longwinded verbose fillibustrous rant started around 1997
i don't like the beginning so much
so maybe
start towards the middle
this site looks best viewed with mosaic 1.0 or netscape
2.02 actually it probably looks about the same regardless of what you look
with unless of course yer looking through a kaleidoscope or some of those
sparkly glasses then maybe it would look a lot better but that would totally
ruin the whole uncool concept so maybe you should think twice before experimenting
I do however condone certain medicinal herbs as an uncool homepage enhancement
tool but make sure you read up on these first cuz i don't want to feel responsible
for any of you little kiddies causing yerselves bodily harm so just click
yer way to yer favorite search engine and type in oh i dont know maybe medicinal herbs
and while yer at it why not check to see if dans uncool page comes up as a
result for uncool (last time I
checked, I was #3 on the list... beat out by the spicegirls in the 1 and 2
spots) i s'pose its better if the corporate cataloging powers that be actually
dont acknowledge the uncoolness in question cuz that would be a true feat
not only because it would do wonders for my uncool rating but also because
its always been a fantasy of mine to sort of live out a dis utopian novel
and being overlooked by mr man is kind of like a personal victory if not a
victory for all of mynkind in that if i were one of those dis utopian subversive
protagonist types id have actually done it i mean its almost like im erasing
myself but i get to crawl in-between the cracks of the powers that be sort
of like a benign virus except IM sure the stalwart evil politicos would hardly
view my attempts to avoid recognition as a serious act of gross insubordination
if not worse so maybe I ought to just go ahead and submit my url to a few
search engines in the hopes that nobody catches on IM actually not that paranoid
though ive been accused countless times of being a hypochondriac at least
IM not a goldfish trapped hopelessly and carelessly in a world of orb eating
swimming eating swimming burp bump eat my god id loose my shit but i guess
thats the fault of man we have this thing called consciousness that seems
to be malfunctioning perhaps there was a manual that got lost somewhere along
the way but i plan on publishing my research on razing the walls of otherness
surrounding the knights of the order also known as a non-apologetic approach
of Templar demythologization it sounds pretty lame but somewhere in there
is bound to be some info regarding world salvation or at least a good recipe
for 16 bean soup which is a lot of beans and i never knew there were that
many legumes on the whole stinkin planet and concerning my infatuation with
hearty bean soups i just gotta say the more beans the merrier yet look as
you might there are still a lot of people out there who just wont try those
petrified
fruitcakes i myself have never even had a bite which is due in part to
all of the slander and satire surrounding the fruitcake issue when do you
suppose the first derogatory remarks were thrown towards that poor desert
and who was it who started this terrible campaign of mud slinging that has
left hms fruitcake down and out and fallen by thee wayside well i assure you
that it wasnt me cuz i try to pride myself on being objective and practical
and i just wouldnt do a thing like that ive got the sun and moon a girl in
a halter if we open up this time things we can feel can still be if they were
real that would be fine but if we leave it up to you the sun and moon are
gone if i should falter you can see into my mind ive got no feeling and ive
got no car no direction at least not so far the sounds you hear are it would
suck to be a snail or a clam probably even moreso than the suckiness of being
a bored fish which actually doesnt matter all that much cuz my mind is slowly
deteriorating i blame most of the degradation of my soul on inner conflict
between love and fear because i strongly believe that if there are any two
emotions that are real those are the big two unfortunately there is some definite
concern in my mind as to if they are even separate entities really i find
them to be mutually inclusive and thus equate them with a sense of unity much
like the eternal union of two lost souls but im probably just saying this
because ive felt a bit sketched out possibly because of some possibly rash
decisions i think maybe i was a little twisted already possibly because i
got a book recently that ill recommend to any psychobabble philosophy propaganda
fanatics its called the
secret teachings of all ages ill also take this time to warn the masses
of the magus which just so happens to be one of the worst examples of lunacy
and insanity on paper i mean it just goes on and on forever and its really
hard to follow hmmmmm... i can no longer continue the farce of run on sentences.
therefore it's time to stop. this next tidbit is a ramble from today. i think
i have a boogerbutt i think that it is filled with what i traipse the streets
alone i fear that boogerbutt nay draws you near time to just stop right here
with this waxin poetic effort the last song i wrote is called "larry
the overweight undersexed bad-attitude warthog is jealous of sally the cow"
it's a tale of an overweight undersexed warthog who's got these negative emotions
he's dealing with, but not very well, hence the bad attitude. Sally the cow
on the other hand is a spoiled grazer who has somehow managed to remain gauntly
thin to the point of being unable to produce yummy milk. How is it exactly
that she eats free food all day and never has to scrounge a wink? so it's
kinda easy to see why larry might use this gland problem havin cow as a sort
of a scapegoat yeh? ok then. (editor's note - this next section has been quoted out of context by a professional bottomfeeding mudslinger so I should clarify. In short, I had a girlfriend in college. I wasn't faithful to her. That was bad. I resolved to be a better person. For what it's worth, she and I have been great friends since.) i am in love and it is the most wonderful and
painful thing in the universe. most of you know this already. fucking up is
hard to do, not in the traditional sense, but because of the grand mal consequences.
i fucked up in a big way and now i am dedicating my life to not only repairing
the damage, but also to be a better friend, both to myself and to the world.
this is not a cr .plan cry for help if you know what i mean, nor is it a confession,
well, not really at least. nonetheless, it is a self fulfiling prophecy and
declaration of
hindsight and forethought. i will persevere. it's almost quitting time
here at the zoo.
I turn 24 in two days... The flickering light at work was
finally fixed. May the bevy of pagan gods bless
jetogi... master rogue electrician. some things that are important...
1) patience, sometimes i have little of it. 2) the ability to forgive, sometimes
this requires patience 3) love, [see #2] i s'pose there are other important
things too... Advice to follow: don't fuck up like dan. Dan is an idiot and
a fuckup stuck in a rut of self pity, well actually i really and truly plan
on being a better person right now. Period dot. i will not make these mistakes
again, i hope to find other fools and learn from their mistakes. ultimately,
i think i am ok now. this is a tale of heartache, sorrow, retribution, love,
mistakes, and other wonderfully romantic crap like that. it is however still
my life. lets talk just a little bit about forgiving. does it necessarily
include forgetting? no. but is true forgiving possible without forgetting?
i mean is the
fragile human mind capable of something so grand as forgiving? i for one
hope so. because if not, the imperfection of our kind will be the ruin of
us all. i have a brilliant knack for the obvious. can you tell i have a degree
in philosophy? so i guess i've forgiven myself for my fuckups but it might
not be easy to tell from this despondent crap i've been spewing out. Emotions
really don't fit into the Freudian personality schemata too well. How can
we really call such an independent faculty a part of our "self"?!?
If we have little or no control over strong emotions, how can they be anything
but random or chaotic as far as the self and freewill are concerned? Can we
really and truly decide what is important for ourselves? And on a side note,
how do memories fit into the definition and motivation of self? Please email
the answer. So whats the difference between personal spirituality focussed
inward and what we commonly refer to as atheism? Obviously they both kind
of kick god to the proverbial curb, but one implies a denial while the former
augments this with the great unknown power and aura of self. And most importantly,
how does this tie in to the plethora of
Islamic views on death and dying? Does it have anything to do with all
the sappy love songs I've been writing? Well actually they're not sappy, or
at least I hope not. If the flowers can exist, how can I feel the pain they
give off? Its too bad life has to be full of things like that are not there,
yet they are real. I've used the word "real" or some form thereof
at least 15 times on this page. Now THAT is food for thought. More importantly,
it is my understanding that there is more to life than the mundane existence
most of us stumble through. This is something I have only recently admitted.
Its not that I didn't suspect a dark design of some sort earlier, just that
the drug induced revelations of a 17yr old are slim pickins to base a belief
on. Unfortunately with revelation comes confusion. I don't believe it possible
to know anything grand about the nature of things with certainty, though there
are those who would disagree. The big dilemma... What to DO? I've spent the
last several days pondering this broad question. I've asked many people exactly
what they've experienced or seen that reinforces what they believe. Heard
some pretty fucked up tales! What I noticed is that nobody drastically changed
their life from these experiences. This confused me at first. How can you
witness "proof" of the AMAZING, and then return to the comparatively banal? Apparently,
everyone is confused. Moreso, if we don't resolve to live in a vein of ignorant
bliss, the fragile human mind will get screwy and a lot of great minds would
end up in the loonybin. So... I don't know anything really. What do you know?
Life is long but far too short. That didn't stop me from seeing Titanic last
night though. I think there are 4 obvious types of souls. Those who attempt
to identify with, serve and please a higher power. Those who attempt to merge
with the "power", more of an interactive sort of thing, those who prefer to
be cogs in the system (this one's hard to explain)... and the floating souls.
The floaters can be sub-categorized further... the oblivious, the confused,
the undecided etc etc... But I guess these titles are silly given what I implied
earlier about our lack of dynamic change. Does this make any sense? I think
I'm happy, though sometimes its hard to tell. Things we should worry about:
the universal lack of consciousness, or as some people say, "self remembering".
How often is it that we actually sit back and say, "How strange, I am here!"?
also, worry about pervasive negative emotions. Ok, so I just did something
upon the advice of my pal McCall. I just erased a lot of "obsessive, neurotic"
stuff I'd written about this girl who I'm really screwed up over... McCall
basically convinced me that anyone reading this, WITH the now erased material
still intact, would think I needed some serious help. After giving this revised
version the onceover, I think I still seem a little wack, but that's ok. I
guess this is for the better, though now my ramble is a bit short. I'll just
have to spill my guts out some more, but not about that silly girl! So I'm
reading this book called "the fourth way" by P. D. Ouspensky. Some people
regard him as quite the cracker,
while others swear by his teachings.
I am just a little bent on the issue, but I shall perservere and read on.
oh what the fuck is trust anyhow? Actually I don't dwell on this much, it
just kind of came up in that stream of consciousness thing... a phrase that
came from the Gestalt school i think... you can put your hand in the proverbial
river of consciousness and it'll be different everytime? I was reading some
Descartes last nite, NOT something I do often, but The
Mantra played a show last nite, and I kinda needed to unwind a bit...
the thing that gets me about Rene (descartes) besides the whole longwinded
problem he seems to be dealing with, is that from the brief bit I read last
night, before the Valerian root kicked in, but after I wrote up a karma violation
to hand to the chick who stole Spencer, the coolest spiderplant in the whole
world, is that he purports that we are really walking around in a state of
slumber... this seems to be a theme with these philosopher types... they're
always trying to get people to open their eyes. What I want to know is, how
much of this is metaphor? All I know is that after reading
the first part of "the fourth way" and the first part of "meditations on first
philosophy", I'm really ready to pick up something just a little lighter...
I'm getting a book called "Black Sun" by edward abbey... during my lunchbreak,
I think I'm also gonna repurchase OK Computer cuz someone stole my copy.
Bitches. Bitches 'n' witches. So I
wrote an email to my mom the other day and apparently she didn't jive to my
lingo too well. I remember an instance way back in the early 90's when my
mom told me to go "hack some chicks." She was always getting "hack" (hackey
sack) and "mack" (i.e. scope, pimp, etc...) mixed up. Anyhow, My mom wrote
this back to me a few days ago.
>In this sentence, "Peas to dad's popular band," what
does peas mean?
>Before I tell Dad you said that, I want to know what it means.
> I've never heard that phrase before.
> Also, what is a 'secondary' band? I could guess, but I'd rather you told me.
>And no funny business on definitions & explanations -
> I've had it with some aspects of your so-called sense
of humor. No flame intended.
to which I reply... Mother Dearest, "peas"
is a tough one to really define. I'll give it a try though... The name 'Lucifer'
means "bringer of light". One particular meaning of 'pulse' is a legume -- a
pea or lentil. Therefore, 'Pulsifer' means "bringer of peace (peas)". Informed
creationists do not deny that some "evolution" occurs among living things. The
fundamental meaning of the word evolution is simply change. Of course living
things change, adapt to environments, and produce new species. New species of
peas, flowers, bacteria, dogs, and other living things have been (and are being)
produced. It happens both in nature and under laboratory conditions. The precise
term for this sort of change is "peas", possibly because of the vast and rampant
mutations associated with this vine? (also of note: The abbot of the Augustinian
monastery in Bruenn (Brno, now in the Czech
Republick) Gregor Mendel (1822-84) was the discoverer of the laws of heredity
("Experiments in Plant Hybridization" by Gregor Mendel, 1865). Crossing countless
peas, he traced how several conspicuous traits or qualities of the "parents"
were distributed over the "children" and "grandchildren".) and obviously, in
Genesis, after all, god is depicted separating the light from the dark... a
prow case resembling the straining of black eyed peas out of tapioca pudding.
Ergo, darkness is itself a thing apart from peas. I hope this clears things
up a bit for you... as for the term "secondary"... when used in the context
of music, and especially when talking about a band, it basically means, "large
group of flaming homosexuals" The Trappist monks however don't believe in outright
fagdom, and prefer to define the term with synonyms such as, "schlocky, gaudy,
insegrievious, or simply 'gon gon bidefehn'" I'm sure you already knew all of
this though. I like it when you test my etymological prowess, your loving son
--dan... I'm not even going to mention here why my own mother would even think
to be wary of my explanations re: the nature of things. So I think its been
awhile since I've complained directly about my life... all good things must
come to an end. I don't have enough fucking time to do the
things I want to do damnit! I am succeeding in doing everything, but my
aspirations are too damn high and nonforgiving... there's that frigging forgive
forget thing again... my pal McCall told me that she wished she were stupid
because its only the dumbasses who are too oblivious to know that there's actually
quite a lot to be despondent and bewildered about besides beer and minor flesh
wounds. Athens is inundated with parties and fests this weekend. Flying Mantra
plays its second to last show this eve... there is trouble brewing, and I'm
reading the illuminatus trilogy.... It is truly amazing; the extent to which
our pillars are made of jello. If I recall correctly, I had a revealing divine-like
epiphany of sorts not too long ago, and what am I doing now? I'm thinking about
the word "esoteric" and etymology
in general... i'm making questionable decisions. But aren't they all? True altruism
can not exist... I'm not despondent yet, just bewildered. I don't know where
I'm living for the summer. I threw out my back not too long ago and now I have
to move everything I own. fuck. if you know anyone who wants to buy several
vintage amplifiers real cheap-like... let me know cuz I dont wanna carry them
around anymore, and I need the money so I can retire in australia before I hit
30. looks like my vacation to Florida developed a few holes... I think I'm going
to take a brief little jaunt to a small tropical island instead... solo style.
MAybe I won't come back. I just checked my webpages uncoolness factor... the
results were encouraging, yet disappointing. The spice girls beat me out for
the 1 and 2 spots... deja vu i am now surely going to hell. i bought a computer
from an online auction today... pretty
kickass, very inexpensive. I think the only reason I did it was love... no wait,
I mean money! I can study for my MCSE at home now? This town is fucking empty
I feel like beating the crap out of a dead horse. RIGHT NOW! There is a problem
with this online journal type thing, one I've previously insinuated... what
happens if you're ramblin on and suddenly turn to the darker sides of psychosis?
or maybe just every once in awhile I feel like bitching out a few friends in
a public forum? These problems exist somewhere I'm sure. I go to Longboat Key
in 13 days. That should be fun. Two weeks goes by fast when its incredibly fucking
hot... I'm going to Florida to put out some fires tomorrow... wish me luck!
ok... back from the burning fields of Florida... I came up here to the frog
to find clay, but I guess he wussed out and went to sleep or something. My compadres
are restless and hungry though, so this'll be short I think. Mikio and Mike
are great, even if they're hungry and weird. Maybe that's why I like them? Mikio
is throwing large packing material at Mike cuz he's sharing a few gratuitous
exploits with us. Now Mikio is recollecting what I told a certain sexy female
about him back in '93... Mike is likewise berating me for some sort of similar
discourse... fuck... life is too short. I think I'll take the
telomere wonderdrug enzyme that'll make my cells ageless. Have you ever
heard of it? Remind me to make a link to some relevant info eh? Tumultuous...
I wonder if I know what that means... nonetheless, I think that's my life. I
saw a lot of lizards in Florida. One bit me. I was phazed for at least a second
or two. Went fishin' a few times, caught a lot o fish, shit, the natives ARE
hungry... i just got back from furtherfest '98. I'm no deadhead, but it was
a great show. I briefly fell for the chick in rusted root, 'till I realized
she actually wasn't singing to me... maybe it was the cookies? It was also nice
to see Jorma onstage, it reminds me though that I'm keeping his webpage
up while he's playing the rockstar game... hmmm... more about naturally occuring
things that really seem quite uh... not so natural, but first, think about the
word "natural" for a sec... done thinking? OK. Now that you have a firm grasp
on that, think about telomere and what it's going to do to the world... think
REAL hard too cuz even if by some stroke of god's grace the shit isn't around
before you die, the rest of the world is still gonna hafta deal. Also, think
about salvia divinorum, also known as Diviner's Sage cuz it's got a lot of potential.
I don't know exactly what that means, but I recently ordered some and am quite
curious as to what's gonna happen... I smoked some about a year ago, but apparently
did it wrong and alas, nothing happened. Sigh... I'm going to Tennessee in a
week for some serious white water raftin'! That should be fun, problem is, I'm
running out of vacation time this year and it's only july 31st! Oh well, I think
I'll run off and join the circus. Life is a vacation. Sadly though, I am no
longer one of the top uncool sites online :( Maybe I'll hafta change my whole
approach here? Well, I guess I'm over the whole uncool thing. I went rafting
in Tennessee last weekend, that was fun. I feel strangely uncreative right now,
though I am playing a show this week... I miss being in a band. I'll have to
do something about that I think. I have found evidence of an entity that we
might call a priori. In other words, there was something here before what we
now know as reality manifested... unfortunately though, I have no evidence of
the thing that pre-exists this new thing... rest assured that I am dedicating
every ounce of energy towards this end via collision of the 5th and 6th dimensions,
which is by no means easy work. I am accepting volunteers to aid me in this
endeavor. Email me to volunteer. If you by any far stretch
of the realms of those things possible actually find a thing or two of interest
in this verbose display of gonz... I highly recommend checking out some of what
I consider to be my finer work. I find that I work best when team writing. My
fave example of said technique would have to be my titillating correspondence
with a tub and pot enthusiast named john.
It really cracks me up. It is also yet another shameless plug for my tub and
pot project... for which I am currently seeking funding by the way. I'm going
to Columbus tonight to visit some recently married friends. Kind of makes me
feel both old and young. I move out to the boonies in about a week... with the
aforementioned rouge electrician, a communist mexican restaurateur, and a monk
in training... god help us all. Life is a shameless plug. Everything simply
must be in someones interest. But then again, that makes absolutely no sense.
I've been having that problem lately. I have issues with women. Not ALL women
by any means, just the cool ones. I plan to cope by vicarious living. I don't
know how I feel about living through others, though it does sound like an effective
way to experience more stuff. As long as yer not delusional about it like my
friend Chris... he likes to think I'm evil. I am thinking of taking him to court
for hairassment... either that or the Peoples Court or the Springer show. Where
is the shame?
I wonder why he thinks I'm evil... so I used to be a sunday school teacher at
the unitarian fellowship of Athens... loved my kids dearly... taught them such
lovely curriculai as... peace and social justice, world religions, and my personal
favorite, how to have a decent time really early on a Sunday morning after playing
out at a bar, drinking, smoking cigarettes til the wee hours of the morning...
usually I could con the sweet Kristin Hale, or the stalwart Mikio Olin into
helping me wake up and cope... alas, rock'n'roll and religion proved a tumultuous
marriage for a young college student. I played a show at that communist bar
last night... things went well... wanna see someone rip me a new asshole? check
out the recently updated response
section. It's almost as exciting as reading this! I recently acquired a bevy
of new books. They're not so new actually, but they're new to me at least. I'll
sneak partial bookreports in here if that's ok... so watchout! If nothing else
they'll serve to save my soul, or at least drive me insanely mad.
And another thing... I've known this for awhile, and it may not be news
to some of you, but I'll go on record here... are you ready? The world is going
to go to shit. We'll be making a big step towards this goal in the next year
and a half. So be prepared. Don't worry tho', there's really not much you can
do. I'm just gonna keep on keepin' on. I s'pose if we all did just that, we
could avert suckdom for awhile at least. I finish moving into my new compound
this evening. If you come to visit, look out for the hell hounds and the turrets.
The password is "nacho fantasy" remember that... no, wait... that's not even
close to important. Remind me to tell you trials and tribulations of seventh
grade crushes ok? I have a friend in LA... we'll call her Dorie, just cuz it's
a cool name. I keep hinting about little Dan anecdotes and then say something
along the lines of... "remind me to tell you about that in a bit. Now isn't
a good time." I think either I need to realize that there's no time like the
present, or she's gotta learn to
ride my ass... hell, I think all of you should probably
ride my ass... I could make some hors devours (like i can spell that!) and
maybe charge admission! uhh... or something. After putting those last two nasty
links in... I feel strangely inclined to throw a disclaimer or sumthin at the
top of this page... I'd hate for something like that to ruin my career ops as
a shaolin monk. Let me know if yer offended. So I have a few spiels. Yup, I'm
guilty of repetition. I talk about telomere sometimes... population concerns,
art, spiritual issues, philosophical concerns... dynamic change and the like,
but these are all evolving topics so I don't think I sound like a broken record...
anyhow, the big spiel lately is the
y2k fiasco. More on that shortly because it is either the most significant
event in global existence, or the biggest something else. Boy that sure was
eloquent dan. You've sure got a way with words... I guess that's because I really
don't know what to do or say about it eh? I called AEP, the nice people who
are currently providing me with electricity, and asked the team leader of their
year two thousand compliance team several specific questions... like, "what
is the likelihood of losing power come the dawn of the year 2000?" and "have
you replaced the bug-laden imbedded chips in all of the transformers on the
thousands of utility poles?" la la la... can anyone guess what this fella said
unto me? I don't feel like dwelling on it right now. I have to buy a car. Damn
time flies. Car is awesome. Scirocco. It's
been nearly a month since I've written anything here. That's ok though. I don't
think I know anyone with the time to keep up with my personal exploits. Sometimes
I wish a few people would actually care enough to read this crap. It might be
asking a lot, but something tells me that it really isn't. I am not really that
prolific with this webpage I don't think. I guess I censor myself anyhow, so
it doesn't really matter? I am referring to a specific "few people" by the way.
Actually only one people. Any guesses? I am going to Denver in November... again.
It seems like a trend. Things will go much better this year. Of that, I am certain.
Gabriel's horn... is that a good bandname? or is it too biblical? regardless...
Um speaking of almost biblical, but actually really far off... Ethan and I are
recording... er uh.. mixing a smiling jesus band live album... it is very raw...
but I think it gets the point across... it sounds like we were on some poor
mix of crystalmeth and some heinous downers... thrown together in a vat of gin...
I like it. I'll throw some sound clips up soon... have new pics to post too...
but the frogscanner is a bit beat at the moment. Herb wrote me a little
story the other day. I like it. A few days ago I was standing on a little
hill outside my house at about 2 in the morning... the moon was out in full
force. Darkness is not the first or second word that comes to my mind while
trying to describe what I saw while meeting the languid stare of our favorite
satellite... somehow, I was able to remove myself from my body... pulled away
from the earth... and then tried to back up even further... but I lost my balance.
Perhaps because I was on a hill? I tried to write about it... didn't do such
a bad job I think, but my scrawlings are stuck in a notebook in a pile on my
floor. Had a phenomenal weekend. Maybe I'll tell you about it... when I learn
how to spell. Just finished responding to a fabulous inquiry re: toiletpaper
maladies. Tis the season... I'm going to Cleveland for a wedding in early
November... I think I'll throw a party for my friend Rae... cuz she's a girl.
I'm going to a wedding this weekend with my pal Holly... Leah and Erik are tying
the knot... two weeks ago went to Jodi and Matt's wedding... first time in a
wedding party. Always a groomsman, never a groom. OK, so I've been avoiding
this for awhile... last time I wrote about Melissa here, I was convinced to
erase it. But I'll make this short and sweet. I am really stuck on her. I know
she loves me, but she sure sucks ass at communicating. I know people who are
more busy who seem to be able to communicate with me. This gal doesn't even
think to write me letters, respond to my questions. It hurts a lot. I ask her
to pursue a line of discussion with me and she says "I need to think about it"
I ask her to communicate more and she says "I'll find some time to go to a store
and buy some cheap trinkets to send you." I ask her to please encourage me or
discourage me from being so in love with her... she's done nothing. I tell her
I just want to know what's on her mind and she says, "I guess there's just nothing
on my mind." There is a problem there. If the above stuff is representative
of who she has become, I guess I really need to train myself to believe that.
Chris says we need women around to continue the race. Maybe cloning will solve
that one? =)
Any advice? I've gotten a lot of advice (from people who actually like to share
their hopes, ideas, concerns,etc with me)... I don't like what they have to
say usually, except for the "follow your heart" crap... which is beginning to
wear quite thin. I know she wont even take the time to read my fucking webpage.
Fuck. So, I'm about fed up. I hope she finds someone who is a little less demanding
and caring than I am. I hope she is happy. I however am not happy trying to
wring communication out of her. It does not have to be such a production. Being
in love sucks sometimes. I've been getting some neat email lately. I want to
find time to link to some of it here but the formatting issue bugs me. I guess
NOT formatting it bugs me even more. I am on hold waiting for a senior something
or other guy from Apple... I'm going to set him straight! I work at this thing
called an ISP you see, and the new IMac's are really crap as far as we're concerned...
sigh. Complaining is fun. I am buying a gun. Soon. Maybe two or three or four
or more. I've been told that at the very least I need a rifle and a handgun...
the latter to fight my way back to the former apparently... I guess I also need
a shotgun because of the wide shot dispersal. or as herb puts it, "God forbid
someone walks into your house in the middle of the night, you won't have to
do any fancy aiming..." But I s'pose I really just need an AK-47 yeh? Oh yeh...
that wedding, was really neat-o. Wanna see a pic
of me n holly n brice n mango in my fatty car? Be sure to notice Dieter
hiding in there. (Dieter is the volt meter of course) Chip and Molly is bustahs.
B-U-S-T-A-H-S
So, back in 1994 I went to this nutty music festival thing and partied with
what the Wishbone(r) folk would call Furious Gusto. Exhibit
A - Me looking like something the cat puked up. Exhibit
B - Me looking like something the other cat puked up. Is it obvious that
I had some fun with the scanner today? So had a nutty weekend. Did some things
that maybe weren't too smart. (kissed a gal) but had a great time making music...
come see my new band on Nov 5th ok? Once again I'm finding myself wanting to
erase things from this page. Sometimes our emotions can move faster than anything
else if you know what I mean? But can we really help that? I guess there's no
need to cover up what we WERE feeling right? My latest endeavor, I think deserves
a mention here, if not more than that.
The Millennium project is cool. More on that in a bit. Until then, please
see one of my pal's y2k
contingency plans. My friend Cam says life is weird. He also seems to think
that some of us, including me, are being shafted a lot of the time. I can not
tell if he is bitter... I know that I for one, am at least something jade. Oh
and for the record. Most people in the world don't really want to think. It
apparently hurts them. Anyone remember what I wrote earlier about stupid people?
Well I have a new theory (ripe with sarcasm) Some people are just SOOO fucking
smart that they've learned how to not think too much. Thus avoiding things like:
aforementioned pain, excess responsibility, foresight, compassion, communication,
etc etc. What all these "stupid" people need to do is get together and start
a school! I guess that will never happen though because of some obvious contradictions.
But you'd have to be way smart to miss them yeh? On to more important things,
I have a line on a giant gun. From the sound of it, I'll bet it could kill a
whole hoard of hungry stupid people in no time. uh oh... have to remember not
to write on the webpage when I'm sick and depressed... or I sound like Hitler.
That's bad. Maybe ole Adolph was just bipolar and chronically ill? poor fucker.
Went to yet another wedding this past weekend. Had a
James Brown Celebrity Hot Tub party at the P's house... very nice. Also
interesting, but unrelated... there is a hidden track on Nevermind. I never
knew this. Weird. But of most consequence, I was abducted on Sunday. Jason says
that it was a mutually experienced time-lapse... but what the fuck is that?
I'd call it barrel syndrome if not abduction... the frosting on the alien cake
though is that the first notion of non-abductiveness I experienced afterwards
was the opening strums of Def Leopard's "Love Bites" Some sort of bizarre cosmic
joke I'm sure. It was too perfect really... a remote section of I-77 near Cambridge...
no oncoming traffic and no cars behind or in front of my fine little Scirocco...
there was actually no "lapse" so to speak, as much as there was something I
like to call "screwy" also no anal probing. I could really describe this quite
well, at least compared to the epiphany I had this past spring... but this was
hardly an epiphany. More irony... I just penned a 6 page paper on time as an
abstract... and debuted a song called "epiphany/time" just a few days ago with
my new band Martizatic!... it all sort of fits together really. There are no
aliens.
Time does not exist as we know it. See how simple it all is =) Rest assured,
I'll clue you in to aliens and time and such real soon, if not later... oh yeh,
somehow or another, Phil Colin's remake of "you can't hurry love" fits in the
grand scheme of things too. Or maybe I've just been to too many weddings lately?
Of note, and not too outlandish, though strange nonetheless, MArtizatic's debut
was a lot of fun and VERY well attended! Shameless band webpage around the corner?
Oooh boy, let's hope so. Just finished some updates to the furpeaceranch site...
check it out via the earlier link... if you've got passion for music and a phat
wad o cash... they're for you! Yup... um... some people seem to think that I
should leave this twohorse town... what do YOU think? I just scanned a few pics
from a recent casa party. Those commies
sure know how to throw a party! I even donned my $2.99 leisuresuit for this
one! Pic #1 shows a stern Chris, a suave
me, a flapper-esque Becky, and another Dan... funny, the Dans must be reproducing
cuz their poppin' up everywhere... or so it seems.
Pic #2 shows a lecherous-looking me and a happy Tracey... well who wouldn't
be happy-lookin' with a lecherous lookin' Dan?!? Maybe you'd ought not answer
that one. Got interviewed by one of the papers today... had to help the photographer
pose a few phony shots. I thought the whole thing was kind of funny... yet sad.
I guess they had a job to do, and it's all for a good cause.
hmmmm... this ...this
hold that state has on me, is inexplicable. or maybe it's the old people or
the oranges? could be something that simple. I've been there a lot lately -
compared to most other areas of the US. My friend Cara has a digital cam and
webpage. She even rants a bit.
Band update? I might sound like a band whore - 2 bands - one on bass, the other
on vox and guit. yummy. ranonline.com is one of 'em. the other will probably
be somebandname.com - OK, correction, I just registered tubandpotclub.com -
now the home of both the long-popular club, and now my new band. Should be neat.
a friend of mine, currently teaching in deepest darkest Afreeka, sent me a bad
Ghandi joke. I'll spare you the joke, and skip right to the punchline... "A
super callused fragile mystic hexed with halitosis." Yup. that's it. though
the following *might* make more sense, were you to actually to hear the lead-in,
I don't think it really matters. Humor, puns... interesting thoughts. Humor
is largely an imbedded defense mechanism that deals with perceived pain, beit
our own, others' or even hypothetical. The fat guy running into a windowpane?
Yup, you guessed it, pain. Racist and ethnic jokes? Yup, pain there too. The
guy puking on the bar and winning an absurd bet in the process? Yes sirree,
there is a twinge of pain there too, though it is more subtle. The problem with
this theory is the PUN. How is a play on words painful? I think the most common
response to puns, especially "good" puns, is a hefty, "Owwwwch!" or something
similar. In another respect though, they're simply clever. So what gives? Are
puns really not humorous? And where does "the absurd" fit in? Are puns absurd?
Are we simply inclined to find non-sequitors
humorous because of the inherent, incongruous and illogical flow thereof? The
Ghandi pun is a bad example for this though, because of the obvious pain involved
with its martyr subject; or is he the object? Ahh yes. On another completely
unrelated topic, I've been thinking about the paradigm used by the US
FDA to explain how we ought to be healthy. The fucked up part is that sometime
back in the 60's (an era responsible for most things fucked up, I'm told) the
boys in the labcoats and the fellas in the overcoats decided to halt the process
of naming RDAs for nutrients. They did this entirely arbitrarily. Since that
fortuitous date, countless compounds and other verbosely named substances have
proven to keep we humans healthy, but they've never been assigned the same import
of the previously cataloged substances. Of late, things like essential fatty
acids, glucosamine sulfate, and various herbs have been deemed to make us live
longer and happier lives. So I've wisely given up on waiting for Recommended
Daily Allowances for these substances, and have shifted paradigms. Why pay attention
to that silly and highly lobbied and biased food pyramid, that is wholly unrealistic
given local supermarket faire? I think it wise to get all of the essential nutrients
(RDA and otherwise), amino acids, etc from a few, possibly pill-like sources
while supplementing that base with regular healthy meals, instead of the other
way around. It makes sense. well shit. Enough seriousness. I've recently taken
to registering a lot of domains. I found a place (there are many) for only 15
bucks a year. in the past moth I've registered ranonline.com tubandpotclub.com
and uncoolcentral.com - the latter being the future home of this rant's parent
site. ahhh... tub and pot club is (if you've been following this rant for a
while) obviously a home for its namesake site, but also, a home for my most
recent band, of the same name. nothing up there yet, but soon enough. I'm learning
FLASH... after a few hours of toying around, here's what
I've come up with. you'll obviously need the latest flash plugin. derf.
The furpeaceranch.com online store is up and running. it took me a bit to get
up and running, but it's already making bucks on the fly - and I've yet to advertise
it. I'm slated to take over webmastering duties for 2 more sites in the near
future; frog ranch peppers, and homunculus have filed the necessary paperwork
to get the ball rolling. i think I'd better hone my skills. no worries, this
particular page shall remain undyingly UNcool. if you're a chronic poor speller,
like me, you can download CleverKeys.
It allows you to highlight a word in almost any program and press a hotkey to
automatically look up the word online. of course, you'll need to be online
already, or it will dial for you - I guess... got a letter published in Newsweek
re: Napster. My friend Frank says they'll publish anything. Frank is a punk.
Here's what I wrote at the beginning of my music column this week. "Be
forewarned music lovers, there's a product dubbed "Vitamin O" (because of it's
ability to deliver oxygen to our oxygen starved cells,) available at your local
health and nutritional stores. Unfounded claims that this snake oil elixir can
cure cancer, heart and lung disease have helped early sales soar to over one
million bottles at nearly 25 bucks a pop! O's ingredient list of: water, salt,
and trace minerals, calls for obvious comparisons to common saline solution.
Why, you ask, would any health minded human want to counteract their regimen
of antioxidant vitamins like C and E, (nutrients proven to neutralize free radicals,
harmful byproducts produced when our bodies metabolize oxygen) with the source
that generates their necessity in the first place?! Hmm. Though we do not recommend
emetic panaceas, the AMS health bureau does advocate oxygen use, but only via
accepted atmospheric intake." Yup, that's a quote. I feel almost bad doing
this, but, not long ago, I upset an overly sensitive local funk coverband. Said
their leadsinger was a Vanilla Ice wannabe one week, and then a few weeks later
made it clear that though I think they suck harder than a Hoover with a gland
problem, that other schlock aficionados actually love their shtick. The aforementioned
early eighties rapper dopleganger wrote to my editor, who stood up for my freedom
of mudslinging. In response, the hack funkster wrote this followup to my editor.
I almost peed myself. "I understand that they can write whatever they want,
and i think that's fine. That's the privledges of writting for a newspaper.
I just don't appreciate them making a mockery out of me. For the past two weeks
people who don't actually know me but recognize me, have been passing me by
and calling out " Yo - Word to your Mother". At first it was cute,.. I even
do a spin on the song Ice Ice Baby, that i changed some of the lyrics to and
I call it "(name omited) (twice=) Baby" in dedication to your music
scene section. What happened was, the week that Dan made that particullar comment
about me, it was on the backside of a huge write up about our band and people
we're able to see what i look like and now i'm getting chumped by people uptown
who've never even seen this band, and i don't think it's very fair. It's one
thing to write about how we sound as a whole, but these guy's took a personal
shot at me and i was fine with it at first, but I'm tired of being mocked by
random people uptown. I'm doing this for fun while I'm in college. I'm not trying
to become famous, or make a career out of music. So why can't the Athens news
just let me do that without feeding the press comments to belittle me by. Maybe
i am hypersensitive, but look at this from my perspective. What if i wrote for
the post, and i put a picture of you in there and then wrote how in my opinion
you look like a guy who would let his dog lick peanut butter of your nuts. Two
weeks later your walking down court street and ten people who you pass by say
something like "Hey Skippy" or "What's up Jiffy Man/Peter Pan" or whatever.
You'd be pretty pissed off at me for writting what is only my opinion about
you i bet. ( by the way, that is not my opinion of you) -So then what was just
my opinion of you turns into the general public's opinion of you even though
they don't know you and they've never seen you before. It wouldn't be fair of
me to do that to you. I apologize if you feel any of this was rude. I realize
that my peanut butter example is a bit extreme, but I'm just trying to let you
know that when you allow shit like that to be published, it's far more powerful
then you may realize. The biggest problem i have with this whole issue is that,..
i don't even look any thing like Vannilla Ice. The only way in which i relate
to him in this racist world, is by being white and singing black men's music.
It's just too bad that Dan's veiws are so narrow minded that he had to make
a connection there where one would have never existed. Thank you again for your
time and if you wish to reply further, please do so. Again, i apologize if i
stepped out of bounds along the way." I think I've ruined my karma enough
for tonight. I guess my karma was OK - it's been almost half a year since I've
written here. I've been too busy with "real" content I guess. I wonder
if anybody reads this anymore. I wonder if I care. TheDirtyRag.com
is one of my new efforts. I suggest you take a peek at it. ranonline.com
is a band I'm in right now. I've had to deal with a number of nasty issues today.
Some twit of a lady keeps spamming me. I've asked her to stop. This time I told
her I was going to report her to her ISP - she seems to think that because a)she's
an idiot b)she's harvesting email addresses c)sending unsolicited email to them
d)unable to track those addresses e)sends everything out via blind carbon copy
so that the recipient can't tell which of their (my) twenty something addresessthe
SPAM is being sent to f)other people spam too g)look at the dancing monkey over
there... I'm not spamming g) she's an idiot --- I shouldn't report her. what
the fuck ever. Also had to deny a request for personal info about a customer
re: an Ebay deal gone wrong as we thankfully do not give ANY info out without
a subpoena - blah blah... I can see that this is trite crap. I should talk a
little about voting. Vote your heart. Don't allow your vote to be held hostage
for ANY reason. this is serious. If we all gradually start voting our ideals
instead of the typical which of the two grays is least evil crap, things will
never change. read a few articles on thedirtyrag.com about this sort of thing
- or write a retort. I'm a little spent. Ugh - I'm really trying to be the singer
for Parker Ben Parker and I'm getting
ready to go to Florida to usher in a new era of frognettery in the perpetual
sun. I've been recording with Bryan Gibson some... and sometimes I'm not. so
there. several thousand words ago I mentioned something about how I wasn't going
to tell you why my mom would be worried that I'd pass false definitions on to
her. Well that was bullshit. I think I'm ready to tell now... now that I can
barely remember the details. Some lady was sending my dear mother emails in
Spanish (my mom can not read or write Spanish...) she sent them to me and I
formulated responses for her - on the pretense that I was helping to explain
that my mom didn't understand - etc etc... I don't recall now if my mom actually
knew this woman. nonetheless, I wrote terrible terrible things in those emails.
Damn that was funny. I told my mom that I'd written generic responses and had
her email send them on. After I was certain she'd sent them - I confessed. Man
was she pissed. I don't really know what got into me. Hell, I think I'm a little
angel - but my compadres seem to peg me as a chronic troublemaker. I blame them.
I know all about that self-fulfilling
prophecy and whatnot. I love psychology. Nothing is my fault! I can blame
everything on my parents, the collective unconscious, the church, etc... neat-o
What could have possibly inspired Zappa to write "bobby brown" ???
I wish he were alive to tell me. I'm sure it's a helluva fuctup story. and though
some people might like to think stories that answer questions like "why
did Roger Taylor and Bill Berry leave Duran Duran and REM respectively?"
would be fascinating tales - i think it's more obvious. If you were the drummer
in a formerly supah-hot band, now obviously past prime and traveling the wrong
way on the suddenly slippery popularity slope - and given that you'd spent the
better part of a decade sweating and drinking away your dream, who could blame
those guys for wanting to kick it with the honey in a smart looking vacation
home in the country? not me. But I can only say that now. It's been a while.
If that little fella with the goatee quit NSYNC tomorrow - I'd hunt his punkass
down and seriously fuck his shit up. In the news
of the weird yesterday, I read about a man who just got out of the pen after
spending 11 years inside on a murder rap. Here's the weirdness... The autopsy
put the date of death of the deceased somewhere in a three-day span. Though
the accused was in prison on other charges well past the date of the crime,
a jury convicted him because police testified that they heard the accused man
confess his guilt - even though he denied this... Terrible as all this may sound,
it's really not all that screwy compared to other judicial mishaps I've seen
outlined in the aforementioned column. I only bring it up because it reminded
me of an odd incident in my past. In 1991, I started my fourth year of highschool
in the plucky well-to-do Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights. Without going into
much detail, I dropped out of school a lot that year and opted to go to a boarding
school. The quaint Quaker
boarding school at which I finally landed seemed the perfect backdrop for
a Stephen King novel... conservative headmaster with a seriously old school
wodden leg... his wife, the dean, a would-be sweetheart, (perhaps bitter from
years of having to remove said pegleg before playing with one or more of his
stumps...) the unnervingly vast number of somewhat lesser staffmembers with
the surname "Rockwell" an even more unnervingly small enrollment of
40 students, hundreds of cows, all with numbered collars, and the fact that
at least one out of ten cows to cross my path was ominously numbered "666"
etc etc. Believe me, I'm only scratching the surface here. Needless to say,
we students were expected to assume a more wholesome Quakerish lifestyle while
at the Olney Friends School. Our time was strictly scheduled, leaving the "campus"
was a rare treat, and smoking was strictly taboo. Though I now only rarely partake
of the burning leaf, (too health conscious,) I really dug it then. My friend
Luc and I would sneak off almost every day to get our fix... inhaling so deeply
that we'd nearly pass out... cherries dangerously long and red, prone to falling
off... We had our favorite smoking spots, but most weren't options in the daylight
hours - until Luc serendipitously found that the portal to the attic of the
boys dorm was easily jimmied with any number of easily accessible tools. And
we did. Hiding the act was only the beginning of the Quaker smoking art. After
the fact, one needs to cover the scent and any other physical evidence. We stooped
so low as to wash our hands with toothpaste.
Hey, whatever works. Some of the other students knew of our smoking habits,
and with so few grapes on the vine, word eventually spread to the faculty. Only
they couldn't prove anything. The Dan and Luc sympathetic admissions director
would occasionally run into us at night while he was walking his smelly dogs
- and tell us that ole' pegleg was out stalking around looking to catch us in
the act. We'd run to strategic locations and act overtly suspicious. That was
almost as fun as smoking. They never caught us. So one day I fell ill. Nothing
too serious, but I felt like crap. I spent the day in the infirmary. Sometime
that day, some people went to the attic to smoke. Only they didn't police their
butts very well. The insulation around the hastily discarded butt had been smoldering
for some time when it hit Fahrenheit
451. I was back in the dorm for the evening by this time and calmly exited
the building with the other chaps when the manual alarm was pulled. To make
a long story short, they court marshaled Luc and me. Said they were sure
we'd done it. They were preparing to give us a free pass out when the culprit
confessed. Raheem, a staffmember's son, was a nice guy, a smart fella, and certainly
noble. He just didn't know to fully extinguish his cigarettes. Luc and I weren't
sure whether to rejoice or cry upon learning of Raheem's confession. Our confusion
was short-lived. In a prepared statement, our esteemed headmaster revealed that
Raheem could not in fact have started the fire because the cigarette that started
the fire was not "his brand." The plot sickens. He went on to proclaim
that, "The cigarette that started the fire was Dan and Luc's brand!!!"
WTF?!?! How could they've discerned the brand emblazoned on the paper of a butt
that, by their own account had been burning for over an hour? Proceedings to
expel us continued at a feverish pace. I called my lawyer. The financially
strapped school buckled to my demands immediately. I left with reluctantly
gleaming recommendations from the headmaster and dean and the rest of the screwy
gang. Got my GED and went to college. But for some reason I don't think this
tale is weird or appealing enough for The News of The Weird. Before I settled
on HOT CARL for my new license plate last week, I tried to convince the friendly
folks behind the counter at the BMV that their cagey "Vanity License Plate Ethics
Committee" in Columbus would surely not scold them were they to allow me the
privilege of sporting gems like FAH Q, (my reggae alter ego)
BLOODYP, (my secret "rapper" name) or the seemingly innocuous 69YES69. Broken
by their undying decency and resolve, I thought of vaingloriously unearthing
a sly seven letter phonetic spelling for one of my bands' names, or one of my
multi-national business interests, until it hit me that my unabashed driving
just might reflect poorly upon any entity unfortunate enough to be emblazoned
on my plates. So I settled for HOT CARL. Honk when you see me driving by in
my new Porsche. Most muggy Athens afternoons my neighbors indulge in a bizarre
but trendy Zen routine on their porch. Amid bouts of fly swatting and brow wiping
they alternate between sips of Mountain Dew and Bud Light to the rhythmic cadence
of their rickety rocking chairs. Only when my other, slightly less Zen neighbors
crank up the Skynyrd, Uncle Cracker and/or Kid Rock is that cadence swayed from
its soothing cricket-like pulse. Sometimes I wonder if they're just passing
time until something better comes along. "You don't have to wait!" That's what
I wanted to yell to them earlier this week. until I started thinking about what
happens every time the "other" neighbors mix their uppers and downers and somebody
starts yelling excitedly across the yard. Did you know that these days, sporting
a "US foreign policy sucks" sticker on your baggage will get you bumped from
your flight, stuck in New York with no dough and perhaps permanently blacklisted
from commercial airlines? I didn't know that until it happened to a friend last
week. Mike Richter, an all-star NHL hockey monster with the NY Rangers had this
to say regarding Dubya's "dead or alive" sentiments regarding Osama. "This is
no cowboy movie. This is not something to be glib about. It scares me." What
scares me is that the Rangers "forced" him to apologize for those remarks. These
incidents are but the preemptive tip of the recent reactionary iceberg of hodge
podge "scrutiny" legislation scurrying full-speed through congress as you read.
Many of the allegedly liberal lawmakers on Capitol Hill responded to these affronts
on our supposedly immutable rights by suggesting said knee-jerk intransigent
limits be automatically repealed in two years. What a bunch of spineless rats.
I'm no Joseph
Welch, nor do I possess a target so clearly defined as the once beloved
Senator McCarthy, but those of you up to snuff with your US history probably
get the gist as I plead, "Have you no sense of decency?" to a vile brave new
world where our civil rights and civil liberties are lost with my cries. I was
brooding last week. The bulk of mass media outlets continued to validate my
suspicions that they were cumulatively the government's bitch, or lapdog if
you prefer. spiritless and weak-willed in their lack of coverage, religiously
evading topics of great consequence while feeding the sensationalism vein. I
was irked. Scant few reporters spoke out against misguided fear-driven national
ID tags, irresponsible use of facial recognition technology, checks and balances
sidestepping military tribunals, anti-constitutional eased eavesdropping power
grabs, detainment based upon "secret evidence" and other government tripe that
really pisses me off. Some of these atrocities are already part of our life,
the rest are threatened and likely. What can you do? Fight new anti-First Amendment
"terror" laws locally by essentially encouraging elected judges to ignore them
inasmuch as they're able. Contact your Federal and State representatives and
tell them where they ought shove asinine legislation. Head to www.vote-smart.org
to get the contact info for all of your reps. Both next to my desk at work and
on the counter at home sit innocuous cans of Nutiva shelled hempseeds, a healthy
and tasty snack rich in protein, fiber and essential fatty acids like omega-3.
After searching for an appetizing snack-worthy source of crucial nutrients often
unavailable in "healthy" diets with or without supplements, I was almost elated
to discover dehisced hemp seeds. They kinda taste like sunflower seeds. Calling
them a guiltless pleasure would be a qualitative understatement. Fast forward
to February 6, 2002. There are now dozens of such cans stashed and stockpiled
throughout home and office. My hempseed is going for over fifty bucks a pop
on Ebay. The future looks good. or does it? Who's that knocking on my door?
The DEA recently ordered stores to strip shelves of all hemp products by early
February, putting them in a class in one sense all alone, beneficial, banned
and harmless, but in another, categorically categorized in the same group as
heroin because they contain trace amounts of THC. Aside from my almost incoherent
foaming, the effects of this ban can already be felt locally. Ohio Hempery founder
Don Wirtshafter has already lost numerous accounts. The Farmacy and other natural
food outlets will lose a viable product, forced to hit the corners of the Internet
to peddle their remaining heroin er uh. I mean hempseeds. I'll spare you the
usual stand up for your rights spiel I deliver every time the putzes in Washington
rape your rights. Contact your representatives pronto. Head to www.vote-smart.org
to get their contact info. ..and though I'd love to segue into the next rant
with a little - and these words will read even better after you shoot up a few
ccs of hempseed freebase, it just ain't true. Oh and don't forget to head to
Big Bear to stock up on opium. Poppyseed bagels are on sale. Deep thoughts...
next time you're on the phone with a tech support person, when they say "error
message" exclaim in disbilief, "TERROR MASSAGE?!?! Shit! My budy got
one of those in 'nam - and since then all he can do whenever he sees a massage
parlor is shake like this (shake over the phone - this is effective) and scream
'no hot oil! no hot oil!' it's really ugly." when the horrified tech support
chump on the other end recovers and explains that they said "error message"
just go into a slight variation of your shtick. this is a lot of fun. you can
pull this off for almost a whole hour if you progressively freakout more and
more as they continuely pass the buck up to the next unlucky sap in the tech
ladder. I wrote TIME magazine in June of 2000 in response to Stewart Brand's
6/19/00 piece entitled, "Is technology moving too fast?" I used way too many
two cent words and they never published it, but I like it. Here it is. Mr. Brand's
criterion for addressing this vexing dilemma misses the boat entirely. In fact,
the question is futile in that it does not address the core issue regarding
technology growth. Brand apprehensively claims that such technological escalation
is "inexorable" or unstoppable. When, though it may seem synonymous to tech
expansion concerns, the most pertinent and often overlooked issue in technology
development today is not the speed at which it moves, nor the movement itself,
but the oft-misunderstood notion of progress within. Even in its most base form,
progress requires a goal. Though some proponents of the blind growth that typifies
the digital explosion of late might argue that broad designs of human betterment
are worthy ends, postmodern philosophers would disagree. More specific and concise
goals are the only way to sidestep the nearsightedness plaguing Mr. Brand's
conscience. If we continue to blaze blindly into the future, more of us will
look for the coveted "NOT-SO-FAST" button of which Mr. Brand speaks, when in
fact, all we need is a little guidance and more conscientiousness. The author
is old enough to remember the advent of the television boom, and is no doubt
aware that it drastically shifted the American paradigm. I'm curious as to why
he places pertinent innovations like the telephone, television, and nature's
own biology in a separate, non-self-proliferating class, apart from computer
technology. Tech evolution is not so different today than centuries or millennia
past. Similar, less measurable trends preceded Moore's law; the corresponding
goals were likewise more measurable, real, and seemingly finite. Proof that
invention breeds itself is just as clear whether we are examining the real histories
of the phone, TV and biology, or the portentously ominous future of nano-tech
proposed by Mr. Brand. It is all too typical in today's tech world to glorify
the visage of the past while fearing whatever shit is approaching the fan at
an ever increasing and alarming rate. Perhaps Brand is keen to note such auto-expansion
in the tech industry, perhaps not. Such evolution has been with us since the
dawn of consciousness. Whether it be rocks, blades, levers and wheels, or electricity
leading to the telegraph, to telephones, modems, and faxes et al, one thing,
inevitably leads to another. And in the past, it was quite clear what ends were
to come from the various means. The nature of the technology has not changed;
we've simply lost sight of real goals. Today's tech goals seem rather like self-serving
or otherwise self-perpetuating quasi-goal edifices in comparison. Where is the
consciousness that gave birth to the now-beast of ingenuity? If necessity remains
the mother of invention, the need for goal-oriented temperance will in time
lead to less tech distress resulting from the racehorse of would be progress.
Or is it too late? Not long ago, philosophers and intellectuals perhaps much
like Stewart Brand subtly reigned over human momentum with progress and the
greater good in mind, since replaced with the almighty buck and a correspondingly
obscured iteration of advancement. The good ole days might just return. Or we
could just step back and look at things from a broader perspective. The universe
is expanding hastily, so technology moves no faster now than it ever has, relatively
speaking. It just has more ground to cover proportionately. Our perception is
skewed. More entropy is necessary. Think about that. =) A new model cannot be
avoided. We will learn from our mistakes. If we build self-replicating nanobots,
and forget to install a "STOP REPLICATING!" switch, I'm sure we'll survive somehow.
Ideally, we'll just hone our goals beforehand s as to avoid such potential tempestuous
pitfalls. As I'm approching 18,000 words here, I ran all of it through Word's
auto summarize feature. Here is a four hundred word summary. it's almost quitting
time here at the zoo. lets talk just a little bit about forgiving. Please email
the answer. If the flowers can exist, how can I feel the pain they give off?
I've asked many people exactly what they've experienced or seen that reinforces
what they believe. Life is long but far too short. I've never heard that phrase
before. I've had it with some aspects of your so-called sense of humor. fuck.
RIGHT NOW! Mikio and Mike are great, even if they're hungry and weird. I wonder
if I know what that means... nonetheless, I think that's my life. One bit me.
I've been having that problem lately. I'll sneak partial bookreports in here
if that's ok... so watchout! Now isn't a good time. Let me know if yer offended.
Damn time flies. Actually only one people. I know she wont even take the time
to read my fucking webpage. Fuck. Complaining is fun. My friend Cam says life
is weird. I can not tell if he is bitter... Anyone remember what I wrote earlier
about stupid people? Weird. Time does not exist as we know it. Shameless band
webpage around the corner? This time a rebirth of the Cactus Pears. had a great
time. I've been doing some scanning and recording-type stuff... I've changed
the name a number of times. big bonfire party at my house tonight! Nice. Neat
seattle-ish band. I guess I was in lingerie for a bit last night... fuck. People
there are cold, rushed and commercial. bought several books on time. What a
world. Nutty. Martizatic! Whatever. played yet another show last night. I think
I've got a picture of that if there're any twisted people out there. Something
of note about the nature of time. Martizatic! I've started work on an infinity/entropy
animation experiment of sorts. very nice. If not, I'm sure this page will suffice.
If you work in an office, you'll like it. Maybe even if you don't. Yup. well
shit. if you're a chronic poor speller, like me, you can download CleverKeys.
I apologize if you feel any of this was rude. Thank you again for your time
and if you wish to reply further, please do so. I think I've ruined my karma
enough for tonight. I've been too busy with "real" content I guess. I wonder
if anybody reads this anymore. I wonder if I care. ranonline.com is a band I'm
in right now. I've asked her to stop. I'm a little spent. I don't recall now
if my mom actually knew this woman. I love psychology. Sometimes I wonder if
they're just passing time until something better comes along. This rant hasn't
been updated much lately. I've taken to writing a journal
up at slashdot. Check there for more musings etc. Or not... that died too. And now the cat is farting. Christ. I've taken to working for Eden Marketing - again - a company I founded with Roman Warmke in 2001. It's 2007 now... this rant's been going on for nearly ten years. The bulk of it in the 1990's. My sister was recently called out for saying, "In the 90's..." too much by a younger friend. Is that like, "back when I was a teenager..."? Wow. They even have TV shows about the 90's now. I wonder what's they'll call shows about this decade... the aughts the ohs the oh who the hell cares.