Theme week: Hedonism. And vaguely anti-corporate sentiment!

Upon hearing that my beloved Planningtorock is going to be at South by Southwest this year, I sprang (Sprung! Springed!) into action, and tried to get Zachary to convince me this was a bad idea. Since this is Zachary, however, nothing is ever a bad idea, but in the end, we found out that the cheapest way to do this would still cost far too much money, and maybe result in us getting mugged. In Austin. Texas, why are you our most irascible state? Don't change, though, we still love you.

In our way.

In fitting with the theme of this week, let's see what Webster's Dic(HAHAHA)tionary has to say about Hedonism: "The doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the sole or chief good in life." Well hey, okay. Didn't Oscar Wilde say that same thing exactly? Well, he did, but in defense of Webster, Wilde said a lot of things. Cheesy introductions aside, really now, I struggle to understand individuals who do not, in their way, life lives for their own happiness. Self flagellating monks took doubtless pleasure from their whips and uncomfortable shirts, knowing that their reward lay beyond. Further, I mean, come on - monks? Seeking the chief good in life? Those bros were ALL ABOUT the chief good in life. Thanks a lot for your crappy definition, Daniel Webster. I hope you get what's coming to you.

Anyway. My greatest vice, aside from eating diet foods and bitching about iPods, is music. It is an intensely personal vice - I meet other people with different tastes, and I must resist the urge to rend the flesh from their bones for not agreeing with me, or for having even heard of the bands I like. And I fully acknowledge that this is a stupid thing to think, because music is like TOTALLY OMG WOW a personal experience, and so it is a ridiculous thing to force my subjective assumptions onto strangers. So when it comes to music, I usually just shut the hell up and hold back my tide of bitchfork-like fury against the uninitiated, because no one likes that. The last thing I want is people hating me for silly reasons - there are already so many good reasons out there. I'd feel like I was wasting their time.

So there are things that we must do to preserve our hedonism - our happiness is never a sure thing. We are sensitive to the moods of others, to the weather, to what we ate last night for dinner. Our pleasure is never immune to distortion, and it is always precious and fragile. It is a rare gift to find those individuals who are able to enjoy themselves with the relentless force of a hurricane, or even to be able to ignore the small details that derail more detail oriented minds. Hedonism is so often pegged as a bad idea, but why? If it is the pursuit of happiness and goodness, what's so wrong with that?

I might argue that there are profits at stake. If you convince others that they aren't having a good time, you can provide for them an easy out. Consider the advertising blurb for the Hedonism resorts:

"Sleep in. Stay up late. Give up counting calories. Have a drink before noon. Give up mineral water. Dine in shorts. Talk to strangers. Don't make your bed. Go skinny dipping. Don't call your mother. Let your hair down. Don't pay for anything. Don't leave a tip. Be your beautiful self in spectacular Negril or Runaway Bay, Jamaica."

These are the same manipulations that get us to spoil ourselves and buy a luxury car, or to indulge in some hideous new meat patty and sauce at a fast food restaurant. The above text does not inspire me to be beautiful in any way - it makes me an ugly, self-centered jerk. An easily impressed self-centered jerk. Talk to strangers! Eat in shorts! These are not, strictly speaking, novel. If we are made to think that these things are new and that they can be provided by this service, then our sense of being beautiful and free hinges on paying these fuckers. Don't get me (and my misdirected self-righteousness) wrong, there are some people who probably totally love that place. But they are tools and I hate them. The more we relegate the pleasures of life to a specifically cordoned off area, the more they are removed from our daily life - we become the agents of our own discontent.

So, enjoy hedonism week. Think about what you do for your own pleasure (you sickening freak), and about how different you would be as a person if this were taken away from you. ON WITH THE SHOW.

I wish I was able to use the Subjunctive Clause correctly

In case you did not notice from my garb, I am about thirty minutes away from walking roughly three miles to go and hack at parasitic plants. Sometimes, the only way to save nature from itself is in the middle of winter with a machete.

Last night was kind of Movie Explosion time. The Fountain was on, which is a great movie if you want to see Hugh Jackman become golden space pajama buddha after exploding into flowers (seriously) and experiencing some kind of floral apotheosis/painful death, as was The Squid and the Whale, which while lacking in golden space pajamas, manages to be kind of endearing and twee and maybe a little disturbing (and produced by Wes Anderson, may angels attend his every whim). There was also assorted other trash - sadly, none of Viggo Mortenson's cinematic triumph American Yakuza, but I suppose I shall just have to remain deprived.

The real undercurrent I felt, though, was that more often than not, these films all have a strong musical influence. I am totally being the first person to think that music is a common thread in the way that humanity entertains itself. I know, right! Maybe it's just because I saw Juno like 72 hours ago and the residual tweenessocity of the film is making me think that freak-folk is the next step in human evolution (Yeah, in 2002 it is!) and then I start thinking to myself HEY MAYBE YOU SHOULD EAT A MEAL TODAY. And then I start thinking about how I gained eight pounds in the past three days, and that fat people don't deserve to eat. And that's what happens when I stay awake until 4 am watching the best films of three years ago!

Continuing onward, ever onward, with our theme of Scary Mistruths (a week which is gratefully almost over), I share with you something quick. Once when I was a freshman in college (I think I still had a ponytail back then - ugh) I was going on a walk through town. I didn't really have many friends back then, and so I alienated myself a lot. Anyway, it was night, early fall, I was bored, and basically just enjoying the walk through a small town, seeing shadows that the lamp posts cast through the trees. I was perhaps watching my own shadow too intently, because I noticed that it moved when I didn't. At first I thought it was a fluke (as is my way) when the shadow of my left arm appeared to reach up, despite the material fact of my arm remaining calmly in my pocket. When the shadow of my left arm spasmed a second time, waving wildly before matching up again with it's physical brother, I realized that maybe it was time to turn back. I avoided the street lights all the way home.

ITT: POLITICS LOL

"I took a class on Internet and Identity and you know what the whole thesis of the class was that people's identities change when their real one is shielded by the computer" - Tionna Smalls

Remember how, not five minutes ago, I stated my general displeasure with presidential candidates? Well, I am fickle and addle-brained. Cast your third eye (that's the internet eye) upon this twilight monstrosity, which is basically Ron Paul doing what Ron Paul does best, which is to say, be a crazy, lovable bastard. Mike Gravel is similar. Okay, okay. I give. I admit it that, for once, I was... slightly hasty in my judgment. We are sons of Adam - we are fallible. Let us forget that it ever happened. I endorse any candidate, any candidate at all, who is willing to basically flip the bird to the mass of the gathered republican party, dismiss them for the wastrels that they are, screams "FOLLOW ME IF YOU WANT TO LIVE", and then leaps into the dinosaur-infested jungles, with a machete clutched between his teeth.

In short - hey, time travelers, if you're reading this, can you steal some kind of tangent universe Teddy Roosevelt to be our forever president? We'd totally owe you a solid.

Anyway, I bring this up not because I am suddenly ALL POLITICAL or whatevs, but because of YouTube. And to a lesser extent, Myspace. And to an even lesser extent, Fa-che-bewk. And their presence, and impact on modern culture, or whatever. You see, I was perusing this this unbelievably patronizing article about Kate Nash, a songstress of which I am fond, and the author brings up the good point that exposure is slowly becoming a substitute for quality, which, if you were able to decipher my terrible prose, is kinda what I've been saying all along. But it's cool. I mean, Sasha Frere-Jones, as an author, is at least marginally better than I am (remember when he said that indy music wasn't influenced by black culture? By citing the effing Arcade Fire? Yeah, man's not too hep, but it's not like the New Yorker is really with-it anyway) and hell, the dude can have his opinions or whatever. But on the point of exposure, he and I are of one mind. Which is partially what is so amusee about the current presidential race - that the standards to which we hold our pop star lady-types are actually quite a bit higher than the standards to which we hold the Executive Branch. In a way, the race to become president is less a matter of politics, and more a matter of simple celebrity. Whomsoever can make of themselves the most visible spectacle without being viewed as a dangerous madman (or at least a dangerous madman who won't let them queers get married) is going to be a winner. Which is perhaps why figures like Ron Paul and Mike Fucking Gravel (and, okay, I guess Obama is still kinda like this) favorites of the internet - they are identified as the underdogs. As surely as any real fan of music would spit contemptuously on a scion of Nickelback or Limp Bizkit (or Maroon Five or Daughtry or Li'l Wayne or Brittany Spears or...), so too does the discriminating voter wrathfully ponder who in their right mind would vote for Giuliani or Mitt Romney. There's just nothing there - an empty showcase of questionable achievements and corporate backing. In an age where exposure is increasingly becoming the the most important facet of any political movement (at least the non-Masonic ones), choosing the right candidate is not so much a matter of politics as it is one of good taste.

In that, the internet has created a sort of Blogger Brahmins, an elite caste of intelligent individuals, broadcasting the refined opinion, and formed loosely into tiny coalitions of like minded thinkers (except for us - we are far too hateful to ever have a links section). Our choice of presidential candidate, then, becomes part of our online cosmetics, our intellectual appearance. So too are we able to judge others based upon where their own proclivities lie. It becomes a matter of dangerously inbred little cliques who make choices not so much based on moral duty than controlling how they wish to be perceived. I am a freak in a schadenfreud complex with the republican party. Ron Paul all the way! I can see similar reasoning behind Zach's fondness for Mike Fucking Gravel and James's's Obama endorsement (of the three, which do you think stands the most chance of making it into the white house? HMMMM!).

I am glad that I vocally disagree with my comrades. I would not enjoy the thought that myself and all of my friends think the same way about any issue (and we are also able to almost always refrain from facestabbing each other with butter knives). There is enough groupthink and cronyism at large amidst what is arguably the largest audience ever devised - having massive appeal is no indicator of actual quality, as Sasha Frere-Jones states, and in the face of a future where everyone has their fifteen minutes of YouTube fame, we have to be aware of the debasements and personal sacrifices that come alongside the glories of wtf-ever kind of new metaverse is being shilled at us this week. Ha ha, run-on sentences. Okay. I am a grump and hate the future. THOMAS CARLYLE OUT~

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.