For the Curious' Delectation

I mentioned having plans for the month of July, but those aren’t going to happen, unfortunately. Stay tuned, though, because I still intend to do what I was going to do, it’s just going to be later. Anyway, onto other things . . .

I don’t write about myself all too often here. I have before mentioned my distaste for online journals and logs that dwell on the personal affairs of the writer. Long, excruciating details of someone’s day to day affairs are dry and uninteresting, as I see it. And, again, as I have put up here before, I believe strictly in posting in regard to interesting subjects. I, for example, am not one of said types of matters.
My life is not the subject of this Blog, and it never will be. In general, everything I submit on this is tangentially related to my life, but never pertaining to it in any kind of direct and mundane manner. I have, in the past, though, made allusions to aspects of who I am and my life that were vague and hazy, and mostly used as filler for necessary context.
This post I dedicate to the readers who may not know me well enough — or at all — to be privy to the full stories behind those allusions, and may or may not have wondered, on occasion, what they are. This will not be a long delivery describing intimate details of myself. I will fill the holes I dug in previous entries, and theoretically nothing more.
Firstly, going back to the very first post I ever made, I am no longer nineteen, but I am still a student at Christopher Newport University. I am now twenty-one years old, and for reference I will tell you my birthday is March 18th, or Irish Hangover Day as I have dubbed it, since it is the day after St. Patrick’s Day. I continue my attendance at CNU as a student of Computer Science & Fine Art, plus a minor in Literature and Mathematics. The curriculum of a double-major and double-minor is by no means a four year plan. I assume I will be here for another two years or three at most. It’s a nice college, despite what the students say about it. So, yes, I am a Pisces that buys his own rum, and I have destined myself for way too many years of college education — onward.
My primary job is at Christopher Newport University, too, and to be precise I am under the employment of the Information Technology Services. I sit in a lab, answering questions and helping people with problems, and also act as a technician for my realm of thirty-five computers. It’s simple, easy, stress-free, and pays well enough for what it is. Secondarily, I work at Hungate’s Arts, Crafts, and Hobbies, as was explained in a recent post, but that will only last past the 5th of July. I’m quitting, because I’m starting a summer course and the time I have available to work isn’t congruent with what they want at all. And the management there is atrocious which causes the work environment to be miserable and the money’s not worth the stress in addition to the work. Don’t ever work for Hungate’s in Patrick Henry Mall in Newport News, Virginia.
Which brings me to another thing, actually: I live in Newport News, Virginia, but not because I am a resident student at CNU. In actuality, I commute and live not far from campus, where I have lived all my life. Yep, boring old Newport News or Newport Snooze or whatever farcical moniker one wishes to staple to the city has been my life-long home. Exciting? No. But, it’s true, and that’s the point here, isn’t it?
I have in some of the more recent posts been making reference to a roommate, but as I just pointed out I do not live in the dormitories of CNU, either. A friend lived in my parent’s house — which is also where I live, I should say — for the duration of the Spring Semester and first session of Summer classes. As of Wednesday, June 23rd, he has moved back to his usual place of residence. He was only here because he was looking for a place to stay temporarily, and that is what he did. It was, in the end, exactly how I had thought it would be to have a roommate, too: decidedly more different than any other living situation I’ve ever had — which isn’t a very diverse basis for comparison. It was good to have a friend around all the time, though, and despite the fact that we both grew tired of each other at times — I speak for him at liberty but with near certainty, as he is as introverted and private as I am — I don’t regret offering to share my living space with him in any form. In some posts to come, it may very make allusion to a “roommate,” since he was there when they were written, but let it be known that he is no more. (Also, today is concidentally his birthday, so here's a congratulations for turning twenty for him.)
That’s everything I intended to cover, which makes for a shorter entry than some, but I do so loathe blathering on and on about myself. Lastly, however, if you don’t know my real name? Then, I’m C. Jay, as far as it’s concerned, or sometimes C. Jay Kill or C. Jay Wrong. I exercise anonymity because my identity is meant to be extraneous to this Blog, and if I start handing out personal information indiscriminately, then it’ll be a distraction.

On a completely unrelated subject, but I will address it here since this is a sort of catch-all post, commentary will be enabled henceforth for certain posts. Rants and reviews will have the comments option turned on, that way if anyone wants to agree with or rebut me, then they can. To me, rants and reviews are more like discussions than impersonal essays or lectures, anyway. Also, this post will have comments enable for the sole purpose of, if any of my scarce few readers feel compelled, they can introduce themselves; that way, I know of whom to expect commentary. And, that is that.

On another general note, I have been looking back on my writing and revaluating my personal style, lately. I began to feel as though I was getting a bit too heavy with complex punctuation structure and usage, so I’m going to try and cut back, but not cut out, a lot of superfluous dashes, semi-colons and the sort. Hell, if you want, tell me what you think about how I write, and critique me for my feasibly pretentious and stupid writing, if you care. Outside of English classes, I hear very little in regard to anyone’s thoughts on how I write, so I’m a little curious. (Note: the link for commenting is underneath the title of the entry, next to my moniker and the time, where it says "X comments.")

Well, I was very satisfied with how the month went, and I feel like the schedule I am currently using will work, up until the Fall semester when I may revise it to cut back for time constraint. But, I will post about that bridge when I am burning it, or however that figure of speech goes. And this has gotten way too long with all the random tacked-on stuff, so I end this no—

Adios.

To A Mirror: I Know What Lies Behind You

We wade in normalcy, a paradox of monogomy,
The disjounted marriage of security and certainty,
Blind to the naked eye is what we ignore.

Medicated to placate the anomalies of humanity,
Stamped and shelved on society's inventory, or
Strapped bound and afraid for evermore.

And there are those who will never know
Of that which they may discover, or
All of everything they could show.

Hold on dearly to simplicity, a defense against change,
The long practice of comfortable nuetrality,
Deviance is defiance of destiny's intent.

Locked trapped in narrow corridors of amorality,
Weave and dance to the rythm of history, or
Face malicious fragmentation from our malevolent parent.

And there are those who will never find
Out about what they may uncover, or
All of everything they could unwind.

Speak vacantly of atrocity, the news of idiocy,
A forum of foolishness founded in plutocracy,
Vehement castration answers those voices who cry.

Prescribed complacancy in green bottles by handfuls,
Relentlessly dissected in a sterile laboratory, or
Shunned shameful and lonely until one may die.

And there are those who will never come
Close to their truest potential, or
Near to anything they could've done.

Scream profane and clarvoyant to the blue, clouded sky,
Hardy speech belted proudly from throats of the wronged,
March swiftly to the doors of cowardly mansions hiding
The bellies of swine who feast greedily from slop of the poor.

While the meek and mistreated will florish someday,
A time of damnation await the strangling fists, and
To those who rebuke me and all that I say:

"May God see you skewered on your own devices,
As the innocent lay croaking on the floor convulsing,
Due to the antidepressants for unknown ailments,
The downers to make the energetic disaffected,
The tools by which you asphyxiate our children,
And drive the elderly mad from longevity."

And there are those who will never hear
Of my rant on behalf of their suffering, or
See freedom from a single, sleepwalking, hazy year.

This is for them.

“Here you go, ma’am, and visiting hours end at two o’ clock.”

Lisa couldn’t really say she ever held much of any, if any, fondness for hospitals. They always held such grim connotations in her mind: sterile, white-walled buildings full of the dying and ailing. Sure, some people would tell her, when she quietly shivered upon entering the doors of a hospital, that this was where you went to get better, not die, but it never really changed the fact that she would rather be elsewhere.
And, on top of the crime of being a hospital, this was a special hospital, one for the psychologically, not physically, injured. Nothing, in Lisa’s mind, could be worse than a mental institution, because there was less of a margin for curing, here, and there was just something catastrophically depressing about the eyes of the patients that were lead around by the nurses.
Giving a tiny nod to the smiling, young-faced nurse at the reception desk, Lisa picked up the badge that signified her status and turned to find a seat. Looking around the lobby, she visually roamed from person to person, taking in the sight of each of the other visitors. An elderly couple sat together, both reading out-dated and tattered magazines, sharing an expression of dread, worry, and confusion; a single, lone girl sat in a chair, clutching her badge and blankly staring ahead, who looked to be perhaps seventeen or eighteen; a middle-aged couple sort of miserably failed at keeping up a hopeful, cheery disposition as they shared small-talk between themselves; a pair of dark-skinned, scraggly-haired men waited perfectly still and wild-eyed. Lisa really didn’t want to, nor need to, know what their individual purposes were for being here.
Taking a chair in a corner, far away from the others, she crossed her legs and rested her head in the palm of her hand. Allowing herself a moment to close her eyes and focus her mind, she tried to unwind slightly from what had, by almost anyone’s definition, been an unpleasant week. Visiting my sister in a nuthouse, Lisa thought, was not on my list of ‘Things I Always Wanted To Do.’
“Here to see someone, or be committed?” inquired a voice from her right-hand side. Blinking and turning her head, Lisa looked and saw that a pale, handsome man had taken the seat next to her. His eyes smile, she reflexively thought, and then greeted him with a tiny, forced and plastic smile of her own.
His features looked almost worn, she noticed, but there was an inimitable, warm glow to his aura of presence. His teeth shone ivory, and, if it were feasible, winked back at her from behind his lips. “I – uh, well . . . Visiting.” She uncrossed her legs and shifted her posture, straightening up in her seat and turning her head towards him. She sort of grimaced and held up the plastic, laminated tag for him to see. Her name, Lisa Jerusalem, was scrawled in sloppy, black, marker-letters across it.
“Never a pleasant affair, is it, Miss Jerusalem?” he empathised, “you have an interesting surname. Quite the definitive Christian name, you could say.” He leaned back and propped his elbow on the back of the seat. It was for the first time that she perceived the colour of his eyes: they were a very fetching hue of pale hazel, almost orange, with dancing flecks of silver. She met his gaze for a half of second, then looked away and down, ashamedly. He chuckled, softly; it sounded almost like a piano hitting low, bass keys, three in quick progression.
“It’s not — I mean, visiting is not pleasant,” she stuttered, from what seemed far away, all of a sudden, “Jerusalem is my real last name . . . I, uh, got it from my father?” Lisa squirmed in her seat, wriggling almost unnoticeably in discomfort. There really weren’t any intelligent-sounding replies to that question, of course.
“Ah, well, it has an interesting rhythm to it. What’s your middle name, just so that I may have an idea of the whole music of your name?”
“It’s Lisa Reason Jerusalem . . . “
“Oh, wonderful; Mmm, beautiful.” The man seemed to practically be tasting the sound of her name in his mouth. It was disturbing. “So, what, or shall I say who, brings you out to these hallowed halls of insanity?”
Ducking down in her chair, Lisa tried her best to remain inconspicuous in her corner, hoping to God nobody could hear this conversation. “Uh, my sister is being treated here. I came to see her.” I don’t think this guy is supposed to be wandering around the lobby — I bet he’s a patient that got loose, or something.
The man stood up and ran a hand through his medium-length, shaggy, black hair that curled all over his scalp and crashed onto his forehead, haphazardly. Having moved from a sitting to a standing position, it was blatantly obvious that his full height was verging on five feet, in tall shoes, which elicited a snigger from Lisa that she attempted to muffle with her hands. He spread his arms out and spoke, then, in a verbose projection like an actor on a stage.

“How we all belong in cages, made to sit and stare through blank pages. Scribing books in forgotten words of old, making copies for our pampered, golden lords. The time for rapture is upon us, the age of capture will fast fall behind, and we will rise from twisted waves of red, our heads fully in the white clouds of heaven.”

He then bowed with professionally mimicked flourish, and returned to his seat enthusiastically. Everybody in the lobby had stopped what they were doing to stare, bewildered and flabbergasted, at the short, little, self-selected performer. The two black-skinned men were hunched forward, mouths agape, revealing bright, white teeth; the teen-aged girl peeked over the fashion magazine she was holding in front of her face; the middle-aged couple who so pathetically acted falsely content now chattered excitedly between themselves, words like ‘lunatic’ and ‘escapee’ and ‘madman’ flitting into Lisa’s hearing; the elderly couple sadly exchanged a glance that spoke a lengthy amount of unheard words, as was the practice of those who had been around long enough to have seen it all. Lisa put her head in her hands and did her best to let her brown hair veil who she was.
“What do you think? I wrote it my—“
“You can come back now, Miss,” announced the soft, welcome voice of a young, clipboard-bearing nurse. Lisa scooped up her purse in a flurry and rushed over to the nurse, then faltered on her feet and spun around. Going back over to where she had been sitting, she grabbed the badge from the floor where she had absentmindedly let it drop from her hands, then virtually ran past the nurse in her desperate dash from the lobby. When she had gotten around the corner, where she knew nobody in the lobby could see her, she muttered, graciously, "Thank God." The black-haired poet jut out his bottom lip and pouted.

“Nobody ever stays to tell me what they think.”

O' Sweet, Glabrious Computer Screen, How I Shall Lament Thee

I thrive entirely on having access to a computer. As I prepare myself to head off to my second job, at Hungate’s Arts, Crafts, and Hobby Shop, where I have absolutely nothing around me that resembles a computer except for a register, I realise exactly how much I will miss my computer, how much I crave the ability to pull up a word processing program and type out whatever I feel fit to type, or browse the Internet for random reasons. Even my other hobbies, drawing and roleplaying for instance, are commonly practiced in conjunction with a computer nearby, drawing less so than roleplaying. What it comes down is that I hate handwriting anything, ever. I find it slow, and the inability to easily edit and rearrange the words I scrawl on paper is annoying. If I had to choose between — I don’t know — handwriting a poem or story in my head, or letting it drift back into the abyss of my subconscious, I usually pick the latter; I’ve tried writing down my ideas, and it always gets lost or misplaced, and I will never consult what I have written by hand as much as I consult what I have written in text. I don’t really know if this is a bad thing or not, really, because I am a computer programmer, and very much embrace technology in all forms (computers, electronics, gadgetry, I love it as long as it has buttons and a display I can fiddle with). I’m going to just accept it as part of who I am, and move on, though. Well, time to continue readying myself to be deprived of a computer for six hours. Le sigh.

Adios.

Vampires and Werewolves: Thankfully, With Nothing To Do With the World of Darkness or White-Wolf

I never did like Anne Rice or anything she ever wrote, nor have I ever been overly fond of anything inspired from that line of writing. Modern adaptations of the vampire folklore has always rung too overblown and melodramatic for my tastes . . . Which isn’t amazingly surprising, what with the dominance of Melodrama in the Theatre for so long in the 20th century. Anyway, that is beside the point, and what I’m basically getting at is that vampires as egregiously flamboyant and . . . British . . . nobles has always bothered me. There’s good reason I refuse to participate in any games of Vampire: The Masquerade or what have you.
So, all of that was a preface for my review of Van Hellsing, however. I went out with a couple friends on opening night and viewed this flick, not really expecting much, to be honest. I had no expectations for anything beyond a monster-filled action sort of ordeal. I was pleasantly surprised to receive something more than that, though; it was highly entertaining, on top of using interpretations of the folklore of vampires, werewolves, and literary figures that I wholeheartedly loved.
For starters, let’s go with the appearance of Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s monster. It was quite traditional, in many ways harkening back to classic horror approaches to cinema. Which is another thing: Van Hellsing rung very true to those old-time, immortal fixtures in horror history, but with modern graphics and effects that made it come off much more convincing; still, it had the undertones of all those hokey, dated films about monsters that everybody loved to watch as kids. I digress, though, so let me get back to Frankenstein: there was nothing more amusing to me than the character of Frankenstein’s monster in the movie. I’d rather not go into detail about what he did, but to see him portrayed as an intelligent, rational being that spoke for the side of reason and understanding, rather than a frothing, drooling bucket of flesh and bolts, made me happy. Granted, Frankenstein’s monster has always evoked a very large amount of sympathy, but never before have I seen him actually made to be well-spoken and articulate. It was immensely deviant from the original work of Shelley, but I’ve never been one to complain about people taking artistic liberties. In the end, I couldn’t help but smile every time it was fucking Frankenstein’s monster who hit Van Hellsing upside the head with logic.
Now, as can be inferred from the very first paragraph, I just don’t like modern interpretations of vampires, in most cases. They’re way too dainty and way too much like faeries with fangs, in my opinion. Now, in Van Hellsing, Dracula still sipped his glass of wine and acted as an aristocrat would — because, you know, Dracula was an aristocrat — but, also, he did his fair share of raging the fuck out and beating and stabbing the hell out of some motherfuckers. Dracula also wasn’t British, and was, instead, Slavic, ironically enough, considering he was from Romania. By the way, that wasn’t irony, that just made sense. Heh, they even had impaled skeletons out in front of his castle, as my roommate pointed out, that were direct references to the original tale, which the story of Dracula stemmed from, of Vlad the Impaler. In other words, I could not be more enamored with the image of a Dracula that had no qualms being vicious, brutal, ugly, nasty, and dirty. Too many times have I seen vampires who wrinkle their nose at the sight of blood, virtually. No, no, Dracula would not have any problem twisting your intestines out of your stomach by hand, and that’s what he basically did in Van Hellsing.
Admittedly, I am not overly familiar with the story of Van Hellsing, himself, nor have I read any of the literature upon which his character is based. So, I can’t really criticise the movie from that perspective. I will say, however, that I thought Hugh Jackman did a fine job of portraying someone who is internally conflicted with the suffering of having no past and being an inexplicably efficient killing machine. To put it another way and be frank about it, he did an excellent job reprising the role of Wolverine except in a floppy hat with a gigantic crossbow in place of claws protruding from the knuckles. It wasn’t really until I wrote the previous couple of sentences that I even noticed how similar the character of Van Hellsing and Wolverine are, but, yeah, they run along almost identical lines . . . No memory of their past, nor do they have any clue how long they’ve been around, but they do a damn good job at killing people and getting a job done for a higher authority that neither one really agrees with, entirely. Van Hellsing worked for the Church, but obviously did not consider himself a wholly holy man (my apologies for the turn of that phrase); Wolverine worked for Professor Xavier, but commonly struck out on his own in defiance of orders from the Professor. Don’t get me wrong here, either — I’m not registering a complaint about this, so much as I’m making a casual observation. Van Hellsing served very well as the anti-hero of the movie, and kicked a lot of ass. Has anyone else noticed that Hugh Jackman is the 21st century incarnate of Bruce Campbell?
Van Hellsing, overall, was a good, old-fashioned action movie with strong tinges of horror/monster flavour. A friend, in his writing about the movie, called attention to the comparison that can be made between this movie and The Mummy, with Brendan Frasier, which is a point on which I agree. The plot is straightforward, the characters aren’t complicated, and the theme is not anything outside that of the epic archetype. It didn’t make me think, and it didn’t make me cry . . . It made me laugh, and it made me smile, and it, most of all, entertained me very thoroughly.
Yes, I did completely fail to address the character of Anna Valerious, and that has to do with the fact that there is very little content added by her presence, really. She’s the female lead role, and she serves as the stereotypical strong-willed but out-matched love interest for the hero. Yes, yes, we’ve all seen this arrangement before: she wants to fight, but she can’t do it on her own, and is ineffectual up until a very vital crux point wherein she displays the inner qualities of her character by making a single, crucial action. I wasn’t particularly moved by Velerious, further than thinking that Kate Beckinsale is not all that attractive in a corset (or in general, in my opinion). Eh, she was there, and she had a function, but she just . . . Failed to add anything interesting to the mix, in the end.
Don’t go into Van Hellsing expecting the latest and greatest movie of all-time, and don’t go in expecting to see the figures of common lore treated as they usually are. Do expect to see an action-filled two hours of impressive effects and well-written dialogue. Blatantly ignoring Anne Rice and making corny monster movies look good, Van Hellsing rates at a low 13% Failure Rating — because that’s about what I felt about it, and the number is appropriate, damn it.
So, I was rereading this review before saving it, and realised I failed to acknowledge a character I did like, so let me do that real quick. The Friar Carl: comic relief, holy but sinful man of the cloth. Much like the Egyptian in The Mummy, he supplied the role of a coward sidekick who didn't want to really be there, but did help out, profusely. He was funny, and he was the brains of the bunch. Also, he handed out medieval-flavoured gadgetry like candy, so I can't say, "No," to that.
Come to think of it, there's really a lot more in this movie I could address, but I don't think I want to devote the time to it. So, in a series of short sentences, I will touch on several more things, quickly. Igor as a treacherous bastard was great. "Dracula has evil Oompa-Loompas, teehee." Why does the Holy Church of Rome have something akin to the British Secret Service of James Bond fame? I want a gatling crossbow. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde must've taken a vacation from the League of Extraordinary Gentleman long enough to cameo in this movie, by the way . . . And die. And much with the room for the sequelling and the oye, nice lady, too. Done.
[At a much later date, I came to be informed that Van Hellsing was directed by the same guy who did The Mummy, so I suppose that explains the uncanny similarity, eh?]

Adios.

What are my views on gay marriage? Here's a controversial topic that I never really did get around to throwing my two bits into the ring about, before. I always kind of meant to put my opinion out there, but never got around to it, when it was hot. Here goes, now, though.
Let me begin by addressing something that is highly related but not exactly gay marriage: marriage, in general, and its role in society. Nobody would be wrong to ever say that marriage was a religious ceremony and sanctified by the church, or any Church, for that matter . . . Many religions and cultures have varying versions of marriage, by differing names, usually. There is nothing political nor is there anything economical about it. Marriage isn't even really a social thing, so much as it has been, since the onset of the practice, been a purely religious one. Granted, society and religion in the world's history has been so interwoven into each other, in places, that it's difficult to distinguish differences.
So, what happened to that, is my question. Where did people decide to allow the government to regulate and pass laws regarding marriage? When did it go from being under the jurisdiction of the religions, to the jurisdiction of the government? If you don't realise that it has, in fact, transferred hands, look at how one goes about getting married, now. What's one of the first steps? Marriage licenses, which are obtained at city government buildings. Only then, after you have qualified and paid for a license, can you consult a priest or rabbi, pastor or reverend, or what have you, and go out and get hitched. The fuck is that? When did it become the same process to get engaged in Holy matrimony as it is to become eligible to purchase a gun? Ridiculous, I say.
I mean, think about it: you have to confer with the government to ascertain permission to be issued a piece of otherwise-meaningless paper that allows you to visit a third-party, private institution that deals in the wares you now have the right to own. What I really want to know is when this became acceptable and unquestioned?
Okay, so some people would say, I'm sure, that you can get married without the consent of the government, but it is not legally recognised in any form. Well, for one thing, why the hell are there legal ramifications for undergoing a religious practice, I query you, again. But, beside that point, I would nod and agree. "You're right," I would respond, "Somehow, it's the right thing for people to be more concerned with the block of the tax forms they check or the type of bank account they have, than with the romantic and, apparently, frivolous notion that marriage symbolises everlasting love or whatever."
Marriage is a convenience in this modern day and age. It allows you to file your April 15th Tax Forms jointly, it allows you legally co-own property, and it grants you certain privileges within economic and social circles. I call bullshit on this, too. Is this really what marriage is about to you people? Taxes and material possession? How retarded and superficial can we be, as a race?
I have somewhat digressed away from the original point, though, and now I will go back to concerning myself with the act of the marriage of homosexuals. Bush was putting his backing behind a proposed Constitutional amendment that would define and, thus, restrict marriage to the holy wedlock of a man and a woman: a pair of opposing gender, solely. What? When did it become kosher for the government, in any shape, form, or fashion, to direct the actions of priests and clergymen? What right-thinking American would, in good health, believe that an amendment to the Constitution to prohibit religions from engaging in a ritual is sensible? That notion breaks the First Amendment so many ways to Sunday that I don't thinkit'd be able to take a train and find its way back.
Was there, somewhere, I ask, that gay people were coercing ordained ministers into marrying them? Did the issuing of licenses to homosexual couples in New Mexico immediately lead to raging, angry lesbians holding shotguns to priests' heads while they recited the rite of joining? Did thin-lipped and effeminate men ambush black-and-white-collared, robe-wearing citizens in the streets of San Francisco and brutally push them into an alley, where a huge cake and hordes of relatives awaited the wedding? And let me get away from expounding on this, further, before I get carried away with the amusement of such images . . . In other words, who would this Amendment be protecting? Was there someone being victimised by gay marriage, other than those who were ideologically insulted and indignified simply by association of titles? Did the existence of Mr. and Mr. Jones, the gay husbands down the street, kill kittens or burn babies in their sleep or something?
Let me clarify one point, real quick, here, in the face of possible reproach to the previous two paragraphs: judges ignoring the higher authority of their own hierarchy of power is not something I condone. Legitimate avenues for the legislation of gay marriage exist, and should be persued — not hasty, adolescent acts of rebellion. Instead of just petulantly continuing to issue licenses, they should've started debating the nature of the penal code they were using to justify the handing-out of such licenses, in the first place; instead, they just kept going and it started ringing of, "Oh, shit, we've been busted by the Cops, better do as much damage as possible before they break down the door." Foolishness.
Does it somehow tarnish the sanctimony of marriage by allowing gay people to do it, too? In a way, I could see it; what would happen is that various sects of Christianity would condemn and damn other sects of Christianity for allowing it, and you'd get further segmentation among the Christians. But, surprise, Christian churches engaging in political maneuvering and games of stigma? Paint me Shocked and call me Blind.
If ministers want to marry gay people, and the dogma of the church they belong to does not disavow such a thing, and the church doesn't mind, and nobody is hurt except the stupid egotists who sit outside the gates and yell "Boo," then there is absolutely no reason why it should not go forth. And there is absolutely no reason why it should not be recognised as a legitimate marriage, either. There is nothing wrong with it, and it hurts nobody, except for the self-centered and egotistical idiots who take up the arms of "moral outrage," in the name of their flawed and ignorant exclusivity. These people can go rot, for all I care, because they're doing nothing but propagating their personal ideas on the grounds of social status and etiquette, not wanting to be the ones to go, "Hey, isn't it kind of pointless to forbid them from marrying," and receive the dirty looks and eye-daggers in the backs. It is the agenda of a Church to do as the Church deems right, not to follow the dictum of a bigoted congregation.
A lot of times, those who wish to disagree with gay marriage but are too cowardly to be open in their narrow-minded thinking will say, "Well, it's all semantics, really, and they could just get civil unions." Oh, that's odd, because I do recall that those aren't legal or recognised, either, nor do any conservatives or Republicans have any plans to allow that any time soon. Sure, Bush may have tried to pitifully cover his wasp-ass by saying, "Oh, uh, er, eh, uh, er, no, they could, uh, er, uh, er, eh, uh get civil unions, they just, uh, yeah, uh, er, eh, ah, yeah, wouldn't be called marriages." That's quite strange, Mr. President, since I see no sign of an initiative to allow any kind of civil union to be made nationally available to homosexuals. I don't see anyone, you or anybody around you, rallying to see this begin, either . . . Sounds like you're just raking candy-smelling flowers over your thick coating of horseshit on the ground, to me, but maybe that's just me.
Tell me, please, what makes it wrong for a priest to volunteer to marry two people who are of the same gender, but right for a priest to marry a drunken man and a bruised, drugged-up blonde in Las Vegas. Yes, because they are definitely preserving the Holy Sanctimony of Matrimony that way, by letting a teenage couple, including a pregnant 15-year-old and a wide-eyed, naivé boy, get married before the Holy Eyes of God. There's certainly moral decency to be found within the circles of Hollywood marriages that flash in the pan and Beverley Hills weddings of gold-plated cash, too. Gasp, what would the institution of marriage do without the assistance of the great, smiling government, protecting it from the blemish that homosexual marriages would be upon it: a mark of ugliness that would certainly spoil a perfectly innocent practice.
Also, I am going to dismiss that argument that goes something like, "The point of marriage is to have babies, and gay people can't have babies," because there's nowhere in a heterosexual marriage that the priest goes, "You two better have three kids by your third anniversary, or we're gonna huntcha down and annul the marriage!" Also, is there anything stopping barren women or sterile men from marrying? No, stupid.
I think I have sufficiently fumed out all of my opinion, here, and going any further would be redundant. Conclusion: when a man has anal sex with his wife, I don't see God smiting him with lightning bolts and storms of frogs the next day, do I?

Adios.

The Redoubtable Words of Sages

And now, a short sampling of the dialogue that is commonly exchanged throughout the day between that guy I live with and myself:

Me: “ . . . Which is why I refer to [Unearthed Arcana] as the third core rulebook.”
Roommate: “You mean the fourth?”
Me: “Yes, the fourth. I’m going to pretend that I can do basic math.”
Roommate: “I would hope so, it’s your minor.”
Me: “Yeah, well . . . Shut your hell up.”
Roommate: “And English is your other minor.”
Me: “God damn it.”

-

Roommate: “I just ate a peanut butter and blackberry jelly sandwich with a glass of blackberry wine while wearing no pants. My day is complete.”
Me: “There are so many parts of our lives that would be more complete only with marijuana.”

That is all.

Adios.

To Not Be A Roue

Sometimes, I wonder . . . About people. Well, that’s not true; I wonder a lot, not just some of the time. Every face that I see, voice I interact with, body I am in the same room with elicits a tiny, little train of thought in my mind. Immediately, I wonder where he’s from, what she does for a living, how he thinks and what she’s seen. It hinges on the fanatical, almost.
And, then, there are those people that evoke a larger locomotive metaphor for the abstract idea of electric impulses traversing through the lobes of my brain. Those who stare at me with glassy eyes, and behind them I see nothing; those whose faces are blank, whose mouths hang open an inch or two without notice. Their dress is typically a bit off-kilter, and their hair raggedy. They speak slowly, and their words are rushed together and cramped — hard to understand. Is it genetic? Is it a disorder, or result of an accident: some incident that heinously disfigured the structure of their mind? Or, worst of all, is it just the product of their environment . . . A lackluster education, abusive home-life, tragic loss or malicious reality?
And as I ponder the contents of strangers’ heads, I can see them looking at me . . . With my slight stutter and squinty, droopy eyes. And it’s at this point that I just close my eyes.

The Primogeniture of Assholes

The moral of the day for Memorial Day, 2004 was that nobody gets ahead by being an asshole, and, to a lesser extent, don’t piss off the person handling your money. I would like to say that I “struck a blow for the retail workers of America,” but that makes it sound a whole lot cooler than it really was, what I did. So, I struck a blow for the retail workers of America this Memorial Day — granted, a tiny one.
Hungate’s Creative Hobbies is an arts, crafts, and hobby store, to start off with a bit of exposition. I work there, as an employee — it’s a small store, in the Patrick Henry mall, so my job is multi-purpose. Everyone there is a cashier, a stocker, and a janitor. I can’t say it’s a bad job, because it’s simple and easy; the pay isn’t stupendous — nor is it stupenfucious — but it’s money for time, and time is money.
The worst part of the job comes down to the customers. It’s bad enough when you take into account the sheer number of little children who come through the store, because ninety-percent of the customers treat it as a toy store, not a hobby store, because we carry a few toys. Although, I can’t entirely blame this on the customers, because the store is definitely laid out in such a fashion where all the toys are visibly predominant up front. Anyway, the screaming children aren’t enough, but you get the constant flow of the socially inept.
As my roommate (who is also my co-worker) and I have discussed on multiple occasions, the fact of the matter is that those who practice the hobbies we cater to — models, art, roleplaying, astronomy, rockets, remote control — are typically those without social skill. It’s not that the nature of the hobbies is such that one can not be socially savvy to indulge, but it’s just that those who do proliferate with them tend to be the ones who have no social life and spend their time substituting hobbies for interaction with people. So, there is a constant stream of people who are soft-spoken, shy, introverted, and, at times, downright inaudible. On the other hand, the flipside of that extreme are those who are loud, boisterous, pushy and obnoxious: the geeks with attitude, per se. Or, in the middle of those two extremes are the ones that just never cease talking about their hobbies. None of this overly bothers us, mind you, because we, ourselves, are hideous geeks, albeit socially fluent ones, but geeks nonetheless. These people are cases for observation and interest, not that which crawls under our skin and causes rashes.
You also get the type of customer who just expects way too much from the workers in the shop (I swear, I’m leading up to my big point, soon). For example, a mother who wants to buy a microscope for her son’s biology project, and has me show her each and every microscope we own, looking for the perfect one. That specific instance didn’t irk me, honestly, because she was very nice about the whole thing — she was just obviously frantically rushed. There was also the guy who wanted a run-down on airbrushes and airbrush-compatible paints, and he was actually friendly about the whole thing, just consumed a lot of time with wanting to talk. I should point out that I was hired for my knowledge in art and gaming, and there are plenty of customers who ask me questions I can answer. But, there are a lot who ask me questions I have no clue about, so I have to fly by the seat of my pants.
This brings me to the next type of customer: those with obscure, random questions. “Do you carry screws that fit a cell phone?” “Do you have any embroidery kits?” “I’m looking for a Honda X300 1998 1/12 model . . . Do you have one?” “Yes, I need a figurine of a prairie dog.” I make none of these quotes up, and I get inquiries along the identical lines constantly. It’s a bit disheartening, because I like to believe I know where things are in the store, but then I get all these people who I can’t help more than, “Uh, maybe? Let me check,” or, in other cases, “Let me call someone to help you.” What it comes down to is that if you work in a store, you still aren’t going to have the inventory memorised, especially since it changes all the time and things move, not to mention the total lack of time to commit something like the entire contents of the shelves to heart. Most customers understand this, and are very forgiving . . . Most.
A young guy came into the store on Memorial Day, with his friend or whatever. He started out by asking if this screw (holding up a screw) could fit an Eclipse airbrush. My roommate and I were up front, so we asked him if we carried the selfsame airbrush, to which he replied with, “No, you have Pasche [sp] and Badger.” So, we apologised and said we couldn’t answer his question without having an airbrush to try fitting it onto, since neither one of us (or anyone who works there, at all) are experts on airbrushing. He walked off, continued shopping. He kept coming up to the counter, dropping off items to purchase, and going back to shopping; we provide baskets, but that’s not the point. Eventually, he came to us, again, with a question about “frisket” paper.
Now, I know art, and I didn’t know what he meant. He said it was “attachment paper, or contact paper.” And I know what contact paper is, and we don’t carry any contact paper. He also said it was sticky transparency, which I knew we had none of, either. I would’ve said these facts loud enough for him to hear, except, before I could really say anything, he snapped, “Do you people work at an art store?” To which, my roommate responded, loud enough for him to hear as he walked off to go search for it on his own, “No, we work at a hobby store with an art section.” I don’t think he heard that, though. The shift leader went off to help him look for it, too. But, apparently, as he was browsing around, he was muttering a stream of insults about us. “These people don’t know anything about art and work in a damn art store. They’re so fucking dumb,” and so on, and so on. Right, because frisquette paper is the end-all, be-all, definitive tool of all art, and everybody who does anything with art uses it. Oh, and we work in an art store, not an “arts, crafts, and hobbies,” store, like the big, bold letters above the entrance say. Also, yes, everybody who works in every store, ever, should know everything about every aspect of every product they ever sell, and that’s certainly possible when you sell hundreds and hundreds of items under a wide disparity of subjects. Yes, that is definitely reasonable, and nobody should go into a store and be responsible for their own damn hobbies and look for anything by their own damn self. It was about then that the shift leader said, “fuck ‘em,” and stopped helping him.
So, he eventually came to the front with a book on how to draw cartoons, which I couldn’t help but silently scorn him for the need to have. Not that I generally look down on anyone who buys the “How To” books, but, you know, he’s obviously such a master artist, since he knows what frisquette paper is, and needs a book to tell him how to draw cartoons. As I was checking him out, he wasn’t even bothering to put anything he was buying in my reach, and was making smart-ass comments while I was moving his shit onto the counter where I could scan it, saying things like, “Slow down, there, chief.” I really fucking hate people who use terms like, “chief,” “sport,” or “buddy,” in a blatantly condescending manner.
And the beauty of this customer just peaked when he noticed that behind the counter were rolls of Friskfilm Matte Finishing sheets. This, I knew what was, and it’s definitely not contact paper. I have always, in the entire course of my life as an artist, heard it called matte paper, or matting sheets. Never, ever have I heard it called frisquette paper, even though it is, admittedly, for the process of frisking. Oh, but he couldn’t be anything but sarcastic and a jerk about it, too, yelling, “By George, I think you have it!” over and over, and laughing that hollow laugh of those who think they’re right and better than present company. I hate that laugh, too. By now, everybody just wanted to gouge this kid’s eyes out with the knives they have sitting on the counter in a bucket (eight dollars a pop).
So, I rang him up and he paid, and I was counting his change out, when I thought, “Fuck this bastard, he doesn’t deserve the right change.” I handed him about $1.70 short of his actual change, and bid him a good day . . . Of course he didn’t count it, or notice that I had given him the wrong change, because I am obviously an imbecilic monkey who does nothing but serve his function. In retrospect, I really wish I had just overcharged him by about ten dollars, given him a “special discount,” and taken much more of his money. But, I was satisfied in knowing that I paid our store $1.70 for the inconvenience of his existence . . . I really wish I had done more to fuck with him, though.
Oh well, the idea here is that you shouldn’t be a dick to those who handle your money, and those who have done nothing to wrong you. There’s a reason the matte paper is behind the counter, under a shelf, hardly noticeable: nobody fucking cares about it, and nobody hardly uses it. Get the fuck over yourself, Sire I-Need-An-Instruction-Booklet-For-Drawing-Garfield. You should never be that proud of your hobby, really, and you should never expect anyone else to care about what you can do, or be impressed with it, or worship the ground you stand upon. Nobody cares if you can airbrush a cartoon figure. Nobody cares if you use matte paper. Nobody cares that you shop at Hungate’s, when there are five better, actual art stores nearby. Nobody likes you, you Bob-Marley-looking son-of-a-bitch.
Everybody should have to work a job for two years that involves dealing with stupid or rude people. It gives you an appreciation for those that do perform those jobs, and those who put up, day-in and day-out, with bullshit. That way, there wouldn’t be any bullshit, because everybody would appreciate the services of everybody else, and the world would be happier. But, that’s not going to happen, is it? God damn it.

Adios.

Are The Residents Home?

"Drinks all around?" asked the drunkard,
Steeped on his spirit and perched like a crow,
On edge of the stool, in bleary-eyed reverie,
He smiled like a scarecrow and smelled like a fool,
"Mister, mister, buy all ‘round."

Human, human, all too human,
Moving, moving through the dance,
Step to step, for note to note, slurred,
Splattered on the wall: red, white, and blue,
Cracked teeth behind white lips, under red eye,
Looming overhead, the birds will feed,
The birds will feed and eat us dry, deceived.

"Barkeep master, lord of alcoholic disaster,
Show me how to mix the recipe for love,
Tell me all the secrets of the free, white dove,"
Sang the poet, inebriated on words and wine,
Teetering precariously on his seat of flame,
Never anchored long onto anything.

Playing violins in rows of brass,
Orchestra conducted by the hands of an angel,
Timed, timed, timed by the fine grind,
Click, click goes the metronome, another beat,
Two-four signature in C-major, they say,
Watch where you let your children play,
Because nobody said the streets were safe,
Now soars the trumpets, then drop the oboe . . .

"Fell to murder, came to sin, all the story of my kin,
Told by ravens, lamented by men, even I cry,
Now and then, but all is quiet, inside this riot,
Inside this head, the buzzing is unbearable,
So pour me another: pour me three,
Two pints of vodka and gin, and here's to me."

Jack the Ripper was a Saint in some eyes,
Cleaned the streets and rid the world of rabble,
Whores and beggars, so good riddance,
By a knife, by the law, by the bye,
Who cares that saw?

Machines of circuitry snap and die,
No sanity left to run the wires,
So break the motherboard,
Replace the daughter,
And start again.

"They told me it was a sure thing," cried the jester,
Village idiots have no place in this modern city,
But there's always a position for ridicule,
"They swore it would pay-off tenfold," cried the dupe,
Suckers by the dozen, losers in truckloads,
The city is a cesspool of callous concrete, it's written,
Brick by brick, it'll grin and turn the trick,
Drip the soul out of each and every citizen,
This is one nation, one radio station, tuned-out,
Turned-down, news at eleven, the clown is dead,
Found two tequilas up and one brain short,
Forcibly, picturesquely, gruesomely, ejected by gunshot.

Trill of the trumpets greet the green, salad days,
Stride on the floor is upbeat more so than ever before,
And the men are all dressed to the nine, the women look so fine,
Their bodices laced high and legs that reach the sky,
Children on the side, sipping their punch, kicking their feet,
It's time to start the last dance of the Red Masque,
Homecoming Day, come on, let's celebrate.

Chorus of voices, eloquent and relevant,
Reminiscent of medieval modality, the critic says,
"A bit too novel, still quaint in the ancestral sound,"
He sleeps in the gutter, though, and drinks of the devil,
Later that same night, he nodded his head non-stop,
Mumbling to himself, "Bach is dead, Bach is dead,
Bach is dead."

(The Residents, in the corner, shrug.)

“There once was a man who came here every day . . . ”

These words came from the mouth of an extremely tall, slouched man leaning against a shovel firmly planted in the ground. His height border-lined on the monstrous, and his limbs were slender and stick-like; his hands poking from the sleeve of his frayed, black, wool jacket, with long, gnarled fingers ended with nails jagged and charcoal with dirt. His hair nearly did not exist on the top of his head, but from the back, the stringy, graying, yellowish-orange bundle draped down over his shoulders, though. Above his lip and nestled on his chin was a scraggly bush of dark, gray strands, as well. His face was wrinkled, his eyes were sunken, and his eyebrows were comically bushy — this was a picture of someone who undoubtedly lived an eccentric and unique life.

“ . . . He walked the graveyard like a zombie, or a sleepwalker, weaving between the stones and statues . . . “

This classic image was speaking to another man, who appeared much younger and less anachronistic. The other man had short, cropped black-brown hair, and fair, unblemished, Spanish skin. He was three-fifths as tall as the shovel-holder, and significantly bulkier; he wore a heavy, blue, denim coat that either made him look more muscular than he was, or hid his true, Herculean physique. His gaze was intently absent, entirely focused on other things than what was going on around him. His black eyes, shadowed under thick brows, refused to meet anything anywhere in the vicinity of the talking scarecrow.

“ . . . Nobody really knew who he was here to visit, what cliientéle he came to inspect . . . “

He needs a top hat, thought the silent, Hispanic man, swirling the saliva in his mouth around in boredom. ’S cold. “Eh, maybe we should dig this hole, hombre?” he suggested, shifting in his posture and swinging the shovel he had in his hands up to his right shoulder. As he moved, the crunch of the white snow sounded underneath his boots. The first man cast no side-long glance at the other, seeming to acknowledge his presence even less than the other did his; his head continued to be tilted upward and his barely-visible, squinting slits for eyes proceeded to not stop examining the cloudless, empty, blue sky.

“ . . . Some say he was the widower of a beautiful maiden, unjustly taken by premature death in disease; yet others, they say he was a ghost, or demon, or devil. People say a lot, and I dun’ really pay no mind . . . “

The row of headstones they stood before stretched left and right, up and down the white field, for as far as they eye could see; many, many more selfsame rows criss-crossed around them — it was a very, very large cemetery. Beneath the thin layer of snow, grass could be seen poking out, complaining that it had been a sudden and unpredicted snowstorm, loudly. Right now, however, the temperature was a frosty zero degrees Celsius, as was the trend for the dead-middle of Winter, so the grass would have to suffer and wait for it to get warmer for the snow to melt. In the far distance, northward, a pine forest rose out of the landscape; to the south, a red-and-black brick building stood proudly. The cemetery was located on a rolling hill, so the effect of the whole panorama was spectacularly dramatic and well-noted by the locals as the scene to be at on a mystical night with a pale, red, whole moon — if you were into that kind of thing, of course.

“ . . . They called him Walker, because all he did was walk, carefully and slowly, stepping respectfully around the graves. That’s somethin’ I can ‘preciate, there, too: a man who knows not to tread on the Dead. The whole time he walked, though, he store at ‘is feet, too, not at nobody’s final resting place . . . “

It was a varied and eclectic showcase of graves. Some were marked by simple, rounded tombstones, while Greek and Latin crosses lorded over other gravesites. At the peak of the hill, where it was the highest up, a monumental, angelic woman stood guard over the whole place, with wings splayed out in full glory and her body poised defiantly; chest stuck out, back arched, arms bent and in one hand gripped a sword, the other a Holy Bible. The marble-gray lady was draped in a Roman toga, with bare feet and bracers strapped to her forearm. Around her head, a crown of thorny roses sat, cutting into her stone flesh. The statue had been built ages ago, thus it was weather-worn, eroded by the winds and rains of the past. This was her Kingdom, the land of stone shapes of every shape and size, cracked and overgrown with weeds.

“ . . . . On one par-tic-u-lar o-ccasion, they say, he knelt down and prayed at the feet of Our Lady Death — which is what they call ‘er over there on the hill — for one whole night, during the Harvest Moon. All kinda sounds like a folk tale, I s’pose, eh?”

The old scarecrow let out a raspy chuckle and spat out a black chunk of tobacco onto the ground. “C’mon, now, José, let us dig ourselves a hole,” he instructed, stretching his back then hefting his shovel. “Alright, jefe,” agreed the stronger man. They both began to plant the head of their tools into the ground, wrenching it in with their feet and strength, tossing aside mounds of snow, grass and dirt. In the short span of three-quarters of an hour, they had constructed a square pit of approximately six-by-three-by-six, at the foot of a small, simple, rectangular gravestone. The letters, intricately inscribed on the marker, were:

Marcus Redford O’Briarfield

My Pledge of Sentience

I have something to state. I would say that I have something to confess, but that would imply that I kept it secret. I would also simply say that I have something to share, but that, too, would carry implications that aren't true: namely, that I have the intention of sharing anything with you people — the voices in my head that represent those who know me and know of me, have heard my voice and read my words . . . Anyway, what I have to state is this: I am no part of anything.
And, swiftly, let me elaborate: I adhere to the staples or tenets of nothing that stretchs any further than outside my own head. Right, and to restate the same thing, but possibly in simpler terms — some people would just say "in other words" — I take no part in organisation, in any form.
I have a philosophical opposition to the idea of organisation. Basically, I am principally no member of any party of sorts . . . It's hard to define exactly how I approach society, seeing as to how I hold no regard or concern for social affairs.
I'm not trying to say I'm an introvert. Nor am I attempting to establish some sort of identity as an Anarchist, although I may very well be an Anarchist. As an Anarchist, I would not be a part of the group those who are considered Anarchists belong. In a way, I hold no loyalties . . . Take no pride in being a part of anything . . . Do not identify with anybody other than myself. I don't relate well, eh?
I pledge no allegiance to any flag. I am not a citizen of any nation, nor am I the supporter of any political party — I may vote Green, but I am not Green, myself. Everything is a temporary state of agreement between me and something else, and nothing more than that: transient, superfluous, and bound to pass. I am not a punk, nor was I ever really punk; however, I do listen to punk rock. I am not an otaku, even though I attend conventions and watch my fair share of anime. I am not a roleplayer, even though I run a roleplaying game and commonly indulge in the act of roleplaying. It sort of sounds strange to say, but all these things are true merely because I know that I base no obligatory or relational behaviour on these things that I do.
You play D&D? Fine, I still won't care to get to know you, based on that . . . You vote Green? Good for you, and I agree with that, but it does not affect my enthusiasm in being your friend. You, too, are a Christian? That's fine: I really doubt we would agree, even religiously or spiritually. My identity is my own and it is a hodge-podge, mish-mash of everything I have ever known and done, and it is not swayed by what others of partial agreement think.
I'm finding it hard to remember why I thought it necessary to write this, honestly, and I do write for this under the rule of thumb that everything written is done so in one sitting. So, if I stop now, this point will be lost to that vacuous space of nothingness where all my lost trains of thought wreck . . . But, I would not be doing what I have already done justice by not having a conclusion.
Conclusion: I am not a part of whatever you may belong. I am not your friend because you are my friend's friend, and I am not your friend because you are in the club I attend. You like what you like, and I like what I like, and I do not like you because you may like what I like. In fact, I may very well not like you if you like everything I like, or are friend to everybody I am, as well . . . Why? Because, I am quite insane, you know.

Adios.

Time for a review that most of my readers will probably vastly disagree with: Nirvana, 100% Failure Rating. And just as a reminder, one-hundred percent is as bad as it gets on my Failure Rating System (FRS).
That's right, folks: fuck Nirvana. Doubly over, fuck Kurt Cobain. And it's not that I was an enemy of the early 90's Seattle grunge movement, and it's not that I "hate them because they're popular." No, quite the opposite is true . . . Grunge music harkens to acid rock, which is influenced by modern Jazz a la later Miles Davis and the such . . . Which is music I'm very fond of, truly. And, sure, I hate MTV and I hated MTV back when everybody claims it was "cool," which is to say all the white people who don't like rap say that it was cool and played music, versus the current fad of hip-hop culture that is definitely not Green Day and Weezer. Nirvana stood and still stands for MTV of that era: decidedly and purposefully white; moreover, it was a time of white, suburban teenagers . . . Which is probably why I know so many people who worship the MTV of that era, I know way too many suburbanite white kids.
My deep-seated hatred for Nirvana doesn't stem from the generic, bland, and over-distorted instrumentals. Indeed, I was not impressed by them, but that did not lead me to celebrate Kurt Cobain's death. I should mention that I really did have a personal celebration when he was found dead, too. Am I a horrible human being? Yes. Anyway . . . No, it was not the music of Nirvana that made me sick.
Is it the lyrics that Cobain so (im)passionately belted out that bother me so? Somewhat, I'm sure . . . At best, Nirvana's lyrics were the product of bad poetics. I would be slightly a hypocrite to complain of a band's lyrics being nonsensical poetics, though, because I do listen to Gravity Kills. However, what redeems that band, in my eyes, is the interesting and innovative instrumentals, of course -- which Nirvana just utterly lacked. Don't tell me about how deep and stirring Nirvana's lyrics were. Don't tell me how they spoke to a generation and how they were controversial and brave. I will call bullshit on your ass so fast, it may be left spinning for one whole cycle of sin . . . The purpose of that previous sentence was to demonstrate, for one, a typical lyric of Nirvana, and, also, to show how easy it is to make that shit up. It took me no time to type that out, and, trust me, it's garbage, albeit catchy. Which is exactly how Nirvana made its living: being catchy.
Yes, that's right. Nirvana was catchy, because Nirvana was grunge-pop. I realised that a long, long time ago, back when they were still turning out radio/MTV hit after hit. Cobain fooled an entire audience into believe his little pop investment was so much more than that. And then he died, which just cemented his place on that golden pedestal of fame and glory he had built himself on. Had Nirvana continued to exist, it would've done what all pop bands do, and slowly dwindle away into obscurity when its time in the limelight has expired. It would've came and gone, like Blind Melon or Silverchair. As all bands who do so have, Nirvana would've had a cult following of devoted fans who would never let go . . . Oh, well, the problem is that Cobain died -- two barrels down the throat -- and now I have to listen to people talk about how awesome Nirvana was, despite them never having listened to them when they were alive. Fuck famous suicide "victims."
Let me get right down to the source of my boiling disdain for Nirvana, though. Nirvana was a bastion for the whiny, angsty, spoiled, suburban teenager. It spoke to the depressed, little retards who twiddle their 15-year-old thumbs and hate their parents for not letting them go down to the crack-house to attend the party all the "cool kids" are at. Read Cobain's lyrics, and read the shit that high-schoolers scribble in the margins of their math notes; read Cobain's lyrics, and hear the generic, shallow voice of a boy who only got the hang of living long enough to declare how crappy living is. Rape me? Fucking hell no, Cobain never got raped, in any form . . . When he wrote that song, he was enjoying fame and fortune, by then. Smells Like Teen Spirit said it all, whether or not it was supposed to be a satire of teenage spirit. That's right, Cobain -- wherever your corpse may be rotting -- you catered to everything you mocked.
Nirvana gave an entire generation of bitchy suburbanites an excuse to get excited over a band. It brought out of the woodwork all of those teenage girls with "deep" poetry, and all those angry, antisocial teenage boys with entitlement complexes. Out came a horde of drones bowing down to Nirvana, flooding the streets with their middle-class woes and overblown stress . . . I can't get the Camaro I want; my boyfriend won't lick me right; life is a spiralling void of devoid spirals, because school sucks . . . Can I persecute a band for its following? I sure as Hell can, boys and girls.
Moreso than the fact that Nirvana attracted a crowd of retarded, white kids who gnawed on their gloom-cookies (to borrow a term), but it really did stand for everything that these idiots touted. Grey, bleak, boring, dull, generic, blurry, drab, run-of-the-mill angst and sorrow. Nirvana was, in a way, the whiniest band in the history of music, in my humble opinion. If you only listened to the instrumentals, they were uninspiring. If you only read the lyrics, they were typical and contrived poems out of suburbia. If you listened to it all, well . . . You got a whiny voice straining over bad guitars about how life was confusing, or society is silly. If you want to do that, you have to get something unique: talented voice, musicians, or a gimmick. Nirvana's gimmick was that they were bored. What? No, that wasn't anything new. Tortured artist? Fuck you, Dickinson, Rothko and Van Gogh did that shit twenty times better.
Kurt Cobain was sad. Kurt Cobain was bored. Kurt Cobain got money. Kurt Cobain's head go blam.

Adios.

What are my views on premarital sex? It is probably the single-most blatant source of problems in the community of teenagers to young adults that has ever existed. That’s right, this assumably liberal entity does not have a “It’s your choice, have fun,” standpoint on sex. I’ve never been quite sure why I possess this oddly-placed view, among a slew of tolerant and understanding ones. However, it is really not in my capacity to give a fuck about the problems you have because you’re having sex. Which leads me to a tie-in with my viewpoint on abortion.
It may very well come down to that I am quite unsympathetic towards people who make decisions that I regard as poor, no matter how the light shines. Also, to clarify, let me spin this scenario in the light that is cast inside my skull: I wish to engage in an act that is, by nature, the source of the procreation of our race and the resultant for which is inevitably children, but I want to do it for the carnal pleasure and momentary passion of it all. Oh, oh, wait, a single, moist tear is dripping down my cheek for your plight, my child — except, of course, not.
There’s something innately hedonistic about this behaviour, and I have never particularly cared for hedonism; which is, invariably, another source of my disdain for this practice. Hey, maybe it feels good, but it causes problems without exception. I don’t necessarily have to elaborate on these issues, and some of them are just plain and simple, but I can not help expounding on something just for the sake of elaboration and supporting ideas.
Probably the most subtle and overlooked result of having sex is the fact that it throws your fucking hormonal system into swirling chaos. Moreso for females than males, it is still the case that when you start having sex, you’re going to start processing shit in your head differently, and becoming emotionally altered. Sex is, in a way, a mood-altering drug, which is another reason I probably don’t condone the free distribution of it, on the corner . . . (I don’t condone prostitution, but I do see the obvious benefit in its legalisation, though — another time for that rant.)
In fact, that very well may be exactly why it sickens me to see teenagers and young people throwing it around like candy; it is, simply put, a mood-altering drug: sex is Ritalin. It dulls your senses, it glazes over reality, and it makes life a happy, colourful world. Perhaps, when all is said and done, I am an extreme realist, but denial of reality and emotion for the sake of pleasure just rubs me wrong. “I don’t like school, life is shit, my parents don’t understand me, I’m unsure of my purpose in this world — but I sure can fuck! Whoo!” Fucking fuck that idea, in its ass. If you want to use sex as an excuse to find happiness for a flitting minute or two, in bed, have fun at it, sure, but understand that I think you’re a weak-willed moron.
Sex for pleasure is denial of the nature of the act. It is an exploitation of a function built into our biology for the sake of hedonism. The act of sex is something that I’ve always chose to hold sacred, and, as with all things held sacred, corruptions of such a thing piss me off . . . They piss me off enough to come off sounding like a conservative Bible-thumper, honestly. I read back on the paragraphs that I’ve already typed out, and I know how Puritan and holier-than-thou they come off, and I really don’t care. I’ve seen too many people fuck-up their already fucked-up lives by adding sex to the equation, and I hear too many sob stories that ring empty to my ears because they wouldn’t exist, otherwise, if it weren’t for sex being involved.
“My parents would utterly kill me and disown me if they knew I was having sex, and now I’m pregnant! Wah!” Oh, bull-fucking-wah, bitches, I don’t want to hear it — you made the choice, and embrace the consequence. You put something in your vagina, something comes out, eventually — it’s like one of those grapple-machines, where you put in a quarter and have a slim, nigh-impossible chance of walking away with a cute, plush animal. And what’s abortion other than some poor kid’s excuse to avoid the consequences and keep shit hidden from their reality? Nine times out of ten, it’s going to be the same story — he fucked her, they don’t want the baby, and she has to go get her uterus hoovered — and I don’t give a flying fuck, because there was an easy way to avoid that, if you just gave up fifteen minutes staining sheets.
Already I know what I get for expression of such a view — oh, what about the rape victims? What about the rape victims, who have such a tiny, minuscule chance of getting pregnant while being raped that the percentage of rape victims who do hardly merits the need for free clinics on every third corner. I’m not so heartless as to deny this marginal amount of the population fair treatment — regulate and prescribe early-abortion pills, if need be. Give doctors the license to dole out such treatment to people who have been unwillingly impregnated. Is this ever going to happen? No, because people are too hung up on their morals and philosophies to compromise. The conservatives are sanctimonious, and the liberals are fucking hippies about it.
What it comes down to, with abortion and me, is that I don’t think Suzy the Sixteen-Year-Old Slut deserves a trip to the womb-cleaners because she fucks around, but I do think there are people who seriously need them. Rape victims, yes, and those who will experience horrid medical trauma if birth is given; also, if lethal gene combinations are detected in the fetus and it is inevitable that it will die when reaching the light, then prescribed abortion would not be an unviable option. I’m sick of hearing about how it’s “my body, my choice,” too, because it’s certainly the body of the cripples with two, inoperable legs that would like to have the choice of affording corrective measures to get them fixed — do you see them carrying fucking signs? That’s right, abortions are an avenue of society just like all other medical procedures and surgeries, and that means that it’s the decision of society to condone them. Do I like the fact that this is true, that society dictates access to resources and means to certain ends? Fuck no, but I accept it. Get a better argument, if you want intelligent people to listen.
You fuck. You’re fertile. It sucks to be you. Do I cry crocodile tears in the name of every teenage girl who has “unfortunately” been found to be pregnant at fifteen? No. Do I care about couples who suddenly find themselves with a crisis on their hands when they spent years and years playing the numbers, gambling that everything would go right and nothing would get inseminated, and finally lost at the roulette wheel? No. Is every single instance of every single variation on every single similar scenario avoidable? Yes, which is exactly why I have no sympathy for them — don’t put yourself in traffic and bitch that you got hit by a car. It’s the reason why roads were built: to cater to cars moving at a high velocity. You were born with genitalia for a pretty damn obvious reason, too, and the side-effects are great . . . Er, wait, nowadays the “side-effect” would be a baby, I imagine, and the main point of sex is carnal indulgence. Feh, fuck you, people.
Some people will tell me that half the pursuit of fun in life is taking risks. Right, and, somehow, it’s fun that people keep themselves in detrimental relationships for elongated periods of time due to “good sex?” It’s not fun when it’s trading another facet of pleasure in life for a superfluous and temporary replacement. You create these strings of connection that never break, these memories and feelings that are drilled and cemented into your brain, and then are surprised to find out that the effects were lingering years later? Moreoever, sex fuels the most degrading aspects of our society, and it keeps afloat some of the most demeaning and retarded practices. We buy overpriced clothing to get sex; we pay money for bad mixed drinks for sex; we attend establishments full of horrendous music and smoky bars for sex; we pander to other people’s emotions and squelch our own, all the while growing suppressed and psychologically-damaged, for sex; I hope it makes you happy, because it certainly makes you ugly.
By the way, in conclusion to the abortion argument, “it’s my body, it’s my choice,” in my mind, immediately translates to “it’s my body, I want to be able to misuse it and shirk the repercussions of such acts, all the while blaming society and everybody else for my own ignorant decisions.” I really only felt like putting that previous sentence in to heinously offend anyone who is, as of yet, not. Mission accomplished, I truly hope.
Not everyone treats sex as flippantly as I make it sound like everybody in the world does. And not everybody alive will experience the downside to sex — mostly because they don’t surface in all cases. And not everybody in the world will ever find themselves with sexually transmitted diseases, and wonder how it happened. Which is another thing: STDs continue to circulate and wipe out humanity only because people, apparently, refuse to act intelligently about sex. Oh, testing and discretion in the selection of my partner for the night? I’m too inebriated to worry about that, until after the fact; which, of course, is when I’ll start expecting people to recite my name in touching, heartfelt displays of sympathy for “victims” of a disease that I only contracted via my own actions. Aw, the porn industry is heavily swept with AIDS and herpes? Surprise! Jesus Christ, could the human race be a bit more of a horde of blithering, drooling fucktards about sex?
I sometimes — more oft than not — lose hope in the continuation of this species I belong to when I look around and see how people have corrupted sex. “It’s fun! Like a game! Let’s all do it, all the time!” We’ve been instilled with this natural drive to spread our kind like rabbits, and the best we can do is use it to sell beer? How about some creative applications of sex appeal in marketing and lifestyle choices, huh? It’d, at least, be amusing to see people parading about in favour of having sex with fruit, or candy, or donuts . . . Or something. Use a hot woman to sell tampons, I say. Why? Because the look of stricken terror on the machismo apes that slobber over supermodels would be priceless when they see Tyra Banks talking about her leaky labia. But, no, no, these things aren’t going to happen; instead, people will continue to use sex as a means of escapism and hedonism. Some people smoke pot, some people fuck on the fly — some people do both, and they never live long or healthily.
I really could rant on about this for hours, but I’m already encroaching upon that personal limit I’ve set for myself for any one given entry on this Blog. In conclusion: kittens are happy because they don’t fuck around with slutty teenagers. “Meow,” they say, as they paw at the ball of yarn dangling over their noses, and think about their intelligent life-choices to not engage in frivolous sex and to, instead, chase string. Meow, indeed, Mr. Kitten . . . Meow, indeed.

Adios.

I shouldn’t rant at 4:00 AM

She moved with all the liquid motion of a tall glass of beer, weaving in and out of the crowd in front of her like a professional skier performing a slalom. Her hair, tied up in a bow, swung back and forth furiously, mirroring the ebb and flow of the crowd that surrounded and enveloped the woman. She had golden brown eyes that shone, moving forward against the flow of salmon-minded men and women in suits and blouses, shirts and trousers, slacks and heels — the effect was akin to a car’s headlight glaring into your eyes late at night, from the lane for incoming traffic. She tightly gripped in one hand a brown, leather purse that bulged with weight, and in the other, a piece of paper with something handwritten across one side. That day, she was wearing a pale orange cotton blouse, with a crimson-red skirt that reached down to mid-thigh length, with which she had on white stockings and gray, high-top sneakers. As she pushed through the crowd, her mind turned to heftier matters than the concern of bumping into strangers, though.
“I wonder if this is going anywhere?” she thought, in a contemplative matter of ways, “And I can’t imagine what I’m doing here . . . All these people? And this note?” She glanced down at the paper in her hand, reading, for the fortieth time in three minutes, the words: BE AN INTERESTING CHARACTER! “Some sort of editorial instructions from a divine being?” She shook her head and squinted her eyes against the rays of the setting sun that were beginning to shred across her field of vision.
Over the bustle of the crowd, the gruff voice of a man floated into her hearing. “Hey, why don’t you dance or something?” Confused, the woman sharply swiveled her head left and right, in search of the request that felt almost like a telepathic message sent straight into her brain. “Yeah, you. Dance, or sing. Display an unique and distinguishing trait.” Furrowing her brow, she bit her bottom-lip and tried to walk a little faster. “You’re no good.”
Suddenly, the scene switched to complete white, a blank and empty canvas yet to be painted. The woman yelped in surprise, and tried to cease her forward motion quickly enough to keep herself from falling. Slightly losing her balance and stumbling a few paces, she caught herself and looked around, stepping in a small circle. In bewilderment, her pink-lipped mouth gaped open and no words could escape her throat. Pushing the lump that had formed in her throat aside, though, she croaked out one syllable: “No?”
“You should’ve been more engaging. Nobody wants to read about a woman walking through a crowd. Seriously, where’s the intrigue and mystery in that? ‘Oh no, is she late to work or a date!’ Who cares?” the same voice echoed in her skull, seeming to rebound off of all four lobes and redouble in volume each time. Falling to her knees, the woman hugged herself and began to frantically sob.
“But . . . But, you didn’t give me a chance! I swear, I–I can be a good character . . . I promise!” she whimpered, and stuck her lip out in a pout. “It’s not fair, I’m so . . . So, unrealized!”
Out of nowhere, a man stepped forward with a pen and loomed over the crying figure of the woman. “Pitiful and wretched . . . Should’ve conveyed that kind of image sooner! For a good reason! Pleading for your existence as a character wouldn’t make sense. Hell, and you had to write a note to yourself? Show me a good character that has to remind himself to be good! Did Hamlet stop and ask for lines halfway through his play? Did you ever see the carriage-driver in Dickinson’s poem stop and do a dance, screaming ‘Look at me! I’m death! Death, death, death!’ No! that’s because nothing should be obvious. You just think to yourself that you’ve got to be interesting and mysterious, and then do something to do so. It’s simple.”
“Aw, but . . . You didn’t give me anything to work with! I was just . . . Alive? What motivation is that? I need reason, history, relationships! Something, you know?” the woman gazed upward, her eyes red and wet, cheeks stained. She tried to wipe the salty tears from her face with the back of her hand, but just smeared the eyeliner she had been wearing. “That’s not fair! Not fair!”
“Well, maybe you should’ve thought about that sooner! Hell, maybe you should’ve thrown a big, hissy fit in your apartment, touting the unfairness of life and the struggling of simply being, that way you could’ve been one of those ‘deep and tortured’ characters . . . Granted, I’d never want to write such tripe, but it’s something to go from, work with. But, no, you were just pushing through a crowd. For nearly half a page! That’s such a long time to write about a crowd. You try it, sometime, huh?” the man crossed his arms and tapped his foot, impatiently. The woman let loose a few pathetic sobs and hunched forward. “It’s all the past, now, though, and we can only move forward. Can’t erase time, and all.”
“Well, what are you going to do with me?” she questioned, with a tone in her voice like a plaintive, little girl. The man sighed and threw his arms up in the air, then took the over-shirt off that he had been wearing. Drawing a knife from the back-pocket of his pants, he flicked it out and paused.
“The only thing I can do, my child . . . Move on.” He lifted the knife and lowered it, hard, into her neck, then pulled it back out. Hovering over her for a split second, taking in the fullness of his actions, he stabbed her, again, in the base of the skull, then in the throat, then in the chest, stomach, again in the chest . . .
“’The only thing I can do’? ‘Move on’? What kind of line is that? Doesn’t even make sense! Ugh, this isn’t working, not at all, not at all! Not even as something funny, at this point . . . This is just disturbing, now. I should write with more purpose, I swear to God.” Kicking at the dead body on the ground, which had spilt red puddles all over the place, the man looked up at the sky. “I mean, even this whole bit has been done, done to death, even. Breaking the fourth wall and all, making characters into actors playing parts for the sake of making a point about the nature of writing . . . Blah, blah! Pirandello did it, who am I to reprise Pirandello’s works? And now, what? This is turning into one of those self-aware monologue things, where someone goes in Absurdist circles about philosophy or whatever . . . . . . . . That’s it!”
And a world-sized walrus fell from the sky and killed everyone.

Commodious in Purpose

I like to write, and I know that is a point that I have iterated many times in the past. Let me, however, explore a different aspect of my writing, with you, today. To be specific, I wish to write of why I write for this: The Unconscious Rambling of a Madman. I really can't reiterate enough times that writing is one of my biggest passions, even when it is the last thing on my mind or the first thing that tires me. And this Blog, it is an outlet for that urge to write; moreover, it is a place for me to write without stipulation of subject or guidelines to follow. Personally, I refer to here, in my head, as U.R.M., because almost everything I put up starts off as the thought, "Urm . . . "
This Blog serves a purpose for me, though, and it is something that frequently helps me sort out certain things. You see, without any need to follow a predetermined procedure, this has quickly become my way of figuring out exactly what the shape of the pattern that I think in is. What comes out of my imagination or conscious is what is predominantly present on it, at the time; therefore, what I get is a physical manifestation of my thoughts. In other words, this is my brain, in words.
Granted, I by no means wish to seem to be claiming that this is everything that goes on in my head. My biggest gripe with the modern, online-journal/weblog phenomenon is what I once saw described somewhere as "haircut entries" -- trivial descriptions of trivial events in a trivial format. In my opinion, it comes down to the fact that there are thoughts that we all have, undeniably, which really don't deserve communication. Weblogs commonly become a medium by which it can be seen that not everyone agrees on that point -- not necessarily wrongfully -- and you get sites full of HTML adaptations of a teenage girl's diary. Novel, and quaint, in their own special ways, but not something I like reading.
So, when I think to myself, "Today's weather has been especially pleasant, but I am not feeling all that joyous about it due to the hardships of class and my relationships with peope," I tend to keep it to myself -- despite having just done the opposite, but it was for the sake of example. The thoughts that float around in my conscious and eventually make their way out through my hands manipulating keys on a keyboard are ones which strike me as interesting and deserving of being shared. Peculiar behaviour exhibited by human beings, society, or enraging patterns therein, those are subjects I feel should be written about and enumerated. Either that, or my political declarations or manifestos on philosophy and psychology may be what I care about describing, at the time. Occasionally, I fancy myself a poet or fiction-writer, and I'll exercise my meagre talents at those facets of literature. And my head is an infinite fountain for opinions, so that never ceases to be a viable topic of conversation for this Blog.
Anyway, I have slightly digressed from my original point, which I will now return to: the benefit of this Blog for me. Through the two years (I am quite amased it has been so long) of putting up seemingly spontaneous and random entries, I have come to realise my thoughts and concerns exhibit a visible pattern. This can be expressed in either terms of methodology or emotion, I suppose: the methods of review, rant, ramble, or ridiculousness, and the emotions of disgust/fascination, anger/indignation, melancholy/wistfulness, or plain silliness. Nothing is really one-hundred-percent precise or constant about this, but it seeps through enough for me to have noticed it and, thus, taken the time to contemplate it.
Every once and awhile, I wonder if I suffer from some form of Attention Deficeit Disorder, because I lose track of what I am thinking and doing and tend to mentally wander. Regardless of my opinion on the validity of the existence of ADD and implications of it, I can grow afraid of being too disconnected and schizophrenic. And it's not that I have trouble getting things done; when I set my attention to something, it doesn't stray unless I am simply exhausted or have reached completion of my goal (which may very well just be part of a whole). It's most likely just a time management issue, which has never been a skill I excelled at; it's hard to care about something you don't believe in, as it goes. But, what does any of this have to do with this Blog?
As a practice, I sometimes read over the archive of this site; not always for revision or editting purposes, but just because I can. Looking back and taking stock in what I have said and what I have professed keeps me aware of what I considered important at the time. It keeps me aware of the pattern of my thought process, and it keeps me aware, to an extent, of who I am, when I am unsure of my identity. I am a writer, and this is my book. Were it to be published, it would be categorised as stream-of-consciousness and it would probably receive harsh reviews, fall under the carpet and be classified as too "artsy," by the general public. I forget all of what I write, and rereading it gives me a sense of my own style and diction. Perhaps it is a bit immodest, but I do find myself amused at old phrases and turning of words, and I take pride. This Blog is not who I am, but it is part of that. As such, it is important to me and a reflection of the rest of my identity, serving as a looking-glass for retrospection or introspection.
Why do I write, here? Because I like it. What do I write, here? Whatever I want. Who am I? The author.

Adios.

A Starveling Named

The number of times I have announced some sort of renewed vigor for this Blog, it’s inevitably fallen through. It almost feels as if any sort of announcement of that nature, at this point, is a jinx. So, I won’t say this is a new era in the history of this site, or anything spectacular, or anything significantly new, so much as I will say that I am back from a month-long break.

And, it was a good break. I got a lot of writing done, more than the last time I said I’d take a break but still write for this. I have worked out a new schedule for myself, and I will be adhering to it for, at least, the month of June. It lays out in a nice, tidy, biweekly format, as follows:
Week One: Tuesday (poetry), Wednesday (rant), Saturday (ramble), Sunday (fiction).
Week Two: Monday (random), Wednesday (rant), Thursday (review), Saturday (ramble).
I will probably flesh out something a little more coherent than that, but, even in its rudimentary lackluster, that’s pretty self-explanatory. I feel like if I give any more specific description than that, then it’s kind of ruining the whole surprise of viewing this site; taking away the novelty of it all, in a way. Anyway, expect posts to be put up in that pattern for the month of June.
For July, I have larger plans, but I will explain that at a later time.

So, recent developments in my life that are remotely relevant . . . I now work two jobs: my original one at the Christopher Newport University’s Information Technology Services Computer Lab, and a new one at Hungate’s Creative Hobbies. I expect that I have something to say about that.

Also, Blogspot apparently decided May was a great month to re-haul the entire functionality and design of their site. I’m not complaining, because it’s much nicer and smoother, now. I’m undecided, right now, as to whether or not to take up the new feature of comments. I’ll handle that, later.

I would call this a reintroduction in brevity, but like I already said, everytime I do that, it falls through. So, all I can say is . . . I’m back, I guess.

Next Post: Saturday, June 5th, 2004.

Adios.

”yawn to yawn, our face was born to mask the shade of shit we’re on”

War of Words

Your war of words in broken terms,
Spoken out of a choking throat,
Made by bending all good form,
Dug to serve as your verbal moat.

Seen to seem to see so true,
Your hand is red and so are you,
Spotted liar, vicious rile, play your tune,
Sing your song under a whole, white moon.

The book is written in cold yellow,
Authored by the hands unseen, unloving,
While we're at home growing lean,
Starving away, slowly, on velvet pillows.

A game of English, old and silly,
Black- and white-clad maidens play and giggle,
Dancing circles over sand-strewn landscapes,
The sky is empty and the grapes are rotten.

Quite the classic case of confusion.