The Wee Democracy

new music

there are few pleasures in life like discovering new music. and i don't mean like coldplay, who, while they rock, are pretty damn mainstream, so you can say, yeah, i've heard of them, but i haven't heard them. or perhaps you'll say, i've heard a couple of their songs and they rock.

no, for today, i must extol a kind of gratitude not seen in ages to a person i don't even know. such gratitude goes out to an amazon friend who goes by jami-la. you see, ms. la created a list on one of those nifty amazon listmania pages, and had the good idea to name it "a bunch of lonesome songs". well, me, being the glutton for melancholia that i am, i clicked on it, then started downloading some new music!

i "discovered" so to speak two artistes -- iron and wine, who have an album called "the creek drank the cradle" which i must soon own, dammit. and another guy named damien jurado, who is genius.

i've linked them up. my sister is giving me the evil eye, which says to get the hell off the computer.



feeling: excited!
thinking of: ireland
song of the day: jesus the mexican boy - iron and wine
-jesus the mexican boy, born in a truck on the fourth of july, gave me a card with a lady naked on the back

Turkey Malaise

or anyways, that's what i call it these days. another thanksgiving come and gone with little to show for it. not that thanksgiving is a time of giving or receiving, like christmas or birthdays. i think all the gifts it really allows for are memories of a certain emotional nature. not necessarily good or bad, but just something that provokes you into reenacting the same actions again this time next year.

it's gotten me thinking. i'm feeling quite detached so far, and it's only just past noon on friday. i love my family and all, but i don't feel particularly close with them right now. it kinda goes back to something i've talked about before, and have been thinking about alot lately. the future, or more accurately, my perception of what the future will be like.

i'm not talking about flying cars or sneakers that have power-laces, or hoverboards -- though by 2003, i at least expected the hoverboards. but i mean, an idea of yourself, how you will be in the future, how your life will pan out, who you'll end up with, where you'll live, what you'll do, things of that nature. things that really can't be accurately imagined. i mean, if you look at a movie like 'minority report', they actually imagined all that futuristic shit up based on what they figure the present will evolve into. but life? no such luck. life does not evolve in such linear patterns.

it's like what marcus and i talk about. the hope hook, he calls it, which is to say, the hope that something or someone will come along and suddenly fit like the mysterious puzzle piece that explains everything up to that point. what makes it so great, and so necessary is that explanatory nature of the hook - everything in your life has lead up to this point, and it doesn't seem so aimless anymore, and it won't again. hopefully.

but, like many puzzle pieces that seem to be the one you're missing, it doesn't always fit, and no matter how hard you pound your fist against that stubborn little bastard, he's not gonna squeeze into the parameters of the missing spot, no matter how much he looks like the hole.

so what am i gonna do, you may ask, if i know the nature of a hope hook is one of fallacy? i don't know. i was thinking the other day, when i registered to take the GRE that i hate making decisions that directly affect the direction my life will take. whether it be to move to Iowa, get serious about the heretofore abstract notion of graduate school, or to ask a girl out on a date. i'm not a risk taker, and i'm starting to think that it's because i'm afraid of success. maybe i just don't know what i'll do if i even got close to the things i want.

because the closer you get to the things you want, the harder it is to take it when you don't get them, and let's face it, i'm not good with disappointment. so the milder i can make said disappointments, the better.

i've gotten off track. i suppose the point i want to make is that hope is, as the matrix says, the source of our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. it's a dangerous and necessary thing to have.

but at least, i've got some leftover dressing in the fridge, and a bucket of cookies to make the time pass easier.



feeling: blah, at best, ugh at worst
thinking of: koreans
*beginning today, i'm modifying the song of the day by putting the the title, the artist, and a line from the song that best indicates the mood i'm in, and thus the reason why i've chosen it for song of the day
song of the day - if she wants me - belle and sebastian
if i could do just one near-perfect thing, i'd be happy

deuce, part deuce.

i know i already put in an entry today, and it is completely unlike me to do two entries. well, the way i see it, i've slacked off alot lately when it come to bloggifying so, what the hell. i've got fans, dammit.

today's wednesday and that means "the OC" came on channel fox tonight. now this show is about as simple and melodramatic as TV gets. but unlike daytime soaps, which i've been known to watch, too, the characters on the OC aren't dumb as fenceposts. in fact, many times, they're quite engaging; even the characters that i disliked intensely during the summer (read: julie and luke) have shown other colors that may only be described as....fascinating!!

anyways, it was in watching "the OC" last week that i came to understand and fully realize the degree to which TV has shaped the way in which i view life in general and molded the expectations and dreams i have for myself. you see, if i were anyone on the show, i think i'd pick seth, not for his skinny body and alternative good looks (yes, i'm secure enough in my sexual orientation to make that assertion regarding men), or even for his wry humor and dry wit. though i have both of those characteristics myself. no, it's because seth is not what the french call "good with the ladies". yet, right now, if you're keeping up, he's currently embroiled in a love triangle with the eminently nail-able anna and summer (samaire armstrong and rachel bilson, respectively).

i wish i was like that. i wish all the frustration a gent like myself has pent up over the years, high school and college, would pay off in having some crazy couple of girls fighting over me and shit. it was in the midst of finding myself wishing that last week (the thanksgiving episode), that i began to realize, hello, josh, this is the real world, and shit like this does not happen.

it's like that whole justice rant i went on a couple of weeks ago. there's no justice in the world. and i'm not saying this in a cynical bitter "i hate the world" kinda way, cause i'm in a pretty good mood. i'm saying it in a way that says "tv world is based on a system of unrealistic rules that say the good guys always win, or that you die when it's your time or you have it coming" and this is not that world. it's our world. so there.

wouldn't it be fun as shit though to be a tv character? i'd be fred - he gets to nail daphne.



feeling: good,still
thinking of: doing, as jay so eloquently puts it, a filet-o-fish sandwich with anna and summer
song of the second part of the day: the district sleeps alone tonight - the postal service

I am the smartest man alive!!

So i took the GRE today. it totally sucked. i mean, i did perfectly well on it, but sitting there for three hours racking my brain to come up with knowledge i may have had stowed away in the recesses of the brains of the humonculi that run my brain is pretty exhausting work.

sidenote: are not the ideas of humonculi the coolest? i mean, don't you like to think of little miniature yous running around inside your body controlling all aspects of you?

anywho, the GRE works like this: you do a 45 minute analytical writing section, and today's was kinda debating this machiavellian sentiment. then you follow that up by doing another analytical writing section for 30 minutes ripping apart an argument specifically designed to be ripped apart. then you do either 2 verbal sections taking 30 minutes each, and one math, or two math sections taking 45 minutes each and one verbal. yes, those bastards use me to test out material.

and you don't know which section is the test one! what if the first one is the test one?? what if you spend valuable brain energy doing stupid experimental questions and it tires you out for the rest of the test thereby downgrading your performance? what then? sonsabitches!!

anyways, like i said, i did perfectly well on the part i got scored on today. the rest, i'll have to wait and see. but it's certainly nice to have that load off me back!



feeling: liberated
thinking of: booze
song of the day: summertime - janis joplin

They say familiarity breeds contempt.

I suppose that's true. after all, i'm friends with all my former college roommates, but towards the end of all three years, i was glad to be rid of them. the last two not so much, but the first one....oh lordy. we'd butt heads. but that's all beside the point.

i'm talking now more about the arts. simon and garfunkel i know. and it's getting to the point where if i hear them on the radio or wherever, i'll usually skip over it deliberately and promptly. they have no backbone, no balls. i've said before that i prefer the rolling stones to the beatles for the same reason. good as the beatles are, i totally would rather listen to the stones than the beatles any day, simply for the reason that mick jagger has bigger balls than lennon. but this too, is beside the point.

getting more toward the point, i'll move on to television. i used to watch will and grace. now, however, i can't stand it, and i get the feeling i'm becoming more and more the majority than the squeaking don quixote trying to fight the power of the networks!! bastard networks... the reason i don't like the show is for one thing, its intensely smug. everyone on the show is astutely aware that they're being funny, or telling jokes, and it's irritatingly unnatural. not only that, but can jack please go one fucking minute without alluding to, or, more accurately, outright demanding that everyone notice he's gay and think its sooooooooo funny?? can he, goddammit? or can will and his stupid friend grace go 30 fucking seconds without making some lame ass gay pun?? who ever said puns were funny? no one! cause they're not!!

ok, i've stepped off the pedestal now. but even will and grace is not inspiring my ire this morning. no, it's something far more sinister at work today. you remember how i said i love to watch those dating shows? well, in the last week, i've fallen more and more out of their enchanting tacky spell.

take for instance: the bachelor. these poor girls so love that lame-ass foo. and he's here having to choose between them on national television, and the longer the show goes on, the longer the girls stay in the house with bachelor bob, the more and more they grow attached to him, the higher their hopes spring, and the greater the fall and the heartache that happens when they get cut. they showed the girl who he didn't pick in the last episode, and she was just crying, talking about how she was just heartbroken. i felt so bad for her. and i can't imagine being bob and being happy choosing the one i chose, knowing that some chick out there was totally crying. i couldn't concentrate.

or look at average joe. here are some guys probably ain't done too well with the ladies in their lives (though i suspect that adam character has done alright), and they get to vie for the attention of one seriously fine lady. so they narrow it down to three, and these fellas you KNOW have got their hopes set seriously, almost dangerously high, and what do the producers of the show do? they bring in three pretty boys to take the place of the three joes that just got cut!! it's bullshit! these fellas have been losing out to pretty boys their entire lives and now the network just think (and i imagine they laugh like beavis and butthead) hehe, lets bring in some himbos to steal this chick away!! it is NOT fair, and it IS....just cruel.

but the worst thing, the absolutely worstest ugliest thing i've seen on tv was last night. i've told you all, america, that i watch elimidate, but have grown increasingly critical of it in the recent past. but last night was the final straw. i saw a girl walk out on the date, not once but twice after getting into it with this other ho. (and no i'm not being derogatory towards women, this chick was a total tramp) anyways. anyways, the first time she walked out, the dude went at got her, and kept her for the final round. then in the final round her and trampy girl seriously got into it - hot tub water was splashed - and she walked out again. the dude, as predictable as some dudes can be, got out and chased her and she made him decide, then and there like, between the two of them.

dumbass, that he is, says "i dont know" and she said that that was all she needed to know. she walked out. all of this is bad, but i've seen it before. the final straw, the real bitch of the entire matter was that he went back to the hot tub and canoodled with the tramp, like that was what he wanted the whole time. not that he deserved the other chick, or, hell, even wanted her. but it was just ugly. plain and simple. he was a total asshole, and the girl he ended up with was a complete slut. and i was disgusted by the fact that he almost seemed to want her back just to watch them fight over him. that is unacceptable. so i think i'm off dating shows.

except blind date. it still rocks.




feeling: nervous
thinking of: the GRE next week - wednesday before thanksgiving? what the hell was i thinking??
song of the day: orange sky - alexi murdoch
quote of the day: guys, next time you see a girl in a bar, just go up to her and be like, "hey, are you gonna walk to your car alone later? - dane cook

For Sam, 1989-2003

When i was nine, i was making my lunch for school one morning in early february, and i heard a strange noise coming from the garage. the previous night, we'd been watching "the birds" on television, and i was a little scared to go out there, thinking that perhaps i was going to be attacked my a rogue crow. eventually, we went out to the garage. what we found there was a puppy - a small, black puppy with little white paws, and a little white tip on her tail. our garage was shut, and how this little puppy got into our garage remains a mystery. but we kept her. and thinking she was a he at the time, we named her sam. she was six weeks old, or so, and, yesterday, was only about 5 weeks from being 14 years.

saturday morning, we made the decision to have sam put to sleep. she'd not been eating for some time, and when we finally got her to the vet last tuesday, we were told she had an unspecified liver disease. it might have been cancer, or hepatitis, but one thing was for sure. sam was very sick. we got updates from the vet everyday, finding out little, except that sam wasn't doing well. when we spoke to the dr. on friday, he said that we should come down there.

when we got there, i saw sam in the cage. i'd never seen her so weak before, save one time, when she had been sedated by the vet who had to give her a bath. the vet on friday told us that sam had plateaued, and that it was probably time to put her to sleep.

i would try to explain how this felt, but i can't, save to say this: sam's passing is no easier than dealing with any other death.

i find myself at a loss for words thinking of ways to properly describe her. i've been thinking for a few days about all the things i'll miss about her. I'll miss her cute little ears - how sometimes after she'd been sleeping, they'd be turned back on her head, and it looked like she only had one. or how you could push one down against the side of her head while you pet her and as soon as your hand left it, it'd pop back up into place. i'll miss her cute little white paws, and proud white breast. i'll miss how, when she was inside the house, you could hear her coming a mile away, her claws clicking on the floor, and when she got to whatever room you were in, her little black head would just ease through the door, and she'd mosey in, looking for a petting.

i'll miss how she'd sigh sometimes, after being denied a pet -- she'd go, lay down, breath, and then *huff* with indignity. i'll miss how if you fell asleep with your hand hanging down, she'd walk up under it, and place it on top of her head. i'll miss her jumping up on me, her cute little back up walk when she was too close to an opening door, her nosey little nose, sniffing out everything that might even be remotely edible.

i'll miss how when she crawled into her dirty little bed, she'd ball up and be nothing but a ball of black fur, with no discernable characteristics, except maybe a protruding ear. i'll miss seeing her wake up out of that bed, stand, step out, and stretch her limbs, her wee toes spreading out, her back legs shaking with stiffness. i'll miss her stinky breath, and her stinky fur, and think about the maybe only dozen baths we gave her, because she hated water so much. speaking of water, i'll miss the thuds she'd create, throwing her body against the door, trying to get inside from the rain and thunder, rather than staying in her own house.

i'll miss the way she used to jump up on me, then somehow find a way to sleekly roll over on her back, so i could rub her belly. i'll miss the way her little tongue stuck out only a fraction of an inch while i did rub her belly. i'll miss her shaking paws with me, the way she'd take a treat from you, put it down, leave it alone, but when you tried to take it back, she'd jump on it, both paws on either side, defending it to the death.

i'll miss seeing her at the fence when we pull up in the drive way, seeing her basking in the sun early in the morning, seeing her roll in the grass, seeing her patrol the perimeter of the yard, in paths marked clearly and permanently in the grass.

I'm sorry, Sam. I love you.

Quotes for Life

I cried when i had no shoes. then i saw a man who had no feet. and then i laughed....REALLY hard.
- jerri blank



I don't smoke, you quit drinking, Bob here wouldn't even dream of looking at another woman with lust... between the three of us, we're practically Jesus
- kevin spacey - the big kahuna


I know I dreamed you a sin and a lie
I have my freedom but I don't have much time
Faith has been broken, tears must be cried
Let's do some living after we die
- the rolling stones




feeling - inadequate
thinking of - sam
song of the day - yesterday - the beatles

i don't like fear factor.

now, perhaps it is because i find roaches more odious than perhaps, something that would be truly horrific - say hell, or sex with anna nicole smith - and fear factor seems to have, on a monthly basis, a task that involves the handling, if not the ingestion of roaches. this, of course, would be the point that, were i on the show, i'd calmly and rationally give the producers the finger and waltz off.

some, though, may attack the very premise of the show, calling the contestants "whores" or people with "no dignity" or "dumbasses". to these people, i say, what-evah.

i shall tackle the idea of being a whore, first. now, some people attach this offensive moniker to the contestants, generally of the attrative persuasion, physically fit, young, not in the private sector of employment per se, simply because they're doing these terribly nerve-racking things for money. or rather, for the chance at money. how is this different than doing a job you hate for money? i submit to you that at least the people on the show are having fun. do prostitutes generally have fun at their job? do you think they got up today and said "man, another day of suckin' dick! ain't life grand?". i think not. so "whore" you say? nah.

no dignity? this argument may be a bit trickier to attack. i'll begin with anecdotal evidence. i'm straight - and by that i mean, in the sexual orientation sense of the word - but i have no problem with associating with gay men, saying, perhaps that a certain man is good looking (brad pitt comes to mind), or even finding myself, quite frequently, as a champion, albeit not a famous one, of gay rights, civil and otherwise. my point in saying all this, is that i'm secure in my sexuality enough to be open to the other side of it. so perhaps, these contestants are secure enough in their dignity, perhaps they think highly enough of themselves, their personalities, who they are as human beings, that they don't really care what they put their body through. so go on condemning their lack of dignity. i don't believe that.

and as for dumbassery? well, i think being plunged into cold water, handcuffed (with the key in your hand) in a body bag, and having to free yourself and grab a flag, might be construed by some (old ladies, republicans) as being slightly off kilter. but doing it for the sake of winning some G's. well, if that's being a dumbass, sign me up. and i'm smart -- ask riqui.

so, for all these reasons, i like fear factor.

no wait. i don't. shit - oh yeah - the roaches. i hate roaches.



feeling: happy, cause marcus is back, bucko, and cady is, too
thinking of: english muffins
song of the day: wild horses
quote of the day: i cried when i had no shoes. then i saw a man who had no feet. and then i laughed REALLY hard. - jerri blank

i'm a man, fickle by nature.

while typing that sentence, i made a typo and it originally read "fuckle by nature". that, too would be apropos, as one of the ways i would sum me up -- like jock, or punk -- would be 'fuck up'. i am, you know.

but back to being fickle. last summer, i was set on studying for the GRE, writing some epic short story one that would certainly go in my anthology that shall emerge in the years to come, and getting into grad school for next fall. and if i didn't, well, the peace corps or americorps was my destiny.

needless to say, that would not suit me, no no no, not at all. so the peace corps is out, as i'm not leaving the country. then, when i got home, i was all aboard to take a job and move to iowa! yeah, that didn't quite pan out as i planned, a change of fortune not indicative of my being fickle as much as my being...a typo.

so, back to grad school. study study study! wait -- do i wanna teach? sure! oh, wait gotta do all kinds of things first, and you still need to wait for fall 2004. eh...enthusiasm wanes. wait! i can work at P_____! no, they lie, and don't call me back. bastards!

so now, i've been studying hard for this past week, and i figure i'll take the test soon, get some prof recs and get my applications together. i still need a job, though, so i can pay for application fees, and buy kissmas presents and so on, so forth. i hate money....i think i'm a commie.



feeling: conflicted...a bit scared...hungry
thinking of: jack bauer -- it hangs to his fucking ankles.
song of the day: playground love - air

i'm totally addicted to dating shows.

i have been for a while, now. i mean, back when i was in high school, i discovered that show 'blind date' - that's like the granddaddy of the lower-end dating shows. not like the bachelor, which is "respectable" and i use that term...well, as loose as it can get. you know, like pamela anderson.

anywho, yeah, i watched a lot of blind date, and it always made me feel like more of a man. or perhaps just like a better prospective date for the ladies. prior to that, i had to rely simply on my enormous genitalia. so the guys on blind date -- alot of them were such clueless chumps, I coulda showed them a thing or two. and that's saying something.

so blind date and i were pals for a while, exclusive daters, one might say. and then, one christmas when my sister was home, we stayed up mighty late every night to watch the fifth wheel and elimidate. those are far more risque and, as the french say, trashy, and of course, highly addictive. alot of those guys are tools, but they're all buff and shit, so my confidence boosting that had, up to that point, resulted began to suffer.

elimidate was cool as hell. waaaaaay better than dis-missed on MTV, though what isn't these days. i'd loooooooove to be on a date with like, four girls at the same time, all vying for my attention. but it's been in recent months that i've realized that the girls are not concerned with getting the guy AT ALL. they are merely and unequivocally concerned with besting one another. which leads me to make the following observation.

girls, from the age of about 12 to, i'd say, 25 are perhaps the cruelest beings on the planet. y'all need to shape up. seriously.



feeling: alright
thinking of: getting back to season deuce of '24' - which is badthefuckass
song of the day: a rush of blood to the head - coldplay

i'm tired of quote of the day - i'm suspending that practice.

today is my birthday

or was - the 3rd, i mean - i'm 23

i'm also hot and tired, but i promise to write tomorrow.




feeling: hot and tired, dammit
thinking of: kind words from the friends who remembered
song of the day: in-between days - the cure
quote of the day: President Merkin Muffley - gentlemen, you can't fight in here! this is the war room!