Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Because I Don't Want to Study
- I bought a bike from my buddy Carl over at Everyone Is Dumb It is one of those hip single speed bikes. Its super light, very fast and my chances of making it to the age of 24 are slim. I love to go fast and I am an idiot. It doesn't look good folks.
- I am the newest employee of Dakota Jazz Club. This my first real job in the restaurant biz and I am excited. My friend Melinda over at My Roommate Has a Beard has some experience in the resturant biz and has been cluing me in. According to her working at a restaurant is like high school but with even more sex and cocaine. This job is gonna be fucking awesome.
An actual reproduction of a text message conversation between Melinda and I after I scored the job:
Me: Got the job at the Dakota. Holla!
Mel: Yes! Awesome, congrats! When do u start? I can't wait for all the coked-up sex hi-jinks stories! When do we celebrate?
Me: Me and the boss just did 4 grams off the snare drum and I feel like god. i love this job!
Mel: OMG, so dude im totally in class right now, the teach is lecturing and I just burst out laughing. So great.
Me: Yes!
- I just bought a iPod Shuffle. It's awesome, and I love it. I am not a fan of consumerism or brand names but if Apple made cliffs I would probably jump off 'em. That doesn't make any fucking sense. My friend Sarah over at Sarah's MySpace Blog has the exact same model and color (orange).
- My friend Frances over at Frances Lost in Space is in Venezuela being a total bad ass doing bad ass shit. She is 22 years old, in the middle of the Venezuelan jungle near the border of Colombia teaching University level classes on socio-economics and getting harassed by the government (actually more harassed by bed bugs then the government but yeah... a total bad-ass)
Thats enough for now.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Privatization of Violence
Wow, if that doesn't scream "amoral greedy lawless mercenaries who do the governments dirty work" then I don't know what does.These guys creep me out. What's even more scary is the implications. The one thing governments, for all times, have had a monopoly over, the thing that might even define them as governments, is the ability to legally enact violence, either on its own citizens or another state. Like so many other government "services" it is being privatized and outsourced, to be held accountable not by citizens but by shareholders.
Here is the latest story on Blackwater from the New York Times:
Another Probe Involving Blackwater
A report on Blackwater by The Nation's Jeremy Scahill
Friday, September 21, 2007
Raccoons in his Eyes
Raccoons in his eyes
Squirrels in his heart and
Bees in his blood
And folds of skin
like warm wax
The squirrels pierce the ears.
Raccoons dance
and dart,
rolling folds find their proper pose
And the skin on my face disconnects from my soul
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
The Battle for St. Paul: 1 Year Away
These are the guys at protest who will be lighting shit on fire and grabbing canisters of tear of gas with their bare hands and throwing it back at the cops.
Side Story: At the last protest I was at I stopped a group of these guys from taking apart this huge float-like puppet thing so that could use the wooden support beams as weapons against the cops. See, while the rest of us are protesting peacefully these guys start shit with the cops and then everybody gets tear gassed and shot with salt pellets. Not very fun.
Point: These guys are nuts. However they do have a sense of humor:
I guess some of these guys were involved in the recent clash between police and the activist group Critical Mass.
The Star Tribune reported that the normally peaceful monthly bike protest was "infiltrated" by protesters who sought to provoke police. I will put money on it that it was some of these guys. However the City Pages write up about the incident made it seem pretty clear the cops where out to beat some ass (anarchist or no anarchist).
While I have political sympathies with them I don't buy into the anarchist ideology or their methods. If I am going to swallow the pill of any radical ideology its going to be Marxism. Meanwhile I will just stick with my incoherent jumble of ideas I lazily call "democratic socialism" and stick to non-violent direct action (no Molotov cocktails for me...)
When a group is vastly out-gunned, be it by the cops on the street or society at large, it is their moral authority that is their source of power. Engaging in violent direct action only allows the authorities to strips us of our liberties beyond legal doubt and strip us of our moral authority in the eyes of the masses. To think one can engage in direct action with out consideration to how it is perceived by the sheepish masses watching us get our asses beat on television is to be either naive or to be a "True Believer"
True Believers: people who want to escape a flawed self by creating an imaginary self and joining a compact collective whole to escape themselves.
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Why we are miserable.
7 Reason the 21st Century is Making you Miserable.
by David Wong
#1. We don't have enough annoying strangers in our lives.
#2. We don't have enough annoying friends, either.
#3. Texting is a shitty way to communicate.
#4. Online company only makes us lonelier.
#5. We don't get criticized enough.
#6. We're victims of the Outrage Machine.
#7. We feel worthless, because we actually are worth less. (my favorite one)
Monday, August 20, 2007
The Secret: Self-Help Books and Nietzsche
Walking to the elevators to head down to the cafeteria for lunch I saw my friend Sarah sitting on a bench near the windows reading a book.
So my friend Sarah read this post and came over with the book that started this discussion "The Power of Now". She pointed out a passage which address Nietzsche proclamation that "God is Dead" and then flipped to another page and had me read a passage she found especially interesting. I read and then flipped through a book I happen to have of Nietzsche's "On the Genealogy of of Morals" and tried to find a relevant passage. I found and aphorism which ended with a quote from some guy named Master Eckhart "I ask God that he rid me of God". Sarah came back over and ask me what I thought. I thought it was pretty interesting- that I agreed generally with it. Then I looked at the spine of the book a noticed the guys name- Eckartt Tolle.
Wait a sec. I flipped back to that random passage I had found with the quote from Master Eckhartt. I read the footnote "Master Eckhartt (1260-1327) was the greatest German mystic of the Middle Ages" I pointed it out to Sarah. "Weird, yeah, i just sent you a wikipedia link about the guy, I don't think its his real name" What a weird coincidence.
So I checked out the wiki page and turns out the guy is from Germany and of course took the name of the famous mystic that Nietzsche quoted, who in turn quoted Nietzsche and wrote a book that my friend read that started this whole conversation. I thought that was pretty weird and one hell of coincident.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
A Saturday Night
So I went down to the Luce Blockalypse music-beer-and-pizza thing. Met up with some friends (Melinda, Ben and Andrea).
Things we getting late and we were not getting any more sober. Annie crashed in her bed around
Two minutes later Melinda comes out the bedroom, fully awake. “Ok lets go” Wait what? I passed out around
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Some Poems, Vol. I
The solipsist reads her words
and “cringes at the sight”.
Not to be discouraged
He diggs into the verses’ blue soil.
Stained with ink and confusion,
He comes back up for air.
And covered in words not his
he looks into the mirror
and recognizes himself.
Telephone Poem
Sitting here at work
bored.
Time's death,
held off by ten short lines.
Her
blue words, are a cure for
beige.
Temptation Divided by Torpidity
Temptation divided by torpidity,
split asunder by academy's devior.
tepid rivulets carving time's soil
to conjugate 'nief the light of a city
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Escape
Escape
through the narrow veins
in the crux of my arm.
from a dozen small holes
in my chest,
around the florescent lit knots
on either side of my head.
My yellows eyes rest
on the pithy quote that adorns
my cloth lined cage
from which one
cannot escape”
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Obama
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
Life, Death, and Milk Duds
I hope that is how my life ends, with the same kind of feeling. Maybe laying on my death bed thinking of the ups and down, the successes and failures and like that bag of candy, you are feeling pretty good about the whole endeavor. Then maybe a few moments before the wrapper is discarded, a few last jewels are discovered. You had been perfectly content with what you have been given- but look hear…one or two delicious morsels you never expected, never even asked for, are there for you to enjoy before it all goes away, and those will be the best tasting morsels of life you have ever had. That would be pretty cool.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Party Crashers: Rock Star Suite @ The Chambers Hotel
My friend Melinda and I have been bar hopping all night and we end up on the top floor bar of the Chambers Hotel.
Hanging out on the patio, we see on the other side of the hotel a private party on the top floor suite. There are around 20-30 hanging out having drinks on the patio of what seems to be a huge hotel room. We talk about how cool it would be to throw a party like that, we guess how much it cost. Our guess is between $800 and $1200. Through the glass windows of the walkway connecting the two buildings we see people going back and forth, to and from the party.
Some gears begin to click, well oiled by cheap vodka, and an idea comes: “We could walk right in”. “Yeah we could” Melinda agrees, now her well oiled gears turning. We briefly mull over the delicacies of the purposed operation “…like we know what we are doing….”. We get a serge of confidence and agree to go for it. We walk out of the bar, drink in hand and head toward the walkway and on to the room. We get to the end of the hallway I in the lead, and the door is propped open. “Lets do it…strait to the patio” I open the door and walk in, not looking around, like I have already been there the whole night, and Melinda follows me out to the patio. I lean against the rail, cool and calm, she does the same.
We turn to each other, hunching our shoulders and start giggiling like little school girls. “Holy shit, we are in…all right be cool, be cool” We calm down a bit and my partner in crime suggests we start talking to people, gather some info, incase somebody starts asking questions.
She starts chatting with a couple of guys and she introduces me. They completely ignore me and focus all there attention on her. Perfect. After some empty chatter and feeling a bit more comfortable I suggest we grab some drinks. This is the next challenge. Like before we walk back in to the room, like we own the place, and go strait to the booze. I confidently and cool scoop up some ice into my low ball, grabbed one of the 5 bottles of grey goose like I bought it myself and began making a vodka tonic. Melinda mixes her self a drink and I suggest we chill on the couch. We sit down a begin to take stock of the room and the people “Holy shit, this place is nice”
For next few hours we hang out, mixing drinks, dodging polite questions about how we know Nick, and what we though of his comedy. Nick who? At some point a server came up with 4 gourmet pizzas in those platters with the metal tops. I’m pretty sure I ate one all to my self. By the end of the night it was me, Melinda, this professional cage fighter, his girl friend and his buddy. At one point cage fighters girl friend pulled out a Polaroid camera (provided by the hotel I think) and started yelling at the two guys to start taking their cloths off. They obliged her request, cage fighter falling short of complete nudity complaining of some shrinkage, but his buddy not all shy showing us it all. We and Melinda are looking at each other, laughing, giggling and mouthing numerous “Holy Shits” Time to go. We say our good byes, shake some hands, both guys still in their underwear. We walk out at cool as we walked in. The door closes a safe distance is reached, and the giggling commences. “Holy fucking shit…that was awesome”, “Dude, we could do that every week” Melinda suggest. “Why the hell not” I respond. We walked out, well oiled and high on our adventure. A couple of high fives and a hug and we parted ways.
The morning after…
The next morning, curious, I called the hotel, asking to reserve the room we were at last night. “Oh the Rock Star Suite?” The Rock Star Suite? Holy Shit. “Yeah, I guess that’s the one, what’s the price on that?” “Hold on sir while I check on that…for that room the price is $3240” Once again, Holy Shit.
Then, curiosity not sated, I cross reference some bits of info from last night with show listing for last night. Turns out the room belonged to this comedian Nick Swardson who just had show that night at the State Theater. He is originally from St. Paul, but now in Hollywood doing movies with Adam Sandler. Cool, My new favorite comedian. So, yeah. That’s that.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Its Thursday, I'm in a cubicle, I'm full of useless knowledge, and I'm trying to quit biting my nails.
Am I alive or am I Dead?
Some verses floating through my head at the moment. Maybe they can float through yours. If nothing else, at least that entry about the dog moves down the page. Yep...
to anyone all day. The human wolves don't even see me.
They fear me not.
~ James Tate, The Promotion
You hear a whistling overhead
Are you alive or are you dead?
It's only Thursday
You feel a shaking on the ground
A billion candles burn around
Is it your birthday? Tomorrow never comes until it's too late ~ DJ Shadow, Six Days Now I wish I could write you a melody so plain
That could hold you dear lady from going insane
That could ease you and cool you and cease the pain
Of your useless and pointless knowledge
~ Bob Dylan,
this isn’t our song
this isn’t even a musical
I think life is too long
to be the whale in a cubicle
nails under your cuticle
~ Andrew Bird, Plasticities
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Little Jack
Two brothers taking care of the thirds dog. He is away, in jail, for third DWI, the dog gets out, hit by a car, I hear the scream, a dogs at first then a human child, then a dog again, god the pain, the suffering, I run around from the back, I see the brother coming towards the dog, I see the dog screaming limping away from the cold concrete, its back legs bloody, not moving, it crawls, 15 feet, why is it crawling?, it must hurt so bad, it continues to crawl, it back legs crushed and bleeding, it find the cool grass and lies down, it crawled 15 feet, 15 torturous feet across black street, our streets to get the grass, to lie, and to bleed, to die? Who knows its a damn small dog. The third brother, Dave, Christ such a nice man, not a smart man, but a nice man. His dog is going to die. The brothers, one begins to cry, they both have long grey hair. Working men. Beer and classic rock men. That damn dog crawled 15 feet without back legs to lie in the grass. That beautiful green grass. It could have stayed in the street but it would not. What could have been going through it tortured little mind? Fuck, Dave, Dave is going to be crushed. That dog looked pretty messed up. Even from a 100 yards away I could see the bloody lower half. Fuck, Dave is such a nice guy, and such cool little dog. He loved that dog. His only constant companion, unmarried. The dog still lives, I can hear its moan. Well I heard its moan about a minute ago. Fuck, Dave is gonna be crushed. He is the can, and he is gonna learn his dog has died. I hope the dog lives, I hope the dog wants to live. That little fucker crawled, his lower half crush, crawled 15 feet to lay in the grass and bleed. Crushed by a car, crushed between rubber and cold concrete. Jack. Little jack.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Of Finals and Convertables
- Finals are done, I have a whole 2 weeks until summer classes start. Loving that...
- I think i might have actually passed Spanish. Thats pretty awesome...
- Its lightning out, I love lightning...
- I Mormon missionary approached me today, I asked him what he thought about Mitt Romney, he said he is not allowed to watch television so he doesn't really know, that was kinda funny...
- I drove home with the top down enjoying the beautiful weather, then sitting at my computer, i heard the unmistakable patters of rain outside my window, oh rain i thought, how nice...FUCK!!!, and i ran out to my rain soaked car and put the top back up amidst rain, lightning and hail, i am an idiot...
- So yeah...
Friday, May 04, 2007
Good Weather
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
D.F. Wallace
Oscar-Meyer
“A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets make a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realise.”
I was going to make some comments about it but I no longer want to. What do you think?
