:: The Blurst of Times ::

:: 2.28.2003 ::

I am an Ironic Military Supporter.

I say I don't support the military, but time and again I find myself partaking in the militaristic ways traditional to the US Army, ironically. I have a military style haircut, I keep militaristic rigor in my daily routine, I wear army pants (cutoff), adn I carry a WWII map satchel everywhere I go. But I don't support the army, not not-ironically anyway.

But: The old lady is flying into town tonight, so this is the last you'll be hearing from me for a while. Yup, gonna be pretty busy now that the gal is here. Busy, um... talking politics. Yeah, that's it, talking politics a lot, hopefully several times a day, ooooh yeah, politics...

Gad, I bet my mom reads this.

"Monday night I'm makin' Jen, Tuesday night I'm makin' Bren, Wednesday night I'm makin' Jasmine, oh why can't I be makin' love come true..."
:: Freddy F. at 1:15 AM [+] ::
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Here is my advice to you, because obviously checking your blog once every twenty-four hours qaulifies me for a trip to hell: kill the dog, the world is better off without them. Just kidding, no one kill anything, that would be evil. I want to tell you to move out, so I will. Move out, cough up $100 and get out, living alone rocks, and if you have friends to call, then it's just all the better. Moving won't take that long anyway because you don't really have that much stuff and I'm sure you know someone with a truck you can borrow. There, that should get me atleast up to purgatory.

Good for you for using the system to beat the system. Hang on to your money and make the most of the time you have it.

Congratulations to Straight Outta Junior High for getting their semi-original TEOTH played on Futurama last night. It made my heart warm wtih joy. And just so you know, I'm still working on setting up places to play out here, but it's truly slim-pickin's.

Enough with the links already, time for bed.

"But at once I've started blowin' somethin' up, just to watch it fall, pick it up again. See the pieces right in front of me..."
:: Freddy F. at 1:38 AM [+] ::
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I feel good about myself because I emailed my grandparents to "just say 'hi.'" I'm such a good grandson.

And on a completely different note: It is nice to live alone. It is less nice to be alone. But I do spend less money, so that's a plus.

ESPN is holding a rights debate on SportsCenter. A girl on a basketball team won't look at the flag during the National Anthem and some coaches are upset. However, according to ESPN, the "bigger issue" is the right of coaches to allow students to play when they disagree on "rights" issues. Glad ESPN could nail down the "big issue" for me.

"She said (she said), cool is always easy in a shitty school..."
:: Freddy F. at 12:30 AM [+] ::
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C'mon blog, don't fail me now...

Last night I tried to blog, and the thing was down during my peak blogging hours (curse you pacific standard time zone), so you got nothing out of me. So tonights edition is going to be a little extra long, commencing with things that I have learned in the last few days and ending with an email I sent to my aunt regarding my reaction to certain liturature and culture.

I feel like this was a big weekend for me learning things: I learned that while it can take $5 and five minutes to fix a tail light, it is going to take three weeks, $75, and possibly two people to ifx that mirro I busted off. I learned that while Omaha thinks that Omaha is where Malcom X was born, Spike Lee doesn't agree. Moreover, Spike Lee does a good job of opening my eyes. And on the topic of movies: If it were possible for American Psycho to not make much sense for 2.5 hours, it makes even less sense if you try to just watch the last hour and a half adn think that is the whole movie. I learned that there are few things as depressing as war and growing into elderly, and I am afraid that I will not be albe to hide from wither forever. I learned that I know none of the words from REM's "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" despite the fact that I have owned the album for about a decade. And I've learned that a weekend spent reading is still not a weekend wasted.

An interesting theme that I picked up on in Electric KoolAid Acid Test was that it was only for a split second that any idea was in a pure state before it became corrupted by pragmatic concequences. To begin: the idea of acid tests, both by Kesey and Leary, was to experiment and study the results. But when everyone else started doing it, there appeared flaws that were inherent in the whole process. Or: The idea of filming a bus ride across the nation in a pure state, versus the results of that bus ride and the technical requirments necessary to actually make a bus ride (of any kind) have any sort of success. And finally: the whole idea of acid tests as group events was a natural extension of Keseys own plans to experiment. But the implications of exposing thousands of people to mind-altering substances obviously had detrimental effects, even before the question of legality was brought into the picture.

I started to see this pattern in lots of different things. One of the first was the pseudo-punk culture in which I immersed myself in high school (I only say pseudo-punk [or post-punk] in order not to offend any of those who still claim the "only" punk was PIL, the Sex Pistols, or the New York Dolls). I got into bands like Rancid, NoFX, the Exploited, etc, bands that didn't get radio play, that no one had heard of, that still released stuff on split vinyls. To me, this was pure, unadulterated, IDEAL. Then, as the punk movement grew, more adn more bands kept cropping up, it got easier and easier to reproduce similar sounds, and the whole scene, everything that I had once taken pride in, got watered down. Like Kesey, the further time progressed in the movement I surrounded myself in, the less able I was to control that movement, and the less I enjoyed the movement.

I have seen things since then: the progression of Landscape Architecture from an extention of architecture a century ago to the experimentation adn ecologic conscience of the 60's (suprise, suprise) to now where it seems like we are being churned through to be little more than CAD jockeys and draftsman and the principles, the IDEAS that once defined a trade are beign lost. I have seen "Steal this Movie" based on the life of Abbie Hoffman, adn the IDEALS that they once stood on, crumble over time and even as the movement gained popularity, it was falling apart. It's like silly-putty: in a glob it's stable, has strength, has form; when you pull it, it becomes finite, stretching to cover area, but getting thinner and thus weaker. (A trite analogy, but sufficient).

I read these things and think about the essence of ideas and, beign 22, wonder how this all impacts me. Everywhere around me I see things like they are all watered down, like global warming has already risen the seas and its all been dilluted by the ocean water. I want to be someone who has IDEALS that they live by, someone who creates something for people to believe in, the glob of silly-putty. But it will never work to model myself after someone, because if I could do that, then I am simply taking what they have already done, and am no better than the bands riding the punk rock coattails to fame. So I have to come up with something totally new. As Kesey said, everyone has to graduate, to move on from doing the same things over and over again and create soemthing different, continue to experiment and grow.

"My friend drove off the other day, now he's gone and all they say is you gotta live 'cause life goes on..."
:: Freddy F. at 2:53 AM [+] ::
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I have bad news today. A friend of mine from high school is being deployed to the Middle East to fight the Rich Man's War. I will not play the sympathy card on myself here, but rather I'd like to say that this is a solid blow to the nuts of how I feel about this war and war in general. It seems like this is just too close to home, but maybe that is how everyone feels and you can bet your sweet ass that "idiot son of an asshole" in the white house isn't sending any of his kids or relatives to Turkey.

In any case, it is too late for words now, the time for talking has past and I have wasted it. Godspeed to you, Matias. Be safe and give me a call when you get home...

"I've kept it in my heart for over twenty fucking years. And all that time washing away with the stench of my spilt tears..."
:: Freddy F. at 11:23 PM [+] ::
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It is one of those times where I feel like there has been a lot that happened since I have last blogged, lots of things to write about, lots of thoughts, but I just don't feel like writing much right now. Maybe I'll try some kind of stream of consciousness kinds of things and just write everything I think...

I am terribly sorry about your dog. There is no dog on earth that I knew longer, or was able to tolerate more.

And I'm glad that you ahve decided to go to court, and do soemthing constructive with that fat check you are writing them, and that you aren't going to jail.

And the conservative me says not to quit your job just to travel. But I've never been one to just up-and-leave and maybe I have led less of a life because of that. So take what I say with the proverbial grain of salt.

Thank you for doing me a big favor and making my ol' lady happy. Maybe that sounds bad...

Yours is quite possibly the funniest blog that I read on a day to day basis. Good writing - do something with that.

This is the best blog I read that I don't know the person at all, and I feel a lot like this is eavesdropping.

"Eaves?" "Oh, you do the crossword too?"

For the first time, I hosted my parents. Not "they came to visit me" but they came to live with me. They stayed under my roof, slept in a bed I provided, ate food I bought, I showed them places, I played the host. This was one of teh best and most stressful experiences I have had since coming to the Northwest - if you have never done it, try it sometime. But if you live alone, eat canned soup and raviolli every night while you sit on your couch and watch tv, only have one bed, don't know anything about the town you live in, and work twelve hours a day, you may want to wait until things smooth out a little.

On a related note, I have now done almost everything touristy in Seattle, and it is a pretty cool town. Now I need to do all the resident things.

On a further related note, Seattle is an expensive town.

To clarify things, once and for all time, I am against war. Yes, I am opposed to killing people. I think it is wrong to kill people for power, politics, or almost any other reason. It amazes me that so much of the world can protest what one single person is doing and he is able to remain unfazed. But maybe if you never have the mandate of the people in the first place, whether you have it now or not doesn't really matter much.

My cable company is fucking me, and I'm not going to take it anymore. Syonara, HBO and Cinimax.

The best part of sharing a laundry room with three old women is that it is always very clean, and pretty nice smelling. No homeless guys pissing in corners here.

I need to stop working so much, but I have no one to delegate work to. I am the epitome of what the welfare system will be like. There are lots of people who are supported by my (and only me) work. Three days into the week and I have 47 billable hours. But it's rough all around, ponyboy, so I'm not complaining. Some places aren't even hiring, some LA's flat out of work, and some people won't get jobs. I thank my lucky stars I have mine.

Alright, I gotta fold my cloths before they wrinkle.

"He looks around and around, he sees angels in the architecture, spinning in infinity, he says 'hey, halleluja!'..."
:: Freddy F. at 11:36 PM [+] ::
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Not much today, more work - it's becoming the norm. I'd be lying if I said I'd rather be anywhere else right now. Tomorrow I will meet and possibly interview someone who would like to join our firm as a full-time employee upon his graduation in May. Does this make sense to anyone? Why am I interviewing him? Well, I wish him luck, though it probably won't take much to impress me.

On a totally different note: I'd like to welcome this good friend to the virtually wonderful virtual world of blogging. Let's all give him a warm Internet welcome. [For future reference, he's now on my Links to the left, sorry Mr. LlamaGuy.]

And just in case there is any question: I am anti-war. Tell our king, if I could vote, I'd shut him down. Peace out...
:: Freddy F. at 1:34 AM [+] ::
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Fourteen hours of work today + soccer at 5.30am tomorrow = Me sleepy, no bloggy-bloggy.

Sometimes I just have to say that I love my friends. I love you guys. Thanks for being associated with me.

"I'll bring home the bacon bits, we'll make our parents grandparents, I'll take you out fro breakfast at night, and then we'll go to sleep..."
:: Freddy F. at 1:38 AM [+] ::
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I am screaming up the Landscape Architecture Corporate Ladder.

Three Fridays ago I was eating lunch with a guy whom I could only refer to as my role model and idol in terms of the late-twenty-something-LA-with-a-girlfriend-and-a-house-and-rad-design-skills that I hope to have in five years. Last Friday I was shaking hands with one of my all time role models and idols in terms of making-an-impact-on-the-world-of-design-in-a highly-practical-and-academic-fashion. Today, I was told that I would be managing two projects that are starting in the next week or so, one project which is an extension of a project that the former aformetioned role model / idol was working on.

Alas I am no more like Neil Peart today than I was yesterday. Eh, you win some, you lose some.

"Oh my god, my god this can't be happening. God tell me, tell me this isn't real. I can't beleive all that I have forseen is finally happening, I can't afford a single second lost the way I feel..."
:: Freddy F. at 12:24 AM [+] ::
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Yup, another weekend.

Three things of blog-worthy note:
1. I think the most dangerous thing about modern cars, with all their safety features and air bags and crash-avoidance-systems, is that they all have automatic transmissions. Once upon a time, with manuals, it required two feet and two hands to run a car. Anyone lacking these minimal necessities was unable to drive an auto. Now it is possible to drive with a single foot, as long as you can pull the ol' knee-driving. It seems like people ahve developed this flase sense of bordom about driving, and they are inclined to "fill" their time with other things like eating, drinking, talking on phones, reading books, and whatnot. If you were stuck using all of your appendages, I think there would be a lot safer driving. I wonder if there is a statistic to back me up on this.
2. It seems like cinematic satire has fallen a long way in the last 20 years. I saw "Not Another Teen Movie" the other day, and while it created small side-spoofs of famous scenes and movies, the actual story of the movie was exactly like another movie, to the point that in the end, it wasn't even mocking anything, it was actually just replaying the movie it was supposed to spoof. Yesterday, I watched "UHF" which did the same thing with the little side-spoofs, but the storyline was relatively original (albeit trite and predictable), and it continued the same humor throughout the entire movie. It was original thought. Thus better.
3. I bought a KMFDM vinyl yesterday. It wasn't on my list, but I haven't found anything else in this town that is on the list, so I was getting discouraged. and I wanted to expand my horizons a little, I've heard some of their stuff, but I thought I'd grab some of my own. I bring it home and much to my suprise, it was a 12" single. D'oh. D'oh indeed, my friend.

Hey, no links!

"Who's the opposition? I'm seven years down. The human spirit prevails..."
:: Freddy F. at 11:38 PM [+] ::
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On February 2nd I had the following revelation: It was not February 1st any longer. Fuck. At this point in time I made the following mental note: Call him today. The mental note was lost in a jumble of crosswords and laundry soap and suddenly it was Friday. So I apologize for not making The Call. The Call will be made within the next 48 hours.

Tonight could be a most important night in the chronicles of my life. Background:

My second year of college, I wrote a research paper on a Landscape Architect Mr. Richard Haag, a designer based in the Pacific Northwest known for his incredible ability to uncover the genius loci of a site. I followed this paper by creating an analytique based on his personality and work. While I did not realize it then, the knowledge that I gained from this project was highly influential in shaping who, what, and where I am today, and am planning on going tomorrow. Suffice to say, Richard Haag is a hero of mine, a mentor and a teacher. If I were a writer, he'd be my Vonnegut; if I were a painter, he'd be my Dali; if I were a singer, he'd be my Dylan.

Tonight I had the opportunity to go to the University of Washington (pronounced: You-Dub) and listen to a panel of Richard Haag, Grant Jones, and Laurie Olin, an astounding trio of designers with awards, recognition, and honor beyond anything I have ever come close to in my life. I listened to their words and found a place I wanted to channel my passion, by creative drive, my motivation, and my life. After the panel discussion there was a time for drinks and socializing. During this time, with much thanks to my boss, I was able to shake hands and speak with each of these men about their impact on my choice of vocation. Moreover, I was able to give Richard Haag an 8.5 x 11 copy of my analytique, which he handed back to me and asked me to sign before thanking me and placing it in his inside jacket pocket. Unfortunately, I do not have Vonnegut's literary skill, for I find myself at a loss to describe what I felt then, and what I feel now.

This night renewed my drive and my passion. I am born again with a goal to achieve. Like da Vinci's concept of perspective, I have a single point of focus. Dramatic - I know - but this is the boost I needed to remind me why I spend my days the way I do. The essence of hope.

"If you can feel what I'm feelin' then it's a musical masterpiece - hear what I'm feelin' well then that's cool, at least..."
:: Freddy F. at 2:30 AM [+] ::
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Wow, that guy was fucked up.

So here we go again. I guess you could say I was talked down from the proverbial ledge by some good friends, and some experiences that I have had in the last few months have lead me to a greater sense of who I am and what I think.

I find that I am a very passionate person (for better or for worse), and sometimes this passion leads me to rash behavior. And as I grow older I find myself looking back and defining my "maturity" as the times I laugh at what I have done, one part sheepish, one part proud, and one part whimsical for an innocence I have grown out of.

Let this then be the wall that I mark the growth of my maturity on. Read it, don't read it, I care not. As a matter of fact, in my quest to deny things that quantify me (define me) I am going to lose the counter. No need. I know who cares by who calls (understanding that he is exempt. Everyone else is welcome to peek in my windows when and as often as they wish. I promise to keep the curtains parted.

In the meantime: I'm busy learning new customs, new streets, new songs, and new faces. I'll try to keep you posted. I'm realizing that I look forward to each friday with greater and greater zeal. See movies come out of friday, which means that ads for them decrease drastically after they are released. I couldn't wait for Kangaroo Jack Friday, and now I can't wait for Shanghai Knights Friday.

"Nasty dog, doggy-dog... Thank god it's Friday..."
:: Freddy F. at 1:04 AM [+] ::
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