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.
But I just wonder how pervasive this practice is. Oh, and about that alien thing... don't worry. I've decided that the whole ordeal was the aftereffect of one or more of the following. a)hot-tubbing for hours with wine and nude people the previous evening b)aforementioned "barrel syndrome" c)fatigue d) def leppard. I think that about covers it. I am now in yet another band. This time a rebirth of the Cactus Pears. Very exciting. I get to play with some real neato musicians and that always makes me happy. First Cactus Pears show is Dec 4th. Be there. So Herb made a few neat logo type things for Martizatic. The first is a doodle of his that I altered and then altered before altering it some more... the second and better of the two is a Herb original. I recorded 8 songs with Martizatic a few nights ago. Things went well even though I had what some people call "satan throat herpes" most people call this a really bad cold but it hurt alot and I felt like crap so maybe it deserves a cooler name? Nonetheless, I didn't record any vocal parts... thankyou overdubs. I think Meat Pool or Viva Con Uberdub are beter band names than the ones I'm dealing with at the moment. There would of course be an umlaut over the "U" in Uberdub, but this goes without saying. I still have the great Satan-cold and I'm being talked into actually going on a camping trip in late November. For those of you not familiar with temperate regions, shit gets cold in late November. Also, for some harebrained reason, we are not bringing any tents. Just a few matches, a fieldguide, and a bottle of wine to keep us warm? This sounds like a crock. I guess I should be camping right now, but the only person who thinks I should go is chip. Chip is a giant weirdo. He thinks being outside in the freezing cold is a good idea for sickboy. I tend to think not. I am playing with a new toy that allows me to put useful characters in my webpage like ð and ç and æ, not to mention ® & © & ™ &¶ as well as these handy things... ¼½£Ø (i think you get the idea) I'll probably have to change the name of my webpage now that I can do all of this really cool stuff. I think I'll do that tomorrow! I just got back from Colorado. Saw Ben and cam and Melissa. Went to Denver and Durango... breckenbridge, boulder... ate well slept well, drank too much water. had a great time. now I'm going to sleep. so you really gotta start wondering when you and your boss are sitting at a table eating, and a total wiggitywacked dude comes up to eat with you guys and after a few minutes gets ups and leaves with these words, "shit, sitting next to you guys is probably gonna get me on some sort of list" I'm not saying that this happened to me today or anything but... I have so much in my head and I cant seem to get it all out. I do know that I recently added "Biznatch" to another victim's vocabulary... I can also now play beaverwack like a pro, and I'm not even 25 yet. I was just yelling really nasty profane words real loud until I realized the guy next to me is doing tech support for a customer... sorry mikio. I used to do tech support and I hated it sometimes. If some asshole like me started yelling "PUSSY PUSSY PUSSY" real loud for no apparent reason, I might get a bit peeved. lordy. I just did my first Y2K assessment. Wanna see my report? I've been doing some scanning and recording-type stuff... I'm mixing old analog tapes to digital... because a)i can b)posterity c)it's fun d)for you! e)all of the above f)somethingentirely different Whatever cause may be, I'm a doin it damnit. get ready for pics and sounds! If you do not have the REALAUDIO plugin for your browser, GET IT NOW DAMNIT! (it's free) If you wanna just take a look at the menu of available titles, click here or go to my mp3.com site. The realaudio format is a real bitch to work with though. some people don't have the plugin, and they need to get it, others have an older version that can't read some of the newer .rm formats, but it's really a pain because they give you so many damn choices! It's a constant battle between fidelity and speed. It bugs me. So just for the hell of it... the song Long Resolve is kinda neato. I recorded it at 150 Mill back in 1995 I think. I've changed the name a number of times. Alternating the current moniker with that of "Movie Theme" which is thrilling I'm sure. Made on a POS Yamaha keyboard from the mid '80's... 3 keyboard parts and a maraca thrown in for good measure. Believe it or not, this song was inspired in part by Metroid. Song #2 for the day is a ditty called 2liter. It closely resembles a song of the same name written by Ethan McCarty. Recorded in Cleveland in Billy's basement on a computer maybe 12/27/97? BillyD on lead. The version Ethan wrote has more parts and words, but I'd only heard it once or twice when Bill asked me, "What do you want to record?" ...fortunately it's not too complicated a song so I just figured it out real quick-like. Someone had pissed me off recently and I altered the lyrics accordingly... out of necessity because to this date, I still don't know E's lyrics. OK... I'm on a roll. One last song for tonight... marainy is one of my favorite Heroin Dog songs. It's sort of a Ren & Stimpy lovesong... whatever the fuck that means. It's a large file, about 1 meg, but worth the download time! Ok... I've finally decided to bite the proverbial bullet and clean up my html directory... ie. I have yet another new directory! This one is "/home/dan/html/images" Soon I'll have all the images from this page in there, but for the time being, just the new ones... four OSJB pics for your enjoyment... or mine? Two colorshots from the OSJB reunion show (5/31/97) a b/w from a show in '95 and a promoshot in front of 150 Mill circa '95... whew! big bonfire party at my house tonight! you're all invited. So when I was 16 years old, my girlfriend was murdered. In the words of my pal Kim C. "there was a really nice dedication of a beautiful art piece in the new Teen Room of the Shaker Hts Library. The art is entitled "The Three Seasons of Lisa" and is three...hmmm...I'm having trouble describing it. Three tall, multi-framed towers with pressed flowers in them. it is back-lit. The first is supposed to symbolize innocence, the joy of teens and then tragedy. It is done in numerous colors but has lots of purples. It really is very pretty, albeit very hard to describe." She worked at the library and liked purple. Sometimes I think she was the most sound person in this whole confused world. but she'll always be 16 now... at least in my memories. Yet another "dan-band" debuts on the 12th of December at the afore-linked-to Casa Nueva. The Cactus Pears page is forthcoming and will actually be... hmmm. how do I put this? Nice. Yes. I'm going to make it look like I actually put a little effort into it! Nutty, I know. I had the strange urge to hear STP the other day and accordingly borrowed DJR's CD. Neat seattle-ish band. Too bad their singer was such a smackhead. Argh! My good friend (who shall remain nameless) works for CNN. He's a good source for breaking news. He was also a great source for insight throughout the days... until his nazi-boss made up some anti email rule. That's complete bullshit. How is an artist supposed to create without stimulation and communication? Put me in a sterile environment and see how long it takes for the creative juices to cease. On the otherhand, maybe he's just one of those hard-love bosses... you know the type... he thinks that artists need pain and other icky stuff for inspiration... wow, what a genius! I ought to put some hot spikes on my chair so as to facilitate the creative process. On Thursday I travel around with Jerry HArtly and Don, two Rural Action guys, to train people at a handfull of community centers. My involvment with The Countdown to Millennium Project is ending soon... I have to teach at a few more schools and then that's it... I'll need to find some other community type work to do after that cuz I like it at least a little bit. We'll I wish I'd puked last night. But I didn't. The Cactus Pears debut was a lot of fun. I drank way too much last nite. It's 10 pm the next nite and I still feel like ass. Though I don't remember the finer nuances of last eve's exploits, I am learning of various happenings from a few third parties. I guess I was in lingerie for a bit last night... I also threw mike to the ground again. I think he keeps pissing me off at parties? I don't like that violent streak thing... but I guess it's ok so long as nobody gets hurt right? Just posted a few more responses... weird. I have email to answer. Though not my brainchild, I have found a new twisted source of joy in my life... I've always loved a captive audience so to speak... like when poor saps pay $5 to watch/listen to me make noise on various stages at seedy venues in the region... but lately the interoffice email memo has been an even more exploitative resource... I've taken to writing elaborate subject lines relating to the Y2K fiasco... with no body attached... stuff like... "Y2K will kill us all" or "Year2000, Satan returns, babies explode" of course with no message attached... a bodiless subject line... spooky? I don't know... it's at least goofy though. I've made at least one acquaintance online recently... it's hard to get to know someone through a keyboard though... but I s'pose that could be kind of kinky? I just lined up a scholarship for two highschool dudes from the CTM Project. Yippee! Take care of yourself, cuz most likely, unless you're very lucky, nobody else will... I'll always email you though. Fear not? This eve was the frogparty. let me tell you all about it... just kidding! I'd not torture you so =) I've been a big slacker the past few days, but that's ok. I could have gone to a party with my pal Holly in Pittsburg, but I opted to get nutty with the Frogs instead. Tomorrow I'm FINALLY putting my CD player in my Scirocco. This is exciting. I ripped my old radio out awhile ago and've been driving around listening to the new and improved rattles popping up everywhere... I think that's called "character"??? Shit. I am spent. The winter is just starting... I don;t like the cold too much. Hence a trip to the Caribbean soon! But that looks like it'll get pushed back till late spring. Dummer. Way up yonder, in the slightly more cool reaches of my page, I link to at least a few friends' webpages. Sometimes I forget that some of my friends are actually doing cool stuff... come to think of it, most of them are. My friend Sharon's presence online caught my eye simply because of it's noble and for the most part selfless ends. I don;t believe in altruism though, so I guess I'm talking smack? ...as usual. I think maybe I'm just a sucker for haybale construction though. WOW. I know i had a really fucked up dream last night... I just remembered now though... I didn't actually remember the dream, but I fully remember remembering it both while having it and right after the fact. i wish I could remember those dream things more... even though they are merely the byproduct of a biological physiological process that serves only to aerate the corneas... byproducts can be interesting things in and among themselves you know. I'm going to Cleveland tomorrow... there are so many people I want to see... some I haven't seen in years... which makes me want to not see anyone because I don't want to have to choose who I do and don't see. fuck. Why is everyone so upset at the USA for bombing on the first night of Ramadan? Saddam bombed Israel on Yom Kipur... though two wrongs do not a right make, the old adage "all's fair..." could hold true here. Criteria and boundaries seem meaningless here. All I know is I pimped the Scirocco out with a CD player and... and... I think I could drive forever sometimes... until I get hungry or have to take a leak. Made it from Cleveland to Athens in just over three hours tonight! dan unser jr. (new nickname) Cleveland is the coolest big city in Ohio. It is also a giant bag of suck. People there are cold, rushed and commercial. At this juncture, I'm very content not being in the ratrace. I'll cross that red tape when I come to it. bought several books on time. there's so much I'd like tosay about time, and usually, I don't hold back. this moment however, is unusual. I am withholding information. but that... is OK. So apparently teleportation is here? It seems like there's about a century's worth of bugs to fix... but then, voila! teleportation! My research has shown that time travel is possible too. At least forward, but not necessarily backwards. But in a way that's all relative. If I were to "teleport" to a distant star... cause it to go supernova, and then return to earth... eventually we'd see the results of my tinkering... almost as if I'd gone back in time... but not really. I'll be writing a book on all of this in the coming years. Hold your breath. I've just ordered a palmtop computer from Sharp. It has a modem, a keyboard and all that jazz. It was only $160. What a steal. If you want one in a year, I'll sell you mine for $200. My friend herb recommends this author because he says some neat things about dreams. I had a weird dream about the Ali Baba Buggy and my Templar-dad a few days ago. I saved the world from their nefarious plot. Then I woke up. I am now the music writer for the Athens News. Check the page every Thursday for my article. It's going to be interesting writing for the masses in a more formal environment. I can't say "fuck" or "assmuncher" in that ramble. Check back here later on each Thursday for a few obligatory foul-mouthed exclamations. This page is getting so huge. I'm thinking of archiving the first part of this spiel so as to enable faster downloads. What do you think? If I keep getting 4 hits a day, I could save over 500 minutes of download time over a two year period by archiving. What a world. I have found one of the most truly uncool pages on the web. Thanks to MC BigIsrael for the tip. Unfortunately it has the ability to really fuck some shit up... nothing too bad, but heinous enough to warrant me not putting it up on the "Top 10 or so..." list without verbose warnings such as this. The site is/was (now probably off-line for good) here. For advanced uncool users only. You can take a peak at it with no worries, but to explore further might entail trials and tribulations. I wrote two drunken poems last nite... one about some stuff, the other about a dream about offseason flyfishing, both were short, and sweet. I'm 25 today. I'm working out at CustomBodies today... there are dumbies crawling out of the woodworks with computers. It is scarry. I got the SCHWA manual a few days ago. It is important. Several years ago, maybe 8 or 9 years... I was in Cleveland at Jon George's house for newyears party and was blessed with seeing the Jon ralphing in the john... I was inspired to write the first verse of "Plucky song" I know somewhere inside your head you are burning on a mountain... in one hand, you've got a bottle... in the other a (censored) (explitive) (etc.) and you're screaming "YES YES YES!!!" I'm going to go bulkup! Last day of the year. thanks for looking in 98. just bought a nice leisuresuit/coctail-outfit for the voodoo lounge party tonight... also a Bongwater CD. be careful. I've got lots of stuff to add here that i wrote on this little mini computer thing, but, not just this second. Nutty. I actually have a whole weekend without any shows! I kind of welcome it. um here is the article for 1/21/99. I've been slacking on this page. But that's ok. Just finished the CactusPears beta page. Check it out. Martizatic! is now web-worthy too! Check out our minimalist page. Getting ready to go to Europe again... 6 more days. Put one more song up in that song folder. Yada yada yada. I've been such a slacker on this page lately. Sorry. I think it's been well over a month since I put anything of substance up. I wrote a bit on my little pocket computer though, maybe I'll put that up. Sure, how bout right now. I'm going to Europe for a bit so it only makes sense that I compensate... I quote, "I'm sitting in a diner waiting for an old friend, typing... modern convenience. I wouldn't even have dreamt it, but it's happening. I played three shows last night. My arms are sore, but only from lifting... you know, keeping that emaciated heroin addict look around as long as possible. Whatever. I'm bored. I don't like waiting sometimes. It's OK now though cuz I get to look like a freak in this public establishment. Unfortunately though, I am not getting paid for this, unless of course I count this as a chapter in my forthcoming bestseller. I got a raise. The fur is getting thick. it's been cold and snowy lately. It's interesting but kind of a pain. I wonder about stuff sometimes. played yet another show last night. Funny how the little mistakes are so obvious while the grandiose accomplishment goes largely unnoticed. Humor, the inevitable byproduct of...? it just is. I am in love." I think I hafta take a break from my transcribing here for a second. There's a pretty boring hunk of text I'm not gonna post, and as cool as pocket PCs are, the screens are still pretty small. Got photos back... a couple different rolls. pictures from florida, colorado, athens, various gigs... this one is from back in July. I'd just caught the mother of all Catfish. I think it's little brother was the one that stabbed me the day before. though still slightly jaded (stemming from previous catfish trauma and personal carnage) I mustered the courage to unhook the HUGE fish from the unforgiving snare of that hook. Though I'm completely capable of making this into a long story, there's just not enough substance really. When I was holding the fish, I guess I squoze a bit too much and a gazillion eggs popped out of it... various states of development. the picture is me holding a few of those eggs, thinking how I'm probably going to go to hell for what I'd just done... and similar previous mishaps... and then remembering how I once heard that fish eggs make nice bait. that about sums it up. only seconds later I was baiting another hook. I think I've got a picture of that if there're any twisted people out there. And now, more of that stuff. "But wait. Something of note about the nature of time. If you take 2 synchronized super-precise clocks, and put one on top of the Eiffel tower, and the other at its base. The hands of the one on top will invariably move slower than those of the one at the bottom. Similarly, twins separated at birth and placed at extreme altitudes e.g. one in the Alps and the other in Death Valley, will age differently. The one in the Alps would be younger. It's really that simple. Ha! there's more but I'll save that for later. Tubs generally don't have lids." endquote the last section consists of me recounting the terrible tale of Paul hansen destroying my copy of "Livin Lounge : The fabulous sounds of now," a great hunk of music. I was going on and on about how the multidimensional agents responsible for Mr hansens's actions couldn't stop me from buying another copy and taking it to Europe... problem is, the disk is out of print. Suck. Going to Europe for a few days. Try to hold the fort down while I'm gone. Um, I'm back here is an article for this week. Here's my personal carnage from that damn evil catfish. Notice the HUGE wake behind the boat as McCall speeds to the nearest hospital. 3 doctors vomited at the hideous sight of the colossal damage to my hand. They too had to be taken to the hospital. Lucky for them they were already at one? This week's article with special guest writer?! Had a party this weekend. My friend Rae came into town. We had a blast at the bonfire. But that's fun... on to business... this week's article. I think it's been more than a couple months since I've put anything here? Had a dream last night. About Sheary's Wing. Somebody was just calling it boring yesterday. I don't think so. There was a race. Two girls. I was there, like a ghost. Endurance. Towards the end the underdog pulls ahead... barely... then more. She rounds the corner in the stock schoolhouse hallway. Into her mother's arms. Barely coherent. Concern fills their eyes. My ghost is crying. Two very uncool things. 1- I've made several updates to the Tub and Pot Club recently. 2- Here is the uncool anthem. About 200k in .wav format. And here's an old version of a song the cpears are gonna do soon. Update update update... I've been slackworthy with this page lately, but that's ok. Martizatic! is breaking up, the CactusPears just released a CD, FrogNet is doing well, I still work for the FurPeaceRanch and write for the ANEWS, I'm working on the MIRA Project, stockpiling weapons and beer for Y2K readiness, and having a general blast. This is my first weekend without a show in ages. I'm going canoeing, playing paintball, seeing a dance concert, partying and picnicking, etc etc... write me an email sometime. Two months later... I fucked my knee up something awful and had to have surgery. I am walking again but will not be playing paintball again for a few months... nor basketball, skiing, tennis, etc. Back when I wasn't a gimp, the frognet crew got a charity bowling team together to raise $$$ for Big Brothers/Big Sistahs. One of our team members won a can of paint for some reason or another. We didn't bowl too well but drank some beer afterwards. Needless to say we did manage to defeat the "Hot Carl and the Carlettes" team. Here is our team picture and the MTV version. Back on May 1st, Mikio and Eli got married. Me and Geraldine frontman Matt Harvey were duking it out over the garter belt for some reason. I got it. Though the picture taken moments after this one is more action oriented and features me fully airbound and horizontal, I don't have a copy. Make sure to check out the CactusPears website and the Tub and Pot Club (including a new music section) - as well as Martizatic!! and OSJB. I've been neglecting this page lately but the others have been getting more attention. I guess I'm not feeling that uncool these days? I'm seeking therapy. I have to get a brace for my knee. My dumbass insurance company won't pay $200 for a "commercial" brace, but are willing to pay $800 for a custom made one. There is something inherently stupid yet normal about that. I've started work on an infinity/entropy animation experiment of sorts. It is still in the early stages, but worth posting nonetheless. So I was at work and this guy called, a regular customer of sorts. While I'm on the phone with him some other people are yapping about how he is the most spineless dude around - afraid of his own shadow. I'm not sure why he was calling, nor do I know how the offices got so huge and clean. Things get hazy. Myself and another "ethnic" fella - somebody from my past who I had a falling out with I assume - decide to go to the old neighborhood for a beverage of sorts. First we're driving in one car, rather erratically. Then we're driving in two cars - even more erratically, occasionally backwards and a little reminiscent of a not so funny scene from Earth Girls Are Easy. Then we're walking I think. Then I see the brickabrack store where I accidentally left my ancient Danelectro amp. I see some neat-o stuff laying around. Wassername (the storekeeper) elected to show me a nice little piece she'd recently had restored. some sort of elaborate wooden furniture item with lathwork so old it had deteriorated badly. This particular item was rejuvenated and restored with some finagled AI aerosol spray product that somehow knew how to conform to original product schemata and specifications. What a neat product. Spray it on your broken crap and it's fixed. Near the item was a bass-like instrument... um, I'll draw it later. Here's where it gets hazy. I should've written this down sooner. Jamey Greenfield grabs the bass-like device and embraces it from behind - using all fingers he tapped out an entrancing tune. Maybe I drooled. We first saw the girl in the other room on a nearby monitor. Now that I think of it, she was the one drooling, not I. her face turned every shade of a Technicolor yawn as we hurried into the adjacent room to the bed where she lay. Apparently ill from the siren-like trance of the music, she vomited. a message made me wary. I wonder what I wrote/said that was reinforced by somebody else's word that troubles you. I think I'm going to watch my step or something. I think it's easy to piss people off sometimes. Especially if you're Tony xenos. This is an excerpt from an email to my aforementioned pal Tracey. due to the abridged nature of this, I was forced to glance over a few things that might warrant more thought (time, god, reality... you know, kid's stuff) the dynamic nature of life inevitably leads to hypocrisies. I don't think it is necessarily because of beliefs, it is the result of conviction - which is a little different. I'll revise a previous statement and say that beliefs are OK so long as they are relatively fleeting. But then again, every concept we know outside of basic universal physics is pretty damn temporary. Change and dynamism is important nonetheless - doing what you want is guaranteed to be in conflict with what you have wanted in the past and what you may want to do in the future, thus, living for the moment is arguably the only true way to remember yourself. Living in the past; or future for that matter is a betrayal of what is real and true. But then again, there is also the vast unknown. One way to avoid hypocrisy is to have small, attainable goals and the oft sought after "focus." Shaolin monks believe that there is no time. If we consider life much like a computer program, like Microsoft Word - and consider *average* human beings a 386 PC (read: sucky computer) - and we consider *enlightened* humans (or gods) to be the PC of the future, the program (life) will seem like an eternity to the 386 (human) - *if* it is even capable of rendering even a small part of it. Whereas the Pentium XII (god or whatever) could tackle loading the program in nanoseconds. Do you follow my poor analogy? so, you can not really betray yourself. Time moves too slow for that - at least too slow to be fair about it. But then again, I'm just playing the apologist for sucky human nature. How can you be expected to know what you want when a moment is infinitesimally minute and you can't purchase a RAM upgrade? shit, I'll upgrade your RAM! I've quit the Cactus Pears - effective when they find a replacement or Jan 1 2000, whichever comes first. Though playing out every week around the region is one of my favorite things to do, my time investment was not being rewarded with enough satisfaction dividend. A tough choice no doubt, but one I feel is best. I'm traveling a lot in the near future anyhow and that would prevent me from giving a traveling band my *all*. I look forward to trips to San Jose, NYC, Israel and Ecuador in the next half year. My pal Billy Demarco opened a studio in Cleveland and is anxious, as am I, to record a solo project tentatively titled "better thancreamed Korn" or something... I made a neat map and webpage today. It should aid the slacker FrogNet techies in their quest to provide the best service possible. I have to write my badass music column now. I got to interview Bernie Worrell a few weeks ago, and Bela Fleck's banjo teacher a few weeks b4 that. Being the media has its perks. went to put-in-bay and Cedar Point this past weekend. very nice. write me. found out today that I am not going to israel, but San Jose is a sure thing. All expenses paid trip to ISPCON with little sidetrips to SanFran I'm sure. There's a huge party tonight, but I'm not in the mood. I think I'd rather watch a movie or pay my bills or something like that. I practiced with my new band POO Factory * Featuring Bony Pony, last night. It was refreshing and fun. We have no aspirations aside from hanging out once a week and making noise while sipping fine homebrew - and maybe an occasional show? I'm sure we'll have a webpage up before I die. If not, I'm sure this page will suffice. I had vivid dreams last night. I have vivid aspirations for the future, though not specific. Saw "Office Space" last night. If you work in an office, you'll like it. MAybe even if you don't. I have a chronic problem typing. I almost always automatically capitalize any "a" after a capital "M" and it pisses me off. If not cured, I'll bet I waste at least a half an hour a year correcting the results of my affliction. Here, for your viewing pleasure, are two pictures. One with eyes closed, the other, open. The contrast is... it just is. My pal Chris has been taking pictures again, which I think is a good thing. IF you too would like to model for him, get in touch with me, I'll make it happen. Went to California about a week ago, and to NYC this weekend... I'll have to recount some of the juicier tidbits in a bit. For now, I'll settle on posting one of my responses to a philosopher pal of mine... at least that's what I like to call her sometimes. "though I have opinions regarding your frustration, I, likewise am not able to express them factually... though exasperating, this is the way large inefficient democracies work. it has nothing to do with you being uneducated. Research it as much as you want - even if you were to rise to the rank of president, you'd be alarmed at your inability to affect change. don't confuse this with apathy as that is quite different." Isn't it nice sometimes... when the punchline is enough to make you laugh? 7 days till I go under the knife again. I fucking hate that. I guess that
was about 3 months ago? 2nd surgery was about as successful as the first - but at long last, hope spings from my fuctup knee. I quit the cactus pears back on Jan 1st after an OSJB/CP double bill Y2K show. That was a blast for sure. My ISP is doing big things. We can potentially offer ADSL access nationwide and plan on offering a FREE ISP option in the near future. I'm playing in 2 bands - one is a fairly straightforward rock outfit - but not really all that cut and dry. the other is an electronic/traditional rock instrument fusion with sequencers, samples, keyboards, acoustic and electric drums and bass and guitar. neither have websites yet =( I'm going to be recording a solo project soon with a guest track or two by Jorma. I think that's neat. believe it or not, I'm having a blast playing smallworld hoops. Yikes! Ihave a feature weekly spot on the aforementioned AMN... writing goofy definitions for music phrases... sort of. LAst night some jerkoff parked my car into my spot. There're a lot of bars and very few parking spots around my spot, so I'm frequently either parked in, or more often, blocked from using my spot at all. It is a truly enormous pet peeve of mine - moreso, the thing that bothers me is - the jerk who owns the towning company responsible for towing that lot doesn't staff anybody in the evenings. without fail, when I call in the evening, I wake him up, and he makes me feel bad for asking him to get out of bed. even worse, quite often, he takes so long to get down here that the asshole who parked in my spot is often gone. last night, I called, he was asleep, he had also aparently had a bad day or something. nonetheless, he called my sassy... or something to that effect, and hung up abruptly. Sassy? who's being sassy? Going to Tampa on business in a week. I like florida. thank you. I am fine. and you? often I find myself with either too much or not enough to do, depending upon point of reference and particulars of the instance. Summer can be hot, muggy, rainy, and beautiful here in the valley. And somewhat quiet; again depending on how you look at it. Florida was likewise- warm, filled with inner strife and conflict, and muggy. Lot's of neat new ideas for an ISP and some fun - all rolled up in one, underneath the Florida sun?
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.

 

 

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