This is just a smattering of what has been stuck in my head lately.
Don't know where this came from or why but it is so damn catchy. I am trying to figure out why I have never been a Talking Heads fan since I've liked everything I have ever heard by them.
This is a weird one that popped in the other night. My friend, Aubrey, has been doing a radio show thing on Grooveshark. She played NASA the other day but this was my favorite track on that record.
Not a big Chicago fan but this one was in the background of a Larry David commercial and it got stuck in my head.
It is rare for an instrumental to get stuck in my head but here is the opening to House of Cards and it goes through my head all the time.
Besides the creepy pied piper child-abduction bus, this one has been stuck in my head because of the weird "iz" slang where they put "iz" in the middle of every word they say in one part. It sounds like utter gibberish.
Likewise, the Anchorman 2 Trailer got this one stuck in my head.
Finally, Breaking Bad did this one to me. Welcome to the nightmarish jukebox in my head.
If anyone read my last post (and it looks like one person did), I was in a pretty low place. I was dwelling on a lot of the negatives in my life (that I will be halfway back to my back breaking debt if I lose my job, have no car, no way to pay my rent, my age, my weight, my lack of love, etc.). This past week has been really moving in regards to the outpouring of offers from my friends to help me. I always feel like people just kind of tolerate me or humor me but I have made a lot of really strong friends. People are offering me places to live. People are offering me help finding a job. People are offering transportation and (most importantly) people are just talking to me to make sure I am not going to do anything stupid.
Now that the panic is dying down, I am thinking about how much I have disliked this job. I have been thinking for a long time about starting my career. I have been looking for a plan. But there has been no plan. All the things I was depressed about are still absolutely true and are all things I need to address. I just feel so much better today knowing how many people have my back. I would have to just be stubbornly, willfully morose to ignore all the genuine affection I have received this week.
Thank you, everyone. I love all my friends and I hope I can (or have in the past) help you in the way you've helped me. No self-harm. Not right now. Now, I need to get to work...
I am still kind of numb, in a state of shock, no doubt. A friend of mine says she gets anxiety attacks when she thinks of making a bad grade because she sees a chain reaction of failure that eats away her entire life. She said people laugh at her for thinking that way but I knew exactly how she felt. I have always tried to look at things from as many angles as possible. Almost to the point of paralysis, I want to refrain from making choices until I have weighed all the pros and cons.
When I decided to move to Kansas City, it was because Greenville had become suffocating. Too many bad memories and too many people who know my name. I wanted to vanish and start over. When I decided to come out here, I was debt free and gainfully employed. I considered just about every downside I could and the one risk I took was packing and moving in such a short time frame.
When I got someone to take over my lease within a couple of days of opening up the house, I felt relieved. I got my company to cover moving expenses (to a degree). My mother and I drove out to Kansas City two weeks before my move and found a house for me to live in. Everything seemed to be working out.
My mistake, my mistake I always make, was procrastination. I didn't really understand the scope of the packing I had to do until it was time for it to be done. I had a date the new tenants were moving in, a date the moving company would be there for my stuff...I knew when it all had to be done and yet I waited. The final 48 hours I was in Greenville was a mad rush of throwing things away, packing up other things and making decisions to intentionally "forget" certain items, leaving them for the new occupants. It was in that rush that I either packed or threw away a little credit card sized ID with my picture on it.
This was a PIV card, a government-issued form of identification. I had owned one for three years and never been called upon to use it. To say it was unimportant to me would be an understatement. So, thinking nothing of it, I moved to KC to start my new life. I immediately found out, this card is vital to getting into a variety of government facilities in Missouri and Kansas. And I didn't know where it was. I tore my new house apart. I drove home one weekend and tore my storage unit apart. I couldn't find that damn card anywhere.
It was time to face the consequences. I told my boss. It triggered and automatic two week suspension and a $500 fine. They took the entire fine out of my next paycheck, halving it. I didn't receive the paycheck after that because of the two weeks of unpaid suspension. If you are reading this, you know the story. What you may not know is that, after taxes, my company's help with the moving expenses came to about half of what I owed the moving company. I had to put about $2000 on my credit card. Not a problem, right? I can pay my way out of that in no time. Then, the first and last months rent to secure the house, that was on credit, another $1200. Then, the bills start coming in. The final bills for Greenville, the first bills for KC. I can pay all those out of my checking but, that leaves me no money for food. I prepaid for concerts before I ever moved here but, I'll admit, before my suspension, I spent more than I should have going out and getting to know this new city. Now, after a month of not getting paid, my debt is up to $8000. Mostly due to my lack of income. And, driving back and forth to Greenville 80 times required a lot of hotel stays (also on my credit card).
So, I took my lumps, got my financial hit but I still had my job, right? Not so fast. On the most recent drive back to Greenville, I crashed my company car. Totaled the damn thing. Hydroplaning. I wasn't speeding or texting or talking on the phone but they are making a case against me that I am a high risk driver. I am waiting to hear if they will let me drive again in six months or never. Either way, I am probably out of a job. There is a slim hope, which is the only reason I haven't thrown in the towel yet. Because, if I lose this job, I have to repay the moving expenses (another $3800) and, of course, I owe the next 10 months of this lease (another $6000). This puts me back up to the amount of debt I had when I had to move back in with my parents, take out a loan from my uncle and be fucking miserable for a couple of years to get free of the debt.
Now, one mistake (waiting too long to pack) has cost me everything I have worked for in the past 8 years. I have no wife, no kids, no job, no car, no house, massive debt and I am roughly the size of a goddamn dump truck. If anyone can give me a reason to keep on living, I would love to hear it.
I just finished watching Arrested Development, Season 4. I took frequent breaks, played around on Facebook, read some comics...tried to give them some room to breathe. Of course, I had to see how it all ended. 7.5 hours in two days...that's not...crazy, right? Plus, they demand rewatching. They are kind of designed for rewatching even more than the original series.
Firstly, wanted to get this out of the way, I really, really enjoyed this new series. I was worried that all the hype and waiting was going to ruin it but they really pushed the show in some exciting new directions.
One of the things I was worried about was fan service. I was worried the whole thing would be just repeating of jokes from the first three seasons. The only time I kind of groaned was the whole HER? thing at GOB's wedding to Anne. Otherwise, the callbacks were not gratuitous and they started enough new ones to keep me happy.
I was glad they just laid out the gay thing to Tobias right away so that David Cross could play some different hues in this series (of course, Anus Tart will be the newest inside joke phenomenon). Also, turning GOB towards the gay thing gave Arnett a new direction to play. Tambor already gets to have it both ways with Oscar and George in his arsenal but he got the added bonus of switching the personalities on these characters. The most startling development may be Michael from the sympathetic hero to the primary villain of the new season. Of course, Lucille and Buster can't stray too far from their original characterizations but even Buster got a bit of an arc. Lindsay's transformation into a Republican was also a lot of fun to behold.
I would be remiss if I didn't note all the fun new characters. Getting Ron Howard active in the mix was very nice. Isla Fisher is an actress I have been in love with since Hot Rod/Wedding Crashers brought her comedic talents to my attention. John Slattery as Dr. Norman may be my favorite new addition to the cast. Terry Crews and Maria Bamford were also a welcome addition and fit right in to the broad tone of the show. The old supporting players all got a moment or two to shine in this new one as well. Good for them.
Now, a few misgivings I have. Firstly, I think the magic of AD is in pairing these loonies off in new and interesting ways. I know it was nearly impossible to get everyone there at the same time but there were just so many interactions that never got good screentime. Of course, if all of this works out for a movie, that problem will be solved. I also felt that, the longer scenes got to run, the more potential for comedy there was (Ron Howard's narration filling/causing George Michael's lengthy pauses made me laugh both times they happened). Often, we were just given quick glimpses of scenes we saw played out in other episodes just to remind us of what happened. After awhile, those took up more and more real estate in the run time when I just wanted to see the story happen.
Speaking of, what the hell was the story? I have no idea how all the plot lines tie together or when certain things were happening. Finally realizing that Lucille was in prison when Oscar banged her was nice but a bit confusing since I swore the narration introduced her prison room as her "new apartment." I think everyone had some time in the penthouse at Balboa and everyone had some time in the model home but I have no idea when they were each there in relation to each other. Part of this might get cleared up on repeated viewings but...
Hurwitz was not lying when he said this was part one of something bigger. There was not even the pretense of closure at the end of this. I have so many questions...who sabotaged GOB's act/wedding (my money is on Anne but it is never explicitly stated, right?). Plus, there was the implication that she was pregnant at their wedding but she seemed pretty serious about the kid being Tony Wonders (unless she just entrapped the richer of the two men for money). More importantly, did Michael kill Lucille Austero? Did Buster kill Love? Will George Michael's Mexican love child be a plot point? What is going on with Oscar and George's role reversals? What will become of Sitwell's master plan (I love that Lindsay is running against her again)?
I did like how lots of people got arrested (thus letting the series keep its name). I love the Jesse Eisenberg dig that Michael Cera is doing with the Fakeblock thing. The running Fantastic Four jokes are just gravy to a nerd like me. The number one thing that blew me away was the total Prestige they pulled on me with Maebe and the shaman. I was so proud of myself for guessing that Tobias was also in India the whole time that I completely overlooked the shaman. Well, not completely. I looked in the credits and saw the fake name. I totally bought it. Bravo, Mitch Hurwitz. You fooled me.
I can't wait to watch them all again and get even more out of this. I think this season was a resounding success.
I listen to a lot of music (or at least I used to). I was on Pitchfork the other day and I realized I had no idea who 90% of the bands were. After my birthday this year, I will be aged out of the 25-35 marketing category that advertisers want to appeal to. Music isn't made to make me happy anymore. Although, every year, I find at least one or two new acts that speak directly to me. Or I discover older acts that I didn't have the ears to hear before.
Anyway, to me, a perfect album is one I can listen to all the way through without skipping a track. This is very much a Gen X, CD-oriented way to look at music. I know most people listen on ipods now and just don't upload the songs they don't like. I'm kind of glad that isn't my mindset, however, because some of my favorite songs had to "break" for me before I could enjoy them, and that meant repeated listens. You might think a lot of albums would fall into this criteria but almost every album I love has a weak spot. On OK Computer, it isn't Fitter Happier (oddly enough), it is Climbing Up the Walls that I find to be the most disposable track and I often skip it.
The other qualification is that the album has to be 10 tracks or more. Still Falling, by Virgil Shaw, is incredible and I listen to it all the way through, every time. However, it is only 9 tracks. It is kind of easier to produce nothing but gold when your track count is so low.
So, with that in mind, I want to talk about the Beta Band's 3 EPs. I know, the first of the series and it isn't even a proper album. The Beta Band rose to prominence in the late 1990s on the strength of three EPs (Champion Versions, The Patty Patty Sound and Los Amigos del Beta Bandidos) and "Dry the Rain" (a track so good, I put it on almost every mix I have ever made for a woman). You may know the song if you have seen High Fidelity as it gets a nice showcase there.
They were signed to Regal records and started working on their admittedly "fucking awful" debut LP. To gather interest in the Beta Band, Regal gathered up their three EPs and released them as a single album in 1998.
At first listen, I don't know if anyone would call this album "perfect." For one thing, there is a huge obstacle awaiting the listener at track 7 but we'll get there.
The album starts off with "Dry the Rain"...a folksy, acoustic guitar strum and odd percussion, with some accordion and other sundries thrown in, add to a great building song (the 90s were full of songs that went from quiet to loud and anthemic way before The Arcade Fire was around). You would think putting their strongest song first would hurt them but I think it is the perfect gentle gateway into the weirdness that follows.
Track 2 is "I Know"...this is a musical exercise built around a cool little bass riff. Again, hand percussion instruments are used and the guitar doodles around, in and out of the song. This track is when it clicked for me that the lead singer, Steve Mason, just wanted to use his voice like another instrument to be sampled. Meaning lyrics don't mean much to the Beta Band but, like Beck, they evoke a definite mood with their mumblings and fumblings. I doubt this would ever be someone's favorite song but if you are chill enough to let it unfold, it casts a bit of a spell.
Track 3 is "B+A", an instrumental built up around a repeated guitar lick and a pulsing percussive beat. I think Ratatat would build their whole career around this song. Every now and then, the pattern breaks but it keeps getting more and more urgent as it goes until disembodied voices wail unintelligible vocals deep in the mix. It is almost the sound of descending into hell.
"Dogs Got a Bone" is the final track of the first EP. A nice bookend to "Dry the Rain" as it is a more conventional folk-pop song. Now that we now what to expect from the Beta Band, they have taught us how to listen to them with the first three tracks, the fourth comes off as quaint but true to their sounds.
The Patty Patty Sound may have been music made on a dare to scare away potential fans. I think it is the hardest of the EPs to love but once it earns your respect and trust, I think it is the most rewarding.
The first song (track 5 on the album) is "Inner Meet Me." Mason uses his vocals as samples and repeats a refrain of "inner meet me on the inside" over and over. Slowly, a beat comes in and then more vocals get layered over the refrain and they start repeating. From this swirl of hypnotic rhythms erupts the chorus, as catchy and heartfelt as "Dry the Rain." Another fascinating way to build up a song.
Then, shit gets weird. Track 6 is "The House Song" which may be the single strangest track I have ever loved. Again, Mason's vocals are sampled and looped, music plays backwards...eventually a rap made entirely of gibberish (as far as I can tell) breaks out like a kid fooling around. Maybe this is a parody of House music but it works as its own weird little entity.
Track 7 is "Monolith." It lives up to its name. At almost 16 minutes long it might be a musical journey through the history of civilization. There are bird noises and tribal chants that rise and fade as the song meanders through its running time. More a sound collage than anything else, it is still fun to listen to. I was ready to skip this track the other day when I relistened but the moment never came where I thought, ok, that is enough. Your mileage may vary.
The musical dare of the Patty Patty Sound concludes with "She's The One." You think it is going to be a lazy rewrite of Dry the Rain with a Jew's Harp but it furthers Mason's obsession with circular lyrics and vocal manipulations. I think this middle EP is all about the Beta Band figuring out where their limits are. Nothing in these four tracks are radio ready and I love them.
The third EP seems to be based on a different dare. We know these weirdos can make long, sprawling sonic experiments, but can they produce four tight, poppy songs? The answer is...kind of.
Track 9 is "Push It Out" should sound familiar by now, it is a repeated vocal sample that repeats as the music builds around it. Horrible confession, this song gets caught in my head when I have to crap. It never turns into anything more than the repeated lyric and the building groove but it acts as a sonic sorbet for the last three tracks.
"It's Over" has a sexy upright bass riff running through it. The cumulative affect of this track is one of utter sadness to me. The breathless delivery of lyrics and the Spaghetti Western interlude just add to the feeling that someone had a showdown with their true love and lost.
"Dr. Baker" seems to be proof that the Beta Band don't need 16 minutes to get weird. Piano, a strangled cacophony of robot cats being murdered (maybe?) and the usual trick of sampled and distorted vocals meet with a glockenspiel (I think) seem to create a character sketch here but I always lose track of the narrative, if there is one. Not easy listening but still fun, I think.
Finally, they wrap it up with "Needles In My Eyes." These seem to be the tracks designed to pull in listeners so the Beta Band can sucker them into listening to their more esoteric songs. Needles in My Eyes might actually be the lazy Dry the Rain rewrite I was expecting for the whole album. Regardless, it is still damn strong, with a singalong chorus and organ accents throughout. Although these 12 tracks begin and end on an almost conventional note, what they achieve in between is pretty damn awesome.
This is how I felt about music coming out of the 90s, that we were going to move in a bold, new direction. People were using the past to dig around and find a future in music (remember that ska, swing and ragtime all made reappearances in the 90s). I thought Beta Band would be on the vanguard. However, they admit they were rushed through the production of their self-titled debut (which still has moments of brightness but is overall a mess).
Their album Hot Shots II had a few glimmers of hope but it seems like their sound went from all over the place, free-wheeling, anything can happen, kitchen sink rock to just a folk rock band with a DJ. By the time their final album, From Heroes to Zeroes came out, I had stopped listening. Like a lot of bands that start out hungry, they lost their edge and faded away. It happens to the best but at least we will always have this album to listen to.
Okey doke, I have to say something about this. Lizz Winstead, co-creator of the Daily Show, is getting lambasted in the conservative press for a dumbass joke she made. This situation is filled with irony and misinformation.
First off, Winstead hasn't worked for the Daily Show since 1997. Craig Kilborn was the host then and his behavior drove her away. She has absolutely nothing to do with the show as it exists today. The Daily Show has always been good at skewering conservative and liberal hypocrisy, so I am not surprised that conservatives are using this as a chance to attack the Daily Show even though it has nothing to do with this situation. I was reading a post where a lot of people were calling for her to be fired. If they bothered to look into things beyond their narrow news outlets, they would know there is nothing to fire her from. At best, she has been showing up on some MSNBC talk show as a panelist for the past couple of years. So, if you really are offended, take her off that.
Secondly, ask yourself if you got her joke in the first place. Not too long ago, Pat Robertson said that Haiti was targeted for an earthquake because the people there were cursed and had made a deal with the devil. With that in mind, Winstead was creating a parody of such outlandish conservative thought. Natural disasters don't target anyone, obviously. She knows this. She was pointing out how no one will be saying Oklahoma "deserved" the devastation because religious leaders like people in Oklahoma. When Christians are killed, it is a tragedy, when Haitians are killed, they deserve it because they offended God. All of it is a tragedy, obviously.
When Winstead came out with her "bad joke, bad timing" reply, she was exactly right. Her twitter failed to convey the target of her joke. It wasn't topical in the way she wanted it to be (most people don't even remember Pat Robertson saying the dumb shit he says) and people get touchier about death closer to home. Ironically, it all kind of proves her point. Conservative media didn't get up in arms when Robertson said his offensive shit that he actually believes and means but they do when a liberal comedy writer says the same thing as a joke.
So please, turn this mountain back into the mole hill it deserves to be. It isn't a way to attack the Daily Show. It isn't a representation of liberal evil. It was a shitty joke, told poorly that was trying to prove a political point.
A friend of mine posted a link to an article about this and the comments were filled with hate. Someone who just said, "Liberal Whore" got a couple of "likes." I hope none of the name callers claim to be Christians. If so, they are failing.
Don't let the title fool you, this is about pop culture, too.
So, mild spoilers for Star Trek: Into Darkness follow...if you don't want to know anything about the plot, don't read.
I have always considered myself a liberal. I think it is pretty obvious that a lot of Hollywood is, as well. On social issues, I am all the way blue (except for a purely theoretical endorsement of the death penalty...but that is another subject). I am trying to figure out where, exactly, I lost my taste for political discourse. I used to write about elections and politics like I was auditioning for a column at politico.
Some friends of mine are really politically aware, on both sides of the spectrum. There are two issues I have no real opinion on, Monsanto and Drones. Or, more honestly, my opinions are not based on facts at all.
First, we'll take Monsanto (Star Trek is coming, don't worry). Genetically Modified foods are a bit of a bogeyman. I listened to an NPR show the other day where the primary guest was a researcher who puts the GM in GMO. She was stating that decades of scientific studies have resulted in there being no evidence of health dangers from the ingestion of GMOs. A rebuttal came from a man who said that there had been some studies that refute that. Neither of them mentioned which studies nor where the preponderance of evidence lies (although, from reading between the lines it still sounds like GMOs=harmless has been more proven than not). The researcher made some good points about the selective breeding of animals for consumption and cross pollination of seeds that has happened for centuries. These are attempts to select for a specific gene and encourage it. Some callers agreed, most (being frothing liberals) just wanted to demonize the researcher. As she was ganged up on, I felt sympathy for her having to defend her life's work as ethical.
And that is just the thing, I don't know if what she is doing is harmful. I don't know the science. Can I believe a corporation would poison their customer base to make a dollar? RJ Reynolds and Phillip Morris say yes. Can I just as easily believe people are designing GM foods to help make food better (more damage resistant or longer lasting?), yes I can believe that, too. It is no secret I have anger issues. Is it from eating bovine growth hormone in fast food burgers for the past 35 years? Who the hell knows. I say, if you want to avoid feeding your family something that could be dangerous, I completely understand. If I am being totally honest, I will be very slow to take a stand against such GM foods because I am sure that is most of what I eat. Although I am slowly changing my lifestyle, I don't know if I will ever be the "all-organic" diet guy. Hearing those organic farmers on that same radio show, they seemed just as greedy as everyone accuses Monsanto of being and it is in their interest to create a panic. I just know it is hard to get the facts in this kind of environment where there is not one news source I trust to give me an unbiased view.
So, Star Trek. The main storyline of the movie seemed (at first) like a clear metaphor for the use of drones in Pakistan. A terrorist flees into a sovereign territory to which the UFP has no access. So, stand at the border of friendly space and send weapons in that will kill innocent people (whether we think they will or not). That could have been a great set up for exploring the moral ramifications of U.S. policy towards drone strikes. Kirk pulls a bit of a Zero Dark 30 and sends in a team to get just the terrorist. Once the terrorist is secure, no more provoking a war. The end game seems to be that a war will happen no matter what (at least in Robocop's opinion). I imagine that will be the plot of ST3, in fact. So what is the lesson here? Sending in ground troops is ok but drones aren't? It all gets kind of muddled by the end of the movie. But it got me thinking about Obama's very tricky situation.
So, you have inherited one semi-legit war (and one bogus one). U.S. forces drove most of their enemies out of Afghanistan very early on. The enemy set up in Pakistan, which is now harboring our "enemy" just like the Taliban did. But, they are too useful to straight up piss off and declare war against (plus, they may have a nuke). So, full scale invasion as your forces are already startlingly thin? Not smart, plus you can get India blown off the map that way. Do nothing, let the people who are now really pissed at you regroup and come back stronger than before? You will be eaten alive by the hawks in Congress and in the conservative press. Like it or not, 47% of the nation thinks the best defense is a good offense (Pew research 2011). Piss off half the country...not smart. Send in drones? The system can be abused and innocents can be killed by sloppy pilots. Of course, lots of innocents would be killed in a full-on military campaign as well. So, really, the only way to save innocent lives is to do the politically "wrong" thing. Then you get voted out and someone who will get us in a full-scale war goes in.
Drones strike me (no pun intended) as the equivalent of the criminal justice system. The reason I can't endorse the death penalty in the real world is because our CJ system is imperfect. If we knew (beyond any doubt) that we were gacking the right people, I would be all for eye for an eye justice. As it stands, it is better that ten guilty escape rather than one innocent suffer. So, we have to deal with a flawed system. I'm not sure what I would do differently (certainly hold pilots who kill innocents accountable...I think the military tradition of forgiving such "mistakes" shouldn't extend to remote controlling a death machine...shooting an innocent accidentally in the heat of a firefight, I get it...gunning down some family because one of them kind of looks like an enemy, not so much).
Honestly, I had no idea where I was going with this when I started but it reminds me of The Dark Knight. Batman takes the blame for the death of Harvey Dent. He knows he will be attacked for it but he has to endure. While Batman making the hard choice is noble, it is pretty explicit that he doesn't trust the people of Gotham with the truth. I guess, to answer a question I started this with, I lost my interest in politics when I realized that our whole process is broken. From entrenched bureaucrats, to Congress being bought and paid for by the highest bidder, to Court justices acting on party principles rather than internal beliefs. And the worst is us, the electorate who allow it all to happen. We are uninformed, uninterested and unwilling to make real change happen. I freely admit, I am part of the problem. Maybe going forward, I can be part of a solution.
Here it is, 1:28 AM as I start to write this. Back home, on the East Coast, it is 2:29 AM. I slept some this afternoon and now I can't fall asleep tonight. I stayed up late last night talking to friends on skype. For some reason, I am bursting with ideas or at least, ideas for ideas. I want to write comic books, films (short and long), short stories, jokes, novels...I want to write blogs, record podcasts, create playlists on grooveshark and interview people. I think the thing of it is...this may be the loneliest I have ever been. Which is saying a lot. I want to be seen, heard, understood. I want to be read. I don't care about fame or fortune. I just want someone to know me while I am still alive.
This is that certain time of night. This is that time where it feels like my room is a little raft adrift on a dark ocean. No one I know is awake. And when I say that, I mean, no one I can talk to. It felt the same in Greenville, it feels the same here. If I fall asleep soon I may be able to wake up in time to go do improv (with money I don't have) at noon tomorrow, try to make more friends. Or I could go see Star Trek by myself. Or visit comic book stores in Kansas. Whatever I am doing tomorrow, I am doing alone. Same goes for Sunday and the day after and the day after that. I get so jealous of my friends who have someone special, I get mad at them sometimes. I found out today that the only co-worker I've ever thought I could be friends with left her husband. She never sounded that enthusiastic when she would talk about him so I guess she is doing the right thing. I have often said I would rather die alone than live with the wrong person. Looks like I am going to get my wish.
Before she kind of went batshit, a former friend of mine would get angry with me for not speaking to her regularly. I told her it was all the same old complaints, the same old depression. Nothing new was happening for me and I didn't want to share my life. Of course, it was a selfish position, because maybe she had something she wanted to share. Moving out here should be a big new adventure. I should be excited. All I can think about is Blade Runner, Synecdoche NY and all the movies that tell me how unique and precious life is...and how empty it can feel when you're alone.
My friend Jake is going through some depression right now (chronic, like mine). I want to tell him it gets better, but it really doesn't. Every day I say "I wish I was dead." In fact, here is a nice confession...the night before I wrecked my car a couple of weeks ago, the rain had been coming down all day. I had skidded a couple of times but never full on hydroplaned. The thought went through my head somewhere in Illinois, "What if I just jerked the wheel, flipped the car, crashed...no one would know I did it on purpose. They would think I just had an accident. These things happen." The main thing that stopped me from giving that thought more credence was that I could have hurt someone else. If I was responsible for hurting another driver with my selfish act of destruction, that would be horrible. I was appalled when I did actually lose control hours later and there was a car behind me. I had no way to warn them off or wave them back. The first thing I said when I was pulled from the wreckage was "Are you guys alright?" to the other driver who had stopped to help me. Another shameful confession is, I was angry that next week. I was angry that I didn't get hurt or die. I was pretty much unscathed. All I could think was, "I missed a really good opportunity there."
Well, that is a little venom bled out on the page for you. This is for anyone who happens to check here. I am not going to link to it. Don't worry about me killing myself, if you are reading this. I am too chickenshit to actually hurt myself on purpose. As dark as it gets, as hopeless as I feel...there is, somewhere in me, that stupid goofy younger man who believed in true love and adventure and that life can be happy. Until I can shut his ass up, I'm not going anywhere.
Next time, I'll talk about rainbows and puppies and clowns who fart unicorns or something.
I know this is strange for an inaugural post but, whatever. I tried to use this blog as a secret public diary but some things were written in it that could have offended some people I consider friends, so I deleted the first few posts with an eye towards starting fresh. I was going to do my usual statement of intent but I figured what better way to express my intentions with this blog than just spouting off about some bullshit that is near and dear to me?
A friend of mine recently posted a list of questions aimed towards religious people. He got a couple of good responses. One of which was all about how agnosticism is intellectually dishonest because it doesn't take the stance that nothing is knowable.The example cited was how 2+2=4 is grounded in subjective experience and how can we ever know anything outside ourselves is real and blah blah blah.
I have written four drafts of this and chucked them all. Not out of fear of being offensive but because I get too worked up and I drift away from my main point. So, I will try this again...my friend's respondent attacked agnosticism on a purely abstract plane of thought. He stated that basic math was as circular as believing in Jesus. This offended me on a couple of levels.
Firstly, religion is powerful because it cannot be undermined by fact. Tons of evidence has been unearthed that things didn't happen the way the Bible says but these new facts have not caused believers to sway in their beliefs. I am offended when defenders of religion feel the need to try and "prove" their positions using logic and/or science, both of which are against them. If one stays in the realm of the philosophical, all ideas are possible and all beliefs have weight. If you get cornered, just fall back to "how do we know what is known since all experience is subjective...what is reality, man?" That old philosophy 101 chestnut. That is the great equalizer. When you feel like you have to prove the existence of God using Intelligent Design or by calling agnosticism "circular logic" I think you do a disservice to your beliefs. In other words, recognize your strength comes from faith rather than fact and stick with that.
Secondly, once one moves out of the lofty realms of philosophy and ideas things need to actually get done in the real world. Medicines need to be developed. Advances in transportation, clothing, hygiene and a million other areas of human endeavor would never make it past the drawing board if every idea got bogged down in "how do I know the red you see is the same red I see?" Things really started moving for us, as a species, when we embraced the scientific method. 2+2=4 is not a case a circular logic (I know because I know), it is demonstrable, replicable and observable. Even moving away from numbers on paper, you can take two rocks, bring in two more rocks and always have four rocks. That never changes. The scientific method already gives an edge to religion because no one can prove God doesn't exist. You can't prove a negative. So, the burden falls to the faithful. If they wish to dirty themselves in arguing that their religion is a Truth that can be supported through facts, they must provide the proof. Tearing down the truths established independent of religion (like math and science) is not the same as raising religion to that level of proof.
The respondent over-simplified the idea of math, placing it on par with religious belief. Agnosticism is not the idea that nothing is knowable, it is the idea that there is a way to know things (even if all reality is subjective) that we each agree to. It means my level of proof is just higher than that of a believer. We both believe in gravity, because neither of us have shot off the face of the Earth but he also believes that an active deity is hearing his prayers at night and acts accordingly.
I would love it to find out an afterlife exists and God is a sentient creature of some sort watching over everyone. Nothing I have experienced in my life tells me that this is true. It doesn't feel right and it doesn't make sense to me. Have I felt connected to something greater than myself? Yes, indeed I have. I had no inkling that this larger force had agency in my day to day life. I have just felt connected to the world and other living things. I would say, if I had never had such feelings, I would be a flat-out atheist. However, I do believe there is more to the world than we know and the unknown might as well be called God. Maybe one day, science will illuminate all corners of human experience and my Oceanic feelings (as Freud called them) will be explained away as some pheromone-activated portion of the brain that makes one feel responsible as part of the world. And then the odds of a God existing will die a little more. Until then, I work with what I have...which is all any of us can do.
Before I leave, I wanted to speak about a famous idea called the Gambler's Dilemma. It was once used as an argument for faith. Essentially, a monk and a gambler are talking about why the gambler doesn't believe in God. The monk decides to put it to him in a way he will understand. The monk says, "Say you live your life as sinfully as possible and, when you die, it turns out you are right and there is no God? You've lost nothing. Now, say you live your life sinfully and you are wrong. You will have an eternity of suffering compared to your brief lifespan of pleasure." Scary, right? Makes you think, shit, just to be on the safe side, I should believe in God. However, there is an aspect that is thoroughly neglected in this. If I had been the gambler I would have responded, "Well, say you live your life totally pious and when you die, you find out you are right. You get an eternity of reward, right? Now, say you live a pious life, denying your needs and desires and then you find out when you die you were wrong? Didn't you just waste the one, brief period you existed sublimating yourself for a reward that isn't coming?"
I know we have this life. No one knows what happens after you die. Don't be good to others because you think it will get you into heaven, just be good to other people because it is the right thing to do. That's just my two cents. Sorry about the rant.
I promise it won't always be rants. Watch this space.
