feel good hit of the summer

I am sitting in an office waiting to leave so I can go on a hike before the sun goes down. It is mild and clear outside. A rarity for the los angeles metropolitan region. A short conversation via instant messenger with an old friend catches me up on whats new with that other world that my old friends reside in. Meanwhile, all I can do is look out the propped-open door of this 40-foot office trailer and wait for phillippe.

Last night I made a joke in conversation. Someone said to someone else, "Have you seen that new Intel commercial? It's pretty cool..."

I hadn't seen the commercial in question, but regardless of that I interjected with a bit of bullshit to keep everyone on their toes. "Oh yeah, that one where they club the shit out of a baby seal!"

For a brief moment, I had them fooled. And because my friends are twisted like me, after they found that I was a dirty liar they expressed both fond wishes and artistic jealousy that corporate america might in fact be capable of being that edgy.

I rolled into the office this morning around 10:15 and after checking e-mails, I did a google image search for "Clubbing Baby Seals".

I very quickly found myself ashamed to be human - possessed by a profound grief and sympathy for some long dead being. Not because the victim was cute and cuddly. Not because its assailant showed the mechanical grace of a well-practiced asassin. I was quietly enraged, comfortably looking at this flatscreen joy-box of mine, because the victim was doing all he could in a futile effort to not get killed.

This was a sentient being. Maybe not as high and mighty as those who are intelligent enough to design the hydrogen-bomb, jerk off to internet porn, and waste away in some life-sucking job, but they still know that they don't want to get hit with that big-ass stick, dig? And that is pretty god-damned sad if you ask me.




Fuck this guy, whoever he is. I hope him and his boss and the owner of whatever company they work for all get jacked in the back of the head with a mallet and left to bleed for a while. Maybe thats all they need. Don't kill 'em. Just let 'em lay there for a while and bleed.

happy healthy human

I haven't posted anything since my scary doomsday column. I wanted to author some missive that would turn me back into a human being, but had no luck with text. Instead, I took the time to publish the proverbial equivalent of 1,000 words.

on blogging

this thing. this blog thing. why do You do it?

almost no one reads. certainly no one cares. and yet You keep on doing it. new You's are starting them up all the time. and You rarely have anything interesting to say. at very least, You say uninteresting things with a good sense of style.

what can I say about a growing mass of You's, all perfectly willing to sit and write for no one?

surely nothing interesting.

"Advertisements have them chasing cars and clothes, working jobs they hate so they can buy shit they don't need. We are the middle children of history, with no purpose or place. We have no great war, or great depression. The great war is a spiritual war. The great depression is our lives. We were raised by television to believe that we'd be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars -- but we won't. And we're learning that fact."

and now freddie nietzsche would like to speak about the dominant aryan culture. what? You don't see that hitler won? thought his plan up and executed it? don't You know that mr. ford and mr. bush had investments in both sides of the last great war? hitler is gone, but so is f.d.r. the infrastrucutre of "the most powerful nation on earth" is rotting from the inside. capital is constantly being poured into private multinational interests with no concept of patriotism, nor any need for it. the american culture is showing the same symptoms of decay preceeding the third reich. there is no history and no future here. there is only growth and consumption. lacking form You stike out blindly.

You are the cancer.

We are the cure.

and so...

"Consider the subtle difference between 'having no form' and having 'no form'; the first is ignorance, the second is transcendence."

-Bruce Lee

a letter, opened

Warning: The following text may give the impression that the author harbors some grand delusions about himself. But don't worry. As great as he thinks he is, the author is also crippled by emotional ignorance, paranoia, and low self-esteem, so it should balance out nicely.

I have this problem. Maybe you have had it, too. I don't know what to do with myself. I don't know right from wrong and even if I did know, I'm not sure that I would have the courage to act on it.

Recently, I visited a good friend of mine that I went to college with. He lives about 400 miles away, so we don't see each other very often. After this most recent visit, I sent him an email explaining how I had a great time hanging out with him and getting to know the people he lives with. The following text is a part of his reply.

"The people in my house thought you were really cool and were asking about you after you left. This one girl , who by the way is very smart (graduated #1 in cognitive science) asked who you were. I replied, thats my super intellectual, crazy amazing musician freind. She then said, "thats why i asked he seemed to have the look of some crazy intellectual of some sort." Thats why she thought you were my friend. Anyways the point of that rambling anecdote is that the intensity of your mind is apparent - and it is up to you to find a creative outlet for the talent that visibly seeps from your presence. It is the obligation of the man burdened with a strong mind to harness it for the good of the world, and not let the mind harness him into something negative."

I highlighted the last sentence in red for a good reason. It is the reason for this whole post, in fact. I would recommend you go back and read it again.

Ok, let's assume that this is true and that it is not the case that I just put up a really good front. I have this intense crazy brain that pukes up talent on a regular basis and everyone can see it except me. I think I can accept this if it is true, and I can also accept that this blessing burdens me with a certain responsibility. Kind of like spiderman.

Here is my problem: How the fuck am I suppposed to know what is good for the world? Should I even worry about it? How do I know that my mind is trying to point me towards something negative rather than something positive? I can't help but feel that the same thing that makes me so great also makes me vile and pathetic for not knowing what to do with it.

It is this fear, this lack of certainty that causes me to sit and wait as my own blessing of a life passes by.

After writing the above text, I visited one of my favorite web pages. I rarely go there, but tend to recall its existence at oppportune moments such as this one. If the link doesn't work, all you have to do is google "the meaning of life". It's always the top ranked page.

http://users.aristotle.net/~diogenes/meaning1.htm

This one is good too. I think I may be at step eight right now.

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2003/11/11carman.html/