JoGa Jungle

'JoGaBot takes a tumble'

2009-11-08T17:26:00.000-08:00

rolland runts laugh and throw rocks

larnald assumes 'cheerio' expression of surprise for several seconds before wandering off

professor taking notes and thoroughly documenting the experience

mad cow: (self-righteously puffs realtor's chest out) 'well, he never called me back...'

plain jane takes advantage of joga while he's down, sabotaging any last-chance opportunities for premium pussy

joseph angrily gathers up relatives with herky-jerky overwrought gesturing. 'We're leaving. You do what you want, kid'

madam cheryl mirrors joseph in herky-jerky motions and lowers pitch of voice in tone of extreme disapproval/shock: "Why I cannot BELIEVE..."

champ turns chimp / goes gorilla + starts trashing jogabop headquarters
(teaming up with kennifer + crowley clan in this endeavor)

DA gets picked up with girlfriends for eternal kegger at marginal warren boy's McMansion: 'cya!'

street rules

2009-11-06T14:40:00.000-08:00

i'm utterly ruthless
i'll rip you two new assholes
i'm gettin' like geffen
now nothing else matters

stoned alone
and living at home again
how many times in a row?

a stalemate
grand central
year zero
we're here

we're here
we're weird
societal stamp of suspicion

we're here
our heroes
all dead as doornails
mere reminders

my only sole weakness
i want to know more
my childish ways will only get me so far
i've been through the ringer already
if I don't get my due, I die

played me for a fool
broke the golden rule
slayed a golden calf
took a bloody bath

@markmuststop vacation? whatycha vacating?

the mating game

2009-11-02T09:07:00.001-08:00

mating and financial markets. they operate on similar universal premises. every human being capable of and willing to sexually reproduce is simultaneously a 'publicly-offered company' and an investor. to 'invest' in a person is to inject capital in return for partial ownership of the entity. but what represents the 'injection of capital' in a sexual market? well isn't that pretty obvious, folks?

so if 'sexual capital' is the sexual energy/attention/favors one lavishes on another: a blow job, cunnilingus, penetration, then the 'share price' of an individual is a reflection of the status that the 'investor' has attained in the marketplace.

from a male perspective, 'sexual capital' IS actual money spent on the 'publically traded company'. in return, he gets partial ownership of the 'company'. but what does this all mean?

'IPO'

this is post-puberty, when a person becomes ready and able to sexually reproduce. the government artificially sets controls on this market called 'age of consent'. i believe that in the future there will be universally held + easily measurable scientific benchmarks that will determine whether a person is legally able to reproduce (say, hormone levels). because we all age at different rates. so think of reaching that age of consent as the 'initial public offering' (IPO). and think of statuatory rape as a form of insider trading, as it is illegal to invest in shares of a company before it is publicly offered.

from a male perspective, the heterosexual male is the investor and the 'publicly offered' female is the company. but in our gender-neutral society, the coin can easily be flipped. let's go through the male perspective, keeping in mind that the same could be all be said vice versa, or same-sex. basically, the "investor" in the relationship is the pursuer (usually the male) and the "company" in the relationship is the person being pursued (usually the female). companies are like Greek gods in the capitalist universe. this means than in the sexual universe, God is a woman.

if an IPO occurs when someone is physically able to reproduce, a person becomes an 'investor' when he/she becomes psychologically interested in reproduction. this can occur much earlier. at age 4, i remember getting hard watching movies that were supposed to be 'sexy'. cartoons and such. and i even remember talking about it with my preschool friends. we were a pretty precocious bunch.

'money' is the adult means of 'investing' in a potential mate. but before one reaches the stage of financial independence, 'time + energy' is the adolescent capital. and returns on investment are measured in sexual favors.

it can be a game of hostile takeovers. once a single investor builds a controlling share position (at least 51% of shares), he acquires spousal status. but there are always other shares floating around in other investors' hands. every man that ever introduces himself in person to a woman acquires a small handful of shares of her just by injecting his persona into her memory bank. that's part of what gets politicians off. they masturbate to the scores of women they've introduced themselves to.

you get a girl's phone #, you acquire another chunk of shares. you have induced the girl to hand over private information about herself not privy to other investors. you are now an insider trader. get ready, pal.

as a relationship progresses, think of each step as the purchase of more shares. you also may dump some shares along the way. say each date equals a fixed number of shares. sexual intercourse gets you to around 25%. a wedding ring represents the achievement of a controlling interest.

the eternally jealous male is only hyperaware of the reality of mating. there are ALWAYS shares of your woman floating out on the open market. everytime she goes to the grocery store, she may sell off a share or two.

an educated investor knows which stocks will be profitable. that is, after he 'invests' in a woman, he can bet on her 'status' in the open market (measured in share price) moving upwards. this is not necessarily a reflection of her fundamentals. but it's like having a one-stand stand with an anonymous blonde bimbo and then a month later she becomes playmate of the year. or investing in microsoft before it took over the computer industry.

so the astute investor buys low and sells high. the fundamental purpose of the female is beauty. truth is beauty. beauty is truth. beauty on the inside (personality) and beauty on the outside (looks). but her 'share price' only reflects how OTHER INVESTORS aggregately assess her beauty. and we all measure beauty differently, although we use the same benchmarks. for example, big tits are always going to make a share price higher (up to a certain point, that is). but there are no clear universal benchmarks for facial structures or skin tones. so it can be tricky to determine the 'efficient' share price of the marginal female. and the male libido, which drives investment, is the engine of this sexual marketplace.

in high school, the market is simple because the popularity scale is clearly delineated in most cases. the homecoming queen types are the most highly valued companies. the jocks + renegades are the warren buffet types. because they usually know how to buy low and sell high. if a girl is already popular, it's usually not the smartest investment. male competition for her vagina (high demand) makes her raise her share prices and limit supply. this can also cause her to ignore fundamentals, which can then drive share price back down. so the smart male investor will refrain from investing in these exclusive types because there's nowhere to go but down.

the investor who goes after this types is usually looking to become a market maker. because once you acquire a controlling interest in these types of high-profile companies, you acquire a revenue line that will deliver you to the next level of investing. think of it as the average schlump somehow landing the cheerleading captain. he schemed and dreamed to make it happen, and the revenue he eternally earns from this conquest will help him land all the smaller fish company/women. but at what cost? the struggle to gain that controlling interest in the big fish will break him 11 times out of 12. think captain ahab.

if you acquire a controlling share in a company that was already popular, then you risk share prices dropping once you're in the driver's seat. now you have a vested interest in making sure she stays beautiful. this is one of the underlying principles of marriage.

but too much success in this endeavor can also damn a man. if a woman becomes more beautiful/desirable after you obtain a controlling interest, you may gradually erode your shares to outsider investors until you lose that controlling interest. and then her share price will be so high that you won't be able to buy her back. think marilyn monroe's first husband.

then there are the investors who don't have megalomaniac dreams but merely want to value invest. they want to find mates who are fundamentally undervalued by the market and become arbitragers (profiteering from share price movement towards efficient market levels). this is when a guy starts dating a girl that for one reason or another has been ignored by other investors. and once he starts dating her, other guys see how beautiful she is and her share prices skyrocket. the initial investor makes a killing. i was really good at 'pricing' around age 12. too bad i didn't have the funds to invest back then.

online equities trading is really no different from eharmony. the average schlump investor feels like the stock world is at his fingertips just as the average schlump bachelor feels like he has limitless access to a buffet of women in online matchmaking sites. in the equities market, this leads to a lot of overtrading noise. lots of little people making random little trades just for the sake of trading. and it throw off the markets from efficiently pricing equities. online dating has created its own 'noise' leading to inefficient pricing in the sexual arena. creative photoshopping can make a person seem much more desirable at first glance. and then collective hours are wasted as both sides indulge in fantasies of what the other person really isn't. then narcissistic supplies are satiated at both ends and nothing comes of the digital affair.

and we rely on 'brokers' to invest. in the sexual arena, brokers are mutual friends who allow you to get closer to a female of interest. brokers can pass along insider information. then you have your financial advisors. they may not know the female you're interested in, but they are experienced investors who pass along the basic principles of dating. their advice can be accepted or discarded. these are your fathers and other unworthy know-it-alls of the community. and their advice always comes with a price tag.

the best financial advisor is the natural alpha male. the man who understands market timing. to learn from them, you must compensate them in some way. you may have to buy them drinks at the bar. or befriend them. or teach them about something they don't know much about.

sexual favors are dividends. because what is most important in the market of illusions is that your woman's share price go up. because in this narcissistic age, we all get off more from the assumed jealousy of others than from purely physical satisfaction. having men drooling over your wife makes a man feel better than actually getting blowjob from said wife. because in this day and age, any man with a grand to spare can get a blowjob from the most beautiful plastic escort in the world. so it's more a game of exclusivity. a girl who pays her investors too many 'sexual dividends' is a slut. she's giving out money to a lot of investors in the hopes that there will be more demand for her. but her fundamentals are rotten. so all she's doing is passing out cheap love in the hope of increasing her share price. this usually works for a while. then investors collectively realize that it's a ponzi scheme (cue *slut stamp*) as dividends are being paid out by new investor's money who are attracted by the initial dividend stream. and she becomes madoffed. bernie madoff is like a slut who became an internationally renowned porn star before contracting AIDS and dying. beautiful, really.

so what affects share price? say a girl gets fat after you start dating her. her share price goes down. you lose out on your investment. say she starts working out. her share price goes up. you profit on your investment. you dump her the next week. there are two ways that can go. either she gets depressed, stops working out, and you are congratulated for dumping a hottie at her peak. or she spites you and gets hotter and hotter. and you are left in the dust for being such a fool as to hop off a rising star.

this is why even in this enlightened feminist age, girls are still primarily concerned with maximizing her beauty. improving her fundamentals. and men are still primarily money hungry. plastic surgery represents a new perverted level of the core principle of 'improving fundamentals'. breast augmentation, liposuction, all these procedures so that a woman can be perceived as more beautiful by the collective male libido.

We must remember that not all men are out there investing in the stock market today. Why...because they are afraid of risk, afraid that they won't be able to afford more than 1-5% of any given girl's stock and thereby be rejected. What do they do instead? Well, they can put their money under their mattress, and attain zero sexual satisfaction throughout their lives. They can put the money in the bank (aka masturbate) and earn relatively paltry interest on their savings. This is the safe, zero-risk route. Or they can invest their money in disposable goods (toys, comic books, other junk) which is the equivalent of buying a prostitute or going to a strip club: cheap, instant gratification. There are some men that invest in real estate, which is equivalent to finding a wife: a long-term, expensive investment. Other men buy and sell real estate for profit, as you can see by the high divorce rates in America today.

The key to being successful in the market for women is to diversify. Don't put all of your eggs into one basket, go out and buy a couple shares of as many women as possible. If you someday reach the level of a major corporate player, you could be controlling 2-3 companies at once. Another fundamental rule is not to make it obvious that you are planning to buy up a majority of shares for a girl...in other words don't be persistant from the get go or then the girl will block your share purchases and you will be rejected. Once you get 10% of shares, don't call for a week and then start buying up again. That way, your intentions aren't blatantly obvious and you can ease your way up to the controlling shareholder position. The successful investor is an educated investor. Research the earnings reports of the girls you are investing in, understand their history (who they've slept with, if they have any STDs etc) and find out as much information as you can about the girl (inside info or not).

Some other tips: it's good to invest in companies right at their IPO date (when they reach age 18) as soon as possible, because these stocks have been shown to make massive jumps in price upon entering the market. Its also sometimes a good idea to just follow market trends, as everyone usually wins as long as they are playing the game. Alcohol is the golf of this market...meaning that alcohol allows investors to make more illicit deals with company managers while under the influence (just as in golf, CEOs and investment company heads often make insider deals that wouldn't fly in the open market). Investors must also worry about taxes on their capital gains, meaning that if they sell their stocks too often (dump girls) to realize their profits, then they will be taxed on those gains (meaning they will gain a reputation as an asshole which could hamper them in future deals). Some investors prefer to enter into exclusive social circles to find women to meet, which would be the equivalent of a mutual fund or hedge fund. Foreign markets are an untapped resource in today's financial world.

If any investor has any questions or would like me to analyze their portfolio for them and make recommendations, my office is in Pforzheimer House at Harvard University. Hope to hear from you.

JoGa
Certified Financial Planner

midnight mischief

2009-10-31T00:26:00.001-07:00

played a solo show tonite @ bar east in the upper east side on hour 1 of halloween. i followed a most interesting band lineup called 'NYBD'. the drummer was a chubby bald man in his 40s, he was a very precise and good rock n' roll drummer. he used his cymbals conventionally but flawlessly. the bassist was a longhaired spainiard in his mid-30s. he looked like a hispanic steve perry. and he sang really well, in a high-pitched rock n' roll voice that was perfectly in tune. there was a youngblood mustachioed midget on a silver lead guitar (he had an array of electrics on a rack at his disposal). he was your typical slightly irritating personality but reliable a musician in that shred-tapping sort of way. and he sang really well too. like those coheed and cambria high-pitched and adventurous. then there was an older soul man on lead vocals and harmonica. he was a master MC. he was the first man to talk to me as i entered the club. he was swigging budweiser from a brown bag before the show. then he got right up there and sang so soulfully that i wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. it was a lot of cliches in the lyrics, but like i try to do, they collaged the cliches well so that they were alluding to things like shooting needles and impending death in a very upbeat manner. it was a great set. they didn't seem to have any fans except the leftovers from the 10pm slot. which was a typical sloppy whiteboy 3-piece. they pretended to be beer-guzzling nihilists but you could tell the lead singer was trying his best to stay in tune as he screamed at the top of his lungs. but NYBD was really like no other band i've ever seen.

immigration

2009-10-18T11:46:00.000-07:00

the way i see things, we 'americans' are just getting what we deserve now with all this immigration. most of the new immigrants are hybrid hispanic/indians, both of whom discovered this continent long before the 'whitest' men

forgotten jocks

2009-10-17T13:46:00.000-07:00

whatever happened to bo jackson? startin to feel like paul simon. did he ever get that hip of his fixed? i wonder whether bo took roids. no, he was too badass for needles. i bet bo did blow though.

overpopulation

2009-10-15T08:56:00.001-07:00

for a committed libertarian, i think a one-child policy is a pretty responsible way to go. for one, there won't be as much incest. but mostly i suspect that a lot of societal violence is caused by the marginal person having a greater loyalty towards a sibling than an 'unrelated' marginal person around his/her age. with a one-child policy in place, all the neighborhood kids become brothers and sisters by default. enforcing the policy is another matter altogether. how about making it so that the government tax dollars only go towards the firstborn? that sounds appealing? how many other firstborn sons out there are with me? i say after a man and a woman produce a healthy child of each gender, any further production will be second rate. how many other firstborn sons and daughters out there are with me?

don't get me wrong. this is not to say

dreams

2009-10-14T18:27:00.001-07:00

one of my most gruesome dreams in recent memory, though not quite a nightmare:

popping a pimple / opening my face in front of the bathroom mirror. or more accurately, i popped a pimple which opened up my face. and there was all of this thick white spaghetti inside of me. i could even see the bottom of my eyeball drooping down from under the cheek skin. instead of being freaked out i'd gone too far, i took out some of the spaghetti material thinking it was more pus and threw it in the sink. then i sealed it back up and went out to the patio to cry to my mother. but this soon shifted to me playing it cool to a female nurse about my age. then it shifted to some sort of 'pirates of the caribbean ride' where i wanted to be at the back of the ride (a canoe like vehicle making its way along a water track). it was slot 12, or so I thought. a little kid (one of my cousins) came up in the line and he wanted to be in the back. and his father (my uncle?) was around so I didn't want to appear as though I was taking a spot from a child. so i gave him the back slot, which turned out to be 14 and i went into slot 12. then as we boarded i realized that 12 was in fact the last slot and the two people in back of me wouldn't be boarding the boat. i just barely boarded the boat as it took off for the first exhibit. ray kenwell was in the seat in front of me. it turned out that it was actually his older brother in back of me that didn't get to board. i felt sort of bad about this but there was nothing we could do. soon this shifted to a series individual boats we were paddling by hand. i started paddling into the next exhibit room while everyone remained with the guide. everything started getting dark as i attempted to reverse course

i don't think it gets much more symbolic than that.

"come here, freud, and analyze this one for me!"

(leaves a few grams of coke and a glass of milk by the fireplace)

(3 hours later, a goofy german comes stumbling in, erratically fumbling with his keys)

"well zee white spaghetti was your brain. and you're picking at it too violently. and you risk mental collapse if you keep zis up. zat and you want to fuck your mother. as for zee paddleboating sequence, you feel guilty for overtaking your father and restrained by societal norms"

thanks freud! i know i can always count on you to cut to the heart of things. do you need more coke?

"no thank you"

more milk?

"i've got an appointment to keep! a little girl"

good luck father freud!

HI! HOW ARE YOU?

2009-10-11T22:49:00.001-07:00

(*divine comedy*)

(born 5 August 1984)

i always learn from my mistakes

'There's Something Wrong With Watchung'
(they'll castrate ya from the crib)
(then they'll call it 'circumcision' like the local Jews done did)
(gaybird commentator: "oh, you Romans overdo EVERYTHING, you take what we Greeks gave you and then just like Hollywood, go into overkill mode")
('til their precious little Jesus turn and ran away)
(and the bully fat Italians became the villains in your twisted play)
(and to your delight, they ate it right up with their spaghetti)
(but then of course they got carried away)
(it didn't take long 'fore they got it all wrong)
(it took the solemn German Mister Luther to curb Roman vanity gone haywire)
(and pretty soon everyone started arguing over who loved Jesus more)
(meanwhile the smiling Jews were swindling their Christian idiots and apparent 'oppressors')
(they even had the foresight to teach religion to their slaves)
(so in subsequent generations, they'll never ask to be repaid)

The word "robot" was introduced to the public by Czech writer Karel Čapek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), published in 1920. The play begins in a factory that makes artificial people called robots, but they are closer to the modern ideas of androids and clones, creatures who can be mistaken for humans. They can plainly think for themselves, though they seem happy to serve. At issue is whether the robots are being exploited and the consequences of their treatment.

However, Karel Čapek himself did not coin the word; he wrote a short letter in reference to an etymology in the Oxford English Dictionary in which he named his brother, the painter and writer Josef Čapek, as its actual originator. In an article in the Czech journal Lidové noviny in 1933, he explained that he had originally wanted to call the creatures laboři (from Latin labor, work). However, he did not like the word, and sought advice from his brother Josef, who suggested "roboti". The word robota means literally work, labor or serf labor, and figuratively "drudgery" or "hard work" in Czech and many Slavic languages. Serfdom was outlawed in 1848 in Bohemia, so at the time Čapek wrote R.U.R., usage of the term 'robota' had broadened to include various types of work, but the obsolete sense of "serfdom" would still have been known.

The word robotics, used to describe this field of study, was coined (albeit accidentally) by the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov.

Son of T-Bills + Madame Cheryl

Grandma Skippy + Grandma Gippy

Fat Italians + Instigater Irishmen
Working Class WASPS + Amiable Arabs

"ma damn sure'll"

Champ + DA

Children have a chance to grow into their own persons whereas robots are tools of their makers

(*cue 'Pinocchio'*)

My childhood gurus were hyperactive clowns, Big Birds, effeminate elder gentlemen who liked to play make believe, fat Italian plumbers, and genetically mutated turtles. All soon to be replaced by a big purple dinosaur named Barney and a bunch of spacemen power rangers. Not to mention a mustachioed egomaniac who just had to put his stamp on everything (no, I'm not talking about Hitler!) And then we wonder why we're producing a generation of confused + narcissistic head-in-the-clouds dreamers year in and year out!

A bit surreal childhood is, ain't it?

What if Jimbo the Clown was really just my Uncle Jimmy forced to play dress-up for the good of the children?

(at hoity-toity dinner party:)
"What are your thoughts on this Barney? Do you think he's good for the children?"

'Kill Your Idols'

The anti-Barney sentiment was quite strong back when I was in fourth grade. My mother printed out a cartoon from work that showed a father shooting the television screen and a bloodied Barney emerging from the carnage. She thought it was funny, but she seemed sort of nervous about showing it to me, like she was committing some sort of sacrilege by propagating a violent image against a mainstream idol. I proudly passed along the 'porno' to all my friends in the Moriarty basement at the next sleepover.

(do remember that this is hovering around the time of the Cobain suicide)

What would Ted Bundy think of all this? His own mother!

My social life was dictated by my mother's lack of (social) balls, meaning that she was the passive pretty one among her controlling mother hen friends. Which meant that MY activities in turn were determined by the local ADD case, hopped up on Ritalin and whatever other drugs he was inserting into his tough-as-nails chipmunk constitution. i really shouldn't be so hard on him. he was just a victim of a domineering mother. call it the norman bates syndrome. and she in turn developed a domineering persona as the only girl in clan of larger-than-life brothers. and he did have the balls to start drinking alcohol before any of us. we were altarboys together and he'd take swigs of the wine backstage. he'd also hit up the vodka bottles quite often in his father's liquor cabinet.

I remember using humor + humiliation tactics to break free of the kennifer klasp. When he alleged sexual assault (part of his perpetual cry for attention) after our black tennis coach playfully patted us, I called him out on it at recess. And he cried to his parents. And then I caught hell from my own pussywhipped parents. Shane tried to help (though he had his own nefarious plot in mind). He spread rumors of kennifer's alleged racist rants against my family (all patently false). Goaded on by him, I called up miss pangea to inform her that kennifer had called her a cow (which probably was true, but it was all in good fun). All this teasing seemed to be cries for attention, social sacrifices made in order to please their god (which of course was myself). Mad Cow tortured Lepel for my amusement, catching the flak from the administration as I enjoyed the festivities unpunished. So perhaps the subsequent sacdawg suicide was all part of the proceedings in this grand circle we call life.

i remember hanging a lot at my mother's tennis clubs. those are really cool places. i'd usually just hit up the vending machines, run behind the curtains, and sketch from my collection of comic books. i'd bullshit with whatever other kids were around.

I became a football player because my father was a football player so it seemed the right thing to do (not that I was pressured into it, I tracked down the local Pop Warner league myself to sign up). The resident Asian Cua was first to dive into the football ruckus as a fourth grader, as he had legions of older brothers as guideposts. I followed suit in fifth grade (just as he was quitting). I didn't quite have the courage to abandon soccer as a fourth grader, but by the time I entered middle school it seemed that it was time to make the leap from pussyfooting to tackling. It was an exhilarating experience to say the least.

We began summer training on August 1.

At the same time, I was proudly donning watchung hills wrestling apparel in the halls of VV.

Then it was time for baseball. I played on a green team called 'Fabric Land'. We were pretty bad, but I became the best player on the team, going 9 for 18 on the year (I was also a stat rat back then). I remember hitting a triple off pete riccio, the fastest pitcher we had seen to that point in a night game @ greenbrook. I closed my eyes and swung the bat. I went for a home run but was called out at the plate. Later Kennifer was thrown out of the game for allegedly throwing a helmet against the fence (he was probably trying to steal my thunder, the ADD case that he is)

The next year, I played football for the Indians when I really should have been playing for the Braves (my late birthday made me just eligible for the cutoff as long as I kept myself under 90 pounds). I remember not making weight one morning and having to cut a pound and a half to make weight. I remember taking a masculine proud in the fact that I was overweight. I remember them making me play center for a game (I was usually an end).

6th grade wrestling went as well as can be. Don't remember much about it. I remember being all hung up on kathleen hanon. Irish girls always worked wonders on me. I also remember listening to a lot of alanis morisette.

6th grade baseball was the Yankees. We won the league championship against the Greenbrook Red Sox. I remember Fat Joe Procacini as the opposing pitcher. I remember doug stolen refusing to go to bat, making up a quick temperature-related excuse while on deck. I remember 'NBA Jams' on Sega Genesis. I remember Knicks basketball on television.

i remember destroying a particularly good paper-mache alien i made at the end of the school day. my art teacher mister dursee caught me delightfully smashing the alien. he laid the guilt trip on thick, telling me that just the previous night he had remarked to an observer what a good artist i was. i felt sorta bad after that. i never thought i was any good.

Student Council receptions @ Rolf's

7th grade football was the Braves. We didn't win any games. I was the quarterback until Pete Riccio came to save the day. Then he started fumbling the snaps. We were the only two people to eat the cafeteria specials. We both suffered under overbearing fat Italian fathers (though mine controlled his weight with his various neuroses) The golden calf had finally arrived

7th grade wrestling was pretty awesome. It was just Shane and I back then, it was really the best of times.

Our middle school baseball team was pretty terrible. We didn't have any pitchers. That did us in. I was our second baseman. The coach's final verdict on me (he sat us all down at our last practice) was that I had the talent to continue in baseball, though my arm was too weak to play any other position but second base (this is what factored into my 'throwing troubles' of the next year). I wasn't hung up on throwing the baseball then and never committed any errors. Then one game I had to play third base and I remember another player suggesting that I become the de facto third baseman. The coach laughed it off, saying I didn't have the arm to play third base. Then the player pointed out that I had thrown out several people in the last game quite admirably. He laughed and shrugged, "on a bounce?"

I recall throwing a baseball from shortstop into the Greenbrook stands when attempting to reach first base.

(because I wanted to kill the fans, those hollow souls who sought satisfaction not from silently observing children at play, but from spewing vile sonic contributions like rabid Coliseum spectators)

I was really more pissed at my father, who pressured me into playing Little League for a final year even though I was already playing on my middle school baseball team. It was his own ego at stake (as always) as he was the coach for my brother's team and wanted to field the strongest team possible. But I suppose I should be grateful / otherwise I'da never known the sensation of hitting a home run (over a fence, that is)

I hit home runs left and right in Greenbrook during that magical summer. I even hit a legendary shot into a Summit backyard that they still talk about at Camp Riverbend reunions. I hit my first home run off of Carl Riccio (who was a meatball pitcher back then). For whatever reason, the riccios were playing for greenbrook (they always seemed to be popping up in random guises at various sporting events, starting with teen lover maceater's basketball camps). My favorite part about those basketball camps (held for a week at watchung hills each summer) was the pizza and sodas. Like Watchung Recreation, it formed indelible sensations in my mind that can even now be easily summoned.

'Broken Right Wrist'

For some reason, I agreed to play in a greenbrook-dominated all-star team that summer, sacrificing nights down the shore for baseball.

I don't recall whether I was safe or out
(I hit a dribbling blooper / didn't even reach the pitcher)
(what a weak way to go)

I was supposed to go to Frost Valley a second summer

J-Bass + Lubeypops joined Kennifer upstate that year until a rash of poison ivy sent them all home.

I was groomed to be my high school's quarterback but I missed half of my final Pop Warner football season on account of that same broken wrist. I remember fearing the worst as my doctor informed me of a 5% chance that the growth plates would not heal normally.

Suddenly the athletic horizon seemed bleak. The magic had been sucked out of the sports. I was, as is the common term nowadays, "burned out"

I joined my father's 'Braves' team midway through the season but felt no passion for the competition any longer. Again I was the 'big kid' on a little kid's team, making the age of eligibility by a month due to a late birthday.

My father chastised me midgame in Maplewood: 'you're supposed to be a leader out there'!' I cared not, instead of reaching out and grabbing the ball, I would wait until it reached my cradled arms (more maternal than patriarchal, I suppose / not a good sign on a football field).

Then I decided to try out for the middle school basketball team just for the hell of it. We were pretty terrible (I, with no skills to speak of, made the starting 5). I'm a great 1-on-1 basketball player, routinely beating the best player on the team (at the time JBass), but I'm a shitty team player. Ballhogs die quickly in basketball. To add more stress to my proverbial plate, I remained on the local wrestling team. The team got more ambitious that year with formalized high school meets and we were pretty awesome. I was a damn good 125-pounder then, though I could never beat the coach's son, who was always slightly heavier + stronger than I. He cut weight and pinned me in period 1 during the yearend suburban tournament. My Uncle Tony was ashamed (he probably suffered the same fate at the Shallcross/Aldrich brothers' hands). He shant have feared, my brother would redeem the Gatti athletic legacy years later.

This was also the spring that I forgot how to throw a baseball. Our middle school couldn't field a team, so J-Bass pointed the way to Long Hill. At the very first practice in the VV gym, I embarrassingly started throwing the ball all over the place. Groggbert dryly fetched the ball. Rudy Bassman giggled at the absurdity of it all. I was mortified, a proto-Chuck Knoblock.

To compensate, I became a standout mile-runner on the school's track team (best time was around 5:45 back then). The high school cross-country coach tried recruiting me for the team, but I was adamant about playing football. He told me I didn't have the build for football. I was insulted. I still wasn't fast enough to beat J-Bass in the 800m (2 lap) race (though the time was fast enough to earn a top 5 VV record). Cua covered the short distances.

Aided by Uncle Bob, I began an obsessive weightlifting regimen instead (he had probably shown my father + uncle a similar program 30 years ago).

Then it was really time for war.

I trained like a beast that summer.

Freshman football / High school / Surrounding towns

95 pounds was the de facto bench press test in the beginning. 25-pound plates on each side. By the end of the summer, I repped out at around 20 at that weight. Then we ran 800m races (and J-Bass beat me again). Because J-Bass had me beat in natural athleticism (I chalked it up to his blonde mane), I overcompensated in the strength department. But it didn't matter, Girven was intent on grooming Lostan into his quarterback. He probably recognized that Lostan, coming from Warren, was a more natural team leader. And he had been the Chiefs quarterback after all (while my father had dragged me onto his little kid's team that year). When my father heard that I wasn't being given a chance to try out for the position, he told me to request a chance. So I did. And after practice, Girven announced that those who wanted to demonstrate their QB abilities could do so. And I did so. I remember thinking I performed quite admirably, but nothing came of it. Dan Roth complimented me on my performance, that may be part of the reason why I stayed close to the mutant for all those years in high school. i'm a sucker for sycophants

not only was I not given a chance to play quarterback, but even after top scores in all strength/speed tests, I didn't even earn a spot in the starting lineup. I was forced to battle for a position at outside linebacker when jbass was put in front of me. He failed miserably at the position, and I soon took over after the first scrimmage. By the end of the season, I had become a dependable two-way starter and even scored my first touchdown after all those years of struggle. even though we were already getting our asses handed to us by an all-black urban team (franklin). i had an annoying doppelganger named phil lamperello who was always challenging me in vain for my starting positions. it pissed me off that i started over him yet all the old chicks i dug were flocking to him in droves for whatever reason. we looked really similar back then. during the sac saga he would pretend to be insulted upon a girl's suggestion that we looked like. i should also mention this was a girl i was in love with at the time. and the most frustrating aspect of it all is that i had already showed in up in the physical arena on the football field. but because i had that scarlet 'sac' branded on me, he was able to take them away from me.

It was all for naught. After all those hours of turmoil, our team didn't win a single game that season.

I started out high school in no man's land, straddling the jock/nerd hemispheres like some clumsy Hercules. over the course of my stumblings I came across several plain janes who decided to take aggressive interest in I. And I, hungry for all types of experience at that age, usually acquiesced as long as the girl stroked my ego satisfactorily.

She had a lesbian rebel streak in her that made her the target of the teacher's wrath, while I, the quiet little scholar-athlete, remained over in the corner doing as I was told. The local pro athlete even labeled me 'robo-man' due to my stiff demeanor on the football field + wrestling mat (my wrestling coach just said I needed to get laid).

She fought the dumb angels with all her might. She fought them because she believed in a unisex meritocracy devoid of dumb angels (now where's the fun in that?) She found her fun in same-sex roleplaying and copious drug taking (all the while maintaining that steady '88' average, a flickering hope of pulling off admission to a bottom-tier Ivy Leaguer)

When winter came I metamorphosized into a 135-pound junior varsity grappler vermin. Got pinned by coach's son in wrestle-off. Couldn't beat Kingsbury. Had a decent JV season. Future seemed bright.

Absolutely terrifed when baseball season rolled around. Remembered traumatic travails of the last spring. Luckily coach had also been my wrestling coach, so felt confident I'd make the team. Made the team.

Outfielder for freshman team / interchangeable with schneider / 'player of the week'
(jaybird: 'what'd he do?')

Started out as a starter but gradually found my way to the bench
(became more concerned with weightlifting then)

Varsity football --> a taste of glory

Inherit #44 from Drewnowski
Did I inherit his insanity as well?
He passed up on Froggie
Started on JV
Better I didn't become a QB
Just look at McGee
More like McUgly
With a Pan like that
Pete won't be here anytime soon
Richie flew to his personal moon
That was shaped like a baseball diamond

Then there was wrestling. Now I was 152 pounds but I still couldn't beat that rascally coach's son. At first I tried out for the 140-lb slot. I should have remained at 152, Tom Lee ended up getting hurt and then Shallcross took that slot. But I was packed by Little Lizzi, a bulldog way tougher than myself. I remember harboring fantasies of defeating little lizzi and stealing his big-tittied girlfriend away from him to the soundtrack of the Animals' version of 'Gonna Send You Back To Walker'. Didn't happen

I had no chance of usurping Mike Vitollo from his 145-lb slot, so I remained a JV rat. I wrestled off Shallcross midseason and lost in overtime.

Things seemed to be improving...

I played JV baseball that spring. I hardly saw any time on the diamond. Seemed a waste of time + energy. Became even more obsessed with weightlifting, to the point that muscles were wound too tight to throw a baseball (but I could still play guitar just like ringin' a bell). Then I realized that I was being passed up for underclassmen when I halfheartedly went out for a summer program and was summarily rejected. The head coach knew I couldn't throw a baseball, my neuroses were still apparent 3 years after that traumatic 8th grade (in)experience.

But I was always a reliable batter

I came into junior year football with high hopes of a glorious season. Then I realized that I'd never be as tough as Cody Brenn or graceful as Jay Frank. So I slowly found my way out of the starting lineup. The new midget bearded coach liked me until I started dropping passes.

I was usurped from my starting position at defensive end after three games for unexplained reasons. I was replaced by a hook-nosed Greek (whom Carmela dubbed ugly from the start). That's when things took a turn for the worse + I finally turned to music for the answers. My father sent me to Plainfield for SAT lessons but I mostly zoned out + expanded my musical horizons.

I achieved a varsity spot by default on the wrestling team. I was our resident 171-pound goofball. I wasn't tough enough for that weight, I was a very slight 171-pounder, you see. If I had had the willpower to cut down to 160, it'd be a different story, but I was far too lazy then and besides I needed food as a refuge during late study hours. So being an average athlete, superstudent, and binge eater all seemed to work in some sort of conjunction with one another (especially when you factor in the triple obsession with guitar/weightlifting to a classic rock soundtrack). Plus as a weightlifter the whole point was to build muscle, not cut down to a weight for the good of the collective. Still, I had a .500 record and was eliminated in the first round of the state tournament by a soft n' mediocre Berkeley Heights grappler who just came off a huge upset of some undefeated Union tough guy. It was a pretty close match, one of those matches where neither of us seemed to care very much as we both subconsciously wanted our seasons to end as both of us knew we had no realistic shot at becoming state champions or even of making the final rounds. One needs hype around them to get themselves to the very mental state it requires to become a top wrestler. In other words, a person needs to feel that a lot of people are behind them in order to actually win big matches and become that state wrestler. Same way with music, it's the huge stars that often go on to create groundbreaking works riding that wave of mass adulation to new heights.

When it came down to our team, I could beat anyone that year. I'd say that during my junior year, no one who walked the halls of Watchung Hills (teacher or student) could beat me in a wrestling match (coaches included). My only rival was Kolody (one of my favs / also popular with the young ladies of the day). That was some sort of personal accomplishment for me in and of itself. Every once in a while a local father would come along to practice to relive his glory days and he'd show me up (Jay Stewart, meet Ron Paul). By that time, thanks to weightlifting I had put on 20 pounds of muscle that Shallcross (as a soccer sissy) never bothered to obtain for himself. Then my father, at the urging of Billy Goat Ard, sent me to 'The Edge' where I found trueblood gorillas who I didn't even want to be better then. So I usually opted for McDonald's French Fries and McFlurries.

My father's only Pop Warner friend was Angelo Butrico. That tell you something? He even refused an invitation to Atlantic City with Pete Riccio (on principle)

Even my sister mocked me for being eliminated so early in the state wrestling tournament. Talk about having no refuges! Your little sister becomes your fat Italian tormenter!

Then they started the lacrosse program @ Watchung Hills. I decided to abandon baseball for good and try my luck at lacrosse. I was a decent ball handler and aggressive player, I spent many minutes in a penalty box. I often got carried away. The coach was a pot-bellied asshole, a wannabe football player with chicken legs. He spit when he talked. He had a really high pitched voice. He may've been gay. He was a ballbuster. He'll burn in hell for all eternity.

It was another summer of weightlifting + guitar playing. I was supposed to be working on achieving Eagle Scout, but I became disillusioned with the Boy Scouts after all my connected friends started advancing + collecting merit badges left and right while I was intentionally left in the dust (because my father hated the outdoors + is addicted to comfort, therefore he alienated himself from the other nature lovers in the area). It was their way at getting back at me for being the teacher's pet, usurping the Boy Scouts as a front to create some alternative alleged meritocracy in which their sons would be propped up.

Since I wasn't elected as a varsity captain (it was a team vote and I was never a team player), I wasn't looking forward to the final year of football. Of course, my parents decide to meddle in the ceremony, falsely claiming to hear a rumor that I would be elected captain, getting my hopes up and then subsequently shattered. I went through the motions, eventually earning a starting spot on offense, defense, and all special teams (so that I never left the field), but I had to fight to earn all those spots as again lesser players (underclassmen now) were being put ahead of me (as the new offensive coordinator was looking to create a new dynasty and cared not about the time that us seniors had put into the program, the selfish prick!) Yes, Benedict was one of those egomaniac high school football coaches (hi Uncle Bob!) who still weightlifts to maintain a dominant presence. A small fry Vince McMahon. Endearing in his own way, but very overbearing and very limited in intellect. Yet he adapts easily to all situations due to his alpha tendencies and abilities to apply his overarching simplistic philosophies to all problems that come before him (think Hitler). Benedict was a gym teacher by default, idling his days away poking at teenage nymphs and bench pressing while all the while dreaming football dreams + thinking up convoluted offensive schemes in his overenthusiastic grandmanboy's brain.

So I was a blocking tight end, never appreciated by the crowds but always necessary for the survival of the squad. And we were a .500 team by then, so I could take some pride in my efforts. I had some chances to shine on defense, but I never effectively beelined for the quarterback. I was always too cautious a player, mostly because I didn't want to fuck up my arms for guitar.

Then I got my Harvard acceptance letter and my perspective on life started to change for the better

I was actually looking forward to that year's wrestling season as a true final chance at athletic glory after years of high school suffering. I figured that after getting the academic burdens lifted, I could divert my attentions to athletic triumphs.

I even dutifully attended The Edge through that fall (although after football practices this was an undue burden). And then some curly-haired Chatham gorilla (my future self?) threw me into a wall as we sparred. My shoulder got done fucked up. There was a football game against Phillipsburg that week. Coach Benedict was absolutely flabbergasted that I would be attending a wrestling school during football season. I suffered through the game but upon every point of contact my nerves sent a stinging sensation through my entire body. And every so often I still get those sensations if my neck is jolted hard enough. I held my tongue through the rest of the season in preparation for wrestling. That's when I realized that Anthony Caruso, a sophomore meatball who had knocked out Grodeck from the program the year before, was now a very tough wrestler. He couldn't beat little Shallcross at the 171-pound slot so he wrestled me off at 189 pounds (a spot that I had earmarked for myself all fall as being without competition). It was like the ghost of my fat Italian grandfather was coming back to haunt me once again. During the first tournament of the season, I realized that I was still intimidated by muscular black opponents, unskilled as they were, because they mirrored my own wrestling style (which was usually designed around driving the opponent out of the ring) During the first meet of the season, I faced an opponent from Bridgewater who simply destroyed me. No matter what I did, I could never beat a creature like that. His name was John. My father told me he knew my heart wasn't in wrestling (even though I had convinced myself then that it was).

To add insult to injury, I had not been elected wrestling captain by the team, even though only two seniors remained in the program. There was a loudmouthed featherweight who became burned out by the demands of weight cutting, but he was popular with the team so they voted him in as a write-in based on the possibility he may return to the team. And since the coach didn't want to put power in his hands, he decided to go with one captain. At least that was his explanation to me. A couple weeks into the season, he claimed he saw a 'new Joe Gatti' and appointed me captain. Remember, there were only two seniors on the team (although there had been underclassmen standouts voted captain in the past).

Realizing that even if I did defeat Caruso in a wrestle-off, he'd keep requesting a wrestle-off every week, which would quickly burn out both of us (but also probably make us both much better wrestlers), I instead decided to bump up to 215 pounds. That's right kids, 215 pounds! I even wrestled a match (illegally) at heavyweight. And I pinned the kid and our team won the match (granted he was also probably bumped up as well). It was a kid I had already beaten up on during a Piscataway practice (god knows why we agreed to practice with those thugs). The year before, I had suffered a humiliating pin from a Thompson. He was a muscular black 171-pounder, shorter and squatter than I, but he seemed very unskilled all the same. My "friend" Paul Lee claimed that he had pinned him in a JV match earlier in the season, and he even told my father this (which came back to bite me). I put more pressure on myself to win the match (since he seemed so unformidable a foe), and threw a sloppy headlock to assert domination off the bat. And whaddya know, it worked? I had the kid pinned down the entire first period in a headlock, but he fought with more gusto than I would have anticipated for a kid who was allegedly defeated by Paul Lee (a soft-bellied Korean Charlie Brown)

I went down against some hairy Greek at our North Plainfield match. I took 12 showers afterwards. I simply couldn't move the meatball. My uncle was ashamed and reported the news to my father.

Again I was eliminated in the first round of the state tournament. I was seeded fifth and I wrestled a soft New Providence type. I was winning the match until he finally pinned me.

Again

The Harvard admission justified the first 18 years of my struggles / but upon the acceptance e-mail I entered into an identity crisis as I pre-planned my collegiate life. My high school life had been dominated by athletic pursuits, but I never stood out enough in a single sport to be recruited by any collegiate teams (nor did I have any interest in being scouted. Much like Catholic priests, scouts for high school athletes always struck me as prone to pederastic streaks). I played sports not only because I believed it was what was expected of me, but as a matter of pride and as a matter of further isolating myself from the geeks I idled my daytime hours beside. I was the sole jock among nerds and the sole nerd among jocks. And all the while I was moving towards music, my gods were the classic rockers, my divine mission was the guitar, my valhalla was the stage.

Therefore upon arrival @ Harvard Yard I settled upon a course of the 'tabula rasa' walk-on athlete. A dark horse with no history / a man who lifted weights day and night and never indulged in the pleasures of the flesh or bottle.

I eventually chickened out on the wrestling team, but I did get a membership at the local Bally Total Fitness where I stacked up on loads of creatine powder and began adhering to a brutal weightlifting regimen.

During my first year @ Harvard, I started a rock band called the 'Fat Italians'. After giving up on wrestling, I decided that music would finally become my primary focus. I tried out for the freshman talent show. I performed solo electric guitar (van halen's 'eruption' if I recall) but stupidly didn't mic my amplifier at the outdoor concert. I must've looked like a real dumbass up there in my wife-beater with a pinkly sound coming out of my unmic'ed crate amplifier. You live, you learn. I started playing guitar in my dorm room until an asian proctor continuously complained and threatened to report me to some dean or another. I put out fliers on dorm doors for drummers, bassists, and rhythm guitarists. I took the first people that responded. We became the 'Fat Italians': Jack Muse on drums / Nick Cetrulo on bass / Tony Carbone on guitar.

I started rehearsing with Jack at his grandmother's basement in suburban Boston. I'd take a taxi out there in the early evening. Then we started rehearsing in the basement of wigglesworth hall until some paki proctor booted us out for being too loud. Then we finally started driving to carbone's cambridge compound where he had a drumset and a lot of other toys.

I taped a rehearsal of us performing Weezer's '(Sweater Song)' and submitted it to some little asian girl for a spot at the first big freshman event 'fall feast'. She insulted the vocals. Turns out I'd met this girl before, she was Mark Chen's prom date. Think she was pissed I didn't remember her. The Blanks ended up taking off from there.

So the 'Fat Italians' resorted to performing at high school 'battle of the bands' (carbone's alma mater was hosting a show in cambridge). That's when I met nasira. She was still a senior in high school.

We finally got a chance to play a real show at Lowell Hall for a harvard 'battle of the bands'. We were scammed out of a slot @ Springfest by McCambridge and Co. We battled back with a show at the Advocate and were forced to make room for 'Crazy Greg' and his farewell show with 'Perfect' (he had been booted out of school for good this time).

We recorded a 3-song demo at Quad Sound Studios (the college recording studio in the basement of Pforzheimer House).

Track listing:

ETERNAL RECURRENCE
HOMECOMING
SADNESS

During my second year @ Harvard, I landed in Pforzheimer House with the rest of the Poorboys. From there, we were assigned to Holmes Hall. 'Matty Peetee' became our hallway proctor. He was one of my favorite chaperones, a wild-haired + tame-hearted Canadian fellow working on his phD in Gregorian chant (he was also an expert in African rhythms).

I was assigned a single room double at the end of the hallway with Big Will. The romantic prospects were lacking in this section of the dormitory, but I became friendly with the female hallmates nonetheless. This landed me a gig as musical director of the TAPS dance troupe for their spring show (more on this later).

This was the year I became acquainted with the 'lax knights' / a group of overprivileged white males who controlled the social life of the Harvard campus via their finals clubs. Most of them were great life-affirming guys, working hard and playing harder, drinking 'til sunrise and scooting off to lacrosse practice with the vapor trails of that morning's bong rip still fresh in the air. My affiliation with these blokes eventually landed me in hot water with the poorboys / whose working-class lunch pail routines didn't mesh well with the lax knights' aristocratic ways.

I ended up getting swept up in 'punch season' that fall. Finals clubs seemed a one-way ticket to collegiate social stardom (and an endless stream of the cutest college girls desperately seeking an exclusive haven from their geeky classmates on the weekends).

I wanted the rest of the Goodfellas to back me up, but that would be asking too much. So I cobbled together a band of Pfoho brothers for the TAPS band: Jerry Lawrence on drums, Mister Matt Winston on bass, and Mister Matt Kantor on guitar. To my delight, most of the dancers turned out to be surprisingly blonde + busty (a true rarity on campus), although nothing came of it.

With the addition of Gaybrick on guitar, The 'Fat Italians' began adhering to a regular performance schedule. We mostly stuck to residential dining halls, headlining benefit concerts for burgeoning student music organizations. The only original song that went over well in shows was my hard rocker 'Too Late Now' (later to resurface on the 'Finest Hour' release + re-titled 'Ambulance'). Other than that, we mostly stuck to other people's material. During the summer of 2003 when I wasn't interning for an alleged Wall Street firm I was meticulously building a song database in Microsoft Word for the Goodfellas shows (ala Rivers Cuomo). I concentrated mostly on covers though I also began organizing my back catalogue from high school songwriting sessions.

'JANUARY 2004'

Arts First
(Harvard University concert series)
(Office of the Arts)

*apply for performance slots*

20-minute set @ Holyoke Center
(9 May 2004)

We were supposed to perform between 12pm - 2pm

The director was an earnest African-American woman who seemed desperate for performers that day. I was fully expecting the outdoor concert to be cancelled due to a rain forecast that Sunday morning. But the show went on as scheduled. We trekked down to Dunster Hall to begin hauling our equipment to Holyoke Center when we ran into another snafu. We could not summon a security guard to unlock the rehearsal room for us (guards were off-duty on Sundays).

So we bagged the show
(and that was the last the world would see of the Fat Italians)

A week later we played a farewell show at the Owl Garden Party (a hoity-toity finals club of which my bassist was a member). I had the TAPS performance the next evening and a desperation dress rehearsal later that night so my heart wasn't in the performance as I would be playing with musicians who had all informed me that they had no intention of continuing with the band next year. Will showed up minutes before we were set to play, caught napping again after an especially demanding Mandarin final.

(between drinking+drugging, partying + studying, boxing and mastering Oriental languages, there was just no time for rock music with these boys)

I performed later that afternoon at a solo acoustic concert in the Holmes Music Room (one floor beneath my dorm). I was napping before the show and as a result my voice wasn't properly warmed up (leading to some quite embarrassing cracks as I was prone to during this time).

Mostly I hated writing papers. Because whenever I felt that there was an expert on the subject (such as the authors of my source material), I usually immediately got the impression that they had already explored any topics that I would be spending a few hours of my life to write a paper on. This is probably the root of all plagiarism (that and laziness). Plagiarists aren't proud of their stolen work, they just are throwing it at their judges to pass some arbitrary requirements to be awarded a prestigious piece of paper.

Mister Corker was a member of the Delphic who should have really flexed some muscle for me during punch season (but alas no one came to bat for me and I was rejected for membership). But he did promise to book me shows at Brother Jimmy's (the Southern BBQ chain) and the Delphic, which he did not deliver on.

We did play at the Quincy Cage on two occasions (a basement venue in one of the Yard dormitories). They were standard kegfest affairs, but at least we were playing to packed cages.

I was left to fend for myself as booking agent / frontman for the Fat Italians. So I dealt with many apathetic Irishmen bar owners who simply needed a band that could bring in business. They didn't carry whether I played 'Mary Had A Little Lamb' on loop as long as people were showing up and buying drinks. Boy do I know the feeling. So we played two shows at Copperfields. The first one (in the fall of 2003) was pretty lame (since it was our first show of the academic year) and the second one (in the spring) was pretty great. I wish we'd have recorded some of those shows.

My effectiveness as a bandleader has always been compromised by a lack of closeness between each individual member of the band (they always report to me, so they'd never form friendships on the side). They traveled in 4 separate entourages, that'd never work. My bands were always 'forced'. The trick is to always be open to jam sessions naturally turning into collaborative efforts.

I hated True/False sections in college where even if you got the True/False right, they'd penalize you for your explanation not matching theirs. Who are they to say? Absolute truths, maybe, but explanations were always my own. I ran into a lot of a trouble that way, because I would go off and learn how to solve problems on my own whereas the professors would want you to prove to them that you knew how to solve the problem with the methods that they taught you.

I miss the Harvard Science Center Greenhouse

We were given $50 in Board Bucks every semester to spend at various campus shops. I always blew all mine off on Snapples and Sicilian pizza at the Science Center cafeteria.

Duane Reade
(between Duane Street + Reade Street in NYC)

CVS -->

The CVS name once stood for Consumer Value Stores; though Thomas Ryan, CVS Caremark's CEO, has said he now considers it to stand for "Convienence, Value, and Service"

My brother's new digs --> 40 Harrison Street
(beginning July 2009)

soap -->

anionic surfactant used in conjunction with water for washing and cleaning, which historically comes either in solid bars or in the form of a viscous liquid

Ben Stein:

"Menopause, anyone?"

A vitamin is an organic compound required as a nutrient in tiny amounts by an organism. A compound is called a vitamin when it cannot be synthesized in sufficient quantities by an organism, and must be obtained from the diet.

The Vitamin Shoppe (Vitamin Shoppe Industries, Inc.) is a New Jersey-based retailer of nutritional supplements with over 400 locations in 37 states

Overbearing JAP to clueless store clerk:

"Do vitamins go bad?"
"I get hot flashes after taking mine"

"Um...maybe you're just going through menopause, ma'am?"
(shrugs shoulders)

She slaps him vigorously across the face

He shrugs his shoulders again as the police are summoned

She sues Vitamin Shoppe for several million dollars

Vitamin Shoppe goes out of business

No wonder frivolous litigation's run amok in this country! It's those overbearing JAPs getting into Lucille Ball dilemmas, but instead of musician Desis as husbands they've got shysta lawya hubbies ready + willing to sue at the drop of a dime

(just watch 'Weeds' for more on this dynamic)

Call me a homo, but I've never enjoyed watching sports with other guys. It's always a bit of a smelly affair. I'd rather be getting laid and/or masturbating any day of the week.

Gizmo, the useless statistician:

"New Orleans done sunk a couple years back. Sorta like Bound Brook. That's what you get for naming your cities after bodies of water + Frenchies"

Defining Moments of Life Thus Far:

Reagan defeats Mondale
Bush I defeats Dukakis
Clinton defeats Bush I
Clinton defeats Dole
Monica Lewinsky defeats Clinton
9/11
Hurricane Katrina
Steroids scandals
Collapse of economy
Death of Kurt Cobain
Death of Anna Nicole Smith
Death of Michael Jackson

Sense some patterns emerging here? Mondales and Doles / Ducaucus's and Gores

Surprised imperfect rhyme scheme 'Kerry The Fairy' never emerged during the 2002 presidential election. May as well have, and it'd be something we could all look back on and laugh at as we look through our nation's photo album.

Everyone shout at once: OBAMA!!!

He turned my sister from a Republican into a Democrat

You look at Walter Mondale and you think, "Is that the best they could do?"

Hardest semester of college:

Sophomore Year / Second Semester
(sort of like high school)

Ec1010b
Ec Tutorial
Math 20
Ec1357 (economics writing requirement)

Mario Puzo
(1920 - 1999)

"The Godfather"
(1969 novel)
(1972 film)

"I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse"
Vito "Godfather" Andolini Corleone

(put that on loop as song intro)

Now THAT's how I should start negotiating with record executives!

I remember bonding with freshman classmates @ Harvard over 'Godfather' quotes (sarokhan + bennett).

I admired the character of (godfather) Vito Corleone and even more so his son Michael Corleone. I'm a sucker for American cinematic icons. Al Pacino was my cinematic Prince.

I learned a lot of life lessons from 'The Godfather'. I learned how to put on fronts in order to intimidate other people and shut them out of my life. My parents always used my photographic memory against me, chastising me for 'remembering only the bad things' whenever I brought up something they didn't like to hear, while simultaneously citing that I 'remember everything' when I didn't want to tell them something.

Like the Godfather, I remember being wronged and that influences my degree of generosity. Think of Bonasera the funeral parlor owner. He shunned Vito Corleone out of cowardice. He did not want to negatively affect his own reputation by spending time with a reputed criminal. Then Bonasera's daughter is beaten + permanently maimed by a man (and his friend) when she refuses to have sex with the man. The judge gives them a fluffernutter sentence and so Bonasera now needs a man like Vito Corleone, a man with courage who is willing to transcend the laws of the land for his own material gain, yet also an ubermensch who operates by an alternative (superior?) moral code. Vito hesitates due to Bonasera's past aloofness, yet relents in the end. He requests that he will need Bonasera to return the favor some point (tragically this turns out to be when Bonasera is needed to clean up Vito's eldest son Sonny's corpse after he is gunned down by a rival family). Note that Vito explicitly states that the culprits not be killed, as he operates by an 'eye for an eye' code of justice and the men did not kill Bonasera's daughter.

I latched onto mafia cinema as a freshman in college, mostly out of homesickness. The Sopranos reminded me of New Jersey. It was also an identity crisis thing, with a last name similar to a mob kingpin I could easily play off an implied mafia vibe (as I had done years earlier to convince EVERYONE at governor's school that I was John Gotti's grandson).

Mathematics 20 was a breeze, all matrices. I hardly even showed up to the class, but I always handed in my assignments on time. The TA was some big-tittied Slovakian chick with a butterface, turned out she was a year ahead of me, Helen something or other. I shoulda done her.

Fun Times @ The Harvard Coop

Economics tutorials seemed exciting. I remember wanting to get into a financial analysis + risk management tutorial as it seemed the most specifically geared towards a career in investment banking, but more pertinently the section leader was a FOX. And I don't use that term very often, children!

During my sophomore year at Harvard, I was still struggling with the eternal identity crisis. Always trying to be as 'well-rounded' as possible, even going so far as to apply for a position as the 'Coop Student Director'. I figured it'd be good practical business experience to serve as conduit between student body and the Harvard bookstore. It was a position that requires nomination by the stockholders of the Harvard Coop, so I showed up for an afternoon interview that spring. But there were applicants who wanted the job a lot more than I did. They were the cookie-cutter Asian varieties whose resumes sounded all the right bells. They were made for jobs like these. I realized this as I amiably chatted them up while waiting to go inside for the interview. It was a 10-minute affair but I remember it being rather nerve-wracking seated at one side of a large table. On the other side were seated 5 members of the 'coop board'. One a middle-aged mother hen conducting the interview. One some non-descript middle-aged balding Bob. One some eager young Hispanic (likely homo). And two ever-smiling young sex-starved smart serpents.

They asked me the usual questions: why did you apply for the job?, etc. I told them about my plan (concocted 3 minutes earlier) about implementing an online program whereby students could order textbooks for all of their classes in order to cut down on lines and general chaos at the beginning of the semester. (I'm sure that policy was implemented the very next year, but alas I get no credit). I told them that all Harvard undergraduates should be provided with a list of products that the Coop offers. I told them that the Coop should try to attract renowned authors for special events at the store. I told them that the coop needs to conduct surveys to figure out what it is that their customers want to buy.

They nodded their heads.

Then they asked me about my band the 'Fat Italians' and how it related to my potential abilities as coop conduit. I told them that leading a musical ensemble requires the ability to reach out to the larger community through publicity campaigns. I told them about the band website I was designing. I told them about how I called up local businesses to organize shows. I told them that I was also a member of the 'Harvard Investment Association' (whatever that means) and understood how to spot the traits of a winning business model. The bald eagle decided to get smart with me and bring up my past as a Little League umpire. I told him that being a Little League umpire learns how to stand by his decision in the face of external pressures and how to exhibit resolve and stifle indecisiveness.

*then I returned to my room, satisfied with a job well done. you know what comes next*

During the second semester sophomore year, my dorm room situation was as good as it was going to get. Too bad I could only pull sloppy (slighty chubby) drunk chicks back for romps in the park. One night I got so desperate for pussy that I hooked up with a girl AFTER she took part in a 3some (or was it 4some?) with some of my friends. And to make matters worse, she denied the whole affair the next morning. Over breakfast! STILL in our dorm! (and still wearing last night's thong might I add) She even left a rude note on my door alluding to my allegedly greasy hair (which of course sent me right back on a crash course to sixth grade syndrome)

Nonetheless, I started to take pride in the room's appearance. I even purchased a rug and futon @ Sleep-O-Rama Boston Futon for $170 in Central Square.

I was still as absent-minded as ever, even going so far as forgetting to register for consecutive terms (this brought to mind flashbacks of forgetting to sign in at karate and subsequently never advancing) I was forced to pay many a $50 late fee in my day

i used AIM to keep tight with chung chums during my college years. my brother would keep me posted on current events. one evening, he informed me that a family friend had died in a car accident while on a business trip 'down south'. he was my sister's best friend father. the situation got mighty weird thereafter. one of those 'sopranos' plotlines where the widow shacks up with the local priest (who turns out to be no channel of god, merely a normal heterosexual male struggling with self-esteem issues). then the eldest plain jane daughter sells herself to the corporation with the help of a giddy patriarchal italian-american businessman who enjoys drinking with his daughters' friends and playing the 'cool rich daddy'. the next daughter in line becomes a certified bitch, growing hotter by the hour. the youngest daughter sells her soul to the first boy that attempt to ram his tongue down her throat. and the young son gets lost in the shuffle. best case scenario: he becomes a harmless pothead, occupying time with lamebrained video games. worst case scenario: he ceases to become.

suburbia's a strange land. it's the land populated by a plethora of beta males and entitled daughters. men who commute across the goddamned country so that their slighty-cuter-than-average whitebread wives can live like (mc)queens in mcmansions. in many cases, the children (not the stepford spouses) rule the roost. once the kiddies discover drugs, they and their friends overrun the family estate, holding their bashful parents hostage in the master bedroom. The beta male fathers know nothing of corporal punishment (though their wives wish they did) and so their sons easily take them down. The beta males depend on the police for protection. The police, in turn, are the last vestiges of the gorilla alpha male, servants of the goddess americana.

fuck the police

The family turns to the local religion of choice for a set of morals to follow and partake in low-impact sports like running and cycling. Attractive women genuinely love these beta male husbands as dear friends, though they'd never let them so much as cop a feel at the annual PTA ball. These beta males were the men who in past generations invented societies like the 'boy scouts' and the 'freemasons', alternative hierarchal systems based on obscurities to seek refuge from the gorilla alpha males and their footballs.

the gorilla alpha males became captains of industry and began buying up the jersey shorelines. the beta males were content to rent.

there are two separate career paths for the alpha + beta males.

i'm selfishly terrified of a member of my immediate family dying because of the inevitable onslaught of black-cloud emotion which I'm sure would sideline me for an indeterminate chunk of time. that's probably the primary reason behind the death drive, the desire to prevent the suffering that accompanies the death of a parent.

father's death is first tunnel to adulthood. sons shamefully wish for the death of their fathers. the death of the father means that the family fortune is passed onto the mother. and so begins an era of goodwill.

death of mother is final portal to adulthood

then the siblings become competitors, arguing over inheritances

*automobile travel safety must be improved*

*who will find the cure for cancer?*

*do we want to cure cancer?*

*is cancer an evolutionary agent?*

*shall we instead divert resources towards research geared towards identification+ eradication of cancer-causing agents from society?*

(these are incredibly devastating questions that nonetheless must be asked by someone)

the more highly evolved a species becomes, the more devastating a premature death

drug-taking types:

1. artist (seeks to improve creativity with drugs)
2. athlete (seeks to improve performance with drugs)
3. hedonist (seeks to maximize pleasure with drugs)
4. sufferer (seeks to escape pain with drugs)

the first two are overwhelmingly 'manly' ways to use drugs. the last two are inherently feminine.

an overbearing father can push his sons toward drug use as a form of escapism. just look at the preponderance of washed up jocks who abuse drugs in their post-career haze. LT anyone?

the bug-eyed monkey sons battled their lehigh-educated engineer father for control of the household, but it was ultimately his wife's addictions that led to his demise

father blames wife for a former addiction

jumped in 'jade isle' parking lot
non-alcoholic beer
titty playing cards
'geronimo' movie / mcdonalds
mulica river trip
facial hair (or lack thereof)
'you looked like ya fatha'
lehigh
'engineer'

grandfather:

'italian toast'
farts
fat
bald
rude
racist
football
yet my story of us fishing warmed miss molinari's heart

then there was the tragic tale of my teammate's elder brother. the driver of the vehicle was his good friend. and like any good irishman designated driver, he was drunk as a skunk that particular evening. the car collided with a tree. it made for an awkward situation amongst the formerly close family (creating the 'irish / italian' divide in suburbia)

the americana goddess is shining down on all of us. her husband is uncle sam

primary motive of 9/11: J-FACTOR
(that's 'jealousy', not 'jew', hold your horses ADL!)

yes, arabs become green quite easily. that's why they hate all signs of capitalist america. they are overwhelmed with jealousy upon the sight of blonde barbie dolls. and it's an altogether destructive jealousy. the ONLY, i repeat, the ONLY solution to eliminate islamic terrorism is to minimize the influence of islam (and all organized religions) around the world. when all they see are idealized cartoon versions of america, their imaginations run wild with the thought of a zionist-controlled wall street , old men decked out in yarmulkes enjoying. of course, these is a mere parallel to the arab oil sheiks who these terrorists likely hate just as fervently (though they'll never admit it, mind you, even after all that waterboarding).

(*cue skit where Cheney is asking inane questions to terrorists under threat of torture. devolves into surreal episode whereupon cheney stages his most indulgent + bizarre sexual fantasies using the terrorists as props*)

*capitalism is good for you*

i was sitting in high school history class during the 9/11 attacks. my football coach sauntered into miss forsman's classroom (a real cranky bitch who made my senior year miserable) and casually mentioned that a plane had crashed into the twin towers. i was thinking it was all just an accident. then it seemed to get more serious. my teacher subjected us all to a holier-than-thou lecture about how we've 'had it coming for years' and that the islamic radicals had been just waiting to seize the opportunity. ever the contrarian, i'm guessing she was secretly giddy. my father was nowhere near new york; ever shielded, he remained in short hills. unfortunately, others weren't so lucky. my good friend's brother worked as a broker for cantor fitzgerald. we went to the same church.

i went to my first wake in fourth grade. my good friend's mother died of cancer. i've always been fascinated by corpses. but i know i'll be completely shattered when I face down the corpse of someone I really love. i didn't feel sad when i saw my grandfather's dead body. i know i'll beat myself up for all the shit i gave my mother when I have to face her death. but i bet she'll outlive me. and she's had the life she always wanted.

i'm blessed with an ultra powerful memory card. this allows me to isolate myself from the world and be a prolific artist (like henry darger done did)

in college, i became a connoisseur of mafia flicks. i was led into it by my last time and people's assumptions about it. it seemed to offer some useful conversational tidbits when all else failed. 'godfather II' was my favorite. filmed in 1974. a prequel + sequel. the final scene really got to me. michael ordering his older brother killed. hmmm. under the pretense of a fishing trip, fredo is blasted by gunshot by michael's cronie. michael impassively watches it all from the lakehouse. this was done after their mother died so that she would not suffer through the death of a child (don vito died of a heart attack in the first movie). fredo had betrayed michael's whereabots to hyman roth which resulted in a failed assassination attempt. michael's older brother sonny was murdered by a rival family when he was the acting boss. he is estranged from his wife after she reveals that she had their child aborted because she didn't want to bring another son into a mafia hierarchy. his relationship with his right hand man tom hagen are strained as he is paranoid about potential job offers with other families. he is prematurely aged and sitting on a park bench.

then along came 'godfather III' 16 years too late. it was blasted by critics. this ruined the film for me, since I derived satisfaction from watching the first two films BECAUSE I knew they were universally hailed by critics. does that make me a sheep?

i was also listening to music of the mid 70s. think the doobie brothers. think 'china grove'. the people of the town are strange.

my rhythm guitarist in college was a year younger than me. he was a real scholarly guy. now he works in private equity. he's probably making tons of money. i sold him all my math books.

i was invited to rush sigma chi, one of the only frats at harvard. it was obviously the geek frat, so I declined their invitation. i probably shouldn't have. they still attracted some premium pussy to their parties, more so than those attracted to my dorm room. they had a party at wellesley that i didn't go to. that was probably a mistake. i never had a desire to go to wellesley.

math 20 kept me in line during my sophomore spring. it was the first class I'd had in a while that had regular assignments that were collected and graded. that was a real drag. i'd usually skip out on the classes and drop off the assignments in the TA's mailbox.

i also lifted at bally total fitness from time to time, though never again as intensely as my freshman year. my former guitarist tony carbone lifted there as well. he was one of those italian-american types always gravitating towards the extremes but too fundamentally lazy to reach those extremes. he was a cigarette smoker (which probably didn't help). he was just me, running one year behind. but in the weightroom, he had the bigger frame so with the help of some creatine he was able to build up to a solid 240 pounds in a matter of months. he was a lot like angelo gage.

i always thought biker gloves sans fingertips were really cool when i was like 9 years old and really into mountain biking. i'd even wear my biker gloves to school under the premise that i was biking home. i think this is also when i started wearing my hats backwards. it's also when i got my first 'multi-speed' mountain bike, a trek at high gear cyclery (when it used to be next to the long hill shoprite until it moved across the street). uncle bob inadvertently got me into biking when at my first communion he asked me why i didn't have a 10-speed bike. at the time, joseph had somehow convinced me that my bike had 3 speeds depending on how fast i pedaled ('fast' 'slow' 'medium'). years later, these biker gloves would re-emerge as fingertipless weightlifting gloves. these were practically a necessity for me in my prime. my fingers were easily calloused. it got to be pretty painful. i used to wear out those gloves in a matter of months thanks to the rigor of my routine. i'd change my lifting routines by the 'glove life cycle'.

i miss having dinners in the college cafeteria. for non-boarding school kids, those are precious memories. getting to have dinner every night with not only your friends but an assortment of random peers. it's an energizing way to start off the evening. of course back in college i was too busy practicing guitar 4 hours a day to appreciate these things. should i go back just for the dinners?

by my sophomore year, big will had effectively isolated me from the rest of the blocking group. then he returned to their fold. so i stopped hanging out with them. and we gradually went our separate ways. that's when i became a lone wolf again. back to my natural state. it's more fun that way when you can bounce in and out of events based on your own whims rather than the will of the crowd. and trying to be the leader of the crowd saps too much energy that can be better spent on other solo endeavors.

because of this, i made mild friends in all different corners of the campus. if you walked around with me for a day, it would seem that i was really popular based on the amount of greetings i'd exchange on a typical sunny day in the yard. i probably should've run for some student office. but again, i was too busy digesting paul mccartney's entire catalogue and practicing guitar 4 hours a day. and masturbating. don't forget masturbating.

mike iafe's already married. he made partner.

my alleged wingmen would never stick to one spot. they run around like roosters with their balls cut off. always off to 'BU' to meet mystery women. they'd usually end up stealing ice cream from convenience stores and gaybashing.

i miss 'louie' the liquor store owner where we harvard undergrads all bought our booze. he was always getting harassed by the cops for selling booze to underage drinkers. but that didn't compare to the blowjobs from grateful freshmen. you win some, you lose some.

we'd buy a few 30 packs of milwaukee's best and call it a night. i'd usually end up in a sea of plain janes who turned out to have secret talents in deep throating. i met all the dumb jocks on campus with their lamebrained nicknames. i'd get drunk playing beer pong back then. and that always helps. especially when there are girls from other colleges around. but in my world those cute girls would always end up having to go play wet nurse to a drunk friend. it would usually only bother me if the drunk friend was male. kind of like the time a really hot girl couldn't smoke up with me because she was being drug tested for her job at a nursing home. and i never got to hang out with her again.

ugly girls get sloppy drunk on purpose to prevent their hot friends from hooking up with guys. they figure later that night they can try to initiate some drunken lesbo action. this behavior points towards a lesbianic future. this could be a good thing. except if you're a dude. kind of like in 'even cowgirls get the blues'. the only dude who really makes off good is the mister mayogi 'guru' character. all he has to do is goofily dance and offer a joint to uma thurman and he gets some. because he's all life-affirming and all. why is when i try the same routine on girls my age all i get are strange looks and social cues that i should leave?

once upon a time a plain jane obstructed my social ascendancy. she pretended to be a fan of my music. she was a friend of my bassist and came to all our shows. then i ran into her at a finals club party and under the guise of drunkenness started making out with me. i went with the flow for a while, then i went away and found that she'd disappeared into the night. later on in the night i found that i'd been an unknowing participant in a showdown of male ego as one of the officers of the finals club had been trying to hook up with this particular plain jane that night to no avail (i couldn't imagine why, she wasn't good looking and there were bevies of beautiful froshies who could easily be swayed by any official member of the club). she must've been a good deep throater. i was just into her because she complimented my singing style. and not many people tend to compliment my singing.

i miss Tommy's + Pinocchio's, the 'pizzeria poles' of the Harvard campus. the staff at Tommy's were really sleazy and rude to me, but the pizza was very distinctively good. and pinocchio's had some beautiful sicilian going for them.

i miss andrew gaylord. and the rest of the lax nights of harvard. i used to party with them a lot at the delphic. i met a lot of people there, it was the closest to a 'studio 54' that we had going back then.

the delphic was also good. i can only imagine how much pussy the members enjoyed, because everytime i was there there were diverse loads of women to choose from. not only harvard chicks, but girls from all different college campuses visiting their token 'harvard friend'. vanilla nova nuns and such. lots of sloppy makeout sessions on dance floors. can't beat it. beer pitchers being jollily passed around from person to person. michael jackson's 'don't stop til you get enough' and 'total eclipse of the heart' on infinite loops.

i was supposed to be punched for the club my last year at havard. my british friend said he saw me on the list, but my jealous mongol roommate probably threw away the invite (the modus operandi was to pass official invites under dorm room doors)

if you could bottle the feeling of the first five seconds of any first-time sexual encounter, you'd have invented the greatest drug known to man. in my experiences, i've often fucked things up after hooking up with a girl once. i didn't realize then that you have to fuck a girl a few times before she's really 'yours'. i'd enjoy some anonymous makeout session with some floozy and then the next morning planning out evenings at expensive restaurants and sending flowers. i'd like hook up with a girl on a random weekend and instead of the usual awkward 'next day at class' encounter, i'd embrace it and try holding her hand off the bat. this didn't work well.

i remember on one occasion a girl i'd hooked up with the night before i ran into again at the same delphic basement party and i couldn't get near her. her friends were dancing around, protecting her from my advances. i tried to break through their ranks to no avail. one of the friends, a harvard regular in my year, told me 'you're beautiful but she's mine'. she was a lesbianic predator according to my friend finn. i later played a legendary run of beer pong victories against really great fratboy opponents with her later that spring. i tried hooking up with her that night to no avail. then i made the mistake of going the 'formal dinner date' follow-up. she agreed by phone to a sunday evening date but never showed and stopped returning my calls.

philosophers

2009-10-09T10:09:00.000-07:00

jesus was a carpenter, not an architect

i'm starting to appreciate nietzsche's ideas on the value of struggle more and more in my old age. they were really all schopenhauer's ideas. as regurgitated to me by miss fisher.

soon my cousins will be dope smoking. if they haven't already started.

fast facts

2009-10-08T12:30:00.001-07:00

so the chicken descended from the t-rex. so much for evolution improving one's lot in life. now they're all done cooped up.

asians overcomplicate things in the best possible way. 'bangkok' is a 115-letter word in the thai language. sort of like that thai janitor we had in middle school with the name that wouldn't fit in the yearbook. i later became close to them all as a summer computer cleaner at the school. asian parents sit back and live through their children.

the garden worm has 5 pairs of hearts. that's why you can cut them in two and they come out two different worms. next time i'll try cutting them in 5 and marrying them all. worms are bait for catching fish. i always wondered what made fish eat worms. worms aren't underwater. if i were a fish, i'd be freaked out by a squiggly worm floating in the middle of the sea. my first reaction wouldn't be to swallow it on purpose. fish must be really hungry. and cruel. that makes me feel not so bad about killing fish. you're killing a killer.

nothing better than hitting the vaporizer, sitting around picking your nose, farting, sipping water, and writing after a long run / shower on a rainy fall afternoon in a suburban new jersey basement. i've become a comfort king.

banjogai

2009-10-05T16:14:00.000-07:00

you know, the harvard math department really let me down. my senior year at harvard came a year early. and I was all gung-ho about writing a really great economics thesis that would change the course of civilization. this was especially hard as my classmates at the time were not thinking about their theses. so it was easy to forget just how daunting a task can be without a collective reminder every 3 hours or so. oh, to stray from the beaten path.

during my sophomore year, i had honed in on research of "managed futures funds" to filter into a thesis on the subject. of the lack of one. kanacki had passed along his 'top secret' morgan stanley files to me upon assurance that'd I never betray his confidences. they were merely client presentations of 'managed futures accounts'. they are legitimate funds (similar to mutual funds). kanacki was just bitter against morgan stanley for firing his ass and like a jilted lover he pretended that he had secret knowledge of the wrongdoings of the company. and he liked to pretend he was on some exciting television program.

so i ended up writing my final paper on managed futures and how they were really just a scam. i based my paper off finding loopholes in the morgan stanley presentation. managed futures fund managers advertised the funds as good hedges against market downturns (as in when stock + bond markets are down, managed futures markets are not necessarily down). but they were also pretty risky. kownacki was thrilled that i trashed morgan stanley in my paper. he showed it to all his friends. sort of like the summer before when i wrote a negative review of a series of bonds and then he showed the presentation to a client who had invested (and been burned) by those very bonds.

then over that summer my brother + his friends turned me onto poker. so i decided to shift the focus of my thesis to a field i was actually somewhat passionate about. the HBS professor i'd been put in contact with through my tutorial teacher (who is also a professional poker player) subsequently put me in contact with a guy who was supposedly a poker whiz. he was (whaddya know?) an ex-morgan stanley executive who made his fortune while researching poker strategies on the side. now of course he's a self-indulgent piano-playing crooner pushing his lame middle-aged music to his wall street friends + family just to show everyone what a well-rounded guy he is.

so i e-mailed the guy. and of course he flaked on me. so i shifted my energies into finding a thesis advisor. i looked up names in the game theory department. i went with the first name in the alphabetical list: attila ('the hun') ambrose. he turned out to be one of those lanky over-educated eastern european types who turn out bland as british cuisine in actual conversation. behind his spectacles, he confessed that he wasn't even familiar with the basic rules of poker. this should have disturbed me. how on earth could a professor of GAME THEORY NEVER IN HIS ACADEMIC CAREER INVESTIGATED THE GAME OF POKER? the game presents endless hypotheticals for investigation into the unexplored tenets of the relatively new field of study. and this guy don't even know the rules of the fucking game? this struck me as pathetic. but being the non-proactive student i was, i coasted with him for a while. he advised me to break down my topic to the most basic two-handed model and learn how to design computer programs to more efficiently test my hypotheses.

by the time i'd switched topics, i'd already been placed in a thesis course for finance theses. of which mine was no longer. so there i was with 6 other seniors doing thesis work on hedge funds and the two graduate students running the class mostly gave me puzzled looks (though the other students in the class were all poker buffs and wished they had chosen my topic).

i can't make my armpits fart anymore! i tried and tried! is this what growing up is all about?

landmines

2009-09-30T22:16:00.001-07:00

i just done dodged a landmine i myself planted

fight the feeling
sick with something

patti smith should NOT be out there covering 'everybody's got something to hide 'cept me and my monkey'. that's my territory. van morrison and bruce springsteen don't need you to cover their songs. you add nothing to them except a fundamentally weaker female perspective. they're watered down by default. pussy doesn't always mean power. hear that patti? you've got not a monkey to hide.

so patti smith wants to be jim morrison. we get it. and jim morrison wanted to be rimbaud. patti smith and marianne faithful used to mother jeff buckley back in the 90s. two washed up vampire hags sucking the lifeblood out of one of our premiere talents.

mindless violence
needless needles
even evil
as soon as i surrender
fail to follow the leader
devil's at the doorstep

"see, that there's steve cropper, son"

the increasingly silent male lead guitarist and increasingly feminine male lead vocalist over the past few decades points to some sort of future political trend. and that political trend will foreshadow some future fundamental biological change in the species.

"why, i'll be damned. look honey, it's carl perkins! alive and kicking!"

need new nemesis

2009-09-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

beat bowser in 'super mario brothers I' for the second time this week. super mario brothers II is a bit trippy for my tastes. but mario I is a masterpiece. it also imparts important life lessons.

the first (and most important): know where your warp zones are located. as crucial as fire exits on a building. if you know where the warp zones are and are digitally dexterous enough to get to them, you can have the game beaten by the time the pizza man rings your doorbell. once i figured this out, i had the game beaten in 20 minutes flat. and then i ate an entire pizza. i pretended it was baked by princess peach.

this is where the internet age of aggregate knowledge comes in handy. as children, we were forced to figure out these things on our own. sort of like how the beatles used to travel to the next town to discover how to play the vaunted B7 chord as teenagers (they had E and A down cold by then). one of paul mccartney's favorite recycled stories as he passes out gold nuggets to slobbering journalists. what he neglected to mention was that the man who taught them the V chord was a creepy old man who plotted to make the beatles his butt buddies. they barely escaped when scrappy georgie nailed the old man square in the balls with his boot. a few years later, david bowie wasn't so lucky. the risks of going at it alone, i'm afraid.

anyway, once you figure out how to get to the warp zones, you only have to get through 8 levels to win the game (instead of 32). and besides a suspicuously low final score, no one will ever know the difference. just say you were too busy trying to rescue the princess to worry about collecting coins. in an alternate sense, warp zones can make the game more difficult for the inexperienced gamer. for with warp zones, you are zapped to the most difficult final levels of the game without building up an arsenal of 1-ups necessary for multiple takes of the same levels. there's no fanfare at the end. you just discover the princess and she tells you to push a button to play the game all over again in a slighty different format (same levels, new enemies). this disturbed me.

i rediscovered the deflating fact that over half of the game is a cinch. as i conquered a fear of virtual heights long ago and have built up skills in the digital jumping department, the tricky death-defying jumps of the final levels posed no problems. i try to speed through the levels as fast as possible, learning naturally how to jump furthest to maximize speed (which the game rewards you for as each level is timed).

the introduction of warp zones was an early attempt at video game programmers pandering to their consumers by allowing them to customize their own playing experiences instead of being forced to confront the challenges in the order laid out by the programmers. in sonic the hedgehog, a cheat code upon the title screen (up down left right / hold A + start, oh the pleasures of a photographic memory!) allows the player to select any of the 18 levels. this means that a player can technically 'beat' the game by zapping to the final level and easily beating the goofy doctor robotnik (who reminds me of my high school biology teacher who used to take perverse pride in not having had any children). not that sonic is very difficult anyway. as long as you have at least one 'ring' in your piggy bank, you don't die (barring a slip into some virtual abyss). a very capitalist game, mind you.

but sonic also had a cool messianic slant. defeated enemies freed fuzzy animals in captivity. and it's a beautifully animated alternate universe. and the music is excellent. like a japanese mad scientist approximating the early 80s paul mccartney electronica phase. remember paul spent a week in a japanese jail for carrying around too much weed through airports. one of his fellow prisoners later scored sonic. this was also the year john lennon was murdered. and wings broke up.

sonic II sorta ruined it for me. with that softie 'tails' trailing you everywhere you went. that's when I turned to the family desktop computer as a new source of entertainment. it was the era of doom. shane taylor and i played direct connect modem combat games that veered between cartoonish over-the-top violence ('rise of the triad' + 'duke nukem') and truly demonic ('hexen'). i remember playing these games on fall sunday evenings after attending church potluck suppers. oh what fun we had then. i also soaked loads of 'ren and stimpy' and 'beavis and butthead' (when my parents weren't looking). i was fast turning into a spiky-haired bart simpson.

'ren and stimpy' was a cartoon mister taylor introduced to me. they were merely a perverted mutant version of a classic slapstick comedy duo. they were later disneyified for the 'lion king' as timon and pumbaa.

david bowie married an african princess. now he's happy as robert deniro.

joseph gave me shit for playing mario. he suspects i'm regressing by partaking in an activity that I used to do as a child. especially with the stigma of collecting unemployment and living in the parental basement for the time being. i don't mind. he gives my champ similar shit. he assumes champ's still afraid of everything (terrorist attacks, e coli viruses). i also played soccer at age 6 mind you. is he gonna give me shit if I decide to kick around a soccer ball on a warm sunny day?

at the other end of the spectrum, i let my friends down when I fail to show the requisite emotion at a funeral for a friend, this one being jim henson. he made muppets for me. he built sesame street and fraggle rock. he lent his puppeteering skills to 'return of the jedi'. by 1990 he was all ready to sell out to disney and then he died of organ failure due to infection by Streptococcus pyogenes, a severe Group A streptococcal infection. he was 54 years old. this is the year i started watching sesame street in earnest looking for ghosts.

i don't quite trust humans yet. i especially don't trust women. never trust women. especially asian women. white women as well. black women are most trustable/trustworthy within the female spectrum according to my experiences. followed by JAPs. i can relate to JAPs. oh god, i'm starting to sound like mick jagger. i should go get out my 'some girls' album.

in good news, i'm starting to trust computers. as in, i'm more comfortable sending a file via an internet uploader than via flash drive via US Mail. even if said uploader has its limitations. these limitations will all be corrected in the future. we're in a perpetual state of beta for now, but the alpha age is upon us.

halloween 2009

2009-09-27T08:27:00.001-07:00

gentlemen, start your halloweiner engines early

there must begin a tradition of killer halloween costumes. i only really tried in 2005. and that was because I was a freshly minted college graduate with nothing better to do than to hit up tanning salons to look more like prince. i even went so far as to shoplift a purple jumpsuit from Marshall's when the shoplady told me they couldn't check it out because it had been recalled by the company for potentially hazardous fabric. count on me to go to extremes when it matters least.

my supposed closest refuse to listen to my music. makes it that much harder to solicit corporate support when you have no clan at hand supporting your art. why should a label invest any money in my music if i can't even make fans of my friends + family?

experiments in homelessness

2009-09-27T05:38:00.000-07:00

without a base of operations, nyc can be a pretty darn unforgiving little place. sure, they'll still serve you drinks, but they won't give you a place to sleep unless you display requisite stubbles + needle/pockmarks. so i slept in a stairwell. a harvard backpack as my pillow. with my portable credit card swiper machine to prop up my head.

i find myself in penn station @ 7AM sunday morning. i read magazines for free as I wait for my train. rolling stone chooses to devote an in depth feature to another washed up pseudo icon merle haggard. he wrote a song against dope smokers back in the 60s just to play the contrarian ("Okie from Muskogee") but now he smokes pot all day on his ranch and compares modern america to nazi germany for infringing on his pot smoking rights. oh the irony.

are doormen dumb? most will let you into a building if you pretend to be talking to your resident friend on the phone. i foresee this being mildly uncomforting to me if I ever find myself living in an apartment building guarded by a doorman. that's when I should be more like my brother and befriend all the commoners i encounter. he's building up an army of doormen 'round nyc.

checked out a few acts at rockwood music hall. realized i'm better than all of them. not trying to sound cocky or nuthin. the barmaid had smaller tits than I last remembered. breast reduction? must be the lighting. another attractive white girl backed by a ragtag jewfro band. all cuddling together onstage like one big happy family. they were her worker bees: an electric guitarist holding down the chords, a bespectaled bassist singing backup, several horns and fiddles. must say, the drummers are always perfect in these types of bands. bearded just right, playing just loosely enough with precision to spare. the seductive power of reggae is that it plays herky jerky with the beats. where will I find the seeds to grow a drummer like this?

my mind drifts back to merle haggard. he really didn't love music all that much. but he was a genuine well-practiced criminal before he stumbled into music stardom. you can't fake things like that.

i drank too many gin and tonics at the local cafe. the middle-aged mexican bartender became a young mexican bartender (a father-son team?) he was named jose. i drank drinks that the customers sent back. whiskey and gin don't mix. or do they?

a blonde about my age sits to my left at the bar. he unwittingly sprays himself with a ketchup bottle. he complains to the unsympathetic bartender. he asks if any ketchup got in my drink. I reply that I already drank it, and it actually complemented my tanqueray + tonic.

i will reap no rewards if i continue to stick around

year zero

2009-09-26T09:55:00.000-07:00

what do you say we change our calendars to mark the advent of the internet as year zero? the year when all became verifiable and miracles can't be vouched for without suitably convincing non-doctored audiovisual proof. the year we as a people moved one step closer to that utopian meritocracy we're all collectively gunning for. when was that year exactly? once al gore solves this global warming business, that should be his next pet project. create an international commission to determine year zero.

robos gone loco, spreading their vile seed. is this really what we need?

on 4 separate occasions, i've been cockblocked by a girl's father in one indirect way or another. my senior year prom date's dad was some british wall street wannabe who married a crazy iranian and settled in suburbia. i was fiddling with a badly strung guitar in the thursfield living room as she changed and we prepared for a night out at the local TGI Friday's where I was in for an illustrated history in 'former boyfriend ville'. i happened to know a few of them. most were my athletic opponents who had moved onto greener pastures at private schools. anyway, he came in and we started chit chatting. he asked me what I planned to pursue in college. this was a week before I was accepted to harvard. i told him i planned on using a guitar to make my living. he was none too pleased. later that night, I poured out my heart and soul to miss thursfield. she pulled the 'friends' card. I desolately drove home to the sounds of led zeppelin's 'going to california'.

in another time and place, i tried to impress a girl by playing her peter frampton songs in her dorm room on an acoustic guitar. wasn't I lame? and i didn't even get with her until like 3 years later. by that time we were all grown up and her tits were starting to sag. i can't wait that long this time.

in yet another time and place, john and yoko consummated their burgeoning intellectual relationship in a paper bag. even their periods starting lining up.

protect yourself

2009-09-25T08:36:00.001-07:00

i popped several blood vessels in my hands this morning from clapping too forcibly while quantizing as many rhythmic sounds as possible for a percussionary power punch i call 'big bang blessing'. now my hands are purple from all the busted blood vessels. my fingers keep getting caught in dangerous places. pardon me, am i being unconsciously self-destructive once again?

for a long time, i was just trying to sing like paul mccartney and carl wilson. i guess i failed miserably in that endeavor. now I come off sounding like klaus nomi and moondog.

beyond stereo

2009-09-24T14:35:00.000-07:00

first there was monaural sound. mono. one microphone, one loudspeaker, all channels feed into single signal path.

then along came stereo. channels were split into two signal paths. all entertainment applications were reformatted to broadcast stereo sound (though mono remains the standard for radiotelephone communications, telephone networks, and induction loops for use with hearing aids)

i recently inadvertently stumbled across an interesting alternate playback mechanism for my audio projects. i was trying to combine two wav files in cubase, not realizing that they both had sample rates of 96.0 kHz. as a sound engineer, you want the highest sample rate in order to convey the most accurate representation of the recorded sound. in digital recording, a discrete signal (the recorded audio file) is created from a continuous signal (the noise being recorded). so the sonic picture we get from a digital recording is a series of individual points that imply a curve, rather than the curve itself (for this reason, many continue to prefer analog recording as a worthier means to the end). a sample rate of 96.0 kHz means that there are 96,000 sonic snapshots per second of the actual signal being recorded.

then there is the matter of bit depth. for each of those sonic snapshots (the 'samples'), the higher bit depth the more accurate the sample conveys what is actually going on.

costs $234 to print 100 copies of a full length album @ discmakers

• CD-Rs w/content & label print
• Full-Color On-Disc Printing
• Jewel Case w/black tray
• 2 panel insert 4/4
• Traycard
• Standard - 5 Day

i can put out 12 CDs over the course of the year and get the medium out of my system. from then on, I'll begin releasing vinyl / flash packages : vinyl for the album core and flash for video/images/bonus audio.

ma, i self-actualized, aintchya proud? now I smoke pot and make music all day.

9/11

2009-09-24T07:23:00.000-07:00

11 September 2001

our worst fears were realized as a superpower on this day. the despicable actions of the islamic radicals exemplified the most heinous truths of our species: "beware the man with nothing to lose". we must focus more of our global efforts on combating the destructive kamikaze tendencies of our enemies. this can only be accomplished when borders are erased and we begin to interact as a utopian global marketplace. the internet was a good start.

Al-Qaeda are a band of militant islamic thugs formed in the late 80s. but they are deadly because they ignore national borders. if we want to truly defeat this enemy, we too must adhere to this tactic. so we did. we invaded afghanistan. and look what good that did us.

the islamic radicals are actually a relatively recent phenomenon on the global political landscape. as is usually the case, there were economic underpinnings to this "religious resurgence". the 1973 arab oil embargo quadrupled the price of oil and channeled billions to islamic countries/peoples, providing previously poor muslims with a renewed sense of self-worth. like noveau riche americans who parade about in red white and blue and donate billions to their local church in order to prolong their pleasure into the next life. it's just that these arab sheiks teach their sons to be suicide bombers (probably so they can steal their girlfriends)

unfortunately the degree of islamic 'religious resurgence' is most often negatively correlated with the well-being of the united states and israel. as with all 'holy wars', there is underlying jealousy abounding.

So who is to blame for the arab oil embargo? why America and Israel of course!

The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC (consisting of the Arab members of OPEC, plus Egypt and Syria) proclaimed an oil embargo "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war; it lasted until March 1974

I must ask what were we doing resupplying the Israel military back then? Didn't we have our OWN military to re-supply after a particularly devastating failed effort in the jungles of Vietnam?

world wars

2009-09-24T07:03:00.001-07:00

the somalis are still going at it. in fact, they've been at it since 1991 (before bubba took office) throughout the early 90s, starving somali children served as sources of guilt for well-stuffed suburban schoolchildren. these were victims of a violent civil war. seems to be all rooted in the misdeeds of yet another corrupt african dictator. this one happens to be Mohamed Siad Barre (sounds like a real islamic doozy). note to self: africans make militant muslims. guy was "president" of somalia since '69 (a 21-year reign). by the way, our founding fathers were geniuses for implementing term limits on our elected officials. say a prayer to james madison for me. remember we started out as a colony as well. you didn't see us going through these kinds of post-colonial growing pains back in the 19th century (save a civil war). however, in the american case we were alphas being governed by the cowards who were afraid of adventure. in the african case, the colonial overlords were the alpha explorers who subjugated entire peoples to their will (just like we done did to the indians).

somalia was actually an Italian colony for quite some time. they must've been adept at keeping the africans in line up until 1960. then the soviet soldiers came along and stirred up trouble in the marxist 60s. as the rest of the globe smoked dope, these africans were reading books of marx given to them by their soviet brethren. siad barre became a somali soldier and became president once the military staged its coup (as all good marxists eventually do). remember, the marxists were the ugly ducklings in school.

Despite all its contributions to Somali society, the Barre administration was plagued by various clan-based rebel groups. In the northern part of the country, members of the Isaaq clan felt that they had been politically marginalized by Barre's government. The Isaaq clan consequently developed a rebel group named the Somali National Movement (SNM), who were morally and financially supported by Ethiopia. Also in the north, there developed a rebel group called the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF), which was led by Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed. To combat this and other such groups, the government made many raids against the north. However, by the late 1980s, rival factional groups began to make substantial territorial gains, especially in the northern Somaliland region. These groups received weapons from Ethiopia in the hopes of overthrowing Barre's government, which eventually led to the Somali civil war.

seems the african conflicts are no more than post-colonial fallout / cycles of revolutions and counter revolutions. a longtime president is ousted before a counter revolution rises up to reinstate a familiar face.

*and another country falls victim to islamic radicals*

In January 2009, Ethiopian soldiers withdrew from Somalia, leaving behind an African Union contingent of several thousand troops to help the fragile coalition government and its troops enforce their authority. Following Ethiopia's withdrawal from Somalia, the southern half of the country rapidly fell into the hands of radical Islamist rebels. The rebels quickly routed the government and AU troops in several key provinces, establishing sharia law in areas under their control. On May 7, the rebels attacked the capital city of Mogadishu, capturing most of the city but failing to overthrow the government, which maintained control over a few square kilometers of the city.

despite being atomically bombed several decades ago, the people of Japan remain first and foremost in longevity. in okinawa, for instance, the average life expectancy is 81.2 years.

sharia law is what they're all railing about on the American right-wing talk show circuit. i listen to dire warnings as I drive through suburbia. in reality, sharia is no different than judeo-christian law. it is merely the islamic way of doing things. it means "path to the water source" (for reasons still not quite clear).

cue yes's 'roundabout'

2009-09-20T06:08:00.001-07:00

fishin for...

yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's 2006 all over again. only this time, the roles are reversed. and there'll be no turning back time. without outlets into alternate universes, human potential withers and wilts. like newcombe said, 'thank god for mental illness'. if you know how to channel it. if not, you just become neurotic about things like keeping your apartment clean and keeping up with the seasons.

in the great sea of love, i've been a victim of the 'bait n' switch' tactic so many times that I can now see it coming from miles n' miles away. we're living in an era of the narcissistic supply swap mating game. to simply verify that the opposing party is sexually attracted to you despite his/her best efforts is to triumph in this perverted competition. with this verification, fantasies are made all the more plausible. there's your 'ancient muses' right there. that simple. this inspires happy art. when an artist is romantically rejected, this results in dark art.

but the 'bait n' switch' tactic is a common way for women to increase her narcissistic supply without surrending to a man. it's pretty straightforward. girl is sitting around, maybe she just got dumped, feeling lonely and unwanted. and a female's purpose (on this planet anyway with the species at its current state, past results do NOT guarantee future performance) is to feel wanted. so she randoms contacts the last guy from her past whose advances she had previously rejected. maybe it was a guy she turned away when she was with the prior boyfriend.

she calls him up with a vague indication that it's 'been awhile' and that they should 'talk soon'. the former castaway is confused. anytime a man contacts a woman he's not already warmed up to and there are no discernible financial/professional ulterior motives, then his intentions are clearly sexual in nature. friendships develop organically based on shared life paths. but when a woman contacts a man out of the blue, then there's also the real possibility that she is looking to increase her narcissistic supply by feeling out the strength's of the man's desire for her.

if the man does not give in, he emerges all the stronger (and crazier). just ask nietzsche. guy became a tenured professor at 24 and was already retired by 35! talk about getting ahead in the game! by age 40 he was dancing naked around his apartment and proclaiming himself to be jesus, napoleon, buddha, and aristotle all at once!

friday night falls

2009-09-19T08:34:00.000-07:00

(9*18*09)

(8:57pm)

dyke van larnald: 'i'm going to be in the city @ 10. not sure if it's an open invite yet. btw how would i get to st marks in the village from penn station?

jogabot: 'is it another whites only affair?'

dyke van larnald: 'it is a sadie hawkins dance'

jogabot: 'are my tits not big enough?'

dyke van larnald: 'they're real and they're spectacular'

jogabot: 'see if you can manage to sneak in a friendly alien. gonna get some grass now @ my brother's pad on harrison street. where are you crashing?'

(9:21pm)

dyke van larnald: 'will work my magic the moment i get there. crashing w/ someone. what subway line will get me to st. marks?'

jogabot: 'A C E to 14th St, L to 1st Avenue, walk to 8th + 2nd. believe in the boomerang sir larnald!'

dyke van larnald: 'if you were here i'd kiss you!'

jogabot: 'or you can be a wildcat like I and run cross town to hop on the 6 local right into Astor Place. that way you've only got a block to walk. and the scenery's much nicer.'

(10:54pm)

dyke van larnald: 'the scene is no good but i will keep you posted'

jogabot: 'you can't lose in that area'

dyke van larnald: 'truer words...'

jogabot: 'now click your heels 2gether and and hang on for dear life'

(11:48pm)

jogabot: 'rollin' up to heaven'

(9*19*09)

(11:32am)

dyke van larnald: 'sorry i disappeared but the night was like a peacock'

jogabot: 'and that particular peacock crowed three times. then it got itself fucked.'

dyke van larnald: 'i don't remember that verse in the bible'

jogabot: 'i'm borrowing from the bible of larry flynt. swell guy. mixes a mean martini. or used to before the bullets caught up with him. lucky for him he can still fuck like a wounded racehorse. viagra was good for aging pornographers of all stripes.'

*click*

('the mailbox is full and cannot accept any more messages. goodbye!')

uncle rodney

2009-09-17T04:23:00.000-07:00

Rodney Dangerfield in hell
‘this is what I get fuh bein' a nice guy?’

‘may as well been a serial rapist or sumthin, at least ida gotten more kicks in’

(turns to find ted bundy sympathetically patting him on back): ‘I sure did, Rodney, I sure did’

"we have a special place for you super productive recluses"

somehow I imagine ted bundy and rob lowe to be some sort of long-lost brothers. they both like teenage girls. though I don't think ted bundy would be so careless as to film any of his own dirty deeds.

i'm the cal ripkin of dope smokers. i went 2,633 days stoned. that's damn near a decade of drugs. i'll probably end up dying of lou gehrig's disease. imagine that. to have a disease named after you. what an honor.

months before john lennon was murdered, he ranted against the glorification of john wayne in the pages of playboy. he declared that cancer had whipped john wayne and that the media shouldn't glorify losers. again he was as delightfully ironic as ever. 5 years of being a house husband had done nada to temper his wit.

eternal damnation, ay?

z is for zero

2009-09-17T04:16:00.000-07:00

supposedly so many not-so-nice men
yet i get turned down 9 times outta 10

see, she seemed so happy with me
but by the end of the night, left with a contact high
allergic to saliva, she's so allegedly sensitive
so knowingly naive

they think they're angels
little do they know
they think they're in
what little do they know

more needless alcohol imbibed. count the calories consumed. the money spent. the near-death experiences.

the worst feeling on earth that doesn't involve physical pain/death of self or loved ones? getting turned down for a kiss on the lips after an expensive first date. happened to me many times over years. and i haven't been on close to 50 first dates. 2 christines, 2 saras, a couple gabriellas.

the reason it is the worst feeling is it is because you are being sexually rejected in the most direct way a woman can possibly reject you. if she turns you down when you ask for the date/number, then you can rationalize the rejection and shift blame to external factors / her own specific situations / etc. if she accepts a date with you, then this means she probably doesn't have a boyfriend and is seemingly open to sexual advances. so if you can't even get a solid kiss out of the

i've always wanted to do like woody allen done did in 'manhattan' with diane keaton and went for the kiss before dinner. i've come very close, but modern girl are weirded out by shit like that. they may very well bag the whole thing and call their fathers if you pull a stunt like that in this post-feminist generational age. i also even attempted the matt damon/minnie driver 'good will hunting' stunt whereupon going for a first kiss while eating greasy foods. that kind of activity is so appealing to a synesthete.

sure, i may forget to brush some nights, but I had a clean bill of dental health last time I checked (not like I have dental insurance). and like a cow, I chew gum all day. just like my father did. i even have mouth sores from misdirected chews.

it's really sexy when hot ditzy girls say 'i knowwww i knowww' when they anticipate being criticized for some flaw that they know they have.

to everyone who tries to play me new music, i've gotta cite maslow's hierarchy of needs here. i can't listen to other people's music when my own music that i've put all my heart and soul into isn't listened to by anyone. once it gets the respect i think it deserves, then i'll be able to once again begin to appreciate the music of others. until then, let them listen to me for a change.

both blonde sisters had a knack for making me feel like I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. they failed to realize i was a master magician + time traveler. first I wasn't expected to use the telephone any longer. then i wasn't expected to show up at their open house parties.

joseph in dopeland

2009-09-13T02:48:00.000-07:00

jogabot:

'i want to record an underwater album with jeff buckley'

aretha franklin:

'hush child. now don't you get carried agay. that was no accident mind you. he had every intention of becoming a mississippi riverboat captain'

being mean mean spirited pays
he'll play on your weaknesses
in myriad ways

being bullied around by the day
he'll spell out your problems
he'll get in your way

"unless it's making money, i don't want to hear of it"
(mantra of the modern reactionary)

'lowest common denominator blues'

there was once a man who filled himself up with television and newspapers everyday. his conversations consisted of regurgitated takes on the news of the day. he assumed everyone else was unoriginal like himself. he never learned how to make friends, only how to bully others into submission. he tucked a white undershirt into tighty-whiteys every night to go to sleep. he snored obscenely loudly. his wife won't sleep with him. when i was 6 years old i walked in on him masturbating to a magazine. it was pretty pathetic. it didn't quite give me the lessons on the opposite sex I was hoping to hear. here he was. he spied on my girlfriends like the pervert that he is.

gee, ain't I starting to sound like a mackenzie philips in reverse?

*my calculations stand corrected*

everyone needs an outlet into an alternate universe. keeps the soul intact. or else they become more base and evil as they age. take your delusions seriously. order business cards for your alter egos. rely on imaginary friends. fall in love with cities.

i was listening to rachel maddow and a cute black correspondent teasingly admonish old man pat buchanan on MSNBC (streamlined via youtube). they were arguing about sotomayor, buchanan taking the outsider position that she was a mere affirmative action selection by obama, an alleged affirmative action case himself. buchanan has seemed to taken up the affirmative action mantle in his old age just for TV time. despite all this, I can't help but warm to buchanan. and neither could the lipstick lesbian co-hosts, even when he boorishly told the black lady to 'shut up'. but buchanan's no boar (or bore). he carries himself with a certain dignity despite his excesses (like brian wilson and elvis). and he had an undeniable masculine sway over his female talking point combatants. i bet they had some sort of kinky threesome after the taping was over. just to blow off excess steam and all. chalk it up to the luck of the irish.

buchanan's voice has a warm n' fuzzy timbre. like an earnest chubby schoolboy who knows his facts and is steadfastly sticking to his argument. he's the political brian wilson of these turbulent times. though he frightened my mother when he nearly secured the republican nomination in 1996. he even nailed the opening new hampshire primary, outgunning viagra-distracted dole by (though the purple pill wasn't even invented 'til the year after, I suspect dole was privy to trial formulas, which led to some interesting side effects just as (the?) reverend al sharpton scares suburban housewives from the left.

(cue al sharpton and pat buchanan double-grinding a housewive from right and left to the tune of village people's 'macho man')

buchanan delivered a fiery sermon upon securing the new hampshire victory, promising to deliver america back to the days of 'lexington and concord'. she doesn't like time travel.

she also thought newt gingrich was a bit too racially callous in his anti-welfare rhetoric while speaker of the house in the 90s.

one of the coolest things about buchanan is his unapologetic admiration of adolf hitler. like most historical vicarious livers, he surrounds his discussions with quotes from various historical powerhouse individuals to convey an aura of greatness. no different from a hip hop music producer and his arsenal of samples. i love how buchanan can get genuinely carried away in his own rhetoric, once excitedly proclaiming that WHEN he's elected president, his first action would be to start reading off the miranda rights to then-president Bill Clinton. now that'd be a great end to a twilight zone episode!!!

henry clay frick

2009-09-11T02:35:00.000-07:00

christianity is an easy mantra to follow for suburbanites. slaveholders showed the slaves their bible, and from it rose a new aesthetic for the gospels. fat bullies preach the religion to their victims so that they will be frightened out of revenge. a religion that preaches weakness to men and chastity to women. it was a necessary set of morals when we were savages. it was by no means the first set of morals meant to harness these primal evils. a religion of the children usurped by the elders. jesus roamed 'round with repentent whores yet the church's women are clueless virgin nuns.

one of the thorniest pitfalls of capitalism. some of the world's worst assholes get immortalized in return for the money they made by being their asshole selves.

i went to moma (museum of modern art) this afternoon. one of my friends works @ the met and she got us in for free. i noted that a wing was named for richard + kathy fuld. the captains that sunk the lehman brothers ship. as punishment, they were forced to give their art to the public for virtually nada.

one day i'll explain things so well that they'll all be floored and willing to follow me into hell. 'til then...

grow up baby boomers

2009-09-06T14:32:00.001-07:00

burying beethoven
extrapolating mozart
reciting aristotle
repeating nietzsche
waving the wagner flag
heiling hitler
buckling the bible belt
crucifying christ
sacrificing socrates
summoning mars
visiting venus
fishin' 4 fishermen

enough love to last me a lifetime
(franz ferdinand sacrificed by rival clan)
(can you say 'principe'?)

cursed to eternally bounce basketballs in driveways
until I grow up and set them free
and when will that be?
we've been waiting whiles
abandoning styles
trying on different caps
taking extra long naps

cursed to eternally bounce basketballs in driveways
pretending they're mini wilt chamberlains
scoring 100 points a game
little did they know how much his teammates hated him
or of his rolodex of one night stands
see, he really did keep score of everything

(cue 'jogabop' theme synced w/ sitcom set in future where couples can buy fake 'friends' to increase social capital just as modern men hire escorts to increase sexual capital with non-working girls. parents hire girls to feign interest in their sons, invent abercrombie models + pop stars for their daughters to idolize, etc)

(cue nirvana's *about a girl*)

extra appendages

2009-09-06T14:22:00.000-07:00

in the near future, humans will be having bionic appendages attached as often as women have breast enhancement surgery in the modern age. I for one could extract tangible benefits from +1 digits (at least it'd shake up my guitar playing a bit). in fact, i'd add an extra finger to each hand and an extra toe to each foot (just to reach the magic '12' for both digit types). call me the reverse django reinhardt.

i was afflicted with a debilitating case of toenail fungus until age 23 when I finally swore off drinking for 3 months and took my lamisils. it was a dark dreary entry into 2008 so I figured it'd be the best time to become a teetotaling antisocial city rat and finally clean up my toenails so they wouldn't disgust the bubbleheads at the jersey shore. i caught the fungus from the schoolyard bully in the gym locker room. it's also where I picked up a nasty streak of impetigo 'round age 14.

i must've inherited these problems from joseph. even my sister's got these feet problems. female athletes are mutants. you can't convince me otherwise.

Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between 1,200 °C (2,192 °F) and 1,400 °C (2,552 °F)

Porcelain derives its present name from old Italian porcellana (cowrie shell) because of its resemblance to the translucent surface of the shell.

my friends

2009-09-04T04:33:00.001-07:00

all my friends watch fox news
all my friends got the blues
all my friends eat happy meals
all my friends take their prescribed pills
all my friends work for google from home and order porn at work
all my friends read (comic) books
all my friends play guitar (hero)
all my friends' bank accounts add up to 0

some in overdraft, some still got some dollars left
it all evens out when you add it all up

my friends distrust their governments
just to have something to say when it comes their turn to speak
all my friends love reminiscing
all my friends say they'll soon be working for the CIA
(and pretty soon they'll convince themselves they are)
it won't be long before that monopoly money comes in a rollin

all my friends are on the fast track to virtual success
i wouldn't have expected anything less

freshman year of high school was the most antisocial period of my life. I had, like, one friend (if you didn't count the nondescript asian lackey we adopted as a couple to socially experiment with / humiliate) but it was also the year that set me on the fast track to harvard yard. so moral of the story: antisocial behavior is sometimes (or rather, "often") necessary for worldly success.

mgmt don't fool me
they're no brainers, not born entertainers
they're not geniuses, they're simply stoners with too many toys
apparently that passes for talent these days
and just when we done come out of the hip-hop haze
these straight from the streeters flashing their boners as the economy goes under
will we never learn our lessons?
we ARE the ART of our times

tucker max: our 21st century ernest hemingway. according to the NY Times, he's just as popular with the american public. i'm betting he drunkenly fucked a couple homely Times reporters just for the free publicity. and it'll probably be just enough to buy himself a jet. hand him the keys to your kingdom and see how far he'll take you.

i'm an abortion
i'm an abomination
i don't really exist
my parents had me killed

aborted adults

they know I don't need their love
but they can't face up to it
it's why they lay it on so thick
so they feed me and take satisfaction in watching me eat

bad boys

2009-08-31T20:10:00.001-07:00

gotta be good son of nietzsche and call as i see: as long as women willingly succumb to evil men, there'll be no end to cycle of violence. paternal media men love wagging their fingers and shaking their heads at these twisted alpha males once they are apprehended, when truth is they are merely opposite sides of the same coin. think of the mass appeal of the shirley temple films of the 30s, how her daddy was always conveniently missing a wife so shirley could become his surrogate spouse. call it stockholm syndrome, what it is is a biological tendency we view in apes and remains a tried-n-truism. women remain forever loyal to the man who claims her virginity. in a supposedly post-feminist age, this remains an absolute truth. so a kidnapped girl stays with her captor for 18 years without so much as a peep with countless chances to escape. so rihanna will be back with chris brown as soon as the restraining order's over, flying down the santa monica freeway with his own music blaring out the windows.

the cult of manson is a prime example of the biological dumb angel tendencies to gravitate towards the poles of extreme social / antisocial behavior. think of your standard abercrombie+fitch model as one sun with dumb angels in orbit, and your charles miles manson as a dark star with goth angels in orbit. and the suns spawn countless imitators, debris that floats through solar system without ever making a mark. commitment to a stationary floating object is the essence of eternal life. the abercrombie model is an artificial sun, an image that young girls are conditioned to long for. these are the male variant of the dumb angel, and these clowns are slowly but surely giving an edge to the female in the perpetual battle of the sexes. these are men who want to look good for their girlfriends. you know what that means...

there was an online male dating columnist i used to read up on in a past life as a Cantor Fitzgerald intern. he called himself 'doctor love' and he wrote like a man in his mid-60s, slightly dated vernacular but with plenty of wisdom to offer with his stubborn adherence to a few simple principles. i imagined him to look like Frank Vincent (the reliable gangster character actor who wrote a book my brother bought instructing readers how to be a 'man's man', my brother never was wise with his reading selections, though i did swipe his phil hellmuth poker book when i was 20 and it gave me a lot of insight into the game). doctor love's columns were featured on the 'askmen.com' site, a popular cybersurfing attraction during those slow summer days in corporate america. i was 18 years old and didn't know any better. i accepted his teachings as gospel because he seemed to be hitting on a lot of truths. his basic premise was the same basic premise of all male dating coaches: women are biologically attracted to a man who represents a challenge. up until that point, i had always believed that the more forward a man, the greater his chances with women. i had spent most of my life overcoming a shyness i had picked up as a young child after realizing that my family dubbed me a 'wiseguy' and made my life a whole lot harder whenever I showed any signs of extroversion or hint that i may be more clever than a chronically insecure overlord. consequently i was never one to express my feelings much. as a result i repressed any preadolescent sexual attraction i felt into other activities.

doctor love had a few solid principles on which he built his 'system'. these core principles were enlightening to me then. and they still make sense now.

first and foremost, he stressed the importance of obtaining a target girl's home phone number within the first 15 minutes of meeting her. this seems strange in an era of cellular communications, but the cellular revolution was only beginning to take hold of our society in the beginning of the 21st century. and to get a girl's home phone number meant that the man would be able to talk to the woman when she was in a comfortable environment (rather than on-the-go, as is likely when you call a person's cellphone. that's what they were made for). i really miss talking to people on a stable home phone line. that was a lot of fun while it lasted. especially when you were wired in and you couldn't even roam around the house. just walk in circles and talk for hours on end, running up your parents' phone bills like there was no tomorrow.

surrendering to a collective invisible overlord is a core unifying component of human culture. this shapes the morals of a society.

'spikey mikey' had it right from the get go. i probably set bad examples for him over the years. he tempered his natural aggressive tendencies over the years in order to crack the bottom rungs of the ivy league. i was really such a wimp back then. he got cracking on internet porn before I did. then madam cheryl tried to trick us into confessing into looking up internet porn. she claimed that joseph's wimpy business partner had examined our home computer and found searches for 'gay porn'. at the time we were still on pamela anderson titty pics. we wouldn't even have known gay porn had it been right in front of us.

my mother made me a wimp. i realized this today as we celebrated her 55th birthday with dinner at Wolfgang's in NYC. i now remember that this may have been the restaurant that always ran commercials on CNBC, the channel forced down my throat all day as I worked @ BGC Partners. it seemed to be a place where old men took their young girlfriends, judging by the customers featured in the ad. friendly schlumps served their overlords with dopey grins.

as we were driving home, joseph pulled a classic merrill lynch bully move. he illegally made his way up through late night turnpike traffic by riding the shoulder. he pretended to be clueless but he knew exactly what he was doing. that's another favorite tactic of his. my mother gave me endless backseat shit over the years for transgressing even the slightest of traffic laws. i like to think that she was concerned about my safety, but that's not an adequate explanation. she was a passenger, so she would have been just as selfishly concerned about her own safety. I can't seem to shake the sense that she believed me unworthy to confront the police in the case that I did get pulled over. but the irony, she is attracted to joseph precisely BECAUSE he does asshole things like ride up the shoulder in traffic. there's a reason that's illegal. it's because it endangers other people who may actually need to use the shoulder. i resented how she plays the constant contrarian with me, eternally fretting about how my actions will affect others in the slightest sense, will be interpreted by others (and thereby reflect on her parenting), or how I will become a victim of the authorities. when joseph made his way to the front of the line, she cheered him. she gave him a high five. blame it on the wine. blame it on birthday giddiness. she immediately recognized the disparity and became contrite by uttering a drawn out 'youuure right youuure right' so that I'd be deterred from pointing out the full implications of her seal of approval.

joseph idolizes me, but he'll never admit it to anyone. once during his attempt at a heart-to-heart, I compared him to a childhood 'friend' that was forced upon me because my mother was a passive friend to his mother. he immediately became indignant (probably because this friend was not yet conventionally successful). he then immediately compared me to this kid's father. so right there you see the power dynamic in our relationship. he thinks i'm his father. i've never been after his approval and this irks him to no end.

call it cultural conditioning, but I fetishized the juxtaposition of boorish behavior and sexual rewards from an early age. fat racist slobs coddled by beautiful women turned me on to no end. probably because my dad was such an asshole and my mom was so hot.

i'd bet that if alpha male jock types were exposed to gay porn at an early age , they'd all grow up to be bodybuilding queers. these types are not ones to question what has been deemed socially aspirational by mass media. there's a definite homoerotic undercurrent in the most violent modern sports: football, ultimate fighting, even soccer. maybe it'd all be for the best. then again, maybe not.

my armchair psychological theory on homosexuality is that it is merely an exploration of the extremes of the universal laws of human attraction. a man who wants to fuck another man is actually an ultra-alpha in that it is not satisfying enough for him to have a woman submit to him. and a man who wants to be fucked by another man has merely been conditioned to. more studies on the subject should be carried out. just don't ask me to get involved!

having attractive female relatives can spell doom for a man's sex life. everyone's trying to fuck his mother and he's the only one that's not allowed to (barring any uncles or grandfathers). and then a hot sister only means that she'll be popular. which means she'll make a lot of friends. and lot of them will be other girls hoping her hotness will rub off on them somehow. there'll be lots of other girls around. and since they're your sister's friends, they're of course off limits.

more drugs please

2009-08-30T05:08:00.000-07:00

the era of drug decriminalization is right around the corner, i can feel it in my synapses

you gotta lose your marbles
and set your body free
you gotta follow sparkles
when there's nowhere else to be
you gotta keep in time
to the rhymes you'll never see
you gotta hide the hand you're holding
and love your enemy

you wanna feel the love you've been promised all along
because you're bruised and battered but still you're feeling strong
you gotta keep what matters and gather what you need
you gotta love the land you live on
just plant a brand new seed

gotta find my baby
and fall into her hug
gotta fight my feelings
and sweep 'em under rug
gotta know the limits
and give her what she need
gotta lovely love you lay low
and plant a brand new seed

a roundabout route
but i just bout figured it out
just gotta dodge a few more bullets

one hitter two hitter three hitter four
five hitter sixth hit on seven i soar

suburban cops should be devoting ALL their manpower to protecting citizens' property rights and preventing burglaries. they should be devoting no manpower to busting drug suppliers + demanders. next time you are robbed, remember that your oppressor may've thought twice had there been a stronger police force devoted to protecting your property rights. it's your tax money. let it be known how you want it spent.

davinci sleep

2009-08-30T04:36:00.001-07:00

tricks your body into fitting many 'days' (periods between sleep) into a single 'day' (rotation of the earth). also requires a lot more toothpaste

a continuum of woman

2009-08-29T22:57:00.001-07:00

it's what the brian wilson's music was all about.

rolling stone utilizes the sex symbols of the day to get people to actually buy their magazines. so they can go to their bedrooms and masturbate in private rather than read the articles at their local train station. they used britney spears and lindsey lohan for these purposes. then they threw them in the gutter. megan fox is up next. she was on the most recent rolling stone cover looking "sexually overwhelming" (as woody allen put it when faced with scarlett johannesen). she garbled up the same old story about sprouting tits at age 12 and making grown men cry. she's a golddigger's daughter. her stepfather probably molested her. she'll wait to reveal this to the world when she's already done washed up in a last-ditch grasp for publicity. she'll probably land a semi-lucrative book deal. she'll best be remembered as the girl with the big tits in 'the transformers'. thirty years from now, she'll be indistinguishable from the girl with big tits that jim carrey accosts in 'liar liar'. i related a lot to that movie. i went through a jim carrey craze after watching a lot of 'in living color' as a fourth grader.

AGE OF CONSENT:

NJ - 16
NY - 17

comfort kings

2009-08-29T06:59:00.000-07:00

(yaawwwn) the comfort kings
we know the many blessed things that mother comfort brings
we surrender to our couches as our stereo sings
"sit back, relax, enjoy your days in the digital age"
say sayonara as your autopilot verifies your age
to a pixelated erotescapist paradise

it’s a comfort to know that grover is over us all
we eat cookie dough cause we got no patience for baking
we quote every movie we know verbatim
we hide from our feelings cause we're sure they're mistaken
we thought of a title 'til we found it was taken
so we went back to bed

for we're suburban sorcerers, our wands fell into our cauldrons
it's a quite a quandary, we'll wait until we too fall in
call in the captain, he'll know how to what to do
he'll gate our community and guard our food

stay a mama's boy forever and sooner or later you'll become your father

first takes

2009-08-29T06:15:00.000-07:00

decided long ago that first takes were to be revered. if adequately prepared, healthy, and or under the influence, the first take for a singer or instrumentalist can be a magical experience captured for as long as there are devices to play recorded sound.

sonic governments

2009-08-28T22:25:00.001-07:00

founding fathers recast as classical composers

i'd gladly live in a world run by jewish women

joganots

2009-08-28T22:10:00.000-07:00

a superstar comedian actually losing his speaking voice during a live broadcast would be the funniest routine ever if handled correctly

Theres no sense in sadness
When you know who loves you the most
joe biden + joan baez were both second-place lovers
bob dylan + barack obama both beat them to the punch
and now we'll never hear the end of them

patriotic mobs should dispose of the souls who appear on the TV commercials highlighting the disparity between what they owed the IRS and what they paid the IRS. Their smiling cheater faces should infuriate all fiscally honest citizens. but the truth is, the same indignant 'citizens' who complain about government waste and high taxation rates probably try to evade all the taxes they can. think construction businesses who hide their cash assets from the government. i grew up around these types. if they properly paid their taxes, there'd be lower tax rates for us all. moral of the story: these mobs should lynch themselves.

drugs are good. televisions are bad
immigration is good. welfare is bad.
insomnia is good. idleness is bad.
attention is good. vicarious livers are bad.

vicarious livers give me the shivers
vampires sucking the lifeblood of our suburbian sons
arranging their daughters in chronological rows

my family is addicted to television. there's a television in every room. there are televisions for every toilet.

daisy

2009-08-27T23:41:00.000-07:00

we were cut from the same cloth
and we toiled on the same chain
we’re gonna rise to the same occasion
gonna think with the same brain

we gonna die by the same deed
we goin bust by the same brain
we're consumed by the same greed

i remember picking buttercups @ mobus field. a little girl told me that i could turn my chin yellow by placing the flower underneath. thus began an eternal game of picking leaves: 'she loves me, she loves me not...' no one ever thinks of the poor plant whose lifelines are being casually ripped off of their bodies!

you can't write a better pop song than 'She Loves You'. because god is a woman. or rather, what we call a 'woman' is a man. in that the 'woman' is actually the basic archetype and what we call the 'man' its its supporting character. and the beatles knew this. both john and paul had female overlords. first it was their dead mothers. their spirits infused yoko + linda.

a duodecimalist's playlist

2009-08-27T13:58:00.000-07:00

0 -->

'z is for zero'
'nothing ventured'
'nada from nadia' ("oh you have no ideea")
'prodigies' ("no you're nothin' special")

1 -->

'one-hitter' ("on 7 i soar!")
'round 1'

2 -->

'american dreams' ("two of a kind, they find...")

3 -->

'betty boop' ("ma mammy had 3 personalities...")

4 -->

'battle 4 barry'
'starved 4 attention'
'4 new york'
'fishin'

5 -->

'fivefivefive' ("he'll never make it alive!")

6 -->

'six feet under'
'midlife crisis' ("halfway there!")
'champ' ("it's a 6th grade system / 10th grade torture")

7 -->

'*67' ("it's how i flow incognito!" / "been rejected 12 times")

8 -->

'Eighty-8' ("like the keys on that eternal piano!")

9 -->

'9th Street' ("where there's always fresh meat")

10 -->

'22' ("which is really just 10 all over again")

11 -->

'mark must stop' ("9/11 , twin towers")

12 -->

'24/7' (14 cycles of 12 / 12x12 + 2 leftover leisure cycles)

sorry if this all comes out as incomprehensible word jumbles yet again, this is for myself mostly, just trying to gauge emotional responses to numbers through songs that have dealt with them over the years

hand me that fucking cross

2009-08-27T12:50:00.000-07:00

is it really any coincidence that elvis, michael jackson, and eminem / three superstars that each re-defined their respective generations' concepts of masculine roles / all were wracked with severe sleep disorders that ultimately destroyed them?

insomnia's no joke, children

instead of embracing drugs, maybe they should've just embraced a polyphasic sleep pattern (i'd better be careful with my evangelical attitude towards davinci sleep or I'm gonna start sounding like one of those cookie-cutter transcendental meditation types)

i was turned onto eminem as a high school wrestler. one of my teammates played the marshall mathers EP during warmups. it was like mcdonald's to me, instantly gratifying but sure didn't make you feel any better about yourself or expand your horizons none. and then when I made it to college, one of the first dorm 'field trips' was to a boston movie theater for a screening of '8 Mile'. i couldn't relate. at all. then when I graduated college magic dan dragged me to the movies for the 50 Cent flop 'Get Rich Or Die Tryin'. left me completely cold. this guy didn't love music.

heath ledger and jeff buckley are of the same spirit. heath did things the right way. covered all the bases. busted onto the scene as australian teen hearthrob in 'ten things I hate about you'. pushed the envelope with role as gay cowboy in 'brokeback mountain'. explored the dark side with his role in 'the joker'. then he was outta here. all jeff buckley had to done do was put out 'grace'. they both galloped on up to heaven holding hands.

beating down brown

2009-08-27T12:18:00.000-07:00

whitney + bobby brown
rihanna + chris brown

is clive davis just pulling our collective legs for free publicity? or do all talented young black female singers need a violent + unstable male counterpart in their lives to mark the start of phase 2 in the saga that is their rise and descent in the dazzling world of show business.

whereas white queen bees such as britney prefer to date their underlings (dancers, managers, chauffers) think anna nicole smith and howard k stern. in these cinderella sagas, the male counterpart serves as harmlessly scheming/leeching comic relief rather than violent villain/enabler. without artistic/show biz aspirations, it's a perverted life cycle for ambitious non-intellectual women with looks to spare. poor white trash raised by single mom. times get tough. options are limited. waiting tables turns into table dances turns into turning tricks. plenty of satisfied male customers. she does hyper-complex calculations in her dimwitted doe-eyed brain with variables including life expectancy + net worth. a black bodyguard wheels a racist old oil baron into a texas titty bar on a friday afternoon. he likes what he sees. so he stays. he gets titties in his face all day. he's worth mega millions. this is a monetary cycle. man amasses fortune over course of lifetime to support several single stripper mommies. in a sense, the capitalist ethos can be justified by its tendency to improve the aesthetic of this planet.

but this is where things get complex. old man marshall does what he's supposed to do. he hounds the young stripper and tries wooing her with all the juice he's got. he gets his black bodyguard to take him to every jewelry store on the texas coastline. she lets him buy her things, all the while while doing lots of drugs and living in a party house with rowdy law enforcement / good ole boy bodybuilder types. she's probably racist herself until she begins an affair with the old man's black bodyguard.

know in advance that some disgruntled former helper is going to eventually write a tell-all book about you. but this will only happen once you achieve some sort of extraordinary success in the first place (by whatever means). hugh hefner had it right. he did so much for the male species. he created a heaven on earth in that he warped the female perogative. through mass media, he created a channel in which a woman could achieve glory by looking the most attractive (according to the standards of hugh hefner, which is to say the cultural feminine standards he absorbed in the 30s/40s). but hugh's tastes evolved with the times.

religion is a battle of the sexes. judaism is a man + christianity is a woman. islam is their cranky son.

"If statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of stardust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and had done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed; and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?"

Mark Twain (in "Concerning the Jews" 1899)

when you look at it this way, hitler's satanic parallels are all the more evident when you think of the jews as immortal. like lucifer struggling in vain against his former master.

toddler time

2009-08-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

i cannot remember consciously using crying as an attention-getting signal to parents. my memory doesn't go back that far. can any of you? i'm curious to know. like does anyone remember thinking to themselves, "mom's not listening to me. i should cry now." for herein lies the basis of all artistic expression

according to his mother, he was the best baby. meaning the one who made the least fuss. meaning the one who wouldn't cry when he was left with someone besides his mother. unwilling to form attachments even then. the rest of the siblings became mama's boys and daddy's little girls.

DPI --> dots per inch

ambulance envy

2009-08-27T08:39:00.000-07:00

i haven't had the exquisite privilege of riding in an ambulance. even when I shattered my left arm at a youth wrestling tournament, my parents insisted on driving me in a bouncy volvo to a hospital they were more 'familiar with'. i'm convinced this did more harm than good (not to mention all the trauma inflicted by highway driving without being stabilized on any stretcher). and it was at this very hospital that a doctor decided to fix my shattered arm by shooting me up with novocaine and trying to put the arm in place by hand. this took most of the night as we shuffled between the room where I got my novocaine shots, the darkroom where the loony doctor tried to fix my arm in place, and the x-ray room where he saw whether he got it right or not. when it didn't work after three attempts, they decided that there was no alternative but surgery. funny thing was the first doctor said i'd need surgery right away. then this showoff doctor sauntered it, and probably trying to impress my mother, he said 'no, this boy doesn't need surgery. why i'll magically put his arm back in place with my own bare hands'. they stuck two pins in my arm to hold the bones together. after a couple weeks, the pins were taken out and I was good to go. besides some miniscule scarring from where the pins were inserted. for a while the range of motion on my left arm was somewhat limited (could hardly reach left shoulder with left hand), but it's all been corrected by now.

ambulances make weak people feel important. the most important person in the world in fact, as their well-being trumps all others on our roadways. i'm just waiting for the day when an ambulance mows me down in my prime, all to save the life of a 90-year-old cigar smoker who ends up dying a week later. i'll be saying 'told ya so' from the grave, but that'll be little consolation. i've always been the personality type to secretly believe that ambulances should wait in line like everyone else. for we're all dying.

the ambulance rundown is an apt metaphor for a society that values all of its citizens equally regardless of their merits. like a public school system that seeks to eliminate all achievement outliers, high and low.

to utopia!

2009-08-27T08:38:00.001-07:00

during the entire course of my academic experience, I never learned how to be an effective morning person. it was because I stacked too much shit on my plate that my body instinctively learned to dread the beginning of the day. during those moments, the bed is all that is real + good in the world.

now that I do whatever I want whenever I want, I have a whole new attitude towards sleep. i've seemed to naturally shift into a polyphasic cycle now that I'm not required to be anywhere at any specific time. my sole deadline is death. scary eh?

imagine michael moore leading a troupe of chubby squirrels in dance. bill maher is funnier than I remember. so is craig ferguson. and kelsey grammar seems like a good guy. so letterman is banging his staffers. his women seem pretty homely anyways. he must suffer from low self-esteem. that's why they gave him a talk show. they thought that'd cure his ailment. boost his ego.

we know, we know. bill maher's a pothead. and eliot spitzer is pointy. paul krugman wasn't very popular in school. he must eradicate the inner geek within if he wants to win another nobel prize. it's easy being an economist when all is said and done because nothing can be proven.

play on words -->

"IMing on a ferry/fairy"

(uppity gaybird): yea, what's it to you pal? (gives poor eavesdropper the once-over, then tries pulling him into bed)

warriors

2009-08-27T08:32:00.000-07:00

sometimes it does us good to think back to our playing days + the mistakes we made in the heat of battle. others would rather blame their coaches for their own lack of success.

veritas

2009-08-27T08:20:00.000-07:00

harvard's motto: 'veritas'
(latin for 'truth')

columbia's motto: 'In lumine Tuo videbimus lumen'
(latin for 'in Thy light shall we see light')

hmmm

the crazed process known as college admissions is a formidable force in global society. in many ways it leaves a lasting effect on the progress of our species, as it defines the trajectory of our children during their most vulnerable years.

i suffered throgh an especially unique college application process (to say the least). both my guidance counselor + my patron ('father' in colloquial terms) both discouraged me in the strongest possible ways from applying to the college of my choice. and the college of my choice was merely an egotistical aim, fixating on what I believed to be the most prestigious institution of higher learning (a decision based on aggregate opinion, populist magazine top 10 lists, + most importantly admissions rates) Both based their discouragements on the slim chances of admission and believed I should play it safe by applying early decision to a school that I'd have a higher chance of being admitted to. Both completely ignored the sparkling resume I had produced over the course of 4 years and instead harped on 'hooks' (once again passing the power baton into the hands of other unworthy authorities like themselves).

in retrospect, this should have really pissed me off. harvard offered early action admissions, which meant that if you got accepted it was not binding (because with their reputation they have the luxury have). schools without the luxury of being assured of high student acceptance rates offer early decision programs, which means that your acceptance is legally binding (perhaps not 'legally', but they claimed they could fuck with any other school you were applying to, maybe it was just a university cartel-type arrangement). so if i had listened to those that the society at hand (mostly the mass media) told me I should be listening to, i'd have likely been accepted to the second-tier school and then thought nothing more of it. and during that grueling senior year football season, there were times when I thought of doing this.

in roman mythology, veritas (meaning truth) was the goddess of truth, a daughter of saturn and the mother of virtue. it was believed that she hid in the bottom of a holy well because she was so elusive. her image is shown as a young virgin dressed in white. veritas is also the name given to the roman virtue of truthfulness, which was considered one of the main virtues any good roman should have possessed. in greek mythology, veritas was known as aletheia.

this latin word now appears in many university mottos. veritas is the motto of Harvard University, the Dominican Order of the Roman Catholic Church, and Providence College which is run by the Dominicans. It is included in Indiana University's and Yale University's motto Lux et Veritas (Light and Truth). It also appears on the California State University's motto Vox Veritas Vita (Speak the Truth as a way of Life). Veritas (Truth) is also the motto of Bishop Lynch High School, appearing over the entrance doorway. Caldwell College issues a "Veritas Award" each year in honor of the Dominican Sisters who founded and administer the college. those who have been honored exemplify the philosophy and spirit of the dominican mission embodied by the college and demonstrate accomplishment in a chosen field.

Public Affairs Officers in the Canadian Forces wear insignia emblazoned with the word "Veritas" as part of their standard uniform.

Ontario Provincial Police flash on McCartney's sleeve
('Sgt Pepper' cover)

the word is also used in the phrase in vino veritas, meaning "In wine, truth", referring to the circumstance that people seem to become uninhibited and tell what they really think (i.e. the truth) when they drink alcohol.

surprise store

2009-08-27T08:01:00.000-07:00

it was the name of the plainfield party favors store where my father's mother worked as a clerk. an apt title for a generation that is in dire need of more surprises

i was working on wall street in name only. i was really only a glorified clerk, consigned to a back office cleaning up other people's messes.

sugar daddies

2009-08-27T07:53:00.001-07:00

young girls + old men. this is the spirit of america, ladies and gentlemen. think gatsby's parties and old stodgers leading young flappers in eternal circles. remember that nabakov wrote 'lolita' as a metaphor for the old world europe's (humbert humbert) erotic fascination with the new world america (lolita). but what could the old world offer the final frontier? other than resources in exchange for beauty? other than experience in exchange for excitement?

the first nude scene my virgin eyes ever did see was in the classic film 'puppet masters III: toulon's revenge' in kennifer's basement. an elderly Nazi general was being ridden by a voluptuous german prostitute. she's even wearing his general's cap as his liver-spotted arms make their way anyway they want to go. there's an implied climax, they tenderly kiss as he gets dressed and prepares to leave the whorehouse, and he suavely declares that he 'wishes he could handle goring (nazi leader Hermann Wilhelm Göring) as well as I can handle you (the prostitute). then he's shot up by a mustachioed cowboy puppet named six-shooter until his bullet-ridden body is driven out of the upper story window to his death.

now how's that for an introduction to sex and violence?

in college, i did some research on the movie for curiousity's sake. turns out the puppet master movie franchise has a pretty damn interesting plotline:

"during the Renaissance, an inventor named Jean Paul Toulon sold his soul to the demon Bael in exchange for the most complex secrets of alchemy. Bael was unable to collect his soul however, as when he returned Jean Paul had already died and been buried beneath an ancient oak tree. From this tree, his son, a puppeteer named Andre, carved his first puppets.

In 1902, an unconventionally immortal Egyptian named Afzel steals a spell for animating lifeless objects from the god Sutekh. Sutekh sends several followers after Afzel but none are successful in killing him and returning the spell, although in Paris Afzel is severely wounded and is sheltered by Andre Toulon. Afzel teaches Toulon Sutekh's spell, which he uses to animate one of his puppets, Pinhead. Comfortable that the spell has been passed on, Afzel commits suicide in front of Sutekh's henchmen, making them believe Afzel has taken the magic to his grave. However when Toulon uses the spell to animate a handful of other puppets, Cyclops, Drill Sergeant, Six Shooter, Blade and Doctor Death, Sutekh's henchmen return to Paris to slay the Puppet Master. While the puppets are successful in besting Sutekh's forces, two of them are resurrected to pursue Toulon. Toulon confronts the demons on a train to Kara, where they have kidnapped and are keeping his love interest, Elsa, and a battle ensues, with Toulon and his puppets successful in defeating their pursuers and rescuing Elsa.

Eventually Toulon takes his puppetry to Cairo, where during a 1912 expedition one of his performances is attended by a magician who, unbeknownst to Toulon, sets his theater ablaze. There to rebound Toulon's loss, the magician invites the puppeteer and his wife to his quarters, where he shows them an animated puppet of his own, this one animated by an elixir formula.

Years later in 1941 Berlin, where Andre and Elsa Toulon have now taken residence, a Gestapo lieutenant learns that Toulon's puppets are sentient. Toulon is arrested, two of his puppets are confiscated and Elsa is murdered. Toulon escapes and uses his puppets to avenge his wife. While in hiding, a fellow refuge reveals Toulon's location to the Gestapo, who infiltrate his hideout and force him to flee. Assisted by his puppets, Toulon tortures Major Kraus, the man who killed Elsa and organized the several attempts to arrest Toulon. Afterwards, he and a child refuge, Peter Hertz, flee to Geneva, Switzerland by train. After reuniting Hertz with relatives, Toulon continues his travels to the Swiss border, taking shelter from rainfall at an unattended inn, where he tells his puppets the story of Afzel and of his original puppets.

Continuing his journey to the United States, Toulon takes shelter at the Bodega Bay Inn in Bodega Bay, California. The Gestapo, however, have traced his location and two soldiers are sent to the hotel to assassinate him. With the chest containing his puppets and secrets hidden inside a wall panel, Toulon commits suicide before the assassins can infiltrate his room. Bodega Bay employee Danny Coogan discovers Toulon's body, along with his trunk of puppets, and begins taking care of them, eventually their secret. Coogan becomes jealous when his girlfriend, who also knows the puppets are alive, flirts with a man Coogan recognizes as one of the Gestapo who had come hunting for Toulon. Coogan discovers the Gestapo are involved in a plan to bomb the United States, and with the puppets' help, Coogan resolves to stop them.

In 1989, four psychics each receive unsettling visions, which they assess have been sent by a former colleague, Neil Gallagher. The group meets at the Bodega Bay Inn where Gallagher has been staying, where before long they are introduced to Gallagher's wife, Megan. The psychics are skeptical that Gallagher had ever been wed, but this is forgotten when Megan reveals that he has recently commit suicide. Toulon's puppets, now out and about, proceed to murder everyone in the hotel before only the psychic Alex Whitaker, and Megan remain. It is here that Gallagher, alive, confronts the two survivors. Gallagher explains that while he did die, Toulon's formula was used to give himself eternal life. However, when Gallagher mistreats the puppet Jester, the others revolt against him, locking him in an elevator and mercilessly killing him. Whitaker returns home. Megan, now alone, is shown picking up Dana's taxidermic dog, and by the following scene, the dog becomes completely animate, indicating that she too has learned Toulon's method.

After the incident, the puppets visit the Shady Oaks cemetery where they recover Toulon's corpse and reanimate it using the last of the Egyptian's elixir. With Toulon alive, the puppets hope that he can brew a new elixir to continue keeping them sustained. Toulon humbly pursues the formula, but to do so, his puppets are required to continue killing, as blood tissue is a key ingredient in the concoction. After slaying the Bodega Bay Inn's owner, Megan Gallagher, Toulon unofficially takes ownership of the hotel, to the confusion of a group of parapsychologists who come to investigate the rantings of Alex Whitaker, who has gone insane since his visit to the place. It is during this time that Toulon designs his last puppet, Torch. After seeing one of the investigators, Carolyn Bramwell, Toulon is reminded of his wife Elsa, who bears a striking resemblance to Bramwell, and uncharacteristically he abandons the plan to help his puppets in order to find a way of being united with who he believes is his reincarnated wife. Toulon, who has had two life-sized mannequins created to house the souls of both he and Bramwell, uses a combination of the elixir and a magic spell to place his soul into one mannequin. However before Bramwell's soul can be transferred into the other mannequin, her love interest, Michael Kenney, rescues her. The puppets, both angry and ashamed that their loving master has abandoned them, opt to have him killed once again. They use the remaining elixir and mannequin to resurrect one of their victims, Michael's mother, Camille. However Camille takes on a sadistic personality and has the puppets locked away, with the exception of Torch, who shares her disgust for children. This is key in that Camille uses the puppets to terrorize institutionalized children.

Some time after Camille takes Toulon's puppets on the road, they are returned to the Bodega Bay Inn, where they are not discovered until one summer while a youth scientist named Rick Myers serves as caretaker for the hotel. It is at this time that the god Sutekh makes a second attempt to suppress the secret of animation. Sutekh has three tribal puppets, spiritually linked to demonic minions of his own, called Totems sent to Earth to hunt down key personnel in the Omega Project, an organization also attempting to create life in inanimate objects. Myers' girlfriend, Susie, pays a visit to the Bodega Bay Inn, along with her friends Cameron and Lauren. Unknown to Susie, both Myers and Cameron have been previously acquainted, and they are both members of the Omega Project. Lauren, a clairvoyant, leads the group to the chest containing Toulon's puppets, and from the puppeteer's notes, Myers learns to inject the puppets with elixir to reanimate them. The puppets befriend the group, and protect them when the Totems arrive to kill Myers and his friends. Toulon's spirit, at ease since his puppets slew him over his treachery, returns to guide the puppets, advising them to activate his unfinished figure, Decapitron. The puppets set up an electric current which is used to animate Decapitron, who uses its interchangeable heads to communicate with the group and attack Totems. Shortly after the attack, Myers is arrested under suspicion for having caused the murders committed by the Totems. His boss, Jennings, has Myers bailed because he believes he is innocent, and Myers tells Jennings about his experience with Toulon's puppets, all-the-while expecting Jennings not to believe him. However Jennings is interested in Myers' story, and he organizes a group of thugs to break into the Bodega Bay Inn and steal the puppets. Myers has a disturbing premonition and decides to return to the hotel with Blade to check on the puppets which were left behind when he was taken into custody. Meanwhile, Sutekh activates another Totem, which he proceeds to transfer his soul into. In the midst of their search for the puppets, Sutekh ambushes Jennings' thugs at the Bodega Bay Inn, before confronting Myers, who has recently arrived at the hotel, and Toulon's puppets. A battle between Sutekh and the puppets ensues, resulting in Sutekh attempting to retreat. However the spirit of Andre Toulon, piloting Decapitron, is able to destroy him, inadvertently damaging all of the puppets in the process.

The puppets are soon placed into an auction, where they are obtained by Magrew, an honorary doctor who manages a sideshow in a small American community. Here, Magrew conducts experiments on transforming humans into puppets, in an attempt to primitively duplicate Andre Toulon's method of animation. When Magrew's daughter, Jane, returns from college, the two meet a gas station attendant named Robert "Tank" Winsley. Winsley's skill at carving wood is noticed by Magrew, and the boy is invited to stay with he and Jane if he agrees to carve a puppet for Magrew's experiment. As Winsley and Jane grow closer, Magrew tries to discourage Jane from seeing Winsley, so that in the event where the boy leaves, Jane will not be hurt. However, Jane assures her father that Winsley wouldn't leave her. After carving the pieces for Magrew's puppet, Winsley becomes ill. Magrew calls for a doctor, and Jane is ordered to leave town to pick up a package for his sideshow. After learning that no package was sent, Jane races home, but makes a stop to inspect debris she had found burnt in a ditch shortly before. In it, she finds a grotesque fleshy puppet who knows her name, which she identifies as her father's former assistant; the role which Winsley has replaced. Winsley wakes restrained to a laboratory table, with Magrew nearby, brandishing a mechanical puppet of his own. Magrew transfers Winsley's soul into the machine, but before he can enjoy his success, Toulon's puppets become enraged by his disgusting experiments, and they attack him. When Jane returns home, she finds her bloodied father and the mechanical puppet, recognizing it as Winsley because his face appears on a visual display unit on the figure's head. Winsley then proceeds to electrocute Magrew to death.

The puppets are returned to the Bodega Bay Inn, which is now the residence of Peter Hertz, the boy Toulon escaped Germany with in 1941. Meanwhile, a mercenary named Maclain, who has been hired by Toulon's original puppets to learn what reverses the spell of animation, is immersing herself in the puppeteer's history. In her investigation, she meets Rick Myers, who she murders for a book previously owned by Toulon, which details the animation process. The text fails to mention deanimation, so Maclain infiltrates the Bodega Bay Inn, where she meets Hertz. Hertz is not aware of how to reverse animation himself, so he plays several taped recordings of Andre Toulon, which chronicle his life, but the secret is absent from these recordings as well. Hertz and Blade then attack Maclain, before they are ambushed by an unseen character.

The puppets are eventually ported to Andre Toulon's hometown of Paris, before being brought back to the United States by Toulon's great-grandnephew, Robert. By this time, the puppets are no longer active, but Robert is well aware of their secret, and studying the text Maclain had once stolen from Myers, Robert successfully reanimates Blade, Pinhead, Jester and Six Shooter. However the revival is witnessed by Erica Sharpe, the head of Sharpe Toys, who has secretly placed Robert's house under surveillance, and she desires to have puppet protectors for herself. Sharpe is also in cahoots with the demon Bael, who has given her the opportunity to dominate the world using Sharpe Toys' latest line of holiday products, in return for Sharpe to provide Bael with the blood of Robert and his daughter, Alexandra. Bael also gives Sharpe three possessed toys to help her collect the blood of virgins that will empower her company's toys on Christmas morning (these are Baby Oopsy Daisy, Teddy and Jack Attack, of Full Moon's film Demonic Toys). A fire caused during an invasion by Sharpe's thugs deals major damage to Toulon's puppets, but Robert works to repair them using modern, and somewhat futuristic, technology, rendering them "Cyber Puppets." Robert and the Cyber Puppets confront Sharpe as she attempts to sacrifice Alexandra, and while they are unable to defeat Sharpe's forces in time, their distraction successfully prevents Alexandra from being sacrificed by Christmas morning, thus terminating Sharpe's contract with Bael"

spaceship earth

2009-08-27T07:32:00.000-07:00

it started out as a song i wrote to appease my college bassist one summer. i based it off a barebones chord progression in cmajor he had e-mailed to me. at the time I was on an obsessive-compulsive quest to become the most knowledgeable 'classic rock' connoisseur on the planet. 'classic rock' as defined by the local 'classic rock' radio station, as determined by the working man masses. New York's Q104.3 would have a countdown every thanksgiving with a list of the 1043 greatest classic rock songs as voted by their listeners. and I would learn all of 'em.

but when i started studying libertarian political/economic philosophy during my last year of college, 'spaceship earth' took on a whole new meaning for me. nationalism seemed besides the point on a post-america planet. in the collective world order of the near future, america will be hailed as an empire with more valuable lessons to offer than the ancient greeks in all their prime. for america outlined how peoples of all races+religions can live together in relative harmony when all subscribe to the capitalist credo.

and i began fantasizing of a dual government policy that would simultaneously open all borders and end all welfare programs. how this program would serve justice to two of my least favorite pariahs of modern society: the entitled lamebrained good ole boys who use immigrants as scapegoats for their own laziness and the opportunistic immigrant who figures that america's welfare state will prop he and his family up if he can't cut in the labor market. both parties would be in for rude awakenings. and who would be rewarded? the hardworking immigrant who can replace the nepotism-benefiting good ole boy who nonetheless cries over affirmative action. opening all national borders is the ultimate step towards creating a pure meritocracy. and the most capable captains of industry would be rewarded with cheap labor, ensuring that the engines of capitalism would continue to churn and stimulate growth across the nation.

but i predict that once more asians start westernizing themselves athletically, they may very well dominate a global athletic scene that has heretofore been dominated by africans. the tiger woods archetype is the athlete of the future. think yao ming in basketball. think the japanese invasion in baseball. think any ping-pong champion (i'm ignorantly assuming)

road rage

2009-08-27T06:52:00.000-07:00

i believe that it will be our unnecessarily dangerous modes of travel that our descendants will mock us for the most. the 'cash for clunkers' sales will have the positive side effect of making our nation's roads safer by taking these dangerously outdated vehicles off our roads. i've inherited my mother's 2000 gmc yukon for the time being and i'm fast approaching 200K miles traveled (not all of them mine, mind you) until I can afford a luxury car of my own (whenever this rascally starter kit I ordered from the 'make money from home' site starts kicking in), I refuse to give up the yukon. even though there's a serious oil leak which requires myself to buy motor oil and fill up the tank every week or so. even though it takes 2.3 turns of the ignition key on average to start up the engine. even though the steering wheel's sense of direction is more screwy than a retard with an ear infection. i still soldier on in my silver SUV, doing my part to eat away at our ozone layer.

You want utopia now? Imagine a New York City sans cars + trucks, surrounding all around by giant parking lots and well organized 24/7 ferries into the city. you could even install metal detectors if you want to get all police state on your people.

(i should've really played sims as a kid)

before the yukon, my parents leased me a black ford explorer when I first got my license. and i was immediately flooded with requests for rides from all the pointless asian scrubs on my high school football team. i always wondered why they bothered (should I feel bad for wondering this?) they probably figured it was all part of the american dream. these were usually the anomaly asians whose parents were the exceptional ones that didn't ride their academic asses. just as fat italians live for their sons' athletic triumphs, asperger asian parents (i use the term 'asperger' as most of these parental types I've encountered miss every obvious social cue in the book) live through their children's educational accomplishments. it must be an east vs. west thing. us westerners thrive on competition, easterners thrive on collective knowledge. goes back to the roots of capitalism and communism really.

twitter

2009-08-27T06:49:00.000-07:00

the 21st century written word shitter

two thumbs up. a super-effective form of communication. the 140-character limit sets effective boundaries for efficient relaying of messages. boundaries are good for you. mobile phones are the new walkie-talkies for us manboys and girls. remember the very first time you messaged your friend in a chat room? how cool that was? just something to brighten your day next time you're feeling bored. buddha tells us to look at everything through a beginner's eyes.

a second round of spam. angelino gage must die. for he gives a bad name to us worthy self-promoters. so he served in iraq. big fucking deal. look what fucking good that did him. the marines didn't make him a better man, it made him into a conspiracy theorist nutjob. the government was right on in singling out veterans as suspectible to fringe groups. these are people who volunteered for violent jobs. some do so from a genuine call of duty to his/her country, others have steam to blow off. that's an elephant in the room no politician in this country will have the courage to point at for the next century. military combat is obsolete anyways. since hiroshima, what battles have genuinely altered the world's power structure?

my babies

2009-08-27T06:21:00.000-07:00

i know who brian wilson was talking about when he wrote 'you still believe in me'. and it's about damn time for me to introduce that glorious woman to my bonkers universe. and i know who he sang to in 'Caroline No'. that was my baby's older sister. and my baby has older brothers that I know nothing of. although I suspect i have a lot in common with them. they may even teach me a thing or two.

when jt told me i certainly lived in my own world, i took it as a compliment.

experiments in delirium

2009-08-27T04:17:00.000-07:00

make like an elephant and run for your lives
drown your descendants in a sea of small fries

hitler had antlers

2009-08-27T04:11:00.001-07:00

it's not enough to merely live in interesting times. seems as though we're all just sitting around waiting for virtual reality to top actual reality for the average couch potato. no wonder the economy took a tumble! we as a people have remembered how to dream but forgotten how to work. we are the comfort kings.

i lose more and more respect for the brits as i live longer. british accents once automatically indicated an elevated sense of humor and degree of accomplishment + culture. probably because they owned our asses for all that time before we declared our independence. i do know they controlled the largest empire in the world at one point.

great britain died and went to heaven. the beatles granted great britain eternal life. then sid vicious and the sex pistols stabbed their motherland in the back.

you're my one and only muse

2009-08-27T04:02:00.000-07:00

in another time and place, i once recorded a song called 'jacquelina divine'. it was a song written on request, cobbled together from basic chord patterns outlined for me by guitar guru don juan rodrigo. it was written in Gmajor, my designated key for courtly love.

homosexuality is a shirking of mammalian responsibility (in a biological sense)

so-called experts + unworthy authorities

2009-08-26T08:49:00.001-07:00

i am against doctor prescriptions on principle. every consumer has the right to purchase a drug if he believes it will improve his/her well-being with or without a so-called certified expert of the state's stamp of approval. it deprives those without health insurance the pursuit of happiness. how's that for the ultimate justification for drug legalization? doesn't drug criminalization represent a flagrant denial of a citizen's inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness? What would mister jefferson say to this?

mother never liked me to be naked around her friends. she wanted me all to herself. most of her friends seemed down.

vintage video games (you know the drill)

2009-08-26T01:36:00.000-07:00

what i wouldn't give to play sonic the hedgehog once again. maybe I can. lemme go check. nope, the sega's barely functional after all these years. but the little fuzzball captured my heart at age 8 and just wouldn't let go. i think he had a little sister counterpart in the game as well if i remember correctly (as I often do).

so i ventured onto ebay and bid for sega genesis systems. i was outbid at the last second on my first attempt. on my second attempt, I nabbed a sega genesis console with 2 controllers and 4 games (including Sonic II!) for under $15. i was quite pleased with myself, as the psychological thrill of playing sonic the hedgehog was worth much more to myself than a mere $15.

and that's my definition of a perfect economy. one in which 'one man's junk is another man's treasure' is a central adage of the marketplace. relics of one's past are held precious only to those who experienced that past and can only remember it in fragments. eBay, the online auction website, was founded as AuctionWeb in San Jose, California, on September 3, 1995, by French-born Iranian computer programmer Pierre Omidyar as part of a larger personal site that included, among other things, Omidyar's own tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Ebola virus. (he must've been one of those overpopulation fearmongers, part of the larger contingent of 'survival of the fittest' zealots)

maybe in lieu of eliminating the death penalty outright, we can take baby steps. Keep the death penalty intact, but allow death row inmates a supersized 'make-a-wish' version of their last meal. just think of the reality shows that could be spawned from such legislation!

'Episode 1: 72 virgins"

a failed suicide bomber being put to death is allowed 2 hours with an assortment of barely legal virgins to make his afterlife dream come true. this could actually serve as an entertaining farce as there could be no conceivable way that any man set to die within hours could enjoy a ridiculous orgy spectacle geared around himself

this extreme example rather succinctly illustrates the point I've been trying to make all along. if we're going with an 'eye for an eye' justification for the death penalty, then allowing a death row inmate any extraneous moment of pleasure would be inherently counterproductive to the point the government is trying to make.

or assuming a death penalty implies that the government determines that society is better off if an individual ceases to exist, granting him/her a last meal could alternately be considered a tipping of the cap to the heroic individual sacrificing his/her life for the good of society. This justification for the death penalty is much more troubling and the hallmark of a corrupt+insecure government, but funnily enough it is the justification that falls most in line with the principles behind a 'last meal'

and fantasies regarding the afterlife are very telling about a people. i must say christians come off looking a lot better than muslims on this count at least. the '72 virgins' houri mythology in the Islamic tradition tells me that sexual frustration is an overwhelmingly prevalent component in historic islamic society. the wings/harp/cloudwalking stereotypes associated with a christian afterlife tell me that historic christian peoples were more eager to explore the mysteries of the universe in an afterlife (think davinci)

back to sega. i realize the parallels in giving myself my own moniker. socrates is my pete townshend. so after much blowing and wire-wrangling, I got some of the games half up and running.

Sonic I
(brings back a flood of memories from age 8 / kurt cobain also comes to mind)

Sonic II
(a bit more industrial, perpetually accompanied by tails, to middle school!)

Lion King
Aladdin
Jurassic Park
(liked the movies, so it was fun to watch myself play. not very fun to actually play)

Cool Spot
(quite a novelty game / unique movements / based on 7-up characters / remember playing 7-up in middle school? and wiffleball?)

NFL Quarterback Club
NBA Jam

Spiderman
X-Men
Captain America and the Avengers

Road Rash II

memory lane scavenger hunt

singer spectrums

2009-08-26T00:18:00.000-07:00

many have pointed out the mick jagger / steven tyler continuum mostly based on appearances (big lips, wiry frame, promiscuous tendencies) and instrumental sound (busy blues-based guitars) of the respective bands. but as soon as I first heard the 'hey jude' coda as a virgin teenage boy, I realized where steven tyler was coming from. he's a vampire paul mccartney. both singers have superhuman vocal ranges. both have put out way too many pandering songs, creating a sea of filler for scattershot gems. and both have survived a multitude of lives, first Paul with his 1966 death in a moped accident whereupon he was replaced by William Campbell as we all know, and then Steven Tyler and his 'toxic twins' days (a zombified / watered-down / boneheaded lennon+mccartney) attempted to unsuccessfully commit suicide by heroin before bouncing back into action just in time to merge rock + rap music. this in turn, created the red hot chili peppers on the west coast and the beastie boys on the east coast. unfortunately, it was all downhill from there. note how steven tyler emerged from his 70s drug haze all rantin n ravin about being a 'high school loser' who never 'made it with the ladies'. to this day, he regrets not taking advantage of the boatloads of pussy available to him in the 70s because he was too concerned with where the drugs were coming from. and that's why he'll remain forever young. just like paul mccartney. forever pining for the years associated with the 'chase' of their teenage dreams. that's a mighty good eternal loop to get caught in, folks. it's one of the paradiso spheres.

my ears proceeded backwards in time, tuning into aerosmith before going through the beatles rite of passage, and then many years later gaining a renewed appreciation for elvis (the man mostly). but aerosmith captured my schoolboy attention during an era of grunge when they were flying high on the 'get a grip' album. it must've been the music videos that really got me aboard the aerosmith airplane. talk about fodder for schoolboy fantasies! they had it all: virtual reality, motorcycles, near-naked hitchhikers, space portals ('amazing') / bungee jumping, middle fingers, tattoos ('cryin') / teenage runaways + beer-guzzling lecherous locals ('crazy'). Thank you Aerosmith for keeping hugh hefner's dream alive through the suicidal age of grunge. in the sonic battle that took place in the early 90s, aerosmith was among the few soul surviving dinosaurs (as their hair metal spawn were slaughtered by suicidal seattle junkies left and right). it's no coincidence aerosmith later were awarded their own roller coaster at Disney World.

and that's precisely the moment when steven tyler turned into jimmy urine (of 'mindless self indulgence' infamy). i was turned onto the band by a teenybopper I was spending some quality time with (she was 18, relax!) the band seems to have taken hold of the teenage girl collective consciousness of the moment. because they play up to all their self-destructive expectations short of committing suicide right on stage to satiate the sycophants (as Mick Jagger so aptly foresaw as early as 1974 with 'it's only rock n roll'). back in the 70s, jagger and other suicidal swaggerers (such as boneheaded bon scott) were asserting individual expression in the face of the inevitable rise of corporate rock (cue Boston song of choice)

some are staged suicides condoned by corporations, a symbolic sacrifice of the individual in favor of the collective. 'the corporation' becomes a single collective of humanity if we're not careful. neil young shed a tear when michael jackson was burned by Pepsi. the dave matthews band was a narcissist's dream come true for shell-shocked teenyboppers still reeling from the death of cobain. then of course the corporations took hold of the burgeoning trend and turned dave matthews into john mayer. jeff taylor, dave matthew's heir apparent, was somewhere sulking in a basement complaining that the 'industry's got me down', while across the pond his compatriot's minds grew silent.

i apologize if I'm starting to sound too much like don mclean. rumour has it that the guy's a real asshole to work with (that is, according to some comedian/writer who's probably also fits right into whatever general definition of 'asshole' currently prevails) don mclean may be a pussy, but he's no asshole. i've collaborated with many don mcleans in my day. they're usually a pleasure.

jeff buckley had it worst. his father was the ultimate badass/genius/renegade all rock musicians wish they could've been. and all that didn't help him any. he fearlessly snorted more heroin than his 27-year-old body could handle on a dare from a friend (who had just been busy fucking his girlfriend, tim had interrupted).

"unanswered classic rock questions"

does billy joel know who andres segovia is?

would paul mccartney and glenn gould be best pals in another life?

what if elvis presley and dolly parton mated?

did paul simon and/or art garfunkel ever dabble in homosexuality? do they blame their dads?

was joan baez bad in bed? bob?

was buddy holly secretly jewish?

is the history of blues music a lot cooler than we are led to believe? are guys like buddy guy just generic black guitarists that scheming record exes picked up off the wedding circuit?

political allegiances

2009-08-25T23:49:00.001-07:00

as a toddler I cheered for Reagan
as a little boy I backed Bush

as a teenager, I dressed up as Dole, shamefully mocking his paralyzed right arm. wounds he suffered in service of our country, wounds that contributed to the defeat of worldwide fascism. chalk it up to teenage rebellion and the inevitable vicarious slaughter of one's forefathers. i had formerly backed the republican regime without realizing that they represented conservative interests. i was following in my father's footsteps.

then along came Clinton. the first president to truly identify with african-american culture (carter doesn't count / he was more adept at capturing the hearts of the good ole boys). buit bubba took down Bush and defeated Dole without so much as breaking a sweat. he even snuck in a few near-career costing blowjobs along the way. then he penned an autobiography worthy of the third installment of 'Lord of the Rings' (work title was allegedly 'Lord of the Thighs' after the sleazy Aerosmith anthem). But Bubba was merely a political Elvis, a southern whiteboy with the requisite heart of gold + naivete to see right through racial barriers.

Then the NY Post rose up as remedial reading for retarded republicans and disgruntled dumb democrats to follow along with the smart kids. These media sources were a necessary evil, designed by aussie Rupert Murdoch to shift the american public rightward (not that he's an idealogue by any means, merely because his accountants calculated that such a shift would benefit his bank account. think William Randolph Hearst. watch 'Citizen Kane'). soccer moms across the country were given new nouns of identification for various figures

Code Words -->

"weasel" (Frenchman)
"thug" (armed black man)
"Bubba" (William Jefferson Clinton)
"Jacko" (Michael Jackson)
"lib" (anyone with a soul and/or heart)

(requisite gaybird commentator / Page Six columnist: "o these racial politics can get so dang messy!")

as a high school student, i identified democrats as the 'good guys' and republicans as the 'bullies'. this was because academic types leaned liberal while racist types leaned conservatives, or so I observed in my daily interactions.

if sasha baron cohen really wanted to cause a stir, he'd get between beyonce + jay-z under the pretense of a twisted paparazzi type goading beyonce into dressing up as 'lady liberty' seemingly for his own perverted fantasies. that'd be liable to set off some sort of holy war between blacks + jews. ashton kutcher would have to step in and mediate the entire ordeal via twitter. he'd be assisted live from miami by larry king, who'd be simultaneously enjoying a foot massage from his 15th wife 'barbie doll' ben stein and al sharpton would be going at it on Fox News. it'd be quite a fun farce.

airports

2009-08-25T23:08:00.000-07:00

"Let it be, such should be the motto of every public power, ever since the world is civilized..... A detestable principle that we cannot grow but by the lowering of our neighbors! There is nothing but mischief and malignity of heart that are satisfied with that principle, and interest is opposed to it. Let it be, damn it! Let it be!!"

- French minister René de Voyer, Marquis d'Argenson

as a committed libertarian, I instinctively smell shit when I see any government intervening in private industry under the guise of national security. for these are truly the roots of fascism. let airline companies determine adequate airline security. let the free markets create safer airlines. let the airlines ruthlessly compete with one another to ensure the safety of their flights. much more comfortable with over-the-top safety precautions when they are coming from a capitalist interested in my business. in a perfect world order, the 'government' would merely be a collective body that defends its people from alien attacks and enforces the tenets of capitalism (that is, property rights). all else would be left to the engines of commerce. let the chips fall where they may and we'd begin building our stairway to heaven.

the 9/11 attacks on the world trade center were in many ways a desperate last-chance assertion of individualism in a corporate age. a ragtag group of private citizens unfunded by any national government (as far as we know) were able to carry out an act of devastation with casualty rates that had formerly been off limits to all but the most powerful world armies and the largest of lynch mobs. 19 hijackers were able to take over 4 commercial flights and kill 2,993 innocents (not to mention destroy several architectural sources of national pride). this was a tragically misdirected act of jealousy, a pure attack on capitalism from eternal losers who were indoctrinated with 'anti-Western' propaganda. an adult version of the columbine high school shootings. funnily enough, these two events bookended my high school experience.

*beware the man with nothing to lose*

what if someone should had given one of the 9/11 hijackers a 'life's little instruction book'? i've found that those little manuals sometimes help in putting a fanatic's life in more stable orbit.

United Airlines and American Airlines were the two airline companies that fell victim to the 9/11 hijackers with two planes hijacked apiece. these airlines were ill-equipped to handle the modern hijackers.

True, the airline companies paid a large price after 9/11 with the destruction of 3 jets as well as the loss of employee life and the following large declines in business. However, this was more of an issue of national defense since a foreign group destroyed the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and killed thousands of people. Airline companies have incentives to increase airport security (because passengers will feel safer and therefore they will get more business), but there are troubling disincentives as well (passengers don't want to be hassled by security and therefore they can plausibly lose business with excessive security). Therefore, it is the government's responsibility to provide some intervention to make sure that the optimal amount of airport security is provided in terms of national defense (when marginal social benefit equals marginal social cost).

i believe it's about time that the united states forms its own national religion before its too late. a religion modeled after the ancient greeks. a religion in which we worship the personification of laissez faire (whom I somehow envision as a young linda mccartney / goldie hawn hybrid).

but it's not enough to call oneself a 'libertarian'. because there are different types of libertarians. and it's important to be clear on which camp you fall into before you start spouting off on costs and benefits associated with government policies

it's a spectrum you see:

at the loser end of the libertarian spectrum there are the paranoid schizophrenic cases, those narcissistic types who truly believe that the government cares enough about their 40K-year earning selves to be out to get them. It's a form of consolation when one frames a powerful government as opponent (it becomes a parental figure of sorts to these schizo libertarian types). These aren't really libertarians, these are just cranky undesirables for the most part.

give 'em a sufficient dose of evangelical religion and they'll reliably retreat right back to the 'religious republican ranch'

moving along the spectrum there are the 'wall street libertarians'. those enlightened souls who realize that capitalism is the engine of progress. they believe in a 'winner-takes-all' approach as a form of collective incentive. because at the end of the day, 'laissez faire' is the winner's religion. the wall streeters are the winners in a meritocracy designed by public school bureaucrats. and at the end of the day, they found themselves holding worthless paper. for the first times in their lives, they found themselves without direction, emerging from a tunnel into a gigantic world of smoke n' mirrors.

the truly violent sociopath libertarians cross into the dark and scary forest of anarchy. think charles manson. think gangsta rappers handed the beatles baton and declare war on their alleged enemies

then comes the 'peace and love' libertarians.

the beatles (or at least paul mccartney) were libertarians you see. "Let it be" / "laissez faire". Even John could go libertarian on you. In 'revolution', he trashes communist icons and denounces violent attacks on the capitalist structure that he benefited so richly from.

numbers

2009-08-25T11:06:00.000-07:00

my high school varsity football number was 44. my high school band was "88" Coincidence? I think not.

(did I mention that I once wrote a song called "22"? and that my father's high school varsity football number was 11?)

you see, i inherited #44 from a fella named jim drewnowskey. he was 2 years older than me, a strapping Nordic tight end. stoic and dependable, he contributed admirably to the victories of a middle-of-the-road dirty jersey high school football team. and I, as a sophomore, was the lowly junior varsity tight end, competing in scattershot games whenever assistant coaches bothered to scrape together starting 11s from their apathetic leftovers. All players that truly cared would already be on varsity, you see.

not that I didn't care. i had beaten out another junior for the position, a redheaded childhood friend that the players had nicknamed 'froggie'. he was a team outcast like me, yet still he soldiered on (a proto-Will Rodger). he was bigger than me, and probably more naturally aggressive (he later displayed freakish sharpshooter skills in a US Army test), but completely undisciplined and a pariah to the coaching staff. so it was I who assumed the thankless reins of jv tight end, catching a few passes courtesy of j-bass here and there and mostly engaging in apathetic blocking as scrubs were given a chance to vent their frustrations on a football field.

we had all had our egos erased in the annual ceremony whereupon the upperclassmen players hoisted up compliant sophomores to give them intense wedgies until their underwear ripped. as I recall, several players may have been given passes due to elder brother influence. I wasn't one of the lucky ones. next to circumcision, I consider this episode the most flagrant violation of my privacy 'for the good of the team'. unless you count flying shampoo bottles in the wrestling showers.

(*cue jv nursery scene where coaches are holding players' hands and nursing frightened players as their mothers stand on the sidelines with milk and cookies*)

years later, I saw jim drewnowskey once again when I was working at guitar center. he was now operating his very own ice cream stand and drawing some pretty fucked up pictures.

and i sometimes have to ask myself what passing down that number really entailed. did I inherit the poor man's insanity along with his jersey? and if so, how do I go about ridding myself of this horrid curse?

right to violence?

2009-08-18T17:32:00.001-07:00

‘right to bear arms’

Second Amendent to US Constitution:

“a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”

*a gift from the alleged enemy! an anti-government’s nut’s wet dream right there in writing!*

constitutional justifications aside, there are three basic positions in the debate over gun availability:

There are those who claim to observe a positive correlation between gun availability and crime. The more guns there are in a society, the more violent crimes the society will suffer.

There are those who claim to observe a negative correlation between gun availability and crime. The more guns there are in a society, the more of a collective deterrent there exists to prevent physical confrontations (like a nuclear freeze). For the playing ground is leveled when all are armed.

Then there are those reasonable middle ground folks who observe no correlation between gun availability and crime. They will tell you that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. And if guns aren’t available to expedite the process, alternative weapons will certainly be created in any free market. Or the murderous among us will merely get more creative over time.

Accepting the premise that there will always be a certain amount of guns available in any society, a policymaker determines the most effective government stance towards its citizens right to weaponry. The Second Amendment addresses the conflict from a ‘government vs. citizen’ perspective whereas government policy debate focuses more strongly on minimization of ‘citizen vs. citizen’ violence. The spirit of the amendment deals with a private citizen's right to organize an improvised defense of the nation in a Paul Revere era when anyone with a rifle was a potential soldier. The spirit of the amendment had nothing to do with a private citizen's right to wield a deadly weapon while selling melons at the fruit stand. The spirit of the amendment does not outline a right to self-defense, it simply reminds us of the fundamental right of a citizen to contribute privately to his country's defense. It was a show of gratitute to the 'well-regulated militias' of lexington + concord that helped the nation win its independence. So the 2nd Amendment as a modern American defense for firearms strikes me as fundamentally weak.

However I still object to gun control as a matter of principle. The slippery slope we currently find ourselves sliding down as a nation coincides with the rise of the ‘nanny state’. The government restricts gun availability because it fears its citizens will hurt each other. When a government treats citizens like children, no one wins. It’s time for us as a nation to GROW UP. These town hall health care meetings are disgusting. Disgraceful overweight attention-starved crybabies with nothing to say and all the time in the world to say it. Arlen Specter should have handed that chubby man the microphone, and the roaring sheep applauding the retard would’ve seen who their surrogate leader would become by default. And it wouldn’t be pretty.

at the end of the day, i cringe at debates over 'constitutionality'. obama's pragmatic approach to matters suits the nation during these crisis years. why waste time wondering what our founding fathers (wise as they undoubtedly still would be if teleported into modern times) would've done? it just brings to mind grown manchildren still drooling over the beatles as they miss their opportunity to define their own generation's contribution to the eternal spectrum of music. does 'rock band' ring a bell?

The old refrain’s calling my name. ‘woke up this morning, got yourself a gun’. HBO sure knows how to pick great theme songs for their programs, don’t they?

seinfeld's back?

2009-08-17T13:20:00.000-07:00

So I hear mister larry david’s decided to reunite the cast of seinfeld of all things on his reality show ‘curb your enthusiasm’. can we as a people really learn anything new from another whiny jewish guy fretting about the little things in life? but I suppose it makes perfectly good sense for both he and the brainwashed American public, providing just what we crave in these troubled times. comfort food. more mediocre comedy to soothe our complacent souls. And what better remedy than the favorite sitcom of anyone anywhere? A show that proclaims itself to be ‘about nothing’, but is really a right existential tornado of jewish neuroses, sweeping up all gentiles in its path (kinda like christ in that regard). Let’s face it, like it or not, ‘seinfeld’ is an institution in modern east coast american life on par with the new york yankees.

here’s my take on how a ‘seinfeld’ reunion episode would ideally go down:

begins with larry david filming a scene on the set of woody allen’s latest middle-aged male fantasy picture ‘whatever works’. suddenly he feels a tingle in those old loins of his during a particularly intense lovemaking session between he and barely legal evan rachel wood (the complications that ‘tingle’ presents for the filmmakers could make up the first scene, with woody himself pulling larry aside with personal advice on how to deal with these issues). later on, the urge becomes overwhelming and he heads to her trailer under the guise of apologizing for his prior ‘accident’. not sure if he’s cheated on his wife in the series before, but it’d be a good first time for it here. turns out evan rachel wood is actually a vampire (read that she was going to be in a future episode of ‘true blood’), and she converts a rearin-to-go larry.

Meanwhile, the ‘seinfeld’ cast arrives one by one for filming. Larry arrives in a newly hip vampire state, sporting an earring and other generic midlife crisis warning signs. That and the fact that miss wood has broken up with her other vampire slave marilyn manson and seems to be carrying on the affair with larry, has got the crew worried. They chalk it up to a late blooming midlife crisis and agree that the timing couldn’t be worse.

unfortunately, the crew finds out jerry just isn't funny anymore and has spent the last decade coasting on his rep to hit on teenage girls at the gym. and julie louis dreyfus, who's always secretly idolized jerry, become a cougar herself, complete with a strapping 18-year-old black boyfriend in tow ("he's the starting quarterback for USC...and he fucks like a racehorse"). In the meantime, Jason Alexander's picked up an excessive pot habit and keeps sneaking off set to smoke up. Michael Richards has become a Glenn Beck-quoting conspiracy nut after the post-racebaiting fallout supporters sent him pamphlets. And the real-life Newman commits suicide after an argument with Jerry over syndication issues, casting a dark light oer the whole proceedings. The unravelings are all fretted over by a straight-man producer's assistant type, a level head who attempts to keep all these real-life neurotic personalities placated so he can get the half-hour sitcom wrapped up and under budget.

Filming is halted for good when Kramer in a fit of paranoia draws a pocketknife on a black grip on the set, and then in a nod to the actual seinfeld finale, there's a wacky court case where michael richards is released on a 'post traumatic stress disorder' defense. The judge turns out to be none other than Mel Gibson, who sympathizes with a fellow crucified celebrity and (in a courtroom adorned with crucifixes and 'passion' posters) sets him free. And then, just to make sure that the proceedings are overseen by a jewish patriarchal figure, Mel Brooks arrives to direct the entire cast in an over-the-top 'history of the world' musical number for the 21st century

In the final scene, woody allen wanders onto set, breaking the 4th wall to mutter to audience: ‘gee, wouldja talk about cannibalizing the past?’

(where I got the inspiration for this latest pointless flight of fancy:)
"seinfeld is a pompous asshole"

end of a racist age?

2009-08-17T00:03:00.000-07:00

Get ready my fellow Americans. Our slave-owning white male forefathers have challenged us to test whether we’ve actually achieved the pipe dream upon which this nation was founded, namely the notion that all men are created equal. The US government currently enforces numerous laws that ban or limit ‘discrimination’ in various settings: employment, housing, college admissions to name a few. Accepting the premise that discrimination is a negative force in any society, most would argue that these laws are beneficial + necessary. But I suspect that we as a people are just about ready to repeal these laws from our nation’s ‘books’

This post-Obama election era of shared goodwill is an ideal period for the implementation of this ‘social experiment’. For many of these anti-discrimination laws have spawned negative externalities and created new problems, complications self-evident + troubling to the keenest of economists (not the least being all these fat italian attention-seeking ‘reverse discrimination’ whiners, wasting all that perfectly good tea). Even if discrimination continues to linger in society (just as all heinous offenses continue to be carried out everywhere homo sapiens wander), I suspect that the benefits associated with elimination of the negative externalities will outweigh these ills. And we’ll all feel better about ourselves (like taking a nasty shit after a night of tacos, the shit being the repealed laws, the tacos being the civil rights movement). For the sooner we accept that we will forever be burdened with a certain percentage of ignorant ‘discriminators’ in society, (those that would discriminate if given the chance), the sooner we can deal with this small percentage of perpetrators in a less sweeping manner (namely by educating them out of their ignorance instead of making them feel that the evil government is forcing them to hire those that they don't want to hire) Why create any more ill will?

simplistic storytime: see, in the prehistoric times (before the dawn of the aggregated knowledge internet age), there was a large percentage of Southern white business owners who genuinely preferred to hire the marginal white worker over the marginal black worker. He was raised by a gaptoothed mama or papa to believe that blacks were lazy because they didn’t allow themselves to be enslaved by the white man. In his ignorance, this belief becomes a core component of his business model. Pretty soon hugh hefners saw a business opportunity and marched down from blueblooded new england to start hiring up all the cheaper (relative to white workers) black labor down South. Out-of-work black men became the entertainment stars of the playboy empire. Southern belles became playboy bunnies. Scarlett O’Hara’s daughters more than mingled with Bill Cosby at the playboy mansion. By adhering to a colorblind capitalist credo, mister hefner and his ilk played a significant role in the civil rights movement. and then they all had some party on a riverboat that would put 'splash mountain' to shame.

Meanwhile, our racist antihero is driven out of business + stuck in Appalachia with a one-eyed lumpy wife, looking forward only to the yearly pilgrimage of clueless catholic schoolgirls that come to fix up the homes of these out-of-business old folks.

Moral of the story: educate yourselves + don’t discriminate and you’ll end up like hugh! Popping viagras well into the next century as parades of playmates line up at your bedroom door while America watches in wonder, vicariously living through you all the while. not saying hef doesn't deserve all the barely legal twins he can get his hands on now, but let us not get carried away. hef's no saint, merely a necessary evil. a living breathing (for now) 'greed is good' exhibit A. and until some tattooed wild child(s) bangs him to death, he'll remain a necessary evil

Allow the capitalist machine to gnaw away at racism in our society. Once a capitalist recognizes a winner, he throws everything he's got behind it. It was the capitalist machine + scourged wall street martyrs (fat bonus checks in pocket) that put President Obama into office. We’ve been brainwashed into believing that it was civil rights legislation that eradicated discrimination, but it's actually an invisible capitalist hand that continues to shove our society forward. We mustn’t interfere by passing extraneous laws, otherwise we spawn reverse racist crybabies. But give Pat Buchanan + Newt Gingrich their dues. For these are illegitimate sons of William F Buckley, twin products of a schoolboy affair with Marilyn Monroe. These chubby children were college dopeheads before becoming leaders of a paleoconservative movement. And we will require their brains in the troubling times that lie ahead of us. They can actually put their intellect to proper use rather than wasting time crying ‘reverse racism’ on cable news.

(cue Bonnie Raitt's 'let's give 'em something to talk about')

Sonia Sotomayor and Newt Gingrich out on the dance floor, goaded on by politicians from both sides of the aisle. I like to think that this was how politics used to be, before things got so damned partisan and two-sided!

now THAT would be great television, my friends! Even Geraldo Rivera couldn't fuck that up (well...he'd probably try his best with several lamebrained interjections at just the wrong times)

(*ROLL credits*)

'meatheart'

2009-08-16T00:35:00.001-07:00

(JoGa 2009)

I’m a meathead at heart
I took a shot in the dark
I bit a bullet for the team
For I’m a takedown machine

Still I’m a sensitive guy
At the end of the day
They’ll cook me medium rare
Turned out the regular way

I’m a bully at heart
I bought the merry lynch bull
And I did as I was told
As they push and I pull
I took it out on my children
So won’t you cut me some slack?
And sooner or later I know
They’re gonna hafta fight back

And I would shout it again
I know the joke's getting old
i'm a meathead at heart, i've never been all that smart
…but I've always been bold

so now you seem so surprised
when we’re all counting on you
we pushed our way to the front of the line
*now we don't know what to do*

I'm a merry lynch bull
guess I'm naturally tough
convinced I'm caught in the corner
forever forced to play rough

hot head cold heart
hot head cold heart
T-Bills Baby!

call me out on my bull, please call me out on my bull

Is there a method to your madness, o cowardly lion?

...and never underestimate a madman

he sings along with the choir
in standard schoolboy attire

'do not disturb' (part II)

2009-08-16T00:02:00.001-07:00

(JoGa 2009)

so many longing for my love embrace
I fight their fire face 2 face

no need for followers, i wanna be free
i don't need no more friends
but still they’re sent to me

he that sent you to me might be mistaken
for you fell for his fairy tales
you brought home his bacon

and now it does not matter if you live or die
so reject your maker
and try to fly

keep airborne
with a bloody nose
seek your savior
and so it goes

keep in mind
so it allegedly goes
after i reinvent you
and change your clothes

*keep time*
to the tribal drum
lose your mind
*and give me some*

same rhyme in a different location
i finally vent my feel flow frustration

rattle the walls
grind my teeth
gather the remnants of a blessed leaf

(recycle the violence)
(recycle the violence)

familiarize my mind with foreign faces
I only do as I’m told
I only do as I’m told

i bet you wish you were empty

'do not disturb'

2009-08-15T23:38:00.001-07:00

(JoGa 2009)

('sympathy for the devil' part II)

many misguided people call my name
but can they speak my language?
can they play my game?

so many foreign peoples fight my race
after I feed their mouths
and keep their feet in place

come come come my babies
light on fire
right on time
to the communal wire

right on time
however digitally altered
an altar of violence
where you formerly faltered

so many evil people saving face
after I shut their mouths
and hold their tongues in place

hour of restitution when I awaken
'is that what he told you?'
then he must be mistaken

(cue fat Italian: “you don't know what you talkin bout”)

so many wretched people fall in line
they cut their corners
while they buy my time

hour of restitution drawing near
hell is for beginners
that's why we're here

fear and frustrations
how I keep my power
i sell them their dream until collection hour

hospitals

2009-08-11T22:51:00.000-07:00

With all the malpractice lawsuits run amok, what the hell kind of name is 'overlook' for a hospital? What's next, 'Careless Chiropractors'?

Then there's the 'Burban Bergs. Will someone please inform these stubborn German folks that 'berg' is an inherently goofy-sounding syllable?