:: The Blurst of Times ::

:: 12.17.2004 ::

A Little Clarification on Yesterday’s Topic, or The Tuna Fish Crusade

* I actually only thought about that stuff for part of the day. I spent more of the day thinking about this:

At about 5.30, when I put the milk back in the fridge after pouring a goodly amount on my Raisin Bran, I noticed that a bowl of tuna salad was missing from my fridge. I looked again. It wasn’t there. I knew I only ate half of it on Saturday, and I knew exactly where I set it when I put it in there.

Instinctively, I blamed my roommates. Those fuckers are always stealing my food. But then I remembered: I don’t have any roommates.

I quickly recounted the meals between then and now. Dinner Saturday - out; brunch Sunday - cereal; dinner Sunday - BLT’s; dinner Monday - Leftover chicken tacos; dinner Tuesday - Combo’s and a three musketeers (I was working)... Here it was, breakfast Wednesday, and I hadn’t eaten that tuna fish. I checked the dishwasher - only one bowl - that would have been Tuesday breakfast. And I had run the dishwasher Monday morning, so I couldn’t have eaten it Monday night. So it had to have been eaten before Sunday night. I know I didn’t eat it before 11pm on Saturday and I know that Sunday morning it was in there, next to the leftover chicken. And I was out Sunday afternoon until almost dinner. Then I came home, read a while, got lit, fried bacon, ate three BLT’s, watched the simpsons, called my mom, got lit again, and went to bed.

But now that I think back, I woke up Monday morning with terrible heartburn, usually indicative of late-night eating. Could I have sleep-eaten that bowl of tuna fish salad? Then I counted my bowls. Six. Didn’t I used to have seven? Is there a missing bowl? Does that bowl have tuna salad in it? Is it someplace around my house, carelessly discarded in a somnambulant binge? Will I come home after the holidays to a noxious stench of rotting fish and miracle whip, not to mention the relish?

I checked the recycling - two pieces of foil - one leftover from last week (fell out in the truck on my way to the center) and the other from the tuna fish bowl. So it had been unwrapped. So I must have eaten it, right? But I wouldn’t have eaten it plain - I either need crackers or bread. Check the bread... looks as I left it, six slices light on Sunday night. Check the crackers - AHA! - one box almost gone, the other box opened. Totally uncharacteristic of my usual simplified and tidied lifestyle - I would never open a container of something without the prior container being emptied or combined with the new container.

Finally, I came to the conclusion that I must have eaten a half-bowl of tuna fish and Wheat Thin crackers, late Sunday night / early Monday morning, rinsed out the bowl, put it in the dishwasher, and tossed the aluminum foil cover in the recycling.

And with that, Encyclopedia gave Sally a knowing wink, while Detective Brown handcuffed Bugs Meany and took him downtown to book him on the charge of stealing Wally’s accordion....

The End

:: Freddy F. at 11:59 PM [+] ::
:: (2) comments ::

Oh Man. We’re Fucked. Or: Bill O'Reilly is huge douchebag

So I started off Wednesday thinking about the Federal budget*. Not the budget so much as I was thinking about the dwindling value of the US Dollar. I mean, it’s falling. And why? Because everything that’s supposed to back it up (everything that I once thought would last forever) is falling to shit. Anymore, giving the US government a US Dollar’s worth of your blood, sweat, and tears is about as valuable as giving a fifth home mortgage to a crack fiend. Seriously. No one wants to be the dude getting stuck holding the bag stuffed with greenbacks. I’m talking Germany post Treaty of Versailles, Wall Street on October 30, 1929, and Mexico for the entire decade of the eighties. I’m talking open your wallet and wipe your ass because the only thing keeping this bubble from collapsing is the hot air coming out of the collective Washington mouth.

But I digress. What I really spent Wednesday thinking about was why we’re in such a bad spot*. I mean, speaking realistically, with a few notable exceptions, the people running this nation are some pretty sharp dudes. A lot of Ivy League backgrounds, a lot of business-running experience, a lot of there own personal wealth to manage. And from the businessmen and bankers that I have been around (mostly the land-development types, unfortunately), people with these qualities don’t usually spend their money foolishly. Rappers - yes. College students - some, yes. People with MBA’s - not so much. And yet, we’re so far under on our Federal credit report, no one even cares anymore, let along the folks running the show.

So I tried to come up with a balanced budget. Being your typical lay-person, I know very little about the actual nuts-and-bolts of Federal budgeting. But I do have a job (income), I am self-sufficient (spending), I pay rent, utilities, and loan payments (needs), and I buy good food, books, and records (wants). In effect, I budget myself on a two week basis, and meticulously document all income and spending. So I figure I’m at least a little qualified to try to hammer this one out. And even if I don’t have all the answers, maybe I can start the ball rolling a little here. At least I’m writing again. So let’;s start from scratch.

1) We need income. Taxes. Knuckle up, bitches, because it’s time to pay the piper. Everybody, antes. Let’s say 25% off the top. All income, no loopholes. You win the lottery, you’re paying on it. You got a 15 million dollar bonus for blowing Michael Eisner, congrats and thanks for the four mil. You make $30g a year as a secretary, you’re more than entitled to pay your fair $7,500. No person making over poverty level is spared: rich, poor, fat, thin, ugly, pretty - we all make the bread, we all share the bread. Next up: corporations. No more free rides. No more discounts, waivers, payoffs, pork barrel benefits, nothing. If you can’t run a solvent airline, find another ring in the circus, because subsidization is through (for the moment, I’ll come back to it later, but for the time being, remember: No More Free Lunch. Assholes.). From now on, there’s money in and money out. If you’re standing there and money’s coming in, you’re paying for it in taxes. But it’s not so bad, see:

2) Now we got money coming in, how do we spend it? To save money, we need to spend less. To spend less and still make progress, we need to spend smart. To spend smart, we need to invest today’s dollars in whatever will provide the most long-term benefits. We’re happy to say that Washington has proven beyond all hope of doubt that defense spending is the absolute wrong-est possible answer.

Here’s my answer: Public education. Let’s make everyone smarter. Let’s make everyone more socially, globally, and economically conscious. Let’s give everyone greater opportunity. Here’s why: People are smarter, so more doors are open - more doors open, greater opportunity, less crime - less crime, less cops, judges, courts, jails - less money spent on fighting crime. Want more? Here: People are more aware of their surroundings, so they are more capable of making conscientious global decisions, they are less prone to vote (decide) on fear, less prone to elect militaristic leaders, less prone to go to war, less likely to need nuclear weapons and massive standing armies, less likely to need Star Wars technology, less money spent on defense. Wow, I just ended crime and war as we know it, and I’m just getting started. Think the energy crisis is bad? Try this: Smarter people will come up with better ideas. People more versed in science, history, and sociology will recognize the need for innovative solutions to pressing problems, will no longer be muddled by backward-looking solutions and tradition, and will be willing to open up to better results. Open minds welcome long-term effective solutions, including solar and wind power, geothermal energy tapping, and ecosystem protection. Open minds see Man as a participant in global ecology, not the dominant factor. Suddenly rising cost of oil doesn’t matter much because we have wind farms in Kansas and solar farms in Phoenix. Suddenly, it doesn’t make sense to build a new shopping mall and huge motherfucking parking lot on that wetland, when we could just build it downtown and everyone can take the bus, ride their bike, and walk. Oh, and by the way, by personalizing transportation (away from the anonymity of the automobile), we’re increasing the stability of the social fabric of our communities, also a contributing factor to reducing crime and poverty. Healthcare, war on drugs, global humanitarian crises, AIDS, poverty, depression, obesity, greed, corruption, pop music, partisan politics, despotism, fear. Think how much we have the potential to affect if we can just get people to think for themselves.

We don’t face as many problems today as we think we do. Every time you turn around it seems like there’s more shit on your boots - first it’s terrorists, then it’s war, then it’s crime, then it’s corporate crime, then it’s the economy, then it’s commercials, then it’s the FCC, then it’s rap music, then it’s welfare, then it’s social security, then it’s healthcare, then it’s Canada, then it’s the UN, then it’s the Ukraine, then it’s Georgia, then it’s political factions, then it’s nuclear proliferation, then we’re back to terrorism. It never seems to end.

But it does. There are solutions to our problems, and it isn’t about Church or God or being white, rich, or male. It’s not about saving the Iraqis from a despot or the spotted owl from loggers. It’s about getting to the root of the issue, about drawing a line in the sand and saying okay, if we don’t let this be the high water mark and stand our ground here and now, there’s no point in even holding your breath, because we’ll all sink eventually. And we’re not sinking in our own little pools of debt and broken dreams - we’re all drowning in a big messy ocean of it. And we can stem the slide. We just have to want to.

“If you’re not part of the cure, you’re part of the disease...”

:: Freddy F. at 9:45 PM [+] ::
:: (2) comments ::

Time. Now There’s a Good Rag.

As you may have noticed, I have been a bit lackadaisical about posting things lately. And if you are the kind of person I am in email-contact with, you have probably also noticed that I’m a bit slack about that, too. In fact, all writing, in all media, has frozen to about absolute zero. Which is to say: The flow just ain’t there.

It’s not like I have nothing to say. In fact, over the last month or two, I have had plenty to say. Last month, I was within 12 minutes of going over on my phone bill (a feat that has never even been close in the past 3+ years). At Thanksgiving, I had so much to say that it split my family right in half and made me very wary of speaking much of that in the future. In social occasions in the last couple weeks, I have noticed that I am very fluid in talking about things, and I’d like to say that my storytelling tactics may even be improving (but that’s not much, since they are pretty poor in the first place).

The problem lies in getting the mental word into the physical word. Somehow, lately, there has been a pretty significant breakdown of that process. I can’t figure out what is causing it, or if it is multiple problems coming together in an ugly head of writers’ block. For one thing, I’m reading a ton these days. I’m going through books like sugar-water. Once I got through Ulysses, I was inspired to tackle bigger and faster (and easier) books (and magazines) and have found a haven in the topics of Urban Growth, Development, Sociology, and Planning. And all this reading is causing me to do some serious thinking. And along with serious thinking comes serious discussion. But right now I’m lacking a forum. Or maybe the ideas are still so embryonic that they are still too amorphous to appear in print. But given the right audience, the discussion has beautiful potential. Also, I’m spending a lot of time at work these days. 12-ish hours and 99% of that time is in front of the computer. So when I come home, I really don’t feel like sitting down in front of another Dell just to type something out. I’ve even tried ‘mood altering substances’ to no avail. Mostly they just make Jackass seem really really funny. These days, I’d rather just sit on my couch and read.

So all this, and barring certain catastrophic events, I don’t feel like I have much to contribute to this Internet these days. But don’t take silence for complacency. The wheels are still turning. Mentally, I’m constantly mulling over problems, issues, thoughts, topics, the future, and the past. I know I am in the midst of what will forever be a watershed year in my life - so much is changing, the least of which are my relationships with people (old and new), my code of ethics and values, and my ambitions. I can only hope that upon my return to the Motherland (or is it the Fatherland), there will be plenty of time and energy for discussion and reflection.

Oh, and about Time Magazine. I haven’t gotten mine yet - it usually shows up on Wednesday, for some inexplicable reason, I blame the landlords, but it’s probably just an anomaly of the mail service. But I hear this week is going to be a good one. If you normally get it, be sure you read this week. If you don’t get it, I suggest you sidle over to your local B&N or Borders and peruse the Dec. 20 issue. Trust me, I wouldn’t spend all this time in front of a computer writing this, if it wasn’t important.

“It’s just another Saturday...”

:: Freddy F. at 11:11 PM [+] ::
:: (1) comments ::

Guess What!!

I got nothin' to say to you...
:: Freddy F. at 10:16 PM [+] ::
:: (0) comments ::

Treating others as they like to be treated

I went on a lovely drive today around the thumb of Michigan. It was cold and I was employing the technique of cranking the heater and the stereo, while leaving the window down. I just love that. It was beautiful out, once I got outside the bounds of the Detroit metro. But for as much fun and beauty as it was, I eventually returned to this urban[e] existence of news media, and traffic, and car commercials, and budget deficits, and bigots, and paranoia, and selfishness, and greed. And somehow, when I’ve been so happy all day, it just makes me shaking-mad to read about and hear about all the stupid shit that people do because they can’t seem to think about anyone but themselves. And it just seems like this time of the year, more than any other, maybe we can set aside our differences, and greed, and hostilities, and demands, and hustle-bustle-uber-techno lives for just a little bit and reflect on what we share. If for no other reason than if the world ends tomorrow, I’d rather die with a good feeling than bad.

So here is what I am thankful for:

Family and friends that I will see this weekend
Family and friends that I have spoken to recently, via snippets of emails, random phone calls in drunken stupors, or just venting sessions
Family and friends that keep promising to call or write and give me good reason to motivate myself to check my email once a day
My coworkers who have done a wonderful job of assimilating and acclimating me to a strange place and for giving me the chance to explore my own strengths and weaknesses
My health, vitality, and vigor
Undisturbed acres of natural land, much of which I may never see
Edge Habitat
My insufferable desire to ask questions
The Red Cross - Red Crescent
People who support public education
People who support community
People who support honesty, optimism, and selflessness
The Postal Service (the musical group)
The Postal Service (the ‘neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night’ group)
Old 97’s, the Refreshments, Lagwagon, Rancid, Weezer, REM, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Green Day, NoFX, the Cure, Rise Against, Good Riddance, Leo Kottke, Charlie Parker, Max Roach, Ed Shaughnessey, Neal Peart, the Bad Plus, Tool, Strung Out, Deftones, Less than Jake, Ben Folds (Five), Dave Brubeck (Quartet, Octet), the Clash, the Libertines, Henry Rollins, the Rentals, the Roots, Jay-Z, Snapcase... Every band who has ever made a song that moved me
Stephen King, Kurt Vonnegut, John Irving, Edward Gorey, Shel Silberstein, Daniel Keyes, James Joyce, Homer, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Plato, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rosseau, Henry David Thoreau, Arthur Miller, Neil Simon, Jane Jacobs, Ian McHarg, Aldo Leopold, Witold Rybczynski, Chinua Achebe... Every author who has ever written a word that challenged me
Time (and its magnificent healing powers)
Crossword Puzzles

See. Now I feel better.

“Don’t wake me I plan on sleeping in...”

:: Freddy F. at 11:29 PM [+] ::
:: (3) comments ::

Perspective

I’d like to reassure everyone and hopefully calm many of us down by reminding you all that everything is indeed cyclical. The saying “what goes around, comes around” has never been more true. When it is all said and done, everyone’s debts balance their winnings, and the only thing that lasts forever is eternity. The laws governing thermodynamics and the conservation of energy all still apply; and whatever cosmic forces have propelled this planet, galaxy, universe, dimension, for the last five thousand or five billion years have withstood the test of November Second.

This public service announcement has been brought to you by two assholes at work who just couldn’t shut up.

“If you look at a big enough picture, everyone’s survival rate drops to zero...”

:: Freddy F. at 9:16 PM [+] ::
:: (0) comments ::

An Open Letter to the American Public

American Public -

With all due respect: just what the fuck is your major malfunction? For three years now you have been abused, ridiculed, dishonored, fragmented, cheated, duped, snowed, and ignored. By your own president you have been driven to embrace a culture of fear, to throw your sons and daughters into faraway lands to die brutal deaths, to give up your righteous earnings to modern-day robber barons. You have seen gun-safety laws, theories about weapons of mass destruction, and a plethora of promises simply dissolve before your very eyes. Yesterday you stood with the opportunity to bring your honor back. And you squandered it like billion dollar budget surplus.

Yesterday, American, you could have made a stand for human rights. You could have made a stand for education, healthcare, the environment, social services. You could have made a stand for honesty, for truth, for peace, for global solidarity, for America and what it once meant to be a proud American. Today I see you have shown that you stand for nothing more than bigotry, hate, violence, destruction, hysteria, greed, and selfishness.

You have believed the charlatan who draped himself in the American flag, not out of pride, but out of cowardice. You rallied behind a heartless crusader, blinded by his own lust for greatness, oblivious to the consequences of reality, hidden from him by curtains of money, oil, and power. You have opened the door into a new era of loss, death, and destruction. The world is now his doormat, forever granted by the mandate of [you] the people.

The blood is on your hands, America. Once you could say the choice was stolen from you, swept away in a humid Florida night. Once you could say the world wasn’t what it is today. Once you could plead ignorance. Never again. You know what you have done. Given a choice between the unknown path and the path to Hell, you have chosen Hell. The piper is here and payment will be extracted. They will be your parents, your children, your friends, neighbors, and coworkers who all get to pay the price from now on, for the mistake you have made. They will pay it and the price will be them.

I have sympathy for you. I will weep with you when you bury your fallen. I will ache for you when the last tree is chopped down, when the last bird chokes on the smog, when cities are swept away in floods and tidal waves. I will be compassioned for you when I see children on the street, homeless and hopeless, robbed of futures in the name of a thinly-veiled religious crusade. I will seethe with my friends denied their rights as human beings and forced to live under the caste of second-class citizens by bigoted zealots. And I will be as ashamed to tell the rest of the world that I am an American and live in a nation unable to see the difference between wrong and right.

“I know the pieces fit, ‘cause I watched them fall away...”

:: Freddy F. at 8:42 PM [+] ::
:: (3) comments ::

Wrong Side of the Coin

Well, after that seemingly unforgiving and unrelenting (and unending) tirade about the faults of a system driven purely by market flooding and demand, I will, in interest of being a “fair and balanced” source, present an example of the other extreme.

I spent last friday morning in the Michigan Department of Motor Vehicles. I had to do two things there: change my license and change my truck tags. One of these things got done and it took two trips, three employees, and almost three hours. The DMV is the epitome of what can happen when there is no competition whatsoever.

Let me walk you through it: I get there at 9 (promptly when they open), I wait at the front desk for a couple minutes. A pleasant looking lady comes out of the back office. I tell her what I need, show her my old license and she tells me I need further ID. Oh, okay, so I drive back across town, get my birth certificate (something I coincidentally got back just last weekend) and head back to the DMV. Again, I wait at the front desk, lady comes out of the back office, tells me again that I need more ID. No, you told me last time this would work. No, I was mistaken, you need more. Finally, we reach the conclusion that what I have is adequate, she hands me a form to fill out and I sit and wait. There are maybe a dozen people waiting and three people working behind the desks. Twenty minutes later, they call my number. I go to the counter. To spare you the details, reviewing my documents (Oh my, you have a Kansas drivers license, an Iowa birth certificate, and a Nebraska title... how crazy!), reviewing my form (Could you spell your last name? Ma’am it’s on the form. Yes, but it’s faster if you just say it.), getting the form signed by the manager, discussing with the manager the necessary steps to take to include a motorcycle operator on my license ($13.50), discussing my choice of checks, double checking my information (Is this how you spell your last name?), checking my eyes (twice [well, I couldn’t remember if you had done it or not, if I don’t write it down I forget, so just run through those top lines again, would you]), and punching my old license all takes about forty-five minutes. Then the signature - five minutes. Then the picture - five minutes. Then: Okay, I think we have everything; that should be in your mailbox within thirty days.

Alright, thanks, now I need to register my truck. Sorry, can’t do that until you have michigan insurance. Well, I’m going to get that when my other insurance runs out. Then you can come back later and get new plates, not today. Bye.

And the whole time, the woman who is helping me is asking another lady about taking her break. A break! I was under the impression that once you got health insurance with your job you didn’t really get breaks anymore.

I can’t be too hard on them. They were pleasant, never rude, never short. The biggest problem is the slow deliberateness with which these people operate. In every service-based industry, whether it is TV, radio, print, medicine, being a landscape architect, (I’m trying to appeal to my mass-readership here), whatever, a certain amount of hustle is involved. Why? Because the bottom line is that you are trying to present your product (quality notwithstanding) to your client in a timely fashion. Why? Because otherwise they’ll go some place else. With the DMV, there is no some place else. There is only and will ever only be the DMV.

“I’ve been to hell, I spell it - spell it D-M-V. Anyone who’s been there knows exactly what I mean...”

:: Freddy F. at 10:23 PM [+] ::
:: (1) comments ::

Suck-nology

If I see another Sprint, Nextell, AT&T, T-Mobile, IPod, Dell, IBM, Verizon, Hewlett-Packard, Phillips, Hummer, GM, ADT, Ford, or UPS commercial or ad again, I’m gonna puke. Alright, I’m bluffing, I won’t really puke, but I should. Commercials make me sick. They make me more than sick, they make me almost irate because they are such blatant lies and so many people are completely unable to see through the bullshit and understand the forces really at work. But I could go on for days about how much commercials suck and how ridiculous they are, but I guess we can just chalk that up to super-companies being super-companies. No, what really gets to me is all the problems that these companies cause and force the common consumer to live with.

For a company, obviously, it’s all about making money. Duh. Fine, whatever, that’s their right. But no one is even trying to make money in the honest way anymore. It's all about coming up with the next big thing just as fast as we can, to get as many impatient consumers to buy as many as they can as fast as they can, and bailing adn coming up with something “even newer and greater.” We're moving so fast and trying so hard that we never stop to fix the bugs that were in the original version. Which would be fine if we were throwing out the old and replacing it with the new, but we're not, we're building the new right on top of the old.

Example: You are going to build a house, so you start with the foundation. The foundation is on weak soil and when cold season comes around that soil will heave and the foundation will crack itself apart. But people are starting to pay attention to this house. They want one, too. So you tell them you'll build them one. Then you frame up the walls. More people are noticing. You get more requests to build houses. You put on the roof, the sheet rock, the trim, the shingles, etc. You're trying to build this house so fast (to show everyone you can do it, or to sell it quicker, or more likely, to sell as many as you possibly can), you never go back to correct the mistakes you made. Well, winter rolls in, everyone is snug as a bug in a rug in their new custom home, when they start noticing that their doors don't shut right - some too tight, some too loose, some swing. They call you up: "Hey Buddy, house is great, but the doors don't shut right." You know what's wrong; but you say "Loosen the hinges, straighten the door in the frame, tighten the hinges." Easy-peasy-japanesey. Until their paint starts to chip, their drywall cracks, their cabinet drawers don't shut right, and come about springtime there's kind of a funky smell coming from the basement rec room. You say "Paint it up, patch it up, tighten it up, and get a fan to move that air around." They do it and ignore it for another year. Maybe two or three. Now the house is falling apart - walls warping, visible rot in the basement, floors are uneven. People are unhappy. They complain "Hey Buddy, this house sucks." You say "Yeah, you know, that's just the best we can do with the technology we have. I can't control mother nature, it's going to frost and heave." Now they're going to get pissed, so you scramble "Hey Pal, how about I get you a sweet deal on this new house we’re building over yonder. It's better than that old dump - look we've got walkout basements, granite countertops, a whirlpool in the bathroom. Plus one more bedroom than your last place. Whaddaya say, man, you're buyin up!" And what do they say? "Heck yeah, sounds like a great deal." Never think about how you're going to cut the same corners from one house to the next. Plus, they don’t need all that extra shit, and they still aren’t going to have a house that can shelter them properly.

Okay, that was a long example, and everyone who didn’t make it all the way through the example is exactly the kind of consumer these companies want - no time to read all the details make it work fast and now and I’m off at a million miles an hour again no time to think no time to worry about stuff working no time for quality or a job well done because I got places to go man I’m multinational...

Quality never improves because it never has to. We accept the idea that as long as we can have a hundred of them cheap, then who cares if they work or not. And if we can't have a hundred of them then they'd sure as hell better be multifunctional. If I can't get service in my house, well, I can at least take pictures, check my email, send text messages, play games, check my stocks, and download a million and six different rings tones that turn out to be all the exact same amount of annoying when your phone rings on the bus. We choose (as a society) to continue to purchase items even after we don't like them anymore. Pissed because your phone won't work? Switch companies, switch phones, chuck the cell and get a land line. Don't like buying CDs with so much anti-piracy shit on them that you can't make a simple mix tape anymore? Stop buying CDs, stop buying albums, wait for a bit. The consumer can almost always outwait the supplier. They need our money to keep alive - music isn't going to die when sony records goes bankrupt.

Maybe I’m just fed up by losing phone conversations with people when both of us are just sitting in our respective living rooms. Maybe I’m tired of trying to watch movies on DVD and being unable to finish it because the damn thing skips out and won’t go back to where I had it. Maybe I’m just really really really fucking tired of hearing all these phone companies tell me how much shit I can get for just “$39.99*” when * equals only a million fucking service charges, surcharges, taxes, fees, rate hikes, blackout hours, waivers, tithes, patronages, bribes, firstborns, plus there is no fucking service in your living room.

“Once there were parking lots, now it’s a peaceful oasis...”

:: Freddy F. at 7:01 PM [+] ::
:: (0) comments ::

Boulevard of Broken Dreams

I was literally threatened into buying the new Green Day album. That being said, I would have bought it eventually. It was on my list. This just raised the urgency on it. So I got it. And I listened to it. Seven times in the first weekend. It’s good. Very rocking. Very much a departure from standard Green Day fare. It seems like it could be the rock opera, though I’m not sure it entirely qualifies for that title. I would definitely say that the album as a whole has a sound of being ‘crafted.’ It doesn’t sound like each song was written from experiences that may or may not overlap. It feels like the album came together as a whole as parts were deliberately written as parts of larger piece.

As evidence, I’ll walk you through it. Begin with the simple, anthemic title track. Catchy, single, intro credits, good hook. Song two makes the stand, illustrates the topic of discussion, a very holistic piece with depth and explanation not found in a single song. The middle tracks all follow the same kinds of themes, like sub-stories along a single plot line. The best part about the middle is the pacing. Some songs fast, others slow, like a story paces itself. But all the songs work together (again, the idea of being written at once instead of in pieces then assembled), constantly refer back to each other, and do a good job of building a united front toward the climax. Which comes in song(s) twelve as the other bookend to song two. This song is probably the greatest tribute to Dark Side..., Rocky Horror, Tommy, and other rock operas in it’s formatting. There’s a fast paced back and forth between song styles, background yelling, tympanis, driving drum lines, and further reference to the first bookend and the subsequent middle songs. It is the essence of the hero throwing every last bit of his soul into vanquishing the enemy. Then, the closer, the final song, feeling as outside the album as the first. While the title track feels like we’re seeing this life full of energy and everything is good on the surface, the album as a whole drags us through the soul of the protagonist, the final song is his eulogy, sung from the outside, about the past, just a touch of sadness and of life moving on [tear].

I might be quoting someone when I say this, but I don’t remember reading it: It sounds like that album you never knew you had but have been listening to for years. This is to Dookie what The Decline was to Punk in Drublic. It does what Warning tried to do, but was just far too whiny to accomplish. This album is Green Day facing the problem as a rational being and saying “Fuck it, no more compromise; we’re burning this place to the ground.”

[I have deliberately withheld any comment I had about the ad that fell out of the CD when I opened it that told me where I could go online to get “Six new Green Day ringtones!” As I write this non-paragraph, I can feel my heart rate increasing and the blood rising behind my eyes. Suffice to say, I am blaming the record label and not the band, because to think the band would have put that in there, well, that would erase everything I just wrote about them and throw them back to the level of Blink 182: a good body, but no brains.]

“Subliminal mind-fuck America...”

:: Freddy F. at 10:00 PM [+] ::
:: (1) comments ::

And In All the News That Matters:

Yeah.

Also see the November 1 Time Magazine for a good synopsis of why this could be a watershed year in American elections.

"Four more years of pay-to-play politics, power and influence... of legalized bribery and served corporate interests..."

:: Freddy F. at 8:33 PM [+] ::
:: (0) comments ::

June 16, 1904

I am now over halfway done with Ulysses. It has taken me a long time. To understand why it has taken me a long time, let’s review a couple sample sentences [p 383]:

Universally that person’s acumen is esteemed very little perceptive concerning whatsoever matters are being held as most profitable by mortals with sapience endowed to be studied who is ignorant of that which the most in doctrine erudite and certainly by reason of that in them high mind’s ornament deserving of veneration constantly maintain when by general consent they affirm that other circumstances being equal by no exterior splendour is the prosperity of a nation more efficaciously asserted than by the measure of how far forward may have progressed the tribute of its solicitude for that proliferent continuance which of evils the original if it be absent when fortunately present constitutes the certain sign of omnipolent nature’s incorrupted benefaction. For who is there who anything of some significance has apprehended but is conscious that that exterior splendour may be the surface of a downwardtending lutulent reality or on the contrary anyone so is there inilluminated as not to perceive that as no nature’s boon can contend against the bounty of increase so it behoves every most citizen to become the exhortator and admonisher of his semblables and to tremble lest what had in the past been by the nation excellently commenced might be in the future not with similar excellence accomplished if an inverecund habit shall have gradually traduced the honourable by ancestors transmitted customs to that thither of profundity that that one was audacious excessively who would have the hardihood to rise affirming that no more odious offence can for anyone be that to oblivious neglect to consign that evangel simultaneously command and promise which on all mortals with prophecy of abundance or with diminution’s menace that exalted of reiteratedly procreating function ever irrevocably enjoined?

No. Bullshit. You didn’t really read that. You skipped over it because it was so long and it doesn’t make sense. Go back to the top and read, really really read each and every word. Copy it and paste it, print it out, I don’t care, read it. It’s two sentences from the beginning of a section, the least you can do it read it. You hear me, Newsie? Read that fucking paragraph and suffer with me!!

Okay, you get it? Me neither. Fortunately, the whole book isn’t that tough. Some parts are very literal, some parts are references to mythology, history, and literature that I get - others I don’t. A lot of things are in other languages, mostly Latin, French, and some Italian. Sometimes I can piece the references together by the narrative, sometimes I can’t. You kind of have to move through the whole piece trying to grab the gist of what’s going on, rather than follow every bit of dialogue or (as is often the case with Mr. James Joyce) every thought. Also, he doesn’t really use punctuation or any other form of written language that writers usually use to convey information. I guess this makes him cool, I don’t know.

Here’s what I do know: The story takes place in Dublin, Ireland and is a modern retelling of Homer’s Odyssey. The main character is Leopold Bloom. He has a wife named Molly who has large breasts. He has a daughter named Millie who is just coming to suitors’ age. He has a son, Rudy, who died at childbirth - this seems to lend itself to a lot of pain that Bloom keeps within. Bloom is Jewish and devoted to the free Ireland cause. He works writing and selling ads to newspapers, I have a feeling he’s also into some crooked stuff, but it could just be a sense of suspicion from others because he’s Jewish. His wife is an opera singer. Bloom loves to eat kidneys and have sex with lots and lots of young women. He spends the first part of his day running some errands and going to Paddy Dignam’s funeral. Then he spends the afternoon running errands and going to pubs and talking to people. There are a lot of conversations going on, many which are incomplete and have sometime to do with people fucking around. There’s also lots of talk about Ireland’s sovereignty. Other important (recurring) characters include Simon Dedalus (name is itself a Greek mythologic reference) as a friend of Bloom’s, Stephen Dedalus as the son of Simon and an aspiring writer (and, I’ve heard, as the persona of the author in the novel), and Buck Mulligan as a friend of Stephen’s. And a number of other people, here and there. Currently, I think Bloom is with Stephen and a couple other guys in a whore house with girls named Zoe, Florry, and Kitty. There was a very surreal confrontation between Bloom and the head mistress (head whore?). I think he is starting to figure out the true cost of all his philandering, in the same way the suitors threatened Odysseus’ home. But I’m a little shady about all that because the last fifty pages appear to be visioning a dreamlike hallucination through Bloom’s mind’s eye, and the last hundred pages have been written in a style of some kind of play.

So now I know he’s just fuckin with me.

“It’s been so long, man, I wanna go home...”

:: Freddy F. at 8:31 PM [+] ::
:: (1) comments ::

Foodage

Frozen dinners are the worst food in the world. People eat them all the time for lunches at work. There is an entire aisle dedicated to them at the grocery store. There must be about a dozen well-known brands out there and each on has about thirty choices. This would lead you to think that there is a market for frozen dinners out there, which in turn would lead you to believe that they are actually a decent purchase. No. Much like the reality TV phenomenon that is [still] enthralling America, mass consumption does not correlate to quality.

Falling sucker to this seeming logic of demand, I bought a bunch of frozen dinners. A week or so ago, I had the veal parmesan. I like veal, I like spaghetti, I like green beans. I like putting something in the oven and having a hot meal forty minutes later. I took a bit of the spaghetti - not bad, not Prego and certainly not homemade, but definitely going to do the job. Green beans - acceptable, a little pepper, a little Tabasco, we were rollin. I tried the veal - wretched. Absolutely horrible. Couldn’t swallow the bite. Ate everything but it and threw it out. And I don’t throw out food, but I don’t believe that qualified.

Couple days later, tried another. Disgusting. Aside from yams, the worst ‘food’ I have ever put in my mouth. How do people eat these? I don’t consider myself a food snob, or even all that picky (fall of 1999, yeah, I was pretty picky - by the spring of 2000, I would eat about anything - reason for the change? Dorm hotdogs, if you can eat those, you can stomach about anything), but this was just undoable. It didn’t help matters that I was forced to eat this beef stroganoff frozen dinner with chopsticks as all my forks were in the dishwasher. But now I have four more frozen dinners in my freezer. What do I do with them? Cook them and eat around the meat? Throw them out? Donate them to the homeless (if I do this should I also donate a microwave)? Dig a hole and bury them in my backyard? Mail them to you? I’m the kind of person who can’t justify buying more food until I have eaten what I already have. So until these four little green boxes are out of my freezer, I’m not going grocery shopping. Damn you Healthy Choice - damn you and your 1800 mg of sodium per serving.

And speaking of relatively disgusting, I’ve eaten Doritos my whole life and only now am catching on to the fact that there are only two flavors: cheese and cool ranch. Every other flavor they tell you about is simply a combination of these two original flavors. Think of them as the colors red and blue, and all other Doritos as shades of purple. I tried a bag of Pepper Jack Flavored Doritos, thinking that this would be a nice spicy choice. Not really. I would say three parts cool ranch, one part nacho cheese, then add twice the amount of flavoring as you would to a normal bag. It truly is a wonder that we live in an obese society because all the food we are surrounded by for the most part is just shit.

“I like food; food is good. Juicy burgers, greasy fries, turkey legs, and raw fish eyes...”

:: Freddy F. at 5:00 PM [+] ::
:: (2) comments ::

Red Sox, United Way, God, and the Future

1. The Boston Red Sox. First let me begin with a little status update. I’ve been doing a bad job of getting my necessary base-function sleep the last ten days. A hard weekend, followed by a hard week left me ailing come Friday night. I opted to resuscitate myself over the weekend instead of doing anything more major than keeping up with my chosen sports teams. I got a good amount of sleep, got some stuff done around here, set myself up for breaking into the new week strong and refreshed. Until about 11pm on Sunday when I decided I would stay up for the ALCS game. Two and half hours later, I was finally shutting off the tv to retire. Subsequent games (and my desire to support a team that has the opportunity to beat my most loathed team) have prevented me from catching back up on sleep, thus I am still sick. But. I have watched all the games, and been elated when the Sox pick up the win. If you ask me the only thing worse than being swept 4-0 is being bitch-swept 4-3. Kind of like the only thing worse being a Yankee is being Derek Jeter.

All that being said, I have some suggestions for the Red Sox, if they are looking to trim some of the fat this offseason and put together a team that only needs 9 (not 14) innings to win a game:

1. Johnny “BA .013” Damon - technically only counts as a half, as his defense is solid. But if you gotta keep him around, you might as well put the pitchers in to hit, and put the DH in for him.
2. Manny “Which side’s left field again, coach?’ Ramirez - THE most overrated player since John Rocker. Granted, he makes a good play now and again, but that’s only when he doesn’t get confused running after a ball and chewing gum.
3. Pedro “The Beantown Chokester” Martinez - Someone should notify this guy that while it’s alright for a closer to only pitch one inning, the starter should be able to go more than 3 outs before giving up runs.

But in the end “GO SOX! BEAT THE FUKCING YANKEES!” Then, if it’s Sox/Cards... well, let’s just say I can’t pick friends over friends.

2. The United Way. We’re doing a pledge drive at work. I’d like to pledge - unfortunately, I’m in this grey area where I’m not sure how much I can afford to give. I can’t even make an accurate budget because there are enough hidden expenses in the next year (read: uncertain pay, taxes, student loans, etc) so that if I come up short, I’m in serious trouble. But, to me that sounds like an excuse for not giving to a reputable charity, so I feel bad. Will someone please tell me whether it’s okay to postpone social tithing until I’ve worked for a year, or if I need to just stop bitching and give.

3. God. Time Magazine had an excellent article on the existence of God this week. Excellent. I hate to say that my ecumenical resource is Time, but that’s the facts. Actually, what makes the whole package really good is the story about the Shiite leader in Iraq preceding the cover story and the story regarding dinosaurs (and evolution) on the other end. If you get this magazine, make sure you read this article. If you don’t get this magazine, I suggest you read it at some sort of literary repository or via your local computer screen. Don’t make me threaten you all with Purgatory.

4. The Future. To keep you all in suspense: I will soon write about the existence of God, autumn, green day, work, and Doritos.

I can’t wait. Can you?

“Are we, we are; are we, we are; we are the waiting...”

:: Freddy F. at 11:04 PM [+] ::
:: (4) comments ::

No, You Can’t

But maybe you don’t want to. Maybe I’ve tried so hard to relive the better times that I’ve forgotten about the times I have now. Maybe you do have to start over. That’s hard. I have to meet old friends; they all play different roles now. But I do too, and maybe that’s what I’ve forgotten the most. No one’s left me - I’ve left them. It shouldn’t sound so deliberate, but I was the one who chose the outbound train. We all did. I don’t regret it. But I never notice how I’ve changed; I only see it in others. It’s me too. Maybe it’s me most of all.

This kind of brings me back to square-one. It’s a process, no? If we can define anything, we have to define everything, so I must redefine. And re-emerge.

“And in the darkest night, if my memory serves me right, I’ll never turn back time: Forgetting you, but not the time...”

:: Freddy F. at 8:40 PM [+] ::
:: (6) comments ::

You Can’t Go Back

That’s what they say. I tried. It didn’t work.

The jury’s still out on why, exactly. All I know is that I don’t know much of anything right now, but I’m certainly thankful that my friends are still my friends. And I think this new Green Day album is fucking with my emotions like a bad acid trip.

“The innocent can never last... twenty years has gone so fast...”

:: Freddy F. at 2:36 PM [+] ::
:: (1) comments ::

'T' minus twenty hours

Let the chaos ensue...

'Bllleeeeaaauurrrrgghh!"
:: Freddy F. at 10:36 PM [+] ::
:: (2) comments ::

Nostra-Flex-us

I’m telling you people, we’re in over our heads. We’ve all been stirring this bucket of shit for way too long now, and it’s starting to splash. For a thousand years we have played the Mosaic role of users and abusers of the earth and its natural resources. We have wrecked a havoc in those thousand years that can only be matched by geologic processes over millennia. Now, it’s all coming back around. We see more hurricanes in six weeks than have ever battered the Southeast seaboard in that period before; earthquakes and volcanoes are threatening the other side of the continent, harmless as of yet, but proving to be increasing in magnitude; glaciers are sloughing off into the seas around the Antarctic, raising global sea levels, causing further climate shifts and temperature fluxes throughout the world.

Without wanting to sound too grim or laugh too wickedly (this is a family program, I’d like to keep the kids involved), I’ll say I wouldn’t be too surprised to see these natural disasters continue to escalate in the coming years with little decline. We are going to have to change the way we think about living in places like Florida, California, and the Coasts. No longer will we be able to say that preparing for the proverbial hundred year flood is enough - we must realize the hundred year flood is going to become the fifty or the twenty year flood and we’re going to have to reshape our processes for dealing with this situation.

“Some say a comet will fall from the sky, followed my meteor showers and tidal waves, followed by fault lines that cannot sit still, followed by millions of dumbfounded dipshits... One great big festering neon distraction, I’ve a suggestion to keep you all occupied: learn to swim...”

:: Freddy F. at 9:43 PM [+] ::
:: (1) comments ::

Dumpster Dilemma

Okay, so I’m only on page 53... but I have worked a lot this week, and it’s not a fast book, by any stretch of the imagination. However, I swear on everything I hold dear and holy, I will finish this book on this reading. Not in this sitting, not in this week, maybe not in this month, if necessary, maybe not in this year. But before I involve myself in any other book on earth, I will finish Ulysses.

But, I have a more pressing issue. Last weekend I took my recycling to the center. At said center, there is a huge dumpster that you are supposed to put newspaper, fiberboard, paper, magazines, etc. Fine, makes it easy for me. You have to climb these stairs to stand above the dumpster, right next to it, to dump your stuff in. So I get up there, upturn my bags and boxes, and see a shit-ton of books. All these books that have been throw out or are too used to sell, or whatever, are just sitting in this paper recycling receptacle.

I start picking out some titles, not many: some are obscured, some are just obscure, but one or two of them I recognize. I do a quick glance around, set my bag down to step over the edge, and realize that there is someone across from me dumping their stuff in. Suddenly self-conscious and feeling slightly absurd, I grab my bag and hurry away, without looking back at the books, almost out of fear of seeing something I really want and thus creating a greater conundrum.

So here’s my appeal to you, dear reader. Is it morally, ethically, socially, and otherwise acceptable to get into a recycling dumpster to pull literature from the clutches of a pulper? If you had seen me climbing into the recycling dumpster would you have stopped me? Would you have chastised me? Would you have given me a cup of coffee and a sandwich, fearing that my good fortune had finally run out? Would you have banned me from that recycling center forever, thus forcing me to begin driving my dry goods all the way across the city to the other center?

In some ways it isn’t much different than shopping at a used book store. And it isn’t like the books were soaking in spoiled milk, beer, and that filthy liquid always found in the glass/plastics recycling bins. But I couldn’t bring myself to get them - not a major loss, but I can’t help but feel it’s a loss just the same.

“An empty gaze, his crows’ feet are a symbol of defeat; sick and tired of this meaninglessness...”

:: Freddy F. at 10:33 PM [+] ::
:: (1) comments ::

Page 783 or bust

Tonight it begins. All life except work, sleep, and food will be put on hold until I have reached my goal. I will retire into myself, barring all life’s pleasures and pursuits, as I valiantly strive to reach the end. Tonight I begin Ulysses.

Eighteen months ago I was told that James Joyce’s Ulysses is the greatest book ever written in the English language. Some friends and I were doing book-store boasting: Where you walk up and down the aisles and tell each other person exactly what they should read based on what you have read or heard. Being relatively well-read (and having been to said bookstore before), I was doing well with my boasts. Then, someone went straight for the motherlode, the trump card of all trump cards: ‘Hey, Fred, this is the best book in the English language. You should read it.’

Bam. What could I do? I have to keep my literary street-cred. I couldn’t back away from that challenge. So I bought it. On the spot, bought the book, and with the money changing hands, I felt the yellow pages beginning to stretch their poisons into my very soul. For months the book sat on the shelf, tormenting me with sideways glances and snide comments. Comments you could only here when you wake with a start in the middle of the night, frigid in your own sweat, the bedcovers tangled and thrown to the floor, gasping and still feeling the grasp of those hands around your neck. No, this book would not let itself go unread.

So I opened it and began reading. I made it fifty pages before I was pulled away. They were fifty difficult pages and there was little motivation to return. When I did finally return to the book, I was lost, hope was lost, focus was lost. Ulysses was discarded for better tomes. And again it sat on the shelf unread. Tormenting my soul with its ever inanimate breath.

Later, I tried again. Opened the book and plied my way forth through its dry, weathered pages. This time I made it further, though not much. Again I was forced to lay it away, one part mental anguish, one part physical demands in other areas of life. I began to seek help on my conquest. One person told me to start with other works and build my way up to Ulysses. Now I have done this. Another told me to read and reread parts to gain a deeper understanding. Now I will do this. And another told me that they hadn’t actually read Ulysses, they just thought that I ought to. I should have killed this person and left their body in that Seattle bookstore. But I must charge forward - this destiny is now my own.

I hope to return from this quest within a week. I have no other demands to occupy my time and all my focus in on Ulysses. You will hear from me when I emerge. If you never hear from me again, my friends, assume that I have been destroyed by this book. If this happens, please come find my withered, drooling, twitching body and take the necessary measures. Thank you.

“Saturn ascends, choose one or ten. Hang on or be humbled again...”
:: Freddy F. at 9:15 PM [+] ::
:: (1) comments ::

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!?

Last weekend I had a conversation with an old friend. It was Sunday, the only day I ever talk on my phone and we hadn’t spoken in a while, so it was destined to be a good conversation. But almost right away we get into this debate about the general goodness of the human population. To be fair, it starts with me saying how unfathomably fed up I am with all the stupid shit that people are doing in the world. People who squander natural resources, wage war, exploit the weaker/poorer, and all the people who stand by and watch or support these evil-doers either through stupidity or ignorance. So my friend, being the wonderful humanist and optimist that she is (and this is why I love her so) defends the human race, saying that the vast majority of people are decent and do care and do work to make the world a better place - that it’s just a few bad apples who spoil the global bunch. And I listen, and I smile, and honestly, I’m half sold. I can tend to be a pretty extreme person. I do tend to rush to judgment and sometimes those judgments are pretty harsh. Maybe I am going overboard with the whole ‘Humanity can’t save itself from itself’ stance. And by the time the conversation had ended, I was telling myself that I was going to be more open, less harsh, more optimistic about the general world situation. After all, she said ‘a lot of these people have put just as much thought into their beliefs as you have yours, and are not bad people, they just have different set of values - who’s to judge what’s wrong or right?’ And my final conclusion was: not I. And I stuck to it.

For four days.

Until today.

Today, all that fell apart, and I’m even more resolved that people are doing nothing more than smoking unfiltered cigarettes as they refill their SUVs at Exxon gas pumps and blowing smoke into all their children’s faces, metaphorically speaking. I will cite two examples, one on a global and the other on a local level that tell me that mankind has very little chance of surviving their own existence on this planet and the duration of that existence will be, as a wise (and boring, boring) man once wrote, will be ‘poore, nasty, brutish, and short.’

The begin: The current energy crisis. I read an article today titled “Can technology find oil fast enough?” I saw the headline and had to read. And there it was. The largest energy conglomerate in the world, faced with rapidly dwindling supplies and absolutely no back up plan for what to do when they are gone, is focusing a large portion of their unfathomable resources on finding more. Not looking for different, better, more sustainable, or more ecologically secure solutions. They merely want to keep the status quo a little longer. The comparison to a junkie looking for just ‘one more fix’ is truly uncanny. Or for a better idea of what it looks like in my head, that guy on oxygen silently sitting outside smoking a cigarette through his trach-ring after having his cancerous voice box pulled out to buy him a couple more years of life. Billions of dollars are being invested into finding the most temporary of all possible solutions. Over the last two hundred years we have sapped this planet almost dry of all non-renewable resources and we have built massive empires. In two hundred years we have used the entire planet’s supply of these resources. It’s gone, and what isn’t gone today, will be soon. This is a given. They are in fact limited resources. They will not last forever. Some resources will, but not these. So what’s plan A, according to those who have made millions in that industry? Keep on smoking and know that they will make their billions and be retired to tiny tropical islands with massive standing armies before the rest of the world erupts in nuclear war, fighting for those last few precious drops. Why? Because no one had the foresight and financial capacity to develop a real solution to the problem, one that could help everyone. So we’re all, equally, fucked.

That was the global. Pretty serious problem. Granted it’s not a lot of people doing it. But they are very wealthy people with a lot of political and economic influence in the world. When they fart a lot more people smell it than when your average William Bloke farts - metaphorically speaking. So maybe I’m still off-base - maybe there are enough good, caring people in this world to overcome these fascists and solve the really big problems. Maybe it starts right here at home.

Nope.

As if the Big Box parking lot wasn’t bad enough. Acres of pavement, millions of gallons of polluted surface runoff being stolen from the land and forced into clogged rivers and streams, tearing out their banks, destroying habitat, flooding entire regions, costing billions in material damages, let-alone the substantial loss of human life along the way. No, the Big Box parking lot is about the seventh circle of my personal Hell, but it’s even worse, my friends. Because of the people who use it. Because of the people who cart their groceries out to their cars and then leaving their fucking grocery carts in the middle of the fucking parking lot. As if no one has ever had their car dinged by one of those things. As if no one has ever started to pull into an open spot only to find that some fucker left their cart at the very edge of the stall, just out of site, but thoroughly in the way. And when this happened what did those people say? Of course, they said ‘Dammit, I wanted that spot’ or ‘Dammit, my new finish’ and then were upset. But does this solve the problem? Not in the least. As if no one had ever come up with the idea of taking at least every tenth parking spot and turning it into a cart corral, a conveniently located space to return carts that is closer than back to the store. Because god-knows you just spent the last hour walking through that 80,000 square foot monstrosity, and there is no way in holy hell you are going to be able to walk that car, now light and empty, back to the front of the store so someone else can use it. God no, because that would be too fucking easy, too fucking respectable, too fucking sociable.

But tonight was the final straw. Four carts in the two spaces right next to the cart corral. Dozens of carts spread throughout the lot. Someone walked two aisles over to put their cart on the fucking median when four spaces down there was a little corral. I said ‘Why did you just walk your cart all the way over there, when the pen is right down there?’ She said ‘Cause I felt like it. Who are you, the cart police?’ Short answer: yes. Now I am. As of right now I am deputizing myself as the mother fucking cart police. Not only that, but I’m going to sign myself up for the decency police, too. No more watching people act like a bunch of jerk-offs one step above throwing feces at each other. What the hell happened to common decency anyway? It’s one thing to be busy, or important, to have your mind on other things, or whatever you tell yourself that justifies leaving a shopping cart in someone’s parking space. But you can be all those things and more, and still have a little respect for one another. So I went and got her cart, and a bunch others, and put them in a safe place where they won’t bother a soul.

So, no, I don’t think the human race is a bunch of good folk who’ve just been misrepresented by a few bad examples. No, we’re all a bunch of fucking savages in this place. In fact, depending on what happens in the next few months, I’d be willing to be that we haven’t even begun to see the high water mark of how shitty people can be to each other. But not me. If this ship’s sinking, I’m the first rat off. I’m going to make being kind cool again. Just like five years ago when I wore studded bracelets, they weren’t cool. But now, it’s all the rage down at Old Navy. Yup, I’m bringing it around, one shopping cart at a time.

(I was so irate tonight that I don’t think I’ve blinked since I got home. I had to listen to Postal Service just to get my pulse back to normal.)

“They won’t see us waving from such great heights, ‘Come down, now’ they’ll say...”
:: Freddy F. at 10:48 PM [+] ::
:: (1) comments ::

Social Eyes

Suffice to say, I am not a particularly outgoing person. Oh sure, I’m friendly, amiable, sociable... The kind of person who can talk you ear off (and have his own talked off right back) if the topic is of interest. I like being with and around people and don’t really have a problem opening up to complete strangers. But: I’m not the kind of person who just starts learning first names and phone numbers all at the same time and starts making the social calls right off the bat.

This is my nature. I’m not a moody person; I don’t resent spending time by myself. In fact, I have spent the last five years of my life all but planning my daily activities around one or more other people. Right now, it’s kind of nice to just kick back for a little while, enjoy the things I haven’t had time to do or that I’ve felt bad about dragging people along with me (like reading every Stephen King novel or watching Wayne’s World 2). So these last two months I have made a point to really get through these things, knowing that I am the kind of person who won’t be alone forever.

And that all sounds good, until you tell it to someone at work. Someone who says: “So what have you been up to since you moved here?” And you respond: “Oh, not a whole lot. Doing a bunch of reading and watching movies and shit that I haven’t had time for in the last five years.” And she says: “You mean you just spend all your time at home? By yourself? Do you have any friends here? And that’s the kicker - the ‘friends’ question. Because, yeah, I’ve got friends. Lots of friends. Close friends, friends I would trust with my very life if need be. But they aren’t here in town. Hell, I’m not even lucky enough to have focused them in a single geographic region. Coast to coast, I got friends. But not here, not that I see on a daily basis. So I have to answer that question, “no, not here.” And feel slightly loser-ish.

So now, she’s on a mission. Come hell or high water, said co-worker is resolved to find me friends. She takes my number. “I’m calling you on Friday. Someone - me or one of my roommates will have something going on. We’re going to find you something to do.” So it’s not even that she is going be my friend. It may be as tenuous as a roommate of a co-worker who will be my assigned social provider. So I feel awkward about this. I actually even had something to do Friday night. It was in preparation for a social event I was going to on Saturday. But I can hardly explain that to her now - she’s off to the races.

I believe that the ‘social contact making process’ is organic, something that will grow on its own if given time and circumstances. Half the fun of moving to someplace where I didn’t know anyone was to study this process. I don’t remember how I made friends when I was in grade- and high school. One part geographic proximity, one part personality, one part alphabetical proximity, and one part chance, I suppose. Then in college, I don’t remember the process because almost right away I started dating someone and that is a huge impact on other social ties. But here, the only variable is me. And it is going to be a process. And like all processes, it takes time. But I’ve got time. Oodles. And I’m working on that patience-thing, remember? So I want to see how it happens. Remember the exact details - who I was friends with first and then who I was friend with longest (because if I remember back to my school days, those were often two totally separate parties).

I’d say to some degree I’m already friends with most of the people at work, even on a limited out-of-work social basis. So bring on the Friday night parties and random social calls, I guess. It’s all part of the process. [By the way, I have exchanged cookies for neighborly favors with the lady next door who baby-sits, but I don’t really call that a social connection.]

“There’s a process in the world, and no one can stop the change...”

:: Freddy F. at 10:33 PM [+] ::
:: (2) comments ::

Jonesin’

I don’t really have anything to say. But, I am getting tired of reading that last title on here, so it was time to at least change the wall color, if you get my drift. And I know there is always that little thrill of seeing something new on someone’s page that hasn’t changed for a while. I hope people get that when they show up here - if they do, here’s your little thrill for the day, my pleasure, signed Fred - if not, then you probably aren’t much into reading this anyway.

Work is the primary focus of my life. My waking life anyway (my dreams have become increasingly vivid and bizarre as of late - possibly a combination of sleeping less/harder and my choice of reading/viewing material). Mentally, very little of my focus is on work, but it does dictate my schedule, routine, attire, economics, and social structure, so we can say it is my focus right now. Even during the ten hours a day I’m in the office, nothing much is going on. It’s like reading a B paper from an A student - all the mechanics are there, the content is above par, at times it may even be engrossing, but you know in the nagging back part of your brain, that it could be better, that there is something missing. I am scouring for that missing bit. Everyday I go in trying to pinpoint that missing beat, but I haven’t found it yet. Sometimes I think it is the passion - something about working for a firm that is very national and very diverse makes it a more benign experience. As the effusive NoFX once said: ‘The desperation’s gone.’ Working for a tiny firm, everyday was a battle to stay afloat. Here, financial security is all but given, and even when it is all coming down to the wire, things are getting thrown together at the last minute, and it’s looking grim, the phrase ‘Well, it was a peanuts job, so if we get fired, we’ll survive’ still floats around. I feel like at the end of my day, I want to have more at stake.

That’s where you have to be to find the gold, man, right out there on the brink. It is so much more than metaphor to speak of an oyster and a pearl, but in some ways it can hardly be illustrated better. That constant fear, working at the edge of ones capacity, pushing and striving for something greater, biting off more than you can chew and instead of spitting it out, swallow it grit and all, smile and know the only thing that can follow it is another, bigger bite.

So I feel like I’m lacking that edge. My work is not providing me with challenges. Sure there’s the ‘get this all into CAD before 3pm’ challenge, but that’s just stack-cup, that’s just shoveling shit, simply a physical repetitive activity. I want the problem that challenges my mind, my thought process, my beliefs, something that so baffles my body and spirit that I lay awake at night wrestling with it, that I give up food, sleep, sex, everything to tackle it. The thing is: I’ve tasted that challenge before; it’s a drug, man, like lady-H, chercez le femme and all that shit.

But this will be an exercise in patience. As the ol’ tag line says ‘I was never one for patience’ and it’s true. Damn true. I’ve lost loves over it. But now that time has come. I have to refocus my energies to myself. For so long they have been directed outward - giving, interacting, creating with others. Now I shift back to myself, a metamorphosis of sorts. Ovid, not Kafka. I will hone and refine and sharpen to a fine point, ready to embrace or battle or both. I’m entering the final stages of pure growth and will emerge with the passions I so crave. And when that’s done, then the real work can begin.

“This is who I am, and now I’ve made my peace...”
:: Freddy F. at 10:10 PM [+] ::
:: (0) comments ::

Grounded

Allow me to list the problems with the airline industry. A mode of transportation that involves hurling huge, expensive machines through the air. A mode of transportation entirely reliant upon a nonrenewable resource of which the world supply is rapidly dwindling. Massive startup costs, purchasing planes, workers (skilled and unskilled), equipment, etc. Massive lifecycle costs, replacing expensive planes, equipment, machinery, etc. Massive lifecycle maintenance costs, renting airport space, maintaining infrastructure, purchasing fuel, security measures. Inability to adapt to changing circumstances. Inability to survive below a high level of regular use. Cost of use is at the upper level of what is competitive in the marketplace. Prone to devastating accidents. Incompatible with other modes of transportation. Cannot be advanced beyond current state without significant leaps in cost, investment, and technology. Is not sustainable. Is not environmentally conscientious, in fact has lead to a huge reduction in endangered ecosystems throughout the world. Is not pleasant to be around the infrastructure and mechanisms. Operates beyond the acceptable human scale, making it an uncomfortable experience unless the scale is brought within the humane range. Top-heavy management and investment structure makes it prone to top-heavy decisions allowing for no protection of the worker in conflict with management. The society that once required fast, long-distance travel to sustain the economy is rapidly fading into the past. And so on...

So with that list in mind I wonder, why the fuck are we fighting to preserve the airline industry. I read today that several companies will be declaring bankruptcy. Several more companies are negotiating with their thousands of employees, encouraging them to give up their pension plans so they can guarantee a loan that might keep the company afloat for two more years. Someone’s pension. Today is the very first day my 401(k) kicked into effect. I looked at that $150 dollars sitting in the bank and thought ‘My god, someday that fucker’s going to be worth millions!’ And then I can have it. It’s all mine. To live life how I really want (which at the moment is everything but the job I’m currently in). But what if thirty-five years from now, someone was telling me I had to give it up, so that I would have a place to work for another 24 months. And even if I give it up, I’m by no means promised a job anytime past tomorrow. In fact, the more they take, the easier I am to get rid of. The only upside is that the more they take, the less of a burden I am on the corporate financial structure, so the less likely they are to cut me. So thousands of people’s financial future is going straight down the proverbial airline crapper because a certain group of individuals are a bunch of fucking morons.

And let’s look at these morons. I bet their pensions aren’t hurting. Let’s say you’re the kind of person who spends $15,000 a year on stuff. Not fun stuff, not movies and vacations and cars and women. Stuff you need - a roof, food, transportation. Better yet, let’s say you got a family and you spend $30,000 a year. That’s a lot, but you’re doing alright. If you‘re the airline mechanic making $45,000 a year (or worse, the flight attendant or janitor making $25,000 a year) those necessities are eating up a big portion of your earnings. Not much to set aside or to enjoy life along the way. But let’s say you’re the big cheese (or one of the big cheeses) over at American or Delta. Well shit, that $30k a year isn’t hurting you too much at all, what with your $200,000 salary plus options and dividends. You’re more than willing to sacrifice your pension because you can sock away $50,000 a year tax free - in fact without that employee pension on the books, you can make out even better.

But I’m not fighting the class war - I am just giving you the facts. And the fact is, the airline industry will die. It’s on its way out the door. Mark my words - five years from now, you won’t use it like you can today. Like a big, fat, brain-the-size-of-my-left-nut, cold-blood-in-the-ice-age dinosaur, these behemoths will be extinct. But the airline industry (and possibly the federal government with their endless ‘recovery’ loans) will be the last to notice. They’re so busy hollering at the dead horse, they can’t see the flies a-buzzin. They will keep on at it until the airports are empty and homeless people use the metal detectors for two sides of their cardboard condos.

It won’t be someone in the airline industry, but someone is going to notice this trend. Someone is going to redevelop a mode of transportation that is more efficient, less hazardous, has a smaller ecologic (and global) footprint, more individualized, and more respectful to the user. I purposely say redevelop. I doubt it will be new technology, we have everything here we need. We just need to make better use of it. The rail infrastructure has been around for over 150 years. Electricity is becoming cheaper and cheaper, and even the sun and the wind can be tapped for energy sources. You crash a train, it kills the people on board - trains can’t fly into the biggest buildings in the world, or spread toxins over the most populated centers in the world. Trains can change in size shape, they can be regulated, nationally and internationally. The mechanics that power trains are cleaner and safer and require less training both to maintain and to operate than airplanes.

Pretty much the airplane is a remnant of the concept of ‘Manifest Destiny’ and the great charge to the west. Time to stop slamming into brick walls. This world is facing worse problems than ever seen in history and it’s going to take better solutions, not just the same solutions in a louder voice.

“And I was singin’ ‘Bye-bye Miss American Pie...’”

:: Freddy F. at 10:04 PM [+] ::
:: (0) comments ::

Campaigning for the 21st Century

Here’s how it goes. Both the incumbent and the new guy are handcuffed together by their non-dominant hands. This seems to work out well (and easily enough) for a situation where one is left-handed and the other is right-handed. But if they both are right-handed (or, god forbid, left-handed) then that creates additional challenges for them to work through. And from the moment both declare their candidacy, they are handcuffed together. Always. They eat together, sleep together, shit together, everything. They have to campaign together. I see one of two situations resulting. Either the candidates will learn to get along with each other in a civilized fashion instead of volleying shots back and forth from behind ‘special interest groups’ smear tactics’ (the analogy is: remember how much easier it got to kill people when you could shoot a gun and didn’t have to be standing right near them to kill them). The second outcome is that both men would kill each other. Then, we’d have to find two new candidates and the same situation would be presented. Again, these two would either get along, or die, all while still vying for the same political office. Eventually, all the stupid fucks who are just downright mean would kill each other off and we’d finally get a race between two decent people.

To make it more fun, the wives would be handcuffed together, too. And they would have to constantly be standing (fighting, falling, wrestling) in a kiddie-pool filled with jello pudding.

“We can work it out...”

:: Freddy F. at 10:29 PM [+] ::
:: (1) comments ::

... And Another Thing

When I wrote all that the other day, I wasn’t thinking of this, but as I reread it, I think it is very apropos. What I wrote, I wrote as a bit of a defense for Kerry. Not that I think he’s perfect, not that I’d trust him any further than I could throw him - he’s in Washington and we’ve already established that Washington is corrupt. But, the idea was that I would clarify my personal stance on what I think of the debate regarding Kerry’s service record.

But the more I thought about it, that goes for the people currently standing on trial for abusing prisoners in Iraq, too. Again, these people are 18, maybe 20 years old. The Army, based on known fact, does not get the brightest people in the world. As a matter of fact, someone once told me the only thing he knew that was dumber than an enlisted private was a dog who once got himself stuck in tar and had to be shot. Dumb. And scared. To all these folks credit, and no offense intended, we don’t send rocket scientists to the front lines. But we send human beings. Humans who are scared and make mistakes, but most importantly, don’t think enough about the larger picture to not take orders from their superiors. In the army, one is so ingrained to do nothing except what they are told, why, in this single instance, when the worst parts of war show their face, are we to believe that they would suddenly become autonomous individuals and start acting on their own will.

Something smells fishy. Am I being to obtuse if I just flat out say ‘scapegoat’?

“I was only nineteen, not the age of reason...”

:: Freddy F. at 1:31 AM [+] ::
:: (0) comments ::

The President, the Soldier.

From what I’ve read lately, there seems to be a lot of dispute about how Candidate Kerry handled himself during the Vietnam War. I’m not sure exactly what the nature of the dispute is, I think it has something to do about him killing women and children, maybe about getting awards he didn’t ‘deserve’, maybe something about how he treated his men... suffice to say there is dispute. Once upon a time there was dispute about President Bush, too. Remember that? Of course we couldn’t dispute what he did ‘over there’. He didn’t even bother to fucking show up. In my mind, that ends all discussion.

But it brings up an interesting issue. What happens to someone in war and how does that reflect/impact who that person really is? Imagine yourself being eighteen again. When I was eighteen, let’s see, what was my life like. Hmm, I was over-the-top politically, obsessed with discovering what resembled intellectual discussion; I was constantly angry at everything, I ruined relationships with people, I failed to see some of the most obvious friends that I had; hell, I even thought Ben was a pretty decent guy. WTF, right? I was constantly infuriating my parents, and I thought a tattoo of a rose on my hand for prom was about the coolest thing possible.

So you’re eighteen, fresh out of high school, never been much out of your state, let alone the nation. On a philosophical level, maybe you’re torn between national duty and the desire not to die, or some sort of conflict between the wars your father and his father fought and the conflict you are currently facing, against an enemy you don’t understand. But more practically, you suddenly find yourself tossed into a jungle you don’t understand, surrounded by people you cannot relate to, all of which (or none of which) may be trying to kill you. You’re young, scared, away from home, and with people you don’t know. Odds aren’t bad you’re going to die without ever seeing your home again. Maybe you’ve got a commander who is a few years older than you (that’s about 21, maybe 22, still I’m having to think back about how I was then) who’s just as scared, just as alone, but has to be responsible for a lot more than his own ass in the same hell you’re in. So picture that.

I picture that and I know for a fact that I cannot begin to imagine what it would be like. I can picture it, but I’m picturing Platoon and Full Metal Jacket, not war. War, I have no idea. In fact, it seems that even the best, most well-reasoned people, react differently when placed under huge amounts of stress, and war is likely a huge amount of stress. So we’ve got an eighteen year old out there, to stupid to know that you can’t eat cinnamon rolls and soda pop ever day for lunch, and we expect him to never fuck up in war. Now granted, ‘fuck up’ in war equals ‘people dead’ in war, but that’s because of the gun in his hand, not something inherent in him.

I’m not saying soldiers are not responsible for their actions. I’m just saying let’s look at the bigger picture, like who put them in that situation, and what exactly is that situation, before we start casting stones. And if we can’t recreate the exact situation that occurred so many years ago, for the sole purpose of passing judgement, then maybe it’s all a moot point anyway. Yeah, Kerry might have fucked up in Vietnam, but he was eighteen and it was war. He didn’t pay to get out of it, and that ends the patriotism debate in my mind.

And for the record, Fred Flextimer wholly supports every American Troop and everyone who is forced to fight other people’s battles, and to me that means they all get to come (and go) back home as soon as humanely possible.

“The President said ‘Let it ride. Islam be damned. Make your last stand, in Tehran...”

:: Freddy F. at 10:34 PM [+] ::
:: (0) comments ::

Thrill of the Hunt

So I have these two passions in my life: literature and music. Alright, that sounds a bit pretentious. It’s more like I really like to read and I really love to be immersed in music. But my passion for these two things goes beyond just experiencing them - I love to have them, to increase my collection of each. My dream is that some day I have a massive library of books and albums, spanning all genres, styles, qualities, and scenes. So, logically, I love to buy books and albums. And because I am constantly on the lookout for what I’m going to love next, I keep this great big huge list of stuff that has been recommended to me (or I have recommended to myself [don’t ask me how that works]) with me at all times. And whenever I go into a bookstore or music store, I whip out this big huge list and start trying to match titles on the shelf with the titles on my list.

But the list has no organization. And, because of my tendency to especially frequent used book and used music stores, the shelf-stock also has very little organization, or predictability for that matter. So the searching process is usually a long and arduous venture, which is alright if I have all the time in the world, but I never do. I’m always trying to do this over my lunch hour, or before a store closes, or in between errands, or what have you.

On the plus side - when I find something I’ve been looking for, it’s great. Nothing beats that feeling of randomly stopping at some ‘used records’ bin and flipping to some Jawbreaker album that’s been on the list for two years. But again, my time isn’t infinite, and it’s getting tough to bear with the drudgery of flipping past 38 random ‘No Hope’ albums looking for that last remaining NoFX album.

I could solve this problem. I could buy everything online. I’ve found most of it. There’s no browsing. The prices can be a lot better. I never have to leave me chair.

But I cannot bring myself to resort to this. It seems vile and vulgar. These people go to all the trouble (and passion of their own) to have these wonderfully dank, basement or attic or backroom stores that always smell the same way whether you’re in Manhattan, KS or Seattle, WA. I love these people and I love their stores, so it kills me when I feel like I have to abandon the search for something and just go straight online with it. But a guy can go weeks without finding a thing on his list (or maybe it’s right there in front of you, just tucked a little behind that old copy of War and Peace) and when you’re not bringing it home it just isn’t the same.

I guess the plan is just to keep looking. Maybe I need to have a bigger list, or be willing to risk more on bad stuff to be surprised when I find a true gem. But as it is, I’ve had to go to Hot Topic, in the mall, to find the last two albums that were on my list that I bought. [And speaking of which, the new Cypress Hill album ‘Til Death do Us Part’ is excellent, though not at all for the song done with Tim Armstrong].

“Yes, we’re battle tested. With the time and the emotion and the money invested...”

:: Freddy F. at 11:03 PM [+] ::
:: (0) comments ::

The Moving Picture Review

Well, I can’t be serious all the time, can I? No, I can’t. And I watch movies. But I resolve to spend less time on movies that sucked and more time on movies that are actually worth saying something about. So away we go.

Zero Effect - It was funny. Not great, not critically acclaimed, but I enjoyed it and it seemed pretty smart - elaborate storyline and such.

The Wrong Guy - In my mind (the same mind that thinks Norm McDonald in Dirty Work is about the funniest fucking movie made in the 90’s) it doesn’t get much better than David Foley being an idiot. I’ll give him credit, he’s great at it. I laughed myself stupid. Stupid, I tell you. And Jennifer Tilly - yesssss.

The Searchers - Good. I think I told someone it was an anti-classic... is that proper terminology? If no one has said that before, can I coin it? It was troubling to watch, only for the reason that I don’t share the heroes’ beliefs. But, like many movies, the movie was only so-so until the ensuing discussion brought out the finer points. I need this forum people - it keeps me sharp.

Unforgiven - I kept waiting for this movie to really go over the edge, for Clint to just go apeshit and blast some folks. I have to say, it never really happened. Even the climax scene wasn’t what I thought it could be. I suppose the key here is that the movie is about the American West, not the romanticized version of the American West, where the good guy rides off into the sunset with the prostitute with a heart of gold. This is where guys die on the shitter, sheriffs are crooked, and the guys who kill them are drunks. So two movies where the idea of the ‘hero’ is skewed and distorted... almost to the point of reality, they weren’t Silverado, but they were good.

The Sopranos: Season 4 - This TV show (if I can humble it to call it that) has revolutionized how I look at TV. Never again will I strive to watch any TV show - I’ll just get it on DVD and watch it season by season. As far as the season itself, it was good, in a lot of ways more emotionally involving. Granted, I watch the other three seasons over a year ago, so the change might be in my, but it was killer to watch the family fall apart. I think it was made all the better by the fact that the third season wasn’t really up to par (except for the Barrons episode). I haven’t seen any of Season 5 (and the apparently upcoming Season 6), but I believe this was the season that begins the final descent into ruin. That’s a prediction, not a revelation of the conclusion, just a prediction.

Return to Me - These movies kill me, I’m a sucker for their charm. I’m smart enough to know that things like that could never happen in real life, but stupid enough to wish they did. I was funny, somehow original enough to hold my interest, not great and another fine example of how it’s great to be romantic as long as you have a lot of money to burn and are attractive. But I enjoy cultural humor, especially what was somehow a mix of Irish and Italian. A real feel-gooder.

Vanilla Sky - I know a certain someone is now saying ‘God, finally, he watched the fucking movie.’ I think I liked it, but I don’t know. On one hand, I appreciated the fact that the whole ‘surreality’ of the movie was explained in the end, to the character as much as to the viewer. It was even a memorable enough movie to go back and mentally rehash it and break it down once the proper revelations were made. All this as opposed to Mulholland Drive, which not only had to be explained to me numerous times, but I had to go back and rewatch parts just to make the explanation make sense. (Then I had to go back and rewatch some other parts, alone, in the dark... no wait, nevermind) But I can’t get around the fact that the whole premise of Vanilla Sky hinged upon a single man, who was incredibly rich and spoiled and lucky, and his vanity. And how he threw everything he cared about away because he couldn’t look himself in the mirror. Was there more? Cinematography and technicals aside, was there more to the underlying story than that?

Braveheart - Yeah, I’ve taken a lot of shit for not seeing this one earlier, but it felt too much like Top Gun to me - a movie that, despite the fact I have never seen it, I already knew everything about it. And I did. But it was good. For all the exact opposite reasons something like Unforgiven was good - the hero was pure and true, he came through everything unscathed (except for that last bit, but that was beyond his control), all the bad guys were bad and all the good guys were good. There was no grey. Alright, so I enjoyed it, it brought goosebumps at the end, but it was a movie for the sake of a happy ending.

See, you give me some time and I start to really get into the movies thing. It has been suggested that I begin Netflix. For many practical reasons, this sounds like a very good idea. Trust me, it is in consideration and I can only assume my readership here would be in full support. The only question is the commitment. And I don’t know if DVD’s fit in my mailbox.

“I used to wonder why did we bother. Distanced to one, blind to the other...”

:: Freddy F. at 9:27 PM [+] ::
:: (2) comments ::

And Connecticut Makes Three

Long, long ago... in a galaxy far, far away... there was a young kid who thought he had his life all planned out. For the last three years, he had been staying a (mostly) steady course. He knew what he wanted to do, he knew where he wanted to do it, and he knew who he wanted to be with for the duration. Last year, it all fell apart. He no longer knew any of the answers to those three questions; moreover he didn’t know any answers to any questions. The best he could do was tuck his tail down between his legs and stumble back home, scared, bewildered, and alone. Slowly but surely, this kid started to come around. Like coming out of a coma, he eventually regained control over his movements, speech, and even social skills. Things started looking like normal again. Aside from a few random encounters during that first semester back, things appeared as if they may have never been bad at all. Life began to fall back into place and the ashes were swept under the rug. And the rug was so wonderful, you could almost forget what it was hiding.

But I always knew what was under there. I always remembered. No matter how good it got, I couldn’t wash that feeling away, the last lingering alkaline taste at the back of your throat, you never notice it until you swallow, but it’s enough to make you shudder. It all haunted me. How easily it happened the first time - and how equally easily it fell apart. That feeling the first days after it ended - the feeling of being inexorably alone. I am grateful everyday that I do not truly understand the full extent of this analogy, but I came home and my house had burned down. I’d lost everything I spent years to pull together. And mostly, I’d lost all those answers. All the answers that let me sleep well at night, all the answers that helped me make the decisions, all the answers that made sense, right or wrong, they were my answers and suddenly they vanished.

I don’t know the answers anymore. Haven’t a clue, to be honest. I have, at best, an abstract idea of what I want to become, but no roadmap to get there, no companions, no understanding of what lies between here and there - where ever ‘there’ is. I once had a solution - I’d get away from everything, fuck it all, I’ll immerse myself in other worlds and find my fortune. Didn’t happen - couldn’t even start it - ran out of money. I had another idea: build, create, craft! Immerse myself in old friends and simplify. Didn’t happen either - got halfway down the path and had to turn back. Didn’t look like it was headed in the right direction - you can’t save the world if all you do is make little-tiny replicas of buildings that don’t exist yet. So I try something else - call it solution: magnetism. I would play the unmoving piece and just go where ever I was pulled. And I was pulled. And now I find myself in a city where I know no one, have no ties, feel no sentiment, and, most importantly, am not seeing any answers.

I got a call the other day from a model shop in Connecticut. Amazing the wave of nostalgia that swept over me, feelings from just a few months ago that seemed so foreign and surreal. They wanted to offer me a position, have me come out, check things out a bit, feel them out, and get to work. Suddenly, I’m back to being halfway down path number two. Did I make the right decision? If I had done something else, would I have the answers I’m looking for? Four months ago is as far back as I dare look. I know I could look back eighteen months, but that would probably kill me. I’ve never felt so adrift. If I look for answers will I find them? I wasn’t looking when I found them before, but I was young and stupid and didn’t know that answers could be spelled out so clearly. Now, maybe I’m just old and stupid, or at least older (and possibly stupider) but I know those questions are out there and I don’t know what to do but to try and answer them.

“This ain’t no Mecca, man, this place is fucked...”

:: Freddy F. at 10:31 PM [+] ::
:: (3) comments ::

The Flip Side of the Coin

Wow, $25 million. That’s a lot of bucks. If you take all the money I will make during my lifetime, if I didn’t spend a single penny from now until I was eighty - maybe even a hundred - if you take all that money I’ll make it might barely get to a million dollars. Maybe. So you take my entire college class and tally all of us up and if I make par for the course of what everyone in that class makes, the whole class isn’t going to make $25 million. That’s a difference. That guy is making a huge difference in the lives of those kids. And that’s great.

But we have to get away from the idea that money is going to be the most direct route to the solution. Yes, it’s a big deal and it’s what makes the world go ‘round (unless you listen to Huey Lewis and the News) and all that jazz, but is it more noble for that guy to give $25 million, or for some other guy who makes $12.50 an hour as a filing clerk to spend a couple Saturdays a month building houses for the poor? It’s great that someone cares enough to put that kind of money into a cause and not just back into his pocket, but the fact is that money only works when there are people who are willing to put the sweat and guts into it.

When he gives $25 mil to the kids, he’s probably got someone (or a bunch of someones) working with those kids or dealing with those issues on a day to day basis. If he’s the kind of guy who made all his own money, he’s probably still got that business to run - if he inherited it he may have other interests or he might spend time on that project, but I still have to imagine there are other people working for him on it. Those people are doing just as much, if not a more, to get this project off the ground and to the point where it is making a difference. Those are the people who are dedicating their lives to working to solve the problem, not just dealing with it peripherally. Those are the people I admire the most.

There has to be a change in mentality when it comes to solving the world’s problems. The idea of money being the biggest factor (or the only factor) must be laid to waste. Granted, you have to make money, but to make a profit is a whole different story. If said benefactor worked for profit for forty years, then donated $25 million to charity, how much was lost in those forty years? You can’t shit in the well your whole life, then retire to a crusade of purified drinking water. We have to start putting real human resources into these battles.

In education: We need more and better trained teachers - that requires money, but it also requires people who would make excellent teachers but decide to do something different with their lives, they need to want to be teachers. The environment: We need more sustainable resources, better waste management, better design solutions - again, still looking for money, but what about oil companies who keep putting money into finding more oil, or people still using styrofoam containers instead of recyclable plastics, or designers who just keep drawing the same old shit because they have been doing for fifty years now. In urban sprawl: Redevelop greyfields and brownfields, focus energy in mass transit instead of super-highways, stop making so many fucking strip malls and suburbs - well that’s what people are buying, so the developers and everyone on down are losing money if they stop with this practices. Money, again. But what if we could teach the people a different set of values? What if someone didn’t measure their success by their bank account or their car, but rather by the happiness of their neighbors, or better yet, by the happiness of people they didn’t even know. And not ‘what if someone’, but ‘what if everyone’ started thinking like that. What if it wasn’t pulling teeth to get people to recycle their newspapers or redevelop a downtown abandoned warehouse (not for luxury, gentrified lofts) - what if that is what people did because that was all they wanted to do? What then.

That’s what I want. I want to know that at the end of my life I have made the world a better place for the majority of people. I want to change it, make it better, make a difference by changing the way people think, act, and live. It sounds stupid and trite and petty, but when I’m dead and gone, there’s still going to be a lot of people trying to scrape by - what if I could make that scrape easier for them? I’m not talking a life of abject poverty or martyrdom, but I would welcome the opportunity to dedicate the vast majority of my life to fixing the problems I see as most poignant. I just have to find the right place for me to do that. And it will probably be in the private sector, somewhere.

“Don’t take money, don’t take brains, don’t take no credit card to ride this train...”

:: Freddy F. at 10:49 PM [+] ::
:: (3) comments ::