems happen, unless you deal with them fast (and even then) you end up spending more time dealing with a problem and less watching out for the potential problems. that is, when you are allocating limited resources (time) to dealing with situations that are getting out of hand (due to random fluctuations in the way things work or don't work) then you are less apt to be able to spend time preventing other problems from happening or preventing small problems from becoming big problems.
example: if you had a really long, tiring day, you don't want to do the dishes. and then since the dishes are in the sink, it's not convienient to wash the dinner pans and plates cause the sink is full. but this depresses you so you don't feel like doing anything except sitting around watching TV, and the cycle continues...
in the same line of thought, if you have a big project that NEEDS to get done, why is it that its easier to work on it when you have already been working on it. in other words, why is STARTING a big project put off to the point that it is a problem, when if you would have just started it earlier it wouldn't have been as big of a problem? wouldn't a rational, logical person know that as long as they start early their life is going to be easier? but rather than act logically, a logical person will avoid starting it (for some unknown reason). maybe im projecting. maybe im the only one who does this stuff, but somehow i really doubt it.
isn't it true that we tend to believe that everybody else is like us on some fundamental level? I mean, its just easier to imagine that most people (especially given similar circumstances, age, station, etc.) will have similar perspectives. I mean, although theoretically it is just as likely that each person views the world in COMPLETELY DIFFERENT although consistent with each other perspective, it is much easier to assume that "blue is blue" and "a tree looks basically the same to me as it does to you". it almost makes more sense, if you focus on the idea of perspective, to realize that in all likelihood everybody has a unique perspective and perhaps a completely different way of understanding the world we live in, in such a way that we are still compatible with each other even though if i could "see through your eyes" for 10 minutes i would probably go insane since what i think of as a "tree in a golden field in the sunshine with blue clouds and a fierce breeze" you would view as "clown face spinning kalidiscope with dancing pony fishermen on a pitchfork and an upside down kevin costner". maybe this is completely silly, but i think we can all agree that there's no way to actually get inside anybody's head and check out what the world actually does look like from their eyes, so maybe my theory is just as good as the "obvious" one that a tree is a tree, and a clown is a clown, funny is funny, and that's that.
speaking of funny
it seems to me that the things that are most likely to be funny have to have some basis in truth.
in other words...imagine a funny song. if you can't ill try to help. it starts out as a song should, and it leads you from a chord progression that "makes sense", with some melody and a counter-point, a simple rythum that is repeated, and so on....and then BLAMMO hits a chord that 'doesn't belong', but is just close enough that your ear can hear what was supposed to be there and also that the thing that you just heard is WRONG.
if you've never heard this kind of a musical joke, i suggest you find someone who can tell it to you, since it somehow captures a joke without words, movement (body language), or even visual effects at all. but it does pick you up, take you on a ride, set you down, and you are different for the good it did you.
but this brings up a point: what are the conditions for something to be funny? by my example one of them is this: the person listening to the joke needs to somehow understand what was SUPPOSED to happen. that is, they need to understand the TRUTH for the joke to make sense. the thing about a good musical joke, is that you don't need to know any musical theory for the joke to be funny, but only have listened to some music at some point in your life. (so as to have some kind of basic understanding of how things "usually" go)
of course, a musician would have more "available" jokes when playing for another musician.
Example: The functions party joke.
one weekend, some of the functions decided they were going to have a party and invite a bunch of their friends. the party was held at sin's and 3x+1's house. almost everybody went, there was natural log, and all the trig functions, there was polynomials of arbitrarily large degree, and of course there was 1/x (the lush!). but 3x+1 noticed that e^x was standing in the corner, moping as usual. being the nice map that he was, he went up to e^x and said, "hey e^x, why don't you integrate yourself into the party," to which e^x replied, "it wouldn't matter".
now, if you get the joke AND you think it's funny, then there is a very good chance that you are a nerd and/or a mathematician (probably just and needed there). if you got the joke and didn't think its funny then you need to lighten up, and if you didn't get the joke then you need to take calc I. in any case, there is a point to this...
a joke has some kind of "background" or foundation which is the setting for the joke (music/math, etc.) and the listener needs to have a knowledge of the "background" for the joke to even have a chance of being funny. but what else is needed for the joke to be funny... why are some jokes funny and then you change them a little bit and then they're not funny anymore?
timing! i'm not sure exactly how this works, but the timing is very important. even if you have heard a joke before, and you know exactly what's going to happen (sometimes this even makes the joke better), so long as the timing is good, the joke will be funny. what is timing you ask? that's a lot harder for me to wrap my head around, but i think it's probably somebody else's job anyway.
one night before cristmas, several years ago, i was laying in bed and i had my eyes closed, and was rubbing my eyes and saw something like a laser beam flash across my eyelids. i opened my eyes and tried to find the laser beam. it wasn't "real" in the strictest sense of the word. but i found it nevertheless. i had to focus a lot (mentally) but i was able to bend that laser (it was like a spaghetti noodle the way it didn't want to be looked down straight), but as long as you got it right down your eye, if you looked down the center, you could hold it there. inside that laser red light, i saw a bunch of floating heads of girls. probably they were all about my age. i purposely didn't look for my girlfriend. i introduced myself to the floating heads and said "if you ever see me in real life, you should say hi and flirt with me". sometimes it works, i probably got to about 2,000 heads or so, but i've never been able to replicate the laser. i'm sure that my wife was one of the heads, though, since there is really no other reason i can think of that she should have thought she was going to marry me when we first met, i was a pretty strange ranger. my old best friend said that she was the only one who was able to make me less of a nut, and for that i guess i should be thankful. this kind of reminds me of an idea about the way that people don't really change that much even from being little little kids, unless something hugely dramatic/damaging happens. but i guess i can save Something for a later day, i guess i'll leave you with this:
i remember the first time i could read. i was on a bus in the city, going to school with my dad. i was looking out the window and i realized for the first time that i could understand that that sign said "cigar". i said, "dad! that says cigar!" i kept it up "hey! that says pizza!", "sale! that says sale!", and so on. there wasn't a long boundary period, but for that short time i distinctly remember that i was able to comprehend what it meant to NOT know how to read. that i could STILL look at the signs as though i DIDN'T know what they said. anymore, i can only guess what i could have thought if i didn't know how to read when i look at a sign. just like i can't fully appreciate what it means to have the thoughts of a child. without the math, the logic, the music, the knowledge of art, economics, philosophy, war, chaos, love, pain, (but not grammar nor spelling). to be innocent intellectually. one time, i asked my mom, "mom, where do all the giants live"
"what giants hunny"
"all the giant people"
"what giant people, dear"
"well, im small, but you are taller than me since you are older, so the people that are older than you must be taller still, and the people older than them must be really tall...giants! but i haven't seen any, where do they live?"
yes sal, where do they live...where indeed.
quit your hollerin' woman, if you keep runnin' that mouth i'm a gonna take you in the back and screw yaso anyway, this girl by the pool is flirting with LouEllen and he says, "well, i'm waiting for my wife".
"oh, is that why you keep looking out the window?"
"well, that and to see what's comin."
"you can never tell what's comin though, how about a beer?"
"i know what comes after beer,"
"more beer?" (smile)
it's left (relatively) to the viewer's imagination what happens next, *(and the editing segue to the next scene still has me a little intrigued, it is FAST, almost like it can't wait or that the previous scene somehow didn't happen). In any case, the next we see of our hero, he is toast...dead.
The second instance is of the evil villan Sugar. Apparently, he waits for the mother of LouEllen's wife to die before "visiting" her. She, along with the rest of us, had the uncanny feeling that "it" was not over yet. so Sugar tells her that he's here because he made a promise to LouEllen,
"i gave my word"
"that doesn't make sense, why would you promise LouEllen that you would kill me?"
"i gave him the chance to save you, but he chose to save himself instead"
"no, not the way you said it"
"..."
"you don't have to do this you know"
"everybody always says that" ....
in any case, in my opinion she is toast. the indicator for this is that when he leaves the house he checks his shoes. this isn't the first time that he's been careful not to get blood on his shoes or himself (see woody harelson scene or the mexican in the bathtub for 2 quick supporting scenes). in any case, as hes driving down the street after (supposedly) killing LouEllen's wife, he's in a random car wreck and completely f#&k's up his arm, with the bone coming out of the socket.
something just hit me about these two events. i mean, the whole movie is really violent, sure. but the death of the hero was a shock to me (which shouldn't have been, he really did have it coming in a reality point of view). and the car wreck was so OUT OF NOWHERE that you just have to wonder if the director/storyteller had the inclination of somehow pointing out to everybody that there is some kind of karma or justice for going out of your way to mess with girls or something. now that i think about it, these two instances were the only ones that i can think of where a feminine character was harmed (in the swimming pool scene i suppose it is the wife which is emotionally harmed, while she is actually MURDERED by sugar in the scene preceding the car wreck, which is really messed up since it somehow indicates that you get punished more for hurting a girl emotionally than to kill her???)
so, all of this also kind of reminds me about coincidences or karma in general. by coincidence i mean the things that happen to everybody, a bunch of times in a given week or day, where it just seems "too good to be true" or in other words that the thing happens in such a way that you say to yourself "there is no way that that was a natural occurrence, but must have some deeper underlying reason which i'm not aware of".
some examples:
you drive from your house to school and hit all the lights green, and as you get to campus a car pulls out of a spot right in front of your building, and as you enter your building the elevator dings and you walk in, etc.
you get in a fight with your sweetie, your mom yells at you, your dad is having a bad day, your best friend is out of town, and your pet has a bad rash and is highly irritable.
you run out of beer and its sunday. (this one ALWAYS friggin happens to me!)
Now, the thing is, i remember lots of times in my life that i've said stuff (to my dad, for instance) like..."man, this stuff is always happening, like a lot more often than it really should". Lately, i can't really say that as much, since things lately have pretty much been happening about the way i would expect them. so what is that stuff? in other words, why is it that "when it rains it pours". why does good and bad stuff seem to clump together. why do problems multiply and cause other problems?
i guess the obvious answer to this is that when problems happen, unless you deal with them fast (and even then) you end up spending more time dealing with a problem and less watching out for the potential problems. that is, when you are allocating limited resources (time) to dealing with situations that are getting out of hand (due to random fluctuations in the way things work or don't work) then you are less apt to be able to spend time preventing other problems from happening or preventing small problems from becoming big problems.
example: if you had a really long, tiring day, you don't want to do the dishes. and then since the dishes are in the sink, it's not convienient to wash the dinner pans and plates cause the sink is full. but this depresses you so you don't feel like doing anything except sitting around watching TV, and the cycle continues...
in the same line of thought, if you have a big project that NEEDS to get done, why is it that its easier to work on it when you have already been working on it. in other words, why is STARTING a big project put off to the point that it is a problem, when if you would have just started it earlier it wouldn't have been as big of a problem? wouldn't a rational, logical person know that as long as they start early their life is going to be easier? but rather than act logically, a logical person will avoid starting it (for some unknown reason). maybe im projecting. maybe im the only one who does this stuff, but somehow i really doubt it.
isn't it true that we tend to believe that everybody else is like us on some fundamental level? I mean, its just easier to imagine that most people (especially given similar circumstances, age, station, etc.) will have similar perspectives. I mean, although theoretically it is just as likely that each person views the world in COMPLETELY DIFFERENT although consistent with each other perspective, it is much easier to assume that "blue is blue" and "a tree looks basically the same to me as it does to you". it almost makes more sense, if you focus on the idea of perspective, to realize that in all likelihood everybody has a unique perspective and perhaps a completely different way of understanding the world we live in, in such a way that we are still compatible with each other even though if i could "see through your eyes" for 10 minutes i would probably go insane since what i think of as a "tree in a golden field in the sunshine with blue clouds and a fierce breeze" you would view as "clown face spinning kalidiscope with dancing pony fishermen on a pitchfork and an upside down kevin costner". maybe this is completely silly, but i think we can all agree that there's no way to actually get inside anybody's head and check out what the world actually does look like from their eyes, so maybe my theory is just as good as the "obvious" one that a tree is a tree, and a clown is a clown, funny is funny, and that's that.
speaking of funny
it seems to me that the things that are most likely to be funny have to have some basis in truth.
in other words...imagine a funny song. if you can't ill try to help. it starts out as a song should, and it leads you from a chord progression that "makes sense", with some melody and a counter-point, a simple rythum that is repeated, and so on....and then BLAMMO hits a chord that 'doesn't belong', but is just close enough that your ear can hear what was supposed to be there and also that the thing that you just heard is WRONG.
if you've never heard this kind of a musical joke, i suggest you find someone who can tell it to you, since it somehow captures a joke without words, movement (body language), or even visual effects at all. but it does pick you up, take you on a ride, set you down, and you are different for the good it did you.
but this brings up a point: what are the conditions for something to be funny? by my example one of them is this: the person listening to the joke needs to somehow understand what was SUPPOSED to happen. that is, they need to understand the TRUTH for the joke to make sense. the thing about a good musical joke, is that you don't need to know any musical theory for the joke to be funny, but only have listened to some music at some point in your life. (so as to have some kind of basic understanding of how things "usually" go)
of course, a musician would have more "available" jokes when playing for another musician.
Example: The functions party joke.
one weekend, some of the functions decided they were going to have a party and invite a bunch of their friends. the party was held at sin's and 3x+1's house. almost everybody went, there was natural log, and all the trig functions, there was polynomials of arbitrarily large degree, and of course there was 1/x (the lush!). but 3x+1 noticed that e^x was standing in the corner, moping as usual. being the nice map that he was, he went up to e^x and said, "hey e^x, why don't you integrate yourself into the party," to which e^x replied, "it wouldn't matter".
now, if you get the joke AND you think it's funny, then there is a very good chance that you are a nerd and/or a mathematician (probably just and needed there). if you got the joke and didn't think its funny then you need to lighten up, and if you didn't get the joke then you need to take calc I. in any case, there is a point to this...
a joke has some kind of "background" or foundation which is the setting for the joke (music/math, etc.) and the listener needs to have a knowledge of the "background" for the joke to even have a chance of being funny. but what else is needed for the joke to be funny... why are some jokes funny and then you change them a little bit and then they're not funny anymore?
timing! i'm not sure exactly how this works, but the timing is very important. even if you have heard a joke before, and you know exactly what's going to happen (sometimes this even makes the joke better), so long as the timing is good, the joke will be funny. what is timing you ask? that's a lot harder for me to wrap my head around, but i think it's probably somebody else's job anyway.
one night before cristmas, several years ago, i was laying in bed and i had my eyes closed, and was rubbing my eyes and saw something like a laser beam flash across my eyelids. i opened my eyes and tried to find the laser beam. it wasn't "real" in the strictest sense of the word. but i found it nevertheless. i had to focus a lot (mentally) but i was able to bend that laser (it was like a spaghetti noodle the way it didn't want to be looked down straight), but as long as you got it right down your eye, if you looked down the center, you could hold it there. inside that laser red light, i saw a bunch of floating heads of girls. probably they were all about my age. i purposely didn't look for my girlfriend. i introduced myself to the floating heads and said "if you ever see me in real life, you should say hi and flirt with me". sometimes it works, i probably got to about 2,000 heads or so, but i've never been able to replicate the laser. i'm sure that my wife was one of the heads, though, since there is really no other reason i can think of that she should have thought she was going to marry me when we first met, i was a pretty strange ranger. my old best friend said that she was the only one who was able to make me less of a nut, and for that i guess i should be thankful. this kind of reminds me of an idea about the way that people don't really change that much even from being little little kids, unless something hugely dramatic/damaging happens. but i guess i can save Something for a later day, i guess i'll leave you with this:
i remember the first time i could read. i was on a bus in the city, going to school with my dad. i was looking out the window and i realized for the first time that i could understand that that sign said "cigar". i said, "dad! that says cigar!" i kept it up "hey! that says pizza!", "sale! that says sale!", and so on. there wasn't a long boundary period, but for that short time i distinctly remember that i was able to comprehend what it meant to NOT know how to read. that i could STILL look at the signs as though i DIDN'T know what they said. anymore, i can only guess what i could have thought if i didn't know how to read when i look at a sign. just like i can't fully appreciate what it means to have the thoughts of a child. without the math, the logic, the music, the knowledge of art, economics, philosophy, war, chaos, love, pain, (but not grammar nor spelling). to be innocent intellectually. one time, i asked my mom, "mom, where do all the giants live"
"what giants hunny"
"all the giant people"
"what giant people, dear"
"well, im small, but you are taller than me since you are older, so the people that are older than you must be taller still, and the people older than them must be really tall...giants! but i haven't seen any, where do they live?"
yes sal, where do they live...where indeed.
Friday, March 28, 2008
No me MC
this talent show tonight should be o.k., but how o.k.? I'm a little worried. The plan is this:
as people come in i'm going to play harp, and when everybody is seated and we're ready to begin either me or bobby will announce the acts in the talent show. In between acts there will be a short 1-2 minute musical interlude on the piano, which should be enough time to switch acts but not too long that people get sick of it. i'm feeling a little crappy lately just because i'm freaking out that i can't "find" an adviser. of course, by "find" i mean that the two people i have talked to didn't jump in my lap to tell me that they would love love love for me to consider them as a possible adviser. I'm not really sure, but i think that if i don't find an adviser soon that i might go completely crazy. you know, the kind of crazy where you can't stop talking to yourself in the quiet of your mind when nothing else is happening (in bed before sleep, for example, or sitting between classes, or spacing out during class and thinking the same question over and over and over: "what am i going to do?!")
my experience with experiences is that the things that are meant to happen happen rather easily, without too much teeth pulling. granted, i haven't even really got out the forceps yet, but certainly the pain is not restricted to my teeth right now. i feel like an imprisoned tiger, yearning to get out and tear the ground with my 4 inch claws into the soft peat as i run run run in the sparkling daylight, under the trees. but the prison bars are the trees, and the fear of which tree to run under is the jailer. the indecision and unhappy consequences resulting from my lack of direction are causing me to stay up late lately, but rather than make me tired in the morning i just take naps in the late afternoon, usually around 7 or 8 pm for an hour. the result is some kind of late siesta where i actually feel pretty good during the day, if i could just stop asking myself the same question over and over and over....
as people come in i'm going to play harp, and when everybody is seated and we're ready to begin either me or bobby will announce the acts in the talent show. In between acts there will be a short 1-2 minute musical interlude on the piano, which should be enough time to switch acts but not too long that people get sick of it. i'm feeling a little crappy lately just because i'm freaking out that i can't "find" an adviser. of course, by "find" i mean that the two people i have talked to didn't jump in my lap to tell me that they would love love love for me to consider them as a possible adviser. I'm not really sure, but i think that if i don't find an adviser soon that i might go completely crazy. you know, the kind of crazy where you can't stop talking to yourself in the quiet of your mind when nothing else is happening (in bed before sleep, for example, or sitting between classes, or spacing out during class and thinking the same question over and over and over: "what am i going to do?!")
my experience with experiences is that the things that are meant to happen happen rather easily, without too much teeth pulling. granted, i haven't even really got out the forceps yet, but certainly the pain is not restricted to my teeth right now. i feel like an imprisoned tiger, yearning to get out and tear the ground with my 4 inch claws into the soft peat as i run run run in the sparkling daylight, under the trees. but the prison bars are the trees, and the fear of which tree to run under is the jailer. the indecision and unhappy consequences resulting from my lack of direction are causing me to stay up late lately, but rather than make me tired in the morning i just take naps in the late afternoon, usually around 7 or 8 pm for an hour. the result is some kind of late siesta where i actually feel pretty good during the day, if i could just stop asking myself the same question over and over and over....
Friday, March 21, 2008
nothing is something
if we gave a word to something, then that something must exist. nothing has a word, therefore, nothing is something.
if we give nothing a word, then we have given a word to nothing. if nothing has words, then nothing is something.
but things that have words need not exist. or do they? what does it mean "exist"? Does love exist? love is too complicated to be able to give certain criterion which are met if and only if one is in the presence of love. is the existance real but not tangible? that is, is the existance of the thing we denote as love real but not describable in any more concrete a way as to use the word "love"? of course love exists! how could i be talking about something that doesn't exist!? but it is up to romantics and lovers to determine the properties of love, and up to poets and storytellers to describe it to the rest of us. This reminds me of a quote
if we give nothing a word, then we have given a word to nothing. if nothing has words, then nothing is something.
but things that have words need not exist. or do they? what does it mean "exist"? Does love exist? love is too complicated to be able to give certain criterion which are met if and only if one is in the presence of love. is the existance real but not tangible? that is, is the existance of the thing we denote as love real but not describable in any more concrete a way as to use the word "love"? of course love exists! how could i be talking about something that doesn't exist!? but it is up to romantics and lovers to determine the properties of love, and up to poets and storytellers to describe it to the rest of us. This reminds me of a quote
Begin at the beginning, Master Li told me. Proceed through the middle, continue to the end, and then stop. That is what I shall do, and then, perhaps, a kind reader will write and explain it to me. -Barry Hughart
Saturday, March 15, 2008
that smell
i was driving a lot the last couple days. we had spring break, and i went to a cool waterpark where I got to surf on this big thing called a "flowrider", and i visited my old town and got to play video games, i worked for my dad, and i went to a few great restaurants. but that's for another time...
i was on my way to my dad's, after dropping of j. and m. at my mom's place. i was speeding, a little too fast. doing 68 in a 55 apparently. so when i saw the cop pulling into the turn around in front of me, i knew he was for me. he didn't leave much to the imagination since he put on his lights early enough before i passed him that there was not much of a chance to think anything else.
i always get tickets, and never warnings. j. is cute, so when she gets pulled over, you better believe that she gets a warning. as an aside, one time when she was going like 25 over the limit, she got pulled over and the cop was like "look, i'm really sorry but I just can't let you off with a warning". you know you got it good when the friggin cop is apologizing to YOU for having to give you a ticket!
anyway, the cop came up to the passenger window, so that he didn't get creamed by a passing car, i'd imagine. i rolled down the window, which is only possible since i was in my mom's car. maybe this is a good time to mention that my moms car is stinky with lingering cigar smoke from her husbands bad habit, stinky from hay and barn smells from my moms job working for $10/hr cleaning cow crap, and that the backseat was filled to the ceiling with junk. old cups, things she picked up at thrift stores, garage sales, gift shops, extra clothes, blankets, picture frames, boots, old recipts, old mail, ....
so the cop comes up to the window and i roll down the window... license and registration and proof of insurance ... can't find the shit in my moms car, man this sucks ... can you step out of the car ... that's weird ... come back here to my cruiser , here sit in the passenger seat ... oh shit, wtf man ... son, do you smoke?
"what, like cigarettes?"
"..."
"i smoke cigarettes, but I don't have any on me right now"
"the reason i ask is that i smell marijuana in your car"
"what? no way, there is no pot in the car sir."
"o.k., well, it smells as though you have been smoking marijuana."
"sir, there is no pot in the car, i have not been smoking pot in the car, there is nothing in the car sir"
"well, we'll see"
by this time i'm not exactly freaking out, but i'm not exactly not freaking out either. the good news is, there really is nothing in the car and i have nothing to worry about. you would think that this situation was humorous, maybe, or maybe not. it does get better, though...
"10-niner fourty-seven, radio dispatch is there any units in the area?"
(radio responds in chalie brown type squelches)
"i'm going to need a two-niner-one on 24 near route nine"
(10-4)
so i'm just sitting here, thinking how stupid this whole thing is, i'm considering where i was headed (to go work for my dad), and how i probably shouldn't speed, and things like this...
"you might as well just tell us where it is, because we are going to find it"
"sir, there is nothing in the car, i haven't been smoking, there is no pot in the car sir"
"when i walked up to the car I could smell marijuana,"
"sir, my mom's husband smokes cigars, maybe that is the smell that you are mistaking for pot"
"i know the difference between cigars and marijuana smoke"
"sir, there is no pot in the car, sir"
he goes back to writing my speeding ticket. a few minutes later a cop with his cruiser lights on pulls behind the cruiser we're in, the hwy cop comes to the window, and our captor asks him...
"go up to that car and tell me what you smell"
without responding, the hwy cop walks up to the passenger window, which is still open, he takes off his hat, sticks his head entirely in the window. he holds in there for a few seconds. when he comes out he has a slightly displeased, pensive look on his face. he doesn't move for a moment, deciding apparently what to do at this point, does he smell anything?
nope, can't decide, better go around to the driver's side for a better whiff. takes off his hat, puts his head in that side. comes out, walks to the window of the cruiser our hero currently occupies the front passenger seat and our hero's captor sits still writing out the ticket, not looking up, not even questioning the outcome of his request...
"somebody been doing a hit?"
i look up, the hwy's countenance is jovial, amused, friendly, not oppressive.
"no sir, there's nothing in that car", then, our captor,
"he says that he doesn't smoke anything at all and that there is nothing in the car"
"sir, i said i smoke cigarettes"
"..., now your changing your story, "
"no sir, " im a little mad, if you know me you might understand "i said that i smoke cigarettes, but that i don't have any right now"
"well," the hwy says "we're gonna find it, so you might as well just tell us where it is"
"sir, there is not any pot in the car sir, there is nothing ... in ... the ... car."
the hwy walks to the car, opens the passenger door and sticks his torso in the car. as i sit in the passenger seat of our captor's cruiser. i think about some moderately random stuff. i think about what the chances are that they actually do find something in the car. after all, i give it a 99.9% chance that my mom doesn't have anything illegal in the car, but... i think how mad i would be if she sent me out with a dirty car ... i think 'what should i be acting like right now', probably i should just act like i am, am i fidgeting ?
"you might as well just tell us where it is, we're going to find it"
"sir, there is nothing in the car"
well, theres all that crap in the backseat. earlier i was thinking about cleaning it out for my mom, but now i realize that these two guys are going to be looking through all of my moms crap if they want to search the backseat. i almost smile, but not quite. actually, this is kind of funny if you think about it, maybe if you don't know what a full backseat of junk (i mean FULL, like definately up to the back of the headrests) ...
here we go... i think to myself
the hwy has just finished searching the front seat, both sides, he walks around to the back door, opens it and whad do u kno, a pair of socks, a green plastic planter, a small gift of unknown origin fall out of the car as he opens the door. i'm having trouble thinking of anything but how funny this is, im tempted to make a joke to the cop sitting next to me, but of course that is unwise, i tell myself maybe i should have wagered the cop that if they didn't find anything then i shouldn't get the speeding ticket.
it doesn't take long for the cop to give up on the backseat.
he stands up, looks at our captor, still sitting in the drivers seat next to me, and he shakes his head in defeat. i won't be bothered about that anymore.
well, to wrap up, they let me go after we chatted for a moment,
"what is all that stuff in the backseat?"
"that's my moms stuff"
"what is it all?"
"its junk."
"does she have animals?"
"oh, you mean the straw and stuff in the trunk? she has a job that she takes care of some cows"
"well, somebody has been smoking, not you, but somebody"
"sir, i hate to keep disagreeing with you, but nobody smoked pot in that car, you are probably just smelling the cigars that my moms husband smokes...maybe the smell of the hay too"
"well, maybe her husband smokes the 'roll your own' cigars"
"sir, i really doubt that he smokes pot, i really don't think so"
"well, you are free to go, here's your ticket"
godammit.
i was on my way to my dad's, after dropping of j. and m. at my mom's place. i was speeding, a little too fast. doing 68 in a 55 apparently. so when i saw the cop pulling into the turn around in front of me, i knew he was for me. he didn't leave much to the imagination since he put on his lights early enough before i passed him that there was not much of a chance to think anything else.
i always get tickets, and never warnings. j. is cute, so when she gets pulled over, you better believe that she gets a warning. as an aside, one time when she was going like 25 over the limit, she got pulled over and the cop was like "look, i'm really sorry but I just can't let you off with a warning". you know you got it good when the friggin cop is apologizing to YOU for having to give you a ticket!
anyway, the cop came up to the passenger window, so that he didn't get creamed by a passing car, i'd imagine. i rolled down the window, which is only possible since i was in my mom's car. maybe this is a good time to mention that my moms car is stinky with lingering cigar smoke from her husbands bad habit, stinky from hay and barn smells from my moms job working for $10/hr cleaning cow crap, and that the backseat was filled to the ceiling with junk. old cups, things she picked up at thrift stores, garage sales, gift shops, extra clothes, blankets, picture frames, boots, old recipts, old mail, ....
so the cop comes up to the window and i roll down the window... license and registration and proof of insurance ... can't find the shit in my moms car, man this sucks ... can you step out of the car ... that's weird ... come back here to my cruiser , here sit in the passenger seat ... oh shit, wtf man ... son, do you smoke?
"what, like cigarettes?"
"..."
"i smoke cigarettes, but I don't have any on me right now"
"the reason i ask is that i smell marijuana in your car"
"what? no way, there is no pot in the car sir."
"o.k., well, it smells as though you have been smoking marijuana."
"sir, there is no pot in the car, i have not been smoking pot in the car, there is nothing in the car sir"
"well, we'll see"
by this time i'm not exactly freaking out, but i'm not exactly not freaking out either. the good news is, there really is nothing in the car and i have nothing to worry about. you would think that this situation was humorous, maybe, or maybe not. it does get better, though...
"10-niner fourty-seven, radio dispatch is there any units in the area?"
(radio responds in chalie brown type squelches)
"i'm going to need a two-niner-one on 24 near route nine"
(10-4)
so i'm just sitting here, thinking how stupid this whole thing is, i'm considering where i was headed (to go work for my dad), and how i probably shouldn't speed, and things like this...
"you might as well just tell us where it is, because we are going to find it"
"sir, there is nothing in the car, i haven't been smoking, there is no pot in the car sir"
"when i walked up to the car I could smell marijuana,"
"sir, my mom's husband smokes cigars, maybe that is the smell that you are mistaking for pot"
"i know the difference between cigars and marijuana smoke"
"sir, there is no pot in the car, sir"
he goes back to writing my speeding ticket. a few minutes later a cop with his cruiser lights on pulls behind the cruiser we're in, the hwy cop comes to the window, and our captor asks him...
"go up to that car and tell me what you smell"
without responding, the hwy cop walks up to the passenger window, which is still open, he takes off his hat, sticks his head entirely in the window. he holds in there for a few seconds. when he comes out he has a slightly displeased, pensive look on his face. he doesn't move for a moment, deciding apparently what to do at this point, does he smell anything?
nope, can't decide, better go around to the driver's side for a better whiff. takes off his hat, puts his head in that side. comes out, walks to the window of the cruiser our hero currently occupies the front passenger seat and our hero's captor sits still writing out the ticket, not looking up, not even questioning the outcome of his request...
"somebody been doing a hit?"
i look up, the hwy's countenance is jovial, amused, friendly, not oppressive.
"no sir, there's nothing in that car", then, our captor,
"he says that he doesn't smoke anything at all and that there is nothing in the car"
"sir, i said i smoke cigarettes"
"..., now your changing your story, "
"no sir, " im a little mad, if you know me you might understand "i said that i smoke cigarettes, but that i don't have any right now"
"well," the hwy says "we're gonna find it, so you might as well just tell us where it is"
"sir, there is not any pot in the car sir, there is nothing ... in ... the ... car."
the hwy walks to the car, opens the passenger door and sticks his torso in the car. as i sit in the passenger seat of our captor's cruiser. i think about some moderately random stuff. i think about what the chances are that they actually do find something in the car. after all, i give it a 99.9% chance that my mom doesn't have anything illegal in the car, but... i think how mad i would be if she sent me out with a dirty car ... i think 'what should i be acting like right now', probably i should just act like i am, am i fidgeting ?
"you might as well just tell us where it is, we're going to find it"
"sir, there is nothing in the car"
well, theres all that crap in the backseat. earlier i was thinking about cleaning it out for my mom, but now i realize that these two guys are going to be looking through all of my moms crap if they want to search the backseat. i almost smile, but not quite. actually, this is kind of funny if you think about it, maybe if you don't know what a full backseat of junk (i mean FULL, like definately up to the back of the headrests) ...
here we go... i think to myself
the hwy has just finished searching the front seat, both sides, he walks around to the back door, opens it and whad do u kno, a pair of socks, a green plastic planter, a small gift of unknown origin fall out of the car as he opens the door. i'm having trouble thinking of anything but how funny this is, im tempted to make a joke to the cop sitting next to me, but of course that is unwise, i tell myself maybe i should have wagered the cop that if they didn't find anything then i shouldn't get the speeding ticket.
it doesn't take long for the cop to give up on the backseat.
he stands up, looks at our captor, still sitting in the drivers seat next to me, and he shakes his head in defeat. i won't be bothered about that anymore.
well, to wrap up, they let me go after we chatted for a moment,
"what is all that stuff in the backseat?"
"that's my moms stuff"
"what is it all?"
"its junk."
"does she have animals?"
"oh, you mean the straw and stuff in the trunk? she has a job that she takes care of some cows"
"well, somebody has been smoking, not you, but somebody"
"sir, i hate to keep disagreeing with you, but nobody smoked pot in that car, you are probably just smelling the cigars that my moms husband smokes...maybe the smell of the hay too"
"well, maybe her husband smokes the 'roll your own' cigars"
"sir, i really doubt that he smokes pot, i really don't think so"
"well, you are free to go, here's your ticket"
godammit.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
cheater
she heard him coming, so she concentrated hard on doing all the things that people do when they are NOT cheating. It bothered her that she kept hearing him coming from behind. Clockwise around and around, always clockwise. but she didn't think about this, all she knew was that it was always from behind.
now he's far in front, sitting down again, she's almost done.
"lemme see your test". the girl next to her wispers mutely without moving her lips. she makes the "t" sound by clicking her tongue on her upper teeth. without looking, the girl hands the answer sheet under his line of sight...
"hurry up," he'll be coming back soon, she thought. the girl sitting next to her wasn't exactly a friend. maybe it was because they shared some after-school behaviors that they always sat together in the back of class. she was kind of getting bored with it, though. a few minutes pass, the girl sitting next to her didn't say anything, she just put the answer sheet on the floor.
then, she put on her coat and walked up to the TA at the front of the hall, who hadn't moved at all during this whole time. she didn't look at him and handed her test out to him.
"what was that, a calculator?" he asked.
Startled out of her reinforced blank expression, the girl quickly recovered. "no, uh she lent me a pencil." "oh, ok then, see you."
As the girl walked out, towards the back of the hall, she didn't notice the girl who gave her the test, furiously erasing all the marks she had put on the exam sheet before time ran out, and methodically, carefully, put the right answers back in their place.
now he's far in front, sitting down again, she's almost done.
"lemme see your test". the girl next to her wispers mutely without moving her lips. she makes the "t" sound by clicking her tongue on her upper teeth. without looking, the girl hands the answer sheet under his line of sight...
"hurry up," he'll be coming back soon, she thought. the girl sitting next to her wasn't exactly a friend. maybe it was because they shared some after-school behaviors that they always sat together in the back of class. she was kind of getting bored with it, though. a few minutes pass, the girl sitting next to her didn't say anything, she just put the answer sheet on the floor.
then, she put on her coat and walked up to the TA at the front of the hall, who hadn't moved at all during this whole time. she didn't look at him and handed her test out to him.
"what was that, a calculator?" he asked.
Startled out of her reinforced blank expression, the girl quickly recovered. "no, uh she lent me a pencil." "oh, ok then, see you."
As the girl walked out, towards the back of the hall, she didn't notice the girl who gave her the test, furiously erasing all the marks she had put on the exam sheet before time ran out, and methodically, carefully, put the right answers back in their place.
everything we love goes away
so...
on top of the fact that VCR's are quickly going the way of the beta tape, now my local grocery store stopped selling melba snacks and stoned wheat thins. wtf. this behaviour is unacceptable and will NOT be tolerated. the good news is that i just bought $30 in crackers for about $6.
of course, i used the U-scan since as you will see it has some very nice advantages. like the friggin crackers were'nt scanning right since they were on some super discount shelf for 75% off since they are being discontinued (bastards!). so instead of costing like 60 cents, like it should have, it was going to cost 2.30 which is like a 70 cent discount. so, being the thrifty shopper that i am, i went up to the gamma minus at the u-scan register and was like, "this isn't ringing up right, its supposed to be 75% off". it turns out that by the end of my checkout this girl was leaving, so i think she just wanted to be home and wanted this annoying customer with way to many friggin boxes of crackers to go in a corner and die.
"well, how much are they supposed to be?" she says, and i'm like "well, they scan for 2.30, and they are 75% off, so 25 cents a dollar plus the last 7 cents makes 57 cents." "ok fine," "but I have two boxes of those" "how much were they?" "57 cents",
"ok fine, there"..."i have more boxes like that", "ok bring me one of each"...
so the good news is that i just got a bunch of crackers and now i just need some cheese...
on top of the fact that VCR's are quickly going the way of the beta tape, now my local grocery store stopped selling melba snacks and stoned wheat thins. wtf. this behaviour is unacceptable and will NOT be tolerated. the good news is that i just bought $30 in crackers for about $6.
of course, i used the U-scan since as you will see it has some very nice advantages. like the friggin crackers were'nt scanning right since they were on some super discount shelf for 75% off since they are being discontinued (bastards!). so instead of costing like 60 cents, like it should have, it was going to cost 2.30 which is like a 70 cent discount. so, being the thrifty shopper that i am, i went up to the gamma minus at the u-scan register and was like, "this isn't ringing up right, its supposed to be 75% off". it turns out that by the end of my checkout this girl was leaving, so i think she just wanted to be home and wanted this annoying customer with way to many friggin boxes of crackers to go in a corner and die.
"well, how much are they supposed to be?" she says, and i'm like "well, they scan for 2.30, and they are 75% off, so 25 cents a dollar plus the last 7 cents makes 57 cents." "ok fine," "but I have two boxes of those" "how much were they?" "57 cents",
"ok fine, there"..."i have more boxes like that", "ok bring me one of each"...
so the good news is that i just got a bunch of crackers and now i just need some cheese...
are you kidding me?
so, by some strange series of events. im really, really happy right now. that isn't to say that I'm not normally happy, but just right now its mentionable. that is, the series of events that led to my being happy are kind of out of the ordinary, so I thought I would share them with you.
it all started when I was on my way back home today. I found out that the local video store by my house, which I go to when I am short on cash since blockbuster is friggin expensive, was having a sale to get rid of all their VHS tapes. ok fine, so you say. but I was driving fast, because they were selling them for 50 cents!
I was worried that when I got there, the shelves would be totally picked bare. boy! what a noob I was. I just sorted the 16 movies that I just got for the measly sum of $7.98, and I thought that I would give you in what I would call, order by favorite. I'll include some brief descriptions so that if you don't know one you can go rent it.
1. Being There- Peter Sellers and Shirly MacLaine in a f-cking hilarious movie about a strange character Chance, played by the outstanding Peter Sellers of course.
2. Wayne's World - 'nuff said
3. Highlander - booya! this classic from the 80's is a must have for sci-fi movie lovers
4. Raging Bull- Directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro, this is a great film, see "Directed by" and "starring", about a boxer in NYC.
5. The Truman Show - Jim Carrey circa Dumb and Dumber without the slapstick, but still funny and somewhat poignant.
6. Immortal Beloved - Starring Gary Oldman, like the Truman Show, a music movie in some sense (I always thought that the Truman Show had a really great score).
7. Goin' South- Jack Nicholas in a 1978 western/comedy with Mary Steenburgen, very interesting movie I think.
8. Stakeout - classic 80's comedy staring Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez.
9. Devils Advocate - NEO!
10. Highlander 2 -sean connery!
11. Mission Impossible
12. Mission Impossible 2
13. The Paper - it has some stars: michael keatonm, glenn close, marisa tomei, and I've never heard of it.
14. Vertigo - one of hitchcock's best.
15. Angkor:Cambodia Express - impulse buy...for 50 cents !!
i really do like VHS more than DVD, you know. all that crap about ... but now you can pick the chapters , and the clarity and sound is better... hooey. you never see a VHS skip, or be unreadable. and if it were you wouldn't have to turn off all the shit and start it back up and then try to find the same spot that the thing f-cked up at. and if you want to stop watching a dvd, you cant turn everything off and go away doing something else and then come back, turn it on, and expect it to start back up where you left it off. NO, that's too obviously way to convenient! so some f-cking as-hole comes and says, "boys, we need to make shit worse". jerkoff. do you remember friggin beta tapes? holy shit, now there was something. talk about pre-dating VHS. oh that reminds me. I asked the guy at the video store I was like, "wow man, i thought there wasn't going to be many movies left, so i guess nobody came by today to take advantage of all these , huh? " he goes "nah, i woulda bought some, but i dont have a VHS machine".
!!!!
A VHS MACHINE?? its called a VCR you friggin noob. holy crap...
dancing with waitresses
spending the time on the boat up until then had been completely normal. there were the big rooms with the games and the flashing lights, and there were the huge indoor rooms with that smell of freshly washed walls and vacuumed carpets. but everything that night was about to change.
we all went to the big room for dinner. it was a big room, with ceilings that you couldn't fathom and long skeletal rooms that had the walls coming down and arching over that made you think that it was some kind of cavern in the belly of some big ocean beast or a sleeping giant. the waitresses were cute and friendly, young, and fun to dance with after the party. the food was decent, but I didn't finish anything as usual and had a big styrofoam container holding about half of the food I had ordered. I think it was this and the fact that I hadn't spent very much money at all that set off the next series of events.
it was after dinner, and I was dancing with two waitresses. (I had just found my ipod in a puddle of beer and was cleaning it, taking that clear cover I had put on it, lotta good it did, using my shirt, it had a thin white, flaky residue on it that came off with your fingernail. I was going to get one of my wipes to fix it when I got home) they kept steering me away from the hottest ones so that I would keep dancing with them. I'm not complaining, 'cause they were cute and fun to dance with. but then it really was closing time and I went to go pay for my food. up till that point I had avoided spending much, probably mostly by having my drinks bought for me. it had been a while since I had eaten.
I signed the paper and started walking out, but I saw that a waitress had went to our table and picked up my styrofoam container and was headed for the trash:
"hey, wait, I want that! hey," she just smiled a big fake, toothy grin, "hey wait, that's mine, stop" she kept on going, she threw out the food. "why would you do that?" that big toothy smile was really starting to wear on me, "didn't you hear me what's your problem?" she didn't seem to even be aware that I was talking to her "fine I'm not paying for it then" did I forget that I just signed? maybe I didn't sign yet "why would you do that". and I started walking down one of the huge corridors of the ocean vessel, one that had the walls going up, up, up and the floors with carpeting that made my drunk head spin. I couldn't really talk straight at this point and I remember slurring a little.
as I walked down the corridor, there was a tall, important looking man with a clipboard and a plug in his ear. the busboy was telling him the situation and he was listening. he looked at me and started walking "I'm not paying for that food",
"fine, " he said
"or I want my food and then I'll pay for it,"
"cook it yourself"
"me? you want me to cook it? the kitchen is closed"
"then wait until you get home, your wife will do it for you"
as he was walking, he looked straigt ahead, and I really hated this person.
the paper had said that he was a true gentleman, and another had said that it as his handsome irish face. me, I thought that the old father was a f-cker and wanted to ...
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
what if butterflies...
what if butterflies
had big teeth, and angry
eyes, evil breath, and bitten
those smitten not mild a death
would most quickly come and pain
would ensue to those around a terrible
flu, I bet sure and through that
niether me nor you would care too much
about those flying few that
humans did spare, from poison or
fire, but butterfly we would
call it not, but rather a hellfly
a demon or what ever the name
the same would be true for
any nice creature that
turned into something
so very not nice, like
rats, bats, fleas, and lice
but why are these things particularly
bad, do they harm or what do
they do, they hurt us
humans, yes this much is
true, but we hurt back
far worse than they do, in
any case, justice this
is not, but human
we are, and
imperfect our lot
had big teeth, and angry
eyes, evil breath, and bitten
those smitten not mild a death
would most quickly come and pain
would ensue to those around a terrible
flu, I bet sure and through that
niether me nor you would care too much
about those flying few that
humans did spare, from poison or
fire, but butterfly we would
call it not, but rather a hellfly
a demon or what ever the name
the same would be true for
any nice creature that
turned into something
so very not nice, like
rats, bats, fleas, and lice
but why are these things particularly
bad, do they harm or what do
they do, they hurt us
humans, yes this much is
true, but we hurt back
far worse than they do, in
any case, justice this
is not, but human
we are, and
imperfect our lot
poems from the woods
fungus feeds bark wet
black leaves, rotting
soft and spongy and I
am like a monkey
baby sells sea shells wakes up with a pop.
slap hold on, the party's just begun
here i sit and think
to be here for just
a week can anyone
know what i have
done, how much Ive
learned, how far I've
come. I almost left,
to be free, not a choice
was right for me
falling, flying, through
and through, the night will
come to bring the truth, before
the end of day comes near, light
will lift the falling tear, darkened
shadows hardened light, death comes
for me tonight
I am gone but you stay here.
remember to relax, and never to fear,
the worst is pain and the end is
death, simple no. decitful yes. but
when I leave, you will know
carefree laden but free I go
black leaves, rotting
soft and spongy and I
am like a monkey
baby sells sea shells wakes up with a pop.
slap hold on, the party's just begun
here i sit and think
to be here for just
a week can anyone
know what i have
done, how much Ive
learned, how far I've
come. I almost left,
to be free, not a choice
was right for me
falling, flying, through
and through, the night will
come to bring the truth, before
the end of day comes near, light
will lift the falling tear, darkened
shadows hardened light, death comes
for me tonight
I am gone but you stay here.
remember to relax, and never to fear,
the worst is pain and the end is
death, simple no. decitful yes. but
when I leave, you will know
carefree laden but free I go
walking in the woods in the dark
do you remember?
that time back in grade school? the class spent like a week in this old BIG house, in the total middle of nowhere, completely wood-huggy shit. at least we were'nt in the city at all, we made jokes that we couldn't breathe 'cause the air was "too clean".
they had a piano in that house, couldn't play the damn thing of course, too out of tune and you probably were'nt too good anyway, and too loud most of the time even through all that other stuff you wanted to play it and they wouldn't let you.
that one night, with the sparking life-savers (wintergreen? wasn't it?) and the 5 minute walk in the pitch black, in the middle of a path in the cold/dark woods, with no moon and no stars. silent. no sounds except the scratchy patter of your feet on the cold ground. what did you think about? did you think that it was kind of scary? or that you would probably think about this when you grew up? it was kind of disappointing, wasn't it. even though you did miss it when it was over, only because it really felt like you were actually DOING SOMETHING.
what was the preface? to get outside of all the social pressures and the family pressures and just to be alone with your thoughts, a little 7 year old walking alone in the woods. safe since where you were and the teachers just around the corner, with flashlights.
woods. alone in the woods. not the same, you really gotta bounce off of something alive, not trees. Trees are only alive in some f-cked up definition of the word. im not saying they don't get to keep on living and being happy trees, i want the trees to be happy, really i do. just don't tell me you feel sorry for me that it's not enough company for a little kid walking through the forest with the silent, cold woods to keep the minds eye from wandering.
man i wish i could remember what i must have been thinking...
that time back in grade school? the class spent like a week in this old BIG house, in the total middle of nowhere, completely wood-huggy shit. at least we were'nt in the city at all, we made jokes that we couldn't breathe 'cause the air was "too clean".
they had a piano in that house, couldn't play the damn thing of course, too out of tune and you probably were'nt too good anyway, and too loud most of the time even through all that other stuff you wanted to play it and they wouldn't let you.
that one night, with the sparking life-savers (wintergreen? wasn't it?) and the 5 minute walk in the pitch black, in the middle of a path in the cold/dark woods, with no moon and no stars. silent. no sounds except the scratchy patter of your feet on the cold ground. what did you think about? did you think that it was kind of scary? or that you would probably think about this when you grew up? it was kind of disappointing, wasn't it. even though you did miss it when it was over, only because it really felt like you were actually DOING SOMETHING.
what was the preface? to get outside of all the social pressures and the family pressures and just to be alone with your thoughts, a little 7 year old walking alone in the woods. safe since where you were and the teachers just around the corner, with flashlights.
woods. alone in the woods. not the same, you really gotta bounce off of something alive, not trees. Trees are only alive in some f-cked up definition of the word. im not saying they don't get to keep on living and being happy trees, i want the trees to be happy, really i do. just don't tell me you feel sorry for me that it's not enough company for a little kid walking through the forest with the silent, cold woods to keep the minds eye from wandering.
man i wish i could remember what i must have been thinking...
ok, so first off
ok, so first off, let's just get to the bottom of everything. of course, i'm talking about REALITY. yeay, that's a good one tall, you gonna tell us about reality. well, i'm agonna try.
here's something i wrote down today, or something approximately what i wrote down, i gave the original to a friend and i'm still waiting to hear back from him.
here it goes:
the emotions we put into things are more real than the things themselves. without us, the thing is nothing more than the homogeneous stuff that all matter and energy is made from, uniformly bound to be that sameness that characterizes all of existence. but with us, it is a bottle, it is empty, it is love, it is friendship, it is music, it is light, it's a phone, a book, a lover, a river, a rock, a woods, a tree, a falling leaf, a feeling, happiness, love. so the thing that we say is empty is not empty the way that we say it is...it is more empty than we can say it is, the fullness that things have is only our perception of them. the empty beer bottle on the desk is empty because the only difference between it and the air surrounding it and inside it and the desk it's on and the beer that was in it but now isn't and everything else, is that I gave meaning to differentiate between the empty beer bottle and everything else...
here's something i wrote down today, or something approximately what i wrote down, i gave the original to a friend and i'm still waiting to hear back from him.
here it goes:
the emotions we put into things are more real than the things themselves. without us, the thing is nothing more than the homogeneous stuff that all matter and energy is made from, uniformly bound to be that sameness that characterizes all of existence. but with us, it is a bottle, it is empty, it is love, it is friendship, it is music, it is light, it's a phone, a book, a lover, a river, a rock, a woods, a tree, a falling leaf, a feeling, happiness, love. so the thing that we say is empty is not empty the way that we say it is...it is more empty than we can say it is, the fullness that things have is only our perception of them. the empty beer bottle on the desk is empty because the only difference between it and the air surrounding it and inside it and the desk it's on and the beer that was in it but now isn't and everything else, is that I gave meaning to differentiate between the empty beer bottle and everything else...
Hey everybody!
well, glad to be here. hope to fill these pages with some ideas about things to think about. probably most of it will be sans punctuation (cept for commas, periods, and parentheses), sans spell check, sans word choice, and sans thinking. i figure if i think all the time anyway, then why think when im talking? And isn't that what we are doing right now...I guess you can't really talk back, but that's whats going on right?
I suppose if i think of this as a conversation then in some ways it is. of course, as you can see, this is going to be a hit and miss endeavor, so probably just find the good stuff and read that.
here's what i promise: i promise to be honest, since it's hard to be deceitful. i promise that to me this stuff seems interesting. i imagine that some of it you may even like, but i don't promise it. well, let's not drag this out...talk to you soon!
I suppose if i think of this as a conversation then in some ways it is. of course, as you can see, this is going to be a hit and miss endeavor, so probably just find the good stuff and read that.
here's what i promise: i promise to be honest, since it's hard to be deceitful. i promise that to me this stuff seems interesting. i imagine that some of it you may even like, but i don't promise it. well, let's not drag this out...talk to you soon!
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