:: The Blurst of Times ::

:: 4.30.2007 ::

Rediscovering Punk Rock, or I’m not Afraid of Dance Clubs Anymore

So it’s a pretty basic Saturday night in my life. No obligations, no work that needs to be done, no solid plans or appointments to keep. The only thing I got is that the Mets are on and for once I have the opportunity to watch all three games of the weekend. I watched them lose Friday night, and was hoping for a win on Saturday. In such a mindset, I mosey on down to the local watering hole.

I arrive and am greeted by several friends (one of the pros of having a local watering hole). The game’s on, we chat for a bit, have a few pints, a few folks take off and pretty soon it’s just me and C, hanging out.

[Not to deviate too far: C is a friend who I know through her boyfriend, who is also a friend of mine. She also happens to be the masseuse who explained the virtues of massage to me, introducing me to her fellow masseurs, who proceeded to crush and wrench my back into a “better” shape on Friday.]

So we’re talking massage therapy, getting high, and why she’s about to leave to meet some friends at BW3’s. I decline to accompany her to BW3’s but agree to call after the game if I’m in the mood for some smoke. She departs, I return to my game.

The game drags on in a 2-2 tie for an extra pint, until the Mets blow it open with four in the twelfth. I’m heading home, decide to call C, find out she’s still at BW3’s but they are leaving soon to go to Rick’s. [Another aside: Rick’s is a college student dance club / meat market. The ultimate stereotype of when a college club is like in my mind, replete with sex for sale and fratties with money. Not my kind of place in the same way that GNC is not my kind of place: there just isn’t anything that interests me there.] I meet up at BW3’s, introductions around, we hop in the car, head down to Rick’s. There’s a line and a cover, but neither matter to us because we’re with someone in Rick’s family, so we’re all in free. We head downstairs, it’s about as sweaty and Abercrombie as I thought it would be, but I just keep to myself, enjoy my corona (to the extent that one can enjoy a corona), watch the parade of flesh, and let C and friends dance.

After the beer, C bids adieu to friends who are all about clubbing at Rick’s, and we head over to her condo. In my mind the following will happen: We’ll go inside, fire up a spliff, rock to some Massive Attack or St. Germaine for a while, and I’m home and in bed by 1. Nein.

We get to the condo, smoke, and we’re suddenly back out the door. Apparently we’re going to Oz. I was already happily on my way to “Oz” sitting on the living room rug, but now we’re off to a new dance club. I begin emphatically tossing out reasons not to go. Frankly, bottom line is I don’t enjoy dancing. I like drumming my fingers and tapping my toes, I have no problem with others dancing, it has just never been my thing. So it doubly sucks to go dancing with just one other person, so the non-dancer (me) has nothing to do while the other dances with everybody. So I’m dragging my feet the whole two blocks to get there. And as we come around the corner there’s a line. I point this out and am told not to worry. I also notice that everyone in the line is looking thuggish. Again, I am told not to worry.

We get in the line and when we get to the front, C knows all the bouncers. She talks our way in, past the cover (for her, not me) but I can’t go in with my hat. So I leave it at the door, reluctantly, tucked behind a mailbox. A quick pat down and we’re inside.

[The last aside: I am not racist. So to me, race means nothing. I am against affirmative action because I don’t believe racial quotas are the solution to socio-economic issues; I am against special prosecution for so-called “hate crimes” because I don’t believe that murderers should be held to different standards because of the color of their skin. I’m sure on some subconscious level, race has an impact on my behavior, but if there was anything I could pinpoint, it would disgust me and I would eradicate it. As I have seen behaviors in my past that force me to acknowledge these subconscious reactions, I consciously strive to never repeat them.]

For lack of a better word, this club is a rap club, as in there are people on stage rapping. Like the erstwhile Cog Factory was a punk club, I would say this is a rap club. Also, the vast vast vast majority of people in the club do not share C and my melatonin counts. In fact, after entering the doors I did not see another white male. Not that this bothers me, but there is this nagging thought that it might bother some people there, and the last thing I want is to be trouble.

We move through the lounge, C dragging me by the hand, into a different lounge area, into a third little lounge area, and finally into the dance floor, or whatever one might call the dancing, writhing area in front of the stage. With each step, I toss a little more caution to C and then into the wind. No longer am I concerned for myself, but I am concerned for this pretty drunk person I am with who is not only a friend, but the ladyfriend of a friend who is out of town. More than once the Travolta/Uma scene from Pulp Fiction enters my mind, and I have no pajama-wearing, cereal-eating dealer to turn to should things go pear-shaped in Oz. And I’m baked. Blazingly, blissfully, eloquently baked.

With one last plea for remaining stationary, I am danced through the masses and over to the other side. We get to the stage steps and thankfully, stop. C begins dancing, I am mostly standing, bopping a little and gathering my thoughts. I start to look around. Masses of people dancing, more dancing in the middle diffusing out to the edges, people up against walls, dancing, standing, talking, dry humping… Pounding base, poor lighting, unfinished ceiling, concrete floor, everybody’s rocking to the music… and it hits me. This isn’t like the Cog Factory: this is the Cog Factory. Reincarnate, at least. And just like that, I’m at ease; 100% carefree ease. I can close my eyes and compress to the beats - I feel the pulse, the movements, thousands of words, spoken and unspoken mingle with ideas in my head and beyond. I get it.

It’s a new scene, but an old scene, too. There’s the music, the cover charge, the building, the drinks, the cliques, the fashion, the dancers, the hardcores and the fringes, the who’s-in-who’s-out… It’s all there, and it’s all the same. The style is different, but the message is the same. And it’s a message I’ve already heard: respect. Respect the scene and the scene respects you. I needn’t be concerned because I was there to move within the scene, not bounce against it, and no matter what scene you find, as long as you can respect the scene, a good time will be found. I was invisible and in such a state one can be free.

So that’s what I need, that’s what I’ve been missing. I didn’t like punk because of the anti-establishment nature of it, though I certainly enjoy that aspect as well. It’s the newness of it, the novelty, crashing punk rock ideals with my own existing ideals and finding a third in the wreckage. Crashing new ideas into my own, new scenes, new issues and realities. Moving through the ether, watching and observing, absorbing that which I see as new but has played out for years if not millennia before I ever saw. This is what I’ve been missing, this freedom.

“Thank God for granting me this moment of clarity, this moment of honesty, the world can feel my truth…”
:: Freddy F. at 3:14 PM [+] ::
:: (3) comments ::

Good Night, Bluebeard or The Best Ending for the Obituist

What can I say - the man spent his life writing obituaries for everything he ever had. He taught me how to pre-mourn the passing of events certain to come. Through him I learned that not only was death the great Leveler, it was also the great Unifier. Is it possible to mourn someone who's entire impact on my life was most likely completed years ago? I suppose, but not for long. He said it best.

"So it goes..."
:: Freddy F. at 11:48 PM [+] ::
:: (0) comments ::

The Search for Truth, or Dude, Where’s My Bike?

I believe in some sort of ultimate Truth. I believe that this Truth transcends all cultures, fads, time, and distance. I believe that in some microscopic or infinite cosmic way, there is something that is simple, linear, direct, and True. And I believe that someday this Truth will be revealed to me.

I believe that this Truth answers all questions, explains all relationships, and is empirically and infallibly just. The Truth holds no humor; it may be as simple as a single point or as complex as a fractal, but it will encompass just a single idea, the idea of the underlying Truth in everything. The Truth has the capacity to shave away all irrelevant, self-supporting, re-affirming information, and in doing so will explain everything.

I occurred to me recently that I have spent my life searching for this Truth, often without even knowing it. I used to (and still to some extent do) believe it is also the Right Answer. To every issue, every problem, conundrum, or challenge there is the Right Answer. It may be elusive or even self-repellent, it may require things beyond control, such as changing human nature or moving backwards through time. But somehow, there is a Right Answer.

When I was a little kid, sometimes I would lose stuff. Usually it was something like a Lego or maybe one of my Matchbox Cars. And as I would be looking for it, fruitlessly scouring the house and yard, it would occur to me that if that Lego or car had self-awareness, it would know where it was. It would be existing in the experience of knowing exactly where it was, what the objects around it were, what condition it was in, etc. It would have seen the sequence of events that led to its current position. Maybe it could even see me searching for it, only without the capacity to provide additional information to guide me. There was no personality attached to this lost object; nor was there morality in its potential awareness; it just was. And it was the Right Answer that I was really seeking - not any kind of guiding force that would lead me to the object, but more working within my own powers to fix upon the correct location. I would now say that I was seeking the base Truth that would put me and my eyes in the exact spot where the object I was seeking was existing.

There were rarely religious overtones to what was the Truth. I saw (and still see) the concept of God as just another person, though possibly in a more cosmic sense. The idea of God dedicates itself to an inherent fallibility within humans that they cannot reach a certain point (possibly the Truth) without having additional powers supplied to them. Maybe these extra powers come through prayer, or dying and being saved, or believing that Jesus was the son of God… I do not know. I have never been that keen on the idea of being powerless in the face of the entire universe: I can accept my own miniscule-ness, even my own ultimate transience in a universal scheme, but I have a hard time bringing myself to accept the fact that I am so inherently flawed that using the fullest extent of my capacities I would not be able to find the Truth. So whereas God (in the Judeo-Christian sense) is a force that leads, or subscribing to the idea that everything is connected through some mystical force(s), I believe the Truth is simply the aggregate of all information, much of which will reduce other information to inconsequential nothing (look up neutrinos, quarks, and anti-quarks; or read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking to get this idea), and using this information we can see what is real, if anything at all. The final clause in the concept of Truth is that there may be so such thing, and the deconstruction and reduction of everything may simply result in an infinite void.

To me, the Truth can appear in everything. In design, it is a matter of examining all the issues. In people, it is beyond all lies, and motives, and actions - this makes it much harder to see. In me it is the ultimate challenge. Yet still I look.

In seeking Truth there is comfort, for in Truth there are no unknowns. It is pursuing a science, but it is the science of everything. There is also a certain amount of detachment that one can feel in looking for the Truth because of the inherent objectivity in the Truth. There is no good or bad, there just is.

The most recent example: Friday night my bike got stolen from out in front of my apartment. Just ghosted. It was there at 10.15 when I stepped out to get my sketchbook from the office. It was gone when I looked out at 7.30 the next morning while I was drinking my orange juice. No footprints, no signs of a struggle, not even the bike lock remained: just the cold hard sidewalk and the cold hard bike rack. It had been there for seven months, practically un-ridden, the chain was rusted, the tires were flat, dogs had probably peed around the bottom of it; I could go for weeks without ever noticing it. And suddenly, it disappeared. And for this I could be upset. But I am not. It is what it is and the Truth holds the answer. Something happened and it is possible that no one save the person who actually took the bike has any idea that something happened. If that bike has self-awareness, it would know what happened.

But through the Truth, someday I can know what happened, too.

“I can see through the light…”
:: Freddy F. at 1:49 PM [+] ::
:: (4) comments ::

Ten Days Away, or Feeling like Fish, or This One’s for You, Tex

So, it’s been a while… How’ve you been? I’m doing alright, you know, can’t complain. I apologize for being away for so long… I would like to say that I was busy or that I was getting something really big taken care of; that maybe I was off saving the world, or teaching impoverished children, or even helping old ladies cross the street. But that would all be less than true… a lot less.

Without delving into the details of what has been happening for the last 360 days, suffice it to say I’ve learned a lot. I’m sure in time I’ll get to all the stories, but for now I would just like to speak about the last ten days.

When I was in school I used to get pretty stressed out about stuff and really not ever notice it until after the project was done and I could relax again. Then suddenly I would feel the lack of the weight and it was fantastic. The whole issue was that the stress would build up so gradually that I’d never notice it was there.

For the last year I have been kind of bored. It started with the occasional bout of ennui and it has just grown and grown until I was just plain flat-lining. And the worst part was that I had no idea it was happening. Well, that’s not entirely true. I knew I was bored, I knew I needed a break, I knew that something had to give because I was to the point were I wasn’t even motivated to change my station. So I went on vacation.

I flew out east to see what world was passing me by, if any at all. And I think I learned a lot. I learned that there are still things that inspire me and they aren’t always what I’m expecting. I learned that sometimes I have a hard time not being busy and I should probably do a better job of keeping things in perspective – aggressive climbing cannot come at the expense of things that I value. I learned that some of my best thoughts come when I’m least expecting them; that sometimes my best thoughts never make it to my mouth, and some of my worst thoughts do far too quickly; that sometimes my best thoughts are only half-formed in my head and there needs to be a lot more discussion for those thoughts to develop. I learned that people will forever have their own lives and be their own people and sometimes you just can’t get parallel to that, no matter how hard you try.

The bottom line is that I have been reinvigorated. I’ve learned a lot about myself that I hope will be apparent in the coming days and months. I feel like I have a better perspective on what I am doing, what I want to do, and what I’m capable of doing. I know of places I want to go, experiences I want to have. In some ways I have tested my limits or seen myself in a new light. But most of all, I have taken the opportunity to step outside of my life and in doing so can see the forest, not just the trees.

Mounds of gratitude go out to everyone who let me crash on a couch or a floor, use their shower, bought me a drink or a dinner, and took some time out of their lives to show me around a bit. In more ways that I could ever tell you it’s always a blast.

“I feel so out of context, in this gaudy apartment complex. A stranger with a door-key explaining that ‘I’m just visiting’…”
:: Freddy F. at 11:47 AM [+] ::
:: (4) comments ::

Thirty-five Years and Still Going Strong or: How to Save the Planet in a Single Day

When I was a little kid, I really wanted to be in the Army. Or be a cop. Or a state trooper, like my step-cousin. So very typical, yet so ironic. Doubly ironic because of their achievability. I could quit my job tomorrow, sign up for whatever training was necessary, and by the end of the year be any one of those three characters. But now I don’t want to be any of those. When I was a little kid, I was so damn pragmatic. Now, if anyone asked me what I want to be when I grow up, I’d tell them: the guy who saves the world.

Nice. Obviously that’s not wisdom I’m gaining as I age.

But in all reality, I know better. I’m not going to save the world. How could I - I’ve though about it for five years now and all I’ve gotten is more confused. Not only am I convinced that everything isn’t black and white, I’m now sure that nothing is either and most of it is all about the same shade of grey. So we’re fucked, right? Yeah, probably.

But that doesn’t change the fact that tomorrow is the often celebrated and always revered Earth Day. And with Earth Day comes that little nagging voice in my head - “Yeah, but what have you accomplished.” Oh, I’ve preached and I’ve bitched and I’ve soapboxed until I’m blue in the face, but in all actuality, what have I accomplished. Truth is: probably not much. That’s where reflection gets you - bummed and feeling slightly foolish. So there you go.

And here I go. Tomorrow’s a new day, could be a pretty significant day, but a new day none-the-less. Tomorrow I will face myself in the mirror and be able to tell myself that from now on I have changed for the better. It will be small and sublte; it probably won’t change the outcome of anyone’s life, nor will it save the world or our society. In fact, except for those of you who I am telling right now, no one will probably be any the wiser.

Except me. I’ll know what I’ve done. And that’s going to be good enough.

Everyday at work I buy my lunch from a local eating establishment. Where I go and what I get vary from day to day based on any number of factors. Most days I grab something to go and eat it back at my desk. And a good 75%+ of those days, my food comes in a styrofome or plastic container of some sort. And on all those days, I throw that container away, as there is no good way to recycle it. Not to mention the two-three nights a week I get takeout for dinner. Suffice to say, I’m not much one for making an easy meal for just myself - if only one serving is going to be made, let someone else do it.

So my soul bears the scars of all these styrofome containers being used once and wasted. And that’s what I’m giving up. I have purchased a tupperware container, roughly the size of your typical 8”x8” takeout carton. From now on, I will take this with me when I get takeout food, and I will ask them to put the food in there for me, thus not wasting a container. At night, I will take it home and wash it - the next day it will be available for use.

This is a minute change. It cost less than five dollars and will likely last as long as I choose to keep eating out. It fits in my bag for easy carrying, it washes clean because it isn’t being cooked in, it never gets used up or thrown out. No, this tupperware container won’t save the world, adn probably neither will I. But it’s something. It’s a step. And if we all take a step, well, that’s a movement.

Wanna dance?

“I don’t feel urgency in explaining, my conscience opaquely clear...”
:: Freddy F. at 12:27 AM [+] ::
:: (11) comments ::

A Shift in Paradigm at 7am CST on a Saturday. or: A Prayer for Raven Jackson

For being a smart kid, it seems like there are some lessons I have not, and will never, learn. Maybe the best way to handle the situation is to figure out what you will never learn and spend the rest of your life playing damage control.

I will never learn the lesson of brevity. When I have something to say, it’s going to take a while. I’ve tried to shorten stories. I usually end up shortening sentences and then just using more of them. Here’s a hint: I think I have a lot to say today - you might want to pace yourself. Read for a while, then take a break, grab a snack or a soda, maybe check some emails or do some work, then come back and read some more. Don’t be intimidated by the volumes of text - maybe copy it into some sort of word processing program and print it out. Then you can take it to your couch or your favorite coffee shop and read it while you enjoy some delightful ambiance and a cinnamon raisin bagel.

I will never learn the lesson of patience. I get my mind wrapped around something and it’s like an addiction, internal, gnawing at my psyche and driving me. Bouts with extremism shadow many periods in my life - impassioned thought compelling me to action based on blind judgment. Repeatedly the end result is self-destruction.

And I wonder: is the best way to keep yourself from destroying the best things you’ve ever had in life, to stop having things? Like when my mom decided it was just a bad idea to have nice dishes because I have a habit of tossing things to myself while I’m walking.

I have, however, learned that when you plant trees, it’s always better to plant an odd number in a massing. Asthetics. And that when you render a plan graphic, always shade to the nature of the sun, not the orientation of the drawing. Also aesthetics. And that Time is only linear because of the laws of Thermodynamics. That one’s physics. He can be taught!

[Metablogging: I hate the fact that whenever I get in the mood to go on hiatus from this creation, I retro-actively leave it with some short stupid and inane ‘final post’ that is so trite and superficial that one can’t help but read it and wonder if this truly is the work of a couple monkeys pounding on a couple keyboards for a couple hours. But to my defense, I have been thinking for the past four weeks that I need something to replace that, something significant, thoughtful, and possibly summarizing everything this blog has stood for for the last three years. I’ve had bus station inspiration end in a blank screen and blank mind at home, and I’ve had hours of pounding the walls, waiting for the inspiration to come, all to no avail. This is a final stab at it: Enough has transpired in the last to weeks to warrant an update; I’m listening to ‘Whatever and Ever, Amen’ (quite possibly the most unbalanced album ever) knowing that ‘Brick’ is going to cut me in two, but I’m anxiously awaiting ‘Selfless, Cold, & Composed’; and for some reasons my dreams are starting to get to me - no longer short clips with people I am familiar with, they have turned into epics with fully recognizable characters and roles to play - for some reason this seems to be an appropriate driving force that something needs to be written. Odds are, this will not be the last post, because I forget how much I enjoy writing when it is flowing, but when the flow ain’t there, it’s torture. You never know.]

You have times in your life when you realize that someone has taught you something. I used to not know how to spell tomorrow. Seriously. (For the record: I still can’t spell restaurant or guarantee without a dictionary). Then one day in seventh grade, Team C, Kiewit Middle School, in Mr. McGuire’s 4th hour Science class, a beautiful young lady taught me how to spell it - Tom, or, row. So I promptly fell in love with her. This relationship of learning a lesson and falling in love would become something of a habit for me in the coming years - so much so, I think I’ve mastered the art of fucking up the lives of people whose intentions are only the purest in helping me.

***

The sun doesn’t rise directly in the east or set directly in the west. You’d think it would be in the southeast/southwest, but it’s really in the northeast/northwest. Also, consider an entire time zone - a thousand miles wide. The sun won’t rise on the whole thing at once - the east side will get sunlight almost an hour earlier than the west. Suffice to say, when you’re used to the west side of the timezone and suddenly you’re sleeping on the east, you’re going to get woken up by the sun a lot earlier, and the sun doesn’t care if it’s Saturday or your day off.

***

I’ve never considered myself a religious person. Even when I went through my ‘Yes, I’m a good Christian’ phase (it lasted about three months, when I was 11), I was mostly just stoked by that shirt that said ‘Jesus knows Life is tough as Nails.’ What can I say: I’m a sucker for a good catch phrase. I’m not religious, but I think I have (and do) put a good bit of thought into it. I’m comfortable with my relationship with a higher being(s). I see glory and wonder all around me and cannot imagine how other people don’t. I wonder how people can believe in a God whose glory surpasses all, whose benevolence encompasses everything, whose power heeds no bounds... I wonder how those people can start wars, can hate, and burn, and devastate. And I wonder how can things ever change. Is this truly the ideal of human nature? Did we ever really leave the state of nature - or did we just made life nasty, brutish, and a bit longer? Civilization is nothing more than a means of creating bigger, fatter, and crueler means of killing more people from further away.

***

In all reality, the energy sources we are dependent upon as a global society are not sustainable. I don’t care if you think they will last fifty more years or seventy-five or a hundred or whatever, eventually it will run out. Avoiding Kyoto now for economic reasons will likely seal the United States’ fate as a second-rate nation in technological innovation in the realm of energy production. Even the possible benefits we can gain from re-applying nuclear power lag behind the better half of European nations. And nuclear isn’t much of a solution. Sustainability may be greater than the fossil fuels, but safety (in terms of meltdown and enriched uranium regulation) is certainly lacking, and the amount of waste (uber-dangerous, not-going-anywhere waste) is monumental. In addition, there will be no avoiding NIMBY-mentality when it comes time to construct plants and dispose of wastes, and the centralized control structure that leads to stagnation and price-gouging by major utility suppliers remains unchanged. It stands to reason that evolving our society and culture around wind and solar power will lead to sustainable usage, diminished environmental impacts, and greater local control over utility prices and outputs. Nuclear may be an adequate compromise (replete with enormous risks if the regulations are not heeded), but it will be a costly and lumbering fix, like replacing your Commodore with a IIGS.

***

When I was a junior in high school, two friends taught me a lesson. I have to say two, because I can’t remember which instigated it - I think one said something to me about a movie and the other gave me the book to read. [And I wonder if those two friends would be pissed if I give them shared credit, knowing that I loved each of them thoroughly, devotedly, and independently]. When I met these friends I was so angry - I was so anti-everything, it’s amazing I bothered to show up for classes. I fought cliques, rules, regulations, laws, standards, castes, and everyone who I thought swallowed it all. I was stupid, arrogant, and naive. To some degree maybe we all were, but I probably was more than my fair share of being an asshole.

A Prayer for Owen Meany made me a fatalist. I became convinced not only of my own significance in the greater scheme of things, but also that I could accept who I was for what I was. No, I didn’t think like everyone else. Why not? I don’t know, but there’s a reason - just because I’m not big enough to see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. No, things were never going to work out with my first heartbreak. Why not? Well, probably for a lot of reasons, but that was just the way it was. Nothing personal buddy, just two puzzle pieces that weren’t meant to be adjacent. And there’s a reason you weren’t supposed to switch to going to school in Lincoln. No, you’re never going to get those four years of your life back, spent in reckless pursuit of a girl that could never see you for who you were (are). Were they wasted years? Absolutely not. To give credit where credit is due, both of my friends gave me the gift of Owen Meany, but it was the one who was afraid to be on State Street in the dark who taught me that I could live my life without regrets or embarrassment. So of course I fell in love.

***

There is a certain morbid streak that must run through every fatalist, especially those who tend toward Unitarianism/Atheism. It’s kind of a prerequisite - like being a socialist and being having compassion for your fellow man - if you’re lacking one trait, it’s doubtful you could have the other. To put myself in the company of great men, I’d say I share this trait with Kurt Vonnegut and Johnny Cash. But in all actuality I put myself in the company of a great many realists - I can recognize idealism, but instead of seeing a sweeping change tear through the society like a reform-minded tornado, I see ideas gradually replace other ideas as time painstakingly marches forward. I see an era of reformation that began with 94 Theses being nailed to an oak door, being about halfway over in the present time. I also see scientific revolutions being cut short by the waning attentions of “revolutionaries” less interested in results than in being known as revolutionaries. Thus, I’ve accepted the fact that I will not likely be known as a revolutionary, but would like to think that at the end of my days, I’ll be able to look back and say, ‘Yes, I did not make things worse than I found them.’

***

Sometimes when you’re a realist, it’s like watching the whole world in shades of gray. Or to make the metaphor more philosophical and less cinematic, it’s like you’re in the cave and watching the whole world as the shadows on the cave wall. A year and a half ago I was dealing with some pretty serious depression. Of course, I didn’t call it depression, I called it realism. I didn’t know... anything. Everything I had hoped and believed in and knew, changed. Suddenly left in the dark, my life became a study in minimalism. I was in the cave. Everything appeared two dimensional to me. It was a good feeling to be so planar - I grasped everything. I saw edges and definition on every issue. It was all clear. It was like being solid again.

Being complacent is a very dangerous situation. Someone once told me [in response to the idea of being green behind the ears]: “Think like a plant: if you’re not green, you’re dying.” A phrase like that can strike you deep, especially in my line of work. And it’s a good mantra - to have something that simple and powerful to live by. It’s like you have a reason to keep moving. Eighteen months ago, I didn’t really have a mantra. I wasn’t really green anymore. I had come to accept my lot, with where I was, what I had done, where I was going. And I never knew how bad it was until I met this muse. I met her when she stole my money and told me to buy her a drink. We lost a game of pool and I’d never seen anyone so happy. In the next month I became energetic, inspired, and most of all, alive. It was she who inspired me to take on the greatest model I ever built, quite possibly the greatest (and most successful) two week undertaking in my entire life. It was she who drove me, she who kept me smiling, she who lectured me at 2 in the morning in a closet on the third floor of Seaton, not about why I could finish it, but about all the reasons I couldn’t. She taught me to be green again, taught me to love the thrill of building something with my hands, or creation.

I here had the opportunity to break what was becoming a dangerous trend. The realist said to walk away. The realist said that I’ve been down this path so many times I own real estate on it, but I couldn’t get the idealism out of my mind. I was captivated and entranced. I had a minute, a second, a blink of an eye to make the decision, and the decision was made before we even ever spoke. Once again, I crashed blindly ahead, and crushed what I most treasured.

***

Planners are a group of people divided between being idealists and being realists. The ones you hear about, the Duanys and the L’Enfantes are the revolutionaries, chock full of half-baked solutions and snake oil. The realists will never be on TV or make circuit speeches promoting their latest books - they tend to stay in their hometowns, study hard at school possibly even teach, work on local planning boards or work with communities that have none, and quietly keep walmart from gulping down communities like a fat kid eats skittles. The realist planners aren’t concerned about current trends, they know that they’ll come to pass. So they make mantras like: ‘You can’t count on people to change - you can count on them to die.’ And they do. So it goes.

***

There’s a certain aspect of my extremism that occasionally demands I clean myself up. [As a footnote: I believe that I’m a fascinating study in irony - I can be at once the most anal-retentive bastard you’ve ever known, and the most sloppily dress bum you’ve ever seen; I extol the virtues of nature, but fear spiders and especially centipedes; At once I want to be the pinnacle of rigid asceticism and the epitome of debauched living.] There is also a reciprocal force that in the past has led me back to chemical supplementation, if not reliance (but never dependency, I promise myself).

Since I do make an honest effort to reform myself and my misguided ways, I will come to clear the slate here and now: Alcohol is primarily consumed in moderation. I can think of three instances in the last year I drank myself sick. This is down 40% from the year prior (five instances), but whole worlds better than when I turned 21 and really hit the bottle hard for a while. I have recurring issues with cigarettes, but haven’t smoked one in the last three weeks. These two will be the hardest challenges in the near future. I haven’t smoked marijuana in more than a month. I haven’t used adderall, ritalin, or amphetamines in over a year and coke even longer than that. I drank my last caffeine four weeks ago. I have started eating better, fixing full dinners and making sure I eat them, making a note to eat both breakfast and lunch everyday. I drink almost no soda and drink water all day at work. I make sure I’m in bed before one and up at six (both will be earlier when the sun starts rising earlier). This is my regimen. I will maintain myself.

***

When I was a little kid we took trips across the western half of the state of Iowa several times each year. My favorite time to go was in the late summer and early fall. See, Iowa’s the corn state, and called such for a very good reason. And when you’re flying by on the highway, past the cornfields with their rows and rows of corn stalks, about half the time, the rows run perpendicular to the road. If you stare at the field while you are driving by, in rapid succession, each of the spaces between the rows lines up with your eye for just a split second, creating a very animated and fascinating optical illusion. It’s probably nothing too major or earth-shattering for most people... if they notice at all. But if you see me driving across central Iowa and I keep sliding outside my lane, just remember some people are drawn to brightly colored flashing lights, others of us just like corn.

***

Sometimes in life, my brain works like this, too. Sometimes I’m just flying by everything, thinking, and reading, and writing, and smelling the roses, and just doing my best to somehow maximize existence, all the sudden everything just lines up. An instant where you feel like everything is equidistant from you because you are everywhere at once. You love everything, every alcoholic, every leaf, every broken promise, every single friend, classmate, roommate, every time she thought about fucking that guy while you were on a camping trip together, every baby, every homeless guy, every square foot of concrete, of ocean, of savannah, of lunar surface, every murderer and every welfare worker and every little kid who believes in God because he doesn’t want his grandparents to die. You start smiling at everyone because it isn’t even you any more - you’re someplace that won’t ever exist, looking back on things from the eleventh dimension and wondering how everything got so glowy. I feel this and I know that whatever I think at that exact moment will be the truth and will be the right answer and will become part of my soul. I’m a whale, opening up my existence to the ocean of water, straining millions of gallons of being through my neuro-baleen. What I pull from that experience will sustain me. Every row is aligned as I’m speeding by.

Sometimes what I find is that I haven’t pulled anything new from existence at all. Sometimes I find something that’s been stuck in my teeth for a couple of weeks. There’s information, a lesson that flashes in front of my eyes, plain as day and yet forever invisible: you can’t set expectations, you can only set goals - and somehow, right here, right now, in this enlightened state, for the first time, that makes sense. And as I come down I realize that I am going to make the same mistake that I’ve made countless times before. It’s the lesson I’ll never really learn. And I wonder if it’s that big of a deal.

***

I think Adam Smith must have been a fatalist. He was famous for referencing an Invisible Hand that was going to work wonders on the global economic situation. That’s a pretty slick creation for a fatalist - he didn’t even give it a brain or eyes or ears to hear people screaming for justice. It was just a hand that was going to move things where they needed to be, right place, right time. Kroger Parking lot. Last Thursday night. I think some people name this Hand, Karma, but I have no desire for retributive justice, so I think of it as fate.

:

Raven Jackson is 6, she’s in second grade, she likes science and chocolate. Her favorite candy bar is Snickers - mine is Three Musketeers. Raven is standing on the curb and can’t find her mom. I am rushing home because I am dying of the plague and I need to make cookies to take to work on Friday. Raven has been wandering in the parking lot for ten minutes now - I know because I’ve been watching her, waiting for someone to ask her if she has any idea where she’s going. [To maintain my level of honesty and integrity, if someone had asked me where I was going at that moment, my answer probably wouldn’t have been any better than Raven’s.] Raven didn’t know. She thought her mom had probably gone home, but Raven couldn’t get home because she couldn’t cross the street. I took Raven back to Kroger’s. They paged for her mom, but no one came. We looked around the store and didn’t see anyone fitting the bill. They paged again. No response. We got some candy bars - a Snickers and a Three Musketeers. Raven really likes chocolate, so she took the Three Musketeers, that particular bar being composed entirely of chocolate. I ate the second snickers of my life. They still put lots of peanuts in those things: it tasted about as bad as the first. After a few minutes, a guy stocking the shelves said there was someone checking out her groceries who he’d seen with Raven earlier. A quick scan of the checkout lanes yielded no recognition. We returned to the desk as a woman came in the front door carrying a half gallon of milk. She looked at Raven and said “I told you to sit still and not move.” She grabbed Raven’s arm and pulled her over against the wall. “Now stay there” and walked back to the checkout aisles. I asked Raven if that was her mom. She nodded. For the first, and probably last time, I told Raven Jackson goodbye. But who knows: the Hand can be a very fickle friend to believe in. Me, I only have the power to set goals.

Raven is going to have a lot tougher life than I had. It will be a lot easier for her to get angry at things and she’ll probably have more of a right to be mad than I did. I hope that when she’s 17, she isn’t as much of an asshole as I was.

“Have faith that there’s a soul somewhere that’s leading me around. I wonder if she knows which way is down...”
:: Freddy F. at 11:12 PM [+] ::
:: (5) comments ::

Worst Date Movies Ever Or: My Movie List is Trying to Sabotage My Heterosexuality

1. Chuck and Buck
2. My Own Private Idaho
3. Happiness
4. Sleepers
5. American History X

"Happiness I'll find you, I'm looking everyday..."
:: Freddy F. at 10:38 PM [+] ::
:: (7) comments ::