Remember that money I didn't have? Well I spent it. I flushed it all down the toilet. I put it in a time capsule and buried it the backyard. While I will be the first to preach about the many glories of the internet, there are dark aspects to it as well. Real-time bank account monitoring is one of them. There is nothing quite like spending a few nights out and then seeing how miraculously $200 disappeared from your e-pockets. What is it about this goddamn youth culture today that makes spending money so cool and fun? What makes two grown men huddle up next to a makeup-covered female and open up their wallets to her like she was the Blitzkrieg marching into Paris? Granted there are something things that are simply expenses that cannot be eliminated. My recent speargun purchase was out of a necessity for self-defense against sharks and their ilk. You cannot put a price on safety my friends.
Some people have gotten frustrated with my complaining about not having money by bringing up idiotic arguments that reference my lack of a job and unwillingness to work. That is simply bullcrap. Those who would hire me are too deceptive for my pure soul. They are snakes trying to get me to bite from the apple of cash-for-labor but I know better. Take for example someone who says they are willing to pay you to do "yard work." When a person like myself hears the words "yard work" you focus on the word "yard" which has its roots in the word "backyard" which has its roots in my childhood which had its roots in my sandbox which was in my backyard. So when I hear someone say "yard work" my brain is already processing a scenario in which I will construct a massive tunnel network out of sand by running hose water through the sandbox and then destroying the entire architectural masterpiece with a molded plastic Godzilla toy. When I hear the words "yard work" I imagine having fun in the backyard. Throwing water balloons and eating shammiches and stuff like that. Jumping off the roof with an umbrella and staring in horror when your friend from next door gets their head caught between the springs of the trampoline. You know, fun backyard stuff. Imagine my surprise when I show up to do "yard work" and what the person really wishes of me is to move a pile of sand with a wheelbarrow. That sounds more like regular work to me. So these deceptive souls who tricked me over to their house with the words "yard work" then get upset when I refuse to work and demand a bologna sandwich with the crust cut off. They get all pissed, like cutting the crust off is really that hard to do. If you want me to come over and play in your yard and eat snacks in your yard then I will do it. But don't try to trick me over by using trickery and then get all pissed because you can't make the easiest sandwich there is. Get a clue.
7/30/06
7/28/06
Mortality of Man.
I often contemplate death. It is the greatest mystery of all time, and a rare few men can say that they put their foot upon the trachea of our old rival, pressed down with slight pressure, and made death gag ever so slightly so as to slow it's pursuit of souls. Aaron Mandel seems to be one of those men. The courage of kings boils inside his tiny, misshapen heart, and when the spirit of his ancestors compelled him to adventure, he answered the call eagerly.
With the same spirit that drove Alexander the Great to conquer most of the civilized world, Aaron Mandel was compelled to face death down on its own terms and allow himself to be strapped to a elderly man like a baby indian was loving strapped into its papoose as its mother gathered berries in the fields. With the noble blood of a thousand kings inspiring his steps, he screamed like a mother as the awesome force of gravity tore at his flesh. The whole time, death calmly watching, waiting for the silver-haired guardian angel to make a mistake. The slightest error that would allow the bony and cold fingers of the reaper to claim its greatest prize; the soul of the ever-elusive Aaron Mandel, offspring of sorcerers and kings, man without fear.
I will be happy to claim even a small fraction of conquest over death that Aaron has taken. I will allow Aaron his title of champion in the battle against death, for I have instead made a deal with the Grim Reaper. I have willingly sacrificed my soul to the afterlife, and in exchange I have dictated my demise on my own terms.
At a truck stop less than 100 miles from Walla Walla, where the display cases are filled with collectible knives and John Denver tapes, the fluorescent bulbs overhead flicker erratically as if the remoteness of this place makes electricity itself struggle and crawl trying to travel the vast distances that separate the truck stop from the rest of humanity. In this place there is a diner. The coffee is always stale and cold, but served diligently by waitresses with blank stares and no nametags, an unlit cigarette always hanging from their lips. In this diner a man sits at the bar adjacent to the turnstile of pies slowly rotating with a slight whirring noise that is remarkably loud for the silence of the rest of the building. This man sits at the bar, sipping a tall, sweating glass of ice water, constantly dabbing the sweat from his brow with a silk handkerchief despite the fact that the air conditioner is constantly churning its chockingly cool air into the diner. Nobody ever sits next to the man next to the pies, he is always ignored and does his equal share of ignoring. One day I sat next to this man after many years of selecting pie from the case next to him.
"I know who you are." I whispered to him over the noise of the pie turnstile. The waitresses took some silent cue and all disappeared into the kitchen. "So what do you want, then?" the man asked, sipping from his ice water and brushing his forhead with the black handkerchief. "You can have me, no fighting, no crying, no begging." I stared at him for a long time as he contemplated my offer. "It would be a relief, painless deaths are hard to come by these days." he said. "I want to dictate HOW I die, in exchange." I said, staring right at him. "Okay, how do you want to die?" was his response...
"IF I die," I began, which made him smile slightly and turn his head, more of regard than anyone had ever gotten from this man, "I want to die in outer space." The man stared ahead and slowly stood, pushed his glass away, and turned to shake my hand. I grabbed the cold clammy palm, and it was a deal.
If I die, I am going to die in outer space.
With the same spirit that drove Alexander the Great to conquer most of the civilized world, Aaron Mandel was compelled to face death down on its own terms and allow himself to be strapped to a elderly man like a baby indian was loving strapped into its papoose as its mother gathered berries in the fields. With the noble blood of a thousand kings inspiring his steps, he screamed like a mother as the awesome force of gravity tore at his flesh. The whole time, death calmly watching, waiting for the silver-haired guardian angel to make a mistake. The slightest error that would allow the bony and cold fingers of the reaper to claim its greatest prize; the soul of the ever-elusive Aaron Mandel, offspring of sorcerers and kings, man without fear.
I will be happy to claim even a small fraction of conquest over death that Aaron has taken. I will allow Aaron his title of champion in the battle against death, for I have instead made a deal with the Grim Reaper. I have willingly sacrificed my soul to the afterlife, and in exchange I have dictated my demise on my own terms.
At a truck stop less than 100 miles from Walla Walla, where the display cases are filled with collectible knives and John Denver tapes, the fluorescent bulbs overhead flicker erratically as if the remoteness of this place makes electricity itself struggle and crawl trying to travel the vast distances that separate the truck stop from the rest of humanity. In this place there is a diner. The coffee is always stale and cold, but served diligently by waitresses with blank stares and no nametags, an unlit cigarette always hanging from their lips. In this diner a man sits at the bar adjacent to the turnstile of pies slowly rotating with a slight whirring noise that is remarkably loud for the silence of the rest of the building. This man sits at the bar, sipping a tall, sweating glass of ice water, constantly dabbing the sweat from his brow with a silk handkerchief despite the fact that the air conditioner is constantly churning its chockingly cool air into the diner. Nobody ever sits next to the man next to the pies, he is always ignored and does his equal share of ignoring. One day I sat next to this man after many years of selecting pie from the case next to him.
"I know who you are." I whispered to him over the noise of the pie turnstile. The waitresses took some silent cue and all disappeared into the kitchen. "So what do you want, then?" the man asked, sipping from his ice water and brushing his forhead with the black handkerchief. "You can have me, no fighting, no crying, no begging." I stared at him for a long time as he contemplated my offer. "It would be a relief, painless deaths are hard to come by these days." he said. "I want to dictate HOW I die, in exchange." I said, staring right at him. "Okay, how do you want to die?" was his response...
"IF I die," I began, which made him smile slightly and turn his head, more of regard than anyone had ever gotten from this man, "I want to die in outer space." The man stared ahead and slowly stood, pushed his glass away, and turned to shake my hand. I grabbed the cold clammy palm, and it was a deal.
If I die, I am going to die in outer space.
7/25/06
Drew and Matt are SUUUUUCH pussies who need to nut up
Drew and Matt - large men with no intestinal fortitude. Strong, intelligent men who, when the mercury heads north, become unable to think, write or blog about anything except the weather. Lemme tell you something, the weather is what people who used to date talk about because everything else is so fucking awkward, especially the Russian mail order bride you have in tow that you are nursing back to health after her cross-atlantic journey in a shoe crate, damn that is hellla awkward. The weather is what I talk about with my grandparents when they forget my name. The weather is what is currently making fat people in the bay area itch the areas in between their folds because sweat has been uncontrollably gathering and festering there. The weather is not that tight of a subject, except when Al Gore is dropping knowledge bombs or a twister picks up my baby girl just before i could have kissed her or dust storms, they are tight, or the desert, it is tight b/c when it's hot it's like "oh the desert is hot, HOW HOT, wow, how totally expected," and then when it rains there a plant blooms for the first time in 100 years, the 14 musicians who have journeyed there for vision quests put out really tight albums the next year.
Why don't we talk about me going THROUGH the weather recently when I went skydiving
actually that's not that great of a topic either, i mean it was cold, then it got warmer and my skin peeled back, weather.
A better topic would be to open up a wide-ranging discussion on what the fuck is wrong with this country, especially the youth, we'll say that means anyone from 3-34, because on one end that is about when you start to make more sense to other people and less sense to apes and on the other end right before you can be president, which makes you old and out of touch by default.
I posit that young people, and especially ones that I run in circles with at home/school/camp or younger kids who are my charges at camp do not give a fuck about the world. Sure, there are some do-gooders, mainly at liberal arts schools but this is not our parent's generations of broad social upheaval and protest. Now maybe that's because we aren't coming out of the mind-numbing, conformist 1950's as kids but still, there is tons of shit the matter with everything. July 14 was Bastille Day and at Camp we decided to celebrate it, teach kids about overthrowing the nobles and good revolutionary ideas like that which are too dangerous to learn in public schools cuz if you get too smart you'll figger out yer teacher is a robot clone. So we served crepes at breakfast and then encouraged the kids to "storm the bastille" and like take over from their counselors for a day and toss lifeguards in the pool and what not. The amazing part to me was that none of the kids gave half a shit. Then I realized these kids were already the nobility, they were all fairly well off and even at decently young ages had to know it. Know that they were predestined to get to a good school, get a decent job and have a comfortable life that won't necessitate doing anything too revolutionary. I don't know why but that kind of depresses me, I feel like when you are young you should want to buck the grain and challenge status quo's and not many people do that which overall probably makes things run smoother but I bet people's lives could be more fun if they just flung their shit at expensive things every now and then and hooted a bit.
Why don't we talk about me going THROUGH the weather recently when I went skydiving
actually that's not that great of a topic either, i mean it was cold, then it got warmer and my skin peeled back, weather.
A better topic would be to open up a wide-ranging discussion on what the fuck is wrong with this country, especially the youth, we'll say that means anyone from 3-34, because on one end that is about when you start to make more sense to other people and less sense to apes and on the other end right before you can be president, which makes you old and out of touch by default.
I posit that young people, and especially ones that I run in circles with at home/school/camp or younger kids who are my charges at camp do not give a fuck about the world. Sure, there are some do-gooders, mainly at liberal arts schools but this is not our parent's generations of broad social upheaval and protest. Now maybe that's because we aren't coming out of the mind-numbing, conformist 1950's as kids but still, there is tons of shit the matter with everything. July 14 was Bastille Day and at Camp we decided to celebrate it, teach kids about overthrowing the nobles and good revolutionary ideas like that which are too dangerous to learn in public schools cuz if you get too smart you'll figger out yer teacher is a robot clone. So we served crepes at breakfast and then encouraged the kids to "storm the bastille" and like take over from their counselors for a day and toss lifeguards in the pool and what not. The amazing part to me was that none of the kids gave half a shit. Then I realized these kids were already the nobility, they were all fairly well off and even at decently young ages had to know it. Know that they were predestined to get to a good school, get a decent job and have a comfortable life that won't necessitate doing anything too revolutionary. I don't know why but that kind of depresses me, I feel like when you are young you should want to buck the grain and challenge status quo's and not many people do that which overall probably makes things run smoother but I bet people's lives could be more fun if they just flung their shit at expensive things every now and then and hooted a bit.
The Heat
Avast! The heat in Walla Walla has reached record highs, and it is showing no sign of stopping anywhere else on the planet. Let's not jump to conclusions and immediately proclaim Al Gore was correct, however. Just the other night some loon senator (I forget his name, but he was a real, live senator with real, live wrinkles and a real, live mistress) was on CNN trying to refute Al Gore's movie by bringing everyone's attention to the little-known Medieval Heat Wave of 900A.D. Apparently back in the dark ages they didn't have enough to deal with when it came to pestilence rats, barbarian raids, witch burnings, public excecutions, and all those weird medieval skin conditions where you get large goiters on your face, but it was also hot as hell. If 106 can kill old people with air conditioning and telephones, imagine what kind of havoc it would cause back in the dark ages.
Cows would start producing boiling milk! Bread would melt at the stands! Witches and non-witches would simply alight without warning, causing difficulty for those witch hunters who were themselves not already on fire from the intense heat of the sun. Castles needn't be sieged, as they would simply be evacuated since 115 degrees turns a stone and brick castle into a stone a brick KILN. Children would be running around with that goddamn Pied Piper, doing whatever the hell that peodphile wants!
I think what that senator was trying to say, but couldn't say, since he was on CNN, was "nut up pussies, at least it isn't the goddamn Dark Ages."
Cows would start producing boiling milk! Bread would melt at the stands! Witches and non-witches would simply alight without warning, causing difficulty for those witch hunters who were themselves not already on fire from the intense heat of the sun. Castles needn't be sieged, as they would simply be evacuated since 115 degrees turns a stone and brick castle into a stone a brick KILN. Children would be running around with that goddamn Pied Piper, doing whatever the hell that peodphile wants!
I think what that senator was trying to say, but couldn't say, since he was on CNN, was "nut up pussies, at least it isn't the goddamn Dark Ages."
7/24/06
can't box me in
some facial man-scaping up at campHi everyone, some thoughts before I go to Costa Rica (our replacement trip for Israel) on Wednesday.
First of all, the pic should remind you all how attractive and dashing I am and how creative facial hair should be a goal, not a fear.
I was in front of the TV, watchign FoxNews, fair and balanced and a teaser clip ran across something like this: "John Kerry speaks out on the Middle East, saying the current crisis never would have happened if he was President...is this shameful politicking or a useful point? ...coming up we find out the answers from Tom Delay."
TOM FUCKING DELAY, "The Hammer" is a really impartial, objective, balanced source, maybe they should just ask their old anchor Tony Snow...oh wait he is too busy at his new job, being President Bush's press secretary, jesus fucking christ.
With regards to Israel I really regret war anytime it happens in the world, it's certainly something that, as a person and not a political leader, I think is senseless and diplomacy should always win out. However, Hezbollah, who started this shit has been firing rockets, nearly 1000 in total into Israel, hitting the third biggest city, Haifa, a lot. Now all I'm saying is that if a terrorist group massed at say, our Canadian border, and started shelling Chicago, no one would question taking action. Hezbollah is run by Syria and Iran, funded at least, and is blending in with a civilian population so a lot of what is going on is legitimate, inevitable defense to unprovoked international acts of war. I just don't understand people who criticize Israel over this. There is no country on the planet that lives in greater danger or more greatly desires peace than Israel and every move it makes is critiqued at a standard more than double that for any other country on earth. The U.S. routed the Taliban out of Afghanistan for harboring Al Qaeda and now Lebanon's government, which for all the sympathy it gets, is totally chill with allowing Hezbollah to operate as legitimate resistance, can't be overthrown because they had one election that was democratic, gimme a break. All Israel has done in Lebanon in six years to deserve this is WITHDRAW from previously occupied territory in the south of lebanon because the UN passed a resolution to bind Lebanon to keeping the area secure. WHOOPS.
I was taking BART home from San Francisco the other day and standing in Civic Center/UN Plaza and noticed that MORE THAN HALF of the populace in view was talking to themselves and not on a cell phone. San Francisco (and Berkeley too) has got to have the highest percentage of crazy people per capita of any city in the U.S. I wonder if there are stats on this. I started to think about why. Why all the crazies? Is it nature or nurture? Is it something about San Francisco that attracts already crazy people or does the city itself breed craziness? While there is probably some truth to the latter (example: me?) I think it's mainly the first. San Francisco is seen as this oasis of creativity and freedom and therefore attracts people who shouldn't be allowed to have very much of either. I was sitting there while a lady screamed at me, "do you believe in ressurection? Do you believe in reincarnation?" over and over again at me thinking about the seemingly mythological summer of love and haight-ashbury and other San Francisco stereotypes that seem like dreams and how the reality is more like a nightmare.
All of that is pretty depressing, but really things have been going well, I'm pumped to do some traveling to Costa Rica even if I'll mainly be working the whole time with the teen group I'm going with, I hope the heat wave has spared you and I hope all of your dinners were better than the sketchy Thai-Lao cuisine I gutted tonight and which is now going to cause me to end this blog post a little earlier than previously anticipa
edit: I shit myself, fuckin pad thai w/ shrimp
edit: my dog showed more interest in me after I shit myself than in the previous 7 years, ladies?
I can't escape the heat!
Summer in Walla Walla is hot. While timely visitors may judge our peaceful hamlet as temperate and even pleasantly warm, they know nothing of the brutal summers. Starting some time last week, the temperature began getting ambitious. It's been flirting with triple digits! It's all my housemate and I can do to simply stay indoors and play videogames. Our windows will burn an unsuspecting hand laid upon.
So I flee south and west, out of the harsh desert and toward a more civilized land. Portland is, however, just as fucking hot! This is a metropolis... where are the goddamn climate control shields and weather changing robots? Ok, so maybe Portland isn't quite on the cutting edge of shit, but I remember being in D.C. during the summer some years back and even there, our nation's capital, we're sweating our eyeballs out.
It only figures that I'm not gonna get any relief from the heat: my girlfriend just let me know that Los Angeles (where we're headed) is like a hundred and nineteen degrees right now. I was born in Anchorage, ok? I like the sun as much as the next guy, but damn this omnipresent summer heat! It's bad for my valve. Luckily, the by-product of my venting on this blogue is a refreshing breeze. Keep kool kids, remember to czech on your elderly neighbors and if they don't answer, it's time to break in and take their shit.
So I flee south and west, out of the harsh desert and toward a more civilized land. Portland is, however, just as fucking hot! This is a metropolis... where are the goddamn climate control shields and weather changing robots? Ok, so maybe Portland isn't quite on the cutting edge of shit, but I remember being in D.C. during the summer some years back and even there, our nation's capital, we're sweating our eyeballs out.
It only figures that I'm not gonna get any relief from the heat: my girlfriend just let me know that Los Angeles (where we're headed) is like a hundred and nineteen degrees right now. I was born in Anchorage, ok? I like the sun as much as the next guy, but damn this omnipresent summer heat! It's bad for my valve. Luckily, the by-product of my venting on this blogue is a refreshing breeze. Keep kool kids, remember to czech on your elderly neighbors and if they don't answer, it's time to break in and take their shit.
7/23/06
Don't Hesitate, Self Deprecate!
Now that I am a college graduate, I have to socialize with older adults who aren't as smart as I am. However, most of them think that with experience comes wisdom, and with wisdom comes intelligence, or something along those lines. I'm not one to bag on wisdom, but there is a difference between capital "W" Wisdom and plain old grandpa wisdom. For example, if you went to 'Nam and had sex with several Bangkok whores while you had leave and you got so many STDs you thought you were collecting PokeMon, and you tell your grandson "Always remember to wear a condom." You're not wise, you're just making sure your grandson doesn't have crabs infesting his nether regions. For some reason people think that "experience" and "learning from your mistakes" equals wisdom. Some old adult telling me what to do or not to do for this and that reason just makes me want to find them a fine, old retirement home to retire their old self into. I am convinced the only wise old people are in movies. In real life, they just play golf and complain a lot about how hot it is outside.
But I have to socialize with these people. These old people who think they've got something to say, some life lesson to impart on my free-wheeling youth so that I get married to quickly and am miserable for a longer period of time. Since I am also smarter than most of these old people, I can rarely find common ground on which to discuss topics in a social manner. Here is the typical conversation I have with an older adult:
Old: "So, your mother tells me you just graduated from college?"
Smart: "Yeah, I went to Whitman College. It's in Walla Walla."
Old: "What was your major??"
Smart: "I double-majored in Physics and Film Studies."
Old: "Ohhh. Physics AND Film. Wow."
Smart: "Yep."
Old: "So you studied movies? Have you seen October Sky?"
**Pause**
This is where I always hit a crossroads. Do I become a jackass, or do I start conceding knowledge and begin the self-deprecation process that I will describe in a little bit so that old adults can still feel superiority over me? Let's explore both.
Jackass: "Yeah, I've seen it. What's your point?"
Old: "Well...did you like it? I liked it."
Jackass: "Listen, I got a Film STUDIES major, not a film-fucking-appreciation major, okay? I don't watch movies and talk about how I didn't like this character because she was mean, or I didn't like that part of the plot because it was too scary. So if you were asking me about October Sky as a Film STUDIES major, then I would tell you that I think it is a cheaply-made family film that was intended to make a buck off of the middle-America nostalgia that so many conservative households feel for a time in the past where family was family that didn't even fucking exist."
Old: "Well I never...you've really changed, Andrew."
Jackass: "No, I haven't changed, I'm just smarter than you are."
I have never gone that route. I usually self-deprecate. Here's how:
SD: "No I haven't seen October Sky, tell me about it?"
Old: "Well, it's about these boys, and they build a rocket to save the town."
SD: "Wow, that sounds really good. I should talk to my professor about teaching that in class."
Old: "I just love watching movies. I can always tell who the hero is going to be right off the bat. I don't like movies that don't have heroes."
SD: "Me neither."
Old: "So what else did you learn at Whitman?"
SD: "Not much. You know liberal arts institutions, we just sat around playing frisbee and singing songs all day. It trained me really well to drive buses though!"
Old: "Ha ha ha. You're so funny, Andrew! You've really grown up to be a remarkable young man! You should come work for me at the plant."
SD: "I don't know, I bet it would be pretty hard. I don't understand all that stuff you do at work."
Old: "Oh, don't worry, we'll catch you up. We'll wash that college junk right out of your head."
SD: "Fucking sweet."
I don't usually say that last phrase, but I have really wanted to. Hope this helps all of you in deciding how to deal with these types of conversations. It's a real issue for me nowadays.
But I have to socialize with these people. These old people who think they've got something to say, some life lesson to impart on my free-wheeling youth so that I get married to quickly and am miserable for a longer period of time. Since I am also smarter than most of these old people, I can rarely find common ground on which to discuss topics in a social manner. Here is the typical conversation I have with an older adult:
Old: "So, your mother tells me you just graduated from college?"
Smart: "Yeah, I went to Whitman College. It's in Walla Walla."
Old: "What was your major??"
Smart: "I double-majored in Physics and Film Studies."
Old: "Ohhh. Physics AND Film. Wow."
Smart: "Yep."
Old: "So you studied movies? Have you seen October Sky?"
**Pause**
This is where I always hit a crossroads. Do I become a jackass, or do I start conceding knowledge and begin the self-deprecation process that I will describe in a little bit so that old adults can still feel superiority over me? Let's explore both.
Jackass: "Yeah, I've seen it. What's your point?"
Old: "Well...did you like it? I liked it."
Jackass: "Listen, I got a Film STUDIES major, not a film-fucking-appreciation major, okay? I don't watch movies and talk about how I didn't like this character because she was mean, or I didn't like that part of the plot because it was too scary. So if you were asking me about October Sky as a Film STUDIES major, then I would tell you that I think it is a cheaply-made family film that was intended to make a buck off of the middle-America nostalgia that so many conservative households feel for a time in the past where family was family that didn't even fucking exist."
Old: "Well I never...you've really changed, Andrew."
Jackass: "No, I haven't changed, I'm just smarter than you are."
I have never gone that route. I usually self-deprecate. Here's how:
SD: "No I haven't seen October Sky, tell me about it?"
Old: "Well, it's about these boys, and they build a rocket to save the town."
SD: "Wow, that sounds really good. I should talk to my professor about teaching that in class."
Old: "I just love watching movies. I can always tell who the hero is going to be right off the bat. I don't like movies that don't have heroes."
SD: "Me neither."
Old: "So what else did you learn at Whitman?"
SD: "Not much. You know liberal arts institutions, we just sat around playing frisbee and singing songs all day. It trained me really well to drive buses though!"
Old: "Ha ha ha. You're so funny, Andrew! You've really grown up to be a remarkable young man! You should come work for me at the plant."
SD: "I don't know, I bet it would be pretty hard. I don't understand all that stuff you do at work."
Old: "Oh, don't worry, we'll catch you up. We'll wash that college junk right out of your head."
SD: "Fucking sweet."
I don't usually say that last phrase, but I have really wanted to. Hope this helps all of you in deciding how to deal with these types of conversations. It's a real issue for me nowadays.
7/20/06
We're going pro.
I am about to purchase www.themonstro.com. Which means, in a small way, that we are going pro. Not "pro" in the sense that we will be getting paid, or "pro" in the sense that we are the best at what we do, but "pro" in the sense that we have a standalone website. I know that nowadays even shitty plumbing companies have their own websites, but they're usually not as intentionally funny or unintentionally sad as this website is.
I guess there will be some solid money coming out of this website now, probably enough to buy at least one professional basketball team, though only a shitty one. I don't want to own the Toronto Raptors or the Portland Trailblazers, but you've gotta start somewhere. There will probably only be one boat, instead of multiple boats. I don't think I can comfortably settle down with only one boat. Only having one boat is pretty sad times, especially considering that there are a ton of yachts being manufactured every year and there is a shortage of poor folks to work on them. I think I'm going to have to own at least three boats in order to properly execute President Bush's "trickle down" policy. There just won't be enough trickling unless I employ at least 50 deckhands, I've done the math.
I don't think I can buy three boats unless we have some products. A good website is mostly ads and products anyway, and then I can slowly move away from actually producing any material. No journalism for real internet businessmen. Just crazy money shit, like Bruce Wayne. Build a mansion and be a batman. Crazy internet money. I think I am going to sell quality acoustics. My friend Clark builds speakers for a living, and when he told me he was going to sell them in the $500-$1500 range, I figured I could easily just build a wood box and change someone like $1000 for it, assuming there is some sort of sound emanating from it. People don't know shit about speakers anyway.
Welcome to the future, where I will become filthy rich off of your hits to my media-giant website, www.themonstro.com.
I guess there will be some solid money coming out of this website now, probably enough to buy at least one professional basketball team, though only a shitty one. I don't want to own the Toronto Raptors or the Portland Trailblazers, but you've gotta start somewhere. There will probably only be one boat, instead of multiple boats. I don't think I can comfortably settle down with only one boat. Only having one boat is pretty sad times, especially considering that there are a ton of yachts being manufactured every year and there is a shortage of poor folks to work on them. I think I'm going to have to own at least three boats in order to properly execute President Bush's "trickle down" policy. There just won't be enough trickling unless I employ at least 50 deckhands, I've done the math.
I don't think I can buy three boats unless we have some products. A good website is mostly ads and products anyway, and then I can slowly move away from actually producing any material. No journalism for real internet businessmen. Just crazy money shit, like Bruce Wayne. Build a mansion and be a batman. Crazy internet money. I think I am going to sell quality acoustics. My friend Clark builds speakers for a living, and when he told me he was going to sell them in the $500-$1500 range, I figured I could easily just build a wood box and change someone like $1000 for it, assuming there is some sort of sound emanating from it. People don't know shit about speakers anyway.
Welcome to the future, where I will become filthy rich off of your hits to my media-giant website, www.themonstro.com.
7/16/06
Israel
I am a mix of emotions and feelings at the moment, existing on two levels, one personal and the other more broad and worldly. On a personal level the highlight of my summer was going to be the 4 week teen service learning trip I was going to be leading in Israel. We were set to fly out of SF on wednesday but today the decision was made to cancel the trip due to the recent escalation in violence in the region so personally that puts a little bit of a hit on my summer since I was really looking forward to my third trip to Israel, a land and country I hold close to my heart. A conclusion this leads me to is that we as at least relatively comfortable and affluent Americans rarely have the rhythm of our lives disrupted by world events. They always seem so distant and far away and though I know we often feel the pain or lament the terrible nature of these events it is rare when they touch our own lives. I think it also important though to look at the bigger picture, obviously this is a personal bummer but just like if, god forbid, something prevents many of us from going to Thailand and beyond you have to think outside yourself. The real tragedy and sadness and anger and dissapointment I feel is not that I cannot do something that I want to do but the fact that a region that is more often than not peaceful and beautiful has once again gone over to hate and violence, also an all too frequent outcome for this volatile part of the world. I have trouble distancing my own personal views that timidly support most of Israel's actions and unashamedly support Israel's right to exist and legitimately defend itself from a balanced look at the whole situation. For those not following the news there is trouble on two fronts right now for ISrael. A few weeks ago an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, was kidnapped in Gaza by Hamas (Palestinian) militants. As usual, Israel's (over)reaction was to bomb and make incursions into Gaza. Then about a week ago, Hezbollah, a completely unrelated terrorist group based in Lebanon with strong ties to Iran and Syria killed eight soldiers and kidnapped two on a raid in the north of Israel. Israel responded by bombing the Beirut airport and hundreds of targets in Southern Lebanon where Hezbollah operates. Hezbollah has been firing rockets into northern Israel, killing civilians today in the city of Haifa, a place I have been along with many other places I have set foot and it is very weird to think that now those areas are war zones. In addition the fact that Israel is very small (geographically and population-wise) makes it so that I cannot help fearing for the many, many Israelis I know and have worked with. Just last month I was in charge of the counselor-in-training program at my camp and had 6 Israeli campers who came over to do the program. They were sweet, wonderful kids (who in two years will be in the army there) who a week and a half ago departed from one of the ultimate places of peace that I know on this earth to return to their country and promptly enter bomb shelters near their homes in the north. This highlights the human toll that is almost always lost in the cold, hard looks at conflict that we as a people have become so adept at. In Gaza, Israel and Lebanon peaceful and innocent people are having their lives damaged or ended because of intolerance and hatred, most of which I might opine is on the part of Arab terrorists in this case. I feel the root causes of the situation in Gaza (if one chooses not to go back decades as one could) are muddled but the attacks by Hezbollah in northern Israel were unwarranted, naked aggression that showed disrespect for international borders (something that Israel also does) and the current rocket attacks blindly target innocent civilians. It all makes me sick to my stomach, hearing things from both sides like "peace is dead" to "all out war" makes me wonder whether I will ever see a lasting peace in my life. Israel has been around since 1948 with no lasting peace and my grandparents, with relatives who survived and died in the holocaust, and for whom Israel must mean something beyond comprehension to me, will die without seeing a lasting peace and maybe my parents too. At camp we sing a lot of hebrew songs about Israel and the spirit and the human condition and in the last few days singing songs with translations like hativkah- the hope is real, a jewish home in yisrael, 2,000 years we prayed for freedom with pain and tears and oseh shalom bimromav hu ya'aseh shalom aleinu v'al kol yisrael- may the one who makes peace in the heavens make peace for israel and all the world, the words come a little more fervently and just like after being hurt by a romantic partner or a friend and dwelling in very strong emotions one knows even more and in an even more real sense what it is like to be alive and to be human, that word meaning frail, fragile, strong or anything else because I think we often surprise ourselves with ourselves. Anyways, tomorrow I go back to the camp tawonga office in San Francisco and back to the drawing board to plan a new trip in under a week for the teens to do service work somewhere else in the world as soon as possible. There are so many others things to discuss with this, not least among them the incredibly slanted media coverage from (mainly) European papers and the borderline anti-semitic statements made by world leaders regarding Israel and the current situation. These things all breed anger and shock and the feeling that the only constant that links us to history is war and that unfortunately the Francis Fukuyama types who proclaim "the end of history" after major world events sorely overestimate the human capacity for death and destruction and the fact that countries have departments and secretary's of war and defense but not cabinet level department of peace positions. Hmmm, let's think about this, if you have a department of defense or war or whatever then what do you think is going to happen: war. It is like predestiny for those actions, if you build it they will come. However, I feel like closing this blog post with a poem by the incredible israeli poet Yehuda Amichai called "wildpeace"
Not the peace of a cease-fire
not even the vision of the wolf and the lamb,
but rather
as in the heart when the excitement is over
and you can talk only about a great weariness.
I know that I know how to kill, that makes me an adult.
And my son plays with a toy gun that knows
how to open and close its eyes and say Mama.
A peace
without the big noise of beating swords into ploughshares,
without words, without
the thud of the heavy rubber stamp: let it be
light, floating, like lazy white foam.
A little rest for the wounds - who speaks of healing?
(And the howl of the orphans is passed from one generation
to the next, as in a relay race:
the baton never falls.)
Let it come
like wildflowers,
suddenly, because the field
must have it: wildpeace.
Not the peace of a cease-fire
not even the vision of the wolf and the lamb,
but rather
as in the heart when the excitement is over
and you can talk only about a great weariness.
I know that I know how to kill, that makes me an adult.
And my son plays with a toy gun that knows
how to open and close its eyes and say Mama.
A peace
without the big noise of beating swords into ploughshares,
without words, without
the thud of the heavy rubber stamp: let it be
light, floating, like lazy white foam.
A little rest for the wounds - who speaks of healing?
(And the howl of the orphans is passed from one generation
to the next, as in a relay race:
the baton never falls.)
Let it come
like wildflowers,
suddenly, because the field
must have it: wildpeace.
TV sucks.
There is a sad desperation in the room right now. Like a crackhead scratching at the door, begging to get inside in hopes that there might be a television or a microwave that he can pawn for his fix. My friends are sitting around like a bunch of small children staring cow-eyed at the television waiting for the new episode of the HBO television show Entourage. I like my share of television, but I don't WAIT for television. They're using this new form of television watching called On Demand, which means they get to watch the show whenever they want...but they're still waiting. The show still isn't on; it doesn't come up until midnight. They're still waiting, pawing at the television, sweating brutally and twitching. I don't particularly care if I watch the show or not, so it could be forever expleed into the cold depths of space and probably wouldn't feel my life change, except that my desperate friends will probably bitch and moan more than they are right now.
7/13/06
Time Dude!
Send me back in Time to any place with people with a Light Saber and Jedi Training and I will wreck shit!
I'm Time Dude!
For a limited Time, you provide the Time Machine the Light Saber and the Jedi skillz to wield it, and you can pick any Time in history and I will rule!
I will go to the Civil War and kill General Lee with the Light Saber!
I will go to Golgotha and kill the bad guys before they kill Jesus!
I will go to Atlantis before it sinks and hack the shit out of all them before they go mermaid and whatever.
I'm Time Dude!
What have you got to lose!
I'm Time Dude!
For a limited Time, you provide the Time Machine the Light Saber and the Jedi skillz to wield it, and you can pick any Time in history and I will rule!
I will go to the Civil War and kill General Lee with the Light Saber!
I will go to Golgotha and kill the bad guys before they kill Jesus!
I will go to Atlantis before it sinks and hack the shit out of all them before they go mermaid and whatever.
I'm Time Dude!
What have you got to lose!
7/9/06
A Convenient Truth.
It is a convenient truth that Al Gore's new movie An Inconvenient Truth looks to be about as pertinent as Fahrenheit 9/11 was. A bunch of liberals in Seattle and San Francisco are going to go watch it and shit themselves in the theater, and then go home and donate a bunch of money. All the in-trailer reviews have been saying things like "This is the scariest movie you will ever see" and supposedly the New York Times is a credible source for arbitrary information like that. I don't know a lick about that movie but I am surer about it NOT being the scariest movie I will ever see than I am about my own gender, and I am naked right now and can plainly see my genitalia.
The fact that liberal pantaloons are collectively being crapped over a movie that AL GORE made makes me really sad about the future of documentary filmmaking. I'm not even saying this movie is a BAD movie, but it was such an EASY movie to make. Liberal fearmongering is just as prominent as conservative fearmongering. While the fundamentalists are freaking people out about how the homosexuals are going to make the NFL non-contact anymore, Al Gore is scaring everyone with obscure "data" about how if the ice caps melt, some shit will go down. I hate to break it to EVERYONE, but it is impossible to make 90% of the world's population to give shit about the icecaps. I can guaratee you. Most people care about food, and if they're fed, they care about money. Rich liberals make these expensive documentaries to coax other rich liberals into donating money to foundations founded by other rich liberals.
On the other end of the documentary spectrum you have March of the Penguins which made me want to cry. Not out of sadness or compassion, but how people took the tactics used my Michael Moore to make Charlton Heston sound like a jackass and made a bunch of dumb penguins look like the most moral and upright creatures on the planet. It's all about taking a ton of footage and editing it to please you.
I am going to make a documentary about fearmongering documentaries, but I'm going to get a kid with Down Syndrome to conduct the interviews because otherwise the movie will just be boring as hell, and I have a ton of fun hanging out with kids with Down Syndrome because they're so refreshingly spontaneous. An interviewer with that kind of spontaneity will take the movie in crazy directions, and they'll also get really bored if someone starts talking about gun control or global warming.
The fact that liberal pantaloons are collectively being crapped over a movie that AL GORE made makes me really sad about the future of documentary filmmaking. I'm not even saying this movie is a BAD movie, but it was such an EASY movie to make. Liberal fearmongering is just as prominent as conservative fearmongering. While the fundamentalists are freaking people out about how the homosexuals are going to make the NFL non-contact anymore, Al Gore is scaring everyone with obscure "data" about how if the ice caps melt, some shit will go down. I hate to break it to EVERYONE, but it is impossible to make 90% of the world's population to give shit about the icecaps. I can guaratee you. Most people care about food, and if they're fed, they care about money. Rich liberals make these expensive documentaries to coax other rich liberals into donating money to foundations founded by other rich liberals.
On the other end of the documentary spectrum you have March of the Penguins which made me want to cry. Not out of sadness or compassion, but how people took the tactics used my Michael Moore to make Charlton Heston sound like a jackass and made a bunch of dumb penguins look like the most moral and upright creatures on the planet. It's all about taking a ton of footage and editing it to please you.
I am going to make a documentary about fearmongering documentaries, but I'm going to get a kid with Down Syndrome to conduct the interviews because otherwise the movie will just be boring as hell, and I have a ton of fun hanging out with kids with Down Syndrome because they're so refreshingly spontaneous. An interviewer with that kind of spontaneity will take the movie in crazy directions, and they'll also get really bored if someone starts talking about gun control or global warming.
7/8/06
Ten-Second Mind Meld
I just got really into other blogs for ten seconds and browsed some of the most popular ones on the internet. It turns out these whores get popular by linking to a ton of other shit. My blog, we link to ourselves. We link to past posts.
Other blogs do have tons of pictures of weird shit. Do we need more pictures of weird shit?
Do WE NEED MORE PICTURES OF WEIRD SHIT???
**1am edit**
I took this picture at a swap meet in San Diego. I can't figure it out. Don't try too hard either buddy.
Other blogs do have tons of pictures of weird shit. Do we need more pictures of weird shit?
Do WE NEED MORE PICTURES OF WEIRD SHIT???
**1am edit**
I took this picture at a swap meet in San Diego. I can't figure it out. Don't try too hard either buddy.
Intelligence Quotient
I was browsing Facebook today and I noticed a trend that makes for hours of entertainment at the expense of the lagging IQs of my state-school "friends" who have a bad habit of liking to tell people how much they drink almost as much as they like getting drunk. The profile pictures holding the keg cup, practically screaming "legitimize me! I conform to social norms! Whee!" A keg cup in your hand means that you aren't super-left or super-right wing, and that's right where your peers want you. Right in the middle, so you don't do anything CRAZY.
Another bad habit is to list stupid alcohol-related things under your interests. This simply tells me, Mr. Smartass Facebook User, that you actually have no interests. If you were in a job interview and someone asked you what your interests were and you said "Margaritas" or "Chillin with the girlz drinkin SCHNAPPS, baby!" the interviewer would slap your face. Slap you right in the damn face, you insolent bastard. How dare you. Get some real interests, or at least make up interesting ones. When the aliens invade, I'm going to propose a draft system based upon who has booze listed as a hobby on friendship/networking websites. You know these people don't have anything better to do, so they might as well die screaming in zero-gravity in the cold of outer space as buglike creatures rip apart their feeble space suits with razor-sharp mandibles, the whole time our little interest-less friends scream "Noooo!" as if the bugs have mercy, or can even understand human speech at all.
So ANYWAY, the person who takes the cake, the person who caused this whole mess of a post, was some girl I do not know who just graduated from some random state university. Take a wild guess, considering I reside in only one. She had, no shitting, "drinking, drinking, DRINKING" listed as her first interest, and "preschool teacher" as her second. Ree-goddamn-diculous. I sure as hell want to send my child to school with Ms. Bleach Blonde so she can hammer back Mimosas in the bathroom during naptime.
Another bad habit is to list stupid alcohol-related things under your interests. This simply tells me, Mr. Smartass Facebook User, that you actually have no interests. If you were in a job interview and someone asked you what your interests were and you said "Margaritas" or "Chillin with the girlz drinkin SCHNAPPS, baby!" the interviewer would slap your face. Slap you right in the damn face, you insolent bastard. How dare you. Get some real interests, or at least make up interesting ones. When the aliens invade, I'm going to propose a draft system based upon who has booze listed as a hobby on friendship/networking websites. You know these people don't have anything better to do, so they might as well die screaming in zero-gravity in the cold of outer space as buglike creatures rip apart their feeble space suits with razor-sharp mandibles, the whole time our little interest-less friends scream "Noooo!" as if the bugs have mercy, or can even understand human speech at all.
So ANYWAY, the person who takes the cake, the person who caused this whole mess of a post, was some girl I do not know who just graduated from some random state university. Take a wild guess, considering I reside in only one. She had, no shitting, "drinking, drinking, DRINKING" listed as her first interest, and "preschool teacher" as her second. Ree-goddamn-diculous. I sure as hell want to send my child to school with Ms. Bleach Blonde so she can hammer back Mimosas in the bathroom during naptime.
7/7/06
They've all come to look for America
Hi everyone who still reads the monstroblog (there are people right?), I know I have not blogged in awhile but I have been fairly away from the technology. However, I am here, sitting at a computer on a keyboard that is not ergonomically correct and my hands hurt already because I am conditioned for my squishy turquoise/blue gooey pad that I had at school but I do not have here, in the Stanislaus National Forest. Anyways, I had a day off from camp on the fourth of july so I decided the best way to celebrate the 230th birthday of my country was to get 13,000 feet above it in a rickety-ass airplane and then jump out of it to try to see from sea to shining sea and fall towards the earth to envelope myself in the lands. So yeah, I went skydiving which was really tight. Me and two of my friends from camp drove for a little over two hours to Lodi (creedence clearwater anyone???) and pulled up to a large hangar with no windows that said "Parachute Center" on it. Inside was a scene totally identical to that terrible skydiving movie "cut-back" or something with Stephen Baldwin. A bunch of really macho guys in jumpsuits hanging out on couches in a totally self-sustainable hangar with fridges, microwaves, tv's, etc. I paid my 100 bucks (which seemed scarily cheap) and then the only not buff, 30-something guy in the place creaked out and said he'd be my tandem-jump guide. The old fart looked like he might die mid-jump but I went with it and also paid an extra 55 bucks for a guy to jump next to me and film me and take pictures. We went up in a teeny rickety plane and I was pretty calm because I knew that all I had to do was let gramps take me for a wild ride and then pull the chute and there wasn't much I could do about it except have fun. However, when the door opened something more primal took over, the urge from the body and soul that says, "you are only 22, why are you killing yourself" but I had no choice because gramps put my head against his shoulder and pushed us headfirst out of the plane. The first two seconds were the scariest of my life, the air was cold and I could not breathe and we were tumbling headfirst under the plane and then into a free fall and I have never been so utterly convinced that my end was near. Then we got our legs into position and put my arms into superman flying position and it became amazing. Here I was, one man, one body, plummeting at hundreds of miles per hour down through the atmosphere among the birds and planes, as close to flying as I might ever get (although i hear hangliding is tight). The cameraman linked hands with me and spun me around, I gave a thumbs up, it was really cool. Then the ground started getting closer and closer and we were going fast, my skin was pealed back against my face so gramps yanked the chute open and let me control us in for a landing on a lawn somehow magically right back where I left from. I landed and it had only been about 6 minutes but I felt special and new, I had become a meteor, an asteroid a piece of something only physics controlled. Then I felt a little nauseous, ate a combo meal at wienershnitzel and drove to Stockton (a true American shithole) for fireworks and a single-a baseball game between the modesto nuts and the stockton ports. They had a lot of beer specials and I sat on "home run hill" and overheard a conversation between two fellas about whether "Nacho Libre" had unseated "The Benchwarmers" as an American cinematic classic. All in all it was a good day. I'm off to Israel in less than two weeks for a month but having a wonderful time here so far, I hope everyone else's summers are rockin hard. go skydiving.
7/3/06
Children
"Matt, you're silly" says the four year old who sucks the ink out of blanket machine-wash instruction tags. This child clearly needs perspective on silliness. For the last five days I've been staying with my girlfriend in Park City, whose house has been taken over by the two children of her older brother. It is a veritable family gathering, with me trying to remember how to relate to people twenty years my junior.
In middle and high school I served as a counselor at the pre-school summer program "Safety Town". Those summer weeks make up the majority of my experience with children. Unfortunately, my girlfriend's niece and nephew are not interested in Mr. Yuck stickers and Stranger Danger. They want to play. They want to play screaming and running around games. I suggested that the formula be spiked with liquor in order to encourage a stupor in the children, and I don't think I won any points for that gem. Giving the subject more thought however, I believe that the parents were probably correct in rejecting my plan. The only thing worse than batshit crazy toddlers careening around the house bouncing off furniture like pinballs would be sloshed toddlers who think you're awesome and that you really don't hang out enough and that next semester we should totally kick it old school.
I don't remember being such a terror at this age. In fact, I have very few memories of my own childhood, no doubt due to my young Buddah-like state of pre-speech enlightenment. Based on the stories my parents tell when they are with their adult friends, the reason I was so well behaved as a child is because I was kept contained in my room. This isolation forced the development of a rich imagination during my single digit years. I came up with all sorts of scenerios to explain why I was fed through a slot in the door. My dog, Rufus, was a fellow prisoner of the Jumago compound and we shared many games of poker for packs of cigarettes to pass the time between comical escape attempts. Those were the days.
The children that I've been spending time with run around everywhere with no regard for destination or obstacles. There is a beautiful insistancy to children; everything must happen now because whatever is on their mind is the most important thing in the universe. A few days ago my girlfriend was going to take one of the children (the more language inclined one) to see a movie, but before leaving she also mentioned that perhaps later they would make a dessert. The child through a tremendous fit because both things, the movie and the dessert, could not happen immediately. Right now, as I blogue, they are playing a videogame and the child is making impossible demands. No, Diddy Kong cannot collect that banana: that is a green banana and Lanky Kong must collect it.
In middle and high school I served as a counselor at the pre-school summer program "Safety Town". Those summer weeks make up the majority of my experience with children. Unfortunately, my girlfriend's niece and nephew are not interested in Mr. Yuck stickers and Stranger Danger. They want to play. They want to play screaming and running around games. I suggested that the formula be spiked with liquor in order to encourage a stupor in the children, and I don't think I won any points for that gem. Giving the subject more thought however, I believe that the parents were probably correct in rejecting my plan. The only thing worse than batshit crazy toddlers careening around the house bouncing off furniture like pinballs would be sloshed toddlers who think you're awesome and that you really don't hang out enough and that next semester we should totally kick it old school.
I don't remember being such a terror at this age. In fact, I have very few memories of my own childhood, no doubt due to my young Buddah-like state of pre-speech enlightenment. Based on the stories my parents tell when they are with their adult friends, the reason I was so well behaved as a child is because I was kept contained in my room. This isolation forced the development of a rich imagination during my single digit years. I came up with all sorts of scenerios to explain why I was fed through a slot in the door. My dog, Rufus, was a fellow prisoner of the Jumago compound and we shared many games of poker for packs of cigarettes to pass the time between comical escape attempts. Those were the days.
The children that I've been spending time with run around everywhere with no regard for destination or obstacles. There is a beautiful insistancy to children; everything must happen now because whatever is on their mind is the most important thing in the universe. A few days ago my girlfriend was going to take one of the children (the more language inclined one) to see a movie, but before leaving she also mentioned that perhaps later they would make a dessert. The child through a tremendous fit because both things, the movie and the dessert, could not happen immediately. Right now, as I blogue, they are playing a videogame and the child is making impossible demands. No, Diddy Kong cannot collect that banana: that is a green banana and Lanky Kong must collect it.
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