The other day while I was sitting in an ASWC meeting debating the finer points of club budgets I realized that all I had been doing (for the last year or so) was waiting for a lull in debate to personally insult someone who I knew well enough to get away with it. The larger point here is that I didn't care and in fact I have cared about very little for awhile now. This is a scary state of my union because for many many years I was incredibly over-motivated and gleefully involved myself in anything and everything. I wanted to make a difference; in what I did not know, but it didn't matter, I was to be an instrument of change. In mellow moods I sought to change the world through the words of my poetry, in angry moods I saw leading armed insurgency or massive protest to cure the ills of the world. Nowadays I don't feel any of that old motivation, I can't even change things at Whitman. I see freshman throwing themselves headlong into activities, causes, and classes, hoping that through their sheer existence and hard work they can accomplish somethign altogether new and wonderful. However, my utter failure to do any of this is not without its merits. Like a child star at age 18 anyone who accomplishes too much too early is bound to live the rest of their life in backward longing, washed up and burnt out. I feel like I'm just waiting for my moment to come at the perfect time in life, when I'm in my mid-60's I think would be ideal: an entire half century of buildup to something great followed by a short, graceful slide out. To prove I'm not the only one, Bob Dylan, the greatest rabble-rouser of all time, sings in his late 50's in the song "Not Dark Yet"
Shadows are falling and I've been here all day/It's too hot to sleep time is running away/Feel like my soul has turned into steel/I've still got the scars that the sun didn't heal/There's not even room enough to be anywhere/It's not dark yet, but it's getting there/I was born here and I'll die here against my will/I know it looks like I'm moving, but I'm standing still/Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb/I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from/Don't even hear a murmur of a prayer/It's not dark yet, but it's getting there.
I think now that I am nearing the end of college I want different things than I used to. I no longer want to move minds with poetry or influence the powerful. I don't want to change the world, get the coolest (or highest paying job) possible, but simply to be happy in what I do. Our dreams are certainly tempered by time. No 5-year-old kid when asked "what do you want to do when you grow up?" responds by saying they want to work mid-management but have a happy home life. They want to be astronauts, firefighters, or sports stars. When we get older we dream of changing the world in more abstract ways, because those still are possible. Now as reality sets in more and more with each day I want to do work that is bearable and allows me to see my good friends, be outside among beautiful earth we so often forget, and continue to exercise my mind in an intellectual way. No more astronauts. When we are 75 we will probably just want to be able to take a subsequent breath pain free, in a few years from now we will want to find lifelong companionship and be diligent family men, and I have said where I am now. And when I was 5? I could save the entire world from underneath my dad's chair with only the help of my two trusty stuffed animal sidekicks. Everything is real in its own time.
9/28/05
Goblins
A goblin woke me up this morning by making tea at my bedside and when I told him that was out of character he replied, "marrghghagrle" because he had a rare form of bird flu that my body was unable to fight against. As I neared the bitter bird flu end I had a choice, to join the goblin and live on and spread avian decimation or to go on to some great unknown. Then I really woke up from that dream and killed seven mice with a laser beam fashioned in my miracle of an eyeball. Then I woke up in the monstro, the power was out and then back on, the phone was doing its usual ringing at 8:00am, sewage piles of junk surrounded me, an empty fish bowl lay on my desk and I contemplated all the chances I had to make friends with goblins but decided not to because of social stigma surrounding non-human entities (discounting dogs and cats) that we consider friends. A lot of people might not understand my friendship with goblins, or might not understand what a goblin even is, as opposed to say an elf, a troll, a demon, or Bill Nye the Science Guy. However if you only look at that site, it explains everything, including the key passage stating, "Often portrayed as the vilains and troublemakers of faerie, Goblins are not truly completely evil. Though they seem to have no moral code of their own, they are happy to enforce the one of their human hosts. The miserly and lazy are apt to feel their pinch or find their rooms and possessions in disarray. Goblins are pranksters, and are known for rearranging items in the house, tangling horses, banging pots and pans, removing the clothes from sleeping humans, knocking on doors and walls and even digging up the graves to scatter the bones around." And there you have it.
9/27/05
Bad Advertising
I browse a few technology news pages every day as I catch up on the latest news in technology. (I have also been practicing with "palindromic" sentences.) I can see the latest gadgets to be released in Japan that I will NEVER want, much less need. Still, for some reason it fulfills some deep desire of mine to simply know of these products' existence. I think it's the same reason why some students at Whitman spend all their time reading Foucault "for fun." These type of people like to seem smart by quoting philosophy. While I enjoy philosophy, I think understanding the cusp of technology is much more beneficial because it is always changing. Foucault isn't going anywhere. I can go to the library now or 20 years from now and all of Foucault's books will be neatly organized alphabetically on the shelf. 20 years from now the technology of today won't mean shit to anyone but a few nerdy artifact collectors. I respect people who will sit down and memorize Foucault, but my deep understanding of the latest developments in technology is about living for tomorrow, not living for yesterday.
On to the point of my post. As I was browsing my tech news I saw an article about a new type of software being used on new cell phones. Blah blah blah. Its not interesting to me, and I browse these sites regularly, so I know nobody reading this would be interested. What I found interesting was the picture that came along with the article:
I am wondering what genius decided to grab the woman with caveman hands and ask her to hold the cell phone for the photograph. Even if I wanted a phone like that, I wouldn't buy that one simply because it looks so dwarfed against those mutant appendages. Perhaps my attention to detail is getting the best of me here, but the first thing I looked at when I saw that picture was the goddamn werewolf hands. The phone was an afterthought along the lines of "That tiny cellphone will soon be crushed by that troll's mighty grip!"
On to the point of my post. As I was browsing my tech news I saw an article about a new type of software being used on new cell phones. Blah blah blah. Its not interesting to me, and I browse these sites regularly, so I know nobody reading this would be interested. What I found interesting was the picture that came along with the article:
I am wondering what genius decided to grab the woman with caveman hands and ask her to hold the cell phone for the photograph. Even if I wanted a phone like that, I wouldn't buy that one simply because it looks so dwarfed against those mutant appendages. Perhaps my attention to detail is getting the best of me here, but the first thing I looked at when I saw that picture was the goddamn werewolf hands. The phone was an afterthought along the lines of "That tiny cellphone will soon be crushed by that troll's mighty grip!"
9/26/05
Things That Go Bump
Every night I hear a large *thump* above my room. Sometimes it can shake the ceiling and I can feel the reverberation throughout the room. Finally, I said enough is enough and sprinted upstairs right after I heard it happen.
No one was upstairs (except Gus). Olmstead wasn't there, and his room is right above mine. Until now, I had imagined he was dropping a bowling ball on his floor for some physics experiment. Gus was no help, telling me that the noise was probably "the seven prostitutes he'd just kicked out of his room."
That leaves only one solution. The mouse population had grown so large and complacent due to the abundance of leftover pizza and beer, and until recent environmental aberrations which were not under their control (Drew's clean-up of the 3rd floor), had lived an almost paradisiacal life in which the gods were benevolent, so that, after the leftover food's removal and without an agricultural infrastructure to reproduce its own, the mice fell into anarchy. Now, small factions of Monstro mice have promised a significant role to outside militant mouse communities in the future government's business for weapons of war. THAT is what I'm hearing every night, 1/2 ouncer mice mortars.
Will history teach these hungry mice nothing? Have the spoils of war ever been anything but death and strife?
No one was upstairs (except Gus). Olmstead wasn't there, and his room is right above mine. Until now, I had imagined he was dropping a bowling ball on his floor for some physics experiment. Gus was no help, telling me that the noise was probably "the seven prostitutes he'd just kicked out of his room."
That leaves only one solution. The mouse population had grown so large and complacent due to the abundance of leftover pizza and beer, and until recent environmental aberrations which were not under their control (Drew's clean-up of the 3rd floor), had lived an almost paradisiacal life in which the gods were benevolent, so that, after the leftover food's removal and without an agricultural infrastructure to reproduce its own, the mice fell into anarchy. Now, small factions of Monstro mice have promised a significant role to outside militant mouse communities in the future government's business for weapons of war. THAT is what I'm hearing every night, 1/2 ouncer mice mortars.
Will history teach these hungry mice nothing? Have the spoils of war ever been anything but death and strife?
9/23/05
Mouse Hunt
Remember the movie from the early 90's called Mouse Hunt? It was two crazy fools trying to catch a single mouse who is outsmarting them. There are ten guys in the Monstrosity, and we are unable to cure this mouse problem. I have sat up at night, a nice bait of cheese standing on a table, and waited for the mouse to emerge so I could destroy it. Instead, the mouse is nowhere to be seen. When I get bored and go to bed, I awake the next morning to my bait eaten, with small mouse droppings telling me that I am indeed the loser in this duel.
There has not been a mouse yet who could defy the mighty power of a simple mousetrap. This last semester we thought we had a particularly smart mouse on our hands, only to lay a mousetrap and find our intelligent friend trapped by a simple lever and spring mechanism. We had named the mouse Bob, and we all felt surprisingly sad at the news of his death. Soon after, Bob Jr. came poking around and the legacy of his father lived on.
There has not been a mouse yet who could defy the mighty power of a simple mousetrap. This last semester we thought we had a particularly smart mouse on our hands, only to lay a mousetrap and find our intelligent friend trapped by a simple lever and spring mechanism. We had named the mouse Bob, and we all felt surprisingly sad at the news of his death. Soon after, Bob Jr. came poking around and the legacy of his father lived on.
9/21/05
I Don't Know
It is funny how much work is required to train one's mind to a new system of thinking. Since I have come to Whitman, bits and pieces of a new line of thought have slowly trickled into my mind, but I have yet to put the puzzle together because I am still missing so many of the pieces. I would have never thought this earlier in my life, but it requires practice to change the way you think. I have to make a conscious effort to think the way I believe I should be thinking, and it is tiring. To be honest, it is often a downer.
I have recently been exposed to a line of philosophy that has enlightened me to the truth (in my opinion) that the universe is a system of complete and infinite harmony. Everything in our universe and millions of others are simply on a constant mode of repeat. When this universe dies billions of years from now, another will be created billions of years from that, and billions more after that event I will again be posting this blog. When you believe something like this, there is hardly any motivation to adhere to the laws of society, let alone discipline yourself to pay taxes or work out regularly. I could possibly, at any moment, go run into the streets and begin overturning cars and robbing houses. But I won't, because in the harmony of infinity, I am a logical human being who spends his time contemplating infinity (sober) and experiencing infinity (stoned). What adds joy to this system of belief is actually what many of you may view as its downside: The utter insignificance of our universe adds so much complexity to it that I can barely contain myself. Our universe is most likely a speck of a particle making up one atom in another universe, which in turn is another speck. Every time you bite into a cheeseburger or have an orgasm, you are experiencing an event of ultimate complexity, because it contains infinite mulitverses within that single, solitary act. It is rather humbling to say the least.
My roommate has now abandoned me, while I am in the process of writing this post, to go satisfy his hunger for the infinite experience that is human touch. I, myself, have infinitely experienced french fries and beer just recently. I am sure today you have all infinitely experienced something remarkable. Maybe you ate a banana, or went for a walk, or got hit in the temple by a golf ball. All equally complex and remarkable.
A bastard (as some say I am) would take advantage of this philosophy to be a huge dick to everyone all around him, using the excuse "none of this matters in infinity." That excuse, upon examination, is absurd, because the complexity of infinity is essentially harmony, and anyone who is beating up grandmas or twirling babies around their heads is definitely not in harmony with their surroundings. Chilling on a log, as my good friend Aaron Mandel has been known to do, is perhaps the greatest form of universal oneness a human being can achieve without the assistance of hallucinogenic drugs.
I can no longer type anything interesting, which is not saying a lot.
I have recently been exposed to a line of philosophy that has enlightened me to the truth (in my opinion) that the universe is a system of complete and infinite harmony. Everything in our universe and millions of others are simply on a constant mode of repeat. When this universe dies billions of years from now, another will be created billions of years from that, and billions more after that event I will again be posting this blog. When you believe something like this, there is hardly any motivation to adhere to the laws of society, let alone discipline yourself to pay taxes or work out regularly. I could possibly, at any moment, go run into the streets and begin overturning cars and robbing houses. But I won't, because in the harmony of infinity, I am a logical human being who spends his time contemplating infinity (sober) and experiencing infinity (stoned). What adds joy to this system of belief is actually what many of you may view as its downside: The utter insignificance of our universe adds so much complexity to it that I can barely contain myself. Our universe is most likely a speck of a particle making up one atom in another universe, which in turn is another speck. Every time you bite into a cheeseburger or have an orgasm, you are experiencing an event of ultimate complexity, because it contains infinite mulitverses within that single, solitary act. It is rather humbling to say the least.
My roommate has now abandoned me, while I am in the process of writing this post, to go satisfy his hunger for the infinite experience that is human touch. I, myself, have infinitely experienced french fries and beer just recently. I am sure today you have all infinitely experienced something remarkable. Maybe you ate a banana, or went for a walk, or got hit in the temple by a golf ball. All equally complex and remarkable.
A bastard (as some say I am) would take advantage of this philosophy to be a huge dick to everyone all around him, using the excuse "none of this matters in infinity." That excuse, upon examination, is absurd, because the complexity of infinity is essentially harmony, and anyone who is beating up grandmas or twirling babies around their heads is definitely not in harmony with their surroundings. Chilling on a log, as my good friend Aaron Mandel has been known to do, is perhaps the greatest form of universal oneness a human being can achieve without the assistance of hallucinogenic drugs.
I can no longer type anything interesting, which is not saying a lot.
9/17/05
Walla Walla, Sometimes You're Too Much
or ~My Transcendental Soapin'~
I took a shower this afternoon. I don’t normally listen to the radio while I scrub, but I put it on today. This song came on mid-chorus (I’ve abbreviated it for effect):
Grabs him a girl and he holds on tight
He’s chasing everything in sight
[…]
Life looks good, good, good
with his beer goggles on
Well that was slightly bemusing. I chuckled because drunken hookups are a dime-a-dozen at college and a great opportunity to chastise your friends. I even know someone whose nickname is “beer goggles” for his lengthy laundry list of hookups. So why not put it in a song catered towards an average working class stiff or someone who wishes they were (read: college student). But the commercial that followed pushed me a little further into Walla Walla’s surreality. It went something like this:
Hey rodeo fans! Meet your favorite bareback horse riders Cleetus and Mud at the ole Pick n’ Spit! They’ll be signing belt buckles and trucker hats until 2 p.m.!
Just another radio commercial about rodeos, nothing to start freaking out about, except…
AM/PM, so much good stuff, come in today and try our new Dorito slurpee! In trouble with the wife, a bouquet of twinkees should do the trick! And remember, we don’t buy oil from Iraq or Sudan, only American oil!!
I started sputtering and spitting and making Aaron noises after I heard this doozy. Then I went blind. I’m attending a highly esteemed academic institution in the middle of a twilight episode. Prisoners (2) from a state penitentiary, barely a block away, write letters to me requesting my help as a Brahmin to further their Hindu studies. There’s a dude outside, I think he’s a motivational speaker, because he lives in a van DOWN by the MONSTRO and when he’s not making out with his girlfriend in a lawn chair, he’s smoking pot, an eerie green light effusing from his van.
I’m about to be granted a 4-year liberal arts degree, but I swear to God, I’m speaking a different language when I ask the K-Mart guy where to find tent spikes and a mallet. “Vampire wards, oh yeah, those’re on the gun aisle. Can’t help you with a mallet,” was his reply. People yell at me in tongues from their cars. I’ve seen more mullets than the hockey fan that saw every game the Penguins played in ’83. And now, in the shower, I can’t see a damn thing; I’m fucking blind.
…
It’s been a few days between when I wrote this (blind) and when I posted it (sight returned). Thankfully, Drew happens to be a laser eye surgeon and his work is amazing. I see much clearer now, besides a newly earned sight into several unnamed dimensions of space-time. It’s going to be a long year.
I took a shower this afternoon. I don’t normally listen to the radio while I scrub, but I put it on today. This song came on mid-chorus (I’ve abbreviated it for effect):
Grabs him a girl and he holds on tight
He’s chasing everything in sight
[…]
Life looks good, good, good
with his beer goggles on
Well that was slightly bemusing. I chuckled because drunken hookups are a dime-a-dozen at college and a great opportunity to chastise your friends. I even know someone whose nickname is “beer goggles” for his lengthy laundry list of hookups. So why not put it in a song catered towards an average working class stiff or someone who wishes they were (read: college student). But the commercial that followed pushed me a little further into Walla Walla’s surreality. It went something like this:
Hey rodeo fans! Meet your favorite bareback horse riders Cleetus and Mud at the ole Pick n’ Spit! They’ll be signing belt buckles and trucker hats until 2 p.m.!
Just another radio commercial about rodeos, nothing to start freaking out about, except…
AM/PM, so much good stuff, come in today and try our new Dorito slurpee! In trouble with the wife, a bouquet of twinkees should do the trick! And remember, we don’t buy oil from Iraq or Sudan, only American oil!!
I started sputtering and spitting and making Aaron noises after I heard this doozy. Then I went blind. I’m attending a highly esteemed academic institution in the middle of a twilight episode. Prisoners (2) from a state penitentiary, barely a block away, write letters to me requesting my help as a Brahmin to further their Hindu studies. There’s a dude outside, I think he’s a motivational speaker, because he lives in a van DOWN by the MONSTRO and when he’s not making out with his girlfriend in a lawn chair, he’s smoking pot, an eerie green light effusing from his van.
I’m about to be granted a 4-year liberal arts degree, but I swear to God, I’m speaking a different language when I ask the K-Mart guy where to find tent spikes and a mallet. “Vampire wards, oh yeah, those’re on the gun aisle. Can’t help you with a mallet,” was his reply. People yell at me in tongues from their cars. I’ve seen more mullets than the hockey fan that saw every game the Penguins played in ’83. And now, in the shower, I can’t see a damn thing; I’m fucking blind.
…
It’s been a few days between when I wrote this (blind) and when I posted it (sight returned). Thankfully, Drew happens to be a laser eye surgeon and his work is amazing. I see much clearer now, besides a newly earned sight into several unnamed dimensions of space-time. It’s going to be a long year.
9/16/05
I'm a Hypocrite
I'm rocking so hard to Fall Out Boy right now. I dissed them earlier...but now I must put my foot in my mouth and jump kick around my house with the best of 'em.
We Talk Like This Every Day
An internet chat session from early this morning;
Aaron: a modern dilemma of all time, our internet works, but no water
Aaron: you can't drink the fuckin internet
Drew: Our social survival depends nothing on water, but physically, it is all-important.
Drew: Brother!
Drew: Let us invent a way to drink the internet!
Aaron: cree indian prophecy:
Aaron: only after the last tree has been cut down
Aaron: only after the last river has been poisoned
Aaron: only after the last fish has been caught
Aaron: only then will you find that money cannot be eaten
Drew: Perhaps this Mr. Cree is behind our water shortage.
I love Aaron.
Aaron: a modern dilemma of all time, our internet works, but no water
Aaron: you can't drink the fuckin internet
Drew: Our social survival depends nothing on water, but physically, it is all-important.
Drew: Brother!
Drew: Let us invent a way to drink the internet!
Aaron: cree indian prophecy:
Aaron: only after the last tree has been cut down
Aaron: only after the last river has been poisoned
Aaron: only after the last fish has been caught
Aaron: only then will you find that money cannot be eaten
Drew: Perhaps this Mr. Cree is behind our water shortage.
I love Aaron.
9/12/05
Blade: Stupidity
I sat in a stinky, smokey diner in Meridian, Idaho waiting for a mulleted waitress to bring over my "Country Skillet Breakfast," which consists of a meaty blend of bacon, sausage, gravy, eggs, sausage, gravy, cheese, sausage, hash browns, sausage, gravy, and biscuits. I usually don't concern myself with a decor faux pas in a greasy spoon diner that's located next to a feed warehouse, but for some reason, I could not take my eyes off of the walls of this place. They were covered in all sorts of painted saw blades. This got the wheels turning in my brain. At first I pondered the type of person who thought they were going to shock the art world by painting elk on a twelve-inch saw blade. Maybe they didn't have artistic impression in mind. Even so, what type of person thought they could make a healthy living selling this type of shit to OTHER types of people who, presumably, would find artistic value in it? This created a kind of Star Trek mind-paradox in my head, and I had to reach into my mind and despereately fish around in the muddy tar to rescue my sanity from destruction at the hands of redneck interior decoration.
9/11/05
The Concert and Beyond
So the remainder of the concert went along without too much to report. We pushed our way to the front of the general admission area and took up a small patches of grass with a pretty good view of the stage. Most of my time was spent focusing on the concert and slowly bobbing my head, which was the practice for most of the concert goers. There was one leather-clad biker dude who stood up a lot and played wicked air guitar/drums to the songs that he deemed sufficiently jam-worthy. Soon after the concert started the shut down beer sales, which drove many in the crowd into a frothing frenzy. It was really an amazing lesson in general economics. Usually people would be in a frothing frenzy if you tried to charge them $5.00 for a single beer at Safeway, but stick them into a sweaty concert with 20,000 other people and soon they are tearing each other apart to find a beer PERIOD. To highlight the dilemma of the lack of alcohol, I will tell you the story of our own personal quest for booze. Hans decided during a lull in the concert to go get beer. I hand him ten bucks and tell him to get me as much beer as the ten will buy me. He comes back 20 minutes later with no beers, but he becons me up the hill to him. I reluctantly leave my spot which is immediately taken by another concert goer. "Did you get beer?" I ask, still clinging to hope. "No dude, but I got something BETTER." he says. The way he really stressed the "BETTER" I assumed he had found some sort of drug to ingest or inhale, and I was extatic. INSTEAD, Hans pulls out a tiny airline bottle of whiskey. "We traded a guy two cigarettes for this." The concert had forced us into a type of prison-yard currency where we were trading cigarettes for small amounts of booze. Normally if I had given Hans ten-dollars for booze and he came back with that small bottle, I would have stomped on his foot REALLY HARD. But, since the concert was too good to be getting stressed out, I shrugged and took a few sips of the delicious whiskey out of the tiny baby bottle.
After the show, we all filed back to the campsite and resumed the drinking process. Leif and Pete had managed to maintain their state of drunkeness throughout the concert. I was awed at these guys' ability to keep a mean drunk going for a solid six hours. At one point Leif stumbled over and started giving us a speech about how bullshit our college education was. I don't really remember what he said, but he kept repeating "You guys gotta wake up man." I finally had enough and told him that it was in fact he who needed to wake up as well, because the infinite nature of the universe meant that at some point in infinity he was me and I was he (can you follow that?) and so by telling me I needed to wake up, so did he. He got confused and then started to say something was coming out my ass and nose. I lost track of the conversation at that point. Later on, Pete started talking shit to Leif and saying he could wrestle him to the ground. Leif asked us who we thought would win the match. I noticed at that time that Leif had changed into a pair of navy sweatpants. "I think you would win, you have the sweatpants advantage." I said to him. Everyone else in my group laughed, but Leif looked confused and a few seconds later tackled Pete into a tent and they grappled on the ground until someone in their gang broke them up.
So bedtime is rolling around, and our time at the Gorge is coming to and end. The hippies come back around for a second time offering up mushrooms. Pete accepts, pays his $25, and eats the entire bag right then and there. Let me remind you that he was drunk when we arrived at 4:30pm, and he was still drunk when he ate the shrooms at 2:00am.
I woke at 4:30 in the morning to a sky full of glittering stars and the Beavis-like cackling of Pete in the distance. The old boy must have been having a time with those mushrooms, and I fell asleep with that laughter in my head. I didn't see him when we left in the morning. Perhaps his journey took him into the Columbia, which eventually will lead to the Bering Sea.
After the show, we all filed back to the campsite and resumed the drinking process. Leif and Pete had managed to maintain their state of drunkeness throughout the concert. I was awed at these guys' ability to keep a mean drunk going for a solid six hours. At one point Leif stumbled over and started giving us a speech about how bullshit our college education was. I don't really remember what he said, but he kept repeating "You guys gotta wake up man." I finally had enough and told him that it was in fact he who needed to wake up as well, because the infinite nature of the universe meant that at some point in infinity he was me and I was he (can you follow that?) and so by telling me I needed to wake up, so did he. He got confused and then started to say something was coming out my ass and nose. I lost track of the conversation at that point. Later on, Pete started talking shit to Leif and saying he could wrestle him to the ground. Leif asked us who we thought would win the match. I noticed at that time that Leif had changed into a pair of navy sweatpants. "I think you would win, you have the sweatpants advantage." I said to him. Everyone else in my group laughed, but Leif looked confused and a few seconds later tackled Pete into a tent and they grappled on the ground until someone in their gang broke them up.
So bedtime is rolling around, and our time at the Gorge is coming to and end. The hippies come back around for a second time offering up mushrooms. Pete accepts, pays his $25, and eats the entire bag right then and there. Let me remind you that he was drunk when we arrived at 4:30pm, and he was still drunk when he ate the shrooms at 2:00am.
I woke at 4:30 in the morning to a sky full of glittering stars and the Beavis-like cackling of Pete in the distance. The old boy must have been having a time with those mushrooms, and I fell asleep with that laughter in my head. I didn't see him when we left in the morning. Perhaps his journey took him into the Columbia, which eventually will lead to the Bering Sea.
9/5/05
Bering Sea Motherfuckers
I have never been a concert fan. I don't like crowds and rarely am I impressed at the drunken shenanigans of my favorite bands. The last time I went to a large concert was the Warped Tour back in 2001. The bands sucked except for Alien Ant Farm, and it was 100 degrees outside. Whoever decided to combine motocross and shitty punk/ska should be deported to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Even one of my favorite bands, 311, managed to stay drunk most of the show and butcher their best songs, making me stop listening to them for almost a full year.
With this massive amount of concert baggage, I accepted an invitation from my good friend Andrew Poole to attend the Tom Petty concert at the Gorge Amphitheater. I didn't really want to go see Tom Petty because I saw him live once at the Idaho Center and it sucked ass. The Wallflowers opened and then Tom got on the stage and did a half-assed job of everything, reminding me that nobody worth a damn in the music industry gives a shit about fans that live in Idaho. I decided to go because the opener for Tom was The Black Crowes, who are probably the only musicians out there that I cannot help but admit are 100 times cooler than I will ever be.
Let's just say I rolled into the campground outside the Gorge with a fair bit of skepticism. We drove past throngs of frat boys sans wife beaters (which were tucked into the back pocket of their jeans) with white baseball caps appropriately turned backwards. These guys were yelling obscene things at underdeveloped 15-but-look-18 year-old girls walking around the campsite. This isn't to say that the majority were young fans...there were all ages there. When we drove up to our campsite, we parked next to a fucking PEACH of a group of fans. They were all fishermen from Alaska, and by the time we arrived at 4:30 they were demolished beyond all recognition from drinking out of an unmarked pickle jar. After a series of introductions, our new friend Leif coined the phrase "Bering Sea Motherfucker" in reference to his short friend Pete who was 24 years old and had three children, the oldest of whom was SEVEN. Do the math in your head while I tell you that Pete had an Iron Maiden shirt on and thought that the most badass concert he'd ever been to was Night Ranger with Quiet Riot. Leif and Pete kept threatening to kick each other's asses in an odd homoerotic way that would continue throughout the evening.
I haven't even gotten into the concert, and already I am having a better time. I could have sat in my chair, beer in hand, and just watched the crowds walk by and I would have had the time of my life. Three teenagers strolled by with bottles of whiskey and they were so absolutely demolished I doubt they could make their way to the concert, considering they couldn't walk in a straight line. On the way to the gates I saw some fucked up looking rednecks who seemed shocked to find that they were carrying a baby when they got to the entrance of the show. They sort of awkwardly passed the child back and forth like it would somehow perform the perfect series of motions to teleport the child to their parents' house. Upon entering I turned around to see a guy wearing a black t-shirt sporting the words "Fuck Allah, and all his mindless followers too." He had his jean jacket slung over his shoulder and was smiling like the huge walking dick that he was. He looked sauced and probably pissed in his pants minutes later, so I took that as a small victory.
Next: The concert and everything after.
With this massive amount of concert baggage, I accepted an invitation from my good friend Andrew Poole to attend the Tom Petty concert at the Gorge Amphitheater. I didn't really want to go see Tom Petty because I saw him live once at the Idaho Center and it sucked ass. The Wallflowers opened and then Tom got on the stage and did a half-assed job of everything, reminding me that nobody worth a damn in the music industry gives a shit about fans that live in Idaho. I decided to go because the opener for Tom was The Black Crowes, who are probably the only musicians out there that I cannot help but admit are 100 times cooler than I will ever be.
Let's just say I rolled into the campground outside the Gorge with a fair bit of skepticism. We drove past throngs of frat boys sans wife beaters (which were tucked into the back pocket of their jeans) with white baseball caps appropriately turned backwards. These guys were yelling obscene things at underdeveloped 15-but-look-18 year-old girls walking around the campsite. This isn't to say that the majority were young fans...there were all ages there. When we drove up to our campsite, we parked next to a fucking PEACH of a group of fans. They were all fishermen from Alaska, and by the time we arrived at 4:30 they were demolished beyond all recognition from drinking out of an unmarked pickle jar. After a series of introductions, our new friend Leif coined the phrase "Bering Sea Motherfucker" in reference to his short friend Pete who was 24 years old and had three children, the oldest of whom was SEVEN. Do the math in your head while I tell you that Pete had an Iron Maiden shirt on and thought that the most badass concert he'd ever been to was Night Ranger with Quiet Riot. Leif and Pete kept threatening to kick each other's asses in an odd homoerotic way that would continue throughout the evening.
I haven't even gotten into the concert, and already I am having a better time. I could have sat in my chair, beer in hand, and just watched the crowds walk by and I would have had the time of my life. Three teenagers strolled by with bottles of whiskey and they were so absolutely demolished I doubt they could make their way to the concert, considering they couldn't walk in a straight line. On the way to the gates I saw some fucked up looking rednecks who seemed shocked to find that they were carrying a baby when they got to the entrance of the show. They sort of awkwardly passed the child back and forth like it would somehow perform the perfect series of motions to teleport the child to their parents' house. Upon entering I turned around to see a guy wearing a black t-shirt sporting the words "Fuck Allah, and all his mindless followers too." He had his jean jacket slung over his shoulder and was smiling like the huge walking dick that he was. He looked sauced and probably pissed in his pants minutes later, so I took that as a small victory.
Next: The concert and everything after.
9/4/05
A collection of thoughts
One week into school and life is never dull.
When I see new fashions that get debuted these days [ http://www.lifestyle.ru/pics/2003.11.15.17_1.jpg ] I think to myself, man that is weird, who wears that shit. But we live in a profit based society so clearly it is profitable to dress people in curtains and bushes. This made me think of my own amazing fashion idea with the help of Jenna Bicknell and more importantly, her dog Arnie. You see, Arnie once chewed up one of Jenna's socks and then shit it out pretty much whole, in the shape of your typical poop [ http://www.annastesia.com/Pics/AnnaStesia%20Poop.jpg ] but in reality, just a sock that had been formed through the digestive tract. So my idea is to have people wear clothing that their pet or another animal has passed through their entire digestive system and then re-born. "Coming down the runway, Drew, orginally from Meridian, Idaho, wearing a fraternity toga completely ingested and shit out by a Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goat." I guarantee I could make like $220.
In my politics senior seminar the other day we sat around and debated the topic of power in relation to things we found in and around maxey hall, like grass, paintings, and other RANDOM ASS FUCKING SHIT. It was an exercise in learning nothing but learning to talk intelligent about useless shit. Sorta reminded me of this column [ http://www.whitman.edu/pioneer/downloads/archive/Spring%202005%20Issue%2001.pdf ] that I wrote for the Pio when I got back from DC. I worry more and more as the years go on here that I am not actually learning anything useful, just learning to talk and write pretty. I know that actual skills are not the goal of a liberal arts education, but seriously, a little depth and background and real world grounding and examples couldn't kill us.
Speaking of the real world, hurricane katrina really makes me nervous. In the last week I have become more and more sure that at some point in my life, maybe sooner rather than later the world will end. I think that we the people are less free than ever before, and a lot of it is our own fault. We buy lies at any price to opiate ourselves from legitimate fears and concerns. After 9/11 the government created the department of homeland security which we all pay into annually from our taxes. We also pay into FEMA and countless local and state funds that go to training and preparation for emergencies and disasters, man and nature-made. Suddenly, we have a dude telling us to fight off terrorists by going shopping and stock up on duct tape and we are not worried about a tactical nuclear strike directly in our own assholes. Hurricanes though, are completely different. We have satellite imagery that is used in the shittiest local weather forecasts every single day to predict weather that is days ahead. Everyone knew that Hurricane Katrina was going to hit days before it really did and I agree that if people don't heed the warning to evacuate it's their own fault, but it should not take 4 days and so much confusion and fog of war to get aid to the idiots that didn't bounce. Not to mention the fact that the magnitude of this was unexpected. Even the tiny magazine I interned for in Washington DC, THE AMERICAN PROSPECT, ran an article just this past MAY [ http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10180 ] about the exact thing that happened. The fact is that our government cannot protect us, but that has always been the case, if some crazy sets off a nuke or a bio-weapon, that is hard to stop, but the response should be planned for, and we should stop believing the fucking lies and drinking the kool-aid.
I went to the county fair last night in walla walla and in the livestock barn I nearly purchased a Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goat for the monstro but at the last minute decided against it and won a fish at the ball toss that I have named Floyd and is clinging to life on my desk right now. The fair was cool, it reminded me of going to fairs near my house as a young kid. I wonder how similar county fair's are all over the country. I think Bruce Springsteen pretty much sums it up in his appropriately titled song, "County Fair" [ http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/bruce_springsteen/county_fair.html ] Sounds about right to me.
When I see new fashions that get debuted these days [ http://www.lifestyle.ru/pics/2003.11.15.17_1.jpg ] I think to myself, man that is weird, who wears that shit. But we live in a profit based society so clearly it is profitable to dress people in curtains and bushes. This made me think of my own amazing fashion idea with the help of Jenna Bicknell and more importantly, her dog Arnie. You see, Arnie once chewed up one of Jenna's socks and then shit it out pretty much whole, in the shape of your typical poop [ http://www.annastesia.com/Pics/AnnaStesia%20Poop.jpg ] but in reality, just a sock that had been formed through the digestive tract. So my idea is to have people wear clothing that their pet or another animal has passed through their entire digestive system and then re-born. "Coming down the runway, Drew, orginally from Meridian, Idaho, wearing a fraternity toga completely ingested and shit out by a Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goat." I guarantee I could make like $220.
In my politics senior seminar the other day we sat around and debated the topic of power in relation to things we found in and around maxey hall, like grass, paintings, and other RANDOM ASS FUCKING SHIT. It was an exercise in learning nothing but learning to talk intelligent about useless shit. Sorta reminded me of this column [ http://www.whitman.edu/pioneer/downloads/archive/Spring%202005%20Issue%2001.pdf ] that I wrote for the Pio when I got back from DC. I worry more and more as the years go on here that I am not actually learning anything useful, just learning to talk and write pretty. I know that actual skills are not the goal of a liberal arts education, but seriously, a little depth and background and real world grounding and examples couldn't kill us.
Speaking of the real world, hurricane katrina really makes me nervous. In the last week I have become more and more sure that at some point in my life, maybe sooner rather than later the world will end. I think that we the people are less free than ever before, and a lot of it is our own fault. We buy lies at any price to opiate ourselves from legitimate fears and concerns. After 9/11 the government created the department of homeland security which we all pay into annually from our taxes. We also pay into FEMA and countless local and state funds that go to training and preparation for emergencies and disasters, man and nature-made. Suddenly, we have a dude telling us to fight off terrorists by going shopping and stock up on duct tape and we are not worried about a tactical nuclear strike directly in our own assholes. Hurricanes though, are completely different. We have satellite imagery that is used in the shittiest local weather forecasts every single day to predict weather that is days ahead. Everyone knew that Hurricane Katrina was going to hit days before it really did and I agree that if people don't heed the warning to evacuate it's their own fault, but it should not take 4 days and so much confusion and fog of war to get aid to the idiots that didn't bounce. Not to mention the fact that the magnitude of this was unexpected. Even the tiny magazine I interned for in Washington DC, THE AMERICAN PROSPECT, ran an article just this past MAY [ http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10180 ] about the exact thing that happened. The fact is that our government cannot protect us, but that has always been the case, if some crazy sets off a nuke or a bio-weapon, that is hard to stop, but the response should be planned for, and we should stop believing the fucking lies and drinking the kool-aid.
I went to the county fair last night in walla walla and in the livestock barn I nearly purchased a Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goat for the monstro but at the last minute decided against it and won a fish at the ball toss that I have named Floyd and is clinging to life on my desk right now. The fair was cool, it reminded me of going to fairs near my house as a young kid. I wonder how similar county fair's are all over the country. I think Bruce Springsteen pretty much sums it up in his appropriately titled song, "County Fair" [ http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/bruce_springsteen/county_fair.html ] Sounds about right to me.
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