Before the wrath of ten thousand sorority girls descends upon my inbox...

After much behind the scenes foot-dragging, here it is, a couple weeks after the germ of the idea fermented in my mind.

First, I'd like to note that the title "On" anything is profoundly arrogant. I mention this because I was going to title this "On my contemporaries", but that really, asked for hubris on a level that outside a Bono impression, I can't deliver. I don't know how much I have to contribute, and to be quite honest, I really want to get something off my chest.

The statements of purpose, or catch phrases of sororities got to me. The one in question, "first, finest, forever" simply left a bad taste in my mouth. (Really, I should use a different example, since these are the people that are most likely to talk to us, but theirs, sadly is the one that sticks in my mind. If any of you are reading this, know I mean you, in praticular, no venom or harm.)

At some very basic level, I understand very well I am not first. I am not finest. And, if I am anything, I am not forever. (Apropos of nothing, I am was listening to a song that says "fuck the glory days...") I am an awkward kid from a city. This is not saying much. That is not unique by any standard. By no one's arithmetic am I finest (Aside from those of my parents, I suppose. Bless them.) I am soft where I ought to be more like a washboard, and I am not the most intelligent or perceptive person in any of my cliques. I am not the most athletic, I am not the most picturesque. I am not quick witted, and I am myopic, jealous, paranoid and suspicious as a motherfucker. I'll amend the sentence before the one that precedes this one. (Yes, I know, I couldn't just say "two sentences prior".) Perhaps I have the finest hair out of my social clique. Hardly grounds for calling myself finest. As for forever? I understand that I will die. This is not a revelation. Perhaps people will remember how I made them feel, but they will not remember me or what I said.*

* I also understand I am not a girl.

There's no question, though that these girls, and indeed, everyone else in on the planet, is reaching out for something greater. Hell, I'm doing the same thing. I ended that last paragraph (no, the full one, not the snarky sentence) quoting Maya Angelou, a person who has done infinitely more with her life than I could do with 20. To be sure, I used her words to show I'm well read, and perhaps to inflate my ego. I want to be a part of something greater, and my work(?) elsewhere shows just that. I'm really trying to put myself in a context where I make sense.

But the idea I'm trying to get across is that I do this too. I, also, want to put myself in the same boat as something larger, and presumably greater than me. I just like to think I don't use weighty words when I do it. I hope I don't romanticize my own social group too much. The group I'm a part of, the group named after Jason and the, is native to the college. We have no part of a building on campus expressly reserved for us. It's a close-knit community. We acknowledge there is nothing inherently special about us, except, perhaps, for our mutual distaste for everything else. Here, we can have our sharp edges and rough patches, and in my humble opinion (Yes, I mean that. I am a modest guy with much to be modest about. Apologies to Mr. Churchill) that's far more important than being sanded down and prettied up, in my eyes.

And I am sure that for these girls, their sorority is at least as important to them as my group is to me. There's nothing wrong with taking pride in your group of friends or cohorts or your community but all the same, you don't need the label of first finest or forever to be distinct or worth meeting. It sounds good, but it doesn't hold up. I guess I'm rare, but I'm just fine with last, spit on, and going to die soon. I do like the underdog mentality, glad you noticed.

The difference between our two groups? Well, I don't owe dues. That is to say, for the privilege of wearing the letters and hanging out with the group and being on the official lists, I do not owe any central location anywhere any money whatsoever. My dues are owing more to Jim Raynor than Jim Bean and not apologizing for it. The dynamics are also quite different, being that my group is not single-sex.

I proposed Wreck Your Life as club motto a while back. I stand by it, especially since it is a great This Is Hell song but, mostly because it embodies a spirit of defiance that I approve of wholeheartedly. Is that defiance more emblematic than anything else? Yes. But like Matt Hock said, "I vote for the outcasts, the losers and the creeps". Aside from the fact that I'd poll well there, and I'd like to think that the emblem is still worth something.

I'm trying to close this with a nice quote, but Gabe of Midtown put it best: "Find comfort in yourself, and know that what you have is not what you are."

THESE SHLAVS NEED TO GTFO OUR SCLAMS

I should already be asleep, so let's get down to brass tacks.

Point the first.
I have a semi-demi-hemi girlfriend, but a man cannot love a woman in the same way that a man can love, say, beer. Having grown up in either boondocks (west of bumblefuck) or a "college" town, I did not know the refined pleasures of beer that was not made of pisswater or drinks that consist of some bitters, snuck into the gaps between ice cubes through some kind of bartending legerdemain. Then I met my one true love, here in the city. Honestly. Brooklyn Brewery crafts ridiculously fine brews, seemingly brewed with the express purpose of enjoying them in the waning hours of the day, sitting in a sidewalk cafe in a trendy/filthy part of town, watching insane Russian vagrants mixing with the French hipsters.

Anyway, as the (endless!) summer finally draws to a close, it's very nice. Why weren't the preceeding months this nice? July was like being eaten alive by some kind of feral squirrel tribe. August was marked with a three day long family tiff. And September is entered in with whistful recollections of my youth, and tapping into a general sense of brotherly responsibility and affection.

April is the cruelest month indeed. Never be tutored by Ezra Pound.

Anyway, you know what's a bad idea? Right wing militant social organizations focusing around hating jews, gypsies, and gays. Sounds familiar, amiright? Well, those who don't remember history are doomed to be embarassed when they look back at themselves.

...Sorry, watching Flight of the Conchords, and it is hella distracting.

New York City can be a horrible place, because if anyone wants something, there are eighteen better people available to supply it. This is why I am having trouble finding both a place to work and a place to live. And why I'ma head to Pittsburgh. Sure, it's no New York. Hell, Brooklyn alone is bigger than Pittsburgh (no joke - it's about seven times larger in population), but it's cheap, close to people I like, and not as cutthroat.

Anyway. I'm a small fish, moving to a smaller pond. The humility needed to navigate a sub-par collegiate career is a difficult skill to pick up. The snide remarks and casual egotism tend to pale before the "Oy, we've no reason to hire you, pees awf" attitude that all of the evil British employers here have.

Speaking of the Brits - Pulp! Common People has to be among the finest songs written in the past fifty years. I was listening to it earlier today, and I tell you this - that song is the very definition of strutting music. While it plays on my headphones, I am ten feet tall and made of impenetrable adamantium. A good song to follow it up with? Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth.

...There's a hoarse old man outside my window screaming "Who the fuck are you?"

Anyway, yes. The two go together like raspberries and ginger. And come on NME, Oasis as the best indie rock anthem band? You can go and suck on a brick until you realize that you aren't Pitchfork.

Did you hear that if we pull out of Iraq, proposed oil prices will go up to about $9 dollars a gallon? Betcha wish you'd waited before you bought that Hummer 3, eh? No? And you get all kinds of women, and can run over skyscrapers with it? Well damn, that is pretty neat. How much did it set you back? You got it used? Well, that's. Er. Hi!

Politics are not my strong suit, though, so don't ask me where or how I heard this.

With that in mind, might I draw your attention to this*? I like the midwest, kind of. I feel that it often gets a bad rap for... Jesus, the guy is still out there screaming, he's hoarser than Tom Waits... Anyway, it gets a bad rap for not being either New York or LA, or very often even humble Chicago. So it's nice to see something serious dealt with in a lighthearted but mature matter. Also, the joke about the woman thinking that getting her hair caught in the car door is an orgasm is pure gold.

*Work is not to be safe viewing plz.

GOD SHUT UP HOBO IT'S THREE AM.

Anyway, I'm on the train tomorrow. Happy labor day! Remember - were it not for the Trucker's Union, the US would still have the fastest, most efficient train system in the world. Ha ha, instead we have truck stops. Thanks a lump, boundless avarice.