Obama! Spring Break! Whoo!

I really like Obama. Honestly and deeply like him. I like hearing him speak. I like his story, his policies, his platitudes. I like him in a way that is counter to my cynicism, that is objectively, very foolish. And I am not naive, I know that he is an American politician, which is to be a huckster and a liar and a snake-oil salesman. But in Obama, I am okay with the deceptions and compromises. I can live with them, because he is at the very least self-aware. He knows who's going to vote for him and he knows what they want to hear and how to say it, how to perform and present himself to them as the vehicle for their frustrated optimism and vestigial idealism. Unequivocally, the "youth vote" (as it were) is his major strength, the true devotees and zealous converts. The Baby Boomers and the Union Workers and the Frustrated Republicans are being swayed, seduced and shown the light, but slowly and with the passionate guidance of these college students. Anyone over the age of 17 and under the age of 30 is chomping at the bit to vote for the Obamanator. We're ready to go. Get us to a booth, and we know what to do.

Unfortunately, the most common criticism is also the fairest observation: Obama really doesn't have much to say. Not yet, anyway. He has some outlines. Some ideas. A clear and (to me) fairly comforting voting record. But Hilary's had her marching plan ready since the impeachment days. That is irrelevant, and I feel that he (or at least, his incredibly clever staff) understands that. That the youth vote would not be won with a PowerPoint presentation and a pragmatic attitude. For better or worse, this (perhaps more than any) is to be a race won by image.

This is fairly abhorrent, and I apologise for my fellow 20-somethings. But hear us out: We've got a lot on our minds. We've grown in dark times, many of us only just remember the milk and honey days of Clinton's presidency, and the rest suffer the pain of fallout. And yes, compared to these latter days of the Shrub, I do think Clinton's time in office has a comparative sylvan quality. That's neither here nor there, though. We've seen tragedy and bloodshed at an astonishing rate, defended by bloodless and cowardly people. We've seen photographic evidence of government-sanctioned torture. We're in a post-Nixon America. We were born suspicious and we were born cynical. We never had ideals to compromise. Remember, the last election. How many of you out there loved making the distinction: "I am voting against Bush, not for Kerry". C'mon, let's see those hands. I confess.

But Obama. He stands up so tall and speaks to clearly. He's so...well, he's so fucking presidential. I can understand why America misses Camelot still. It's not an accident that several members of JFK's family, including his daughter, have passed the torch to the present candidate. Obama is the president in an action film. He is a pretty picture, and please forgive us for being shallow. But that's all we need from our candidate. We're sick of reality, and Obama has promised we'll never see it. We've seen too much embarrassing human-ness in our leaders: aggressive idiocy of Bush2 and the sleaze of Clinton. Obama promises with each step of his campaign that he'll keep his skeletons, his perversions and his spelling mistakes out of the evening news. He'll never cry or freak out at a primary. No blue dresses. Don't worry kids, Obama's here and he's got it taken care of.

That's just what we wanted to hear.

The Internet is SerioSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP

My father introduced me to a new vocabulary term today - the Spruce Horrors. It's a phrase that woodsmen (googling it brings up an essay on prison rape!) used to describe the sense of disorientation and overwhelming fear that comes to one after working in the woods for too long, and then suddenly looking up and realizing that Holy Fuck You Are Lost. The trees all look the same, there are no obvious tracks back to where you are. It is the sense of abandonment that comes from forgetting to think about where you are, as you instead focusing entirely upon what you are doing. And then you look up and remember that you have to haul a twenty pound brush cutter untold miles back to your truck, it's getting dark, and oh no! Coyotes!

In my most ravingly self-congratulatory moments, I like to think that Elevennames tries to bring about a bit of the Spruce Horrors to it's readers.

Then I remember that I alone account for at least ten of our page hits a day (which is roughly 1/3rd of our total daily traffic) and then I get really depressed. Still, having a successful website that pays my beer tab is like having THE AUDACITY TO HOPE, so Ror.

ANYway, I bring up the issue of disorientation and growing horror (and coyotes!) in regards to Our Tubular Internets after reading this article from Wired magazine discussing griefers on Second Life. The article itself is something of a paean to Something Awful and its forums, so I am naturally incredulous of it's journalistic integrity. Also, it is written about one group of people in an imaginary world attacking another group of people in an imaginary world, and there are much better pieces out there for your perusal.

Who is the audience for that piece? If you give people anonymity, autonomy, and free reign to do whatever the hell they please, is anyone honestly amazed that suddenly, the sky will start to rain dancing penises? Are you new to the internet? Is this 1995? Hey, have you seen this cool new image called goatse yet? Anyone who isn't aware that sometimes people online are very impolite is probably an old person, and for serious, the baby boomers should all just be turned into soylent green already anyway.

The whole idea of Second Life is (to me) black-heartedly disgusting, the worst manifestation of the Spruce Horrors that I can currently think of in an online context. You are given the privilege to pay for your imagination, and in such a way that you can actually flaunt it in front of other people (which consist at least partially of sex-starved singles, sex-starved furries, and other sex-starved potpourri). Way to profit off of a childlike sense of exploration and interaction (and sex-starvation).

You douchebags.

The entire issue is at once a metaphor of colonialization and one of fucking playground politics. People have found out that on one hand, there's some money to be made off of this Internet thing, and seek to export it's heady spices back to their Real World, where their bank accounts may grow fat without much work (insert self aware pause). On the other hand, a group of people are given a playground in which to work their imaginations, and some people are being mean, and making fun of others. To say that civilization is at work with either would be to demean the very idea of civilization - administrators will either take action against the mean kids, or else the colonialists and the natives will be left to duke it out before the watching eyes of some bemused onlookers. Given that money is involved, the cynic in me thinks that it's more likely that steps will be taken to ensure a Safe Business Environment, but then I remember that, hey! It's the internet, and there are much more important things out there.

The Spruce Horrors, as you can see, are very easy to suffer from.

The Replacement Post

So I typed up this giant thing that was more naval-gazing about how I'm basically a guiltily mindless consumer of all that is shameful internet culture, when I found out that WTF blogger lied when it said it saved that draft! My anger immediately manifested itself in the form of a frowny emoticon.

D:<

Regardless, there's been a lot of politic talk on here lately, and I can't blame anyone (except for James and Zach, damn them), because politics are probably big and important. I sometimes worry, because I have no great feelings for any candidate, because my preferred system of government would be some kind of bucolic anarchy, where small city-states barter with each other. And maybe compete against each other with champions in a dome. A Thunder Dome. Maybe this thundering dome is ruled over by an evil genius midget riding on the back of a mentally handicapped giant (what, no link to a picture of Dick Cheney standing on Bush's shoulders? Internet, you have failed me again!). Maybe it isn't. My ideal government is not as well thought out as, say, my fondness for pictures of cats (which is agonizing in its complexity).

I cannot, in good conscious, endorse any candidate. I simply cannot care - eight years (barring, I guess, several months of vacation) of continual emotional and psychological abuse at the hands of George W. Bush have rendered me into a kind of jelly. My reaction to things is no longer a matter of conscious thought and decision, but rather, it is a kind of alchemical process. As surely as you can generate electricity from a potato, I generate disgust at any individual who proclaims him/herself lord over his peers. The very notion of power coming from anything other than the sun makes me a little bit sick. This presidency has become the Vietnam of our generation, so you can imagine what the people who are going through the real Vietnam of our generation are thinking (answer: varied). My college educated white boy internet-ennui has nothing on a guy who had to get his legs amputated because he was driving his humvee on the road. Let us not even discuss the civilian population of Iraq, nor the irresponsible kill-happy mercenaries that are charged with their safety, else I be forced to drown my worries in laudanum and Edward Gorey cartoons (James! Do not take Lye by mistake!), and then resort to an even more florid style of writing.

Instead, let us speak, you and I, huddled over this little flame we call Elevennames. Changes are afoot, many of them on purpose! We shall become a raging bonfire, no doubt, driving back the darkness of our times. You will notice our costly advertisements, at the shocking fee of free*. Do you have a business? Is it funky (we at elevennames are at least funky) and fresh? Do you find us not offensive to most senses? Are you not Blackwater? By all means, then, do as A-ha commands, and take on us!

*As I was composing this, the price jumped to $.02. HIDE YOUR POCKETBOOKS, THE BLOGGER ROBBER BARONS ARE COMING TO TOWN.

Also, perhaps staff expansion. Hur hur hur. More later.

Would you like a preview of potential theme week? I think you would.

In which the second theme week is mentioned.

Zach, James, and I were brainstorming* about week's theme, and we decided to make it Mutually Assured Destruction.

*Zach: ...mutually assured destruction would be a fun theme, I think.
James: I can roll with this.
Thomas: Certainly a lot to say about it. Plus, a lot of syllables!
Zach: Not, like, super-assured of it, but... Yeah. Unless anyone has a better idea.
Thomas: And it applies to politics, music, and all that.
James: well, we've been brainstorming for like 2 minutes?
Thomas: I've been thinking about how much the transformers look like giant robot bats.
Thomas: And fat-bottomed egyptian queens.
James: they do make the rocking world go around.
Thomas: They made their rocking world go OH DAMN YOU JAMES

At a groupblog like this (I just make that up!), it's something that I often consider. As in, "How soon could my own niggling opinions about what makes a properly insane piece of writing tear our friendship apart?" I realize, of course, that this particular street flow both ways. I'm far from anything special (so humble!) or talented (so modest!), so I am naturally hesitant to begin dissecting other people, since I'm pretty aware that I can be vivisectioned just as easily.

I am covering my face with my hands as I type this (which is no mean feat), but the thought of destroying myself to destroy someone else always reminds me of my first Big Deal Relationship. She and I got on well enough, and then began the long-distance thing. We drifted apart for about a year, and then I found out that while I'd gained ten pounds and stopped shaving, she already moved on. When I showed back up in her life, and was promptly escorted back out, I did what anyone would do, and stalked her crazily. For, like, six months. I don't know what I was thinking. Then I moved to a distant city, nearly did something I'd regret with a young lady who didn't tell me her exact age, and moved on too. But thinking back, it's one of those moments in life where I'd like to toss my old self into a furnace and pee on the ashes.

The real fear, though, is of falling back into those old habits. In my "Everybody dies alooooone!" moments, when I'm hugging my knees and listening to Sufjan Stevens by myself, my biggest fear is that I'll become something I'll regret later. We may be an endless progression of people, but at the moment, the democratic Mes of space and time are pretty happy with who they are, and would not like it revealed that their self-multitudinousness was in err.

And that, I suppose, is the real trick of mutually assured destruction. The reason why our parent's generation didn't see civilization as we know it dissolved into a fine mist is the fact that it would have not only killed us (because let us face facts - some people are happy to die for stupid causes), but it would have made us look bad to anyone who survived.