I'll be your entertainment today ladies

There are times in your life when you can see a situation and the different forms it can take very clearly. It almost becomes like a multiple choice question, will the next few moments play out like plan A or plan B? In these moments there may be very plain and simple measures to be taken which will force the plan of your choice to surpass. In other more unfortunate cases there is little you can do and anything you try to do has almost no guarantee of changing the outcome. I pondered this as I stood in front of my cash register today at the beginning of our little Thursday lunch rush. I like Thursdays at work of a few reasons. 1. Thursday is chicken pot pie soup day, and I like that soup. 2. The incredibly attractive group of training dental hygienists that with German efficiency and Italian predictability come in to eat every fourth day of the week. There are about six of these little dentally trained vixens and yes I do get a tad giddy inside when their little wolf pack pops in through the door. As I watched this host heavenly hygienists get in line I became excruciatingly aware of what was going to happen. Plan A. I remain the sole cashier and I get to take the order of every single hungry lady in that group. The line was growing as expected during the lunch rush and to my right is an extra cash register to be used in this very lunch rush occasion. Plan B. If this extra register is made active by a fellow employee, I will only treat at most half of those scrub wearing beauties to my bad one liners. So with this terrible reality facing me I try my hardest to get the line as fast through the ordering process as I can. Price accuracy suffered for those ten minutes. But as I said earlier, sometimes you can do everything possible and it just won’t stop the titanic from smashing that iceberg. My shift leader boss, bless her efficient soul pulls herself up to that day-damaging device of a cash register and runs the line right through. I am so disappointed inside my beating heart, that when three of the Cleopatra’s to my Alexander self come up to make their order, I’ve got nothing. I can’t shoot out one witty line to any of their mundane comments that will leave them a bit surprised that yes; I can turn a phrase and your head all from behind this counter. It is not like I will ever ask one of these girls out, I order their food and they eat the food. Dinner and a show is the effect I am going for, not their digits. But there will always be another Thursday and another chance to impress.

Professional Opinion

Take a moment and ponder upon this interesting question. If you have a “Professional Opinion”, what would it be exactly? Of course to have any fun with this little jitta-bug we would have to dissect the compound phrase of Professional Opinion. The noun (person, place or thing) is definitely “Opinion”. These tend to be annoying and quite easy to form and toss around, drawing as much avoidance and annoyance from surrounding people as the common flu. If you are not careful you may even confuse the two because really they act so much alike. “Opinions are the limits of one’s abilities to find enjoyment in things”, I so botched that quote but I feel it gets the point across. But why not see the magical transformation that opinion performs when it is conjoined with the adjective (thing that describes a noun) “Professional”. Professional is derived from profession, or the task that we perform for certain reasons ie. To buy milk and eggs, help your fellow man, get out of the house, or to stay on parole. Dumbing it down and straightening it out, this service that you perform is so valuable that your superiors will pay you do to it. Thereby making you a professional at whatever task you are performing. Your technical knowledge at your profession and physical capability to do it is better than anyone at the receiving end of your service, so you say. Think professional athletes and just know yours is less interesting but possibly less vain also. Now we add them together, and at last your opinion is no longer avoided like a common house-hold plague. It is actually required at moments and nearly always respected when used within your sphere of professionalism. Our opinion has eaten its wheaties or spinach and now its power is really, well powerful. If you really want to bend things in a new gravity then notice that every moment of history is spurred and created by someone’s professional opinion. In reality, acting upon the professional opinion. Hitler was believed to have a sturdy and worthwhile professional opinion on the supremacy of one race over others. Take it too far you say, I think not. Doctors have so highly regarded professional opinions that they have developed a unique way of sustaining or opposing it amongst themselves. “Start him on two drops of nitro-selaphane and put him in traction; do you concur Dr. Hill?” Lawyer’s suits and plumber’s wrenches fit and clamp thanks to their professional opinions. They are paid to do their service so whatever savoir-faire they voice in conjunction with their profession now has enough weight to sink it to the bottom of any lake. So what is your professional opinion? When can you voice it? How powerful is it really? My professional opinion encompasses all that can be inquired about and announced from behind a cash register. I can be your swaying vote towards choosing sourdough over wheat to go with your tomato basil soup. I will be the reason you took a penny out of your own purse instead out of our Styrofoam penny jar. You would have not bought that overpriced pretzel if I had not professionally up-sale’d it to you. I really don’t want to dwell on the current sphere my professional opinion allows me, but more on the life long quest to up-grade and augment the value of our professional opinion. What is college but really a place that once you jump through their hoops you can say to potential paying bosses, “I have the makings of a nice professional opinion. This professional opinion will make our clientele pay, and therefore line your silver pockets”. But do not under any circumstances take anything written here for a cold, hard, unforgiving fact. Because as much as I try to fake it, no one is paying me for this so my opinion does not have a monetary value. In the vainest sense, it does not have value.

Dime a Million

There is a man and his name is Mr. Jones. By all conventional reasons anyone would think that Mr. Jones is a normal man. Anyone would be right for interpreting the conventional reasons in that manner. No he is not the literary image of the normal man, in the way that by reading about him you see that he is so normal in his ways that he becomes an odd conglomerate of all joe-schmo stereotypes. He is just a regular man. This man won’t be found in any story as the focus unless; of course he is acted upon by the inciting incident. Please keep in mind that this man is not so normal that he is found odd, as would be shown in any cinematic fashion. His lifestyle is stereotypical but not to a humorous degree. Some days he eats toast for breakfast some days it’s frosted mini-wheats and some days he is just too busy in the morning to eat the most important meal of the day. To put it in the clearest way possible, this is the kind of man that you would meet when you went over to a friend’s house and the dad came home from work. You’ll think, “oh Mr. Jones is home”. While he will think, “oh so we are feeding one more kid tonight”. Normal like that. The inciting incident of course happens on this man’s birthday. Some of the guys at the office bought Mr. Jones a lottery ticket. As inciting incidents go, Mr. Jones is a lucky man and wins. Mr. Jones is one of those silent types while winning 7.3 million post-taxes. Lots of pushing and shoving goes on between cubicles, as his friends rejoice in the turn of events. Those not in the vicinity only slightly raise themselves out of their roller chairs just enough to see over the cubicle wall but still bending at the knees as a personal reassurance that yes they are “still working”. As explained before Mr. Jones is the quiet type in these situations, he just can’t let these shocks sink in quick. Mr. Jones is elated as the boss in what he thinks was a very smart managerial decision sends him home for the rest of the day. Wouldn’t want the whole office going ape and losing a day’s work to one of the state Gov attempts at easing budget troubles through chance games. The guys from the office promise to call later to see how Mrs. Jones took the shock. The Misses is home already getting ready to pick up the kids from soccer, she of course lets out squeals and tears and just can’t stop hugging her lucky husband. Somewhere during the 6th or 7th go over of the bright yellow decorative winning ticket, Mrs. Jones catches the catch. Wither the winning of the lottery or the appliance of the catch to the life of Mr. Jones is the inciting incident is up to any organized and informed discussion. The catch, in fact can be caught easily in the title by which it is named. Dime a Million. Now there has to be someone or some group that makes up the themes for each lottery game. Obviously this lottery brain-trust thought it witty to change Dime a Dozen and to Dime a million. Whoever thought it would be a good marketing ploy to actually bring that phrase to a literal fruition must have a slight grudge against humanity akin to any Genocide mastermind. But yes the Jones couple caught onto the catch that the 7.3 million post-taxes they would be receiving would be completely in dimes. How the completely everyday Mr. Jones will adjust to cede inciting incident will be the topic of discussion in any future post.

Mean that Yoda did not...

One thing that I really really do not like at all is those posters that are nicely framed in a stainless steel square in all offices. You might see them when you go in for an interview or in the front office at a high school. These are the posters with a stunning panoramic view of the some awe-inspiring natural landscape. Near the bottom about 4 inches above that stainless steel frame is a confidence inducing word with a possible explanation or a famous quote by someone who historically possessed the described virtue. I am not a fan of these things one bit, it would not surprise me if the same man who came up with these “hangable” pep talks was somehow related to a high ranking propaganda official in post under Lenin. They just give off that same vibe, the hollow and devoid of roots attempt to urge the working man to new heights of productivity. It’s not someone you respect that is telling you to work harder it’s a laminated dime a dozen picture of the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is respectable but hardly in the same ways. With this said I do find myself walking the same line when it comes to pep talks. I am in writing this trying to slice the pep talk in a different direction, I really just want to explore in my head the power of trying.
Yoda has been quoted and I feel slightly misinterpreted quite often whilst training the young skywalker to use the force. The X-wing is stuck in the mucky ponds of the dagoba system’s mired surface. When luke says I’ll try in response to the newly presented challenge, then Yoda throws down the big one, “No, do or do not, there is no try”. Here in lies the misinterpretation, luke tries and fails and then makes excuses and receives a guilt trip that only one strong in the force can provide, “that is why you fail”. Now anyone who says I’ll give it a try will receive this quoted line probably from one of the friends who owns three lightsabers and has a lot more free cash because he doesn’t get to take many girls out. Yoda I feel was condemning not the act of trying but the fact that there was no confidence attached to the try. There is a large difference in saying you’ll try and giving it your all just before you fall flat on your face and, saying you’ll try only because you are not confident that you’ll succeed. The difference between the two is the first is a statement of an attempt regardless of the outcome; the second is a statement of an attempt with an excuse if it fails. The beautiful nearly atoning power of all out attempt without care of failure vilifies the pathetic excusing statement that people use when they fear failure so they don’t give a definite statement.
With this said I owe everything to trying. I don’t think there has ever been one time in my life where I performed successfully on the first attempt. Failure, though it will never be a choice state of being is something so beautiful when it is seen in its true teaching form. It only requires the drive to get your broken face back above your shoulders and going at it again, and then failure becomes your teacher. To finish this off I would propose two quotes from both parental units in my life to be made into one of those inspirational socialist posters. The one from my mother will feature a picture of Chicago just after the fire, and it will read “rock bottom is a college education”. Father’s will feature Hiroshima just after big boy dropped in and just four inches above the frame it will read, “school of hardknocks”. To which I will add my own, “Try/fail = Try/succeed”.

promenade, pomade

Some may walk with jugs on top of their head others swagger. There are those who look down at their pendulum swinging feet, and those whose heads swivel from side to side trying to take everything in from both the left side and right side of their world. Strides vary in size and speed and general skeletal alignment, and quite possibly due to personality traits also. It would be so very redundant of me and not really interesting in the least to go into how our walks are just another venue for our special little selves to show their colors. It would sound too much like our late and great philosopher Forrest Gump, “you can tell a lot about people byyy what kind of shoes theeeere wearin”. The analytical itch I would like to scratch today is just the things that everyone does to keep themselves busy while they march on and on. The most obvious and popular alternative to a bleary and mundane march is graciously available to us by the great gods of Apple Inc. and Sony, which are ipods and other MP3 players. With those quite trendy and quite pathetic (as far as sound quality is concerned for me) little ear plugs you see n’importe quel person jamming to latest #5 single on the daily rotated itunes top 10. Personally I do not like making my strides with headphones on. It may come as a surprise to some that this is the truth for me since I fashion myself quite the music fiend. But it’s simple when you have headphones on you put up “walls”, I don’t need or like many walls especially while out amongst fellow crowds. I don’t like these isolating walls to such a point that my chief source of promenading entertainment is breaking the other side of these walls of surrounding walkers. It is not that I don’t think that other people are entitled to their privacy and self-imposed isolation, I have no opinion on if it’s a bad choice for them or not. I am just someone who is in need of entertainment and my needs supersede your walls in the book of figga. I love to look every passing soul right in the eyes. I need to make a good second or two of undeniable eye contact, even more than that, eye conversation. This is so true with the efforts I place in conversing with females in the few moments before she passes into non-existence again. I am not content with a quick “oh she saw me looking at her, look away” glance. I will keep looking at her till she looks up and then there will be smiles or an attempt to make the stare even sharper, more focused. Nothing huge or anything but then possibly a smile from a stranger is huge or someone not scared to look you in the eye can change the day, I don’t know but I can wax hopeful can’t I? With the guys I’ll just say that I tend to be a tad more hostile in my “wall intrusions”. By hostile I mean I try to make them feel a bit awkward to be in my presence. A time proven method is to sing a bit above “under your breath”, the absence of headphones will perplex them while your stare will make them think you are serenading them. I don’t know what I would even really honestly do if someone guy was staring me down from 20 feet away singing “lovin, touchin, squeezing”. You just can’t prepare yourself for that and that’s why I am glad I am the one singing and not receiving. To delve into this further would bring into question the way people hold their hands and arms in midst of stepping to point B. Or where they look and how do they really walk. I would like to touch on this but I have got places to walk and really and truly honestly, I would lose interest in writing more on this if I kept going. So continue the march my friends, do what you need to get there and don’t forget that you can have fun getting there

it and Trees

A young couple was once never a couple. Before the couple there was a man and a woman. Both were in the everyday mortal process of living, loving, learning and dying. They had grown up in normal homes and were in the process at the same time of growing up in a new and not really normal world. It is called the real world. But they were doing ok considering the circumstances. The man once a boy had dreams and aspirations some came to be, some he grew out of and others he held on to for a long time. He never really was on an active search for it in those days but he found it and like anyone else, he loved it and her. But just like anyone else he subsequently lost it and her. It hurt but just like many other souls that have passed before him, he moved on and past it. The woman once a girl had dreams that she held on to, those dreams never seemed to fade and tough times only made them stronger. She like many other girls held a curious preoccupation with it and its hideous strength. She has thought she had felt it but was never sure over many attempts. A sudden and brutal blow to her search attempts would have only solidified her determination to find it like an iron caste. But the slow and constant realization of its absence dulled her over time; soon the search was not a top priority. She had moved on and past it.
Obviously at some point these two people who have been through and survived it, or the lack of it, found each other. There had been no nervous breakdowns from their previous experiences. Tears may have been shed but without cinematic flair these two had felt that hideous strength in a wrong way, but have moved on and past it. They were cautious acquaintances just like anyone who has been cut by a knife won’t run their finger down the edge one without care. Obviously these two grew closer and closer. Her head she learnt fit well on top of his chest while they lay on the couch at nights. His name coming from her lips could leave him immobile for just an instant out of shock that she meant to say it. It was a very exciting affaire for the two involved; it was what they had or had not felt before but wanted to feel none the less. But to any other individual this union would leave them totally apathetic and not entertained. There could be no Oscars won by the most talented and disturbed method actors for their portrayal of the couple. Though influenced by celluloid dreams it was that run of the mill.
One of the great things about it is the spontaneity both in its arrival and how it allows you to be so. The couple relished in the thought that at any moment an opportunity to make a long drive to a city of some cinematic standing could appear. Silver screen spontaneity would be a shared passion of the couple. One night while walking down some pathway that of course reminded them of that one scene in that one epic romantic film, they spontaneously decided to do a very unoriginal thing. They carved their names into a tree. It was a thing that made more sense than anyone else outside the couple could understand. It was just like how correspondence letters between lovers should be scented. Or how both people need to be soaking wet when they kiss in the rain, and not before. It is just one of those moments when they are no longer just two people in an everyday relationship. Their union is no longer an object but an action, a moment. It is just simply a moment that is bigger than they are. Through the tough times in the future they will recall the point when there was nothing but their names in a tree and how surreal it all felt. Because it was so much bigger than any problem. They will get back in the car and their lives. They will laugh and fight and grow, but at that big moment it was just two names representing two shared feelings. Mutual feelings.

Suicide and Bathroom mirrors...

Ok the suicide thing has nothing to do with this or really any other blog but I just wanted that word to be big and bold across the title. If anything to illicit a response from any poor and bored soul who would have the misfortune to fall upon my prose. But I move on, really this blog is going to be written out of pure boredom. Without much in the way of a great emotional push to stamp out a few paragraphs on a subject or an event, this blog will be posted. This will shock you but mirrors are only metal and glass, those who are uneducated in the characteristics of light in reflection and what not try to hold in your weeps and whines. I’ll keep typing while you all reel from the monstrous paradigm shift I caused.
I have three mirrors in my room. Before the word “vain” runs through your cerebral areas, I didn’t put them there. There are two that make up the doors to my closet. They are from the ground up to the ceiling mirrors. The kind that you are real thankful to have to see if your shoes match your outfit or if your shirt is tucked in all around. Then the default bathroom mirror. Ever since I moved into this little joint these pieces of metal and glass have had an adverse affect on my daily routine.
I wake up in the morning either groggy or quite refreshed depending on if I had something big going on in the morning that I was afraid I’ll miss so I kept waking up every 45min thinking I slept through it. But no matter what the first thing I do after the “dismissed” has been pressed on my cell alarm, I turn my head to the right. Why? Because my bed is on the opposite side of the room from those big mirrors. For some reason I really need to see my hair all goofy and that face that says that my brain is at a 3rd grader capacity of thought right now. I will do it every EVERY morning. When I sit up in my bed and put my feet on the floor, you bet I am looking straight forward at my hunched over self in the mirror. At some point I’ll go into the bathroom because its morning (things need taking care of). But you bet at some point during the whole scenario I will take a look at my white butt in the mirror. I’ll take off all the warm clothes I was wearing but before I jump into the warm shower, yes you bet I will look at my naked self in the mirror. Just a glance because its cold. Move on to further down the day, anytime really if I am at my computer which is again about a foot and a half from the big mirrors, I will look to my left. I will do it at least once every website I visit. I do it when I am surprised and I need to see that. I look when I can’t think of really what to say so I look at myself and ask if he knows what to write because I don’t. I am always right there for myself with tons of moral support its fun and quite comforting. To top the pseudo-vanity off at the end of the day, when I brush my teeth right before I hit the sack I take off my shirt. I suggest anyone to brush their teeth with their shirts off. You see muscles working and flexing it really is an all around fun deal. But there you go, I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy looking at myself in the mirror….. from time to time. If I didn’t want to look I wouldn’t. But the case is that in my little world of a room there is always and mirror and I find that I really really REALLY often look at myself unconsciously. There’s my confession and my blog all in one for you.

It was a night called "Taco Tuesday"

It was a surprising sight even from the parking lot. As we pulled into the marginally lighted parking in front of the location that was to be our scene for the next two hour’s theatrics. I was under the impression that this was an upscale joint. Where one could end up paying for a Mexican mainstay done to the cliché American twist with a ten dollar bill and not be getting more than a dollar and some coins in change. But not this night and not here. This night was regaled in a beautiful alliteration of Taco Tuesday. To see the correlation between Café Rio and the burger joint in such films as Grease and American graffiti on this one wouldn’t take too much effort. But as a new comer to this type of situation not even the mountain cold humming through my tie-dye shirt could quell the anticipation. I was going to be in an after school hangout spot…. When everyone is there ACTUALLY hanging out. We walk in and enter immediately into the winding line to the taco ordering bar. Bright colors and a virtual representative of every sub-culture group and clothing brand are present. Not a soul is above 28 years old and no eyes are stagnant, the amount of energy being put into “looking around” could rival the Hoover dam. Our crowd of one male and two females evens out and soon titters over to a heavy male presence that one should expect when the female presence is a attractive one. With food ordered and seats taken, the conversation begins. Stories are told, with intermittent bouts of dancing in seats and general giddiness. Is everyone trying their hardest to be witty and comical or is this just we are supposed to be? Is anyone trying to impress another at the table, or is this strictly mellow? I didn’t think these questions while I was there I was too busy looking at a young man that bore a horrifying resemblance to Sting. In this situation who couldn’t resist the opportunity to show their knowledge of the Police catalogue and sharp wit at the same time, I couldn’t. I usually find myself in the position, sweeping the floor under tables while a moment of pure detachment and total social immersion happens feet away. I found myself detached and immersed as explained but not sweeping the floors. Did I think of this while I sat chatting and listening and googling over Sting.2, no I did not I was detached and immersed I told you. Why would anyone want to ruin that with super analytic thinking?

Did jennifer lopez make me feel romantic?

Ok the title was a left over from an attempt to blog last night that thank the good lord on high i was not able to nor willing to finish. With that i throw you my readers a curve by keeping that subject's title and then move on to something completely different. HIGHSCHOOL. Yes highschool was a regardless of how you remember it, terrible experience wrought with insecurity and over-exposed and overrun emotions. Good times were had but still it was a rough time thankfully it was only four years long. But what i want to touch on is how those memories and feelings have a great and almost entertaining tendency to come back with a song. I recently refound a song that i had lost in the computer transition post-mish, that i was very fond of during my times at Awkward High. This song found its place in my ipod quickly and has pretty much never ceased to play. Not only is this song just plain good but the nostalgic rub from its words and delivery leave me completely raw. It wouldn't be right to explain this song as a love lost ballad. More like a love that was put on its knees and got two to the head only after every awkward misstep was taken and noticed by the concerned parties. Listening to this i go all the way back to when i drove in that car and brooded over how nothing made sense and it never could and i'll never recover. Harsh stuff but i can't help but love how i can remember that when they play those cords and say those words, nothing else could bring it back. Life makes alot more sense now but at times no, but it will make more sense and when it doesn't i yes, will recover. Times have changed but just how anyone enjoys going back home to see their roots and how it formed them, i enjoy going back to those memories with these certain songs seeing how those helped mold me. regardless if i wanted it to or not it did.

Rusty, sucky and i am over it

Its been awhile and i am rusty but i am moving on. Tonight is going to be a short splurt on goals. I am in a new environment experiencing a increasingly familiar scenario high in this mountain valley. New place and repetitious oppurtunities combined with ample alone (or lonely) hours makes anyone think of the future and what shes agreeing with the catcher back at home plate to throw at you. The thing about goals is that one can let them run away, to points that not even the high water mark could reach. Whats even more riskaaaaaay with goal making in a day dreamy moment is that there are rarely plans to go with it. Its like i am sitting in a nice cushy rolling chair in my pent house 31st floor office before i even built the other 30 floors. Dangerous indeed. But it would be a also viable mistake to make the first 30 floors not knowing that i get to stop and sit "high and pretty" on the 31st. So to finish off this lack luster i do declare. I will have both my 31st floor and yes the first 30 with it.

Opinions on the opinionated

Ok this one is just going to be an attempt to thrash out an idea that screams through my head each time I take a break at work and crack open that daily journal. Political analysts, political journalists, people that get to write on a daily or weekly basis on all things political. We’ve got our liberal lovers of the left side penning out their daily bread-winning articles. Spectrums away we see the Conservative Counts of Rightsylvania ruling their ink with an iron fist. I couldn’t even try to come up with some crazy alliterated names for all those occupy the middle ground. But I bet you all get the picture. But I bet some of you are like me in asking, “Why do we need all that?”. No way that I am alluding to an absence of need for all those boys inking out our politic’s stat line day in and day out. I am also not saying that I don’t enjoy what all those opinions do for my 10 min breaks and 30 min lunches. But what do those opinions do for me? I know I would get in a huge fight with dad if I had to listen to Rush Limbaugh with him in the car, because some old native san Francisco fart (oh yes he’s liberal) tells me all the anti-American phrases of Rushy in his weekly article. I didn’t like ol’rush and I don’t like ol’keitel either. Why because I don’t think opinions of others need to be accepted by me, they think and write like its necessary. The only people that are going to enjoy Rushy’s gum beating and Keitel’s carpal tunnel angst are people that have accepted their platforms. This just rubs against one of my most deep cut grains, what is the point of constantly talking, writing, singing, drawing, blogging, filming or any –ing about how stupid someone else is? Instead of huge first world donors saying to Africa, “look we have had our fill of giving you billions and you’re still starving, we are tired of it”, we need to pull the same stuff on those who expect us to bleat like sheep and accept their views as ours. (if you feel so inclined). Let me explain how I think political cartoonists are the truest of all political analysts of all time. Look at a cartoon next time and you will notice that more than half the time it depicts something yes but not personal agendas and opinions but a well known political situation and then lets you make up what you want from it. I might be getting hypocritical here but let me make sense of all my jabber. News should present facts and opinions aren’t evil. But I don’t want to be a opinion regurgitating, absent of all original thought, ink tainted finger tipped boy that will never have anything to say but “this person is stupid” because someone I worship wrote, sang, blogged about it unceasingly. Do I feel original because I got a beef against those who make a living off having beefs, yes I do.

Hot plasma = vlogs

Have you ever watched a video blog or a “vlog” that does not use excessive cut and paste editing. I mean we could look at the other extreme and watch the Daily Show interviews. Which I am almost sure are taped by a camcorder sitting on a table off in the corner, still love ya john. But as good and cutting edge as some vlogs are I can’t help but thinking that these guys could not be as well spoken (scripted), direct (edited), and clear (having bold “linkable” titles for all their opinions) as they seem. This is one of my two points I would like to make on the “vlog”. Couldn’t anyone be as well spoken and wise in the world’s ways if they had a whole day to film whatever they really felt on a subject, you know really dig it all out of yourself? Then take another day and make the most powerful one two combination oration that even Ali couldn’t bob and weave out of with imac’s final cut pro editing tools. Couldn’t anyone do that? Anyone can if I can write this. All that I am saying is before we roll out the forum red carpet and worship in their holy comment boxes we should consider that with unlimited editing and outtakes our opinions just might dazzle others also. Which brings me to another point I’d like to make on the vloging subject. Why is everyone they talk about stupid and they are geniuses? Sure I am making a very very broad statement. But we all know there isn’t a shortage in stupid things done be people and because of that there is also no shortage of people ready to pounce. Pounce in a well edited burst of razor the sharp contrasts of “you are dumb as the nails that I will pound into your coffin, cause I am a vlogging genius”. Frankly I grow tired of this, apart from being informed of stupid yet funny things that people do there isn’t anything there besides a pretentious college grad who juxtapositions as he rants. I will do dumb stuff, you will do dumb stuff and most importantly the person who will vehemently terrorize the normal man for his less than stellar moments will do dumb stuff. So he has no moral high ground from which to throw his negativity. But also why shouldn’t such a genius be able to create anything more original? I dare not give suggestions they might be catalogued as stupidity or even worse, used…… To sum all this up, vloggers make some paradigm shifting stuff but don’t forget how awesome you would sound if you could edit and thread all your awesome comments into one continuous flow of burning hot wisdom. This plasma like stream of vlogging will have real original content if you avoid all temptations to skewer your fellow men. You have opinions and you will have many more stupid mistakes, make sure your opinions (house) are not (of) built upon others (cards) stupid mistakes.

I faught a french philosopher and we didnt win.

All is fair in love and war, right? So the saying goes at least and our reality shows us the veracity of this statement very frequently in our daily lives. These two forces are so powerful and interact with each other in the same ways they interact with each of us. But they do have their differences which are seen and felt as we dismantle them both. The words “just and unjust” can be applied to the phenomenon of war but not to Love. Love cannot even if one were to call it morally right or wrong be described as just or unjust. For the ways that one gains or experiences love cannot be judged as unjust or just, it is simply human to desire something to the greatest extent. War on the other hand cannot be created off the same natural pre-programmed assembly line. War is not a desire but an action that follows at least but not limited to one desire from one thing to another. How to classify war is a whole other ball game. Rousseau theorized that Just or Unjust wars will occur by following the real or apparent interests of a people. Therefore the real and apparent interests must be classified as just or unjust, before any attempt at classifying the entire act of war can be made. Rousseau saw war as a completely unjust affair created by nations following only their apparent interests to the battle field. However, due to war being a beast powered by many, it cannot ever be dismantled then catalogued as a whole. History will never get the whole picture, the present contenders will never know the real interests of everyone involved, and the future will always hide necessary details. Making war all that more dangerous.
How does such a power to wage war and bring death for a desired and expected end, come into the “hands” of an intangible entity produced by the written social pacts? Rousseau believes that this power stems from nations acting on their own self or apparent interests. Whereas the real interests of the sovereign are not acted upon or even considered. Under this conclusion it would be easy to say that all war is an evil action bent on carrying out a dangerous and unneeded desire. Simply put all war is Unjust, every war and every act preformed in it will be viewed by anyone at any time and classified as evil, wrong and unjust. But where do these two separate interests come from and how are they according to Rousseau designed to define the status of war to the ages and masses? These two “interests” were spawned as many other Rousseau theories were by the first mistake man made in the beginning. By the beginning he meant our allegedly terrible first mistake to leave the basic state of nature. This state of nature as Rousseau describes it finds man in total freedom and innocence, needing nothing that cannot be provided by the simple charity of nature. Rousseau even dared to rub against every accepted religious grain at the time by even saying that man himself was not corrupt from the start. Stating in the face of every religious creed offered that man is not stained by the “original sin” performed by Adam in the Garden of Eden. Simply, “Rousseau was the first to blame evil not on our conflicted nature or on God but on human inventions, above all society” (Who lost Who? Pg. 480) Rousseau believed that man or more so that the society and its minions will corrupt the once innocent and free man. He saw man corrupt himself through his created society. One facet of society that corrupts man explained Rousseau was interdependence, or cooperation to an unhealthy level. Men began to cooperate because of the obvious advantages in efficiency they experienced. Increased efficiency means accumulation of wealth and this gave rise to the lauded evils of Private Property. “From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: “beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all of us, and the earth itself to nobody!””(Re-reading Rousseau, Pg. 249). Rousseau believed the creation of private property fused every feature of human nature with possessive and corrupting qualities. Robbing men of their ability to choose good or evil, who portray themselves as real and apparent interest. Clearly stating that our real interests represent the good and anything else is an impostor or apparent interest and evil. Not too be bogged down in this demobilizing swamp of a theory, Rousseau explains that in creating a way to protect Private Property and prevent the tiny quarrels created by it, men created an even more terrible monster than property squabbles. Nations were born and bred to protect the rights of the citizens located within their own lines. But what happens between these titans that are created to protect and act on the interests of once innocent men now corrupted by envy and the endless desire of more then what is their own? Because now we have on a scale much larger abroad the exact situation that men tried to avoid at home. Nations powered by millions obeying only one rule, “the Right of the Strongest”. This is where the terrible power of the apparent interest is seen; when a people pursue an interest that is not really necessary to the bitter and bloody end. With no clear rules even in the case of many treaties and complicated checks and balances meant to create authority, war is inevitable. Because to the Nation anything that furthers its self interests is “just” in its own eyes. To boil Rousseau’s theories down to their bones, man lost his innocence by creating a society geared toward the protection of man’s private property. This society corrupts man by enhancing the inequality between those who have all and still want, and those who have nothing and still are in need. This same society is also a monstrous brute called a nation, who will butt the heads and bloody the noses of all other nations that get in the way of its misguided and evil self-interest. To Rousseau its simple black and white and nothing gets blacker then the eternally unjust war. Who could argue with such a solid theory? Anyone could look at any historical war and see how Rousseau’s theoretic bones only get more muscles added on with each act of war. In today’s wars and rumors of wars we see those evil and vain apparent interests carried out by the men who have all but still want more. But the answer to, “who could argue with such a solid theory” it is anybody. How could any one person even a great French philosopher determine what is an evil interest and what is a real, necessary interest to be carried out? War springs from so many souls in so many different predicaments that it would make it impossible for any person with foresight, hindsight or even eyesight to make the classification. Yes it is dangerous to say that there will never be anyway in the future, past or present to classify completely if war is the “right” thing to do. But is it not just as dangerous to believe any group or one person’s opinion on just or unjust war? A few examples may clarify what was not seen by Rousseau’s tunnel vision. Of course war’s generated interests may be that of a vain and envious war mongering aristocrat. But does the ethnic slave not see an act of war against his enslavers as a necessary interest for himself? Yes the world is corrupt by gainsaying, greedy societies, and war will always be an ugly matter to be avoided like as it should be said, war. But do not forget altruism, or the basic human nature that was never lost, a desire to help fellow man. The incredible theories of many of our philosophers often seem to lack redeeming values while they wallow in the world’s evil and corruption. It would seem just as horrible as war itself to declare that all men who gave their lives in a war did so unnecessarily. War is such a terrible thing that it feels wrong to say that good can come from it, and that there can be situations where death of others is the real interest of another people. But there is no mistaking that the argument over the destruction of one man to free another in the name of charitable love towards mankind exists. It is also legitimate as well as Rousseau’s theory that all war is an unjust affaire that accomplishes nothing of real worth to anyone. So war cannot be classified neatly into either of the two categories, war will always be ugly and should always be avoided at the highest costs. But the inability of man to see clearly only his real interests or simply know between good and evil will cause all that is evil and complicated. Even to the great complication itself, war. War therefore is a mess morally and physically, but it will get things done. Up till now sadly no one has ever known and possibly will know if these are the just or unjust things to get done.





References.
Title: Who Lost Nature? Rousseau and RousseauismAuthor(s): Jonathan MarksSource: Polity, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Summer, 2002), pp. 479-502Publisher(s): Palgrave Macmillan Journals
Title: Re-Reading Rousseau in the Post-Cold War WorldAuthor(s): Torbjorn L. KnutsenSource: Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Aug., 1994), pp. 247-262Publisher(s): Sage Publications, Ltd.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1964. The First and Second Discourses. Boston / New York. Bedford St.Martin’s
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1968. The Social Contract. London, England. Penguin Books.

Shiny Penny songs

I could really think of a million blogs I am supposed to write due to all the kind of crazy things that have happened lately but that would be predictable, something I try to avoid like well… predictability. How do we feel about cussing in music? That’s a legitimate topic question I suppose. I am now listening to a band that is cleverly named. They are called A Wilhelm Scream. All you kids who have noticed that Lucas and Spielberg use the same sound guy who plugs the famed Wilhelm scream in each movie, must accept the bands cleverness. Hailing from Massachusetts these guys perform some pretty catchy, technical music. Why cover it up, they don’t; they are a punk band. But these guys say F*%k at least 7 times in one song let alone the whole album. Yeah that is kind of low standards as far as personal expression goes for me. But I am not put off by it even marginally. A four letter word can be a tempting brain puls………… ok simply I used to cut down forests with my jagged vocabulary. Now I am trying to find more original ways of letting anyone in voice range know how I feel at those specific moments. Back to music though. Cussing in a song is a great moral choice, not because you might offend someone but because you might make you song suck. It’s really that easy with our four letter vocabulary. No matter what kind of vocal attack our Mc’s and throats will take while testing our censors, it will shine like a penny just out of the washer. You will notice any cuss word, in any genre with any sonic offering our artists are pumping through the speakers. Those symbols (ie. %&#) might just make or break the groove you are going for. Lets face it unless you are 11 and this is the first time you listened to your older brother’s cd’s you shouldn’t think “oh he said $h*t, so cool I love limp biscuit!!!”. I mean a good ol’ bleep can give a good forte feel to a line. It can’t hurt, if it is done right. But let’s face it when you drop more F-bombs than what Dresden got in real bombs because you are a little punk band with an “attitude”, I won’t be pumping my fist. So what if you are in some fake extension of the kindergarten club you had on your Brooklyn side stoop (starts with a “G” ends in “unit”), if you are mad at someone 50 motherf%@ker will not get me on your side. So with that said, write a song that’s honest I probably won’t really care what you say because you aren’t an 80’s love Lorne god, (ie. every breath you take). If you think your shiny penny vocabulary will make me buy or download your stuff take the risk its art, but know that you are risking it with musical critics with no credentials like me. Besides I can’t sing along with only every other word.

Oh Shuffle you are the apple of my eye

Oh Shuffle I love thee.
I have like a million and by that I mean like 3 different ideas for what I could write but that I am not going to thrash out. I have had a particularly good week socially and a less than stellar week employment wise and an overall good week in the “find old and fantastically valuable vinyl records in the closet” category too. I could spear chuck rhetoric about sticking life out and it will reward you in the end. My prose could be a face melting “common sense should prevail” anthem to the tune of corporate management. Or I could BS a less than average splurt over how I wish I was a roman conqueror because I know I would be the most fantastic looter ever since the last sacking of Rome. But I am going to talk about an adjustment, an adjustment so minor in size but so major no enormous in its effects in other categories I must accord it, it’s due credit. I have recently changed every music playing device I own to the shuffle mode. I was raised to the strict code of complete album listening. I start an album and then I finish that album. No gimmicks no, not even playlists got anything but complete albums. Singles got played always third, seven or tenth. Because they are put there, nothing else to it. This is not bad nor out of fashion or out of my life.
But I am alive, alive with anticipation for the soon to be known following track. Could the gentle piano closing notes of a Tears for Fears song and its accompanying calm floating atmosphere be torn to unrecognizable pieces by Hardcore east coast juggernauts Shai Hulud? Bad Brains pass off to their devoted spawn in the form of Glassjaw. I even once and I kid not got an Erik Clapton strato-caster God and Reggae prophet Bob Marley singing odes to the sheriff they shot and the deputy that got away. The palpable anxiety in those closing seconds of one song only to swing back your head in self satisfaction as you applaud yourself on the good choice of the follow up, makes me alive. What if I am not in the mood for the follow-up, skip one or two shuffles forward or back, problem solved. This has in its many small moments spread over my week made it a more pleasurable experience than usual. So to close I terminate just as I commenced. Oh shuffle I love thee.

The Pivotal make it point

Blast from the past , not really the past so much as 9 years ago. Yeah that s right I just remembered how much I loved that matchbox 20 song “bent” this morning. So I downloaded the whole Mad season album. Hence the blast I am having from my budding years of newly released musical appreciation. But I do have a hankering to talk of love tonight. Yes it will take a bit of self-control to not fall into a pit of self pity but I think I’d like to get something off my chest. It has been an idea I have had for awhile but in watching the new episode of Scrubs tonight another example of its truthful existence appeared. The pivotal make it point. Even though I have thought it out much I still have no catchy name for it. It is pretty self explanatory too, and also really prevalent in our cinematic mediums. Take our normal guy, by normal I mean everything and everyone that isn’t so desirable for who knows what reasons to women that he is no longer forced to normal ways of “gal-gaining”. i.e., band front men, soccer players and movie directors. But for your normal guys such as Peter Gibbons in Office space or Mike Peters from Swingers or even Ted Buckland the lawyer in Scrubs. These men are average, with as many good qualities as weaknesses that can be viewed by the opposite sex. How did they manage to get with such girlies as Jennifer Anniston or Heather graham or the ukulele girl? They get lucky because they were present and brought the necessary attributes for a pivotal make it point to take place. For Peter Gibbons it was his and Ms. Anniston’s love for kung-fu movies. Mike Peters made it because 1. He could swing dance with her 2. He too was coming off a serious break-up just like the gal. Ted found the pivotal point through the funky music they were throwing down in the hospital. Its very formulaic, boy and girl meet after much tribulation on the boy’s side. Through some way a converging of their personalities is found and exploited in a pivotal point that helps our boy to hop over the friend fence and approach the large oak doors to the dream situation and girl’s heart. Self-pity could take over but I will be stronger. Though I have not had the extreme luck nor screen writing privileges in my life to experience such a romantic comedy moment, I don’t lower my arms in despair. I am to believe that with a lot of work on my part and a large freaking shipment from lady luck, I can find where all that is me converges on a meaningful level with a lady. There I can plant my foot in it with confidence and pivot so my angle of attack is unblocked all the way to her heart. Just as our distinguished British pep talk of all spades Churchill would say in such a situation. I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. To which I add, I have nothing to offer but likes, opinions, witty remarks and a hopeful pivotal point. Self-pity avoided.

Chino challenged

I am running on about 5 hours of sleep. This isn’t an excuse for a soon to be iffy attempt at a witty blog, more like a statement of surprise. I am not tired at the moment and I got 3 hours less than usual, exciting isn’t it? So fun thing today, its work related yes again but I feel that it would be fun to jam out here so why not? I don’t know coffee. That is a statement ringing in truthfulness. Anything that would end in –chino or latte, doesn’t register. Even if it started in “I” and ended in “talian soda” I wouldn’t have the slightest idea. To paint my total and unrelenting lack of knowledge of the coffee bean spawned world further, I use this violent image. If you stuck me on the edge of a pit kneeled me down and put any type of firearm to the back of my head and a mocha chino and a latte into my two hands. Then ordered me to tell you which one is which by tasting them, risking the obvious ends if I was wrong. I would end up at the bottom at that pit with my miss-chosen latte running out of my mouth and less brain mass then before. I am the last person you want at the espresso machine.
As fate would have it we do have an espresso machine. We are a bakery and a sandwich/soup shop. To have coffee is understandable even necessary, but to have the whole latte, mocha chino, espresso unit complete with Italian soda side rack is a little off. Not many people think “hey lets get a nice French vanilla turtle at Le Boulanger”. No one at all. I am sure that they would go straight for the fountain drinks if they knew who was going to be throwing together their caffeinated beverage in the cups without the trendy orange straws (sorry no dutch bros here). I am not saying people are incredibly dumb, they don’t know my chino handicap. I mean even if I did know what I was doing our lattes would still suck because we are a bakery. But my whole rant comes down to the proposed solution. I feel it would be in the costumer’s best interests to have a nice hanging sign right above our cash register that reads something like. “Don’t expect a latte when you order it”

Bombers and closing shift

So I sit here experiencing a mediocre world and a near perfect world on the other hand. I mean I am watching a 2002 era Ms. Spears dance on mute while jamming Stankonia. She is quite the fetching gal but the knowledge of what was to come for that little belle just predictably stops it short of the best of both worlds. So I thought of like 7 ideas of what I could write tonight, don’t worry I wrote them down. I also day dreamed of how sweet this all would be if it worked out. But what am I going to write about today? I work the closing shift at the bakery/restaurant that employs my services; I work it every day I step into that hotspot for Silicon Valley slaves and retired bored persons of all general kinds. Such is the life of a college student, and I love it. Closing shift is something I would of avoided earlier but now that I have worked it 3 weeks straight, my conscious nor limbs could handle the separation. I liken it and it took me a while to analyze it enough to the point of semblance of another lifestyle but I finally did, it is like a Bomber crew in WW2. How so you ask? Those bomber crews lived a dual life, when the southern major was sitting on his field somewhere in the picturesque country side of Britain he could sip all the mint juleps he could put down. But the next day he could step out of his B-52 fortress into the sky thick enough with German flak and walk home. Yes my closing shift is like this. Some days what a piece of cake or bread pudding which I can steal for you if you ask. Other days I am running with 22lbs of left over bread on my back hoping around the corner Vanessa didn’t just mop. I got no complaints right now. I could come up with a million in those “flak filled” moments but these are the cards that are dealt for us fearless employees slaving out the waning hours of the fiscal day. All I can hope for is that if I were to ever get a date with a girl, laying out plainly that “if” is intentionally there. I’ll be sipping my julep instead of losing two limbs to ack-ack the enemy of 11:30-7:30 can aim at me.

etching away at that first hour

So I read somewhere that if you wanted to be so good at something that someone will pay you. You have to practice around 10,000 hours at the activity to be that good. Now I don’t think that I have put in anywhere near that number for the money that I am receiving at this point in exercising my craft as a cash register operator. But I think that it is safe to say that this rule of 10,000 applies to the jobs and careers of a higher nature. No more necessary but if anything a little more competitive in trying to secure. I couldn’t think of many more awesome options than a happy life supported by a career as a paid writer. So it’s pretty obvious why I am writing this, and it is becoming more and more obvious with each stroke of the key that I need the practice. If not just to teach my fingers where the desired letters are, I blame France and its non-linear keyboards for that. So I have no real topic for my first rant and I don’t feel like BS’ing one. There is a lot going on in my head from topics of which I can strike out into blogging history. My style also in question, “how am I going to be original amongst all the other bloggers?” Will I just rant about what annoyed me that day, will I offer solutions? Does anyone want to hear my opinions on movies and music? Does time spent on writing assignments count as I march to my 10,000 hours, if so will anyone want to read recycled homework papers? The questions couldn’t stop if it wasn’t for that merciless clock at the bottom of the screen telling me it is time to turn in. So as I say ok this is the last sentence and last Bad Brains song, I am excited. Could this be the creative output that will please me and in the best case scenario impress girls that I am really smarter and a better bet than my facial structure relays? We will see, I don’t know if 10,000 hours could make females make that deduction on my account. Thanks.