I Just Remembered Something: You Should Go On.

The title comes from a song by Face to Face singer, Trever Keith called Cross Your Heart. And now, bed.



I have wondered aloud, for a good six month span starting at the end of last year, often, occasionally in Zach's arms (there's documentation of this), Does This Make Me An Alcoholic? By that point in the evening/afternoon/12:15 p.m. I'd been drinking, though one moment stands out. I was seriously considering drinking at lunch sponsored by the Campus, in honor of the seniors on the staff, two girls and I. The editor in chief, a junior, was sitting a couple chairs down and said to us "hey, you guys can order drinks, it's after noon" and I seriously considered it for a couple minutes.

Does that make me an alcoholic? Not really.

I find myself wishing I had something alcoholic more and more often. Today, I reached for a Coke. (I always wondered when I didn't drink, which was worse, having a local beer or Coke, since ehhhh, technically, alcohol was bad, but wasn't Coke's stranglehold on Indian water as well as other "understandings" with the world I'm not aware of, worse?) Anyway. It was a Coke today. Monday, it was a Hershey bar. Just something sweet. Something to stave off that feeling of "You know what would make this better? Booze!"

And booze won't make it better. I know this. I know what booze does to my head. It just makes me think things are better and limits my inhibitors, which can be useful in some scenarios and terrible in others. I know the reason why I associate happiness with alcohol is because I drink a lot with my friends and that's fun, because we're all less inhibited and more prone to drunken singing and fun times.

I'm still using the present tense there. I should know better. That was that. I mean, I'm still thinking about plans to return to Allegheny, but it's not until next year at the earliest. But even then, it won't be the same. You can't go home, I know. Some of this is as simple as I wish I did different things over the last four years. Jesus, I wish I was more social, got out of my room senior year. I wish I had kissed more girls. Taken more chances with different girls. Said "Here's my number. Call me." Instead of just walking away after saying something nice at the bar.

Whatever. (And in the 8 minutes between writing that and coming back, I saw an image of Jade and Davey from AFI, years and years ago, playing ping-pong during a break in recording Art of Drowning and am now much happier.) Something so out of place and gloriously unprepared for a band that has historically spent a lot of time on image for their live shows just makes me smile and is a wonderful yogurt for my mental palate.

Back to the continued desire for alcohol. I know something about it. I know that I'm confusing my desire to be around people whom I already trust and love with the desire to drink. The two run together when I'm not doing anything except waiting for people to get back to me. It's been three weeks swallowed. Lord, how the time has passed me by.

Speaking of three weeks swallowed, I've been spending far too long looking at Facebook to see what Allegheny kids are up to. I miss them. But I've said that over and over again. I wake up in 6 hours, less now, to Iowa to visit family. It's my hope I can use that time to not check Facebook for a week. To fling myself into the reality of being in Chicago with no plans to come back to what I did or used to do. There's little things I can take with me, though. I'm hoping at least one gaming group at home comes through. To get me to meet new people. Start new relationships. Fire up old ones.

Facebook makes it easy to get caught up in old relationships and to go awwww. (Woah. My world just did a bit of a rotation and I wasn't in control of my head.) I have hit the iChat button three times out of habit within the last two minutes. I think that says something. I'm addicted to the constant pulse of the buddy list. Knowing people are there, just by look at that list on the right or lefthand corner of my screen.

At Allegheny, I had something like that buddy list. Call up Zach or James head over to their rooms to chill when I was confused or depressed or needed to talk. I had that mental safety net. Chicago, I'm just waiting for my good, good friends to come back. Now, Iowa offers me an opportunity to spend a weekend without that safety net.

It's my hope that the time this goes up that I'm asleep, but also, that while I'm away, I won't get on the internet or check shit. Detox, whether it's alcohol or constant communication. Reconnect with me. To prove to me that I can do that. To interact with people without Twitter, Facebook, IM clients and Gmail. Just me and my family. Maybe even turn off my phone and be disconnected and in this moment, fully, without any external stimuli.

And if I can do that for three days, then I can do that for a week. And if I can do it for a week, what about two? It's that kind of growth that I think would make my friends (and myself) most proud, that if I do come back to Allegheny, for a weekend or something next year, it won't be as a grad limping back to the school for "the old days" but as part of a positively evolving person, moving forward.

To really get the most out of the Allegheny experience, looking back, I must recognize that it wasn't just a dream and that these experiences are things I can take with me as I walk further on the path of life and return to these experiences at different points in my life to gleam different lessons from them.

This blog, in as much as it is a statement, it isn't a road that will take me to the stars, but it's hopefully, a road that will see me through. Now, to decipher what the signs mean.

This Blog Is About Waterboarding (And My Guilt)

On the heels of the news that Strike Anywhere was signing to Bridge Nine and was moving away from Dead FM as a sound, I've come to listen to Dead FM nearly nonstop and realize that it is, categorically, Strike Anywhere's best record for its combination of enthusiasm, solidarity and joy.

I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised then, that while writing this blog about anger, spite and torture I listened to the record five six times, straight through. Consider purchasing a copy.

Also, it's Memorial Day. There's a lot of patriotic sentiment going around today about supporting the troops, so, in a slightly different vein, here's a link to the United State's Veteran's Affairs website about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. When soldiers (of all stripes and nations) get back, some of them can't leave their time in combat on the battlefield and it's them I want you to remember, especially.




I take it back.

I've said, loudly and irregularly, that members of ex-President Bush's cabinet ought to face waterboarding as some kind of a penance and poetic justice for their crimes inside and outside of the inland territories of the United States. After watching an occurrence of waterboarding, I take it back.

A local shock jock I dislike got waterboarded recently and there's a youtube clip up if you care to look. I'm not mentioning their name or even gender, because I don't want this person to get more attention or pageviews. Suffice to say I find their entire program to be racist, sexist, homophobic and unimaginative. I viewed this person as exactly the opposite of what I wanted to grow up like. I view this on-air personality, at a minimum, as repugnant and chauvinistic.

This personality lost a bet, is what I remember and the consequence is enduring a form of torture known as waterboarding. It's pretty much simulated drowning, but you know this already. I found embedded video on Facebook and my face lit up. I hit the play button and the scene unfolded in front of me.

There's EMTs standing by and at least two video cameras, along with another DJ (the show must go on!) and a photographer. So, when I see a black rag being put over their nose and eyes and I see the Marine overseeing the entire enterprise preparing the gallon of water, I was ready. I knew what to do. Reptile brain, get ready for the overload of comeuppance and pleasure in seeing a person I despise drown. The initial repetition of "the normal person can only stand 14 seconds" struck me of the same infantile traditional fratboy dominance games that masquerade as generic male bonding, but whatever. Motherfucker's getting waterboarded! It's about time!

The intensity was ratcheted up. Feet were tied so as restrain the subject, and the other announcer kept asking his friend if they were ready. Sure as ever that the coming waterfall was nothing to worry, the subject instructed the Marine to get on with it. Out comes the clear gallon of water. I wanted to feel sorry for the water that it was being used to go into the nose and mouth of a person who spent their day disenfranchising minorities and women, calling it all good in the name of entertainment and comedy.

Down came the water. I got a little bit of joy when I saw the water leave the container, the promise that what would come next would please me even more, when the simulated drowning would really take effect.

It didn't come.

Water stopped being poured after seven seconds, the personality saying it was enough and it was horrific. But aside from the visible, but minuscule vindication of my ethical standpoint, I feel worse, demonstrably, for having watched that. Certainly, one, I am contributing, virally, to the the continued success of the DJ, but more that waterboarding is torture on anyone, even those I loathe and it's not fun for me to watch, regardless of who it is being practiced on.

I thought I would get a sick pleasure in seeing the person in pain, but I felt, for the most part, disgusted. I let my own petty, ingrained hate override my beliefs. What does it say about me that I thought I would get some kicks out of watching an overgrown child getting tortured and I went through with it? I chose to click that youtube link. I chose to hit start on that video. What does it say about me that I got caught up in bad blood that frankly, I should have grown up and moved on from years ago?

I don't want to say something as stark as torture is torture, but watching a person think they're drowning is harrowing enough, even a computer screen or two removed from the incident. Still, take another look at the second paragraph above this one. The phrase "It's not fun for me to watch" sticks out. Looking back on that just makes me think, "Dude, what were you thinking? Of course it's not going to be fun. It's torture."

But more to the point, why did I let myself get into a judgment where I might have to weigh the potential pleasure to see a corrosive personality get waterboarded versus my distaste for the practice? It's obvious. I was blinded by spite and chose to indulge voyerism.

There's an obvious parallel here. Important portions of the United States government were blinded and made choices, too. They had go through labyrinthine means and some pretty bizzare memos to legalize the use of torture and even then, something still felt wrong. I suppose, after seeing it used, myself, on someone willing, I'm no longer willing to run my mouth about forcing 60 or 70 year old men to experience it themselves, despite the fact that they ordered it.

I'm technically well aware of just how much damage what those Cabinet members ordered and signed off on has done to this country, both in terms of what this opens up for our enemies, but also in terms of the United States' international credibility. They ought to pay a high price for their crimes, but I'm not sure torture is the right punishment. In this case, I'm not sure the crime they legalized fits the crime they committed.

I just want for torture not to be used, period. But, failing that, I just don't want it to be used in my name. For all the times that has happened (and especially on Memorial Day), I'm sorry. I can't take back the pain. But, after watching it happen, to someone who thought they could handle it, I can make a promise to speak out even louder against it when I see evidence it is being used, in the hope that when it is used again, it isn't by hands of this country, whether it's our agents performing the procedure or our agents pulling the strings from overseas.

Too many have died already around the world this year. Too many more will next year and the year after that, too. I'm going to thank that DJ for bringing a bit of the war (and the realization of horror that comes with it) home to me for Memorial Day. Tomorrow, that personality will be back on air, spewing their garbage and poisonous rhetoric, but that's for tomorrow.

Today is Memorial Day.