Catwoman

Halle Berry showed up to receive her Golden Razzie award for Catwoman.

So Halle Berry regains my respect and admiration, unlike Sean Penn's humorless comments about Chris Rock's jokes about Jude Law.

Penn is a whiny little bitch.

And I'll probably recieve a letter like the South Park guys did when they made fun of him in their epic puppet movie, Team America.

Sean: it's puppets! Take it easy, man.

May I Suggest a Night of Heavy Drinking

And some cheap sex?

This poor stupid bastard in India castrated himself because he couldn't find love. Which leads me to believe that this guy is real idiot. Who the hell wants to go out with, much less fall in love with and marry a moron dumb enough to cut off his joy stick?

I say they don't try to reattach this dickless wonder's penis. We don't want people like him breeding and raising more insecure and insane people willing to get rid of their genitalia when going through a dryspell.

Black Boxes and Human Conciousness

Around the world are little black boxes that generate a random stream of numbers through programming in a run of the mill microchip.

And people believe that human conciousness on a micro and macro scale can affect the randomness of the numbers generated by the boxes. They also believe that our mass conciousness can also allow these boxes to predict future events. Read all about the tiny boxes and human conciousness here.

found on Cliff Pickover's Reality Carnival

A Scanner Darkly

Boing Boing has a link to the preview of Richard Linklater's interpretation of Phillip K. Dick's story, A Scanner Darkly. The movie was first filmed, then animated over the film to give it that very cool, surreal effect that Linklater first used in one of my favorite movies, Waking Life.

You can see the preview for A Scanner Darkly here.

Good, thought provoking Sci Fi - when executed properly - is so damn good.

Talk to Each Other

Sometimes we turn on the one's we love because of their faults and mannerisms and actions that we dislike or disapprove of. And strangely enough, these same faults and mannerisms that we can't stand in our loved ones and blood relatives, we are perfectly fine accepting from those we do not love as much. So why do we fight with the ones we love over these things?

I think because we all secretly want our loved one's to be perfect.

The perfect wife, mother, brother, father, son, etc. We hold these people we are supposed to love unconditionally up to some unattainable ideal of fairytale proportions and when they fall short, we let them have it. Or sometimes, the perfection is simply our own view of our idealized selves, even though we know in some recessed part of our psyches that we as perfect as what we percieve ourselves to be.

Ugly words are thrown around. Things that can't be taken back are hurled with the casualness of sniper taking down a threat.

I think we hurt the one's we love because they'll let us. At least until they no longer allow it. And then months or sometimes years of silence and animosity can spread like an ocean between people who should be talking and loving each other. A growing sea of ever expanding ill will and regret. Regret because I think deep down inside, even though we say that our loved ones are "just people," we know that they are more than that. If they weren't, we wouldn't have to justify our anger towards them.

So please accept the one's you love for who and what they are. In the end, how hard is it to just realize that love is more important than perfection and the less that we judge, the easier everyone can see the good in one another.

Talk to each other. And be nice.

Mistaken Identity

While attending his grandmother's funeral, an innocent man was arrested by the Broward County's Sheriff's Office.

The Lightbourns differ with Graf about what occurred at the cemetery. Family members and witnesses said they had just buried Brenda Lightbourn, 65, and the Florida Sunshine Band was finishing its final number, when at least 10 deputies stormed the gravesite, grabbed Donovan, slammed him against a car and handcuffed him. - via Sun Sentinel

Based on the differences in height (a 3 inch difference) and weight (60 lbs.) between the suspect and the innocent man, you'd think that the simpletons hired as deputies in Broward County might have treaded a little less brazenly than they did, especially at a family funeral.

Lesson learned: Don't be a black man in Florida because the police seem to think that all black men look alike.

Please Stop Breeding, Mongo

We have rose bushes along the front patio of our house, near the front door. The roses are beautiful and make the property look very nice, and of course, I take them for granted. My wife does not.

And, apparently, the little thieving destructive shits they call children in my neighborhood don't take them for granted either, since we've been finding the occasional blooming rose broken off of its stem and missing.

Yesterday we found a chewed up chicken bone on the front porch.

I think children are great, when they have parents that are responsible and teach their children how to act and behave and instill a little discipline. But when the fucking parents act like animals, also, what can you expect from the little shits they have shat from their wombs, the rotting fruit of their polluted loins?

My mother is a good woman, as is my wife's mother, too. Both women instilled in their children good habits, showed how to be courteous, and how to respect the people and things around them. But not these mouth breathing, feet shuffling, fast-food eating, rat fuck sons of bitches whose only reason for the word "parent" being used in the same sentence with their name is that they could practice unsafe sex.

So, my message for the day is: If you're a stupid, callous, disrespectful assclown; please, please, please wear a condom.

Or I'll have you shaved, beaten, and sterilized.

Mythologies

While I was sick, I watched a little more television than I should have. During a few of my moments of idiot box watching, I saw a commercial about the "myth of seperation of church and state." And this ad bothered me for a few reasons.

One reason the ad bothered me was because it was so damn heavy handed - the equivalent of a used car dealership ad for religion. Another reason was the frequency of seeing the ad and the realization of just how much financial backing these people have to indoctrinate the air waves.

Thank *ahem* god I'm still free to change the channel.

Yes, it is true that the exact words "seperation of church and state" do not appear in the Constitution, but the spirit and meaning of those words is inferred from the Constitution's text, especially in the First Amandment. Now I don't have anything against religion, except for a difficulty with virgin births and organized religious hiearchy.

And holy wars and crusades and inquisitions and prejudices through the proliferation of preconceived and judgemental ideas.

And I have a serious problem with my tax dollars funding an organized religious effort to dictate to me how to live and what I can and can't do. You see, not only do I have a problem with authority, but I also have a problem with dogmatic based fascism. And that pisses me off.

Time Falling

This is why I'm going insane. (And I can hear you all saying, "Well that's a short trip.")

So I'm in the shower and it's really hot because I like it that way and because the steam helps with my breathing when I'm sick. So I'm watching the droplets of water fall from the spout above my head and thinking about time. About how every moment more water drops fall to the floor of the tub and gather and wash away. I think about how if you were to stop time right...Now:

The water would be frozen in mid-air and that would be one moment in time. And if there is a moment in time and time is made up of many moments, can't those other moments be further broken down into smaller moments?

Couldn't you possiby keep dividing moments of time, infinitely regressing, into smaller pieces, like some kind of time fractal, until you had millions of moments all spread about from this one second moment of time?



And what about space? All of those lives being lived away from across space, but all caught up in this moment of frozen, divided time?

I feel like I'm looking into a reflection of a reflection of myself in two different mirrors and seeing myself reflected infinitely, growing smaller and smaller.

The water flows again. The steam rises. Fluid goes down the drain and away from me. And I am standing naked in the shower, shrouded in mist, watching the moments of my life fall away from me as I take deep breaths of water rich, heated air.

All of it just fractals of moments of time going and going and going and going away.

Tomorrow I'll try to solve the square root of 2.

Belated

"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." - Hunter S. Thompson

I know I'm late with this, but I'm sorry to hear that you checked out early, Hunter S. Thompson. If anyone deserves a Viking Funeral, you do. And although I'm sure you had a good reason for the suicide, I'm still...Well, you know...

And all I can hear is Filter screaming, "Hey man, nice shot."

Feeding the Curse, Conclusion

continued from Feeding the Curse, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4

Shortly after we pulled D from the water, both boats headed back to the dock at the condo for lunch and a break from the powerful Key Largo sun. Again, J's mom prepared food for all of us, and after we finished, we slowly moved back toward the boats.

Back out at sea, J attached a large, black innertube to the water-skiing line and dragged it out about twenty meters behind the boat. The tube was large enough for four people to be on or in it and be dragged, skimming across the surface of the water as fast as the motorboat was going. You see, when someone is wakeboarding or water skiing behind a boat, the weight of the person and the design of the ski or board cuts into the water creating drag that ultimately slows down the boat and the person enjoying the water sport to go not quite as fast. But with an innertube, there was no drag and wiping out from a tube would be the same as falling out of a boat at high speed, sometimes even faster if the boat was whipping the tube around on sharp turns.

And making sharp turns in attempts at having the tube riders wipe out was exactly what J liked to do.

D, J's another of J's cousins, A, and myself positioned ourselves onto the innertube with me and D straddling the tube as A and the cousin sat inside. There were conveniently placed rubber handles about the tube that we used to hold on to.

The motor started up and J looked back from beneath the Bimini Top, at the steering wheel, and ran his index finger beneath his chin and across his throat. The other people on the boats started to laugh as J yelled, "You guys are gonna get it! Hope you can hang on!"

I looked over at D and said, "You know the son of a bitch won't stop until we've either all fallen off this thing or he runs out of gas." D was about to say something as we heard the throttle go and the engines started quickly and the tube was tugged forward. We all hung on to our little rubber handles tightly as the speed increased.

As we came up on the first turn, we all gripped onto out handles even tighter than before. Luckily, if we looked at the boat that was dragging us; we could anticipate the turns and not be flung off due to inertia and sent skimming across the water. On the next straight-away, we all let go of the handles and put our hands in the air as if we were on a rollercoaster.

J sped up and cut the steering wheel making the boat go into a quick turn. We held on as the tube with its four passengers went flying out across the water faster than the boat had been going. It was as if we were on a rock that was not only being skipped across the surface of the water, but was zigging and zagging in different directions, too.

The tube skimmed and bumped across the surface of the ocean and I could hear myself straining against gravity and the other natural laws of physics as the horizon spun around me. Salt-spray stung me as we kept going faster.

I was loving it.

Then there was a calm as J had to circle back and there was a great deal of slack in the line tethering us to the boat. Snap went the line and we hung on again.

The tube was on a straight away, and then a sudden turn. I felt like a rodeo bronco buster.

After the second turn we hit the wake of another boat as we skimmed the surface. The tube nearly flipped on its right side and A's legs were dangling off of the tube and dragging in the water behind us, creating a huge rooster tail of ocean spray. Every time we bounced I felt like I was getting checked by a hockey player.

A screamed, "I can't....hold-" and he went flying across the water like a Frisbee skimming the surface, bouncing and sliding and tumbling. We were going so fast and I had to concentrate on holding on that I never even saw him lose speed and splash through the water's surface.

We had another respite from the speed and the turns as J had to turn the boat back around. I looked at D and told him, "Man! This is fun!"

The boat pulled the line taught again and we were off on another straight away. Then the turning started.

I held on through the first two turns, but my arms and my hands were hurting from holding on so tightly and being whipped around that I had a feeling that I'd be going down hard on the next turn. As we went into the third turn, J's cousin was screaming from excitement and D joined him.
Before we started to pick up too much momentum from the turn, I yelled, "Later," and let go. Even though we hadn't maxed out our speed, I was sent jetting across the water's surface. It felt like I went forever as I finally lost my speed and my body's weight broke through and I splashed not too hard and sank under the water.

When I came up, gasping for air, I looked around and could see the boat dragging what was left of the passengers on the tube. I noticed that the force of the wipe-out had nearly knocked my boardshorts off as the Velcro fly was open and my pants were nearly halfway down my thighs.

The decrease in the weight on the tube made the little rubber circle travel even faster across the water as their was even less drag. The tube was catching more air as it was pulled relentlessly around the island.

I saw A treading water about a 100 feet from me. I waved and he waved back and we started swimming toward each other.

Me and A were about fifteen feet from each other when we heard the screaming. We turned in time to see the tube about four feet in the air behind the boat, sideways. D and J's cousin were sent tumbling, rocketing across the water for a good twenty feet in a blur of legs and arms, both of them within a few feet of each other, and then they splashed down and through the water's surface and sank.

They had wiped out about forty feet from us. A few seconds passed and they did not come back up. Me and A looked at each other and started to swim as fast as we could toward where they went down.

After swimming a little more than half the distance I looked up and could see J's cousin holding onto to D. D looked out of it. The side of his face looked like he had taken a back-handed slap from a big guy with huge hands; the red went from his chin to his hairline. His mouth was open and his eyes were closed tightly in pain as he took breaths from his open mouth. We kept swimming...

J pulled the boat beside them when we had reached within ten feet of the last passengers of the tube. I heard D groan over the engines as he was pulled from the water. Me and A swam to the rear of the boat, where the engine was on idle. As I pulled myself from the water, tasting the exhaust of the fumes from the engine, I saw D laying, propped against the side of the boat. One of the girl's was pouring bottled water on his head. I walked over to him and knelt in a crouch. I took his head moved it to one side so I could see the side of his face where he must have smacked it against the water when he wiped out.

"Fuck me," I said! "He's bleeding from the ear!"

A small trickle of blood coming from his right ear hole.

A grabbed the water bottle from the girl and splashed water into D's bleeding ear before I could stop him. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

D screamed in pain.

"I-"

"You don't put water into people's ears! You don't put anything in people's ears! Especially when their bleeding from the fucking ear! Now step away doctor jerk-off before you hurt him even more."

We came in after that and sat around as J's mom babied D, giving him some more food and aspirin and a few cotton balls to hold against his ear. The bleeding had stopped shortly after we reached the condo.

I went to the bathroom to take a piss and as I undid my boardshorts I noticed the bracelet was still on my wrist. I remembered that D had lost his just a few hours ago and then look what happened to him. Look what happened to all of them after they had lost the bracelets!

A wrecked his car. J wrecked his car and ended up with a pretty messed up face. D wiped out so hard on the ocean that he was out of it and bleeding from the ear and in pain.

I freaked out for a couple minutes in the bathroom as I just stared and occasionally touched my bracelet.

My part of the curse.

We spent the night at the condo, where D drank to numb the pain and I drank because...Well, I was in the keys and cursed and lucky at the same time. In the morning, D and I packed our stuff back into the convertible and headed back to Miami. D insisted on driving because he had promised his older brother that he would not let anyone else drive the car. We stopped at convenience store and bought a two bottles of sports drinks to replenish our spent liquids and electrolytes from all of the partying we did over the weekend. We had exactly $2.75 to our name after we filled the car with gas.

On the way back to Miami, many more bad things happened to us, but that is a story for another time. What we did learn later that week after D went to the hospital was that he had torn a hole in his ear drum and lost some of his hearing, permanently.

Once back in Miami, I waited for M to get back from North Carolina. When he was back in town, I went over to his house told him what happened to D after he lost the bracelet. M and I went back over everything that had happened to the three of us that had lost their bracelets. The coincidences were too coincidental to be chance, in our eyes.

Every time someone lost a bracelet, within few hours to a full day, some scary, unlucky thing befell them. And it seemed to the two of us that the results of the curse were worsening.

I strongly believed that the last one to lose their bracelet could possibly die from the curse. Die, or suffer a fate very horrible and close to death, or worse. M agreed with me. We also both agreed that we had to do something.

After a few minutes, we decided that the bracelets would have to come off without be broken or ripped. We would have to somehow roll the bracelets off of our wrists and still keep them intact.

We went into to M's guest bathroom and ran some warm water from the sink. Both of us placed our wrists under the warm water and soaped our wrists with the bracelets on it until they were covered with lather and slippery. And then we squeezed our hands as small as we could, pressing our thumbs up underneath the palms of our hands trying to press our fingers together, touching at the tips.

We started, and as carefully as we could, we rolled the bracelets off of our soapy, slippery wrists and down our squeezed together hands.

The worst part was when the grimy little cursed bracelet got to below our wrists and at the knuckles of our hands. Slowly we rolled the bracelets thinking of A, J, and D's misfortunes through the loss of the bracelets.

I really didn't want to be cursed: I had enough bad luck in my life with cheating girlfriends, SATs, and getting into college.

Later, at the beach, M and I stood as close as we could to the same spot that we had when we found the string draped across the driftwood near the shoreline.

We walked into the surf. The sun was close to setting again, much the same as it had when all five of us had thought we were doing something fun and weird, but in fact had only ended up bringing all kinds of misfortune into our lives. And standing there in the water at dusk with the waves coming in and splashing past our knees, we looked at each other and nodded and dropped the strings back into the ocean and hoped that as the tide took our bracelets away, it would also take our curse back with it.

I am a Nasty Little Germ Monkey

I've had the flu since last Wednesday. And you must believe me when I tell you that you do not want any part of this sickness.

So this germ monkey is still lying on his chaise lounge surrounded by water, hot tea, empty medicine packaging, tissue packs, and fun reading techno-thrillers while he neglects his blog.

Later, I will post the final installment of Feeding the Curse - Sorry for the wait, but everytime I stand or walk, I feel like a hollow, used man that can't possibly walk much further.

And today being my birthday, I guess I'm content to not be completely fever-ridden as I was on Thursday and Friday where I would feel the cold through my insides and then a short while later, feel like I was a mile from the sun. Now I only have slight chills and an achiness pervading throughout every inch of my body and my skin feels raw and tender.

Happy Birthday to me.

And now I'm spent. Later.

More Documents on Torture

The ACLU has obatined docments showing just how systematic and prevalent prisoner abuse is for terror detainees.

And I wonder if this will appear on the front page or the six o'clock news?

via Raw Story

Feeding the Curse Part 4

continued from Feeding the Curse Part 3, Part 2, and Part 1

After the accident, J looked no worse than when his Cuban born Vietnam Vet father had punched him up a bit after mouthing off at dinner one night; that is to say pretty bad. J's lips were smashed against the steering wheel and he had a good sized bruise on his cheek below his eye. J said that he didn't know what happened, that maybe he had taken the turn a little too hard.

Then J mentioned the loss of the bracelet the day before the accident and looked at my own bracelet with in silence. And being the asshole friend that he was, he quickly hooked a finger underneath the bracelet and threatened to break it off if I didn't say out loud that he was the greatest in the world. I think he was half joking, so I said the words and he released the string and left it safely secured to my wrist.

Later that summer J invited us down to his family's condo in Key Largo for a weekend. M was out of town with his parents, but D, A, and myself decided to go. A quit his job at the supermarket and took off for the condo at the beginning of the week. D and I were both working for a friend of D's well-to-do grandfather and were able to finnagle a firday off.

We borrowed D's brother's brown convertible LeBaron and drove down south Friday morning. This car was very annoying in that it had a computerized voice that would inform you about different things, like telling you, while interrupting your favorite song, "The door is ajar," or "Washer fluid is low." It's only redeeming qualities were that it was a convertible and that it worked.

Our first day at the condo was speant on either J's boat or his cousin's boat waterskiing and waveboarding and innertubing, and drinking lots of cheap domestic beer while frying our young bodies in the sun and talking to whatever girls we could find on the water or back at the condo.

The next day we awoke to J's mom making us all breakfast. Then we went on beer runs to stock up the coolers on both boats. After that, we hit the water for more fun.

While D was waveboarding, he ran the board as far outside of the wake of the boat as he could and then pulled it back in. D jumped the wake at a fantastic speed, caught about three feet of air as he floated above the surface of the water strapped to the board, and then came down nose first and wiped-out very hard.

We circled back around to pick D up. He was floating in the water, hanging onto the board, all red faced from impacting face first. One of J's other friends jumped into the water to have his go at the board as I helped D up out of the ocean. And as I grabbed D's hand and pulled him up, I noticed that the bracelet was no longer on his wrist.

D sat down and I reached into the cooler for beers for both of us. As I handed the beer to D and J drove the boat, I mentioned to D that his bracelet must have fallen off when he wiped.

He looked down at his wrist and let out a long sigh. We drank our beers in silence, wondering at what the self-imposed cursed braclets of doom had in store for the next victim. We were, after all, in a boat, on the ocean.

to be concluded in Feeding the Curse Part 5

The Perception of the Flesh

There are many reasons not to eat meat. Among them are the mostly inhumane mass slaughtering of animals for our consumption. Another reason are the poor effects of having too much animal protein, and as a by product of meat, chemicals like steroids, entering your system.

Now I'm not going to tell you how to live your life; that would be hypocritical and I try not to be a dirty hypocrite - I enjoy a well prepared filet mignon as much as the next person.

What I do think is a major problem is our perception of meat as a food and not as what was once a living being.

Up until about the 1950s, people understood that they were eating an animal when they sat down for a steak or chicken dinner, but somewhere along the timeline the marketplace started to produce meat products in these boneless, nicely pakaged consumer items that bore no resemblance to the animal you were eating. Factory churned out meat. Case in point: Spam.

In restaurants today, especially in America, fish comes without the head on it. Meat is mostly served off the bone so we don't have to be reminded of life. In other places where life is harder, there is no waste; every edible part of the animal is eaten.

I think that when you don't understand that something is not alive anymore so you can consume it to survive and grow and live, then we're missing something important about life.

In many aboriginal cultures that respect life as something sacred, the killing of an animal was considered something holy. It was the transference of life from one being to another. Now, it's just a paper wrapped, masss produced, low grade meat product that is sometimes not even all meat or from the same animal.

Maybe if we all understood that something is not alive becasue of us, maybe our quality of life, quality of food products, our ethics, our obesity, and our society may improve. Maybe we can become a little less violent and more respectful of all life, instead of thinking that mowing down large amounts of animals or people is no big thing.

The end of any life is an important, sacred moment. It should not be treated so lightly.

The Kyoto Protocol

The Guardian has a very good piece on what the Kyoto Protocol is, who is and is not involved, and what it means for the world.

Feeding the Curse Part 3

continued from Feeding the Curse Part 1 and Part 2

A had been driving down the causeway from the party when he had lost control of his car on a curve on a road that was famous for people driving like maniacs on account of its long intervals before lights and curves. As A lost control of the car, he headed straight toward a long strip of parked cars along the roadside. A regained enough control not to hit the parked cars head on and swerved at the last minute, scarping and smashing into three parked cars.

The collision was along the passenger side and his new/old girlfriend screamed as the cars collided and the sideview mirror was ripped from the body of A's car.

Luckily, no one was hurt and A drove as carefully as he could, glancing back behind him to make sure the cops weren't coming after his drunk ass in a smashed up car from a hit and run accident. Later, when we talked about it and me and M called him a stupid asshole, J looked at A's wrist and remebered that A had lost the self-imposed cursed bracelet the day of the accident, in the pool.

A had lost his special bracelet and had nearly totalled his car and injured himself and his girfriend after losing the magic bracelet. And an uncomfortable quiet came over the group as thoughts of what evil could befall each of us if the damned bracelets were to be ripped off or lost. We questioned if we had really cursed ourselves. We got spooked out, then being macho as best we could and not believing in much at all, we dismissed the event as a strange coincidence.

How could something like a curse exist in the real world? This was the stuff of cheesy horror movies and short fantastical fiction. Yes, we agreed, it was just an unfortunate event tied to a strange coincidence.

About a month later, J was driving his brother to summer camp for his mother. The day before, he had been doing some work on the boat that he and his father had bought together. Only after finishing up working on the boat and putting their tools and equipment away, J had noticed that the string must have ripped off during work. I don't know what kind of foreboding he had felt when he found out, but I do know that he had just dismissed it as stupid superstitious feeling.

After J had dropped his brother to camp and was on his way back home, J lost control of his car and drove head on into a parked car about five blocks from his home.

to be continued in Feeding the Curse Part 4

Size Matters

Several men are suing companies that offer to expand a man's girth and length in the penis area because - Surprise! - The pecker pills don't work!

Imagine that: A penis growth pill that doesn't actually work...

Maybe they're approaching this from the wrong way. Instead, they should be trying to shrink vaginas.

Is your life so pathetic that you would actually buy and take pills to grow your penis to titan missile porn standards? And are you that much of a loser to actually attach your name to public record as having used said pills in an attempt to get money because you have a small penis. That's right: They are suing because they have tiny little peckers.

What a bunch of litte dicks.

Stonhenge Aotearoa

The Pheonix Astronomical Society has built a Stonehenge-like stone circle to show how ancient technologies were used to accurately predict and observe the seasons and the stars. It is built with the ancient obelisk Druid-influenced stargazing techniques, as well as those of the ancient skills of Polynesian tribes.

I remember when I went to Stonehenge in England. I was dissapointed that I could not touch the obelisks because they had a rope restraint about ten feet from the outer edge of stones circling the perimeter of the ancient site. Still, it was beautiful; the enormous stone obelisks surrounded by green green grass and, luckily, we had beautiful, sunny, but cool summer weather the day we drove out from Southhampton to see it.

Now I have to make my way to Egypt to see the Sphinx and the Pyramids and to Easter Island to see the giant stone Moai scattered about the island. And maybe I could also stop and see the Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal, too.

Has anyone seen my fedora?

Feeding the Curse Part 2

continued from Feeding the Curse Part 1

That week during spring football practice, in the locker room after practice, our friend G noticed the string on mine, D's, and A's wrists. He started making fun of us and called us fags. And as he reached for A's wrist to rip it off, A pulled his arm away quickly and covered the string with his hand. And as this happened I covered my bracelet as well. So did D. I found myself, before football practice, securing the bracelet under my armpad that went from my wrist to my elbow. I would regularly check it during practice, or almost any physical activity, to make sure the dirty little string was still safely on my wrist.

Later that week, we'd joke with each other, sneaking up to one of our little group and threatening to rip the string from each other's wrists bringing down who knows what kind of malicious events.

The string had become precious to me. And I felt, as did all of us who had underwent the strange twilight ritual on the beach, that our fates were tied up in that little knot holding that string to our wrists.

A month went by and spring football ended and the seniors before us graduated, and all of our bracelets remained secured to our wrists. We started to forget about the power we had given the things, even when our mothers would stare at our wrists during Sunday evening mass and make a face and wish that we would get rid of the dirty little bracelets, which of course made us want to keep them on even more.

Then there was the pool party on the beach at our friend, T's house. T was a gawky girl who was relatively unpopular, but with our senior year looming in the short distance and that need for each of us to feel important and wanted and somebody, all kinds of people we had ignored were suddenly there like materialized ghosts we had always felt, but never really noticed. And at this pool party, A was in the pool messing around with a bunch of guys and girls, playing volleyball and chicken fighting when his bracelet had come off. A hadn't noticed it was gone until right before we left.

A got into his car, still wet from being in the pool all day. He had been drinking all day, just like all of us had, but A liked to drive like an asshole. And as he drove home that day with his new girlfriend, who was actually his old girlfriend who he had rediscovered in the last two weeks, A had an accident.

to be continued in Feeding the Curse Part 3

C.O.D and the Spoils of War

So they're trying to tell us that millions, and perhaps billions of Iraq reconstruction money was delivered to American contractors in cash from off the back of a truck? And this was done because the banks weren't operational and funds could not be transferred electronically?

Bullshit.

If you're falling for this lame excuse, let me explain something to you: These are all American companies that have banks over here. This was our government's money, which makes it your money, all of that money they collected from us from every one of our paychecks and tax day in April, and it was given out to people that could easily have received it officially through wired transactions right here in the U.S.

And now over $8,000,000,000.00 of your money is now gone and unaccounted for because of some sad bullshit excuse about the banks not being opened when they were opened over here in America.

And if you haven't heard before, it was months before these American contractors started fixing power plants and sewage plants, and many of them are still not completely operable today.

And everyone's OK with this, right? Because it's not like we couldn't have done anything constructive with that money either here at home or in Iraq?

If you're not feeling violated and outraged by this, you should be. People just stole billions of dollars from you and not only are they getting away with it, but there making you refill the coffers that the money was taken from; it's called a deficit and the tax burden of the American people.

Feeding the Curse Part 1

You can call it a self-fulfilling prophecy, I guess.

We were on the beach, five of us, walking near the surf as the sun set. The tide was going out and the sound of waves always sound like a lullaby when you're tired and buzzed after drinking in the sun all day. M, J, A, D, and myself were finishing the last of our cheap domestic beers and the dusk when we found a piece of string draped over some driftwood, half-buried in the dark, wet sand by the tide.

I've heard of a Native American legend that tells of how driftwood should not be burned because it caries evil spirits within it.

In Africa, some people believe that things taken from the sea bring bad luck.

I didn't know these things then, but I wished I had.

D picked up the string. A simple piece of string, just under three feet long, that looked like it had once been joined to a kite. It was a natural looking white from being in the ocean and being bleached by the sun. D said that it would make a cool bracelet, and in our young, wanting to be unique yet belonging way, we agreed and divied up the string into bracelet sized pieces for each of us to wear. We draped the string around our left wrists and tied it off into a loose fitting little string bracelet that was just tight enough to not fall off of our wrists.

And as we all tied off our bracelets, J said that whoever should have the bracelet ripped off or lost would have something bad happen to them. We laughed and thought that it was cool and scary because what scares you makes you braver. And we all agreed in some kind of pact as the last of the light left the beach.

We were eighteen and had no wars, no unknown worlds to discover. We lived in the suburbs, all of us mostly from middle or upper-middle class families and because there was no danger we created it for ourselves any time we could, being young and feeling immortal as we did. We just didn't know that what kind of bad luck we were unleashing upon ourselves through the simple act of tying on a ratty little bracelet and saying some foolish words.

to be continued in Feeding the Curse Part 2

Arthur Miller is Dead

Arthur Miller, the playwright, is dead at age 89.

I remember looking through my father's old books from college. The books were kept in a cupboard in the garage that I needed a ladder to reach. I remember how my nose would always itch from the smell of mildewing pages and dust. And out there among these old, yellowing pages I found Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman in my eighth grade year.

When dad saw me bringing in an armload of books from the stash in the garage and saw the play on top of the pile of giant art books and thriller novels, he picked it up and looked at it and told me that it was a very good play and I'd like it.

It was a very good play. It was a damn fine piece of writing. I read it twice that week.

Fathers and sons and Arthur Miller and the downside of the American Dream.

I'm glad I read that play.

Trampoline of Death Part 2

Continued from Trampoline of Death Part 1

So D lets the dog out through the side door of the garage and runs and jumps back onto the trampoline. We all slowly start to jump. Then we start to pop each other into the air (popping is when, if you have more than one person on a trampoline, one person can time their bounce to have the trampoline hit you on the way down before you expect, sending you into the air and off balance). As people get braver and the dog circles continously like a shark, we start to go after each other.

This is real. If someone is not being eaten by the dog or off the trampoline and running to jump the fence leading to the canal behind the house, that person is a threat to your survival.

Now we're flying through the air and across the trampoline and elbows and punches are being thrown as we pop each other into the air.

Someone gets popped, and we all converge on him as he gets punched and elbowed to the trampoline's purple canvas surface and as the poor bastard can't regain his feet he is forced off of the trampoline and onto the ground. Barky makes his run for him and we can only half -watch as our friend makes a mad dash for the fence. More elbows and punches are thrown, bodies sail through the air and loser number 1 makes it over the fence and splashes down into the dirty greenish-brown water of the canal, safe from the jaws of doom.

The game continues and more of us are thrown from the trampoline, one even popped then got dropped kicked off.

No one gets bitten, but a couple come very, very close to being a Barky treat.

As our friends watch from the safety of the other side of the fence, standing on the small dock on the canal, the only people that remain are J and myself. Faints and lunges, punches and kicks. Then I get caught in mid-air from a pop and J comes at me, but he can't land a solid punch as I go limp and fall on my back to the trampoline. I bounce back up and am able to regain my feet, but J has made it to the non-bouncy part of the trampoline near the edge and he comes back at me and I cannot turn in time.

I take an elbow to the shoulderblades and am sent face first to the canvas as J kicks me repeatedly and I curse him. I don't even pay attention to the screams from the eliminated people on the dock or where Barky is at in the yard.

I can only assume as I am thrown from the trampoline and sailing toward the green grass below that the bastard dog is right behind me.

I hit the ground hard and roll and am up on my feet as I try to run as fast as I can without wiping out in the cool, damp grass.

I run. I jump. I sail toward the canal, past the seawall, and splash safely in the muck-filled water.

And I am a loser in the game that is the Trampoline of DEATH...DEath...death...death...

PS - Kids, do not ever try this at home. This is a very stupid, dangerous thing to do.

Trampoline of Death Part 1

I used to play a little game called Trampoline of Death (can't you just hear the announcer's deep bass voice as the words reverberate, "Trampoline of DEATH...DEath...death...death...).

I'm only going to tell you about my experience with the game because I will not be responsible for any damn fools out there trying this very stupid, dangerous game. And with most things that are stupid and dangerous, they can also be a lot of fun. Unless you lose...in the Trampoline of DEATH...DEath...death...death...

Once, my friends and I were bored, and not being drug fiends or common thugs (just Catholic school boys), we decided to go to my friend's D's uncle's house, which was situated on a canal. Now D's uncle was Cuban and owned a garage repair shop. As a matter of fact, D's uncle sold my poor schmuck teenage-ass a piece of shit Renault Encore, and that taught me two lessons; never do business with friends and never buy a French car. Sure, the French have delecious cuisine and cheeses and wine, but perveyors of fine automobiles they are not.

Anyway, D's uncle, the chronic pot smoking, mustache wearing swindling prick that he was, had a large, angry mutt that was part German Shepherd and part Junkyard dog. D's uncle named the angry animal Barky. Barky the Beast from Hell. Barky once bit D on the ass when he was 12.

Now, also at the house was a very large trampoline that could hold about four people on it. After consuming many beers at the beach, four of my friends, including D, and myself decided to go to D's Uncle's house and play on the trampoline and eat his food since he was out of town and D was looking after the house for him.

We arrive and go directly into the backyard and start jumping on the trampoline. The dog starts going crazy because he is an angry, bad mother fucker of a dog that has been couped up in a garage all day and would love to sink his teeth into the little bastards in his backyard.

We discuss if we should let the land shark out of his home and have him come into the yard while we play on the trampoline, you know - Just to add a touch of danger to the day.

But we get an even better idea! Let's have the loose man-eating dog in the yard, not only as we jump on the trampoline, but as we try to knock each other off of the trampoline into the waiting jaws of Barky the wonder-beast!

I remember my adrenaline starting go just at the thought of this little game. There really isn't anything more exciting than putting your life on the line for no special reason.

To be continued...

Trampoline of Death Part 2

Gannon's the Fake Name, Gay Escorts and Gaining Access to Top Secret Documents is His Game

Rising Hegemon did it better than I could so please go there to read about how a man involved with gay escort companies and who gave a fake name got access to the White House, Bush, and top secret files under a fake name while pushing the Bush agenda and betraying himself, his country, and his sexual orientation.

Wow, truth is stranger than fiction.

Let's Play Dead Celebrity

If you're bored and looking for something fun to do that doesn't cost too much money, you can play Dead Celebrity.

Here's how I do it: First run out to a novelty shop or a bookstore and find one of those postcard carousels with all of those artsy black and white photos of celebrities and buildings. Buy a few of them (they're about a buck a piece), but make sure that their dead. Then pass them out to your friends and either write or talk in that dead celebrities voice. And if you want to have even more fun, you can "be" that celebrity for the rest of the night, even insisting that everyone call you Jim Morrison.

For instance; one time I got Ernest Hemingway and he said: "I think I'm going up to the cabin this weekend to do a little fishing and writing and drinking, and to also clean my gun."

An important fact to remember when picking your dead celebrity is that he/she should have been a little cuckoo and/or should not have died from natural causes, ie; in their sleep. Here are some recommendations for good dead celebrities:

Marilyn Monroe
Elvis
Natalie Wood
Jimi Hendrix
James Dean
Salvador Dali

This can be a great time at parties!

Next time we'll talk about how to have fun with a large trampoline, four or five of your friends, and a very large, angry dog in a little game I like to call Trampoline of Death.

The First One That Comes Near Me Gets It!

North Korea's got something in its pocket for you: A nice shiny nuclear weapon and the capability to make more.

And everywhere around the US, Apocalypse watch christians get a little bit happier as they can feel the coming of the lord hasten to a joyous quick-time trot.

Also in the news, Iran asks the very pertinent question, "Who wants some?"

Looks like Iran wants to serve everyone a meal of "I'm not going down alone" casserole. Be careful; it's hot and you might burn yourself.

Thinking About the End of the World (Again) Part 2, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Apocalypse

In Thinking About the End of the World Part 1, we discussed how the End of the World, no matter what century or time period, always seems to be hovering in the distance, just over the ridge of time and getting so close that we can hear the gallop of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

There is strong evidence for some kind of apocalyptic-like reckoning on the horizon. And the media just can't wait to get there little hands on it. I love how every newscast leads off with the worst possible news first, then teases you with another horrible story to be near the end of the show. And we watch. That car wreck-loving part of our psyches needs to see it. We need the validation that the world is going to hell in a lovely Louis Vouton purse on the arm of Paris Hilton, who is in fact Skeletor's eeeeevil slut sister.

Don't forget about the home video footage of any disaster that we watch on the TV. Hell, entire networks have their original programming based on eyewitness accounts and amateur video footage of disasters. That means someone is buying advertising because we are watching.

We crave the awful. We may even love it. If we don't, then explain Fear Factor, The Swan, and other reality television - Explain four more years of the present administration.

I believe that if the world is going to end then we are in for one hell of a bad time leading up to the year 2012. And I have two reasons to believe this; the first being that the Mayan calendar ends at this year, and the other reason being that we are due for the bad shit.

As for the bad shit, well...Just take a look at your news headlines: War, atrocities, natural disasters, Kabbalah energy drinks, the career of Ashlee Simpson, and the present administration's foriegn and ecological policies.

There's a conversation in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven about the end of life that I find particularly fitting right now:

Little Bill: I don't deserve this. To die like this. I was building a house.
Will: Deserve's got nothin' to do with it.

So relax and do what I did: Stop worrying and learn to love the Apocalypse. And have a nice day:)

PS - I could be joking about this whole end of the world type stuff. Maybe. I could even write about puppy dogs and bunnies, but then I wouldn't have anything fun to write about. Ecxcept for maybe sex and monkeys and sex with monkeys.

State of the (insert name here) Address

I think we should all have State of the Union Addresses for things that matter to us. There could be a lot of pomp and circumstance and an official announcement letting everyone know that you are in da house, awwww yeah.

You could have a State of the Sex Life Address to let us all know if you're getting any or not. Or you could have a State of the Mental Health Address to let us know if you've totally lost your marbles or if you've got a tighter grip on that thread that your sanity has been clinging to.

Tonight I will be holding a State of the Penis Address. It will start promptly at 9PM and hopefully go on for a quite awhile. Here's a preview:

As the duly elected representative of the Penis, I thank you for the warm reception and applause.

I think everyone will be quite pleased with the state of the Penis and see that the penis is only going to get better. In this age of terror and insecurity, we need, more than ever, a Penis that is strong and up to the challenge that this 21st Century throws at it. Sure, we had some setbacks and performance wasn't all that we'd hoped in the first term, but I am secure in knowing that the Penis is healthy and can meet whatever challenges it faces, *ahem*, head on.

Naysayers tell us that the Penis can't fix the deficit or Social Security. And I have to say to them: This Penis is more than up to the task of taking care of these problems! This Penis is stiffly opposed to the privatization of Social Security and all for making hard, decisive budget cuts where they need to be made!

Now, I'd like you to meet a woman who I admire. A woman who said, "I'm not afraid of the Penis. I have faith in this Penis." Blah, blah, blah. Etc., etc., etc. And so on...

So have fun with your very own State of the (insert name here) Addresses that you wish to carry out. Good luck and please let me know what you'd like to address and if you're doing it on your blog.

Disclaimer: The author apologizes for the dick and fart jokes, but in a world of such depressing politics and world events he finds a gentle solace in the fact that a good dick and fart joke will brighten his spirits, and hopefully, the world's.

Gay Penguins

Yes, male penguins that like to go dancing all night to the baump baump baump beat of techno and go home with other male penguins.

Actually, these gay penguins are trying to be turned straight through tempting them with some really hot female penguin ass. Maybe they should take the gay penguins to Holy Land, that beacon of holy shining light in a land of theme parks, that is more than ready to "convert" people from the so-called "evils" of homosexuality. If either of these actions doesn't work out you can look forward to a year of TV Zoo programs like Penguin and Grace and Queer Bird's Eye for the Straight Guy. Really.

via The Raw Story

Thinking About the End of the World (Again) Part 1

End times. Ooooooooh...Time to break open crazy mushroom eating John's Book of Revelations my little Mad Max Road Warriors!

I say fuck the end of the world. Like Jim Morrison said, "I just want to get my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames!"

So, is the end of the world around the bend, just out of sight?

I think it's been just out of sight for the last 2000 years. After Jesus died, all of his followers were expecting Armageddon on the heels of his assumption (see Mom and Dad, all that Catholic schooling payed off!).

The same thing happened during both World Wars, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Cold War. As long as people are dying somewhere (and people will always be dying of something somewhere) there will be some crazy, can't wait until the Apocalypse bastard with a sign warning us all that the end is very fucking nigh. And I think that that's just no way to go through life, waiting for the end of the world.

I think we're all in love with the end of the world. Who didn't like watching the extraterrestrials kick the ever-loving shit out of planet earth in the movie Independence Day? Speilberg has H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds coming to theater near you this summer. Then there's Mad Max, Aunty Entity (Tina Turner in the lamer Mad Max movie), and Waterworld and the promise of dry land waiting for all of us in our death cult loving, Apocalypse dwelling subconciouses.

Yeah, "It's the End of the World as we know it, and I feel fine."

I think I'm going to have an End of the World Party. I'm going to play songs about the end of the world like the above quoted one and my all time favorite song ( at least in my top 5 list of favoite songs): U2's Until the End of the World. On my TV I'm going to load up my DVD player with movies like The Day After Tomorrow, Meteor (with Sean Connery and Natalie Wood), Independence Day, and The Road Warrior. We're all going to dress like we put our fashion together from animal skins and left over construction material and rope and we're going to drink like...It's the End of the World!

Invitations with date and time to follow. Please RSVP if you cannot make it. Now where did I put Tina Turner's "We Don't Need Another Hero"?

Virus

The sickness came over me a couple of weeks ago.

Mystery Man gets it from time to time. Melissa had it last week. And now Larry has succumbed to it, also. I have friends who aren't bloggers and they're feeling it, too.

Some kind of ennui-like viral infection that affects your anxieties and your fears and general well-being. A thought and emotion infection brought on by dissatisfaction with your life, your job, the bright shiny people we put in charge of the world, or sometimes right next to you breathing the same air you do.

You can feel the filthy thought virus breathing down your neck when you turn on your TV, when the news gets in your mind through your eyes and ears, or when you balance your checkbook. It crawls around your head when you brush your teeth or shave. It is especially loud in those dark lonely hours between midnight and the dawn when you lie in bed and try to get back to sleep after waking up from some random noise or from the call of your bladder.

It gets inside and eats at you turning hopes to fears, love to hate. And I think it's spreading. That's the bad news.

The good news is tied to the old addage, "Whatever does not kill you makes you stronger." Think of it as if you got sick from the innocualtion, but are developing the antibodies to combat this depressing illness.

It's been a weird few weeks, but I know I'm gettting better, feeling happier. You just have to keep moving forward, keep breathing. I might even suggest getting piss drunk to remind you that your mortal and life's too short to get mired down in this melancholy for too long.

It will pass, just like everything else.

The Plan to Get Rid of the Lower Class

Check out Bush's new tax cut recommendations.

I guess by cutting food stamp programs, public housing, and other health, education, and general aid programs that are related to the poorer people in the US, Bush is saying that there is no room for the poor in an ownership society. I wonder if he'll bring back debtors prisons?

And did I mention how much he's showing support for the troops by cutting veterans benefits? Maybe they should have an obnoxious bumper sticker saying, "Support the Troops - Cut Veterans Benefits!"

Don't look at me. I didn't vote for him.

Tech Future

I need your help.

If I'm going to pursue a certification, would the MCDBA or MCSE be better? Or should I not even bother with certs and concentrate on a programming language?

If I should concentrate on a language, which programming language should I become proficient in? C++, Java, or VB.Net?

Any suggestions would be welcome as I'm trying to make some important career decisions. Thanks.

Ready to Armageddon-It-On

There's a lot of talk about Jesus coming back. Passion of the Christ brought anti-semitism back en vogue. A great deal of our elected and appointed officials believe Jesus is coming and the more we destroy the environment and each other, the sooner the sweet lord will raise all of his true-believers back up to heaven in a "rapture."

Yeah. And may the Force be with you, you cooky crazy shit-eating christian soldiers.

Hey, where is Freak Show from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle when you need him?

Trouble in the Middle East? Who cares? According to the mythology of the Bible there has to be a great big war over there so the J-Man can come back and do his thing.

"A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed -- an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144 -- just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of God will return, the righteous will enter Heaven and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire." - from Bill Moyers at Axis of Logic via Disinfo.

And if that's not bad enough, Seymour Hersh - the reporter that broke the Mai Lai murders in Viet Nam and the Abu Gharib torture atrocities - tells us that a select few at the highest decision making levels of power in our country are hardcore believers in this apocalyptic dream-nightmare of end times prophecy and rapture. Hersh says, "We've been taken over by a cult."

And you thought that Madonna and her celebrity buddies with their red bracelets and Kabballah and the Tree of Life were going too far?

At least their not trying to bring about the end of the world so they can all share chips and dip and beer with the lord at the boxseats to the Super Bowl in the sky.

"Insomniac Daydream OCD" from Awake

Couldn't sleep last night because I was up making lists. I was making little databases on notebook paper while lying in bed with only my nightstand light on. J asked me to either turn off the light or take it out in the livingroom.

Outside in the livingroom, with dogs on either side of me just lying there begging me with puppy eyes to please go to sleep like sad furry Sphinxes, I continued. This list making is a kind of OCD of mine, but it serves a purpose.

Last night's lists (I am a tree killing list maker) consisted of...

You can read more of Insomniac Daydream OCD @ Awake: Fictions, poetry, autobiographicals, and other lies.

Running Scared

The bloggers at Toner Mishap may be on to something kind of very fucking scary. It seems that Halliburton has announced that it is pulling all of its people and assets out of Iran.

Not Iraq; Iran.

Now why the hell would they do something like that? Could it be because we are...going...to...invade Iran?

And as you all know, we don't have enough soldiers in Iraq. So where are we going to get more soldiers for an Iran invasion and occupation? Could it be from a draft of people 18 to 24 years old? The same bunch of little shits that didn't turn out for the vote in the last two elections. (If you were in that age group and voted, please disclude yourself from the little shit comment-sorry.)

Just another example of the fact that if you don't choose for yourself, someone else will be more than happy to make the choice for you.

Or, I could be wrong and Halliburton is just obeying the law and not doing business with a nation we have economic sanctions against. Then again, when has Halliburton ever obeyed the law?

Garden State

Although I haven't seen the movie yet, I love, love the Garden State soundtrack.

That's it. Random thoughts.

Sorry.

Volatility with Zero Intelligence

Moving through life we make decisions all day long based on what we know and what we want or need. And these decisions affect us all day long, rippling out across our life and pointing us in new directions.

Say you go to buy stamps on your fifteen minute break and the line is longer that you expected and one of the postal employees behind the desk decides his shift is over and leaves, closing his window. Once back at work and upon entering the office, the receptionists tells you that the boss is looking for you.

No one has spoken to you all day and when you decide to take a break and it goes sour, people suddenly need you. And this affects the rest of your life.

You stress at work. On the shitty commute home you think about the boss's look as you gave him your excuse in the lame I'm-really-telling-the-truth voice about the line at the post ofice. A look that says, "I'm not sure I believe you and don't let it happen again."

You wonder if they are going to watch you more closely. You wonder why you're not studying more, not getting a higher paying job. You wonder at the coccoon like comfort of you present job and if you've upset that.

You come home and are short with your significant other. The rippling spreads to your loved one's life now. And the ripples flow ever outward affecting relationships and moods and work and diets and emails and money.

Betch'ya didn't know you had that much influence, that much power? Sometimes I don't.

I wonder just how much can we control the volatility in our lives. I know to have a complete fascist like grip on our lives is to live like some kind of robot corpse. I guess we have to find some kind of balance.

Or maybe we just have to learn to make better decisions and not freak out over things that may not be all that important. Maybe as we create the ripples in our lives, we decide just how important some of the events in our life are going to be. Do we make mountains out of mole hills? Maybe our framing of the situation causes a negative or positive effect, based on how we looked at the event and treated it.

What got me thinking about this was this story about scientist in England who have learned that, after modeling the stockmarket as if people had no clue about the market, that the real markets behave in the same way. A case of volatility in a system that somehow sustains itself with low and high points.

Huhm...That sounds familiar.

When the Colors Come Out

Once, a long time ago, I came out of a club as the sun was rising.

I was forced out through the doors like some birth, all of us were - ejected into the morning onto the streets after it had rained all night. The city looked like god had washed it for us so we could have something shiny and clean and all the colors reflected in tar-black concrete street mirrors as the sun peaked across the horizon in yellows and oranges and violets and blue.

Out on the street looking at my reflection in a dark puddle mirror I felt as if I was seeing myself for the first time; like seeing a familiar aquaintance but not knowing their name, only that you had shared time and memory with that person. I looked across the street and people were talking and saying goodbye as they were bathed in this glorious light that warmed and gave life.

I am a rose opening now on the street of the world and the sun is my friend.

Creamsicle sky splashed with bits of gray and blue and I want to walk forever in the morning light. I want to slow time and move over the world as people shuffle in dazes at half-speed, confused by the beauty of the dawn and wondering at the dark from where they came.

On mornings like this you can be thankful that you are alive and that is all you could ever want or need. When the colors come out you feel the future like mother's love around the corner letting you know that everything's going to be alright.

Any Given Sunday

We watched Any Given Sunday this weekend and I remembered why I loved the movie. It's not only because it is Oliver Stone Directing or because it has a toned-down Al Pacino and rising star Jamie Foxx in it (who knew Lawrence Taylor could act?). It is not only because it is a football movie, either.

Any Given Sunday is an art movie about football. There is no clear hero or villain. There is not just one big game to win. It is a snapshot of life in all of its vulgarity and its beauty that uses football as a backdrop.

There are conversations about purity and corruption, about what ruined the game, and about how "life is a game of inches." Wrong moves, bad timing, and everywhere you look there is someplace to go, but sometimes you just can get to where you need to be.

And it's the best damn football movie I've ever seen.

Hammering Away

Outside they're building the future. A shiny new building of movie theaters and stores. A place where they will take your money and all you have to do is hand it to them, and I'm hearing U2's Bullet the Blue Sky in my head. The hammers fall and pilings are driven deep into the earth and outside it's America.

And as the piling drives with a whump...whump...whump, I'm reflecting on my own construction within me. Mine is not as loud, but sometimes late at night or early in the morning the gears turn and the noise inside my head can be thunderous like the whirring turning of the turbines of a dam.

I'm reading books and taking stock of my habits, my filters, and my personality and wondering just how much of what I don't like about the system, the world, am I going to have to accept to become a success.

You see; the problem is not being a success, but being a success within the confines of the system. You must surrender to the system to move up within it. And most of the time I have a pretty hard time accepting the system as it is. But hold your dreams of messianic savior of the world because this is not Terry Gilliam's Brazil, or is it?



Well, I have no choice now. I am going to have to find a way to move within the system and still get what I want. Some rules will have to be bent, others will definitely be broken. It's not just about getting what you want, but getting want you want the way you want to get it.

Like Frank says, "I did it my way." Shoo-bee-doo-bee-doo, baby.

Fear This

Fear gets deep down inside like some fungus under your toenails or some cancer in your bone marrow and just grows and feeds and grows as it undermines the integrity of whatever it infests.

Fear allows people to justify their wrong-doings. It is usually at the genesis of acts of violence and prejudice. Fear is a false salve to place over society's need to protect itself, and in this case, society's need to protect itself from...Itself:

'NORTHCOM's commander Gen. Ralph "Ed" Eberhart, who, the Wall Street Journal notes, is the "first general since the Civil War with operational authority exclusively over military forces within the U.S," was even more blunt when he told PBS's Newshour "[W]e are not going to be out there spying on people[, but] we get information from people who do."' - from Alternet

And that, by the way, is a very, very expensive babysitter.