| Nudity at the Speed of Strange |
[Jun. 16th, 2009|07:32 pm] |
It was national nude biking day a few days ago. Yes, I didn't know it existed either... That is until a cadre of naked people on bikes (deliberately) tried to mow me down outside of Powell's bookstore. Now, when you imagine the persona of someone who would willingly strip and ride their bike through a major metropolitan area, you picture a person who enjoys the more tie dye things in life; the kind of person who was just sitting around, contemplating the metaphysical ramifications of the "dyed half blond" hairdo. Suddenly, bam! An idea strikes them. What better way to tout their sexually ambivalent meat free lifestyle than to show everyone their dong while riding by at twenty miles per hour. That speedy penis shaped blur will certainly sway any and all minds which deign to deny the bliss of pot fueled homelessness.
In Portland, this just isn't the naked MO. The nude bikers were, instead, your average Joe. Your average don't-really-want-to-see-em-naked Joe. I mean, at least hippies look good if you are far enough away not to smell them. No, these were just normal folks. They had just gotten off the 9-5 at the lumber mill, meandered on home to be irradiated by the nuclear family... Then off come the greasy jeans and XXL t-shirt, on goes the helmet. Seeing one of these people sailing at you full speed is simply terrifying. Especially when all you were trying to do is cross the intersection(Yes, the walk sign was technically in the "blinky hand" phase, but I'm young and limber enough for that to still mean go.) Thye whole experience is roughly equivalent to realizing you are directly under the high dive just as the meatiest kid at the pool screams "cannonball"... Only the fat kid is naked... and forty... and comes with a high speed naked posse. Its enough to make you drop your new copy of "pride and prejudice and zombies" then dive for the curb.
This is just one of the strange events that has transpired in the last month... On a daily basis something exceptionally weird happens to me. Here is a abridged list of things that I have observed this month. Naked biking, quarter marathon in costume (exactly what it sounds like), Neon pirate day at the mini golf place, The rose festival (not weird in and of itself, but all the true weirdos come out for our big festivals), A ski slope set up on the midtown bricks (yes this is June), trans gender pride festival, the adult soap box derby and much much more.
I didn't choose to move here, this town called me.
P.S. In all fairness to the people. Not all the nudists were unattractive... Just the one who tried to kill me. It's kinda like Jerry Falwell and the Christians. Fat crazy people just give everyone else in the organization a bad name. |
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| The Journal That Time Forgot |
[May. 21st, 2009|01:01 am] |
Last update 152 weeks ago...
I am just flabbergasted to see how many of my old chums still use this livejournal service (Super Grammar tip #1: To sound educated, use the words "flabbergasted" and "chums" in the same sentence at least once daily). Honestly, I logged on so I could rip that picture of the four cups out for something else. I told myself: "me, you have three guesses to remember your old password. If you get it, you have to write something." And... well, I dun remembered it good. So here goes:
The world tends towards strange, on average. You get used to the hard-line symmetry of city buildings and pop culture. Everything normal, everything in its place... Then bam: Ostriches! I mean... Ostriches. I met one for the first time today, in person. First, they eat their own eggs. This makes them so sick that they vomit in their drinking water... but only in their own drinking water (they get cheap birdie jollies out of making ranchers clean it out.) I even heard the rancher complain that they try to kick him when fills it back up. These birds exhibit the type of self destructive notions that typically only come about after a night of hard drinking with Wile E Coyote.
Second, Ostriches are just weird. They've got a spindly prehensile neck and a bulbous torso that bounces around when they walk like a trash bag full of jell-o. Its like someone took a kindergartners' drawing of a "birdie" off of some "proud" parent's fridge and said "this thing, we should definitely make this thing... But can we make it nine feet tall and put its knees on backwards."
They are, in fact, the single best argument against intelligent design I have ever seen. I mean it. Ostriches should be viable evidence in a court hearing on prayer in schools or abortion. As the prosecuting attorney, all you need do is release one of them in the court room (you should call it "exhibit A" or a "surprise witness" to slip it past the judge). You could even yell "Behold, the horrors your god hath wrought!" then slam the courtroom doors and run away, congratulating yourself on what a good lawyer you are. (Super Grammar tip #2: I highly recommend the use of the words "Hath" and "wrought" during this procedure because, frankly, I imagine that's how Jesus would have said it while releasing an ostrich into a courtroom.)
Now, there is a reason I bring this whole 'ostrich mess' up. I learned that ostrich riding is something people do. In fact, not only do they ride them, they race them. This really happens... happens to people who live outside of Brad's magic fantasy land of the most awesome things conceivable. I mean, what if this had caught on sooner. Not just knights in shining steel riding their trusty ostrich into battle. I'm talking Clint Eastwood trick shooting off his ostrich saddle. 150 ostrich-power engines. Ostrichradish sauce. I'm talking about worldwide ostrichification. Its... Its glorious. (Super Grammar tip #3: End your little rant when you are so tired you might fall asleep in your dinner... because we, as humans, have not yet developed the specialized gills required to breathe lasagna.) So that's one of those things on my mind for the last 152 weeks... The legal ramifications of riding an ostrich into court. Don't tell me it's not something worth pondering. |
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| "hammering the marmosets" |
[Jun. 15th, 2006|06:29 pm] |
Until very recently, I hadn't known what the word prude really meant. Then I met a man, a man for whom dogs with sweaters are "cute" and coasters are good but doilies are better. Now, to protect the innoscent, we will call him Captain Crunch. For starters, the man would hit the bible more than a priest with narcelepsy; type of guy who would write scripture in the men's room stall. So it goes without shock or wonderment that I found he was engaged to a woman for whom premarital sex just wasn't okay... even postmarital sex wasn't okay unless you said "praise jesus" every couple of strokes. This was also awkward for me, his roomate, because the ventilation systems (read: all sound)for the rooms were linked. It was a little uncomfortable to wander the halls with a man whose every glance said "y'know, God dissaproves of your penis". Not to mention he thought I was nuts... Just because im the type of guy who will break into full riverdance in celebration of even the most mundane things, like the dryer starting up.
The abstinance became a problem for crunch when another (significantly more attractive) woman came calling on him for "tutoring". This brand of "tutoring" is the classic variety: low cut shirts and the occasional "unintentional" brush against the leg... Long story shory (because I'm running out of time) the captian began dating this siren. She subsequently tempted him into many a guilt-worthy enterprise. The probelm is, Crunch was still a relative innoscent. The rest of the housemates, seeing his immenent moral decline, did the most prudent thing we could in that situation: mocked him ruthlessly! Or strategy was brilliant. Every time we would see him leaving his room (whether or not he had company) we would invent something that could almost be, but wasnt quite, a metaphor for sex. We would then try to convince the captian it was real.
-"so... been feeding kids to the great white sharks in there, have ya"
In his relative naievetee' Crunch would respond "ha ha guys", Gods derision filling him
-"YA, I'll bet he was in there hammering the marmosetes, huh captain?"
"Guys Stop it"
-"Oh my God, you werent opening the parachute underwater, were you?!?"
-"no, he would never go that far!"
"Guys!" followed by a hasty retreat.
This went on for months... He never caught on. |
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| Waah |
[Jun. 7th, 2006|11:15 am] |
Okay... for starters: Those little meme quizzes that circulate around the web, like "what is my relationship color" or "what brand of nacho sacuce defines me as a person", I just found out how they are made. Now, I've always known they are made by average may-or-may-not-have-graduated high school folks, but that is okay because I'm not sure I could pass an algebra 2 exam these days either. No, these exams are manufactured by folks with a PIAD ACCOUNT on sites like this. Look at it next time you post, "create a poll" is one of the things you can do if you give them money.
I don't know if you have ever tried this, but this website has a random button(search, random). It allows you to get a glimpse into someone elses' life and learn everything thats wrong with it. 9 out of 10 times people don't write clever or interesting things, they write things that can be sumarized by one word: "waah". Seriously, try it. Go to searches, random and see what you find. Out of 10 I got 3 miss my girlfriend, 2 work is no fun, 1 OMG new CD, 1 dentist appointemnt, 2 BAD goth poetry and one in russian (probably one of the above too). Trust me, even your close friends don't give a damn about your dentist appointment unless something funny/interesting happened there!
This brings me back to my original point: these whiny folks are the ones who decide what our "aura color" is. Moreover, its not just the normal ones who generate these polls, its the ones who think their girlfriend-dumped, shitty job, dentist going, gothic lives are so important they need to pay to post. I don't know about you, but I don't think they are on stable enough emotional ground to get to thier job at hot topic without crying, much less encapsulate my "personal love style".
Or maybe I'm just in a bad mood... I'll go post on my livejournal. |
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| Gypsies, Badgers and T.S. Eliot |
[May. 24th, 2006|01:09 pm] |
Huzzah! My Job is going well. Finals went well. Got a cat. Live in a house with 100 years of criminal history. Performing another weding this weekend in the church of SubGenius http://www.subgenius.com/ "may you two find bliss and acquire vast ammounts of slack". Met an honest-to-God gypsy. Life is treating me pretty well recently.
Not that I'm suddenly going to frolic in the meadows disney cartoon style and kiss whatever wildlife happens my way... Badgers and the like arent quite spexy enough. I actually have very little time to write at the moment. I'm going to meet strange men and women in Santa Cruz and do odd things.
P.S. Cat needs name. I'm seriously considering giving it no name and letting everyone who comes into contact with it have thier own personal name. Current suggestions are: Penguin, Ajax, Squid, Kickstand, Pishi, Rugby and Manny. Feel free to add to the list. |
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| Playground Rules |
[May. 13th, 2006|12:22 pm] |
Sometimes romance is like teatherball. In any given moment there is the perfect phrase that will send your ball spinning wildly around the pole until you achieve that satisfying clink of victory. Of corse, you aim for that every time. Truth is, humans arent quite as accurate as we think we are... or we misjudge our opponets. Frequently we smash the ball with zeal; only to watch it gingerly sail into the faces of our unsuspecting counterparts. This usually prompts the response "I'm not playing with you anymore" or "OWWW". There are other times where we throw out the perfet serve: a beautiful arc, an admirable attempt to stop it (This is why I like playing teatherball with short people: Read what you want into the metaphor). Ultimately though, the ball careens at teatherball-warp-speed into your own face. This usually prompts the response "I thought you knew how to play" or "OWWW". You also just can't sit idly by and watch the other person win, either. You have to hit the ball and make a go of it, else they say "...Wait, are you letting me win?" or "Hah! Loser!" Sometimes, though, playing games prevents you from looking another person in the eye; you spend too much time watching the ball... You forget the beauty and grace that made you ask them to play in the first place.
The point is its a game of momentum and dodging where tall people frequently have the advantage. |
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| That Whacky San Jose (part 2) |
[Apr. 26th, 2006|10:40 pm] |
The sun shines and the birds chirp and the chinese restaurant down the street throws its garbage onto the curb: It's morning. Ahhh San Jose, how I have come to love thee. Y'know why... Cause everyone here is bored. People go nuts when they are bored, I like nuts people. Works out perfectly. This town isn't boring in the midwest kinda way; where the only thing to do is smoke crack through a rolled up confederate flag and fire shotguns at liberals. No, this is a different type of boring. It's not that there is nothing to do... Its just that everything there is to do is state funded to the hilt and sterilized to remove anything that might piss off a fringe group (or god help you, an entire minority). It's like the ball pit at Chuckee Cheeze (By the way, who thought a giant rat representing a dining establishment was a good idea (scratch that, nothing you do there constitutes dining)). The balls are Shiny and it has that big slide. It looks like fun. I tell you here and now: The ball pit is the greatest tease in the history of mankind. This is because: the second you get in the balls, mom is watching. This isn't normal mom either, this is concerned protective mom. "Don't throw the balls, you will hurt soemone" "Don't hide under the balls you might get stepped on". Don't throw the balls? DON'T THROW THE BALLS? They are friggin balls! what else are they for? What are we supposed to do, sit perfectly still with the other seven year olds and discuss Dostoievski over tea? To top it all off... once you get inside, you realize its a goddam cage! It was a trap all along! It even has that nylon net to prevent escape ("Don't climb that".)
This is how San Jose feels. You look out your window and think "oooh fun, a city." You see the Hooka bars and the fun-house looking San jose Rep; Even the statue of Turdus: aztec god of feces looks fun to climb on. Then you get out there and realize that after ten the city noise limit cant go above 10DB... Everything goes silent. If one of our bionic locomotive-proof squirrels so much as farts, it is arrested and usually placed before a firing squad within the night (they use silencers to avoid breaking the 10DB limmit).
Believe me, walking into a dark, quiet hooka bar is extra terrifying. It seems that at any point, a body with a stiletto between its shoulderblades might just flump out of the shadows. No murderer in sight, just a victim. Everone would just calmly continue smoking while each of the ten little indians gets picked off. So you think hey, the Rep looks like a fun and colorful box with neon wigglies on the side! Wigglies are fun! So you walk past the ten clubs playing the same song and into the rep. You buy your seats and watch whaever freeform art has just been deemed edgy by the local Christian club. You see, in San Jose edgy is a woman in a painter's smock wandering around a white room on stilts. It was a whole goddam play about a woman being indecisive about what color to paint the room. No other sets or actors... just one woman, a room and a monologue. Once you have had your fill of "culture", you go to climb on the statue only to find that it is the most heavily ptrolled thing in the city. Some beats just go in circles around the statue. So you just wind up going home with that "Kid tested mother approved" feeling about your day.
MPAA rating for San jose: PG |
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| The Amazing Radioactive Baby |
[Apr. 11th, 2006|02:15 am] |
I got a request to post something here today... I figured this would be appropriate. Its not so much a journal entry as an assignment for my health class. I liked it, though I blunted the humor in favor of a higher grade and didn't feel like rewriting it for the intermanet.
Enjoy:
My family has always functioned strangely. We only tell stories if they are funny or interesting. If they aren't already funny or interesting we make them so. My birth story is no different. When it was first told to me, my parents said: "you know, when you were born, the town of Cincinnati held a parade for you... and the Harvest... But mostly you." Its told as a joke rather than a story of pain and triumph with a protagonist and plot.
The story then skips to the next joke rather than focusing on any of those unimportant 'sideline' events: such as my actual delivery. Aparently the hospital would not release me because I refused to pee. The condition persisted for four days and surgery was elected for. This was so bothersome to the maternity ward staff, who had grown to like my mother, that my bladder was a hot topic of conversation in the staff rooms and around the water coolers (ironically.) When the fateful day for surgery came, a nurse came to prep me for surgery only to discover a change in plans. She came bounding from the room, holding me aloft and was heard to excalim "The Poser baby peed!" to any who would listen. This, I would say, has been the higest public acclaim my organs have ever recieved.
My entire childhood comes to me this way. There are no stories about the cute things I did or the agony of delivery... there are, however, stories about how they thought I had osteomyelitis. My bones had to be irradiated to detect its severity. Turns out I didn't have it but my diapers were treated as radioactive waste. They had to be disposed of in a special barrel marked with the international rad logo. Hell, they are probably at the bottom of the ocean right now next to an illegal dump for plutonium runnof. I was a radioactive baby. These stories are told to be amusing, not informative.
The point is, no one is the protagonist in tales of my childhood. There are no heroes. I realize that, for many, birth stories are different. They involve sessions with doctors and a father behaving as fathers do, a mother doing the same. I'm sure these things happened, I was never told of them. Thats just how my family functions, how they have functioned my whole life and how I function today.
My birth is the prime example of this phenomenon. The actual medical staff at the hospital is refered to only in passing. Knowing my parents, the process of recieving medical care could have been burdensome or easy... I will never know unless there is a good story in it.
The parade story itself tells me little about the birth process. I have almost no idea what to expect when I have children. I mean, I know from television and the movies what the rooms look like, how mothers are suspended durring the process and generally what goes where. I realize, however, that if these scenes appear in media, they are meant to be entertainment just as mine was. I have no honest concept of what the birthing process is really like. The catch is, I absolutley know, when it comes time to tell my child the story, I will tell only the events worthy of storytelling. I.E. Everyone is born, not everyone has a parade and radioactive diapers.
Writing this paper actually made me think pretty deeply about my lifestyle up to this point. I realize that my parent's method of judgement has become my own. Events that most people consider monumental: Birth, death, illness, trauma, they don't matter to me at all unless I can turn them into a good story. I've won competitions and lost lovers over this very habbit. The strangest thing is, this is perhaps the greatest gift I've recieved from my parents (other than, well, life). If I could know more about my birth, would I want to? No, it would be exactly the same story you could hear from anyone... These facts and events, exagerated or not, are all I will ever want to know. While a story thrives on detail, detail is not the story. This is who I am. |
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| Bubble Lead |
[Apr. 8th, 2006|08:57 pm] |
I want to take you all on a magical journey. Put the rolling paper away Santa Cruz people, not that type of journey. This journey is the type you havent taken since you last cracked the pages of Magic school bus or watched Gumby saunter through a book cover. Today, we travel to a mythic land. A place where cell phones are called car phones, where flannel is sexy and saying the word "emo" would get you laughed to derision. Yes, Kats and kittens, the 1990's await.
Aside from the president redefining the word "is," not much happened over these formative years. Society as a whole just pulled up a massive Barca-lounger, let out a post cold war sigh and started watching sitcoms. While I have no probelm with Sienfeld (other than the show, the stand-up and the man himself) I kind of wish my decade had had something other than Kurt Kobain's do it yourself cranial-relocation to spice up pop culture. It was the decade of blah. While our parents are just now coming down from thier acid trips in the 70s and our older siblings are just now realizing the lyrics to "come on Ilean" are dirtier than a nun in a g-string, what are we left with? Video games? Ha! Our generation will be the first of many raised by drugs and electronic devices. Ritalin, prozac and a controller: Stoned and playing video games, a society of pizza delivery boys. While this brand of mindless zealotry will certainly help me assemble an army of bloodthirsty minions, It makes life a bit dull when you want original people to associate with. Hell, we didn't even get to invent our pop culture, Japan did. I can still remember with fondness the soft cooing of mega-man's pea shooter or cringe in terror if I hear the echoing-exlposion of a battletoad smacking into a wall (damn jet-ski level). The point is, its no wonder we are apathetic. We have no sensation of triumph or empowerment from fighting for a good cause. Even if we did, all the man need do is take away our electricity and we would cry uncle the second our PSP lost charge. |
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| V is for Sucks! |
[Mar. 29th, 2006|02:05 pm] |
Now, I'm a movie person... I have around 200 movies. Afficionado, connisoeur maybe these are too lofty words in my case. Basically I might just like sitting. That does, however, give me the right to wear the critic's cap every once in a while. V for Vendetta was terrible! Its been a week and I still cant clean the stench of that movie from my mind. I've tried everything: other movies, prayer, blunt force trauma. The next step is a do-it-yourself labotomy.
Ok, so I went to the theatre expecting an action movie. I was in the mood for some limber superhero with knives and exlposives slashing his way mercilessly through some paper thin plot. I neglected to notice it was written by the Wichowski brothers, motto: We are profound now, yes? The same folks who took the matrix an turned it into Jesus based Keaneau Reeves ass-fest. Now, for starters, the main character is introduced by rescuing our female-lead from a band of would be rapists... you know its formulaic if robocop has done it once in every movie. To their credit, the Wachowski brothers, motto: If they use big words they must be smart, yes?, did write about two sentances of clever dialogue in the opening: "I simply wish to point out the folly of asking a masked man his name". Clever. Downhill from there! V then introduces himdelf by spouting alitteration of the letter V for 5 straight minutes (Verily my Visceral Vissage etc...) until it becomes clear that this movie was written by a merrium webster thesaurus. The main concept is... follow me on this one: The hero wears a mask, the mask is an ideal, the hero forefits his identity in order to become that ideal. You got it right? Not too hard? Well the movie doesn't believe you! They are going to repeat that concept over and over and over until your only way out is to slash your wrists with the movie ticket. "You can shoot me, but I will still be standing, because I am an IDEA" "I am no more the man under this mask than you are the muscles under your skin, I am an IDEA" "Would you like an omlet, I am an IDEA!" "I need to use the restroom, In as much as I am an IDEA."
Oh yea, how was our hero made: a magic virus that kills everyone else but gives him super powers.
It was still ok though, because it's an action movie... The plot and dialogue don't have to be good because of all the violence, right? No! This is two straight hours of action movie plot without the action. This is an alternate timeline where Germany won WWII. Its a world run by facist dictators who like to attend state meetings by projecting thier heads onto 40 foot tall screens. Its a world where the Wachowski brothers, moto: Any comic books make good movies, even the ones that didnt make good comic books, yes?, teach us valuable life lessons. Namely: if you want to get a woman to love you, imprison and torture her. The premise for this scene is that V is freeing the female lead (evie if I remember right) from her fear and bestowing upon her determination. To to this he uses a time honored method first developed by the phonecians: He kidnaps her, throws her in prison (without revealing his identity), tortures her, shaves her head and leaves a lesbian love letter in her cell. This letter details how the state captures and tortures homosexuals while simultaneously trying to make a glaring political statement Wachowski style, motto: No critic would have the balls to mock our movie so long as we have a politically correct message to share, plus lesbians = $, Yes? So, after this imprisonment and daily torture Evie is released to find her captor is, no way, V! After about a minute of required "whyddya do that" time. She procedes to forgive him for months of torture and fall madly in love. So... If only I had known. All I need to do to make a woman fall for me is kidnap her, cut off all her hair and try to drown her every day. Thanks V! I'll get started on that stalking and kidnapping right away.
Well, coming to the end here... there is so much more junk in this movie to talk about. Thinking about is making my head hurt though. On a final note, The mask he wears is of Guy Fawkes, a british legend who tried to blow up parlement. He is a joke in England. Basically, he was part of an ex-military conspiracy to demolish the building bu placing gunpowder at its base. Contrary to the movie, Fawkes didn't work alone, he was just the only one stupid enough to get caught. Why? He was the only one of the conspirators without an escape plan. In fact, he could be readily called the patsy. He is made out to be some mythic figure in V. The movie paints terrorist style action as a cure all: "its not a building you blow up, its an IDEA." Tell that to the people inside. In fact, the movie release was delayed because of a bombing in a subway in england. This movie is the latest ju ju in a long standing curse; a trend where Hollywood takes any and every piece of pop-culture fluff, canabalizes it then craps it out onto the silver screen. |
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| Voluntary Brain Dammage |
[Mar. 10th, 2006|06:39 pm] |
Ahhh the human mind... what a waste of good cranial space. The more I learn about it, the more it seems there are better things we can store there. Its true what they say, when you are simultaneously awake and not crazy you only use about 11% of grey matter. Mother nature in her infinite wisdom, however, has decided to space this 11% over the enitre cranial area. That means that large sections cannot be convieniently removed in favor of more useful applications... such as cup holders. In fact, the only way to even have hope for this type of procedure is to sign an "Elective Surgery" waiver. They force us to promise not to sue even if the doctor decides to let his cousin earl perform the operation using a spatula and a well sterilized mango. Yes, we as humans are reduced to inferior head-based bevarage storage devices; things like beer hats. Lets face it, beer hats are lame... Brain dammage is considered cool (just look at a rave girl on a little too much E and tell me I'm wrong).
Speaking of brain dammage, my next door neighbors have been having a three day long party. As far as I can tell, this party spins songs written in a country where higher thought hasnt developed past the concept of "YEEEEEEEAAAAAHHHH". After he expresses this concept, the singer procedes to sing very well for a man with a microphone shoved against his uvula. As far as I can determine, the muffled gurgles are him repeating the word "HAR" at varying pitches while the bassist hits a note specifically designed to move tectonic plates. I attended this party for a second or two. The premise, as it is with any party, seemed to be to meet people. A very challenging goal for the atendees. Due to sheer volume, men and women could not hold the type of innane conversation necessary to perpetuate the species. It amazes me that many of these people will "hook up" despite that the only sucessfull communication between them was the word "what?"
Mostly Naked Drunk Girl: "I like -HAR- band!"
Backwards Cap Guy: I can't -BOOM- you!
MNDG: What?!
BCG: I -YYYEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHH-
MNDG: I'm -BOOM HAR- wasted
BCG: (magic word: wasted) wanna -BOOM- sit with -HAR-
MNDG: Okay, but -BOOM- last boyfriend -HAAAR- so I cut off his -YYYYEEAAHHHH-
BCG: I -BOOM- hear you!
It continues like this for a few minutes... then these people get together. Maybe "BOOM HAR YEAH" even becomes thier special song. I'm terrified for the fututre.
It makes me think I should come to terms with the world around me though, as soon as I find a good spot to set my drink.
P.S. for those of you WoW geeks: http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=3635 |
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| Things that go beep in the night |
[Feb. 12th, 2006|12:56 pm] |
My appartmant complex has a few quirks. The elevators shake like paint mixers (I live on the first floor), the fire alarm goes off... whenever it feels like it and the building itself sports a giant glowing wang. The particular quirk I wish to address today is a frequesnt beeping that occurs in the hallway outside my room. You see, there is a small, chained off receptionists desk... at which no receptionist ever sits. Behind the desk is a pannel that usually sports a friendly green light. Occasionally however, it will beep. Not just a normal beep mind you, they managed to make a beep with the same natural resonance as the human head. If this were only a tad louder, I truly believe the brains of passerby would pop like a child's bubbles on a warm summer day.
Also, when the beep arrives, the green light dissapears and a pulsing yellow light takes its place. The label for this light is one anonymous word: "trouble". No other description at all. Just "trouble". I like to think this light is similar to the bat signal... someplace in San Jose, someone is getting thier purse snatched or thier stop n' go robbed. This signals our hero (by day a lowly receptionist) to don his spandex and administer vigilante justice with this iron... I dunno... slide rule. I find this very comforting; mostly because I don't steal purses or hold up convienience stores. But also because that green light takes on a new and more powerful meaning. It is a tremendous green "all's well" sign for the world around me. I can go to class, secure in the notion that the streets are safe in that 80's action movie kinda way.
So now, when I pass the desk and spy the little green light, I tip my hat. Other residents, they sometimes ask me why. I tell them I am paying homage to the man, without whom our nights would be filled with ruffians and our heads just might explode with beeping yellow fury. I am not invited to thier parties.
P.S. This guy needs a name... the best I could do was "fratman". I dont think thats quite good enough. |
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| Surmon |
[Feb. 8th, 2006|11:18 pm] |
(I had fun writing this) At first glance, It seems that the planet is boiling over with patient serenity; rank and file workers summoned daily by an endless sea of alarm clocks. Oh my droogies, Logic and rationality are but a thin sheet of ice obscuring the depths of human depravity. If you but stand in one place and wonder at what is below your feet, what has been supporting you your whole life, you may just fall through. I have seen the new york "fresh kill" landfill with skyscrapers of waste stories taller than any building. I have seen SModyesy's "dungeon show" where women are voluntarily molested by objects the size of baseball bats. I have been to santeria rituals where a grown man bites the neck from a living chicken. I have been to furcon where anthropomorphic humans climb giant erections while fat men screw hand puppets in the back room.
I have seen first-hand much of what is unacceptable in this world. I tell you here and now, there are no limitations, no ture boundaries. Humans are toys of meat and chemicals wound up and set loose. An alchemical wet dream aspiring to ballance on floss-thin strings of ethos: to align ourselves with a given philosophy, law, religion, role. We take these patterns and adopt them as correct, as our own. We even kill and dole out black eyes over these things. These boundaries, they are but echoes of our nature. Every group whose cause flys on banners and bleeds our streets red white and blue with opinion; they too echo our nature. We are spirits of conflict. We are oposition given flesh.
We conjure groups and causes to satiate our base needs and funnel these urges into safe outlets: drugs, argument, sex, K-mart... all acceptable. These things give us liscence to fight in a world where fighting can level cities; We can consume and love without leaving our chair. Life has become antisceptic while leaving intact faint reminders of what it was like to answer only to our desires. For what do we trade our impulses so willingly? Some white picket fence fantasy: gaining weight, having kids and closing escrow? This isn't utopia! Not as long as our blood runs heady with chemicals, agents that tantalize us with secrets of life and pleasure. In fact, Utopia cannot exist. We will always be succeptable to manipulation, to fear, to corruption; slaves to our biology.
No. Human nature doesn't lie in civility and fidelity. We have stagnated because of these things. Humanity lies burried under 1000 tons of garbage. It is whispered at rituals and concealed with our fetishes. All you need to do is stop, search and wait for the ice to crack. |
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| Tensile Strength |
[Feb. 6th, 2006|02:22 am] |
So here I am, sitting at my desk... hiding. The forces that be in this universe have decided to place a contract on my precious sanity. The plan is three fold. First, make Brad apprehensive by placing a mysterious, unidentifiable buzz in his room. This buzz shall be obscure in nature as to make Brad fear both electrical fire and locusts... furthermore this buzz will discontinue when Brad brings friends or lovers to listen to it. Henceforth creating a consensus view that Brad is friggin nuts (I'm a psychologist, thats a technical term.) Second, Brad shall be dissalowed any deoderant; deoderant currently in his posession is to be immediately removed from existance. Should Brad purchace replacement deoderant, said deoderant shall likewise vanish within one day of purchase (Even if he places it on the shelf above his bed THE NIGHT BEFORE). The deoderant factor should greatly wear on Brad's psychee, not to mention further drive away friends and loved ones. Third, Brad shall recieve the curse of "perpetual inconvienience". The manifestations of this curse shall include (but not be limited to) Availability only of the crappiest treadmill in the gym, sudden requests for antiquated library-overdue-fees, finally the mysterious appearance seven frozen chickens in his fridge (said chickens will be assigned the duty of falling onto Brad's bare feet every time he opens the freezer.) Brad will be unable to acquire illegal fireworks (despite dire need), his shoes will untie constantly(even if he ties them in a knot that could anchor the queen mary) and a smelly hobo will take up residence outside his window.
If everything goes to plan, Brad will snap and begin writing whole articles in the third person. |
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| Movie Buff |
[Jan. 12th, 2006|03:01 pm] |
So... writing on live journal again. Its been a while and everone else seems to be updating with gusto! I feel like that guy who comes back into the theatre halfway through the movie and sprays a ton of open-door-light onto the screen. They all grumble and you just want to scream "Its not my fault... It was my bladder." But they have already taken the safety off thier uzis so its best to keep quiet.
Alot has happened!!! On th topic of theatres, I recently went to a movie theatre in Oakland. Now, I have been to hundreds of movies. In every one there is an unspoken code of "shush". Like some phantasmal librarian with horn rimmed glasses infuses you with guilt every time you make more than a ferret-fart of sound. Your foot could be engulfed in a mighty blaze, yet you would unable to request a snippet of coke ($42.95) to douse the flames. Too great is the fear that Jim Carrey himslef might come bounding down off the screen to smack you around. "Can't you see these people are enjoying my antics!!" he would demand "and here you are ruining thier good time with your selfish 'fire'!"
Not to mention, we all know its improper to shout fire in a crowded theatre: So sayeth the supreme court.
You can imagine my surprise when I sat down in oakland for HollyWoods latest CG masterpiece: King Kong. The screaming started, I kid you not, at the opening credits. To be honest, the conversations helped alot. I didn't have to be concerned with little extras like plot, I couldn't hear them anyways. I think the movie was much more enjoyable not knowing why the giant gorilla was fighting lizards and swatting jet planes. Now, the most memorable expierence there didn't come from the screen, however. It came from the 12 foot tall, 400 pound bohemouth of a man in the row in front of me. Durring the climactic Kong vs. dinosaur fight (yup, it happens), he was yelling one phrase over and over again: "Gorilla, you best watch yo ass!" Now, this is a phrase that you can say once or twice without sounding like a crazy person; try saying it now... I'll wait. you see, after the second time it just sounds stupid. He said it upwards of 17 times throughout the fight; each time growing more and more agitated that the gorilla might not, in fact, be paying any attention to him. Meanwhile this man had a death grip on his cupholder and was vibrating with such gungho that his rasinettes leapt from his box at something near rentry speed. I couldnt help but picture this man in some other movie "gesha, you best watch yo ass!"... (Editor: the brokeback mountain joke has been removed to prevent going straight to hell.)I shouldn't judge, perhaps this man was sent to us to share profound thological wisdom... Personally I picture the messiah using some variation on the theme such as "behold your behind" or "regard your rump" but who am I to question any madates from up on high.
P.S. In my neverending quest to do strange things, I have discovered an abandoned railroad in the Santa Cruz mountains. It seems the Alviso railway (made obsolete by Cal-Trans in the 1940s) has cut a series of tunnels through the hills. These tunnels have been dynamited... but poorly. Also there are a number of abandoned towns long the railway. I intend to hike this road! I call all those with intestinal fortitude to venture forth at my side into the semi-unknown! |
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| Metaphor 101 |
[Oct. 8th, 2005|01:20 am] |
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Judging by what I've seen of it, day to day life is confused. Its basically a carnival ride whose designated carney has gone on a permanant lunchbreak. This first couple times you spin around its great, you ignore those keep all arms and legs inside rules... you smile and laugh and puke. But soon you realize it isnt stopping, you just keep mowing over the same track. No slower or faster, no change in scenery, Its an endless loop past the same whimsical animitronic characters over and over. This is where angst sets in: Its the helplessness of knowing the course rail by rail but still being unable to steer. At least this part is social, you talk to those around you and complain "hi, you noticed the car isnt stopping"... "ya, its not stopping." Eventually, though, the tedium of talking to the same five people, all saying the same thing, gets to be unbearable... Here we have choices. Most commonly I see people sit there shut up, justifying thier inaction: "the carney will be back, we just need to wait," "You get used to it" or the classic "Lets make the best of what we have." Other people decide to dive off the cars and over the side, usually ending up with a face full of carnival-candy encrusted concrete. Me, I'm part of the third school of thought, I bide my time, smile to my neighbors and say "yes" and "hmmm" when they speak. I wait for that one golden chance each go-round when we pass the operators booth, all the while dreaming up ways to reach the brakes. |
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| Greenday makes me sick |
[Sep. 27th, 2005|01:12 pm] |
I'm not the nostalgic type, usually. I think my childhood is best locked away in the musty attic that is my brain. Sometimes you just can't keep it from surging foreward, like toothpaste from a freshly squeezed tube. Its always the little things that bring it back: warm chicken soup, the smell of summer or Billy Joes pearly white ass in front of 50,000 peoeple... Of which I was proud to be a part. Yes, Greenday. That writhing mass of angst from my childhood is still trapsing from hamlet to hamlet, like ye olde minstrels with 50 foot tall amps. Now, first off... The lead singer has (to use one of my favorite phrases) "charisma like a house on fire." When he would command that we wiggle our arms to the left, it would be so. He even kidnapped somebody's child half way through the show and physically manipulated the kids arms to demonstrate how to wiggle. Its the type of compliance usually only found in military regiemes or rock shows.
The other nice bonus is the whole audience knew the words to his songs. This allowed him to do the tradtitonal popular singer trick and shut up while a stadium full of zelots finished his sentances. It was inspiring to hear students, buisness folk, mother and daughter, 50,000 individual people all singing toigether "...Its lack of sex thats bringing me down. I went to a whore, she said my life's a bore".
This got me thinking... It seems that you can order rational, normal people to do anything with three caveats: you have a microphone, you have followers, your request is stupid. So if I were in a band of, lets say 10 people, who are hopping in unison into a Jack in the Box. So long as I had a microphone, I could point at the person behind the counter and say "you there, hop with us" and it would work. This is an awesome power: the ability to propogate stupid.
Well, to explain the title: the concert made me sick... someoene near me musta had the flu. So, I suppose my grammar is technically innacurate. Greenday didn't personally come over to my seat and cough on me... though that might cast a different pall on the illness: "ya I'm sick, but this isnt just any flu. This is the flu of a star."
To test my hypothesis: Hey you, ya you there reading this. Do what you can remember of the macarena in your seat. Me and at least 10 other people have been doing it the whole time you've been readng... Its been awesome. |
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| That Whacky San Jose (part1) |
[Aug. 15th, 2005|09:04 pm] |
Hello internet... I have returned! I have been woefully without an internet connection for over 3 weeks, much has happened. Most recently I moved to SJSU. Now, San Jose is a professionally deceptive town. It spends all its time pretending to be a bustling city. It stays up late at night and hacks tourism websites, boasting a population of just over 1,000,000 and tacking up pictures of its skyline and clean parks... You know why the parks are clean, NOBODY USES THEM! This population of one million, where are they? I was once standing in the middle of san fernando with nary a soul in either direction as far as I could see. The lights were changing, but no traffic. I mean, the streets actually sustain a pretty decent echo. I've now come to believe that half the skyscrapers are just full size models that would be completely empty if I actually went inside.
In the end there has to be a rational explanation for this: obviously, they are all invisible. This came crashing down one evening when I saw a herd of people rounding a corner in the distance. I ran to catch up to them but as I turned the corner myself, they had vanished. This lead me to my next conclusion: They are all ninjas. This would be my dream come true... a town of ninjas and me. They would spend all day training on the top of their skyscrapers, ready to take on the rival airport ninjas. Meanwhile, I would be carrying my groceries uptown. I would trip and a bottle would fall out hurling helplessly towards the sidewalk; until suddenly WOOSH from nowhere would come a black clad good samaritan to catch my glass just in time, vanishing into the night before I could praise him.
...more later, must go now. |
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| Where turkeys dare |
[Jun. 23rd, 2005|11:52 am] |
Bear in mind... this is all true: So, there I was, hiking up the side of mt. eden because I had nothing better to do (going to sit on my favorite rock.) Suddenly there was a familiar yet haunting noise upon the wind. It was some tune from my childhood that I could barely recall through an 80s haze of popples and fraggle rock. I tried to place it but was distracted by the warble of a wild turkey (I love mt. eden). Now, to get to my rock you have to dive through a little tunnel of the foulest smelling bushes known to man. As I was digging through the brush, though, the source of the song became more clear. There, on top of my very favorite rock, were two extremely drunk/high people dancing and singing the chorus from "attack of the killer tomatoes" over and over. My rock lives on top of a 30 or so foot drop; so rather than shock the people to thier doom, I turned to leave. There I was, edging through the plants, when my phone rang. It was on roaming but the call on the other end is one I had been waiting for for a week, the city manager of freemont. Long story on how he and I got together, but he had offered me a chance to follow him around for a day and watch him legislate like mad. I couldnt miss this call.
"hello, this is Kevin O'Rourke, may I speak with Brad Po..." then He was struck silent by killer tomatoes.
I figured I needed to act quick. "this is he" I say, trying in vain to tap by buisnesslike side.
"where are you Brad?" says the CITY MANAGER OF FREEMONT
Awwww crap! Do I lie? The truth? What lie would cover for drunken morons singing 80's songs while I was stuck in a bush? I panicked:
"I'm on a mountain mr. O'Rourke."
...stunned silence...
this is a man whose last phone call was to organize the redistricting of some important stretch of road or allocate hundereds of thousands of dollars...
I felt I needed to expalin: "Well, I'm on a mountain and there are these drunk people on my rock."...
...more silence...
"your rock?"
I swear to God: a turkey goes off somewhere near by. The two people on the rock start laughing like maniacs.
I do the only thing a person can do in this situation. I just let out a long sigh and say "I'll call you when I get back"
Everything turned out well on the second call. I am frightened, though, of what he thinks I do on the weekends. |
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| Be careful who you drink with |
[Jun. 15th, 2005|05:40 pm] |
Before we start things off... Today is Pac-man's birthday! He turns 25!! Ms. pac-man is still 23, looks like he married young (the stud.)
Ok, down to business. A message for Sarah: If you were wondering what you can do with a linguistics degree... It seems you can go just as crazy as the rest of us: http://skepdic.com/neurolin.html. This is the world of Neuro-Linguistic programming. There is little left for me to say though, the site makes adequate fun of it already.
For those of you who don't know, I can kind of mix drinks. Now, I am no master bartender. In fact, I can only mix one specific phylum of drinks: froo-froo drinks. I can't mix the type of drinks that would land me a cushy job in, say, a Bayou redneck bar shooing away alligators. Rednecks only seem to want drinks that assist them with feeling every last Centimeter of thier esophagus. The second I mentioned the word Mai-Thai I would have a pool cue delicately thrust through my scrotum.
No, I mix drinks that are aparently the party equivelant of legal rohipnol (Protecting my Karma: they have never been used that way to my knowledge). Margaritas and Daquaries and coconut-pineapple rum (not to mentin my own invention Pepsi snap - 2 parts diet pepsi, 1 part grenadine (or cherry schnapps for more alchohol), 1 part cherry brandy, maybe a little lime vodka for fun. Serve on the rocks, careful it fizzes.) Depressants and stimulants wheeee! These are the type of drinks where you can't tell they are alchoholic. Well, lets just say I learned my lesson this weekend.
Tom, an old freind of mine who used to be an alchoholic, invited me to his beach house. The express purpose of this trip was to "drink as much as possible and scare the neighbors with loud karaoke." In these goals they succeded admirably. Now, I am the clean/sober type (but I did get VERY tipsy one night) So I was designated bartender/"make sure nobody has sex who isn't supposed to" guy. This task is harder than one might think because drunk people basically do two things: 1) Act moronic 2) have sex. Tom agreed to help me out with this task, saying "I won't have too much to drink." The problem is: Everyone was drinking my goddam drinks!! Nobody had even the slightest idea how drunk they were. Tom actually wound up leading the charge for insanity by stripping and running up and down the stairs. This, of course, was highly encouraging to all those present (except me, goddam sobriety). About three hours later there were more naked people than you can imagine (those of you who go to UCSC are excluded.) Long story short: It is VERY difficult to prevent 6 mostly naked, horny people from going at it! This is especially difficult when one of them is following you around making the same profound statements over and over: "B-Rad, I am so drunk", "B-Rad, does X (X = male within eyesight) talk about me?" and, most confusing "B-Rad, I used to work at state farm."
The real kicker was that the condo only had 2 beds. Nathalie (Toms girlfriend) and Tom insisted on taking one bed. This left the other bed for myself and 4 other people. All would have been well, everyone was sober by now and remembered its not kosher to skrew people whose names you don't know, except that Tom was still plastered. Tom, in his own personal Tom-land, had decided naked time was not over. He would periodically burst into our room (those of you who know Tom, turn off computer now) completely naked with his girlfriend screaming for him to stop. He would flip on the lights, bleat out his little warcry then dive (reminder: butt naked) into our bed. We finally gave up and locked him into a closet, wherein he passed out and was still unconscious in the morning.
P.S. There is no need for anyone to comment on my Web Log should they not desire. Comment if you feel like it or have something to add (though I have a feeling I will get alot of comments on this one) |
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