[regarding la]: "if you get out of your car in this centrifugal metropolis, you immediately become a delinquent; as soon as you start walking, you are a threat to public order, like a dog wandering in the road. only immigrants from the third world are allowed to walk. it is, in a sense, their privilege, a privilege that goes along with that of occupying the empty hearts of the big cities. for other people, walking, fatigue, or muscular activity have become rare commodities, 'services' costing a lot of money. thus ironically, the old state of afairs has been inverted. similarly, the queues at high-class restaurants or fashionable nightclubs are often longer than those at soup kitchens. this is democracy. the signs of the most utter poverty always have a least a chance of becoming fashionable."

-jean baudrillard-

tell the freaks to find a man of they own. can boys and girls be just friends? can men and women be just friends? can dogs and cats be just friends? oh what an outdated question. who cares really. the answer doesn't help us. if they can, they can, if they can't, they can't. we all die anyway. i've been reading some camus essays, can you tell? thanks gene!



today the question of the day is "what happens when you make out with a friend?" once again, a popular parlour question. some of us are lucky enough to never have encountered this problem. some of us are unlucky enough to never have encountered this problem. some of us are perhaps contemplating this problem right now as we speak. some of us are going "ew, disgusting" as we mentally scroll through a list of our friends. it's not a pretty picture. two friends, with mutual respect and admiration for each other, decide to throw all caution and platonomy to the wind. they end up "making out, locking lips, swapping spit, tongue tango-ing, mixing n matching, i'm out of things to put here."



what happens in the aftermath of two friends inadvertently getting it on? usually, disaster and drama. i can name thousands of different ways that trouble will arise. by making out together you've decided to enter the merry go round (roller coaster?) that is feelings and emotions. but we are not here to talk about those. we are here to figure out how to remain friends after the fact. and because i'm public service minded, here are my options for continuing the friendship post make out session. okay, go get a pad and pencil and get ready. here they are. option one: never talk about it. ever. okay, looks like my job is done here. next?



we won't even talk about what happens after you sleep with a friend. many movies have been made about this particular topic. just rent them for the ending of your choice.

i see your true colors shining through. from the description provided by palak: so basically this is how it works. everyone gets paper then someone asks a question, like "who's the smartest in the room" and everyone has to write down on a sheet of paper who they think it is, and then throw it into a bowl. then you go around and say how many ppl you think picked yourself, so like, you could say ten ppl think you're the smartest. and then you read it off, and the difference between what you guess and how many actually voted for you is the number of points you get. the objective of the game is to get as few points as possible.



this is basically like true colors but with a twist (actually after reading how to really play true colors, this is just true colors). and the twist is oh so nasty. having people guess what other people thought about them? so beautiful, so diabolical, so brilliant. sure, playing this way can lead to some super embarassments or other such emotions but it's gotta be hilarious. you can see what people think about themselves and then compare it to what everyone else thought about them. apparently however, this point system just got too unwieldy to keep doing so it was just question-polling after awhile. this game works best obviously with big groups of people who know each other.



i can't believe i missed this game. i love stuff like this. shiza.

like a cold summer afternoon, like the snow coming down in june. sometimes we don't tell people how much we really think of them. how much we put into them. how much we care about them. how much we might miss them from day to day but never bother to call or page or email or anything. this is perhaps usually maybe applied to parents. because typically it's parents who are undervalued and underappreciated. except in some quieter moments. but as a discussion with a friend pointed out, sometimes people just don't say what they mean. or can't. for one reason or the other.



in my mind, i may think that you are the most wonderful person, and are so tight and close to me, but never let you know it explicitly. and i, using "i" this time personally, sometimes just assume that when i care alot about someone, they know that i do. even if my actions contradict my feelings. this kinda sucks. to never tell someone how much you think of them, how much you respect them, how much they've impacted you. what's the one regret that people always say when people pass away unexpectedly? "i wish i could of told him/her how much i cared." and this is followed up by the semi-comforting, semi-obligatory "i'm sure they knew." but did they really? i think sometimes, for some people, it takes effort to make sure that the people they love are aware of how deep that love goes.



i know i am piss poor at this. i'm maybe a bit better at it now, but i used to be shocked to find out when someone i thought of as super close questioned my friendship with them. i've tried to show that loving respect with words more, to make sure that they know. actions must follow words too and that's another step.



aniwaise, it's also always nice to have this feeling reciprocated. when unexpectedly you get a little reminder of how close you are to someone. or just the little things that can go a long way towards saying "i'm thinking about you." this may be the cheesiest thing i've ever blogged. but quite honestly, in this day and age of airplanes and constant electronic badgerings, it's easy to just "i'll see you later" until there are no more laters. there is always someone in your life that probably has no idea how much space they occupy in your heart. and it's important to recognize that, and maybe not blurt it out, but to make sure that they know it. because if they don't, well......who knows what may happen.



and isn't it weird, if you feel me on this one, how hard it is sometimes to say something really really nice and genuine to another human being? like you have to prep yourself up for it. and build up your will. and wait for that "perfect" moment. like the same nervous preparation you might do for calling some random girl that you like. i admire those who are able to freely and capably express their feelings for people, without having to go through mental checks and anxieties.

where the turf meets the surf. before i journeyed home, i spent monday at venice beach with helen and her friend liz. i've been to venice beach a few times before but never when it was in full bloom. aside from random pockets of places that smelled like shit, venice seems to be a very cool place. it personifies the california that television and postcards are constantly pounding into your heads. everyone is all bum and chilled out, street vendors sell assortments of use(ful)less colorful things. people are balling, music is blasting, crowds are crowding.



there is the famed muscle beach, where we saw the one the only hulk hogan. he looks smaller in real life. but maybe that's just because in my imagination he's the biggest baddest man ever. this guy body slammed andre the giant and he's only maybe so-so big. but oh well, another childhood dream dies when tear gassed with reality. and then we saw some really weird super muscled people. it's sick how big these people are. why do this to yourself? then again, why work out in full view of the public? oh right, ego. in the thirty minutes we were watching the guys and gals of muscle beach i think i saw three people actually even bother to lift weights. everyone else just waltzed around topless and flexed alot. woohoo.



the coolest thing at venice beach was watching the skateboarders and the roller skaters. not bladers mind you, roller skaters. there's a little concrete cul de sac where roller skaters gather and they kind of shimmy around, skate and dance to a dj. apparently the roller skating experience is not about speed but more about rhythm, spinning and gyrating. everyone crowds around, sitting or standing, on the grass and it's kind of mesmerizing to watch. the scene is straight out of an eighties movie. palm trees and imported beach framing the people who were super cool maybe ten-twenty years ago. you've got your ballerinas, your flashy gay men, your old yet still physically coordinated balding men. this could possibly be the last place on earth where day glo is still kinda cool. everyone in that cul de sac is convinced that they are the prettiest little roller skater ever. one girl was, we swear, either the inspiration for roller girl or a sad derivative. she hardly skated, she just bopped around and tried to get into the spotlight. at certain pre-coordianted times, one large group of roller skaters would start doing some choreographed routine shit. *ungh, ungh, hand flip, hand flip, skate shimmy right, skate shimmy left.* they were pretty organized these roller skaters. it was kind of like watching breakers or something, when everyone gets into a semi-circle and flashes their moves.



venice beach is kind of a trip. if it weren't for the ridiculous parking, i think i would like to hang out there more and take some pictures or you know, make more stupid inane commentary on the side.

what's really good. it's hard to encapsulate a whole week away in words. and i don't want to do lists. and i don't want to describe. so really all i can say is that i had a really good time. as usual. and the deluge of feelings, thoughts, sights, ideas will come out more organized later but for now, pictures will have to suffice. actually, my pictures suck but i'm waiting for victor and james' megapixel madness to be ready. a short preview available here.



the weather in new york was a little shady but nothing terrible. a little fall of rain, can hardly hurt me now. you're here, that's all i need to know. rain will make the flowers grow. blah blah. one funny thing was that some of the guys (no names revealed here) got straight violated by the doorman at the club we went to, cessa. apparently he was shoving his hand down their pants, sometimes even past their boxers. egads. luckily i was in a different line and my manhood remains unviolated. but damn man, some things are not a game. but it's kinda funny as hell if it didnt' happen to you.



i've also decided that new york is not the place for large group gatherings. although we've done many a large group gathering there in the past, the logisticalness of trying to have 20-30-40 people meet and mobilize to the same place is insanity. without a "to the mattresses" place in the city, it gets difficult to find a place for everyone to chill. however, i think we did a pretty good job of it this past week. and the advantages of having a party to go really outweigh all the negatives. especially at karaoke. singing along never sounded so loud.



anyway. short shot. thanks to amit for housing us and putting up with us. and thanks to sam for pulling off miracles and getting us into sessa so we could have a crazy united fun night. i also left new york early, before the big family day of bbq-ing and funktion-dvding. so yeah, i'm stupid. what else is new?



i had so much fun i lost an earring. so if anyone sees a fake ass probably glass sterling silver earring floating around. hit me back.

off to the city that never sleeps for a totally undeserved vacation. if i blog anytime soon it means i'm a total loser because i can't be away from a computer for even one week. so yeah, updates on wednesday. see you then.

this boston-based band's lumbering thud has become formulaic, like those things mathematicians use to solve difficult problems. you know, asians.

-stuff magazine's review of new godsmack album-

we got fellas to my left, hunnies on my right. isn't it funny? everyone has their tight little group of "boys" or "girls." these are commonly referred to as "my boys" or "my girls." do not confuse these with "the guys" or "the girls." using "the" means it's just a gathering of single sexed people. using "my" connotes that these people are special. these people are above reproach. we put our identification into the "my." a little part of them is imbedded in us. and versa vice. no matter what these people do, we are behind them. got their backs if you're semi-cool and semi-hardcore. "i got your back man." but this is not funny.



what is funny is how much we defend and make exceptions and overlook things with our boys (i will be referring to boys now but also meaning girls, but since i am a manly man, i have boys and not girls). we can look around a room and make quick snapshot judgements about everyone and hear stories about some random folk, and immediately be turned off by something terrible they did. but then we see that our boy did something wrong and we're like "he had his reasons." and even if he didn't we believe that he did. being one of the boys is a big responsiblity. you must be truthful and honest and have a certain code of conduct. normally, bonds of "my" cannot be broken. except by "triangles." but we all know about that, the deadly "triangle." avoid them at all costs. "triangles" are also sometimes synonymous with "opposite sex." actually, triangles are always synonymous with opposite sex.



it gets even funnier when you apply this "my" principle to girl groupings. most girls (some? many?) have a few girls that they can call "theirs." usually three or four. any larger and you start getting into "issues." as confucius say, three or more girls in one basket equals ruckus and chaos. so usually a girl will have their foursome of "my girls." any other girl is subject to normal cattiness. but my girls are not.



an example of this type of positive double standard is when girls get dressed to go out. a my girl can wear whatever the hell they want, exposing whatever the hell they please and a fellow my girl will go "damn girl, you look good, you look sexy, um hum, amen." as soon as they step out into the street and see another girl dressed similarly, they go, "damn hooch. damn ho. damn what is she doing that stuck up snob? ditzy airhead." a minor example but an encompassing one.



my girls are zion, the last human stronghold. they must be defended at all costs. a tight cohesive unit of girls is a powerful thing indeed. one thinks one thing, they all think the same thing. you upset one, you upset them all. the bonds of my girls runs deep. deeper than skin even. although my girls are usually more susceptible to blowupage than my guys. once a crack in the foundation is revealed, my girls are quick to splinter. with guys, it's less so. this is a broad broad overgeneralization on my part but it's my personal observation. once a girl thinks that she has a good reason to hold a grudge, it's over. never will she forgive, never will she forget. she can't be the same person anymore. you violate a trust and you're out. guys are more stupid, they are willing to let bygones be bygones.



and why the importance of my guys and my girls? because.......because. birds of a feather must flock together. and having my boys or my girls validates your ability to get along with your same gender. even if you only have four girl friends and a bajiillion guy friends. in the end, we still need "mine." does any of this make sense to anyone? i hope so. because it makes an awful lot of sense to me. but then again, i always make sense to me. sometimes things get lost in the translation though.



the point i wanted to make was. to be a "my" person, someone has to exhibit some qualities that you find in yourself. to be a "my boy" there is a connection where you feel like you can trust them and relate to them on a deep level. at the same time, you also clearly see and understand and accept their shortcomings. there is also a "my boy" created from historical importance, where you have just known each for so damn long and gone through so damn much that they become "my boy" based on general principle and historical proximity. but this is not what i am talking about. i am talking about "my boys" that are made and created through blood sweat tears. mostly sweat actually.



we may be told to be an army of one. but an army of one gets slaughtered real fast. so remember, the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.



yo.

ding dong the witch is dead

which old witch? the wicked witch

ding dong the wicked witch is dead

wake up you sleepyhead

rub your eyes, get out of bed

wake up the wicked witch is dead

the favorite drama of the burattini appears to be a sardonic farce, in which the chief character -- a puppet ten inches high, with a fixed and staring expression of mephistophelean good-nature and wickedness -- deludes other and weak-minded puppets into trusting him, and then beats them with a club upon the back of the head until they die.

-william howells, venetian life-

friendster. introduced to me by the highest, hungriest of entro-peas (don't click on his comment box if you're at work though, could be dangerous), "friendster is an online community that connects people through networks of friends for dating or making new friends." obviously we don't care much about the dating part because really, who chooses dates based on blurry pictures and twenty five word blurbs? alternately, who dates?



but the cool thing about this is that you can see who you are connected to through your friends. so after you sign on and do the requisite question blank answer fill in thing, you can see galleries of who you're connected to. how cool is this? it's pretty darned cool. so sign up everyone and let's see if we can be a whole new world. i will spread the gospel of friendster this week so we can determine decisively if it will be a short passing fad or a life altering experience. so tell your friends, to get with my friends and we can be friends!



and please, if you are reading this for any reason at all, i'm your friend, so feel free to send money. small to super large denominations accepted.

pimps up gas down. gas has now gone under the $1.80 mark. this is huge. i am jon's perpetually near empty gas tank screaming in joy. i am jon's perpetually empty wallet screaming in joy. this is how we know the war was an overwhelming success, cheaper gas. i wonder if we'll ever get to $1.20 gas again or if gas proprietors will use the temporarily inflated gas prices to just keep things artificially inflated. bitches. it's like how banana ropes you in with a sale for twenty percent and then you end up buying a t-shirt for thirty bucks. and then you brag about it to all of your friends.



additional random but useless gas information: in england the gas (or petrol) is paid for by the liter and each liter costs as much as a gallon stateside. for those of us mathematically conversionally challenged people, it means the english pay about four times more for their gas than we do. that's why they drive such little cars. and why they have such weird food.



and you know when gas is like five cents cheaper somewhere and people are rushing to go get it? never understood that. five cent cheaper gas is like saving fifty cents per fill up. say you get two tanks of gas a week. that's fifty two dollars saved per year. is that really worth the trouble? maybe i don't get this saving fifty cents thing because i'm a privileged punk with a silver spoon up my ass but c'mon now. five cents. i do however, conform to societal conventions and get all geeked for cheaper gas like the rest of my peerlings. so when people say "let's drive ten miles out of our way to get five cent cheaper gas," i smile and beam, "wow, sounds fantastic, let's do it!" it's hard to be a sheep sometimes, but if not me then who?



another gas related thing. i, being adamantly opposed to public displays of flatulence, do have to let go once in awhile, so when gas topics come to mind i just have to let it flow you know? bear with me. aniwaise. the other day, i'm at a gas station. getting gas. and an employee of the gas station is standing around smoking. hello. is the world not a dangerous enough place without you standing here smoking in this highly explosive situation? that's like the worst party foul you could possibly do at a gas station. trust me, i've done it before. i was distracted and stupid at the time, but i lit up on accident and got yelled at by a responsible gas attendent (oxymoron?). and i deserved it. there are no fires allowed near gas! it's the cardinal sin in all bad b-movies. no fires allowed near gas or gunpowder. wash your hands after you use the bathroom. open doors for ladies. don't talk to me on the phone while you're peeing. this is pretty basic stuff here. and not only was a person smoking at a gas station, it was the freaking employee of the gas station! he, of all people, should know better. that's like a stewardess asking to borrow your cd player/laptop/cellphone at takeoff. to use all at the same time. i've said enough about this. however, smokey says, only you can prevent massive insane gas station explosions.

the neon letter. we have twenty six letters in our alphabet (if you didn't know that then this post may not be entirely relatable). certain letters are really popular and useful. r, s, t, m, n, the entire vowel collection. but recently one letter has been more popular than it really ought to be. yes, you know what i'm talking about. the dreaded "x." i'll cap that to make it seem more ubiquitous. the dreaded "X."



xtra, xceptional, xciting, xtinction, xtension, xterminate, xtrapolate, xonerate, xcel, xam, xecutive, xpress, xcept, xcess, xstatic, xtreme, xcetra. it all started with this whole generation x thing. ascribing one letter to an entire generation of humans is wrong. wait no. it probably started with the whole xmas thing. christmas was suddenly dubbed, xmas. thus killing all meaning for the holiday. no wait, it was the grinch and the gift giving and the crass commercialization that killed the holiday. my bad. additionally, it occurs to me that the x could hypothetically be substituted for "christ" in all situations. in fact, i'm surprised christians haven't picked up on this ultra-cool spelling convention yet. "we are not christians, we are xtians. praise be, jesus x died on the sideways x for your sins." but this is not a religion blog. it is an alphabet blog.



the x is now used to connote crazy or sexy or cool. triple x. we knew what that movie was gonna be about. xtreme, xciting, xsex. the x games were xtreme, xciting, xdaring. the x has just been straight overplayed. it is, how you might say, overly xposed. i won't even talk about the xfl. when you see moving vans and laundromats flaunting "xtreme" in their names you know you've scraped the absolute bottom of the barrel. there is nothing extreme about moving vans and laundromats. i know that part of the problem is that an x is easily inserted into other words. and there is something about the sound of an x that is kind of appealing. a hardcore kind of sound. i won't bother duplicating it here, if you don't know then maybe check out hooked on phonics. cliff notes lites version. there is also something titillating about an x rated item. so i get why x is cool, but i just don't want to perpetuate it.



instead i've decided to throw myself behind another letter's corner. the most underrated letter, as decided quickly via an informal poll of one, is the letter v. voluptuous, versus, villain, vixen, victim, viscous, verbose, viggo, voila, virtuoso, vocative, vick, very, victory, vavoom, verve, veer, vault, velocity, volume, venezuela. all great and under represented words. the minority letter if you will. diversity is the key to our existence. without it we might be forced to interbreed with our closely related letters. and that would cause random unwanted mutations. how else to explain the strange additional appendages attached to the n and the o? the m and the q are not naturally occuring letters people. also the w is a genetic mutate of our slept on v. actually, half our alphabet is composed of bits and pieces from other letters. the b, the p, the d, the i, the d, the d, the y, the d, the i, the d....its diddy. i'm a stop singing now. anyhow, stop the x, utilize the v. it also doubles as a peace or a fob sign. or it can be used ambiguously like vava va victor shows here. so versatile that vivacious v. ah yes, versatile, another xcellent v word.



oh but dance 2xs, they're cool. and not just because they've reduced excess from six letters to two. actually what they've really done is go from nine letters to three but who's really counting here besides me. lex luthor, he's an okay x thing too. if i really had any principals i would boycott xtreme xmen just because it's such a terrible name (not the xmen part, just the xtreme bothers me). but the mind is weak. actually, the body is weak too. which half is weaker is entirely a matter of personal opinion.



i almost overlooked the newest x fad to hit the scene in recent years. xtacy. although that's more of an e word. but i quibble.

the human head weighs eight pounds. so my mom thought i was a psychology major. last week she was like, "wait, you're a philosophy major? what does that do?" i could see her panic levels rising. philosophy for her means nothing. psychology at least seems applicable and useful towards that next phase of my life, a job. for her, a major leads directly to a related job. econ equals business, psychology equals hope, philosophy equals confusion. i swear i've told her philosophy many a time. but for some reason she must have blocked it off in her mind and just assumed psychology. i bet she's asking her friends right now what hopes there are for a philosophy major. it takes all i have in me to try to explain that the major really doesn't matter at all in this post-apocalyptic world. unless you do computers or engineering or medicine. she doesn't believe me. surprise.



off the umich philosophy website. "you can put a concentration in philosophy to a very wide range of uses. some majors go on to do graduate work in philosophy, with a view to teaching philosophy in a college or university. but more go on to other careers: in law, public service, journalism, business, computer science, medicine, religion and the arts. there is strong statistical evidence that philosophy majors do very well on the admissions tests required for graduate work in other areas."



this is kind of a shame since i don't think i want to go into any of these careers. but hey. furthermore "the study of philosophy helps its students to develop their ability to analyze and clarify ideas, to think logically, and to present their ideas and arguments effectively, both orally and in writing. because philosophers have historically focused on the most difficult and abstract questions, they have cultivated a standard of expository clarity and rigor rarely stressed so emphatically elsewhere."



the key word there is obviously "historically." presently we philosophers focus on annoying and disappointing our parents.



i think me being a "philosphy" major is a big piece of bunk. when i say that i'm a philosophy major, people go "oh, that's interesting" or "that's hard." but let me tell you. not really. it's like history class. learning about what other people think. some of the stuff is much more interesting than that but i've decided most humanities classes are the same thing anyway. the differences between political science, sociology, philosophy, art history, whatever, isn't that great. or maybe this is because i'm the crappiest philosophy major ever. going to class probably woulda helped. but because philosophy majors are rare it seems more interesting than saying one of the more run of the mill majors. at least i can pretend to be interesting for a split second. before i'm exposed for the philosophy fraud that i am. i think i need to meet more philosophy majors so i can compare and contrast. once again, going to class regularly probably woulda helped.



however i do agree with the definitions of philosophy: (1) love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline (2) investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods (3) the critical analysis of fundamental assumptions or beliefs. and i do think that a philosopher (a person who lives and thinks according to a particular philosophy, a person who is calm and rational under any circumstances) is something i would aspire to be. or possibly could say, am.



and isn't it funny how all the books and the studying you had to do for class is so boring when it's school but suddenly takes on a whole new light after the classes are over? with most of my philosophy books, i read them just to get them done and to slide on by for exams. but now i've saved them and want to read them in depth. way after the fact. why not just learn them right the first time? i dunno. i'm awfully inefficient like that.

"unbelievable as it might seem to those unfamiliar with the world of modern art, the self-styled artist piero manzoni canned, labelled, exhibited and sold his own excrement (90 tins of it) in the early 1960s. the tate has recently acquired no 68 of this canned edition for the sum of £22,300. they have coyly catalogued it as a “tin can with paper wrapping with unidentified contents”. none of those who collected manzoni’s tins has, as far as i know, tested the veracity of their contents, but then, who would want to?"



gleaned from an article titled "why it's ok not to like modern art." and in the interests of promoting art, the top one hundred video games. ever.

don't fake the funk on the nasty dunk. as you've probably surmised, the last picture wasn't really me. well, it was me, just digitally enhanced. photoshop is kinda crazy. never trust your eyes. traditionally, the eyes are the most trustworthy of senses. but with the rise of digital manipulation and computer graphics, the eyes will deceive you more often than not. so now we are left with five senses that can all be easily confused. however, let us suspend disbelief for awhile and believe that i can really dunk and that i can really jump. because that would be my fondest dream, to dunk just once. once god! once!



and james made it happen with a little bit of manipulation. he raised me up and raised the rim, so it looks like i'm three feet off the floor. there was no trampoline, there was no big hops, i don't even think there was a made basket. however, there were eight foot rims and a couple of dorks. inspired by kyle's pictures, we had to take advantage of james' new camera and show the elementary school kids how it's done.

who says i can't jump?

proof that if you go far enough past boring you'll hit super entertaining soon after. life is a huge cycle like that. similar to the dorky kid who is so dorky he becomes cool. same principle. different person.



"i thought i saw something happening out of the corner of my eye. i turned my head to the right but didn't see anything out of the ordinary, so i turned it back again and continued with what i was doing."

want to be down with the underground? want to be cool? want to know what the slang is on your corner of the block? course you do. let this helpful list at the source for youth ministry help you! be a hepcat, be down, be with it. be everything you want to be.



"this teen lingo represents today's culture and many of the problems that go along with it. although much of it is humorous, a good portion of it is very offensive. many of the words are terms for sexual activity and drug use. many of the examples given are common quotes from youth today- these quotes, although somewhat edited, can be foul or vile (sadly, all the below phrases can be said in a pg movie). i believe this dictionary has educational value in helping youth workers understand teen mentality and culture, but please do use discretion."



amen brother amen. kill the lingo, down with mustafa, away with offensive. go discretion and word education. i can hear it now, in churches all across the nation. "son, did you just say 'from the book of blaze 4:20?' i know what that means young man, you are in big trouble!" and "no missy, the lord is not your baby daddy."

an ox and a moron. who doesn't love oxymorons? nobody. they're great. they're fun. they're neat with an extra o. and via moby's journal, i've a list of oxymorons. how can anyone not like oxymorons? the whole feel of the word. the contradicting meanings. oh it's too much.



friendly fire. black light. freezer burn. resident alien. benign tumor. silent scream. small crowd. passive agressive. good grief. living dead. pretty ugly. instant classic. night light. small world. unbiased opinion. clearly misunderstood. plastic glasses. urban cowboy. virtual reality. young adult.

you and me ain't nothing but mammals. i have to admit. i lean toward star struckness. if you are famous, i am in awe. if you are really famous, i can't wait to tell my friends all about when i saw you. not that i ever see anyone famous. the most random famous person i've ever seen is howard stern. howard freaking stern. he was wearing a blazer jacket and going shirtless. wow. imagine my joy at seeing howard stern shirtless. i wasn't quite so starstruck seeing him. but i assume that if i saw other famous people in real life, i would be gaga.



why is this? what makes famous people so much cooler? i mean, they could be total jerks or idiots but just because they possess some measure of celebrity i stand in awe? famous people are real people too right? everyone talks about how cool this or that celebrity is, how chill they are. but really, why wouldn't they be chill? they have mad money, great lives, nothing to worry about. hell, i would be chill too. but there is something exhilirating about seeing a famous person occupying the same space as you. "wow, so and so was at the same k-mart as me, that's so great!" i really just like gazing at famous people. i don't want to talk to them, or get pictures or autographs. i feel like it's kind of intruding to go ask for pictures or autographs (sometimes u do need proof though). i just like to stare at their every little move. examine them, see their star power in action.



oh wait, i've seen some more famous people. a few sports folk, a macy gray, a kirsten dunst, a montell jordan, a few other random celebrities. the back of sylvestor stallone's head. i shook david copperfield's hand once but i paid for that experience. most celebrities i see are of the "he was in that movie right? that one?" we can never match faces to names.



you would think that having lived in new york (and worked on fifth avenue no less) and been out in la, i would have met some famous people by now. but no. so what i need is for someone i know to become famous so that i can approach them and be totally cool and normal.



and here is how i would come off as cool and normal. i would not talk about what they do. if they act, i would talk about books. if they write, i would talk about gardening. if they dunk, i would talk about video games. because who wants to talk about the same thing over and over? i don't need to ask them "so, what's it like being a famous actor?" i would want to ask them intriguing questions so they would continue talking to me. someone try this strategy and tell me if it works. i may be too busy untangling me tongue to actually try this strategy myself.

“civilization,” you recall, is defined as the strong protecting the weak, a definition that explains both the original rise of the christian faith as well as its institutional continuation, warts and all, throughout the rise and fall of two millennia of history’s assorted empires. the opposite of this civilization is the new nazism that nike embodies so well. call it neo-nikeism: youth, beauty, and strength commingled with an absolute moral indifference—no second place, no fear, no mercy; you get the point the bumper sticker is making. espoused daily by cosmo (fun, fearless, female!) and maxim (sex-sports-beer-gadgets-sex)—the his-and-hers of the whole media array of five thousand channels owned by three major corporations in a ménage-à-trois with the government—these ideals are the essence of the übermensch’s will to power. they are the essence of what led to the rise and fall of rome, germany, and now—sooner rather than later, it would seem—america.

-metaphilm, xxx-

to know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.

-bruce lee, tao of jeet kune do-



without friends, you're like a book that nobody bothers to pick up.

-psychology of women quarterly-

master of magnetism. some people, they have charisma. they have a magnetic personality that draws people in. people want to talk to them, want to get to know them. what is this charisma? as defined by the good book, charisma is "an ability score representing a character's persuasiveness, personal magnetism, and ability to lead." according to the dictionary book, it's "a particular quality that attracts; a delightful characteristic."



charisma creates leaders, charisma creates good vibes, charisma creates power, charisma creates influence. our friend josh for instance, i always thought of him as a very charismatic guy. you put him a room and he starts to get to know people and people are attracted to him. maybe not to his thoughts or his particular worldviews per se, but just to him. it's a natural ability. you can't get charisma at the local five and dime. you either have it or you don't. sometimes you can fake it, and try to gain charisma through exterior things but it comes down to a natural ability to charm people. if people like you they trust you, they want to feed off your energy.



this isn't necessarily the same as being interesting. many people are interesting, interesting in the way they think, interesting in the way they dress, interesting by the things they've done. but not everyone can say that they have charisma. if you stare real hard you can see the waves of power that emanate off a truly charismatic person. it's a powerful and mysterious gift. why some people have charisma and some don't is something to be researched. as well as defining charisma in everyday qualities and the different types of charisma.



btw, xmen two was awesome. go watch it. i loved the movie. don't talk to james about it though because he's a hater. and you know what we do to haters. that's right. we shun them.

and for all of you guys looking for a date who can’t seem to get one… listen up. why was it so easy to keep shane after we had heard james speak? because nobody wants to be around somebody who is desperate. period. you always want to come off in a relaxed, i-don’t-really-care-what-happens manner, and then people will want to be around you. especially women. it’s one of the golden rules for any budding ladies’ man: acting indifferent, aloof, cool, relaxed, and confident, always makes you more attractive (an asset to anyone: teammate, friend, or lover).

-colin from the battle of the sexes-

on a street corner in los angeles, a blind musician plays on as an eclectic group of hardened city natives meet by pure chance. as a dying british backpacker fights to live long enough to see the birth of his child, the lives of a homeless vet, a delusional prostitute actress, a grave digger, a beverly hills runaway, an insomniac bully, and a hollywood screenwriter intersect via love, sex and death.



x street (or) blind men. this doesn't sound like the plot to an x-men movie? pshaw. in the interest of looking for subliminal x's everywhere, i am attempting to draw parallels between weiko's play and the cast and characters of the x-men. impossible? i don't think so. stupid? probably. obviously, if you haven't seen weiko's play you'll have no idea what the hell i'm talking about but hey, do you ever know anyways? so, to continue. warning, spoilers ahead!



we open up at the corner of a flophouse and a bank in los angeles. the soft guitar strumming of a street musician welcomes us to the opening scenes. hello professor x. you are no longer crippled, you are now blind and apparently mute. good thing you're telepathic right? suddenly, our most charismatic hero, the wolverine, appears onstage as a drunk and homeless vietnam war vet. out of shape and paunchy, this particular wolverine is still a very hairy man but he has lost his mind. he is the future confused and befuddled wolverine that he will surely become (a hundred years of drinking and smoking will do that to anyone). crazy to the point of delusionment, he clashes quickly with cal the grave digger. cal is how shall we say, a dimwit. he is slow and stupid and an overall wearing caricature of a man. he digs graves for therapy because all he can do is think about death. and coincidentally, all sabretooth can do is think about killing. but cal is sabretooth declawed. cal is a simpering love sick monster, recklessly head over heels over a delusional prostitute who likes to pretend she's an actress.



this particular "actress" (nikki sky) turns tricks for pay but somehow manages to convince herself that she is not a prostitute. she is a big star waiting for a big break, it just hasn't happened yet. she sleeps with the hollywood producer, she sleeps with cal (for a discount), she would sleep with you if you had thirty dollars. in short, she whores herself out to her advantage and still maintains that she's something she's not, an actress. she is a shape changer, a mystique, lost admist her multiple personalities. and oh yes, in the end, she marries cal. because evil belongs with evil. and apparently, those overalls on cal were just too damn cute to resist.



the tie holding all these disparate stories together is the tale of cyclops and jean grey. or as they are known here, gary and summer, our cute british couple. gary is hurtling towards imminent death and summer has accompanied him to america so that gary can enjoy one last taste of the good life. she carries their unborn child and he carries a disneyland backpack. gary has been uptight his whole life and now, on the verge of ceasing to exist, he lets loose and takes pictures with marilyn monroe's grave and dances slowly to techno music. wild. meanwhile, summer is questioning her love for gary and looking around for other options. she is impressed with cal's animalistic and tender love for nikki. she sees none of this in her own relationship and is quietly waiting for gary to die so that she can tell him how she never really loved him in the first place. while he's on his death bed no less. never say that superheroes pull punches. the ending monologue with summer ripping into her and gary's fabricated love was as explosive as anything generated by flashy special effects. and the kid isn't even his! ouchies.



and what would an x-men play be without storm and rogue? storm is beverly silver, once a goddess of a screen writer, descended upon this street corner in search of "real" stories after being told that she's a burnt out failure whose time has passed. she clearly doesn't belong in the ghetto but she's blinded by her vision of what a hollywood drama should be. she convinces vietnam war vet wolverine that he is a hero and that he can re-enter polite society as a bank teller. sadly, wolverine fails the interview she sets up for him and never gets the job (despite his natural charisma and armani suit) and ends up trying to rob the bank instead. he gets shot (his regenerative powers have waned obviously), beverly feels terrible, but she will commemorate their story in a bawling tear wrenching display of oscar worthiness. hello halle berry!



rogue is our little ingenue running away from her beverly hills home to look for her father. except that her father is already dead and all rogue (amy) can do is leech off of other people's lives. she reads books about dead people (the autobiography of benjamin franklin) and is a talkative sibilant being, trying to force herself into everybody's business. she is yearning for the human touch and offers herself up to our uber-villain, the magneto. magneto or langston, our insomniac bully, is disgruntled and angry all the time. we have no idea why he's so angry until it is revealed that he killed his parents in a plane crash (the master of magnetism losing control in a metal contraption? the irony!). and now he can't sleep, so he must be angry. very loud and angry. langston drags his little mattress around everywhere, trying to get some sleep but the mattress is no protection against the guilty voices in his head. oh if only young rogue would stay with him forever, then he could finally sleep. he needs rogue for his diabolical sleeping plans but no, rogue runs off in an attempt to help wolverine find his missing past (wife, whatever). but she catches up to wolvie only after the attempted bank robbery, when he's already bleeding to death and can only watch as storm holds his inert body and weeps up a [insert five letter synonym for gale here]. what will rogue do now? with no other options, she takes magneto's hand and leaves to pursue some "sleep."



blindstreet, like x-men, is an ensemble piece. disparate personalities and characters joined together to find peace. personal peace. a way to cope with the harsh reality of the real world. the real world hates mutants? band together and fight for your rights. the real world has dealt you a bad hand? band together and share your sorrow. the real world is people at the end of the line, gathered at a street corner, across from a graveyard, trying to bury/resurrect past lives and planning for future lives. the present isn't pretty enough so our heroes must fight for a better tomorrow. this is the world of the x-men. this is the world of blindstreet. this is my interpretation and damn you if you think i'm crazy.

i can't resist. a link to an x-men review:



this would be the most obvious point made by x-men, the marvel comic books and the movie franchise: everyone lives in fear (of persecution, invasion, exposure) and the x-men are victims of fearful prejudice (representing queers, racial minorities, etc.). this premise is underlined by nightcrawler's incursion at the white house, which frightens him more than anyone else, when he realizes that someone unknown has grabbed control of his body. this is the daily fear for mutants: their bodies define them. they're named for what their bodies can do (wolverine, storm, cyclops, et. al., with the exception of jean grey), and they're judged and feared for same. they can't escape their bodies and powers, and neither can they always control them.

tomorrow night hopefully we're gonna go see the 2tongues and some other spoken word group. but i wanted to link to mango tribe. which is a dopely designed site as well as a wonderful place to visit. and i want to get her cd. are there things like the collective in sd or la? there must be. find them i must.



also tonite is the opening night of the sure to be fantabolous blindstreet by weiko lin. and of course, x-men two opens tomorrow but i'm sure you've all bought tickets already so i won't link to it. as you can see, there will be lots of sitting and observing this weekend. as well as lots of cheering i'm sure. i love that feeling, walking out of a theatre, with ideas running through your head, all excited after seeing something really really good.

i never call you my bitch or even my boo there's so much in a name and so much more in you. i have some issues with people using the n word. but yet i'm okay with people using words like bitch or ho. well, not okay with it. i would rarely call a woman a bitch or a ho but i would call my guy friends that. cuz you know, they're guys. but then i had a talk a while back with a friend about the use of the word nigga or nigger. so am i being hypocritical by calling him out for his nigga use while i use words like bitch or ho?



i don't think so. here's why. bitch and w(ho)re have actual definitions aside from the slandering. a bitch is a female dog, a lewd woman. a whore is well, a whore. when you call a man a bitch nowadays, you are pretty much calling him a woman. the dictionary defines it as such "a man considered to be weak or contemptible." to bitch is also to complain. now, all these definitions of bitch are deragotory in a sense. because you are calling someone weak, contemptible, complaining. and all these traits are negatively associated with the female. which is not cool. however, isn't using bitch in this manner the same as calling someone dumb? i mean, some people, are actually dumb. or some people, actaully are just whores. or some people, are actually just bitches. this in my head is one explanation for why bitch and ho, and other words i can't even think of right now, are "acceptable."



"oh, so now we should celebrate bitchy, vicious, deceitful, manipulative behavior, just because it's a woman perpetrating it? you aspire to be a real bitch, a 'difficult woman,' do you?"



but i'm against the use of the word nigga. a few articles debate the merits of using the word as a part of pop culture. hip hop and rap have popularized the word and now you have little kids of all backgrounds, colors and ages screaming nigga this and nigga that. i'm not against anyone's freedoms to say whatever the hell they want. but i don't have to like it. my friend told me that in a sense he uses it as a term of endearment. "when i say, 'what's up, my nigga?,' that's kind of like 'what's up, my brother?,'" says joe plaskett, a 23-year-old from new york. that's basically my friend's explanation. nigga as a word is now part of pop culture, slang, and it is no longer offensive.



i would have to dis-concur.



nigga is in our tvs, our music, our generation as a slang term. but it is not the same as "dawg" or "homie" or anything else. there is a long and oppressive history behind the word. if you knew and understood what the word stood for, or how it's been used, i don't understand how anyone could still use it. "n-i-g-g-e-r — 'nigger' — is a term coined by white supremacists and slavemasters who intended to harm the psychology and the social standing of black slaves." btw, nigga, niggaz and nigger are the same thing. u can't separate words by mere spelling formalities. nigga is not the lite and fat free version of nigger. they are the same. in my humble opinion.



the question arose among us of "who owns words? who owns what? who owns anything?" if as a fan of hip hop, you see your favorite hip hop artists say "nigga," why can't you use it too? i'm a little in the gray about who can use the term, because right now i'm probably biased because i'm like, "ok, you might use it if it's a part of your culture or if you're black." but i'm not sure if that is quite right. but i do know very clearly who shouldn't be using the word. people who are using it flippantly. without an awareness. people who wouldn't use it in the company of african americans. people who do it to be cool. or with it. or because it sure sounds fun.



specifically, i'm very against it when little asian boys use it. by little asian boys i mean anyone between the ages of fifteen and thirty. i know this is my bias. because it's "my" community, i presume to know everyone's backgrounds. and i presume that for the most part, if you're asian, you did not grow up with nigga as part of your everyday slang or as a part of your culture. if you did, cool, sorry, use it all you like. but i make the assumption that when a group of little asian wannabe thugs get together, that not a one of them is using it as part of their cultures. i could be wrong. but if i am, i'm willing to apologize for my overgeneralization.



i don't think anyone should really use the word. period. but i understand that i don't know much/enough about the world, about cultures, so i can't say that it should never be used. i think that people should be aware and educated about words, all words, and then decide for themselves if they want to use them. because after all, we do live in a free country. this talk could go on forever. and i'm trying to avoid hypocritical land mines so i really need to think through the dynamic of my thoughts on the n word as relating to words like bitch or ho or who can use what words in what context.



one dude said this, "my name is jimmel williams, and that's what i want to be called. i don't care if another black person calls me it; i don't care who calls me it. it's offensive. "i'm not your dawg; i'm not your homey; i'm not your nigga. i am jimmel."

two sites to see. mr gene kim has a site now. for his news, views and career. he makes music. he makes beautiful music. so go listen to him. and say hi. and tell him, "i love you gene!" he is also the featured hyperwest site of the moment. this means not so much in the big scheme of things but in my little pathetic world, it's kinda big.



and also. chrissy and anna have started snip-its. possibly the funniest damn thing since pink mic. what do you guys eat up there in michigan? whatever it is, it's funny.

one for you, two for me. friends, such a delicate balance. it's never a very technical thing but in the interest of science and the six hour workday, let's break it down a bit. what is a friendship in purely scientific terms? a friendship is an exchange. an exchange consists of giving and taking and two way roads. two people who engage in one sided giving/taking are only using each other. using each other is only okay if once in awhile, both parties get tooken.



a friendship is built upon exchange. when you first meet someone, you have to extend them something to show your interest in friendship. be it a cookie, an invitation or some intimate detail. conversation is not considered an olive branch, because it is conversation that helps to determine if you want to bother trying to be friends. from that first meet and greet step, people move into the state of exchange. the purest way to think of this is by using the analogy of emailing.



you email someone, it sits there waiting for an email back. your friend emails you back. now it's your turn. and so on. both of you start to match each other in length and quality of emails. the more you email, the more you share, the better friends you become. in this way, favors amongst friends are exchanged. one for one to the point where equilibrium in the friendship is reached. then you might go into the deep dark world of random emails, perhaps alot from one person, with few responses from the other, or you just email less frequently, adjusting for other social callings and various random factors. a friendship should always be like this. exchange. nobody needs the other, nobody demands anything the other won't give. friendship becomes give and take.



of course, over time, a true friendship neglects to keep an account of these exchanges. you gain faith that you will receive back at some later time when you give early. friends build up a line of credit and there is no need for cash to be exchanged at each interaction. of course we must, as people, take into account the personal giving and taking that each individual is capable of. this is all very relative of course. if i give my twenty percent to you, it might not be the same objective twenty percent you give to me but there is understanding that a friendship is built upon relative measures of how much each one gives.



this too is key to friendship. some people are givers. some are takers. we have to look at each person separately and not compare them to other friends but to how much they give/take based on their own individual makeup. when you demand that one person perform like another, then you are overlooking the fact that not everyone is the same. this can lead to problems of course. but if you feel like you are getting "ripped off" in a friendship, big drama might ensue, or you might just decide to drop your friend. because if the friendship no longer serves both parties, it is no longer a friendship. friendship is not a business but it is a capitalistic enterprise.



so to summarize. we meet. i give. you give. i take. you take. i give. i give. you give. you give. i take. i take. i take. i take. i take.