10.23.2009

Cosmo vs. Columbine



I will never be the best. At anything, ever. Not at writing, or writing blogs, or writing about writing blogs, or writing about not being the best at anything ever. Someone has written what I'm writing now in a much clearer, more profound way. This is such a depressing thought to me. What's the point of living if I'm always in the middle of the pack? It really takes the insignificance of me as a person and shoves it back in my face. I'm insignificant in my community, the only reason I try to achieve something is to prove my worth to myself.  I'm insignificant in your life. Don't deny it, it's alright. You might not know me, except through my writing. You might know me really well. Either way, I'm just a fleeting, peripheral character in a life that will have thousands of them. The only life that I'm not insignificant in is my own. So the point of my own existence is to prove to myself that I have proven my own existence. I need proof. Proof I was here, so I can be set free of a mortal time frame. For my grandma, the proof is a tombstone on a mossy, rundown field. For Janis Joplin, it's the music that I'm listening to right now. We think our lives are a contest to see how long we can go without being forgotten. It's that artistic entropy that makes me go crazy. Why would you remember me? This isn't the best thing you've read today. Not by a long shot. Why wouldn't it leave your head the second you finish the last sentence?

I have to realize that my life will be forgotten in a nanosecond. So what does that leave me? A life turns into a Cosmopolitan magazine. Superficial. Empty of substance, but full of the in-your-face, important-in-an-embarrassing-way material that you look at underneath the covers and realize that this might be the only thing you have to live by.

Spot a Man Who Wants to Be Approached


 *He [wants to be approached if] he flaunts his junk.
   When a guy wants to meet a woman, he'll unknowingly position his body so that his package is as visible as possible. Often, he'll rest his foot on an elevated surface, like the rung of a bar stool, and point his knee out to let his crotch take center stage.
---Cosmopolitan Magazine, page 68


Does anyone really need to know that bit of information? Obviously not. It's entertaining, humorous, and might make a few girls try it out. Cosmopolitan is a filth magazine for women, but you can't help but snicker at what's on it's pages. You love to look down on it. We love to look down on things that scare us. Is Cosmo the one that has it right, though? Maybe the emptiness is importance. Maybe the dumb redneck knows what he's doing. Maybe numbing the pain of existence is the only thing that will help you forget that it's going to end and it's never going to be remembered again.

Exhibit A. The Columbine Massacre. Reality. No one knows what went through the heads of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold when they killed 13 bystanders and then themselves. Analysts upon Psychologists upon Pundits blamed the massacre on everything from childhood trauma to videogames. Maybe these kids knew that the news would be analyzing them. The first day of journalism class I heard the phrase "If it bleeds, it leads". God Damnit if that story didn't lead for a year straight. I still know their names. Morality thrown out the window, I still know their names. Does that make them more successful than me? In a way I think it does.

Cosmopolitan, and magazines like it, help us focus on the superficiality of sex or drugs or anything else without "salvific" characteristics. They help us stay in a bubble so that we don't end up like Dylan and Eric. That's alright with me. Superficiality becomes reality when reality is superficial.




10.18.2009

Four years of Catholic High summarized in one exchange


David
why so happy?
5:08pmConor
haha i dont really know
just in a good mood i guess
5:09pmDavid
homo

10.15.2009

The Savage Decision

I don't know what's wrong with me lately. I usually just like writing about my opinions but lately I've been taking my thoughts and putting them in the form of a story.  I'm sorry if this is too pretentious for you, but I really thought it out so I thought I'd share.  Comment and tell me if I should trash it.


The Savage Decision



Beneath and among the scratchy branches and lacerative blades of leaves lay a man who was content with laying there.  He was hardly a man, more of a primate who needed no esteem nor belonging nor any other necessity of societal existence.  As he awoke, he stood awkwardly and ran towards the nearest pond and drank some murky water and sat down and looked ahead.  The thoughts in his head weren't the thoughts that could be translated into any kind of communicative noises, but instead were the thoughts of an orangutan or dog.  How will he eat, what will today entail, how will he survive until he lays again amongst the trees.  His purpose was not purposeful. It was the purpose of someone not shadowed by the darkness of a need for purpose.  His purpose was to live as long as possible before he naturally aided the food chain of the other equal animals.  He was content with this, but, then, he was content with everything.  Everything was natural, everything had a purpose in itself and it's purpose was to survive.  The ants, trees, clouds, air, rain, it all just survived.

So the routine came and came again, and he was content.  It didn't wear him, because there was no alternative to survival.  Everyday meant something in that it was another victory of life.  He didn't know any others like him, he was the lone man in a wooded place inhabited by food and predators, not friends or enemies, just other survivors.  He was content without having companions.  He didn't know how he came into existence, nor did the question ever cross his mind.  If the question did come into his thoughts, he probably wouldn't care.  He was content with survival, content with the dirt, content with his natural place in this savage society.  Savage in its activities, but civil in its reasoning.  Murders become necessary predatory captures when the murder can't be avoided.  He wasn't happy because emotions were useless.  He wasn't a drone, though.  He was alive, at least for the day that he thought.

One day he woke up to a piercing scream in his brain and looked down and saw that his three biggest toes were being ripped off.  He knew he was finished.  He had survived and won for a long time, but this is when he would finally be the fertilizer and food for the scavengers.  The man was content with this.  The beast made his way up towards his heart and ripped it out violently, and the man saw it and smiled.  The second he died his soul rose out of his body.  He looked down at the scene in confusion.

Nevertheless, his eternal and sacred soul continued to rise, and his thoughts became more concrete and more understandable to him.  He glided past the clouds and the stars and the moon and the rain and the other things he never took for granted, until he screeched and stopped.

Above and beyond the world and its people stood a man who was not content with standing.  He looked around, for the first time in his life looking at something he had never seen before. An industrial gate on top of a cloud not full of rain.  Other people, with glowing faces and smiles walking forward.  One man on a pedestal standing before the pearly metal gate.  Stand before me and kneel and let me check your sins, He barked. The man understood him in his glorified state and obliged. The man on the pedestal began again:

Murder after murder after murder.  Masturbation, raping the earth, and bestiality of all things! Despicable! You are not worthy to enter the kingdom of Yahweh!  How could you be so inhuman? The Lord Almighty has died for your sins and this is how you pay your dues?  


Then again. You are an uneducated man.  A poor, desolate soul not deserving of such harsh judgement.  How will you defend yourself? What have you to say to gain entrance into Eden?


The savage man stood up.  He stared at this man for a long second.  He frowned and stared at the ground and began to speak for the first time.


I am not ashamed of what I have done.  I was content.  At peace with myself and my surroundings.  I don't need to prove my worth by receiving the reward of this place.  What is it's purpose? To have eternal life?  Selfishness!  I was content with the dirt and the trees and the harmony of my home.  It was a home.  A Godless, beautiful home.  And I wish that I could stay there, dead body and dead soul forever.  This place is useless to me.


The judge became enraged and curious.  He looked the savage beast up and down several times before banging his gavel and saying.

Then you are not sorry for the crimes you have committed?  Heresy!  You are a goat if I have ever seen one! The ultimate paradise is no place for a beast like you.  God accepts you with open arms and you deny him!  That is the quintessential factor of sin, don't you see?  Jesus Christ might have passion, but I know where men like you belong.  Gehenna!  For eternity!


The man continued staring at his feet.  He fell into a lake of fire that burned his toes and heart.  He stared up towards his home.  And wished.  Wished that he could just be dead, because he was no longer content.  He could never be content again.



10.11.2009

Sorry in advance

I'm sorry.... I couldn't think of anything to write so I continued my last post. This is the last one, I promise.


Chapter 2


On the corner of Yale and Second is a school with four hundred students. Ninth through twelfth grade, none of them can stand it for one second. It's one of those schools that, in the sixties when the Usuals built it for two hundred thousand dollars, must have looked futuristic. Now it looks dated and dusty, like a science exhibit from nineteen fifty six. The students share a similar sentiment. The teaching techniques were trendy when the school was brought up. Backhand rap-pings, public embarrassment, and other corporal punishment that only a school with a reputation for discipline can possibly justify. Uniforms, punishment, a mass of masks disguising the very individuality that threatens to poison the foundation. Here is where a hero is born, that rises above the toxic air of oppression and stands with chest puffed and gawks at the authority that attempts to enslave him. No such hero is bred in this place. No such hero is needed for the lives of all four hundred students to run smoothly and slyly, slipping between the gaps of their pencils and their ears, studiously awaiting the next weekend so they can get consume whatever they can find and escape for a few hours. Monday morning is back to business, though. No questions asked. No such questions are needed for the lives of the 16-1 ratio faculty members to smoothly run through their job. Why complicate things. Twenty ruler taps train the slobs for society. Twenty ruler taps to save the world.

Tuesday, the drizzle dampens the decks where the masses wait for the bell to puncture their ears and hopes. Nihilism is instilled subconsciously in every wanderer there. They just have to reach the end. Just have to finish to Friday. No heroes, few people, but some remain, some resilient residents remain intact. They don't stand under the cover of the pathway between the two corridors. They stand in the cool rain and let their clothes get wet. They look up into the sky and curse God and let the rain fall on their faces and let it sting their eyes and let it make them uncomfortable. They smile a smile that is hard to define. A smile that tells the masses that they are ali
ve and they don't wait for Friday to live. No heroes, no questions, just people. People are a necessity

10.09.2009

I hate being grounded

Soft rainy overcast. That day where the car ahead's brake lights blur six inches past the bumper through the window in the haze. Little droplets and their red borders creeping down those glass eyes like tears until they're wiped away. The red. It's good. It's the only color in a somber palette of gray. It's that winter rain, where the air smells like evergreen. The city sedated, the music quiet, something happens. The Usuals with their eyes on their three-stripe adidas tennis shoes look up.  The Usuals, who have never played tennis, look around. At puddles on the ground and the walls that shield the crawling cars. Lack of shadows that make everything blend into a utopia of melancholy. The Usuals perk up for some reason. The world is changing pace, so should they, they think, they know, they act. Generics playing in the Usuals stereo. They turn it down. They think, they figure, they listen. They listen to the road. To the cars driving by them. How their cars bend like elastic back and forth every time a van goes speeding by. Today, they think. Today is the day that they break away, they think. They know. They wish. The gray is too much. Eyes, half open, the Usuals sip their Folgers and think. They look around, maybe for the first time in a week. Maybe a year. Maybe a lifetime. Foot alternating, pedal to pedal, stop go, stop go, they look, they hope. They hope for a car accident. Maybe something graphic. Today, it's the day. Pretty soon the sun comes out and the brake lights damper, the droplets evaporate, the red is thrown back into the palette of supposed brightness. The Usuals, their half horizontal lips fold into the pissed off crescendo that they enjoy so much. The worms who lacked oxygen find their way to the sidewalk. They fry. The Usuals didn't notice. The worms, whose lives ended so that the Usuals could see. They did, for a minute. They saw, they noticed, they hoped. They forgot. And then there will come soft rains.



The first chapter of a book I'll never write. I sat down and forced myself to write something because I'm so bored. Oh my God I'm so bored.

10.08.2009

Four letter words

You know that split second when nothing matters? When the immediate present is the only thing that exists? I love that moment. I'm in one. I'm sitting outside, reading The Grapes of Wrath for school (oh my god it's so good), and listening to the radio. It's that hole in time where every thought comes with "Fuck it." I love that the best moments in my life are the moments where the only thing that matters to me is the scene that I'm in. It's the only time we can see through all of the bullshit of routine.

Fuck routine. Fuck everything except John Steinbeck's descriptions of dirt. Fuck everything except George Harrison's guitar and John Lennon's voice. Fuck everything except the tires of the car that drives by, and the sound they make smashing the pebbles of leftover bricks from the construction site next door. Fuck everything but the conspicuously open door of the house across the street. Fuck everything except for this damp lawn chair that makes everything more uncomfortable. Fuck everything except the TV I can see through the window playing "The Brady Bunch". Fuck everything except the spider getting a few inches too close to my leg. Fuck it. Fuck you. Fuck everything except the pretentious keystrokes that are channeling out my fingers. Fuck everything except my porch light that's a little too bright for a night like this. Fuck everything except the sweltering humidity, making breathing just hard enough to notice that it's harder than it normally is. Fuck everything that I'm not experiencing right now. The second I start caring, the second I snap out of it.So I just won't care. Fuck caring.

And most of all, fuck chemistry.
Shit. The moment is over.

10.06.2009

High Plains Drifter

Well, I'm grounded. It's interesting. It takes me back to my childhood, because the "stern" punishment that is stricken down on me reminds me of the innocence that it usually coincides with it. Like being sent to time out. Or being sent to my room. After a certain point, punishment ceases to actually punish you, and instead fuels rebellion. Punishment is to program your brain that a certain action causes a certain negative effect. Like the experiment where one door knob is electrified. After a certain point, punishment is pointless. If someone's morals aren't up to the standards of parents now, making them stay in a room for a week isn't going to change that. It's going to inflame it.

Not to say that I'm mad. I probably deserve it. Having people over and letting them drink all of my parents' alcohol probably wasn't the smartest idea. I'm okay with the fact that my parents think they have an inherent need to correct my misstep. Whatever. It's more so that they can feel that they're doing a good job as guardians than it is to teach me a lesson, but I understand that completely.

I'm getting off topic.

Innocence. That's what I'm reminded of. What is it? Is it ignorance or wisdom? It feels like every step away from it is one step closer to the end, and one farther from the beginning. It's a mixed feeling. My life is episodic depending on moods and impulse. I can be quixotic one day, and introverted the next. I'm always going after innocence, in one way or another, though. It's subconscious most of the time.  Apparently there's a pattern. It goes innocence, then sin and experiences, then higher innocence. I think that concept is interesting. I guess it means that we have to spend our lives trying to figure out what makes us happy before we finally get to some final truth. If only it could all tie up that nicely.

What am I going to do for the next week of imprisonment? Probably let the computer and TV numb my sense of time. Zone out every day. Become really apathetic. I don't know what good will actually come of it.

 I need a project that will be productive. Maybe try to make some non-pretentious blog posts for once? Nah, being pretentious is too much fun.

10.05.2009

A ridiculous observation

People aren't always what they seem. You've heard that a thousand times, I'm sure. I figure a cliche is a good way to open up a discussion on one of the most un-PC pop singers in the last few years. Lady Gaga. That's right. I'm writing about Lady Gaga. I have despised her for several months, ever since Poker Face. She was the next step down, following Soulja Boy, on the death of popular music. Her videos are slutty in a robotic way, she never blinks, and begs to be objectified. She thrives on objectivity. The supposed ambiguity of her sex adds to this. It's almost if she isn't a real person. It's almost as if she doesn't want to be.

Then comes her bizarre performances on the VMA's. There's something about her. She's being weird for weird's sake. Why else would she wear something like this?



Something caught me as strange, and it wasn't the strangeness of her. It was her reasoning. Why is she doing this? It's obvious. That's the only way anyone will remember her. The Britney Spears era has come and gone. Lady Gaga tried something new. And it's working. Does it make me like Poker Face more? Not at all. She could be iconic, though.

This was all going through my head when me and Lindsey were watching her performance on Saturday Night Live. She started her second song in usual Lady Gaga-form. She pretty much wore underwear, with a rotating, metal orb thing surrounding her. It was pretty intimidating. Then, something happened that I didn't expect. She sat down (awkwardly, she still had a giant metal orb surrounding her) at a piano. And just started playing. Belting these blues that I had no idea she was capable of. It wasn't about "disco sticks" or anything else ridiculous either. It was heartfelt. Autobiographical. Epic. It went on for what seemed like 10 minutes. She was slapping the world in the face, as if to say "Look at me. I am a real musician, and this is the only way I can be heard." It's tragic that this is what people have to do to be recognized in today's ADD society. Her piano playing was pretty amazing, but all people remember her for is her fucking hat that looked like an animal eating her head. Lady Gaga is parodying an extreme image that people today love to point at and laugh and say "that's fucked up". It's fucked up, all right. Just not in the way you think. She's playing you. Lady Gaga might just be a genius.

That's right. I came to the conclusion that Lady Gaga is a genius. She's destroying pop music, but making millions doing it. Good for her. It's too long gone to be saved, anyways.

And yes, I did just spend several paragraphs obnoxiously psycho-analyzing Lady Gaga.




The performance that changed my mind.