:: The Blurst of Times ::

:: 9.29.2004 ::

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 ::