Cross the line

I think John Stewart was right when he went on Crossfire and told them that we need help.

I think our media needs someone to step up and cross the line with politicians. When the Fourth Estate starts playing it safe because they are afraid of political repercussions, like being denied access to a particular administration, then what does that say about the state of our nation and the land of the free?

Rudolph Giuliani (in his less-than-subtle pre-campaign for president in four years) told Matt Lauer this morning that a report stated that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and there was no challenge to that. And this has happened again and again on different shows with different reporters. How about asking which report? The false one from the false sources in Africa? Or the bi-partisan 9/11 Committee's findings which said Iraq did not have WMD capabilities and no ties to the terrorist attack on 9/11?

And if someone mentions that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power because of this present administration, why doesn't anyone bring up that past republican presidential administrations, including ones where Bush Sr. served in some capacity, actually met with and gave money in support of Saddam Hussein's Iraq until he became the monster we could not control?

Don't worry, we actually can handle the truth. We desperately need the truth.

As with most situations in life where those with less power are being bullied by those with power, everyone knows where the line is, but no one wants to cross it for fear of getting spanked.

There can be no gain without sacrifice, and someone in the press needs to risk taking a beating by actually doing their job and not letting these people advertise for free on their shows.

Human like me

13,000 years ago, a group of people, about a meter tall, huddle in a cave in what is present day Indonesia cooking small animals and going about their prehistoric lives. And then they disappear from the evolutionary record, until now.

So just what can be defined as a human? If an ape learns to cook and use tools, is it human? If a monkey kills in anger, is it human? At what point does an animal, or a species graduate to humanity, or sentience?

Fahrenheit 9/11

This guy has boosted his bandwidth to allow you to download Fahrenheit 9/11 for free. Don't worry, Michael Moore won't come after you legally because he's allowing people to copy or download it for free.

Get illuminated.

via Boing Boing

Alas, coffee, my good friend...

I may have to switch to tea.

I've been thinking about it more and more. Although I love espresso, regular coffee just doesn't do it for me anymore. Plus a study shows that tea has chemicals that affect memory and help prevent Alzheimers. So if drinking a cup of tea will help prevent me from wandering around the neighborhood in my boxers with one slipper on and calling the neighborhood cat my wife's name and wondering why everyone else hasn't shown up for work, I'll drink it.

One problem with tea is that it is harder to get a good cup of tea than a good cup of joe because when you usually order one at the bookstore's cafe or a coffee shop the barista usually does not give you the correct amount of teabags for the amount of water you have.

I'm not paying a $1 extra for more hot water, jackass. Now give me the extra teabag like you're supposed to and no one gets hurt.

And making microwave tea at work is a real drag. If you microwave the water too long with the bag in the cup, sometimes the bag bursts and you have loose tea leaves in your tea and caught between your teeth. And that's attractive. Or sometimes the tea just does not steep as well because the water isn't hot enough.

And dammit, I need my caffeine.

Ah, sweet caffeine.

Interlopers

A teenage boy and girl sit in the shadow of the large oak tree near the hidden faux Japanese garden in the park on the lake. The skinny Latin boy is rolling what was a once unraveled, cheap cigar back into a blunt. The black girl, a little overweight and wearing a blue on white striped shirt and glasses, is gabbing away nervously. Even a little louder now after I walk by.

They are invading my space, the trespassers. This Asian in nature garden in this little visited section of the park is mine. Over there, over the red painted, wooden wanna be Monet Japanese garden bridge is my stone bench. I come here on my break to soak in the sun's warmth after being covered in the recycled electric cool of my office.

The two little drug fiends are invading my fortress of solitude.

And I'm not angry about this because their young. I am not angry because their smoking weed. I'm angry because of the noise.

Usually when I come here, in their spot, on the second stone bench of this little enclave, is one of the two regulars to this part of the park; either the older black man with the dreads and the blue baseball cap or the desperate looking young guy losing all of his youth on the street. Both of them are quiet. They sit on the other stone bench in the shade, now occupied by my two delinquents, and relax sitting or lying down and smoking the occasional cigarette surrounded by their bags containing all of their belongings.

We know each other and occasionally nod in silent greetings to each other. They understand the sanctity of this garden, this exotic little piece of real estate from the past in a modern city that brings a little peace to each of our souls.

And these two noise makers have driven the squirrels and pigeons from their comforting shade covered bushes surrounding the garden. But I will not move. This place is mine and I will get my 20 minutes of peace from it. I need this place. And I like to think that the place needs me, with it's field mouse that lives under the red bridge and its many lizards darting in and out the shade lunging for their insect meals. We all live here together, in harmony and in silence, or at least what passes for silence in the ambient noise drowned downtown area.

I read my book, occasionally sipping from my vanilla flavored diet soda, and try to ignore them. When the girl's voice injects too loudly between her hacking coughs, I curse them both like a mummy curses his tomb.

And I watch them leave and notice that I only have two minutes of me time left before I have to quick-step it back to the office.

They had better not make a habit of this.

Ashlee Simpson misses her cue

How about Ashlee Simpson missing her lip sync cue on Saturday Night Live last night? Simpson walks out on stage after Jude Law introduces her, the band kicks in, and then her voice singing the song comes on before she starts to perform the song. And then the faker just walked off stage while her band kept playing and the show had to go to commercial.

Can you say Milli Vanilli?

I've never seen anything so contrived and unprofessional before. Who the hell decided this disingenuous girl with little or no talent could become a star.

After, she offered some lame excuse about the band performing the wrong song and that it was all a big mix up.

The saddest part about this is that she will probably go on with her singing career because people don't really care if their stars have any talent or that anyone or anything has any integrity anymore. We just want a nice shiny package and for it to appear at its regularly scheduled time on the TV.

Sick, sad world.

...on my mind

I saw the footage of Castro eating it last night and that was really funny, like watching a re-run of Saturday Night Live circa 1975 and seeing Chevy Chase eat it.
Politics is the best comedy, or drama around.

A tornado tore through Brevard County and went all Twister on the east coast of Central Florida. No one died, but a schoolbus was thrown over a fence and onto some dump trucks.

Which gets me to thinking that I am going to have to buy a BB gun and hide out around the house so I can nail those little bastards from the elementary school as they walk home and use my front lawn as a landfill for their candy wrappers and sippy pouches and empty snack bags. And you should see some of these little porkers. Especially the ones on the corner. As big as a house, just like the idiot-mongo parents.

I know I shouldn't take pot shots at kids, but some of these mongos are just growing up to be big mongos like their parents. And I don't speak mongoish. I don't want to learn to speak mongoish, with the opened-mouth pronunciation, one syllable words, and poor verb tense and number accompanied by the vacant looks of neurons misfiring at all levels of brain activity as they drag their book bags behind them on the ground and stuff their sticky faces with more cheese-dust covered, candy coated fun.

I could try: "Uh, mongo no drop garbage on lawn. Bad. Baaaaad! Mongo go home now. Go!" But there's no guarantee that they would understand me since I really don't know any mongos to practice my mongoish with.

Honestly, my dogs are smarter, more well-mannered, and better listeners than this lot of dumb living in my neighborhood.

Also, these warped kids have a link to John Stewart's appearance on Crossfire, and it is awesome. Check it out.

Also, why don't people bathe before they go to Walmart?

Could the extra-macho latin kid bagging my groceries not just throw the cans inside the bag like he's pitching a no hitter as he belittles the not quite as macho bagboy next to him for being kind of girlie?

And could this be the year the Red Sox win the World Series? No matter what happens, no one from the Sox, especially you Martinez, should call anybody "my daddy" ever again.

Have a nice weekend.

Fear and Loathing

Hunter S. Thompson's writing is not only full of truth, but damn funny and irreverent as well. I think the following quote is dead on:

"The question this year is not whether President Bush is acting more and more like the head of a fascist government but if the American people want it that way. That is what this election is all about. We are down to nut-cutting time, and millions of people are angry. They want a Regime Change."

Isn't that just oozing with subversive truth? It almost makes me want to puke from its purity. Truth that uncut can mess you up pretty bad.

By the by, Boing Boing pointed me towards this.

Spanked

Johnny Damon just ruined New York's year, didn't he? Two home runs and one was a freakin' grand slam.

It's nice not to see the Yankees in the World Series. It's even better to have the Sox beat the Yanks to get into the Series. Now I'll try to keep my snickering to myself. Where did I put my Red Sox cap?

Extinction

Maybe our extinction won't be such a bad thing anyway. I mean, the planet will just go on until our sun goes super nova and makes this solar system a completely unbearable place to live.

It's not like that's where we're headed, with our overconsumption of natural resources and growing greenhouse gases.

So who cares. Buy that gas-guzzling Urban Assault Vehicle masquerading as an SUV and start living. Eat more swordfish. Let the oil companies drill in the Alaskan wildlife preserve. Vote for the current administration.

C'mon everybody! Don't you want more radiation, less clean air and water, and more cancer, crazy weather, and hotter weather?

Like Jim Morrison used to say, "I just want to get my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames."

Maybe we could even make it chic to be on the way out. We could have plastic surgery to draw more attention to our tumors and skin rot from too much solar radiation and poisoned meat and fish. And think of the really cool mutations our children and our children's children could develop with genetically modified foods.

Awww, man, the future is going to be so coooool! Fuck my flying car! Where's my cancer and mass extinction of animal and plant life!

I just hope someone's around to give me my Viking funeral. If I don't get that, I think I'd just die.

Vonnegut and Trout

Here is a link to a very interesting conversation between Kurt Vonnegut and Kilgore Trout.

Vonnegut cracks me up.

Choosing the sex of your child

In nature, certain species are able to choose the sex of their offspring to better their chances of survival. And according to this study, human females may be able to influence the sex of their child, also.

Huhmmmm. Very interesting. Not sure if it's completely true, but I can see the biological wisdom behind the theory.

Sitting on it

Via Boing Boing: The present administration is getting off easy, again, with the CIA's suppression of a report that names officials who were not up to snuff during the 9/11 terror attacks.

"No previous director of CIA has ever tried to stop the inspector general from releasing a report to the Congress, in this case a report requested by Congress."

So much for checks and balances and the people's, and our elected officials', rights to information.

You can also check this here from the Chicago Tribune. The key words here are "political embarrassment."

Dirrrrty Elections

No, Christina Aguilera is not running for office.

But there are many sneaky, underhanded, and dirty tricks being employed by Republican party members to try and fix this presidential election.

In Florida, several college campuses have had hundreds of students fooled into changing there party affiliation by signing what they thought was a petition for stronger penalties against child molesters by a man and a woman. So, several hundred students who thought they were doing something good by signing a petition received new voter registration cards in the mail stating that they are now members of the Republican party.

Nice. Real fucking nice. You scumbags used, and belittled in the process, victims of child molestation and abuse to further your own political ends. That is disgusting, low, and the people involved in this should be shaved, beaten, and sterilized, then placed in a prison cell with a few inmates who were abused as children for a little Oz quality time.

Please be aware of underhanded tricks at the polls. We are responsible to uphold the laws of this country and protect our rights. And we have to now, more than ever, because the game is apparently crooked.

Some other interesting notes on voter fraud and illegal activity can be found at some other people trying to document and protect what is left of our democracy at Girlie So Groovie (and you thought I had a potty mouth) and The Blog At the End of the Universe (you have to respect any fan of Douglas Adams).

Do not let your choices in life be made for you. Unless of course you want to be a mindless slave with no freedoms whatsoever.

Dragon

Funny, because I've got kind of a dragon fetish.


You are Long-wang!

Mythological Background: Yes, the dragon represents
everything you think of when you think of a
dragon - fearsome and invincible. Also, it is
greatly respected just because of that fact.
The dragon has a very protective aspect to it.
Even Jupiter reminds you of intense smashing
power. The dragon is almost always surrounded
by rain-bearing clouds and fog; and the
appearance of its constellation always signals
rainfall and lightning. It's also a symbol of
authority worn by the nobility and the imperial
class. Japanese Name: Seiryuu.


Which Chinese Mythological Being Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Food and Wine

Went to the EPCOT Food and Wine Festival with my brother and his girlfriend and some of his friends, all up from Miami. It was a very nice time. We had beautiful 78 degree weather and clear, bright blue skies and lots of delicious food and wine and fine champagne.

And, if you like to cook like me, you can pick up a lot of new ideas for meals, including printed out recipes and instructions on how to prepare most of the dishes.

Jacqui and I had Francis Ford Coppola's Sofia sparkling wine, which is named after his daughter of Lost in Translation (one of my favorite movies) fame. The Sofia came in this little pink can with a twisty straw, and for sparkling wine that comes in a can, it was very good.

At the same booth, which was at the Innoventions section of the park on the opposite side of the World Showcase, I turned my brother and his friends onto Relax Reisling, which Jacqui and I have had before.

My lovely wife surprised me with a very cool necklace from the Peruvian kiosk and we shared some mussels in a ginger broth from New Zealand and the crepe froumage from France.

We also visited the Valencia, Spain pavilion which had all sorts of chocolates and live cooking demonstrations from Spanish Chefs creating different regional dishes, including Chicken and Rabbit Paella. Yummy.

We tried to get priority seating for Chefs de France or Le Cellier in Canada, but they were pretty much booked solid. Luckily Spoodles,a Mediterranean tapas restaurant at the Disney Boardwalk had room for us, which was excellent. We had a couple of pitchers of sangria and ordered several dishes of tapas, including fried calamari (which is the best I've ever had, drizzled with a citrus infused olive oil), a hummus platter, lamb skewers, and some other delicious stuff.

Great, my mouth just started watering. Must have calamari...

Oh yeah, and Taylor Dane performed live. Man, she's got a powerful, soulful voice.

Anyway, the EPCOT Food and Wine Festival is a great time and an excellent opportunity for people to sample new, tasty foods from far off places. So if you go, be adventurous; try things from India, New Zealand, Africa, and other exotic places you may never see. Enjoy yourself and see what the world has to offer.

We3

This damn fine comic book from one of my favorite writers, Grant Morrison, just broke my bloody heart. And I won't have read the final part of this limited series for another two months.

The art is done by Frank Quitely, who is very good. These are the two guys that brought us my favorite run on the X-Men yet.

We3 is the story of a dog, a cat, and a rabbit who have been weaponized for covert assassinations by the government. Now they're on the run, trying to find home.

Why am I even bothering to read this? Don't I know that it will crush me?

Shit.

Something new and different

I've been reading China Mieville's Perdido Street Station and I am quite impressed with the imagination and storytelling that went into this book. The story is like nothing else I've ever read before and that is such a great thing. This is no elves in the woods lets all go on a quest fantasy epic. Nor is it a space opera parading as a primer on quantum mechanics and cosmology. It's more like literary fiction with elements of horror and fantasy and sci fi thrown into the mix, which is quite an amalgam. And the writing is good, too.

Perdido Street Station is just the story of a man and female creature in love, living in a city that is familiar and completely alien at the same time, and the both of them getting involved in shady acts that will most definitely come back to bite them in the ass.

Like most good sci fi or fantasy or slipstream (or Weird Fiction as the author calls what he writes), Mieville's book has a kind of steep learning curve for this strange world he's created. But if you've read and understood Dune or the Left Hand of Darkness, you can definitely become a visitor to New Corbuzon.

If anyone's read this, or any of his other books, please let me know. And if you've been reading anything interesting lately, please tell me about it.

Later.

The French have more sex than you do

According to a condom company's survey, the French are having sex an average of 137 times a year. That is 34 more times than we're doing it.

Look, I love the French, except for one person, but lets get it together people. I know that work gets in the way, and engagements with friends and family, and errands that you have to run, but we need to have more sex!

Starting today, I am making a commitment to do it more often. We should all be having more sex because:

• it's a good cardio work out
  
• it brings you closer to the one you love (forever or right now)
  
• and it feels really good
  

By the way, if it doesn't feel good, you're not doing it right. My suggestion to you is to either read a book or practice more. Try something new, light some candles, use props or condiments. Try anything, dammit, but start f-ing! And remember to practice safe sex, please.

It's time that America starts being number 1 again in a lot of things, starting with this.

Now hiring: Sheep

I've been reflecting on the job interviews I've had and have noticed something: Every employer looking to hire someone is looking for a pliant and willing sheep.

For instance, I went on one interview and after three interviews and being told by everyone that worked there that I'd be putting in 60+ hours a week and be working weekends, the owner of the company (some jackass with a PhD in psychology who thinks he isn't transparent) asks me that if he offered me what I'm making right now, would I take the job.

Yeah, and I'm a freakin' simian cosmonaught.

After that, I decided I didn't want to work there. What kind of a person wants you to work for 10K less than the position is worth, take on extra hours, work weekends,and be happy about it?

Oh, that's right; just about every asshole hiring people during a recession where the only people making any money are the corporations.

And another thing: Bush said that tax breaks for corporations would create jobs and they have not. He is the only President to have lost more jobs than he created since Hoover, who had the great depression start on his watch.

I have witnessed mass firings, uh - sorry - downsizings, at my workplace three times in the last two years. The unemployment rate is 5.4%, which is lower than when Clinton was Prez. And I am doing two people's jobs for half the money that the position is supposed to pay in the workplace.

"Well Kung Pow Pig, why don't you get a new job?"

Good question. I would, if the job market, which is a reflection of growth in the economy, was better and every jackass out there was willing to pay a decent salary for my skills and experience. And I've weighed the pros of working at a new place for a 10% increase in pay vs. the stability and comfort of where I work, mathematically, and the equation tells me that staying put and waiting for my next increase is way better than chancing to work for some complete dick who wants to take my free time in exchange for the occasional Orlando Magic or theme park tickets to show how much he appreciates my hard work and giving up my weekends and time with my family.

Can you tell that I'm very frustrated right now?

Carbon Dioxide Spike

Keep on telling yourself that we're not polluting the planet, because a spike in CO2 gases is nothing to worry about, right? Keep on lying to yourself that our deregulation of corporations that produce CO2 emissions or the machines or items that make them will not bring about Global Warming and a "greenhouse effect."

And while you're busy lying to yourself about how oil is a good thing and the oil companies and the present administration care about people's well-being and the world, why don't you bite me.

Because I don't like hot weather. I hate more frequent, giant storms. And I'd prefer to not to have an increased chance of getting skin cancer and killing off a few hundreds of species of plants and animals that could just be keeping the balance of this planet's eco system in line so we, as a species, can survive.

Star Wars Episode 3

Now I wish I had studied Spanish more in high school, because I can barely understand this site. I found this poster on aerollitos. Although I wasn't that impressed with Episode 2, I still want to see the Obi Wan vs. Anakin duel.

Odd place for a bulge

During the 1st presidential debate, President Bush had a strange bulge on his back, near his shoulder. (Bruce Eisner's blog drew my attention to this.) And the word on the net is that Bush may have been wired into his campaign people during the debate.

During the debate, Bush says "let me finish" even though no one interrupted him, which is making people think he may have been listening to another conversation entirely.

Hmmmmm.

Rescue dog retirement

St. Bernards are being retired from service in the Alps.



I've always wanted a St. Bernard. I just don't think my wallet could handle feeding the beasts almost five pounds of meat a day.

How I learned to stop worrying...

Last night I was flipping through the guide of my digital cable and saw that Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb was going to be on in the next 5 minutes on Turner Classic Movies network. So I changed the channel and on the screen is VP candidate John Edwards talking to the host about the messages in Kubrick's movie. Then the host asked Edwards if he thought there were people like the Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper, the guy who only drinks whiskey and his own urine and decides to preemptively attack the Soviet Union. Edwards answered that the generals in charge are all human and we have to worry about human error, or something like that.

Anyway, I watched all of Dr. Strangelove (the 2nd time this year) and had to keep my laughter to a lower level of volume for fear of waking Jacqui as she slept.

One of my favorite scenes is when the President (one of Peter Sellers three roles in the movie) yells at the Russian Ambassador and the American general that are grappling with each other that, "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"

And here's more good apocalyptic stuff from Dr. Strangelove himself.

Ahhhh, what a great movie.

What?

Let's say your neighbor is an asshole. The neighbor on the right of you with the funny accent says the asshole may have bought a gun. Based on his past actions and the rumor that he may have a gun, you decide to kill him.

Your friends tell you that maybe you should think this one over, but you tell them not to worry, you're doing everyone a favor. And besides, he's got a gun! You can't have an asshole running around with a gun in the neighborhood! Your friends say that no one's seen the gun, but you think he's got it and you're going to do what's necessary to protect your family and your neighbors.

Bang! Neighbor's dead. Now that his kids and wife are without a father and husband, other assholes in the neighborhood start to take advantage of them. You naturally feel responsible for their well-being since you took out the guy that used to protect them, so you set up shop over there guarding the house and losing money because you're missing work.

Now your getting your ass handed to you daily by the crazy bastards messing with your neighbor's family and you're overdrawn on your bank account. You just lost one of your sons to some jerk's violent attack with a baseball bat and one of the neighbor's kids you were trying to protect is also pushing up daisies.

And then you find out that the asshole neighbor you killed, although being a complete prick, really wasn't going to do anything to you in the first place because he never had a gun.

And what do you do? You tell everyone that what you did was right and that one day that jerk would have bought a gun, or maybe even helped some other asshole in the neighborhood buy one. Then you smile, shine your gun, and hope that you wife doesn't divorce you and take the kids because there's barely enough food on the table and you maxed out the credit cards to buy a new, shinier, more powerful gun. Because that's what these animals respect in this neighborhood: A bigger, shinier gun.

Misdirection

The House just defeated a bill that would reinstate the draft. And can you honestly tell me that you didn't see this coming? I mean, our political candidates are not suicidal. And that's exactly what a draft that would have been proposed and pushed through by either side in an election year would have done: Killed that party's chance of capturing the White House.

And remember that just because a bill is defeated, does not mean that bill cannot resurface at a later date in another ammended form.

What worries me most is that if the situation gets bad enough in Iraq, and even if Kerry is elected and Kerry's allies from around the world do not decide to help out, then we are looking at a draft. This just goes to show you that political parties only matter to a certain point in our country.

So, who actually has control of our country? To figure that out you have to ask the right questions, like who controls the money? What industries drive our economy? It is not a surprise that three of the top ten money-making industries in our country are oil companies.

And just like the magician on the stage who grabs the audience's attention with a fancy hand movement while palming the coin with the other hand, our attention is placed elsewhere.

Is it almost 13 o'clock?

The House's bill on the 9/11 Commission's recommendations to increase our safety and security could be a threat to our already disappearing civil liberties.

Some of the items on the bill are identification cards, Patriot Act wiretaps, and media manipulation. And the Speaker of the House is completely behind this document. Maybe someone should tell the House that the total monitoring and control of the members of a free society no longer make that society free.

Would you rather be dead?

What would you do if someone out there held a gun to your head and said, "if you don't do what you've always wanted to do, I am going to come back and kill you"?

I ask this because while Jacqui and my friend's wife were out getting their hair done, my friend and I watched Fight Club and drank lots of coffee, or at least I drank lots of coffee, then towards the end went to beer. And during one scene, Tyler Durden takes a convenient store clerk outside the back of the store and puts a gun to his head and asks him what would he like to do with his life. Tyler gives him the choice of either dying or to start following his dream of being a veterenarian.

So, I'm pretending someone has a gun to my head right now. (Who knows, maybe I am mentally divergent and I am seeing a person with a gun to my head right now, as I type in my office at work with the lights out so no one can see us.) Faced with the choice of death or following my dream of becoming a great novelist, I am opting for door number two.

Or you can look at it this way: When dreams die, a part of you dies. I believe this. And every day, going through the classifieds, emailing resumes, plodding along in my job, I am feeling another little part of me dying every damn day. I could take the Monty Python, Look on the Bright Side POV, but I don't feel like coping, accepting this kind of dreary, soul-sucking existence.

I'd rather die trying.

So, if six months from now (March 6th, 2005) I do not have a viable novel, at least in first draft form, my schizo alter-ego will take me out back and put me out of my misery, gangland execution style. Hopefully, not in the face, as my loved ones would probably like to have an open casket funeral. Personally, I'm hoping for a viking funeral because my corpse in a flaming boat at sea would be great, I think.

Now excuse, we have to outline a novel while in between my regular work duties today. But first, we need to get coffee. Goodbye.

In Babylon

My favorite part of the Carnivale series was when the carnival went to Babylon. It lasted two episodes and was at the middle of the show, giving it that Act 2, "Empire Strikes Back" weight of story.

The most haunting part of these episodes was at the end of the Episode 6: Pick A Number, when you see the dead burlesque girl standing in a window in the town of Babylon.

Ugh. Still creeps me out.

Carnivale

If you did not watch HBO's Carnivale, you missed a great show. Carnivale was a creepy, mythical, mystical story. The heros were as unclear as the depression era dust bowl vistas the Carnivale travelled through. And now the first season of Carnivale is coming to DVD.

And the second season will begin in January.

Dammit. I don't have HBO anymore. Now what am I going to do?

The world is talking to you

Everything is communicating to everything else all of the time.

These messages, or memes, are further propagated by us, the consumer of that product or idea or supporter of the group.

I used to write advertising. When you construct a piece of advertising, you look for a truth that is a strength within the context of your product, based on; performance, cost, social status, and lifespan, etc. You take one or more of these truths and you tweak it into a marketing truth. The marketing truth is something that is the truth presented in the way that best maximizes your product’s strength. It should be likable, entertaining, useful, and pretty.

Here’s something else: Everything is a product. Every religion, political party, candidate, food, drink, and service we consume or support is a product. And the reality is that these products define us.

Everything we own is talking to us; your shoes, your hair, the car you drive, and what you order at the bar. Every religious group, company you work for, and team you support is feeding off of you, associating with you, communicating with someone else. If you don’t believe that relationships define you, just look at how most couples eat, dress, workout, and what movies they rent or own. Look at fad clothing and diets. Ask yourself why restaurants go out of business and why nightclubs suddenly become unpopular.

Every time we buy something, vote for someone, or believe in something, we are entering into a relationship with that thing or person, much like dating or even marrying someone, and giving that thing power. And relationships make us a part of something and to a great extant, define us.

Decisions in life have to be made on the hard facts, not the image of a thing, or the image you associate with yourself or the group you think you belong to. Remember, when you belong to a group that group tries to define you. And when you own something, in a way, that thing owns you, too.

Blah

Hemingway said that if he could write one true sentence that he'd be happy.

I thought I just wrote the truest thing I know and I don't feel good about it. I have been writing and I do not recognize myself in the writing. Except for here on this blog.

I was talking with a friend about writing a book and how it is a maddening thing to write something long and beautiful. How you have to go a little bit mad, thinking in differnet dimensions as you tie plot threads together and make character live.

Well, I think I'm getting the mad part down, just not the writing part. I want to lock myself in a sensory deprivation tank and subject myself to conciousness enhancing lab experiments like William Hurt in Altered States. I want to find myself and change myself, be it evolving and maybe growing a different part of my brain, or devolving into some kind of feral mammalian creature only thinking of food and shelter.

Maybe I should have taken my naked run in the moonlight in the backyard with the dogs the other night. It may have done me some good.