Domain funness

oh yeah, fun with the whole new site thing. I'm working on the actual site format I'm going to throw up here, so for now you are going to see the familiar blog format. Probably going to switch back to the classic php-nuke though. That will let me actually divide stuff up and not drop massive pieces of writing into such long-ass posts. Plus it will give me a chance to put all kinds of other interesting things up, and if you want to, set up blogs/posts/space for other people. At the very least I'll be able to see who it is that is leaving comments.

nonetheless, getting up early tomorrow to go visit our government, which is unfortunately a lot less like the government you see in action movies. Action movie governments have cool gadgets and men in matching uniforms and bizarrely cool neo-futuristic buildings. The real government has bic pens, overweight rent-a-cops and buildings with freakish statues of old people on the wall. Really, they have these statues of old men looking creepy with little kids hung up on the walls, over your head. And you can't just walk down the hall staring aghast at how perverted that old man looks, cause you have to look up so high that everyone will notice. Its quite bothersome that way.

oh, and if you heard about the going-crazy wild-child plans I had for last weekend, they've been postponed. Primarily because I couldn't find cuen, and partly because I found something better. Though the eyebrow would still be very cool and may be in the future. I mean, it heals if I get bored of it.

Transcription v2

Here's the second piece I found. Its a lot shorter (thank god). If the length of v1 deters you, just read the last paragraph, it probably the most salvageable part. Now on to v2 though, which came out very reminiscent of The Ladykillers...

As a whole this piece sucks, its just easy to write egoist asshole characters, so in this case I did.

--------

Look, it doesn't matter what you think or say, the simple fact is that it can be scientifically proven that I am smarter than everyone of the other people we know. Name a realm to contest; mathematics, visualization, literature, science, mechanical ability, artistic ability even. Or maybe the most obvious of them all, IQ, pure intelligence quotient. The fact is that none of you can compete with me. Period.

A kind of silence came over the table, everyone looking down into their own version of coke. Kyle rolls his eyes and inhales, drawing everyone's attention back to him. "Here's the thing guys, I know all this, and I've accepted it. Then I decided to not hold it over other people. That's the way I've chosen to live, but that's only half of what matters. The second part is for you guys to suck it up, accept it as well and stop being such a bunch of whiny baby tear jerk-asses about it.

Chip Rolled his head towards Kyle, in that way he always does. No one doubted that chip was the dumbest of the group, no, there had not been any meetings to declare that, it was simply known. "But, (pause) but..." The group waited, it usually took more time for chip to form thoughts that he bought with his head rolling. "But I'm better at fishing than you Kyle, remember that time?" Again a pause, and the group heads turn to await the response (of which there is always a response, chip has never stumped anyone, let alone Kyle). Kyle shrugs his shoulders, then looks up with a placating smile. "Yes, you are a better fisherman than me Chip, but that is a skill, not an intelligence. It would be like you saying you are a better runner than I, or better at lifting heavy chunks of metal. I'm sure all that is true, and I'm also sure that it doesn't make you any smarter than me."

Transcription Dump! v1

Ok, so I found a stack of papers that my typewriter chewed up and returned to me with letters all over, and since its a boring Friday night and we are just going to be watching movies I've decided to transcribe what I can of it. So here goes.

These were character sketches, just trying to flush individuals out, both are quite raw, and need major revision, but I'm putting them on the computer so I can do that if I ever feel like it.

-----
Anthony Thomason didn't even hear the thin tinny sound of the copper finishing nail he inadvertently was kicking along the sidewalk on this overcast afternoon. Nor did he notice the lack of that same sound when the nail decided to stop itself upright in the street Anthony was at that moment crossing. If an onlooker had been asked why it was Anthony turned his head at the moment of placing one foot onto the opposite sidewalk, they surely would of said it was in reaction to the sound of the front left tire exploding on the Audi A4 (thanks to the same nail that moments before trailed anthony's feet like a friend) a sound that was certainly the reason everyone else at that intersection turned. If though you could today ask anthony himself, he would say that he hadn't really even noticed the sound, and was instead turning back to glance at nothing more than a shiny wrapper for a new flavor candy bar be saw caught in the gutter.

Our lack of perfect understanding of why Anthony turned (unfortunately) doesn't change the fact Anthony did have less than a second to see the shiny blue Audi, driver still speaking (well, now screaming) into his cell phone (with text messaging AND camera phone technology built right in) as it jumped the curb, whisking that shiny candy wrapper into the air, and Anthony right behind it. If Anthony had not been instantly killed by the impact he would of been close enough to that wrapper to simply grab it from the air without a hint of exertion.

Two phones rang simultaneously to report the accident, neither of which were answered by an individual associated with Anthony. The first phone was answered with the forced cheer of "Good Afternoon, The offices of Alexander M. Gillespie, how may I direct your call?" the second was answered with the far from veiled apathy of "Susan Gillespie speaking".

Anthony M. Gillespie was a man that was not immediately missed when he put himself and his car into a lamppost thanks to a "factory defect" in the new tires he had put on his A4. And this was the way the story was told around the offices, in the company wide press release, and among the still bitter but confused (since they no longer had a living individual on which to focus their bitterness) employees around the water cooler. As far as the offices of Alexander M. Gillespie were concerned, there was never a second individual to involved in the crash, a fact that may not seem so surprising but may become moreso to you later. Alexander had ruled his father's father's company like only a third son could. Minimal actual knowledge, less care and with a success that could only be attributed to sheer luck, or an invisible inborn ability that wasn't detectable by the most trained of eyes. Still the success could not be questioned. Alexander had taken a company that was expected to sunset itself like all other company's of a family lineage, too fat with the years of leadership just like Alexander's to ever compete when any other company even glances towards their market.

This supposed pre-destiny was the only reason Alexander ever did follow in the footsteps of this grandfather. Not because of the challenge, or the excitement of drawing the family heritage into the next generation. Alexander took on this father's father's company because with it already doomed to fail, he felt he could have some fun tormenting people and causing chaos in a system of modern business that is still operating under the rules of elite men's clubs, with highback leather chairs and enough different types of cigars that every pompous member can have their favorite, and argue the finer points of taste, texture, and smell with the nameless leather chair sitting next to him. Alexander did not hate these people, or their high back leather chairs. In fact he was on of these people, had his own leather chair, and a favorite cigar that he had yet to lose an argument over.

What Alexander liked as much as being one of these people though, was making people like himself lives' miserable. He hadn't wasted any time, either. Less than a month into his leadership of the company Alexander had emptied his board and made three attempts at hostile takeovers, aimed towards companies he knew he couldn't afford to buy, instead to just make them waste time considering what the hell he was doing. Alexander had one morning scheduled four hours to tall up his competitors and offer the contents of his second desk drawer on the left for their company. Luckily none of the ceos he called that morning took him up on his offer, because there was a very nice pen set in that drawer that Alexander was quite fond of. He would not of wanted to give that away, even if it was in exchange for a much larger rival's company. Alexander spent the afternoon running statistics on the responses he received from the morning's calls and made a very pretty graph, which he put into that same second desk drawer on the left, picked up his empty briefcase and went home. (he had never carried anything in it, except an engraved cup he stole from the office of another rival he visited once. It was a nice glass, though it was unfortunately thrown from a taxicab some fifteen minutes later.

A Pledge

This i still love to read over and over. I wrote it to kick me back into writing and it just poured onto the page. I think i bought my typewriter shortly after this, which is great an annoying, since i love writing on it, but it makes it a bitch to edit and post stuff now. Looks like the fun fun of transcription is in the future.

Regardless, enjoy this. And for maximum recreation of the original thought, read it twice, initially normally, and the second time as fast as possible.

---------
What is it I’m waiting for? This is supposed to be the moment in time that the world’s velocity alone should be enough to carry everyone forever towards the target of happiness. That the chaos and swirl of life is so naturally directed towards greatness there is no way that an individual can be left out of it. In these times no one is supposed to be left behind, there is no reason to have motivation of your own, Who Needs It! Look around, the flashing lights, the chattering computers communicating at the speed of light. The pure force of the life around every individual is driving us towards something. Yet even with this supposed occurrence I find myself sitting stagnant, once again. Why, what is it that i am missing? What am I waiting for? Is there some pneumatic chute in my room, or jacked into my head, through which I am waiting for my blue letter to arrive and come shooting into my consciousness? Do these signals even exist! Aside from the evangelists who are “called” and suddenly thrown forcefully onto their own life paths, does anyone ever claim a single precision moment of life as changing them? A distinct time, when you are drinking your coffee or eating your McDonalds, when you are blessed and enlightened as to what will make you happy. No, it doesn’t happen, everything that makes a person happy has been built on, constructed piece by piece, experimented and assembled until that moment that it finally opens the lock you have constructed bearing forth the satisfaction that was contained within.

Yet even knowing this, I still sit here. Not-so-patiently waiting for something to blindfold me spin me around put the bat in my hand and shove me, swinging, into the future that will make me happy. And once again the impatience of waiting for this intervention has, ironically, driven me to one of the things that gives me that happiness; writing. Perhaps fate is telling me something, perhaps I am simply so content in my waiting that I prefer the slothful anticipation better than the action I’ve waited so long to receive.

This time I don’t want to let it go, I want to grab hold and swing my piñata bat instead of leaning on it as a waiting cane. This is for you Jay. This is to keep that side of you alive. That side that actually isn’t a side, but all of you, it is your essence. I intend to foster that essence, grow it and use it. I will be heard, and I will purge and spew and drink again simply to ensure that no white page goes unsoiled, because this drivel is not the fluid most find running through their gutters, oh no, this drivel is the quintessence, the undercurrent that binds every part of you together, the river of green water the boats of job, friends, and psyche slosh around on as they cascade through your internal sewers. I will write what you know, I will write what you don’t know, I will simply write to forcibly purge you, to bleed you like a thousand surface scratches on the tops of your feet. And you will scream and tear, and smile with every step, feeling the pain of that letting. And from this point on, every step will be a reminder that this life is real, and that there is no waiting. There never was, and there never will be again.


-Ian Hunter

There is Something About You

Ok, this was written and I'm debating putting it up here since i don't know how i feel about it per say. It was inspired, and if the surrounds and individual who inspired it isn't known, i'm not sure how it will read.

Also, this isn't really supposed to be text, its a kind of monologue, meant to be read, and flows a lot better when spoken.



---------
There is something about you, you specifically that sets you apart from all the other girls I've ever met before. I mean, most them are the nice ones, you say hi, they are friends, come and go everyone passes. Occasionally a few of those will be the girls who you lock eyes with though, and there is that hard and fast moment of communication, the type that is above your conscious level, or maybe below, ingrained in the base instinct of a man, but covered up by years of programming. Those girls though, if you can hold on to them and not just have them walk away are the ones you date. And out of that select group, there are the special ones.

The special girls in my life I look at, and I don't just see them sitting across from me, eating their soup and sandwich, I see them and our future, I see us jet-setting around the world, standing on beaches smiling, taking a photo of me taking a photo of her. I see all smiles and fun and rolling on beaches and passion and the urge to grab you tight and never let you go, just squeeze and run and run until we both give up and die at age 28, spent of every possible emotion and energy that life has allotted us.

When I look at you though, I see all that, all the images that the special girls invoke, but then there is something else; something unique to only you. I see you standing in a back yard, simple, green. Holding a child on your right hip, thrown out just enough that he doesn't slip off. I see you beam a smile at me of emotion and joy deeper than should be possible, then turn your face into the sun, then into our son's face where you nuzzle his nose with yours, whispering to him. Then he smiles.

That's the only image beyond the norm, but it takes up more time and focus in my mind than all the others combined.

Unplug

Perhaps one of my favorite pieces I've done. It was intentionally propagandist, and I think benefited from it. Its also something I really believe, even if not to the extent I pushed it here. And no, this does not make me a hypocrite. There are plenty of other things that do, though.



--------
"Go play."

Simple words. I heard them a thousand times in my childhood, usually from a mother exasperated with my running in circles, invading her space in the kitchen. "Go find something to do outside! And take your brother!" We would scamper off, plunging into the warmth of the sunlight, at least for a short while. We were young; play was everything to us and encompassed everything. Mother would look out the windows to see my brother and me simply spinning in circles, or trying to play hotbox with just two people. I can imagine the smile that would come to her face when she would notice Dad (whom we had convinced to stop working just long enough to help us) dropping our basketball hoop from the proper ten feet to something closer to six, so my younger brother Andrew and I had some chance at scoring.

Those days of innocence and youth have a degree of enthusiasm that is lost as you age. The natural, boundless energy and unrestricted mind become checked. Occasionally something will get you started, but it isn't everything all the time anymore. Why not? Why don't our society, our schools, our lives breed that passion that we had as children? No one has ever thought to say, "Go learn! And take your brother with you!" "Of course not!" experts yell. "You can't learn anything advanced by random discovery!" Visual, Audio, and Action. Those are the ways to learn, aren't they? Strange that when you say let's go see something, or hear something, or do something...you never think of school.

Andrew and I would play tennis outside. We didn't have a net, so we used the house. Winding up with a huge baseball swing, we would whale into a tennis ball in a way it wasn't intended to be hit. The rackets would emit a delightful TWANG! and send the ball arcing over our two-story house. I would hear screaming, a moment of silence, then a fainter twang, and inevitably miss the ball on the return flight. We never got more than three volleys out of this game, yet we tried all the time.

Tried to get better, tried to learn. Why has our system missed this? Even today, the idea is that a school is a box, one with teachers inside. Add students for four years, shake vigorously, and out will come educated individuals. Yet these people may have never seen, heard, or done what they have learned. Schools praise computers as the next great thing...they bring into the classroom what teachers can't. Computers in schools are killing our youth. Computers in general are killing our youth. TV, Nintendo, computers, schools, they all educate and entertain in a virtual world. Children used to sit in school and stare out the window...dreaming of what they were going to do outside when they got out -- run in the grass, climb a tree. They wanted out of the box and into the real world. Now children gaze at computers in school, and ache to get home where they can jump on their own computers, giving them a bigger realm to work in, simply a larger virtual world, one that is slowly eliminating the desire in a child to experience the real world. We need to unplug our society. Go outside; learn from the real world. Schools are not boxes; they are collections of inquiring minds. Thoreau was right when he founded a school, one that met in a field and traipsed across the landscape to experience nature, life, and other human contact. We live in a non-virtual world, yet before we understand it, we are trying to replicate it. As soon as we understand our world, we will have a virtual copy of it. Why? Why exist and work in a virtual copy of what we really have? Why educate our children on a soundstage constructed to mimic real life? Remove schools from their walls; return students to the actual world they are learning about. Let them cut and paste, build with cardboard boxes, eat the glue. Let them be open-minded and active. Don't restrict a mind within a smaller, simpler, copy of the world they are so curious about. Release them into the real world with guidance, answer their questions, teach them as you stand before the lesson, give them mentors, make them apprentices.

Teach them reality. Teach them life.

Unplug America. Unplug Yourself. Unplug our Youth.

Pack Anonymity

Ok, so this is one of a couple old writings I'm posting up here, more to remember and not lose them. Enjoy it though if you care to read. This one I think is the first one I called "stream of consciousness experiential"


--------
The email was short and sweet. Josh's birthday today, mini-party at 8:00, clubbing at 10:45. Clubbing, it's a standard part of the weekend for many people in Boston. Every time you are out walking within a mile of Lansdowne Street, you can see the clubbers, dressed in black pants, short skirts, tight shirts, only headed in two directions, to the clubs, or to homes, though not necessarily their own. Tonight I am one of them; I am putting on my grey pants, bright orange-collared shirt, black jacket. I pat each of my pockets; wallet, yes, keys, yes. Pocket watch, half pack of clove cigarettes, matches, yes, yes, yes. I swing my eyes over my counters, slowly turning in the center of my room, everything I need? With what I hope looks like one motion (even though no one is watching) I sweep my purple sunglasses up and onto the bridge of my nose, pull a half turn, and let the door swing quietly closed behind me. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and smile. When I turn and begin to walk, there is an extra skip, an extra bounce in every step.

The others' preparation is less glamorous. Two floors below I encounter the rest of our group. The girls are still primping, applying makeup, complaining about how cold it is going to be, -others are drinking to loosen themselves up for the evening, and then drinking a bit more, just for good measure. I step into Josh's room, find him ready and waiting, I wish him a happy birthday, then glance at my watch; 10:50, five minutes past the proposed departure time, and we are the only two ready, out of a group of twelve, near as I can count. Josh notices the motion, and smiles, then with a little laugh says to me, "Yeah, hopefully we will make it there at all." I laugh with him, then step outside to see the progress of our group. The girls have finished, but now are deep into seeing how many photos with as many different cameras are possible tonight. I'm not worried; photos are the last things that are going to keep us from getting out the door. Next door the drinking continues; Josh has snuck into the room without me noticing, and is starting to coax the room as a whole to move towards the door. Five minutes later no one has moved, and I realize that I have lost my glasses.

This isn't an odd situation for me, strangely; the glasses are basically attached to my face. I wear them in any weather, any time of day. They are light enough to not cause blindness in dim light or even at night, reduce glare enough to help me see at night, and everything looks better through them anyway. I never take them off. The problem is, other people take them off me so they can wear them. I pause to think a moment, and know that it was Ran, who in passing pulled them off my face while I was talking to someone else. I quickly spin, see that miraculously everyone is standing in the hall. I start to back towards the stairs, calling to Josh, "I'll be right back! Meet you in the lobby!" then modifying the statement as I turn to run, "Actually, I'll probably be back before you even move!" I hit the back stairs, I'm on fourth, Ran lives on two, down. I burst through the door, exhilarated by the rapid movement, and briskly jog to Ran's room. No Ran, only her roommate. I realize that she -and my glasses- must be in my room, where people seem to congregate...on the sixth floor. Back to the stairs, up to the top floor, where I find Ran about to return to the fourth floor to find me. No problem, glasses are back in their rightful place over my own eyes, and we are hopefully about to leave.

It's actually another five minutes before we even get out the door. One person left behind (Josh, the birthday boy of all people), one clove cigarette, and four cabs later we are in line outside Avalon, our club of choice tonight. The line is the definition of a motley crew. We stand in a cluster, decked out in our black and black and color, ahead are a group dressed flashy enough to be from the seventies, and behind I can't see a normal colored head of hair for at least a half dozen people. I pull another clove out and light it, we'll be waiting for a few minutes, you always do, it's part of the experience.

I'm not a smoker. I mean that seriously. I smoke a pack, maybe two, a year. Cloves are a weakness, and they fit this persona, clubbing me needs cloves to smoke, it finishes the mood, the feel, the image. I wasn't expecting anyone else to smoke, but quickly I have offered, and a few people have accepted. We stand on the edge of the line, so as to not bother everyone else, cigarettes in one hand, the club beat thudding in the background, and murmur of a crowd in between. It's like a scene from a movie, and I smile, cause it's exactly what I want. We step forward, Ids are checked, I pay the cover with the cigarette dangling from my lips. No one says anything, it's one of the few places left where they don't care if you smoke inside. It adds to the atmosphere I guess, the smoky bar, the club, the smell and smoke is part of it.

The group pulls together in the little lobby, a person or two runs to the restroom, we make a mental note of who is here, finish the cigarettes, then start to walk towards the dance floor. The air grows warm, then hot, the sound grows rapidly louder, the backbeat pulsing the air. The floor suddenly changes from carpeted concrete to rubber-coated plywood, and the bass flows up through our legs and through the air. An uncontrollable smile breaks out on me, this place is sensory overload, sound, light, smell, touch, everything is bombarded. We string out into a line as the group pushes through the crowd, a drink is bumped onto me, "Watch out asshole!" is yelled in my direction. It's all I can do not to laugh, record time I think to myself. It wouldn't have been right if a drink hadn't have been spilt on me sometime during the night. My smile only grows as I continue to push through the crowd. I find a spot, hardly enough room for half a person, and begin to dance, time just flows for the rest of the evening.

The faces in the crowd are the most interesting. I always watch, hoping that something will give me insight, -into a personal life, into a culture, into anything. Some look absently off into the distance, they aren't even here on the floor, off someplace else, just escaping for this evening. Guys and girls hungrily watch each other and the skimpily clad dancers dressed like vinyl devils, lovers stare only into each other's eyes. A blonde is passing from person to person, begging to be touched, rubbing up against everyone; even before I notice her fixed smile and dilated pupils I know she is rolling on e.

The night is a blur, time dilates and compresses, an evening becomes reduced to short events only remembered because they broke the flow of the dancing. A pause to buy some water, using the restroom, smoking a clove while half the group decides to call a cab and call it a night. What seems like a minute later, the remaining few are walking out, passing back into the cool night. The girls complain of their feet hurting, a few take a cab back, the rest of us take the walk. The air is refreshing, eases the fatigue we all are starting to feel. A stop at a 24 hour convenience store helps even more, though we all know the decay into exhaustion is inevitable, and we are only holding it off until we can make it to our own beds.

The night as a whole has been entertaining; it's a slice of the nightlife that so many embrace. The culture seems to be so removed, so impersonal, the atmosphere created to give a place to escape to, lose yourself in the music, drown in the noise, in the crowd of faceless people. As I once heard in a movie, "You hate people!" "Yes, but I love gatherings, isn't it ironic?" Clubbing seems to be the epitome of this. The culture is based on the comfort of being surrounded by people but not having to deal with any individuals. The culture is an escape from what we are forced to face on a daily basis. It intends to create a surreal environment where just for a few hours in one night, you can suspend the rules of interaction. You don't have to act a certain way, react to people a certain way, even acknowledge others' presence. You just have to be.

The List

Deep Sea Fishing
Shannon is on this, supposedly
-----------
Kites!
make em out of newspaper and sticks, then fly them someplace cool. Never seen one of those box kites fly, like to try.

As a extra challenge, try to gear some up as chinese fighting kites?
-----------
Four-In-Four (DONE!)
Decemberists with Long Winters
Jem
Suicide Girls Burlesque Show
Pedro the Lion
-----------
Decent reference to keep coming back to
washingtonpost.com: Interns' Guide
-----------
25 Cents?!?
The Interns' Guide: Happy Hour (washingtonpost.com): "Finally, any list of cheap brews can't overlook the Miller High Life Countdown at Asylum, Adams Morgan's biker bar of choice. On Saturdays, pints of the champagne of beers are just a quarter beginning at 5, and the price rises 50 cents every hour. "
-----------
paintball
a little tried and true, but maybe we can get together for some good ole pretend-murder of good friends
-----------
SHOUT IN RHYME!
Protest something. And if something good its around to protest, make up something to protest.

ensure big signs are made and chants that don't make sense. Have at least one that doesn't make sense and also doesn't rhyme at all.
-----------
Lazy water beer drinking
Go Tubing (washingtonpost.com)