New Year's Freak Show

I got a free dollar today. Even that was ludicrous and a waste of time.

If you have gobs of money on December 30th, or even if you don't and you'd like to pretend that you do, here are some ways to waste your time:

1) Try 50,000 times to get a reservation at the same night club that isn't answering their phones for New Year's Eve. Even though absolutely everyone wants to go there, they surely have some room left for your redneck hide.

2) Try to make a reservation at one of the most exclusive restaurants in one of the most exclusive restaurant cities in the world. One day before the date. When they miraculously have an opening due to a cancellation, at exactly the time you want it, turn them down because they're running a really fabulously special prix fixe menu that is 5 courses and costs $200 per person. Seriously? You turned that down? Go to McDonald's and don't ever call me again.

3) Try 50,000 times to get into another nightclub. Why not? Maybe this one will love you more even though no one has ever heard of you.

4) Try to get the very best seats to a concert that no one has ever heard of on New Year's Eve. When those seats are no longer available, don't accept lesser seats or look for ticket brokers. Just keep trying. Your tickets may magically appear from the box office. You are, after all, awesome.

5) When all else fails, run around in the snow in a sweatshirt in the financial district at 10:45pm on a Sunday night looking for a pack of smokes. Surely there is something open. When a stranger who is peacably listening to Tom Waits' "Come On Up To the House" is kind enough to stop what he is doing to let you know that it's a fruitless endeavor, act really shocked. Continue to run around fast.

Seriously, people. If you haven't got things figured out for New Year's Eve yet, don't bother me. I can't help you. Let's talk about April, huh? April, I can do something about. Even maybe next week.

Rogan

Blogging is for whiners and complainers, right?

I try to get on in our culture despite failing to understand anything that interests people. I've been putting up with this Joel-somebody, Seth Rogan charade for long enough. I watched 40-Year-Old Virgin and laughed when I could. Same thing for Knocked Up. They weren't a complete waste of my time. They were tolerable. Like a bad Michael J. Fox movie. Wait, maybe not that good. Sort of like watching Olympic diving or the biathalon. I've even gone so far as to rent Superbad because everyone says it's just so funny. It is currently sitting in my mailbox in Jamaica Plain and will be picked up when I get home tomorrow morning if some petty thief doesn't lift it before then.

The trailer for their new movie is currently available. It's another comically tragic romance about a guy who takes a Hawaiian vacation to get lei'd and forget only to find out that his ex-girlfriend is staying right next door with her straight-out-of-Serendipity long haired foreign pop singer boyfriend. Attention K-Mart employees: Could I get some originality over here on aisle 6? I think that right at this moment I've had precisely enough. I think I'm going to rip open the Superbad Netflix envelope, repackage it, and send it right back.

I refuse to watch serials #3 and 4 from this "comedy" hit factory. It's almost like they're churning them out as fast as they can before anyone can realize just how mediocre they really are. Not even a pre-Truman Jim Carrey was this desperate (nor was he this pedestrian).

Where have you gone, Russel Ziske? Our nation is in need.

(expletive deleted)

You know those days when something happens and you know the world will never be the same? Yeah, I don't either. Every once in a while I think I've experienced it, but usually it turns out that no one takes notice and the whole durned cosmic game just keeps rolling along.

Today, I received my first musician friend request on facebook. @#&! Hey, let's take a social networking site that we're already ruining with billions, literally billions, of useless applications that clutter up pages to the point where you can't even find people's walls because they never move things around even though it's incredibly simple to do. Let's figure out a way to give people everything they could possibly ever want, so long as we can make some money off of it. Lets give them so much of what they want that they don't even want it anymore.

Pretty soon you're going to be able to muck up your page with colors and graphics so no one can read it. Pretty soon you're going to be able to garble the hypertext on your page so badly that it automatically shuts down the user's web browser. Every time.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you with myspace II. I'm about ready to drop the entire internet like a sack of cold potatoes and move to West Texas. I'm getting too old for this.

Hemingway

A Farewell to Arms is, quite irritatingly, the slipperiest of all my Hemingway books. The Sun Also Rises is a fun romp through Spain that puts me in the heart of the upper crust of old. If it weren't for that book, I might not understand the concerns of my clients. Not quite a road book, but not far off. For Whom the Bell Tolls is immeasurably thick and unfinishable and probably has a gloriously devastating ending that I will never see. I also have a collection of short stories that features The Snows of Kilimanjaro. Short story collections never get read cover to cover, though. No sir, when it's good Hemingway I really need, it's always A Farewell to Arms.

Unfortunately, that book is never anywhere to be found on my shelf. I know I purchased and read it back in 2002. I'll never forget my great purging of 2006 right before my travels that lightened my burden by 50 some-odd books at a local bookstore and Salvo. This book was not included. It is impossible that it could have been. I think it surfaced somewhere for a few weeks a few years ago but has since receded into that hiding place it has discovered. I haven't gone out and bought a new sampling of that profound sadness because I'm always pretty sure I still own a copy.

Maybe it's time to buy a new one.

Sigh.

An Adventurous Morning

I awoke to the sunrise without an alarm and knew that today would bring me something special. After checking my daily computer crap while grabbing a bowl of cereal and a banana, I took the Netflix down to the mailbox and saw that there were a couple of pairs of women's shoes at my door.

Before we get too excited, I'll inform you that my roommate Sam had his friends and their dog over last night, all of whom found a way to occupy his bedroom. If you try to stay with me, there's no such abundance of space where I sleep. Both pair of shoes belong to a married woman who was here with her husband. NEXT.

After some personal deliberation and an episode of Entourage, I set out for Trader Joe's and the Puma store to get wine, cashews, sneakers, and a work bag. What I found when I got there blew my mind.

First off, I arrived in the Back Bay area around 9:45am and realized I'd beaten most of the store openings. Enter Starbucks. After waiting in line a few minutes, a girl poked her head above the baked goods counter and asked if she could help me. "I have a very complicated order for you," was my response. I could see in worry in her face and that of the barista next to her. "I need a small decaf coffee."

After drinking about half the coffee outside where it was about 50 degrees and gloriously sunny, I set off on my shopping expedition down the marvelous Newbury Street. I really had no idea what to expect, but found everything that I thought Downtown Crossing should have been. Every kind of awesome, elitist shop I could think of was nestled into two blocks of brick buildings with small uniform signs hanging all the way down. This led me to the Army/Navy store, and after about 15 minutes contemplating bags I settled on a perfect gray paratrooper bag with a red star on it.

Across the street to Puma, I found a matching pair of gray and red sneakers that were the sort of thing I had been dreaming of. Anyone who knows me knows I don't just go 2-for-2 shopping like this. Usually I don't find anything I like, which is why I hate shopping. The sneakers were also cheaper than I thought they'd be, which made the purchase easy.

There was a Best Buy on the corner. Being recently single, my DVD player is still in Syracuse at someone else's house. I'm not about to quabble over $30, so I bought a new one and can now watch my Netflix on Osei's killer television. Sold. 3-for-2, batting 1.500 for those of you keeping score at home.

What the heck, there's an Urban Outfitters across the street. Might as well stop in and see if they have any cool t-shirts on the sale rack.


G.I.JOE


I now own a shirt featuring Flint, Lady Jaye, and Roadblock. Go home. I win.

At Trader Joe's, which was actually my first stop, I got the cashews but not the wine, as that particular store doesn't have a license to sell it. Looks like I'll have to make a special trip for 3-buck-Chuck on Tuesday. Oh well, 5 items ain't a bad haul any day.

Wow, now that you're sleeping and the boring details of my shopping excursion have come to a close, maybe I shouldn't bother you with the details of the crazy Bostonian who sat across from me on the bus and proceeded to talk to me about land rents and good old boy networks for the entire 15-minute ride home. Or the drum troop that was wailing away and parading down Centre Street mere blocks from my house as I was walking home from the bus. Or the pile of people waiting for breakfast outside Sorella's. That's pretty common. Heh. We've reached noon, which means your day may just be starting. Good luck.

Would you do this to your parents?

My parents came into town this weekend. Normally, I guess you'd play it safe. Easy travel from here to there and nice little tourist sorts of things and nice safe meals. Didn't happen this time. Mom and Dad got a Boo Guy Show experience.

Friday night, after they braved the horrors of driving into Boston, I took them to the Cuban restaurant on the corner. It took over a half an hour to get a table, and then another 15 minutes after that until we even had water. They were out of the Friday pork plate special #1, so my dad and I wound up with a crazy pork roll instead. Congris, fried plantains, yuca, Asian vegetables, juice smoothies instead of wine and manhattans...

By the time we got all the loot from home up to my 3rd story apartment, they were ready to head back to the hotel. Fast-forward to 11:20am Saturday:

Mom and Dad are waiting at the T stop when I roll up on the 39 bus. We head to the heart of Boston on a trolley filled with friendly college students, one of whom is wearing a t-shirt with a hammer and sickle and Karl Marx with a lampshade on his head. Another one gives my mom an eyeglass case as he hops off. When we finally get to Park Street, we are greeted by the unmistakable Subway Smell and then pass a couple of senior citizens hobbling up the stairs to street level. Ouch. I thought my knees were bad.

I proceed to hike them through Downtown Crossing, over the bridge into Southie where I work, back to South Station for a pizza lunch, up Atlantic Avenue to the harbor where we see plenty of ocean water and Chris Pfohl, through some more of the monstrously tall financial district, to the old state house for roasted cashews and buskers, Faneiul Hall and Quincy Market where we see a living statue and a man who folds himself into a pretzel, and grab a beer. After that, it's back down to Boston Common and the Public Garden, where we spend an hour and a half. By this point, I think I've hobbled about 3 miles on a bum knee.

What else can you do with a day in Boston but hop a bus whose destination is Roxbury? Of course, the bus drops us off a block past where the map says it will, so we take our weary legs an extra circuitous 4 blocks through some low-income territory, but eventually end up at Gaslight Brasserie, where we attempt to order food from French menus we can't read. We wind up with excellent pasta and pizza and really expensive drinks.

After that, I nab my first Boston Cab ride, which is considerably cheaper than I thought a Boston cab would be. I leave Mom and Dad to the hotel around 8:00PM and retire to my abode in JP where I am dead asleep by 10:00PM. You know that if a young guy like me is out that early, it's been a day. They left for home this morning. Rock and roll.

In short, your parents can take it. Give 'em the works when they come to visit.

The Day After

There exists a power that only arises the day after a house party. It brings to bear all of the oddities of life that movies are made of. Perhaps it emerges from an abandonment of constructive activities in favor of lethargy. Maybe it only comes to me because I've had the requisite amount of strong drink the night before so that my brain becomes aligned with the Universe for a day. Best guess is that it's both of these and then a little more of God's razzle dazzle.

I woke up, grabbed some breakfast, and flipped on the television. I didn't even have to change the channel. It was the last 20 minutes of the movie Three Kings. George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, and Ice Cube trying to hustle some Iraqis over the border toward the end of the 1991 Gulf War. I was glued.

I didn't do a whole lot for most of the day. Picked up beer bottles, washed some party platters, the usual day-after fare. That act by itself always brings a sort of peace that can't be had anywhere else.

I watched a 13-minute Wes Anderson short film in preparation for his new movie, something I had been alerted to by a previously unknown party guest who happened to bring as his wife a girl who I had known 11 years prior while working at a summer camp. The film was a strange attempt at romance by the usually benign Anderson. It included Natalie Portman. This is a good moment. Any day.

Some time later, I noticed I'd received a call from Elliot, one of the last guests to leave the night before. My phone was still muted from the night, as well. I think it was last night I dreamed that an Asian man was threatening to kill me and pulled out a green water pistol. Concerned that he might have a real gun in his pocket, I shot him in the stomach and then in the head as he fell forward. I've never been that good of a shot in my dreams. It was a little surprising. Probably more surprising than the idea that I had shot an obviously confused individual who wasn't going to bring harm to me.

Elliot left a message about attending the Jazzfest, or some other festival. I looked to see what's going on in Boston today and noticed it's also the annual "What the Fluff?" festival in honor of the invention of marshmallow fluff in Somerville. I considered going for a bit. After some discussion on the call-back with Elliot, we decided to lay low here and finish off some beers that are still lingering in the fridge. I shaved, trimmed my nose hairs, and set off for the Hi-Lo Foods to pick up some peanut butter, jelly, bread, and paper towels. Turns out, people who don't speak English as a first language may or may not be familiar with sandwich bread. Either way, no sandwich bread, no bulk paper towels. This means I have to call Elliot and tell him I'm headed up on the 39 bus to that old standby, Stop & Shop.

I buy the stuff. Fine. I also grab a couple of bottles of low sodium V8 because it has 860mg of Potassium per glass. I need the Potassium. Then, I sit to wait for the bus.

An old African-American man with strange eyes and a number of bags wanders across the street and asks me how long I've been waiting. I told him I just got there, but I've been sitting because I have bad knees. He then launched us into a marvelous conversation about appreciating life. I told him about some of the things I've experienced and he told me I was unusual for a young white man. We were both wearing plain white t-shirts and carrying on, him the 81-year-old leaning against the post and me the 28-year-old sitting on the curb, both with a number of bags. I always wind up with a lot of bags when I take the bus.

I discovered that John is a veteran of World War II who fell in love with and almost married a German woman while overseas. Prior to that, he hated white people. He still has a picture of her next to a picture of his mother on his nightstand. He was raised by women without a father in the picture. He told me he once saw a blind man get on the bus with his dog. He watched intently because "There's nothing new under the sun, you just ain't seen it yet." He saw the dog stand up one block before they were to get off, as if to say "This is our stop." That made him cry.

When the bus finally came about 20 minutes later, John hopped on and tried to get to the back but was temporarily thwarted by the dense population of standees in his way. He and his bags, one of which looked like a garbage bag full of cans, were left standing for a half mile. He took that opportunity to strike up a conversation with a 61-year-old white woman who had been placing her hand on his for a bit by the time the sea of standing riders finally parted for him.

Around that same time, I saw a seat open near the front, which is polite to leave open for the aged and decrepit. With my bags and my knees as they are, I felt no burden on my soul as I took full advantage of the opening. At some point, I glanced over and saw that the man next to me was carrying a composition book that was simply titled "CANADA" in sharpie on its cover. My imagination ran for a moment as to what sort of a man this was. Then my stop came and the bulk of the adventure was over. I'm not making guesses right now as to what will happen tonight. It has faded from day to twilight as I have sat here on my porch writing and looking out over my kingdom. I am prepared for anything, but would always prefer...to be surprised.

Jena 6

Everybody and their grandmother is now standing up in the defense of six teenagers who beat another kid within an inch of his life. If I were of the same mindset and likely to commit acts of violence in the near future, I might get pretty heated about this. However, I have a tendency not to get into fights. Most of the time, I'm willing to step in and attempt to cool people down. Sometimes, I verbally send people home. I don't act violently, even if I have been offended religiously, racially, or otherwise.

I let it slide.

I'm not going to get worked up over a bunch of teenagers who deal with their problems by beating the shit out of someone. If they don't retaliate, they're not in this mess. Not my fault, not my course of action, not my concern.

Next inane sensationalized uproar, please. What's Paris Hilton up to these days?

The Lazy Weekend

A lot of people balk at the idea of having a split weekend, something akin to the Saturday/Tuesday that I get off every week. Here are some reasons it's a pretty sweet deal:

1) TWO Fridays! (Monday is also Friday)
2) Sunday is slow at work, which makes it a good day to be there.
3) If you're feeling lazy, which I am today, you never have to look back at 2 consecutive wasted days.
4) Trades are possible if I ever need the whole weekend off.
5) Weekdays off are good for personal productivity

How does all this play out for this weekend?

Friday night, I got home and began picking music for my party mix. Then I went out and bought cleaning supplies. Then I came home and porked around some more. I slept 8 hours, got up, read some of my book, ate a little, and then went to the pond and down to Downtown Jamaica Plain, which is not incredibly different from where I am now except instead of old Hispanic guys hanging out on the corner, there are street vendors. I ate a burrito and a smoothie at The Purple Cactus, then caught the bus back here, where I will read, pick music, and possibly nap if all goes well.

Completely wasted from a productivity standpoint, but what does it matter? I get another weekend again in a couple of days!

FUNK. PROSE. ROCK. BANANAS.

It's about time for me to drop some more sweet prose on you cats.

Bananas. Things are bananas here. To illustrate that point, I had one as a part of this incomplete breakfast today. I graduated from my training class at work, which slaps me into the real deal phone bays after spending a week taking live calls with a host of experienced people waiting to help me. Here's to hoping I don't push the panic button tomorrow, in 19.5 hours, when the stuff gets real in the Martin Lawrence/Bad Boys II sense.

Wow, not a personal benefit to think of your day off in terms of how many hours are left until you return to work the following day. Don't ever do what I just did.

So, of course the training class partied yesterday afternoon because we got out early. Then, after a brief stop home, I jumped on the party wagon again and went to a birthday pub crawl. FUNK. After coming home to see that the Yanks had put a hurt on the Sox in the late innings to the horror of this whole town, I found a way over to my bed and called it a night.

This morning, I've managed to catch up with new facebook friends, do a laundry, eat breakfast, shave my head, and shower. In the afternoon, I intend to read some more of my book and eat some lunch. Exciting day off, this. Thus begins the newly career-oriented life of The Boo Guy.

ROCK.

IKEA

Now that I live in a big urban area, I just had to go to the ultimate home furnishings store. IKEA. From Sweden or something. It's rubbish. First thing you do is get whisked up two different elevators to the "showroom". It's basically the same thing as you see in the home department of a JC Penney's, only the stuff is less comfortable and there's more of it. Then, if you like something you see, you don't tell a sales rep who can assist you. No, you write it down on a pad so you can retrieve it on a pallet yourself later. Exciting.

Once you get done milling about the upper area with your mesmerized friends, you should go to the cafeteria. There, they give you such elegant dishes as mac 'n' cheese and salad. If you're feeling particularly rich that day, you might even get some Swedish meatballs. Once you've forced down your Plate O' Crap, you are reminded to bus your own table because it helps them keep the prices down. What? It's a cafeteria, like the food court or Taco Bell or the campus dining hall. What makes their policy of taking care of your own tray so special?

Then, excitement of all excitements, you get to go downstairs to the kitchen & bath area. There are towels and wine racks and...I don't know...endless miles of crap. In a basement without windows. Like a casino, they keep you there as long as they can and eliminate the distinction between night and day. You get to waste your whole life deciding on whether to buy square or round plates.

Eventually, I bought a fairly decent 18-pack of dishes and a $1 alarm clock and a 50c towel. In three hours. And I spent $7 on a bad lunch. There's not a thing at IKEA that you couldn't get at Target or Bed Bath & Beyond or OfficeMax or something. Why on earth this place got such a reputation is out of my realm of knowledge. Why people flock from Rhode Island and Maine to flow through this store like herded cattle is beyond me.

Please, please, save yourself from wasting a half day of your life or more. Go to Tuesday Morning, for all I care. Just stay the heck away from IKEA. Even better, quit buying things.

Wow, maybe I'm a little more Tyler Durden than I thought.

The Bus

I know, I know, I've come under some scrutiny for lighting up the facebook newsfeed this past week, but I'm trying to get a lot of stuff done in a new town while catching everyone from back home and around the country up to speed. Anyway, thought this anecdote from today might do ya some good.

I rode the bus through Roxbury yesterday and today. FYI, Roxbury is the low-income area to the east of where I have been and will be living. It's not the most exciting or scenic sort of a trip, unless like me you've been known to cruise down South Salina Street in Syracuse at all hours of the day and night. It's a bit like that.

It's good people watching, and good for a spatial and directional understanding of this crazy new city I've landed in. I hopped off the bus at the wrong point on the way to the South Bay shopping centre yesterday and had to hop back on at a different point. To get an understanding of this, it took me an hour and a half to go about 2 miles. On the way back, it only took 40 minutes. However, when I switched buses at Dudley Station, I wasn't familiar with the signs and didn't know where to pick up the 66-bus back home. I spoke with Frank while I was riding at one point, and when he asked me what I was doing I replied, "Riding a bus in the wrong direction in Boston." Having lived here himself, he acknowledged the commonality of that problem. Anyway, while I was at the bus station, THREE people asked me if I was lost and pointed me toward my bus. It was this bustling hive that might scare the crap out of a regular suburbanite, but it turned out to be kinda fun.

So I took the same route back today, having bought an airbed yesterday. Today was time to buy a computer. It was again a long trip there and back, but at least today I expected it and knew where I was going. So there I was, sitting at Dudley waiting for the 66 with three big boxes of computer stuff to haul onto the bus with me, when I met Jose. Maybe it was that I was the only white guy he'd seen all day, I don't know, but Jose and I went on for 5-1o minutes about how he's in a sober-house and how I knew people who had done AA and gotten really cleaned up. It was a good time. He was a really nice guy and I pray for him that he stays on the road.

Then, his bus came and the old Caribbean man right next to me started talking to me endlessly in an English that I could barely understand. I made out only a few sentences of what he saying, try as I did. He said, "Americans run their mouths too much." Amid 5 minutes of mouth-running that I didn't understand, I caught that. Oh, sweet and delicious irony! How I love you so.

My computer boxes and I made it back here just fine. We're going to enjoy a quiet evening. Hope you have a good one too!

More Amazing Happenings

Life in Boston is good. I just set up 2 interviews this morning and am itching to get a job. Also, I think we found the place we want to live and are just waiting to cross the i's and dot the t's. We had a funky little church service last night, I'm meeting people, and the public transportation has been friendly.

I'm working on a dietary plan by the numbers that will get me enough calories, protein, carbs, and fiber without too much fat, sodium, cholesterol, and money spent. So far, I've figured out that for 75c I can eat two PBJ sandwiches and a bowl of frosted mini-wheats with milk and get ALL THE PROTEIN I NEED for the day. Where does the meat fit in, then? I don't know. As I explained on the phone last night, I'm pretty much learning to roll over onto my stomach right now. Once I accomplish this phase of the plan, I can learn to crawl, then walk, then run. Being the math geek I am, by the numbers is the only way to go!

Last, what inspired this blog, is that I made another contact. Actually, an old contact. One of my best friends from Lake Champion in June of '99, Jake, has resurfaced on facebook. Jake and I used to sit up late reading theological books in the empty cabin in silence after everyone else went to bed. He was a similar soul, a thinker. He's currently in Saudi Arabia running a recreational program for international kids. WHAT? It's pretty exciting to run into an old friend halfway around the world.

I hope you are forcing your life to be full of this sort of stuff, too. Nothing has been delivered to me. I have learned to make things happen and how to press the advantage when I have it. 'Til next time!

Update from the world of Boo

I live in Boston now. It took a few days, but I think it finally sank in. Sunday night, I went to a potluck dinner with Osei. There were about 12 people there, we ate and played games, a general good time. However, I was still a visitor, laughing with another imported person that she'd been in town 48 hours longer than me, making her a veteran of the city. Tuesday night was a grand old time, hopping down to the corner to play dominoes with the Mission Hill Domino Authority. I had my first beer here, a Stone IPA, further working to cement me in my surroundings. Good people and good fun twice already.

Then came the sort of nonsense I've grown to expect from the sort of people I've met and stayed with along the way. Four phone calls and a couple of facebook messages into the night, I found myself meeting an old Young Lifer down at the grocery store. Five minutes later, we were out the door and zipping off to a house right down the street from an apartment I'd seen earlier in the day, where we cooked steaks and potatoes and corn before heading out. Out? To the Plough and Stars, a monumental dive bar in Cambridge that hosts Bad Art Ensemble, one of the most peculiar bands I've ever come across. It's a collection of professional musicians in a jazz band format that play loony music all night long without being paid. They bring the fun.

When I got dropped off at the door around 1:30am, with nothing left in my tank but to flop on the bed and meet the sandman, I knew that I'd arrived here. Thursday was a boisterous follow-up that included throwing a myriad of resumes out into the Craigslist stratosphere, as well as looking at 5 apartments, mostly on foot. I awoke this morning with nothing specifically scheduled to do and worried I might be sinking back into the earlier week doldrums that saw me read an entire book in three days. However, I've been up for 2 hours and haven't even gotten to breakfast yet, which is a good sign. Someone responded to one of my applications, too. Onward and upward, baby!

One would think...

I've now been in Boston for about 43 hours. I've slept two nights, eaten a few meals, met a handful of new people, found the library, and read some of a book. Inversely, I haven't got a computer or a car, a social network, my family, food in the refrigerator, a familiar bed, a desk, a dresser, a job, or much of anything else that makes life comfortable, easy, and routine. That's all stuff I have to build slowly.

Fortunately, I got pointed in the direction of the library, where I assume I'll head at 10:00am every morning to knuckle around on the internet and network with the world at large. While computing this morning (or this afternoon, I guess), I found that I finally had the chance to send out one more bite on the Facebook Zombies application and turn myself into a Zombie Mogul. I'd been waiting for this for a few days. I was pretty excited. Zombie Ninja was pretty awesome. Bishop of Church of Zombie was completely amazing, with a pope hat and a sickle. I couldn't imagine what would come when I reached the highest level of Zombie that existed.

Not much. It's a green guy in a black and gold robe. Dumb. I'd much rather go back to being a Ninja or Bishop. What a letdown. To top it off, there's a higher level that requires more than twice as many points as the exorbitant and shameless total I've already achieved. I can't conceivably ever achieve that unless I go back to school, meet every person on campus, deliver them all Zombie bites, and turn many of them. What a waste of a good reputation and a good time. Oh well.

So there's another feather to pull out of my cap. I'm swimming in the deep end without a lifejacket here in Boston. Good thing I know the Dead Man's Float. Until next time...

One Foot Out the Door

I've been hinting around in real life for the past month that I'm heading out of Syracuse. Nothing definitive until this week, though, when I told everyone I'd be leaving this weekend. Seems kind of sudden, unless you count that I quit my jobs and sold my car a few weeks ago. Now EVERYONE wants to hang out with The Boo Guy one last time before he hits the road.

Today, for instance, I'm shooting some pool with a buddy of mine at 3:00, then having dinner out with my parents at The Turtle (yeah, you know the place) at 5:30, and wrapping it up with una mezcla of people down at The Empire Brewery later in the evening. When am I supposed to pack? Right now? But when would I procrastinate?

What would I do without a blog?

The 2 Second Gap

Alright, let's imagine for a second that we are computer music player designers. You know, the guys who make Windows Media Player and iTunes and stuff. Now, let's think about how people want their burned CD's to sound coming out of our players.



















People hate continuity. They would much rather hear a song fade out for a few seconds and then sit on an inborn deadspace in the CD, the 2 Second Gap, rather than go straight to the next song.



















If you give people space between the media you give them, a whole world of possibilities opens up. You can annoy them, for one. They always like that.



















You can also give the buzz from the last glorious song 2 seconds to fade. This is really cool because it can dampen the entire feel of the mix.



















A mix should wreck you, one hit after another. It should flow. It shouldn't just be a collection of songs. A mix is more than that. It's a gift from one person to another for a special occasion. A celebration of driving on the open road on a summer day. In order to get rid of this 2 Second Gap, you have to dive through a few menus into "Advanced Properties" and eliminate it. Who's in charge of this? Seriously.

Christian Egotism

While listening to a song by a Christian band today, I was struck by the egotism I found in the Creationist argument as described in the lyrics. The major implied points were:

A) Man is really special, different from everything else, and light years better.
B) The stars and Universe were put there simply to entertain us. There's nothing else out there.
C) If you don't believe the first two, you don't believe that God loves you.

Whoa, Nelly. When I was 18, I sat on the couch and looked at my hand and realized I am made of the same stuff as everything else. Big deal, right? Everyone assents to being a created entity in word, but I don't think everyone's knowledge and heart align with that simple idea. When people talk about Free Will, they are often clinging to a belief that they are somehow autonomous and can function outside of Creation as an independent agent. That's Egotism 1 right there: Believing that your decisions are made with something other than the brain/heart/etc. that God created. He made all your decision-making pieces. You can't make a decision without using only that which God originally made.

There's also this ancient concept that everything was made independently of everything else. Man was formed of the dust of the earth, not of mammals. How crude would making man from animals be? Evolution must be false, because we are special and better than everything else. This sort of egomaniacal thinking leads to planet-destroying industry, ozone layer holes, carcinogen-related cancers, and all sorts of tomfoolery that disrespects God's created world because we are somehow different from it. Egotism 2: Man is special, therefore the physical world is his toilet. Not so. "The Dust of the Earth" ain't really all that pretty. We are a part of this world and must take care of it in order to take care of ourselves.

The third concept I'm going to bother with today is that of the stars in the Universe. People would like to hold onto some primitive notion that there can't possibly be anything out there. They would say that God made the earth special in the Universe as the only place that could produce life, souls, etc. That idea first came around when people thought the earth was flat and that the sun and moon were two discs of light that traversed a dome that covered us, and that there was nothing outside of that realm but heaven and hell. Well, heaven and hell, maybe. I don't even think they were sophisticated enough to think that God lived outside of their realm. Just read the Tower of Babel story and see that they were trying to build a tower to where God lives. Shoot - digression! Egotism 3: Anything, like outer space, that is beautiful must have been created simply for entertainment purposes for humans. I don't know what the function of the Universe is - no one does - but it's a bit silly to think it's all about me.

These aren't really hard concepts and can probably be challenged pretty easily by the right sort of thinker. That's not the point. I'm more interested in the process of examining ways that traditionally defended Christian modes of thought can be unintentionally egotistical. I hope you see this as an encouragement to pursue truth. This blog didn't quite go as deep as I would have liked, but I try to keep 'em short so you can digest a little something then move on to more internetting.

They Love That Obama

I just grabbed an article on the web about the Clinton-Obama Youtube debate. It's the same old nonsense, but from people's bathrooms and in costume and whatnot. There was a massive string of comments at the end of this article, most of which said something to the effect of "Our guy is really smart and really talks about things, and yours is dumb and doesn't know what they're talking about."

Has any political discussion ever been any different? Nonetheless, the Obama people think they have started a revolution behind a first-term Senator from the Midwest. Last I checked, the only good thing to come out of the Midwest was hot chicks. They love him, though. All over the internet, they love Barack Obama. That's fine. Glad to see somebody loves somebody.

Do you know who votes, though? Do you know who actually shows up at the polls whether they care or not, whether they've ever looked at an internet doo-hickey? Old people. That's right, old people. With walkers and breathing apparatuses. They are the ones who determine the President of the United States. They always vote. Young people, despite rabid enthusiasm over whatever issue is the hip thing to be excited about these days, just don't get to the polls like their grandparents do.

What does this mean? The trendiest candidate won't be REALLY trendy until we see that candidate make a guest appearance on a Matlock rerun. Oh well.

Posting Your Photos

Again we humans are faced with a challenge regarding the use of technological progress. It is such a treasure to find out that we can do things that no one stops to think if we should. Back in the stone age of computers, in 2006, it was only possible for users of social networking sites like myspace and facebook to post a few measly photographs of themselves and their friends. Now, our uploading abilities are virtually unlimited. Sure, it seems like there is a 60 picture limit on individual facebook albums, but there's no reason you can't post a second album and call it "part two".

This is great! Now we can actually surf through someone's vacation slides without listening to their mundane, 45-minute chatter. We are free to browse photos and move along to other internet treats like Dramatic Chipmunk videos. Could life get any better?

Wait...what's that? Is that the 5th photo in a row of the same ugly mug in the same pose? Is that the 3rd straight shot of the same chapel, just with different people giving lame and poorly posed picture faces in front of it? Hey, look, my eyes are closed in that picture and I have a pot-belly. Who authorized them to plaster that all over the internet?

Do you know why old people running through reels of projected vacation slides is now cliche? Do you know why everyone had such a terrible time? Because 10 good pictures are better than 100 bad ones. No one wants to look at your bad photographs, only your good ones. Please, edit your photo albums and select only the good pictures to upload. I was really looking forward to good cross-sections of life on facebook, but usually I only get through about 15 pictures before realizing what a waste of time it was for you to even bring your camera to the party.

Just because you can post all of your pictures, doesn't mean you should. Show a little class and self-respect. If it's too much bother to give your albums quality, don't bother posting anything at all.

This is Ann Landers, signing off.

Wedding Weekend

I went to my ol' buddy PJ's wedding in Virginia Beach this weekend. They met in August, got engaged in April, and were married in July. The entire weekend came at me just that fast.

Thursday: Hop in car, ride to Philly, go to dinner, get drinks, go to bed.
Friday: Hop in car, ride to Va. Beach, head directly to rehearsal, zip to hotel, shower and change to nice clothes, eat rehearsal dinner, go to billiards bachelor party, go to brews post-bachelor party, go to bed.
Saturday: Get tuxedo, swim, go to wedding, go to reception, stumble back to hotel, go to bed.
Sunday: Get lunch, ride from Va. Beach to Syracuse in 11 hours. End of story.

Most of interspersed moments of the weekend were spent with Gabi, high-school buddies Paul and Jeff, and their associated girlfriends. We met up originally in Philly. Total insanity all weekend long. In the end, PJ got wrapped up in a package and shipped off to Miami with his bride to cash in his V-Chip, so it was a rousing success. I even caught a lull in my inebriation to talk with old time Young Life superhero T-Nova for a few minutes.

Ridiculous.

Rise, Fall, and Rise

Becoming cool requires self-assurance. You can't care what other people think. Just do your thing. If you have enough magnetism deep down, people will dig what you do. Act like a nut. Act like you don't care if your actions will win you friends. Pretty soon, if you're anything like me, you'll start building an Empire of Good Will.

What happens after you've achieved this sort of enlightened state? People start admiring your lifestyle. They become your friends in droves. Everyone is so taken with your carefree attitude, they talk about your exploits when you're not around. You become a standard bearer. As Ben Folds said, "You wanted revolution. Now you're the institution." Now there's no room for those accidental geek moments anymore. You must exude cool 24 hours a day.

You can't. No one is that good. Moreover, once you are entrapped by all the eyes looking at you, once you are striving to maintain the image they want to see, you crumble from within. You're just a shell of that carefree kid that everyone first began to adore. Sure, it may still look good on the outside, but they start to have their doubts about you. So, you quit your job and visit many of them personally, wherever they may be. You regain some of that original magnetism. The day is saved.

Carpe diem!

The Blog vs. The Book

It's amazing how easily writing a blog comes to me. I'll sit down and stare at the computer screen for a couple of minutes, sometimes surfing around the same 5 sites I always look at, and then the ideas come to me. The words flow, the paragraphs could be endless. I have to restrict the size of the bites I throw out there for people to digest.

Trying to write a book, on the other hand, goes nowhere. The initial plan was to begin pounding it out as soon as my trip was over. If I put together three sentences on a single topic, my brain hurts. After a half an hour I have 6 or 7 such blobs of incompatible nonsense. My sentences are run-ons, my analogies forced. It's some of the worst writing I've ever done.

There could be several reasons for this. One is probably audience. I like to have immediate response to my ideas. If there's no one giving me the thumbs-up, I have no motivation to continue. Another is breadth. When I write a blog, I usually have just one topic to cover in three or four paragraphs. It's easy to build a small case and close it, without worrying about anything else I will have to write in the future. Starting a book, on the other hand, is an overwhelming task. How do I even begin to write about my first day? I can't leave anything out! What will the themes be by the time I'm done?

For now, at least for the moment, I'll stick to blogging. It gives me that artistic outlet and keeps the creative juices flowing. See, in good books, they don't use cliches like "creative juices". Oh, the struggles...

Selling the Car

If you're ever thinking to yourself, "Man, it takes a while to sell a car," you should think again.

In the near future, I have to do something different with my life. Working in pain with bad knees for 25 hours a week as a waiter and a janitor isn't going to pay the bills for this college graduate. I was supposed to turn myself around in about a month from when I returned from my travels, but that all went badly. This is getting redundant for anyone who's been following along...

When I figured out that my insurance from one of my jobs wasn't going to do an adequate job of covering the repair of my knee, that became the catalyst for change. I guess if I'm not backed into a corner, I'll just roll along with the status quo. If there's anything to fall back on, like staying at my parents' house, I'll fall back on it. There was nothing more I could do with the knee at this time. I quit waiting around and kicked myself into gear.

After the 4th of July debacle, during which I could barely finish my shift, my manager at the restaurant suggested I take a leave of absence. I said okay. A couple of days later I put my car up for sale, figuring it takes a month or two to sell 'em usually. The car was finally to the point where nothing major (just 3 minor things) was wrong with it. I put it on Craigslist. I'd never bought or sold anything on Craigslist before. Apparently this guy Craig knows a lot of people. If you want to sell something slowly, don't try it there. Eight inquiries, three showings, and five days later, the car was gone.

What do I do now? I don't know. I have to look for jobs, I guess. Jobs where I can sit down. During this rough stretch of working on my feet with bad knees, I saw a scene from Rocky II where he told an interviewer, "I'd like to make a living sitting down, like you." That was a bit of an inspiration.

If it looks impossible to work and not own a car, I'll have to get another one. I really like not having a car, though. It's so much less to worry about. I still find myself comparing the feel of that old Subaru to other people's cars that I'm riding in, only to realize moments later that it has become immaterial to me. Disappeared from all points of physical reference. Fortunately, the past doesn't do the same thing. Someone will hire me to do something.

David and Goliath: Triumph of the Natural Man (I Samuel 17)

I flipped my Bible open this morning and began reading a few different random passages. Later, at church, my pastor recommended doing the same thing. That was cool.

After meandering through Job and Isaiah and whatnot, I landed in I Samuel 17, site of the famous David and Goliath story. I've probably heard that story, or references to it, at least 100 times in my life. I remember images from Sunday school that depicted David's brothers and the army of Israel as sniveling cowards. I remember countless references during upsets by small schools in the NCAA Basketball Tournament.

What I don't remember is the new angle to the story that I discovered this morning: The triumph of the natural man over civilization. What? Let me start the explanation with the idea that much of the Bible and the rules contained therein evolved out of practical knowledge. What is keeping kosher but eating healthy, really? We've all been taught that David was some mystical boy who blindly trusted God to help him kill someone who was obviously physically superior and who should have, by all rights, destroyed him. We are taught to trust God no matter how big the challenge is. On the side, we are told about David's shepherding adventures, where he learned to kill things with a slingshot. Let's read that part of the text again:

Then Saul said to David, "You are not able to go against the Philistine to fight with him; for you are but a youth while he has been a warrior from his youth."

But David said to him Saul, "Your servant was tending his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock, I went out after him and attacked him, and rescued it from his mouth; and when he rose up against me, I seized him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, since he has taunted the armies of the living God."

(I Samuel 17:33-36)

David was not a mystic. He was an example of the natural man. He had fended for himself in the wilderness for many years, not blinking when he was faced with a lethal animal. He had gained confidence through his experience with the natural world as God made it, and was able to see the giant as just another created thing that he could dispose of the same way.

I spent a little time in nature on my travels across the country. While experiencing the world in its original and godly setting, I could see that most of human history is a series of events demonstrating that civilized man just doesn't get it. All these men of the wars of civilization were camped out against one another, trying to devise a strategy on how best to kill one another. David just walked right into it, as nothing more than a boy, with more knowledge and experience at taking care of business on the natural plain, civilization removed, than the entire army put together. The first thing they wanted to do with him was to drape him in bronze armor. Civilized man thought you had to have the latest and greatest in military technology: armor, helmets, swords, shields, and the like - whether they were the best thing all the time or not. He tried it on and thought it ridiculous. So there went David, skills greater than any warrior with that dinky little leather slingshot and a couple of rocks, and took down a 9.5-footer. The triumph of the natural man, who saw the world as God made it and pragmatically used the best things at his disposal, with a clear head unencumbered by the latest in war fads.

Look at our culture. How much do we really know about how to interact with our world? How often are we restricted in our thinking by the latest ideas of civilized men, rather than basking in the freedom of an unfiltered God speaking to our clear and open minds? How often do we buy the "latest and greatest" crap, only to see it break or be trumped in 6 months by something even newer?

Just try standing outside for a few minutes. Where do you find the peace of God? In the sky, the trees, the birds, the grass...Where do you find that peace interrupted? Most likely, it is through the efforts of civilized man.

Anonymous poster on message board: So, some guy at work turned me on to this concept of "radical honesty". Here is what it is, in a nutshell:

Radical Honesty is a kind of communication that is direct, complete, open and expressive. Radical Honesty means you tell the people in your life what you've done or plan to do, what you think, and what you feel. It's the kind of authentic sharing that creates the possibility of love and intimacy.

The practice of Radical Honesty is based on the work and writings of Dr. Brad Blanton, a psychologist who found that the best way to reduce stress, make life work, and heal the past was to tell the truth.

So basically, you aren't allowed to lie, even little white ones to protect people's feelings, and you must tell people what's on your mind, without using the little filter between your brain and mouth that tells you to shut up sometimes.

I'm trying it out, but am not able to commit fully. I fear hurting people. An example of an early attempt:

Becky: At work today, I had to deal with this creep supplier that...

Me: Hold on, I have to pee.

Becky: Let me finish.

Me: I resent the fact that you're hurting my kidneys for the sake of a story I know is going to suck.

Becky: You don't have to be an a****** about it.

Me: (crickets, gone to pee).

Becky, upon my return: So, you want I should finish my story?

Me: I hope to god there's a payoff to this story for once.

Becky: F*** you, a******.

My thoughts on this:

1) This reminds me of the Seinfeld where Becky from Full House got Jerry to get angry and yell, and then he started puking these feelings of love all over Elaine and George. Becky looked hot in that episode.

2) I frequently combat the forces of "being real" that pervade 21st Century Christian thought, basically the same idea. The problem is, when you let your "real" thoughts out, they are usually the lesser half of who you'd like to be, the negative thoughts and doubts. I have good and bad thoughts about almost everyone and everything at every moment. I choose to verbalize and act on the ones that take steps toward me becoming who I'd like to become, instead of the ones that will only cause trouble or make me a weak and needy person. "Radical honesty" is bull.

It's not good to tell bald-faced lies all the time. Then, you become a liar who can't be trusted, which is presumably not the sort of person you want to be. If you refrain from being an a****** every now and again, choosing someone else's feelings over spewing out your own, you act selflessly and are actually being compassionate. These are good things. Continually spouting forth what you really think about things, regardless of other people's feelings, is selfish and not radical at all. Spilling your deepest concerns to anyone and everyone certainly spreads a lot of anxiety and worry, which are sins when you get right down to it. Down with "Radical Honesty"! Up with being a decent, caring, and stable person!

Welcome Back

It's been a while, but I'm jumping back onto the blog. After mercilessly pounding out a blog almost every day for 5 months of touring the country, I jettisoned the entire enterprise in favor of...nothing. I thought blogging was for the people out there reading, but someone pointed out to me recently how integral it becomes to the life of the writer. Thoughts get sorted out, days understood more clearly. It creates a rhythm.

Like any good blogger, I just sold my car and have no transportation. On top of that, I'll be finishing up my two part-time jobs on Tuesday of next week, ensuring that at the time of my friend PJ's wedding on July 21st, I will be unemployed. There's a lot of glory in these sorts of actions. The average American can't even think about being this daring.

People often ask if I'm independently wealthy. Is that how I managed to romp around the country on a five month road trip, without working, on little more than saved-up waiter's tips? The simple answer is no. I find ways not to spend my money. I probably could have put a down payment on a house, if I wanted to stay in one place a long time and had a steady job, but instead elected for 5 months on the open road and no annoying mortgage payment. It was just a choice.

Our culture discourages people from taking risk-laden adventures by promising more safe, respectable leisure activities than have ever been known in human history. You can run on a treadmill, watching television and listening to your iPod, next to ten other people doing the same thing, or you could run around a lake and feel the real world around you. It binds us to safe, respectable life with debt, retirement plans, mortgages, children, and 2 weeks' paid vacation. We get so caught up in the responsibilities and financial worries of the moment that our natural, earthly element becomes restricted to the stuff of dreams. I only do what I do because I think dreams and reality can be one and the same. I refuse to sit around and talk about what sorts of things I should do with my life. Instead, I find ways to do them. You can too.