Semiregular Autobiographical Aparatus

Taking a Semester Off: Foolish Decision!

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:28:21 GMT

So, my choice is to do school again this semester, part or full time, or do this internship for this 50,000 circulation, infrequent, radical/progressive/left wing/truther possibly disorganized newspaper called the New York Megaphone. So I decided to do the second option, because I want to.

It might be unwise. Part of me is worried about me regretting it.

But, shit. Sitting around, trying to figure out how I am going to regret things the least? Living life based on what is the least scary? Based on what is the most professional? Ignoring my heart- hearing only the fear in my brain?

Screw it! This is college! This is my last chance to experiment! I am going to do this for a semester, and then go back. People are paranoid about me not returning after a semester, but I know myself. Intimately. I will return. Possibly to CUNY instead of SUNY, but I will return to a degree-granting institution, after a semester in the real world, so Help Me God. This is a promise to myself, based on my own goals in life. I will return, damn it, I will return.

After a semester living in New York City. that is. Screw Those Bastards, I am Doing This.

War, Inc: Travesty is Funny! Plus: Silly Meme Survey

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:44:43 GMT

War, Inc. is a dark satire of privatization and war in the middle east. It stars John Cusack as a heartless assassin caught up in feeling actual emotions in between beating the living crap out of middle eastern rapper wannabes. Its political points are shined up and covered with plenty of 30's-style slapstick and middle school humor, similar to the way Mike Judge pulled off the stupid-funny-sad movie Idiocracy.

I would see it just for the climax, at which point the absurd reality of our hopeless and violent operations in the mideast fly head-on with the feeling of witnessing a real travesty. In a blaze of helicopter gunfire, surrounded by oily, dark smoke, the villain/civilian cartoons look like real bleeding flesh for a moment, and the unbelievable surrealism of our contemporary military actions come across as understandable, and wrong.

It's also funny. I'd recommend it over most other things in the theaters now, if it's playing near you. The mix of humor and dark tragedy really confused my emotions, which is hard for a movie to do well. Don't expect a well-argued argument against war. Just expect a pained good time.

My rating: 7/10

ALSO a survey. Hoorah.

1) Does the last person you kissed have feelings for you?
Yes.

2) how old was the last person u kissed?
21.

3) what is in your backpack right now?
A copy of The Onion, hair conditioner, dirty underwear, a reporter's notebook.

4) Wallpaper on your cell phone?
The Manhattan Bridge at sunset.

5) Next time you will kiss someone?
Later.

6) Where was your default picture taken?
A park in extreme northern Manhattan, the Cloisters.

7) Who was your last text from?
My...dad. Hah.

8) What's the most interesting thing that happened to you today?
I edited something that is going to be published in 50,000 copies. Most important project I've ever done.

10) What's your favorite number?
Base 2. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16...

11) What is your current mood?
Out-of-whack.

13) What color shirt are you wearing?
Pink.

14) Do you have a crazy side?
Hah. Yes. But I'm so familiar with it, it's sort of, normal to me now, even though I hate it.

16) What was the highlight of your week?
Working on this newspaper thing with an incredibly talented cowriter and incredibly talented publisher/editor/boss.

17) Whose car were you in last?
Woah...a friend of my dad's. Not in cars much down here.

18) What are you listening to?
Beta Band: Dry the Rain

19) Do you get along with girls?
Lesbians, genderqueers and asexuals, yes. Well, that is an exxageration. Yes, as well as I get along with any male.

20) Last movie you saw in theaters?
War, Inc.

(Hilarious!)

22) What was the last thing you drank?
Coffeeeeeeeeee!!

23) Are you happy right now?
Yes!

24) What's the last thing someone said to you?
See you later.

25) Where is your phone?
Somewhere around here.

26) What color is your hair?
Brown.

27) Who/what do you hate/dislike currently?
The impending ecological/political apocalypse.

30) What were you doing at midnight last night?
Copy-editing.

33) When is your birthday?
Aug 21.

35) How do you feel about your hair right now?
I have finally come to terms with its texture. Frizzy is fine.

36) Where does most of your family live?
Ohio, New York, and Scattered.

37) Are you spoiled?
Yes. I have a fast computer, an air conditioner, an iPod, a digital camera, and food is very easy to come by.

38) What was the first thing you thought when you woke up?
My dad is happy that I did the cat box. I wonder if he has left yet.

39) Do you think you can last in a relationship for 6 months without cheating?
Yes!

40) What color are your eyes?
Brown.

41) What are you doing now?
Wasting time, duh.

42) What is one thing you question a lot?
My and humanity's right to exist.

43) Do you think you lead people on?
I worry about that sometimes.

44) Are you married?
No.

45) Have you ever told someone of the opposite sex that you loved them?
Ha! Yes!

46) Is there anyone who doesn't like you?
Well, most of humanity doesn't know me to like/dislike me, so yeh, several billion people. Also I am an arrogant dickbasket sometimes, especially to men who challenge my awesomeness in a relationship, or socially awkward people who I do not know how to tolerate.

47) Do you miss someone?
All the time. My social life is mostly long distance. This is bad.

48) Did any of your friends go out with any of your ex's?
Ha! Yes! It is amusing. Kayt, Upchuck, some others.

49) Are looks important?
Do humans have eyes?

51) Are you mad at someone right now?
Just Obama. Friggin wiretapping bill. Jesus.

52) Where do you keep your money?
BOA.

53) Which is more romantic: sunrise or sunset?
The sunrise means you've been up all night being so utterly entertained by the other. The sunrise is only for special occasions.

54) Last time you saw someone in the hospital?
My mom, last winter. Turned out to be nothing, Thank God.

57) Do you have any piercings?
Nope! Need to get my ears redone.

58) Do you believe in love?
Sigh. Yes, I guess.

Journalism, cuddling, stress, doctors, Starwood, family, music, chocolate, coffee

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:18:54 GMT

Yeah, that about sums it up.

I am writing stories and editing and hanging out with The New York Megaphone, an up-and-coming investigative journalist type paper being published by Vox Pop, Brooklyn's favorite leftist meeting spot/coffee shop/publishing house/restaurant.

I am spending a lot of time with an anonymous male who makes me happy.

I am trying to figure out Starwood, and do not know enough details to update everyone on everything, yet.

I am figuring out whether I am going back to New Paltz this fall or not.

I am ignoring cats causing chaos around me.

I am digging the solo music of Adrian Belew, lead singer of King Crimson.

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:51:37 GMT

Also, an old meme that keeps on entertaining me. When will I get sick of it? Not soon.

Best Cereal Ever:

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:48:28 GMT

Delicious.

Good accessory to busy life, this 50's cereal resurrected for baby boomers' nostalgia that also happens to be the tastiest sweetened oat shavings I've had the pleasure of trying.

My brother's wisdom...

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:53:41 GMT

I tell ya, at this point, if we could run our cars on blood
blood for oil would be a much better deal
a lot more people would sign on
it's a lot cheaper
I mean, we fucking make it
like
in our bodies

-Cory

Holy Cyberpunk, Nerd, Read This Comic! Mad Scientist Fucks Shit up like an ANARCHIST..!

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 02:34:22 GMT

It is exactly the post apocalytic mood I am in, but, it's entertaining and hopeful and it has a Damn Hot MAD SCIENTIST. Holy Crap in a Hat. They looked in my brain for the exact story I want and they made it. At my rate and direction of creative inertia, in a decade, without this story already out there, I would have written it, I swear!

Here: It is the mid 21st century, the air is awful, everyone is implanted with civil-liberties-eroding chips, the seasons are screwed up, and a subculture of people modifying their bodies with open-source biofeedback gadgets is increasingly popular in a city called Heavenside. A man comes back from his previous life in cybercrime as a new cartoonish mad-scientist character named Doktor Sleepless. He starts taking back the future he says the corporate and governmental world took away from them, and trying to build a new one, with nothing more than witty, hackerish smarts and the power of underground internet radio to sway the cyborg masses. He fights against corrupt pay-for-protection cops, the lack of civil liberties and the overwhelmingly stupid idea of paying for the privilege for using technology that should be free and modifiable. In the meantime, the cops are not happy about all this, and a mysterious cybernetic angel character is watching, waiting...

This comic addresses ideas such as information rights, civil liberties, and the conflict of hoping for a wonderful future versus acting towards making one.

/fangirls all over the floor

Screw Pretension. Success vs. Attitude.

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:29:27 GMT

Being a fan of New York City and its people, I used to find it attractive, charming, something I gravitated towards.

Not anymore.

It disgusts me, now.

What is good about New York City people, though, is success: knowing how to apply oneself, and doing it, and getting results from that. That is still sexy. But having an obnoxious attitude about it is now nothing more than tolerable. Not inexcusable, not bad, but, just tolerable. I was horribly pretentious until last weekend, when I went to two separate parties, one at an art museum's show opening and one at an underground hipster haven, and I discovered that pretentious people are still just as boring and variably intellectually endowed as non-pretentious people.

It's easy to mix up pretension and success, attitude and ability. That is precisely why it evolved: it's like mimic camouflage. And I was fooled, this whole time, until I went to their parties this last weekend and, talking and hearing and looking and thinking, thank God, I noticed the truth. Damn, I was a fool. And maybe, I still am.

Monarch on the left, not a monarch on the right.

The Real Tuesday Weld: "Oddball Electronica Goes Tinpan Alley"

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 06:20:51 GMT

Holy Shit, guys. This blew my heart and brain out of the water in joy. Similar effects?

Acting as bullshit... [dialogue]

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:51:59 GMT

"I'm sorry. I can't respect her. She's an actress. All actors think they're something special- like they are doing this magical art that only they know, it reeks of bullshit. Acting is what everyone does all the time. People act thrilled about presents they really don't care about. They act like they admire their boss or, even, love their wife. But actors, they do this, and they attach all this importance and prestige to it, as though they're the only ones in the world who can fool people with fake facial expressions. Come on. I can fake a smile, too."

"But they are special, because they focus on that one thing, they're specialists. Nobody can do those things as well as an actor can."

"So?"

"Well, it's like..."

"What?"

"It's like speedwalking. Everyone walks all day long, but only some people get really really good at it. And only some of them get to go to the olympics for it. You'd respect an Olympic speedwalker, right?"

"You expect me to respect actors the same way I respect speedwalkers?"

"Yes."

"I don't respect speedwalkers."

"That's really not fair of you. You need to learn to be more appreciative of other peoples' talents."

Recurring Nightmare Theme

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:53:52 GMT

Keep on having nightmares about calling that person I talked of earlier, that male thing, of calling him again.

I am over it in every way but this. At night, my subconscious teases me- making fun of me- giving me the scenario, played out realistically, of me calling him back, desperate, clingy, not over it, and him reacting, disgusted.

For a few weeks afterward, I was terrified of the idea of running into him on the Metronorth train system (I used that system for getting to turf for work and he used it for going to/from the city- the same line, of course, it wasn't too unrealistic a fear.) It would mean that he exists. A fact I am irritated by and have trained myself to ignore. And then these dreams...nightmares of hearing the voice again, out of a pathetic desire for him. Eeeew!

All it really is is a fear of not being over it. I hate being neurotic.

And I hate how mean, self-referential, ironic and nagging my dream-generator can be. It really delivers low blows.

From far away, it's actually really funny. Giggle. Maybe I should put something like this in a novel. Well, this plus more drama and more humor, and maybe a murder or two.

Apocalyptic Self Help?

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 04:16:17 GMT

I've been feeling down lately. Well, the romance drama and the medical drama are both parts of it. Thankfully, you guys don't know TOO much about the medical drama. Just know it's drama.

The important thing is what's really getting me down.

I am not looking forward to living my life, because I know it will be an especially difficult one, because I know that the epically fast global warming, water supply, air quality, wealth disparity, wealth shifting and oil price crises are NOT going to be kind to the daily life of the average human over these next several decades.

I wish I was a member of my dad's generation. I would have been able to have fun during the 60's/punk musical/culture flourishes, and I could have died before the shit really started getting bad, before 2048. I wish this so much.

I am plugging along, going through the right steps for becoming a combination professor/comic artist/writer/politica, but I can not look forward to growing older and more skilled, gracefully, when I am pretty sure that I will die as a result of an East vs. West war, air pollution, starvation, or from a knife to my kidney in a horifically crowded Brooklyn bread line. How can I keep focused on my goals- becoming a better writer, artist, academic, meeting more interesting people- when there is no safe place to enjoy any of that success? I feel like I could become a world-famous author, but I'd still die in the rubble of a bomb blast or choke on mercury fumes...

How can I rely on myself as the main motivating factor- you know, the only thing one should rely on- if I am just waiting for the apocalyptic world to swallow all my gains in a series of slow, crumbling, blows? This makes no sense! I can't come to terms with this.

I could just go forward with the attitude of "c'est la vie." But I take these things personally. I like fish. I like the ocean. I like biodiversity, breathable air, New York City, and people I know who are struggling with inflation as it is. I like all of these people and things alot. It's like seeing them all diagnosed with giant, inoperable tumors that will kill them in the next 20 years.

I know I am not psychic. But I read the news, and science keeps on UNDERestimating how quickly things are getting bad.

Any other members of this species ready to go out with a beautiful, 50-year-long, whimper, with me?

Any other members- terrified, finding it hard to go on?

The Single Global Currency

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:56:52 GMT

These guys are based on proving that it's a great idea. Creepiest web site I've read. Aum. Ever?

"This is the home page of the Single Global Currency Association, which is dedicated to the goal of implementing a single global currency by 2025. We shall achieve this goal through education and persuasion.

We believe that once the peoples (including their corporations and labor and other organizations) of the world understand the benefits of a single global currency, they will demand it from their governments. The single global currency is what the peoples of the world need, and it is what they want."

Wow!

Good thing this web site is around to tell us, the world, what it is that we want! Thank goodness.

Here's the thing, though. Most of their "latest news" shows failure. Most of the news on there is just their own operatives talking about how awesome this idea is, to themselves, or on the internet.

They were rejected by the IMF, multiple times. The IMF is kinda important. Let's hope they continue to reject them.

The only recent, serious economic conference they seemed to be accepted at was the The Global Accounting and Organizational Change Conference in Sydney. How big is it? Probably not that important.

Sounds like an uphill battle. The people on Longbets, an entertaining site for intelligent future-obsessees, would seem to agree with me.

Trustworthy Whispers From the Edges of the Global Dystopia

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 05:57:14 GMT

Good lord...

I know someone who works for an important group of rich people who make very important decisions about how money works.

Right now, they are working on making a world currency.

Like, s/he is helping the group sketch out how it will all go down.

Terrifying.

Previous "predictions" from s/he, as the inside part of this important group, have come true- and others have not. So there is a chance this will happen. A decent chance. I at least know for fact that this is being discussed and planned. Going into action? Don't know yet. Wouldn't be surprised.

I DEPLORE urban legends spreading. I am not spreading this without trust in the source. Extreme trust in the source and in the fact that I got my facts straight. If this was not such a contentious topic, I would launch into it with journalistic fevor, teeth gnashing, claws bared, but I do not want to get this source into trouble, and s/he would probably just not tell me all the details once s/he realized why I was so damn curious. And besides. If I spread it with an anonymous source as the talker? It would come across like this blog post probably comes across: it would come across as CRAZY INTERNET BLOGGER RAMBLINGS BLAARGH

Well my only conclusion is that I know, absolutely, that I am telling the truth, I do not lie about this shit, and it does not fit into my delusions (my delusions aren't political, if I have them.) The thing to take away from this post is: don't be surprised. I will talk more, in a conversational tone, later, and report back, if I glean anything. Vague but accurate information to follow...

Well!

Man, I wish I was born in the US in the 40's, so I could be dead by now!

...I want to break this story to the mainstream news...DAMN TEMPTING..!!!

So I'm going to quit my awful job tomorrow

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:08:51 GMT

Because I need to take care of some seriously pressing medical issues. (Really.)
Because I need to take care of some seriously pressing school issues.
Because I need to take care of some seriously pressing mental issues.
Because once I doubt this job, I start sucking at it (it is SO based on your attitude, to a ridiculoid degree.)
Because I already did it last summer, and gained everything I could from it, then, and am gaining nothing but money and a feeling of being useful, now. I want to develop skills, too.
Because I want to experiment to see if I can get freelance work, and see how well that pays.
Because it is nothing like what I want to do for a living one day.
Because it takes away my entire life. I only want a PART-TIME, not full-time, job.
Because I can afford to.
Because I have personal projects I HAVE to tackle like fixing up the house and putting the spare room up for rent on Craigslist.
Because I have personal projects I HAVE to tackle like getting the short story published, which requires much discipline and time.
Because I have personal projects I HAVE to tackle like starting serious social research.
Because I have personal projects I HAVE to tackle like making comics.

Preview of rest of summer:

Can't Effing Wait.

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 02:49:43 GMT

It's scary. Look at the numbers, it's anything but guaranteed. Will only work if all us lazy liberals work our asses off.

But I so can NOT wait.
It's been WAY too long tolerating blatant idiocy and evil.

Mr. Reznor, take it away..!

Am I being ripped off?

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 05:44:00 GMT

So I got "promoted" at "work" to a "field manager."

The difference is I have more responsibilites- I am a mini-boss- and I show up earlier and leave later.

The wages are still min wage. The wage per hour hasn't changed (this is a very hourly job.)

So the way I am being "paid more" with this new "promotion"...

Is by "working more hours."

Wait, am I being ripped off with this "promotion?"

I have more work, more hours, and the only upshot is I spend about 1.5 more hours at work. "Upshot." But it's 7.5/hr. So, the "upshot" is the opportunity to be on the clock longer.

WTF. Should I just go become a freelance copywriter on craigslist?

Thanks for helping...

Smallish Planets Keep on Popping up- COOL!

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:51:21 GMT

Story after story, I swear.

I am SO PSYCHED about the future of astronomy. :D

"The universe is teeming with far more planets than thought.

Using a new tool to study more than 100 stars once thought to be devoid of planets, the Swiss-French team found that about one-third had planets that are only slightly bigger than Earth.

...The discovery is "really making the case that we live in a crowded universe."

The City as a Success Machine and Nothing Else

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:44:49 GMT

NEW YORK CITY-

Squishy bits of feelings and fits stuck in the rungs of concrete steel gears.

People have been using metaphors like this for more than a century now.

The situation hasn't changed, just, the gears are more streamlined and lined with LED's now.

The city is an inherently lonely, depersonalizing and depressing place. The only fun you can have without spending lots of money is available only to those who know themselves and their skills and passions intimately.

The city is not a place to find yourself! Bewarned, only come here after you know what you want from it. It is toxic to explorers and those with any sense of childlike wonder or adventure-lust. It is a success-making machine that works for some. Nothing else.

No bohemia- only people trying to get famous. No slack- only worries about rent and car insurance. No love- only people looking hard and desperately for either fucking or weddings (what I am saying is that there is no spontaneous fun like in college or high school dating.) No academia- only people--actually, yeah, there is academia.

Oh! That's why I'm going to stay. Grad school and becoming a professor.

Aaah, now I love the city.

Since I know what I want from it, see?

Plan before you come, if you come. Know exactly what you want a year in advance of the move.

And yes, I think too much. I know.

dreams are cruel.

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 13:21:38 GMT

Show me a fantasy starring someone I'd rather not think about? Thanks, but no thanks, subconscious. Eff.

Naked Boys! (It Was Educational. I Swear.)

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 00:11:46 GMT

Last night I went to an event hosted by the midtown group Betty Spaghetti's School of Art and Debauchery. There were dozens of people sitting around a raised platform where several incredibly attractive men- most of them male models for at least part of their living- were posing for a late-night figure drawing session. There was a DJ and some interesting people were met. I could not have been in a more pleasant situation: great music, great people, doing something I love to do and need badly to improve at. With the most beautiful male models I have ever had the opportunity to trace a pencil line down.

It was a blast...and tomorrow, after the indie comic fest, there is another figure drawing event with another group. This time, women. I do not mind the women bit, they are also fun to draw. But it was a special treat being able to objectify such pretty objects.

Both of these images are of the same person from different angles. I talked to him afterwards. His name is Frank and he is a friendly, smart guy.

People not attracted to men, stay away. But do not worry. All images are safe for work. I think.

CHEESY METAPHORS ALERT!! Diving in Madness

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:37:34 GMT

First off, thanks for all the comment-love yesterday. It did help. Now, I have Thought About Relationships in General and have decided this.

When a break-up happens, It feels like a whole place that you created with the other person- where everything about them was also what you wanted, where all their flaws were ignorable and their good qualities were amazing, where you were infinitely tolerant and forgiving (er, some might call that "loving"), and all this applies vice-a-versa for them towards you, of course- this whole crazy reality that has only some small thing to do with the world according to other people.

That is what coming out of a break-up is. Destroying that world. Seeing it for its delusions and inaccuracies. It's like a slow coming to surface after SCUBA-diving in this insanity for however long it was.

Also, this is why when people say things like, "there are other people out there," it sounds so false and fake to the one who is sad. The sad person is still surrounded by water tainted by their ex. Their qualities are still soaked deep into their wetsuit and covering their ears and in front of their eyes. Only getting to the boat and taking off all that gear will allow things to get better.

This is why it is easier after a shorter relationship. You were not so deep. Less of a risk of nitrogen bubbles developing in your bloodstream as you come to the surface so quickly.

Here is the problem with this analogy: after a break-up, that pool isn't just behind or below you. It disappears! Okay, let's say God fills it with sand. No? Doesn't make sense, deus ex machina much? Well..fuck. Broken metaphors suck. ANYWAY

It's utterly insane that we even make these little tidal pools of optimistic nonsense. I guess we make them because they are so much fun to splash around in. And some of us (*ahem*) can't help it, we make them automatically when the conditions are right, as if by instinct. Humans are funny creatures.

So, it's over.

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:54:30 GMT

Sigh. First time I put my heart out there in almost a year. And it was bruised. He, apparently, can not get emotionally involved with people. Like, incapable, like, he has major mental problems.

Mental problems suck.

It lasted a month, almost exactly. I was 3/4 fallen in love. He said it should end sooner rather than later so that it does not end up hurting me more.

XTC- The Disappointed

No more men. No more!!!

Whimper.

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 04:27:51 GMT

It hurts. Being so isolated from something so beautiful so fast. I have a very strong urge to make whimpering noises.

When will I finally buck up?

If no contact by the weekend, I will assume the absolute worst and stop waiting for things to get better.

Ow.

Fuck....fuck, yes. (Discovered a song 2 months after it came out, pardon me.)

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:03:28 GMT

I don't even LIKE Death Cab that much. Always been sort of lukewarm in my eyes.

But...fuck. This is...gah! I am listening to their newest, Narrow Stairs, over and over again. I am SO MAINSTREAM. STAB ME.

Never heard a long-form song that kept me from getting bored, without relying on giant dance breaks in the middle. It smashes the 3:00 pop length requirement to pieces, but its style and words are still what Death Cab are good at: dark, beautiful, emotionally in-tune pop rock.

The first half is instrumental, but once you hear the lyrics, you understand what it was referencing with those four minutes of pained, desirous indie-rock-sounding build-up: unrequited love, natch. A typical subject- for good reason. Ever fucking felt it? Yeah, it's the type of feeling one could write hundreds of songs about. Gibbard doesn't need to write any more, though, since he can't do another unrequited song as perfect as this one.