musings on being punched in the face

I'm very proud of myself for sorting out the time stamp for the posts, so it no longer appears that I do most of my writing in the middle of the night. I fear this will help my enemies better track my movements, but I have strong faith in my ability to fight my way out of any situation, and am thus willing to take the risk.

In truth, it's likely a very good thing I don't have enemies intent on my destruction. I mean, there's a certain obviousness in a statement like that, but I suspect my ability to fight off enemies is a number of standard deviations below the mean. I have been in very few physical fights, and probably none if the criterion for a fight is one where you realize what's going on quickly enough to fight back. I also suspect that to successfully ward off those intent on ruining you, you need a certain degree of tenaciousness and organization. I worry that fighting off my enemies would lead me to miss too many episodes of Survivor, and so I would question the value of the whole exercise.

Individuals who are drawn to boxing mystify me. Some people seem to enjoy being hit in the face. I would have thought evolution would have dealt with these people's ancestors severely - frankly, I think this presents a serious challenge to the evolutionary view. I was reading tonight about Mitochondrial Eve, our common ancestor. Maybe it just so happened that she had all these fantastic genes that provided her with amazing adaptive advantages, plus one that led her to enjoy being hit in the face. And now we're stuck with it. I suspect it's related to the gene that leads people to become interested in the lives of celebrities.

I would write a poem to connect these random paragraphs, except I strongly suspect it would be in the form of a rude limerick. I'll leave it at that for tonight.

I could sure go for a Pepsi right now. Not an actual Pepsi, of course, but the IDEA of a Pepsi.

I was thinking again of the discourse of national identity when I saw Vladimir Putin on t.v. the other day. He was saying there was “no going back,” or some such thing, when it came to Russian democracy. It’s trying to establish this line that Russia Is Democratic, so that any actions it undertakes cannot be anti-democratic, because we’ve already passed the point of no return.

I guess what I’ve found weird for a long time is the notion that democracy and capitalism are natural partners. There’s a good example in the film The Corporation that argues against this. There’s a town meeting about starting a Wal-Mart or some such thing, and somebody says – if you don’t want a Wal-Mart, then don’t shop there. You know, the old vote with your money thing. And somebody responded to it that voting with your money is not democracy – democracy is one vote per person, everyone having equal say. But with capitalism, the system is designed for some to accrue huge resources – especially the sort of oligarchical capitalism practiced in North America.

I saw a scary ad on a website recently. It was a Wal-Mart ad, which said that if you want The Facts about having a Wal-Mart open in your town then go to walmart.com/thefacts, or some such thing. I mean, first of all, if someone claims to have The Facts, I think you should be very suspicious. Noam Chomsky has this brilliant line in The Indispensable Chomsky (this might be the actual title, and then again, might not) where when asked why we should believe him he says we shouldn’t, that we should go check out the information for ourselves. I had a weird moment while reading that book where he was talking utter shit about the social sciences, and that made me think that the more I understood about the topic he was discussing, the more I didn’t like what he had to say. But his comment about process, about checking things for yourself, just seems indisputable to me.

Perhaps I’m on this line of thinking because I saw Motorcycle Diaries today. I find the fascination with Che Guevara interesting. I really know little more about him than I learned in the film. But around here, you see tons of people wearing Che Guevara t-shirts. In fact, this film, about Che’s discovery of social injustice, was being shown at this trendy little theatre where wine would be brought to your seat, on demand. It’s the medium that’s the message.

Now, for fun, let’s make a poem out of these four loosely connected paragraphs:

I know that my leader is Officially Good,
And just, and free, and young, and sexy.
I know because I was told,
By those I can trust more than myself.
I know to be afraid of the people.
That my neighbour’s dark nature,
Is held back only by Good Leadership,
And Great Men.
I take pride in knowing,
When love is wrong,
When hate is right,
When I am not afraid.

ennui

On only the third day of maintaining a blog, I'm beginning to understand why writers write so many self-serving pieces about writer's block. I'm pretty sure Gwen Stefani has a big hit to that effect at the moment. I think I'll submit an article to an academic journal titled, "This postmodern article refers to itself" and see if I can pull off a similar trick.

It really blows my mind how self-indulgence is held up as such a model. It is for this reason I cannot bear to watch Oprah Winfrey interview anybody. I also cannot bear to hear George Bush claim that he believes in accountability. Sure, he believes in it for teachers and migrant workers. But, the reins need to be pulled in on the SEC, wild fucking renegades they are.

Anyway, feeling low on inspiration and time I've chosen to post a slightly edited version of something I wrote a long time ago. I worry that I'm dipping into my coffers too soon, but I'd like to end each post with the sort of satisfaction I ended yesterday's with. Soon, I'll have more time and hopefully original, quality material will become the norm. Either that or I'll be writing a post about adjusting expectations. Here goes...


Run as fast as you can,
For Friday Night.
Your Night.
To do what they want you to do.
To hide and forget,
To avoid the embarrassment,
Of Sunday Night's Dream.
Of your finger pointed at a dark infinity.
A scream that does not come from you, But is you.
You have not fulfilled the promise of my childhood.
I want another shot of Botox.
I want the Family Values Meal.
I want to fuck enlightenment.
I want to eat God.

we are the random thought generation

The state of jazz makes me sad. It has this identity of rebellion (I saw one of the Marsalis brothers getting very huffy about this, reminding an interviewer about its bordello origins), but any new releases are so dry and antiseptic. They seem like shadow puppets of the original - a monochrome, 2-dimensional representation. All music that survives will eventually be classical music. They are building jazz-only concert halls. I suspect prostitutes, to whom jazz owes so much, will not be welcome there. Be patient, there will be rock and roll halls, very safe, clean places you can take the kids to without being afraid. I like electronica infused jazz, and indeed once thought it had danger in it, but its usefulness for 30 second commercials ended that abruptly.

To me, it's about how the system absorbs dangerous elements by making culture highly profitable. Culture must pander to survive, long-term. It became obvious when Bob Dylan was purchased by Victoria's Secret. Nowadays, Shrek seems rebellious - oooooooh, they took shots at Disney. Yes, they took shots - that you can only see if you know Disney as well as Disney wants you to know them. Everyone's a winner.

Was it better when New Kids on the Block at least pretended it was about the music? I really don't know. Now, punk bands thank their fans for pushing their album to Number 1, and the void grows.

You have to be careful of the stories you tell yourself. Australians are famous for their suspicion of authority. At least, they're famous for the story that they're suspicious of authority. Sure, there's truth in it, but the story is crystallized while the truth is fluid. This, I guess, is the power of identity - if my story tells me my actions do not represent submission to authority, then it does not matter what actions I take. I am free and strong and not afraid.

How do you know who you really are? More importantly, how do you know what you really are?

Australian drivers

It seems to me that Australians have a well-earned reputation for being laid-back. Yet, their very viciousness is the reason this website now exists. See, I was coming home from indoor beach volleyball (highly superfluous in a nation with such vast beach space) musing about having absolutely nothing to post on a blog. While crossing an intersection, this reverie was interrupted by a shrill honk. I had been called out. My crime? Crossing the fucking street. With not only the crosswalk sign providing indisputable pictographic evidence of my right of way, but also the drone of the crosswalk buzzer, so that if my driver-friend so happened to be blind there were still sufficient clues to solve the mystery of what a pedestrian happened to be doing at an intersection, goddamit. Yeah, Aussies see blood and broken bone instead of pedestrians and don't mind letting you know. I cannot tell you how often I have fantasized about a driver brash enough to contest my right to walk across the street such that they slow down long enough to hear my views on the subject. Of course, in reality, my brain would freeze, my face would fade to pale, and my squeaky voice would grind out a couple of meager, insufficient sentences. But tonight, since I have time, I'm going to write out my answer and pin it to the inside of all of my pairs of underwear so I'm ready when the day comes. Here goes.......


Look, asshole, I'm SOOOOOO sorry that I delayed your vital trip, to obtain life-saving insulin, I'm sure. I realize that my flesh and teeth would have annihilated your deathmobile's metal frame, so I do SINCERELY apologize for my threatening dominance gesture of taking my right-of-fucking-way. It's rude enough that all these hippie pedestrians are slowing your noble push for global warming, urban sprawl, and bloodthirsty oil wars. So, please, avoid situations like this in the future by placing 20 foot poison-tipped lances on the front of your vehicle to deal with problems like myself. Fucking prick.